Sunday Top Ten: Anyone Living Anywhere Else Must Somehow, In a Sense, Be Kidding

I'm in Washington, D.C., home of the world-famous United States government, with Haviland and Cait. The hotel just hooked us up with a free bottle of wine to ease the pain of our recent move from the third floor to the fourth floor on account of the heat being broken in our previous room [Haviland's resting body temperature is -56 degrees, and it's wintertime]. I said I was gonna drink it 'cause it's hard to turn down free alcohol, but then I tried to, and turns out that Merlot tastes like ass. But, I keep drinking it and I'll tell you something, it gets better and better. So ... D.C. -- on Saturday night, we had dinner at this restaurant called Manhattan's, and it closes before we're done drinking. I ask an employee for a bar rec. He asks "What kind of scene?" and I say, "No douchetards or assholes." And he says, "There's [BLABLA] bar or [BLABLA] bar but you should go to [TURNED OUT TO BE LAME] bar, I say that because you're wearing black nail polish." I've got no clue what he means, so I ask: "Black nail polish? What does that mean?" and he says something lame and clearly not memorable about my alternative lifestyle and I'm like "Oh, is it really dark? Do they play goth heavy metal music?"

[Disclaimer: This thing needs to be proofread like WHOA, will do in the morning/afternoon.]

Unfortunately for me and my dark dark soul: no, it was packed tight with douchetards, the music was way more Hootie than Ozzie. We went somewhere else, it was awesome, life is awesome, I could never live in this city, there's a lot of pearls and Republicans. I've been here many times, and on recent trips I just feel like I'm in enemy territory. Apparently, according to Hav and Cait, it's unwise for me to keep yelling "Praise Allah!" in public. Whatevs, Shalom, Republicassholes.

I can't imagine a job in D.C anyone'd hire me to do [cash register at the HRC shop? They've got cute Marc Jacobs and Heatherette tees, seriously, buy one!], but regardless: absolutely could not live here right now. I'd considered Georgetown once, but when I visited, my friend advised against it. She said all the guys were ugly and wanted to be politicians or news anchors, and all the girls just wanted to marry them. She said it was grey all the time.

So Cait, Haviland and I started talking about where else in America I could never live. Then I had to write a Top Ten, so here we are.

SUNDAY TOP TEN:
MAJOR AMERICAN CITIES I'VE BEEN TO THAT I COULD TOTALLY NEVER LIVE IN FOR THE PURPOSES OF LIVING MY ACTUAL LIFE
FOR A PERIOD OF AT LEAST ONE YEAR

First of all, if you live in any of these cities, I'm sure you're very nice and your city is secretly awesome, because you're reading this, and people who read this are the best kind of people. In fact, many of you do live in these cities. I know this 'cause I've got a sitemeter, though it thinks I live in Virginia, so who knows, maybe by "Cincinnati" they mean "Bangladesh."

Second of all, I'd live just about anywhere if I was building houses or helping people, even in D.C. I'd live in D.C to teach kids to read or make birdhouses. OK, mostly I'm talking about New Orleans -- obvs I'd live there if I was building houses or feeding people or performing juggling for people w/o houses, but I couldn't live my normal life there.

Cait suggested a major city in Alaska for a spot on this no-go list, because it's always dark, but I love the dark. As I've mentioned, I'm a vampire and I find dark days verify my negative attitude. Also, everyone's cuter in the dark, dark come soon. I can't stand the rain. This Merlot is supposed to taste like ripe plum, maybe they mean "ripe bum." I don't like intense heat or locales where people are always wearing bikinis. I hate New York, it's unbearable, but I love it too, it's beautiful, so what can you do?

10. Atlanta

Firstly, it was really hot. Oddly enough, I've dated or bffriended many Georgia citizens and thus been there many times, which's weird, since I'm super not-Southern -- I'm not particularly polite, I'm not into facades, racism, the cotton gin, slavery, heat, willow trees, or massively confusing endless highway systems. I just felt like we spent every day stuck in traffic with a bunch of sweaty people in business suits. It was really hot.

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9. Orlando

Firstly, it's so hot there, and there are fireants. If Carly and her hip friends like Cesar hadn't lived in Orlando as grown-ups with free will [as in, they weren't born there or forced to move there as slaves or prisoners of war or managers of Darden Restaurants], my overall impression of Orlando would be 100% negative instead of 99% negative [the 1% = obviously cool people do choose to reside there for college and consequently kinda enjoy themselves]. So, that withstanding, it's about a thousand degrees, filled with tourists and amusement parks and is in Florida, responsible for the impending apocalypse via the Bush Administration. It's just got no discernible personality besides headquartering a million bizarre corporate commercial entities, like my former employer Darden Restaurants and Universal Studios. Strip mall, strip mall, $9.99 All-You-Can-Eat Crab Legs, Mickey Mouse tickets.

Also, I love Disneyworld, seriously, I love visiting Florida and surfing on the sandy beaches. Just wouldn't want to live there.

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8. Oklahoma City

Firstly, it's so hot there. Strip malls, real malls, cars, houses like other houses, houses not unlike other houses. No cowboys. Tornadoes. Where are the gays? I feel like OC is one big chain restaurant that serves baby back ribs and the waitresses have orange tans and serious push-up bras. The best part was Frontier City. Here's the thing: I can live somewhere totally ridiculous for about a year. Baltimore? Nashville? Miami? Sure, I'm totally in, hilarious. That's sort of my policy for life: you must be good, or you must be so bad that you are hilarious. Unfortunately, the ratio of cowboy-themed amusement parks to insane churches in OC doesn't enable it to cross that line from "bad" into hilarious, sorz.

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7. Detroit

I just wrote this whole graf about Detroit and then looked it up on Wikipedia to verify my facts and learned that apparently people do live in Detroit and it's on the up-and-up, which's awesome because in addition to losing sleep thinking about the state of the publishing industry and what'll happen if musicians run out of melodies, I spend a lot of time worrying about Detroit. I just can't believe how empty so much of it is, and how badly the automotive industry's outsourcing has affected what was apparently a once extremely prosperous city. Anyhow, before I learned that somehow I've managed to miss every populated area of Detroit proper on my 10,000 trips there (Also: I'm not counting suburban Detroit, which is super-duper populated, obvs, my Moms live there, clearly, and also Somerset Mall, also a lot of annoying Jewish girls, I can say that, I'm Jewish. Also: if you think you've been there you probs haven't, the suburbs are where the Pistons play, and the aiport.) I'd written the following: it'd be hard to live here 'cause there's not much housing anymore, it's like ghost-city, all depressing dirty streets and blown-out buildings, remnants of the '67 race riots and the GM factory shut-downs. Honestly to geek out for a minute; I'm utterly completely OBSESSED WITH DETROIT. I'm intrigued by its downfall, its rapid ruin, the fact that white flight's enabled suburbs to thrive while the urban fabric crumbles and crumbles and then; crumbles. One of many interesting things about Detroit is [still here? still listening?] is Woodward Ave, where I've been many-a-time for concerts or shows at the Fox, it's nice and busy, about five solid blocks of bustling commerce. But literally one block further east or west and you are in a completely dark scary ghost town where most of the buildings are literally abandoned, just giant empty buildings.

This website's got a really through visual archive of Detroit's ruin, I find it endlessly interesting.

There's a pretty hot music scene in Detroit (seriously, like punk, techno, indie rock stuff), and one sumer night we came in for a Saturday Looks Good to Me show at this hot bowling alley venue, then went to Mexicantown for dinner and on the way home it was raining so bad the streets were flooding, but we sped through in Jake's bright red mini-van and the puddles splashed up against our windows like a car wash. It was like driving through Haunted House/Splash Mountain.

But seriously, there's not a lot of places to live there anymore, so I'd either be living on the streets drinking Mad Dog from a paper bag or with Eminem in his trailer. That's fine, trailers are hard-core and portable, probs bigger than most NYC apartments, but Eminem has serious issues.

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6. Salt Lake City

Because of the Mormons. You know like Julie on The Real World. They don't like lesbians/gays or alcohol, my two favorite things. Once I went to Mormon church with my ex-boyfriend to see his friend speak about his trip to the mission, but it wasn't in Salt Lake it was in Vegas, but whatevs, so, they let all the kids run around in the back and scream during the service. Seriously, it's hard enough to be holy without babies screaming and hurling plastic toys at the wall, I've got no clue why premairtial sex is a sin but being annoying yelling children is totally encouraged. My agent's family is Mormon and we had dinner with her sister and I got drunk (surprise) and asked them a lot of questions about if it was hard to not have sex and they were like "Nope, my relationship with G-d is really important," and I was like wow. Seriously, that's impressive. Good job.

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5. Houston and/or Dallas

Firstly, super hot there. I'm breaking my "no cities I've never been to" rule, 'cause I'm confident I'd hate both these places without stopping by to check. It's hot, I think everyone likes football and eats a lot of meat on the bones like ribs and steak, and G.W. was once the governor. I'd like Austin, but the rest of this state I'm skeptical of. If you live there though, you're awesome, there's an exception to every rule. Um, nice boots. Love cowboy boots. On the floor bedow bowwwww.

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4. Cincinnati

Seriously, what's in Cincinnati? Besides some of my family members and The Reds? I don't know. I don't even feel like looking it up, I get bored just thinking about it. Oh! The Abercrombie & Fitch headquarters is there, I think, right? Totes.

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3. Las Vegas

Firstly, it's really hot. What's brill is once upon a time I considered living here 'cause my ex-boyfriend hoped to move there when we were grown-ups [in his weird fantasy world where I could spend one additional minute of my life with him w/o clawing his eyes out] because there's no property tax in Vegas. That's really why. I don't know why I thought I could do that. I guess there were a lot of things I thought I could do then that really don't make any sense to me now, like be his girlfriend. How could you possibly live in a city that exists for tourists who come to Vegas specifically to do things they wouldn't do at home? I don't even gamble or know how, what a waste of money, I'd rather go to a strip club with Lozo and let him waste his money. 'What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.' What if your LIFE happens in Vegas? Is it all giggles and buffets? Because that's a lot of buffets.

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2. New Orleans

Firstly, so hot. My brother lives here, and la-la-loves it. We're very different. E.g., he's an engineer and works to help get this city back on it's feet, I'm an aspirant and I work to tell retarded jokes at the expense of myself and others. I went to his graduation and lost my mind, though I felt exuberant when Ellen & Bill Clinton spoke at graduation and I enjoyed seeing my brother & his laid-back friends. The Ninth Ward made me despondent. Though my reputation may suggest otherwise, there's nothing about "The Big Easy" that appeals to me. [Ha! Ha! Seemed funny when I wrote it last night.] Everyone in NOLA's so chill, which gives me anxiety, I've got this New Yorkish affection for anxiety, depression, misery and multi-tasking. Also, they had this Hurricane, our retarded government completely fucked up, and a naturally chill attitude combined with missing street signs, no housing, a reduced labor force and people who've been seriously neglected with no-place to go equals a really long line at Rite-Aid. Also, really, girls show their tits for BEADS? Beads? Are they magic beads? There are so many things about the world I don't understand.

Anyhow, see disclaimer above, I'd live in NOLA if it was in a helping-people situation, just not to like, live normal life.

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1. Washington, D.C.

Hiya. Seriously, this wine gets better and better. Maybe I coulda lived here when my fave prez Bill Clinton was in office, but it feels funny now. I don't know. It's corrupt here, isn't it? They got a rough treatment in my "Fucking Around" story, to be featured in the "Dirty Girls" anthology. Most people I've passed on the street look like someone I wouldn't mind punching in the face, though I love the bookstores especially the incredible gay bookstores. Pretty streets. I'm not a salesman or a politician, I'm too into honesty, obvs, to a fault ... though I hope to be a full-time activist one day, you know, to change things. Education, mostly. I'm ready for a new president. I miss Bill Clinton. What a multi-tasker, that one.

In any event, it's been a fabulous weekend, we walked a million miles today. The city's essentially deserted on account of the holiday, it wasn't that cold, and I like just being away, from my little emo cave, and everything. Love this hotel. We'd all like to live here and be little Eloises, just bathe and wear white bathrobes and drink coffee and eat fruits and things. So good to chill w/Cait and Haviland, who're both tucked neatly into bed and sleeping while I type away like a lunatic.

It's been such a strange fucking year. It's funny; my animosity towards D.C isn't so violent as it was a few months ago, it's like, everything is a mess, what do we do? Pick up pieces, move on. Look forward. I've got hope there'll be space in the clear on the other side for a reconciliation of some kind for this effin country and I'm praying that that isn't all there'll be room for ... we do small things, here and there, press on, wait for the next joke and laugh at it, we crescendo, we dance. We wait for the next joke, even when it's on us. I feel like laughter's pretty pure. There's lots of pure pretty lovely awesome things actually, and friends. I look at New York and I wonder how she does it.