Tuesday Top Ten: All About Your Mother

[hello! It's me in the brackets! I was writing something kinda heavy for the Sunday Top Ten but then it got so heavy that it crushed me. Luckily, inspiration struck once again like a light object (e.g., a koosh ball, Tinkerbell) upon my braincase and here I am on Tuesday w/the Sunday Top Ten. In other words: The Tuesday Top Ten! ("holler alliteration!" - carlytron)]

Though I haven't lived with my own mother since 1997 [Because my Mother's become a more sensitive fact checker than my ex at the height of psychosis, I should add: "because I chose to leave, not because my mother didn't have a home for me to live in between those years of 1997-2002, complete with three full bathrooms, cable & internet, etc. and, although my mother moved out of that house in 2002, she still took me in at her tenement - esque one-bedroom for 24 hours in June '03 when my boyfriend dumped me and I needed to cry in an environment free of Kappa Kappa Gammas. Furthermore, during said hibernation, my mother even gave me $50 to go to the mall for "retail therapy," where I bought a cute pair of Mavi jeans I wore to my ex-boyfriend's apartment that afternoon to tell him I was moving to NYC for the summer, a plan he rejected in favor of his apparent summer plan to run over/play with my heart a few more times before school started back up. Furthermore, despite the menagerie of animals and children living in my Moms' current house, she is always very kind about wanting me to stay there and insists that I feel that I have a home somewhere, even though my stuff is in storage and during the winter holidays of '07 I was kicked out of said house by my mother and sent to a motel.], I've spent many a night with the mothers of others.

In addition to my uncanny ability to date people who under some circumstance or another are living with their mothers or other parental guardians, I'm currently living with Semicolon's mother, and the first week of September I lived with the random mother & children that Natalie is randomly living with (not her mother, obvs, her mother lives in Cleveland Ohio, land of champions). AND! I just snagged an October sublet with Hav's mother! Then! in November the sky's the limit you guys. Good news, November is my favorite month, it's the month that my brother and I try to remember which day my Mom's birthday is and decide who's gonna call first to find out.

Since I'm on such a roll with mothers, I got to thinking about ...

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Sunday Top Ten: Other Mothers I'd Like to Live With

10. Beverly Crusher, Star Trek: The Next Generation

I love Beverly not only 'cause I had a boi-crush on Wesley Crusher, Beverly's son (who looks like he could've easily made it to the final round of Brandon Teena auditions), but 'cause she's wicked smart and for vaycay would clearly take me to strange new worlds, seeking new life and and new civilizations and boldly go where no man had gone before. Her husband is dead but clearly I'm used to that, and besides she has Captain Picard as the resident surrogate father, I could live with that.

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9. Lindsay Bluth Funke, Arrested Development

The only element I ever disliked about Arrested Development was the Lindsay-Tobias marriage -- I don't think they did a good job of selling that to the viewer. Regardless, Lindsay's smokin' hot, loves charity, and accidentally makes jokes all the time. Keep in mind this is mothers I'd want to live with, not mothers I'd want to be mothered by. Not that I wouldn't want her genes, but you know, it'd be skeeze to crush on my Mom, and it'd be really skeeze to have Haviland crush on my Mom.

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8. Me & my Gay in H.S. - he had the best Mom ever, Christie!

Christie was my first boyfriend's Mom. Of course Ryan wasn't my actual boyfriend, he was my gay BFF with benefits, but Moms love gay boyfriend's girlfriends the MOST, 'cause not only am I the potentially-cute-if-she-did-her-hair super-fun smart girlfriend but I'm also their son's ticket to hetero-ville. Alas, conversion didn't stick, but let me tell you how I met Christie for the first time: Valentine's Day '98, a man in a trenchcoat shows up at my boarding school dorm to 'escort' me to a mysterious location -- Ryan's parents' motor-home, it turns out. The driver turned out to be Ryan's step-dad, and just as I entered the lux motorhome, Christie burst out from the bedroom in a french maid's outfit with champagne. She kept character for about three minutes before busting into, "Oh my god, I'm so glad to meet you!"

They had a ranch in Oklahoma with hills and rivers. She'd mail me newspaper clippings, beanie babies, cards, little gifts she'd just "thought of me" when she saw. She looked like Sally Field. It was so easy, winning her love, she liked me straight away. It's never been that easy since to snag parental affections. Maybe it's cause I was 16 and right on track, and now I'm a homeless delinquent with a weird blog.

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7. Peggy Peabody, The L Word

She's a crap Mom, but she's got the best lines on The L Word , did pay (unknowingly) for the entire De La Pica Morales clan to go to Canada for The Little Wedding that Couldn't, and is therefore my favorite character, besides obviously Papi, my favorite character of all time who unfortunately is not getting her own spin-off.

If Papi had a kid, what would they name it? Nino? Papi Jr.? Mini-Papi? Chi-Chi Rodriguez?

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6. Michelle Obama

I'm gonna do this thing where I not-so-subtly work Obama into every post until he wins in November. If he doesn't win, I want you to know I am going to quit all of you. I'm going to set the building on fire that's my cake. I'm going to take down all my posts like I do when I have a lot of feelings, post only song lyrics on twitter, and lie on my mattress in a street alley chanting "Dark Come Soon" to myself while eating the black polish off my fingers. Intervention won't be able to TOUCH me!

No but really, she seems like a sweet Mom. I'm not sure why everyone's freaking out about her ability to parent and campaign. If the Republicans had their way, women on welfare would all be working 60 hours a week and leaving their kids at home to eat fruit roll-ups and shoot each other. That's no good. The Obamas have it together, they match, and she's a beautiful, beautiful woman.

YES WE CAN! Vote!

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5. Marge Simpson, The Simpsons

I feel like this woman put up with some serious shit. Also her children never age, which is cheaper than the Oil of Olay my Mom uses.

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4. Kelli and Rosie O'Donnell

It's not the multiple homes that draw me in -- it's the arts & crafts hut. They're the most famous gay Moms ever, staunch democrats, philanthropic wonderwomen and genuinely caring & loving people. Rosie'd make jokes, teach me collaging and sing showtunes with me. Kelli's hot & capable and my siblings would be remarkably down-to-earth smart cookies who, much like me as a child, aren't allowed to watch the teevee. They're homos too, like my Mom, so it'd be basically like living with my Mom except with more trips to Miami and less yelling. Then I could go on the cruise for free and get free soda.

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3. Kanga

What if my Mom's name was "Ma" and my name was "Rie" and she carried me around in a fanny pack, like the turquoise one she used in the 90's'/probs yesterday? Then we'd be one-tenth of the way towards the coolness of Kanga, who had a kid named Roo she carried around in her pouch. I had a kangaroo stuffed animal with a Roo (a non-brand name version of the Pooh-Corner pair) and I got really upset when they'd be separated. We could live in the woods and eat coconuts and play with koalas and boomerangs, and I'd never have to pay rent or use craigslist again.

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2. Lorrie Moore, author

""The Mother does not know how to be one of these other mothers, with their blond hair and sweatpants and sneakers and determined pleasentness. She does not think that she can be anything similar. She does not feel remotely like them. She knows, for instance, too many people in Greenwich Village. She mail-orders oysters and tiramusu from a shop in SoHo. She is close friends with four actual homosexuals. Her husband is asking her to Take Notes. Where do these women get their sweatpants? She will find out."

(Lorrie Moore, "People Like That Are the Only People Here.")

I'm not into "Mom Lit," or Mom-Bloggers, or really any books about mother-daughter relationships. This's probs 'cause most mother-child focussed movies end with someone dying and lots of sentimental speeches that make me barf, or 'cause good mothers don't make very interesting protagonists, but ultimately the only time I can stand reading someone talk about child-rearing is when they approach it with the barenaked humility and admitted incompetence that Lorrie Moore does when she talks about motherhood. (Tama Janowitz fairs admirably in this area, too) In her novel Anagrams [SPOILER ALERT], we eventually discover that the protagonist's child isn't even real! She's an imaginary daughter! basically I feel Lorrie Moore knows how to mother 'cause she doesn't know how to mother, and I'd like to be a part of that. Or maybe I just want to move to Wisconsin, 'cause getting fat in Long Island isn't as accepted as getting fat in Wisconsin.

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1. Susan Powter

Alex: "I miss Susan Powter yoga."
Me: "We only went once, Alex."
Alex: "But I miss it."
Me: "How can you miss something we only went to once? That's like saying I miss my Bat Mitzvah."
Alex: "Can't I miss it if I want to?"
Me: "I think you're projecting your real sadness over missing the cruise and the team onto Susan Powter's yoga class."
Alex: [makes pouty face]

[this is the level of conversation we've come to during these weeks of forced co-habitation.]

I just feel like if I lived with Susan Powter, I'd probs get killer abs. Plus I'd want her to say "Tell Riese I'm looking for her. In heels."

On the Night I Die I Swear I'll Sleep Outside Your Window OR "My Life as a House"

Me? I'd keep my library on the wall's built-in-bookshelves. Hardwood floors. Exposed brick. Exposed book. We don't need mirrors if we have each other, we need windows to see what's out there but not too much everything, 'cause then we won't be able to see each other anymore. I want us to really look at each other is what I'm saying.

I had a house once. I mean -- I lived in a house, and it was mine as much as anything can be yours when you're a child and don't really have anything but still believe that you will, one day, have everything.

I nested there, as surely and solidly as anything in the world could've been my nest when I was a child and didn't really have anything but still believed I would, one day, nest somewhere else, somewhere spectacular like in Troop Beverly Hills or The Little Princess.

I never liked adventure stories of swashbuckling, journeys, warriors, quests -- I liked novels where precarious girls in frocks and bare feet discovered secret worlds in the wardrobe or in a box in the attic, stories where adventure was as local as wallpaper.

Natalie, my bestie from college who I lived with at two separate addresses there and crashed with last week, saw her Fiji dream house in Architectural Digest. Simple, clean lines, beautiful, next to the sea, surrounded by mountains and green, endless green. Open & floor length windows, glass walls and the bamboo bedroom walls open up to the spectacular sea. Hardwood floors, lots of ceiling fans, crisp linen, a beautiful kitchen where she can see all the people she loves sitting at once with wine and laughing. Stainless steel everything. Huge bathtub. Colors, and light, and dreamity dream dreams.

And when, at thirteen, my parents got divorced and we were made to leave that house I owned [or thought I owned] I left kicking and screaming, literally, staging a sit-in on the blue carpet in the style of the Vietnam protests my parents had told me about. I said I could not go. I demonstrated this by burying my head in the carpet. To my left -- the closet I'd turned into Samantha (a doll)'s bedroom. To my right, the futon and my loft bed and my desk where I wrote stories on my loud clanking electric typewriter.

To my all around -- my walls; posters of places I wanted to visit (like New York City) and hulking portraits of my hero Nolan Ryan who kept on pitching 'til he won.

Haviland wants a place like this hotel in L.A. called the Visceroy, like 60's stuff like in Bewitched [her typo was "betwitched," which's better, yeah?], the decor from I Dream of Jeanie, and lots of mirrors and of course the beach, always the beach and the waves, and the wind in her fairy-tale hair.

In the fifteen years since leaving that place on 431 Crest Avenue [like the toothpaste], I've switched addresses 23 times. As unhinged as that's made me feel, I've established certain precautions -- I always know where I'll be at least two weeks before I go there. I've never, for example, had to crash, or put my everyday things and furniture in storage, or couch-hop. A luxury, sure, but for me it's hardwired as hardwood and the only thing that keeps me grounded in a life of freelancing and freewheelin' and now, no legitimate roots anywhere, noplace I've ever lived that'd have me back or even knows my name.

Carly: "my dream house is whatever house Robin is living in. What, too gay?" Carly's dream house is not too big and it's modern but not cold, and there's a pool and room for dogs, and she can entertain or just sit around and watch tv in her pajamas. She says, "I can't figure out if that means I want a house on the beach in CA or a penthouse in Manhattan. Guess I'll have to get one of each!"

At boarding school near the end of my junior year, my writing teacher invited his workshop over for dinner. I rode my bike there, it was on campus. I had lots of coffee which was still a drug to me then because I was 16 and full of hope and spirit. I didn't say much 'cause I was shy, but I remember the books in his room, and the warmth they created with their words and possibility. I remember the brook in the backyard, like a cheesy watercolor rendered beautiful.

I remember, remember tangibly, the feeling of whipping through air on my bicycle from his house afterwards and thinking, "Marie Lyn Bernard the world is at your fingertips/handlebars!"

That was when energy, not oblivion, was my drug of choice. And I decided that night that when I got home for the summer I'd build myself a cave -- I'd always loved that shit, the treehouses and secret clubhouses -- a cave no-one else could squeeze into -- a place where I'd read poetry and write brilliant brilliant heartbreaking things. I'd write a novel, I said. All I needed was the right space, the right cave.

Adam's number one awesome houseboat is MacGuyver's. Distant second; Duncan during the relevant season of Highlander. In his elementary school sketchbook he drew his dream house -- he sketched it. It was a castle. With a moat. And a wing for his mommy because he was/is that kid. And he went on to form his romantic archetypes from the relationships in fantasy novels which wasn't healthy but the women were plucky (he chose the angsty young sorceress nobody understood, not the ditzy princess in distress). And then there was a real-life man with a real-life wife who had spines; spines of books, candlelight. That, after all, is his dream house: "I would probs want more light than he got, but it was night when I was there, so just about anything would have more natural light than nighttime."

And so, here I am. Basically what happened was I was all set with the apartment and then five days before I found out it wasn't going to happen ... I don't, and won't, go into detail, because it's my life as a house too, and it's complicated and I hate myself already for typing this sentence already.

Alex wants something she can build with her own two hands, with materials from her stranded desert island, but she realizes that fantasy sounds a lot like nightmare. So then there's this: a margarita shack on the beach in Mexico, where she'd sleep in a hammock and make margaritas all day. But then there's this too: the tree-house. That Swiss Family Robinson house in Disneyworld, anything where she could be inside and around a tree, the warmer the better.

But the whole situation leaves me unhinged, lost, and that's why I'm couch-hopping. I feel dislocated, like Houdini could pop off both of his nice shoulders you know? My Dad used to talk to me about Houdini a lot. I liked how Houdini was stuck in this tiny space and could dislocate his body from himself and that was how he made magic.

I realize, oh I realize, that there are children in Darfur who'd love to be sans-address but have a bed to share with a friend or a couch to hop to, close one's eyes on. Perhaps if I didn't realize this, it would be easier to figure out how I feel. But every thought I have is overrridden by the other thought; the thought of people who are sleeping on the streets, who need more than my change/change.

My short list includes the loft from Igby Goes Down, The Factory, that house in the Hitchcock movie with the cliff chase and the hanging, Walden Pond, the house my writing teacher lived in, and more and more and more that I will think about tomorrow and then add 'cause this post is totes incomplete, like you and me and everyone we'll ever know.

Caitlin. Wants a house on the beach with a pool and a backyard and she imagines her dream house to be like in Life as House, the movie that said: "I've always thought of myself as a house, I was always what I lived in. It didn't need to be big, it didn't need to be beautiful, it just needed to be mine. I became what I was meant to be, I built myself a life, I built myself a house, with every crash of every wave I hear something now. I never listened before. I'm on the edge of a cliff, listening. I'm almost finished. If you were a house, this is where you'd want to be built" and "What? Do I still love you? Absolutely. There's not a doubt in my mind. Through all my anger, my ego, I was always faithful in my love for you."

And so, nowhere I am. And so I do not know who I am. And so I want more than anything to be proud of myself. Which won't set us free but Who I Am is the great mistake in a life full of mistakes.

And so tonight I will go to sleep, ideally, though I've struggled with sleep the past few days 'cause I'm not good with strange spaces, and so I panic, and so tomorrow I will wake up, and I will go to work, and I will, if I have the time, attack this post and try to make it into something as glorious as four walls, as something I could dig into, as something I could keep. Something I can own, as much as any child can own anything.

H&R Advice Column #5: Listen To Us, Or Pay the Price

Hello, little chicklettes of the interwebs. As you're well aware, if you've got lots of feelings, Riese & Haviland have lots of answers. Today, this fine September week of homelessness and seasonal allergies, we bring you eight questions. Feast on the fruits of our opinions, and you will never be hungry. If you're interested in receiving advice 1-6 weeks from when you need it, you know where to go: askautowin@yahoo.com.

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Dear H&R,

I recently transferred to a new city for my job and moved in with an old friend. One of her new friends lives in the same building and I'm interested in her. Howevs, my friend & her friend are super-tight, and I'm afraid that initiating anything might make it awkward if things don't work out, as we're all basically living together. I don't want to ruin anything for my friend. Advice?

-Living in Sin

Riese: Haven't you seen Melrose Place? There's only one way this story can end, and it's hot hot hot! How else do we meet people if not as friends of a friend? Take the plunge. Worst case scenario, things could get awkward. Best case scenario, naked sex in the pool. Clearly the bad outweighs the good, my work here is done.

Haviland: I second that emotion. In all seriousness, though, talk to your friend and ask her. Just feel it out and see how many feelings everyone has about it, and if they're less than say, five-ish, you're good to go.

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Dear H&R,

I like feeling needed so I tend to attract users -- jumping from close sexless friendships with girls who need help ($20, emotional support, someone to pick them up and drop them off, an audience for their drama, money for food). Theoretically, I know that sounds so "Duh, bad idea!" But I feel like there's more to it than that ("I let it happen" or "she's not doing it on purpose") it is with my current bff. Her jerk boyfriend dominates her life, I never see her anymore, and distance has brought perspective. On one hand, I want to let her go. On the other, I wanna disentangle her from the mess. She uses me -- for sure -- but it doesn't compare to how he treats her. And she's a good person. I want to be her friend. I think. Idk. Maybe I'll just move sooner than originally planned.

-Used & Abused

Haviland: This is really hard, and let me say I completely empathize with your situation. First, you need to know that nothing you say or do is ultimately going to change her situation. She chooses to be with this guy, and she'll have to make the choice to stay or go. Having said that, you have choices, too. Here's what you can do: sit her down, tell her that you love her but you're concerned about how she's being treated, and that you miss the time you used to spend together. Be gentle. She will most certainly react very defensively. Assure her that you are on her team. Try to make plans, and ask her if she can be there more for you, the way you try to be for her. If she is truly a good friend, and is in a place right now that she can accept your friendship, she'll buck up and figure it out. Just remember you absolutely cannot do any disentangling. She'll only resent you for it. The best you can do is love her, let her know how you feel, and handle your own life.

Riese: Agreed. I think for me one of the hardest things about growing up was realizing that although my friends have often 'saved' me from bad relationships, not everyone's as open to that as I've been. And ultimately when it's the two of them alone in the room without your opinion front & center in her mind, your feelings are gonna seem like what they actually are -- just feelings from outside.

You need to ask yourself if her behavior is fucking up your life logistically (work, finances, your friends & family). If you've got nothing else to do besides pick her up, and you do love & care about her and want to offer support regardless of reciprocation, then go for it. But don't ever put her priorities above yours, that's when resentment starts, and if she never leaves him, that's how you're gonna start feeling like you've fucked up your life for someone who won't UN-fuck up their life for you.

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Hey there ladies,

As you know, you're hot. Hot.I want to know EXACTLY what your diet/exercise regimen is -- how two normal twentysomething girls eat and stay fit. My girlfriend and I have "let ourselves go" and we don't like ourselves anymore. We wanna be fit and look good again.

Let's Get Physical

Riese: Firstly, let me say that it's never as easy as it looks, and it's definitely never as easy as people say it is. I've been blessed w/good genes. Several years ago I freaked out for a number of reasons, started eating like a 35-year-old mother on a diet, counting calories, etc., and the results were unpretty. I lost track of listening to my body and it took years to get that back, and that's the number one key to losing weight. Your body knows what you need 95% of the time, listen to it.

Now, I eat more or less whatever I want to. I know I definitely have it easier than other women and my advice isn't necessarily what will work for people more prone to weight gain than I am.

My Mom's a nutritionist and she always stresses how every body needs something different, you have to figure out what works for you. I know that when I'm depressed and starving, I get emaciated fast, and when I tried to 'diet' (1600-1800 calories a day) I kept putting on weight 'cause my body went into "starvation mode." If you're gonna count something, don't count carbs or fat, calories is the one and only thing that matters. But fat'll keep you fuller longer, so stay away from fat-free cookies and shit.

I eat probs about 2500+ calories a day -- a lot of eggs, toast, frozen yogurt, english muffins, peanut butter crackers, string cheese, Nature's Valley granola bars, gardenburgers, salad, candy, alcohol, green tea, Coca-Cola, yogurt, cereal -- and I never ever consume aspertime. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I enjoy many small meals.

There's some things that i just know are ridiculous calorically that I stay away from except for special situations, like empty carbohydrates (muffins, bagels, danishes, etc). When I snack, I mix protein and carbs (string cheese, nuts & dried berries, peanut butter crackers, etc) 'cause carbs alone won't keep you full as long.

I stay active as much as I can -- walk not drive, work out 4-5 days a week, about 40-60 minutes of cardio (elliptical or stairmaster). I do some crunches and leg exercises maybe once or twice a week.

Also when in doubt, I suggest Newman's Own air-popped popcorn, fat-free Jello, cigarettes, coffee, diet coke and amphetamines. I believe that's the diet of the stars.

Haviland: First of all, thank you for saying Riese and I are "normal" 20somethings. There is no normal - we all have issues, health challenges, body image bullshit, and hunger. Listen to your body. Everyone is different. Celebrate the things you like about yourself. I'm very specific about what I eat and how I work out, and I wouldn't suggest my way to everyone, because it's what works for me, but probably not for most people. If you are concerned specifically, or would like some suggestions, i'd be happy to refer you to a nutritionist or a trainer, who may be able to advise you on your specific situation. In general though, whole foods are better, starving and bingeing are not good ideas, drugs and alcohol are poison, and you should move in oxygen every day! Take care of your body. It has a big job to do!

Riese: Good point about drugs being poison. I'd like to change my answer from "amphetamines" to "a good multi-vitamin" or PHENOMENOL!

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Hav and Riese,

I'm a boy and I've met a boy I like -- how do I get him to sleep with me? Not even sexually, but when I stay at his apartment, I sleep in his bed and he sleeps on the floor. What do I do? I'm afraid that if I'm too up front, he'll think I'm a ho, but why should he sleep on the floor of his own apartment?

-Sleepy Sloos

Riese: Is this boy gay? It kinda sounds like he's not. If he was gay, he'd probs be a ho ready to ride the hobby horse all over the Niagra Falls area. I mean, sleeping on the floor is serious. I might have to say he's just not that into you. The best way to tell is to make a lot of sexual references whenever possible and try to feel out his response. E.g., "can I borrow a pencil? Ooo, you know, this reminds me of my ex-boyfriend" and if he's like "oh ew," then it's a no-go, but if he's like "well, I have an even bigger pencil in my pants," then pull down his pants and stick it in. Then you can make a joke about Sharpies.

Haviland: I think we can all agree that if you have to "make someone sleep with you," it's the beginning of a bad night/morning/afternoon/whathaveyou. Don't worry about what he thinks of you. Are you a ho? If not, then you have nothing to worry about. If so, enjoy it! Contrary to what Sarah P would say, use a condom!

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Hey hey,

There's a new girl at my work, and I feel like she's bi or gay but my friend is convinced she's straight. How do I raise the point or ask without being rude or offending her, but also without making it sound like I'm coming onto her? I don't want her to feel it's too awkward, how do I let her know it's cool.

-Disclosure
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Dear Haviland & Riese,

I'm only 15 but I know I'm gay. It's taken three years to get over my first crush on my straight as an arrow best friend, but we still hang out and it's tough to forget her entirely. Luckily, I've got a new crush I really like -- and I think she might actually be gay! How do I approach her without being creepy if she turns out to be straight? I don't wanna get hurt or feel like an idiot.

-Go Fish

Riese: Kids! Listen up! The best way to find out ANYTHING about ANYONE is to ... (drumroll!) ... talk to them!!!! There's no secret code or special handshake. You just talk to them. See if they talk about boys, Shane, Tegan and/or Sara, or Melissa Etheridge. Feel out the vibe. Most people don't know where they stand on the Kinsey scale, especially at that age, so don't stress so much about placing your crush object into "straight" or "gay." Sometimes girls with boyfriends fall for other girls, and sometimes lesbians won't be that into you, and sometimes bisexuals will get their own show on MTV. Most girls are straight until they're not, obvs, but worrying about orientation distracts from what you should really be sussing out -- does this girl like YOU? If you're open about who you are, chances are she'll feel comfortable opening up about her sexuality to you if it's relevant. And if she doesn't, then it doesn't matter if she's gay or even gayish ... she's not ready. Which means it's time for you to check out OURCHART!

Haviland: I couldn't agree more with Riese. There's literally nothing else I can add.

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Dear H&R,

My girlfriend's addicted to all things Susan Powter -- she spends a million hours watching the outdoor shower video and perusing Susan's site & forum. And okay, my ego can handle it 'cause I know my cherubic butterbutt (as adorable as she is) hasn't got a real chance with the statuesque exercise queen. I can handle my gf eating Doritos in her Powter-made coffee sleeve bracelet while the yoga mat sits unused in the middle of my living room.

What I can't handle is her insistence that Powter's videos play while we're making love! When she's lovingly playing with my hair, she's actually trying to twist it into dreadlocks! My birthday gift? VS bras and A-line tees. My sports bras are nowhere to be found.

The other day, she asked me to yell at her for eating Twinkies. "Make it real," she said. "Tell me how white men and white flour are destroying me!" My Susan apparently lacked the proper authority and she retreated to a corner pouting, Twinkies in hand.

This morning Home Depot pulled up with outdoor shower materials.

So my question, dear autowin, is how can I make this obsession go away? Should I try to do Susan to make my butterbutt happy? If so, how can I do Susan more convincingly without actually exercising? Where do I draw the line?

So Truly,
Stop the Insanity!

Haviland: This whole thing seriously makes me LOL. I'm having trouble giving actual advice because I'm LOL-ing.

Riese: HAVILAND! GET IT TOGETHER! YOU MUST! You know who does an amazing Susan imitation? Haviland. Maybe she could teach you.

That being said, it sounds like what your girlfriend is attracted to is having one-way conversations. As in; she sits and Susan yells. This is what makes Susan, Susan.

Here's what I'd do. When your GF leaves the house, you need to get rid of all the Susan stuff, like hide it in the backyard (if you've ever buried a hamster or something in the backyard, that's probs a good spot for the Susanialia). Then when she comes home and asks where it is, you go "What stuff?" and look confused. If your GF's like, "Oh, my Susan videos, where are they?" then you just give her a blank stare, like you've just had your mind and memory zapped, as in a sci-fi movie or teevee series. Or if you're not that good at faking a mind-sweep, just be like, "omg, we got mugged." For this plan, you'll need to prepare before she comes in -- I suggest being huddled in the corner crying, gripping a stuffed animal and going "at least they left Tinkerbell Junior!" Then she'll be too busy comforting you to think about refined white men. Insanity = stopped.

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Dear H & R,

I've been seeing this gorgeous 28 year-old girl. She's got everything I want; looks, wit, functioning cerebrum, and she's not an alcoholic! there's something wrong though -- when it comes to sex (which's great btw), she doesn't want me to do anything. No touching. I just hug her, and she cums before I do, which doesn't bother me but I wanna share my oral skills! Love goes both ways, and I'm good at it! Tell me what to do, how to make her feel comfortable. Or, Riese; come down here and marry me. I'll show you my skills first hand, seriously, you're the girl of my dreams!"

Great Taste in Women

Riese: Firstly, I think you might have me confused with Haviland, she's the hot one, and I'm the cool one. I hope your dreams have candy in them. I love girls and candy. Or sex and candy, like that annoying song. Also I need a passport so get on that stat.

I'm confused about your situation. As I see it there are two things possible:
1. Your girlfriend is a total weirdo and has been faking orgasms, probs has issues.
2. Your girlfriend comes super easily without even being touched. So, she knows that if you touched her, she'd just explode everywhere like the Uh Huh Her song explode, or like a 14 year old boy. 'Cause like ... if she gets off just from hugging, I feel like your skills could probs push her over the edge.
3. I bet Haviland's gonna say something about the importance of communication, take it away, Hav!

Haviland: Well yeah. I mean, it sounds like she has something psychological going on that probably has nothing to do with you. Oh, girls. I could try and tell you how to make her feel comfortable, but it depends on why she feels uncomfortable, you know? Having said that, maybe she just has her way and thats what she's into, but if it bothers you (like if you feel like you're having one-way sex) then talk to her. Yay communication!

---

Dear H+R,

For seventeen years I assumed I was straight but over the last two, I started wondering if I liked girls. Then I started watching The L Word, and I noticed myself finding women more and more attractive, checking out women. I'm hesitant to consider myself bisexual.

While I'm intrigued by the idea, the thought of actually being with a woman is a little je ne sais pas. I really do enjoy looking at women, thinking about them, and all the like [here's where I start confessing my love for both fictional characters (such as Carmen de la Pica Morales) and real people that I don't actually know (such as certain people [as in more than one person] who may or may not be associated with this blog)] but for some reason I just can't bring myself to say for sure that I like them.

At only 18, maybe this isn't an issue that I really need to focus on but I can't help but wonder. I'm one of those people who just needs an answer because the uncertainty is more than I want to handle.

Truly,
All Girls Are Straight Until They're Not

Riese: I think I need a keyboard shortcut to copy-paste, "Don't worry about labels, just be what you are!"

We're trained as American females to fall in line w/what mass media dictates as "sexy." The L Word impacted many lives 'cause it's the first mainstream program to display girl-on-girl relationships (rather than male-oriented girl-on-girl hookups or flings) as being just as hot and sexy as the hetero kind. It definitely changed my life, too. So that makes sense.

When I was your age, I'd had one girl hookup and one serious man-relationship. I went through three more serious boyfriends before exploring the other side. You're growing and changing, and you'll figure out what you want. Don't let labels stress you out. That being said, I think bisexual sounds like a safe label. It's cute like Tila Tequilla, my number one hero.

I know it's easier said than done to just go with the flow, and it'll be really strange I know from experience to suddenly start thinking of girls as girlfriends instead of just friends, but have faith that in time, the answers will come. I think I've written a bit on my struggle with this a little bit here and here.

Haviland: I used to have serious anxiety over this very issue. From age 13 to about 18, it really plagued me. It was the uncertainty - as many of you know, I am a little Type A, and a planner, and not knowing something like how to explain to myself or to others what is happening in my head and heart is extremely uncomfortable and anxiety-producing to me. There was this one enlightening day that I remember thinking, "Why do I have to have an answer?" Sweetie, you do not have to have an answer. Most likely, you'll change your mind again and again. Try to really focus on the person/people you're into, rather than their gender. Be honest with yourself and never feel ashamed. This is a fun process - an excitant one! Embrace the fun in it. When people ask you to define what category you fit into, be a little flirty and deflect. There's no reason to tell everyone your business. Bring out your inner Blanche Devereaux. I cannot possibly explain how many times I have flirted my way out of answering something.

And as far as how to deal with yourself, really try and relax. You're going to figure it out, but in the meantime, just enjoy all the possibilities!

Riese: Word. 'Cause she's so Type A, Haviland's open-mindedness about my bisexuality and "label-free" living is something that really surprised me about her when we first met, and also her attitude really helped me to feel more free spirited than I had before. Now I'm like a bird! Rock out to Ani DiFranco's "In or Out" and let your inner goddess sparkle. That's my blanket advice for everyone actually: listen to Ani and sparkle!

---

Sunday Top Ten: Entries From a Smokin' Hot Pink Notebook

When I was a little girl in Dork Middle School, anybody who was anybody (which was almost everybody, 'cause there were only 16 girls in my graduating class) read Lurlene McDaniel novels ravenously -- stories which confirmed our suspicions that the world was a cruel, cruel place. Also, anybody who was anybody was allowed to go to the mall alone w/o parental supervision, except me, 'cause my mother was a fascist dictator who didn't want me to have fun or be happy. (JK Mom! Love you! Loved going to the mall with you too!) (Wouldn't it be fun if instead of Mother's Day being "Celebrate Mom" day, it was an April Fool's Day combo? The fam pools collective wisdom to play a big trick on Mom? Like in Home Alone, when Kevin sets booby traps for the thieves? Mom'll get up expecting breakfast in bed and then be like wtf are there micro-machines on the floor, um, hello blowtorch, KEVIN!") Anyhow. What was I talking? Oh yes. Literature.

Since leaving my Dork School peer group for greener pastures, I've not met another fan of McDaniel's cannon of Dying Children Lit -- until last weekend when I met my friend's sister who was also a big fan, which is AMAZING, and we bonded over it.

Also, I just started reading Rachel Shukert's Have You No Shame, in which the author's mother uncovers her daughter's collection of Holocaust Lit and replaces the books with Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley High, delaring that: "I'd rather have you shallow and sexually precocious than morbidly psychotic."

So I started thinking about all the morbidly psychotic books I read as a kid. I wasn't allowed to read Christopher Pike or R.L Stine like everyone else (see: mother's general desire for me to be ostracized from peers), but I feel like the shit I was allowed to read was probs way worse for my little baby mind than those authors' straightforward & blatant horror/violence.

Which brings us to an actual Sunday Top Ten. For the first time since um ... oh, I don't know.

---

SUNDAY TOP TEN: SEEMINGLY INNOCUOUS YOUNG ADULT BOOKS THAT PLEASED MY TWISTED LITTLE SOUL, AND WHY
or "Things that affected me more than going to the mall w/o a parent would've."

*

10. Cynthia Voigt's "Tillerman" Series: Homecoming, Dicey's Song, et al., also The Boxcar Children
Amped up my desire to be an orphan forced to live by my wits,
as well as my certainty that I'd be better off alone like the pop song "Better Off Alone,"
therefore increasing my implicitly unfair & ungrateful resentment towards my family for feeding, clothing and loving me,
inspiring me to write my own bad novels about runaways.

In Homecoming, 13-year old Dicey Tillerman and her three younger siblings experience the literal opposite of my life situation -- they're actually abandoned at the shopping mall by their mother, who subsequently lands herself in a psychiatric hospital. Meanwhile, I was being followed around the mall by my psychiatric mother (ten steps behind, providing both protection and distance), therefore preventing me from Having Adventures like Hunger, Misery, Orphanhood, Eccentric Aunts on Dilapidated Farms and Evil Catholics. Reading the plot summary of Homecoming, I realize it's possible I stole it for my epic novel Fly by Night, in which young pyromaniac Erin leaves her abusive home w/precocious brother Tommie, eventually meeting a guy named "Fly," who looks a lot like Jordan Catalano. 'Cause Erin can't stop burning things down & 'cause their number-one income source is carrying groceries to cars (in real life, I suspect this is not the growth sector Voigt's novels implied), they're forced into homelessness and then communal living with Fly and his super-fly buddies. There's a happy ending, I won't spoil it!

Also, how dykey does Dicey look on that book cover? Yow.

As I mentioned in the "Family Film Edition" of "What I Learned from the Teevee," I was a big fan of Orphan Lit and wanted to live in a Boxcar, eat hobo stew and scavenge for loaves of bread, etc. Unfortunately, I was never orphaned, though I enjoyed building forts and pretending to run away from home. Honestly, my coping mechanisms haven't really changed much since then.

---

9. The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline B. Cooney

Among other imaginary acts of heroism, I often hoped to find a classmate or friend on a milk carton and save the day, like in America's Most Wanted which I wasn't allowed to watch. Once a lax babysitter let us watch the show (she was fired, clearly) -- this guy killed his wife and hid her in an egg incubator behind his trailer, I still have nightmares about it. Also I believe this book fueled my fear of being kidnapped, and a ridiculous obsession with cults. Later, this became a TV movie staring the foxy Kellie Martin.

---

8. The Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

I know what you're thinking -- "The Clockwork Orange" is not a young adult novel. This is true. Howevs, my father felt I was very mature, and 'cause he wanted me to become a great filmmaker like Stanley Kubrick, he made me read this book (we had a serious book-before-the-movie policy) when I was 13. Though most grown-up lit was off limits (e.g., Stephen King, other crap), I was permitted both this and Lolita. This is the essence of hippie intellectual spirit. I was like "Dad, what's 'the ol' in-out-in-out'"? Which was a very special moment for everyone and eliminated any perceived need for a "birds and the bees" convo.

---

7. Face at the Edge of the World, by Eve Bunting
Romanticisation of Suicide, Additional Reasons to Fuck it All

I'm not sure if this is the right book, 'cause I probs read more than my fair share of suicide-related narratives. But I think this is the one where the protagonist spends the whole book trying to figure out why his successful and talented BFF suddenly offed himself, eventually (SPOILER ALERT!) determining that perhaps he simply wanted to "quit while he was ahead." So basically all bets are off, re: offing oneself, not good news for me as I believe I was diagnosed with clinical chronic depression at the age of 5. Logistically, it would've been impossible to do myself in since I was so well supervised, especially at the mall.

---

6. Eating Disorder Lit, including:
Second Star to the Right, Stick Figure, and Little Girls in Pretty Boxes

As I've noted previously, I was the scrawniest little kid you ever did see. Howevs: my Mom was a nutritionist who helped people diet, I wanted desperately to gain weight, I was a first worldian adolescent in the 80's/90's surrounded by body image obsessed girls. Therefore, I was totally fascinated by everyone else's fascination with thigh girth. As a chronically pre-pubescent teen, I looked to literature to psych me into understanding wtf the deal was ... later, I employed this background when counseling the reedonkulous number of severely anorexic and/or bulimic friends I acquired over the years. I think it's 'cause subconsciously, ED'ed peeps are drawn to me, thinking "what is her secret of svelte-hood?" and then eventually they learn that I hate myself too, it's just more annoying coming from me, 'cause I'm not actually fat, just completely insane, and have read too many books about eating disorders (late-adds include Appetites, The Body Project and Wasted) and also; the media, etc. Calvin Klien fashion magazines hoo-ha. Kazaam.

---

Teacher: How would you describe Anne Frank?
Angela [distracted]: Lucky.
Teacher: "Anne Frank perished in a concentration camp. Anne Frank is a tragic figure. How could Anne Frank be lucky?"
[Jordan Catalano walks in, late]
Angela: "I don't know... Because she was trapped in an attic for three years with this guy she really liked?"
(My So-Called Life)

---

5. Judy Blume Novels

As I've mentioned 500 times, I'm essentially a human sponge, willing to take orders and absorb desire from whomever's speaking the loudest. Through Judy Blume, I verified that I was, indeed, justified to angst over my bust which wasn't increasing though I thought it must, it must, and that the best way to bond with other girls was via boy-related discussions. I've since learned otherwise, but I still love Judy. The girls in Blume novels are relentlessly catty and tell me srsly if you can't imagine this on the back of a porn DVD: "Rachel is Stephanie's best friend. Since second grade they've shared secrets, good and bad. So when Alison moves into the neighborhood, Stephanie hopes all three of them can be best friends since Stephanie really likes Alison. But it looks as if it's going to be a case of two's company and three's a crowd." Anyone? "In bed"? I know I was reading Lolita at 12, but c'mon now ...

---

4. The Quiet Room, by Lori Schiller and Amanda Bennet

I'm 99.9% sure schizophrenia is one disorder I defo don't have, but I seriously used to hear voices sometimes as a kid (probs it was G-d, before She lost faith in me altogether), and reading this book really freaked me out -- clearly I had enough neurosis w/o worrying that one day the voices would stop arguing with each other about my self-worth and instead command me to kill someone. Luckily they went away ... now the only voice I hear is Tegan in my iPod. Who's going on MONDAY!?! TO TEGAN & SARA?!!!

---

3. Entries From a Hot Pink Notebook, by Todd D. Brown
Felt I related to the protagonist's psyche deeply,
began early fascination with gay male culture,
subsequently realizing literally as I write this that perhaps I identified with the narrator's feelings of alienation and outsiderdom for other reasons,
e.g., personal gayness.

So, it featured my fave plot device, the gay reveal and subsequent gay crush gay reveal (y'know, the "OMG, my BFF I'm in love with is kissing ME BACK!" thing) and it's actually a really good book, though I realize the title suggests otherwise. Sometimes it hurts: the titles given to brill books. It's much easier to recommend a book called "The Sound and the Fury" than "Entries from a Hot Pink Notebook." I read this approximately around the same time I was writing in my own diary: "my greatest fear is that I'll turn out to be a lesbian. Yuck." Also, gay men were sorta "in" in the mid-nineties amongst liberals -- Rickie Vasquez, etc.

---

2. Lurlene McDaniel books

According to Lurlene McDaniel's website, "everyone loves a good cry," which's why McD's written 40+ books about "kids who face life-threatening illnesses, who sometimes do not survive." Sample titles include: She Died Too Young, Sixteen and Dying, Please Don't Let Him Die, The Girl Death Left Behind, Letting Go Of Lisa, When Happily Ever After Ends, Goodbye Doesn't Mean Forever, etc. The best was when two kids with different illnesses fell in love (e.g., cystic fibrosis + leukemia = true love) or when everyone would get into a car accident right before they were supposed to go to college on scholarship (w/bright futures, obvs) except for one girl who'd be left behind to angst. In a rare appearance by an African-American character, McD brought us Baby Alicia is Dying, in which a teenage girl grows attached to the HIV-positive black baby abandoned by her crack is whack mother, probs in Planet Harlem.

Basically, Lurlene McDaniel peddles the most demented books of all time, and I somehow ate them up. We all did. I imitated them, too, with similar plots in novels I wrote (for fun?). I guess we all felt strange and sad all the time for no reason, our little Dork School, filled with kids who suspected that, given the chance, public school would eat us alive and stuff us into lockers, and also: that perhaps we weren't fooling anyone (least of all ourselves) by avoiding the resolute knowledge that our problems weren't really problems, actually. We read the newspaper. We had politically aware parents. We didn't know jackshit, hadn't lived through anything worth crying over. Faces on Spilled Milk Cartons.

I coped w/my sense of alienation as a kid by reading, constantly, both intelligent books not mentioned here and the lame stuff I'm talking about here ... or by trying to be like everyone else as best I could though I felt hopelessly different. I'd been sad all the time for no reason as long as I can remember ... while driving w/my Mom from one place I was running from to another place, I mentioned wanting to get back to some childhood place where I'd been happy and she said I'd actually never been. "Intense," was her word. I guess I knew that already, I just wanted her to disagree, or blow it off. 'Cause I mean, seriously. I don't mention Elizabeth Wurtzel all the time for no reason, I'm legitimately afraid of her & her entitled torture, her ... whining.

I had an association and fascination with terrible & morbid circumstances and latched onto the littlest things to excuse my moodiness -- these books tapped into the part of me that wanted a reason for it. I wanted to be told, again and again, that tragedy waited around the corner. I'm certain there must've been wood nearby worth knocking on, if I'd known enough to do so. Clearly; I knew nothing.

*
"I know sad stories aren't for every reader, but it's the kind of story that most of my readers like from me. When I write "happy" books, many readers complain. So I focus on what I do best---stories that might bring a tear, but that focus on real life (where happily ever after rarely occurs). And while the books may not have "happy" endings, I try to give readers a satisfying ending---life is full of trouble and matters out of our control. How we deal with troubles determines our own character."
(Words of Wisdom from Lurlene McDaniel, clearly a Sick Puppy)

---

1. Sweet Valley High

I actually was prohibited from reading these books an account of their apparent vapidity, etc., But I finally sneaked one home, probs using crafty techniques learned from another YA novel. Just my luck: I got the book where Elizabeth gets kidnapped. Not good. This verified, to me, that my Mom was Right about these books being Bad; which's why Mothers have special powers that cannot be questioned. Like how the first time I drank alcohol, I threw up all night, which's exactly what she'd told me would happen. Actually, that still happens. Yet I continue drinking. Hm.

Howevs, I'd like to once again point out that nothing scary ever happened to me at the mall, except for this:

On that note of "things I did 'cause everyone else was doing it," if anyone's got a bridge in Brooklyn they'd like to sell me ...

You Got a Fast Car, I Got a Plan to Get Us Out Of Here

A lot's happened lately in the smokin ' hot life of Auto-Win . Not "good things" necessarily [besides the Marie Claire article, yow!!!], like winning the lottery or surviving cholera, but "things that've occupied significant mind-space." What follows is the result of "space-mind."

[Speaking of space; moved on Monday night, with assistance from the Man-with-a-van, Little Fierce Haviland, Tara "I Haven't Worked Out in a Year But I'm Still 10 x Stronger than Fitness-Fanatic Marie" D, and my new Angelic roommates Ryan and Zoey. I'm still unpacking, a.k.a. co-existing with chaos, but I'm gonna be happy here. It's delightful. I haven't been this close to a New York Sports Club since '04!!]

However, I learned a lot about myself while packing, e.g., I own eight sticks of Secret deodorant and six travel-sized tubes of toothpaste. This means I often leave home unsure if I've adequately transformed my body's natural bacterias from "gross" to "powdery/minty freshness" and I attempt to immediately remedy this at my local Duane Reade. Because of "love thy neighbor," etc.

Today on This Automatic Life: MY GREAT ESCAPE PLAN

**

"[W]hen you are twenty-two or twenty-three, you figure that later you will have a high emotional balance, and be able to pay whatever it costs. I still believed in possibilities then, still had the sense, so peculiar to New York, that something extraordinary would happen any minute, any day, any month."
-Joan Didion, "Goodbye to All That

**

There's this sensational moment in Beverly Hills 90210 when Brenda discovers that Kelly n' Dylan have been riding the hobby horse and she's like: "Look, I hate you both. Never talk to me again!" and walks off into the California sunshine. Next season, Brenda's in London. Poof!

[I fully realize the lead sentence of that graf is possibly the best way EVER to begin a sentence.]
[Besides: "So, I saw America's Next Top Model at the gym today ... [or "Last night, while Haviland and I lay naked in a field of poppies..."]

I really liked that scene, so I re-enacted it in 1997 by running away to boarding school. All my friends cried. Leaving home felt like actual flight, even though we drove there and I cried for the first three days and wouldn't let my Mom go home. Luckily [!!!] I still wore ski caps then--every day, even in the summer, ALWAYS--so no one could see my puffy eyes anyhow.

The point is: even if we haven't personally been betrayed by Dylan+Kelly, we've all felt like walking off into the sunshine sometimes. It's an itchy instinct: you face disaster, heartbreak, challenge, loss -- you flee -- If the life you lead is not the one you dreamed about, then flee. [-Micheal Cunningham, A Home at the End of the World]

**

Like many New Yorkers, I've dreamt of living here all my life. [Read: threatened to run here all my life.]

Now when I get pissed off, I can't say I'm leaving you for New York City! so I just say really crazy things, cause what do you say when you're already living out your escape plan?

I think we've all got our "Screw it all, I'm moving to ______" plans/threats. Right? Yeah.

Ryan, mid-mental-breakdown, often announced he was: becoming a monk or moving to Africa to feed the children because food is the only joy in my life now, and I'd like to share that joy with others. Krista fantasized about a custom-built lakeside house in the woods, in Northern Michigan, Scot often threatened to flee for Chicago [home of his brother and The Cubs]. My Mother's announced more than once that she's moving to Australia: we have family there, and the gays can marry.

What's your great escape plan?

**

Plan of Escape:
Or, What I Think About When I Think About Saying Goodbye to All That


Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying

**

Bring it Back Home Y'all: Michigan
This's a common narrative thread in my blog. You know the deal: no DSL (or DHL), no Duane Reade, no MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF KICK-ASS FUN, no Haviland, no Tasti-D-Lite. Possible job involving pantyhose, e.g., a cubicle, GM, Bob Evans.

**

Reno, Nevada:
I haven't spoken to Kim in two months. Somehow, because I too have delusions, I still imagine her going "sure, friend, come stay!"

**

Flowers in Hair, etc. ..San Francisco, California:
Reno's appealing partially cause it's close to San Francisco. I imagine many New Yorkers threaten to move to San Fran when times are tough. Some people threaten L.A., but those people are not the kinds of people NYC wants anyway. Like, take your sunshine and your plastic body parts and your smoothies,whatevs, see you at the End of Days, suckers.

Which leads me to this hypothesis:

The most common escape-routes of New Yorkers are, in order of popularity:
1. San Francisco
2. London
3. The suburbs
4. Home, wherever that is. Sometimes, home is "New Jersey," but that doesn't stop you.

**

"My God, how much there was then to leave behind and forget."
-Rilke, "The Prodigal Son"

**
No-Sin City. Las Vegas, Nevada:
I don't understand the appeal of gambling. I'd only gamble if it somehow involved Scattergories, but even then, I'd rather just chill and play the game. [Which I'd Automatically Win, P.S.] Isn't money enough of a game as it is, and therefore, isn't gambling kinda meta? And therefore Already Over?], TB and I enjoy tossing about the moving-to-her-parents'-house-in-Vegas idea. Like Jack and Diane, Sid and Nancy, Jack and Dean, and Waldo of Where's Waldo?:

"I could be a bartender, and you can be a cocktail waitress."
-TB

[Relationship metaphor, anyone?]

When we aren't working or sexing, we'd be writing/reading. A few miles away, lights would continue blinking, cash-ching-chinging, coin-clattering, pop-crooner-gay-magician-showing, but in our hideaway, all that would feel so far away from our Waking Life that it'd almost not exist whatsoever.

Challenges include: TB's employed in NYC, The U-Haul joke, and if Al Queda attacks, they're definitely hitting Excalibur or Tropicana first. After totes smashing the hell out of Circus Circus. Not that we'd be in any of those places, but we could be passing through on our way to the library .


**

"You got a fast car/I want a ticket to anywhere."
-Tracy Chapman, 'Fast Car"

**

Astoria, Queens, New York City, New York:
Astoria's practically on a different planet, just because I know if I lived there, I'd never leave my apartment. I'd start thinking about the Q train and get super overwhelmed and need to lay down. So I'd lay down and stare at the walls of my big 500-dollar room, drink something fizzy with a lemon twist--and decide to stay in Astoria. Maybe I'd go out with Vater, cause she always meets weirdos in Astoria at the Athens Cafe. Then I could start a blog about being a twentysomething upwardly-mobile entry-level-employed savings-accounted gal in the big city, except it'd be about Vater's dating life, not mine. That would be the "twist." To seperate it from the other 65 already up on that topic.

**
Summer Camp:
I don't know if I'm qualified to teach a child to do anything besides how to cook Easy-Mac, but it'd be fun to be like C'mon kids, lets go eat worms! and stuff. Or direct plays. Or make poetry and lanyards. Then I could get away from all you people and be around the children because Children are the Future, just like Whitney said. Also, I imagine getting very tan and sheperding the cool kids into the counselors-only area to smoke and talk about lesbian sex.
**

"We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one noble function of the time, move."
-Jack Kerouac, On the Road

**

Wilmington, Ohio:
My Grandparents wanted all their grandchildren to land in a top-tiered University, and if not: Wilmington College. Even sans college, they'd take me in with open arms and I'd feel like the Best Grand-Daughter Ever. But sometimes it gets so quiet there at night that trucks whizzing by are comets through a cornfield; I get scared all over. Like all that space, that quiet must hold a really dark secret. Also, I'd find a way to go into debt at Wal-Mart or Odd-Lots.

**

" 'I'll be thinking of you,' he'd say at the door,
while already he'd be in his car,
singing, the music all the way up."
-Stephen Dunn, "Often The Pleasures of Departure"

**

Wherever Ryan Is:
He won't disclose. Apparently it's top-secret. [Still more reassuring than last year, when he lived in Beirut.]

**

With Ryan's parents on the ranch in Oklahoma, regardless of Ryan's actual location:
Because it's beautiful there, and I love Christy and Ted and Grandmother. I'd be like, Lets go round up the horses! or whatevs. Chop chop! Gallop! Then we could go into town 'cause there's tons of good food there if you like BBQ Ribs and coronaries. Also, Poteau, Oklahoma is home of the world's highest hill [in Ryan's backyard!]. If it were one foot taller, it'd be a mountain.

**

"My wife has disappeared along with her clothes."
-"My Wife," Raymond Carver

**

Chicago:
Anyone who grew up in a Midwestern state without any of it's own super-hip-cities [e.g. Michigan, Indiana] knows that Chicago's always the default escape route. Everyone's got a friend or two in Chicago. I've got like: six [I rarely talk to, which doesn't make them any different from my friends here]. Ingrid would take me in. She'd cook me filet-with-fancy-sauce and I could read her Harper's and New Yorker and listen to The Roots while Ingrid furthers her Art History knowledge. I could work for Oprah or Barak Obama. Or both.

**

Eugene, Oregon:
Everyone's happy here, I think. You can't be like "Oh, I'm sad, and I live in Eugene." Right?

**

Missoula, Montana:
Delp, our Interlochen writing teacher/surrogate father, often scoffed at our stress over the college admissions proccess, admonishing that if we knew what was good for us, we'd move to Montana, where we could fish and write all the time. I've never been, but he was right about everything else, you know?

**

That being said: I've got no escape plan right now. This is good: right here. This apartment, these roommates. My friends. Whatever life I build for myself over the next month. TB, striving towards perfection, etc. All of us, all of us, all of us.

Automatic Lose, OR: "How About Ohio?"

My life and this blog have a very clean-cut relationship:

x+2x=y

x=the quality and rockstar-factor of my actual life
y=the quality and rockstar-factor of Automatic Win's life

This equation ensures that I appear 100 times cooler than I am. I think. I haven't taken math since like, before the internet was invented.

Let's look at the numbers:
-I've been going crazy/writing an article for [redacted very well-paying] Magazine for 5 weeks--it's just been killed. No "launch-pad," no "income [aside from kill fee]."
-I've got 18 days remaining in this apartment. Aforementioned sublet: fell through, obvs.
-I'm totes hands-down under-employed [by design, but still.]
-I've gotta re-work my book before I can sell it.
-I've got a weird feeling I'll forget to do my taxes.
-However, I don't live in Darfur. That's something.
-Which doesn't make me feel much better.
-So now I just feel like an ungrateful asshole. Still reading?


Those unlucky few who've had the pleasure to speak to me on the phone this morning have suggested I think of this as a great opportunity to "start all over." Hm. "Start all over." I've started brainstorming:

Move to a Square-Shaped State, Purchase Panty-Hose and "Pumps."
This might be super-educational. Like: what's a hedge fund? What's insurance? What's "investing"? What are "tax professionals"? What is "human resources"? These are all questions I cannot answer. But if I worked for a "distribution" or "sales" company or something? Then I'd be knee-deep in the salt of the earth, etc. Also, hello tinted stockings, goodbye TANNING!

Bender.
I've never done heroin; does it look better in the movies? I should do laundry so I can have appropriate bender clothes; like something hot-hot-hot and devastating. All like "Look at me, I am so tortured on my mattress, I am writhing, I am hot and writhing!" Currently: wearing Abercrombie sweatpants from 1999, eyeliner-smeared wifebeater. More devastating-dorm-style than devastating-Little-Girl-Lost-style.

Renouncing Material Possessions, Living on Street, Eating Macaroni con Queso
Which might make me a spoiled girl who's used to a standard of living she takes for granted when she should realize there are plenty of people out there with bigger problems than no apartment, no job, and a month spent on an article that just got killed. Seriously, though, this article has not only BEEN killed, but it's killed me. [I'm moaning about this on my mac-book.]

Getting Million-Dollar Abs for a Buck
Seriously, I'm watching this thing on TV RIGHT NOW. What if my ABS were worth a million dollars?!! I just need to order this chair. Then my abs'll earn money in my sleep.

Go Back to School
According to Careerbuilder.com, the best fields for the Class of 2007 include such tempting careers as "Auditor," "Registered Nurses" and "Computer Software Applications Engineers." I think what I really need is an M.F.A! Then I'll be a REALLY good writer, which will make me 0% more employable.

Peace Corps
I wonder if I could get to Guatemala before May 1st? It'd suck to go through the trouble of finding a new apartment just to move to a shack in South America.

Go Live with My Mom
Dial-Up problem aside--there's something about surburban Detroit that makes me slightly suicidal. However, there'd be free food and no rent. Until I drove my Mom completely crazy. Approx. 10 days?

Watching Americas Next Top Model marathon, crying softly to self, writing embarrassingly self-pitying blog entry
Oh wait. That's what I'm already doing.

Chelsea 2BR for me, Alvy Singer, Gia, and the monkeys

Once again, the time's come for me to pull up my bootstraps, pack up my 15 pairs of designer jeans, 300 books and six plastic boxes of sentimental childhood items (on the off-chance that I'll wanna scan an old photo for my blog that no one'll think is cute but me [and my Mom, maybe, but she's probably got her own copy of it and it'd take her less time to dig for it in storage than load it via internet] [no, jokes about my mother's dial-up'll remain endlessly amusing to me and I'll never stop telling them, until Mom joins the other homo sapiens and springs for DSL]) and move to a new apartment. I hate moving. You wouldn't know that if you asked the US Postal Service because:

1. Obvs that's just a figure of speech, you can't ask them anything, like, not even: "Will I be in this godforsaken line for the rest of my life?"
2. I've completed 16 change of address forms in the last 10 years.
3. Just so you know, "2" is 100% true. Most things on this blog are between 50%-95% true, so grab hold of that gem and keep it, people.

I don't wanna move: I love this place. But I gotta, so I'm trying to excite myself about it by framing the move in a "Total Life Re-Vamp" Context. These imaginary re-vamps often involve a transition to somewhere suspiciously cinematic. When I was a girl in the heartland, staring at the ceiling and listening to Juliana Hatfield, I dreamt of a certain kind of apartment. The fictional kind.

SUNDAY TOP TEN: WHAT I WANT IN AN APARTMENT

10. Like the Ones in Woody Allen Movies

I like all the books on bookshelves and the typewriter and the papers. Alvy Singer has let his dust collect, he hasn't moved 16 times in 10 years. The perfect rooms for neurotics, for crisis, for breakdown. It may not've looked like that in real life, but if I wanted real life, I'd be living in some tepid romantic comedy set in the suburbs starring Jennifer Aniston, or something. I want bursting bookshelves.

9. Like the One in Igby Goes Down

I remember Amanda Peet all strung out on cocaine, billowy sheets, big loft space, Jeff Goldblum in a flashy suit, Kieran Culkin lookin' all Holden-ish and wide/bright-eyed. I think a disturbingly high amount of my apartments-i-liked-in-movies are occupied by drug addicts. This loft is pretty standard fare as far as films-set-in-NYC go. Huge windows, shiny hardwood floors. You can break down in these lofts, get all bloody and wired, and still not make a mess. The beds are random, walls are afterthoughts (in After Hours, I Shot Andy Warhol, Basquiat, Gia, etc). This'd be a perfect spot to explore my secret love for painting abstractions on large canvases while stoned.

8. Mary McCarthy, Manhattan, When I Was Young

Back in the diz-zay, writers could totally wax poetic on the detailed layout of their apartments without worrying that the reader'd hurl the book at the wall and pick up The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I read this memoir in the summer of '01 while on my 11th street-to-110th street commute to a non-fiction writing class at Columbia and the apartment descriptions remain apt, vivid. 21 Perry Street, McCarthy remembers, housed "the most secret of all the Village's secret gardens. It was very large, with two fountains, a small stoner altar, private sitting areas at the rear"; you get the idea. Bushes, turtles, peacocks, all things now only afforded by Madonna and SJP. She lived on East 21st for $90/month! And she can speak of the village like this: "Giving up Greenwich Village would have meant giving up not only its sweet, seedy streets, but a certain self-image. B and I were Villagers; we bore (I told myself) a noble heritage" which we could never do, now, because it's so cost-prohibitive. Am I NOT the first person EVER to make this point? Sometimes I'm really impressed with myself.

7. The Annie Leibovitz/Susan Sontag Situation

They lived across the hall from each other. Permanent dorm/permanent genius. Developed artistically, loved, fought, pushed, grew, etc. Perhaps even more remarkable is that on my first google, my initially incorrect spelling of "Leibovitz" resulted in a top result of: a post from "this girl called automatic win." When we aren't plotting to be the gay and half-gay Paris/Nicole, Hav and I often dream of being famous friends in the same building like this. Last week, in the midst of this mag-article/party-planning/memoir-writing nonsense, TB noted: "We're like so Sontag/Liebovitz right now. Guess which one I am? Right--the white-streaked one of course, cause I'm fucking old. And you, the celebrity-canoodling Jew."

6. The Characters without Box-Springs: As Featured in the Writings of Tama Janowitz, Maggie Estep, Mary Gaitskill

Their characters live in hovels. A stench of something fecal and feline, dark windows haunted by ghostly stalks and stems, wallpaper peeling off in great strips like the skin of some sad psychedelic beast. The sexually deviant and perpetually underemployed and their shameless filth, and scraping by and wild-craving-fucking protagonists of their short stories--they're horrid but also beautiful. In particular: "Soft Maniacs," "Two Girls Fat and Thin," "Slaves of New York," "Bad Behavior."

5.Oh, RENT.

I think this musical's soundtrack tapped into our Midwestern Teenage Dreams of transporting our spoiled selves into unheated apartments (not important when passion burns deep inside you to keep you warm) to pursue art and love and esp. loving the sick/dying people and drugs and cold. That was a nice thing to sing along to. Now I think, that is pretty f'in amazing that they didn't pay their rent for an entire year. That's fucking crazy shit. I mean, why didn't they have any money saved up after a year of no rent? (I probably wouldn't've either, but i'm sure most of my tres responsible friends would be like "After that year of no rent, I've got enough in my pockets to buy a place in Soho!") Still, the romance! How can you connect in an age when strangers, landlords, lovers, your own blood cells betray? Sing! Burn things! Candles! Yay! Music! Damn the Machine, Save the Empire!

4. The Hotel Chelsea

Oh, the romance! The Andy Warhol Superstars, Dylan Thomas, Sid Vicious, Rufus Wainwright, Allen Ginsberg, Simone De Beauvior, Stanley Kubrick, Bob Dylan, Jane Fonda, Nabakov, Robert Crumb, Quentin Crisp, Sarah Berndhart, Burroughs, Christo, de Kooning, Jimi Hendrix, Jasper Johns, Janice Joplin, Robert Maplethorpe, and I love Chelsea! I just love it! It's everything we ever dreamed of, everything, everything!


3. C.C.'s Pre-Star Apartment in "Beaches"

During my first viewing (circa 1990) of this chick-flick tearjerker, I sobbed because: 1. someone died, 2. soft rock really yanks at my heartstrings. Now I'd cry from pre-internet nostalgia; this plot would never stand up now ... the precious b+w photostrip from the beach's booth, the faithfully exchanged handwritten letters, the trouble of tracking someone down in a time when only obscene fame or luck would land them naturally at your doorstep. (Now, C.C.'s character would totes've pimped out her MySpace and her Mom would have like, been her webmaster) ... but I also loved her little apartment, with the Chirstmas lights and tiny bed, the proverbially small kitchen. I don't recall where she lived, but I imagine it was someplace that claimed to be gritty and no longer is, like Hell's Kitchen. I just called Hav to ask her where it was and she was like "I don't remember, I just remember that really big apartment she got when she was famous that was on Central Park West or South or something. It was amazing."

2.The Apartments of Michael Cunningham Characters in The Hours and A Home at the End of the World

I told Lindsay I was reading The Hours and I'd noticed Clarissa also resided on West 10th, like we did (Summer '04). Clarrisa's pad is vastly superior: it's not, for example, a series of closet-sized boxes pretending to be rooms. It wasn't on the 6th floor of a 6-floor walk-up. In the movie, it's so lovely, and even the site of Richard's discontent verges on derelict glory. That being said, I'd take the threesome's starter Village hovel from A Home at the End of the World, too. It had a lot of love and wine in it, a good place to dye one's hair crazy colors, or for Colin Farrel to sport the worst haircut ever.

1. The Actual Apartment I Am Going to Live In

As I wrote this post, TB solved my apartment problem for me. So this is what I'm doing: something I never thought I'd do (and it doesn't involve a U-Haul, you skeptical bastards!) I'm gonna be homeless for 22 days, then move into a Warlem summer sublet and put my shit in (TB's) storage. This moving-again-fiasco has reminded me of how much I loathe myself for being so tied down to places cause I have so much shit (partially not my fault; my Mom doesn't keep any of my stuff in her house, like most people's parents do). So I'm going to be a hobo for 22 days, ideally finding places to stay for free and eating Ramen. I've considered living in storage space like the girl in Shortbus. I've considered couches. I've considered Central Park. I've considered your couch. I've considered, at length, the possibility of Hawaii.