automatic fundamentalist movement of the day: 11.14.2008

I've been feeling weird lately. No words, just weird. No lies, just love. No woman, no cry. Listen up.

1. Hey! Are you a computer programmer/web designer person? Remember that day in February when I screamed at Haviland on the phone, tore down a bunch of stuff from my walls and then took down my website? Barely? Yeah me too. I think I also took down my blog for many minutes, but I might be thinking about another day, that's my number one go-to action in a moment of crisis.

So Stef & Alex, my crack team of "website makers" who really take the time to do things right ... are apparently at a crossroads w/the website that they cannot traverse without ... um, well, here's Stef explaining it: "the one thing i cannot figure out how to do is keep the sections highlighted while you're on a particular page. that's something that i think requires flash, but jade thinks it can be done with php. as i never planned on being a web designer in the first place (tiny violins), i never learned these things. i should! but i didn't."

Anyone? Email: big exit.

I personally have developed an almost violent reaction to any & all offers to work (for me work = write) for "exposure" (translation = unpaid). Until I can trade exposure for a colt and/or vodka and/or an amber wave of grain, I got all the free exposure I need. Luckily I'm not offering you any exposure. I don't know if this is something that takes a long time, but clearly you know -- 'zine, t-shirt, stickers, L Word Season Five on DVD, autographed snapshot of Haviland Stillwell -- just say so. You want to. If it becomes a big project and you need to get paid, um, then maybe we can work something out. I'm expecting at least $20 at Christmas, so. No srsly I am.

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Quote: "I realized that once people are broken in certain ways they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one." (Douglass Coupland, Life After God)

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Link-a-Dink:
1. Ann Arbor my hometown! Voted one of the most gay-friendly places to live. I don't know anything about this nonsense. (@mlive)
2. Yes, yes they are: is the books world short-changing its bright young women ? (@the guardian uk)
3. Southern voters weren't the only whites who didn't vote Obama. (@slate)
4. n+1 on bolano (adam, it's a party just for you) and Sam Anderson on Bolano. Also someone tell me how to make that accent mark. The one that's supposed to be over the "n." (@nymag)
5. Don't Blame the Journalism - on the decli
6. Amazing interview with Dan Savage (@mediabistro)
7. 350... the most important number in the world that nobody's talking about (@good magazine)
8. Internet is mind control. (@nytimes)
9. Can Obama Save the Media Industry ? (Sub question: Can Dramatic Headlines Like That One from Newsweek Save the Media Industry That Happens to Include Nesweek?) (@newsweek)
10. South of Nowhere Recap! Season Three, Episode 12: Love & Kisses.
11. Susan Powter on "The Morning Show":

Mike: "Here's the thing: I didn't know know you were a lesbian."
Susan: "What planet were you living on?" (@afterellen)

pictures from tapedeck.I totally found all the ones I used to use, the 90 minute tapes to make mix tapes. The internet is neat.

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2. This is a good post so far, yeah? Anyhow, I've given up on blogrolling ever fixing itself ... so I'm fixing stuff in the sidebars myself as I do other work. If I owe you a link and you don't see it up within the next few days, holler.

3. OMG OMG! I just had a brilliant idea about how to keep the internet media going because all these magazines and stuff are closing but it's not 'cause people aren't reading newspapers, 'cause they ARE, they just aren't paying for it anymore, making it hard for good journalists to go into journalism and live off it. And bloggers are quitting left & right and omg. Okay the idea is that internet service providers tack on a like 20 dollar annual tax or something to everyone's internet, and at the start of every year, everyone who gets internet pays that tax and they are given the choice of distributing it to whatever media source they wish. Like you might give $15 to HuffoPo and $5 to the New York Times or you might give $2 to every good blog you read like mine. Yeah?

Okay, the other idea is that someone should put together a gift certificate site in the same way that Justgive.org or Charity Choice operates, except about 5% as noble. So if you have a friend who's big into blogs, you can give here a justgivetobloggers.org "gift certificate" online that she can then use to donate to the blogs of her choice that she really likes and has always wanted to throw some cash to but never been able to afford it. Yeah?

Except really you should probs forget all this and give your money to real charities. Although here's the thing -- you actually could, because you could give to like a noble news provider e.g., truthdig, or you could give to like the free tibet blog.

4. Wanna see what I look like as my alter ego, Hedwig the Fabulous Tinkerbell? The best part is that, ISO a post about actual sex, they had to find their pullquote from the big strip club trip of '07, exclusively covered on Autowin since Lozo doesn't have his blog up anymore sigh.

So Watch Your Head and Then Watch The Ground, It's a Silly Time to Learn to Swim

Though I honestly never sat through/paid attention to/understood The Matrix and therefore never grasped its widespread appeal, I frequently employ "there's a glitch in the matrix" to describe how life's going. E.g., this week. April is the cruelest month ... and so on. Disclaimer: I've been a little feverish for a few days now. I might just be talking crazy.

Life today isn't all that similar to life a week ago. Things keep happening that don't make sense, that seem wildly inappropriate, inspiring metaphors about being underwater and existing inside giant cottonballs.

Yesterday: my head felt like the moment the jets turn off in a hot tub ... a durrrrring pool of disappointed/subdued dumb bare skin. I didn't even do auto-fun! There's auto-fun in this post though, it's at the bottom, and footnoted throughout. I'm playing with it.

Does this happen every late March/early April? Last year, my entire life fell apart in about four days. In '06, I lost Lo & gained Haviland. '04: his other girlfriend & I paid him a surprise visit to tell him what we knew, '03 I fell head-over-heels for him in the first place. But those events (which ultimately in the scheme of things are fundamentally unimportant, as concentrated and personal as they are) aren't what I'm talking about --

it's more like when you walk outside and feel like everyone else outside has been transported to earth just that very morning, and you're still fumbling about like you've lived here for years.

Maybe we're still stuck on semesters, compelled to begin transition this time of year. I still call the last two weeks of December "winter break."

Some people I once knew seem so far underwater that I'm fairly certain even if I strapped on an oxygen tank and got all deep sea diver about it, I'd probs just hit my head on a coral reef (I can keep going with this metaphor ALL DAY, all night, watch me go!) or get hugged by a dolphin (yeah! That's my way of saying "this can be good or bad or neither." Dolphins! Manatees! I speak the secret language!)

And then; the most random people showing up in my inbox. Or on my facebook ... (1).

Yesterday I couldn't think/update (synonyms, maybe) 'cause it was my fourth morning running on no sleep 'cause every morning I'd been woken up by this noise, which I so kindly recorded for you because I am: 1. insane, 2. bitter:

boomp3.com


So I figured I'd do the things I'm usually too anxious to sit still and do: I got my hair did by a trannie named Mariah from Texas. Now I look like a Bobsey Twin, which's fine (I've just been avoiding mirrors). I'd like to solve some mysteries or whatever it is that they did, first mystery: wtf?

Yesterday's weather was impossibly, aggressively sunshiney. I've been waking up from crazy dreams and then lying in bed for impossibly, aggressively long periods of post-dream reckoning -- the things that happen in my subconscious battle reality for possible truths. (Also, duende. (2))

You have plans, or something to say, and then a whole day passes where you have nothing at all whatsoever to say in a way that feels selfish and stark. Sometimes circumstances get you down (3), sometimes you wanna stop (4), but luckily I am a compulsive over-share-er and cannot ever stop (5). Obviously. I must breathe, blog, pay taxes ... (except that I just realized, err, I haven't paid taxes. Maybe I should. I think I'll contribute to the purchase of one soldier's pair of socks. Ideally, a schoolbook, but let's be real here, this be George W country.)

So my swamp-turtle mind felt the world recognized my silence and responded in kind -- my Blackberry was a little, silent turtle with nothing to share. Then I accidentally dropped it, turned it back on, and it exploded with everything I'd received that morning and afternoon at once. Also it's deleting messages at random.

Also a stranger just called me and left a voice mail recording of the news announcing airline-related information. An accented voice goes: "Hello? Hello?"

Last night was the book party for Dirty Girls at Sutra (6) (6a) (6b) ... I managed to rally for about three hours before feeling feverish again. For the first of those three hours, Alex and I got lost somewhere between chinatown, soho, the lower east side, the east village, and bangladesh. Luckily I like to walk. (7)

(Next week! "In the Flesh" at Happy Endings Lounge!)

**

The first glitch experience happened in 2000 -- it started when all my tips from an eight-hour lunch shift at The Olive Garden were stolen, meaning I'd just served approximately 545 unlimited soup salad & breadsticks lunches for fun, which's funny in that not-funny-at-all way. I came home to find roommate Sarah in a hot panic -- she'd just done the same thing w/her Blue Water Grill Lunch money, couldn't find it.

So what do I do -- I meet Meg at a The Columbia Cottage (Chinese, uptown, free wine) to drink 'til I forget about it, then jet to Times Sqaure to see The Matrix with a boy, paying just enough attention to grasp the glitch concept and then therefore apply it immediately.

"What are we doing?" The boy asks as he walks me home.

"What are you talking about?"

"You and me, what are you doing," he asks. "I'm 27, I don't play games."

About twenty blocks later he kisses me. (Reader: I'm nearly 27. Do I still play games? Did I then?) I sit on the steps and wonder how that happened & what I'm doing.

The next day : still woozy. Woozier still when Sarah & I choose a champagne brunch ("Are you celebrating something?" Um, yes, being served though we're only 18? But instead, this raw deal: we toast "To the future!"). 3 P.M. hits and I'm napping.

Apparently I'm still woozy when I wake up @ 6 p.m. and buy a plane ticket to Paris for no reason.

Ryan calls; he's fucked up an audition, this never happens, he feels disoriented and confused and do I want dinner before our friend's birthday party? I do, we do, and circa midnight, Ryan and I actually fall asleep on a couch in the pulsing downtown nightclub Roxy. We wake up confused, he wants another drink and I don't so we squabble and I flee home. Sarah's there.

"What are we doing?" Sarah asks.

"What are you talking about?" I respond.

"With our LIVES," she responds, but I know. I already know. We're college dropouts. We serve bad food, lose our money, sleep & drink. Her harp collects dust in the corner. I sometimes use my laptop for AIM, when the dial-up's working. What happened to all the self-important yearnings we had in boarding school, still so fresh on our sad young literary tongues? (8)

Later, I'm lying forlornly on my bottom bunk when Ryan arrives home and joins me (his bunk assignment is "top"). We apologize for fighting over nothing. He tells me about his fruitless gay bar hopping and flavored martinis.

"What are you doing?" He asks. Like, why am I so often sick? Why all the throwing up, all the almost fainting starry-eyed surprises? Why aren't I reading enough? He then tells me everything I'd ever wondered about, like what happened (with us) in high school (what were we doing? trying to be straight?). He answers all the questions I'd never have asked and then he gets to the point ... the real secret is: he loves me so much that he even admires me, and he demands I do more. Admires me? Why?

I tell him: "I don't know what I'm doing."

He knows: I'm serving Fettucine Alfredo, kissing boys who don't read books, sleeping mid-day and buying plane tickets to Paris just to see if I can (I can).

"You need to take yourself seriously," he says.

Across the street, The Beacon Theater's back doors extract happy, solid, stable people. Though I suppose they'd probs think the same things we'd been thinking if they'd seen us from their window: "Those people are happy, and know what they're doing."

But we don't.

For the first time since dropping out and moving to the city with Sarah (who has her own room), Ryan and I sleep together in the same bed of our bunkbed. It's a tiny thing, but we sleep like angels. (9)

**

I think they finished drilling the holes in my sidewalk, finally, so I slept last night.

I'm pretty sure my stomach is lined with something toxic like rubber (and you are glue, which is why everything we both eat bounces off me and sticks to you).

I considered the master cleanse, 'cause I feel like there's just something off inside me, but the way it was described to me made it sound like it'd probs make my ass bleed more than a night at Babylon with Brian Kinney (yeah, I said it). Also I think I said I wanted to do it when Stef did it and Cait said "Don't do it!" and I said, "okay."

I went to the cheap Chinese massage place yesterday, which's like China, only smaller. I was too in the zone to even think about the thin curtains and the other people, the lack of privacy. I honestly just wanted to lie there forever, as it seemed to be the only place on earth that might demand nothing from me. Simply by lying completely still, I was doing my part.

Basically, here's the symptoms: hot flashes, nausea/vomiting, cravings for strange foods, inexplicable breast growth (without the corresponding overall body-growth), sluggishness, moodiness ... possibly I'm preggers, which'd be impossible unless on the off chance that I am, in fact, Marie Magda-Lyn. For all you heathens out there, that's a reference to the Immaculate Conception. Not to be confused with The Immaculate Collection, Madonna's best album.

I like this poem. (10).

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quote: "When I think about it like this, I can't help asking myself, "Where is there any logical consistency in the world?" I don't know -- maybe the world has two different kinds of people, and for one kind the world is this completely logical, rice pudding place, and for the other it's all hit-or-miss macaroni gratin. I bet if those tree frog parents of mine put rice pudding mix in the microwave and got macaroni gratin when the bell rang, they'd just tell themselves, 'Oh, we must have put in macaroni gratin by mistake, or they'd take out the macaroni gratin and try to convince themselves, 'This looks like macaroni gratin, but actually it's rice pudding. And if I tried to be nice and explain to them that sometimes, when you put in rice pudding mix, you get macaroni gratin, they would never believe me. They'd probably just get mad." (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles)

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links:
1) Facebook Gets Frisky With Your Most Feared "Friends" (@ny observer)
2) Peggy Munson writes a playlist to her poetry book (@largehearted boy)
3) Dan Savage: "I just fucking can't." "At a Loss" (@the stranger)
4) Emily, formerly of Gawker, does an Obituary for Personal Blogs (@guilt & pleasure)
5) Your Guide to Internet Oversharers (@gawker)
6) Babeland says that my story had them at hello, which makes me feel special/glad to be the first story in the book. (@babeland @dirty girls virtual book tour)
7) Converse Turns 100 (@the smart set)
8) Why Does it Take So Long to Grow Up? (@The American Scientist Online)
9) Prologue to "All the Sad Young Literary Men" (@n+1)
10) Embarrassment, by Brenda Shaughnessy (@poems.com)

I was asked to "claim" my profile by posting this link:
Check out my Blogebrity profile!
(Of course, now that I have, I've started caring. Which is surely a symptom of something parasitic.)

The Year in Review: Swift-Footed Winged Mess

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

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

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

*
"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world;
but that the world through him might be saved."
(The Holy Bible. St. John: 3.)
*
"To err is human, to forgive divine."
(Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism")
*

Because to be honest: what I've gained in the aftermath -- which I think (I'm not sure) are things I wouldn't have gained, or not quite in the manner that I did, had things w/Tara worked out better -- are beautiful things. It'd be rotten not to admit & recognise that many friendships and creative collaborations were enabled by my damaged aftermath and most of all, that my increased and loyal readership was enabled by my unavoidable vulnerability and the devotion I developed to this space because of/following that.

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

"Between angels, on this earth/absurdly between angels, I/try to navigate
in the bluesy middle ground/of desire and withdrawal,/in the industrial air,
among the bittersweet/efforts of people to connect,/make sense, endure.
The angels out there,/what are they?"
(from "Between Angels," by Stephen Dunn)
*

It'll all be in the book. It takes chapters. There's no way I could do any of it justice here, but I'll try sorta, whatevs. Bla blablatypetypetypememememe.

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

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

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

April/May

4/22/2007

5/24/2007

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

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

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

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

**

Great Moments in Commenting

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

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

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

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

**

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

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

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

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

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

-Tara described me as "sunshiney/bright" and herself as "moonshiney/dark" in her guest Sunday Top Ten. I'll take that.
-Zoho Writer crashes and the help-line is not helpful, they are outsourced and speak fuzz. Don't use it.
-Actually ... use Zoho Writer. Because that crash was serendipitious, proving even the most frustrating things happen for a reason: I asked silent readers to comment on their own electronic tragedies, and they did, and then I shared their stories, and then they kept talking, and that's everything.
-The mental health system in this country doesn't focus on "curing"/helping the mentally ill, but rather directly on ensuring the mentally ill won't become violent criminals. Sanity for sanity's sake? Ha! Every single employee of every NY psychiatric institution she checked into let us down. Nobody did a good job. Nobody did a mediocre job. Everyone did a notably terrible job. [I know: they're overworked & overburdened, tired, beaten by the system too] Instead they cared only if she'd possibly kill herself or others and once that liability seemed muted, they'd let her go. Everyone just held their breath til it wasn't their problem anymore, and thus it became mine. It turned out, not surprisingly, I wasn't qualified.
-The Auto-Win Equation of Coolness: x+2x=y (x=quality and rockstar factor of my actual life, y=quality and rockstar factor of autowin's life), unless my whole life is falling apart, in which case, x=y.
-"We're in love with our sadness sometimes" (Chris Pureka)
-Yeah, it's true, you're better off than the third world children who live in shacks. Do you feel better now? Urm, me neither.
-The psych ward is actually nothing like Girl, Interrupted. But they do have karaoke on Friday nights, there is yelling, and the nurses subscribe to the general philosophy that it's always easiest just to shoot 'er up with Ativan.
-It's really crazy how fast you can get used to really crazy shit.
-We had fun, too. Like, a lot of kick-ass fun.
-I think the world could do a better job of proving its lunatics wrong. Could've provided better material for me to argue against impending mass apocalyptic extinction and the human race's desperate unknowing need of redemption. Seriously: the snow in April, the Virginia Tech shooting (one of my favorite posts, I think), the Bush Administration, national disregard of moral responsibility in favor of celebrity, mirror, artifice, false idol worship and consumerism. You know, your average, run-of-the-mill firstworldian douchebaggery. (Auto-Lexicon)
-There comes a point when you've gotta cut your losses -- usually it's the sixth or seventh time you've thought to yourself "I oughta cut my losses."
-Miss Girl Nation, Haviland, is pretty much the hottest thing ever. Howevs, Miss Hot n' Fit turned out to be like amateur night at Deja Vu but with more expensive drinks.
-In high school, I watched a lot of "Slacker" films. These movies, best watched when it all seems so far away, characterised the unemployed/underachieving twentysomething as a beer-guzzling, television-watching, psychic-hotline-calling, mall-crawling, pot-smoking, shampoo-foregoing, ironic-vintage-t-shirt-wearing quasi-hipster who spends 95% of their time tucking their hair behind their ears and pontificating. But I'd never been so busy as I was whilst 100% unemployed: reading like crazy, playing Sancho to crazy adventures, looking for employment, writing, trying to figure out how to save someone when I still thought people were things you could always save without killing yourself, or leaving.
-I'm not entirely convinced that a liberal arts education prepares its graduates for anything aside from a career as a liberal arts educator.
-I love Rosie O'Donnell because she's moved so much by national/global problems that it affects her, deeply, and makes her depressed. We should all feel that way but if we did, we'd all fall to pieces. She does what I hope to do: create a relationship w/the mainstream through non-controversial entertainment to eventually earn the "power" to speak out and be listened to by people on all sides.
-I'm still an advocate of "running away" as a top ten coping mechanism, but I'm glad that I didn't.
-There's a book out there to validate everyone, whether it be The Bible or Kathy Acker, Elizabeth Wurtzel or the Marquis de Sade, or my old friend Matty's choice "The DaVinci Code," there's a book for you. Reading a lot of books about crazy people can make you a little crazy. Look what happened to Don Quijote. Don't even get me started on the internet and what that's done for maniacs all over the world.
-There's a fascinating cultural history related to madness. It's enough to distract you from its logical application to your actual life for a long time.
-Scattergories is the best game ever and fun for people of all ages.
-I deleted my MySpace because it made me feel safer -- one less public & vulnerable space, also cutting off my friends' ability to keep close tabs -- that day was, we agree, one of the worst, TB-wise. I was drunk when I wrote that post, because I was fully resorting to such things, anything for oblivion. Officially surrendering control of the situation. I was sad to lose all my friends' comments, but I think it's good, sometimes, to delete all of something. I still find the click-to-impact ratio stunning.
-Cream: the color. My blog became much better the day I switched from black to cream.
-Poland Spring Water Bottles Will Explode in your bag every time. Unlike people, they will never change. They will not stop exploding.
-If you are sad, try highlights and a manicure.
-It is impossible to argue with someone who is totally both wrong and 100% convinced of their own absolute rightness. I mean; where do you begin?
-She'd ask "What do you need, autowin? Are you okay?" but by that point, I was done accepting her offers cause I knew they'd be used against me later. My answer, which she affirmed proudly, was always: "I don't need anything." It was untrue, unfair, and I've always believed strongly in the validity of relative needs/wants, but for me to lose, temporarily, the privilege of my small tears, the forum to freak out over nothing, the ability to even buy stupid things for myself w/o inciting a fight ... it was very humbling. It wasn't the healthiest way to earn humility, but nevertheless, I did.
-Really, you save yourself by checking in -- therapy, emailing Haviland, ichatting w/Lainy and Chase, phone convos w/Natalie. That's how I maintained perspective, and was able to participate, strategise, without losing my mind myself ... errr ... mostly.
-When you've been on the Metro North with a woman yelling at the entire train about messages from her father in heaven and their first world Angelina Jolie-worshiping-problems, you develop an extremely high tolerance for being embarrassed in public. Seriously, just try to embarrass me in public, I dare ya. Impossible. Also I'm not ticklish.
-I am a decent writer. I'd never taken myself seriously enough to even proofread before, and hiding behind sloppy syntax was part of my subconscious announcement to the world that I didn't think I was good enough for it to matter. But yeah, I believe in myself now, holla.
-I now know: that [TB] wasn't her [Tara].
-The difference between crazy people that run corporations and have huge record deals and crazy people on the street yelling at strangers is money.
-One of the most fascinating aspect of mania is how it challenges commonly accepted limits of the human body. Maybe R-Kelly really could fly, you know, 'cause he believed? It's incredible what some bodies can tolerate, it is amazing how much the mind's conception of its own capabilities translates into what is commonly conceived as hyper-human power. Consequently, being able to break barriers we all could break if we desired to (but why? why would we want to walk barefoot on glass? get mugged and walk 105 blocks?) proves, to the manic mind, superpowers.
-The Book of Revelation is a manic's wet dream. It has become, over time, fodder for thousands of manic-bipolar-schizo episodes the world over. It validates the following: hearing voices, delusions of grandeur, the validity of yelling at people as a way to change things ...
-Also; Revelation probably was a manic's wet dream, like that literally might be what it is. There's a lot of theories. I know all of them. Also, it's beautifully written, stunning, a fantastic grand story. It's kinda awesome, as long as you don't think it's actually true.
-Being forced to accept the possibility of certain circumstances -- a solider, resolutely alive but always prepared for the fatal shot -- and the lasting impact of paying heightened attention to the immediate possibility of highly unpleasant circumstances -- can change the way you think a whole lot, can make you care a lot less about things you used to care about.
-It is possible to survive on Ramen noodles, eggs, peanut butter crackers, vodka and coffee.
-Madness is highly contagious.
-Taking too many amphetamines is a lot like madness.
-From an article about the double suicide of Jeremy Duncan and Theresa Blake: "You could, in a sense, rationalize their occasional erratic behavior. They were artists, after all, and artists are allowed a degree of lunacy." (The article's title: "Conspiracy of Two: A Chronicle of Their Descent Into Madness.")
-If you give money to every homeless person you pass, you can go broke in approximately two blocks. Also, as the only one doing so, many will ask for more. Another five, cigarettes, baby formula (seriously), another ten. A sandwich. Crack. JK about the crack. Crack is expensive, probs, otherwise there wouldn't be crack whores.
-You should probs still give money to homeless people, sometimes. Or food. Whatevs. I understand why you would or wouldn't, and why I do or don't.
-People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, but if you're totally chilling naked in your glass house like, what's up, here I am in my glass house, and someone starts throwing stones at you, you should probs reconsider your battle plan.
-[From the Club Blog, Part Two]: "No one ever guessed anything about me just from looking: no one'd guess that I'm queer, or a writer or a or even smart. "I would never guess that _______" I can be anybody, I can be anything, tell me what to do, you say jump I say I'm already jumping, look-- For every apparent revelation: a million secrets, stories denied and squelched by each reincarnation. A love/hate relationship with everything I've stood behind. Gay/straight, Jewish/Quaker, Genius/Airhead, Sane/Insane, Artist/Robot, Social/Recluse ... It's like I've been everything and it's opposite, and've gathered enough narratives to hold my own amongst any of them, now. Though I refrain from anything of import following "I am." Maybe here's a place where I can be all of those things at once and be validated instantly simply by the very fact that I'm writing it and I have a sitemeter. In fact, this particular truth feels indulgent, why should anyone care, that even acting as though I think you should care is breaking into another character, which's the only one I've yet to actually play: confidence."
-"You have to laugh at yourself, because you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't." (Emily Saliers) That's what I did more often than not, was try to turn it into a joke. I mean, it was really fucking funny sometimes. We laughed a lot. You take what you can get, you know? You wait for the next joke.
-Madness + Genius = Toxic
-Anything that can be said in three syllables can be said better in one syllable.
-There Were Good Times. More Good than Bad, srsly.

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

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

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

The Secret of Monkey Island is That I Have Monkey Arms

So, I keep saying I'm gonna finish the secrets blog, and then I don't. Now I am. Oh wait ... did you hear that? That was the sound of Lozo clicking to another window, it's a subtle sound, like a mouse. Or ... like clicking a mouse! Hey, that makes sense! Also, Thursday night's GO-NYC magazine party, featuring Uh Huh Her (they're like my favorite band The Party from MMC but for The L Word, and also -- just like The Party -- I genuinely like their music. Also, obvs, I heart Leisha Hailey's lovely locks of hair) and special guest DANI FROM TILA TEQUILA (sidenote: I love how reality TV stars can be special guests. Like what is Dani gonna do as a special guest? Put out a fire? Go "Hey guys!" and look awkward and uncomfortable?), is sold out. I'm slightly concerned that A;ex and I will be elbow-and-shoulder-to-ass-to-elbow with about 50,000 insane lesbians, or 49,998 not including us. [UPDATE: We were.] And I know from insane lesbians, hello, I was raised by one. Hm. I mean, all lesbians are insane because so many are deeply in love with the same woman: Leisha Hailey. Seriously, tell me one lesbian you know who wouldn't sleep with her. Anyhow, speaking of insane lesbians: Amanda from Tila Tequila, how much did she look like Eminem's brokedown Mama by the end of the episode? She was one broken acrylic away from going "I gots to get my baby daddy off the crank. Everyone wants love, y'all, I just wanted a shot at love. But now I'm ready for another shot of Jack!" Also, I think I'd be able to tolerate Tila's voice for about five seconds, she has no emotions, is possibly a Maxim robot. OMG you guys. I've just spent like, four hours editing this vlog, and the i-movie thing -- which I'd been saving with remarkable compulsion about every ten minutes cause it crashes all the time, just crashed, somehow taking with it the two minutes of funniest footage we've ever produced, which I was editing at the time of the crash. I think that was the deaf community telling me that it's not funny to do a Jodi voice. But it is! Isn't it? We are all funny creatures, hello. Ever seen What's Eating Gilbert Grape? I didn't see retarded people protesting that. Probs 'cause they're retarded. JK, I love retarded people, seriously. Like, I've got retarded friends, like Haviland, she just hides it by being pretty. No seriously. I did have a retarded friend once, he was way more fun than everyone else cause he still thought he was 8 even though he was 16. I was like "I am totally down with also being 8." Anyhow, secrets secrets. What's my secret? This merch is gonna be hot!!! Sooo ... this is just a mock-up and therefore not what it'll really look like, nor does it reveal the item you'll be purchasing this fine design on, but whatevs , it is late, and I'm pissed about losing that fucking footage. I seem to have a problem with losing files. I think it's just statistically likely, if you think about it. What real things will I ever lose if I never leave my computer, I can only lose cyber-things. Wheee!

***

So, I'm finishing Secrets Week now. Refresh away, kiddos. Or you could go play outside. It's super cold though. Like, I have to wear three hoodies and a coat. I could just get one big coat, but that wouldn't be the cowboy way. This is where we left off. I don't know if I can remember which Tegan & Sara song titles I'd already used as titles of stories, and since we all know it's impossible for me to break the ridiculous rules I've actually imposed upon myself, which if you think about it, is both deaf AND retarded, I'm just gonna title these using book titles from my bookshelf. I put this quote in the auto-fun of the day, but I thought I'd add this here, now, with the next graf too, forevs and evs:

"I have never been able to understand the complaint that a story is 'depressing' because of its subject matter. What depresses me are stories that don't seem to know these things go on, or hide them in resolute chipperness; "witty" stories, in which every problem is an occasion for a joke, "upbeat" stories that flog you with transcendence. Please. We're grown-ups now, we get to stay in the kitchen when the other grown-ups talk. Far from being depressed, my own reaction to stories like these is exhilaration, both at the honestly and the art. The art gives shape to what the honesty discovers, and allows us to face what in truth we were already afraid of anyway. It lets us know we're not alone." (Tobias Wolff, from the Introduction to The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories)

I liked that, is all. For those of you who don't know the rules, this is it: people sent me their secrets, I turned their secret into a third-person story mostly using my voice but sometimes some or a whole lot of theirs.

THE FINAL SECRETS WEEK LIVE BLOG MOST RECENT AND LAST INSTALLMENT PUBLISHED AT: 11:54 P.M., FRIDAY DECEMBER 7TH

* 21. Fun Home

Melrose grew up outside of Boston and is Irish Catholic, a background that seems to suggest (I have learned) almost instantly, stories about secrets and the families who keep them, and she's youngest of five -- her eldest brother Nigel is about 17 years her senior, her closest sibling is separated by eight years. Nigel attended law school in Louisiana and by 28 was engaged to a nice girl with a younger sister who Melrose enjoyed playing Barbies with. Then Nigel came out as gay. Melrose doesn't remember this specifically but she knows it happened. One day the engagement ended, the fiancee vanished and stopped speaking to her brother, and sometimes on the phone Nigel would say things like "I'm going to buy a skirt." She would ask who it was for, he would say for himself, and she would laugh and store it away. At 11, Melrose asked her mother about a news story she'd seen about gay groups upset that they weren't allowed to march in the Southie St. Patrick's Day Parade. Her mother saw a door and walked through it -- told Melrose that Nigel'd come out that weekend he visited two years ago, the weekend her parents, bless their hearts, had rented JFK, and they'd watched it together as a family. "I didn't want to hurt you, I didn't know if you'd understand," her mother explained the two year gap of information relayance. "I don't want people to hate you over it." Melrose agreed on that and that alone: her friends, indeed, would've hated her over it. They were conservative Irish Kids in Massachusetts, and years later she'd describe them to her friends as the Future Alcoholics of America. She wanted her family to be perfect but most of all didn't get how two boys could do it 'cause when she played Barbies she'd mostly just mash them together. The Kens wore briefs. That summer, Melrose, her mother and her sister Carrie drove down to visit Nigel and his boyfriend in New Orleans. They sat tensely in sticky soupy Southern humidity, eating appropriate foods and not knowing how to interact with each other. "He's an odd duck, that one," Carrie said to Melrose in the ladies room. Indeed: he never became a lawyer. He moved to the West Coast and would mail Melrose birthday gifts that were always just slightly off, like a copy of a book she already had (it was her favorite) or a lamp that broke in the mail. They were cool and thoughtful but never perfect. Melrose is 18 when mother gets a phone call from Nigel's ex-boyfriend -- who they'd met at Carrie's wedding -- spurned and angry and vengeful. "Your son's a drug addict," he told her. "He's promiscuous and irresponsible and also, you should know that he's HIV positive." Melrose is 20 when her mother tells her about the phone call and the HIV. "I didn't think you could handle it, you were already so depressed," her mother explains. Because around the time that Melrose's mother learned that Nigel's blood had begun rejecting him, Harvard had rejected Melrose , and Harvard was everything to her -- it was what she wanted. She also wanted to not feel like she was being lied to all the time, or that she wasn't even a part of Nigel's life. Nigel moves home and his timing is uncanny 'cause Melrose has just graduated college and is doing that thing where she's sad and doesn't know what to do with her life, and her parents are doing that thing where they just ignore her (none of her siblings attended her college graduation, for her, that was the nail in the coffin). They never had to worry about her after all; she's always been consistent and perfect, a straight-A student, easy to ignore, Rory Gilmore with her scholarship that enabled their early retirement. So she's sad, deathly sad, and he's yelling at furniture and switching meds like whoa. Once he straightens out he works his ass off and gets a good job. Melrose still sees him sometimes: they bitch about family gatherings, she thinks about how she wished she'd visited him that summer in San Francisco or when he lived in London and sometimes she hates him and hates her mother. She respects his determination to go on and live his life and knows how liable he was to snap if he hadn't done so. She thinks it would've been so much different if she'd been the gay one -- it would've been after Ellen, not the early 90s when his oppressive environment led him -- like so many other young gay men of his generation -- to become a wanderer, bearing his severed life and a terminal illness. Melrose isn't close to her sisters -- they weren't there when she was growing up. One ran away to Europe and married a wannabe ex-patriot. They come home to bitch about their parents. "Mom cried every day when she was pregnant with you," they tell her. So she's been dealing with non-functional depression all this time, getting therapy, relying on friends like so many of us do without rock-style family. She's a little in love with her best male friend, he's a musician, he taught his younger brother all about music and cultivated his talent and now they've got a bangin' rock band together. When she looks at them she feels first just sad that she is not either brother or the brother of a brother like that, and then that coldness burns out into something that could be a crush or could be a lot like love. This friend doesn't know how she may or may not feel either. Meanwhile, her actual siblings bitch that she didn't send a birthday card to Finland. It's just that it costs so much. ***

22. Prep

First, a brief message from the secret's author: "I would have totes been able to pass up the opportunity...but then you had to go and get all Full-Housey on me and my secret shame started to surface like a bloated David Blaine. Not that I like to be reminded of it. Haviland's comment about doing Danny Tanner put me in full downward spiral. If she only knew." Megan and her girlfriend Amanda have been together for thirteen years and they know how it works: Amanda is the hot one, Megan is the smart one. Occasionally Amanda -- the hot one -- feels that little kick inside telling her to run off with older men. In the spirit of qualification, Amanda does always return and Megan, knowing her role too, does always wait. In 2003, Megan was teaching at an all-boys school in California with a staff that was 95% male. So she developed a 95% male social group there, a small tight circle of colleagues she'd hang out with on Friday afternoons that included Jay, who'd been on staff pretty much since graduating from that very prep school. Jay was 40. He'd never been on a date. He'd never kissed a girl. And he looked JUST LIKE DANNY TANNER FROM FULL HOUSE. The students found this ample fodder for mocking and humiliation, but Megan found it endearing. She found him practically irresistible, especially during the lonely days when Amanda'd run off with someone or someone else, and Megan knew it was only a matter of time before Megan couldn't restrain herself from doing to Jay what no-one else had the courage to do all his life. And so she did it. She totally did it with Danny Tanner and it was ... fine. But the important thing is that deflowering Danny Tanner has become something of her secret, some kind of super-hot shame. Now Jay is married and has a kid, so they don't talk much anymore. She knows Amanda wouldn't understand. But if she did talk to him about it, or to Amanda, she wouldn't tell them the real reason why she did it -- because to her, all that time, he wasn't Jay. He was hands down totes Danny Tanner, and who the hell doesn't want to sleep with Danny Tanner?

** 23. Blue Angel

Miranda's grandmother had a heart attack when Miranda was little -- open heart surgery resulting in a pinched nerve in her ribs, constant pain, and total dependence on Miranda's Mom. Grandmother moved in and existed sort of sad and grieving her independence, feeling like a burden. Miranda saw something impossible and scary, a huge problem she had no hope of ever fixing, and so she ignored it. Now, she just wishes she'd done more. Said more before her grandmother died. Could've just sat with her, talked to her, said she loved her. She feels bad about that. It's not a secret so much as a regret that is embarrassing, almost, but I think we all have that about a grandparent somewhere. What's my secret? Since his health started declining and the actual tangible pleasure of his company diminished, I sometimes know that I spend time with my grandfather mostly because I'm afraid that he'll die and I'll feel guilty for not spending more time with him. It's like Guilt Insurance. I think -- I hope (?) -- that at the base of it is deep and rootless love.

** 24. Surface Tension

Charlotte leads a double life: on the one hand, she's all spiritual and self-restrained. On the other, she's a "crazed Shane addict lesbian" who "indulges" in media addictions. She's far away from it now in India -- but -- the sacrifice! Oh! The Sacrifice! Emma's most serious problem is that she's such a prude, she's got no material to work from. Most of her life involves not having sex. She doesn't have orgasms with other people anyhow. Like: not having sex because Tyler's perfect studio apartment was full of Refugee photos from his photojournalistic work in various disaster zones of Africa, and really, who wants to fuck under photographs of decapitated hands? Not Emma. She had a scandalous affair one summer -- her lover was an athlete, her boyfriend back home was in something more drab, but he was really smart, she liked talking to him -- but she didn't even fuck this lover, they just made out and she pushed his hand away. She may as well be Jesus the way she behaves. She would like to sign a chastity pledge in retrospect. Also, she has a boyfriend. They're totes in love, for reals.

25. No One Belongs Here More Than You

Becky's at home with a girl she's just started seeing, Catherine. They're having Sweet & Sour Chicken. Becky's phone rings. It's Lorrie -- we all have a Lorrie. The One That Drove Us Insane, The One Who Might Be The One, The One Our Friends Hate. They'd been involved for about a year and though Becky's never really had Lorrie the way she wanted her but also Lorrie is under her skin, seething/soothing forevs and evs. At first when she met Lorrie it was perfect, there were requisite butterflies, as there so often are. And then less so. And Lorrie keeps Becky vulnerable and puppet-like but not minding the submission. "Can I vent?" Lorrie asks, "Um," Becky glances at Catherine. "Are you alone?" "Yes," Becky answers, without meaning to. It's just that the word comes out of her mouth and then sits there. The thing is that Lorrie drives her crazy, that Lorrie is what she'd like to vent about if anyone wanted to hear her vent, if there was someone like Lorrie to Becky who she could call and ask to vent and get what she needed from it. Becky tells Catherine it's an emergency and she'll BRB and Catherine smiles and chews happily because she's got no idea, as we so rarely do. This is probably, Becky thinks, looking back, the first betrayal that enabled all the ones to come--listening to Lorrie complain about a shitty situation she's gotten herself into but can't seem to be bothered extracting herself from. Lorrie talks and Becky thinks about how she'd like to lie in bed with Lorrie that night and possibly forever. The weeks go on -- Catherine sleeps over for the first time, and then again. And then just like that they are together in this relationship. She thinks about Lorrie but doesn't think as much about making out with Lorrie as she used to. It's effortless with Catherine, drama free, like it was when she first met Lorrie. She's cute, she's smart, she's funny, she makes her laugh. It's that feeling you get when you've just extracted yourself from someone you were mad over for someone who treats you well -- like how for a few months, the stability is refreshing and surprisingly beautiful. You find this kind of love is possible, even for you, even though your friends told you that you maybe just liked the drama (you disagreed). Now, look, here you are: functional, happy, comfortable, no drama. See? It wasn't you, it was her. No more crying and screaming and the hills and drops that made your life a thrilling and gorgeous rollercoaster through hell. Becky wakes up one morning next to Catherine but before she opens her eyes she believes for a moment she's with Lorrie, because she just dreamt they were in a room together, surrounded by people, and the room emptied, and then they kissed like in the movies when the whole room circles around the kissers. She kisses sweetly but wants to fuck. They undressed, they made love, all that, it felt so real that realising that it wasn't real broke her heart all over again, and then Catherine's expectant eyes were just really too much and she turned away. At night, Catherine likes to listen to music. Lorrie did too. The first time they make love it's to As Tall as Lions. "You are just ... so ..." Catherine says. Lorrie shuts her up with a kiss, because she's already thinking its likely she's gonna break Catherine's heart, it's just a matter of with who (Lorrie, or this sexy girl from Soho who keeps calling) and when. “Love, Love, Love (Love, Love)” comes on. It makes Becky want a cigarette or Lorrie. It makes her want to be alone if she can't be with Lorrie. Instead, she turns to Catherine and summons a great deal of wanting and it becomes real. Here is someone, it is easier to like her than she thought. So then it's a week after that and Lorrie calls Becky while Becky's at a party with Catherine. She didn't think she could do this, but she does: she leaves to talk to Lorrie (and Catherine walks home alone, about a mile at 2 A.M. in Detroit). Is it just that she knows Catherine will wait at home, but she doesn't know when Lorrie might call again? Lorrie and Becky wander the streets of the sagging sad city. Business as usual. Becky pours her heart out, Lorrie feels the same way. Becky wants to do something with how she feels and always has but it's always been Lorrie's thing to have feelings and declare and insist upon them but then not take the proper subsequent action. Becky: "I can't shake you." Lorrie: "Me neither." Becky: "But it wouldn't ever work." She knows this now because she has something that does work. Lorrie says: "You're crazy to think that, why do you think that?" Because it's the only hypothesis that's proven true every time: Lorrie would break her again, and she'd be dead again, but this time alone too. "I should go home." "Please don't. Keep walking with me." Lorrie makes eyes at her, Becky concedes, shakes her head, Lorrie laughs. Becky laughs too. It pisses her off that Lorrie laughs at everything but also Becky laughed at Lorrie the first time she cried, so. Becky kicks the guardrail in four different places, kicks the fence. "What the fuck? I left Catherine to walk home alone -- she's great, she makes me happy. This is so fucked up, you make me crazy." Lorrie shrugs. "Can I kiss you?" Becky says no, Becky says she wants to, she says she can't do it, they don't. They drive back to Becky's apartment, they hug for too long. Subsequently, they also kiss for too long. Becky digs her hands into the pockets of Lorrie's hoodie. It's terrible/awesome. Catherine answers the door, upset and tired and confused. Eager, though, to accept the lies that Becky offers and to make love for two hours. Becky decides she is definitely an asshole and lies in bed thinking about what an asshole she is all night, gets coffee, wants to puke, looks at Lorrie's text again: I want you, I can't stop thinking about you. And it goes on: Lorrie wants to know why Becky won't be with her. Becky tries to want Catherine, Catherine has homework, Becky and Lorrie sit on her roof in Lorrie's quiet neighborhood and they talk like they did when they first met. They cuddle in lots of locations and do a lot of pining and wanting and it's unfortunate that Lorrie couldn't have realised that she wanted Becky until Becky had someone else but also kind of predictable too, I guess. Becky thinks of ways to explain to Catherine that she never stood a chance, really. That there's nothing else she could've done or been that would've made anything else possible. So, then the next day Catherine's on the phone talking to her new sorority recruits, doing this thing where she massages the roof of her mouth with her tongue that's always driven Becky crazy. It makes this noise that Becky begins to think is probably driving her insane and driving them apart, and there's no way that she could ever be happy with her, absolutely not, omg, she's doing it again, omg, she has said "like" 40 times in this conversation, Becky hates the sorority lingo, and also. also. also. She hates that Catherine destroyed the cast iron skillet by putting it in the dishwasher twice. Becky doesn't like the taste of Catherine's toothpaste, either, now that she thinks about it. That's the moment when suddenly Catherine becomes something Becky isn't certain she can scrape from the inside of her own mouth, something unsavory and annoying. Suddenly all her tiny quirks become The Things Becky Will Think About When She Misses Lorrie, which is all the time. She just knows she'll keep wondering, if she doesn't go for it. And so she goes to Lorrie. She spends the night. And things go on. And so she was scared that things would be different now -- her touch, for one thing. It is, it's better. They can't tell anyone because Lorrie and Catherine work side-by-side in their campus's GLBTA organisation. Because it maybe doesn't seem like the right thing to do even though Becky knows that it is the only thing she could do. She doesn't know how it'll seem to people, what they'll think of her or of Lorrie or of Catherine or if it's just so much dyke drama. Whatever it is, she's happy now. She's so happy that she can't really even feel bad, but seriously, like, what do you do, you know? Because this is just how it so often is. There've been many songs for it, it's the oldest plot in the book, it's an easy way to become an asshole lightning-quick and like whoa because what do you do, really? We know that obligation never saved anyone's relationship, that sticking around with The One Who's Nice never really works out because still, always, there's the one you can't seem to let go of. Then there's the one who works with the more tangible and logical life that you've set up for yourself. Who's the liar? Who's the asshole? Who's keeping secrets, who's not playing fair, is there anything fair that could've happened really anyhow? Life isn't fair, love isn't fair. What's the real secret? I don't know anything. Like seriously nothing. But I think that it's possible we work like this: 1.gut, 2.heart, 3.mind, 4.body. It's hard to get your mind to conquer your gut and your heart, I think they're just like, stronger things. There's always inevitably a moment when the truth becomes the only thing you can do, and sometimes it comes sooner rather than later. Well ... some people aren't like that. They have mind first, which gives them the power to confuse your gut with their mind. Do you follow? I'm not making sense anymore. It's been a while since I got this story, I hope you guys are still going strong and in love. Love rocks. Don't walk the streets late at night in Detroit, that's where Amanda from Tila Tequila lives.

* "In one of the dialogues," I said, "Phaedrus asks Socrates whether it's better to spend your life with someone who you're compatible with, like a friend, or someone who you're crazy for, someone who'll make your life a living hell." "And what does Socrates say?" Henry said. "He says you should be with someone you can get along with, and he spends thirty pages proving it ... logically ... like a theorem." I watched the shadow of relief cross the faces of both men. "Then," I said, "he changes his mind." "And says you should be with the person who makes your life a living hell," Henry said. "What he says," I said, "is that when we fall full tilt in love with somebody, it's because our soul recognizes another soul that it was mingled with on some previous plane." "Socrates says full tilt?" Carter said. "He says, but what is man's logical reasoning, compared to the power of divine madness?" [from "The Moon is a Woman's First Husband," by Pam Houston] * 26. Demonology

This here's the last one, I think. I'm pretty sure I got everyone. There's a thing from this one that appeared elsewhere in the secrets blog. This one is not written by me. It's just one of the emails I got in its entirety. It struck me in a way that I aspire to strike people, and so, here it is, untouched (and anonymous, unless I hear otherwise):

Let’s be honest here. No one wants to read about lame secrets. So you ate a whole angel food cake once when no one was looking. Big whoop. You chew your toenails off in bed when your partner’s asleep. Yawn. Bottom line: Some secrets are more interesting than others. There exists a meritocracy of transgression, right? The most interesting of human emotions, in my opinion, are guilt, regret, and shame. I want to know what makes you feel guilty, what you regret, what shameful things you’ve done and never admitted to anyone but me. Now that is what I call a great first date. But no one ever goes for that kind of honesty these days, do they? What a shame. Right now, in some lab down a darkened hallway in an empty building on some campus in some town, a scientist is trying to extract the chemical marker that flashes shame as a red blip on a line chart on a computer screen that ultimately means nothing out of context. That blue line is regret. That green dot is guilt. But when those results are published in some obscure science journal, critics will say that the system that drives it all was not in the equation. You can’t feel any of those emotions in a vacuum; other people define when and if you should feel ashamed. They tell what to regret. They judge your guilt. I call bullshit on that. Do you control your own destiny? Can you decide if you will feel shame? Can you choose not? Who knows. Philosophers have debated the intricacies of guilt, regret, and shame since the days of Socrates or some other old Greek guy who got his robes in a twist when his wife found him in bed with his son. Now you know the real story of why Oedipus had issues and the mother of all secrets. So, yes, back to secrets. The best involve one of the following: sex, drugs, crime, violence, and a big dose of shame. Without the latter, it wouldn’t be a secret, it’d be a boast. If you can’t tell someone what you did, you have the makings of the perfect secret. If you can’t tell someone what you did because their view of you be irreparably changed forever, you have achieved the pinnacle of secretocracy. Go you! Go me! Here’s a partial list of my best secrets, some of which are very true. Others are a total lie. I choose not to feel ashamed of any of them. Other people’s perceptions have no power over me. Though, I have to say, if anyone I knew knew these secrets, which may or may not be true, were mine, I’d be ashamed. See that green dot? See the blue line? That bouncing red blip is me. 1. I once spent a New Year’s Eve bent over in a small supply closet getting fucked in the ass by a stranger. 2. Cocaine, crystal meth (accidentally), LSD, marijuana, mushrooms 3. I have committed a felony that would have resulted in jail time had I been caught. If necessary, I would commit another. Those crimes may or may not include theft, distribution, mercy killing. 4. If she asked me to (she has), if she wanted it (she does), and if I could make myself do it (I’ve tried), I would hit her for real and it would turn me on. Does this change how you feel about me?

* Check out the new Autostraddle trailer vlog. * xoxo gossip girl