January 2010
44 posts
3 tags
Jan 1st
3 tags
“I love that you get cold when it’s 71 degrees out. I love that it takes...”
– Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) in When Harry Met Sally Because it’s the best thing I can think of to share with you this New Year’s Eve: proof of love and possibility- even if it did take place in a movie…  Have a great night, everyone!  I’ll be drinking pink champagne and...
Jan 1st
December 2009
39 posts
2 tags
Dec 31st
3 tags
New Year, New Menu... New You?
Each New Year’s Day, we turn to our various cultural culinary traditions in hopes of bringing good luck to the coming year.  “It couldn’t hurt, could it?” we mumble under our breath as we helplessly try to follow the byzantine directions for the recipes our great-grandparents brought over from the Old Country.  However, if I ate everything I’d been told could bring...
Dec 30th
2 tags
“I salute you! There is nothing I can give you which you have not; but there is...”
– Fra. Giovanni, A.D. 1513 Please forgive the belated Christmas quote (Tumblr and Tennessee did not get along)… and if you do not celebrate Christmas- or even if you do- consider this my wish for you this new year: Take Joy. 
Dec 30th
3 tags
Merry Christmas from Buster Chaplin
I’m taking off shortly for my much-needed Christmas vacation… since I don’t know just how internet-free my life will be over the next week and it’s unclear whether I’ll ever make it to the post office to buy stamps for the cards I have written, please consider this my Away Message, my Happy Holidays card and my Best Wishes for the New Year. Merry Christmas. ...
Dec 22nd
1 tag
Pet Peeves #67
The Bar Scene.  While I prefer to rant on topics specific, a friend told me last night how over the bar scene they were getting… and I passively agreed.  Passively, because it’s almost impossible (especially in a bar) to express how very “not me” the bar scene really is: I think I’ve been over the bar scene since before I was born.  And though I’ve been...
Dec 22nd
3 tags
Top Music of 2009: Albums, Songs, Things I Heard...
I’m told by various persons that “because I have a blog” I simply must express my opinions about The Best Fill-in-the-Blanks of the year (and soon: of the decade).  I’m exceedingly timid about discussing music, though perhaps I shouldn’t be: I connect to music, as I connect through all the most important things in my life, through pure-gut emotional reaction.  And,...
Dec 22nd
2 tags
Dec 22nd
218 notes
1 tag
The Reviews Are In!!!
Buster Chaplin has been called: “Entertainingly Sad!” “Like Cathy!  But Less Funny!” “A Website!” Read it today and tell your friends!!!
Dec 21st
4 tags
Dec 19th
1 tag
“It’s not that I tell lies, it’s just that the things I say are not...”
– Me — at my office holiday party after explaining that I’m so tired at work all the time because I lead a secret life as a stripper.
Dec 18th
2 tags
A Not-So-Jolly X-Mas; 11th Grade Edition
Because it’s The Holidays, I find myself at loose ends and not at all sure how to compose myself or my gaining-in-popularity blog (I’m up to 15 readers daily, y’all!). In tough times like these, I like to reflect upon the past.  On simpler times.  And, as I have done before, I refer back to the delusional girl-child I was in my formative years: a note-writing freakazoid...
Dec 18th
1 note
2 tags
Dec 17th
4 tags
Dec 17th
In Pittsburgh, It’s ‘I Do’ and Then ‘Pass the... →
I never thought I’d say this… but why don’t I live in Pittsburgh?
Dec 16th
2 tags
Dec 16th
4 tags
Pretend Boyfriend: Aladdin
I have not been reporting on my pretend boyfriends of late… as you can imagine, it’s been quite hard to top Michael Eisner (he is my longest-running male obsession, after all) but, also- my life being what it has been lately- I have struggled of late to find the time to daydream about What Life Could Have Been had I only been a Vampire Slayer or Cheryl David or the ladies who snagged...
Dec 16th
2 tags
25 (+5) Things I Have Learned...
Now that I am the ripe old age of 30, I can speak with wisdom about all my various life experiences.  I’d just like to share a few of the things I have learned in all my many years. Pay attention, you might learn something. Secret Admirer letters aren’t fun to give- or to receive. Elbow grease is not kept in a can. Use Miraclegrow with caution: a little goes a long way and a lot...
Dec 15th
2 tags
Dec 15th
286 notes
2 tags
Dec 15th
“A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or...”
–  Edith Wharton —
Dec 13th
1 tag
Pet Peeves #2011
Boys in the Girls Room.  Don’t.  Do.  It. Seriously, boys, it is completely unfair for you to use our ladies rooms.  Public restrooms are already far more inconvenient for us to use: we have neither the ease or comfort that your sex affords you.  And often it seems there must be seven urinals to one lady stall, so we are already at a numerical disadvantage considering we need to use them...
Dec 12th
3 tags
Dec 12th
2 tags
Dec 12th
2 notes
2 tags
Dec 11th
Dec 10th
420 notes
3 tags
Still "As clever as clever" (Just older and a...
I’ve become almost enraged with people telling me how empowering and lovely turning 30 is and yet I envy people who can be so cool-headed during such trying times.  One of my dearest and oldest friends in the world turned 30 not even a month ago- she handled it with a sense of grace and fun which a neurotic like myself could only hope to emulate.  I couldn’t fathom how she was so fine...
Dec 10th
3 tags
Dec 10th
3 tags
Dec 9th
3 tags
Dec 9th
3 tags
Dec 8th
2 tags
Pet Peeves #26
First Impressions: while I will more than happily judge others on my first impressions (and hold it against them for years to come), I’d prefer you didn’t do the same to me.  It’s hurtful and horribly mortifying… I’ve never been a success at first impressions- far from it.  I’m more of a slow burn, fifth impressions type of girl. I think, initially, I tend to...
Dec 7th
1 tag
Dec 7th
676 notes
2 tags
Goofus or Gallant? Take the Quiz! →
Though it’s fairly easy to see how to be 100% Gallant (in life and in this delightful little Highlights quiz), I ended up with an 80% Gallant score.  And, had I been more honest, I think I’d have ended up 50% Goofus / 50% Gallant. If only every decision in life were this black and white:
Dec 4th
3 tags
Dec 4th
3 tags
City of Lost Children
I spent the recent Thanksgiving holiday in New Orleans with my mother’s side of the family… had it not been for poisoning myself at the top of the meal with a delicious oyster soup (oysters being the one food I am deathly allergic to), it might have been the best Thanksgiving meal of my life.  The culinary genius that runs through both sides of my family- though somehow skipped over...
Dec 3rd
2 tags
“Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.”
– Frank Lloyd Wright—
Dec 3rd
1 tag
Dec 1st
153 notes