Obvs I Cannot Leave the Apartment Again Until December at the earliest

So many things happening! Firstly, Carly's interview with Tinkerbell's favorite band Uh Huh Her is on Logo's NewNowNextMusic, watch it! Secondly, anyone who read Autowin back in the day may remember Rambo, my go-to het before [I stopped working at the lit agency and became an underperforming client of the agency instead and] Lozo came into my life. Rambo -- "Stephen" if you're nasty -- does Publishers Weekly's Soapbox this week and he mentions the Query Letter Drinking Game that Cameron and I wrote, and that makes me happy. Read it!

Thirdly, BIG weekend for me w/r/t leaving the apartment.

1) The Sex Blogger Calendar Release Party ! [photo of A;ex and I at the party, left, from calendar photographer Stacie Joy ]

I hear a lot of fun things happened at this party. Photographs suggest strippers, snacks, signings, and general revelry. I remember having a conversation with the good ppl from njoy.com -- they sponsored our calendar and sell a variety of delightful sexual toys on their superhot website -- and that they very gamely entertained my attempts at self-deprecation when I told them that although I hadn't yet plugged them and their fabulousness yet, I totally would, but that they shouldn't stress 'cause all my readers are poor and don't like sex. See, I thought that was funny at the time.

As I've mentioned about 500 times, I'm not exactly "outgoing," so when you combine my personality with "very very drunk" and "my BFF from Los Angeles just flew in yesterday and is here!" and even a guest appearance by LOZO and one of the random Jewish boys he carts around with him -- I apparently managed to ensconse myself into my own little world so thoroughly that the only person who asked me to sign their calendar is also in the calendar.

Maybe I was not recognized sans wig. Maybe I radiate hostility. You never know! When she asked me, I think I said something retarded about myself, like "that's not me," or 'I'm a virgin," or ... really it's all a big blur in my head 'til the part when we were at a diner w/Haviland, A;ex and A;ex's friend Colleen eating grilled cheese and french fries, a meal I probs should've consumed about five hours earlier.

I also recall chatting with my friends Morgan and Diane, seeing Caitlin Mae in a stewardess outfit, calling my Mom (deathiversary day), listening to a voice mail from my Grandma that made me cry and I had to step outside (thank G-d for Haviland obvs), and some woman telling us we couldn't sit at the Raffle table and the eternally kick-ass Jayme Waxman being like "whatevs, I am Wonder Woman, they can sit wherevs they want."

ANYHOW! The party was awesome, ladies got nekkid, the calendar is hot, Buy one! 100% of the proceeds go to Sex Work Awareness.

2) No on Prop 8 Rally!

Over 10,000 people came to this giant gathering of homosexual love at City Hall on november 15th, 2008, to protest the passing of Prop 8, and obvs A;ex, Haviland and I were among them. There's lots of reasons that a person might wish they were a bird. One of those is when you wanna know how big a protest is or where those voices are coming from. We discovered the latter when we chose to leave the masses to get a latte and find Carly, which's also when we realized how HUGE it was. An amazing inspirational mass of people who've come together for this cause and believe in it. We believe in it enough to come together all over the country for California.

This is serious, y'all, the times they are a'changin'. The intolerant people are gonna have to move to deserted islands, apparently there are lots of deserted islands all over the world, according to A;ex, this came up in a conversation about how I think I know everything but I don't. Allegedly.

Although I would've preferred the Dazzle Dancers performing for us as well as some Mormons to yell at directly, I tried to summon all the revolutionary spirit of my ancestors and yell at the choir just the same. Kim Stolz actually rocked the mike and I'm not just saying that 'cause I fancy her, and the signs obvs were amazing as I'm sure you've read. We didn't have a sign because we overslept (see: Sex Bloggers Party) and arrived fully prepared for a rainshower.

I just hope that we can make something happen, obvs, I heart the cause.

I mean everyone should marry who they want to, and anyone who disagrees with me --- well, I hate you. If you voted Yes on Prop 8, I'm sorry, I just hate you!

Multi-Media (VIDEO and WORDS): Sacred & On Fire With the Same Force That Made The Stars (Live Through This)

[A few days before the day I moved out of Planet Harlem, Stef and Alex and I went to the roof to BBQ paper because when there's nothing left to burn, you have to set all your bank statements on fire. I made a video of it, and it's at the end of this post but it's not on YouTube 'cause it's This-Post-specific. We burn some crap screenplays I penned in 9th grade but we read them first. We're wearing clothes found in the netherlands of my closet and I was way too immersed in The Sads to bother with makeup or the hair-iron. This raw beauty is what garnered "When There's Nothing Left to Burn, You Have to Set Yourself on Fire" the Best in Show award at this years Festival of Excellent Films. Basically, it's like when we won the Uh Huh Her contest, but sans-prize-pack.]

One thing I've been noticing lately is all the people. I've always known this city was teeming with people -- people who live here, people who work here, and so on. But, for all I've spoken of Emily Dickinson and agoraphobia I didn't realize the precisely how self-centered & insane my Planet Harlem Apartment world had become until just now. 'Cause just now I've been thrust right back into people-world again, all at once and all over, like Dorothy landing in Oz except dirtier and with less choreography.

See, due to circumstances beyond my control (or so I tell myself to make myself feel better) that left me sans-home as of September 1st, I'm currently living in Long Island with Alex and her parents and commuting daily to and from the city for um ... Alex's job. Also, for about six weeks now I've been off the juice. JK ... kinda. More on this later.

Anyhow. In Long Island I wake up at 7, we get on the train at 8:26 so Alex can be at work at 9. By 7 P.M, I'm feeling boring and sleepy. The body beats out of habit, my heart isn't even warm. See, I used to be a superhero and no one could touch me, not even myself.

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About six weeks ago my doctor switched up some of my meds. Though I'd been taking the same RX for about five years, I'd found a way last year to use those capsule-sized lifelines into a fresh & bad habit and it was killing me. I'd been disciplined and healthy with it for years until May 2007 and yet when faced with emptiness at that time I chose to fight chaos (unemployment, new home, strange schedule, changing social life, internet-world) with chaos. I was foolish enough to think I could establish self-discipline with undisciplined strokes.

I felt real good, but what good is it to be a genius superhero if you're going faster than the speed of light towards obliteration.

In the emo cave I was always chasing something, like I was in a race that was also a tape stuck in a loop. The nature of race was clear when I started it; I was racing to keep up with my ex's mania in hopes we'd eventually share a moment or two eye-to-eye.

Time went on, and though my problems changed, my behavior didn't. I wouldn't even notice how much crazy I was talking until someone came over, or a roommate dared utter a word to me. Any word, of course, sounded like "firecracker" or "boo!"

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And that's why lately life has felt like some kind of shock therapy -- like I'm all cutting and no edge. All these people everywhere ... it gives me perspective. I'm one of millions, not one in a million, and now I'm forced to face how fucked up my whole existence has been for the last sixteen months until six weeks ago, maybe even longer than I want to say, 'cause there's so much I might never let go of -- and maybe I don't have to.

Also, I'm really tired now.

Falling asleep has been easier, but waking up is harder.

After waking up there's breakfast and then rush hour on the train. Once in the city, I've got no apartment to go to so I'm automatically surrounded by people and at their mercy so I'm modeling through the devil's baby in my uterus or vicious allergies. People, people and then more people in theaters, delis, restaurants, jostling for a seat at Starbucks, parking my body & heavy bag on the floor at Penn Station or Barnes & Noble or on Central Park's big wireless lawns where people are running & biking & beaming with beaming bright buoyant bountiful babies in expensive strollers, at the gym at rush hour with the people soaring towards absolutely nowhere like gazelles on thumping slick black exercise machines, and I'm navigating the rocky roads between hunger and longing-withdrawal and the library, the 1 train, the A, the C, the D, the E, the N-R, the 2-3, the 4-5-6. I'll go to Natalie's or see my therapist or when I go to this one job I go to I'll see those people.

The every train, The going and going more, next stop, last stop, stop stop stop.

And when I want to have a fit about something, like how expensive it is in the world, or how many people's cell phone conversations I've been forced to overhear, or how many private acts I've accepted that I must now do in public ... I just can't. I cannot have a fit in my car or my room. I cannot have a fit at all.

In me-me-me world when I needed a fit I'd go lie on my bed & cry & moan and stare at the ceiling hoping to break through and throw or stare or scream sharply at my phone with despair, refreshrefresh refresh inbox (1) fucking a it's the goddamn hrc again. I'd think about breaking walls like I've said before but I never did break any walls 'cause I couldn't afford that kind of security deposit.

It's not that I never left when I lived in P-Harlem because I did. But ... when I did, usually Caitlin would pick me up in a car so I'd avoid all the people, and I always felt safe with Caitlin, wherever we went. And anyhow usually we went places to see other familiar faces.

Those faces were anchors grounding me safely distant from the kind of social anxiety that builds up when you've not spoken to a stranger in days, when you've not only been inside your own head for too long but crawling around in it, building a new library in there and scaling the walls and jumping from its roof. Anyplace unfamiliar gave me paralyzing fear but now that evens out over the day 'cause I'm forced into society so much that each little encounter is no longer The Only Social Interaction With a Stranger of my day. So there's less consciousness and pressure, it's no longer this minute but just the way things are.

At the end of the day I'll see Alex and at Penn Station late at night there's so many people, like the girls who are still wearing the things that girls like that wore in the mid-nineties which makes me feel like nothing changes except the brand of expectation clinging to their longings.

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When I read posts from last summer and autumn I can spot the times that I was beetle-buzzing through my own brain like a run-on hornet. Details, linkage, obsessive proof-reading and revisions. Words and more words.

And so I was reading Sam Anderson's obit of David Foster Wallace, and he says this:

"For Wallace, a thought could never actually, in good conscience, realistically, be finished — there was always one more reversal, one more qualifying clause, and an honest writer had to follow them out. Hence the famously never-ending sentences that spun off, even more famously, into never-ending footnotes. The black hole of his self-consciousness drew everything into it, even and especially self-consciousness itself. But that compulsion to be exhaustive was, apparently, exhausting."

I can't -- and don't intend to -- compare myself to Wallace. He's a genius, I'm a weirdo. He's published & famous & legendary, I'm a weirdo.

But I relate to one thing -- I relate to the words upon words. 'Cause when I wrote like that I was certain to not only address my point, but all examples, counterpoints, not only my thesis but yours and all the thoughts I'd ever had about it, and I'd play devil's advocate and people's advocate and lozo's advocate and feminism's advocate and sometimes my own advocate too. I wanted to speak to everyone and I wanted to shoot myself down before you could.

I wonder if DFW felt like his head might explode, if he was tired like I am.

I think it was good to be in my head so completely, like I needed that phase. I needed to live a life that didn't make any sense -- I mean you think you know but you have no idea -- but to me, to my reality (which contained only me & my people) -- it was a cool life. 'Cause you know what? We had a time.

And I'm sure I'll have phases like that again throughout my life, those rushing manic surges that sometimes enrapture an artist to do whatever she can to chase the dragon into dawnlight, towards wherever it is that stars become people and people become poets.

I miss the night-fires, I miss the abandon and the rampant self-destruction. I miss knowing everything wasn't right but not caring because I was so alive, because it was so fun or so vivid or so full or because I hit the streets with all I had. I miss absolving myself of responsibility for myself. I miss the future we used to talk about with such generosity. I miss the stories we believed in and I want to write the ones we never told. I want so many things.

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On the Night I Die I Swear I'll Sleep Outside Your Window OR "My Life as a House"

Me? I'd keep my library on the wall's built-in-bookshelves. Hardwood floors. Exposed brick. Exposed book. We don't need mirrors if we have each other, we need windows to see what's out there but not too much everything, 'cause then we won't be able to see each other anymore. I want us to really look at each other is what I'm saying.

I had a house once. I mean -- I lived in a house, and it was mine as much as anything can be yours when you're a child and don't really have anything but still believe that you will, one day, have everything.

I nested there, as surely and solidly as anything in the world could've been my nest when I was a child and didn't really have anything but still believed I would, one day, nest somewhere else, somewhere spectacular like in Troop Beverly Hills or The Little Princess.

I never liked adventure stories of swashbuckling, journeys, warriors, quests -- I liked novels where precarious girls in frocks and bare feet discovered secret worlds in the wardrobe or in a box in the attic, stories where adventure was as local as wallpaper.

Natalie, my bestie from college who I lived with at two separate addresses there and crashed with last week, saw her Fiji dream house in Architectural Digest. Simple, clean lines, beautiful, next to the sea, surrounded by mountains and green, endless green. Open & floor length windows, glass walls and the bamboo bedroom walls open up to the spectacular sea. Hardwood floors, lots of ceiling fans, crisp linen, a beautiful kitchen where she can see all the people she loves sitting at once with wine and laughing. Stainless steel everything. Huge bathtub. Colors, and light, and dreamity dream dreams.

And when, at thirteen, my parents got divorced and we were made to leave that house I owned [or thought I owned] I left kicking and screaming, literally, staging a sit-in on the blue carpet in the style of the Vietnam protests my parents had told me about. I said I could not go. I demonstrated this by burying my head in the carpet. To my left -- the closet I'd turned into Samantha (a doll)'s bedroom. To my right, the futon and my loft bed and my desk where I wrote stories on my loud clanking electric typewriter.

To my all around -- my walls; posters of places I wanted to visit (like New York City) and hulking portraits of my hero Nolan Ryan who kept on pitching 'til he won.

Haviland wants a place like this hotel in L.A. called the Visceroy, like 60's stuff like in Bewitched [her typo was "betwitched," which's better, yeah?], the decor from I Dream of Jeanie, and lots of mirrors and of course the beach, always the beach and the waves, and the wind in her fairy-tale hair.

In the fifteen years since leaving that place on 431 Crest Avenue [like the toothpaste], I've switched addresses 23 times. As unhinged as that's made me feel, I've established certain precautions -- I always know where I'll be at least two weeks before I go there. I've never, for example, had to crash, or put my everyday things and furniture in storage, or couch-hop. A luxury, sure, but for me it's hardwired as hardwood and the only thing that keeps me grounded in a life of freelancing and freewheelin' and now, no legitimate roots anywhere, noplace I've ever lived that'd have me back or even knows my name.

Carly: "my dream house is whatever house Robin is living in. What, too gay?" Carly's dream house is not too big and it's modern but not cold, and there's a pool and room for dogs, and she can entertain or just sit around and watch tv in her pajamas. She says, "I can't figure out if that means I want a house on the beach in CA or a penthouse in Manhattan. Guess I'll have to get one of each!"

At boarding school near the end of my junior year, my writing teacher invited his workshop over for dinner. I rode my bike there, it was on campus. I had lots of coffee which was still a drug to me then because I was 16 and full of hope and spirit. I didn't say much 'cause I was shy, but I remember the books in his room, and the warmth they created with their words and possibility. I remember the brook in the backyard, like a cheesy watercolor rendered beautiful.

I remember, remember tangibly, the feeling of whipping through air on my bicycle from his house afterwards and thinking, "Marie Lyn Bernard the world is at your fingertips/handlebars!"

That was when energy, not oblivion, was my drug of choice. And I decided that night that when I got home for the summer I'd build myself a cave -- I'd always loved that shit, the treehouses and secret clubhouses -- a cave no-one else could squeeze into -- a place where I'd read poetry and write brilliant brilliant heartbreaking things. I'd write a novel, I said. All I needed was the right space, the right cave.

Adam's number one awesome houseboat is MacGuyver's. Distant second; Duncan during the relevant season of Highlander. In his elementary school sketchbook he drew his dream house -- he sketched it. It was a castle. With a moat. And a wing for his mommy because he was/is that kid. And he went on to form his romantic archetypes from the relationships in fantasy novels which wasn't healthy but the women were plucky (he chose the angsty young sorceress nobody understood, not the ditzy princess in distress). And then there was a real-life man with a real-life wife who had spines; spines of books, candlelight. That, after all, is his dream house: "I would probs want more light than he got, but it was night when I was there, so just about anything would have more natural light than nighttime."

And so, here I am. Basically what happened was I was all set with the apartment and then five days before I found out it wasn't going to happen ... I don't, and won't, go into detail, because it's my life as a house too, and it's complicated and I hate myself already for typing this sentence already.

Alex wants something she can build with her own two hands, with materials from her stranded desert island, but she realizes that fantasy sounds a lot like nightmare. So then there's this: a margarita shack on the beach in Mexico, where she'd sleep in a hammock and make margaritas all day. But then there's this too: the tree-house. That Swiss Family Robinson house in Disneyworld, anything where she could be inside and around a tree, the warmer the better.

But the whole situation leaves me unhinged, lost, and that's why I'm couch-hopping. I feel dislocated, like Houdini could pop off both of his nice shoulders you know? My Dad used to talk to me about Houdini a lot. I liked how Houdini was stuck in this tiny space and could dislocate his body from himself and that was how he made magic.

I realize, oh I realize, that there are children in Darfur who'd love to be sans-address but have a bed to share with a friend or a couch to hop to, close one's eyes on. Perhaps if I didn't realize this, it would be easier to figure out how I feel. But every thought I have is overrridden by the other thought; the thought of people who are sleeping on the streets, who need more than my change/change.

My short list includes the loft from Igby Goes Down, The Factory, that house in the Hitchcock movie with the cliff chase and the hanging, Walden Pond, the house my writing teacher lived in, and more and more and more that I will think about tomorrow and then add 'cause this post is totes incomplete, like you and me and everyone we'll ever know.

Caitlin. Wants a house on the beach with a pool and a backyard and she imagines her dream house to be like in Life as House, the movie that said: "I've always thought of myself as a house, I was always what I lived in. It didn't need to be big, it didn't need to be beautiful, it just needed to be mine. I became what I was meant to be, I built myself a life, I built myself a house, with every crash of every wave I hear something now. I never listened before. I'm on the edge of a cliff, listening. I'm almost finished. If you were a house, this is where you'd want to be built" and "What? Do I still love you? Absolutely. There's not a doubt in my mind. Through all my anger, my ego, I was always faithful in my love for you."

And so, nowhere I am. And so I do not know who I am. And so I want more than anything to be proud of myself. Which won't set us free but Who I Am is the great mistake in a life full of mistakes.

And so tonight I will go to sleep, ideally, though I've struggled with sleep the past few days 'cause I'm not good with strange spaces, and so I panic, and so tomorrow I will wake up, and I will go to work, and I will, if I have the time, attack this post and try to make it into something as glorious as four walls, as something I could dig into, as something I could keep. Something I can own, as much as any child can own anything.

Sunday Top Ten: If We Took a Holiday, Took Some Time to Celebrate

Hallo! First off, check out the list of books on the Saturday Auto-Fun and let me know which one you'd like to be the first Auto-Win Book Club selection. I'll make a decision soon and I la-la-love/need your input ... I'm pretty sure that we've reached a consensus, but you never know, look what happened to Al Gore! Hey, speaking of voting, are you going to VOTE? -- WAIT! this just in ... I could've sworn I saw Wao in paperback at a store recently, but all online booksellers seem to suggest it's not coming out in paperback 'til September. In which case, it can't be our book club selection 'cause $24.95 is a lot of money, right? (Or, rather ... $15 on amazon, it'd seem)

Anyhow ... Happy Father's Day! Hm, obviously this isn't my favorite holiday. What IS my favorite holiday, you ask? Do you like ANYTHING, Riese, or are you all rainshowers and spoiled pudding? Yes, I do like things, I am rainy pudding but I'm also sunshine and bunny rabbits. I like Tinkerbell, matzoh ball soup, presents, unicorns, the smell of rain, making out, the next joke, tweezers, wax museums, ipods, books and children in puffy coats. Also; always been a fan of Administrative Assistant's Day.

I don't mean to pull a Lozo and execute an entire post just to complain, but the topic of "holidays I don't like" offers a mine[field] of possibilities. You step inside it, and there's ten smiling children all saying "no" while shaking their heads "yes." There are nine pictures of children who enjoy the company of other children. In the tenth picture, a child is eating pudding underneath a giant red rain-hat and she's ready to go home. The tenth picture is me.

Sunday Top Ten: Hello Holiday. It's me, Tinkerbell. I'm Just Not That Into You.
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10. Fourth of July

The hot outdoors. Sticky hands. The inevitable consumption of beer, subsequent desire to nap and/or feeling of belly bloated by froth & bubbles & popsicle. Grilling meat into humid air, the clank of cheering bottles, the anticipation of watermelon never matching the pleasure of the fruit itself. Lying in dry grass, near dirt. The assumption that we ought to love America so badly we explode of it. Sometimes I avoid this holiday altogether, and instead write crazy blog entries ...

... but this year, we're celebrating! 'Cause it's Caitlin's favorite holiday and Alex is "really serious" about it. I've actually had some really spectacular July 4ths in my life ... and this year, it'll be the most fun ever. Like independence, which was also fun for the [white male] Americans.

Best July 4th Ever: 2001 -- my diary says; "What's better than the world -- literally -- bursting into sky? Cliches are cliches for a reason." I met up w/Olive Garden friends and we snuck into a private party at a riverside apartment complex to watch the fireworks. I wasn't carded so we drank free beer, ate from big bags of candy and shared candy with children. It rained afterwards and we dashed through it like sparklers.

New Best Fourth of July Ever: 2008! Can't wait!

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9. Lent

[fumiko shibata]

When I'm like, "I want to eat a cookie" or "I want to get sloshed," and you're like, "OMG, I gave that up 'cause of Jesus and Easter and bunnies," I'll be like, "That is lame, I hate you and your holiday, you're gay." Though I liked it when my friends would give up Nintendo, then we could play Pretend or House instead and I wouldn't be left out.

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8. Yom Kippur

This is the day of atonement. Though fasting is a thrilling & self-destructive way to pass the day, it's this holiday's persistent habit of falling on my birthday that makes me dislike it. 'Cause I don't want to atone on my birthday, I want to celebrate, I want cake, I was told there'd be cake, you know?

Best Yom Kippur Ever - 1999: Alone at Sarah Lawrence with an unstable body & mind, I managed Yom Kippur. I went to four services that day at the temple synagogue, fasted, slept, sat in the library with books and pencils and then went back to temple. I broke fast alone, and slowly. I felt actually quite connected to my spirituality that day -- to something larger, and to everything wrong inside of me -- and I'd like to get back to that place some day. Where I could be like, "Are you there, G-d, it's me Marieeee?!?!"

Also, I've been known to enjoy a noodle koogle or two. Break-Fast is the best.

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7. Malcom X's Birthday

I realized I'd been in Planet Harlem for way over a year when I went to 125th to get some coffee and found EVERY SINGLE STORE shuttered for five hours, just like LAST YEAR! -- even the corporate chains closed in "observance" of Malcom X's birthday. If Malcom X were still alive, he'd march right into CVS and get some Aveeno even if he had to get violent, I don't think this was his dream. So it's like a double penalty holiday. Personally, I like to celebrate birthdays of important political leaders by treating myself to a nice cold beverage at Starbucks, but that's just me, keep marching and yelling, wheee!

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6. Thanksgiving

I don't like meat that's on the bone, let alone the whole honking animal sitting there looking at everyone. Either I eat a lot of potato products or there's not anything I want to eat and then I'm hungry. So as you can see it never ends well, look what happened to the American Indians, I rest my case.

Best Thanksgiving Ever: 1999 - So weird that the holidays of my semester at SLC are far more memorable & brighter than my other SLC days and also brighter than holidays celebrated in other years. We made dinner in Meg's NYU dorm with portobellos instead of turkey and we drank Pepsi One and I read The Iliad and Stephen Dunn and wrote. I transcribed "Essay on the Personal" into my journal next to a postcard of a purple & yellow watercolor painting.

2006 was a good one too, 'cause my brother came all the way from New Orleans with home-made macaroni and cheese as his carry-on.

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5. Valentine's Day

[artist]

I think we should all buy each other presents every minute we want to, and sweet things for our lover's mouths. The problem with Valentine's Day is that everything is too crowded to make a reservation except way ahead of time, which means you'll need to have been in a relationship for at least a month, and who has that kind of time, you know? JK. It's just a lot of pressure on an arbitrary day of the year, I like things to mean exactly what they mean, no less or more. I feel gross about buying into the corporate hoo-ha. I do it anyway, but that's 'cause I've been brainwashed by The Man.

Best V-Day Ever: 1998 - Ryan pulled out all the stops. At boarding school, this was difficult, but he did, and he did and he did. The first Valentine's Day on which I had a Valentine, even if he was a homosexual.
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4. Ash Wednesday
'Cause the first four ashed-up people I see make me really confused. On the fifth I say "A-ha!" but those first four were like : "whoa, where's the fire?"
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3. St. Patrick's Day/Puerto Rican Day (TIE)

I don't like anything where streets are blocked from cars and opened to drunk lusty boys & parades, unless it's the Gay Pride Parade. Hey it's raining outside, someone's raining on my parade! Everybody loves a parade, except me. We used to go to a circus parade every year in Ann Arbor, there was always a big elephant and then little people running around the elephant cleaning up after it. I thought, I'd like to have little people like that, following me around with a bucket of water and a proactive protective spirit.

Best Puerto Rican Day Parade Day Ever: 2008! I saw Gypsy with my Mum and Alexandra and Caitlin while the parade raged on, then afterwards we dined at 44x10 at a table by the window. The atmosphere @44x10 is a lot like Cafeteria, so sometimes I mix up my memories from those places 'cause I've got a handful where I'm with Alex and Caitlin and Alex's hand is on my knee and I'm eating smashed potatoes and around us bright spritely servers with perfect gay hair weave between tables, their slim hips bopping in and out of eye level. The first time I ate there was w/Haviland for Kelli's birthday, and the costume of the day was "Tipping the Velvet," but I hadn't read it yet.

Best St. Patrick's Day Ever: Probs 2002. 'Cause I was with Chris at the fraternity, and I believed in jungle juice (that's what they called the red vat of alcohol and fruit we drank from, it was too dark to see the syphillis in the moonlight) and the pure, green holiday. I sat on the stairwell gossiping with two younger girls I'd befriended (other frat "girlfriends" -- we stuck together), one of whom would eventually be using my drivers license as her fake ID, and I told them all my ugly eager secrets as if they weren't ugly but glossy grasshopper gemstones. In the juice, the pineapples turned red, and then our mouths.

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1. Father's DayLast year's Father's Day was one of the worst days of my life, but that was just a coincidence. I was gonna do this topic last year actually but then got distracted. I like that on father's day I can say things about fathers without anyone worrying I'm thinking/talking about my father on purpose and therefore must be whining again, or truly upset. I will buy myself a tie or a pie, or maybe tell a lie to the sky, or have a baby and name him "Guy." The thing about Father's Day ... and Valentine's Day ... is that they're basically created to make us spend money at Sears or get a Chili's gift card or something, and so if you can't celebrate it and that makes you upset, you're letting Sears and Chili's win.

I remember me and Lewis on the couch, watching television in our bathrobes while our friends ate creamy breakfast foods with their stalwart fathers. We weren't the only kids on our couches, I'm sure. I didn't know that then though. Now I do.

Also, 'cause my parents apparently enjoy conceiving nine months prior to unhappy holidays, Lewis's birthday often falls on Father's Day. Not this year! Lewis's birthday is tomorrow! What are you gonna get him? I haven't decided yet personally, but probs an orange or a squeaky dog toy.

That's one of the things I heart about NYC; on any given holiday, there's at least a bazillion other people not celebrating. In other towns if you're not doing Christmas or St.Patty's, you're well aware that everyone else is. Skipping Independence Day or sans Valentine? You're never alone in New York! And we're all far away from our families -- logistically, tangibly. Or not at all, for some people. la-di-da!

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Just FYI, these are my favorite holidays (in random order):

10. Pride: good costumes, many gays, ppl feeling not alone and loathed in the world, lots of big gay parties.
9. Passover: Matzoh ball soup. Egg whites in saltwater. Honey Cake w/matzah meal. Macaroons. Passover Marshmallows. Atkins Diet.
8. Christmas: The spirit and everything. the ritual.
7. Columbus Day: ''cause that was always exactly when you needed a day off from school, not 'cause I like Columbus, obvs.
6. Halloween : I do not know who I am, but I know who I can wear.
5. Hannukah: Latkes, hot crackling oil, presents.
4. Take Your Daughter to Work Day: I love GapKids
3. Election Day!: Vote or DIE
2. Martin Luther King Day : liked going to the gym and singing "we shall overcome" with the whole school holding hands.
1. Rex Manning Day:
We mustn't dwell... no, not today.
We CAN'T.

Not on Rex Manning day!

Sunday Top Ten, Part One: I Wish I Had a River I Could Skate Away On

It is a truth universally acknowledged that it's lame to open any piece of writing with a quote -- even a self-indulgent blog post (update for those not aware: as of May 20th, 2008, "blogs which employ first person narratives" are the default "lowest possible form of written communication/art," ranking only slightly above: emails from technologically incompetent grandmothers, the Yahoo! front page headlines, Goofus and Gallant, Nicholas Sparks novels, negative comments on youtube, text messages from pre-adolescents and the screenplay for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo). But it's also a truth universally acknowledged that the truth is a silly animal and there's no hunting allowed (we saw the signs this weekend), so I will persist -- I will open by quoting someone far wiser than I'll ever be. Although ... actually, I did just talk so much nonsense that the opening's already taken care of (opening with nonsense is punk and not lame), therefore I'm not opening with a quote, except that I secretly actually did. Hey-oh!

The Great Jim Harrison (The Legends of the Fall, After Ikkyu & Other Poems) once wrote: "One day. Standing in the river with my flyrod, I'll have the courage to admit my life." My writing teacher transcribed this quote in my "book" (I have this special book of my favorite poems & stories and I'd give it to friends/mentors to make a page or 2-3) underneath a 70's b&w of himself (my teacher). Above the photo, my teacher wrote: "Marie - Don't forget -- you owe me a big check so I can do a lot of thinking." See; I was supposed to get famous (due to my fingers allegedly being on the pulse of my generation -- a grave miscalculation), make money, and then send him to Montana where he could fish and think all his life.

Missoula, Missoula, Missoula, I'm yours. Eugene, your name is so terrible that you must be terribly lovely and green. I went to Ashland (same state), there were mountains, they were beautiful.

That's what they do (mountains). They sit there, look good.

I was upstate for Memorial Day weekend -- Alex's family has a cabin up there. Last night I came home. The sirens started after dark. A few, then a hundred, and then helicopters, then the people on the street with something to yell about and loudly. Seven innocent people shot, a few blocks away: "The gunman is still at large, and residents have been advised to stay in their homes." I miss East Harlem sometimes. No cab-drivers or delivery people or friends dared to tread into Sparlem, but people danced to music there. Here, on the West, music just thumps out of cars like it's fighting with the pavement, there's no dancing.

My favorite is NY1's article today, which ends with "two other unrelated shootings also happened in the area last night." (Subtext: "but we don't care.") -- shooting a 13-year-old boy in the leg? How the fuck does that happen? Seriously. How the fuck does that happen?

I don't know. And so, I keep talking about myself. Which I don't know either, but I know it enough to try to talk something. Crazy. Burma. Shoot.

Missoula, Missoula, Missoula, Santa Monica, San Francisco, Eugene, Tacoma, La Jolla, Raleigh, Anchorage, Chapel Hill, Concord, Santa Ana, Savannah, Interlochen, Missoula, Pierre, Charlotte, Colorado Springs, Mesa, Missoula, Des Moines, Providence, Montreal, Sioux Falls, Southampton, Escondido, San Antonio, Tulsa, Thousand Oaks, Topeka, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, Little Rock, Clearwater, Athens, Missoula. Those all sound nice. Literally.

One day, standing in the river with my flyrod, I'll have the courage to admit my life.

SUNDAY TOP TEN: Things I Used to do All the Time but Hadn't Done in Long Time, Until Recent Time.

TO BE COMPLETED IN TWO SEGMENTS
PART ONE : 10-6
*

10. Hiking in the Woods

Once upon a time, I didn't own a laptop case but I treasured my hiking backpack. The straps were adjusted for my then-narrow boyish hips. I needed help to cram a sleeping bag into its lower pocket.

Saturday I was standing in the river and remembered everything.

Specifically: rivers I'd crossed before, tents slept in, that wilderness survival class I'd taken at thirteen where I had to build my own shelter from tarp & sticks and sleep in it for three days (but! I was young and we got mooned by the boys. All we could see was leaf-shadows on pale pre-adolescent ass, but what a thrill! Mooning!), getting lost in the Smokies, trekking the Tetons, singing bad hip-hop with backaches and bandanas somewhere in Northern Michigan. Afterwards I'd forget how bad my back hurt and remember the Nalgene bottle and the smell of fire.

It's always bizarre to have dozens of strong memories of a certain activity -- a non age-specific activity -- and then realize the memories are all at least ten years old, like when you go to the doctor and they ask when your last physical was and you feel like it was probs last year but when pressed realize, omg, it's been way more than a year.

I missed the woods. Hark!

*

9. Gone w/o Internet for over 48 hours

In the week preceding our recent jaunt to Malibu, I'd been wallowing in an imploding and increasingly boring state of depression/anxiety. Haviland said there was no internet at her temporary Malibu digs but 'cause Haviland's technologically impaired, I took this to mean, "I feel there's no internet in my house, but also I don't know how computers work and therefore I'm sure that You! Riese! will find the magic key to wireless." Howevs, I was wrong, Haviland was right as she always is. (First rule of fight club is "Haviland is right") Ixnay on the interent. This weekend upstate -- also, no internet ... and nowhere to drive to and get it, either. And ... it was actually totally ... fine. In Malibu everything was shiny with big lapping waves, upstate everything was green and familiar and safe. Wireless, shmireless. Once the panic passes, it's a whole new kind of calm.

*

8. Talked to Strangers A LOT

In the past three weeks I've met Alex's family & friends, gone to two parties in one night, hugged Leisha Hailey and interviewed -- on camera -- a plethora of B-list homosexual celebrities. So, screw you, ex-boyfriend who said I had no social skills! (I mean, I don't. But whatever.) (Sidenote; nothing wrong with the B-list. I think I'm on the W-list or something, optimistically). I think waitressing was my old unreal social outlet, I miss it sometimes. Good workout.

*

7. Hung up On Someone, Over and Over

This technique, employed popularly by dramatic adolescents, can also be enjoyed by full grown adults, if the situation merits. Have you ever had a hang-up relationship? You know what I mean? I had one, 4-5 years ago ... it made me insane and anxious, 'cause I never knew when he was about to hang up and depending on the circumstance, call back or wait for my call back, etc. If I hung up -- would HE call back? How many times would he have to call back before I'd pick up? Vice versa? OMG how did this become my fucking life, etc.?

Once you get used to it, hanging up becomes really not so different from just saying something. As an adult, I feel it's only necessary when someone insists on saying things you don't want to hear. Or! You can take "hanging up" and raise it "hurling phone against the wall," that's fun.

I made the poor decision of raising the topic of Emily Gould's article -- and subsequently, the "self-indulgence-of-bloggers" debate -- with B.

B.: "You're such a good writer, Marie, and you have so much substance, and so much to offer --"
Me: "Wait, slow down. I'm going to transcribe this for my blog, because I'm very self-indulgent and want to air all my personal conversations in public. Okay, got it -- I'm at "so much to offer," keep going--"
B.: "Okay ... really?" [laughs] "You have so much to offer, and yet you're wasting your time on things that are superficial -- I wonder whether or not it ever occurs to you that your endeavors are not as fruitful as they might be, or that they might be superficial, or not be worth your time as much as other endeavors."
Me: "Like what?"
B.: "Like not writing for a body that needs to be entertained. About lip gloss and manicures."
Me: "I LIKE LIP GLOSS AND MANICURES!"
B. : "You say you feel empty, you might want to look at your work and ask why you feel empty --"
(I hang up)

B.: "What if I was your -- your creative writing teacher, coming to tell you this, would you listen?"
Me: "Yes."
B.: "Because of academia's institutions and --"
Me: "Because I'd take this advice from anyone other than you."
B.: "So it's just 'cause it's me."
Me: "Yes."
B.: "So, then, don't listen to me."
Me: "I'm not, when I do, it stresses me out and I can't write anything. Don't read my blog if you don't like it."
B.: "I'm only saying this -- and continuing to call you back when you hang up on me -- because I believe in you, weirdo, and I want to read your blog. I love your writing."
Me: "You haven't liked anything I've written all year."
B. "I liked that auto-portrait piece."
Me: "UGH. Okay, you didn't like anything besides that."
B.: "Okay, tell me what was the content in your most recent post?"
Me: "Nothing. Nothing it was totally irrelevant, worst blog ever, you should just read Elif Bautman and Arts & Letters and The Guardian UK and skip my vapid blog."
B.: "Just tell me what in that post --"
(I hang up)

And so on. Eventually we reached a truce related to different feelings about art vs. entertainment and clearly life in general. Whatevs. "Blog" is such a weird word, it sounds like "bog." Which is a swamp. "There's just no pleasing you, there's just no talking to you." (Ani DiFranco) But I don't know the answer to the question, "why do I do it?" The answer I gave: "I don't know yet." I'm ok with that. It'll be my final answer.

Seriously, I wish everyone in this neighborhood could just truce for like 20 seconds so that a solid hour of my life that could pass without the sound of sirens. I'd prefer to hear cows or chickens.

If I started an Emily Gould fanclub on facebook, I wonder if anyone would join it. Actually, that idea is probably so May 26th, and it's totally the 27th already. The slogan would be "If you don't like what she's doing, don't read it, weirdo."

Emily has spoken:

Q: Like you, Joni Mitchell was extremely self-referential. Many people liked this at first, but they eventually grew tired of it. When she finally stopped writing about herself and turned her attention elsewhere, most people had already lost interest and moved on. Do you worry that the same thing will happen to you?

A: Have people grown tired of Joni Mitchell's self-referentiality? I haven't.
*
(me neither)

*
6. Rode Bicycles

As I mentioned in "Top Ten Sport," bike-riding is one of my favorite life activities and has always been. Remember when you didn't know how? I can't imagine that anymore. I sold my bike when I left Williamsburg though and then the guy I sold it to emailed me and said that he'd fallen off the bike and was paralyzed for life or something and it was my fault for selling a bad bike. Except that I'd ridden it the week before, so whatevs, and also he test rode it around our 'hood before paying for it and riding away. Really I don't know what to say about that whole incident, it makes me itchy. Riding bikes in NYC is like Frogger. Riding bikes upstate, or along Venice Beach, is like perfect. Except for the inner thigh sweat and going uphill.

So anyhow, one day, standing above a river on a bicycle, I'll have the courage to admit my life -- lip gloss and all. For now; sirens, gould, self-indulgent english muffin eating. Ehhh. Scream.

VLOG-Year in Review: Don't You Worry There's Still Time

Hey weirdos! Happy New Year! I thought I'd finish six months of the YIR pre-2008, but now it's the 31st, and I'd rather end the year with a post containing less apocalyptic undertones. So, I made a little Year in Review video. You're probs out on the town, causing ruckus and mayhem, and therefore unable to view this fine feature immediately on your sidekicks -- actually I feel like everyone I know is throwing a party. Like, who's gonna be left over to go to the parties if everyone is throwing their own party? Also, what about the band 'The Party'? They were really good. Hey, speaking of parties, you're gonna have a party in your pants when you see the new Autostraddle post about Episode One of Season Five, "LGB Tease," Lamest Godforsaken Bunk Title ever. I may or may not have seen this particular episode (not on ourchart, because I was at Carly's Big Effin Holiday Dinner last night with a bunch of homosexuals on their iphones playing Manhunt), and by that I mean "I may."

So, 2007: yeah, that happened. On a scale of one to ten, though it kept kicking our formidable asses, 2007 did not entirely blow. Bad shit happened, but I think everything's gonna be okay you guys, totally, no worries. So-- thank you. All of you. And those of you I found here, of course: Cait, Tara, Kim, Lozo, Carly, Alex/Semicolon, Stef, Crystal, Rachel, Caitlin, and many many many more. Thanks everyone for reading, and everyone who's emailed or talked to me or Hav or any of us, you know, whomevs. Whomevs you found here and whatevs you found here and also. also. also. I know it sounds cheesy as fuck, but it touches the hell out of me when I learn that something you experienced here helped you feel less alone in the world in some way, somehow. Knowing you were listening has helped me immensely, too. Rock on. I live in Planet Harlem, where people yell at each other really loudly at all hours and most of the time there are 6-8 crazy people standing on the block yelling into megaphones about the klan and Power -- I don't live in Brooklyn where everyone hides their feelings behind bangs and sunglasses that they purchased precisely for the purpose of showing their real feelings, so I'm allowed to say ridiculous gross sentimental things sometimes. 'Cause it could be worse, I could have a flier about it. Bla bla bla. Me. Me. Me. blablatypetypememmeblabalmemeememem. ... and then we emerged, to see the stars again. (thanks)

Sunday Top Ten: So What I Lied, I Lie To Me Too

I think I need a new word for "hangover." Like; my head is fine, my stomach is fine ... but man, other people. My social interactions are fairly limited to people who're willing to come to my apartment, which's a larger group than you might anticipate, but last night we went Out. Out-Out. OUT. Yeah. Out. Here's the thing about going out: there's strangers all up in your personal space with their bodies and/or mohawks, aggressive leather statements, voices, bangs, splashy drinks ... this bar was like central casting for Hipster Emos. [We had fun though, as we are Fun.] In Cait's car on 14th street I looked out the window and said to no one really, but incidentally Cait, Haviland and A;ex Vega: Where did all these douchebags come from? I've got no clue, but you guys, they're everywhere, it's gonna be like Bladerunner up in this city before you even know it. Watch out.

There were a lot of things prophesied in last week's Vlogs, p.s., including the Haviland-Lozo meet-and-greet which occurred, among other stimulating activities, last night at Stef's birthday shebang. We're making another vlog tonight. I know, you can hardly stand the anticipation, you're whet with it, so to speak. If you will. I gotta finish this Top Ten first though, I think, so like, stay tuned. Who knows what I'll do? I'm out of control! Smack me up with some smack! Typetypetype.

But enough about Lozo. It is Secrets Week here at Auto-Win, where I'll be telling everyone else's secrets because I've told enough of my own and my psyche is tired.

Just so y'all know, newsflash: we are all totally fucked up and insane. I am one of you, I'm not judging, also, I mean "fucked up and insane" endearingly, like "drunk slut" is also endearing, really you think you know what a fucked up weirdo I am, but you have no idea. But fo' serious: I've always suspected this about humanity but now I know it for sure ... do you think you're a bad person? Do you think you're alone, do you think you're harboring feelings that might get you in trouble, are you ashamed or embarrassed or conflicted or sad or shy or angry or discontent or content but maybe you shouldn't be? As Michael Jackson, the alleged child molester, once sang: "You are not alone, I'll be here with you." Well, I honestly haven't molested any children, so let me say that in my own words: "You guys are soooo not alone, obvs." We all feel this way. So maybe we're all more normal than we think.

So I sent out a email to a bunch o'people -- friends and readers -- asking for their secrets. I've posted this email on Auto-Universe, read it! Then you'll know what's up and also, if you wanna participate, it'll tell you what to do. If you didn't get the email, it doesn't mean anything besides that Gmail's new Contacts interface is the most retarded thing ever and makes everything harder than it used to be. Life is so hard you know, even when it's easy. If you did get the email it means I love you more. JK. Bla bla.

Also, Rachel, seriously, where are you, I am like, worried.

So basically, here's how it works: you email me your deepest darkest secrets. I take your story and turn it into a story. Some of you wrote really beautiful things with words I'd like to keep intact, but I think that the integrity of this project depends upon my universal application of the project's rules, to make sure that everyone is equally anonymous. So I turn your secret into a tiny piece of "flash [non] fiction" in my voice and put it here.

I'm going to put the first five on this particular post, and I'll be finishing them one at a time, you can um, hit refresh, and then I'll do another installment, and then another, and then another. I've got enough to do the whole Top Ten obvs but um, I don't know, I'm like behind on everything right now.

Because it's Secrets Week. Seriously, I'm excited. Also, thank you, everyone, for sharing your intimate secrets with me, it's really lovely, fo' reals. Hopefully I'll do them all justice.


Everyone's been given a new name. Also, all these names are the names of characters in Judy Blume novels or Baby-Sitters Club characters and all the titles are Tegan & Sara song titles. I'm very creative, I know, that's why you keep coming back. Besides the sodomy or whathaveyou.

*
1. Knife Going In

Amy's Dad stabbed his brother-in-law; now he's out on bail. Amy knew already that he was violent, he'd beaten her Mom and her brother though oddly never her. This was before her Mom got it together and kicked him out, which Amy thought meant that he'd be kicked out, like all the way, like from her mind.

Sally, her best friend, asks her why he did it [beat them] and she says: "For sport." That's the thing about crazy people is they can be even more crazy than you expected, seriously, try them.

Amy doesn't, and so when she sees his car parked across the street she calls him, tells him that she can see him, that this is his chance to come to the door, and then, she thinks, she'll tell him how she feels about everything, like all his opinions about her and the quality of her house. He comes to the door and they exchange words, it is terrible, for a second his eyes flash crazy and she thinks he might kill her.

He doesn't. She finds it hard to shake, though: that he might. At night, she has nightmares.

"Oh my God," her best friend Sally says on the phone. "My credit card bill is ridiculous, my Dad is going to kill me."

Amy flinches. She sits numbly but alertly in the silence of Sally waiting for her to talk, that little space between the beginning of the waiting and the wondering if Amy's still there. She looks out the window and wonders when all the cars started looking like her Dad's car. She squints, silence thunders in her brain and then claps and she speaks: "Yeah," she says. "Maybe he will."

*
2. I Know I Know I Know

Stacey's about 30, a company executive -- far more senior than Jessie, which's why Jessie's never spoken to her outside of work. Plus, Stacey intimidates her, which feels funny 'cause Jessie's not easily intimidated: but Stacey's Blackberries, her shiny leather bags, her shoulders and arms and torso and legs and feet and hair and face, her power suit accenting the whole getup.

Do you see where this is going?

Jessie didn't. She realizes some things later, in her shiny leather retrospect: it was Stacey's apartment, they'd been drinking, they were alone. But Stacey was possibly the last person Jessie'd expect to suddenly just kiss her on the mouth (worst kiss ever, Jessie feels at the time), which catches Jessie so off guard that Jessie actually pulls away, also abnormal. Jessie checks the mirror and it turns out they still exist and it's not a dream, and so she goes on.

"I'm so sorry, I don't know what got into me," Stacey says quickly. "That shouldn't have happened."

She keeps talking but Jessie's stopped listening, she's already trying to motivate her legs to walk out the door while shock bears its whole weight on top of her. Jessie finally succeeds, her legs start moving, and she watches Stacey's blubbering confusion transform into a kind of realisation of the legal and other implications: "Inappropriate, so sorry," Stacey adds.

So then, Jessie thinks, maybe it would be okay just to kiss her back. Just to make it mutual, let her know that everything's gonna be okay. Then, because it is the only thing to do, Jessie flees the scene, but not before saying this: "We're even."

**

The next day, Jessie's at work at her advertising firm when her boss Mallory leans in: "Jessie, do you have your car here? Can you drive me to pick up my car? It just got impounded."

Jessie thinks it's possible she's the only employee at her firm without an impounded vehicle, and she doesn't know what to do with this: "Yeah, where?"

Mallory tells her, Jessie doesn't listen/register, Mallory adds that she needs to go home after, not back to work, and Jessie says, well, I don't know the way back, and Mallory says, okay, I will find you someone to come with us and direct you back.

Mallory returns with a few false leads and --
-- then -- you see where this is going, yes? -- she returns. "Stacey knows."

"Oh, Stacey's always busy," Jessie manages, look who's bubbling now, "She's always busy, I'll drive by myself."

"What, are you scared of having to talk to Stacey? She's not that scary, it's good to leave your comfort zone every now and then."

Jessie can think of other comfort zones she'd rather leave. Also, Jessie's not the one leaving her comfort zone.

Mallory returns, she's with Stacey, and she tells her : "Jessie's driving us."

"Um," Stacey perks up, "Jessie nearly killed me last time I was in her car."

Jessie thinks that this is true, she's a terrible driver, nearly killed the entire executive team. "That's true, I'm a terrible driver, I nearly killed the whole executive team," Jessie thinks fast, "Do you want to just take my car and drive Mallory yourself? Save both of us going?"

Stacey: "I don't have my license with me."

Mallory: "You'll both be fine, ready to leave in twenty."

Jessie goes outside for a cigarette.

Jessie has never put more words in more mintues than she is now: her words are flying faster than her car, containing the two of them. She's a mile a minute, there's no silence 'til they're parked and Stacey fills it with an apology, Jessie offers "It happens all the time," and they share a laugh. Then there's silence, and Jessie asks if she wants to talk about it, Stacey denies her, Jessie asks if she wanted to get a drink after work.

"Not a good idea," Stacey responds.

Jessie didn't mean it anyhow, it's just this power suit made it seem like a great idea.

"I'll think about it," Stacey changes her mind. She does, they do.

Sometimes, they make out in the elevator. Actually, Stacey's not really her type, but it keeps happening. Other things, too, and she doesn't know why she keeps doing it, especially because there are other people she thinks about with greater seriousness of emotion and intent. Not like they're just riding the elevator all day, but Jessie feels that actually, she is, even if Stacey's not always on it with her.

**

"I turned down the management position because I've got feelings for you," Stacey says, angry and elevated. Jessie is stunned again. This woman keeps stunning her, it's stunning.

They sleep together for no reason.

The consequences, too, are stunning.

*
3. You Went Away

Sometimes Kristy goes onto craigslist missed connections hoping to find someone talking about her. Allison does this too, and Rachel, and Stephanie, and also, Tracy. They all do this. They all look at the craigslist missed connections and Kristy does this because she's hoping for affirmation that someone notices her in this world. That there had been a moment when connection was specifically desired, with her, and she'd just happened to miss it.

*
4. The Con

Claudia has the same secret that everyone else has: that she's not okay. Sometimes there's too much to feel so she decides to feel nothing. She's got a lot of secrets, like that her Mom is gay, that her Mom's an alcoholic, that she's starting to forget her Dad and that she doesn't even know what that word "Dad" means anyway, it's not like she can say it or anything. And she's got two songs from the musical Wicked on her top 25 most played list and loves Hanna Montana.

Also, she hasn't told anyone yet about her best friend being a lesbian, because they're hooking up.

5. I Bet It Stung

[her photo]

Everyone told her afterwards that Rosebud was William Randolph Hearst's nickname for Marion Davies' vagina, or that Citizen Kane was a really overrated and stupid movie and so, she took a photo of the tattoo, published it in her school's erotica magazine, which helped, a little bit, but just a little bit, to help her think that this thing she'd done to show her dedication to economic disadvantage in favor of artistic excellence, this thing that she'd done in Prague, in Prague!, had been a mistake.

Sunday Top Ten: Temporary Battles Can Take Up Half Your Life

Just so y'all know, I'm leaving this blog to become a Slam Poet, like in that movie SLAM!. I've never seen it, but I saw a poetry "slam" once at Sarah Lawrence, it was retarded, Sarah Lawrence students shouldn't try to slam anything besides each other. The poems were the lovechild of Ani DiFranco lyrics and the sound of fake mall waterfalls, and they were read out loud with lackluster slam-spirit by cherub girls in camisoles smelling like Tom's of Maine. I'm gonna replace Auto-Win with an auto-play flash-player that'll cycle "Umbrella" by Rhianna and the Tegan & Sara "Umbrella" cover over & over for all of time. That'd make y'all way happier than I ever can. Seriously, listen to that song and tell me if you are still sad? I doubt it.

This week's Sunday Top Ten might sound kinda like, glum? But it's not. Also, I'm gonna do "Things That Are Easier Than I Thought They'd Be" later this week, to like, even it out, or something. Feel free to tell me what to think, I'll believe anything.

Also, Lozo put up our vlog. You should check it out, 'cause there's a really productive world-changing conversation on the comment thread w/r/t "Haviland & Riese: Hot or Not?"
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SUNDAY TOP TEN:
THINGS THAT ARE HARDER THAN I THOUGHT THEY'D BE

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10. Building This Dresser
So I've been building this dresser, the construction manual lists approximately 260 steps. It's taken about 100 hours to construct, thus inspiring this post. I'm totes thrilled to've even received it, and obvs putting it together is a small price to pay, and besides, it's good for my arms which don't get a workout now that I'm no longer toting heavy plates of food or working on the railroad all the live-long day. Speaking of hand jobs, I was in such a state with the state of the dresser that I offered Lozo a massage with a happy ending in exchange for dresser construction, but then I thought that'd be kinda awkward probs for our friendship, and wouldn't necessarily entail less upper body strength than the building so I took it back. Not officially, but I never arranged for the exchange. Also, I can do it myself, I'm Bob Vila. UPDATE: Totes DID IT. holla. HOLLA!
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9. Recapping The L Word

[original screenshot from a Season Three Recap]

I guess that if you look at it logically [something I willfully select NOT to do in most circumstances cause looking realistically at one's bank account or one's schedule is often a short-cut to depression and overwhelming sensations of futility. 'Cause if you don't think about it, it's still possible you could finish it in an hour, why not?] this show is an hour long --
-Pausing at least once a scene for screencaps, about 35 scenes per show: three hours
-Transcribing dialogue from the show and from friends: two hours
-Photo-shopping photos of my friends from the viewing party and inserting them: one hour
-Making graphics: one hour
-Actually writing about the show: endless/priceless.
All in all about 20 hours of nonstop fun. Then I added time to it by acquiring a well-needed but obsessive proper grammar & spelling habit [some of the S3 recaps that no one read but me were plagued with grammatical and spelling errors, and rarely cohesive.] Obvs I didn't anticipate this time commitment when I decided to do it. This is why next season I'm getting a screencaps intern. I'll give you college credit and a back rub if you're hot.

Anyhow, Carly and I re-watched the pilot the other day, and I'm excited to currently be hard at work at recapping it for AutoStraddle! I know -- why Riese? Why? The answer is: because I obviously love it.
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8. SAT Math, Five Years Later
I "auditioned" to be a Kaplan teacher and succeeded, I just had to re-take the SATs to prove I could maintain the same high score I'd had in high school. Easy, yeah? No. I brushed up on my math pre-re-test, but I hadn't realised how much longer it'd take to do math now that it wasn't second nature. I only finished half the math section when the time ran out. Then I added "Kaplan tutor" to the list of "jobs Marie thought she had between July '04 and January of '05 that Totes Fell Through, Therefore Ruining Her Life Forever. JK Not Forevs, Things're Better Now."
*
7. Getting Our TeeVee Show on the Air Immediately
Sometimes I talk about something constantly then suddenly stop talking about it. I kinda did this with the teevee show but don't be alarmed -- nothing's gone wrong, we're just in a waiting period. Also we've got real clear and direct ways to improve the pilot when the time comes: things that seem obvious now that we've stepped back in order to see it fully.

I imagined the writing-the-teevee-show process to be like Field of Dreams, which is probs responsible for many similarly executed projects, like, there've been all these crap shows that make it all the way to air, surely someone'd see ours and greenlight it immediately. We shall write it, the development deal shall come, like it happens in the success stories you read about. I guess no one publishes non-success stories. Oh wait, yeah they do; it's called "blogs" and "World's Wildest Police Chases." JK. That'd be cool, if we got into a police chase and then, when captured, we'd be like "marie lyn bernard dot blogspot dot com!" that'd be the best viral marketing ever. Reality show marketing. We could get Carly on COPS getting arrested for crack whoring and she could plug the show in between "motherfuckers!" Would that be meta? I'm not sure. I think "meta" is the new "irony" -- "irony" being a grossly misused word these days, especially by me. Maybe Alanis should write a song about "Meta." JK. She'd really fuck it up.
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6. Doing my Hair
Short hair is totes harder than long hair. For example, first thing in the A.M; I look like Season Three Pilot Shane. It magically deflates within about 2 hours [I wash my hair post-gym, unless I'm going somewhere in the morning, which um, I haven't done in a while], but its post-shower behavior is highly unpredictable. Just when I think I've discovered the ideal combo of drying, ironing, product and styling, four days later my hair will rebel and say it's not down with that routine anymore, then I'm back to the drawing board.

Haviland thinks it's grown out to bordering-on-bowlcut and she'd like to trim it but I responded: "No, it's like the Beatles, I like it!"

John Lennon & Friends for Wax

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5. Writing my Book
Obvs this has been a bit of a challenge.
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4. Moving On
I searched my gmail for "harder." Aside from stumbling upon some suggestive "harder! faster! wetter!"s, almost half the results were from a few weeks ago, when I kept saying that I'm waiting for things to get easier, but instead they keep getting harder and harder. Things've been lightening a bit, though, lately. Not the weight of these untangled things aforementioned as "getting harder " [these untethered wrongs with no space to right themselves now in the clear where "real" means the same thing to everyone involved, where perception looses it's fog and becomes fair game] -- those things remain the same level of hard, like other striking losses I've experienced. But the coping part's become lighter lately and there are other areas in which things have been relatively bright, promising, brilliant, huge, everything, enough. I've been blessed, really, in so many ways, by so many things, and, not to sound freaky, or hark back to a time of apocalyptic predictions and various second-coming related verse, but the way things came together to furiously and gloriously distract me immediately and thrust me fully back into living with functional social normality before I had a chance to absorb the possibilities regarding what I might eventually face in the future as well as what I was truly experiencing emotionally at the time -- and then the way things started turning around just as I'd hit all-time incapacitation and agoraphobia levels a few weeks ago -- I was always honest that I believed in G-d, I really truly do, and I think there's gotta be something divine or spiritual and trying really, really hard out there, there's gotta be something like that who's aiming for everything, a strange, tempting, dangerous ideal ...
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3. Writing This Blog Post
Seriously, I feel like every day's mitigated by hardness, so this would be easy -- things that're heavier than I expected, lines longer, processes more complicated, people more unpredictable. But perhaps not, but I don't think that's because life is particularly easy or I'm good at it, I'm totes not, but that I manage expectation really carefully -- that's why when I give someone my heart, it's generally someone who's swept me away before I had time to weigh it out and determine likely I couldn't handle the suspense. This is pretty easy to analyze psychologically -- I've got this little girl in my gut who wanted a warning before she heard he was already dead, this like, fourteen year old who'd just gone to McDonald's with her friends from Theatre Club and had a two-cheeseburger meal with no toppings, who wished there'd been some kind of illness instead, some hours, days, years, to prepare for this premature death, to readjust her mind slowly to the way things really are -- it's not that I avoid unwise choices. I just try to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised if it turns out better than that, lest it be taken from me suddenly and without warning. I can't prevent sudden tragedy, so all I can do is prevent anyone's loss being truly tragic. I'm careful of people. If I let them in, put something at stake [something=risking substantially life-changing loss], it means I've either been given no choice in the matter or, I guess, I've got no choice in the matter. Love's like that. When choosing -- I choose to not put it all on the line.

And also: I am, like Crystal said today too, afraid that as soon as I let someone in, they might see ME, and then be like, omg, this is not what I signed up for, and then I'm doomed. I know this moment will come eventually with people ... and I guess that's my guarantee that no matter how good and serious anything is, it'll eventually end when they see me, I mean, really see me, and so, therefore, it's best to not get into it to begin with, or to make the revelation matter.

Also: a lot of things falling under this category -- "Things That Were Harder Than I Expected" -- are Private Things or Obvious Things [e.g., "getting my life together," "reducing word count," "staying in touch with friends," getting a six pack" or other topics I often mull over], like I keep thinking of things and disqualifying them for one of those reasons. That's the main problem with writing this.
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2. Walking in High Heels

[This photo shoot was the first time I wore heels, seriously.]

I didn't realise there was really anything to it, aside from just being a bit more on top of things. But it's like, balance. That's fine -- the walking part is fine. It's the noise! I kinda walk like an elephant. I don't look like an elephant. I look like a human girl named Marie, sometimes called Riese. But when I walk, you might be like, "Is that an elephant lumbering by my room for a 3 A.M. drinkie?" and it's actually me, just regulating, just walking. I'm not saying I lumber because it's true, but 'cause people've told me so. And I trust them. In heels though, I just feel like I'm making my presence so unavoidably present, and I hate that. Click, clack, look, at, me, lumber, click/clack.
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1. Getting freshdirect to deliver Sausage, Egg & Cheese Lean Pockets.

I've put in a product request for this several times over the last few years, to the point where they probs're like "her again, really? Tell her to have some toast." Do any of you order from Fresh Direct? Because if so, please go to the product request area which's in the "New Products" area. There's an asshatty looking guy and an aesthetically pleasing graphic and you just click that there thing and tell them that you'd like them to carry Lean Pockets, Sausage, Egg & Cheese. Thank you, I appreciate it.

The Night Starts Here: In the Flesh, Hustler Club, Shot of Love, Favor Club

I wrote this blog in pieces, subsequently demanding that y'all refresh 'til I finished 'cause I like to keep you on your toes, you know? Also, occasionally I like to keep you on the heels/balls of your feet, just to switch it up. Sometimes, I like you on your knees. Sometimes, I like you up against a wall, or bent over ... JK. Mostly, I like you right where you are: reading my blog.

So anyhow I've actually finished it now, and organised it in a way which is more aesthetically comfortable. Last night (Tuesday), I didn't finish it on account of being a monkey with Jell-O Pudding for Brains. I also said "I think I just took an Ambien but I'm not sure," and, in case you're wondering, and I know you are: I did.

I feel like "secrets" are the new "sex." Like how last week I said "lame" was the new "badass"? Y'know, the overload of sexual content in the media, which isn't bad for children or anything, it just takes away a lot of the mystery & discovery that makes sex interesting to begin with --- real secrets, naked humans, love, etc. [Pot, meet Kettle, Hi Pot.] I was thinking about that 'cause I was like, wow, this whole post is going to be sort of "sex-themed," I wonder if that'll inspire increased traffic and then I was like, "Nah, I doubt it, not like secrets do!"

Another cool part of secrets being the new sex is that sex used to be a secret. Simmer on that.

Topic: In the Flesh Reading.

Anyhow, speaking of speaking of sex, the video from the "In the Flesh" reading is now on RKB's YouTube channel! I clearly didn't locate the microphone until about 30 seconds in, so if at first you think you can't hear very well, stick with it, it gets better, I promise. Also, I think I get better as the reading goes on. Yup.

So, here's the links, it's in two parts:
Part One: New York I, New Jersey, Westchester, Astoria, the start of Williamsburg
Part Two: end of Williamsburg, East Village, Greenwich Village, Chelsea & The Meatpacking District, New York II

Topic: Our Trip to the Strip Club

Stef's recap is in CARTOONS, and hence far better than anything you'll read here. E.g., here's her picture of Lozo's lap dance. Note my facial expression. Srsly, something this amazing doesn't come along every day.
Also, now Lozo's written his recap, and honestly, I'm not lying, I LOLed like, way harder than I've LOLed at any blog entry I've ever read before.

12:36 P.M. , Monday, October 8th.

Lozo: I need to take a shower.
me: Yeah, so do I.
Lozo: I smell like stripper and subway
me: I feel covered in stripper.
me: JINX

Those are the matchbooks I took from the Hustler Club. Notice I'm wearing hangover shirt. Seriously,
I am ready to light the world on fire. Who's WITH ME?

i. I Can Jump Ship and Swim

So, on a scale of one to ten, my stomach totally hated me on Monday morning. It was like, "Really Riese, really?!!" One of the cute things I like to do in my eternal pursuit of Dying Young is pre-party. Like in college, when it usually involved more than one person, e.g., Natalie and I doing shots of Raspberry Stoli [out of coffee mugs cause no one'd done the dishes in 30 years], employing orange slices as chasers because not one of the 8 girls we lived with consumed liquid calories. Soooo anyway [I love the way Jonathan Ames says "anyway" when he's reading his audiobook. Seriously, it's the cutest thing ever, it makes me wanna be his wife or live-in companion of some sort], when I got home Sunday night @4 A.M., totes ready for dinner, I opened the fridge and found a 35% full wine bottle, implying that I'd consumed 65% of the bottle (more than "one drink") prior to departure. I was like "oh, fuck."


Anyway [anyway!, aw, Jonathan Ames], that's fine. Luckily I'm very smooth/slick, or else I've developed quite a tolerance, as I still felt relatively sober when I arrived at THE HAWAIIAN TROPIC ZONE, where Lozo & Stef were already enjoying some pre-party drinks.

ii. In the Zone

If Lozo'd been standing up, I woulda come up behind him and tried to pull his pants off, just to set it up right away that we're all friends here who can jokingly remove each other's clothing if they want to. Unfortunately, he was sitting.

Sidenote: I'm not lying when I say I've been a little weird/agoraphobic lately ... I've been staying in lately and I felt like a Brave New Girl going out into the world, like Britney. I had a discussion with Shy, one of our strip-club compadres, re: What a Hot Album That Is, especially for working out. Anyway [hmmm ... ], I've gotta say that this place defo made me feel good about re-entering the world. I mean, Times Square, that's the center of New York City and the capital of the world! [Innermost circle of hell] I LOVE people, seriously.

So, I know what you're all wondering. What's Lozo like in 3-D?


That picture isn't from Sunday night, I just found it on Lozo's myspace.

Well, let me tell you this: he has a very nice shoulder. Also, he informed me within ten minutes of my arrival that his latest blog post, when he left home, had amassed 47 comments and would possibly exceed 50 that same evening.

Also, he watches sports both on his blog and in 3-D. Luckily for his sports-fan contingency, television monitors displaying various sporting events graced the walls of all our testosterone-oriented establishments, including the Hawaiian Tropic Zone. If naked ladies aren't enough for you, there is also The Yankees. So he didn't miss a thing, like Aeorosmith.

The uniforms at HTZ: bikini tops and tiny skirts. That made me uncomfortable for them, which was a bit disheartening re: how I'd handle the rest of the night.

Michele, a.k.a. RocketDyke, and her friend Shy, [Sounds like a stripper name kinda, yeah? Well, he's not a stripper, the strippers are later in this story] joined us at HTZ. Anyhow, Shy wasn't shy, he & Michele were both awesome. Before their arrival, I'd said: "No rocket scientist jokes, you guys," 'cause of her commenter-name, rocketdyke. I thought that was pretty clever. See, I was clearly sober.

Then, skies opened up, lights flashed, and girls in bikinis began parading on an above-bar catwalk: AMAZING apparently there's a nighty beauty pagaent at HTZ. We had a plethora of laughs at their expense--the only hot girl was #13. She was dumb though, she said "I'm lucky number 13!" which isn't true, 13 is an UNlucky number. All the girls had tattoos and bellybutton rings. So do I, but less slutty. Not that there's anything wrong with sluts, there totes isn't, I'm just explaining that I have a different "look," so to speak.

I enjoyed an overpriced glass of tonic water, topped off with a small splash of vodka.

iii. Some Conversation Topics I Remember:

1. Someone asked why Lozo used the name Lozo on his blog and I was like, "Because that's his last name," and everyone was like "NOOOO it isn't." It isn't, "LOZO" stands for Legend Of Zelda Online, actually. JK. It's his last name. One of the evening's finest running jokes was that 'Lozo' is short for Lozostien or Lozo'grady or something. Get it? Funny, right? I know. We're funny in 3-D too. I'm bad at recapping actual events in my life, can I make a list or something, or tell you what happened on the teevee? [UPDATE: This is now a list.]

2. I feel like I kept referencing The Office, 'cause I hadn't sat down & watched it 'til Saturday night, when Jim & Pam made me believe in love. It's such a funny show, seriously. Very smart.

3. Lozo wanted to know how to pronounce the word "obvs," and wanted to hear me use "probs'll" in conversation.

4. Someone asked: "Is this weird?" Personally, I didn't feel weird at all. I dunno, maybe I'm not as awkward as I think I am. I rarely feel weird. I AM weird. Feeling weird would just be repetitive.

5. Lozo told me he was 6'3: "I'm just throwin' it out there." And I was like "BACK OFF!" JK. That didn't happen.

Let me tell you a little something, grasshopper, about the internets. In the past four months, I've met two new people with whom I am quite funny. If you've ever had the pleasure of Riese & Carly's company, you know that we're really remarkably funny as a duo. That's one of our selling points, in fact, re: teevee show. Also, now it's been confirmed that Lozo & I are also funny. Not Riese & Carly funny, but funny. Also, I've just met him, things could get more or less funny.

Anyhow, this would be an advantage to meeting people through blogs -- you can usually gather from someone's internets self-presentations if their jokes are gonna jive with something intangible deep inside your snarky soul. So, there. That's one. Also; Stef is the only living soul who's had the pleasure of hanging out with both of the aforementioned match-ups, which makes her the luckiest person on the whole planet.

We hit up another bar to amp up the pre-stripper likkeration via shots of Maker's Mark. It was fierce. Then we headed to the West Side Highway, like a band of wild hooligans.

iv. She Can Pop It, She Can Lock It

Haviland's been to The Hustler Club "a few times" and apparently endorsed it to Stef. Therefore, because Haviland's my BFF and a Rising Star and an expert on half-naked ladies, we went to The Hustler Club which employs, apparently, only skinny perky-breasted girls w/significant quadriceps. They wear dangerously high heels and grind against patrons half-naked, hoping to sell dances, like Yankees game vendors, except they're vending their bodies. Most patrons were male, but there were a lot of lesbians on Sunday night, probs 'cause Sunday's no-cover night and lesbians are cheap. JK, they just don't like paying for naked girls to dance on them. Still though: fun, yay, girls, dancing, gymnastics, etc.

Good choice for "first time," howevs, probs too classy for me. Next time, I wanna go somewhere that doesn't try so hard: deviants doing crazy shit, trashy lunatics galore, chaos, yelling/screaming -- general grit and swarthy underside of life shit. I mean, if I'm gonna step into the Dark Side, I'd like it to be seriously Dark, not some cartoon plastic version of darkness. This red plastic ring on my new shelf [uncovered during furniture moveathon] was an engagement ring stand-in from T[]B[], not from Count Chocula, you know? I don't fuck around.

We enjoyed a variety of activities: arts & crafts, canoeing, lanyards, and hopscotch. In our downtime, we busied ourselves ascertaining which tits were real & which were fake. I kept asking people about Perky & Punctual, but no one knew what I was talking about. That was a little frustrating, but fine.

So: THESE GIRLS CAN DO GYMNASTICS. Dude, this is SERIOUS. Like, I wanna learn to do all of those tricks. In general, it seemed the girls were totes getting a good workout & that's good, very empowering. Seriously, I want very badly to go off into feminist theory, get all Carol Queeny or something right now, but I won't.

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vi. Are You a Player?

I kept thinking about that episode of The L Word[Episode 202, entitled "Lapdance"] in fact, when they take Tina to the strip club and Alice comments that Tina's stripper looks like Bette, which's funny, because obvs she doesn't: she's simply ambiguously ethnic w/long dark hair, like many females do. A cocktail waitress asks Shane if she's a "player," which's awesome. Happens to me all the time.

Anyhow, wouldn't it be awesome if strip clubs had a method of finding dancers who looked just like your ex? I mean, who doesn't want to re-visit getting their heart torn out, but in a safe and fun environment like a strip-club? Yeah?

"I am not getting a lap dance. If you buy me a lap dance, I will get super uncomfortable on 100 different levels/positions and make everyone feel weird. FYI. Don't do it. I beg of you." -Me

A lot of girls tried to sell us dances, though we looked much less monied than many other patrons. One smokin' hot girl Leiliani (that's what Lozo thinks her name was] wouldn't take no for an answer: she sat on Shy for a bit 'til she realised he wasn't gonna go for it, then hopped on Lozo--also uninvited, but he didn't seem to mind. I couldn't look--I just told Stef to relay via facial expressions what exactly was goin' down. I felt like it was a private moment beween Lozo and and Leliani and I didn't want to, you know, watch. Plus, she looked a little bit like my ex.

So, anyway, Lozo is deaf in one ear. If you add up all his disabilities, it's almost like Boxing Helena. It's okay. I love Twinkies.

She sorta talked like a cheerleader, like she was gonna be like "Hey! Ready to strip! LEETSS GO!!" She had a deep-ish voice. I like that in a woman. [Really, I do.] How do I know all this? Because she was forced upon me by my "friend" Lozo. I mean that in all possible permutations of the word "friend."

Leilianahaha shared the following tasty tidbits of information with me:
-"I love dancing for girls. Girls are easy to dance for, I love girls."
-"I love girls."
-"You have a really good body, I can tell."
-"I love girls."
-"Private rooms upstairs are [massive amount of money I don't have, totes tuned out] and [something else I can't afford] is [another massive amount]."

Stef said the look on my face was "priceless." Howevs, there was a price, luckily I wasn't the one paying it. There are def. worse things in the world than a beautiful half-naked girl grinding her ass between your legs with her tits in your face. But I just can't buy into it, and I've got this problem with all salespeople -- I'm always trying to engage the bill collectors in conversations about their lives. I'm like "Let's cut the crap and get real."

Anyhow, Michele told the strippers that we knew each other from blogs. Lozo & I decided it would be much cooler if we were twins who knew each other from the womb, but Raven stopped believing us when we disagreed over who was born first.

We closed the bar down, made out, and walked Lozo to the PATH train. It was all just kinda funny, yeah? It was funny. Maybe it was what I needed.

Topic: A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila

I figured this show was a strong sign of the apocalypse and the eventual destruction and complete moral bankruptcy of the entire country, guaranteed to be chock-full of bikini-clad trashwhores and bisexual stereotypes. I figured clearly I could remedy its evil by recapping it. The first ten minutes were so offensive to bisexuals I had to leave the room, Zoey and I were stunned. It was like watching a bunch of dumb elephants: who cares if the elephant is hot and bisexual, what does that have to do with me?

Made me want to die. I don't mean that, not literally, don't panic. I would never do that. I love life. For example; I love flowers, sunshine, and hugs. Also I like scratch-and-smell stickers. Do they still make those?

So though I missed the first half, I caught the second half of A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila at the gym on Wednesday (10-10) morning, because I was filled with multifarious energy of all emotional extremes and needed to run it out. Like walking it out, only faster, and worse for your knees.

Second half: way better than first ten minutes. Though she continued to say ridiculous things about men vs. women, everyone became so intensely ridiculous that the entire show reached farcical proportions possessing measurable entertainment value. Also, Tila's not as retarded as I thought. I could shoot the blonde girl who was like 'I don't get butch women, like, ew,' but I might never get that chance.

At the end, at the "big reveal" of her "big secret" (I'm A bisexual, as in "bisexual"=noun. WTF?), I found her choice of words alarming. "I've never told anyone this before ..." Except the producers of the show? Right?

The clips for the upcoming season -- AMAZING. This's going to be the best reality show of all time, and by that I mean the best/worst. Offensive, but then again, most television is offensive, it's just more innocuous.

Also: as one of the 60 gazillion lesbians/bisexuals who received the casting call for this show -- well. I'll talk about that later. They're tricky bastards, MTV. Also: Steffanie from Irvine, California? I have a feeling you're about to get kicked off the show. I want you to know you have a shot at love with me. JK. No one does, I'm an emotional basketcase obvs. JK. Ugh.

Topic: Natalie Needs a Job, Tara [D] Needs a Roommate.

My friends think that my blog is like craigslist sorta. The thing is, a lot more people read craigslist than my blog. In any event:

1. Natalie needs a job. She's very beautiful and can do gymnastics. Also, she has great breasts. No seriously, she's really smart, has a Masters in Policy and Philosophy or something something from the London School of Economics and a B.A in Psych and Women's Studies from The University of Michigan and a lot of experience in non-profits and also was a paralegal and worked at the gardening store. Her first job was at the Dunkin Donuts in Cleveland, Ohio, when she was 14. There she is! See:

2. Tara [D] needs a roommate. She's very beautiful and can do lots of "gymnastics." Also, she has great breasts. She sent me the ad they posted on craigslist, but it's a little long, and I like to be brief here on this blog, so I've summarized it for you, and also just quoted it:

-Looking for a girl to move in ASAP to a Warlem apartment and split a huge walk-through double w/curtain currently dividing the room, though a temp wall is "def an option." Spacious apartment, beautiful hard-wood floors, white walls, large kitchen, living room, bathroom. Tara's a "down-to-earth, friendly, easy-going girl" and her two "flat-mates" are "independent, intelligent, hard-working and pretty much rock!" They're grad students/young professionals in their twenties who like to "have a good time" but also "take care of business." $700/month with one month's rent security deposit, utilities are extra and split between everyone, they've got wireless and SERIOUSLY EVERY TV CHANNEL THAT EXISTS. The best part is that there's a liquor store that delivers, a good deli with an ATM, right by the 1-9 and Columbia, and you'd get to hang out with memememememe. She'd like to add that they are "LGBT and cat friendly." If it wasn't for the cats and the fact that I've already got an apartment, I'd live there, no joke. Seriously though, you'll meet a lot of hot & fun girls if you live there, it's like, instant social heaven. Also they take care of business.

These are two of your potential roommates, Tara and Vicky:

If this post really was about the Yankees, it would have an opening paragraph much like the one I just read in the NY Times while waiting for my latte at Starbucks: "Everything changes. Things fall apart." [holla, Yeats by way of Achebe!] "For 12 seasons, there was sunshine on his shoulders. But now there is darkness ..."