Here's my broken leg, after the surgery!

Dear Internets,

I spent the first week after I broke my leg at Joy’s house. I had a lot of pain. I was worried about over-stepping. I was worried about exhausting her. I was embarrassed because of all the help I needed. I was hungry, and it was hard for me to get to the kitchen. I was dirty. I was poor. I had to move, and I wasn’t allowed to walk for another 6-8 weeks.

As my doctor explained it, I had blown out the back half of my left ankle. And they had to use screws, plates and wire to put all the tiny chips of bone back together. But it wasn’t just that. My good leg was now my bad leg.

They gave me an open cast, wrapping it in a few ace bandages. That way the foot wouldn't swell bigger than the cast.

My leg had been opened up, and the bones mended. It was in a cast. And the doctor told me under no circumstances was I to walk on it, or even rest it on the ground. He didn’t have to tell me that. After surgery your leg swells up if you lower it beneath your heart. I couldn’t lie flat in bed for more than ten minutes before the pain would start cascading down. I had to keep it elevated at all times.

As a cripple: once you realize you have to go to the bathroom, you lie in bed for 10 minutes, (because sitting up is too exhausting and painful, you will lie down for the first month after surgery) you’re gaging your pain, trying to figure out if you need to take a pain pill before you go, or if you should wait. How long will it take? Will the painkiller make you dizzier? Will it knock you out before you get back to bed? Eventually you decide.

Hopping from your bed to the bathroom takes concentration. You’re using a walker, and one leg, trying to keep your broken leg above the floor, looking out for things that may trip you. In the 5 minutes it takes for you to hop from your bed, to the bathroom, your leg has swollen painfully inside your cast. By the time you’re sitting on the toilet, it’s throbbing. So, it takes more concentration than normal to pee. And if you have to poo? Pushing sends blood flow downwards. So, a good shit will make your broken bone swell even more. The longer your pee takes, the harder it is to hop back to your bed, because your mind is kinda full of pain. But, you’ve been in bed for a while now. And so you always take a few extra minutes to enjoy the bathroom. Because it’s not your bed. And you miss not being in bed.

So the hop back is harder, and you have to concentrate, to make sure you don’t fall, or trip on something. If you have to sit down between the bathroom and the bedroom, your leg swells up even more. You may need the rest, because your unbroken leg is holding all of your weight, and the strain is making that half of your ass twitch in a scary way. But the longer you sit, the more it hurts too. You’re sweating and panting by the time you actually lay down again. Each bathroom trip means 2 hours of laying down, with your foot elevated above your head, in order to get the swelling down to a manageable level.

My beautiful sister, who bathed, fed and watered me back to health

Three bathroom trips a day were about all I could manage. I couldn’t get myself water, or make myself food. So before Joy left in the morning, she would put as much food next to me as she could. Like leaving a food dish next to the sleeping form of an old dog. So he didn’t have to walk across the room.

For the first few days, I cursed myself for not making more friends. I had just moved to Seattle, 3 months before. But I’d been visiting all summer, and before that, for years. Why hadn’t I made more friends? Why hadn’t I put more effort into relationships? I obsessed over being dependent on Joy. And she obsessed over it too.

My friend Carly, who checked on me, brought me video's and cheered me up relentlessly

But by the end of the first week, my fears had dissolved. I may not have made a lot of friends, but the friends I’d made were kind and went out of their way to help me. During the day, enough people would stop by, that I was fed and watered, and almost never bored. Sparkle Pussy, Joy’s boyfriend, Prince Eric, my friends Colin, Carly, Trevor, Timmy and Pia all chipped in to help me get through the day.

Seattle has given me the gift of friends who will hang out with me even when I’m crippled It’s like that Alanis Morisette song “That I would Be Good”.

This is how I felt about my fucking feelings most of the time.

Which is another aspect of this broken leg thing that’s kind of bullshit. I’m so fucking emotional. Between the pain and the painkillers, my complete vulnerability and having to ask people for stuff EVERY DAY. “Can you get me some water? Can you get my pants? Can you help me shower? Can you bring me some food?” And all of my new relationships were tested, and I was so fucking grateful when they came through. All of which left me scared, nervous, embarrassed, grateful, hopeful, sentimental, loving, and a little horrified at my condition, at the same time, all the time. Feeling all of those goddamn feelings has made me do insane things, like finding an Alanis Morisette song which completely describes my relationship. And then saying that. On the Internets. Where everyone can read it and laugh.

Added to all this was me and Joy. Living together. One of us completely dependent on the other. Like a lot of sisters we fight constantly. But even when we’re not fighting, even when we are laughing together, some silent tension keeps us at odds.

Our forced time together helped me untangle some of this. I realized that I wish she were an entirely different person. And she thinks that I do stupid things. The other person I wish she was used to exist. But it was 20 years ago. Back then I liked her, but I wished our lives were different, our parents less abusive, or at least richer, so we could be comforted with money when their damage got to be too much. So I’ve been trying to wish things different all along. Back then, Joy still thought I did stupid things.

I think that living in her house, utterly depending on her made me realize that while she has fundamentally changed since we were small, some of those changes are good. And after meeting my friends, and packing and moving all of my stuff, and making decisions with me for the last month, I think Joy has decided that not EVERYTHING I do is stupid.

I think, for the first time, we started to see ourselves in each other. She fed me, bathed me, started moving all of my stuff out of Homoasis, worked 40 hours a week at her job, spent time with her boyfriend and worked on her side projects (She organizes charity events in her spare time, for spare cash). After two weeks of all of that, she started to fall apart. But falling apart didn’t slow her down. It was the first time I’ve ever seen anyone besides me do that. I found it endearing. And alarming. Because while she charged full speed ahead, I knew she was crashing into a wall of her own limitations. Soon.

I hate medicine. And I have a deep and abiding fear of becoming addicted to opiates. This fear translates into amnesia. I forget about painkillers, because I never really consider them an option. I don’t have any Tylenol in my house because I never remember to take it. When my leg isn’t broken, if I’m in pain, then I ignore it. If the pain gets really bad, I slow down; taking longer and longer to accomplish tasks. Which annoys me. So, I call myself a pussy, and try to make myself speed up. Eventually, my body gives up, and there’s nothing my mind can do to get it going again. This usually results in me crying and yelling at myself. Eventually, I smoke a little weed, which calms me down enough to help me realize “Oh. I’m in pain. That’s why I’m going slow. I think I need to quit for now, and rest.” and then I go to sleep.

Did you notice how at NO POINT, I took any kind of medicine? Yeah. That’s literally my process. While my leg was broken, it went a little differently. Usually Joy or someone else was there by the time I’d get to crying. And they’d say “Take a pain pill, you idiot.” And then I would, and things would get better. For about 15 minutes, until I fell asleep. After a while she would say really annoying things like “Do you know how upset it makes me when you don’t take your pain medication?”

Apparently, Joy pulls that kind of shit too. On her own body. Which is kind of impressive, because she has Fibromyalga. So, it takes a little more than a “Don’t be a pussy” pep-talk to get her moving when she’s in pain. After a while I reminded her of herself so much that she called an old boyfriend. And apologized. “I’m taking care of Alisa. And she’s acting exactly like me. And I’m starting to realize how difficult I was.”

Luckily, when Joy broke, Carly and Trevor and I were all hanging out, talking shit about people we know. We all looked at each other, with wide worried eyes. She had tried to make a joke out of her chiropractor bill; not realizing that it wasn’t even remotely funny. Joy is as charismatic as I am. She can tell a joke. That was when I realized she’d hit the wall.

The lovely and fantastic Trevor, who took me into his home even when he didn't have to.

She left the room and I said “I’m literally breaking her!” Trevor nodded “Yes. We can’t let this continue. Why don’t you come stay with me at my house?” I was really surprised. Who invites a cripple to crash on their couch? It’s crazy. Trevor is a wonderful person, but we were casual friends. Not “I’ll help you shower when you are filthy, smelly and incapable of doing it alone.” or “I will feed you every meal you need, and let you watch tv all day, every day on my couch for as long as you need.” friends. Carly was nodding. “Yeah, I’ll drive you and your stuff over.” She agreed. I was stunned. And hopeful. And excited.

It was the break we needed, in order to survive. I was starting to freak out about Joy breaking down. And Joy was starting to break down. I didn’t even tell her until I needed to start packing, I didn’t think she (or I) would be able to take it if it fell through.

Trevor made me yummy food, and his dog and I fell in love. I slept. And watched awesome television. And took drugs. And had a steady stream of friends come over to keep me company.

Joy spent the next three days sleeping.

And then we started to get ready to move all of my shit, my cats and my crippled ass into a new place.

This is me, selling my Snarky Cards earlier this year, at the Wild Rose. God, I miss walking.

I’m trying to be as honest, while telling you this story, dear Internets, as I can. Which means it takes me a while to craft the story. In between saga’s, I’m trying to make new cards, and post them on my etsy shop. And call my stores, and pay my bills, but I still can’t walk. And I can’t go out and sell. Which I usually do to pay my bills.

Dress sexy! I've been crippled for 2 months. I am sex starved. I want your ass as my eye-candy!

So, this month I need help. My sister is throwing me a fund-raiser on March 30^th, from 8:30 pm at Waid’s on Capital Hill. The theme is doctors and nurses. Sex it up, and be ready to dance. Don’t have a costume? Come as patient. I want to see lots of awesome head wounds! Door prizes for best dressed and most creative costume (or costume posse)
Prizes include: Snarky cards, Snarky Paintings and Fuck You panties! The $10 door fee for the night goes to paying my medical and other bills. It will be a great dance party, and it’ll make a huge difference in my life if you can attend.

Snarky Cards! Which you can find on the website! Or at my fundraiser!

If you can’t, please look at my etsy site, and find something you need. I’ve been updating it like crazy, so there will be something that cracks you the fuck up. And the sales from my site are all I’ve got, besides the fund-raiser, to help feed and clothe me. You can send a paypal donation to snarky cards at gmail dot com.

Thanks for listening to my tale of woe. I hope that you are well,  and that your life is easy and kind.

Love, Alisa

Their street names are Tres Perras Locas: 3 crazy bitches. Yuriko, Marisi, and Joy, my sister. Twin to Janis, the muppet to the left.

Janis, my sister's muppet twin

Dear Internets,

I seem to have seamlessly slipped into my new life. I’ve been volunteering at Twilight Artist Collective, and this week, Joy and I saw the Muppets movie together. We texted Stephenie, because he loves the muppets more than he loves chocolate. When we were deciding what time to go, I said “You know, I’ve always worried that I was Miss Piggy. And I’ve always worried that I wasn’t Miss Piggy.” Joy burst out laughing. “Shit! You are Miss Piggy!”

We got our seats in the theater, and Joy opened her bottle of Saki. I’m taking a break from drinking, so I just had one celebratory sip. When we were first starting our lives, Joy and I both had fake names. I went by Molly at work, because people told me that I looked just like Molly Ringwald. And Joy went by Janis, because she looked like the muppet, Janis. I’d told people at the bar that the night before and my friend Colin bent over laughing. “She does!” he said while gasping for air. “I didn’t want to saying anything before!” Joy and I pointed out scenes to each other in which our alter-egos had done a particularly good job. And we held hands while Kermit and Miss Piggy sang the Rainbow Connection.

Christmas Cards are now up on etsy! Get yours today!

And Thursday, I ran into my friend Colin at the bars, so I knocked off work early and went back to his house, to make jokes in his living room.

All these little moments, going to the movies with my sister, hanging out with my friends on the spur of the moment, were so painfully absent in my Portland life. I feel like I’m treating myself by letting myself indulge in them now. And they let me feel loved. They make me feel like I have a life, and I am more than just a Snarky Card machine, created and adored simply so that I can entertain and nudge people towards emotional honesty. I think that’s the root of why I started to feel so angry with Portland. As a town, it embraced my cards. It loved my creativity, and was astounded by my nerve, but very few people wanted to go to the movies with me, or hang out with me after the bar.

And next week I’m the starr of open mike night at 22 doors. One of my favorite bars.

You can buy this this Sunday at 22 doors on Capitol Hill!

I don’t exactly know what I’m going to be doing, or saying. But I’m pretty sure I’ll say a lot of funny things. About my Vagina. And I’ll probably be showing off my boobs. And I’ll be doing custom cards, with my typewriter, Bob. And I’ll have my paintings and my cards and my undies.

So, from 8 to 11 this Sunday night, I’ll be at 22 doors in Capitol Hill: 405 15th Ave E, Seattle, Wa. Come, laugh at my exploits, buy some cards, eat some yummy food, drink some booze and hit on some hotties. See ya then!

Love,

Alisa

My name is Alisa Starr. And 2 weeks ago, I moved from Portland to Seattle. I make Snarky Cards: Brutally Honest Greeting Cards. I sell them in bars from a box that hangs beneath my boobs. I also have them in lots of stores. And I’ve made and sold 45,767 Snarky Cards so far.

I’ve been planning and working on this move for a couple of months. And I’m a little surprised that I pulled it off.

And I’m uncomfortable, finding new places for things I can’t quite decide if I should have kept. My room is too small for all of my shit. Or maybe I should have just burned everything and started over, instead of shlepping all these journals and craft tools and books and dvds from that tiny, shitty town I’ve escaped.

I called Stephen in a panic. “Nothing. Is. Organized.” Anguish made my voice shrill. Stephen remembers the satisfied look on my face when I finally made file folders for all of the love letters I got in high school. And organized them by sender, and year and month. “I know you can do this, Alisa. You can organize anything.” He spoke slowly, so I had to really pay attention to him. He also sounded really sure, so I thought about it. And I remembered that the list of people I’ve slept with has it’s own file folder. I started thinking maybe I just have the wrong furniture.

“But why is it so hard?” I whined to Arlette. “This was so easy when I was young! I used to do it all the time! I thought it was fun!”

“Remember how fucked up we were? Yeah, moving was fun because all we had to concentrate on for a few days, was putting things in a box and hauling them from one place to another. Now we like our lives. We’re comfortable. And moving is exhausting.” I thought about it for a minute. “Oh. Yeah. I was pretty sure I was gonna end up in jail or in a mental ward until I was, like, 27. And moving was a vacation from worrying about that shit.” My voice caught a little bit. I hadn’t realized those fears had passed until right then.

This is me at my landlord Jen's house, for Thanksgiving. That's Seattle behind me. Isn't it pretty? Isn't it nice that Jen invited me to her house for Thanksgiving? Yes. I do look very, very tired. I am really tired.

I love my new house, a thousand times more than I loved that shitty apartment I used to inhabit. The house is old. And, unlike my old apartment, nothing is my fault. If something doesn’t work, I don’t have to fix it, or report it, and then get in trouble, because my land-lord is an asshole, and is pretty sure everything is my fault.

If a bill comes, I don’t have to collect the money to pay it before something gets shut-off. The walls are not permanently stained by my hair-dye, or my Snarky Card paint. I don’t have to fill the house with furniture, and I alone am not responsible for making sure that the walls are covered with inviting art. I just have to keep my space clean, and write checks when the money is due. It’s such a relief. I had no idea how much of a constant worry that apartment was until it wasn’t anymore.

And my new landlord is  awesome, and nice, as opposed to the property management company I’ve been dealing with for the last six years, who used to exude a freakish amount of despair and weirdly displaced anger for a small office operating in a supposedly friendly town.

This is my friend Alice! This is the pillow she made for my ass, when she heard that my new studio has a cement floor. Isn't Alice nice?

My new office/paint studio, is no longer My Living Room. Which means that my room-mates and their guests no longer randomly wander into the middle of my 12 hour painting jag and emotionally vomit all of their problems all over me, both annoying and distracting me.  It’s cold, and the floor is cement. So, I need to get cushions. And maybe a space heater. But the ass-cushion Alice made me before I left, and my paint sweaters seem to be doing the job all right. And the privacy allows me to get lost in my work. Which is something I treasure so much. I need that psycho-paint-a-thon head space. It gives me relief so that I can go out and sell cards.

My cats are happy. And I didn’t lose that much shit in the move. And I have friends. And selling here is pure joy. It’s so easy. People just seem to like my cards. And me. And they enjoy buying them. And they’re so fucking funny! It was fun being the funniest person in the room in Portland, but this last year it’s just gotten lonely. In Seattle I’m one of a bunch of clever people. And perfect strangers tell me the funniest, most surprising stories. And finally being around people who are as charismatic as me is making me up my game.

So: in conclusion, I live in Seattle now, and even though the move made me really fucking tired, I really like it here. You might see me haunting the bars on Capitol Hill. Or, if you miss me, you can get my Snarky Cards from the Internets. And as a prize, because I’m so delighted by Seattle, Go to http://snarkycards.etsy.com and enter the coupon code seattlerocks, to get FREE SHIPPING!

Love,

Alisa

This is Claire, Snarky Card office bitch. Did you know that some fabulous people made a Yelp for Snarky Cards?! Neither did we! How exciting. Now everyone who loves Snarky Cards and likes to have opinions about things can talk to their hearts content about how awesome Snarky Cards are.

I’ll be keeping you posted on all of the newest Snarky Card Developments. Alisa, is busy making and selling Thanksgiving and Christmas Cards. Which are now for sale on The Internets.

If you want to find Alisa in person, she’s hitting the bars on Capitol Hill in Seattle, WA every weekend, for the next month. You can totally email her to meet you there.

Thanks for loving our shit!

Sincerely,

Claire

This is me, making Snarky Cards. Not Glamorous, I know. but painting is messy.Yes, I'm smoking a joint.

Dear Internets,

As some of you know, My name is Alisa Starr. And I make Snarky Cards: Brutally Honest Greeting Cards. I sell them in bars from a box that hangs beneath my boobs. They will crack you the fuck up.

Here are my boobs to make up for my messy painting picture.

Lately, I’ve been losing myself in my work. I’m learning how to paint new shit. I’m selling like crazy. I’m getting more internet sales. It’s been liberating. Part of that, is because Arlette came to pull me out of the depths of my recent despair.

Arlette is one of a few of The Bad-Ass Bitches. The other girls in this crew are Claire and KT. I keep trying to unite the bitches, and they keep resisting. “What if we’re all in a car accident together?” Rebecca argued reasonably when I complained about her reluctance to enact a scene from my own private Justice League movie. Each of The Bitches has their own unique super-powers. However, all the bitches are hilarious.

This is just one of the gems on pantslock.com

Arlette is really good at making fun of other people. She has other skills. But her ability to call other people on being dicks, even very subtle-y, has always been one of the things I treasure most about her. Recently, Arlette has started a website called Pantslock. It’s a website devoted to REAL introductory emails sent from men on dating sites. I like to think that I helped inspire it. In the early days of my sluttery, I placed a lot of Craigslist ads. I remember printing out some of the creepier and more insane responses to bring to her house, so that we could read them to each other over whiskey.  Sometimes I would get a novel of gibberish. And sometimes I would get insults. And sometimes I would get “Hey! Like yer ad! U wanna hook up?” And then there were unsolicited dick pics. Some of which I kept.

Either way, Arlette has created a nice place on The Internets to submit weird-ass shit that men send you when they see your profile, and want to sleep with you. It’s hilarious. And updated often. And you should totally make it your home-page. I’ve made it mine.

Lately, I’ve been swimming a lot. And I’ve been selling a lot. Meridian Gold Dust, North 45, Circa 33 and the Great Muu-Muu’s have been my hooking grounds. I’ve been digging the Art Prostitute gig. But Seattle keeps tugging on me, and so this weekend, I’m gonna be selling my wares up there. Until then, I’ll see ya at the bar.

Love,

Alisa

For those of you who don’t know, my name is Alisa Starr, and I make Snarky Cards: Brutally Honest Greeting Cards. I sell them in bars from a box that hangs beneath my boobs. They will crack you the fuck up.

For the last few months, I’ve had a lot of Big Stuff happen. I was in a relationship, which messed with my identity. Because I haven’t had a relationship in about ten years. And it ended in a fiery explosion of suckiness. And then I was heart-broken. When things were at their best with Magnum, I was freaked, completely freaked out. “It’s like I spent the last 17 years building this brick wall, and he burst in and punched a hole through it.” I complained to Arlette. “That’s not true. You’ve been taking the wall down, slowly for the last few years. It’s a little more like you got it down from 10 feet to 3 feet high, and he came and kicked those bricks over.” She countered. I harumphed. I didn’t like that I was letting someone in that close. But I couldn’t help myself. I was in love with him. And I haven’t been in love since I was a teenager.

I know this doesn't really fit the post, but I like putting pictures in. And since this post is about my inner turmoil, I thought I'd show you pretty pictures of me. Hoping my boobs would ease the suffering of having to read this. Yes, I'm wearing clown panties.

I knew he would leave me. So did he. I just hoped that before he did, we would have some good times. And I would feel like I was good at it. The boy girl thing, I mean. I just wanted a little hope. Instead, he hurt me as hard as he could and then he left. In retrospect, I should have expected that he was the kind of person who hurts others because he’s unhappy. My parents were those kinds of people. And it would have been a lot to hope for that I’d gotten over my shit enough to date outside my type. We re-enact the most painful things that happen to us over and over again, until we realize that we can’t fix it. And then, hopefully, we move on.

The fact that I was in a relationship kinda fucked with me. The fact that I was broken-hearted rocked my world. For the last four months, I’ve been trying to put back together my sense of myself.

It’s been17 years since I’ve been hurt so badly. Men don’t hurt my feelings. They piss me off. I think that the fact of my pain was worst to me than the pain itself. I just kept thinking I’d made a terrible mistake. My friends were sympathetic, but in the end, they’d shrug and say “Well, yeah, DUH. Sometimes it doesn’t work out and you get hurt.” And then they’d keep talking. But I couldn’t hear whatever came after that. Because I was stuck. Alisa Kay Starr doesn’t get hurt. When a boy pisses her off, she goes out to the bar, and finds another boy to go home with, and she keeps doing that until she can’t remember why she liked the boy who pissed her off in the first place.

But that scenario was not this. I was mopey. And I couldn’t imagine sleeping with anyone who wasn’t Magnum. And I couldn’t figure out what to do with myself to get over it. I asked a few other people about break-up procedures and got nowhere. I wanted a ritual. Something to do with myself while I was waiting for time to do the thing that time usually does. And as I floundered for something to do, I began to question my identity more. I think I was just stunned that anyone got that close. And I felt like an idiot for letting Magnum in. All of which are normal feelings, according to the regular people I know. But they weren’t normal for me. And the fact that I was hurt made me feel like I’d made a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake. And the thing was, I’d waited for him. I never told him this, in fact, I haven’t told very many people this, Internets, but while I’m confiding, I might as well get it all out. I wanted to move last year. But some part of me knew that he’d be free, and we’d hook up, and so I stayed, waiting for him. That little voice in the back of my head, which tells me which cards to give which girl, and when leave for the bus (Alisa doesn’t have a watch. Alisa has intuition. God, talking about myself in the third person is kinda icky.) told me to wait for Magnum. So I did. And being with him gutted me.

This is my most popular card of all time. I don't need any intuition for this card. I just hand it to everyone.

So, naturally, I started to doubt my intuition. The thing is, I depend on my intuition a lot. Snarky Cards is based on it. I try to make as many smarty-pants decisions as I can. But a lot of selling my art isn’t based on the bottom line. Some of it is me, meeting someone, and 30 seconds later, coming up with a pile of cards that fit their life perfectly. People think I’ve read their mind. And I have. It’s my own little psychic trick.

If I don’t trust those instincts, I screw up. But more than that, I start feeling insecure, and then I really screw up. When I get insecure, that part of me that can figure out how you feel about your lover, or you father is operating without any kind of constraint. And so for no apparent reason, I start talking about how much better my relationship has gotten with my grandmother since she died. And your face crumples, and it turns out that your grandmother was the most important part of your life, and she died two days ago. No shit, that kind of stuff happens all the time when I’m not listening to my intuition. Obviously, making people angry/sad is not good for business. And stepping on other peoples feelings depresses and frustrates me. I’ve been able to pull things out of people since I was 11 years old. Being able to pull a grown-ups’ secrets out of them scared the shit out of me as a kid. It took me a long time to figure out what to do with what people tell me, and how to leave their stuff alone. So when I suck at it, it makes me feel 11 again. Overwhelmed by my lame psychic powers.

So, I felt stupid, and sad, and alone, and bad at relationships. And I thought seriously about giving up on Snarky Cards. Because if I can’t read people, I can’t sell. If I can’t sell, I might as well just go try to get a Real Job. And anyway, I am clearly no longer a slut. I don’t drink that much anymore. What’s the point of my tiny little career, anyway? And so on and so on. You get the point, the more I questioned myself, the less sense my life made.

Me and Arlette at our favorite bar in San Francisco

Which makes a lot of sense. My identity was completely changed by Magnum. It’s still changing, in a really big way. And that kind of shift is scary. I don’t think I started to be OK until Arlette came for the weekend. We were going to go out and take over Portland with our unified radness. But in the end, we had a slumber party weekend. We dyed my hair, and went to the goodwill, and Arlette made amazing food, and we talked about stuff, and watched the first season of Veronica Mars. And by the time she left, I felt a little more like myself again. We’ve been best friends for 8 years. And I think I just needed to be with someone I love, who loves me, so that I could feel like “Maybe I don’t suck at this. Maybe I don’t always make shitty decisions about love. Maybe it’s OK that I made a mistake with Magnum.”

And, of course, there’s Karate. Karate and I have been going home from the bar, off and on for the last year. Not seriously. Never more than once a month. But still, it’s the longest I’ve ever had any kind of sexual relationship. And Karate and I see each other at the bar at least once a week. We’re friends with the occasional benefit. In the wake of my Veronica Mars weekend, I think I was feeling stronger. Whenever I’ve been annoyed with the way things are between me and Karate, I tell him, and he thinks about it, and then he does what he can. It was late, and I’d had a lot of whiskey. “You make me feel like I’m good at this stuff.” I sniffled into my drink. He smiled. “You’re really good at this stuff.” he reassured me. From there he went on to say how I’m fucking beautiful. And how I make great art. And, in the end, he was just so nice to me.

The best thing about my relationship with Magnum is that I was so hurt afterwards, I had a hard time walking. He didn’t hit me. But he said some pretty terrible things to me before he ran away. And I think some of my identity un-hinging, was me realizing I just couldn’t be with assholes anymore. They’re my type. It’s my Daddy Issues. I’m always trying to make up with Jon. Not actually with him. Jon is an asshole. He has done and said some horrible things to me. He can’t fix a lot of the shit he’s done. No. My relationship with my actual father is over. And so I date assholes. I think when I was in my early twenties, I thought that it was love when a guy told me I was worthless. Therapy relieved me of that retarded notion. But as I got older, I think I really was trying to figure out if I could make it work with someone who treats me like shit. As practice. Hoping if I could win over an asshole, and get one to act right, I could take those asshole-taming skills back to my father, and give it one last shot. But with Magnum, I think it was just purely habit. And when it was over, and I was literally limping with heart-break, I realized, I have to give up assholes entirely. I need a lot of confidence and a good amount of peace of mind in order to do my job. And I can’t sacrifice any of that to a lover.

Which freaked me out further. I mean, I’m no longer a slut. I’m now a girl who has feelings. And those feelings can get hurt. And so, I can’t date assholes anymore. Some part of me just believed that I would never get laid again. No-one bitches about not getting laid as much as nice guys. It’s a little ironic that I was destitute, because all of a sudden I realized someone would have to be REALLY nice to me in order to get my clothes off. And I just didn’t believe that would ever happen. Maybe because I’ve never had a romantic relationship with someone who was really nice to me.

So, when Karate swept me off my feet, with his compliments, and his kindness, I happily followed him home. And sleeping with Karate again, really made me feel like it’s going to be OK. Karate is a great lover. So, I didn’t feel like I was trading anything in for the niceness of him. And it reassured me that I will have just as many nice lovers as I want.

Beauty and The Beast is still my favorite movie. I mean, she reads, she says what she thinks, she has brown hair, and she turns an asshole into a Prince. It's like Disney selling me my own story.

And, so I figured out that, yeah, all this shit is different. I’m loving differently. I’m letting people in. And that means that my ups and downs will be higher and lower. And I have to let go of this angry slutty girl I used to be. But if I were telling the truth on myself, I’d say that while I was that angry, slutty girl; I incessantly wrote poetry, and I lived for didactic feminist literature. I scrap-booked like crazy. And I was still sentimental as Hell. I really wanted a dog. And I over-identified with Disney movies. I was never adeptly described by two words. No matter how rad those words were. So maybe letting go of those two words is not the end of an identity.

So, I’ve come back to myself. I still like to give strangers advice. I still like to go to bars, no matter how much I drink when I get there. I still like to flirt with every man I meet, whether I go home with them indiscriminately or not. This last month, I’ve started to realize that I’m not ready to give up on Snarky Cards yet. And as my confidence grows back, my intuition comes with it. And I get a little better at all of it.

So, you can see why it’s been so long in between posts. I think that the last time I posted, I was in the middle of this. I wanted to wait until I saw my way out of it a

Me and my typewriter, Bob, and my tits, and my cards

little bit before I wrote about it. I’m still trying to scrape together enough money to move to Seattle in October, and so you might see me out selling at the bars. These days I tend to stick to my favorites: Gold Dust Meridian, Circa 33, North 45, 21st Ave Bar and Grill and my beloved Muu-Muu’s. So, if you want a Snarky Card, from a chick who is trying to pull her head together, stop by any of those bars on a Friday or Satuday night, and keep an eye out for my tits, which will be hanging out of whatever slutty red dress I’ve recently found at the good-will. I’ll happily show you the new shit. And with a $20 purchase, you get a free motor-boat.

Love,

Alisa

This is me, selling my shit in a bar! My tits look enormous because they are enormous

My name is Alisa Starr. I made Snarky Cards: Brutally Honest Greeting Cards. I sell them in bars from a box that hangs beneath my boobs. I also sell them online. And in stores. You can find them all over the place. They will crack you the fuck up.

I’ve turned a few of my bestselling cards into paintings for your pleasure. I hope you like them. I hope you buy them. They’re cluttering up my house, and I need to pay an extraordinarily large electric bill this month, because I live in the goddamn North Pole.

I mean, I know we had an Indian Summer this year, and the days were hot into September. But I didn’t think we’d pay for it by freezing our asses off for all of December. I mean, seriously, it’s the 7th of December. And today I went outside wearing two and three layers, and my ass and my teeth were so cold I couldn’t think straight. And my ass (or The Mountain, as I like to call it) does not get cold. Ever. I keep it enormous so that it keeps me warm. It’s the size of my friend Lauren’s studio apartment. So the fact that The Mountain froze means that we have some seriously crazy-ass weather going down right now. I mean, it would have been warmer if it had snowed. How fucked up is that?

So, I hope that you enjoy my paintings, because I need to heat The Art Shack.

This was the first Snarky Card that I ever wrote. It sells like crazy. Everyone loves this card. Well, who can blame them. Everyone loves rejection, when you can do it to someone else.

There’s something secretly delicious about rejecting other people. Whether you’re interviewing for a job, apartment hunting, or plain old dating, being the first one to conclude that “This isn’t going to work” comes with it’s own secret, guilty, glee. When you reject first, it implies that you’re better than that job, apartment, person. Or that you think you’re better (which is the same thing, really).

And this card doesn’t have any bad words, and no real assignment of blame. It simply states that you think you’re better than someone else. And so you can’t see any kind of future relationship. Which is what you mean when you say all the crap you find yourself saying when you’re trying to “dump someone nicely”. (Which by the way is a waste of time).

Maybe you take home people for the wrong reasons.

Like the time I took home that Frank Sinatra impersonator, which was ironic, because I hate Frank. Or the time I slept with a guy because he made a bad (as in poor quality) racist joke. Or the time that I took a guy home because he made great physical comedy with the pads that come in my double D bras, or the time I took a guy home because I thought that we knew each other on Friendster, and had been flirting for weeks. But it turned out we hadn’t, and I didn’t know him at all, he had been purposefully vague so he could get some action. Or the time I slept with a guy because he had cancer. I mean, he didn’t have it anymore, but he hadn’t had sex since he’d had cancer, which is apparently traumatizing. Or the time I slept with a guy because he said he was friends with Kaytee Sackhoff. Or the time I slept with a guy because he was sad. Or the time I slept with a guy because he had a pretty name (Tyler Jewell). By the way, don’t ever do that. His name was pretty. And so was he. And he graded me after sex. I didn’t get an A. But he didn’t really inspire my best kung-fu. And also: he was not giving me much to work with. But did I want to talk about it afterwards? No. I did not.I wanted to pretend like it was good and then walk my ass home. What the fuck, Tyler Jewell? Or the time I slept with that guy because he made a lot of dead-prostitute jokes.

I have a history of bad sexual decisions. And I appreciate it every time someone says that they love me, despite the fact that I offer my vagina up to boys for random and sometimes indiscernible reasons.

So I made this card because I love this idea. That my friends care about me, no matter what kind of crazy random stranger-hate-sex I engage in. And I love that it’s a painting now. I hope you buy it for someone who you love, or someone who you love, who puts my bad sexual decisions to shame.

And then, there’s Fuck you and your fucking Feelings. Maybe you need learn how to tell people to fuck off. Maybe you’re the kind of person to whom strangers tell secrets for no apparent reason, and you’re tired of it. Maybe you are responsible for everyone’s feelings, and you want to take a vacation from that particularly lame job. Or maybe you hate feelings and sees them as a sign of weakness.

Whatever your deal is, I hope you hate feelings enough to buy this painting, which tells feelings to fuck off.

So: Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you don’t have to look at ugly people, or eat bad food, or sleep somewhere cold, or have sex with someone you no longer like, or go without sex. I hope that all of your regular problems dissipate into the Christmas booze and food and generosity that they always talk about on tv!

As some of you already know, my name is Alisa Starr and I make Snarky Cards: Brutally Honest Greeting Cards. I sell them in bars from a box that hangs beneath my boobs. They will crack you the fuck up.

$30 at Rock 'n' Rose!

Some of you may remember that I promised you Snarky Card Paintings. And I delivered. You can now purchase these lovely  paintings at for $30 each at Rock ‘n’ Rose! It’s an awesome store at 616 E Burnside, in  Portland, Oregon. They specialize in Vintage Clothes, but they also have kick-ass jewelry, belt buckles (A Pac-Man belt buckle! Seriously.), and new clothes by local designers. Rock ‘n’ Rose kicks ass, and they have been kind enough to carry my First! Ever! Snarky Paintings in their store.

The painful Vagina! $30 at Rock'n'Rose!

If you don’t live in Portland, and you’d like some of these delightful paintings, you can still buy them. Feel free to call or email Rock ‘n’ Rose to ask them about shipping!

As you can see, I took a few of my most popular cards, and put them on Canvass. I hope you are pleased. They look ok, right?

Wouldn't this make you feel better, if you saw it on your wall everyday? Only $30

The thing is; paintings are different. They’re bigger! And they’re art, so they’re permanant, so I made a Snarky Painting that’s never been a card: The A-hole Mirror. I get that this shit will go on your wall, and I wanted you to have something nice to say to yourself over and over again.

It's nice right? I can live with being a Huge Bitch if I'm loved.

I really liked making these paintings.

And I’d really like to sell them, so I can justify making more. So, whether it’s a birthday, an anniversary, or just a treat for yourself; you need a Snarky Painting, and you can’t figure out how you lived your life without one for this long!

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!