Awkward

Subject: Enjoying Your Vacay?

Darling!

What does Marlowe think of all this California sun? 

Though I am naturally disinclined to mix our filial (sororial?) love with business, I feel that it would be negligent of me not to ask: does your clan own any buildings with more affordable apartments? I imagine that they are all glittering marble masterpieces, but in the off chance that there was one charming slum among the mix I thought I should ask. 

xo

Ash

ps. I miss you!

p.p.s. I miss Mr. Bold more! 

what if all beaches were nude beaches

I need you to do a mental exercise with me now, imagine that all beaches were nude beaches. Erase that first bright red swimsuit from your memory, you learned to swim in your skivvies and floaties instead. Every dip in the ocean would have the bracing feel of skinny dipping - but it wouldn't be shameful or risque.

In fact, if we eliminated bathing suits the entire beach-going proposition would become much less embarrassing. A modern trip to the beach is overwrought with anxiety about spandex, straps, and seams. A bikini renders you 98% naked, but 100% less confident than you'd be in your birthday suit. It squishes, lifts, and pushes the flesh in ways that only highlight the simple elegance of nudity.

Guess I'll see you in the South of France?

A. Smith's Guide to 17 Days in the William Randolph Hearst Burn Center

Before you go out to your friends party, leave your dishes soaking with the drain plug in. When you return at 1:30 am, decide to run some more water over said dishes without checking to see that the drain plug is still in. While feeding your cat dinner notice that water is pouring onto the floor in front of the sink: it is overflowing because (stupid stupid) you left the  drain plug in. 

Just as you are moping that water up, hear a pounding at your door - answer it and meet your irate downstairs neighbor who has water leaking in his ceiling. Try to play dumb with him, have him storm into your apartment, and then demand that you stick your hand into the water and pull the drain plug. You'll protest that its too hot- (you had the faucet on full hot) but he'll keep shouting until, being afraid of a stranger screaming in your apartment at 2 in the morning, you'll reach in and pull the plug. 

When you pull it out- you'll notice the skin on your hand is all crazy and melty looking - and you have 2nd and 3rd degree burns. Screaming - ambulances - etc ensue, and eventually you end up with both your parents at 4 in the morning at NY Presbyterian Hospital. 

12 days into your hospital stay it gets REALLY fun because they decide that there are parts of your hand that aren't gonna heal on their own (or aren't going to heal fast enough) so they take you into surgery, take a potato peeler to your butt, and get two nice slices of butt skin to use to patch up your hand. (Yes, I am now the proud owner of a Butt-Hand*) 

Then there's physical therapy so you can write your name again, and they give you this nifty fingerless glove to wear for the next year as a souvenir. 

Hope this helps if you're planning on making hot-boiled hand, contact me at 1-800-HOT-HAND if you have any questions. 

*Copyright Pending

What if one day there are internet archaeologists?

A long time from now, generations upon generations, when all concrete knowledge of us has faded- how will the archaeologists of the future learn about us? Instead of learning history through the books and records, fossils and ruins, might the archaeologists of the future instead orchestrate techno-archaeological digs: panning through the internet for ancient images and emails?

Imagine, in the year 20005 pictures of me at college frat parties will be a crucial piece of evidence in the research into the history and anthropology of "early humans":

'Look at how the ceremonial red plastic cup* in the females hand signifies her availability for mating."

*in contemporary sources called a "Solo Cup"