H & R! Haviland and Riese Advice Column #1: You've Got Feelings, We've Got Answers

Hello! Welcome to the first installment of H&R: Haviland and Riese's stunning advice column. This is where we fix all your problems instead of fixing our own. By default, we're answering the first five e-mails we received but keep 'em coming, and we'll keep on coming ... all over the keyboard. Also, P.S., my Mom is here this weekend, and she's: 1. watching some weird "Broadway Promos" channel where Mary Poppins is singing crazy, 2. Convinced I need to get a master's degree in social work, so that I can devote myself to advice. That's great advice. That's exactly what I need to do, is pour additional money into the University system, which's so far proved immensely useful. Anyone want a ten page paper on the rise of the modern American novel? I'm selling it for $10, it's a buyer's market. 3. Is now telling me that I need to begin this column with a disclaimer that we are not mental health professionals, we are "literary" and "humor." If you have a real problem, you should see a professional. Like my Mom, the social worker.

Mom: "If someone asks you advice about killing themselves or killing somebody, you need to direct them elsewhere. People take things seriously and they will find you and track you down and kill you. If you think I'm joking or exaggerating, I'm not. You think I'm being overdramatic, don't you?"
Me: "No! I'm trying to transcribe, you're talking too fast."

Got it? Okay!

Also -- we'd like to invite you -- the reader -- to chime in with your advice if you've got it. Also, this is sort of a test run. Hav's coming out to NYC in a few weeks, so we'll do an advice vlog for a few special questions, and we're gonna cover some questions on ichat, etc. So send us more questions, we need more questions, more! more!

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Dear H & R,

My new boss recently relocated desks and is now sitting next to me. Her ringtone is 'Clocks' by Coldplay, and every time I hear it ring I want to throw myself off the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Her taste in music is severely affecting my time in my cubicle. My co-workers have advised that raise this issue directly with her, however confronting people just isn't how I roll. If you could suggest a more passive aggressive solution to my problem then it would be well appreciated.

-Cold for Coldplay

Dear CFC,

Haviland: Confront. Srsly. Try this, "hey, would you mind turning your ringer to vibrate?" You obviously need to learn to be more aggressive. Do it with a smile, and your boss will understand. She's being very disrespectful to have a cell phone ringing in the workplace, anyway! This happens in dressing rooms all the time, and the best way to go, for sure, is just to ask nicely. I'm all about the direct approach. (of course you could just say, "oh em GEE!" every time it rings, but like i always say, why waste that kind of time?)

Riese: Although I'm a big fan of passive passiveness and aggressive aggressiveness in relationships w/friends, I fully support passive aggression in the workplace. What Haviland is suggesting is the kind of thing you might do if you were a confident, pro-active, forward-thinking problem-solver with a great deal of poise and direction. I'm not like that, I'm a wimp at work. Let's go:
1. Find out what music she hates the most and make that your ringtone, then set your phone to email alerts so it'll go off all the time. I can email you all day. Oh wait, I already do, Secret Person. She'll get so annoyed that she'll start to question her own behavior.
2.Next time it rings, grab it and throw it against the wall and go 'I HATE COLDPLAY!'
3. Start playing "Clocks" by Coldplay on an old-school boom box on repeat all day so she can't tell if it's her phone or the boom box. And if she's like "Stop playing Clocks on repeat all day, it's annoying," say, "Funny you should mention that ..." and so on.
4. All of those things take longer than just confronting, but c'mon, what else are you gonna do at work? Work? Right-o.

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Dear H&R,

My girlfriend is moving cross-country to live with me (we've lived together before, so those dynamics are worked out). So, what should I do to make things easier for my girlfriend when she moves here? I worry pretty equally about the outcomes of either forcing her to hang out with my friends endlessly (whether she likes them or not) or leaving her at home alone all the time while I go socialize. Not that I don't think she'll make her own friends, of course, I'm just worried about the transition period between cutesy I'm-so-glad-you're-finally-here-let's-do-everything-togetherness and normal (somewhat separate, I hope) lives. Any advice would be appreciated.

-Full House

Dear FH,

Riese: So I have this theory which's that people expend the least amount of effort possible at all times in order to make it from sunrise to sundown without slitting their wrists. Which's just to say that if she gets on w/your friends straight away, she'll probs never bother to make her own, and then you'll be trapped in a 24-7-togetherness that'll eventually lead to either double suicide or the end of sex. I think you must ask yourself: "Do I truly want my girlfriend to attend this social event? If we didn't live together, would I invite her?" and if the answer is "yes," then invite her. But if you start inviting her for any reason besides a genuine desire to have her there (e.g., obligation, wanting her to feel included), that'll get unhealthy fast.

I did the cohab thing once. Howevs, 'cause I'd cheated on my boyfriend with a pledge at his fraternity as a prelude to what I saw (incorrectly) as our impending breakup, I was actually formally prohibited from attending his social gatherings. Then about four months post-cheating, he went out of town and his "brothers" invited me over and ragged on him all night and I had an a-ha! moment. Was there a point to this story? Oh, then I dumped his ass and his "brothers" helped me move out. Don't let that happen to you. Hey-o!

Ok, enough about memememee. Also, totally JK'ing, I just wanted to talk about myself and be humor, that would never happen to you, speaking of you; let's get back to you. Leaving her at home alone won't do anyone any favors, 'cause she's not gonna make new friends with your couch (howevs, there is the internet!). Work or school will be the best area for her to have a life separate from yours. Also, make out frequently and when she arrives, answer the door in nothing but whipped cream.

ALSO! (omg, I have so many feelings about this) If it's a big group gathering, you never know who your gf will click with. Maybe she'll end up being besties with a peripheral friend. Magic social evolution! KaZAM! It's not bad to have many of the same friends as your girlfriend, it happens often, just try to be aware of it happening organically instead of by default, if it does.

Tinkerbell says that your girlfriend wants a vodka-tonic and a back massage.

Haviland: I basically agree with the Riesling, except I haven't had the experiences of which she speaks, with the frat boys, etc. The main thing is to make sure you're still living your life, even while she's entered it. You absolutely do want to make her comfortable, but not at the expense of making yourself miserable. Make sure she feels like your place is also her place, and that can be as simple as picking out some cute things to decorate - candles, throw pillows, autowin collages, whathaveyou. I'm hoping she has a job, and she'll be able to make friends there. In any event, you should talk about this with her - tell her your concerns and that you are excited about making a life with her, but are cognizant of being too codependent, and want to keep your relationship great and sexy and honest and healthy. Hopefully she'll be respectful of your alone time with your friends, she'll meet her own, you'll have date time, alone time, etc...and it'll all work out. Just keep those lines of communication flowin'. (Did I just say that? oy...)

Riese: The main thing is to be sure you make an effort to maintain some romance and mystery -- a romantic night out is often less romantic when you witness your partner preparing for it, instead of seeing her just show up looking fantastic. Don't pressure each other to check in all the time (it's nice sometimes to go to Wal-Mart w/o your SO knowing you're going to Wal-Mart) and be sure you have lives just separate enough so there's still stuff to talk about. Like don't be "How was your day?" "Um, you should know, you were there for the whole thing." Etc.

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Dear H&R,

How can you make people attracted to you without always having to be the friend... i.e., I would rather not be Ross to the Rachel, the Will to the Grace ... In other words ... what do I do?

-Friend Without Benefits

FWB,

Haviland: Oh, honey, haven't we all been here! You can't make anyone like you, dear - it'll just happen. If you're into someone and you're not sure if they reciprocate, flirt a little bit and try and figure it out, or ask one of their other friends. Leave a little "circe" (gift) at their place or at their work...nothing too romantic at first - better if it's sweet and/or funny. Make sure whatever it is can later be sluffed off as being a friendly gesture, but also, something that, if they are into you, they'll think is super sweet. If you find that they aren't into you, let it go! Don't waste your precious time obsessing over someone with whom it just ain't gonna happen!

Riese: I think what Haviland is saying is "lower your standards." Howevs, I think you can sometimes win someone over by showing them (subtly!) you can treat them right (if that's what they want) ... or by making yourself indispensable to them, like make them super codependent on you and then be like "look, either we take this relationship to the next level, or I'm outta here," and then they're like "fuck, I better keep you around otherwise who's gonna make dinner?" Mostly, I'd say that you need to talk about other romantic exploits (make some up if you don't have any) to make yourself seem like you're being desired by people all over the world.

But srsly, the most attractive trait a person can carry off is confidence. If you don't wanna be slotted as a "friend," then you need to be someone who knows what they're doing. Don't confess anything embarrassing or radiate neediness or inexperience right away. That'll come later, once you've already had a few rounds of riding the hobby horse wink wink.

Also:
1. Axe Body Spray.
2. Be mysterious and aloof, or better yet -- mysteriously aloof.
3. Didn't Ross & Rachel end up getting married? Just sayin' ...
4. I believe a great pop song once sang, "I can't make you love me if you don't, I can't make your heart feel something it won't." Right? Yeah. Think about it -- you can't force someone to be with you and you wouldn't want to. If they don't see how fabulous you are, then they're not the "one," 'cause "Thinks I'm fabulous" is a very important trait in a partner.
5. Get drunk and go to Manhunt.com, it works every time.

Haviland: I agree about the confidence thing, but the other advice? hm...maybe the axe body spray...this is a very good idea.

Riese: Secretly, I think my brother wears Axe Body Spray. And for someone with my genetic makeup, his luck with the ladies is not too shabby.

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Dear H&R,

I've been with my girlfriend for about ten months. We're good together. The only problem is, she bites me. Really hard. I don't know how to explain away neck and shoulder bruises. What do you suggest?

-Bitten

Dear Bitten,

Riese: Listen up, Semi, I told you to just say you fell down the stairs! Oh wait -- ten months. NM. Um, okay anonymous Bitten, if you were my friend and you had neck and shoulder bruises and I was like, "what are those?" and you went, "my girlfriend bites me. Really hard," I'd be like HOLLA! and give you a high-five, and then we could go to the record store and have a few beers, maybe listen to some rock n' roll, etc.

But seriously, I think you need to make up a story -- like tell your girlfriend, "OMG, so apparently everyone at work has been chatting about my shoulder and
neck bruises and they think that you're like, abusing me, or -- I dunno, everyone's looking at me funny and thinking i have some sort of sordid secret life. So you have to stop! I know it's hot and fun, but I can't explain away these bruises forevs!" or something. Also, are you sure she's not a vampire and she's actually eating your blood? I think there was an L Word episode about this.

Haviland: I don't know about "making up a story." I'm never a fan of this. Do you like the biting? If not, then just ask her to stop, that you're into her, but not into that. If you do like it, you should just ask her to take a nibble on all the places that people at work won't see. What I would do is tell her she's really sexy (make sure to boost her up, so she doesn't think you're putting her down) and all the true things you love about her and her biting, but tell her you're afraid people are staring at your bruises. Suggest some places to nibble that aren't so visible.. In any event, talk to her about it - tell her this is kind of hard to bring up (obvs it is if you're writing to us about it and not just talking to her) but that it's important to be honest, because you do really think the relationship is great and that you're good together. This is a minor thing. The thing is, if you're in an intimate situation, and your mind is on "omg there she goes with that - how am i going to explain it this time?", then you're not really being all that intimate, and your mind is taken off of her. And don't you think she wants it to be on her and how good she's making you feel? So, thats the deal...communicate.

Riese: While we're on the topic, FYI ... DO NOT TOUCH HAVILAND'S FACE."

Haviland: "Do NOT touch my face."

Riese: "I just had another idea -- coat your body in poison, like people do when they don't want to bite their nails."

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Dear H & R,

I came out to my parents two years ago, when I was 18. My mom's Cuban (w/very strong religious beliefs & "family morals") and my Dad had just been getting back into religion again. My mom stopped speaking to me for five months and my Dad thought I should let go of all my sins so God would forgive me, but I don't like being forced into religion ... or anything. Also, they asked me not to tell my younger brother, who was 15 at the time, and I agreed to wait 'til he was older -- I guess I wanted to give my parents something.

Last November, I put my foot down. I told my Mom I didn't want to just be "tolerated" and I had a right to tell my brother and so I did. He said he kinda already knew but it was still weird and when I tried to talk to him about it, he'd just shut down.

To make everyone else comfortable, I never talk about being gay or about girls I find attractive, but it's getting to a point of ridiculousness. Today I was driving my brother home from school, listening to Katy Perry's CD -- she sings "I Kissed a Girl" and "UR So Gay" (although Perry herself is straight). My brother FLIPPED OUT and asked me to change the song 'cause the last seven songs have been about "that." He can't even say the word "gay."

I love him so much and I'd do anything for him, but I'm getting so tired of trying to make everyone else comfortable while sacrificing being myself. I don't ever overstate it or throw it in anyone's face, and I never would, but I think listening to a song that mentions girls kissing each other or uses the word "gay" shouldn't be a problem.

Am I overthinking this? How do I approach my brother w/o him shutting down? Do I have a right to feel the way I do?

-IM So Gay.

Riese: Do you live at home with your parents? I feel like maybe you feel a little guilty for being gay 'cause they've told you to be, and that repressed self-loathing enables you to not feel you've got a right to actually be a whole person and demand that your whole person be loved and respected like everyone else.

Have you had a girlfriend? I'd suggest that you find a smokin' hot girlfriend who's totally into you, and then bring her over, and your brother will think it's hot and your parents will be like "omg, there are lesbians who don't wear flannel and chop down trees with hairy armpits," and she can win them over, etc. Actually I think what I am describing is a prostitute (not a bad idea!) In general ... I think it's hard to live your life feeling any kind of guilt for how you've chosen to live it. You'll never be able to feel fully comfortable in your skin until the people who love you can look at your skin and your face and your whole self and say, "it is good."

Haviland: I have a lot of feelings about this. Do you have anyone in your extended family or family friends who could be your ally on this, and help you to talk with your family? You need a team. Sadly, many, many people go through what you're dealing with - a family who believes fully in the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. So you're left feeling that if you even reference possibly thinking someone might be attractive, that you are being sinful and inappropriate and wrong. YOU ARE NOT WRONG. It's amazing that you told your mom you didn't want to just be tolerated -- maybe you can take it a step further and get her help on this? I think it freaks out families to think of their kid/sister as being gay because it, annoyingly, puts their mind into thinking of that person (you) in a sexual situation, and no one wants to think about their sister or kid having a sex life. What's important for your family to understand, and MORE importantly, for you to really be at peace with, is the fact that being a gay is really not a big deal. Really. Instead of dating a guy, it's going to be a girl. That's all. Align yourself with an ally or two, or 100. They are out there. You've found a blog full of them here, in fact! Didn't Jimmy get the memo that lesbians are hot? Send him the links to our websites! I'll leave you with this, from "Silent Legacy" by the Queen of being guilt-free about who you are, the extraordinary Melissa Etheridge, "Mothers, tell your children -be quick - you must be strong. Life is full of wonder. Love is never wrong."

Riese: I think you need to ask your Mom what it is precisely that concerns her -- is she worried you'll be poor w/o a man 'cause women have unequal earning power, or that you'll be ostracized, or is she legitimately worried that you're going to hell? Confront those concerns head-on. (Directly to the forehead.) Also, I feel like a lot of homophobia stems from the homophobic person being angered by/ashamed of their own gay feelings (a.k.a. The Fairbanks Syndrome) (see also: the evangelical Christian preachers getting blown in gas station bathrooms). 'Cause sometimes we're all a little bi. Ask your brother what exactly it is that bothers him -- is he embarrassed? Grossed out? (and if so, point out the idea of thinking about him having sex with a girl also grosses you out). Maybe if they're just worried what other people will think, you can offer them your closeted behavior around their friends and family in exchange for love within your immediate family. Or say you understand they don't approve, and that that'll never change, but you'd like to be able to be yourself around them, and that accepting you doesn't mean they're backing down on their beliefs. Ultimately it's their problem -- you've got no problem with how they live. They're the ones creating all this drama.

They need to know it's not their "fault," and that it's not gonna change. Show them books and movies and shows and Ellen & Portia! As long as you internalize their loathing, they'll get away with it -- they probs still think you can change, 'cause they don't understand that it's a part of you that you can't change. Once they do, they'll realize they've got two choices: accept it, or loose you. And the art of losing is hard to master, no matter what Elizabeth Bishop says.

FYI; there's nothing in the bible against lesbians. Just -- so you know. As Ruth told her gay son in Six Feet Under when he came out; "I don't get to chose which parts of you that I love like some kind of chicken."

Haviland: Yes, asking your mom what scares her so much would really put the ball in her court. Also, the more I think about it, I feel annoyed by everyone always saying that they aren't flaunting their sexuality or whatever - like as though you are walking down the street naked, waving a pride flag? I don't really get this. Most lesbians I know are pretty boring, actually - they live in homes, some of them have kids, many of them engage in gossip and obsession, not unlike seventh grade girls...but basically, if "flaunting" it means just being cool with who you are, whats the problem with this? I used to feel awkward about holding my girlfriends hand in front of my parents. But then I had to think, ok, if this were a guy, would I feel awkward? Well, probably. But the point - when you are passionate about something, don't you want to share it with the people you love?

Riese and I obvs have SO many feelings about this, and since I've been thinking about it for 15 years (srsly, I'm not kidding about that), I have a lot to say, and I feel like many of our readers might have thought a little about this, too! So, let's continue this dialogue!

So Watch Your Head and Then Watch The Ground, It's a Silly Time to Learn to Swim

Though I honestly never sat through/paid attention to/understood The Matrix and therefore never grasped its widespread appeal, I frequently employ "there's a glitch in the matrix" to describe how life's going. E.g., this week. April is the cruelest month ... and so on. Disclaimer: I've been a little feverish for a few days now. I might just be talking crazy.

Life today isn't all that similar to life a week ago. Things keep happening that don't make sense, that seem wildly inappropriate, inspiring metaphors about being underwater and existing inside giant cottonballs.

Yesterday: my head felt like the moment the jets turn off in a hot tub ... a durrrrring pool of disappointed/subdued dumb bare skin. I didn't even do auto-fun! There's auto-fun in this post though, it's at the bottom, and footnoted throughout. I'm playing with it.

Does this happen every late March/early April? Last year, my entire life fell apart in about four days. In '06, I lost Lo & gained Haviland. '04: his other girlfriend & I paid him a surprise visit to tell him what we knew, '03 I fell head-over-heels for him in the first place. But those events (which ultimately in the scheme of things are fundamentally unimportant, as concentrated and personal as they are) aren't what I'm talking about --

it's more like when you walk outside and feel like everyone else outside has been transported to earth just that very morning, and you're still fumbling about like you've lived here for years.

Maybe we're still stuck on semesters, compelled to begin transition this time of year. I still call the last two weeks of December "winter break."

Some people I once knew seem so far underwater that I'm fairly certain even if I strapped on an oxygen tank and got all deep sea diver about it, I'd probs just hit my head on a coral reef (I can keep going with this metaphor ALL DAY, all night, watch me go!) or get hugged by a dolphin (yeah! That's my way of saying "this can be good or bad or neither." Dolphins! Manatees! I speak the secret language!)

And then; the most random people showing up in my inbox. Or on my facebook ... (1).

Yesterday I couldn't think/update (synonyms, maybe) 'cause it was my fourth morning running on no sleep 'cause every morning I'd been woken up by this noise, which I so kindly recorded for you because I am: 1. insane, 2. bitter:

boomp3.com


So I figured I'd do the things I'm usually too anxious to sit still and do: I got my hair did by a trannie named Mariah from Texas. Now I look like a Bobsey Twin, which's fine (I've just been avoiding mirrors). I'd like to solve some mysteries or whatever it is that they did, first mystery: wtf?

Yesterday's weather was impossibly, aggressively sunshiney. I've been waking up from crazy dreams and then lying in bed for impossibly, aggressively long periods of post-dream reckoning -- the things that happen in my subconscious battle reality for possible truths. (Also, duende. (2))

You have plans, or something to say, and then a whole day passes where you have nothing at all whatsoever to say in a way that feels selfish and stark. Sometimes circumstances get you down (3), sometimes you wanna stop (4), but luckily I am a compulsive over-share-er and cannot ever stop (5). Obviously. I must breathe, blog, pay taxes ... (except that I just realized, err, I haven't paid taxes. Maybe I should. I think I'll contribute to the purchase of one soldier's pair of socks. Ideally, a schoolbook, but let's be real here, this be George W country.)

So my swamp-turtle mind felt the world recognized my silence and responded in kind -- my Blackberry was a little, silent turtle with nothing to share. Then I accidentally dropped it, turned it back on, and it exploded with everything I'd received that morning and afternoon at once. Also it's deleting messages at random.

Also a stranger just called me and left a voice mail recording of the news announcing airline-related information. An accented voice goes: "Hello? Hello?"

Last night was the book party for Dirty Girls at Sutra (6) (6a) (6b) ... I managed to rally for about three hours before feeling feverish again. For the first of those three hours, Alex and I got lost somewhere between chinatown, soho, the lower east side, the east village, and bangladesh. Luckily I like to walk. (7)

(Next week! "In the Flesh" at Happy Endings Lounge!)

**

The first glitch experience happened in 2000 -- it started when all my tips from an eight-hour lunch shift at The Olive Garden were stolen, meaning I'd just served approximately 545 unlimited soup salad & breadsticks lunches for fun, which's funny in that not-funny-at-all way. I came home to find roommate Sarah in a hot panic -- she'd just done the same thing w/her Blue Water Grill Lunch money, couldn't find it.

So what do I do -- I meet Meg at a The Columbia Cottage (Chinese, uptown, free wine) to drink 'til I forget about it, then jet to Times Sqaure to see The Matrix with a boy, paying just enough attention to grasp the glitch concept and then therefore apply it immediately.

"What are we doing?" The boy asks as he walks me home.

"What are you talking about?"

"You and me, what are you doing," he asks. "I'm 27, I don't play games."

About twenty blocks later he kisses me. (Reader: I'm nearly 27. Do I still play games? Did I then?) I sit on the steps and wonder how that happened & what I'm doing.

The next day : still woozy. Woozier still when Sarah & I choose a champagne brunch ("Are you celebrating something?" Um, yes, being served though we're only 18? But instead, this raw deal: we toast "To the future!"). 3 P.M. hits and I'm napping.

Apparently I'm still woozy when I wake up @ 6 p.m. and buy a plane ticket to Paris for no reason.

Ryan calls; he's fucked up an audition, this never happens, he feels disoriented and confused and do I want dinner before our friend's birthday party? I do, we do, and circa midnight, Ryan and I actually fall asleep on a couch in the pulsing downtown nightclub Roxy. We wake up confused, he wants another drink and I don't so we squabble and I flee home. Sarah's there.

"What are we doing?" Sarah asks.

"What are you talking about?" I respond.

"With our LIVES," she responds, but I know. I already know. We're college dropouts. We serve bad food, lose our money, sleep & drink. Her harp collects dust in the corner. I sometimes use my laptop for AIM, when the dial-up's working. What happened to all the self-important yearnings we had in boarding school, still so fresh on our sad young literary tongues? (8)

Later, I'm lying forlornly on my bottom bunk when Ryan arrives home and joins me (his bunk assignment is "top"). We apologize for fighting over nothing. He tells me about his fruitless gay bar hopping and flavored martinis.

"What are you doing?" He asks. Like, why am I so often sick? Why all the throwing up, all the almost fainting starry-eyed surprises? Why aren't I reading enough? He then tells me everything I'd ever wondered about, like what happened (with us) in high school (what were we doing? trying to be straight?). He answers all the questions I'd never have asked and then he gets to the point ... the real secret is: he loves me so much that he even admires me, and he demands I do more. Admires me? Why?

I tell him: "I don't know what I'm doing."

He knows: I'm serving Fettucine Alfredo, kissing boys who don't read books, sleeping mid-day and buying plane tickets to Paris just to see if I can (I can).

"You need to take yourself seriously," he says.

Across the street, The Beacon Theater's back doors extract happy, solid, stable people. Though I suppose they'd probs think the same things we'd been thinking if they'd seen us from their window: "Those people are happy, and know what they're doing."

But we don't.

For the first time since dropping out and moving to the city with Sarah (who has her own room), Ryan and I sleep together in the same bed of our bunkbed. It's a tiny thing, but we sleep like angels. (9)

**

I think they finished drilling the holes in my sidewalk, finally, so I slept last night.

I'm pretty sure my stomach is lined with something toxic like rubber (and you are glue, which is why everything we both eat bounces off me and sticks to you).

I considered the master cleanse, 'cause I feel like there's just something off inside me, but the way it was described to me made it sound like it'd probs make my ass bleed more than a night at Babylon with Brian Kinney (yeah, I said it). Also I think I said I wanted to do it when Stef did it and Cait said "Don't do it!" and I said, "okay."

I went to the cheap Chinese massage place yesterday, which's like China, only smaller. I was too in the zone to even think about the thin curtains and the other people, the lack of privacy. I honestly just wanted to lie there forever, as it seemed to be the only place on earth that might demand nothing from me. Simply by lying completely still, I was doing my part.

Basically, here's the symptoms: hot flashes, nausea/vomiting, cravings for strange foods, inexplicable breast growth (without the corresponding overall body-growth), sluggishness, moodiness ... possibly I'm preggers, which'd be impossible unless on the off chance that I am, in fact, Marie Magda-Lyn. For all you heathens out there, that's a reference to the Immaculate Conception. Not to be confused with The Immaculate Collection, Madonna's best album.

I like this poem. (10).

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quote: "When I think about it like this, I can't help asking myself, "Where is there any logical consistency in the world?" I don't know -- maybe the world has two different kinds of people, and for one kind the world is this completely logical, rice pudding place, and for the other it's all hit-or-miss macaroni gratin. I bet if those tree frog parents of mine put rice pudding mix in the microwave and got macaroni gratin when the bell rang, they'd just tell themselves, 'Oh, we must have put in macaroni gratin by mistake, or they'd take out the macaroni gratin and try to convince themselves, 'This looks like macaroni gratin, but actually it's rice pudding. And if I tried to be nice and explain to them that sometimes, when you put in rice pudding mix, you get macaroni gratin, they would never believe me. They'd probably just get mad." (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles)

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links:
1) Facebook Gets Frisky With Your Most Feared "Friends" (@ny observer)
2) Peggy Munson writes a playlist to her poetry book (@largehearted boy)
3) Dan Savage: "I just fucking can't." "At a Loss" (@the stranger)
4) Emily, formerly of Gawker, does an Obituary for Personal Blogs (@guilt & pleasure)
5) Your Guide to Internet Oversharers (@gawker)
6) Babeland says that my story had them at hello, which makes me feel special/glad to be the first story in the book. (@babeland @dirty girls virtual book tour)
7) Converse Turns 100 (@the smart set)
8) Why Does it Take So Long to Grow Up? (@The American Scientist Online)
9) Prologue to "All the Sad Young Literary Men" (@n+1)
10) Embarrassment, by Brenda Shaughnessy (@poems.com)

I was asked to "claim" my profile by posting this link:
Check out my Blogebrity profile!
(Of course, now that I have, I've started caring. Which is surely a symptom of something parasitic.)

People Made of Paper: What I Learned From The TV #2

i. Auto-Straddle South of Nowhere Recaps:
Why have 10,000 things to do when you can have 10,001 things to do? Beginning August 10th, I'll be recapping The N's South of Nowhere with Carlytron on Auto-Straddle. ["Chase," your attendance is expected. All other NYC-area quasi-lesbian-television-watchers, your attendance is appreciated.] Go to Auto-Straddle for more info on this project, which ideally will take 85% less time than The L Word recaps, otherwise I'll be spending massive amounts of time indoors during my favorite season, autumn, which is significantly more depressing than being trapped by "Papi's Rules of Poker" while winter and its associated discontents rage outside my dark, dark window. Cause I can't be like "Well, who wants to be out there in the blizzard anyhow?" I'll just be like "Lets go play in the leaves and pick pumpkins! I mean, make screencaps!"

ia. Unrelated.
I miss Michigan in the fall. There were always nice leaves and apples, pumpkins, etc. Also, back then, I looked forward to my birthday as each passing year brought me one step closer to additional life privileges. Now I'm like: "Ew. Gross." Or, rather, "What if, for my 25th birthday, I went to Nation and kissed 25 girls ?!" [Haviland's idea, obvs. Holla!] I was clearly really excited about being allowed to rent cars. Also, sidenote: I've matured so much since then. For example, the idea of kissing 26 girls on my 26th birthday is totally unappealing. And, because Nation is Nation, it'd be the same girls, probs. I just want to put this out there: I would like to go to Chuckie Cheese's this year and kiss 25 Skee-Balls. Okay. Feel free to coordinate a planning committee to deliver on this deliverable ASAP [It is a constant struggle to not constantly bust out in HR-speak right now, as I've been doing a lot of HR copywriting over the past week. And should be doing more. Right now.]

ii. The Reading at the KGB Bar.
So, Tuesday night, I did this reading for this book I'm in called "The Bigger, The Better, The Tighter the Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image, and Other Hazards of Being Female." I sat in the back with Cameron and Krista & Pete, and couldn't see anyone, which's funny, because it's an anthology about beauty and body image and I was really honestly curious to match physical selves to writings-about-physical-selves but could not, for the life of me, see through the masses to the readers at the podium.

Howevs, the essays were even funnier out loud, even if coming from ghost voices, and afterwards, a lot of people said nice things to me, and I signed some books [SURREAL!], and verified my social-interaction disability by being like "I thought you were gonna read!" to the editor of the anthology, who actually DID read, and I remember LOLing, but I didn't know it was her, because I couldn't see. I honestly was paying attention, laughing out loud, enjoying all the works. Also I honestly loved her essay in the book, which I actually read. [seriously.]

iii. Another Reading.
If you missed it, here's a surprising chance to redeem yourself: I'm going to be reading something [seriously, I have no idea what and probably won't until approx. an hour beforehand, drunk, and late] at the Young Artists' Lounge at 365 Days/365 Plays, which I was invited to do by the lovely Jaime/Surplus. Once, there was this GLBT blogger gathering Curly McDimple put together, and when Curly asked if I knew any other queer bloggers to invite, I suggested Jaime even though she's not a lesbian. That was one of the highlights of my career/bad habit in bloggetry.

iv. Chronologically, we are now returning to Tuesday night, the night of The Reading at the KGB Bar.
Afterwards: Carlytron missed the next train to Jersey, Borders was closed, and thus, we settled to do a few laps around the squares loosely defined as Manhattan's Inferno (Penn Station and it's environs). It was, actually, a perfectly temperate night, though the streets were cluttered with kids heading back to various pockets of Jersey to upload their new city-outing SUMMER BREAK '07 photos to facebook ...

Carly: "I love television, and I'm not ashamed to admit it."
Me [genuine]: "I admire that."

And then I thought about writing this segment, and how it is, indeed, frowned/scowled upon to say: "I learned stuff from the TV!" because on so many levels, especially for children, it's a damaging, world-destroying medium. But it's not, often, the shows themselves that are inherently damaging as it is the way in which they're presented and scheduled and often surrounded by/infused with advertising, bizarre promos, randomly inserted news clips, etc. [I've already talked about this like, 100 times, don't worry, I'm stopping. No rants against the miserable state of the universe today. Happiness! Light!]

I thought, maybe I should do "What I Learned From Books," just to be sure I'm still smart. Then I was like, oh, BFD, um, I learned EVERYTHING from books. That's like writing "What Nutrients I've Consumed From Food!" Then I felt better about myself because I put everything into perspective. But also: I realized I am not smart.

Like this is where I learned things:

50%=Actual Life
35%=Books
10%=Internet
5%=Everything Else

v. What I Learned From the TV, Part Two

*
The Real World:

On The Real World I learned that pretty girls get their hearts broken, too. I was plagued with fairly severe Insecurity as a pre-teen, and remained convinced well into my teens that all circumstances surrounding my "love life" (my term, then), popularity, ability to make friends and overall success in Middle School were directly correlated to my [real or imagined] decline in physical attractiveness. Somehow, seeing the pretty girls on that show get rejected or be subject to adversity, I was like, Oh, pretty girls have bad things happen, too. Pretty girls are not happy, either.

It was validation, in a way, our first example of how "real" people "lived" in a visual sense. We've always been able to read about the lives of others, but those are controlled narratives--controlled, generally, by the writer themselves. [Like this! Holla!] But this show was different ... it was all the worst bits of us clashed against other bad bits of other sorta-good people and then sliced together like intersecting razorblades, an ingenious social experiment. I mean, seriously, you pick seven strangers to live in a house together: the naive Midwesterner, the tattooed rebel, the Angry Black Man, the moody spoiled musician, the beautiful ambitionless blondes ... this was before the Internet, even, before it was easy enough for a gay man in Idaho to discover there were other gay men in the world just by turning on his PC.

It was before ignorance became criminal rather than circumstantial.

Now we're over it; practiced, complacent, numb. But once upon a time, it felt like people were getting real: like a sophisticated voyeurism, one which transcended the narrative determined by the specified scope of a documentary film or TV program, because it had no purpose besides the immediate validity of everyday life. Now it's The Real World: Gammorha. It's like they just pick people who're likely to get drunk and make out in a hot tub. Is that actually interesting? I can't sit through it. The people get less and less interesting, more clear-skinned, hornier, drunker, less "real." [If they are real, that sucks, I quit.]

Of course, I woulda loved to see what it's like to have a conversation with a stranger surrounding by television cameras and a boom -- I think it's the people around them who actually prevented "reality." The person being followed by the camera, unable to acknowledge it's existence, incorporates it into reality eventually. But to those who are not around it and suddenly become so, their actions are, if anything, the opposite of real.

Also that parody they did of it on Dave Chapelle was like, one of the top 10 comedy sketches ever.

Also, I loved Jacinda. She was like fluffy candy packed together in the shape of a pretty girl in a shimmery scarf. I also loved Dan in Miami and Norm from New York. Elka was beautiful and I cried my eyes out when she went to visit her mother's grave. When Tami got an abortion in LA, I was like, note to self: do not get preggers.

We got addicted to London and wanted to be on it, wanted to live in London with an edgy boyfriend like Neil. Wanted to be Jacinda, god, wanted to be Jacinda, wanted to sleep with Jacinda, wake up with Jacinda and her cute accent. Would've given anything. I thought about London all the time, when I wasn't thinking about New York, or what'd it be like to die. I liked that it was rainy all the time, even. I plotted my escape constantly.

Boston was my favorite season. I think Genesis was the first femme lesbian I ever knew of, really. Remember how that guy's girlfriend's name was TIMBER? I'm gonna name my first daughter TIMBER and then have another kid and name it PAUL BUNYAN.

Tangent:

Reality TV was like what we had before the Internet to see what it was like to be someone else when not reading a script, and a way to see it immediately, beamed into your space, in a way books can't be because you have to go out of your space to retrieve it, and then select it. The TV comes to you when you want it, and I feel often that's more of an effect on it's appeal than anything about visuals. Because clearly people can and do read, we read voraciously online. We read online because we're used to television: to getting the exact content we want without getting off our lazy butts. Actually my butt is not lazy, so really I'm talking about most people, not special people like me.

My So-Called Life:

They did the literary name drop all the time; Shakespeare's Sonnet CXIII was the most memorable. This's the first time Jordan Catalano ever participates in class, because he totes knows why Shakespeare's mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun. Actually, Brian knows ["She's not just a fantasy. She's got flaws. She's real."] but Jordan takes a break from his illiteracy when the teacher inquires: "So, Shakespeare's not in love with her?" Jordan's like: "Yeah. He is." There's some grammatical subject-agreement issues with Jordan's response, regardless of meaning, but still, it's like, really romantic, like when someone looks into your eyes and sees straight into your soul. I re-created this scene in every screenplay/teleplay I wrote as an adolescent, using other works of literature in class discussion to bash my audience over the head with my point and sound smart, like I read books.

Here's an example from my screenplay, "High on Life," a thinly veiled dramatization of the actual relationship between a boy I had a crush on and a girl I had a crush on. He was "troubled": did drugs, skipped class, etc. His girlfriend didn't know how to help him. Life is rough for upper middle class white kids in cushy liberal Midwestern college towns, you know?

EXCERPT FROM 'HIGH ON LIFE,' MOST EXCELLENT SCREENPLAY AND BY THAT I MEAN MOST TERRIBLE, COPYRIGHT REE-REE 1996

MRS. MEIR: How do you think Ismene feels? Heather?

HEATHER: I don't know. Scared?

MRS. MIER: Sort of ... Anna?

ANNA: She kind of feels like, helpless. She knows what's gonna happen to Antigone--but it's like, she can't do anything, or talk to anyone about it, 'cause no one can find out about it.

Even Kyle is quiet now. Everyone is listening. Her friends understand what she's really talking about.

ANNA: Because if someone found out, she knows that'd be like a death sentence for her sister, and she loves her sister a lot and doesn't want her to get into trouble. But her sister is just being so--stupid! She doesn't understand the consequences--well, she knows them, she just doesn't think they like, apply to her. She thinks that it'll be okay, that it's worth it. And Ismene just has to stand by ... and watch her sister go down.

MRS. MEIR: Excellent Anna, excellent.

There is silence in the classroom.

Deep, huh?

My So-Called Life also used Our Town beautifully; it still makes me cry sort of. And it was when my BFF and I were on the outs, and we'd been in Our Town together, I was the stage manager and she was Mrs. Soames.

Queer as Folk:

I used to wish I was a gay man. I don't know why, really. I think I just liked their style. I'd get jealous if I watched movies or TV shows about gay guys because it'd just make me wish I was one, and I couldn't be, which's totes annoying.

I know I'd find Brian Kinney less hot if he was straight, I'd find that dance scene ending Season One less romantic, less Top-Ten-Best-Scenes-Ever-Worthy. In fact, I'd probs find him chauvinistic and unkind, but it's so much different without the inherent power dynamics of heterosexual relationships, the centuries of unkindness between the sexes that erupt under the lights of a relationship, no matter how brief. [Disclaimer: I don't think I'm right or anyone else should think this. It's just how I feel about it. Today.]

Queer sex is hot. Maybe it's 'cause we're bombarded with so much explicit heterosexual imagery that I've become numb and bored of it, maybe it's that I've just come to find the process of creating sexual energy without the inherent biological puzzle-pieces offered by man/woman much more compelling, but given the choice, I'd hands down totes prefer to watch a man-on-man sex scene than a woman-on-man sex scene. It's transgression; it's deviation, it's Tina's special secret club and it's back rooms and it's largely unexploited at this point, if you don't seek it out.

Or, even if you do: it's paltry, it's insufficient, it's the tip of ten thousand superior icebergs.

Or else it's just hot, that's all. It's still fun and fresh, which's rare on teevee now.

When I watched QAF I didn't want to date Brian Kinney. I wanted to be a boy and date Brian Kinney. I was about to write: "He'd probably break my heart," but no one ever thinks that'll be them, that guy with the broken heart, right? You're going to change Brian Kinney. You'll be the one to break Jordan Catalano or Shane or Brian Kinney right open; and you can't do that simply by getting them literally naked, because we all know they'll do that for anyone. Maybe that willingness for physical revelation is what makes the illusive, walled-off interior so much more appealing. It's our least logical, most destructive selves that convinces us to pine for hearts like Brian Kinney's: hearts fit for deviant art.

But maybe that should be enough? Just the company, sans expectation.

*
"We are gasping, quiet, in the dark, and then the wash of violet and night tornadoes through my legs and up behind my eyes, plumbs and spirals my spine, and I know if I can keep feeling like this I'll be okay, if I can feel like this I'm not dead, I won't die. Life is sad. Here is someone."
(Lorrie Moore, Anagrams)
*
life is sad. here is someone.
*

But no one ever really changes, not for long, right? You can't change people. But people change me all the time. I think that's because I don't know who I am, or, maybe, because I don't like who I am a lot of the time -- otherwise I'd be more firm, probs, about keeping myself intact. Consequently, I tend to think I can change people, too. Don't we all want to get better? As people? I mean, isn't that the point?

Isn't that why we tell these stories? Because we like character development? We want to see people develop? Evolve? We are static, physically, glued to couches to watch stories which're all, really, transformation stories, and then we're hopeful that one day we, too, will break into blossom, will resolve the disaparity between our faltering egos and our wild, ambitious capes, flapping aimlessly behind us while we fly blindly, straining away? I still believe that--dumbly or because I have to in order to go on--that we can and will change, that we want to get along, that we're not stubborn, judgmental, stagnant, that we want to make each other happy. That we've not become too self-centered as a human species to ever truly create relationships of all kinds with other humans, to be selfless, to believe in the radical idea that someone else might have a better idea, that judgment is tricky business because everything's relative ...

I didn't learn that on teevee. I just made it up.

*

... Once upon a time there lived a girl. She slept in a lovely little cottage made of gingerbread and candy. She was always asleep. One morning she woke up and the candy had mold on it. Her father blew her a kiss and the house fell down. She realized she was lost. She found herself walking down a crowded street, but the people were made of paper, like paper dolls. She blew everyone a kiss goodbye and watched as they blew away ...

The L Word Season Three, Episode 4 Recap on Automatic Straddle Blog

So this episode is called "Light my Fire." Personally, I like my "fire" "lit" by hot sex and compelling dialogue, but that's just me. Actually I wrote a novel in 8th grade called "Fly by Night" about this homeless pyromaniac girl. It was inspired by: The Boxcar Children, Stephen King's The Firestarter and Dicey's Song. Although my talents at that age were questionable, I would actually argue that the dialogue in said novel is (was) perhaps a little bit better than some of the dialogue in this particular episode of The L Word. Anyhow.

We open at one of those De-Gaying group meetings, the kind with the folding chairs and the dogma and all the nervous homos who usually look about as straight as Emmet Honeycutt in his Jackie-O outfit. We segue quickly to a bed (I wish I had the chance to use that transition more often in these re-caps) where Agatha (the nun from last week) is getting it on with another de-gayed girl and a dude who tells them that this is "better than hell's fire." As far as lines-to-get-girls-to-have-a-threesome go, that's just above "It's my biggest fantasy to see you with my ex-girlfriend" and below "I just think two women together is a beautiful thing."

P.S. Isn't everything better than hell's fire?
P.P.S. Jesus, being the heterosexual man I believe him to be, would probably agree that a threesome is better than hell's fire. I think.

Lesbian Sex Moment #7: Threesomes: Better Than Eternal Damnation?
The Players: Agatha, Frank, and another ex-gay.
The Pick-Up:"Jesus hates the sin between two men much more than that between two women."
Hot or Not?: I'd like a little less hell-fire in my sex, thanks.


Lesbian Squabble #9: Too poor for firewood. Must burn "Bastard out of Skokie."
In the Ring: Little Prince and Jenny.
Little Prince comes home to find Jenny throwing a draft of her novel into the fire.
Little Prince: "I hope you backed that up on your hard drive."

(I wish she hadn't said that, because actually it draws attention to the fact that she is burning a manuscript which she has printed out somewhere (maybe en route at a "typical small-town lesbian copy shop"), which is essentially meaningless--or, rather, it is only meaning--it is symbolic, but has no actual real-world repercussions. She's not like, burning her computer or something. In any event, where else would she have saved the document to begin with besides her hard drive? LP obviously means external hard drive, but even then, it's more or less irrelevant.)

Jenny: "Where the fuck were you?"
Little Prince:"I was hanging out at the beach, look, I was like I was sleeping in my truck, you know, I was trying to figure out what I'm doing here in L.A."
Jenny: "What are you doing here in L.A?"

(Good question, Jennifer. We are wondering the same thing, because I.C. has failed to provide even the most minimal backstory on this particular relationship).

Little Prince: "I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing anywhere, I don't know who I am anymore actually--"

JENNY MOMENT!

Jenny:You know what, nobody knows who they are. You know? That's what life is about, you walk through life and you try to figure it out and you probably won't figure it out.
Little Prince: It seems like you know who you are.
Jenny:Absolutely. I am the picture of togetherness and sanity.

You GO GIRL! Jenny, you rule so far this season. Your lines have been pretty spot-on. I kinda like--like--you. You kinda remind me, sometimes of me, but I almost like you better than I like me (not hard to do).

Continue Reading and Comment on Season Three, Episode 4 Recap on Automatic Straddle...

Season 5, Disc 5: The End of my Friendship with Emmet Honeycutt.

OR, The Real Reason why I Won't Let Anyone¹ Be my Netflix Friend.

Potential Netflix friend: "Wow, so uh, how's it going with Season Three of The O.C? Three stars, that's it? And only two for Once and Again? I never get any recs from you. I mean--I saw that you've got Just My Luck in your cue--
Me: ThatsforHaviland!!!!
Friend: You really should give Goddard a chance.
Me: Did he write Ally McBeal?
Friend: No, he's French.
Me: Oh yeah, the waiting guy.
"Friend": The what?
Me: You know, "What are you waiting for? We're waiting for Goddard--"
[Friend punches me in the face with North by Northwest, which p.s., I hated but not as much as I hated Citizen Kane. I mean, it's no West Wing.]

Some of my favorite inventions of the last ten years, as you may or may not already know, include: Easy-Mac, ipods and Seasonal Affective Disorder. But one of the really big ones is TV-on-DVD. Like how you can watch an entire season of a show in two days, depending on how big of a loser you are how bad your insomnia is. Your gumption for this project is also closely related to your general ability to handle the following conversation:

Co-Worker (let's call him Milton): Hey mister, you look like total crap! You must have had quite a crazy night last night, huh, playa?
You: Oh, no, it's Ted who has the Crystal Meth problem. He really hit rock bottom last night.
Milton: Geez, that must have been some party. Meth! Geez!
You: Party?
Milton: Yeah, with uh---Ted?
You: Oh, no. Ted lives in Pittsburgh.
Milton: You went to Pittsburgh last night? You ARE a PLAYA!
You: No, I was in bed eating string cheese and push pops. And watching TV--well--not TV exactly, it's actually on DVD that I get from Netflix--but it's like--very real to me, you know?
Milton: (laughs like you just made a joke) Did you even brush your hair today?
You: (grab co-worker by the hair, kick him in the balls) Say NO TO PROPOSITION 14, BITCH!

Basically, I'm on the last disc of the Queer as Folk series and I consider these boys to be my friends. I have only one episode left. What will i do without my boys? I've been known to anticipate going home after a mediocre night out, expecting to chill with Brian Kinney and Mel+Linds. They have invaded my consciousness. Hour-long television dramas were not designed to be watched all in a row. Doing so can cause bad things, like confusing my actual family with The Fishers from Six Feet Under or confusing our actual government with Jeb Bartlett's White House on The West Wing. Which has it's benefits.

My old roommate, Lo, was a master of rationing episodes of television shows, which she often watched twice (once with commentary, once without) to extend the pleasure. I have no such self-discipline.

Ok, there are three different types of TV shows you can watch on DVD:

"I've never seen this show, but it's still on."
e.g. The O.C, Nip/Tuck, Grey's Anatomy, The L Word, Lost, Gilmore Girls
Benefits: When you are out of DVDs, you know that a new season of new episodes will arrive on your television set within a few months. The stories are still progressing. Nate has not died yet. Life stretches before you: glorious, promising, beautiful.
Drawbacks: The pace of the show as it unfolds on actual television will feel like you are on Weight Watchers and whereas you used to eat the entire pizza in one sitting, now you can only have one piece a week, and that's not a lot of calcium, and you're a growing boy, etc. After my relationship with Shane progressed so rapidly during Krista and I's week-long L Word Season One marathon, Season Two felt like slow water torture.

"I never saw this show when it was on, and now it's over."
e.g. Sex and the City, Queer as Folk, The West Wing, Dawson's Creek, Six Feet Under, Party of Five.
Benefits: You've got so much episode backstock that you're bound to get at least a 1-2 month relationship with these people. For a sucessful network show, like Dawson's Creek or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you've got several months of escapism on your hands. And it's so sweet, like candy from a baby.
Drawbacks: The story is over. Nate has already died. Jen died too. Everyone is dead. Or married. Or like, moving. Somewhere. To sad music. Usually you also like, already know what happened, too, which kinda spoils it. Or makes it better, like knowing that Justin and Brian would eventually get married enabled me to make it through the rough spots of their relationship without panic.

"I never saw this show when it was on. Actually, no one did really. So it got canned."
Once and Again, Freaks and Geeks, Wonderfalls, My So Called-Life
Benefits: Access to the complete series means you can pace yourself appropriately, there is also rarely a wait. If it had a good run, you've got some time with the people.
Drawbacks: Shows that have been unceremoniously canceled usually don't have that grand hoo-hah known as the "Season Finale," which is when everything that would have ruined the show and made it boring in Season Two gets to happen to let us all end happy, or when someone dies from licking envelopes.


Moral: Jordan never really figured out how to read, and Brian never got laid, but at least they never died.


¹: While living with Lo, she became my Netflix friend. Recently Janet made the same request. So, you know, there's that. Luckily, for every foreign black-and-white film, one of them gets the entire first season of Ally McBeal or, you know, Firm Up with Weights. But I'm not naming names. I'm just sayin'.

Sunday Top 10: We Want and Want Yeah, We Want

First off, I know it's not Sunday but I'm doing the "Sunday Top Ten" as if it actually was Sunday. Recently, actually at 10 A.M. a few days ago, Maggie said something interesting to me while eyeing a salacious glass of Pinot Grigio: "Maybe I should just like, fly somewhere in a different time zone, where it's night-time, and I can start drinking there and then come back here in time for night?"

So, simmer on that.

When Natalie lived in Manhattan last year, she managed to work out at New York Sports Club approximately 3-4 times a week for a period of five months without purchasing an actual membership. She also did not purchase a printer to print out the free one-week passes she procured via e-mail (my not-so-trusty Epson CX 6400 is often mistaken to be "Office Depot" by my printer-deprived friends (also, they sometimes go to the actual "Office Depot")) and subsequently presented at every NYSC location on the goddamn island.

These grand swindles, which I never do myself because I'm pretty sure I'd be that crazy girl who got herself "escorted" out of the "facilities," are pulled off by Natalie with complete finesse. Perhaps that is because she is charming and I am insufferable. Although the two of us pulled off the joining-the-health-club in Michigan as a lesbian couple trick (even though I was dating a male gym employee at the time), which was notable.¹

NR's latest feat? For the last several months she has been living in London and using a MacBook by taking advantage of the Apple Store's two week return policy. She would take one, use it, email herself the files and return it. Get a new one. Rinse, Repeat--at the London apple store, they even knew her, and had her brand new rental available upon her arrival. She is now doing this in NYC, thanks to that lovely Apple Store.



"You know how you're pretty sure there's like, just one thing that you need that probably is the reason you can't move forward in your life (aka get a job, get a life, etc), and if you just had it, everything would change? That's how I felt about like, faster internet, and thus, the MacBook."-Natalie

And that's how I feel about a sundae cup, right now, but both delis on my blocks are out of sundae cups.

TEN THINGS THAT I NEED BEFORE I CAN POSSIBLY GET MY LIFE OFF THE GROUND, I MEAN, I NEED THESE THINGS, REALLY:

10. MacBook: I gave birth to my ibook 1.75 years ago. Now it's all worn out, I mean, the keys have no letters. All the cool kids have a Mac Book. Photo-Booth is possibly even a better invention than EasyMac. The lighting in this camera is really just divine! Look at what I did with Natalie's MacBook for approximately 45 minutes too long!:



9. New Teeth: White shiny ones. Or whatever. Veneers. Braces with purple rubber bands. Somethin'. Make me sparkle.This photograph could turn you on. I don't know why, but the same thing happened to me, so you don't need to be ashamed.

8. A desk that isn't in my bedroom. My bed beckons. Perhaps I ought to change into sweatpants. Perhaps that could be the thing. Perhaps another room would be the thing, or perhaps an eggo waffle. Let me go into the other room and think about that waffle. I shut my door behind me, pointed like a radar for the syrup.

7. Blackberry/Treo To avoid more phone calls by writing more emails. Possible side effect: re-orientation of obsessive on-the-brink-of-heart-attack energies into breakable cold gadget, but who am I kidding? I'm alive, I'm lightning! Bring on the heart palpitations!

6. To Be Eloise: I think my life would be best executed at the Plaza, like Eloise. I would like to eat pudding from goblets, I would like a nanny, I would like a tricycle garage, I would like to swing my feet. Like Eloise, but older, and less adorable.

5. A Sidekick: Not the T-Mobile kind, because something about T-Mobile has always seemed a little impotent to me, but someone in tights to handle the tough things. Like: calling Verizon, organizational things, fixing broken things, preparing large parties, laundry, going to balls, massage, taking me to the park, telling me I'm pretty, flying, seeing through walls, etc. Basically what I need is Bat Girl with a splash of Donna from 'The West Wing." LovinLyman.

4. A job that pays me a lot of money A wealthy husband or wife who takes a lot of vacations. Like, is almost always on vacation. Almost as if they didn't exist at all. Except to give me back massages and feed me grapes. Or actually, get someone else for the grapes, and someone else for the back massages.

3.These Shoes. I'm not kidding. Channukah. Size 9.5.

2.A Samantha Doll Oh wait. That's what I wanted when I was eight. And I GOT IT, BITCHES!!!
1. A DVD player that records screenshots: I'm gonna re-cap 'The L Word: Season 4' on this blog when the new season starts, which will undoubtedly grab the Grand Prize for "How to Consume As Much of your Life as Possible on Fuckin' Blogger Dot Com," which is the top horseman of my backwards race away from Ultimate Glory, but also, is a short term fix, like tricycle trips.



¹ The "Lesbians are Families Too" amendment to the constitution of overpriced membership at our Michigan Athletic Club was prompted by a lesbian couple who didn't understand why other serious non-married couples could be on a family membership but they could not. Who was that couple? My Mother, and [redacted]. My Mom: Crusading for Gay Rights/Bargains like Debbie Navatni, even before it was trendy to do so.

Sunday Top Ten: People I Really Wanna Ziggah Zig AH

Because my whole life is in a state of utter disarray, I can't think of anything "witty" to write today. So, in the spirit of the "In the Flesh" reading on Wednesday that everyone who is reading this right now should be at if they have a soul:

TOP TEN PEOPLE I REALLY WANNA ZIGGAH ZIG AH*
(as in "So tell me what you want, what you really really want, I wanna (huh) I wanna (huh) I really really really wanna zigazig ah," from a poem by the Spice Girls)

10. The entire cast of Dawson's Creek

The N, my favorite network (that's where I learn to talk like a 13-year-old), is presently (seriously, right the fuck now) rocking my socks with their "Degrassi Every Episode Marathon" for the next 5 weekends, but they are going to start showing re-runs of "Dawson's Creek" starting tomorrow, y'all! I took this quiz on "The N" called "What Dawson's Creek character are you?" and I'm Jack: "Even when you're in one of your quiet, anti-social moods, your friends know they can always turn to you for sensible, straightforward advice." They left some stuff out though, like "Jack is a homosexual." If I was 12 and "chatting" on The N and I took this quiz and it said I was like Jack, I think I'd pretty much know what that meant. But that's why I don't work for The N. I work for Jesus.

9. But More Specifically, Pacey.
I'm still really sad that Tom Cruise is screwing up Joey so bad. Joey should still be with Pacey!

8. Brian Kinney

I've been watching "Queer as Folk" which makes me want to be a gay man (this is not a new thought). I remember reading that Shane's character was modeled after Brian Kinney. But, unlike scrawny ol' Shane (who I love, of course, despite her lack of assalicious action), Brian Kinney is more or less physically my ideal man. Tall, brawny, sexy, hair to grab, cute ass, and my heartstrings feel super-tugged-upon when he's cute with Justin. I wanna be a gay man and have a one-night stand with BK and he never ever ever has to call me again ever.

7.Christina Aguilera in her new music video, "Ain't No Other Man"

Seriously, hottest thing ever. Everyone vote for it in That MTV Music Video Awards Show that basically launches a full scale advertising assault on NYC every goddamn summer.

6. Beh-Beh?

I don't know what I want more from this particular advertising campaign from bebe: to be Mischa Barton, to have Mischa Barton's shoes, or to do Mischa Barton. Whatever it is, I probably can't afford it, but it sure is nice to think about.

5+4. Chandler Bing + Josh Lyman = DOUBLE TROUBLE!!

Last night, Hav and I enjoyed the fruits of my Netflix subscription in the form of a DVD containing the pilot of what is officially our (our=all cool people) New Show of The Year, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. So, Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry, who are like, the Gods of SuperMale Friendship on Television (Josh+Toby, Chandler+Joey), are playing a writer-director team in charge of a sketch comedy show, the SNL of L.A. It's gonna be fan-fucking-tastic. They even use "West Wing" font! This is the best casting decision ever (runner up: Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in that long music video thing based on "Romeo and Juliet" by Shakespeare).

3. Elvira Kurt

She was on the Rosie Cruise and she was on our bus from the Seattle airport, and me and Hav concurred that she looked/dressed like an older Shane. She was with her partner and their cute baby who will be funny too because they got sperm from a gay guy comedian (also the baby will probably, I'm guessing, also be gay. Gay is OK!), even pulling off an amazing set on the night everyone was puking on each other because of the tsunami. She was interviewed on afterellen.com this week. Sorry, I just wanted to talk about the cruise again. It was so much fun!

2. Paris Hilton
Jeremiah texted me and said I reminded him of a "smart Paris Hilton." What the hell is that supposed to mean? "Open Minded Dater"?
(J, if you've figured out how to use computers I want you to know that I love you even though I make fun of you. And you remind me of a smart Flava Flave.)

1. People Who Did My Survey
The results are as follows:
Skinny jeans are pretty slammin' on the right person so I should probably get some since I am the right person,
only one-third of you go tanning as much as I do which means I'm gonna die,
everyone is crazy and most of them are in therapy,
a little more than half of you are livin' large like me (aka in debt)
everyone reads books which means you are all going to heaven with Jesus,
only 22% of you have Never gone homo,
Boy Crazy Stacey is Our American Idol but most of you never read the book anyhow,
29-30 is too old to shop at delias and I should stop eating the cookies,
and you're all wiped, wired, unhappy but having fun and guarded.

In other words: I am not alone, just like Michael Jackson always told me.