"You may hear a lot of talk in your life about the hour of reckoning. People saying, you know, people talk about the moments that they face, as if, you know, as if they got a notice from some office two weeks before the moment was going to come, saying, “There’s a moment coming in two weeks, you might want to get your ass ready.” You won’t get any such notice, there is no such office for this delivery. Instead, you may be sitting on the sofa, three beers deep and two white Russians, staring at the television thinking to yourself, “This can’t last forever.” Hoping, praying that it will---or won’t!---last for the rest of your life, because whatever comes next, it could be worse! You have evidence in your past that it could in fact be worse. But at the same time, you know it won’t be that previous worse, it’ll be some new thing. We live in an age that preaches the value of new things, but I’m here to tell you there some new things that are not so good! Some new things suck gigantic asses! All day long! This song is a song about a couple of people who are face to face with some of those gigantic new asses to suck! They have a lovely television! I’m glad that I gave them a TV!"

--John Darnielle, introducing Gameshows Touch Our Lives

When Moses conversed with God, he asked, "Lord, where shall I seek you?"

God answered, "Among the brokenhearted."

Moses continued, "But, Lord, no heart could be more despairing than mine."

And God replied, "Then I am where you are."

--Abu'l Fayd al-Misri; quoted in God's Silence by Franz Wright

music of the last two years.

recommend me.

ready go!

survey:

what would you think if you met someone who has never heard of david sedaris?

how can i go home

with nothing to say

i know you're going to look at me that way

and say what did you do out there

and what did you decide

you said you needed time

and you had time

you are a china shop

and i am a bull

you are really good food

and i am full

i guess everything is timing

i guess everything's been said

so i am coming home with an empty head

you'll say did they love you or what

i'll say they love what i do

the only one who really loves me is you

and you'll say girl did you kick some butt

and i'll say i don't really remember

but my fingers are sore

and my voice is too

you'll say it's really good to see you

you'll say i missed you horribly

you'll say let me carry that

give that to me

and you will take the heavy stuff

and you will drive the car

and i'll look out the window and make jokes

about the way things are

how can i go home

with nothing to say

i know you're going to look at me that way

and say what did you do out there

and what did you decide

you said you needed time

and you had time

--ani

I am feeling better and better about teaching in Turkmenistan and more and more afraid of coming back to America. I am going to be so very weird. I can barely conduct a normal conversation anymore. I forget how and when to say things, I forget the patterns of everyday speech. Also, I haven't heard from so many people I used to know in so long that I'm afraid I won't have anyone to have a normal conversation with. It's not going to be pretty, although there will be things like chocolate cake and fettucini alfredo to eat while I'm not speaking.

Hey, the world: Call me so I can practice talking and listening in English. It's been way, way too long since I've heard from you, and I miss you.

I miss being friends with you.

I do not miss being friends with you.

I am not clarifying.

"This letter is mostly to warn you of the following: I will probably be unable to call or email, at all, during training, that is to say, FOR THE NEXT 3 MONTHS. It is imperative you know that, so you don't think I don't care. Actually, could you post it to my lj, so the world doesn't think I don't care. Just a quick, 'hey, this is emily. liz says in a letter that she can't call or email for at least 3 months, but she loves you all and wants to hear from you, so write her a damn letter.'"

US Peace Corps/Turkmenistan

P.O. Box 258, Krugozor

Central Post Office

Ashgabat, 744000

(Volunteer name in English)

TURKMENISTAN

Türkmenistan Aşgabat, 744000

Merkezi poçta

abonent 258, Krugozor

Parahatçylyk Korpusy, Türkmenistan

(Volunteer name in English)

TÜRKMENISTAN

The Peace Corps says putting the Turkmen address alongside might help expedite delivery. ALSO: "I get my own personal stalker! AKA: KGB-type 'minder' who folows me around, listens to my phone calls, reads my mail, etc. Yeehaw, former Soviet Republic. Probably you should not talk about that, or gay stuff, or the government when you write back."

This is Emily. Liz loves you, but can't talk to you for 3 months. Please write her a damn letter.

saying goodbye to meg tonight, i walked her to the door and just as she was leaving, she said, "you know what we have to do?"

no, i had no idea.

"you stand on that side of the door. it'll be better. ready? let us go then, you and I---"

"NO! no! we can't do that! if we do that, i'll start crying!"

then I did start.

if you're reading this, i've probably all ready gotten on a plane to dc. i'm gone.

sign me up, I volunteer

votes are in for lifeguard of the year

her feline past lives are plain

their singularities are shown in this life again.

like mama said, dontcha let it go to your head

when ya know you're being fed

i'm so proud to know you

lizzy, i'll write, i'll sing

telegraph, telegram

telephone, tellin' you

i'll be home soon

dienu

we will wake when kitty licks

and in the morn, work takes her to maine

dressed and out the door by six

tomorrow is the first time liz can't board my plane

like mama said, dontcha let it go to your head

when ya know your book is read

i'm so proud to know you

anna will take me to the port

as liz drives up i-95

me and my darlin' keep love alive

even on texas time

and like my mama said, dontcha let it go to your head

when your town is painted red

i'm so proud to know you

lizzy, i'll write, i'll sing

telegraph, telegram

telephone, tellin' you

i'll be home soon

dienu

telegraph, telegram

telephone, tellin' you

i'll be home soon

dienu

i love you

("Dienu is like an old folk word that's Hebrew and it means 'it would have been enough'... when something good happens to you and then another good thing happens to you. What you had in the first place would have been enough, if nothing else happens to you. It's all about counting your blessings and staying grounded." --benkweller.com)

It's the night before the night before I leave. And I'm still awake at 4:30. What the hell am I going to do tomorrow night?

World/Inferno setlistish (order and actual titles vary):

Tattoos Fade

Fiend in Wien

Thumb Cinema

M is for Morphine (oh my God!)

Me vs. Angry Mob (YES!)

Best Party (?)

Jerusalem Boys

Everybody comes to Ricks

Paul Robeson

Brother of the Mayor of Bridgewater

Velocity of Love (oh HELL yes!)

Addicted to Bad Ideas (oh my God! so goooood!)

Only Anarchists are Pretty

And then they stopped playing and I still don't understand why. We asked Semra when their shows were for the next two nights, and she said Cleveland and Detroit, and I can't tell you how badly I want to commandeer a vehicle and drive to Cleveland tomorrow night.

I'm going to a foreign country for the next two and a half years, and I just bought an iPod on which to put enough music to get through it. I'm ripping all of my CDs, and some of my sister's CDs, and some of my father's CD's, and I still have a fair amount of space to work with. If you were in this situation, what additional CDs or tracks would you buy/borrow/steal? Bonus points if you send/lend them to me.

rara aviz 06: Leslie is talking to you now. It is important.

veggiewomanstr: Ok.

veggiewomanstr: Hi Leslie.

veggiewomanstr: How are you?

rara aviz 06: my dearest liz hamilton: it is my duty to inform you that you are missing something of vital import

veggiewomanstr: What am I missing, dear Leslie?

rara aviz 06: something of such cultural significance and mind bending power that the want of it can drive one mad

rara aviz 06: there are certain sounds that humans have strung together to create these unique phenomena known as "songs" or "music"

veggiewomanstr: ah-huh...

rara aviz 06: in the last decade of the twentieth century (CE) a small group of women (referred to as a "band" by contemporary culture) came together to create such "songs"

rara aviz 06: these women were responsible for what is referred to as "pop-culture", which is a collection of references to contemporary "music" "art" and moving pictures with sound called "films" or "movies"

veggiewomanstr: Are you seeing the Spice Girls?

rara aviz 06: Sometimes these "bands" gave themselves tribal names to distinguish themselves from other such tribes

rara aviz 06: The aforementioned tribe decided that since they were fond of herbs and had personalities that many considered "caillente" they should be known as "The Spice Girls" (they will be hereafter known as such in this publication)

veggiewomanstr: Oh dear.

rara aviz 06: One of the songs produced by the "Spice Girls" was a tune known to attract many a mate. This song instructed the listener to "Slam [their] body down" because "the party [was] all around"

rara aviz 06: It seems as though the party is still, indeed, all around, however this message has not yet reached many parts of the globe.

rara aviz 06: Former Soviet States (in particular Turkmenistan) have never experiened the joy and satsfaction that one garners from the body-slammin' tunes produced by these herbed women. It has long been considered the duty of those in first world countries to bring their culture with them and impose it on others as they travel so as to improve the lives of all concerned.

rara aviz 06: Won't you please do your part to help bring the Word of these sages (get it? sage is a spice) to the rest of the world so that the Turkmen may partake in this great ritual?

rara aviz 06: Leslie says that's the best she can do and if you're not convinced, there's nothing more she can do.

veggiewomanstr: I'm slightly tempted. But no.

rara aviz 06: LIZ!

rara aviz 06: SAGES!

veggiewomanstr: Listen, I got stuff to do.

rara aviz 06: JJ VAN HANESLUT YOU ARE NOT SUCH BEAST

veggiewomanstr: We're not allowed to evangelize!

rara aviz 06: I am not asking you to evangelize. Leslie is asking you to evangelize. I am evangelizing YOU and asking YOU TO BRING IT FOR YOUR OWN DAMNED BENEFIT.

veggiewomanstr: No.

(This is my sister/Leslie trying to convince me to bring The Spice Girls to

Turkmenistan. The answer remains no.)

WORLD/INFERNO SEPTEMBER 26 THE CLUB AT WATER STREET IN ROCHESTER ROCHESTER ROCHESTER

I'M GOING I'M GOING

Good things from the last week or so:

OBERLIN!

The lack of weird things happening in Oberlin. That is to say, staying with Shades and never once being in a position where I had to say, "Shades, that portion of my life is over. Back off."

Decafe smoothies.

PLAYING RUGBY OH MY GOD YES. I brought my cleats and mouthguard on the off-off-chance that they might possibly need an extra player for Saturday's game. Rachel and I showed up just in time for Thursday's practice, and apparently they needed just one more second row player. How convenient that I am a second row! How convenient that I went to as many practices as the other girls! HOW FUCKING SWEET THAT I GOT TO PLAY RUGBY WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS DONE FOR TWO YEARS!

Meeting Farhad, who is FROM TURKMENISTAN. REALLY. I woke up on Friday morning and Rachel handed me a cell number scrawled on a scrap of paper. "What's this?" "Shades left it for you. It's the number of a guy from Turkmenistan." "WHAT?!" The first morning I'm in town, Shades meets a boy from Turkmenistan at work, who happens to be an Oberlin student. We had coffee that night. He didn't tell me a whole lot about his country that I didn't know, but he was so excited that I was going that I'm now even more excited about going. He also gave me his parents number in Ashgabat and made me promise to call them and have dinner at their house, that he'd tell them I was coming. This after knowing him for ten minutes. Wow. Just...wow.

And now, live Joseph Arthur album. Holy shit. Ben Lee, I might need two husbands.

New life goal: Listen to Ben Lee enough in the next two weeks that I'm sick of him for two years.

Dear Ben Lee,

I feel compelled to list the reasons you gave at the concert tonight that I should immediately turn straight and marry you.

Number one, you covered "Brick" by Ben Folds, and while I was making the amusing connection that both of you are named Ben, you paused in the middle of the song and said, "We should call Folds and sing it to him." And then you ran to your car (which was parked conveniently behind the stage), seized your phone, and called up Ben Folds, who did not answer, but you said to his voicemail, "Hey Foldsie, I'm at Vassar and I'm giving a concert and we're going to sing Brick to you. Just the chorus. (and we sing the chorus) I'll talk to you later."

Number two, while doing your "second bad guitar solo," as you struck the first note. the cord attached to your guitar fell out. Twice in a row. And you gracefully said, "That's actually not the joke." (The joke being the solo, which quickly turned into "Stairway to Heaven.")

Number three, you forgot the words to your own song, twice, and consequently made up new ones that were probably just as awesome.

Number four, you dedicated a song to the person whose high beam headlights were in your face.

Number five, while dueling guitars with your backup, you said, "Nick, I want to play my solo on your guitar." And promptly traded guitars.

Number six, you just looked like you were having the time of your life doing this show.

For all of the above reasons, I want to be the girl who makes you a real rockstar and gives you blowjobs on stage. Let's go elope. Okay? Okay.

Love, Liz.

P.S. No matter what my sister says, the fact that she's wanted to marry you for the last year does not give her priority. Don't listen.

ETA: P.P.S. You wrote a song called "What would Jay-Z do?" and it rocked my life. Further proof that you are amazing and destined to be my husband.

"How often since then has she wondered what might have happened if she'd tried to remain with him; if she'd returned Richard's kiss on the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal, gone off somewhere (where?) with him, never bought the packet of incense or the alpaca coat with the rose-shaped buttons. Couldn't they have discovered something...larger and stranger than what they've got? It is impossible not to imagine that other future, that rejected future, as taking place in Italy or France, among big sunny rooms and gardens; as being full of infidelities and great battles; as a vast and enduring romance laid over a friendship so searing and profound it would accompany them to the grave and possibly even beyond. She could, she thinks, have entered another world. SHe could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself.

Or then again maybe not, Clarissa tells herself. That's who I was. That's who I am---a decent woman with a good apartment, with a stable and affectionate marriage, giving a party. Venture too far for love, she tells herself, and you renounce citizenship in the country you've made for yourself. You end up just sailing from port to port.

Still, there is this sense of missed opportunity. Maybe there is nothing, ever, that can equal the recollection of having been young together. Maybe it's as simple as that. Richard was the person Clarissa loved at her most optimistic moment. Richard had stood beside her at a pond's edge at dusk, wearing cut-off jeans and rubber sandals. Richard had called her Mrs. Dalloway, and they had kissed. His mouth had opened into hers; his tongue (exciting and utterly familiar, she'd never forget it) had worked its way shyly inside until she met it with her own. They'd kissed, and walked around the pond together. In another hour they'd have dinner, and considerable quantities or wine. Clarissa's copy of The Golden Notebook lay on the chipped white nightstand of the attic bedroom where she still slept alone; where Richard had not yet begun to spend alternate nights.

It had seemed like the beginning of happiness, and Clarissa is still sometimes shocked, more than thirty years later, to realize that it was happiness; that the entire experience lay in a kiss and a walk, the anticipation of dinner and a book. The dinner is by now forgotten; Lessing has been long overshadowed by other writers; and even the sex, once she and Richard reached that point, was ardent but awkward, unsatisfying, more kindly than passionate. What lives undimmed in Clarissa's mind more than three decades later is a kiss at dusk on a patch of dead grass, and a walk around a pond as mosquitoes droned in the darkening air. There is still that singular perfection, and it's perfect in part because it seemed, at the time, so clearly to promise more. Now she knows: That was the moment, right then. There has been no other."

from The Hours, Michael Cunningham

Three things I don't understand about my new rugby team:

1. What is this "coach" thing? You mean your captains don't coach you? What?

2. What is this "male coach" thing? Who is this dude telling me what to do?

3. Wait...why are so many of you talking about sleeping with guys? You are rugby players. You are not supposed to be so straight. I don't get it.

Other than that, I am in vast amounts of glorious, glorious, rugby-induced pain, and I am very very happy about my current condition.

---

When I went to pay for gas today, the guy at the counter greeted me with "Hello, beautiful." To which I said, "...what?"

"Hello, beautiful."

"Oh. Ok. We're having that conversation. Great."

"You're beautiful, though. Don't doubt yourself."

"Believe me, I don't. Um. Yeah. Thanks for the compliment?"

And then I spent the entirity of the drive to Catherine's yelling at the empty space in my car about it.

---

And lastly, if you haven't watched any of it, Wonderfalls is kind of great.

I was rereading old bookmarks, and I came across this, which is brilliant and wonderful and which I am copy/pasting here in case the original site ever goes down. Read it. Love it.

(The following rant, for lack of a better word, is written by the writer David Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and the founder of hipper-than-most magazine McSweeney's. In an interview with one Saadi Soudavar of Harvard Advocate, Eggers was asked a question about maintaining "street cred" (whatever the hell that is) which ended with the fatuous sentence, "Are you taking any steps --- are there any steps to be taken -- to keep shit real?")

----

First, a primer: When I got your questions, I was provoked. You expressed many of the feelings I used to have, when I was in high school and college, about some of the people I admired at the time, people who at some point disappointed me in some way, or made moves I could not understand. So I took a few passages from your questions -- those pertaining to or hinting at "selling out" -- and I used them as a launching pad for a rant I've wanted to write for a while now, and more so than ever since my own book has become successful. And the rant was timely, because shortly after getting your questions, I was scheduled to speak at Yale, and so, assuming that their minds might be in a similar spot as yours, I read this, the below, to them, in slightly less polished form. The rant is directed to myself, age 20, as much as it is to you, so remember that if you ever want to take much offense.

You actually asked me the question: "Are you taking any steps to keep shit real?" I want you always to look back on this time as being a time when those words came out of your mouth.

Now, there was a time when such a question -- albeit probably without the colloquial spin -- would have originated from my own brain. Since I was thirteen, sitting in my orange-carpeted bedroom in ostensibly cutting-edge Lake Forest, Illinois, subscribing to the Village Voice and reading the earliest issues of Spin, I thought I had my ear to the railroad tracks of avant garde America. (Laurie Anderson, for example, had grown up only miles away!) I was always monitoring, with the most sensitive and well-calibrated apparatus, the degree of selloutitude exemplified by any give artist--musical, visual, theatrical, whatever. I was vigilant and merciless and knew it was my job to be so.

I bought R.E.M.'s first EP, Chronic Town, when it came out and thought I had found God. I loved Murmur, Reckoning, but then watched, with greater and greater dismay, as this obscure little band's audience grew, grew beyond obsessed people like myself, grew to encompass casual fans, people who had heard a song on the radio and picked up Green and listened for the hits. Old people liked them, and stupid people, and my moron neighbor who had sex with truck drivers. I wanted these phony R.E.M.-lovers dead. But it was the band's fault, too. They played on Letterman. They switched record labels.

Even their album covers seemed progressively more commercial. And when everyone I knew began liking them, I stopped. Had they changed, had their commitment to making art with integrity changed? I didn't care, because for me, any sort of popularity had an inverse relationship with what you term the keeping "real" of "shit." When the Smiths became slightly popular they were sellouts. Bob Dylan appeared on MTV and of course was a sellout. Recently, just at dinner tonight, after a huge, sold-out reading by David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell (both sellouts), I was sitting next to an acquaintance, a very smart acquaintance married to the singer-songwriter of a very well-known band.

I mentioned that I had seen the Flaming Lips the night before. She rolled her eyes. "Oh, I really liked them on 90210," she sneered, assuming that this would put me and the band in our respective places.

However.

Was she aware that The Flaming Lips had composed an album requiring the simultaneous playing of four separate discs, on four separate CD players? Was she aware that the band had once, for a show at Lincoln Center, handed out to audience members something like 100 portable tape players, with 100 different tapes, and had them all played at the same time, creating a symphonic sort of effect, one which completely devastated everyone in attendance? I went on and on to her about the band's accomplishments, their experiments. Was she convinced that they were more than their one appearance with Jason Priestly? She was.

Now, at that concert the night before, Wayne Coyne, the lead singer, had himself addressed this issue, and to great effect. After playing much of their new album, the band paused and he spoke to the audience. I will paraphrase what he said: "Hi. Well, some people get all bitter when some song of theirs gets popular, and they refuse to play it. But we're not like that. We're happy that people like this song. So here it goes."

Then they played the song. (You know the song.) "She Don't Use Jelly" is the song, and it is a silly song, and it was their most popular song. But to highlight their enthusiasm for playing the song, the band released, from the stage and from the balconies, about 200 balloons. (Some of the balloons, it should be noted, were released by two grown men in bunny suits.) Then while playing the song, Wayne sang with a puppet on his hand, who also sang into the microphone. It was fun. It was good.

But was it a sellout? Probably. By some standards, yes. Can a good band play their hit song? Should we hate them for this? Probably, probably. First 90210, now they go playing the song every stupid night. Everyone knows that 90210 is not cutting edge, and that a cutting edge alternarock band should not appear on such a show. That rule is clearly stated in the obligatory engrained computer-chip sellout manual that we were all given when we hit adolescence.

But this sellout manual serves only the lazy and small. Those who bestow sellouthood upon their former heroes are driven to do so by, first and foremost, the unshakable need to reduce. The average one of us -- a taker-in of various and constant media, is absolutely overwhelmed -- as he or she should be -- with the sheer volume of artistic output in every conceivable medium given to the world every day--it is simply too much to begin to process or comprehend--and so we are forced to try to sort, to reduce. We designate, we label, we diminish, we create hierarchies and categories.

Through largely received wisdom, we rule out Tom Waits's new album because it's the same old same old, and we save $15. U2 has lost it, Radiohead is too popular. Country music is bad, Puff Daddy is bad, the last Wallace book was bad because that one reviewer said so. We decide that TV is bad unless it's the Sopranos. We liked Rick Moody and Jonathan Lethem and Jeffrey Eugenides until they allowed their books to become movies.

And on and on. The point is that we do this and to a certain extent we must do this. We must create categories, and to an extent, hierarchies. But you know what is easiest of all? When we dismiss. Oh how gloriously comforting, to be able to write someone off. Thus, in the overcrowded pantheon of alternarock bands, at a certain juncture, it became necessary for a certain brand of person to write off The Flaming Lips despite the fact that everyone knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that their music was superb and groundbreaking and real. We could write them off because they shared a few minutes with Jason Priestley and that terrifying Tori Spelling person. Or we could write them off because too many magazines have talked about them. Or because it looked like the bassist was wearing too much gel in his hair.

One less thing to think about. Now, how to kill off the rest of our heroes, to better make room for new ones?

We liked Guided by Voices until they let Ric Ocasek produce their latest album, and everyone knows Ocasek is a sellout, having written those mushy Cars songs in the late 80s, and then -- gasp! -- produced Weezer's album, and of course Weezer's no good, because that Sweater song was on the radio, right, and dorky teenage girls were singing it and we cannot have that and so Weezer is bad and Ocasek is bad and Guided by Voices are bad, even if Spike Jonze did direct that one Weezer video, and we like Spike Jonze, don't we?

Oh. No. We don't. We don't like him anymore because he's married to Sofia Coppola, and she is not cool. Not cool. So bad in Godfather 3, such nepotism. So let's check off Spike Jonze -- leaving room in our brains for--who?

It's exhausting.

The only thing worse than this sort of activity is when people, students and teachers alike, run around college campuses calling each other racists and anti-Semites. It's born of boredom, lassitude. Too cowardly to address problems of substance where such problems actually are, we claw at those close to us. We point to our neighbor, in the khakis and sweater, and cry foul. It's ridiculous. We find enemies among our peers because we know them better, and their proximity and familiarity means we don't have to get off the couch to dismantle them.

And now, I am also a sellout. Here are my sins, many of which you may know about already:

First, I was a sellout because Might magazine took ads.

Then I was a sellout because our pages were color, and not stapled together at the Kinko's.

Then I was a sellout because I went to work for Esquire.

Now I'm a sellout because my book has sold many copies and because I have done many interviews and because I have let people take my picture and because my goddamn picture has been in just about every fucking magazine and newspaper printed in America.And now, as far as McSweeney's is concerned, the Advocate interviewer wants to know if we're losing also our edge, if the magazine is selling out, hitting the mainstream, if we're still committed to publishing unknowns, and pieces killed by other magazines.

And the fact is, I don't give a fuck. When we did the last issue, this was my thought process: I saw a box. So I decided we'd do a box. We were given stories by some of our favorite writers--George Saunders, Rick Moody (who is uncool, uncool!), Haruki Murakami, Lydia Davis, others--and so we published them. Did I wonder if people would think we were selling out, that we were not fulfilling the mission they had assumed we had committed ourselves to?

No. I did not. Nor will I ever. We just don't care. We care about doing what we want to do creatively. We want to be interested in it. We want it to challenge us. We want it to be difficult. We want to reinvent the stupid thing every time. Would I ever think, before I did something, of how those with sellout monitors would respond to this or that move? I would not. The second I sense a thought like that trickling into my brain, I will put my head under the tires of a bus.

You want to know how big a sellout I am?

A few months ago I wrote an article for Time magazine and was paid $12,000 for it. I am about to write something, 1,000 words, 3 pages or so, for something called Forbes ASAP, and for that I will be paid $6,000. For two years, until five months ago, I was on the payroll of ESPN magazine, as a consultant and sometime contributor. I was paid handsomely for doing very little. Same with my stint at Esquire. One year I spent there, with little to no duties. I wore khakis every day. Another Might editor and I, for almost a year, contributed to Details magazine, under pseudonyms, and were paid $2000 each for what never amounted to more than 10 minutes work--honestly never more than that. People from Hollywood want to make my book into a movie, and I am probably going to let them do so, and they will likely pay me a great deal of money for the privilege.

Do I care about this money? I do. Will I keep this money? Very little of it. Within the year I will have given away almost a million dollars to about 100 charities and individuals, benefiting everything from hospice care to an artist who makes sculptures from Burger King bags. And the rest will be going into publishing books through McSweeney's.

Would I have been able to publish McSweeney's if I had not worked at Esquire? Probably not. Where is the $6000 from Forbes going? To a guy named Joe Polevy, who wants to write a book about the effects of radiator noise on children in New England.

Now, what if I were keeping all the money? What if I were buying property in St. Kitt's or blew it all on live-in prostitutes? What if, for example, I was, a few nights ago, sitting at a table in SoHo with a bunch of Hollywood slash celebrity acquaintances, one of whom I went to high school with, and one of whom was Puff Daddy? Would that make me a sellout? Would that mean I was a force of evil?

What if a few nights before that I was at the home of Julian Schnabel, at a party featuring Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, and at which Schnabel said we should get together to talk about him possibly directing my movie? And what if I said sure, let's? Would all that make me a sellout? Would I be uncool? Would it have been more cool to not go to this party, or to not have written that book, or done that interview, or to have refused millions from Hollywood?

The thing is, I really like saying yes. I like new things, projects, plans, getting people together and doing something, trying something, even when it's corny or stupid. I am not good at saying no. And I do not get along with people who say no. When you die, and it really could be this afternoon, under the same bus wheels I'll stick my head if need be, you will not be happy about having said no. You will be kicking your ass about all the no's you've said. No to that opportunity, or no to that trip to Nova Scotia or no to that night out, or no to that project or no to that person who wants to be naked with you but you worry about what your friends will say.

No is for wimps. No is for pussies. No is to live small and embittered, cherishing the opportunities you missed because they might have sent the wrong message. There is a point in one's life when one cares about selling out and not selling out. One worries whether or not wearing a certain shirt means that they are behind the curve or ahead of it, or that having certain music in one's collection means that they are impressive, or unimpressive.

Thankfully, for some, this all passes. I am here to tell you that I have, a few years ago, found my way out of that thicket of comparison and relentless suspicion and judgment. And it is a nice feeling. Because, in the end, no one will ever give a shit who has kept shit "real" except the two or three people, sitting in their apartments, bitter and self-devouring, who take it upon themselves to wonder about such things. The keeping real of shit matters to some people, but it does not matter to me. It's fashion, and I don't like fashion, because fashion does not matter.

What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand. What matters is that the Flaming Lips's new album is ravishing and I've listened to it a thousand times already, sometimes for days on end, and it enriches me and makes me want to save people. What matters is that it will stand forever, long after any narrow-hearted curmudgeons have forgotten their appearance on goddamn 90210. What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who's up and who's down, but what someone has done and if they meant it. What matters is that you want to see and make and do, on as grand a scale as you want, regardless of what the tiny voices of tiny people say. Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes.

I say yes, and Wayne Coyne says yes, and if that makes us the enemy, then good, good, good. We are evil people because we want to live and do things. We are on the wrong side because we should be home, calculating which move would be the least damaging to our downtown reputations. But I say yes because I am curious. I want to see things. I say yes when my high school friend tells me to come out because he's hanging with Puffy. A real story, that. I say yes when Hollywood says they'll give me enough money to publish a hundred different books, or send twenty kids through college. Saying no is so fucking boring.

And if anyone wants to hurt me for that, or dismiss me for that, for saying yes, I say Oh do it, do it you motherfuckers, finally, finally, finally.

By David Eggers

Junior year Liz says: "I want to join the peace corps after college, and I want to learn more languages, and I want to learn them fluently, and I want to be a writer, and I don't want to be living in the United States five years from now."

Junior year Liz is winning.

Comment and I’ll give you a letter. In your journal, list 10 of your favorite songs that begin with that letter.

From Simon—N:

Napoleon - Ani Difranco

Narcolepsy - Third Eye Blind

Necessary Evil - The Dresden Dolls

Never Let You Go - Third Eye Blind

New Frontier - Counting Crows

Night at the Roses - The Dresden Dolls

Nothing Better - The Postal Service

Norwegian Wood - The Beatles

Not a Pretty Girl - Ani Difranco

Not So Soft - Ani Difranco

This was much harder than I thought. It was almost impossible to come up with 10 songs I liked that started with N, let alone songs that were favorites.

ROCHESTER WOMEN'S RUGBY EMAILED ME BACK AND THEY START PRACTICE ON TUESDAY AND I AM GOING. GOING. GOING. THERE ARE NOT WORDS TO DESCRIBE MY EXCITEMENT ON THIS. IT SURPASSES MOST EVERYTHING. YES YES YES.

ALSO, I MAY SEE THE COUNTING CROWS ON MONDAY.

ALSO ALSO, I MAY SEE ANI IN SEPTEMBER BEFORE I LEAVE.

ALSO ALSO ALSO, THE UNIVERSE IS BEAUTIFUL AND I AM FULL OF TOO MUCH JOY RIGHT NOW FOR LOWERCASE LETTERS.

Dear 1, You’re the worst thing that ever happened to me. Too bad I will never be able to say this to you.

Dear 2, I don’t know what to say other than I’m sorry. I really don’t. I don’t know how to explain myself better than I all ready have.

Dear 3, If you hadn’t been there, my summer would have been dramatically different. I know I can say that about almost anyone who was there, but really? You kept me from leaving at least once, and I learned so very much from you. Thanks for being my friend.

Dear 4, You’re never going to read this and that’s good, because I’d never be able to actually tell you how flamy you were the last time I saw you. I doubt you’ll ever switch teams, but it cracked me up.

Dear 5, You and I have more contradictory feelings on “the issues” than almost anyone I’ve ever met, and from what I’ve heard, you’re next to convinced that I’m going to hell. Thanks for never saying that to me. Thanks for respecting me. Thanks for being nice to me, even. It completely shocked me. If no one had told me that you felt weird about a lesbian working at camp, I wouldn’t have ever guessed. Thank you for showing me that the Christian right isn’t comprised completely of terrible people.

Dear 6, ...yep. I got nothing.

I came home from camp Saturday. I'm stronger than I was when I left, physically and emotionally. I'd even go as far as to say it made me a better person, more myself than I've been in a long time. I had an amazing summer. I think that one of the few good decisions I made this last spring was to go back, and I'll stick by that decision no matter how many times I get asked "Are you back from that stupid camp? Why'd you go there anyway?" by people who are named Shades.

I have so much more to say about camp, but that may have to wait until I feel like typing up excerpts from my paper journal. There's just too much to condense into a few generic "I did this and it was good" sentences.

Heads up for people who may not know this but still read livejournal: I'm moving to Turkmenistan on September 29 to teach English with the Peace Corps. I'd like to see you before I leave, if possible. Let me know when you are in the Rochester/Oberlin/Poughkeepsie/Toronto areas, because those are places I'll be between now and then.

Things I am abnormally excited about that were not conveniently available at camp:

TOFU TOFU TOFU. Hummus. Sprouts. Peaches. Most (vegetarian) food, actually. Cooking. Lifting weights. Riding my bike. Rugby (email me back soon please, Rochester rugby team!). Music, particularly inappropriate music. The internet. Sushi. Good coffee. People who were not at camp.

today I put Caitlin on a bus and I do not know when I will see her again.

it is possible likely that it will not be for another two and a half years.

there is a lot of emptiness in my house now that was not there four hours ago.

Comment here & I'll...

1 - Tell you why I friended you.

2 - Associate you with something. A fandom, a song, a colour, a piece of fruit. SOMETHING.

3 - Tell you something I like about you.

4 - Tell you a memory I have of you.

5 - Associate you with a character/pairing.

6 - Ask something I've always wanted to know about you. (Or else I'll just ask a random question. I reserve that right.)

7 - Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.

8 - In return, you must spread this disease in your LJ.

Jefferson Airplane: Don't you want somebody to love?

Tricia: Yes.

Jefferson Airplane: Don't you need somebody to love?

Tricia: Probably.

Jefferson Airplane: Wouldn't you love somebody to love?

Tricia: Yes.

Jefferson Airplane: You'd better find somebody to love.

Tricia: Stop asking all the right questions!