You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2008.
The latest Back Fence PDX post is up. Featuring Chantel. Remember that heatwave in France a few years back? Not as well as Chantel does.
Tired now. Went to a networking lunch thing yesterday. It was very good, we made good connections. People were quite lovely and open to us. And Miss Frayn and I are HOT HOT HOT. Didn’t sleep the night before, or the night before that or the night before that. Am beyond tired. So really, I have no idea if the following video is funny or not.
All I know is that I’ve scheduled this post to pop up in the morning, and by the time you read it, I’ll be on an aero-plane on my way to my homeland. That great country where driving one’s SUV a few blocks is not just forgiven, but encouraged. A place where cans are thrown away and the only way to tell a woman’s age is by her hands. A place where the sun shines.
If anyone needs me, I am NOT in Malibu. I am NOT anywhere near a television where I’m watching home improvement shows and Project Runway. I am NOT lounging on a deck and saying things like, “who the fuck deigns to drive a car made in 2007? I ask you, WHO?” I will not be eating at Lily’s in Point Dume and I will not be going for walks on the beach with a teacup lab. I will be working and diligently mourning the loss of gloomy weather. NOT.
Here’s a video that might or might not be funny.
If that doesn’t suit you, here’s a very cute sweater that I knit and I’ll be wearing while I’m collecting free books and drinking on the publisher’s dime working hard in LA.
Hello Internets, I am busy today. Very busy, but I love each and every one of you and have probably fantasized about putting my tongue in the mouths of a solid 90% of you. I haven’t of course because, *everyone together* I’m not a slut.
I hope to have a Back Fence post up later today featuring one of two lovely bloggers who are working like mad to hand something in. They are good girls and I can only imagine they are sitting there at their desks, their pencils sharpened, knee high socks pulled up and their plaid skirts…well I’ll just leave it at that.
Here is my latest crush. I love this writer. I love her and want to attach myself to her leg because she is that good and funny and why in the hell is the east coast so far away?!? Maybe it’s better that it is because I’d be attached at several people’s legs if it were closer.
I’ll return later today, after I’ve taken over the world.
Here I am in bookslut pimping the greatest book of poetry ever written. The book is called Hot Teen Slut.
I checked out Crissy’s blog and Chris’s blog today and I have no clue what they were writing about because they had pictures of sun. SUN. And of themselves sitting outside like, “oh yeah, it’s sunny like this all the fucking time!” And then I grew resentful and briefly considered having a bloggy friend breakup with them because of their sun.
And don’t they look just so blase about their sun, their glorious sun??? I mean, why don’t they just take pictures of all the hookers and blow that surely they’re consuming with all of that sun. I can just see Chris lighting a stogie for Crissy with a hundred dollar bill and saying things like, “MWAHAHAHA, Oh Crissy imagine Melissa and Kiala in Portland with gray skies and their total lack of hookers and blow because hookers and blow only arrive with sunshine. MWAHAHA.” And Crissy saying, “Oh Chris, look at all of this sun, and doesn’t it feel gooooooood on your skin? And dear Ken, please ask the hooker to rub my feet because foot rubs feel extra good when it is given by a hooker in the suuuuun.”
This is what Portland looked like on Memorial Day. Yes, I took that today, but it doesn’t matter because it’s what it looked like yesterday and the day before and the day before and it will look this way tomorrow too.
I blame this for why I have not wanted to have sex for five whole days. This is a record for me, if you must know. Seriously, I’m open to suggestions for getting in the mood. As the homeless say, “Anything helps, even a smile.”
And, yes, the real reason I’m going to LA is for the sun. Not for the free books and the press badge I’ll be rockin’ at BEA, but for the sun. Hey V, fluff those pillows for me, I’m eating, sleeping and boozing on your deck for the three days. And then I will take pictures of myself lounging on a deck in Malibu and those pictures will bring the world to its knees.
Hey, everyone thank you for your offers, I will be sending emails about the four person tent and heading to Proper Eats to beg the owner to let us borrow their sound system, thanks to my friend Thoughtscapade. She has a chicken named Brewski.
I got a haircut yesterday. That’s step one in my path to self-improvement before LA, for which I leave on Thursday. I wanted to look both studious and retro and saucy because I am going to a book convention and everyone knows girls who write books are HOT.
Step two on my path is having hot wax ripped off my skin. I need to get my eyebrows did, but I woke this morning to a bump under my eyebrow and I have no idea what it is. I can only dare to dream that it’s a sty. But, alas, I think it’s a zit and there because my eyebrows are protesting my paying a Latvian woman to slather wax on them, press a wee bit of cotton to them and then yank!
I really love Portland. A lot. I think it’s a great city. I don’t know much about Oregon as a state, because I went to public school in California where we didn’t learn much about geography, or reading (no, I still haven’t read the Scarlet Letter, or 1984 or [insert the name of most any classic book]) but I guess it’s a pretty good state. But sometimes I need to check in a bit with Portland. I need to express a concern I’m having about the city itself.
Today’s concern has to do with Portlanders feeling like their dogs are not dogs, but rather honored citizens, as our bus system calls senior citizens. I’m not a dog person. I don’t hate dogs, I just don’t see dogs and want to pet them or interact with them or ask their names or feed them treats or anything. It’s a lot like how I feel about children. And humans in general. But I don’t care that other people like their pets. And they are pets. They are animals. But here in Portland, dogs owners have an inflated sense of their creatures. And it bothers me. Because these people assume I feel the same way, which I don’t.
I really don’t feel this way when I am running on public sidewalks and dogs jump on me. This happened twice yesterday with two different dogs. The owners were in their yards with their dogs off leash and both dogs ran to me and jumped on me. One was some sort of lab and the other was a Rottweiler. My good friend has dogs that have jumped on me in the past and will do it again when I arrive at her house on Friday and she taught me to bellow, “Off!” And the dogs then sit and wait for me to pet them, which I do. They do not jump on me again. Yesterday, I said Off! in my best alpha dog voice and neither dog sat, instead, both jumped on me again. Now, you’d think the owners would, at that point, apologize because they have stupid fucking animals, but no, they both just gave that smirk like, oh well, dogs will be dogs and you understand because you’re in Portland.
No, I don’t understand. I don’t understand at all. These are big dogs who I don’t know. Who the hell knows what they’ll do to me. These people certainly don’t know. What I would understand is an apology and you grabbing your fucking dog’s collar and saying no, or stop, or you little shit I’m going to sell you to the glue factory because that’s what I’m going to say next time a strange dog jumps on me while I’m running.
Yesterday I had to mow the lawn just to work out some aggression. You can see it didn’t work so well. Sorry about the angry post today.
I’m a teensy bit stressed at the moment. I have some big deadlines coming up, and I’m going to LA in less than a week and someone in the Melissa/Steve family got into a car accident. Everyone is fine, and Arch wasn’t in the car, thank goodness.
Back Fence PDX is on my mind. I love this project more than I’ve loved writing two of my novels. I have a crush on it. I think it’s such a cool thing. A few of my storytellers for the live event have expressed their concern that they aren’t good enough, or that people won’t want to hear their stories. And I understand feeling this. It isn’t true, but I understand what that feels like, and I’ve been trying to come up with the right thing to say. And I hope I have. I say, “Everyone wants to hear a story. Everyone wants to hear a voice.”
I have this conversation with V a lot. We talk about blogs and blogging and why this is such a huge medium. Why is it such a delicious thing? For me, I love the community. My bloggy friends are a part of my life. And I love laughing; I love the intimacy and I love the voices. It’s why, instead of blog roll, I have I Hear Voices.
This idea of voice is interesting and why, I believe, This American Life is so compelling. It’s a new story, a new voice. A new person to listen to. And this leads me back to Back Fence PDX. The other day, my partner, Frayn and I went to a meeting where we were explaining Back Fence and the woman said, “so it’s a literary event.” And I nearly went apoplectic trying to explain that there is nothing wrong with literary events, but THAT. IS. NOT. WHAT. THIS. IS. This is a storytelling event. It’s like a blog, but live and in person. And what we are doing is so far removed from standard literary events, it really can’t be in the same category.
My background as the graduate of an MFA program and as a bookseller makes me wary of readings. Well, at the risk of offending some of my blog readers who are writers, I’ll just come out and say it. I think readings are painfully boring. Painful. I hate them. I hate going to them. I have giving them. In fact, I’ve only actually read my book at one of my readings. I usually just read little personal essays a lot like blog posts. Because I cannot stand sitting in the audience and listening to a novel. It bores me and I start thinking really inappropriate things like, “what if I just walked up to the podium and informed the author that I was thoroughly bored and here’s how you entertain people,” and then I’d do a little soft shoe or strip off my clothes or crush a beer can on my head. ANYTHING to end the monotony.
Combine my mortal fear of boredom and Frayn’s background in sketch comedy and what we aim to do is more spectacle than reading. It is a show. You will be entertained, interested, focused on every single moment of the event. And we’re doing things to make sure of this. We’re getting a stage. We’re getting mics and a mixing board, and for the intermission, there will be swimsuit models. Swimsuit models because the theme is Summer Love. The swimsuits are from Popina, which is a designer who makes vintage-looking swimsuits.
Our storytellers are charismatic, interesting people. We’ll have music. Frayn and I are hosting. And swimsuits! And we’ll podcast the whole thing.
But what this means is, it’s a lot of work. And we could really spend a lot of money. But we’re both freelancers and while it’s incredibly glamorous that I wear my robe for 90% of my working day, it means we don’t have a lot of money. So we’re calling in every last one of our favors.
Two days ago at our meeting, we came up with a list of things we need to pull this thing off, and Frayn turned to me and said, “how are we going to get all of this?” and I said, “I don’t know. I hope the answer will come to me in the next 24 hours.” And the only thing that came to me, was my mantra, which is “just ask.”
So I’m asking my blog readers. Below is a list of things we need and would rather not pay for, or at least get a discount on, or do some sort of trade for, including running an ad on our website in exchange. If you can provide any of this, please email me at melissa [at] backfencepdx [dot] com.
1) Truck we can pick up and drop off an 8 X 4 stage.
2) A tent of some sort that our swimsuit models can change in.
3) Someone who can do hair and makeup.
4) Swimsuit models. We need a few more ladies who will model swimsuits. The sample suits come in sizes 2-4, however the woman who runs Popina is very cool and said that if she needs to use her regular suits, she will. If you do want to model, you’ll need to go in for a fitting at Popina.
5) Mixing board and mics and amp. And the know-how for working it.
6) A camera to video the whole thing so we can film it for the internet.
7) Audience members. This one you pay us for, but being an audience member is an incredibly important service and we appreciate it.
Okay, I thank you blog readers in advance for any thoughts or advice or things you can give. Now I need to write a book review, and then pass out because I am so fucking tired.
Oh and to make the image even sexxxier, I’ve got tiger balm slathered all over my back because for whatever reason, this morning, suddenly I couldn’t move my head or my arms or anything. At all. I’ve been in a wee bit of pain all day.
But, I did manage to post our latest blog entry at Back Fence PDX. It’s by Ainsley Drew, of Face Plant, and Jerk Ethic, and my favorite new blog project — Bitchcraft where she will spend a month being Wiccan. She spent last month being vegan. Next month, my vote is an experiment in the Right Wing.
Ainsley’s post has everything you could want, a fish market in a New York summer, lupus and lesbian sex.
So go, GO NOW!
Here I am on Bookslut yesterday.
How you like me now, Internets? That’s right people, I mowed the lawn yesterday. And by I mowed the lawn, what I mean is, I did two stripes before growing bored and resentful and then Steve spent 3.5 hours doing more lawn mowing while I dyed my hair. Yes, I dye my hair. A few things you should know about my dying my hair: 1) my hair is naturally this color, I dye it because I have gray hair. And I’ve had gray hair since I was 13, and I don’t believe children should have gray hair, nor do I believe 32 year old women should have gray hair. But please know that it only makes me violently angry when people assume I dye my hair and say things like “your hair surely is not that dark,” and I say, “hey mother fucker, the curtains match the carpet and if you weren’t such an assumptive douche bag I would have shown you as much but because you behave like an asshole, I won’t drop my pants for you.” 2) I had a good friend who worked in the beauty industry and she told me that the hair dye is the same in the salons as it is at home, so just use the home stuff, because I ain’t doing anything fancy. 3) If you still don’t believe that my hair is this dark, you can ask my mommy who said “gee Melissa, do you even know what color your hair is? I don’t. I can’t remember the last time I saw your natural color” and I said, “Woman, you’re looking at it.” And then I pressed my hair down at the part and showed her the gray hair and my normal hair and she agreed that my hair is actually black. 4) This time I used hippie organic hair dye that had no ammonia and the box was compostable, because that’s how we roll in Portland and it was actually very good.
This morning, I blogged while Steve cleaned out the cupboards and the fridge and made Arch’s breakfast and my tea. And he keeps saying things like, “we should go to the market this morning” and “goddamn it woman, don’t you have deadlines, and is this what you do every single morning.” And I said, FUCK, I’M WRITING, IT’S MY JOB, EVER HEAR OF IT? IF YOU HAVEN’T, I’LL REFER YOU TO MY TWO NOVELS, WHICH HAVE MY NAME ON THEM. And that shamed him into changing Archer’s diaper. And so to appease his slave driving ways, I told him I’d attend the gym with him. I don’t go to the gym because I think it’s painfully boring and because the moist air makes me feel like I’m inhaling a lot of naughty sweat-borne bacteria.
Oh jesus, here’s a picture of what happened after that discussion. “Please don’t look, honey. I’m sorry, I promise I won’t open up photo booth and take pictures of the bruises and then upload them to flickr and then post them on my blog.”
Okay, now he’s like, “we are going to the gym and you are going to wear spandex and a sports bra and that will be your punishment for blogging while I was working.”
And because I’m now off to the gym, check out The Underblawg. It’s a very cool blog documenting the daily life of a public defender. Television law dramas ain’t got nothin’ on this blogger. And because she asked me to link to her, ask and you shall receive. But I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t read her daily and think, oh my god, thank god I don’t smoke crack. Even though I sometimes do. But I’m white and middle class, that makes me exempt from things like laws and laws.
Rachael, if you live in St. John’s, girl, let’s meet over here. I bet you live like three blocks from me. Because the world is crazy that way. We’re the house with the nicely mowed yard.
Update: I just got disinvited to the gym when I asked, “what sort of items does one bring to the gym.” And then I said, “What if I don’t fancy showering at the gym?” and finally, “I don’t believe I have a small towel to dry my equipment with, perhaps they’ll lend me one?”
And then Steve rubbed his own shoulder and said, “what if we meet after the gym and I buy you lunch.” And I said, “gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawd, you never want to spend time with me. You haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate me. Wait, so I’m excused from the gym and you’ll treat to lunch? OKAY!”
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