Funky Craft Fairs

I went to another hipstery craft fair this weekend and bought an adorable skirt I’d probably fail to accurately describe, but I want to mention that whenever I go to these fairs I want to buy one of everything and then I think No, I can make one of everything, and so I don’t buy one of everything and I get home and forget half of what the everything was but I try to put as many of the everythings on my to-do list, like reconstructed t-shirts and mod-podge switchplates and then they sit on my to-do list like pretty much everything else until I remember that a lot of what goes on my to-do list never happens and I should have probably bought at least a few of everything when I had the chance.

The Dollar Store

Ben and I went to The Dollar Store reading Friday night, which did not disappoint. (Check the link, if you’re unfamiliar with the concept.) I’ve only been a couple of times, but I’m beginning to conclude it’s a winner every time, and the thing that really struck me this time was that it’s just such a great writing exercise, proving that you can take any random weird thing and build a story around it. It’s just an ingeniously simple way to get pen to paper. Here’s a weird thing. Write a story about it. No rules. Go. I’m totally bummed that I didn’t think to mention it to my class, but I will get them to go to the next one, which will be featuring none other than the always-rockin’ Ms. Megan Stielstra and a plastic marijuana leaf necklace. Anyway, I particularly enjoyed Joe Tower’s hilariously over-the-top meta-meta-meta story about a state of Illinois commemorative plush fake beany baby, and Sean Gardner’s musings on a package of temporary tattoos (like a mace crushing a skull, in case you want to be perceived as menacing, “temporarily”). I also feel a particular need to mention that I am officially a big fan of Jonathan Messinger, whose writing is always both funny and lovely. Which, now that I’ve written it, also captures my impression of him as a person as well.

Exactly How Long Should I Be Waiting For My Overnight Success?

Because it’s been a little over twenty-four hours since I declared myself a celebrity, and yet my celebrity status still seems to be unrecognized. Wait, let me go down and see if they’ve delivered that pile of money I’ve been expecting. Dang.

I Am A Celebrity

Ben advised me against this experiment, but I wanted to poke a hole in his theory that if you declare yourself a celebrity, then you are one. On a certain level, his theory makes sense, to the extent that there are any number of celebrities, like Paris Hilton, let's just say, who appear to have become famous for nothing visible to the naked eye. Still, I don't think it's quite that simple. So I hereby declare myself a celebrity. Should we become rich and famous overnight due to our celebrity status, I promise to try to make it up to you in infinity thread count sheets and a coffee maker that doesn't require delicate placement of a spoon in order to function.

Why America's Next Top Model Is Good Clean Fun

Because you get to watch fake photo shoots where the coaches encourage the aspiring models with inspirations like, "Okay, you're scared - but pretty!" Oh yes. I know that feeling well. I am scared but pretty all the time.

Ok, Ew

Yet another reason I should probably switch servers. AOL's welcome screen welcomed me with this greeting today:

AOL NEWS: Python Eats Gator, Explodes

Ask And Ye Shall Receive?

Holy Cow, I didn't think Tom Cruise really read my blog, but this just in: Katie is pregnant. I was just asking for a little more crazy, Tom, nothing this big. Maybe a pet theory on guava juice as a cure for cancer or something? Anyway, shall we all start praying right now that Joey Potter never, ever gets anything remotely resembling postpartum?

I Must Be Dead Inside

Apparently the Lacheys have broken up for real. The main thing this brings up for me is the question, why do I care about the Federlines but not the Lacheys? Well, okay, I think it’s obvious. And maybe care is the wrong word. Fascinated is probably the one I should own up to, and I do know why, which my friend Bob (who sees it from the inside and has miraculously evaded the syndrome otherwise I’m sure we couldn’t be friends – he doesn’t even have a once-a-month housekeeper – and why? “Because I’m the kind of person who’d have to clean up before the housekeeper came.”) and I have been talking about for years. Which is that, with various exceptions, there is a level of fame at which point a corner is turned in terms of one’s relationship to reality, and although no one ever stops being a real person, there comes a time where the basic rules no longer apply, and for whatever reason I have yet to become bored or less fascinated by the myriad ways in which this manifests (for example, see Tod’s blog today for a post on a famous country singer no one’s ever heard of), and I truly believe that the very best of us are susceptible. Without a doubt, if I ever came into Pratesi-sheet-world, I would begin to wonder how I ever slept on our (two-hundred dollar-we-only-have-them-because-of-the-wedding-registry-anyway-totally-might-as-well-be-cashmere-Donna Karans), in spite of being one half of a couple that marvels at these sheets nightly, I know I am vulnerable to these things, and that if I could afford Pratesis I’m sure I would wonder how I ever slept on the sort of sandpaper Donna tried to pass off as high-end. I’ve said before that I like nice stuff, but it’s not just that even. I think what’s also around that corner are all kinds of erroneous beliefs about what constitutes acceptable – or even normal – behavior. Try to imagine me showing up at, let’s say, an awards dinner at the Chicago Public Library toting a chihuahua under my arm for an accessory. It just won’t fly. At least not until a few more than three people recognize my name. (But when that happens – I will for sure bring my baby Xena Warrior Princess Brandt, everywhere I go in a stretch Humvee stroller with a sidecar for the chihuahua.) I want to be loved. I just don’t think that massive numbers of people loving me entitles me to, well, anything. But I have entitlement issues. As in, I don’t feel. I’m working on that. Well, I think I’m entitled to what I have today, nothing more, nothing less. Of course I’d like more, cause that’s my nature, I just don’t expect it. But damned if I never seem to learn that the exact right scented candle will not complete my life.
Anyway, I’ve digressed quire far. I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore, frankly. But isn’t that why you’re here? The Federlines are just a coupla crazy kids doing what anyone would do in their position. But I swear I’m not even clear on what it is the Lacheys really even do outside of the magazines. (I know what Britney does, and I think we all know what Kevin does too.) Which I think brings up the only thing I might have to add to the speculation of the demise of the Lacheys. It has been on the cover of at least one magazine per week, it seems to me, that they were on the verge of splitting, and on a regular basis they have denied it every chance they’ve gotten. Which is to say many, many chances. These people are everywhere. And yet, here they are divorcing. And so what I wonder is, could this be the first marriage to break up because the tabloids made it so, even in a distantly related kind of way? Were they at home not believing each other saying No I was not flirting in Vegas and No I did not sleep with that jackass dude? Did they disagree about how to handle the tabloid thing? Did they figure the only way to get away from it was to divorce? As they pointed out on Gawker, I’m sure they’ll both start talking about it… as soon as they have something to publicize. But really, I’ll get as far as JESSICA TALKS! or NICK TALKS BACK!, and I’ll probably never find out, because like I said, I just don’t care. Which can only mean that I’m dead inside. Give me a reason to come back to life, Tom Cruise.

Who Would Win In A Fight, The Offspring Edition

Kal-el Cage with a cape or Apple Martin with a kryptonite binky?

Actually I think Pilot Inspektor Lee could probably whup both their asses unarmed.

Talk Amongst Yourselves

Here are a list of subjects I’m sort of in the mood to write about but haven’t got enough time.

1. Celine Dion. I missed her recent appearance on Larry King, since I don’t have cable, but I heard she was very upset about Katrina when she opened her TV, and that she very much wants to let the people touch the things because they have never touched the things, and they should go ahead and touch the things.

2. Teenagers serving life sentences for murdering people; I’m less sure about whether they should or shouldn’t, serve sentences, than I am in teenagers murdering people. What’s that all about?

3. Extreme Makeover: the lawsuits. One has something to do with a family allegedly ripping off the show somehow by not letting their adopted kids live there or something, the other has to do with a woman getting rejected from the show right before she was supposed to go in for surgery; it was not she who killed herself, but rather her sister for having said hateful things the producers allegedly coached her to say. Both of these cases seem tangential, and yet seem to be a cry for some sort of acknowledgment that these shows – the surgery edition much more so – have a lot of potential for disaster, above and beyond the obvious implications of you know, our obsessive focus on perfection and shit.

4. The Bob Dylan Movie, or:
Why I Just Now Realized I Wasn’t Meant to be A Rock Star, No, For Serious

5.Million Dollar Baby: what’s the big deal?

And one other thing I’m not interested in writing about, but am interested in:
Marcus vs. Franzen: Who would win in a fight?

Jonathan Franzen with an open firehose, or Ben Marcus with a used Prius?