WE DID IT!

YOU GUYS! WE DID IT!

Pats on the back all the way around! 2010 was a tough old bag, no? Well, good riddance! I have this Pollyanna feeling that 2011 is going to be stellar. You can take me behind the woodshed if it turns out otherwise.

I can't recall if I made new year's resolutions last year... if I did, I couldn't find them. Oops. I was probably sick of failing at all of them and threw in the towel. I figured I'd go a little easier on myself this year.

11 GOALS FOR 2011:

1. Do not take the elevator to your 2nd floor office
   in your 3 story building, you lazy piece of shit.
2. Send your loved ones birthday letters.
3. Read at least 5 books.
4. Write at least 4 letters each month.
5. Finally get that molar from grade school electroplated
   & made into a necklace.
6. Volunteer for Meals on Wheels. I ♥ shut ins.
7. Make (and keep) 3 new friends.
8. Make a zine.
9. Take a cooking class.
10. Work on a five year plan.
11. Start a band.

Happy New Year, buds! Thanks for being so awesome to me in 2010. I'm more grateful than you'll ever know.

mike monteiro

Desultory Delights: No. 7

Totally bangable. 

All of it.

• Lovely thoughts on marriage
• Bittersweet words on divorce
• Black & white stripes galore for my next home
• Very Stacy London!
• 17 beats
• Types of Bitches
• Negotiating Epilogue: Women Don't Ask
• Better than the damn liberty bell! Starting 2011, all stamps will be Forever stamps!
• Trip planning with P.

(#1?, #2)

Best Wishes

She plucked a rogue eyelash from his cheek and leaned in close with it balancing on the end her finger.

"Make a wish," she said.

"I wish you'd get that thing out of my face," he responded without skipping a beat.

And that, my friends, is precisely why she loved him so.

image by ma+chr

Fox Fur Nebula // LV Fluoro

Stars & stripes forever. 

There's no place like home.

via jak&jil and nasa pic of the day

Houston or Bust!

Woke up early this morning. Put hollow points in the .38 snub nose and set out to pick up a hitchhiker and spread some goodwill.

Poor bastard had been standing on the I-10 eastbound on ramp for over a week now. At first, his cardboard sign had "HOUSTON" faintly scrawled in pen. A day or two later, he must have commandeered a marker of some sort, and soon it read "HOUSTON."

Driving by the middle aged man every morning nearly broke my heart. I wondered what was waiting for him 1,175 miles away. But mostly, I felt bad for him, because in reality, his chances of getting picked up were everso slim and the weather turned wetter by the moment.

We had the day off, so we drew up this elaborate plan to pick him up and buy him a bus ticket to Houston. I drove while R sat shotgun with a loaded gun in the glove box. A bit presumptuous, but you never know, right?

Turned out his name is Charlie and was trying to get back home to his grandkids. He told us about how he used to own a trucking company, then foreclosed on his house and ran out of funds. How he was able to get disability from the VA for a while. How he found a spigot and bucket to shower and keep clean. About maybe finding work with a rodeo in TX. How Christmas is about the good lord Jesus.

We got to the Greyhound station and bought him a one way ticket outta town. This is when it gets a million times better. We found out his full name is Charlie Murphy (hello, Dave Chappelle fans?!)! There was a bus that was just about to pull away, and we shook his rough hand, wished him good luck, and sent him on his way.

My Grinch heart grew several sizes bigger today. Relieved that we weren't stabbed nor did we have to shoot anybody, it made me very grateful for all the privileges that I've been afforded in life. I guess it cheapens it that I'm posting about it, but it certainly was a fun and interesting adventure.

In which I Channel Carrie at Graduation

R & I attended convocation for our MBAs today. Mainly for our parent's sake, but nonetheless. We sat on white folding chairs on the floor of the arena sweating under our highly flammable gowns and hoods. Seventeen minutes before the start of the ceremony, R & I decide to switch seats so we could each sit closer to our group mates. I stand and straddle over, then feel a gush of warmth trail down my leg. PANIC. This is what I get for trying to cajole a regular maxi on semi thongish underwear.

I perch for a moment, then spring up and run to my purse, that sat in my mom's lap in the bleachers. I snatch it from her then tried to find a restroom. The cunty usher insists that I have to climb 3 flights of stairs (in Alaïas) to the main concourse. BLERGH! At this point I could feel something dripping down my left leg. Surely my lace black tights would reveal all. Why did I have to change out of the opaque ones?!?!?!?

I huff up the stadium stairs hoping no one is witnessing this gruesome CSI scene behind me, run into the bathroom stall and begin hyperventilating whilst nearly ripping the toilet paper roll right off the the wall. I'm cramming toilet paper into my tights, wondering if the ceremony would start without me. I clean up the best I can and check the full length and notice a few spots on my gown. FML. I'd be walking across the stage any minute now.

I book it back down the steep stairs wondering maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I fell, then I could blame the blood on some kind of injury. I slip back into my seat, eyes paralyzed with fear, brows drenched with sweat. R asked if I was okay, but I was kind of slipping into a catatonic state.

I whisper to him and tell him what happened. He says he knew because when I abruptly launched up, I'd left behind a big stain on my white folding chair. Luckily, he thinks fast on his feet, so he grabbed a tiny sheet of yellow paper from the chair in front of him and covered up the stain. FAAAACK.

I stand a couple times for him to check if the entire back of my gown was covered in uterine lining. T'was not, as he informs me, pretending to fix my hood. I was a major stress ball the entire ceremony, trying to balance atop this 5 by 3 little yellow piece of paper, dreading walking across the stage. 

Good thing the gown was maroon, but STILL, quite mortifying. If ever ablation seemed like a good idea... I think I'm 100% sold.

Who the fuck had to clean up my chair?

So into this A'N'D biker scarf from Pour Porter. So. 

"I greet you..."

This letter from Ralph Waldo Emerson to an aspiring unknown poet, Walt Whitman, really speaks to me. Great penmanship.

OMGG!

By Anomaly Jewelry

via funny gal Carlen Altman

In other news...

...a stray dog strutted out in front of my car today and I didn't murder it.

Ah, progress.

...I found this on my car today. 

I felt a lil' snarky and stuck it back onto their car.

...I've come to grips with my parent's inevitable mortality.

No, this isn't a photo from Costco...it's from my parent's garage. Those THREE PALLETS of Chivas will last my dad about as many months. If he's not worried, then I'm not worried. He should just enjoy his twilight. Fuck it.

Well, shit...

...or at least have had some better content. Welcome!

U.F.: Letterpress Edition

OMG, my latest unhealthy fixation is the burning desire to get a letterpress machine. Sure, I live in a sq ft condominium, whateves. Who needs an office-slash-guest room?!?  Who needs a place to park their car?!? I think I could make this work!

Just imagine all the obscenities I could press into paper and mail to you guys! My head is swimming, no, DROWNING with all the possibilities. Maybe (hopefully) this too shall pass. But, these people aren't helping!

Can any letterpress lovelies give me some guidance? How do I go about my dream to own a letterpress? More importantly, how do I convince my better half that a 1200lb piece of resource intensive equipment is a wise acquisition for a fickle bitch like me?

HALP!

Thanks in advance,

Gracie

SRSLY.

Everyone knows a trust-fund crusty, amiright? This everso poignant drawing, by the inimitable Brendan Donnelly.