pieces of me

Tuesday, nov. 17, 2009   |   0 comments

Happy Kirtsy Takes a Bow publishing release day, everybody! Can I tell you how happy-making it is to have some of my very own thinks nestled alongside the wonder words and photographs of so many talented lady internetsters? It appears I just did.

One hundred American thank yous to editor and friend Laura Mayes for pulling together such a smart and beautiful must-read, and for taking care of business oh so flashily, Elvis style. You sure did it!

Meanwhile, fine Mike from Red Choo Choo has wondered up a sleep position tee using Amelia Bauer‘s glorious illustrations from the good old Sleep book.

Here how good it looks like in action:

Read it, wear it, live it, my lovely manatees!

the annie and eric show

Friday, nov. 6, 2009   |   0 comments

Yeah, I guess we like Annie and Eric’s paintings and prints okay:

Either that, or we’re turning our house into a gallery dedicated to their work? That would explain all the cheap wine.

(Get your own affordable and frame-able slices of happy via my favorite Annie and Eric’s website, 3 Fish Studios!)

she cried mo, mo, MO!

Wednesday, oct. 8, 2008   |   0 comments

Do you live in Missouri? Do you know anyone who lives in Missouri? Do you suspect someone secretly lives in Missouri?

If yes, please tell yourself or your secretive friend to head over to the Missouri rosters at Project Vote (the love-child site of my big-brained, tender-hearted, and well-groomed friend Who Shall Remain Nameless) to make sure your/their name isn’t on the list of peoples who may think they’re registered to vote and yet who might not actually be registered to vote. (Due to problems, accidents, or general sinistery with applications, some people’s registration never went through!)

If you find a familiar name on the list, good news: There’s still a few hours to fix the problem! But you have to hop to it—the deadline for Missouri is the end of day today, October 8, so now’s your chance!

PSSS: Pass it on!

one is silver, the other gold: part two

Thursday, jul. 24, 2008   |   0 comments

When last we spoke, I was telling you about my rambling, scrambling ten-or-so previous days, and I’d made it as far as last Monday. And so:

Tuesday: Party-favor stuffing at Maggie’s house!
Now this was a really fun day. First of all, I finally got to pat the in-the-flesh pattables of the beautiful and hilarious Alice of Finslippy and the perfectly toothed Melissa of Suburban Bliss (is it possible to have a crush on someone’s mouth?), which right there makes for a Dear-Diary-caliber day. But then you add on special toppings like Bryan mixing Glass Houses (and even going so far as to walk to the store to purchase more vodka, wow), endless Thai food, relaxed catch-up time with both Ally and Maggie, and—the cherry on top—Hank’s perfect cheeks, and suddenly you’ve got yourself a metaphorical sundae of epic greatness. On a Tuesday!

Pill popping in preparation for the Mighty Haus launch party.

Each gift box was ingeniously furnished with two doses of hangover relief.

Wednesday: So You Think You Can Dance…Dance…Dance
Yes, on Wednesday Marco and I stayed home and sat on our dog-haired couch, eating cereal for dinner and watching the best season of the best reality show on our gigantic black hole Death Star television. That’s right.

Thursday: Insecurity, perverts, and grilled cheese
Thursday got off to kind of a rocky start when I walked into the party for all the BloghHer speakers, wandered the circumference of the room, realized I knew no one, and was promptly blindsided by a wave of social anxiety the likes of which I’ve rarely (never? ever?) experienced. I tried to quash the discomfort with alcohol, a trusted friend which, when applied orally, typically brings on the happy, but it didn’t even dent my feelings of intense dorkwardness.

A nice woman (whose name I completely forget, such was my panic…I’m sorry nice woman!) came up and chatted with me and my social anxiety for awhile, but I still keenly felt the sting of my inability to gel with the partygoers as a whole. Finally I noticed someone whom I sort of recognized, so I took a big sip of booze and lurched at her with a, “Don’t I know you? Don’t you have…twins? I think?” Of course she turned out to be Stephanie of Greek Tragedy, who is hugely famous in an online web diary sort of way? Or something? Enough so that she was actually lined up for the closing night Keynote about “Living the Truman Show”? I know nothing.

At that point, my first nice woman friend left the party, and Stephanie and I were left to chat about the recent release of her third book (!), and how maybe it was going to be made into a movie (!), and how the actual Amy Sedaris had actually just called to chat about actually being in said movie (!). And I…told her how I like to take photos of my outfits.

I had these outfit cards Moo-ed out for the conference, pretty much the best $20 I’ve ever spent.

Throughout our conversation, Stephanie super-nicely smiled and nodded and asked interesting questions, all of which I, in my self-cringing state, interpreted as just polite tolerance. But I’ve since read that she felt equally outsidered at some of the BlogHer events, which has prompted some real “isn’t life funny, etc.” thinking over here in my head. Huh!

Stephanie also later revealed (in her Keynote talk on Saturday night) that she’s not really a big laugher in person. And really, nothing throws Nutty Confessor me more than a non-laugher. I always think the reason the person isn’t laughing at my self-defecating and neurotic comments is that they don’t realize I’m (kind of) kidding and they’re trying to spare my feelings, and so I EXAGGERATE even more in an effort to make it clear that I don’t really, truly believe what I’m saying. And then, when I STILL don’t get the chuckle-release I’m waiting for, I just start talking faster and waving my arms around and opening my eyes wide and sweating and tap-dancing. Poor Stephanie!

(She actually bought one of my books later in the conference and then voluntarily came up and asked me to sign it, so at least she doesn’t seem to be actively pursuing a restraining order in my direction, which I consider a small yay.)

Anyway, anyway, anyway. Once my word storm on Stephanie finally ran dry, me and my feelings of self-craziness scampered off to grab my coat and remove myself from Dodge before I could take another hostage. But as I was walking out the door I found myself pulled into the attractor-beam that is the supermodel eyeballs of Kelly from Mocha Momma, whom I fell in love with instantly. And then I met Kelly’s wildly together daughter, Mallory (oh to have been that wise and poised at her age…or even at my age), and before I knew it, another hour had passed and all my social weirdness had totally evaporated. (Wow, just look at all this typing. Is anybody still reading this?)

Liz and our Awesome New Friend Lisa, sipping drinks on Gawker’s dime.

By then I was late for my next engagement, and so quickquick I lurched over to the Otis bar on Maiden Lane to join Liz for a Gawker-financed drink to celebrate her triumphant appearance on a panel at the PSFK conference. Due to the phenomenon of free drinks, the place was packed well beyond my capacity as a 38-old, so I hovered in the corner with our Awesome New Friend Lisa and drank whatever drinks that this weirdo guy, an asshole-obsessed asshole who was trying very hard to get with Liz, brought to us. The man was not the greatest, but the drinks he procured sure were. And they totally worked! After about an hour I was too liquored up to weather the cramped, crowded cement hole that is Otis, so Liz and I snuck ourselves away from the Ass Man and she walked me back to the BlogHer hotel, where…

…I was immediately overwhelmed with a whole parade of Ladies on My List of Want-to-Meets, including (but not limited to): Sarah of Que Sera Sera, Eden of Fussy, Whitney of Ugly Green Chair, Antonia of Whoopee, Leah of LeahPeah…just like that. Bam, bam, bam! Rat, tat, tat! After a flurry of hugs and business cards (so many business cards), we all decided that we were in dire need of food, and so we turned to the place that so many San Franciscans turn to when it’s after ten and that grilled-cheese sort of hunger strikes: Sparky’s.

Eden, Maggie, and Sarah say “blog.”

Friday: In which I stand up in front of hundreds of people and say “Wow”
So on Friday I cut out of work early and hustled over to the St. Francis ballroom, home to the BlogHer opening Community Keynote in which I was scheduled to read a short entry I wrote for this very website. After many, many talented women and even a smattering of men had their turn at the mic (I laughed, I cried!), it was time for shaky and profoundly sober me to get on up there. I went directly after the mythical Jenny of The Bloggess, who had been back stage sipping from airplane bottles of Disaronno. Jenny loose-cannoned out onto stage and, clutching the curtain for balance, announced that she was wearing her “confidence wig” because of her “anxiety disorder” and then she warned us that she was going to be saying “cunt” a lot, and then she said something about her “riot gun” (I think?) and threw her hands up in the air and yelled “NRA!” And I, from my warm-up spot just off stage, started to get very worried that she was going to go completely off the rails of her crazy train. But! Somehow, someway she managed to bring it all home and proceeded to tell the all-time funniest story about oral surgery that I’ve ever had the pleasure of. Truth! She brought the house down and was pretty much the funniest read of the night. And so, it was into that vacuum that I tiptoed out into the spotlight and, looking offstage at Jenny’s teetering retreat, summed up my shellshock with a small, whispered “Wow.”

After the reading, we went over to Ruby Skye for chicken pot pies and raw-chicken pasta. And then, lickety splickety, the great Sarah and I cabbed over to the Mighty Haus party, the big kick-off housewarming for the spanking-new Might Haus site, brought to you by the mighty Maggie and the bliss-making Melissa. And it was a truly epic party. It was. I learned how to sip wine out of a cracked cup (tip: drink fast). I “Push[ed] It” all over the dance floor. My new favorite Zan of A Cup of Tea and a Wheat Penny may or may not have cupped my ass. Marco talked jacket fashion and practiced fancy handshakes with Zan’s Jonathan. Heather of Dooce and I exchanged shouts of “So nice to finally meet you!” The beautiful Holly of Nothing But Bonfires and I talked The Knowledge. And…and…AND I got to take home my own antique key necklace and aspirin and a DOUGHNUT!

Me, wearing my key to the Haus party.

And here, as I stumble home from the best party of 2008 with sore feet and high-heels in hand, I will leave you to give my story-fingers another break. Tune in tomorrow-ish for Part Three of the tale, in which a microphone is attached to my clothing.

q.e.d.

Tuesday, jun. 24, 2008   |   0 comments

Evany: I think that’s actually one of my best qualities, my willingness to laugh at my shortcomings.
Liz: Well, first you get offended, and then we tease you, and then you see how funny it is.
Evany: [Momentarily offended, and then] laughs and laughs.