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

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

It's pretty hot, right? Can you believe Celeste made this? She's a genius!

I had a fantabulous time at Radish Underground, Friday night. We made a lot of custom cards. And I think I outdid myself. Betsy the Great was there, making custom jewelry. And the red dress that Celeste made for me was amazing! You’ll see it tonight, if you come to Voicebox for the Valentines Day party!

Win this painting at Voicebox tonight!

I’ll be there with Bob, my typewriter. It’s $10 at the door, to get in, a portion of which will be donated to Ethos. Which is a non-profit dedicated to bringing music to poorly funded public schools. Which, is kinda amazing. My public school was pretty well-funded but we had no funding for music. But we were middle-class, and we knew how to sell candy bars, and all that crap. By we, I mean they, of course. I am not musical. I am a groupie. I can write, I can crack wise. I can do all kinds of crap, but when it comes to music, I am useless.

Some of that is probably due to an evil piano teacher I was forced to spend time with as a child (Oh Mrs. Kerr!). And the rest of it I credit to Mr. Hibbert, my 8th grade choir teacher. I’m pretty sure he was in love with my mother. Which wouldn’t have been creepy, but she seemed to relish the crush. I always felt like I was interrupting something whenever I was in the room with the two of them. And they kept coming up for reasons for that to happen. Mr. Hibbert looked like a puppet. And he was an Orange Person. I hated and feared Orange People. I didn’t really get over being racist against them until I was 23 years old. I think that doubled the gross-out factor of his and my mom’s possible emotional affair. Also, in my head, when they did it, he was an actual puppet. It’s gross to think of your mother doing it with anyone, but a puppet puts the whole thing squarely in Stephen King territory.  So after 8th grade choir class, singing was kinda ruined for me.

Which is why you won’t hear me belting out any kind of song tonight. You can belt out as many songs yourself as you’d like -free sing all night! And you’ll get a free Snarky Card with your entrance fee, and you’ll also get entered to win one of my fabulous paintings.

Cards like these could come in handy tonight!

You may not be sure about your night tonight -maybe you’ve been single for a long time (like me!) or maybe you’re trying to deal with a shitty break-up, or maybe you like your boyfriend, but you’re not sure if you’re still attracted to him, maybe your wife has gotten drunk and angrily called your parents for the last time, maybe your husband doesn’t put out enough, maybe your girlfriend obsessively texts you. Whatever the deal is, I can make a Snarky Card, to help you ease the pain of your heart. And hopefully, along the way, you’ll meet other cranky singles, or at least some hotties who wanna cheat. And it’ll all culminate in hot, angry sex.

I mean, seperately couples will take each other home. Not that it’ll end in an orgy. Because, I am not pro-orgy. I mean, I don’t judge other’s orgies, it’s just not the right kind of sex. For me.

I know, it makes me sound like a hard-core prude. But I’m just not into group sex. And (as I recently found out in Seattle) I’m not into hanging out, waiting for someone to finish an orgy in a room next door to me so we can hang out. I’m sorry, I know that this will probably upset you, Internets, because you were totally going to ask me over for a 5some next week. But I always figured, I’m easy. That should be good enough, and the fact that I’ve had sex with 87 people should distract everyone from the fact that I don’t gang-bang. Or orgy. Or even threesome. And while I like having sex in public places, I think that’s as far as my adventuresome sexual spirit goes. It makes me feel a little Vanilla about how I get down. It’s embarassing to be one of the Sex Goddesses of the Western Hemisphere and not orgy. But I am.  Or maybe I’m just more straightforward than that multiple-partner mess. I like the hook-up. The hook-up is easy. The hook-up is my happy place.  And I’m hoping that there might be some in store for each and every one of us who shows up tonight.

Also: I relate to cranky singles better than I relate to happy couples. And if there’s nothing but happy couples at Voicebox tonight, I’m going to feel out of place. So, please angry singles searching for hate-sex, please come down and keep me company and I’ll write you some revenge Snarky Cards, which will soothe your battered egos, and I’ll point out the hottest single person in the room, and you’ll go over and start making out, and I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing I made something happen in your Vagina, or on your penis, without having to touch it myself.  Because making people come from a distance is what I live for!

So see ya tonight at Voicebox, from 7-11pm, 2112 NW Hoyt Portland, OR.

Love,

Alisa

This is me, slaving away at my typewriter (Bob).

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. But I haven’t been going to any bars in the last week. I haven’t been going anywhere the last week, because I’ve been slowly dying from Bird Flu. I know all the cool kids have swine flu right now, but I’m old school. And besides, birds are creepier, and I believe that they could do this to me. When I think of pigs I either go to Wilbur or the parable of the man who threw pearls at swine.

Or maybe he was supposed to throw pearls at swine and then Jesus stopped him? Or maybe he wasn’t real, he was just a story Jesus told about how you shouldn’t throw pearls at swine? Anyway, those three elements were in some sort of Sunday school lesson that I didn’t learn: Jesus, pearls and swine. I think if I ever knew the story, I got distracted because I didn’t want the pigs to choke on the pearls. That was, clearly, when I was  a little girl, and hadn’t seen Deadwood yet, and didn’t realize that pigs can eat people’s bones, effectively covering up a murder. I’m not saying that I wish I’d seen Deadwood as a little girl, but I wish I’d known that as a little girl, because I love murder mysteries, and I love plotting the perfect murder, and that information would have come in really, really handy, when I was, like, 8.

Fuck you birds!

Anyway, so I’ve got bird-flu. And I’ve been so convinced of my imminent death that yesterday, I started doling out the cats and my Janis Ian CD’s to my more responsible friends. So, I haven’t been selling my wares in bars, or really, anywhere. I’ve been too busy trying to breathe without hacking up my lungs, and my wild and crazy moments were mostly about me eating cheese. Which I know I shouldn’t do, but I had it in my refrigerator, and I was hungry, and I love cheese, and it didn’t make me cough so hard I wanted to die for too long.

This way to The Donation Button! PS: My tattoo says "The mistakes are all lessons".

Speaking of which: food. As some of you might have heard, Arlette, my favorite computer goddess, added a donation button to my website. It’s on your right side. And if you love reading my blog, or looking at my cards, kicking me a few bucks can help me keep on, keeping on. Thanks to Aunt Julie and Barbara! I got to eat the last few days. See, if I don’t go out and work every day, I don’t have money to buy luxuries like food. And since I couldn’t leave the house, those donations saved my life. So, if you like reading the shit I write, please hit the donation button. I’ll be thanking everyone who donates in my blog, and letting you know what I did with the money.

In the next month, in addition to food, I’d like to buy a scanner, so I can get my newest cards online to you. And some blank canvasses so that I can start making more Snarky Paintings! I’d also like to give my cats some worm medicine. Yes, you can help important things happen in in my cats asses!

In Conclusion: here is the latest Snarky Card, online, for your pleasure. I hope you enjoy, and it helps you confront a friend about her addiction to her baby, which has wrongfully replaced her addiction to alcohol.

I am back from San Francisco. Coming back from California is always weird for me. When I’m there, my phone rings constantly; friends, needing to know where I am and when I’m going to come hang out, giving me suggestions for where I can sell. Cute Californian boys trying to lure me into bed.

In San Francisco I’m the hot new thing. When people see my cards for the first time, they scream. And they have more money in SF than they do in Portland. So after they stop screaming, they buy more cards.

In Portland, I’m a staple, a “very Portland phenomenon” and people nod and smile and say “Nice to see you again”. They  say “I’ve always wanted to meet the person who does this.” And shrug when I ask if they wanna look at the new cards. They say “Oh, I can buy them at Tiny’s.” Or, “I see these all over!” and I have to work a little harder to dazzle them, to eek my rent out of my Snarky Cards.

I love my Portland life, but it’s very solitary. I spend about 90 hours a week making cards, or selling cards. Most of my good friends are Bad-Ass Bitches who own their own businesses. And they’re busy, trying to build their empire. So I steal a girls night here and there. So the phone is silent, and I’m old hat here, and switching between the two worlds is confusing, and a little depressing.

Pegasus Bookstore! Now carries Snarky Cards!

In conclusion: I love The City. And the City seems to love me back. It’s a nice change from the solitary life in Portlandia.

As of last week, Pegasus Books now carries Snarky Cards! It took a year, but Victory is now mine! Now that one store has succumbed to my charms, more will fall! Mooo-hahahahaha! (Is that an evil laugh? I can’t tell. I tried to sound it out, but I’m not sure if I nailed it or not.) So if you love Snarky Cards, and you need some, and you live in the Bay Area, you can go to Pegasus and get yourself some!

Divorce Season's around the corner people! Dig it! I can comfort you in time of need, and help you get laid again!

But as I get used to the sweetness of my own company again, I find myself becoming one with the Portland Art Scene once again. I’ve been going out selling at bars almost every night this week. This Saturday, I’ll be at Missisipi Pizza, getting my groove on to The Chapman Swifts. And this Sunday I’ll be at Crafty Wonderland, with my typewriter, Bob, bringing you custom Snarky Cards, and sage advice for those feeling lost in love.

I love Tour De Fat! It was so much fun! The beer was yummy, and the drunk bike addicts were really nice! The circus folks were entertaining and the band rocked! They were really happy to see my cards! And I made enough money to pay my rent this month! I’m gonna see if I can go to another Tour De Fat event in a few weeks, and I’m gonna see if I can go to other beer festivals too. So if you have a beer festival that you plan or participate in send me an email, and let me know when and where. I’ll show up with my cards, and my typewriter (Bob) and m

 I thought I’d be able to go out and sell after my day, but I was hoarse last night. And I had a hard time moving my legs. And my head. And talking out loud. And then I thought I’d be able to go to the Folsom Street Fair today. But I was too tired. And then I thought “OK, well, go sell at Zeitgeist at least”.  But it turns out, when I have to be charismatic and loud, and write custom cards about people’s deepest darkest secrets for 6 hours, it takes something out of me.

So today I slept in, and finished my book, and talked to my friend Emily, and ate some pizza, and watched Grey’s Anatomy, and smoked some weed and drank some beer. And then the cute boy picked me up, and took me to his house.

We stopped to make-out on the way. And I got to look at the sun setting behind some sort of Marsh, halfway between Oakland and San Mateo.  It was beautiful. It’s a weird trip so far. It’s like Oregon has somehow set into my bones. And I’m not seeing the landscape the way I used to. It’s haunting me like I’ve never seen it before. And the way the air expands in the fading warmth of September is so reassuring to me, like it was in the summertime, when I was a teenager, and summer was heavy with possiblities. But there’s something more than just the reassurance. It surprises me, this expansive, heavy air. Like my childhood memories were a story I read, and I’m just realizing it might have been a biography.

 My respite felt more like melloncholly than solace. So, when the cute boy picked me up, I tried to be peppy. And so far we’ve had some sex and television and chocolate. Also: he made me a chicken salad. Which, it turns out, I love.

Tomorrow, I’ll be back at the Zeitgeist, being the bad-ass Art Prostitute everyone loves.  So if you’re in the Mission tomorrow night, come get your drink on, and check out some Snarky Cards!

Here’s one of my new favorites: Happy Birthday! (not an) Asshole! For the friend you thought was going to turn out to be a total dick. But, in the end, they surprised you by becoming a regular, semi-nice person.

I usually do said bar selling in Portland, where I live. But this week, I’m doing it in San Francisco. I got here yesterday, and so far I’ve had a great time. Tonight, at The Revolution Cafe, I got all three of my girlfriends to drink beer and bond with each other. These are The Rad Bitches: KT, Arlette, and Claire. I’ve been trying to get these girls in a room together for years. I secretly think of them all as The Super-Friends, and I’d really like for us to have our own Hall Of Justice to chill in, between taking over the world with our amazing super-powers. Today we made great strides towards that Hall Of Justice.

I’m in San Francisco because while I love Portland, I need to cheat on it with SF every few months in order to realize how much I love Portland. You know what I mean? Like, I cheat on Portland with The City, and then, after a little while of Doing It with SF, I’ll be like “You know what? This is good, but it’s not as good as Doing It with Portland. Maybe because I have all these feelings for Portland…? And while the sex is better with The City, we just don’t have that history, or the common values, and I don’t see us being together the same way.”

So, I’m here, loving every minute of the dirty, crowded, business-obsessed, tall shiny buildings. It’s not just all this concrete that makes my heart sing (Nature is for suckers!). Or the six people who live here who have loved me since I was bat-shit-fucking crazy (Lauren, Steve, Claire, The Bexter, Arlette, and KT). It’s the easy witt, the sexy boys, the gorgeous fags, and the flirting, oh god, the flirting…..

Portland boys do not ever, as a rule, show open, wanton interest in women. I don’t know why. But they don’t. And here, they start it. And they keep it up. And then, tonight, I realized, that that’s not all! This hot, witty flirting that keeps happening to me could go somewhere at any moment. In short, the men here seem to like women, and themselves and they have sexual confidence. I forgot what it’s like to be around men like that. They openly stare at my titts here. And it feels so good. And now, my best bitches are slowly moving to form The Justice League of My Dreams. My heart is full.

Evil Care Bears who dance above the toilet at Revolution Cafe

So, tonight, Claire and Arlette, and KT all drank their asses off, at The Revolution Cafe, talking about their business plans and their relationships, and knitting and sewing projects, and making arrangements to do business together and generally rule the world.

This Saturday, from 10am to 5pm, I’ll be at Tour De Fat, in Golden Gate park, with my typewriter (Bob) selling my Snarky Cards, and making custom cards for anyone who wants one. Come by and get your Snark On! And drink yummy beer! And ride crazy bikes!

This isn't my typewriter. My typewriter is a Smith Carona named Bob Huston. This kinda looks like Bob.

This afternoon my brother picked me up from the Fremont bus station, where I was sitting with my cards, typing. I didn’t sleep last night. I painted all night, in order to get ready to take The Silicon Valley by storm! I painted 900 fucking Snarky Cards. I brought my typewriter. I ignored my other responsibilities, and I painted for 16 hours at a time. I stopped sleeping, and answering my email and talking to my friends, in order to fuel my obsession with having enough cards to return to my hometown triumphant and ready to be recognized.

I didn’t just paint all night. I painted all night, and then I did laundry and then I took some online orders to the post office, and then I went to Sweetness Cafe, and talked to my best friend Kay (who makes their delicious pastries!) and drank some coffee and then I went to my Chiropractor and went home and packed some more, and tried to push all the things into my Big Fuck Off Backpack (which I lived out of when I went to Ireland, where I slept with lots of boys) and you get the point. It was a long night of working and then a long day of chores and then an airport, a BART and when Stephanie found me at the BART station, I was no longer ready to take The South Bay by storm. I was ready to collapse.

Stephanie and some hot girl.

So Stephanie took me to his apartment, where we sat in front of his huge television, and I typed cards and he read my cards and laughed, and we argued the finer writing points of our favorite shows.

After I got in the car, he started quizzing me “So, Dollhouse?” I nodded. “It’s getting better. I think in episode 6 or so, the B story started coming together and also, your man Tahmoh? Yeah, he has some confrontation-y moments with Patton Oswalt!’” Stephanie’s face filled with delight “What!” he thundered “No-one told me that! I fucking love Patton Oswalt!” I smiled, I knew it would seal it for him. I know my brother. I love my brother. And he and I have the same best taste in almost everything.

"The Shat"

We spent a few hours arguing for the few TV shows we don’t have in common. “He breaks down the fourth wall without  breaking character!” He thundered, about “The Shat”, while he tried to lobby for Boston Legal.

I’m not falling for David E. Kelly’s shit one more time, that guys’ shows crack and crumble under the pressure of their own successes every time. And I had my heart broken by the eventual failures of Ally McBeal, The Practice and Boston Public. It was Boston Public that finally ended my love-affair with David.

Boston Public: hot teachers, social change, Michael Rappaport and it still fell apart. Fuck you, David E. Kelly!

I cannot take that man’s false promises again. Other people have bad relationships with exes, who disappoint them over and over again. I have bad relationships with television producers who can’t keep their end of the bargain up. I tried to explain the consistent  implosion of Kelly’s Characters, and Stephanie, with the hope that youth brings, pooh-poohed my disbelief. And halfway through our debate, I realized that we love television for the same reasons, because we are writers. And we love new characters, we think of them as real people, we think of them as contrived, writing devices. We pull television apart and put it back to together to figure out what we would do differently. We can pinpoint the moment our suspension of disbelief snaps, and he’s the only person I have who watches TV so that he can think about writing harder.

And it’s so good to be with my people. When I get homesick, in Oregon, I think I get homesick for this.

Well, that and the disdain in the faces of strangers on the train. I miss disdain. Portland has this small-town-friendliness that was so hard to take when I first moved there. It still hovers above me, sometimes, pressuring me to be nice when I feel like glaring.

And the people. God, there are so many fucking people in this city. It’s like a real city. You can be a dick, or act crazy, in front of strangers, and none of those strangers will ever remember you. And you’ll never see them again, because there are so many fucking people here. This is a real city.  It stretches for miles. And there are hundreds of thousands, millions of people in it. And I found myself relieved to find myself anonymous again. Breathing came easier. And the sunshine shone on my back, as I typed my Snarky Cards up. Making my art in the place that begat me.

It’s funny to come home. Especially because I never come home to the place where I grew up, only to the people I have always loved, in a city that always looks different.

Stephanie: The Boy on the right. He finally grew into his nose!

Stephanie is happy. He makes enough money. He has a home he likes, a girlfriend who likes him, a huge DVD collection, and he is working on his second novel. He’s doing better than I am, most days. My little brother has grown up, in just a year, he turned into the person he’s always wanted to be. He even has a fucking Bowflex. Because he likes weight lifting. He’s never been in a better place than I am before. His life has never been enviable to me.

And I am still tired. But I’m started to feel grounded again, like I do every time I come home. When I got to Steph’s house, I was tired and I was disappointed in myself, for not being able to go out and take downtown San Jose by storm. But now, sitting here, counting my blessings, I think it’s going to be OK. The Universe keeps surprising me by showing me all the good stuff.

Today is a terrible, no-good, very bad, horrible day. Today I had to give up my rotary phone. I love my rotary phone. NO, I did not get a cell phone, a choice which is retarded and archaic, as some of you fuckers have pointed out to me. I simply switched my service from Qwest to Clear, saving me $50 a month. No, this is not a commercial. I’m simply trying to justify not having a rotary phone anymore. And 50 bucks seems like a shitty consolation prize right now, but when I’m busting my ass to pay my bills next week, it’ll seem like a reasonable thing to do.

Right?

I love that goddamn phone. I do. It’s really, really loud. It’s the only thing that wakes me up. It scares the fuck out of my cats. And I can use a pen to dial it. Just like a Sexy Secretary in all those 30′s and 40′s movies. It made me feel like a dead movie star, having that phone.

So, now I’ve taken a giant leap into the 80′s! And the rotary is no more. Now I’ve moved in the cordless of the 90′s. And I can’t say I’m feeling better about myself. Now I don’t feel like any kind of movie star, dead or alive. I just feel…. ordinary. Which is, as you know, one of the scariest feelings EVER. My Aunt Judy once said “I’d rather die than be common.” And you know, I’m feeling pretty common right now. That’s not a suicidal statement, it’s just me, being petulant.

You crazy kids and your fucking jazz music and your computer relationships!

I don’t know why you fuckers are so pleased with yourselves. This new technology is nothing to brag about. And it’s not like I didn’t have a cordless before. I just liked having both. Just like I have a kick-ass website and a working typewriter. I’m not a complete Luddite, I just like to mix it up. And now there’s no mixing.

As a tribute to you fuckers who have embraced the now, and are not whining about your lack of rotary phone, I give you: The Facebook Status Card. I hope you enjoy it. Stupid technology. Making all this possible.