Godammit, I’m Mad!

Seeing these Jeffrey Campbell shoes for $118 made me recall in sickening detail my quest for these shoes, below, by Acne.

I think I paid around $450 for the Acne shoes, which I found at Opening Ceremony, a store that is “curated” like a fucking museum, with a similar hushed air of High Art about it.  I saw the shoes from across one of the store’s little rooms, where a horrible, nerdy woman at least 6 feet tall was counseling a blond soccer mom on some sandals. I guessed correctly that the nerdess was a Stylist. Imagine taking advice from a giant bespectacled nerdess?

Anyway, the shoes wait patiently in my closet for their second trip outside the house. I still love them; I just don’t want to fall down.

So: Fake Acne shoes in a nice pewter color. Would you buy man-made shoes for a fraction of the cost of the original?

According to some website called Global Language Monitor, the English language will add its millionth word sometime on Wednesday. I’m predicting it will be a stupid one.

Other language experts think it’s impossible to count the number of words in any language. Sarah Thomason, president of the Linguistic Society of America and a linguistics professor at the University of Michigan, calls the million-word count a “sexy idea” that is “all hype and no substance.”

Ugh! I hate her choice of words! Why is this woman a linguistics professor? Sarah, please don’t use “sexy” in this manner! Just say “appealing.” Next thing you know, she’ll be smitten by something epic.

If you love (and hate) words, go and check out Wordnik.  It’s a dictionary but much more fun and useful. It gives examples of a word in several contexts, definitions, synonyms, even a pronunciation feature.

Wordnik also has a short list of “recently viewed” words, and “new pronunciations.” Among the latter is the word cunt, which its sophomoric users evidently think is fun to hear out loud.  Sure enough, it is!

“A skirt and leggings in one, these acid-wash leggings feature a ruched miniskirt overlay and slash detail at legs.”

YES!  The Shopbop copywriter is back on her game!

At the time, he was my physical ideal, the embodiment of my perfect fantasy. When I noticed him at the gym, my heart lurched.

He was the image of Conan the Barbarian, but his flat baby face was much sweeter. He had long silky blond hair, and a musclebound physique that had won him the title of Mr. Michigan. He told me later that he’d stuffed his ponytail into a hairnet for the contest; bodybuilding is a conservative sport.

One day, we lifted weights side by side, silent but buzzing with sexual tension. His voice was so quiet, I had to strain to hear him. He offered me some Ritalin, explaining that it would give me a better workout. He dismissed my fear of a heart attack with a sly little smile.

I invited him to follow me home. It felt surreal as I glanced at his truck in my rear-view mirror. My husband was away on business. I was out of control.

After the first time, we settled into a routine. I would lead him into the bedroom, take off my clothes, and dreamily watch the action from outside my body. He was like a Warhol Superstar: He was Joe D’Allesandro, maybe after a lobotomy. He was as simple as he was beautiful. He was a blockhead.

He liked to come over after a shower, his hair still wet and a freshly rolled joint in his pocket. We didn’t have much to say, but sometimes he shared his peculiar ideas. He hoped for a huge earthquake, and planned to watch it from a hill near my house. He liked fat girls, so I found a catalog of lingerie for fat women, and we looked at it together laying in bed.

As time passed, I found myself resenting him for being so vacant and placid. I started to hate him, but he never noticed.  He stared straight into my eyes when we made love, without blinking. It was thrilling, even though there was nothing to connect to.

Toward the end, I enjoyed mocking him, since it didn’t bother him. I ordered him to strike ridiculous bodybuilding poses, commenting on his gleaming white butt, which he carefully protected during his marathon tanning sessions.

I can’t remember how I broke things off. But he continued to show up at my door every so often, even long after I had remarried. One day, years later, he called me from some city up North to tell me that he’d never stopped thinking about me. I made him repeat it, that’s how surprised I was.

God only knows what I was looking for back then. But I didn’t find it in Mr. Michigan.

You just have to ask, What the hell is wrong with these guys?

Both Michael Hutchence and David Carradine would have no trouble getting laid. Or even, getting laid in some unconventional way. So why risk death just to get off?

Apparently, this is a largely male endeavor. But don’t anyone pipe up that the reason for that is the more persistent male sex drive. Women have Needs, too. But women don’t seem to need the specter of death to add that Certain Something to sex.

Woman aren’t as likely to enjoy playing Russian Roulette, either. What is it about men that craves a brush with death? I assume it gives a rush of adrenaline, like when you nearly get hit by a car. But why do they require this boost to the experience of orgasm?

A gay friend explained that it’s all down hill for men after 16. Their sensations are duller with time, he insisted. Bummer, if that’s true! Is it, though?

I asked my husband. I wondered if the auto-erotic asphyxiation appeal was like eating blowfish. If it’s cooked the right way, it’s delicious; if not, it’s poisonous and you’re dead. I don’t know about anyone else, but I have no interest whatsoever in trying blow-fish.

The husband explained that he has always been touched by how the appetite for sex is so universal – no matter who you are, or how old, you’ll walk over burning coal to get some.

But I still wanted an answer. He thought it was pretty normal for some people to keep trying to improve their experience. Like some people are happy with a scoop of their favorite ice cream, but others think, This might be nicer with something added.

I asked him, But what if when you come, it’s already 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. Why would you be worried about trying for 11? In fact, I noted, speaking for myself, if it were any more intense, I’d pass out.

“Exactly!” he replied, happy to have effectively conveyed the point of auto-erotic asphyxiation.

Mrs. Palin gave a speech the other day, appearing with her new BFF, Michael Reagan, who is one unhinged windbag.

I know it’s distasteful, and also too it’s scary, but if you can gather your strength for a  few minutes,  listen to the audio recording over here, and read about it here. The sound of her voice brings back the whole election nightmare…. and launches a new one.

This bitch is so fucking crazy, and as stupid as the Alaskan summer solstice is long. Be afraid.

* Thanks to Palingates for the lipstick (on a pitbull) collage.

Apparently, a biopic of Jeff Buckley is in the works, with both Robert Pattinson and James Franco interested in the lead role.  Jeff’s mother is said to be overseeing the project.  Let’s just hope it’s a rumor, or that the project will never get off the ground.  If  someone has to run around pretending to be Jeff Buckley, how about Jessica Biel? There ought to be some use for her somewhere.

R.I.P., my dear Jeff.  You’re a tear that hangs inside our souls forever.

I LOVE Sven Marquardt, even though I don’t know what he’s talking about. He was a member of the underground fashion scene in East Germany, where he took photos like this one during the 80’s.

Note the morbid aspect. Hipsterism always embraces morbidity© .

This is the Pepper Skirt by Leyendecker, $297.  It managed to stump the Shopbop copywriter, who can usually rise to the occasion. She may be having some sort of mental breakdown, and who can blame her with shit like this “skirt”?

I’m going to have a go at it:  Rock this tragic skirt with a Hawaiian lei and leave your skinnies at home!

Oh fuck it, I can’t do it either.

Psychiatrists have defined a new subgroup of what is known as ‘adjustment disorders.’ Somewhat similar to post traumatic stress disorder, post traumatic embitterment disorder is triggered by a negative life event which “is experienced as a violation of basic beliefs and values.”

The predominant emotion in PTED is embitterment. PTED patients also complain about feelings of injustice and rage. A recent German study used a PTED self-rating scale to determine the prevalence of the disorder. The scale is described as a reliable and valid measure for embitterment.

Having spent nearly two hours reading about this new diagnosis and searching for the PTED scale online, I was extremely bitter in my defeat.  I WANT TO TAKE THE TEST, GODAMMIT!

I love psychological tests. The one for OCD starts with questions about germs and counting and then casually asks if you ever have thoughts about poisoning your dinner guests. Once you start laughing, it ruins the decorum of the test, but I recommend taking it.

Bitterness seems like something that’s hard to quantify. How bitter is too bitter? How long do you get to feel bitter before it is considered pathological? Maybe such enduring bitterness is the only sane response to some events. Who gets to decide?

I know a woman whose husband had an affair 30 years ago. They are still together, but she talks about his infidelity as though it happened yesterday. That seems pathological.

Then there is artist Hugues de Montalembert who was blinded by muggers who threw paint thinner in his face.  An interview I once came across referred to the artist as “still bitter.” Now that sounds pretty accusatory, doesn’t it? Is he supposed to get to a point where he feels, Oh what the hell, shit happens!

If tragedy doesn’t beget embitterment, what kind of culture have we become? When you see funerals outside the US and western Europe, there is wailing and all kinds of openly emotional displays of grief.  It always seems more human and sane than the understated mourning that is so prevalent here.

If bitterness is pathologized, one journalist has suggested, then what about extreme racism? That seems far more delusional and crippling, to me, anyway.

Personally, I like being bitter. I like to hold a grudge, and it’s a point of honor with me. People who give up their grudges strike me as shallow. A good grudge should last a lifetime. It can be invigorating, or even comforting.  Ma Haine Dure!

Of course it is good and healthy to forgive, if the thing is forgivable.  Some things aren’t. If anyone can find me the PTED self-rating scale, I would be glad to post my results (if the scale goes high enough, that is.)