Sunday Top 10: Surveying the Surveys

I am so sick right now, it's like, disgusting. I just wanted to put that out there. Don't tell me about Vitamin C. Or hot tea. I know! Rest, etc. Orange juice. You know what I need? I need Brian Krakow in the body of Carmen DeLa Pica Morales. Or Emmet Honeycutt. I'd even do Tina Kennard, Season One. I mean, she would bring me some serious soup. (And it's not fair for someone to bring you soup unless you've been sleeping with them for at least like, 10 months, so don't feel obligated, my dear readers, to offer). Anyhow. Sunday Top 10.

So look, I'm writing this book. And, rather than continue to do so from the cave of my psyche, I've sent my feelers out into the world with a grand Bi-Girl Survey. And, furthermore indicating my advancement in the "Take Myself Seriously" project, I'm speaking about it on my blog, instead of about how funny I am, or what Haviland did over the weekend. Or how sick I am. Or putting up cute photos of me and Stephanie.

I've created this new icon, for when I am being earnest/genuine/serious.
genuine moment begins now:

I am literally astounded and inspired and totally pumped about this book. There are so many girls out there with stories to tell. My enthusiasm for my own project has like, multiplied so much!!, by doing this. Reading these survey responses, even the ones that say mean things to me about my various shortcomings, is so motivating and fantastic. I'm really blown away by the 15 and 16 year olds who reflect growing up in a world far more tolerant and flexible than the one my mother grew up in.

I'm totally overwhelmed by the response so far, especially since I've truly only begun my full-scale assault on the universe to take my goddamn survey, and I'd like to thank the BiResource Center, all my friends who forwarded my e-mail, Heather Cassell, the busy people at Craigslist who haven't noticed I've placed the same ad using 5 different email addresses in the "talent gigs" section of 5 major metropolitan cities (more this week, fellas!), and the lovely tri-sexual world of MySpace for making it possible.

genuine moment is now over

TOP TEN REASONS WHY THIS SURVEY IS KICKING MORE ASS THAN ANYTHING I WOULD HAVE LEARNED IN STATISTICS 350 IF I HAD EVER ACTUALLY GONE TO THAT CLASS

10.Only two girls of the 125 reponses I've read so far have copped to getting it on with over 31 other ladies.
I've made out with both of them.


9. Feedback Highlight Number One: "You spelled marraige wrong. And wrote 'anarchist' twice."

Hm. Good point.

(side note: If I can't spell the word marriage, I can't imagine I'd be very good at like, having one.)

Feedback Highlight Number Two: "I disliked references to "boys" and "girls" when it came to matters of attraction and experience. I think people who are sexually aware should really refer to people as "men" and "women.""

Here we go again with my total inability to be a grown-up. Dammit.

8. Survey-Dating My all-time favorite task a the lit agency was selecting potential interview candidates for the intern positions. I usually employed a two-tiered selection process by which applicants could proceed to the next step:

1. Qualified,
2. Girlfriend or boyfriend potential.

Often (okay, almost all the time), my notes on "2" were disqualified as really good reasons to interview the candidate; e.g., "Worked for the HRC! Might be a lesbian! Girlfriend potential," or "Says 'Stone Butch Blues' was one of her favorite books--def. a lesbian. Total girlfriend potential!" or "Worked at Abercrombie, only hire cute boys at Abercrombie, total boyfriend potential."

It is difficult, when asking someone questions about their dating habits and how they view their sexuality, not to think: "Hmm ... I think what they want is ... MEEE!!" And then to realize, oh I think they went out with Haviland.

Of course, it was only verified that I'm obviously marrying Rachel.

7. Survey Therapy: On Friday, I spent the day at work mediating the joy and the backlash, and when I got home from work at 6 I felt utterly battled and totally unqualified to enter the public sphere, that perhaps I was carrying on a bit too much with the naysayers, like I would become one of those writers who always says dumb things in public (sometimes I repeat to myself at night: "It's okay Marie, you could be Jessica Cutler.") or jumps on couches or becomes 85 pounds and then parties all night. So I got a massage and drank until Haviland came over. That's what Ernest Hemmingway would have done.

6. It's like the Chart: "You realize that I forwarded this e-mail to all of my exes, they forwarded it to all of their exes, and it's probably circulating all over the country and then being traced backwards by a long line of ladies trying to figure out which one of their exes probably had sex with you." - a good friend.

5. Best answer to "what I look for in a boy": "He must have a job."

Best answer to "job": "Unemployed beggar"
Second best: "I work in finance, despite having sociology and history undergrad degrees."

Best example of looking for different things in a man or a woman:
tight ass (for boys), nice round ass (for girls)


4. Favorite Response to confusions resulting from bisexuality: "I just want to hit my head against the nearest blunt object. It's like going through puberty all over again and it SUCKS."

(WORD.)

Favorite Response to the open-notes-at-the-end section: "You look good in a wifebeater with no bra." (thanks, Steph!)


3. Oh, Craigslist! The initial call for surveys was listed as 12-40. Why 12? I don't know. Because, as a friend told me when I was freaking out that maybe I had totally screwed up and everyone was getting my e-mail and thinking that I am a total perv, "I think I started having sexual thoughts when I was like, 5."

to: me
from: cindy
title: 12 YEAR OLDS TO 40 YEAR OLDS

YOU SICK FUCKING PIG....I GUESS YOU ARE UNAWARE OF THE LEGAL AND MORAL REPERCUSSIONS OF ASKING ANYTHING SEXUAL OF A CHILD!!!!!12 YEARS OLD IS UNDER THE LEGAL AGE SCUMBAG~!!~~ ROT IN HELL YOU PIECE OF SHIT!!!!!!!

to: cindy
from: me

I'm not asking anything sexual. The survey is about sexual orientation, not sex.

But thanks for the heads up, seriously, it hadn't even occured to me that people would take it that way--I guess I'm so used to the sort of liberal mindset and know so many people who were aware of their sexuality at a really young age that I totally didn't even think "oh wow, that might seem inappropriate." I've blocked the survey to anyone under 15, and I'm figuring out how to re-work it.


to: me
from: cindy

oh....uh..cool..(!)..I appreciate the professional and intelligent manner with which you have responded....very unlike my psychotic looking response......funny I assumed it was an ad from a man...actual not so funny...typical.

Stephanie's apt response to this exchange: "i bet that person just wrote you bc they assumed you were like a 60 year old pervert guy, b/c after all, bisexuality is a FANTASY, a PERVERSION, couldn't possibly be a legitimate inquiry! Further proof that no one takes bisexuality seriously enough!"

WORD.

2. Number of people who cited a crush on Xena the Warrior Princess as an early indication of bisexual feelings: 2

Other noted responses: "Eddie Vedder, yo."
The four girls from "The Facts of Life" who got fired
Ginger from "Gilligan's Island"
Ricardo from "I Love Lucy"
Faith from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
"I fell in love with Sarah Jessica Parker singing "Come Little Children, I'll Take thee Away" to the children of Salem on her broomstick. She would sing and move act seductively on her broom."

1. You know, Dynxie? Like Jynx but with a D? I made the possibly suspect decision of asking people if there was a specific pseudonym they'd like me to use. However, I'm having a tough time imagining: "Barbie, 16, and Tinkerbell, 18, of El Paso, said they feel like lesbians won't take them seriously because they are bi." Other potential pseudonyms include:

Saron Hall
Taylor Cole
Bubacasaloma
HotShit
dreamy
Roo-Dawg
Ishtar Spencer
Madge
Your Fake Wife
Rainbowspryte
Angel Romero
Matilda
Rian
Faunty
Hypatia
Frank
Bashir

Want to be known as "Funkalicious" in the best book of all time?

Take my survey: bi girl survey

What I wrote here is just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more survey where that came from...!!