Season's Greetings!

Love for the holidays from Maddie and Jenni at Ponytail Junction Hater Mansion.
Also, good tidings from Phil, who does not live here. 2009 is going to be great!

Things I Saw on the Internet

From Nathan of The Zone, and other City Folk

While Maddie and I continue to languish in the weedy backwaters of Gamecube provincialism, Kei, Mordecai, Corinne and Nate have moved on to Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Nintendo Wii.

Here is a link to Kei's recent post about her cosmopolitan life.

Here is a photo of Nate's house, sent directly from his Nintendo:


And here are photos of my living room in 90210. As you can see, I live on the moon:






My house is so big! Will I ever abandon being a hot shot in the country for a new life of impoverished city squalor? Perhaps little Dylan will someday feel the need to attend graduate school...until then, we'll be staying put.

Homes: Past, Present and Future

My virtual friends in 90210 spent Thanksgiving morning getting wasted down by the wishing well and viciously hunting a turkey named Franklin. Apparently, my character (Dylan [after McKay, obviously; seen below]) is some sort of vegetarian, peace-loving hippie square because not only did he NOT drink, but he also spent quite a bit of time helping Franklin escape his gory, sustenance-providing destiny. In an expression of gratitude, Franklin gave him a set of turkey-themed furniture.

Here, you can see the top floor of my house, pre-Franklin:



This is where Dylan goes to hang out with his stuffed bear collection and totem poles. It's also a good place for reading Marxist critical theory while sitting in a rocking chair. Cozy, right?

Below is the same room, but now decorated almost entirely in Franklin's "Harvest Collection:"



It doesn't really come through in the photos, but all of the furniture has PINK CLAW FEET. I don't know. This really gives me the creeps. It's like Franklin thanked me for not eating him by transforming my house into his corpse. Yes, I am quoting the passage in Hal Foster's Design and Crime (2002), in which he quotes Adolf Loos's Ornament and Crime (1908):

"The Gestamtkunstwerk does more than combine architecture, art, and craft; it commingles subject and object: 'the individuality of the owner was expressed in every ornament, every form, every nail.' For the Art Nouveau designer, this is perfection: 'You are complete!' he exults to the owner. But the owner is not so sure: this completion 'taxed [his] brain.' Rather than a sanctuary from modern stress, his Art Nouveau interior is another expression of it: 'The happy man suddenly felt deeply, deeply unhappy... He was precluded from all future living and striving, developing and desiring. He thought, this is what it means to learn to go about life with one's own corpse. Yes indeed. He is finished. He is complete!" (15)

Tomorrow, I'm pawning the entire set at Tom Nook's. Thanks-given present or no, that turkey is not going to guilt me into living with his pseudo-memento-moris.

And, while we're on the subject of presents, promises and death....

In keeping with another, non-holiday tradition, I recently sent a friend an email reminding him of the fact that I plan on spending the post-corpse portion of my life haunting him. It said:

"When I am a ghost, all the places I will live are all the spaces in your brain between rational thought and primal terror."

He responded by sending me a photograph of his brain, so that I could become familiar with my future home :

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

CP v. CC, Halloween Edition

The sickle is already starting to wither. Capitalism triumphs eternal.

GOODBYE GOOD LUCK GOOD RIDDANCE

Goodbye witch.
Goodbye bedroom ghost.
Goodbye doors that mysteriously break and lock themselves.
Goodbye men peeing on our door step at 1pm.
Goodbye bad teenagers next door.
Goodbye vibrating chair.

Lauren and Rachel are gone.
Maddie and Jenni are leaving.
Ponytail Junction, RIP.

Postcards from....

Dear Readers,

So, I told everyone I got a full-time job. Unfortunately, this was untrue. Instead, I am traveling the world with my friend Phil. Here's the photographic evidence:


Here we are IN NATURE!



Phil "accidentally" dove over the edge of the waterfall, so I went to Paris by myself to court Loris Greaud.


Found Phil underwater, somewhere in the Atlantic.


Then I died and went to heaven, i.e. Japan.

Be talking to you from beyond the grave!

xo,
Jenni

A Bird In The Hand...

Last fall, you might recall, Rachel killed a dove and then Lauren buried it in the backyard. Well I for one would like to publicly thank Lauren for doing such a crappy job at digging its grave because on Monday, as I was clearing the dead leaves off the flower beds for spring planting, I wound up with a fully intact bird spine in my hand.

I thought about turning it into a necklace and jump starting a new career on Etsy...death and animals have had good runs at Urban Outfitters and Chelsea in the past year. But I quickly decided that would be crass, not to mention totally passé, and tossed it in with the rest of the leaves and debris.

This move to get "back to the land" was inspired by the astute observations of the New York Times which tapped into my budding desire to feel like a part of my generation. Afterwards, I sold all of my rock records and walked over to the Bedford Cheese shop to buy artisinal ricotta with the money. Boy do I regret that decision!

The Sunday Styles section is inane.

RIGHT NOW AT PTJ

there are two birds making a nest on our window ledge.


watching them is kinda like watching two people wrapped in the same tuba-ruba.


this is how a bird says "f you!"

Brooklyn Ghost Investigators

ATTENTION! This is a local phone number. Three dudes in Carroll Gardens, ages 20-27, have decided to offer their ghost clearing services for a mere $20 per hour. They even use a homemade ouija board and burn sage - JUST LIKE US.
Love connection?

A Ghostbuster in Carroll Gardens?
NYC Ghost Investigators Just a Call Away

Ponytron Junction

Animal Crossing


pizza contest


the Dirty Rachel Roll


Ben Bell: phew!


Our Valentine

Where I Been

So - you may be wondering...
Lauren? Huh? Did she move? Runaway? Have a nervous breakdown? Elope and move to Siberia?
maybe. maybe all of those things.

Here's the truth:
I did in fact briefly runaway to a desert island. I spent weeks in solitude roaming the beach and dreaming of a new oceanside utopia in which every inhabitants' main occupation was simply staring at the horizon, our currency was miniature seashells, and the frozen margaritas were always free.
My society did have a short-lived success, and I was appointed Miss Totally Awesome Town (in lieu of traditional political titles, which are, like, totally oppressive, the general consensus was to base our nation on the rules and titles outlined in a Miss Desert Island USA entry form we found washed up on the beach).
With my title came a handsome sum:

However, even by the sea, politics are politics, and my rule was overthrown by a no good spineless freak. Seriously. The new ruler is this guy:

Such is life.
Luckily, however, we were around just long enough to be recognized in international currency exchanges, and I was able to cash in my seashell stash for a ticket beck to the Junction.
Well, I have to admit I was pretty down and depressed after losing Totally Awesome Town. I sulked and sulked for days on end, sitting on the couch, playing Animal Crossing, and wishing that Cutopia cold be as real for me as my world by the sea.
Then things really made a turn for the worse... I took to the basement.
Permanently dank, moldy, and generally melancholy, absorbing myself in this space was, in retrospect, a bad idea from the start. I tried to befriend the occasional waterbug, but they always ran away right as the conversation would get good. The mysterious fungus under the stairs was my only other option, but it only returned my advances with blank stares.
Then one day while exploring one of the many stacks of buckets holding unknown (probably toxic) substances, I came across an ancient looking can with no label. Desperate for mystery and any excitement, I peeled away the lid, revealing fresh, hot, just fried (delicious!) pierogi! I was shocked, stunned, absolutely awed. I could smell the oil, the melty cheese and spiced potato inside, and couldn't resist. So I picked one up, and nibbled off a corner... And this is where it gets real bad.

I had just begun to chew when suddenly I was throttled into darkness. The floor fell below me, and I was floating without time or space. I was now surrounded by nothing but an overpowering stench of frying pierogi, and the deafening sound of the horribly clanking bells from the church on our corner. It felt as though I was falling forever, and then a voice erupted and a white form appeared before me...
I cannot say what transpired, but I feel as though I learned things that are not to be repeated; not in this world at least.
I do not know how long I was gone for. When I awoke, the house seemed unchanged (though eerily cleaner than usual...).
As a possible clue to that mystery, I will add this note:
Right before my escape to the sea, I had cut all my hair off in a fit of care-free rebellion. My ponytail was only a memory.
Upon my return from the netherworld, In a dazed attempt to pull myself together I unconsciously reached back behind my head to make a ponytail, and was surprised - and relieved - to find that I could.
Our world is, once again, as it should be.

Full Speed Ahead!

What's more fun than being on the wagon? Telling people that you're on the wagon!
What's more fun than telling people you're on the wagon? Drinking!
What's more fun than drinking? Telling people you're on the wagon with a whiskey soda in your hand!

This post is dedicated to everyone who supported me during my three months (i.e. 48-hours) of sworn sobriety. You guys are the best.

it's in the way she...

for my birthday, jenni put bugs in my bed.
then she ichatted this (censored):


Jenni Wu
5:36



rachel is such a **** ****.
5:36
i ******** hate her ****.
5:36


in animal crossing news, my boyfriend the bluebird, ace, calls me "babydoll" and "my love"
photo to follow.

Form, Function, Frosting, aka The Martha Stewart Blues

Someday, Ponytail Junction will create architecturally impeccable gingerbread cake houses. Roofs that sit symmetrically on structurally sound foundations. Facades that do not threaten to crumble at the slightest provocation. Precisely measured house-shaped houses with well-placed chimney accents. For those who were there, Maddie's Christmas confections came out much prettier than my Acconci prefab village. Also, I have frosting all over my forehead and a sugary pain in my stomach. Failure. It lurks in every corner.

Unless, of course, you live in the house of Stewart.