Auto-Fun of the Day :: 6-9-2008

Mom's going back to the midwest tonight, and then ... well. No. I'm remembering now a conversation from my prolific past of advice-giving (I'll bring this back around, I promise) with a friend who was having troubles with her significant other. "It's just really hard right now," she said. "We're both totally stressed out and overbooked and busy working [insert ridiculous amount] of hours, not sleeping, and with [insert additional health or job/apartment/family-related difficulty], we're just both on edge --" And I was like "But you've been saying that for years. It's always like that. You're going to have to stop waiting for things to go back to 'normal' to get better, because I think stressed out and overbooked is your 'normal.' This is where you're going to have to be working from when you're trying to make it work." Anyhow, I think they screamed at each other for another year or so before breaking up, I don't remember -- the point is: I was about to say, "and then I'll get back to a normal blogging schedule," but clearly there's actually no such thing. Also I don't now what happened to me that I started using "blog" as a verb, and like ... often. But next Sunday would be a primo opp for a Sunday Top Ten, and Stuff I've Been Reading is happening, and so is more advice columns (have you read our first one?!), and the Carly Vlog! OMG! What am I talking? I gotta get crackin'. Auto-fun is good for me though, it makes me read and stay aware of the webbernets world.

Oh um : askautowin@yahoo.com. Send us your questions. I know you have them, as well as feelings., 'cause if you didn't, you'd be Old Macdonald E-I-E-I-O. Today I found out that even though my Mom has a degree in Hamburgerology, she never finished McHamburger School for reals 'cause she got preggers w/me which makes me feel a bit guilty. I dashed her dreams and it would've been really fun on Take Your Daughter to Work Day if I could've had all those french fries. No worries, everything's coming up roses! I'm gonna be a writer, like Ann M. Martin.

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quote:"No I can't write for you because I have promised myself I wouldn't take on any new writing deadlines for a year because I'm working on a self-assigned project and I don't want to continually be distracted from it. I am of course continually distracted from it enough as it is, it seems like I work on it less than everything else, in fact, very admittedly just-in-time if you will. The pieces I'm making continue the theme of "structures that fit my opening," a phrase that speaks quite directly to the question of necessary, of forms that fill entryways, needs, desires, etc. ... Maurizio Cattelan was once quoted as saying: 'If I didn't have any shows, and there wasn't any interest, I wouldn't do anything." Right now I don't want to write anything now, and yes, I sort of have, but this doesn't count, or does it?" (From "DEAR X" by Frances)

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links:
1)Peach Arse has got your book all ready: "You're Not the Only One - Charity Book for Warchild: "Ok, so it took three months, but rest assured it is three months of BRILLIANCE, of EXCELLENCE, of carefully chosen GORGEOUS bits of writing, of lovingly tendered editing and proofing, of gently nurtured and carefully catered for tastes and styles and with over ONE HUNDRED BLOGGERS' ENTRIES - woo hoooooooo!" (@peach)
2) Sad Doesn't Have to Mean Hungry: Elif Bautman is commissioned to dig up what all the sad young literary men eat to help her friend Carey, who's writing this article on the topic of Keith Gessen's chosen feedings from his novel All The Sad Young Literary Men. "Rice and Beans for Grad Students" has an answer. (@steam thing) (@muskegee phoneix)
3) How to organize or get rid of your book collection. (@the washington post)
4) A Grrl and Her Gun : On Valerie Solanis, author of the SCUM Manifesto, who shot Andy Warhol in 1968 -- ", her work has the rare virtue of seeming at the same time totally insane and totally right." (@the la tiimes)
5) Everyone has to go out and buy The New Yorker if they want to read the latest offering from my favorite author Mary Gaitskill. Here's the abstract. (@the new yorker)
6) It's summer! Time to buy shorts! SHORTS! The word "shorts" sounds like a quick and swiftly applied physical punishment. "Watch out or I'll short you!" etc. (@nymag)
7) Lesbian and Bisexual Women in Reality TV 2008. "For the first time ever, this week there are at least a dozen lesbian/bi women in prime tine TV reality shows. With the exception of Jackie Warner, all of the women on all of these shows appear to be drunk, almost drunk, wishing they were drunk, or pursuing a career in "promotions" or "theme bar waitressing." No judging, I've got no career and no likker. Just saying. I don't want our people to be just as retarded as their people. Is this democracy? (@afterellen)
8) Salon suggests summer reading, this week's category is memoir. (@salon.com)
9) I mentioned the butterfly effect on Friday. Now someone's written an article about "why pop culture loves the butterfly effect, and gets it totally wrong." : The Meaning of the Butterfly (@boston.com)
10) David Sedaris might occasionally exaggerate the truth for dramatic effect. Doesn't everyone? Since when have memoirists been held to higher standards than even our friends & family? Anyhow, he's funny: What You Read is What He is, Sort Of. (@nytimes)