Le maudit Mo D.

perv writer in public

The time has come for me to write of the devirginization of my dear protagonist Carol. As my own virginity-loss was unmomentous and unmemorable and not with a 40-something-year-old bereaved father, I feel like I am sitting here in T-birds writing soft core porn. BAD soft core porn.

I had a basic understanding of what went down (or up, as the case may be) during the act of sex when starting out. Carol, my protag, is 18 in 1964, Catholic, so I am making the assumption that she knows nothing or next to nothing. So I have Philip being rather instructive (placing her hand on his penis, explaining the process, telling her they can stop whenever she wants). She's just nodding her head. I don't know if this is how I want things to transpire (this is a first draft and a shitty one at that) but in the interest of being factually accurate (I don't have any reason to believe she'd be a tiger in the bedroom or that Philip would be harsh). My other option would be to make her not a virgin--maybe she had sex with some dumb boy and felt badly about it--but I'd rather have the tense virginity loss scene.

Ugh.

This is alternately fun and painful. Bleh.

simple machines

Ten years ago this weekend I and some of the most indie-rock-it-hurts ladies of the Ladycollege radio station roadtripped to Washington DC to attend the Simple Machines Farewell Party. I planned my outfits for weeks on end and threatened the driver of the car with certain death if we arrived at the Black Cat too late for me to see Grenadine play, because they were never going to play again after that night. Grenadine was my favorite Teenbeat/SM supergroup, sort of indie rock-meets-vaudeville-meets-lounge act that released two remarkable albums that I still listen to fairly regularly.

At the time I was hugely in love with the DC indie scene, led by the sassy Mss. Toomey and Thomson, Mr. Robinson, and their friends. I had pictures of them all over my room and always played a ton of their music on my radio show. I liked them precisely because I could go up to them and chat with them (and that I did!) because they were, in addition to being music heroes (to me and every other college radio DJ who read Sassy in high school), they were also regular people! With cool bands! I could be cool like them someday, right?

I was 22 years old at the time, so driving for 6 hours, watching shows until 3am, and then doing it again the next day and the day after was a dream come true and not something that makes me tired.

They were around the age of 30 when they retired their indie record label and moved onto other things. Maybe it's that magic age that makes you quiet the noises in your head and maybe give up a little, in a good way. Moving on=good, I think. I don't know. I'm not 22 anymore, so I'm having a hard time finding the words that described how I felt on those nights a decade ago. I'm sure I stood in front of those bands with a dopey smile on my face looking like a dorkasaurus, but I was a girl in love with a movement and a feeling. The Secret Stars played! Eggs!

I'm not in love with indie rock anymore. Oh well. We should always have fond memories of the time we were young and happy.

For the uninitiated, here is a video clip.

discontentment

Rather than work on my novels or do something worthwhile with myself, I've taken to reading "The Best of Craigslist," which on the outset sounds tawdry and lame but is actually some of the most provocative writing on the internets today. Read with an eye towards the zeitgeist and you will notice several themes: sexual dissatisfaction, marital strife, financial misappropriation and resulting fallout, nihilism and anomie, the abominable state of the dating/bar/hookup scene, and A LOT of ugly furniture. I also find it reassuring that there are so many folks out there who are weirder/more maladjusted than I. I come from a total freakshow situation, so it is comforting to remind myself that I've never had a restraining order against me or anything.

There are also a lot of complaints about public transit and hospitals. Clearly, we live in a broken world.

I fear that as a culture, we well-fed Americans have unrealistic expectations about happiness. I know that I have suffered from such illusions and have made silly life choices based on bad messages I have gotten all my life. This is why I respect dudes who quit their jobs to forage for mushrooms in Oregon. Fuck prestige.

farting around

Earlier today I participated in the Harry's-sponsored On The Road Marathon. Twelve-hours of nonstop Kerouac going down right now at Chateau Araignée. On the Road is truly the record of a male experience, so I felt a little weird reading it as a woman. All the Kerouac guys were out in full-force--dudes in their twenties and thirties there by themselves, standing up to read the immortalized words of America's finest literary loose cannons. Most of these guys were bald, glasses-wearing chaps who seem to have given up the dream and have given into unfulfilling careers and bad internet dates. They're probably who I'd be right now if I were a male. I was happy that I got to read from the part where he's in Fresno and Madera. Hometown ahoy.

Right now I'm just killing time before I go get my bbq on with one of my favorite ladies in the world, Ms. Jacqui Shine.

why i am no fun at parties

You may find this to be stodgy, shocking, or in poor spirits, but I've always disliked LOLCats because they deliberately misuse the English language. I don't have a cat, but if I did, my cat could spell and use language properly.

These are my contributions to the canon. If this makes me a stick in the mud or a prescriptivist or an asshole, so be it. My animals can spell.

emily jane

I am fond of this singer Emily Jane White. She has a lovely song in which she compares herself to a bathtub. It's called "Dark Undercoat." You should enjoy it. She sounds like Chan Marshall. I like EJ.

sometimes dreams come true

I have been awarded a 4-week fiction writing residency at the Vermont Studio Center for the month of October.

I am feeling kind of rock starrish right now.

Do you know how awesome it feels to finally get some recognition for doing tons of hard work in a vacuum for almost two years??

I wept a little when I read the acceptance letter. It felt like getting into college again.

October in Vermont is going to be breathtaking. Seven years of leaves I have missed. I get to make up for it all at once.

Antonya Nelson is going to be the fiction advisor that month (heads up, Shando!).

I got in.

Yay.

miss middleton's career mistake

I was just reading Amanda Marcotte's commentary on the NYT article that recently ran on a 15-year-old boy in Arkansas who has been perpetually bullied and how the brutes of his school's administration perpetually side with the bullies. Americans, especially those in the south, respect and love force and power over what is right and kind (a lot of these folks consider themselves Christians, another reason why I'll never do that). I just want to take this kid away and hug him. The adults who do nothing to stop this, or who for whatever reason, side with the bullies or the popular kids, or whatever, deserve bullets in their heads. Adults who put themselves in charge of children have a responsibility to provide a safe environment for every child. EVERY CHILD. Even the ones who make them uncomfortable.

Let's take a little trip back to 1988:

I was harshly tormented throughout junior high. I was an easy target: tall, smart, beaky, big vocabulary-using Mo. I wasn't blonde or tiny and I never wore those silly plastic shoes with the long laces that vapid NKOTB-loving girls BITD tied up their legs as if they were members of the USC Trojan Dance Team. Although I had a small circle of nerdly friends, the scions of wealth and popularity, children of doctors and lawyers who bought all their clothes at the local surf shop even though Fresno is over 100 miles from a surfable ocean, were handed scads of power not only by the other students, but by the faculty and staff as well. My "drama" teacher (fucking make-up huffing cunt named Kathy Robinson--ugly as sin inside and out), quick to shed a tear over the death of Gilda Radner (who was just as nerdy as me at age 13) had to carefully maintain her image and life's purpose as the mother of the Bullard High football star. As such, she openly favored the popular, as did the principal, another spackle-faced wench with a mildly-retarded jock son who liked to threaten to kick my ass before he got transferred to a special ed program at another school.

Got to love adults whose lives revolve around vicarious parenting and behaving like a teenager themselves. Fucking winners all.

Anyway, there were a few teachers who appreciated me and had my back and the backs of other intelligent and promising but socially disadvantaged at the tender, useless age of 13. Anyone with half a brain knows that these are the kids that grow up to be something. The engineers and professors and total rock stars in whatever they endeavor to do are the ones being fed shit by the worthless, vapid, unchallenged and uncultivated "popular kids." I have no idea why people are enchanted by these folks. My favorite people in the world are artists, scientists, faggots, intellectuals, and oddballs. Why are people who do nothing to shake up the status quo rewarded while those who create and make the world a more colorful, interesting place get shat upon? I am open in my contempt for people who are so boring and bland that they are only useful as doorstops. When I see people like this rewarded, I am dumbfounded. The nerds of the world make the world better. I wouldn't have this computer without the ingenuity of someone who was once an outcast. Internal combustion engines. Harriet the Spy. What are those shitheel popular kids doing right now? Lawyering probably. Opening expensive baby gifts. Restocking our planet with more dullards. Ugh.

Falling into this unfortunate category of easily-led sheep was my art teacher, an woman named Miss Middleton. Miss Mid, being egg-shaped, biracial, and a female who excelled in the sciences, had to have been as fucking geeky as me in her youth. I sensed this and felt a special fondness for this teacher who (I thought) had taken a special interest in me. I was a kid who needed to eat lunch indoors and spend recess in the library by necessity and she occasionally indulged me so I would not have to have my dignity challenged five days a week as I attempted to eat my lunch in a state of rare peace.

Twenty years later, you know what I remember the most about Miss Middleton? There was a field trip to San Francisco that the class was taking. An all day charter bus trip. Every gifted-program teacher was assigned to chaperone a bus. Miss Mid had promised me that I could be on her bus. I requested this in advance and she told me yes.

The day of the trip, I was told to get on the other teacher's bus. But Miss Mid promised me! Nope. Twenty years later, I do not remember her as a sensitive teacher, a mentor, someone who helped me. I remember her as the woman who put ALL THE POPULAR KIDS ON ONE BUS AND ASSIGNED HERSELF AS THE CHAPERONE OF THE POPULAR KIDS!!! All us nerdballs were shunted off to the nerd bus. I kid you not! I was so hurt! I felt so betrayed!

It broke my heart that the adults were playing this stupid game, too. Because that meant that I never had a chance. If a kid knows that you can't even look to the grown-ups for a modicum of justice in this world, you're screwed. I know now that a public school teacher making crap pay doing the world's most difficult job cannot be expected to double as a savior to beleaguered gifted kids who experience mockery and slander on the daily. I will argue on her behalf that it wasn't her job to placate me and nurture my self-esteem.

The measure of any teacher is what your 32-year-old former students say about you. I guess there was a lot of pressure from those overly made-up fugly cunts whose greatest achievement was pushing football players out of their twats to segregate the popular kids from the unpopular kids on long bus rides. I don't know. But imagine the wonderful things I could be writing about Miss Middleton right now if she had kept her promise so many years ago. She'd have been a hero. It's sad really. I sincerely doubt that any of those kids she put on her bus so long ago even remember her name.

vulture week

Because no one wanted to offer me any money for it, I put up Bob's old couch on the free stuff section of Craigslist. While no one wanted to pay a paltry but fair $50 for it, scads of Austin's vulture class got right to e-mailing me demanding it when its price was reduced to cheap-as-free! For reasons that I can only attribute to budding conservatism and/or hanging out with Bob everyday for the last five years, I've grown to consider these couch-grubbers as greedy, nasty, dirty folks who dig through my trash bins late at night and who'd think nothing of participating in an (illegal) Craigslist feeding frenzy like this. I'd think that if you were taking someone's furniture for free, you might rhetorically humble yourself a bit. Nope. Most of the e-mails were along the lines of:

WHEREZ YER HOUSE I GET THE COUCH RIGT NOW.

Clearly I cannot give free furniture to people who use all caps, can't spell, and are demanding. I know, they are probably English-as-a-second-or-distant-third-language speakers and I can't fault them too much. On second thought, I don't have to give them a couch, either.

Or they took the sob-story route:

Hello. I have a friend who is in a very bad way who would really need to have this couch.

Okay, this "friend" thing sounds like that time when your "friend" had a foreign object lodged in her pussy and your "friend" had to go the ER to have it removed. Riiiiight.

So I picked the one guy who said thank you and said that he had a truck and could pick it up. I told him when to come and where and he never showed and seems to be a couch no-show. Which is fine. It would be nice if he wrote back to tell me he wasn't coming and fuck my lame free couch. I just like to have closure with these things.

I think I'd rather donate it to the local women's shelter anyway. So fuck that guy and all his lame fucking fuck fuck.

The new Elmolint passed muster with the mechanic and so Bob's new car has been welcomed into the family and added to the insurance policy. Bob looks forward to installing a new stereo and tricking it out.

I realized that I have to write Angel in the Snow as a third-person. I need to be in Philip's head, too, and Carol's naive POV doesn't really work for what I'm trying to do. So rewrites ahoy.

philip and carol!

I finally got them together today! YAY! May/December smooching and groping is fun to write!!!

i relate very well to this comic

This comic here. Click.

i am a famous celebrity

Tonight, as Bob and I were tucking into our respective meals at the 34th/Guad location of Rice Dumpster, a girl in the age range of 10-12 stopped cold in front of our table and pointed at me.

"You! I saw you! You're...you're in that..."

"Improv troupe?" I finished her sentence, smiling. "Girls Girls Girls?"

"YES! YES! I saw you at that show and it was really great! WOW!" She gave me an open-mouthed "wow" look! She yelled at her dad to look at who was here. I turned around and waved at him. He waved back, summoning his daughter back to the family table. I thanked her and wished her well.

I am a famous celebrity. I get recognized by young girls.

elmolint

I like the new Element, but I kind of wish it had more options on it. It's the base model, a DX, meaning it doesn't have sassy additions like armrests, the overhead storage bin, keyless entry, and cruise control.

The thing is, I never use cruise control, so I shouldn't care about that. It also doesn't have the '07 and '08 updated safety features, like electronic stability control (Elmolint is tippy) and side curtain airbags (Bob seems to think these are bunk).

The previous owners must have been slovenly fast food hogs. I spent a good amount of time cleaning the crusty tan goop (which I thought was fading plastic. Nope, just old fry grease and ear wax) off of the window controls and the turn signal stem. Yuck! Carmax didn't detail the interior in any way, so Bob and I wiped it down with paper towels and an anti-grease cleaning agent.

Fortunately, Bob is one of those men of science who likes to dismantle and do his own DIY electronic/automotive hacks. A year ago, he did his own soundproofing and installed his own new car stereo and speakers on his Acura,. So he can get his geek on installing and retrofitting to his heart's content.

I am excited for Bob. This is the perfect car for him, and for us, since it's nice and tall and doesn't hurt my back getting in and out of it.

ELMOLINT!

geegsters go national

National press that is!

We got blurbed in the latest issue of Bust. Page 10. We are proud.

This summer, we will be part of the Women in Comedy issue of Venus Zine.

Geegsters amping it up national!!!

ALSO...

Bob got a pretty blue Element today! New car!

sham/poo

While other people are stressing out about jobs, money, relationships, faulty home wiring/plumbing, venereal diseases, and the outcomes of competition-based television programs that I do not watch, my concern du jour is finding a new bottle of shampoo. I have great difficulty with shampoo. I know, it's a tragedy on par with the decimation of the rain forest, so I know that you, my reader, are sincerely concerned.

Most American shampoos are marketed to make people believe there is something wrong with their hair. "Flyaway frizzy hair" needs to be tamed with "volumizing" products, since people with fine, frizzy hair are one step away from plugs and/or rejection. A lot of people damage their hair with chemical colorants, so people with "color-treated hair" have their own Balkanized shampoo section. Brightly colored bottles of fragrance and sodium lauryl sulfate are supposed to mend hair-related imperfections, smell good, and make you feel good about yourself. Denizens of hearty Middle Eastern stock blessed with healthy, thick, dark locks with a bit of wave, however, are not catered to, and so now that my bottle of Rusk Calm is almost out, it must be replaced, and there is no shampoo that caters to me and my otherwise likable hair.

I don't need volume. My hair poofs up in the Texas humidity like a mushroom cloud. I haven't colored my hair since a collegiate application of Manic Panic, so that thick, creamy, moisturizing stuff is like putting lotion in my hair. A nice, clean, clarifying shampoo works best for me, but clarifying isn't the in thing among shampoo manufacturers. I am lost.

Bob had a tragic fan moment this morning where the object of his fanly affections, MJP e-mailed me and confessed to forgetting Bob's name and then asked ME out for coffee! Poor Bob! If Martin Donovan ever wants to coffee with Bob, I'll certainly be hurt and confused. And demand a picture with Martin, OMG!!!

And Amy, omg Amy Amy Amy, how can you think MBG isn't cute? I admit, I have unorthodox taste in men, but MBG was perhaps the most orthodox of them all! He's orthodox! Like a freaking rabbi, his looks play by the rules. And he has a beard. Kosher, like a pastrami sandwich. (No, he isn't Jewish, but even turbo-Jew former roommate Lydia found him devastatingly attractive)

Right now, I'm just into Martin Donovan. And Bob, but that's a given.

brief inventory of incidents in which feminism was used to excuse bad behavior

1) Making strong social distinctions between out lesbians and straight girls/not-out lesbians. God, that got tedious. Prejudgment by people who were "fighting prejudice." Always a good time, as it's vital to rhetorically rob the power group of their power, even when they aren't actively wielding it or even aware that they have it. There but for the grace of Gloria go I...

2) Wearing revealing hoochie clubwear, but cloaking it in "feminism." Hey, if you want to show your titties and get banged by some dude at Club X, that's your business. Saying that you're doing it "because you're a feminist" doesn't wash with me. I don't stay home on a Saturday night eating hummus in my jammies and watching "Surviving Desire" for the eight millionth time because I'm a "feminist." I do it because I want to.

3) Crapping on the institution of marriage because it's not "Feminist." Hey, if you you don't want to shell out for a gift, just admit it. Don't mire your lack of desire to buy your friends Cuisinarts in gender politics.

4) The Bryn Mawr "sani-bag" controversy. A short history: in the Bryn Mawr dorm bathrooms, there were these things called "sani-bags" for menstruating ladies to place their bloody pads in before tossing them in the trash. A few "feminists" took issue with the bags, which were printed with the slogan "for the discreet woman." An angry cabal of "feminists" wrote heated pro-menses op-eds for the Bi-Co News along the lines of "this makes me so angry that my blood is seen as offensive or disgusting that I'm going to let it run down my leg and I sure as hell won't be using those sani-bags!" So these bitches were leaving their exposed, unwrapped pads on the floor or stuck to the walls, all the while forgetting that it was ANOTHER WOMAN (who didn't have the opportunity to attend a fine school like BMC and had to get a job as these bitches' maid) who had to come in and clean up their feminism. Another op-ed was published reminding the renegade bleeders of their inherent class insensitivity and that bloody pads were biohazards.

mary jo

Last night Bob and I went to see Mary Jo Pehl, upcoming LAFF participant and former MST3K performer/writer, give a lecture on the topic of "How Not to Write A Book" at the BookNozzle. When I casually mentioned that this fine woman was doing this presentation at BookNoz AND that she was doing stand-up at LAFF, my husband, in short order, crapped himself, pissed himself, did a little dance, made a little love, passed out, came to, and flushed red as a beet. One might argue that MJP is Bob's equivalent of Martin Donovan. Only MJP lives in Austin and can ostensibly be Bob's friend.

So, alongside my crushy fan boy, I attended her reading. Apparently, some guy with a small comic book publishing concern offered her a book deal out of nowhere based on her MST cred and she took it without asking enough questions, and then she was unhappy with the book when it came out.

She was super cool and nice when we introduced ourselves, and she said nice things to me about being a writer.

MJ is teaching a writing class at BookNozzle that I'm thinking of taking, about "writing your humor." I have tons of humor to write.

rape still isn't funny!!!

This just in:
RAPE STILL ISN'T FUNNY!

The truth of the matter is, in improv, technically nothing should be off-limits. So it's a sticky situation. If you can handle it with grace and sensitivity, great. If not, why do you want to risk putting off your audience?

A well-considered blog posting by Jason Chin, a teacher at iO, on the topic of rape and other hot-button issues played in improv, can be read here.

careersy

I've decided to go back to publishing. As long as I don't have to live in NYC, I really want to do this. Here are the roads back that I could take:

1) FELLOWSHIP. Our local university press offers a fellowship to alums who want to work in publishing, mainly scholarly publishing.

PROS: In town, learning-on-the-job, will be able to form meaningful professional relationships on the job. At the end of the year, they send you out into the world with a good recommendation.
CONS: You are expected to go out and find a publishing career at the end of this. Meaning, if they don't hire you and the thought of working for HRW makes you panic (I had a horrible interview there once in which I was treated like an idiot and ganged up on by my interviewers), you're expected to relocate. I'm totally down with moving somewhere new, but hubby isn't. As much as I want this fellowship, I am afraid it will cause either a rift in my marriage or a rift between me and the nice editorial peeps who could have given my fellowship to someone else.

2) HOLD STEVE TO HIS PROMISE. When I departed the Dictionary, my boss, Steve, told me that I could have my job back anytime I wanted. Now that the economy's in the dumps, I don't imagine that he can be held to this. The Dictionary doesn't exactly bleed money, so when the economy hurts, the Dictionary doesn't hire.
PROS: Familiarity, I suspect I'd like this job way better at 32 than I did at 22, I love the Pioneer Valley. Major nerd cred. Nice people.
CONS: Really low pay. Bob doesn't want to move. A certain short bald man probably wouldn't be too happy to see me.
BONUS FOR BOB: It's up the street from gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson!

3) PUBLISHING COURSE (Denver or Columbia)
PROS: Four-week summer camp! Connections.
CONS: Costs thousands of dollars. They might have a problem with my "No NYC" rule. I already have experience, so why bother?

4) RESUME BLITZ. I've applied for pretty much every job at the university press that's come open in the last two years. I was one of the last two finalists at one point, but they hired the other candidate.
PROS: An honest way to get a job.
CONS: A lot of these jobs are word-of-mouth, you have to have an in type things.

I guess the main problem is that Bob doesn't want to move. I'm not too psyched about packing up our house or saying goodbye to my Austin pals, but at this point in life, I'm also not interested in being one of those "must stay in Austin at all costs" folks.

If Bob were ready to make with the U-Haul, I'd definitely go with Option #1 and barring that, I'd think long and hard about Option #2.

Hmmm...

free furniture

We're giving this stuff away.

(four of these plus a long wooden table)

Paris's BFF

For entertainment purposes only, I will now answer the questions required of entrants to "Be Paris Hilton's New Best Friend" contest at MTV. The contest has an age requirement of "over 18, but look 18-24." As I look at least 47 (on a good day), I am ineligible, but I will go ahead and answer the questions anyway.

Also, I want to mention that I read somewhere that Paris's dad actually isn't all that rich--he only gets, like, $400,000 a year from the Hilton estate, and since he's raised his children to expect only the finest, that isn't enough, so he *cough* works. As does Paris. She makes 2-3 mill a year parading around like a spoiled princess. Good on her.

ROUND ONE

The casting consists of one round lasting 8 weeks. Here are the requirements you must fulfill to be eligible:

Upload minimum of one (1) new 90 second video answering ALL of the following:

* What is the wildest thing you've ever done?

Hmm... I confess, I have lead a mostly staid, secure existence. I value the mind and have constantly sought to improve my mind at the expense of my ass, thighs, and breasts. That said, I once stole a bunch of photocopies and a handful of pens and Post-Its on the watch of this gentleman, Charles:

Charles worked graveyard at the Noho, Mass Kinko's in the mid-1990s while I was an undergraduate at a prestigious institution whose gender-based admission requirements would most likely confound Ms. Hilton. Charles was lonely, deranged, and liked to raise hell at the expense of Kinko's corporate directives. Hence, when a gaggle of attractive lasses from the local ladycollege came around to photocopy their 'zines, a bottle of scotch in tow, he was all too quick to offer the five-finger discount.

I also co-hosted an impromptu Ron Jeremy retrospective in a large lecture hall that we had not requested permission for. Using my best academic jargon, I improvised a keynote speech in which I demanded that my audience understand Ron Jeremy's penis as a metaphor for American cultural excess, and reminded them that the most famous appendage in American pop culture is attached to a Jew.

* If you became a celebrity, what secret would you be most fearful of having exposed?

Well, this of course:

I expect that if I were to become a celebrity, a thorough audit of my past romantic life would be endeavored. It would be only fair: the measure of a woman is the men who strive to keep her company. Unfortunately, I've never had any sort of romantic encounter with anyone famous. No Greek shipping magnates or scions of powerful captains of industry. Not even anyone Austin-local famous. Also, I've pretty much exclusively dated nerds. And not even edgy hipster nerds. I'm talking serious NERDS.

Here is the hard-core nerd I am happily married to:

Holding a tablet. He loves me and treats me well and has made me very happy. He's not a rich man, sometimes he bores me with technical lectures based on the Lindsey Publications Home Foundry Instructional Series, but we love each other and are best friends. Isn't that enough, Paris? ISN'T THAT ENOUGH?????

I suppose you want to hear that I'm a naughty girl with a hearty sexual appetite who is embarrassed and horrified by past sexual dalliances. Well, the only thing I really have in that department is this guy:

(photo removed by editrix)

I was 26, he was 19, a college student who frequently wore flannel jammie pants. We did the nasty in the filth-strewn confines of a West Campus co-op some six years ago. T'is all a blur and a memory now. Last time I saw him he was working the burrito line at the 'Bird. I hope he has a nice girlfriend and a film career.

I don't really have a lot of secrets. Sorry.

* Why do you think you would fit in with the socialite circle?

I come from a family with money, but I hate them and everything they stand for. Maybe Paris and her ilk could rehabilitate me. Being a bratty rich girl should have been my birthright. Is it too late for me?

Actually, I could write a paper about the parallels of the modern socialite set and ancient Greek bacchanals. Living to please just yourself and to be seen by others is a practice dating back to the ancients! Do those exclusive clubs have vomitoriums?

Post minimum of one (1) blog answering ALL of the following:

* Do you consider yourself fabulous? How so?

Why yes, I consider myself fabulous. I spent several beautiful years fag-hagging with these distinguished homosexuals:

(that's Ryan wearing my old Vermont t-shirt!)

(Daniel is fabulous AND British!)

And they will readily attest to my fabulousness and qualifications to identify as "fabulous" under the rubric of fabulousness currently subscribed to by today's fashion-forward gay men. I am a hit with the gay men as long as they aren't bitchy queens who overvalue style and appearance to the point of being parodies of themselves. In fact, I find it irresponsible to proclaim one's self "fabulous" without prior approval of at least a handful of seasoned fags. I've also written a novel, which is pretty fabulous, if you're, like, into reading. Which I am.

* What qualities make you the perfect celebrity BFF?

I spent four years as the BFF of a wildly charismatic woman:

I know what it is to have the spotlight shine on someone else. I was a very good sidekick and I know how to behave. I would never flash my crotch at anyone and rarely get drunk enough to engage in similar transgressions. I wouldn't want to steal Paris's thunder. Paris's vag takes precedence over mine, and is probably much better groomed, too.

* What similarities do you share with Paris? How are you different?

I actually pride myself on being as different from Paris as possible. But we could talk about that, maybe try to reach some common ground!

Actually, Paris and I are both from California and um... Yeah! California! We've both worked shitty service jobs, but when I did it it was for real and not for a reality show on Fox. Rich families, only mine isn't generous and all. Kind of like Aunt Zsa Zsa, with all the court and stuff! I'm totally down with driving with a dog in your lap!

* It's hard to stay in the public eye. How would you maintain the limelight?

Carry this instrument of pleasure around in a small purse:

It has also occurred to me that due to the upcoming recession, the public at large might look down upon Paris's reckless spending, ostentatious excess, and disrespect for L.A.'s service worker community. What Paris needs is a down-to-earth pal who will encourage her to donate to charity, shop at Target, and spend her time helping others rather than conducting herself in a spoiled, immature fashion.

I am also not above making out with other girls in front of paparazzi in order to generate buzz on D-list gossip blogs.

summer at the cape

I need to cool off in more ways than one. I'm thinking summer sabbatical somewhere with cooler weather. I need a change of scenery and a new adventure. BAD.

I thinking I may July or August elsewhere.

I should also get that surgery.

Damnit.

fuck by fuck me

I ventured into the annual hipster deluge that cripples my city today after eating a massive portion of barbecued meats. I wish I had a camera with me. A plastic tray was piled high with sausage, brisket, chicken, and MUTTON (very fatty, that mutton) and Corey, Bob, and myself gnawed, chewed, and swallowed our way through some delicious death. No sides except for bread. I usually forgo the pickles, but as that was the only vegetable available to me, I partook.

Afterwards I followed Corey downtown to catch a free day show. I am usually vexed by Fuck-By. How dare my favorite bands come to Austin only to play for 40 minutes behind a portcullis of regimented festival regulations that require a very expensive badge to access. I dislike crowds so I am not down to spend $500 to stand in many crowds repeatedly. But I had a nice time today, save for the heat. We saw the Helio Sequence, a band I have heard many times on KEXP. We stood in the back and watched/listened from afar.

I wish I were the type of person who lived for this sort of thing. Ten years ago I would have creamed to get to really "do" FXFY. But now I'm just old and claustrophobic and I hate the sun as it beats the shit out of Austin, TX in March. Big, sunny punches. Ow.

NEXT TOPIC: I just want to state here, for anyone who missed being properly educated on this topic, that RAPE ISN'T FUNNY. I don't care if you're a woman or a man or the fucking King of Improv. Pulling out something as violent and ugly as rape on stage is a surefire way to offend someone in the audience and pull them out of the supposed-to-be-pleasurable experience of watching an improv show. By choosing to say "I'm a rapist" or "I'm gonna rape you," in your scenework, you are potentially RUINING SOMEONE'S GOOD TIME while making yourself look like an insensitive jackass. I realize that not everyone agrees with me on this, but I fucking don't care. It's offensive, inconsiderate, and horrifying and most definitely NOT FUNNY.

bad day

Wow, what a fucking balls day, and it's only three.

Bob and I have been planning to buy him a used Honda Element for a few weeks. Elements are the boxy cargomobile crossover SUV made by Honda. We like them and it will allow Bob to haul shit around and we can sleep in it in case we have to run from Johnny Law. There was a red one (red being my fave color for this model of car) on the lot of Last Tejas Honda right by our house for like THREE MONTHS. We test drove it and everything was peachy, though we did want to go look elsewhere for one with a sunhole or other fine options.

So we finally come to a decision to buy the red one. I walk down to Last Tejas only to notice the red Element not in its regular spot. Oh, crap! So I walk in to the little building there only to discover that IT HAD BEEN SOLD NOT HALF AN HOUR EARLIER. The guy had JUST driven it off the lot.

How's that for horseshit luck.

Then the Honda guy tells me that the guy didn't even want a red one.

Ugh.

So I walk over to Thunderbird to do my daily writing only to discover my powercord was still at home.
So I go home to get it. And I fucking TRIP AND FALL in the middle of Something Street. My left elbow is scratched and of course I burst into tears, since all it takes is half a Magnetic Fields song to make me tear up these days. So I'm hobbling towards my house with leaves all over my sweater and a scratched elbow.

Ow.

My therapist hasn't called me back.

I am hating this thing called life these days. I'm so depressed, I don't even have the energy to bust on FXFY.

cheap store

I loathe shopping. But as part of my commitment to the Mo Plan, I was required to both blast through my Macy's gift card and acquire some dresses. I accomplished both today. Thanks to the shitty economy, Macy's has slashed the prices of its clothing by staggeringly large percentages.

I don't like to brag about finding great deals on clothes (that's the province of Novel #1 Heroine Olivia), but I acquired two mod Jackie O-style dresses at GIHUGEOUS discounts:

The first dress originally retailed for $96. I PAID $23!!!
The second dress went for $109. I PAID $39!!!

Department stores are hurting, people, and Macy's had some good shit. Take advantage!

luck be a (bookish) lady

Tonight I attended a frilly book-and-wine promotion event sponsored in part by a Large NY Publishing House and a Local Wine Boutique. The acclaimed novelist who put me in touch with Real NYC Agent #1 (there will be more) was the featured author so I decided to go, meet her face-to-face, and thank her for her kindness.

It was an event aimed at book group ladies of a certain socioeconomic sector, and while I am technically a member of this sector, I cannot count myself among their number. For starters, I DON'T HAVE KIDS and book group ladies ALL have kids. I was asked by several that I made chit-chat with if I had children and when I answered no, a door closed. There was also much chatter about the calories in all the cheese that was being served. Also, I don't have kids.

These ladies are usually very polite and I was held up as a beacon of good table manners, which confused the hell out of me. Just because I was eating my dried jamon iberico (hello, Espana!) with a fork and knife because THIS WAS A PROFESSIONAL OUTING AND THERE WERE SALES REPS FROM RANDOM HOUSE THERE HOLY CRAP! I was even wearing dress shoes.

Anyway, Novelist was very gracious and we had a nice chat about writing. But the big payoff of the night was when
(drumroll)

I WON THE DRAWING.

There were four winners, and my name was the 4th to be pulled. But I won a stack of paperbacks all tied up with a green ribbon. So four freshly printed paperbacks, plus Novelist's new novel (included in price of admission), equaling five novels (novels!) are now in my possession.

This event also featured the BEST CRACKERS I'VE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE. You don't really think about the quotidian substrate that is crackers, but these kicked ass. I also bought a bottle of the tumultuous, smoky, unresty (not the band) merlot that I was warned was "rugged" by the wine guy. Rugged indeed. It sort of tastes like someone dropped a barbecued pork chop and a roasted marshmallow in the wine.

IN OTHER NEWS, Mr. Natural and I have officially parted ways. The last couple of times I ate there, I didn't enjoy it so much. Today at lunch, I felt very sick to my stomach as I ate my food. There was nothing wrong with it per se, except maybe carrots and cheese should not be mixed together. I don't know. The food just had a soggy mop feel to it. I spent most of the afternoon wishing I had lunched at Bouldin instead. At any rate, my love affair with Mr. N has gone south. Goodbye, Mr. Natural.

weeds

I've been watching the highly-acclaimed, Martin Donovan-in-2nd-season Showtime series Weeds and several things are killing me:

1) Why doesn't she sell her house?
2) Why doesn't she downgrade on the house?
3) Why doesn't she get a real job?
4) Why doesn't she get a credit card?
5) Didn't her dead husband leave her with some insurance or anything?
6) Why doesn't she sell some of her shit?
7) Why is she leasing a Land Rover? Get a Corolla or something modest and affordable! Fuck, you'd have a Corolla paid off in five months for what you pay to LEASE a Rover.

The entire premise of the show just doesn't hold. Not that I don't believe that she could be left broke--most "rich" people who live in subdivisions like that are one six-figure paycheck away from the repo man and an ass-pounding from the IRS. Those people usually have no liquidity. If you have to flash it, you probably don't really have it.

by the way...

Just because I am backing Obama doesn't mean I want to hear hating on Hillary. I mean, really. Why waste that level of vitriol on her? I was recently subjected to vituperation I'd usually reserve from someone who either married my mother, stole my drying rack out of the attic back in college, or told me I had a nose like a witch. It just sounds like misogyny, even if you get all offended by my pointing that out.

the mo plan

I've been in a major funk lately, so this week I am forcing myself to do things that help me feel better about myself. For those of you who are interested, the daily practice of writing has made me feel very isolated and worried about the quality of my work. Combined with my usual slate of emotional probs, and I am a scared, sad Mo. I've applied to go back to work at Harry's, and hopefully the return to a daily work environment will do me some good, provided I am given the job.

1) EYEBROW TORTURE at the Waxoleum
2) BLOW $100 MACY'S GIFT CARD that's been burning a hole in my pocket
3) DRESSES. You need dresses, Mo.
4) GYMNASIUM. Join Hyde Park Gym. Go to gym.
5) TAKE A WEEK OFF NOVELING. I need some distance.
6) NOT BE SO HARD ON YOURSELF FOR SUCKING AT IMPROV TONIGHT. It happens.
7) KITCHEN REMODEL HO! Pick out your damn colors.

Okay. Hopefully I will feel better about myself after this. I had a great week (B-day! T-square! Nice friends! Show!) but am still feeling like sour milk. Ba!

revelation

I just had a revelation that I'd like to enumerate here on my blerg.

I was going for a walk and thinking to myself, "man, I am a total WHITE PERSON as described on stuffwhitepeoplelike.com." I'm walking through my up-and-coming neighborhood with my iPod listening to an interview with Ira Glass! Then I'm going to do improv and have a meeting on the topic of my class reunion at a prestigious east coast college! I may have gone to high school in C-Juana, but I washed that away long ago. I'm a upper-middle-class white person....POR VIDA!

So I'm listening to Ira talk about narrative, and what he feels makes a narrative compelling enough to be aired on TAL. And it occurs to me that Ira Glass is a hero of my people. He's soft-spoken, Jewish, thinky, glasses-wearing, and went to Brown. And he entertains my people in this really specific way: he gets to us emotionally. He makes us think, and hits us in our tender little hearts.

I think if you grew up in a manner that lacked anything threatening, you are predisposed to relate to Ira and the narrative he peddles. What I mean is, if you grew up with parents who had money in a prosperous community and you never had to question if you basic needs would be met, or if you never personally had to take care of them yourself; if all you had to do is excel in school and violin and drama and soccer and if college was the big prize for doing little else than making your parents look good, and your life has had a minimum of major obstacles or instances where you were threatened or unsafe; if you had parents who were perpetual guardians of your well-being, then what develops is a primacy of the emotional life. Your feelings take on this urgency, because since you're not being shot at or being robbed of your dignity at a shitty low-paying job or the welfare line, there are no external demons, so your demons come from within. And I"m not even talking major demons. I'm talking minor demons. Why am I here demons? Existential demons. So much of my Smith education was spent sitting in classrooms with women who contributed to academic discourse with sentences that began "I feel..." And they felt justified in doing so! Feelings are important, especially to women, and trespassing against another's feelings was akin to treason.

It got me thinking that this is why a presidential candidate as odious as George W. Bush would never appeal to my demographic. Although he grew up more cushy than I did, he learned to pander to people who, for whatever reason, value physical security above emotional security. Feeling physically guarded beyond "holy shit I'm a woman I might get raped" is a muscle I've never had to develop, so my voting habits do not reflect that.

Which brings me to Obama. Obama says pretty things, smart things. Rhetorically, he's a member of my tribe. He soothes our weary souls.

Should Obama secure the Democratic nomination, he'd do well to select Ira Glass as his running mate.

This post is dedicated to my pal Swilkes on the momentous occasion of her 30th birthday.

booger eater

Irony of ironies:

Earlier at the cafe, as I was writing the previous entry about our collective oppression by the skinny-loving man and how my normal, healthy weight makes me butt-ugs, I was sitting in full view of an overweight teenage boy full on picking his nose. He had tried to strike up a conversation with me on the topic of Windows superiority to MacOS and I wasn't having it. I cold-shouldered the kid, but he persisted, oblivious to negative social cues. I even mashed my iPod earphones in my ears and he STILL talked at me (not with me) in that creepy, superior tone preferred by teenage boys with no clue.

I decided to be nice to the kid. But when he went for the nostril, digging his pinky up to the knuckle and swirling it around, then wiping it on his laptop monitor and/or flicking the resulting matter on the floor, my charity ran thin. This poor kid has a dim future. The fat kid picking his nose is such a hackneyed, cliched image, I'm almost embarrassed to even bring it up, lest someone think I made it up in a moment of stark unoriginality. But he did it, four feet away from yours truly. I averted my eyes, as the next step would have been a loud fart or an unveiled package rearrange.

As much as I like waving the freak flag, there are prevailing social standards that one must live up to, and that is not giving your nose a thorough swabbing with your finger for 10+ minutes in front of a 30-something woman with a laptop trying to write a novel, who may or may not be feeling badly about herself due to the reading of a liberal blog.

Fucking irony.

i didn't think pandagon intended to make me feel badly about myself

Holy shit! I just read a review of the book "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters," about the social expectation for women to demonstrate how perfect and in-control they are by being thin. I've always been in the "fuck that shit" camp. I've been plowing desserts and deep fried nacho cheese niblets down my gullet with self-imposed impunity for years now. Maybe it's an advantage I have being tall, but while I've often wished I didn't pack the gut, I've never worked super-extra-hard to get rid of it. Being married and not actively trying to date anyone also relieves me of the effort of caring. Fuck it. I'm me. Bob's digs me. Who the fuck cares?

But now, after reading the review and the reader comments, I'm like, holy shit...I'm fugly and have been subtly punished by society for it. I always blew it off when callow dudes from improv would say to my face who they thought the hottest Geegsters were and not mention my name (Shana always got a special mention by these asswipes for being superlatively talented--cold comfort there). I'm reviewing the list of dudes who have rejected me and I'm thinking is my tummy pudge and Armo nose and size 12/14 jeans to blame for all this? Were the numerous guys who are only attractive to freaks like me were holding out for lithe callipygian maidens even though they were, say, rocking a sparse white-trashy mustache or suffered from early-onset androgenic alopecia? Bob fucking smolders with hotness in my opinion, and he's over 40, has a beer belly, and occasionally has eyebrows like Andy Rooney. I'm just saying.

And why such the narrow definition of beauty? Some of the most beautiful women I know are chubby. Who are we really trying to please? I already know I'm invisible to most men. I have been my whole life. What else is new? The thing is, I figured out early on that these loser douchewads weren't worth trying to impress. If I have to forgo cookies and bust my ass at the gym to be merely considered human, then fuck it. You've got to work really fucking hard to impress me.

I'm going to go eat a piece of my birthday cake and ponder this some more.

my other grandparents

From the New York Times, January 1914.

why I love being in my thirties...

"Wrongheaded" has taken on new meaning. Holy shit, how did I ever come from so much wrongheadedness???

cake guilt and birthday

Here is my birthday cake, majestically befruited.

This cake is not the cake I ordered. This cake is bigger than the cake I ordered because they forgot to make my cake, a smaller version of this here cake. So they sold me the bigger cake for the price of the small one, begrudgingly, telling me I was getting a great deal of free cake. They lost $8 on this cake and I felt bad, driving off with my large birthday cake, like that $8 might put them out of business, or maybe the employee who was supposed to make my cake but didn't got in trouble or something. Birthday cakes are supposed to be happy, right?

This cake is happy. It is iced with the icing equivalent of crack. Yum! I usually hate icing, but this icing is the best.

Tonight Bob and I saw TMBG play at Stubb's. Fourteen-year-old Mo would have been flabbergasted if you had told her than 18 years hence, she'd be seeing TMBG for her birthday.

Berfday!

thirty-two

bonne anniversaire a moi.
j'ai trente-deux ans.
je suis vielle maintenant!
bonne anniversaire a moi.

margaret, fraudulent memoir

The one thing I have learned from the latest fraudulent memoir debacle is this: there is nothing lamer than being white and upper-middle-class. Growing up safe, sheltered, and assured that your basic needs will always be met doesn't make you cool.

Also, those of us who grew up white and upper-middle-class were often praised for our imaginations and creativity and told we could be and do anything.

Why punish this woman for using her imagination and believing she could be and do anything? It makes perfect sense to me. Of course, being Queen Douchebag of the Publishing World probably wasn't what she had in mind.

In a way, I understand her and I don't blame her in the least.

thanks again, mom

The latest backhanded compliment from dear ol' mom:

Mo: Bla bla something about how being "smart" doesn't mean that you can't be a total fucking idiot in the realm of dating, as I was right up until I got together with Bob.
Mom: You know, a lot of people thought you'd never get married! I mean, you were just so...
Mo: Are you sure you want to say out loud what you're thinking?
Mom: Different! And smart!
Mo: Yup. (aiming middle finger at the phone)
Mom: But then you did, right when you turned thirty, and I think that made people, I don't know, see you differently! In a good way! (so I was a fucking mass of undesirable nerd-girl until Bob's blessed approval changed me into a socially acceptable person??)
Mo: So if I hadn't met, like, the only man on the planet who would actually marry the likes of me, I'd still be single and everyone would be like, 'yep, totally what we expect from different, smart Mo.'
Mom: Well, you make it sound like it's a bad thing!

Jesus fucking Christ. I don't even think about this shit anymore and there it is, the parallel universe where I am still single and some kind of freak. Thanks mom. Better cling to Bob extra-tight, because no one else wants me.

The only man other than Bob that wants me is Obama and he only wants my vote (which I gave him). Ugh.

white skin=authoritative voice

Last weekend I read with great interest this article in the NYTimes, about this white woman with a very nice house in Eugene, OR who wrote a memoir about being a South Central gang-banger and foster child in a black family. (My gut instinct was that the State of California wouldn't place a white child with a black family but I couldn't actually verify that) I found her situation to be kind of weird--this white woman with the quintessential middle-class house with a white kid who just happened to have run drugs and sold pit bulls for the Bloods? She and her daughter look like a pair of indie kids! Still, because it was in the Times, I assumed that however weird this situation looked, it was true.

Still, the OGL gave Ms. Jones's book a glowing review. Today, an article appeared that her older sister ratted her out--none of it was true. She grew up with her white biological family and went to (gasp!) private school (hell, I went to high school in the ghetto and that is verifiable!). She did some sort of volunteer/outreach thing with the gang people of South Central.

What irritated me the most was not that she made the whole thing up. I spend my days making shit up, and my desire to see my made-up shit published and sold in bookstores borders on the psychotic. It was that the publishing powers that be overlooked countless gifted writers who really are from this community and background, and decided to bestow the mantle of gang-banger authority on a white, college-educated homeowner rather than A REAL BLACK PERSON. Because a white woman had some outsider/anthropologist cache, she was taken seriously, handed a publishing contract, and got two huge write-ups in the Times. I'm sure there are some literate Bloods out there.

I'm also left wondering how she got away with this. Like stealing from an archives, you're gonna get caught. It's not as if she doesn't have friends, old classmates, family members, etc. who knew she was making it all up.

t-to-the-squizzle

I won't drive out to College Station for just anyone. Fortunately, T-square isn't just anyone. She's one of my O.G. Ladycollege bitches and therefore she is worth the drive. A resident of Big B, an OZQ DJ, and a Californian of Middle Eastern extraction, she and I go way way back and it is always a pleasure to catch up with my girl T. I had such a good time with her that I won't bother to dis on C.S., TX, which was exactly what I expected and nothing more. I like how the large animal hospital and the small animal hospital are right next door to each other. What about medium-sized animals?

T-square is in the coils of academia and as such gets summoned to collegiate outposts such as A+M once in a while. Sometimes even in Texas. T paints a gray, tragic picture of the PhD process. Ambivalence envelops her as she describes her travails. (Poor T*m*r!)

T-sq got some awesome, gorgeous cowboy boots at Allen Boots today! They were a major lifetime purchase but a well-considered on IMO. She will have these comely boots for the rest of her life and they will attract the men because they are sexy. Even a stranger commented upon their sexiness in the store.

I turn 32 in 48 hours. Those are two even numbers and multiples of four that you can chew on for a while. I keep forgetting that it's my birthday this week.

I write in Austin. Get over it.

It's been years since any of my coasty friends raised an eyebrow at my move to the center of Texas. Austin is cool, and everyone agrees. Every week, arty people from oversized, overpriced burgs like New York and LA wash up on the shores of Lady Bird Lake. Are they settling? Giving up the dream? Or is it our below-median rents and attractive taco carts that keep 'em coming? I came here for library school.

I wrote in Brooklyn once. Lethem used to stab his fingers at his laptop in my preferred coffee shop. LETHEM. I also knew where Eggers lived, up the street, just past my favorite Italian ice shop. I also worked for a giant publishing company, a great overall experience. It was the only job where my superiors were actually, literally, MEAN to me and felt the need to remind me of my low station. I lasted eleven months.

I am a Texas writer whose stories more often than not take place in Massachusetts. The first seventy pages of Novel #1 are in Boston, and all of Novel #2 takes place in working-class Chicopee/Springfield. I guess that's because I mostly wish I could be there every day, so barring that, I pretend I'm there by writing about teenage Catholic girls named Carol Sewicki.

Have I mentioned how nice the writers are here? Sarah B*rd often says hi to me when I run into her around town. I occasionally knit with Spike. Owen waves at me from his bicycle. Amanda responds to my e-mails in less than 24 hours. Best of all, the most published and taken-seriously among us do not pen snark-light for the NYTimes slyly berating those who are trying hard to live the dream, maybe churning out meaningless hipster bullshit in the process. I'm sure if I was at the point in my career when my novels were being taught in liberal arts college classrooms and I had some fancy "writer-in-residence" title to my name, I'd feel okay about being more of an asshole than usual. But that would be anathema to the writing-in-Austin experience. Which is all about smiling on your brother and trying to love one another.

I write in a coffeehouse that's a five minute walk from my house. I don't live in a hip neighborhood. As I write, I gaze out upon the rows of Hondas at the car dealership across the street. When I get home, I smell like the panini grill. Sometimes I run into people I know. Leah once almost got into a car accident waving at me as I waited to cross Koenig. I cringed, but when I saw that she was safe, I smiled. That's why I write in Austin, people.

I think sometimes that writing in a remote part of Vermont would be nice. I've written in West Texas, and though I enjoyed the classes and the air, the ladies there didn't know what the T was. I had to explain the T. I also had to keep my mouth shut about not caring about small Texas towns. Not that there's anything wrong with them, but I was on their turf. Here comes Daddy with a hatchet and a beat-up Chevy. No one who has the ear of the Times writes stuff like that, except maybe Cormac McC.

My chiropractor asks me how my novel is going. I thank her for remembering it as she cracks the sciatica out of my back. The sciatica gets in the way of writing. Sitting in an upright, ladylike fashion is often painful and it means that I can't "find my muse" because there are hot screwdrivers in my hip sockets and I have to go home and medicate and assume yoga positions lest I want to die.

I've been writing Novel #1 on and off for almost ten years. It was only after I turned 30 that I could sit down and write the whole thing in a serious way.

If someone is laughing at me for wanting to write a novel and see it published and have it read in some meaningful way, I can't care. All I know is that person does not write in Austin.