Actual Sunday Top Ten: Built A Wall of Books Between Us in Our Bed

OMG, this is the first Sunday Top Ten I've written in eons! Earlier I asked you for book/music suggestions to fuel me during National Novel Writing Month and let me say if there is anyone out there who still doubts that the internet is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time ... this is your answer. I've got a kickass playlist started now and will be checking out Aimee Bender stat -- if you've still got suggestions than please do go ahead and gimme gimme gimme more, even though I've now deleted the part where I told you what I wanted.

"Trying to write a novel" is a familiar feeling to me. Every word I write feels like a word I've written before. Why? Because, according to my hard drive (which doesn't contain early typewriter or PC-penned works, e.g., the YA series The Pink Parrots about a girls baseball team), I've started approximately 10 bajillion novels already. Let's comb through the ashes of my prolific output, shall we?

Why have I written so many novels? I don't know. Have I ever done anything with any of these novels? No I have not, except Jennie Novel, which I mass produced & binded properly for distribution at emerson middle school. My friends gave it five thumbs up and then my Dad gave me a stern talking-to regarding how printers age. It's not just about the ink, which is replacable, but about "wear & tear" on the printer. V.important to know.

Anyhow! I've signed up for NaNoWriMo 'cause I like to live on the edge of a mental breakdown at all times, putting in as little sleep as possible and spreading myself thinly across a variety of unpaid projects so that I can live up to my family's expectations by becoming a very promising & talented failure who once published an article in Marie Claire.

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TOP TEN NOVELS I WROTE [OR STARTED] BEFORE WRITING THIS NOVEL

My earliest works are mostly adolescent attempts to write the life I wish I had and to do my best interpretation of an Aaron Spelling television melodrama in novel form. Inspired by Francine Pascal, I'm sure.

I was seemingly obsessed with things I'd never done: boys, girls, drugs, parties, shopping sprees, fancy best friends, drunken evenings of wild revelry, etc. But yet I never wrote a protagonist with a living, breathing father -- I manage to get all the way into "Tara and Becca" without mentioning ANY fathers whatsoever, as if they'd never existed. Oh, The Land of Mothers.

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10. Jennie Novel (1993) - Let's Get Sick and Cry!

Word count: Unknown, as this file no longer exists (never fear, I've got a hard copy) and I'm not sure if the lyrics to Now and Forever count as words anyhow. FINISHED!

Inspired by Lurlene McDaniel and Major Depressive Disorder, the story of a girl who's friends are dying of cancer or something. She paints murals in trance-like states, spends a lot of time sitting on the front porch thinking, cries often, and seemingly listens exclusively to the League of Their Own soundtrack.

In addition to the fantastic play BUT THEY ARE MAD and the screenplay HIGH ON LIFE [which we read from in this video] we also found JENNIE NOVEL while packing up my apartment in August and read some sections out loud. I asked Stef if she could say a few words about it:

"I'd place it somewhere between Crime and Punishment and Are You There God? It's Me Margaret in terms of its influence on the trajectory of my adult life. I remember there was melodrama and cancer, and I remember wishing I had a copy of my own that i could keep at my bedside always."

(Stef, a.k.a Uh[Hu]ltragirl)

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9. Fly By Night (1995->1997) - My Name is Cornholio, Give me Fire!
Words: 29,919 - FINISHED!

Began as a short story called "The Firemaker," clearly attempting to capitalize on the popularity of Steven King's "Firestarter," which was a big hit amongst the popular boys in class I had crushes on. Erin runs away from home with her little brother Tommie who complains she's spent all their food money "on matches." Erin meets a Jordan Catalano look-a-like named Fly down by the schoolyard and together they build a home, family, etc., and then send dear Tommie to live with a foster family. Erin recovers from her dangerous addiction and gets her G.E.D.

Opening: "Erin threw an isolated flickering flame into a pile of boxes. The fire was instantly spread. Box after box slowly turned to black then dissolved into a small white ash."

It's the large white ash you've gotta look out for kids, FYI.

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8. 1995 (1995) - The Secret Life of the American Teenager!
Words: 28,642 - UNFINISHED!

Due to its explicit sexual content, I kept this diary-style novel hidden on the family computer in a folder called "School Stuff." I know, I'm very smart, I learned that and other stuff in school. It appears to be the story of a girl who goes from unpopular to popular, gets better clothing and a boyfriend & then another boyfriend -- much like the storyline promised to me by 'Teen Magazine if I used Love's Baby Soft.

Opening: "After school tomorrow I go ride Black Knight, my horse. If it wasn't for him, I don't know what would keep me going. It's like I'm so depressed all the time. I have no friends, I don't get good grades, no one thinks I'm pretty except for my parents. I have only two friends, and they're both losers. At least I have some money."

Last paragraph: "We went over to his house and smoked pot, and had sex. Then we ordered pizza, and his friend, Jack, came over, who was really funny. We just joked around a lot. Then Tyson drove me home, and I gave him head on the way back."

I know! !!! I guess after that there was really nothing else to say?

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7. Fate and the Love Triangle - 1996 - Like a bad chick flick, in words!
Words: 22,634 - UNFINISHED!

Luckily this particular polemic lays out its plot & purpose straight away: "This is a story about the Lovelock sisters: Louisa, Winona, Gabrielle and Claire, and the four men who are fated to be with them -- the four men who are the only ones in the world who can make these four women happy. This is a story about love, fate, friendship and the importance of sisterhood."

Apparently attempting to dethrone Louisa May Alcott with a contemporary tale that tackles the Big Issues. I just want to add that Winona (named after Winona Ryder, my Number One Girl Crush) works at The Gap and when they go to Kroger's, Claire gets "popsicles, candy, soda pop, Kids TV dinners, frozen shrimp, frozen mozerella sticks, frozen pizza, frozen bagel bites, blueberry bagels, cream cheese, Handi-Snacks and Fruit Roll Ups." Much like my own shopping list at that time.

Adventures in naming: Eye doctor Michael Martini, U-M student/paramour Leonardo Alexander, band Blind Eye Dog

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6.Tara and Becca - 1996 - TACCA!
Words: 16,146. UNFINISHED!

I reeled this clutter from the depths about 1.5 years ago when I did a search on my hard drive for "Tara," trying to locate I guess something related to my then-girlfriend named Tara.

Like 95% of my adolescent writings, the narrator loses her virgnity, rebels against her Mom, admires her friends' mini-skirts, gets raped maybe, becomes popular, goes shopping, is torn between boyfriends, and has intense sexual yearnings towards her best friend and idol, Tara.

When I found this seminal work I showed it to T[ara]B and later we read it together out loud, LOL'ing at its inanity and well -- so many odd things. Beginning with -- how odd, the character's first name being Tara.

And how odd, the opening line: "Tara is so crazy. I mean, when I get around her...it’s like I can’t even control myself anymore."

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5. Underground Nation - '96 - Let's Rave!
Words: 9,124. UNFINISHED!

"imagine this story as a fully dressed person who by the end is naked." Written in loosely punctuated bizarre half sentences and run-ons, reading this work is comporable to being trapped on a Shanghai-bound airplane with a speed freak 16-year old who won't stop talking about her boyfriends, super hot bff sadie and her bubble gum.

I must be imitating someone, unfortunately for myself I think this is when I read A Clockwork Orange.

nouns invented for crazy underground nation: pissant, crazyheart, mallboy, firesmoke
adjectives: sexyhot, nextofkin, funashell.

description of a rave: "walking in there originally to the rave, just a lot of all strungout people like here and there. downstairs just red lights, drugs and music real good music and people just dancing in their underground minds...diffrent than the one in the daylight and in the lifetime that is to be seen."

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Once you enter the world of writing-related academia, novel-writing falls to the wayside in favor of shorter forms. Or perhaps it was just that I got older, and had less leisure time, or that I liked my life well enough that I didn't feel the need to immerse myself in the alternate reality enabled by writing novels.

Instead I wrote a memoir, short stories, articles, essays, screenplays, teleplays. Unfortunately! 'Cause obvs we're all on the edges of our seats about Tyson and the BJ.

'Cause I might try to pass these novels off later when I can't find a new metaphor, I'll stay illusive (jk, I just don't know how to figure out what they're about, as they were all Corrections -style polemics intent on family history before plot development).

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4. Untitled. Apple Works Doc Name: "Book.cwk." - September '03

Words: 3,740 - probs shorter than this blog post! - UNFINISHED!

Opening: "In the picture at the zoo, I am four years old and I am wearing courdoroys and stylish Adidas sneakers. I have blonde pigtails and a genuine smile that says nothing but Look at Me, I am in Front of the Elephant. Look at the Elephant!"

sidenote I totally know what picture I'm talking about there, and it's adorbs.
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3. Untitled. Apple Works document name: "A big Book." - January '04
Words: 5,184 - UNFINISHED! (not such a big book after all.)

Opening: "My first tragic experience with another man's legs occurred in line at Showcase Cinemas, where my father and I were giddy with excitement for the release of The Never-ending Story Part 2."

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2. Untitled. Ambitious Doc Name: "Great American Novel." Nice, Riese! - April '04->June '05
Words: 17,925 - UNFINISHED!

Opening: "When Leah was apprehended on the roof of Moore High, she was wearing an army-green bikini and cradling a water gun bigger than her thigh."

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1. For A Girl - August '05 - January '06

Words: 32,539 UNFINISHED!

I might actually still write this one so I CAN'T GIVE IT AWAY! It was actually gonna be a seriously well planned YA series y'know like Gossip Girl! Abandoned it when the bisexuality book project started. Howevs the older I get, the further away kids these days become, they're probs all robots by now who don't know how to grow a tomato. I think I often write for adolescents 'cause I feel they'll be more tolerant of suckage. The title was inspired by the Madonna song. "What it feels like for a girl ... " etc.

Also I think I totally recycled/revamped the intro for relevant inclusion in the blog post "The Night Starts Here." This is the first sentence from that book, lame as it might be: "The thing is; we all feel we have gotten away with something. We are spies in a cheap detective movie, Elmer Fudd in body glitter and sunglasses the shapes of crop circles."

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The Autobiography of Sancho Panza - right now!

Why am I writing this post? To remind myself of the 190,853 words (giving Jennie Novel 20K) that I've written for no-body and to make myself finish this one, because clearly the only promises I've kept since the 90's have been ones I've made here, to the blog readers of the Great Universe of the Blogosphere Webberhead.

I think I'm gonna finish Underground Nation, in the first scene A;ex and I are going to go to a fancy benefit (her firm did their design), get drunk for free and then actually willingly go to Nation just to dance to good music for three hours.

Then I'm gonna come home, be super drunk, tell A;ex if she wants to have a serious conversation we can talk about Gossip Girl, wake up on Sunday super hung over, and write this. It's like autobiographical, but with suspense, mystery, life, love, truth, death, heartbreak, dancing, and feelings, all wrapped into a sandwich comporable to The Catcher in the Rye meets Rubyfruit Jungle. Buy together and save 30% on Amazon today with The L Word Book, Annie on my Mind, Lying: A Memoir and Prozac Nation.

Autowin Book Club #2: Lying, by Lauren Slater

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"Sickness demands compassion, but even so, one can be forgiven for wanting to throttle the narrator of Lauren Slater's latest book, Lying.''
-Rebecca Mead, "Stranger than Fiction: Lauren Slater's Lying: A Memoir."
The New York Times, July 16, 2000
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Angela Hayes: "What are you trying to accomplish in writing Blue Beyond Blue [a book of fairy tales]?"
Lauren Slater: "I wasn’t trying to accomplish anything through the book. The plan wasn’t to put the stories in a book and publish them. My goal was the same as it is in my other writing in that I wanted to create a world through words that was palpable and tangible and could stand on its own."
- A Conversation with Lauren Slater.
small spiral notebook, Summer 2005
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I have a lot of feelings about this book because speaking of lying, have I got some stories for you. I mean it -- that's just how beautifully I've worked it all out, that my life's narrative and this book's narrative have come together unexpectedly but perfectly, offering numerous "factions" for me to weave into a multi-layered tale of drama & intrigue relevant to our discussion of Lauren Slater's memoir, Lying. Butttt ... I'm not gonna tell these stories. Of course, I can tell whatever stories I want to, but wouldn't that be silly, to do that, just because I can.

I've been asking "why the lies?" a lot lately, and though I've found answers for many of the situations begging this inquiry, I haven't found an answer to justify -- or even understand -- Slater's lies.

Here's how I see it: you can lie to protect people, lie playfully with postmodern intent, lie 'cause you can't help it, lie 'cause you're pathological and it's what you do, lie to save your ass. I've accepted lies, overlooked stories I should've been looking over and trusted when I shouldn't have. But generally the liars I've loved are people with hearts -- thus me loving them in the first place. They display, somehow, a degree or remorse, humility, self-awareness, responsiblity or, lacking all these things -- at least a reason, even if it's a fucked up reason.

Furthermore, I've lied in my writing. I've lied to protect people, lied about a fact to get at an emotional truth, lied to clean up a narrative, lied to protect myself professionally, legally or emotionally.

But I can't seem to figure out exactly why Slater is so entitled to her lies, besides "Because I can."

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"I'll tell you about lies. There are white lies and black lies and many shades of grey lies. Some lies are justified. Lies told out of kindness, lies that preserve dignity, lies that spare pain. Everybody's a liar dear."
-Abraxas in conversation with Jenny, The L Word

"What's so great about the truth? Try lying for a change. It's the currency of the world."
-Dan, Closer
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Maybe, since I've already written all my good stories but I'm not done talking about myself (oh man! I've barely even started! Watch me go! memememeeme!) I could tell you a story about someone else, but say it was about me, 'cause it's a metaphor for how I really feel, which is detached. I was just talking to Alex about Lying, which she loved or hated or maybe didn't read at all, and she said she would've liked it better as a novel, like James Frey's Bright Shiny Morning.

I said Bright Shiny Morning doesn't stand up to bright & shiny mornings themselves, which I actually love, because I'm not really a vampire as I said, it's just a metaphor for how I really feel, which is hungry and heartless and pale. That book I talk about that I'm writing is basically A Million Little Pieces with a lesbian reveal on page 256, with extra drunkenness and unemployment. It might not be about that at all, but that doesn't matter, 'cause it's a metaphor for how I really feel, which is abandoned and lost because of my mother, who was mean, and because of my father, who I never met 'cause he was on the road selling things, and then he died, thus becoming the inspiration for the book Death of a Salesman, which is actually a play, but they print plays in books now, because of the Industrial Revolution, which is a metaphor for the theater, literature, death and my father.

Anyhow back to Alex, who only read half this book. Speaking of lesbians and halves, I'm not actually gay or even a bisexual, it's just a very current marketing angle and besides, boys are impossible to communicate with and I'm tired, and bisexuality is a metaphor for how I actually feel, which is conflicted. I'm inspired by Lindsay Lohan, Haviland, and Alex who did not read Lying 'cause of the internet, which I don't believe in, but the internet is a metaphor for how I really feel, which's alienated and lost without my mother, who doted on me like a princess, but not a real princess like Tinkerbell, who might not look real, but feels very real to me.

Anyhow if you want to read a good metaphor for bisexuality you could read Orlando, by Virginia Woolf, which is one of the reasons why I'm gay, or metaphorically gay, but mostly it's because of my mother, who missed my college graduation for the WNBA finals, and is not really a social worker, but a nun, and a saleswoman, and Tinkerbell, and the only gay in the village. The End! DISCUSS.

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"I love that there's a secret
behind every secret I've ever told."
-Stephen Dunn, from "Loves"
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"I had not known, until then, that beauty lived beneath the supposedly solid surface of things, how every line was really a curve uncreased, how every hill was smoke."
-Lauren Slater, Lying: A Memoir
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I hoped Slater was attempting to explore one of the following ideas, which interest me:

- Lying as a Valid Storytelling Device in its own right: Slater argues in her introduction to The Best American Essays of 2006 that "Sickness is the natural state in which we humans reside. We occasionally fall into brief brackets of health, only to return to our fevers, our infections, our rapid, minute mutations, which take us toward death even as they evolve us, as a species, into some ill-defined future."

Similarly, I'd argue that deception is a natural state in which we humans reside. We occasionally fall into brief brackets of total honesty, only to return to our excuses, our withholding, our salesmen and our politicians, our exaggerations, our rapid, minute white lies, which take us toward death even as they evolve us, as a species, into some ill-defined life of storytelling. I'd argue that truth and lies aren't good vs. bad, there's tons of nuance, and I find investigations of this stimulating and compelling reads. From time to time, Slater does explore this issue: "Why is what we feel less true than what is?" (pg. 162) and so forth. At these times, she's poised and interesting, vivid and educating.

But ultimately she doesn't seem to prove this point for anyone besides herself. She argues that truth is nuanced and therefore she can write an un-true memoir, but she doesn't argue that anyone else can (or should), nor does she ever explain why her story needs to be told at all, or why it matters, or why this experience is so crucial, so vital -- just begging to be addressed -- that she needs to go through all this metaphoric struggle to begin with.

-In order to make "sane" people understand the crippling nature of mental illness, we must explain it in physical terms: It's difficult to be a privileged white girl writing about mental illness without being scoffed at, call it the Elizabeth Wurtzel effect.

I understand first-hand how much more impact one's description of mental illness becomes when it's manifested physically, or visually.

When I explain I'm having a major depressive disorder episode, I get eye rolls and frustration/confusion -- "snap out of it." When I say the fibro is making my whole body throb and ache (why? 'cause I'm having a major depressive disorder episode) I'm supported and helped.

But, ultimately, this is just the point I want Slater to make. It's not the point she's actually trying to make, though the beginning gives me hope: "I wish I had epilepsy, so I could find a way of explaining the dirty, spastic glimmering place I had in my mother's heart."

Ultimately, she convinces us that her story can only be told as a metaphor rather than through the facts themselves. But beyond that ... so what? We get only that she CAN, and so she will, 'cause she's a liar, and she must. But why must she tell her story at all? I don't know.

Is it because she already told her story, and it was time to write another book and she doesn't like writing about things other than herself? If it's all one big post-modern exercise, than perhaps we should've been informed of this, rather than being lead to believe the story was somewhat true and somewhat untrue -- as in, she isn't just lying about epilepsy, she's lying about all of it. She's writing a novel with her actual self as the main character. Which is neat, and fun, and cool, but she could've done that without all the dwelling on the revolutionary self-importance of her lying and her compulsion to do so.

Does she do her subject justice? What is she doing at all? Postmodern memoirs like A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius are fun, playful and adventurous, but Lying feels self-righteous, especially 'cause she fakes seizures in hospitals without recognizing the time she wastes of everoyne around her. She's so self-centered, it's hard to care much about what happens to her.

Though she's willing to cop to being a liar or a bad person, she's not ready to accept responsibility for the effect this could have on other people, or for how this reflects on her quality as a person.

Undoubtedly, she's a gifted writer. I mean, she's so good! She spins a brilliant sentence and a compelling page. I underlined, I loved the quotes, there were sections that spoke to me clearly and directly. I'd read it again in a heartbeat, I looked forward to picking it up, and I'd recommend it.

Yet at the same time, she sometimes made me feel sick to my stomach. It was often too close to home. I sometimes wanted to punch her in the face.

And the more I research Slater, the more confused I am about how I'm supposed to feel about this book. So I'll stop talking and ask you how did you feel about it.

1. In The New York Times review (The Last Word) of Lauren Slater's book "Unpacking Skinner's Box," Laura Miller writes: "[Slater] is not above manipulating her readers, while technically avoiding inaccuracy, if it will make the tale more potent. This recklessness is both the kernel of her talent and her nemesis; she is forever threatening to cross the line." Do you feel this applies to Lying?

2. In her New York Times' review of Lying, Janet Maslin writes: "It is not likely that the reader's interest in Ms. Slater's medical and philosophical condition will rival her own." Does it?

3. How did you react to the love affair with the poet teacher at Breadloaf? Haviland and I reacted very differently to it, and I'm curious how other people felt.

4. Does it matter to you if the story is true or not? Would you have read it differently had it been a novel?

5. What was your favorite scene?

6. Do you think this book would've been written differently now in the post-James Frey internet age, when facts are more easily and instantly verifiable?

7. The primary difference between a memoir and a novel, as I see it, is the meta-story implicit in the memoir. When reading Jeanette Walls' Glass Castle, to pick a popular example, the story is not only what's in the book, it's also the story of a woman who survived homelessness and insane parents and lived to tell the tale, and eloquently. If her story isn't true, then it's just the story, which is fine, but that's a novel.

There's some things I want to tell you, and you can tell me how you feel about them, and if it changes your feelings about this book.

So What She Lies, I'd Lie to Her Too:

a) The forward is presented as a letter of endorsement and praise written by Dr. Hayward Krieger, Ph.D., a philosophy professor at the University of Southern California.

Dr. Krieger does not exist.

He is a character invented by Ms. Slater, who -- when called out for this blatant misrepresentation -- sent a letter to the NY Times as Dr. Krieger expressing "his"/her outrage at this discrediting.

b) Ms. Slater was born in 1963 and began at Brandeis in 1981, which puts her at Breadloaf Writer's Conference in '81 -- according to the narrative she was 17 and it was the summer before college. She cites Francine Prose as an instructor and Mark Strand as a visiting poet. Prose did not begin teaching at Bread Loaf until 1984. Mark Strand's years:'73, '82, '84, '85, '92, '93. Slater did, without a doubt, attend Bread Loaf (she describes it in detail in her well-written introduction to The Best American Essays 2006), but she did not attend at the age of 17 in 1981 under a different name, as she says in this book. Consequently I doubt she had the affair she describes either.

c) Ms. Slater's memoir "Prozac Diaries" apparently is the true memoir she claimed she wouldn't be able to write. In Prozac Diaries, Slater recounts growing up with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and depression with two sisters who were not mentioned in Lying. The book was praised for its honesty and passion. Apparently she then felt the need to write another memoir about herself, but with a different syndrome than the one she already wrote about. This sort of makes my head hurt just to think about it.

d) In Lies, Lies, Lies, Yeah: Lauren Slater's book "Lying," on blogcritics.org, Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti -- who is also an epileptic -- has this to say about her description of the illness: "For all of its cinematic imagery and consistent with epilepsy symptoms (for the most part,), it's lacking some of the personal detail that I would expect from an epileptic, and also, for someone with temporal lobe epilepsy, a condition for which hypergraphia is a major concern, the book is remarkably short. It's that Slater is almost too perfect in her fucked up, epileptic fugue and the tale she tells that gives rise to doubt."

e) There was quite a stir over Slater's book Unpacking Skinner's Box, in which she "re-tells" the stories of major psychological experiments. Take a gander at this particular argument, from beatrice.com.

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"Is the urge to make meaning a misguided human coping mechanism that gives a false shape to our existence? How best to live? To die?"
(Lauren Slater)
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"Thoughts?"
(Haviland Stillwell)

Sunday Top Ten: We Didn't Do It

"We think of our lives as a series of events ... of things happening one after another. But it's just as accurate to see our lives as a series of things that don't happen to us."
(Ira Glass, intro to "We Didn't" episode of This American Life)

She did it, she boarded and flew all the way across the country, away from New York's industrial erections and valiantly towards somewhere that made up for its failed promises in baths of well-lit potential and it wasn't just her who did it. People move in body if not in mind, and finish novels and start revolutions and quit jobs and lose weight and get really into yoga and sometimes I do and I will but when you think about it -- and I have, 'cause I have a lot of thoughts happening at once in my head -- there's way way more things that I didn't do.

Sunday Top Ten
We Didn't Do It

exhibit a: things i was gonna do

10. California Here I Come

I didn't move to California or Michigan but I L.A apartment-hunted online. I didn't say goodbye to all that and disappear like heaven on wheels but if I'd had the financial means I would've left this apartment before they asked me to but I didn't so I didn't. I didn't move to Walden Pond but I looked on craigslist for cabins in the woods. I didn't leave for the summer or the winter but I packed for both. I didn't move to Australia but I downloaded the form to get a passport and left it on my desktop where it still stands today, awaiting my attention, having survived the acquisition and subsequent fall of a new passport in the meantime.

9. You Had Time

I didn't write my book. I took a lot of notes. Mom & I voyaged to the Michigan storage space to excavate the artifacts of my little life and Mom said she'd kill me for losing the key to my locker's lock 'cause we had to pay for a chainsaw 'cause I was supposed to hold onto the key but I didn't. I read books for research and I assembled my notes & research & wrote an outline, marketing plan, etc. But I didn't write the actual book 'cause I'm not ready for such substantial truths and so I decided to write a novel instead but I didn't. But I will. "Did you know it took Diaz 11 years to write Wao?" I wrote to my agent. "This segues neatly into my next topic ..."

8. Falling is Like This

I didn't jump out the window but I did forgive you except for the few times later on when I didn't. I didn't overdose on anything though I felt my heart beat so hard inside my chest I thought it might leap right out of my body on legs of its own, bound across the city and get on a plane and leave me all alone, heartless. I didn't ever go heartless but I did get sad and mean. I thought I could make it all better and I tried but I didn't.

7. Out of Range

I didn't apply for an M.F.A. program but I sat at B&N with books and copied down lists of the best schools, sent out for brochures to put into the file folder "Graduate Programs." So I didn't move to a room of my own in Iowa City where it'd get so quiet at night that I'd feel my sober heart beat like a horse. I didn't move to Missoula to forget about reality and embrace my past friends as characters.

6. And Darling

I didn't write back to many emails & I've got 182 e-mails in my draft folder and some of them are for blog-readers. I generally try to discard drafts rather than keep them but sometimes 'cause of auto-save I didn't.

Of the 182 e-mails I never sent: 33% = to exes, 33% = jobs , 20% = angry rants to friends & 10% = emails I thought I DID send but didn't.

These are the titles of some of the emails I didn't send: Sancho is Not Retarded, obvs it's me so it's not good news, STOP., Typist Position, that's fine I'll send you three emails in a row I'm not above that, portfolio samples, copy gig, part-time assistant, your blog makes my firefox crash, fall or silence, UPDATE, room for rent, communication, re: apts and such, Pick Me! So Qualified!, um., guestbian blog, the summer they electrocuted the rosenbergs, this is stuff for my book that i am going to write about myself because i am self-centered, home is where my habits have a habitat, some things i wanted to say to you.

exhibit b: things i was gonna do

5. If I Gave You my Number

I didn't try to track down anyone's phone number when my phone got stolen so I didn't ever keep in touch with anyone I knew before that time though I didn't ever say I would anyway so I didn't.

4. Take me Anywhere

I didn't go to Reno or China or the West Indies but I researched plane fares and packing lists and room rates. I didn't go to Paris and I didn't apply for Yaddo but I did download the application & inserted it into the "writing-work related" folder and I bookmarked some web pages.

3. Walking With A Ghost

I didn't start The Factory but I watched Factory Girl and started to read The Diary of Andy Warhol but I didn't finish it. I looked at warehouses online all over the country but I didn't look at any in 3-D but I still believe in it and I'll make it happen, I didn't yet but I will.

2. Fix You Up

I didn't make my resumè into the kick-ass thing it wants to be but I did look at resume examples and read books about resumès and made ten different copies of my resumè for different kinds of jobs but I don't like any of them. I didn't put together a copywriting portfolio but that's 'cause Brian didn't send me my samples and I asked him twice. I didn't call Natalie's temp agency and I didn't work at the new Starbucks just to make it go faster and I didn't start that Sacred Altar business with Mary or sell that teevee show with Carly and I didn't send that new pitch to New York Magazine and I didn't do the Best Idea EVER yet but I WILL.

1. As Cool as I Am

I didn't stop writing this blog. I didn't do another comment contest or make Autowin totebags or black shirts or continue Great Mysteries of Life or The Year in Review. But I mean I'm still writing this blog. That's something.

I thought the whole world was gonna change in January and it did but it didn't change exactly how we'd expected. But when I say now that I feel like things are falling in place I'm not taking about magic anymore, or blessings or karma, I'm just talking about people and stability and change and calm that's tangible. It's like the year of magical thinking, and if you haven't read it I'm not giving anything away when I quote the last lines: "You had to feel the swell change. You had to go with the change. [John] told me that. No eye is on the sparrow but he did tell me that."

I love ending a blog on an obliquely optimistic note. I think if I sound vague, it's 'cause I feel vague too. Vague ... but good.

I'm trying to think of the biggest thing I didn't do and I'll write about that later but first I'll ask you; what didn't you do this year?

Stuff I've Been Reading: January 2008 Edition

"A Hilarious and True Account of One Man's Struggle With The Monthly Tide of The Books He's Bought and The Books He's Been Meaning to Read." -the cover of The Polysyllabic Spree, by Nick Hornby

Nick Hornby does a monthly piece in "The Believer" called "Stuff I've Been Reading," about "the how, and when, and why, and what of reading—about the way that, when reading is going well, one book leads to another and to another, a paper trail of theme and meaning; and how, when it’s going badly, when books don’t stick or take, when your mood and the mood of the book are fighting like cats, you’d rather do anything but attempt the next paragraph, or reread the last one for the tenth time." For those of you who aren't into reading, let me add that Hornby wrote the novels High Fidelity and About a Boy. I bet you liked those movies, right? Lozo can quote About a Boy. See, I pay attention. I'm bloody Ibiza. I once turned down an outing w/a cute boy to see Hornby read at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square. "I've got dork stuff to do," I explained. It was the most crowded reading I've ever been to aside from David Sedaris , which actually involved buying tickets. A few weeks later, cute boy cited my choice of a reading over drinking-beer-with-him as one of many reasons he crushed on me. Anyway, now he's married to the same girl he was long-distance dating then, so it worked out for everyone: him, me, his wife, Nick Hornby, Lozo, all the lesbians in the Niagra Falls area, and you. So right. Hornby's first column (with full text available online) contains more mission-related detail -- I personally discovered "Stuff I've Been Reading" via Hornby's book The Polysyllabic Spree, a collection of 14 such columns, which I read in '04. Last week, while reading The Believer's 50th Issue, I thought: "OMG! I should do something like this on my blog!" That's right; I'm going to talk about the random books I read and I'm floating this idea -- a monthly column -- on a bright burning ray of hope that at least 3-4 people will care? Also, The Believer (fantastic magazine, p.s.), has a particular favorable-review-only policy, which Hornby describes like so: "The Believer has taken the honorable and commendable view that, if it is attacks on contemporary writers and writing you wish to read, then you can choose from an endless range of magazines and newspapers elsewhere -- just about all of them, in fact -- and that therefore The Believer will contain only acid-free literary criticism." He got in trouble for trying to circumvent this by stating that although he couldn't comment on the overall quality of a certain book, he'd say that Crime & Punishment was definitely better. I generally believe this too -- there's no point in totally bashing a book, unless it's soooo super-super bad that I no longer care about the author's well-being, like Pure by Rebecca Ray or Smashed or anything by Ann Coulter. Generally I wish good things upon all authors and writers of books, even Dan Brown and Plum Skyes. Also, I wouldn't want a good writer to google themselves, find this, and be like "OMG, who is this nobody saying bad things about me? Where's HER book?" to which I can say: "I'll never tell/I dunno, I can't spell." But also I have an honesty problem. I'm going to see how this plays out, hopefully in the author's favor. Most of these book links go to my amazon associate account's a-store, which means if you buy something through that link, I'll get about two pennies, and I think by 2020, those pennies will add up to approximately 30 bucks, and then I'll buy everyone their own dog-purse like Tinkerbell and obvs , hook the world up with a Coke. That's not why I'm doing this, I'm only mentioning it 'cause it'd annoy me if you bought a book I talk about by opening a new window when you could just link through here and therefore help Tinkerbell get a flea collar. Just a few more things: -I'm following Hornby's format (BOOKS I'VE BOUGHT, BOOKS I'VE READ), with a few of my own additions (MAGAZINES READ, WEBBERNET, and BOOKS BORROWED/LENT OUT) -When I say (finished), I mean that I started it in another month but finished it during the month in question. -It's good to have someone in your life who engages with literature even more intensely (or as intensely) than you and can make recommendations -- this role has been filled by many peoples over the years, including my agent when I worked at the agency every day, Krista when I lived with her, Meg/Ingrid/Sheetal/Delp/John while at Interlochen, etc. Right now it's a friend who I'm going to call "B." (named after the second letter of the alphabet -- the first is too confusing, 'cause it's also its own word) because it makes me feel literary and mysterious, like a spy in a really juicy novel by my favorite author James Patterson. JK! Never read JP, but he sounds thrilling. Maybe I'll have a contest about B.'s identity and you could win underpants.

JANUARY 2008

BOOKS BOUGHT: Party of One: A Loner's Manifesto, by Anneli Rufus A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, by Haruki Murakami Drown, Junot Diaz BOOKS READ: The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, edited by Tobias Wolff (finished) Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress - Susan Jane Gilman (finished, audiobook) A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto, Anneli Rufus Re/Search #13: Angry Women, edited by A. Juno & V.Vale BOOKS LENT/BORROWED: The Safety of Objects, by A.M. Homes - to Alex The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls - to Haviland n+1 (literary journal) - from B. JANUARY ISSUES OF MAGAZINES READ: New York Magazine (4), The Believer, Marie Claire, Glamour, Nylon, Curve, The Paris Review, Esquire, Bust, Bitch, Missbehave, n+1, Women's Health, Lucky, Vogue.

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I don't smoke, I don't need to lose ten pounds and I could never give up the drink, so my major New Year's resolution was to Read more. I mean -- I actually already do read plenty, but I want to do more concentrated reading of books (sitting down. reading.) -- I'm always reading online, at the gym, or while waiting for something (e.g., Godot, the doctor)/in transit, but I also bitch to whomever'll listen that no one sits down to read anymore. That means I'm bitching about myself, which is bad for my self-esteem. Also, January's a hot month to execute this kind of thing 'cause the weather is shitty, there's plenty o' new books from holiday season, and I went on vaycay! Pre-vacay, Cait and I went to a tiny used book & music store on 72nd where I got A Room of One's Own and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The latter is likely to stare at me and beg to be read for at least five months, but it had notes in the margins, and so I had to get it, I love other people's notes. The others I got that day at Barnes & Noble -- Drown 'cause Diaz's new novel's been all over the year-end lists & award circuits and I've enjoyed two stories of his in The New Yorker this year (Alma and Wildwood) , The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle 'cause a commenter told me to read Murakami and it was on a front table and I thought "a-ha!" and Party of One 'cause I saw it on a table last summer and have wanted to read it ever since and thought now is the time. A lot of my reading choices are influenced by B&N table selections, which troubles me, w/r/t the ability of B&N to dictate cultural trends.

i. The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories Though the actual ability to read a ton on vaycay is totally overestimated, especially when your friends are as fun as mine, I do find airplanes specifically conducive to reading -- flying from Newark to Fort Lauderdale, I finished, finally, The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, which I've owned since the high school writing class I bought it for, back when I used highlighters instead of pens -- I've made an orange mess of Dorothy Allison's (BRILL!) "River of Names" and Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" (one of the best short stories ever written). Apparently we were only assigned a few stories in this book, school is awesome. I've got a few books like that -- unfinished that I carry from apartment to apartment -- and I always end up reading them when I've just finished something else, haven't picked up anything new & exciting that fits my mood and need something to take with me on the train right away, I'm like, OMG, "Hello, you! I want you back now, let's get it on!" and then I pick it up. I'm totally OCD about reading anthologies: I force myself to read every story/essay, even if I've read it before, and I didn't mind re-reading Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," Mary Gaitskill's "A Romantic Weekend," Kate Braverman's "Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta" and Joyce Carole Oates' anthology staple "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" It took basically all of December and January to read this book, especially when I got stuck on stories I didn't like, e.g., stories about Native Americans or Pioneers. I'm into post-electricity lit. The anthology was understandably heavy on men w/midlife crisises (and their corresponding issues with alcohol and/or fidelity), and stories related to war veterans. Wolff himself wrote one of the greatest war memoirs I've ever read (In Pharaoh's Army), so it's probs like the Best American Essays that Susan Orlean edited that was suspiciously heavy on birds and nature. It also introduced me to some new writers I want to find more of, through stories like Scott Bradfield's "The Darling" (which I read on the Metro-North, which means I must've read it in early December, which means I suck at life to finish it two months later, wtf was I doing all that time?), Robert Stone's "Helping" and Ralph Lombreglia's beautiful portrait of my favorite kind of dynamic -- the Sancho/Don Quixote thing, aka madness & its sidekick -- "Men Under Water." There were also stories by many other writers I've enjoyed like Stuart Dybeck, Richard Ford and Joy Williams. What a canvas! I feel much smarter now. Good call, Mr. Driscoll or whomevs. ii. I Also, Coincidentally, Need a Room of My Own and 500 Shillings I started A Room of One's Own on the plane and felt fully retarded for not having read it 'til now, it's clearly the basis for everything that anyone's ever thought ever, especially women, lesbians, female writers, and smart people. The book itself continued to fall apart (literally) as the trip continued, its pages threatened to fly away at the Tranquility Pool in Key Biscayne, and it's currently bound by a rubber band. Normally the combination of old-school writer + falling apart book + poolside = not gonna happen, but I was totally into it and read it in about 24 hours, even though I was in paradise and the pool was tempting. Also, it was short. Woolf addresses the issue of a woman being unable to write when she's expected to raise children and be financially dependent on her husband -- a burden which has lessened significantly since her time obviously, though not altogether -- and I found myself thinking about how writers, women in particular, are now expected to work full-time, maintain a social life, and somehow ALSO write novels, which's really hard. It's romantic -- the slaving away on one's laptop during the Metro-North commute, scribbling poems on napkins while waitressing -- but it really blows to have to do that. 

  iii. I Have Been Alone For a Very Long Time My therapist right now won't talk to me about my desire to cut my social life by 75% (from perhaps two live encounters a week to 1/2 a live encounter) until I'm completely finished reading Party of One: A Loner's Manifesto -- which's billed as "a recognition of loners as a vital force in world civilization rather than damaged goods who need to be "fixed"' because she knows how I get with books. How I get = I want to change my whole life when I get into a writer's particular ideas. So anyhow, I finished it a few days ago (it was an easy read), and I still feel it's time for me to stop apologizing for my inherent anti-social behavior and not let people be mean to me about it! I'm a loner, I love myself, I'm okay, I'm good enough! Combined with A Room of One's Own, I feel a large majority of my seemingly irrational or psychologically unsound beliefs about the world (and being a writer) have been validated through literature this month. I'm even more self-righteous than I was in '07. It's probs how a lot of people feel about chicken soup for the soul, but I don't like chicken soup because I don't like chicken in that context, I doubt my soul wants any either. My soul is vegan. The writing in Party of One (which I began reading on a beach chair, pausing frequently to read passages out loud to Cait, like this one: "Someone says to you, 'let's have lunch.' You clench. Your sinews leap within you, angling for escape. What others thrive on, what they take for granted, the contact and confraternity and sharing that gives them strength leaves us empty. After what others would call a faun day out together, we feel as if we have been at the Red Cross, donating blood.") got a bit over-the-top and melodramatic at times and, had I not been in the author's camp, I probs would've found the defensive tone offensive (which I guess was the point) (isn't it annoying how I keep writing in brackets?) but anyhow I loved it, it changed my life, just like it changed the life of amazon reviewer I.B Cooper. This is probs how angsty depressed teenagers felt discovering Elizabeth Wurtzel. It's like "OMG! There I am! This is mememeeme!" In fact, I've got SO Many feelings on this topic, and was SO inspired and excited about this book that I'm saving it for another post -- next week or the week after. Get excited!

iv. Adventures in Audio So I listen to audiobooks, which is totally uncool. But I joined audible about a year ago 'cause Krista told me to, and I want to pack every vacant minute of my life with consumption-of-literature and/or archived episodes of This American Life. I'm still perfecting the sort of book to listen to -- nothing dense, important or complicated (you'll miss about 25% of it unless it's for a long road trip), nothing I'm reading to admire the writer's style specifically (no underlining), nothing that might suck (I can't preview it or take it back) -- but I think that short humorous essays are generally a safe bet, e.g., Jonathan Ames' I Love You More Than You Know and Wendy Spiro's Microthrills. In January I finished the brilliantly titled Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress (Susan Jane Gilman), a memoir who's name I'd run across a few times when doing market research for my own book. The book, like most memoirs, didn't grab me right away -- I'm well-versed in the childhood w/urban hippies stories, and as I read in The Guardian this month, "childhood is never interesting" -- but I was fully engaged by the time she reached adolescence and adulthood and started crushing on Mick Jagger. Refreshingly free of man-hunting stories, Gilman's voice is honest, entertaining and quick and her stories were pleasurable and funny, like good chick lit. (There is such a thing.) Had I read it in print (I should've), I would've probs found it less cutesy than I did -- the reader's voice was grating & my heart is 95% darkness. Oh well, too late now. I listened to it while I walked, washed dishes, waited in line at Starbucks, did crunches, rode crowded trains. If anyone listens to my hypothetical non-existent book this way, I'd be horrified. iv/a. Every Girl Is Straight Until They're Not? When I read memoirs by ladies, I'm always waiting for the moment when they go gay, even when there's no evidence that they will. I just like to imagine that every female artist at least thinks about going gay for a chapter or two, right? Even if it's not in the blurb or anything? I'm like: "This affection for Cindy from down the street is gonna result in nudity real soon, I just know it!" "She says she ADMIRES her college roommate, but she really means she wants to go down on her! It'll happen soon!" I've plowed through many books waiting for the gay moment and then I'm inevitably disappointed when the heroine marries some kind patient sensitive man 3/4 of the way through instead of getting a girlfriend and riding off into the sunset. These non-female husbands generally have non-threatening names like Tom or Aaron and hover vaguely in the background pointing out the heroine's neuroses which he inevitably finds endearing. So, dear reader, SJG never went gay, though she was presumed gay for a chapter, which's something I guess. Wow, I'm thinking about it right now and it's quite pathetic, really, my attachment to this false hope. v. Fire Just Waiting For Fuel B. told me she was ordering Angry Women 'cause she'd heard it had a good section on Avital Ronell, her obsession of the moment, and I was like OMG, I HAVE that book! My Mom picked it up for me at a garage sale randomly last year -- it's "16 cutting-edge performance artists" discussing a wide range of topics "from menstruation, masturbation, vibrators, S&M and spanking to racism, failed Utopias and the death of the Sixties." Given a context (B. wanted the book), I developed renewed interest in it and kept it next to my laptop most of the month, picking it up every now and then, even sitting with it open on my bed and reading it. All in all, I read probs about 20% of the book, though I looked at all the photos, there were lots of naked ladies doing art and being radical about sex. I heart heart heart books like this even though I might not finish the whole thing 'til 2010. They feel like glorious relics from forgotten times (1991) where I imagine (read: I know nothing) the written word was a vital and revolutionary force in counter-cultural political movements, like the radical pro-sex feminists of this book. I don't think people realize, in general, how hard these women worked -- even as late as the 90's -- to make things possible like women's erotica and Toys in Babeland as well as lending their force to the pro-choice movement and bisexuality acceptance groups. We're still fighting, obvs ... I hope. Admittedly the only interviews I read from start to finish were Kathy Acker's, 'cause everything she says is magic, and this woman Linda Montano, who does art-as-life stuff, which's what I wanna do some day, except I just wanna do it for fun, I have different plans for what I want to do to changing the world. 'Cause a lot of this work is so fringe-oriented that it almost negates itself by not even reaching the audience who needs to hear it most -- preaching to the choir and alienating the masses. I guess ideally the choir will gain steam and revolt, inspiring the masses. Anyhow, Montano and Teching Hurst ROPED THEMSELVES TOGETHER for an ENTIRE YEAR. They had a contract: tied at the waist with an 8-foot rope, never touch, and stay in the same room. This woman is serious, it's crazy, I love it. So that's what Tinkerbell and I are going to do starting now. ART AS LIFE, Y'ALL. I love crazy radical feminists. I don't know what's happening to me, I'm becoming who my mother used to be before she bought a house in the suburbs. With her wife. And her wife's adopted children, one of whom is African-American. NM. Also I read significant portions of interviews of Susie Bright (who edited the Best American Erotica 2007, which I was in. She interviewed me about it here), bell hooks, Annie Sprinkle and obvs Avital Ronell. Actually the last one I xeroxed so I could read it at the gym, discreetly shading the photo of Ronell naked and dressed in tree branches with my towel. I know I'm not supposed to read serious stuff at the gym, but I'm not gonna be alive forevs, I gotta maximize my time. Abstract theory kinda makes my head hurt, I have to read it slowly to understand, 'cause I'm slow. Mostly, the fact that books like this EXIST -- that enough people made its printing worthwhile, and only 16 years ago -- is inspirational to me as a woman and as an artist and gets me really excited about political and social change. In the 90's. Also, the Ronell interview was really long. I'll finish it though seriously. * MAGAZINES AND THE WEBBERNET (in brief): I read a lot of magazines, often linking to my fave articles in the auto-fun so you can be my BFF. I'm really digging this new magazine Missbehave -- hot design, interviews of people I like (e.g., Ellen Page, Bjou Phillips) and a voice that sounds a hell of a lot like mine. Also it's great for collages (other great collage magazines include Nylon, Flaunt and Bust). Like Nylon, it's a magazine you really must hold in your hands, the online experience is incomparable. Of the plethora of magazines I enjoyed this month, my fave articles were Nick Flynn's "The Ticking is The Bomb" from Esquire (the reason for mentioning "The Allegory of the Cave" in our vlog, actually) and Eileen Myles' "Lost in Canada," from The Believer. It's "an elegy to a lost notebook." Also, for anyone who's ever written in the second person (myself included) -- read this. You will need to read this, it will feel necessary. I have a really bad habit of sometimes reading magazine articles almost all the way through -- through like ten "ctd. on page ___ ..."s and then for some reason, NOT reading the last two paragraphs. It's really unforgivable, I'd hate it if someone did that to my article. I also don't know why I do it. But when B. said she'd enjoyed the Flynn essay up to the last two paragraphs, I was like "erum, yeah, skipped those, holla, maybe that's why I loved it." Then I read 'em, and they were retarded. Cait, the only other person on earth I know of who followed my suggestion to read that essay, agrees. Skip those grafs if you read it. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Anyhow I'm working on this habit. Like the Obama/Clinton piece I read in New York Magazine yesterday-- the last two graphs were the heart of the article, wouldn't've missed them for the world! B. lent me Issue 6 of n+1 'cause there was a section called "The Intellectual Situation" that addressed a lot of things I think about alot w/r/t publishing and books, which I read on the return flight to Newark. You guys, airplanes are the best! Except there were these crying children I wanted to kill, I kept looking at Cait and/or Alex and making axe chopping gestures towards the children that their parents would've noticed if their heads weren't so far up their children's over-mediated assholes. Anyhow, the n+1's got a great piece about Gawker that caused a lot of hulabaloo in December for basically declaring its demise and death ("Gawker: 2002-2007") and a brilliant essay that uses the case of the Virginia Tech shooter to explore issues of identity for Asian teenage boys who feel outcast or unsuccessful for one reason or another, like the author of the essay. I do a lot of internet reading, which's why my eyes ache all the time. B. says I can fix this by doing eye exercises like intermittently looking up from my screen across the room and focusing on a far-away point. This goes back to me needing a room of one's own, like a really big one, with long hallways. I link to things I like a lot in the auto-fun usually, or talk about them, so I won't talk too much about the highlights of my internet travels. The Myles essay inspired me to dig around and find out more about her (why haven't I heard of her before?!!! I don't know?!) -- and I think she's one of my new obsessions (my other new obsession is Jennifer L. Knox, who's interview in Bookslut made her my instant hero, I want all her books of poetry now). Myles edited an apparently super-important book called 'The New Fuck You: Adventures in Lesbian Reading," which you can buy me for President's Day if you want. Check her out: Eileen Myles Dot Net. B got a subscription to the Harper's archives this month, which's nearly as exciting to me as Krista's NY Times Plus subscription! This is total dork candy, like I flipped about the Atlantic archives going online for free, too. Since B.'s investment, I've enjoyed many delights, including a fascinating article written about Mary Gaitskill when Veronica came out (" Walking Naked") and probs the best thing I read all month, "A Lie That Tells the Truth: Memoir and the Art of Memory," by Joel Agee. I actually had to call B. right after I finished just to breathe and go "that was amazing." Probs how Lozo feels after watching a really good touchdown kickoff tackle or whatever, omg, you guys, the Super Bowl is on Sunday. Also, I got my hair cut, see:

 

HAIRCUT! This will help me read for sure. Also it looks totally different today than it did yesterday, life is so crazy. Cait and I went to that place where they have porn star names, I forget the name of my hairstylist, but she was really serious. It's so trendy, I might really have to go out.

We're Going to VLOG Miami ... Really Soon.

Hola! Welcome. Here we are in Sunny Florida! Actually, it's a little windy right now, but it was windy and sunny all day. Haviland is singing from The Golden Girls. We filmed some vlog so I made a preview, you can watch it below to whet your appetite for the real thing. A lot of amazing things happened today, like we've started communicating telepathically with the hotel people so they bring us things we don't ask for. Also I'm never coming home 'cause it's beautiful sunny and it's cold in New York. (I know! Crazytown! I hate the sunshine! Not as much as I hate waterparks and strangers, but it's hate just the same. Sunshine's a lot better with palm trees, p.s.) If I was reading this right now I would hate me. Actually, I'm writing this right now, and I kinda hate me. But y'know, I'm used to having that kind of relationship with myself, ideally you find it endearing, like the Golden Girls.

Also we had a big talk about the internet this evening and Haviland gave me permission to delete my myspace profile, which I've wanted to do pretty much since I put it back up after deleting it the first time. I'm not going crazy or dead, I just truly loathe myspace -- it makes my head explode, random dudes are still asking me for threesomes, and I never check it and therefore always feel like an asshole when I do check it.

I feel weird obvs about losing my comments and other things from my friends ... but today I was working on my book -- digging through a lot of old docs on my computer, and even stuff from last year I don't remember writing -- and I realised that I have approximately every other important minute of my life documented (been keeping daily diary since I was about two, and writing it all down on my computer in detail for about fifteen years) and so if I allow a bunch of myspace stuff to disappear into the great cyberbeyond sans backup or recording ... well, that's perhaps good for me. I can't keep holding on to things just by writing them down. I can only really hold onto things by grabbing things like a tiger and pouncing. Rawr!

Here's our preview. The real thing is gonna be even more awesome, if such a thing is possible. If it was, I might call it "awesomer."

Sunday Top Ten: Calendar Girl Who's In Love With The World Stay Alive

OMG y'all it's 2008!!! So far, so good: I've already eaten a lot of cookies, I'm making french fries right now to compliment my dinner of Wheat Thins, and, as far as I know, no one's died, landed in the hospital, gotten fired or gotten their heart broken [yet]. I'm happy with how I rang in the New Year because Zoey made confetti cake, which's delicious. Any year that begins with eating confetti cake is bound to be a good year.

I'd planned on jumping right back into the Year in Review today, but June '07 seemed like a really depressing way to start out January '08, so I'll post it later this week and then ... onwards & upwards with that "Year in Review" thing. For now ... 'cause it's Wednesday, it's clearly time for the Sunday Top Ten.

SUNDAY TOP TEN: WHY 2008 WILL TOTALLY ROCK OR AT LEAST BE BETTER THAN 2007

10. I'm Entering a New Stage of Hairstyle Development:
If you paid close attention to the YIR vlog, you'd've noticed that my hair is growing, like a tree reaching for the sky or a baby worm becoming an adult worm. Presently, my Haviland-for-Cream cut is evolving into the "behind-the-ear-tuckage potential" stage. This presents a plethora of all-new Style and Fashion possibilities.

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9. National Lampoon's Lesbian Vacation:
So many exciting vacations are in the works, including the much-anticipated March journey to Hipster Festival "South by Southwest" in Austin, Texas. They show super-rad movies and have panels about Web 2.0 and there's rock 'n roll bands for kids with feelings and visions. Like me! Since I'm a stellar advance planner who probs won't really think about the fact that I'm going to SXSW until Crystal shows up in New York to remind me, I've yet to purchase tickets to anything (probs sold out now?) because I'm totes convinced that somehow, between now and then, I'll become terribly successful and famous and obvs The New Yorker will be paying me to cover SXSW for them and'll get me press passes. They were all over Lez Girls by Jenny Schecter, and clearly I've got one-up on her, as I've never killed a dog to get a girl before. Anyhoo.

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8. New Year's Resolutions
Being the rebellious damn-the-man hiptard that I am, I rarely take New Year's Resolutions seriously. I mean: isn't every day another chance to turn it all around (or not)? Howevs, this year, I've got about 100. I need to write them down, I should put that on my '08 To-Do List. Also, I don't need to lose ten pounds or quit smoking, so that's covered. I should resolve to go to the gym regularly, because I already do that, so I could be like "Congrats, self!" Anyhow, let's take a look at my 21st century History of Resolutions:

2000 - Celebrate every national holiday to the fullest, including President's Day, and "have as much fun as possible."
2001 - "GET IT FUCKING TOGETHER"
2002 - Stop knocking over that glass of water by my bed. (I slept on a tiny dorm-bed sized mattress on the floor and always had a glass of water by my bed and then in the morning I'd always knock it over and then my floor would always be wet.)
2003 - Break up with my boyfriend Chris. (I did that immediately, at about 12:20 A.M. on January 1st in the basement of Phi Sig, while preparing a grilled cheese for his "brother" Walter using Walter's brand new sandwich-maker. I'd like a sandwich maker, actually, that thing was awesome. I quoted this Stephen Dunn in my journal: "How attractive trouble feels/in paradise. The place next door/where pain is an option/begins to whisper.")
2004 - "I want to be strong, I want to laugh along, I want to belong to the living." (-Joni Mitchell) (Yeah. I know.)
2005- Apparently I had consumed far too much alcohol to make a resolution. My diary from the 31st includes insights like "I am writing IN PENCIL! WHO WRITES in PENCIL? Where is KRISTA? I'm ready to GO OUT!"
2006- DREAM LIFE 2006: this was Lo and I's plan to make our lives into everything we'd ever wanted/dreamed of by getting an apartment together in Williamsburg and executing as much fabulosity as possible. It was a mostly abstract idea and seemed great in theory -- in practice, it involved a lot of yelling, which wasn't really what I had in mind when I said 'Dream Life 2006,' but that's just me, to each his own, obvs.
2007- Write the book proposal, like, now.

2008 - Preliminary possibilities include waking up at the same time every morning, setting aside at least an hour a day to jut read (books), being more organised, writing a daily schedule for myself and celebrating every National Holiday to the fullest, including President's Day.

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7. I'm Going to Write my Book!
"You're gonna write the best book ever." -Cait.
No seriously, last year around this time I started pushing ahead w/full strength -- and miraculously I did follow through on my self-imposed deadlines. And, well, that seems like a lifetime ago. Now that I've reoriented both the book plan and my brain ... it's gonna rock. Totes.

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6. Season Five of The L Word [recaps ]!
My roommate Zoey's girlfriend asked me to name a teevee show I actually do enjoy and think is a good show, 'cause maybe it's not that I don't like The L Word, it's that I don't like television. Good point, and probably true.

But anyhow. I thought of these (some then, some since) shows -- limited to shows I've actually seen -- and I'd stand behind 'em: Six Feet Under, The West Wing, Queer as Folk, Reno 911, My So-Called Life, The Office, The Daily Show, Will & Grace, Arrested Development, Sex and the City, Ellen (her sitcom), Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, The Simpsons, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Daria, Law and Order: SVU, Twin Peaks, Quantum Leap, Family Guy, The Chapelle Show. Ta-da! No, obvs I love The L Word. Best show ever, totes.

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5. Les Mis is closing on January 6th!
As you may recall, earlier this year the members of the Stagehands' Union Hooha had a lot of feelings and therefore went on strike. Consequently, Haviland didn't have to go to to work anymore and was actually able to hang out at night! So! Soon it's gonna be like permanent strike, unless she gets hired to go be a movie star in China or wherever they make movies these days. I just know they make a lot of stuff in China. The only movie I saw this year was Juno, it took place in L.A. I think, or Vancouver, I dunno, I just know where they make The L Word (Vancouver). Oh yeah, go see it before it closes. Super fun for the whole family.

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4. New President!
I'm not exactly your go-to girl for up-to-the-minute political news, but, having been raised in a super-political household (My Dad literally went as imaginary superhero "Super-Democrat" to the Halloween party thrown by his Harvard Business School colleagues) and being a person who's pretty fucking passionate about a lot of issues seriously not just how bad the l word is, I'll probs have a lot of opinions about this election thing. Right now I'm thinking I'll probs go with the same strategy I used at U of M when voting for student assembly which was to vote for people I knew and people with ethnic-sounding names, which I think means I'm voting for Barack Obama. Actually, I don't know, honestly. We'll see. Right now Haviland is thinking Hillary and I like to stand with Haviland. But whatevs -- obvs I cannot wait for 2009, when George W. Bush will no longer be president. I can't fucking believe it's lasted this long. It's humiliating.

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3. Entertainments
Maybe this year I'll go the movies like a good little robot. Srsly though; I think movies are a valuable art form, I should spend more time exposing myself to their possibilities 'cause I think that's how creative people get better at what they do is by experiencing other artworks out of their chosen field. Everyone knows this, I could've just told you that I think reading is good for you or that peanut butter is boss. Anyhow, they're turning a lot of books I've enjoyed into movies this year: Peter Jackson's doing The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) and there's also How To Lose Friends & Alienate People (Toby Young) and Choke (Chuck Pahlinuk). The book's always better than the movie, though, we all know that.

But you know what's gonna be really super awesome for real? Dave Eggers has adapted Where the Wild Things Are for the screen and it's being directed by Spike Jonze with Catherine O'Hare, Jen from Dawson's Creek and Catherine Keener. Automatic brill.

Hey, remember when Angelina Jolie actually did interesting movies? WTF? I used to like her, but now every movie she's in just makes me want to yawn so hard my head falls off.

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2. Fun with Automechanics
I feel like the Auto-Empire (I mean that ironically. You know that, right? Like trust me, I'm still feeling like this whole thing is a massive conspiracy and I'll turn out to be a fraud, which's insane because I know I'm not, but also, think (yes, sure, certain) that I am.) is gonna get more funner to the mostest this year. For one, there's the Auto-Merch, which's hot and will become hotter. There's gonna be contests and riese's next top model. Um, also, it'll be really fun when Carly and I get our show on teevee. Also, I plan on increasing my efficiency and therefore I'm seeking for an illegal immigrant interested in working for me for $2/hour or less, plus unlimited ramen noodles and backrubs. If you have a blog, I'll link to you and you'll get 2-3 additional hits a day. JK. I'd never exploit anyone except memememememe.

Anyway where was I? Oh yes: the future. Right-o, looks like it's gonna be a sunshine day. Yeah -- auto-straddle's gonna have more interactive content, we're rollin' with the vlogs and I'll ideally figure out a way to get it done faster sans exploitation. And here, obvs, I will keep writing words here, publishing them on the interweb, and then being like blablabla to everyone about mememememe. Unfortunately, I'm no longer taking ambien, so there won't be as much "w===iS I===o I will have to type tommorw to fic his blog becauer it his very bad norw." Until I can get my hands on some ambien. JK, that one was for you, Mr. Redacted. Also I just got a kickass email from Layla Love, the beautiful & talented woman responsible for the photo that was turned into a graphic for the Auto-Apparel (see photo, right) about future 2008 awesomenessness.

Also, speaking of Alex Vega who designed the auto-apparel, my website's gonna look cooler too. This is one of those things that only matters to me and Haviland so I should stop talking. This is like sitting in on someone writing their to-do list, which's a real snooze.

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1. Additional Attention
Some upcoming publications: my R-Family Cruise article in Curve magazine (nearish future) & the "Fucking Around" story in the Dirty Girls anthology (April). Also, still you know, accepting ideas for another Guestbian column, like maybe I could ask myself "What is love?" or "What's love got to do with it?" or "How long 'til my soul gets it right?"

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Also, I think just that things are gonna kinda hit an upward trajectory into Awesome super-soon. And if it doesn't, then I guess, you know, I'll just wait for the next joke. I'm ending the June/pre-cruise July recap with the last paragraph of a post I did in June, but maybe I'll just use it here instead. Yes, I'm quoting myself. But I don't think of it as quoting so much as "cut and pasting."

"Sometimes it takes a while for the point to emerge from the madness, but I'm pretty satisfied right now with the possibility at my fingertips, a million unfinished lines shooting out of my nails like Wolverine's claws -- but gentle, hesitant, non-violent and reaching towards attention. I'm blindly groping for what it is we're waiting for, but kinda pretty sure, every now and then, that I can ... and will ... get it?"

Never mind, let's end with David Bowie:

"You're too old to lose it, too young to choose it and the clocks waits so patiently on your song, you walk past a cafe but you don't eat when you've lived too long ... No matter what or who you've been, no matter when or where you've seen all the knives seem to lacerate your brain, I've had my share, I'll help you with the pain, you're not alone." (Rock 'n Roll Suicide)

"Starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds
There's a Starman waiting in the sky
He's told us not to blow it
Cause he knows it's all worthwhile."
(David Bowie, Starman)

I Like Four-Girl VLOGS and I Cannot Lie

First of all ... BTW: WTF?! Moving on: so today I was at the hospital 'cause my friend's sick. She'd just had a flexisomethingsomethingscopy and she'd been moved back to the ER and then, 'cause of some apparently subtle emergency, all us visitors got kicked out of our loved ones' bedsides and back into the depressing waiting room. Probs there was no real emergency, I bet it was someone's birthday and it was cake time and they didn't want me to have any cake. Guess what? I don't want any cake, so whatevs.

Soooo ... I'm in the waiting room on Sparky McMacBook and this twentysomething Orthodox girl sitting across from me says suddenly: "You're a really great typer. Did you take a class?" I tell her no, I've just been typing for a long time. She and her Mom continue staring while I type. THEN the girl fully gets up, crosses rows, sits next to me, leans over and asks: "Can I watch? I want to learn." Can you watch? Can you watch me write email and look at storefront templates? I don't know, can you? Because that would really creep me out. She keeps looking. She's leaning, her breath is on my shoulder, she asks: "Is that e-mail?" and I was like, um, yes, and she asks, "How do you do it? Email? Is it free?" and where do I begin with that? She continues staring, I continue squirming, she asks, is it weird to look, and I say yes, yes, it is and she asks: "Why, this is private?"

Um, look here: you're a complete stranger. Every single thing I've ever done, am doing, or will do, is private as far as you are concerned. Also, I've already got a serious pet peeve about people looking at my computer screen -- people I know. She fully sat there and watched me write an email to Haviland. Then she told me my teeth were really white ("Do you use whitener?"), which isn't true, and eventually my rising boiling wrath must've permeated her consciousness because she wrapped things up, concluding: "Ok, there are your compliments for the day." Then she and her Mom started chatting about me in Hebrew, but the thing is, that's my secret language too, so I get it. Hello, I used to be fluent in Hebrew.

See, this is the kind of stuff you guys are missing out on if by some chance, unlike me, all your friends and loved ones haven't been struck again and again over the past year and especially the past two months by ridiculous-like hard random blows, e.g., deaths of loved ones and illness/injury.

So the other night we made a vlog, mostly for Cait. Lozo was supposed to come but he didn't. (I'm handing that to whomever wants it.)

It was a little weird, 'cause I kinda didn't feel like being a vloggy person. But these crazy bitches just kept talking, I've got approximately 500 hours of footage to mold into genius, this be only the beginning. Here's the first taste, expanded on the "not vlog" from the Top 10. We discuss thrilling things like thongs, boyshorts, bikinis, flying lesbians, drag queens, Lozo, fashions ... and we do our Cait imitation because we miss her.