Tuesday Top Ten: All About Your Mother

[hello! It's me in the brackets! I was writing something kinda heavy for the Sunday Top Ten but then it got so heavy that it crushed me. Luckily, inspiration struck once again like a light object (e.g., a koosh ball, Tinkerbell) upon my braincase and here I am on Tuesday w/the Sunday Top Ten. In other words: The Tuesday Top Ten! ("holler alliteration!" - carlytron)]

Though I haven't lived with my own mother since 1997 [Because my Mother's become a more sensitive fact checker than my ex at the height of psychosis, I should add: "because I chose to leave, not because my mother didn't have a home for me to live in between those years of 1997-2002, complete with three full bathrooms, cable & internet, etc. and, although my mother moved out of that house in 2002, she still took me in at her tenement - esque one-bedroom for 24 hours in June '03 when my boyfriend dumped me and I needed to cry in an environment free of Kappa Kappa Gammas. Furthermore, during said hibernation, my mother even gave me $50 to go to the mall for "retail therapy," where I bought a cute pair of Mavi jeans I wore to my ex-boyfriend's apartment that afternoon to tell him I was moving to NYC for the summer, a plan he rejected in favor of his apparent summer plan to run over/play with my heart a few more times before school started back up. Furthermore, despite the menagerie of animals and children living in my Moms' current house, she is always very kind about wanting me to stay there and insists that I feel that I have a home somewhere, even though my stuff is in storage and during the winter holidays of '07 I was kicked out of said house by my mother and sent to a motel.], I've spent many a night with the mothers of others.

In addition to my uncanny ability to date people who under some circumstance or another are living with their mothers or other parental guardians, I'm currently living with Semicolon's mother, and the first week of September I lived with the random mother & children that Natalie is randomly living with (not her mother, obvs, her mother lives in Cleveland Ohio, land of champions). AND! I just snagged an October sublet with Hav's mother! Then! in November the sky's the limit you guys. Good news, November is my favorite month, it's the month that my brother and I try to remember which day my Mom's birthday is and decide who's gonna call first to find out.

Since I'm on such a roll with mothers, I got to thinking about ...

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Sunday Top Ten: Other Mothers I'd Like to Live With

10. Beverly Crusher, Star Trek: The Next Generation

I love Beverly not only 'cause I had a boi-crush on Wesley Crusher, Beverly's son (who looks like he could've easily made it to the final round of Brandon Teena auditions), but 'cause she's wicked smart and for vaycay would clearly take me to strange new worlds, seeking new life and and new civilizations and boldly go where no man had gone before. Her husband is dead but clearly I'm used to that, and besides she has Captain Picard as the resident surrogate father, I could live with that.

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9. Lindsay Bluth Funke, Arrested Development

The only element I ever disliked about Arrested Development was the Lindsay-Tobias marriage -- I don't think they did a good job of selling that to the viewer. Regardless, Lindsay's smokin' hot, loves charity, and accidentally makes jokes all the time. Keep in mind this is mothers I'd want to live with, not mothers I'd want to be mothered by. Not that I wouldn't want her genes, but you know, it'd be skeeze to crush on my Mom, and it'd be really skeeze to have Haviland crush on my Mom.

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8. Me & my Gay in H.S. - he had the best Mom ever, Christie!

Christie was my first boyfriend's Mom. Of course Ryan wasn't my actual boyfriend, he was my gay BFF with benefits, but Moms love gay boyfriend's girlfriends the MOST, 'cause not only am I the potentially-cute-if-she-did-her-hair super-fun smart girlfriend but I'm also their son's ticket to hetero-ville. Alas, conversion didn't stick, but let me tell you how I met Christie for the first time: Valentine's Day '98, a man in a trenchcoat shows up at my boarding school dorm to 'escort' me to a mysterious location -- Ryan's parents' motor-home, it turns out. The driver turned out to be Ryan's step-dad, and just as I entered the lux motorhome, Christie burst out from the bedroom in a french maid's outfit with champagne. She kept character for about three minutes before busting into, "Oh my god, I'm so glad to meet you!"

They had a ranch in Oklahoma with hills and rivers. She'd mail me newspaper clippings, beanie babies, cards, little gifts she'd just "thought of me" when she saw. She looked like Sally Field. It was so easy, winning her love, she liked me straight away. It's never been that easy since to snag parental affections. Maybe it's cause I was 16 and right on track, and now I'm a homeless delinquent with a weird blog.

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7. Peggy Peabody, The L Word

She's a crap Mom, but she's got the best lines on The L Word , did pay (unknowingly) for the entire De La Pica Morales clan to go to Canada for The Little Wedding that Couldn't, and is therefore my favorite character, besides obviously Papi, my favorite character of all time who unfortunately is not getting her own spin-off.

If Papi had a kid, what would they name it? Nino? Papi Jr.? Mini-Papi? Chi-Chi Rodriguez?

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6. Michelle Obama

I'm gonna do this thing where I not-so-subtly work Obama into every post until he wins in November. If he doesn't win, I want you to know I am going to quit all of you. I'm going to set the building on fire that's my cake. I'm going to take down all my posts like I do when I have a lot of feelings, post only song lyrics on twitter, and lie on my mattress in a street alley chanting "Dark Come Soon" to myself while eating the black polish off my fingers. Intervention won't be able to TOUCH me!

No but really, she seems like a sweet Mom. I'm not sure why everyone's freaking out about her ability to parent and campaign. If the Republicans had their way, women on welfare would all be working 60 hours a week and leaving their kids at home to eat fruit roll-ups and shoot each other. That's no good. The Obamas have it together, they match, and she's a beautiful, beautiful woman.

YES WE CAN! Vote!

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5. Marge Simpson, The Simpsons

I feel like this woman put up with some serious shit. Also her children never age, which is cheaper than the Oil of Olay my Mom uses.

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4. Kelli and Rosie O'Donnell

It's not the multiple homes that draw me in -- it's the arts & crafts hut. They're the most famous gay Moms ever, staunch democrats, philanthropic wonderwomen and genuinely caring & loving people. Rosie'd make jokes, teach me collaging and sing showtunes with me. Kelli's hot & capable and my siblings would be remarkably down-to-earth smart cookies who, much like me as a child, aren't allowed to watch the teevee. They're homos too, like my Mom, so it'd be basically like living with my Mom except with more trips to Miami and less yelling. Then I could go on the cruise for free and get free soda.

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3. Kanga

What if my Mom's name was "Ma" and my name was "Rie" and she carried me around in a fanny pack, like the turquoise one she used in the 90's'/probs yesterday? Then we'd be one-tenth of the way towards the coolness of Kanga, who had a kid named Roo she carried around in her pouch. I had a kangaroo stuffed animal with a Roo (a non-brand name version of the Pooh-Corner pair) and I got really upset when they'd be separated. We could live in the woods and eat coconuts and play with koalas and boomerangs, and I'd never have to pay rent or use craigslist again.

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2. Lorrie Moore, author

""The Mother does not know how to be one of these other mothers, with their blond hair and sweatpants and sneakers and determined pleasentness. She does not think that she can be anything similar. She does not feel remotely like them. She knows, for instance, too many people in Greenwich Village. She mail-orders oysters and tiramusu from a shop in SoHo. She is close friends with four actual homosexuals. Her husband is asking her to Take Notes. Where do these women get their sweatpants? She will find out."

(Lorrie Moore, "People Like That Are the Only People Here.")

I'm not into "Mom Lit," or Mom-Bloggers, or really any books about mother-daughter relationships. This's probs 'cause most mother-child focussed movies end with someone dying and lots of sentimental speeches that make me barf, or 'cause good mothers don't make very interesting protagonists, but ultimately the only time I can stand reading someone talk about child-rearing is when they approach it with the barenaked humility and admitted incompetence that Lorrie Moore does when she talks about motherhood. (Tama Janowitz fairs admirably in this area, too) In her novel Anagrams [SPOILER ALERT], we eventually discover that the protagonist's child isn't even real! She's an imaginary daughter! basically I feel Lorrie Moore knows how to mother 'cause she doesn't know how to mother, and I'd like to be a part of that. Or maybe I just want to move to Wisconsin, 'cause getting fat in Long Island isn't as accepted as getting fat in Wisconsin.

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1. Susan Powter

Alex: "I miss Susan Powter yoga."
Me: "We only went once, Alex."
Alex: "But I miss it."
Me: "How can you miss something we only went to once? That's like saying I miss my Bat Mitzvah."
Alex: "Can't I miss it if I want to?"
Me: "I think you're projecting your real sadness over missing the cruise and the team onto Susan Powter's yoga class."
Alex: [makes pouty face]

[this is the level of conversation we've come to during these weeks of forced co-habitation.]

I just feel like if I lived with Susan Powter, I'd probs get killer abs. Plus I'd want her to say "Tell Riese I'm looking for her. In heels."

i'm a VLOG Crash, but i have to get up, and every morning it's a clean-up

Y'all, I'm still waiting for my copies of LYING to come in the mail, so all apologies to anyone waiting on auto-gear or contest updates. In the meantime, I'd suggest deerskin, k-mart, and modge podge. Guess what? I made a vlog. On a scale of one to ten, I'd give it a "three." We answer two "advice column" questions, though they were more like the kinds of questions you'd ask your girlfriends while enjoying a game of Girl Talk. Still every child deserves his or her day in the sunshine -- or behind the veil of a color filter I can't seem to get rid of.

So! I should be a salesman! Here it is -- Hav & Riese Vlog 467. I mean, 29.

Also: send your questions to askautowin@yahoo.com. We've already gone through all the questions except two, and we can't answer those two until we get two more, which means someone's sitting at home with a girlfriend who's got a massive crush on Susan Powter not knowing what the eff to do with herself. You can make stuff up, we won't know, unless you're one of the 3-4 people we speak to regularly. We just want to tell you what to do! That's all we ever want to do! Help people! The meat of this blog -- the words and the video -- would suggest I might need someone to help me. But before the storm, please welcome the pleasing valleys of its meadow for now.

I Write Down Everything That Comes Into My Head While [While/When?] Trying to Write Rosie Cruise Blog #2

I boarded this year's cruise intending to embark upon a professionally productive week -- I'd NETWORK! I'd WRITE WORDS! I'd make VLOGS with strangers -- funny bright-eyed strangers, musical strangers! I'd create a business plan & finish Orlando & lead book club, & eat a foster child & figure out what the eff I'm doing with my life & get a boombastic tan & take freelance work on the ship & blog daily & Alex + I were gonna finish the website and we'd all have Important Meetings About Important Ideas.

I know -- "Riese, you're crazy, no one wants to do that much work on holiday." But see, I LIKE doing work on holiday. I don't even really believe in vacation, I believe in "wireless, only elsewhere." I struggle to resist the mating call of my work (which sounds, p.s., like chicken) while galavanting.

But um ... so, I did ... not a whole lot ... almost nothing I said I'd do ... which is ... amazing. Some small accomplishments: shooting photos & making a short video of it, some reading, attending of worthwhile performances, thinking & drinking & memory-making .. embracing the warm of my friends moreso than in prior years when I focussed on promising strangers.

"Live Blogging Every Thought That Comes Into my Head While Sitting at my Desk in front of my computer while
Thinking About our Recent Cruise Vaycay to Fabulous New England and two different parts of Canada!"

Our First Team Honest vacation! All of us together, and I mean a lot of things when I say "honesty." All kinds of coming clean, and each of us to our own '08 Evolution Tour.

If I had a dog, I'd name it Revolution.
If I had a cat, I'd call it Retribution and sneeze on its face.

If Tegan & Sara were my neighbors, I imagine they'd do sweet things like bring me a cup of flour for the cookies.

Alex said; "I've never had a group of friends like this before where it kinda really does feel like a team. Like each of us offers something that no-one else can do, performs a unique function," and I said, "you know, that's true," and maybe that's how it stays a dynamic dynamic.

Haviland goes back to Los Angeles tomorrow. We all go back to our lives tomorrow, or shortly thereafter.

I spent eight hours cleaning my room today. I've got about eighty more to go. I think I have too much stuff.

So I guess honesty means a lot of things -- whether it's giving up a fairy tale or another kind of tale (redemption, illusion, boundlessness) in favor of fable, accepting help, re-inhabiting the skin, taking initiative or choosing life. Even if choosing life means you've got to endure a seemingly unbearably painful heartbreak first, or fall/grow, or work way harder or drive far far away or accept medical solutions or throw away crutches or kneel and reel. Start being polite, and make it real. Meet Everyone's Someones; the mothers and the ghosts.

There's this surface you're skating called happiness. The poetic stuff's down at the ocean's bottom. There's a lot of sharks down there, and jellyfish.
So then there is a way to learn to swim when you start to drown. 'Cause you're on this boat, and the only thing that matters is that we're all outsiders, beyond that, I want slabs of cheese, cheese on crackers ...

Also! Also. Also. Honesty's realizing that life is never gonna get better, it's just gonna keep going how it's been going -- bad, then good, bad, good, etc. -- no matter what we do about it. So we might as well just make out and wait for the next joke. And read books. Trust me! It's the most important thing you can do while on earth, besides kindness and commenting.

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Oddly, I look kinda bear-ish in this photo.
I'm like "I'll eat your children, hug me, rawr!"
It's BEAR WEEK in Provincetown, p.s.
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I took Tinkerbell out to the pool deck & its crowds on Day Two 'cause she wanted tanning & a chance to show off her new outfit. So then Caitlin took away my Tinkerbell privileges but I found a new prop (clearly having my own feelings is out of the question, I must project and DANCE!), inspired by Little Edie in Grey Gardens -- american flags! Christine Ebersole, who played the role in the Broadway musical of the cult documentary, was there. So I did some flag dances like Little Edie.

Here's Edie's flag dances. Please note that the first four seconds are black, but then it starts I promise.

End video

So a lot of people were there -- I mean, my friends, and our new friends, and also the Broadway stars. Here's a list of some of the people who you may have heard of, and therefore will appreciate my insidery name-drop of their little names: Sheena Easton, Christine Ebersole, Andrea McArdle, Lillias White, Anne Steele, Brenda Braxton, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Jake Wilson, Ann Van Cleave, Haviland Stilwell, Craig Ramsey, Brian Nash, The Broadway Boys, Julie Goldman, Jessica Kirson, Ross the Intern (from "The Tonight Show"), Seth Rudetsky, Susan Powter and the cast of LOGO's "The Big Gay Sketch Show."

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Every year I pledge to get it together after the Cruise. Plan for my life, which's fundamentally ridiculous. Boat works 'cause your deep thoughts have a control environment (like in a science experiment), a blank slate to write on while looking ahead into the murk/stars!

Did I actually talk about the cruise? Does anyone care? Probs not. I'm so glad slide-shows have faded from popularity. Memememe fa so la ti DO!

Imagine ten slides. In eight of them, I'm running into walls & people, in one I'm recycling old vocabulary and in the tenth photo I look like a girl who could be okay with everything. The boat sees the tenth photo and because I'm on it, I see it too. Today, I flew home. Tomorrow, I will need to get groceries, no-one is bringing muselix to my door.

I don't understand why no meal is even half as good as breakfast!

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Babypop
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Babypop, Jack Skellington, Caitlin
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Haviland, Babypop
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Did you see the article in the New York Times? So nice!
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""What makes humans human is precisely that they do not know the future.
That is why they do the fateful and amusing things they do: who can say how anything will turn out?
Therein lies the only hope for redemption, discovery, and--let's be frank--fun, fun, fun!
There might be things people will get away with. And not just motel towels. There might be great illicit loves, enduring joy, faith-shaking accidents with farm machinery.
But you have to not know in order to see what stories your life's efforts bring you. The mystery is all."
(Lorrie Moore, "People Like That Are The Only People Here")
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[Although I didn't tag the "horizon" as "horizon," be well aware that much like my last post's "hill," that is indeed the horizon.]

Layla Love,
Haviland Pekor,
m
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We MUST!: Rosie Cruise '08 Part #1 With Vlog, Words, Photos, and a Snack

So, I'm on the Rosie Cruise right now and when it's over I’m moving to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Halifax is packed with bookstores (including a feminist/queer store called "Venus Envy") and therefore reminds me of Ann Arbor before The Man/A-E-Phi took over. Coincidentally, Halifax is Ellen Page’s hometown (“I LOVE Ellen Page. I want to EAT HER FACE!” – Riese, Jan. '08), though we didn’t spot her during our Self-Guided Shore Excursion on Wednesday -- I think Ellen’s career is peaking right now so she’s probs making an edgy film in L.A or New York or one of those other big show-bizzy cities filled with annoying people who’ve got bogus body parts and drink sugar-free syrup/eat babies for breakfast. I live in New York City, but trust me if my neighbors had fake body parts, they’d look a lot better than they do, I’ve seen better waist-to-hip ratios on a fried chicken. JK, I love all people and actually loathe fried chicken, so there you go.

Also my keyboard feels like it’s on fire, it must be all the gay magic. Or it could be the boat, which is presently rocking back and forth, making me feel crazy/nauseous. Maybe it’s my hands. Maybe I have magic hands! I have magic hands! I like chips!

Hello o-pirates! Look, I've got a multimedia Friday for ya. I'll go into details -- e.g., extremely compelling details about Our Grand Vaycay -- when I return to the asphalted treachery of my regular life. I'm sure I'll have a lot of feelings and consequentially a book club, poetry, auto-fun, advice column vlog installments, late-night confessionals, streams of consciousness, top tens and totes random weirdohood.

For now ... firstly, a VIDEO of Haviland & I & Layla Love and a vlog in our room and all kinds of things well okay I made this movie for y'all this afternoon. Caitlin is becoming quite the cameraperson, p.s..:

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"Leaving New York -- never easy -- I saw the light fading out."
-R.E.M.
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“I wish we were on the boat right now,” Haviland is liable to moan on any of the 358 days of the year she’s not on it. After the boat, there is only “boat” and “not boat.”
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Boat: At 6 A.M. we’re on yoga mats at the fitness center waiting for Susan Powter to yell at us, to tell Caitlin “If I was that tall, I’d be illegal!” and to tell the fitness center employee “I like you, but I don’t like your penis” and to tell all of us that we’re sexy/beautiful/the future. How long will we wait?

Me: “We will wait until she comes. We must be patient, like the Jews at Mt. Sianai. They waited, and then Moses came down with the Ten Commandments."
Fellow Disciple: "Not everyone waited. There was the golden calf--"
Me: "Exactly. Thou shalt not worship false idols, and we will wait for Susan."

And we did. And it was worth it. And I can barely walk today, neither can Alex, we feel like our hamstrings have been through a tractor pull.

I'm listening to Tegan & Sara, I started jonesing. This is strange: here, now. Relatively alone at the computer in the internet cafe, paying for it, and so on, alone with my music and the words. It's the writing that makes me crazy, though I couldn't have it any other way. I'm not just saying this 'cause I'm reading Orlando.

Tuesday night I dreamt that the ninth plague was miniature cats dropping from our ceiling.

Susan's commandments are strict/sexy/beautiful/the future. She gets crazier every year. More on this later. Caitlin's written down some of her commandments and we will be gathering these, grasshoppers, and then we will bless you with them.

Modeling Through it in Halifax - 1
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Album Cover (Title: "Modeling Through It")
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Boat: I never return to anything. It’s a minor miracle I’ve spent over a year in my present apartment, and summer camp’s cliques and obsessive heterosexuality and insider-y gossip never worked for me so I never returned. Next year, a new camp, and then another, and another. But this’s my third fucking cruise. MY THIRD “CRUISE.” Aren’t I too cynical for all this? No, of course not. There’s water underneath and around us. No-one cares what you’re wearing or who you’re kissing and we’re too cut off to feasibly work while on board. So that's a few reasons why it's magic.

Boat: The entertainment’s appeal is never what I’d anticipated – in ’06, Cyndi Lauper and Kathi Griffin were – just as I expected – amazing. But I didn’t know Broadway Belters would be like a highlight reel of the last twenty years of Tony-award winning performances or that Hav & Brandi Massey doing Defying Gravity would almost bring me to tears, or that Elvira Kurt would be so fucking funny. Last year Sandra Bernhard wasn’t spectacular and we left Erasure early, but we made our own entertainment (“Living it Out” reading) and under certain circumstances, I found beaches and sunshine not only tolerable but lovely.

This year it's Julie Goldman. Literally the best/funniest stand-up I've seen all my life.

Boat:We decided to have a rolling race down a hill in Halifax (a.k.a. my future home), but halfway down I started feeling itchy and everyone thought I was kidding when I said I think I've developed an allergy to grass (I tend to exaggerate a lot) but whatevs. Anyhow, we made a lot of memories. And because we're all here, and I'd like to foster a spirit of togetherness and sisterhood under the light of the moon of the glow of all my sisters and brothers all over the world, I'm going to share them with you.

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Caitlin keeps on rolling.
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This is when I gave up and ran down the hill.
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Caitlin and Alex - still rolling after all these years
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Sooooo ... 'cause I want book club to be really good, and 'cause I owe y'all a "Stuff I've Been Reading" like WHOA, I'm gonna hold off on that discussion 'til I reach the shore. I'd tell you when that is, except I've got no idea what day it is and I'm in denial about any semblance of a life outside of here.

I've gotta get back to the room before Alex falls asleep, therefore lessening the chances I'll talk her into a grilled cheese.

Sunday [Monday] Top Ten: A Queer, Sultry Summer

So, air conditioner emissions worsen global warming, but the warmer the globe gets, the more we air condition. Right? That's not gonna work out long-term. Good thing I plan to die at 33, like Jesus. JK. I'll resurrect myself, obvs. Maybe on wordpress. Anyhow, when summer hits I get very cranky: "I hate summer," etc. But let's look on the bright side of life, at least it's summer 2008 and not summer 1808. I had this thought last summer while pondering "what did Emily Dickinson do without air conditioning"? I have the same thoughts over and over, like how we have the same seasons over and over. Like how there was summer last year, and there's also summer this year. That's called "bringing it back around"/"phoning it in." I'll keep going like this for the remainder of the post.

I don't want to take up too much of your time, 'cause as you know, we're only two days away from July 2nd, when you'll be at page 160 of The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Furthermore, you're probs going to VOTE tonight to see Haviland sing and be cute.

SUNDAY TOP TEN:
REASONS WHY SUMMER IS SLIGHTLY MORE BEARABLE NOW THAN IT WAS IN THE OLDEN DAYS OF THE PRAIRIE

10. Air Conditioning:

[I made this graphic last year to announce the installation of my air conditioner.
So many things have changed since then, I can't believe that's the same room I'm in right now.]

I rush into my room, I stand next to the boxy white A.C., I put my forehead as close to it as I can without catching dysentery. You can snatch a blast from a store if it's got its doors open, or maybe a surprise gust from a heavy office door shutting. When the subway pulls in during rush hour and one car is strangely sparsely occupied, don't fall for it; that's the hot car. You've been waiting all this time in the sweltering black musty gasoline air of the station, anticipating the magic cool of the train, you just can't settle for this sauna. I don't.
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9. Edy's Frozen Fruit Bars: I like to stick things in Alex's mouth that she wouldn't put there willingly, like drugs and Tinkerbell. Howevs, I force-fed her an Edy's Frozen Fruit Bar 'cause it's delicious, not 'cause I wanted to corrupt or annoy her. Unfortunately I forgot that Alex can't eat cold food 'cause of her special teeth. You'd think after visiting the dentist 400 times in a month, she would've had that fixed. In the old days, there were no popsicles, you had to go to the cellar.

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8. The Microwave:

Back in my formative summers, my Mom often denied me requested meals on the grounds that it was "too hot to turn the oven on" (we didn't have air conditioning). Basically what I'm telling you is I grew up in the suburban equivalent of the Nigerian desert. We made our own popsicles out of apple juice and slept in the basement, it was like having a slumber party with your family, which is every pre-adolescent's number one dream. *
7. R-Family Vacations
In the olden days, people only traveled by sea when they wanted to move from England to America on the Mayflower or if they were pirates. (Or "o-pirates" as supr might say.) Now, we hit the ocean in order to spend as much time as possible around other homosexuals and their adopted children and to visit the exotic beaches of Massachusetts. I've gone on "the cruise" the last two summers and this year will be all-a-boarding it once more with Haviland, Caitlin, Alexandra, Tinkerbell, et al -- and hopefully I'll have lots of fun stories to share and a nice tan. I wrote about it in Curve (Page One, Page Two) maybe this year OurChart will hire me to live-blog from the ship. I hope they can sense my wanting telepathically.

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6.Tank Tops

Before feminism, women were supposed to stay covered up all the time, unless they were dirty whores. In fact, even if you were a dirty whore and/or hooker, you would've worn a lot of clothing in the old days -- and "hooker" and "gay" meant the same thing. Look:

I just want to state for the record that I use the word "hookers" as a non-judgmental word, like when I say "slut." I know & love many sex workers, just like I know & love many lesbians but still call them "lesbos" or "homos" 'cause I like the way those words sound. I also love the word "hooker." It's right up there with "cock" and "fuck."

Anyhow, but it's not just hookers who've stripped down -- all women have. Myself included. We wear tank-tops and cut offs ...

... though I despise shorts and all leg-revealing things. Jeans with holes in them: "Instant air conditioning," said Matty as I debated what to wear to work that day. Then we descended my staircase and out onto 115th. He'd walk me to the bus and then go visit his friends at the Taco shop, or go get his big red jeep vehicle and drive to the beach. Or we'd get in the car together and he'd take me to the train station and for a second with the top down atop the monster wheels it was like we'd traveled through time to this strange sweaty street, it was wind like wind itself. The air beneath us conditioned our calves, our whole bodies. Then underground and to the office. Whoosh!

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5. Hot Summer Jams

So obvs the olden days feature many of history's finest musicians, e.g., Bach, Beethoven, etc. Howevs, the villagers didn't always have an orchestra handy to really lay into Beethoven's 5th. Now, thanks to technological advances, you can listen to summer jams on your earphones, e.g., [admit it you want to get back into] Exile in Guyville [so bad it hurts, right? You should, you really should, I am, and it feels so good!], Rhianna "S.O.S." and "Umbrella," Beyonce "Irreplaceable," etc. Although I feel like last year's summer jam was ... THE CON!

Oh also I forgot that people could gather around one person on an instrument, like a piano or a banjo, but that still isn't as good as a Cure song on your ipod.

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4. Girls in Shorts

Standing outside the Border's Bookstore at the Arborland Strip Mall, waiting for my boyfriend to swing around in the purple Kia ("blue!" he said), I told his friend I felt like my boyfriend was mad at me. His friend said, "Well, it is is break up season. Every summer, I want to break up with my girlfriend."

He looked like a sage at the expanse of the parking lot. High school girls in Abercrombie shorts -- half-teenage and half gazelle -- grazed their way across the pavement: "But I don't," he concluded.

"Why is the summer break-up season?" I asked.

"Girls in shorts," he responded. "It's all the girls in shorts," and his eyes traced the legs of all the girls in shorts who suddenly seemed to be everywhere. All the limbs. I was scared, I was not in shorts, would I be left for a girl in shorts? Would I be left for Lolita? Should I wear shorts? Do I need a tan? Heterosexuality was so exhausting. Maybe if the rules had been more innate and less societally prescribed, it would've been less stressful.

Also, there were so many high schoolers in Michigan. They're hidden here, in apartments or schools, or on the Upper East Side. It's better that way, less jealousy of youth's untarnished parts.

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3. The Fourth of July

Prior to the year 1776, there was no "Fourth of July," cause the 4th is a holiday that celebrates the United States winning independence and blowing things up in the air on July 4th 1776. Although you still can't purchase fireworks in Michigan, you must drive to Ohio. After 1776, we started inventing more mini-explosions, intended to look like war-explosions but not the mean or deadly kind (hopefully). As you know I'm not a fan of Fourth of July 'cause of being outside during the hot-times, but this year I'll be in Atlantic City, kissing people's dice so that they'll win big money and we can Damn the Man, Save the Empire!

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2. The Possibility of Sudden Turnaround

Most of global warming's effects are negative, but I do like the possibility that things could suddenly turn around at any moment. We've had an unbearable heat wave every summer since I've gotten here, and each wave is followed by surprisingly temperate conditions. I mean, it could snow tomorrow. It probably won't -- but it COULD. In Orlando, the narrator says that Elizabethian England, things were so different than now: "Of our crepuscular half-lights and lingering twilights they knew nothing. The rain fell violently, or not at all. The sun blazed or there was darkness." It's not like that anymore.

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1. Pinkberry
I want pinkberry right now!

Making Something out of Nothing, the Need to Express, to Communicate, to Going Against the Grain, Going Insane

i. Shootin' Some B -Ball Outside of the School
The Rockford Peaches have nowhere to go from here but up, up, UP and away. As Carly pointed out, we scored twice as many points in the second half (8) than in the first (4), which's a two hundred percent improvement. At this rate, we'll be up to fighting numbers by the season's end.

Personally, I don't know exactly how to "shoot a basketball," and one of those bitches punched Alex in the face within 30 seconds of the game's commencement and made Alex bleed. Luckily for everyone, Alex isn't carrying any contagious diseases ... yet.

Why'd they punch Alex in the face? I don't know, but maybe 'cause Alex yelled: "I can't tell who I have, they all look the same!" after running onto the court. (JK, they didn't hear her say that. They hit her in the face 'cause other people suck.)

Also, what we need is just one REALLY GOOD PLAYER. Like a sort of female Michael Jordan or even a female Chris Webber, or I mean seriously we'd take a female Larry Bird too. So if you fit that description and live in the NY area, we need you to come in, and do all the work while we trot behind you like disciples. Also Cait and Carly know how to play.

We need Sheryl Swoopes.

ii. Book Club Links
1. Junot on The Colbert Report:

2. Penguin's Feature with Junot Díaz
3. The Great American Pause: "When it comes to the novel, Americans are still willing to take it slow, or at least reward the writers who do ... Edward P Jones, Junot Díaz and Jeffrey Eugenides all took 11 years to write their Pulitzer prize-winning novels -a blink, really, when compared to Shirley Hazzard and Marilynne Robinson's 23-year gaps preceding The Great Fire and Gilead respectively." (@the guardian uk)
4. Novelist Junot Díaz Weaves Cultures and Languages (@PBS NewsHour)
5. Wao wins The Tournament of Books (@the morning news)
6. Into It : on what he's reading, listening to, and watching. (@cs monitor)
7. Chasing the Whale: A Profile of Junot Díaz (@poets & writers)
8. The National Book Critics Circle reviews Wao, (as a finalist in fiction). (@critical mass)
9 .Seven of Oh Seven: best book covers of 2008. Babypop, you win. (@fwis)
10. Slice's spotlight author - Junot Díaz. (@slice magazine)
11. An Interview with Junot Díaz @bookslut)

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iii. quote me quote me quote meI was writing about The New Fuck You last night so I started re-reading a lot of it. It's too precious to destroy with underlines. This is one thing I would underline though:

I agree to go. I don't have anything planned. I don't have anyone I have to see. At the very least, I guess, it won't be boring.

That’s why we do things, Julia and I. I like her about half the time.

We live together, so I have to see her. It’s easy that way. We’ve just discovered that our house is infested with mice, and it’s bringing us closer together.

(from "What She Gives Up," by Anne Reid)

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iv. Amanda Palmer with the Boston Pops

Achtung, Baby! is one of my favorite places on the interwebs. Today, it introduced me to Amanda Palmer's (of The Dresden Dolls) solo career. I'm obsessed now. Here Palmer does What a Wonderful World with Boston Pops, Creep at Edinbergh, and In a Manner of Speaking.

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v. Me Against the Electronic Music

You know what's weird? I feel like when I use the internet, I'm fighting with it. It wants to eat me alive & suck me up & make me dumb. I want to use it as cleanly and efficiently as possible. I don't want it to ruin my ability to deep read (per the Atlantic article) or waste hours on pointless pursuits.

But sometimes ... it does. The other day, Alex linked me to a video of the Tonys performance of In the Heights -- amazing. (Also I think I've envisioned the narrator of Wao to look like Lin-Manuel Miranda) The "related to" column encouraged me to view prior Tony performances, like Spring Awakening and Cabaret and this year's RENT and as I sat in my gym clothes with work piled up all around me I somehow found myself twenty minutes deep into this videos-of-musicals downward spiral.

I think rock bottom hit when I was voluntarily re-watching a clip from "The View" in which Rosie brings on an 11-year-old girl who's got Cystic Fibrosis and loves musicals and then surprises her by bringing on the Broadway cast of RENT to sing "Seasons of Love" with her. What can I say, I totes heart rock bottom. Am I listening to "No Day But Today" right now? Maybe.

The Year in Review: Swift-Footed Winged Mess

Firstly, I forgot to say that Mom and Lewis guilt-tripped me into breaking my important "2007: Year of No Movies" resolution. Yes, that's right, on Jesus's B-day, I was forced against my will to attend an afternoon show of Juno, Hipster Movie of the Year. Wizard, that ain't no etch a sketch, I'm down with the lingo, yeah, it was pretty cute & precious, a good flick to ease me back into the movie-going experience, and always good for family time as there's not a lot of intra-family communication during a film. Afterwards, I offered: "Anyone who believes in love now, raise your hand!" and Lew and my Mom both raised their hands, as did I. How about that? I'll watch anything with C.J Cregg in it, but also, speaking of cute ... Ellen Page: I'd like to lie down w/her in a field of brightly painted flowers and play with her hair, if she's got the time, whatevs. Michael Sera reminds me so much of my brother Lewis, thus I imagine Lewis's girlfriend looking like Juno McGuff, which's a nice mental image of my brother and his girlfriend, in lieu of any actual images provided by my brother. Speaking of girlfriends w/o photographs, let's get on to the Year in Review. [Oh! Also! If you're wondering what's on that CD you got w/your clothes ... check it out here]

... in April & May I was more alive than I've ever been before or since ... which is just to say that I had a lot of feelings. Every moment was rich and full: terrifying & beautiful, perfect & ugly, heartbreaking & heartbursting, devastating & hopeful, thunder perfect shameless strength & fear. We lived lifetimes in a day. My brain was called upon to perform daily & hourly emotional, logistical and intellectual leaps rapidly & unexpectedly and the crazy thing is that it actually did -- and coming down took months. I was and often still am a Post Traumatic Stressed Out Mess. [Also, April & May: a picnic compared to June.] It's been a long path towards my "recovery" and she, too, after a few false starts, is truly recovering now, and by doing so is making this particular story one that actually ends well, instead of one that ends with me damaged & reeling and her still manic-as-ever. I lost all my faith in everything at one point: and sometimes you have to lose everything in order to get it all back, but more grateful & humble this time around.

It's tough to figure out how to write about serious madness and mental illness respectfully but truthfully, and here. I'm scared of TMI and unfinished thoughts ... I dunno ... so ... I don't know how to write about this. I may've been better equipped to when I took a stab at it in August. I was still pissed and suffering in the aftermath, she was still mad, and I hadn't even acknowledged on my blog the wide-scale internet attack launched at the height of her madness that most readers witnessed (the elephant in the cyber-room) ... and I had to say something, and so I did, and now, I'm at peace with it. Number "One" on that Top Ten covers what we've determined was defo The Weirdest Day of My Life and kinda gives you an idea of what April and May was often like -- moreso than I can communicate now. 'Cause I'm not angry anymore.

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"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world;
but that the world through him might be saved."
(The Holy Bible. St. John: 3.)
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"To err is human, to forgive divine."
(Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism")
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Because to be honest: what I've gained in the aftermath -- which I think (I'm not sure) are things I wouldn't have gained, or not quite in the manner that I did, had things w/Tara worked out better -- are beautiful things. It'd be rotten not to admit & recognise that many friendships and creative collaborations were enabled by my damaged aftermath and most of all, that my increased and loyal readership was enabled by my unavoidable vulnerability and the devotion I developed to this space because of/following that.

I've been blessed by so many heroes, and angels, since. This almost killed me, but it didn't.

"Between angels, on this earth/absurdly between angels, I/try to navigate
in the bluesy middle ground/of desire and withdrawal,/in the industrial air,
among the bittersweet/efforts of people to connect,/make sense, endure.
The angels out there,/what are they?"
(from "Between Angels," by Stephen Dunn)
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It'll all be in the book. It takes chapters. There's no way I could do any of it justice here, but I'll try sorta, whatevs. Bla blablatypetypetypememememe.

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There's this Dave Chapelle skit that was super popular, everyone quoted it all the time, the "It's Rick James, bitch!" skit? Remember that? This might seem like the most randomized association of all time, but there's a part in that skit where Rick James, following a story of him acting crazy, goes "Cocaine is a hell of a drug." I'd often think, in that same voice: "Bipolar is a hell of an illness."

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
-T.S. Eliot, "The Waste Land"

Anyhow, these months were like the mega-important transitional period of this blog. Number "5" on Live Through This holds the most important point.

April/May

4/22/2007

5/24/2007

WTF 2007 EVENT #4: Girlfriend begins her worst & most damaging manic episode ever, a.k.a. becomes TB.
WTF 2007 EVENT #5: While girlfriend is in hospital, my article gets killed.
WTF 2007 EVENT #6: While girlfriend is in hospital, the doctors do nothing productive.
WTF 2007 EVENT #7: "6" a few more times, and all of that. That happened.

The first weekend of April, my Mom visited -- totes charmed by Tara & Haviland and vice versa. We had dinner with Peter & Natalie. Tara took her out so I could finish my article. The next weekend, TB got arrested, a photographer from [redacted] magazine came. Then it was Easter, then ... and then. I published a Second OurChart post, about how I met Haviland. And so on.

So: holy shit, I totally funneled boatloads of energy into April and May posts ... hyperlinking, Tara's copyediting, needing somewhere to focus all this ridiculous energy ... each blog post was like a full scale project, like a mini-zine every week. Like, reading these, is just like ... surreal, and it makes me happy that I learned how to spell. Mostly I knew people were actually reading so I felt legit about putting more effort into it. This is where some of the stuff I like best is, like the Top 15 Clubs thing: Part One, Part Two.

There's a lot of first comments, like Razia, Crystal, Carly, LK, Caitlinmae, Brooklyn Boy and so many it makes my head explode to even begin to list them. This kinda got me a job: The Unpaid Internship You've Waited All Your Life For (later, we'd joke that I'd actually hired Carly for this unpaid internship -- she did apply) and prompted genius responses from everyone. Aw, the short-lived obvs segment Carousel of Progress Parts One and Two, my first run-down of my Automatic Skills. Yeah. Urm. A lot of over-compensating for things I couldn't say.

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Great Moments in Commenting

I Heart HPSDiva The Most Award (@Top 10 Opposites Attract 4.03):

Haviland: "i have tried to comment about 14 times and the blog rejects my words. waah. obvs so happy for you two. let's go get on a big gay boat!"

Anonymous: "Haviland I am in love with you. I will track you down and find you."

Haviland: "oooh, really? This is exciting, can't wait to see how THAT unfolds!"

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The Drunk Comment Award -- Before Semicolon, There Was This Brilliant Gem From Moonkiller ("seconde" is the new "ettempy"):

Moonkiller: "To start if this makes no sense it's cause i'm semi/VERY drunk. I love this entry I can relate to it an awful lot. It's fabulous if you will. Like I nearly alwys say U never fail to make me giggle and donnt half cheeeer me up. I thino tojnihght I might be the drunkenust I've ever been inmy hole lige ever. So sorry if I'v said anythinnng offenive lol. I wil most prbhely cokmmt angain in teh morning sorrecting mistakes in thikis scomment

ps. Taken me 4 ettempys to do the word veri."
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Subtext Award: Presented Only to Myself as only I Know My Subtext
Nalia: "Tara is so stupendous/arresting looking, like and I hate to be intrusive, but what genetic mix has produced this?"
Riese: "Arresting indeed ... the literal irony here is INCREDIBLE."
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The Lozo Award for Bold & Inappropriate Sexual Come-Ons: Presented Only to Lozo
Lozo's First Time: "i'm not sure who you are, and i'm not sure where exactly you linked to me, but i just wanted to say you really remind me of elliot from scrubs, so i'm going to fall in love with you in about 7 minutes."
Lozo's Second Time:"i just wanted to say that you are my new, what people would call, "blog crush." i think i've only had two ever. but i prefer to call it what it really is, a blog horniness-toward-a-girl-i-really-don't-know-who-may-or-may-not-be-a-lesbian-because-i-haven't-read-everything-yet-but-i've-seen-"L-Word"-a-lot-so-i'm-not-sure-but-i-totally-want-to-have-sex-with-her-anyway-because she-looks-like-elliot-from-scrubs.
i hope you appreciate all that hyphening."
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Best Comment Posted in October, Six Months After the Post Went Up In April, (while I was reposting my whole blog after deleting it all):
Tara: "Um. I nearly spit out my coffee when I saw this. I forgot this was here. Sigh ... I'm such a weirdo. And, I just look frightening I think. Anyhow, good morning Autowin."
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Best Response to Commenters Wanting to Call Her Out [for Repeating the Dead-Dog Story]
m: "My OTHER friend, unknowingly ate a bag of pop rocks while she was drinking a coke, and exploded. I swear."
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Best Suggestion for Saying Goodbye to All That
merc: "Peace corps sounds fun? Like you'd have a lot to make jokes about in blog posts? It would totally, like. EXPAND YOUR WORLD. And um, have this wole new element to your writing? Like, DIMENSION or DEPTH or SHINE -- oh, sorry, I was thinking about hair."
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The Earnest Award -- featuring excerpts from -
[stef's first time]: "totally no reason for writing this comment but whatever, i fucking love this blog. i originally wrote a long comment about how i found it and what i love about it and it was so cheesy and i am too new york cool for that, so let me just say i love this blog."
[stef's second time]: "ps, this blog is still awesome, but i live in brooklyn and it's illegal for me to be enthusiastic about anything. i am bound to a life of wearing sunglasses on the subway and sneering at tourists."
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Putting Graduate School to Good Use Award
Ingrid: "Ri, From my reading today, I would guess that being an African woman forced to strip down naked for photographs to be published in 19th century Anthro-porno-gynecological medical books, books that would be perused (and probably jerked of to) by Picasso as source material for paintings that have come to symbolize modernity, would have been worse than software breakdowns. But this isn't meant to take away from your pain; it's all relative! Love you!"
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I'd Like to Quote Awesomeness from the Intern-Applicant Thread ... but I already basically did that in this post about the comment awesomeness from the intern applicant thread (in the "teleportation" section), so, you know. On with it.
**

"If they say in the car that I am insane, I will take over the wheel." (Thomas McGuane, 92 in the Shade)
-My senior quote in my high school yearbook

For my 25th birthday, I wrote a parody of the Esquire "What I've Learned" feature -- one of my favorite magazine features, and when I was reading this month's Esquire, entirely devoted to "What I've Learned"s, I decided that this is how I'd write about April and May. This format assumes a certain authority: its subjects, e.g., Evil Kenivel, Tim Burton, Mia Farrow, Otis Redding, Muhammad Ali, Homer Simpson, Carrie Fisher, David Bowie, Mel Brooks, Yogi Berra, etc., generally have authority. I don't. I'm totally irrelevant and highly unwise. If you're not familiar with this format, you might think I'm a pretentious fuck. I assure you, it's a guise, I'm totally insecure, otherwise I wouldn't have to talk so much about myself or need all this attention.

-Tara described me as "sunshiney/bright" and herself as "moonshiney/dark" in her guest Sunday Top Ten. I'll take that.
-Zoho Writer crashes and the help-line is not helpful, they are outsourced and speak fuzz. Don't use it.
-Actually ... use Zoho Writer. Because that crash was serendipitious, proving even the most frustrating things happen for a reason: I asked silent readers to comment on their own electronic tragedies, and they did, and then I shared their stories, and then they kept talking, and that's everything.
-The mental health system in this country doesn't focus on "curing"/helping the mentally ill, but rather directly on ensuring the mentally ill won't become violent criminals. Sanity for sanity's sake? Ha! Every single employee of every NY psychiatric institution she checked into let us down. Nobody did a good job. Nobody did a mediocre job. Everyone did a notably terrible job. [I know: they're overworked & overburdened, tired, beaten by the system too] Instead they cared only if she'd possibly kill herself or others and once that liability seemed muted, they'd let her go. Everyone just held their breath til it wasn't their problem anymore, and thus it became mine. It turned out, not surprisingly, I wasn't qualified.
-The Auto-Win Equation of Coolness: x+2x=y (x=quality and rockstar factor of my actual life, y=quality and rockstar factor of autowin's life), unless my whole life is falling apart, in which case, x=y.
-"We're in love with our sadness sometimes" (Chris Pureka)
-Yeah, it's true, you're better off than the third world children who live in shacks. Do you feel better now? Urm, me neither.
-The psych ward is actually nothing like Girl, Interrupted. But they do have karaoke on Friday nights, there is yelling, and the nurses subscribe to the general philosophy that it's always easiest just to shoot 'er up with Ativan.
-It's really crazy how fast you can get used to really crazy shit.
-We had fun, too. Like, a lot of kick-ass fun.
-I think the world could do a better job of proving its lunatics wrong. Could've provided better material for me to argue against impending mass apocalyptic extinction and the human race's desperate unknowing need of redemption. Seriously: the snow in April, the Virginia Tech shooting (one of my favorite posts, I think), the Bush Administration, national disregard of moral responsibility in favor of celebrity, mirror, artifice, false idol worship and consumerism. You know, your average, run-of-the-mill firstworldian douchebaggery. (Auto-Lexicon)
-There comes a point when you've gotta cut your losses -- usually it's the sixth or seventh time you've thought to yourself "I oughta cut my losses."
-Miss Girl Nation, Haviland, is pretty much the hottest thing ever. Howevs, Miss Hot n' Fit turned out to be like amateur night at Deja Vu but with more expensive drinks.
-In high school, I watched a lot of "Slacker" films. These movies, best watched when it all seems so far away, characterised 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. But I'd never been so busy as I was whilst 100% unemployed: reading like crazy, playing Sancho to crazy adventures, looking for employment, writing, trying to figure out how to save someone when I still thought people were things you could always save without killing yourself, or leaving.
-I'm not entirely convinced that a liberal arts education prepares its graduates for anything aside from a career as a liberal arts educator.
-I love Rosie O'Donnell because she's moved so much by national/global problems that it affects her, deeply, and makes her depressed. We should all feel that way but if we did, we'd all fall to pieces. She does what I hope to do: create a relationship w/the mainstream through non-controversial entertainment to eventually earn the "power" to speak out and be listened to by people on all sides.
-I'm still an advocate of "running away" as a top ten coping mechanism, but I'm glad that I didn't.
-There's a book out there to validate everyone, whether it be The Bible or Kathy Acker, Elizabeth Wurtzel or the Marquis de Sade, or my old friend Matty's choice "The DaVinci Code," there's a book for you. Reading a lot of books about crazy people can make you a little crazy. Look what happened to Don Quijote. Don't even get me started on the internet and what that's done for maniacs all over the world.
-There's a fascinating cultural history related to madness. It's enough to distract you from its logical application to your actual life for a long time.
-Scattergories is the best game ever and fun for people of all ages.
-I deleted my MySpace because it made me feel safer -- one less public & vulnerable space, also cutting off my friends' ability to keep close tabs -- that day was, we agree, one of the worst, TB-wise. I was drunk when I wrote that post, because I was fully resorting to such things, anything for oblivion. Officially surrendering control of the situation. I was sad to lose all my friends' comments, but I think it's good, sometimes, to delete all of something. I still find the click-to-impact ratio stunning.
-Cream: the color. My blog became much better the day I switched from black to cream.
-Poland Spring Water Bottles Will Explode in your bag every time. Unlike people, they will never change. They will not stop exploding.
-If you are sad, try highlights and a manicure.
-It is impossible to argue with someone who is totally both wrong and 100% convinced of their own absolute rightness. I mean; where do you begin?
-She'd ask "What do you need, autowin? Are you okay?" but by that point, I was done accepting her offers cause I knew they'd be used against me later. My answer, which she affirmed proudly, was always: "I don't need anything." It was untrue, unfair, and I've always believed strongly in the validity of relative needs/wants, but for me to lose, temporarily, the privilege of my small tears, the forum to freak out over nothing, the ability to even buy stupid things for myself w/o inciting a fight ... it was very humbling. It wasn't the healthiest way to earn humility, but nevertheless, I did.
-Really, you save yourself by checking in -- therapy, emailing Haviland, ichatting w/Lainy and Chase, phone convos w/Natalie. That's how I maintained perspective, and was able to participate, strategise, without losing my mind myself ... errr ... mostly.
-When you've been on the Metro North with a woman yelling at the entire train about messages from her father in heaven and their first world Angelina Jolie-worshiping-problems, you develop an extremely high tolerance for being embarrassed in public. Seriously, just try to embarrass me in public, I dare ya. Impossible. Also I'm not ticklish.
-I am a decent writer. I'd never taken myself seriously enough to even proofread before, and hiding behind sloppy syntax was part of my subconscious announcement to the world that I didn't think I was good enough for it to matter. But yeah, I believe in myself now, holla.
-I now know: that [TB] wasn't her [Tara].
-The difference between crazy people that run corporations and have huge record deals and crazy people on the street yelling at strangers is money.
-One of the most fascinating aspect of mania is how it challenges commonly accepted limits of the human body. Maybe R-Kelly really could fly, you know, 'cause he believed? It's incredible what some bodies can tolerate, it is amazing how much the mind's conception of its own capabilities translates into what is commonly conceived as hyper-human power. Consequently, being able to break barriers we all could break if we desired to (but why? why would we want to walk barefoot on glass? get mugged and walk 105 blocks?) proves, to the manic mind, superpowers.
-The Book of Revelation is a manic's wet dream. It has become, over time, fodder for thousands of manic-bipolar-schizo episodes the world over. It validates the following: hearing voices, delusions of grandeur, the validity of yelling at people as a way to change things ...
-Also; Revelation probably was a manic's wet dream, like that literally might be what it is. There's a lot of theories. I know all of them. Also, it's beautifully written, stunning, a fantastic grand story. It's kinda awesome, as long as you don't think it's actually true.
-Being forced to accept the possibility of certain circumstances -- a solider, resolutely alive but always prepared for the fatal shot -- and the lasting impact of paying heightened attention to the immediate possibility of highly unpleasant circumstances -- can change the way you think a whole lot, can make you care a lot less about things you used to care about.
-It is possible to survive on Ramen noodles, eggs, peanut butter crackers, vodka and coffee.
-Madness is highly contagious.
-Taking too many amphetamines is a lot like madness.
-From an article about the double suicide of Jeremy Duncan and Theresa Blake: "You could, in a sense, rationalize their occasional erratic behavior. They were artists, after all, and artists are allowed a degree of lunacy." (The article's title: "Conspiracy of Two: A Chronicle of Their Descent Into Madness.")
-If you give money to every homeless person you pass, you can go broke in approximately two blocks. Also, as the only one doing so, many will ask for more. Another five, cigarettes, baby formula (seriously), another ten. A sandwich. Crack. JK about the crack. Crack is expensive, probs, otherwise there wouldn't be crack whores.
-You should probs still give money to homeless people, sometimes. Or food. Whatevs. I understand why you would or wouldn't, and why I do or don't.
-People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, but if you're totally chilling naked in your glass house like, what's up, here I am in my glass house, and someone starts throwing stones at you, you should probs reconsider your battle plan.
-[From the Club Blog, Part Two]: "No one ever guessed anything about me just from looking: no one'd guess that I'm queer, or a writer or a or even smart. "I would never guess that _______" I can be anybody, I can be anything, tell me what to do, you say jump I say I'm already jumping, look-- For every apparent revelation: a million secrets, stories denied and squelched by each reincarnation. A love/hate relationship with everything I've stood behind. Gay/straight, Jewish/Quaker, Genius/Airhead, Sane/Insane, Artist/Robot, Social/Recluse ... It's like I've been everything and it's opposite, and've gathered enough narratives to hold my own amongst any of them, now. Though I refrain from anything of import following "I am." Maybe here's a place where I can be all of those things at once and be validated instantly simply by the very fact that I'm writing it and I have a sitemeter. In fact, this particular truth feels indulgent, why should anyone care, that even acting as though I think you should care is breaking into another character, which's the only one I've yet to actually play: confidence."
-"You have to laugh at yourself, because you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't." (Emily Saliers) That's what I did more often than not, was try to turn it into a joke. I mean, it was really fucking funny sometimes. We laughed a lot. You take what you can get, you know? You wait for the next joke.
-Madness + Genius = Toxic
-Anything that can be said in three syllables can be said better in one syllable.
-There Were Good Times. More Good than Bad, srsly.

Auto-Lexicon:
Like Emily Dickinson: Seriously, I've really never read any of her stuff, I just think it's awesome that she spent so much time in her attic.

-I do not regret visiting every day, or trying to understand/rationalise or sticking it out. I wanted her back, I needed Tara back, she needed me there. There were moments when she'd return, and those kept me going through the truly gruesome terrible things. The ups and downs in one day -- mind-boggling.
-I don't regret losing what I lost, because I eventually got it back and then some.
-I only regret ... no. Nothing.
**
I weathered the accusations: masochist, depressive. Trying to distract myself from my own problems. Enjoying the drama. Voyeuristic satisfaction. Doing it all for the good writing material. I guess if I'd felt like any of those accusations were remotely true, I would've been more self conscious about my choices, but they weren't -- and I know this because before Tara/TB, I'd made a lot of choices for those reasons, those up there, and I know what that had felt like. I was bored and tired of all that. But no ... I went into the relationship seeking stability. I didn't want or expect what I got. And I wasn't going to turn my back on someone I loved because they were sick, I just couldn't -- I've compared this inability to the basic web template you can't change, no matter how much HTML you learn. That seemed awfully selfish to me? Eventually, I had to lose everything in order to walk away -- eventually, she had to lose everything¹ in order to choose, willingly, medicated health "forevs and evs" over the endless highs of provided by oh-so-seductive immortal mania. I tried to make the best of it -- "I never would've read The Book of John, it's a good thing to read!" -- which really isn't the same thing as being manipulated into believing it's okay. Trust me. I knew. Things.were.not.okay.
**
Why'd I stick it out? Because of love, obvs. Because she would have done it for me. Beneath this white-on-black retina-burning agoraphobic cynical depressive emo exterior is a heart made of cream and purple, fo'serious.
**

¹ TB's Sunday Top Ten: "And meanwhile, back @ Marie's shower, she's blasting showtunes. I'm cringing. Cause music is nearly everything to me. Therefore, Marie and I agree to disagree, re: tastes, and that's cool. Cause now she's nearly everything."^2
2Speaking of music, I like these: "A Better Son/Daughter" (Rilo Kiley) ["And sometimes when you're on, you're really fucking on, and your friends they sing along and they love you, but the lows are so extreme that the good seems fucking cheap and it teases you for weeks in its absence, but you'll fight and you'll make it through, you'll fake it if you have to."], "Manic Depression" (Jimi Hendrix) ["Music sweet music, wish I could caress caress caress"],"This is Everything" (Tegan & Sara).

Don't Be a Meance to West Hollywood While Drinking Your VLOG in the Hood

Since expanding my daily pursuit of weirdohood from just typing words to also editing videos, I've found that video-editing is Just the Thing To Do when I'm tired from a long day of writing/having important groundbreaking thoughts/playing Legos. So that's what I did tonight ... I'm still working on the Year in Review.

Last night Haviland sang in this opera-ish french art-related thing, she was great, I 100% paid attention to all her parts and thought: "Wow, Haviland is great!" It's good to have talented friends, otherwise it can be awkward after their performances to say "You're great," if they're not. Then afterwards we went to a restaurant with reclining comfy chairs for a cast party hooha of some sort. These kind servers could tell we were hungry, esp. Natalie and I, and kept bringing us miniature precisely shaped foods, like mini ceasar salads and these shrimp-on-a-stick-amajabbers. I kept accidentally sticking the stick into my mouth which hurt. Other than that though, it was a really good dinner. I find if someone's bold enough to claim they've fit an entire salad on a palm-sized pastry puff (like a salad for a doll), they usually know what they're doing with the salad itself. I learned this last night. What did you learn last night? Anything? I learned that Heather didn't win America's Next Top Model, but she's Cover Girl of the Week still, which's great, I love Cover Girl eyeliner.

Anyhow, who's excited for Season Five of The L Word? I feel a little bored of it already. Hm. We all realise it's totally not even about the show anymore, right? I mean, it's amazing. Maybe Ilene Chaiken IS a genius. Maybe her genius is precisely that she annoys us all so much that we can't tear our snarky eyes away. It's not as much fun to recap a good show, like I wouldn't want to recap Six Feet Under or West Wing, the two best shows I've ever seen.

Okey dokey, here's a video! We have some outtakes from 'L Word' dramatic readings, but mostly it's just us fucking around. Think of it as a mini-quesadilla for your soul.