Country mouse

Last night we made a dinner that was almost entirely composed of vegetables from our garden.

It was a strata of collard greens, potatoes, pesto, and cheese. We are brilliant cooks. Chefs, I mean. Chefs.

Except we did not grow the cheese. Our outdoorsy neighbor who is getting chickens should also get goats. I'm going to talk about goats a lot when he's around, just to get him thinking.

Next on the menu: mojitos, complete with homegrown mint.

Pinch Punch Ch. 10: puddin’: Tragic Audiodiary II

They call it primordial stew, in other words brown pudding, in other words a dream, a subconscious spewing. It never really happened except in sleep.

The pudding grew a thick skin, expanded and ballooned: an atmosphere. Is there anybody out there? A teacup piglet grew up out of the salt.

Mother found me under the porch with a tongue coated in brambles and blood, said: those berries are exquisite. She was always mistaking injury for beauty.

It was summertime and she bundled me in a store-bought afghan. It was summertime and she made a thick stew of mud for the piglets. It was summertime and the piglets were screaming. It was summertime in the country; in the back of my throat I tasted ice.

Whoa, okay, that’s way too dramatic. True, but so poetic it rings false. Let’s try that again:

Upon awakening, my rollerboard is crammed with items I do not and have never owned: sequined thong underpants, a rack of sparkling spices, a shotgun, and an expandable hangglider. All of the things I am certain I will die without: Aqua Net, pencil sharpener, first aid kit, rotary telephone, all of the things that constitute my past, are absent from my rollerboard.

TYRA yells:

“Kathy! Come brand this freak!”

TYRA whispers something in Kathy’s ear and Kathy giggles in an evil way, then sews brown thread into the chestskin above my heart that reads: puddin’ in tiny lowercase letters, and scurries off.

TYRA says it suits me: lumpen, brown-spined, amorphous. Says I shall eat puddings for the rest of my days at the Pinch Punch. Says I shall wrestle and shower and drown in the deep, mundane puddings of myself.

“You never climbed the icecaps, therefore you are puddin’ for all eternity,” says TYRA. “You are puddin’. puddin’ you shall always be.”

Yeah, whoa, that was weird, how TYRA just read my mind. That's pretty fucked up, how she knew about the icecaps. I don’t use obscene language, but it was seriously fucked up. And I hate it how she's totally right. I was born into a family of teacup piglet breeders--can she see those, too? I held my dream to conquer the icecaps under my tongue for thirty-seven years; I grew browner and more lumpen by the minute; irreversibly so. I bred teacup piglets which were never tiny enough to be blue-ribboned; I took up knitting shawls for the earth.

Now the teacup piglets in the bar follow me around like puppies, and I want to kick them across the room.

puddin’ seeps into my skin all at once; the brown painting of my life all at once, into the blood; this is how one suffocates.

Ch. 1 here
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Ch. 9 here

Anne, get in here!

So I'm obsessed with The Tudors all of a sudden. I love Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the king, partly because of his crazy eyes (second only to skeleton face for automatic celebrity crushiness), but even more I love Anne Boleyn. I love her beautiful crowns and her mood swings.

I recognize that it's not historically accurate. I know that like a full year can pass in a single episode and that no one is aging, except princess/lady Mary who went from three to fifteen in like five episodes in true soap opera style. I still would enter a contest to play dress-up in its costuming department. And then the king and I would have grapes for lunch. He would have boar's head, too, but not me. He'd make crazy eyes at me, and I'd scream, "Anne! Get in here!" and let her deal with him.

Anne gets the chop soon. She's just way too jealous, and her hair is more out of control than usual.

Wait...can you go back?

Maybe it's because I only visited often instead of living there, but going back to Iowa City was somehow a better experience than going back to most places that acted as settings in my life as a youngster. Most of the same stuff is still there. Most of the people seem familiar in that out-of-time hippie/ster way. We weren't constantly walking in to places and being like, "When did this turn into a businessman bar?" Am I right? Did you feel this, too?

And then we got Happy Joe's on the way home. And it turns out that kidney failure feeling that you get from driving a long time is universal and does not actually mean kidney failure.

Let's be pioneers. Let's move to an unsettled location and start building our own town. It will have quirky stores and cheap t-shirts, and we can take turns being the mayor. I'll plant a huge vegetable garden and a whole raspberry patch. We can make moonshine and become a tourist destination. Yes?

Stacey Levine's blog

Stacey Levine now has a blog. Check it out!

Where's Stacey's book?

Way back on April 1, I was all excited because Amazon had told me that Stacey Levine's new book was coming at me, but it still hasn't arrived. Where is it? Why am I not reading it right now? I spent most of the morning pretending to read it, but that's just not as much fun.

Pinch Punch Ch. 9: Kashmir, Video-Diary #1 Plus Added Bonus Fantasy Kashmir and TYRA in Paradise

No one knows it but I love to sit in the closet and videotape myself. I love, love, love it more than anything. I say things into the camera that will boost my self-esteem, which is forever plummeting, when I watch the tapes later. When I feel a low-self-esteem attack coming on during filming, I take a break and recollect myself. The tapes are what keep me going; the tapes are how I survive; the tapes will bring me glory, fame, and bitches, namely TYRA, unless I kill her first.

And…ACTION:

I am eating the flesh off your face to expose the bone, to rip into and puree it with my vampire’s teeth. I have a taste for fame and I know there is some buried in your blood. I eat the flesh off the earth by ingesting all of its polluted carrots, all its landfills of human spewage, all the rare creatures that cohabitate on the oceanfloor, dying out from the heat. I eat polar bears and their switchblade claws and their fantasies of unified religion. I had a lover once, Samosa, and I ate her, too. She was like the Russian Bottle Dance going down: broken and flailing. It is best to feed on the broken and flailing; call me evil but nobody can help biting into their squish. It is the way to fame, fame, fame, the vampire teeth are so cut-throat they will eat your famous face. ROARRRRR!!!

And…CUT.

Did you see how brilliantly I bared my teeth during that roar? Really I have spent my life eating flesh because I have no personality. Really I have not even eaten any flesh; I don’t even like meat, really. The vampire teeth are not so tough. The vampire teeth are plastic. I’ll take them out right now, off-camera. See? No teeth. All my real teeth fell out from eating only candy all those years I was a suburban latchkey kid, and fell out immediately upon consumption of my first Pinch- Punch, at which point the plus-sized models scurried to scoop them up because they thought they looked like Milk Duds. Now I eat via Caravaggio’s miniseries, a more inventive way of destroying a life, but as usual there is no joy in it for me.

Also sometimes I videotape stories of me in really sexy scenarios in exotic locations with TYRA, because in real life I know she sees me as just pasty and vampirish and really pretty nerdy at heart. Plus I’ve never been anyplace beyond the West Suburbs and the Pinch Punch.

And…ACTION.

I, Kashmir, I am TYRA’s little pup, her little favorite, following her about, sniffing after her through the underground tunnels of the Pinch Punch, following her (leashed) beyond the red velvet curtain deep into the earth late at night after all of the other residents have been forced to bed. The system of underground tunnels goes on for ages, where there are trains to China, the Mediterranean, the Sahara.

This morning we travel to the Irish sea, cold and refreshing as death, to float on our backs, watching our toes go pink, then purple, from cold. The martens frolic on the waves on their tiny boogie boards: the size of children’s tennis shoes, screaming with delight. TYRA drinks Guinness; I, seawater, which has no calories, for I am allowed to ingest only forty calories, in the form of an early-morning and a late-night Pinch-Punch, per day.

No one must ever know of our secret travels, bitch, says TYRA. Not even the innocent martens, whom I have blinded with battery acid. Our travels must remain ours and ours alone.

Possessive love is the truest kind, where no one else can penetrate it or see inside, where all others are left to wonder: what is it those two taste in one another? Where I, who have not a single strand of poetic DNA inside my voluptuous bosom, can speak this way to you love, only to you, and only in this world we shall create and inhabit together.

Love, allow me to wash each and every hair on your miraculous body, all the way down to your cold, pink toes, and later to wax all of your hairs off, and to ingest the waxy carpet of them, so that they may be part of me forever, I say.

TYRA, secret devourer of romance and praise, says:
Hells yes, baby. Hells yes.

AND CUT.

Sometimes I have to cut because all of the evil truths that are forever squirming around waaay deep inside my chest feel about to spew out of me onto what could become very, VERY public tapes. For example, in that last one I was just overcome by the impulse to say:

TYRA does not know that I am plotting to take over her world, steal away with Caravaggio and the Pinch Punch forever, and to make billions off of the miniseries of her life…that I will never ever, love her—despite her ridiculous beauty and brawn.

Ch. 1 here

Ch. 2 here

Ch. 3 here

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Ch. 7 here

Ch. 8 here

Public health announcement

These are the symptoms of Lyme Disease:

• Rash; sometimes it looks like a bulls-eye, but in more than half the cases it doesn't manifest this way.
• Chills, fever.
• Severe muscle aches, or impaired muscle movement.
• Fatigue.
• Confusion, meningitis, Bell's palsy (when half your face falls).
• Irregular heartbeat.
• Pink eye.

In other news, I was bitten by a deer tick yesterday, one-third of which carry Lyme Disease. Dramatic, eh?

Kid Frankenstein

Last night we watched this video adaptation of Frankenstein on one of the public access channels in which all of the characters were played by children. They all had rolled-up pants and white shirts on. The boy who played Victor Frankenstein was like a young Kenneth Branagh. It was a really faithful adaptation, too, until the third act, where everything kind of fell apart. There were some pretty realistic fight scenes, like, I'm pretty sure the big kid who played Frankenstein may have actually been feared by the littler kids.

I searched and searched for this movie so I could share it with you, and could not find it. However, I did find this video, which employs the same flickery setting on their digital video camera. The costumes leave a bit to be desired, and this is more an homage to the Frankenstein movie than anything else, but still, it's kids and Frankenstein.

Pinch Punch Ch. 8: PINCH PUNCH NEWSLETTER, VOL. 1, ISS. 428

Dear Fan Club,

Try as you might, you will never be as glamorous as I.

Love,
TYRA

[Insert that one photo of me in a pink sequined bikini and Lucite heels, Kashmir. You know, the one where my bangs look like a Fu Manchu is growing out of my widow’s peak? If you can’t find it, have Caravaggio recreate it.]

LIST OF DEMERITS

Kashmir: 100 demerits for plotting against me
Plus-sized Models: 50 demerits for being difficult to differentiate
Caravaggio: 12 demerits for as many weeks of unwashedness
Everyone else: 5 demerits each

DEMERIT DEFINITION REFRESHER

For every demerit you get, you owe me one back rub.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

All sex-change operations were performed with great success!

ARTICLE

[Title] 3 Ways to Escape The Pinch Punch

[Deck] Growing tired of mush enhanced with coffee flavoring? Well, borrow your roomie’s magnifying glass and get out your pencil stubs! These tips will give you fresh hope.

[Body]

If you’ve ever felt like one day at The Pinch Punch is just like every other, you are not alone. Even I get a bit grumpy every now and again when faced with the prospect of yet another day of waxing and sawing. These three tips for escape will not work, but they sure make for mighty nice daydreams!

Throw mattresses out the window, and then jump out, too.

Seems foolproof, right? Wrong-o, buddy. Cast your mind back to just two days ago when that excitable fellow on the second floor slid betwixt the bars and liquefied on the pavement. Not cool at all. Because it’s not just pavement, folks, it’s lava.

Die.

The devil and I have a pretty sweet deal worked out. I get your soul. Especially if you suicide.

Kill me.

This one is particularly laughable. I’d like to see you try!

Despair not, my poppets; you always have Entry Days to hotly anticipate. Until the next one, build escape castles in the air.

[Sidebar]

Doubt my powers? Here’s a message from the One Downstairs: ROAR!

[Kashmir, please use one of the photos of Oprah from my personal stash. I like the pitchfork ones even though she thinks they’re obvious. I think we can convince her.]

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Spirit, vampired.

Chicago is exhausting. I've been sleeping 9-10 hours a night just to be a normal(ish) person since we've returned. I remember now that I didn't do anything after work because I needed to recuperate. And almost everything I liked there has closed. I blame whoever now lives in our little old apartment; they've upset the balance.

How tired are you right now? Do your arms feel like logs? Are you napping? Do you sort of want soft-serve ice cream but realize it would take hours to find it/get there? Me, my tummy hurts.

No, Your Eyes are PERFECTLY FINE!

I may have used this one before....hmmmmm...I just can't remember! It seems odd to have forgotten an image such as this, but it HAS been a long time now, hasn't it?

My favorite part is the tiniest peek of cleavage....so tantalizing...mmmmmmm. Is this a family blog!!?? I hope not! I remember what a stir my dimples caused on ABC. Men were leaving their wives and children in droves, on pilgrimages, to find me and the Lesbians were sent into a frenzy. It all led to the financial crisis and good Americans lost their homes as a result. Also, I think gay people actually married each other in California somewhere. I have powers that even frighten ME!

I figured it was safe to show my face again but the tiny peek of cleavage may be too much! GOD! I hope you don't go and do anything crazy after seeing me again. I tried to use a picture that was around a twelve out of ten on the sexy-scale. You should see the twenty-fives! WAIT! No you shouldn't....not yet.

I suppose you are wondering where I have been? I have been enveloped in academia and now my nails have grown unusually long and curved. No, I mean UNUSUALLY! You remember that guy in the 80's that was from India and he was always on the opening credits for Ripley's Believe it or Not and his nails curved and curved and curved in concentric circles and if you stretched them straight they would circle the earth, or was it reach the moon and back? I make him look like...um...well, mine are longer. They shine and make a sound like a wine glass orchestra.

I Saw Cincinnati: a Plagiarism

I was expecting a downtown. I was expecting hillbillies.

Instead, Cincinnati was fascinating. It looked like a bunch of dirty, tiny Iowa river towns crammed together, with sprawls of ghetto and/or nature in between. It was eensy and seemed like it would taste of dirt, like when you're a kid and the wind comes out of nowhere and blows dirt into your mouth. I had that taste in my mouth most of the time I was there. This is because everything in Cincinnati is crumbling.

I was looking through the ruins of a city that was living in the 1970s. That's what the world looked like then. I kept thinking about 30 Rock and how hot I was in Cincinnati. Because I was definitely hot. And even fashionable! There is no fashion in Cincinnati; first this appalled me, then it refreshed me. I realized I could wear cutoff jean shorts again! Most people in Cincinnati are in their 40's. I'm not sure if other age groups are allowed.

I had this experience with everything there: appalled then refreshed; appalled then refreshed. You can go kayaking in Cincinnati. You can climb rocks. Technically, there are even mountains.

It is confusing. You never know where you are. Nothing lines up. In that picture, for example, there is an amazing european market in the center of the worst neighborhood in town.

Two things to report

1. I am trying to slim down my morbidly obese cat by giving him hug endorphins. Every time he sits by his bowl, I scoop him up, throw my back out, and squeeeeze him, instead of giving him food. I may actually be training him to sit by his bowl.

2. Our entire side yard is covered in strawberries.

I saw Saturn

I was expecting a fiery ball. I was expecting space dust.

Instead, Saturn was adorable. It looked like Atari, white on black and totally clear. It was eensy and seemed like it would taste of really sharp peppermint.

Mostly this was because I was looking at it through a telescope that was built in the 1880s. That's what the world looked like then.

Pinch Punch Ch. 7: Welcoming Committee

Plus-sized Model: I didn’t know there would be so much blood on the sidewalk, did you?

Plus-sized Model: That’s not blood. It’s cake batter.

Plus-sized Model: No, I licked it. I didn’t like it.

TYRA: You’ll develop a taste for blood in here.

Plus-sized Model: Who are you?

TYRA: Why don’t you follow me up to the roof deck?

Plus-sized Model: No, that’s okay.

TYRA: I wasn’t talking to you.

Plus-sized Model: Then who were you talking to?

TYRA: Have some boneless, skinless bunny feet with a side of Venus flytrap. Have a pinch-punch.

Plus-sized Models (in unison): Ow!

TYRA: Just kidding. Here’s a real Pinch-Punch. Delicious, right?

TYRA: Carry them off, Caravaggio.

***

Call: How do you live your dream?

Response: I do what I must.

Call: Do you renounce Satan?

Response: What?

Call: How do you live your dream?

Response: I pinch. I punch.

Call: Do you accept that you have thus far been unable to live your dream and must relinquish yourself to my care that you might become truly beautiful?

Response: I do.

Call: Do you understand that I am doing this for your own good?

Response: I do.

Call: Call me Mama.

Response: Mama.

***

You are not here to be painters. You are not here to be songwriters or filmmakers or bookkeepers or entrepreneurs. You are not here to work. You are not here to think.

Plus-sized Model, your disease is Open Drain. Whenever you speak, an overwhelming sewer odor will permeate the air. People will associate it with you, even if you take to obsessive mouth-washing.

Plus-sized Model, your disease is Bird Call Fever. You will speak as a cardinal for the rest of your days. Here’s a water whistle I got at the circus. People will be able to interpret your meaning eventually, I think. But it’s really up to you. How good you are at it.

Plus-sized Model, your disease is Broken Tubing. That seems self-explanatory.

Plus-sized Model, your disease is Worthlessness. No one will ever pay attention to you until I have freed you from its clutches.

Kashmir, show the ladies to their room.

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Ch. 6 here

let's talk more about television

i just watched the 30 rock finale. boy, it was a doozy. i really liked it when jack said "rainstorm katrina." what was your favorite word coupling? if you can't remember, watch it and report back.

i started doing cognitive behavioral therapy and it's making me really depressed. isn't it supposed to do the opposite.

Disinterested

Last night I saw Obsessed, which is a movie that stars Beyonce and the handsome fellow from The Office (who took over as Regional Manager when Michael Scott started The Michael Scott Paper Company), who was also on The Wire, who is also secretly British.

The best part: When Beyonce and the woman from Heroes were in a fight involving two-by-fours that culminated in a 40-foot fall through a glass coffee table. This fall did not result in death—at least not until the chandelier squished the victim into spatter. (I don’t want to tell you whether it was Beyonce or Heroes in case you are ever watching this movie where it belongs, on television, deep, deep in the night.)

The lesson of this movie: Call the police.

The other lesson: Women are only ever assistants and mothers, and gay people are possibly a different species altogether, one that is related to humans but which has the intelligence and motivation of seven-year-olds.

The other, other lesson: You can trust Jerry O’Connell. He is just there to be a recognizable name in the credits.

The other, other, other lesson: Drink Starbucks. Listen to Crudo, which is apparently real and also probably managed by Beyonce’s dad.

The final lesson: If you walk out, you will miss the awesome fight. If you don’t walk out, you will be able to work up an excellent impression of Ali Larter making a sex-crazed face. Weigh those factors.

Pinch Punch Ch. 6: Song of the Plus-sized Models…and of the Howling Girl…and of Kathy

Ch. 1 here
Ch. 2 here
Ch. 3 here
Ch. 4 here
Ch. 5 here

The Plus-sized Models, in unison: “The first time we became aware of TYRA watching us, we were quite small. Her eyes seemed like Jupiter compared to our Mercuries. Her hair was like genetic jackpot, ours like a scratch-off ticket. Her legs like whoa and ours like teacup piglets’.”

Oh, the luring story. Everyone has one. TYRA offered me bobbins and acres of jersey. There is a girl, on the third floor, who recreates the moment of her luring, again and again. She cannot articulate this (or much of anything, anymore), but I suspect she needs to know how it happened. At what point could her mind have been so weak?

She clambers atop a stepstool and smashes her head against light fixtures. Glass shards have joined with her hair to create a sparkly tangle. Her concussed speech is slurred, her tongue lolls uselessly much of the time.

In the light, she looks fantastic, her hair like iridescent candy floss. But then she goes and butts her head into its source. TYRA has tried everything: fluorescent tubing, candles, elimination of dropped ceilings. The other residents are getting pissed. She’s put her head through all the television sets.

The Plus-sized Models continue: “We could sense her desperation and wanted nothing to do with her. Most of all, we were frightened of her body weapons: vagina dentate, need we say more? We probably should have reported her to The Authorities. But she took us horseback riding and then for manicures. And our pet marten disappeared. Implied threat.

“She fattened us on a diet of gin and babyback. The tenderness, oh! The first time she kissed us, our tongues retracted, and we choked. We would have died if she hadn’t been there to snag and tame our struggling muscles.”

That crazy girl howls at the night sky, straining her neck to break the moon. She is so dumb. The moon is really far away.

“We grew up with her in our peripheral vision. The day she left we took some pills. They were just Tylenol, but that is still a cry for help.”

I take the Plus-sized Models on a tour before handing them over to TYRA for the ceremony, and they’re all way too interested in the vat room. “What’s in there, perfume? Fabulous cash and prizes? World-famous photographers?” The vats, the vats: What could they possibly contain other than gore? This is no funeral parlor, but it ain’t exactly an amusement park either. I guess Movie Night is okay. I’m getting better at the piano. And TYRA gave me some silk once in exchange for my grandmother’s engagement ring.

The Howling Girl spaces her neck with bangles. Each day it grows half an inch, a rate alarming to our keeper. We have been told not to give her jewelry because, even now, her height far exceeds door frames, and it’s interfering with her massage duties. She rolls shattered pieces of glass in her shredded cheeks till they’re smooth enough for beading. She is her own ocean.

I would like to surf her tongue, but must content myself with staring as she showers. How come everyone but me gets a muse? And do you choose your muse or does he choose you?

The Howling Girl needs to get over herself and start helping me sew clothes for the small pets. I hate that I can see the teacup piglets’ nipples.

our very own, vinnie lacey

i feel like i am about to do something really weird

like give away everything i own, including my hair, and join a sun worshipping cult in the weird new age-y part of arizona. and then two weeks into it realize that i am miserable and bald and want to go back to my old life but i can't because i gave all of my money away so i'm forced to live in a women's shelter in tucson where a lady punches me in the mouth for my ipod nano that is like two years old anyway, and knocks out all of my teeth. and the next time abby and sarah come to visit chicago they will find me face down in a trash can with my legs sticking up in the air, and it won't even be my first day of crazy.

i want to live in poemland

I spent a couple hours today reading Chelsey Minnis's Poemland. The reasons I love Chelsey Minnis are sort of endless. Here are some:

1. I can read her books straight through; I can fly through her books; usually I make it to page 5 of anyone's poems and feel tired and like I need to take a break or enter a coma. But I can eat Chelsey's poems one after another. They are light like rice cakes. They are delicious like rice cakes aren't. You do not feel heavy after eating 126 of them.

2. She has planned and bought the most awesome "death outfit" ever: "White boots, tan suit, orange shirt and pink necktie." She should probably design a line of death outfits. People's death outfits are usually so bland and awful.

3. She can write so accurately about how awful it is to write things. "Poetry is like waking up drunk in a lemon yellow room," or "If you want to be a poem-writer then I don't know why...It hurts like a puff sleeve dress on a child prostitute," or "With my poetry I want to barricade myself from other people's poetry..." I hate when writers write about writing, unless they are Chelsey.

4. "I am so drunk I'm seeing toy bats"

kumquats are the stupidest fruits

They look like they are going to be awesome and interesting because they are very small and also have a weird name. They are like the tiniest oranges. They are like grape oranges. But they are sour, and their rinds are thick. Nothing can be done with them. Also, I am not sure if you are supposed to eat the rind. Kumquats need a new packaging designer.

Pinch Punch Ch. 5: New Rule: Plus-sized Models Clause

Ch. 1 here
Ch. 2 here
Ch. 3 here
Ch. 4 here

Only four (4) plus-sized models are permitted in The Pinch Punch at any one time. If you see a new plus-sized model at Entry Day ceremonies and her hair is the same color as yours, you have the following options:

1. Knit your contraband jump ropes (eyes in the back of my head) into a ladder. Attempt escape.
2. Dye your hair (NOTE: Ash-blonde and blonde are the same color. Black and blue-black are the same color. Red and auburn are the same color. Brown and dishwater are the same color. As is chestnut.)
3. Use your switchblade in any way you see fit (NOTE: I am not encouraging, or even condoning, violence).
4. Sex-change operation.

NOTE: Hair-dye option is included so that you may face off with the least burly of the plus-sized models admitted.

NOTE: There is no such thing as a male plus-sized model.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Four new plus-sized models have been admitted to The Pinch Punch! See TYRA for your sex-change operation today!

Crotchety old man post

I hate Twitter. I hate that when I was watching the Miss USA pageant last night, Miss Teen USA was live-twittering. I hate that the word "twitter" appeared at least 25 times in the OK Magazine that I impulsively bought. Then this morning while driving to driving to work I listened to a story about how Twitter is both helping and hurting traditional journalism.

This is a new development, this Twitter over-exposure. It happened yesterday. I hate Twitter.

It's the enormous eye thing

So, it took me forever to figure this out, but the reason that I'm rooting for Allison so hard on America's Next Top Model is that I think she looks like our own Katerina. There are the enormous eyes, the pillowy lips, the thing where everybody thinks she's totally the sweetest person on earth because of her enormous eyes when she really draws pictures of Tyra with her nose bleeding.

Donald Barthelme, you're dead but I still have a serious crush on you.

Oh Donald Barthelme, you are dead. Dead and you look just like an Amish cowboy hijacker/bomber. Still, you are my celebrity crush of the moment. I have just re-read your brilliant story "The Balloon," which is so brilliant and lovely, which is a picture of your captivating brain, which I cannot wait to put on display for my students tonight, who will never, ever understand "The Balloon" or your captivating brain, and will therefore have to complete what I'm calling a "Postmodern Scavenger Hunt" in order to sort-of understand it. I think you would love a postmodern scavenger hunt, Donald Barthelme, and I wish you could create one for my students instead of me, because it would be way better, and then they would love you like I do, dead and Amish as you are, and we would all climb the balloon together just as it crosses 47th street, and there would be quiet applause for us from like 3 people.

Harmless vandalism

There have been three (3) occurrences of harmless vandalism at our house since we've moved in. I am recording them here just in case the next step is breaking in to our house and tickling us until we cry, or something.

1. The fuck balloon: Sometime in late August/early September we awoke to find a partially deflated pink balloon on which someone had written the aforementioned naughty swear in large block letters tied to the ironwork on our porch. It was creepy.

2. The open but mostly full Coke can: About a month ago we found the aforementioned object propped on our garbage can against the house, almost as if someone had been casually leaning there, looking in our window, sipping away. Also creepy.

3. Spray paint stain: When we came home last night someone had spraypainted something on our porch. There was white around a negative space corner. There was a spot of white on our railing, too. Very very creepy.

Who is doing this? Who? And why?

She is in the air right now.

I Am In the Air Right Now from Greg Lytle on Vimeo.

Returning to our original vision

Amazon just informed me that Stacey Levine's new book will be arriving in my mailbox on or around 5/6/2009.

We haven't had an official book in a while. This book should be our official book.

Yes?