gotta work fast

There is a shelf at my parent's home that is empty, save for a sign that reads " Reserved for Nobel Prizes and pictures of grandchildren."

abject failure is getting me down.

like bandits

"making out" is a staple of the the Richmond social diet. it's fascinating and not a little fraught with peril. "making out" means some sort of extended kissing and groping...like snogging, although it can also mean to get a really good deal, or to discern something clearly, so you can see how i get confused.

as in:

he sold us the entire knife set AND the nun chucks for five dollars, we really made out!

or:
In the dark I couldn't quite make out whether it was him or his sister.



or..confusingly:
i don't remember his name, but we drank like 10 beers each and made out.


most of the time you can go on context, but not always, so beware.

i was at a show on Friday night at Casey and Marshé 's store and was introduced to some kid who got that dreamy faraway look in his eyes we all long to see in those of recent acquaintance.

we talked for a few minutes before he said "we should hang out or make out sometime"

i thought that i misheard him over the bad band from New York, but someone present repeated it to me later, so yep, i guess that was the real offer for kissing.

wow

an offer indeed.

one fellow who likes to mosey up and smooch ladies on the piste de dance was labeled by Marshe as a "walk up make-outer" . This, perhaps needless to say, is a bad thing.

So if, like me, you thought that french kissing and heavy petting was indelibly linked to sex....as in.... basically something to do with you face during....well, come to Richmond and think again!

Here you can kiss someone's stinky sweaty party mouth...or even more than one person, if you're feeling exuberant, and not worry that you have made a solemn oath to fuck them all night long! really!! people here do it all the time!

so for those coming to visit me in the near future, keep this in mind and brush up with mirrors, the backs of your hands, anything handy that you find around the house and prepare to make out!

you should not

(a leeetle more advice )

drink in the middle of the afternoon and fall on your head, thus frightening brand new boyfriend and putting your dentist's children through college...and graduate school...and probably a cruise.

The Fourth of July

there are a variety of occasions that one might, in theory, celebrate on the Fourth of July. Including, but not limited to-

• the 836 Pactum Sicardi between the Principality of Benvenuto and the Duchy of Naples





• the 1054 supernova observed by Chinese, Arabs, and possibly the Amer-indians alike, the remanents of which formed the Crab Nebula.





• the brief 1810 French occupation of Amsterdam





• the 1886 arrival of the first-ever scheduled transcontinental Canadian train in Port Moody





• The 1918 murder of Tsar Nicholas II at the hands of the Bolsheviks (but only if you use the Julian calender, so that is sort of cheating)





• The 1918 birth of Anne Landers, American advice columnist.





• The liturgical feast of St. Bertha, widow abbess of Blangy in Artois





• The 1980 death of Maurice Grevisse, the Belgian Grammarian

But if you are in Richmond, chances are you are celebrating American independence. The Continental Congress secretly declared independence from the British on July 2 1776 ( sissies), but the Declaration of Independence was not drafted until the 4th, because even with all those smart men in one room it still took two days to conjure the most high falutin language possible. The Declaration was sent to print and then read publicly and celebrated with bonfires on the 8th...go figure.

Today many people celebrate with fire works and parades. They also sing songs like " My Country 'Tis of Thee" and "America the Beautiful". Hundred of thousands converge on Washington DC and other major cities to enjoy the festivities and most people don't go to their crap jobs.

But Richmond is a true original, and if you are in Richmond you celebrate by going to a really really dirty family-owned water park and drinking a lot of Pabst Blue Ribbon ( voted America's Best Beer in 1893) and malt liquor. You wear some piece-meal, home-made swimming costume that probably involved a thrift shop, your old underpants, or taking the scissors to a pair of Dickies, you go off of a rope swing or a water slide, eat a vegetarian hamburger, stumble around, get a sunburn on your tattoo, pass out in the dirt and eventually cycle or drive home drunk at the end of the day.

it's patriotic and it's fun!

you should

i am a big one for giving advice. i can hardly imagine a less attractive quality in a human being besides actual homicidal tendencies, but there you have it.

my advice today:

WRITE LETTERS!

i mean it. there are few things where the return so outstandingly overshadows the effort. i write outrageous letters because i don't have to live with them. i just send them on their merry way and never look back. i kiss the envelopes when i drop them in the post box the way that Francis Stellof (founder of the Gotham Book Mart ) used to say her father kissed the books he accidentally dropped. i kiss my letters as if inanimate objects could store tenderness, warehousing love for release at a later date.

i can conjure the look of pleasure when they hit the hand for which they were intended or when my penmanship is recognized amongst a pile of bills and grocery store inserts. How many times have i thrilled at the small corner of Angelo's brown envelopes, Scottie's old Olympia's type face, Jeremy's allegiance to green pens.

i try to do them justice with my replies, they are the best of me, like the best of anyone, only fully realized once they are given away. my letters are dashed off in cursive, they are invariably misspelled, i never reread them, i never rewrite them, i never correct anything lest i reneg on a fleeting bold sentiment.

the letters i have been lucky enough to receive are some of my most valuable possessions. i schlep at least 50 lbs of them around whenever i move - which is often. i have hundreds- maybe thousands, because i am attracted, somehow, to other letter-writers. i tie them in ribbons or push them into books. i am not a very reverent reader of anything, precious post included, my envelopes are shredded carelessly in haste, their contents stained with coffee, grease, blood or worse. i don't care very much, my relationship with paper has always been a carnal one.

they change me and their rereading changes me again.

recently one of my letters was excerpted and published in a friend's article about donating sperm. he sent me a photograph of the letter in question and i was charmed by it...in its new life in the sun of Marseille. I felt a bit like those people who train seeing-eye dogs and then send them to their new homes, it was rare and nice to see my letter in action, doing its job.

I've gotten great compliments on my letters, but, to be honest, none have ever taken me more than 25 minutes to write. i say this only to incite you. they are like art and babies - a chance to make something good out of nothing special- except heaps less work. so do write to someone immediately. please.

butt naked angel

i have never actually known if the expression was "buck naked" or "butt naked" admittedly, neither make much sense and one doesn't see it often in print, but last night i really strained my ears at the chorus and i am pretty sure the singer was saying " butt naked" so that's what i am going with.

i went with my neighbors Marianne, Coco and Kelsi Ray to the Hollywood Grill, a local Oregon Hill sort of honky tonk, named for Hollywood Cemetery and not Hollywood Hollywood, the cemetery being named for actual hollies...you know...the trees. they were trying to cheer me up and it worked.

There was a band of fat men playing electric guitars. they had things like roses tattooed on their hands and guitar straps with skulls and lightening bolts. They played some pretty good original compositions and a little Skynnard, but the best by-far went:

I'm waking
and I'm baking
with a butt naked angel
how could so much, of something so fine, be all mine?

in case there were a few of you left unconvinced about paying me a visit after all of that Virginia history, i am betting this pretty much wins you over.