December 2011
22 posts
“I’ve been struggling with using the word ‘carousel’ because I keep thinking ‘merry’ is the right word: merry-go-round. and I don’t want to sound too silly or pretentious about this, but, you know, I love being in Paris. I love working at Louis Vuitton. I love fashion. That’s why I do it. Nobody’s forcing me to do this. And nobody forces...
“What truth? You see where truth is and where untruth is, but I seem to have lost my sight and see nothing. You boldly settle all important questions, but tell me, dear, isn’t it because you’re young? Because you haven’t had time to suffer until you settled a single one of your questions? You boldly look forward… Isn’t it because you cannot foresee or expect...
It seems that every time I glance at a newstand this time of year, another magazine cover is trying to tell me how to live my life. This is true most of the year (see: Jessi’s awesome piece from The Hairpin), but, in January, the month of making and breaking resolutions, is gets even worse. It seems every airbrushed lady in Hollywood wants to help me make over my life, my face, my hair, my...
my great aunt: well, you’re an adult now! me: I’m a grad student. that’s several notches below adult.
Twenty one years ago, my grandparents bought a house in a southern Florida suburb and every December since then, my entire family on my mother’s side descends upon this house like a flock of chatty and extremely sporty locusts. It is a weeklong living and breathing...
Basically, I realized, I was living in that awful stage of life from the age of twenty-six to thirty-seven known as stupidity. It’s when you don’t know anything, not even as much as you did when you were younger, and you don’t even have a philosophy about all the things you don’t know, the way you did when you were twenty or would again when you were thirty-eight....
via email Mallory: you know what’s a great movie? “first wives club.” no idea why I’m watching it but damn if it isn’t entertaining. Jessi: AND DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO/ AND DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO SAYYYYYY All five of my top five favorite movies in 6th grade were that movie.
Dear Jessi,
Thank you for always understanding me, thank you for being the...
Drunk Brazilian
I got a drunk Brazilian today! I hope this doesn’t make you judge me, or think less of me as a woman. If it makes you feel better, I only get waxed as often as I can afford it, which on my current graduate school stipend, works out to about four times a year. (Meanwhile, if you are looking for a place to get your own drunk Brazilian, and you live in LA, check this out).
THAT SAID -...
You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship. Because here’s something else that’s true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of...
your twenties in song.
Meanwhile…. It’s a rip in the bustle and a rustle in the hay And I’ll pitch the quick fantastic, With flings of confetti and my petticoats away up high. It’s a very short way from the fling that’s for fun To the thigh pressing under the table. It’s a very short day till you’re stuck with just one Or it has to be done on the sly. In the meanwhile, ...
“Reading, conversation, environment, culture, heroes, mentors, nature – all are lottery tickets for creativity. Scratch away at them and you’ll find out how big a prize you’ve won.”
― Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life
(I can’t even begin to tell you how obsessed I am with this book and I’m not even done with it yet.)
-Mallory
Things I Have Been Told in Spin Class That I Am Beginning to Suspect Are Untrue: 1. I am strong. 2. I am sexy. 3. This is why I got up this morning. 4. If I can do this, I can do anything. 5. Nothing a little Britney Spears won’t help!
-Mallory
“February 18, 1969
Dear Mom,
It seems like you were just here. How did it go by so fast? Isn’t Woody hilarious? Did you really like the play? I couldn’t exactly tell. Woody does a lot of let’s just say unusual things onstage, things you wouldn’t think a person of his stature would do. Last night, in the middle of a scene, he started impersonating James Earl Jones...
me: Hi, I ordered three books online and I received two of the three, but instead of the third book, I got a different book that I didn’t order. Barnes & Noble help phone: You received three books you didn’t order? me: No, I ordered three books for adults and instead of three books for adults, I received two books for adults, the two books I ordered, and instead of the third book I...
“Reality is a sound, you have to tune in to it not just keep yelling.”
- Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red
Amid relentless talk about unemployment, little is said of the impact on the nation’s future of a generation convinced that the workplace has little use for it. This generation must regain its confidence if we are to remain the birthplace of ideas, products and services that shape the world.
True story, Robert W. Goldfarb.
-Mallory
Jessi & I are in finals… So apologies in advance for disappearing. But feel free to email us for advice, even on things we know nothing about like personal finances (ask your parents to look for your childhood piggy bank) and getting stains out of silk (don’t wear silk).
-Mallory
“I keep turning over new leaves, and spoiling them, as I used to spoil my copybooks; and I make so many beginnings there never will be an end.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
-Mallory
“People know what they want because they know what other people want.” - Theodor Adorno
-Mallory
This is one of my favorite days. I think probably because it is the grown up equivalent of getting those awesome Scholastic book club catalogs. Book Fair Day was always the best day of elementary school, which is probably why I currently live alone in an apartment strewn with newspapers and shoes (or, as I like to call it, Homeless Lady Chic).
-Mallory
Dear Mallory - This building on the Lower East Side sprouted wings yesterday and I took a picture of it and thought of you. May you too soon add wings to the half-finished refurbished skyscraper of your life.
Love,
-Jessi
no, but seriously: how not to do your twenties
A young New Yorker we’ll call Minerva McGonagall* was tired of dipping into her savings to keep up with her Manhattan lifestyle. Her $45k salary was not enough and she needed at least an extra $500 a month and sometimes $1,000 to pay her credit card bills and afford her $1,475 a month apartment in Murray Hill. Then she discovered Match.com– the perfect site for a broke...