New Years Revolutions: Time Can Never Kill the True Heart

On December 30th, 2008, I wrote a post that I was going to post on New Year's Day, but I never did because I decided it was too personal in parts, or that I wasn't sure it was stuff I wanted to really say. I think I had a lot of weird situations I was navigating then. Well, I've always had weird situations to navigate, at least since starting autowin and until about a few months ago. I'm not keeping anyone else's secrets now, except for Colonel Sanders, who gave me the secret recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken before he died. One day I'll sell that shit on ebay.

Somewhere in the middle of this unposted post I wrote, "This year I resolve to begin with practice," and perhaps I did just that. Not like I'd anticipated -- but anticipation is just a fancy glowing crystal ball; who needs it.

A few days ago at therapy she let me go early. I couldn't think of any problems to talk about. I navigated briefly into the past, shut that suitcase, complained a bit about not having money, pitched the business to her in disguise as me working out my problems (Luckily that's how a pitch starts -- with a problem. then you state the solution, the solution is your business. Get it? Clever!). I attempted to get worked up about an upcoming three-day period when Natalie, Alex and Brookling will be out of town and then realized I was really just being paranoid. After I'd ranted for ten minutes about Prop 8, I was dimissed.

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I'm sure I do have problems, I'll have some this week maybe. But I gave up trying to change my personality and decided to change my life to better bring out the most functional parts of my personality. That makes it sound so solid, like Legos. But who doesn't love Legos. Asshats, that's who. I don't know. I want to talk to you. With you.

Anyhow this is what I wrote back then. [I just added pictures now] It's weird:

New Years Revolutions + Jaunary '09

I wanted to tell you that people never change. I know that sounds terrible, saying it like that? Especially from me. In September, only four months ago, I declared triumphantly: "... people can fuck you up but people can change. People will change, no matter what the stakes. People CAN change," and now I'm saying that's a lie. I wanted to tell you that people don't really change, not without a serious rock bottom (imminent death, eviction) and people change only when it's time, almost by default. Change can't be imposed by a mantra, an insight, another person or by anything so surface, no matter how resolutely these things poise to attack our stubborn souls. I mean and also people can change, to an uncertain degree of authenticity, with the right cocktail of regulated medications.

Somewhere between theory and the practice is the only me I've ever known. This year I resolve to begin with practice. It's never the bad behavior that bothers me in and of itself, it's the lingering guilt that these prescribed activities/habits are somehow responsible for the circumstances of my life and I feel, somehow, that the circumstances of my life are not enough.

If the circumstances become enough, logic dictates that guilt will then disappear.

When it's you alone -- guilt & other people & resolutions & declarations don't stand a chance against those tiny habits, your attempts to bridge the moat of your very existence, and then what changes is not YOU but the lie you tell me, or yourself.

I do it too I'm saying this to you.

But I'm saying I've seen people I love relapse consistently, sometimes innocuously, and I think nothing happens overnight, things happen exactly when these things better fit into your life.

So I'm saying people change but it takes years if it ever happens at all, so I think that's not people changing -- that's people growing up.

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"You're happy if the thing you naturally want makes the other person happy. If it's not that way, then I don't know. I guess you're in limbo."
- Richard Ford, Wildfire
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Because my story is the only one I'm legally allowed to tell, I'll tell a good chunk of it now. It's not different from other stories I know, that's what I'm saying, there's nothing too spectacular about it, none of my bad habits are that dramatic.

So for the first 14 years I vacillate -- through no fault or doing of my own -- between princess or criminal. It just depended on who was in charge. I had no control because my treatment wasn't dependent on my behavior. It was wonderful and terrifying, I couldn't sleep, I told a lot of stories.

This is the story of what happened next, in chronological order: Darkness. Then watching tv & eating & running away & darkness.

I change because I run away to boarding school and I grow up there. Here I am both supervised and happy and deliciously codependent on R. and then he leaves, and then I pop caffeine pills 'til I take too many to talk or work so I have to stop. Then I am happy, incredibly happy, and then boarding school ends so then I have starving & working out obsessively. Then starving & working out obsessively & overeating & throwing up & flirting & shopping. Then exercising obsessively & overeating & cutting & caffeine pills & throwing up & sedatives. Then I get sick and I am not allowed to work out. Then just starving. Then I get better, get head/body back in shape. Then boys. Drinking & boys boys boys.

Then I get out of control like my body isn't mine anymore, like it's a thing other people can do things to, so then I get a dumb loyal boyfriend. Then shopping & boyfriend's rules. Then this really slow feeling like I wasn't myself anymore, like I was dead inside, like I had merged with the wall-to-wall carpeting and I was the only one with a chance to go out. Then I get fixed with medication, feel like self again, but faster, and I break up with dumb boyfriend three days later. Then starving & drinking & working & working & working & shopping. Then I meet S., get addicted to him hard, we fall in love, he has control, he fucks it up.

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"Help, I've done it again. I have been here many times before. Hurt myself today, and the worst part is there's no one else to blame."
-Sia, Breathe Me
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Then drinking & inhaling anything crushable or already in powdered format & running & starving & shopping & playing The Sims. Then friends return from being abroad. Then inhaling & speeding & addicted to S. and still & drinking. Then friends rally around me and tell me I can change and I think they are right and decide to change. Instead S. comes over an hour later. Over and over. Then swallowing everything crushable 'til I was put on Wellbutrin to ensure that wouldn't happen again.

Then S. stops coming over. Why? Not 'cause I've changed but because I leave the state. In New York now. Working & hooking up with girls & drinking & shopping & smoking & meeting strangers. I wasn't happy, but I was having a lot of fun! Then I meet J. Lying. Go off Wellbutrin, break up with him a few days later. Hooking up with girls, drinking, lying, applying the same fervor to paying off debt that I once applied to shopping -- not 'cause I've changed but because I have more money. Again I have so much fun, occasional bliss, and big plum-sized patches of misery! but such fun in between.

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Do I change here? Not really. I just change my perspective on confidence or something. Also, The L Word, I get addicted to this new awareness of this new culture realizing that the girls I'd always liked might actually like me back. I read & watched & dreamed & went out and spent as much time around and inside those girls as I could & fought with people who'd loved me before all that and were trying to keep it up. Fun but darker than expected. I became addicted to the idea of girl-on-girl culture.

So then girls & drinking & drugs drugs drugs & cigarettes & girls & cross-town cab rides & throwing up. Then I start doing this 60+ hour workweek, but have to take care of M. who's now back from the hospital and I'm too busy for much else but still drugs & smoking & girls, almost because of it, and it's an energized, focused darkness that often bounces and becomes light. Then L. & I become BFFs and I try to make L. change, try to be a living demonstration of how people change, but maybe I hadn't really changed at all, I just talked a lot.

Then I was lying but with a partner-in-lying. We had party tricks & games. Co-dependent. Wicked fun, sometimes. Then drinking & drugs & girls.

Then I meet Haviland, she helps me to change no, she helps me to evolve, no, it's just harder to lie around her so I have to make my life a life I don't have to lie about. Then drinking & drugs & girls & lying. Then blogging & drinking & girls & starving & smoking but actually here is a period where things almost get better, start moving forward, so I celebrate by getting drunk and ruining everything.

Then I stop drinking 'cause I want to help MM stop drinking 'cause she'd almost died of it, and because now I have the internet, and smoking and then ... well ... now we have new things ... and this is where you've come in, probably. This is where autowin became The Real Secret. I'm not ready yet with the story of this, 'cause I can't keep trying to kill those things with storytelling or make it a trump card. I'm trying to be careful with that.

What I mean is ... did I change? Have I ever changed, or do I just replace one bad habit with another, one crutch with another, and as I get older, it's not even new addictions, it's just recycling old ones to fit the void of the day. Do the sickest people I know ever stop being sick? How do you escape a ten-year lie, a five-year habit, how do you ever do that? Is it just replacing one addiction with another? To meetings? To the gym? To balancing your checkbook? I have no problems because I am productive and healthy, because I work harder than most people who never drink or lie. Right?

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"I think people can change dramatically, but not completely. I mean, I've changed a lot since we met, but not completely. I'm still a junkie. I'm still reckless. I'm still everything I always was, but I've been conditioned to hide it better or suppress it. The instincts never change."
(A friend)
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I'm trying to put all habits - -anything you'd resolve to stop doing -- on the same playing field. Like drug addiction is just a good example, but this isn't about that,it's not even about licking the edge of those solid addictions like you're starving for a reason but scared too.

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"In real life, every day you might come to a new conclusion about yourself and about the reasoning behind your behavior, and you can tell yourself that this knowledge will make all the difference. But in all likelihood, you're going to keep doing the same old things. You'll still be the same person. You'll still cling to your destructive, debilitating habits because your emotional tie to them is so strong--so much stronger than any dime-store insight you might come up with--that the stupid things you do are really the only things you've got that keep you centered and connected."
- Elizabeth Wurtzel, Now More Again
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This is about how I wanted to tell you that people never change. Whatever our relationship is to that pit between our heart and our hips that stores all that is compulsive, comforting, familiar, habitual, uncontrollable ... the part of us so essential that it's immune to others' desires.

So one must find another way to evolve or one must trick those same destructive rotations into a new song.

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"The problem with your life is behavior, not disclosure. Secrets are what addiction calls foreplay. If you want to live a life that you can be honest about, live one that is worthy. The answer to life is learning to live."
- David Carr, The Night of the Gun
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What I mean is do what you can to make your dreams come true. Don't assign value to the things you can control and the things you feel you cannot, just control the things you can control until that side tackles the other.

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So I guess my New Year's Resolution/Revolution is to do what I want to do and I think from there the rest of it will fall into place. (Dec '08)

Sunday Top Ten: I Just Wanna be Good

The key to high self-esteem for Grown-Ups is to craft an adult life composed solely of things you're already good at. I don't feel smarter now than I did at age 13 'cause I AM smarter, I feel smarter now 'cause I'm not spending twenty hours a week staring dumbly at mathematical equations, Spanish verb conjugations and photosynthesis diagrams wondering why I've got chapstick for brains. The second runner up key to high self-esteem is alcohol or cocaine. The third runner up is actual self esteem. I don't know what's wrong with you people, what time did you wake up today?

Top Ten Things I Wanna Be Good At But I'm Totally Not
(some are from the list you made in the comments of what you're good at, those are indicated by an asterisk.)

10. **Grammar - It's just kinda embarrassing. I've got several years of education on this topic. I wonder if my occasional mistakes make people violent like how I feel when I see apostrophes in plurals. I really get so upset about it, I'm just sick to imagine what it'd be like if you ever looked at ME that way. La la la. Preposition.

9. Dancing - I secretly love to dance, I'm just bad at it and therefore often avoid it. How do you learn to dance? So far my best strategy's been to get really drunk,'cause then you know I just pick up the beat straight away, it's like magic suddenly I am ready to take baby out of the corner and do that big lift like Swayze-Crazy style.

8. **Sleeping - What a cop-out! I thought seeing "sleeping" as an answer and then I realized no, she is, she's a great sleeper. Her head hits the pillow and she's out, the alarm goes off and she's miserable but up, and I've always been fascinated by those who master this skill I've never -- literally never, not for one moment of childhood even -- possessed. I've generally dated excellent sleepers, sleepers who'll sleep through everything that keeps me up, when I wake up sick, or typing, or not sleeping, or reading or going to the bathroom, getting more water, hunting for chapstick, checking email, thinking thinking thinking thinking. They can snooze away. Haviland's a bad sleeper too, but she wears ear-plugs and wakes up at dawn w/o an alarm.

7. **Writing news stories quickly and efficiently - I am OBSESSED WITH FIGURING THIS OUT. Why? Why do I write so many words? Why are my blog posts so long? Why must I recap every minute if I'm gonna recap a show at all? Why must I be so thorough? What does it mean that I once used David Foster Wallace to justify this behavior and he killed himself this year? It's just I have so! many! thoughts! this is too long.

6. CSS/HTML -- You know that feeling you'd get while doing homework for a class you're bad at -- for me, this was all maths, sciences and languages (by that I mean, "Every class except English") -- a class you're required to take although your brain executes no apparent skill or aptitude for it?

That feeling don't end on graduation day, kids. We've got a kickass programmer now, but there's some things one must attempt to do oneself before one can even tell the designer what to design let alone tell the programmer what to put into code and godDAMN that shit is hard. After I finished my college requirements I thought from here on out, I'll only do shit I'm good at, but no. There's always new opportunities to feel that way, wheee!!

5. **Bullshitting - So I'm working, any job, being paid for something and I'm barely even initiated into the computer system before I begin breaking everything down 'til it barely even exists. I'm at a restaurant and my co-workers are earnestly absorbing information about the specials and I'm analyzing the macro-structure of going out to eat as a luxury commodity, how much food America throws out while in other countries starving children fight over bags of rice, how mealtimes are such an imperative part of family, social and worklife structures, how we've made something so animal totally civilized, and so what if you've got an eating disorder and therefore avoid going out to eat then what do you miss how do people look at you and what if we just talked to each other like real people, why do we agree to accept that the waitress will be nice to earn a tip while we all pretend that she's being nice 'cause she honestly cares, honestly thinks you'll be happier and healthier with Grilled Pork Chops or a soda refill. Well at least this job is better than retail 'cause I honestly do believe that people should eat food, but I don't believe they need a fried appetizer, and this is why it's better for me to just go into business for myself because there's a product I can talk about if it's a passion project and omg DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN! I mean don't even get me started on psychoanalyzing all my co-workers, we could be here all night/day/whatevs/shift.

They say "get a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life," I say, "Get a job you love and you'll probs avoid getting fired."
photo by cass bird
4. Letting Go For Reals - I never change, it's just circumstances that fit better. The only thing that ever helped me get over something was to replace it with something better or to run away or to change everything about my life completely so that whatever I'm holding onto wouldn't have a place in it. I did that at 14 and again at 23. Now I just write stuff so I'm not allowed to forget.

3. Remembering Numbers -- I'm severely, severely number retarded, and it makes me look really stupid a lot. I get numbers mixed up, even after months working at the same address I often misdirected deliveries. Despite frequenting the joint, I gave Haviland's address as "3E" in a recent reply-all and, back in '06 when I first started coming over, she'd have to stand outside her door at "2E" to intercept me on my way up.

It's not just numbers, it's symbols too, any kind of arbitrary pattern, I get mixed up. My first year at U-Mich I sent all my mail to the last four digits of my SSN 'cause my actual address was the same sequence with the first two numbers reversed.

I used to chalk this all up to flightiness and an inability to pay attention. But as I grow into the mature blossom of a person that I am, I realize that it's not. I'm gonna start writing shit on my hands again! That worked before. My hands are the softest post-it notes in the world.

2. **Speed-Reading! SPEEEEEDDDD READDDINNNNGGGG!

1. Winning I'm trying to remember if I've ever gotten first place in anything. Every competition I've ever been in, I've never lost -- I've always gotten 2nd place or some kind of semi-finalist position, but never first. From the Ann Arbor Public Library Short Story Contest for Children to the 50-yard-dash to the ARTS Competition to National Merit Scholars to the Hopwood Awards to the Lesbian Blog of the Year. It's good, always placing but never finishing. Gives me something to reach for and a persistent sense of being one step away from greatness, which enables a humility that's quite necessary when one ventures to talk about oneself so much. La-di-da but anyhow you have two more days to vote! Keep voting! Remember we can't let the republicans win, yes we can.

Oh wait! We won the Uh Huh Her SXSW contest. Does that count? I don't know if our competition was even soapbox derby level.

You know what I was thinking about what I really like in a person? I like people who remember things being better than they were, who conveniently forget the hardest parts. I like that and I like good sleepers, and I like chips and ice cream (not together) and lately I've been really into these sandwich cookies that are like Oreos but the filling is sort of pepperminty.

Oh Carly if you've made it this far: IDEAS. You're genuinely good at ideas. Me too.

Sunday Top Ten: How to Clerk in SubUrbia While Biting Reality in the Mall

"Somewhere around 25, bizarre becomes immature."
-Janet, Singles

Generation X-ers who preferred The Couch, the poorly-tuned guitar and marijuana to "jobs" and "stable relationships" spawned a sub-genre known as the "slacker movie." These films, best enjoyed when you're in high school and it all seems so far-far away, characterized the unemployed/underachieving twentysomething as a beer-guzzling, television-watching, psychic-hotline-calling, mall-crawling, pot-smoking, shampoo-foregoing, ironic-vintage-t-shirt-wearing quasi-hipster who spends 95% of their time tucking their hair behind their ears and pontificating: "There's no point to any of this. It's all just a ... a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details ..." [Troy, Reality Bites], or "I'm nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I've begun reminiscing events before they even occur. I'm reminiscing this right now. I can't go to the bar because I've already looked back on it in my memory ... and I didn't have a good time" [Otis, Kicking and Screaming] or "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for Sega." [Brodie, Mallrats] [Unfortunately, I repeated that one many times, usually re: Tony Hawk.]

Basically, if you, as I did, watched Mallrats, Clerks, Reality Bites, Kicking and Screaming, Suburbia, Singles and Empire Records, in one year, your life goal became something like this: Don't be Brodie. Just like: do anything but that. Don't be Winona Ryder on the phone with Miss Cleo. Don't work retail. Don't buy 95% of your groceries at the 7-11.

Most of my peers have chosen traditional escape from the risk of Slackerdom: employment. However, I've long suspected my productivity would, in fact, INCREASE without employment. Due to this succession of events ...

1. The Great Article-Kill of '07 (P.S. I read the mag today, quickly determined: the kill is this woman's fault.)
2. My Girlfriend Getting Mugged and Beaten, thus landing her in the hospital--and obvs I had to visit daily, bear gifts, etc.
3. The fact that I'm moving this weekend ...

... I can't really start a job right this moment. This does not, however, mean I'm becoming Brodie. I don't even know how to play video games, except Mario Kart. I used to like Jeopardy for Nintendo till I learned all the "questions." I didn't have a Nintendo (obviously they were forbidden in the No-Yellow-05-Zone), my friends did.

I've been working at least part-time since I was 14, which's when I made Honey Mustard Chicken Pasta Salad, mopped floors and stole cookies for $4.75/hour ... so, despite what I see as remarkable productivity, I'm applying for jobs AS WE SPEAK. In the meantime, this is how the hours have gone by:

1. Revising my Resume:
KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE PRIZE, COLLEGE GRADUATES!:
Charlane: Why don't you get a job at the Burger-rama? They'll hire you.
Lelania: Because I was the Valedictorian of my University!
Tom: Well, you don't have to put that on your application.
(Reality Bites)

It's always good to revise one's resume. You can look at it and think, Where've I been? And then, Where am I going? Personally, I'm going to CRAIGSLIST! I'm convinced "items wanted" is the best place to make money, not "part time" or "writing gigs." Like, I'm certain someone's hunting for promo-copies of The L Word Season Four. JK; Mica from Showtime, I'd never do that. [P.S. Rumor has it, no Papi next season. Also, the show in general will be very bad. That part's not in the press release, I'm just guessing.]

2. Reading, Mega-Ancient and Contemporary Catch-Up
STAY LITERATE: "If Plato is a fine red wine, then Aristotle is a dry martini."
(Chet, Kicking and Screaming)

Including: Girlbomb (by Janice Erlbaum, reminded me of Blake Nelson's Girl, reads super-fast and smooth and breaks easy into brilliance when you least expect it to), Revelation (BEHOLD!), Collected Works of Rilke, "Thunder Perfect Mind" [I am the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, I am the Best and Worst Girlfriend Ever], dream whip issue no.14, Gospel of John, Exodus, Plato's Allegory of the Cave in Republic, Socrates' speeches in his own defense [Apology, Phaedrus, Crito], Thomas Szasz's "The Myth of Mental Illness," The Dharmabuddha, and begun A.M. Homes' The Mistress' Daughter, The Paris Review Interviews Vol. 1, Jeanette Walls' The Glass Castle and the Torah. And of course, more than one magazine and newspaper, and many podcasts (This American Life, The Planet Cast At Last!, NPR Shuffle, Fresh Air, The Rabbi-Cast, Grammar Girl, etc.).

3. A Confession:
THE ODDEST SENTIMENTS ENDURE: "Let's save our Hallmark Moment."
(Deb, Empire Records)

I'm watching Jennifer Hudson and Patti LaBelle do some serious justice to Nobody Knows at the GLAAD media awards on logo right now while I eat my sushi and um ... cry.

4. Meeting the Parents:
STAY PRESENTABLE, BE A GROWN-UP: "On prom night at the hotel when you told me to sleep under the bed in case your mother burst in, I did it. And even during my grandmother's funeral when you told my relatives that you could see her nipples through her burial dress, I let that slide."
(Rene, Mallrats)

TB: "No massive black rims of eyeliner, no PDA (sidekicks or side-grabs), no swearing ... and uh ... don't say 'like' ..."

I got Town & Country-ed up to visit Westchester on a Spring Sunday, to sit on the water with big sea creatures on our plates, discuss topics intelligent enough for the 'rents to like me. Like how we color-coded our towels at The Macaroni Grill, and stuck filthy salad tongs in the salad bowls of our most annoying "Family" members at The Olive Garden [cause as TB's brother pointed out: when you're there, you're family]. Sophisticated. It went well. They liked me. Parents usually do like me. Also they usually want to feed me.

5. Manic Depression, Deep in my Soul:
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE PLIGHT OF THE WORLD: "At least I admit that I don't know. I know that things are fucked up, beyond belief, and I have nothing original to say about it ..." (Jeff, SubUrbia)

As you read; I became wholly obsessed and horrified by that whole gun-killing-people-violence-thing. And could do nothing but yell about it, read MSNBC.com, rosie.com, watch The View, and read about gun control.

6.Whoops.

What's really funny is that as I've tried to write this blog post, I've started watching television for the first time this week [except for like, one tiny nibble of America's Next Top Model at Tara/Lainy's place. But that doesn't count 'cause we were having educated conversations at the same time. You know, like in Reality Bites.]

7. P.S. This kid's the future:
FOREVER YOUNG:
Leliana: I was really going to be somebody by the time I was 23.
Troy: Honey, all you have to be by the time you're 23, is yourself.
Lelaina: I don't know who that is anymore.
Troy: I do. And we all love her. I love her. She breaks my heart again and again. But I love her.
(Reality Bites)

Total chess genius. I used to know how to play chess. Now I stare at the board like it's Scrabble and wonder where did my mind go? And then I start to think about the answer to that question: I think it's related, somehow, to that game "Girl Talk." On 112th and Broadway, where Ahmad sells books, he, TB and others play chess, TB gets lesbionic with her acoustic guitar, strumming Hendrix and Zeppelin, while I read Dorothy Parker and Truman Capote interviews and we drink from hidden juice bottles on the sidewalk.

8. Another Day for You and Me in Paradise
GIVE BACK, Y'ALL: "I don't, I don't need money, man. I don't, I don't even need, I don't even need a future. I, I could knock out all of my teeth with a hammer. So what? You know, I could poke my eyes out. I'd still be alive, you know? At least I'd know that I was doing something real for two or three seconds, you know? It's all about fear and I'm not afraid anymore, man. Fuck it! Fuck fear!"
(Jeff, SubUrbia)

My girlfriend's favorite hobby is taking long walks while giving money to homeless people. On Thursday night, we walked from 106th to Times Square, clutching spiked juice bottles, dashing under scaffolding to play tag, which's practically a metaphor for our relationship anyhow: You're it, you're it, no, now you're it ... knock knock ...

We met so many superheroes, veterans, strivers ... one of whom asked TB: Are you a chick? Or a dude? I thought you were a dude at first ... but are you a chick?

She laughed, gestured: totes breasts! Paused. But yeah, I was born a chick ... not into gender/labels, etc., though, y'know?

An Anna Wintour-ish looking woman coldly passed by, large tote-bag slamming into our backs, TB yelled, "It's okay, you got really important things to do in your Prada, yeah? You gotta go check your MySpace, yeah?"

Where Am I Going, Where Have I Been? [a book by Joyce Carole Oates: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? TB bought it at a street-stand for me (We gotta get something from the street-booksellers, support them, yeah? Pick something out? I always liked JCO, envied her productivity, suspected she was slightly un-human.]

For Your/My Reference, Previous hobbies of significant others include:

-"The Yankees!"
-Watching The Big Lebowski in bed, eating Flamin' Hot Cheetos (which probably causes hypertension or cholera).
-Dating other girls.
-Beer Pong.
-Writing Gothic horror films with Joycean overtones, which we'd then shoot in the guest house on his ranch in Oklahoma, and I'd almost pee in my pants watching him select his little farm-boy outfits or when he made his Mom act like a possessed lunatic in Prairie-garb. Obvs, another one of his hobbies was dating boys.
-Dating other girls who happen to work summers as Ariel from The Little Mermaid in Disneyworld.
-Dating other girls who are still in high school.
-Watching whatever movie was showing at the United Artists theater [cause he had free passes, post-management-position] even when that movie was Mission to Mars. Once he made me pick between Pearl Harbor and The Animal. I picked the latter 'cause it was shorter.
-Going to Newfound Glory and Blink 182 concerts, where my BF would recklessly crowd-surf while I ate my fingernails and wished we were playing beer pong so I could pass out on an empty couch somewhere.

Obvs: I've grown/changed/matured as a person. A lot.

Also, while we're on the topic of me indirectly "giving back" ... we tried to go to this Darfur lecture at Columbia, because then we could save Darfur? But we couldn't find it, though we found someone TB lived with in John Jay in a Russian classroom.

Serendipity.

In conclusion, I have only this to say:
Why would I need 5-10 years of fact-checking experience to check facts for Forbes.com? How hard is it to check facts? This world is bogus, and mediabistro jobs in particular.

Sunday Top Five: So Hot Right Now, Joan Jett, Sobriety

Sunday Top 5. Yeah, I know it used to be the Sunday Top 10. But it's at least a thousand degrees outside, my stomach hurts, I'm still in cruise-withdrawl mode, and I gotta go to the gym and come back before Fresh Direct gets here!

Did I mention how hot it is? Jesus. I seriously want to die. It's a good thing I usually stay indoors with the other vampires.

But here's five things to be excited about--okay--three things to be excited about, and two things I'd like to bitch about:


5. The new Joan Jett & The Blackhearts album. Though Joan has been a fashion icon for me, I realized I was one of those lame people who had a fashion icon who's music they didn't really listen to. (Most of the music I do listen to is done by musicians who either dress like granola-crunchy-lesbians or like actual pimps, which isn't a good look for me, and granola has more calories than you think, y'all!) She was on the cover of Curve Magazine this month and I thought "nice eyeliner, I gotta get that album." Not only does she play soundbytes of G.W being an idiot (fool me once, etc), but she has hot bi lyrics like "Switch-hitter/you know she plays the field/she ain’t concerned/as long as its real/top bottom/she does either/always in control/she’s a teaser." That's so much better than the retarded poem that opened the dippiest book ever "Bi Any Other Name," which had similar themes.

4. Sobriety.

I was thinking about it. This plan--(no drinking or smoking for a week)--is still in it's earliest stages, and I might not see it to fruition. But I've been feeling like an asshole lately because I don't get the work done that I need to be doing, and I figured that cutting these things out would help reduce the risk of staying up too late and sleeping in. Not that I party very often--in fact, I tend to really "go out" maybe about 2-3 times a month because I Hate Other People--but I drank a lot on the cruise and I've had a drink or a smoke every now and then since so I'm feeling kinda lethargic about it. Then I looked at Getty Images to find a photo of "sobriety." And this is what I got:

That looks awful! I think I'm gonna go have a drink. BRB.
(JK, I never drink/smoke before sunset! Unless it's a really late sunset.)
Exceptions to the no-drink-drug rule: If someone really needs me to smoke/drink with them. I might consider it. But I won't, you know, initiate.

3.
Overheard in New York #1
At the Bedford L Train Stop:
hipster girl #1: Why are all the L train service advisory signs at this station only in Spanish?
hipster girl #2: I guess it affects an area of Brooklyn so far away that the only people who live there speak Spanish?

Overheard in New York #2
In Times Square, circa 11:30pm
homeless heckler man: Don't look at me in that tone of voice!

2. Question of the Day:
Why do people call me, text me, email me or approach me in person to comment on a blog post, but do NOT, in fact, comment on the actual blog post itself, which is what I need to make myself feel popular? I think that's really annoying, and none of you are invited to my party. That's right. No one. And it's gonna be a boy-girl party, and there's gonna be Hi-C, and we're gonna watch 'Dirty Dancing' and you are not, I repeat -- you are NOT invited.

Okay, I love people and I'm a really happy person, especially today.

So now I want to talk about how hot it is.

1. Anywhere But Here
We in Brooklyn are currently under a SEVERE WEATHER ALERT: HEAT ADVISORY. "Temps will climb into the Mid 90's ... combined with humidity will cause the heat index to climb between 100 and 104 degrees."

AWESOME.

Places I have been on other July 16ths, which I suspect were more temperate than this beast:

July 16, 2005, NYC
LOW-73, HIGH-84
This, I believe, was the day of the legendary water-boiling conversation with Matty (me:"aren't you going to put a lid the pot?" him:"why?" me:"um, are you kidding?" him:"No." me:"cuz it boils faster?" him:"are you in a hurry? i'm not in a hurry."). Even the water that was (not) boiling in that pot in his (air conditoned) room was not as hot as it is today.

July 16, 2004: NYC
LOW-64, HIGH-78.8
Having a 7th grade moment with the cute boy at Niko's on the Upper West Side (seventh grade because we were punished for "socializing" by asshole manager). The boy's name was Jeremiah, eventually we fell in love. It was very air conditioned in Niko's and as i remember not as hot as it is today.

July 16, 2003: ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN
LOW-55, HIGH-81
Most likely working at the Mac-Shack (air conditioned) and hanging out with Scot (air conditioned). Also it was not as hot as it is today either.

July 16, 2002: ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN
LOW-52, HIGH-90
Even though I may have been either at the dentist or fighting with the hoards of assholes at the Ann Arbor Art Fair, it was still not as hot as it is today.

July 16, 2001: NYC
LOW-63, HIGH-84
According to my records, I made $250 waitressing at the Olive Garden on July 14, and was in the middle of an-all-time social-high of non-stop excitement, fun and new people in NYC. And it was not as hot as it is TODAY!

July 16, 2000: SEATTLE, WA
LOW-52, HIGH-82
I was literally PICKING RASPBERRIES. With Sheetal and Meg. I was visiting Sheetal between my move from NYC to Ann Arbor, and Meg was visiting too. PICKING RASPBERRIES and it was NOT AS HOT as it is TODAY.

July 16, 1999: ANN ARBOR MI
LOW-57, HIGH-90
I was probably working at GapKids, going to the gym, being anorexic, or hanging out with Jake. EVEN if I had been working at GapKids and EVEN if all I'd eaten was a Slim-Fast bar that entire day--it would still be better than here because it was NOT AS HOT AS IT IS TODAY.

I would venture to say that July 16, 1981, when I was still inside my mother's womb, was probably more temperate than today.

This guy is supposed to represent today's weather, but he's full of shit. Seriously, it looks like a photo taken from inside someone's cervix at a guy eating them out and they have a lot of white bushy down-there-hair. I know that's the "dirtiest" thing I've ever said on this blog, but I doubt anyone will make it all the way to this part of the entry anyhow. If you did, and if you are my brother or my mother, I want to say this: "Isn't that what it looks like though? I mean, seriously."

Flashback: Warm Nights, Almost Left Behind, Suitcases of Memories...

Post-Ecstatic-Stress-Syndrome.
it's like RSAD (Reverse-Seasonal Affective Disorder, my other disease)
BUT WITH MORE YEARNING.

symptoms:

-totally forgetting that the world is, in fact, not entirely composed of homosexuals [and also straight people who are totally prepared for the fact that you'll think they're gay until they show you otherwise, like by standing around in the breakfast line gabbing like it's fucking Mahh-Jong day at the Miami Beach retirement home while you're trying to make a beeline for the fresh canned pears, not that this actually happened to me or anything, but I think they were on the wrong ship or else had a lesbian daughter with irresistible grandchildren). Continually assuming that everyone who walks past you is a homosexual and thinks you too are a homosexual. Feeling somehow wronged by that.

-complete inability to prepare meals or clean up the results of the take-out you inevitably resorted to eating. persistent delusions that a meal awaits you on the second floor of your apartment building, followed by delusion that your dishes will be removed by a smiling Indonesian man in a navy blue suit.

-attempting to open your apartment door with a plastic card emblazoned with the image of a cruise ship.

-walking on water, like Jesus, but without the water or the holy-ness.

-total confusion as to why everything is so dirty and no one is folding your towels or slipping a newsletter with tomorrow's fun activities under the door.

-forgetting that you have a cell-phone, cash, a computer, or a job.

CAUSE:

going from this:








to this:




Complete Run-Down of All Cruise Photos and Boring Details to Follow Within the next 24-48 hours. I know, you're already jonesin' for it. "Please Marie, tell me all about how much fun you had while I was being boring in my hot smelly life!" Well, don't worry kiddies, I WILL.

p.s. A gross sweaty drunk scary man in the A-C 34th street station at 1:30 AM asked me "all the trains are going that way?" like ten times,
and a gay person would never do that.

We Gonna Sip Bacardi Like it's Lewis's Birthday

Today is my brother's 22nd birthday. This is a little bit crazy because:

1. I'm not a girl, but not yet a woman (Hav and I watched Britney Spears' big-screen debut in Crossroads last night, and so these big questions are on my mind) and he's like, not a boy, but not yet a man. Fuck. What am I talking about?

2. 22 is kinda old. I mean, I was 22 when I packed all my stuff into a car and drove out to New York City and then got stranded on a highway in New Jersey at 2 A.M. Which means Lewis could be doing retarded things like that too, which is scary. Clearly I just want to talk about myself.

3. He still has the skin and youthful vigor of a man half his age! (aw, Lew!!!)




(That's me and Lewis, a few years ago)

4. I totally haven't gotten him a present. One year Lewis mailed me a bunch of shrimp and crabs and Scot cooked it and it was delicious. I don't know how he did that though. I don't like going to the post office, because everyone who works there is semi-incompetent, so I'll probably mail him a less perishable kind of thing, like a card.

I thought I'd share this diary entry in which I relayed the events of Lewis's 8th birthday, which was, by my calculations, about a million years ago:

"We had chocolate cake for breakfast. We went to Major Magics for lunch with Marie and Tony. It was cool. It wasn't very crowded, either. I got 111 tickets! More than I've ever gotten. We ate din-din at the Great Wall, this cool Chinese restaurant."

Hey, seriously though: if tomorrow I woke up and had chocolate cake for breakfast and then was told I was going to earn 111 tickets (which is like, at least a stale candy necklace and a plastic cup) at Major Magics and have Chinese for dinner, I'd be pretty fucking happy. Like, possibly LOLOLOLOLO happy, and maybe even OMG LOLOLOLOLLL happy.

What the fuck happened to Major Magics? Chuckie Cheeses? Showbiz Pizza? I want to play the game where you hit the turtles that pop up in the little holes with a mallet. And Skee-Ball. Possibly like ... forever.