I Pull Up to the Front of Your Driveway With Magic Soaking My Spine (and Auto-Fun)

A night out: widespread potential for things to go wrong. For me, the moment I leave the safety of a designated shelter, I'm already on edge, thinking of the myriad missteps possible between the door of aforementioned shelter and the engagement in the promised fun. ("Fun" = the commonly agreed upon purpose of a night out).

These areas of potential failure include:
a) Entertainments (Good movie? Party full o' douchebags?)
b) Company (Friends, humor, value, tension, fights, lovers, diversity, desire, deflection, admiration, the whole spectrum of human emotion really.)
c) Food (Hunger, cravings, availability, economy.)
d) Intoxication (Level, type & sensation, result, how your stomach/head feels about it.)
e) Transportation (Form, comfort, cost, pleasure experienced en route, cabbie smelled/ruled.)
f) Economics (Cost more/less than expected, you saved twenty percent on car insurance, something inspiring a "priceless" away message on AIM happened, you were robbed at gunpoint.)
g) Special (Having your phone stolen would be an especially bad thing, getting hugged by Cam and Leisha at their initiative would be an especially good thing. Meeting the ex-love of your life in an unexpected but terrible place = bad. Meeting the love of your life = good)
h) Health (Are you tired? Are you allergic to the punch/cats? Did you get too drunk, or take up yoga? Or ... like, the proverbial yoga?)
i) Intellect (Did this event make you smarter somehow? Probs not, but you never know, I do enjoy a good poetry reading, I felt spiritually moved by Uh Huh Her the first time I saw them for real.)
j) Fashion (How did you look? Did you do the costume of the day? Did Haviland compliment your attire? Is your name "Tinkerbell," and were you wearing a pullover made out of Uh Huh Her briefs?)

Sometimes the stars align however, and all in one night -- you make it to your far-away location without pulling any U-Turns, despite Miss GPS's stern desire to re-calculate the route, run into a friend you haven't seen in forevs, enjoy the friends you're with, reach the perfect level of intoxication (giggly, but not about to crack one's skull on a glass table), drinks seem basically free compared to NYC, your cabbie actually waits outside of Wendy's -- for y'all to fulfill your specific 5-piece and fries craving (easily satisfied within blocks of final shelter!) -- just like you asked him to, Leisha and Cam say awesome mega-kind unexpected things about your video/your yous and are super-sweet all around, Tinkerbell gets her Uh-Huh-Her outfit signed, etc. I'm just saying ... such a thing is possible. Did we see Eric Mathew? No. But otherwise, Philadelphia, we're cool now. I call truce. Also, UHH, we still need to have a chat about tardiness.

Also "Special" is that North Star Bar in Philly had a gigantic fan upstairs, providing many opportunities for memory-making via photograph. Unfortunately we didn't see Rovermom, so I didn't have a chance to punch her in the face.

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I have this idea that I take too long to write things. And I don't know if that makes me write better things, or just write things that are equally good (if not polished/refined) but in different ways.

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Someone explain twitter to me. Why would I want people to keep tabs on me all the time, isn't that what stalking laws prevent? I just don't understand it.

I saw this on post secret and thought I'd put it here.
I like it.

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I have notes, everywhere. I go through them to put things together and my mind boggles itself. What was I talking about? Here's a sample of a notebook page of material from yours truly, circa I'm not really sure, but I think at least two years ago?:

Under "heroes," I wrote "Mrs. Dalloway." Aspeth wrote "Captain Kangaroo." That's when I knew I loved her.

I didn't like him in the morning. Sometimes men reminded me of giant animal trees. Sad ones. This primal lust -- beast -- cut through way too quickly with its apology. It was in the moment between animal and apology where he lost me.

"She's not very bright, Marie. She's just beautiful and not bright and so totally ordinary."
"But she's got a really extraordinary ass."

face of faith - nellie mckay
melt your heart - jenny lewis
go your own way - snow and voices

Her friends were all angles, it turned out. She'd thought they were gelatinous, gooey things -- shifting & blending into each other ... forming better, stronger things. But no, it turned out, looking around the table - all points, points wanting to be made. and now.

"you are so lovely it makes me sad" -text message from a---.

-Veronica is from Florida.
-2BR apt w/a vegan drug dealer.
-Alice runs everywhere she's crazy like that

In middle school, the songs were our ideas. "Our song" -- an initiative, carried forth w/o support or input from our partners. We chose sweet pop ballads like "Hero" or "Groovy Kind of Love." First song we danced to, lyrical relevance. Our boyfriends were scrawny kids with awkward teeth, swallowed in skater pants; they listened to Nine Inch Nails.

"I got a lot of problems. I am very sick. I have a lot of problems, Miriam. I used to have a Camaro." (-Man in metropolitan hospital.)

All I had then, was a faint suspicion that I was more than this.

Me = "Long, lanky Olive Oyl type. Perverted in a good way." - Daphne

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And in this spirit, I go on to the automatic "fun" of the day. This's been difficult to assemble, 'cause my internet has been completely spastic for about four days now, making life so insufferable that I actually subjected myself to making an outgoing phone call to fix the problem. I thought just now it was fixed via that magic trick that verizon people do when you call them that makes you look like a total idiot for even calling, but it turns out; totally not. I keep starting thoughts I can't finish, it's disorienting.

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[Someone quoted this in the comments recently ... i couldn't find it ... then i was reading this blog just now and came across it, subsequently, the poem its from in poetry, and thought, this is something to say again ...]

**
quote: "What are you thinking?" She asks.
Light shutters across us. Wherever you are
in me I'm there, though it's not what you wanted."
(Phillip White, "Infidelity.")

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links:
1) Speaking of the stars aligning; last week I randomly felt inspired to speak of Chris Farley. This week, Sam Anderson reviews a book about Chris Farley, (@nymag)
2) I just finished "Have You No Shame: And Other Regreattable Stories," but I'm not gonna talk about it 'til July, which's when I estimate I'll finish "Stuff I'm Reading: May" considering we're well into May and I've yet to do April ... anyhow, recommended. (@mediabistro)
3) A poem for Michigan, the Midwest : "A Primer," by Bob Hicok. "February/ is thirteen months long in Michigan. / We are people who by February / want to kill the sky for being so gray / and angry at us. 'What did we do?' is the state motto." (@the new yorker)
4) "Dear Writing, a love/hate letter" (@lusty lady)
5) Audacia's got a video clip now of her standing up for sex worker rights during the spitzer hoo-ha on CNN (@waking vixen)
6) Janice Erlbaum: "Remember when I used to talk about myself all the time. I kind of don't feel like it any more." (@girlbomb)
7) The Top 12 Jews in Cinema (@nerve.com)
8) "Another person chimed in: 'Do you like fag porn? All my queer female friends do.'": Girls Love Gay Porn (@the village voice)
9) It's possible, apparently, that instant messaging is not harming teenager's language skills but rather represents "a linguistic renaissance." Includes LOL statistics. (@the new scientist)
10) Anyhow, yay! Gays can marry in California! (@nytimes)
11) Also, I updated autostraddle! Kinda ...

Auto-Fun, Etc., for a Great Bright Beautiful Tomorrow :: 5-15-2008

A'ight ... first off a brief Autowin PSA. This'll be like a Lozo PSA, except without the big-girl bashing ... or like a TV PSA ... except I'm certainly not about to tell you "don't do drugs," that'd be boring. Do drugs, come on, you only live once, and you defo only overdose like 2-3 times, max. No seriously. Also, I won't tell you who to vote for (*cough* Obama), or if you should choose recycled or unrecycled paper. I'm gonna talk about myself. That's right. Mememeememe. For a change.

I don't talk about this stuff, because I think it's on my Top Ten list of lame things to talk about ... but, although my friends enjoy mocking me (as per their writings [(1) OMG Stef's cartoon recap is up! LOLZ!] and recent comments), the truth is ... I'm a big huge rockstar, and whomevs wants to yell at me on the street (please use only my rockstar name, Van Halen) (Haha! I'm so funny! I mean, Automatic Win!) should go for it. It fuels my big rockstar ego and I'm totes used to it. Later, me and Penny Lane and the other girls, we go down to the river, and we see our friends at the record store.

No fo'reals reals, as at least 4-5 people can attest but really only I can say for sure ('cause only I receive my ingoing and outgoing correspondences with excellent verbal and oral communication skills), I do from time to time receive emails/comments, or hear people know about me from friends, or witness real live-conversations regarding recognizing me ... and sometimes also people talk to me! In public!

It's more likely, however, that I'll get an email the next day, probs 'cause I talk about my social awkwardness often, therefore I: a) have socially awkward readers, b) have non-socially awkward readers who don't know how to talk to someone who's already explained 100 times that they don't know how to talk, period. Therefore, they don't wanna talk to me 'cause they don't wanna risk a panic attack or, really, anything involving me responding in "not the cowboy way" or in a way not evident of the aforementioned rock stardom. c) I'm not a very exciting person to meet, 'cause I'm weird/not actually a rockstar.

I remember I the first blogger I really read was waking vixen, and I'd see her places but never say anything, because I'm a weirdo. Then she posted a post saying, "Hey, if you see me, say hello," or something to that effect. I'm certainly not going to go that far -- if you see me, feel free to say hello, but also, feel free to say nothing, or to write later, though I'm bad at writing back (I'm better at passive forms of procrastination, like "reading emails") ...

Anyhow, this was leading to some sort of point ... oh! I'm sure about 25% of you are socially less awkward than me, and actually might consider yelling at me on the street, and I just want to be sure that no one is deterred form doing so in the future by thinking it's a revolutionary act based on all the recent chatter. 'Cause it's funny, and awesome, and rocks like a rockstar.

Oh also, from my top ten favorite second-hand stories ... someone asked my roommate, upon her reveal that auto-win was her roommate, if I was "that crazy in real life." (Yes!) (No!)

Anyhow, I have the whole "omg, it's so awkward," routine down pat, I do the same thing every time, it's actually a whole new kind of lame. It's much easier w/Haviland, 'cause she's good at conversational arts. Also, you can just throw money at me, or yourself/your body. The latter option has offered thus far a 100% success rate.

If I'm out in public, chances are, I'm already drunk, and therefore vulnerable to your wanton affections. This is how I always end up in an alley somewhere, up to my elbows in won-tons. Like the soup!

OK, that's all. Really, only 20 people read this blog, the rest of the commenters are just me jerking around. That doesn't fly for The L Word Online, I'm not taking responsibility for 75% of those commenters, but also, I'm not certain they read my recaps, I think they just have a lot of Bettina related feelings they want to share ASAP.

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On youtube, "Videos being watched right now ..." is like 'everything that is wrong with the world. Terrible pop star, bloody sports, emo tree, something involving glitter, girl with her red thong panties around her ankles. Ta-da, this is America!

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I've been thinking lately about increasing leisure -- remembering a time before I was determined to exist with 150% productivity at all times and never be at rest. As long as I haven't finished (or started) the proverbial book (which really exists on a symbolic level at this point), haven't paid off my debt, or had seven babies and eaten pickles with cream cheese in my bunny slippers, I haven't earned leisure (the latter doesn't count as "leisure," 'cause even though there's slippers, I'm preparing for birthing ritual). Howevs, I've decided that I'm going to take unearned leisure from now on, to prevent losing my mind.

Sidenote: Hanging out w/a friend counts as "doing something" 'cause "hang out with ____" is one of the things you can put on your to-do list and then cross off right away, I like to have as many of those things as possible. E.g., "email Mom," and then I'm like, omg, just did!

Speaking of Leisure ... tonight, Philadelphia here we come! A;ex and Cait and I are heading to Uh Huh Her. We're a bit worried that Rovermom might be there, and if so, I'd like to let her know especially that emailing the next day is fine, let's not throw punches.

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Auto-Fun!With your host, me, the girl that writes this little blog.
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
*
quote: "When I was 28, four or five years after I quit playing music, I married a postmistress. Because she was pretty. Because she was sweet and she loved me. So that we could have two sons who could both be drummers like their dad. For those reasons. But also so I wouldn't have to wait for my mail. Because there's a letter coming, a letter from the actor James Dean. And here's what it will say: If the life you lead is not the one you dreamed about, then flee." (Rick Moody, "The James Dean Garage Band.")

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links:

@ Granta: (2) Web Habits of Highly Effective People. A.L. Kennedy, who I mentioned before 'cause he wrote my least favorite story in The Book of Other People says, "I don't blog or Facebook. If I want to write, I'd rather do it to some kind of definable end."

He's got a point. But it's funny that it's him, specifically, making this point -- the author responsible for that story I hated -- howevs, I did preface my dislike with my recognition of the fact that A.L Kennedy is more successful than I'll ever be.

Now I'm blogging about blogging about hating Kennedy's story 'cause Kennedy himself said --in an article I'm blogging about right now -- that not-blogging is the secret to his success, and if that's not meta, then, well, I QUIT. Also, someone make up a abrev for "meta," STAT, I've got monkeys to save. The tornado isn't going to stop on its own accord.

Also, via the same Granta piece ... Maud Newton's (3) detailing of her ADD-writing habits, which reminded me of my own, almost exactly. I relate to Amanda Gersh's habits. Oh, Granta, how perfect this piece is for me today! A success! Unlike me, much like A.L Kennedy.

'Cause I have this theory? [cue Angela Chase theme music] That my time managment issues relate to me being my own boss. My own motivator. It's hard to come up with daily self-motivation. Probs all the world feels this way, which's why other people work at the dairy queen & are closely supervised at all times. Clearly I'm too hard on myself, and deserve a pat/rub on the back.

More on reading habits & styles at (4) Light Reading.

Obvs I like to limit my perusal of book criticism to one author and one author only, Uh Huh Her, I mean, Sam Anderson, but (5) I love any reviewer who opens with: ""Bright Shiny Morning" is a terrible book." Usually I think all book sales are good for publishing and therefore won't bash authors, but James Frey is not good for publishing, bash away.

My internet's been in and out all day -- I'd rather just have it or not, this way's such a tease. The articles are taking full hours to load, it's pretend dial-up. I write an email, and 40 minutes later, it sends! It reminds me of downloading songs overnight many moons ago ... sticking in a CD to burn, leaving home for a semester, then returning to find it: Ree's Hot Mix, Happy Hannukah to ME!

OMG, the plus-sized girl won on (6) America's Next Top Model! Oh, it's a hoax, obvs, everyone knows plus-sized models aren't real, like unicorns and fraggles.

Critical Mass has an (7) interview with Jeff Gordiner on his book "How Generation X is Saving the World." And he includes this Borges quote, which I love:

quote #2: "A man who cultivates his garden, as Voltaire wished/He who is grateful for the existence of music./He who takes pleasure in tracing an etymology./Two workmen playing, in a cafe in the South, a silent game of chess./The potter, contemplating a color and a form./The typographer who sets this page well though it may not please him./A woman and a man, who read the last tercets of a certain canto./He who strokes a sleeping animal./He who justifies, or wishes to, a wrong done him./He who is grateful for the existence of Stevenson./He who prefers others to be right./These people, unaware, are saving the world." (Borges, "The Just")

Let's finish up:
(8) The Chicago Tribune insists that "no man" should be forced to sit through the Sex and the City movie. Stef, Cait and I had a serious team meeting last week regarding the fact that we've already put May 30th in our calenders and have been looking into getting tickets online. Errr/Durrr. (@the chicago tribune)
(9) I'm still not entirely certain why people la-la-la-love these Nintendo Wii machines, but apparently they can now also work out?: "Wii Fit" (@ny times)
(10) Science has confirmed that all the neurotic people live in New York City and THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call "bringing it back around." Thank you and goodnight. (@the boston globe)

Under Feet Like Ours, Under Vlogs Like Ours, Uh Huh ... Her.

On Monday night we went to see a music show featuring the band Tegan & Sara, it was quite delightful. I adore Tegan & Sara all over: music, witty banter, stage presence. Natalie remarked, "This is the best rock 'n roll concert I've ever been to!" I'm not gonna divulge how many concerts she claimed to have attended (en total) in her entire life, I'm hoping she may've been exaggerating for dramatic effect on that, like I often do. We've been besties since college, therefore we share some key personality traits, e.g., a tendency to spark up a story with a little glimmer of fiction. On a scale of 1 to 10, this particular post is written at a USA Today reading level. There will be a powerpoint presentation and short video after class, in the meeting room, with danishes. xoxo gossip girl.

I've got a lot of shallow vapidity to cover today, so on with it, yes.

Okay so; Tinkerbell didn't go to T&S, which was valuable foresight, 'cause we all accidentally wore brightly colored hoodies from the same store -- therefore, we already looked like the M&M's Street Team (or the Tellitubbies) and would've looked ridic w/the added element of comedy/childhood/dymensia implied by the tote-age of a stuffed de-strapped dog sporting American Airlines wings.

Luckily, Tink makes plenty of appearances in our latest vlog, which covers the following topics: durrrrr.

Honestly; I think I used all our best footage on the first one, recklessly, w/o any consideration for the future. Perhaps 'cause at that time I had bleak overall feelings about the future. Then, yesterday, I decided instead of hating everyone per always, I'd just love everyone! Really, I mean, it's just as fair/unfair.

Then, only hours after making that new life choice, I was forced to reconsider: some people enjoy, it seems, screaming along to Tegan & Sara's already quite harmonic melodies, therefore reminding me both why I hate everyone and of sing-a-longs in Kindergarten and on Sesame Street. I get the desire -- I do it sometimes too. But you don't need to SCREAM sing along, this isn't System of a Down or heavy metal rockers, they're quite lovely w/o your harmonies. I've seen the Indigo Girls live a bazillion times, so I know from sing-a-longs.

I think it's possible we're getting too old for this -- my companions agreed. Therefore, we'll have to pack the next couple years as full to the brim with this kind of activity as possible.

But really: the concert was awesome, there was loads of witty banter, and I enjoyed spending quality time with Cait, Alex, Stef, Natalie, Chase & Ang and Ms. Jackson. I'd talk about the concert, but how do you talk about concerts, I think that's like dancing about architecture, right? I think I said that last time, but then tried to write about it anyhow, and I imagine whatever I said last time goes for this time too -- I love them, they played this and that song, omg, are you jealous do you wish you'd been there omg. They told lots of cute stories, unfortunately Carly was not there and therefore I had no one to tackle when they played "Living Room," so we all left relatively unscathed. There was heaps of witty banter, like a story for every song, like Raffi! Super-cute.

Maybe Stef will do a cartoon recap?

Afterwards, someone tried to pass off a flier about some other place we could party at (unfortunately, I'd surpassed my daily allotment of "other people time" about four hours prior, also: sleepy sloos time) and Alex whooped and gave them a high-five. We inquired re: whooping, she looked dejectedly at the flier and said: "I thought it said MADONNA, not MONDAY."


So anyhow, we made this vlog. Believe it or not -- 'cause we do enjoy talking about the same things over and over again, and you might think I'm recycling old footage -- this vlog contains 100% all-new never-before-seen footage. Topics include: global warming, the health care system, Encyclopedia Brittanica, Fellini films, your Mom, truth in memoir, flying lesbians, how to get a date with Haviland, dancing lessons from Alex, the United Nations, world peace, and the proper position of second-wave feminist discourse within the modern fourth wave pro-sex feminist movement. JK, it's about nothing at all whatsoever.

Speaking of videos! Leisha & Cam have debuted their video for us (part of the Uh Huh Her SXSW Video Contest Winning Prize Package), and you can watch it here ! Obviously, they were held up in post-production -- special effects, animation, etc. Anyhow, clearly we'll be collaborating in the near future, 'cause I am really good at following people around and talking to strangers. No but honestly, wouldn't that be awesome! I'd be like "Alice, what the frickin' frack?" JK, totally professional, obvs.

Auto-Fun of the Day :: 5-12-2008

Omg lmao rofl, we're going to see tegan & sara tonight! That's right, it may be raining outside, but imaginary sunshine tugs joyfully on our heartstrings. Why? Well, this week's off to a rip-roaring start and, in fact, should probably just end tonight. Quit while we're ahead, etc. I mean, I actually wrote a Sunday Top Ten on Sunday, omg is it The Big Kelkian Reveal?!, I love Amy Sedaris, and, oh right ... yes we can! Let's hold hands, climb trees, take those pills, sing in the rain, talk hard! OK I feel gross now and probs can't use any more exclamation points for at least 24 hours. I guess it depends how the concert goes.

If you don't remember what happened last time at Tegan & Sara, let me refresh your memory with this snippet from Carly's recap of the event: "I kept saying "You guys, they're totally going to end it on Living Room" ... so then it ["Living Room"] came on and I SCREAMED like a schoolgirl and then everything was a blur. What I can piece together was that Riese screamed too, jumped on me and we went crashing to the ground. My head nearly went through a glass table and all of our combined weight landed on my pointy little elbows. So, needless to say, they are totes achy right now. But it was totally amazing, I was so drunk it hardly stung, just a massive rockstar moment."

Luckily, last time we were prevented from doing any large-scale damage or pulling off any totally irreversible tomfoolery 'cause we were in the VIP area (less people up there) and Haviland was with us. Hav generally ensures relatively responsible Riese Behaviour. Howevs, as I've mentioned few times, she moved somewhere, I think to Romania possibly, or Burma, I can't remember, she hasn't blackberry messaged me in over ten hours. Oh wait, JK, just checked: she has. Anyhow, I'll be there, with bells on, along with A;ex, Cait, Tinkerbell, Natalie and Chase.

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quote:
Tegan: "I think that the reason for [the album's title] has evolved. It just started to feel like everything's a bit of a con. For me, during this record, I was projecting this really happy extroverted image, but inside I was sad. And Sara was writing a lot about anxiety and marriage and death and commitment, and then you do all these stereotypical things, you buy a house and in the end it's ..."
Sara: "Well, it prevents you from thinking about what the reality is, which is that we're all just shuffling towards death and we're all going to lose everything."
(interview, The Guardian UK)

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links:
1) This is my favorite blogger of all time that I don't know for real. Her name is Kristen Iskandrian. She just posted a new blog post. When I discovered Kristen, I emailed all my friends about it and they thought I was kidding. I wasn't kidding, she's my favorite writer on the webs for reals. Well like top ten. For sure. This new post isn't like her other posts at all, but obviously it is still brill, just for different reasons. (@ifeelmyfeelings)
2) I couldn't figure out how to make a joke about this article on the movement to eliminate stigma around mental illnesses like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia that would be tasteful in any way, so um, here you have it: "Mad Pride" [@nytimes]
3) Rich (of fourfour) and Slut Machine do "Pot Psychology." Listen, if I ever recommend a video, it's cause it's good or has conjoined twins and/or me in it, so really, you must trust me. I trusted Stef, who lead me to it, and now I pass it on to you, grasshopper. (@jezebel)
4) I became fascinated with this woman, and her marriage to Robert Lowell, just right before she died, which was stunning timing, but still: Elizabeth Hardwick: "An Original Adventure" (@the believer)
5) Also there, the full text of Hornby's latest Stuff I've Been Reading which's like mine, except better. (@the believer)
6) The Sexiest Woman (Barely) Alive: "They're all white. They all have long hair and they're almost all blonde. They all have the same high cheekbones. Each woman is allowed exactly one deviation from the norm, and the deviation is immediately remarked on -- her tattoos or extra-dark eye makeup or her curves. The girls of FHM are obviously products of a fundamentally icky consumerist objectification, but their engineered homogeneity also reveals an incredibly limited imagination." (@the star)
7) London gets to see the SATC movie before we do. (@the guardian uk)
8) Interviewing the OK Cupid guy (responsible for nerve & onion personals, among others): "OkCupid is going to get the hot, trendy, hipster, cool, grunge, 27-year-old, who just wants to hang out and chat with interesting people, and if something happens romantically, so be it." (@the village voice)
9) Cynthia Nixon has a girlfriend, loves her, is pretty and successful, is in that big movie that's coming out soon, is subsequently asked retarded gaymo questions by reporter: "Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon Plans to Marry" (@the mirror uk)
10) Hollywood Sex Scene Database does the Top Five Scenes to Incite a Revolution (p.s. TALK HARD!!!) (@nerve.com)

Sunday Top Ten: Entries From a Smokin' Hot Pink Notebook

When I was a little girl in Dork Middle School, anybody who was anybody (which was almost everybody, 'cause there were only 16 girls in my graduating class) read Lurlene McDaniel novels ravenously -- stories which confirmed our suspicions that the world was a cruel, cruel place. Also, anybody who was anybody was allowed to go to the mall alone w/o parental supervision, except me, 'cause my mother was a fascist dictator who didn't want me to have fun or be happy. (JK Mom! Love you! Loved going to the mall with you too!) (Wouldn't it be fun if instead of Mother's Day being "Celebrate Mom" day, it was an April Fool's Day combo? The fam pools collective wisdom to play a big trick on Mom? Like in Home Alone, when Kevin sets booby traps for the thieves? Mom'll get up expecting breakfast in bed and then be like wtf are there micro-machines on the floor, um, hello blowtorch, KEVIN!") Anyhow. What was I talking? Oh yes. Literature.

Since leaving my Dork School peer group for greener pastures, I've not met another fan of McDaniel's cannon of Dying Children Lit -- until last weekend when I met my friend's sister who was also a big fan, which is AMAZING, and we bonded over it.

Also, I just started reading Rachel Shukert's Have You No Shame, in which the author's mother uncovers her daughter's collection of Holocaust Lit and replaces the books with Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley High, delaring that: "I'd rather have you shallow and sexually precocious than morbidly psychotic."

So I started thinking about all the morbidly psychotic books I read as a kid. I wasn't allowed to read Christopher Pike or R.L Stine like everyone else (see: mother's general desire for me to be ostracized from peers), but I feel like the shit I was allowed to read was probs way worse for my little baby mind than those authors' straightforward & blatant horror/violence.

Which brings us to an actual Sunday Top Ten. For the first time since um ... oh, I don't know.

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SUNDAY TOP TEN: SEEMINGLY INNOCUOUS YOUNG ADULT BOOKS THAT PLEASED MY TWISTED LITTLE SOUL, AND WHY
or "Things that affected me more than going to the mall w/o a parent would've."

*

10. Cynthia Voigt's "Tillerman" Series: Homecoming, Dicey's Song, et al., also The Boxcar Children
Amped up my desire to be an orphan forced to live by my wits,
as well as my certainty that I'd be better off alone like the pop song "Better Off Alone,"
therefore increasing my implicitly unfair & ungrateful resentment towards my family for feeding, clothing and loving me,
inspiring me to write my own bad novels about runaways.

In Homecoming, 13-year old Dicey Tillerman and her three younger siblings experience the literal opposite of my life situation -- they're actually abandoned at the shopping mall by their mother, who subsequently lands herself in a psychiatric hospital. Meanwhile, I was being followed around the mall by my psychiatric mother (ten steps behind, providing both protection and distance), therefore preventing me from Having Adventures like Hunger, Misery, Orphanhood, Eccentric Aunts on Dilapidated Farms and Evil Catholics. Reading the plot summary of Homecoming, I realize it's possible I stole it for my epic novel Fly by Night, in which young pyromaniac Erin leaves her abusive home w/precocious brother Tommie, eventually meeting a guy named "Fly," who looks a lot like Jordan Catalano. 'Cause Erin can't stop burning things down & 'cause their number-one income source is carrying groceries to cars (in real life, I suspect this is not the growth sector Voigt's novels implied), they're forced into homelessness and then communal living with Fly and his super-fly buddies. There's a happy ending, I won't spoil it!

Also, how dykey does Dicey look on that book cover? Yow.

As I mentioned in the "Family Film Edition" of "What I Learned from the Teevee," I was a big fan of Orphan Lit and wanted to live in a Boxcar, eat hobo stew and scavenge for loaves of bread, etc. Unfortunately, I was never orphaned, though I enjoyed building forts and pretending to run away from home. Honestly, my coping mechanisms haven't really changed much since then.

---

9. The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline B. Cooney

Among other imaginary acts of heroism, I often hoped to find a classmate or friend on a milk carton and save the day, like in America's Most Wanted which I wasn't allowed to watch. Once a lax babysitter let us watch the show (she was fired, clearly) -- this guy killed his wife and hid her in an egg incubator behind his trailer, I still have nightmares about it. Also I believe this book fueled my fear of being kidnapped, and a ridiculous obsession with cults. Later, this became a TV movie staring the foxy Kellie Martin.

---

8. The Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

I know what you're thinking -- "The Clockwork Orange" is not a young adult novel. This is true. Howevs, my father felt I was very mature, and 'cause he wanted me to become a great filmmaker like Stanley Kubrick, he made me read this book (we had a serious book-before-the-movie policy) when I was 13. Though most grown-up lit was off limits (e.g., Stephen King, other crap), I was permitted both this and Lolita. This is the essence of hippie intellectual spirit. I was like "Dad, what's 'the ol' in-out-in-out'"? Which was a very special moment for everyone and eliminated any perceived need for a "birds and the bees" convo.

---

7. Face at the Edge of the World, by Eve Bunting
Romanticisation of Suicide, Additional Reasons to Fuck it All

I'm not sure if this is the right book, 'cause I probs read more than my fair share of suicide-related narratives. But I think this is the one where the protagonist spends the whole book trying to figure out why his successful and talented BFF suddenly offed himself, eventually (SPOILER ALERT!) determining that perhaps he simply wanted to "quit while he was ahead." So basically all bets are off, re: offing oneself, not good news for me as I believe I was diagnosed with clinical chronic depression at the age of 5. Logistically, it would've been impossible to do myself in since I was so well supervised, especially at the mall.

---

6. Eating Disorder Lit, including:
Second Star to the Right, Stick Figure, and Little Girls in Pretty Boxes

As I've noted previously, I was the scrawniest little kid you ever did see. Howevs: my Mom was a nutritionist who helped people diet, I wanted desperately to gain weight, I was a first worldian adolescent in the 80's/90's surrounded by body image obsessed girls. Therefore, I was totally fascinated by everyone else's fascination with thigh girth. As a chronically pre-pubescent teen, I looked to literature to psych me into understanding wtf the deal was ... later, I employed this background when counseling the reedonkulous number of severely anorexic and/or bulimic friends I acquired over the years. I think it's 'cause subconsciously, ED'ed peeps are drawn to me, thinking "what is her secret of svelte-hood?" and then eventually they learn that I hate myself too, it's just more annoying coming from me, 'cause I'm not actually fat, just completely insane, and have read too many books about eating disorders (late-adds include Appetites, The Body Project and Wasted) and also; the media, etc. Calvin Klien fashion magazines hoo-ha. Kazaam.

---

Teacher: How would you describe Anne Frank?
Angela [distracted]: Lucky.
Teacher: "Anne Frank perished in a concentration camp. Anne Frank is a tragic figure. How could Anne Frank be lucky?"
[Jordan Catalano walks in, late]
Angela: "I don't know... Because she was trapped in an attic for three years with this guy she really liked?"
(My So-Called Life)

---

5. Judy Blume Novels

As I've mentioned 500 times, I'm essentially a human sponge, willing to take orders and absorb desire from whomever's speaking the loudest. Through Judy Blume, I verified that I was, indeed, justified to angst over my bust which wasn't increasing though I thought it must, it must, and that the best way to bond with other girls was via boy-related discussions. I've since learned otherwise, but I still love Judy. The girls in Blume novels are relentlessly catty and tell me srsly if you can't imagine this on the back of a porn DVD: "Rachel is Stephanie's best friend. Since second grade they've shared secrets, good and bad. So when Alison moves into the neighborhood, Stephanie hopes all three of them can be best friends since Stephanie really likes Alison. But it looks as if it's going to be a case of two's company and three's a crowd." Anyone? "In bed"? I know I was reading Lolita at 12, but c'mon now ...

---

4. The Quiet Room, by Lori Schiller and Amanda Bennet

I'm 99.9% sure schizophrenia is one disorder I defo don't have, but I seriously used to hear voices sometimes as a kid (probs it was G-d, before She lost faith in me altogether), and reading this book really freaked me out -- clearly I had enough neurosis w/o worrying that one day the voices would stop arguing with each other about my self-worth and instead command me to kill someone. Luckily they went away ... now the only voice I hear is Tegan in my iPod. Who's going on MONDAY!?! TO TEGAN & SARA?!!!

---

3. Entries From a Hot Pink Notebook, by Todd D. Brown
Felt I related to the protagonist's psyche deeply,
began early fascination with gay male culture,
subsequently realizing literally as I write this that perhaps I identified with the narrator's feelings of alienation and outsiderdom for other reasons,
e.g., personal gayness.

So, it featured my fave plot device, the gay reveal and subsequent gay crush gay reveal (y'know, the "OMG, my BFF I'm in love with is kissing ME BACK!" thing) and it's actually a really good book, though I realize the title suggests otherwise. Sometimes it hurts: the titles given to brill books. It's much easier to recommend a book called "The Sound and the Fury" than "Entries from a Hot Pink Notebook." I read this approximately around the same time I was writing in my own diary: "my greatest fear is that I'll turn out to be a lesbian. Yuck." Also, gay men were sorta "in" in the mid-nineties amongst liberals -- Rickie Vasquez, etc.

---

2. Lurlene McDaniel books

According to Lurlene McDaniel's website, "everyone loves a good cry," which's why McD's written 40+ books about "kids who face life-threatening illnesses, who sometimes do not survive." Sample titles include: She Died Too Young, Sixteen and Dying, Please Don't Let Him Die, The Girl Death Left Behind, Letting Go Of Lisa, When Happily Ever After Ends, Goodbye Doesn't Mean Forever, etc. The best was when two kids with different illnesses fell in love (e.g., cystic fibrosis + leukemia = true love) or when everyone would get into a car accident right before they were supposed to go to college on scholarship (w/bright futures, obvs) except for one girl who'd be left behind to angst. In a rare appearance by an African-American character, McD brought us Baby Alicia is Dying, in which a teenage girl grows attached to the HIV-positive black baby abandoned by her crack is whack mother, probs in Planet Harlem.

Basically, Lurlene McDaniel peddles the most demented books of all time, and I somehow ate them up. We all did. I imitated them, too, with similar plots in novels I wrote (for fun?). I guess we all felt strange and sad all the time for no reason, our little Dork School, filled with kids who suspected that, given the chance, public school would eat us alive and stuff us into lockers, and also: that perhaps we weren't fooling anyone (least of all ourselves) by avoiding the resolute knowledge that our problems weren't really problems, actually. We read the newspaper. We had politically aware parents. We didn't know jackshit, hadn't lived through anything worth crying over. Faces on Spilled Milk Cartons.

I coped w/my sense of alienation as a kid by reading, constantly, both intelligent books not mentioned here and the lame stuff I'm talking about here ... or by trying to be like everyone else as best I could though I felt hopelessly different. I'd been sad all the time for no reason as long as I can remember ... while driving w/my Mom from one place I was running from to another place, I mentioned wanting to get back to some childhood place where I'd been happy and she said I'd actually never been. "Intense," was her word. I guess I knew that already, I just wanted her to disagree, or blow it off. 'Cause I mean, seriously. I don't mention Elizabeth Wurtzel all the time for no reason, I'm legitimately afraid of her & her entitled torture, her ... whining.

I had an association and fascination with terrible & morbid circumstances and latched onto the littlest things to excuse my moodiness -- these books tapped into the part of me that wanted a reason for it. I wanted to be told, again and again, that tragedy waited around the corner. I'm certain there must've been wood nearby worth knocking on, if I'd known enough to do so. Clearly; I knew nothing.

*
"I know sad stories aren't for every reader, but it's the kind of story that most of my readers like from me. When I write "happy" books, many readers complain. So I focus on what I do best---stories that might bring a tear, but that focus on real life (where happily ever after rarely occurs). And while the books may not have "happy" endings, I try to give readers a satisfying ending---life is full of trouble and matters out of our control. How we deal with troubles determines our own character."
(Words of Wisdom from Lurlene McDaniel, clearly a Sick Puppy)

---

1. Sweet Valley High

I actually was prohibited from reading these books an account of their apparent vapidity, etc., But I finally sneaked one home, probs using crafty techniques learned from another YA novel. Just my luck: I got the book where Elizabeth gets kidnapped. Not good. This verified, to me, that my Mom was Right about these books being Bad; which's why Mothers have special powers that cannot be questioned. Like how the first time I drank alcohol, I threw up all night, which's exactly what she'd told me would happen. Actually, that still happens. Yet I continue drinking. Hm.

Howevs, I'd like to once again point out that nothing scary ever happened to me at the mall, except for this:

On that note of "things I did 'cause everyone else was doing it," if anyone's got a bridge in Brooklyn they'd like to sell me ...

Auto-Fun of the Day :: 5-9-2008

quote: ""Tell me about your life. tell me all about it, don't be shy or afraid. tell me about your beautiful past. Speak it to me. About your first feelings and impulses. About how strong and fine they were. How pure. And high-grade. And about how those around you responded. About the gestures. About the faces. What did the hands feel like? And about the hearts. Could you feel their hearts beating beneath their chests? ... And the darkness. Tell me about the darkness. The depth and the intensity of it. Its feel. The grit of it. Of what you lost in it. The black of it. If you died in it. Or if you lived in it. Tell me about it. Speak it to me. Speak the hatred of it to me. Don't be afraid. Spit on me. Don't hold back. Spit it. That's why I am here." (Robert Aluetta, "Stops")

---

links:
1) "Why don't you ever get anything done with your life, Riese?" "Because I'd prefer to spend my entire morning watching conjoined twins video footage! La la la!(@one d at a time)
2) How we become the stories we tell about ourselves/ remember things that never happened: Total Recall (@Miller-McCune)
3) Obvs, a $10-bottle of "drinkable" pinot grigio -- What Motivates the Wine Shopper? (@the ny times)
4) "It hurt to walk. It hurt to sit. It hurt to lie down. But even worse than the pain in my ass was the pain in my heart. It hurt to be conscious. So it's no surprise that the following day, when I returned to the city, I had a nervous breakdown." Rev. Jen Miller, Seeking Asylum (@nerve.com)
5) I don't know if this counts as "meta" or not: "The Hype Cycle" (@n+1)
6) Fifteen great examples of web typography. Oddly, OurChart is not listed. (@ilovetypography)
7) Sometimes, life is super magic, and Sam Anderson opens his review of The Lazarus Project with "Aleksander Hemon is ragingly addicted to semicolons." (@nymag)
8) Seriously this is amazing ... fourfour presents, in video, The Major Themes of the Anna Nicole Biopic: "Imagine the people who brought you Goddess (Showgirls' fictional extravaganza) applying their talents to a Lifetime-movie version of Anna Nicole's life (while cluelessly retaining about three percent of the boobage), and you're more than halfway there." (@fourfour)
9) The first seven pages of Tao Lin's new poetry book, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. "it will take an extreme person to make me feel less alone / the effect of being alone for a very long time / is that i have been thinking very hard ..." (@c-btherapy blog)
10) I like to re-read this, every now and then: "My Misspent Youth" by Megan Daum (@the new yorker 1999)

The Night Starts Here

I just took the best shower of my life 'cause I've been waiting for it all afternoon ("Take a sponge bath," advised the helpless handyman, staring at our dumb dry shower, "Like in the old days," and then he laughed, a laugh that reminded me he'd been alive approximately 80 years more than I have and was still doing things like this, playing with faucets, he'd probs lost his hair and/or parents in the 60's, it's possible I have almost nothing to complain about, he probs lived through a few World Wars, and on my igoogle home page, underneath my email and its various feelings, the NY Times headlines remind me that 22,500 are dead now in Myanmar. A sponge bath -- a "cat bath" my Mom used to call it, probs the only context in which she spoke favorably of cats, which we're both allergic to, or did she, I can't remember, I think I invent a lot of memories) and I'm eating ramen from the pot. These are the engaging details of my smokin' hot life.

Another memory, possibly also invented, of Chris Farley on Saturday Night Live asking Paul McCartney; So, remember when you said, and in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make? Is that true?

And what was he hiding, anyway? Something that killed him. Self-loathing. Cocaine. Prostitutes. Alcohol, whatever, fat, the real secret, and in my final moment, may I hear you whisper, "when you made my people smile, you made me smile."

America loves an overdose, loves the bloody mess and everything you're allowed to say only after -- I read a good one today about Brad Renfro.

My friend confessed (at the time), "The first thing I thought when Chris Farley died was, good, now they won't make any more of those stupid movies." The first thing I thought was, "Good, now he can hang out with my Dad in wherevs," 'cause my Dad really liked Chris Farley. I liked Chris Farley too 'cause he wasn't self-conscious, 'cause he threw himself into it: sweaty & reckless. I hated Tommy Boy, though. And by that I mean, I watched about ten minutes of it, got bored, turned it off, thought it was dumb.

It's got something to do with entitlement, I think. What we're given, what we expect, what we think we deserve. How hard we feel we've worked, what we see when we look in the mirror and subsequently who oughtta mirror us, what we have to offer. The meritocracy of karma ... but I'm an easy target. It's not like "You say jump, I say how high," it's like "you tell me how high I probs oughtta be jumping, I'll run after you all night waiting to fly over buildings," because that's possible, right?

The thing is; we all feel we've gotten away with something. We're spies, ghosts, savage detectives, secret agents, between angels, followers, prostitutes, boxcar children, storytellers, lunatics, teachers, orphans, suicides, cutters, dirty, sharp, clean. If you get too close, you'll see that we're all still thirteen, or whenever it was that we felt the worst we'd ever felt. Yesterday? Tomorrow? Never?

"Prepare / yourself though to keep something back; / there's a center in you / you are simply a comedian / without."
(Stephen Dunn, "How to Be Happy: Another Memo to Myself)

It's got something to do with shame, I think.

My brother and I used to do Abs of Steel together on beach-towels in the living room. I tried doing Eric Nies's MTV Workout video, alone, later, but I couldn't dance, so that was that, I sold it on ebay for five bucks about a decade ago, along with The Real World: Behind the Scenes (book and VHS).

Our masks are flimsy and transparent and mostly made of excuses & saran wrap, which, p.s., never works, like ever.

We owe you something, we just don't know what it is yet.

What's the catch, he'd always ask me. You seem like the perfect girl. What's the catch.

I'd shrug, smile. Do my best Clark Kent: I'm just a little crazy, that's all.

It's the same tone I'd use to reassure the people I served that it's not that spicy, that they won't taste the anchovies. Flippant & easy 'cause before long they'd leave the chair, and then the room, and they didn't mean it when they said they'd call me at 2 A.M. if the coffee turned out to be caffinated after all (It was, you bitch, it was! I hope you wake your husband up and offer strange favors in exchange for a backrub, I hope you watch Richard Simmons hawk renewal 'til your eyes bleed, I hope Pop-Up Video is on all fucking night!) and they were still awake 'cause by then I'd be gone, gone, gone, anyhow. They didn't even know my number and if they did, the phone could just ring and ring and ring ...

So when I took his love it felt like theft, like cheating. I didn't deserve his love, or hers, 'cause I can't take care of myself let alone you. Maybe it's safer if we're both holding something back, maybe that's sexier than being naked for real. Who wouldn't rather do it in the dark?

I didn't ask about his catch. I didn't have to. He said he didn't have one, that's code for "I am all catch," and I also speak code.

I had another boyfriend who liked to talk about what a catch he was. "I'm in law school," he'd brag. "I'm pretty good looking."

I'd sit there dumbly, thinking, "But that's not even your real nose."

Did he know that -- stepping from the shower into steamy bathroom air, I knew just how to stand when I seize the bath-towel ... like shoplifting. I've practiced, like an insecurity performance artist, how to escape the room w/o glancing at my actual body. I slip past mirrored walls and wash my hands with my head focused squarely on the faucet. I don't want to know, all that really matters is what I think I know.

What's the catch?

At midnight, I turn into a pumpkin.
At midnight, I leave you. At midnight, I stop listening while maintaining eye contact.
At midnight, I turn into your mother and I'll remind you, all morning long, of your mother.
I can see through walls, I can fly, I can see your heart through your skin.
I'm killing myself, it doesn't hurt.
I don't even like you, I just want to like you.
Yes, I got into a fight with a porcupine.

I'm not actually all that interesting, I just sweat a lot.

I'm melodramatic, it's hopeless.

I'm actually Angela Chase, after she got canceled 'cause no one gave a shit except me and my friends.

I want to believe in a world so beautiful as the one you've described to me, and so I do. Is the secret that I'm using you? That I've tried, in my own way, to give something back, too, or to be sure I didn't ask for too much. My humility ensured your participation. You've become characters as soon as you walked out the door, but who am I kidding, I beat you to it.

I relapse all the time, into everything, sometimes two or three vices a night.

In many ways, I'm still just trying to figure out what my Dad wanted me to do, and when I go to sleep (finally) I hope he'll speak to me in dreams and tell me, and when he doesn't, I try to find someone else to tell me what to do and who to be, and when they confuse or hurt or judge me harshly, or turn out to be someone else, I hate them with the firey passion of a thousand suns.

Because when they leave, they make it look so easy. This isn't complicated: I can't see what anyone does when I'm not around.

"Your father worshiped you," my mother said.

And when that rare person comes along to make me realize all they want is for me to be happy and true to myself, I realize I don't know what to do with that ... besides find someone else to tell me what to do, how to be happy, what my truth is.

When you're told all your life that you're too independent, too resistant to feeling/needing things from other people, you tend to see co-dependence as an achievement rather than a problem: "Look, I've let myself rely! Look at me, opening up! Like a flower! Look at all the people I need, and who need me!"

But "need" is such a dumb word. There is want and there is death and there is love.

There are 50 ways to leave your lover, 50 more ways to say "fuck you," 50 trees falling in your silent forest-mind (sorry, tree). 50 rings in a wet empty room. You're still up, I'm still up, we're all up.

Oh, honesty. That tricky & fickle concept, the bullseye of my mindseye. Who cares?

--

In 11th grade, for Christmas, my BFF Ryan gave me a white tank top from Victoria's Secret and on the inside, where the tag would be, it read: "Soft, sexy, necessary."

He added: "Like you! Soft, sexy, necessary!"

I gave him a white Calvin Klein wifebeater. I'd replaced the burly man-meat on the label with my own note, reading: "If you're going to beat me, you might as well do it in style."

--

I've created a character, and a cast. Personal branding -- an idea fostered by media "personalities," thrived upon by actors & musicians & performers. Is that me? I'm not sure. Where do we draw the line? Between who we are and the stories we tell about ourselves? Part of wanting to stop blogging for a bit was that I wanted to figure out not only the difference between Marie and Riese and Autowin, but between the friends I've made via autowin and the characters they've become on here.

It's nice to feel necessary, even just as something to read while you're bored at work. This blog isn't that popular, isn't that big of a deal, but having so many friends I'd met through here possibly made it feel like a bigger deal then it is.

Chuck Klosterman's column in Esquire Magazine remarks that Hannah Montana (a show I've never seen), which explores the divide between the famous Hannah and the real-life Miley, is popular 'cause kids these days can relate: "They all struggle to reconcile who they are with the quasi-real persona they constructively construct. Hannah Montana is the internet."

My ex-bf emailed a few weeks ago; he'd been watching a documentary about high schoolers, thought of us at that age -- the pressure we put on ourselves, consequently how possibly we'd wanted to be like the characters on TV (oddly enough, the only show John & I watched, ever, was Dawson's Creek) w/their neat labels: the sexpot, the virgin, the intellectual, the bad seed. He said: "You look at a character whose entire moral or personal dilemma can be solved by staring at a pond and listening to Paula Cole, and it seems so much more efficient than actually having to confront one's self."

Of course, I said, we did, which's why I prefer literature with its complex characters, its demand of our extended & in-depth attention. He agreed. Literature matters to me so much more than anything else ever has, or ever could, to me. Print. Which lately has seemed irrelevant, compared to this instant gratification.

While writing Living it Out, Carly and I got a lot of feedback about "defining our characters." Narrow their complexity. What's the type? Make them specific, identifiable. How will we recognize them, sans label? How will we know, even, who's talking? Can you add, for example, an accent, or a figure of speech. A unique/overwhelming hobby/habit.

What if that character is a person, what if this character does not know who she is? Can she make the story true by telling it?

--

While reading Tipping the Velvet, the following concepts struck me;
-Nan's analysis of her relationship w/Kitty as existing on two levels, informing and defining one another; the relationship itself, and their performance of it. The song and dance.
-While living with Diana, Nan spends four hours a day in the bathtub.

--

The only thing I'm sure of that I want is to write the best book I can write. It's that silent way your gut talks to you when you know something/someone is right.

The first time I heard the Beatles song "Yesterday," I used my two-deck cassette player/recorder to make a tape of it playing over and over again. I knew I wanted to hear it again and again. Sometimes, a body in your arms feels certain, correct, sometimes, a poet makes life feel possible. I'm certain I want this book, even if no-one else reads it.

I'm not certain that I'm actually going to write it though, it might just be another story I tell.

It's easy for me to feel one way, and the opposite. It's not desire that defines us so much as it is fear.

I am well aware that this is melodramatic and trite. But isn't that why we're all here, anyhow? Yes. Many of you came here via Gawker (which is hopelessly self-centered, too) or via The L Word (which is hopelessly melodramatic, passionately trite, but oh, so sexy! so necessary!) or via my friendship (which is melodramatic, self-centered, trite, and gawky).

--

Also, in addition to the wifebeater, I wrote Ryan a poem. It was 1998, he was my best friend, and at that time; an actor.

Some of it: "So tonight, I hated seeing you on stage because you were so far away and I had to share you with the audience and you weren't only mine for that minute. And so I can't let you perform 'cause I adore your reality, the way you cried in church this morning while everyone else sat still and you held my hand afterward and your ring hurt my finger but I didn't move ... and so I can't write your peer evaluation for Dartmouth 'cause I can't write you down and I don't want you to go to Dartmouth, anyways ... and so I hate your dishonesty, but I love the way you are honest with me, even if it's only me your honest with, and I hate your double standards for people but I love being your standard ... and so you would never write about me. And so if you knew I wrote about you, and I read this to you, you might laugh at me ..."

I read it, he cried. The last time I heard from him, he said he felt far away. From me, and most of all, from G-d.

These true sentences.

--

"And so we turn him into an anecdote, with no teeth, and a punchline you'll tell for years to come:
"Oh, that reminds me of the time the impostor came into our house." "Oh! Tell the one about that boy."
And we become these human jukeboxes spitting out these anecdotes to dine out on like we're doing right now.
Well I will not turn him into an anecdote.
It was an experience.
How do we hold on to the experience?"
(John Guare, Six Degrees of Separation)

*

Tinkerbell got her wings on the way back from California, 'cause we set her up on a pillow with a little napkin-blanket in between our seats. The flight attendants probs thought we were totally insane, which is actually super-duper-true, let's not be crazy, but at the end this woman came and gave Tinkerbell her wings, see them?

A number of days ago (3-4? 4-5?), my fortune said: "Everyone around you is rooting for you. Don't give up."

Last week, I said: "Alex, this cookie contains my fate, I promise, this is a big deal, this is everything, this fortune we're about to open and I really hope it says READY LET'S GO LOW FAT WHOLE WHEAT GREEN TEA but instead it told me, "Now is the time to start something new."

I know I've said this before and not followed through, but in Malibu; top down, mountains on one side, ocean on the other, I felt like it was possible to fly/flee in either direction -- circle one: climb. swim.

1. The sky or 2. That feeling we describe as feeling underwater but when we're actually underwater, it doesn't actually feel anything like all those other feelings we'd compared it to. It's just like, swimming.

Everyone keeps telling me to be selfish and do what's best for me, but I can't seem to let go of the idea that what's best for me is to do what's best for other people.

This week marks my fourth consecutive year of New York City residence; my fourth year of throwing myself into one all-consuming world and then another, some honest, some delusions, some honest delusions, some good, some bad, and then the consistent faces on the horizon. And then this blog, this thing here.

I feel like moving to California would be admitting to myself that somewhere, deep down inside, I actually might want to be happy. I've wanted many things in my life; happiness has never been one of them.

It is admitting I have love to give, it is admitting that I do, after all, know where to put it.

*
I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written .....
[Ernest Hemmingway]
*

Joey: People change, Dawson.
Dawson: They don't have to.
Joey: Yes, they do. People die, and they move away...and they grow up, Dawson. Everything changes eventually.
(Dawson's Creek)
*

Auto-Fun of the Day :: 5-5-2008

Happy Cinco De Mayo! If you live in NYC and plan to participate in the day's festivities, just remember, this isn't the Puerto Rican Day Parade, it's just Cinco de Mayo. So go to Senor Swanky's, Gabriella's, Rosa Mexicano, TGI Friday's, wherevs, have a margarita, and party like you're white as stuff white people like and it's the Rose Bowl (even if you're not white and don't like football, e.g., me, I'm 1/64th Native American). Following your activities, please take off your cape/flag and put your garbage (especially animal bones) in the garbage cans, thank you.

Also, look how cute Tinkerbell is in Hollywood! She's like, "Hi Hollywood, here I come! Wheeeee!!!!"

---

quote: "We become the stories we tell about ourselves." (Michael Cunningham)

---

links:
1. When we went to the Spice Girls, Ginger Spice totally made serious eye contact with Haviland and probs that moment of intense connection what's inspired her to "hang up her hotpants and union jack boots, today embarking on a new career as a children's author." Also, in the car back from Newark, Cait told Stef on the phone that Hav was in the backseat with Ginger Spice, and Stef fully believed us for about 14 hours, 'til informed that no, there was no Ginger Spice, we're just assholes with requisite asshole in-jokes. (@guardian uk books)
2. I've read nothing for about a week except this article, three times. Seriously, just do it: "The Memory Addict" by Sam Anderson (@ny mag)
3. The National Magazine Awards: (@nsame)
4. "Hard Sell, Soft Touch and the Right Question": Barbara Walter's Memoir, Reviewed (@the ny times)
5. 50 Greatest Commercial Parodies of All time; including parodies from SNL, MadTV, In Living Color, SCTV, etc. Highlights include "Excedrin for Racial Tension Headaches," "Nikey Turkey," and "Compulsion by Calvin Klien." (@nerve/ifc)
6. Vote for the world's top public intellectuals. I don't know what that means but I feel like probs I should win maybe. (@prospect UK)
7. What happens when human beings (e.g., Miley Cyrus) become brand names (Hannah Montana) and then get their photos taken by actual artists: A Photographic Collision of Stars, in Living Color.
8. Inspirational PDF Magazines (@smashing magazine)
9. Attack of the Aristo-Brats! "Children of the rich and famous are taking over the world. Welcome to the new age of nepotism." (@radar)
10. "Infidelity" by Phillip White (@poetry magazine)

Mark All As Auto-Read

I have 454 unread items on my Google Reader, it's probs like how the pioneers felt in 1752 returning from their Oregon Trail vaycay to a huge stack of unanswered telegrams. I can attribute 41 of these unread posts to Stef's shared items and 48 to mediabistro, but still.

It's kinda funny 'cause, like I said, two weeks ago I'd been writing a post about taking a break from blogging but I never finished/posted it, and then the real world kept shifting, like going through stages, 1. mean & tragic & unpredictable, 2. lonely, unhinging, unstable, 3. sunshiney & safe & sad/optimistic, 4. unreal, 5. the yet to be defined but hopeful present. So before I knew it, I'd taken a break from blogging by accident, like sometimes I'd forget I had a blog at all, though strangely I never forgot facebook. Probs 'cause facebook is HOW I REALLY FEEL.

Beautiful things have happened too, and I feel I've gained back some people I didn't have a few weeks ago, and, well, oh, the internets ... is a lot ... this has been known to happen.

Hey, remember when I didn't win "Lesbian Blogger of the Year"? Well, luckily Crystal thinks I'm Lesbian Blogger of the Year anyhow, 'cause she sent me a Dyke Duck. Also, the Uh Huh Her Prize Pack has arrived, although the video hasn't yet materialized. Probs 'cause Leisha has a lot of feelings about/for me:

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i. Now I Will Pay Attention to My Google Reader: Live-Blogging Auto-Fun

My hero for life: Four Four's Recap of America's Next Top Model. I'd begun free-falling off planet secretly before the Dirty Girls reading, fo'real afterwards, and now let's catch up: AVN write-up, book release party in San Francisco. This photo from my reading; Stephanie looks beautiful, I look insane. I'm not being self deprecating, I really do look insane.

Oh! Wanna watch our vlog again, but on Haviland's page? Elsewhere amongst "VIP" label; Stef also finds that she'd like to lie more often than she does, 'cause honesty is a real bitch. Lozo's posted 16 times, and I'd give him Most Reliable Unpaid Blogger of the Year Award if it wasn't 75% videos (two girls kissing!) I wouldn't say this if he hadn't bitched about me not blogging. I just used the word "blogging" like ten times in a row so now I've gotta punish myself by spraying Glade in my eyeballs.

She always reminds me of me but younger and closer to mountains and in some ways braver. I don't know what to do about that, at all, so I do what I do which is wrong. I like this: "I feel like we're married, like I need a really really really good reason to ask for divorce, better than I'm tired of you, better than you make me scream without even doing anything necessarily wrong." Speaking of girl-children in faraway places who're wise beyond their years, Moonkiller's blog is one year old! She already knows everything there is to know.

"Mark all as read" is satisfying. I don't need all this Elegant Variation, NewPages, Critical Mass, Mediabistro. I need this Bookslut ... later. Is it May? Does anyone still trust me to relay a perspective on reality? Do I live your nightmares for you? Sometimes we all feel like this at once. Sometimes we don't read about it 'til it's over. Oh ... and. Scene. Eric Mathew to himself: what can I do today to win the hearts & minds of the lesbian community.

Oh ... and wow, and oh, and: this: Now this, the / dreaming breathing body / lying right beside / my own, just think -- ("The World of the Senses," by Franz Wright). The New Yorker's unofficial theme, this week, seems to be "Poems to Break Your Heart." "The God of Loneliness," "Grief." Fuck. I love poetry. I know that's like saying I love food. So I'll clarify; I love good poetry. More than almost anything, except kissing, laughter, and string cheese.

OMG, my agent, who probs wonders why she's still my agent considering I've yet to produce any material worth selling (but man, I sure do talk about it!) wrote a new post.

Sometimes there's people who've known me since I got here, and I get too embarassed to talk to them again and admit I keep making the same mistakes over and over. And then; how I don't think they're actually mistakes. I say: "I'll never trust anyone again," but then I laugh, "Yeah I will. I will. Over and over, I will."

Haviland was just talking to me about The Sound and The Fury and now she is, and also, this Phillip Glass opera; I must see it.

While sans-internet in Malibu, we were forced to settle arguments the old-fashioned way, like cavemen, with buffalo-killing competitions. Like; Cait said Polaroids were going extinct. I called nonsense; slogreenx says Cait auto-wins.

Note to all ye 12-year-olds: back in the day, when I walked ten miles to & from school, uphill both ways, we had cameras called Polaroids. Magic photos shot out right away, you wrote on them. Once we had a Polaroid Gallery Opening in our apartment, apparently I made a graphic about it once, don't know why:

Note to all ye newborns: you're really missing out, growing up in a world w/o Polaroids. Also good job on already knowing how to read.

Also speaking of lesbians I love them. Via Alex's shared items, and its respective cute user icon: more on feelings.

OK, I have like 184 items left, but I can't, I'm tired.

Some other things I'd like to bring to your attention:
1. Sam Anderson's feature on Augusten Burroughs, memory, life, everything: 'The Memory Addict"
2. The Anorexic's Cookbook, by Rachel Shukert, at nerve.com.

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ii. Promise I'll Be Perfect From Now On

"You say that you're broken,
I just wanna fix you.
Tell me what to do, and baby I will listen."
-Uh Huh Her

Sometimes I wish life didn't have rules. I mean, because it does, you know? History's proven certain ideas good, others bad. Sometimes, it's fun to break the rules, but also, if you keep breaking things (e.g., rules) you'll end up alone w/o things. Or, rather, you'll just have many broken things, what do you do with broken things? Fix them. Leave them. Hold all their broken pieces. A combination of all three.

There's 10,000 children in Ethiopia who'd beg to have problems so ridiculous as mine.

There are so many people that I love and late at night all my mixed feelings fade away and I wish they were all here, even the ones that hurt me so badly I thought I'd never breathe again -- no -- especially them. Sometimes I want everyone so bad I could fuck or hit them all. It's like my heart turns honest at 1 A.M. Sometimes, in the winter, B. and I would get off the phone by one of us declaring; "I'm over this day. I think I wanna go to sleep, just so it'll be over," and the other responding "Totally. Over this day."

Below this sentence are a million other sentences. Perhaps later, like tomorrow or the next day, I'll publish them. But right now ... gtg, kiddos, mermaids await. There is fun to be had, and trees we've yet to live in ... for real. Wheeeeeee!!!!