The One Where I Just Lift an Exchange Directly from Facebook and I Wasn't Even the One Saying the Funniest Stuff

Jack
I think your New Yorker Rejection Robot story should be disseminated more widely. The world needs to know.

Patricia
I know--we'll send the New Yorker Rejection Robot story TO THE NEW YORKER
The Rejection Robot will short-circuit, it is not programmed to handle so much Meta

Samantha
The imagery of the t-rex. Priceless.

Patricia
I debated putting that in there, I thought "What if the New Yorker finds it"

Samantha
The New Yorker isn't looking. Reader's Digest is watching us all, but not the New Yorker.

Patricia
The New Yorker doesn't know about the internet yet, thank God; imagine the porn it would be looking at

All James Thurber fucking Roz Chast on the back of a horse, all Woody Allen pouring milk on his face, all Malcom Gladwell tasting a mushroom

Samantha
All David Mamet rimming Steve Martin's banjo.

Jack
WOW

Patricia
Ooo good one

All Jonathan Safran Foer jerking off onto a rose--through the miracle of time-lapse he climaxes just at the moment the rose opens

Samantha
Ha! All John Edgar Wideman sexing the 'O' of the University of Iowa campus sign.

Patricia
All Wallace Shawn/William Shawn incest scenarios

God this is endlessly generative

Jack
May the riffing never end

Patricia
Jack I know you're up for this, it's the reason you were born

Samantha
Seriously. Don't make us do all the work. Like Robert Pinksky directing a dwarf snuff film. 'Anybody Can Die.....'

Jack
All Updike/Cheever boiler room caresses

Samantha
Yeah! Rim shots all around!

Patricia
I can't even tell you how much the Devil wants me to post this conversation

Samantha
I should be so lucky.

If You're Sexy and You Know It

I feel like there's too many songs with special instructions just for sexy people. There's a lot of dangerous subjectivity that's possible with that.

Yep.

Nothing to add here .

On the Alleged Unattractiveness of Pau Gasol

Here's the thing: It's all about context. On the court, yes, he is profoundly unattractive; defiantly so. However,you get a few drinks in you (and by 'you,' I mean me), you're on vacation in Spain, a lanky man in maybe like a J Crew heather grey rollneck sweater smiles impishly at you from behind a foreign newspaper at a corner brasserie (maybe it's the South of France, I don't know), you're going to think he's attractive.

And, come on, he used to wear braces.

Textual Feeling

So for some time, my friend Jack and I have been on a quest to think of the most irritating and/or passive aggressive thing one can say to another person during an argument. We believe we may have a winner, but I'll save that for later.

In the meantime, I just want to reflect on yesterday's personal confusion as to how to respond in a situation wherein you try to give back a jacket to someone who loaned you one awhile back and they respond by saying, "Oh, that's way too big for me now. You should keep it!" Really? Is that how this is going to go down?

But back to the topic at hand.With some input from our friend Kiley, here is the list of what Jack and I deem the most irritating things one can say to another person during the course of a disagreement.

#3
Text: "I just don't think you're ready to talk about this."
Subtext: "The problem is you. You are the problem here."

#2
Text: "I guess I've just outgrown it" (said in response to something you still like or do and which is seen as frivolous or juvenile by another party, e.g. seeing live music or still wanting to fly home for major holidays.
Subtext: "Really, I'm pretty lofty."

#1!
Text: "I'm sorry you think you feel that way."
Subtext: "I'm not really sorry and furthermore, disavow your right to even own your own emotions, you total jagweed."

So there it is. If you can think of any others, I would love to hear them. I promise, I'll never outgrow this.

Wherein Kmart is Discussed in My Blog a Second Time

So, here's what I saw in the ten minutes I was inside a Kmart today:

1. A child with one arm, who was (astoundingly) not the child with one arm who lives across the street from me and sometimes jumps out in front of my car as a particularly Lynchian prank as I'm backing up.I'm really not trying to make fun, but I've only seen two kids with only one arm in my 32 years and both in my neighborhood within the last month. HOW?

2. A lady was standing off to the side of the customer service counter in such a way that conveyed she has already been helped. I made the "Are you next?" gesture, which she shrugged off. A full 3-5 minutes pass. Right before I get to the front of the line and (2.A) right after the guy in front of me yelled at the clerk in what I believe was Vietnamese and then stormed off, the staring lady says, very quietly "I would like someone to please call 911 for me" at exactly the same time I say "I need a key made." Then, I think the clerk did what we would all do in that situation, he turns to the lady and says "Why? What's the problem?" I mean, isn't that what you would do, act bitchy and incredulous and kind of put out? He then (!) instructs me they can make a key for me at register 11, to which I reply "Um. Are you going to help her?" He then grudgingly (double !!) hands her the phone to call herowndamnself.

3. A different clerk, while making my key: "I hate this place."

Ten minutes, people. Ten minutes.

You Tell Him I'm Coming

When watching this scene from one of my favorite movies, The Limey, it's important to remember Terence Stamp is avenging his daughter's death. And that the terrible acting of those guys who throw him on the ground isn't really so terrible when one considers how many people like that one has probably actually met in one's life (especially if one is from Ohio).

I'd like to think I'm a kind person and I try hard to treat everyone well, but not a week goes by that I don't imagine myself screaming "Tell him I'm coming. Tell him I'm fucking comiiiiiiiiing!" at someone in my head.