Stuff I've Been Reading: All The Time Between Then and Now

I haven't done a Stuff I've Been Reading since December, when I covered what I'd read in August-->October. I'm no Nick Hornby, that's for sure! So this time it'll be:

November
December
January
February
March
Some of April
Oh boy!

If you've ever felt jealous of how much I read, this six-month period will quell your envy.

Howevs, it's occurred to me that since I read a ton of stuff online in addition to about 20 magazines cover-to-cover every month, it's not that I don't read enough, it's that I don't read enough books.

Probs I'm basically illiterate at this point. Where do I begin? I hope at least 2-3 people will read this blog post and maybe if just one comments I will feel good about life & literature. Hey have you seen Autostraddle? It's so cool! We had a team meeting on Sunday. It was awesome. Right now actually I'm reading Keeping You a Secret for a feature Green & I are working on about YA novels for lesbians.

Everyone's talking about this book Wetlands . It reminds me of how people talked about 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed , which was about a teenaged girl in Europe who has a lot of "erotic adventures." Wetlands is also the work of an anonymous European girl who talks explicitly about sex, but more explicitly about her bodily fluids, and my number one feeling Sam Anderson is leading a book club on the topic over at New York Mag . In fact Sam says you can participate without having read the book. Here's a slice:

"For those who have managed to steer clear of the hype, Wetlands is an international bazillion-seller about an 18-year-old girl named Helen who is obsessed, above all, with her sexuality and bodily fluids. It's hard to describe the full mind-blowing extent of its raunchiness: Helen puts, among many other things, dirty barbecue tongs, avocado pits, and a hard-boiled egg in her vagina; she leaves a used homemade tampon in an elevator; and once a week she gets her entire body shaved, with a straight razor, by a total stranger she met at a fruit cart."

Have you had your period? Had an orgasm? Experienced female ejaculation? Urinated? Wouldn't it be funny if I suddenly started talking about that stuff on here? Maybe? Anyhow participate!

Speaking of my book club, um, I will update you soon. Brooklyn Boy will be the first to know. Autumn & Brooklyn Boy have both already gotten the book I want to do (Reborn) so we will definitely do it. Possibly looking at a late May deadline.

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In March, Tao Lin mailed me some books: eee eee eee (short stories), you are a little bit happier than i am (poems), and bed (novel) and Ellen Kennedy's sometimes my heart pushes my ribs . Before I got these books I liked the idea of Tao Lin and even said to facebook that I wanted to read all of Tao Lin's books but I hadn't made any steps towards doing so besides putting "eee eee eee" on my amazon wishlist which my Mother ignored and probably thought "what a strange name for a book, what is wrong with my daughter" which is actually a thought she has all the time so it's not a big deal. I saved the package in case I can sell it on ebay one day, thought 'i bet everyone does this when tao lin sends them packages' and then i 'felt like everyone else' and then I sat on my bed and stared at my hands until I fell asleep.

The voice got into my head and I felt I 'identified' with the 'loneliness and isolation,' also that they're inventing a 'new literary style' as the critics have said. Tao Lin feels very honest, but sometimes when you read stuff about him it's almost like he's daring you to dislike him. Also he googles himself all the time so he will read this. It's like when I said I stole prescription medication from my mother's medicine cabinet and she called me that very afternoon. I was kidding obvs/maybe.

Ellen Kennedy feels like Tao Lin, but also in a way that is not exactly like Tao Lin, but like the IRL acting out of "Better Together - Customers Also Purchased." After reading Tao Lin & Ellen Kennedy's poetry I felt like all my 'thoughts & feelings' were very important, including my g-chats and my meals.

Before I got these books from Tao Lin I was reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. So I have about 25% of this book left to go. So far there has been a mute who I am pretty sure is gay. Actually I think they're all gay, and I am progressively confused when various characters turn out NOT to be gay.

Before starting The Heart is a Lonely Hunter I read On the Road: The Original Scroll by Jack Keroauc, which Crystal gave me for my birthday because I love her. Or because she loves me ... you decide.

On the Road TOS has about 100 pages of critical essays in the front. Because I'm obsessive about books like that (I don' t think you can say you've read a book when you've actually only read part of the book) I had to read all of them before I started but once I got past that stuff I was on a roll.

The first time I read this book I was 12, it was confusing, I remember only the part when he had sex with a Mexican girl and said he loved love and I thought one day I'd like someone to love me like that.

I read OTR again at 18. I was depressed cause the boy I was dating wanted to date someone else, and my BFF Ryan told me I was wasting valuable brainpower on such things and instead should be focusing on enlightenment. I could begin my journey, he said, by reading On the Road.

So I walked to the Border's Bookstore from our apartment and bought it and read it and Ryan was right, I felt better right away and remembered that the stupid boy would never understand me anyway because he only read Tom Clancy books and had no sense of "IT."

It's one of the only books I've read more than once. The voice gets in your head. The original scroll is even better, and it has more gay raunch in it, and you feel crazy too, but in a good way. This time I read it as a Sancho story. I read it knowing Neal was manic, and wondering if he would've been better off on Depakote, wondering about the children and the wives and if they'd put up with that now, and then that made me think about how people like Neal would be on Depakote now, which is better for his potential wives and neglected children and other discarded children but not as good for literature, and how that's fucked up, and I couldn't really reach a definitive conclusion on that.

I don't know if other people spend time thinking about these kinds of things.

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Before that I read AM Homes' This Book Will Save Your Life , which a. told me to read and I didn't really want to 'cause C. said she wasn't that into it, although I love AM Homes (fun fact: she wrote for the l word before it started to suck). At first I was bored like "oh, it's another book about a rich guy who suddenly has an epiphany etc etc --" you know like American Beauty and Fight Club.

But after the first 50 pages or so I just got into it. Like I started to like the guy in a real way, and care and turn the pages in excitement. I can't explain it really, it just became awfully lovely by the end. I read it on my way to Michigan and back on the airplane and stuff. The voice was good, 'cause it made me write good, like the best voices will do for you.

Just like Music for Torching, could've done for a better ending. But it's a good book, read it!

I also read Two or Three Things I Know For Sure by Dorothy Allison, which my brother gave me for Hannukah (I asked for it). It was short and full of goodness. Dorothy Allison is a very magical writer and I love everything she's ever written. Interesting w/r/t sexuality & storytelling & "honesty," three of my favorite topics.

Then Cool for You by Eileen Myles, 'cause she's my favorite poet and I think I ordered it off Amazon 'cause I needed to hear one of my favorite writers talk to me again. It was cool to read two tough lesbians back to back, with all their hard experience and coarse shell surrounding poems & near-insanities. Cool for You has a really embarrassing book cover so I had to hold it special on the subway so no-one would see. I quoted Cool for You when I wrote that letter for my Dad in December. About how not all of us are put here to work.

Before that I read The Best Nonrequired Reading of 2007 , edited by Dave Eggers. Again as per ushe I forced myself to read the entire anthology, and this was generally a rewarding experience. I felt smarter afterwards, and had read a lot of stuff about the Middle East.

Before that An Invisible Sign of my Own by Aimee Bender, which I picked up on a reader recommendation for inspirational books I could read during National Novel Writing Month (I wrote over 30K words, but as publishing began to collapse, I began losing steam on it) and though I did like the voice in a Lorrie-Mooreish way ... it seemed sort of small. Like I don't think it grasped anything larger outside itself. I liked it, I did, and I would recommend it to me too, but I've been thinking a lot about timelessness of literature -- like what of all this will last? What's been cast to the wayside from prior generations?

I don't know if other people think about those kinds of things.

Stuff I've Been Reading (Aug & Sep & Oct) and Autowin Book Club #3

Hey guess what! I'm a finalist in the 2008 Webblog Awards for Best GLBT Blog. I bet you guys are really excited for voting to begin on January 5th, you know how annoying I get when there's a contest to be won, I won't stop 'til I've snagged a Pulitzer and/or Nobel. Autumn's got her trigger finger ready, Lozo's got his zipper ready ... go team!

It's been a while since I've rolled out a "Stuff I've Been Reading" (read the first one here) but I wanna start book club again in January, just in time for your New Year's Resolution, which'll probs be "read more books," so you know -- here we are. Is it weird when I go from like "this is my heart" to "I like books!"? I figure I've gotta do a New Year's Post which'll probs have feelings and that's in like two days. Listen up I feel my feelings. Oh, life. I thought you were supposed to be a film? A thriller? End in tears?

Re: Book Club -- I considered pulling an Oprah and making everyone read one of my already-favorite books so I can re-bask in the glory of its goodness all over again (don't worry it won't be holocaust lit or a heartwarming family saga) but then I had an even better idea (more on this later).

Have you ever noticed that Oprah's books generally employ identical sentence structure in the titles? [Noun/Adjective] + of + a/in/an/"is a" + [noun]: Light in August, Love in the Time of Cholera, The Pillars of the Earth, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, East of Eden, The House of Sand and Fog, A Map of the World, Mother of Pearl, The Heart of a Woman, The Deep End of the Ocean, etc.?

My first novel, The Autobiography of Sancho Panza, will fit neatly into that category as soon as publishing houses actually start printing books again therefore motivating my agent to motivate me.

Onto "Stuff I've Been Reading." I've fallen terribly behind. I'm catching up.

Books Read in August:
The Worst Days of Your Life, ed. by Mark Jude Ponier

In September:
Lying, by Lauren Slater
The Night of the Gun, by David Carr
Samuel Johnson is Indignant, by Lydia Davis
The Housekeeping Vs. the Dirt, by Nick Hornby
The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky

In October:
Going Down, by Jennifer Belle
I Live Here, by Mia Kirshner w/J.B MacKinnon
The Black Veil, by Rick Moody (started, couldn't get into it)
Anagrams, by Lorrie Moore (began to re-read, finished in November)

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So I'll get to that. But I left off in August, yeah? The August of my thwarted content, hot hopeful August in which I managed to almost read one entire book while preparing to leave Planet Harlem.

"When children learn to acknowledge the gravity of their loved ones' sorrows, they're no longer children."
- Rattawut Lapcharoensap, At the Cafè Lovely

While waiting for Book Club selection Lying to be delivered apparently by Sherpa or Camel, I charged slowly through The Worst Days of Your Life, twenty short stories with adolescent protagonists edited by Mark Jude Ponier, which I wanted to like, and usually did, but sometimes didn't. It may've been slightly too long, and I'd get caught in endless quagmires interspersed with gems like the editor's own Thunderbird and Kevin Canty's Pretty Judy.

On the subway from one apartment to another, Milton the real estate agent kept reading over my shoulder and asking me questions, I wanted to smack him in the face or mentally pimp-slap him with a cheeseburger.

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By September I felt the right book could turn my mood right around, frown upside-down, and I started reading Lying (discussed here) right around the time I stopped couch-hopping and moved into A;ex's Long Island Family Palace for the month. The Long Island Rail Road is a Supreme Place to Read and so I read a lot.

"The problem with your life is behavior, not disclosure. Secrets are what addiction calls foreplay. If you want to live a life that you can be honest about, live one that is worthy. The answer to life is learning to live." -David Carr, The Night of the Gun.

After Lying, I needed The Night of the Gun as rehab and it was on sale at Target and I'd read about it in New York Magazine. I'm always a fan of high-achieving addict stories. Where Slater disregards truth and deliberately misinforms to service her sociopathic, self-indulgent and self-important motivations, Carr straight up "investigates" his own history (one tends to forget things when one is often on crack) with sixty videotaped interviews, legal and medical records and three years of reporting. His prose and consequently his narrative is sparing, balanced, exacting and compelling. It felt solid, like a lot of things did then in my life, reassuring & methodical, redemptive. His insight on addiction and truth too, was valuable.

Then I read Samuel Johnson is Indignant by Lydia Davis. I don't remember a word of it, but I remember it made me feel slightly crazy like all my thoughts were actually thought fragments. The stories felt like story fragments I am not clever enough to understand. Maybe it took three days to read. Amazon recommended. Babypop sleeps on the train, sometimes when I was reading this book I'd fall asleep too. Have you guys read this? Am I missing something?

At the Border's by Penn Station, I used the bathroom, bought a coffee, extracted a Borders Rewards card that turned out to be a gift card I'd forgotten about (and still don't remember the source of) and walked out with The Housekeeping Vs. the Dirt , Nick Hornby's most recent collection of "Stuff I've Been Reading" columns from The Believer, which I enjoyed very much.

Guess what. Nick Hornby's done with his "Stuff I've Been Reading" column at The Believer. I don't know why. Obvs they should hire me to replace him. I'm already doing it. It was a good collection per always. Wit and literary recommendations. An excerpt from And Then We Came to the End, which I then got my brother for Hanukkah.

People have been telling me to read The Perks of Being a Wallflower for centuries, but every time I thought about it I'd see that mtv books label on the front and think, eh, this is crap, it's practically neon. But it wasn't crap, it was perfect.

I ate this book in two days. It was so honest. It was the book I needed to read. Sometimes a book hits the spot like a meal. I read it at Alex's, and on the train. It's so tiny & perfect.

"The feeling I had happened when Sam told Patrick to find a station on the radio. And he kept getting commercials. And a really bad song about love that had the word "baby" in it. And then more commercials. And finally he found this really amazing song about this boy, and we all got quiet.
Sam tapped her hand on the steering wheel. Patrick held his hand outside the car and made air waves. And I just sat between them. After the song finished, I said something.
"I feel infinite."
And Sam and Patrick looked at me like I said the greatest thing they ever heard. Because the song was that great and because we all really paid attention to it. Five minutes of a lifetime were truly spent, and we felt young in a good way."

-Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

It's a YA novel, maybe. It makes all the hard parts about high school seem sweet and important, all the little things. What it's like to be an adolescent with major depressive disorder who's too smart to just descend into oblivion as your emotional brain desires. I think this book was in my head when I wrote this post.

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In October I moved from temporary living situation #4 to temp living situation #5 -- a teeny tiny room in Haviland's former NYC apartment. I walked places a lot so there wasn't as much reading.

"New York is a convenient city to go crazy in. You can always stop and have a diet Pepsi with a malfunctioning straw. You can remember what soothes you and what you must do next. I had a date with a client who loved my young skin and my "gentle touch." It was almost my birthday. I stopped at The Gap. They didn't have any more striped shirts, but when I got back to the dorm, I found it."

-Jennifer Belle, Going Down

I ate Going Down, by Jennifer Belle, which Slicey reviewed in Interlude magazine [the same issue I wrote a book review for] and they had it at my favorite church thrift shop where I often get books. The topic of sex workers in Manhattan is one of my faves, and its' rich storytelling material (see: Mary Gaitskill, Miranda July, Michelle Tea, Maggie Estep) when not infused with the typical trappings of glossy Showtime-ready fluffly romance-novel shit (see: Tracy Quan, The Secret Diary of a Call Girl) -- when it addresses ugliness frankly and without condemnation rather than making it into a kitschy oh-ew-menaresogross-thisishowishavemylegs story. Bennington is a keen and searingly honest narrator, and her voice made me feel crazy and reckless but hard.

I ate this book pretty fast. Also though it got a bit redic at times w/r/t clever precious quirkiness, like a super-amateur Tama Janowitz. Also sometimes the protagonist became redic to the point of losing my sympathy or empathy to any degree. It's clear Belle could've done better, she's got the talent. If you like Miranda July you'd probs like this book. I mean I ate it, it was delicious, for real.


Caitlin sent me I Live Here (written by Mia Kirshner who plays Jenny Schecter in The L Word, along with J.D MacKinnon, the creative directors of ADBUSTERS and really a whole ton of amazing artists, mostly it's stories from the people they talk to) 'cause she knew I'd appreciate how fucking cool it looks -- and it ain't Jenny Schecter's book, y'all. It's kinda strange when Mia's actually talking about herself. She's no Hemingway but that's totally besides the point -- it's clear, too, that Mia sees her acting work as earning money to do real worthwhile work like this project. All profits go to Amnesty International & The I Live Here Foundation, dedicated to telling the stories of unheard & silenced people. Kinda puts the Jenny nonsense into perspective.

I read it during the election. I don't know. It's just amazing -- the will to live. Chechen refugees, ethnic cleansing in Burma, the disappearing women of Juàrez, AIDS in Malawi. People go on just to go on, like just to survive, in situations so horrific and inhumane, after being raped, beaten, seen family members murdered, lost their homes, gone hungry, worked as sex slaves, been sent to prison unjustly, transformed into child soldiers, born with HIV ... and here we are watching Hardball and talking about Sarah Palin's shoes. The Juàrez section was the worst, the hardest. You should get this book. I mean it's a good cause, and the book itself is beautiful, just really stunning, in four little notebooks of documented tragedy. I mean; any way to become aware of what's going on is a good way, we all need to be more aware.

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SO! Autowin Book Club. I'm doing something that'll seem totally random this time but I think it'll be interesting.

As I may've mentioned, I interned at nerve.com in 2005 -- I've published two long essays there (one under a pseudonym, you'll never find it/guess, trust me) and some shorter pieces while interning. I wanted to work there 'cause it's one of the first successful internet magazines ever, it basically defined the genre. It's possible you've gotten a date on nerve personals, but um, that's not the point of the site, though it was a genius profit-generating concept.

Rufus Griscom & Genevieve Field, co-founders: "We chose [sex as a subject] because sex is a subject that people lie about, which provides a great opportunity to do some truth telling. We chose it because it's a subject rutted with cliches and fogged by convention,; a subject few have navigated with originality ... we believe that women [men too, but especially women] have waited long enough for a smart honest magazine on sex ... it's about sexual literature, art and politics as well as getting off."

Nerve continues to win awards, defy expectation, diversify content, and has now released Nerve: The First Ten Years, which I got in the mail two days ago. Everyone who's entered my room since then (all three of them) have been like "ooo! what's this! it looks so neat!" 'cause it does. Also it came with condoms and lube from Good Vibrations.

Soooo all ye poor college students -- the entire book is available online for FREE. Yup. All of it. For free. A "stunning retrospective [which] celebrates Nerve's impact on popular culture with its stimulating essays, interviews, fiction and photography."

Whaddya say? If you wanna buy it, go for it, it's really hot, or just sit in the bookstore and read it. There's heaps of stuff in there that we can talk about and you can tell me your favorites, I'll tell you mine, and we'll all become more evolved people, discussing a plethora of topics that will suit your ADHD.

Includes: Dr. Joycelyn Elders and Rev. Dr. Barabara Kilgore on masturbation, Chuck Palahniuk, Spalding Gray, Lisa Carver, Jonathan Lethem, our dear dear Lauren Slater (opening: "My father sleeps with prostitutes."), Robert Olen Butler, Em & Lo, Sam Lipsyte, my favorite Mary Gaitskill interview ever, Steve Almond, Alice Sebold, Aimee Bender, Jonathan Ames, Will Doig interviewing Norman Mailer, pieces like "Goodbye, Metrosexual," "Heart of Glass: My Sexual Fantasies about NPR," "The Guide to Being a Groupie" and "Innocence in Extremis." Plus cool photos and a story that opens with "as her Siamese twin joined at the skull, I know Becca wants to fuck Remus as soon as she says she's going to dye our hair."

You in, Brooklyn Boy? Okay, let's go! Finish by January 31st. It's in short pieces, there's photos, just like the internet, I think you guys can handle it. Discussion begins first week of February. RIGHT Here! Here!

Also as pennance, the February book club book is gonna be a serious literary novel, so get your brain ready. But read this one first.

Merry Chanukkistmas! #2: If I'm Gonna Go Down, I'm Gonna Dehydrate with Style

Every year around mid-November, my Mother sends my brother Lewis and I an over-punctuated email requesting our Holiday Wish Lists ???????? and, consequently, she shares her & My Other Mother's wish lists with us, just in case we've become "people who think ahead" since last Hanukkah. Two years ago, my Moms' lists were ripe fodder for bloggetry comedy gold and included "queen size flannel sheets -- no flowers!", "Mac Word," "No-Batteries Flashlight," "Gas Card," 'Beading How-To/Starter Set," the uncharacteristically specific "Sharper Image Digital Dashboard Compass & Weather Station-CE352" and a Lawn Tractor, Snowblower and a Reciprocating Saw.

Last year, they failed me w/r/t providing comedy gold via wish-lists, possibly on purpose. Suddenly Mom #2 lost her zest for power tools (thusly eliminating a re-run of my favorite dyke-with-power-tools graphic) and wanted jewelery (?!?!), and my Mom shifted her passions from apocalypse survival gear to ... an electric toothbrush and a copy of a mix tape I made her in the 90's.

Not like it really matters what they ask for, it's a charade to me as I'm gonna go ahead and buy them books I think they should read instead, just like I do every year. I know my Mom thinks she wants a remote car starter, but who needs to start one's car remotely when all the adventure you need is right here in a wonderful work of LITERATURE? Right? RIGHT!

Anyhow imagine my delight when my Moms' Chanukkistis wish-lists arrived this year full of potential. Perhaps they think that after last year's "Riese being kicked out of the house and sent to a motel" incident, I wouldn't dare continue to lower my potential esteem in their eyes by making fun of them on my blog. Well I just so happen to like motels, so.

Also, "making fun of you on my blog" is the sincerest form of flattery in my world. Obvs look at my list of weirdos. And my other list of weirdos. Those ppl are all my friends. Even Tegan & Sara. I'm calling Tegan right now. She says what's up guys. I told her you said what's up.

So. The following is the wish list. With commentary.

[OH! BUT FIRST!

Look at the buttons !!!!! We got so many orders, you guys are Obvsing all over the place, keep ordering ... this product does not disappoint! I'll announce a new giveaway soon ... omg!

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Wish Lists.

My Mother:

Tickets for the Mandy Patikin & Patti LuPone concert in Detroit, 4/14/09-4/19/09.
Thanks for the deets on date & location, this'll ensure I don't accidentally pick up tickets for their engagement at the Key West retirement community the following week. Also we took my Mom to see Patti LuPone in Gypsy when she visited me in New York, what am I, a Patti LuPone machine. Patti LuPone doesn't grow on trees. Switch it up! It's not like I go see Uh Huh Her ten times in one year and four times in one week or anything.

Almost any other live theater/performance event (includes DSO and opera.)
Almost? See what she's doing here is expecting me to fill in the blanks. Just 'cause I came out of her womb doesn't mean I can read her mind. Even when I was in there I couldn't read her mind, so how could I possibly do that now, I'm not Magnito. Or maybe I could, 'cause she was a McDonald's manager while preggers with me, and now french fries are my favorite food.

Anyhow obviously I'm getting box seats for "Kwame a River: the Chroincles of Detroit's Hip Hop Mayer," it's at the Second City Detroit, family fun will ensue.

Or movie, or museum.
I can't afford to buy a whole movie so obvs I am going to buy my Mom The Ann Arbor Hands-on Museum (that's where budding lesbian moms take their daughters for early bird training, just look at the logo. Here's the hand, here's the hole, go to town) and request that next year that she give me the Giant Bubble or if possible any kind of human body part I can walk into, ideally a heart and barring that, another tunnel or cave where I can hide.

Actually though, um, I just went to their website and they're for real selling exhibits. I didn't know museums could do that? I could play with Ollie Oxygen, Holly Hydrogen, Wally Water and Mr. Catalyst forevs, I wouldn't even need Hav to vlog with me anymore. Also before I give it to her I'm gonna eat all the Astronaut Ice Cream.

Remote car starter.
Why can't my Mom start her own car? wtf? Where does she want to start it from? A lot of questions about this. I think people should start cars up close and personal, like in the driver's seat.

Cooking/baking dish that can go on stovetop and in oven.
Why would you want to put a baking dish on the stovetop? Isn't that what the oven is for? Personally, I know the oven's where you stick your head if you wanna die a là Lady Lazurus, and also for chocolate chip cookies. Maybe she wants to cover the burners so I won't stick my hands on them like I did when I was a kid. I'll find new ways to re-direct the room's attention onto me, mother, don't worry.

Earrings, (gold, hoops, gemstones)
Who do you think I am, Haviland? Hello remember raising me "gender-netural." I am not Haviland. I am Riese. When I get angry, I like to break things. Speaking of ...

Fiestaware pieces to complete my sets: Purple dinner plate and mug, Tangerine dinner plate and mug, Cobalt Blue mug and 19 oz bowl, Heather dinner plate, 19 oz medium bowl, and mug, Ivory dinner plate, 19 oz medium bowl, and mug. (last time I looked, Linens and Things had a great on-line clearance sale)

This is the internet age, I need to be entertained constantly, and I was tuning out already at "plate." I re-attuned at "Heather," since I know lots of cute lesbos named Heather, but then I dropped out again at 19 oz.

Also I fully appreciate that she's given me permission to snag her front-row seats to "Steve Harvey's After Party" but has specified the size of her required tangerine mugs to the decimal.

What happened to the originals is what I want to know.

-Instruction and guidance, sans ridicule and teasing, on FaceBook, etc. usage. (stop giggling and rolling your eyes!)

1. Absolutely not.
2. Not without giggling and/or rolling my eyes. Actually I can do it without giggling, but I have to roll my eyes. What else are my eyes supposed to do? Look at my Mom's facebook profile? "Maureen has become a fan of Patti LuPone"? "Maureen threw a plate at you?" "Maureen would like to invite you to throw a snowball at her vampire environmental cause?"
3. If I srsly can do this and have it count as a gift, that means I'd save myself the price of a gift, which means I'd save myself the work of earning money to buy a gift, which means I can basically think of this as a job, which I would do.
4. Except I can't. I just can't do that absolutely not.

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Before introducing you to my other mother's list, let me remind you that I am flying to Michigan from New York. Last year I drove. That turned out to be a bad idea, especially when I cut my finger open with a nail about an hour before departure time and consequently bled all over the steering wheel.

I cannot make fun of my Other Mother in-depth because she didn't give birth to me or adopt me and therefore her love is not unconditional. However, my Mom wrote out this list for her, so really again I am making fun of my Mom.

Food dehydrator (to make her own Beef Jerky) - though I admire the DIY spirit, I cannot admire beef jerky, and possibly would have considered this request were it not for this unnecessary detail. For example, on my:
,
I include The Cultural Resistance Reader. Innocuous enough, but what if in parens I added (to start a revolution, kill people, a là the SCUM MANIFESTO, which I expect in my stocking or pay the price). You know?

Kayak, (our stretch of AuSable River is too shallow for a conventional canoe.) - Right. Two years ago y'all wanted a canoe ["We're not getting a canoe, because then they're gonna want me to ride in it." -my brother], and now you want a kayak? Next year you'll be asking for a Moped (global warming has melted AuSable River entirely) and I'll wish I hadn't carted that effin' Kayak onto AN AIRPLANE.

Belt Sander - I don't know what this is. One time at band camp in the psych ward, my ex-girlfriend made me a belt in arts & crafts. Is this like that? I'm just trying to relate to you, bisexual-to-lesbian, it's like mano a mano but en engles.

A large/tall cactus plant and/or a Jade plant. -I'll leave "large/tall" alone, but I think cacti are Weapons of Mass Destruction, so praise Allah I will not bring it on an airplane, but you bet the first stop when I get into Michigan will be the Giant Cactus store to get one of these. Actually I'm quite serious, obvs this is what I'm getting, it's not every year you're actually asked to provide someone with a house plant.We can put it in our new Hands-on Museum.

Readers Digest subscription - The one portable item on this list has already been snagged by my Mom (see Mom, now you can't tell my Other Mom to read this, 'cause then you'll spoil it, like when Lewis told you that we got you a bike, which you no longer ride, good thing we didn't get that Canoe or it'd be collecting dust too, along with my ice skates from the 80's and all the books I try to force you to read).

I shared my concerns w/Lewis re: the portability of other mother's list, and he told our Mom about these concerns, and Mom suggested that, pending security clearance of said cactus, we could get Other Mother a "recipe book to use with a food dehydrator." Or: "Socks, she can never have enough of them." Truer words were never spoken. I mean, who says "I have too many socks?" No one, right.

Lewis asked what my plan was and obvs I told him I will be getting a gigantic/significant cactus plant and he responded: "Now that you mention it, a giant Cactus would be pretty awesome to have around ... if you got space, why not fill it with the most dangerous plant known to man? I'm serious. Add that to my list too. I wonder what it would taste like dehydrated ..."

Clearly it's things like "food dehydrator" that get me going on a nonstop internet investigation. We need a word for that. "The act of investigating something on the internet like a crazy person all night long, prompted by something small and innocuous, convinced that JUST ONE MORE SEARCH WILL BRING THE GOLDEN TICKET."

Apparently, one can produce pretty much anything with a food dehydrator. E.g., "cosmetics, mushroom soup, sloppy joes, pesto and moist banana bread." MOIST banana bread! That's like the Cracker Barrel version of the band Limp Bisket.

What if I just got her a lifetime supply of beef jerky and cut out the middle man? This woman Mary Bell is like a Beef Jerky superhero, and her hairdresser called and says he thinks she's a gay. Whatever, she's still no Kwame a River. I bet she never even drinks water. She's just got no need for it you know. Give me that sandwich, let's dehydrate that stucker STAT.

++

My brother's wish lists remain similar in spirit over the years though specifics change. As he grows, he changes. Instead of A MILLION DOLLARS!!!! he asks for An American Express Gold Card.

He's also asked for "something that will make my honda ruckus go faster except for the nitro kit." It's like he speaks another language.

Furthermore he has requested a jetpack. With a link, in case we can't find one at Wal-Mart while Kayak-shopping.

He also asked for "anything from thinkgeek.com except the t-shirts," so I had to go look at thinkgeek.com, and I found this, which was special too, and I would get it for myself as a joke but it's too expensive. I also saw a "LIttle Einstien" bobble-head I wanted to get for A;ex, but then I forgot:

Luckily Lewis has learned to ask for "books Marie thinks I should read," so I can do what I was gonna do anyway without being asked "where's my kayak?"

Oh also, wanna see a dyke with power tools? She can sand my belt all day!

UPDATE: My Mother e-mailed, two days after sending us her wish list, with a mesage entitled "wish list addition" and the following request: "consistent weekly phone contact from each one of you. and at the very least, my phone calls returned w/in 24 hours, as you would expect from me." Obvs I called her back immediately, between that and the Facebook lessons this is shaping up to be a cheap Christmas/Hanukkah, I'll just get a cactus from the wild, done and done. No I can't do the Facebook thing. Gold gemstone hoop-has, here I come.

In two days I will be in Michigan.

Yup.

Open Letter to The Future: You've Got Your Whole Life to Lose, Let's Auto-win Some!

I have some ideas about the future. Welcome to a special edition of the Carousel of Progress.

So I get it, I read the news, we're apparently facing some kind of worldwide economic apocalypse. This all seems unreal to me, not 'cause I've been immune to its impact -- because trust me, my consistently near-empty pockets are particularly empty these days -- just 'cause the economy is a structure we set up, like ... as humans? Why'd we invent something so crummy, and why can't we take it back, like a broken toaster? "No thanks, we prefer the fire pit after all, works every time?" I'm down to hunt & gather.

I've been thinking about the future because:

a) I've been reading the answers to What's Your Dangerous Idea? ("The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time ... What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?") the 2006 question posited by the Edge World Question Center to top scientists around the world.

b) Obama, the economy, the environment ... there's been a lot of talk lately about ... well ... what's gonna happen next.

c) I've been trying to think about the future in a real way lately now that I'm actively increasing rather than decreasing the probability that I'll be around for that much more of it. It's freaky, I don't even know if I love time travel anymore! I guess I only like backwards time travel. I just want to churn butter in my Little House on the Prairie, that's my true destiny in life.

I have some ideas about things I would like The Future to consider for our future.

Okay, dear the future here are some things I would like to see:

1. Factory: The Magazine: So OurChart's over, The L Word's almost over, so many magazines & newspapers are vanishing, and I feel many bloggers are losing steam or simply the time to do so much unpaid writing ... I feel now's the time for someone with a good voice -- hopeful but careful, snarky but tender, ridiculously mind-blowingly intelligent, quick, and clever, queer in sensibility, not gay but also not hetero-normative, not women-targeted but mostly women-staffed -- to emerge and start something really new and spectacular that actually takes prior internet-media lessons learned and applies all of them from the get-go. 'Cause here's what we've been left with: the surviving media is either sarcastic or old-school, the failing media ran the gamut but often was twitching for tradition, the mainstream sources remain as they've always been (dumb).

What about something that actually speaks our language? 'Cause we have one, and it's a little bit newer, but also kinda awesome, and valid. It's diverse and expresses itself in every format we can touch or see or find. We are infinite. I drove home listening to some of the songs we listened to those times when we were infinite.

2. I'd like for New York Sports Club to fix at least three of its machines at the 125th & Broadway location, e.g., the clanking ellipticals. The teevee audio & video is out of sync, the magazine rack's a mess, the seat of the ab machine always slides down, that girl in the yellow shorts needs to see an ED specialist and please for the love of G-d get someone at stall #3 in the ladies room STAT.

3. I'd like to finish writing this novel, or at least 50,000 words of it, by the end of the month of November.

4. It'd be neat to see a smooth transition from Obama's eighth year to Hillary's first, almost like something they'd just talked about the two of them, decided would be best, asked if that was okay with America, and calmly traded chairs.

5. The economic crisis should lead us to question our attachments to material goods and money. Capitalism isn't a religion, and advertising dictates desire dangerously.

We should begin thinking about embracing the DIY movement (thanks to a;ex for this article, @lifehacker: The "Greater Depression" can be a DIY Renissance). We should start making more stuff, and also stop judging one's employment potential by the amount charged to their credit card to buy the suit and the soft makeup for the interview. That's dumb. I really would be totally down with growing my own food, but I live in the city, although I'm getting a lemon tree soon so.

---

6. I think books can make it. I think people who write books might have to respond -- as writers always have over the centuries -- to an audience who's taste and attention span has changed. We can produce novels that appeal to new readers without sacrificing intelligence or word count.

I think people are capable of reading a shit-ton of words, now more than ever. Book people need to realize that since paper is the big difference between online writing and books/magazines/newspapers, we should think about how to really sell & market the paper.

Part of our problem? There's too many books to choose from, and due to the mental engagement & silence & time required to read a book, no-one can read every book they want to read in one lifetime and therefore we can't produce infinite books like we do with teevee channels. We're printing too many books. A lot of them suck.

Independent presses are being drowned out by big presses who don't even have the time to focus on quality over quantity, and the reading public is suffering. We have self-publishing for people who can't find a major publisher for their work, so it's not that a shafted writer is left up shit creek without a (albeit not too cool) paddle. If it's that good, your self-published work'll emerge from the muck.

I think literature will survive everything that people are saying against it, but that also means we can't forget about literacy. We need to seriously work on literacy if we want people to read our books!!

So -- we focus on quality, literacy, making the internet work for us and not against us, incorporating new media and targeting different audience styles to our advantage. The independent presses can play that game too, just by promoting the quality-based system on a smaller revenue model.

---

7. Pinkberry should bring back the coffee flavor, by popular demand (as you can see in the photo I will wait for ice cream). All grocery stores should carry Sausage & Cheese Breakfast LeanPockets, especially you, FreshDirect. It's not fair that I only know the calorie counts of corporate chain restaurants, you can't convince America that we can only rely on The Man to keep us healthy too and give us the numbers, make everyone do it. No no no. Also, I would like the world to be made of some combination of chocolate and peanut butter.

8. New books by: Lorrie Moore, Miranda July, Maggie Estep and Mary Gaitskill, New music from Uh Huh Her and no more re-runs of Intervention, just new episodes, thanks.

9. I think that Haviland Stillwell should be in "The Farm" which'll reveal itself to be secretly totally awesome. So far it looks kinda weird, like Bad Girls. But whatevs, last time we stole a British queer show concept (Queer as Folk) it turned out a lot better than our own.

---

10. I'd like a publisher or magazine to commission me to do a year-long project in which I approach, as a journalist, taking on the jobs of people who I think are bad at their jobs. Like I bitch about Duane Reade but if I worked there, would I be any better? Not like Nickel & Dimed, this'll be more about how we assess service and performance in others than about socioeconomic realities for women.

It would be a 12-month thing and each month I'd have to try to get a job and then work the job at:

1. Time Warner Customer Service
2. 125th & Lennox Starbucks
3. Duane Reade
4. The U.S Postal Service
5. New York Sports Club
6. the editor of an online magazine that will not be named
7. President of the United States George W. Bush
8. Head writer for The L Word
9. The Manicure Lady
10. the pantry chef at The Macaroni Grill I worked at for three years
11. a receptionist at the Ryan Center on 96th street
12. my 10th grade English teacher

And I'd open talking about my ire for said worker of said job and then find out like, well, wtf, could I do any better? You know? I wonder if it'd be harder to be Time Warner Customer Service than it would be to re-design OurChart (that's not the online magazine I refer to, but you know?).

---

11. Also I think Prop 8 should be overturned and gay marraige legalized nationwide.

Okay, thanks for listening to my ideas. Let's get going to the Invention Convention! Bring legos and fruit punch please, thanks!

+++
xoxo
autowin.

Actual Sunday Top Ten: Built A Wall of Books Between Us in Our Bed

OMG, this is the first Sunday Top Ten I've written in eons! Earlier I asked you for book/music suggestions to fuel me during National Novel Writing Month and let me say if there is anyone out there who still doubts that the internet is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time ... this is your answer. I've got a kickass playlist started now and will be checking out Aimee Bender stat -- if you've still got suggestions than please do go ahead and gimme gimme gimme more, even though I've now deleted the part where I told you what I wanted.

"Trying to write a novel" is a familiar feeling to me. Every word I write feels like a word I've written before. Why? Because, according to my hard drive (which doesn't contain early typewriter or PC-penned works, e.g., the YA series The Pink Parrots about a girls baseball team), I've started approximately 10 bajillion novels already. Let's comb through the ashes of my prolific output, shall we?

Why have I written so many novels? I don't know. Have I ever done anything with any of these novels? No I have not, except Jennie Novel, which I mass produced & binded properly for distribution at emerson middle school. My friends gave it five thumbs up and then my Dad gave me a stern talking-to regarding how printers age. It's not just about the ink, which is replacable, but about "wear & tear" on the printer. V.important to know.

Anyhow! I've signed up for NaNoWriMo 'cause I like to live on the edge of a mental breakdown at all times, putting in as little sleep as possible and spreading myself thinly across a variety of unpaid projects so that I can live up to my family's expectations by becoming a very promising & talented failure who once published an article in Marie Claire.

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TOP TEN NOVELS I WROTE [OR STARTED] BEFORE WRITING THIS NOVEL

My earliest works are mostly adolescent attempts to write the life I wish I had and to do my best interpretation of an Aaron Spelling television melodrama in novel form. Inspired by Francine Pascal, I'm sure.

I was seemingly obsessed with things I'd never done: boys, girls, drugs, parties, shopping sprees, fancy best friends, drunken evenings of wild revelry, etc. But yet I never wrote a protagonist with a living, breathing father -- I manage to get all the way into "Tara and Becca" without mentioning ANY fathers whatsoever, as if they'd never existed. Oh, The Land of Mothers.

---

10. Jennie Novel (1993) - Let's Get Sick and Cry!

Word count: Unknown, as this file no longer exists (never fear, I've got a hard copy) and I'm not sure if the lyrics to Now and Forever count as words anyhow. FINISHED!

Inspired by Lurlene McDaniel and Major Depressive Disorder, the story of a girl who's friends are dying of cancer or something. She paints murals in trance-like states, spends a lot of time sitting on the front porch thinking, cries often, and seemingly listens exclusively to the League of Their Own soundtrack.

In addition to the fantastic play BUT THEY ARE MAD and the screenplay HIGH ON LIFE [which we read from in this video] we also found JENNIE NOVEL while packing up my apartment in August and read some sections out loud. I asked Stef if she could say a few words about it:

"I'd place it somewhere between Crime and Punishment and Are You There God? It's Me Margaret in terms of its influence on the trajectory of my adult life. I remember there was melodrama and cancer, and I remember wishing I had a copy of my own that i could keep at my bedside always."

(Stef, a.k.a Uh[Hu]ltragirl)

---

9. Fly By Night (1995->1997) - My Name is Cornholio, Give me Fire!
Words: 29,919 - FINISHED!

Began as a short story called "The Firemaker," clearly attempting to capitalize on the popularity of Steven King's "Firestarter," which was a big hit amongst the popular boys in class I had crushes on. Erin runs away from home with her little brother Tommie who complains she's spent all their food money "on matches." Erin meets a Jordan Catalano look-a-like named Fly down by the schoolyard and together they build a home, family, etc., and then send dear Tommie to live with a foster family. Erin recovers from her dangerous addiction and gets her G.E.D.

Opening: "Erin threw an isolated flickering flame into a pile of boxes. The fire was instantly spread. Box after box slowly turned to black then dissolved into a small white ash."

It's the large white ash you've gotta look out for kids, FYI.

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8. 1995 (1995) - The Secret Life of the American Teenager!
Words: 28,642 - UNFINISHED!

Due to its explicit sexual content, I kept this diary-style novel hidden on the family computer in a folder called "School Stuff." I know, I'm very smart, I learned that and other stuff in school. It appears to be the story of a girl who goes from unpopular to popular, gets better clothing and a boyfriend & then another boyfriend -- much like the storyline promised to me by 'Teen Magazine if I used Love's Baby Soft.

Opening: "After school tomorrow I go ride Black Knight, my horse. If it wasn't for him, I don't know what would keep me going. It's like I'm so depressed all the time. I have no friends, I don't get good grades, no one thinks I'm pretty except for my parents. I have only two friends, and they're both losers. At least I have some money."

Last paragraph: "We went over to his house and smoked pot, and had sex. Then we ordered pizza, and his friend, Jack, came over, who was really funny. We just joked around a lot. Then Tyson drove me home, and I gave him head on the way back."

I know! !!! I guess after that there was really nothing else to say?

---

7. Fate and the Love Triangle - 1996 - Like a bad chick flick, in words!
Words: 22,634 - UNFINISHED!

Luckily this particular polemic lays out its plot & purpose straight away: "This is a story about the Lovelock sisters: Louisa, Winona, Gabrielle and Claire, and the four men who are fated to be with them -- the four men who are the only ones in the world who can make these four women happy. This is a story about love, fate, friendship and the importance of sisterhood."

Apparently attempting to dethrone Louisa May Alcott with a contemporary tale that tackles the Big Issues. I just want to add that Winona (named after Winona Ryder, my Number One Girl Crush) works at The Gap and when they go to Kroger's, Claire gets "popsicles, candy, soda pop, Kids TV dinners, frozen shrimp, frozen mozerella sticks, frozen pizza, frozen bagel bites, blueberry bagels, cream cheese, Handi-Snacks and Fruit Roll Ups." Much like my own shopping list at that time.

Adventures in naming: Eye doctor Michael Martini, U-M student/paramour Leonardo Alexander, band Blind Eye Dog

---

6.Tara and Becca - 1996 - TACCA!
Words: 16,146. UNFINISHED!

I reeled this clutter from the depths about 1.5 years ago when I did a search on my hard drive for "Tara," trying to locate I guess something related to my then-girlfriend named Tara.

Like 95% of my adolescent writings, the narrator loses her virgnity, rebels against her Mom, admires her friends' mini-skirts, gets raped maybe, becomes popular, goes shopping, is torn between boyfriends, and has intense sexual yearnings towards her best friend and idol, Tara.

When I found this seminal work I showed it to T[ara]B and later we read it together out loud, LOL'ing at its inanity and well -- so many odd things. Beginning with -- how odd, the character's first name being Tara.

And how odd, the opening line: "Tara is so crazy. I mean, when I get around her...it’s like I can’t even control myself anymore."

---

5. Underground Nation - '96 - Let's Rave!
Words: 9,124. UNFINISHED!

"imagine this story as a fully dressed person who by the end is naked." Written in loosely punctuated bizarre half sentences and run-ons, reading this work is comporable to being trapped on a Shanghai-bound airplane with a speed freak 16-year old who won't stop talking about her boyfriends, super hot bff sadie and her bubble gum.

I must be imitating someone, unfortunately for myself I think this is when I read A Clockwork Orange.

nouns invented for crazy underground nation: pissant, crazyheart, mallboy, firesmoke
adjectives: sexyhot, nextofkin, funashell.

description of a rave: "walking in there originally to the rave, just a lot of all strungout people like here and there. downstairs just red lights, drugs and music real good music and people just dancing in their underground minds...diffrent than the one in the daylight and in the lifetime that is to be seen."

---

Once you enter the world of writing-related academia, novel-writing falls to the wayside in favor of shorter forms. Or perhaps it was just that I got older, and had less leisure time, or that I liked my life well enough that I didn't feel the need to immerse myself in the alternate reality enabled by writing novels.

Instead I wrote a memoir, short stories, articles, essays, screenplays, teleplays. Unfortunately! 'Cause obvs we're all on the edges of our seats about Tyson and the BJ.

'Cause I might try to pass these novels off later when I can't find a new metaphor, I'll stay illusive (jk, I just don't know how to figure out what they're about, as they were all Corrections -style polemics intent on family history before plot development).

---

4. Untitled. Apple Works Doc Name: "Book.cwk." - September '03

Words: 3,740 - probs shorter than this blog post! - UNFINISHED!

Opening: "In the picture at the zoo, I am four years old and I am wearing courdoroys and stylish Adidas sneakers. I have blonde pigtails and a genuine smile that says nothing but Look at Me, I am in Front of the Elephant. Look at the Elephant!"

sidenote I totally know what picture I'm talking about there, and it's adorbs.
++
3. Untitled. Apple Works document name: "A big Book." - January '04
Words: 5,184 - UNFINISHED! (not such a big book after all.)

Opening: "My first tragic experience with another man's legs occurred in line at Showcase Cinemas, where my father and I were giddy with excitement for the release of The Never-ending Story Part 2."

++
2. Untitled. Ambitious Doc Name: "Great American Novel." Nice, Riese! - April '04->June '05
Words: 17,925 - UNFINISHED!

Opening: "When Leah was apprehended on the roof of Moore High, she was wearing an army-green bikini and cradling a water gun bigger than her thigh."

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1. For A Girl - August '05 - January '06

Words: 32,539 UNFINISHED!

I might actually still write this one so I CAN'T GIVE IT AWAY! It was actually gonna be a seriously well planned YA series y'know like Gossip Girl! Abandoned it when the bisexuality book project started. Howevs the older I get, the further away kids these days become, they're probs all robots by now who don't know how to grow a tomato. I think I often write for adolescents 'cause I feel they'll be more tolerant of suckage. The title was inspired by the Madonna song. "What it feels like for a girl ... " etc.

Also I think I totally recycled/revamped the intro for relevant inclusion in the blog post "The Night Starts Here." This is the first sentence from that book, lame as it might be: "The thing is; we all feel we have gotten away with something. We are spies in a cheap detective movie, Elmer Fudd in body glitter and sunglasses the shapes of crop circles."

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The Autobiography of Sancho Panza - right now!

Why am I writing this post? To remind myself of the 190,853 words (giving Jennie Novel 20K) that I've written for no-body and to make myself finish this one, because clearly the only promises I've kept since the 90's have been ones I've made here, to the blog readers of the Great Universe of the Blogosphere Webberhead.

I think I'm gonna finish Underground Nation, in the first scene A;ex and I are going to go to a fancy benefit (her firm did their design), get drunk for free and then actually willingly go to Nation just to dance to good music for three hours.

Then I'm gonna come home, be super drunk, tell A;ex if she wants to have a serious conversation we can talk about Gossip Girl, wake up on Sunday super hung over, and write this. It's like autobiographical, but with suspense, mystery, life, love, truth, death, heartbreak, dancing, and feelings, all wrapped into a sandwich comporable to The Catcher in the Rye meets Rubyfruit Jungle. Buy together and save 30% on Amazon today with The L Word Book, Annie on my Mind, Lying: A Memoir and Prozac Nation.

we hold these truths to be self evident i cannot stop thinking about our next president

I can't seem to talk or think about anything besides Election 2008. If you've recently dared to speak at length to me about anything besides the election, I was probs jonesing for a little talk about health care the whole time.

You: "I had a bad day at work."

Me: "OMG! Mr. Palin wants Alaska to secede from the union! Can you believe it?"

You: "I feel like my boss never listens to me."

Me: "SECEDE!! From the United States! Sarah Palin's HUSBAND!"

How can you think of anything else besides. Election. 2008. at this pivotal! moment. in our country's history! I've prepared a graph for you of some of the things I've ever obsessively thought about over the years. I didn't include "myself" 'cause obvs I think about myself all the time, that's a given.

i.
"The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village."
(Marshall McLuhan)

Maybe it's 'cause I've been living in Haviland's apartment, where it seems only natural for MSNBC to be on all the time. 'Cause my roomie's out of town so I've got the place to myself. I sit in the living room facing the television, eyes peeled open like the potatoes I'd like to throw at Sarah Palin's hair.

Or maybe it's just 'cause this is a pivotal TIME! IN ! OUR! NATION'S HISTORY!

Maybe it's 'cause I'm doing customer service work for a political advocacy group that sells/distributes campaign buttons and there's been a massive issue with a post office in the midwest who hasn't been shipping stuff on time -- and just today three people have threatened to vote McCain if they don't get their buttons STAT.

I prefer the slighted button-orderers who present conspiracy theories: Our first black candidate and things aren't going through the mail. COINCIDENCE? I think not.

I'm like, Hey, I think you're onto something there.
++
ii.
"In fact it was a better time then [when President Kennedy got shot], and people knew what they were supposed to do and how to make the world better. Now nobody knows anything. We know who's popular, or that social studies is boring."
(Angela Chase, My So-Called Life, 1994)

This is the kind of political obsession that I always imagined people had in other countries. You know -- countries with problems. Like they were starving or being bombed all the time.

But I passed through adolescence -- that crucial period where the heroes of Greek mythology often experience a loss of innocence -- during the Clinton years. Furthermore -- born in '81, I'd been raised to believe Republicans were evil and Regan was ruining everything, and I campaigned for Dukakis until my second grade teacher told me buttons weren't allowed in public school.

2000 was a huge blow to how I thought the world worked. I passed through denial to outrage to complete self-centrism, which is more productive.

Honestly -- I wasn't this worried in '04 'cause I didn't believe there was any possible way Bush could win -- polls be damned, I just didn't think such a thing was possible. He was really bad at that job, I've been fired for much less. I've been fired for giving out tequilla shots, but he can be responsible for the deaths of actual Mexicans and keep his job.

Now, it all feels so real. THIS IS A PIVOTAL! time! in our nation's. HISTORY!.

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iii.
"you can keep the pentagon. keep the propaganda
keep each and every teevee that's been trying to convince me
to participate / in some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution."
-ani difranco

Have you read the Rolling Stone article about the duplicitous lying not-even-a-war-hero John McCain? If you haven't read that article I can't talk to you.

And meanwhile, let's say they "prove" that Obama and Ayers are friends -- then what? What's the point? It's like an essay that "explores" a topic without a thesis. Certainly their thesis can't be "Obama is a terrorist," 'cause that's absurd. But then again, so is the concept that any grown man would actually take action to ensure kindergartners learn to put condoms on those bananas before they eat them. I mean REALLY MCCAIN REALLY? No wonder you graduated second-to-last in your class.

But man it's hard to keep up on all this 'cause although Sarah Palin claims to be reading "all the magazines" -- I actually AM READING ALL OF THE MAGAZINES.

The New Yorker, The Nation, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The L.A. Times, the blogs and the blogs and Vanity Fair and Esquire and Good and the other fine monthlies of this fine country but it's the weeklies that really have the juicy stuff! Like current, but thorough.

When Palin said that, I thought firstly: "Man, she's never even read Ranger Rick."

Then: "Wait. But I AM reading all those magazines! All those newspapers! I mean I really am! And I barely have time to sleep and work, let alone vice-govern the country!"

During the debtates there's liveblogs on cnn, wonkette, jezebel and gawker all at the same time. I mean, that takes a LOT of time right there.

I keep up on these things in the 24/7 news cycle and here's how. Let's pie chart:

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iv.
"it's nice that you listen / it'd be nicer if you joined in
as long as you play their game girl / you're never going to win."
(ani difranco)

I've been trying to put together something about Obama's campaign for this blog -- a top ten covering the issues -- that I made Krista and Natalie and Haviland help me write -- a "form letter" for you to send to your Republican or Undecided friends & family to try to change their minds. I've written half of it in rhyme, half of it in plain non-partisan speak and another random percentage of it in quotes & links. It is not done. Will it ever be done?

Haviland and I have completed several Palin vlogs, I twittered every possible minute of every debate on my twitter feed and using the Election 2008 twitter feed.

It's about right and wrong and the betterment of the world. But it's also for the first time, totally about memememe. And I'm not even talking about gay marriage.

Here's the thing: I'll lose my health insurance, and I'll lose the hope of getting any should I ever earn out of what I've got now, which I hope I will eventually. So if I lose my health insurance then I'll have to move to the Yukon, and I'll stop writing this blog, and then you'll have to talk to each other's faces, except you better be careful, 'cause no one would have health insurance, so you would all have cooties, and you'd all get colds, and be at home in your bed sneezing and then, then, who's a Maverick? Hey-o!

v.
"We must be the change we wish to see."
-Gandhi

Sarah Palin is not smart, not ready, not prepared. She doesn't realize feminism still has a fight, she's a religious extremist who doesn't believe in the separation of church and state. Just health care and state, education and state, and social services and state.

John McCain is a duplicitous liar who can't handle the idea that he can't just get this, like how he crashed planes and blew out the electricity in a country 'cause of bad flying and picked his outpost based on what kinds of strippers he could pick up there. His heroic act was not even heroic, you should read the Rolling Stone article. Besides even if it was I don't get what it has to do with anything.

Obama is a revolution.

I thought Biden ROCKED the debate. Not just in comparison to Palin, I think he got good policy points across, especially the Maverick monologue at the end.

So anyhow anyone who's worked for a corporate restaurant chain can tell you that no matter how regulated and constricted the position, a new manager will bring some kind of change. Of course John McCain will bring some new policies and strategies to the white house. But his intent is the same as Bush's, and intent is a significant portion of the law. He's not straight talk, unless you're the one in the room writing the check.

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vi.
"Night-life. Letters, journals, bourbon
sloshed in the glass. Poems crucified on the wall,
dissected, their bird-wings severed
like trophies. No one lives in this room
without living through some kind of crisis."
-Adrienne Rich

ihate sarahpalin
ihhateaeaosdisarahpalin
i hate ann coulter
i hate elisabeth hassleback
and everyone
but mostly cindymccain evil eye
waawaa witchcraft.
AAA!

Hey, p.s.:

-The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system.

-In one of the wealthiest districts on New York's Long Island, the per pupil spending amounts to $11,265 annually. Meanwhile, impoverished sectors of New York City see only $5,590 per student--approximately half the amount funneled into the rich school districts.

-A recent study cited 80% of inmates in an Oakland jail could be linked back to the same three high schools -- all underfunded, low-performing schools in bad neighborhoods. Prison is far more expensive than even implying that their education matters to the country they live in by giving them books and fixing the walls.

-Our nation has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with everyone dashing before their turn to pay comes up. I don't know.

I could go on and so I won't. I wanted to give you my mind, but in writing. Maybe you feel similarly.

These attack ads -- it's like that thing they do at the end of a basketball game where they start fouling to get foul shots and then maybe the rebound? but that never works.

I just wanted to share my feelings with you because
I love America!

self evident
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Autowin Book Club #2: Lying, by Lauren Slater

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"Sickness demands compassion, but even so, one can be forgiven for wanting to throttle the narrator of Lauren Slater's latest book, Lying.''
-Rebecca Mead, "Stranger than Fiction: Lauren Slater's Lying: A Memoir."
The New York Times, July 16, 2000
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Angela Hayes: "What are you trying to accomplish in writing Blue Beyond Blue [a book of fairy tales]?"
Lauren Slater: "I wasn’t trying to accomplish anything through the book. The plan wasn’t to put the stories in a book and publish them. My goal was the same as it is in my other writing in that I wanted to create a world through words that was palpable and tangible and could stand on its own."
- A Conversation with Lauren Slater.
small spiral notebook, Summer 2005
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I have a lot of feelings about this book because speaking of lying, have I got some stories for you. I mean it -- that's just how beautifully I've worked it all out, that my life's narrative and this book's narrative have come together unexpectedly but perfectly, offering numerous "factions" for me to weave into a multi-layered tale of drama & intrigue relevant to our discussion of Lauren Slater's memoir, Lying. Butttt ... I'm not gonna tell these stories. Of course, I can tell whatever stories I want to, but wouldn't that be silly, to do that, just because I can.

I've been asking "why the lies?" a lot lately, and though I've found answers for many of the situations begging this inquiry, I haven't found an answer to justify -- or even understand -- Slater's lies.

Here's how I see it: you can lie to protect people, lie playfully with postmodern intent, lie 'cause you can't help it, lie 'cause you're pathological and it's what you do, lie to save your ass. I've accepted lies, overlooked stories I should've been looking over and trusted when I shouldn't have. But generally the liars I've loved are people with hearts -- thus me loving them in the first place. They display, somehow, a degree or remorse, humility, self-awareness, responsiblity or, lacking all these things -- at least a reason, even if it's a fucked up reason.

Furthermore, I've lied in my writing. I've lied to protect people, lied about a fact to get at an emotional truth, lied to clean up a narrative, lied to protect myself professionally, legally or emotionally.

But I can't seem to figure out exactly why Slater is so entitled to her lies, besides "Because I can."

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"I'll tell you about lies. There are white lies and black lies and many shades of grey lies. Some lies are justified. Lies told out of kindness, lies that preserve dignity, lies that spare pain. Everybody's a liar dear."
-Abraxas in conversation with Jenny, The L Word

"What's so great about the truth? Try lying for a change. It's the currency of the world."
-Dan, Closer
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Maybe, since I've already written all my good stories but I'm not done talking about myself (oh man! I've barely even started! Watch me go! memememeeme!) I could tell you a story about someone else, but say it was about me, 'cause it's a metaphor for how I really feel, which is detached. I was just talking to Alex about Lying, which she loved or hated or maybe didn't read at all, and she said she would've liked it better as a novel, like James Frey's Bright Shiny Morning.

I said Bright Shiny Morning doesn't stand up to bright & shiny mornings themselves, which I actually love, because I'm not really a vampire as I said, it's just a metaphor for how I really feel, which is hungry and heartless and pale. That book I talk about that I'm writing is basically A Million Little Pieces with a lesbian reveal on page 256, with extra drunkenness and unemployment. It might not be about that at all, but that doesn't matter, 'cause it's a metaphor for how I really feel, which is abandoned and lost because of my mother, who was mean, and because of my father, who I never met 'cause he was on the road selling things, and then he died, thus becoming the inspiration for the book Death of a Salesman, which is actually a play, but they print plays in books now, because of the Industrial Revolution, which is a metaphor for the theater, literature, death and my father.

Anyhow back to Alex, who only read half this book. Speaking of lesbians and halves, I'm not actually gay or even a bisexual, it's just a very current marketing angle and besides, boys are impossible to communicate with and I'm tired, and bisexuality is a metaphor for how I actually feel, which is conflicted. I'm inspired by Lindsay Lohan, Haviland, and Alex who did not read Lying 'cause of the internet, which I don't believe in, but the internet is a metaphor for how I really feel, which's alienated and lost without my mother, who doted on me like a princess, but not a real princess like Tinkerbell, who might not look real, but feels very real to me.

Anyhow if you want to read a good metaphor for bisexuality you could read Orlando, by Virginia Woolf, which is one of the reasons why I'm gay, or metaphorically gay, but mostly it's because of my mother, who missed my college graduation for the WNBA finals, and is not really a social worker, but a nun, and a saleswoman, and Tinkerbell, and the only gay in the village. The End! DISCUSS.

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"I love that there's a secret
behind every secret I've ever told."
-Stephen Dunn, from "Loves"
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"I had not known, until then, that beauty lived beneath the supposedly solid surface of things, how every line was really a curve uncreased, how every hill was smoke."
-Lauren Slater, Lying: A Memoir
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I hoped Slater was attempting to explore one of the following ideas, which interest me:

- Lying as a Valid Storytelling Device in its own right: Slater argues in her introduction to The Best American Essays of 2006 that "Sickness is the natural state in which we humans reside. We occasionally fall into brief brackets of health, only to return to our fevers, our infections, our rapid, minute mutations, which take us toward death even as they evolve us, as a species, into some ill-defined future."

Similarly, I'd argue that deception is a natural state in which we humans reside. We occasionally fall into brief brackets of total honesty, only to return to our excuses, our withholding, our salesmen and our politicians, our exaggerations, our rapid, minute white lies, which take us toward death even as they evolve us, as a species, into some ill-defined life of storytelling. I'd argue that truth and lies aren't good vs. bad, there's tons of nuance, and I find investigations of this stimulating and compelling reads. From time to time, Slater does explore this issue: "Why is what we feel less true than what is?" (pg. 162) and so forth. At these times, she's poised and interesting, vivid and educating.

But ultimately she doesn't seem to prove this point for anyone besides herself. She argues that truth is nuanced and therefore she can write an un-true memoir, but she doesn't argue that anyone else can (or should), nor does she ever explain why her story needs to be told at all, or why it matters, or why this experience is so crucial, so vital -- just begging to be addressed -- that she needs to go through all this metaphoric struggle to begin with.

-In order to make "sane" people understand the crippling nature of mental illness, we must explain it in physical terms: It's difficult to be a privileged white girl writing about mental illness without being scoffed at, call it the Elizabeth Wurtzel effect.

I understand first-hand how much more impact one's description of mental illness becomes when it's manifested physically, or visually.

When I explain I'm having a major depressive disorder episode, I get eye rolls and frustration/confusion -- "snap out of it." When I say the fibro is making my whole body throb and ache (why? 'cause I'm having a major depressive disorder episode) I'm supported and helped.

But, ultimately, this is just the point I want Slater to make. It's not the point she's actually trying to make, though the beginning gives me hope: "I wish I had epilepsy, so I could find a way of explaining the dirty, spastic glimmering place I had in my mother's heart."

Ultimately, she convinces us that her story can only be told as a metaphor rather than through the facts themselves. But beyond that ... so what? We get only that she CAN, and so she will, 'cause she's a liar, and she must. But why must she tell her story at all? I don't know.

Is it because she already told her story, and it was time to write another book and she doesn't like writing about things other than herself? If it's all one big post-modern exercise, than perhaps we should've been informed of this, rather than being lead to believe the story was somewhat true and somewhat untrue -- as in, she isn't just lying about epilepsy, she's lying about all of it. She's writing a novel with her actual self as the main character. Which is neat, and fun, and cool, but she could've done that without all the dwelling on the revolutionary self-importance of her lying and her compulsion to do so.

Does she do her subject justice? What is she doing at all? Postmodern memoirs like A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius are fun, playful and adventurous, but Lying feels self-righteous, especially 'cause she fakes seizures in hospitals without recognizing the time she wastes of everoyne around her. She's so self-centered, it's hard to care much about what happens to her.

Though she's willing to cop to being a liar or a bad person, she's not ready to accept responsibility for the effect this could have on other people, or for how this reflects on her quality as a person.

Undoubtedly, she's a gifted writer. I mean, she's so good! She spins a brilliant sentence and a compelling page. I underlined, I loved the quotes, there were sections that spoke to me clearly and directly. I'd read it again in a heartbeat, I looked forward to picking it up, and I'd recommend it.

Yet at the same time, she sometimes made me feel sick to my stomach. It was often too close to home. I sometimes wanted to punch her in the face.

And the more I research Slater, the more confused I am about how I'm supposed to feel about this book. So I'll stop talking and ask you how did you feel about it.

1. In The New York Times review (The Last Word) of Lauren Slater's book "Unpacking Skinner's Box," Laura Miller writes: "[Slater] is not above manipulating her readers, while technically avoiding inaccuracy, if it will make the tale more potent. This recklessness is both the kernel of her talent and her nemesis; she is forever threatening to cross the line." Do you feel this applies to Lying?

2. In her New York Times' review of Lying, Janet Maslin writes: "It is not likely that the reader's interest in Ms. Slater's medical and philosophical condition will rival her own." Does it?

3. How did you react to the love affair with the poet teacher at Breadloaf? Haviland and I reacted very differently to it, and I'm curious how other people felt.

4. Does it matter to you if the story is true or not? Would you have read it differently had it been a novel?

5. What was your favorite scene?

6. Do you think this book would've been written differently now in the post-James Frey internet age, when facts are more easily and instantly verifiable?

7. The primary difference between a memoir and a novel, as I see it, is the meta-story implicit in the memoir. When reading Jeanette Walls' Glass Castle, to pick a popular example, the story is not only what's in the book, it's also the story of a woman who survived homelessness and insane parents and lived to tell the tale, and eloquently. If her story isn't true, then it's just the story, which is fine, but that's a novel.

There's some things I want to tell you, and you can tell me how you feel about them, and if it changes your feelings about this book.

So What She Lies, I'd Lie to Her Too:

a) The forward is presented as a letter of endorsement and praise written by Dr. Hayward Krieger, Ph.D., a philosophy professor at the University of Southern California.

Dr. Krieger does not exist.

He is a character invented by Ms. Slater, who -- when called out for this blatant misrepresentation -- sent a letter to the NY Times as Dr. Krieger expressing "his"/her outrage at this discrediting.

b) Ms. Slater was born in 1963 and began at Brandeis in 1981, which puts her at Breadloaf Writer's Conference in '81 -- according to the narrative she was 17 and it was the summer before college. She cites Francine Prose as an instructor and Mark Strand as a visiting poet. Prose did not begin teaching at Bread Loaf until 1984. Mark Strand's years:'73, '82, '84, '85, '92, '93. Slater did, without a doubt, attend Bread Loaf (she describes it in detail in her well-written introduction to The Best American Essays 2006), but she did not attend at the age of 17 in 1981 under a different name, as she says in this book. Consequently I doubt she had the affair she describes either.

c) Ms. Slater's memoir "Prozac Diaries" apparently is the true memoir she claimed she wouldn't be able to write. In Prozac Diaries, Slater recounts growing up with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and depression with two sisters who were not mentioned in Lying. The book was praised for its honesty and passion. Apparently she then felt the need to write another memoir about herself, but with a different syndrome than the one she already wrote about. This sort of makes my head hurt just to think about it.

d) In Lies, Lies, Lies, Yeah: Lauren Slater's book "Lying," on blogcritics.org, Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti -- who is also an epileptic -- has this to say about her description of the illness: "For all of its cinematic imagery and consistent with epilepsy symptoms (for the most part,), it's lacking some of the personal detail that I would expect from an epileptic, and also, for someone with temporal lobe epilepsy, a condition for which hypergraphia is a major concern, the book is remarkably short. It's that Slater is almost too perfect in her fucked up, epileptic fugue and the tale she tells that gives rise to doubt."

e) There was quite a stir over Slater's book Unpacking Skinner's Box, in which she "re-tells" the stories of major psychological experiments. Take a gander at this particular argument, from beatrice.com.

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"Is the urge to make meaning a misguided human coping mechanism that gives a false shape to our existence? How best to live? To die?"
(Lauren Slater)
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"Thoughts?"
(Haviland Stillwell)