Totally "mad hot."

It is a crime for several reasons that before last night I had never seen Mad Hot Ballroom. One: that was so 2005. Two: ahem, dance movie, hello, totally up my alley. And, finally, three: I am a sucker for films and documentaries about kids rising above their meager circumstances.

So, it is dumb, dumb, and dumber that I missed out on this movie in my life until now.

Seriously. Have you seen the film? If you have not, go rent it right now.

. . . I'll wait . . .

(no, really)

The film lovingly details a real-life program to bring ballroom skills to public school kids in triborough area. It is the same program, run by Pierre Dulaine, that was dramatized in 2006's Take the Lead, starring Antonio Banderas.

Watching the documentary, the viewer is able to see how the program affects change in more than just their two left feet. You see the children gain self-confidence; bond with adult mentors (incl. some straight male dancers, causing the children to reevaluate the slur of calling someone "gay"); work some serious moves in the foot/ arm/ hip/ and hair flair departments; get excited about shopping for age-appropriate yet stylin' outfits with their teacher; discuss seriously their dreams, aspirations, and opinions on the opposite sex; weather the stress and performance anxieties of competition; and learn about disappointment and picking up the pieces to try again.

Plus the kids are just so fucking cute. OMG, especially these two, dancing at the "afterparty" for the film:

(I am so afraid for the young ladies of the world, btw, when Wilson [the boy above] comes of the age to be causing trouble, because just LOOK at the young brother. He is going to be superfoine. You can't even see his eyes here, but they are like melt-you-into-quivering-puddle eyes, seriously.)

But there were other cute kids, too, I swear. Like these two, pictured practicing their swing dancing.

And these four, practicing some Latin moves.

(I'm kinda cheating, because my favorite two--though not paired here--are still pictured. Oh well. I tried.)

Despite fears that competition would give the children complexes, they were actually awesome because the children were given awards, warm applause, support from teachers, peers, and family members . . . just for participating. Basically, even if they just showed up, they were still the elite representing their school and would obtain a bronze medal. I think this is so important: to reward everyone's acheivements not just the top crop. Well done, organizers of the competitions. Also, the teachers' ability to pair the children was outstanding: they often were able to pair children that moved together well and who would smile and interact with each other. I'd say the competition forged a closer bond for the class as a whole, because classmates were so vociferously cheering on each other's success. What a beautiful, beautiful thing.

The competitions were also very suspenseful, and nearing the end of the film, when the Bronx team goes from underdog to top dog, it is downright thrilling. I was weeping and clapping . . . and yeah, you guessed it, Dave was totally laughing at me. I was swept up in it! I was taken away! I was inspired, and moved, and couldn't sit still because I wanted to get up and dance too! I wanted to quit my job and become a children's ballroom dance teacher! Who needs editing and writing anyway!

(Errmm. Right. I guess I'd need to learn more than one samba dance to be able to teach. Good point. Guess I'll stick with the day job.)

Quote of the day: On inspiration.

The words don't come this morning. Do I just wait here patiently, or do I go outside to look for them? What if they took a wrong turn and ended up at another man's house, a man of few words who'd no sooner wake before dawn to put his thoughts on paper than I'd wake before dawn to go fishing? Yet here I am, at the end of the pier, nothing biting, and there he is at his upstairs window, scribbling away."

--From Sy Safransky's Notebook, The Sun, May 2008, p. 47.

Unicorn.

Initially I posted my results here, but then I thought about it and realized there are some answers that are my business only.

Suffice to say: I was mostly a unicorn.

QUIZ: What mystical creature would you be?

What can I say? Two deadlines out of the way, one still looming, and I got bored. So I made this quiz. If you take it, leave a comment and let me know which one you ended up being!

1. Your home could be described as:
a. A cool, calm, serene oasis from which you escape the rush of the world.
b. A dank cave into which you have tucked every memento of your life, because, really, there’s no telling when you might need that letter from the ex, or birthday candles, or roses from your 6th grade ballet recital, or all three at once!
c. A wild whirlwind of your stuff everywhere that never gets organized because you’re either out in the world in the wee hours, or home asleep during the day.
d. A bare, simple, streamlined space that you use mostly just to sleep.

2. Your favorite meal would be:
a. A delicious salad of fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, perhaps even edible flowers.
b. Exotic. Eel and sea urchin sushi, or shark fin soup, or barbecued ostrich, please!
c. Wild game, such as buffalo, ostrich, game birds, rabbit, boar, lamb, pig, etc.
d. A beautiful cut of rare meat, or a juicy, bloody hamburger.

3. You, in bed, would match which of the following descriptions?
a. I may look like I’ll be the one to charge, but really I will lay my head down in the lap of a fair maiden or gent in an instant and become quite docile.
b. Wicked and full of an array of tricks and costumes.
c. An animal; my lovemaking is downright athletic and happens anywhere, anytime, baby.
d. A sexy and very sensual time; I pull out all the stops with wine, candlelight, moonlight trysts, and deliciously extended foreplay.

4. Your M.O. in life could be best described by the TITLE which of the following songs:
a. “I Will Follow You into the Dark”
b. “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered”
c. “Walkin’ after Midnight”
d. “Maneater”

5. Your favorite pastime is:
a. Gentle playfulness, both with others and solo as you are quite capable of amusing yourself.
b. Quality time in the ol’ kitchen: you love experimenting.
c. Wrestling.
d. Making out.

6. You prize most:
a. Your privacy, and you often need to retreat—alone—to wide, open spaces.
b. A deep connection with the mysteries of the universe.
c. Your freedom.
d. Your mate—because you mate for life.

7. You fear most:
a. Confrontations with creatures belligerent and larger than you.
b. Being punished for who I am.
c. A total loss of control, leading to hurting those you love.
d. Religion.

8. Your confrontation style is:
a. Flight.
b. Revenge.
c. Mano a mano.
d. Go for the jugular.

9. You’re neither a morning/night person, but the following best describes your waking and sleeping life:
a. Early to rise, big nap, in bed by midnight.
b. I keep a very regular sleep pattern so as to keep my mind at its sharpest.
c. I’m mostly a night owl, but there are certain times in the month where the night and the full moon keep me up and out all night long.
d. Daylight is for suckers. I am made for the night.

10. Others would describe you, in a single word, as:
a. Lovely.
b. Bewitching.
c. Wild.
d. Charismatic.

ANSWER KEY:
MOSTLY A's: You're a unicorn.
MOSTLY B's: You're a witch.
MOSTLY C's: You're a werewolf.
MOSTLY D's: You're a vampire.

what summer looks like.

Brooklyn Heights's Pier 1 (an actual pier, not the store) opened and the New York city waterfalls went up, both on June 26, but with all my summer travel I haven't been home in New York for long enough to enjoy leisure activities, even in my own neighborhood. Last week, though, Dave and I finally decided to check it out, combining a walk (exercize), sightseeing (Pier 1, the waterfalls), and a treat (Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory).

Re: Pier 1 . . . Hey, clean up a pier with a view, stick some grass on it, put out a few picnic tables with--and this is key--umbrellas on them, and you've got instant summer. Stick an outpost of a local restaurant--complete with beer, wine, and food--and you've got a recipe for greatness.

Re: New York city waterfalls . . . Ehhh. It was an interesting concept, but like so many things in New York the hype ruined it. When no one can quit the anticipatory talk about a thing months before it even gets going, how can you avoid being let down by the actuality?

Re: Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory . . . Ehhh. Again with the hype. The flavors are extremely basic. I'm just not a chocolate, vanilla, strawberry girl. I'm more into green tea with white chocolate chips, or hazelnut-chocolate, or lychee ice cream with fresh lychee bits. You get the idea. I much prefer Chinatown Ice Cream Factory with their 57+ flavors.

We also took some cool pictures. Maybe when I'm less lazy, I'll upload them instead of stealing images off the Internet, like the one above.

I miss these faces.

I miss Jenjen.

I miss Laurel and Jeremy.

But hopefully we will all be reunited soon . . . at RENO RIBS 2008, BABY!

The lovely Mr. and Mrs.

All together now: AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Mighty cello section, reunited.

This picture was taken at our dear friends' wedding in Honolulu this July. I will be uploading a bunch of photos to Facebook at some moment (likely late at night while I ward off the boogeyman-burgler with my wakefulness).

This picture amuses me for so many reasons. Because I am one lady flanked by three gentlemen, and that always thrills a girl. Because we are FOUR cellists at a wedding, none of whom play cello anymore. Because Dave and I were, respectively, our high school orchestra's best and worst cellist, and now we're married. Because both of those other boys were, at some point, my stand partner, and the only way I ever sat higher chair than them was when they were punished for bad behavior. Because we're all sexier than we used to be: High Five on that one, guys! Way to grow up!

Shooting high.

While I was home, Mom and I spent a good fraction of one day hauling unwanted books to Rainbow Books Hawaii, a fantastic used bookstore in Honolulu. To my surprise, not only did they take about a half of our books, they also paid us for them. Unfortunately, calculating which of the hundreds of books they would take, and those books' relative value after years of gathering dust on our shelves, took a few hours. Meanwhile, Mom and I got comfortable perusing Rainbow's shelves. There was an extensive Hawaiiana section, in which I emersed myself, after a time moving onto Asian American Literature, which I unhappily came to the realization was somehow filed next to "porn." I don't see the connect there, and it certainly wasn't alphabetical. At any rate, I averted my eyes from the large breasts and they averted themselves from me, and we were, you know, co-existing just fine . . . that is until a local man opened the front door, walked in, smiled at me, passed me, and then plunked himself down in the porn section. After that, I quickly moved onto Contemporary Literature, which was in another aisle.

As I was searching the stacks and avoiding the porn peruser, I was feeling pretty excited. There were so many books! In the world! Someday, maybe, some young girl would be looking for my name under Asian American Literature or Hawaiiana, and she'd be running to another aisle to avoid a porn peruser! I, too, could be among these stacks!

Then I realized that perhaps I wasn't shooting high enough if my aspiration was to be among the discarded stacks at a used bookstore.

in case you were worried . . .

I was neither burgled nor killed in my sleep last night.

Whew!

antidote to fears about things that go bump, steal, in the night.

Blog competitively. Blog like heartbeat. Blog like staying awake will keep fear at bay.

And it kind of works.

Here's a photo, for example, that I took in May. From the inside of Shaun & Rach's car, as they gave me a driving tour of Long Island City, Greenpoint, and Williamsburg.

Now seems like a great time to post it.

Captures the random spirit of Brooklyn, reminding me of this cartoon.

I will call it Man with poodle under Mohawk mural. (Williamsburg, circa May 2008)

Just say the unsaid.

Note it is 2:30 am and think well there goes her intention of being a morning person.

Then remember this post.

Recall my overactive imagination.

And know that I am not sleeping because I am instead thinking of how pissed I will be if I die before I get to move away from New York.

I wish I could steal this title from anthropologist Hortense Spillers.

"Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book." In Black, White, and in Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Those first four words say it all, don't they?

New York in a nutshell.

Wherein amidst Mayumi's crisis of faith in New York city 2008 (version 2.0, or continuation of crisis of faith 2005, the original), she returns home to New York and not even two days later the neighbors directly above her are robbed in their sleep, apparently through the window off their shared fire escape.

Great job, New York city, really. I mean it. Keep it coming. You're making it very easy to see where I don't want to be for the rest of my life.

The violation of being robbed while sleeping is especially creepy. I mean, I'm a young female living in an urban area who has watched far too many episodes of "Law & Order" (original, SVU, and CI) to sleep well at night as it is. Despite Brooklyn Heights being pretty bourgeoisie--at least, you know, in relation to most of Brooklyn--this shit happens. It makes me glad I am naturally paranoid and lock my windows and sleep lightly. It makes me want to have a big bat, or a knife, or a gun at bedside, and at least the appearance of being able to wield it mightily. It makes me wish I knew whether 911 works on a cell phone (that is, do you have to, like, dial "9" to get "out" first?) and how a cell phone knows to contact the right police station? It makes me concoct elaborate plans of escape, to dream up the best hiding places within our small square footage, to pinpoint all the creaky boards so I can know if a stranger is entering, and to hope that my latent Native American heritage will come to me in the form of a hunter's still breath and silent footsteps if I'm hiding in a closet from someone tracking me. Wow, that was terrible. I'm like a self-racist or something. But seriously. These are the thoughts I think when I hear that the apartment directly above me got robbed while we were all sleeping.

And before you can even think it, I do realize it happens everywhere, including the safest, quietest corner of some gorgeous Hawai'i suburb that I can imagine. But it happens more in New York, so there. [sticks her tongue out.] It's kind of like saying anyone could die in a plane crash without acknowledging that pilots and flight attendants are at a higher risk.

The crisis of faith boils down to basically wondering--constantly, mind you--whether Dave and I made a horrible mistake in moving back to New York this past February when we had the chance to move home to Hawai'i. I know we cannot keep beating ourselves up about it, because we made the absolute best decision we could at the time with the information we had and the emotional space we were at in our lives. Circa December 2007, we were to choose from staying in the Bay Area and probably having Dave lose his job, moving to Los Angeles (which I summarily dismissed), moving home to Honolulu (which to us, at the time, seemed a terminal move), and moving back to New York. And we were absolutely not ready to come home at the time.

The crisis has been bubbling to the surface ever since we moved, really. It's a great many things. It's the fact that I've never really been able to afford being here, and our dual-income household (with both of us making piddling amounts) has not improved the situation. I'm in fact still paying off thousands of dollars of credit card debt accrued from the last time I pretended I could afford to live here. And it gets to you, you know? Feeling constantly financially in the red or nearing it. Living hand-to-mouth. Relying always on the next paycheck autodepositing into your bank account on time. It's having had a certain amount of naive expectations about my social life and my friendships, without acknowledging that friendships are not frozen in time, they continue to grow and change and shift, they are not necessarily better or worse than before, but they are certainly different. And the biggest part of it all is having unrealistic expectations about myself. Everyone has changed, including me, and that latter fact is the one I ignored the most of all. I have utterly, utterly changed in terms of my personality, priorities, needs, wants, dreams, desires, life goals, and the who I am in relation to my friends who have also been busy changing. Did that make any sense? Bear with me, because this is something I am only fully beginning to understand myself.

But the crisis really came to a head this trip home to Hawai'i. It makes no sense at all. This was not the trip to make me miss home. It just wasn't. As aforestated, I didn't make the social rounds to see those I love, didn't even make it to the beach, didn't get to do any of my beloved hikes. I just helped my mom organize and redecorate her house and ate a lot of delicious local food. That was it. But still there was the sun shining each day, the view from the top of the 63 stairs down the mountain to my childhood home clear down the valley to Diamond Head and the sea, the petal-strewn streets, the lush greenness overwhelming the concrete and nature creeping up through the cracks to reclaim land, the easy cadence of local tongues, the finality of that click deep in my soul of just being with our families. Nothing can really replace that. That sense of belonging to all of that. The trip, though abbreviated, was enough.

It's taken me ten long years to miss it, but instantly, finally, rightthisminutenow I do.

I've been corresponding with a friend of mine about all of this who told me: "I think we are alike in the fact that we need our big kitchens . . . we need there to be lots of green and nice people." And I was like, Word, sister. You just said it.

She also reminded me, however, that "you shouldn't feel like it's a complete failure - - you learned that as much as you love NYC's people, you don't want to live there. If you hadn't have made this big change then you would still be in CA wondering if the grass (or concrete) was really greener."

A timely reminder, indeed. Advice with which to reframe the situation. Something I'm constantly having to do these days.

The tiger and the reed.

Mom: I’ve always wanted to be like a reed: strong, yet supple; able to bend without being broken.

Mayumi: Bwahahahahahaha!

Mom: What’s so funny?

Mayumi: We are such different personalities. You want to be like a reed. And you are, you bend over backwards for other people, you accommodate their needs, you try to make room for their opinions and them being right. Me, I’m a tiger. I go flying into the bushes, thrashing, wrestling their wrongness to the ground. When I come back out of the bushes, I’m grinning because I won but then I go, “SHIT! I got blood all over my clothes.”

Mom and Mayumi: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Not that I want to give "Dimitriy, The Lover" any more airtime, BUT . . .

OK, DISCLAIMERS FIRST: I am providing this information about Mr. Douchy Phone Call strictly for entertainment purposes. Please, please, please do not actually go to him for any form of help with your love life.

It seems that "Dimitri" is famous for more than his 15 minutes of YouTube fame.

His real name is James N. Sears and boy does he have a long list of, ahem, accomplishments under his belt. I mean that. This local Toronto resident was an abused child; married and then divorced a woman who he claims was frigid; had to be evaluated by a Canadian Armed Forces for whom he was serving because of "erratic behavior"; was honorably discharged from CAF; obtained his medical license, then had said license revoked because of sexual assault and misconduct; started Second Opinion Medical-Legal Consultants Group, Inc. which provides forensic medical investigations into malpractice, sexual harassment, and wrongfully accused cases; and then in 2004 started a group called Toronto Real Men wherein he plays the role of a sort of real life "Hitch." I really hate that I'm giving him any more attention, at all, because he's already capitalized on his Internet popularity (for being a total douche? you can capitalize on that? who knew?!), but he also runs a website, Dimitri the Lover, and has two books, two tv shows, and a full-length documentary in the works.

Yeah, you read that right. Not only is Crazy crazy, he's passing his crazy along to helpless, innocent other men.

(Thanks go to Sidewalk Monkey for the further research on Mr. Sears. She had the compassion to also feel bad for the guy, while finding him mighty disturbing, because that's the kind of sweetheart she is. I'm too icked out for sympathy/empathy/any-pathy.)

Repost: "The Douchiest Phone Message in History."

http://view.break.com/527579 - Watch more free videos

This is fucking incredible.

I've actually known a dude or two like this. It is amazing that such unevolved beings still walk the earth. Really, they should be rounded up, stuffed, and put in a museum somewhere. Under an exhibit titled "What Women Do Not Want."

(Thanks to Rachel M. for the tip, via Holy Taco.)

Quote of the day: my (half) brother is a genius.

In our correspondence, my brother has explained to me that our father is a "survivor," in the Bob Marley sense of the word, someone who has "pushed on through" the daily struggles of existence.

"But," says my brother, "we should thrive when at all possible, not merely survive."

First of all, let it be said that I am filled with such warmth writing those words: "says my brother." I must note . . . If I had to be dealt such a non-father, thank you WHOMEVER IS UP THERE for at least giving me such a brother to help me understand it all. And such a mother. And an uncle that was nearly a father. And such a full, though wide-flung, notion of "family" having less to do with blood than heart.

I have still not written anything to my father to respond to that letter from last fall (see also here). I'm not sure I ever will. But I do write, and write and write and write and write, back to Blue:

I am sure our father loves me too, albeit "in his lost sort of way." And I am sure I have something in me for him, too, I don't know whether to call it love because can you love a shadow? Can you love a myth? I at very least have a deep well of gratitude, for giving me life, for giving me a brother like you, for planting in me a love of play and creativity and writing and art, and maybe even for leaving. If he couldn't help but be the person he is, if he couldn't help but hurt the ones he loved most, if he couldn't help but constantly put himself above others, maybe I am glad he left, and especially glad he left me with my mother, who ironically has had the opposite problem for most of her life: putting herself LAST, always putting me foremost. One begins to see how they got together, right? I'm sure in their day they both were very attractive. She was shy; he was not. She wanted badly to fall in love; he was very charming. She wanted to give and give; and he wanted to take and take. She was very exotically Asian beautiful; he was very white; together they had that Yoko Ono-John Lennon thing going on. I get it. Anyway, I feel very lucky to have been raised by my mother who was ferocious about giving me the best childhood and young adulthood possible and flinging every single possible door of opportunity wide open for me. ... Regarding the letter. Maybe it's true. Maybe there is no letter that can truly address an inadequacy of 28 years of fatherhood. Maybe there was nothing he could have wrote that would have 100% satisfied what I feel I want or need from him. But I wish he had tried harder, made me feel like he was at least trying, had let himself be vulnerable in the letter and show me true feelings."

The saga continues . . .

I'm fairly certain this whole situation is fascinating to yours truly alone, but it is a huge part of me, this negative space where a father should have been. It leaks its way into my writing, my bad poetry, and my head at the most unwelcome of moments. So, bear with me, readers. There is likely to be more on this topic in the future.

Brooklyn: where it's at.

This is perfect. (Via GIANTGIRLS, via, via, via ...)

Quote of the day: I'd like to be the latter.

"There are women who fill men with a desire to conquer them and have their way with them; but this woman inspires a longing to die slowly under her gaze." --Charles Baudelaire, from "The Desire to Paint"

The VCFA dreams continue to come.

Last night I dreamed of many of those new VCFA faces. It was the same packed schedule, minus the cafeteria food. It was night. We were cooking a huge potluck feast. All of us. For each other, with each other’s help. There was seven-layer lasagna from scratch. Handmade gourmet pizzas with rosemary sausage and wild mushrooms. A huge salad of avocados, mangos, walnuts, and goat cheese. Many other equally vivid dishes, the details of which were unfortunately lost in transmission during my slow process of waking up.

Obviously, this here is a rather clumsy move on the part of my subconscious. Right, right, the community at Vermont College is non-competitive, we are our own “potluck.” We’re all embarking on differently “delicious” projects but we’re bringing them “to the table” for the rest of our community to help us with them. And I’m “hungry”—“ravenous,” if you want the truth—for all of it: the “feast” of everyone’s work, the experience of so many “cooks” in the collective “kitchen.”

Cringe. My subconscious is so never allowed to participate in the writing process. She takes a rather heavy hand.

Quote of the day: the writer as fame-whore.

"What is a writer but someone with fame-whore tendencies, something to say, who can’t be bothered to leave the house, and yet is incapable of silence?"

--Cynematic over at Pillowbook.

Amen to that, sister.

On family dynamics: a tip from me to you.

If you have to help your mother clean out nearly thirty years' accumulation of stuff from her house--including thinning out and making her part with your early artwork and your My Little Pony collection--here are the things that will keep you sane:

1. deep breathing from your diaphragm.
2. long, hot showers where you let yourself cry.
3. lots of furious journalling or blogging. (Nota bene: do not blog if mother reads blog.)
4. refuse to visit Walmart more than once a day.
5. drink alcohol. copious amounts. together. it helps. trust me.

All kidding aside, this trip home has been sobering . . . riiight, or would be, aside from all that drinking. You know what I mean. It *is* pretty sad to look back at all this stuff and to have to sift through it. Sometimes its sad because you wonder why some things were worth holding onto in the first place. Othertimes its sad because secretly you wonder if you will ever have a house, or even a space large enough to tuck unnecessary things into corners to be forgotten for thirty years; in New York city and even in the SF bay area, it has not been possible to find such corners into which things could gather for thirty years. Other, othertimes it is sad because you wish you had money and you could be moving her into a brand new apartment of her own, rather than devising solutions for all the problems with this house.

And though I'd rather have slivers shoved under my fingernails than know this about myself-- despite the indentured slavery and the lack of usual Hawaii joys like going beach--its been a weirdly nice trip home. Because I simplified. Because I'm not bothering with all the social obligation, having made the Most Important Social Obligation to my mother--that is, helping her with this huge project that she physically and emotionally has not been able to do on her own. Mom and I are packing, and bonding, and arguing, and driving each other crazy, and laughing--and, when all else fails, drinking.

While I'm climbing 63 stairs to the street with bags teeming with trash and boxes teeming with Goodwill several times a day, while I'm schvitzing in the Honolulu heat and seeing nobody except my mother, it's been a nice trip. A calm one. I've been able to remember all the reasons I loved growing up here and I've even let myself lift off into the flight of fancy of what it would be like to be an adult living here. The goddamn unbelievably good weather. The gorgeous greenness and petal-strewn streets. The view from my old bedroom of Diamond Head. The view when driving past Waikiki of the shirtless surfer boys (haha). The sorbet sunset skies. The FOOD, some of which I miss while living on the mainland so specifically that I sometimes have phantom meals in my mouth. The fluid, even musical sounds of local people talking, especially as they go in and out of using pidgin, code-switching with the best of them. Hawaiian music, which will always be my first musical love. Then again, if I moved home, you know the first thing I'd blog about is how much I wish I were living somewhere else. My contrary nature is at very least predictable.

Dave joked that when he flies in next Friday, he wanted to really see a change in my mom's house. Well, I hope he will. We got rid of over a hundred books and six or more trashbags of clothing/accessories/toys (so far!). Most concretely you can see the evidence of my OCD/AR nature in that my mother's closets are now separated into a work closet and play closet; then into shirts, skirts, pants, dresses, sweaters; then by rainbow colors. Just wait till we have a bookshelf and I am able to sic myself on her books. I also spent a good fraction of today sorting through her massive gift-wrap area, culminating into yet-another trip to Walmart from which we emerged triumphantly with a three-drawer plastic solution to all her gift-wrap organization woes.

Well, it's nearly 10pm and it's time for this old gal to turn in. After all, I'm a morning person now. Haha!

Answers to "Regarding my ipod has an identity crisis."

People. People. Really. This is sad. You guessed HALF of my random iPod list. I guess Dave is right and my tastes are too eclectic.

Here are the answers, already:

1. Now my eyes are wide open now that everything’s been stolen (Meiko, “Under My Bed”)

2. Theres a steel train comin through I would take it if I could (Sublime, “Boss DJ”)

3. To the isles across the blue Pacific I’ve a constant yearning to return (Makaha Sons, “Little Brown Gal/My Little Grass Shack”)

4. I'm dreaming of sleeping next to you and feeling like a lost little boy in a brand new town (Jason Mraz, “Sleeping to Dream”)

5. Oi, lienda, bella che fa … (Jack Johnson, “Belle”)

6. Well I'm singing this song, cause it's time it was sung (Tom Waits, “Old Shoes (and Picture Postcards”)

7. Boys and their mothers, cats and dogs, can't seem to get along … (Sugar and Gold, “Sex in the City”)

8. Mother’s maiden name is written on your back (Ben Carroll, “Mother’s Maiden Name”)

9. Heavy, heavy, you’re getting heavy baby, ooh-ooh (Beyonce, Anika Noni Rose, Jennifer Hudson, “Heavy”)

10. You're a part-time lover and a full-time friend . . . (Moldy Peaches, “Anyone Else”)

11. I saw you across the dance floor, out of the corner of my eye (Hugh Grant, “Meaningless Kiss”)

12. Help me out said the minnow to the trout (A Fine Frenzy, “The Minnow and the Trout”)

13. Excuse me, I think I've seen you on the dance floor . . . (Paris Hilton, “I want you”)

14. I made it through the wilderness . . . (Madonna, “Like a Virgin”)

15. Love your apartment, love your privacy . . . (David Poe, “Apartment”)

16. I can’t stop the way I feel… (Fine Young Cannibals, “She Drives Me Crazy”)

17. I'll walk this long road 'till I find my way home . . . (The Cynematics, “A Strange Education”)

18. Ask me how I feel, ask me now that we're cozy and clinging . . . (Amel Larrieux, “If I Were a
Bell”)

19. Meet you downstairs in the bar and heard (Amy Winehouse, “You Know I’m No Good”)

20. So many years have gone by, always strong, tried not to cry (Christina Aguilera, “The Right Man”)

21. Pull up your pants, just like 'em . . . (Ciara, “Like a Boy”)

22. She flies much faster, shouts much louder, looks much fresher, and eats much less than you … (Hafdis Huld, “Tomoko”)

23. It's hard to remember how it felt before, now I've found the love of my life … (Gwen Stefani, “Cool”)

24. You want to rumble in my jungle? I'll take you on. (Robyn, “Konnichiwa, Bitches”)

25. Can’t wait to get home, and dial your number (Alicia Keys, “Teenage Love Affair”)

VCFA: how I know you have changed me.

Because I’m dreaming again, and vividly. And they are dreams about the all of you. A month ago, my world was smaller, but now my real life and my dream life have been expanded with the dear addition of the beauty of your persons and Vermont.

So, thank you.

Oh, and p.s. because the whole morning person thing is actually working out. ha!

Wanted, the film.

Saw Wanted yesterday.

Uhhhh. Hot.

There is no one who could have played that role except for Angelina Jolie.

Unrelatedly, Angelina Jolie, I fucking love you.

Quote of the day: VCFA's writer-in-residence, Michael Martone.

I stole this off a VCFA friend's Facebook page because it is excellent:

I would urge you to resist that impulse in you that urges you to get the thing perfect. Incorporate the instinct to tinker as a structure not as something you employ to get to an end. Proceed comfortably knowing that things, no matter how much you handle them, will not fall exactly into place. Walk away not in anger but knowing that writing many short stories, one flawed sputtering attempt after another, can accumulate into a whole junkyard of wrecked vehicles that attest to what it is you were driving at. It is a type of calculus. You are always approaching, by means of an equation with multiple X's, the absolute. --Michael Martone

Inspired by VCFA.

I've decided to try to become a morning person.

And if I get to bed each night before midnight, it does seem to make it easier to brave the hours of the day that occur before noon.

Regarding "my ipod has an identity crisis." (See for yourself.)

Inspired by Adrienne at Oh the Joys of Being a Woman Playwright.

Step 1: Put your MP3 player or whatever on random.

Step 2: Post the first line from the first 25 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.

Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.

Step 4: Strike through when someone gets them right.

Step 5: YOU GUESSERS OUT THERE: YOU CANNOT GOOGLE/LOOK UP THE RESULTS! IT'S ALL ABOUT GUESSING!

1. Now my eyes are wide open now that everything's been stolen . . .

2. Theres a steel train comin through I would take it if I could . . . [SUBLIME, Boss DJ]

3. To the isles across the blue Pacific I've a constant yearning to return . . . [MAKAHA SONS, "Little Brown Gal/Little Grass Shack"]

4. I'm dreaming of sleeping next to you and feeling like a lost little boy in a brand new town . . . [JASON MRAZ, TITLE STILL PENDING]

5. Oi, lienda, bella che fa . . . [Jack Johnson, "Belle"]

6. Well I'm singing this song, cause it's time it was sung . . . [Tom Waits, “Old Shoes (and Picture Postcards)”]

7. Boys and their mothers, cats and dogs, can't seem to get along . . .

8. Mother’s maiden name is written on your back . . .

9. Heavy, heavy, you’re getting heavy baby, ooh-ooh . . . [Dreamgirls soundtrack, "Heavy]

10. You're a part-time lover and a full-time friend . . . [MOLDY PEACHES, "Anyone Else"]

11. I saw you across the dancefloor, out of the corner of my eye . . .

12. Help me out said the minnow to the trout . . .

13. Excuse me, I think I've seen you on the dance floor . . .

14. I made it through the wilderness . . . [Madonna, "Like a Virgin"]

15. Love your apartment, love your privacy . . .

16. I can't stop the way I feel . . .

17. I'll walk this long road 'till I find my way home . . .

18. Ask me how I feel, ask me now that we're cozy and clinging . . . [Amel Larrieux, “If I Were a Bell”]

19. Meet you downstairs in the bar and heard . . . [Amy Winehouse, "You Know I'm No Good"]

20. So many years have gone by, always strong, tried not to cry . . .

21. Pull up your pants, just like 'em . . .

22. She flies much faster, shouts much louder, looks much fresher, and eats much less than you ... [WHO SANG THIS?!, "Tomoko"]

23. It's hard to remember how it felt before, now I've found the love of my life . . .

24. You want to rumble in my jungle? I'll take you on. [Robyn,"Konnichiwa Bitches"]

25. Can’t wait to get home, and dial your number . . .

OK, KIDS, GUESS AWAY!

A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila: One Shot Too Many.

It's Reunion Number Two Time.

Bo comes out on the show first, having watched show footage backstage. He says he still feels pretty much the same as the day he walked out the door: heartbroken. He even says he feels embarrassed for having put himself so far out there, only to be turned down at the last moment. Bo doesn’t regret his tattoo: “love is blind and I was blind and on medication.” He got home after the whole ordeal and let him know that he had lost his job, because the high school didn’t want to be associated with “A Shot at Love.” Bo says that he was very heartbroken by the whole experience—losing Tila, losing his job. Bo claims it was like“a headbutt to the face.” Bo was shocked that Kristy turned down the key but supports her decision if that was truly what she felt.

Next up Kristy joins Ryan on stage. Ryan asks if she’s ready. Kristy answers, “Yes. I guess. I don’t have a choice. I have a lot of questions to answer.” First, we watch a whole bunch of back footage of her with Tila. Kristy tries to explain that she started doubting that she would be the perfect girl for Tila, having seen the bond that Tila had with the other people. Ryan asks how a relationship with a woman would be different from one with a man. Kristy explains that relationships with men are easy, but with a woman it would be different because “[women] kind of like a little dysfunctional stuff.” She wants to have a relationship with a woman, but it has to be the right woman. Explains Kristy, “I don’t want to be another reality television couple that breaks up in three months.” After a few more moments of talking, Ryan asks, “So. Tila just wasn’t the girl for you?” To which Kristy replies, “Yeah. Ultimately, that’s what it comes down to. In the end I just didn’t see the romantic connection with her.”Kristy does not regret her Tila tattoo (the star on her neck), and in fact her brother, mom, and dad all got the tattoo too and made it “a family thing.” Kristy regrets hurting Tila but not her ultimate decision, although she says, “all three of us had broken hearts … it’s kind of like one big broken heart.”

Bo and Kristy are reunited on stage with Ryan, and they embrace heartily. Bo explains that they grew to have something like a brother-sister relationship “in that fucked up way where you kind of hit on your sister.” Riiiight. That’s gross. Let’s hope that Bo is an only child? Can’t recall. We watch back footage. Kristy says, “I am so sorry. I feel like I took his shot [at love].” Bo refuses her apology, says it was Tila’s decision not Kristy’s. “There’s no hard feelings between us whatsoever at all.” Kristy wonders aloud whether things would have been different if they had done the elimination together … whether maybe Tila would have picked Bo if Kristy had turned down the key? Ryan questions whether Bo would have wanted a secondhand key, though. Sadly, sweet Bo-bear seems like he would take the opportunity, even so.

Next up, Tila is reunited with Bo. They embrace. We watch back footage. After we watch the footage, we cut back to the stage, where Tila is smiling uncomfortably. Ryan and Bo launch into the question: “Why didn’t you pick Bo?” Tila explains that she needed “more fire. More passion! I’m that girl. I need that.” Bo says that “it was hard for me to open up when your two girlfriends were there too.” Tila keeps reinforcing the fact that she wants to be shown the passion and love in the moment, not just behind closed doors because in her life “there’re always people around.” Bo specifies that it wasn’t that he couldn’t show her love in public, it was that it was hard for him to make himself vulnerable when her other boyfriends and girlfriends were also around. They keep sort of civilly arguing this point back and forth, till Tila gets a little short and cuts Bo off, saying that she understands Bo is feeling because she got dumped too. Bo feels terrible knowing that both of their hearts were broken.

Next up, the joyous reunion of Tila and Kristy. Oy.

Tila comes on strong. She says, “You led me on till the end, then you let me down.” Kristy says, “I didn’t fall in love with Tila Tequila. Like everyone else on the show. I wanted to get to know Tila the girl.” Tila keeps shouting over Kristy, about her being a fake bitch for taking her keys every week. Kristy says she kept taking the keys so she could get to know Tila.
Fed up, Kristy finally says, “So. It’s a one-sided game. It’s only about how you feel. It’s not about how I feel … I can’t believe you are so bitter when you’ve done it to sixteen people. … sixteen people! … What goes around comes around.”

Kristy totally makes sense and Tila looks like a crazy, crazy bitch.

Tila keeps yelling over anything Kristy tries to say and starts fake crying. TT really is a fake bitch, wow. Seriously, “booo hooo hooo” kind of crying.

Ryan calls Tila on her shit, saying TT claims Kristy is fake for showing up to take the key every week, but TT was also giving out the keys each week, such as to Bo. TT claims that everyone came on the show to fall in love with her, and they knew there would be other people competing.

TT wants Kristy to be consistent and honest. Kristy claims she’s not inconsistent and she is being honest …

Tila exits with the memorable line: “Shut your fucking trashhole, bitch.”

Kristy then escorts herself offstage, saying, “I’m not having some bitch talk about me like that on national television. What goes around comes around! She breaks hearts. So she gets her heart broken. You want the truth? She’s a bitch.”

This is fucking ridiculous. I feel my brain cells dying right now.

My god, what an awful show. I feel depressed now. And angry.

I maintain: If Tila had just picked Dani from last season, she could be living the good life now . . . hello, who turns down a hot firewoman?!

Why sometimes it's good not to write alone.

Mayumi: "What is it called … when you … you curl up in bed?"

Krissa: " . . . ?"

Mayumi: "You know, when you’re sleeping? And you … curl … like a baby? What is that called?"

Krissa: "The fetal position."

Mayumi: "Thank you! The fetal position!"

Krissa: "You know. You can also go into the fetal position to avoid being kicked in the stomach."

Mayumi: "The fetal position! How versatile!"

Krissa: "The fetal position: not just for sleep anymore! Or babies!"

A stupid short-short for you: "Locked in an Airplane Lavatory with God."

“Oh, God.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, God?”

“Yes?”

“Oh, God!”

“Yes?!”

“OH GOD!”

“What more do you want, woman?! I’ve already come!”

VCFA: this is how small the world is.

Just a week ago, I was enjoying the different people I'd been blessed to meet but secretly wanting to go home, missing my husband, missing the creature comforts of my apartment, etc. Now, as I sit in Dewey Lounge waiting for the airport shuttle, I'm ambivalent about leaving. I never imagined I could get to know people in twelve days enough to really miss them, but there it is: I do. I totally do. And I will miss--incredibly!--the class that just graduated as well. If only you'd heard their fascinating lectures! If only you could have been present for their reading of their work! If only you could have met them and talked with them and known them for the incredible people that they are!

(For that matter, if only I could have talked with them more, too.)

Yesterday I was making the last desperate stabs at being As Social As Possible. And so, after a lovely Italian dinner in Montpelier with twelve or so of my classmates, we sat out for hours on a picnic bench drinking up the last of our secret room stashes of alcohol. There were teenagers playing flashlight tag in the dark, and those now graduated lingered in doorways and front steps reminiscing. As we drank and talked, we got onto the topic of one of my classmates' creative non-fiction pieces on names: the names we are given at birth, the names we are able to take on later in life, the times we've chosen to change or drop a name, the times we've had that choice made for us, and that pivotal moment in an engaged woman's life when she decides whether to take her partner's surname. From names we got to the fact that this woman's grandmother lived in Bronxville. Which prompted me to pipe up that I had gone to Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY. Which prompted my classmate to pipe up: "Do you know Laura von Holt?" I did! I do! Indeed!

Evidently, this woman went to Amherst with Laura's best friend. Evidently my classmate had met and hung out with Laura several times. Evidently at one point my classmate and I were even at the same engagement party with Laura and her best friend.

What's amazing to me is that at that point I had been on campus with this girl for twelve days. Due to the small nature of the campus, I had also seen her for pretty much every day of those days. I had been in six different two-and-a-half-hour-long workshops with her. And only on the last night, in the deepening dark, with the last bottle of wine being passed around the table for swigs, did we figure out that we know the same people. Isn't that amazing and wonderful? It's as if you must to sift through a set amount of words--differences, similarities, childhoods, and so forth--only to find the samenesses between you and another.

How small the world . . . and how wonderful.

VCFA: the infamous Mary Ruefle comment.

"I've never known a writer alive [who doesn't] wake up every morning and feel like a piece of shit . . . And it just gets worse."

Well. No one can say she doesn't call it like she sees it.

Haha!

Tila Tequila on how to deal with a stalker.

(Originally posted to her MySpace account blog):

Sunday, July 06, 2008

OPEN LETTER TO STALKER

Hi, I would really, really appreciate it if you would stop contacting me. I thought that by me not returning your calls, emails, and text messages that you would get the point, but I was wrong. What type of loser wouldn't get the point and keeps trying to
contact with no success? Exactly. Only you. A loser. I am sorry that it had to result to me posting a message on my website, however I just want to let you know loud and clear for once and for all to STOP CONTACTING ME! in other words, you are becoming a stalker. If this goes on any further I may have to look into getting some type of restraining order against you or something, but for now all I can do is change my phone number, which I have done today. So keep calling and texting all you want. It will be the wrong number.

Also you need to start focusing on your own life and stop stalking mine. I am a busy woman with a full blown career with Music, writing a book, merchandising, sponserships, movies, tv shows, etc. Maybe you should start thinking about your own now and leave me alone. Then you wouldn't be such a pathetic loser with a dead end job that you have that pays nothing and enslaving yourself to your job and the people you work with. You pretty much do a sing and dance for them all day long like a pathetic little monkey, except, monkies in the zoo or the circus gets paid more than you do! How sad! On top of all that, you don't even have a real residency to live in the United States of America! Wow. Go back to your country, your visa is almost expired. Or maybe you can just suck one of your friends dick and get an extension on your passport. Either way, the Gays love you! So you should really use that to your advantage!

Last but not least. GET OVER YOURSELF! Jesus, I was trying to do this in a classy and grown up way by not returning your messages for over a month now so you would hopefully get the point, but since that tactic failed me terribly, I had to result to writing this. Sad but this was my only last hope. Now please....get the point....leave
me alone...and get a life. This is becoming really sad and you are looking really pathetic. Maybe you can go to the gym and ask them how you can grow some balls as big as mine.....until then....I wish you luck my friend!

Sincerely,
Tila Nguyen

(Well. That's one way to deal with a stalker, I guess. Maybe Tila Tequila and Julia Allison should compare notes.)

VCFA: reading aloud.

Robin Behn's lecture "How (Not) To Read Aloud" changed my life.

Seriously.

First of all, Behn talked more generally about getting in the right mind/head space to perform: reframing the situation to see it as a special time/space for and in which The Most Important Thing You Can Be Doing is giving that performance ("the great honor of being in the frame"). She spoke of being in the moment of the performance. She talked about the importance of breathing deeply from your diaphragm. She admonished us not to apologize for our performance before or after, not to overcontextualize, just to breathe deeply and begin. Said she, "We don't apologize. Maybe for being human, but we do that in our [creative] work . . . If there's something bothering you, we don't want to know about it." And she touched upon the importance of simply preparing and practicing, over and again.

Behn drew the comparison between public speaking/reading and vocal/woodwind performance, utilizing all the performance techniques of musicians, which she called "the qualities of organized sound": (a) volume, (b) cadence, (c) pitch, and (d) tambre. Learning to train, control, and vary these various elements can really improve your performance. It was like she had flipped a switch for me, and I remembered so many elements that I had learned growing up in terms of a different public performance--choral music. I remembered how, when learning new songs, we would mark up our sheet music, indicating breaths, difficult words, emphases, dynamics (volume), and places where we'd often screw up.

I can't speak, obviously, to my actual performance of my piece "Love, Shmuv"--a chapter excerpt from my novel-in-progress, a spunky monologue-esque piece from the POV of my main character's bossy older sister Naomi, a piece written in pidgin (Hawaiian Creole English)--because I was in the frame, not in the audience.

But I can tell you that as the person up there in the frame, having prepared in the ways Behn urged, I felt an unusual calm and centering of my self. I actually did feel grateful to be standing at that podium with a receptive audience. I did feel I did my best to prepare, having timed myself, practiced daily since arriving in Vermont, and having marked up the MS completely to indicate changes in (a) volume, (b) cadence, (c) pitch, and (d) tambre, as well as other spots needing my focus (such as tough words, words I wanted to emphasize, etc.). And I launched into the pidgin that my tongue has forgotten with all the verve of my heart, trying to recall its trips and twists and turns. I did my very best. I am not that girl anymore, I don't have that same tongue, but there was something delicious nonetheless about revisiting her.

I have never--in my life--felt so satisfied with a public performance, again not because of how I thought I did but because of how I felt. Not because of how I thought people thought I was, but because of how I was. This is very layered and confusing.

What I mean is it was perhaps my first performance where I did not worry what others thought of me. Simply put. That.

Thank you, Robin Behn. Thank you, Vermont College of Fine Arts.

VCFA: the line between prose and poetry. And the birds.

I bought a book (The Most of It) of what I thought was Mary Ruefle's poetry. It was not. According to its back, "Mary Ruefle is the author of ten books of poetry and the recipient of NEA and Guggenheim fellowships. This is her first book of prose."

It just goes to show. What Victoria Redel used to tell us in that first year at Sarah Lawrence (1998-1999) was true. Is there a line between prose and poetry? Well? Is there? Does there need to be? If there is, is it there always?

I like a lot the story "My Search among the Birds." It's a story told in log/journal form of a woman compromising with the birds outside her window: she'll feed them if she can watch them. You can learn so much about the main character by noting what she notes (and how she notes it) about her birds. I especially like this line: "They come for breakfast and they come for dinner. WHERE DO THEY GO FOR LUNCH?" (p. 39). And this one: "Sept 18 Although all poets aspire to be birds, no bird aspires to be a poet" (p. 42). I adore this passage:

"Sept 23 I lost my long brown wallet, and in it were my credit card, my debit card, my checkbook, my checkbook register, my video club card, my Osco card, my Grand Union card, my Co-op card, my oil-change card, my automobile club card, my driver's license, my medical insurance card, my cash, my change, my slips and bits of paper with the names of books, films, and musical recordings I want to experience before I die, the names and numbers of human beings I could call if I were ever in an emergency or lost or sad, and when I lost my long brown wallet with all this stuff in it, I felt like a bird, and it was wonderful." [p.43]

This book is ridiculously lovely. I picked it up this afternoon and will probably put it back down, digested, in another few moments. Quick, light, and like I said ridiculously lovely.

VCFA: on hula and other small acts of bravery.

SurfRunner e-mailed me to ask how the hula dancing had gone last night, and I decided to blog my answer for all the world to see:

You know, it went pretty fine. I mean I used to dance solo at Sarah Lawrence too so dancing last night was not completely the biggest shock in the world. It's almost like recently--and by recently I really mean in the last six years or so--I got too cerebral about my performance anxiety. [For that matter, I think I got too cerebral about all different kinds of anxieties.] I think sometimes when you give a name to something, you end up giving it too much power, if that makes any sense.

It was pretty nerve-wracking, especially because the emcees didn't check their system with my CD first so iTunes kept trying to download the CD and was not able to play it at first. I had to stand up there for something like five excruciating minutes, fidgeting and adlibbing, while they figured it out. Eventually I just sat back down and went later in the show, once they'd figured it out.

I danced Ale'a's "Hapa-Haole Girl of My Dreams" because its a fast song and because the meaning of the words wouldn't be completely lost on the audience. Back when I was at SLC, Dave and I choreographed the dance for a senior-year performance that I did with Laura, Kailana, and Seiko. Was more fun doing it as a group, that's for sure. But I lived.

So, how to answer you, what really to say: I did the dance. I didn't mess up. I shook the entire time. But whatever. It was fine. Ultimately, it was fine.

Next up? Reading my fiction aloud. Wheee!

The Barry knows his shit.

Christ, Barry. How do you know me so well?

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Enough with trying to address 'Life's Big Questions' for the present moment. By this point, you've now gathered a handful of interesting theories, ripe possibilities and tentative solutions, which will give you plenty to chew on for the next little while. Meanwhile, along this way, Taurus, you've probably gotten yourself totally wrapped up in serious considerations… and completely neglected to appreciate the many small pleasures that already surround you every day. This overlooking of simple delights (right in front of your face!) is natural, given how occupied with your own internal crap you've been, and is definitely to be forgiven. But don't dwell too long on what you haven't been doing lately, or you'll end up back inside your head, rearguing a case against some imaginary judge or jury. Externalize yourself. Pour conscious loving energy into all the casual encounters that comprise your day—smiles at the bus driver, compliments for the receptionist, a helping hand to the stranger trying to carry too many bags or boxes to her car. You might be startled at how a few friendly interactions with folks you hardly know, if at all, can boost you into a fantastic mood. Superficial as whatever the situational terms of such interactions may be, the small-talk itself can actually be quite meaningful… if genuine emotion, such as basic kindness or well-wishing, is exchanged. You'll also experience a swap of energy, which can certainly help a Taurean like you (with the tendency to stay put in or refuse to budge from this-or-that emotional state longer than others) actually shift perspectives, due to a simple influx of fresh input. You've had enough private contemplation for a while. Get out, get reconnected, and get chatty… even if you keep telling yourself you're not interested in doing so. Remember: You're going for a shift, and it has to start somewhere.

A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila: season 2 FINALE.

Tila Tequila, Kristy and Bo. The big decision about to be made.

Bo is more in love with the Tila, for sure, whether individual or celebrity. But TT has to pick a girl this time, especially before she goes onto Season 3. (CYNIC ALERT!) So I'm still gunning for Kristy.

To fill this last episode, of course, called for a ton of past episode footage. BORING!

After a hearty breakfast, Bo and Kristy wax poetic on being the last two standing.

Next up is ANOTHER, FINAL CHALLENGE. (Last season, it was the music recording and modeling, if you remember.) The set up for this challenge seems more gag-worthy, rather than actually having to do anything with Tila's life or being Tila's partner. Tila claims that the night before elimination, the two final contestants should get to "chill out." This of course is not as great as it sounds; actually it calls for quickly melting a block of ice to get at the (pink or blue) heart in its center. But Kristy and Bo have help: Tila brings in each contestant's two best friends to help them melt the ice. Kristy and Bo are THRILLED, to say the least: Bo even jumps into his friends arms and wraps his legs around his waist. Awww. But, as Tila gleefully points out, the teams of three are only allowed to use body heat to melt the ice, so she thinks "the less clothes, the better." On TT's "GO!" everyone strips down and starts rubbing against the ice chunks. (And seriously. Who in their right mind really wants to date the Tila for REAL if she's going to put you through that many circus hoops?! She would've had me saying goodbye at the food challenges.) Tila then allows them also to use margarita kits (shaker, salt, tequila) to melt the ice (incl. banging the shaker on the ice to chip it away). Bo wins the challenge, which supposedly allows him and his friends to spend time with TT at a strip club.

The strip club, unfortunately, is just the club in the basement of the mansion. For a strip club, there is a remarkable lack of strippers. Tila tries to pump Bo's friends for details about him, but they only say nice things--probably because he's sitting right there. The quartet begin drinking, and then dancing, and TT is surrounded by three men trying to dance with her. She says at one point, "Waitta minute, who's poking me?" and turns her back to Bo so that only his anatomy is, ahem, making contact. Kristy--still clad in just a bra and unbuttoned jeans--and her two gal pals crash the party because, Kristy claims, "Tila does not want that many penises surrounding her." TT then takes Kristy and her friends aside and asks for their opinion of Kristy + TT 4-ever, and they also offer some pat response about wanting for Kristy whatever Kristy wants for herself. (Lame! TT should have taken the friends aside without Kristy and Bo and gotten the real dirt. I bet one of Bo's friends would have sold him out for his own shot at "love"--or something--with Tila!)

Up next are the last one-on-one dates before elimination. Within her house (read: small village), TT has a "sports bar," which is where she takes Bo on their date. They shoot some hoops, play some table hockey, and share a meal of mozzarella sticks and giant beer steins. Awww. And then Bo tells her that she makes him so happy, that he lights up around her, and . . . wait for it, wait for it . . . that he loves her. Her smile is still pasted to her face, but she looks a little uncomfortable and says, "Awww, you said it!" Then she kisses him to avoid having to reciprocate or reject his sentiment, because afterall this is TV and she's not allowed to say anything about her decision till elimination. In a voiceover/interview, Tila says she's definitely in love with Bo too and that he has everything she's looking for in a guy.

It just remains to be seen, then, whether she wants a guy at all.

Tila then has a date with Kristy. They are so cute, both all dolled up in short dresses, high heels, their hair upswept. Seriously, I want them to end up together because they are just so PRETTY to look at together. When they see each other, they embrace and exchange compliments--"you look so pretty" "no, you look so pretty" "gorgeous" "no, you're gorgeous"--before walking off, their arms around each other. TT has prepared a romantic fireside dinner for them, with wine, candles, flowers, the whole thing. Kristy realizes she must take this last opportunity to be honest with Tila. She says, "I am 120% sure of my feelings for you. But I am unsure about my lack of experience with women." Sweetie! All ladies have the same equipment. Can't you just learn on the job?! But no, I'm wrong. She's talking about the difficulties of being in a relationship with a woman, and god knows she's right to worry: women can be difficult, and so can be relationships. Says Kristy, "I don't want to hurt you. And I feel that, that I could." Kristy is worried that she will inadvertently hurt Tila, that she won't be the girl Tila thinks she is, that Tila is looking for something in the relationship and Kristy won't even know she's supposed to give it to her. What I think is sort of unfortunate is that Kristy is viewing it as so different to be with a woman. I mean, really? Is it? Or are relationships relationships? Aren't the same things needed to maintain trust, respect, and love and to build something sturdy between folks, regardless of their gender? Or am I being a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Pollyanna here? I couldn't help but wonder (thanks, Carrie B.): Is there a difference in how to "do" a relationship for gay couples as opposed to straight ones?

Anyway, luckily TT doesn't seem to take offense at Kristy's uncertainty and reassures her that when you love someone you just have to take that leap of faith and take the rest as it comes. In fact, I do believe Tila managed to use somewhere between five and ten distinct cliches in talking about love and relationships in an under one minute video clip. That has to be some kind of record. Tila is glad that Kristy was honest, says that at this point they are still in together and that there is a reason Kristy is still there--and "it's because I'm crazy about you." The next shots are of them getting steamy and make-outy in the hot tub.

Well, let's just say it: Bye, bye, Bo-Bear.

The next morning, Elimination Day, Kristy affectionately wakes up Bo by jumping on him in a tank and undies. They're like kids, or siblings, or puppies. It's sweet. But one of them will go home nursing a seriously broke heart or bruised ego. Too bad. TT has set out breakfast for the two, and the last message in a bottle, informing them that they will go off to the spa to be pampered. While Kristy and Bo are getting spa-iffed up, TT is at home being reflective. She loves looking into Bo's eyes because she can see how much he loves her and because they've been through so much together. As for Kristy, she's got the whole package: the body, the brains, the smile, the fact that "she makes me feel like a really strong woman." Says TT, "It's a tough decision" but "tonight I'll finally get to be with The One." Oh, Sweetie, you said that last season, too, word for word. How long will this one last? On the way back to the mansion in their separate limos, Kristy is focusing on the fact that she really cares for TT but is scared about this being the first time she could potentially be in love with and in a relationship with a woman, while Bo mentions his surprise at how fast and hard he fell but that "there is no doubt in my mind that I am in love with Tila" and that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. Actually his rather unfortunate exact words are "I want the opportunity to give it to her every single day." I bet you do, buddy. You and half of MySpace and YouTube.

Tila is all spiffed up as she walks to the elimination spot. Says she, "I'm giving out a key, but I'm also giving out my heart." Bo, in his limo, is pumped to see her and hopes she feels the same for him. Kristy, in her limo, is having a bisexual existential crisis: Do I want a man or a woman? Oh, Kristy, honey! Pull yourself together! There is no way this is going to last the rest of your lives anyway, you might as well give it a shot! Says Kristy, "Right now it'd be a lot easier if she didn't choose me."

I'm sensing some serious crash and burn up ahead. Oy.

TT runs elimination different this time. She has the two final contestants come in one at a time. It's interesting but unfortunate, because had TT taken one look at Kristy, shvitzing over the man-woman lover dilemma, she might have spur-of-the-moment chosen Bo afterall.

So, Bo walks the long hall of fire and ice only to get dumped at the altar of Tila Tequila. So sad. He turns away, sadly, dejectedly, saying, "You've always got your Bo-Bear." Then, in the limo, going back away: "A broken jaw is nothing compared to a broken heart."

Meanwhile, when Kristy walks out, you can see the love in her eyes--in Tila's that is. THIS IS SO SAD AND DEPRESSING. Tila builds up and builds up to how she feels about Kristy, and Kristy just keeps hyperventilating. When Tila finally offers her the key, Kristy bursts into tears and turns it down, apologizing profusely. When Tila angrily and tearfully asks why Kristy would do this to her now, why she would put her through all that just to turn her down at the altar, Kristy replies, "That key is not just a key. That key is something I have to live up to. And I can't be that woman for you yet." While this part of the episode is, as aforementioned, sad and depressing, I do like it's less scriptedness. I like that Tila is not the only one playing in this game of love, that other people are allowed to have complicated feelings and emotions, and they have the agency to break her heart as well as have their own broken.

After Tila has very dramatically made an exit, fake crying but not so much that it ruins her makeup, Kristy stands alone, her voiceover saying, "I just wanted to stop her. To tell her to go get Bo."

Says Tila: "I feel like I'm looking for love, I'm giving it, and each person I want to give it to keeps walking out on me." OKAY, I CALL BULLSHIT. YOU TOTALLY DUMPED BOBBY LAST SEASON. Maybe if you had picked Dani or Bo, or maybe if you were at all ready for a real relationship that didn't involve circus hoops and game shows, TT, maybe then you would truly find it. How can anyone help but think, as Lisa/Rizzo accused, that you are fake? What is real about a game show for your heart? What is real about your pain or your heartbreak? How much are you really and truly putting yourself out there? How much are any of the contestants doing so? It is a GAME, and it is to play for now, not for keeps.

Next week is the series reunion "One Shot Too Many." Bo, Kristy, and TT are reunited. Bo and Kristy get to bond, and Kristy gets to apologize to Bo. Bo gets to ask TT "Why?" Then TT gets to ask Kristy her own set of heated questions, during which, at some point, Tila calls Kristy a "fake bitch" to which Kristy responds "what goes around, comes around." Now THIS is TV! Jerry Springer will take the place of host Ryan Stout. (I'm kidding.) Finally, Tila will probably announce that she is doing a season 3 of looking for love.

AN OPEN MEMO TO TILA TEQUILA: PLEASE DO NOT DO A SEASON 3. I will be forced to watch it and further corrode my faith in the noncommercial value of love, not to mention significant portions of both my day and my brain.

errata.

The editor in myself would like to point out that the last heading should have been "Quote of the day: loving one's self" rather than "Quote of the day: loving oneself." Grrr.

Quote of the day: on loving oneself.

Roman says: "You just have to love yourself now and in the moment, and know that while there may be other pieces of yourself you're waiting for, you're still fine the way you are in this moment."

And while he's talking about his sex change, as usual his words spin out and apply in different ways to different people. When I read that line, I thought of being at VCFA and how much I'm pushing myself to change (in terms of putting myself out there, severe performance anxieties and perfectionism and all), but on the flipside how hard it is to acknowledge that change is needed. It's kind of like when you run into someone you haven't seen in a while and they say you look great and that you must've lost a lot of weight, and you say thanks but you're also wondering if you looked like shit before.

When I read that line, I also thought of the workshop yesterday of my "Death By Pufferfish" story, which was really tough, and of hearing from faculty member after faculty member that in a few short years I won't want to work on any fiction I wrote before VCFA because I will have improved so much and moved beyond those stories. Each time I think: Great! I want to get much, much better! But I also think: How sad. How sad to think that in a few years I will be embarassed of the work I struggle to do now. I like my stories and I don't want to be ashamed of them. I guess it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy: while the VCFA faculty are probably right about how much our writing will change in the coming years, they need us to think/believe that too, otherwise what would be the point of a MFA in the first place? Couldn't we all just retreat to our home offices, discipline ourselves, and publish away?

So I really needed to hear Roman's words today and reinforce the feeling that I can eagerly await big change, progress, movement forward, without regretting who I am and what I am able to put forth today. Maybe I can grow more comfortable in my skin, maybe I can get to the place where I feel like it is a gift to be able to be up in front of people--sharing hula, sharing fiction--and just be grateful they want to sit there and watch me (rather than die of nerves each time. Who's judging you, Mayumi? YOU ARE.). In a lecture earlier this week, professor Robin Behn talked about "framing" the performance space, which matched up nicely to my ideas about "reframing" a situation any time it seem too full of dispair. Maybe my fiction won't die several tiny deaths. Maybe each piece will just get that much stronger. Here's to hoping, anyway . . .

On workshop: My group is so great, really. They were very sweet to include a lot of positive feedback about the writing, such as telling me they were so glad to hear I was an editor because otherwise they would be scared that a first-semester student could write such grammatically spot on and tight prose. They read aloud lines they liked. They praised my characters. And then they lit into what I should have known was coming: the bigger picture. Which admittedly is a big problem. They were very constructive and never mean. But I still feel at a loss, a bit beat down, just because, as with any good workshop, I am left with more questions than answers. As it should be. They are there to help me shape my work, not shape it for me. I realize this. Still, I think "Death By Pufferfish" may go to the "let-it-sit-and-marinate-shelf" for a while.

Anyway, I can't afford to concentrate on it. I owe 30 NEW pages of prose to Rigoberto Gonzalez (my advisor for the coming semester-at-home) by July 30. Oy vey.

VCFA: lost count of the days.

Up next, facing fears, scaring myself silly, and so on . . .

If you know me at all, you know the following is not normal:

* I volunteered to dance hula tonight at the talent show.

* I volunteered to read my fiction tomorrow night at the student readings.

I'm probably going to be a huge ole knot of nerves till Friday. Wheee! But, you know, might as well start working on all this performance anxiety. Yecchh.