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I do a lot of pretty random stupid shit thinking that I will write about it. Most of my activities turn out to be useless, though there’s always the idea that I could hit upon something so I live in this constant state of expectation that’s not as exciting as it sounds and is actually mildly depressing. This is because the pretense of adventure, day in and day out, when hardly anything actually ever happens eventually wears on you, especially when you are not rich. As much as one tries to tell oneself that things are being accomplished, such encouragement is no match for the more persistent mantra which goes something like this: Hey, you’re an idiot. Get a job. Oh. Wait. You are unemployable. Okay. Well. You’re just an idiot. READ MORE

That New York Times Magazine's article on the dangers of yoga has made a lot of people mad. It didn’t really make me mad—I do too much yoga to get mad, though I do still sniff disdainfully—but I did want to address why many of the arguments in it are totally lame. READ MORE

Ten years ago today Winona Ryder stole several thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from the Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue. I reacted to the news of the incident the way I react to most celebrity scandals—with unmitigated delight—and prepared myself to follow subsequent action with mild interest. READ MORE

Coming across a guide of "18 Common Phrases to Avoid In Conversation," I was struck by the rightness of the article's aim: Some things should indeed never be said. But the alternate conversational choices offered by the magazine seemed a bit passive aggressive to me —for example, "Is everything OK?" as a substitute for "You look tired." Naturally, I felt it was my duty to come up with some satisfactory alternatives. READ MORE

"Kutcher's appearance came as reports emerged that he had been rating girls as 'hot tub worthy or not' during a night out in Las Vegas on the weekend of his sixth wedding anniversary."—Daily Mail READ MORE

September 15, 2011

Dear Mr. Soufan,

My boyfriend made me watch "Frontline" the other night, and because of you I'm so glad I did. I know people are probably always thanking you for being such a great American, or are impressed with you for having the ultimately useless insight that could have stopped the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, or for being the only Arab-speaking FBI agent in the New York area at the time of the attacks. And that stuff’s all great. But that’s not why I’m writing. I’m writing because after seeing "Frontline" (I had never heard of you before; sorry!), I listened to you on "Fresh Air," read your Wikipedia page, Googled you several times (sometimes I accidentally type 'Souftan'), read the transcript of all your interviews and your 2009 and 2010 New York Times editorials, then watched "Frontline" again, and then came to the conclusion that you are a stone fox.

Can we Facebook? My name’s Gideon Rayburn. Actually, that’s not my name. That's the name of a character in a book I wrote about a kid who goes to prep school and finds that he's totally out of his element. Then he becomes obsessed with this Argentine girl named Pilar Benitez-Jones, because she is just so hot. Like you!

I long to sit on the floor and drink tea with you and argue about religion and politics, because I have been listening and I know that’s what you like to do. I will try to let you draw me out a little but it might be hard because I just want to tell you everything.

Best,

When I read last fall that Marc and J.Lo were designing clothing line at Kohl’s, I thought, well, now they can’t break up. Who else besides each other could they really expect to weather the shame? I mean, J.Lo is an international superstar. Marc Anthony is a gross international superstar. Kohl’s is the place that everyone thinks is Mervyns and already closed. READ MORE

In addition to being somewhat crazy—a shrink once diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder, which I thought was a bit of a stretch until I realized that, like everyone else, he just wanted to have sex with me—I am a yoga teacher. I don’t know what your idea of a yoga teacher is, but should you, recoiling in horror as you read along here, find yourself asking, "But how does someone like this become a yoga teacher?"—the short answer is that I gave a man with a beard and his hot wife $3,200 dollars. The long answer is… well, I’d like to say that it's because if I hadn’t gotten obsessed with yoga I’d probably be dead, because that’s what people always say about things like this: “If I hadn’t discovered writing, I’d be dead,” “if I hadn’t found Alcoholics Anonymous/married my amazing wife/started making autumn-inspired hand-knit legwarmers and selling them on Etsy, I’d be dead.” But saying, "without yoga I would probably be dead" would be, frankly, a little overdramatic. Let’s just say that if I didn’t do yoga everything bad about me would just be worse, and what is bad is already bad enough. READ MORE