Whoodie Wednesdays & This Girl Called Automatic Almost-Winner

Hello, friends. I'm in a weird mood today [and by "today" I mean "yesterday," Tuesday, when I wrote this post, not "today" as in Wednesday, when you're reading it]. [I know, how'd I manage to get a Lezzie nomination when I can barely construct a sentence?] I mean everything feels totally off. All day I've been a beast. Anyhow! Speaking of things that are ON: 'cause you're all so amazing at voting, I'm now a finalist for "Best Beast Blog" for The Lezzies. I mean "Best Personal Blog." The other two nominated blogs (Peaches & Coconuts and A Brown Girl Gone Gay) are excellent and newer. I love them both already, they're fresh young muffins of delight. Also whether you want to or not, vote for Grace the Spot for best humor blog and also for Sugarbutch for best Gender-Bender & Short Story/Erotica. Just do it, okay? Just do it. Like you would with a sneaker. Also vote for Auto-Winner Dorothy for Culture & Entertainment.

I should probably edit this blog in the morning like a proper person [UPDATE: Eh.]. You're all wonderful. Have I told you that enough? I haven't, I never could. I think blogs are magic. You've brought magic into my life. Not the rabbit stuff I could already do that.

I feel vulnerable today. I have two choices: beast or gutted.

THIS JUST IN!!! You have one choice: watch Riese & Haviland on Alexi's Closet Episode #17! (Screencap above) In this episode, it appears at times that I almost know what I'm talking about.

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I'm ready for my recession to be stimulated. Yes We Can! I've been living this self-created "what I'm doing now is perfect for now but won't be good long-term" life for quite some time now.

You know how it goes with things that were meant to be temporary and then become your whole life. Before you know it, it's been forever, you're stuck in a prologue and you can't get out of it.

Now my/our traditional state of existence has become the National Spirit, now's the time for us all to suck it up for two years, we're told these temporary measures will enable stuff getting better later. I'm down. And though it makes me itchy to think this -- because so many people don't have homes, or credit cards, or any of the wonderful support systems that I have -- my number one feeling about the Recession is that I feel like suddenly now everyone is feeling the way I've felt (alone) for the last two years or so. You know.

Lately I've been fine with putting periods at the end of questions. Maybe I've stopped expecting answers.

Tomorrow I should fix this blog post. I don't know what it is about extra attention that makes me want to talk crazy. By "fix" I mean I should write proper sentences like I went to college.

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One thing I like about this "Best Personal Blog" category is that I don't have to compete against people who rely on on external happenings/content to provide post topics. See I have to think of all these things myself. Like how can my navel lint compete with Tank Top Tuesdays or like actual news.

Did you know I've written 463 posts? That's so many. Since April 2006. I was so young then, so full of light and angel food cake. Angel food cake is bullshit cake.

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I thought it would be fun/appropriate to celebrate the nomination by asking everyone to tell me something personal they'd want to know about me, but then that seemed so ridiculously self-centered and presumptuous of me, and it seeming that way made me not want to do it. But I still think it's a good idea. Secretly.

I have a strange definition of the word "secret." Stephen Dunn said something like; there's a lie behind every lie I've told. I think.

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You know what the hardest thing about writing a personal blog is? That at any given moment absolutely anyone in the whole world you've ever known can make a decision to read as much of it as they want to and consequently email me to let me know they've read it.

There's nothing wrong with this, obvs, but it can be jarring. When someone unexpected does this I have a knee-jerk reaction to go back and look at everything I've ever written to make sure I never wrote something about them or relating to them expecting them to never read.

Any given day -- a boy I slept with in college, an ex girlfriend or boyfriend, a former roommate, relatives close and twice removed, my mother, my cousins, the girl that decided to get all up in my ex's grill, an employer, a co-worker, a former anything, the boy i loved at 13, the girl who loved me too much, the ones that got away, the muses and the dreams, the lost friends of the 90's, the one I envied, the ones who hurt me, those I've forgotten, the famous person I wrote about, the blogger I linked to, the writer I liked, an old teacher, you, you, you, you, you.

It's like imagining if your facebook page really did contain most of your book and a lot of your face and privacy settings were not an option.

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I say it's not hard to have it all out there and have my name on it -- not just my name but my face and my everything. I mostly rely on my tendency to ramble to be my main defense from ever really attracting the casual attention of someone only tentatively interested. Anyhow that's what I say but that's not true. It is really hard. But it's not as hard as like, working on a shrimping boat or something. It's hard but it's easier than not saying anything.

I don't think G-d believes in blogs. Do blogs believe in G-d? Time will tell. I tried to do handstands for you, every time I fell on you ...

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You know I genuinely think Uh Huh Her is one of my top ten favorite bands of all time. I can't imagine them ever coming out with a song I don't want to listen to. I admit that Tegan & Sara have had like 3 or 4 songs I've really disliked (Freedom, Superstar, The First, Hype -- but they're all earlier songs) so I still think they're 95% likely to make a song I want to listen to every time.

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I should do Hoodie Wednesdays instead. If it was Whoodie Wendesdays it would be better actually, then it'd be alliteration like Dorothy's, which would be perfect since she beat me last year and was nominated in like every category this year. I need to show you some photos of critters. Obviously. Critter photo time. Also vote for Dorothy in one of those three categories or more than one, she deserves it.

WHOODIE WEDNESDAYS*!
(this will be the one & only whoodie wednesday, don't get too excited.
I like words not pickshurs.)

Top Critters of the Universe Week
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Spencer is cancelled, also has a hoodie on.
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Look, I do secretly think dogs are kinda cute.
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Babypop Number #1 Critter Hoodie
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Tegan or Sara? You decide.
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Like a city, but free.
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Tasha: should wear more hoodies.
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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Hoodie.
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The Beautiful Margaret Cho Hoodie
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Teen Preggers Hoodie
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GO TEAM GO HOODIE!

The Message is the Medium

My Mom won't be in videos 'cause she doesn't like her voice. Therefore, as a kid I was provisioned only an 8mm film camera that by definition didn't pick up sound and required outsourced processing and I could only ride my bike so far and so I had to wait for my Mom to drop off the film, get it processed, pick it up, and then I had to wait for my Dad to set up the film projector and the screen [requiring lots of furniture-moving] and all of this just to avoid my Mom's voice being on camera for ten seconds.

Howevs, as camcorders became commonplace, I grew increasingly suspect of my Mom's insistence that this antique 1970's-purchased camera was acceptable gear for a budding young video artist who desperately needed to record her Lego Pirates & Firemen advancing down a self-made felt road through Lincoln Logville as Boyz II Men wailed "End of the Road" on her portable cassette player. So obvs Dad took me out when I was 13 and bought me a real camcorder.

I'd always try to film Mom anyhow -- sneak attack style -- but there was never any variety. Always just be a quick shot of her giving me Stealth Glare Version #8b and, then, for no discernible reason -- but with great consistency -- she'd snap her fingers and point, firmly, at the floor. I think she meant "why don't you film the floor?" but what was on the floor, nothing, obvs, who wants to see a picture of the floor. If there had been something on the floor, who would've been told to pick it up, me. Then where would my movie be? The ceiling or something, sans Kriss-Kross or the Cher wig.

Basically right now what Warner Music Group is doing is interrupting a very successful video remix of my brother & I playing soccer to the tune of "roll the bones," snapping its fingers, pointing at the floor and asking me to film the floor as if ANYTHING EVER HAPPENS THERE. It's shutting off the music and reminding me the silent film camera is still in the upstairs closet. It's crunching my brand-new camera with its fat greedy mouth, grounding me for ten days from doing anything fun, and then, while I'm grounded in the cellar; they're giving away all my toys that I built myself out of wood from a tree that I grew myself.

YouTube you are not my mother but you are acting like my mother.

YouTube, you're an asshole! You can't just change the rules of the game you've built your empire upon. If you haven't heard -- YouTube is slowly & systematically muting all videos that contain copyrighted music -- absolutely everything from self-recorded covers to remixed soundtracks to unintentional background music. I hope you got the rights on the music at your wedding 'cause that shit is going down. They've got sophisticated robots now, it don't matter how big or small you are.

Jan 14th: "YouTube has started muting videos that use unauthorized copyrighted music (and that pretty much means all user-created videos.) ... If YouTube starts being thorough about this, you can expect to see a significant percentage of all YouTube videos muted. The implications are a bit different than with removing copyrighted professionally produced content, like an official music video; we’re talking about tens of thousands of fan made videos, funny spoofs, remixes and the like being pretty much destroyed, and I’m guessing users will be less than thrilled about it. " (Mashable )

So far I've had one video muted (Riese & Hav & Alexi Vlog #32 -- in its memory, I've replaced its star spot on the channel with a video of my dad, brother and i making funny faces which'll never get muted and Vlog #32 is now on vimeo) and one removed altogether (Lozo Vlog #20) if this continues it's likely they'll all be down soon. If another goes down I'll add it on my new vimeo channel as well.

In December, ads were added to one of my vids 'cause 30 secs of background music had been identified as Warner-owned. That was fine, seemed fair, and, consequently , because i knew of these repurcussions this I went on making videos with music believing the rules weren't about to change. Previously YouTube hadn't cracked down on videos like mine citing Section 512(c) of the DMCA. The artists themselves disagree with Warner's choice -- all these background clips are just free publicity for them, that's obvious.

• 5 Stupid Implications of YouTube's Video Muting - mashable
• Warner Music Group and Others Muted on YouTube - wired. com
• YouTube Users Lash Out at Warner Music (and Google) with protest videos - techcrunch
• YouTube Users Caught in Warner Music Spat (tech-chuck)

I never expected to return to video editing and initially Hav & I were both uneasy about being "out there" -- almost for opposite reasons (I'm uneasy about my moving/speaking image out there, she's comfortable with it, it's her livelihood. She's more careful with words, I'm comfortable saying anything) and I certainly never thought we'd make more than two or three.

But now we're proud of what we did, and I'm happy with what I've learned as an editor and pleased we've built a solid number of subscribers, attracted readers and garnered connections and even better gigs. I'm depressed that soon enough the hundreds of hours I've spent editing videos will be silent as my mom's floor -- the vlogs have value because they're on this youtube channel, they don't have a value separate from its medium or independent of the internet's reaction to & expectation of them.

YouTube's visibility enables this and other sites just don't -- at least for now. (And some have rules like this one from day one.) So I'm figuring out what to do from here, hoping there'll be a revolt and this sitch'll get fixed or ... people think vimeo is pretty and it is pretty ... I dunno. Switching platforms is depressing 'cause endless hours of unpaid work reaps different less tangible rewards like my subscribers and their/your views, honors, anticipation, links, conversations, gigs, etc. -- this is what fulfills us and enables us to gauge how we're doing. I don't want to loose my old videos on youtube as they are right now -- my portfolio, basically, legitimized as good by subscribers -- not to mention Haviland! This really gets my goat!

The platform itself is the thing, and I like[d] it. That was my mistake! Taking it for granted. I totally understand taking down entire musical tracks or any copyrighted video shows or if we were making a profit -- I get that. But I don't get eliminating small clips as background music -- un-rippable songs, so to speak. Warner doesn't necessarily have a case for that, this is just the part where logic dissolves and it just becomes a fight betweeen two giant dickweed organizations.

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But you know, who needs lovely music when you can enjoy some of the writing available on youtube. For example, I've selected some choice comments from my first episode of Lezberado. Don't worry -- these are totally okay things to say, this is what YouTube is 100% okay with.

Just don't play Prince in the background when you type them:

Commenter #1: I want fuck her in a mouth
Commenter #2: FUCK YEAH
Commenter #3: Why? She has horrible teeth!

"ur pathetic for posting a sexy pic to get views u suck shit u fucking scab on society, i hope osmebody inur fmaily dies soon u fucking spawnof satan nothing u say is relivent to the human race u are a fucking intoxicated ametuer lame piece of shit and u deserve nothing except sexual advancement against ur will."

"would you shut the fuck up an go suck a dick thats all you can do and who says your hoe mom is gay i fucker last night."

"this bitch will suck the devils cock."

"vagina's are built to house dicks."

"As is was in the days of Noah and Lot, so will it be in the days of the coming of the Son of man. The world is going to be like it was when 2 men, Noah and Lot lived on this earth. What was different about their time then any other time in history? Immorality, heavy sexual immorality, and specifically homosexuality."

"how do you tell a lesbian from a real woman??? well just look at her freaky ugly haircut!!!"

"Why would the Bin Laden family just happen to be in New York on the eve of 9/11? 9/11 was a red flag op."

That stuff -- that'll never get muted. Thank G-d!

YouTube, I have one thing to say: fuck you, you carwash cunt. BAM! ROASTED.

automatic fun of the day : 1.14.09

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday Top Ten: I Just Wanna be Good

The key to high self-esteem for Grown-Ups is to craft an adult life composed solely of things you're already good at. I don't feel smarter now than I did at age 13 'cause I AM smarter, I feel smarter now 'cause I'm not spending twenty hours a week staring dumbly at mathematical equations, Spanish verb conjugations and photosynthesis diagrams wondering why I've got chapstick for brains. The second runner up key to high self-esteem is alcohol or cocaine. The third runner up is actual self esteem. I don't know what's wrong with you people, what time did you wake up today?

Top Ten Things I Wanna Be Good At But I'm Totally Not
(some are from the list you made in the comments of what you're good at, those are indicated by an asterisk.)

10. **Grammar - It's just kinda embarrassing. I've got several years of education on this topic. I wonder if my occasional mistakes make people violent like how I feel when I see apostrophes in plurals. I really get so upset about it, I'm just sick to imagine what it'd be like if you ever looked at ME that way. La la la. Preposition.

9. Dancing - I secretly love to dance, I'm just bad at it and therefore often avoid it. How do you learn to dance? So far my best strategy's been to get really drunk,'cause then you know I just pick up the beat straight away, it's like magic suddenly I am ready to take baby out of the corner and do that big lift like Swayze-Crazy style.

8. **Sleeping - What a cop-out! I thought seeing "sleeping" as an answer and then I realized no, she is, she's a great sleeper. Her head hits the pillow and she's out, the alarm goes off and she's miserable but up, and I've always been fascinated by those who master this skill I've never -- literally never, not for one moment of childhood even -- possessed. I've generally dated excellent sleepers, sleepers who'll sleep through everything that keeps me up, when I wake up sick, or typing, or not sleeping, or reading or going to the bathroom, getting more water, hunting for chapstick, checking email, thinking thinking thinking thinking. They can snooze away. Haviland's a bad sleeper too, but she wears ear-plugs and wakes up at dawn w/o an alarm.

7. **Writing news stories quickly and efficiently - I am OBSESSED WITH FIGURING THIS OUT. Why? Why do I write so many words? Why are my blog posts so long? Why must I recap every minute if I'm gonna recap a show at all? Why must I be so thorough? What does it mean that I once used David Foster Wallace to justify this behavior and he killed himself this year? It's just I have so! many! thoughts! this is too long.

6. CSS/HTML -- You know that feeling you'd get while doing homework for a class you're bad at -- for me, this was all maths, sciences and languages (by that I mean, "Every class except English") -- a class you're required to take although your brain executes no apparent skill or aptitude for it?

That feeling don't end on graduation day, kids. We've got a kickass programmer now, but there's some things one must attempt to do oneself before one can even tell the designer what to design let alone tell the programmer what to put into code and godDAMN that shit is hard. After I finished my college requirements I thought from here on out, I'll only do shit I'm good at, but no. There's always new opportunities to feel that way, wheee!!

5. **Bullshitting - So I'm working, any job, being paid for something and I'm barely even initiated into the computer system before I begin breaking everything down 'til it barely even exists. I'm at a restaurant and my co-workers are earnestly absorbing information about the specials and I'm analyzing the macro-structure of going out to eat as a luxury commodity, how much food America throws out while in other countries starving children fight over bags of rice, how mealtimes are such an imperative part of family, social and worklife structures, how we've made something so animal totally civilized, and so what if you've got an eating disorder and therefore avoid going out to eat then what do you miss how do people look at you and what if we just talked to each other like real people, why do we agree to accept that the waitress will be nice to earn a tip while we all pretend that she's being nice 'cause she honestly cares, honestly thinks you'll be happier and healthier with Grilled Pork Chops or a soda refill. Well at least this job is better than retail 'cause I honestly do believe that people should eat food, but I don't believe they need a fried appetizer, and this is why it's better for me to just go into business for myself because there's a product I can talk about if it's a passion project and omg DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN! I mean don't even get me started on psychoanalyzing all my co-workers, we could be here all night/day/whatevs/shift.

They say "get a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life," I say, "Get a job you love and you'll probs avoid getting fired."
photo by cass bird
4. Letting Go For Reals - I never change, it's just circumstances that fit better. The only thing that ever helped me get over something was to replace it with something better or to run away or to change everything about my life completely so that whatever I'm holding onto wouldn't have a place in it. I did that at 14 and again at 23. Now I just write stuff so I'm not allowed to forget.

3. Remembering Numbers -- I'm severely, severely number retarded, and it makes me look really stupid a lot. I get numbers mixed up, even after months working at the same address I often misdirected deliveries. Despite frequenting the joint, I gave Haviland's address as "3E" in a recent reply-all and, back in '06 when I first started coming over, she'd have to stand outside her door at "2E" to intercept me on my way up.

It's not just numbers, it's symbols too, any kind of arbitrary pattern, I get mixed up. My first year at U-Mich I sent all my mail to the last four digits of my SSN 'cause my actual address was the same sequence with the first two numbers reversed.

I used to chalk this all up to flightiness and an inability to pay attention. But as I grow into the mature blossom of a person that I am, I realize that it's not. I'm gonna start writing shit on my hands again! That worked before. My hands are the softest post-it notes in the world.

2. **Speed-Reading! SPEEEEEDDDD READDDINNNNGGGG!

1. Winning I'm trying to remember if I've ever gotten first place in anything. Every competition I've ever been in, I've never lost -- I've always gotten 2nd place or some kind of semi-finalist position, but never first. From the Ann Arbor Public Library Short Story Contest for Children to the 50-yard-dash to the ARTS Competition to National Merit Scholars to the Hopwood Awards to the Lesbian Blog of the Year. It's good, always placing but never finishing. Gives me something to reach for and a persistent sense of being one step away from greatness, which enables a humility that's quite necessary when one ventures to talk about oneself so much. La-di-da but anyhow you have two more days to vote! Keep voting! Remember we can't let the republicans win, yes we can.

Oh wait! We won the Uh Huh Her SXSW contest. Does that count? I don't know if our competition was even soapbox derby level.

You know what I was thinking about what I really like in a person? I like people who remember things being better than they were, who conveniently forget the hardest parts. I like that and I like good sleepers, and I like chips and ice cream (not together) and lately I've been really into these sandwich cookies that are like Oreos but the filling is sort of pepperminty.

Oh Carly if you've made it this far: IDEAS. You're genuinely good at ideas. Me too.

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

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

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

Why Doesn't Anyone Ever Know What I'm Talking About? I'm Hung Up On You.

I'm Hung Up On You: Live From My Portal

i.
Dr. C always asks me the same questions, so I always give the same answers. Then at the end, he'll laugh (nervously) and make some completely out-of-left-field comment that will totally knock my socks off. Today, not only did he ask me 'Do you have any additional superlatives for me?' after I'd responded to the quality of my moods, sleep, anxiety, overall health, living situation, job, etc. as "Super!" , "fantastic!", "never been better," "magical," and "mind-fuckingly-unbelievable!" but then he followed up that excellent execution of vocabulary with:

"Black nails, huh? So are you--goth?"

(note: he said this in almost the exact same tone he used to ask me if I was bi, except, due to content, it felt decidedly less like a nervous sexual advance and more like a quasi-adorable question from a-completely oblivious-to-pop-culture hippie father. If that father was not a hippie and wore only Banana Republic and said things like "millions of people take [medication name here]. It can't be bad for you, if millions of people take it.")

"Yeah," I answered. "Me and Lindsay Lohan. Thus the studded dog collar and the Hot Topic platform boots. And the attitude."

(Side note: black nail polish is totally "over' and in fact I think verging on saturation/uncool-ness, so I love it even more now. i'll like it 4-eva, just like chuck taylors.)

"What's Hot Topic?"

I was suddenly roped into providing definitions for: Hot Topic, Goth, Emo (which I sub-divided into "Seth Cohen emo" and "pop punk emo").

These things mean nothing to me, but I know about them.

ii.
Which is what's so fucking weird about our world right now. We sit in front of identical machines that offer portals into absolutely everything. It's not our rapidly expanding ability to pursue niche interests or obsessions that interests me, but rather how there are things I can't even imagine avoiding on this machine--like Gawker, or like blogs in general---things that are SO CENTRAL to my universe and so completely out of the orbit for so many other people. We all know the media is sort of a circle-jerk, but you don't really realize the extent of that until, over the course of one week, you are met with a blank stare regarding the following topics: The James Frey debacle, "RENT" (the musical, the movie, the empire), NPR, Gloria Steinem, Raymond Carver, the Jim McGreevy scandal, the term "JAP" (Jewish American Princess), the "logo" television network, the Duke rape case, the concept of "independent" films, Jack Kerouac and "On the Road," Ted Haggard, the connection between the failures of our public education system and prison populations, and the political movement of people who think the Holocaust was a lie (it's encouraging, of course, that holocaust-deniers are not in the public eye as much as I imagined). Oh and also a clueless computer tech guy who, after M commented on her ravenous appetite this time of the month, actually asked if a period lasted ONE OR TWO DAYS. As in "One day? Two days?"

iii.
I was endeared recently to learn that there is at least one person in my universe who has never seen the music video for Madonna's 'Hung Up.' Living one's entire life without seeing Madonna gyrate in her pink leotard is super-tragic, though I'm not sure I would have been turned on to it were it not for melaina's blog and the gym. And I think I was working at nerve.com then, and we had our pulse on the finger of bare thighed women in popular music. Also I go to the gym and there are about 10,000 TV screens there. It's like Sears.

iv.
Also, until last week, though I claimed otherwise, I did not know what made a Nintendo Wii different from other Nintendos. I don't understand why they keep making new Nintendos. How could anything get better than MarioKart?

v.
Also I still don't know what "The Departed" is about, and, I realized, in conversation last week about why I don't like Russel Crowe, that I have not seen a single movie with Russel Crowe in it. Ever. No, not even Gladiator. Shove it.

vi.
I've accepted that there are many things that compose huge giant chunks of my consciousness, like literature, that don't matter to most people. I don't expect everyone in the world to know about Savage Inequalities (re: the American school system), the Jonathans (Safran Foer, Franzen, Lethem), Ani DiFranco, blogs, theater, The L Word, New York Magazine, Lorrie Moore or Christina Ricci.

vii.
But sometimes people really surprise me. Like not knowing about Freygate.

Or when I referenced the "George Bush doesn't care about black people" Hurricane Katrina "thing," and [redacted, because i was such an incredulous asshole about it at the time you probably wanted to flood my life with toxic water from the Hudson River] replied with a blank and curious stare and said they hadn't heard anything of it.

I guess because we are all sitting in front of the same machine, it's boggling how easy it is to bypass entire portions of it's content. Do we really have access to everything, or are these new filtering tools (like Google Reader, my playground lover) just enabling us to filter out everything, via tag, and increasing our limited knowledge of our limited world?

viii.
Also why doesn't my computer know the word "internet" yet?!! Stop highlighting "internet" every time I do a goddamn spell check. Waa.

ix.
I'm trying to work this stuff out.

In these cases, the "you" refers to the group of people who do not know about the chosen thing.


Gawker.com:
Why I Assume You Know This: If Gawker were a girl, she would never win homecoming queen but she'd sweep the yearbook hand-outs: "most popular," "most likely to succeed," "best style," and "best looking." Gawker would be really pretty, but like--interesting pretty. Gawker would be very popular but she would keep her loyalties few and select. When Gawker was in the room, you'd feel self-conscious. You'd feel simultaneously that Gawker was looking at you AND had no idea you even exist. You'd be afraid to talk to her because she might tell everyone what you said, or just judge you, silently, which would feel almost worse. She'd have a really distinct/enviable style and be known as mean and smart and cold and there'd be mysterious rumors about her home life (single mom? gay dad? raised by famous author? lives with punk rock headlining sister in a van down by the river?) that maintained your rapture though you knew/suspected it was all a lie. She would get into Brown but drop out after three years for a tempting job offer. Her crowd would be girls who had to copy each other to fit in, but she could just be intimidating and smarter than them and that would be enough to keep them at their heels. Every time she'd look at you, your heart would skip a beat, and you'd add it to your psychological sidebar. You'd kind of hate her though, underneath all that love and admiration, because she has all this power. And she actually deserves it sometimes.
Why you don't: You don't live in New York City and you don't like New York City or the media it produces and then congratulates itself for.
OR 1. You aren't in publishing or in the media. 2.You have a job that requires you to perform certain tasks in exchange for a salary and you can't spend the entire day blog-surfing and checking to see if they've put up the gold star motel yet.


Gloria Stienham:
Why I Assume You Know This: You are an educated human being in the 21st century. You have, at one time or another, heard a little snippet about feminism. NOT about women who throw paint on fur and think all sex is rape, but like, ACTUAL feminism. The kind you shouldn't be afraid of, unless you are Ted Nugent or a Morman.
Why You Don't: Because I don't know who played in the Super Bowl. And because of the patriarchy. Because of most of the points she's ever made.



The James Frey Thing:
Why I Assume You Know This: You can either: 1. hear, 2. read, or at least you could last year. You like to use these senses to pick up newspapers or glance at television screens playing the news, or "surf the web" in search of additional news. You have conversations with people who read literary fiction or memoirs. You know about Oprah, for Christ's sake. Larry King. OPRAH?!!! Oprah. Everyone knows about Oprah. And if you don't, you are amazing, and I love you and forgive you.
Why You Don't: This story was more insulated to the world of publishing than I thought, I guess? I mean, I couldn't have avoided hearing about it thirty times a day, but then again, I missed The Olympics.


NPR:
Why I Assume You Know This: You are alive in the nation called America, and you've heard of a thing called "radio."
Why You Don't: I really don't know. I'm not saying I think you should listen to NPR, I'm just saying you should have HEARD of it. (pun intended) Because I am an elitist boho bastard with no connection to the American people? Because I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and you grew up in Buttfuck, Nebraska? Actually, that would be hot, if there was a city called "buttfuck." And actually, then, I think, there would be NPR there. I don't know. I'm being honest, I think it is because I'm an elitist twat. That's fine. If it wasn't for Krista, I would have missed a lot of things that happened in politics. Now that she's in New Haven, I probably do.


Some Things I've Been Called Out For Knowing Absolutely Nothing About Recently:
"Lost" (TV), "American Idol" (TV), John McCain (i know a little. but not a lot), the i-phone, the aforementioned Nintendo Wii, any movies that have come out with guns in them, Pan's Labyrinth (?), football, some cop-shooting thing, "The Sopranos," pretty much every TV show on TV that's not on "The N" or on at the gym in the mid-afternoon or not "The L Word" or "The View," why Dean stopped running in 04...also, i didn't get that youtube thing until like, 10 years after the rest of y'all.
I never saw TV as a kid, too. Like Facts of Life (?), and um, whatever else was on that people keep talking about. A Different World, or Different Strokes, or Different something something. Whatever. Shows that were on between 1980-1992. Didn't see them. You Can't do that on television? Me neither.

Okay.

There's a lot of stuff I don't know anything about. A lot. So I'm just as uncool as all of you. Except for the "One Day? Two Days?" guy. I'm cooler than him. Also he asked "so do you just stick something up there when you think it's going to come?" (REMINDER: his convo, NOT mine, which I could not BELIEVE we were having), and I said "Uh, like a tampon?" and he said
"Yeah. You could call it that."

The Revolutionary Language: Clichè is the New Original

What We Talk About When We Talk About Talking¹

Ira-Glass Style:
Act One: Totally Unrelated To The Rest
Act Two: Things I Shouldn't Say
Act Three: Things We Do Say, Because We Should, The Fairly Specific Cultural Reference Edition

Also Included: Photographs from New Years Eve Weekend 2006-07 at Chez O'Donnell in Vermont, in Which We Did Not Ski, but We Played with Ski Gear, Etc.


Act I

Heather, who was so kindly lookin' out for the blog, spotted this useful list of "The Worst Lubes for Anal" (I assume this appeared on a bathroom wall of some sort, or perhaps in the locker rooms at Equinox?) and picture-mailed it on over to me. Having no experience in such matters (Anonymous Commenter: this is sort of your field of expertise, right? Go for it: What are the best lubes for anal?), I'd just like to say: Simmer on This.

This is what gets me, BTW: That "FUCK" in the upper left hand corner. Like, was someone reading this and thought "Dammit, I knew dish soap was a crappy idea! FUCK!" and then felt inclined to scrawl this sentiment on the adjacent wall-space? Building a mystery, y'all.

Unrelated Photograph #1 from Vermont New Years Eve '06-7
(L to R) Me, Heather, Haviland

Act II

Gawker is literally stealing words out of my mouth. They sort of do this thing where they declare something "over" about 10 seconds before everyone else does, and it's very hard to keep abreast of these things, like I am that donkey and they are the carrot and the carrot is "cool," and this year once again I almost made the resolution to eat more healthy (e.g., carrots) but then realized that was dumb and probably would just make me feel bad about myself when I went back to Eggo Waffles. And let's be honest here; obviously I feel bad enough as it is about my hypocritical behavior in the field of "General Health and Well Being." (on one side I have my exercise habits, on the other side I have the rest of my life).

Anyhow, first there was the whole douche-bag thing, which really hit hard because I had just recently incorporated that term into my lexicon (Which I guess is their point).

A quick moment of Stephen Dunn:
"I love the good home
cliches can find in an authentic voice."

Then in December they did this "blog cliche" thing, which included the following cliches that I use a lot:

BEST. [ultimate thing or experience]. EVER.
Huh...I thought that had already passed the saturation point, floated over the backlash, and was now sitting nicely in the post-backlash pool of okay-for-irony terms. Or maybe that's just in my universe, which is full of donkeys.

Unrelated Vermont New Years Eve Photograph #2.
(L to R) Me, Haviland, Me, Haviland

LOL, OMG, BTW, etc.: Sigh. Every OMG or LOL to ever be uttered (or, rather, typed) was in irony. So, you know, whatever. I never used it in earnest, therefore I can use it ironically forever. (Who am I talking to? Gawker? Myself? Why am I defending myself to myself?)

Seriously? Seriously?!!
Okay, um, seriously? What if I wrote an article for Food.Com or something about "food cliches"? "If I have to eat one more hamburger between two slices of bread, that'll be it for me and 'eating' altogether." "Enough of this 'sticking forks into pieces of pasta and using the fork to insert the pasta into your mouth, guys, if you are going to chain me to a chair and force me to eat, let's find a new way to do it." You can't deem "seriously?" uncool. That's like deeming "really?" uncool. Which it might be. Whatevs.

[x] is the new [y]
Again, I think those of us who have never used it in earnest can continue to use it for all of time. I think "x is the new y" is the new "x is the new y." Ugh, my head hurts.

The other cliches, e.g., "I just threw up a little bit in my mouth," "[any word] gasm" and "[x], oy"--I am not guilty of such things. Whoever is guilty of those things is less cool than I am.

Act III: How We Talk Now, Specific Cultural References

Did I mention that my brain hurts? This is what I think: the only truly acceptable lingo is that which is so old (aka My So-Called Life, When Harry Met Sally) or so niche (aka The L Word) that it is either years past the saturation point or marginalized enough that it is not in danger of being Already Over.


Angela Chase
Origin: My So-Called Life.
Meaning: Used to describe someone who is analyzing everything until it barely even exists.
Usage: "I don't mean to be Angela Chase, but do you feel like if he really liked me, he'd probably call me by now, and I know that it's only been like 10 hours, but I just think there were some things he said last night, like especially about his ex-girlfriend, and i know it's possible he could be at work or his phone could be dead or whatever but I also feel that ... etc, etc ..."

Standing in Line at Duane Reade
Origin: Duane Reade is the closest thing I know to hell on earth and has notoriously long lines. Although, you know what? Rite-Aid is worse. It just doesn't sound as good.
Meaning: Something unfathomably but insidiously unbearable. E.g waiting in line while two employees are hanging out doing nothing by the Tums and the cashier is doing her nails.
Usage: "I'd rather stand in line at Duane Reade than see The DaVinci Code."

Unrelated Vermont New Years Eve Photograph #3:
Heather, Me.

Rex Manning Day
Origin: In Empire Records, the kids are all riled up because Rex Manning is coming to make a store appearance, and so they all have to be on their best behavior, make the store look nice, and basically act like assholes/kiss-asses.
Meaning: Making a place/environment artificial for the benefit of someone you don't actually even really like, but for some reason have to impress.
Usage: "The Regional Manager is coming in today so we all have to be in perfect uniform and be sure to actually present the wine list at every table, basically it's Rex Manning Day."

Going-Down-on-Dana-Fairbanks
Origin: In Season One of The L Word, the girls head to the Dinah Shore weekend as friends of the Now-Departed Dana Fairbanks, Lesbian Tennis Star. However, Dana is snatched up at the door by her gushing fan and "guest liaison" Tanya, who later succeeds in getting Ms. Fairbanks into bed. While they are getting it on, Tanya exclaims: "I can't believe I'm about to go down on Dana Fairbanks!"
Meaning: Sleeping with you is like realizing a long-standing dream. (see also: "starfuckers")
Usage: "OMG, she's so obsessed with you if you hooked up it would totally be a like she was going down on Dana Fairbanks."

Unrelated Vermont New Years Eve Photograph #4:
(L to R) Tara, Heather, Me

"I Must Pass"
Origin: The Form Rejection Letter from the Lit Agency, which goes something like this: "Though I enjoyed the premise of your story, unfortunately the action did not keep me glued to the page. I must pass." or "I found your subject matter timely and interesting, but unfortunately I didn't feel the stakes were high enough for your characters. I must pass."
Meaning: I'm gonna be really nice about totally rejecting you.
Usage: "Though I found your attempts at conversation and cunnilingus inspiring, I didn't feel your personality really maintained my interest past the first 5 minutes of our night together. I must pass."

Far Rockaway
Origin: Far Rockaway is the last stop on the A train.
Meaning: Those parts of the MTA map that look particularly lonely, e.g those accesible only by one subway line which doesn't run on weekends.
Usage: "You're moving to Kew Gardens? Where the hell is that, Far Rockaway?"
"I could've taken the bus to Far Rockaway in the amount of time it took my cab to go five blocks during rush hour."

Unrelated Vermont New Years Eve Photograph #5:
(L to R) Sherri, Haviland, Me.

Zach Morris
Origin: Zach Morris, protagonist of popular television program 'Saved by the Bell'
Meaning/Usage: We're all familiar with the "Zach Morris phone," that's basically 'already over' and refers to a large cell phone.
Other usages include "The Zach Morris Time Freeze" (which is what you want to do when you wish you could just like, stop your conversation, make the entire room freeze, and talk to the camera until you get your feelings sorted out) and "Zach Morris Hair," which is essentially a really bad haircut, like the one Zach Morris has on the left.

Sally Albright
Origin: The Sally of "When Harry Met Sally"
Meaning: Used to describe women who "think they are low maintenance but are really high maintenance" and/or women who order everything on the side and sub ingredients, modifying their dish until it bears no resemblance to it's original appearance on the menu.
Example: "You totally just pulled a Sally Albright on that grilled chicken salad."

"You're So Beautiful, it Hurts to Look At You."
Origin: I believe Rickie was the first to say it, and he said it on My So-Called Life.
Meaning: This is pretty much the best compliment. Best. Compliment. Ever.

The Suicide of Kurt Cobain
Origin: Kurt Cobain, a Legend for his Music and his Flannels and his Suicide.
Meaning/Usage: Used by Generation X/Yers to mock our politically comfortable childhoods.
E.G. "Yeah, I was real awkward in junior high, like fat and I wore a lot of black and spent all night on the phone crying about Kurt Cobain."
"I haven't felt this depressed since Kurt Cobain killed himself."

More photographs to be inappropriately inserted at a later juncture.

¹ The title of a short story by Raymond Carver, and subsequently the title of one of his most famous story collections.

The Revolutionary Language: Don't Speak, I Know Just What You're Saying

[Disclaimer: You know how The NY Times likes to publish stories that claim to discover and advance self-described "trends" that've already been discovered/advanced in other publications months (sometimes years) earlier? (See today's "Sunday Styles "cover story - The Lost Summer: "For a small but growing number of college-bound students, summer has become a time of resume-building,") This entry might be kinda like that, I think, but I'm too busy to find out for sure.]

Additional side note: Read "Please Sir, I Want Some More!"

THE BLOG BEHIND MY BLOG! NEWER, FASTER, WETTER, CLEANER, LONGER!

How We Talk Now:
When we're not super-busy whoring ourselves on myspace or sending text messages with the fury of hyper-social squirrels, my generation (and by this I mean my friends, because those are the only people in my generation that I actually, you know, "know") is marching dutifully into the history books, following the radical generations before us by developing our own "dialect." Me-bonics, if you will.

Sometimes a certain phrase magically invades our generational consciousness ... slimes its way into our everyday speech and remains there. We don't know where these things come from (like G-d, gravity, etc.), but they just come!

Some select phenoms:

1. "I feel like":
A few years ago, "I feel like" became the standard way to begin a sentence. I think it's because we want to distance ourselves from ever really standing behind anything we say. Often we also anchor our statements with "Or no?" or "Right" or "sorta." Far too often, we replace "I think" or "I know" with "I feel like." Girls do it more than boys, because girls are more insecure (this is a fact). Pictured below is the master of "I feel like," my best friend Natalie:



Further examples:

"I feel like maybe I need to go to the gym before I do my homework, do you think, or no?"

"I feel like if he liked you, he would have called by now."



2. "Which is Fine"/"But it's fine":

The meaning of this is very simple: "It is not fine." It is said quickly at the end of a sentence, or at a break in a sentence. People seem to be using this particular phrase a lot lately, which I think is because we all have areas of our lives that are not fine.

"So I was throwing up for three hours after all those vodka shots and then I had to go to work at seven in the morning and didn't have money for a metrocard--but it's fine."

"He's going to date whomever he wants but I'm supposed to like, stay home and wait for him to get back from his dates--which is fine--I mean, I don't have anyone else I'm like, super-interested in anyhow."


3. Insertion of internet-lingo into spoken language

Although I loathe the phrase "LOL" when speaking on "AIM" (which I pronounce as an acronym, not as a word for what you do with a Super Soaker, which p.s. I never had because my Mom wouldn't buy me toys that weren't grown on an organic farm), I love it when people use it in real life. My generation sort of missed the AIM boom by like, two years, which is why we can use these phrases with delightful irony and also speak on AIM itself as if we were 12 and perhaps--perhaps--also "blog" as if we were 12!!!

Or saying BRB. That's another good one.

I further explore the intricacies of LOLing on AIM in this footnote, on my new companion-blog, morepotatoproducts. This footnote/companion/additional boring stuff Blog is called "Please Sir, I Want Some More," and although more details on it will follow later, I must say: WHY SHOULD YOU ASK WHEN YOU KNOW WHAT'S IN STORE?

3b. Referring to human beings as their internet alter-egos

A lot of us are stuck with the screen-names we created for our imaginary-cool selves in 7th grade. I am one of these people.

A lot of us are still not actually cool. I am also one of these people.

In any event, I'm a big fan of referring to people by their screen-names, e.g., there was this girl named Allison who liked my boyfriend back in the day, but I always called her AllyBoo because that was her screen-name and I wanted to be as condescending as possible.

4. Oldies But Goodies: some more of our special dialect ...

"By that I mean" and "By that I mean not at all."

"Yeah, I did a lot of homework today and by that I mean I watched a Real World marathon."

"Yeah, that date with the random guy I met at the nerve party was hella hot...and by that I mean not at all."

5. This post would be incomplete without the inclusion of Lo and I's favorite verb ... blog-worthy!

Six Degrees of Craigy McCraigerson

Spring 2003, Yaffa Cafe: Meg bounces on the red sticky glittery plastic of her chair and asks, Grasshopper, do you know about craigslist?

I still had another 16 months before I'd move to NYC, and I was drunk and trendy and obscenely thin, wearing the coolest Freewheelin' Sweet Marie jacket of all time, picking at vegetables and professing cross-country love to Scot via text message. No, I said.

Well, you can find a sublet there. For next summer. It's just the best!

So in May 2004, I jumped on the webbernet, like a surfer surfing real live waves, and I took a ride on the information superhighway, like driving a train on the tracks, and I put an ad on craigslist and I found, easily, Lindsay and her four month West Village sublet. I lived there 'til Krista moved out here in September.

So last week, when Lewis asked me if I knew about craigslist [it related to a story, I think, probably about legos], I was like, "Yeah, DUH! Like, I owe them my whole life."

Then I realized...fuck...I owe them my whole life!

Which made me feel like the biggest dork ever. I am, though, and I'm at peace with that.

Click on this to make it bigger (it's like The Chart, sort of, but without Alice being so cute in her little glasses):