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Identity Crisis, part 413

Written by Alison | January 7th, 2009 at 12:33 pm | Comments

So yet again I’m wondering how I should be labeling myself. I’m wondering this specifically because I’m on Red Eye tonight and they’ve taken to referring to me as a self-professed pop culture expert and contributing editor to Page Six Magazine. And I am both those things but I’m also a blogger, writer and sort of comedian. I mean, I’m funny. Like really fucking funny. Sometimes I look at myself and just laugh and laugh. Sometimes I drink milk and think of something I said and then shoot milk out my nose. Then I drink coke and think about the milk and the coke comes out my nose! Seriously, you should never sit across from me. I’m like Gallagher but with beverages. Also, I’ve never really shot drinks out of my nose. Who does that? So should I be introduced as a blogger and comedian? A writer, blogger and comedian? And fake body language expert.

While in Canada, DJ from Roseanne (ok fine, his name is Michael Fishman) said “so, what are you?” and I hemmed and hawed (note: I’ve never written hawed before. It looks wrong somehow. It looks wrawng) and then Amelie Gillette whose name I’m likely misspelling suggested I be a “fun-dit.”

I liked it until my brain started hearing fun-dip and then I got distracted.

Anyway, yesterday I ran into an editor-in-chief in the bathroom, which is truly my favorite place to run into people I’m slightly intimidated by and she asked me what my plans are for 2009. “Was thinking I’d put on some lip gloss and get the fuck out of here!” I didn’t say. Instead I hemmed and hawed (TWICE in one blog post!)

Maybe I should just put it out there to the universe? That I’d like to one day host my own funny late night talk show that doesn’t have to be late at night and I’d also like to write more cover stories for well-paying national magazines and I’d like to finally master these splenda meringues because sometimes the egg whites aren’t as voluminous as I’d like?

Do I dare say all this?

Oh, also, I’d like to write a book, write comedy and nail the Russian shuffle. (so-called because one card is “rushin‘” right after the other. TRULY! I KID YOU NOT! I WOULD NOT LIE TO YOU!)

I’ve spent more time today on the shuffle than on the book. See, the other night I was watching Red Eye, the one with the BEST OF 2008 segment, which is essentially like googling yourself except less instant feedback and more fast forwarding and I had to put up with the first half which had real guests and stuff. I think the topic was New Year’s resolutions and Clayton Morris mentioned that he wanted to shuffle cards in a cool way and I think Bill maybe said he did too and that reminded me that that was once MY dream. And yet I abandoned it like a newborn in a dumpster. See this blog post for what happened.

But in the years since, the internet has improved when it comes to card shuffling and now I don’t have to settle for magic tricks. So I’m teaching myself how to do this stuff. I’m at about 55 percent at this point, meaning I can shoot cards all around the room and then roll over them with a computer chair.

Also, who can almost do the ribbon spread? I so almost can! And the one-handed fan. But the Russian shuffle is really the piece de resistance. I mean, once you master that bad boy you won’t even mind that you don’t have any dates.

The Ribbon Spread

Between this, raising each of my eyebrows individually and blowing spit bubbles off the end of my tongue, how can I fail?

The Annual Alison

Written by Alison | December 6th, 2008 at 3:20 pm | Comments

I was musing today about myself and books, but more about myself, and I was thinking that I should write a book called The Twelve Days of Alison but then I was thinking that isn’t enough, it should be the 365 Days of Alison or maybe The Daily Alison and then I was thinking, hey, don’t put all the cans in one bag and all the bottles in the other, bag person, because I can’t carry that and what the hell? Did I neglect to mention I had these thoughts at the store? To be fair, she wasn’t really doing this, I just thought she might because it seems people who pack your grocery bags can’t resist organizing into like items which I find really annoying and short-sighted because then you have one bag filled with toilet paper and kleenex and another filled with bowling balls and you try to walk forward but you just spin in place. I totally hate that.

So then I was thinking I should write a book of advice to people in vocations where I have no experience. For example: Grocery bag packers should not group by like items. Here’s another: Doctors should not tell you about how sick they feel so that as you’re walking out of the office you actually say “hope you feel better.” (that actually happened to me years ago.) Here’s another: bus drivers shouldn’t be prone to road rage. Here’s another: prostitutes shouldn’t wait till the third date. Here’s another: Lion tamers shouldn’t smell like elk meat.

You know, but funny

I need to write a book

Written by Alison | October 21st, 2008 at 5:23 pm | Comments

I just do. I am too delightful and I know too many words to not have my delightfullness represented in an author photo and my words tucked between dust covers. I don’t even need my words to be alphabetical. Or real!

But really, I am tired of going to Barnes & Noble and seeing all these books by all these people and not seeing any by me.

At the same time, I hate paper in general and yesterday I got this crazy papercut when I opened up an envelope containing fabric swatches and then I had to go hunting around my apartment for bandaids and it took forever to find one. That’s what paper will do to you. It will cut you. In fact, if I drew cartoons for the New Yorker I would show an envelope saying to a woman who is about to open it, “I’ll cut you, bitch.” The envelope would be somehow made to look like it’s in prison by the way. It would be a tough menacing envelope.

But anyway, what should I write about? I need something fun and easy that doesn’t involve that much time or energy or hard work. You know, like a book I could write in the shower.

I’m joking. Kind of!

But really. Ideas? I mean, I could collect all my funny essays and some blog posts, that would be a damn good book, but it seems like a new idea would be better. I should probably clear that path to my door so more publishers can beat a path to it. Maybe I should also get a doormat that says “Welcome, publishers!”

If I drew cartoons for The New Yorker…

Written by Alison | June 20th, 2008 at 11:23 am | Comments

I would draw one of two pieces of clothing on a clothesline. One would be somehow chatting up the other and would be saying, “What do you say we take this off-line?”

But that wouldn’t be the end of my clothesline cartoon oeuvre. On the contrary, it’d be just the beginning!

I’d also draw one of some kind of clearly inebriated garment on a clothesline. You know, like a drunk jacket, let’s say. Or a wasted t-shirt. Or a pair of blotto bloomers. Or a three sheets to the wind shift dress. Or hammered hemp skirt. Or a borracho sombrero. Or some knackered knickers! Maybe not the sombrero! And the person hanging this drunk garment on the clothesline would be saying “you need to dry out.”

But see, this is why I don’t draw cartoons for The New Yorker.

Bill Schulz could draw cartoons for The New Yorker if they needed doodles of two pigs in the throes of non-consensual lovemaking. It’s his signature doodle and you won’t find a better representation of said scene on the Eastern Seaboard.

Books I’ll Never Write

Written by Alison | February 26th, 2008 at 10:47 pm | Comments

How I Learned to Quit Being a Neat Freak

So You Want to Skydive

Yoga for Leos

Feel the Fear and Brew It Anyway (or, A Diary of the Year I Spent Growing Hops in my Broom Closet While Collecting Welfare)

Confessions of Fashion Addict

Confessions of a Person Who’s Really Good at Sewing Buttons

Human Pretzel: My Body Bent This A-way

Mmmm, Mayonnaise!

Tuesdays with Larry, My Gynecologist

It’s Friday, I’m in Love (with Gloves!)

Building Your Own Gun Racks for Fun and Profit

Russian Roulette and Other High Stakes Rainy Day Games

Secrets of Someone Who Always Keeps Plans

1001 Uses for a Soiled Doily

Kinko’s: A Love Story

I think it’s funny

Written by Alison | February 26th, 2008 at 9:32 am | Comments

When things get stuck to my blackberry, like paperclips, because of the magnet inside. It reminds me of when things used to get stuck to Woofie’s nose, which they always did. But I find things funny that no one else thinks are funny, so feel no pressure to be amused by this.

Also, I woke up sleep-blogging again. I was coming up with a list of books I’d never write. The first was Things I Learned While Kayaking.

And finally, I’m going to a wedding this weekend and all of us who used to be in the band will be there (it’s the bass player who’s getting married). She wants us to play one of our old songs. I’m kind of ridiculously excited about this, even if I haven’t played in forever.


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