Those Troublesome 100 Things

Having naught to do this Wednesday, and having shown up at the office a full hour before I was due to arrive, long story, I have a house elf who is fucking with my clocks. I spent the day skulking on the fringes of other people's blogs, clicking on random links and peering into other people's lives.

Lottsa people have done the requisite "quick, get to know me" one hundred list of superfluous factoids. Some earnest, some snarkified, some with a hundred bulleted points of blah, blah, and blah, blah, bluh, blablahblahhh.

So I thought that we might try, and then we scoffed and mocked ourself, and then I thought, well we might as well try, afterall we needn't publish it...

And so, here goes:
100 hundred things about me, me, mememememmeeeeee!!!!

1. I smoke more cigarettes than are good for me.
2. I didn't start to smoke until I lived in France at sixteen.
3. I can hold my liquor like nobodies business, until I start to list and pitch, and even then I will never be the girl puking in the bathroom, and while I wear it as a badge of honor, I sometimes wonder if it is more of a shame.
4. I have danced on bars in seven countries and two and a half continents, beware and behold my inner exhibitionist.
5. I love to play tennis with mere emma.
6. I often dream that I can breathe under water.
7. I also dream about vampires.
8. I make the world's best potato leek soup - I use a lot of wine and butter.
9. I am my daddy's girl.
10. Human effluvia does not bother me.
11. I can not get out of a bed without making it, this includes four star hotels.
12. if a man brought me home and his bed was unmade I would probably flee.
13. I have a serious hobbit fixation, seriously.
14. other than my hobbit fixation, I am generally not one for science fiction.
15. Viggo Mortenson, George Clooney, Jean Paul Belmondo, James Coburn, Garry Cooper, Mr. Grant.
16. torch songs.
17. having been married, having been divorced, having no regrets for either.
18. my ex-husband, my dear friend.
19. P&M, my lovely friends.
20. especially P who has watched over me, laughed with me, laughed at me, held my hand in NYC when I busted my head open at the Four Seasons, shakes her head at my misadventures, bolsters me wiht sound advice.
21. my marvelous and ridiculously cheap brother.
22. growing up in a small town.
23. leaving the small town
24. all of the men I have loved and broke my heart into a thousand bright and shiney pieces.
25. having enough patience to superglue the shards back together, only to be smashed again.
26. And again.
27. And again.
28. making out in graveyards at sixteen.
29. making love on rooftops at 21.
30. mes tres cheres Poufiasses.
31. my 28th birthday at the Ritz with my lover, tomato water and too many french chefs. Being doused in the shower with champagne.
32. knowing that everyone I have ever really loved, lovers and friends are still my satellites, I have only to pluck them from the sky.
33. cooking for friends.
34. butter, bacon and salt.
35. heaven is the yuba river in July, and scent of granite on my skin, and a glass of wine as the stars rush out and the river hums to itself and the bats ping off the canyon walls.
36. In Northern California the snow tastes of pine needles.
37. My first car, my 71 super beetle, blowing out it's poor entrails on the empty roads between some dirt farmer town and the oregon border while listening to the Breeder's and speeding.
39. Every time I ever waxed philosophic while high on coke, god do I miss that.
40. never having been arrested, or having intimate knowledge of the interior of a jail cell.
41. being able to make tasteless jokes in French.
42. (shit, this harder then I thought)
43. I always say please and thank you.
44. I have been known to be a total bitch, but only to people who know me.
45. The only time I unleash the bitch is when I get bad service in restaurants, the reasons are twofold, first, never mess with my stomach, secondly, I did enough time in that business that I don't cotton to attitude or feckless service.
46. Otherwise I will always tip 20 percent.
48. I heart, heart, heart San Francisco.
49. I decided at thirteen that I would live here, and because I am stubborn and unwieldy, I do.
50. I have lived in San Francisco for twelve years and never cease to be astonished by the views.
51. I have been drinking in the same bar for twelve years, and my long time bartender recently left.
52. I am a creature of habit.
53 I haven't had cable, or any TV reception since shortly after 9/11.
54. which doesn't mean that I am not an NPR junkie, news junkie in general, and vitriolic political amateur.
55. I like New York in June, I like a Gershwin tune.
56. did I mention that I am bitch, but not that kind of bitch....
57. for the last year my mantra has been "fuck and run", just like the Liz Phair song, and I have been largely happy doing it.
58. I really don't like mushrooms, green asparagus or brussel sprouts.
59. I have a particular dislike of butternut squash, yams and cooked carrots.
60. I broke my head open just shy of my 33rd birthday and had to have 15 stitches, I blamed Rummy and Abu Grahib, but really it was the Calvados.
61. I have a penchant for malapropisms.
62. That said, I am having an affair with the English language, heaping affection and sherry on obscure and rotund words.
63. I am cheating on English with French, but I think I am getting away with it.
64. I get full moon fever. Bad.
65. I used to be able to sing, now I only sing in the bathtub.
66. which must be why I take a lot of baths.
67. mere Emma will often make a fuss about fille Emma having perfect pitch.
68. yeah, well, fat lotta good it's done me, other than cringing wildly at une fausse note.
69. it goes without saying that I like sex a lot, but what is surprising is that I relish getting, better and better at it, time passes, I know myself better, and all of those inhibitions like so many pounds of doggerel flesh get exacted. (exactoed?) (If you prick me do I not bleed? - sorry, following a train of thought)
70. I can tell within the hour that I am going to get my monthly.
71. I can tell within the seventy-two hour range when I am ovulating, I am forever perplexed as to how this is not accutely obvious to my fellow sisters.
72. Emma, blessed or not, has a great rack, and I mean great as in sumptuous.
73. This has been a blessing and a curse.
74. but mostly a curse.
75. Emma is not Emma's real name, undoubtedly you know that already.
76. It irks me that I have still not figured out how to make links, but not enough that I would be determined to figure out how it is done.
77. I love muscle cars.
78. and motorcycles.
79. when I was young I wanted to be either a spy or a professional rollskater, sadly I am neither, or am I.
80. I used to wear my mom's tennis outfits while I was making up my professional rollerskater routine in the garage to AM radio Barry Manilow.
81. I do not deny my dorkdom, I embrace it, but I didn't, not always.
82. I turned 25 in Paris, after I had walked the city twice over and fallen in love on a bridge.
83. I hate myself in pictures.
84. I have been told that I am lovely.
85. I still hate myself in pictures.
86. P. says I have my man troubles stem from the fact that I cannot accept my fabulousness.
87. She's right.
88. I have suffered from debilitating bouts of depression, I have thought in those moments that the hairdrier plunged into the bathtub was a viable way out.
89. but that's what therapy is for, and anti-depressants, though I don't take them anymore. I would not hesitate, when I think I might be hovering on the precipice of extinction, jesus get me some happy pills to muddle my way out of this mess.
90. I often dance in my living room.
91. I have tried in vain to teach M to dance, I think it's hopeless.
92. I have been blessed, the powers that be took a shining to me (probably because I am so unfailingly polite) and they have kept my loved ones and myself safe.
93. I absolutley believe in paying it forward.
94. I hate to be touched. That comes with a quantifier...and there are exceptions, but as a rule, being jostled by crowds, or unneccessary hand-holding makes me batty.
95.One of my favorite things is to dine out alone, I have no compunction about 4 star dining solo.
96. I love to vacuum.
97. I love to chop parsley.
98. I hate to chop onions.
99. I know nothing about music, record store intimidate me, if it weren't for my friends I would be living in silence, which is afterall, the most beautful music of all. To this day I am not sure that I could differentiate between the White Stripes and Interpol...
100. I like to sleep, to sleep to dream, the morrows and the tomorrows and the city in my dreams, and how I took flight, and how you loved me so in my dreams, and the sheets and the duvet were complicit, and the pillows became my helmet, and I drowned in you O Morpheus, and I drowned in you.

Sentimental Edumacation

We have just come from seeing Jane Birkin at the Great American, actually we and our pals left mid-way through the first set because poor Serge is spinning in his grave and it's just not right that that tall buck-toothed, rhythmless, warbling gawky bird should still so thin. I got my snark on almost instantaneously, and knew that leaving was in order. Elle a sacagge Couleur Cafe, by clipping it and her band were the terribly professional equivalent of Kenny G.

I put in a call to D. last Wednesday, I was bemoaning that fact that I am quite simply do not have the constitution for whoredom, as it is raining men at Bovary headquarters, it's just not raining the one that we really want.

I shall start with the wanted one, Tuesday November, 2nd. Election results are spooling in. P's colleague has some ridiculously potent hydroponic pot, we have successfully navigated the hill from P's to chez moi and are glued to the internets when the wanted one makes a call. Where am I, he queries, I am at home, I respond. Shall we watch returns, he asks, I say, yes, I am lighting candles as we speak. Needless to say, returns went unwatched and we lost, but we tried and made a little juju magic. But the wanted one is too busy having a love affair with himself and collecting pretty flowers to be anything but a delightful fancy, but of course Emma knows better, drawn like a moth to a flame to the power of a man who doesn't doubt his charisma, I have gladly watched my wings catch fire, sparkle as I disintegrate, self immolate. But not this time.

That following Friday, and this is where the dates start to get hazy... San Franciscans are out all over the city, drinking hard liquor straight from the bottle and overtipping bartenders and there is the promise of fisticuffs for no good reason and fucking for no good reason and many of us have been dazed and self medicated for four days and here it is the first weekend of the four year apocalypse, so is it any wonder that I took home someone that I shouldn't have.

Is it any wonder that I had dire regrets the moment that he quitted my bed that Saturday morning, or that I wondered what sort of consequence I might have to pay up.

Fast forward to Tuesday, a week since the election. My first love has fled Ohio to drink in California, we are to meet for dinner. An odd thing happens on the way to dinner. Just to further gouge my faith in humanity I was robbed in the bus going home, the thief made off with my wallet and all of the treasures therein. At which point I called First Love and tried to beg off, but he was firm in confirming my need for a cocktail. We forsook dinner in favor of, I vodka, he, tequila, and things degenerated from there. What I know is that I hit the floor of the Zeitgeist and I have a bruise on my cheek to prove it, what I am told is that it is all captured on film, and that on top of being robbed I lost my cell phone, and that FL ended up back at my house, and then in my bed making out until we passed out. I must say that FL has a girlfriend, and I am not proud of my actions. But the two of us have had difficulty keeping our paws off of one another for seventeen years, which, depending on how you weigh it, is either totally lovely, or, really adolescent. But at the height of my slutitude and despite our drunkenness I have to proudly say that we exercised remarkable restraint. I awoke nearly fully clothed and nothing happened below the waist, then again, he always was my bestest makeout king.

When I got a new cell phone, his message was, congratulations Blondie, we did it again.

and on coming full circle... last night at P's behest I dredged through old photo albums to find a picture of my original punk rock boy and came across the pictures of he and I when we ran away to Paris with my parents consent, circa 1987. There is a picture of me smoking a cigarette in our garret room, just after I had shown him the Serge Gainsbourg album (your under arrest, cuz your the best) and Jane Birkin a week later.

Flash forward to this last Friday, French Toast shows up at Claude, en manque. R sends salacious emails. Saturday Francois calls across the parallels to mark his turf. The Someone keeps ringing up on the newly replaced cell phone like a freight train gacked on steroids, and Emma is hiding in the bath tub.

Contrary to what you might presume, showers of attention drive us to distraction, and not in a good way, we want to chase, not to be chased, hunt and not be hunted, I do not wish to be anyone's prey. And that the Someone should be relentlessly wearing me down with his compliments and kind words and that that makes me want to run far and run fast, obviously means that I really ought to be back in therapy, because clearly there is something very wrong here.

Eight Reasons, Politics or Fanny Ardant

1. Fanny Ardant makes you wanna drink in a good way, she's got that sort of madeira voice that makes you want to break open the bottle and lick the dregs, where as, if we take Friday night, current politics makes me sloppy drunk and slightly (beaucoup) aggressive and I wind up taking home a man I shouldn't.

2. Have you seen her mouth, and I am not talking about the faux plumped lips of out American starlets, where all you see is bloated collagen, Fanny, she's got the real deal, a true sensualists mouth. In politics all you have is lipless lip service, and Diane Feinstien, I have consistently voted for you, but missus, I am pissed at you for publicly dissing Gavin Newsom, and I wont vote for you again.

3. If Fanny Ardant ever inspired anyone to rip their heart out, it was for a passion that is grander and more mysterious than I. If I felt like I were going to rip my heart out, and did, countless times since Tuesday, it wasn't because I felt as if I might perish but for the touch of my lover, it was that I felt I might perish at the careless hand of my government.

4. Fanny Ardant wears clothes much better then That Man (henceforth I shall ever refer to George Bush as that man, as it pains me to have to write his name)

5. She has a lovely singing voice and she can arch her eyebrows, I have seen Rove attempt to arch his eyebrows, not at all seduisant, and I frankly don't even want to think about Underlord Cheney breaking into song.

6. That Man in heels, enough said. Or let us linger for a moment, shall we speculate at the state of That Man's calves, hairy, or sparsely furred. Ew - I am grossing myself out.

7. Fanny Ardant rolls her r's with such authority, not even beloved Bill can do that.

8. I am prevaricating, because I can't quite bring myself to write the second half of what I set out to write. Though I have managed to remain sober enough and keep the hysteria that threatened to subsume me at bay since my drink-a-thon followed by my inadvertent fuck-a-thon and the painfully bright reality of the heinous and debilitating hang-over on Saturday, just you try and take a pitching and rolling ferry to Sausalito in my state. And for those few days I was totally convinced that I was thoroughly going to lose my shit for once and for all. But Reason has prevailed, as Reason will, eventually. And life will go on, and I will continue, and perhaps it's a blessing, because blessings always come in ugly wrapping paper, that this abortion of an election produced another activist. Emma is heading into the fray.

Requiem for my America Part I

yeah, that whole not drinking thing is going to have to wait until tomorrow. It has taken a bottle of wine and the first Greg the Bunny disc to quell the vitriol that has replaced my blood supply. I am seething, seething with rage, despair, betrayal. I have bloodlust, I want to be a vampire and suck them dry and knaw their bones and gristle, saute their entrails, fricasse the entire republican constituency, and save all of those misguided evangelicals for my gargantuan dessert.

Do they not know what they have done? They might as well proffer up their first borns on the bier. Welcome to Jesusland O denizens of the internet hinterlands, welcome to biblespeak, where morality means legislating those buggering gays into second class citizenry, where dead people in other countries mean little, but here in the heartland the fetus a woman conceives she must hunker down and bear.

Morality or Hypocrisy, tell me what would your Jesus do.

I cannot write, I cannot speak yet, I am so angry, I am so angry. I don't know whether to fight or flee. And my morality, in my moral code, guns are not a good thing, but in this instant, if you put one in my hand, I am not sure that I could trust myself to govern my rage.

I point the gun at the churches who preach hysteria and the sheep who followed blindly, I point and I shoot. You wanted a fucking holy war, you aligned yourselves with your terrorist islamist counterpoints and proclaimed a jihad. Guess what, you got it.

So there it is, we have ourselves a civil, civil war. It's my America too, and I will fight you for it, I shall use my cunning and my wit, for while you might be mighty and numbrous, you are slow and ungainly, and worthy of my disdain. Reason will prevail. I am making it my mission, George, before these four years are up, I will see you impeached, I will see you slink into your twilight of infamy shamed and shunned by your precious moral base.

and p.s. I gleefully await your daughter's debut in homemade porn. I can't wait to see Jenna being ass-fucked by the Saudi royal prince.

Oh, and Asscroft, as far as I know I still have the right to freedom of expression and so I am sending you a hearty FUCK YOU!

E minus 8 1/2 hours

I had a conversation over lunch with P six months ago, and I said that the campaign process was going to be a long six months. But it hasn't. Time has just evaporated, and I have finished studying my ballot book, and tomorrow morning I will rise, perform my civic duty and leave it to the lawyers to sort out. That might sound somewhat embittered, but it's not, it's just the reality of modern American politics, especially in an election that it as contentious as this, I may, and Lord do I hope, that I may, be surprised by a moved and determined electorate, but I don't doubt their dirty tricks.

I wax between optimism and pessimism like a hysterical pendulum, you know you've gone cuckoo von nutsville when you are looking to a football team (thank heavens the Redskins lost) to predict the outcome of an election - particularly when you have to ask, what state are the redskins in?

Either way, Emma is one blogger who won't be blogging tomorrow night watching the returns, I will be too busy getting drunk, we are going dry as of November 3rd regardless of the outcome, until Thanksgiving. But we have made a special deal with The Powers That Be, that if John Kerry is elected we will additionally throw in our cigarettes.

Let us all vote and pray.