Multi-Media (VIDEO and WORDS): Sacred & On Fire With the Same Force That Made The Stars (Live Through This)

[A few days before the day I moved out of Planet Harlem, Stef and Alex and I went to the roof to BBQ paper because when there's nothing left to burn, you have to set all your bank statements on fire. I made a video of it, and it's at the end of this post but it's not on YouTube 'cause it's This-Post-specific. We burn some crap screenplays I penned in 9th grade but we read them first. We're wearing clothes found in the netherlands of my closet and I was way too immersed in The Sads to bother with makeup or the hair-iron. This raw beauty is what garnered "When There's Nothing Left to Burn, You Have to Set Yourself on Fire" the Best in Show award at this years Festival of Excellent Films. Basically, it's like when we won the Uh Huh Her contest, but sans-prize-pack.]

One thing I've been noticing lately is all the people. I've always known this city was teeming with people -- people who live here, people who work here, and so on. But, for all I've spoken of Emily Dickinson and agoraphobia I didn't realize the precisely how self-centered & insane my Planet Harlem Apartment world had become until just now. 'Cause just now I've been thrust right back into people-world again, all at once and all over, like Dorothy landing in Oz except dirtier and with less choreography.

See, due to circumstances beyond my control (or so I tell myself to make myself feel better) that left me sans-home as of September 1st, I'm currently living in Long Island with Alex and her parents and commuting daily to and from the city for um ... Alex's job. Also, for about six weeks now I've been off the juice. JK ... kinda. More on this later.

Anyhow. In Long Island I wake up at 7, we get on the train at 8:26 so Alex can be at work at 9. By 7 P.M, I'm feeling boring and sleepy. The body beats out of habit, my heart isn't even warm. See, I used to be a superhero and no one could touch me, not even myself.

++

About six weeks ago my doctor switched up some of my meds. Though I'd been taking the same RX for about five years, I'd found a way last year to use those capsule-sized lifelines into a fresh & bad habit and it was killing me. I'd been disciplined and healthy with it for years until May 2007 and yet when faced with emptiness at that time I chose to fight chaos (unemployment, new home, strange schedule, changing social life, internet-world) with chaos. I was foolish enough to think I could establish self-discipline with undisciplined strokes.

I felt real good, but what good is it to be a genius superhero if you're going faster than the speed of light towards obliteration.

In the emo cave I was always chasing something, like I was in a race that was also a tape stuck in a loop. The nature of race was clear when I started it; I was racing to keep up with my ex's mania in hopes we'd eventually share a moment or two eye-to-eye.

Time went on, and though my problems changed, my behavior didn't. I wouldn't even notice how much crazy I was talking until someone came over, or a roommate dared utter a word to me. Any word, of course, sounded like "firecracker" or "boo!"

++

And that's why lately life has felt like some kind of shock therapy -- like I'm all cutting and no edge. All these people everywhere ... it gives me perspective. I'm one of millions, not one in a million, and now I'm forced to face how fucked up my whole existence has been for the last sixteen months until six weeks ago, maybe even longer than I want to say, 'cause there's so much I might never let go of -- and maybe I don't have to.

Also, I'm really tired now.

Falling asleep has been easier, but waking up is harder.

After waking up there's breakfast and then rush hour on the train. Once in the city, I've got no apartment to go to so I'm automatically surrounded by people and at their mercy so I'm modeling through the devil's baby in my uterus or vicious allergies. People, people and then more people in theaters, delis, restaurants, jostling for a seat at Starbucks, parking my body & heavy bag on the floor at Penn Station or Barnes & Noble or on Central Park's big wireless lawns where people are running & biking & beaming with beaming bright buoyant bountiful babies in expensive strollers, at the gym at rush hour with the people soaring towards absolutely nowhere like gazelles on thumping slick black exercise machines, and I'm navigating the rocky roads between hunger and longing-withdrawal and the library, the 1 train, the A, the C, the D, the E, the N-R, the 2-3, the 4-5-6. I'll go to Natalie's or see my therapist or when I go to this one job I go to I'll see those people.

The every train, The going and going more, next stop, last stop, stop stop stop.

And when I want to have a fit about something, like how expensive it is in the world, or how many people's cell phone conversations I've been forced to overhear, or how many private acts I've accepted that I must now do in public ... I just can't. I cannot have a fit in my car or my room. I cannot have a fit at all.

In me-me-me world when I needed a fit I'd go lie on my bed & cry & moan and stare at the ceiling hoping to break through and throw or stare or scream sharply at my phone with despair, refreshrefresh refresh inbox (1) fucking a it's the goddamn hrc again. I'd think about breaking walls like I've said before but I never did break any walls 'cause I couldn't afford that kind of security deposit.

It's not that I never left when I lived in P-Harlem because I did. But ... when I did, usually Caitlin would pick me up in a car so I'd avoid all the people, and I always felt safe with Caitlin, wherever we went. And anyhow usually we went places to see other familiar faces.

Those faces were anchors grounding me safely distant from the kind of social anxiety that builds up when you've not spoken to a stranger in days, when you've not only been inside your own head for too long but crawling around in it, building a new library in there and scaling the walls and jumping from its roof. Anyplace unfamiliar gave me paralyzing fear but now that evens out over the day 'cause I'm forced into society so much that each little encounter is no longer The Only Social Interaction With a Stranger of my day. So there's less consciousness and pressure, it's no longer this minute but just the way things are.

At the end of the day I'll see Alex and at Penn Station late at night there's so many people, like the girls who are still wearing the things that girls like that wore in the mid-nineties which makes me feel like nothing changes except the brand of expectation clinging to their longings.

++

When I read posts from last summer and autumn I can spot the times that I was beetle-buzzing through my own brain like a run-on hornet. Details, linkage, obsessive proof-reading and revisions. Words and more words.

And so I was reading Sam Anderson's obit of David Foster Wallace, and he says this:

"For Wallace, a thought could never actually, in good conscience, realistically, be finished — there was always one more reversal, one more qualifying clause, and an honest writer had to follow them out. Hence the famously never-ending sentences that spun off, even more famously, into never-ending footnotes. The black hole of his self-consciousness drew everything into it, even and especially self-consciousness itself. But that compulsion to be exhaustive was, apparently, exhausting."

I can't -- and don't intend to -- compare myself to Wallace. He's a genius, I'm a weirdo. He's published & famous & legendary, I'm a weirdo.

But I relate to one thing -- I relate to the words upon words. 'Cause when I wrote like that I was certain to not only address my point, but all examples, counterpoints, not only my thesis but yours and all the thoughts I'd ever had about it, and I'd play devil's advocate and people's advocate and lozo's advocate and feminism's advocate and sometimes my own advocate too. I wanted to speak to everyone and I wanted to shoot myself down before you could.

I wonder if DFW felt like his head might explode, if he was tired like I am.

I think it was good to be in my head so completely, like I needed that phase. I needed to live a life that didn't make any sense -- I mean you think you know but you have no idea -- but to me, to my reality (which contained only me & my people) -- it was a cool life. 'Cause you know what? We had a time.

And I'm sure I'll have phases like that again throughout my life, those rushing manic surges that sometimes enrapture an artist to do whatever she can to chase the dragon into dawnlight, towards wherever it is that stars become people and people become poets.

I miss the night-fires, I miss the abandon and the rampant self-destruction. I miss knowing everything wasn't right but not caring because I was so alive, because it was so fun or so vivid or so full or because I hit the streets with all I had. I miss absolving myself of responsibility for myself. I miss the future we used to talk about with such generosity. I miss the stories we believed in and I want to write the ones we never told. I want so many things.

++

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I Wash the Windows Outside in Hopes that the Glare Will Bring You Around

Hello, strangers! It's remarkable how hard it is to be a full-time blogger and carry on three part-time jobs. The third job's a recent invention, it's called "editing FLIRT!" The first is copywriting, the second is babysitting (really it's more like "office-sitting," would you trust me with your children?), and when I can't do 1 & 3 while at 2, then I get very upset.

I'll spare you the intro about all the things I said I'd write that I haven't written yet, or the joke where I say I'm not blogging anymore 'cause gawker told me and all bloggers to stop writing for free, lest we worsen the financial crisis we're already in. Howevs, in the last graf of this gawker piece, I saw that personal blogs don't count, see: I am not the HuffPo, so I must keep writing for free.

Remember when I promised I'd reply to all those comments one-by one? Also, remember when I actually paid to download "Under the Sea" (for FLIRT) only to have Final Cut refuse to upload it? I paid one entire dollar of actual currency today to own "Under the Sea" from "The Little Mermaid: Original Broadway Cast Recording." A dollar. I could've spent that dollar on 1/6th of a pinkberry or a nice gift for my mother.

To avoid an unwieldy column of drawn-out responses, I've chosen to respond to your comments one-by one on the blog ITSELF omg, and I've done so in rhyme. With a maximum output of two lines (rhymed) per person, regardless of comment length. Also, afterwards, we'll have Nilla wafers and chocolate milk, and we can watch Sharmen videos together 'til we fall asleep. I wish I could respond to emails in this form too but maybe that'd be inappropriate. And I am a very mature monkey.

+

[brian milo]
You can assume that "thank you for saying all of these things" is a standard auto-text applying to every response. But as you know, I'll ramble on forever if I say individually point-by-point what insight you provided to me, so y'know -- thank you. Seriously. Thank you for answering my questions.

I think I'm about to eat pizza in bed, I've become a different person. Leisha Hailey was so purely beautiful when she was in The Murmurs. Now she's still beautiful, but it's like a refined grown-up beautiful, not a "I never thought I'd be, or know I am" beautiful. You know what I mean?

Also my back and neck are fucking killing me, so I'm going to crack open the Tylenol with Coedine purchased during our cruise to Canada and the New Englands. That's right America, try and stop me! And if you do, that's not me you've stopped, it's whomever stole my passport in the airport (shuttle) in NYC when we'd just come back from Austin. That girl's a hipster and a liar, which is the worst kind of person! Even worse than an almost-hipster. So perhaps I should call this poem "ode to codeine," 'cause I'm hoping that's what it'll become.

Oh also I had another revelation while reading these comments; I think part of the problem is that people expect the in-person version to somehow be 'real' or less mediated than the written person -- that in-person is the whole picture, completing the written picture. But really; in-person is just another piece of the puzzle, another element or presentation of sorts, not the all-encompassing presentation. I think I just said the same thing but five different times with different synonyms, I wonder where I picked that up.

[leesa leva]
++
eric mathew:
I've always thought fondly of the land of milk and honey
As for internet dating, a few drinks always makes me think I'm quite funny

natalie:
the heat, the stick, the sweat
you're still one of the best people i've ever met

crystal:
thank g-d we love each other in 2 and 3-D
because what would CGU do without me?

thehermit:
oh! hello, my fellow socially retarded monkey reclusive freak!
agreed; lowering word count would greatly enhance my technique.

nep:
i've always been told i come off bad at first, but better when you get to know me
my inner con artist's been given quite a trip as it tries to grasp online intimacy

a.:
At first it felt good (weird good), to have it all out there up front,
before the street and the vodka, and lately more like a poorly executed stunt

burningsteady:
i think we expect our friends to tell tall tales about their friends
but perhaps expect my blog to provide a more transparent lens?

bridget:
omg autowin's next top friend! the panel of judges would be thrilling enough
the tag line: "I AM here to make friends!" this is good stuff ...

rod:
it's kinda awesomely accurate, that comparison to a cartoon
me and tinkerbell being imaginary, in our little cocoon [or balloon!]

debbie:
sometimes i have no idea what i'm talking about too
it's the line of seperation i need to learn; tricky ... but true.

hazel:
i think sometimes the artists's parts can speak for the whole
but yes -- the real life itself can be equally honest -- but rarely will it speak from the soul

caitlin:
i think love is supposed to come when you're not looking for that,
friend-love too, the kind that's got your back and princess hats

allie:
your home-life sounds quite brill, like something I'd enjoy
fruit infused vodka, a girl, a game, a home ... and i promise my opening wasn't a ploy.

caitlin:
we're talking 3-4 hours tops, by car, between k-zoo and "up north"
not that distance should stop anyone from venturing forth

a;ex:
i'd like to add that i met you on ourchart, your headline drew me in
JK! recaps! what a long strange love trip it's been ...

tori:
hav would've had fun! ... well hav doesn't drink so i would've gotten two, which is cool
we were super cranky in ptown so you probs would've thought i was a tool

adam:
i don't want to be a whole person i like it like this in parts
here is my elbow, my earlobe, and then a piece of my heart

basia:
don't worry about facebook, to be honest i rarely look at anyone's pages but my "real life" friends and besides i'd never delete
thank you for coming back, and as yourself, here where it's safe, we can cyber-meet

haviland stillwell:
you and rachel alone i think have watched that whole shift
let's watch from the balcony, it will be an amazing circe/gift

brooklyn boy:
as you know i'm a fan of this comment and your net-life integration
remember when alex ran up to you a the b-ball game like a monkey in jubilation?

dani:
if there's one thing that'll always make sense to me
it's when people say "what you said, that's also how i see"

erin:
it's funny how rare that experience has been lately -- me myself before blog when meeting someone new
but i think you rode our vibe from the start, and now; cheers on the follow-through.

stephanie:
i've had that happen too -- someone i'd never liked before cyber-life was an option, when it hadn't been invented
and now it has been, and now we meet again, but here, and somehow are far better represented

boobs.

diana:
I think we met in a good situation, too, and maybe some of that's owed to an apparently mutual feeling
that regardless of scale, there was a conscious awareness of the proximity (or lack thereof) between what we've said and how we act, and how that's seeming.

r:
thanks for commenting this time though even if it's your one & only
i think it's that for weirdos like us there's a big difference between being alone & being lonely

davey jimmy lozo:
FYI, b-ball game thursday night. I have dykes, you've got the sport
Yet somehow we maintain witty jokes back and forth, like Night Court

meghan:
I agree, and also that meeting me briefly isn't the same as knowing me as a person too
and the friends I have it feels like you said 'cause something about our persons gravitated even in cyber-room

ali:
I feel this comment is legendary for its introduction of a particular term
It's good to come back from the future and reaffirm
holler

jo:
everything i've been saying to everyone else on here?
yeah. hands-down totes, i heart blogosphere!

asher:
I like Juliette Lewis 'cause she seems intidimating and off-putting and so aggressively beautiful, and tough
That collision you mention, you're right, neither areas alone or together are enough

vashti:
you can be bold, witty and deep but not outgoing, i think
and you get it already, so you'll be good, and i'll continue to drink

"that woman":
jack and jill went up the hill, e-i-e-i-o, and dug a grave and climbed in it,
and mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow, if the glove fits, acquit!

mel-uh-nee:
I wish I knew how people find vlogs, it'd give me some insight,
you know -- insight, which you've already got -- rock, island, kite.

the brooklyn boy:
since this is addressed to asher and not me i'm not obligated to respond
but i already am, though i did in person, and i love walden pond

anonymous:
firstly, nice use of twitter-@, secondly, you didn't miss a thing
like that aerosmith song with liv tyler lying in grasses of spring

meghan:
reading these comments feels like reading a philosophical text
like you just took it to a whole new level, and now we get more complex

anonymous:
what? huh? hmmm? mmm? er-wha? uh huh? her!
there'll be pictionary at my pity party, for sure

jd:
as you know i didn't get the email, but your parens warmed my heart
cc debt's a bitch, adam's right, i think i'll "what then" myself 'til i break the whole world apart

"that woman":
violet hours waiting waiting for what
hooley-hay-hidy-ho-ho-slam auto-shut

"that woman":
you keep making more words to illustrate the person you deny being
also! speaking of human decency and public writing one might prefer not seeing ...

adam:
what he said, what he said, about the irony and your solution
if i had a government, i'd hire you to write my constitution

emilykate:
FYI, you win for my favorite comment of the year
I LOL'ed, first statement, made me giggle and not fear

dajalo:
OMG I can't wait for the vlog I hope you do something sexy with a banana
or travel-cross country and call it "dee jay marty does montana"

a;ex:
First of all, holler my brave girl for calling out an anonymous while using your real name
you come through in times like these, monkey, and indeed, it was a legit question, sparking many thoughts, not disdain

a.
word
you heard?

anonymous:
i swear if you keep reading, most of them time i talk about ponies and rainbows
and happy angelic people who're so good they sometimes glow -- no -- Glow

that woman:
you spelled verbatim wrong.
lozo gets global input on his shlong.

mayginpigphun:
That I would've taken for the team, if it was our failure at basketball that turned the brooklyn boy away
also, I love pinkberry, loathe Harlem, will consider your offer because i think your sister is a gay, and I love a bay-bay.

dewey:
The thing about minnie mouse is that she can't speak, she's quiet as a mouse
tegan & sara = love, it's like they live in my head and my head is a house

el n:
Never explain, never apologize, someone once told me and I try
walking in one world, crawling in another, but with eyes on the sky

jenn:
o, my eyes dried up long ago, a few days ago, and now i see double
full bleeding stop, jesus H, i am no writer either, just trouble.

gilly:
and this is why you
win too

stephanie:
i couldn't have said it better myself
this is why i love the internet, soul-shelf

e.
That Andy, I like him. And that Ryals quote, too. I'm a monkey, too, with different tricks
veils, needs, dissapointing, some cute kind of monkey, who refuses to be fixed

caitlin:
omg i'm actually doing it
it's like throwing a long rhyming fit

anonymous:
I think you're rad too, anonymous
I have feelings, we have feelings, no fuss, no fuss.

caitlinmae:
But we liked you when we met you, I think I did what I worry I always do
which's be too comfortable with the people i already know to come off friendly to someone new
oh, and so, we do what we do
thanks for saying so; thanks for being true
this lola de leon of which you mention, this firecracker
ooof, i like that name, the explosion, the lacquer

carlytron:
When Carlytron steps in at comment #60 to remind you she's got my back
then you know you're defo wrong, i'm defo right, and it's time for a pb-cracker snack.

supr:
word up to mentioning rovermom
still if i saw her in the street, 99% chance i'd say "IT'S ON!"

d.j jazzy lozo:
dude, i know what you mean
let's get some beer and play with machines

that woman:
I'm starting to feel like responding to your comments is making me say
silly snarky asshole things i shouldn't say, so i'll stop now,hey hey hey.

mira:
Thank you for bringing the conversation back to what i want to talk about
which is mature things like bunnies and lesbains eating each other out

that woman:
is this really you?
doo doo doo.

that woman:
you're a star, don't let anyone tell you otherwise baby
oh hey hey i don't mean booey baba maybe

ali:
that's right, seize the day! carpe diem!
i sing the song of myself, so be 'em!'

bokolis:
Sometimes we compare ourselves to Andy and Eadie 'cause he was so shy and self-conscious and but wise & watching too, and she was so social, so out there and pretty and alluring
I think I've never thought so much about one dinner in my life, to me, it was just two strange people meeting, you know? gaps and viels and all that comes before, and after, and during ...

that woman:
actually i don't really think howard stern rules
he can be very misogynistic, sometimes, like a tool

tristessa":
I love that movie, when I saw it I said "everyone must see this."
The NJ Turnpike turns me around and around, the journey is all, a sweet good abyss

mercury:
Hey! I met you! You still like me! I win! You win! Let's have a kitty party!
I had a job once where I had to meet too many people, out of my shell
but maybe that felt safer, 'cause they were buying, and i was something to sell

flobby bunny 88;
I hope that no one else comments on this post, like I can't, that's why I'm doing it up here instead,
so that your comment can be last, like the perfect epilogue, last chord ... you know ... "what she said."

automaticwin:
Also, I think I'd like to meet Sam-Ro and The Lohan
but might faint or scar to touch Mary Gaitskill's hand
or have dinner with Lorrie Moore. I'm not famous or "published" like they are
but they're people who write, I'm a person who reads it, I am earth, they are stars
spark boom blink blink blink blink.

goodnight moon, goodnight tinkerbell.

goodnight "23" by jimmy eats world, goodnight to scarlett and her lovely tom waits covers, goodnight to tristan prettyman's cover of britney's "toxic" and ok i admit it also coldplay viva la vivd and goodnight to the murmurs and to clocks ticking and finch's "ender," and bijork's "99 red balloons" and goodnight to uh huh ... we will become silhouettes. Amanda Palmer, a curtsy for you, my knees grazing the floor, a dramatic expression of gratitude.

I usually go to bed with my makeup on, 'cause I'm lazy and would rather just complain later if I break out. But I washed it off tonight. And there is the mirror, and in it, my bare eyes.

+

"Wherever you are in me I'm there,
though it's not what you wanted." (Phillip White, "Infidelity.")

+

"I'm such a drag wish that I could disappear
I just smoked myself right into this chair ..
I ruin everything it's never enough, got a tired after ego that's always giving up
I used to be the girl that everybody loved
And now I'm just too much ...
I wish that I was dead, temporarily ...
I'm so gone, I need my prescription to relax
Now I'm wasted like the rest."
-The Murmurs, "I'm a Mess"

+

"Between the book to be written and things that already exist there can only be a kind of complementary relationship: the book should be the written counterpart of the unwritten world; its subject should be what does not exist except when written, but whose absence is obscurely felt by that which exists, in its own incompleteness."
(Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler)

+
[frank herholdt]
+

“We grew still and stared at each other. It seemed incredibly dangerous to look into each other’s eyes, but we were doing it. For how long can you behold another person? Before you have to think of yourself again, like dipping the brush back in for more ink. For a very long time; you didn’t need to get more ink, there was no reason to get anything else, because she was as good as me, she lived on earth like me, she suffered as I did. It was she who looked away and pulled the sheet to her chin.”
(Miranda July, Nobody Belongs Here More than You)

Friday Top Ten: So She Comes From the Land Down Under

Hi! As you know, when I get so so busy with my super-important life, I often outsource my Top Ten -- former guest-bloggers include Natalie, Tara, Lozo and my brother Lewis. Just like Natalie, Crystal from Australia was subjected to guest-blogging while visiting yours truly in NYC. It's one of many activities offered to guests here at Chez Planet Harlem, along with flying, dogsledding and watching Katlitter's vlog twelve times. ("I've got ADD real real Bad ...") Crystal has her own blog actually, it's called Disappear Here, but if I link to it I imagine she'll delete the whole thing, which she does about every 3-4 posts, and I'd like to discourage that behavior. Without any further ado, I bring you CRYSTAL. Also, as usual -- my notes are in italics/brackets.

-----------------

Hi guys. I'm Crystal from Australia, guest-blogging from Riese's couch in NYC. I feel like over the last few weeks I've sucked up a lot of Riese's time that she would've otherwise spent dedicated to her blog, and so I'm making amends by helping to deliver a Sunday Top Ten.

SUNDAY TOP TEN: AUTOMATIC AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

10) Planet Harlem

The cab driver entrusted with transporting me from my midtown hotel to Harlem two weeks ago totally unnerved me with a 20 minute lecture on why I shouldn't be staying in Harlem. You guys, what I didn't realise was that Riese lives in the ghetto. I'm a suburbs girl, I don't even know what “ghetto” means, you know, except that Kelly Rowland has a song called “Ghetto” in which she essentially repeats the phrase “So Ghetto” over and over. [sidenote:I'd assumed, based on Crystal's rough-and-tumble past, including several citations of sleeping on rocks/streets, that Harlem would be ... um ... easy street! I underestimate the power of my own neighborhood.] But what I do know is that on my first night here, I was up on the roof with Riese and all of a sudden there was banging and crashing and sirens, like some serious shit was going down. We ran over to the ledge to see every cop in Manhattan apprehending these dudes who they'd just rammed off the street with their car. The thing is, I'm an uncomplicated and sheltered girl who doesn't like putting herself in risky situations, and so I just don't really see this kind of action in Sydney - serious, we Aussies are all too busy hugging koala bears to get into too much trouble.

Actually, Harlem has been a very comfortable and problem-free place to stay. Riese has a beautiful apartment, lovely flatmates, a wicked rooftop, a Starbucks within walking distance and one of the most comfortable couches I've ever slept on. When I told Riese that I was coming to NYC, she kindly offered: "we have a couch [available]. It pulls out. It's gotten really good reviews, four stars." Now I don't want to the kill-joy that points out false advertising, but the couch doesn't actually pull out into a bed. To Riese's credit, I'm sure the couch did once pull out before Carly and Alex broke it (allegedly). [They did.]

9) South by Southwest

Crystal at SXSW on Sixth Street

I'm really on this side of the world for my annual pilgrimage to Austin, Texas's annual South by Southwest (SxSW) music festival. I always have a great time there but it was super special this year 'cause Riese, Cait and Tara joined me.

Initially, the SxSW journey was all about 2008's hype bands, sex, drugs and rock n' roll - but that changed after Cait & Riese discovered that Uh Huh Her was holding a SXSW fan documentary competition. Clever, right? 'Cause Uh Huh Her's new album is called Common Reaction, and this video is all about recording the reactions of the fans ... anyway so moving right along... [SIDENOTE OMG IT'S OUR VIDEO! WANNA SEE IT? HERE IT IS!]

Riese: I hope you guys know we're only going [to sxsw] to see Uh Huh Her.
Me: Then I hope we'll be able able to get into the [Uh Huh Her] showcase.
Cait: I'm going to SXSW at 8am tomorrow. I'll scope us out a good spot.

We agreed that this video competition was a basically personal invitation from Uh Huh Her to Riese to create/win a contest, and so we were 100% focussed on attending all three Uh Huh Her shows and capturing stellar footage. Tara and I did manage to get out and see some real bands, specifically The LK (from Sweden) and The Breeders, both of who rocked our socks off. Oh, and - I bought a cowboy hat, and it's the best cowboy hat ever.

PHOTO: Natalie models Crystal's cowboy hat.

*
8) Meeting Uh Huh Her / Leisha Hailey

The highlight of SxSW was hands down Uh Huh Her's 9:15 guest DJ spot at this random nightclub. We arrived at 9:15pm, but the band was nowhere to be seen. About 9:45, they saunter/stumble in, and Tara (designated camera-person) proceeds to march right up to Leisha Hailey and starts in all: When are you playing? You were meant to be on stage 30 minutes ago, so wtf?! We've got a video to shoot and some real bands to see.Actually, Tara was totally polite about it, but the message remained crystal clear [sidenote: this is a good example for me as my friends are attempting to teach me the nuances of "crystal clear communication.] Alice responded by mumbling something and looking to her iPhone as if it'd rapidly SMS her an excuse for her tardiness. They shared a few more words, shook hands, and Tara made her exit. Alice was left looking at me expectantly but I had nothing to bring to the table, so I gave her the two thumbs up and ran away.

When they finally started their DJ set, we convinced Cait to go ask Leisha to play some BETTY. The jury is still out on whether Leisha Hailey understood the joke, but hilarity ensued regardless. Stef, a SxSW warrior, got kicked out of the venue prematurely for being drunk and disorderly, and we followed shortly after.

*
7) Hotels / community living

I feel like I've stayed in a lot of hotels this trip, and I'm fairly certain that if Cait was to never share a bed with me again then it would be too soon.

Times Square's Paramount Hotel -- where I stayed sans-Riese for three days prior to relocating to Planet Harlem -- was the most interesting experience. I booked this hotel 'cause I read a review where some disgruntled guest rated the Paramount 0 stars out of 5 'cause "the staff was flirtatious." 'Cause I've got no standards, this review SOLD me and I picked a room called "The Petite Suite." The whole hotel had some crazy decor and the room would've been more fairly represented as the "Don't Bother If You're Over 5'1 or 90 Pounds Suite."

See Photo:

The review was true however, they earned 5 out of 5 stars from me and many generous tips.

A stuff up with our hotel reservation in Austin lead us to spend our first few nights in a room about ten minutes away from downtown. The room wasn't really equipped for four adults, meaning we had to sacrifice all available floor space to achieve adequate sleeping arrangements. It was close living quarters, but as long as you didn't want to open the mini bar at the same time someone wanted to open their suitcase, it was all sweet.

Cait: Can we just stop and talk about how our room is one big bed?
Riese: It's like summer camp!

*
6) Public Transportation

I've been to NYC many times but I've never taken the subway before because, as Law & Order is the only TV show we get in Australia, I've born witness to a plethora of plots relaying the message that I'm likely to get killed or harmed on the New York subway. Now -- I don't necessarily count on Dick Wolf to determine my personal barometer of what's safe and realistic in this world, however my suspicions were confirmed when Tara took me on the subway for the first (and possibly last) time and I was nearly killed and/or harmed. Tara was so enthralled in some witty/intelligent tale I was telling that she didn't realise we'd arrived at our stop, and when she did, she ran off the train suddenly and I followed a little too late, getting stuck between the doors. My life flashed before my eyes, along with a number of other scenarios where I'd get separated from Tara indefinitely and find myself selling coke in Chelsea until I could afford cab fare back to Harlem.

It's probably a well known fact that the cab drivers in this town are kinda crazy, but the past few weeks I've experienced madness to an extent I hadn't anticipated. Tonight, my cabbie jumped out mid-drive to engage in a lengthy screaming match with a policeman telling him not to drive down a particular street -- with the meter running. I tipped him anyhow 'cause I was a little scared he might yell at me too.

I also learned about these modes of transportation that Riese (and no-one else I have yet to meet [sidenote: everyone]) calls "Gypsy cabs". I was amazed when Riese told me that if I was to stand on her street corner, random cars would just pull up beside me and offer me a ride... [sidenote: this's cause they seem to think any white person in my neighborhood is clearly looking to get out asap] and that it's completely normal and safe to get into the vehicle. In Australia, we call this kind of thing Stranger Danger.

*
5.) The L Word/Parties

Ever read Auto-Straddle and wondered what really goes on at an L Word party? I did -- and now I have the answers. Sadly, I didn't witness any Hollywood TV style behavior worth reporting, like sorority-sister pillow fights, but still I attended two and they were a lot of fun!

As soon as I got here, Riese sat me down in front of the TV and forced me to start watching from Season One. [sidenote: "Guess what I'll be able to do when I get to the states, tiger? I'll finally get to see this L Word show you're always talking about!" - Crystal, email, a long time ago] I made it through S1 and part of S2, but needed to take a break when Jenny started writing a short story about a woman who's born mute who one day discovers that she can understand and speak the secret language of the manatees. Also, did anyone else find it incredibly disturbing when Tina set a place a the dinner table for her positive pregnancy test stick? OMG.

*
4) Some of my Non-L Word/SxSW social activities

On my first night in NYC, Tara picked me up and took me to this bar called Karma where we smoked Hookah (flavoured tobacco out of a giant bong-like device). You can't smoke indoors in Sydney, so I felt like I was living a little on the wild side. [sidenote: Karma's actually one of the only places in the city where you an smoke indoors.] We met many aspiring writers who came and sat down with us, leaving us with cigarette lighters and memorable quotes to coin, such as "if you want to fuck me, buy some art". Later on in the week, Cait became mildly disgusted at the state of my footwear [sidenote: one of her shoes was missing a sole] and took me shoe shopping in the West Village. Stef took me to a cafe that served vegan food. I hung out at St Mark's a lot and got embarrassingly excited when I realised a dude in Trash and Vaudeville was on the phone to Slash. Riese, Tara and I went to the Mercury Lounge because Yuko Honda and Sean Lennon were performing, and we saw a lot of short guys with tight jeans and sports coats.

*
3) Learning

I've always had a tough time commenting on Riese's blog because I've never really understood all her references, like about Duane Reade and its incompetent employees (it's true!), or why anyone would combine peanut butter with chocolate (ace!). I know all about these things now. Cait & Riese also taught me a lot about serious community/social issues that I'd been completely unaware of, namely the poor education and health system in this country. I always knew that I was lucky to be raised in a country whose government (in comparison) invests greatly in the well-being of its community, but to discover that most kids in America don't have their own text books was a real eye-opener for me. Riese lent me this book called Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol that explores the poor education system - I recommend it to everyone who has not experienced the inequities of the US education system first hand. [sidenote: and everyone who has]

*
2)Language

I've experienced (and overcome) a few language barriers since being here. I've found that my common phrases like "I'm not fussed", "peak hour traffic", "how're you going?" and "cheers" are not terms that Americans easily understand. Store employees give me an impatient sigh if I take the time to construct a polite sentence instead of just barking out my order. In Austin, the owner of the hot sauce shop told me I 'must be Australian' because I said thank you when he gave me my change. I thought the accent probably would have given my nationality away, but it was interesting nonetheless. Afterwards, I walked into a bar that had a sign saying 'Cheers Mate' Is NOT An Acceptable Tip In Texas. It was funny, but maybe you had to be there. I also learned that in America, you guys don't only type in acronyms - you also speak in them, and it's kind of hilarious. I had no idea until I met Riese and Cait, who literally do lace their spoken out-loud sentences with OMG, WTF and LOL.

*
1) Meeting Riese and Co.

L to R: Crystal, Natalie, Alex

A long time ago I posed this thought to Riese via email: I've been to NYC so often that I've probably walked past you in the street, [and so it's interesting that] we're here now, talking, on the opposite sides of the world. If had run into each other at some stage, in person, pre-emails, would we have stuck around to hear each other out? And based on all of this, how much do we really have in common with those we think we know, but have never met?

It's impossible to realistically answer the question of whether two internet friends would've become friends if they'd met in person first -- and thanks to the internet itself, we really don't have to answer this question anymore. Many of my friends back home couldn't understand why I'd go stay with someone I'd only ever communicated with via email [sidenote: and skype! 'cause I freelance for Crystal's company and she had to train me, I haven't open that application since.]

They definitely couldn't comprehend how this person had become someone I'd consider to be one of my closest friends. Walking into Riese's apartment and meeting her for the first time is one of the most comfortable first encounters I've had -- I didn't feel like I needed to impress her or show her who I am, 'cause I knew I'd already done so virtually. On the surface, we're not that similar as people or personality types, but underneath it all we share the same basic human qualities, the ones that really matter: e.g., compassion, love, kindness. And for those of you who wonder about such things, in 3-D Riese is similar to as advertised on this blog: outrageously funny, intelligent, warm-hearted, and not at all keen on leaving her house (for real). I also had the pleasure of meeting most of her friends, such as Cait, Alex, Natalie, Stef, Tara and Carly - and they were all awesome people, because like attracts like.

Okay, that's all from me, it's my last day in the USA and I've got a plane to catch. later.

---

Hi guys it's me again, Riese. Unfortunately Crystal whipped this baby out prior to last night's journey to The Red Lobster in Times Square (trivia! Red Lobster's owned by Darden, which also owns The Olive Garden, where I used to work). I felt The RL would offer a pure American Experience, and, had we gone earlier, she would've been able to discuss her very first bite of a Cheddar Bay Biscuit.

Last week Crystal had drinks with Diana, who she'd met through my blog, and last night Diana joined us for Red Lobster. Natalie was telling Diana our (Nat & I's) legendary love story -- how we'd met (English 125), the first time we'd really hung out (we ran into each other outside of the bookstore during the first week of our second year at Michigan), the standard lies Natalie infuses this story with (Natalie: "Marie! Hi!" Me, In Natalie's Creative Re-Telling of the Sory: "Let's go get dinner, I think I have AIDS."), how Natalie'd pursued our friendship. And it was funny, really, that Nat had to emphasize that unlike most of my VIPs, we hadn't met online.

I never thought I'd be the kind of person to make so many cyber-friends, you know? ... though I was likely destined for that fate the moment I picked up my first pack of Magic the Gathering cards. I met Haviland through a friend (a friend we'd both met on the internet) pretty much the same week I started Auto-Win, but aside from Natalie, most of the people I talk to regularly are people I've met through blogging.

Maybe it's easier this way 'cause blog-friends, unlike real-friends, will say: "it's okay, we don't have to hang out, I want you to finish the recap so I can read it." But mostly I think my plethora of cyber-originated friendships can be attributed to the fact that these people, by reading and talking to me, are at least kinda drawn to my sensibility and sense of humor ... and consequently, I'm drawn to theirs ... during the Dark Fall of '07, I probs talked to Crystal more than I did to any living breathing friend -- maybe around 10 emails a night. It helped that I was writing for her company and she was sorta my boss (instant legitimacy beyond any instinctual certainty). I worked out a lot of issues talking to Crystal that I couldn't discuss with anyone in my "real life" -- blogfriends or not. Before Crystal even landed stateside, we already had at least 10 facebook friends in common, and Tara even met her before I did (I was still in L.A.), which was funny, and awesome.

I think in a few years, when the internet's been around long enough for us to step back and think about it really -- it'll probs seem quite marvelous. For loners, who don't believe in the inherent value of live socialization, this is a pretty legitimate space to communicate. Most cyber-connections never translate into real life, but it's quite affirming that they so often do. That someone who knows the ugliest rawest weirdest parts of me would actually want to sleep on my couch, which doesn't pull out, 'cause Carly and Alex broke it.

*
"The internet is, for loners, an absolute and total miracle. It is, for us, the best invention of the last millennium. It educates. It entertains. It transforms. It facilitates a kind of dialogue in which we need not be seen, so it suits us perfectly. It validates. It makes being alone seem normal. It makes being alone fun for everyone."
(Anneli Rufus, "Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto")
*
"No one, wise Kublai, knows better than you that the city must never be confused with the words that describe it.
And yet between the one and the other there is a connection ... on the outskirts where men and women land every evening like lines of sleepwalkers, there is always someone who bursts out laughing in the darkness, releasing the flow of jokes and sarcasm."
(Italo Calvino, "Invisible Cities.")
*

Also okay everyone watch the video and go to the Uh Huh her contest youtube page and vote for us to win this Uh Huh Her contest, if we lose we're gonna be really pissed. Like this:

(SXSW Photo)

a blog about nothing which i will never proofread. (which/that?)

tonight in harlem we were on the roof and we heard a car crash. that was nothing. then another -- louder -- so we went to look: a police car, crashed into a chased car, then maybe twenty cars rushed in, two men got arrested. a plethora of undercover cops in puffy coats, lights & noise. we need loudspeakers on 125th to play ave maria, handcuffs need opera.

handcuffs need bedposts. i've never had bedposts. of all the bones in the body, my favorites are wrists and hips. then fingers. of all body parts: hands.

i think every tuesday night (or monday, wednesday, thursday) i'll sit down and write about nothing. tuesday top nothing. earlier, i wrote something: a sunday top ten. i don't like it enough for show & tell.

i have a chronic shortage of ibuprofen. i should deal with headaches/mylife more maturely, like a grown up. chocolate is forever, i'm still eating it. many of my nearest & dearests got born in january or march, which requires rubber cement and cardboard. i haven't spoken to my mother in three weeks. we'll pick up where we left off.

i didn't like my fortune, i gave tinkerbell my cookie. last year i didn't go anywhere, this year i'm everywhere but here.

*

the other night, i was talking to tara about the rainbow depot, other trivialities, and suddenly i opened my mouth and said --

me: "sometimes i just want to scream and break my walls open."

tara: "why?"

me: "i don't know, sometimes i feel like this room just remembers too many things, i just want to smash it! i want to kick the walls!"

tara: "so many crazy things happened in this room ... literally."

[i like the idea that pauses can be pregnant. that giving birth is sometimes speech not life.]

now memories replace memories, old memories become well-oiled stories with loose ends waiting in wings. new sheets, new people, old people with restored minds, new books, new socks. still i keep the bottom sheet, the softest sheet. it's just so soft, it's so hard to get out of bed because of that sheet. sometimes other reasons. now; it's just that sheet.

*

crystal and i stood at the edge of the roof where we could see the cars, lights, cops, criminals, and the standard neighborhood hooligans who flood the streets for such events. a woman was wailing, two men held her (undercover or real/uncovered?) and one said: "that's him, there he is," pointing at the criminals. the cops shined flashlights up at us.

me: "they think we're the fourth gunman."

crystal: "it's the grassy knoll."

we retreated down and indoors where my roommates were at the window. then they said to crystal: "welcome to harlem!"

*

some parts of my life are sweet, like my bottom sheet or lemon drops. other parts are solid like bones. other parts are mushy like organs. other parts are air and planets that swirl around me and i can't figure out for the life of me which parts are authentic and which are just talkative comets/ambitiousrocketships. either way, isn't the moonlight lovely. isn't the moonlight terrible.

the roof makes me feel alive because i've never jumped off it. when i'd say i thought of such things: that was drama. not the feelings, but their respective actions. i like long, flat islands, or rather, the dream/drama of them. me in a boat.

memoirists keep making things up, they should just write novels. that's novel. my book is honest. maybe it isn't. maybe i'm copying someone else's words from accidential memory, i'll need a fact checker.

"a fat checker," susan powter said when we showed up for her yoga class at nine, not eight.

the internet is space you can call up if you want to, like photographs or a song you once knew by heart. it's virtual reality (the one we've been dreaming of) without helmets, it's Tomorrowland, specifically oriented dreamscape. books are hard and solid like bones, i mean, like moans.

*

the air was cool we snuck into the swimming pool you dove headfirst
i waded in
the scent of chlorine upon our skin

*

something haviland & i often spoke of was how much we'd like to need nothing. little self-sufficient spaceships. i'd still like that sometimes, but i know it's not true. besides, it's better this way: for example, i have good friends. some of my friends are not only friends but also miracles. i even have a friend who's not only a friend but a miracle and a blessing.

*

the stars were bright, the water clear,
i felt your heat, as you swam near
i held my breath, you held my hand
moving away, further from land
the moon was full, everything blue
the water stilled, reflecting you

*

have i mentioned that life is good? my water tastes like soap. sometimes skin tastes like soap.

i liked zipping through the canyons with haviland & cait, driving out to malibu sans traffic. i liked that we (natalie & cait & alex & I) made it past the singing bears and then down the flume alive, soaked & smiling & squeegee, and then dashing past tom sawyer island to get out before they cut the lights. i like wide eyes, i like wide full futures.i'm not sure anyone (not even me) knows how different it feels to stop daring my heart to attack. truth or dare: dare, always the dare, and then, maybe, wait a few months (close your eyes) and then and then, right, the real secret is, and then: truth. i don't know it.i'm a fundamentally ridiculous person ("you need to stop using that phrase, marie"). i'll never shake the feeling that this self-indulgence is wasting everyone's time. the starving children, and so forth. the handcuffs, the crash and the direction of sirens.

sometimes i'm alone in an unfamiliar room and think i could be anyone (now, later). sometimes i'm well aware that's a clichè, is the real secret. i find that feeling less scary then i used to. i'm more scared that i'll be a cockroach tomorrow morning than of guns or car crashes. i don't feel obligated to control traffic.

does anyone else worry you'll love a person just like you love a song -- completely, on repeat, and then ... boredom, or bad memory?

*

i'll finish my book by june first. and then.

* floating right here with you next to me gazing at stars, we drift silently

*

possible titles:
Sancho Panza - Behind the Music
my word verif is wtf just happened
me and being

*

Cait: "Sometimes you're talking about something, and then, an hour later, you'll say something else about that same thing, and I think, have you been thinking about that same thing all this time?"

Me: "Yes."

Cait: "Isn't that exhausting?"

Me: "Yes."

* late at night, the air was cool we snuck into the swimming pool i went under and you followed let's not think about tomorrow

*

What I've Been Reading:
the best first lines of a poem, possibly ever ...

I love you too
don't fuck up my hair
I can't believe
you almost
fisted me
today.
-Eileen Myles, "Dear Andrea"

*

A few weeks ago I had a lot of feelings and decided to eliminate my website. semicolon is making a new one, she's got all kinds of visions to put into practice, she knows what she's doing. I just need a bio. It's me, so it's an auto-bio. I know what happened, I've been here this whole time, I'm pretty sure I know what I did too, and what's worth mentioning, but I also feel

Anyhow, I do not know who I am. I've got some hyperlinks to some stories, essays, etc. I published stories about fucking, even the ones that weren't about fucking were also kinda about fucking.

*

When I was little, I was mostly scared of being kidnapped. Every summer, my father installed the screen windows. "If anyone tries to kidnap you," he told me, "I will wake up. I'll hear the kidnapper cutting through the screen windows." I'd imagine daggers slicing dirty cool metal screens and a sound that spoke to fathers. I trusted that.

*

possible titles:
before my head exploded, i wrote this book
i think uh huh her is a real band and i like their music
it's likely i accidentally plagiarize stephen dunn
i wrote about you, but i changed your name
this book is actually true i swear
after he died
i hate los angeles so much it hurts
this week in corrections
this might be boring but it's got a nice spine for your shelf
my spine
your spine
our spines.
everything is perfect now.

Sunday Top Ten: If You're Going to Hang Out, You Might As Well Hang Out AT THE MALL!

We went to the mall yesterday. You know, the mall? Where all the cool kids hang out, eating their Panda Express and getting Glamour Shots? The mall! The glorious Mall in New Jersey Somewhere! Upon entering I immediately exclaimed "I love the smell of commerce in the morning!" but I don't know if Hav or Cait got the reference, they probs thought I made it up, in which case they probs thought I was a very funny and creative person. In fact I'm not, after all, as I was quoting Mallrats (which was referencing Apocalypse Now, which was "adapted from" Conrad's Heart of Darkness.) AND believe it or not, this here is the tenth contestant in the "Sunday Top Ten Topic Contest" this week. I even considered doing a Sunday Top Ten of failed Sunday Top Ten topics, but I figured I'll save that winner for next week, or next year. I'm pretty sure I'll start thinking more clearly later this week, right now I feel all the ideas have been zapped from my head by Ilene Chaiken, my secret lover and BFF forevs. Also my flatiron died today and I'm probs more sad about that then any of you have ever been about your lesbian cat dying. How am I supposed to have hipster bangs without a hair iron?

Here's what we learned at the mall: we are OLD. You guys, we are really old, we are our grandmothers. We couldn't even be in Abercrombie for more than five seconds because not only did the entire place smell so much like a freshman frat party that we could barely breathe, but there was an impossibly thin little nymphette plucking around the store spraying even MORE Abercrombie cologne into the air, to maintain this sense memory atmosphere. And Hollister. Did I really shop here in college, and, if so, did I not feel a bit old? Hollister: the "California surf shack" exterior, the darkened windows, the emo music, the short-shorts. Haviland held up a pair and said, "These are boyshorts, right? These aren't actual shorts? Who wears this stuff?" I'll tell you who: the youth of America. That's how they get laid and do drugs, they just push the half-centimeter of fabric aside and they're ready for entrance, no need to disrobe. Look what happened to Jamie Lynn. We'd probs feel right at home at Talbot's or Ann Taylor with the rest of our age group.

The best part of our trip to The Mall was when this Kiosk woman asked Cait "Can I ask you a question?" and Cait was like "You just did," and just kept on walking. Anyhow, I love New Jersey Mall, 'cause it was mid-day on a Monday and so it was just us and the sweet smell of commerce. Also I love my friends, and I love my new sweatpants and they have in fact changed my life, I am approximately 10% happier than I was yesterday morning when I didn't have these sweatpants yet.

Anyhow, I used to really like the mall when I was actually a young person. I mean -- I used to think I liked the mall, just like I used to think I liked a lot of things that are embarrassing now, like chain wallets and boys who didn't wash their hair. We like, hung out there. Like it was our hangout.

SUNDAY TOP TEN: TOP TEN HANGOUTS

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10. The White Horse Tavern (The West Village):
When you're a little girl in the Midwest who dreams about New York, you dream about places like this. Once upon a time The White Horse Tavern was frequented by people like Dylan Thomas (who died there), Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac. Poor writers/starving artists can't afford West Village residences anymore, so The Tavern's become a tourist attraction. [UPDATE: Totally not. Totally still legit place to go, frequented by verified cool people, I have been alerted of this by more than one person.] I bet places like this still thrive like in Brooklyn but I'm guessing they're in an area of Brooklyn that requires transferring trains, which I clearly cannot do, as I am super busy. New York Magazine describes the WHT as "the nostalgic high temple of the Alcoholic Artist." Those are my people.

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9. The Hotel (Wherevs):
In junior high, hotel parties focussed on swimming, eating cake, and talking about boys. Sometime in late high school my friends started having a lot of "hotel parties" at the Wolverine Inn, a sketchy motel out by the freeway that seemed to take any business it could get, even large groups of rascaly 16-year-olds. My Mom the never let me go to any of these parties but that's OK, I had lots of fun at home staring at the ceiling fan, obviously.

But on Sunday night we had a hotel party and we agreed it reminded us a lot of high school parties, which is awesome, I like retroactive experience. Why'd we have a hotel party? Because Cait's 25th birthday cosmically coincided with The End of Les Misery Day and L Word Day! When Carly, Alex, Cait and I got to The W with our beer & carrots, remarkably only three hours behind schedule, the guy at the front desk was like "Any more than six people in that room is a disaster." We were like, fuck, because we're expecting about 30. (We didn't say that out loud, we said '10' and he shook his head and gritted his teeth like "prepare for SARS.") We were basically spooked into thinking that, were we to exceed capacity, we'd be eating each other's hair (and not in a good way, like how I want to eat Alice's hair) with our fingers up each other's butts and our elbows in each other's ears, and that security would march upstairs and murder us if we made any noise or if we were seen escorting many peoples up to our room. We panicked and started canceling the party but then we got to the room and were like, durr, it's totally fine. Then we drank some vodka and were like WHOOOO! It's TOTALLY FINE! and told everyone "JK" if they still wanted to come, and most of them did. Then we (Haviland, Cait, Carly, Alex, Myself & Ryan) had a slumber party which also reminded me of high school, with Carly and I playing the parts of the kids who keep talking really loud and making jokes while everyone else tries to sleep. Then the next day I went to Hollister and remembered that I am a dinosaur, not a high school student. Did you ever see that show "Dinosaurs" with the baby who hit his Dad on the head with a pan and went "Not the mama!" or whatevs? I loved that show. I was talking about it while we were at the mall actually, in the convo about what shows Ree-Ree was allowed to watch as a baby. Really I'm just a fan of anything involving muppets. This paragraph no longer has anything to do with hangouts, although, actually, I would like to hang out in Fraggle Rock, given the chance.

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8. The Factory (East Midtown NYC):
When you're a little girl in the midwest who dreams about New York, you dream about places like this that no longer exist. Andy Warhol's legendary studio -- where he mass-produced silk screens and assembled a team of "Factory Superstars" to help create paintings and be in his films and contribute to the overall atmosphere of hipster genderfuck artist revolutionary drug addict totally fabulous awesome super-cool way-hot hot hot hot people doing Important Things with Art to Change the World. It's okay that it no longer exists though because if it existed now, it'd probs have a blog and then Gawker might make fun of it and then New York Magazine would write an article about Gawker making fun of the Factory blog and then all of our heads would explode and we could make a film about that and put it on YouTube and then we'd be famous for like 15 minutes, or whatevs.

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Sidenote: I wonder if the concept of a concrete "hangout" has been displaced by the advent of cell phones. You know? Like now we can find out where our people are instantly, even when they're on the go, so we no longer need a common meeting place where it's likely you'll find the people you can't get ahold of at that moment. Does that make sense? Also, someone's cooking cheeseburgers outside and I want one even though I just had dinner.

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7. The Fleetwood (Ann Arbor):
This is like The Salt of The Earth Hangout: The Fleetwood was the bomb. It's a 24-hour greasy spoon diner -- and always the same kids outside late with their rusty trucks in the lot back behind the restaurant. Gross bathroom, mediocre food, bad service ... but also when we were teenagers it felt TOTALLY REAL AND LIKE HONEST. We felt like authentic punks sitting out there at 2 A.M., smoking cigarettes and eating ketchup-drenched french fries with the kids who wore leather jackets adorned with safety-pinned fabric scraps bearing Food Not Bombs and Anarchy logos and had pierced everything and dyed everything else. Maybe that's the essence of a Real Hangout -- defined by the patrons rather than the establishment itself.

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6. The Peach Pit (Beverly Hills obvs), and here's why:
a) Every every moment is a good time for a cheeseburger, even if you're 5'8 and 110 pounds -- a frame often suggestive of a more restrictive diet -- cheeseburger and fries, Nat, thank you. Deluxe. I want at least two animals killed to make this sucker. YUMM, megaburgers.
b) The Peach Pit After Dark -- the nightclub attached to the Peach Pit run by Valerie and David and later bought by Dylan to save it from going under-- showcased a totally random assortment of 90's pop acts: Collective Soul, Donna Lewis, The Barenaked Ladies, The Cardigans, Eric Benet and Tamia, The Goo Goo Dolls, The Brian Setzer Orchestra, Duncan Sheik and Monica.
c) Nat, obvs. He's like Debbie Navatni -- the wise sage of all things adolescent. A way to a teenager's heart is through their stomach, etc.

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5. The Planet (West Hollywood but filmed in Vancouver):
Here's the thing ... if I knew that all my friends, all my enemies, and all my ex-whatevers would be at one specific coffee shop ... that'd be pretty cool, 'cause then I'd know exactly where NOT to go. But also, if I knew where Leisha Hailey was gonna be I'd probs wanna be there. Also, in The L Word, when you break up with someone, they don't just leave your life, they leave the entire universe. Even if you met them at The Planet, they will never again be seen at The Planet, because they're in the vortex with Papi and Mark, so you know. Urm. I like going to coffee shops where I can be a weirdo in my hoodie with my laptop and Ave Maria while everyone else functions like normal social humans.

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4. Worldwide Plaza (Midtown):
Haviland loves Worldwide Plaza. Seriously -- if it was a warm day in 2007 and anyone wanted to do anything, Hav or Heather would always suggest Worldwide Plaza. It's an outdoor seating area near a few food establishments and it's close to the Broadhurst (where Hav worked) and New World Stages (where Heather worked) and also near where everyone on Broadway worked (Broadway) which meant we'd always run into people she knew there. There's lots of sun, which Haviland enjoys and I try to stay away from as much as possible, lest it interfere with my intense Gorey-esque darkness and porcelin skin. Probs if I'd been like "I'd like to get married" or "I'd like to hold a relay race for handicapped animals of all shapes and sizes," Hav would've been like "OOO how's Worldwide Plaza?"

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3. Harlumbia (Uptown West):
In Manhattan you've gotta keep re-inventing space because there's not enough of it to go around, not really, like Carrie Bradshaw says (YEAH I'm quoting Carrie Bradshaw, and it is SOOOO not the first time I've done this): "After a breakup, the city becomes a deserted battlefield loaded with emotional landmines. You have to be very careful where you step or you could be blown to pieces." I think it applies to more than just breakups, though, you know? It's anything -- anything strong that left a mark. There aren't many neighborhoods in this city that aren't already cocked and loaded towards things I miss, and I've only lived here for a few years. And so I like to attack neighborhoods like I do with music (I play it on repeat 'til it's more associated with this repeating moment than with it's prior life) -- I can't afford to lose my favorite neighborhoods to the ghosts it now shelters, so I make myself go there, create new memories, new associations, fresher and different context. Like: this still exists, this place where you were, and that now you are. I feel like I've reinvented this particular neighborhood over and over and I must because it's my favorite: it was where Jake lived in John Jay, it was where I went to summer school, it was right below where Chase lived and so I'd walk there after stopping at Mo's because I was not just a friend but a friend/drug mule and then it was the closest neighborhood to my apartment and so then. also. also. also. It was where we spent most spring afternoons in '07 ... with her friend who sold used books on 110th and she'd play Jimi Hendrix on guitar and I'd read and we'd watch the genius kid play chess and we'd play chess and smoke cigarettes and drink liquor out of juice bottles. Then it'd become evening and we'd get food and walk home and cook it. I'd managed to avoid the area 'til about October, which's quite a feat considering its proximity, but then I was ready and I walked right to it and sat down with her friend the bookseller and we talked for a few hours about what happened this summer and what's happening now and it was really good, really nice. I walked there the next day too to go to my favorite stationary store ... day after day when there wasn't much else I could handle, other people in particular. But I was starting to feel safer & stronger. I was in physical therapy once for about seven months, and we'd do all these exercises to strengthen my quads to make my knees better and walking to Harlumbia I guess was like physical therapy for my little baby mind. Now I can do lunges.

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2. The Mall, OBVS.
As a pre-adolescent, I loved the fuck out of the mall. There was nowhere we'd rather be: trying on Guess jeans at Hudson's, snatching fresh-baked samples from Mrs. Field's, paying $2.99 for poppy cassette singles at Musicland or Recordtown or whatevs, people-watching from a window table at Olga's while enjoying Orange Cream Coolers and gooey greasy pita bread-and-cheese "sandwiches," imitating what we imagined to be grown-up sex noises while sitting in Sharper Image's suggestive massage chairs. The boys would shoplift handfuls of gummy candy from Mr. Bulky's and we'd buy BFF necklaces from Claire's or get $3.00 makeovers at The Body Shop. I guess it was a safe temperature-controlled space for our parents to send us, though mine was obvs the last to permit such things (fascist, etc.) -- safer than downtown, where I fled to as soon as I got old enough to know better. Maybe the mall was a space station where I could pretend to be like all the other kids, potentially -- my present state of being wasn't nearly as important as what I'd possibly come there to improve via purchase.

Who'd be there? Who might we run into? What fun adolescent hijinks might occur? The mall as a centerpiece of teen culture is somewhat passe at this point -- I think the internet is the new default blame for adolescent hijinkery. Now it's impossible for me to enter a mall without feeling my very presence in such a space is ironic. Now when we go it's very specific -- we're looking for these items, these are the stores where we may locate said items, etc. But just going to the mall to hang out -- to pretend we're there for anything but commerce -- seems ludicrous, almost. Also,the mall is in decline, I read all about it in The Economist. You can also look at pictures of dead malls at deadmalls.com. It's kinda gross and fascinating. As I've mentioned, I'm mildly obsessed with Detroit and its structural decline, and deadmalls is no Detroit, but still.

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1. My Apartment:
My place is the best place in Manhattan to hang out, and here's why -- I can't possibly be late for something that's happening in my own apartment. Plus, all my stuff is here, so if I need anything, I can just like -- get it! Also we have The Roof, another top hangout. Also it's the cleanest/neatest occupied-by-twentysomething-peoples apartment I've ever seen, seriously. Except for my room, my room is not one of the cleanest rooms I've ever seen, because I've got a lot of stuff. Which brings me back around to why this is a good place to hang out = all my stuff is here. And by "all my stuff" I mean "my new sweatpants" which you must realise is how other people probs feel about getting new cars. I haven't even wiped my hands on them yet (I tend to confuse my pants with napkins when I'm eating and computing at the same time), that's how much I love them.

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I've sat in corners at parties hoping for someone who knew the virtue
of both distance and close quarters, someone with a corner person's taste
for intimacy, hard won, rising out of shyness and desire.
And I've turned corners there was no going back to, corners
in the middle of a room that led to Spain or solitude.
And always the thin line between corner and cornered,
the good corners of bodies and those severe bodies that permit no repose,
the places we retreat to, the places we can't bear to be found.
-from "Corners" by Stephen Dunn