Hello Sweet Tea, Chopped BBQ, and Mosquitoes

I am moving. From North to South. From Brooklyn, NY to Greensboro, NC. So, I figured it was time to frame a farewell to New York, my home for the last three years.

Goodbye Battery Park City Hudson River park with all the people walking their dogs and babies on Sunday afternoons.

Goodbye Hudson River park rollerbladers with your unfortunate spandex.

Goodbye malformed pidgeons.

Goodbye all my favorite movie theaters. Even you, Angelika, with your sickening popcorn.

Goodbye magazine shop on 6th Avenue and 11th Street. It took me forever to find you, tucked away on the corner like that, but I was glad I did.

Goodbye Fresco's On the Go on 52nd Street between Park and Madison. You are grossly overpriced, but your chicken caesar wrap cannot be beat.

Goodbye Ricky's. At first I thought you were a cute little one-of-a-kind shop on 6th Avenue, but I found out pretty soon that you were a franchise all over the Village. I will miss your strange mix of beauty products and kitchy t-shirts and bags.

Goodbye Erb and Moonshadow Thai restaurants in Greenpoint. I love your fruity and pineapple fried rices. I do, however, still think it's really sketchy that you only take cash, Moonshadow.

Goodbye strange subway smells.

Goodbye ladies who sell cheap jewelry on the sidewalk, and in particular the lady who sells cheap jewelry right in front of 215 Park Avenue South.

Goodbye St. Mark's Bookshop. Your poetry section never fails to make me feel inadequate.

Goodbye Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of TV and Radio. You're the worthwhile museums.

Goodbye French restaurant on Spring Street with the best steak I've ever had.

Goodbye McCarren Park and your summertime baseball players.

Goodbye sports bar next to McCarren Park. I had never had an alcoholic beverage 'to go' before, but I certainly enjoyed the experience.

Goodbye Far Rockaway beach where I got the worst sunburn I've ever had and your weird seafood restuarant/deli hybrid where we ate.

Goodbye Union Square. You are the place for protestors. And skaters. And homeless people. And students. And dogs. And children.

Goodbye four-story Barnes and Noble in Union Square. Sometimes I just drool at you.

Goodbye Winter Garden in the World Financial Building. You were my favorite place to go and write.

Goodbye New York, sensory overload.

We Will Be America's Next Top Model

snovellasimpson: I'm a whole lotta woman.
seliseburns: Me too.
snovellasimpson: Could we be America's Next Top Models?
seliseburns: Only if those fascists could understand the appeal of Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe.
snovellasimpson: Well, we could prepare our signature number and don our red-sequinned gowns.
seliseburns: Yeah. We should definitely look into doing that.
snovellasimpson: Do you think Tyra Banks walks around thinking she's better than everybody who's bigger than she is?
seliseburns: Probably. Except her mother. Who would beat her.
snovellasimpson: Oh, she so would.
seliseburns: Yep. It's a hard life, being Tyra Banks.
snovellasimpson: Let's send her a sympathy bouquet.
seliseburns: Yeah, I'll get right on that.
snovellasimpson: But then again, she must be stopped.
seliseburns: Well, we could send the bouquet and then pounce on her when she answered the door.
snovellasimpson: Ha!
seliseburns: Then we could take her down to the docks and make her watch a fashion show of big breasted homeless women in newspaper print.
snovellasimpson: Oh boy! "Tell them they're fierce, Tyra. Tell them!"
seliseburns: Ha!
snovellasimpson: And then she'll take us all out for ribs.
seliseburns: Yeah. And then she'll probably start some charity for big breasted homeless women and talk about it on her talk show.
snovellasimpson: Well, we have to take the good with the bad.

The Real Point of Babette

Once upon a time, Stephanie and I imagined the real Point of Babette would be a cafe/bookstore/carwash/roller-skating rink located on one of the Hawaiian islands. Y'all would think our inability to raise the funds we needed to build this heaven on earth would upset us.

And you'd be thinking wrong. Beloved Babetteers, Stephanie and I will be unveiling the Greensboro Point of Babette in summer 2006. There will be no roller rink or carwash, but we do have an impressive array of novels and chapbooks (not for sale). And I have a four-cup coffeemaker with the heart of a 12-cup percolater.

This is going to be awesome.

However, even paradise needs a few house rules. The law of the Real Point of Babette (Greensboro) mandates and declares:

1. Sam may not watch "Xena: Warrior Princess" in the living room. "Xena" time is private time.

2. Stephanie may not watch more than three episodes of "Lois & Clark" in one sitting. It's not that we don't love the show, but excessive viewing of Dean Cain's pecs causes irreversible brain damage.

3. Frozen Salisbury steak is not real food. Seriously, Sam.

4. And for that matter, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish aren't so nutritious either. Stephanie will not eat more than one package a day.

5. No Steven Seagal EVER!

6. Bubblegum is a tasty chewy treat, not an acceptable choice in music.

7. No literary debates right before bedtime. We'll never get to sleep.

8. She who brings home a lame person is required to provide an out for the other person.

9. No dieting! Food is your friend.

10. Dance party attendance is mandatory on Friday and Saturday nights. Costumes are optional, unless it's October.

We know what you're thinking: "Where can we buy tickets for The Real Point of Babette?" Rest assured--we charge nothing for your company. So, stop on by--unless you're lame or Steven Seagal.

Open (And Unwilling) Love Letter #7: Hugh Grant

Dear Hugh Grant,

I have tried not to love you.

It really is so uncool to like floppy-haired you. The bumbling you of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Mikey Blue Eyes. The whole first half of your career is one big sloppy kiss to 13-year-old Anglophile girls. So, when I grew up a little, I resolved to disdain you and your Notting Hill, romancing Julia Roberts while she plays herself (which she seems to really like doing) persona. I mean, sure, you'd done Sense and Sensibility, but everyone knows that Jane Austen gets an automatic pass. I was done with you.

But then you went and revived your career. By being kind of an asshole. Your opening scene in Bridget Jones's Diary became a palate-cleanser. Suddenly you were playing the likable unlikeable in About a Boy and Two Weeks Notice with the kind of flair that seems to indicate some interesting things about your actual personality (especially since both you and Helen Fielding have admitted that "I'll bet you did, you dirty bitch" was something you actually said in real life).

It's like you added just enough acid to your persona to become ideal for every 24-year-old Anglophile girl. You're about to play it again in American Dreamz and I will go and see it, despite my reticence. Because you've broken down my try-as-I-might resistence. I've started to give things like Love Actually a pass. And that's some sappy pap, Hugh.

I just wanted you to know that I've given in. I'm not going to pretend anymore. I'm accepting the fact that when you and Colin Firth fight in Bridget Jones's Diary, it's like the benevolent spirit of Jane Austen is sponsoring male mud-wrestling and the only winner is me.

Love,
Stephanie

Found in Tomb: Dead Sea Scrolls and Dusty Corpse of Harrison Ford

snovellasimpson: This is fresh from IMDb: "Harrison Ford hates the internet, because it means anyone can spread malicious gossip about him." Read: He hates the internet because he's a fucking fossil.
seliseburns: Hah! Like people weren't spreading malicious gossip about him without the internet. It's called tabloids and telephones, dude.
snovellasimpson: He's still trying to figure out telegrams.
seliseburns: He's like, "If the Pony Express was good enough for my grandfather, it's good enough for me."
snovellasimpson: Ha!
seliseburns: "I don't know how to use a computer, but I'm of the opinion that anything that takes up a plane hanger is just not worth the trouble."
snovellasimpson: Poor Harrison Ford!
seliseburns: Well, he's not helping himself with this declaration.
snovellasimpson: He really isn't. Senility is not sexy.
seliseburns: But seriously, fans on the internet will see it as him thinking he's above them. People love it when stars acknowledge their communities and he's just snubbed his nose at them.
snovellasimpson: Seriously. Harrison Ford has had some attitude lately. He's Cruise-like in his dismissal of the rabble.