polyester princess

This is a post from Sweet Juniper!, one of my favorite blogs for the longest. It's written by Jim, the dad, who he used to be a lawyer and go by the pseudonym "Dutch". Now he's a Gentleman of Elegant Leisure and goes by his real name.

The mother of one of my daughter's friends asks, "Is she not supposed to play princess?"

I have never told my daughter she couldn't play princesses. We may have had a few conversations about how princesses aren't good role models, but I've NEVER said she couldn't pretend to be one. Apparently while playing at her friend's house, my daughter whispered, "My dad doesn't like princesses. He says they're lazy goodfornothings." Then she proceeded to pull one of those prefabricated princess gowns over her torso and said, "I'll just tell him I was being a fairy." This pleases me, because it shows she is beginning to understand that her highly-opinionated father can be quite difficult, though easily appeased by doing whatever it is he doesn't approve of once well out of sight. This will prove a useful skill as the years go on.

When told this happened, I felt a tinge of guilt. Then the other little girl stood up and said to my daughter, "I AM THE BEAUTIFUL PRINCESS. You must do my bidding. Go and fetch me the finest flower in the land." My daughter reacted with a look of incredulity that could only be translated as, "Fuck that, dude." Or, perhaps less crudely, "My father was right: princesses are bossy and not very nice." She refused the quest, and the princess sulked.

I looked down at them in their ill-fitting polyester costumes, stained with mulberry juice and globs of yoghurt. I could have delivered the coup de grâce right then: I could have pointed out that their threadbare, shoddily-made dresses of imitation satin and tulle made them look more like Courtney Love at the tail end of an Oxycontin binge than any representative of The Crown. But I didn't. As Benjamin Disraeli once said, Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel.

"Worry not, your Highness," I said, winking at my daughter. "I shall fetch my steed and deliver thee the loveliest dandelion in all Detroit."

a piece of advice

You will remember from school other students preventing you from seeing their answers by placing their arm around their exercise book or exam paper. It is the same at work, people are secretive with ideas. "Don’t tell them that, they’ll take credit for it." The problem with hoarding is that you end up living off your reserves. Eventually you’ll become stale. If you give away everything you have, you’re left with nothing. This forces you to look, to be aware, to replenish. Somehow, the more you give away, the more comes back to you. Ideas are open knowledge. Don’t claim ownership. They’re not your ideas anyway, they’re someone else’s. They are out there floating by on the ether. You just have to put yourself in a frame of mind to pick them up.

from "It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be", by Paul Arden, Saatchi & Saatchi Creative Director

i don't give a shit what your stripper name is

[via]

enough said.

we all do, honey...

[via the hilarious Aurea Mediocritas]

lies my mother told me

by Elizabeth Thomas

If you keep eating raw spaghetti
you'll get pinworms,
then I'll have to make
a necklace of garlic for you to wear
each night while you sleep,
until they go away.

If you're mean to your younger brother, I'll know
because I have a special eye
that spies on you when I'm not home.
You cannot hide from it,
so don't try.

If you touch your "down there"
any time other than when using the toilet,
your hand will turn green and fall off.

If you keep crossing your eyes
they will stay that way
until the wind
changes direction.

It is bad luck to kill a moth. Moths are
the souls of our ancestors and it just
might be Papa paying a visit.

If you kiss a boy on the mouth
your lips will stick together
and he'll use the opportunity
to suck out your brains.

If you ever lie to me
God will know
and rat you out.
And sometimes
God exaggerates.
Trust me —
you don't want that
to happen.

foreseeing

by Sharon Bryan

"Middle age refers more
to landscape than to time:
it's as if you'd reached

the top of a hill
and could see all the way
to the end of your life,

so you know without a doubt
that it has an end—
not that it will have,

but that it does have,
if only in outline—
so for the first time

you can see your life whole,
beginning and end not far
from where you stand,

the horizon in the distance—
the view makes you weep,
but it also has the beauty

of symmetry, like the earth
seen from space..."

Good to be bad sometimes.

her: OH, NO, YOU DIDN'T!
me: OH, YES, I DID.

back in Indianapolis

It's been absolutely amazing spending time with my friends again, after one and a half years apart. Abi, I missed you so much, I love you (I told you I'd say that here, didn't I? Surprise!) Ericka, Layla is mean and absolutely beautiful and adorable, just like her mama. I love you both, and I have the feeling that she kinda likes me, which makes me extra proud of myself. Kira, you're my sister, end of story. Jordin, I knew I'd love you. How can such a tiny girl have such a huge personality?

latest purchase

from Urban Outfitters

pop nihilism

"One such campaign, 'Whopper Sacrifice' – in which Facebook users were rewarded a free Whopper for deleting ten friends from their account, has been the most precise incidence of 'pop nihilism' to date. The underlying premise of the campaign was that the majority of one’s relationships are expendable, the Whopper serving as a material excuse to manifest this belief. The Whopper’s presence in the campaign was purely symbolic. The true appeal of the sacrifice was not the faux-nourishment of a hamburger, but for participants to relish in the misanthropic destruction of the social contract.

These campaigns are intentionally polemic – eliciting disgust in many, while others feel compelled to come to their defense. CP+B have torn a page right out of Ballyhoo in the sense that they aren’t selling hamburgers, they are selling the spectacle of advertising’s demise. Agencies who take this route and profit from its fleeting popularity will go down in history as advertising’s robber barons, those who cashed in on the medium’s social capital before it went bankrupt – signifying the moment advertising realized its own mortality and began to eat itself.

from Pop Nihilism: Advertising Eats Itself

this week's top 3

Thanks to the guys from "Massa Cultural" for featuring some of my work on their blog's Top#3 section. That was a nice surprise!

acting like they are seeing the beatles

[via]

i am my mother's daughter

It's scary how much I look like her sometimes.

lya

(sorry, portuguese this time)

É o fim do mundo
Lya Luft

Fui uma das primeiras meninas a usar calças jeans na minha pequena cidade. Uma de minhas avós, luterana fervorosa, embora fosse uma mulher culta, exclamou: "Isso é o fim do mundo!". Nem o mundo acabou nem deixaram de acontecer coisas bem mais esquisitas, a me recordar aquele episódio, que na hora achei muito engraçado.

Lembro-me dessa expressão com certa frequência. Por exemplo, quando uma criança de 6 anos serviu de atração num programa de TV, eventualmente chorando de medo, nervosismo ou cansaço. Ninguém interveio logo. Se levassem a um programa desses, semana após semana, um filhote de cachorro para fazer gracinhas, as sociedades protetoras dos animais já estariam reclamando. (Quem cuida dos humanos?) Finalmente, uma promotora impediu a criança de exercer esse "trabalho". Parabéns – e que não haja recurso.

Lembro-me de minha avó espantada quando assisto ao sofrimento de mulheres magras, muito magras, constantemente lutando para perder mais uns gramas, olhos ávidos da eterna dieta, sorriso forçado de automutiladoras. Para alegria de quem sempre foi fora do esquadro, leio (eu já sabia) que alguns já arriscam dizer que se pode ser saudável e feliz com algum sobrepeso. Não precisamos nos odiar, mas ser naturais, ser quem nos fez a mãe natureza. Porém, a nova onda é a gente se torturar, por falta ou excesso: a bunda pequena, o nariz grande, a barriga balofa, os peitos caídos, os bíceps insuficientes (o ralo QI não preocupa tanto). Aí nos matamos de fome, ou ostentamos um novo nariz estranho à estrutura do rosto em que foi metido, damos uma lipinho de presente de 14 anos a nossa filha. Nós mal conseguimos falar, com uma boca ginecológica, nada sensual. Um terço do nosso dia transcorremos suando e sofrendo muito além do recomendado em academias: não para ser saudáveis, mas para estar em forma, enquanto a alma passa uma fome danada e o tempo passa, a vida encolhe, nós nos desperdiçamos perseguindo modelos impossíveis e burros.

Minha avó acharia que o mundo está por acabar diante da confusão entre pessoa pública e propriedade do público: agora o normal é querer que o outro baixe até as calças da alma e mostre as feridas. Algumas chamadas celebridades parecem forçadas a anunciar o que fazem na cama, e com quem. Elas nem são "vistas" na rua, são "flagradas": o seu mero existir já é suspeito.

O mundo vai acabar, diria minha severa avó luterana, vendo que a política se troca por politicagem, o jogo de interesses infinitamente acima do bem do povo, a calúnia como ferramenta geral. Gente atirada como bicho (bicho, não, aí viria a defesa dos animais!) em pseudo-hospitais é fato menos comentado do que mosquitos, que podem trazer febre amarela (por isso pessoas assustadas e ignorantes matam saudáveis bugios no interior). Meu amigo atropelou um simpático tatu e quase pegou cadeia; se matasse uma pessoa, sendo réu primário aguardaria em liberdade. Viva o tatu. Abaixo as pessoas. Também se comenta que moradores de rua e pseudocolonos vão ganhar Bolsa Família. Quem ainda vai querer pegar na enxada ou lavar o chão de uma casinha?

O mais novo anúncio do fim do mundo pode ser a recomendação de fazermos xixi no banho. É questão ambiental? Enquanto for só xixi que nos recomendam, estamos salvos. Sou a favor de um ambientalismo sensato, que harmonize o convívio entre natureza e humanos, não dê mais atenção a baleias do que a crianças e aceite o progresso, fomente a educação e a higiene. A gente passa anos ensinando aos filhos: não façam xixi no banho nem na piscina. Xixi no chuveiro (e na banheira também?), sinto muito: aqui em casa, não.

Nesse cenário de absurdos, às vezes falta o botão para trocar de canal. Mas, se a menininha da televisão puder voltar a ser criança, os bugios da minha mata forem deixados em paz, os gordinhos não se sentirem os últimos da face da Terra, a gente não for multada por fazer xixi no vaso, quem sabe o fim do mundo ainda demore um pouco para chegar.

made my heart warm

[via]

bluegreen

I saw this over at my brother in law's blog and decided to copy and do mine.

The instructions say you're supposed to type your answers to the questions below on flickr's search box, choose one of the pictures on the first page of results, then create a mosaic.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What is your favorite color?
4. Favorite drink?
5. Dream vacation?
6. Favorite hobby?
7. What you want to be when you grow up?
8. What do you love most in life?
9. One word to describe you?

I dare you to find the answers to number 5, 7 and 9.

whoever said that blogs are dying...

needs to chill the fuck out. I ain't going nowhere.

28

I was rightfully accused today of neglecting this blog once again. The thing is there is just not enough time in a day to do all I've been trying to do lately and still maintain the decent amount of posts I used to.

So, to correct this absolutely awful scenario, here's my 28th birthday. Today! Yay me! How wonderful is it that I spent 7 years away and I get to come home and gather in one room all my old faithful friends and a few more who I'm growing to adore like family?

Turns out that the right mixture of the friends, family and Lexapro actually works wonders for me. I'm pretty damn happy.

jojo

I wrote Jojo a letter before she was even born. Now she's a big girl with her own personality, and she even knows how to play hide and seek with me on skype. Ask me how crazy I am about this little girl? Absolutely crazy.