respect the fedora

I got in trouble at work a few days ago. My boss was very vague about how he wanted the writers to work on a project, so all of us did it wrong. When he figured this out, he took the nice approach and explained what he wanted and asked us all to take an hour to fix it. The guy who edits my work did not take this approach. He took the opportunity to email me four times in one week to tell me how disappointed he was in me.

            I don’t really know too much about this guy because, even though he sits about three feet away from me, he has never actually spoken to me. My knowledge is limited to the fact that I have yet to receive an email from him that is free of spelling or grammar errors, he can’t do his work without reading it out loud--loud enough that I can still hear him with my headphones in and music on fairly loudly, and that he is one of those guys who wear fedoras. On a daily basis. With stained T-shirts. Indoors, for some reason, while working on a computer. Now, I love fedoras if the rest of the outfit matches the dignity of the cap, but I have noticed that the majority of guys I have met in my life who wear fedoras every day have turned out to be very rude and mean people. So here is a graph to help you rude men who think a fedora will automatically clean up your act figure out if you really can pull off that fedora:

[UPDATE] I sneezed and Not-Humphrey-Bogart did not bless me. Rude.

[MORE UPDATE] I ran into Not-Humphrey-Bogart last week. He has upgraded to beanie, goatee, and puka shell necklace.

much love,

hedgie

what happens when i can't sleep

I swear this was the best idea ever at 3 in the morning.


much love,
hedgie

24 hours at chico state

This is the story of how I barely survived 24 hours at Chico State.

"Where I come from, the noise the Chico State girls made just getting ready for the party would have made someone call the cops. I was sitting on the lap of a toffee-colored teddy bear that was larger than me. My host, who shall remain Nameless, brought me here for one of her BFF’s birthday parties. Since most of the invitees had just returned from their summer vacation trips, the excitement was high.

Nameless wobbled into the room on a pair of nude stilettos. The heels were so narrow, I couldn’t understand how they supported her weight without sinking into the wooden floor, nailing her in place. She had to yell over the noise of two showers, three hairdryers, and four loud girls playing Mario Karts."



Read the rest of it (and my other essays) here.



much love,
hedgie

happy thoughts

I've been busy lately, so this post is going to be super short.

A few summers ago, my family spent a few weeks in Alaska. While we were there, we were constantly searching for gifts we could bring back to our writing group. Then we saw this:

It is "A Genuine ShitHead" made out of moose pellets found in Alaska. Of course, we bought enough for everyone and passed them out when we returned home. Despite the time that has passed, every time I think about this, I smile because somewhere, out there, it is someone's job to glue googly eyes to moose poop.


much love,
hedgie

eating like an author: jonathan franzen edition

Jonathan Franzen's Pasta with Kale-

This month I took on pasta.

Quotes: “This is good food for a working writer: cheap, easy to make, handsome, elegant, nutritionally well-balanced, devoid of saturated fat, private, erotic, virtuous, delicious. I eat it hot the first night and then cold as leftovers for two further dinners and maybe one lunch."

"Boil water in a kettle. Peel the garlic and chop it up. Wash the kale, tearing it into pieces roughly the size of playing cards (throw away the lower, woodier two-thirds of the stems), and pile it into a pot. Add a little water, if necessary, to make maybe a quarter-inch on the bottom of the pot. Cover with a lid. Sauté the garlic (and some salt) in the olive oil until the garlic just barely begins to brown; remove from heat. Add pasta to the boiling water and stir it a little. Turn on high heat under the kale and steam/boil it, tossing it once or twice, until it’s full wilted; pour off any excess liquid. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and toss it with the kale, garlic, and oil. Some pepper may be ground over it. Grated cheese, however, is a desecration.”

Ingredients:
1 lb. fresh kale
1 lb. good dry pasta, ideally Del Verde brand
1 kettle of water with lots of salt
3 medium-size garlic cloves
1/2 cup (or less) extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Steps:
1) Boil salted water to cook pasta

2) Wash kale, rip it into smaller pieces, and place it in a pot of water on top of that flying saucer-looking metal contraption your dad used when cooking hot dogs when you were little. It is apparently called a steamer basket. Put lid on the pot and let it steam.

3) Mourn the fact that your slapchop does not work as well as it does in the commercials and mince your garlic by unexciting, non-slapping means.

4) Cook the garlic in the olive oil until garlic begins to brown.

5) Cook noodles in the boiling water.

6) Remove excess water from everything and mix it all together.

7) Make Boyfriend sad when you do not allow him to put cheese on his pasta. Compromise by letting him use bacon bits.

This recipe was delicious, though I think Franzen might be going a little far with "erotic".


much love,
hedgie

pet names flash fiction

Flash fiction number two based off the Bonnie "Ten things I love" list.

2) The way dogs communicate you should keep petting them after you have stopped

 

Her Dad gave the family dog the same nickname that he had given her when she was younger. Dee sat at the living room couch, staring in horror as he called the dog to him a few days after she had graduated and moved back in.

“Come here, Sweet Pea,” he said. He scratched behind her ears and across her back until he found a spot on her ribs that caused her hind leg to sputter out of control. He suddenly pulled his hand away and laughed when she rubbed her forehead desperately into the outside of his thigh. When he didn’t continue to pet her, she lay down and gazed up at him, ears perked and wagging her tail. She leapt up and let out a high-pitched bark. Dad finally caved then and went back to running his fingers on the top of her head.

It didn’t help when she first arrived to find that her room was turned over to the mutt. The floor was littered with half-eaten twisted rawhide chews. The walls were lined with stacks of canine products—tiny stuffed toys, tennis balls still suctioned into their plastic cylinder, and a few spare dog beds for when she tears the stuffing out of one again. The blankets on the bed were even wrinkled into a tiny oval where she slept at night.

At dinner that night, Dee made a joke about her parents using the dog to replace her.

Mom set down her glass. “Oh, honey. No one could ever…” She paused for a moment. “Actually—maybe a little bit.”

After dinner, Dee went up to the room and got into bed. Dee thought about her childhood here. She had their undivided attention from when she woke to when they tucked her into this bed at night. But, as a kid, she always had trouble going to sleep alone in the dark. First, she didn’t understand how she could continue breathing in her sleep. When her parents told her she didn’t have to worry about it and her body would breathe for her, she would still worry. She would be curled up in the sheets, holding her breath and waiting for her body to take over. After she finally did fall asleep, she would wake up in the middle of night and be convinced there were monsters everywhere. Her parents would come in to her room armed with an aerosol can in each hand that they claimed were full of go-away monster spray. Dad would spray in the closet and Mom would spray beneath the bed until the surrounding smell of lavender led her to sleep.

Dee woke up to find that Roxie had gotten into the room and was now curled up behind the bend of her knees. Dee started to turn on her back and straightening her legs to shove the dog out of her bed. But then Roxie cuddled in closer to her and let out a sharp exhale of breath from her nose. Somehow, Dee couldn’t bring herself to disturb the sleeping pup. She did her best to slowly and smoothly turn onto her back with her legs still mostly surrounding Roxie. Then she drifted back to sleep, the two of them packed together like two peas in a pod. 

much love,

hedgie