Fridays Questions Know It was the Butler in the Pantry with the Wasp Poison.

Last night was wicked. The wind was blowing things out of existence, and the raccoons were running the neighborhood, and the stop signs were launching down the street like saw mill blades. It was wonderful. The Oncoming Storm of Spring.

What else is wonderful is how much coffee I have in the house. Enough coffee that even if my house were torn up from the roots by the wind, and launched through the sky into a world of witches and oompa loompas, I would still have enough to get this damn project done this weekend. It's awfully comforting, to have so much coffee in the house. I imagine this must have been what Ma and Pa Ingall felt like when they sold the harvest and got to go to town and stock up on things, like real coffee or flour not made from grass. I prefer to believe that all of us have had some point in our lives of not being able to afford coffee, and therefore understand this feeling of security when you have enough of something.



What should I plant this year?

I think you should go through every Miss Marple book, and plant an entire garden of flowers that have been used as death threats, warnings, and poison delivery devices. The English Garden of Death. Hydrangeas. Lily of the Valley. Sage. Yew. Lots of flowering ground cover for hiding bodies. Roses. Geraniums.

Or you could do an entire garden of flowers that mean bad things. Like rhododendrons mean "beware", marigolds mean "pain", mint means "suspicion" and aloe means "grief. Hydrangea mean "heartless". Think of all the awesome bouquet combinations you could give people, and no one would know.

What is the first thing you are going to do when it gets warm?

I'm taking a road trip to Harrison County OH. It's full of ditches and small hills of kudzu and warm wet green and mud and those weird little towns where everyone goes to the lottery place for entertainment. And I'm going to take lots and lots of photos, of everything. I think a project this year might be to hit up different counties for the day each weekend. I like that idea a lot. There's ten counties along the lake alone. It could keep me occupied for, well, 88 weekends at least.

I'm going to a yoga class tomorrow. What foods should I eat that will give me particularly noxious gas?

Hot wings. Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Broccoli. Nunzio's pizza. Oreos.

What the hell is up with yoga recently? I mean, it's been a staple of the hipster lifestyle for years, but all of sudden its like everyone I know is going to yoga every night. Hot Yoga, Rock n Roll Yoga, Midnight Yoga, Lesbian Yoga, Beer and Yoga. It's like Yoga suddenly diversified. OR it's like yoga is actually the code word for brainwashing sessions, where humans are turned into mindless drones by insidiously thin alien overlords.

What I'm worried about is how flexible you will all be while I'm trying to kill you all during the invasion.

Weather's nice innit? How many suicides do you think it is preventing?

None of them.
Nice weather only highlights how miserable and despicable you are, deep down inside your soul. Warm weather makes people want things they don't have, and hate themselves for not having them. At least when it's cold and barren and awful, you can stay in bed and not feel guilty. But when it's beautiful outside, then you're a waste for staying in bed for 12 hours.

Which is why you should always make your friends go outside when they hang out with you. Just to be sure. The more outside a person is forced to be, the happier they will be, true story. Houses are terrible things.

The TV news has been saying that Egypt is the most culturally significant Arabic country. Uh, wouldn't that more likely be Saudia Arabia? And is Egypt really "Arabic"?

I mean, it is technically the Arab Republic of Egypt.
And they are part of the Arab League.
Saudi Arabia has more land mass, maybe, I think, but Egypt has the largest Arab population.
Also I would agree they are way more culturally significant than Saudi Arabia, because the Saudis are just sort of stuck, whereas Egypt has been unstuck. And really, in perspective, Egypt is changing all the time, cause 30 years is just a drop in history, and Egypt's had all sort of governments and occupations and stuff like that. Change of any sort, whether good or bad, leads to cultural significance. Egypt still has the active muscle to go places, whereas the Saudis are all sorts of wasting away in their cage.

Ask Me Anything

Fridays Questions Hear the Wind Howling and the Cats Fighting and All the Coffee in the Universe Brewing

So before we even get started on questions, let me share with you the very best thing on the internet this morning, from http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix
It's the online equivalent of wind chimes.

This week has been full of stuff, a group dinner in Amish country with pies and horses, necklaces from Spain, Revolution and the subsequent bar discussions that happen in other countries because of it, and finally but most importantly Babies. Little Baby is off her breathing tube, which is amazing, that a 2 pound little person can function like that on their own so quickly, and it sort of makes you realize how lame you are for ever thinking you can't do anything.

All I know is that to me
You look like you're lots of fun
Open up your loving arms
Watch out here I come



Etiquette question: what is the best way to tell my friend WITHOUT PISSING HER OFF that she is freaking out way too much about her wedding and above all, I don't care what she does. And I would like to be involved as little as possible in her crazy plans.

There is no way. You are going to piss her off. There are things that happen in people's lives, weddings and births and deaths, where really you just have to go along with what they want.

Which is why you should be careful about who you let become a close enough friend that she would involve you in her wedding. Because you are going to go through something like this with every close friend you have at some point. So if you don't really love them enough to put up with the craziness, you probably should have been keeping her at arms length the whole time.

But before you go disowning half your friends (though seriously, not a bad idea), how about taking her out for drinks, giving her a vicodin, and talking to her about it? After the vicodin kicks in. Her craziness is coming from stress and fear, not about the wedding, but about her future. Above all, when you broach the subject, keep yourself out of it. Express your concern for what she's putting herself through. That way, even if you get nowhere, you don't get labeled the unsupporting bitch. That's how all the good cons work anyway.



I defriended an ex-fling on FB and he texted me today to ask if I was "okay." I have no interest in being friends with him and am in a relationship anyway. Should I reply or ignore him? I feel bad about hurting his feelings but I don't think he gets it.

He would probably "get it" if you told him.

Why do people refuse to confront people on things like this? We all know logically it's better to make issues like this clear to someone right away, that even if it hurts their feelings, it's better that they not stay confused and you not be vague. But every time a situation occurs, even one like this where you don't want this person in your life, we agonize over our actions. We're not agonizing over their feelings, only our own. We're just being selfish and avoiding confrontation because it makes us uncomfortable. Just man up and tell the guy you don't want to be friends. He'll never contact you again, and if he does, then you can feel completely guilt free in talking shit about him to your friends. I mean, I'm with you sort of, you would have thought he would get it when you defriended him. But he may also just be worried about your feelings, and thinking he somehow hurt you. No, I know, I don't think so either. But you should try to be generous to people until they prove you wrong.


Why do eggs turn sort of greenish when you cook them in the microwave?

Do they? I would try this out, but I only have one egg left and I'm not wasting it in a microwave. Who cooks eggs in a microwave? I mean, I guess if you don't have a stove. But if you do, fucking go wash a pan and cook that properly. That's something an animal produced from it's body, give it a little respect.

Other things you should not cook in microwaves:
steaks
hot chocolate
macaroni and cheese
tuna melts

If you can't be bothered to turn on your stove, maybe you don't deserve to eat it. Speaking as someone who has descended to the very depths of microwave laziness, I know this to be true.



What are your favorite types of questions to be asked on the interwebs? How about in person?

I like to be asked things that have nothing to do with me or you, because those details will come out in the answers anyway, but instead about things that exist outside our emotional lives. Subjects that make you have to think about the rest of the world. Asking questions like that are the nicest thing you can do for another person.



What is the best way to exact revenge on a shitty landlord?

Get cats. Lots of them. Old cats.
This is a double edged sword though.
Maybe start shaving your cats in the bathtub without the drain catcher in?

Or, hey, crazy idea, you could move and stop giving him money.



Regarding Egypt and Tunisia, is democracy really worth the struggle and bloodshed of revolution? What is the point having a right to vote when the political system is inevitably hijacked by those with money/power?

I'm very young, you know. I'm only a few decades old, and when I'm even decades older, I'll still be too young to tell you the point of bloodshed. But one thing I think, one thing important to revolutions, is that its in the details. It happens instance by instance, and even though revolutions may look the same, they are individual creations, specific to their time and their country. As an outsider, someone not a citizen in that place who hasn't had to live there in that culture and experience that corner of the universe, how can we possibly understand what's worth the bloodshed or not? Sure, you can make logical arguments for it or against it. But you're not feeling it. You're never going to feel the want or the desperation or the anger or the fear, not the way those people do.

So I find it impossible to judge the people in the streets.
But I feel totally okay judging the governments, and the single men or women responsible for the rule of law.

A revolution is like a very big vote. Its a group of people discovering they don't have to act alone, that the concept of mass has value. It is, objectively speaking, a work of art every time. And democracy, in every one of its flawed and inevitably corrupted incarnations, is at least keeping some small part of that spirit alive. So I find that beautiful, even when I read election results and feel useless and despairing.

The root of the issue is not single people in power, it's that when you come right down to it, people are not very nice and they are selfish, and if you have ideals of any sort, you are going to find them thwarted when you try to make the masses understand them.

So really, the only one to get your ideal society is fascism. Of course, the society I would design would be perfect. For me. And your society would be perfect. For you.

I don't know, perhaps the point is to not look too big, to look at small things one by one, and not lose hope in small things that you want, and that's the real way things get accomplished, by not allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed by the reality of the macrocosm. Work for what it is you want here and now and only in this moment, because this is the moment you own. The world exists sure, and some singular miraculous individuals get lucky enough to affect it on a large level, but every single one of them started out working for their own moment, in their small life and small place. Which is sort of like voting too. Voting is just choosing. It doesn't need to be confined to an election.

And after all, in the end, at least we aren't serfs any more. And much as it may sound witty to talk about how presidents are just other names for monarchs, that really isn't the case. So that's important. As long as the people in power can't stay there forever, things will change in some way. Having term limits is the most important contribution of democracy. The revolution in Egypt is because of lack of change, and not the way we complain about with no change in intentions, but actual frozen government and frozen power. Imagine if Bush had been president for 30 years. You know, your entire lifetime? I think I'll talk more about it tomorrow.

Ask Me Anything

Saturdays Questions Love The Holiday tradition of wearing the Pileus and Not Punishing the Slaves

How long have I been in the game making rap tunes?

Ever since honeys was wearing sassoons.
Now it's '95 and they clock me and watch me
Diamonds shining, looking like I robbed Liberace
It's all good, from Diego to the Bay
Your city is the bomb if your city making pay
Throw up a finger if you feel the same way


What kind of wine will these strangers I'm visiting tonight enjoy?

So we all know there's a learning curve for wine, right? There's the beginning, where you start off drinking Boone's Farm at community theater cast parties, then you and your gay friend move on to Sutter Home on Wednesday mornings when you're both unemployed. A boyfriend buys you Riesling, and then you're into sweet whites for a year or so, until one day you can't take the cloyingness, so you get a sweet red in a box for that weekend you and the boy don't leave his apartment at all. But then you're at the wine bar with your friend and he orders a Shiraz and you don't want to look like a peasant, and even though it turns your tongue into that of a well bred chow dog, you suddenly think Shiraz is awesome. When you get bored of Shirazs you move to Malbecs. From Malbecs it's a short nonexistent step to drinking whatever red wine shows up at the party. Projected timeline? Five years? To achieve minimum appreciation.

The point is, as long as it's not Boone's Farm, I think you're okay. Spend at least 15. Save the stuff you make in your basement for the next 19 yr old to show up at your house.



Would you if possible have sex in the belly of your giant drunk rhino friend? would it alter your answer if he had organs made of paper-mâché?

I'm trying to think of guys I know who look like rhinos and I can think of two. I don't particularly relish the idea of having sex anywhere in the same vicinity as either of them. Not because they look rhinos, but because they are assholes. Especially not sex inside their squishy bloody cut open abdomen, though I assume it would be warm. Warm is always good.

So I'm just going to forget that line of thought, and assume in this scenario I actually have a rhino for a friend, and for whatever reason, I've gotten it drunk. What would a rhino drink? I'm thinking chocolate martinis. I think rhinos would just go nuts for chocolate. My rhino would.

So then there's this issue of having sex in the belly of the beast. I don't want to kill my rhino. I love my rhino. His name is Maurice and he's a gangster of love. So I'd have to shrink me and my partner down first, all Rick Moranis style, and hide ourselves in Maurice's martini with tiny scuba diver gear, so we don't drown/and/or die of alcohol poisoning. I imagine it would be like having sex in a warm sensory deprivation tank, which is pretty much the ideal place to have sex period, right? Yes. It is. Don't argue.

All I want for next Christmas is a paper mache rhinoceros.



Why are my expectations so terribly unrealistic? Particularly in regards to time and my ability to complete tasks within allotted amounts of time.

Your problem is that the blood that runs in your veins is not from this dimension. You are a rock orphan, separated from the quartz and granite that gave you life. Time constructs that make sense to short lived fly people like them, don't make sense to you and me, it would be like a moon trying to understand the life cycle of an ant. Our cells pulse at the slowest universal beat.

Stop trying to be something you're not. Throw away the pitiful short lived promises of this culture, and embrace your glacial abilities. When they are all dead in the grave, we'll have only aged a minute in our crystal carved brains, promise.

I know, it's difficult. We all think we can drive from the West Side to the East Side in fifteen minutes.


If you had been in charge of designing a festive annual holiday for an up and coming largest religion in the world, what would happen on it?

Well let's see.
First, everyone would buy presents only for their immediate family and friends, of only things they needed, like tires or heating bills.
They would make large batches of candy for everyone else.
There would be a large exaggerated rodent as a mascot, like a guinea pig or a capybara. The capybara would represent survival of the species, and we would all spend the first morning congratulating everyone we know on still being alive.
Really devoted folk would make a pilgrimage to the LHC to surround it with flowers and milk. Lots of people would go to several smaller radio telescopes to celebrate. There would be parades in every city, highlighting their technological advancements for the year. There would be huge light shows in every city.
Then for dinner we would all get drunk and eat astronaut ice cream and algae dumplings.
There would be one exact moment during the day when everyone signed on to a random video chat and said Happy Survival Day to another random family somewhere in the world.


Why do guys like it when you're fake pregnant?

For those of you who didn't read the comments from the last questions post, we are NOT referring to actual fake pregnancies, which guys emphatically do not like, and most girls look down upon too.

We are actually talking about knitting. Catch up.

Look, I'm not saying every guy wants his girlfriend to be pregnant. But you know, they like a little nesting. A little making of stuff. A little domesticity. Most guys are pretty domestic themselves. Everybody wants warmth and food and pretty stuff around them. It's comforting and it's evidence of status quo being maintained. Girls want guys to pretend they're fake pregnant too, and do things like fix faucets and put together furniture. Fake pregnant is just another way of saying looking settled and staid and warm, which knitting is like, the epitome of. Look honey, I'm not going to the bar with my friends, I'm staying home with you and making something soft and warm. Because if the world ended tomorrow, and we were all stuck down in the salt mines while the mutant deer ravaged the cityscape, I'd be able to knit you a sweater out of my hair. Call me sexist, that's fine. But if I get stranded underneath a giant lake while radioactive zombies chew on my loved ones, I'd like a guy with me who knows a little about how to jumpstart a car.

I guess, what I'm saying, is fake pregnant is another way of saying "somewhat competent at being alive, maybe enough to support another life form".

People really underestimate the value of warmth, not emotional but actual physical warmth, when it comes to the interactions between guys and girls. Are divorce rates higher in naturally warmer places? I bet they are. I mean, in the places where you're allowed to get divorced. I bet there's a correlation between the rate of divorce and the rate of murder in a country.

Ask Me Anything

Friday's Questions Are Simply Thrilled to Be Back at Their Regularly Scheduled Time

Raphael. Portrait of Pope Leo X with Cardinals Giulio de' Medici and Luigi de' Rossi. He will totally rape your face off.

Benedict or Florentine (which one of them is lying)?

I had no idea there was a Medici challenging Cardinal Ratzinger. I mean, always put your money on the Medici, because even if they are not right, they will poison you. In a really painful way. Then they will clone your DNA in order to integrate your biological advantages into their own bloodline.


I'm snowed in, kinda of literally and kind of just because I've decided that I don't particularly like leaving the house this winter. Any suggestions for things to do other than stare at a computer screen?

There is always staring at other screens. Or you could stare at a mirror for a few hours. You could become an amateur chemist and analyze exactly how polluted the snow outside is, and if it's safe, you could make snow ice cream like they did in Little House in the Prairie. While you're at it, you could pretend that somewhere out in the blizzard, your cattle's breath was freezing to their snouts and suffocating them, since that was the most horrific part of those books and there were a lot of horrific parts to choose from. You could become ambidextrous through lots and lots of practice I don't want to know about. You could throw everything in your house out, so when Spring comes and you can leave again, you can redecorate. And in the meantime you could tell people you were becoming Spartan. That's always kind of hot. It makes girls want to buy you things. And if you're a girl, your boyfriends will be impressed by your lack of nesting. You could always learn to cook, but unfortunately that also means going to the grocery store, which is not only leaving the house but leaving the house to go to one of the most annoying places on the planet. Oooh, you could get a live mouse and let it loose in the house so your cats could chase it. That's very heart of darkness.


What do you think it is?

I think it's bright, and shiny, and way too expensive to be for me. If I had to guess, I'd say planet.


How much wood can a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Also, what is chucking?

Chucking is vomiting, everyone knows that. What you're really asking is, if I trapped a woodchuck, strapped it down with some sort of restraint keeping its mouth open, and forced as much wood down the poor things throat as possible, at what point would it start to vomit woodchips and blood all over me as it died in horrible agony?

I happen to think woodchucks are cute, and you should never do this to them. But theoretically, I'm betting not much. A chair leg, maybe? They're small. The only logical way to answer this question would be to get a dead woodchuck stomach and measure it. Just grab the next one you see on the highway and we'll get started on this.


If [you were] a transformer what would you transform into. Would you be an Autobot or a Decepticon?

Neither. I am obviously Unicron.



Why would Wheeljack originally build the Dinobots w/ such little intelligence? sure they were suppose to represent Dinosaurs but giving them only enough to form rudimentary logic and possess broken language just seems like a poor choice.

If you are going to manufacture slaves and cannon fodder, you can't give them intelligence silly. They need to be dumb, or you won't feel probably superior to them, and you might feel bad a little when they get killed. It's not like Wheeljack was trying to create peers. They're not socialists for gods sakes. Except maybe they kind of are? It's all very group think, and they were originally the worker class. But I think the creation of the Dinobots shows them moving from socialist roots to a more imperialist and military mindset. Right? And then the cannon fodder/soldier Grimlock takes over and it's like "see, this is what abandoning the ideals of peaceable equality and community get you." This concludes the extent of what Bridget remembers about transformers, except that she really really loved the Constructicons, and she thought Beast Wars was underrated.


Who put the ram.. in the ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong?

I hate self referential rock songs that talk about how great rock n roll is. Old Time Rock and Roll, for one. That's like the worst song ever. This song isn't so bad, because it's like the beginning of that crap, like Fugazi is the beginning of Emo and therefore not it's strongest distilled form. But any excuse to post a Muppet video.



Ask Me Anything

Saturday's Questions have way too many cookies to bake before 5pm today

The best kind of toast is probably rye with some tomato and swiss cheese, but everyone I know cares a lot about basketball today, so I wanted to ask - what's the most irresponsible kind of underwear?

The best kind of toast is lightly toasted Italian with real butter. But rye is a close second, so I'll let that slide.

The most irresponsible kind of underwear is the nonexistent kind you wear when you've forgotten to do laundry. Or thongs. I don't even think that qualifies as underwear.


Are Akron and Cleveland really different cities?

No. Yes. I guess so. I like Cleveland more, but it's bigger and has a lake. I think Akron suffers from not having a large body of water near it. Also from having way too many one way streets. Akron is just smaller, you know. There's less stuff going on there, and a lot of it is related to the university, which is fine, but I'm not interested in hanging out with college kids so much. It's much more an Ohio town, and Cleveland is a Lake town. People from Akron are more Ohioans than Clevelanders. They are closer to the unlit highways with dead deer littered everywhere, to cheese barns and closing car factories, to the snow belt and the tornado warnings and the long stretches of rural road with ditches. Akron is sort of the border, where you really leave the urban grit for the unemployed farmland grit.

Akron also smells like burnt rubber, whereas Cleveland smells like burnt metal and rock water, and I prefer the rusty taste.


What is a product I can purchase for little and sell for a lot?

Love.


What's the best way to tell a girl I love her when I don't actually speak her language all that well?

First, you should learn to speak her language better. That's always a good step. But if you're like me, and terrible at learning languages, then I recommend writing her stories. The good love letters I've saved are the ones that went on for pages with stories maybe having nothing to do with me, but I still have them because they were written for me, to impress me.

And if you're not a writer, then send her photos you take, or sketches you draw. Produce things for her. Girls like things to be made for them.


What's the best way to end my story about walking a dog?

All stories about walking dogs should end with a home break in, or the dog getting dried fish. They should never end with the dog dying. Preferably there should be a boat involved. Dogs and boats are the best combination ever.

Do you think that your online and real life personalities differ?

So when I was a little girl, I used to volunteer to read in public all the time. At church I was a lector. At school, I was always trying to get picked for speeches and presentations. I fully thought of myself as a loud, slightly obnoxious child. Later in life, my friends from grade school told me that I was always really quiet. Even now, I think I talk really loud, and turns out, no one can ever hear me.

My point is that I am not self aware at all, and therefore not qualified to answer this question. I don't think there's much difference at all between me in real life and me online. After all, how much of yourself can you really hide when you've got a blog, and Twitter, and Facebook? I don't mention a lot of the more naughtier things I do, because usually the least interesting things about a person are who they are sleeping with, and how fucked up they are at the time. Maybe sometimes people think I will be snarkier in person, but I try to be fair and nice to everyone who is not a reality show star or a politician. I can devastatingly cruel if someone wrongs me, but that's only applied to 2 people ever in my adult life. So except for certain breakup meltdowns, I'm usually pretty even keeled. If you don't cheat on me with a 19 year old, I probably won't ever be angry at you. My friends are pretty drama free. When I think about it, while I was with the Ex, I was the biggest source of drama in our circles, because of all the fighting and trauma and him making me sad all the time. Poor Bridget's friends. Now I'm a pretty happy person, and I want other people to be happy, and I want my interesting friends to meet all my other interesting friends and have fun.

Unless you've met me in real life, you probably don't understand what a 12 year old girl I am actually. But then I wonder if my real life friends get that either. Really, I should be asking them this question.

Ask Me Anything

Saturday Questions are So Pissed Off They Didn't Fill the Ice Tray Last Night

Seriously, have you ever tried to be hungover without ice water?

Before we get into this week's questions, I just want to thank all my friends who came out last night to Pechakucha, especially Colleen who helped me practice beforehand, and get drunk, and listened to my terrified high pitch keening. I'll post the presentation here at some point, for those who had other more important things to do, like be a really awesome singer, or dance with pretty girls in Spain, or homework. I had a lot of people come talk to me afterwards, and it was really nice to meet all you new people, but please forgive me if I don't remember your names next time I see you. I'm the worst with names. Also, if I was talking to you last night and then got distracted by another person, I apologize. I'm terrible at doing the whole moving from person to person thing. I'm much more courteous one on one. Let's hang out sometime and I'll prove it to you. Amy's friend, I'm specifically thinking of you, cause I was sort of in shock when you came up, and I wasn't my typical glowing attentive self. Frankly, I found it hard to pay attention to anything for at least two drinks after it was all done.

The best stranger last night was the guy who came up to me and was like "aren't you the girl who hit my car last year?" and it was me! That was the best.

Alright, onto the questions.

What's the deal with guyliner? And why does anyone care enough to make a "deal" necessary? Is guyliner a deal breaker?

I'm trying to think if I know any guys who use guyliner, and no one is immediately springing to mind, though there were quite a few who used to at certain points in their illustrious goth youths. Are there people who are not goth that wear it? I wonder if there is a whole secret group of guys who are using it, but you know, sparingly and tastefully, so nobody knows? If so, I totally respect that. I won't walk out of the house without mascara usually, I get the addiction of something that makes you look better.

I think the "deal breaker" is probably all that wearing guyliner implies. Which is a self consciousness about appearance that most girls don't like to be reminded exists. Of course, guys are just as self conscious as girls, but they are not supposed to look like they are, it's just supposed to "happen". Guyliner falls in the same category for me as too much product in your hair, or overly ornate eyebrows. I personally don't like it, because I like kind of scruffy looking guys, but I can't fault it. Guys should have just as much room to play around with their faces as girls get.

I would totally support any guy I knew who wanted to wear clear mascara, cause eyelashes are awesome.

Cake or Pie?

Pie all the way. Pie is so much better than cake. Cake is just bread with sugar in it. Pie is an architectural design.

If tiaras are so great, how come Prince wrote a song about berets and not tiaras?

Because Prince is a Jehovah's Witness who knocks on people's doors trying to convert them. Nobody in a tiara would stoop to knocking on a stranger's door. Also, let me point out his poor color choice in berets.

With the world in the state its in, with the gap between rich and poor growing greater every year, with so much wealth being held by so few people and anyone who see this disparity being tagged as a socialist, who is your favorite composer and why?

I love Beethoven from childhood, from years of banging out Fur Elise on our living room piano. I love Philip Glass, and I don't care what you think that says about me, because the Koyaanisqatsi movies are fantastic. Stravinsky, because the dinosaurs Rite of Spring in Fantasia blew my little child mind. Tchaikovsky because of Sleeping Beauty. Prokofiev because of Peter and the Wolf. I am a simply story minded girl.

I keep thinking about Elvis, how come we don't make guys like that anymore in our country?

You mean with the digestive capabilities of a humpback whale? I was specifically instructed by the asker of this question to not say anything bad about Elvis so lets all take that last sentence as a compliment. I mean, I don't really know what bad things I would say. Guy didn't do anything I wouldn't forgive any other person I know, unless there's something really terrible I'm unaware of, cause frankly, I'm not super up on my Elvis biographical trivia. But I would propose that in fact, they make guys like Elvis all the time. It's just that not all of them have musical talent. But hot guys with too much swagger, lots of ambition, and a penchant for crying in their beers which they tend to drink too much of? Those are all over. I personally know at least three. In Cleveland. I imagine that ratio wise, that means the entire population of Chicago is like that too.

I like this picture cause it looks like everyone is on a tipping cruise boat. Also, that's a lot of people. Jesus, that's a lot of people.

I think getting married is bad form, but I want your opinion - it's wrong for people to get married right?

Bad Form! Oh how I love the phrase bad form! I love the idea that there is a Form to fail at in the first place. It's so honest. Instead of pussyfooting around expectations, they just come right out and say "you, sir, are not the right SHAPE, your actions are not fitting our MOLD, SHAPE UP or you are a BAD FORM." Remember those little color tiles we used to play with in preschool, that fit together in designs? Colorforms, wasn't that what they were called?

Anyway, so marriage right? I don't see the point of getting married. I get that other people see the point, there's some validation they are getting from the commitment, it means something to them. It doesn't mean anything to me though. I don't see the difference between being committed to a girlfriend or boyfriend, living with them and sharing a life, versus getting married. The emotional commitment is the same, the intent is generally the same. Some friends and I were recently having this conversation over dinner, and someone pointed out the difference was marriage was commitment under God, which is sort of like, "oh, that's true, and that's always why I probably don't care about it at all". If you believe in God, maybe you care about marriage? All I know is that if I'm with someone for years and years, and I live with them, and share finances, and plan things together, then I emotionally expect the same thing of them, whether or not we spent 20,000 on a big party once.

Except, there is always the tax thing. And the insurance thing, and the hospital visitation thing. Society really wants you to stop sleeping around and just couple up already. I get sort of pissed at that you know. It's discrimination against people who don't believe in the need for religious ceremony. I personally feel that instead of just trying to get marriage rights for gays (which is infuriating, that not only do we have this antiquated system of partnership, but then also no gay marriage? It's just medieval, I don't understand how it exists, it baffles me, that we can be so backwards for an institution that exists for exclusivity), we should instead be trying to fix the system so that marriage is not a thing that matters in government at all. Marriage is a religious thing, and last I checked, there wasn't supposed to be religion mixing into my state.

But if other people around me want to get married, just like they want to go to church, or ride bikes everywhere, or listen to Trip Hop all the time, it's their choice. And just like a bat mitzvah or a first communion, it should have no legal or financial ramifications at all. Because it's my choice too, and I shouldn't be penalized for not wanting it.

Say an evil (necromanced) killer trash talking turkey has stalked and killed your friends before you were finally able to kill it. Why would eat its burning carcass? Wouldn't the chance of him possessing you be high? Why would she eat him?

I need to clarify something here, is the turkey on fire? Is that how I killed it? Because then it would be burned and not very edible anyway.

I don't think I would eat anything that had eaten my friends, because I know what my friends put into their bodies on a weekly basis, and I'm guessing it probably doesn't lend itself to corn fed flavor.

Why does anyone put anything in their mouths, really?

Ask Me Anything

Saturday's Questions Have the Fever

What's your fave drink to tie one on with and why?

I am not a horse. I do not "tie" one on. Instead, I delicately hold the champagne glass between my grubby little fingers, and swill it down like an over aged flapper old maid. Or I sip a pineapple and vodka, which is the drink I can keep drinking, as in I can have four or five of them without feeling quivery and unstable inside, but rather more solidly and steadily drunk. Like a paragon of drunk girl, instead of a parody, which is how drinking jello shots makes me feel.

Do jello shots count as drinking?


Now that we know Tyra is a fashion vampire, in league with other fashion vampires, which is how she got such amazing guests judges etc for this season of Top Model, how will she possibly top herself next season? 'Cause there's gonna be a next season.

I mean, the only real way to top this Vogue Italia vampire cabal is for Tyra to start her very own fashion week, in like, Warsaw, and somehow convince all the fashion players to stay in Poland for six months while she picks underemployed boys and girls from the countryside to perform Ninja Warrior style obstacle courses to qualify to work as servers in the tents.

But probably it will just be all plus size models next season. Or all refugee sex slaves. Or both. Plus sized sex slave refugees seems like a cause Tyra could get behind.

There will always be a next season. This show is forever, like black holes and twinkies.


Do people still "write novels" as a hopeful project anymore? I mean, it used to be, when you were useless and over-educated, you pretended to be writing a novel. But do people do that anymore? How many disaffected middle-class shits have a screenplay?

First of all, a novel and a screenplay are completely different creatures. One is commercially viable, for instance, and the other is completely arcane.

But yes, some of us are still pretending to write novels. I know at least three of us. I like all of my friends to have at least something they are pretending to do, because if you can't even work up the hope of something meaningful you can do outside of work, then you're probably pretty boring to have a drink with. Unless your job is incredibly interesting. And even that is going to run out of talking points in a few years.

Also, those of us writing on a regular basis, even if its crap, will not get Alzheimer's. I have nothing to back that up except a rudimentary understanding that when they say drinking or smoking weed staves off dementia, what they are really saying is that the more active your brain stays, the more socially interested you are, the longer you can keep the mechanism working. I also apply this general theory of "it makes sense" to the idea that cancer is a product of the toxins and poisons and chemicals we ingest everyday while breathing eating or drinking.

Oh the painful burden of the bourgeoisie, to have to be interesting to get laid.


Why is self-righteousness such a popular hobby for Americans?

I think it's because we are so good at not seeing poor people. And if we're poor, we're really good at being defensive about it. Because it's really American to be out to improve our own lot. That's the American Dream - achievement as an individual, not as a society. So, since we are supposed to be our own heroes, of course we're infected with moral superiority. Our entire culture is based on being underdogs who achieve against all odds and all naysayers. How are you supposed to be right all the time, and not be self-righteous?


If KITT made a mistake that lead to Michael Knight's death which spiraled him into depression--which lead to him forming an EMO band what would he call said band?

My Transmission Failure

If you had to be a housewife from the real housewives franchise, who would you be?

I can't watch any of those shows. I can't get into watching people who are rich only by proxy doing horrible things to their children. So I don't know who any of them are. But if I have to pick, I pick whichever one is the richest. Even if it's one of those Jersey girls. But I'm sort hoping it's an Atlanta one.

Yeah, that's right. I can still be a tv snob and worship Tyra. THEY ARE NOT EXCLUSIVE.

Are reebok easytones for real?

No. But you know what helps tone leg muscles? Walking and sex. So if buying those shoes helps you accomplish either of those activities, then do it.


If the mayor of Cleveland banned you forever, where would you go?

First of all, I feel like the mayor banning me from Cleveland is the equivalent of Blair banning Jenny from Manhattan, in other words completely ridiculous. 95% of the people in Cleveland aren't even aware of my existence, so I feel pretty confident I could just hang out and ignore any executive orders. Most of this city's population is lost as it is.

But lets assume we're in some alternate reality, where all major cities in the US participate in fake war games in order to keep the defense industry relevant, and cities that lose against other are quarantined for 10 years as if they were all dead. And let's assume Chicago was triumphant over Cleveland, and I was somehow responsible for helping that, and I was banished as a traitor. I would drive to Kentucky, and take up residence on an abandoned farm, where I would grow algae for food, and build a water mill for power. It would be like my own little commune. Only it would probably just be me and Elly and her extended family. I would marry her brother, and come up with some nonsense name for our community, like the New Sun Rising. And then, when we started to starve, or our children started getting rebellious, I would come back to Cleveland, knock on the barrier wall, and demand one on one combat with Dan Gilbert in order to win back my citizenship.

I expect I could rally at least ten gunhands behind my cause, just from this readership. Right? You are all crack shots, I assume.


How can I work more sarcasm into my daily life?

I personally think we have more sarcasm in the world than we need. What we need is more sincerity from smart people. So please, don't be more sarcastic. Just be more honest.

Or, if you really can't take sincerity, if it just breaks your heart over and over and makes you want to never leave your house or speak to anyone ever again, then listen to more Pulp. Cause if you can't be sincere, you might as well be sexy.


My favorite piece of china, a thrift store gravy boat that's held its ground well past its prime years, is leaking from a crack down the side. it feels silly, but i can't just throw it in the garbage. do you know how to fix it?

Well, you need clear epoxy glue, Qtips, and a lot of patience. More than I have. Really, how much do you use your gravy boat for gravy, and how often are you just using it for beer when you run out of glasses? I would recommend re purposing it as a candy dish or ashtray. Which is what I use most thrift store pieces as anyway.


Ask Me Anything