Thursday, June 07, 2007

Everything is Far and Long Gone By

Someone once said: "You win some, you lose some." Lots of people've said it since then, but someone said it first, though I don't know who.

Back in February--that lazy thick winter--when TB and I were courting via g-chat/email/comments and I was bemoaning her refusal of a pre-March 18th real-life meet-up, I posited this threat: "What if I'm TAKEN BY THEN?" and she responded: "You win some, you auto-lose some."

Then I killed myself. Now I'm dead, and I'm writing this blog entry from the underworld, where I'm thinking about other things that have died, or, if you will, been LOST.

P.S. If you've google-searched for LOST the TV show and ended up here, then you are indeed lost. I've never seen that show. What I do know is that Charlie Salinger's had it rough: first he lost his parents in a car accident, then his brother dated J-Love-Hewitt, who's super annoying, and now he's abandoned on a desert island? That's ridic.

I was kidding about killing myself. Actually, TB amended that statement with: "That'd be tragic," and then we made a date for the far-away future (March 24th) and I suggested "You can get drunk and visit me at two a.m. any time between now and then." Obvs she did, four days later, and the rest is history. Auto-winning all around.

However, not everything's got such a happy ending. You do indeed win some and auto-lose some.

Here's some things we've auto-lost lately. I don't miss all these things, really. I just want to talk about them. 'Cause don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til it's gone? You know?


1. Gawker's Blogghurrahia

As far as I know--and my knowledge's not so far in this area, as I check Gawker sporadically at best--this feature has unceremoniously disappeared. Blogyreeia's probs responsible for 50% or more of my current readership: a Blogherria link usually results in 4,000+ additional page views on the day it's posted, and many of these viewers become permanent readers. Some become permanent girlfriends [TB found me through Gawker, oddly enough], or job offers, or douchebags who stop by to drop some negative vibes, therefore sealing their fate to rot in hell. Really, I only mourn it insofar as it could affect me personally, obvs, cuz I'm in Generation ME, duh! Even when they say mean things to me/don't actually read my post ['cause it's funnier and snarkier just to make fun of me and pretend like the only people on earth who can be ironic or sarcastic are Gawker writers themselves], I'm still like Awesome, totes Gawkered!. Because there's no such thing as bad publicity, unless you're one of the 10,000 dudes who's life they've mercilessly ruined in other features, like "Douchebag of the Week." I could say mean things about Gawker, too, but I'm trying to be the mature one in this relationship. OK, one thing's that we both use a lot of bright colors, actually. And one of us is running a purple-and-green flash-enabled ad for Clariol hair products, and it's not me.

However, I'm hoping the absence of Bloggerea'll result in less pointless-overdone-NYC-centric posts ["Omg, apartment hunting is really hard," "Omg, The L Train!"] by NYC-bloggers hoping to be linked by Gawker. Though it doesn't always work out that way.

Maybe they need a new Bloguria intern, in which case I'd like to volunteer my services, 'cause I specialize in unpaid writing gigs that take up massive amounts of time and make me feel popular/poor. Here's today's Bloggerwheea, as composed by me:

Blogorrhea: So Many Stupid, Annoying, Worthless People on This Planet

-Bloggers who mine material from the MTA and/or the revolutionary activities of drunken twentysomethings: "humorless and talentless." [why don't we get drunk and blog? ]
-Times writers who scorn menopausal women, have limp dicks: "really sick." [pink india ink ]
-Ivy League Students who don't buy rare books from street-vendors: "poison." [thunder, perfect mind ]
-Athletic Apparel Companies who can't spell OR, at least, pass off stupidity as purpose: "lazy." [copyranter ]
-Store managers who force employees to force shoppers to open credit cards, despite employee's strict moral code: "unethical." [this girl called automatic win]

As you can see, I linked to myself and to my girlfriend, 'cause obvs that's what I'd do if I really made Blogherria. I'd probs link to Haviland's myspace blog, too. Hell, I'd like to any NYC-residing blogger who emailed me, that'd save a lot of time.

I've personally never used it to find blogs to read: I can hardly keep up with all the blogs I love without seeking out new ones. [Hell, I can barely keep up with RKB alone.] That's the same way I feel about human relationships. I developed most of my initial blogroll from the NYC Bloggers Google Group I'm in, now it's just mutated into an incomprehensible monster.

Some people I link to still won't link to me, but I keep linking to them, because I'm humble and no one can jock my style/hold me down, I've got to keep on movin'. Now I'm just rambling. Maybe I wouldn't link to me after all.

UPDATE: I've decided to do Bloggorhea myself. I mean, it's a great idea. It's like opening a Subway Sandwiches franchise, but without the "income." That's right. Check it out.


2. Global Ink on Broadway/110th

When I confess my love for magazines, most women'll respond with a knowing whisper: "I know, I love US Weekly, shhhh!" But I'm like, "Did I say I love sycophantic crap? No, I didn't. I said I love magazines." And though some of the magazines I love are, indeed, crap--some aren't. And those that aren't, I usually pick up at Global Ink. They had all the queer mags: Curve, Advocate, Velvetpark, et al, as well as all lit mags (n+1, VQR, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Black Clock, etc.) and--well--everything. International shit. Fashion photo feminist fitness whathaveyou.

Yesterday: that beautiful afternoon, all sky/hope, we visited Ahmad by Tom's Diner and TB played chess while I read Waking Vixen's book, sun in everyone's eyes but also in our hearts, I ventured to the corner for cigs [for others, not myself, weirdos] and passed Global Ink and its sign announcing impending closure. I'd been lamenting the new distance between myself and Global Ink since I moved, now I can't even be bitter over that. Now I gotta go to like...um...I guess one of those places with the purple lights? Universal News or something? Whatevs. I'll just subscribe to bitch, bitches.

Also: here's the thing about Us Weekly/Star/InTouch: if you're so interested in the scandalous romantic activities of celebs like A. Jolie, Lohan and Spears et. al., then you'd probably really enjoy novels. You know, books? Scandal, romance, threesomes, preggers unmarried ladies, fancy clothes, everything, eat it to your heart's content, fo'reals.



3. My Relationship with the Metro North


Dear MetroNorth,

Yesterday was our last trip together, and also my first morning ride, as we've generally been meeting around 5 or 6 in the evening for the past 23 days. Every single day, can you believe it? I'm not big on commitment, so this's a big deal. Though it's been a good ride, I won't miss you. You're okay, significantly better than the subway, a camel, or a half-assed donkey, but you're not teleportation or a Lexus. You're just--well--you.

Here's some things I think you could work on for next time:

-On Friday and Saturday evenings, your train is packed with the most annoying people on the entire planet. They fall into two categories:
1) Girls with fake tans and too much foundation who're smart enough to drive from their homes to the train station in Westchester without running their SUVs into a tree, but not smart enough to have a conversation that would qualify as even slightly resembling the educated English they've likely learned in their Tony public schools. They make me want to jump out the window, even if that lands me in Fordham.
2) Twentysomething Men with large quantities of beer and loud, imposing laughter that trickles into my personal earspace, also inducing suicidal thoughts. Seriously, they drink a lot of beer on the train and talk really loud. Can't something be done about this?

-Often, you've neglected to take my ticket. I know this's cause I look trustworthy, but looks can be deceiving. For example: every time you walk by, I purposely try to look like I've been riding this baby since New Haven, specifically to avoid your request of my ticket. It usually works.

-Why're there so many creepy middle-aged dudes who look like they're about to whip out their junk and masturbate to the thought of me galloping through a pool of sweet cream in a cheerleader outfit? Or the thought of me like, just sitting there? Seriously, they're not even slick about it. Just like, ew, read the Wall Street "Journal."

Do you remember when we first met, Metro North? I do. October, 1998, Manhattan to Bronxville, I was visiting the city under the guise of college visits, it was was before I'd developed that crippling phobia of most public restrooms--so I'd used yours to expel the contents of the Shrimp Tempura dinner I'd just consumed at an Upper West Side Japanese place. It didn't sit well, I told Ryan I felt sick ... I went to the same restaurant two years later 'cause I felt the odds'd be in my favor [or 'cause I'm a retard: who knows the answers to these terrific and terrifying questions? Not me.] and ended up food poisoned again. You oughta look into this: something lurks in your kitchen.

I went back to my seat, calm/clammy, gave Ryan a hand massage on the way home, because I always'd do that for him on the Metro North. The next year too, when I rightfully lived in Bronxville, wasn't only visiting. It's inhumane, really, how we use the same spaces over and over again for different lives. I've re-defined you once again, Metro-North, like people do all the time with songs.

I know what you're thinking: that wasn't really the first time. You're right. The first time we met was the night before I got sick in your bathroom--actually, we'd nearly missed you. We'd had dinner in Soho at a bistro with slick black-clad homosexual waiters with perfect butts in cheap pants, serving expensive bottles of anything to anyone: the first time I drank wine at a restaurant in America, like a grown-up. We were drunk. I wrote a poem about it. Remember that? Of course you do. I was seventeen, so, please, forgive me for my inability to write poetry, but I'd written these lines, among others, about our dash to catch you: Lighthearted and lightheaded,/we leave,/run against the city pouring over us,/my laughter trails your speed,/our sprint to the station./I lean against the pillars,/the poles/yellow, red,/you press your fingers/to my lips./We spend the evening urgent,/still panting.

There was more to that poem, before and after those lines, but surely you've suffered enough, yeah?

It seems I've written about Ryan a lot lately. I wonder if it's because of you [TB] or because of you [Metro North]. I've ridden you [MN] to get to you [TB] for 23 days, but not today. The seats are navy blue and maroon. I wonder if late at night, people fuck there, or fight. Or cry. I cried there last week but it was too crowded, I couldn't get a seat, so I stood and cried. I think that if you're crying, someone should offer you a seat. Not an aisle seat where your feet are fighting rolling-suitcases and tiny women with entitlement issues, a real seat in the corner for leaking women.

Because Ryan saved my life back then. I told him that but I don't think he got it. I mean, I said it: Ryan, you saved my life. Ryan was gay and he was my best friend and he reached across all obvious boundaries into my depression and told me I didn't need it. This was no small task, 'cause depression was my best friend before I met Ryan. Back then, before Ryan, I wore glitter on my face, I stared at the ceiling for hours on end, trying to will myself into participating in what I'd once known to be a life, I listened to the Empire Records soundtrack every morning in the shower and wore a winter hat that hid most of my face, and I had sunglassees and a video camera to hide my eyes.

Ryan pulled all that stuff away from my face and my eyes and actually loved me, which I'd believed, then, to be impossible. I mean, for the future, my love'd been used up, I thought. I was empty. Like if a heart was a prune.

And so: here we are again. Your [MN] tracks, that same view out the window, rushing/blurring, trees on amphetamines, people like pearls bursting then vanishing in the distance, you stop, open proverbial doors, and then we walk, subtle but violent and without thinking because sometimes it turns out you actually don't have to think at all! Just walk out when the doors open, like you know the way. Your [TB] tracks, once I drew both of us, I outlined your body with the words: save me from myself. The words were darker than the bodies, and true. The tracks of the outline, you see?


I would like to step out of my heart
and go walking beneath the enormous sky
I would like to pray.
[rilke]
As Ever,
MLB

You lose some, you oughta win some.

30 comments:

frank said...

it's great how you go from hilarious random stuff like being a bloggeria intern to the deep feelings for a friend who pulled you out of a shitty time in your life. you should be a writer or something!

and i've been gawked again! woo hoo!

and like that you post at night before i fall asleep.

oh, and is a hand massage what i think it is? you know what i think it is.

Mercury said...

Hey, Riese, did you know something? You're fucking brilliant. That's all.

Mercury said...

JK, that's not all:

I was totes the same way, when I went to high school, with the glitter and the staring at the ceiling? I wore glitter and stared at the ceiling, except I also showered/slept in the dark/cold because that made crying more satisfactory.

The types of people who ride the MN sound like what we call "Hillsiders." Except when I encounter them they're not drinking beer/applying foundation on the train, they're doing it in their SUVs and passing on the right when there isn't even a lane there and hten throwing their crumpled beer cans/makeup compacts at my windsheild. Assholes.

I don't get gossip much and I'm obvs not a new yorker so... yeah, the gawker thing, totes lost on me.

Do you know what else has been lost? My mind.

I don't see any changes that need to be made. I learned a new word today: posit. It's exciting.

DH said...

I used to want to be Gawkered, thinking it would be like joining a special club for NYC blogging elite. And then it happened, and I couldn't deal with my 15 seconds.

I tried to join in with the masses who were getting all mob-mental about what a douche I was. Gawker wouldn't accept my comment. What I wrote about myself was maybe too cruel, even by Gawker standards.

Empire Records could possibly be the universal GenME soundtrack. I used to love Coyote Shivers, and thought this made me a rockstar. Nothing's changed.

Bourbon said...

Um, uhhh, I guess I'm one of those douches that don't link back, but it's only coz I don't know how/haven't bothered learning how. Not that you'd get immense from my page, maybe like two hits max.

Bourbon said...

immense traffic**

Anonymous said...

Another one of those brilliant posts that leaves me feeling sad or uneasy, like a Raymond Carver story where everything is happening below the surface and I'm only getting a hint of what's really going on.

Why were you crying on the Metro North? Why is this your last visit to TB? Is this good news or bad? Are you OK?

Ellen said...

I feel so guilty about Global Ink. I stopped going because every time I went I would come out with like $40 in magazines... so I stopped. I KILLED IT. Sigh.

Congrats to TB on leaving l'hopital!

copyranter said...

Riese,
Yeah, I think they've killed blog-o-rhia. I think it's because their traffic numbs (that's short for "numbers") haven't gone up this year, and they're searching searching searching for the magical page-view formula.

MoonKiller said...

I have a tear in my eye. I think I suffer from depression. I'm always depressed. Well thats not true. I'm either uber depressed or uber happy. Think I have manic depression. My friend says she'll take me to see my doctor but we're both afraid of phones. I also have a fear of public restrooms. And hotel ones. Which is problem when going away on week long vacations = ]. lol. But I got locked in one when I was 3 and sat on the seat crying for about an hour until my dad broke the door down. Which we had to pay to repair.

riese said...

lozo: I feel like this is a huge step in our friendship, because you just gave me a nice genuine compliment on my writing. I feel warm and fuzzy all over. I'm glad that I post at night before you fall asleep.

However ... hand massage=hand massage. He was gay, hellos!

mercury: Thank you Rachel! The Hillsiders and the MN-riders should meet up and have some Coors Light, as they clearly have many of the same interests. I actually typed "posit" thinking, "Is this one of those words that only exists in my head, or is it a real word?" And actually, it's a real word. I was very excited to see that, and felt very smart for one whole minute.

crystal: And now you are in the legendary last Bloguria thing EVER! The hits coulda kept on comin'... you know, aforementioned cruel commenters. TB's auditioned to be a Gawker commenter like 5 times, and they'll never let her in. They're totes weirdos. Like this.

Coyote Shivers-Sugarhigh: that was a great song. Lewis and I made a music video to it, obvs. He wore my winter hat and Adidas jacket. Super trendoid winner.

Razia: It's ok, because you always comment, so you don't have to link to me, you show your appreciation in other ways. But truly, you don't really have a blogroll, so I'm not really excluded from anything. I was mostly referring to other bloggers in the google group, most of whom do actually link to me anyhow, I think. I don't really care, I think. Once, a blogger wrote a funny post on the topic.


Anonymous: I wish I knew who you were, because then I would know if you know that Raymond Carver is one of my favorite writers ever. In fact, his picture hangs, ominously, over my desk. I know alot about his life and past and problems, but I always felt like a part of what was simmering under the surface--in whatever form that manifested itself--was simply his own resistance to the concept of happiness itself, that perhaps it wasn't something he could ever obtain, truly, just not in his nature, and he looked, instead, to small brilliant moments of Good or Beauty to power through the darkness ... and that, often, he slaughtered his own promise and joy for no reason besides doubt.

Or something.

Thank you for the compliment, I think?

I cry on public transportation a lot. Marie crying is not necessarily indicative of a general crisis of any sort. Little things make me cry sometimes. Like Lassie.

TB's not in the hospital anymore, that's why I'm not going there. So , yes, things are good, very good.

ellen: I know! I'd often thought of them as a money-sucker and felt proud of myself when I avoided Global Ink for several weeks, cuz that meant I wasn't dropping all my cash on magazines. But now they are closed, and I wish I had dropped more money on magazines! I love them. Ppl like you and me aren't responsible for it, it's those ignorant masses who can't read, you know?

copyranter: Hmmm...interesting. I did always think it served bloggers more than readers and was surprised initially that so many people did read it. I just hope the magical page view formula isn't related to more celeb coverage, cuz like, boo, borings.

riese said...

moonkiller: I'm afraid of phones too!! My shrink says it's cause I don't have control over what the other person is saying and it makes me anxious to think that I don't know where they are or what they're doing when we make contact. U know the Jimi Hendrix song? manic depression is touching my soul, i know what i want but i just don't know.

frank said...

you know what the best part of my compliments are? you know they are genuine. sure, i'd flatter a girl in an attempt to get in her pants, but i know that your pants are both occupied and on backward.

sorry. i couldn't think of a good pants/lesbian metaphor besides backward.

and i wouldn't have been doing my job if i didn't ask about the "massage." i knew he was gay, but hey, a hand's a hand, right?

MoonKiller said...

Calling house phones is the worst. You don't know who's going to answer. And my sister says I sound scared when I answer the phone. Ironically, I'm on the phone right now.

I need a shrink badly to be honest. My friends are fed up of hearing about my deepest darkest thoughts.

I whole heartedly agree with Mercury's first comment. = ]

MoonKiller said...

And Jimi Hendrix is the sex. I named my hamster after him. But he died. I think he got hold of sleeping pills.

Tara said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

i'm so happy to see that phone-phobia is rife.

self-analysis is so much easier when it's based on professional opinion.

Mercury said...

I'm the same way with crying for very little reason. I've been known to cry over lost pencils, and also no reason whatsoever, etc.

The whole merc = mercenary thing totally takes me back to Diablo II days. "Dude, my merc just died." Yeah. That's great.

I'm flattered you think I'm smart? Because I'm pretty much not, and you're so ridiculously well read it makes me feel ashamed/as if I should go start reading classics/exhausted from the thought of trying to get through some of that dense material/etc. I guess I'm not a complete moron. I just don't feel like I'm as literate as I wish I was, or something.

Anonymous said...

i am so depressed about the loss of blogorrhea.. it gave me endless entertainment during boring work days and taught me about well, this blog... and that other blog where the guy did crazy social experiments with the craigslist personal ads, hipsters and guidos (those were incredible). oh gawker... i wish i didn't need you as much as i do. i'm useless without it. anyway this post was lovely; i echo lozo's sentiment about the great transition. i think if most people wrote that i would be yawning but in this case it totally made me want to high five this ryan guy.

Anonymous said...

oh and phone phobia all the way. i hide behind txts msgs and i like it that way.

DH said...

Riese/Marie: could have, prob should have. I would have left it up if I had been a little more anonymous about my life. I felt like I was cheating anyway, not being a permanent member of NY society. Your replacement is a far superior product.

TB: Cheers, still trying to comprehend Euler's, it's a WIP. Until now, I'd been googling "Oiler's theorem", because I'm a bit slow like that. My mathematical knowledge is seasonal, it only appears at the times when I can't remember it.

ANI said...

Riese – you don’t know me, but I read your blog regularly, and I LOVE it. I don’t know what’s up with my Google Reader, because it showed me three of your old posts as new in the last week, and I don’t think you were reposting stuff from last year. And as much as you hate people with G-Readers, I ALWAYS go to your actual post to read it, thusly bringing your count up – after all, beige is a much more pleasant colour. However, G-Reader brought me to your post from April 17th (with Britney’s ass in the air) and I went free-associating. No, not about Britney. About SarahMcL. About how I used to deconstruct her songs in letters much the same way you did in your post. Back when people wrote letters, in the nascent age of the Net. Tori Amos is good for that too. Totes religious imagery as well. It helps to use the words of a poet/songwriter who already said something you feel to reinforce your point. Which brings me to the point of my comment – lk totes looks like SarahMcL. Well, Sarah before she decided to grow out her hair and stop making good music. I should know, as I’ve been lk’s GF for a few years now. And that whole thing about ghostwriting – she could do it with her eyes closed. I am so glad TB is out of the hospital, and your romance with MetroNorth is no more. Could I trouble you with a question though? Why on earth is your name Riese on the blog?

Anonymous said...

Hey, Hi, Hello.

I´m a different person you don´t know, though not a "regular." I don´t follow any blogs at all, but occasionally I stop here (you are unique: this is not to say that there aren´t other blogs that might be interesting or well-written or funny that I just don´t know about, but you are unique, in that your blog is the only blog in the entire information superhighway that I have visited more than once.)

So after this post I wanted to say something. (There you go being unique again!) Because I should have hated this, if previous experience is any guide.

Perhaps I could try to explain. Blogs make me uncomfortable. The whole point of a blog is the public airing of private space. Here are my thoughts, I will write them on the wall. Now anyone can read/admire them. (Admire them!)

You reference the ME generation and here is one symptom: this proliferation of the "look at what I´m thinking" blog. The problem is more than just the fact that I have little interest in hearing the inner monologue of the vast majority of humans. It is the "public airing" bit that really makes me blog-shy. When you´ve got something really worthwhile to say, you make it even more valuable by not distributing it widely. This is why I feel so touched and privileged to receive a hand-written letter from a friend. These words were made by you for me, specifically. The public forum aspect of blogs seemed to distort and water-down the thoughts of the posters.

But then here, today, you (Riese) have posted this paean to Metro North, which is really a song for TB, and my first instinct was to rebel. This is dirty laundry, this is not an attempt to be funny, this might even be (gasp) some kind of poetry...

But I read through the whole thing and found, through this tiny window into a person who I have never met, a little stream of thoughts, an "I´ve got something to say!" And you're not saying it to me (despite the fact that I can read it on the world wide web), you're saying it to someone you care about, so it´s sharp and precise and the words are all worth reading. And in the end I felt privileged. Even though everybody else gets to read it, too.

So thanks, Miss Riese, this girl, auto-win or whoever you are today, for these few of your thoughts. I´m glad they were out there for me to see. And I just might be coming around to this whole blog thing after all.

Tara said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
riese said...

Whee! It's an insane/ungodly hour of night, I've just returned from Philadelphia, the city of Brotherly Love, where my phone was totes stolen and for some reason I kinda don't really care, and I've been reading these comments on TB's blackberry and want to respond but I couldn't because there's no internet on the highway for some reason. I checked it like every 10 seconds.

annie: I know, I gotta mobilize everyone. Earlier this morning, I decided I didn't actually wanna do it, as I don't know if I'm ready for this daily kind of thing. But now I feel like I do want to do it. Whenever I make up my mind, I'll be mass emailing every blogger I know. YAHEA!!! You'll be so worthy like WHOA.

lain: Thank you. I'm not even gonna like, insert extraneous exclamation point there, just cut right to it [she says as she waxes wordy]: thank you.

And, I know what you mean about blogs and stuff.

Not like I'm trying to plug this panel, as I've decided I hope no-one comes after all 'cause I think I'm going to say something idiotic, but the book "Naked on the Internet" talks about this a little bit: how to negotiate relationships in real life when you're a blogger, (ew, I hate the word blogger, anyhow moving on), especially when your partner also blogs. Even when your partner deletes her blog every two days and then gets an impostor, but whatevs. I think part of it is deciding how to appear as though you're airing dirty details when you're actually keeping most of it back. It's a totes ratio: the more secrets we accumulate, the less I feel I'm revealing as I say more and more. Does that make sense? Anyhow, I know what you mean, and many blogs make me uneasy for that reason.

mercury: Just between me and you: I've read nothing. That's why i majored in English in college, so I'd be forced to read the books I know I oughta, but don't have time to. I learned this weekend that TB's so well read because she's spent long periods of her 20s in particular "cages" where you can't do anything ever all day long but read. So that, it turns out, is the key. Plus you're only 16. You've got time. When I went to Interlochen, I didn't even bring any books. I was like "poetry? whatevs." I read books then, just didn't bring any.

stef: I know! I'm like, how do we go on--like how'll people discover my fantastic transitions now? JK, I mean, not really, but like, ok. Thanks! And totes high five to Ryan! Aw. Miss that kid. Taught me how to withstand cold showers and not be ticklish.

Ani: Yeah, I saw those on my google reader and I was like Huh? When did I post this picture of Angela Chase? Was I drunk? How could I do that? And then I was like, OMG wtf? Embarrassment central. I mean, I didn't even proofread back then! So thanks for liking it, and thanks for liking my blog, and saying these nice things about my blog even back then, and as for the lk mystery which once occupied a remarkable portion of my daily thoughts (of which I have very little), see TB's comment. Anyhow, thank you...because you, my dears, were building quite a mystery. holding on, holding it in. you pay attention, yeah? both of y'all? That's an important thing. If I could die today I'd be a happy phantom.

The "Riese" thing: I dunno. Maybe it's an Alpha/Omega thing. My Mom called me Ree, Krista called me 'Reese,' which she spelled "RIS," and then Haviland called me "Ris" as well, and then when we realized everyone thought that was pronounced wrongly, we decided to give myself an official name change, as Marie always seemed a bit too dainty and Antionette-ish for my rougish tomboyish personality. Now I don't know who I am. But I like "riese," it's the writer of auto-straddle, and when The L Word peeps talk to me, it feels like they are talking to Riese, whoever she is. I don't know who Marie is either, but I never hesitate when I introduce myself to people, I always know who I am at that moment.

Longest. Comment. Ever. I'm hungry. Why's it always four a.m.?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I get that absolutely, with the more you expose the deeper the real secrets hide. The more I say the further I get from the truth. This seems to be a universal rule, even when I'm writing research papers. It's actually comforting, insulating. Bloggorhea indeed.

Anyways, I'll be back, virtually at least. I live rather too far to rock panels and such like in New York. But good luck. !

Anonymous said...

"It's inhumane, really, how we use the same spaces over and over again for different lives."

Amazing amazing line....loved the post

Anonymous said...

Ouch....though I suppose you're right. There was a brief period (round about the time of that Gawker post) where I was the traffic-hungry, attention-seeking, wanna-be NYC-centric hack that I've now come to hate. Took me a while to realize how lame that was (and how it was affecting my writing).

I like to think that since then I've changed my ways. Yes, I still call it "Amish In The City", and to a certain degree it is still NYC-centric, but in a more personal way. I've tried to bring the blog more anecdotal versus observational (when something is NYC-themed, it's less "What's the deal with subways", and more "this happened to me on the subway and this is why it is uniquely funny"), because that's been more fun to share and seems to get the best feedback from the readers (close friends) that I actually care about.

Hopefully you agree?

riese said...

No ouching whatsoever, friend! I assumed you meant that post ironically (totes misusing "irony" in this context, but you know what I mean), so I figured my reference to your post was not, in fact, an insult, but rather a shout out to the supreme humor of writing that post (which was a satire of Gawker's bizarre/questionable selection criteria to begin with, and a biting one at that) and not being linked by Gawker, which I assumed was your undercut intention (because it wouldn't've been as funny if it was linked by gawker). So I was like "Amish clearly knows what I'm talking about, as evidenced in this post, where he makes fun of the things that we do to get on Gawker."

And totes agreed. I've been doing the same, etc.

Anonymous said...

Haha no worries. I wasn't insulted, but I wasn't quite sure if I was supposed to be or not. Your comments about blogorrhea are pretty spot on (that it mostly linked to recycled crap), so I'm glad you found the humor in my post. Kinda surprised you even remembered it...even I forget about half the stuff I've written.