“Dear Architects” appears in this month’s Abitare Magazine, an Italian/English magazine on art, architecture, interior design, and other industries that involve black clothing (including the black clothing industry itself). The cover story is about “daily life in Rem Koolhaas’ Bordeaux home.” The photo features a plump maid who I assume works for DJ Jazzy Rem Koolhaas. People tell me that his two personal assistants are called PARK’s, which stands for Personal Assistant Rem Koolhaas. Hahaha oh man I cannot make this shit up. So there’s PARK1 and PARK2, and I have a feeling that’s part of their email addresses too. I would also like to have a personal assistant, but the only person I can afford is myself, which defeats the entire purpose of having one.

Anyway, “Dear Architects” appears in the special “The Reader” pullout section and the letter is translated into Italian, alongside the English version. It came out a few days ago, which explains why I received a piece of Italian hate mail the other day. I got it, and I was like cool! It’s in Italian! I wonder what it says? Then I Babelfished it and it was all very confusing and a total mess, so I had Chris translate and once he got to the word “imbecile” I figured out pretty quickly that it was in fact, a letter of hate, and not one of love or even tepid acknowledgment. However, the writer did apologize for writing in Italian, which I thought was very polite. As if to say, “I HATE YOU, YOU ARE AN IMBECILE. P.S. Sorry for writing this hate mail in Italian so it’s harder for you to understand how much I hate you.” Touche, Italy. Well played.

The Emeco people invited me to dinner at Morimoto this evening. I will go, but I am vegetarian so the whole experience will be lost on me. But there’s always something vegetarian right? I can eat the napkins. Also, because I am very immature, I keep thinking of…

“IRON CHEF JAPANESE MASAHARU MORIMOTO!”
“Hai!”
“How do you think you fared today at Kitchen Stadium?”
“I think I did very well thank you.”
“And what about today’s secret ingredient?”
“At first I said to myself, mmm, uni…it’s so smooth in texture and so delicate. But then I started to cook, it all came together. Everything happened so fast!”
“Hahaha yes, time is always a factor here in Kitchen Stadium. Do you think you will win, Iron Chef Morimoto?”
“I am very confident, yes. I think I will win.”
“But you are facing a very tough challenger today.”
“Yes, but I am confident. I believe my dishes are the best.”
“Good luck, Iron Chef Morimoto!”
“Thank you.”

Then there are the judges:
“Normally… I do not like uni. It is always so…slimy. But I have to say, this is delicious! It is like…like a musical for my tongue! I love it!”

“I agree! The balance of flavors is so…well done. That must be why they call you Iron Chef!” tee hee hee

Now that I read it, I realize it’s MUCH funnier in my head. Trust me if you heard it in my head you’d bust a nut.

And honestly, my favorite is Iron Chef Chinese Chen Kenichi because he looks a little doughy and always looks insecure even though he is IRON CHEF. Then he’s like “Oh I just thought of recipes my father used to make.” I also like Iron Chef Sakai because he looks like a Japanese Tom Skerrit except skinnier. He also looks like a fox. I don’t know why. I wonder if the Iron Chefs get pissed that they have to wear satin chef outfits. That does not look like it breathes. They look like outcasts from the Pink Ladies or something.

For the past two weeks I was taking care of Aura’s cat. I like cats. I get along with them. I like animals where I do my own thing and they do their own thing. Dogs and children are animals that will not let you do your own thing. This is why I do not have dogs or children. I guess I don’t have a cat either but I probably should because my apartment is the size of a litter box so it would be really convenient. For a cat anyway.

Aura’s cat is really aggressive and vocal and pretty much hisses and bats at everything, but she is declawed so it’s cute to see her get all pissed off and then not have the goods to back her shit up. But Kitty and I have a good relationship. She hisses at me and then I hiss at her and then she hisses at me and then I hiss at her and then she bats at me and I bat at her and then she flips out and runs away because I’ve definitely got the goods to back my shit up. Then later she comes back to me and wants to be loved and then purrs so much she drools on me. Basically, I don’t take her that seriously. I think of her as an old curmudgeon who is kind of a racist but is somewhat senile and means well, so you’re like OK I will ignore everything you said about “orientals” because you pee in a bag. Except instead of a bag, Kitty pees in a box.

“Feed me, you imbecile!”
“I ain’t feeding you shit, Kitty. It’s six o’clock. If I feed you now you’ll start harassing me at eight.”
“FEED ME!”
“No. If you want food get it yourself. OH wait, you can’t do that can you?”
“I hate you. FEED ME HUMANOID!”
“I said, NO.”
HISS HISS HISS cough cough sputter
“Hahaha! Cat got your tongue? Ha ha ha that was a funny joke…you know because you are a cat….”
“Why don’t you clean up my turds, Humanoid?
“Dude, you’re the one with dingleberries.”
HISS HISS cough cough sputter cough cough sputter
“OH shit, Kitty, are you OK?”
Cough hack cough cough sputter cough hiss
“Seriously, are you cool?”

So then Kitty goes into a kitty asthma attack which sounds just like a human asthma attack. But it passes and soon she is sleeping on my lap.

The next day I notice her ears are bleeding. She is scratching the crap out of them and her back paws are bloody. She clearly has some kind of rash. Then she vomits four times in a row, emptying out everything in her stomach and it smells really gross. Like a combination of “Turkey Giblet Feast” and hot trash.

So then I decide to take her to the vet. I pretend like I’m going to feed her and take out a Fancy Feast and she totally gets all excited and has a Kitty hard on but then I pick her up and stuff her in her carrier and she FLIPS OUT and the entire walk to the vet’s office she is whining and hissing and struggling in the carrier and everyone on the street is like oh man there is some kind of wild animal in that handbag.

She has asthma, acid reflux, and allergies. She is an old man. So I have to give her pills. She is on nice drugs that even my doctor won’t give me for my allergies which makes me think I should see a vet instead of a doctor. I try to hold her down and shove one down her mouth and she spits it out and then struggles so hard that I’m afraid she’s going to hurt her stupid self so I stop and leave a note to Aura: Hey, welcome home and have fun with this.

So there you go. That was my weekend. But to be honest, I rather have a cat that has a set of steel balls than one that just cowers in the corner and hides. This is a real cat with a real personality. Not some bullshit cat. Aura’s sister has a total bullshit cat. It’s scared of everything and has the fight bred out of him. He is like a boring, roaming ball of fur. If Kitty were human, she’d carry a shiv and a tube sock filled with rocks. But then when you weren’t looking, she’d bake you a flourless chocolate cake. Filled with poison. Literally. She would kill Bret Michaels and then put him into a cake. HAH just kidding, Bret Michaels is already dead.

Both of my lightbulbs went out. When I say “both” I really mean “all the lightbulbs in my apartment.” (Not counting the lamp on my dresser, which is also my nightstand, because that’s how small my apartment is.) I have “track lighting” which is a total joke because A) the track is like five inches long, why even bother and B) my apartment is so clearly a dump and my landlord thought that track lighting would make it “more inviting and therefore more profitable” which is totally absurd because it’s like putting a Band-aid on a broken leg. OK this is not the point.

Both the lightbulbs went out so I grabbed a step stool to unscrew the dead ones and I realized, HOLY CRAP I CAN’T REACH. So then I went on my tippy toes which is hard because one toe is hozed (bone bruise by the way, not broken, but it still sucks) so I had to just do tippy toes on one foot which is a very dangerous situation. But that didn’t work. So I grabbed a chair which is only slightly bigger than the step stool and oh what’s this? I STILL CAN’T REACH. I guess all the years I’ve been living here I’ve gotten some kind of giant manslave to change it. So then I got my animal encyclopedia which is about 2-3 inches thick and stood on top of that and then went on my tippy toes and then I could just barely reach. I am pathetic. PATHETIC.

So in conclusion: I am short.

And in addition: My apartment sucks.

Thank you.

After “Dear Architects” exploded in my face (I am still picking shrapnel out of my eyeballs, thank you), a chair design company called Emeco asked me to blog for them. I don’t really know anything about design. Seriously. I think finger puppets are good design because, uh, they are puppets that go on your finger. Like, oh sweet! Finger puppets! Here’s one that looks like a giraffe! Anyway Emeco didn’t seem to care. They basically asked me to make fun of them. So I said, uh, OK, yo momma so old she owes Jesus three dollars. And then they were like, uh no, not quite, why don’t you write about design? And I was like, oh ok. But yo momma really is old.

Emeco makes magical chairs from the FUTURE that are obviously handcrafted by aliens and unicorns, and a few are on display at MOMA and they are all sectioned off by a velvet rope and if you get too close someone yells at you. That’s how special these stupid chairs are. Anyway a new version of their site just launched, and you can peep it here. I’m under “collaborations” and the blog is called FH&CC. I’ll let you try and figure it out. I like that I am in the same category as Norman Foster and Phillipe Starck. That makes me laugh really hard. I mean really.

You know what really hurts?

My toe.

I either sprained it or broke it, I can’t tell. It’s purple and swollen, but I can still walk on it. But OH MY GOD it is really killing me. It looks like a fat, purple cocktail sausage stuck on my foot. I could probably stick a toothpick in it and serve it on a fancy napkin. It’s my second toe too, which is really long and people tell me it looks like a prehensile claw, even when I tell them technically claws can’t be prehensile and then they tell me to shut my facehole. Anyway the point is that my toe looks like a prehensile Vienna sausage and I’m not sure what to do about it.

I could go to the doctor, but what would she say? You can’t do anything for a toe. Maybe I’d get a fancy boot. Which means people would have to give up their seats on the subway for me, which is kind of nice. I’ll be in the “elderly, disabled, or pregnant” category of people, which isn’t necessarily bad. I would like to sit in the “priority seats”. I would also like a cane. A cane can make an outfit look more dapper or more gangsta. Maybe I will get one with a big skull on it. With ruby eyes. Anyway I will think about my toe and consider my options and life in general.

Here is the part where I will be honest and reveal how stupid I truly am: I injured my toe during YOGA. I was jumping from this one thing to this other thing, and my toe decided, you know what? I am sick of this bullshit yoga. Go F yourself, I am staying RIGHT HERE. So there you go. I sprained/broke my toe because it refused to listen to directions, like some kind of punk with a cause. Guess what, Toe? I don’t like you either.

And in other news: Happy Birthday or Whatever is available in Korean. I had no idea it was out yet, but apparently it is. I received an email from a reader in Korea and I was like oh crap! It’s out already? No one tells me anything! So anyway if you want to order it in Korean, check out this link. In Korean they’re calling it “Fashion Terrorist” (I had no say in the title or the cover for that matter. It’s girlier than I expected, but then again, everything in Korea is much girlier and cuter). But the title is funny because they sound the English out phonetically: pa-shun teh-lo-leest-uh.

I think it’d be really cool to take the Korean translation and translate it back into English and then translate that into Korean again and go back and forth. It’d be like a game of literary telephone. We could translate it in different languages and keep going to see what happens. Could be interesting, right? We could try it with a paragraph, anyone want to help me on this? Sounds like an art piece. Or maybe a piece of shit. Hard to say.

For my birthday, Aura got me an Aeroccino. Do you know of this machine from the future? It is from the same team of GENIUSES who brought you the Nespresso machine. Get on this: It’s a machine that froths milk. You think, hah, frothy milk is for the anemic unicorn-lovers who like milk in their coffee because they are too weak to take it straight up and black like a real man. I don’t care. I like my milk frothy. I will dye it pink and add fairies and glitter and My Little Ponies if I have to. This machine seriously KICKS ASS. You open the top. You put in (soy) milk. You wait. For three seconds. Then MAGICAL FROTHY MILK comes out and you add it to your awesome coffee, making it infinitissimo awesome. I know you are jealous. I can’t remember the last time I was this happy. Unlike parents I can’t say “I haven’t been this happy since my kid was born.” And I can’t say “This is the happiest day of my life since my wedding.” I kind of feel like those answers are cheating anyway. No, sorry, you can’t use your lover or your kids anymore as an example of how happy you are. Anyway, I literally can’t think the last time I was this happy. I should quit my job and work for Nespresso but seriously I don’t think I’m smart enough. They are geniuses. They have STEEL TRAPS for brain. I have like a picket fence with termites.