Showing posts with label autofun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label autofun. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Autofun 5.6 - But This is How the Revolution Begins

Wow, so. Life! Geez! What a trip! I mean it! Every minute is so much! Well, in any event, I wanted to touch base. I used to hate that phrase and I told my Mom she wasn't allowed to use it. I also hated it when she referred to my female friends as my "girlfriends." In retrospect, tht may've been partially due to my secret yearnings to make these ladies into my girlfriends, but actually no, it wasn't, though that would've made me unnaturally clever for my age.


Quote:
"But this is how the revolution begins: a few of us start chasing our dreams, breaking our old patterns, embracing what we love (and in the process discovering what we hate), daydreaming, questioning, acting outside the boundaries of routine and regularity. Others see us doing this, see people daring to be more creative and more adventurous, more generous and more ambitious than they had imagined possible, and join us one by one. Once enough people embrace this new way of living, a point of critical mass is finally reached, and society itself begins to change. From that moment, the world will start to undergo a transformation: from the frightening, alien place that it is, into a place ripe with possibility, where our lives are in our own hands and any dream can come true." (crime-think ex-workers collective: "there is a difference between life and survival. ")

Links:
+ What a bizarrely interesting question: I'm a Harvard Grad who can't hold a fast food job (and that's not all). The intriguing answer includes the following: "When I set out in my 20s I understood very little but I understood this much: Any educated white person in America is privileged, and no one is going to allow us to starve. We can't even starve if we want to. People keep inviting us to dinner to talk about Robert Lowell." (@salon)

+ I think I'm gonna do a Top Ten on this topic very soon: At The Morning News, "Devotees of periodicals refuse to give up on their first love. Our READERS AND WRITERS extol their favorite ink-based publications."

+ I have SO MANY FEELINGS about this article: Creative Minds - The Links Between Mental Illness and Creativity (it also goes into comedians w/r/t depression). One of them is "Am I crazy?" and another one is "Were they NOT crazy?" and another one is "reading this makes me feel like everyone and everything is crazy" and another one is "Tinkerbell, eat your pudding."
"It can be difficult for people to reconcile mental illness with the idea that traits may not be disabling. While people accept that there are health benefits to anxiety, they are more wary of schizophrenia and manic depression. There is now a feeling that these traits have survived because they have some adaptive value. To be mildly manic depressive or mildly schizophrenic brings a flexibility of thought, an openness, and risk-taking behaviour, which does have some adaptive value in creativity. The price paid for having those traits is that some will have mental illness."
+ Emily Gould reminds me of me a lot, and so this is from a few weeks ago, I guess that's how long I've been waiting to share it with you: Spring Rude Awakening (@emily magazine)

+ Me & Green read some YA Lesbian Novels and talked about them on Autostraddle you should read it it's really good, we're gonna read more and talk about more too

+ The Future Is Wow (@good)

+ The Glory Days of Online Sex : "I went to chat rooms looking for sex, which is what everyone seemed to be looking for. And the anonymous nature of chat rooms allowed people to completely blow off any pretense of reality. Why tell people you’re 40 when you can tell them you’re 38?" (@the blowfish blog)

+ I put in a request with John Moon at Achtung Baby! to do Night Truths by Stephen Dunn and he did it (@achtung baby)

+ Lady Gaga's Looks: A Retrospective (@missbehave)

+ Why are we always the ones having conspiracies and agendas ? Are we too evil for straightforward smear campaigns, like the one the world consistently wages upon us?

+ It's Get Me Off This Rock Week at Gizmodo! "So get ready for the present and the future of space trips, the design and the function, the science and the fiction, the technology genius and the courage, the quest for intergalactic neighbours, and all the spectacular views ..."

+ Our moral judgement: not so good after all. We all have stumbling blocks on the road to self-righteousness. (@nytimes)

+ Ten Porn Stars gone legit .(@nymag)


----

Pirates vs. Ninjas: An Insomnia Poem

-dedicated to team autostraddle interns, who are all autowinners-

our minds buzz like bees minds

is a line from a poem by jim harrison
that i can't get out of my head
this is why i can't get into bed
my shoulder's lead

it's dreams vs. dreams, no game
my dog is silent and it's a shame
i'd wanted to bring her
fame

the first time i wrote an insomnia poem
it was about candy
i wanted it to be really bad
and make my puppy very sad
and inspire my mom to wrap some food using glad.
(that's a brand of saran wrap
wrap it up, rap it out.)

we come demanding
cultural clout

I have a million unmarked dreams in a briefcase
I'll meet you on the corner, bring the girl and

if the internet was someone's boyfriend
i feel like sometimes he'd be a pretty shitty boyfriend

I was trying to remember the first time I said it
and if I meant it,
about changing the world
and i remembered that i did

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Sunday Funday Happy Day! Monday Tuesday Happy Day!

Look! Auto-Fun! One of you told me it was better than nothing and I'm hoping at least 3-4 of you agree with that. also your responses to my last post made me feel totally better about life and everything srsly.

I started writing this Sunday Top Ten last week about my Top Ten Non-Emotional Scars, inspired by last Friday night (March 20th), when got drunkity-drunk-drunk and banged my eye on the edge of a door which reminded me of the last time that happened in 2003. But then when I was writing it I started to think that might be gross. What do you think? Don't tell me about your own non-emotional scars, I will need you to save that feedback for the Top Ten if it ever happens. Sidenote; besides a post-H&R-Block-Incident glass o'wine, I haven't drank since the eye-bang, yet I continue to run into walls, doors, and other humans.

Option Two: this Wednesday, while most professional lesbians will be enjoying the sun & surf & drunk-girls-in-cargo shorts at Dinah Shore, I will be going to OHIO! with my dearest Natalie. She's from the fine suburbs of Cleveland. Why? Because I'm a good friend. Anyhow, I was also thinking I could do a Top Ten Most Amazing Things About Ohio. Then I remembered how Crystal thought Ohio was in Michigan and I don't want to alienate my international readers any more than I already do. But who doesn't want to talk about The Beast and The Raptor, you know? RAWR!!!

Q: What should I write a Tuesday Top Eight about?
1. Top Ten Non-Emotional Scars
2. Top Ten OH! OHIO!
3. Both
4. Neither.

The future is in your hands, grasshopper(s).

Soooooo Autostraddle !! FYI, here's what's been going on there this week:
1) Stef's interview with Hesta Prynn of Northern State on her new solo project, in which they start a riot grrrl band called Tyra Mail.
2) Weekly TV Time With Carlytron : Gossip Girl, Battlestar, How I Met Your Mother and MORE!
3) New Photoblogger Robin asks "Queers Shot Weddings Here, Don't They ?"
4) Crystal Loves Kangaroos ! Meet our resident Aussie!
5) Green-on-Meghan O'Malley - interview with the amazing lady behind Queering Domesticity !

Also we're working on making a more easily navigated L Word Recap/Info repository, check out the hottest coolest gallery of L Word cast photos on the entire interwebs (always in progress, obvs), and we now have a fan page on Facebook! Become a fan now !

Quote: "And we will be ready, at the end of every day will be ready, will not say no to anything, will try to stay awake while everyone is sleeping, will not sleep, will make the shoes with the elves, will breathe deeply all the time, breathe in all the air full of glass and nails and blood, will breathe it and drink it, so rich, so when it comes we will not be angry, will be content, tired enough to go, gratefully, will shake hands with everyone, bye, bye, and then pack a bag, some snacks, and go to the volcano!" (Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius)

Links:
1. The Celebrity Twitter Ecosystem: "It seems that — just like the rest of us — celebrities enjoy hearing about other celebrities, and Twitter lets them participate in a giant cross-disciplinary mash-up of a conversation." (@the new york times)
2. All My Heroes: fourfour's "mere administration" is our vacation. That rhymed, right? Yeah? Go team!
3. The Web at 20: Not Old Enough to Drink, Yet Drives Us to It: on the 20 worst things about the internet. Twitter and Julia Allison top the list. Oversharing ranks. I'd just say that it prevents sleep by making communication with other "humans" instantly possible at any time. (@gawker)
4. This guy explains why the claims that Internet addiction should be considered a mental disorder are stupid. (@psychology today)
5. These Books Won't Change Your Life: "The phrase implies some instant metamorphic shift in the essence of our character: not just a new opinion on whether something is right or wrong, but a shift in the very fundamentals of our being. The sort of change where you're forced to admit at parties: "Well, before I read Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, I was just plain Steve. Afterwards I'm afraid I found myself to be Stevian, the Magician of the Night." (@the guardianuk)
6. An argument against Twilight, which I still haven't read, but decided it was misogynistic after reading an article in bitch magazine, which might not be the fairest way to judge. (@london review of books)
7. Mythbusting the MTA Fare Hikes (@east village idiot)
8. What a Girl Wants: Some Lesbians Enjoy Gay Male Porn (@jezebel)
9. What is narcissistic personality disorder, and why does everyone seem to have it? (@slate magazine)

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Friday Autofunday 2-27-2009

Autoportrait 2.0 is in the works. Meanwhile, let's have some cheap sharp fun. What kind of fun? Auto-fun. Everyone likes fun, if you don't like fun then next time we wanna have massive amounts of kickass fun, we won't invite you. This isn't fun so far? Well I'm listening to the Classical Masterpieces Channel on Time Warner Cable. These channels are TW's hidden gift. What if I was like, bought out by someone you knew I hated and I had to promote them all the time. If one day I woke up and was like "Top Ten Ideas for Max's Baby Shower (so excitant for Season Six)!!!"

Firstly some bizness. I've decided to change the book club book because I realize I'll never read our current selection because it is too heavy to carry in my bag and I can't afford to give one away and I like to give one away and have a contest. So I picked another book. Because I want to read it and hopefully you will want to read it too? Susan Sontag's journals, Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963. Okays. I'll give you lots of time 'cause I just started The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I'll talk more about Reborn in the next "Stuff I've Been Reading." Don't be mad promise.

Quote: "My eyes are vague blue, like the sky, and change all the time; they are indiscriminate but fleeting, entirely specific and disloyal, so that no one trusts me. I am always looking away. Or again at something after it has given me up. It makes me restless and that makes me unhappy, but I cannot keep them still." (from Frank O'Hara's "Meditations on an Emergency" from poetry magazine via achtung baby !)

Links:
[let me just say these are real gems.]
- I am so excited to bring you the auto-fun today, I'm doing it so I can make you read this article in The New York Times about living with monkeys !
- Tao Lin, my financial idol, shares his secrets at UrbanElitist . E.g., "I have had part-time jobs almost continuously since college (I am 25), I think, except for maybe one year when I shoplifted batteries and Moleskine journals to sell on eBay ... since [selling my next novel's royalties] my money has come from selling pre-orders and lifetime subscriptions to books ... Christmas and Chinese New Year’s money from my parents and brother; and selling drawings, drafts of things, and various “piles of shit” from my room on eBay."
- AM Homes has a new short story at The New Yorker: "Brother on Sunday. "
- Emily Gould has a dysfunctional relationship with her old laptop. MIT's Sherry Turkle has "spent several decades studying and writing about the way mechanical objects construct and complete the self." This is really interesting stuff, you must read it. It even quotes a Meghan Daum essay I once used to teach middle school kids in rural Northern Michigan to write personal essays. The Technology Review.
- Firstly - there is a magazine called Obit. Secondly, read this: Laughing Past the Grave .
- The Unrecognizable Internet of 1996 at Slate: "People still refer to the new medium by its full name—the World Wide Web—and although you sometimes find interesting stuff here, you're constantly struck by how little there is to do. You rarely linger on the Web; your computer takes about 30 seconds to load each page, and, hey, you're paying for the Internet by the hour. Plus, you're tying up the phone line. Ten minutes after you log in, you shut down your modem. You've got other things to do—after all, a new episode of Seinfeld is on."
- Leonardo da Vinci was a serious procrastinator too .
- NPR's intriguing essay on "the art of language, Obama style ."
- This is the part where it officially becomes cool. I think it's the counter-backlash. Yoko Ono's 25 Things .

Last week I became briefly addicted to hunting for celebrity photographs. I have no idea why, this has never been a thing that interested me before, nor could I refer to this compulsion as anything resembling "interesting." I was not being intellectually or creatively stimulated, I was not interacting with other people, I was not learning anything, or accomplishing any of my daily or life goals. Yet. One more page. One more ELLEN PAGE! Anyhow way too late in the game I discovered fanpop which incited a whole new round of gazing at celebrity photos when I had other things to do.

I've been off the sauce for four days now, I'm going to go back to Trivia Machine as my insomnia obsession. Like if I was advertising an insomnia obsession I'd say: "You know those things you do when your brain's too quick for sleep and too slow to be awake?" So. I have some holdovers from Autowin Surrenders week obsession that I will share with you, and therefore I'll feel accomplished and therefore not feel guilty anymore. See how we help each other?

"Here, let me help you, then you me, otherwise we'll die." (Stephen Dunn)

Shanyn Sossamon Good Tie Thursday
+

Shanyn Sossamon -Whoodie Wednesday
+

Nelly Furtado - Good Tie Thursday
++

Liv Tyler - Boyshorts Tuesday
+

Drew Barrymore - Finnneeee Friday
+

Ellen Page - Whoodie Wednesday
+

Angelina Jolie Saturday & Sunday
++

My favorite hoodie of all time - Shane for Whoodie Wednesday Wax
++

DJ Carlytron for Good Tie Tuesday
++
TTYS!

Friday, February 20, 2009

Friday AutoFun Day - 2.20.09

Guess what I won a contest! That's right, memememememe! Why did I win? Because my blog is better than all the other blogs in the world, except for Margaret & Helen. No, because of YOU! That's right, youyouyouyou! Thank you for voting once, twice, three times a lady. Thanks to my guest-poster Grace the Spot, who managed to win at least one legislative branch of the lesbian empire with Humor, and to the other two personal blog people Peaches & Coconuts and A Brown Girl Gone Gay, and congratulations to all the winners: Lesbian Dad, Sugarbutch, Dorothy Surrenders, Pam's House Blend, and Just Eat Your Cupcake. 

I am very excitant to have won a contest, next stop The Nobel Peace Prize, which has always been a dream of mine. Krista asked, "What do you get? A golden vagina?" and imagining that trophy was glorious. All in all, I was the blogger with the second-highest per-category votes of anyone so that was pretty cool. Basically to make a long story short, the only way I can win any contest in the future is if we off Dorothy. I don't even know what showmance means. Ilene Chaiken, don't steal that idea.

Quote: "So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old brokendown river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, all that road going, all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the evening-star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks in the west and folds the last and final shore in, and nobody, just nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Neal Cassady, I even think of Old Neal Cassady the father we never found, I think of Neal Cassady, I think of Neal Cassady." (Jack Kerouac, On the Road)

Links:
- Just like we said when we made our Autowin 'zine : The Zine Lives - the 90s aren't as dead as you think .
- I Look So Alone, I Get Obvious
- He fairs much better than Sarah Pain - Diagramming the Obama Sentence .
- Joaquin Phoenix is not alone - Seven Great Talk Show Trainwrecks @The Daily Beast.
- Twentysomethings love Barack and Michelle -- "the millenials' dream couple."
- Jessie Spano - Friend or Foe ?
- From The New Scientist -- students do better when they listened to a podcast of the lecture rather than attending.
- I don't know why I want to see this, I just know that I do . Maybe I can babysit my way to Sesame Street.
- Commentary for the DVD of ""He's Just Not That Into You" from the writer of "The Wire" David Simon, at McSweeney's
- Read this and tell me if you thought it was bizarre that the author never once questioned the capatlist value system being played out by the protagonist.
- "A Note " for Facebook on CollegeHumor: "1. I Hate Facebook Notes."



insomnia poem #24

do you remember that part
in "the breakfast club"
lens-shooting circles
The Brain says "It's like you're outside
looking in on yourself,"
He says that or something like that.

He has a lisp or something.
Somewhere between tongue and teeth
a word got lost, a heart got tossed
and now who's the boss

I was outside looking in on myself
shooting circle-shaped stars
my hand in hers,
the way we move forward
the way we never change.

The gun and the bird
what will it be like now
without the word

Monday, February 09, 2009

Monday Monday Auto-FunDay 2.9.2009

The next Top Ten will be related somewhat to Girl Scout Badges. Seriously. Natalie and I had a big talk about it, we have lots of big talks 'cause our heads are overstuffed with nonsense. So I ordered the book from ebay and now I'm waiting. Clearly I'm very comfortable at the edge of my seat. That's where everything good is always just about to happen.

This is your last day to nominate me for The Lezzies. Haven't I been so lovely and not aggressive about it? Yes, yes I have. So please do nominate Autowin and/or Autostraddle for Best Personal Blog (or humor? or culture and entertainment? or the best overall?) and be sure to verify your vote by email. Don't stress if you don't know who to nominate for every category, just do the ones you know.
Quote: "I believed in a good home, in sane and sound living, in good food, good times, work, faith, and hope. I have allways believed in these things. It was with some amazement that I realized I was one of the few people in the world who really believed n these things without going arond making a dull middleclass philosophy out of it. I was suddeny left with nothing in my hands but a handful of crazy stars." (Jack Kerouac, On the Road: The Original Scroll)

Links:
  • Autostraddle:

Friday, January 30, 2009

Automatic Fun - January 30th 2009

Around late February/Mid-March of 2008 I was informed three times in one week that I hadn't written an actual Sunday Top Ten in months, that I hadn't written anything good since 2007, and that I was clearly just "phoning it in." I wonder when that'll happen this week. This blog is weird. I still keep writing it like I'm talking to 20 people, but I'm not, I guess, not anymore. I'm talking to a lot more people. But I don't know how to do that. So hey, you, and hey you x 19, you look beautiful today, I love all your feelings.

Quote: "She could remember being a child. It was a child's game in a child's afternoon, before time or distance were factors. When you were told you couldn't move or couldn't see. And for those moments you are paralyzed or blind. You freeze in plae. You don't move. You feel that you have been there for years. It does not occur to you that you can move. It does not occur to you that you can break the rules. The world is a collection of absolutes and spells. You know words have a power. You are entranced. The world is a soft blue." (Kate Braverman, Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta)

Links
+ Curve reports that GLAAD has announced its nominees for annual Media Awards - by default, The L Word is nominated, Suzie Orman's snagged a big prize and Tyra Banks is somehow involved.
+ True Love, a poem in The New Yorker by Barry Gifford.
+ I think the fact that this New York Times article exists is kinda funny. It's about the Burger King Whopper Sacrifice Campaign on Facebook and it's titled titled "Too Many Online Friends? Time to Delete."
+ The Rumpus Interview with Margaret Cho
+ Jossip has The Wheels on The Blog Go Tweet-Tweet-Tweet: The Hyper-Expanse of the Microblog: "In the past two weeks, Twitter has gone from a cute little thingamajig you read about every once in awhile, to something that everyone's doing."
+ Desire
+ This Movie looks incredible, I must see it.
+ The New College Rankings - based on employability of graduates, at The Daily Beast.

Insomnia Poem

I think I need
more beauty in my life
she said turning palm open
for something else

like a shot, wife of lot
you've got salt on your back
your eyes are black
i've got an attack
every time i fly
i'm enchanted by the descent,
the small buildings getting bigger
i mean that it gets me every time.

toes on unwashed sheets
and winter gets worse every year
manic planet, manic panic
we used to paint our hair
with magic markers.
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Sunday [Auto] Fun Day - 01.25.09.


Hey dudes! Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Are you ready to take the plunge? I haven't edited our video yet, or written a Sunday Top Ten, or done laundry, or flown back to New York City. But one of those things will happen tomorrow, as will The L Word recap. BTW, if you like/tolerate/witness The L Word you should go watch Lezberado, it's a vlog-style show that Showtime produces online and I have it embedded on AutoStraddle. There was this other girl who did it, and now that girl isn't doing it so now I am and somehow over 500,000 people have watched it this weekend, it's the #1 most viewed People & Blogs Video this week and #24 most viewed overall, which's cool/weirdo. So if you like/loathe the show check it out.

I get back to NYC tonight (sunday night). It's always hard to come back from being away. It makes me think of always being away last year and then of a whole lifetime being away. I'm listening to "Swimming Pool," it's perfect 'cause part of what makes West Hollywood kinda dreamy is all those big boxy turquoise tanks of perfect artificial starshiney glow.

ZOMG! I just had the best idea ever. At the end of Season Six, we should have a roundtable discussion -- maybe in a podcast format, like they do at the Grace Paley Center for Media or whathaveyou -- like with all the people who've hated/pretended to endure the show for the last six years -- people who've been recapping for at least three years (i guess?) -- to talk about how it's changed our worlds and how the online community has shaped the show. Me, Dorothy Snarker, Scribegrrl, KC&Elka ... who else?

quotes: "She'd never understand me because I like too many things and get all confused and hungup running from one thing to another 'til I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anyone except my own confusion." (Jack Kerouac, On the Road)

links:
- You guys, Ilene Chaiken is the decider. She's not gonna tell you about her decisions because she doesn't want anyone to tell her that there are no weapons of mass destruction and it's a stupid war.
- I just discovered Proof, a new section of The New York Times investigating "alcohol and American life." I honestly find this subject fascinating -- not in a "hey bro i love to get wasted" kind of way, but in a genuinely sociologically and culturally compelling way. You should check it out.
- What's the word (blogstar?) for when a kid from your high school and your favorite blogger/recapper watch a movie together and write about it? "Gabe and Rich Watch a Movie: Goodbye Uncle Tom."
- The Planet Podcast for Episode 601: A Long Night's Journey Into Day.
- A Change Web Designers Can Believe In: Viget Inspire looks at the new Whitehouse.Gov, with a look back on Clinton's '96 page and after.
- Real Men don't like spas, says the Times Online UK.
- Obama's Inaugural Realism Promises Great Things makes my point about realism & pessimism being helpful attitudes, numbskulls!
-More Letters From "Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country: Kids' Letters to President Obama" at McSweeny's.
-Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story - n+1 reviews The Complete Centerfolds.
-My number one fear: the end of solitude. "Technology is taking away our privacy and our concentration, but it is also taking away our ability to be alone."
-Twitter Sexuality by Violet Blue at The San Francisco Gate.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

automatic fun of the day : 1.14.09

Firstly a BIG thank you to all y'all who voted Autowin for the 2008 Webblog Contest, especially if you voted a lot or recruited voters. Thanks to your efforts, I could've won the contest, but I didn't, 'cause it was rigged, and everyone else cheated and had an alliance for the tribal council. Unfortunately they were not caught and therefore also not punished, but I've snagged 5th place, !!!!, making me WAY cooler than John Kerry. No seriously, thank you. I am lucky to have such lovely people in my cyber-life. As your reward I promise to never make you vote for me for anything ever again. I can't control Tinkerbell, but you know.

Secondly!!! Check me out on Alexi's Closet on AfterEllen right now! This week I provide valuable advice to fashion maven Alexi about accessories and other important things. By that I mean I talk crazy while she tries to actually do her show.

quote:"I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money. I want to fish as deep down as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that once that far down, everyone will understand because they are the same that far down." (Jack Kerouac)


Link Party
- New Autostraddle: L Word Episode 601 in Twitter.
- Even with 140 character limits, The Twitterari Say Far Too Much.
- Cory Doctorow offfers really solid advice for anyone who battles the internet's infringement on daily productivity in writing in the age of distraction, @locus.
- We begin the worst-president-ever retrospective with Slate's Top 25 Bushisms of all time. 1. "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
- Not Your Father's Censorship.: "with everything digitized, new communication technologies have led to a global proliferation of cencorship agents, methods and rationales."
- Clea Duvall's last blog on Funny or Die: Yes We Can, But Should We? "I should be sad right now ... but there's an excitement in the air ..."
- Turn yourself into an Obama icon. This will probably be saturated and annoying within 24 hours.
- New York Mag's aggressively-hip "New" issue includes new "lit-boy" Tao Lin by my hero Sam Anderson.
- The Advocate reports -- in '96, Obama went on the record supporting same-sex marriage.
- Hot Blogger 2009 Photos (an Urlesque Exclusive). Check me out, check out av flox..
- Dirty Secrets of College Admissions at the daily beast and salon's retort at The Perils of Privilege.

insomnia poem #22
featuring excerpts from riese's actual diary, 2006.


i. I keep having these dreams where
I look like Mary Louise Parker.

ii. I want out of myself
I want to be mature but I also want
permission to suck.

ii. I have never been so close to someone
so utterly disturbed.
--
She was normal today.
Maybe her therapist told her
to stop being such a cunt.

iii.
Dearest Natalie,
I stood next to someone wearing
your perfume
and it made me miss you.

v. So I need to write something
to save my soul.

vi. I look like Mary Louise Parker,
and everything is sun & grass.

Friday, January 09, 2009

Eight Reasons Why Not & Brain Liveblog: The Stars Kept Marching,

I feel like I've become 50% human, 20% dancer and 30% sodium. I've been thinking about opening a vein. I've decided to talk crazy because this week a much-larger-than usual percentage of my readers have never read this blog before, which's funny. Do you like it? It's weird, kinda. There's no news here. You'll have to check out the other nine for anything remotely relevant. It's like a pageant. Today is Day SIX: SWIMWEAR Bikini Day. Whenever I say the word "blog" I envision: 1. a swamp, 2. a purse. [1. Sometimes instead of talking myself through a brief period of anxiety or nervousness, I just have some vodka. It's just that it's quicker.] I don't know why I keep trying to turn numbers into humans. I'm eating sodium as we speak. Canned soup contains sodium. Things have been happening very quickly lately.

Are you reading the Book Club Book yet? Just asking, not nagging. Mommy's not mad. We'll discuss after Valentine's Day. You can download it online for free, or buy it, 'cause it's hot and comes with condoms. [2. If you don't read books regularly, I am judging you. I mean I'm so not judgmental about most things. Well -- it's not that I judge negatively necessarily, it's just that it's something I will absolutely take into account when I file your final overall evaluation (the same kinds all humans make of other humans)] [3. Today at the gym I stayed an extra ten minutes on the elliptical to finish watching True Life: I'm Moving to Vegas.]

I read some good stuff today. Wanna read it? Ok:
- Diary of a Self-Help Dropout: Flirting with the 4-Hour Workweek - the freelancer's time management quandry: "My days are like eBay shipments: a few tangible things and a whole lot of packing peanuts. I obviously need help being the boss of me." (@wired)
- If the New York Times dies, does news die? (@venture beat)
- Look! An awesome AfterEllen shout-out for voting Autowin! and Grace the Spot ! and others! Go look.
- The Gayest. Real World. Ever. (@queerty) and also on that topic is the excellent Getalong Gang (@fourfour)
- This is really fascinating, you should really read it, one of the most interesting things I've read in months, so it's gonna be the last one - Letter from Japan: I Heart Novels (@the new yorker)

I asked my brother if he notices every time it's 11:14 and he said no. I don't get it, that's all I can think about it for two minutes every day, and those are two particular minutes that I am ALWAYS awake for, since I rarely go to bed before midnight or wake up after 11.

Isn't it weird how mean everyone is to everyone about what time you wake up? It's like if you say "I woke up at one," it's so shameful. In our arbitrary virtually "real" world, we hold onto these small excuses to evaluate the fuzzy fuzzy faces of our friends.

[4.I am fascinated by the extensive facebook photo archives of complete strangers. I am fascinated by a world that encourages and enforces such imagery as inherently public forum fodder. I do it too. Which is also fascinating.]

I had a friend who used to write song lyrics in her notebook all day, like to Tori Amos and Grateful Dead and Indigo Girls songs, just transcribe the memorized lyrics from her brain to the page I guess. I liked to doodle dark hard lines.

[5. When I was super young, before I understood death really, I was sometimes shamefully jealous that Anne Frank got her's published.]

[6: I leave water bottles everywhere.]

[7: I wash utensils last, I don't like how the metal gets hot and burns my hands, because in all other circumstances my hands are immune to heat and burning, I'm not into kryptonite.]

[8: I know we're all supposed to be cutting back on lattes and magazines, but those are the only two things I really need.]

++
Eric Mathew made this for me, do you like it?


He told me it's gonna be on a billboard in Times Square tomorrow. I wish I could write a "fuck you penguin" for this, but fuck you penguin is a much better writer than I will ever be. I'd like to become an authority on the internet so that I can declare "fuck you penguin is the best blog to ever exist on the interwebs, and the best possible usage of the technologies of the world wide web" and be quoted somewhere, like in the header. Also cat, just because you've got your paws all over my favorite fucking machine in the whole entire world and one of the machine's components is also a pun does NOT mean I can just take a fucking Sudafed and get over it, yes I'm aware it's non-drowsy, but the thing is -- because I know that you shed! It looks cute now but will not look cute when you shed all over my favorite fucking machine, don't read my email. vote, like the cute cat says.
++

I just wanted a grilled cheese sandwich so I made one and now I'm eating it. It's midnight.

OK I'm gonna ask you guys a question.
If you're reading this,
you should answer.
You don't have to put your name. It'd just be interesting.


Q: In one sentence or less, what is one thing you are absolutely sure that you are genuinely good at?

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

The Little Blog That Could (with visual aid) & Auto-Fun. 01.07

UPDATE 1-8-09: I know my prospects are dim, comrades. But we cannot give up! If I give up, we all give up! It'll be anarchy! Firstly, I'm aiming for fifth place, and Gay Patriot is hot on my trail in the sixth spot, and with Tammy Bruce telling her readers to vote GP, I could fall behind in an instant. Secondly, I wouldn't continue to remind you that we're talking Vote or Die here if I wasn't aware that there are enough people reading this right now to vault me out of Loserville and into the upper tier of this competition. Just one little click. Every day. Is all it takes. Promise. To those of you that are voting, and have been voting, I love you more. Like so much! And am grateful, flattered, and pumped up. RUDY! RU-DY! RU-DY!
The 2008 Weblog AwardsSoooo you all look beautiful today. Really. Your shoulders look nice, your quadriceps appear significant, your skin's shining shining shining like a roman candle. Whatcha gonna do today? Yeah? Me too, actually I wash my hair every day, thus the gloss & shine. Oh! Just remembered something -- I'm a finalist for "Best LGBT Blog" in the 2008 Webblog Awards contest, you should TOTALLY vote. In fact, let's make this about both of us together -- every time I wash my hair (every day) -- you vote.

See, it's weird, right? Little ol' 3.5-posts-a-week memememe, nominated for the largest and most prestigious blog contest in the world. It's clearly a fluke, maybe they didn't realize it was my Mom who nominated me, not an unbiased source. Anyhow, it's the biggest deal of anything I've asked you to vote for (not that the other things weren't also awesome 'cause they were), I'm actually being really genuine & earnest right now -- hopefully you're not exhausted from the Hot Blogger Calendar Contest.

Readers, I am shedding my cool trashwhore exterior (copyright crystal 2008) and self-deprecating "who me?" attitude and asking you to shamelessly and aggressively make everyone you know -- even people who can't read, people who voted Yes on 8 and people who have sex with papayas -- to vote for me, every day. Why? Because of RUDY.

Have you ever heard the story of the Little Engine that Could? If you haven't, I don't know what's wrong with you, you should read it. Unless you can't read, then you should probs leave this site and go to youtube, the commenters there can't read either. No offense against people who can't read anyhow For the rest of you I am asking you to think of me as The Little Engine That Could. I've got no chance of winning this thing, but I'm looking to stay in 5th place, at least, which'll require tremendous support. That's a cool place to be.

Remember that time I told you what I like to eat? That was such a good post.

I'm not sure how Technorati authority ratings are determined, but your blog's popularity and relevance is measured by this score. Maybe if I understood it, I'd have a higher rating. Hm anyway. Mine is 89. I mention this to let you know how I measure up to the competition and how many times you must vote (every day). If you don't I'm never blogging again and I'm taking the goldfish. JK I will blog again, but under protest. I wouldn't just leave y'all. I'm nice. Basically as Grace said, underdogs can bite!

Here's how the contest is already not in my court -- these numbers represent how popular we are according to the secret Technorati formula. Basically Towleroad has a bajillion readers for every ONE reader I have.

Pam's House Blend: 1,192 Towleroad: 1,178
Joe.My.God: 653 The Bilercio Project: 606
Gay Patriot: 304 Susie Bright's Journal: 244
Tammy Bruce: 182 TransGriot: 144
Me: 89 Blabbeando : 86
To better illustrate this using train engine imagery I have created a graph for you. As you can see fame & fortune (the goal) is slightly cut off because it is so out of reach. Actually the fame part is less important anyhow, you can't feed sponsor children with fame.


Why should you vote for me? You probs shouldn't, those blogs are popular and well-established for a reason, possibly 'cause they don't write posts like this one, but instead post 10 times a day about Important Things that People Care About. I'm going to talk about freedom. (FYI, just some of the things I've written that are better than this blog post, if you're still needing to be convinced: this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this , etc.)

I'm not trying to take away anyone else's votes, I'm trying to create new voters. Like moveon.org, but self-centered.

However. I would like to just MENTION that Gay Patriot is "home to the millions of gays and lesbians who support President Bush," which is fine, to each his own. I'm just letting you know, 'cause I thought it was about football.

You should vote for me 'cause I'm the only memememe (as in, I never provide actual news & commentary, I work alone sans staff, and I do nothing useful) on that list, and that's kinda kickass. I do a lot of shit here and on autostraddle and on the youtube channel. It's like I can't give up the dream of being editor of a magazine even if I haven't actually been hired to that position. I'm just another weirdo quasi-writer in my underwear writing down my desperately! important! feelings! and painfully relevant perspective. The whole blogging "thing" started with the idea of an online diary, and that's what this is. I've been reading the original scroll of On the Road, it might be making me crazy. but in a good way.

I can be like: rawr!

I haven't done auto-fun in a while, my computer's at the apple store so I don't have my bookmarks. I don't remember where anything like, is.

auto-fun - first january edition

quote: "I know the use of fiction in a world of hard truth, the way fiction can be a harder piece of truth. The story of what happened, or what did not happen but should have -- that story can become a curtain drawn shut, a piece of insulation, a disguise, a razor, a tool that changes every time it us used and sometimes becomes something other than we intended. The story becomes the thing needed." (Dorothy Allison, Two or Three Things I Know For Sure)

links:
- This New York Magazine reviewer gives the best explanation I've heard of snark.. The Elegant Review one-ups him - Snark & Missing the Point.
- Poem from The New Yorker, alien vs. predator. : "Praise this world, Rilke says, the jerk. We'd stay up all night. Every angel's berserk.".
- As I said: Why College is a Waste of Money. (at the daily beast)
- A brilliant little dity about dead magazines at the grim repears' Magazine Death Pool.
- I think for serious this time. Ann Coulter = devil. Slams Michelle Obama in New Book, says huffpo.
- Digital guru Clay Shirkey is interviewed at the guardian.uk about the future of media. A lot of "great misfortunes," etc.
-Jessica Crispin at The Smart Set: "Addiction memoirs are like opinions on how to cure addiction: Everybody's got one."
-Breaking up on Facebook - Jamie Reidy at The Huffington Post.
-It's like I told them what I dream of and then they gave it to me: Drinking with Rachel Maddow, a video at New York Magazine.
-The 15 Most kickass women on television, at CliqueClack. C.J.!
- Also! Please vote for:
Fuck You Penguin. (pet)
Mombian (large)
Grace the Spot (new)
The Big Lead (sports)
Blue Girl Red State (best diarist)
Communist Dance Party (hidden gem)
DEFAMER AUSTRALIA (best blog ever -- i mean best gossip blog)

I can't write an insomnia poem today, 'cause my head is full of Jack Kerouac and I'm so vulnernble! but here's someone else's:

Our minds buzz like bees
but not the bees' minds.
It's just wings not heart
they say, moving to another flower.

(Jim Harrison)

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Automatic Funday! 12.11.2008

Firstly, Mystery Auto- Store Special Surprise Ad Campaign #1: I present an animated gif[t] ... What is it? A bird? A plane? A stocking stuffer? Something fabulous? Something cheap, fast, and good? Something that might be available for sale in the Auto-Store next week? I dunno ...

Photobucket

The good thing about having a backlist of blog posts to write/make is that I'm not having to consciously brainstorm all the time. The downside is all these ideas in my head rubbing up against each other before I have time to get them out! My head is full, most of it is just packing peanuts, and I wish I could swap things out onto an external hard drive. I bet I could learn this at Welding School. I need to get serious about life right now you guys. I've been really into coloring lately. I colored a picture for Alexi's Vlog and then I just colored a picture to mail to Krista with The L Word. She gets a free DVD set for texting me to say her Shane dreams had returned "with a vengeance" and for listening to me cry a lot in 1998 and 2004.

Asher just invented and/or told me about this thing, it's called blogstar. She says: *apparently, a blogstar is made when two blogs i read completely separate from one another become united in the lovely little world of the interwebs." This happened today for her when she saw me on Achtung Baby!, a blog that I don't know how to describe, because the way it feels to me is like my oldest friend is sitting next to me in the park like "hey, read this," "hey, listen to this," and I'm like "ok," 'cause it's something I already know I'll like, or already do like, and if not, it's something I will like really soon. Or if I'm not at the park, he'll just like mail me a mix tape or whatever. That's what it's like for me. You know? Anyhow you should read it, or whatever it is you kids do these days.

I'm trying to think of any blogstar moments I've experienced with blogger co-breeding. Many claimed blogstarred when Lozo and I first appeared on one another's blogs.

Probs when I realized that Emily Gould was the girl that wrote heartbreak soup with her friend Ruth, but that's not a blogstar 'cause it's just realizing one person you know in two contexts is not two different contexted people but just one person. Do you follow? I certainly don't. Also, when I realized Amish in the City was written by my friend Amish from college, not some Amish guy. I guess I just described the same not blogstar-ish situation again. I'm gonna go back to watching Funny Face until I fall asleep. G-d, I'm so fucking cool.

Let's proceed. Spread your legs.
Quote: "I was writing in a spiral notebook, I thought, why can't I be famous right now. Why can't I just act that way. Why can't I record everything down like my life counts, like I'm the Queen of England or Bobby Vee, and that way I can be safe and not have to wait to die to be important. Why can't I live right now. Because I am not rich, I am not a saint. But I do know this; not all of us were sent here to work." (Eileen Myles, Cool for You)

Links:
1. Alex Beam calls out Lauren Slater who wrote our Book Club Book #2 Lying! Thank you for oversharing.(@boston.com)
2. I loathe this article -- Gender Bender: Should gender equality extend to drinking? on so many levels. Primarily, I have no idea why it had to be addressed as a men vs. women thing. Can women be analyzed as indpendent creatures -- if you're that insistent on making the distinction of two genders to begin with -- and not just compared to men as if whatever factoid you shared would make its own point? I think articles like this are a greater threat to feminism and my intestines than a vodka tonic. Interesting statistics do not a story make. They CAN, but you still need a story, and this writer doesn't have one, apparently. (@nyfuckingmagazine)
3. Luckily Tracie already wrote a kick-as rebuttal. (@one d at a time)
4. I wish I'd been the first one to think of this joke, it's a perfect perfect joke. The People Closet Issue. (@gawker)
5. Nobelist Leo Clezio to Publishers: "The Book Is the Ideal Tool" (@critical mass)
6. Gay Marraige - Our Mutual Joy. What the Bible Really Says About Gay marraige. (@newsweek) (thx to haviland)
7. This reminds me of the stagehands union thing - the $73-an-hour autoworker in detroit salary total garbage lie thing: Adding it Up. (@nytimes)
8. Bizarre sad day in publishing ... NPR shutters news & notes, day to day and major book coverage, and james frey interns at Gawker.
9. Meet Elisabeth Frisinger: She lost her virginity and accidentally texted her dad. (@inquisitr) (thx caitlinmae)
10.The stubbornly seductive perils of justice porn like Judge Judy Thank You Your Honor May I Have Another? (@reason magazine)

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Automatic Fun House of the Day: 12.4.2008

When I stand on the windowsill and lower the windowpane I can see into other people's windows, right across the alley. I could do this all day. In Williamsburg, there was a couple we used to watch. While watching, I'd think; we could just as easily be the couple in the other window, if only we wanted totally different things than the things that we actually want.

I think I should've gone to school for web design programming or whatevs it's called. I want to be the person who can type in the special codes to make things look right on the interwebs. How many times have you been willing to die for a person like that? So many times. I've been trying to teach myself HTML, a quest that began in 1996. I've got italics down now, but tinkering with basic templates can be tough.

Also, I deleted my Google Reader feed on this blog 'cause I wanted to change it, but instead of changing it, Google Reader invited my entire address book to read my shared items in a deceptively personal-looking email. If you are one of those people, I'm sorry. And no, I don't really want to share any items with you, but thanks for checking in. JK I love everyone, please link me pot psychology.

No really, I have a weirdness with Google Reader, I use it very specifically. Most sites I read every day I won't have on my feed, I'll just check in -- Jezebel, Gawker, HuffPo, The New York Times, Arts & Letters. Etc.

Quote: “The same week of high school that I quit track, I missed a math test. I never missed math tests but woke up that morning and something about the sun through the curtains, rolling out in its smooth ivory rays, made me unable to move. The world can ask you to participate, but it's a day by day decision if you want to agree to that proposal.” (aimee bender, an invisible sign of my own)
Links:
1. Aggressive capitalism has come to an end: "our future has never been brighter." (@ode magazine)
2. Paul Carr challenges Evening Standard film critic Nick Curtis to try Twitter for a week (@guardian uk) -- after Curtis wrote, after using twitter for two hours, that Twitter was "endless prattle from people with too much time and too little imagination" and "facebook statuses on crack," Carr makes Curtis try it for a week 'cause he used to think so too, and after a friend made him the same one-week deal, he's come to think that "Twitter, unlike Facebook, has the power to change the world." (@the guardian uk)
3. The Days of Their Lives - Lesbians Star in the funny pages of Alison Bechdel's "Essential Dykes to Watch Out For" (@nytimes)
4. Norton's Writers Recommend - includes Diane Ackerman, Andre Dubus III and Nicole Krauss. (@writers recommend)
5. Best Book Designs of the Year 2008 (@nytimes) and A Year in Reading 2008 (@the millions)
6. Princess Leia's wild, bipolar adventures (@salon.com)
7. Maureen Dowd's What Tiny Fey Wants (@vanity fair) and Emily Gould's take on it: "if this is the best magazines can do, then they deserve to die." (@emily magazine)
8. If you haven't already seen it: Prop 8 the Musical ! Sarah Chalke (LOZO!), Jack Black, John C. Reily, Margaret Cho, Maya Rudolph, Neil Patrick Harris and MORE! (@funny or die)
9. The "Mad Men" dilemna: why you might be suffering from Quality Show Fatigue. (@nymag)
10. In Which it Happened That Night: after canceling her 10-day membership to the NYC Republicans Club (the first person to ever do so) -- "my brief stint as a Republican was purely an all access pass into their election night event (“Victory 2008!”), which I attended, more or less, for my own amusement." (@this recording)
11. Check out Olympia Zagnoli, the illustrator who made that over there [15 Ways to Sleep on a Train]

Last time, I brought you insomnia poetry of randomly assembled lines from my 2000 diaryland account. This time, I wanted to do the same thing -- but realized it's not the same with paper diaries that were written to be private. So I bring you livejournal randomly assembled poetry. This has three stanzas or whathaveyou.

LIVEJOURNAL MAGNETIC INSOMNIA POETRY

I just want to drive in the sunshine,
listen to sugarcult too loud.
Maybe if Britney Spears
was my girlfriend then it would be o.k.
If I knew what was wrong, I could fix it. But I don't.
(march 2002)

This week begins Operation: Enduring Relationship.
Plan: you must love Stephen Dunn, strange food,
fantasies of trips to South America, art you don't understand,
theater, stories, books. My stories.
I want you to know me.
(october 2002)

this is our dog, oscar, eating his dinner
tonight i had salmon, baked potato and a spinach-feta-driedcherries-olive-oil salad.
I made it myself.
tonight, oscar had dog food.
that is one of many differences between oscar and i.
(december 2002)

++

Saturday, November 29, 2008

November Rain & Auto-Fun of the Thank-full Weekend, 11.29/30.2008

Have you seen Haviland & Riese on Alexi's Closet on AfterEllen yet? 'Cause all the cool kids are doing it. Did you have a fun Thanksgiving? Ingest some hot succulent turkey? Read our South of Nowhere Recaps for Episodes 13&14?

Haviland & I had T'giving with a bunch of crazies, including a member of the Coast Guard who just started smoking a month ago, at the age of 26 -- and can't stop chain smoking now -- and when asked why, answered that he went as Hunter S. Thompson for Halloween and just hasn't given it up since. He actually reminded me of the kind of boy I would've made out with in college. I think I once often played the "who do I want to make out with in this room and how can I make that happen?" game whenever I felt, you know, potentially bored, like at 95% of the gatherings of people I'm not related to. It's not that I have more fun with relatives, but obviously I'm not going to make out with any of them, I don't want to get whatever Sarah Palin's kids have. This whole paragraph has been kinda weird. I guess you change your mind about what feels personal and what seems like silly dust in the wind. Funny dust. Auto-funny dust. Anyhow I wasn't bored, so that whole thing was just a waste of words.

Afterwards Hav said, "He was insane but cute, he seemed like the kind of guy you would have hooked up with in college and then not wanted to talk to again." Sometimes Haviland & I actually agree about things, strange things, and I think we've finished a period where we were focused more on uncovering the differences than relishing the similarities -- you know how you do that, the relishing, when you first meet someone? Like our mutual love of Christmas Specials and dislike for public discussions of bodily functions.

I've spent the last two Thanksgivings with Haviland actually, I just realized. Last year at my place w/my roommates and her friends. There were board games and obtuse text messages. At night we made a vlog, and life was strange and silent and dead or almost-dead or heartbreaking or devastating or exploding with promise. It was a lot of things, this time last year.

Two years ago, my brother brought macaroni & cheese from New Orleans. Stephanie was visiting her family, but Haviland & Mina & Janet came over to my apartment, and eventually my roommate Maggie too. Hav had to leave for her show ... then we went to the movies, the new Christopher Guest thing. It was pouring rain and Mina dashed into the rain like a waterproof tiger to get us a yellow car. Each year I've said I'm thankful for my friends and that I'm not homeless or dead. Last year I think I jinxed myself. I've spent a lot of time the past few years in other people's versions of reality. I can't say which I ultimately liked better. Probably the fantasy.

quote: "Insofar as you are able, I would ask you, then, to be wary of the distractions of fame and the blandishments of commerce. I would ask you to be tireless and devoted in the courtship of your own imagination. I would ask you to nurture your friendships, your alligence with other human beings. If you feel grief or rage or love, give it a shape so that we as readers will know what you mean, and be able to better understand, better cope with the landscapes of our own grief and rage and love." (Barry Lopez, address to 2008 Whiting Award Winners)

links:
1. Lulled by the celebritariat - the end of the meritocratic ideal? [by Toby Young of "how to lose friends and alienate people," son of the author of "The Rise of the Meritocracy"] (@prospect uk)
2. Britney Returns. (@rolling stone)
3. I don't even know how I got to this page or what it is -- the linking page has receeded into the history -- but it's just really good so you should read it. (@johnny i hardly knew you)
4. The era that defined Wall Street is finally, officially over. It's not like that movie anymore. (@portfolio)
5. Forty-somethings on Facebook (@forbes)
6. Authors like Elizabeth Gilbert, Nick Hornby, Geraldine Brooks, Melissa Bank tell what they want, what they're giving for the holidays: What to Give & What To Get (@penguin)
7. Chuck and Blair Going To The Movies (@emilymagazine)
8. Greatest Moments of George Bush's Speeches (@achtung baby)
9. The Perfect Workplace: "Jealous of your friend who gets massage at work? Yeah, we are too. Turns out that was just the beginning. As the business world races to merge the lost luxaries of the dotcom boom with the responsibility era, we construct the ideal workplace - Perfect, Inc. (@good magazine)
10. I have a lot of questions about this article, mostly that it seems almost like an encyclopedia entry than a trend piece: Making Artistic Careers Lucrative (@nytimes)
11. Sparkly, Sticky and Creative Art Supplies - the gift finder 2008 (@nymag)
12. Five ways Obama Has Already Changed Washington (@the daily beast.)

[This week's insomnia poem has been assembled from random lines pulled from my Diaryland entries, spanning August to October of 2000.]

Diaryland Insomnia Magnetic Poetry 2K
Love is How It's Lost, Not How it's Found

Tomorrow,
I am not going to monkey class.

My Mom says my intense fear of the phone,
sweating, etc, is all related to "generalized anxiety."
Is anxiety generally ruling my life?

I mean, I want to have sex, but I don't want to get laid.

This whole campus is horny and drunk, or playing on their computers.
I wonder about all these people.
They confuse and bewilder me.

I had yoga this afternoon.
I already knew the downward dog though,
always two feet ahead.

Apparently, last night, someone peed on Sarah.
And this kid with too many earrings threw up a lot.
And two more people had sex.
I, on the other hand, was rushing.
IT'S ALL RICH WHITE GIRLS.
I quit. Boring, shallow.

I missed the Death Cab for Cutie show on monday
'cause I couldn't think of a single soul that would wanna go with me
except maybe Samara,
but I couldn't call her, 'cause I'm afraid of the phone.

I DON'T FIT IN
and this doesn't embarrass me anymore.

I have friends that don't make any sense,
and a couple who do.

Billy Blanks told me I could do anything if I reached into my soul
and grabbed the piece of me with power.
Even if I'm tired, I can still do it, he said, and I am tired,
so I slept all day.

I'll never get over tea or lights.

I think Al Gore is cute, but if I ever liked him,
a pretty girl would steal him from me.
She wouldn't even know that I liked him.

For the past two nights I've seen Sandra Bullock romantic comedies.
I sit on my bed and it's right at the foot of my bed and
for some reason, I really like that.

That year, Anna dressed as a frog with two little styrofoam eyeballs
on her forehead. I thought that was so cool.
I wanted eyeballs like that too.

The best Halloween was when we did Peter Pan.
I think my Dad was Captain Hook, and Lewis was Peter Pan.
I was Tinkerbell.

I cannot surrender to a moment.

I think some things are just extinct.

++