Super Alisa!

Today, Snarky Cards is 2 years old, and I’m 30 years old. I’ve been slinging my shit around town, for the last two years. On July 4th, 2007, I didn’t have a job, and I walked out of my house, with my home-made box, determined to make my own rent with my own words. And I did! That was the first day I started showing up in bars and insisting that you drunks give me money for my witt! This post is about me. Because it’s my birthday. So there are a lot of pictures of me. I hope you don’t mind. I made sure that my boobs show a lot, to make the narcissism more palatable.

I love my life. I’m pretty happy with all the things I’ve done so far, with the 30 years I nailed down. And I’m a list maker. So this is a list of all the shit that I’ve done that I’m pleased with:

Me, in 2003

1. I’m a writer. I write for a living. There are people in my town, who get excited when they hear that I’ve written something new. Some people, who don’t live in my town get excited when they hear I’ve written something new. When I was six years old I announced to my parents, and my teacher Mrs. Newman, that I was going to be a writer when I grew up. My parents laughed. And Mrs. Newman looked at me with pity. “My daughter’s a writer, and it’s really hard.” She explained. I’m glad I came through on my early promise. And, hopefully, my parents are eating that laughter. Well, they probably are. They don’t really like what I write. They’re fundamentalist Christians. And last I heard, Jon (my father) called my cards “Nasty Cards”. That’s what you fuckers  get for laughing at me. I will write things that embarass and shame you for the rest of your lives. And everyone but you will think it’s awesome.

Me at a Funhouse Party. I think this was my third wardrobe change that night. I think I made out with 3 guys that night too!

2. Not everyone has some kind of life-plan. And sometimes, I have felt like mine was a curse. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was six, and I was pissed at myself when I was 20 for not writing a book, and getting it published. I was pissed at myself because I wasn’t famous or because I wasn’t a good enough writer, or a confident enough person to send what I had written to a publisher. I thought the nervous break-down that was my twenties was a waste of time. The problem is, I needed the time to get over the abuse I suffered as a kid.

Me in 2005 in Saturn Cafe with The Bexter.

I needed that nervous breakdown, it healed me, so I could get over all that shit and move on. All of the depressive painting and emotive poetry I made in that time seemed like a waste. My art helped me express how I felt, but I felt like a freak, and my art was so painful, no-one wanted to look at it for very long. Don’t get me started on the fucking poetry.

I could sell anything, and I made a pretty OK Office Bitch back in the day. I took whatever job would pay my rent and therapy. It seemed like I’d never get to be the kind of person I wanted to be. It took me until this year to realize that all of the shitty poetry I’ve written, and sad painting I’ve done, and little businesses I’ve worked at, all of the sales jobs I’ve taken in my life, and all of the books I’ve sold, prepared me for this writing life. My guerilla sales tactics come from me learning how to sell to pay my rent. Now I get that I wasn’t just wasting time, hoping that something better would happen to me, I was learning skills I needed in order to do this. And The Universe seems like it all makes sense. Some fucked up shit will probably happen to me again, and I’ll feel like The Universe is a Dick again, but right now, I feel like all of the jobs I’ve ever had got me ready for this. And my past makes sense.

In this picture, I am wearing my prostitute dress. Which I stole from my friend KT.

3. It looks like Snarky Cards is opening new doors. I’m working on some scripts, and I’m going to be working with a local film-maker soon, so that I can make Snarky Card Short Films, using my cards as part of the dialogue. And I’ve got a web series I’m going to start making this year too. It’s unpaid, and so it will be pain-staking, and it will take a long-ass-fucking-time, but I won’t have to be an art prostitute forever. Which is good, because my liver can’t handle this shit forever. And once my scripts become shorts or a web series, maybe I can jam my foot in the door of television writing.

This is my favorite fake family!

Television is my happy place. It gives me my moral compass (judging Amy), and it taught me small talk (NYPD blue) and it taught me how to love myself as much as I try to love my lovers (ER) it gave me Fake Dad’s and Fake Mom’s and Fake Boyfriends, and it helped me develop sociological theories that I have impressed people with at parties. The idea that I can contribute to a world that has given me so much amazes and delights me.

Isn't Dan Futterman hot?

Also: Jeff Johnston -who I offered my virginity to, and who declined because he (still) has an attachment to his own virginity- has been living in LA since forever, trying to be a Christian Actor for the last couple of years. When I was 15, I wrote him secret love letters telling him I could write for television and he could act in my shows. He didn’t take me up on it. If I can become famous first, maybe I can publicly shame him for rejecting me when I was a teenager. And then he’ll be sorry for not Doing It with me.

Me at the river last year! My room-mate Libby and I went out there to swim and chill.

4. Which brings me to the fourth thing I’m super proud of: I have slept with at least 83 people. I’m sure it’s more than that by now. I haven’t updated the list in a year or two. But I know that it is at least 83 people. No matter how fat I got. or how depressed I was, boys still thought I was cute and I still had great sex. Somehow, my charisma always shows through. And ever since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted to be wanted. I have always wanted to be known as a seductress. Dolly Parton was one of my first idols as a child. And she modeled herself after the town whore. Someday I pray that there is a team of female impersonators pretending to be me.That is my idea of having made something of your life.

See? I might be fat, but I'm totally hot. Or at least, these boys thought so last week at Kate's party.

I may not like the fact that I’m still kinda fat. But I’m still totally hot. I have huge, sexy boobs, and eyebrows that wiggle suggestively on their own. You can hear my laugh a block away, and boys still surprise themselves, by coming on to me. So while I’m not quite the seductress of the century (yet) I’m in the running. If I keep it up, I can totally make the cut in the next twenty years.

This is my newest tattoo! Which I got last year from Lucid Ink.

5. I’ve spent the last decade weeding out the people who say they love me and can’t actually hang with my personality, from the people who say they love me and think that I’m hilarious when I tell it like it is. All of the people who are in my life now are people who like me for my psychotic bravery, and foul mouth, they can accept my perpetual tardiness, and they think it’s funny that I turn everything into an art project. They don’t mind the eyeful of breasts that they constantly get as my friends and companions, and they don’t have a problem telling me when I’ve pushed too hard or too far and I need to fuck off. They help me when they can, and they ask for my help when they need it. I’m proud to love the people I have in my life now, and be loved by them.

This is me and Mario, who used to be one of my best customers. Until he moved to San Diego.

6. “Can I just tell you that I’m so glad that we now spend hours talking about your career instead of your shitty parents?!” The Bexter exclaimed a few weeks ago, when I updated her on all the cool shit I’m doing. I agreed with her. I still mention my shitty childhood, because it still happened, but I’m not hung up on it anymore. Not like I was. I finally feel over a lot of the shit that happened to me when I was a kid. And I feel like having it happen to me allows me to be more compassionate, and more real. And also, I get to make molested jokes. (Because I was molested). Which rocks. Because child sex abuse jokes are funny. And it makes people uncomfortable when I say molested. Which I think is funny.

Snarky Cards is my way of making the kind of life I want for myself. And I thank you, Internets from every crevice I’ve got for supporting me and buying my cards, and reading my posts, and helping me make this bad-ass fucking life for myself.

Happy Birthday! Thanks for helping me get this far!