Tag Archives: satire

Aug 22 2014
2 Comments
Wassup USA?

WTF Was I Thinking: Real Quotes from the Ravings of a Traveling Madwoman

imageI wrote a lot during my 50-day travel adventure, sometimes at night debriefing the day I just had, sometimes during the day when I saw something bizarre or thought of an idea that seemed worth writing down. Naturally, all of these notes made perfect sense at the time. That being said, I read through everything yesterday and I wrote some pretty strange crap that sounds more like the ravings of a madwoman than anything else.

At any rate, I’d like to share some of my funnier, more bizarre, and enigmatic clips with you. So here’s some of the mental froth I felt compelled to write down. May it make more sense to you than it does to me.

6.29.2014 – Left San Francisco and flew to Chicago

Go after your dreams. Do the shit you love. Follow your passions. Poop yourself and clean it up. It’s going to be something.

I’m going to bitch slap you and your homeschool hands, long skirt and top with sleeves of the same pattern, looks home made but probably came from Macy’s. [In reference to someone in front of me at Caribou Coffee who was taking a long time to order]

6.30.2014 – Chicago

I was kind of hoping that my ear excezma medicine would cause a scene at security. I practically ran through there – my toothpaste was over 3 oz. SUCK IT TSA. It’s an act of mild subversion.

7.1.2014 – Evanston, IL

I want to know have you ever raced bird going across Davis street.

My banana is getting browner and browner, but I don’t want to eat it. Not yet. Huge dump in the toilet.

Always the dilemma – should I just go knock on people’s doors?

7.3.2014 – Nashville, TN

We are hitting up the hard core bougie part of Nashville, and it’s just like – get me some of that trashy stuff. (In reference to eating at a place called Jeni’s ice cream in Nashville)

7.4.2014 – Nashville, TN

Happy Freaking Birthday, You Sassy Daughter of an Empire, oh US of America (trying to come up with blog titles for the day)

7.5.2014 – Nashville, TN

Day after 4th of July and I’m like – whoah there is still hot dog in my stomach […] There is no way I’m going to be able to eat biscuits and gravy when it comes time to eat biscuits and gravy but then again, I’ll definitely be able to eat biscuits and gravy when it comes time to eat them, you know?

Did you know that when you write USA over and over again it just ends up looking like you wanted to say sausage but couldn’t quite get it out over the excitement.

7.9.2014 – Marietta, GA

[On this day, Baby Geniuses was playing on television and I felt the need to take a lot of notes about it. Because I took so many, I won’t include them here. I just wanted to make sure you knew that had happened. Also, that Baby Geniuses is an incredible movie.]

Drawing a turd on the paper. [In reference to a doodle I’d drawn that really did just look like a piece of poo.]

7.10.2014 – Marietta, GA

A dystopian future where semen never dies. [Maybe I was thinking about concepts for books?]

7.11.2014 – Marietta, GA

Okay, let’s be real. It’s just you, me, and this $20 bill for McCracken’s tonight.

7.12.2014 – On the way to Asheville, NC

I can’t do this. Yes you can. No I can’t. Yes you can. [In reference to writing a blog post. I was very tired.]

Spartanburg was terrifying. Imagine a beautiful city without any people in it nestled in the blue ridge mountains. That’s what it was. I think I’m officially a city person. I think that’s what it is. It’s just hard to live somewhere where you can’t see everything all set out before you. Lumpy places indeed.

7.15.2014 – Black Mountain, NC

For starters, I went on an 11 mile hike today – partially on purpose and partially on accident, part of which I was scared I was either going to be eaten by a bear or shot by a bear hunter. I looked down and I was wearing a green shirt, black pants and a grey backpack. I looked like the forest. I might as well have been wearing a bear suit.

7.18.2014 – Black Mountain, NC

Forced myself to wake up for dinner so I could go load up on coffee bcause that’s what I live for. I can easily live without alcohol but I think I’d die for a long time without living if I didn’t have any coffee.

OK I’M BACK FROM DINNER. I had four cups of coffee and some broccoli and some banana cream pie pudding stuff that I know is that not that good but I think it’s so good. Why God?

7.20.2014 – Greenville, SC

Everything is drive thru in South Carolina. Even I’m just driving thru.

7.20.2014 – Charlotte, NC

I know I said I wanted to become an actor and all, but I think what I’ve really become is a wi-fi sponge. Thanks, iPad.

7.23.2014 – Washington, D.C.

love that spacefoil

7.26.2014 – On the Megabus to Boston from D.C.

Realized there are outlets up above me
Germans are eating their sandwiches
Internet is cutting out, causing some tension between the father and daughter.
The Germans’ sandwiches smell really good.
Running into traffic
It’s so slow – so do something else – read a book – I don’t want to – then sleep
It really smells like BBQ in this bus
Neck is hurting
Big yawn behind me
Cardigan’s on
Butt is hurting
buttdate: update

8.1.2014 – NYC, NY

Before food and coffee: NOTHING IS POSSIBLE
After food and coffee: I AM INVINCIBLE

New York City is terrifying. People here are out for blood. Everything is anonymous and people live lonely, isolated lives. Here it’s fight to the death, and while some can’t spend money fast enough, others struggle to even survive. Going outside is dangerous because you might get crushed under the weight of all the human souls in the city. In fact, your own soul might get lost. You need to be careful about that sort of thing.

8.4.2014 – NYC, NY

Did that dude just take a dump and then throw the toilet paper out in the trashcan in the living room? Probably not. [Was people watching at a coffee shop.]

8.20.2014 – San Francisco, CA

Within a day of arriving back in San Francisco, I saw what I think were two public sexual acts in Golden Gate Park.

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Aug 10 2014
6 Comments
Wassup USA?

Growing Up is For People Who Have No Imagination

Can't wait to be on conference calls one day!

Can’t wait to be on conference calls one day!

I turned twenty five today. There was no surprise birthday party, few gifts and less Facebook notifications than there have been in years past. This birthday just lazed in, almost unnoticed, like bread that looks normal but when you open it up it’s got mold all over it.

Growing up, twenty five seemed like the pinnacle of adulthood. By the time I turned twenty five, I thought I’d be married, have a career as a world-renowned neurosurgeon or something equally remarkable, wear makeup and shave my legs, and pretty much have figured it all out. The world, formerly known as my oyster, would now be a pearl that I’d wear around my neck as I laughed gracefully over a meal at a fancy restaurant with my best girlfriends. I would be wearing heels.

This has not happened. Life as I’ve lived it has had more surprises and twists and turns in it than I could have imagined, and it’s not at all simple. In fact, it’s only gotten more complicated. Where I once imagined that everything had a correct answer, I now believe that decision making is mostly a crapshoot. Also, laughing gracefully is for people who have no imagination.

Adulthood used to seem so well-defined. One day you would wake up and find your family in a house that you’ve purchased with a mortgage and have potted plants outside, and you would take certain things more seriously and not act silly with your friends. And that’s how you knew you were an Adult and that you’d done growed up. You were a Grown-Up.

Now I don’t believe in any of that. I know that adulthood is something else entirely from what you own and your relational status, and that I would rather never eat ice cream again than stop being silly. And I pretty much live for ice cream, so that’s saying a lot.

Now I know there is no handbook on any of this stuff, that there is no right answer, that there is no well defined path, and if there is one, I probably want to steer clear of it.

I used to think twenty five was the end of growing up, but now it’s clear that it’s just the beginning of a journey that will probably never end. And that’s fine with me. Here’s to one hundred more years of confusion and slow realizations!

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Aug 01 2014
3 Comments
Wassup USA?

Eating Flesh with All the Other New Yorkers in Mordor

SoHo fashion ghetto

SoHo fashion ghetto

I’m in NYC now, the Chobani cafe in SoHo to be exact. Everyone here is beautiful. Many people have shopping bags and are wearing patterned clothing that is expertly mixed. Also, since when does Chobani have a brick and mortar store where I can buy a $2.50 coffee or get yogurt creations? It’s a crazy world.

I’m in a fashion ghetto. There are designer stores as far as the eye can see, and everything except the trash on the ground screams I’m not good enough. Even the pigeons look groomed. Thank God I wore all black today. Maybe people will think I’m making a fashion statement and not just wearing the top layer of my backpack. Also, since when do I care what people think? New York is changing me.

If you ever wonder where all the attractive people in your hometown have gone, they are either in California or NYC. There are too many people here to fall in love with. My heart can’t take it. But could I date a man who spent more time thinking about his appearance than I do? Could I date a man wrapped up in his Warby Parkers and the New York lifestyle? Is that what I want for the children?

When I got in last night, the friend I’m staying with in Brooklyn told me that New York City is Mordor, that the people who inhabit Mordor are orcs, and that orcs eat human flesh. We are human flesh eaters.

San Francisco is too shiny, I said. I need something dirtier.

New York is the grossest place on earth, he said.

Good, I said.

He had to leave at 4:30 this morning for work at the cafe and gave me directions to the subway. It’s just around the corner, he said. The vagrants will help you find it, he said.

Good, I said. In the morning, I remarked on just how much his neighborhood reminded me of Cairo.

I sat today on the High Line – the former above-ground railway turned into walking path/garden/park – and read the book I bought in Capitol Hill. It’s called “Cowboys are My Weakness.” It’s a collection of short stories about women who fall for burly, hunty, meaty, cowboy type men and are invariably hurt by them. It’s not exactly feminist literature, but Chobani isn’t exactly a coffee shop. Sue me.

In one of the stories, a woman flies to New York to meet up with a man her father knows. He plays a Texan cowboy in a soap opera. They kind of fall in love in Chelsea. I’ll be in Chelsea tomorrow night.

Cowboy, if you’re out there, meet me tomorrow at UCB. If you’re the one for me, you’ll know what that means.

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Jul 28 2014
4 Comments
Wassup USA?

I’m Addicted to Coffee but I Wouldn’t Dream of Changing

coffee

coffee coffee coffee

What is dependency? What is addiction? If I can’t force myself to leave the house without the promise of coffee, is that a problem? If I buy more than one, sometimes more than two, and rarely but not too rarely more than three coffees a day, is that really so terrible? Is it childlike and irresponsible, or is it supremely adultlike and admirable?

If I, after arriving in Boston (the city of my alma mater and priceless collegiate memories), think only of bed and of ending everything because there is no coffee in the house and the nearest coffee shop is across a bridge and through the rain, what does that mean?

My brain is made up of chemicals. My body is an assemblage of elements and amino acids. My hair is a collection of grease, sweat, and whatever kind of weird shampoo I used this morning. Also, it is made of keratin. But my heart is made of coffee. It is coffee that runs through my veins and brings light into the world.

Entire worldviews have shifted because of caffeine-deprivation. Wars have started and / or ended because of the magic bean. And it is the magic bean.

Oh coffee, you make my heart beat faster. You make my veins constrict and make it difficult to focus and my hands shake. You open up entire worlds of possibilities and the ability to love. You make it possible to run across freeways in the sun and find shelter in the rain.

I think I’m addicted, but I don’t want to be any other way.

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Jul 12 2014
3 Comments
Wassup USA?

How to Sleep on the Megabus: A User’s Guide for Success

megabus

meganaps

A successful bus nap starts before you get on board. Prior to your trip, do whatever you can to make sure you are completely exhausted. This could include over-exercising, getting 20% of your normal night’s sleep the night before, or skipping bedtime altogether.

Once you’re exhausted and grumpy, you’re ready to board the bus. Be one of the first ones on board so you have first pick of the bus seats. An easy way to get ahead is by limiting the amount of baggage you bring with you. This goes for both personal and physical baggage.

Next, use all manner of lies, deception, and flat out rudeness to make sure no one sits by you. Putting your backpack on the seat next to you and then pretending to fall asleep is a good place to start. Stretching out your legs, sporting a Mad-Eye Moody eye patch, and wearing a bloody bearskin can also limit the number of people who will want to sit next to you. WARNING: some people respond positively to these kinds of signals and might actually be drawn to you. Watch out.

Having secured both seats to yourself, pull out your pillow, recline your seat, rest your head against the window, and fall asleep. Just kidding. Your work is only beginning.

Most likely you’ve forgotten or do not have a pillow. In that case, pull out the towel you have in your backpack and use in lieu of a pillow. In the unlikely case you’ve forgotten your towel at the home of your friend where you were staying or for some reason can’t find it in your backpack in your sleep-deprived stupor, pull out your running pants to use instead.

You’ve also noticed by now that it’s very cold on the bus. Not to worry, you can just use your towel. Unfortunately, you forgot your towel, so you’ll need to pull out your blue fleece leggings that you wear as pajamas, and pull them over your arms. This will be the best you can do.

For the next three hours, writhe in various positions across the two seats until you find something that seems like it might be comfortable for a couple of minutes and then kind of fall asleep until your leg or arm goes numb or you can’t bear the pain in your neck any longer.

Aggressively attempt to stay asleep until you reach your destination. Then, “wake up” and marvel at what a world you’ve arrived to. Of course, you’re more tired than you were before you got on the bus, the only difference being the bus taste in your mouth and a thin film of grease on your face.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

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