Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Better late than never: Best of 2010

When I decided it was time to finally sit down and figure out which of these posts constituted the "best of" 2010, a little voice inside my head said, "Isn't it kind of obnoxious to label your own writing as good?" I told that little voice, "True, but if I don't do it, who will?"

Since the little voice has (thankfully) chosen to remain silent on that point, here they are, only 10 months late, the best posts of 2010 from Maturity is a bitter disappointment and I Can't Stand [Meeting] You. I'll try to not include any of the posts where I recount for your amusement/annoyance the contents of my stupid dreams. Enjoy.

1. "He's gotta ticket to ride"
Maybe if Karen Carpenter had focused on a life of crime instead of whatever she was seeing in the mirror, God's big band in the sky might be missing (another) drummer.

2. "Dancing with the stars, or whoever"
I took a lecture-y tone with Little Miss Bristol Palin, and advised her to "see a Broadway show." Man I love Dancing with the Stars. It brings out the school-marm in me.

3. "Ay caramba, dude!"
Come with me back in time to a moment before I had the baby, when apparently my biggest worry was... my home's lack of storage space.

3A. "Stuff. Stuff!"
If you found item no. 3 interesting, here's a variation on the same theme. We still have no storage but the little baby we got instead doesn't seem to mind. Yet.

4. "Yesterday (no, not the Paul McCartney tune"
Another post where I wrote about the baby, and a nice big jumble of other, unrelated topics, including classical music, my (not very inspiring) choice of reading materials, and the hipsters who staff the Apple store (any Apple store). Also, is "hipster" still the word to use when describing people who are (mostly) younger than you who have interesting hair? And what's up with those weird beards? I saw another one just the other day on some kid walking out of one of the many churches in my neighborhood. Let me be 100% crystal clear: that kind of beard (this website calls it a "chin curtain") looks good on NOBODY.

5. "We know where we're going"
A short post (and I don't get why I used that title, either, except that I guess I was listening to the Talking Heads), pre-baby, where I spent a delicious 10 hours in bed, something that right now sounds so decadent and wonderful that I can't even conceive of it. Oh, and kitty picture! And now this "summary" is longer than the actual post. Included here because the idea of all that sleep has me a little giddy.

6. Untitled
On June 4th, Patrick's band Suffering Luna played a gig at a gross place called the Smell. I "live blogged" it (i.e., I sent text messages from my iPhone to my blog), and some of them were pretty funny. Unfortunately, as I sent each message one at a time and I didn't take the time to post them all in one entry with a title (like a normal person), I'm having a hard time linking to them, now. Does any of that make sense? Anyway, the next day, I wrote a post that explained what had happened. If you click here and then go back to "older posts" you will see what I did, there. Go ahead, try it.

7. "I have an inexplicable need to write titles that are longer than they need to be"
By writing a lot of seemingly random words, it appears that I can control LA Radio. Or, LA Radio is way more predictable than it needs to be. That's probably it, huh. Also: slow dancing - how can I make that happen?

8. "High finance in action"*
I took all my change to my local Ralph's and poured it into the Coinstar machine. Comedy ensued. Oh, not really, but it's kind of a funny post. I won't lie: "kind of" but not "very".

*Using that title makes it sound as if I was high. I was not. I swear.

The following posts are from my Stewart Copeland blog, which, if you think I've been neglecting this blog, must be seeming like it's, wait, I started that sentence without planning the ending and now I'm screwed, aren't I. Anyway, here are the best posts from 2010 in my "I Can't Stand [Meeting] You" blog, which is mostly weird-ass letters to, who else? Stewart Copeland. Read it, and tell me I'm weird. I love that.

9. "Dear Stewart"
[Note: almost all the entries in the Stewart Copeland blog are titled "Dear Stewart," but I was careful to link the right posts to the words "Dear Stewart". Don't think about that too hard, your brain will literally explode.]

I wrote a lot of words to a famous man who probably doesn't remember meeting me, about my mom's chemotherapy, People magazine, the theatre I work/ed at, and an invitation come see the show. It's actually (I think) a sweet little letter.

10. "Dear Stewart"
This is just like a letter you might write, say, from camp or something. And I called world-renowned drummer/composer/filmmaker all-around awesome guy Stewart Copeland "man" like he was my buddy, somebody I ditched 5th period world history with or something. Hey, man! What's up?

11. "Dear Stewart and Dufmanno"
Dufmanno is one of my favorite readers, of which there are probably three. She inspired a pretty funny post, if I do say so myself. Which I do. Say so.

12. "Dear Sting"
I took a time out from all the letters to Stewart to write to his band mate, Sting, where I lectured him about his lack of "fun" and "creativity," but the joke's on me, 'cause that guy has like a home in every country. He can take his lack of fun to the bank and they'll hand over bags of money, every single time.

12A. Another letter to Sting
Apparently Sting bothers me. Read it, here.

13. "Dear Stewart"
There aren't many words in this letter, but the ones that are there are sweet. I like when I, in a move exactly opposite to my normal operating procedure, use fewer words than usual. It leaves a lot unsaid (obviously) and context (and content) get lost but then I get to go back almost a year later and read some random thing I wrote like this and I wonder where my head was at. Not exactly knowing is kind of cool sometimes.

So, that's all. Enjoy, or don't: it's up to you.

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