the dumb expression I’m pretty sure I get on my face when I’m writing an email that strikes me as particularly clever.

My insatiable public demands more posts and who am I to disappoint? In the meantime, read this about male infertility but know that my very best joke (“frankly, your tighty-whiteys may be strangling your balls”) was cut. I should probably tell you about SXSW and how my left ear literally was bleeding when I got back, not from hearing so many bands or slamming drugs into my ear canal or doing anything hardcore and extreme, but from pushing an ear plug in too far I think, which is like hitting yourself in the head with a helmet or twisting your knee while putting on a knee pad or scratching the fuck out of yourself whilst putting on a straightjacket. The point though, is that I’m going to continue this dumb 8 ball conceit because actually I am one to disappoint.

Q: Are you a magic 8 ball?
A: Yes definitely.

Q: Am I a magic 8 ball?
A: Don’t count on it.

Frankly, I’m speechless.

So I’ve been woefully remiss both in updating this blog and also in living my life based on the gentle wisdom afforded by the 8-ball standing quiet sentinel on the kitchen counter. Such assholetry stops here! And now!

This morning’s question: Will today be a good day?
The 8-ball’s answer: My reply is no.

Smarting slightly, I soldiered on to work, which is where I am as I type this. I’ll give the full report on whether the 8-ball was accurate later on. And by later on I mean never.

love,
Alison

Curious how the wisdom teeth extraction went? Of course you aren’t! But I will tell you anyway, because it’s really the least I can do. I got to the office for my far too early appointment and filled out all the forms. Stricken by some heretofore never-experienced compulsion to be honest, I wrote “valium” in the space where you write what drugs you take. (come to think of it, the list would have been longer had I really been compelled), but I’d taken one that morning to take the edge off. My parents went with me and we all sat in the waiting room. They took x-rays and I was forced to note that a) x-ray machines have really come a long way since the last time I had oral x-rays which was like 10 years ago and b) but I’m still worried about my unborn children and the three hands they’re going to have. Then I went back to the waiting room. A little while later the woman specifically called all of us in. “All of us?” I asked. She searched my makeup-less face (ok fine, she looked at me) and asked my age. I told her I was 29. She laughed and said that just I should follow then. This was probably the high point of a high point-less day. I invited my mom anyway. Through heavily lidded eyes I watched a video detailing all the possible things that could go wrong delivered by a soothing infomercial-voiced woman and then the doctor came in. He thought he recognized my mom but she said she didn’t recognize him. He made a crack about how he was glad because he thought maybe they’d dated years ago and that would be awkward. (My mom is extremely cute and young-looking so I’m used to this. She’s also married, to my dad, so keep your MILFy thoughts to yourself, please) He went over the papers I’d filled out and asked me why I take valium. “Oh, I don’t regularly take it, I just took one this morning,” I told him. “Self-medicating for nerves,” he said flatly as he scribbled something. Then I switched rooms and they numbed the shit out of my face and at one point hit some nerve which caused what felt like an electrical surge to shoot toward my eye and temple. That sucked. The actual extraction blurred the line between “pressure” and “pain” as I didn’t feel “pain” per se but the amount of pressure exerted by pulling the teeth is kind of painful. I am tired of writing about this. Then they stuffed my cheeks with gauze and sutures were involved and as soon as I got in the car I started crying which I did on and off for the first hour or so even though it didn’t really hurt, I just felt like my face had been gang-raped. I chose (and by that I mean my dad who’s a doctor chose for me) to have it done under local because of the risks involved with general anasthesia especially in a doctor’s office as opposed to a hospital, but it’s a violent enough procedure that I can see the sense in being knocked out for it. That said, I’ve heard a couple people say that waking up from being knocked out was the worst part. I’ve also heard people say that was the best part. So then part of my face was paralyzed for a few hours which scared the shit out of me but the feeling and movement came back by the evening. And when it comes to tapioca I much prefer Kozy Shack to Hunt’s which tastes like stamps.

I took some pictures of the office so I could show everyone but I don’t know how to put them up on this thing. Also, I’m getting my wisdom teeth out on Wednesday. I’m unexcited. Maybe a little scared but not really because I am not given to human weakness.

Hello darlings. I’m sorry I’ve been so abusive boyfriend/absentee parent who always says they’re going to take you somewhere fun to make up for all the shit but then disappears again, it’s just that I’ve started my new job as music staff writer at Time Out New York which leaves little time for anything other than pondering the best way to get across town. Seriously, I can’t figure it out. The bus is frustratingly slow. The walk is do-able but a little daunting if I’m carrying anything which at this point I am each day. I also, I dropped the M. For now. And finally, now that I have a job, all these other jobs are materializing. It’s both flattering and incredibly maddening since I’ve been basically nervously pacing back and forth in my apartment for two and half years wondering if moving to New York was a mistake and feeling like a sham and now suddenly it’s all coalesced. Where were you, jobs? But lest my description of my first 2.5 years in New York shatters your impression of my glamorous New York City lifestyle know that while pacing nervously my lip gloss looked incredible and oh, my hair!

because I’m so anti-slang. And I may be guilty of using these every now and again because for some reason they sort of crack me up but I’m also pretty sick and tired of every hipster using “killed it” and “slayed” to mean “played a show and were good.” And I’m super tired of “threw up in my mouth just a little” which threatened to catch on like wildfire but instead just had a sudden painful flare up and then a gradual decay. I’d prefer my slang to follow a relapse-remit course rather than a terminal progression one but if I really had my way there’d be a vaccine.

I’ve been remiss in posting because when I’m not getting paid for my words I just clam the fuck up. That’s a total lie actually, as anyone who’s wished I would shut up could attest. I’ve been posting more frequently on Myspace which, when I read that, makes me sound like a 14 year old. Mood: giggly! Anyway, I saw I [Heart] Huckabees yesterday. Am I the only one who thought the black bowler hat sitting on a hat stand in the existential detective’s office was an allusion to Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being? It seemed too deliberate not to have been. Actually, I think the movie was probably littered with little references and allusions to existentialists and philosophers. Like the thing with the melon? I don’t know what that was but I wondered at the time if I should have. (except there’s that joke q: “how many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” a: “cantaloupe” … but I think that’s too far-fetched). The scenes where Schwartzman and Wahlberg were holding the big red ball reminded me of The Red Balloon, though, which I only saw as a kid but now that I’m thinking back on the story, or film strip (was it a film strip?) it seems it could have been about more than what it appeared to be.

I totally wrote this whole post with links and shit and also jokes and wit and maybe a little smarm but not a lot and then I tried to post it and blogger ate it and then I was frustrated but I wrote the whole damn thing again and then tried to post it once more and again it went to seed. how sad are you? I know!

I met follicularly blessed musician Paul Layton Mellencamp years ago and have been covering his various incarnations ever since. Here’s a story about his recent reinvention which may be a little hard to follow. Is it? If so, you should let me know. I used to have a link to my email address but they my blog crawled up its own ass and I lost all the frippery. So use the comments section, won’t you? And here’s a story about his previous. You should go buy his album. I’m listening to it right now. And enjoying it! (how livejournal of me).