Aaawkward.

My cat stepped on the keyboard which resulted in a premature publishing blogjaculation- so for those of you who got excited when the RSS feed popped up with a new post, only to find I deleted it seconds later, my apologies. Might I suggest you ease your woes by calling into the live radio talk show I'm doing tonight in about an hour? Check it out here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/glassofwin/2009/07/30/Hannah-Friedman

For those of you who didn't get an RSS feed, then you're in good company, because what the fuck even is an RSS feed? Wikipedia tells me that it stands for "Really Simple Syndication" but sometimes "Rich Site Summary," neither of which make any sense to me at all. If it was really simple I think I'd understand how it worked, and my site is far from rich. I think I made like $.08 off of this blog and the youtube over the past 3 months. You kooky internets you... makin' up acronyms to simplify a term which is already too complicated in long hand.

Yesterday I had a very awkward conversation with a friend because I'm telephonetarded. I like to think that it's because I'm such a stunning social presence in person that I simply cannot reach my usual level of conversation sparkle when all those all-important facial and gestural cues are absent. But I'm not exactly a gold medalist in the video-chat either. It's all weird and virtual, and there's too much pressure. At least when you're on the phone you can pretend to be listening but actually be doing something else like painting your toe-nails or reading about insane people in the internet. (like ://www.venomousreptiles.org/, a site where people share their love of deadly venemous pets who almost killed them that one time.)

But then again, at least on video chat you can tell when someone is about to speak, instead of having looong awkward pauses followed by a flurry of clipped interruptions followed by that awful "You go," "No, you go!" "No, seriously, mine wasn't important. You go."

Then I always have to stop myself from saying "Don't mind if I do," and hanging up.

After my awkward conversation, which I was sure was due to my general social ineptitude, my friend revealed , rather sheepishly, that she was very tired when I called and must have sounded like a moron, and that she was sorry she made things so awkward. Which reminded me of the time I visited this guy and had a horrible time and felt like a total wet-blanket, only to realize two years later from several other sources that he's just a terrible host. I spent weeks obsessing over how terribly awkward I was, when really he made everyone feel awkward because he was so awkward.

So to Rusty and 23 & 24, thank you you for supporting the site, and I insist that no hard feelings be felt by anyone anywhere regarding misinterpreted intentions, because I am honored by all of your comments and I think that everyone always feels really fucking awkward.

Like that time I had to go back to class after getting sprayed by a skunk. Or that time I was at an audition and sat on a bee and screamed "A BEE!" while grabbing my ass and dashing out of the building. Or that time I cat-called at a cute guy who turned out to be my boyfriend's father. Eiw.

Do let me know if you have any questions- I'm committed to posting more regularly and I always love a good jump start. Hope your summers are going well and that the humidity has not sapped your spirit to live, at it has for my cat, who has overdosed on catnip and layed drooling on his back in the air-conditioned-den for the past 4 days. Oh no wait, he says that was me. Awkward.

xo
H

Bad Book Reviews and Hot Fudge.

Someone just left me an oozily sarcastic comment about an, shall we say, irregularity of actual posting activity, as well as a possible proclivity toward purse-posts. Usually I'd respond to such a barb with with something equally as sarcastic, like maybe "the fact that my busy day doesn't allow time for leaving jaunty "you're lazy" messages on the virtual property of some person I 've never even met leaves me aching for a purpose." Or else I'd roll my eyes, but then obsess about the hidden truth of the comment, and then possibly cry, and then definitely call you a bitch behind your back to whomever would listen.

But you know what, wife and husband of 24 and 23 who left me that comment? You are right. You generously support my artwork while I sit around and lament about how dastardly writer's block can be while watching The Office in my pajamas at 2 PM licking the cream out of the insides of yodels.

You two are awesome and I am remiss. I don't even really have a good excuse this time.

The book is done and I've been on this sort of loooong exhale for about two weeks. Very much in limbo. Still completely expecting the first and only big reviewer to piss himself laughing when he realizes how much time he's going to save on the writeup, because it only requires one word.


Everything Sucks:

Exactly.


I've seriously been thinking about that review for a month. But I figure that now that I've written it down, nobody can use it. It won't be original anymore. Haha Snarky McLazyface, the teen-memoir-despising reporter. Incidentally, one of my alltime favorite book reviews comes from grand dame Dorothy Parker, who wrote of The Cardinal's Mistress, "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."

I also have a special place in my heart for Sir Thomas Beechman's candid musical assessment of
Beethoven's Seventh Symphony: "What can I do with it? It's like a lot of yaks jumping about."


But when I start to get nervous about people hating the book so much they will burn the thing, I try to remember Kurt Vonnuget's wisdom: "Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae." God I love that image. And God I love hot fudge sundaes. More to come...

xo
H

The Final Solution and the Most Expensive Purse in the World

So I needed a new purse.

My old purse was a champion, a good soldier, withstanding harrowing encounters with all manner of weather, condiments, dozens of trans-Atlantic voyages, and (more impressively) frequent assaults by my monkey, who regards any sort of stitch, zip, or button as a personal affront to her desire to make the house into her own personal jungle of disorganization and shit. This purse has been with me through thick and thin. It has concealed more tampax, trashy romance novels, and illegal paraphernalia than I would ever care to admit.

Buckling under the ravages of time and the eight gabillion pennies lost in the lining that I never bothered to remove, the old girl finally gave in at approximately 7 PM EST, just in time for me to get on a plane to Miami. And so I began my quest to find a replacement.

I had no idea when I set out of a dangerous and insidious epidemic which speaks to the very unraveling of society itself, a terrifying cultural phenomenon which pits logic against lust, frugality against taste, and functionality against greed. If I had to boil my sociological observations down into one thesis paper title, it would be this:

Bitches be crazy.

So here I am looking for a receptacle to fling over my shoulder and hold all my crap, and I come face to face with this:

and this:

and this:


Firstly: what the fuck is this? What's with all the feathers and fringe and huge ugly bows? Was I somehow not informed about the new trend of adorning your arm with the grotesque offspring of a bridesmaid dress and a bag lady's kerchief collection? And although the hideousness of these purses kind of offends my aesthetic sensibilities, I'm ready for the reality TV crew to come out laughing and telling me how this is all a big setup when I discover that you too can own all of the above items for around $800 a piece.

$800?? What the fuck does a purse that costs that much money even do? Taxes?? I mean, come on now. Are you really going to spend the equivalent of a third world worker's entire annual wages on something whose function could be carried out just as well by an old sheet and a stick?



































And sure, the ol' sheet-n-stick isn't exactly high fashion. But is someone actually going to tell me that this bullshit is chic? It looks like some 3rd grader went slap-happy with big fake plastic rhinestones the color of bile.

And hideousness aside, what the hell can you fit inside this dinky thing anyway? There isn't a chapter book in the entire world slim enough to ride along. Then again, maybe Prada does know their demographics. Because it does look just about the right size for a tube of mascara, a bottle of prescription painkillers, and a toothbrush to help you purge.

I began to think that perhaps this is some sort of elaborate practical joke on consumers. Like the time they got us to pay for bottled water. Except times 800. And instead of hydrating us, the product brands us as a tacky gullible moron with nothing better to do than collect arbitrary symbols of status and vacuousness.

As if it couldn't get any worse, in my attempt to bolster my argument for this post, I stumbled across this beauty. It's the Louis Vuitton limited edition, signature, tribute patchwork purse. And the cost of owning this stunning piece of arm candy?


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$52,000.

Hold on, let me give you time to recover your breath and sanity while looking at this picture of an adorable kitty.



Now back to business. Fifty two THOUSAND dollars. For a frankenstinean mess of shiny alligator flesh and gaudy gold rivets that looks like it was made by a sweatshop kid who was so malnourished he was hallucinating?


Here's my new plan for world peace. Are you listening corporate America? Here's your chance to start doing some good. Market more products like this. Hordes of them. Gobs of solid gold neckties and limited edition designer toilet paper. And then anytime someone purchases one of these items, promptly launch them into space. Please. For the sake of humanity. Stop the madness.


P.S. If you're going to pay an assload of money for a purse, at least let it be hilarious. Maybe some of these?


















































And for all you sarcastic subversives out there...


xoxoLVLV,

H