I bought a nice little leather pencil case.

At first I thought it was a real indulgence, and then I told myself to shut up because it wasn't really leather and was only seven dollars. I tend to quantify everything in terms of the orders of Pad Thai I could get for the cost of something--and unless it's a lunch special in a small town, you can't even get a serving for this price, therefore quantifying the cost as a pittance.

Anyway,  it was back to school time and I enjoyed putting my favorite pens in there and a couple of pencils too. I put my favorite casual, long-shaped lipstick, and even a tampon. Finally I had a place for things like that! Finally something that I always had a youngster that made me feel more like an adult, or at least feign the appearance of an organized, female one! Overall, I felt really together. Overall, I felt really happy.

Within a week I lost it.

I realize this post would really benefit from the inclusion of a photograph of it here. Maybe this is the whole issue. I think this is a case of my love and admiration for a thing only really happening after it is gone. Otherwise, why didn't I take a picture of it anyway? Why do I only have pictures of objects that have since been sold?

Well, that's not totally true. To prove it, here are some pictures of things that I also don't have anymore for a variety of reasons--none of which could be classified as "lost":

I got this for a dollar at the Bins and sold it for 50 on Craigslist--BUT! I still own the horse...even though all of his legs are broken off.

Dolphin Temporary Tattoo. Go figure.

My first cat, Bonnie. She's dead. I do still have my sister who is alive and well.

I gave away Bruce Willis' debut cassette as a joke at a Christmas exchange. This dress is also gone. As is my natural hair color. I still have those earrings though. They are made of beads attached to paper attached to a stud.

And so so so much more. I can only hope that heaven is a lot more like the TV show Hoarders than any religion is comfortable discussing.

I Stole One Story Element From Each of the MFA 1st Years and Wrote the Worst Movie Pitch Ever.

______________
The year? 2041.

A demure, tabloid-writing WOLF with a penchant for romance discovers that two big time USC recruiters are going to be at this week's big high school football game. Putting aside the angst he feels about his parents pending divorce, Wolf, decides to taint the local dairy's milk so he can then break the story first! However, MONICA, an esteemed, and highly attractive archeologist turned special agent, along side her effeminate, porker of a brother, ANDREW, who have just been hired at the dairy's super-secret-so-secret-I-don't-even-know-how-I'm-writing-this-right-now-it's-so-secret organization, FIND OUT.

In a mad dash to stop Wolf, save the milk, AND the big game, Monica and Andrew blackmail him with the lone VHS copy of his stage debut... A mix of anger and nostalgia force Wolf to choose between the story of his life (wolves don't live that long) and the last relic of a younger, more idealistic version of himself.  Is Wolf's quest for tabloid-writing glory the ultimate cover-up? Of himself???

Monica and Andrew (whose father had a beloved horse that sort of looked like the wolf), begin to fall for Wolf and vow to help him reclaim his former self and passions. Soon Andrew realizes that this was just displaced affection for their father whose death Andrew wasn't able to mourn until meeting the wolf. He paints his room pink and is fine while the couple rework their "meet cute" story and turn it into a hit Broadway production!

In this wacky Woman vs. Beast football drama, love story, no inciting incident is too big and no midpoint too middle-ish to take this trio on a wild ride through time, milk, and the 40 yard line.
________________
I wouldn't watch it. Maybe it's actually a good thing that we all can't hold hands and succeed together. In other news, the year 2041 is trending.

I left a bar and ran home.

I remembered that I had two episodes of Breaking Bad left as well as whitefish salad in the fridge.

I went to Penn State.

But I didn't want to. 

I saw Penn State as the community college of State College--a town, where yes, as the name clearly states, is where the State University of Pennsylvania is located--but also a town with a high-ranking high school and a graduating class that wanted more than what the town repeatedly tried to tell us was all. Well, I did. 

I had a friend a year older than me who went to NYU to study photography, and I wanted nothing else than to do that too or do SOMETHING besides the default. Default because most kids parents worked at the school and got a 75% discount on tuition (my parents did not). Default because the main campus of Penn State WAS the region's branch campus, and largely, the only kids or townies that went here happily were kids who knew that if they lived ANYWHERE else, they wouldn't have gotten in before doing a two year penance in Altoona or some other unfortunately named place. Default because Penn State was like religion in my household--religion to my dad.

I asked my parents if they would take me to look at some schools to which my dad replied, "Look in the backyard." That's where Penn State was. Literally. When I was sixteen my parents had moved us an hour and fifteen minutes away from the small town I grew up in for that very reason. They built one of those houses with brick on the front and vinyl siding on the back, over a noisy highway on a fault line (one of the few things I learned in my required freshman science class affectionately known as "Rocks for Jocks"), for no better reason than you could see Beaver Stadium from the back porch. So I did. I looked. And then I bought myself a greyhound bus ticket and went to New York City for the very first time.

I slept on my friend's dorm room floor, ate Thai food for the first time, promised my friend that I would get my nose pierced too and then changed my mind after seeing the size of the needle that was jammed through her left nostril, saw an aerial view of Proof, went to a jazz club where people actually snapped instead of clapped, and fell in love with what I saw as the prize for all the science fairs won and tests studied for and cigarettes turned down. But instead I went to Penn State.

My dad was obsessed with Penn State. When he wasn't teaching high school history back in the town that we moved from (yes, commuting every day for the last 13 years) it was rare to find him in anything other than a Penn State t-shirt. Even when my sister had her first NY fashion week fashion show, my dad showed up wearing a Penn State pullover and headphones with the game blasting. The Joe Paterno cardboard cut-out was a permanent fixture in the living room, the carpets are navy blue, walls primarily white, and the mantel above the flip-a-switch fireplace was filled with models of Beaver Stadium pre- and post- renovation. There was a time when he wore a little stuffed lion's tail tucked into the back of his pants on game day. My parents answering machine ends with my dad's rendition of the Penn State roar. He sent Joe Paterno a birthday card every year but let my mom sign his name on mine.

My dad thought that Penn State was the greatest university in the world and I would have to be an idiot to go anywhere else--not because of the cutting-edge research (there definitely is some) or the expanse of the courses offered online (Why is this promoted as a positive thing anyway? Has there been a study I missed that proved that some people are auditory learners, some visual, and SOME simply learn better with a cat video playing next to their online coursework?), OR the breadth of art offerings. No. My dad thought that Penn State was the greatest university and the best thing for me and my future because of football. You know, that sport that I never cared about, never understood, never played? Yes. Football.

Sure, I could have taken out a massive amount of loans to go to NYU like Felicity did. But the amount I had to take out to go to the school I didn't want to was overwhelming enough. This wasn't accepted with an apathetic shrug of the shoulders though. I was furious. One night, I dumped the entirety of the milk crate I had jammed with the myriad brochures and recruitment packets from small, expensive, liberal arts schools with Saints in their names as well as crazytown places like the The Citadel and BYU (which I requested, but that's another story) over the first floor balcony. The result was one of the not infrequent times I was able to see my dad not just as a football fan, but as a football coach who had flown off the handle because a player dared not to hustle.

My parents paid for about half of my undergraduate college education at Penn State and once I moved off campus, begrudgingly gave me 100 dollars a month for food and expenses. Yet, every year, my dad splurged on a season pass for me to the football games while he watched from home.

I went once and got cheese sauce thrown in my hair. After that, I sold my tickets on ebay for around forty bucks, and ONCE for over 100 (even though I knew that you had to show your student ID to get into the student section and that these proud alumnus/meatheads had likely lost their expired ones years ago in some toilet)! 

I hated football. I hated football games. I hated tailgating. I hated the sweatpants with the little paw prints on the butt. I hated how I'd get heckled walking down College Avenue in bright green rain boots, but for some reason, on game day, these assholes could wear whatever nonsense they wanted, and they did.

My dad would call me after each home game to ask me what the score was (as if the numbers were some sort of secret that only those sitting--wait no, there's no sitting in the student section--STANDING in the stadium were privy to) even though he must have known that I never went. I was never quiet about my anti-Penn State stance or my constant research into transferring to another school, so I really don't know why he kept doing it. I mean, it was hard to get him to give me money at the end of the semester when my meal plan was used up and I only had microwaveable popcorn to eat. 

Maybe he liked to pretend that I didn't hate Penn State and seemingly everything that he loved. Maybe doing something tangible like buying tickets made this pretending more real. Maybe he felt so strongly about Penn State football that even if I only decided to go once, the money spent on providing the opportunity week after week and season after season, was money well spent. Maybe he hoped I'd change, that I'd start to realize that like it or not, technically, I was part of the 'we' in "We Are!"

I don't know.

What I do know is that not going to the football games was usually the best thing about my week. When that ball was being thrown around, State College becomes the third most populated city in the state--but interestingly, what this meant for me was that there was a four hour window when everyone was either in the stadium, huddled around an open trunk in the parking lot of the stadium or the fields surrounding, or staring at a TV somewhere. The campus and the town and everywhere the game wasn't was like a ghost town. 

It was glorious. 

There's an insider-ness that seems to band outsiders together, especially when they're outside of something as meaningless and all-encompassing as Penn State football. There was like a charge in the eye contact I would make with someone I passed on the street during this time. It was like an invisible chest bump that said, "Hey. Fuck this town. Am I right or am I RIGHT?" Or a proverbial pat on the ass that said, "You're cool. What bands are you into? Nevermind, I'm currently being informed by the small buttons on your shoulder bag and I will make all kinds of concessions of taste simply because you are here and not there."

I know now that this feeling is similar to how fans feel when they see someone else wearing some of the school's paraphernalia or what causes them to shout "WE ARE!". How do I know now? Because oddly, in the years after leaving Penn State, I started to feel the tiniest twinge of this too. 

When I first graduated and made a beeline across the country to Portland--the farthest, cheapest city I could think of--I would feel an inexplicable bit of pride when I saw something for that other PSU or that other Happy Valley. And then when I finally got to New York and I got to a graduate school that I didn't need to caveat ("No…Penn STATE…the football one…yes, they have a film program) and whose colors also happen to be blue and white, I realized how much who I am was informed by having kept myself apart from Penn State...and dipping my toe in when I felt like it.   

I found myself buying a vintage Penn State shirt on ebay and only half joking when I blaming my drinking habits on Penn State, "I went to a state school! What do you want from me?!" Similar to how Diane Keaton couches her pretensions in Manhattan with "I'm from Philadelphia! What do I know?!" This is a bit weird, and not something I expected, but I guess I also didn't really expect not to fit any better in New York or Columbia than I did at Penn State. 

I suppose I'd rather exacerbate that fact than squeeze in anywhere.

I went home for Thanksgiving for the first time in about five years after the scandal broke. I was curious to see how my dad was taking it and just what it was like in the town. My sister and I joked about how hard Christmas shopping would be for my dad now as we attempted to drive by Jerry Sandusky's house, (which is less than a mile from my parents and overlooks an elementary school, btw) only to find that it's on a cul-de-sac, which, paired with my rusty driving skills, made it nearly impossible to do a casual bit of looky-looing. The camera crews turned on us just in time to see me finagle a seventeen point turn and be on our way.

My mom had said that a woman she worked with saw Sandusky a few days before at Sears looking at treadmills. Why the man wouldn't order the thing online at a time like that was beyond her. Ok. So there was still some distance. My dad didn't have a cardboard cutout of Sandusky in the living room after all, and at that point, he was adamant that, "Joe didn't know." He knew him after all. He had read everything the man had ever written and everything that was ever written about the man, he had listened to every Thursday night pre-game interview, and had admittedly based his life on Joe's teachings. At this point, he was in the habit of taking nightly drives past Joe's modest home, “just to see if he was ok.”

We got in a fight about the core of the issue--that it came down to putting football above everything else, something that was simply wrong, but expected, considering that that's how the University, the town, even he, operated. Sure, the repercussions are far less when you're not talking about sex crimes, but still, it's a cultural issue and a fucked up numbering of priorities that could allow something like this to happen and to allow someone like this to go unpunished for so long. He didn't quite see it like that. Sandusky was a monster, but Penn State football and Joe Paterno were still air tight. Fine.

I was bored and went to the mall. I bought a Penn State t-shirt for ten bucks that said "Thanks Joe." At this point I could still buy the t-shirt with the patronizing mix of irony and nostalgia that I had been using towards the school, the town, and my dad for years. I went there sure, but I wasn't like, you know, one of those people wearing a Penn State shirt…except for the small fact that I was.

And now the Freeh report has laid it all out. I couldn't get a hold of my dad for a few days, but noted that the roar on the answering machine hadn't been changed so I wasn't expecting that he would have either. But last night I finally talked to him. 

He's only a quarter of the way through the report, but he's already put his Penn State t-shirts away.

I've never believed in anyone or anything with the same amount of passion and dedication that my father had for Joe Paterno and Penn State football. And although it's been a constant source of eye rolling, now, it's more than that. I know my dad's not the only one who believed in the man and the machine, drank the kool-aid, wore the Nikes, whatever, but you know, in a way you'd think I'd feel happy or victorious now that the myth has been revealed and everyone is admitting the issues with heralding something like football that I was pretty convinced about at 18. But I'm just not.

I'm skeptical enough about money and power and big business (and let's face it, that's what Penn State is) not to think that a whole lot of change can come from what has been learned beyond a lot of lip service and candlelight vigils and somber nods from the Board of Trustees. 

But, for me, I can't help but hope that come this November--a time when my Dad is usually immersed in the throes of a football season--maybe, just maybe, I'll be the one to get a birthday card signed by him. And hey, since his birthday is in November too, maybe I'll send him a Columbia Lions t-shirt--but you know, not like in a rah-rah school spirit kind of way, but in a "hey, this is me and this is what's important to me" kind of way--and that he’ll wear it.

I went all the way to New Haven to taste the world's best pizza.

With initial aspirations of trying a slice at all of the local establishments competing for this title, the drive and the heat convinced us to just eat our hearts out at Sally's Apizza. And we did.

Verdict?

I really really like Nice Pizza in Bed Stuy.

That said, there are some things I really liked about it:
1. It's shaped the same way it is when I make it: in a big old blob.
2. They don't give you plates and it's not because they're trying to be environmentally friendly.
3. The lady pushing 80 at the cash register was wearing a high pony tail and a tube top.

In other news: just because I like bacon doesn't mean that I like pepperoni. But I tried. 

I had a Pig-nic.

This means that I celebrated my and Pig-Pig's four year anniversary in the style of a potluck in the theme of cat or things-that-cats-can-eat-too. I also got some picnic blankets so we could sit on the floor and equalize the playing field for once.

Here are some highlights:

Cat Head Cheesball

Kitty Litter Cake (complete with hand-rolled Tootsie Roll poop and a fresh new litter box)

I also made White Russians and served them in bowls so you had to lap them like a cat. I found this made people drink less and leave early, but it sure was cute! Some friends brought a fruit salad shaped in the likeness of a cat and some canned food for Pig, a delicious trout salad that I saw Pig sample, and some Easter candy. I didn't really get the connection there, but yum any old way.

I dedicated John Lennon's "Woman" to him and played a love song specific play list with hits like, Gerry Rafferty's "Right On Down the Line" and Badfinger's "No Matter What". This could also be part of the leaving early thing that happened. Whatever. It has been four glorious years of puking, peeing on roommates' suede boots, and a leather couch that was too fancy for me anyway. Pig has a way of making me keep it real, and at times, feral.

I saw Busby Berkeley's "The Gang's All Here" at Film Forum.

And learned that in a musical you can sing about anything--even polka dots--and for a super long time.

At first it seems kind of random, but if you hold on, you'll see that the song's elevation of polka dots to a pattern worthy of an elaborate song and dance (and probably cinema's finest use of adult voices synced to bow-tie wearing boys, and curly-haired, bottle red girls) enables the film to transition into primitive green screened, disembodied heads (POLKA DOTS!) of all of the characters, efficiently wrapping up the narrative in the most insane way I've ever seen.

Interestingly, this is the only time that all of the characters are together on screen, therefore, the "here" in "The Gang's All Here" can only refer to the whole stinking gang being in the polka dots. What?!

What I wouldn't give to have been in the room when Berkley pitched this idea. "No, no, not a polka! Polka dots! The dots! We'll sing about 'em! We'll get the honeys to hold onto 'em! It'll be a sensation!"

 

It really makes me rethink the patterns in my life that deserve a verse or two. Flannel? A peter pan collar? A fine layer of cat fur? Busby Berkeley pipe dreams?

I saw an old couple do a fist pound on the subway.

They were excited that the A train was running local. So was I, but I just sat there.

I found a fight scene I like.

Kubrick's Killer's Kiss (1955):

Or maybe I learned just how useful mannequins can be.

I won a bunny in the crane game.

Ok, so technically Dave sealed the deal, but I totally loosened it...and it only cost me about four dollars.

 

This is a huge deal. 

When I was in 1st grade I got in a lot of trouble when my parents found out I had been stealing money from my grandparents to feed a crane game addiction at the corner store. I haven't touched this the game since...well, that's probably not true, but I definitely haven't WON since. (Also, the crane game that uses an arrow button instead of a joy stick? No. That's like "Legends of the Hidden Temple" style nonsense trickery.)

I also coached a whole slew (2) of high school girls to a similar victories.

Turns out being unwilling to shell out a five dollar cover to the real bar next door as well as being turned down for a beer wrist band by the bowling alley's sixteen year old manager has some perks...seasonal perks at that.

Happy Easter.

I saw the Guerrilla Girls perform at the Brooklyn Museum.

And by perform, I mean that I watched two ladies in gorilla masks give a powerpoint presentation of outdated statistics while wearing sensible heels.

snooooooooze.

Ok, so obviously, the Guerrilla Girls are not what they used to be...so this leads me to wonder, ARE THE GUERRILLA GIRLS WHO THEY USED TO BE? Like, for real? Did the same people who did this:

1988.

REALLY think this was effective? Or even slightly aesthetically pleasing?

2009.

All this one's missing is a large handwritten sign that says, "STAY OUT" and it would be a replica of my bedroom door in Jr. High. All I can say is that if stuff like this is all it takes to get a paid slot to speak at the Brooklyn Museum,  Cunts In Action should be pissed.

If you get past the gender issues and mission statement and just look the Guerrilla Girls' work, (the simple act which is also interestingly left out of their agenda)...there's a clear reason why this group isn't relevant anymore: it's just not good.

So maybe, just maybe, the amazing, graphical geniuses who started this group in the 80s are doing other amazing, graphical work now, and what I saw were a couple of imposters collecting a paycheck and spouting a history lesson and adding bullets to their resume instead of actually doing anything about anything. Or maybe people just get old and comfy.

One part of the lecture was a list of tips for aspiring female artists that the Guerrilla Girls gave during a commencement speech. They actually advised to "Be anonymous" because "you'd be surprised the things that come out of your mouth when you wear a gorilla mask." ...or a burqua?  ...or start a blog? Whatever.

In their defense, one of them had a hinged jaw gorilla mask that actually moved when she talked. That must have been hard to come by. Also, when they were showing a still of a billboard showcased in Hollywood before the Oscars denouncing the academy for its ignoring of female writers, directors, and actors of color (and then took credit for Halle Berry and Denzel Washington's wins), I felt like I had gone back in time. It's not 2002 anymore, but I think these Guerrilla Girls may think it is. For $14 (for a LECTURE?! Brooklyn Museum, get it together.), I guess I'll be a good sport and take the momentary trip, but be super glad to return to a time when there are so many amazing female artists actually doing things. And probably not just because they're female or because statistics against doing so are so staggering.

Did you know that 88.5% of females are predisposed to walk on their knuckles instead of in high heels? No? Well, I made that up.

I listened as Richard Hell started to quote Proust

until his voice cracked, he began to cry (?!), covered that possible indiscretion with a laugh, and jumped to the last paragraph of the last chapter of his forthcoming autobiography, vowing to cut the quote. He's right. I don't think he needs it.

His reading yesterday took place in the sunshine sucking basement of Cake Shop and somehow made me forget about the smell of beer, booze, and shame covered with chlorinated, yet dirty mop water that can only be experienced in a bar in the middle of the day. The book sounds angry and honest and wonderful. He's as pissed as ever at Tom Verlaine and seems to me to be the personification of Richard Katz in Franzen's "Freedom". It's probably pretty punk rock to hold a grudge, but it's definitely pretty poetic to write a whole book about it 5000 years later conflating only a moderately dimmed rage, a bucket load of insight, and the kind of love made possible by a healthy dose of hate. Gosh, I can't wait.

I bought "Blank Generation" in high school at the local record store, City Lights (RIP). Record stores run by too cool, grizzly, middle-aged dudes in Creepers are supposed to be intimidating, but it was actually the frozen yogurt place next door that was run by assholes (even though it's decor was strictly teddy bears) that was the real fear inducer. I guess I should be thankful that I grew up in a place where it was easier to ask for music recommendations than extra sprinkles.

I feel kind of proud that I knew and loved Richard Hell before I knew and loved (let's be honest, loved and love more) Television. I didn't have anyone cool in my life helping me out, but providentially, I found this paperback book of punk rock sheet music at a thrift store and used it to further my obsession with anything punk rock and new wave and basically not central Pennsylvania (except for that other genre I was equally fascinated with at the time that was quintessentially Pennsylvanian and small town and terrible--I'll call it emo-straight-edge-sometimes-Christian-discordant-whining--but that's another story).

One of the few CDs I still have around...I guess because my cat likes it.

It's funny how this book was like a blue print to the ultimate mix tape. I learned the piano via the Suzuki method, so it's not like the bars meant much to me, but if this book was my bible, these tracks were the Letters to Corinthians…if those letters were full of tips and musical lineages to look up, download, and sometimes buy...were they? If so, I get it. Anyway:

Richard Hell ended his reading with the sentence, "This isn't a book about a person through time, it's a book about time as lived through a person." Or something like that. I thought that was nice.

I bought saddle shoes.

I've wanted to visit Muffy's Saddle Shoes in Vernonia, Oregon for quite some time. Yesterday, I finally begged and pleaded and was able to hitch a ride with a couple of lesser saddle shoe enthusiasts--though I think it may be safe to call them FORMER lesser saddle shoe enthusiasts now...I mean, check out this classic cuteness:

Muffy and her husband Alan are hard to track down. They do most of their business online, but have a storefront that boasts having the largest inventory of new (Muffy's line) and vintage saddle shoes in the WORLD. Being so fancy, they don't have to keep regular business hours. Good thing there was a phone number taped to the door. When I arrived, all I had to do was give Alan a call and he and Muffy were there within three minutes to open the store up and allow me to prance around, navigating the sizes and stiffness of these classic school girl staples. Turns out I'm a 6D or a 6.5D. That's right. They recognize that feet aren't just all length and no girth. Geniuses? Maybe. Oldey time? Yes'm.

After much debate and rationalizing how much wear I actually got out of the classic black and white motif of my never-leave-home-without-them, gigantic bouncing souled, jr. high Doc Martens, I was convinced to go a bit more practical with a pair of soap and navy ones.

Oh Look! My old Friendster profile pic with my jr. high Doc Marten saddles
and high school prom dress!

I really really wanted the white and green, but alas, they didn't have my size in stock and I wasn't about to ruin the adventure of hunting this place down and poking through their stockpile of stuff by returning to Brooklyn empty handed and an empty promise of ordering them online. Booooring.

I'm a lot of things, but generally not a buzz kill.

They did have a boatload of stuff though including Reese Witherspoon's saddles from Pleasantville, a pair of Marilyn Monroe's, and a whole discombobulated mess of stuff that I rooted through when they weren't looking. I found that they are also interested in scratchy 50s sweaters and cheerleading uniforms and they even have a pair of Payless imposter pink and white saddles that I also had in my youth.

I would have to say that the best part of meeting Muffy and Alan and being allowed into their kooky obsession and yellowed showroom was when they told me the story about how their admiration for each others' saddle shoes brought them together across a crowded room. I would have thought it was their middle parts and long gray hair, but, they were telling me a story that took place in the past.  They're awesome and in love...with saddle shoes.

What a life, what an obsession, what a tough pair of shoes to break in...and weird ass picture of my foot.

 I think it'll be worth it.

I met a new cat and there was a bright light and then he was gone.

Go figure. 

I woke up with chocolate on my face and a lot of Juliana Hatfield songs downloaded.

I sent my grandma a birthday present.

Daminka, my polka-loving, 4'11 grandma, turns 88 tomorrow. I found her the most perfect gift at the most perfect hardware store in the city (Convenience Hardware at 26th and 9th Ave).* Perfect because, not only do they have glue and keys and hammers, they have at least 3000 hand-painted Russian nesting dolls that are ALL DIFFERENT. This time, I snagged one that features a lady who keeps getting smaller and smaller, but manages to switch out the kind of cat that she's holding. This summer I bought one that features different girls getting smaller and smaller until a tiny orange tiger blasts you in the face. Amazing.

When I asked the man at the hardware store where they came from, he said, "Oh, a little place you've probably never heard of. ...RUSSIA." He's right. Never heard of it, but just the same, I can really appreciate their people's sense of detail and interest in surprise.

Lady One

Lady Two

Lady Three

Lady Four

LADY FIVE!!!!! She's SOOO SMALL!!

Here is my cat's paw for comparing purposes. 

Team.

I was so excited about these dolls that I almost didn't send them. I almost ate them. Really. I mean, then I'd be a nesting doll too! Right? This seems to beg the question: Can you become a nesting doll just because you have a small doll inside of you? Or are you only a nesting doll if someone cuts you open and finds one? Hmmm.

Honestly, I don't know what my deal is with small things. Sometimes I love them so much I think I may seize. The good news is, small things are more cost effective than big or even normal sized things. Cost of these dolls? 12 dollars. Cost of real-sized people? Holding different cats? A lot.

*Don't worry. This post won't spoil anything. My grandma doesn't know about the internet. She also doesn't know that ambrosia salad isn't really salad.

I went to the Cindy Sherman opening at MOMA.

At first I felt really big time being invited to the opening and all, but after ripping my eyes away from Chuck Close's wack-a-doodle outfit and the open bar and actually entering the show, I felt really small.

The wallpaper at the show's entrance is mesmerizing, and even though you can't tell by this photo, it's huge. I've realized as of late that the only real reason to live in New York is for the art, and this show is a good example. Looking up pictures of the pictures on the internet simply isn't the same thing as being there and witnessing them. (Take the photo above as an example. It's shit. Use your eye magnifier--or your imagination if you don't have one of those--and times this photo by 10,000 and you'll be closer to the reality of standing before these images.) This isn't often the case with a photo show, but Cindy Sherman figured it out...though sometimes subway ads tap into something too:

A comment on her new post-production methods?

Something to aspire to.

 Another minor achievement is that I made a skirt in collaboration with the taylor/dry cleaner on Dekalb, which I wore it to the opening. I didn't get any compliments on it. Nonetheless, I'm happy with it and should probably give it it's own entry, since you know, it's done. I guess I could orchestrate a self-portrait in the new skirt so that everything could really come full circle. Perhaps it would even give me a sense of accomplishment. For now, I'll just add it to my 'not really going to do list'.