I think I am the only American who has come out of this gigantic financial mess on top. My portfolio has not changed a bit, and I still have an inspiring, exciting job. Of course, I don’t presently and have never owned any stocks (unlike my little brother who got his first stock as a 13th birthday present, and used to laugh at me for not understanding how the market worked … who’s laughing now?), and I’m an intern at an alt-weekly newspaper which means I don’t get paid… but for right now I’m fine.
My parents support me for the most part, since I’m still in college. But I graduate next year and it’s looking like I’m absolutely fucked. Everyone knows newspapers are screwed – especially alt weeklies, so it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting a job here after my internship expires (my boss just got fired on Friday, although she spent most of her time on Flickr/shopping online, so the news didn’t come as much of a surprise to me). The book publishing industry is dying, which means my novel — once I write it, that is — will never get published. Yeah, I’m fucked. So I decided to compile a list of alternate future plans for myself:
1. Marry rich – My grandmother always said, “it’s just as easy to marry rich as it is to marry poor.” Pros: Obvious. Cons: Will entail leaving my house and meeting new people, probably from frats like FIJI and SAE or at bars in SF’s financial district; possibility of ending up like Anna Nicole Smith.
2. Move to South America – Pros: I love Buenos Aires: the people, the culture, the nightlife, the 3:1 peso to dollar ratio. In Bolivia, it’s 7:1! Cons: Argentine men kiss like seventh graders playing spin the bottle; my spanish sucks; Bolivia’s kind of dangerous and they sell milk in a bag.
3. Figure out how to put ads on the blog – Pros: Easy money. Cons: Would entail people actually reading the blog; figuring out who would want to post ads on our site? American Apparel? Seagrams gin?
4. Going to law school like my parents – JK
5. Become an evangelical priest – Pros: All those drama classes will finally pay off. I envision myself something like Eli Sunday from There Will Be Blood, but more successful/attractive. Cons: I am/look like a jew, and jewish people don’t really do that type of thing.
6. Become a celebrity chef – Clearly the best choice. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
Though her Palinesque grasp on international politics has about as much coherence as a P.U.M.A Convention, I love that this Redneck, addled by whiskey and inbreeding, voted in the Democratic Primary while assholes like Brooke Hogan don’t really get the whole voting thing.
Go back to Minnesota Michelle, High Holidays are one of the few perks of living in LA (sooooo many days off!!!!). Seriously, even the mail clerk could school you on the Jewish New Year.
my current state of mind... and yes, I know my walls look like they belong in a whore house
This is me. It’s 2:45 am and I just finished my first essay of the night. It was on Richard III and I was dreading the writing process but I 1) finished way more quickly than I thought I would and 2) really enjoyed writing it. I came up with a fantastic feminist thesis that would make Jezebel very proud. I analyzed like I had never analyzed before. Oh, except for every other time I’ve written an essay the night before it was due, cracked out on adderall. Apparently, the key to my intellectual side lies in a small pill (or, hey, multiple pills) of speed.
I used to think people who abused adderall were obnoxious. I went to an extremely competitive high school where everyone complained they had add or adhd so that they could get extended time on standardized tests and unlimited amounts of ritalin and concerta. This always bothered me because, while I do believe that some people truly have attention-deficit issues that can be alleviated by prescription drugs, I don’t think 99 percent of the people that have adderall prescriptions really need them. I mean, I don’t like to pay attention in class, either. But that’s because I’m lazy/probably disinterested in what my professor is saying/would rather be checking my facebook. And yeah I would have done better on my SAT II math exam if I had had more time… but so would anyone.
But then I came to college and had to pull my first serious all nighter and didn’t think coffee would do the trick. So I got some concerta from a friend and … fell in love. We have a very open relationship, amphetamines and I. Practically long distance. I’ve found that if I limit my usage, it REALLY affects me, to the point where I jump around and scare my roommates by running around the kitchen. I have a friend who pops adderall like it’s asprin and therefore has developed a tolerance. She is also in my shakespeare class, and just went to bed because she lost steam. Not I! To be honest, I don’t even really want to be writing this post right now – I’m in such concentration mode that I’m ready to buckle down and start on my second essay. And I am the biggest procrastinator ever, so that’s saying a lot (don’t believe me? I just finished my shakespeare essay, due tomorrow, but I still have to write another essay for my senior seminar, pack for my trip home tomorrow, and do something for creative writing that I haven’t figured out yet).
So, goodbye. And goodnight. Well, not goodnight for me …
- Katie
Edit: it’s 6:06 am. I finished everything and feel fantastic! I’m starting to think that I actually have ADD because I write SO MUCH BETTER when I take adderall… I am becoming everything I used to despise. Maybe I’ll clean my room now.
Summer was a blur. A dizzying cycle of booze fueled debauchery whose memory plays out like Faubourg Saint-Denis; only instead of young love and Parisian architecture I got Tanqueray, shitty smack, and a whole lot of blood.
A visual representation of my entire summer.
Seriously, Whitney Huston was totally on (to) something! I stumbled back to the West Coast with a nasty lung infection, 10 fewer pounds on my already slight frame, and plagued by some intense mental fatigue. My summer of libertinage came with quite the price, but now that I’m equipped with a few months of self-reflection, I can honestly say that it was totally worth it.
However, after a few earnest friends likened me to a human vacuum, I realized that I might be drawing uncomfortably close to that fine line between bottomed out junkie and funnest guy at the party. So I was encouraged to find inspiration in something that didn’t make its way to my brain via my nostrils.
Enter: The Marquis de Sade.
Srsly, This asshole is FUCKED-UP. The 120 Days of Sodom rolls out some of the most revolting displays of decadence and moral depravity this side of America’s Next Top Model. The four men around which the narrative revolves are “choleric, irascible, and extreme in everything,” and their limitless appetites for the untoward are staggering. Honestly, this book kept me up till 4:30 in the morning reading page long descriptions of eight year old’s assholes.
While I’m not the most savvy literary critic, Sade’s pen is a welcomed relief from the grating narcissism that pervades “pop-lit” (hellooooo Chuck Palahniuk). I’m still not even sure if I liked this book, but its the most emtionally evocative piece of literature I’ve come across in quite some time. Sade reminds us that Nature, even at her most depraved, has the capacity to inspire.
We decided to start this because both of us are pathetically obsessed with pop culture/media/politics/random blogs that are too embarrassing to list at this time (like this one, don’t judge) and we must share our thoughts and ideas with the world, or at least with each other.
We also apparently have the same sense of humor because we are the only two people out of our eight roommates who thought it would be funny to name our wireless network Pedophiles4U (disclaimer: we do not actually think pedophiles are funny, especially Katie, because she looks like she is twelve).
As this is our inaugural post, we thought you should know a little bit about us, and what we’re sure you’ll come to regard as our skewed perspective on just about everything.
I’m Corey.
I’m white knuckling my way towards a bachelors degree in Political Science and Peace & Conflict Studies at Berkeley, but trust me that’s not interesting. To really understand me you’ve only gotta know one thing; I’m obsessed with shitty taxidermy, child beauty queens (a la Swan Brooner), and Tanqueray. Got it? Great.
I’m Katie.
I swear I’m not as pretentious as I look in this picture. This is me on the steps of a museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I studied abroad last semester. My friend and I decided to take a photo shoot in the middle of the night because we were bored and had drank too much fernet and coke, which pretty much encapsulates my most important qualities: I love black tights and am probably an alcoholic. I am an English major, which basically means I read books that aren’t on my class reading lists and hate shit like Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene.” I live for fancy cheese platters, food-related reality television shows, and studded and/or zippered items of clothing. You will probably get bored of me ranting about Sarah Palin.
