Wendy McClure

Author and Professional Obsessive.

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Archives for September 2007

All that sweet green icing flowing down*

September 30, 2007 by Wendy

Early colors

I’m in the beginning stages of a couple of writing projects, and in the middle of production at work, and at the end of a month full of out-of-town visitors and weekend trips, and somewhere in between all that I had a shitload of laundry which I’ve just now done. How are you? Don’t mind me; I’m trying to catch the hell up.

Really, I sort of feel like I left my life out in the rain (yes, like the MacArthur Park cake) and now that I’ve brought it back in to dry out (which, no, you wouldn’t do with a cake), I’ve forgotten how to wear it (and okay, now I’m making a sort of sweater analogy here) and lost track all the little places where I stretched it to make it fit right (because of course it’s a fat girl’s sweater), and things are a little itchy and uncomfortable at the moment but I’m sure I’ll break it back in eventually.

One of the stretchy things I haven’t been able to figure out is how we went to the gym all these months. Apparently the mornings used to be longer and I used to be not so tired. I know from experience that when you actually do start working out regularly,things sort of amazingly take care of themselves so that you do have more energy, and time expands, and your molecules totally rearrange themselves so that you are cuter and smarter. I know this, and yet still I wait for the perfect gym-going opportunity to appear in the mist like Brigadoon. Still, I’ve been biking to work whenever I can. Which is well, about once a week. Whatever. Brigadoon. I’ll let you know when I find it.

*Seriously, I forgot that the lyrics to that song were that demented. Donna Summer needs to be commended for her non-enunciation skills in her version.

Plug #1 for the day is for the Photo Project at Elastic Waist. I’ve got a photoset up, where the only Before shot is of me as a 4-year-old (because that really is Before lots of things). Plug #2 is for the new issue of BUST hitting the newsstands this week, because in addition to my usual Poptart column, there’s an interview with Debbie Harry conducted (via very long-distance phone call) by yours truly. BUY IT. And if it’s not at your newsstand yet and the previous issue is still there, the one with my column about Olivia Newton-John in it, you should buy that one, too. I’m just saying.

Filed Under: misc, personal, popcult, this thing I'm doing

Vote for Brenda!

September 17, 2007 by Wendy

My friend Brenda is a finalist in this video contest for her amazing pin-up collection! Update: She won!!!!!!!

Filed Under: General

Britney, the morning after

September 10, 2007 by Wendy

It’s not like me to watch this sort of thing, but in the BUST column I just finished I found myself writing an awful lot about Britney’s butt cellulite, so I guess I’m a little more invested than usual. And so, here is my reaction in list form:

1. Why did they make her even dance? Why did MTV think she could anything even remotely complicated, now that she no longer has a dedicated cadre of dungeonmaster managers and trainers to smack and pinch her through all the rehearsals? Why couldn’t they have just stuck her on a big swing or something?

2. I have a sinking feeling the weave was her idea.

3. SHE IS NOT FAT.

4. No, seriously: why did they make her DANCE? They could have just stuck her on a hydraulic lift. Or had her fly out on a zip line. Or wheeled her out on a dolley. They could have put her on a trampoline. They could have made her play a robot so that her shuffling and awkwardness wouldn’t have been so tragic. She could have driven out in a little car a la Gary Numan, so she wouldn’t have had to even walk. For the love of God IT DIDN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY.

5. They could have stuck her on a giant turntable. A bungee cord. A catapult. ANYTHING.

Filed Under: misc, popcult

Toy story

September 5, 2007 by Wendy

Happy

We really did think twice about stealing the air hockey equipment. No shit, the game room at the Bunny Hutch Novelty Golf And Batting Cage Recreation Extravaganza is the place to go to be scared straight and also to get your sex tested. I recommend it wholeheartedly. But okay, I think we’re done with the weekend trips and with all our kitschy cavorting for the moment. No kidding, it was getting to be like the Monkees opening credits around here. It is time to take off the dorky legionnaire hats and focus, people. Or at least clean stuff. I did a lot of that this weekend, too.

And since I’m cleaning out my closet, let me tell you about my thing with McDonald’s and how I went there for the first time in forever last week. Because I still crave McDonald’s sometimes: these days I go for months and months without going there, but when it comes down to it, I still seriously dig the stuff. O McDonald’s food, you taste so red and yellow and awesome. I love how the cheeseburgers are not “cheeseburgers” so much as they are warm soft ketchuppy pickle pillow pies; I love the fries, even though I read Fast Food Nation and know they’re made from potato starch and holograms. I understand, and yet I want; so once in a great while I give in and answer the clowny call of Clan McDonald. So the other day I went to the drive-thru.

I used to do this a lot more often. Back when I did Weight Watchers, I learned that the contents of a McDonald’s Happy Meal amounted to something like eleven POINTS (not too bad, considering), so I ate Happy Meals. Though it should be said I would have also eaten endangered baby pandas braised in orphan tears if Weight Watchers had told me they were twelve POINTS or less, and this is one reason why I had to stop doing Weight Watchers. But never mind that: there was a time when I ordered a lot of damn Happy Meals. Enough to get over the dopey irony of the enclosed toy. Like at first when I’d order and they’d ask if the toy was for a boy or a girl, I thought it very whimsical and joie de vivre of me to yell “I’m a GIRL!” at the drive-thru speaker box. La la la! But then I’d have this shitty little gender-informed trinket, a Bratz doll or a tiny copy of Cosmo or whatever, and it would sit in my car until I threw it out. And try giving a friend’s kid a cheap toy from a Happy Meal he/she didn’t eat. It’s awkward and poignant. The bad kind of poignant. I suppose I could’ve just ordered the hamburger and the small fries and soda without ordering the Happy Meal, but that would’ve broken the sacred and pathetic contract I had with myself wherein I was allowed to eat at McDonald’s as long as it wasn’t a fully grown-up decision. Yeah, I know.

Eventually I made a point to just avoid getting the toy. But this is harder than you’d think, especially when most of my McDonalding consisted of furtive drive-thru visits. “Boy or girl for the Happy Meal?” the speaker box would ask. I tried saying, “No toy, please,” or, “I don’t need a toy,” or “You can leave out the toy,” but it almost never worked. Maybe it’s because the McDonald’s drive-thru employees expect to hear one of only two answers and don’t really know what to do when presented with a None of The Above, so they either ignore it or mishear “no toy” for “boy.” Oh, and then another problem was that I was going to McDonald’s too fucking much, so I stopped going.

I’d pretty much forgotten all about the toy problem until the other day, when I ordered a Happy Meal out of old habit. This time, I decided, I would really put my foot down about the toy thing. Because, really, it was bad enough that I was eating McDonald’s and the last thing I wanted was another creepy souvenir. “Is that Happy Meal for a boy or a girl?” the drive-thru voice asked.

“Okay, look, I don’t need the toy. It’s just for me. Please don’t put one in. I’ll just throw it out. No toy. None. Okay?”

There was a long pause. “Oh, okay,” the drive-thru box said. Some odd code came up on the LCD screen, something like B/G: N/A. I’d gotten through to them at last. I drove around and paid at the cashier window. Then I drove to the food window, which had a different employee than the one who’d take my order. The guy was holding an open bag and staring at a printout slip in his hand.

“Um, this order is blank? For where it says what kind of toy for the Happy Meal?” he said.

“Yeah, no toy,” I told him. “Because it’s not for a kid. It’s just for me. You know?” He peered into the car as I pointed to myself. I wanted to make sure he noticed I was driving and everything. He nodded slowly and turned back to fill the bag.

As I was driving away I felt something at the bottom of the bag. It was a teddy bear in a plastic baggie. A pink bear. For fuck’s sake.

Filed Under: Chicago, misc, popcult

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The Wilder Life on Flickr

Recent Press and Links

  • Essay: A Little House Adulthood For the American Masters documentary on Laura Ingalls Wilder, I contributed a piece to the PBS website about revisiting the Little House books.
  • Essay: The Christmas Tape (At Longreads.com) How an old audio tape of holiday music became a record of family history, unspoken rituals, and grief.
  • Q & A With Wendy McClure Publishers Weekly interview about editing, Wanderville and more.

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Where else to find Wendy

  • Candyboots Home of the Weight Watcher recipe cards
  • Malcolm Jameson Site (in progress) about my great-grandfather, a Golden Age sci-fi writer.
  • That Side of the Family My semi-secret family history blog
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