Sunday, February 21, 2010

Epiphany #33

I just realized that for Snoop Dogg's whole life, wherever he goes, whatever he does, no matter what -- Snoop Dogg is there.

Emma Rathbone's Secrets To Blogging Success

Hi. I'm Emma Rathbone, and I co-run a blog called The Highlights. Now I'm going to share with you my secrets to blogging success.

1) Decide every month that it's time to start regularly updating the blog.

2) Have a really serious, plaintive, full-throated phone conversation with your best friend and blog co-author about this where you repeat like a hundred times that it would really be great to start updating the blog on a legitimately regular basis.

3) Make homemade cinnamon buns.

4) Go to Spain.

5) Watch Girl, Interrupted (you own it on DVD).

6) Brush your hair.

7) Join the "1,000,000 People Who Support Same Sex Marriage" group on Facebook.

8) Never update the blog.

Being Single Is Just Like The Movie SINGLES

I am a single woman living in New York City in the year 2010, and in fact, it is pretty much exactly like the Cameron Crowe movie SINGLES starring Kyra Sedgewick and Campbell Scott. First off, New York is just like Seattle. Whenever I go out it is either to a loft where a lesser-known grunge band is playing, or else to a laidback, divey coffee shop. And it is always raining, or at least, misting. I live in a duplex with a one-car garage, and I drive everywhere. Second: fashion. Yes, I do wear enormous sweaters, oversize blazers, and baggy, high-waisted jeans. Let's just say if it's not a little too big, I'm not gonna be caught single in it. And my hair is blown out, and I'm often caught tapping the steel toes of my doc martens along to the hum of R.E.M. in the background. Now let's get down to the brass tacks of being single, that is to say, dating. Dating is all about meeting people, which you can do through something called "Video Dating", or by making eye contact at a grunge show, or by meeting one of your neighbors in your duplex (they are all single as well). And then it's about getting through a few rueful, weary, wistful, baggy-shirted, we're supposed to be 25 but we dress like we're 40 encounters without doing it, and then finally doing it, with a condom, of course (hello, this is today's world!). And then it's about staying in touch. Which you do with the help of a chunky portable phone that's sitting at the coffee shop waiting for you to extend its antenna with your teeth as you and your friends debate whether it's better to have an act, or to have your act be that you don't have an act. On the whole, being single is a pretty banal, relaxing experience, rather preciously sectioned into brief episodes, with flashes of wit but a sad grime of cliche wiped over the whole thing. There isn't really any point to living through it; you might as well just watch the movie.