Prophet, prophet, I prophesy I have sight I see whadda you do. var sc_project=8966465; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_security="1d30187f"; var sc_https=1; var scJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://secure." : "http://www."); document.write("");
Hey - what your email? And the best avenue to send some funds? PayPal? Sending anon bc I don't want any recognition - just want to lend a hand (so this cash would be a gift bc my hand is the loan, lol!).
Oh hi stranger danger! It would've been good to mention that instead of just whining, huh? My analyst is going to tell me I was unconsciously expressing ambivalence about what I was asking for, yadda yadda whatever.
If you've got it in your head to do the deed, then I'll want to thank you more than I'll know how to say, and I can presently be PayPal'd at d at daniel dot sh.
Prior (Doing Blanche): I have always depended upon the kindness of strangers.
I guess it happens to everyone at some point, but before it does everyone probably thinks it could never happen to them. I did a neat trick this month where I fell grossly, grossly behind on some bills. Iâm lucky in that I was able to pay them, mostly and more or less, so Sallie Mae wonât be sending Johnny Twobricks after my kneecapsâat least not today, at any rate.
Iâm also super-lucky, in a weird way, in that the bills were for things like medications, student loans, psychotherapy, and the costs of freelancing, rather than anything really catastrophicâno oneâs sick, thank goodness, except in all the ways that are familiar and expected. It all just came too fast, and at the wrong time.
Then three days ago, I got a letter from Manhattan Mini Storage averring that they were preparing my storage unit for auction. Another non-catastrophe, in so many ways, that they might try to make back a shekel or two on my boxes ofâthis is literally whatâs in thereâRamen noodles, yuppie-dorm Ikea kitchen garbage, and books.
But the thought of losing my books again was devastating. Not because theyâre rare, on the one hand; nor just because theyâre mine mine mine, on the other; but because theyâre so much what I live in and through. It was a crushing blow when, after my second or third hospitalization, my then-landlord locked me out of my Chicago apartment and I lost the little library Iâd been accruing for years.1
So I let them take what they could: the last of what was in my bank account, all I had in the world till a client pays me on⊠June 10th.2 And as irresponsible as I can be, and as bad with money, that wasnât my beer fund or my rainy-day jar of penniesâit was groceries.
Iâd managed to refill most of my prescriptions already, and my analyst is always willing to spot me a month here and there, so thatâs a mercy. But the horrible thing I have to admit is this: I donât know how Iâm going to eat tonight. Let alone tomorrow. Or the next day.
At 26, maybe Iâm supposed to be able to go to my family with this sort of thing. But things have beenâwhatâs the word?âchilly since they ungently encouraged me to vamoose and to scram. They grudgingly cover a lot of basic costsâanother mercyâbut let it suffice to say that they are not oâerflowing with the milk of human kindness when it comes to my money troubles right about now. And my IRL friends have already been helping as much as they can, but theyâve all got responsibilities and lives of their own, and especially at the end of an especially hard month in an especially hard year are tapped out.
So that thing that could never happen to me is happening. Iâm reaching out into the semi-anonymous Intervoid in the faint hope that one of my imaginary superfriends has a spare fifty bucks burning a hole in his or her pocketâbecause that might be all it takes to keep me going, at least till the 10th, or at least I can get something more solid figured out.
Itâd just be a short-term thing, repayable in full the microsecond I can get one of my fraying ends to meet the other. With ample interest redeemable in the form of makeouts, gratitude, and â„? I feel like the last person who should be askingâtoo too privileged to be entitled, having only myself to blame for the whole messâbut.
Okay, and thatâs that. Sorry to burden you; love you all; ugh get a room.
Just a friendly reminder that you can find me at the address above and the Tumblr here for the foreseeable future. This old thing's going under soon, so jump ship before she does!
In keeping with today's big changes, I'm also going to do that thing I get a yen to do every six months or so and move my Tumblr. If you care to join me in my new digs, head on over to http://fleeting-improvised.shannon.camp (or http://fleeting-improvised-man.tumblr.com if the DNS hasn't propagated yet). Now if you'll excuse me, I've got 150 people to refollow.
You can grab my new e-mail address up there if you'd like, because like hell am I typing it out on a public website ever again. It's also on my vCard. Feel free to write and say hello if you think I may have lost your e-mail address sometime in the last few years.
It's entirely possible that my plangent noises about the impossibility of rebelling against an aura that promotes and vitiates all rebellion say more about my residency inside that aura, my own lack of vision, than they do about any real exhaustion of U.S. fiction's possibilities. The next real literary 'rebels' in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Dead on the page. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naĂŻve, anachronistic. Maybe that'll be the point. Maybe that's why they'll be the next rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today's risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the 'Oh how banal.' To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Who knows. Today's most engaged young fiction does seem like some kind of line's end's end. I guess that means we all get to draw our own conclusions. Have to. Are you immensely pleased.
David Foster Wallace, "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction" (1993)
The truth is that these people have picked out a few cultural overtones from the symphony of life and have once more failed to hear the mighty and primordial melody of the instincts.
I find that one of the nice things about my chosen field of study is how at social gatherings, it can be MacGyvered into a pretty effective closet-buster. âCollective memory in the gay community,â I says, and light-bulbs go off above my interlocutorsâ heads: âOH. That explains the fabulouses, doesnât it, and the glass of white dangling from a wrist with the classic break of a fine trouser.â Say what you will about the wickedness of the assumption that only a queer person would be interested in the queer community: itâs damn useful, and now that Iâve accidentally started to pass I need my correctives.
So it was interesting when, at a work event last week, some dude took the announcement as an opportunity to âinâ me. It happened just after his lectureâvery unironic-Borscht-Belt, with a deeply aggressive twistâon how demanding women in relationships become, and why just fucking around leaves you with more time to play golf and drink beer, petered out. âSo what do you study?â he deigned to ask; my standard answer came out, and me with it.
âAh, thatâs interesting, collective memory in⊠communities,â he parroted.
And there was a strange knifeâs-edge moment when I had to decide what to do. It wasnât loud enough for him to have missed that word, nor did it seem possible that even the noise couldâve concealed just the one critical syllable. No, the elision was intentional.
I doubt Iâll ever know the manifest motivation, but I do know what was lying just underneath: Here was a man who, if he had to talk to a gay person, preferred that that gay person stay in the closet. Maybe he tells himself that everyoneâs sex life should stay privateâmaybe, yes, he tells himself that even as heâs lecturing a presumed-sympathetic audience on what âbitchesâ women who arenât sex objects are. Maybe heâs a notch more violent, and thinks that he doesnât want my homosexuality âin his faceâ; maybe a notch less, and thinks I donât actually want to talk about it. It doesnât really matter. He decided that it was his prerogative to add just that much more friction and stress to something thatâs already difficult: the neverending project of coming out.
I smiled my most patronizing smile and corrected him. Because thatâs the right thing to do. Because he doesnât have the right to dictate when and how my sexuality is discussed. Because heâs an asshole.
Hello. How are we today? I'm feeling a little blue myself. You know, a little anxious for no particular reason. A little sad that I should feel anxious at this age. You know, a little self-conscious anxiety resulting in nonspecific sadness. A state that I call 'blue.'
I am working on my own secret zine project so I decided to feed my zine collection some fresh produce. đđ«đ (also secretly excited to be doing an artswap with one of these awesome artist gals đ±đ)
đ Tiny Friends / Ashley Ronning
đ 1990âs / Gemma Flack
đ The Little Things / Witchhboy
đ Taking Notes + Black & White + Girl Glue #1 / Mel Stringer
I recently realized that Lainey sent me two copies of Ahoy Booty with my delightful and perfect "Literally Go Fuck Yourself" tee, and can confirm that it's divine. Click'a that link, fronds.
