Author Archives: leah

Exotery

Hello reader(s),

Here is news. My hair has grown some. I have realized I look a bit a bit how I looked in 7th grade — see below for evidence. This makes sense, because I am basically the same human. I even pretty much dress the same way.* In 8th grade my classmates at Alan B. Shepard Jr. High School voted me the “Least Changed” student in my graduating class. What does that mean, “Least Changed”? I asked everyone I knew. They were all stumped. I assumed it meant I was short when I started junior high and short when I graduated. Very funny, yearbook people. Did you know I have a growth condition. Yeah, very funny. But then when I actually asked one of the yearbook people face-to-face, she said it was because I was “great to begin with.” Huh. Well, I guess I have proved them right. I have not changed very much at all, to this day.

*I do wish I still had those painters’ pants. They were from Old Navy. Painters’ pants are cool, even if you never paint.

leah finnegan at 12

Switching gears. The other day my friend Leigh mailed me a tumbleweed she found on the highway somewhere between Arizona and New Mexico. Leigh is the best. What should I do with this tumbleweed? My boss suggested making a coffee table out of it but I’m not sure if it is sturdy enough or if I am crafty enough. Recommendations welcome.

tumbleweed

The case of the incomplete blink.

Dear blog,

This week my eye doctor informed me that I do not blink correctly. What? I said. This is a level of human failure I did not even know possible! You might as well send me back into my mother’s womb so I can redevelop because obviously things have not gone to plan! Unfortunately, my mother no longer has a womb. Lucky for her. This time.

But don’t worry, blog. I am coping. I am doing some blinking exercises. Physical therapy. And I have found some support online. We will prevail. I will trust this struggle.

Excelsior.
Leah

Spring break

Joy to the blog,

Currently I am on spring break, even though I am old. By no intelligent design of my own, I saw the film Spring Breakers on the first day of my spring break. According to the Internet, critics have been struggling to love this film. Brave souls. Some movies should come with leather strap to chew on while you’re watching, and this was one of them. Anyway, after seeing this flick I realized I will never be famous for my body. I already knew this, I guess, but a girl can dream. It is too late for me though. What do I have left now, world? My mind? Great. We’ll see how that goes.

Well, I still have 1.5 days left of spring break, so I am going to go to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Yesterday I hung out at the Temple of Dendur and it was really quite fun.

Adieu!

Hi!

Dear Internet,

How are you? I am just here, typing. Recently I have been thinking about getting a tattoo on my back that says “F*ck you.” (censored because sometimes my grandpa reads this) That way, when people look at me from behind and if I am wearing a bathing suit or something, they will know what I am about. A woman has to do certain things to assert Her place in the world these days. I have also thought about getting a tattoo of the Finnegan family crest. Same difference, ha-ha! Geez, I have been talking about tattoos a lot on this Blog as of late. I should get some better things to talk about, but I mainly (still) just read about genocide and (still) watch TV about Russian prisons. Ok here is something. In high school, my friend Jenny and I didn’t know how to talk to boys, so we wrote down a bunch of conversation topics on a post-it note, and we would take this post-it note with us to parties (“parties” is a term used loosely here; think six to eight young men assembled in a basement with some light drug paraphernalia and a television). Unfortunately the topics we came up with included things like “campaign finance reform” and “abortion rights” and we would end up at these parties sitting in a corner looking at our post-it note and laughing about how funny it was/we were. Jenny eventually ended up dating someone from high school and I remained a weird nerd until age 24 and I think I still have the post-it note somewhere in my childhood bedroom.

Well, that was fun, wasn’t it!

Bye now!
Leah

Television criticism

Sunday, March 3, 2013 was going to be the day I started watching “Girls” because my mom gave me her Comcast “XFINITY” password and I am trying my best to be a part of discursive society as my Purim resolution. Thanks Mom! Unfortunately I could only make it through 10 minutes of one episode. What is this show?! Sorry, I am behind, I am on season 4 of Frasier (second time through) and I still haven’t watched “Roots: The Miniseries.” But really. Girls! Like, I get it: it provides the occasional chuckle, it’s the zeitgeist, and it’s very dark in its way, and there are awkward sex scenes and whatnot to chomp on, but really it just gives me horrible PTSD. Dear readers, this might shock you but: I was 23 not so long ago. I have reflected on and dealt with those years and I am glad they are over and I am glad that I have a job now and pay my own cell phone bill and live alone, quietly, in an average style, with some plants and small bowls and imaginary pets.

Anyway, after ten minutes of “Girls” weirdness I had to dip into my Sex and the City reserves to even things out mentally. I watched the episode “Shortcomings,” which is from Season 2, a very good season with great hairstyles. In this episode Carrie dates a writer who does not really write named Vaughan, played by a yet-to-be-tattooed Justin Theroux. God, his character is awful. But what is awful writer than a timeless stereotype, ya know? He’s also (spoiler alert? ha-ha) an early ejaculator, and refuses to discuss this with Carrie, despite her heartbreaking/reasonable attempts to do so. Anyway, she dumps him. Watching this episode as a “Girls” palette cleanser, SaTC’s value as a series became evident: it never tried to chew up some viscous portion of New York culture and spit it back into our mouths. No! Instead it was just like, who cares! Let’s make a fun show that’s funny but also sad and just about these white women and use really horrible puns and push forward the zeitgeist by making everyone drink cosmopolitans for 10 years and ruining Magnolia Bakery (look around you, New York: Michael Patrick King is everywhere).

In conclusion, SaTC is far more genius than anyone ever gave it credit for. Is it the only show in history in which women are actually genuinely portrayed as persons with wants and needs? I mean no, but also, DISCUSS.

Until next time!

One time…

One time for Christmas I asked for headphones. My mom got me some headphones from Bose, the kind that go in your ears. They’re very expensive headphones, but they did not fit in my ears. Well, my mom said, you can probably return them, I got them for free though. How? I asked. By test-driving a Maserati, she said.

This is a weird story. My mom has always been really into coupons, even though she is not a child of the Depression and she comes from a family of reasonable means. Nevertheless, she pays attention to interesting offers that come in the mail and in the newspaper. Maybe it’s an Illinois thing. One time she received some kind of leaflet that offered a free pair of Bose headphones if you test-drove a Maserati. Terrific! But you also had to be a teacher to qualify. What? Was Maserati trying to tap into the Ford Focus market? Were they trying to infiltrate the minds of children across America by offering our country’s public servants free rides and fancy gifts? The deal made little sense.

My parents are both teachers. My dad teaches high school calculus (he is kind of famous) and my mom teaches reading to little baby kids who say fun things like “We have many living presidents. Barack Obama is our current living president.” My parents do not make very much money because teachers do not make very much money. As a child I always wondered why baseball players made so much money but not my parents. O child, I wish I could say to my 1993 self, the world is cruel and unfair. Soon you will learn.

Anyway, my mom is really adventurous, she likes to do things like ride in go-karts, and go on zip lines, and sometimes just sit in an inner-tube on Lake Michigan with a can of Natty Lite. So she was super down to test-drive this Maserati. Mind you, she is all of 4’10 and 100-odd pounds. So she dragged my dad along one November day and drove the $150,000 car (more than their combined salaries) on the highway and then mailed in the little rebate stub proving that she drove a Maserati to get her daughter a free pair of headphones for Christmas, even though they didn’t fit in her ears. I can only imagine the looks on the Maserati mens’ faces (they have to be men, right?) when my parents rolled up in their ancient Jeep.

I was able to return the headphones for another kind, because Bose has pretty great customer service (this post not sponsored by Bose, but they are nice on the phone!). I still use them every day. Thanks, Mom!

 

Dear blog,

Dear blog,

Hi! Lately I have been having some problems with my brain. Nothing serious, but I am wearing sunglasses indoors right now because the snow just makes life TOO crazy bright like an acid dream. I am resigned to the werewolf’s life, and what a life it is. Ugh, European folklore. Anyway, you can read more about this life in a forthcoming essay on a great Web site, themorningnews.org. HA! Look at me, a total sellout. Listen, people, I just don’t get out of bed for free anymore. If you want personal life updates, you can read them on boutique literary web journals like the rest of the literati, MOM.

And now I will leave you with a quotation from Malcolm X, from the Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley.

“I got my first schooling about the cesspool morals of the white man from the best possible source, his own women.”

Discuss!

Bye!

**UPDATE** 2/17: Here is the essay: *click*