this is the cutest thing you will ever see probably in your entire life

So normally I don't post other people's videos, etc. on my blog, but I was literally incapacitated by how cute this video is. I stopped being able to talk and could barely move.


Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

And anytime something renders me speechless/a pile of goo, I feel obligated to pass it on. Enjoy.

PS, I think I connected so much with this because sloths are apparently very itchy creatures. Me too! Me too!!!! <333333 sloth luv.

Animals make me stupid happy!! snaaaaaaaarf.

several more things

1. Last week I went to the LCD Soundsystem show at Terminal 5. The following is a video I took on my iPhone of the last part of their closing set. They played "New York, I Love You," obvs, then the chorus from Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind," which I found kitschy but also couldn't help loving, before releasing a hundred white balloons from the ceiling. The concert was amazing - my friend Brady and I were in the general admission standing area and we were surrounded by young people obsessed with themselves and obsessed with just being alive. This video is terrible, because I was jumping around and acting like a damn fool, but I feel that it adequately  represents the entirety of the concert, which consisted of me jumping around and acting like a damn fool. It was fucking infectious.



After the balloons dropped, Brady and I posed with one of them in front of a dumpster, natch.

2. In other news: I bought one of these.

And I am taking piano lessons. I grew up in an extremely musical household - I can trace my entire childhood based on what albums I was listening to with my parents (read: Queen, The Eagles, Chicago, Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, The Doobie Brothers, Journey, Sade, Roberta Flack, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion were all in the repertoire), and I danced my youth away - and once I got bigger I played the flute for seven years. I realized recently that I had lost that outlet, which makes no sense. I miss making music or at least being somehow involved with it. I've always always always wanted to learn how to play the piano, so I'm just diving into it. It requires some budgeting, of course, because this is New York, but it's totally worth it. And the harmonica purchase is an addendum to that. I also intend to learn how to play the guitar this summer. I'm an ambitious lady.

3. Speaking of being a lady, I spent all day Sunday helping my amazing bestie Jenny Anderson with a pin-up photo shoot on the roof of my friend's Brooklyn apartment. I spent the whole day looking around in gape-mouthed awe that I know so many beautiful, strong, talented women. Jenny is a clit tease and has only shown us a couple photos. Here is one of them. The lineup goes something like this: actress, writer, writer, actress, dancer, actress, writer, writer, actress, dancer, and of course, photographer (behind the lens). Kick. Ass. Ladies.

4. Feeling rather ladylike from the shoot, I went the other day to get a mani/pedi, and as I was sitting in the spa waiting to indulge myself, I started reading Willie Morris' memoir North Toward Home. The book chronicles his life, moving from Yazoo City, Mississippi to go to college in Texas before taking on New York City, where he became an accomplished writer and the editor of Harper's Magazine. He grew to be totally disenchanted with the city and ended up moving back to the South - of course, he took root in Oxford, where I went to college - and the book obviously details his relationship with both the South and the North, both his past and his present. Because Zac is moving to New Orleans at the end of the summer, and because I too yearn for the South and ponder daily a return to my roots, it is likely going to be an incredibly important book for me to read.

ANYWAY. As I sat in the window reading, the sun was pouring through the window as it set, framing the words on the glass. I looked down and the shadow it cast was scrawled across my book.

The universe can't really get any more direct than that.

several things

1. I made a new blog today in a moment of divine inspiration. It is called

eyjafjallajokull shit.

It is sort of funny?? Check it out.

2. Zac edited/uploaded/did a wonderful job on the video from our epic 10-hour trip to NOLA last Tuesday/Wednesday. Basically whu ha happened was I found this amazing special on JetBlue for $10 tickets, and pitched a last-minute trip to New Orleans to Zac and Hannah, which they agreed to because they are rock stars. And then we filmed the entire thing and here it is. It is amazeballs.

3. After you watch the video, this will make sense.

And that is what I did today. What did you do???

eyjafjallajokull!!!!!

manhattan looks like some place else

I took a group of photos over the past few days, and when I looked back over them they all seemed to look like... somewhere other than New York. Kind of weird.

these are a few of my favorite things

For a couple years now, I've kept a running list of my favorite things. I don't update it very much - before today, I hadn't even looked at it for at least six months - but I've always loved the idea of keeping a list of favorite things, so I could look back over it and sort of remember who I am at my happiest moments.

For a while I thought I would never share this list with anyone, save for maybe my future husband, but now I think it's fun and I feel that publishing it will encourage other people to share their favorite things, which obviously I want to hear. It's a really good exercise if you're ever in a down mood -  focusing on the positive things in life, shockingly enough, is a great way to stay positive - and I find that when I just write as honestly and openly as I can, the results are better. And more hilarious. Reading back over it now, I can literally see the progression of my life from around April 2008 - when I started this list - to the present time. Two years' worth of favoriteness.

So, here is my work-in-progress list of favorite things. Most of them involve food and/or sex. And yes, I'm fully aware some things are on here more than once. That is purposeful. Please comment and tell me some of your favorite things. Let your freak flag fly.




meghan's favorite things.

When you go to the bathroom at a restaurant, and your food is waiting for you when you come back
Fresh tomatoes with salt and pepper
A fresh tomato sandwich with mayonnaise and two slices of cheese, salt and pepper
Passionate kisses
Ice cold water when you're really thirsty
Dancing, self-expression therein
Doing a really good job on something and knowing it
Trying a new food and loving it
New friends and old friends
Self-confidence
Mom and Dad
Chocolate, let's be honest
Getting in bed when you're really, really tired
Spooning
A Diet Coke when you really, really want a Diet Coke
Maraschino cherries
A juicy, sweet orange
Lump crab meat
Feeling beautiful
Chicken noodle soup when your throat is sore
Bananas with peanut butter
Spooning
Boyfriends: the way they smell, dress, look at you
Sex
ee cummings
Being read to in Spanish
Being read to
Good writing
Laying in bed during a thunderstorm
Freshly baked bread with butter
Feeling warm with love
Finding a really great deal on something you really want, AKA a good sale
Getting dressed and feeling really cute
Surprises
Reading something that really connects with you
De ja vu
Having someone know what you want without you having to say it
A really amazing meal at a restaurant
Central Park
New York street noise, even when it's terrible
Taking off my bra after a long day
Taking off my bra after a long, hot day
Pilates
Post-workout feelings
Smoked salmon cream cheese
Pancakes
Champagne, champagne cocktails
New contacts
When you make pasta/sauce and you're stirring it with a cooking spoon and all the good stuff (veggies, sauce, meat) gets stuck in the spoon and then you can eat it out of the spoon
Brunch
Little kids bundled up in winter clothes
Diner food
Making out in bars/clubs
Watching cheesy youtube videos that make me cry
Lazy rivers
The burning feeling in your stomach after taking a tequila shot
Weekends
Sleeping in
Cunnilingus
Street fairs
Taking a really amazing shit
Loud hip-hop and rap music
Deep bass that you can feel in your bones
Live music
Discovering new music
Singing
Writing in my journal
Reading poetry aloud for strangers
Reading poetry aloud for friends
Watching happy families on the subway
Watching dogs run and play
Cute babies
New Orleans
Home
Rainer Maria Rilke
Patti Smith
Young poets
Granola
Free art galleries (AKA Chelsea)
Photography (creating, consuming)
Spring
Summer
Sad stories
Whiskey
Sexual deviants
Seeing blind people walking around the city (and feeling encouraged to keep going)
Mint chocolate chip ice cream
Sitting on my fire escape and listening to the city
Women


to be cont'd.....

It *is possible to get vocally rejected on Facebook

Normally, when I get Facebook friend requests from people and I don't want to confirm them, I just ignore them. I let them sit there. They don't bother me, and that way the person never finds out I don't want to be their fauxbook friend, so everyone's happy. But, today, I tried to friend Allie Brosh's (of Hyperbole and a Half) character Spaghatta Nadle on the facebook, and this is what happened.

I mean... goddamn. Ouch. Rejected by a fictitious noodle with a speech impediment on a fucking social networking site. And how exactly can one have "too many friends"? Is that some kind of psychiatric disorder, like schizophrenia? Too-many-friend-ia?

Good to know the noodle is single though. I'll find a way in there. I'll break the carbohydrate barrier. Oh, I will.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Gaga Stigmata: Go read my guest post!

I was published on Gaga Stigmata today. It's a literary journal dedicated to smart and well-written analyses of Lady Gaga's art. I re-hashed the post I wrote in November comparing Gaga's Bad Romance to Stanley Kubrick's films A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey. I worked hard on the new version, adding a good amount of research and in-depth analysis about what, in my opinion, the similarities signify. So, go check it out! And, while you're there, click to follow the blog. They need followers!

Also - fellow blogger Hannah Miet and I are reading at Bowery Poetry Club this Sunday at 4 p.m. This time we're not just open-micing it - we are actually featured readers. We are each reading two poems, and we are reading first, so all my 20something friends have to plan to be there at 3:45 since we all perpetually run 15 minutes late.

Art and love.

jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine

I saw Patti Smith in concert in New Brunswick Friday night. It was the second concert experience I've had that was a religious one - the first being Lady Gaga - where you forget you have a body and just exist only in that moment and you realize the unbearable lightness of your idol standing a few feet away from you, looking at you and touching your hand and changing your life. We rushed to the stage when she came on, so I left my phone/camera behind and didn't take any pictures. That's OK, because Jenny took some really amazing ones. I'm going to post them here, in lieu of trying to reproduce the experience with words, and she's going to post them on her blog (plus a few more) later.

it was a portal
past bumping up
against future
tears on an amp
fists on a stage
guitar strings ripped out
with 60-year-old hands
and ageless
completely
ageless