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

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. I mostly haunt the bars of Portlandia, but I’ve been known to show up on Capital Hill, in Seattle, and I love The Mission in San Francisco.

Over the years, I’ve haunted a lot of different bars in Portland. I’ve walked into almost every single place that sells liquor in order to pay rent, or spread the good news of Snarky Cards. Muu-Muu’s is in Northwest Portland. I started selling there two years ago. And it became a staple on my route. I make a lot of money there. Almost every night in Muu-Muu’s is a $100 night.

But once I started selling there, Snarky Cards became a group project. And the kids who work there: Choia, Justin, Mark, Loren, Moira, Alonzo, Kevin and Noah, Big Voice Steve, all feel pride in my success. Because they’re part of it. They help me sell. They hype me up. They let me come in, and they like to show off my cards to anybody who’s drinking. They listen to my problems, and they tell me their shit. And we dance, and we work together, and we bitch about the same customers. And we hang out with the same regulars.

The magic of the Muu-Muu’s is that you can walk in not knowing anybody and if you sit at the bar, you make friends with your neighbors and the bartenders and you start to get that “We’re all in this together” feeling. Big parties and couples-in-love inhabit the tables, and you can see people falling for each other, or hear the uproarious laughter from across the room.

Like these two hot people, sitting at the bar, right? You could hook up with one of them next time you pull up a barstool at Muu-Muu's

And, little known fact, if you sit at the bar, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ll find someone you wanna chat up, or you’ll find that someone hot is chatting you up. Not always. Sometimes the frat boys and hoochie mama’s who drink at The Gypsy invade the bar space, but most of the time, there’s some pretty good game getting thrown down at the bar itself. And I love me some good game. It’s fun to watch the hot boys and girls who go there to drink eyeing each other and trying.

A few weeks ago, I walked in and I saw the “Snarklandia” sign and my heart jumped. It was posted up at the bar, on the back of the taps. It was a low night. I’d been telling myself that nobody really likes me. And any second now I’d get kicked out of every bar in town, because they were sick of my tits, and my schtick, and my cards. I was having the “Big Alisa Meeting” fantasy/fear. Sometimes I tell myself that after I’ve left a bar, the staff gets together and has a meeting about how they’re all sick of me.

See why the dudes who fall for me have to move to an island afterwards to recover? Part of that is my hotness. Displayed here.

It’s not based in reality. I mean, bars have gotten sick of me before. But only a few bars. And it was mostly in the beginning, before I could gage where I could/should sell, when I was just blindly trying shit. I wasn’t friends with the people who ran those places. And I didn’t want to be. The Big Alisa Meeting fantasy/fear is loosely related to the “Ex Lover Island”. Which is something I cooked up a long time ago. I’m pretty sure that all the people I’ve ever slept with or dated are all living on an island together, where they have therapy (directly related to the trauma of sexing/liking me) and they form a support group on the island for whatever damage I’ve inflicted. Also, they divide chores fairly. Once an ex of mine has sufficiently recovered from the scars I left on him, he’s allowed a day-pass into the real world. From what I gather, this island has a good wi-fi connection. Because occasionally those fuckers try to friend me on Facebook.

Alisa and Arlette! I would have thrown KT up here too, but she hates to have her image captured by the internet.

So, today, firmly rooted in reality, I know that my bartender friends always seem happy to see me, but the relationships feel fragile. And I sometimes think one wrong interaction, one misstep, and their smiles will turn into looks of resignation at my presence. It’s probably just an extension of my basic insecurity. I am a bad-ass bitch. Who worries sometimes that nobody likes her. I don’t think I even knew that the Big Alisa Meeting fear was happening to me as often as it was, or how ludicrious it sounded, until I went to San Francisco, and I confessed it to Kaytea and Arlette. One of them laughed. And the other one said “That’s fucking bullshit, stop it!”. I don’t remember who did what. It doesn’t matter, because at that point they had become one seamlessly perfect best friend. And I was so grateful to let her handle all of my bullshit. After that, I got that the Big Alisa Meeting is a bullshit fantasy I’d concocted, and not a real possibility.

But this is before that. So, I was too nervous to ask right away if the SnarkLandia sign was about me. I hoped it was. But I didn’t want to say anything about on the off-chance that they’d be like “Well, actually, we had a meeting and we decided we don’t like you anymore. I don’t know who put that sign up.” I asked Moira If I could draw some boobs on the sign. And she was delighted to let me. And those three seconds of drawing calmed me down. And I let go of my fears. And I realized that whether the sign was about me or not, that bar is my home. And somehow I just… I started trusting that my friendships there are real. They love me for me. And they love me when I’m not super-on. And they love me when I’m tired. And they love me when I’m a little sad. I fell in love with the bar right then. And I included it in my idea of home.

And then Choia bought some of my Snarky Panties. Which she promptly put on her head. And I danced to the kick-ass music in the aisles, while I sold my cards to everyone in the bar. And the magic of that place infected me. And now, when I’m nervous about selling, or when I’m having a hard night, I tell myself that I’m going to end up at Muu-Muu’s. I promise myself that I can bullshit with my friends at the end of my night, and it gets me through until I can walk through that awesome door one more time.

So, if you’re wondering where I’m at, there’s a good chance I’m headed to Muu-Muu’s.Or maybe I’m already there. You should come by.

Love,

Alisa

Aren't they adorable little bigots?

I think I first fell in love with Brendan Fraser in 1992, in School Ties: where his friends showed us what young, hot boy bigots look like.  He played secretly Jewish boy going to a prep-school that hated Jews. This was also about the same time that I decided I wanted to be Jewish. Jews are Gods chosen people and I never got why everyone is always trying to wipe them out. (this movie increased my puzzlement, if Jewish boys look like Brendan Fraser, who would want to kill them? Ever?)

Isn't he dreamy?

Mostly I wanted to be Jewish, because I was getting tired. Being an evangelical Christian is fucking exhausting. I had to prostelytize, like, all the goddamn time. And nobody ever beleived me about how God was awesome. At this point, not even I beleived me. If he was so fucking awesome, how come everything I did made me feel bad? Just keeping track of all the stuff I couldn’t do was exhausting. I couldn’t swear, gossip, make-out with boys, or wish terrible torture on my enemies. This was not a religion made for teenage girls.

In my teenage years, movies provided an escape from a childhood I wouldn’t wish on a Nazi. Well, ok, maybe a Nazi would deserve my parents, but only after they’d comitted actual acts of atrocity. And then the Nazi would turn around and be like “I had to commit those acts of atrocity, did you see how my Mom treated me?” and then, because they were my parents in the first place I’d have to be like “Yeah, ok. Sometimes I think about slaughtering others because of my painful childhood too, Nazi, I get it. But you really should have just gotten some fucking therapy.”

Movies had a magical quality to them, offering me two hours where I could not-live in my life, and somehow, that break, that two-hour vacation gave me the strength to dive back into the fray. In my adult years, I’ve found that a similar magic can sometimes be achieved through thoughtful application of whiskey while talking to diabolically cute and clever boys. Or a nice, long hit from the bong I keep in the living room, and a few contemplative cigarrettes.

Anyway, I digress, Brendan Fucking Fraser was one of the boys that I fell for, when falling for boys on-screen got me through my hard times. I think of him like he was the cute boy I never got up the nerve to talk to in my math class. Except, boys in my math class weren’t that cute, and I had a lot of chutspuh in high school. Yes, he’s made some decisions I wouldn’t have made, like The Mummy or Blast From The Past but I did “phone work” for a dating service. If you compare the two, who looks lamer? I’m pretty sure it’s me.

Admit it, you wanna see them play Gay Chicken.

Last night, they played one of his guest-starring Scrubs episodes. At one point, he and Dr. Cox lean in for a kiss, and Dr. Cox pulls away first, to which Brendan says: “YES! I’m the King Of Gay Chicken!”. I shrieked with laughter. I forgot that Scrubs could do that to me. And I forgot that Brendan could do that to me. It made my panties wet for him all over again.

So, of course, I squealed, when Kay called me to tell me that last week, a friend of hers had given him a Snarky Card, and he’d loved it. Apparently, he and Harrison Ford are here filming a new movie in Portland (a medical drama…? What the fuck is a medical drama anyway?), and Kay’s gorgeous friend, who’s got a few lines in the movie, gave him a Snarky Card, which he thought was hilarious. This means that not only do I have the approval and of my cooler peers (I mean you, Bitch Magazine!), but I also have the respect of hot boys who I wanted to make-out with in my teens!

So, thanks, Brendan Fraser. For everything. For liking my shit and creating Gay Chicken, and teaching me that history includes hot boys. These Snarky Cards are for you.

Fenbi: International Superstars played at Ash Street and it fuckin’ rocked. Just like I said it would. I even danced a little. I think dancing knocked my leg a little sideways, or maybe it was that weed that that homeless guy smoked me out with after the show, but I’m pretty sure that I walked sans limp all the way to the bus stop. It was magical. All of a sudden, my legs both worked, and they moved in tandem, without complaint. I had three whiskeys and a fat blunt in me by then, but even the cold couldn’t touch me, and I was in awe of my own body, working again. I blame Fenbi, for making me wanna dance so bad.

Today, in honor of bodies in general, I posted a new Snarky Card for all you Knocked Up Bitches. I hope you like it!

I betcha thought that you needed some penis and vagina action in order to get knocked up, huh? Nope. It's not true. It's just Jaeger. You drink enough of it, and a baby magically starts growing inside of you. That's why I don't touch the stuff. I stick to whiskey, and I've been baby-free for 15 years.

Last night, I went out and sold some cards to the beautiful people at The Bonfire. It was splendiforous! I had 5 whiskeys, and I sold a shit-load of Snarky Cards!

OK. That was a horrible, scandalous lie, so that I would look good on The Internets. I didn’t sell that many cards. Mostly, I traded cards for whiskey. And it was hard. I think I didn’t realize before last night that approaching drunks and asking them if they’d like to buy your art is asking for a lot of rejection. Which can sting, if you’re not used to it. And after 3 months of holing up in my house, nursing my broken leg, getting stoned, watching Buffy and knitting, I’m not used to rejection anymore. So when a guy told me that “Card season is over”. It kind of surprised me. I sold these cards last year around this time. So that asshole is wrong. And was just blatantly making shit up so that he wouldn’t have to talk to me. The pre-broken Snarky Card Chick wouldn’t have let that slide. But I was…like…impotent.

And I kept using high-nervous-voice when I said “I was hoping I could show you my Brutally Honest Greeting Cards!”

After an hour I stopped trying to sell and I just started drinking. “I used to be good at this, right?” I asked The Cute Bartender. He nodded and looked surprised. “You used to own this room.” He told me emphatically. I looked at him nervously over whiskey #2. “Really?”

“Really.” He said firmly. I turned morosely to the cute boy next to me. The girl he’d been talking to got up off the stool and went to the bathroom. “You’re working her hard.” I told him drily when she was out of earshot. “What? Um, no. I have a girlfriend.” My face crumpled in disbeleif. “Shit! See? I can’t even read that! Ohmygod. My mojo is gone! I can’t even tell when people are flirting anymore. Shit! It’s like finding out you’re suddenly not good at sex!” I wailed. He grinned. “Oh. No. We were flirting. But, you know, it’s not going anywhere. I have a girlfriend.” I stared at him while he looked sheepish. Something inside of me clicked. I can tell when people are flirting still. I can even get them to confide in me. I’m not terrible at this.

I got up off the barstool and limped to the back room, where I hadn’t tried selling yet. And then things started looking up. Someone recognized me! Or at least, she knew my cards, and she looked at them and said “Gimme! I wanna see what you’ve got!” And then I was surrounded by people squealing and laughing while they read my art. And all was right with the world. Later, a cute boy spent an hour working his cheesy-ass game on me. It’s been so long since I’ve heard cheesy bar game, that it worked! And I got laid.

So, it was not the triumphant return to the bar that I expected. It turns out that my job is hard. And it takes skill. You have to have the right tone. You have to be able to read people. You have to be grateful. And you have to be ok with people telling you “No!” a lot. Most of which I was not, last night. I was nervous. I was scared. I was worried that the Universe broke my leg because it wanted me to stop selling my cards in bars.

But, I think the Universe broke my leg for other reasons. And while I didn’t make as much money as I would have liked, eventually, it got easier. And I realized: I can remember how to do this. My leg is healed. I can go back to my old life. So, thanks to the Bonfire, and The Cute Bartender, and the boy who had sex with me and the people who traded me Snarky Cards for whiskey. You reminded me that I’m still Super. Even though I got broken.