My name is Alisa Starr. I make Snarky Cards: Brutally Honest Greeting Cards. I sell them in bars from a box that hangs beneath my boobs. Recently, I was in Seattle and I loved it. I’m planning on moving there at the end of September. Until then, I’ll keep haunting the Portland bars that I’ve grown to love.

The lovely girls of Twilight

The end of my trip to Seattle was sweet. I typed my Snarky Cards at Twilight: an Art Collective in West Seattle that’s been selling my cards for the last two years. I love the girls who own the place. And I’m proud that they’re my friends. And I’m glad to be part of their wonderful boutique. While I was in Seattle, I made some really great paintings for this show. I’m really excited about them. I think they’re the best ones I’ve ever done. They’re all $100 each. And they’ll be hanging on the walls at Twilight for the next month.

$100 Now for sale at Twilight Artist Collective!

Usually, when I’m typing my cards at a show, that’s my whole world. I’m watching people laugh at my cards, and making them new shit I think that they’ll like. I am typing as fast as I can, to show off, and get the stock out. But this time, I got to watch people looking at my paintings. It was awesome. My shit was hung at the far wall. So, they’d wander, peering at the other artists work. A little intent, trying to decide what they thought. And when they got to the Snarky Paintings they had this bored/concentrating look on their face. And I got to watch their expressions change, first they smiled a little at the bright colors, and then, as they read them, they would break out into a grin. I’ve been watching people have reactions to my cards for so long, it never occurred to me that watching someone like my other shit could be more rewarding. But it was. I felt like a real Artist.

Afterwards, we went out for a real celebration and we laughed our way through dinner and drinks and I remembered what it was like to hang out with a posse of ladies. It was delicious. And I felt loved. I floated my way through selling for the rest of the night.

My sister

Joy and I got along fabulously. I think we’ve always been on the same team. But we didn’t realize it. Growing up in an abusive household meant that we didn’t know how to be nice to each other. It didn’t help that Sherri used to pit us against each other. I was smart and ugly. Joy was dumb and pretty. And we used to curry favor with her by talking shit on each other. It took us  years of being careful with each other. Holding our tongues. Trying not to judge each other. And last month it paid off. We tried to be nice; it wasn’t easy for her to let me take over her apartment with my paint-a-thon. And it wasn’t easy for me to do anything. I was so distraught when I got there that I couldn’t really talk. She made a special effort to be kind. And I made a

Joy's delicious bitches: Yuriko, Jenny and Marissi

special effort to tell her what I needed, and how I felt. And by the time I left, I knew we were a team again. More than that, I loved her friends. They folded me into their group seamlessly, like I wasn’t a hot, broken mess. They just walked right past my nervous breakdown, and got out the make-up and costumes, and started a giggly gossip girl party, and between their kindness and their ability to have fun  no matter what, I climbed out of my pit of self-pity and despair, and right into their fun. I knew that when I move there, I’ll have friends. And the person who knows me best will be happy to help to tell me to get my shit together; whatever I need most.

Quartz lying in Joy's bed

I was on my way to pick up a book for my rideshare home and i passed a guy selling random shit on the street. I picked up 2 Faye Kellerman’s and 2 mannequin heads for $8. The mannequin faces were dirty, like they’d been fighting. I quickly stuffed everything

Quartz lying in Joy's bed with a mannequin head

but them in my backpack so I could stroll down the street, holding one in each hand by their hair. Happily pretending they were the heads of people I’d killed. When I got to my sister’s house, I put one on her kitchen table and hid the other one in her bed, cackling the whole time.

It was a beautiful end to a great trip. Now, I’m haunting the bars of Portland, scaring up rent money. And money for my move. Hopefully I’ll see you out there, somewhere.

Love,

Alisa

I just got off the phone with my brother, Stephenie. Who called to tell me that his girlfriend (the amazing and awesome Christina) wanted him to call me to tell me that she loves reading about my period-blood-sex-adventures.

Now available online!

I never expected those words to come out of my brother’s mouth. He must be seriously pussy-whipped if he’s making calls to talk about my bloody Vagina on behalf of his girlfriend. That’s like, above and beyond buying super-sized tampons at the store.

“We’re not like regular families are we?” I asked, taken a little aback. “Um, duh?” He responded. Then he called me an asshole. I guess he’s right. I did kinda start it. I mean, I was the one who spent his entire childhood trying to convince him he was gay -it almost worked, he was going on dates with boys and hanging out at the Billy Defrank Center when he was in high school. I remember trying to make him smoke and drive when he was 11. And I did kinda flaunt my sexual conquests for our entire lives.

I guess it’s just one more way in which my life is weird because I make my living off of my Vaginal adventures.

Love,

Alisa

People always wanna know where I get my sense of humor from, which is a stupid question from my perspective. How do I fucking know? I mean, really? But I think I might have an answer.

I love my brother, Stephanie. He’s not transgendered. That’s just what we call him. He likes it better than Becky, which was his other option. Anyway, it’s his birthday this month. And so I was calling to tell him Happy Birthday! Because I knew I’d forget on the actual day, because in reality, I’m a pretty shitty sister. And also, I wanted to get his address to send him his birthday present. Which is actually just some junk he left at my house when he lived here (See? I told you I’m shitty). We were catching up and he said “Guess what? I got laid last week!” I was flabberghasted. Stephanie doesn’t have a lot of game. He’s pretty sure of himself in bed, I know, because he brags about his cunnilingus skills CONSTANTLY. But he doesn’t always clue into the moment where the girl is actually interested in getting it on. I swear, I’ve watched him walk away from more pussy because he was oblivious than I’ve seen him buy comic books. And The Kidd loves comic books.

Anyway so I was like “Cool. How was it?” “Awesome!” He said using his cocky voice. “Oh yeah? You kids gonna Do It again?” I really want Stephanie to get a girlfriend. I would be sooooooo happy if he found a kick-ass girl. I ask this question with the hopefulness of a Mother. Unfortunately, his love life is as lame as mine. (Maybe it was our childhood?) “I don’t think so.” He said. “I like her a lot. But she just got out of a relationship. And she hasn’t been with a guy in a long-” “Oh, so it was break-up sex?” I interrupted. “Well, yeah. I mean, it was, like four hours long though.” He said. “Oh” I cooed. “It was so nice of you to have Lesbian sex with her!”

“What?!” He thundered. “You had sex for four hours. Straight people don’t do that.” I pointed out. “Lesbians do that. God, gay men don’t even do that. Four hour sex is a lesbian thing. It was so nice of you to have sex with her all Lesbionic so that she would feel comfortable!”

Stephanie has a reputation for being a Lesbian. This is in part because lesbians are his happy place. If you asked him whether he’d rather hang out in a room full of Bull-Dykes or hang out in a room full of hot girls who want to sleep with him, he’d think for a really long time and then he’d ask you plaintively “Can’t I do both? I mean, hang out with The Bull Dykes first and then hit up the hot girl room?” The other reason he has a reputation for being a Lesbian is that he is reassured by chocolate, Buffy and calls himself a feminist. All of which are good qualities. But that doesn’t stop any of his sisters from calling him a pussy. Which he is kind of tired of. So he retaliated.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that we had Lesbian sex. Except when you count all the times I put my penis in her vagina!” He sneered. I continued arguing my point. And he said “My penis in her vagina!” five more times. Finally, the imagery won out. “All right. All right. You win!” I finally spat out. “You totally grossed me out. Are you happy now?” “Yes. As a matter of fact, I am” He was smug. Because he had won. Because that’s what the conversation had turned into. He was trying to tell me about his sex life. Bonus if it grossed me out. I have been doing this same thing to him for the last twelve years.

This is for Stephanie! The best brother a girl could hope for!

After we hung up, laughing, I thought about it. Maybe my sense of humor is genetic. Maybe that’s where it comes from. Or maybe it’s fucked up, and I gave it to my little brother too. And now he uses it as a weapon against me. In honor of my beloved brother, I give you: The After School Special. Because, really, he does make my life an after school special. Because being his sister is like a constant, annoying lesson about how great it is to have a brother. And how to use sex as a weapon to disgust people.