And Her Heart Grew Three Sizes That Day

As you may or may not know, I'm not into holidays, as they almost always require seeing other humans or being in crowded spaces with other humans. Until recently, most holidays required me serving food to massive amounts of other humans for measly holiday tips (everyone eats out on holidays, not just typical eater-outers (do with that what you will), so the tips are generally lower than usual). I think I made a joke that "celebrating every National Holiday to its fullest" is my New Year's Resolution, but I've changed that resolution to "eat more ice cream," and I just did, so that's that. Also, when I said that, I wasn't referring to things like the 4th of July or Halloween, but rather to obscure less-celebrated holidays, like Arbor Day. Because who doesn't like trees? That's right, no-one. Everyone likes trees, 'cause of shade, and paper.

Anyhow, much like what I imagined your initial reaction would be to the political endorsement I made a few days ago, I feel you might think "I wouldn't necessarily go to Riese for advice on any holiday-related topics." But look how good I did on the Obama thing. I read so much that I even convinced myself. That "ho-hum, la-di-da" I added to the end of my up-'til-then impassioned endorsement was meant to be said in a voice of self-loathing, not in an actual "la-di-da" voice. P.S.

However! Now that I understand how primaries work, I feel like less of an asshat for not registering to vote in the New York primaries -- I always (always=the last two elections for which I've been old enough to vote) vote absentee in Michigan, 'cause it's a swing state, and I can't do primaries here and the general election there, and apparently Michigan had no primaries this year, or something, which makes me feel slightly less guilty than I did on Monday when I realized I'd fallen full-tilt in love with Obama and could do nothing about it besides spout off opinions, as I so often do with political causes of all shapes, sizes, colors and genders.

So ... for those of you who aren't old enough to be irresponsible citizens yet, I speak to you from a place of experience and knowledge: being an irresponsible citizen feels like crap. Don't make the same mistakes I did. I rarely say that, so I must be serious. Usually I endorse my own mistakes, obvs, I'd like you to probs participate in them with me ideally. Register.

So speaking of ... I was speaking of something, right? OMG it's almost Valentine's Day! What are you going to get for your beloved? I'm getting Lozo socks and a tie and a super bowl. I have this theory (cue Juliana Hatfield, Jordan Catalano-style) that the less I feel I know what's going on in my own life (in general, this is totally un V-Day-related), the more I feel comfortable telling other people what to do with theirs. Thus this three-peat streak of blog entries in which I tell y'all what to do.

Obvs the best thing to do for any holiday is to show your special someone that you pay attention to them when they talk and that you care about their likes and dislikes. For example, back in the 90's, we used to make mix tapes. You can't do that anymore, because now they've become iconic as a hipster-memento, over-nostalgia-ized/fetishized and can no longer be given without irony. Also no one has tape players anymore. Well, I do. But I don't know about you kids who were born on the internet, you've got all kinds of things going on, a lot of feelings.

You can make a mix CD though, that's still cool. It helps also to name the tracks on the CD so they don't get lost in Track-13-Ville down at the bottom of your itunes post-import. Also really, you should just make collages with poems on them for everyone you love, everyone! Collages, poems and CDs for everyone, I say! Everyone you love!

So if your girlfriend (or boyfriend, if he's feminine enough to enjoy this list) reads Auto-Win (which's statistically unlikely, as I seem to regularly hear from readers who say their girlfriend doesn't read my blog but they do), they'd probs like a gift that would reflect their deep love for this particular corner of the WWW, which's why I feel I can give you advice.

Thursday Top Eight What to Get For Your Auto-Win/Auto-Straddle Fan For V-Day

8. Vodka

This is an easy one. Even if your girlfriend doesn't want to engage in penetrative activities with the bottle, she'll probs drink it, and drunk girls are easy. JK. I mean, they are -- but the point is -- if you mix vodka with cranberry juice, you can barely taste it. If you mix vodka with tonic, you're one of us. Also if you need to get her drunk in order to inspire loooovee, you should probs break up.

7. A Nice Smell

Nothing can ruin a friendship or budding romance like someone who smells bad. Has anyone ever complemented you on your smell? If the answer is no, then you probs smell bad. I'd like to suggest Burberry Brit and/or Victoria's Secret Very Sexy. Also Tommy Girl is always a classic, though now I'm too old I think to wear it. As for boys, I like Hugo Boss and Burberry, but that's just me. Obviously I'm no longer a boy expert.

6. Peanut Butter Crackers

This is just for those of you who'd like to seduce Carly. As it was explained in this vlog, the way to Carly's heart is via peanut butter crackers. There's a lot of ins and outs to PB crackers. The hands-down tastiest variety are the cheese-and-pb crackers, which I have in bulk. Howevs, the cheese often gets stuck in your teeth, and it's orange, and that's not hot. The Ritz-and-PB crackers, then, are a close second.

5. The L Word Season One on DVD

Some of you may be lucky enough to be lesbians/bisexuals with straight girlfriends. You know, that straight girl that you hang out with all the time -- maybe she's even your roommate -- and you act like she's your girlfriend 'cause you're in denial that she's straight and she kinda wants you to act like that (around certain company), and she enables your denial by making sweet love to you on occasion and flirting with you in public. If you get her Season One of 'The L Word,' she'll probs relate to Jenny, think lesbians are cool and want to be one ... and you can probably do it a few more times before never speaking to each other again. But now's the time, because February can be very cold/lonely, people do crazy things in February. Also some of you are straight men with straight girlfriends who want your girlfriend to consider the pleasures of a threesome, this is also for you, gents.

4. Books

As we're all aware now, I love books. Perhaps you could get your wife a book. I think Valentine's Day is a hot time for books that are somehow sexy. I'd recommend randomized erotica books I've been in, but this post is about procrastinating my actual work by writing a blog post, it's not about selling things. Why would I want to sell things, I'm not a traveling salesman or anything, like Jenny's assistant Adele's father is allegedly.

So, moreso than any explicit erotica, I think there's a lot of contemporary authors who do a good sex scene. They do more than just that, obvs, but when sex comes up, they do it right. Some examples include Maggie Estep's Soft Maniacs or anything by Mary Gaitskill -- if you liked "The Secretary," you oughta know it was based on a short story from Bad Behavior. Also, there's always poetry. You should write a poem, or you can go to poets.org, find a poem, and then copy it and say you wrote it. If you do like straight-up erotica though and you're a homo, bi OR hetero lady, you should check out Cleis, they sell good stuff. Also my hero RKB has edited about 500 erotica anthologies, and Susie Bright is basically the godmother of the whole thing, and therefore, her a-store is a good place to go.

3. Auto-Apparel

Clearly this is what we're coming back around to. We'd really wanted to get the merch out by Christmas, because obvs Auto-Apparel makes a great gift. But we didn't. However, there's been a noticeable increase in orders over the past week and I think it's 'cause of V-Day. So ... since I'm gonna be going to the post office anyhow, why not make it really worth my while --

If you order any auto-apparel or stickers before Valentine's Day, you'll receive a Very Special V-Day Auto-Win CD FREE with your order. You can kinda imagine this is like one of those ads they had on the teevee for loooveee songs, maybe they still sell CDs like that? I dunno, it's probs an imix now. This is sort of like mix tapes, that I talked about earlier. This CD will feature much of the music I talk about here on Auto-Win, with a special emphasis on lurrrveee in all it's many forms.

Anyhow, why should you buy Auto-Apparel right now? Here's why:
a). MUSIC: Because you'll get a new CD. If you don't like songs about good relationships, then email me after placing your order and I can send you a copy of "the fuck you breakup playlist,'" which I made in 2003. Actually, no, I wouldn't do that to you, a girl can only handle so much Fiona Apple. I'd make an updated version, with all new songs on it, but the same title.
b) TZEDAKAH: As you may or may not know, the logo that the ridiculously talented Alex 'Semicolon' Vega used for the Auto-Win/Straddle logo comes from a photograph by Layla Love. In fact, most of the photos I do come from Layla. Right now she's trying to raise money for the treatment of her mother's MS (multiple sclerosis) through the Jenny Love Angel Fund she's created (you can read more about the fund and her fundraising efforts on her blog, here). Anyhow, if you buy auto-gear now, 50% of the proceeds will go to her fund ... and that's the kind of holiday spirit I actually do believe in, regardless of my other Grinch-esque qualities.
c) SEX: Auto-straddle boy briefs are very sexy. They say 'straddle' on the back. You know what I like about other languages, e.g., Spanish & Hebrew (the only languges aside from English I've ever known)? Commands. We don't have "commands" as a tense of verbs like other languages do. If we did, we might have a straddle command.
d) TIMING: Okey-dokey so if you order by Monday or Tuesday, you'll get it before Valentine's Day, unless you live in Europe or Australia, in which case, there's still a chance. Also I don't think you have Valentine's Day over there in Guatemala, do you? I don't know.

1. Ella-Ella-Ella-Ella

Every once in a million years, something really spectacular happens in the world -- stars and galaxies collide, universes burst forth with the fruit of their loins, and children dance in the street in color-coordinated outfits, singing sweet & clever songs towards the clean cloudless sky. OMG speaking of clouds ...

The beautiful song that got me through so many months that would've otherwise been spent in raincloud-esque heartache ... ella ... ella ... ella ....

UMBRELLA. Rhianna. Is peddling UMBRELLAS. Guess where? TOTES. This could quickly become a "who's on first" situation, so let me be perfectly clear: TOTES the company is selling UMBRELLAS by Rhianna who sang the song that I love UMBRELLA. I don't actually think you should buy one -- although they aren't that expensive, probs no better or worse than a normal umbrella (which let's be honest, I'm sure you left someplace the last time it rained) -- I just wanted to tell you about it, because I think it's funny. Because ... well ... I love you! Not like that, but you know what I mean.