Author Archives: plumpdumpling

Why I Don’t Read Your Blog (Hint: It’s Your Fault)

Posted by plumpdumpling on June 10, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Filed under narcissism
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Almost as a rule, I don’t read your blog unless you read mine. I don’t mean to be, like, overly sensitive about the importance of my blog, but I don’t have enough time to read all of the blogs of the people who do leave me comments, so I can’t afford to just go gallivanting around the Internet willy-nilly. If I find a blog I like, I usually add the RSS feed to my Google Reader, comment on the posts whenever the mood strikes me for the next few days, and hope to develop the kind of relationship I have with all of the people I’ve linked to in my sidebar.

I understand that not everyone replies to comments on their own blogs, so I don’t expect to check back on a blog I’m newly reading and see some gloriously personal reply, but I do expect the author to have made it clear in some way that she’s read me, too. If she doesn’t? BANISHED. I’m actually amazed at bloggers who don’t comment on other blogger’s posts. Do they think their stuff is so worth the time that some stranger would read every day without getting any sort of contact in return?

My Google Reader has an “Every Day” section that’s filled with the blogs of people I want to read the moment they post: Unapologetically Female, Bachelor Girl, Good Hair, Kim Luck, thickcrust, Serial Monogamist in her various forms, bluzdude, and lots more. I don’t always get to these people every day, but I get to them eventually no matter what. The rest of my feeds are divided up into food blogs, personal blogs, and fluff like Awkward Family Photos. I basically never look at these. So if I don’t comment on your blog regularly, it’s because you personally offended me and got shoved out of the Every Day section. Haha, just kidding. (Except not really.)

Then there’s the problem of the “important” blogs, like all of the food blogs that review all of the same restaurants I do but are twice as popular and half as good. Just kidding again! (Except not at all.) I used to feel like I had to read them just to see what they were saying about the restaurants I was going to, but then Tracey gave me the ingenious idea of shoving them into the sections I never read and using the search function if I ever want to find anything specific.

I know other bloggers who don’t think like this, though. Bachelor Girl, for instance, is forever posting articles on her very active and interesting Google Buzz account from big name tech blogs that I’m sure don’t pay any attention to anyone. And my best friend, Tracey, godblessher, reads all of the big feminist blogs but doesn’t comment on a single one of them, even though she has a feminist blog herself and should be trying to drive traffic to it.

So, what about you? Am I the only compulsive one here?

Are Pets Allowed on the Subway?

Posted by plumpdumpling on June 9, 2010 – 6:00 pm
Filed under funner times on the bus, living in new york sucks so hard, super furry animals
Tagged as , ,

This morning, the bus came to a halt at the 2nd Avenue stop, the back doors opened, and through them, I spotted a girl with the cutest little French Bulldog at her side. Now, French Bulldogs are my very favorite kind of dog, and this one was blonde instead of the usual black, so I had to will myself not to bolt out the door to coo over it. When all of the other passengers had boarded, she picked up the dog, dropped it in a large tote bag, and got on the bus herself.

Now, I’m all about pets on public transportation. The sensitive part of me likes to ogle cuddly things, and the sadistic part of me likes to see them cower in the corners of their designer carriers whenever we hit a bump. But having a boyfriend who sneezes when he so much sees a picture of a cat has made me sensitive to being in close proximity to fur, so I was a little bit mad at her for having the gall to so flagrantly show off her dog. It was made all the worse when she began taking photos of it with her cellphone.

I checked on the MTA’s website, though, and it turns out that pets are allowed on NYC public transportation “when they are carried in kennels or similar containers that can be accommodated by you on your lap without annoyance to other passengers”. (Harnessed service animals are always permitted, of course.) This girl wasn’t following the rules by having her dog sticking out the top of a tote bag, obviously, but it’s interesting to know that pets are allowed on the subways and buses.

(Click here to see the article on Examiner.com and earn me a pretty penny (literally).)

This is NEW YORK CITY, people. We have a reputation to uphold.

Posted by plumpdumpling on June 7, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Filed under funner times on the bus, good times at everyone else's expense, why i'm better than everyone else
Tagged as , ,

I swear I don’t usually judge people for their clothing choices, but a woman on the bus this morning was pretty clearly wearing a shirt made of fabric showcasing teddy bears in various positions of merrymaking at the beach:

As someone who can’t handle Disney-related clothes on adults and can barely stomach ironic hipster t-shirts covered in nature scenes such as wolves howling at the moon, I’m sort of appalled by this. I wanted to believe it was scrubs, but then I noticed she was wearing really expensive-looking pants with them. Not that having to wear scrubs is an excuse to dress like a baby.

As a side note, the woman in the black dress walking past her shows off way too much leg for an old lady every day when she sits down. Sorry, I needed to get that off my chest.

The Case for Gagging Subway Passengers

Posted by plumpdumpling on June 1, 2010 – 1:00 pm
Filed under fun times on the subway, living in new york sucks so hard
Tagged as ,

Sometimes something will make me rethink my distaste for children. I’ll be watching the episode of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” where Jacqueline gives birth to baby Nicholas, and I’ll think, “Wow, I’ll bet that one is a lot less ugly than her daughter, Ashley, was.” (Because seriously, all through the episode where Ashley was doing a photoshoot and kept complaining that the photographer wasn’t getting any good shots, I kept waiting for Jacqueline to tell her the problem is actually her face.) But Nicholas, even hours after his birth, was a lot less alien-esque than almost every baby I’ve seen recently, and it made me question whether I was getting soft on children.

And then, a couple of days ago, I was on the downtown 4 on my way to work when someone let one rip. I don’t care how much air they have swirling around the train cars; an enclosed space is an enclosed space, and the space around me filled up with nasty-smelling air that lingered for more than a minute. This happens from time to time, and I desperately want to go around sniffing butts until I figure out who dropped the bomb, but I never have the guts. I want to scream, “I can smell your shame!”, but I’m always unwilling to draw attention to myself.

Read the rest here.

Clearly, I’m Destined for a Long Career in Erotica-Writing

Posted by plumpdumpling on May 28, 2010 – 2:15 pm
Filed under bigtime celebrity, living in new york is neat
Tagged as , , ,

My jack-of-all-trades friend Alan Corey of A Million Bucks by 30: How to Overcome a Crap Job, Stingy Parents, and a Useless Degree to Become a Millionaire Before (or After) Turning Thirty fame is a bigshot over at NabeWise, a new website devoted to revealing what makes NYC and San Francisco neighborhoods worth living in.

He asked me to do a series of guest posts about the neighborhoods I love most . . . in the style of a romance novel. Having never read a single romance novel in my life because I’m too much of a literary elitist, I was obviously the perfect choice for the task.

But they ran my post, anyway!

And it’s almost word-for-word what I sent them! Although the things they decided to leave out were obviously the best parts. Such as the phrase “like a mouthful of man-nectar between parted lips” and my mention of “buttflaps on old-timey pajamas”. Who doesn’t love buttflaps?! What I’m saying is–if you notice the same weird mistakes in the article that I do, rest assured that I wasn’t the one who made them. Not that I need to defend my reputation to you assholes.

Anyway, go read my post! And (please) make all of your friends read it, too, so I’ll have motivation to start on a super-sexy blogging-related Harlequin romance novel.