Uncategorized

1. It is Halloween and I got two pieces accepted this week and Sierra got a great performance review because she’s rad and so far at my house we have watched Rosemary’s Baby and Psycho and tomorrow we are going to watch The Exorcist so I can continue to scare the pants off myself and yesterday I saw a leaf that was so pretty I carried it by the stem for four blocks and tonight I am going to have a beer or three with Marissa to celebrate the end of this good good month.

2. Sell the sofa, buy the desk: done and done. She’s here. She’s assembled (thanks Tom). And she is a beauty. Pictures to come once I get it all set up like I’m seven years old and playing office. I’ve got a jar for paperclips and everything.

3.  Carla Bruni Pandora, red nail polish, and a cold night.

4. Rachel comes next weekend! Rachel has been visiting me in Boston since 2003 so I try to mix it up a little when she is here.  Any suggestions for something fun + unusual? Last time we saw Ladysmith.

5. Oh hey that’s me she’s talking about in this interview.

In eighth grade we weren’t allowed to have a dance because like five years before us there were these two best girlfriends who liked the same boy and they somehow also inadvertently wore the same dress and one of them had boobs and the other one didn’t, and the boy wound up liking the one with boobs, because that’s just how the ball bounces (so to speak), and apparently the existential despair of the flat-chested girl was enough to put the kaibosh on not only the best-friendship, but half a decade’s worth of eighth grade dances, too. Mrs. N___ told us that.

Mrs. N___ told us a lot of things, weird stuff about vaudeville and how she dated Alan Alda in high school, and I never doubted her for a second but I don’t know if I believed that story even then–not because it sounds like an arbitrary reason to stop having dances (which it is, but I went to Catholic school and arbitrary doesn’t faze me one bit) but because how are you not going to know what your best friend is wearing to the eighth-grade dance ahead of time? “Well, Jesus,” I said, careless and profane in a smug, know-it-all, thirteen and a half kind of way. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

It occured to me this morning, halfway to my office and out of effing noplace and like getting the punchline a dozen years after the joke: Mrs. N___ was a) no idiot, and b) up in everybody’s business one hundred percent of the time. She told us that story with a motive. She meant it as a cautionary tale.

Because me and my very best friend in eighth grade? We liked the same boy, too.

Last night I roasted a bird, baked a loaf of Fancy Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread, and experimented with Ina’s brownie pudding which, I am sorry to report, was so chocolatey as to be almost disgusto. And I mean, this is coming from a girl who really likes her sweets.  The boys ate it up, but when it comes to spoonable chocolate desserts I think next time I’ll stick with Jaqi’s bread pudding, which is a perpetual favorite around these parts and doesn’t taste like a giant bowl full of ever-so-slightly-gritty batter.

*

Tom: “I really don’t understand your John Mayer thing. Your Adam Levine thing, I get. But John Mayer is gangly and weird-looking.”

Katie: “You get my Adam Levine thing?”

Tom (shrugging): “Adam Levine is a handsome man.”

*

Comfort Me with Apples: dishy and delicious. Take the Cannoli: boring as crap. Secrets of Eden: pleasantly plotty but ultimately strange and unsettling. Me and Orson Welles: so stupid not even Zefron in a wet t-shirt and 1930s suspenders could save it, though Sierra and I did enjoy shouting “Sonja is my LOVER!” over and over all the livelong day. Parenthood: always effing charming (question: were you a Hattie or an Amber in high school? I was a Hattie, obviously, but I think Amber is just so rad). The Good Wife: OH LORD SERIOUSLY, why are you not watching this kickass show, I love so much about the things that it chooses to be.

*

In Williams-Sonoma I saw a whole book about all the things you can cook using only your toaster oven. I thought that was just the oddest thing.

*

Text from my aunt from a hotel in Ft. Lauderdale, FL: “The Steelers are staying in this hotel. Rode in the elevator with 6 of them who were wearing their uniform tee shirts. I asked them where they were from? One of them said “Pittsburgh.” I asked them what’s going on and they said, “We’re playing the Dolphins.”

*

Tonight we’re carving a pumpkin and watching Rosemary’s Baby, which is something my parents used to do every Halloween. It feels weirdly important that I do it, too.



Dear Taylor Swift,

I really hope you didn’t whip off your purity ring as well as all your clothes for one John Mayer, like they are speculating over on Jezebel. That seems like bad decision-making of catastrophic proportions, even for someone as categorically insipid as you. At the very least, I hope he didn’t give you gonorrhea. You have my pity, and I wish you better sense in your future romantic endeavors.

Dear John Mayer,

I don’t know how long I can keep defending you, sir. I’m like that lady at Obama’s town meeting. What am I supposed to tell people now? It’s like you defiled Funshine Bear. And yes, all she  had to do was glance at a single back issue of US Weekly to see that you’re not the type to drop to the ground, pull out a ring, and say marry me, Juliet; still, you and I both know she’s not the kind of girl to do her research. Poor form, JM. Poor form.

Topsfield, MA, October 2010

“I’m tired of working for candidates who make me think that I should be embarrassed to believe what I believe, Sam. I’m tired of getting them elected. We all need some therapy, because somebody came along and said ‘liberal’ means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on Communism, soft on defense, and we’re gonna tax you back to the Stone Age because people shouldn’t have to go to work if they don’t want to!” And instead of saying, “Well, excuse me, you right-wing, reactionary, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun, Leave It To Beaver trip back to the Fifties…!”, we cowered in the corner, and said, “Please. Don’t. Hurt. Me.” No more. I really don’t care who’s right, who’s wrong. We’re both right. We’re both wrong. Let’s have two parties, huh? What do you say?”

(The West Wing)

Later I really am going to post some pictures of the Topsfield Fair.

“Life is short.  You normally eat three times a day, you probably cook a lot of meals in your life and sit there clanking around and taking lumps of your body off and like just being slow and rubbish.  Not good.”

(Jamie Oliver, on why it is important to have basic knife skills)

i like that it is cold outside and i have a big cup of coffee

1. The odd bite of parsnip in my chicken and barley soup

2. Courtney Cox and David Arquette being separated

3. How tight my jeans have become

4. That Marissa doesn’t think Baby and Johnny make it after the movie ends because they don’t have enough in common (ONLY THEIR LOVE FOR EACH OTHER, MARISSA, God.)

5. It costs $419 to fly to New York. $419!  That is $15.52 PER MINUTE.

Obviously these crises demand my immediate attention. Back tomorrow with pictures of the fair.

1. Oh HEY it’s a long weekend, and we are going to wring it out for all it is worth. A partial agenda: boot shopping, tourteau de chevre, a manicure/pedicure, drastic novel reconstruction, and the Topsfield Fair. Amy says maybe they have a bearded lady!

2. I was feeling like a really good girlfriend last night because I came home with a bagful of marshmallow pumpkins for Tom, except that when I walked in the door he was like “Oh here, I got you this watch because you got promoted at work.”  Which, I mean, I sort of did, but it wasn’t really a big deal, and definitely not the kind of thing that required a (badass, super cool, I cannot wait to wear it) congratulatory timepiece. (PS: Mike, if you’re reading this, I know you like stories about Tom being mushy, so consider this an engagement gift from me to you. Sorry that weird Boston water got you again last weekend.)

3. Last night was Italian Stallion Jersey Shore night at H&J’s, which meant lasagna, garlic bread, and two glorious hours of DJ Pauly D. I made Ina’s plum crunch with apples and pears which, while not Italian, was delicious with a giant ice cream mountain on top.

4. Taylor is reading this blog! Taylor and I were RAs together in college and I had a big girl crush on her because she was funny as shit and had great hair. She taught me about rolling down the hall in a laundry cart, only one of many small residence hall pleasures. Now she lives in LA and is fancy. What up, Taylor. I’m glad you’re here.

5. Jezebel says Dirty Dancing is the Greatest Movie of All Time, and any idiot knows you don’t argue with Jezebel.