Most Fashionable Reader! Zelda has dragged herself out of The Treacherous Abyss and has pulled herself to her feet to, well, face her demons head-on by writing about some form of some sort of journey into hell. Zelda is not one to rub salt in her wounds, Dear Reader, but she does have a fondness for rubbing alcohol.
James Joyce! Zelda has missed you so! Also Ulysses! Zelda cannot wait to go farther with you! Maybe even third base! And Vivienne! Zelda has missed you more! Zelda has missed you most!
The video below is something that has made Zelda feel better lately. It is a sweet little song — Zelda had forgotten about it until she heard it whilst getting her hair styled last week. Zelda feels the lyrics would have been a tad more cohesive, however, had Anna Nalick written it when she was a little older. Ah, well.
“My God! It’s so beautiful when the boy! Smiles!”
The writing on the wall
Fade past the unglazed mug, the shampoo commercial, the Still Life with Waterfall. Fingers blunt with cold. The sound of an old film. Aspirin tablets, chicken salad sandwiches. Extension cords round the room like lions. The smell of the weak, the descent of their last end –
Vivienne feels shame in writing this entry. Vivienne feels shame in writing this entry because she knows that no entry, no entry ever, ever written, can ever match the pure magic and wisdom and vision of Zelda’s last post. For shame for Vivienne! But for glory for Zelda, Fashionable Zelda of Fashion! Zelda is, indeed, without question, The Girl With the Most Cake.
As for herself, Vivienne has no Cake. And Vivienne has, in fact, decided to refuse all Cake. Though this will make little difference for you, gentle readers, who would certainly not think of dating Vivienne after you have read Vivienne’s Most Private Thinkings, Vivienne must, nonetheless, make this announcement. Vivienne has Taken Herself Off the Market. Officially and, for the moment, finally. Vivienne has wiped all traces of herself from all Internet Dating Catastrophes, and Vivienne has decided to concentrate on what’s really important in life, such as gathering the proper number of cats to eat her face when she dies alone, which, really, she would rather do than continue to try to date the Asshats she has been busy trying to date.
Let’s just take a moment to discuss How This Came To Be, shall we?
Let’s say you are a man. Let’s say you are a man who meets Vivienne on one of the aforementioned Internet Dating Catastrophe Sites. And let’s say that you are a man who takes such a fancy to Vivienne that you compose, for her, long e-mails night after night. You make funny jokes about Twinkies. You say clever and sensitive things about her eyes. And when Vivienne offers you The Window as mentioned by Zelda several entries back, you open the window with all of your might. You are dying to crawl into that window. You open the window, and take Vivienne out for an evening. You and Vivienne have a Fabulous Time of Fashion. You drive aimlessly and see a castle. You drink beverages, for which Vivienne agrees to pay. Your topics of conversation vary from the shapes of various United States to world travels to godchildren. You and Vivienne are Getting Along Like Gangbusters. And you end the evening with Vivienne with a Most Fabulous Front Seat Make-Out Session of Fashion, after which you tell Vivienne you had a lovely time. A Fabulous Time. And you tell her you will talk to her again. You will call her. You will see her, definitely, definitely.
Now.
In this case, you would think you would talk to her again. You would think you would call her. You would think you would see her, definitely, definitely. But do you? No, and no, and no. Instead, you spend all hours of the day and night trolling the aforementioned Internet Dating Catastrophe Sites for Other Women, in plain view of Vivienne. You trade witty banter with aforementioned Other Women in plain view of Vivienne on other Internet Social Networking Sites of Catastrophe. You, in fact, arrange dates with aforementioned Other Women in plain view of Vivienne on aforementioned other Internet Social Networking Sites of Catastrophe, and you arrange said aforementioned dates on days when you told Vivienne, in explicit terms, that you would be Too Busy to See Her.
So Vivienne has had enough. Enough! Away with you, Asshats! Away! Vivienne is going to sit with her antiques and her cats. Vivienne is going to relegate her Dating Shirts and Uncomfortable Dating Bras and hopelessly painful Dating Panties to the deep dark depths of her dresser, where they DESERVE TO BE, and where they shall never again be seen by Asshats who Do Not Deserve Them, anyway. And this, Asshats. This, Vivienne dedicates to you. To all of you. Though you do not deserve the Fashion, the sentiment is right on.
NO TRANSITION, BITCHES! EXERCISE: FUNERAL, METHODS OF DEATH, EXPENSIVE RAINCOAT, HAT.
Rest your shoulder Peaches and Cream
The car ride being hotair and venting, tissues a wad in the purse’s bottom and the same joke the same when I die bury me at night and have everyone turn off their lights the same well the funeral home would love it bring more business and isn’t that the point of everything, the stockbrokers and broken windows. O the last time you saw her she looked so much older, her famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder and beneath the fabric what skin could say, what her skin told and taught you. Lie. Bury. Blanket. Being graveside in warmmist and cloudspit. Being graveside the stray dogs whose bodies were graves of themselves with ribs grates. Being one of the dog’s legs raised and pissing against the stone. Had you gone to the station, had you welcomed each train in, still your face would be blur in her memory now notmemory, now something about a hat’s brim tilted above the left eye and poker cards poking beneath his thumb. Something of trainsmoke, whistlemelody. The pills’d be much easier but who can afford them these days, steal them off the hobblers hobbling from the CVS door, vacuum air and sealant, Tylenol and bandage. Believe and belief. Living for nothing now, nothing living. The dog awaywandered and gravestone stillwet.
Dearest, Most Fashionable Reader: Zelda has a problem. Now, Zelda realizes that she is hardly back in the saddle when it comes to the dating scene, since Roxette was still releasing new music when she last dated, but she felt that certain statements would still ring true within the dating world. Such as: if two people have massive quantities of sex over an extended period of time, then they will be forced to come up for air eventually and, during aforementioned air gathering, they would, perhaps, get a bite or two to eat or watch a movie. Such as: if two people go to restaurants and the cinema together, if two people spend time out in public together and enjoy aforementioned time, then they will eventually end up enjoying the other’s, ah, company in the bedroom. These two statements have not rung true for Zelda, Reader. Zelda illustrates this with the following illustration:
And, like Dearest, Dearest Vivienne, I can offer you no transition to this imaginary letter written to an imaginary person from an imaginary person, which was inspired by Martha’s letter to Leopold Bloom a/k/a Henry Flower Esq. I can offer you only the video below — which is Liz Phair performing the fabulous “Flower” live. Unlike most of her live performances, however, this one is actually quite good. There’s even an extra verse at the end!
Also, Reader: Zelda would like to apologize for the nastiness (hers as well as Liz Phair’s) in the letter below but would also like to blame it on James Joyce.
the masochist says hit me and the sadist says no
naughty you no massaging your silly thinskin your babyfine headhair your naughtynaughty slapsore cock pam grier from a cheap frame watching us fuck and my fingers splaying and pressing your headboard (moving to livingroom) pam grier from a cheap frame watching us fuck and your cock being fucked on the sofa you like to be fucked your cock to be smacked and pulled I have noticed your eyes railroading me with want (with your hair I am making saltwater taffy) I wait for the want to escape your lips for naughtyyou to say –
Look, Fair Readers. You have stuck with me for quite a bit. Through thick and thin, as it were. And, as it is, I will make this admission:
Vivienne’s life is a disaster.
I mean, a Courtney-Love-at-five-a.m. disaster. A late-Judy-Garland-attempting-to-film-Valley-of-the-Dolls disaster. A Liza-Minelli-at-any-point disaster. Together? Vivienne does not have a whit of it. And so, Vivienne is not quite sure why she has taken this, this very moment, this Judy-Garland-in-tragic-sunglasses moment, to quit smoking.
Careful Readers may be saying to themselves: Quit smoking? I thought Vivienne already quit smoking. I thought that happened years ago. Yes, Careful Readers, you are correct. Vivienne did quit smoking, and it did happen years ago. But Vivienne took up smoking again. And here Vivienne makes a sad admission: Vivienne’s journey back down Nicotine Way started because of a man (actually, in an attempt to talk to a man in an unguarded smokehazed moment, during which said man confessed his homosexual tendencies, which Vivienne ignored to date him anyway) and continued because of a man (a man who, in Ms. Big Edie Bouvier-Beales’ words, was so warm on the telephone but so cold in person) (whose behavior also hinted at homosexual tendencies, which Vivienne ignored to semi-date him anyway, which brings to mind a pattern …). And so, in order to liberate herself of Said Men, Vivienne is going to quit smoking.
Which leads Vivienne to think of her other additions: besides her addiction to dating and semi-dating men with homosexual tendencies, there is her addition to Diet Coke. Smoking is bad. Yes. This, Vivienne can clearly see. Diet Coke? Nothing can convince her. Her doctor tells her to stop drinking Diet Coke because it is eating her bones. Vivienne is so exhausted by this news that she can do nothing but drink a Diet Coke. Vivienne watches footage of an egg dropped in Diet Coke. Vivienne watches as its shell dissolves. Vivienne thinks, how refreshing would a cold Diet Coke be right now? Vivienne’s teeth fall out because she drinks so much Diet Coke. Vivienne thinks, perhaps I could freeze Diet Coke in a dental mold?
And now, I provide you with no clear transition to tonight’s Ulysses assignment, inspired by Chapter 5, in which Mr. Bloom wanders around, tears up a letter, thinks about sluts, and witnesses an odd version of mass in which the Eucharist seems to come before the Gospel (perhaps this is just his perception, though): an imagine letter from an imaginary person. Who is, hopefully, happily drinking a Diet Coke, smoking a Camel, and just acting on his homosexual tendencies fergod’ssake like he should’ve done instead of all that damned repression.
Dearest Y.,
As for the fish I am not sure. Perhaps when feeding the tank left open, perhaps flipped themselves outwards. Somewhere I read of their teeth though not sure this is a true thing. Have you left the flowers where they were or are they elsewhere aplantered? Last night I could swear bright as day. The moon or something. Six cents a sheet, the copies are, and the library overrun with moths. Ate the verbs out and all of the Rs in the Oxford. Crying shame, hidden in that dress in the corner, with the stains on the glovetips and seed pearls rolling. Perhaps Sunday? Or the hot rolls and the coffee burnt, heating element eternal lit, red eye in the night. Lit his smoke on it and caught the hair on fire, poor guy. Bugger he or should’ve been. Or would’ve wished to. Pour out the last of the glasses and call a night to it, will you? Yes then. Yes.
Circumstances have arisen that have led to an odd necessity, this odd necessity being that Vivienne must look through Photographs of Her Youth, particularly Photographs of Her Youth as a College Student, in order to find An Entirely Appropriate Photograph of Her Youth as a College Student. I admit that I thought this would be an easy undertaking. Apparently, however, in the years since her graduation from college, Vivienne seems to have Completely and Entirely forgotten what her Life as a Youth as a College Student was like. Vivienne found one photograph. She was wearing a black velvet bra and a man’s suit jacket. This, obviously, was Not Entirely Appropriate. Vivienne found a second, third, fourth, and fifth photograph. In all of these photographs, she was holding a wine glass. Not Entirely Appropriate. Vivienne found a sixth and seventh photograph. She was shotgunning a beer in both. Definitely Not Entirely Appropriate. Vivienne found an eighth photograph of her smiling pleasantly in a pleasant pink wool sweater. Vivienne felt hope. Vivienne looked closer. Her roommate’s bong was in the background. Absolutely Definitely Not Entirely Appropriate. Vivienne finally found a ninth photograph of her working hard at her computer. Finally! Appropriateness! But for the “Militant Agnostic: You Don’t Know and I Don’t Know Either” bumper sticker plastered to the wall behind her left shoulder, not to mention the sight of a shirtless man behind her. Absolutely Most Definitely Not Entirely Appropriate. Vivienne now despairs, and thinks An Entirely Appropriate Photograph of Her Youth as a College Student is a non-existant myth.
Which brings us, fashionably, to this evening’s exercise, based on the fourth section of Ulysses, in which Mr. Bloom defecates in the outhouse. In this evening’s exercise, Viv and Zel have agreed to mention something unmentionable. Enjoy.
Wanting I think she wants a man who’s got no time for her because she doesn’t want to have time for a man. Well, maybe she doesn’t want a man. Has that made its way to your thinking? The whole morning a fourcoffee haze, slim white grave in the trashcan and outside the evidence of the well-packed pack all smoked and your thinking what doesn’t kill me now may kill me later, your thinking the smoke can do the job I not brave enough to do. In the meantide convincing theself of living by the cat who without me will have no freshwaterfoodbelledplaythings, she a black prrr in the blacknight. In the meantide not speaking of the notness to the women who heelthump down hallways, coffeesteam and questions your weekend your morning all right?
Well hello, Dearest, Most Fashionable Reader! Zelda will be giving you two things today: a woefully unfashionable prologue as well a woefully unfashionable attempt at “creativity.” The exercise is, as the Fashionable Vivienne described earlier, the description of a process, as inspired by the classroom scene in the second part of Ulysses. It was also inspired by a conversation Zelda had with the Most Fashionable Vivienne a few weeks ago — a conversation in which Vivienne was kind enough to describe to Zelda what Creating a Window meant.
Zelda offers you a video below, for as soon as she finished her exercise, she knew the perfect song to accompany it: “Out the Window” by the Violent Femmes. The video below is an interpretation of aforementioned song. It is a rather cutesy video when played with volume, but if one mutes the sound whilst playing the video, it becomes deliciously frightening.
Still Life with Plaster Wall
These are the things one needs, this is what one does, there will be a time to seek, to lose, to keep, to crumble the chalk into a vaguely rectangular shape, this forming a plaster wallwindow, this becoming a holeinthewall window from which one can view a man, the man becoming a potential eveningpartner once one reaches one’s hand into the wall hole, the hand being accompanied by a question in the form of a statement, such as I know of no small music venues near here or I am looking for a place that serves the perfect cupcake, the question in the form of a statement becoming an invitation to the potential eveningpartner to step into the wallwindow and join one in the vaguely rectangular shape of a bedroom.
Well hello! Welcome to this Missive of Fashion! Zelda realizes that it has been quite some time since she and the Most Fashionable Vivienne have written. Zelda is writing to you, Most Fashionable Reader, to reveal that she and the Most Fashionable Vivienne apologize for this travesty. Zelda is here to tell you, Most Fashionable Reader, that she and the Most Fashionable Vivienne will soon return to grace the presence of their very own blog. She and Vivienne are also here to tell you, Most Fashionable Reader, that you will not be disappointed when they do. Zelda and Vivienne will return to TheHyacinthGirls.com on the First of October, 2008. At present, they are getting quite comfortable in their alter-alter egos: Vivienne as Bette Davis, and Zelda as Joan Crawford.
Would you, Most Fashionable Reader, like to have a peek at what Vivienne and Zelda will be working on during the month of October? Here it is:
Don’t call it a comeback, Most Fashionable Readers; Vivienne and Zelda have been here for years.
Careful Readers of the Blog might’ve noticed Vivienne’s conspicuous absence. Careful Readers of the Blog might also have said to themselves, Oh, dear. Vivienne must be going through “a time.” Careful Readers of the Blog would, indeed, be correct in their assumption that Vivienne has been going through “a time,” so far as Careful Readers of the Blog do not define “a time” as an enjoyable period of sunshine, lollipops, rainbows, and daffodils, or as a brief period of slight unfashion that can be cured by an evening with the Lifetime Network, Ben and Jerry’s, and All-Natural White Cheddar Cheetos. Careful Readers of the Blog, however, will probably realize that any “time” which prevents Vivienne from practicing OuLiPo must be quite a time indeed.
And, indeed, Vivienne has been buried in the rubble of an earthquake of Unfashion. Vivienne feels as though her very body, her very soul, her very essence — nay, her very WORLD — has been sucked into the mouth of The Nothing like so much spaghetti. Vivienne has been having the kind of “time” where she feels she has much more in common with a two year old collapsed in a sobbing pile of anguish at having been denied a cookie and throwing her favorite stuffed animal repeatedly against the wall than anyone else. Vivienne has been having the kind of “time” which results in her driving home at night listening to “Back in Black” at top volume and belting I-I-I-I go baaaccckk tooooo uussssssss along with Amy Winehouse at top volume while feeling jealous that Amy Winehouse has the sweet release of crank and crack and smack and whatever the hell else she’s smoking these days, also at top volume. Vivienne has been having the kind of “time” that results in her not only singing Amy Winehouse songs at top volume but simultaneously weeping at top volume, so that, by the time she reaches the gas station by her apartment, her carefully-applied smoky eye make-up has turned into the kind of racoonish wreck once made fashionable by the ever-fashionable Courtney Love, only she’s taken things one step further, as her glitter-specked black liquid eyeliner has stained her cheeks and tear-wiping hands as black as Amy Winehouse’s crack-crank-smack-stained fingernails. Vivienne has been having the kind of “time” that results in her not even bothering to spit-wipe the glittering black liquid eyeliner stains from her cheeks and tear-wiping hands before she enters the gas station by her apartment, and Vivienne has been having the kind of “time” that results in her looking the gas station attendant straight in the eye and saying, what? What? You got a problem? when, with cheeks and tear-wiping hands covered in glittering black eyeliner stains, she comes to the counter to purchase a bottle of red wine, an extra-large bag of peanut M&Ms, a bag of cat litter, and a pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights.
Which means that Vivienne has been thinking a great deal about probability. For instance: how, purely through probability, and seemingly without a choice of her own, she has ended up In Her Station — the gas station mentioned above, for instance, which works as a Fitting Metaphor. And Vivienne has been thinking about OuLiPo and potentiality, though not necessarily actuality. But Vivienne has been thinking about the part of probability theory which states something like this (all of Vivienne’s understanding of mathematics generally boils down to “it’s something like this,” by the way): how the probability of a sample set adds, in a sense, up to one. So Vivienne got to thinking about how there’s sort of a sum that each x in this kind of set adds up to. So Vivienne got to thinking about how this might apply to text: how, for instance, each word x in a certain position in a series of lines of text might add up to a poetic sum. So, Vivienne experimented with an invented constraint she is going to refer to as Sum Probability. She took the first word in the first line, second word in the second line, third word in the third line, and so on until the series ended and had to repeat, in a text to see if it would add up to a poetic sum. The text in question is one which also deals with probability: Alberto Moravia’s Two Women, later made into a Film of Fashion featuring that ultimate icon of all Fashionable Things Which are Fashionable, Sophia Loren, which deals with the ways in which two women’s lives are changed drastically by the chance occurrence of war. Here is the result:
Then Later –
Man’s walking and one –
many – they but are dragged
that people laden — that
in the weariest –
along which valley
national? — via mouthed -
say it – filled green. America
brings its power, motorcars
that — kind soldiers, armored
boughs — large curving of a pair
noticed — recovered. With dear
wind distantly — we too in
would– fire – come on – mine?
Out. Anti-aircraft is the only
clean. Be jumble — lawyers
apprehensive. Lieutenant –
Dearest, Most Fashionable Reader: Zelda has been busy being an Active Invalid of Unfashion these past few days, the climax of this Unfashion occurring late yesterday evening after Zelda and a Benevolent Friend watched The Bucket List [which, by the way, Dear Reader, has been FALSELY BILLED AS A COMEDY! IT IS A FILM OF TRAGEDY AND GREAT SORROW!]. At the end of The Bucket List, Zelda fell dramatically onto her Benevolent Friend’s hardwood floor, curled up into a fetal position, and sobbed, “I am going to dieeeeeeeeeeee alone. I am going to die aloooooooooooooooooooone. Aloooooooooone.”
Zelda’s Benevolent Yet Somewhat Annoying Friend showed no pity for Our Dearest, Most Fashionable Zelda. “You’re not going to die any time soon, Zelda,” he said. “And you’re not going to die alone.”
“Yes I ammmmmmm,” Zelda wailed. “I am going to die alooooooooooooone.”
“Get it together, Zelda,” the Benevolently Annoying Friend said. “You’re not fun to be around when you’re like this.”
“Fun?!” Zelda roared with all the Furious Rage she could, in her pathetic state, muster. “You call this film of tragedy and great sorrow FUN?! ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS WATCH THAT WILL FERRELL COMEDY! THAT ONE ABOUT BASKETBALL! BUT! NO! YOU TALKED ME INTO THE FREAKING BUCKET LIST! HOLY CHRIST I NEED A CIGARETTE!”
So Zelda furiously drove back to her apartment, alone. Whilst driving, she violently smoked cigarette after cigarette, alone. She stomped up her flight of stairs, alone. She brushed her teeth so hard that her gums bled, alone. She furiously plumped her highly fashionable pillow, alone, and Zelda finally drifted off into a Sleep Full of Rage and Fury and Sorrow. Alone.
Sometimes, Dearest, Most Fashionable Reader, only eighties music will suffice. Only eighties music can express the loneliness and the angst one Zelda felt while curled up in a fetal position on a hardwood floor. And this is why, Most Fashionable Reader, Zelda has provided for you the video below, in all its acid washed hair sprayed white sneakered jean jacketed sweetly innocent bubblegum smacking glory. Hearts are good for souvenirs, Dear Reader. Hearts are good for souvenirs.
Oh yeah! The poem!
For this FaOuLiPoWriMoFa [Fashionable OuLiPo Writing Month of Fashion] poem, Zelda has blended the Fashionable OuLiPo methods of curtailing and interference. Zelda’s source text was a section of a quiz found in Delivered from Distraction by Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey.
Self Assessment
Are you concerned that you drink too much when you’re alone?
Do you smoke more cigarettes now that you’re single?
When by yourself, do you resent yourself?
Do you enjoy being alone in basements?
Do you waste vast quantities of time roaming around by yourself?
Do you smile when talking to yourself in hopes that it will be a sufficient contribution?
Since you’ve become single, have you made the mistake of dating?
Has the quality of your sex life declined due to internal emotional conflict?
Is what you’re looking forward to doing a solitary act?
Do you find that you have trouble sustaining attention when you make love to yourself?
Do you have trouble lingering when you make love to yourself?
Do you have recurring dreams in which you’re by yourself?
Do you carry anger and frustration within you?
When alone, do you feel a great deal of shame?
When you’re alone, do you yearn to be so much more?
Vivienne has spent much of her evening dealing with a great deal of UNFASHION (where are you, wise and benevolent spirit of Anne Carson, to save me from the UNFASHION?!). So much UNFASHION that she’s halfway convinced that the entire WORLD OF FASHION has been SUCKED UP INTO NOTHING BY THE NOTHING. So much UNFASHION, in fact, that she and Zelda just had a Most Fashionable Conversation of Rage in which many Fashionable Discoveries were made, which may soon reach the blog, but, in the meantime, Vivienne is so unhinged by the UNFASHION she was forced to face that she cannot even talk about it, for spreading such UNFASHION to the world would be a serious act of UNFASHION. And Vivienne detests UNFASHION. And Vivienne instead loves Fashion. And Vivienne loves you. And so she gives you a Scene of Fashion, from Wigstock 2000:
And so she gives you a Fashionable Pet Shops Boys AbFab Mix of Fashion:
And so she lets you in on one of the Most Fashionable Revelations of The Evening, which is that PATSY IS FABULOUS with this Sponge Osmosity created from AbFab clips. Enjoy, and remember, kids: BE FASHIONABLE AS OTHERS SHALL BE FASHIONABLE UNTO YOU.
Lacroix, darling. Lacroix.
Sweetie Darling The Stairwell
California lovely the roof off lovely
over it the road the road lovely
there used to be here your language
watch you foul you language I am
thin a bee is it where is it find it
we need more don’t leave right well
then a bee a bee is it a small hello
cut it off he’s very nice cut it off I have
to get out of here darling Mummy’s here
sweetheart I’m going to call the filth
the pigs just drink it sweetie no fabulous
no fantastic no I like this one no this
one is the one this one here what is this
sweetie we tried didn’t we we didn’t want is this
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It's very dramatic.
Posted by zeldafitzgerald 
make little difference for you, gentle readers, who would certainly not think of dating Vivienne after you have read Vivienne’s Most Private Thinkings, Vivienne must, nonetheless, make this announcement. Vivienne has Taken Herself Off the Market. Officially and, for the moment, finally. Vivienne has wiped all traces of herself from all Internet Dating Catastrophes, and Vivienne has decided to concentrate on what’s really important in life, such as gathering the proper number of cats to eat her face when she dies alone, which, really, she would rather do than continue to try to date the Asshats she has been busy trying to date.
Dating Catastrophe Sites. And let’s say that you are a man who takes such a fancy to Vivienne that you compose, for her, long e-mails night after night. You make funny jokes about Twinkies. You say clever and sensitive things about her eyes. And when Vivienne offers you The Window as mentioned by Zelda several entries back, you open the window with all of your might. You are dying to crawl into that window. You open the window, and take Vivienne out for an evening. You and Vivienne have a Fabulous Time of Fashion. You drive aimlessly and see a castle. You drink beverages, for which Vivienne agrees to pay. Your topics of conversation vary from the shapes of various United States to world travels to godchildren. You and Vivienne are Getting Along Like Gangbusters. And you end the evening with Vivienne with a Most Fabulous Front Seat Make-Out Session of Fashion, after which you tell Vivienne you had a lovely time. A Fabulous Time. And you tell her you will talk to her again. You will call her. You will see her, definitely, definitely.
hopelessly painful Dating Panties to the deep dark depths of her dresser, where they DESERVE TO BE, and where they shall never again be seen by Asshats who Do Not Deserve Them, anyway. And this, Asshats. This, Vivienne dedicates to you. To all of you. Though you do not deserve the Fashion, the sentiment is right on.
Dearest, Most Fashionable Reader: Zelda has a problem. Now, Zelda realizes that she is hardly back in the saddle when it comes to the dating scene, since 
to a man in an unguarded smokehazed moment, during which said man confessed his homosexual tendencies, which Vivienne ignored to date him anyway) and continued because of a man (a man who, in Ms. Big Edie Bouvier-Beales’ words, was so warm on the telephone but so cold in person) (whose behavior also hinted at homosexual tendencies, which Vivienne ignored to semi-date him anyway, which brings to mind a pattern …). And so, in order to liberate herself of Said Men, Vivienne is going to quit smoking.
Completely and Entirely forgotten what her Life as a Youth as a College Student was like. Vivienne found one photograph. She was wearing a black velvet bra and a man’s suit jacket. This, obviously, was Not Entirely Appropriate. Vivienne found a second, third, fourth, and fifth photograph. In all of these photographs, she was holding a wine glass. Not Entirely Appropriate. Vivienne found a sixth and seventh photograph. She was shotgunning a beer in both. Definitely Not Entirely Appropriate. Vivienne found an eighth photograph of her smiling pleasantly in a pleasant pink wool sweater. Vivienne felt hope. Vivienne looked closer. Her roommate’s bong was in the background. Absolutely Definitely Not Entirely Appropriate. Vivienne finally found a ninth photograph of her working hard at her computer. Finally! Appropriateness! But for the “Militant Agnostic: You Don’t Know and I Don’t Know Either” bumper sticker plastered to the wall behind her left shoulder, not to mention the sight of a shirtless man behind her. Absolutely Most Definitely Not Entirely Appropriate. Vivienne now despairs, and thinks An Entirely Appropriate Photograph of Her Youth as a College Student is a non-existant myth.
Dearest, Most Fashionable Reader:
might also have said to themselves, Oh, dear. Vivienne must be going through “a time.” Careful Readers of the Blog would, indeed, be correct in their assumption that Vivienne has been going through “a time,” so far as Careful Readers of the Blog do not define “a time” as an enjoyable period of sunshine, lollipops, rainbows, and daffodils, or as a brief period of slight unfashion that can be cured by an evening with the Lifetime Network, Ben and Jerry’s, and All-Natural White Cheddar Cheetos. Careful Readers of the Blog, however, will 
probably realize that any “time” which prevents Vivienne from practicing OuLiPo must be quite a time indeed.
glitter-specked black liquid eyeliner has stained her cheeks and tear-wiping hands as black as Amy Winehouse’s crack-crank-smack-stained fingernails. Vivienne has been having the kind of “time” that results in her not even bothering to spit-wipe the glittering black liquid eyeliner stains from her cheeks and tear-wiping hands before she enters the gas station by her apartment, and Vivienne has been having the kind of “time” that results in her looking the gas station attendant straight in the eye and saying, what? What? You got a problem? when, with cheeks and tear-wiping hands covered in glittering black eyeliner stains, she comes to the counter to purchase a bottle of red wine, an extra-large bag of peanut M&Ms, a bag of cat litter, and a pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights.
an invented constraint she is going to refer to as Sum Probability. She took the first word in the first line, second word in the second line, third word in the third line, and so on until the series ended and had to repeat, in a text to see if it would add up to a poetic sum. The text in question is one which also deals with probability: Alberto Moravia’s Two Women, later made into a Film of Fashion featuring that ultimate icon of all Fashionable Things Which are Fashionable, Sophia Loren, which deals with the ways in which two women’s lives are changed drastically by the chance occurrence of war. Here is the result:
Dearest, Most Fashionable Reader: Zelda has been busy being an Active Invalid of Unfashion these past few days, the climax of this Unfashion occurring late yesterday evening after Zelda and a Benevolent Friend watched The Bucket List [which, by the way, Dear Reader, has been FALSELY BILLED AS A COMEDY! IT IS A FILM OF TRAGEDY AND GREAT SORROW!]. At the end of The Bucket List, Zelda fell dramatically onto her Benevolent Friend’s hardwood floor, curled up into a fetal position, and sobbed, “I am going to dieeeeeeeeeeee alone. I am going to die aloooooooooooooooooooone. Aloooooooooone.”
So Zelda furiously drove back to her apartment, alone. Whilst driving, she violently smoked cigarette after cigarette, alone. She stomped up her flight of stairs, alone. She brushed her teeth so hard that her gums bled, alone. She furiously plumped her highly fashionable pillow, alone, and Zelda finally drifted off into a Sleep Full of Rage and Fury and Sorrow. Alone.
Vivienne has spent much of her evening dealing with a great deal of UNFASHION (where are you, wise and benevolent spirit of Anne Carson, to save me from the UNFASHION?!). So much UNFASHION that she’s halfway convinced that the entire WORLD OF FASHION has been SUCKED UP INTO NOTHING BY THE NOTHING. So much UNFASHION, in fact, that she and Zelda just had a Most Fashionable Conversation of Rage in which many Fashionable Discoveries were made, which may soon reach the blog, but, in the meantime, Vivienne is so unhinged by the UNFASHION she was forced to face that she cannot even talk about it, for spreading such UNFASHION to the world would be a serious act of UNFASHION. And Vivienne detests UNFASHION. And Vivienne instead loves Fashion. And Vivienne loves you. And so she gives you a Scene of Fashion, from Wigstock 2000:
