You're Heavy in My Mouth

I'm gonna start opening my blog with scenes from the movie version of my blog, like they're doing on The L Word with Jenny's movie. JK, this is a blog, not a teevee show. Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids. I find the pressure of an opening paragraph simply too much to bear. Still with me? OK so, someone suggested "Top Ten Things Riese likes to Put in her Mouth" (re: "Top Ten: You Tell Me") or something to that effect. I believe this stemmed from the initial suggestion for "10 Ways to Eat a Reeses," which was an amusing convo I enjoyed watching from my emo cave (also, I provided the answer to this in the comments, should anyone be interested). One week at band camp/boarding school we were plagued with a series of random, lengthy power outages, during which we could perform small bursts of anarchic behavior in the safety of temporary pitch-black-night. Somehow biting and sucking on each other's fingers became one of our favorite past-times. Like many of the witty anecdotes I share here, that looks a lot weirder on the page than it seemed at the time. Anyhow,that'll be number 10.

9. Ice Cream and French Fries...

Are my favorite foods. This seems to surprise people, 'cause unless you're my mother, Ingrid, or it's Summer '07 and your name is Carly, you've probs not seen me eat a lot of french fries or ice cream. That's because I don't want to be happy. In fact, I don't talk much about food on here --probs 'cause: 1. I did once and Hav didn't read my blog that day, 2. My Mom was a nutritionist and taught "food, facts & fun" at the Y and used my bro & I as taste-testers and class-testers, thus the topic is old news to me, 3. 'cause I'm about as qualified to discuss food as I am to muse on Russian literature ... clearly my Lean Pockets & Peanut-Butter-Crackers consumption rate suggests I've got no taste when it comes to food. HA! no TASTE! Get it?!

But since I'm talking about things I wanna put in my mouth, I'm gonna really open up. Let you see the Real Riese. Here's my opinion, in great detail, regarding ice cream & french fries ...

8a. Ben & Jerry's ice cream is the best ice cream ever. E.g., Phish Food, Everything But The ..., Chubby Hubby, Half Baked, Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, Cherry Garcia, Peanut Butter Cup, Mint Chocolate Cookie, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

8b. Obvs hands down totes Arby's, re: french fries, but there's some noble efforts that challenge the Arby's lockdown (it's the curly fries, specifically). These include Grandma's Kitchen @Interlochen, Red Hot Lovers @Ann Arbor, Applebees, Zen Palate's yam fries, In 'n Out, and the kind made from real potatoes that you get at foodstands like at fairs and stuff.

8c. Also, I like Haagen Dazs Dulce de Leche, cheap Neapolitan ice cream from the deli, Edy's whole fruit bars, those ice cream bars you can buy in Vending Machines or at the case right by the cashier a the corner deli -- Strawberry Shortcake is the best flavor, you know what I'm talking about?, also; Breyer's Cookies & Cream, also ... when eating soft serve: the first bite that is both cone & soft serve is the best, Butter Pecan, my Dad's sundaes = hot fudge & mixed nuts & Breyer's Vanilla, push pops named for cartoon characters, the time I chased the ice cream truck five blocks in my socks 'cause my parents said I could have some if I caught the truck and they figured I wouldn't but I wanted to be Maniac Magee and I did, creamsicles, Friendly's (their sundaes are out of this world, the one with reeses pieces and stuff? OMG so good), walking to Stucchi's in the summertime for the Raspberry Cheesecake Ribbon, Vanilla Almond Fudge Toffuti, Colliders, Dairy Queen Blizzards, dilly bars, the magic shell butterscotch and chocolate when we first discovered it, the final reward of the sundae area at cheap buffet restaurants I loved as a kid, like Ponderosa and OCB, when we went to London for three weeks and all my brother ate was chocolate ice cream, Superman flavored sherbert at Washtenaw Dairy, ice cream with my grandpa at United Dairy Farmers the summer I stopped eating and all the bicycling we did right after because I had to compensate and because that's what he'd been doing, that summer, to compensate for his loss, was fix antique bikes and then we'd ride them. It was a perfect afternoon -- the weather-- Ohio, oh, Ohio. And also; green tea ice cream and mocchi balls -- the gelly outside, the ice cream inside, omg --

We'd bike to Baskin Robbins too, in the summer, Kristyna and I, we felt like adults but also in an Audrey Hepburn movie, and we'd eat our cones outside on the barely stable plastic picnic tables and watch our bikes and look at people and cars. We'd go across the street to Panorama and rent a movie like "The Craft" and ride home and watch it, our legs pulsing like hot ice.

8. Cigarettes
I don't smoke, really, I totally don't smoke. I don't smoke because if I did smoke, it wouldn't be so unbearably delicious when I do smoke -- I wouldn't get lightheaded and dizzy, I wouldn't feel like I was having Grown-Up Candy instead of a pump of an addictive substance.

7. My Fingers
The real reason I get regular manicures is 'cause when I don't, I have a bad habit of eating my fingers. Like, the sides? And biting my nails, obviously, which's why I get black nail polish. Also because I'm cool and I want to be like Linsday Lohan. Was. In 2005. Or whenever. The years just bleed together, when it comes to famous people and wtf they are doing with their super-important lives.

6. Pens & Pencils
Apparently? I don't recall eating my pens, but there's some telling bite marks.

5. I can't talk about because there are children reading this (also, just to be perfectly clear, it does not rhyme with "dock")

4. Milky Way
I used to be the straight-edged innocent, so I'm still surprised every time I find myself in the position of the corrupter rather than the one being corrupted. It's the "me"/"not me" thing -- it's always the "not me" who inspires other people to do "bad things." Like, for example, psychedelic mushrooms. (I am hereby sacrificing my ability to be employed by anyone besides my present employer). But [redacted] months ago, I told a curious friend that when I'd done shrooms before, it was totally mild and not weird, and therefore she should be enthusiastic about giving it a go. I figured since it was a drug that affected psychological capacities, it was best that the psychology be optimistic and determined regarding the next few hours of its function. Howevs, I was totally lying! When I'd done them before ... it was soooo weird! I'm actually totally unexperienced in most areas of druggery, despite my rugged and street-wise exterior. Thus, my one prior shrooming experience was the weirdest I'd ever felt in my life (this second & more recent time -- where I was the one suggesting it, instead of the one it'd been suggested to-- was not weird at all, perhaps you saw the video), fo' sure, like I was making love to a Milky Way bar with my mouth and throat.

Spring Break, March '03: my U-Mich friends were mostly abroad, I was in New York, staying with my ex Mike (all names have been changed) in Astoria. I'd just purchased a coat that was hybrid Bob Dylan/Jordan Catalano (brown, wool lining, sheep whatevs, vintage) and I was wearing it with overpriced jeans and a green Hollister hoodie. My hair was platinum blonde. My mood that (near) spring was a kind of bursting optimism & fluttering excitement because I'd just left a dull domestic relationship and was working on my senior thesis -- as a creative writing student, my thesis was a short story collection, a culmination of everything I'd done thus far in life. I felt very much on the verge, etc. I'd doubled my eyeliner application.

I had a small dinner & several drinks at The Yaffa Cafe in Soho with an Interlochen bestie while texting Blake, my new paramour back in Michigan. After dinner I went to the Olive Garden to meet up with Mike -- I'd met Mike there in '00, we'd worked together as servers and he was a bartender now -- I had a few more free drinks while everyone finished their tables. Blake called: he was drunk, he missed me ... he told me he was falling in love with me. I said something that meant "I've had a great deal of free drinks and I feel like a shooting star" but sounded like "Me too." I was also falling in love with me, too, though (not Blake yet, but I would eventually), and I was falling in love with falling, and so, when Mike asked if I wanted to do shrooms, I said okay. A group of OG employees -- friends & strangers -- returned to Mike & Brian's apartment in Astoria.

And so we did said drugs. There was lots of Hospitaliano. The ceiling was moving like a tricky Magic Eye cartoon. Things were carved in the ceiling -- animals, maybe, or just a design, maybe the animals were in my mind. I opened and closed my eyes, but saw the ceiling just the same. I opened my eyes and was faced with Mike's eyes and he told me to open my mouth and I did, and he put a half a tab of ecstasy inside my mouth (which I'd never done before, either), and when it was in my veins he told me what he'd done.

Brian played Dave Matthews on his guitar, and Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Jeff Buckley. Mike's ex-whatever came over and lounged on his couch like a siren in an old movie and rolled a joint with a joint-rolling contraption she told me Mike'd bought her in Amsterdam. Her hair was beautiful, dark red.

I went to Mike's room and lay on the bed and next to his bed there was a bag of miniature Milky Way bars and I realised I was starving, and so I started eating these Milky Way bars and it was like the candy was making love to the inside of my cheeks, like the caramel was a sleek sexy fish on my tongue, like the entire Milky Way galaxy had been crammed into my mouth by an ambitious cosmonaut and was now exploding inside my cheeks like cotton-coated pop-rocks. Brian came into the room and lay on my back while I ate Milky War bars. The inside of my eyeballs danced. He put his hands on the backs of my arms, and then on the backs of my legs, but he wasn't touching me, he was just feeling around, like you might touch a wall in the dark on your way to your room. Then he got up and said "I'm sorry," and dashed out of the room. A chocolate-caramel-nougat angel climbed inside my mouth and curled up and slept there, and then I did too.

This is what I said about it, when endorsing it to aforementioned coruptee: "All I remember from doing it before was that I had these Milky Way bars and they were really good, and I don't even like Milky Way bars."

3. Push-Pops, Caramel Apple Pops, Ring Pops, Blow Pops, Dum-Dums
I used to keep a push pop in my bag like it was chapstick -- wholly necessary, better be prepared, you never know when I'd want a suck. I've been accused of an oral fixation, but I think that's lame, like something girls used to say they had to let boys know they were easy. Do you know what I mean? We all have oral fixations. We have teeth, they want to bite/chew, we have lips, they have very little purpose except the obvious.

I go through serious long addictions to these things. Like, I used to have a giant three-tiered push pop that took me about a week to finish, I'm basically seven years old.

2. My Toothbrush and Toothpaste
I get scolded at the dentist 'cause apparently I brush so often that I'm brushing away my gums. I don't care, I want minty fresh breath, obvs. I go through a toothbrush a week, about, and keep extras almost everywhere I've ever worked or played. Ingrid and I used to like to get in each other's faces and brush our teeth for no reason. Again: boarding school. We do these things, I don't know why, but we do.

1. Other Mouths
When it all comes down to it, there's really nothing else on earth as wonderful as kissing.

I love how lipstick can suggest
a grammar, and how, in sleep,
the mouth gives up its posture
like something defeated.
Isn't a morning kiss, then,
a kind of restoration, a love test
for the one who wakes first?
I love what we must forgive.
So good to find them, the people
who've discovered fraudulence
in their lives, who've cast off, say,
a twenty-year lie.
I love how they listen to poems
as if words were necessary
daggers or balm, their faces proof
that the soul feeds on wild riffs,
every sort of truth-scrap, the blues.
I love that the normal condition
of the soul is to be starved.

-from "loves" by stephen dunn

Tuesday Top Eight: We're Unsure We're Unstop We're Unstoppable

Hi, welcome to the new and improved Tuesday Top Eight. 'Cause of "The L Word," I probs won't execute a timely Sunday Top Ten 'til about April. I asked y'all for ideas and you came out full force, per always, and so I'll be doing one of your! ideas! every week as a Tuesday Top Eight until the lesbian television season ends. If you get another top 10 idea -- because who knows where thoughts come from, they just appear -- y'know, there's no deadline, this isn't like, Harvard or The Spice Girls Reunion Tour. It's just a little blog. Bloggity blog blog with rolling admissions. You can even use the Common Application if you want. There's just a small matter of verifying your identity via the correct transcription of a series of oddly shaped letters. Also you should take AP Calculus. You don't have to, but you might want to consider it.

You guys, seriously, you know how sometimes I make jokes/self-deprecating statements like "I'm not funny anymore," or "one day I'm gonna run out of words/ideas/things to say"? OMGGG I was the girl who cried wolf! Now it's for real! No, not really. Seriously I've felt uninspired for about ten hours and I think it's the end of the world.

I don't talk alot about the process of writing, mostly because I'm in denial that I actually "write" things, like I'm a "writer," I tend to think more that like, I'm a producer of entertainment that happens to take place in letters forming words forming sentences forming paragraphs forming hopefully LOLs or Deep Thoughts. But from time to time I enter phases where -- for no particular reason (because moods don't correspond neatly to writing ability like they do for other vocations -- as in ... a happy person is more likely to be a better waitress, but a degree of happiness doesn't correspond that neatly to being a better writer -- nor does extreme sadness, or anything, moods and writing are closely related but certainly not easily predicted how they'll match up, you never know really 'til it's happening ... no rhyme or reason, so to speak ... ) -- my writing time becomes 50% writing, 50% staring at the wall. Luckily, I love the wall. I love all kinds of flat surfaces. You may recall that I frequently (redundantly, even) describe my adolescence (post-11.14.95) as a long period of time spent lying on the carpet staring at the ceiling fan. I'm not being dramatic when I say that; totes true.

I've been staring at the wall a lot. It's like, "What's up, Riese? I am a wall. You are not a wall, even though you have many complicated emotional walls and enjoy the album 'The Wall'." The usual idea-to-wall-staring ratio is like, 20:1, but it's been more 10:1 lately. That'll pass. I think the problem is I haven't been spending enough time reading. I mean, I still read more than most people, but I need to read about ten times more than most people, and since I spend less time on the train than I used to, I read less than I used to, and that sucks. Yeah. New Year's Resolution. Ta-Da!

So I'm just gonna write stuff, and ... yeah. Um UPDATE: I'm calling this a Sunday Top Ten for no reason other than because I can, because it's my blog KAZAAM! It's basically the top ten thoughts that popped into my head. Don't worry, the other ones will be soooo much better, totes promise.

Someone suggested "things I should do at least once or only once or never or everyday." Who was it? I separated topics from author of topics because I don't want to be biased. Like, I might automatically pick Haviland, you know? Except Haviland didn't have any top 10 ideas, so I can't pick her.

TUESDAY TOP TEN THOUSAND:
THINGS I THINK ABOUT WHILE I STARE AT THE WALL
OR, "things I should do at least once or only once or never or everyday"

A while back, I did a Top Ten on "Things I'd Like to do In Life Before I die" (Lozo's topic suggestion). So therefore, everything below ... are things I HAVE ALREADY DONE. 'Cause for that top ten I did only things I HADN'T done yet.
Get it? Got it. Good. Also 'cause I wouldn't be like "do this," even though I didn't do it, you know? That'd be totally hypocritical and weirdo. And I am many things but not a weirdo.

Things I'm Almost Entirely Positive Abolustely Everyone Should Do At Least Once:

Win. Straddle. Top. Dance. Get your heart broken -- not just broken, but totally torn up, ripped from your chest and run over and then dragged around the block 'til the whole neighborhood's aware you've been bleeding. Leave, be left. Read The Torah. Also: 1984 (George Orwell), Things Fall Apart (China Achebe), A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess), The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger), Lolita (Vladimir Nabakov) The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera), Girl, Interrupted (Susanna Kaysen), Hamlet (Shakespeare), Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Wolff), and really just read poetry, seriously, like anything. Be broke and do something you thought you'd never do to un-broke yourself and hate every minute of it. Read: Savage Inequalities, by Jonathan Kozol and Appetites, by Caroline Knapp. Give to someone in a situation where the recipient will not know it was you who gave, where you will never be thanked or recognised. Give and don't tell anyone you gave. Give just to give, give secretly and selflessly. Live Alone, live with strangers, live with friends, live with a lover, live with your family, live with an animal. Listen to these Albums: Kind of Blue (Miles Davis), The White Album (The Beatles), Blood on the Tracks (Bob Dylan), The Immaculate Collection (Madonna), The Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd). Leave the country. Swim. Have sex with someone of the same gender: have sex without "traditional" heterosexual penetration and know that it is also sex. Divorce the idea of intercourse from the idea of sex, and then open up that idea and run around in it naked, touching and biting everything. Take care of someone who is sick because you care too much not to. Make sacrifices, allowances, time. Push everyone away and then let everyone in. Do something for yourself, purely wholely for yourself. Work in a restaurant. Tip your sever 100% and leave the restaurant before they can thank you. Leave the country. Go to a country where you don't speak the language: I was in Paris once, alone. I thought it'd be romantic -- I'd stroll side-streets, sit in cafes drinking pretentious coffee, feel inspired and full of possibility, meet strangers and develop brief but intense life-altering connections to them, order the wrong thing and then try to explain it to the waiter in a sort of slapstick skit that would ultimately result in me getting the right thing for free. But it wasn't really any of those things, it was just me: an 18-year-old girl in a strange city where I didn't know anyone and didn't really know why I was there either, walking around with nowhere to be and nothing to say that anyone else would understand. Do something you thought you'd never do for love. Call in sick to work because you're coming down from a bender, call in sick to work because your BFF is having a breakdown, call in sick to work because your heart hurts, be able to call in sick all those times because you never call in sick when you're actually sick. Acquire a bad habit. Listen to These Songs: "Simple Twist of Fate" (Bob Dylan), "Woodstock" (Joni Mitchell), "Yesterday" (The Beatles), "Redemption Song" (Bob Marley), "The Sound of Silence" (Simon & Garfunkel), "California Girls" (Beach Boys), "When Doves Cry" (Prince), "Ave Maria" (Handel). Do drugs ... I mean it -- loose your mind, even if it's just for a few hours or a weekend. Trip. Roll. Speed. Get high. Whatevs. I haven't done everything and I don't plan to or want to, but I think there's a value in finding out where your brain could go if you wanted to be crazy forever (you don't, you shouldn't, don't, don't ever) and just once ... Spend time, in whatever context (a volunteer, a teacher, a visiting friend, an employee, a convict), in an institution where people are locked in rooms and are not permitted to leave or make any of their own choices about activities, meals, sleep, waking, communication, therapy, punishment, reward. Pull an all-nighter. Get wasted. Like fucked-up blasted out-of-your-skull completely 150% wasted ... watch yourself do crazy things you've always wanted to do but never would've been able to do without your liquid thunder. Fast. Binge. Splurge. Save. Crossdress. Go to the movies alone, go to a restaurant alone. Drink alone. Be alone, be single, be in love, think you're in love but you're really not. Walk from the southern end of Manhattan to your apartment and call it a birthday party. Read a novel for fun, on your couch. Do absolutely nothing for a number of hours. Stare at the wall. Read blogs when you should be sleeping. Listen to music when you should be working. Have a torrid affair. Be a cliche, love it or not even know that it's a cliche. Also: The West Wing. It will really change your mind about what government is capable of ... I mean; it's fiction, obvs, but still. Do a walk of shame. Get fired. Cut off all your hair. Forgive. Talk to yourself out loud. Write an entire blog entry that sounds like a bad greeting card or like those annoying "dance like nobody's watching" posters they had up in your music classroom at elementary school that made you want to dance only when everyone you've ever known ever was watching, lest you be regulated to crappy font and gaudy purples and posters. End this paragraph because it's ridiculous enough as it is, even though you're sure there are 100 things you've left out.

Things I Personally Think You Should Do At Least Once, But Really, It's Only My Opinion, Probs Not Right For Everyone:

Read: Where I'm Calling From (Raymond Carver), Bad Behavior (Mary Gaitskill), Birds of America (Lorrie Moore), The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion), Between Angels (Stephen Dunn), Cowboys are my Weakness (Pam Houston), Our Town (Thornton Wilder), The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen), Bastard out of Carolina (Dorothy Allison), The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls)Wasted (Marya Hornbacher), The Safety of Objects (A.M Homes), A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Dave Eggers). Watch Six Feet Under, My So-Called Life. See (you don't have to agree, but give it a shot): Roger & Me, This Film is Not Yet Rated, Bowling for Columbine, Farenheit 9/11, 7UP! --> 49UP!, SuperSize Me, All Aboard!, When the Levees Broke. Do something fantastic and then celebrate by dancing around your room to Blister in the Sun (Violent Femmes) or Umbrella (Rhianna). Listen to Tegan & Sara. Shut up. Turn off your phone. Make an escape plan. Visit New York City -- not because I live here (I'm busy obvs) but because it's important. Oh also: Empire Records, obvs, and Six Degrees of Separation. Keep a Journal. Let yourself go. Shape up. Buy Automatic Apparel. Um, whatevs. Follow your heart. Tell the same story twice. I just said that so I can tell this story, which I maybe told before, but I don't care to check, which's that in 2000 we were in a real estate office on 72nd and Amsterdam and we'd just dropped out of college to move to nYC for no reason really and the cute Israeli boy that'd showed us apartments all day 'cause the one we thought we were moving into wasn't ready yet and they'd fucked us over royally and now we'd be living somewhere ridiculous and more expensive and we found a place and it was great but also more than we'd planned on spending and I put my head in my hands and said Ryan, why the fuck did we do this? What the hell were we thinking? and all our stuff was in this U-Haul outside, we'd just taken all our stuff from Sarah Lawrence and our friend SF was in Philly with her van ready to go as soon as we knew of an address for her to move into and I said ryan why the fuck did we do this? and the cute Israeli real estate boy said "You have to follow your heart," and that was the best thing anyone has ever said to me ever. Also when he told us he played bass, Ryan thought he'd said that he drove a bus, and that was a funny convo.

Things Everyone Should Do Every Day:
sleep, wake, eat, move, read, think.

Things Everyone Should Never Do:
Hurt innocent people needlessly or with malice/intent. Kill.
Promote hate or ignorance
Eat chicken wings in front of Riese, because the bones gross her out
Watch "That 70's Show"
Make me watch you play video games.

This Girl Called Automatic Weirdo

Hi! I've got some things I wanna say and so I'm gonna write them down here in this google doc, then cut and paste them into a blog and then publish it. Carly's coming over in about 30 minutes and then Haviland 'cause we're gonna make some vlogs that're gonna be awesome and make you LOL your asses off, so I've got about 20 minutes to figure out what I need to say and say it, and I'll edit it later because it's gonna be totes muddled. First off; I'm not depressed right now, I'm not in a Bell Jar or Emily Dickinson mood, nor am I about to renounce all things in the world, delete my blog or myspace, go out and drink into an oblivion, fuck 'til I forget who I am, change all my goals in life, move to Michigan or run away to my emo cave, suddenly fix relationships I've let falter or neglect new and thriving ones. In fact, I'm not gonna do anything besides exactly what I've been doing and planned to do, like tonight we're making some vlogs, I've got some phone calls and emails to return, I'm behind on Google Reader like WHOA, I still haven't edited last week's blog or this one, I need to clean my room I think, and tonight Tila Tequila's gonna meet Dani's parents which is a very exciting moment for everyone in the whole wide world, obvs. I think I owe a lot of blog comments, emails, etc.

Okay so I'm just writing, seriously not deleting anything unless it's a typo, this is a totes stream of consciousness nonsense. [UPDATE: I've edited it as little as possible just so it makes sense, but remains almost exactly what I originally wrote. Sorry, I used "its" wrong and it was ruining my life.] I think I'm going to finish the secrets blog this week, or maybe not, but I probably will. It might not make sense and you don't have to comment, maybe it'll be weird?

My brain's a little confused these days, it's trying to wrap itself around paradox and that's hard to do when I've got a lot of lock-boxes and storage space up there that's already maxed out and when I've got so much I'm excited about and for and when I feel so much of ME and so much of my friends have changed over the past few months in a way that's really quite beautiful. I think we've become more humble and I hope I've inspired a few friends to live more for the moment and wait for the next joke and to dance, I like dancing even though I'm bad at it. I like a lot of things that are actually a lot like dancing.

About a month ago, one of my best friend's infant brother died suddenly from an aneurysm, he'd only been alive for about six weeks. It just didn't make any sense whatsoever. I remember when I told Lozo about this baby's death and he said nothing surprises me anymore or something to that effect. I was like, but wait wait isn't that so fucked up? A baby? Like, wtf world? And then all that other shit happened with the job and me getting fired and all this terrible out-of-the-blue stuff w/r/t Olive and he was like seriously, nothing surprises me anymore. I remember when I first read about this on his blog, I thought, OMG, seriously? REALLY PAPI? Like, no. You know? just NO. And when he told me that he wasn't surprised by this shit that was knocking my world off its feet I said no, if we accept such tragedies and also if we accept such unfair and ridiculous behavior out of the blue and when we accept the failure of the medical system to take care of the mentally ill properly and when we accept death before the word "surprise" turned tragic on our tongues then how do we prevent these tragedies and he said, well, we can't. I said how do we keep on? But I already know the answer to that question, obviously. I know how we keep on, wanna know how? WE JUST DO.

In the ensuing weeks following that whole week of hell in which I almost broke my computer from crying onto my keyboard, I swear I read about six bloggers write about the death of a loved one from illness or something unexpected. Perhaps you are one of them. I seriously feel like every day my Google Reader announced one obituary at least, and every time I was like "Seriously, G-d, wtf, stop it! Stop it now!"

Over the weekend I was frolicking with two people I love very much and having a good time and enjoying things and being laid-back. As I did this someone else I love very much almost died but didn't. I don't want to say anything about it but that, and I won't, and please don't ask, or guess who it was, or anything, and I'm not asking for pity or sympathy or even trying to incite a reaction of any kind or anything. I just need to say this to get on. I'm just saying this : it happened and I cannot loose this person, I absolutely refuse to.

So, it was Monday and Cait and Haviland and I were at an art exhibit called WHACK! at this D.C museum in a room dedicated to feminist porn from the 70's and there were all these naturally hairy and un-airbushed women fucking with strap ons and whipping each other and making out with 10 people at once and got this text and I thought right away that I knew who it was texting and I picked it up ready to read something totally adorable that would make me smile and other things but instead it was not that or from who I'd for some reason assumed it'd be from, instead it was news that someone I love very much had almost died and so I sort of just fell on the ground all of a sudden because my heart fell out of my body and Cait was like "What's going on?" and for a long time I could not speak, and then I did.

Then we were in the gift shop later and Natalie called excited about this awesome vaycay we're taking next year and I got so happy talking to her because I love Natalie and am excited for vaycay and I don't feel bad about that either, or weird about it, even, or weird about anything.

Okay so moving on; everything is fine w/r/t this person I love and will be fine. [By that I mean she is alive, fortunately.] That's all I'm gonna say on that.

On Sunday night, a beautiful girl I've never met, but who was one of the people who sent me a secret I'd written about on my secrets blog and one of the people who thanked me afterwards, was hit by a car when she was driving home on her motorcycle. I'll call her Kelly, because that's what I called her in her secret. Kelly read my blog in the first place because she'd been told about it by someone who loved her very much, one of my Top People/Brightest Ring Of Angels, who I'll call "B," was an inspiration to C and helped her to change in ways that were visible, tangible, gorgeous. When B first met Kelly, B said "she's totally out of my league, stunning, kind ..." On Monday, Kelly, after bleeding from her brain for hours and hours and hours, died. She was 26. What's worse, if anything could be worse [not worse, but also terrible and tragic], is that B's done this before. She's already lost someone super-duper-close to her-- NECESSARY (what a word! how nothing truly can be, after all, except life itself!) -- to her from a car accident before. I literally did not think that things like this were possible. I mean, I know from tragedy, obvs, but in some weird way I felt protected by my father's death, like terrible things might still happen to me [and have, from time to time, relatively] but I wouldn't have the exact same thing happen to me again any time soon, no more unexpected or unbearable deaths in a top spot.

When I read about what happened to Lozo in April, I couldn't fathom it. When I relay the entire story of my summer to friends, or the story what happened in October with Olive, I witness shock and awe and more often than I'd like -- disbelief, actual disbelief, these things do not happen in the world they live in either, or so they thought. Like how we all thought for a moment on 9-11 that it was a movie.

So this weekend, I was driving back. I'd had a fun weekend with girls I love and couldn't live without (don't knock on anything, certainly not some dead tree, because there's really no such thing as supersition, it's just an abstraction, all we have really is faith and hope and love, srsly), I realised I'm maxed out on expectation. Stephen Dunn, in one of my favorite poems of all time, "Grudges," wrote this: "Easy for almost anything to occur/Even if we've scraped the sky, we can be rubble./For years those men felt one way, acted another." Obvs it's about 9/11, and the last verse contains, among other words, these lines: "Before you know it something's over/Suddenly someone's missing at the table./It's easy (I know it) for anything to occur -- "

When I read that poem, I thought of my father's heart suddenly attacking and dying, I thought of 9-11 which didn't effect me personally [I am lucky for that], but effected I think everyone's ideas of the Possible and Impossible, at least those of us protected in America and relatively privileged in our lives so far, just a reminder of the implicit mortality of life. Now, when I read that poem it seems universally applicable, and I guess that's sad as hell, but well, life is sad sometimes, and what can we do? Which I guess is what Lozo said when he wrote that top ten for me , and I can't believe I'm quoting wisdom from Lozo, but oh well.

I don't intend to make any dramatic decisions or react as I've reacted in the past to these crises of faith -- in many ways my life's been one long reaction to November 14th, 1995. I'm not threatening benders or a loss of control or inhibition or becoming totally healthy or Zen or really changing any of my present habits. I'm not less excited or energised or happy about any of the truly fantastic things that are happening right now and nothing has or will change how I feel about everything that's going on and all the people I've extended purely excited and optimistic energy towards while simultaneously moderating tragedy on the other line. I'm not numb or over-feeling. I'm not impatient with people's little problems and I'm not any different than I've ever been about how I feel everyone's entitled to their own sadness, their own tragedies, I'm not less worried about the aesthetics of my thighs or my expectations for the fucking L Word premiere or anything.

I guess I'm just slightly more grateful to be alive and I guess I wanna say also, and I say this purely, and not like, cheesy or trying to make anyone react, that ... well, okay, recently Haviland and I were talking about our career goals and I realised suddenly that most of mine are no longer so urgent as they once were. There's a lot of things I want to do still obvs, and sooooo many projects I'm really extra excited about like the teevee show and the BOYSHORTS and my new website and my book and our vlogs and etc. But all I ever wanted to do from writing was help people or help people through times that hit them hard, and I feel so grateful to have done that for so many of you. If you've ever emailed me or commented to tell me how you feel or if I told your secret and you said it changed you, that is the most fucking beautiful thing ever. If I made you LOL or like The L Word more or feel okay about who you are even for half a second, that's worth more than a New York Magazine article or a Conde Nast job or a million dollars or maybe two chicks at once too. After all, the jokes are all we have, guys. Seriously, I think LIFE IS NOT BULLSHITTING WITH US SO WE SHOULD STOP BULLSHITTING WITH EACH OTHER. Totally just used all caps, next thing I'm going to be emailing you about enlarging your penis or pissed at you about something retarded or I'll be Carly texting me to say I GOT AN IPHONEIPHONEIPHONEIPHONE which my phone has never forgotten because every time I type "I," the t9w is like, "oh do you want to say IPHONEIPHONEIPHONE" and I'm like, no, but I'm glad somebody did. I'm excited about the Britney Spears album and about mashed potatoes for Christmas and about going shopping to get gifts for people and about 2008 and about dancing and about hopefully becoming a better person too, about The Planet Podcast and about writing and publishing more and sleeping and being sad sometimes and laughing and making out and going to strip clubs with Lozo. There's a lot of things I want, obvs, as we must want as we are wanting monkeys. Also, I swear, I'm not on crack. I believe in G-d, the children, and that I can fly. Clearly.

Anyhow, what was I saying? Oh yeah. I'm grateful to what I've got now that have made these recent blows easier to weather, and I'm happy to have so many friends who I've met through my blog and know what they're getting into therefore, friends who haven't gotten annoyed at me when I pull crazy shit like deleting my blog or being totally sentimental and ridiculous or exploiting cliche or myself or telling things about other people maybe I shouldn't say, or relishing in attention I might not deserve, or attention that's not healthy for whoever's providing it.

OK so Carly is gonna be here soon. I just wanted to type this stuff out, and it makes me feel important to have a place to put it, because I am a fundamentally ridiculous person. This year has sucked for so many of you, and for me too sometimes, but wow I sure have learned a lot.

You guys should totes cry if you need to and laugh too. Life is really funny, seriously, have you ever seen it? It's fucking ridiculous and hilarious and random as hell. It's fucking tragic. So you know, like hang in there. I'm not gonna say it'll get better but it'll be an experience for sure.

Today I sat down to write a journal entry in my paper journal and all I ended up writing was two pages that started like this: "Tara, I forgive you," and kept going like that, you know, like, also forgave kids who made fun of me in middle school and my retarded ex-boyfriends and the guy who didn't care that I said "no" and just about everyone except Ilene Chaiken and George W. Bush and then I forgave Tara again and again, like Bart Simpson writing on the chalkboard every week during the opening of "The Simpsons."

I know there are a lot of of people I've wronged too and I'm sorry, and I'll probably fuck up again 100 times while I'm still alive, and I'll be sorry when I do.

I'll probs emo out on y'all 100 more times too and get wrapped up in self-pity or self-centered excitement and I'm not really sorry for that, actually. You shouldn't be either when you do those things. I've never judged anyone for anything because we've all got our dark unbearable secrets, things I've done that maybe you wouldn't like me anymore if you knew about, habits I need to break, commitments I've failed on and stuff. But there's a lot of things I'm totally doing good on right now.

Also, I am going to find this entire post unbearably embarrassing and completely retarded and/or inappropriate in about 10 hours.

Also, clearly I am disassociating right now, but oh well, it's a great strategy. Also, I love Six Feet Under, it's the best show ever, you should all watch it.

Rain

Woke up this morning with
a terrific urge to lie in bed all day
and read. Fought against it for a minute.

Then looked out the window at the rain.
And gave over. Put myself entirely
in the keep of this rainy morning.

Would I live my life over again?
Make the same unforgivable mistakes?
Yes, given half a chance. Yes.

(Raymond Carver)

Ok! Carly's here, ttyl.

That's all. No point. I told you I was a total weirdo. Later, gators

Sunday Top Ten: Everywhere You Look

This week was really heavy and emo 'cause of all the secrets, so this week's Sunday Top Ten will focus on lighter things. Like Bob Saget. See, the stagehands' strike has made a huge impact on my smokin' hot life, 'cause now Haviland's got all her nights off to play! We've been going to lots of fun things, e.g., power-lesbian dance parties, "potlucks"/antioxidant company pitches, hot underground dive bars that play "Gin 'n Juice" and "Mo' Money Mo' Problems" for us and improv comedy shows featuring a cast AND an audience of actors who've been sitting on facebook all day, adding applications and waiting for something to do.

So Thursday night, Haviland, Cait and I went to this improv show called "Don't Quit Your Night Job," there were lots of famous people in it like the girl from "The Sopranos," which I've never seen because I don't like guns or New Jersey. It started way past my bedtime, like 11:30. Alicia Witt was slated to appear but apparently SVU filming ran late, which's fine, I can just look at her photos online whenevs I want to, it's a free country. I think my brain is frozen or something, I can't seem to put words into sentences, I've got like forty ads to write tomorrow and I haven't started, I'm doing this though, why? I don't know, this seems to be a common problem. I'm sure I'll write an ad tomorrow for work (that's what I do, write job ads) looking for someone who can prioritise tasks efficiently, and I'll think to myself, "It's a good thing I don't have that job." I think writing this Top Ten takes less brain power than doing my actual work, I don't need a college degree to tell you that, but I have one anyway, because I love to learn.

Sooo ... unlike Busy-Busy-Alicia-Witt, Bob Saget was in it, and as he joked around and made us LOL, Hav leaned over, put her hand on my thigh tenderly, and whispered sweetly: "Is it weird that I kinda wanna sleep with Danny Tanner right now? He's just so cute! He's such a nerd!" and I was like "No, it's not at all, I'd totally go for it with Bob Saget." Which got us onto the topic of what other cast members of the television program Full House we'd like to sleep with, thus bringing us to this week's Sunday Top Ten.

SUNDAY TOP TEN: WHO, OF ALL THE PEOPLE WHO'VE BEEN ON THE TEEVEE SHOW FULL HOUSE, WOULD I LIKE TO SHARE AN INTIMATE MOMENT WITH IN ORDER OF PREFERENCE (I think that's a grammatical nightmare, all that up there)

First off, I know some of you live in foreign countries and though you're probs aware of Mary Kate & Ashley, you may not be familiar with their launching pad, the teevee show Full House, which aired from 1985-1997 and is currently in syndication for all of time constantly. Therefore, I'm gonna provide this brief intro for you, which I've copied and pasted from Wikipedia: "Full House is set in San Francisco, California, where Danny Tanner is left to raise his three young daughters D.J., Stephanie and Michelle following the death of his wife, Pam." Pam. I didn't know her name was Pam. Here I am, learning learning learning. Also, this weirdo put like, every episode of this show on her youtube channel, if you're interested in watching. It's bad, p.s. The show? It's a really, really, really bad show. There are no lesbians in it whatsoever.

Also, to be honest, I didn't watch this show that often intentionally, but I feel like it was always on and my friends always watched it. Everywhere you look, everywhere you look, someone was watching this show. I wasn't allowed to watch it at home, obvs, because I'm Amish.

10-8: By default, I'm forced to include some people I'd probably not want to buy chicken nuggets for, let alone sit around and stroke the hair of. But that's the rules [that I made for myself, wtf?]! Gotta pick TEN. So, OK; Kimmy (You'd have to be really drunk to bone Kimmy, and -- believe it or not, I've never actually kissed someone drunk I wouldn't want to kiss sober -- never had "beer goggles" or whateves. For Kimmy, you'd also need beer earplugs, are beer goggles just for boys? Oh I don't drink beer, got it.), D.J's boyfriend Steve, and Michelle's black girl friend. The black girl's grown-up now, so it's not gross or anything, don't worry, she's actually legitimately hot, but I'm putting her up here in the netherlands of hotness just 'cause 1. She was a baby then, therefore it still feels gross, 2. I actually don't even remember her being on the show, I'm just getting her link from the Wikipedia article.

*
7. UNCLE JESSE/JOHN STAMOS

Really, you should've seen the look on Hav's face when I told her I wouldn't've been opposed, at one point, to watching a DVD and popping some popcorn with Uncle Jesse. I know his career's taken a bit of a nosedive since then -- but he wore a white t-shirt, a black leather jacket, played in a band, and got to curl up next to Aunt Becky every night. I like how he did his hair, he was totally my type. I was like, hey take me for a ride on your motorcycle, lets go! Write me a rock and roll song!

*
6. MARY KATE AND ASHLEY OLSON/MICHELLE

I like more my IDEA of what they'd look like as adults, rather than how they actually did turn out to look, which is "about to die from starvation." I read all about their gazillion-dollar empire in New York Times Magazine probably 8-10 years ago, and was like "Whoa!" and then, lickity split, they were grown-up and famous with a million videos I'll never see. I like their style though, the hobo thing? Layering? I'm a fan of layering. Keeps you warm in the winter, it's hard out here on the streets. Regulators, mount up.

Not gonna lie: I loved Michelle and thought her character was non-stop hilarious. Watching these clips on youtube, I'm inclined to agree with myself. The twins that Aunt Becky birthed were funny too, we have similar haircuts.

*
5. STEPHANIE/JODI SWEETIN

Okay, tell me she's not a little hot right now? She wasn't the cutest or least annoying, but certainly given the choice between Stephanie and, say, Dave Coulier, I'd pick Stephanie. Jodi Sweetin. Plus you could make jokes, like "I'd like a little Sweet ... in." What am I talking about?

*
4. DANNY TANNER/BOB SAGET

I think many know this now, esp. if you've seen the Full House E! True Hollywood Story (I can't remember when the fuck I had time to watch all this teevee. I honestly don't think I've watched anything for about a month now, whenever it was that they introduced Vanessa to Gossip Girl and her character was so ridiculously unlike her character in the book that I had to turn it off, I was so pissed) or the ET Full House "expose," you know that Bob Saget's comedy is totally "adult" and this show was a bit out-of-left-field for Saget. As was the Funniest Home Videos gig. He's a genuinely talented, sexy, nerdy, adorable, hilarious, charismatic, awkward-sorta guy. You just wanna lie around with him, eat potato chips and listen to him say funny jokes. Possibly forever.

*
3. AUNT BECKY/LORI LOUGHLIN

She's just foxy, try to fight me on this one, I'll poke your eyes out 'cause you don't know how to use 'em anyhow. if you did, you wouldn't be fighting me, you'd be like "yes, clearly, Aunt Becky, love her.'

*
2. GIA/MARLA SOKOLOFF

Confession: you know when you look back on your life and think "that's when I shoulda known I might be gay," that's how I feel about my lifelong imaginary affair with Malra Sokoloff. I've wanted to bone her since before I knew how babies were made. She played the badass best friend on every show ever, like "Boy Meets World" and "Party of Five" and "Seventh Heaven." Her characters always came from troubled families with "problems" at home, e.g., "Oh, this bruise is nothing, I just fell down the stairs!" or "Mom's just sleeping, she's just so tired from working so much." The parents of the protagonist would be like "Don't hang out with her, she's bad news." I think Gia got Stephanie into drugs and then ran her car off a cliff or into a tree or something, which made me super depressed, I didn't want her to leave the show/my life, wtf? Whatever, she was totally badass. She could be my best friend/best whatevs.

****
1. D.J

Me: "OMG you know who number one's gonna be right?"
Haviland: "Um, obviously."
Cait: "Who?"
Me & Hav [simultaneously]: "D.J."

I really need Haviland to write this one, only she can truly do justice to this. However, Haviland isn't here, though her bag is, and I want you to know I haven't gone through it. OK, let me go see if there's anything funny in it, BRB. No, just shoes and a computer and sunglasses, what a rockstar.

D.J's almost kinda chubby for a few years, but in a totally cute way, like you'd like to grab her ass, possibly all night long, forever. You could just eat her bangs right up. Wow. I actually wrote this entire Top Ten just now in record time. Can you tell? I've got a feeling you can. Also, Mr. Redacted, FYI, these aren't real people. Or are they?

UPDATE. Haviland's written her piece about D.J., which is clearly the cherry on top of this Top Ten. She just asked me "Did you really go through my bag?" 'cause she was worried I would've found all the heroin and antioxidants she's got stashed in her secret pocket, obviously I didn't, if I had, we would've had to have a Very Special Episode of the Vlog.

Haviland:

"I always had an affinity for DJ, because I felt like we would've been friends. She was so cute, so patient with Kimmy's ridiculosity, so stern with her annoying little sisters. I blew out my very curly/frizzy hair to look as much like DJ's as possible, complete with that flip at the front of her hair, side part, etc ... It mostly just looked really frizzy, but I did it, like we all did, nonetheless.

I also dressed a lot like DJ, especially around '91-'92. This also, coincidentally, followed the fashion stylings of Brenda Walsh, and also, Kelly Kapowski - but I looked more like Valerie than like Kelly.
You know what I mean, and you know the look - oversized t-shirts, neon spandex shorts, slouch socks (2-3 pairs if you were really hip) and white Keds with copious amounts of puff paint.

For those of you who didn't know me when I was a 'tween, I was, well, "a little chubby." Yep, I was a chub. Riese and I often talk about those troubling times, and how, though she was in Michigan and I was in Georgia, we would have wanted to have the other's problems ... I would have looked at her natural emaciation and longed, prayed, pined for it.

Also, I wore glasses, braces, and that damn frizzy hair. (I did have really good skin, though. Thank God for that.) Also, my mom was really cool, drove a convertible, and let me skip school to be in movies all the time, so there was that."

[SIDENOTE: This is Riese again. I didn't have glasses, but I did have braces and frizzy hair. I wanted to gain about 40 pounds so that my leggings wouldn't be baggy, because it was hard to rock denim shorts over leggings when the leggings weren't actually skin-tight, and once I tried to leave the house in tights and a t-shirt and my Mom was like "no way." Also we were only allowed to wear hand-me-downs from my cousins in Ohio, gender-neutral seperates from K-Mart, or used clothes from the used clothing store 'Old Woman in the Shoe', so we were a bit behind the times.]

Haviland: "Anyway, back to DJ. She was so cute, and the fact that she was kind of chubby and also a star of a very successful sitcom, playing the "kinda hot older sister" who had the hot boyfriend ... it gave me a lot of hope.

And look where I am today, beautiful babies! (LOL? Really? What am I talking about?) I don't know.

At this moment, I would love to be on a show like that, playing, obvs, the Aunt Becky role."

You guys, this was the best Sunday Top Ten Ever. Thanks Hav! Thanks DJ! Thanks Bob Saget! Hav just goes "I love grapes so much." Write that down. Oh, I just did.

I Want One VLOG I Wanted to Come Through, Oh, To Come True

[Title from this Tegan & Sara song, which you can listen to in the sidebar for burning-a-little-brighter purposes.] FYI, none of this is real. It's all a trick ... I mean illusion. Although you may've suspected that Riese is actually a cover for a 50-year old SARS-infected Unabomber living in a Nebraska basement/crystal meth lab, the truth is way hotter. In fact, Riese is a cover for someone even cooler than actual Riese! Real Riese can fly, obvs, is 75% lesbian, rides to and from work on a unicorn and when she dreams, she dreams in big bright colors about worlds resembling Milton Bradley board games, specifically Chutes and Ladders and Candyland. Her real friends are Gloppy the Molasses Monster and Princess Lolly. The former offers good advice, the latter has an agile tongue, which is handy. I think I've been reading too much experimental fiction lately.

Back in the days of Livejournal '03, [I believe I have 2-3 carryover readers, yes? Jenna? Carl? Hello.] I got frustrated that my boy's other girlfriend was [understandably] combing my LJ for hints about his secret life and, in reaction to this, I began posting on LJ as if I was in the Witness Protection Program. The best part of this game was taking new photos for my icon in my roommate's Marc Jacobs sunglasses. Everyone [all five of my readers] got really confused like "Are you really in Montana and if so why?" So I gave it up, though it was way more fun than telling the truth. I never expected my banner to be such prophecy, w/r/t honesty being a bitch, etc. Speaking of prophecy, what is truth? I don't know, I don't believe in it. I believe in only one thing and that thing is heart: is your heart good or bad? That is all that matters. You know the answer. Disowning your daughter for imaginary reasons, P.S., is bad, though I guess it's easier to handle when your wife is her age, it's like you can still be connected to our generation and not miss out on the latest developments in facebook applications, etc.

Also. Also. Also. I've got all these ideas, like for a glossary and a cast of characters and a more useful organised blogroll and such things, but for now I've sort of created this blog just where I can keep all the stuff I want to copy down every day, which's a lot of stuff, and also [also. also.] to archive the auto-fun of the day. Just so you know. The more you know, you know?

"I do not mind living
like this. I cannot bear
living like this.
Oh, everything's true
at different times
in the capacious day."
(Stephen Dunn, "Between Angels")
*
"No man has ever dared to describe himself as he truly is." (Camus)
*

So, I'm still gonna like, explain stuff later this week, 'cause it's obvs more complicated than it seems and I feel I owe y'all that after um, deleting my entire blog etc. But things'll be okay. There'll be no Dream Job [the hours/pay/perks were so incredible, obvs too good to be true], but I'm lucky to be surrounded by dreamy people, including Olive, who believes in follow through, which's also something I believe in. Last night Haviland and I discussed, for about an hour, the possibility that Olive is in fact an angel.

For now, I'm still riding the "fuck it" end of major depressive disorder, obviously. Thus, this week's VLOG, in which Haviland and I play "I've Never"/"Never Have I Ever"/"The Ten Fingers Game."

FIRST: If you're considering paying me to do something and are reading this blog to uncover my true self -- you know, all the secret and terribly relevant aspects of my past and recreational activities that will absolutely bear just as much upon my job performance as it does upon the performance of your other employees who've committed similar sins but don't have blogs -- I'd like to provide a disclaimer/rant ...

How has our culture come to this: we are obsessed with "uncovering" the truth, but we despise honesty ... and, right, what is the truth? After all, ultimately Olive and I were punished for deductions based on a version of truth I offered up here ... clearly we're dealing with a maniac and therefore, truth is about as real as the word "truthiness," or is about as real as Auto-Win. Whoever I am. I don't know who I am. I can't even write an "about me" for any of the 500 social networking sites I'm on, I can just give quotes. I mean, old-school AutoWin was so unlike my actual self, it was/is/was/is a character. We all become characters we become the stories we tell about ourselves, Often the facts I present here are about as true as fiction, and sometimes it's fiction but totally true. All I know is this: whatever I do say is somehow important, essential, necessary, honest -- to me, and hopefully, to you. Above all, I would like everyone to LOL as much as possible and LMAO or ROFL whenever possible and not to take anything too seriously.

Mostly I just want to make fun of myself and all the follies of my past & present and yours too, because life is obvs hands down totes RIDIC.

"I want to be consistent
with the truth as it reveals itself
to me," Gandhi said, and I felt
the hard permission right words give us
to disobey, to become ourselves.
I loved thinking that integrity
might be fluid, and still do,
though the indulgent, rudderless
and without shame, love to think so too,
and the truth is
the indulgent are my careless brothers
half the time."
-from "Loves," Stephen Dunn
*
*

Dan: When I get back please tell me the truth.
Alice: Why?
Dan: Because I'm addicted to it. Because without it we're animals.

-Closer, Patrick Marber

"You can doubt anything if you think about it long enough, because what happened always adjusts to fit what happened after that."

-Ani DiFranco, "Reckoning"

This is my weirdo story, for whatever that's worth, for whatever is true or untrue, good or bad, wrong or right, hidden or revealed, for whatever I've done or the ordinary events of my life I've converted into legend. I've obvs got more than this to say on the topic of truth, story, character, it's one of my favorites, clearly. But for now, this is like, the brillest vlog of all time. I'd like to subtitle it "a hot mess," and add, also, that there's so much brill footage from this one, there'll be another later this week fo' sho. Also, we weren't making out in the bathroom, P.S. and also I didn't ... who cares.

""None of us seemed to know the nature of the coincidences that bound us together, as I know now, or that junkies and masochists and hookers and those who have squandered everything are the ring of brightest angels around heaven."
(Rick Moody, The Ring of Brightest Angels Around Heaven)"

She's Got Similar Features, With Longer Hair

First of all, when I'm not at the agency, Stephen Barbara, AKA Rambo, AKA Mediabistro's HOTTIE IN PUBLISHING, misses me like Bobby Brown misses Whitney. Second of all, he's found a new lesbian (a real one, not a faux-lesbian like me who actually dates boys and is constantly starting sentences/long-winded fables with "so my ex-boyfriend...") to swap sexual innuendo with. And to make out with. In fact, it is fellow hottie in publishing. Apparently, like many high-powered politicians, they were brought together in the heat of a powerful moment and started making out like schoolchildren. See that head twist? Yeah you do.

I mean, Stephen and I never made out or anything. But I can say with 95% confidence that Stephen, like most men, had a vested interest in my sexual activities with females, and I discovered quickly that the only way to catch his roaming attention was:

Me: "Stephen do you want any office supplies from Office Depot?"
Stephen: (silence)
Me: "Stephen, didn't you say that you want manuscript boxes?"
Stephen: "Huh?"
Me: "Office Supplies. Making office supply order. Do you need anything?"
Stephen: (silence)
Me: Stephen, last night I fucked two blondes with fake tits with a ten inch dildo, do you need any manuscript boxes?
Stephen: "Uh, no, just a box of Pilot pens--what was that about the dildo?"

Second to "I'd love to make out with your girlfriend, check out that be-donk-a-donk" (his word, not mine), Stephen frequently expressed a burning desire to hear me say: "Guess what I did last weekend? Devilkitty!"

Speaking of ME, it's my birthday on Saturday. For Stephen's birthday, I purchased him a brand-new copy of the perennial classic "Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret?" because I thought it would help him understand the YA market as well as those funny feelings he gets "down there" and his overall yearning and anxiety for More. Hopefully he will get me something also spectacular.

Okay, also, could everyone please make Stephen their myspace friend?

Many of you may know that Stephen had a blog, called Rambo the Agent, which he discontinued because he felt he couldn't talk about the stuff he wanted to talk about on it. Right. I think you can see where I'm going with this.

Also I'd like to mention that, despite his J-Lo Glow evident in these photos, Stephen did not spend Labor Day weekend in Bermuda. He goes to Tanfastic in New Jersey.


The photos are from Rob Hogan, via mediabistro. Holla!