auto-world sure was fun, i wish it still existed, it could be our fun of the day 7-28-2008

It's already 3:21 A.M. ... I'm slightly stoned/sleepy and the screen sometimes looks like it's 3-D with pixels of red changing colors in dots. I just ate a granola bar but I put it in a sandwich bag first to make it easier to deal with crumbs. I have a lot of crumbs in my life. Metaphorically.

It's 3:37 AM. (I wrote "I'm 3:37 A.M." first) I wish I had another granola bar. I'm editing this movie for Broadway World and learning how to use Final Cut at the same time. When I'm editing something, I get really into it like almost nothing else I do. Between November 1994 (when The Sads became The Darkness) and October 1999 (when I became Happy), I edited videos compulsively to fill the fat loitering hours, it was the only thing that could distract me or absorb me. I don't know if I'm happy or sad right now. I think I'm happy.

I think it's a nice break to do something more technical, nice to deal with bounds when I'm used to writing for a willing audience, which's so ... well ... boundless. !!!

But I think I'm also behind on things like um ... for real, I really am going to comment about those um, comments and respond to some emails y'all wrote me. Basically at this point it's gonna have to be The Iliad of Comment Responses to justify the wait. Or like; The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which took Diaz 11 years to write and omg speaking of -- book club is NOW people. NOW. You don't have to answer any of my questions, FYI. I just rambled per ush. What day is it?

Did anyone else think last week's rumble was really meta though? I mean, it's not often that a theory I present in a post evolves into a full-fledged hypothesis without me even changing its content. The Science Fair hypothesis: "It's not a good idea for Autowin to meet people from the internets."

Results: Clearly ... TRUE!

On a totally unrelated note, one of my least favorite things about blogging is this: though it may not seem this way, I hold back a LOT OF STUFF. Though certain weirdos have liked to accuse me of having no self-censorship or withholding abilities, that's absolutely not the case, as any long-time readers are very well aware. I'm fully capable of blithely sporting a swimsuit in the middle of a snowstorm and pretending I'm audio-captured by my iPod when my friends/readers ask me if I'm cold.

I learned all about how to hold back -- both w/r/t information and spiritual virginity -- during my many years as a high-class prostitute. That's not the point though -- the point is ... it really fucking pisses me off when people who've really established some pretty fan-fucking-tastic narratives within my life go off at me for saying ... absolutely nothing whatsoever about any of it.

Why don't I say anything?
1. 'Cause 99% of people are good. For example -- "that woman" is a good, inquisitive, talented and sensitive person with a good heart and ultimately good intentions.
2. I try not to waste my time with unnecessary drama when I could be playing with tweezers or tinkerbell.
3. It's totally unfair since most of the people who read this will probs take my side even if I'm wrong, so it's mean to present anything that could have two sides.
4. 'Cause I'm scared of opening up a can of worms and inside it will be all the gross ugly things about me, stories about how terrible I am too (which are usually misinterpretations, clearly).
4a. However, sometimes I just gotta say that honesty can be a real bitch but bitches can be even bitchier.

I mean ... me? Really? I try really fucking hard not to hurt people here, or be immature. I don't talk shit about people or identify people and say shit I shouldn't say about them -- arguably I did this once ... (the supreme court will get back to me on this particular misstep/miscommunication eventually). ONCE. MAYBE. (And also that one time that I wrote stuff and deleted it the next morning for real, though in my defense it wasn't worse than what'd been said about me) (I'm starting to feel like the existence of this paragraph might be countering my point, which I think is meta, but maybe isn't, I'm not that smart).

So why assume that I'm doing it this time? I don't know. Statistics would suggest it's not likely. So whatevs, if someone gets hit by lightning or wins the lottery today, then we can talk.

I mean -- I'm doing this -- being direct instead of having a passive pity party. So who knows what could happen next!!?!? LOLKATS? Maybe I'll publish my complaint letters to my friendish-peoples to my brother's blog about complaint letters to companies: me to the man.

Wow! I hadn't even thought about that stuff in like five days. Now it's all out of my system and I can get back to things that matter. Here's some auto-fun for snack.

++

[sarah kane]
++

Quote: "He who has a pact with aloneness can even now prepare for all of this ... embrace your solitude and love it. Endure the pain it causes, and try to sing out with it. For those near to you are distant, you say. That shows it is beginning to dawn around you; there is an expanse opening about you. And when your nearness becomes distant, then you have already expanded far: to being among the stars. Your horizon has widened greatly. Rejoice in your growth. No one can join you in that." (from Rilke's "Fourth Letter" from Letters to a Young Poet)

---

Links:
1. nerve's design issue includes "dating advice from graphic designers" , a Stefan Sagmeister interview: "A Very, Very Graphic designer," (@nerve.com) and a piece on the evolution of limosine design and our wildest dreams; "it seats about twenty." (nerve.com)
2. on the stage, no more mr. tough guy (@the nytimes)
3. elitism is not a dirty word: "Categorizing 'the best' isn't confined to art; it plays out in sports, cinema, pop music and beyond." (@the la times)
4. teenagers who prefer to read online -- is it really reading ? (@nytimes) and lost for words: "[the uk] spends more on books than any nation in europe, but many haven't read one in the past year." (@guardian.co.uk)
5. global input requested holler australia - publishers fight against imported books (@the australian)
6. in which you look like you're losing a piece of your soul: "waitress" (@this recording)
7. stef's note: "I always wanted Bette Porter to explain art to me." -- jennifer beals' top five favorite photography books, in which i am not in love but open to persuasion (also @this recording)
8. blogging is ruled by grubby stupid boys (@gawker)
9. ira glass and bob discuss the angry commenter/newspaper comments debate: "comments on comments" (@npr's on the media)
10. the long island railroad is new york's lifeline in the summer -- a fleet of rescue vehicles destined for the beach ... a report from every station down the line: "the 11:11 to Penn Station" (@the morning news)
11. novel thinking: "creative writing is as popular today as critical theory was a decade ago, how does it fit in with the study of english literature?" (@times higher education uk)
12. katy perry ("i kissed a girl") actually answers ten entire questions. (@the village voice)

Automatrons of the Daylight :: 7-9-2008

t

[ellie brown]

A while back, if I remember right, my life was one long party where all hearts were open wide, where all wines kept flowing.
One night, I sat Beauty down on my lap. --And I found her falling. --And I roughed her up.
I armed myself against justice.
I ran away.
[from "A Season in Hell," by Arthur Rimbaud]

[Jessica Burko]

insomina poem #2.

when i rub off my eyeliner
i get two black eyes.
like i've been in a street fight,
me vs. the street,
no contest,
cause
i'm street-wise, personality
as disguise
my palms are coal full,
joyful, another day older.

i ate all the cashews.
i don't like peanuts.
this is what remains.

when i rub off my eyes
i get two blank stares
like that blink-blink i get
when you don't get it.
clap on, clap off,
blink blink blink blink
slap. i just ate another peanut.
i do things i don't like
all the time.
not people,
just peanuts.
p.s. i'd prefer cashews.

-by Marie Lyn Bernard at 2:40 AM, July 9th

links
1. Clay Felkner's most significant legacy was inventing "service journalism: "Secret service" (@the new republic)
2. Your daily dose of "how the internet is changing how we read and think":"How is the Internet Changing Literary Style?" (@steamboats are ruining eveything)
2. Rex Sorgatz: Oversharing Is Sometimes Okay, Says Oversharer (@gawker)
3. Thoughts About Thinking & Drinking (@jezebel)
5. Re: my boycrush Ira Glass's new book The New Kings of Nonfiction: Who Are the Queens of Nonfiction? (@the chronicle of higher ed)
6. While we're on the topic of my boycrushes, Sam Anderson reviews The History of Hooch. (@nymag)
7. Jaime on Rules of Frugal Living that She Refuses to Follow (@cheaphealthygood)
8. Because There's No Such Thing As Too Much Reality TV: Rich on Britan's Missing Top Model @fourfour)
9. The works that have influenced Obama illustrate that he would be the most literary president in recent memory - and one likely to govern from the center. What Does Barack Read?
10. Diane DiMassa & Cristy C. Road talk about Live Through This.(@feministing.) Which I read and will talk about in the next stuff i've been reading.

Me and Haviland made a Vlog/Advice Column! Wheee! I hope you're on the edges of your seats!

Stuff I've Been Reading : February 2008 Edition

There are 28 days in February: not many. Even if I'd spent all those days reading, I wouldn't have completed many books. But Sam Anderson did, because Sam Anderson has intellectual superpowers. You've probably not heard of Sam Anderson, which's fine, I hadn't heard of Chelsea Handler 'til last week and I'm still not certain what Amanda Bynes is famous for and if it weren't for Lozo and a recent NPR This American Life story about the comedic preferences of pre-adolescents, I'd be totally unaware of Dane Cook's existence. That being said, I'd like to start a new blog, name it "Love Poems to Sam Anderson," and devote myself entirely to the pursuit of his excellence. When I read Sam Anderson's book reviews, I'm simultaneously inspired to: never try to write about books again (I can't, he can), write about books all the time (invigorated by his daring prose), and commit to writing a review of Sam Anderson's review in the voice of Sam Anderson (meta!). In lieu of all those things, back to mememememe. More about Sam later.

Oh, this is "What I've Been Reading." This column's mission, based on Nick Hornby's Believer column by the same name, is described here, in "Stuff I've Been Reading: January. I've been asked to re-title it "Lozo, Don't Read This, It's About Books!" That's wordy. Shall we begin? Okay.
--

BOOKS RECEIVED:
Drunk by Noon (poems) / Jennifer L. Knox
My Mother: A Demonology / Kathy Acker
Styles of Radical Will / Susan Sontag
Sorry, Tree (poems) / Eileen Myles
Orlando / Virginia Woolf
The Book of Other People / edited by Zadie Smith
The New Fuck You: Adventures in Lesbian Reading / edited by Eileen Myles & Liz Kotz
If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho / Anne Carson
Frantic Transmissions to and from Los Angeles: An Accidental Memoir / Kate Braverman
How to Write / Gertrude Stein

BOOKS READ:
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle / Haruki Murakami
Sorry, Tree (poems) / Eileen Myles

MAGAZINES READ:
New York Magazine (3), Travel & Leisure, Curve, Wired, Women's Health, Nylon, Glamour, Marie Claire, Radar, Flaunt, Teen Vogue, several articles on the decline of Britney Spears' mental capacities.

THEME PARK MAPS READ:
Disneyworld

--
February was a fabulous month to receive books. It was not the most productive month for reading said books. This column is embarrassing right now. Clearly I was very busy admiring the spines of my new books and considering their place in my reading list. Also: visiting Mickey Mouse, watching CNN.

Who's truly to blame for my paltry accomplishments this month? Ilene Chaiken, obviously, as writing about The L Word takes up approximately 50% of my waking life. Also, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was really long. I started it in January and even dedicated several hours of concentrated lying-on-the-bed reading time to it, and it still took about three weeks to complete. This's 'cause I'm secretly a very slow reader. I was once a fast reader, what happened? Words got bigger.
--

i. Hello, Mr. Wind-Up Bird

I got this book 'cause a commenter told me to read Kafka on the Shore, by the same author, and I don't follow directions well. I made significant progress while flying from NYC to Orlando, and in fact my head began exploding mid-air (simultaneously Natalie's ear popped and it took three weeks to heal itself) 'cause of the bizarre associations between Toru Okaada's story and my own story of this past year. Do we always do this? Find correspondences? And ultimately, how strange is it, exactly, that a book we choose will end up being a book that speaks directly & intimately to us? Not very. Like coincidentally appropriate Shared Items on Google Reader.

At the novel's start, Okaada's just quit his job and he's about to lose even more. At first, unemployment is restless. Eventually, it's intoxicating -- the endless and glorious hours, the self-sustaining homogeneity of the world that's gone on spinning/working without him and the new world he discovers when he's no longer obligated to daily 9-5 public regularity. Though unemployment isn't a stand-alone foundation/predication of "plot" (& great literature), it almost is in this book -- or it was ... to me. Okaada's forced to turn inwards, given permission to pay greater attention to environment & history & everyone's interloping stories -- to dream, think, listen, sleep, consider. As a once-super-unemployed freelancer, I relate to the importance of these vast & vacant hours.

"For over two months now, since quitting my job, I had rarely entered the 'outside world' I had been moving back and forth between the neighborhood shops, the ward pool and this house ... I had hardly seen anyone ... it was a narrow world, a world that was standing still. But the narrower it became, and the more it betook of stillness, the more this world that enveloped me seemed to overflow with things and people that could only be called strange. They had been there all the while, it seemed, waiting in the shadows for me to stop moving. And every time the wind-up bird came to my yard to wind its spring, the world descended more deeply into chaos." (p. 125)

Eventually it's an adventure story involving lots of action, twists & turns, etc. I don't want to say more -- about him, about me -- but the coincidences became increasingly chilling (the specifics as different as America and Tokyo, but the emotions as true as anything, and despite them still: such similar circumstances sometimes!), and I found moments of relation I hardly expected from a novel billed as "at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II." I mean they had electricity in World War II but it wasn't exactly the Easy-Mac period. This book takes place in the 80's though, obvs, you know how I feel about pre-electricity lit.

Would I recommend it? It's long. Not Don Quixote long, but long. 607 pages. Worth it. A real novel. The kind that's rarely considered/crafted anymore (my favorite contemporary novel, FYI: The Corrections.) I found it quietly compelling. It's complicated and quick. It made me think about thinking. It's kinda magical. You probs won't like it unless you like literature a lot. I liked it. What I'm saying is: if you don't, don't blame me. If you do, please thank me. I hearted it!

ii. Spare me the postmodern / experimental poet / bullshit / Honey think hard / about moments of /love you've experienced / with me.

So, B. basically got me a lot of books I should've read already ("Lesbian Reading 101") (see "books received" list) in February (part of a mission to make me a better writer/human/reader) and I've begun with Jeannette Winterson's Written on the Body, which Haviland's been telling me to read since forevs but I left it on an airplane returning from L.A. last week. I blame Virgin America's mood lighting for sedating me into a book-leaving lull. Unable to pick up anything new, I read Eileen Myles' Sorry, Tree three more times until I could get back to Barnes & Noble and replace WOTB (I miss my notes and underlines. I don't know if I should go back through and underline everything, or if it even matters. Somehow it does. I've been cracking the spine indiscriminately, hoping for a return to its original state.) The point: I was gonna pretend that I'd read Written on the Body in February too, 'cause I thought I'd finish it before writing this, but now I haven't. Therefore you will know the truth: I'm like a dead flower from the Dar Williams song, failing all over the place in this stony season.

I spoke of Eileen last month. How she blew my mind when I found her in The Believer, subsequently learned my thus-far ignorance of her is totally bizarre. I quoted her poem ("I love you too / don't fuck up my hair / I can't believe / you almost / fisted me / today.") in my blog last week, said it was the best ever. The Times: "a cult figure to a generation of post-punk females forming their own literary avant garde." Also she's a lez.

I read this book everywhere. I took it to Disneyworld and made Alex & Cait & Natalie listen to "Dear Andrea." I took it to CVS and read in line. Poems are like that. You can just pick it up for three minutes. This is what I think about reading poetry: first, you read them all when you have time. One here, another there. Then you read the whole book in one sitting, quickly, like you already know it by heart. Then you read it again. However strikes your fancy.

I don't know how to talk about poetry. I don't know how to tell you that once upon a time I thought poetry was a collection of oddly organized words designed to make smart people feel smarter, and how now I know it's actually everything, it's "desire / not a form / of it. It's feeling / into space, /tucked into / language / slipped /into time, / opened, / felt." What it asks is visceral. ("we're a bunch / of turtles / when it comes / to feelings"), ("My mother would always try and make us look at the sky. Look at that sunset Eileen. It made you really want to look away.") If you choose to commit you'll find the follow-through is easy. Hello, tree. Read this book.

iii. Love Poems to Sam Anderson

Sam Anderson is the best book critic ever, he's everything. He's inventive, witty, clever, compelling -- I look forward to his book reviews though I'm not interested in actually discovering if I want to read the book reviewed or not (my no-hardcover policy, related to weight & cost), I enjoy his reviews as standalone works of art. If Sam Anderson were a flavor of ice cream, he'd be my favorite flavor mint chocolate chip. If Sam Anderson were a car, it'd be fast with secret features and it'd emit expended energy like a windsurfer. He's upended Ira Glass as my number one geek crush.

As an undergrad at Michigan, I wrote specifically crafted book reviews for The Michigan Daily I was 95% certain nobody actually read. By nobody I mean nobody -- and thus I used my alloted page-space as a forum to craft portfolio-worthy pieces of my own design, sans structural or procedural concerns. I'd open with a tangential recollection of a dinner I'd had at a faux-hunting lodge outside of Detroit with a former writing teacher or with two paragraphs musing the book critic's instinct to compare every teenage narrator to Holden Caulfield. I stopped reviewing the new releases and just reviewed my favorite books, enabling elaborate fantasies of my favorite authors glowing in the light of my words of praise and sending me love letters. That never happened. I'm still 100% certain no-one read them. In retrospect, they're all pretty bad, too.

Initially I imagined Sam Anderson was doing the same thing -- he knows, as we all do, that book reviews are not New York magazine's most popular feature and that they're often obligatory inclusions -- and so he'd just decided to do whatever he wanted. And he wanted to make the book review fun & daring & experimental while maintaining effectiveness. Like reviewing "How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read" without reading it ("I imagine that every other reviewer in America is, at this very moment, chortling into his tweed collar while pretending to do the same thing. But I’m telling you it’s really happening to me, and I’m unhappy about it") or reviewing Barthelme's new collection in the style of Barthelme.

I imagined Sam Anderson was a little gem I'd discovered and now kept close and private. I know better now, 'cause he won an award. It's named after a body of water or the foreign guy from Perfect Strangers, I don't know which. Balakian. He's kinda famous. People do read book reviews. I guess.

In February, he reviews Toby Barlow's Sharp Teeth (a werewolf novel written entirely in verse), Peter Carey's His Illegal Self, the Everyman Library's Issue of The Complete Novels of Flann O'Brien and Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks From the Wild Web (in which he both reviews the work and presents insightful commentary on web-oriented writing/blog culture in general). Actually that last one's from March, but I read it in February.

Here's some quotes to convert you to my Sam Anderson worship --

From the Harry Potter review:

"Not since 1841, when New Yorkers swarmed the docks to ask incoming Brits whether Little Nell died in the latest installment of The Old Curiosity Shop (spoiler alert! She totally did), have readers been so simultaneously poised on the brink of a collective climax. "

"All the Rowling signatures are here: She’s still addicted to adverbs and (oddly) the word “bemused,” her caps lock gets stuck at critical moments, foreigners speak in intolerable accents, and everyone stutters uncontrollably at the slightest hint of stress. When the action gets heavy, she cranks the “coincidence” dial up to eleven and flagrantly abuses her imminent-death-thwarted-at-the-last-possible-moment privileges."

(Also, see his "hour-by-hour catalogue of [his] weekend of wizardry," in which he recounts the weekend lost to reading Deathly Hallows)

From the Lush Life review (written in the style of Richard Price):

"Sanchez spoke up first. “Pretty much everything, boss. Best writer of dialogue since Plato. Slang you never even heard of. Keep expecting the page to stand up and wander off somewheres, make a pass at your wife, order a bacon sandwich. I mean—yeah, no, the guy can screenwrite, sure, little and big screen both. But what I didn’t know? What you forget every time ’cause he blows three-four years between books writing shit like Shaft and the talking parts of Michael Jackson videos? Pure literature, baby. The fucking merits. Does this full-on virtuoso Zola spiel, nineteenth-century-style social-realist novelist-as-reporter thing, X-ray of the city: sleeping arrangements of illegal Chinese immigrants, inventory of a teenage girl’s room in the projects, every object in a Lower East Side post-murder sidewalk shrine. Dude could look you up and down for three seconds, tell you everything you got in your pockets—everything you ever had in your pockets, everything your kids got in their pockets. Everything you wish you had in your pockets instead.”

From a blog addressing "How Critics, Including Me, Screwed up Our Alice Sebold Reviews":

"Lee Siegel, writing in the Times Book Review, caught most of the flak for the error, mainly because his review ran next to a graphic of Mom’s corpse in the freezer and under the (creative!) headline “Mom’s in the Freezer." In Siegel’s defense, he never actually claims that Helen puts her mom in the freezer. ... A few of us, however, managed to screw things up unambiguously. My review, for instance, misstated the plot point as bluntly as possible (“Helen puts her mom’s corpse in the freezer”), then went on to repeat it as a zinger in the final paragraph: “These days, everybody puts Mom in the freezer.”

From the aforementioned How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read review, discussing what he knows about the book having not read it:

"I know, from Bayard’s author photo, that he is fiftyish and improbably slim, and likes to dress entirely in black. In fact, in lieu of reading the actual book, I’ve spent a very long time scrutinizing this picture, which strikes me as a masterpiece of calculated faux-casual self-revelation: Bayard leans against a railing in front of a scenic spray of graffiti—a touch of vérité to anchor all the abstraction—and his eyes simmer like coq au vin, and his forehead bunches with a devastating whisper of wrinkle-cleavage (my God, he is about to think!), and he appears to be sucking on something, perhaps the word oeuvre. In short, he looks like a foot soldier in the vast army of impish popular intellectuals France has been training since the days of Roland Barthes, just in case the struggle for freedom should ever come down to the ability to wring paradoxes out of a stone or unriddle the world with Lacanian decoder rings."

(Possibly one of the best paragraphs I've read in my life.)

NYMag's Vulture blogged about Anderson's exceptional NBCC award acceptance speech. A commenter requested a printing of said speech -- "What did Anderson say?". Anderson's response to this comment: "I said, "I hope no one is taking any pictures of me while I talk, because apparently I look like a gargoyle." It was a short speech."

Also, for the record, he doesn't look like a gargoyle. See for yourself here, and read the speech.


iv. MAGAZINES AND INTERNET (In Brief)

I crammed an entire year of political education into the first week of February for my own private Obama-mania session: the best was Andrew Sullivan's piece in The Atlantic. A lot of my favorite mags didn't release new issues this month. Also NY Mag has developed this strange habit of publishing some kind of true crime piece every month, which's strange, but which I read with rapt attention on the Stairmaster though I feel dirty about it afterwards. Also, I have an article in this month's Curve magazine, K.D. Lang is on the cover, I wrote about how hot the Rosie-cruise was.

Auto-Fun highlights included the validation of my blogging heartache by Deadspin at Publisher's Weekly and an intelligent voice on the Britney Spears situation in the NY Times op-ed, in which the author points out how easy it is to check yourself out of a mental hospital, even if you are Britney Spears. ESPECIALLY if you are Britney Spears.

The Britney thing. Okay, I'm not into celeb gossip -- not saving face here, I'm clearly quite open about my guilty pleasures. But Brit interests me on another level ... I can't stop! ... It's like a mystery story where I already know who did it and I'm waiting for the trial ... I just keep thinking : G-d, she's gonna be fucking embarrassed when her episode ends. I follow her story with clinical fascination, watching her display one bipolar symptom after another (including taking on boyfriends who believe in her royalty, a.k.a., the paparazzi, and cycling through close friends like so many unworthy disciples) and self-medicate. She continues to disintegrate. Clearly: she was prancing about on teevee in a schoolgirl outfit at 16 ... she's never been all-the-way-there, she's had certain problems of exhibitionism and standard adolescent sexual precociousness complicated by strict policies of appeared virginity and the resulting daily hypocrisy.

But money. Always money. Money pads insanity, enables it. You can be as crazy as you wanna be if you've got the money to back your shit up -- herein lies the difference between Britney and the man on the corner of 125th and Lennox dressed as the Statue of Liberty peddling apocalyptic scriptures. She'll wake up from her manic dream to find magazine covers blaring delusions: Mom's sleeping with her boyfriend, she's mothering her children locked in a bathroom wearing only underwear, shaving her head, wearing a wig and speaking in a British accent ... the woman's a maniac! Of course she's still driving! It's possible, also, that the mania was induced by us, and by drugs. A decent article on this: "The Tragedy of Britney Spears" (@Rolling Stone). Okay anyhow ...

... The latest Teen Vogue -- A-Z fashion hooha -- is ideal collage fodder for those of you who care of such things (H is for Hoodie!). Also, I'm torn on Radar. Its content: often engaging. Its cover art: consistently terrible. It wins awards for these covers. What am I missing? Do I know nothing about visual design (don't look at my outfit thanks)? Also, if you're interested in my opinion on the Lindsay Lohan New York Magazine cover/photo shoot (so popular that NYMag's servers overloaded and shut down when it came out) ... I think she's got a significant & impressive rack. Auto-Win seal of approval. Also, while you're checking out the New York Magazine website, I implore you to check out Sam Anderson's collected works. He read way more in February than I did, clearly.

Keep on reading, kids!

The More You Know: What I Learned From The TV

A long long time ago, I wrote a blog about esotericism in popular television, and then it got erased by zoho writer. You may remember this, as my reaction was severe, really only comparable to the "Great RISK Fiasco of 1989," when, after two weeks of nightly Risk-playing with my brother Lewis and our father, I took over Ukraine and Lewis reacted by lifting the board and dumping all it's contents onto the stairway. [He was on the stairway because he'd run there during his fit of hysterics.]

So, after zoho writer erased my work and I transitioned from denial to hysteria, I called my then-girlfriend, who told me about this short story she'd written that got erased and how when she re-wrote it, it was the best story she'd ever written. I believe my reaction to that was a high-pitched wail or something like "No, I'm not re-writing it, it'll never be good again." Mostly because I'd done a lot of research for some inane reason. Sometimes I get on these research kicks. It's weird/awesome/wastes my life away.

The funny thing is, actually, she ended up being right, but in a roundabout kind of way: the story I ended up re-writing was kinda [cue violin swell, then transition into Tegan & Sara "Dark Come Soon"] the story of MY LIFE. I solicited my readers to tell me their worst computer-crash stories to make me feel better, even/especially if they never ever usually commented, and I'd make it into a Top Ten, and then all these readers came out of the woodwork and most of them stuck around, which's awesome/AWESOME. AND one of them was my now writing partner, Carly, with whom I just finished (a possibly final) draft of the pilot. It is really good now. I mean, we thought it was good before, but we were wrong, NOW it is good.

Anyhow: I told myself, one day, when I don't know what to write about, I'll attempt to re-create that post. But I still don't really want to do that.

Howevs, I decided to unearth it and see what I could gleam. I have a printout of an early draft of the blog from about 12 hours before it was destructed forever, which I'd brought to the ex-GF during visiting hours for her copy-edits. I'm looking at that now. It's peppered by her handwriting, red ink: circles around misspellings, carrots removing unnecessary hyphens, corrections of it's/its, #s, the scribbled words "suspension of disbelief," "disconnect," "allusions," "Thomas Pynchon (bag over head)." What did we talk about that day? (I remember, of course: it was one of the best conversations we've ever had. Sometimes, I am still sad. Sometimes it is not as easy as I say it is to be happy.)

Anyhow Part Two: This all relates. Carly and I are writing a TV show. I was watching a montage of L Word clips on a friend's myspace the other day and thinking how these characters are a part of my life and how magic it'd be if one day our characters were a part of your lives. Then I thought about how I have learned things from television, every now and then, and I'm not just talking about Sesame Street, Square One or Loveline.


I think the best television writers are also artists/educators, not just comedians/entertainers. Usually they're smarter than their shows imply [unless it is Alan Ball, Aaron Sorkin or Jim Henson, they have smart shows]. That's why TV writers're always dropping allusions to high art, to remind us of their literacy. Nietzsche must've done a triple-somersault in his grave, Mary Lou Retton style, when Jenny Schecter announced on The L Word that her story, "Thus Spoke Sara Schuster" had been published in The Best American Short Stories [Totally impossible, unless the guest editor was Ryan Seacrest or a chimpanzee.] Later, this became just one element of the glory which is Jenny's on-screen literary career, which is one of many reasons why I heart The L Word and it's strange little world of magic and make-believe.

**

There was a great "This American Life" called "What I Learned from TV." In it, Ira Glass referenced an episode of The O.C. [which was basically, in terms of learning things from TV, American Bandstand for Young Male Musicians with Faux Bed Head and Feelings] which referenced This American Life! I think it was when Seth had that girl over, the snotty one, and Summer was like "Who's there, I hear a voice," and Seth says it's "This American Life" and Summer says: "Is that that show by those hipster know-it-alls who talk about how fascinating ordinary people are?"

How super-duper-meta, right? Anyhow Ira loves that show. I love Ira. See how I did that? See how I brought that back around? To LOVE?

**

These are some of the things I've garnered from the Evil Box. This might be a regular feature, which I will return to frequently, like I do with the "Carousel of Progress" (which I will return to, seriously). Because I've learned a lot of things, obvs. Usually I learn better without commercials, or watching shows on DVDs. I find promos to be a bit frightening sometimes. Like when they're like "Kathy Griffin hits HARD TIMES!" and she's crying like her Dad is dying? And then all these graphics are like bang bang bang "Seee what happens when life isn't SO FUNNY ANYMORE!" boom-boom-bup-bop-ding! Kathy Griffin! Like, whoa. Not cool! [I love her show though, sidenote. Carly you should edit their promos so that kinda stuff doesn't happen.]

**

The L Word:

"You need to watch The L Word," Becky told me. Becky wore $80 sweatpants and had a waterfall in the backyard of her Westchester home; she was a brilliant photographer and an A-E-Phi and my best friend at University of Michigan and she was really into television and was one of the only girls I knew that'd never kissed another girl. She was the one who told me to watch Six Feet Under, so when she recommended The L Word--which I'd heard of, vaguely, but hadn't really considered watching, because I generally avoided anything that might make me want to be a lesbian, I knew it was: 1) probs a good recommendation, 2) appealing to heterosexuals as well as homosexuals.

So fast forward to December of 2004, New York City: I'd just joined Netflix. I ordered the Season One DVDs. I watched. I had a boyfriend. I kept rewinding to the scene where they try to figure out if Lara is gay, and the one where Shane's wearing the hoodie and talking to Tammie Lynn and says "You have a lot of feelings." I kept rewinding. I called Krista: "You have to come home right now. There is this girl on this television show, and I think I'm in love with her. It feels very real. She is unlike anyone I've seen before, male or female, she is perfect human, we are in love, we have a lot of feelings, you must come home and watch." And I showed her and she sat down on the ground in a heap of scarf and skirt and said "Oh, Ris, you're right." (She spelled it "Ris," and was the first person to call me that. It's pronounced "Riese" though.) "Ris, she's beautiful. Okay, rewind that scene again." (Krista is straight.)


And for a week we put red envelopes in the mail, received new ones, watched the whole season in four days, thanks to a speedy Netflix turnaround. When Shane told Cherie: You know...my entire life, people have said that...I would become a psychopath if I don't learn how to feel. But I wanna know, Cherie, what the fuck is so great about feeling? Because I finally let myself. And I feel like my heart's been completely ripped out. I remember feeling specific and sad and I realized a good first step towards learning how to feel would probably be to admit I like girls, or something. I don't mean as a lesbian, though that's a part of it: that I liked spending time with other girls, something I'd forgotten in my string of boyfriends and co-workers and my boyfriends' friends, always against girls in some way rather than with them/for them. Anyway. Yeah, it was just part of a lot of thoughts I was having then.

I just looked through my old livejournal to find this conversation I had with Jeremiah [I'd give him a code name to protect him, but, as a member of the NYPD who had no interest in helping me when I was being threatened, I'm not really into protecting him right now, I mean, hello, totes paradox!] when I made my screensaver entirely pictures of Shane. [Sidenote: There's so many LJ entries right when we broke up when I talk about how I think relationships are "bunk" and how I have no feelings and how I was sorry that I'd broken his heart: "He wants to have babies. I want to be a baby. Well, a 23 year old baby," and that "no man is an island. except me," and "I'm bloody Ibiza!" I've totally matured like, not at all since then.] Anyhow:

Conversation with my Then-Boyfriend. January 3rd, 2005:

Him (points to screensaver): Who's that?
Me: Shane.
Him: Shane?
Me: Shane, from The L Word. she's hot.
Him: The L Word is about lesbians, right?
Me: Yeah. She's hot.
Him: You're attracted to her?
Me: Absolutely.
Him: I don't find her attractive at all.
Me: You really should see her in the show. You need to see her talk.
Him: You mean "hear" her talk. You can't see someone talk.
Me: You need to see her while she is talking. it's like--the way she moves, and acts, it's like--everything. It's like pure sex.
Him: Would you have sex with her?
Me: Oh yeah.
Him: So are you like, totally bisexual?
Me: Haven't we discussed this already?
Him: Yeah, well, i know you've been with girls, but i thought you said you liked men better.
Me: I do like men better. [UPDATE, 7/19/06: I was lying.]
Him: Do you think you could go the rest of your life without having sex with another woman?
Me: What exactly do you mean by 'having sex'?
Him: Never mind. I got my answer. Let's talk about something else.

The West Wing:

When I've been writing for too long and my brain hurts, I turn out all the lights and lie on my bed and listen to Ave Maria over and over. Time slows down and G-d feels tangible and my body cools. Then I can sit back down, turn on Firefox, go to my google home page, see the CNN headlines, and remember that George W. Bush is president, not Josiah Bartlett. Then I go stick my head in the oven.

Also: On steamy afternoons when New York's beat me senseless and I feel I've spent my entire life transversing subway tunnels, one station to another, walking to transfer, transfer, beaten by crowds/smoke and instead of touching people I love [Once I believed if I held on to her tightly enough for long enough, we'd become the same person], I am feeling strangers and their big purses and beer breath and tampons/cosmetics/mass-market paperbacks and so I listen to "Ave Maria" on repeat on my ipod, and then everything slows down and I can step away a little.

The first time that song struck me as something I needed in my earbuds a lot was when I heard it on The West Wing. I actually learned a lot about world politics from that show. Seriously.

"I was watching a television program before, with a kind of roving moderator who spoke to a seated panel of young women who were having some sort of problem with their boyfriends -- apparently, because the boyfriends had all slept with the girlfriends' mothers. And they brought the boyfriends out, and they fought, right there on television. Toby, tell me: these people don't vote, do they?"
-Josiah Bartlett, The West Wing

The 'Issac and Ishmael' episode after 9-11? Amazing. So many things amazing on that show. I can't even begin.

Krista introduced me to West Wing. I didn't expect to love it. But I loved it! I came home once and Krista was crying on her bed, on the tiny screen Bartlett was accepting his second term of election and Krista said: "Why can't we have a president like that?" and I thought, "What?!" You're crying over an inauguration on television? But then when I watched it, and I got to that scene, I felt the same way. Dark and wondering why.

Jed Bartlet is both passionately religious and spiritual as well as politically liberal and entirely logical. He's memorized the Bible, so he can go head-to-head with Conservative Bible-Beaters and win every time. Also, he's not real. But who is? Jenny Schecter? Zarathustra? Me? Auto-Win? Auto-Straddle?

I can't answer those questions.

**

Okay, just two for now 'cause it's 3:48 AM and I am tired and need some sleep, for real. Also, I should say some other things. These are those things:

1. We had a Blogger Meet-Up thing outside.

We took a train to Brooklyn to go to Cattyshack for this Weenie Roast thing. I knew Caroline was gonna be there [who we met on the cruise], because she works there, and also I'd invited Carly (before I met her) and Jamie (who's not actually gay) via Curly, the organizer, when she asked me if I knew anyone who'd wanna be invited. We also brought Carly's friend Roy and my friend Haviland.

So yeah, we took a train and then it was so hot and humid and it was taking forevers.

Me: "Dude, this is taking so long, I'm like, not even gay anymore."
Roy: "I left my gay back at Jay Street."

But then eventually we got there, still gay. It was so hot though! Like, the weather! When I'm hot, it's hard to think of other things. But I did, a little bit. I also ran into a girl I knew from Sarah Lawrence. It was so weird.

There's some photos:
Check out Haviland's poses. Also, I look just like A MUPPET.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, Carly doesn't like the photo of her that was taken at the Weenie Roast, and offered to send me a replacement photograph. I thought "I don't remember Carly having a camera," but who knows, I was tired and leaking intelligence from my pores, maybe she did have a camera and I just didn't notice.

This is what she sent me:

Unfortunately, The First Rule of Auto-Win Club dictates that if you don't like your photo, I get to choose whatever photo I want from your myspace and use that instead. Unless you are ethically opposed to photos in general, which Carlytron is DEF. NOT., she loves photos.

Anyhow!:
That's her on the right with the shark head.

I don't know what I'm going for here. But it's probably pretty hot.

2. I am sleepy. I have more things to write, but I don't think I can write them. In fact, I can't promise this post included correct spellages of any words of the English persuasion. I'm just saying, that's all.

3. Also related to teevees, the Emmys were announced tonight. I don't watch the teevee really so I hadn't seen very many of the shows, but seriously, Carly was IMing me about it and she is and I also am weirded out by this Two and a Half Men thing. It's like the new Everybody Loves Raymond. Sometimes I feel like I live on an island. No man is an island, except me. I am Ibiza! I am Bloody Ibiza! Also just to be sure I was paying attention, she stuck "Curl Girls" and "The L Word" into her list of nominations for best television drama. I was like "WAIT! Curl Girls is a reality show, right?"

Sunday Top 10: On Camp

This week's This American Life podcast, 1998's Notes on Camp, "tr[ies] to understand what is the cult-like, mystical connection some people feel with their summer camps." I could cop themes from TAL every week, but I somehow resist that temptation. There's a lot of thematic Top Ten temptations I resist every week, like a cokehead staring down a pure white line of heaven dancing across their desktop: Most Annoying Things Ever, Reasons I'm Too Busy To Call You Back, Things No One Should Ever Wear EVER, Best Blog Entries I've Already Written, Annoying People/Things at the Gym, etc.

But um I could not resist this particular temptation. It's summer! Snort up, kiddos!

If you've given birth to children and they are grown-ups now, perhaps you're sending them to summer camp. Perhaps you yourself went to camp, or perhaps you're a camp counselor, or perhaps you went to Fat Camp, like on the TV show "Fat Camp."

The New York Times Magazine featured ads for the real ritzy Summer Camps, like Camp LaJolla (fat camp) and my fantasy favorite Stagedoor Manor, which looked like a hotel for future Gaby Hoffmans and whomever played Little Orphan Annie.

Perhaps you think camp is for spoiled rich kids and the easily-placated middle class suburban brats. Perhaps it is. I remain undecided.

I attended Jewish Day Camp every summer til I turned 11. I hated it a lot. Then I overnight-camp-hopped for several years, 'cause I'm fast like that. Sometimes, I wished I was fat, so I coulda accomplished something concrete by going to camp.

So, TAL: Ira Glass shared some listener stories, including a Wisconsin woman recounting her Young Zionist Camp experience. I suspected immediately her camp belonged to the Habonim-Dror group, which owned the Zionist camp I attended in Michigan. There can't be that many Zionist camps in the U.S, 'cause there's not a huge market, I imagine, for kids who want to feed animals, paint houses, celebrate Shabbat, learn "Ivrit" and sleep in tents while their rich Jewish friends are chillin' in the Catskills in air conditioned cabins learning digital video editing and trapeze. But anyhow, here's the end of her story:

"....A bunch of us were sitting in the dining hall, and somebody said look out on the lawn! ... there was this large cross burning out on the lawn of the campgrounds, these people came in wearing white sheets and white things over their heads like pillowcases and they made us all go outside. And there was another guy in a white sheet and a white pillowcase riding up and down on a horse and they started to yell at us that they wanted the Jews out of Wisconsin and they didn't want any Jew-camps in Wisconsin, and they kept yelling at us, Don't bother trying to call the authorities 'cause in this neck of the woods we are the authorities, and everyone was just petrified and we all stood around just shakin' in our boots, and all of a sudden one of the counselors said, "I'm an American citizen and you can't treat me like this!" so two of the guys in sheets grabbed him by the arms and marched him away, and another counselor said the same thing ... and pretty soon all the counselors were being marched away and we were left there ... I went "I'm an American Citizen too!' and someone came over in a white sheet and took me down towards the beach and as he was waking me down to the beach and said to me "Edina, couldn't you have kept your big mouth shut?" And It was all a political lesson that we were supposed to be learning."

Then I knew: hands down totes for-sure the same camp I went to, per the re-enacting the fleeing-Germany-before-the-Holocaust story I shared in a previous blog.

Zionists don't mess around.

SUNDAY TOP TEN:
WHAT I LEARNED AT SUMMER CAMP

10.How to do Shakespeare ...
in fifteen minutes ...
on a cart.
You know, like for retarded people w/o taste. JK, I love retarded people, especially if you are retarded and reading this blog. I mean that proverbially. [Is that the right word? Proverbially? I'm retarded.]

Me @ Blue Lake. Yes, that's a chapstick necklace.

Someone's brilliant idea for the summer theater program's "big show" was performing 15-minute audience-participatory "adaptations" of Hamlet and Taming of the Shrew on 12x12 rolling carts, like minstrels at a really annoying fair or amusement park. As Ophelia, I delivered three stunning lines and as Rosencrantz, Gildenstern and I forewent lines in favor of a [we thought] very clever song, to the tune of "It's the Hard-Knock Life" from Annie: It's the hard-knock life for us, it's the hard knock life for us, Pertrucio used to be real nice, 'til he got this Shrewish wife, it's the hard knock life! Now he's bossing us around, kicking [I forget] on the ground, it's a hard knock life!

I can still hear it in my head.

++
9. Camp A----us, 1992
Before you go anywhere overnight and voluntarily sacrifice your rights/privileges to their authority,
get a personal reference. Or something.
Don't just go because it looked OK in the pamphlet.
Even overprotective mothers miss some things.

We're happy in this photo, 'cause we're about to go home.
We woulda gone home sooner, but they wouldn't let us call our parents.

The summer after 6th grade, my BFF Janelle and I, finally permitted by our mothers to attend overnight camp, found the only camp offering week-long sessions and signed up. It was, allegedly, Michigan's oldest bestest all-girls camp, but, upon arrival, things were not quite as advertised.

All that "camp" stuff? Making friends, forming teams, attending structured activities, kindness, etc.? The promised attempts to forge real or imaginary bonds between campers? Nada. It was like showing up at college mid-semester, sans orientation, and told to fend for yourself. Which's fine, but not when you're 11.

Also, speaking of "nada," we realized quickly that 75% of the campers were Mexican girls who stayed all summer, every summer, simply to be somewhere other than Mexico. Nothing against Mexicans, obvs/obvs!, but I mean ... weird, right? Camp A----- shoulda incorporated it into their advertising, like "Diverse Group of Campers!" or "Spanish-Language training!" or "Camp A---us: Better than Mexico City!"

Anyhow, they wouldn't let us call home, and my BFF's younger sister got sick mid-week and her counselor didn't believe her [she had appendicitis]. It got pretty bad. Like a sicko reality TV show. Rained a lot. I made friends and learned dirty sexy Mexican songs to sing to myself in the shower. JK . Not in the shower: I was afraid of it (group shower) and, literally, didn't shower all week. That's disgusting. Seriously, how the F did I get away with that?

The talent show featured almost exclusively cross-dressing kitchen staff lip syncing Englebert Humperdink and stripping. So weird.

Also, they served mystery meat, fo' rizzle, which I'd read about in Ramona Quimby. Obvs, I got sick.

++
8. Not Knowing How to Swim Indicates Deep, Unnerving, Ridicule-worthy Pathos

Swimming is the centerpiece of American camping. Apparently, most children not only enjoy a dip in the lake/pool, but look forward to it. Not only can these mini Summer Sanderses lap swim without drowning, many can perform complicated "dives" and "flips." Personally, I preferred my bathing suit for one location and one location only: the group showers.

[At 18, I took swimming lessons @ Sarah Lawrence. Can swim now. Heart my Speedo, totally no longer afraid of beaches or pools. Well: I am. But for different reasons now, like that there're lots of people there, in little-to-no clothing, enjoying activities that boggle me, like "drinking beer and eating potato chips in the daytime," "tanning," "grillin'"and "apparently absolutely nothing."]

But, camp: all afternoon, our little eyes'd sting from the chlorine, and our skin transformed from puckered to throbby white, then back to pita. At Zionist camp, the bottom of the pool was rough, like sandpaper. That's training for the Israeli army, I think.

++
7. Letter-Writing Skills

When mining my storage space in Michigan for memoir-gold, I came upon boxes and boxes of letters, many exchanged w/friends during respective weeks of summer camp. I realized how bizarre it'd be, now, to have no idea what was happening with my friends until I received written notice in the postal mail. Obvs, when I've got no clue what my friends're up to now, it's cause I've failed to call/email/etc., and we're a bit more predictable now. Back then, someone could come back from camp a totally different person and we might not be prepared for such things. I love letters: writing things you're hoping'll stay true for a few days, words you can't ever redact and which you'll not get a response to for a week or more. Like Permanent "Out of Office Reply."

++
6. Fleeing Germans for the Land of Milk and Honey is Very "Exhausting."

From my Diary, August 1st, 1994: "They woke us up at 5:15 A.M. to 'Escape Germany and found the state of Israel!' and we didn't get to be allowed to go back to sleep until 9:30. I was exhausted all day."

That "get to be allowed to" is ruining my life, but I can't edit my own pre-adolescent diary entry. So I'll just let it be, like y'all let my stylistic errors be, all the time.

++
5. The "Camp Relationship" Mentality

I never had a Camp Boyfriend.
This photo is of one of many reasons why.

At camp, relationships occur in light-speed. Not that I actually had one, but most of my friends did. It was perfectly acceptable to return from a three-week session w/steamy stories of a super-serious boyfriend/girlfriend you'd acquired on Cedar Lake. The intensity and round-the-clock time together afforded by summer camp provided for this relationship-on-light speed effect, and I still use "Camp Relationship" proverbially -- like how the [redacted] magazine article I was writing during the infancy of TB and I's relationship pushed it all into overdrive. I was like, "It's like we're Camp Girlfriends!" and she was like, "What?" This happens a lot with us, e.g., when I quote anything published after 1939, including teleplays. Or when she quotes anything published before 1925.

++
4. I am "a carpenter's dream: flat as a board and never been nailed."

This information was bestowed upon me and my Day Camp BFF Alex by a boy I'll call "Douchebag." Douchebag was fat and mean, but apparently'd received a beejer, which gave him self-bestowed Status to label the ripe young maidens of the lower grades. He got grosser and even less dateable in high school [being Day Camp, all kids were locals]. Alex, however, became smokin' hot, but in that effortless super-sweet faux-hippie FACT-beautiful kind of way. I realize in retrospect I probs had a crush on her, but also: so did everybody, I mean, her girl-clique called themselves "The Rainbow Girls." [Hidden message?] She has no memory of this incident, because she's not crazy. Anyhow, what Douchebag's clever line truly meant was: "You'll both have very perky **** later, and 'nailed' implies a violence uncomely to sexual descriptions."

++
3. Liberal Politics=Liberal Policies


Hippie Day at Hippie Camp.

Every camp I attended and all I'd heard of were strict about keeping the boys away from the girls, lest we all get preggers or acquire SARS. Obvs Zionist camp was an exception to this rule, because we were one big family, like a Kibbutz. Boys and girls tents co-existed side by side, and the boys'd often drop their towels on purpose en route to shower, and my Best Friend the Weirdo'd perform ten-minute orgasms after "bed time" 'til all the campers yelled and his counselor threatened to kill him with various sharp objects. We could have boys in our bed, sleepovers, whatevs, though usually Naomi slept in my bed. She had memorable breasts for a 13-year-old. Hmm. Nothing happened. It was just a small bed.

++
2. How to do Something, Right? How to Make Lanyards? Swim?

I must've learned some kind of concrete skill. I learned some Hebrew. I made a Dream Catcher once, at Camp Michigania, according to my diary. Michigania's family camp. I went with someone else's family, and they turned out to be even crazier than mine. Diary: Helen's having a hissy fit at Arts & Crafts 'cause the string on her dream catcher is too thick and she can't fit any beads on it. Her Mom got POed at me for the precious 30 minutes I was holding Helen's things hostage, she had my hat, and I ran out of things, and I was in the bathroom so I told her I was holding her Oxy and Deodorant [sic] hostage. Helen's Mom thought it was rude. The game ended.

Psychos.

++
1. I Am Not Good at Camp

TAL discussed one of the primary strategies of summer camp as a "business": by creating teams, traditions, and complicated systems of rank/seniority/legacies, camps ensure return "customers," a.k.a. campers. I knew that my yearly alienation, as I trekked each summer to a new camp, would never change if I never went anywhere more than once. Day Camp doesn't count, 'cause I was forced to go there.

'Cause as it was, I didn't dig camp so much, though my blind optimism that each year'd bring the boyfriends and memories my friends regaled from their adventures was inspiring. I got homesick fast, then, 'cause I missed my Dad and Kentucky Fried Chicken, which's why I avoided the longer camps, like Interlochen, where I ended up eventually shipping off for year-round school. I wanted the cliquey camaraderie the other girls had, the easy-breezy-beautiful songs and chants and requisite tearful goodbyes. Instead, I mostly just waited for it to be over, like making it to the end was something I needed to prove to myself.

At Blue Lake, the last camp I ever attended, the final night was marked by a four-hour concert dreaded all summer long--a chance to make paper cranes out of programs/enjoy orchestral music--and so my heart skipped all it's beats when, on the night of "The Blue Meanine" or whatevs it was called, on my way to the cafeteria in late summer rain, I spotted my father and brother underneath the awning. Dad was wearing a Bulls hat, I remember ... I actually thought I was hallucinating, which was possible, 'cause I spent more than one day in the infirmary crying about my homesickness at that place, and they kept feeding me Pepto ...

Dad: "Oh! Marie! What a surprise to see you here! We were just passing through ..."

Lewis: [giggle giggle] "Hi Marieeeee!"

Me: [melting, OMG!] "Can you take me off-campus? Now? Before the concert?"

Dad: "Well, we certainly didn't come out here to watch a bunch of amateurs toot their own horns for four hours."

The kids, finally, envied me. I still remember eating the Patty Melt [I don't know if this's a universally consumed heart-attack-on-a-plate or not; it's onions, a hamburger, melted cheese on toast] at Big Boys in Twin Lake. Just like heaven...

I suppose returning to any camp for another year woulda been like that "not joining any clubs that'd have me as a member" thing. Implicit in return was the acknowledgement I'd liked it the first time around, that I had particular expectations and that these expectations were resolutely optimistic, validating that last summer, I musta fit in and made friends.

Funny, then, that I eventually chose year-round "camp" for my last two years of high school [a.k.a. boarding school], though not until many of the causes of my perpetual homesickness were no longer relevant. Like, I think Kentucky Fried Chicken is really gross now.

What We Do When We're Not Doing AutoWin

UPDATE: Sunday Top Ten is dancing it's merry way to Tuesday right now. As we all are.

All of my "original idea" energy is currently consumed by The Real Life of Autowin. So today, I'm only here to tell you how to spend the 1.5 minutes you might ordinarily spend reading me talk about myself.

1. Ingrid found an article from my former stomping ground, The Michigan Daily, entitled "Masturbating trespasser booted from frat." [sic] which is remarkable both for the restrained language employed by it's reporter and for the douchebag/awesome ire of the commenters. Some samples of student reactions to this event include:

"Come on like your going to ask her to leave? More like they should have been asking them to help out. Isn't that the role of a Frat to help the community? Come of course she is from Eastern ... U of M girls wouldn't do anything like that...YEAH RIGHT" -'Dirty Sanchez'
[seriously though, she probably is from Eastern. U of M girls wouldn't do anything like that FOR FREE. And that 'your' is ruining my life.]

" yo, pike is incredible. all they have to do is let women walk right in and they just start touching themselves. what pimps." -'Dres'
[har.]

"If a girl wants to come in and have herself be taken advantage of by multiple parties, gosh darnit she sould have that right. Pike you have failed us all." -Fratdoody69
[and fratdoody, you have failed the English language and everyone who believes in it by using its letters and its numerical colloquialisms for the sordid purposes of that "handle." And by being a misogynist, even if only for pretend.]

2. I'm obsessed with podcasts, because I don't want to waste a single moment of the day, ever. If you're lazy, this won't matter to you. Hopefully you aren't:

2a) There's a Slate podcast about the art of re-capping television shows, like I do, in which a writer interviews a former writer for Television Without Pity, who are the founders of the whole recapping "phenomenon."

2b) Some fantastic This American Lifes I've enjoyed lately:
Simulated Worlds: Lew turned me onto this one, re: my obsession with wax museums.
Three Women and the Sex Industry.
By Proxy
My Experimental Phase


3) My very last L Word Recap of the season, Halleh-fucking-lujah.

4) I started my Diaryland diary in 2000, and switched to livejournal in 2002 ("It's fun! It has this 'comments' feature so you can write back to your friends!' -Jake, 2002) which I formatted much like a mass e-mail to 10 of my closest friends and 5 I never met, and one random girl I secretly crushed on in boarding school. Now I'm super old and very mature, so I have a blog like the other grown-ups.

This week has been really exhausting, writing-wise, especially in regards to putting my personal info "out there" in [redacted magazine]. I remembered: "Wow, i used to like, be obscenely honest in that livejournal," though it only got about 10 hits a day, I'm guessing, mostly from Carl. Because it was like--really boring. And not quite so LOL-worthy. And I quote Elizabeth Wurtzel with relative abandon, which is totes unacceptable.

So, here's some old material. From the old me. The one that worked at the Macaroni Grill, lived in a house on Willard in Michigan with 8 roommates (7 hot Kappas, 1 hot Natalie), drove a Lexus, went tanning a lot, and hadn't yet discovered the joy of Biosilk hair products. But, much like the new me, I did enjoy making lists.

March 30, 2004:
TITLE: "Didn't I Tell You That I'm Not Like That?"

"CONTENT":

THINGS THAT MAKE ME LAUGH:

1. Avril Lavigne's new single. It is almost as unintentionally laughable as "sk8ter boy," her previous release which also made me laugh a lot. Most of her songs remind me of the poems we would produce in my 8th grade poetry class. Not that the concept of virginity is laughable--it is, in fact, a wonderful concept and practice---but come on, Avril....."Don't think that your charm and the fact that your arm is now around my neck will get you in my pants/I'll have to kick your ass and make you never forget/I'm gonna ask you to stop, that I liked you a lot, but I'm really upset/Get out of my head, get out of my bed." Hmm. It's really funnier if you hear those words sung to her stupid melody.

2. last week, there was a white-board note written by donna, which read as followed:
KNOCK KNOCK
WHOS THERE?
CUPS
CUPS WHO?
CUPS ALL OVER THE LIVING ROOM, DINING ROOM AND TABLES THAT NEED TO BE PUT IN THE DISHWASHER!!

last night...
Natalie: hey wanna hear a joke?
Donna: OK.
Natalie: Knock Knock!
Me: who's there?
Natalie: Marty.
Me: Marty who?
Natalie: Marty sitting ALL OVER the couch with his little loafers with no socks propped up comfrortably on our coffee table as he sprawls himself over the couch watching television, alone.
Donna: Are you making fun of me?

3. ON OUR HABITAT FOR HUMANITY "DECORATED TIES" SELLING CONTEST
Conley: I think I've found a way to win this tie contest--you've gotta like, pick something that's really big right now that people would buy, so I think I'm gonna make "Passion of the Christ" ties, but make sure it says "passion of the Christ" so they know it's about the movie, and not just Christ in general.

Me: Do you think anyone would buy a "I Stand with Israel" tie?
Conley: I don't think that'd be as popular.

4. "I really think all of everyone's problems could be solved with Lexapro." -Rachael

5. That I can still use Christopher's Blockbuster card. Sorry, friend....but I had a lot of late fees on mine and not a lot of cash on me. I'll return it on time. Please don't take me off your account.

6. That yesterday lunch I tipped out every penny I made to the bartender and food runner. Steph saw the tip-out sheet and asked Jerry if I had twenty parties or something, and he said "No, for some reason, she just felt like tipping out all of her money." Honestly though, I really think everyone else worked harder than me. And I was an hour late (I had to take Nat to the doctor).

5. My Mom just said, re: crossword puzzles, "There's something very satisfactory about putting together a bunch of words and creating a finished product. And you can quote me on that. It's very blog-worthy." [pause] "Do you like how I just acted like I know what that word means?"

6. Shared items, google reader.

7. This Girl.

Sunday Top Ten: It's Not What You're Like, It's What You Like

In the old days--like whenever "Little House on the Prairie" and "Great Expectations" happened, or um, "I Know Where the Red Fern Grows"--people knew people. If I lived in the Great Plains in the 1590s or whenever, I would know all about my friends' families, religious backgrounds, vocations, relationship statuses and economic situations. Also I'd know if they were a king, queen, serf, pauper, butler, knight, etc. Now--like whenever "The Audacity of Hope" and "Shampoo Planet" happened--I'll know if someone prefers Diet Coke over Diet Pepsi before I know if they have any siblings.

During Kim's weekend in NYC, she experienced many exciting things. The most exciting thing, I'm sure, was being assaulted for topics, and, subsequently, items, for the Sunday Top Ten. I feel like it might be like that to hang out with Ira Glass. He's probably like "stories on this theme! stories on this theme!" So obvs I asked her for ideas about every 10 minutes, which means, Coley, I know where you buy your underwear. (I wish there was a better word for "underwear." Because "panties" sounds gross, like Rex Manning asking "What color are your panties?" But "underwear" sounds clinical, and "underpants" sounds like "billy, put on your underpants, stop scaring the little girls!")

Also, it's Tuesday, not Sunday. That's kinda funny, I think. Like, surprise!

SUNDAY TOP 10: IF YOU DON'T KNOW THESE TEN THINGS ABOUT YOUR FRIEND, YOU SHOULD ASK YOURSELF, "ARE WE REALLY FRIENDS? OR IS HE JUST A DUDE I FOLLOW AROUND AND TAKE PHOTOS OF?""


10. Underneath Her Clothes....Boy-Shorts, Thongs, Briefs, V-String, Bandeau?
I know which style of underthings my friends select for everyday, formal and/or gym-wear. This is because my friends and I are all beautiful, and we like to make love together in big hills of whipped cream. Sometimes I know special details, like that [redacted] prefers Conway and that [redacted] prefers boy-shorts that say silly things on them from the Victoria's Secret Pink Line, and we both heart J-Lo's line and totally stocked up in the Pennsylvania Wal-Mart on our way through town several eons ago. To the left, to the left, you can see that Lo and I are wearing matching underpants. You might also notice that her ass is somewhat perfect. But that's not really the point.

9. Mac or PC:
This is pretty easy. I don't have any friends with PCs. If you are reading this, and you think you are my friend, and you have a PC, well, then you are not really my friend. If you'd like to defend yourself, please read this: it's your side, and I found it to be dashing and witty, so much so that I posted an excerpt below. TB sent it my way. She has a PC. Which is why we aren't friends. Also? I was really surprised to discover Melaina had a PC, I totally pegged her as a Mac person. But I respect her decision.

"PCs have charm; Macs ooze pretension. When I sit down to use a Mac, the first thing I think is, "I hate Macs", and then I think, "Why has this rubbish aspirational ornament only got one mouse button?" Losing that second mouse button feels like losing a limb. If the ads were really honest, Webb would be standing there with one arm, struggling to open a packet of peanuts while Mitchell effortlessly tore his apart with both hands. But then, if the ads were really honest, Webb would be dressed in unbelievably po-faced avant-garde clothing with a gigantic glowing apple on his back. And instead of conducting a proper conversation, he would be repeatedly congratulating himself for looking so cool, and banging on about how he was going to use his new laptop to write a novel, without ever getting round to doing it, like a mediocre idiot."
-the PC guy in Britan

Still, I just don't get it. I mean, Macs are just cooler. Actually, Cameron coincidentally e-mailed me this afternoon to tell me about the first big event in her and Jay's road from engagement to marriage: the purchase of a beautiful i-mac for their cozy apartment.

8. Bag-Stock
I know I can depend on Natalie to always have 8 to 36 ounces of water in her gigantic sack of insanity (sometimes she whips a laptop out of that thing, or like, an entire outfit or a pair of shoes, she's like a magician). She's also been known to cart around a jug of water so large that I wonder if she intends to empty it into a shallow pool and do some laps. Krista usually has some sort of ecologically responsible lip gloss handy, Hav always has gum (as does Heather. They also both have TMJ) . People can depend on me for a selection of reading materials, eyeliner, a pen, and a sweaty sports bra. And a Push-Pop, if they so desire.

7. Subway Past-times
I am very serious about my battle gear. She said it like this, and I agree, I too don my :

"don't fuck with me" gear (iPod, book, journal)--tokens of hermit tendencies, alarming others to the fact I don't care to be bothered."

I got my boots on. My music: opera if I'm reading something complicated, shuffle if I'm reading something light where the words won't distract me. I've got a movie in my mind, and for y'all--yes, you too, man with the speech about the missing limbs and the starving children, etc, yes, I will give you money on the street, I will donate to places that help you, but don't fuck with me on the subway, dude, it's illegal for a reason, that reason is that it's annoying as hell---it's a silent film. The orchestra is my ipod. Krista listens to audio-books, but usually in the morning she devours "The New York Times"; she folds it into thirds, and then halves, and then reads the Opinion page first. She takes these little paddles of newsprint home with her and leaves them everywhere, and I love her. Lo reads or listens to music, but never both at the same time--the music, she says, is enough. I find that's often the case with musicians or dancers--the rest of us don't pay as much attention as we ought to.

6. Soda of Choice
The best part of waking up for Haviland is the crack and fizz of her first Diet Dr.Pepper. Krista drinks Diet Coke--although she scrunches up her face in utter repulsion when I suggest purchasing low-fat versions of things like butter ("fake butter," she calls it) or cheese ("fake cheese"=krista's definition) or when I turn down a scone. I've mentioned in various essays about body image (every young feminist writer will ink her pen for one of these suckers at some point) that I know which of my friends drink Diet Coke vs. regular Coke. I of course enjoy the latter, because I don't want to die of aspertime cancer. I am already really pushing it (it=cancer) with my lungs and skin.

5. What Medications They Take
There's a few ways to figure this out. The dead-giveaway is reading labels smacked on the plethora of orange bottles stored in the outer pockets of their messenger bag. During "when I was a kid" convos, if your friend mentions depression, eating disorders, drug addictions, abusive relationships, closeted homosexuality, voices in their head, jail time, or alcoholic parents--it's likely they're taking a pill for that now. If they aren't, they're likely to mention that pretty early on, too. The quickest way: go to the bathroom, and open the medicine cabinet. For friends who live in glorified Manhattan closets without medicine cabinets, check out the dresser: on top, or in the first drawer. Also, sometimes people are complaining about side effects like being fat and not horny, so that's a good way. You know, just go backwards. But honestly, most people would like to talk about their Lexapro. Because they're just so happy to have it!!!!

4. Online Habits
Some people are on AIM all the time, but never really ON it (like they can't actually talk, their computer just "signs them on"). Some people check myspace every 10 minutes. Some check myspace every day. I have friends who know more about MY friends than I do: they are tracking the movements of my Top 12 (relationship status, suggestive-comment count, new drunk-party photos) while I am, you know, writing this goddamn thing. I am not any of those people. I am the person who goes on AIM to proccess specific drama with Haviland and then gets irritated if anyone else attempts to contact me. Which is why I have like 10 email addresses and 5 AIM names.

3. Common Anxiety
If I've just "accidentally" spent $150.00 of non-existent money (aka "Visa money" aka "magic money") at Victoria's Secret Semi-Annual Sale when I was supposed to be doing final edits on an essay for a journal to further my hypothetical "career," I'm gonna text Krista. If I just discovered someone else is publishing a book that reminds me of the one I'm writing and I'm camped outside her door, hurling softballs coated in Neruda at her windows, I'm gonna text Haviland and if I just put a grapefruit on my credit card, that's one for Natalie.

2. Cell Phone Company
I had AT+T from the beginning of cell-phone time, until a weekend in New York City resulted in a $350 phone bill. Now I have Sprint. I got it because my boyf at the time had Sprint, now I honestly like my Sprint-using friends much better than the rest of my friends. There's a special place in my heart for y'all: Mary, Katy, Kim, Lewis, Scot (the boyf-at-the-time Sprint user), Rachael, whoever. I never pay my phone bill because they charge me for dumb shit. They keep calling me and making idle threats. I'll know right away if you have Sprint--the first option when you text me will be to call you, which I will always do accidentally but end before you notice, I think. Also people who have T-Mobile are always really smug about it, like they got invited to some secret club where Catherine Zeta Jones personally services all the customers with a lap dance while they are fed God-Nectar through gold tunnels of love by their Top 5. Cingular has bad reception in NYC, and verizon people are always on the phone with Verizon.

1. Hair-Care and Eye-Care
I think I'm the only person on earth who doesn't wear contacts and doesn't consider washing my hair to be a serious and special activity. I once believed the "tell him you have to wash your hair" joke (re: when a man you don't like asks you out) was 100% joke, but it turns out that for many women, washing their hair is, in fact, a legitimate hobby. As in "I can't go out until I wash my hair" or "Let me call you after I wash my hair" or "Before you take those naked photos of me, please let me wash my hair." I wash my hair every day, otherwise it gets greasy. Which might be because I put grease in it to counteract it's Jewish habits (frizz, fro, etc) (Biosilk, it's a miracle). But anyhow. I actually have contact solution at my house because it's um, useful. Because after we take off our thongs and roll around in giant tubs of cherry Jello and brush one another's hair, sometimes the ladies want to spend the night.