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

As some of you know, 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. They will crack you the fuck up.

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve written to you. This summer has kind of been hard on me. After I decided that I ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO get out of Portland, I started spazzing out about it. It’s been about 6 years since I moved. And since then, I’ve stopped driving, or owning a car. Which would be fine, if I was moving across town. But I’m moving 173 miles away.

These are my gay cats: Chester and Tigger. They cuddle because they're in love.

And it’s not just me, it’s me, my two gay cats, Chester and Tigger, and Snarky Cards. I spent all summer trying to figure out what to do with the business I have here, while I move up there. So, I thought, and I thought and I thought, and I made a plan and a back-up plan, and a back-up to the back-up plan.

And all the while, my newest room-mate was making me crazy. She didn’t have her own towel (or her own soap…?), she ate all my food, she didn’t wash the towels she used, or pay me back for the food she ate. I started squirreling things away in my room, because everything I left in the living room would just disappear. Her kitten, while adorable, would pull things out of the trash and drag them all over the house. Shitty Roomie didn’t take the trash out, although, to be fair, she didn’t put trash in the trash can either. She just left the whole cycle up to me, she (or her kitten) would leave shit on the floor, I would pick it up, put it in the trash can, and then take the trash out. This cycle of feeding, and cleaning up after Shitty Roomie soaked up a lot of my extra-energy. Leaving me with a lot of plans that I couldn’t get started on. Leaving me feeling even more terrified that I can’t pull this move off.

See? Doesn't he look like he's being tickled by my wit? This is how it usually goes down.

While that was going down at home, I was starting to notice that I was no longer having a good time selling in the bars of Portland. I started fights with people. I was cranky. I got tired of people saying “I don’t want to buy any more of your cards, but I never want you to stop doing it! I support you!” I swear to God, that’s a direct quote. And, I’d hear that shit a few times a night. It is some condescending bullshit. Once pronounced, the customer saying this shit to me, would beam, waiting for my gratitude. “I appreciate you and that’s so much more important than money.” some of them would add proudly.

Moral support generally requires some actual action. In order to claim that they are morally supporting me, my friends have to bring me chocolate, whiskey, weed or Murder She Wrote when I’m in the dark place; read my rough drafts, listen to me bitch, cry, yell and just generally give a shit about me. That is moral support.

These people were not doing any of these things. They liked me as a back-drop. They liked that I’m part of the Portland scenery, they like saying that they’ve met me. But they have no desire to support me as an artist. They would never use Snarky Cards, because they’re not the kind of people who say what they mean to the people around them. And, um, they bought some cards from me two years ago? So, like, they don’t need to buy any more.

Look at my tits. Who could not want what I've got? It's astounding!

And the longer I sold my cards, in bars, this summer, the more pissed I got at this dynamic, this conversation that I kept having with Portland. And finally, around August, I got it. I was sick of Portland, and Portland is sick of me.

So, I spent a month moping. Because I wanted to be the rejector. I wanted my friends, this town, my businesses to be alarmed at my impending move. I wanted people to yell “Oh my god! How will I live without you?” and, while a few people did that, they were all kidding. Magnum (my ex-boyfriend) used to say “The thing about Portland, is it doesn’t give a shit about you. It doesn’t give a shit whether you live here or not. It doesn’t give a shit whether you make art or not. Portland just doesn’t care about you.” And this started running through my head. Every day. I moped and sulked, and alternately, tried to be super-fabulous, super-funny, super-sexy, in an effort to eek out some regret, or genuine feelings from people I’ve thought of as my friends for the last few years.

And, it kind of worked. I got a little bit of love, from my bartender friends. A few of my customers teared up. I realized that I will miss this tiny, tiny town a little bit. After I’d gotten all of the well-wishes, and we’ll-miss-you’s out of everyone that I was going to, I was done.

So, after I’d paid September rent, I took off for California, to bond with my niece, and make a bunch of money, and get my head right for the move.

California was a balm that I badly needed. I spent a week at KT’s house, bonding with her and her boyfriend and her cousin. I rested on Arlette’s couch. I discovered the awesome that is Oakland. I saw my niece, and my brother, and beautiful sister-in-law, Christina.

In fact, that was kind of a crazy-awesome highlight. They took me to The Mall. I love malls. My first job was at a mall. My first bookstore job was at a mall. And the freedom that those jobs gave me, the self-esteem that I got from being good at them, is still potent for me. I walk into a mall, and I remember discovering that I was good at work, I remember having crushes on the guys at the shoe store, I remember buying ones or fives from the chicks at Hot Dog On A Stick. All the stores employees were connected by our mutual drudgery, allowing you to find camaraderie with hundreds of people on any given day. Also: bonus, you could figure out if the guy at the shoe store was a player by asking around. But more importantly than all of that: working at the mall gave me a wedge to put between me and my fucked-up family, suddenly I had a reason I couldn’t go to church or birthday’s, or Hell, even Christmas.

And it was the first time I ever felt myself engrossed in work. It was the first time I ever lost track of time, because I was concentrating so hard on a task. It was the first time I was rewarded for being bossy. And it was where I learned I could sell things. When I worked at Brentano’s, my sister worked at Macy’s. And at Christmastime, we would work until midnight, closing down stores on opposite sides of the mall. After we were done, we’d take off our shoes, and light a cigarette, and walk triumphantly through the mall, claiming it all as our space with our trailing cigarrette smoke. The boys we’d picked up, at our respective jobs would hoot and holler around us as we decided what kinds of other debauchery to indulge in for the night.

Dance party with the baby!

Christina and Stephen didn’t take me to just any mall, they took me to THE MALL where all of these good feelings went down. It’s been rebuilt, since then. The Brentano’s I worked for has been gone for a few years now. The back hallways I used to hide in have been torn down. The food court is in a different place now, but I still remember that walk of triumph. I still remember all of those good feelings I had when I first walked into it. And being there with Kiddo, and his kiddo, and the gorgeous and sensible Christina, was kind of awesome. But, even better, Christina wanted to shop at Torrid, which is the sexy-clothes-for-big-girls store. So, I got to try on clothes, in my favorite store, with my favorite people. And when we got home, Christina and I had a margarita, and then we all had a dance party with the baby. It was magical. And fun. And sweet.

It’s hard for me to explain how awesome my niece is. I take it for granted that Stephen’s kid is going to be great. That was a gimme. But I think the things I am astounded by about Emi, are the part of her that are her mother, Christina. There are a lot of awesome things about my sister-in-law. She’s loyal. If you fuck with my brother, you fuck with her. And she likes to get even as well as mad. She likes to laugh. She is a girly-girl. She is hot as shit. You can depend on her to say the most reasonable thing in the room. And she’s kind. But she’s also guarded. She wants to know what kind of person you are before she lets you in. (This is something I really admire about her) So, it takes a while. But when Christina smiles, her whole face splits open with happy. And it’s child-like. I mean, if you had a good childhood. And it feels like a reward. My niece has that same beautiful giving-in-to-Joy smile. The first time I saw it, in the car, on the way to the mall, I started crying a little bit. It’s so big. And it’s so completely present. And Emilene’s smile makes me feel really, really grateful that Christina is in my life. So she can be part of my family. So I can be part of the family she’s making with Stephen. But most of all, I wanna figure out how to smile like these girls.

So, we laughed. And we made jokes, and we talked about our problems. I was super excited, to show

Stephen and his baby. Well, our baby.

Emilene the books I”d bought her. But she did not give a shit. I mean, she’s, like, 6 months old. So, I get that she’s got other stuff going on. Walking is more important that reading, right now. But Stephen squealed with delight when I pulled out Danny The Dinosaur, Morris Goes to School and Little Bear. Apparently, he’s been reading them over and over to our little girl ever since.

Stephen woke me up early the next day, with coffee and a regretful smile. He knows I don’t do mornings. We got in his car, so he could take me to the train station. “Are those kids….in high school?” I gestured to some kids crossing in front of the car. He nodded. “Actually those kids are going to our high school.” He replied. “You wanna see it?” I was so surprised that I could identity teenagers at a distance, it took me a minute to hear what he said. “You live down the street from our high school? Um, sure, I’d like to see it. I guess.” I was weirded out. Why do people stay in the same place their whole lives? As we passed the teenagers, I rolled down my window. “LOSERS!!!” I screamed out, as we passed them getting into a car. (Which, by the way, they were going to drive 3 blocks to our high school. Hello? Pollution? Recession? Obesity?)

I settled back into my seat, grinning. I’m 32 years old. I had had 3 hours of sleep. I’m sure I looked like shit. In fact, I’m sure I looked like a crazy, fat, old woman, yelling from a car. But it still made me feel awesome. Stephen looked at me with a mixture of fear and disbelief. “That chick was wearing tight jeans. I hated girls like her in high school.” I said defensively. I was lying. I didn’t really hate anyone in high school. It just felt good to taunt children.

The memory of that night with my family has carried me through the last two weeks I’ve been back in Portland. And tomorrow night, I’m going to go to Seattle, to see my friends, and sell my wares, and try to believe that soon I’ll be able to call that new city home. So, if you’re on Capital Hill, and you want some sassy, sexy, boobilicious fun, go to a bar, and wait for me there. Or email me. And let me know where you’ll be. I can totally meet you up. And save you from life without my boobs.

Love,

Alisa

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

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

Dear Internets,

 As you may know, my name is Alisa Starr. I make Snarky Cards: Brutally Honest Greeting Cards. They will crack you the fuck up. I sell them in bars from a box that hangs beneath my boobs. Mostly, I sell them in Portlandia. And sometimes, I sell them in San Francisco, where my bad-ass bitches reside. Even more sometimes, I sell them in Seattle, where my sister lives.

Recently, in the middle of my life-philosophy-blowing  Thing, I also went back to San Jose, from whence I came, and confronted my parents about their abuse, and explained to them, that no matter how nice they would like to be to me now, it doesn’t make up for the shit they did to me before. And we’re not going to have a relationship.The depths of my despair meant that I couldn’t do any of that shit at home. I think I was left alone too long with my feelings or something. Because after a while, I was crying every day. For hours. And nobody came to check on me. And after a little while, my abandonment issues started sounding alarms. And then the fact that I was sad didn’t matter. The fact that nobody checked on me was the problem. I felt alone. And I was sure that I’d been right all along, and everyone will leave me eventually, because who could ever learn to love a loud-mouthed-big-assed-titty-showing-bitch? (I have illustrated both my big ass and my titty-showing above, for those of you who would like to see more boobs and ass to get you through this long-ass emotional post.)

All of this line-drawing, boundary-having, combined with all this relationship-having (and then Not Having) has left me…drained. I found myself in “the depths of despair” to quote Anne of Green Gables. And I couldn’t figure out how to snap myself out of it. Eventually my shrink suggested drugs. Or, she strongly recomended, that I call my friends and ask them to come help me. Which is hard. I hate asking for help. But more than that, I hate pills. I love weed, but pills kinda give me the heebie-jeebies. And so, when people suggest I take them, I try to fix my shit, so that I don’t find myself at a pharmacists’s mercy. So, I called my sister. And she said “Come to Seattle. Bring you paint, and your cards. I’ll buy you a train ticket, and you can stay here, and work until you feel better.”

So, I’ve been hiding out, in her apartment on Capital Hill, painting and thinking, and smoking weed, and worrying about how I got myself into this hole. Joy has been a goddess. Sometimes, when we’re together we’re 15 again, and everything we do is hilarious, and a little mean. And sometimes we’re in our thirties, trying to figure out how to be kind to each other, only after recently ending our five-year-war. For most of our childhood’s we were on each other’s sides. We kept each other safe. But in our twenties we became different people, or more ourselves than we had been.

THis was my motto for the last ten years. Well, maybe my motto was more like "Be alone, fuck often".

Joy falls into relationships easily, and stays for as long as she can stand it. I avoid contact. I like sex, but I think, for the most part, I haven’t really trusted men. And it’s easier to fuck ‘em and leave ‘em than it is to trust them to be nice to me. And due to said shitty childhood, I’ve had really crap taste in men. And I always thought, if I’m gonna have shitty taste in men, I might as well keep contact with them brief and to the point.

But my inability to pull myself out of this funk has trumped all that. We may annoy the fuck out of each other, but in the end, she wants me to be OK. And I think I just needed that feeling. I think I just needed to stay with someone who gave a shit that I was OK. Portland is a wonderful town, but I don’t think I have a lot of friends there. And even if I did, I don’t have anyone who wants to take care of me. Who will check in, because they know I’m going through something hard. So, I’ve been sleeping on her couch, watching her dress her friends up for parties, and eating her yummy food. And after a day or two, I was able to start painting again, and then I was able to start typing. And then I started selling in Seattle.

Anyway, that all seems to be changing. I think that the depths of my despair come, not from a break-up, like I first thought, but from me, creating a new person inside of myself. My shrink likes it when I do this. She calls it cocooning, and she gets this look in her eyes, like I’d make a good case study. I sit around, and I make art, and I think about who I’ve been, and what I thought, and I get rid of some stuff, and I figure out what to keep. And in the end, I have more self esteem. And I take less shit. And I tell people how I feel, and what I need quicker. It takes a lot of sleeping, and some crying. And I have to talk to somebody who knows me, and can talk me down, when I climb myself up a tree, with all of my crazy-thinking.

Like, last night, when I tried to pin all of my bad feelings on Magnum, and Arlette wasn’t having it. “You just got stretched too thin.” she chided. “You tried to do a lot of hard things at once, and now you’re a little vulnerable. But don’t blame Magnum for all of this. No relationship can knock you down this much. And you’re not broken, you’re just a little delicate now. You’ll recharge. And no GUY will ever shake you up this much. This is your family, and your parents, and your identity.”

This is Jenny, one of Joy's crew, in the middle of before-the-party-dress-up!

So, I’ve been hibernating at Joy’s. And her life is fucking amazing. Her friends all live a block away from her. And they all wander as a group from house to house, carrying weed and beer with them as they go, trying on each other’s clothes, telling each other funny stories, making or eating food, and generally preparing for the next party, knowing full well, that the party they’re already at will be better than wherever their going. Her friends come over, to do all of those things, whether Joy’s there or not. And so

Yuriko and Marissi getting ready to party!

I’ve been admitted into this club, forced to hang out with her hilarious and kind friends. And being surrounded by people has helped me with the cocoon thing. I miss my cats. But so far, I don’t seem to miss PDX much.

Seattle, it turns out is much more marvelous than even I had anticipated. The people here are smart, and funny and they are trying to figure out sex and themselves, and dating, and friendship. I’ve been trying out some new bars. And I think I’ve made some friends. There are a few cute boys that I have some simpatico with, who might wanna hang out in the future. Everyone seems to dig Snarky Cards. And Snarky Tits. And life in this town is a lot less bleak than life in Portland has been. “So, move and have sex, and make friends, and be around people who actually do stuff. Portland is where hipsters go to die.” Arlette recited, in a bored tone of voice. She’s been trying to get me to move for ages. And you, Dear Internets, might have noticed, that I haven’t been happy in PDX for a while. “Well, you told me a year ago, that you couldn’t live in Portland for longer than a year.” Claire said. “So it’s about time you moved.”

This is my newest painting, for sale at Twilight this Thursday!

So, I’m trying to figure out how to make it work. I’m checking Craiglist. I’m mentally packing up my house. I’m figuring out the logistics of getting my ass from Portland, to Seattle. Along with all of my shit, and my cats.

Until I go back and pack up my Pdx life, I’ll be out in Seattle, selling my Snarky Cards, mostly haunting Capital Hill, working on paying my last month’s rent in Portland. And on Thursday, I’ll be debuting my new paintings, and typing Custom Snarky Cards at Twilight Artist Collective.

Come check out my new shit, and celebrate my newly declared Seattle Love at Twilight Artist Collective on Thursday, May 12th, from 6-9pm. I’ll be typing up a storm. And I’d love to make your life easier, by writing you some hilarious and angry Snarky Cards.

Love,

Alisa

Me, slingin' my Snarky Cards

Dear Internets,

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. They will crack you the fuck up.

This Sunday, Red Light Clothing Exchange is having their annual Naked Shopping Party! I’ll be slinging my cards, with my typewriter, and my boobs. There’ll be a band, and prizes. I mean, prizes that are not just “win all the clothes you can wear” which is, of course the big prize.

People have been asking me what the deal is with this Naked Shopping Party.  The rules are simple: everyone shows up with clothes on. The biggest prize offered is  that you can win all the clothes you can put on at once. Obviously, it’s easier to fit more clothes on, if you start off naked. If you’d like to shop naked, you put your name in a box and the delicious and delightful staff at Red Light draw the names of 2 boys and 2 girls from the box.

And they shop. And everyone else shops too. But they shop naked. And the rest of us get to watch. How rad is that? While we’re watching the naked shoppers, I’ll be typing up new and custom Snarky Cards. I’m excited about partying it up, and writing some new shit for your horrible and hilarious sexual situations. There will also be lots of Snarky Undies for those of you who haven’t gotten a pair yet.

So, if you wanna celebrate Easter the way Weed Jesus would want you to, come on down to Red Light, to get your custom Snarky Cards, your Snarky Undies, and your voyeur on.

See ya then!

Love,

Alisa

Me at The Triple Nickel

Dear Internets,

For those of you who don’t know, 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. They will crack you the fuck up.

Lately, as you might have heard in my last post, I’ve been caught up in a post-break-up haze of miserable-ness. Which has severely crippled my ability to eat, sleep and work. It’s not just the break-up. It’s probably also the fact that I had a relationship in the first place. I’ve been so good at just fucking guys in bars for the last ten years. And it’s served me well. I’ve never had to deal with so many pesky feelings before.

Being slutty has kept me safe from this kind of hurt for a long time. Sigh. I miss being a total whore.

I kept being surprised when the phenomenal sex between me and Magnum (Seriously. It was like, primal shit. My orgasms were longer, and deeper than ever. It was the craziest shit I’ve ever done with another person.) kept getting better. We talked about it once, and he was like “Yeah, I knew it would get better. It’s the trust thing.” Like trusting people you sleep with was normal. Like it was OK, and it had happened before. It was one of those moments where I thought the normal thing he said was hilarious. And I couldn’t laugh, because then he’d know that I was a rusted out robot.

Anyway, so I’m feeling feelings. Every day. They are unwelcome, over-whelming and intense. Usually this is where I come up with a deviant scheme to punish the person who made me feel feelings. However, I don’t seem to want to do that. So, I’m just trying to be normal. Which means selling in my sexy new clothes (Thanks Savvy Plus!). Hopefully tonight, when I’m out at bars, there will be some poor, unsuspecting assholes that I can assault with my wit. That usually makes me feel better.

Tonight, I think that there will be boobs.

Also, I have a feeling there will probably be a lot of aggressive flirting. I think I’m almost ready to start hate-fucking again. It’s a little embarrassing, because my primary post-break-up advice for the last few years has been to start hate-fucking as soon as you possibly can. Because no-one should pay for the mistakes your last lover made, except your next lover. But I’ve been reluctant to take myself up on it. Although, it’s only been a few weeks. Maybe I just needed to ease into the hate-fucking. Maybe I shouldn’t judge myself for needing to be sad before I get mad. And into embarrassingly angry sexual situations.

I just posted this on my etsy site! I hope you like it!

So, I warmed up today for selling by posting some new cards on my etsy site. And some new pictures of me selling, and my customers looking on Facebook. And I’m letting you know Internets, I’m planning on hitting up Meridian Gold Dust, Circa 33, North 45, and Muu-Muu’s. So, if you want some Snarky Cards, from a cranky bitch, who would like to make-out with you/make you pay for her last break-up tonight, you’re in luck!

Love,

Alisa