Read This To Feel Cooler Than Me

Ernesto has been out of town on another one of those nErD cOnVenTioNz (i.e. medical school interviews) (i.e. paths to an actual future) since Thursday, which means I've had the entire apartment to myself to go crazy. Carpe diem! Git'er dun! Just do it!  Here's how I've seized the day so far:

1. I woke up promptly at 11, after staying up until 3:30 a.m. the night before for no apparent reason other than to watch The Office while eating choco-banana muffins.  (It was actually only one muffin.. I ate it slowly so it would last the entire episode. I'm not sure whether that makes my night more or less pathetic.)

2. At some point while singing/washing the dishes, I came up with "I ain't no challah-back girl" and thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world.  Like, I couldn't get past the chorus without giggling uncontrollably, which was probably a good thing because I wouldn't have been able to come up with more dumb food puns for the rest of the song. Honestly, I still think it's the most hilarious thing in the world, partly because "challah-back girl" conjures up this delightful image of Gwen Stefani using a loaf of challah as a track baton in a 4x400 relay, while "hollaback girl"only makes me think of Gwen Stefani in a cheerleader outfit. You decide which one would make a better GIF. 

I just got 245,000 results after Googling "challah back girl," so it's probably too late to use it as my original catchphrase. Under most circumstances I might get a little depressed, BUT I also found this site, where I can still feel like it's my original catchphrase by purchasing "I ain't no challah-back girl" business cards at the very reasonable price of 7 cents each for each order of 1000! Never mind the fact that I, 1) am not Jewish, 2) don't have a company. The last time I checked, I live in Amurrika, where I'm free to buy 1000 business cards that have my full name printed on every line.

I'm, like, 5% tempted to actually do this just to spite Ernesto, who is probably stuffing his face with challah at some charming bakery on Brookline Ave. as I type this. You think you can just fly to Boston without me and shrug it off?! Think again, sucka. 

3. Speaking of healthy communication in relationships. Today I decided that my New Year's resolution will be to not suck at texting. There are two specific ways in which I am the worst texter I know. The first way only applies to Ernesto, because only Ernesto would put up with it. To sum up a very long, heartbreaking story involving a comatose Blackberry to which I never got to say goodbye, my old  phone broke and now I have a touchscreen piece of crap that puts up a hissy fit every time I try to unlock it to DO anything, but somehow manages to call my house whenever the fabric of my pockets or the dust particles in the air of my apartment so much as brush by the screen. Which they like to do between 2 and 4 in the morning, at least once a week. The phone also insists on typing 5 different letters when I very clearly only pressed one, and the autocorrect is a joke. 

SO as an act of resistance, I refuse to correct my spelling whenever I text Ernesto, which may have something to do with the fact that he MADE me get this phone (yes, at gunpoint) (obviously not at gunpoint.. in case social services or someone is reading this) instead of the perfectly acceptable Blackberry with actual buttons, all because the non-Blackberry was $70 ish cheaper. Well, I can use those $70 to buy 1000 personalized business cards now, so I think we know who really won that battle. 

Well, no one won that battle, because everything I send Ernesto looks like a drunk text (see Figure 1) AND I'm still stuck with this touchscreen phone that takes 3x longer to text with than a phone with actual buttons (so if the things I text you don't look like they're straight out of a Ke$ha music video, FEEL IMPORTANT). Also, I still don't have 1000 challah-back girl business cards. Lose-Lose.  

Figure 1: Paulina Lopez's texts to Ernesto are 80% incomprehensible.

Second (and this applies to everyone), I take somewhere between one hour and 4 days to respond. Sometimes I don't respond at all. So.. my apologies if that's happened to you. I'm not trying to be a jerk. Usually, what's going on is something like this scenario (my thoughts are in purple):

(recieved text) Friend: blahblah insert funny thing here

(attempting to text a response) me: hahahaha wait how many 'ha's are too many? just one sounds sarcastic, whatever I'll go with three. although.. three seems a little much for something that wasn't exactly the most hilarious thing Friend has ever said. I have to make them work for my 'hahahas', don't I? Otherwise I'll have to add another 'ha' onto the actually funny stuff and that's gonna take forever to type out. lskjlfkjs ahh whatever I don't text Friend that often anyway that's  real funny god I sound like a hick really funny that doesn't seem sincere totes funny wait will this person get that I'm making fun of abbreviations or does it seem like I'm actually abbreviating? Cause I'm trying to make fun of abbreviations here. I only sincerely abbreviate when I text Other Friend.. although now that I think about it, does Other Friend get that I'm sincerely abbreviating and not just making fun of abbreviating? 

Aaaand that's how what should have been a very simple response never gets sent because I'm the most awkward person in the world. 

(relevant at this point in the post:)

I Can't Believe It's Not Art

I've never gone to an addiction recovery program, but I've seen enough episodes of The O.C./Grey's Anatomy/Arrested Development/other shows featuring well-to-do alcoholics to know that the first step is admitting you have a problem. 

There are a couple of instances throughout this blog where I hint at my obsession with all things food-related, but even I didn't grasp the extent of my infatuation until recently completing a sculpture assignment that, as it turns out, is the fourth consecutive food-related artwork that I've made in the past 2 months.  Below, I give you the artistic manifestations of my troubled, food-addicted subconscious:

Let Cake Eat Them. Felt, thread, zippers. 

Prompt: Make a piece about connection. 

This guy took me 2 weeks to finish, so I spent a looooong time daydreaming about real desserts during the process. 

Putrescence. Satin, Sequins, Thread. 

Prompt: Make your favorite word.
An excerpt from a future art history textbook that will undoubtedly be written about this work: "Much like Picasso went through a depressive Blue Period (or how Van Gogh went through an entire depressive career), this piece sheds some light on the more painful aspects of being in love with anything: having to say goodbye. The juxtaposition of fine materials with forms that reference a clear state of putrescence manifests the artist's inner struggle at this crossroad; by looking at the piece, the viewer can almost hear the artist whisper to the bowl of fruit, 'You are beautiful, no matter what they say,' before tossing it into the dumpster to avoid yet another fruit fly infestation."

 Concessions at Weitz Cinema. Fake popcorn, fake coke, fake candy bars, fake nachos, fake pretzels. 

Prompt: Make something site-specific. 

I sincerely believe that more people would attend movies at Weitz if they could buy overpriced snacks. I know I'd rather pay $5 for a jumbo box of Sour Patch Kids than for a 2-day old parfait at the Sayles Cafe. (count the rhymes, imma poet)

I Keep On Fallin'. Flannel, Satin.

Prompt: Make something else that's site-specific.  

It was in the making of this piece (at 2 in the morning while watching Arrested Development) that I realized all of my art was about food.

So now, I'm going to follow in the footsteps of Kirsten Cohen, Chief Webber and Lucille Bluth and weasel my way out of any interventions that threaten to separate me from my one true love.

1. It's not really a problem to think about food all of the time if food is my muse. Some people get The Dark Lady, some people get Yoko Ono, and I get the food pyramid. Potato/Potahto. (but no one says 'potahto,' so more like.. Coupon/Kyoopon)

2. This entire dilemma only exists because I initially denied food the condition of Art with a capital A to begin with. Luckily, people like Marcel Duchamp and Laurence Weiner have paved the road for making Non-Art into Art at my very whim. So.. food, I now declare you to be Art. Which makes my food-related sculptures actually art-related sculptures. Which in turn makes my art self-referential and snooty and fit for inclusion in fine institutions like ARTFORUM and the MoMA! Below, I present you just one of many works of art handcrafted by moi that you now have the privilege of admiring:

Enchilovin' It?

Another Helpful Visual Aid

I came up with this last term, it started out as me sitting in an airport somewhere by myself, thinking about how cupcakes are the worst thing ever. I was also a little upset about the horrifyingly understated difference between solid pies and liquidy pies.