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I have all of my best ideas while driving or in the shower and I start all my best projects around two or three in the morning. Granted, “best” is really up for debate here, since most of those ideas are just poop or dick jokes and the projects are just Google image searched images with transparent Helvetica slapped over them in Photoshop. THEY MAKE ME LAUGH ALRIGHT? I am my most important audience, for now and forever.
So, I was in the shower a couple of weeks ago thinking about Jesse Eisenberg, like I do, and I was like, DAMN, that kid’s like… a RAPSCALLION or some shit. Because he is! Google that face and tell me it doesn’t scream old-timey adjectives at you! If you can, you are LYING.
And so it kind of began with this dumb shit:
SCAMP, guys. Jesse Eisenberg is a SCAMP. He is ruined for me forever in the BEST WAY because I cannot look at him without thinking something Old Timey. RASCAL! RAPSCALLION! He’s like the sort of handsy son of a really wealthy southern oil baron guy who is charming and good looking and also RICH who is at least a little hesitant about groping you against your will, so he doesn’t really seem like a bad guy, just like maybe he had a drink or two too many and got REAL FRIENDLY so you just brush it off and giggle and say shit like, “Oh, dear, I had heard those rumors that you were QUITE the rapscallion and I do believe they’re true!” but really it sounds sort of sexy and delightful. And then he gropes you under your petticoats in a hallway. Something like that. OR WHATEVER.
I think this Old Timey Thing applies to Donald Glover too, but I have a harder time looking at pictures of him because they are like lightning directly to my genitals. SO ATTRACTIVE. I can’t deal with it. I just can’t.
But anyway, that dumb shit rapidly escalates into this dumb shit:
Kittens are a point of no return, right? I mean, really. There is no coming back from slapping text over the top of adorable kittens. There just isn’t. And then it just turns into transcribing your dumb tweets on pictures snagged from NASA and it’s over. It’s just all over.
SO: sometimes when I am having those brilliant thoughts late at night, my brain says, “YO BITCH SUBMIT SOME OF YOUR WRITING YO” and because it’s two in the fucking morning, I am like, “YEAH ALRIIIIIGHT.” And whatever, I’m hitting 50/50 acceptance to rejection at this point (because I don’t write almost ever unless it’s for fun, which means I have nothing to submit, which is a great excuse not to put yourself out there. FOOLPROOF.) so I don’t really care about the process. I come across a place that seems like they might take me, I submit, no big.
SO ANYWAY. I was reading a submission to the lit mag I work on at school and she mentioned another lit mag that I was unfamiliar with (This happens a lot. Generally, if someone mentions one, I haven’t heard of it.) so I checked it out, saw they had a nice selection of flash fiction and threw something their way. I logged it in my little submissions file (anal retentive, what what!) and put it in my calendar (redundancy!) and went about watching BBC comedies (Miranda) and forgot about it.
Guys, I am pretty sure I won the speed award for rejection turnaround tonight. Seriously. One hour and four minutes. ONE HOUR AND FOUR MINUTES. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. I submitted the story AFTER MIDNIGHT and had a rejection shortly after one. THAT IS SOME EFFICIENT LIT MAGGING.
Holy shit. I didn’t even have time to worry! I didn’t even have time to obsess and then forget about it entirely, which is my usual submission coping mechanism. And let me tell you, this was a much more awesome way to get rejected. I know the longer someone keeps your work, the closer you are to getting in. And that’s great! But instant gratification is always SO SATISFYING and it turns out it actually kind of applies to rejection!
I know part of my cavalier attitude is because I just didn’t care too much, you know? I have extremely low expectations when it comes to anything having to do with my writing (greeting cards and hilarious poop twitters aside) but there was something about that rapid response — like ripping off a band-aid maybe — that I don’t think I will soon forget.
Aaaaaaanyway, it turns out this is all just a long way to say that if you don’t remember Bonsai Kitties, you have not been on the internet long enough.
PS: For the like… two of you who read this BLAHG, would cutting my insanely long and stupid posts be helpful or irritating? I HATE cut posts because I read everything on GReader and am also incredibly lazy, but I am down to do whatevah whatevah because I live to serve, guys. I live to serve.
Day 4: What You Ate Today
I am not even going to address the inanity of writing about what I ate today because I was all, “FUCK YEAH, GONNA GET BACK TO BLOGGIN’. GONNA BE AWESOME.” and then I consulted the handy list of shit I need to write about and it was like, “Day 4: What you ate today, in great detail” and I was like, “Fucking, god damn, gonna have to give up on the 30 Day Meme on day four.” But no. Here we go. Gonna do this bitch.
We don’t have any decent food in the house right now and I just got back from Las Vegas yesterday where I ate a bunch of boss meals, so I was NOT digging the idea of having to make myself a sandwich. FUCK THAT. So basically I grazed on death food all day.
I had the following over the course of the day:
 candy
 wal-mart cupcakes
 pig in a shitty cornbread blanket
 chips
 crockpot pot roast — the bomb
I had so much sugar today that I sort of want to stab myself in the face repeatedly until a fountain of granulated sugar and frosting pour out of the holes where my eyeballs used to rest. Like, I don’t even LIKE CUPCAKES. But they were there and I was hungry and the rest is history. I am sure I will further regret the sugar consumption when I inevitably crash in a couple hours, but right now I am basically just at peace with my inability to just suck it up and make a sandwich.
I HATE MAKING SANDWICHES. I hate making sandwiches almost as much as I hate going to the bank. There’s the bread and the mayonnaise and the other shit that constitutes sandwich filling and I am supposed to arrange it into some sort of delicious and functional arrangement! That’s just too many pieces and too many tasks.
I don’t do jigsaw puzzles, I don’t make sandwiches. Life’s too short for that shit.
I know that I am terribly remiss on my 30 Days of Narcissism meme-thing and that I haven’t even posted in forever, but I just started back to school on Thursday and everything is insane and I just want to talk about today, okay, STOP NAGGING ME OKAY.
Today was really stupid and horrible. I almost got into a really bad car accident on my way home from school after already having a FUCKING terrible day and I had to get off the freeway and park in some bank parking lot and cry and have a panic attack and I just wanted to lay down on the fire-hot pavement and melt into nothingness.
When I say “I almost got into a really bad car accident” what I mean is, “I changed lanes several hundred feet in front of a dude who decided to change into the same lane after I was three-quarters of the way into it and he got REAL AGGRESSIVE about it and tailgated me and then flew back into his lane and slammed around me in a manner that clearly communicated that he was trying to hit me on purpose.” We could not have been more than six inches from a serious accident at 75 miles per hour and if I had not slammed on my brakes, it would’ve been… bad. It was by far the closest I have ever come to an accident WITHOUT ACTUALLY HAVING THE ACCIDENT.
He then flew across the next three lanes of traffic and cut off another guy to exit the freeway.
And it’s like, man, I get PISSED in the car. I yell at people! I am a twenty-five-year-old adult woman who rolls down her window and yells at people while giving them aggressive middle fingers. I get it. Driving sucks 90% of the time and everyone else sucks at it and it’s just awful. IT IS AWFUL. The personal vehicle is probably the worst thing to happen to any of us in the modern age.
But who has that much anger? Enough to INTENTIONALLY attempt to cause an accident while moving at almost 80 mph? When the person didn’t even wrong you? Who is that angry about their life? What happened to that guy in that black Tahoe to make him THAT FURIOUS? That kind of aggression baffles me. I don’t ever want to make other human beings feel unsafe and after that bullshit today I think I’m going to make that an even more prominent effort on my part.
That said, I could’ve easily punched AN ENTIRELY SEPARATE TAHOE DRIVER (WHAT IS IT WITH TAHOES?!) in the FACE. She parked so close to me that she was actually all the way into my parking stall (The kind with the double lines! THE KIND WITH THE BUILT IN SPACE. SERIOUSLY.) and I couldn’t get into my car and I am too fat/uncoordinated/drive too small a car to climb across and I just didn’t know what to do with my life.
And then she comes out and tries to do that sheepish TEEHEE thing and it’s like, “Look, bitch, I know we all have things to do, but you need to reevaluate your life and understand that it would’ve taken you FOUR SECONDS to re-park when you realized what a shit job you did. FUCK YOU.” Paris Hilton couldn’t have climbed into my car, she was parked so close. Fuck that.
There should be a comprehensive driving and parking exam required before you can own or operate any vehicle larger than a fucking SmartCar.
So I was really upset about the duel Tahoe incidences and I was frustrated with school and life and ALL THE THINGS THAT ARE WRONG WITH EVERYTHING EVER and I just got tired and frustrated and defeated. And for once, I started thinking about why things are the way they are and why I’m feeling all these inconvenient feelings and I thought about MYSELF and about OTHER PEOPLE.
And I think it comes down to figurative breathing.
I’m not asking for like, a social revolution where people start being considerate and thoughtful of one another. I know that is probably beyond the scope of our abilities as humans. I am just as entitled and self-centered and awful as most of the other people moving around on the surface of this planet. I YELL AT PEOPLE WHEN THEY DRIVE BAD. I am often unkind and impatient and self-absorbed. I recognize those things and I am going to try to practice what I preach.
I’m just looking for, I think, the tiniest iota of AWARENESS. Self-awareness or external-awareness or what-the-fuck-ever awareness. Just two seconds out of your life to be like, “Hey, I’m being a dick” or “God, maybe that lady just had a really awful day” or even just taking TWO SECONDS TO TAKE A DEEP BREATH.
I’m just asking for a little cool-down here, guys. A two-second version of counting to ten. A breath. Just one. For everyone’s sake, including your own.
I’m calling it the Two Second Breath and I’m going to start practicing it immediately.
Guy cuts me off? Two second breath. Rude cashier? Two second breath. Internet idiocy? Two second breath. Political frustration? Two second breath.
I spend so much of my life being reactionary and I just think it’s exhausting. Everything is instantaneous — email, texts, calls, television, youtube, all of this media and communication flying at us all day long — and we (I. I. I.) get so wrapped up in responding promptly that I’ve stopped thinking. I react, I don’t respond. And maybe I can’t always count to ten, maybe it’s too hard or too frustrating or too long, but I can always count to two. I can take a two second breath and respond competently and confidently.
I don’t want to kill anyone with kindness. I don’t want to fake my way through life. I don’t want to be conflict and confrontation free. But I do want to think, respond, and relax a little because being always on, all the time is finally catching up with me.
I want to take a whole lot of two second breaths.
I would like to point out that I almost immediately regretted not calling it the three second breath upon publishing the post. Hate even numbers? TWO SECOND BREATHING OUT OF MY ASSHOLE FOR DAYS.
AKA: A Bunch of Shit You Probably Don’t Even Want to Know!
So this is one of those internet questionnaires that probably went around in emails and then into the blog and online journal spheres until it became a narcissistic series of THIRTY POSTS that are supposed to reveal your ~true self~ to the internet. And since I am nothing if not a COMPLETE NARCISSIST, I’m doing it.
Day 1: Introduce Yourself
My name is Ash. I’m 25. I’m getting ready for my second and last year of grad school where I am trying to get an MFA in writing (fiction) and writing a book and being a reader for a pretty okay group of other writers.
These are the three most recent pictures taken of me, least to most recent:
The top and bottom were taken by my gf because she is obsessed with my hair and also putting things into my bun, like pens and flowers. The middle one is a self-portrait! Told you I was a narcissist.
I like all of the media things that I talk about: books, movies, tv shows, the internet, music, and comic books/graphic novels. I also like taking pictures of shit, but I think all of the conceptual/technical photography stuff is really, really boring. If I like a picture, I like a picture. Fuck your rule of thirds.
I’ve been writing since I was little and I spent all of third grade carrying around those black and white composition books where I wrote stories about the kids in my class then told them that I wrote stories about them, but wouldn’t show them the stories unless they did things for me and then always, 100% of the time, refused to show them anyway.
I was, and am, kind of a dick.
I am not a great or a dedicated writer. I have never been a devoted or hardworking person. Ever. I write because I like it and it comes easily and my basic number one goal in life is to never, ever have to work hard at anything.
My first novel is a young adult story and I love it even when it’s a huge fucking cunt that I want to punch in the face over and over again. I am pretty certain that young adult is really where I belong as a writer (and a reader!) so I am already looking at other MFA programs that specialize in YA/children’s lit to go to after I finish this program, since I am obviously not at all ready to try and be part of the real world.
Also, I have no marketable or useful skills to speak of. I have only ever taught and written for money. I am useless at everything else except for working at a video store, which I was great at! But is now totally obsolete as a career choice. God damn it.
I am really fat and loud and usually smart and funny. I am not into outdoor activities at all unless it’s going to Disneyland or walking from my car into a place of business. I am into fat acceptance and body positivity and feminism and equalism and gay rights and human rights and the general ability for awesomeness that I believe the human race probably does possess deep down inside somewhere under all the evil and body odor.
I’m an adamant atheist and I think religion is basically stupid. I don’t understand people who aren’t pro-choice or pro-gay marriage. Basically, I was born and raised in California.
I have absolute faith that there is intelligent life somewhere in the universe. I will absolutely punch you in the mouth if you somehow infer that believing in the statistical probability of aliens is comparable to believing in ghosts/werewolves/vampires/Jesus.
I live with my parents (fail!twenties, represent!) and my girlfriend and four dogs and two cats and we are all pretty awesome. I am close to my parents and my older (by nine years) sister. My family is really weird and one of my neighbor friends once said to me, “You guys are, like, really loud.” and she was totally 100% right. I don’t think she meant it as a compliment like we took it though.
I can be really rude and brash and obnoxious and because of these awesome personality defects, I have a really hard time making friends. The few I have are basically stuck with me whether they like it or not. I never know if the people around me actually like/tolerate me because I have a really hard time reading people and body language. I am also sort of bossy and demanding and I have unreachably high standards when it comes to public decorum. I AM A GREAT PERSON TO BE AROUND. CAN’T YOU TELL?! WHY DOESN’T EVERYONE LOVE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE?!
Basically, I have spent my entire life being incapable of keeping my mouth shut, completely unable to stop the torrential outpouring of verbal diarrhea that makes up my personality.
I am fucking awesome.
More narcissism here.
So, earlier this summer, I made a summer wishlist post with only one item on it — a god damn pool I NEVER GOT.
And it’s the second to last day of August now and the first draft of my book isn’t finished yet (I’m at 177 pages though, YEAH THAT IS RIGHT.) even though I set September 1st as my ABSOLUTE CONCRETE FINAL DEADLINE and I DO NOT WANT TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL but there’s still only one more thing on my summer wishlist:
FALL
Yeah, part two of my summer wishlist is for it to FUCKING BE OVER ALREADY. I don’t want to go back to school or have to leave the house for any reason other than Disneyland or hangs with the BFFs, but I am ready for my financial aid disbursement (I bought one gallon of gas today. ONE GALLON. Because that was LITERALLY all that I could afford. But at least I got that damn gallon.) and cooler weather and rain and for some other shit too, like:
STRAIGHT UP READY FOR SOME HALLOWEEN SHIT RIGHT NOW. Including:
And:
How fucking awful are these? I made a sexy/trashy/stereotypical Native American costume for the GayBFF last year that was better than that thing!
Also ready for these:
And always ready for some of these:
Fuck yeah, FALL CLOTHES! TACKY SWEATERZ 4 LYFE.
Anyway, yeah, ready for some cooler weather! And some changing leaves and stuff. I always envision fall like some glorious orange, yellow, and red spectacle of color and breezes! Like Disney’s Pocahontas painting with all the colors of the wind and shit except with grandma cardigans and jeans and flip flops because let’s get real, I live in southern California and I am not putting on real shoes unless it is absolutely necessary. Except for the part where I LIVE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, so the chasm between dream and reality is pretty monstrous.
 And also fall is starting RIGHT NOW. My bank parking lot was knee-high with leaves this weekend because the trees were like, “FUCK I AM TIRED OF HOLDING THIS SHIT UP. IS SUMMER EVER GOING TO END?!” and then got pissed and took a massive dump everywhere. Except it was a million degrees all last week, so it’s not red cable knit sweaters and running and high-kicking through the leaves and giggling, it’s stomping through sticky leaves basically barefoot in shorts and tank tops with sweat squirting out of your armpits like ejaculatory geysers. Fuck you, California, fuck you.
In spite of (or because of, it’s a razor-thin line) all of that, I am fucking ready for fall already. But it won’t come. We still have at least a month and a half of summer left, if not two full months. A month of which will involve my commute further east where it will be twenty to thirty degrees hotter than where I live! (MY LIFE IS GREAT! I AM SO EXCITED FOR SCHOOL TO START! CAN’T YOU TELL? AREN’T YOU SO JEALOUS?!) Which means that I will be going to class on 100 degree days and waiting for my eventual death from heatstroke. In October.
HOORAY FALL.
Anyway, all of that is really just to say, I fucking hate candy corn. Fuck that shit. If you like candy corn, our friendship is over. Get out. And take your fucking candy corn with you. Because it’s bullshit.
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