Um guys? I have questions. About you. About us.

Oh hey how's your week going? Are you super busy doing stuff? I mean, work is so crazy and you're like so over it and totally ready for the weekend, right? Don't forget to pick up your dry cleaning and call Brenda to remind her about the potluck!

Anyhow, I know you're slammed right now, but I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about how you've been spending your free time. Judging from the search terms that brought you here, it seems that you and I are in a strange, co-dependent relationship. Like, guys, it's bad. 

Perhaps we should take some time for introspection to reflect upon our prior behavior and ask ourselves who we are and who we really want to become.

 

On the one hand, you guys are gross (please refer to the list of search terms provided below). On the other hand, the gross things you were hunting for on the internet were somehow provided by me, right here on this blog. I mean, I don't THINK I have addressed all the issues that your search terms have commanded, but then again, I've got serious SEO juice on the following (I themed a few things out because if I have to be scared, so do you):

bulimia is so '87

bro you're a god among bros

creepy clown doctor

cool nazi stuff

chinese gay show cock

90's seinfeld fashion
elaine seinfeld fashion

elaine seinfeld socks

elaine seinfeld hair

elaine seinfeld dance

elaine from seinfeld

elaine benes 

homemade goat feet 

i'm going to die 

i'm finally on vacation

i am god's perfect asshole

i want to see sex

i want see sex

i want see make sex

juicy stepmom

jhorts

orgy renaissance faire

orgy in the woods

poopoo and peepee

secrets of the clown

who gives a shit about canada?

what's uncool for teenagers

what's cool for teenagers

hot sex gay naked

sexy carrot

sexy chicken 

sex clown

weenis

tiniest penises

tiniest penis ever

tiniest dick in the world

the world's tiniest penis

world's tiniest dick

world's tiniest penis

smurfs banging

smurf scenes

smurf orgy

and not one fuck

and not a single fuck was given that day

and a single fuck was not given on that day

and 0 fucks were given that day

zero fucks were given that day

christmas party drunks

christmas party drunken santa

christmas is boring!

christmas is boring with my family

christmas is boring when you are alone

christmas families hell

christmas boring

drunken xmas party

drunken xmas bar

drunken santa 

drunken christmas party

drunken christmas parties

drunk women christmas

drunk santa parade

drunk person at christmas

drunk people at christmas party

drunk guy christmas party

drunk guy at the christmas party

drunk german christmas

drunk family

drunk crazy santa party

drunk christmas party karaoke

drunk christmas parade

drunk christmas

my boring christmas day 

my boring christmas

sexy drunk santa

sexy drunk christmas party

This is the first time I've ever looked this deeply into my site's analytics report, and I have learned a lot from it. Mostly that Christmas is really boring and/or sexy, but also that perhaps I shouldn't write about things that will attract weirdo sex freaks to my blog. Yay!

Burning Questions with Aviva Yael

Wonder how it's going for the Editor of the Huffington Post's Divorce section. Great gig!

Happy Food Appreciation Day

Hey Y'ALL. Happy Thanksgiving! Since we all know there is nothing to celebrate about this ridiculous day, let's spend it appreciating our time off from work and try to have fun cooking, eating and hanging with our families and friends (or feeding the hungry, if that's how you roll).

Anyhow, every year my cousins Wendy and Tammy have about 50 guests over for Thanksgiving at their house in Atlanta. Here is a picture of me being fat, with Top Chef's Kevin Gillespie, owner of Holeman & Finch. If you're within 30 miles of Buckhead, GO TO THIS RESTAURANT and order as much as you can.

Wendy is a chef and is famous for having the best Arepas in the state, while Tammy is a former event planner (she's now on the Board of The Grammys). Together they prep and cook for a week before their raging food party (along with some help from Aunt Susie and myself). After everyone is stuffed and boozed up, my other cousin David leads a game of Mafia, which has become a Cross family tradition. If you want to try this game, you can read his instructions in Vice HERE.

Here is an exciting photograph of the guests, who are all about to DIE. If you've never played it before, just know that couples fight, liars are born, and you can never trust your loved ones again. It gets ugly. At some point Amber tried to execute an 8 year old child. TRUST NO ONE.

I really look forward to this trip each year, as evidenced below...

First off, this is the famed "10 o'clock burger" from Holeman & Finch. They only make 23 per night and people line up at 8pm for them. It's first come first serve. As a HUGE fan of burgers and a former card-carrying member of Gordon Hull's Burger Club, I can confirm and verify that this is the all-time best hamburger I've ever had in my entire life. Just look at what the sight of it did to David and Wendy:

We watched the chef preparing them and tried to figure out the secrets. One thing Wendy realized is that they don't just use ground beef. There is another meat thing in it. Can't remember what. COOL STORY!

This photo of Tobias Funke, the Arepa Queen of Atlanta, and the 10 o'clock burger is steeped in back-story, which I will tell you next time we're hanging at a bar.

My Aunt Susie. This photo makes me miss my mom, but the good news is I'm heading to New Orleans after this trip to see her. HAI MOM!

I came downstairs into the basement/rec room bathroom and found Amber, Keeli and April (pictured) with an Espresso maker sipping lattes. Okkkeeeeeeyyyyyeeeee.

Paloma eating half her weight in turkey

 Keeli is Amber's best friend and seriously looks like her twin sister. AND they have the same personality. Brain twins.

 Keeli and Russ

 My cousin Juli and her bestie Dee. These two have big giant hearts

 Kevin brought a brussels sprout gratin that I ate 350 times

 Davy Gravy and Pretty Paloma

 The entire Cross/Tamblyn clan at Babette's Cafe

 These are my top shelf cousins Wendy and Tammy. I love these two people with all my lil Veevers heart! 

This is Russ and Bonnie Tamblyn, Amber's incredible, loving, funny parents. Two Thanksgivings ago Bonnie and Russ sang and played songs on guitar. You can listen to Bonnie's hippie mom jams HERE. Also, Russ just got his hand and footprints immortalized at Grauman's Chinese Theatre last week! He'll be in David's next season of The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret.

Ps- below is Wendy's awesome WOW Food Truck which will be airing on Eat Street pretty soon. Jesus Christ this is the most proactively promotional blog post I've written in a LONG TIME. But it's family yo, I gotta give them all shouts out for doing the things they are good at doing. 

Anyhow, that's enough for now. What was the best thing you ate on Thanksgiving? Gimme the goss!

xo

Black Friday

In honor of Black Friday I thought I'd post my annual Christmas Wish List, a pointless tradition I do here on the ol' blog. Here is my favorite list, in case you want to make up for all the things you didn't get me. (Dad, are you reading this? If so, can you pretty please get me giant flat screen TV installed above my mantle and a $5,000. gift certificate to Bona Drag? Theeeenks!)

Here's what I wish for this year:

- someone else's iTunes songs. Need help. Send new music, fast!
- cooking classes
- your #1 favorite book you think I should read, which you can send via my Amazon account HINT HINT HINT HINT
- an escort to THIS
- pals who will see pretty much anything HERE, even if we need to bring blankets to keep warm
- renewed subscriptions to THIS, THIS or THIS
- earbuds that will neither hurt my ears nor strangle me in my sleep (great fear of mine)

What's on your Christmas list? Tell me what you want and I'll send you fruitcake & turducken no matter.

Love, 

Afifa

I miss you guys

I miss this blog. I used to be addicted to it. Remember when Ted aka "Handsome Ted" Barrow used to write with me on this thing? He was the best. I miss Ted too. Remember how we used to get nuts in the comments and anonymous haters would tell me I suck while others would ask me out on dates? I even made a few fan pals who I met IRL at bars around NYC. Those days were fun, but this is now, and ever since I stopped posting pictures of my friends being idiots and/or doing neat things, no one reads this anymore. Maybe they'll come back here if I do, though.

SO! What should I write about? Politics? Shame crushes? Superstring theory? Breaking Bad? Acceptable forms of mens footwear? Bravo reality show addicts and the people who love them (aka my boyfriends)? Is it acceptable to not like Radiohead if you're white? How long we think it will take for everyone to stop crapping their bikinis over Ryan Gosling? For real... what do you want to talk about? DO TELL.

On another note, some major life changes are in motion. Despite feeling the stress of the economic collapse and the political tourniquets strangling us all, life has been pretty good to me, particularly in the last two months. I'm relieved, happy, and finally finding time to prioritize the things I care about and actually do them, like researching subjects for my second book.

We all have responsibilities (jobs, school, taking care of our families) and not all of us have the luxury of doing what we truly want to do. But we should at least try to get paid for doing what we love. If you love something you'll be good at it and it will in turn make you feel great. Feeling great is essential to not dying alone. No one wants to love a miserable shrew, and you will most certainly be miserable if you're tethered to a stifling, uncreative entity that renders you moot, climbing an insurmountable pile of shit that grows larger by the day. (I'm speaking from experience here).

Get out a pen and paper, list the top three things you care most about and start crafting them into pyramid schemes. The most scalable of the three is your dream job. Boo-yah, you're rich!

Things I care about include hanging with my family, good jokes, great story tellers, dark movies, reading alone at the beach, reading The Hairpin, Futurism, getting angry at the TV, complaining, 3 o'clock naps, thrifting, road trips, and sneaking sweet ingredients into traditionally savory breakfast items. All I have to do to be happy is figure out how to combine all of these priorities into one comprehensive, high-paying dream job.

In the meantime I'll just be sitting here needlepointing awesome tweets onto pillows and blogging. So... what do you want to read about? Thoughts? Feelings? Pffffts?

xo