February 2012
6 posts
nobody does twee like brooklyn
But East London is getting in the game.
Here now, for your consideration: a man dressed as a fox, embroidering a picture of flowers while AT a flower market, while wearing brogues.
It’s no literary basketball team, but it’s a big first step.
testing
Google+ is the future, y’all.
quote of my life
“I guess we found dove in a soapless place!”
—last line of an email, from our Dove client
contextual advertising
I love that goddamn ad so much.
things that are definitely ok.
Kelly S:
this is kind of what I imagine your life is like.
A lot of people seem to be connecting me to the new MIA video — emailing me about it, wanting to show it to me, etc.
I think it’s because, if you imagine my friend’s minds as venn diagrams, I’ve been the sole occupant of the middle-eastern/lady/hip-hop/gangster intersection for a long time. But now...
things that are not fucking ok
Today’s work schedule.
January 2012
6 posts
light & dark
Tomorrow morning, your dear author is doing something a little unusual. She is going to the motherfucking Arctic Circle.
There, she and her companions — two hard-partying New Yorkers and a ruddy-faced Englishman — will spend a week dogsledding, snowmobiling and eating reindeer.
And, of course, looking for these.
This picture was taken just three days ago, very near where...
stereotypes
guess what santa brought me
“You can wear it anytime, but it’s mostly for formal occasions.” -Doug
a year in review
Saturday was my one-year anniversary of moving to London. I spent it in the grand English style, eating partridge and terrorizing a private gentleman’s club with my ovaries. (Though clearly alarming, they were politely ignored.)
I still haven’t learned to speak about my life here in any articulate way, so I won’t try. The last year was all just… more. More work, more...
things that just aren't that weird anymore
Not one, but two of my coworkers have now been featured on the blog Look at My Fucking Red Trousers.
December 2011
3 posts
reverse resolutions
A universal truth about me, Sanam Petri, is that I am a terrible runner. I hate it, and I am bad at it, and today, I ran 5k all at once without stopping.
How, you ask? Well, it’s a simple formula. And I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.
I will share it with you now.
Step 1: Move to China. (This part is important.)
Step 2: Live with hyper-religious parents.
Step...
safety begins at home
I called my grandma tonight to say hi. She yelled into the phone, “Sanam joon, I love you more than my eye!” Then cackled and hung up.
I think she’s losing it, but not necessarily in a bad way.
November 2011
8 posts
outside in
They might not have done the food part quite right — it was hamburgers all around —but the family thing was pretty close.
this is why you're socialist
Somewhere on a little shelf, in a little Tesco, in a little London street, sits a mockery of everything my people fought for. Behold.
And next to the German Frankfurters, too. It’s like the Great War all over again.
ok ok i got a good one
Q: what do you call a runny egg that’s been dipped in blood, then deep-fried?
A: my co-worker’s lunch!
I know, I know. It’s not so much a “joke” as an “accurate description of what’s happening two feet away from me right now.” Still, though. Newsworthy shit!
caro mio
While I’ve always taken on the personalities of my roommates to some extent, my current roommate has to be the most extreme. About a month into living with an obsessive cyclist/chef, I couldn’t live without either.
One of the first things I made in this kitchen, entirely out of necessity, was this recipe for spaghetti and fried eggs. Predictably, given my general approach to this sort...
have i mentioned lately
…how much i love Chat magazine?
So listen, judgmental person on the train, I don’t see how you could not love something that cost 82p and comes with the tagline, “Life! Death! Prizes!” So you and your Madame Bovary can GFY.
yesterday
I walk over to my boss, papers in hand, ready for our meeting. He’s slumped down on the couch, thousand-yard stare. ”What’s up?” I ask. ”That,” he says, pointing through the window to the building across the street.
I peer out and see a group of people standing on the top floor, staring at us, this written in the window:
“Well… we should...
all hail the king's english
Top 5 words Sanam would like to eliminate from the human language:
1. Webinar
2. …rest of list TBD
news & notes
Apparently, for Halloween, my little cousin received a sack of jawea dollars.
Upon further inquiry, he was unsure what a jawea dollar was, but was thrilled to have a whole sack of them.
October 2011
5 posts
evolutionary theories
Since I lost my camera three years ago, my phone has been my only source of photos. Looking through the approx. 3,000 images, they’re all pretty much the same shit: holidays, friends, the occasional arty closeup of a flower.
But since I got this new iPhone, I’ve been noticing that my photos have started to look different. I think I finally figured out what it is.
Because the iPhone 4...
file under: life philosophies
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for...
confessions
I’m pretty sure I love Downton Abbey more than I love most of my own family members.
when your life starts to look like an ad
Me and Patricia in Lisbon, caught by the tide.
If you work at Metabolife or Dress Barn, call me.
strange conversations
Doug: Guess what
Me: What?
Doug: The tip of this banana looks like a falcon head
Me: What?
Doug: Look:
Me: Fuck!!!!
September 2011
7 posts
a man who is really, really asleep
See below:
Also see: a man polite enough to keep his hands clasped while he dozes.
Cf. good english manners.
sounds familiar
“Our creative director is having a midlife crisis. He has taken to wearing white jeans and alludes to a fictional past of dissolution and substance abuse, as if we don’t all know he creates ads about talking babies.”
—(via magnificentruin)
educational moments
Another conversation with my posh English boss.
Boss: So… the bloke shags her from behind.
Me: Yes.
Boss: Then he punches her in the back of the head?
Me: Yes.
Boss: Oh how clever! I must try that with my wife sometime.
tomato / tomato
“Fuck you, fuck you, you’re quite alright, fuck you now I’m leaving.”
-My posh English boss quoting Half Baked
adventures in the english countryside
“I’m terribly sorry for the delay, everyone. There appears to be a cow on the tracks, but I imagine it will be on its way shortly.” —Train conductor
kelly, don't look
Poignant screenshot of the day: the last e-page of the last Harry Potter, one of many patiently tapped through on my iPhone over the last six weeks.
I’m not sure how this started, except that I was tired of being told off for never having read it. Magical shit usually doesn’t do it for me, I’d explain, and also, last time I checked, I’m not a 14-year-old girl.
Now my...
"It's like a massive tampon advert, innit?"
—My roommate, after watching Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason
August 2011
3 posts
difficult decisions
I never really had to make before I moved to this weird ass country.
ancestral kestral
A Cannon swims for the first time in the Irish Sea, like so many Cannons before him.
But unlike most Cannons released into the wild, this one is content to return after a short dip.
fair play
As my roommate would say, “Bossin’ it.”
July 2011
3 posts
tangential relations
If there’s a chance we’re each getting our own personal version of heaven after we die, then I’d like to request this one be mine.
sad week
For a lot of reasons, but mostly this.
I’ll be home this weekend. The service is Saturday in San Francisco if you guys wanna come by.
good reason for a street closure
Or, things only acceptable in London, part XIV.
June 2011
6 posts
notes from wimbledon
There is much to report on from last week’s trip to Wimbledon. For fans of tennis, indeed admirers of fine sportsmanship, it is an event unlike any other.
But there was one particular act of heroism that you will not see reported this week in the Guardian.
And therefore will have to be reported by this eye witness, Yours Truly.
It was this line judge, seen here below on the left, getting...
snack mule
Between coworkers and expat friends, I returned to London with a suitcase full of special requests.
Most were everyday things available in any Rite Aid, like these Cheez-Its I brought for Pete. But a truism of ex-pat life is this: when you’ve had a craving for months and months, the simplest things can become a huge fucking deal.
hey guys did you know
There is a sale happening right now at Ross! Buy one set of full jersey cotton bedsheets and receive a free blood stain with your purchase.
Act now and get a sales associate who accuses you of staining the sheets yourself and refuses to give you back your $12.99.
Only while supplies last!
notes from work
“I just thought it was funny how serious you always look in meetings.”
emo horse
A few weeks ago, someone painted over the massive billboard outside my house with this message.
At first it made me feel bad for working in advertising, then I read it again and thought, “This guy could really use a good copywriter.” After all, we may be evil, but at least we know a run-on sentence when we see one.
scenes from the peak district
Me: Don’t move
Doug: But it’s staring at me.
Me: It’s a baby cow, dude. Relax.
Doug: I can feel it about to go into attack mode.
Me: Okay, hold still.
Me: Good job. This is the sweatiest photo of all time.
Doug: Can we please get the fuck out of here now.
Stay tuned for part three of this ongoing saga: Local Man Terrified By Small Lamb.
May 2011
4 posts
revelations
It hadn’t occurred to me until just now that food stamps might not be stamp-shaped.
probs
best conversation today
On the phone with my very posh, very English boss:
Me: I think her eyebrows may be tattoos.
Boss: How do you mean?
Me: You know those women who wax off their eyebrows and tattoo them on.
Boss: I don’t understand. Tattoo what on? Spiders and dragons and such?
Me: No, like a drawing of eyebrows where the eyebrows were.
Boss: I’ve never seen that.
Me: Go on to...