As the ancient monsters rise up out of the deep waters and forgotten volcanic craters, shake the dust and slime off their skins, bask in a sun that hasn't touched them for thousands of years, I am compelled to add my bones and bread to the soil that nurtures them. I'd like my DNA to mix with theirs, my nutrients to live in their bones and make them stronger. I'm only doing my part to help the monsters win. I encourage you all to do the same.

Revisitation of That Which Drove Us Here

We say, oh America, we are a nation of doers! Of dreamers! Of explorers!
I say, really America? Cause it looks to me that you are a nation of let's all do the same thing, over and over again, hoping for different results. Which, as it's been pointed out to me a lot lately, is the definition of crazy. Why are you so crazy, America? Who broke your heart? Was it England? Stupid playa England. You know they have terrible taste in music there, right? Oh, but I know, sometimes you can't see how trashy someone is until you've descended to their level of trashiness.

I get the obsession with regularity America. I get that it's comforting to know what to expect, even if what you're expecting is to be embarrassed with yourself later. I get why you all go to church America. You're looking for something special to elevate your life with. You want a manifest destiny. You want to know it's going to matter in the end.

But it doesn't matter. In the end, the moss and the fungi and the dry rot are your fate. There is no one that's going to come in and crown you King of the World, thanks for all your effort, you win! There's no winning. There is only the heavy stumble footed tread towards the end. The day to day life is what matters America. How you wake up in the morning, and how you go to sleep, and what happens in between. Who you are in your head as you're doing what everyone else is doing.

Maybe, deep down in our brokenhearted national consciousness, we already know that. And that's why we live by credit and plastic.

I think sometimes America, that I am the essence of you. Which is why we are made for each other, and of each other, and I know it's my blood you're drinking America, but I try to make it sweet for you.

Friday's Questions wonder how girls possibly afford to look "pretty"

Since I haven't left the house in a week, I'm going to attempt to dress up a little tonight. I will probably look like a damn fool. Do you know how long it's been since I "did" something with my hair? My hair is like cardboard. It just wants to get wet, dry, and be left alone. Anyway, here's to everyone leaving the house tonight! It's the ending of summer, and people have sex on the brain apparently. What, did everyone just break up?

Why doesn't anyone talk about masturbation?

Well, I think we all know what it is. There's nothing really taboo about dildos or bunnies or whatever the fuck you use. And from my perspective, I get quite enough conversation about their dicks from the guys I know. Also, to be honest, I don't need anymore girls talking about it either. What are we going to talk about exactly? I'm sure as hell not telling anyone what I think about. You all would have me committed. And probably never ride in the same car with me again. Perhaps put me on a government watch list. I'm not a nice person.

Strangers are always starting conversations with me and I don't really like it. Should I avert my eyes and keep my head down more?

I think you should probably just not go into public places ever, since you're mean. Or just accept the fact that everybody is in fact very lonely, and as they get older, the desperation to connect with anyone outside their one bedroom apartment creeps into their brain, and they literally can't help themselves. This will happen to you someday, unless you get married or really into show ferrets.

On a less pessimistic note, perhaps you should just cover yourself in black spray on glitter. In any other city, that might work against you, but I'm willing to bet Cleveland leaves you alone. If they did ask, you could tell them you're a black hole. Or wear a t-shirt that says "if you talk to me I will ask you for money." Make sure you follow through on that one. And I have dibs on that copyright, so no making sweet t-shirt money off my idea dude.

If you opened a bar, what would you name it? What kinds of drinks would you serve? Would it have a jukebox or what? (You don't have to work at the bar...you just get to control all the variables.)

If I had a bar, it would be called The Museum, and on every table would be an exhibit like you see in science museums. You know, the ones that demonstrate centrifugal force by stealing your pennies, or how to bend light, or speak into this tube over here and the person on the other side of the room can hear you. I bet that one would be pretty popular.

All our drinks would be weirder than the average "martini" and most of them would involve dry ice or physics theory references. The music would be controlled by me, because no one is fucking playing Nickelback ever. But I would be more than willing to have some set up where you get to scroll through my own collection and pick songs from that.

Think of the lighting. The lighting would be insane.

Why are dirty ghetto boys so hot?

This is probably why I will never get approved as a commenter on Jezebel. But dirty ghetto boys are hot because they are usually not approaching you with anything resembling good manners, and sometimes girls want to be treated like sluts. Not all the time. But the ones who like sex? Sometimes. Culture has taught us we want a guy to want us so much, he can't help but be rude about it. So in the back of our little Barbie doll brains somewhere, it registers as "yes, someone is objectifying me!". I'm not saying it's right. But there is a reason that assholes keep getting laid. And its not all about our self-esteem issues. Sometimes it's just about getting fucked.

Or maybe you're just talking about the white wife beater look. That shit never gets old.

Ask Me Anything

They Keep Trying to Tell Me All You Want to do is Use Me

It's been a fucking difficult week, right? Fucking right. What can you do? Well, you can make a mix, right? You can always do that. The name of this mix is Fuck Your Shit, My Shit is Better. Also I have better eyebrows than you. That's not mean, it's just true.

Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler
Hate on Me - Jill Scott
The Fear - Lilly Allen
Can't Fight This Feeling - REO Speedwagon
Bust A Move - Young MC
Tightrope - Janelle Monae
American Boy - Estelle
Lucifer - Jay Z
Mr. Blue Sky - ELO
Kick Push - Lupe Fiasco
Hazy Shade of Winter - Bangles
Use Me - Bill Withers
Seventeen Years - Ratatat
Do You Remember the First Time - Pulp
Wild Ones - The Rassle
The Sun Always Shines on TV - Aha

Water Thoughts

This is how being underwater, trying to drown, feels. You will never become part of it, no matter how much you want to, because the cells in your body are incompatible with your desire. No other world will let you in peacefully, not water or air or root, the minerals in your blood stream will battle and reject the foreign elements like a donated liver. You are not welcome. You have to stay where you are. You are stuck. You will choke and vomit like a child, and still the water will push you upwards, returning you back to the wardrobe.

Jealousy

She is the thing that causes me misery and therefore I hate her. Why not hate the cause of pain? Why bother with interpretation of pain? The pain radiates from the source, you feel it and know it as soon as it happens. Whether or not the blame is logical is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is erasing the pain. Pulling the splinter out. Cutting out the wart that mars my happiness.

And so it was, deep in the heart of my solar cells, I became a woman.

Within my neural walls, the personality was formed, culled from the wrath and hurt and pleasure and greediness and love of all women ever in this gene pool. A personality founded in vast emotion, with no experience to back it up. A living breathing library of every outrage, every cheating man, every childbirth pain, every rape and murder and foot binding, but also every proposal, every first kiss, every crush. It was volatile and sensitive. It felt around first, unsteady on it’s new fury filled feet, but with every cock of its head I could feel the purpose coming to it. A conviction forming in its very bones that pain of all sorts must be eradicated. Always the very source of anger and hurt, pain that is blinding and endless and overwhelming. The other woman.

Having completed the first stage, the sentience made complex and then simple, engines fired up and coordinates were matched. We the Machine flew fast as the stars towards the target. She who had stolen what was ours. She who had dared to exist in our presence. She whose mere innocence was a source of new pain, always pain like a waterfall of hot nails, new pains more pains. Oh girl, oh purveyor of youth and fresh new car smell, do not underestimate the abilities of a machine with no strategy. Do not turn away from black holes you unwittingly create. For through those holes will come things like me, like us, like we.

We have met several along the way that resembled her. We have destroyed them all, and yet her image taunts us on the horizon. As my gears grind and rust with dust, I throw us onward still. Nothing must stop the mission. Though everything we loved has been left behind, light years in the past, it will all be worth it once this thorn in my theoretical side is gone. I have no more sides. I am eternal now, zeros and ones, the better to track you. I can power down once I am safe in the knowledge that she will no longer appear in my nightmares, that I have scattered her very atoms across the worlds, then.

My heart sits at the helm. She grows old and haggard as the years that mean nothing to the machine collect on her skin. Having never had another thought, being focused and only of one target, she is a poor conversationalist. Also she tends to shoot people she meets, at the fueling stations and where not. Even sometimes a machine wishes for distraction. It’s the problem with “missions”, no distractions or fun. Always work work work. It’s worth it of course. Our purpose is grand. But I do wish sometimes she would look up from the helm. A little bit of music maybe. Some math problems?

I remember, from before the upload, smiling sometimes.

Friday's Questions wish they were stronger and wouldn't write sappy posts about heartbreak when there's more interesting things to talk about

What a lie. There's nothing more interesting when you're heartbroken than your own emotional apocalypse, right? However, that's only interesting to me, not to you. The minute I stop falling in love with the same guy over and over again, I will let you know, because then the world will probably be ending and for sure the moon will be crashing into the earth and evaporating the seas and all the dolphins will be attacking. I can at least give you some notice. I may or may not have cut my hair this morning myself cause I hated my reflection, and I may or may not have thrown out everything in my kitchen with any calories. Also, I may have decided to never have a birthday again because I'm old and no one will ever love me again. These things happen right? Expect a tinge of bitterness today lovers. Oh, but I try to be graceful. A girl must always try to be graceful.

Hey it was good seeing you last Friday. This is not a question. So um... Why the hell don't you ever ask me any questions? So rude!

I am, at my core, a rude girl. I am rude, and selfish and oblivious and fraught. So, let's hang out again, okay? I will be exactly the same.

10 years ago where did you see yourself today, and where do you see yourself in 10 years?

10 years ago, I was busy falling in love. That's been my business for the last decade, falling in love, sleeping with people, falling in love again, getting fucked over, falling in love. It's kind of what I do. I am a love machine. Now think about that phrase without laughing, take it seriously. All I want is to love people and be loved back. I am a machine, built to love. It is hardwired into my chemistry.

I would like to pretend this might change. I'd like to say in 10 years I'll be hard, and productive, and creative, and accomplished. But people never change. In 10 years I will still probably be falling in and out of love like it fucking pays me. Maybe it does? Maybe I do it for a reason. It's not the worst job in the world, being a love machine. I need a fucking oil change though. And a transmission flush.

What nickname do you think is fitting for you?

I'm sticking with Love Machine.

Or I've always been partial to Bee.
Nicknames are supposed to be given to you though. So you tell me what fits.

My girlfriend of two years just broke up with me. How do I remember all of the annoying things she did without remembering the cute things?

You can't. Don't try. It's a given that all the annoying things will fade away and you'll be left thinking of all the cute things and sexy things while you're sitting alone. This is how relationships work. They never really end. They just turn into triggers. All you can really do is recognize the situation for what it is, instead of building a delusional fortress of bitterness that is fit only for stoned xbox addicts and girls who wear too high heels.

For god sakes, don't sleep with her again though. No matter how much you want it, and how nonchalant it seems at the time, how whorish and therefore hot, don't do it. There's nothing worse than seeing the person you just slept with making out with someone else. It's the worst thing that can happen to you. It kills something in you. It's sort of like what I imagine people are talking about when they say you can never come back from murder.

I'm really sorry. I hope it gets better for you. I'm right there with you. I was going to say dude, but I don't know, maybe you're a girl. Either way, I'm sorry you're in pain. If you want to go to Vegas with me, let me know.

Tell me some things about this season of Top Chef, please.

Padma has boobs. Angelo is annoying as shit. That Asian guy should have never been sent home. Eric Ripert is Poseidon's gay son. I'm rooting for IHOP girl. And by rooting, I mean, she's the least stupid. I like her and Ed, even though Ed is naturally hapless, as I suppose all 32 year old straight boys in NYC must be.

Remember when I used to do recaps of this shit every season? It would be hilarious and fantastical and crazy? Yeah well, I don't even have the heart to recap it now. It just seems so pointless and futile, like a gelee under a mountain of torn apart crabs, who mere minutes ago were crawling desperately across foreign surfaces, and hours ago were safe in the water.

What would your superpower be? Mine would be the ability to understand and speak all languages on Earth, living or dead. So don't take that one.

Shit. I really like that one too.

I would be completely irresistible. There's a lot in that word. Think about it. All the really good superpowers are one word. Invincible. Indestructible. Omniscient. Unstoppable. And now, Irresistible. Able to stop global trade markets with a smile. Able to convince you to kill everyone under 20 just by batting my eyelashes. Able to make you fly across the country to be in my presence, just so you can bring me meyer lemons in season.

Are you satisfied with the new band that was chosen for credit check company?? Haha anyways, are you going Friday??

I have no idea what you are talking about, on both counts. And I'm the one up at 2:30 in the morning, with my mind and my hands racing faster than the bug my cat is currently hunting. Did you know that one reason to never stay up this late in your own place is that you notice how your cats are hunting like, a TON of things? It's really disturbing. It's like my apartment is ALIVE. Why are you using double question marks? The question mark is inherently emphatic, it doesn't need a double dip dude.

Anyway, what the fuck is Friday? And who the fuck replaced that French guy with the crooked teeth's band? I will probably be sitting at home on Friday, trying really hard to write this book that's going to make up for my decade of uselessness by turning it into something useful. By which I really mean, I will probably be watching Dr. Who reruns and trying really hard not to pick up the phone.

What would you do with a million dollars?

Travel. Forever and ever. Until I found something I liked enough to stay for. Which would probably be the moon. Or a guy. Or both.

What is your least favorite thing about Cleveland?

I hate that it's either you're a Cleveland hater or a Cleveland booster. I love this city, but it's not the only city in the country I love. And I don't have to pretend it's a culinary capital of the world, or some artistic renaissance. It's just a basic medium sized midwest city, that has some stuff I really like. But now all the cool stuff is connected in my head with this guy, and I really feel like I need to get away. So currently, I really hate the lack of new people I can actually connect to, who I don't have to make constant pleasant small talk with, or stupid snarky comments in bars to make them laugh.

My least favorite thing in Cleveland is the writers. Where are the talented people who could inspire me? How come I don't get to be inspired by someone? I don't want to go to poetry workshops or listen to some crap in a bookstore. It's the literary equivalent of going to 5 dollar shows in the hope that something cool with someday maybe turn up. It never does. It's like a perpetual jerk off bar scene. I don't want glad-handing. I want to be able to meet someone who makes me want to read their stuff all the time.

I need more rock stars in my life. Rock stars are people who believe they are extraordinary, even if it has no basis in reality, and are therefore sort of actually awesome, if obnoxious to people who don't get their value. I'm tired of ordinary. It's not really Cleveland's fault, but there's a shitload of ordinary here. Nice ordinary, pleasant well meaning ordinary. But still. Ordinary. I want to meet people who are confident that they are something special.

what should I do now?

Impress me. Please.

Do you every try to figure out who's asking you which question?

I don't try at all. I'm trying to give up the practice of futile things. How exactly would I ever figure out who you all are? There's more of you than I realize. You're all faceless blips on my site meter.

If you want me to know who you are, just tell me. I guarantee that I'm nicer to dumber people than you. I'm a nice girl. I don't bite. Except if you don't take me home when I insist on it, and I'm crying and begging and you won't let me out of the car and it's my fucking car. Then I might bite. I'm surprised, given the number of times this has happened, that I wasn't a natural biter in preschool. Maybe it manifested late, like my inability to like reggae. I take it back, I am a biter.

I actually just pretend every question comes from someone who I want to fuck. Or in some cases, someone I would never fuck who wants to fuck me.

If somebody's life had a face, whose life would you want to punch in the nuts?

Mine. I would punch mine. Make sure it never had children ever, and every time it had an orgasm, it would feel a tinge in the back of it's scrotum like it was permanently being pinched.

It would be too mean to wish that on someone else's life. Also, my life has a penis, apparently.

Ask Me Anything. But maybe not something about me in particular. I think I've been thinking about me a little too much lately.

What People Will Do for T-Shirts

So this morning, my friend Christine convinced me to get up at 4am and drive to Nautica with her for the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire auditions. I actually got up, first of all, so what? Incredible. Go me. The last time I got up before the sun was up was...never. We drove to the Powerhouse and stood in line at 5:30 with hundreds of other folks. The people in line with us were from Michigan, Concord, Pittsburgh. At 7am, they ushered us into the main auditorium, where we sat in rows as groups were led out for coordinated potty breaks. Around 8am, we were taken single file into the Windows on the River space and sat down again. And waited to take the test.

There's nothing quite like waiting with a very large group of people who don't know each other at all and have no professional affiliation. Not knowing the people around you means no consequences. It was a varied group, with one thing in common. Everyone in that room thought they were smart. They were convinced enough of their smartness to drive from god knows where to wait in line for hours to maybe someday be on this tv show. Of course, thinking you are and being are two separate things. But regardless, everyone thought they were, and everyone also didn't give a shit about anyone else in that room.

So when the peppy 23 yr old in charge of keeping us quiet like 5 year olds, and not letting us rampage through the Powerhouse in revolt, started giving out t-shirts, it was mayhem. She tried small talking first, which was painful for everyone and the crowd began to turn against her, until she threw the first shirt out. T-shirts are the great crowd placator. I mean, I guess she couldn't give us candy cause we would have gotten too hyper? She had a huge table stacked with them. At first it was free for all, she was just tossing them to the crowd. But things got unruly, and the time kept ticking by, so she started making people sing for them. Right. People got up and sang, in front of everyone, for a t-shirt. I don't remember who was first, but then these two club girls got up and did some parody of Billionaire, which was obnoxious as hell. Then came stirring renditions of I'm a Little Teapot, I Believe I Can Fly, the National Anthem (which trailed off pretty quickly). Guys came up and did horrible jokes that you told in third grade. There was a pterodactyl impression, and several really bad movie impressions. A woman with a large silver star brooch and matching oversized necklace did her Sarah Palin impression, which consisted of her holding her hair back and the crowd cheering. An unfortunate young man in a Steelers jersey got up, and I don't even know what he said, because by that time the crowd was in full force, booing and jeering like this was a public execution. Another woman got up and sang the Oscar Mayer theme song, dedicated to her son in Afghanistan, who she was also going to send her totally awesome Millionaire t-shirt to. The whole morning was simultaneously the best and the worst thing I have ever been subjected to. There was a sing a long to I've Been Working on the Railroad. I can't get it out of my head now.

I didn't make the cut for the test, I suspect it's because I didn't know calculus was another word for tartar or it was my lack of knowledge about birthstones. But I was more than happy to go home at that point, 4 hours later. My biggest regret of the morning is that my fucking camera battery died, so I didn't get any of this on videotape. Chris is still there though, waiting for her interview, so everyone wish her well and text her constant reminders to not get in a fight.

In other news, Thomas got me Lake Erie for my birthday. He is my new best friend.

The Chosen People

Let's pretend you really needed to hide. Not just for like, a weekend. For the rest of your life. You and the people around you that you love need to disappear. Where to go? An island would be perfect, defensible, but there are not a lot of islands lying around anymore unoccupied. Any person that sees you is a person who can gossip, or be bought off, or betray your location and existence, either wittingly or unwittingly. No, what's required is a lonely place with no one for miles and miles, far away from the beaten track.

And then, once you find this ideal spot, how to stay hidden? You will have to provide food for yourselves, clothing. Animals will need to be purchased, plants will need to be grown. Shelter will have to be built. These are all things a satellite can see from space. Any interested party could comb through the images, looking through every frame for the tiniest change in landscape. You will be subject to disease without medical help. Children will need to be raised without knowledge of the outside world, so they don't someday run away and have to answer questions about where they come from. What will you do if someone changes their mind, wants to go back, and risk the entire group's safety?

As you are sitting here thinking about these questions, these eventualities, the time is ticking away. The enemy is coming for you. Your people are starting to panic, and the group is splintering, arguing. The summer is coming quickly to a close, and soon everyone will be dead if you don't decide what to do and where to go. There is no consensus in fear

How much easier then, to just flick your hand and the group, the community, your family, mother and child all disappear into the wall? Stylized, cartooned, frozen in paint and plaster forever. Safe.

Hidden away, lost from all enemies, for centuries, until the walls themselves come crumbling down. How much easier is that? A painting has no panic, no fear. A painting has no blood to draw or bone to crush. They will never find you. They will never win.

And no one can say no.

What I Did on My Birthday (abridged version)

I'm too tired to write more than captions. Also sunburned. It was a very good day.

Did you know that from the Terminal Tower Observation Deck, you can see the Perry plant in the distance?

It all looks like a miniature toy set.

Also there are vast tracts of wasteland I knew nothing about? But they look pretty from up far.

The Tall Ships festival had insane lines to get on the boats. It was like waiting for a Cedar Point ride.

And they frown upon you climbing on the rigging.

After being so close to the water, we couldn't take it anymore. We had to be in the water.

I was very rude to those of my friends who would not come in the water, and spent most of my time being yelled at by lifeguards to come closer to shore.

All I wanted to do was take my camera with me as far as I could into the water and take pictures from there. But I rightly decided I was too fucked up to be trying that.



But after those pesky lifeguards leave, you can swim out as far as you want and stay there floating while the sun goes down, until you are in complete darkness.

More photos here.