The First Question Will Be: What Were You Thinking?

Dear [You],

Last week I was walking back from The Y, it was getting colder like it was about to rain and I was listening to depressing music because happy music is so you know, fundamentally dishonest. I was thinking about how it was looking like I’d probably end up spending Christmas alone this year (I did) and how last year I’d planned to spend it alone but Alex made me spend it with her family and I’m glad she did that. I’ve always said ‘I prefer to be alone’ but I realize now I’ve been lying about that. I just don’t mind being alone, but good company could be better than none.

I could be alone forever. Maybe that was a thing we could've done forever, together.

I don’t think you realize how much I miss you. But that’s what happens in arguments like these when everybody’s right/wrong and nobody makes sense and at the end of the day it’s me being me and you being you.

Last year I spent Thanksgiving alone but this year Haviland and her friend Ashley came up from LA -- it’s my fourth Thanksgiving with Haviland. You and me weren’t talking much then. I wondered what you were making and if I’d ruined it.

When Haviland & Ashley arrived the night before Thanksgiving, I was still in the hospital. Not a big deal but when you don’t have health insurance, everything’s an emergency, like having a pager in the 90s. After bcw/m. got off work, she met me there and I drank Dr. Pepper and we did a crossword puzzle and about a billion hours later, I was called back.

I’d been sitting on a bed back there for an hour when Haviland marched in and extracted me. It was very cinematic. I'd been in a screaming match with the senile World War II veteran who’d been yelling about the Chinese & the Jews and calling the nurses the n-word and then said something about my ‘tits.’

It’s sad when a person’s dying / sick / drunk and you learn how they really feel.

You don’t want to know how anyone really feels.

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We left the hospital in Ashley’s Prius and it felt like a spaceship. I felt like everything was gonna be okay. I leaned -- or burrowed, really -- into m.’s shoulder, in that space between collarbone and chest and I felt so safe in there, in that car, with those people. Everything felt easy and peaceful in a way things haven’t felt in a while. Old love, new love, the future.

I’d moved into my apartment two weeks before Thanksgiving, after spending ~6 weeks on Taylor & Kelsey’s couch where every morning Taylor would make coffee or I would and Kelsey always woke up last, look who just got born. Most afternoons I’d be in m.’s living room -- smoking, writing, editing, talking to you on g-chat. I know you say I never talked to you then but I did.

Kids kept killing themselves in October. I feel like I’m working the suicide beat, I said.

Or m. would arrive at TK's looking defeated from the endless interrogation that'd been unleashed upon her after being brave enough to say to her now-ex, This is how I feel, and how I feel is that this is over.

You don’t want to know how anyone really feels. Honesty was never the point, we just need to believe that it is in order to do anything at all.

The key was to avoid eye contact. Maybe then we could avoid seeing eye-to-eye or looking too long but people are animals and animals are magnets w/hearts sometimes.

This was when I was still allowed to go there; to the apartment m. & her ex still shared while she looked for somewhere new/the future. But things happen and you can’t just go everywhere anymore. Things happen and people cry and your boxes are in the street.

People tell each other how they really feel, and then everybody’s crying.

You don’t want to know how anyone really feels.

That’s how life is. It’s fair. A person gets what a person deserves or sometimes gets what someone else deserves by proxy which is also your fault.

If life was all open doors and purple sunsets then it wouldn’t mean as much when the sunset would be so beautiful that you actually stop to kiss on the sidewalk. Even assholes like me can do that, I know that now. I can see the sun rise and set every day in California and usually it would set while we were taking our daily walk like old people needing a stretch. To Safeway, Berkeley, Piedmont, the city. Or just around. Sometimes we’d just walk around.

What if trees and sky were all I needed and I was just afraid to be a thing worthy of light? What then.

By the end of the month most of the walks were to look at apartments. First for me, then later for her.

I feel like everything is about to change for everyone, including you.

The thing that's blown my mind for the past few months is how people will hang on to a thing that's completely stopped working, if it ever did -- that is, the ex-girlfriends of many of my friends; the ex-girlfriends who fought to keep a tired thing or fought just to make sure everyone felt equally attacked. It's savage. It just feels so savage to me and I can't shake it.

Why spend your life sitting in a car on the side of the road, hazards blinking like a wolf crying.

All I really want in life is to never want a thing that doesn't want me back. Maybe that's even worse. I don't know how to fight for a person. I'm learning with you, even though it's not like 'that.'

No. I'm not learning.

But I'm studying.

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On Thanksgiving m. moved into her new place and Haviland was here and everything felt easy except you, and we'd tried so long to run in opposite directions and still ended up where we ended up so I knew by then there wasn't any way to fix it. And that's the worst part. Someone on formspring asked me why isn't love enough? And I think I said, it is. Gotta give 'em hope, you know.

m. & Ashley made Vegan Thanksgiving ‘cause Hav only eats twigs now. Then m. played guitar and they all sang while I watched. It was super gay/perfect.

I love how I took Emily’s part and you took Amy’s, Haviland said to m., like we didn’t even have to discuss it.

The next night we played frisbee on the quiet street and I was wearing tights but can’t remember why. Later on we got stoned and I was talking about feeling psychic and Ashley asked me if I felt like I might have had wings in another life. Like that I could’ve been an angel or something.

You know better than that, though, don’t you. You know I’m not an angel.

Haviland has a lot of feelings about light now. Maybe I would’ve laughed at them in August but now it’s December and I like them. This is a thing she said to me:

Haviland: “You are choosing light now and I cannot explain the massive difference I see. You can’t control [people], you can only wish for them to make the light choice and keep doing it yourself. And surround yourself with other lightworkers.”

thanksgiving 2010

[I was lying before when I told you I liked the darkness. It was a defense mechanism, for when the other kids would be splashing away the goldenest years of their brilliant athletic youths and I’d be sulking inside with a book.]

[I didn’t know the darkness was a thing I could change.]

[I couldn't. Not in New York. In New York I loved the darkness. But I'm almost 30 so I have to stop that.]

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Anyhow I was talking about Christmas, how I was walking back from the Y and thinking what if I bought a ticket to where you are. What if I just showed up. What would you do then. I thought about your hands over your face going no-no-no and pushing the door away and I almost cried for a second but didn’t.

I don’t cry much lately but I did the night I sent you that terrible email. It was lots of things: a fruitless day at the health clinic, my family losing interest it seeing me for the holidays and doing so too late for me to make other plans (but that’s unfair, probably, like “will you buy me a plane ticket ‘cause i can’t afford one myself” isn’t necessarily the best barometer of love). But mostly I was crying about you.

I do cry about you, I have cried about you. In the afternoon with pre-sunset whiskey, on my bed in child's pose at night, scrunched up like a baby dinosaur (my spirit animal).

I want you to like me again. I want you to admit that you still love me. I want you to admit that you know we still love you but that would be admitting that we’re not bad people and then you’d have to like me again.

What if me and you were just two people who met somewhere else at some other time. Like we were astronauts who spent too much time eating astronaut ice cream and not enough time shooting valiantly to the stars. What if we were waitresses together, smoking cigarettes and waiting for our rides after a dinner shift, blowing smoke valiantly towards the stars above us.

What if we were those people instead of who we are.

What if we were infinite? What if we were infinite and I showed up on your doorstep and said I know you don’t want to be fixed, but I heard from a friend who heard from a friend that you said you felt broken.

What then.

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You deserve/need a giant girl with a heart bigger than your whole body -- I'm not just talking about you now but also you and you and you. You’d sleep cradled in the scoop of her enormous ribcage, which’d be larger than a significant tropical body of water like the Gulf of Mexico. Lake Huron. Swan Lake. What you need is a heart bigger than a jet plane. Higher and faster and bigger.

Not just you, all of you.

What if my little heart’s more like a motel where you can sleep for a while but someone else might need the room tomorrow and I’ve gotta clean it first. It’s on a little brown raft crawling out to sea/see. What if I kept you there though.

Do you remember last October when everyone was partying in the room after the Equality March and I was sitting in the hotel hallway talking to you on the phone. I’m obsessed with how socks feel on hotel hallway carpet, dashing to see friends in the next room. For ice or something. What’s funny is earlier that day we’d been on the National Mall and m. and julia were both there too but I didn’t know them yet. I could hear Tess talking and Katrina loud-talking and Alex laughing because Alex has the best laugh in the whole world. She was/is/willalwaysbe my little lightworker, and the lightest thing I ever held in New York.

Do you remember that?

I’ve got rooms & rooms and my socks on the carpet and they’re filled with you all of you and I wanna live in every room forever but that would mean believing I'd ever been invited.

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Everyone tells me you just need time but I miss you all the time. How long is time. I don’t think we’re meant to understand these things.

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I can’t explain why it’s true that I love you in this/that way but can’t always be the thing you want. Nobody’s made me want to be everything as much as you have. I tried to do everything from here which is so far away from a place where I could touch your face and I ended up doing the worst thing of all the things.

It's a thing.

So many things can be true at the same time. Different feelings at the same time.

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I never expected more than one (now dead) person could ever love me. I thought you were all lying. Now I don’t know what to do with all the people who probably really do love me but who I know, i KNOW, would not really like me if they met me, even if they’ve already met me. Every time someone tells me they love me, it feels like a surprise party.

I’m sorry I didn’t believe any of you who said you loved me. I’m sorry I just don’t know why you would, it just doesn’t make sense like why anyone would love Love Actually or beef jerky.

I realize I'm comparing myself to a bad romantic comedy and a piece of meat but maybe that's actually the most perfect metaphor I've ever pulled on you.

I was lying when I said I hate everyone. I love everyone. Everyone I've ever loved; I love forever. It's a long list.

I was lying when I said I hate everyone. I love everyone.

That’s the problem, Sid.

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Sometime in October, my little heart slipped out on its own. I wasn’t unhappy. I think I was just outside. You weren’t the only one who complained and still even now I don’t know what happened because I don’t remember changing. Everything seemed perfectly natural and I loved you and everyone just the same.

It’d been so long since the world promised up oxygen I was semi-interested in breathing. I wasn’t writing things down because when you write a thing down it starts to exist. Sometimes i need to keep my stories in my head, close to me where nobody else can see them.

What if I tell you a thing and then I lose track of the meat of it, like a pen or my sanity.

What if I showed up on your doorstep.

My little heart was dashing around in slow motion or slipping into patches of darkness with m. where nobody could see us and we could forget about the rest of it -- an overhanging tree, some ambitious cross-fence foliage -- on Oakland’s night-time sidewalks. Corners. The damp, lukewarm California night. Fingertips. Her palms. My bones were on fire.

One night all four of us got kicked out of the hot tub, when only moments earlier there we were being sparkly wet and unemployed and fucked up in California at night in a tub of hot water with our shirts off? Stumbling home later, like sparkly wet animals? It was a Saturday night, it was a good night.

The feeling of being young. Not in the sense that I’m younger in years, but that feeling children have of life being totally infinite and incomprehensible.

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Signing for my apartment in my apartment when it was still somebody else’s apartment

So now my life is pretty simple. I wake up and do Autostraddle and sometimes go to The Y, or take a walk alone, and at some point later, m. gets off work and at some point she comes here or I go there. Then I burrow like a thing. Like I'm a thing who laughs and smiles and everything.

I didn’t consider the possibility of this.

I don’t consider possibilities, good or bad, that I don’t have control over. My problem is expectations, my boyfriend said to me in high school on the dock of Green Lake, I just need to stop expecting anything, and then I won’t be disappointed.
I thought good point.

So I don’t. But now it’s become everything: I literally cannot see tomorrow. Tomorrow does not exist. I can’t even write to-do lists anymore. I can't warn you of anything. Maybe her and I have the same problem, that way.

Expectations are too much for a writer/psychic -- give me a possibility and I’ve got the next five chapters and they’re so gorgeous I can hardly believe the pages are mine to turn. I used to want things. Ages ago. I remember being on the bunkbed in my Dad’s apartment, underneath my brother, where I learned how to cry hysterically silently so he wouldn’t hear me.

That’s what growing up is, or was. You learn how to cry silently. How to throw up silently. How to walk silently. How to feel silently. How to break silently.

Things happened that we didn’t want/expect/predict.

I mean since I’ve gotten to California.

Things like the purest most unexpected happiness ever.

I'm sorry I couldn't warn you.

I did not consider this possibility.

Because it’s not what I do, and because there were so many reasons not to.

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The point of this is that I love you. The point of this is that I’m sorry. The point of this is that I don’t have a giant heart after all. I’m just me on this fucking raft.

I want to be a lighthouse but I’m only a flashlight. You know what I mean?

I love you though. I'm not what you asked for, but I'm still what you have. I can't touch you but you're a thing I am keeping and nothing can change that.

Not even silence.

I will fight for you forever even if you never let me win.

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While unpacking I found a letter Carl had sent me a year or two after I moved to NYC. Not a letter really. A note.

A piece of paper he’d cut in a heart shape and colored red with a marker. And a note with it that said, be careful. It’s the only one I have.

We haven’t talked in ages, me and Carl. I put it on the wall on my bulletin board to remind myself of that -- that sometimes being careful with a heart isn’t the thing you thought it might be.

On Thanksgiving I gave thanks for my friends but I called them “my family.”

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I'm glad Haviland was here, I told m. when they left. I'm glad she was in this space after I moved into it. Like someone from before.

Like she blessed it?

Yeah, yeah. Like she gave it her blessing.

A thing to be thankful for.

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Did I ever tell you that I picked Berkeley for you and what I knew you’d need. It doesn’t matter anymore.

Things tend to matter more when you can’t say them.

I guess that’s the thing about us.

I could just tell you everything and anything and you’d get it and you’d tell me something and we could go like that forever.

I just wish I could still tell you everything and anything.

I wish my life hadn’t become a blog post you don’t want to read.

When for so long; you were the first one I told.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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?).

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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!

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xoxo
autowin.

Wednesday Top Eight: It's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow

This weekend I had the esteemed privilege of visiting the real "Carousel of Progress" (inspiration for my "Carousel of Progress" blog segment), now located permanently in Tomorrowland, Disneyworld, Orlando, Florida. Howevs, my so-called friends didn't exactly grasp the glory of this laid-back journey into innovations past -- post-Carousel, Cait wouldn't even look at me and Natalie used it against me later when she wanted to ride this lame-o car thing. Believe it or not, this silence/blackmail treatment was a much more promising response than the group reaction to "The American Experience" at Epcot (also my idea -- I sort of go crazy at Disney, like I fully had maps and itineraries and stuff, which made everyone's heads explode), which I thought they'd never forgive me for. As soon as the lights went up, Cait said, "I can't talk to you for about ten minutes." Also though, I feel it was all very educational and they'll thank me later, probs around Christmas-time when someone breaks out the Trivial Pursuit.

So yes, last weekend I went to Disneyworld w/Cait, Alex and Natalie. It was wonderful! Magic! We made memories! Seriously, I can't talk about it right now, I miss it a lot, I'm moving to Tom Sawyer Island, my number one feeling is nostalgia. Actually, my number one feeling is "sick," 'cause I am. My glands are plum-sized, and the turbulent flight that made us all puke this morning didn't help this throat/ears situation. Luckily, I didn't start feeling sick 'til last night, so it didn't ruin our lovely weekend.

We Love Magic!
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Normally in this state of illness, I'd be lying in bed moaning softly to myself while reading. Howevs, now that I'm a finalist in the Lesbian Blog of the Year contest and receiving a lot of referrals, I figured I should probs update my blog so as to look deserving. I don't want people thinking Auto-Fun is all I do, 'cause obvs Auto-Fun's really like the potato product to the beefy entree of the blog posts themselves. I don't like beef, except cheeseburgers, but you get my drift. In the future, there will be no beef, only robots and spaceships, FYI. I've been to Tomorrowland, I know whereof I speak. Also I'm an astronaut, see photo, to the right to the right. So you have to vote for me now -- it's really important; if I don't win I'm going to scream and cry. Also, thanks for getting me this far kids, you're special people, I mean that.

So, back to my topic. Urm, I like things like the Carousel of Progress 'cause I love robot-people, a.k.a., auto-animatronic figures. I like history and I love old-school Disney stuff created to promote bizarre outdated American propaganda and a quaint exclusive belief that family, national history and Inventions are the foundation of society/alleged prosperity. (In truth, the foundation of our society is money, drugs and sex, obvs.) I just find it interesting from a cultural P.O.V., especially in comparison to my childhood memories of these exact shows. Also, I think it's super-weird and obvs I love weird stuff. For example, my friends are total weirdos; Natalie spent the entire flight to Orlando talking to the flight attendants in the back of the plane, seriously, the entire flight. She got free wine and cashews too. This is why Natalie is a Supreme Being, and one of my heroes for life.

When I told my Mom that everyone hated me after "The American Experience" she fully understood my affections: "It's like animated wax figures!" OBVS. My Mom gets me: we're bonded 'cause when I was a little fetus, I lived inside her belly for nine months, we had a lot of feelings together.

Howevs: we all decided that every Disney ride (aside from the 'coasters and Splash Mountain) could be improved by a sudden steep drop at the end. For example, Cait suggested that The American Experience end with the Mark Twain/Albert Einstein robot (he claimed to be the former, but looked like the latter, who yes, isn't American, but whatevs) saying, "Oh, BTW: gravity!" and then the whole theater just going WHOOSH and -- A DROP. You know?

Anyhow, The Carousel of Progress, which, as I said, my friends didn't appreciate, was a very cathartic experience and inspired me to think about all the ways in which progress hasn't been actual "progress" but rather "annoying." Coincidentally, I do think about this periodically for your entertainment in a little Segment I call "The Carousel of Progress." Previous editions include: COP: Melted Cheese/Dead Poets Edition (May '07), COP: Beverage Bottles, Google Empire, Transportation, Interns (May '07), COP: Promise I'll Be Perfect From Now On (Jan '08). This one, inspired by the number of "new-fangled inventions" cited on the ride, will cover some historical things that I wish we still used. It will be shorter than the introduction.

Also amazing: the real COP hasn't been updated since '94, so the "family of the future" is wearing virtual reality helmets, talking to their oven, and sporting high-tops, striped rugby shirts and pleated pants. Apparently the COP was Walt Disney's favorite attraction so they're not allowed to take it down ever, I dunno, there are some crazy COP fans out there. Hurrah! I'll be torturing my children with this in twenty years!

The COP focused heavily on electricity and so forth (it was originally sponsored by General Electric), like, "We've got this fancy gas lamp nowadays" and, "It only takes seven days to get to California by railroad train!" So I got to thinking about seriously old-school stuff that I wish we still had.

Wednesday Top Eight/Carousel of Progress: It's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow

8. Horses
First off, you can ride a horse home even if you're drunk. I mean, I wouldn't recommend it, but it's possible. Also: less pollution. In 8th grade, our Sex-Ed guest-speaker told us that girl horseback riders probs have special sexual thoughts while riding, which I don't think was true ... though it stirred up a lot of controversy among the disproportionately large horseback riding population of my dork-school. Another advantage to horses is that they're less expensive and they can talk, like Mr. Ed.

7. Non-Digital Cameras
Now that digital cameras are an option, you've gotta have one, otherwise everyone else is gonna have way cuter photos than you 'cause they deleted the ugly ones even before the three-second auto-save kicked in. But I miss the surprise -- that eager awaiting of your mysterious post-vacation photo development. Also -- I miss the efficiency afforded by winging it. Like: take the photo, the end. There's no taking it, checking it, taking it again, checking it, taking it again ... and so on. There are advantages to Digital Cameras, but my glands hurt so that's all I'm gonna say about that.

6. Telegrams
I'm not sure how these worked exactly, but I feel like it forced people like me to choose sparse and specific poetry over endless ramblings, and forced people like you to choose sparse and specific poetry over the telephone, which I loathe. Honestly most of my knowledge of telegrams comes from YA Historical Fiction novels where the protagonists received a telegram that Papa had got himself killed or had his leg blown off in World War I or whathaveyou. Really I just don't like the phone.

5. Record Players
They feel organic. I like the way albums look, and how they age, and the scratchy sound that may or may not be how records actually sound. They remind me of being a kid and leafing through my parents' collection of Beatles albums. I remember the smell. As far as I know, mp3s do not have a smell: they're just another set of words on a screen, like everything. Also records are super hipster now, yeah? And I'm an almost-hipster. So.

4. Letters in the Mail
I like e-mail too, but I really love old-fashioned letters. I've talked about this before, I think. Pen pals and so on? I won't repeat myself.

3. Dirty Books and Magazines
I feel there was something elementally pure about the (proverbial) old days when kids would discover sex by digging up an old magazine or finding a steamy scene in a pulp fiction novel, rather than clicking on a computer and seeing some weirdo woman made out of plastic getting sperm sprayed in her eye. Sexual activities are highly personal, generally intimate, and ridiculously specific and it seems our first encounters with sex should be either actual or, at the very least -- personal, intimate and specific. Books force you to engage your imagination in a way that television and movies, by definition, don't.

2. Knickers/"Knickerbockers"
UPDATE: My usage of this term has been questioned in the comments section, so let me clarify. The term "knickers" is now generally used to refer to underwear. Howevs, if you read pre-electricity lit, you'll notice that "knickerbockers" are commonly referred to as "knickers."

"The term "Knickerbockers" traces its origin back to the Dutch settlers who came to the New World — and especially to what is now New York — in the 1600s. By the late 19th century, the term had come to mean the style of breeches the settlers wore that buckled just below the knee, which became known as "knickerbockers," or "knickers".

"Until World War II, in the USA and Canada boys customarily wore short pants in summer and knickerbockers or "knickers" (or "knee pants") in winter." (Wikipedia)

Anyhow, I always wanted to wear Knickers like in Newsies. They're not really flattering, and some mainstream fashion providers have unfortunately attempted to co-opt the Spirit of Knickers into Capri pants, which are not the same thing. A lot of my pants that I think are long pants turn out to be knickers at heart 'cause I'm too tall for pants. I think baseball players still wear knickers, right? That's a funny word, knickers. I wonder if I have any NyQuill around.

1. Treehouses
As expressed in the Tegan & Sara song "Come on Kids," "we've got trees we've yet to live in." While in the D-World, we obvs took a climb around the legendary Swiss Family Robinson treehouse. It's probs the best ever made. I've decided that when I get older I am going to live in a tree like The Swiss Family Robinson. When it rains, I will wash my hair, and when it's cold, I'll curl up by the fireside and write letters to Mama, B., and Grandmama. I'll be like Julia Butterfly except with no purpose. Seriously, we were taking notes on the design of this thing. How hot would it be if I blogged from a treehouse? Then I'd win the contest for sure. I'd need a waterproof computer though and a better hairstyle (also waterproof), someone invent that stuff STAT.

You may notice that knickers are being worn in the center photograph.
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Caurosel of Progress - Promise I'll Be Perfect From Now On

It's a good thing "eating healthy" wasn't one of my resolutions, 'cause I think I've eaten more refined carbohydrates in the past three days than I did during all of 2007, except for when K-Lilly got that coffee cake that one time and then went back to Nevada, leaving me alone with the coffee cake.

Sooo ... I'm OCD about completing self-imposed blog writing projects but June's kinda making my head hurt. The YIR's intent is to review the year, but it's like when people ask me what my Dad "does" -- they're intending to initiate a nice convo about the Business School, but they're gonna get a convo about death. Right now, my intent's to review the year of fun and feelings, but we're gonna get what's essentially a convo about death. On a scale of 1-10, much of June is just too loaded for right now. At the time, I wrote as if what was happening wasn't happening, and I don't wanna just do that again, 'cause that'd be retarded. As Angela Chase so wisely noted in the classic television program My So-Called Life, "And I mean, this whole thing with yearbook, like everyone's in this big hurry to make this book, to supposedly remember what happened? Because if you made a book of what really happened, it'd be a really upsetting book."

But -- this is the thing about time: it just keeps going, therefore increasing our distance from the past, like we're in a boat sailing away from a seagull on the horizon on a nice greeting card. Before you know it, I'll ask: "June? Where are you?" and then a bluebird will land on my windowsill, warble some Frou Frou and inspire me to smile, giggle like a schoolgirl and post June.

Sooo obvs ... I thought I'd just skip ahead to July, but July makes Firefox crash on my computer. I think it's got something to do with the cruise video. Clearly I could read each post one by one, but I'm already in need of an Excedrin/Vicodin from debating June, so July! July! will happen when it happens. As Jordan Catalano once said on the classic television program My So-Called Life: "So my feeling is ... whatever happens, happens."

This is pretty interesting so far, I'm sure. You might think: is there a point to this, or is she just stalling while she tries to think of something to write about?

Wellll, I was surfing the 'net, drinking my Coca-Cola, thinking wouldn't it be WILD if I just started posting random shit. Like every day something new & random: a video of Haviland dancing with a dolphin, Limericks to Ilene Chaiken, a movie review, a postcard with my real secret on it, an interview with Lozo, a recipe for coffee cake, a recipe for disaster, a side order of life, an adorable photo of a cat with a caption related to mixing meat and milk (which you can't do if you're Jewish, because of G-d) ... and so on. It'd be like a Philip Glass concert, but on a blog. Then I thought I'm probs not smart enough to pull that off, like Philip Glass is waaayyyy smarter than me.

Then I remembered: this is what I created segments for, like the Carousel of Progress! (other "segments," mostly abandoned, include Great Mysteries of Life, What I Learned from The TV, Deli-Guy Blogging and The Best of Not NYC) Whee! Previous installments of "Carousel of Progress" have included a look at advancements in transportation (Fan of: Lexus(es), Not a Fan of: Airplanes), bottle cappery (Fan of: screw caps on wine bottles, Not a fan: the new Poland Spring cap), the internets (not a fan: myspace, fan: bartleby), small hand-held electronics (fan: i-pod, not a fan: cell phones), etc.

What I attempt to do is evaluate advancements in technology, life, society and etc., separating the "really an advancement" from the "really annoying." The Poland Spring water bottle is a primo example of this phenomenon: when something is debuted to be new & improved but actually just sucks a lot and then makes your whole bag wet. This is a Very Special Carousel of Progress, because it's the New Year, and thusly, I will evaluate developments in areas of popular New Year's Resolutions (discovered via internet research, obvs, I don't talk to many "real life people.") Much to my surprise, celebrating President's Day was not on anyone's list, I don't know why. I guess that means the party's at my place! Holla! I'm going to be JFK, 'cause he was the cutest and got all the ladies. You can be Abe Lincoln or the guy on the wheelchair.

w/: Things I'm happy to do with.
w/o: Things I could do without.

Drinking Alcoholic Beverages

A lot of people decide to quit drinking for the New Year. I've never tried to quit drinking, ever. I mean, it's only recently -- after years of practice -- that I've really perfected my alcohol consumption skills (proper combo of sleep, enthusiasm, nutrients and drink) and! since moving to this apartment, I've only gotten super-sick from drinking twice -- an all time record for me. I think I probs threw up at 115th about 40 times. No lie. I had a lot going on. Obvs.

W/O: Parents' Liquor Cabinet, Mad Dog 20/20, "Jungle Juice," Smirnoff Ice, Boone's Farm, Natty Light

My early high school friend Stacey's parents were Jehovah's Witnesses and drunks. I feel like those things aren't supposed to go together, but they did, so anyhow, moving on: I don't think I ever saw them awake. It was like they were robots with jobs and directly following said employments, their systems'd power off and they'd collapse immediately onto their beds to recharge for work the next day. Therefore, Stacey's home was always blissfully supervision-free and her parents didn't keep tabs on the liquor cabinet. Her basement quickly became public high school debauchery central and thus, at the tender age of 15 (I believe I was 5'9 and about 120 pounds), I got drunk for my very first time in her basement. Gin & Mountain Dew. Obvs I ended up throwing up all night. Stacey's bathroom had this huge wall-sized mirror next to the toilet (random?) so I could watch myself throw up as it was happening, which left quite an impression.

'Cause early alcohol consumption isn't about preference or taste -- it's about "what can we get our hands on?" So I didn't really drink much in high school or early college 'cause Sunny-D & Rum didn't really appeal to me, nor did stale Dr.Pepper & Triple Sec. At 19, the corner store accepted my fake ID but didn't sell liquor, so we drank A LOT of Mad Dog 20/20 and Mike's Hard Lemonade and 40s of Mickey's Ice -- all of these things are gross. Now I just drink vodka-tonics and wine, 'cause now I'm a grown up and I can do whatever I want. AND to this day: I cannot handle gin or any lemon-lime flavored beverages, it makes me barf, hands-down totes.

W/: Public Transportation Enabling Additional Drinking

Because of the subways and the taxis, we can all get trashed w/o risking paralysis, death, or paralysis followed by death. When I was in Ohio a few weeks ago, I was carted on a family field trip to the local lounge to view a concert apparently involving a contestant from a show called Nashville Star, which I've never seen. Apparently I looked so ridiculously uncomfortable (tight posture, shifty eyes avoiding contact, panic-stricken every time another human dared to make physical contact) there that my brother actually asked: 'Wow, you really are crazy, aren't you?" I responded: "Yeah, I get nervous around other people. I mostly like to stay in my room." Also, I was plotting as to how I could use my Blackberry w/o seeming like one of those neurotic blackberry-addicted New Yorkers (therefore increasing my reputation within the fam as a pretentious and slightly psychotic asshole). Someone said something about how it's probs lame to be at this bar in Wilmington -- like to explain my weirdo behavior -- and I was like "Oh, I'm like this everywhere. It's not Ohio, it's that it's a room filled with other humans and I'm sober." Why was I sober? 'Cause I was driving. Why was I driving? Because I'm a weirdo control freak who doesn't like to give up control of her ability to come and go from a location as she pleases. This is why I live in New York and I never go out sober. I can't take social anxiety medication 'cause my body's already confused enough about what disorders it has, I can't do that to it.

Social Networking

Apparently a lot of people feel they're "addicted" to facebook and/or myspace and must stop. I've never felt addicted to either of these things, which's good, because on top of crack rock and the smack and carbohydrates, that'd be a lot of addictions, very expensive. Except for the crack, I hear that's not expensive.

w/Facebook:

I love facebook. It's clean, simple, easy-to-navigate, uniform and pure. Although, as Hav & I discussed in this vlog -- "enough with the applications already." If you want me to evaluate your personality or play trivia games or bite you, then say it to my face. I don't wanna dig through multiple columns of animated What South Park Character Quote is in Your Entourage Sandbox Quiz Game to get to the good stuff, like photographs of their ex-girlfriends. (sidenote: I actually have two rows of applications, which is more than enough, and trust me, I hate myself for it.)

Here's the only updates I'm interested in: Any activities whatsoever performed by people I've dated/made out with in any capacity which includes "casually" (read: not much conversation) and "seriously" (basically married). Yeah. EVERYTHING. I don't even mind knowing if you're the number one L Word trivia master 'cause that's good information for me to twist around in my demented mind and think: Without me, you're so bored that you just took an L Word trivia quiz for ten hours, you're probs miserable in your sweatpants eating ice cream right now, crying and thinking about me. Just like I am also crying and thinking about me in my sweatpants. Other things I'd like to know: if my friends become friends with each other, if you've just received your auto-gear, if you've joined the Automatic Winners or added "My Books" because that's my favorite app, obvs. Everything else I am not interested in.

w/o Myspace trying to be Facebook:

Myspace: YOU MAKE MY HEAD EXPLODE. I don't prefer facebook for its status updates and the other features you're attempting to bring onto your site, I prefer it for not making my head/browser explode. Once you start letting people design their own templates, it's anarchy, it's out of control. Music starts playing, flashes start flashing, colors glitter and gleam and scroll and burst, graphics dance, slideshows pop up and freak out, and those fucking ads about shooting George Bush or whatever dance over my head like an annoying ad about shooting George Bush. Think of it this way -- would you let a 15-year old design your website? No, unless it's a genius kid, like I was. I'd like to delete my profile but I suggested that to Haviland and she went "NO," right away, like I'd just suggested that we all go eat some babies for breakfast (Haviland has a Snacks-4-Life cookie and a yogurt for breakfast). I deleted my myspace profile last year but then revived it during a particularly dismal week of life from that nasty month of June, and I'd like to have my old profile back, but I just love facebook now, myspace gives me a headache.

*
Reading:

I like to imagine that everyone has resolved to read more books this year. I also like to imagine things about unicorns and time travel.

w/: Online Booksellers

I heart online booksellers 'cause now people can buy really embarrassing books sans embarrassment. Like you know how the first time you got condoms or tampons you got super-nervous, wondering "what does the cashier think of me?" when in actuality the cashier was probs thinking like "1 plus 1 equals ... hmm ... I wonder which episode of Grace Under Fire is on tonight ... I should paint my nails hot pink next time ..." but at bookstores, chances are the clerk really is judging you, which's why it's a good thing they don't sell tampons at bookstores. This affects me directly 'cause it means there's no excuse w/r/t ordering books I'm in like Dirty Girls AND 'cause I've been known to read YA novels & queer theory books and, once upon a time, tried to read erotica so I could learn how to write it. I found erotica to be 95% boring, so I just winged it. Winged? Is that a word? Not that there's anything shameful about queer theory, and I've bought most of my books at The Strand, but I don't think I could've handled making eye contact with anyone when I was doing book research via classics like Same Sex in the City: When Your Prince Charming Turns out to be a Cinderella and The Straight Girl's Guide to Sleeping with Chicks. See, I can write about it on the internet, but can't handle buying these books in front of a stranger I'll never see again and have never seen before. Why is this? I don't know. There are many things about life I do not understand.

w/o: the gradual closing of every independent bookstore everywhere

I feel like we're just holding our breath before they all disappear, which puts major decisions about our reading choices -- e.g., front table selections -- in the hands of a few very rich & powerful people, and ultimately the entire culture will spiral into apocalyptic mass destruction. The number of independent bookstores in America has decreased from 5,200 in 1991 to 1,702 in 2005. Some of my favorites have shut their doors just since I moved here (Ivy's Books, Gotham Book Mart), and NYC is one of the best cities in the world for independent bookstores. That's bad news, guys. Here's a list which includes the remainders.

*
Work Less, Play More:

w/: you guys who have jobs where you never have to do anything

I've come to the official conclusion that at least 75% of you read this blog while you're getting paid to do something else. I don't know how so many of my peers landed these lesiurely dream jobs of leisure that enable constant g-chat availability, facebook addictions and blog-reading, but it works to my advantage, clearly, and to the advantage of all people with blogs everywhere. Without boredom at work, there would be no blogs. There was a survey about this in '05 and Advertising Age did a story on it that you can't access w/o registering and paying, so I'll just tell you what it said: one-quarter of the American workforce reads blogs -- an average of 3.5 hours a week spent reading blogs at work. It's probs more than that now, 'cause I didn't even have a blog then. [No. Really; there's just more well-done blogs out there now than there were and it's become more mainstream too.]

w/o: the constant work-related communication via handheld devices

I love my Blackberry 'cause I like the keyboard and its cute little interface and the fact that it informs readers that I'm writing from a blackberry -- my Dash didn't do that, so people probs just thought I didn't know how to format paragraphs, use punctuation, or change to a more aesthetically pleasing font. Howevs: this is clearly bad for us like -- as a society. It's hard out here for a hermit, you know?

People really are working all the time now, and you're always expected to be on top of your shit -- work is bleeding into life and we accept this -- and somewhere along the line it became acceptable to use your Blackberry in social situations, like all the time. I do it too, but you started it.

The trick, as I've mentioned before, is to establish yourself as an unavailable person. For example, I haven't looked at my Blackberry or my email since about 1 P.M. But really the only person who calls me is the outsourced Indian girl who's in charge of harassing T-Mobile customers about overdue bills. And Natalie.

*

(picture from APOLITEWINTER )

But I know working all the time is one of my problems, too. But I don't really care.

I've always been (to a fault) totally at peace with my vices -- and with yours, you know. I don't judge. Life is hard, I say. Here is something. Have fun. Have a drink. Go tanning. Smoke 'til your lungs turn to ash and crumble. Try to laugh. Everything is fleeting. Lose yourself. Let Go. There is Beauty in the Breakdown.

My Year in Review: a rollercoaster. Non-stop action, all-consuming denial, disarming reaction ... and sometimes vices were all I had because vices and habits are something, they are just something. They are something or something else. Maybe my blog is a vice.

Last year -- for two weeks of Depressing June and for much of September, October and November -- I indulged my psyche ... indulged the crash, the aftermath ... in a way I haven't done in years and years (though it used to be standard, daily, when I was an adolescent). I liked the silence & La Triviata and the sharp erect curve of my hipbones in my palms as I lost my appetite for all things concretely nourishing. Depression is like that -- it's a friend, it's full and satisfying and terribly entirely enough and I think that's the best part, is how self-sufficient & fearless it is. It's satisfied to only relate to substances or things or private action, it doesn't need anybody. Sometimes you can find someone else to destruct with you, and sometimes that makes it better, or at least more fun, less lonely. It doesn't have to be lonely, but it can be. It's a snap: your brain is here, in the world, and then something happens and your brain snaps again and you're Darkness.

I've had many Dark Ages, but never have I had a Dark Age that I spoke about as immediately as I did last year ... but there's something to be said for time before hashing it all out again in "Year in Review" format. There's insight, I think, in sailing a distance from the act, for not just seeing the light but like, chilling in it, nesting in it for a bit.

When June happened, I was "blessed" to be phone-less, since it'd just been stolen, along with other things, and I had no desire to replace it or anything. So when she wasn't here, I was alone and still and getting through to me was so complicated. I felt fifteen again, skinny & wry & elizabeth wurtzeled out to the max. I read Kathy Acker. I drank. I starved. I smoked cigarettes. I listened to my house phone ring. I would've walked into traffic if it hadn't required leaving my room. I lay on the bed. I pondered the colour of my walls, I stopped breathing, when I stood up all the blood would rush to my head and for a moment I'd pray to faint. I felt gutted, violent & quiet & small, I felt an emptiness so thick it broke into pieces, it had shapes: emptiness like spades, cleaving to my gut and simultaneously poised for attack.

And by the end of June I was the opposite of that. I was all action, all drunken and oblivious and during the daytime just productive -- at the writer's table with Carly and our index cards and new music and our teevee show and meeting new! people! and the summer, the hot hot summer, and then the cruise running on the docks with Heather and dancing at night with strangers who didn't feel like strangers and an august of revisions and refinements and job searching and working and sitting and freaking out and not sleeping, really, hardly, ever at all, and then there was September and I crashed back to that elemental state and then I started to crawl out of it in late November just in time for winter and it's respectful hibernation and now, I'm here, I've crawled out, ta-da! I'm ready! Watch me go! I've got a Blackberry! Contact me! Whenever! Hoo-ha! Processing Fees! The past six months! Just! Happened! I don't know what happened. I wouldn't've guessed that October would feel so much like June, but I'm glad to know that before I really wrote/"reviewed" either of those months.

I'm glad, for one thing, that there were times I said nothing, or that I waited 'til the very end of August to even address June, let alone talk about it.

So. A break from this look at the year. To see how the past plays out in this bright present. A break from my self-imposed decision to Review the Year. And talk about myself. To myself. Memeememememememe. blablabalabla. ( I sound like I actually think what I'm saying is important. That's a mask, it's totes not, you should read The New York Times.)

Because now it is 2008 and I can't say that there's any vice or habit I feel I oughta break right now, there's nothing I need to get rid of or add (nothing wrecking me more than memory) and so I guess, ultimately, my New Year's Resolution is less rollercoaster, more coast. Less false starting, more follow-through. I think: this is possible. This is already happening and this is everything/something. Things change, people change ... and circumstance, ultimately, hasn't prevented every person I know from becoming an even cooler person than they were last year. So.much.hope.

And then maybe, just maybe, in a year or two or ten, I'll get to that imaginary future I've been banking on all this time while I forgive myself of smaller sins. This place: where everything is stable enough, good enough, real enough, fulfilling enough -- that I can afford to let go of cancer-causing agents or devote myself to the physical evolution of various neglected muscle groups. Because when I think about the word "future," I think about rides in Tommorowland -- spaceships like seashells, people like machines with teeth like microchips -- I don't think about memememe getting old and still and satisfied and stable. But maybe I will. And then -- in this stable future I'm spinning and progressing towards, because that's how time works -- I will breathe.

*
we must pass
through solitude and
difficulty, isolation and silence
to find that enchanted place where
we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our
sorrowful song. But in that dance, and in
that song, the most ancient rites of conscience fulfill themselves
in the awareness of
being human
(Pablo Neruda)
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I Can VLOG Right Now, There's So Much Drama!

[A'ight, two of THE VLOGS are on here now and comments are back on, apparently linking out is v.confusing, which is fine, I understand, I don't know how my phone works.] I took this theater class at Sarah Lawrence where we learned to be Actors by expressing all our Feelings and crying in front of strangers. There were no actual plays involved, obvs, how tedious. It was like group therapy or a revival meeting but for college credit and w/o a gospel choir. Sooo, on the last day we did, surprise, an emotive exercise--we stood in the middle of our ring o' classmates, screamed an affirmation of "how we prevail," and then jumped up and down yelling our affirmation as a group. It was very beautiful, my heart grew three sizes that day. Mine was "I prevail because I learn something new every day." The girl I had a secret crush on said "I prevail because I know that I'm beautiful." I was like, yeah you are. It was also my last day at Sarah Lawrence, and I shouldn't've been jumping 'cause I was injured, but hell, you learn something new every day. Anyhow, I'd emailed Delp that same week (my best writing teacher ever), to update him about dropping out of college etc., and he wrote me this in return:

Marie, dear Marie ...

I thought you were dead ... take some time off ... heal the leg and heal the mind ... go someplace sunny where you can live on a quarter a day ... in the words of Joseph Heller: "what does a sane man do in an insane world?" ... I'm just about ready to hang it up myself ... we teach math and physics and chemistry to everyone and we've ended up with a country like we have? Jesus ... it's enough to make me sick ... so be true to your heart's passions ... become, of all things, a writer .... the world needs the truth now more than it ever has ...
(12. 13. 1999)

Remember yesterday when I wrote that blog? I do! Your comments are so beautiful it hurts to look at them. JK, it doesn't hurt, it's awesome, I can't talk about it without sounding Emo. No, it does hurt, but in a beautiful way. Thank you.

I really was going to delete it about an hour later, but that gets me to the point that brings the first paragraph back around: What did I learn yesterday? If you want to stop yourself from deleting an embarrassing blog, a good idea is to have friends over, kill 1.5 bottles of wine with Carly (this is a pattern, see, I'm predictable), make 10 hours of vlogs and not check your email. Haviland will check your blog before you do, and she'll tell you "Riese, you can't erase it," and you'll say "ok!" 'cause you'll be drunk and making a vlog.

Wanna see it? The trailer I edited (Autostraddle Vlog #1), is below, but if you wanna watch all three, you've gotta go here, to my homosexy teevee recap blog Autostraddle, to watch them. Seriously, it's really good/brill/hilarious and it's worth the extension of your index finger and the external out-click, besides, everyone should try to keep their fingers nimble.



Here's a Blooper Reel that Carly edited with her skills. What's it for? Hmmm ... go here! It's all about The L Word inside jokes, thus auto-straddle's exclusive on it.



[You can comment at AutoStraddle, too much crossblog action makes the baby go blind]

Birthday Girl/If You Go, You Go

i. Top 26 Years of My Life

Did anyone notice that the Sunday Top Ten didn't include an actual Top Ten of anything? I honestly didn't. I asked: "Haviland, why did I name this blog 'Sunday Top Ten' when there's no top ten in it? At all? Whatsoever? Did you notice that?" and she was like "Well, it was Sunday? But I did notice that." It's true: it mos def was Sunday, published just as the clock struck Sunday. I mean, I apply the term 'Sunday Top 10' to Tuesday Top 8s, so it's usually half-a-lie anyhow. But this week, it was just a different half doing the lying.

ii. What I Did For my Birthday.

I decided I needed to walk it out. Ghost-fighting, maybe, taking stock -- sort of. Whatever it was, it just came into my mind as what I needed to do on my birthday and so I did it.

I subwayed to South Street Seaport, then walked home. Yes, item #450 on the "Why Riese Is So Cool It Hurts" list: I spent my 26th birthday walking from the South Street Seaport to Harlem, listening to an audiobook of Alice Sebold's Lucky, reading text messages, listening to voice mails, and occasionally stopping for food/Tasti-D-Lite. [Other items on the "Why Riese is So Cool It Hurts" list include: "Owes Visa her first-born child," "Has no marketable skills," "Listens to the 'Spring Awakening' soundtrack in the shower," "recaps television shows for fun, even though she apparently despises all of them," "Is attracted to Will Smith and Amy Ray from The Indigo Girls."]

I've done the midtown-to-Harlem or Harlem-to-midtown walk many-a-time, as well as a midtown-to-downtown --- with Natalie, Haviland, TB, etc. When I was younger and hungrier I used to think if I kept walking, I could make everything else inside of me stop, and when I left the city I'd itch to return just so I could walk and walk and I thought maybe eventually evaporate, or fly; weightless. That's one of many reasons I loathe summertime; the heat prevents this pastime. That's also one of many reasons I hate my life; my life prevents all pastimes, allowing only room for present-times. I just invented that word, it means "things that are efficient and conducive to productivity right now."

See map: I walked a little over eight miles.
I wish it'd taken my Mom like, 10 days to give birth to me, and then I could've had a 10-day long birthday, and I could've walked past everything that's ever happened to me in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn [I've never been to Staten Island, though I saw a great MTV True Life documentary about it, and I've only hit up The Bronx once -- to get a filing cabinet they didn't stock @ the Manhattan Staples]. Unfortunately I only had the time and leg/foot/back-power to canvas about 15% of my ghosts.

[Also, I'm JKing, I know how birthdays work.]

In retrospect, I realise that I shouldn't've worn Chuck Taylors. That was a Bad Call. But if I'd worn my Nikes, then I would've felt like I was a mall walker or something. My Mom used to go walking in the mall. Sometimes I'd go with her and try to cut the corners and she'd get really annoyed with me and go "REEEEE, Get back here!" and then I'd be like "OK, can we go to Godiva now?" and she'd be like "O.K."

iii. "This is what I remember." (First line. Lucky, by Alice Sebold.)

So I left the Seaport, heading north, went through Soho--nerve offices where I interned [Winter 05], Apple Store, site of many-a-mental-breakdown/cash drop ['04-'06] -- and then I was walking through the East Village, where I lived at Third Avenue North [Summer 01] and a pretty girl rode by on a bicycle, and then I saw her, she saw me and then she stopped and got off the bicycle.

Janet: Isn't it your birthday today?
Me: Yeah, it kinda is.
Janet: Happy birthday. What are you doing?
Me: Walking home from South Street Seaport.
Janet: Oh, that's cool.
Me: Where are you biking to?
Janet: You know. Nowhere really. We should probably get a lottery ticket.
Me: Totes.
Janet: Nice hair.
Me: Thanks.
Janet: You know who else I saw today, besides you? Danny Bonaduce from The Partridge Family.

Also, Janet lives on the Upper East, so both of us were literally miles from home. What're the chances? The big drawing is tomorrow, I'm probs gonna win a million dollars. Wanna know what I'm going to do with it? Two chicks at the same time, man. Seriously, that's still one of my favorite dumb jokes from any movie ever. Last night I couldn't sleep, it was like 4 A.M., and apparently I rated like 550 movies on facebook. That wasn't exactly on my to-do list, but you know those things you do when you can't sleep are never things you should be doing. I mean, you've gotta go easy on yourself at 4 A.M. I was thinking of that because I was thinking of my other favorite jokes in movies, which made me think of "Super Troopers" which I gave five stars, obvs.

Janet was a perfect person to run into, 'cause she doesn't disrupt my energy. Perhaps she's on it, maybe that's the thing ... but you know what I mean? How most people kinda shake you up a little, or pull you into a different version of yourself, or deject or elevate you in some way? Or you feel you've gotta perform a little for them, or just be present in a way that demands something of you -- which can most defo be a good thing, of course, that's the idea of hanging out with other human beings after all. But when you're in Wandering Hermit mode; if you're going to run into someone, it best be someone who's already riding your inevitable vibe. I sound like a stoner right now, I'm talking about vibes and shit. Or I guess I sound like movie versions of stoners.

As I write this I keep thinking about how crazy people (literally crazy people) spend days just walking around this city. I am not one of those people. Or am I? [I'm not.]

Union Square: where I met Stephanie in person for the first time in '04. Where I spent weekends escaping Sarah Lawrence in '99; Meg & I'd get produce at the greenmarket, make soup in her Carlye Court dorm, go drink at The Mexican Village 'til it got busted for selling crack. The Barnes & Noble I'd write at when I lived in a closet [both literally and metaphorically, actually] in the West Village in '04. Forever Fucking 21, where I've spent the best most beautiful years of my life waiting in line to buy tank tops that're like, 30% cotton and 70% crap, where I met up w/Haviland after she'd been out of town for a week (June 06) and then got on the L train! To my Williamsburg apartment (Jan-Aug 06).

Past Flatiron; the MoSex where I had that panel (June 07), Garment District; the lit agency & Mina's old office, past Bryant Park where I made out at 3 A.M. under the summer bar-service tents with the Puerto Rican boxer with the stab wound (July.01), Bryant Park where Stephanie and I went ice skating (Nov.06), Bryant Park where that Live Through This and You Won't Look Back story happened (April.07).

I avoided the Times Squareish area--it's too much, and people walk too slow there, and then I want to kill them, and it would suck if I killed someone on my birthday.

Past Rockefeller Center where I'd wait Friday nights for Lo to get off work (Winter 05), before we moved in together, in that sweet part of a new something where you don't know yet exactly how it's gonna fall apart or even if it will, because ideally it so often doesn't -- the part where it's still just super-sweet, and hopeful. That's the best part.

I hate how that part gets less sweet as you get older because you're already scared, anticipating, and consequently killing or shying things too soon, lest they get too sweet. But also: you make up 'cause that's the point, right? To go for it, anyhow.

Columbus Circle -- Haviland and I call The Time Warner Center "The most romantic place in New York City" and often meet up outside it: a mutual friend recounted her husband proposing to her at Per Se on their wedding website (April 06), and I was like, dude, you cannot start your engagement in the Time Warner Center, that is lame and un-romantic. Carly and I outlined out two episodes in that park (Aug 07). All the stores and restaurants/cafes I'd frequent to pick things up before visiting hours at St. Luke's (07), and how I'd feel afterwards, walking back to the train, long longing.

The Upper West -- my first NYC apartment, 74th & Amsterdam, where Ryan and I slept on a bunkbed (Winter/Spring 00). All our boarding school friends lived up there: Julliard, Columbia, Manhattan School of Music. The corner where Marc kissed me and then told me to think about it (Feb.00). The restaurant where I'd worked and met Jeremiah (Summer 04), his Mom's apartment where he stayed when he left his wife (Winter 04), that spot on Central Park West where I fell on my rollerblades (May 00) and went home bloodied, the restaurants I'd eat at on dates with rich Jewish boys who bored the fuck out of me (summer 04), The Fairway where Krista and I flirted our way into getting groceries delivered to Sparlem (Sep.05). Ryan's non-air-conditioned apartment (summer 98) -- the site of that "mind-over-matter" ice cold shower torture procedure I talk about here. My ex-gym (06-07). Where Cameron and I rode our bikes right in the thick of traffic and I learned how to let go (summer 05).

This part of the walk is when my legs really started throbbing. But I kept going, like Odysseus.

Then up to Morningside Heights, where I lived earlier this year (Sep 06-May 07). Too much there to even begin. All this stuff is just tips of various icebergs too, obvs. Then up. Higher up there're less people walking, but instead there're people sitting on milk-crates and stoops or just standing in the street, hanging out, or whatever.


iv. and did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?

By the time I got home it was dark out. I had emails and phone-calls and other such things. Blog comments!

I called my Grandmother. She told me to tell Rosie that she never liked that blonde-headed girl and asked me if I had any men in my life. Erum. Lozo? Also said she tells everyone in Wilmington, Ohio all about her fabulous granddaughter the writer, and I said, urm, maybe you shouldn't do that. Because then what will you say when I decide to work at Duane Reade? Also, I'd like to work at the Wilmington Gold Star Chili.

Haviland came over. Asked if I wanted to meet her at McDonald's, she wanted Soft Serve. I said OK! I said I wanted dinner. She said, silly, I would've brought you a nice dinner, we can order something good, I said I wanted McDonald's for my birthday because you know why? It tastes really good. I'm a cheap date.

Monday, Haviland & I went to Bliss for my b-day and now my tired feet are beautiful. Also my skin is radiant. That's good news for my roommates and the Dunkin' Donuts people who get to see my radiant face all the time. They had my two favorite flavors at the Tasti-D place, peanut butter and cookies 'n cream.


v. The Places We Retreat To, the Places We Can't Bear to Be Found

So I wanted to walk and do some thinking and I wanted to do this without worrying about anything, like having to be someplace, or having to talk to people, I just wanted to walk and think and so that's what I did. I don't know, still, if I want to stay here or if I want to leave. I'm always leaving, you know?

I don't really know how to slow down or stay anywhere, I don't even really know how to grow up, and every time things stop working, I walk. I've got a long history of long walks, sometimes in serious inclement weather or super-sketchy neighborhoods.

That's my gig: I can walk away. That's my top tenth skill, walking away, I can walk away all my life, I'll walk away from anything, because when you walk away from something you get this extra-credit wind beneath you like almost flying and you can ride that for a long time. But like -- what are you walking TO, you know? I'm 26, that means nothing, I'm alive, 26 years later, still walking, still wind, still leaving, still still still rounding corners.

[It was perfect.]

I've sat in corners at parties hoping for someone
who knew the virtue
of both distance and close quarters, someone with a
corner person's taste
for intimacy, hard won, rising out of shyness
and desire.
-Stephen Dunn, "Corners"

Carousel of Progress: Beverage Bottles, Google Empire, Transportation, Interns

It's been a fantastic week for Progress. I'm now [sorta] employed, I journeyed to Pathmark for groceries [and stepped directly into a lagoon of tomato sauce, facilitating a somewhat sensual experience between my foot and the cleaning-man's mop], replaced my gapingly-holed Chuck Taylors with brand-new-[sized-too-small] Chuck Taylors [the ten minutes allotted for this errand did not provide for additional store visits to hunt down proper size, whatever, my feet'll shrink or my shoes'll grow, it takes two to tango], got my hair did [Visa's especially excited about that], and....yes...!!!...although the globe is warming, my room is cooling because...

(!!!)

Roommate-Ryan, who coincidentally happened to read my blog for the first time this week, removed those soul-stifling bars from my window, AND, before I was able to jump out, filled said window with my AIR CONDITIONER! Ryan's the best roommate ever, besides Zoey. And me, 'cause last summer, I installed THREE air conditioners in Lo and I's apartment, inspiring Lo to comment: "You're such a lesbian today!" That's right. But now that I'm the girly one in my lesbo-ation-ship, I've got no time/strength for such things. I have to do my hair, etc. Anyway, enough about me. Go Ryan!

a power of butterfly must be the aptitude to fly

So, re: hair? On my first visit to DRAMATICS NYC [also'd be a good name for Nation on Saturday Nights], I thought "Hm, my stylist's name is TRAFFIC? That's weird. Maybe his parents were drunk, or Nascar fans, or both." But this time, my stylist's name was ZONE and his assistant's name: ENERGY. Today, at my new job, I commented to the girl-who-was-training-me: "Everyone who works here has a porn star name!" [E.G., Denver, Rod, Asia, Javier.] Then I said to myself: "Riese, you're not in your room anymore, shut up, weirdo!" She laughed/agreed though. Because I was funny/right. Not really/kinda.

Anyhow I wanna go to hairstyling school so I can get a job at DRAMATICS NYC and change my name to TOXIC.

Onto installment TWO of The Auto-Win Carousel of Progress: Winter-Fresh Edition. I don't know what I'm talking about anymore. Like I ever did. I mean, it's getting worse. My brain is tired 'cause I woke up at 6 A.M. to go to work. That's right, WORK. Did I mention that already? Obvs I'm not cut out for this "working" thing, I'm never going to work again ever. Over it. Totes tiring. What am I talking about? Right: the wheel. You know what though? That was a good one, yeah? The wheel? That was a fucking amazing idea, the wheel.

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BEVERAGE CONTAINERS:


W/O: The New Poland Spring Bottle Caps...

Are accidents waiting to happen. Not even waiting, really. Rather: "actively exploding all over my bag/bed/floor/what-have-you." Has happened approx. 100 times since the cap's introduction, including this morning, when, as you know, I was on my way to my JOB. I didn't have time to check the front bag-pocket for damages--and, fast forward to several hours later: I reached into aforementioned pocket for emergency tampon to find it'd taken on the form of a dead jellyfish, if jellyfish were made out of cotton and not jelly. Why change a good thing, Poland Springs? You had the right idea by bottling water, which's a classic choice, so you had to compensate by inventing a new kind of cap? Seriously, what?!! I'd like to sit it on that meeting, which probs went like this: Hey, this is nice how I can suck water out of this bottle like a baby suckling his mother's breast. Let's change it because we hate women.

W/: Screw-Caps for Wine Bottles

Because I can't possibly go a single post w/o mentioning the Olive Garden this week: we had this wine called Lambrusco--probs sells at Pathmark for about $4.99/bottle. It had a screw cap, but this was back in '00, before screw caps were hip, so we were trained to cover the "opening" process [which in all other instances involved a flourish of "wine key" and a rare opportunity to demonstrate hand-eye coordination or really any useful brain activity whatsoever] with our napkin¹ to hide the cheap-wine-giveaway suggested by the screw cap. I'm glad this stigma is gone, and now there's nothing embarrassing about ordering Lambrusco at The Olive Garden, except that you're at The Olive Garden.

I prefer 'em and love their proliferation: easier to store in crowded refrigerators, easier to tote and easier to open and subsequently hide if one is drinking in a place where one is not supposed to be drinking, e.g. work [not my new job that I started today, obvs, but other jobs I clearly no longer have for whatever reason], and doesn't require purchase of ghetto wine opener which breaks on first usage. Much like my heart.

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THE RAPIDLY EXPANDING GOOGLE.COM EMPIRE:

W/O: [certain elements of] Gmail

Sometimes, in an attempt to prove a point about why I couldn't have Barbies or go to the cool-kids party, my Mom'd say: "Marie, if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?" And I was like, "Um, obviously. Why would I want to be alive if all my friends had just jumped off a bridge?" So, I got gmail. I even suggest gmail to my friends, and then shun them if they don't join up [except you, dear Haviland, and your adorable AOL]. But for reals, it drives me crazy that I can't put mail into good old fashioned FOLDERS. Labels? Wha?! I've never enjoyed labels much. Some of my least favorite include: top/bottom [re: lesbian sexual assignment, apparently for life], "artsy," bisexual, bi-curious, slut, JAP, slacker. I don't need my "Hav" label to indicate which emails are from Haviland--that much's apparent by her email address in the "FROM" field, yeah? Seriously: do you know anyone who's like "Thank G-d for those labels, totes helps me organize my life. Vigilant about the labels. I can see clearly now the rain is gone." This's what I want, and it's what I had on yahoo/hotmail/other retarded email servers: my inbox is just for emails I've gotta respond to. I'd like folders for the rest of it, and I don't wanna "archive" everything I've responded to, which'd be Gmail's solution. I tried indicating emails-needing-response with "stars," but then they slip out of top-spots and my starred emails end up being people I never really intended to respond to, like random dudes I met on J-Date in 2004. That's not a hypothetical. Also I label my emails anyhow, just cause I trust Google blindly, like I'm that douchebag and Google's jumping off the bridge, and I'm like, wait up! wait for me!

W/: Google Reader

I love Google Reader for what it truly is:"Google Reader helps you keep up with it all by organizing and managing all the content you're interested in. Instead of continuously checking your favorite sites for updates, you can let Google Reader do it for you. From news sites to your friends' blogs, Google Reader helps you keep up-to-date with all the online information that matters most to you."

I love Google Reader for what it is accidentally: Say, hypothetically, that one's girlfriend compulsively erases her blog posts at a rate so rapid it'd be hard to keep up if one wasn't informed of each posting more-or-less immediately: well, luckily, it's all stored in the Google Reader cache. Every last redacted word. Holla!

I've refrained from lauding the glory of Google-Reader on this blog because: 1. Google is evil, T.B. read all about it, they're spying on us, etc. [I use "google is evil" and "Al Queda" in this post. And "DRAMATICS NYC." And "porn." P.S., I hate George W. Bush and I love Rosie O'Donnell.] 2. I suspect that when people read this on G-Reader, it doesn't show up on my site-meter. But I'm abandoning pride at the gate, kids.

I actively monitor about 75 blogs right now, a feat only possible with the help of my third favorite site (GMail and this blog being first and second, respectively) on the internet, Google Reader, a site I would make sweet, gentle (and occasionally rough) love to were it physically possible (Don’t even get me started on what I would do to GMail, and as for my own site, well, let's just say it does just fine.)
-Amish, NYC blogger and a member of my social web back at the ol' alma matter, University of Michigan.

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TRANSPORTATION

W/O- AIRPLANES:

Absolutely everything about travel-by-plane is resolutely unpleasant. I know planes've got advantages: e.g., they move super-fast, which's especially important for overseas travel, as no-one wants to spend their vay-cay on an ocean liner. [Except cruise -ers, obvs, like me, but then there are people who get seasick, like Haviland, which's why she took sea-sick medicine and then started hallucinating: Everything's just so--BRIGHT!]

It's not the "flying" part that I despise, it'd be fun to learn fly a jet or go-go-gadget copter. But large commercial airliners are floating torture chambers: we're willingly strapped to Gravitron -esque "seats," we wait like Patient Robots for the moment we're permitted to recline half-an-inch, relish this moment...and then, for anywhere between 30-500 minutes, we experience unpleasant physical sensations like fresh-oxygen deprivation and virus transfusion (transmitted via little devil robo-tit fans) and THEN! THEN!, the half-inch recline is snapped mercilessly from our hands [often by a tired/hungover flight attendant while we are literally unconscious, which's like someone waking you up by whapping you on the ass and screaming MAKE ME SOME COFFEE WOMAN! not that anyone ever did that to me every single morning ever], like a stork bending to snatch up a chortling child. Then you land--which's when you're pretty certain you're about to die--and are spit out into a huge building that smells like rotten festering dehydrated humans. Sorta. Just thinking about it makes me want to throw up in a paper bag. That's why I take trains from New York to Wisconsin. Also because I'm afraid of Al Queda.

W/- LEXUS (I want to make this plural, but how? LEXI? LEXUSES?):

Once upon a time, I bought myself a car. Before you run away with any Riese-was-wealthy? ideas: Lexuses, moreso than other brands, maintain value, and I knew I needed to sell my car within a year of purchase 'cause I planned on being a part of it in New York, New York post-graduation. I wanted to maximize my return, like a year-long car rental?

Anyhow: driving it was like dancing! I'd never liked driving really, it was fine, got me from here to there. I thought shiny expensive cars were just shinier than other cars, and somehow grinned with bling-teeth-money-tongue-cash-tingle, I didn't realize it was almost like a different kind of car. Like, totes AS ADVERTISED. When I was really sad, which I was often then [the heart breaks into small pieces, etc.?], I'd drive it around Ann Arbor for hours, singing along to Fiona Apple: Cause I do know whats good for me, and I've done what I could for you, [imagine me pounding dashboard with I-Am-Woman triumphance] and you're not benefiting, and yet I'm sitting, singing again SING SING again! [almost yelling now, getting very upset] How can I deal with this, if he won't get with this? Am I gonna heal from this, he won't admit to it... Or I'd just park it in the parking lot of my elementary school, Eberwhite, and take a nap with the air conditioner or heater still on. Depending on the season.

The Lexus was white. It was so not-me. So entirely thoroughly not me, it was like floating through life in a stolen spaceship, which sometimes happens to be exactly what you need.

WHY HASN'T THIS HAPPENED YET?: Teleportation.

Even those of you w/o several seasons of Star Trek in your brain's back-log have certainly wished [out loud, probs] to be teleported. I usually declare this particular desire while sitting in someone's apartment or house late at night, imagining my own commute home: bus, cab, car, train, whatevs--anything besides the only other tolerable commute I've experienced, which's "falling asleep and having A Parent lift me and deposit me instantly into my bed, a.k.a. falling asleep and having A Parent lift me, deposit my body into a car, drive me home, and carry me to bed," which hasn't happened since the late 80's.

But if there were teleportation, I could import Unpaid Interns from all over the globe. Especially now that I've got an actual job, time's tight. A.K could flow my paper, Lozo could blow on my hands, Razia could stick it to those mofos and unintentionally practice precognition, Moonkiller could tote my things because she invented the totem pole, Mercury obvs is doing my hair and "word verification" was the cleverest thing EVER for number #1, M could recite Run DMC's It's Tricky which is no small thing, the spaz's ass is black man's kryptonite [making us quite a planet], kate'll let me use her hair products and can count words in her head, and carlytron wouldn't even need to be teleported, she totes lives here, could take a cross-town bus to perform a skit, a game, whatevs. And I need carlytron because we gotta bring The Truth About Stacey and Mallory and the Trouble with Twins to the screen ASAP.

And lk coulda written this post, if she'd wanted to, then I coulda been that black [dirty] angel, yeah, tooth to nail and [perfectly] translating [vain] words [are what sticks to the real]...crawling underground, lifting the phone [could hear our] voice, no black mark [upon their foreheads], yeah, yeah, environmental transformation. That's some translation, ghostwriter.

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¹: Also known as the "tail," required to be on our persons at all time, lest someone place a scalding hot lasanga plate into our hands. Once I was delivering lasanga to a table and I handed it to the server and said: 'do you have a tail?' and he said, No, I don't need it, and proceeded to handle 5,000 degree plates with his bare hands. I decided he was my hero, and now I can do the same thing. I was an excellent expo for this reason.