Choose your own idiot.

I have a thing for idiots. Idiots of the male variety. They make my life more interesting, and always give me something to complain/gossip about. I like having idiot men in my life because it balances out how overly serious I am guilty of taking myself. Nothing clears up a case of the emos like a totally idiot dude pal who's around to make me explode into a fit of idiotic laughter and forget what I doing in the first place. I LOVE IDIOTS!!!

If I were ever stranded on a desert island with nothing but a couple of idiots and maybe the smoke monster(just for tree shaking purposes), these are the dumbasses I'd want to dick around with(celebrity edition).

DJ Pauly D


I don't know what it is about this guy, but recently, I was watching an episode of the Jersey Shore, and my first thought was, "oh dear lord, I am attracted to fucking DJ Pauly D." He is the king of the idiots, but he is SOOOOOOO CUTE! You guys seriously. Wouldn't we make the stupidest couple ever??? FUN! On day 357 of our stay on our deserted island, while he was sleeping, I would totally shave his Sonic the Hedgehog hair off, and then he would get totally mad at me and I'd be all, "Your hair makes you look like an idiot!" and then he'd be all, "well your haircut makes you look like a lesbian who looks like Justin Bieber!" and then I'd start laughing, and then he'd start laughing, and I'd say, "Oh Pauly D, I just can't be mad at that idiot mug." Then we'd skip off into the jungle. ZOMG cute tops.

Zach Galifianakis
Duh. He is like the Prince to Pauly D's King. This guy would be cracking me up all day and all night. DJ Pauly D and I would probably get super annoyed with him all the time, and it would be like a weird Three's Company episode now with more idiots! I would laugh at his poor choice of clothing, but I would insist on using his intense beer gut as my pillow every night. Pauly D would get jealous, and I'd be all, "go sleep on that pillow I made from banana leaves and that Brillo pad I shaved off your dome." These guys!

Martin Starr


I fell in love with Martin Starr when I saw him in Adventureland. I know he's part of the Freaks and Geeks squad, and has been in those Judd Apatow debacles, but his true idiot awkwardness shone like the last working bulb on the Ferris Wheel on the set of Adventureland. While Pauly D and Zachary and I were prancing around like total spazzes after we ate some psychotropic plants, Martin would be all, "Chill out you guys. You're totally embarassing me even though there's no one else here to be embarassed in front of. Shut up. Leave me alone." Then we'd all start giggling uncontrollably, and then Martin would say, "Ah fuck it, gimme some of those gross leaves you just ate!" Then we'd all dance like stooooopidz idiotzzzz until the sun came up.

Man, my Island of Idiots would be so totally fun. Let's make this dream a realititty!!!

XOXO
Betsy

Tennis bracelets and tiaras.

Tonight is my 10 year highschool reunion, and while most people will spend the night remembering the good 'ol days, and reflecting on the carefree days of yore, the days before marriage and children, I am preparing to make a hilarious appearance with my bestie Heidi, and then I plan to leave out and go hang with the folks I really want to see.

Today I tried on my homecoming tiara, and looked at some totally horrific photographs of me from a dance freshman year. A hilarious dress from the 60s that I'd found in a thrift shop in Minneapolis, white tights, electric blue platform shoes, NO makeup, and horrible skin. Let's NOT remember the good ol days. I mean, let's remember them, but like all good things, only in moderation. I got through one box of photos from highschool theater and Junior and Senior prom, and then I was all, "I'm out."

I will enjoy my time tonight seeing everyone I forgot about and people who I'm sure have forgotten about me. We will all awkwardly talk to each other while eating stale pretzels and drinking flat sodas. Then we'll all write on Facebook about how we had the best time ever and how it was great to see everyone, and then we'll wake up, but the top will still be spinning. IT WAS ALL A DREAM!

Just kidding. Have fun tonight everyone, whatever you may be doing. I love leaving because it makes the return that much sweeter. I hope your babies look like monkeys.

XOXO
Betsy

Time for Adventures.

This year has made me feel like I'm 20 years old again. It has been nothing but insanely fun and bizarre adventures from asking a cab driver to "drop us off in the alley behind the Double Door" on New Years Eve to my experience last week in the isolation tank. Everything in between, too many adventures to remember, but the ones I do remember make this year, this summer, this time in my life, in all of our lives, exciting again. It's that new life smell. We're all almost 30, some of us are closer than others, and while every once in awhile, we feel the overwhelming pressure of the fact that we are almost 30, we seem to have forgotten, or at least made the decision that what we are doing right will not be what we're doing in another 30 years, and this idea, to me, is totally comforting. I can get all of my 20s out of my system in the next two years because as soon as I turn 30, things will be different for me. For you. For all of us. Our lives with change, but it will be ok, because we are not meant to stay this way forever.

Why.So.Serious??? On Friday, I went to see a preview of my friend's performance piece. It was so different and inspiring to see his work in person, and not just as a photograph, or as some kind of an oral history lesson. Previously, I had a hate-hate relationship with performance art for many years. It wasn't until I took the time to hear everyone out that I began to understand it, and then...I started to like it. After I liked it enough, I loved it so much I wanted to marry it. It seemed to me like the purest form of expression. More expressive than even some of my favorite paintings. ESCANDALO! I understand that art in any form is a deeply personal and intimate thing, and if you make something out of anything, paintings, sculptures, words, yourself, you form a relationship with your creation. Sometimes when it's over, you want to immediately destroy it, but then there are the times you make something so special, you can't let it go. You dig your fingernails in and the next thing we know, you're living in the Misty Mountains, and asking a furry footed midget, "what's taters Precious?"

What I love love LURVE about any sort of performance art is the impermanence of it. Art museums are tombs for artwork. Sure it's fun to see Monet's "Water Lillies" or Picasso's "Demoiselles d'Avignon," but what else? Most people I see wandering through museums pass right by all these incredible pieces, and I can see them mentally checking it off of their list. There isn't any emotion, no connection, no immediacy of a situation. So what?

I saw Marina Abrovomic at the MOMA in New York doing a show called The Artist is Present. One part of the piece took place in the middle of the room, and you could wait in line to sit across from her and stare at her for as long as you wanted. She did this for about 2 months. If you didn't see it the first time, you will never see it again. Ever. Chris Burden stood in a room and had someone shoot him in the arm. Ladies and gentleman, one night only.

A few days after seeing Matt's show, I started thinking that what I love about art, and why I intend to spend the rest of my life in a relationship with art is because I am in love with the impermanence of it. Even if I were to have Matt perform this piece again, it would never be the same show. Seeing the same pieces hanging in the same places in the same museums is tedious and boring. What makes these adventures so exciting is the fact that we will never ever do them the same way again. Last night, I got into some hood rat stuff with my friends, ended up in some awful bars, drank some truly foul liquor, and then somehow made it home. That night will never happen again. Even if I went to every single place I went to last night, in the exact order I arrived, it will never be the same. Routines are necessary, and I understand that. I have them. I indulge them. I hate them.

To find the absolute adventures for the rest of this year, we should, like any great performer, act as if we are unaware of an audience. This is our time to be free. Take a chance to laugh out loud if you think it's funny. If you think I'm a dramatic idiot who looks too far on the inside too much. Do it. I dare you. Have emotions in public and share them with people. Speak words you actually mean, and make art in any form that will degrade and someday turn to yellowed dust in someone's alley. Art shouldn't be forced to last forever, and we should feel sad for paintings locked in museums. They are ghosts of ghosts who cannot die. Create to destroy.

Until then, our adventures continue, and if we're all going to be seen together, we need to all be seen wearing these.

XOXO
Betsy