So Yeah, WE DID. (See our Planet Harlem Obama Party in VIDEO). You Lose Some, You Oughta Win Some!

Last night = obvs a historic occasion. Not only did I slice my leg open (re: your questions in the comments -- that's defo not the blood dripping down, I literally did get sliced from knee to ankle) but Barack Obama WON the election AND -- inspired by these events and vodka, I willingly traveled TOWARDS, rather than away from, a large mass of human beings congregated in one small space. Not only this, but said human congregation was at the intersection of 125th & Adam Clayton Powell, in New York, NY, one block from my old apartment. We made you a video about it! [below] And it was beautiful, so fucking amazing, there's no place on earth I would've rather been. A jubilant & incredibly diverse crowd -- our collective joy broke into blossom, turned into amber waves of grain, and will now fed our hearts and souls forevs and evs. We did it!

I've really enjoyed, deep in the little embers of my ever-loving heart, reading your comments last night and today. You're all so special and warm my heart, seriously, you've all said such amazing things.

You know when you can't help but SMILE? I hear this happens to other people all the time, but I am a tin-man/vampire, so.

OMG! How many "omgkfasjdaklj" texts did you send last night? OMG, i KNOW! Me too!!!

As for Prop 8 -- the fight isn't over. That's all I can talk about right now, as I don't think I can handle any bittersweet in my sweet today. I'll deal with it, I'm not gonna block it out like I did with other childhood traumas, a psychological coping mechanism that made me into the batshit crazy person I am today. I'm gonna deal with it like later on tonight or this week. Tegan & Sara, btw, are leading a prop 8 protest rally in WeHo tonight. That's amazing. I love America!

Also, nice job Palin. You are so over, we need a new word for over.

Every now and then, there comes an event so magical, and so huge, that I don't feel I can do it justice in any way except to run around the streets and scream with people. Mostly, I feel you've probs read enough of my words and the words of others today. C'mon, you know how I feel my feelings today, obvs.

So I've made you a video. We took the camera last night but weren't that good at filming important stuff, but you know how I like to turn straw into gold. And by gold I mean "goldplated" but it's the thought that counts.

It's a little corny, I have some of Obama's speech in Grant Park there as well as footage from our jaunt, which you witnessed in writing last night as I live-blogged. A;ex and I went next door (our friends are my neighbors!), got Chase & Ang, and went right to Planet. Obvs. Among other amazing things I overheard was "Who's house is it?" "THE BLACK HOUSE!"

Also, this guy walked past me and said "You need some change, right?" in a burst of enthusiasm and I was confused, as was Alex, I was like "is he saying that I'm gonna be the poor one now? If he is, that's kind of amazing and awesome, but why is he offering me change? Is it my outfit?" and then I realized he was talking about the other kind of change. You know, THE CHANGE WE NEED.

[Great article about Rachel Maddow in New York Magazine, P.S.]

You can see some of last night's brill insanity. Wheeee!!!!!


Also, an update on my leg -- it still looks pretty much the same, perhaps slightly worse, but is beginning to scab. Stay tuned for more updates!!!

we hold these truths to be self evident i cannot stop thinking about our next president

I can't seem to talk or think about anything besides Election 2008. If you've recently dared to speak at length to me about anything besides the election, I was probs jonesing for a little talk about health care the whole time.

You: "I had a bad day at work."

Me: "OMG! Mr. Palin wants Alaska to secede from the union! Can you believe it?"

You: "I feel like my boss never listens to me."

Me: "SECEDE!! From the United States! Sarah Palin's HUSBAND!"

How can you think of anything else besides. Election. 2008. at this pivotal! moment. in our country's history! I've prepared a graph for you of some of the things I've ever obsessively thought about over the years. I didn't include "myself" 'cause obvs I think about myself all the time, that's a given.

i.
"The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village."
(Marshall McLuhan)

Maybe it's 'cause I've been living in Haviland's apartment, where it seems only natural for MSNBC to be on all the time. 'Cause my roomie's out of town so I've got the place to myself. I sit in the living room facing the television, eyes peeled open like the potatoes I'd like to throw at Sarah Palin's hair.

Or maybe it's just 'cause this is a pivotal TIME! IN ! OUR! NATION'S HISTORY!

Maybe it's 'cause I'm doing customer service work for a political advocacy group that sells/distributes campaign buttons and there's been a massive issue with a post office in the midwest who hasn't been shipping stuff on time -- and just today three people have threatened to vote McCain if they don't get their buttons STAT.

I prefer the slighted button-orderers who present conspiracy theories: Our first black candidate and things aren't going through the mail. COINCIDENCE? I think not.

I'm like, Hey, I think you're onto something there.
++
ii.
"In fact it was a better time then [when President Kennedy got shot], and people knew what they were supposed to do and how to make the world better. Now nobody knows anything. We know who's popular, or that social studies is boring."
(Angela Chase, My So-Called Life, 1994)

This is the kind of political obsession that I always imagined people had in other countries. You know -- countries with problems. Like they were starving or being bombed all the time.

But I passed through adolescence -- that crucial period where the heroes of Greek mythology often experience a loss of innocence -- during the Clinton years. Furthermore -- born in '81, I'd been raised to believe Republicans were evil and Regan was ruining everything, and I campaigned for Dukakis until my second grade teacher told me buttons weren't allowed in public school.

2000 was a huge blow to how I thought the world worked. I passed through denial to outrage to complete self-centrism, which is more productive.

Honestly -- I wasn't this worried in '04 'cause I didn't believe there was any possible way Bush could win -- polls be damned, I just didn't think such a thing was possible. He was really bad at that job, I've been fired for much less. I've been fired for giving out tequilla shots, but he can be responsible for the deaths of actual Mexicans and keep his job.

Now, it all feels so real. THIS IS A PIVOTAL! time! in our nation's. HISTORY!.

++
iii.
"you can keep the pentagon. keep the propaganda
keep each and every teevee that's been trying to convince me
to participate / in some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution."
-ani difranco

Have you read the Rolling Stone article about the duplicitous lying not-even-a-war-hero John McCain? If you haven't read that article I can't talk to you.

And meanwhile, let's say they "prove" that Obama and Ayers are friends -- then what? What's the point? It's like an essay that "explores" a topic without a thesis. Certainly their thesis can't be "Obama is a terrorist," 'cause that's absurd. But then again, so is the concept that any grown man would actually take action to ensure kindergartners learn to put condoms on those bananas before they eat them. I mean REALLY MCCAIN REALLY? No wonder you graduated second-to-last in your class.

But man it's hard to keep up on all this 'cause although Sarah Palin claims to be reading "all the magazines" -- I actually AM READING ALL OF THE MAGAZINES.

The New Yorker, The Nation, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The L.A. Times, the blogs and the blogs and Vanity Fair and Esquire and Good and the other fine monthlies of this fine country but it's the weeklies that really have the juicy stuff! Like current, but thorough.

When Palin said that, I thought firstly: "Man, she's never even read Ranger Rick."

Then: "Wait. But I AM reading all those magazines! All those newspapers! I mean I really am! And I barely have time to sleep and work, let alone vice-govern the country!"

During the debtates there's liveblogs on cnn, wonkette, jezebel and gawker all at the same time. I mean, that takes a LOT of time right there.

I keep up on these things in the 24/7 news cycle and here's how. Let's pie chart:

++
iv.
"it's nice that you listen / it'd be nicer if you joined in
as long as you play their game girl / you're never going to win."
(ani difranco)

I've been trying to put together something about Obama's campaign for this blog -- a top ten covering the issues -- that I made Krista and Natalie and Haviland help me write -- a "form letter" for you to send to your Republican or Undecided friends & family to try to change their minds. I've written half of it in rhyme, half of it in plain non-partisan speak and another random percentage of it in quotes & links. It is not done. Will it ever be done?

Haviland and I have completed several Palin vlogs, I twittered every possible minute of every debate on my twitter feed and using the Election 2008 twitter feed.

It's about right and wrong and the betterment of the world. But it's also for the first time, totally about memememe. And I'm not even talking about gay marriage.

Here's the thing: I'll lose my health insurance, and I'll lose the hope of getting any should I ever earn out of what I've got now, which I hope I will eventually. So if I lose my health insurance then I'll have to move to the Yukon, and I'll stop writing this blog, and then you'll have to talk to each other's faces, except you better be careful, 'cause no one would have health insurance, so you would all have cooties, and you'd all get colds, and be at home in your bed sneezing and then, then, who's a Maverick? Hey-o!

v.
"We must be the change we wish to see."
-Gandhi

Sarah Palin is not smart, not ready, not prepared. She doesn't realize feminism still has a fight, she's a religious extremist who doesn't believe in the separation of church and state. Just health care and state, education and state, and social services and state.

John McCain is a duplicitous liar who can't handle the idea that he can't just get this, like how he crashed planes and blew out the electricity in a country 'cause of bad flying and picked his outpost based on what kinds of strippers he could pick up there. His heroic act was not even heroic, you should read the Rolling Stone article. Besides even if it was I don't get what it has to do with anything.

Obama is a revolution.

I thought Biden ROCKED the debate. Not just in comparison to Palin, I think he got good policy points across, especially the Maverick monologue at the end.

So anyhow anyone who's worked for a corporate restaurant chain can tell you that no matter how regulated and constricted the position, a new manager will bring some kind of change. Of course John McCain will bring some new policies and strategies to the white house. But his intent is the same as Bush's, and intent is a significant portion of the law. He's not straight talk, unless you're the one in the room writing the check.

++
vi.
"Night-life. Letters, journals, bourbon
sloshed in the glass. Poems crucified on the wall,
dissected, their bird-wings severed
like trophies. No one lives in this room
without living through some kind of crisis."
-Adrienne Rich

ihate sarahpalin
ihhateaeaosdisarahpalin
i hate ann coulter
i hate elisabeth hassleback
and everyone
but mostly cindymccain evil eye
waawaa witchcraft.
AAA!

Hey, p.s.:

-The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system.

-In one of the wealthiest districts on New York's Long Island, the per pupil spending amounts to $11,265 annually. Meanwhile, impoverished sectors of New York City see only $5,590 per student--approximately half the amount funneled into the rich school districts.

-A recent study cited 80% of inmates in an Oakland jail could be linked back to the same three high schools -- all underfunded, low-performing schools in bad neighborhoods. Prison is far more expensive than even implying that their education matters to the country they live in by giving them books and fixing the walls.

-Our nation has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with everyone dashing before their turn to pay comes up. I don't know.

I could go on and so I won't. I wanted to give you my mind, but in writing. Maybe you feel similarly.

These attack ads -- it's like that thing they do at the end of a basketball game where they start fouling to get foul shots and then maybe the rebound? but that never works.

I just wanted to share my feelings with you because
I love America!

self evident
++

autophobia is "the fear of being alone." fun! today is 8-5-08

[sarah wilmner]
you should check out her website for real, it's kinda magical work she does

---

quote: "Perhaps her mother had never shown Abby affection, not really, but she had given her a knack for solitude, with its terrible lurches outward, and its smooth glide back to peace. Abby would toast her for that. It was really the world that was one's brutal mother, the one that nursed and neglected you, and your own mother was your only sibling in that world." [from ""Which is More I Can Say About Some People." by Lorrie Moore]

---

links:
1. FLIRT! is up! I made it! Watch it now! Starring Haviland of course, and featuring Daphne Rubin-Vega, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Rosie and Kelli O'Donnell, Anne Van Cleave, Andrea McArdle, Lillias White, Christine Ebersole, Seth Rudetsky, Tressa and many more! (@broadway world)
2. Clara. By Roberto Bolaño. Please read. It's short, I promise. (@the new yorker)
3. The Battery's Down! w/Havi-land and smokin' hot Cortney!: Episode 6: Ro, Ro Ro Your Boat (@battery's down)
4. 35 Beautiful Music Album Covers (p.s. I heart that pixies album, and the michael jackson brings me back to the 90's) (@smashing magazine)
5. Sam Anderson! How James Wood's 'How Fiction Works' Works: and why it sometimes doesn't. (@ny magazine)
6. 50 Sexiest Music Videos of all Time (highlights include Rilo Kiley,and the video for God-des & She's "Lick It" which's actually awesome and redeems its inclusion in The L Word. (@nerve.com)
7. I am really really confused about this: Irvine Welsh calls 'A Bright Shiny Morning' "an uncompromising affirmation of our humanity."? (@the guardian uk books)
8. In art and politics, 'elitism' gets unfair rap.: "Elitism" also is being sullied in the political arena, where Democratic candidate Barack Obama has been accused of thinking he's smarter than the average guy. To me, this is an astonishing attack strategy. Do we not want the president of the country to be smart? (@the review journal)
9. American Film is Obsessed with Teens but Try as one might to carefully slot teenagers, and adolescence, into designated cubbyholes, some part of the whole is too messy, too real, to fit. (@boston globe)
10. Thank you, finally, someone for agreeing with me: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: In Online Musical Serial, the Mad Doctor Is In (@ny times)

---

insomnia poetry #7

open letter to our parents:
we know you meant well &
wanted all best things for us
but wtf re: college?
no, not the college itself, not the learning?
but the certificate at the end, the receipt.
meet, greet, we've got the whole world under our fat feet
it's like clay, like a curtain.
I've got so much paper I should burn 'em.
I just want to be a hiro, kick past august three - zero

I'm starting a 'zine called "the yellow wallpaper."
I've always wanted to use the word "xerox" in a poem.
The word xerox / is in a poem.

Just so you know I think Haviland reported the earthquake first
to me on bbm. not that other girl on twitter.
She said something about it
I was saying something else
like a ship and an earthquake,
passing in a storm.
If you were xeroxing the earthquake
it would be smaller and darker, with little dots
are those people, or rocks?

---

So I was thinking earlier about Julia Allison. If you're not familiar with J.A., check out this month's WIRED cover story "How to Get Internet Famous (Even if You're Nobody)" on Julia Allison. I get her Twitter feed now. I don't know, I can't help it. It just keeps coming and I let it spiral out of control. Here's the thing: she has the platform to offer something compelling to the world. What is that going to be?

Like Julia, Emily Gould also writes, primarily, about herself, but she does so with an inventive and curious tone. Her navel-gazing aims for insight, hopes for a breakthrough. I believe Gould has a mission with her work, even if she's still figuring out what that mission is ... it's got something to do with what most of the best personal bloggers are looking at: the impact of pop culture, art, economics, feminism and sociology upon personal identity.

Like Julia, Paris Hilton is also famous for doing nothing, but she has a product to sell -- herself as an actress, herself as a clothing designer and so on. She's got heaps of money, which's a unique trait, and a sort of sassy attitude that can be interesting.

But Julia Allison has no mission. It's not even like she wants to make people feel less alone or sell her handbags to save the whales. She just wants to ... get more people around who want to talk about her? Her new website NonSociety has this mission statement: "Your window into our crazy lives. See what we're up to and what we have to say. Take it or leave it. We hope we inspire you to live differently." This is followed, of course, by a site map of self-indulgent conformist nonsense. It's the same way I feel about "The Hills" or "Gimme Sugar" : you appear to be the people I avoid in real life, why would I pursue you on the internet?

When asked why she does what she does, her answer is both telling and desperately un-interesting: "I'm a writer!" If I asked a Gap salesman why he sold khaki pants, I bet he'd at least try to talk to me about style 'cause "because I'm a retail salesperson!" is not gonna seal any kind of deal.

I always give female bloggers who blog about themselves, especially ones who are often already hated on by gawker and the like, the benefit of the doubt. But I don't dislike her for any of the reasons that gawker doesn't like her. I don't care that she talks about herself or wants attention or makes bad decisions in public. Those things can be pulled off quite eloquently (see: Emily Gould, Tracie/Slutmachine).

I don't judge her for putting herself out there -- but I'm intrigued that she doesn't have a point and she is in and of herself all there is to her. I wish she could get more weird and Elle Woodsy so she could be made fun of in a new/interesting way. My question for Julia Alison is "what's the point?" and the answer cannot be "Julia Allison." I think she could be so much more than she is. I'd like her to be the editor-at-large of The Yellow Wallpaper, my new 'zine. Since I'm much better at telling other people what to do than I am at getting my own life in order.

Anyhow. FLIRT BETTER BE UP TODAY OR I'M CRACKING SKULLS.

Sunday Top Ten, Part One: I Wish I Had a River I Could Skate Away On

It is a truth universally acknowledged that it's lame to open any piece of writing with a quote -- even a self-indulgent blog post (update for those not aware: as of May 20th, 2008, "blogs which employ first person narratives" are the default "lowest possible form of written communication/art," ranking only slightly above: emails from technologically incompetent grandmothers, the Yahoo! front page headlines, Goofus and Gallant, Nicholas Sparks novels, negative comments on youtube, text messages from pre-adolescents and the screenplay for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo). But it's also a truth universally acknowledged that the truth is a silly animal and there's no hunting allowed (we saw the signs this weekend), so I will persist -- I will open by quoting someone far wiser than I'll ever be. Although ... actually, I did just talk so much nonsense that the opening's already taken care of (opening with nonsense is punk and not lame), therefore I'm not opening with a quote, except that I secretly actually did. Hey-oh!

The Great Jim Harrison (The Legends of the Fall, After Ikkyu & Other Poems) once wrote: "One day. Standing in the river with my flyrod, I'll have the courage to admit my life." My writing teacher transcribed this quote in my "book" (I have this special book of my favorite poems & stories and I'd give it to friends/mentors to make a page or 2-3) underneath a 70's b&w of himself (my teacher). Above the photo, my teacher wrote: "Marie - Don't forget -- you owe me a big check so I can do a lot of thinking." See; I was supposed to get famous (due to my fingers allegedly being on the pulse of my generation -- a grave miscalculation), make money, and then send him to Montana where he could fish and think all his life.

Missoula, Missoula, Missoula, I'm yours. Eugene, your name is so terrible that you must be terribly lovely and green. I went to Ashland (same state), there were mountains, they were beautiful.

That's what they do (mountains). They sit there, look good.

I was upstate for Memorial Day weekend -- Alex's family has a cabin up there. Last night I came home. The sirens started after dark. A few, then a hundred, and then helicopters, then the people on the street with something to yell about and loudly. Seven innocent people shot, a few blocks away: "The gunman is still at large, and residents have been advised to stay in their homes." I miss East Harlem sometimes. No cab-drivers or delivery people or friends dared to tread into Sparlem, but people danced to music there. Here, on the West, music just thumps out of cars like it's fighting with the pavement, there's no dancing.

My favorite is NY1's article today, which ends with "two other unrelated shootings also happened in the area last night." (Subtext: "but we don't care.") -- shooting a 13-year-old boy in the leg? How the fuck does that happen? Seriously. How the fuck does that happen?

I don't know. And so, I keep talking about myself. Which I don't know either, but I know it enough to try to talk something. Crazy. Burma. Shoot.

Missoula, Missoula, Missoula, Santa Monica, San Francisco, Eugene, Tacoma, La Jolla, Raleigh, Anchorage, Chapel Hill, Concord, Santa Ana, Savannah, Interlochen, Missoula, Pierre, Charlotte, Colorado Springs, Mesa, Missoula, Des Moines, Providence, Montreal, Sioux Falls, Southampton, Escondido, San Antonio, Tulsa, Thousand Oaks, Topeka, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, Little Rock, Clearwater, Athens, Missoula. Those all sound nice. Literally.

One day, standing in the river with my flyrod, I'll have the courage to admit my life.

SUNDAY TOP TEN: Things I Used to do All the Time but Hadn't Done in Long Time, Until Recent Time.

TO BE COMPLETED IN TWO SEGMENTS
PART ONE : 10-6
*

10. Hiking in the Woods

Once upon a time, I didn't own a laptop case but I treasured my hiking backpack. The straps were adjusted for my then-narrow boyish hips. I needed help to cram a sleeping bag into its lower pocket.

Saturday I was standing in the river and remembered everything.

Specifically: rivers I'd crossed before, tents slept in, that wilderness survival class I'd taken at thirteen where I had to build my own shelter from tarp & sticks and sleep in it for three days (but! I was young and we got mooned by the boys. All we could see was leaf-shadows on pale pre-adolescent ass, but what a thrill! Mooning!), getting lost in the Smokies, trekking the Tetons, singing bad hip-hop with backaches and bandanas somewhere in Northern Michigan. Afterwards I'd forget how bad my back hurt and remember the Nalgene bottle and the smell of fire.

It's always bizarre to have dozens of strong memories of a certain activity -- a non age-specific activity -- and then realize the memories are all at least ten years old, like when you go to the doctor and they ask when your last physical was and you feel like it was probs last year but when pressed realize, omg, it's been way more than a year.

I missed the woods. Hark!

*

9. Gone w/o Internet for over 48 hours

In the week preceding our recent jaunt to Malibu, I'd been wallowing in an imploding and increasingly boring state of depression/anxiety. Haviland said there was no internet at her temporary Malibu digs but 'cause Haviland's technologically impaired, I took this to mean, "I feel there's no internet in my house, but also I don't know how computers work and therefore I'm sure that You! Riese! will find the magic key to wireless." Howevs, I was wrong, Haviland was right as she always is. (First rule of fight club is "Haviland is right") Ixnay on the interent. This weekend upstate -- also, no internet ... and nowhere to drive to and get it, either. And ... it was actually totally ... fine. In Malibu everything was shiny with big lapping waves, upstate everything was green and familiar and safe. Wireless, shmireless. Once the panic passes, it's a whole new kind of calm.

*

8. Talked to Strangers A LOT

In the past three weeks I've met Alex's family & friends, gone to two parties in one night, hugged Leisha Hailey and interviewed -- on camera -- a plethora of B-list homosexual celebrities. So, screw you, ex-boyfriend who said I had no social skills! (I mean, I don't. But whatever.) (Sidenote; nothing wrong with the B-list. I think I'm on the W-list or something, optimistically). I think waitressing was my old unreal social outlet, I miss it sometimes. Good workout.

*

7. Hung up On Someone, Over and Over

This technique, employed popularly by dramatic adolescents, can also be enjoyed by full grown adults, if the situation merits. Have you ever had a hang-up relationship? You know what I mean? I had one, 4-5 years ago ... it made me insane and anxious, 'cause I never knew when he was about to hang up and depending on the circumstance, call back or wait for my call back, etc. If I hung up -- would HE call back? How many times would he have to call back before I'd pick up? Vice versa? OMG how did this become my fucking life, etc.?

Once you get used to it, hanging up becomes really not so different from just saying something. As an adult, I feel it's only necessary when someone insists on saying things you don't want to hear. Or! You can take "hanging up" and raise it "hurling phone against the wall," that's fun.

I made the poor decision of raising the topic of Emily Gould's article -- and subsequently, the "self-indulgence-of-bloggers" debate -- with B.

B.: "You're such a good writer, Marie, and you have so much substance, and so much to offer --"
Me: "Wait, slow down. I'm going to transcribe this for my blog, because I'm very self-indulgent and want to air all my personal conversations in public. Okay, got it -- I'm at "so much to offer," keep going--"
B.: "Okay ... really?" [laughs] "You have so much to offer, and yet you're wasting your time on things that are superficial -- I wonder whether or not it ever occurs to you that your endeavors are not as fruitful as they might be, or that they might be superficial, or not be worth your time as much as other endeavors."
Me: "Like what?"
B.: "Like not writing for a body that needs to be entertained. About lip gloss and manicures."
Me: "I LIKE LIP GLOSS AND MANICURES!"
B. : "You say you feel empty, you might want to look at your work and ask why you feel empty --"
(I hang up)

B.: "What if I was your -- your creative writing teacher, coming to tell you this, would you listen?"
Me: "Yes."
B.: "Because of academia's institutions and --"
Me: "Because I'd take this advice from anyone other than you."
B.: "So it's just 'cause it's me."
Me: "Yes."
B.: "So, then, don't listen to me."
Me: "I'm not, when I do, it stresses me out and I can't write anything. Don't read my blog if you don't like it."
B.: "I'm only saying this -- and continuing to call you back when you hang up on me -- because I believe in you, weirdo, and I want to read your blog. I love your writing."
Me: "You haven't liked anything I've written all year."
B. "I liked that auto-portrait piece."
Me: "UGH. Okay, you didn't like anything besides that."
B.: "Okay, tell me what was the content in your most recent post?"
Me: "Nothing. Nothing it was totally irrelevant, worst blog ever, you should just read Elif Bautman and Arts & Letters and The Guardian UK and skip my vapid blog."
B.: "Just tell me what in that post --"
(I hang up)

And so on. Eventually we reached a truce related to different feelings about art vs. entertainment and clearly life in general. Whatevs. "Blog" is such a weird word, it sounds like "bog." Which is a swamp. "There's just no pleasing you, there's just no talking to you." (Ani DiFranco) But I don't know the answer to the question, "why do I do it?" The answer I gave: "I don't know yet." I'm ok with that. It'll be my final answer.

Seriously, I wish everyone in this neighborhood could just truce for like 20 seconds so that a solid hour of my life that could pass without the sound of sirens. I'd prefer to hear cows or chickens.

If I started an Emily Gould fanclub on facebook, I wonder if anyone would join it. Actually, that idea is probably so May 26th, and it's totally the 27th already. The slogan would be "If you don't like what she's doing, don't read it, weirdo."

Emily has spoken:

Q: Like you, Joni Mitchell was extremely self-referential. Many people liked this at first, but they eventually grew tired of it. When she finally stopped writing about herself and turned her attention elsewhere, most people had already lost interest and moved on. Do you worry that the same thing will happen to you?

A: Have people grown tired of Joni Mitchell's self-referentiality? I haven't.
*
(me neither)

*
6. Rode Bicycles

As I mentioned in "Top Ten Sport," bike-riding is one of my favorite life activities and has always been. Remember when you didn't know how? I can't imagine that anymore. I sold my bike when I left Williamsburg though and then the guy I sold it to emailed me and said that he'd fallen off the bike and was paralyzed for life or something and it was my fault for selling a bad bike. Except that I'd ridden it the week before, so whatevs, and also he test rode it around our 'hood before paying for it and riding away. Really I don't know what to say about that whole incident, it makes me itchy. Riding bikes in NYC is like Frogger. Riding bikes upstate, or along Venice Beach, is like perfect. Except for the inner thigh sweat and going uphill.

So anyhow, one day, standing above a river on a bicycle, I'll have the courage to admit my life -- lip gloss and all. For now; sirens, gould, self-indulgent english muffin eating. Ehhh. Scream.

Auto-Fun of the Day 2-4-08

quote: "I mean, it's time. It begins with us, not with politicians, the experts or the teachers, but with us. With you and with me, the ones who need it most. I believe with everything that's in me that the whole world is begging for healing ... the same kind of healing I desperately needed and finally feel has begun with you ... it's not game over yet, it's just the beginning, but it's up to you. I'm calling for every kid to seize the air. Steal it, it belongs to you. Speak out, they can't stop you. Find your voice and use it. Keep this going. Pick a name, go on air. It's your life, take charge of it. Do it, try it, try anything. Spill your guts and say shit and fuck a million times if you want to, but you decide. Fill the air, steal it. Keep the air alive ... TALK HARD!! (Pump up the Volume)
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links: Ask Not What J.F.K Can Do For Obama (@NY Times), L Word RECAP Episode 505: Lookin' At You Kid (@autostraddle), Love Rollercoaster (@nerve.com), My Wired Youth (@NYTimes Magazine)