aspiration

So here we are, in the mind of someone else:

WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP

by Billy K, age 10

hollywood diet

So here we are.

Ooh, what have we here? A toothy entertainment news gal is chatting up a brand-new-mama actress on the red carpet! Let’s eavesdrop, shall we? 

al fresco thanksgiving

So here we are.

Two summers ago, I wrote the post “christmas in july,” likening Independence Day to essentially a secular, summertime Christmas. It seemed like a decent analogy at the time. Both holidays revolve around vacations and food and department store sales. 

I was dead stupid wrong. Independence Day is not secular, summertime Christmas. Christmas is global and ancient. Christmas is presents and peppermint. Christmas is silent and holy. The Fourth of July is none of these things. The Fourth of July is American and gluttonous and filled with illegal fireworks.

No, Independence Day is casual, summertime Thanksgiving. Our big celebration in the seventh month of the year is exactly like our big celebration in the eleventh month of the year, only hotter and al fresco. 

asylum

So here we are.

I know that America’s birthday isn’t until next week, but I have an early present to give to my country: the assurance that I won’t ever commit treason, and if I did happen to commit treason by accident (say, if I knocked over something at the Smithsonian), I promise not to flee overseas. 

I can make this bold statement because I’m pretty confident that I would have no way to navigate the complex waters of international political asylum. At all. 

long day

So here we are. 

There is so much sunshine. I wake up in sunshine, no matter how early my eyes flutter open. I stay up late, past what seems to be never-ending dusk, and even the night seems less dark. It is absolutely beautiful.

And I can’t stand it.

everyday agita

So here we are.

I know that a lot of big, bad things have been going down this week. But take heart, for it’s not the huge, grand problems in life that give us the most agita… it’s the many, many little things:

after-living the dream

So here we are.

Come here, honey. Mama wants to talk to you.

You know that actor you used to like, sweetie? It’s time you knew the truth. They didn’t send him to a farm like we told you they did. He’s not out in the country with your Uncle Fred. He’s in actor heaven.

But don’t you worry, baby. Actor heaven is a great place. Really it is. 

gaps

So here we are.

I’m a member of Generation X, strictly by nature of my being born in 1971. Being a member of a generation is the only membership that no one signs up for, yet it still defines you. 

For a while, we were the worst. Just the worst, with our flannel and grunge and tragic realization that none of us would ever get a pension, ever. We were deemed worse than the Baby Boomers, if you can believe that... and they were the ones who created disco and took all that cocaine and became yuppies and gave my generation the idea of helicopter parenting!