The new recreation

Yesterday was like a bad New York girl's day chick flick and then it turned into heavy metal Party Monster (Chloe Sevigny was even there.) This btw, was all a good thing.

Nikki and I met to get neighborhood coffee and somehow ended up at Sephora buying her lady face things. Despite my recent gender rant about my newfound ladyness, I'd never set foot in that place before. Make-up counters in general scare the crap out of me. Who wants to face a stranger skilled in the art of analyzing your facial flaws? I braved it on Nikki's behalf and slowly but surely was seduced into turning over my face to the skilled tiny pixie pretty gay man manning the Lorak aisle. After looking at myself in the harsh lights in a 5x magnifying mirror I was defeated and helpless. I bought a $25 concealer/highlighter/blender ball combo that I'm still not sure how to use.

Next stop was Bloomingdales, Nikki was on the hunt for blush and I decided I needed red lipstick. After trolling counter after counter I found it. How well I was adjusting...former makeup counter virgin on a mission for that perfect $25 tube of red. 999, Celebrity Red, Dior. It took me about 20 tests to find the perfect shade, my hand was looking like that of a cutter. Severely neglected by the gay behind the counter we waited pleadingly to find out if they had two tubes, one for each of us to look like perfect floozies for New Years. The crushing response, NO!

Back to Sephora, they didn't have that color at all. Uptown to the other Bloomingdales...SOLD OUT! Where else? Barneys - No Dior. Bergdorf - No Dior. Uptown Sephora - Didn't carry that shade. Bendel - Nope. Saks Fifth Avenue, our last hope...found the Dior counter. Begging breathless we ask, do you have 999 Celebrity Red in stock pointing at our lips still stained with the Bloomingdales tester. YES! We got the last two tubes in Manhattan. And what do two ladies do after scoring the last two tubes of the perfect red Dior lipstick? Why, they go to Red Lobster to celebrate of course!

Nearly comatose after far too many cheddar bay biscuits we did what any ladies would do post Red Lobster post lipstick frenzy...we went to a thrash show and ate some magic psychedlic chocolate truffles and went wild. It was a sea of head-banging, dirty dancing, fist pumps, and grapes of wrath in the basement of Lit. Somehow I made it home without a red pentagram tattooed on my palm even though I was begging for a homemade one. However when I did make it home with my McDonalds breakfast takeout at 7:30 am, the Dior lipstick was smeared above my top lip. Glorious mess.

Crap on top of shit

In addition to my camera breaking my bike seat got stolen on Christmas. That somehow resulted in me spending money I don't have on a pair of boots. See the logic behind my life? Okay, neither do I. If my camera isn't covered by my warranty I told myself I had to return the boots because a camera is more important to my emotional well-being than boots are. Right? Right? Come on...help me be a good person. In other Beverly news...

Oh wait, there isn't any other Beverly news. I've been housesitting and hiding. I did eat a whole bunch of dim sum with a whole bunch of nice funny people on Christmas. I ate so many dumplings and cakes and balls I wanted to cry. I've never wanted to say, "I ate so many balls...I wanted to cry" before but it's pretty satisfying. But the balls were shrimp balls and the cakes were pumpkin and turnip. Oh well...Beverly: 1, Excitement: 0.

Oh no she didn't

Oh yes she did.

I can't help it

I'll always be rooting for Mickey Rourke and I'm not even sure why. Maybe it was that endearing pile of overwrought crap, Angelheart (which I totally love btw), maybe it was the pictures of him spending Fathers Day afternoon at a strip club, but after watching the Wrestler tonight I have to say, it's solidified now.



Being an avid reader of Dlisted I am usually informed as to celebrity shenanigans. I'll use the excuse of being a cultural studies major as my justification for being a pop culture junkie. I totally freaked out when I saw this post about Rourke. The train wreck was so intense it was almost beautiful.


You can see all the pics (highly recommended) at Splash

Regardless of your Rourke leanings, I encourage you to see The Wrestler. I was captivated by the whole film. Rourke was amazing and having grown up in the high time of 80s pro-wrestling, I felt the nostalgia hard. Also, Marisa Tomei was amazing (and looked incredible...44, wtf!) I almost cried like three times during the movie which is a lot coming from me. Nothing makes me cry. Not even Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (okay, I think Sam was the only person who cried during that.)

I dunno, I don't write film reviews. But I just wanted to share. The movie was amazing. And if Mickey Rourke even just gets nominated for an Oscar, something will be very right with this world. It would be one of the most amazing pop culture moments ever.

Oh plus Todd Barry and Judah Friedlander are both in it.


Also, I freaked out when I saw this sign in the movie. I didn't know there was a pro wrestler called Necro Butcher and that Rourkes character was fighting the actual dude in the movie. I totally thought it was a Mayhem reference. Shows what kind of nerd I am.

Holidays Happen

And friends get excited. Here is my monthly look at my friends post:


Eggnog happens


Glen and his seasonal baja


Mama Ashley lookin' good.


Bad Santa


Why doesn't Glen look that happy when I sit on his lap?


I am an asshole. I did this to Paul.


Sad hippy


Lovely lady Jenny


Motorboating and chipped nail polish


Had J up against the wall at Enids


Brandi is a rager


Pete turned 30 at midnight


Pose hard retard


Pete turned 30 for real...this time in a tux


Model face


I know I promised not to blog this picture Angela, but I sort of love it


It looks like Randy is about to say, "Woman...please"


Redefining Battletits

Suicide Happened

And I was there. And Alan Vega touched my butt. Seriously. For like a whole minute. I didn't know what to do. He was being led off stage by security (there was a step and he was wearing his dark sunglasses. Brain stopped him to talk for a moment and tried to help him but Brain was also wearing shades. As he stumbled towards the step his hand found my ass and he used it to steady himself. Then his hand moved down a little further and he helped himself to a healthy grope. I didn't say or do anything. Does one really deny Alan Vega an ass grab? I wasn't sure how to respond after it happened, but I didn't have to. Eric came running up to me immediately after and said, "Oh my god, you totally just got groped. That was awesome!" Thanks Eric, that pretty much summed it up.

The Weapons played first:








Then the grizzled champions took the stage:




All the pics of Suicide look pretty similar. I wasn't willing to give up my prime view to get better angles.

Cable Vortex

I am housesitting for one of my favorite ladies, Jenny. Spending a lot of time with the kitty and back on the tv train again. Put hundreds of channels in front of me and I'll go directly to Bad Girls Club and whatever Real Housewives is on (although Orange County is totally boring compared with Atlanta.) I actually postponed my going out last night by an hour because I had to watch the finale of Rock of Love Charm School. And I actually had someone I was rooting for and for the first time in the history of reality television, my number 1 won.

I have my flute here and some books and I can't tear myself away from the tv. I think I've watched every episode of Bizarre Foods and No Reservations and am currently watching "bad girls" get wasted at a strip club competing at an amature strip night to pay their bills. One of them just talked about her tampon and another is prematurely naked and vomiting in a fishnet body suit. Nothing like getting alcohol poisoning on cable tv...not that Oxygen really counts...does anyone else but me pay attention to this shit? I could be finishing Balthazar and Blimunda or perfecting my scales but instead I'm watching two girls argue as to whether "my bad" is an acceptable substitute for "I'm sorry".

And now Tyra Banks is doing a special on shopping addiction. I'm so in. This makes me feel totally okay for spending $60 on two pairs of jeans, a vest, and a dress at Urban Outfitters even though I'm totally broke and my weekly unemployment didn't come through like it was supposed to today.

Where evil grows

I've had darkness and evil on my mind due to a story I've been working on. Someone asked me what it was about the other night and I couldn't really say. I guess the topic is good and evil. It's all based on one of the best things a man has ever said to me (and I've written this before,) "You may pride yourself in evil girl, but you've got too much good."

The southern gothic notion of being a bad seed is something I've flirted with in my writing but never a position I could accurately claim to occupy. It's the stuff of myths and songs, "You'll never stop doing bad things because you'll never stop being a bad seed/You don't grow up from evil and you don't grow out of sin." Tagging along with my manhood post I think about the man who told me I wasn't evil and claimed to be that mythic bad seen himself. Both conditions, evil and darkness, are difficult to navigate within the identity of a woman. They contradict the earth mother nurturer ideal I hold somewhat dear to my future dream incarnation. Perhaps my flirtations with darkness play a part in my hesitation to call myself a woman just yet. I am not quite sure how to negotiate anger.

I'm not launching into a tirade about gender oppression here, but I feel that anger is an emotion that woman have been robbed of until recently. And our anger so often only gets attention when it is politicized. I am more interested in the primal response, the emotion of anger. It has been one of the hardest emotions for me to show. While I am a reasonably emotional person, I'd often pride myself on my ability to control my temper. I'd push myself into a state of non-caring enough to never feel true anger. It resulted in me being overly tolerant of the way certain others treated me and somehow transformed me into a woman who both self-identified and was recognized by others as "strong" but had a severe hesitance and perhaps even inability to stand up for myself.

Not that I want to embrace the identity of the "angry woman." Lord knows we saw enough of that in the 90s. Instead of classifying my identity along one primary taboo emotion I'd rather be able to freely express a breadth of them, from anger to fear to love to nurturing. Of course it's only fair for me to be able to do the same. But I can't help feel a sense of jealousy about men being trained to express anger as a woman who was raised to suppress it. What is often mistaken as an unflappable quality, is really an inability to confront the things that really, honestly, just piss me off.

I am not championing unadulterated wrath in all directions. But just an occasional expression. When life presents you with a series of indignities it's okay to call bullshit. That's all.

I have no idea how I got from the difference between evil and darkness to gendered expressions of anger. It's 5:25 am and I am on a sleep schedule that is totally fucked. Tired and hungry is the equivalent of drunk for me, so pardon my posting, I'm both tired and hungry and can't handle a picture post right now. But at least currently I am not angry about much of anything, not that I'm repressed, just that life is okay for the time being.

And on this note, I'll leave you with my current theme song. The video is pretty anti-climactic, but the song shines.

Oh dear

My camera is broken. Fingers crossed on the extended warranty I purchased saving its life.
Weight Xmas party pictures and all sorts of good things coming soon once it's resuscitated.

Older picture post coming soon. I'm going to cry now.

Also I am cat sitting and dang, does anyone know what to do about cat farts? I'm dying here.

Woman? Whoa man.

This is something that has been tempting me for a long while...

To all the men in my life who can:
Change a tire
Put up a shelf
Win a fight
Play a mean hand of poker
Stand up for a lady
Catch a fish
Sharpen a knife
Throw a punch
Start a fire
Grill
Stay loyal
Toss a football
Fight a bear

Etc, etc (okay, maybe not the bear part...)
Thank you.

To the rest of you, please take off your flannel shirts and retire your cowboy boots. Just because you can grow a beard and throw on some plaid doesn't make you a man.

Okay, so this is the beginning of a long-standing rant about gender in my neck of the woods. We're at that age where we we aren't quite ready to be men and women yet but we can't be boys and girls anymore. We occupy that special middle-ground of chicks and dudes. It's functional, at least temporarily until we settle down. Lord knows I'm still trying to figure out what being a woman means after so many years hiding in bro-dom. So many city-dwelling ladies I know have the same end of raging days fantasy. Meet a fella, fall in love move outta town but still within reach of the city, get a house on a piece of land, get a big ole dog, and settle down with or without the eventual babies.

Surprisingly traditional, no? The older I get the more comfortable I become with traditional gender roles. When I was younger I would think my current behavior was selling out. I went seven years without shaving my legs or armpits, about four of those years not wearing deodorant (that's total, it went in phases.) Now I'm well groomed, my eyebrows are tweezed, my hair is long, and my nails finally painted and unbitten. The realities of aging have begun to set in. My body has started to change and so has my energy level. My wants and needs have metamorphosised and it's a scary prospect. Is this what growing up feels like?

Living here a lot of us fall into a prolonged state of adolescence. Thirties are the new twenties, so all the magazines say, but are we really just so youth oriented that we need to redefine what's young and what's old now? Are we lifting the standards for the age of accomplishment because we are afraid of not accomplishing things in time? Surely it's a good thing not to be expected to be married with kids before the age of thirty. Lord knows I doubt I will be, I'm 27 and don't have a boyfriend much less a prospective mate. But when do we start thinking of ourselves as men and women?

I told a friend the list I had in my head about the ideal man and he jokingly replied, "Who are you looking for, Tim Allen?" Home Improvement jokes aside, I sincerely hope the fact that I snuck in many an episode of Married with Children didn't somehow warp my brain into an attraction to the mythical men and their manly exploits. I doubt it. There is a distinction when gender is used as a tool to marginalize and when it is used as a form of expression. I would like to think I use my femininity as a mode of self-expression. My womanly ways are an essential part of my being and I don't want to be punished for them. I am not drawn to the No Ma'am mentality, where manhood is a boy's club, no girls allowed.

My parents raised me to be independent and to fend for myself, but at the same point, my mom did the cooking (except for taco night and grilling or smoking meats which was dad's role) and my dad did the eating. He watched sports and the History Channel while my mom played bridge and watched ER. He wrote academic articles and she painted Christmas ornaments. Had our family's financial situation been different she would have been a stay-at-home mom which was her dream when she first got married. That is not the life for me. However, growing up in Nebraska my childhood male friends became men who can re-tile a bathroom floor, rewire a light fixture, and drive trucks, they play in country or metal bands, are loyal to a fault drink hard, work harder, battle douchebags with MBAs on the weekends, and are artists at the same time. That's my model for manhood.

Here I feel like so many of us are floundering. The concept of drink hard, work harder has been switched. Or maybe it's just drink hard, work whenever. In a city where creativity is an industry it affords us the liberty of using our creative skills as a means to make a living but in the same manner it also enables us to spend most of the work day reading blogs or looking at videos on YouTube. And after 8 hours of semi-creative work too many of us come home and just want to drink instead of pursuing the passions that brought us here hopeful in the first place. We don't have the energy to be humans much less men and women. All we become are bodies on bar stools looking for other bodies with the desired set of holes or appendages.

People ask me why I don't try to write for fashion blogs or magazines and it's because, while I like clothing and dressing myself, ultimately I don't care about the magazines or the blogs. My heart wouldn't be in it and I don't want to compromise the one thing holy to me. And as a woman, is that what I'm supposed to have to write about? Fashion? I guess it has a broader appeal than just writing about myself, and I am sure you all are aware that this blog is primarily an exercise in self-indulgence. Thank you for reading by the way, I never thought anyone would.

I hate to think that adulthood is necessarily a negotiation of passion and reality. Maybe it is for some, but I hope that I can become an adult or rightfully call myself a woman (and I think I am almost there) without compromising my desires. Maybe that is what makes a woman and a man, not compromising desires. Reality isn't necessarily a buzz-kill. Sometimes reality can be everything you wanted it to be, or everything you needed without even realizing it. Or maybe I'm an optimist. Strangely I do have faith, something lacking around these parts. I can't think of the world as an entirely cold cruel place where you have to lie, cheat, and steal to survive. Maybe it's the Midwestern gal in me. Maybe I'm right and I'll get that house outside of the city with the big dog and a man who can do a few of the things on that list. Or maybe I'm wrong and life will give me a big old slap in the face. Do reality checks inherently have to be harsh?

Then again, I call this blog Reality No Show so who am I to talk.

Been slacking on this front

But my blog has seen some action (shh...it's a secret...I'm shy about this)

Serious Works

Hometown Tourist Part 2

As mentioned in the previous post, I like to treat everyday things in my hometown as an attraction. I get nostalgic for some things from my former midwestern life. Grocery shopping is a big one. The experience is so incredibly different in the city than it is back home. Maybe because while there are several large grocery stores, there really isn't a supermarket on par with those I grew up with anywhere accessible to me. There is one on Broadway near the Lorimer stop that comes close, but with it's open air fish section and gigantic selection of South American and Caribbean produce, it definitely smacks of Brooklyn.

I was lucky enough to visit my favorite mega supermarket grocery store, Super Saver twice on my trip home. The first was right after I got into town to pick up provisions for breakfast the next day and vegetables to go with the duck my dad and I were to roast. As I walked past the giant smoked meats display adorned with placards one in various categories of competition at the State Fair, I lamented that I had neglected to bring my camera inside. In the bakery I frantically searched for my favorite midwest supermarket staple, the maple frosted donut topped with chopped peanuts or at least filled with cream (and not of the bavarian variety, of the grainy white fluffy kind, so sweet it kind of burns your tongue.) Alas! The holidays had temporarily interfered with is space in the gleaming donut case in favor of vanilla iced donuts transformed with seasonal food coloring. Cameraless I still browsed as though at a museum, pointing and marvelling at the size and scope of the meat department, the warehouse-esque produce section, nearly as big as the Associated on Grand Street back in Brooklyn. I gawked and gasped and giggled at memories of foods not commonly found in New York. Sure, things like tahini and plantains are staples at any neighborhood bodega here, but do they have a deli case filled with Ambrosia and Strawberry Fluff salads? Does Key Food have a sample lady for chipped dried beef dip (dried beef in cream cheese) or house cured meat sticks, beer salami and pretzels with yellow cheddar cheese cubs next to the "exotic" flecked white cubes of pepper jack on display for you to sample? All staples of middle American picnic cuisine.

Thankfully we went back to pick up some last minute items and this time I was wise enough to bring my camera. As I walked around taking pictures I noticed all the employees noticing me. Unlike the mall where my picture taking was completely ignored in every store we went in, my snapping was causing somewhat of a frenzy of speculation from the staff. As seemingly no one normal would be taking pictures of their store, I saw a woman from the bakery staff point me out to her manager in wonderment. I guess "blogger" isn't a recognized past time to everyone yet and I sincerely hope they think I was a journalist not a terrorist. Regardless, I shied away from some amazing things because I was getting so stared at (I know, I'm a pussy.) I still regret missing the giant turkey made out of cupcakes, but I think I got a pretty good representation of how amazing Super Saver (motto, "We sell for less") really is.


Bulk candy and pinata display, perfection in merchandising




The biggest hot dog case I've ever seen


Champion meats








Patriotic beef jerky


Field of sausage


Holiday aisle


Cookies and cream = childhood dream

Men get ready...

This will be good. This will be fun. I'll be hanging out I'm sure.

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There really isn't anything else any of you should be wearing, now is there?

Omaha Mall Mecca

Living in New York you are constantly barraged with tourists who treat the streets and sidewalks of your daily life as an attraction. After a few years you get used to it (although the holiday season can be especially harrowing.) Pushing past those slow-walkers, remembering how you used to be one (that is, if like me and many others you are a transplant and not a native.) Cursing their inefficiency at the MetroCard machines, rolling your eyes and biting your tongue on the sales floor of Barneys when they ask what's the cheapest piece of Juicy Couture you have to sell them as a gift for their daughter back home. Okay, maybe that last one was just my regular hell. But I wasn't born here. Lord knows as a college freshman I was getting drunk at Bull McCabe's on St Marks place endlessly shopping at Trash and Vaudeville and Religious Sex (R.I.P.) I think first year New Yorkers qualify as extended tourists. There is the honeymoon interim period until the pacing of the city sets your heartrate pumping.

Every time I go home I seek out what used to be the most regular and mundane activities and locations. I am always supremely excited for that first hometown visit back to the grocery store, the supermarkets of my youth, warehouses of smoked meats and a hot-dog section 30 feet long. And, gasp, if there is a mall trip, I'll just about lose it. My sacred pilgrimage to everything mass-produced, Hot Topic, Pac Sun, Claires, Spencer's Gifts...it's a holy experience.

I like treating the lives of my tourists as an attraction. Relishing the sights that you can't see in New York but are everyday and mundane to locals. And of course, this being a blog, I make sure to bring a camera along the way.

The mall trip happened innocently enough. I drove to Omaha to visit my friend Kelley and spent the afternoon with her. Since I had no money and no agenda I accompianed her on some errands. We returned a few things to Kohls and then went to Von Maur at the Westroads Mall. This particular Von Maur was where 19 year old Robert Hawkins shot and killed 8 holiday shoppers and then himself a year ago today. Strange to be writing this on the anniversary, that was purely coincidental. I'd never been to that location and immediately my mind made the connection. And that was our entryway into the mall.

After Kelley found a suitable pair of jeans and I had texted Brendan as to my morbid location, we went deeper into the mall to browse. Kelley laughed and told me that I was treating the experience as if I was a tourist. I couldn't disagree as I entered Claires, camera in hand.







It was a wonderland of pink. The land of Hannah Montana pop tart dreams. I couldn't even scowl, I just looked around and thanked god the 'tween market hadn't been discovered when I was small because I would have wanted everything in it's walls. So much better than the Claires of my youth, land of free ear piercings with purchase of a starter kit. I think I actually got my second holes done in that very Claires in the Omaha mall when I was 10. It was also the first of many stores (all that we visited aside from Pac Sun) to have a Nightmare Before Christmas display. I had no idea that movie was still so marketable.





The fake hair section was probably my favorite. Although I was very disturbed by the mock Crocs.



But the most disturbing find in Claires and second most disturbing find of the entire day will have to go to the lip balm.



I mean...wow...uhh...eew? The next stop was Pac Sun. Everything was neon and ugly and while I took pictures the neon ugliness didn't really turn out, so let's skip to the glorious beacon of trash, Spencer's Gifts.



This is what greeted me as I walked in. It was the first of many disturbing Heath Ledger as the joker items I saw that day, but by far the creepiest. It's a facemask/hat hybrid. Allow me to demonstrate:



Honestly, I almost bought it. Just like I almost bought the Cheez-Its lip balm. But I had landed the day before with a single $20 bill and I had a goal of not breaking it (thanks mom and dad for feeding me btw!) Sorry Brendan, no Christmas gift for you this year.





Of course I obsessed over the black light posters. ICP, Scarface, Led Zepplin, all the classics. I took more pictures but unfortunately they didn't all turn out. I'm also sure no one else is as fascinated with pictures of fimo lightbulbs and boner coupons as I am, but let's just say I was giggling for about 30 minutes. Adult I know.

And of course, on the way out we saw the obligatory Nightmare display...



Once Spencer's was conquered we had one final destination. The holy grail of mall rats, Hot Topic. I was especially jazzed on this since I'd spent about two hours on IM the night before looking for emo or goth chatrooms with my friend Paul, so I was definitely in the mood for some serious wristband action. I was not disappointed.



Ahh! Seriously the bane of my existence, non-functional fingerless gloves and sweatbands! A whole rack of them, adorned with everything wrong, but oh so right. And speaking of fingerless gloves, any Atreyu fans out there?




No? Well how about these Linkin Park key covers? That get you hot?


Or how about a TMNT chain wallet? This was seriously one of the ugliest things I've seen...like...ever. There is no reason for it to exist. I have no idea why I feel so strongly about it but my eyes want to reject it. The photo doesn't do its hideousity justice.



The jewelry was even better than Claires. I almost bought a cheapo pair of feather earrings until I remembered that crisp $20 bill. But again, I was completely creeped out by another Heath Ledger item:



And really? Already? Damn.



On our way out, exiled from gothville we passed the "Urban" mall store with these amazing numbers, perfect clubwear for a classy night out.



And the one thing I regret not buying is the one thing that reminded me most of home (I'm sure it's available at the Fulton Mall)


Emeinem and 50 Sent? Cloth backpack? Who are those guys on the bottom of the bag? Why are most of them white? Oh and the btw whole 4th wall of the store was made of chain link fencing. Now that's hood.