Sunday Top Ten: Summer Scattergories

TB and I have played a lot of Scattergories this week. I'm adding that to the short list of "games I could beat TB at," along with Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, Hi-Ho Cheerio and Scene It? ['cause though I probably haven't "seen it," if you will--she definitely hasn't seen it, giving me a distinct advantage, like playing Axis and Allies with George W.] One of Scattergories' highlights is the answers you're a little shamed to reveal. The answers you introduce with: "Um, so I put...." like TB's "Echinacea" as a "Flower," my "Japanese Businessmen" for "Things in an Airport" or my "Homosexuals" as 'Things Found in Pairs or Sets." Or the bad answers we BOTH put: e.g. "Drug Problem" as "Reason to Skip School/Work." We gave ourselves both a point. My new roommate Zoey claims to be the Scattergories Master. We'll get to the bottom of this within the next 7-10 days.

Also: It's getting really hot, and we still have bars in our windows, thus preventing the insertion of mammoth cheap air conditioner, which'll keep me frigid as I avoid the world all summer, per usual.

Summer+Scattergories=

SUNDAY TOP TEN: SUMMER-THINGS
which might be contested were we playing Scattergories, but which I'm quite positive are Correct Answers.

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10. R IS FOR Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder:

I talk about this every summer, such is the depth of my loathing for this season. In summary, I despise: temperatures over 70°, sticky melted frozen deserts on fingers, insects, steaming hot subway stations, scantily clad pedestrians, The Puerto Rican Day Parade, The Fourth of July, water-parks, public pools, street fairs involving selling food outdoors and death-trap "rides," unsupervised children that ought to be in school, Arctic-quality air conditioning on airplanes, the smell of rotting meat emanating from the corner deli, flip flops, hot rotting garbage on the street, the beach, tourists, shorts, men who whistle at girls in skirts, sunburns, sunscreen, razor-burn.

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9. I IS FOR Interns:

The popular "summer internship" corrals some of our country's most unbearable persons into the city. [e.g. LI Juiceheads prepared to feel subservient for the first time EVER at Goldman Sachs; at night they travel in droves to generic Upper East Side or Union Square-area bars to pick up girls who look like their mothers--crispy-tan, hair shiny and flat as grass--they talk too loudly in restaurants and self-consciously pat their gelled hair, and they will never change, this is who they'll be forever. Only when they get older it'll be more refined, and take up more space.] I've worked three part-time internships during the colder months, but never slugged out The Proper 9-5 Unpaid Summer Kind. Here's the thing about internships: it's a lot of workanyone'd probably resent earning minimum wage for. But, somehow the fact that they refuse to pay you AT ALL WHATSOEVER makes it totally appealing, like it must really be worth it. I mean, there's gotta be a huge payoff if you've gotta COMPETE with other kiddos for the honor of making copies and color-coding binders for free, right? I realistically realized that any full-time internship would be 8 weeks in which to prove to my supervisors that I hate fax machines, which would do little to improve my odds of post-internship employment. Or maybe that's just what I told myself so I didn't have to bother applying to them. I oughtta admit that I was an intern at the lit agency for one day before they put me on payroll as a legit Assistant, which made Krista [3-10pm, M-Fri, Non-Profit Theater Internship, $50 weekly stipend] and Ingrid [10-6, MOMA in Queens, 100% unpaid]'s blood boil. I really loved interning at nerve, and they did provide a little stipend, and "perks." Like being the Hippest Hipster EVER.

Oh and! I interned at US Weekly for about two days, but they grossed me out so I quit. That was during the winter, though.

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8. B is for Beach Bum Tanning Salon:

Because there's a sin to cure every ailment [e.g drinking has always done wonders for my allergies!], tanning totes cures eczema. And the bruises I've acquired from running into everyday objects like tables, chairs, and walls. Camouflage. Below I've posted a photo from Cruise '06. Just 'cause.

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7. L is for Lightheaded

Allergy season begins mid-August. Claritin, Tylenol Allergy-Sinus, Sudafed: That shit fucks me up. This's odd, considering the following: I've popped six Vicadin and then driven my car, had sex, and driven my car back home. I've downed an entire bottle of anti-anxiety pills and like, woke up the next day [I was just really stressed out/coming down off of something vicious, not trying to kill myself, weirdos, obvs I wasn't always the stunning pillar of mental health that stands before you today]. That's just the tip of the iceberg. But allergy medicine gets me all dizzy-like. Thus, I must choose between illness and feeling like my limbs are actually wings and my brain is just a helium balloon. I usually choose the former because it gets me out of stuff. Not work or anything--no one gives a shit--but like, being pleasant company, etc.

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6. G is for Girly

Last year, I wrote: "Girls sometimes wear those silly flowy hippie skirts, and boys sometimes wear cargo shorts. Both of these things make me not want to have sex with anyone ever." Luckily I have a girlfriend now, and I can't imagine her wearing a flowy hippie skirt. Though, if I were to imagine that, it would be a very funny image. Apparently, before an important family event in which she wore a dress, she was told by Father to degangsterize [her] lesbian stride. The original title of this topic was "M is for Men in Shorts" but then I decided that was too mean, and made me sound like a man-hater when I'm totally not AT ALL [Seriously though, what woman prefers men in shorts over men in pants? Aside from like, the girlfriends of basketball players and bicyclists?], so instead I thought I'd talk about how every summer I unleash my inner girl, who wears things like dresses and skirts. With Pumas.

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5. D is for Dunkin' Donuts

I hate their coffee but I heart their iced coffee. AND MAN DO I HEART ICED COFFEE. In the summer, the typically unpleasant Starbucks line becomes literally unbearable [like, I could lose my marbles there, even if they're playing some Goodthinkful music and I'm eyeing a memoir detailing a life about 10,000 times worse than this line could ever be], crowded with tourists and interns looking to cram as much sugar and sugar products into their coffee as possible, via gigantoid mintchocachino frozen whipped creamed caramel latte totesbag whatevers. D2 is cheaper and just as good/bad. All iced coffee is the same. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong.

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4. B is for Black:

I know only pasty Ozzfest-attending goth kids are supposed to don all-black in the summer, but I get really sweaty. Like, everywhere. Thus I recommend black camisoles from H+M. They last about three wearings before falling to pieces, but it's worth it. Disposable tank tops, if you will. Below, Lainy and I, outside of Girl-Nation in August '05, right after we were slammed in the head by an ambitious bouncer breaking into the bathroom. Either I'm still reeling from that event, or I'm like Gilbert! Gilbert! Hey, my shoe done fell off, Gilbert! Match in the gas tank boom boom boom!

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3. I is for Italian Restaurants, the Dark Empty Kind:

This is called "Twice Baked Lasanga with Meatballs." It's good for people who enjoy cardiac arrest and multiple trips to the company restroom. Originally introduced as a special, guests enjoyed this disgusting dish so much it's now on the regular menu.

I put in three summers at The Macaroni Grill [Ann Arbor, Michigan] and two at The Olive Garden [Times Square, NYC]. These aren't summer hot-spots, exactly: both serve 1,500 calorie bowls of Fettuccine Alfredo as a Lunch Entree when clearly it's not intended for consumption prior to performing any sort of activity, EVER, aside from "sitting on your couch" or "sleeping." While the psuedo-family-bar-culture restaurants in Michigan like TGI Fridays would draw crowds hoping for outdoor seating, a.k.a. a great view of the surrounding shopping malls, The Macaroni Grill's crowds remained sparse-to-non-existent. Aside from the occasional blessing of a soccer tournament or Charity Walk, Lizzie and I'd just sit on the wine-boxes and talk about sex [convos generally falling into two categories: 1. regrets, 2. masturbation]. In '00, the air conditioner broke at the OG, and we couldn't fix it [needed a helicopter, apparently? I dunno, Times Square, whatever] and gross sweaty people would complain on how it was soooooo hot and I'd be like "One of us has to be here. And it's not you. Fuckin' run for your life, gluttonous douchebags! Here's your salad refill, p.s.!"

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2. J is for Judaism:

My Mom didn't believe in "normal" summer-camp. There was no point in leaving home if we weren't gonna come back Holy.

Camp Ranana, the local Jewish day camp, totes defeated me; another opportunity to be reminded I wasn't as pretty/cool/"advanced in cup-size" as the other girls, though said girls befriended me always 'cause I told funny jokes.

At Zionist overnight camp, we slept in platform tents and had chores before breakfast, like "No oatmeal 'til you clean the bathrooms, kibbutzim!" I had an affair with the weirdest kid at camp, 'cause he intrigued me; his brother was a transvestite and he'd lost his virginity to his babysitter at 13 [in retrospect: True or False?]. He's probably bi now. Like, legitimately bi. Or else married and on a lot of psychotropics. That was the camp where we re-enacted the holocaust at 3 A.M. ["The Germans are coming! Get dressed and escape!"] and, after traipsing through the woods, playing a series of team-building games before exodus-ing to "The Land of Milk and Honey" at daybreak to cook potatoes over an open fire for breakfast and then I got sent to prison [the tennis courts] for forgetting to carry my passport. L'Chaim!

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1. L is for Lilith Fair:

Raise your hand if you went to the Lilith Fair. Raise your hand if you'd go again.

[Okay, back now. I had both hands raised, and could not type.]

Oh ... it still feels like yesterday ... I can almost taste the pita bread n' hummus and hear the Sarah McLachlan and smell the marijuana and the womyn-on-womyn lovin' ... sweet memories of Magali and I crankin' up the Indigo Girls "Shamin' of the Sun'" in her beat-up non-air-conditioned stick-shift Volvo on 1-94 to Suburban Detroit to sit in the grass in our faux-hippie-gear with our faux-hippie friends, having the realest time we could've ever had at 15 ... youth ... innocence ... summertime ... that was alright. Yeah ... that was alright.

ICHAT:

ME: Hey--did you ever go to the lilith fair?
HAVILAND: obvs. twice, amazing concerts.
HAVILAND: once with shannon and once with sherri
ME: if there was a lilith fair tomorrow, i'd go
HAVILAND: me too
HAVILAND: it was SO incredible
ME: i'd be like "I LOVE YOU TRACY CHAPMAN!!!:
HAVILAND: did u go?
ME: obvs, both years.
HAVILAND: i can't believe it stopped happening
ME: i know!
ME: totally a tease
ME: i guess that's lilith.

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The summer makes me do CRAZY THINGS, 'cause of RSAD:

Actually. Last summer was pretty awesome. Hm.
The Haviland, the Cruise, Williamsburg Wonder Twins, The Reading, Starting This Little Blog, Savannah, Pride, Nyack, Tasti-D, Official Summer Jam "S.O.S"

It's getting chilly now. I f'in love it.

Tuesday Top Ten: Not the Sunday Top Ten

Potential Reactions to Losing One's Sunday Top Ten
OR
"We were sickened by the old lemon."

Sometimes, life gives you lemons, and sometimes those lemons are disguised as user-friendly web applications like "Zoho Writer." [You can find this app, and then reject it, at Zoho.com]. I can't make lemonade 'cause I'm allergic to citric acid, but, as Jack Spicer wrote: The lemon tree/Could branch off into real magic. Each flower in place. We/Were sickened by the old lemon. Get it? Out with the old lemon, in with the magic, baby.

Magic=getting comments from readers who've never commented before. It makes me feel warm inside, like sticky date pudding, which I ate every day the last time I was in Australia [holla, 3.1% of Auto-Win readers!]. Your comments totally compensated for my pain. Thank you. All of you. The giddiness I experienced upon receiving each new comment is far higher than you'd expect from someone as Cool as me. You can still comment, too. I mean, whatevs. Even you, Haviland.

But first.....a CRAZY LONG TANGENT.

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TANGENT BEGINS HERE:

As I buckle down to bust out this masterpiece, I realize that the ratio of Sunshine to Near-Mental-Breakdown on this blog has been skewed lately ... I'm like Billy Corgan, like I'll tear my heart out before I get out, and I don't wanna be just another whiny New York Hipster. I wanna be the BEST WHINER EVER. No, actually though: why is this? Obvs I love self-deprecation more than any other reflexive activities, but I think it's the combination of these two circumstances:

1. A number of stressful events, e.g., moving, being unemployed. And some other things. Buy The Book, all will be revealed.

2. Overcompensation for That Love Thing. To explain this in the most roundabout way possible, many Gawker-Sycophants may be familiar with This is What We Do Now, a seminal voice of the NYC-blogger movement [which means he's already made all the jokes you want to make about the subway, and he did it in like, '04] and a consistent source for Out-Loud Laughter. TIWWDN's post-frequency began declining last autumn, however, and it's author explained it like this:

"No, I'm not dead. Yes, I've been shitty about posting consistently. I know I've been making excuse after excuse, but the fact of the matter is, I simply haven't had the time. Blogging is great when you have (a) time, (b) a lot of time, and (c) a fairly jaded and self-centered world view, which enables relatively minor events to explode into 1,000-word diatribes about how much everyone else besides you sucks. I hate using cliches like "I've changed" or "I've grown up," but the fact of the matter is, I have grown up a lot over the last few months. I haven't lost my sense of humor, but much of my 20-something bitterness has certainly receded to the point where I simply haven't found myself all that irritated about a lot of the minutiae I tended to write about. Even the subway's been (mostly) keeping up its end of the bargain.......TIWDDN may be undergoing some changes, but what can I say? It's pretty fucking hard being jaded and bitter when after 25 years you finally fall absolutely head over heels in love with the most beautiful girl in the entire world."

I remember reading that and thinking: "Wow, what happens if, after 25 years, I fall head over heels in love with the most beautiful girl in the world? Will I still be jaded and bitter and witty? I mean, most of the bloggers I read are single and when I'm single, I don't wanna hear about other's happy-love nests. I'd get jealous/wistful listening to K.C and Elka laugh together on The Planet Cast, you know? Hmmm...I think Carrie Bradshaw once grappled with similar issues...."

And so, perhaps in an edge-keeping effort, I've over-compensated my love-drops by becoming Uber-Bitter/Jaded: musing over apartments I'll never live in, employment I don't deserve, places I've considered escaping to and Sunday Top Tens lost to technology or privacy.

Why? 'Cause it's not cool to be in love anymore, is it? We've gotta rationalize dedication, carefully balance love/life to make it appear effortless, ensure no-one suspects we've "changed"... all results of an actual relationship must be hidden/downplayed ... and I've been on both sides of this coin ... but the truth is: we fall. We love, change, move, evolve, attach, love, love, love.

[Side note: I'm 100% guilty of hypocrisy right now, as my single-behavior towards coupled-friends was consistently less-than-stellar/"decent."]

Okay, I'm gonna stop before I gross people out, myself included. After the OurChart blog, TB and I mutually decided to stop writing happy-love-crap, lest we gross ourselves out. Then she deleted her entire blog, re-started it, and deleted it again. That's un-related to us being in love, but that's a good segue to the Top-Ten topic, as it was one of my instincts when this recent post disappeared. I was like "I'm gonna fake-delete my blog," but that wouldn't really be punishing the people at fault, would it? If I knew for a fact that Ahmad from Zoho.com read my blog, I might've really done it.

So, anyhow, before I start the trek down the Trail of Tears, I'd like to acknowledge that I have: a lovely new apartment, fantastic friends, a girlfriend I'm in love with, X-ray vision, all of my limbs, and about thirty-six dollars. UPDATE: Totes just found a crisp $20 in my jeans pocket! Make that FIFTY-six dollars.

TANGENT OVER. Back to how bitter and pissed I am.

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"Even though a speech be composed of a thousand words, but words without sense, one word of sense is better, which if a man hears he becomes quiet."
(The Dhammapada)

"Waaaaaa."
(me)

"Waaaaa x 1,0000."
(me, again)

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TUESDAY TOP TEN: POTENTIAL REACTIONS TO THE LOSS OF ONE'S SUNDAY TOP TEN, DUE TO THE RELENTLESS FALLIBILITY OF "TECHNOLOGY."

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10. Crying:

This can be done sitting up at the desk [feeling faint, shaky, and disbelieving while frantically scrolling through entire Internet history in the hopes that life isn't really like this, right? RIGHT?!!!] or prone on the bed. I'd recommend listening to Reibert de Leeuw's recording of Satie's Gnossiennes & Gymnopedies as you cry. It amps up the drama and transforms your pain from "indulgent and absurd" to "profound and important." Or, as blox-tox did when her 35-page paper vanished from her USB drive, you could "stare at [your] monitor and let the tears stream down [your] face." After, of course, she resisted the urge to "abuse" her PC. Just like I'm resisting the urge to rip on PCs. That's how empathetic I am!

*
9. Call Significant Other, Moan:

Along with "stroking your back tenderly and offering bread of affliction and water after you've spent the night retching up your large intestine," the "listening to you whine about ridiculously petty crisises" is a Totes Benefit to a Relationship. TB copy-edited an early draft of the blog, thus increasing her stake in the matter, so I called immediately, obvs. She shared a story of her own computer crash; she lost a really good short story and was forced to re-write. The re-write turned into the best story she's ever written, EVER. Is that happening right now? With this Sunday Top Ten? Kinda? Best Ever?

Side note: TB's got the best memory ever. As in; she remembers everything I've ever said or written, and can recite poems she memorized years ago. She's memorized entire books. She could probably re-write her blog word-for-word from memory. Which is why I love her, envy her, and must always be careful with my words, as I'm certain I'll be reading them again one day, and cringing in pain.

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8. Pick Up a Destructive and All-Consuming Habit:

e.g., cocaine, cigarettes, heroin, sandwich cookies, hookers, television. All of those things involve money, A/V cords or phone calls--three things that are more petrifying than, say, the appeal of a fatal drug addiction. Instead I've chosen string cheese and sweatpants.

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7. Re-Write...BUT BETTER THIS TIME

If I'd lost a paper for class or something, I'd obvs immediately begin the re-write; like Natalie did when her computer crashed at 4 A.M. the night before a paper was due and she was forced to re-write as we waited in line at Spirit Airlines. [She likes to live on the edge.] But, cause this's for my own self-imposed deadline, it's hard to select the next logical step. Like, what if I was just like: "fuck it"? I mean, I could do that, right? JK, kids, I'd never do that. I don't know if it can be better this time. I'd probably know if I accepted that it's never coming home and I need to start over.

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6. Get A Little Perspective

The tornadoed residents of Greenburg, Kansas, can't recover because all the equipment they need to do so is in Iraq. Speaking of Iraq, that's not working out and G.W won't pull out. A 19-year-old college student at Fresno State killed a man in A DISPUTE OVER A VIDEO GAME CONSOLE. Doctors have been prescribing anemia drugs at unsafe dosages to millions of patients in exchange for kickbacks from the sketchy pharm companies. ET CETERA.

Also, as Ingrid points out: "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 off to) by Picasso as source material for paintings that have come to symbolize modernity would have been worse than software breakdowns." She also notes: "This isn't meant to take away from your pain; it's all relative! Love you!" Aw, love you too!!

Free Tibet!

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5. Call the Zoho Writer People...

...who apparently are never in their actual "office." I was informed, in a language that slightly resembles "English," to call back between 9 and 10 A.M.. I suspect they might run more efficient applications if they worked more often. That's a really small window during which I'll likely be asleep because I'm awake right now, writing this. I left a number and Ahmed, the Zoho man, called me back at FOUR IN THE MORNING and left a message that was completely indecipherable. He called again at three in the afternoon and left a similar hodgepodge of gibberish. I listened three times and couldn't make out a single word, let alone the words "We have restored your blog, thank you." Also his caller ID had only 5 numbers? Where is that? Krypton? Outsourcia?

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4. Then Attack their "Bug" Forums and All Other Possible Avenues For Help...

On the Forums, I found that others had suffered similar document-death experiences on Zoho, which pretty much seals the fate of all Zoho employees [I'll give you a hint: it ain't heaven.] Other options for divine assistance: consult the Oracle of Delphi, try Eternal Sunshine memory-erasing drug, try building a time machine [though if I did that, Top Ten Best Things About Having a Time Machine would be the obvious blog-entry topic, like "Got to see Little House on Actual Prairie" or "Hung out with Socrates, Theadore Logan and Bill S. Preston Esq."]

*
3. Comfort Oneself With The Electronic Tragedies of Others:

-Crystal was tour-managing a band about to start a big USA Stadium tour when her computer, holding "every single lighting/sound FX" for 28 concerts, "itinerary, budget" and "everything else [she needs] in life," fell down five flights of stairs at the concert venue in L.A.. Just thinking about that makes me want to cry and do cocaine.

[Speaking of dropping computers, once I gave my old Mac Powerbook to my then-boyfriend for free, 'cause I loved him, and then a few months later I took it to install more memory for him, which I obvs was gonna pay for, and when I turned it on there was this folder labeled with a girl's name, and it turned out he'd let his Secret Other-Girlfriend use the computer to write him declarations of love. So then, instead of getting it upgraded, I drove to his house and threw it at him. It landed on the sidewalk. And survived. Just like we did, for some time. Hmm. MACS CAN SURVIVE ANYTHING, EVEN LYING AND CHEATING!! Dear MacBook, I love you and don't think this is your fault. It's not.]

-Natalie, in a story unrelated to the one related in "7," lost her master's thesis via faulty USB drive. The moral of this story is don't go to graduate school.

-Laura went out for a drink and when she got back her dissertation was gone. That happened to me once with my wife.

-Katie's senior design paper was on the school network when it crashed, and once she spent all afternoon watching free fetish porn and forgot to erase her internet history. I made up that last part, but it's based on implied truth.

-Razia took a class called "Accounting, Reports and Decisions," though, as I immediately thought and she immediately noted: "I should've killed myself when I read the unit title," and she screwed up this huge assignment because dates were switched up 'cause it was an American computer program and she lives in Australia. Which goes to show that America has ruined everything, e.g., Iraq, Accounting, computers. [side note: not that Iraq was exactly boomin' with joy before, but whatevs...what is "before," you know? I mean...]

-Moonkiller's PC got burnt in a fire. I can't really make any jokes about that, since it's my greatest fear. Seriously, I've written really bad poetry about it, that's how much I'm scared of my laptop catching on fire.

-AK's "laptop is so hot right now that [she's] propping it up on an ice pack, so it doesn't burn a hole in my desk. And [she's] going to have to take it in because if [she] presses too hard on the left side of the keyboard it will go into sleep mode." That comment made me LOL . And also, worry! Make sure that ice doesn't leak!!! Water will ruin everything, I did that once, spilled water over my brand-new laptop [the old one'd just crashed], and it cost $600 to fix. At least it got fixed. That's one of 10,000 reasons that Visa loves me.

-Laia, who was lonely and sad in a new city, dropped a latte on the keyboard of her laptop. She totally summoned 1984 by noting that this happened on "a cold morning of December." She then vowed never to have a liquid near her computer again. I did that too. Obvs I've got three liquids within arm's reach right now.

-Peter's laptop is a piece of shit and he misses Natalie's MacBook. I hate it when you've grown dependent on someone else's computer. Happened to me, obvs.

-Lynn's printer only communicates with her in Spanish. Mine only prints three pages at a time, then I have to turn it off and back on again and re-start the printing process. It's really weird, and somehow embarrassing if other people witness our routine. By "our" I mean myself and the printer.

*
2. Comfort Oneself with The General Tragedies of Others:

-Jessica is involved in some scholarly activities related to "patent prosecution" and "constitutional law." All I have to say is, I wish Site-Meter tracked not only location of readers, but grad school enrollment. Seriously, y'all students are totes bored. You should drop out and work at Duane Reade, today they only had one register open and I was trying to buy cigarettes for my girlfriend. And Junior Mints. Yummy.

-The Spaz's girlfriend dumped her yesterday to re-unite with her ex-boyfriend. That blows. I mean: A LOT. I'm sorry. You should throw a laptop at her. That's what I'd do. Keep the toaster. Toast your ex's heart.

-A lot of y'all have papers to write and you're reading this instead. You should stop writing your paper because it'll probably get erased anyhow. Just read my blog, then give me the money you woulda spent on school.

-Viennagirl doesn't think she's ever gonna be a rockstar, which's a hard realization....but to that I say: Don't stop believin', little wing! Don't give up the dream! Not now, not ever! Once Ingrid sent me a birthday card that said "Hello, my favorite next top model!" and I bet she'd send you one just like that if she knew you, and then you'd be Our Top Model.

-Most amazing story EVER, from "Anon": "i've actually had several proper mental breakdowns in the past year. more fun than sars and aids combined. like you wouldn't believe. i was having a pretty damn good sleep this morning too and the jerk-off neighbours always fuck that up for me. it's always something, because they're renovating. today it's dragging their one million tonne shipping container (i know, wtf) onto the back of a fucking truck, and yelling about it the whole time. not just 'yeah, good mate' but 'YEAH THAT SHOULD BE RIGHT MATE YEAH ORRIGHT GOOD ON YA YEAH SWEET'. I'm from Australia, obviously. It's 7 in the morning. I WANT AT LEAST ONE MORE FUCKING HOUR. I'm drinking decaf coffee because I'm such a neurotic that I can't drink proper stuff."

-And another amazing story, from pike-a-dilly, who claims he's never had computer problems with his PC...: "When i was a lil kid learnin to ride a ike, i didt have a bike to be learnin' on. So i was-a-learnin' how to ride on some other kids bike i knew. His bike was pretty beat up and the handle bar was pushing out through the handle-grip. The handle bars are basicaly fucking steel pipes with sharp round edges. while learning, the handle bars turned on me, and i fell onto the exposed one and basically was impaled. It went into my side making a nice round gaping cut."

-Cameron, who I've always credited with consuming more food than any other woman I've known, just learned she's got a thyroid disease and "the doctors say I will steadily gain weight until September, when I have to wear a tight white dress and get married."

-Rachel reports that someone's been stealing her hair products, and someone stole Angelo's $260 cutting shears. So whoever stole 'em, please return them to Rachel in Alaska at Trend Setters.

P.S. This made me laugh...

"Like right now, the word verification thing won't let me upload the comment...i better copy it." -::S

...because I do that, too. I open the "text-edit" app just to retain the pasted comments that I feel have run on long enough that they could be erased at any moment.

1. This?

In conclusion, I'm curious about this dead-dog-in-a-duffel-bag-story, relayed by M--and, to M, I'd like to say, in the words of Huey Lewis and the News: I'm Happy to be stuck with you, do doo doo.

I started reading the dead-dog story to TB over the phone, but she said she'd heard this story before. Then, Laurrita noted in the comments that she intended to relay the same hilarious saga but saw it'd already been told. I find this very mysterious. Someone get to the bottom of this. Is it a popular story? And if so, are you, M, friends with the source material, and therefore practically a famous person? Anyone? Bueller?

Sunday Top Ten: Really Papi, REALLY?!!!!!

Just penned the whole Sunday Top Ten on Zoho Writer (online word processing program). Then I closed Firefox, re-opened Firefox, went to Zoho writer ... and the entire blog I wrote (which's really long) is completely gone. Totally disappeared. It was like, hyperlinked, image-laden, quote-heavy and, honestly, pretty LOL-worthy.

In fact, I'd spent so much time on researching this post that, at it's end, I'd resolved never to spend so much time on one blog entry again.

Apparently, this erasure is a Zoho "BUG." Bug? Really? A Bug??!!! This is not a bug, this is a full scale catastrophe. This is like Egyptian Plague-Style bugs. Locusts.

[Side note: This comparison I'm making is not only insensitive but unfair.]
[Just like Zoho writer.]

And now--two days of work--gone! Totes gone! I'm going to go stick my head in the oven.

UPDATE IDEA: Okay. Even if you NEVER EVER comment on this blog, which is about 4,000 of you, today's the day. Seriously. I want like, ten gazillion comments, and I'm going to make them into the best Sunday Top Ten Ever: Having Nothing to Do With the Original Top Ten, Which I'll Re-Do Following an Intense Period of Mourning for the Original.

Comment.

Tell me your computer-crash nightmare, or tell me that I'm a brat 'cause it's much worse in Darfur than it is on Zoho.com. Tell me what's worse than this, which is most things: you've just been diagnosed with SARS, you've just discovered your boyfriend's been cheating on you with a 16-year-old synchronized swimmer, you're in prison for stealing a loaf of bread, you live in Afghanistan, you're the only gay in the Village, you're my friend right now, you just chopped your leg off in a lawnmower, etc. Or tell me a quick n' easy Top Ten you think I could do.

NOW.

You Got a Fast Car, I Got a Plan to Get Us Out Of Here

A lot's happened lately in the smokin ' hot life of Auto-Win . Not "good things" necessarily [besides the Marie Claire article, yow!!!], like winning the lottery or surviving cholera, but "things that've occupied significant mind-space." What follows is the result of "space-mind."

[Speaking of space; moved on Monday night, with assistance from the Man-with-a-van, Little Fierce Haviland, Tara "I Haven't Worked Out in a Year But I'm Still 10 x Stronger than Fitness-Fanatic Marie" D, and my new Angelic roommates Ryan and Zoey. I'm still unpacking, a.k.a. co-existing with chaos, but I'm gonna be happy here. It's delightful. I haven't been this close to a New York Sports Club since '04!!]

However, I learned a lot about myself while packing, e.g., I own eight sticks of Secret deodorant and six travel-sized tubes of toothpaste. This means I often leave home unsure if I've adequately transformed my body's natural bacterias from "gross" to "powdery/minty freshness" and I attempt to immediately remedy this at my local Duane Reade. Because of "love thy neighbor," etc.

Today on This Automatic Life: MY GREAT ESCAPE PLAN

**

"[W]hen you are twenty-two or twenty-three, you figure that later you will have a high emotional balance, and be able to pay whatever it costs. I still believed in possibilities then, still had the sense, so peculiar to New York, that something extraordinary would happen any minute, any day, any month."
-Joan Didion, "Goodbye to All That

**

There's this sensational moment in Beverly Hills 90210 when Brenda discovers that Kelly n' Dylan have been riding the hobby horse and she's like: "Look, I hate you both. Never talk to me again!" and walks off into the California sunshine. Next season, Brenda's in London. Poof!

[I fully realize the lead sentence of that graf is possibly the best way EVER to begin a sentence.]
[Besides: "So, I saw America's Next Top Model at the gym today ... [or "Last night, while Haviland and I lay naked in a field of poppies..."]

I really liked that scene, so I re-enacted it in 1997 by running away to boarding school. All my friends cried. Leaving home felt like actual flight, even though we drove there and I cried for the first three days and wouldn't let my Mom go home. Luckily [!!!] I still wore ski caps then--every day, even in the summer, ALWAYS--so no one could see my puffy eyes anyhow.

The point is: even if we haven't personally been betrayed by Dylan+Kelly, we've all felt like walking off into the sunshine sometimes. It's an itchy instinct: you face disaster, heartbreak, challenge, loss -- you flee -- If the life you lead is not the one you dreamed about, then flee. [-Micheal Cunningham, A Home at the End of the World]

**

Like many New Yorkers, I've dreamt of living here all my life. [Read: threatened to run here all my life.]

Now when I get pissed off, I can't say I'm leaving you for New York City! so I just say really crazy things, cause what do you say when you're already living out your escape plan?

I think we've all got our "Screw it all, I'm moving to ______" plans/threats. Right? Yeah.

Ryan, mid-mental-breakdown, often announced he was: becoming a monk or moving to Africa to feed the children because food is the only joy in my life now, and I'd like to share that joy with others. Krista fantasized about a custom-built lakeside house in the woods, in Northern Michigan, Scot often threatened to flee for Chicago [home of his brother and The Cubs]. My Mother's announced more than once that she's moving to Australia: we have family there, and the gays can marry.

What's your great escape plan?

**

Plan of Escape:
Or, What I Think About When I Think About Saying Goodbye to All That


Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying

**

Bring it Back Home Y'all: Michigan
This's a common narrative thread in my blog. You know the deal: no DSL (or DHL), no Duane Reade, no MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF KICK-ASS FUN, no Haviland, no Tasti-D-Lite. Possible job involving pantyhose, e.g., a cubicle, GM, Bob Evans.

**

Reno, Nevada:
I haven't spoken to Kim in two months. Somehow, because I too have delusions, I still imagine her going "sure, friend, come stay!"

**

Flowers in Hair, etc. ..San Francisco, California:
Reno's appealing partially cause it's close to San Francisco. I imagine many New Yorkers threaten to move to San Fran when times are tough. Some people threaten L.A., but those people are not the kinds of people NYC wants anyway. Like, take your sunshine and your plastic body parts and your smoothies,whatevs, see you at the End of Days, suckers.

Which leads me to this hypothesis:

The most common escape-routes of New Yorkers are, in order of popularity:
1. San Francisco
2. London
3. The suburbs
4. Home, wherever that is. Sometimes, home is "New Jersey," but that doesn't stop you.

**

"My God, how much there was then to leave behind and forget."
-Rilke, "The Prodigal Son"

**
No-Sin City. Las Vegas, Nevada:
I don't understand the appeal of gambling. I'd only gamble if it somehow involved Scattergories, but even then, I'd rather just chill and play the game. [Which I'd Automatically Win, P.S.] Isn't money enough of a game as it is, and therefore, isn't gambling kinda meta? And therefore Already Over?], TB and I enjoy tossing about the moving-to-her-parents'-house-in-Vegas idea. Like Jack and Diane, Sid and Nancy, Jack and Dean, and Waldo of Where's Waldo?:

"I could be a bartender, and you can be a cocktail waitress."
-TB

[Relationship metaphor, anyone?]

When we aren't working or sexing, we'd be writing/reading. A few miles away, lights would continue blinking, cash-ching-chinging, coin-clattering, pop-crooner-gay-magician-showing, but in our hideaway, all that would feel so far away from our Waking Life that it'd almost not exist whatsoever.

Challenges include: TB's employed in NYC, The U-Haul joke, and if Al Queda attacks, they're definitely hitting Excalibur or Tropicana first. After totes smashing the hell out of Circus Circus. Not that we'd be in any of those places, but we could be passing through on our way to the library .


**

"You got a fast car/I want a ticket to anywhere."
-Tracy Chapman, 'Fast Car"

**

Astoria, Queens, New York City, New York:
Astoria's practically on a different planet, just because I know if I lived there, I'd never leave my apartment. I'd start thinking about the Q train and get super overwhelmed and need to lay down. So I'd lay down and stare at the walls of my big 500-dollar room, drink something fizzy with a lemon twist--and decide to stay in Astoria. Maybe I'd go out with Vater, cause she always meets weirdos in Astoria at the Athens Cafe. Then I could start a blog about being a twentysomething upwardly-mobile entry-level-employed savings-accounted gal in the big city, except it'd be about Vater's dating life, not mine. That would be the "twist." To seperate it from the other 65 already up on that topic.

**
Summer Camp:
I don't know if I'm qualified to teach a child to do anything besides how to cook Easy-Mac, but it'd be fun to be like C'mon kids, lets go eat worms! and stuff. Or direct plays. Or make poetry and lanyards. Then I could get away from all you people and be around the children because Children are the Future, just like Whitney said. Also, I imagine getting very tan and sheperding the cool kids into the counselors-only area to smoke and talk about lesbian sex.
**

"We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one noble function of the time, move."
-Jack Kerouac, On the Road

**

Wilmington, Ohio:
My Grandparents wanted all their grandchildren to land in a top-tiered University, and if not: Wilmington College. Even sans college, they'd take me in with open arms and I'd feel like the Best Grand-Daughter Ever. But sometimes it gets so quiet there at night that trucks whizzing by are comets through a cornfield; I get scared all over. Like all that space, that quiet must hold a really dark secret. Also, I'd find a way to go into debt at Wal-Mart or Odd-Lots.

**

" 'I'll be thinking of you,' he'd say at the door,
while already he'd be in his car,
singing, the music all the way up."
-Stephen Dunn, "Often The Pleasures of Departure"

**

Wherever Ryan Is:
He won't disclose. Apparently it's top-secret. [Still more reassuring than last year, when he lived in Beirut.]

**

With Ryan's parents on the ranch in Oklahoma, regardless of Ryan's actual location:
Because it's beautiful there, and I love Christy and Ted and Grandmother. I'd be like, Lets go round up the horses! or whatevs. Chop chop! Gallop! Then we could go into town 'cause there's tons of good food there if you like BBQ Ribs and coronaries. Also, Poteau, Oklahoma is home of the world's highest hill [in Ryan's backyard!]. If it were one foot taller, it'd be a mountain.

**

"My wife has disappeared along with her clothes."
-"My Wife," Raymond Carver

**

Chicago:
Anyone who grew up in a Midwestern state without any of it's own super-hip-cities [e.g. Michigan, Indiana] knows that Chicago's always the default escape route. Everyone's got a friend or two in Chicago. I've got like: six [I rarely talk to, which doesn't make them any different from my friends here]. Ingrid would take me in. She'd cook me filet-with-fancy-sauce and I could read her Harper's and New Yorker and listen to The Roots while Ingrid furthers her Art History knowledge. I could work for Oprah or Barak Obama. Or both.

**

Eugene, Oregon:
Everyone's happy here, I think. You can't be like "Oh, I'm sad, and I live in Eugene." Right?

**

Missoula, Montana:
Delp, our Interlochen writing teacher/surrogate father, often scoffed at our stress over the college admissions proccess, admonishing that if we knew what was good for us, we'd move to Montana, where we could fish and write all the time. I've never been, but he was right about everything else, you know?

**

That being said: I've got no escape plan right now. This is good: right here. This apartment, these roommates. My friends. Whatever life I build for myself over the next month. TB, striving towards perfection, etc. All of us, all of us, all of us.

Sunday Top Ten: This Might Be It, Actually

"I want to be consistent
with the truth as it reveals itself to me," Gandhi said, and I felt
the hard permission right words give us
to disobey, to become ourselves.
I loved thinking that integrity
might be fluid, and still do,
though the indulgent, rudderless
and without shame, love to think so too,
and the truth is
the indulgent are my careless brothers
half the time.

-Stephen Dunn, from "Loves"

**

The last non-English-350-related all-nighter I pulled was December '99, and it ended in the same spot that April 28th's wake-a-thon did. I didn't go to Columbia but I took summer school here and still prefer its serious buildings and ancient/earnest embrace of sunrises/sets more than just about any other Uptown Park. One of my favorite parts of the island, fo' sure.

December 1999, Harlumbia:

....we ate the inside of our cheeks, and then each other's hearts. I tapped frustration on tabletops.
"Let's go see Jake," I said, grating my cheeks to my teeth like sanding wood. "Let's go to Columbia and see Jake."
"Let's!" Meg said.
"How far is it?" Ingrid asked.
"One hundred and ten blocks," I said. "We can totally walk."
"Let's do it," Meg said. We ate our cheeks, then our cookies, and then we walked as far as the 1-9 stop to go uptown.
**

This time: April 28th. 8 A.M. Sleepy sun rise, we emerge on 113th, Rex-Walls style. TB smokes primary cigarettes, makes promises.....I desire Zen, I listen, place faith, I squint because one never anticipates such disasters, never prepares appropriate eyewear: it was night-time when I left, it's suddenly bright I would like to step out of my heart and go walking beneath the enormous sky.

**
"The times are so peculiar now, so medieval and so unreasonable, that for the first time in a hundred years; truth is really stranger than fiction. Any truth."
-Gertrude Stein.
**

I'm waiting for edits/approval on the Sunday Top Ten. Because we can only say so much before we say too much, or the wrong thing, or not enough. You never think before you talk, chose your words, be careful:what happens when all I've got left is words? Sometimes it seems really lame that English is the only language I'm fluent in. It's a cop-out. There's gotta be other ways, you know? To say what I mean? Someone in some country is getting it out and I'm not, and I want their linguistics.

**

UPDATE: Killing the Sunday Top Ten that was in progress for this week. Totes TMI. I gotta hold some things back, yeah? It's hard, always (always!) to determine how much, exactly, I oughta give here. Right now I'm in a new apartment, surrounded by boxes, putting together a new life, or something.

**

Where's the joke? Where's my punchline, punch-face? Automatic Laugh!

Where's the joke?

Knock Knock.

**

Because it wouldn't be autumn at Marie Claire without Marie Lyn Bernard,
my essay "Feels Like Teen Spirit," to appear in "The Bigger the Better, the Tighter the Sweater: 20 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image, and Other Hazards of Being Female" [Seal Press/Avalon, June 28], has been picked up by marie claire for their August issue.
!
Eat THAT, [redacted] magazine.

**

I had another idea for a Sunday Top Ten:
Since I'm moving, I thought I'd catalogue the top 10 weird stuff I found while packing. For example:


The photographer asked: "You wanna try again?" and I snuck a look and noted: Why, when this one is perfect?

I wasn't actually happy though. I was like, what am I doing with all these patchoulli-pothead-flowy skirted-lesbians? Then I went to University of Michigan and was like: what am I doing with all these Hard-Tail-Pantsed Herve-Bag-Toting (TOTES) douchebag-sorostitutes? Then I realized: Whoever is alone will stay alone, will sit, read, write long letters through the evening, and wander on the boulevards, up and down, restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing.

Obvs.

**

I also found a story--some notes for stories, handwritten and typed--and started reading it, thinking maybe it was mine or TB's, and I could quickly ID and store appropriately. The language was familiar but then gradually the story became that way, too, and it was really really really good, and I kept reading it though I knew I shouldn't, but it was about things I knew about, so I think that's OK. So, you, I hope it was.

**

I'm dipping my spoon into a jar of Skippy and then rolling it all about the field of mini-chocolate-chips and then eating it like that's not totally weird.

**

From the currently-under-consideration Sunday Top 10, entitled 'What's Really Been Going On' or 'Nine True Things' :

8. Two-Spirit/Loki/Fire Hydrant/TRANNY PRIDE

T.B.'s just announced she's becoming a man. I'm not kidding, kids.

"I'm getting involved in the transgender rights movement. Totes campaigning. Go trannies! Like is that okay? Can you be--
[erupts into totally non-maniacal laughter]
--straight again? After I just like, totally made you into a lesbian? Is that okay? Can you be straight now?"
[pause]
"Oh my God. What will we tell your mother?"
-T.B.

She's not cutting her tits off, like Max. Just dressing in drag.

"I usually wear men's clothes. Why, I don't know. I'm not a Freudian."
Kathy Acker, Empire of the Senseless

"I'm gonna be the most hipsterish man ever. I'm gonna be a drag king, like the hottest and fittest drag king EVER. Vita Sackville-West, whatever."
-T.B.

New Leaf, Sunrise/Sundial

I'm allowed to do this now, so I must, immediately, as it has only recently become my right and I am giddy with freedom and promise:


Blog-to-reassure-everyone will come tomorrow. Right now, we're taking a long nap. In my brand new Tommy Hilfiger sheets!!! They are so soft, heather grey with red trim. Just in time to take them off and moveeeee! I haven't slept in forever-ever. Go St. Luke's Hospital--we had a time.

She's alive, y'all. And totes just kidding about lighting herself on fire. HILARIOUS, RIGHT? (right.)

Details in the Sunday Top Ten.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6.Whoops.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Serendipity.

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

Sunday Top 10: Miss Hip and Fit New York 2007

i. exhibit a:

When this masterpiece of graphic design arrived in my inbox, I LOLed till I actually exploded and died: the pseudo-firestarter shadow girls, the edginess photoshopped into Hav's typically guileless appearance, the language of the contest itself, the endgame-aesthetics. I mean: !!!! Look at that thing! That's the most amazing invitation to anything, ever.

Obvs Hav is fit. She climbs the barricades to sing the song of every men because is the music of the people who will not be slaves again, which is much harder on one's back than the Stairmaster. She's likely the fittest broad on Broadway. Secretly she's not that hip because she won't let me get skinny jeans. She says it's for my own benefit, but I wanna be cool too, like the kats in W'burg, where I no longer live, because I'm old now, and prefer to eat ice cream with my girlfriend in an uptown villa. [villa=teeny tiny apartment]

Re: Hip....well, speaking of neighborhoods, Hav's is not hip. Like Lower Midtown or something? Things you can't buy in Hav's hood past 11 p.m include: a vodka-tonic, a cappucino, groceries, a book. [Really anything but McDonalds and Adult DVDs] But the locale's perfect for her super-hip actressing job. Hav herself is quite hip, but; this being NYC and all....on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give her a "5" which means "not exactly Dash Snow, but not your Mom, either."

Regardless, she's hipper and fitter than all those other bitches, whoever they are.

ii. SUNDAY TOP TEN: TOP TEN REASONS HAVILAND STILLWELL REALLY OUGHTA WIN THIS CRAZY-ASS CONTEST.

10. From Karen, our Nyack sweetheart:
(that's Hav, Karen and Christine, in Nyack: respite from the MTA)

HAVILAND STILLWELL THE HIPPEST AND FITTEST LESBIAN becuz she IS
HAVILAND STILLWELL THE HIPPEST AND FITTEST LESBIAN becuz she surrounds
herself with the hottest lesbians in the world
HAVILAND STILLWELL THE HIPPEST AND FITTEST LESBIAN becuz she is
friends with the hottest lesbians in the world
HAVILAND STILLWELL THE HIPPEST AND FITTEST LESBIAN becuz she she can
melt a glacier with one look with her emerald eyes with one glance from
emerald eyes thru mink eyelashes
HAVILAND STILLWELL THE HIPPEST AND FITTEST LESBIAN becuz she fits into
any crowd and makes smiles
THIS coming from an UNhip and UNfit old dyke

9. I'd Like To Feed Every Single Hungry Child EVER.

Directly after being crowned Miss Girl Nation, Hav descended into the crowd of her admirers and noted: "I wish they would've given me a mike. I woulda been like: world peace."

8. Hav's high school buddies are still keeping score:

"I was cleaning out my parents basement this past week and found some great pictures of me and her at Disney World when we were pre-teens. I'd show you but they would incriminate me too ... Let's just say that it shows how far she has come!" (Christine)

"I knew Haviland in High School, and even then, she was the hippest girl in school, never one to compromise herself for others. I hope she wins!!" (Rachel)

(True dat, Rachel. I was like "Haviland, just get me some crack rock from the corner," and she was like "No, Riese, I will not compromise myself for others." I was so pissed! Also, though, totes impressed. So I got my own crack, and then she wouldn't smoke it with me, and I was like "compromise THIS, bitch!" and lit her hair on fire, took a photo of it, and tripled it on photoshop and transformed it into a bizarre promotional postcard. That's why it looks "cracked out.")

7. Haviland's girlfriend Heather preaches to the hip-n-fit choir:

"HAVILAND STILLWELL THE HIPPEST AND FITTEST LESBIAN IN NEW YORK CITY (AND POSSIBLY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD?!!) .... because .....

well, i speak for the majority of men and women across the seven continents when i say that HPS is CLEARLY hotter than the gates of hell ... end of story ...

BUT .... more importantly -- if you wanna discuss an AUTOMATIC WIN for this hip and fit hottie, the contest should obvs be re-named "THE HIPPEST AND FITTEST AND MOST EDUCATED, POLITICALLY AWARE, AND RIDICULOUSLY TALENTED LESBIAN IN NYC".

I obviously don't need to say more. We all know. Yah. We know."

6. She Don't Need the Drink to Rock the Dance Floor

Haviland Stillwell: always the only sober woman in the room. Sometimes I wonder: what's it like to be Haviland--to be clear-eyed and bushy-tailed while the rest of us stumble aimlessly, groping for icy drinks between icy bodies, stepping on feet, shooting dashing side-smiles?

Then I drink more.

tb: "Are you one of those girls that only dances when she's drunk?"
[long pause]
me: "Um ... really?"
tb: "Are you?"
me: "I mean, do you mean that proverbially? Because like...yeah. Totes. I seriously only dance when I'm drunk. Or alone. In my room. Or in the shower. I dance alone probably like, 2 hours a day. But in public: only when drunk."

That being said, rumor has it that sober dancers have superior coordination talents. This'll work to her advantage.

5. Angels Would Fall

A former admirer of Pekor [who prefers to remain anonymous] has lent us a few lines of verse, penned in Hav's honor, for the purposes of this Top Ten:

The silence of the morning lingers and with it brings only thoughts of you...In my solitude your spirit comes to me... in shades of crystal your body glistens in my mind and my fingers caress gently the fragile pieces of your flesh...

TOTES! Hav's body always glistens in my mind too. I'm like "Stop glistening, you fragile fleshy body! STOP IT!" Hurts my eyes.

4. I Know Where She Lives.

Speaking of Haviland's minions, she's got quite a few on The L Word Online. It's OK, 'cause I've always been best friends with the prettiest girl in school, so I don't mind fielding comments and requests [e.g., "Will your best friend go out with me? Circle one: YES/NO"] from my best friend's admirers/stalkers. Apparently, the pretty-girl friendship's a predicator of future lesbionic activity. Anyhow, two of the best:

u guys are hilarious in those pics. love them. makes me feel like i'm there.(however, as i said in my other comment, haviland and i would be missing from this pic, cause i have her in another room room in a horizontal position, and creating our own sexy lesbian momnet.-if i were single of course.)
-kristen

k first of all, Haviland is hott.
for many reasons. the most important being that her love for Helena evenly matches mine. and wait, she started the GSA??? i have this great idea where Havi runs for president and i'm her "political advisor" hint hint nudge nudge k ill stop now...and umm... there is no 'second' part to this. sorry. haha.
-alexandria

3. Like, Seriously? Hip n' Fit? Why Those Adjectives, Exactly? Really Papi?
Because she might be the only contestant who rocks the irony. I mean, she's totes doing Lucky Star, you know?

2. For They Know Not What They Do

Because even though the doors open to this event in 12 minutes and I'm still wearing leggings and argyle socks while my girlfriend downloads the entire Ancient canon onto her Sony Ebook Reader, Haviland will still love me. As she does every time I am significantly/tragically late. It's part of my charm. Right?

1. Because she like: IS. Obvs.

And These Children That You Spit On

pre-i.

June 9th, 2006:
In one of many old-school blog posts that probably no-one read ['cept my brother & his friends, Haviland, and Lo, though likely not all the way through], I announced: "the apocalypse is totally nigh." My evidence: 1. that movie, Cars ? Weird. 2. Gay people want to get married and, for their honeymoons, kill people in Iraq [sarcasm]. 3. The government announced it was gonna troll for terrorists on MySpace.

Obvs, this practice is well underway. So like, watch out! This administration is super-good at stopping killers before they kill. Like, getting down to the marrow of the issue, etc.

i. "It's stealth design delivers SHOCK and SURPRISE! AQUASHOCK LEVEL 3.0!"

In the early-nineties, my brother argued the "Educational Toy" cause and managed to procure a wooden sword from the Renaissance Festival in direct defiance of Mom's No-Violent-Stuff Rule, but we had no such case for Super-Soakers.

And I wanted a Super Soaker really badly.

In our school's front lawn, kids executed massive games signaling the [then-timely] start of summer, wielding Byzantine bright-neon plastic tools designed aesthetically to imitate murder but physiologically to expel tiny sprays of harmless water. On the sidelines, growing groggy with sweat, I'd boil with resentment at my mother for enabling my exclusion. I boiled over other deprivations, too: Nintendo, GI Joe, Lethal Weapon, He-Man--whatever the other kids had. Surely, I thought, the anger I feel over not getting a SuperSoaker would be best cured by a good go-round with a SuperSoaker.

[Side note: Two weeks ago at Le Monde, I totally threw a glass of water at TB/Tara. See! You can make your own wet projectile! And then run from the restaurant as fast as you can!]

Now my aversion to violence is so thick, so true--that despite all that remembered resentment, I can't imagine giving my child a water gun. Not even 'cause I think violent toys make violent kids [I don't think it would've made a difference with me necessarily], but just because the concept makes my stomach hurt. I know what you're thinking: YOU? Have a child? You can barely take care of yourself, Auto-Win!

And let me just say: I'm pregnant. Just kidding! [Impossible!] But if I was, I'd be like "Junior/Juniorette, squirt guns are for J-Ro and Jim-Bob down the street, those 8-year-old pudgettes who drink Natty Light and do perverted things to their Little Bratz dolls and have birthday parties at Long John Silvers. Let's go play with our Lincoln Logs and pick apples."

I mean, violence: not fun/entertaining to me. Is it fun to other people? Is it so fun that we can put it on TV all the time, like anything else, like 30-seconds-for-mass-murder, 30-seconds for HEAD-ON-APPLY-DIRECTLY-TO-THE-FOREHEAD, 30-seconds for a Dancing with the Stars preview? And then make it really easy to buy guns? But really hard to buy birth control? Because, after all, when the censorship powers-that-be wield their misled campaigns, they equate sex [sex. which, unlike guns, is essentially an act of .. um .. LOVE!] with violence.

As my girlfriend (who's getting out of the hospital today after being beaten and mugged on Chrisopher Street) said better than I can, there are certain problems with over-exposing oneself to sexual imagery and language. These problems are, in my words: saturation in sexual words/images takes some of the fun/mystery/passion out of it. But that's got no relation whatsoever to the dangers of over-exposure to violence.

So: "the [Virginia Tech gunman]s writing was 'macabre, twisted'"?" [knowing fully 85% of Americans have no clue what "macabre" means?] Boo.

ii. "If you're not angry, you're just stupid, you don't care, how else can you react when you know something's so unfair, when the man of the hour can kill half the world in war, make them slaves to a superpower and let them die poor?"
or: Why I love Rosie O'Donnell, and always will.

This morning on The View, Barbara told Rosie that it made her "sad" to see Rosie admit yesterday that it is not just "futile" but "impossible" to fight for gun control in this country. Rosie's response:

I know. It made me sad, too, but it was really hard, you know? We did the "Million Mom March" after the 1999 Columbine shootings, I mean, everyone thought that would work. What else would it take besides pulling high school kids bloody out of a second floor window? What else would it take to get sensible gun legislation? No one wants to take away hunters rights to hunt. We just want to sort of have sensible gun laws. You know, a teddy bear has more regulations on it than a gun in terms of safety ... I do feel defeated. I have to tell you. When that happened yesterday, it felt like, well here we go again. You know, it’s like "The Truman Show" or "Groundhog Day." We just wake up, and it just continues, and continues.

Rosie's one of a desperate few in the US with a voice and a forum who is moved so much by national/global PROBLEMS that it affects her, deeply, makes her depressed. We should all feel that way, and it makes me sad that people find that dangerous and/or irrelevant. She gives millions to charity and expresses a POV on daytime television that is desperately needed right now. Maybe I admire her so much because that's what I want to do: create a relationship with the mainstream through my non-controversial writing that eventually will earn me the "power" to speak out and be listened to by a lot of people--people on all sides of the political spectrum.

iii. make love not war

People who censor, e.g. the MPAA, assess sex and violence as equally "damaging" and "immoral." That's like: one falsehood. From which to start. Figuring out how we got here.

Everyone is numb to violence, and so used to it, that it starts to seem like one of many ways for an unhappy kid to act out.

Everyone please rent This Film is Not Yet Rated thanks. And Bowling for Columbine, but since I'm preaching to the choir, I'm sure you've already seen it. Also, the Free Press's website for the National Campaign for Media Reform.

I've not seen [and likely will never] the following "entertainments": Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas, The Godfather, The Sopranos, Lethal Weapon, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Die Hard, any Jackie Chan or James Bond movies, Final Destination, Scarface, Braveheart, Friday the 13th, Mortal Kombat, video games. I think violence is awful and horrifying: I can't comprehend picking up a gun. But clearly this guy could. And he liked shooting that gun enough, once he got started, to do it over and over and over and, ultimately, kill 34 people.

Because irony is always, it seems, the last man standing: Virginia Tech's Department of Communication determined that "prolonged exposure to media violence can facilitate hostility indiscriminately." I'm not saying this kid was a violent-movie buff. All he had to do was turn on the television a few times, or like, exist, to be completely bombarded by imagery--out of context--that enabled him, at the very least, to know what kind of gun to purchase.

v.

I know: I'm supposed to make jokes. What do I know about anything? Who am I to speak of such things? [No-one! That's the point, I think? I am no-one, just like everyone with the ability to speak?] I will make jokes, I promise! Y'know how most people [with hearts/souls] have a "thing" that really gets to them? A specific "news-worthy" event that makes them totally insane? That's me, with respect to school shootings.

vi.

So, since we're censoring people this week for expressing damaging concepts on television, and we're seeing yet another product of our violent morally bankrupt culture march into his school and open fire, here's some things on television TODAY, Wednesday the 18th, that I think are also damaging and should be fired:

World's Wildest Police Chases:
I used to wonder "Who watches this show?" Then I met someone who does. So I'll tell you: young men who smoke pot and drive large vehicles, specifically those who I quoted in my last blog entry as claiming: "You can run from the cops if you know how to sit right, because my theory is: skipping is faster than running. You know, like Hercules, or like the horse?"
MORAL: Obvs, skipping is faster than running. So is driving your car really fast like you might kill other drivers [the other drivers are also in cars, so you can't see their faces, which means they aren't real. Like ice hockey, drag racing or video games].

I Love New York:
I'm sure you've also made this mistake. "Oh fun! A show about loving New York City!" This show is not about New York City. It's about a girl who calls herself "New York." I don't know why. I'm not sure why these dudes are competing to marry her, or why she once competed to marry Flava Flav, which's how she got this gig. I totes understand the Appeal of Camp (hello, America's Next Top Model! [don't ask me to defend that show though, 'cause I can't]) but why is this show always on? I'd offer more commentary, but after about ten seconds, I tried to strangle myself with my hoodie.
MORAL: If Flava Flav won't marry you, some other douchetard totes will. On television. And people'll watch. Which makes it important?

Whatever:
Right now, Pat Sajack is talking about winning a trip to Bermuda, while the news text-scroll on the bottom of the screen kindly informs us that 35 people were killed today in a Baghdad hospital.
MORAL: You too can win a trip to Bermuda! Don't think about Iraq! Don't think about Iraq! They aren't real people! They are people in Iraq! Iraq isn't real! BERMUDA, y'all! (Unless you're gay, in which case: don't think about Bermuda ).

Style Her Famous:
Summer, a busy Mom of 4, can have celebrity style. She too can look like Halle Berry, which will help relieve the burdens of single motherhood in a racist classist quasi-Democracy like America. The host is Jay Manuel (from America's Next Top Model), who's really annoying.

Jay: "Look at you."
Summer: "Look at me! Who is this person in the mirror?"
Jay: "It's the new Summer. That's all I can say."

MORAL: I've got no clue.


Plastic Surgery Nightmares:
So "E! Investigates" has cut together ominous action-movie music with blurry blue surgery footage, mixed it up with some interviews of the unlucky "patients" who got wronged by their plastic surgeons, and has created a two-hour television program. For the three minutes that I could bear to watch, a woman described almost dying from a botched tummy tuck/eyelid lift.
MORAL: There are many ways to risk ones life. If you're poor, you can be sent to Iraq. If you're not poor, you can get tummy tucks from sketchy doctors. If you're not poor, hate rich people, feel lonely and "twisted," you can create a "multimedia manifesto" about "rich, spoiled" students, and then shoot all your classmates and then yourself.
MORAL, ACCORDING TO E!: "Donna did her homework before picking her doctor, but it wasn't enough....next, a story of a woman who did NO research before choosing her plastic surgeon!"

MORAL, ACCORDING TO ME!:
1. (the apocalypse is nigh?)

2. "but there come times--perhaps this is one of them--when we have to take ourselves more seriously or die; when we have to pull back from the incantations, rhythms we've moved to thoughtlessly."
-Adrienne Rich