WILLY WONKA AND THE KDUNK FACTORY

As you know I recently hosted a 'contest' where I asked the first X amount of people to email me and I would mail them an original KDUNK postcard drawing. Thank you for the generous amounts of responses and digital photo links letting me know they arrived. One of my favorite shots was my postcard drawing sitting on a white sand beach in the Virgin Islands! Another is a link I got today letting me know my postcard made it to
BARCELONA, SPAIN

This is starting to feel like the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when news was breaking all over the world that people were finding their golden tickets!

Did you ever see that movie? If not you are completely and totally missing out. Whatever you do be sure to fast forward through the part where Charlie's mom is singing and droning on and on and on for 45 minutes of the movie in the laundry room.

Two words-lickable wallpaper.

UNIQUE

Do you ever come across old family photos such as the above of my malnourished looking cousin and I and say to yourself, "What the hell?" and then second guess if you ever really had parents. You know-parents that might have said, "Hey little awkward 12-year-old girl on the right-you are in fact not unique as your T-shirt reads but rather a total freak of nature. It's also possible that you have your 1970's lesbian tennis player shorts on backwards."

WOMEN'S LIB GONE AWRY

With nothing on TV to watch but a documentary on Gloria Steinem or a rerun of Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network I picked Barefoot Contessa. This might be very bad.

SAY THAT AGAIN?

Sometimes when I've had a drink or two I speak in fragmented phrases that could only be appropriately associated with a foreign exchange student. Either that or my Long Island accent comes out in full glory which as you may recall from past blog entries is a scary event in itself.

On a bad night when the two combine, it's as if I just landed in this country and was taken in immediately by a team of Long Island construction workers that taught me everything they know about the English language.

My best friend also suffers from this drunken accent syndrome. She is from Atlanta and when she has had one bourbon too many she sounds like a cast member of Hee-Haw. Back in college---boy did we know how to clear a room as people grabbed their jackets wondering who invited Betty-Sue Anne and Stefania the Latvian girl from Long Island to the party.

The other night as we arrived at an East Village Karaoke bar at 2am (already a bad sign), I managed to let slip one of my speech blunders on to the innocent ears of my friend Becky.

(turning to Becky glossy-eyed)

K: "I have the thirsty."
Becky: "I'm sorry. What was that?"
K: "I say...me have...the thirsty."

Not one of my more horrifying lines but enough to make a semi-concerned and freaked out Becky run out to the nearest deli to purchase a six-pack of Poland Spring waters-handing me the first.

LATE NIGHT REALITY CHECK

E comes to bed late most nights around 3:00/3:30am. I'm totally jealous of his endurance and can only dream of what I might accomplish in those quiet hours. Unfortunately, the most you can find me doing after a long day of work is putting on my pjs and pouring a glass of wine.

When E crawls into bed, I often feign consciousness, turn over and say something cryptic and uncomprehensible like, “The seaweed crackers are in the fridge at noon” or something equally as bizarre. Last night for whatever reason I was actually alert and talking up a storm-to the point where E considered shooting me with a tranquilizer gun.

Somehow we got on the topic of how as a kid I dreamed of owning one of those
theme beds. The bed I wanted specifically was shaped like a stage coach with canvas/plastic side flaps that could be rolled down. I'm not sure why I was obsessed with the stage coach bed and not the race car bed or the castle but I'm guessing it had to do with the fact that I craved something very specific. Flaps. I needed flaps that rolled down and gave me what every kid wants and never gets-privacy.

E questioned my motives for a stage coach bed and thought it worthy for further psychiatric evaluation. I was quick to remind him of his childhood hot spot-the closet. As a kid E created an entire walk-in closet in his room into his own private space. The closet was not just any walk-in closet but had custom bookshelves, a place for his baseball cards, a bean bag and a lamp, etc. The thing was just short of a marble fireplace and a hook for his mini smoking jacket.

(lying in bed in the dark)

E: "I wish I had that closet now."
K: "I wish I had flaps."
E: "I'd even take the bean bag."
K: "Well, if we ever have kids we are having a closet AND a stage coach bed."
E: "Well, then apparently we will be moving to Arkansas because that is the
only place we'll ever afford room for a closet and a stage coach."
K: "Yeah. Much less anything for the kids."

WELL?

Did you get my postcards? Huh? Huh? Because if you did and have a digital camera and a blog maybe you can geek out and post a photo of my silly postcard drawing and then I can geek out and include your link on my blog and we will be one big happy geeky blog loving blog linking postcard havin' family.

The End

*SEE SOME OF MY POSTCARDS
HERE
HERE
HERE
HERE
HERE
HERE
HERE
HERE
HERE

NOW THIS IS A SUBWAY SPY SHOT

Props to my friend Amelia for snapping THIS most hilarious subway shot.

WHAT IT'S LIKE TO DATE ME

On a bad day I will be dressed for bed wearing baggy MC Hammer style gigantic pants with a crotch that drags on the ground and one of your oversized long sleeved t-shirts and a fluffy pair of slippers and I will have wild hair as if I've stuck my hand in an electrical socket and I will shuffle past you with bags under my eyes and a SCRABBLE mug full of coffee ice cream on my way to bed and when Jane the cat meows I will say dramatically, "What...WHAT? Does everyone need a piece of me?????"

MY HEAD ON VANITY FAIR DOT COM

I’m famous! See my bedhead on Vanity Fair’s home page HERE. Many thanks to SLOWER.NET. Would you believe I actually had to sign a model release?

TEE HEE.

POSTCARD UPDATE

Recently I held a postcard drawing contest here on More Than Donuts. Ok. Not a contest really but I asked that anyone that wanted an original KDunk postcard drawing to please email your address. Well folks...I'm 15 postcards away from being DONE! Your PayPal donations for my upcoming arm surgery for the endless amount of drawing I've done in the past month will be taken soon.

Here is the official tally from the postcard assignment:
POSTCARD REQUESTS FROM...

Arizona-1
Alabama-1
California-3
Connecticut-1
Georgia-2
Louisiana-1
Massachusetts-3
New Jersey-1
New York-10
Pennsylvania-1
Texas-2
Utah-1
Virgin Islands-1
Washington-4

Australia-2
Canada-3
Czech Republic-1
Germany-1
Spain-1
Taiwan-1

Total: 41

Sorry to those that missed the deadline to receive a badly drawn postcard from me. Sorry to the others that check their box and say, "This? This is what we waited for?" If you do get yours please let me know!

May I never draw a postcard again.
xoxoxo

HOLIDAY READING

For the holidays I got a number of books. In seven days I have read six of them. I'm not picky about what I read when I am on vacation and the more random the better. This year's selection certainly qualified as random but good:

THE APPRENTICE: MY LIFE IN THE KITCHEN by Jacques Pepin

This book was SO GOOD! I want to buy it for all of my friends that are great cooks. If you enjoy food writing at all this book was fantastic. Not only a fascinating story about the life of Jacques Pepin (he once passed up a job as chef for the White House to work at Howard Johnson's) but the writing is amazing. Highly recommend it.

AFTER THE QUAKE by Haruki Murakami

Murakami is one of my favorite authors-ever. I've read most of his books. He is poetic and strange and clever and once I read one of his books I knew I had to read the others. This is a collection of short stories-one more stunning than the next.

BIRD BY BIRD by Anne Lamott

This was one of those books that I couldn't believe I hadn't read yet. A light read and a helpful book on writing with the fantastic message to remember to take it slowly-one step (bird) at a time. Perfect for the new year's less perfectionism message.

The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll, by Jean Nathan

Dare Wright was the author of a freaky book I read as a child about a loney doll who became friends with three bears. This is the story of her life. The Lonely Doll is full of black and white photos taken by Dare-some of the lonely doll in strange poses walking over the Brooklyn bridge, in another the lonely doll is over the knee of Papa Bear getting a spanking, etc. The book has strange sexual undertones and reading this biography about her freaky life explains why. A good book but makes you want to take a shower afterwards. Dirty.

LUCY by Jamaica Kincaid

Jamaica Kincaid is a great friend of one of my best friends. In a sense I knew Jamaica as a person first through stories my friend told before reading her work. Now that I have been exposed to her writing I am hooked. Her writing is fantastic and like Murakami I want to read everything I can get my hands on that she has written.

The last book I got SUCKED-Citizen Girl by the chicks that wrote The Nanny Diaries. This is one of those books you hide under a magazine while reading because you don't want anyone smart, funny or intelligent to see you reading such trash but I read it and it SUCKED.

Also on the list of 'reading' were some fantastic cookbooks that E and I got:

BOUCHON by Thomas Keller

I thought this cookbook would be 100% coffee table book and not the least bit useful. I sat down and 'read' it slowly cover to cover. But in fact there are a number of recipes that one can tackle and ok-yes-some yes-that are ambitious but not too bad. The photographs are lovely and the writing well done. There are a lot of side dishes using veggies which look yummy and I can't wait to try.

LES HALLES COOKBOOK by Anthony Bourdain

Anthoony Bourdain is brilliant and I loved his cooking show despite it's short existence on the Food Network. This cookbook is an odd one but a good one. You should be a huge meat lover if you get this book because over 80% of the book is meat related. However, I am trying a mushroom soup from the cookbook today that sounds delicious.

Also...
SUBWAY by Bruce Davidson.

A GREAT photography book. Davidson was fortunate enough to be a photographer shooting people in NYC at a time when graffiti ridden subway cars were like canvases in themselves. Davidson's eye for light and shadows and circumstance come together to make a really great collection and documentation of old skool NYC.