Everything is Far and Long Gone By

Someone once said: "You win some, you lose some." Lots of people've said it since then, but someone said it first, though I don't know who.

Back in February--that lazy thick winter--when TB and I were courting via g-chat/email/comments and I was bemoaning her refusal of a pre-March 18th real-life meet-up, I posited this threat: "What if I'm TAKEN BY THEN?" and she responded: "You win some, you auto-lose some."

Then I killed myself. Now I'm dead, and I'm writing this blog entry from the underworld, where I'm thinking about other things that have died, or, if you will, been LOST.

P.S. If you've google-searched for LOST the TV show and ended up here, then you are indeed lost. I've never seen that show. What I do know is that Charlie Salinger's had it rough: first he lost his parents in a car accident, then his brother dated J-Love-Hewitt, who's super annoying, and now he's abandoned on a desert island? That's ridic.

I was kidding about killing myself. Actually, TB amended that statement with: "That'd be tragic," and then we made a date for the far-away future (March 24th) and I suggested "You can get drunk and visit me at two a.m. any time between now and then." Obvs she did, four days later, and the rest is history. Auto-winning all around.

However, not everything's got such a happy ending. You do indeed win some and auto-lose some.

Here's some things we've auto-lost lately. I don't miss all these things, really. I just want to talk about them. 'Cause don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til it's gone? You know?

1. Gawker's Blogghurrahia

As far as I know--and my knowledge's not so far in this area, as I check Gawker sporadically at best--this feature has unceremoniously disappeared. Blogyreeia's probs responsible for 50% or more of my current readership: a Blogherria link usually results in 4,000+ additional page views on the day it's posted, and many of these viewers become permanent readers. Some become permanent girlfriends [TB found me through Gawker, oddly enough], or job offers, or douchebags who stop by to drop some negative vibes, therefore sealing their fate to rot in hell. Really, I only mourn it insofar as it could affect me personally, obvs, cuz I'm in Generation ME, duh! Even when they say mean things to me/don't actually read my post ['cause it's funnier and snarkier just to make fun of me and pretend like the only people on earth who can be ironic or sarcastic are Gawker writers themselves], I'm still like Awesome, totes Gawkered!. Because there's no such thing as bad publicity, unless you're one of the 10,000 dudes who's life they've mercilessly ruined in other features, like "Douchebag of the Week." I could say mean things about Gawker, too, but I'm trying to be the mature one in this relationship. OK, one thing's that we both use a lot of bright colors, actually. And one of us is running a purple-and-green flash-enabled ad for Clariol hair products, and it's not me.

However, I'm hoping the absence of Bloggerea'll result in less pointless-overdone-NYC-centric posts ["Omg, apartment hunting is really hard," "Omg, The L Train!"] by NYC-bloggers hoping to be linked by Gawker. Though it doesn't always work out that way.

Maybe they need a new Bloguria intern, in which case I'd like to volunteer my services, 'cause I specialize in unpaid writing gigs that take up massive amounts of time and make me feel popular/poor. Here's today's Bloggerwheea, as composed by me:

Blogorrhea: So Many Stupid, Annoying, Worthless People on This Planet

-Bloggers who mine material from the MTA and/or the revolutionary activities of drunken twentysomethings: "humorless and talentless." [why don't we get drunk and blog? ]
-Times writers who scorn menopausal women, have limp dicks: "really sick." [pink india ink ]
-Ivy League Students who don't buy rare books from street-vendors: "poison." [thunder, perfect mind ]
-Athletic Apparel Companies who can't spell OR, at least, pass off stupidity as purpose: "lazy." [copyranter ]
-Store managers who force employees to force shoppers to open credit cards, despite employee's strict moral code: "unethical." [this girl called automatic win]

As you can see, I linked to myself and to my girlfriend, 'cause obvs that's what I'd do if I really made Blogherria. I'd probs link to Haviland's myspace blog, too. Hell, I'd like to any NYC-residing blogger who emailed me, that'd save a lot of time.

I've personally never used it to find blogs to read: I can hardly keep up with all the blogs I love without seeking out new ones. [Hell, I can barely keep up with RKB alone.] That's the same way I feel about human relationships. I developed most of my initial blogroll from the NYC Bloggers Google Group I'm in, now it's just mutated into an incomprehensible monster.

Some people I link to still won't link to me, but I keep linking to them, because I'm humble and no one can jock my style/hold me down, I've got to keep on movin'. Now I'm just rambling. Maybe I wouldn't link to me after all.

UPDATE: I've decided to do Bloggorhea myself. I mean, it's a great idea. It's like opening a Subway Sandwiches franchise, but without the "income." That's right. Check it out.

2. Global Ink on Broadway/110th

When I confess my love for magazines, most women'll respond with a knowing whisper: "I know, I love US Weekly, shhhh!" But I'm like, "Did I say I love sycophantic crap? No, I didn't. I said I love magazines." And though some of the magazines I love are, indeed, crap--some aren't. And those that aren't, I usually pick up at Global Ink. They had all the queer mags: Curve, Advocate, Velvetpark, et al, as well as all lit mags (n+1, VQR, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Black Clock, etc.) and--well--everything. International shit. Fashion photo feminist fitness whathaveyou.

Yesterday: that beautiful afternoon, all sky/hope, we visited Ahmad by Tom's Diner and TB played chess while I read Waking Vixen's book, sun in everyone's eyes but also in our hearts, I ventured to the corner for cigs [for others, not myself, weirdos] and passed Global Ink and its sign announcing impending closure. I'd been lamenting the new distance between myself and Global Ink since I moved, now I can't even be bitter over that. Now I gotta go to like...um...I guess one of those places with the purple lights? Universal News or something? Whatevs. I'll just subscribe to bitch, bitches.

Also: here's the thing about Us Weekly/Star/InTouch: if you're so interested in the scandalous romantic activities of celebs like A. Jolie, Lohan and Spears et. al., then you'd probably really enjoy novels. You know, books? Scandal, romance, threesomes, preggers unmarried ladies, fancy clothes, everything, eat it to your heart's content, fo'reals.

3. My Relationship with the Metro North

Dear MetroNorth,

Yesterday was our last trip together, and also my first morning ride, as we've generally been meeting around 5 or 6 in the evening for the past 23 days. Every single day, can you believe it? I'm not big on commitment, so this's a big deal. Though it's been a good ride, I won't miss you. You're okay, significantly better than the subway, a camel, or a half-assed donkey, but you're not teleportation or a Lexus. You're just--well--you.

Here's some things I think you could work on for next time:

-On Friday and Saturday evenings, your train is packed with the most annoying people on the entire planet. They fall into two categories:
1) Girls with fake tans and too much foundation who're smart enough to drive from their homes to the train station in Westchester without running their SUVs into a tree, but not smart enough to have a conversation that would qualify as even slightly resembling the educated English they've likely learned in their Tony public schools. They make me want to jump out the window, even if that lands me in Fordham.
2) Twentysomething Men with large quantities of beer and loud, imposing laughter that trickles into my personal earspace, also inducing suicidal thoughts. Seriously, they drink a lot of beer on the train and talk really loud. Can't something be done about this?

-Often, you've neglected to take my ticket. I know this's cause I look trustworthy, but looks can be deceiving. For example: every time you walk by, I purposely try to look like I've been riding this baby since New Haven, specifically to avoid your request of my ticket. It usually works.

-Why're there so many creepy middle-aged dudes who look like they're about to whip out their junk and masturbate to the thought of me galloping through a pool of sweet cream in a cheerleader outfit? Or the thought of me like, just sitting there? Seriously, they're not even slick about it. Just like, ew, read the Wall Street "Journal."

Do you remember when we first met, Metro North? I do. October, 1998, Manhattan to Bronxville, I was visiting the city under the guise of college visits, it was was before I'd developed that crippling phobia of most public restrooms--so I'd used yours to expel the contents of the Shrimp Tempura dinner I'd just consumed at an Upper West Side Japanese place. It didn't sit well, I told Ryan I felt sick ... I went to the same restaurant two years later 'cause I felt the odds'd be in my favor [or 'cause I'm a retard: who knows the answers to these terrific and terrifying questions? Not me.] and ended up food poisoned again. You oughta look into this: something lurks in your kitchen.

I went back to my seat, calm/clammy, gave Ryan a hand massage on the way home, because I always'd do that for him on the Metro North. The next year too, when I rightfully lived in Bronxville, wasn't only visiting. It's inhumane, really, how we use the same spaces over and over again for different lives. I've re-defined you once again, Metro-North, like people do all the time with songs.

I know what you're thinking: that wasn't really the first time. You're right. The first time we met was the night before I got sick in your bathroom--actually, we'd nearly missed you. We'd had dinner in Soho at a bistro with slick black-clad homosexual waiters with perfect butts in cheap pants, serving expensive bottles of anything to anyone: the first time I drank wine at a restaurant in America, like a grown-up. We were drunk. I wrote a poem about it. Remember that? Of course you do. I was seventeen, so, please, forgive me for my inability to write poetry, but I'd written these lines, among others, about our dash to catch you: Lighthearted and lightheaded,/we leave,/run against the city pouring over us,/my laughter trails your speed,/our sprint to the station./I lean against the pillars,/the poles/yellow, red,/you press your fingers/to my lips./We spend the evening urgent,/still panting.

There was more to that poem, before and after those lines, but surely you've suffered enough, yeah?

It seems I've written about Ryan a lot lately. I wonder if it's because of you [TB] or because of you [Metro North]. I've ridden you [MN] to get to you [TB] for 23 days, but not today. The seats are navy blue and maroon. I wonder if late at night, people fuck there, or fight. Or cry. I cried there last week but it was too crowded, I couldn't get a seat, so I stood and cried. I think that if you're crying, someone should offer you a seat. Not an aisle seat where your feet are fighting rolling-suitcases and tiny women with entitlement issues, a real seat in the corner for leaking women.

Because Ryan saved my life back then. I told him that but I don't think he got it. I mean, I said it: Ryan, you saved my life. Ryan was gay and he was my best friend and he reached across all obvious boundaries into my depression and told me I didn't need it. This was no small task, 'cause depression was my best friend before I met Ryan. Back then, before Ryan, I wore glitter on my face, I stared at the ceiling for hours on end, trying to will myself into participating in what I'd once known to be a life, I listened to the Empire Records soundtrack every morning in the shower and wore a winter hat that hid most of my face, and I had sunglassees and a video camera to hide my eyes.

Ryan pulled all that stuff away from my face and my eyes and actually loved me, which I'd believed, then, to be impossible. I mean, for the future, my love'd been used up, I thought. I was empty. Like if a heart was a prune.

And so: here we are again. Your [MN] tracks, that same view out the window, rushing/blurring, trees on amphetamines, people like pearls bursting then vanishing in the distance, you stop, open proverbial doors, and then we walk, subtle but violent and without thinking because sometimes it turns out you actually don't have to think at all! Just walk out when the doors open, like you know the way. Your [TB] tracks, once I drew both of us, I outlined your body with the words: save me from myself. The words were darker than the bodies, and true. The tracks of the outline, you see?

I would like to step out of my heart
and go walking beneath the enormous sky
I would like to pray.
[rilke]

As Ever,
MLB

You lose some, you oughta win some.

Sunday Top 10: We Come Together Cause Opposites Attract

In the grand tradition of outsources past, this week's Sunday Top Ten [which I earnestly believe, each and every week, will in fact appear on Sunday, not Tuesday, as it so often does, like today] is penned by one of my favorite bloggers ever TB [my girlfriend]. Also in aforementioned grand tradition, I've added my own notes here and there, indicated by italics and my initials. Lez go...

Hi. I'm Tara/TB. Marie's swamped with work/stress/TKs and so I'm guest-lesbian-blogging her Sunday Top Ten (on Tuesday; go team).

And can I add that we're totally sickening right now? Like, quarantine us.

Marie: iii. omg i'm so in love with you, part duex, truex, googlgeuex, grammatical nightmare, shock you shock you with my poor conjunctions and fake words.

We need to be (quarantined, shot) cause if you chilled with us, your increased allegiance to vomiting/nausea would make you wanna murder yourself. Or us.

Prologue. Marie and I are different, to put it plainly. She's rather sunshiney/bright and me--moonshiney/dark. [mlb: the fact that she considers me to be "sunshiney" is testament to the depths of her darkness.] Her pop culture references fly past my head, as I'm sure mine past hers, re: Coptic scriptures and weird esoteric lit stuff.

But in the end I've faith in the words regarding our "twin flame," "soul mate" or "other half" in Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium, a text about a drinking party replete with fags, philosophy, Socrates and encomiums to love.

"Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the tally-half of a man, and he is always looking for his other half."

I think I found mine.

Onward!

SUNDAY TOP TEN: Why We Hope the Cliche's Sound: Opposites Attract.

*

10. Gin.

I heart Tanqueray, which is such a shady thing to say, but I do. Marie literally can't tolerate it. I'll be snoring my ass off in her bed after a night of transgressive partying while she, if she were to drink gin, would expel the contents of her gastro-system into the toilet and into dawn.


9. Marie: "I don't think I'm ethnic enough for your drum circle."

[mlb: I'd like to take a moment to name-drop that I am related to Pocahantas. So is Allison Janney. We're both tall. Coincidence?]

I'm nursing a giant, very attractive bruise on my right palm. And by "nursing" I mean constantly massaging it, cause I like feeling the tiny flickerings of pain shoot through my forearm. Totes fun. And injury acquired from banging on a conga all Sunday night. Jackie the Hydejacker and I performed percussive stuff at this new monthly Queer/Trannie Ethnic Drum party in Brooklyn. I was initially under the impression that it was a down-to-earth spiritual, tabla/djembe, chill-in-living room sorta thing, but when I arrived, like--whoa nightclub, ethnic hipsters and miked percussion. I invited Hebraic Marie and her mother Maureen to come watch and apparently Marie thought I was joking. [mlb: I thought there would be like, actual granola involved. But like, Aborigine granola, or something.]

M: "I don't think I'm ethnic enough for your drum circle."
TB: "Dude, whatever. You're with me. Just come."
M: "Should I go tanning first?"
TB: "Huh?"

They come. A blast is had; I get blasted.

Jackie/Mona: "Dude, what's up with this Raga shit? Like 4/4, yo. You're throwing me off!"

Expectedly, Marie and Maureen were the only white people there [mlb: all the other white people were daunted by the prospect of taking a shuttle bus from where the C line stopped running in mid-Brooklyn-ish-somewhere. But Mom and I are super hardcore, and by that I mean we obviously freaked out and got in a cab after about ten unidentifiable stops on the bus.], and nobody seemed to mind. But I'm glad they met Mona, who's hardcore Palestinian. Mid East conflict micro-symbolically reconciled.


8. MySpace and Photography

Marie said the cutest thing the other day while I was checking my profile, leaving a comment for Haviland:

"Tara, why are there no photos on your MySpace?"

[mlb: Not like TGCAW has anything to do with the truth, but I must add that I've asked her this question approx. 10,000 times between February 1st and today, like, more than any other question I've asked Tara, ever. Aside from: "Where's my shirt?"]

Marie always calls it "your MySpace" and omits the term "profile," like Murdoch's virtual death camp is MINE, ALL MINE. But the photo-thing: Marie addressed this already in her OurChart Guestbian column. I'm kinda anti-promotion. What with ad/branding-oversaturation and visual-cue overkill in media, in Me Generation, the world doesn't need another Narcissist [mlb: my desire for Tara's photos is more related to enhancing my own Narcissism than forming hers.] ... is all I'm saying. Though I've no problem with people into taking pics. That's their thing. It's Marie's thing. And that's fine, each to her photogenic own.


7. Processed-Snack Foods

There's a section in Marie's deli next-door for really shitty food that'll kill ya. Debbie Cakes, Drake, Hostess and lesser obscure forms of comestible self-immolation. I don't get it. By "it" I mean fast food, artificial "flavoring," and just bad bad bad "food." Not that I'm vegan/vegetarian, I just feel like maybe it's a good idea to eat healthy (and smoke a pack of Parliaments a day). Typically, I'll eat fish: New Zealand mussels, spicy crunchy tuna tempura, smoked salmon, etc.

Marie: "I don't eat raw fish."
Me: "Insert lesbian joke here."

And yet, Marie'll totally eat the 25 cent cookies in that above-cited deli section. Which drives me insane. But it's okay, cause I love her anyway.

[mlb: In my defense, I don't eat fast food, and the only processed snacks I do eat are cookies. And candy. And peanut butter crackers. And Lean Cuisine microwave meals.]
[mlb: I'm eating those cookies right now, totes coincidence.]


6. Women's Magazines.

Sometimes Marie'll drop seemingly insecure hints that her body's larger than it ought to be. And I know she doesn't honestly believe that, but it manifests sometimes. I, meanwhile, often believe I'm too skinny, and I'm about 3x Marie's tiny frame and three inches shorter. The reality: we're both delusional. Probably--it's like, who knows. But what I do know: our body issues stem from somewhere--many places actually. And it's almost trite to say, but: WOMEN'S MAGAZINES have an unhealthy effect on WOMEN'S MINDS. Yet at least it's true--they don't do shit for our psychological betterment. Vogue, Elle, Jane, Marie Claire, etc., these rags litter Marie's bed, scattered women on covers beaming in airbrushed perfection. Like, fuck them. I toss them off the bed and put Marie there instead.


5. L Word / Kate Moening.

Marie and I are laying around, staring at Janice Erlbaum's Girlbomb, a new paperback we both need to read. She turns to me:

"Tara!"
"Yeah?"
"I've got some good news."
"Okay ..."
"Don't worry--despite rumors to the contrary, Kate Moening's coming back for another season!"
"Who?"
"SHANE!!!"

F. I don't dig the L Word. That is all.


4. Lesbo Music.

[mlb: aka Melissa Ferrick, Indigo Girls, Ani DiFranco, Chris Pureka, Dar Williams, Melissa Etheridge, Jill Sobule, etc.]

Me: "Dude, what's this whiny music we're listening to?"
Marie: "You don't like the Indigo Girls?"

And meanwhile, back @ Marie's shower, she's blasting showtunes. [mlb: Spring Awakening, FYI. Just don't want any of you thinking I'm Pantene-ing myself to the sweet sounds of "The Music of the Night" or "On My Own" or something. TB: Also, I love "Castle on a Cloud"; I hum that sinister melody while sweeping Marie's kitchen.] I'm cringing. Cause music is nearly everything to me. Therefore, Marie and I agree to disagree, re: tastes, and that's cool. Cause now she's nearly everything.


3. Gawker.

Gawker is a Manhattan media news and gossip site. Marie and I actually met via Gawker, they linked to her blog, etc. Marie was initially all: "Did you find me through my L Word blog?"

Me: "Huh? L Word? Who?"

But yeah. I read The Gawker. I mean, for the most part it features a petty mindless parade of socialite twatwaffles and their goings-on: the Tinz, the Toos, the Kucz, the Blasberg, the Allison, the who-cares-about-these-douche-du-jours. Leave no brain cell behind, is what I like to think's my motto and M.O. So I sift through Gawker half-squinting in search of gems/substance (Kreepie Kats, n + 1-bashing, NYC To Dos, etc.), and here/there I'll find talent: The Assimilated Negro, Slut Machine and Marie ... who meanwhile enjoys that Gawker links to her so much she's coined a term for it: "Gawkered!" ... is now a verb. Rock on.

P.S. Marie would like to add that she doesn't enjoy Gawker's questionably unwarranted life-destroying, e.g. Douchebag Hall of Fame, Eric Shaeffer. Totes warranted.

[mlb: ok, except for that guy.]


2. Bisexuality.

For personal reasons--having just been royally screwed over by one, it's natural for me to dislike them as a whole, a group, a stereotype in an orientation-profiling sort of way. Bisexuality rings with associations of wishy-washiness, hedonism, polyamoury, people who can't-sit-still for like two seconds. But ... Marie identifies as bi. And I'm accepting this cause ultimately, it's not what you say about who you do, but who you do.


1. Marie's Fisher Price Play Center, her Mac.

A war between two inanimate objects is pretty douchey in general, but re: the Mac/PC divide, I'm definitely a PC person. When I check my OurChart profile on Marie's Mac (cause that's all I do), it's like manning a cessna after having flown stealth bombers all your life. Device-drop: ASUS, Averatec, NEC pda, Linux, BitTorrent downloads, Zunes, external flash drives on Swiss Army knives, 1TB (terabyte Hitachi hard drives), and so on. As in, dude--Mozilla, hello and how are you? ... like what's Safari?

Yay! I'm on a Safari, look at the monkeys!

I like my women, liquor and computers user-hostile. Macs are for Brooklyn hipsters tweaking Pro Tools for their mawkish trance music. [mlb: and cool people.] PC-ers are Hodgmanites, as in John Hodgman, that dorky four-eyed lit agent/Daily Show-cameo dude who appears opposite the Mac punk (no one can stand) in those Mac ads. And I second-guess myself. Cause in a way, Marie having a Mac is totally cute. Like the cutest thing in the world ... next to her.

*

Epilogue.

Me: "Let's name our first child Product Placement. That, or Nimrod."
Marie: "K."

Best of Not-New York 2007, Part One

Although most New York visitors are curious about Times Square and bagels and seeing the goddamn Today Show at the crack of unbearable freezing dawn---my weekend visitor, K-Lily, wanted to know about Duane Reade, because I reference it constantly on this blog and subsequently assume that everyone knows what I'm talking about. I do that because I live in New York and I think the world revolves around me. Really. I do. Obvs. Thus the blog, my attitude, etc.

"You win! I win! We all automatically win!"
-tb

But still, I thought, I need to spread my wings and fly, like RKelly. So, I'm gonna be totally Un-NYC centric for at least a few posts----even if that totally eliminates my chances of being spotted for a guest role on Gawker. But totally ups my chances of a shout-out in the Detroit Free Press, or the "freep" as us locals call(ed) it. (That still exists, right?)

So! Today I present the first entry in a series entitled "THE BEST OF NOT-NEW YORK 2007," in which I reveal The Best of The Best, using the categories chosen by New York Magazine for their Best-Of issue, pictured above. We will begin with "EATING," and this week I have both answered myself and solicited the opinions of other food expert eaters to compile not-nyc selections for 8 of the 26 total seemingly-slapshotty-selected categories in "EATING." There will also be other categories until I tire of this. Also, seriously, as I am writing this (in legwarmers, cargo capri pants, and a dirty t-shirt with a hole in the armpit, tres classy, very hipster, very east coast), I am eating cake frosting out of the container with my fingers. Because I started thinking about cupcakes.

Part One: French Fries, Barbecue, Pig, Gelato, Lunch, Paella, Newfangled Beef, Cupcake, PB&J

French Fries
NY Mag said: The Farm on Adderley (1108 Cortelyou Rd. Ditmars Park, Brooklyn)

I say: Arby's. (National Chain)
Hands down totes Arby's. I can never even decide: homestyle or curly? They are both delicious, but in totally different ways. You know, like men and women. That being said, I usually chose curly fries. I think they are just more emotionally complex.

I'd Also Like To Say: Grandma's Kitchen (Interlochen, MI), Red Hot Lovers (Ann Arbor, MI), and Fish & Chips places in Australia. I don't know which ones. The ones where I sat on the counter, like a little monkey.

Gelato
NY Mag said: Da Enzo (494 Ninth Avenue)

Ingrid Greenfield of Chicago, IL (Wisconsin native) says:
When I was working at the Guggenheim in Venice, my favorite way to take a break from the French women knocking their overly LV-monogrammed bodies into priceless works of art was to walk to Nico's on the Zattere for a Gianduiotto--a chocolate-hazlenut frozen gelato log thing, which the bar man will shave off into a cup and top w/fresh whipped cream. It actually costs twice as much to sit at a table, so, in lieu of that, this is how to best enjoy your gelato:
1. He'll give you extra if you flash a winning smile and let him call you and your friend "belle bionde sorelle" (beautiful blonde sisters)
2. Take cup o' heaven to sunny street, plop ass on edge of wide Giudecca canal with legs hanging over the water
3. Recline with sunglasses on (to avoid eye contact with typically scrawny Venetian boys sporting boy-band hair)
4. Shovel gelato delight into eager mouth
5. Have a cigarette, because the gelato experience is similar enough to sex (or watching Shane have sex) to warrant sinful behavior.

Barbecue/Pig
These were two separate categories in New York Magazine. My brother, Lewis Bernard, decided: "BBQ can double as pig. I thought a while about how to make a Jew Joke with the pig but couldn't think of anything. I do eat a lot of swine these days."

NY Mag said: Eleven Madison Park (11 Madison Park, surprise!) for Pig, and Rub BBQ (208 W. 23rd street) for Barbecue.

Lewis Jacob Lyn Bernard of New Orleans, LA (Michigan native) says: Roughly 500 days ago, I had the joy and privilege of gathering a few things and fleeing New Orleans as fast as traffic would allow. We ended up in Atlanta. I hate Atlanta. Actually, not only do I hate Atlanta, I also prefer Pepsi, don't get "crunk" and like my tea unsweetened. I'm a bit of a fish out of water in the capital of Southern America. However, if you can fight your way through the traffic you might just find yourself at Fat Matt's Rib Shack on Piedmont Street. Huge smoked slabs of ribs covered in a tangy BBQ sauce, great sides, and local beer on tap. We ate and drank outside the Shack for hours (waiting for my man/$26 in my hand...) and eventually we were rewarded with live music. A friend got the fish. Don't get the fish.

Cupcakes
NY Mag said: Kyotofu (705 9th Avenue)

Rachel Kramer-Bussel, the most productive writer in New York City, says:
1. Sprinkles in Beverly Hills -they're huge and very rich, kinda like Two Little Red Hens here. The coconut and the red velvet are especially divine. Best to split with someone, though.
2. Cupcake Beach in Destin, Florida makes amazing vanilla/vanilla cupcakes with real vanilla beans--they FedExed me some, which was amazing in itself, and both the cake and the frosting were like the cupcake equivalent of Breyer's Vanilla Ice Cream.

(check out Rachel's cupcake blog: "Cupcakes Take the Cake" for more cupcake tips)

"New-Fangled Beef"

NY Mag said: Porter House New York (10 Columbus Circle, fourth floor)

Lewis Jacob Lyn Bernard and his friends from New Orleans, LA say:
Lewis Bernard:
"Not sure what that is, like tofu or something?"

Jillian (originally from Door County, Wisconsin):
"I think it has to do with raising happy, hormone-free cows. But its probably just a spinoff of some anti-wisconsin propaganda bullshit. Like, that "happy cheese comes from happy cows, happy cows come from california" crap--but only with New York and beef."

Katherine (originally from Atlanta, GA):
"Star spangled beef?"

Sarah Ravits (originally from Seattle, WA):
"It seems like maybe that's what an old person in a buffet would call it, if it were cut into weird shapes or something. Maybe new fangled beef is the McDonald's beef that isn't really "beef" but contains a small amount of meat and is then treated with weird chemicals manufactured in New Jersey such as "Essence of beef" or something of that sort."


Paella:
NY Mag says: Boqueria (53 W. 19th St)

Cameron McClure of NYC (originally from California) says: When I first moved to Spain I tried Paella for the first time, and this was '98 or '99, and Spain was still on the peseta, and it was a good time for the dollar, so I didn't even blink when it cost sort of a lot, like the equivalent of $8 or something, and I guess the waiter didn't blink either, because they expect Americans to eat enormous amounts of food, like my Spanish roommates expected me to eat pancakes and sausage and eggs for breakfast everyday, and were really disappointed when I had tostada de tomato everyday instead. So anyhow,the paella was for like 2 people, or maybe 4, and I ordered the seafood one, and it came with muscle shells, and shrimp with their heads on, and clams in the shell, and chicken, and octopus, and other sea creatures that I could not identify at the time. So I sort of freaked out, but not vocally, because my Spanish was horrible at the time, so I think I just smiled. And ate as much as a person can when shrimp heads are staring at them accursedly.

Lunch
NY Mag Says: Prune. 54 East 1st. St.

Jason Nadler of Los Angeles, CA (originally of New Jersey) says:
Nate N'Als Deli in Beverly Hills. It's a Jewish deli that beats any New York Jewish deli, and you may get to see Larry King...Live.






PB& J
NY Mag Says: Davidburke & Donatella. 133 E. 61st St.

I say: Zingermans, Ann Arbor, MI.

When I went to hippie high school (kids playing guitar in the grass, picking proverbial dandelions, a lot of Ani DiFranco and Grateful Dead blasted from cassette decks in beat-up Volvos with rolled down windows to let out all the smoke), my Mom gave me a daily lunch budget of $2.00. That probably seems like not enough. Yeah, it totes WASN'T. I used to get curly fries from this place that also sold crack-cocaine, that would be my whole lunch but safely under $2.00. We also liked to go to Zingermans, which is world famous and therefore very crowded and really expensive, and take up the whole place standing in line to get 50-cent bags of bread ends and then grab a bunch of mayonnaise. That was the cheapest lunch, and you'd have extra money left over for eye-glitter. But if we were feeling really flush, we'd get soup or a kid's sandwich from Zingerman's. $4.99. And seriously, they were fucking amazing, and it wasn't just because we usually ate bread ends with mayonnaise. Which, by the way, was also delicious. Zingermans serves their free-range organic corn-fed peanut butter with similarly organicized jelly on raisin bread. It's like what God would eat if God was an 8-year old boy.


FYI: The next post is in process but I'm still looking for anyone who can recommend where the fuck to eat Fugu or caviar (seriously? I thought that just happened in like, Three Men and a Baby or whatever movie it is I am thinking of with the caviar in it. ew. but like, no judgments) and BON BONS (the 18th century doesn't count, that's not a real place). So like, e-mail me and stuff, at marielyn176@gmail.com. I'm gonna be really starving for answers when I get to stuff I don't even do in the city, e.g. buy furniture, get things fixed, give birth to children and then feed & entertain them. Also, I've got some additional solicitation to do for the rest of the food categories. Annie Barrett, that means you.

Also side note:
BEST FOOD IN MY KITCHEN RIGHT NOW: I just put strawberry frosting on a Le Petit Ecolier cookie and then my mouth actually jumped out of my body to say "Thank You."

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 One Where I Blind you With Science, Genuis, and Glitter Glue

Janet "Anonymous," who prefers the jackrabbit rapid-fire qualities of blogs like--hmmmm--g**ker--thinks I don't update enough to require her daily attention/"checking."

I don't perform well under pressure I love pressure and perform very well under it (get it, boys? "under it?) so as I was waiting five thousand years minutes for the 1 train I got to thinking (does anyone else who unfortunately watched too much Sex and the City ever want to start every blog post with "So I got to thinking about relationships"? Is that just me?) about all the things that I've considered doing for Blogince. (That's Science+Blogging)

Gimmicks I've Pondered for the Purpose of Having a Reality-TV-Competition-Esque Blog

-What if I ate nothing but Tasti-D-Lite for an entire week? You know, like Jared Fogle did with Subway sandwiches, except that I weigh considerably less than he did and don't actually need to lose weight? Would I lose weight anyhow, would I go insane? If so, would I die? Would I turn into Mocha Marble Cheesecake, but fake and without dietary fats?

Where this thought stopped: Would I have to eat Tasti D Lite for breakfast? ew.


-What if I went out with one of the complete juiceheads from myspace who send me annoying e-mails or photos they took of themselves in their garage holding drumsticks and trying to look like they actually have balls? You know, like this guy:

... accompanied with a pickup line like this :"i work long hours i love what i do always looking for a bit of adventure i think that experience is the most important thing in life you have to have fun enjoy yourself and look for new things"

HOLD UP! LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO OUR FRIEND THE COMMA.

Jesus.

While trolling through my inbox for prime subjects for textual flogging, I realized that this guy:

has contacted me no less than 10,000 times, and I've never opened his messages.

What if I went ou Where this thought stopped:UM EW.


-What if I tried to freak my roommate (in the spirit of gingerbread+latte's "Christitute," I will call her the "AlAnonititute") out to see if I could get her to admit that she hates gay people is a lesbian? I recently found out that when Maggie first moved in to this apartment, the 3rd roommate was a homosexual lady, and this made the AlAnonitute uncomfortable. (Didn't homophobia in NYC go out of style like, 15 years ago?) Since I think I come off as mostly straight (and I kind of am mostly straight), I really enjoyed her look of shock/near-death/surprise when she walked down the hallway towards the bathroom and into suspect behavior on the cusp of my room. A little later, I suggested that we keep it down so the AlAnonitute could sleep and my special friend exclaimed, audibly to a ridiculous degree: "I don't care, I will fuck her with a strap on!"

Where this idea stopped: I need to ask G-d to help me accept the things I cannot change, or whatever. I don't know, she's the one who goes to the meetings, not me.

-What if I went to every Duane Reade in New York City and timed the lines to figure out precisely which Duane Reade is the absolute worst most inefficently run Duane Reade of all?

Where this idea stopped: I may as well jump off a bridge, and also I'm pretty sure it's the one on 76th and 1st avenue..or 14th and 6th avenue...or 90th and Columbus....I mean, I could get cocaine faster than those douchebags could get me some goddamn Allegra.

-What if I just tried to freak the AlAnonitutue out by bringing a lot of boys home and a lot of women home at various intervals to see if I could get her to say something bad about how immoral bisexual people are, and then I could use that in my book?

Where this idea stopped: I so don't even have the energy or desire to be promiscuous. Really all I need is people to come over and yell like I'm giving them an orgasm while I put away my laundry and write this freakin' blog. Clearly.

She Aches Just Like a Woman, But She Writes Just Like a Little Girl

Thanks to Gawker, I was super-popular for 15 minutes yesterday. It was awesome! I celebrated this moment of glory by talking to all my famous friends and not doing any work for the rest of the day!

BUT what's even awesomer, is this comment, attributed to "Worker 3116" on Gawker:

"I'm not sure I believe this chart. It is suspiciously lacking in the Teen Beat pin-ups and Bonnie Bell Lipsmackers references that everything else about it implies should be there."

I do honestly think it's the awesomest to call me out (really! I heart freedom of speech, etc.) but the contents of this particular comment are just far too ironic for me to overlook. (And I'm not even going to discuss how gross it'd be to buy chapstick on craigslist. Although--there's a lot of other craigslist-thriving industries that present a similar risk of orally transmitted infections, so who knows, I mean, Dr.Pepper Lip Smackers tastes almost like real Dr.Pepper.)

Though the "Craigslist-Chart Post" did not, in fact, include references to LipSmackers or Teen Beat--I do in fact, reference both of those things in other blog posts. Yes, that's correct! I am exactly as you inferred!

Worker 3116.....
Are you a unicorn?
Are you my mother? (JK Mom! I know your AOL dial-up 14.4k modem hasn't finished loading the Gawker page yet! Love you!)
Are you five steps ahead of me already, which means you knew this before posting it? (In which case: you win.)

Although I never bought an issue of Teen Beat, a further dig into my blog would have found the following Teen Beaty references:

On Sunday May 7th, in the blog post entitled "I don't have a plan. That's the point." I wrote:

In 1997, Ryan Clayburn told me I'd never get laid unless I removed my teeny-bopper room decor like my Jared Leto-Claire Danes themed closet or the CK-One ads/Leonardo DiCaprio collage over my bed ...

On Monday April 10th, in a blog post entitled "Oh, ElleGirl, you're such a tease!"I shared the following tidbit:

I've never managed to sit through an entire episode of Gilmore Girls, but every EG cover-girl reminds me of Rory Gilmore. I mean, Emma Roberts? Emma Watson? Amanda Bynes? Who the hell are those girls? Hogwarts! I don't know, but I bet they had a debutante party, and she probably invited Mischa Barton, Nicole Richie, and all the other girls who smoke Newports and skip class. It's better than pink lemonade lip smackers! MMMM.

Furthermore, I totally wore Bonnie Bell Lip Smackers on a necklace for three years. My friend Jordan, who was hotter (cooler) than me, made the necklace using embroidery thread (clearly she made this crafty gift by safety-pinning the thread to her shoelaces), and I wore the hell out of that thing. My mother was "seriously unimpressed" when I dared to wear the Lip Smackers necklace on 9th grade school picture day. I was "seriously unimpressed" that I still had braces with rubber bands, so whatever. Every adolescent mouth deserves at least a smidgen of happiness.

Because I don't ever want to have a successful social life or a career, I spent two hours this evening digging around in boxes to find the aforementioned school photo, to no avail. Most of the photos from that time period have been destroyed, because they are frightening. So this was the best I could do:


While we're on the topic of my relationship to Teen Beat, I'd like to share a photograph. A few weeks ago, Haviland and Lainy and I dressed up as The Spice Girls and went out for Cinco De Mayo. Obviously I was Sporty Spice.