Motivate Me.

Dudes.

I would really like to be blogging more. So why aren't I?

Some of it is that I've been writing many stories and reviews for the San Antonio Current (which can be found here!)
Also, I've been writing kids' stuff, including reading-comprehension test passages and a spec essay about Klimt for an art-history inspired craft book for 'tweens.

And yet I still can't afford an iPhone or a Wii, both of which I want.

I appeal to you, my readership. All, like, nine of y'all.
How do I get back into the blogging rhythm? I have maybe some things to say about the 'Lympics. IS IT TOO LATE??

It is, right?

Damn.

Leave me a comment and give me a topic.
ANYTHING.

Tranny rhythmic gymnasts?
Coyotes?
Harriet Tubman?

Behind-the-scenes anecdotes concerning that vibrator-store story I did? (You can link to that up there, it's called A Missionary's Position).

OR, leave me a comment with moneymaking schemes in it so I can get an iPhone and a Wii.

Leave it in the Jungle, Larry

Oh holy sweet Mother of infinite and improbably-chic mercy,

Have you SEEN Ingrid Betancourt on Larry King?

I sort of have an inexplicable semi- fondness for Larry's wrankled old bat-crazy ass, what with his allowing Elizabeth Taylor her customary approaching- French-Impressionism-in-softness lens filter, his storied fondness for the Kathy Griffin, his floppy neck-flesh containing enough skin for a whole extra Larry King face, and his tragicomically doomed serial marriages.

But I ask you, Barbara. WHY oh WHY would you host Ingrid Betancourt on your live internationally-broadcast TV program and then pepper her with the most puerile, ham-fisted questions imaginable? This is a lady who has survived unimaginable fear and horrendous depredations wondering day after day for seven years whether she'd be brutally murdered, who after her rescue espouses not bitterness, but instead embodies the very notion of noble sangfroid and displays a Mandela-worthy aura of dignity and compassion.
She amazes me. 'Cause I know if I had finally gotten rescued last week after seven years of hell, I would've said to one of those Colombian special forces fellows, "um, can I see your AK for a quick second? 'Cause I got some motherfuckers to TAKE OUT right about now, honey. COME HERE, ENRIQUE*."

But Ingrid? No. Even when asked by Larry, "do you hate FARC?" Ingrid politely declined to engage in hatred, or flag-wavery, or in general make an ass of herself. Larry, though...oh, Larry.

A potpourri of Larry's lead-footed utterances:

1. "Did they tie you up? What did they do to you early on?"
2. (to camera) "Our guest is Ingrid Betancourt. Coming up, Ingrid's day to day existence in captivity.
What did she eat and where did she sleep? How did she live in chains?
And what everyone wants to know — was she tortured?"
3. (to Ingrid) "What was the worst thing you experienced?"
Perhaps most absurdly:
4. "Were you in the jungle the whole time?" (Now, if he'd asked me that and I'd been through what Mme Betancourt has been through, I probably woulda retorted, "Well, Larry, there was that one outing to Chick-fil-A...WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK?")

The most horrible moment, though, was when he asked her: "The obvious question, were you sexually mistreated?"

Please. Please, please, please.
Ingrid Betancourt does not owe us a litany of her horrors. She doesn't need to be publicly put through a recap of the monstrous events which has left her, no doubt, with a titanic case of PTSD. Larry, bless his heart, mishandled that interview grotequely.

Yuck.

* apparently the meanest of her tormentors was (is?) named Enrique.

Oh yeah. The point.

I titled that last post "Mistaken Identity" because I was gonna share with y'all the following observation, about a crucial difference between NYC and San Anto:

In case you didn't already know this (and if you're not from San Antonio, you probably didn't), San Antonio is a heavily military town. We got an army base called Fort Sam Houston (pronounced like the city in TX, not the street in NYC), and three Air Force bases--Lackland, Brooks, and Randolph. This means we have lots of soldiers and airmen about the place. These gentlemen tend to be youthful, very buff, and sport very short hair-dos. They are also neatly dressed and groomed, though sometimes they have tattoos.

There is a similar-looking coterie of menfolk in New York City, specifically Chelsea. Usually these are not airmen or soldiers, but cute gay dudes.

This is confusing to me! Not in a deep existential way, you understand, but in a fast, first-glance-at-somebody-in-the-post-office kind of way. My brain undergoes a quick either-or.

Who'm I lookin' at here: Gym-Queen Top, or Staff Sergeant?

Mistaken Identity Department

So I'm living in San Antonio with my folks, kinda...regrouping. For one thing, back this Fall, my landlord sold my apartment building in Williamsburg for (what I hope/suspect was) a TON of money, Williamsburg real estate being very hot these days, so I had to git, after six years living there. So I moved in with (in a platonic way, you understand--I mean, I rented a room from) a tiny German minimalist painter just a couple blocks away from my apartment building, who was subletting rooms (illegally, it turned out) in his giant art studio. Then he got evicted this Spring for illegally-subletting rooms, and coincidentally I graduated with my B.A. from the New School, so I decided that rather that trying to find another cheap W-burg room, I'd come home for a bit and stare at my diploma (which has yet to arrive) and weigh my options.

Grad school?

Move to a foreign land and teach English?

Write freelance, grouse, and listen to a lot of José González?

Well, for the time being, I've decided on plan C.

Barbara (which is what I call my readership, collectively), you can even read two of my efforts

here

and

here

I have more to say about all of this, and I will.

How're y'all?

Self-portraits, a la Photobooth

I plan to post a very long item about what-all I've been up to for the past year or so, but it's awfully late in the evening for alla that, barbara. So instead, I present for your delectation a number of self-portraits, so that y'all can remember how charming I am.