Friday's Questions are Back from Their Vacation to Artsy Land

I don't think smoking's that bad. Do you?

Here are ways in which smoking is bad : your mouth tastes awful in the morning, and while drinking, and pretty much all the time to someone who's a non-smoker. You feel reliant upon something other than water and food. You hoard together your last quarters before payday to get that last pack you know you're going to need. You kill your pets with secondhand smoke. The inside of your car window gets this dirty nasty fog on it that makes it hard to drive at night. No matter how fancy you are dressed, you show up with ash on you somewhere. You will probably die. When you get sick, you get really really awful sick.

Here are ways in which smoking is good: It helps you meet people at work, talk to people outside the party, gives you an excuse to stay up just a little bit longer with him outside alone to see if he's going to make out with you. When you have no food in the house, you can get by. When you are despairing, it gives you one complete little action to perform. When you are outside in the snow, the smoke mingles with your frozen breath and helps you pretend it is not really that cold.


Why a dog? Why pets at all?

Yesterday I was talking with a friend about what kind of actions a person prefers as a sign of approval. Meaning, are you the kind of girl who wants compliments, or action, or gifts? What makes you feel most loved from your friends? And he, not being a girl at all, stated that he feels best when his friends have made it clear he is useful and steady and reliable, when his opinion matters.

So that's sort of the thing with pets, right? That they are these tiny creatures, moving and thinking on their own, that rely upon you and give you approbation all the time. You are the supporter. Only, unlike children, they never really move past that stage, and they are most of the time not expensive and easy to maintain.

But the blatant reality is that they are furry and pretty and are basically animated toy dollies.

And dogs are toy dollies you can take places, and run around with, and they will guard you and worry about you and then want to be with you when you wake up and keep your feet warm.

Sometimes that is a giant pain in the ass. But sometimes it's an unmitigated joy. Because even those of us who really just need someone to take care of them can tie ourselves back down to the world by having to take care of something else. And it's love, even unintelligent love is love. Even slave love. Even hostage love.

In the end, all animals feel this way about you: Which is proper and right.




Honestly who do you care more about when you see shows like Hoarders, the people or the animals?

I don't watch that show, or Intervention, or Biggest Loser, or any of those shows about people being rescued from despair. Because I don't care at all. I don't have some masochistic need to compare my own life to them and feel guilty. I don't have a superiority complex that needs stroking to stay alive. And I don't like to see disgusting things just for the sake of the gross-out, which is the same reason I don't watch gore movies. The images we put inside our brains stay with us, they don't go away, they stay in there buried, and I've got quite enough desperate visuals tucked away in there for a lifetime, plus all the room I'll need for poverty and starvation and tsunamis and war in the future, I can't fill it with this kind of clutter. Why do I need more things to feel bad for? Haven't I got half the people in the world for that already? Haven't I got the images right in my own city? Shouldn't I, if I really want to communicate with the pain, just go out there in my neighborhood and find it for real?

One can't just go around feeling awful for everything all the time. You have to focus on the things you want to help, which is practically an arbitrary choice, with all the buffet of pain around us. A TV show isn't going to make it into my parade. Focus people, focus. Don't just go giving out your tears like candy.


Which would be worse, having to wear a bump it or only being able to watch semi homemade with Sandra lee for a year?

Considering I actually own a bumpit, which I can't use because my hair is too fine and thin, but if I could I probably would wear, I think I'm going to have to choose Sandra Lee. Jesus. How much canned frosting can one person consume before their body finally starts rejecting it, and trying to throw their liver overboard through their belly button?

I'm so resentful she's in politics now.


If someone offered you free Ed hardy and four loco for a year not only for free but with a generous stipend for advertising their product, would you accept for the money and product or keep your dignity?

Um, money. Always the money. I'm not a hard sell on the 4 Loko, because I think people who can't handle caffeine with their alcohol are pussies. It's my preferred way to drink, and I wish the caffeine didn't always have to come in juice that tastes like ground up sweet tarts, but the point is, I would drink that. I would write a whole book about drinking that, and it would probably be a big seller, because it would be a descent into madness. It would go to use. The Ed Hardy gear would be less wanted, but I could always give it to a homeless shelter at the end of the year, which really, is way better advertising, to give all your ugly awful clothes to people who really need them because hey, clothes are clothes.

Dignity is overrated. Most people don't give a shit what you do to make money.


What are your feelings on hedgehogs? Can they be trusted?

The thing with hedgehogs is that they are stubborn egotistical little boys, who build up a wall of defensiveness because the other boys won't play with them because they are prickly. And so they curl themselves round in a spiky little ball when trouble starts to come, instead of running, which girls understand. And therefore they are vulnerable to badgers and other larger creatures in the know. And we want to tell ourselves they are sweet inside, little adorable woodland creatures, but honestly, why can't you just accept your hedgehogness and move on with it, Pig Snout? Why do we have to keep finding a way to make you uncurl?

Hedgehogs may live longer, but they are not a lot of fun to be around. I guess I would trust them as far as I could throw them, which is probably pretty far if I wore gloves.


Is there a polite way to tell a friend that while technically talented their art still sucks?

No. You should not be friends with people whose art you think sucks. If I meet an artist or a musician or a writer, I make damn sure I find their stuff palatable before I go getting all intimate and chummy, because the whole point of having me as a friend is getting intelligent criticism when you ask for it, and if you're going to be all shitty when I tell you my honest opinion then why are you hanging out with me in the first place. It's a terrible position to be in, and you should probably just never talk to them again. Unless you are trying to sleep with them, in which case accept the fact you have bad taste and lie your ass off.

How do you dream up these questions?

Oh, but I don't. I beg for them.
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