i have measured out my life with coffee spoons

thesensiblenonsenseproject: “Sybil Davidson has a genius I.Q....

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:47:09 -0500

“Sybil Davidson has a genius I.Q. and has been laid by at least six different guys…”
Anyone? Anyone…?

It’s the first line of Forever by Judy Blume. Everyone always talks about Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret? And “we must, we must, we must increase our bust,” but it was Forever that I read again and again until it was in 3 separate pieces, and then read it some more.

Forever taught me everything I know about love and sex. Well, no, I know more now. But Forever shaped my young worldview. It taught me that sex was about love, but not necessarily about marriage. That it was about commitment, but not necessarily life-long commitment. That you could love someone as a teenager, and it could be real, and wonderful, and important, and worthwhile, and it could end and you could move on, and that was okay too.

So that was my mindset when I met Jared, my first for-real boyfriend. He was tall and smart and rich and Jewish — everyone said my mother must be thrilled. My mother was horrified. “Oh my God, Rachel, he’s so…CONVENTIONAL!”

We lost our virginities in a stunning display of simultaneous non-orgasm, and proceeded to have a very lovely First Relationship.

At some point, I bought him a copy of Forever. The cover had changed, from the gold-tone locket illustration of my decimated 1970s copy to a photograph of a pretty blond that made me want to stab someone. Still, I had no apprehension about giving him the book – it was about the importance of young love, about the power of emerging sexual awakening, and most of all it was hugely important to me.

He hated it. Haaaaaated it. Somehow, despite having the book entirely memorized, I had neglected to notice that the couple breaks up at the end, when she meets someone a little bit older, more worldly, more interesting. They see each other one last time at a stationery store. “I wanted to tell him I’d never be sorry for loving him…” Uunnff it’s so good. But okay, yes, potentially horrifying to an infatuated 19-year-old.

So here’s how I decided to fix this: I stole the book back. I stole it back, and I cut out the last few chapters with an exacto knife. The whole part that makes the book nuanced and realistic and different from other teen romances. I rewrote the ending, and glued that in instead. It included sentences like “Oh god, I love you” I told him. “And we belong together. And I don’t ever want to be apart again.” The last words were “happily ever after.”

So I took this frankenbook, and I wrapped it up, and tied a ribbon around it, and gave to it him for his birthday, about a year and a half into our relationship. He loved it, he said it was perfect, it was the most wonderful, beautiful thing anyone had ever given him.

We broke up two weeks later.

—Rachel Fershleiser works at Tumblr, managing outreach to authors, publishers, and literary organizations. Previously she was the Community Manager at Bookish and the Director of Public Programs at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe. She is also the co-creator of Six-Word Memoirs and co-editor of the New York Times Bestseller Not Quite What I Was Planning and three other books. She likes to bloviate on panels about the internet, social media, and the future of books, all of which she believes in a lot.

This piece was originally performed at Vol. 1 Brooklyn’s Three-Minute Book Stories event on September 18th, 2012. Reposted from You Rach You Lose with permission.

and then there was that time

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 08:51:18 -0500

That time when your ex calls and you haven’t spoken to him in six months, and he’s coming to town for 15 hours and wants to see you, and you’re excited about it and want to hear about his new life adventures (greece! new haven? school!) and then all that happens is he talks about law school and drinking and drinking at law school for an hour and loses his credit card and you lend him $80 bucks and he gets pizza while you walk home in the cold. THAT TIME.

westwardleaning: Dog days of summer.

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 23:33:14 -0400

westwardleaning:

Dog days of summer.

depressedcopywriter: Taken with instagram

Tue, 22 May 2012 11:30:39 -0400

depressedcopywriter:

Taken with instagram

Home

Sat, 12 May 2012 20:52:44 -0400

Home

Things We Say That Are Funny

Wed, 09 May 2012 10:47:13 -0400

“In other news, I’ve been thinking we should definitely have flowers on our drinking porch in addition to all the herbs.”

“awesome. flowers + drinking porches = flower-infused beer, liquor, and garnishes? YES PLEASE!”

“VIOLET LIQUOR FTW”

“I might move to california and start a potato farm”

“I would not be opposed to becoming a potato farmer in California with you. So I’m inviting myself along. I’ll be in charge of the potato liquor. I believe it may be called vodka. Or, alternatively, poison. You grow potatoes, I’ll make poison, what could possibly go wrong?”

In case you're not tired of these yet.....

Wed, 02 May 2012 11:07:35 -0400

An email from an anonymous friend who is bravely navigating the choppy seas of online dating:

Received just now:

Hi! I like your profile, and I would love to hear from you. I am a crossdresser with a pantyhose fetish looking for an open minded woman to be friends with and maybe roleplay some fantasies.

the happy show

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 14:17:57 -0400

the happy show:

“I am usually rather bored with definitions. Happiness, however, is just such a big subject that it might be worth a try to pin it down.”

went to this show at the ica in philly a few weekends ago. tumble around here, follow on twitter, read about it, etc. etc. etc. cannot recommend enough.

Should I return to Tumblr? I once wrote a dating blog. It was...

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:11:00 -0400

Should I return to Tumblr?

I once wrote a dating blog. It was fun. Then I found a boyfriend. That was also fun. Until it wasn’t anymore. And then we broke up. Since then, I’ve returned to my disastrous dating ways. The tally? In the past six months, I have: made out with one straight man at a gay piano bar; gone on two accidental dates; been picked up by a rock (not n’ roll) professor; sassed it up in my car (twice); and told my ex that I might still love him while crying and getting snot on his shoulder. It ended when he suggested we walk in opposite directions. Literally.

Time to restart a dating blog?

achilsummer: ©gabrielaherman

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 22:35:02 -0400

achilsummer:

©gabrielaherman

Hurricane Irene doing her thing on Martha’s Vineyard,...

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 11:28:27 -0400

Hurricane Irene doing her thing on Martha’s Vineyard, courtesy of the Vineyard Gazette

Taking things one step too far

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:18:38 -0400

Taking things one step too far

deathbywhitney: The most beautiful tomato. My lady’s got...

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 08:47:26 -0400

deathbywhitney:

The most beautiful tomato.

My lady’s got one heck of a green thumb!

Pickle me this

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 21:11:30 -0400

Pickle me this

Hooray!

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:08:00 -0400

Hooray!:

Today, widely read blog Nonprofit Tech 2.0 named my place of employment its Nonprofit of the Week. Yeah, it’s cool to be king.

The Rules of: Drinking Alone in a Bar

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:23:50 -0400

The Rules of: Drinking Alone in a Bar

achilsummer: moon over chilmark.

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 22:12:24 -0400

achilsummer:

moon over chilmark.

Boat to Table

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 10:00:06 -0400

Boat to Table:

“It is amazing,” Mr. Wagner said. “This is real time. No middleman. I texted Steve back. He got my brain going about butterfish. As Steve is pulling the fresh stuff out of the water, it shows up at the back door and whole.”

A Rhode Island-based initiative is going boat-to-restaurant, cutting out the middle man so chefs and fisherman can trade directly - and all with the help of technology.

"He should live with more books than he reads, with a penumbra of unread pages, of which he knows the..."

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 10:00:06 -0400

“

He should live with more books than he reads, with a penumbra of unread pages, of which he knows the general character and content, fluttering round him. This is the purpose of libraries…. It is also the purpose of good bookshops, both new and secondhand, of which there are still some, and would that there were more. A bookshop is not like a railway booking-office which one approaches knowing what one wants. One should enter it vaguely, almost in a dream, and allow what is there freely to attract and influence the eye.

To walk the rounds of the bookshops, dipping in as curiosity dictates, should be an afternoon’s entertainment. Feel no shyness or compunction in taking it. Bookshops exist to provide it; and the booksellers welcome it, knowing how it will end.

”

- Economist John Maynard Keynes, as quoted in a Canberra Times piece headlined “Bookshops about more than just purchasing.” Also here

Insomnomaniac

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 10:00:05 -0400

Insomnomaniac:

My parents tell the story of how, at age 4, I marched into their room one night and proclaimed that “I’ve forgotten how to fall asleep!” Well, lets just say things only went downhill from there.

Thanks to the hairpin for publishing this hilarious guide to natural sleep aids.

Highlight: “I mean, my yoga teacher makes us relax our hearts, I can’t relax my heart, and if I did, wouldn’t that cause problems, like, with my blood? Augh, just thinking about trying to relax is stressing me out.”