Wednesday, June 24, 2009
CHICKEN LITTLE, CHICKEN SHIT, TASTES LIKE CHICKEN...
I'll go ahead and admit it now. Twitter is inspiring me to write more and post more to this (somewhat dusty, borderline pathetic) blog.
Of course, I'm also waking up at 4 in the morning like all of the best poets and writers always say they do in "Poets and Writers."
And since I got up so goddamn early this morning, I actually have time to tell you a little story about myself, boys and girls. Back when I never wrote shit, I would read those long interviews in "Poets and Writers," where the poet or writer in question blathers on about how he/she wakes up before dawn to pick coffee beans off the... vine? Bush? Then grinds them into a... paste? Fine powder? And then brews them? Snorts them? Then goes for a quick five mile walk? Sprint? Then, after a shower? Bath? He/she settles down and handcuffs him/herself to his/her desk? Stockade? And writes exactly five? Nine? Twelve hundred? pages of his/her novel/poem/essay, after which he/she makes pasta by hand, naps for several hours, makes sweet love to his/her muse (usually the muse is Italian, or a preteen), drinks a huge jug of Chianti, falls asleep and awakes in a pool of his/her own vomit, etc.
The point is that those goddamn poets and writers made me think that I had to wake up super fucking early to be a poet and/or writer. This made me mad, because I wanted to continue to drink beer/wine/spirits and get high on weed/crack/meth/life each night until the wee hours.
But, here's the thing. It turns out that once you're old and crusty/fat/disgusting/gross/boring you don't have anything to do but run around in circles, stuffing laundry in the washing machine, wiping little asses, buying big boxes of cereal, etc. and you tend to go to bed early because all the little motherfuckers who live in your tiny house with you tend to awake just after dawn, which means that you have to wake up before dawn in order to think straight and not beat them with your bare fists when they make you mad. It also means that you don't choose when to go to sleep so much as collapse at some point and regain consciousness several hours later in a puddle of your own drool.
Yes, getting old/crusty/fat/disgusting/gross/boring is awesome. You heard it here first.
Anyway, back to the point. Hmm. The point. Oh yeah, something about getting up early to write. So, once you dry off the drool and feed your infant from your (enormously large) breasts, you tiptoe through your (unnervingly tiny) house so as not to wake any of the little motherfuckers (or big dogs), and then you crouch in the dark, tapping away at your fucking computer, as if you're some kind of an actual writer, like the ones you used to read about back when you were young and sexy and still smelled good and still occasionally got fall-down drunk on boxed wine and insulted everyone within a thirty-foot radius. That's right, you've grown up to be just as stanky and irrelevant as those old coots in that creaky, outdated print publication you once treasured and squeezed to your (tiny, flat) bosom, perhaps hoping that their inspired (see also: sad, pathetic) way of life might rub off on you!
See how I employ the second person (you) in order to leave the first person (me) the hell out of it? That's a neat trick I learned when I became an actual, real, certified, official writer, which happened when I (you) started waking up at 4 a.m. every morning (see also: 2 weeks ago).
So screw Twitter. Twitter can't take the credit for this one, like it tries to do with everything else! This one is all mine.
3:09 PM
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
BAD JOB, BUDDY
Today I'm looking back on all the shitty jobs I've had: Gap customer satisfaction associate (Would you like some socks to go with that shirt?), Applebee's hostess (Would you like a Megarita to go with that Tater Skin Platter the size of your head?), apartment painter (Why do I keep waking up in this freshly painted room with sharp headaches?). The alienated work scenarios go on and on and on. I created cartoons to lighten up job training handbooks for Wells Fargo employees. Ana Marie Cox was once my boss.
Honky career trajectory extraordinaire. But when will I own the means of production, goddamn it?!!
4:02 PM
Friday, June 19, 2009
MILKING IT
Producing enough nourishment (bonus: in your gigantic breasts) to feed a small human is an immensely satisfying and enjoyable part of being a mother. It is also as time-consuming as a part-time job. If you already have a full-time job (say, writing about tv for an online magazine) and another part-time job (say, writing a book about your insane childhood) and you have another small human (one named Tinkerbell who goes boneless when she's told she can't eat Cheezits for dinner), then nursing and pumping and pumping and nursing can be more than a little exhausting.
Yes, it is satisfying to create food out of thin air, enough food to feed a tiny African nation. Yes, it is rewarding to have enormous tits. But make no mistake about it, breastfeeding isn't just a hobby. It's a career. A career that sometimes requires you to duck into a closet, attach suction cups to your (huge) tracts of land, and relax to the gentle strains of "awoooonga, awoooonga, awoooonga," all the while hoping that no innocent human wanders in and is instantly scarred for life.
At a time when my (big, large, gigantic) breasts are producing more milk than most small organic dairy farms. I take solace in reading "Blacktating", a blog about lactating by a woman of color, a woman of color who makes me wish I were a woman of color, too, so that I, too, could blacktate. We could blacktate together, and call each other sister and shit. Oh, how very sad it is to be a tragic honky and not a beautiful black woman (with enormous, gargantuan breasts)!
Here's The Blacktator herself on a subject I was just stewing about this very morning:
"Most men who are successful and wealthy and have kids have a wife at home who is holdin' it down, cooking, cleaning and raising the kids. Women at the top of their games either don't have kids or have a husband who is a stay-at-home dad."
Am I completely crazy for only recently having noticed that most mothers who work (hard) and feed their children (from their massive breasts) are going completely crazy? Why, just this morning I was away from the house, writing great stuff, on a roll, really feeling it, and then... I had to rush home and pump (nourishing breastmilk) (out of my big, big, big boobies). How inconvenient!
And yet, it's truly awesome, having (extra large) jugs full of (free) milk. Taxing, time-consuming, impossible, but awesome. Lactating in a nutshell. (I'm sure blacktating is even better.)
2:30 PM
Thursday, June 18, 2009
I SURRENDER!
I'm not a joiner, I'm not a team player, but here I am on Twitter. What do I do now? Any suggestions? What's so good about this fresh hell anyway? I'm experiencing a rare rush of open-mindedness, so please, enlighten me.
11:07 AM
Thursday, June 11, 2009
LIFE IS TWEET
Twitter is the curse of the modern age. You heard it here first -- or you would've if I had twittered it or tweeted it or whatever the fuck. Look, I just want to warn you that I may be twittering soon, but don't fucking blame me for it because it's not my fucking fault. Personally, I think twitter is the stupidest streak of ass-hattery since hot wings (goddamn it I hate hot wings!).
Here's what I don't understand: Why should the writer, a beast made to exist alone, in the dark, stinking up some sorry corner of the world with only his or her bad head to guide him or her, be asked to fire off half-baked thoughts around the clock like some drunk talk show host? Why? Why would we want the writer, dull know-it-all that he or she so often is, to go and pollute our lives with his or her steady stream of opinionated tripe? What scary state of affairs is this, that the jackassery of a nation of blowhards must be broadcast hither and thither just so everyone's "brand" can be "built"?
Bad enough that I jumped on the web early (like every third jerk on the streets of San Francisco in 1995) and jumped on the blogwagon in the pioneering days (like every unemployed writer in the universe in 2001). I don't want no part of this goddamn chaotic twittering buffoonitude!
Soon, people won't even have to type to twitter, because they'll have hands-free, voice recognition set ups that allow them to broadcast the sorry contents of their empty heads to the entire globe around the clock. Mine would go like this: I want oatmeal cookies. I need a nap. Who's on Oprah today? Yes, that will really help my brand a lot. What's for lunch? Where am I? I want cookies.
12:31 PM
