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?)
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.
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.
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.
I like it.
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
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.
[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.")
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 ...
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 ...
17 comments:
I think that I really like this one a lot:
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.
It has shades of a novel beginning/ending.
Also, should I expect UHH to be late tonight?
I had this super-awesome very eloquent and wistful response all written out and then somewhere between word verification and signing in to OpenID, SOMETHING ate it.
It began with waking up (well, already being up) with insomnia at four in the morning, and having a VERY specific craving (um, homemade fettuccine alfredo and a pint of Ben and Jerry's Dublin Mudslide for dessert), and then firing up the laptop and seeing, instead, this post, and then thinking, "OK, I'm satisfied." (Except now I know what I'm having for lunch, which is good.)
Then I went on this lengthy explanation of Twitter, and how even though I am addicted to it I really do not want to read most Tweeters' descriptions of their mochiko chicken plate lunches after which they sat at their desks all afternoon picking it out of their teeth, nor, do I suspect, most Tweeters' want to read about me being blind drunk at Lotus Soundbar and probably not remembering getting back home later. Then I came to your section on your notes, and realized that THAT's what I, and the few friends I actually enjoy reading on Twitter, use our Twitters as: a depository for random, concise descriptions of quotations or even experiences that, while contained with 140 characters, may seem oblique to a stranger reader, but provide us with endless fascination / amusement. (Also, the tech / web industry Tweeters are good for information, FYI.)
And then I concluded with lauding your links of the day, but I usually do that. And there you have it: how one very lengthy yet eloquent reply gets turned into yet another very lengthy and far less eloquent reply (TYPED IN NOTEPAD THIS TIME THANK YOU!).
Oh and also as usual, with wishes for a fabulous weekend, my dear!
juno: Oh, a novel! I'd like that. Fiction. I am over myself, even the shades of me I wish to fictionalize.
UHH will be late. At least an hour late probs, and the opener is bad. Unfortunately we cannot be in Boston tonight, Carly's got a housewarming, but y'all have fun now, y'hear?
atherton: I almost always do it in text-edit (comments), 'cause somewhere between my ideas and the page, something eats something, lightning crashes, my computer/internets die.
And ... ok, that makes sense, re: tweeter. I like anything that condenses thoughts to 140 characters, even my phone's loosened up on that. I think it feels to me like one more way in which I feel perpetually obligated to communicate with everyone yet no one specifically, meaning that there's more people who feel I have plenty of time to communicate apparently but for some reason haven't returned their call yet. I suppose that's a whole blog entry in and of itself. It sounds like AIM away messages, almost, when we were in college and had time to check such things periodically. Facebook, maybe.
I think that fettucine alfredo and ben & jerry's dublin mudslide combines so many delicious calorie-rich ideas in one moment that I can't imagine ever not craving exactly that. Well, I guess, I'd add french fries.
You have a good weekend too, yay!
just for the record: You fascinate me. Nights out are very risky. you must always expect unforeseen events to pop up. Leaving the house in general is risky. But for seeing Camila (and leisha) it's all worth it. I would even consider high heels. just to look nice.
I will stay alive as long as i have chocolate. Chocolatism is the true religion. it's a rich and frothy adoration/doctrine/cult that demands sacrifice, observation and certain levels of reverence and requires worship. which is why i'll stay in tonight with wine and a box of chocolates that i bought for myself.
Post Secret submissions are all fake, FYI. Just like your comments.
i'm sorry! you know i am.
and me and ronnie are going to make it up to you and just come into nyc.
i loved this! i love uh huh her! philly? i could take it or leave it, but like mr dave matthews said, it's not where, but who you're with that really matters. also i would like that fan to travel with us everywhere we go, cause it too was magical.
Glad that you and philly made amends. I've lived here for 3 years and actually enjoy it most of the time (although, as I found out this morning, the fact that our book festival features Barbara Walters (and was generally pretty crappy) does not speak well for us, nor does the fact that "abysmal" is a generous term for SEPTA).
I quoted Phillip White because you posted it in your auto-fun-o-the-day it was a number 10. I read it and instantly loved that line in the poem.
I think it is because I feel like that... I also still feel like the angry sex scene from the L word, but i hope that will pass. It's like you are writing my feelings and you write them better then I feel them, but it is so good to know someone else feels like that sometimes. Thanks.
Anonymous500
all I need is a picture of Tinkerbell in her hot pullover...
I love the writing from your notebook, really and truly. It's beautiful, I'd defo read a book constructed of such thoughts and musings.
umm WERE IS HAVILAND?????
hmvmghk"she's not me and she never will be" hollerrrr -
where am i? cruising around west hollywood listening to the new Madonna, like all the other gay men here!
"we only got 4 minutes to save the world!"
Sometimes the stars do align. I hope that you are not selling yourself too short. Riese, you are a blogging star in your own right, so I'm sure that Alice and her brunette band mate must have felt equally blessed to meet you.
On second thought, no, you are not selling yourself short, this is why I keep reading this blog.
ok so i just got back from a college buddies reunion in SF where we celebrated bay to breakers (basically a drunken, debauched parade of people in costumes posing as a 7-mile race for normal people from the bay to the ocean).
anyway, the point of this story is before i flew home i stopped at google to have lunch with a friend before heading to the airport. in the lobby you have to sign in and promise not to steal secrets, but the cool part is they have this big projection screen that is constantly scrolling random stuff that people are googling at the moment.
so i'm signing in and i look up at the newest entry into the google search bar and there it was right under "sour cherry season"...
"really papi really"
lizthelovinglass: just for the record: thank you. I'll stay alive for cheese, and wine too maybe. Or just for girls in high heels, Camilla, and the occasional blessings of nights out.
dave lozo: my favorite thing about that theory is that it'd take a really long time to fake all those postcards for real. i think it's harder to fake things than to do them sometimes.
eric mathew: i saw your video finally and it was indeed fabulous as promised. can't wait for your big trip!
caitttt: me too, like an entorouge. which i can't spell. I think we've scared her away and now no one will ever yell at me again unless we say uh huh ...
jd: I bet Barbara's hosting everyones book festival this year -- the fact that i watched her interview about it on "the view" doesn't bode well for me, I imagine. I like Philly, it's got nice streets.
anonymous 500: I love that you know my prior auto-fun better than I do, which speaks volumes, and I even googled it. It's beautiful. Anyhow, it will pass -- it took Tina & Bette only about two seasons to move past that, whic h in L word time is like 20 minutes, so I feel like sunshine is aorund the corner.
dani: done and DONE.
a;ex: up your BUTT!!!
haviland : i'm starting to feel like maybe you're serious about saving the world and have for real special powers and if so , say so. now!
pat1mi: that's my new banner "always can be relied on to sell herself short," but also, "appreciates being reminded of her relative merits." It keeps me runnin.
nep: OMGGSADJAJDASJFAKGJAKGJAK. That is fucking AMAZING!!! It really, really ... really is. Hopefully it's someone who was thinking about getting a t-shirt. Or maybe it was Cam, 'cause we gave her one. Wow.
That is the best story ever!
thanks!
tink is THE hot(test) dog.
ummm...done and DONE seems to become a our little gag. haha.
love and greets from old europe.
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