February 2012
4 posts
grief
Lately I’ve been dipping into these moods that are heavier than my usual ones, which mostly result from the weird catalog of things that put me in a funk – like how I Never Really Know How I Feel About February, or feeling like I’m too far away from the edge of the earth or much too close to it.
These are the moods that tug on my spine, wanting it to return to the soil and be planted there, to...
unorthodox friday iphone poetry
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the adventures of R.F. and the Achingly Handsome...
I have this theory about physical appearance. As humankind we are destined – doomed, even – to forever regard ourselves as the image of who we were in our early adolescence. For certain girls, this means a glorified idea of themselves as being the perpetual object of desire, with hoards of sex-crazed pre-teen boys lusting after their early-developed breasts. For others – myself included – this...
January 2012
3 posts
madness
Within the past week, someone has managed to flip my mind’s secret switch (which, among other things, I keep hidden in a rosewood box under a pile of Persian rugs, in the back section of my brain-attic that smells like yellowing paper), and I have, accordingly, gone mad.
Inspiration is starting to keep me up at night. I make my bed in the morning. Every hour of the day drips with...
newness
I’m live from my apartment, where I sit at my table with a hacking cough that has plagued me since the weekend; brain matter that seems to slither through my fingers – held firm only from a potent cocktail of American-grade cold medicines; and an ever-accumulating pile of tissues from the mucus factory in the middle of my face, which has temporarily replaced my nose.
It’s been three weeks since...
my best excuse for recent inactivity, in the most...
Delay is natural to a writer. He is like a surfer—he bides his time, waits for the perfect wave on which to ride in. – E. B. White
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December 2011
2 posts
i am in an unfortunate period of creative...
“As for now, Foran holds ambivalent feelings about her seemingly bright future.”
-Gem of a line from my high school newspaper, in a May 2010 article entitled, “Foran ’07 works as USA Today reporter”
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this is me trying to give you an idea of what it...
There are certain things I became really good at as a result of my unusual childhood: my parents divorced when I was Very Young, and accordingly, I underwent years and years of mandatory psychotherapy with a variety of specialists with diverse degrees of competency, as the legal professionals involved figured the ensuing custody ordeal would Probably Really Mess Us Up.
Because of this, I’m very...
November 2011
9 posts
coming to terms
She wakes up fifteen minutes before his alarm goes off instinctively by now, just to prove to him that she’s a Morning Person – a trait he’s doubted for as long as they have been together, mostly because she requires silence in the delicate moments before the caffeine kicks in: a period she refers to as, ‘Coming To Terms With My Existence.’
‘I’ll convince him soon,’ she muses, as she ...
ten-second love story
She wondered how he would speak to their children, if their table discussions would be a babelic patchwork, if the beings – made in her image – would respond to her one day in a phrase she did not understand, with gestures that were not her own.
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the girls / the spill
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put these on, i'll show you how i want my onions...
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i want to feed you; can i feed you? come over,...
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urban survival tips for the modern woman
It’s a tough world out there, ladies.
And to help you navigate through whatever concrete jungle your dreams are made of, I have compiled a list of handy advice-nuggets ranging from personal safety, to avoiding the unwanted advances of a male stranger, to mitigating everyday instances of social awkwardness. The following are tried and tested methods - take them with a grain of salt,...
last week's iphone poetry
THE WIND BROUGHT GOD IN; HE MADE DINNER
The shuk smells like cumin, fresh tomatoes, lemon grass; Chickpeas, paprika, sugared rugelach, bay leaves. Like sweet-meets-savory, it smells fast: On Your Way To Here/Getting Back From There — Chik-chak mamaleh, we’re not In the Diaspora anymore.
The shuk tastes like Old-Country Recipes: With Yiddish words like nachas — It’s...
until i finish transcribing my notebook and make...
click for more photos of jerusalem
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October 2011
4 posts
bedtime
“Good night little one. I love you more than the sky.”
“That’s bigger than me?”
“A lot bigger.”
“Bigger than you?”
“Oh yeah.”
“I love you more than seventy-two trucks, more than a city, I love you more than Singapore, more than Asia, I love you more than Paris, I love you more than boxes. That’s bigger than me, that’s bigger than the sky.”
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bromances for advanced-beginners
You (and also your sidekick Gelston) have officially and effectively adopted the social norms and behaviors of a twenty-something male. Congratulations. Yours in cheap beer, endless and insipid movie quotations, and dirty underwear, -Dave, King of the Bros(e)
It wasn’t until college that I had a close group of girlfriends.
I went to the same private Jewish school from the age of 3 to 18,...
new feature: chastity's hipstamatic photoroll
click for more silliness
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process/non-secrets
Sometimes you would ask me how I came up with the things I write about, which I tried to answer honestly, because it didn’t seem like a rhetorical question or an empty vessel of conversation; you were curious about it when I first told you that I liked to write, and then again when you read some of the things I wrote, when you said to me you thought they were beautiful.
So I told you about my...
September 2011
5 posts
fifty-minute fiction: motorcycles
Avi took me on his motorcycle one Wednesday night in Jerusalem after we had a conversation about my trip to Ramallah, when I told him it was the first time I understood everything, as if I were fluent, as if I didn’t have to think or consider the translation – I understood the conflict and the hatred and the misery, and I couldn’t explain it, but I just knew.
He looked at me with those hard,...
monday iphone poetry
A FIVE MINUTE FORAY INTO IMAGINARY NOSTALGIA
If we put music to the moments - Last night’s photos, the spoken Words we smoked and things we hoped - Would it make us feel again: The breeze of the canal, The light behind your smile?
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fifty-minute fiction: maddie/madeline
(This is something I’m trying to do more – I’ve been having a lot of ideas for fiction, and since I’m useless without the urgency of a deadline I give myself 45 minutes to finish a short piece before I absolutely have to be out the door, either for work or dinner plans to get out an idea that I’ve been meaning to write, and then five minutes to edit once I come back.) (This was my ...
“Rose: I think I’m wearing contacts that are too strong for me.
Rose: How...”
– Friends, what would I do without them?
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August 2011
5 posts
destiny orders a tiger beer
“You are the greatest kind of person there is in this world,” the man at the other side of the picnic table said to me to a uniquely Indian melody, which, like Italian, is more cadence than accent.
“Thank you,” I said, with an incredulous half-frown. I didn’t really know what I could have done to make him think that—but he had said it with such unprompted...
recent google search iPhone poetry
What not to do after a nose job: Contact sports nose job, Alcohol after nose job, Sex after nose job? Nuclear holocaust.
Recommended nap times for children; Pain in kidney liver, Kidney location; liver location— How do you know if you have an ulcer? Placenta.
Premonitions of death accuracy; Back pain or lung pain? Stress eating stop replacement, Talking to yourself healthy? Nature...
“Guy in hotel breakfast room walks up to tv where I am sitting having breakfast,...”
– This morning
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on the perils of civilization
The thing about Singapore is that it’s an extremely civilized little country.
Spitting is not tolerated, neither is littering. In the clubs here (nightlife in Singapore is also a priceless experience I really do need to tell you about), they are required to display government-mandated anti-drug posters, which read, “Party Clean, Party Again. Brain damage, death, caning, jail, where...
Mobile status report from southeast Asia.
Rose Foran here. I’m in Singapore for the month. None of you should be surprised to hear that I’ve pretty much turned into an old school Jewish mother: spouting Yiddish to combat tantrums, queen of booger patrol; nu, eat, kid, you need your strength - enough of this meshugas.
July 2011
6 posts
an open letter to the guy who works downstairs
Okay, so you’re cute. On a good day I look female. You are a fashion designer. I am sort of a graduate student and also a babysitter. These days, come to think of it, I’m really just a babysitter. You have piercing blue eyes. People tell me I’m funny sometimes but I am starting to realize it might be their way of letting me know they think I’m average looking and...
the happiest toddler on the block
So it’s officially just a few days until the grand Parisian Exodus of August, and let-me-tell-you-something, everyone is cranky.
On my end, it’s been the kind of day where, instead of my usual post-babysitting workout at the pool, I rushed home just to take my birth control pill - which I looked at contently for a few seconds before swallowing - and then proceeded to speed-walk over...
the abridged guide to measuring out your life in...
I’m working on some ambitious creative project, which means that my brain pulp is being squeezed for things that, for the time being, will remain private - that is, until I deem it too awful to finish and I post it on my blog in its nugget-fetus form for you and me to wonder about What Could Have Been.
I had an encounter at La Perle a few months ago with a Franco-American philosophy...
Adventures in Unprovoked Assault, Part III
A former water polo coach once told me that I was a “scrappy player,” which I still think is one of the best things someone has ever said to me – although I’m still uncertain as to whether or not he meant it as a compliment. Scrappy is great word in its two incongruous definitions: one being, “consisting of disorganized, untidy, or incomplete parts,” and the other, “determined, argumentative, or...
lies i wish you already knew
Part III is on hold being that, as far as I’m concerned, this thing ain’t over until my nose is restored to its rightful state of Semitic asymmetry, when I can leave the house without people looking at me as if my most protruding facial feature met the same fate as those of many of my high school classmates.
You see, I just got a nose job. I am in Los Angeles. Again. I am in a...
Adventures in Unprovoked Assault, Part II
The great thing about writing is that it forces you to be honest with yourself, because the flow of words from your brain to paper is as concrete and independent a means of expression as, let’s say for example, the indelible effects of what happens when a fist forcefully meets, for instance, the bridge your nose.
I believe in the power of the State of Shock. It’s not an easy thing to...
June 2011
1 post
Adventures in Unprovoked Assault, Part I
I was planning on writing the inaugural post of the rebirth of my blog after a much-needed brain vacation about a story from my 3-week sojourn in Los Angeles involving an unexpected visit from a Chasidic rabbi on the eve of my grandfather’s 93rd birthday (which, among other subjects, I will get to later). I had the opening line written on my iPhone from an especially contemplative metro ride,...
April 2011
11 posts
from the archives: an undeveloped scene in some...
Humor’s on a vacation as I have a million papers to write and no mental capacity to formulate creative thought. Hope you’re enjoying my melancholy story fetuses.
The conversation would have been more intelligible to an outsider if each of our utterances were followed by an asterisk that led to a footnote at the end of a printed dialogue which would read, “*I just said that to hurt...
from the archives: jerusalem, the ending of some...
(while my brain pulp is being squeezed in the pursuit of some Very Serious Academic Juice, here are some tidbits of unfunny things that I kind of like anyway that I found in my notebook from the last year or so)
I saw that there were droplets of blood on the inside of my forearm: they stood on the pale skin as yolks do in contrast with surrounding areas of whiteness before they are punctured...
from the archives: vernon, the beginning of some...
—I’m grinding my teeth again.
—Tell me about that.
—I don’t dream any more. I don’t think I do. But I wake up in the middle of the night, and my teeth are clenched and I feel cold and… violet…
—Violent?
—No, violet. Like the color. It’s hard to explain.
—Anna, tell me about the sailboat.
As a child, I got into the habit of substituting therapy for entertainment – a break from a household...
anatomy of an all-nighter, or: a procrastination...
As finals season approaches, I present you with a topic that is very near and dear to me, perhaps too much so: the All-Nighter. No lengthy introduction needed; I know this tune by heart so I’ll just dive into it..
Stage one, 4-7pm: Denial. You have all the time in the world. Five pages? Nothing! You’ve done it a million times over, it’ll take maybe 4 hours, tops. Why not...
monday iphone poetry
THE SUNDAY SONG
Mornings sprung from nooks, and Sunlight hangover crises— In the digit next door, or: A frame you stumble into As predictions meet anticipation.
Last night’s champagne recovers with chinon, The recounting of words and gestures – Medical-grade squeals and whispers: The modern woman’s guide to inoculating Crazy Girl Syndrome.
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why i would imagine people sometimes think i'm...
Before I dive into this post, I would like to first like to give a shout-out to my Grams, whose birthday is in two days- which I will honor by not using swear words on this blog for as long as I possibly can. She wrote me a letter last week which warmed my heart and made me miss L.A. a little bit and my family even more. She’s an extraordinary woman, the Queen of the Sasspots, and...
the story
It’s funny that I re-found the notebook that I use for just about everything yesterday morning - it’s not surprising that it was lost under a gargantuan pile of clothes being that I haven’t cleaned my apartment in weeks - which I later used to take interview notes for a story I was assigned to write for USA Today at 4pm, due later that evening.
I tried to write a quippy...
friday iphone poetry
ALLERGY SEASON
tin-foil capsules of shake-and-bake meth mean granny smith sunshine - springtime nose invasion - my glands thank the pharmacy.
it’s a dinosaur frat party! pterodactyl pornography, fog machine vision; driedle head spinning - smuggle me a rabbi.
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meow
I swear a lot. I’ve had to keep this habit under wraps because I work with children, and every time I come home my mother tells me that I’ve become more “crude” since the last time she’s seen me and that she’s embarrassed to take me to any adult functions because I have a Foul Mouth. I’ve been making an effort to counter this: when I’m with the...
the great danes
It has always been extremely difficult for me to separate reality from my own sordid brand of fiction, and the already precarious distinction has been made even more so by the fact that I find myself living in an environment where it is so easy to succumb to the foreignness of everything that I often lose sight of the fact that not everything is part of some elaborate fantasy constructed for my...
“Mr. Handsome: I said here you go thank you my pants.
Rose: So am I your pants...”
– two of my favorite people on the planet are three years old
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