Liz’s Advice Blog

Hi Liz,
How are you?
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Dear Bill,

It’s all starting to collapse.  I feel like nothing I do will ever level the enormous advice hole that my friends show me daily.  None of you know how to do anything correctly. 

I feel like I just keep watching you shoot yourselves in the foot. 

All-purpose advice

1) Martin Heidegger philosophized that a courageous anxiety about death (being-toward-death) gives man an "impassioned freedom towards death."

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2.1) To have a child is to have social cachet.  It changes the way strangers on the subway view you. 

2.2) Krumping the stripper dance also changes the way they view you. 

 3) This is how a classically composed animal picture should look.  Not the style of the composition, not the content, not the spirit, not the spirit of the style; the inclusion of a diaper.

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Healthily hellbent on being hopelessly deathbound,
-Me

Hi Cuz,

Have you heard this one?  (A door-to-door Jehovah’s Witnessman told it to me.)

A couple of newlyweds celebrate their honeymoon in Honolulu, Hawaii.  One week later, they return home.  After spending their first full day in domestic routine, they lie down to bed together.

The husband, who is a deep-voiced New Yorker, says to his bride, "Janet, have you seen my penis?"

To this, the wife, in a breathy voice that betrays her naiveté, says, "No, Brian.  Where was the last place you put it?"

The husband says, "I certainly had it in the kitchen tonight."

"Did you put it on the ledge of the sink when you went to do the dishes?"

"Janet.  Of course I did.  I didn’t want it to fall into the disposal." 

At this point, the wife starts to get upset, and she says, "Oh Brian, you didn’t lose it in the garbage disposal, did you?"

"I don’t know if I lost it; that’s why I’m asking you."

"Well I don’t know why you’re asking me.  It’s not my responsibility.  It’s your responsibility!  Go look on the sink."

"I am going.  I am putting on my housecoat and slippers, so I’m obviously going."

So the husband feels his way into the kitchen, and when he looks on the sink ledge, it is sort of next to it, on the counter.

Woody, did you make dinner, or did you do the dishes?  You probably did what you prefer to do.  If you did the dishes, you are straight.  I believe this.  I have always believed this, and this is how I divine the paths of nations.  I know that one gay man is capable of doing the dishes for another gay man.  It doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

Dear Liz,

I want to know if Furries are born or made. I think they are made — by experiments like the gorp one. I just want to tell you the truth.

-Matt Inthecity, NY

P.S. This Moby video for "Beautiful" [features fursuits]

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-the jump-

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Dear Fuzzball,

First, I owe you exiguous apologia for taking so long with your previous question and a nice spot of it on top for never answering it. You wanted to know about the legendary hipster Steve Aoki of whom your top favorite blog, Blue States Lose, frequently makes mockery-stock. Sorry. Life is what happens while you try to get me to do things.

‘Tis the Season! With your expertise in science journalism, you’ve already done this question a proper treatment on your blog, The Silver Jacket, and you still passed it on to me. What’s the angle? Do you want to fight me?

‘Tis the Season! Let’s tease this question apart. Furries are people with fursuit fetishes or, possibly, healthy, inter-adult expressions with fur suits. The gorping experiment is intended to test children’s biases about transitive verbs. Frankly I don’t see the connection.

‘Tis the Season! What are you doing the 31st? I’m going to be an orang utan.

‘Tisn’t the Season? Reaching as far back as 1982, mankind has taken its most vulnerable into mirrorless rooms and suited them in ridiculous costume. When I was a kid, they marched us around the perimeter of the kindergarten, took pictures, even. They took pictures.

This Fursuit Thing is Disturbing! I don’t know how much you’ve experimented with it, or how well you understand reversed-role gorping, but I’m just about sick to my stomach. When will a ticket come along to will save us from these inexorable, 50mm-deep social trends?

I Would Vote for a president who runs on anti-meme. How does it work? It works on the same principle as a hybrid — it stores up potential energy. Every time you stop yourself from creating a delightful and idiotic social trend, the energy gets stored in a battery. That battery is around eight pounds, and the presidential hopeful runs around with it, hitting people. I believe, and I’m not 100% certain about this by the way — it will also work on the reportage of social trends. I think it runs on any wasted energy.

Ask a Car Guy. I don’t know what’s up with the gilded youth of the nightclub set. They are potent with money and rich with passion, and the camera loves them. They know how to wear their hair and clothes in engaging styles. And they are how I know western culture has begun The Glory Days or, I’ll also accept, The Delicious Sepsis.

Flipping through my famous friends in the weekly face magazines and 30 days to go,

-Me

Dear Liz,
Sometimes I encounter poor people in my daily life. Generally speaking, I don’t care for them. What should I do?
Maybe I’ll invest in copper futures. It would be nice to have a lot of copper.
-Clay Washington, DC

Dear Clay,

I’m sort of busy working on stuff.  I saw Steven Wright do stand up last night, but I couldn’t enjoy it.  I have out-of-body deja vu and a narcoleptic projecting complex.  When I think someone’s bored telling his own formulaic jokes, I fall asleep. 

I’m sort of busy working on stuff.  So I made an outline for this entry, can you flush out the rest and hand it in to the Philosophy Department office? 

1.  When I encounter any people, I don’t care for them and wish them to get out of my life and onto my TV.  Why do TV execs not yet outnumber us?

2.  With poor people there is an added guilt, or a call to action, but follow it to its logical conclusion.  How much should we give of ourselves?  Will money really help the problem?  Should I sleep with poor people? 

3.  Does class guilt have an evolutionary advantage, or serve a purpose?  Reductionists like the "existent" Third Culture probably think so.  Do we have any data to this end?

4.  If all the people I don’t care for were gone, it would just be nature and me.  Is that cool?  What about if it were just me in a deprivation chamber and a video camera so I can retain my memories?

5.  Why I hate flowers.  They smell of plant sex.  They are a tease.  They are showy.  Orchids are pretentious.  I like leaves, because they are what they are.  What flowers can I eat for antioxidants?  Chamomile?

6. Our philosophy professor is kind of hot.  Haha, you think so.  Needs to be flushed out more (phrased as a question).  Clay?

Try to love your fellow man.

Half-hearted,
-Me

Dear Liz,
What is a blog?  Someone asked me that.  But seriously, what is it?
-Kate Beltway, DC

Dear Kate,

Let me get some things out of the way.

Currently Reading:  My high school yearbook.  Poems I wrote.  Your high school yearbook (but only as a source of analogical insight into my own life).

Currently Listening to:  A feedback loop recorded by a mic placed 2 inches from my own mouth and phased in oscillating cycles of 1 to 2 seconds of lag time (because I’m so bored and bored of being bored).

Current Mood: Delusional.  Solipsistic. 

Why is no one reading this?

Tell Kristen it’s a log that’s on the Web.  Like a diary for Gen M.  What’s Gen M?  Someone asked me that.
-Me

Dear Friend,

Happy 4/20, toker. A long-forgotten pioneer of fatty-sucking is a man known as Bob, but wait, I know you’re thinking Bob Marley.  No.  This kid is a different guy.  When I was in high school, my high school boyfriend played guitar for a rap/rock trio.  Bob was their Wordsworth. 

As I am huge fan of lyricism and poetics, I’m sad I never did see them perform.  However, history has brought to light some lyrics from Bob which are really something.  Please take at least the 15 minutes required to decipher this song and an extra 5 to let it all sink in.

Then give me some advice. 

Untitled?

Dear Friend,

You are aware that I, Liz, text expert, have a problem I’m trying to get in check.  It’s called "Angry Letters to Bad Writers."  In the past, I’ve been set off by the San Diego Union-Tribune and their incessant bad puns.  Their woman editor came from a womens magazine, which is where this back-story starts to become sufficient.  I have been alarmed by fraudulent claims to uplifting "Anti-Gravity" in Scientific American’s supposedly lighter-fare column, sparking this fire-fight:

Steve Mirsky’s ‘Anti-Gravity’ column is neither humorous nor interesting.  Please replace it. 

It never goes well. I end up arguing with the writer and other third parties, and then it goes the way of all industry feuds.  One day, I found myself having to follow through when I said I would decline to renew my subscription to Scientific American…  So this is where the advice comes in.  I think I would like to be talked out of sending this:

Dear Boston’s Weekly Dig,

Have you ever wondered why you attractive avant-garde gentlemen of belles-lettres feel the need to use profanity like fledgling female-to-male trannies?  Is it because you’re so limp-dicked from writing for a free-n-fun provincial uselesssploitation rag, and, by the way, own up - your limp dick is actually a veggie-butchered, clit-lipped Pygmalion, so why are you post-politically insulting people just because they want to go find some fistfucking motherfather Things To Do at Night? 

Stop telling me about how I masturbate in my mom’s basement and how much I should wash up and go see grindcore scenestars Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck at T.T.’s with Texas teabaggers Anal Headlock.  Why don’t you write yourselves up in [your free zine cum waste of everyone's time]’s newly aptly named section Fun People to Ironically Eye Rape this Work Week (which already includes every man woman and child in Boston who picks up the Dig).  Just stop for two seconds and wonder why you want to priggishly alienate Allsyourgrammas in Onefreepaper for Nogoodreason.

You are not bad writers, so, what’s all the wide-stanced strut about hack bands and nightlife about?  Is it just that you know in the heart of your Prinzmetal Anginas that being a good writer is always pretty hj and fully blown GAY?  OMG sorry, but one of my cats is licking the other one right now and it’s really adorable. 

Eat a "fuck you", Weekly Dig, you are quite pointless, and I mean impotent.  Maybe Yankees suck, but so too does your balls-to-the-wall-need-to-protect-your-ass-woundable-inner-child, til-the-sweat-drips-down-your-afterthought-preference-to-be-"The Small Apple" scene you pander to with reach-around mocking.  Grow a set of self-control around your gaping amoral center, and get a stress ball, "dude."  Don’t you have a couple lying around post-op?  Post… Pre… Pre-op.  Sorry.

-Liz Vice N. Andover, MA

Dear Friend,
Early this morning when I was brushing my teeth, I found something, what looked like the remnants of another toothbrush behind my left maxilliary first primary molar, 15D.  Next to it was a piece of oatmeal from the day before, and behind that, another molar I had never seen before facing in the opposite direction one would expect a newly minted molar.  Some minutes later, I found another mirror.  It was much deeper than the other ghosts, which was what I determined them to be at the most excellent of my reasoning, or else perhaps another world simulated by a third (two way ?) mirror I could not in fact see.  What?  I don’t want to change any of this, but it’d be nice to understand it.
-Me’s Advice B. Nathandover, MA

Dear Liz, 
If someone saw me naked, and then I didn’t call again, is he within his rights to unbefriend me on a social networking website such as friendster or facebook?  Why would he unbefriend me on one network but not the other?  I feel that my signal was very clear, so why is he being so ambiguous?
-(Please Help) Lost in Louisville, RI

Ok "Berg",

Questions, questions, questions.  Men and women alike love to be drawn out from their selves with QUESTIONS.  I keep a file of questions ready for occasions like this.  Send this email out to the ambiguous emailabler to feel out the waters.

fileOfQuestions.txt

1. What did you want to be when you grew up? 

2. What city were you born in, supposedly?

3. What was your most memorable childhood mammary?

4. Do you identify more with Generation X or Generation Explains-Your-Wearing-Stupid-Clothes?

5. Did you have an imaginary friend?  What was he like, was he like seeing me naked?  I didn’t call you?  I didn’t?!

6. Did you have stupid baby sitters growing up? 

7. Who’s your hottest underage relative?

8. Can you think about your childhood for a minute while I hold my flaccid own hand?

9. Have you accepted anyone special as your savior?

10. How do you ignore homeless panhandlers?

11. Why don’t you care about your health or put any effort into it?

12. What would you do if you got pregnant today… with a person?

13. Whose is your hair hero?  Do they know it?  Whose else?

14. What’s the most important ingredient of human taste in your philosophy of beauty (of pleasure cannibalism)?

15. When’s your birthday?  What’s your favorite kind of transvestite hooker?  Oh, I am?  Shut up.  You’re not funny?  I’m flirting with you.  So you think?  Am I. 

16. So don’t take this the wrong way, but what do you do all day? 

17. How do you keep yourself from dwelling on question number one?

18. Do you need any advice?

Dan, my "Liz" second-tier advice is bifurcated or twofold and double-pronged.  First, it doesn’t matter what this guy means online.  It’s none of our business.  Twoly, the Internet is not real.  People say it’s hyperreal, that it prescribes reality.  Like "America’s Next Top Model" or DeLillo’s "The World’s Most Photographed Barn" and Paris Hilton.  But they’re wrong.  It’s not real.

It’s really awesome,
-Me

Dear Liz,
My boyfriend’s parents are friends with a prominent literary figure that I want to meet. How do I weasel my way into said literary figure’s home and her good graces?
-Jess G. Brooklyn, NY

Dear Jess,

This is an easy one.  You’re already in.  As soon as you please, have a shotgun wedding with your boyfriend.  Lock that down!  Reload.  Lock down the spawn.  Reload…  Walk down the hotel stairs with a warm hand on the rail.  Never look down.  326.  Look at your boyfriend’s father squarely.  Look at his wife, passed out on top of the hotel topspread.  They’ve had one year of bliss together.  Happy 25th Anniversary.  She doesn’t even dream the bed is humbly oozing blood.  Still, you put a pillow over her face, take the pillow she’s clutching like a child or bear out of her tenure, and shim it under her lumbar.  "Shhh…" you whisper, "Silent birth."

Go back to your room and change as any other night, it’s your night.  Leave the Where’s Waldo revelries behind.  Tip the valet.  Drive back into the parking garage.  Run over anyone there, but if anyone happens to be a valet, get out and take his tips.  Open the door like you think you’re Jack Nicholson’s character in real life.  OneStar, how do I get to 12 High Street?  You have a window here of about an hour until she goes to bed.  Don’t fuck around with shortcuts.  Drive on curbs all the way.  Doesn’t matter now.  The passenger lying next to you doesn’t care. 

Said literary figure’s home: get out to weasel your way in.  Kill someone, doesn’t matter who, just not her.  Let her feel her life is worth nothing.  Let her feel the barrel.  Tell her you want her to feel your heartpain and novelize it.

Also, I was thinking… buy an antique cane?  I have a 35 inch cane with a little head on it.  Mahogany.  Eccentric types can’t get enough of it.  Some are jealous, but jealousy soon turns to uneasy kinship with eccentric types.

There’s just something about Ironwood,
-Me