Before Haruki Murakami was a novelist (I would argue one of the greatest novelists of our time) he owned a jazz club in Tokyo called “Peter-Cat” or “Peter-Cat Jazz“. It was named after his cat. Although the club is no longer there, Keith and I thought it would be fun to make a t-shirt for it. Here is our design:
Working on getting some shirts printed up.
On the first day of Christmas, my human gave to me…
A fat squirrel in a small tree.
On the second day of Christmas, my human gave to me…
Two hunks of cheese
And a fat squirrel in a small tree.
On the third day of Christmas, my human gave to me…
Three cat turds
Two hunks of cheese
And a fat squirrel in a small tree.
On the fourth day of Christmas, my human gave to me…
Four falling pizzas
Three cat turds
Two hunks of cheese
And a fat squirrel in a small tree.
On the fifth day of Christmas, my human gave to me…
FIVE GOL-DEN FRIES!!!
Four falling pizzas
Three cat turds
Two hunks of cheese
And a fat squirrel in a small tree.
On the sixth day of Christmas, my human gave to me…
Six scrambled eggs
FIVE GOL-DEN fries
Four falling pizzas
Three cat turds
Two hunks of cheese
And a fat squirrel in a small tree…
Oh, the agony of trying to draw Hitchcock. You can’t see it here, but there were practically holes in the paper from erasing.
Hitchcock, our third biopic this week about someone famous + dead, tells the story of “the influential filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock and wife Alma Reville during the filming of Psycho in 1959.”
While the study of the relationship between Hitchcock and his wife is probably highly entertaining, I think the real reason for the entire movie was so that they could cast Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh in Psycho and get her in that shower scene. That’s got Maxim Magazine cover written all over it.
Also, I’ve read that the Hitchcock and Alma relationship is surface at best – no dark demons here. There is another Hitchcock biopic out on HBO called The Girl (didn’t something like this happen with two Truman Capote biopics at the same time a number of years ago – both of them regrettably forgettable?), which movie critic Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune says is about the harassing relationship between Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren during the two films following Psycho: The Birds and Marnie. It’s a lot darker than Hitchcock, so if you’re looking for dirt, plan on watching The Girl.
Or wait for my scathing, no-hold-barred biopic about the making of Vertigo and Hitchcock’s inappropriate, Svengali-like relationship with Jimmy Stewart.
Number 2 on my list of biopics to see this fall: Lincoln!
This one speaks for itself – or has already been spoken of enough by others that, if you are at all inclined to see a 2 hour and 20 minute film about Lincoln, you would at least be aware that it was released. If it needed a harder sell in the first place, Spielberg wouldn’t have called his movie just Lincoln. He would had to have found another title to enthrall us. Guess What Happened in 1865? or Back When Things Were Less Cool Than They Are Now or Patriotism Unveiled.
Really, I just wanted to draw a picture of Lincoln. But I did see this movie over Thanksgiving weekend and I gave it a “B.” Daniel Day Lewis will of course take home an Oscar but I wanted him to turn that folksy dial down just a few notches. I haven’t seen that much walking around with a blanket wrapped around one’s shoulders since the days of Newlyweds with Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey.
But still… Lincoln!
P.S. If you’re a Mary Todd Lincoln fan, I invite you to read my post about her from back when I was examining the First Ladies and their cookery.
This fall there are plenty of docs and biopics to see if you want to learn more about famous, beloved, dead people. This week I’ll highlight five, kicking off with my personal fave, Diana Vreeland.
The documentary Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel is about the iconic editor-in-chief of Vogue who was actually so much more. Made by a filmmaker who married one of Vreeland’s grandsons, the film is billed as an “intimate portrait” and celebration of her life and legacy.
Official Synopsis: During Diana Vreeland’s fifty year reign as the “Empress of Fashion,†she launched Twiggy, advised Jackie Onassis, and established countless trends that have withstood the test of time. She was the fashion editor of Harper’s Bazaar where she worked for twenty-five years before becoming editor-in-chief ofVogue, followed by a remarkable stint at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, where she helped popularize its historical collections.
Awesome Stuff: She worked hard and established herself in an era when it was more common for a woman not to work and not to be able to rise to such a position of power.
She started the trend of wearing bright red nail polish, which I believe she called “laquer”
She said many cool things, one of which I have posted over my desk: “I’m looking for the suggestion of a thing I’ve never seen before.”
In photos, her clothing and jewelry look as fresh as they did 50 years ago. She had a living room that was all red. She was no great beauty and it didn’t matter – as it shouldn’t for any of us – what mattered was her style and her eye.
She had a gift for giving the people what they didn’t even know they wanted – before the rest of the world had even imagined it, Vreeland was capturing it and putting it in her magazines. For many years, she was the zeitgeist.
If you want to read more about D.V., here’s a post I wrote about her in 2011.
Who should go: Anyone who loves history, fashion and who welcomes an opportunity to learn more about an influential woman in American history. If you don’t think clothes matter, or that style matters, maybe this will open up some doors that have been closed for you. As we all know, the eye takes in the true story – what message are you sending out?
To see photos of Vreeland, go to dianavreeland.com.
for keith
* To the tune of “Skyfall” by Adele.
Oh, Monday, she’s such a bitch. She comes around and ruins everything once a week.
I hate her.
But, well… without her there would be no real beginning to the week. I do like a little bit of structure.
And it’s good to have a nemesis. It gives you something to rise up against. To push back on. To say, “You’ll never destroy me!” to.
How to get through a Monday? Sit down and collect your thoughts. Then proceed very slowly. Pace yourself – there is an entire week sprawling out before you. No need to be hasty or get too much done at one time. Check e-mail. Check your favorite websites. Do little tasks – pay a bill, dust off a shelf, return that pair of shoes you don’t really like.
Oh, look, it’s lunchtime.
In the afternoon, do one thing that you’ve been avoiding in your life or in your work. One task that you put off for all of the previous week, even on Friday when you actually had time but didn’t do it because it was Friday, practically the weekend, and why should you do something icky when it’s practically the weekend?
Then you’re done for the day. Coast on through. Go home. Don’t watch too much TV, or any at all.
Without you even realizing it, (because if you’re lucky you are fast asleep), the best part of Monday will arrive: 11:59 pm.
Hello, Tuesday.
You’ve seen them. We’ve ALL seen them. They bring forth in us, depending upon our outlook and motives, either outrage or appreciation. Sometimes we put them down but we all know that, no matter what, they aren’t going home alone on Halloween night.
It’s the Sexy Ladies of Halloween. Women who can turn any costume into a wonder of titillation.
Not all of us have that ability, you know. We don’t have the body or the will or the drive. Some of us would maintain that we don’t have the cheapness, the sluttiness, required to take part in such a thing.
My days of slutty Halloween-ness are long gone. Let me amend that – my day of slutty Halloween. For I only attempted sexy once, as a freshman in college, when I went as a hooker and my then-boyfriend went as a pimp. I know. They took away my Take Back the Night card for that one. I never, ever mentioned it in any of my Women’s Studies classes. Don’t ask, don’t tell, was the sexy Halloween policy back then.
But now it’s rampant. “When did sexy Halloween costumes become a thing?” Keith asked me the other day. “It seems like there was a time when that wasn’t the case.”
I’ll tell you the very first time I realized that Halloween costumes could be sexy. It was while watching E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. In the Halloween scenes the mom, played by Dee Wallace, dresses up as a sexy cat. And when I say “sexy” by today’s standards it was actually very demure. She’d be shunned at the club for dressing “all Amish and shit.” But, yeah, I thought she looked kinda hot.
My friend JoEllen has a tumblr called Miss Guised that pays “homage” to sexy Halloween costumes. Each day  this month, she’s posted yet another ridiculous sexy costume, from Sexy Sriracha Sauce to a sexy highlighter pen – she’s truly found the best of the worst. Go take a look if you need some sexy inspiration – I think you’ll find that if you can’t think of a sexy costume, you’re just not trying hard enough.
As for me, I’m struggling (yet again) to come up with any costume, let alone a sexy one. But whatever I come up with I’m pretty sure I’ll be fully clothed. Just call my Sexy Otter.
I’ve shared my portrait of Bob Ross before but I want to revisit him today.
I’ve been in a weird sleeping pattern lately. I go to sleep easily only to wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning, wide awake and thinking. It’s the low-quality thinking, repetitive, that accomplishes nothing. I’m certainly not solving anything.
But it’s hard to break the thought cycle on your own, especially at that time of night.
So I’ve been trying to think of things to help me get back to sleep. Suddenly I remembered Bob Ross because of his voice. He had one of the calmest voices I’ve ever heard. I thought, “If I could listen to Bob Ross in the dark, I could fall back asleep.”
I finally got around to Googling “Bob Ross mp3” tonight.
BINGO.
Someone in the world is super awesome. Because they put up free mp3s of a full season of Bob Ross’s Joy of Painting TV show right here. I’m listening to an episode called “Blue Winter” now.
So if you’re ever having one of those nights, embrace Bob. Put on the headphones and lie back. He’s no longer physically with us but he’s so with us.
Happy little clouds this Friday.
I’ve noticed that many successful blogs are built upon whimsy.
If you know me, or even if you’ve read some of these posts, I’m not very whimsical.
I would not, for example, bite the pattern of a heart into an apple and then cup it in my hands and take a photo of it to post here.
I don’t have any cute kids I can press into blogging service.
I could take photos of delicious food, or show you how I delicately dab butter onto my pastry dough with a pastry brush. If only I had a brush. And some dough.
I’m not obsessed with the color turquoise or white (which, when I was in school, was not even a color.)
I don’t even enjoy coffee, so I can’t whip up a late and draw a picture in the foam (another heart?) for you to enjoy with the caption “I love love”.
Hell, I don’t even live each day in the moment. Like a lot of humans, I’m usually living in the past or contemplating a fantastic, fanciful future.
So. Here. Here is the whimsy I can give – a drawing of an elephant driving a car that may or may not be a Mini Cooper convertible.
Ta da!
I drew these sketches of woodland animals over the weekend and then it occurred to me that they all have a very deadpan, It’s-Monday-morning-I’m-so-over-it expression on their faces.
FOXY
SQUIRREL
RABBIT
RACCOON
The best thing I got on our recent trip to NYC was a belt purchased at the Brooklyn Flea.
I saw it sitting on a table and grabbed it in one of those “this is totally mine” moments. Â The buckle and the decorative front piece are made of brass and the belt part is worn brown leather. Someone wore the hell out of this belt already.
Actually, I know who had this belt, at least for awhile. On the inside, in marker, it says “C. Ramirez.”
I could have stayed at the Brooklyn Flea for an entire day, looking at all the clothes (I also got a skirt). The prices were “meh” – you’re not going to find great deals here – but duh.
What I didn’t enjoy so much were the overflowing Port-O-Pots. An old man opened the door to one, looked inside and walked away shaking his head. I really had to pee so I went in holding my breath and keeping my eyes level with the door.
Still, my cool belt is worth a minute of crouching over a pile of shit.
My belt raised security concerns on the way home. It was in my suitcase but the pointed and crossed brass horns raised the alert and my suitcase had to be searched, the belt extracted and run through the x-ray on it’s own, to make sure the horns weren’t really poison daggers or knives or tiny guns.
Which needs to be in a Bond movie.
Yesterday morning I went into our basement and saw a big centipede but I didn’t kill it because I couldn’t deal.
Yesterday afternoon I went back down there and the same centipede was hanging out on a ledge. He did not run away when I turned on the light and came down. He moved his legs (antennae? who can tell) like he was waving hello. Then he watched me feed the cat and clean out the cat’s box. Like we’re friends or something.
Centipede’s are disgusting. Grosser than millipedes. Plus, I read once that centipede’s can bite. It won’t hurt very much but imagining something like that chomping on me makes me uncomfortable.
When centipede’s reach a certain size, they get a swagger. They think they’re Big Bug on Campus and don’t have to worry. About anything. I wonder if centipedes and spiders ever get into epic battles, like giant squids and sperm whales.
One time I was working at the computer in the basement of our last place. I was alone down there but I suddenly had the feeling that I was being watched. It was the weirdest thing. There were those little basement half-windows and I kept looking up at the one over my desk, thinking I’d catch someone peering in.
Then I looked down at my feet and saw a big centipede  along with a beetle friend.
They were both watching me. It nervous-making. I don’t think bugs should take up so much space that you can sense their presence without them making a sound.
“We realize that all the ways we’ve kept ourselves asleep have led nowhere.” – Sakyong Mipham
When I first tried to sit down and draw something again, since not trying to draw anything since high school, I drew a statue of the Buddha that I have. Drawing it just made me very happy.
I have some books, many of them with a Buddhist bent,  that I always turn to in times of trouble or depression or even just moments of feeling lost. Suddenly, while looking at my bookshelf, it occurred to me that I should share some of that list here, with the idea that we’re all looking for good books that can serve as a guide when things get rough or even if it’s just a particularly bad day.
Turning the Mind Into an Ally – Sakyong Mipham
Running With the Mind of Meditation – also by Mipham
The Not So Big Life – Sarah Susanka
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running – Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – also by Murakami
A Buddha Walks into a Bar – Â A Guide to Life for a New Generation – Lodro Rinzler
The 6.5 Practices of Moderately Successful Poets: A Self-Help Memoir – Jeffrey Skinner (I just discovered this and it’s a fantastic book – if you’re not a poet, like me, Â just put in a different word for whatever kind of art or venture you’re engaged with and it still all makes sense.)
Just Kids – Patti Smith
The Freedom Manifesto – Tom Hodgkinson (kind of silly but also a breath of fresh air)
I did this drawing working from a photograph by a Minnesotan photographer I admire very much named Rhea Pappas. A few years ago she had a show called Beneath The Surface at Ice Box Gallery in Minneapolis – large scale photos of women underwater. Although I couldn’t afford to buy one of the photos, I have a postcard of one of my favorites that I’ve kept on my bulletin board ever since.
There is something about being suspended underwater that appeals to a lot of us. Perhaps it is best summed up by that very famous scene in The Graduate, when Dustin Hoffman sinks to the bottom of the pool just to hang for awhile and escape the pressure of the adult world. When you’re underwater, you’re in a liminal space, neither here nor there. It’s an in-between state and it can be a welcome respite, a chance to hit the reset button.
But it’s also a way, for just as long as you can hold your breath, to get lost.
Some people in Grand Marais love to perch creepy mannequins or dolls in upstairs windows.
I’m not sure if this is suposed to be funny, frightening or transforming, as in – “I’m lost in time, visiting this little town and, oh look, there’s a person in a nightdress looking out at the harbor.”
What I mean is this:
This is a mannequin that was perched in a second-story window over a shop. It was a male mannequin, which perhaps my limited drawing skills don’t portray properly, that had a long-haired, white wig perched on its head.
Ben Franklin?
Norman Bates?
My cross-dressing neighbor?
The mannequin was wearing a very fancy nightshirt and grinning out to sea; Lake Superior to be more exact. In my mind, I’ve made a scenario in which these shop owners were hoping to create a tableaux in which a wistful wife waits for her sailor husband to return from a long voyage. Unfortunately, they only had a male mannequin and a wig from some long-ago Halloween with which to make it happen.
When I see things like this, I imagine  the particular day someone set this up in the window. Think of the time involved. Get the wig, dress the dummy in the period-appropriate nightgown and then run down to the street to look up and see if it’s placed to your satisfaction. And then… wander off to watch TV or something, I guess. Judging from the dusty look and the faded nightshirt, this all happened in 1991 and has remained, frozen in time, since.
When we were in Grand Marais, we pulled up at a cafe at the same time as a pick-up truck. Two couples, probably in their 60s, jumped out and hustled in so they could get ahead of us. In their haste, one of them got left behind.
The other three descended on the bakery case, pressing against it with their girth. It was 10:00 in the morning but there wasn’t much left in the way of baked goods. As they barked out possible orders to the Eastern European help the fourth member of their group straggled in and his wife yelled at him.
“What do you want? What do you want? What do you want?” she said. “Cherry Danish? Caramel roll? Doughnut?”
“Cherry Danish!” he said. “Caramel roll. Doughnut.”
The other couple chimed in, “Cherry Danish, caramel roll, doughnut, nut roll, muffin!” like a chant.
Cherry Danish, caramel roll, doughnut, nut roll, muffin. CherryDanishcaramelrolldoughnutnutrollmuffin.
It was like this:
We were lucky to get out of there with the last two caramel rolls and our lives.
Grand Marais is a tiny town far away from the Big Cities.
But don’t think that, if you go there, you’ll go hungry. Fear not, there is a lot to eat in the GM.
Here’s the rundown of eating from our recent weekend trip.
World’s Best Donuts
Glazed Raised
Bismark, round, filled with raspberry jelly
Mini bismark, filled with lemon
Chocolate cake donut with chocolate icing
The Pie Place Cafe
Crab cakes with wild rice and asparagus
Wild mushroom lasagna
Vanilla & white chocolate cheesecake
Angry Trout Cafe
Fried, bread herring* with wild rice and salad
Apple pie with vanilla ice cream
Gunflint Tavern
Black bean burritos with blue corn chips, pico de gallo and sour cream, beer!
Blue Water Cafe
Eggs, hash browns, toast, coffee, tea
Mural of Lake Superior**
* I never really knew that you could have herring just as a cooked fish. My only experience with it has been looking down at it in a weird, cold broth of pickling and feeling ill.
** Lake Superior is a big lake. I mean, like, really big.
My parents recently sold their house and most of their belongings.
Along with the scythe, I inherited a corn cutter, a pitchfork, some walking sticks (gifts from some hippie friends they don’t see much anymore), a bedroom set, a cabinet to hold one’s curios and lots of other odds-n-ends.
Keith and I are wondering if one of us should dress up as the Grim Reaper on Halloween and jump out at trick-or-treaters with the scythe in hand.
I think we’d get in a lot of trouble with parents but some of the kids would love it.
For Keith and the People of Cub
WINDOM NEIGHBORHOOD
Cub Foods
August 14, 2 p.m.
A man was waiting in line to make a purchase when another person cut in front of him to pay for his own products. The man in line told the person to please wait for his or her turn. The man walked toward the door to leave after paying for his items, at which point the other person followed him. The suspect then hit the man in the face and said, “Don’t tell me not to butt in line.” Store employees broke up the fight.
-Â From The Southwest Journal, Crime Reports, Sept. 3-16, 2012
I had a bad dream. Nightmare, really. It featured Catorpion – a creature that is half cat and half scorpion.
In my dream I was in a bedroom and I pointed at the wall, where a giant scorpion was crawling.
“What’s that?” I said.
The scorpion fell off the wall and onto my arm, where it promptly morphed into Catorpion.
When it attacked me, it was biting and clawing me with it’s front, cat half and stinging me with its back, scorpion half.
Yes, it hurt quite a bit. I was screaming in pain. My arm was in shreds.
That’s all I remember.
But isn’t that enough?
The other day we were in a meeting and my boss did that old “Makin’ copies!” joke from Saturday Night Live.
Remember that skit with Rob Schneider? From 1991?
I still like her though.
CROSS SECTION OF TREE TRUNK ILLUSTRATING
WHEN THAT JOKE WAS LAST FUNNY
“You’re abandoning a lot of ideas when you are too into comfort. ‘Comfy’ – that’s one of the worst words! I just picture a woman feeling bad, with a big bottle of alcohol, really puffy. It’s really depressing, but she likes her life because she has comfortable clogs.”
– Christian Louboutin, The New Yorker, March 28, 2011
What should you do if it starts to thunder and lightening?
A. Sit on the bed and purr
B. Put on your kitty slippers and run down into the basement
C. Slide underneath an ottoman
D. Eat shrimp
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When we first got our dog, Freja, I was worried about stuff like dog hair on my clothes and that “doggie smell” that can pervade everything. I found it annoying to get up at 2 a.m. to take her outside to pee because she couldn’t make it all the way through the night.
Soon, a routine was established. There were favorite toys. She learned her name and came running when I called. I tried to snuggle; she resisted. She barked at me when she wanted a bone.
We ran errands together. Walked. Hiked. Walked some more. She learned to read my expression and watch my hands for signals. She can smile. And often does.
There are 205 steps in every city block I walk with her. We walk in rain, snow, wind and heat. Sometimes I stalk along, wondering what the hell I’m doing out there. Then I look down at her as she trots along, stopping to nose something in the leaves, and realize that it’s because I’ve become truly dog-hearted.
Keith and I were driving and the song “More Than A Feeling” by Boston came on the radio.
Keith said it sucks.
A few days later I went to eat my lunch outside at a playground. From across the soccer field I heard the sound of “More Than A Feeling.” I walked to the edge of a hill and looked down at a man painting his garage while listening to tunes on a radio.
On a sunny, late summer day, “More Than A Feeling” didn’t suck.
A few weeks ago, Phyllis Diller died. One thing I always loved about Phyllis, besides that hair and the crazy laugh, was that she didn’t start her stand-up career until she was 37. Since she lived to be 95, that means she enjoyed a 58-year career in comedy.
We hear a lot about young people making it big. There are all kinds of lists honoring “30 Under 30” or “40 Under 40.”
What about the late bloomers?
Recently, I decided I want to draw more despite the fact that I don’t draw well. But I like to do it.
The thing I’m good at is observing the world. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. Once, at a nature program when all the other kids were playing a prey/predator game, I hung back and watched, not wanting to take part. A man on the sidelines said to me, “It’s OK, the world needs doers and it needs watchers.”
I see now that he’s right. At the time I thought it meant that I was deficient somehow. I longed to be a doer. But I’m a watcher. I observe human nature. I notice when someone paints the shutters on their house. It makes me a better writer. I hear what people are saying. And maybe, just maybe, it will make me a better drawer.
Not Shallow has taken a couple different formats over the years and now it becomes a respository for my drawings and accompanying observations. I know I have at least 5 fans, because they’ve told me they like the site and, when I took a break, asked me when it was coming back. I hope that those 5 fans will join me by checking in every so often and sharing it with some more people.
Here’s to all the late bloomers.
You got the J. Crew holiday catalog in the mail yesterday and the cover says “Happy Holidays From The Italian Alps.” How did they know that’s where you’re headed this holiday season? But between now and then you have a lot of holiday-ing to do.
Luckily, you can do it all in J. Crew.
You bundle up in your HEARTHSTONE SNOOD ($49.50) to walk to a cozy cafe to sip cocoa and write gift ideas for family and friends in your ARCHIE GRAND FOR J.CREW NOTEBOOK ($10). Your cello teacher is getting a MAGIC WALLET in leopard print ($22.50) and your third cousin is getting the CASHMERE-LINED LEATHER GLOVES ($98) but everyone else has you vexed!
There’s no time to dawdle if you’re going to meet your model/graphic designer/drummer/environmentalist fiancé to pick out a Christmas tree at the organic tree farm. He’s wearing his RED WING FOR J. CREW BECKMAN MOC-TOE BOOTS ($320) in order to saw down the tree. You take a picture for Facebook. You know you look cute tossing snow at his head while wearing your TOGGLE COAT IN WOOL-CASHMERE WITH THINSULATE ($325).
When it comes time to decorate the tree and hang the wreath, you change into your NO. 2 PENCIL SKIRT IN MIDNIGHT TWEED ($138) and slide across your shiny wood floors with strings of cranberries and popcorn in your CORGI CASHMERE SOCKS ($88).
Oh, y
ou have to work at the art gallery on Tuesday! You forgot – you thought you took the entire month of December off. Oh, well. You just have to sit at the desk and pretend to read Ulysses. You do it in your HANDKNIT FAIR ISLE SWEATER ($225) over your JULES DRESS in Fresh Strawberry ($198). Chinese food for lunch, sign for one package, send a fax and you’re done for the day!
Your fiance’s old roommate is protesting down at Occupy! You agree to go visit and share some falafel and pumpkin seed bread while sitting on the curb. You wear your FAIR ISLE SWEATER-LEGGINGS ($98) and PUFFERS coat ($188) to try to blend in at the drum circle. To show the old roomie you’re not the unimaginative bitch he thinks you are, you bring him a gift – who wouldn’t want a pair of DANCING SANTA BOXERS ($18.50)?
Time for caroling! You go with the MAJESTY PEACOAT in Dark Bone ($258), PIXIE PANTS ($88) and your MACALISTER WEDGE BOOTS ($198). You get drunk while waiting for everyone else to be ready to go, then have to pee the entire time. You beg people to let you use their bathrooms and rifle through their medicine cabinets.
Holiday Open House at your boss’s loft! You spend hours preparing a a messy ponytail and wear your dark-rimmed 
glasses and TALIA TOP IN WILDCAT ($118) with CAFE CAPRIS IN WOOL. Keep an eye on your BROMPTON SATCHEL in Henna ($278), that’s where you keep the cache of drugs you stole while caroling.
You forgot to buy a bauble for Betsy, that annoying, sort-of-friend who happens to have a great summer cabin you love going to every August. You buy her an ARGYLE, HAND-ENAMELED BANGLE ($28) and a pair of socks from THE GAP.
Your fiancé wants to make a snowman. You watch the action from the safety of the front porch while wearing your GLIMMER LONG SLEEVE TEE ($88), MINNIE PANTS IN BI-STRETCHED WOOL and SPERRY TOP-SIDER SHORT SHEARWATER BOOTS ($138), which are so ugly you want to return them but you already stepped in dog shit so that’s that.
For the cookie exchange with gal pals you’re wearing your WYNTER V-NECK SWEATER in Roasted Cider ($69.50), STRETCH VINTAGE BOOTCUT CORDS ($79.50) and BIELLA METALLIC PENNY LOAFERS ($248) but you’re not eating any cookies – you’re biting into them and slipping the bites into napkins when no one is looking and throwing them away. You can’t believe how much the other ladies are eating. It’s depressing.
Holiday movie time! You put on your SILK CELESTIAL PAJAMA SHIRT IN STARSTRUCK ($118) and SILK CELESTIAL PAJAMA PANT IN STARSTRUCK ($108) and make a big production of making popcorn and queuing up It’s a Wonderful Life but then spend the entire time texting and tweeting.
Big, awesome party filled with hip people. You go quirky-maximus by wearing your TOSCANA SHEARLING TRAPPER HAT ($198) paired with your JULES DRESS IN SEQUIN STRIPE ($495) to show that you don’t care that your fiancé’s ex-fiancé, Bronwyn, is there. You really don’t care. See? You’re wearing a hunting hat with a sequined dress! Someone hands you a PBR and you drink it down in one long, continuous gulp.
Quick pre-holiday Job interview for a junior associate assistant position at a PR firm! You think they will take you seriously if you wear your TISSUE TURTLENECK TEE ($29.50), monogrammed ITALIAN CASHMERE V-NECK ($168) and SILK STINGER SKIRT in Grey Slate ($235). Oh, but they don’t.
Holiday shopping at J. Crew in your CASHMERE BOYFRIEND CARDIGAN in Heather Spearmint ($198), NIGHTSHIRT IN SILK FOULARD ($178) and CLASSIC MINI IN FELTED WOOL in Stone ($98). You can’t figure out why the other customers keep asking you if they can get a fitting room.
You are so exhausted. It’s time to go to Italy. You wear your HIGH-WAISTED SKINNY JEANS in Night Owl Wash ($125), ITALIAN BALLETS in Lula Snakeskin ($198) and DREAM DOLMAN SWEATER in Heather Cloud ($98) on the plane and watch Just Go With It starring Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler. You think it’s a good movie.
As soon as you get back from the holidays you’re going to buy your J. Crew ESCALIER GOWN COLLECTION WEDDING GOWN ($2,400).
Are you looking for a new hobby? Maybe you want to get into Chinese cricket culture! In addition to crickets, you’ll need to invest in some gear.
This collection is for crickets kept as pets for their “singing” talent. There is also the dark side of the cricket world – fighting crickets. I guess watching two crickets fight could be interesting… the first two times. Beyond that, well, you’re a strange person. I guess your crickets would need some Vaseline, tiny boxing gloves, some minuscule butterfly bandages…
Crickets!! A proud, 2,000 year history of entertaining.
In keeping with my theme from last week of posters/flyers I’d like to see, I mocked up another hot one tonight (under the guidance and supervision of PhotoShop Wizard Keith).
I think I’m breaking new ground for bar food! Eagle: it’s what for dinner.
It’s a strange endeavor to try to draw a deep-fried eagle wing.
One of my favorite recent bar ads from City Pages was from a bar named Cowboyz in Rockford, MN that advertised a Cougar Night. So now Cougar ladies get their own nights? Weirdly, it was from 6-8 p.m.
I would like to be walking through my neighborhood and see a posting for a Cougar Night on a telephone pole, the kind of spot usually reserved for garage sale signs and lost dog/cat notices.
Here is what it would look like (my Cougar Night charges cover for the ladies and not for the dudes!):
Yesterday morning Keith said, “I wish we had a robot that could walk the dog.” So I drew this:
