Dance, Nails. Dance

“99.9 percent of people lead boring lives. But every single one of them is trying to make some sense out of his or her existence, to find some meaning in the world, and therein lies the value and opportunity of memoir.” - Reader’s Digest

In editing down my manuscript – deleting the dramatic yet repetitive stories that just don’t need to be there – I sometimes feel that there is nothing left. That the remaining chapters are unbearably uneventful. Which, I suppose, is exactly how I want it.

If you’re one of the 10 people that read this blog (2 of which are my aunt & dog), then you’ve heard me talk endlessly about my writing project. The Memoir. In caps. 

I’ve rewritten it twice. I’ve taken classes on perfecting queries & sent out unsolicited manuscripts to agents, all resulting in radio silence. Then this summer, I hired a book editor from Writer’s Digest Books to line edit the first 50 pages. It took him three months to do it. And when he sent back his notes, I read them, nodded, and shut my laptop.

A month ago I took my first writing glass at The Grotto in San Francisco. Truth, Lies and Storytelling: A Users Guide to Writing Memoir. The title couldn’t be more perfect. Our instructor was a local author named Zoe FitzGerald Carter, and she helped me understand a concept I’d been grappling with all these years. SHOW THE STORY FOR GOD’S SAKE.

I’m still nowhere near to finishing or publishing, but I get it now. And I’m playing around with all sorts of techniques.

Last night, I had an opportunity to participate in 3 Minute Reads at Book Passage. I rewrote a trimmed version of Chapter 1 for the occasion & gave it a whirl. My right thigh shook the entire time, which was incredibly distracting. I ended up digging my heel into the ground to keep it under control. Techniques. 

It was the ultimate panic, and I highly recommend it. 

If you can guess what my Halloween costume is I’ll send you this broom when I’m done with it.

Disclaimer: I probably won’t actually send you the broom. I’ll most likely end up ditching it before the night’s over, in which case, sorry I lied.

• Halloween

Flattered that fashion swap site Bib + Tuck featured me last week. I’m a fan of swapping clothes in general (actually wrote all about it years ago for Seventeen), and discovered B + T while I was researching for a story.

They pinged me a few months ago to see if I was interested in “selling my closet” online. YES was the answer. I had a hard time parting with some items – especially those perforated Loeffler Randall heels – but I did what had to be done. 

If you’re exhausted from the eBay reselling game, sign up for Bib + Tuck. It’s super curated and, now, filled with my stuff. Go shop my closet. 

I just found this thing I wrote for BuzzFeed 2+ years ago as part of my edit test. I still think it’s hilarious. Read on:

1. I know, but you didn’t see what happened to the other guy.

2. You sit on a throne of lies.

3. Bribery was involved.

See the rest of the article on BuzzFeed.

Buy a flag of your choosing.

Drape the flag around yourself ever so casually, as if to say, “Oh, this old thing?”

Stare at the ground while holding the ends of the flag up, still keeping yourself wrapped inside it, of course. (Option: Change your focus and stare up towards the sky, then close your eyes. Look like you mean it.)

Get your boyfriend photographer to take a picture of you.

You did it. You can throw your sweats back on now.

• 4th of july
• independence day

I want to talk about dancing. I used to be bad. Then I got good. But, now I think I’m bad again?

Yoko Ono is not a bad dancer.

Pre-teen years were spent holding up the slick walls of middle school gymnasiums and slyly engaging in mindless chatter with classmates in order to delay joining in on any sort of freak train situation, but a friend eventually taught me how to pop my hips so my wallflower stage was short-lived. After that, off went the top of my overalls and into the center of dance circles I went, butterflying and bodyrolling as my suspender clips jerked around my waist like the arms of the Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Dancing Car Man. 

My confidence grinding and throwing elbows at dance parties took off, and in college I ended up as a background dancer on Soul Train. It’s actually pretty dorky, but at the time I thought I was boss. I’d get super dressed up, slip on some absurd push-up bra and clunky Steve Madden wedges and head to the studio, where I’d be handed a lukewarm box of KFC in lieu of pay and be given the task of head-bobbing. The real dancers were paired up with partners, I was just background noise. But, shit. Did you get to head-bob on Soul Train? I think not.

Something’s happened in the last 10 years, though, where I forgot how to do all that damn good grinding and head-bobbing. I just jump now. Up and down. Drunk or sober, it doesn’t matter. That’s all my body knows how to do now. 

Do I take a class? Do I give up? Find old VHS tapes of my famed head-bobbing for inspiration? HALP!

For the second time in 6 weeks I am without credit card. Not because I lost it, but because my card was hacked. 

It’s frustrating, sure.

It’s a pain in the ass, of course.

It’s exceedingly ridiculous when your credit card company suggests that you start doing things like, “Try using PayPal for all of your online purchases.”

But it’s also really weird that both times my credit card company called me within minutes to ask about the pending charges. Literally within, say, 30 minutes of it being used fraudulently, they had a hunch the charges weren’t from me.

So I asked the fraud department when they called. “I’m just curious, what tipped you off? How did you know this wasn’t me?” Because, let’s be real here. I buy all types of weird shit.

“You’ve never shopped at Game Stop before." 

I’m all about disruptive inventions – I’ve been ob-sessed with “Shark Tank” lately (can we stop for a minute to talk about Mr. Beautiful Terrible?) – but here’s an idea I’m not ready to get behind: Print Your Own Makeup.

Huh?

I don’t even trust the stuff that the beauty companies put into their lipstick (lead much?), I’m supposed to dream about having Canon whip me up a batch of their finest cosmetics de cartridge?

It’s cool that we can do it – and trust that I’m ready to 3D print EVERYTHING – but I just don’t think I want print my own fuchsia eyeshadow.

Sharks, are you with me?

• makeup
• beauty
• diy