Le maudit Mo D.

new state 2009?

create your own personalized map of the USA

Every year I try to visit a state I've never visited before. This year's was Minnesota. What shall next year's be?

Note: on my map, I left off states that I've only been to via airport layovers (includes Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Georgia, Kentucky)

my northern soul

Minneapolis sampler:

1) PENZEYS. The Geegsters happened into this really dent-unfriendly women's clothing store. You probably never think about what I have to think about where tops are concerned, but most women's tops plunge way below the Maginot Line of dent-exposure that I must be concerned with when buying a shirt. Also, the place smelled like a Taiwanese sweat shop. So I sat my butt down and looked bored until the Geegsters were done shopping. Down the street was my retailer of choice, Penzey's Spices. I am a total ho for Penzey's, as I've been madly in love with every spice blend I've ever had from there (as long as celery salt is not part of the blend). I was like a kid in a candy store in Penzey's, grabbing little plastic bottles of every new and exciting spice blend I could get my hands on. Penzey's turned out to be the Geegster retailer of boredom, as no one else wanted to marvel at/purchase Fox Point Seasoning with me. Fox Point will rock you!

2) LADYCOLLEGIANS. I went to brunch with my Big B Ladycollege 98-er pal Liesl and her husband on Saturday morning. We saw each other at Reunion last month and she promised to come to my Mpls show and lo, she did and was mightily impressed. Liesl's car (like mine) bears a Ladycollege window decal. When we were done with brunch, we discovered that a fellow Ladycollegian had happened by and left a note on her windshield that said "Hey! I went to Smith too! YAY!"

3) MINNEAPOLITANS ARE FRIENDLY, though I hear from Liesl and J-Cakes, both natives, that people are famously passive-aggressive. As J-cakes and I were enjoying the sunset from the plastic dock at Lake Harriet (home of a bad-ass Victorian band shell) an aged hippie dude with a white ponytail came out to the end of the dock specifically to scold a pair of motorboaters with "you know, there's a $500 fine for using a gas-powered engine on the lake."

4) ALDI. Mpls has an Aldi, made famous by Homestar Runner. And numerous Trader Joe's. Fucking crap, I want a Trader Joe's.

5) BEST FEST. Big ups to the Twin Cities Improv Festival for their careful planning, caring treatment of their out-of-town guests, righteousness, fun-lovingness, friendliness, and improvisational awesomeness. We definitely want to go back next year.

6) FUCK YOU, CLOSED FREEWAY. The major north-south interstate (numerically the same as the one that bisects A-town) was CLOSED for most of the weekend, making travel to our hotel (a generic property in the 'burbs near the airport and nearly a half-hour drive from the theater) an exercise in frustration.

7) SLEEP. Goddamnit, I require a lot of sleep. Bob and I just woke up from a five-hour nap. I had an excuse for that. What's Bob's?

8) MY NORTHERN SOUL. I love the north. And yes, that also means I don't like the south. I've never been someone who has wanted a big house, but Minneapolis has all these amazing huge, rambling houses WITH BASEMENTS that I found myself envying like mad. Tall, big, and homey houses. I have this huge yearning to head north that, as long as I remain married to Bob, I will be an itch I'll never get to scratch. If I never get to live back in New England again, I will feel beyond cheated, and visiting lovely northern cities like Minneapolis just drives that home for me.

NORTH!

mini apples!

I like Minneapolis. It's a good place with good people and bug-infested urban lakes. Lakes! Pretty lakes!

I'm chilling in our semi-ghetto hotel room with my festival roommate Kacey. She and I prefer quieter confines so we bunk together when we go on these things. I can hear the louder Geegster contingent across the hall.

Spent some q.t. with my man Johnnycakes. J-cakes hails from this fine city and it was my distinct pleasure to experience M-polis with one of its proudest sons. I stayed at his familial home and was impressed by the Kamp family dog, who likes to walk around the house with a towel in her mouth. J-cakes is setting up shop as a landscape architect here in the Twin Cities, so if you want a bitchin' yard, I can hook you up.

The improv people are So. Nice. Very friendly and very cool people. The Thursday night line-up was really good and well attended. I remain continually astonished by the talent of Ms. J. Bernard and look forward to tonight's shows, which feature two of A-town's finest (GGG and CT) and my maiden exposure to the legendary talent of Ms S. Landry. Yay festival!

the mumbles of the humble

Mission accomplished: four query/manuscript packets mailed off. My little novy-nov is off in the ether in the queue to meet its fate. Now, not to think about it.

Tomorrow I go to Mini-Apples, Mini-Soda, where my dear friend Johnnycakes Kamperpants will be meeting me at the airport on my maiden voyage to his hometown. 2008 is a fortunate year as I get not one but TWO bouts of face-time with J-cakes. We hung out in his former city of residence, L.A., last January, and now he's back in the midwest. Oh ya!

But before I fill my suitcase with all manner of improv festival-appropriate clothing and plenty of deodorant so the Geegsters don't have to smell me, let me offer my congrats to Jacqui and Britta for being the first Californians I know to get legally gay married in my home state. Of course, I found out about this on Facebook, which is how I know anything about anyone I know these days. Friendship is over. Thanks, Facebook! But really, I wish Jacqui and Britta the highest and most loving congrats and wishes for a happy future.

Also, in their honor, I will stop referring to my arrangement with Bob as "being married" and call it "being straight married." Because if nice folks like J and B are compelled to use a qualifier, then I should be, too. So I am straight married, but it doesn't mean any more or less than what the gay have. Love is love, marriage is marriage, and getting your friends to buy you towels and spatulas is a right we should all enjoy equally. Mazel tov!

note to agents considering my work

This, from my very published, very respected mentor:

"If one of them doesn't take [me] on, she's CRA-ZEE!"

happy b.day little bro

He's 17 today.
Gosh.

panic at the sheraton

Sparse posting this weekend due to my diligent attendance at the local Agents and Editors Conf. here in the ATX. The deal with this thing is, they fly in a bunch of agents who are seeking clients and allow us writers to approach them with our pitches. We say a few things about our projects and the agent either tells us to send them the first three chapters or thanks but no thanks.

I am very pleased to say that I have four interested agents who I will be sending the first 50 pages of PoE to this week (hopefully before I go to Mini-Apples on Wednesday). That would be four out of four pitched. No one told me to take a hike, although I had to really sell myself to one. She was probably a no until I pulled out my secret weapon: name-dropping Elinor. Then she changed her tune and told me to send her my manuscript.

Four for four, peeps.

I also schmoozed up some local publishing types. Why are Austin people so awesome? So friendly? I ditched publishing because I can't deal with NYC, but man...I miss it. I wish I would have stuck around.

Connecting with other writers is always a good time. I love going to these things. They remind me that I am on the right path, that I should never question my ability and drive to write.

trajectory

I got the new issue of Poets and Writers magazine today. Nearly every author profiled in this issue went to Harvard, then medical school, then decided somewhere in the middle of medical school that writing, not medicine, was their life's calling. They all went to Iowa and became successful writers of the reflective sort.

Hmmm. Let's break this down:

1) Only high achievers get into Harvard.
2) Only high achievers get into med school.
3) It is easier to get into med school than Iowa W.W., so we must infer that all who get into Iowa are high achievers.
4) People who get into Harvard and medical school are generally literate and intelligent people.
5) High achievement + literacy + intelligence = published author

I just bought my ticket for the Smith leadership weekend in September. I feel like the under-$300 plane ticket is becoming a thing of the past. For some odd reason, a ticket to BDL can be found rather cheap. I got one for $250, so I pounced on it (even though I will be reimbursed for it later).

poll

Seriously, I need to stop being a full-time novelist. It is making me crazy. In a bad way.

The only problem: what to do? Bob has made it abundantly clear that he ain't moving across the country or across the street for me, so lexicography is out, publishing is out (unless UTP magically starts hiring). I feel like my name is mud in the local library scene. I'm a competent, qualified, educated, and fun-as-balls lady who makes a delightful addition to any workplace situation (except maybe a medical one, or a funeral home. no real future there) I come with bad-ass letters of recommendation.

Some ideas:
alumni relations person (professional reunion planner!)
writing teacher at a college (for kids who come into college with no writing skills)

Friends have recommended columnist, but I have no idea how to break into that.

What do you think I should do?

regret: tofu

In 2002, again finding myself with a worthless degree and fuck-all to do with myself, I flirted with the idea of moving to a somewhat famous "intentional community" (read: hippie commune) in rural Virginia. Via the Dirt St. Co-op, I had found emotional prosperity in communal living. I liked the energy, even if the community was full of Texas-flavored fratboy douchenozzles and bikini-clad British chicks with average tits. I liked the community, even if it meant making out with guys who were more like brothers to you than lovers, eating uncooked rice, enjoying beverages with mildew-enhanced ice cubes, and sharing space with a convicted rapist and a 40-year-old drug casualty who may or may not have been dangerous, depending on what he had had that day. The big group-house mentality really worked for me, and as long as I had the daily diversion of a hundred really nice people who could teach me how to make tofu and fix cars, then my life would be grand.

I made the mistake of sharing my plan to spend a few months with these people with my mother, who immediately kiboshed it. I had filled out the application, checking the box next to "tofu intern" (you can go to this place and be an intern in their tofu factory--no shit). She had an absolute shit fit. The fact that I was turning my back on "normality"--holing myself up in some apartment, working 9-5 at some boring, musty job I knew I'd be going in hating, going on bad dates with fuckwits who can't appreciate a 5'11" woman with a 180 IQ and a low tolerance for bullshit--mortally offended her and her sensibilities. I would be "throwing away my potential" by learning the craft of coagulating soymilk and forming it into neat little cubes. My living in a wooded area, having dinner communally with other potential-throwers, and contributing to a non-monetary economy drove her absolutely bugshit. So I instead returned to Austin to live with my gay boys, which turned into living with Lyd, which turned into living with Bob, and here I am today. Normal as ever.

Part of me will never be okay with this, this normal thing. Living in a house, working the same job, why do it when there is skydiving and Paris, and yes, a commune in Virginia with an on-site tofu factory? Why live a fraction of life when you can have several helpings?

OMG, I could know how to make tofu and I don't.

Sad.

early training

Here at the Teebird, I am overhearing a job interview for some organization that serves pregnant teens/teenage mothers. Apparently, preggo teens get free yoga!

According to my upbringing, teen pregancy is shameful, trashy, and does not merit one free yoga. In fact, having sex at all prior to getting an acceptance letter from a prestigious college was considered trashy, wrong, and a path that lead you not to the gates of the Ivory Tower, but to the line outside a welfare office. There were several girls at my high school who did have kids, but they were brown and were not NPR listeners and did not have the lofty goals and dreams that I did. The message I got was that I was better than them, and that my people did not reproduce until we had a bachelor's degree in hand.

That's how I was raised. And I believed that. Still sort of do. It helps explain how I was when I was a teen and excuses me from being such a primadonna striver asshole (which I was).

I'm not faulting my mom. Obviously, her line of thinking worked. No teen sex/pregnancy here!

So, who's right?

My mom was once asked if she'd volunteer in the department at the local hospital that teaches teenage girls how to care for their babies and she told them no, that she had such distaste for teen moms that she had no compassion and no desire to help them at all. Shortly after, her hospital volunteer career ended all together.

So I come from a pretty hardcore "legs shut until an educated, employed man comes along" household philosophy.

I can't help but think, no one ever gave me free yoga classes for doing everything right.

imperial rumours

Man, its been thirty years...what's up with that PAIR OF BALLS hanging from Lindsey Buckingham's crotch?

Rumours was Fleetwood Mac's 13th album...THIRTEENTH! It features the most educational song of their entire catalog, "Second Hand News," in which Lindsey, Stevie, Mick, et al, tell everyone who showed up for the '70s that the best way to overcome depression or just a lousy day is oral sex en plein air.

The seventies seemed to have their own brand of version of public sexuality. Dressing up for a Renn Fayre event, men with ponytails AND beards, the whole witchy-woman look. Plus, the '70s had Young Ron Jeremy. The era that brought us bom-chicka-wah-wah.

Hmmm...

Must write a short story about something I've been thinking about lately. Namely time travel. Not anything that hasn't been explored before.

Also from tonight's rock-n-roll Wikipedia-ing:
Cobain later grew to resent Johnson and denounced his ties in an unsent letter to Tobi Vail.

Hell, I resent Calvin Johnson! He's made his living off shaking a pudding, selling cuteness, and getting to live the life of a sugared-up 19-year-old well into his middle 40s. I think it's natural and healthy to resent that. I can't know if that's even true (Wik being full of lies, falsehoods, and aberrations) as I don't have access to Kurt's brain or Tobi's mail.

One time Shirley B. asked me if I had ever made out with Calvin. She asked with the same tone and level of curiosity as if she had asked me if I had checked out a certain new restaurant or had a class with so-and-so professor. Um...no? Although if CJ makeouts were that commonplace, I'm a little miffed that I missed out. Me and making out with the demigods of indie rock is a total nonstarter conversation, so this remains a shocking query, even years later.

Unrest really is the band that makes me most wistful for my early twenties. That is what my youth sounded like, those sharp crystal guitar riffs. I want to stick you gold and blue.

best rehearsal!

The Geegsters had the most awesome rehearsal tonight wherein all my ladies were effing knocking it out of the park left and right, center, around, up, and down. The challenge was "share a song in a way a song has never been shared before." Kacey and Shana proceed to do this hilarious "Earthquake" song that reminded me of Sesame Street. It even had choreography. Awesome.

We had a fun show last night, too. "Tupperware Party." I was a sullen teen interested in science, much to the displeasure of my Stepford mom (Shana), who conspired to trap me in a giant piece of Tupperware after using the filthy word "polymer."

The rest of the weekend was not exciting.

friday

Here's what happened this week, and why noveling has been sheer hell since about Tuesday:

1) Beginning of writing week started well. Asaf and I sat across from each other at a couple coffee shops and used our presence to keep butts in seats long enough to create.
2) S. Bird's new novel came out. Whee! I love S. and S. loves GGG and therefore me, too. I attended the local celebration and purchased the book, which she duly signed.
3) Read the entirety of the new S. Bird book in a 24-hour fit of obsession because, OMG, it is AMaZINg. A tour-de-force gem of comedic novel perfection. The characters, the pacing, the ridiculousness, and of course the now-national recognition of Wom Kim's Peach Pudding (Austin's hands-down BEST dessert, available only at Hyde Park B&G), every bit of this novel is so impeccable, so magical, so laugh-out-loud awesome, that it fucking killed my writer's libido. Comparing my writing to that of an experienced, accomplished novelist is asking for a lot of undue heartache. But still, I compared. And I compared some more. And I concluded, based on this amazing work of fiction, that the 78,000 words of Armenian-American diaper-squirt that I'll be peddling next week at the Agents and Wanna-Be's convention are inferior and will be passed over like a cold, gristly bit of beef fat on a churrascaria gaucho's meat sword (we had dinner at Estancia tonight, ergo the reference).

So yesterday and today were most fallow in the noveling department. Carol and Philip are verveless caricatures. Orson and Olivia are poo-stained ragamuffins wandering fetid landscapes of bullshit.

I must remind myself that every agent who has rejected me has said I'm talented. Vermont Studio Center thinks I'm talented. And yes, S. Bird herself thinks I'm talented, so I must quit riding my own dick on this.

Yeesh.

Feeling craptacular about myself, I decided that exercise was the key to an improved mood. Friday is not a tai chi day and I let my Yogax2 membership run out on purpose, so I decided a trip to one of Austin's convenient and sanitary municipal pools was in order. I threw on my Mormon bathing suit (no, really--I bought it from a Utah mail order concern specializing in "modest swimwear." It goes from my neck to my knees. It's awesome.) and headed to the nearest pool. I worried that the pool would be overrun by disrespectful youths doing cannonballs and furtively urinating, but fortunately they had a few laps-only lanes cordoned off so that the grown-ups could get some exercise. I felt like the young version of the portly older ladies doing their languid dog-paddle across the pool. Hell, I even kept my sunglasses on while I was doing the laps. I can't hold my breath long enough to do a proper stroke, so I keep my head up the whole time. By lap six, I was panting like the dog I was immortalizing with my paddle. But I felt good afterwards. Not good enough to sit my ass down for some writing. But good enough to go to Alamo Village and see...

THE SEX + CITY MOVIE!

I won't bore you with a textual analysis of the film. I am a great fan of the TV show and if you are too, I will politely leave you to draw your own opinions of it. The one thing I must comment on is (SPOILER SPOILER HOLY SHIT IT'S A SPOILER!) that Samantha's shaming of Miranda for having an unwaxed bikini area frightened and worried me. I felt that the message that the presence of pubic hair on one's pubis (the biologically-designated area for pubes) helped push Steve into the bed of another woman and thus disrupting his marriage to overworked, unpleasant, unable-to-enjoy-sex Miranda was complete bullshit. Rocking the full bush is not a flaw that indicates an unwillingness or unworthiness to fuck. (I suppose this paragraph might indicate the current state of the Maudit National Forest) Rocking the full bush means you are either awesome, of Middle Eastern extraction (I suspect that a Brazilian on me would have to include Paraguay, Bolivia, and Peru as well), or not fucking a dude with porno expectations about real twats.

Also, I think the audience deserved a longer shot of that guy's dong. The millisecond of frontal was not enough in this reviewer's book.

Tonight's grand feast at the Churrascaria was a maddening array of double-entendres waiting to happen. Why are all the gauchos male? Is there something about a man offering you a taste from his meat sword that doesn't play as well coming from a lady? At any rate, this chica ate no fewer than five cheesy rolls and tasted all the meats except the lamb and the ribs. I waddled away from the table satisfied and happy, but also worried that Bob's enormous appetite for red meat might cause him to someday keel over in the style of Tim Russert. RIP, Tim.

brick wall day

I'm having one of those days where I feel like I have no idea how to write a novel. In a weak moment, I bought three how-to fiction books using the Amazon gift certificate my sis-in-law gave me for my birthday. I know I already wrote one, but I'm stuck in the middle of the second one. Yeesh. Yeah, so they get married? So what? So the F what?!?!?

cold drinks

I want to know who these people are who are ordering hot beverages at Austin coffeehouses these days. It's blinding, scorching hot outside, sweat beads and then falls from the tops of heads and, more notably, armpits. And yet there are still one or two people who still must have their coffee hot and their earl grey tea steamy. A quick survey of T-bird shows seven people (alone, staring at laptops) with iced drinks and one lone holdout (she's even writing by hand!) with a hot cup beswaddled in a java jacket.

I'm really taking the heat hard this year. I figured out that if I were to move solely for weather purposes, then I'd have to go to the Pacific Northwest. Bellingham, WA, perhaps? They have an improv theater!

the joy of lex

Dr. Kimball has graciously granted me permission to audit her lexicography course in the fall.

fathers are dead

According to my calendar, Sunday is Father's Day. Sunday is also the day of my beloved former roomie Lyd's wedding to a properly conservadox Jew, which I will not be attending because it requires a plane ticket. I sent her a tasteful gift, though, so I am still within both propriety and personal budget.

Father's Day is a holiday that I was excused from for a very long time. My dad died when I was sixteen, and was at least semi-dead in many senses a good long while before that, so my relationship to the holiday has always been one of sadness and ignorance. Sort of like the legless kid at school was excused from running the mile in P.E., I am the fatherless kid who is excused from any type of acknowledgment of Father's Day.

Since getting married, I now have a living, breathing father-in-law, which throws a big wrench in my comfort zone with the holiday, which does not do anything for me but remind me of all the different ways I was cheated out of having a real father. In the visual culture of an American father's day, one finds cards and gifts with a sporting or necktie motif. One does not usually find cards with teenage girls sobbing next to their decrepit 81-year-old father's hospital bed while a million tubes deliver oxygen and morphine to his withered frame. One could argue that making a semi-conscious decision to father a child who would have to face that kind of loss at an age so young that you can't argue away the cruelty with the excuses of love and maternal desire I've been told my whole life, that I should get a free pass on Father's Day to not have to have any contact with cards and phone calls or hearty brunches.

There are several ways in which I commit the oxymoronic argument that I should never have been born, that my father should have told my mother no, that if she wanted kids she should go find herself a younger man. He obliged her, of course, abandoning me in my teens and passing onto me with a chronic connective tissue disorder that literally left me with a hole where my heart should be.* My mother, a whole other can of beans, sort of doesn't or won't take responsibility for any of this. I can't judge or really know what goes on in her head, but I understand that trying to convince my mother she made a grievous mistake in having me for the above reason is heartless and assuming I truly know her motives is a callous error on my part.

The first thing I learned was that old people die and that my dad was an old person and that he was going to die. It colored every day of my childhood, right up until the day he finally did die. What a dreadful thing to do to a child, and yet it happens all the time. The NYT even runs articles on it and calls it a phenomenon.

Anyway, let this essay be a reminder to Bob that he should not forget to acknowledge Father's Day this weekend and that I will be sneaking out of my duty on this one, because losing my father is still something I deal with daily, even though he has been gone exactly half my life now. For all my conscious knowledge to the contrary, in my mind, fathers are always dead, and this holiday doesn't exist.

*my Marfan Syndrome has never been proven by medical science to be related to my father's age (65) when I was conceived. It is a theory that I've held for quite sometime, and has been backed up in a few articles I've found on the internet.

cancel that u-haul

Today's high in Northampton was 96 degrees. Same as here.
Shoots the shit out of my argument for moving.
Guess I'll go get some queso and a Shiner Bock. Maybe I can smoke out with Willie later?

m.d. vs. i.j.

Some eleven years ago, I was spending my summer in a little place called Noho, Mass. I also spent the other three seasons there that year, but that summer, the summer of the year 1,997 A.D., was the summer I purchased a highly-acclaimed work of fiction called Infinite Jest. It was by an author named David Foster Wallace (Amherst '84?) and he was hot shit on bone china then. This groundbreaking novel was also backbreaking in size. I could never carry it in my purse and casually whip it out to read a few pages while I waited for my clothes at the laundromat. It was too important for such casual reading.

I purchased my copy from the slightly damaged book sale table at the now-defunct Beyond Words Bookshop on Main St. There was (and still is) some light foxing on the edges of the book.

I have never read past page 79. This book is over 1000 pages long.

If there is one personal possession I have unfailingly carried with me from one dwelling to the next, and that has been with me at all times throughout my adult life, it is my copy of Infinite Jest:

I know that at some point in my youth, I found the writing of this book both important and entertaining, as young budding-writer Mo took the green pen she had five-fingered from Charles at Kinko's and used it to underline passages that she had wished she had written herself

The slight outer damage to the book saved me about eight clams:

(sale price)

(publisher's suggested retail price, U.S./Canada)

I see that over the years, I have indeed put forth a good effort to try to read I.J. Tucked inside the book I found as book markers two pieces of mail addressed to places I lived seven and nine years ago:

(the 'Op, lived there 2000-2002)

(my Dictionary-era apartment, late 1998-1999)

I know of only a handful of people who have completed this book and a few who have actually read it twice. In the eleven years that I have owned this volume, I estimate that I've read over one hundred other works of fiction and at least a hundred more works of nonfiction, including DFW's Brief Interviews With Hideous Men.

I suspect that I will never finish muddling through I.J., though I will carry the damn thing to my grave for reasons that have more to do with fulfilling the big ambitions of my twenties over, you know, actually wanting to read the thing.

book tours

I admit, I was made a little sad when my writing mentor, long ago, told me that book tours aren't all that fun. A book tour always sounded to me like an affirming reward that combined my two favorite things in the world: traveling the US and adulation from strangers. Intellectually I realize that they are nothing more than a spendy marketing tool that publishers are starting to abandon. But how glamorous does it sound? Okay, E.L. says they aren't glamorous, they're a chore. You have to be on all the time, eat food you don't want, talk to people who ask you the same questions over and over. But still...there seems to be a bit of a reward there. You get to tell people "I'm going on book tour!" Right?

As I am still a member of the hopeful wanna-be crowd, as well as someone who is working to let go of ego (yeah, right), it still makes me sad to read stuff like this:

K. Gessen is my age, graduated Harvard the same year I graduated the Ladycollege. I don't know what led up to his small bit of literary stardom (founding a lit mag that the NY snarkerati find pretentious--why didn't I do that???) but he grabbed himself a piece of that elusive cookie and now gets to publish epistles in which he enumerates the mundane events of his book tour and talk about what he learned from it.

I suppose one day I'll understand these people, my fellow sons and daughters of privilege who went to pretty schools, had the right mentors, spent a lot of time wallowing in their own psychology (please see my 03.09.08 entry on the primacy of the emotional life), recognizing their own shallowness and looking good in all manner of wool coats and sweaters*. Maybe I'll understand public malcontent in the face of success. Maybe I will be published and successful someday and find all manner of things wrong with it. I certainly hope not. Gratitude is very important to me. I've been sitting here in Austin's independent coffeehouses for going on two years writing novels that may or may not be read someday by strangers. That is the goal, but it is not a reward for being smart, clever, or well-connected.

Maybe all of those Stranger "How's Your Book Tour" pieces just sound assholish no matter who writes them. You think?

*I will someday leave Austin for someplace where I can wear lots of wool. Oh, god, I love cold weather clothing!

swing my dash

Yes, I have checked my e-mail about twenty times today to see if Dr. S*r* K*mbllll, instructor of the much-coveted lexicography course being offered by the U of Tejas Dept. of English, had responded to my polite and grammatically-flawless note requesting auditing privileges in said class. Unfortunately, she has not, and so I patiently sit by my computer waiting for my answer. I'm dead fucking serious about this, folks, to the point where if there wasn't a big husband and a headed-for-supreme-awesomeness musical improv troupe that were more important than dropping my shit and heading back to the foothills of the Berkshire Range so that I could earn $28K a year writing dictionary entries, I'd be loading up the Corolla and hitting I-35 with a trunkful of Central Market tortillas for my Massachusetts freezer. God, the tortillas there are SO UNACCEPTABLE.

So rather than disrupt my life and my husband's life, I will take this class and get this bug out of my system. And if at the end of this, the itch is scratched, then hooray. Maybe there is a future for me in librarianship. If not, then, I will obtain clearance for my tortilla freezer or something. I'll already have to miss a whole month of the class for Vt. Stud Center.

I was made very happy tonight when Asaf and Dr. Dre told me that they thought my perfect job would be writing a column. I must figure out a way to make that happen. Perhaps a maudit 2.0 revamp is in order. The Ladycollege Alumnee Mag rejected the piece I wrote about Colin, which makes me sad, but what am I gonna do? Stock up a freezer with tortillas? Write a novel? Wait by the computer like an unsophisticated women's college alum with a crush or something? I've already done that shit, and let me tell you, nothing challenges dignity like tortilla hoarding.

ooh! ooh! me me me!

I was cruising some nerdy shit on the 'net this afternoon and came across something about some arcane field of study that interested me, so I went to the UT English department website and found something better. A course in lexicography. Without a moment of haste, I wrote to the professor asking if I might audit the course come fall. There are hardly any college-level courses in lexicography, especially outside of Europe, so the fact that this is happening in Austin is a total thrill.

A big nerdy thrill I couldn't appreciate at 22 but do now.

Bob was eyeballing a pizza and gyro place next to the tai chi studio (still don't know what the technical term for it is. It is not "dojo" as that is Japanese and Tai Chi is a Chinese martial art) so we came home and changed out of our uniforms and went back. I gave Yelp a quick glance and saw that it had a bunch of thumbs-up reviews. It was really tasty! It's called Arpeggio Grill and the presence of an obviously Muslim staff/clientele indicates that their meat is halal. We had a pizza with gyro meat on it and it was super tasty. We recommend!

UPDATE: Borpe just described McCain's "man meat" as "bacon wrapped around a Slim Jim."

Venus Zine!

My improv troupe, Girls Girls Girls, are featured in the Summer 2008 issue of Venus Zine! The nice folks down at VZ HQ sent me this PDF of the page that my beloved ladies and I graced, so click and enjoy:

Download file

Of course, you should also, you know...BUY THE WHOLE ISSUE. It's only $4.95 and chock-full of girly DIY goodness. If you're not into all-female improv, there's an article on Missy Elliott. You like her, right? With Le maudit Mo D., there's never an obligation to buy anything, except for when its the first time La Geegsters are featured in a nationally-distributed magazine. Then you should pony up the $4.95. Watershed moment in GGG history, folks.

tai chi whee

Bob and I had our first tai chi sesh today. It was only 30 minutes and I was made rather happy by the whole thing, so I regretted it didn't last longer. We were invited to watch an advanced class after the beginner class. I felt that the whole experience was very positive, welcoming, and I didn't feel anything remotely competitive or harsh. Yay Tai Chi!

Afterwards we hit Q-Seafood with Kristin and Bob and their old coworker Dave. I should probably manage my conversational topics/candor around new people--I mentioned orgasms and poop a few times. Maybe I should tone it down? I was feeling pretty joyful tonight and happy to be weird, unique, creative Mo.

Tai chi!

Staring at fingers = good.

FROM THE INTERNETS:

NYTimes article today on 7-2 Sister's School recruitment in the Middle East. "Bait and switch," I thought to myself, envisioning female students sold the L.C. based on cultural comfort with limited interaction with males, only to be thrown into the picturesque den of lesbians that is my alma mater. It's really false advertising to sell the Ladycollege as a chaste, sexless environment impenetrable by menfolk. There are dudes and there are ladies who love ladies and a lot of sex and sexual energy. Apparently, the Middle Eastern women who have gone off to MoHo have adjusted to and accepted lesbo visibility, so I guess its not a big deal. Their motives for seeking single-sex education are different than mine were, but in the end, we share this unique, life-changing experience that most people you encounter in your life won't understand. And I like that feeling. Welcome to the fold, Middle Eastern Women!

this is not my greatest challenge

In a stopgap measure to not camp out at the big house in the 'Mar for three months, Bob and I went and signed up for a year's worth of Tai Chi classes at Master Gohring's House of Tai Chi. I'm not terribly interested in the martial arts, nor am I very big on committing to a year's worth of anything I'm not madly in love with, but I went ahead and signed the papers anyway, because Mo and Bob aren't getting any younger, or thinner, or healthier, and I figured that this would be something Bob and I could do together. I read in an in-flight magazine that couples who try new activities together are happier and have stronger marriages. After being stared down by Master G in the ladies can at Kick Butt a few times (they advertise the tai chi school in print ads in the bathroom), I decided that Tai Chi, being popular with old people and bad-asses alike, would be an appropriate body-and-mind strengthener for little disabled me. It's martial art aspect would appeal to Bob more than yoga or aerobics, there is more personal support (seriously, they will call you if you quit showing up) and attention than Yogax2 offers.

And they are taking money out of our bank account for twelve months! I'm financially obligated to go!

Hopefully I'll feel better, drop a few pounds, strengthen my body for when the time comes when the big bad surgeon comes and breaks my sternum, and get something out of the mind/focus/discipline aspect, which is also very appealing. I could use some cultivation there.

We also sold Bob's Acura today to a very nice teenage girl with a modeling career. We now have a nice, normal, middle-class number of cars in the family.

heat-related depression

You know you've got it when you are seriously considering spending the rest of the summer living with your mother to avoid the heat.

a little bit famous

I am quoted and photographed in the most recent issue of Venus Zine, a nationally-distributed magazine celebrating women in the arts and the DIY ethic. I think that I've already used up at least five of my allotted fifteen minutes of fame. Anyway, you should buy it and open to page 17 and learn that I've been convinced of my cleverness since childhood (a fact, by the way).

doubling for gore

In the beginning of most of Lou Barlow's mid-90s bedroom recordings, he begins the song by saying "520." BITD, I had the chance to ask him why he did that and his response was: no reason. Lesson learned: you don't need a reason to do whatever it is you want. People who ask for reasons are either lousy conversationalists or overconcerned parents. Forget the why, focus on the how.

You're better looking than you think you are. Even if you have some glaring defect, like an Armenian schnoz that won't quit, you're still beautiful on account of being you. If you want to look like every other skinny cooch out there, then you might as well act and think like every other skinny cooch. Then the world will be overrun by skinny cooches and it'll be your fault. But really, if you want to be unique, you should look unique. It makes you more lovable, not less.

I've been out of college for 10 years. Ten years ago, I was an indie kid and I wore the uniform. Ten years later, the indie kid uniform, music, and scene have not changed a lick. Ten years from now, will the kids still be rocking the Converse, the tight shirts, and a sexagenarian Morrissey? I hope so. It's vindicating to know that the insta-identity I chose when I was young has some fucking endurance.

YES AND. No really. YES AND. Use it liberally.

If you're a girl in your twenties, quit doubting yourself and get out there and go for what you want, be it a cool job or a cute boy/girl. You don't realize the power of youth until its faded and/or gone. I can feel that magic slipping away from me with every passing day. With wisdom comes disappointment. Go do some crazy shit. At your age, society is still willing to forgive.

I don't consider myself straight. Or queer. Or anything. I deliberately reject any sort of sexual identity label. Who I kiss, fuck, or fantasize about is not social currency and I am so fucking sick of people trying to turn it into that. Being gay is just as boring and normal as being straight. I also believe that everyone is technically bisexual. But I'm against the label.

I always step onto an airplane right foot first. It's a dumb superstition. But I won't stop.

No matter how much you love the person you're with, they'll always lack something that you really want or miss in a mate. No matter how much you hate one of the past rejects that is rightfully out of your life, he or she will always have something you can't find anywhere else.

The American West was founded by adventurers who didn't have time to read books. The people who stayed east read books, founded universities, and began kooky social experiments like the Oneida Community. I guess that's why I prefer the east. I'd rather sit around and read a book than wagon-train my ass to Oregon and shoot buffalo.