Recap: Naked on the Internet Panel

Just talked to T-Mobile: the thief downloaded games onto my phone. Apparently this's a gift in disguise as the games'll be mine when I retrieve my "SIM card" or whatevs? I hope it's Trivial Pursuit or "a game called reading great works of literature." Games on phones? Seriously? How bored is this guy? I mean, doesn't he have other stuff to steal?


[L to R: Waking Vixen/Audacia Ray, Marie Lyn Bernard/Muppet Monkey Face, Lux Nightmare, Madeline in the Mirror, Ellen Fredrichs.]

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i. The Red Carpet, 5:45 P.M.:

TB: Do you get nervous about public speaking?
Me: No. That's the problem. I don't get nervous enough. I just say whatever comes into my head, like whatever crazy shit I think'd be funny or cool, I've been told I have weird public speaking tics ... hand gestures, etc ... And that I play with my hair a lot. I'm generally impossible to watch, is what I think.

[Things I didn't do that I was scared I might do: mention anyone specifically, talk about my personal sex life, be totally snarky/annoying, talk too much, employ off-color humor, drink beforehand, play with my hair a lot, laugh inappropriately, talk about crazy exes/crazy self.]

[Something else I didn't do: mention the name of my blog or anything else that woulda given me self-promotional benefits. Whoops. That's okay. I did it for fun! Actually, it was fun. I love talking about this kind of stuff. Seriously. Besides! FIVE present peoples already link to me: Waking Vixen, Jayme Waxman, RKB, my girlfriend and Steph, so I auto-won like, 5% of the room already!]

[I didn't do anything annoying, my friends said I was clever and funny and said good things/made good points, and ... and ... I actually agree with them ... I think.]

[Is this what it's like to go to class having done the reading? I mean, I read the book! I read the whole thing!]

I wore a cute outfit. My lucky cowboy boots, lucky black dress, etc.

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"My most solitary endeavor--blogging--was responsible for bringing me to the darkest places in my Internet travails, because it brought me deeper into my own head. Ironically, it also brought me the most comfort and community with other women. Perhaps this is because many women come to blogging--especially sex and relationship blogging--with a sense of restlessness, aloneness, and the general frustration of being misunderstood--plus a serious compulsion to write."
-Audacia Ray, Naked on the Internet

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ii. my first

6:45 P.M.:

We take the W train to Union Square, because we're retarded. Waking Vixen'd asked me to arrive @MoSex by 6:30. Obvs it was 6:45. This was karmic timing, 'cause we ultimately emerged via R-train at 28th street, just as Stephanie was walking by, en route to the reading.

[Summer 2004: "When people ask how I met you [Stephanie], I tell them we met in Union Square. Because we did. I just leave out the part beforehand--you know. The craigslist part." Old-School Auto-Win fans may remember Stephanie from September /October /November. In her East Village apartment that '04 summer, though, before I knew anyone--before I knew myself: a futon, Thai take-out, whirring air conditioner, space thick with smoke, Radiohead. I thought, there's people out there like me who are also afraid of people, afraid to leave their cave, but also beautiful and interesting and cool and fun. We had a few incarnations in each other's lives, and I was super-happy when she told me she'd be coming, as I haven't seen her since December.]

stephanie. met on internet, july '04.

Stephanie: What're you gonna talk about?
Me: No clue.

---

This's me making Waking Vixen laugh.
She's like "Ha! I'm so glad I invited this totes weirdo to my panel!"
Probs everyone was laughing, that's how funny I am.
JK. Probs the panel and my friends were laughing.

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iii. Represent.

My posse of young 'uns on the far left of the room are the coolest kids in school. First off ...

7 p.m.: Panel begins.

7:05 p.m.: TB arrives, after enjoying a cigarette outside.

tb, met on internet, february '07.


7:15 p.m.: Krista arrives, looking earnest/clutching sleeves.

krista. met at interlochen arts academy, september 1997.
krista is my sister. not by blood or anything. but she is.

7:20 p.m.: Lainy, Tara, Vicky and Tara's 18-year-old male cousin arrive.
Tara's wearing a denim mini and a tank top reading "Dirty Kitty." Lainy's donned hot pink, obvs.
Later during panel, I will say: "I write about my friends on my blog," they will laugh, I will point: "I write about all those kids on my blog."

tara. met on internet, march '05.


lainy. met via tara, summer '05.

Later, Re: Who's on these internet dating sites?, I'll reflect that it's the same ten people on every site, the same people you already know. [Though I haven't been on 'em in about two years, so I'm sure the climate's changed since then.] I'll be referring specifically to the fact that, while interning at nerve, I'd do frequent searches and Lainy always came up as my number one "match." I was like: NERVE! I already know Lainy, duh, I'm talking to her on AIM right now!

7:30 p.m.: Matty arrives.

matty. met at CAKE party, summer '05.
lived across the street from me and krista.
krista informed me immediately: NOW HE'S MARRIED. WHAT?!!!

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iv. The Fringes

Re: Advantages to online dating.

Me: "You don't have to leave your apartment, is the main thing."

*

1998, The New Yorker.
from "On the Fringes of the Physical World," by Meghan Daum:

"All the tangible stuff--the trees outside, my friends, the weather--fell away. I could physically feel my brain. My body did not exist. I had no skin, no hair, no bones; all desire had converted itself into a cerebral current that reached nothing but my frontal lobe. Lust was something not felt but thought. My brain was devouring all of my other organs and gaining speed with each swallow. There was no outdoors, the sky and wind were irrelevant. There was only the computer screen and the phone, my chair, and maybe a glass of water."

*

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v. Naked on Waking Vixen's Arm

Circa 8 P.M., I notice AR's tat. Her tattoo is not kidding around. I've tracked down a photo for you, from her blog:

Speaking of tattoos, from a convo a month or so ago:

"You're so precious, you're like the cutest girl in the world, and I'm so dark ... like Satan over here ... like ... RAWR. I'm such more of a robot than you. Look at your stuff..all your little stuff...your little iBook and your pink iPod, you're like, I'm gonna get a tattoo of a chai on my thigh, and I'm like. I wanna get tattoos on my wrists like the CRUCIFIXION, you know?"
-TB

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vi. Lusting for the Lusty Lady

For a while, I was considering a regular Auto-Win feature called "My Secret Obsessions." Then I realized this'd be a short feature, as my only secret obsession is Rachel Kramer Bussel. I read at her In the Flesh reading series last year, and she wrote really nice things about me. But I'm obsessed with her because I think she's the most productive person on earth. Does she know of some secret Time-Management Super-Powers?

Me: Do you think RKB will be there?
TB: Obviously. Totally.

Why am I obsessed with RKB? And why didn't she say hi to me--though I also didn't say hi to her? Is it because like me, she's also kind of shy in this weird selective way? Is it because I seem hostile or annoying or obsessed?

I could think about this all day. Instead, I blog, because that's what bloggers do, when not having cybersex on the internet. JK, I never have cybersex.

Which's why I mainly spoke on topics like blogging/life, relationships, internet dating, etc., and hushed up during discussions of porn/sex work/etc. OK: actually, I said stuff on those topics too, because I'm a big fan of inserting my uneducated P.O.V on everything.

Anyhow back to RKB.

It's my secret desire to sit inside her brain and watch the neurons fire. Instead, I read all of her blog entries, though not the cupcake blog, because I don't like lusting for things I can't have. [There're no nearby cupcake factories, I think.] RKB goes to everything and reads every book ever and blogs everything. She's like a one-woman Fleshbot.

AND she blogs about her relationships and her feelings--which's a topic we discussed at the panel, actually--how to handle getting personal on one's blog, what to show and what to reveal, how to handle this with your partners and friends--It's a compelling and persistent issue, and the choice to do so [to choose to blog about one's "personal life"] is increasingly rare--

Personally [ha! get it? Personally?!] I think there's been a mass blogger exodus over the past year or so, as blogs' ubiquity has increased, away from discussing the intimate/personal. It's frowned upon, often, as "dirty laundry," etc. There's arguments to be made on both sides. I said: "I do it sometimes but generally try to avoid it, try balance, I used to be more personal than I am now that my audience's bigger. Sometimes I wish I could block my ten closest friends but let 4,000 strangers read it. You know? Also, when I do blog about personal things, it's usually because I'm hoping to you know--touch on larger issues, or something someone else might relate to, you know--[Miss America voice]--help people."

Waking Vixen shouted out my Sunday Top Tens. My friends laughed. That was awesome.

So, RKB!

She posts at least six blogs a day, hosts reading series, interviews people for mediabistro/gothamist/everyone and publishes like, 100 articles a week for HuffPo/Village Voice/NY Post/everyone, edits or appears in 10,000 erotica anthologies, and often blogs about how she's really just a nerd who's sometimes lonely and up w/insomnia Amazon-searching new books to read. How's that possible? She's the busiest person on earth! She's making cupcakes! She's getting spanked! She's having relationships! She's RKB!

I considered devising a mathematical formula to determine exactly how she does what she does, but then I thought: Riese, this's why you don't get anything done, weirdo.

Excerpts from E-Mail exchange, August 2006:

To: RKB
From: Me

... I know this sounds like an odd question, but how do you manage your time so well? When I read your blog, it seems like the amount of creative output and the amount of reading of other people's creative output that you do is really impressive! How does she do it, one might ask? And so I am. Share your wisdom, as I'm attempting to craft a similar rate of productivity myself.

To: Me
From: RKB

... briefly, um, I don't know how I get so much done but in large part I use one thing to procrastinate on another. Really. And do a lot at my day job, and, just, am crazy really.

When I received that email, I was mostly stunned that she also has a DAY JOB?!! She must never sleep! I'm crazy too, but I feel like I haven't done anything.

Side note about a book I did finish reading, which's a miracle these days: Naked on the Internet, the book.

I suspect I was in the minority of people present who'd actually read the whole thing cover-to-cover. Read, losers. Buy it!

RKB arrived at 7:30. I know this because TB wrote it down immediately, and we gave each other a look. A "RKB is here, obvs," look.

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vii. From "The Comments" to my Sunday Top Ten

TB dropped her Blackberry on the floor within about 15 minutes of the panel's commencement. I wanted to pee in my pants, but instead I was like; Whats up, that's my girlfriend reading Gawker on her Blackberry. She was like "Sorry, got it," and held it up to reassure everyone she could return to whatever she was doing, let's all move on as planned.

So first Waking Vixen read from her book, then we discuss topics, then people from the audience asked questions.

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viii. Some things I remember

Q: What motivates women to get involved in pornography?
A: "Money."

[Lux Nightmare had a much longer and more complicated answer that did not involve money. She actually has information and experience from which to speak. I've got none. Also, a lot of alt-porn stars don't get paid! I learned that in Naked on the Internet.]

Q: Do y'all feel weird about the world knowing your business?
A: I mostly just feel weird about my grandparents.

Q: How do you blog about sex and still retain dignity and a sense of self?
A: I only blog about 90210. Dignity what?

Q: Are there any websites like ManHunt for women?
A: Dude, if you're a woman that wants to have sex like, right now? You could have sex with anyone in the whole world that you wanted to. You could post an ad on craigslist and get like, 150 responses. LIFE IS MANHUNT FOR WOMEN.

Q: Are there axe murderers on the internet?
A: "Yes." JK! Just me. Actually I feel that axes are very old school. I prefer lasers like from Star Wars.

Lux: Some of the Suicide Girls were allegedly only paid in underwear.
Me: It was really cute underwear.

[note: I'm not a Suicide Girl. But I did write a story for an erotica anthology they were putting together once upon a time that never came to fruition. That's fine. Like I said, my favorite thing on earth is to write things for free. In fact, that's how I make a living, and slowly deteriorate into insanity. Not the productive kind of insanity, like RKB's, but the other kind. Whatever the other kind is.]

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*

Krista: So Matty's MARRIED.
Me: You're married?
Matty: Yup.
Me: Wow! Congratulations.
Matty: [monotone, unenthused.] Thanks.
Me: When'd you get married?
Matty: Tuesday.
Me: Wow! How's married life so far?
Matty: Sucks.
Me: Oh! Okay. Um.
Matty: Yeah.
Me: Already?
Matty: Yup.
Me: OK! Um.

*

"I love how those guys had to qualify their questions with I heard you on The Brian Lehrer Show today like I heard about this on legitimate media I was listening to NPR, this isn't normally my thing."

-Krista

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Afterwards, we dined at Dragonfly. It was fabulous to see everyone, especially now that I think I'm getting sick. My throat, nose and body hurts real bad. I'm drinking tea. I think I need some apples or something. Someone sign me up for the Fruit of the Month club, thanks.

I've got a postcard super-glued to my desk of William Burroughs trying to stab Jack Kerouac with a dagger.

Intro: "Naked on the Internet" Panel

TB and I've decided to individually recap the perfectly marvelous
Museum of Sex Naked on the Internet panel,
then post our relative perspectives on our respective blogs.

It's writing exercise, but also it'll provide endlessly delicious entertainment for YOU, the reader.

For example: Was the "TB drops her Blackberry on the floor, thus attracting the attention of everyone in the room for about five seconds incident" different from TB's vantage point?

We've not exactly started this recap yet, 'cause TB actually had to do work today at her work,
which's unheard of,
and I broke off my "T" key this morning
and literally spent the entire day
trying to fix it.
And doing laundry while listening to 1984 on Audiobook, etc.

But it's coming. Pun possibly intended.

*

Viviane's photos, my edits:

You can see in these photos that I'm having a lot of very deep thoughts. Also you can see that the string of Lux Nightmare's tea's in a different position in each photograph. This's 'cause she kept fiddling with it, which may or may not've made me want to take the string, wrap it around my neck, and die. However, as you can see in the displays behind us, this probs woulda been interpreted as an "auto-erotic-asphyxiation" fetish, which I know all about from Law & Order: SVU and Six Feet Under and 'cause that's what I tell TB I'm doing when I'm actually doing other things, like enjoying a lemon wedge or a brief dangle from the ceiling.

Anyhow, luckily I didn't hang myself, because then everyone would've missed out on the fabulous panel! It went very well, I think, and Lux Nightmare: I forgive you for the tea-bag-string thing. I myself am very fidgety, and I've been told I develop strange habitual tics when speaking in public. We're lucky I didn't have a teabag string to fiddle with, otherwise I woulda driven everyone crazy.

"Being Driven Crazy/Driving People Crazy" is also a fetish: clearly, it's mine.

*

I came to MoSex for an opening this past February called "Kink." After looking around and licking some feet, Lo and I ended up sitting upstairs, dissecting and describing the hours that'd passed since we'd last really spoken; since I moved out in August. Upstairs is all video: screens and more screens, including the one in our corner, seven minutes of porn on repeat as innocuous as air. I don't remember what was in the scene, only that it was funny we could talk about serious things without acknowledging the fucking out of the corner of our eyes like so many other bodies passing our space: like our own. But I guess we do that all the time now, yeah? Like that rubber clown I kept seeing at the panel! Like, rubber clown, what's up dude? How's that clown nose? Kinky, yeah? [Wha?!!] Totes not judgin', just sayin'.

Goooooooooo sexxxxx!!!!

*

This time, Stephanie and her boyfriend came, Krista came, Matty came, Tara-D and Lainy and Vicki and Tara's cousin and of course TB and later we all had dinner at dragonfly in the West Village and Kristen came and it was an all-around really perfect evening. I'm really glad that I did it. Go Waking Vixen, Madeline in the Mirror, Ellen Fredrichs and Lux Nightmare! And that dude from Mahunt or whathaveyou with the children and the Escort Reviews!

Thanks, guys. You're all very kinky, and special, and you can all have a pony and/or a monkey, whatever your adorable heart desires, and also the Superpower of your choice.

P.S. I still do not have a phone. It's funny, I don't feel that different. It's not that I repress behavioral instincts to avoid making phone calls, it's that I have the same ones as usual, I just don't feel guilty about it.

P.P.S. Typing with a broken T key is so annoying though, I might have to get a phone.

Sunday Top Ten: It's Hard Out Here for a Luddite Without a Cell Phone

[I wrote this in about 30 minutes in Philadelphia yesterday afternoon. Probs needs some work. But I gotta dash to the doc and etc., and I need to post this before I do that, just to make myself feel better. Thank you for your participation.]

Once upon a time, I had a phone. Then, circa witching-hour last eve on Market Street in Philadephia, PA: my T-Mobile SideTwatWaffle got stolen. That's fine. I don't like talking on the phone anyhow. TB offered me her Crackberry Pearl, but I want no such things. I prefer to write letters to my beloveds, like Griffin and Sabine, and send smoke signals. Also, I think it's funny that TB-the-sociopath's got a Blackberry and a MySpace profile, and I'm like, the Helen Keller of technology. I'm not making fun of Helen Keller or other deaf people, obvs, I love deaf people, like Jodi on The L Word, and I especially love blind & deaf people, e.g., the aforementioned Helen Keller. That thing she did with scratching words in palms? S-to the-E-X-Y. If you're blind/deaf and reading this, I love you most of all.

We're in Cosi on the U-Penn campus. Cosi blows, but they've got wireless. On our way down/up [What am I, Carmen Sandiego ? I don't know how we got here. I got into the car, and now we are here. Perhaps if I had a better sense of direction, my life wouldn't be such a fucking mess], we stopped in New Jersey to retrieve literature from TB's storage shed, most of which's been destroyed in a flood. She revealed to me the true source of her astounding intelligence and love of madness theory: she's read like, 5,000 books. I've read like, Goodnight Moon. Anyhow one of the books we picked up was Kathy Acker's prose poem "I am Erica Jong." It's really good. Y'all can buy it from us for a million dollars. Here it is:

JK, I've read more books than anyone I know besides TB. But she beats me by like, 4,500.

They're playing some sort of Satanic Swing music in Cosi:

"I should just get up right now and like--fling you around! You know those movies where they just get out of their chairs and dance around? This music's so gay, this's the gayest shit ever, seriously. I gotta put on my ominous death music right now, I gotta listen to my Depeche Mode."
[TB, just now]

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Obvs I'm gonna replace my cell phone, probs tomorrow or one of the days after that, but what if I like, didn't? I think people were much more reliable before cell phones, yeah? Anyhow, I was thinking, I'm not the only person in the world without a cell phone, right?

SUNDAY TOP TEN: CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? NO? THAT'S 'CAUSE I DON'T HAVE A PHONE, WEIRDOS!

LIKE THESE PEOPLE!!!

10. My Grandparents:
Just got an answering machine like, last year. Once my Grandma wrote me an email, it was really cute. They're home alot though. It just occurred to me that I've got a land-line at home. [Right, Roommate-Ryan? Hiii!] I need to figure out how to work that gadget, I bet it'll solve all my problems. I'll just stay at home all the time, which's what I want to do anyhow. I wish I had a ceiling fan to stare at though, that'd make everything more perfect.

9. My Ex-Boyfriends:
I had a thing for boys who couldn't pay their phone bills. Most've 'em had home/dorm lines, which wasn't much comfort: the land-line-only access method enabled things like getting drunk and passing out on the street and having affairs with 16-year-old synchronized swimmers. When my [not ex-boy]friend/neighbor Matty's phone got cut off, he called from pay phones, which meant I had to be on top of my shit: like answer the phone when it rang, even when it was an unidentified number. That was a weird time in my life, suddenly I had to talk to all these people who I woulds typically avoided forever, like DirectTV, just in case it was him asking when I'd be home so he could come over and eat my food. Remembering this time inspired me to ask TB if, instead of replacing my cell phone, she could just give me $500 in quarters. Then I'd need a wheelbarrow to tote it, or a "serious Sancho basket." When S and I broke up the first time, he cited problems with the intensity of our relationship and said: "I wanna be able to take my guitar down to the river to play and not have anyone know I'm taking my guitar down to the river." I was like, Umm...well, if we break up, no one'll pay your phone bill anymore, so you could drown in said river and no one'd know where to look, especially since "play guitar" is clearly code for "Tony Hawk," and "independence" is my campaign promise, so let's get down to the real issue here, yeah?

8. Dogs and Cats:
When a dog needs you, it's just like "Ruff ruff!" And a cat's like: "Meow!" And you're like: "What's up, dog/cat? Are you hungry? Would you like me to scratch behind your ears? Would you like some dog and/or cat food?"

7. People from History:
Another book we picked up was the letters of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. They were lesbos, sorta, like me! [I'm a bisexual=half-lesbo. But I've got a whole girlfriend. This's important information for those of you who've never read this blog before EVER.] If they'd had cell phones, it woulda been all like "What're you wearing?" Which's much less mysterious and fun, and doesn't make for good reading. Also, the pioneers on the Oregon Trail didn't have cell phones. If they had, someone coulda called from Oregon and been like, "I know a shortcut."

6. Alexander Graham Bell:
He invented the telephone, so obvs he didn't have a cell phone, because the egg came before the mobile egg. After inventing the telephone, he got really famous and could make love to any woman or man he wanted to. Thanks to AGB, people learned how to be even more annoying than usual, and started moving far away from each other and then civilization slowly crumbled into this giant disconnect of randomness where true love's as rare as true love and we use the word "love" like it's a free lollipop at the dentist, especially 'cause it's easier to give out not face-to-face. Right before you hang up, just throw it out there. You'll usually get it back, unless you're talking to someone who really matters, but not that much yet.

---

[This's me trying to get TB to hold her hand to my ear like a phone. I asked her to find me a banana,
so I could photograph myself pretending that a banana was a phone. Unfortunately she did not do this,and rather than holding her hand to my ear, put my headphone back in so I could blast off
into Ave Maria-land again.]

Those who've gotten away from me:
read this, and call.
Those whom I've hurt:
I wanted everything,
or not enough,
it was all my fault.
-Stephen Dunn, Loves

---

5. Homeless People:
Thing is, if you're homeless, you really need a cell phone, because you can't have a land line if you don't have a land to line. You know? Hopefully a homeless person's got my phone right now, and is using it to find a place to crash, call his Mom, or to go into my gmail, get all my passwords, and steal all my money. JK! I don't got no money, fools. My Thief can hijack my friendster and say that The Princess Diaries's my favorite movie or something mean like that. I didn't shut off my phone though, because if they're trying to use it and it doesn't work, that'd be really disappointing, after going through all that effort to steal it. TB just reminded me: WEEKEND MINUTES! So it's free for them to call whomever, awesome.

4. Carrie Bradshaw:
I know she got one in the series finale ["Hi, Mr. Big! I mean, John?!"], but, for someone who so enjoyed talking about herself, she held out for quite some time. I found that to be inspirational, unlike the rest of her personality, which made me wanna punch my television and throw a small cuddly animal out a window onto a random totesbagged passerby.

3. David Sedaris:
He says people don't call him that often. If he was my friend, I'd call him 'cause I bet he'd make me laugh. That's why people call me, obvs. JK, no one calls me anymore, cause: 1. I never pick up, 2. I don't have a cell phone anymore! He makes me laugh really hard, but I also stopped reading his books after Me Talk Pretty One Day, so maybe I'm biased. His sister Amy's the real deal, too: fully embracing art/life integration and guerilla humor, because if no one reads books or watches quality television [oxymoron, natch], then you've gotta find the forum where people are paying attention, like Letterman, and do your piece, burst boldly into whatever format'll take you and shake it up a little. We're all so self conscious these days--who's watching? Is this gonna be on youtube? How'll this clip make me look?--and seem to forget that the world around us's gotten so absolutely fucking ridiculous that actually behaving feels sometimes like sleeping. At Amy's photo shoot for Paper magazine, she asked to be made up to look beaten/bruised. Like, F-you, tortured models. Here's some torture: eat me! have a cupcake, etc. She makes cupcakes, which're delicious.

SIDE NOTE: SERIOUSLY THEY ARE PLAYING LISA LOEB'S "STAY" IN COSI RIGHT NOW. I'm trying to listen to "Ave Maria" on repeat, as I usually do during trying times like this one, but "Stay" is even louder. OMG NOW THEY ARE PLAYING THAT RETARDED SWING MUSIC AGAIN. "WHAT IS WITH THIS MUSIC? WHERE ARE WE? LIKE, THE SWINGING TWENTIES OR SOMETHING? " (TB)

2. All of Us, not that long ago:
Seriously it was not that long ago. I could wax over all the things that've changed since we got cell phones, but I think I did that in an earlier post, and I've got this funny feeling I wouldn't be the first person to write on this. All I'm saying is: it must be possible, right? Possible?!

1. Me, Tomorrow:
OK, I'm gonna get a new cell phone on Friday. In the meantime, either you know where I live or you don't, and you can try calling my girlfriend, who can then type to me on gmail chat, or you can type to me on gmail chat too. Also you can send a messenger, especially singing messengers, those are the best kind. Or letters, duh.

Everything is Far and Long Gone By

Someone once said: "You win some, you lose some." Lots of people've said it since then, but someone said it first, though I don't know who.

Back in February--that lazy thick winter--when TB and I were courting via g-chat/email/comments and I was bemoaning her refusal of a pre-March 18th real-life meet-up, I posited this threat: "What if I'm TAKEN BY THEN?" and she responded: "You win some, you auto-lose some."

Then I killed myself. Now I'm dead, and I'm writing this blog entry from the underworld, where I'm thinking about other things that have died, or, if you will, been LOST.

P.S. If you've google-searched for LOST the TV show and ended up here, then you are indeed lost. I've never seen that show. What I do know is that Charlie Salinger's had it rough: first he lost his parents in a car accident, then his brother dated J-Love-Hewitt, who's super annoying, and now he's abandoned on a desert island? That's ridic.

I was kidding about killing myself. Actually, TB amended that statement with: "That'd be tragic," and then we made a date for the far-away future (March 24th) and I suggested "You can get drunk and visit me at two a.m. any time between now and then." Obvs she did, four days later, and the rest is history. Auto-winning all around.

However, not everything's got such a happy ending. You do indeed win some and auto-lose some.

Here's some things we've auto-lost lately. I don't miss all these things, really. I just want to talk about them. 'Cause don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til it's gone? You know?

1. Gawker's Blogghurrahia

As far as I know--and my knowledge's not so far in this area, as I check Gawker sporadically at best--this feature has unceremoniously disappeared. Blogyreeia's probs responsible for 50% or more of my current readership: a Blogherria link usually results in 4,000+ additional page views on the day it's posted, and many of these viewers become permanent readers. Some become permanent girlfriends [TB found me through Gawker, oddly enough], or job offers, or douchebags who stop by to drop some negative vibes, therefore sealing their fate to rot in hell. Really, I only mourn it insofar as it could affect me personally, obvs, cuz I'm in Generation ME, duh! Even when they say mean things to me/don't actually read my post ['cause it's funnier and snarkier just to make fun of me and pretend like the only people on earth who can be ironic or sarcastic are Gawker writers themselves], I'm still like Awesome, totes Gawkered!. Because there's no such thing as bad publicity, unless you're one of the 10,000 dudes who's life they've mercilessly ruined in other features, like "Douchebag of the Week." I could say mean things about Gawker, too, but I'm trying to be the mature one in this relationship. OK, one thing's that we both use a lot of bright colors, actually. And one of us is running a purple-and-green flash-enabled ad for Clariol hair products, and it's not me.

However, I'm hoping the absence of Bloggerea'll result in less pointless-overdone-NYC-centric posts ["Omg, apartment hunting is really hard," "Omg, The L Train!"] by NYC-bloggers hoping to be linked by Gawker. Though it doesn't always work out that way.

Maybe they need a new Bloguria intern, in which case I'd like to volunteer my services, 'cause I specialize in unpaid writing gigs that take up massive amounts of time and make me feel popular/poor. Here's today's Bloggerwheea, as composed by me:

Blogorrhea: So Many Stupid, Annoying, Worthless People on This Planet

-Bloggers who mine material from the MTA and/or the revolutionary activities of drunken twentysomethings: "humorless and talentless." [why don't we get drunk and blog? ]
-Times writers who scorn menopausal women, have limp dicks: "really sick." [pink india ink ]
-Ivy League Students who don't buy rare books from street-vendors: "poison." [thunder, perfect mind ]
-Athletic Apparel Companies who can't spell OR, at least, pass off stupidity as purpose: "lazy." [copyranter ]
-Store managers who force employees to force shoppers to open credit cards, despite employee's strict moral code: "unethical." [this girl called automatic win]

As you can see, I linked to myself and to my girlfriend, 'cause obvs that's what I'd do if I really made Blogherria. I'd probs link to Haviland's myspace blog, too. Hell, I'd like to any NYC-residing blogger who emailed me, that'd save a lot of time.

I've personally never used it to find blogs to read: I can hardly keep up with all the blogs I love without seeking out new ones. [Hell, I can barely keep up with RKB alone.] That's the same way I feel about human relationships. I developed most of my initial blogroll from the NYC Bloggers Google Group I'm in, now it's just mutated into an incomprehensible monster.

Some people I link to still won't link to me, but I keep linking to them, because I'm humble and no one can jock my style/hold me down, I've got to keep on movin'. Now I'm just rambling. Maybe I wouldn't link to me after all.

UPDATE: I've decided to do Bloggorhea myself. I mean, it's a great idea. It's like opening a Subway Sandwiches franchise, but without the "income." That's right. Check it out.

2. Global Ink on Broadway/110th

When I confess my love for magazines, most women'll respond with a knowing whisper: "I know, I love US Weekly, shhhh!" But I'm like, "Did I say I love sycophantic crap? No, I didn't. I said I love magazines." And though some of the magazines I love are, indeed, crap--some aren't. And those that aren't, I usually pick up at Global Ink. They had all the queer mags: Curve, Advocate, Velvetpark, et al, as well as all lit mags (n+1, VQR, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Black Clock, etc.) and--well--everything. International shit. Fashion photo feminist fitness whathaveyou.

Yesterday: that beautiful afternoon, all sky/hope, we visited Ahmad by Tom's Diner and TB played chess while I read Waking Vixen's book, sun in everyone's eyes but also in our hearts, I ventured to the corner for cigs [for others, not myself, weirdos] and passed Global Ink and its sign announcing impending closure. I'd been lamenting the new distance between myself and Global Ink since I moved, now I can't even be bitter over that. Now I gotta go to like...um...I guess one of those places with the purple lights? Universal News or something? Whatevs. I'll just subscribe to bitch, bitches.

Also: here's the thing about Us Weekly/Star/InTouch: if you're so interested in the scandalous romantic activities of celebs like A. Jolie, Lohan and Spears et. al., then you'd probably really enjoy novels. You know, books? Scandal, romance, threesomes, preggers unmarried ladies, fancy clothes, everything, eat it to your heart's content, fo'reals.

3. My Relationship with the Metro North

Dear MetroNorth,

Yesterday was our last trip together, and also my first morning ride, as we've generally been meeting around 5 or 6 in the evening for the past 23 days. Every single day, can you believe it? I'm not big on commitment, so this's a big deal. Though it's been a good ride, I won't miss you. You're okay, significantly better than the subway, a camel, or a half-assed donkey, but you're not teleportation or a Lexus. You're just--well--you.

Here's some things I think you could work on for next time:

-On Friday and Saturday evenings, your train is packed with the most annoying people on the entire planet. They fall into two categories:
1) Girls with fake tans and too much foundation who're smart enough to drive from their homes to the train station in Westchester without running their SUVs into a tree, but not smart enough to have a conversation that would qualify as even slightly resembling the educated English they've likely learned in their Tony public schools. They make me want to jump out the window, even if that lands me in Fordham.
2) Twentysomething Men with large quantities of beer and loud, imposing laughter that trickles into my personal earspace, also inducing suicidal thoughts. Seriously, they drink a lot of beer on the train and talk really loud. Can't something be done about this?

-Often, you've neglected to take my ticket. I know this's cause I look trustworthy, but looks can be deceiving. For example: every time you walk by, I purposely try to look like I've been riding this baby since New Haven, specifically to avoid your request of my ticket. It usually works.

-Why're there so many creepy middle-aged dudes who look like they're about to whip out their junk and masturbate to the thought of me galloping through a pool of sweet cream in a cheerleader outfit? Or the thought of me like, just sitting there? Seriously, they're not even slick about it. Just like, ew, read the Wall Street "Journal."

Do you remember when we first met, Metro North? I do. October, 1998, Manhattan to Bronxville, I was visiting the city under the guise of college visits, it was was before I'd developed that crippling phobia of most public restrooms--so I'd used yours to expel the contents of the Shrimp Tempura dinner I'd just consumed at an Upper West Side Japanese place. It didn't sit well, I told Ryan I felt sick ... I went to the same restaurant two years later 'cause I felt the odds'd be in my favor [or 'cause I'm a retard: who knows the answers to these terrific and terrifying questions? Not me.] and ended up food poisoned again. You oughta look into this: something lurks in your kitchen.

I went back to my seat, calm/clammy, gave Ryan a hand massage on the way home, because I always'd do that for him on the Metro North. The next year too, when I rightfully lived in Bronxville, wasn't only visiting. It's inhumane, really, how we use the same spaces over and over again for different lives. I've re-defined you once again, Metro-North, like people do all the time with songs.

I know what you're thinking: that wasn't really the first time. You're right. The first time we met was the night before I got sick in your bathroom--actually, we'd nearly missed you. We'd had dinner in Soho at a bistro with slick black-clad homosexual waiters with perfect butts in cheap pants, serving expensive bottles of anything to anyone: the first time I drank wine at a restaurant in America, like a grown-up. We were drunk. I wrote a poem about it. Remember that? Of course you do. I was seventeen, so, please, forgive me for my inability to write poetry, but I'd written these lines, among others, about our dash to catch you: Lighthearted and lightheaded,/we leave,/run against the city pouring over us,/my laughter trails your speed,/our sprint to the station./I lean against the pillars,/the poles/yellow, red,/you press your fingers/to my lips./We spend the evening urgent,/still panting.

There was more to that poem, before and after those lines, but surely you've suffered enough, yeah?

It seems I've written about Ryan a lot lately. I wonder if it's because of you [TB] or because of you [Metro North]. I've ridden you [MN] to get to you [TB] for 23 days, but not today. The seats are navy blue and maroon. I wonder if late at night, people fuck there, or fight. Or cry. I cried there last week but it was too crowded, I couldn't get a seat, so I stood and cried. I think that if you're crying, someone should offer you a seat. Not an aisle seat where your feet are fighting rolling-suitcases and tiny women with entitlement issues, a real seat in the corner for leaking women.

Because Ryan saved my life back then. I told him that but I don't think he got it. I mean, I said it: Ryan, you saved my life. Ryan was gay and he was my best friend and he reached across all obvious boundaries into my depression and told me I didn't need it. This was no small task, 'cause depression was my best friend before I met Ryan. Back then, before Ryan, I wore glitter on my face, I stared at the ceiling for hours on end, trying to will myself into participating in what I'd once known to be a life, I listened to the Empire Records soundtrack every morning in the shower and wore a winter hat that hid most of my face, and I had sunglassees and a video camera to hide my eyes.

Ryan pulled all that stuff away from my face and my eyes and actually loved me, which I'd believed, then, to be impossible. I mean, for the future, my love'd been used up, I thought. I was empty. Like if a heart was a prune.

And so: here we are again. Your [MN] tracks, that same view out the window, rushing/blurring, trees on amphetamines, people like pearls bursting then vanishing in the distance, you stop, open proverbial doors, and then we walk, subtle but violent and without thinking because sometimes it turns out you actually don't have to think at all! Just walk out when the doors open, like you know the way. Your [TB] tracks, once I drew both of us, I outlined your body with the words: save me from myself. The words were darker than the bodies, and true. The tracks of the outline, you see?

I would like to step out of my heart
and go walking beneath the enormous sky
I would like to pray.
[rilke]

As Ever,
MLB

You lose some, you oughta win some.

Sunday Top Ten, Part Two: I Thought, Therefore I Know

This's the second installment of: SUNDAY TOP TEN:
KNOWLEDGE TAKING UP A LOT OF SPACE IN MY BRAIN THAT PERHAPS COULD BE USED FOR OTHER THINGS, BUT SINCE IT'S NOT, ANYONE WANT ME TO BE ON THEIR PANEL?

As you may recall from two days ago, when you read Part One ... (You did read Part One, right? It was really important. Like, would you just skip Kristy's Great Idea and go straight to Mary Anne and Too Many Boys? No, you wouldn't. Or: if you wouldn't read any BSC books, how's this: would you skip Genesis and go straight to Numbers? No, you wouldn't. Because Numbers is boring. Why skip the fun stuff, e.g., the creation of the world, for the more tedious stuff, e.g., the Law Concerning the Marriages of Heiresses, weirdo? Yes, I'm still speaking inside this pointless parenthetical statement. What if this whole blog was a parenthetical? I just LOLed to myself thinking about that. Ha. ha. That'd be a clever blog title, "Parenthetical." Someone write that down. Seriously. OK, just checked and it's taken by someone who hasn't updated since August of 2005. Shame on you, parenthetical slacker.)

[Ha!]

[I'm gonna be on this panel on Monday for Audacia Ray's new book, which y'all would love, so buy it now, please. I'm quoted in it (totes pseudonym) AND it's good/engaging/relevant. Also, Ray's blog, Waking Vixen, is literally the first blog I ever read regularly: I've witnessed her whole evolution from relatively-unknown to totes-superstar-with-fancy-template, and it's really interesting/fantastic to watch that happen. Yay go her!]

OKAY ON WITH IT.

5. "Film"-Making

My heart burst, then broke, when I discovered my new iBook came with "iMovie": I remembered poor ol' aspiring filmmaker me in the mid-90s with my 10,000 VCRs and 30 Video/Audio IN/OUT cords and all this assorted ghetto movie editing title creator/sound mixer/special effect madness I'd created basically out of popsicle sticks. Furthermore, I'd sunk hundreds into Adobe Premiere .005 and extra hard drives to create my 10-minute application tape for NYU Film School, which, for some reason I no longer recall, wouldn't output to video. I had a mental breakdown and decided not to make movies anymore.

Seriously, I made like, 400 movies, often requiring Lewis to don embarrassing costumes for music videos like "Heal the World" and "Roll the Bones." I hope he gets married soon so I can show these masterpieces to his new wife.

For your entertainment--okay--for MY entertainment, please check out a 1997 classic: "Von Gut: Raw and Uncensored." This's an example of what we used to do for fun. It's also an example of how my sense of humor hasn't really evolved since I was 15.

And then there's things like this, that clearly demonstrate:
1. I needed a tripod real bad. Usually I just set up my camera on a random surface and hoped for the best.
2. I cannot dance.
3. Hello: lesbian.
[Yes, I still identify as "bisexual," bi-rights peeps/agent representing my book about bisexuality, don'tcha worry.]
4. Lewis Bernard is The Supreme Soul.

4. Major League Baseball, 1987-1993

I collected baseball cards, played my Strat-o-Matic, was wholly obsessed, walls plastered in Nolan Ryan posters. Then, as I grew and my interest began to fade, the players sealed the deal by going on strike! I still believed in the love of the game and was shocked that the players cared so much about their paychecks. Why'd anyone strike, when they had such an awesome job? I'd play baseball for free. I already did, actually. Also, I wished I was a boy, so I could play baseball and not softball. Softballs seemed so cumbersome, like girlhood in general.

3. How to Fold Shirts, Sell Shirts, and Match Shirts to Pants

During holiday season at Banana Republic, our daily sales goals included an optimistic number of "credit card opens." That's code for convincing unsuspecting khaki-hunters to sign away their financial futures to Gap, Inc. for a 20% APR. Though I retained a few valuable apparel-related skills, I never mastered the art of the credit-card-"sale."

Supervisor: Marie, today your shift goal is $500 in merch, and for credit cards ... just open one credit card today. Do you think you can do that? Just get one person to open a credit card?

Me: [laughing] Um, probs not.

S: Okay, well, let's work on your pitch. Give me your pitch.

Me: Uh-- [as whatevs as possible, not trying at all.] So ... like ... do you want to open a credit card?

Supervisor: Well ... it's better to be a little bit sneakier about it, like when they're in the dressing room, just tell them: [totally getting into it:] Do you have a Banana card? Okay, well, let's get you one because you'll save 10% on all that if you open one today it only takes five minutes, I can even prepare the stuff at the register while you're making your final decisions, we'll get you all set up with that, only takes one minute, okay?

Me: [No intention whatsoever to listen to this advice] Right-o! Good idea, Janet/Kathy/Samantha/Rita/Lucy/Whathaveyou.

My major problem with retail in general is my overall inability to convince anyone to buy something I don't think they should buy, e.g., almost everything except food, and even then: I can talk someone into dessert, but I've never been good at making a table spring for fried mozzarella or some other cardiac-arrest-inducing atrocity. I think credit cards--especially store credit cards--are a really bad idea, and no one should get one.

I was in nearly $30K of credit card debt during my tenure at Banana, how could I ethically recommend another human dip their toes into the pool of misery that was dragging me to the depths of post-college angst?

So, over the course of my employment at Banana, I opened a grand total of zero credit cards. I feel pretty good about that. Obviously I didn't stay on past January, and I felt pretty good about that too.

2. Food/Nutrition/Calories

Seriously. Try me. Anything, anything, anything. This info's completely useless to me now, clearly, but friends who discover I have the golden ticket can't help but rail me for info, which I secretly love, 'cause then I can at least employ my smarts, and make them wonder if I'm crazy.

My Mom was a nutritionist, though she switched in '99 to social work ["I got bored of thinking about food all the time. I didn't even want to eat anymore." --Mom]. Living with a nutritionist when you're in a bizarre unqualified period of body-dysmorphic-disordered-what-have-you is like living with your father the CIA agent while having a schizo-manic episode. Mom had the literature. I am a very good student. I wish I could erase some of that information, though, namely the nutritional content of muffins. That was really disappointing.

1. Undergraduate Theater B.F.A. and B.A. Programs

Interlochen Arts Academy, my junior year of high school [1997]:

My best friend Ryan's doing calf raises on the cement steps of the Picasso dorm, eating Pringles from the can, his carefully gelled hair obscured by an oversized Stussy hoodie: "I'm dropping Theater, becoming an Academics major," he says, popping a chip, and, without a trace of irony, adds: "I can't act anymore. The only joy left in my life is food."

To illustrate, he crunches a whole stack of Pringles. He hands me a chip, I accept, and then he flashes his trademark earnest, wide-eyed stare, the imagine all the people face: "I'm becoming a monk, moving to Africa. Bringing the joy of food to the starving children of Africa."

The truth, of course, was less Ghandi, more Stagedoor: John'd gotten the part he coveted in Blood Wedding, which'd spiraled into this whirling discontent and re-evaluation of life priorities. Ryan was a senior.

His plan'd been to go to a top theater program, do the crazy-competitive-audition thing with other theater majors, but now: "I'll just apply to everyone who sends me a nice pamphlet."

And he does. Dartmouth, Brown, Ithaca, Sarah Lawrence, DePaul, Boston University, whomever. Thirteen applications. We hastily construct essays explaining his drop-out of Interlochen's program but insisting on a desire to pursue theater in a B.A. program. Though I chose to take the year off to focus on my academics, I feel this'll only enhance my understanding of the theatrical arts in an undergraduate setting....

The next year, Ryan's at Sarah Lawrence, I'm a senior, and my boyfriend's the school's best actor [the aforementioned John, natch. My roommate's an actress and both her and John shipping off most weekends to round after round of audition for coveted spots at top schools.

At campus, the student body's obsessed with who's getting into Juilliard or Carnegie Mellon, etc., who's advanced to the next round, who's getting interviews and phone calls and auditions. Obsessed to the point that I'm surprised more people did not jump into the lake when our admission/rejection information arrived. I was glad I wasn't a theater kid, I was stressed out enough about John and Ashley's fate.

Both years: I learn all about it, by proxy. Like, inside-and-out. Admissions stats, audition process, the point. What is the point? Whatevs. Showcases. Are you pretty? Do you know people?

And eventually? John's one of Carnegie Mellon's lucky 20, and now does Shakespeare in Oregon. And Ryan actually did take time off from SLC to go to Africa and re-build communities and feed children.

....and all the men and women merely players....

Sunday Top 10: Those of Us Who Think We Know

[P.S. I've started posting again on Auto-Straddle, for those of you with interest in such things.]

Next Monday, June 11th, at 7 P.M., I'll be appearing on a panel at the Museum of Sex for Audacia Ray's new book Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads and Cashing in on Internet Sexploration. That's right: me, on a panel, having sex. Just kidding. That's private, weirdos [sex]. I'll just be talking about my former life, in which I found internet dating to be a very bizarre/enchanting little adventure.

I met lots of cool people, like Justin "Bush is a Friend to Israel" The Banker, who delighted in purchasing cocktails for the eccentric writer/waitress/model personality he projected onto my body. He tilted his tanned head condescendingly, laughed indulgently, like: Look at the cute monkey doing tricks!! She says such strange things!

Or Joey "Not Actually Jewish Even Though He's on JDate," who took me to a baseball field to smoke pot, then to his Mom's Bay Ridge beauty salon, after-hours, to have serious conversations in chairs topped with hair-dryers. He had feelings. I had feelings too, but not for him, which led to a series of psychotic voicemails. "I really opened up to you! I feel USED!" I felt used too, because he said he was 5'10 and he was NOT. Like, 5'8 at the most.

Anyhow, I have a girlfriend now, but for the purposes of this panel, I'll be recalling the great repository of information I've still got in the old noggin.

Internet dating's not the only thing I know a lot about even though the information's no longer relevant to my life. There's a lot of things I could ramble on about based on prior immersion, despite present ignorance. Here's some of them.

[I'm doing this Top Ten in two segments. Because I have this tendency to write ten gazillion words about everything. Who's got time for that? Not me, not you. Why not just do it in segments? Yeah? Good idea, Auto-Win. Thanks. I mean, look how long this intro is! You must be going BLIND from staring at the computer!]

SUNDAY TOP TEN, PART ONE:
KNOWLEDGE TAKING UP A LOT OF SPACE IN MY BRAIN THAT PERHAPS COULD BE USED FOR OTHER THINGS, BUT SINCE IT'S NOT, ANYONE WANT ME TO BE ON THEIR PANEL?

10. Emo Pop-Punk Music.

It's all about driving in his purple KIA ["It's BLUE!" -him] on highways by strip malls, singing along: This world's an ugly place, but you're so beautiful to me. We attend dozens of concerts, he crowd-surfs. He's got bleached tips & pierced tongue, shops at "PacSun." CDs are your basic nightmare: Blink 182, Alkaline Trio, Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, Newfound Glory, Starting Line, Something Corporate, etc. I still think Unwritten Law's okay. I interview Sugarcult and Yellowcard for The Michigan Daily, which makes him feel close to stars: he likes me even more, he finally reads my writing.

It's easy-breezy-sinister-beautiful. The sinister part's a secret though, even from me. The music is so earnest! So fresh! If it was a color, it'd be bright purple that secretly made you stupid just to look at it. [Like my blog! JK!]

We're at an all day outdoor concert in Vegas when several 16-year-old girls flash pierced nipples at once ...

I tell him: "We're too old for this."

He replies: "Are we? Fuck. What do I do now?"

I realize I'm suffocating with him, one day in my bedroom. I flee. I leave him and all his music behind me.

A month or so later, he'll comment: "I notice you never listen to our music anymore."

"Our." It hurts me more than it hurts him, to hear him say it like that.

*
9. College Basketball, circa Fab Five Era.

The Fab Five--the starters for University of Michigan's '92-'93 basketball team--almost won the NCAA championship twice. My interest started fading following Chris Webber's early departure for the NBA, then it declined steadily 'til dropping off completely 'round the time I started going to school there. Okay, I figure if you're still reading this paragraph, you know who I'm talking about, so we can cut down to the marrow, if you will.

Now, they've been stripped of everything due to recently-discovered player-payment scandal. Bullshit: obvs these players were getting competing offers! Michigan's not the only school to offer special treatment to it's college basketballers.

Hello, just rent Blue Chips, starring Shaquille 'Rappin' Genie with an Attitude' O'Neal!

My father and brother and I read the book, saw the documentary, watched every game. My Dad was a mentor for the basketball team, so we got good seats, which we'd be on the edges of, usually. It was a pretty glorious era, in general. So when they took those titles back, they also totes stole my CHILDHOOD! Fo' reals, punks.

Also, when C-Webb called that time out, I cried. Seriously. Tears. Bawling.

*
8. How to Give Blow Jobs

The thing is, I put a lot of time into mastering this skill, and now it's totally useless.

Just kidding. I mourned that loss for about negative ten seconds. Totally hurt my jaw. I was like: Oh well.

Also, I'm never giving a blow job to a dildo [like the lesbos do in porn movies]. Because that'd be retarded.

Hi, Mom!

The thing is, by talking dirty like this, I'm preparing for my panel, obvs! I don't want to get nervous when the other ladies say stuff about sex, because they are like, super-educated Sexuality degree-holders or hot sex-blog ladies, e.g., Alt Porn Star Lux Nightmare, Writer Madeline Glass, and Ellen Fredrichs of teenwire.

I'm just me. I'm gonna be like: What's up, my banner'll make your head explode! Once I went on an internet date with a girl who showed me photos of guy's wieners she had stored on her cell-phone, and I was like, dude, if I wanted to look at that tonight, I wouldn't be on a date with a girl right now, obvs. Bada-bing. Leggo of my eggo, bitches.

*
7. Photography.

Took an NYU summer class and loved the cool, red-and-black-warm darkroom, the recluse from the feverish city heat. My project's titled: "I'm Not Just a Waitress." I photograph my Olive Garden co-workers in uniform, pair photos with captions explaining what they "really" do: actors, singers, dancers, students, fathers, mothers. Ranjit: the food runner with a degree in some complicated science I'd never understand, useless in the U.S.A 'cause his University's in Bangladesh.

Michigan, Advanced Photo: Did an independent project with a new all-girls middle school. Pondered self-esteem, faltering sense of self in pre-adolescents, wrote research paper, took photos, did long interviews with the girls, surveys, read Schoolgirls. We have a gallery show and are told to pick up our projects from the classroom the following week. I go there: mine's gone. Totally 100% disappeared.

Felt symbolic, like: you can't really "capture" anything, even with a camera, which's allegedly their point. You've just got memory, I guess. Which is a very tricky thing.

So yeah, I quit photography. Over it.

*
6. The Brady Bunch

The thing is, TV in and of itself's never been that exciting for me. As a singular entity, it's silly, I'd rather read a book. It functions only in it's unique method of telling a story: in that there's untold backstory and process, and the possibility to watch it with other people. I liked this show 'cause I liked the backstory [via Growing up Brady, the classic literary work by Bary Williams, a.k.a. "Greg," and various Brady trivia books]. I'd read about the eps before watching them: I was interested in context, in how a show comes together as a story, as a marketable good/service in a capitalistic Western society, as a collection of humans with distinct personalities gathering to complete a project as a team, as a particular significance re: history and social import.

This's just to say that I wouldn't watch The L Word or America's Next Top Model in a cave. I like the commentary better than the thing itself, often.

That being said: Why the F did I become obsessed with The Brady Bunch? I'm comforted to know that Haviland Stillwell totally loves The Brady Bunch too and read Growing up Brady. And I want that line to come up when you google her, that'd be awesome.


P.S. If you don't come to my panel, then I will never forgive you. Unless you live far away, or I owe you three or more emails/phone calls, which's like ... everyone.

P.P.S. Okay: if you don't come to my panel, then I might forgive you, unless you live far away. If you live in NYC and don't come, I might forgive you, but the odds are not in your favor, kiddo.

P.P.P.S. Also JK, I'm totes talking about other stuff, not just internet dating.

Sunday Top 10, Part Two: Demented and Sad, but Social...Right?

This is Part Two of this week's Sunday Top Ten, "Clubs Which I Do Care to Belong To," which's really a Top 15. For the explanation behind this theme, please see "Part One." I could go on about it here, but let's face it: I probably will go on. And on. For hundreds and hundreds of words.

---

SUNDAY TOP FIFTEEN, INSTALLMENT TWO, 7-1:
CLUBS WHICH I DO CARE TO BELONG TO

7. Duane Reade Dollar-Savers Club, Food Emporium Gold Card Club, Subway Sub Club, et al.

File Under: "Examples of Riese's Questionable Money Management Skills."

I grew up clipping coupons and donning hand-me-downs/TJ Maxx-pilfered "trend items," so you think I'd be better at things like "Buy nine subs, get one free!" Not so. This's one of many of my endearing incongruous personality quirks.

I visit Duane Reade almost every day, yet I lived in NYC for two years before joining their club, a choice which's likely cost me hundreds of dollars. What's wrong with me? Nothing, obvs, my fate's repeatedly sealed by Duane Reade's sub par line-waiting experience.

The Scene: Two employees idly re-stock Massengill, one totally-over-it cashier stares wistfully at the tiny sparkles on her acrylics. A line of impatient bitches mutates into a store aisle. The customers in line are suspicious of all customers not in line; their eyes dart dangerously at every passing patron because now that the line's spiraled out of control, someone could possibly CUT in line, unjustly, then act all innocent about it, Really? The line ends HERE?, yes, someone could misinterpret the line's evolution, someone could start a new line, a shorter line, over in Photo, where a half-brain-dead employee is possibly opening a register [or doing nothing at all, probs], and I start wondering if it'd take less time to get sick, go to the doctor, get a prescription, take it to the back register, get it filled and pay for my other items as I pay for my [by this point, necessary] Xanax.

By the time I've actually paid for my items, I'm certain I can't spend one more moment of my life on this particular errand, and thus, I repeatedly forewent filling out the membership club forms.

Similarly, back in Michigan when I was living off lunch shift tips [total=$30-$35/day] and dining at Subway daily, why didn't I just ask for a Sub-Club stamp? I don't recall ever earning a free sub. Haviland's always amazed that I've foregone the Tasti-D card as well.

However, I was always a member of the Delia*s Discount Domain. For those of you unfamiliar with this particular club: sorz. I'm not gonna footnote it, because it's better for my reputation as Super-Cool that you stay in the dark. For those of you who know what I'm referring to: yeah, totes.

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6. The Wingnuts

Wingnut:
1. "A nut with wing-like projections for thumb and forefinger leverage in turning."
2. "What Delp dubbed us."

Ingrid¹ reminded me in the last post's comments of one high school club I proudly belonged to: The Wingnuts. Our writing teacher, Delp, at boarding school² [cited in last post for the "this school's a country club" doctrine] referred to us [us=Ingrid, Sheetal³, Meg⁴ and me] as "Wingnuts," because we were very bright children with excellent thumb-forefingering skills. From what I saw on television and read in YA novels, the cool kids at other schools had more prodigious monikers, like 'The Heathers" or "The Queen Bees" or "The Plastics." That's the difference between High School and Weirdo High School. I've illustrated this difference below, employing photos from Beverly Hills 90210 and Sweet Valley High.

Club activities included: riding in Delp's car/istening to Bob Dylan, driving to the 7-11 for Frozen Cokes, lounging in the Traverse City Borders Bookstore, eating lunch and talking about poetry, being reminded of our status as Grasshoppers. When you're stuck on a tiny little campus, "driving to the 7-11 for Frozen Cokes" is like "train-hopping to Chicago" for other kids. It was AWESOME. [Seriously.]

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5.The Mickey Mouse Club

I watched The MMC every day. Granted, it was on a short list of shows I was permitted to watch [including Fraggle Rock, 3-2-1 Contact, Square One and Kids Incorporated], but my love for this variety program was pretty tried/true. I wanted to be in it, too, and fantasized about traveling to Orlando and being [discovered] in the studio audience [read: fully sent out for pamphlet, begged parents, etc.] Mostly, this was related to my dreams of becoming a fab singer/dancer, like my hero Shirley Temple. Unfortunately, my dreams were thwarted because I cannot sing or dance. Instead of being on the MMC, I performed Send in the Clowns on my futon for my parents. A lot of kids from that show got famous and some are in rehab, so in retrospect, good thing I wasn't on it. Instead, I'm living proof that not all drug addicts need rehab. [JK, everyone! I'm unemployed because I want to be, not because I'm a drug addict! I can't afford DRUGS!]

My Dad used to tell me how in the 50s, the show was semi-decent and Anette Funnicello brought all the boys to the yard. Personally, I liked Tiffany, who joined MMC-spinoff band THE PARTY. I bought all their albums, and danced alone in my room to them, like a totes weirdo loser:

Tiffany's the girl with the curly hair. I love Chase and Damon's matching haircuts, and that I still remember their name, and probably all the track listings. My fave song was "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend." I performed that a lot too, sometimes for my grandparents, those lucky ducks.

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4. Vodka/Club Soda and a Club Sandwich

Though clearly this category, included here on Lozo's suggestion, is enabled by it's play on words, it ALSO enables me to discuss the essence of Groucho's statement [which, P.S., I realized yesterday was quoted in Annie Hall, which is probs where I know it from]. I'm not sure what's in a club sandwich, but I think it involves a lot of meat and possibly bacon. The consumption of club sandwiches is one of many things that separates me from other Americans, along with watching American Idol, knowing the rules of the game "football," and enjoying pork products and outdoor BBQs.

I don't like sandwiches. Here's why:
1. I don't like lunch meat, except low-fat beef bologna.
2. I don't like biting into things.
3. I don't like things that other people like.
3a. Unless that thing is Freedom.
3b. Or vodka.

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3. Fruit of the Month Club

I need some vitamins like whoa. Monkeys eat more fresh fruit than I do, by like, 400%. Harry & David used to just sell fruit and chocolate, but now they probably sell like, Sushi. If someone got me a FOTMC membership for a major or minor holiday [Purim, Bloomsday and Belated Memorial Day totes counts], I'd give this person something special. I can't promise marraige, because back in December I promised to marry whomever purchased me The Paris Review Interviews, and said "I am a decent cook, and I promise to always keep my svelte figure," and TB bought it for me. So I have to give away something else. Okay, my first born.

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2. The Bloomsbury Group

I suspect the Bloomsbury folks--Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Vanessa Bell, E.M Forster, Clive Bell, et al--purposely shunned the word "club," but I'm going to include them anyway because it's my blog and I make the rules. I sometimes wonder if the internet's prevented the emergence of true artist/writer groups like they had in the old days, or at least in the old days of my imagination. Which's why TB and I are opening a bed & breakfast and it'll be special for artists and writers and such, especially homos. Once, Ryan-C and I accidentally went to a gay bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere, upstate New York. Luckily, Ryan was gay, and both of us liked eating banana bread and reading all day while the lesbians went a-hikin'. I was sick then and was limited in what I could do, physically, so I was jealous of the hikers, but also happy to read. Ibsen, Nadine Gordimer and Homer. The owner hated us, we ate all his banana bread. At our place, you can eat all my banana bread, cause I made it for you, weirdo.

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1.The Special Secret Lesbian Club

On Episode 408 of the Showtime Hit Series [and by "hit" I mean "listening to TLW dialogue often feels like being HIT over the head with a dead lesbian horse, except that lesbians don't like horses, they like monkeys, I learned that on The L Word"] The L Word, Tina confesses to her ex, Bette, that now that she's gone to the dark side [a.k.a. dudes]: "I miss the way we communicated subtly, I miss the way that we worked together to make everything around us so beautiful. I miss being surrounded by women, and I miss being part of something so secret and special."

Then this conversation, which I've cut-and-pasted from my L Word Online Recap Blog, Auto-Straddle, happened in my living room following Tina's statement, which was found dubious by my friends and "popular opinion."

Haviland: Did she say secret?
Me: Yeah, like you know--it's not a secret but [I understand what Tina is saying and I like it, but everyone is talking over me, so I retreat to my cave of ignorance/bisexuality.]
Meg: Yeah, she misses the secret code and the secret handshake--
Haviland: What did you say?
Yana: What, you don't know the handshake?
Haviland: [totally in "Maude" voice, all gravely and been-around-the-block-and-had-a-ciggie-after]
Honey.
[beat]
I've been a lesbian for a looooong time.....

That being said: I've been an Undercover Outsider in the In Crowd most of my life, finding corners in the middle of crowded rooms, but [forgive me, ye womyn's music Haters, in advance, for what I'm about to say], even as a kid, I'd feel a particular peace when my Mom'd tote me to lezzie folk music concerts--though I had no conscious forbearance of personal queer-dom, I've been breathing easier in the queer world far before I came to identify as such. It's outsider culture, and it is, still, to me, a little secret and special; at least it's somewhere that lacks the presupposition that I'm anything like anyone else.

*

My book, when I get back to it, is not so much about bisexuality as it is about being "bi-everything." About the 10,000 clubs to which I've pretended/genuinely deserved to be a member, about masks and trying to be happy/sad with such paltry, ridiculous truths, about feeling always like at least half a fraud, like I couldn't stop being undercover. Like I needed to hold something back--at least fifty percent--or else lose everything. Like not giving everything's the same thing as lying. Who's the "real you," yeah? Generation ME? Is there a "real you," and why's the default "reality" always whatever's being pulled off in the present tense?

*
Dr. W: Why's it so black and white? Why're you a fraud or always telling the "whole" truth? Is there anywhere in between?

Me: No, there is no coexistence, [dramatic flourish of legs over armrest], I'm a FRAUD!
*

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, Genuis/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.

Sometimes it's nice, after all that, to retreat into a club which you find you're already a member: someplace special and secret but already understood, maybe with only one other person, or two other people--maybe with virtual people that you don't even know--maybe with hundreds, where you've got nothing to prove, you're assured you can handle at least what this situation demands, because but what more assurance can I have you have not told me, that I will be there, I and the canyons of my heart, its vast and vacant majesties...

*

Dear Mr. Vernon,

We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question?

Sincerely yours,
The Breakfast Club

*
I am
a brain, an athlete,
a basketcase
a princesss
and a criminal.
Does that answer your question?

*

Join the Club.

Let's rock.

Hands-down-totes-Auto-Straddle.

*
Some remaining clubs I hadn't the time to cover: Friendship Club [Degrassi: The Next Generation], I Hate Rachel Green Club [Friends], Hunt Club, Cat Scratch Club, Buena Vista Social Club, Culture Club, Equinox Fitness Club, Drama Club, Yale Club, Harvard Club.

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¹Ingrid: Ingrid and Krista were my suitemates my first year (11th grade) at boarding school. Then we became BFFs and, the subsequent year, became Wingnuts. Ing lived in NYC, twenty blocks south of Krista and I's Sparlem place, following her graduation from University of Wisconsin. Now she's in Chicago getting another degree in Art History, which's a very useful topic.
²boarding school: Interlochen Arts Academy.
³Meg: Is Meg. Northern Michigan reared. I'd crash at her NYU dorm almost every weekend when I was at Sarah Lawrence. Now she's in Michigan, I think. We met in my first writing workshop--which's also where I met...
⁴Sheetal: Raised in India, then Laguna Beach, then Interlochen. Then Johns Hopkins. Then NYC. Once convinced me, based on her evident germ-a-phobia, that she and her boyfriend had never even made out. I believed her because she wouldn't let me drink her PowerAde.