Jerk Ethic.

Wordpress.

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:06:47 -0700

Yes. I did it.

http://jerkethic.wordpress.com/

My Desire To Be A Milkman? Ironic.

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:21:00 -0700

Lil’ Kim says, “Send a bitch a kite.” I say, “I like email.” — ainsleydrew@gmail.com

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

I need to get this out of the way: If you are one of the people following me on Twitter, I love you. I mean it. Like, in the creepy way. Your Replies and Direct Messages and emails give me a reason to not close myself up in a washing machine and wait for sweet sudsy spinning death to come. Thank you. Sincerely.

And please don’t stop.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Scott Simpson, who might very well be the nicest human being I’ve ever met on the computer, gave me some advice regarding my recent conundrum of how the hell to monetize this blogging thing.

I’ve started hoping, in this kind of ridiculous way, that somebody out there in the interether would reach out and offer me a steady gig or a book deal. It’s in a similar way to when I wanted to be a milkman as a kid.

I was born in ‘81. There were no milkmen. Especially not on Long Island.

Scott’s advice was to capitalize on the intellectual property aspect, especially since a freelancer’s advertising opportunities are small at best and nonexistent on Tumblr.

I know, I know, I know Stuff White People Like got a fucking book deal motherfucking motherfuck. (In other news: Congratulations, guys. You do actually deserve it though I’m so jealous I could rip out my own tongue, write a fan letter on it, and mail it to you like a postcard.)

The internet has allowed the cult of personality to become a sort of elite club, where people like Kottke, the Nicks, that guy who likes the famous people, that chick with the accent, and countless others to become “bloggers.” For a living. They get paid to write and post on the internet and wear pajamas if they want. I want to wear pajamas for a living.

So I started thinking in the shower about what Scott wrote, about what I have to contribute to the Internet as a voice in the clamor, what IP I’ve got in the way of WPM. Here’s what I could come up with:

A site giving advice on how to be a lesbian who cyber-stalks her male crush from college, moves across the country to be with him, and what not to do. The last part would include such revelatory tidbits like: How To Cry On A Trimet Bus, Why Making Out With Girls Is Bad Even If It’s Right In Front Of Your Boyfriend, “Fuck Me” Means Lots Of Stuff That You Didn’t Know It Meant, and Try Not To Move Back To New York. It would be like a new agey sort of blog. Uplifting.

Your Late Twenties: Why They’re The Same As Your Teenage Years In The 90’s And Why That’s Probably Not A Good Thing — This one would be very dry. Think NewScientist only following the slow demise of Hot Topic stores, grunge, and working knee joints.

GashDot. A site about not having your period. Trying to do that with Bitchcraft but moving and actual itty-bitty freelance jobs have sort of tripped me out of the Wicca starting gate.

Riff off of Eve Ensler and create The Vagina Microblogs. Wait, no, I’ve already been doing this.

I’ve also been wondering if trying to market in different niches would work, for instance, instead of just saying that I will write anything at all for money, seriously instead start targeting actual markets, like record labels who need press kits or band bios, or tech enterprises that need success stories, or dirty old men who need erotica. Just infiltrate each market with an offer and a quote and a sample. How to go about doing this, though, is the question.

So, now that all my whining is out of the way, send me advice, work, or hate mail. Please. Life’s really fucking dull when you’ve got no work or hobbies other than finding burrito places to bike to and posting offensive drivel on Twitter.

Oh, and writing this stuff. This stuff is a hobby, too, I guess.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Completely unrelated to work, but completely related to my shower: the juxtaposition between my new apartment and my old one is astonishing. I had forgotten about doorstops actually existing. Also, lights? In the bathroom? Fuck, dude. And the kitchen has not only a stove but a spray nozzle attachment for the sink! How do you say luxury?

I expect to find an entire kiddie pool filled with jizz in my closet by tomorrow morning.

————————————————————————————————————-

Pointless self-promotion. It’s as easy as

1

2

3 [Please note that this was based on the time before the stockings in my closet started showing up with vanilla frosting all over them.]

Oh, and here is Scott Simpson’s Tumblr page, your monkey called.

—————————————————————————————————————

Knuckle Down, Knuckle Up

Wed, 28 May 2008 21:35:00 -0700

[Write me a letter: AinsleyDrew at gee male dot calm]

The influx of work has once again slowed to a trickle, which means that it’s back to verbal bloodsport for me and my other hand. Keywords and phrases of recent arguments: entitlement, worry, melodramatic, I’m going to/why don’t you just move back to New York, really?!, you act like the sky is falling, and the tried-but-true fuck. I should do a tag cloud.

For those of you who didn’t see our tantrum both in Unthank Park as well as on the corner of Shaver, the conclusion came after my boyfriend and business partner was gently hit by a truck as he skated after me. We talked it out from a seated position, the conversation went nowhere, and I got so hungry that we decided to put the fight on hold while we went out for Mediterranean food.

He was okay. The truck didn’t hit him hard. Jesus Christ, that sounds insensitive.

I decided that there has to be a deeper psychological component to our word combat. I mean, we’re not actually crazy, even though he tells me I need to“see someone.” We’re in love. Really, we are.

So I used Google to try to find an explanation, a sentence that, in and of itself, should clue me in as to how far along shit creek my mental canoe has gone afloat.

Here was this little tidbit I dug up from the anals…annals of Psychology Today, my favorite magazine to read in the library of my high-school when I wanted to seem “smart”:

Couples fight about money more than any other issue. This is as true of couples who stay married as of couples who wind up divorcing. The main financial matters couples fight over include levels of spending and saving (since women tend to think men should make more, while men tend to think that women should spend less), the amount of time spent working, differences in long-term financial goals such as retirement savings, and money chores such as balancing the checkbook and paying bills. (Psychology Today Magazine, Nov/Dec 2004)

Considering that we have no money to worry about saving, spending, or balancing in any way other than in a neat stack of quarters on the bedside table for bus fare, I don’t think this article is appropriate. Moreover, we work together, and we love what we do, so “time spent working” isn’t an issue. Retirement, for everyone in this country and particularly for freelance artists, is basically on par with a unicorn-versus-narwhal dance-off. Ain’t gonna happen.

So. I suppose we don’t fight about money, though I’m no head shrinker. I think we fight ‘cause we want someone to give us a chance at a long-term gig, may it be corporate blogging or a company’s advertising copy and editing. And what adds to the short kids’ cage match is that we’re wholly poor, which makes us skip meals, and skipping meals makes us cranky. Two only children who are craving burritos and yet are forced instead to spend the afternoon together typing out compelling prose about bourgeoisie necessities such as vacation packages and software components? Yeah. Take two beta fish and toss them in the same bowl, dub over sound effects of hyenas ripping out each others throats. And that’s on a good day.

Since he thinks that we fight because I stress over money, I figure I have to get money for both of us in order to stop the endless fight. Money equals clients, in the grand scheme of things. I don’t know how to get clients — a gold lamé mini-dress, pleather stilettos, and a large thumb, perhaps — but I’m trying.

This morning I was still pretty keyed up, but I kept it to myself. My thoughts ranged from What does he know anyway? He at least has a part-time DJ gig to feed him to I don’t care about money, I wear the same clothes I did in high-school. Literally. It’s true.

Then I lost forty dollars on my way to the grocery store and the frenzied cycle of homicidal rage and abject terror that ensued — as well as the sudden, histrionic shift of the internal dialog — led me to believe that perhaps the boy is right. Maybe I do worry about money. Maybe I even, daresay, stress about it. Maybe I should see someone. And by someone I mean the kind folks at the local Food Stamp Office. Or a temp agency. Or my mom.

Adding to my generally apoplectic worldview is that I have no idea how to take the work we’re currently doing and apply it to the job hunt. One of our employers is at the helm of a sinking ship enterprise, and in response to a project we were sent an email about what we should be gearing our work towards. The meandering message and accompanying asinine images included MTV celebrities from circa 2000 as well as washed up socialites and the phrases like “we were ballin” and “he came threw and got laced.” [Editor’s Note: Yes, that spelling.] Scrolling through the suggested examples made me want to drink a liter of bleach and jump off of my roof. I couldn’t tell if it was serious.

Sometimes it feels like freelance work is a lot like high-school, only without the dewy hormone-induced glow that arrives every morning. I’m grateful to be in this with someone as pigheaded, confrontationally capable, and small as me. It makes for a delightful off-road spectacle, if nothing else.

——

Check out the magick pronounced magic

——

Will Work For Nearly Anything

New And Inventive Ways To Look For Clients

Mon, 26 May 2008 23:31:00 -0700

(Another list. How productive of me.)

Because my dancing skills aren’t getting any better and my naked body still resembles a stunted prepubescent boy after trying out for the swim team, and because I realize how close we are yet again to splitting a can of refried beans as a meal, I present my latest attempt at getting work: New And Inventive Ways I’m Going To Look For Clients. Another blog post about looking for work on a blog that’s about looking for work. Send your own suggestions. (AinsleyDrew@gmail.com)

1. Bathroom graffiti. “For a good line call…” The only problem with this is that I have a 516 area code. You know who has shared those three illustrious digits? Amy Fischer, Mariah Carey, Billy Joel, and some kid from American Idol. It gets an A+ for visibility here in Portland, but a solid FAIL for everything else. Besides, Portlanders don’t call. They apparently sulk apathetically and then get wired money.

2. Tattoo.* Also a good way to strike up conversation wherever I go, which really isn’t very far. I figure it should be a tattoo of a huge set of testicles on the inside wrist of my dominant hand. I write with balls, get it? Crickets and a cough.

3. My mother. No. Bad idea. I would wind up writing copy for real estate agents, hair salons, and the rest of my family who are mostly employed in jobs they hate. That’s why blogs exist, to distract from that sort of nine-to-five monotony. Well, that and to make people who type fast feel like they’re actually doing something with their lives other than slowly starving and wearing the same clothes from high-school.

4. Pitch to Nick Denton.

Stop laughing, that one was serious.

5. Start a vague blog that applies the same logic as Matthew Barney’s Cremaster series. Basically confuse and destroy. My posts would be anonymous and unsettling. You’d follow but you wouldn’t know why. People would describe it as pretentious and revelatory. I probably still wouldn’t be able to score us any paying work.

6. Reality television. “All right, get this, so these two scrappy kids live in Portland, a real hipster town, real up-and-coming. The kids, they’re like, kind of gay looking…no, no! I’ve got it! One is gay, the girl, yeah, that would be hot with the backstory, some sort of girl-on-girl montage, yeah. And the guy, he’s like, what’s something that’s in? A DJ? Yeah, he’s a DJ. Really humble but still a pretty big name in the DJ world out there. Lots of opportunity for product placement there, Adidas, Nike, all that shit. And celebs too, like Busdriver and some music industry big-wigs. Yeah, so, the DJ and the dyke, they’re writers. They’re trying, struggling, to make ends meet. Maybe they fuck too? When stressed? But they fight like hell and the girl one, she cries a lot. I mean, a lot. Like water works every show. We can even have Tori Amos write the theme song. Or maybe somebody more relevant, like, that screechy one that sounds like a whale, who’s she, Regina so-and-so? Yeah, her. Anyway, lots of yelling, lots of tears, but it’s funny! It’s funny! Like, dark comedy. What do you think? I’m saying it has CW network written all over it…Wait, these kids really exist? Really? Like, there are people that pathetic out there? Eh, fuck it, at least now we don‘t have to pay a writing staff.”

7. Rent parties. These were huge in New York at some point, probably when we were in school. In fact, we probably snuck into rent parties and stole the booze when we were at NYU. Well, we should throw two now, one for our rent (two apartments) and one for work (the office we never go to.) Then we’ll have one for food and then we’re set. Three parties. Now we just need friends who have money, a space, and some stuff that makes people do stuff in this town other than bicycles and drugs. The problem with this is that we likely wouldn’t get any writing out of it. Unless we turned it into…writing parties! Kind of like face painting at a carnival only with ad copy and technical writing! Okay, I know, this one makes no sense.

The truth is, I have no idea how to get clients. I have no idea how to get work, how to convince people they need someone to punch up the copy on their website, that their product could use a push, that their launch requires a press release. The clients we do get are often flaky about money, and are one-time jobs. It sucks. And even though things are going pretty well right now I find myself gripped in the usual glittery glove called fear, and it’s the sort of handshake that keeps this short girl up at night, usually next to a boy who has a knack for unconscious teeth-grinding. (No joke.)

If you have any advice, or job offers, send them my way. AinsleyDrew at gee male dot calm.

* I’m getting a tattoo tomorrow and although it’s writing related, chances are that it likely won’t lead to work unless my tattoo artist is desperate for a new bio or children’s book. “Needles Can Be Fun” or “There’s Ink In My Hurty”? Maybe.

A List Of Herded Cats

Mon, 26 May 2008 00:27:00 -0700

I’ve been more negligent than I had planned to be with Jerk Ethic in the past week, which I suppose is a fairly dull and predictable disclaimer for a recreational blogger. Next time I’ll come up with something interesting like, “Oh, I’ve been fighting a ton of crime ever since I mastered Jujitsu. I swear, once I get this mugger out of a headlock I’ll post more often.” Nothing that sexy. We’ve gotten some much needed freelance work and I’ve been preparing to move into a new apartment so I can move out of the spank bank. Boring stuff, but edumacational. Tonight I present to you a list of Things I’m Learning. Maybe it, too, can enlighten you. And if you enjoy Jerk Ethic and would like to read it more often, as always, you can always pay me to write it.

Sometimes sharing an office can be a lot like an open relationship.

Just like casual dating, it initially seems liberating and wise, especially if you like the other party involved and want to make them happy. However, just like polyamory, it can quickly spiral out into an out-of-control, socially overwhelming and unnecessarily intimidating situation that inevitably leads to arguing, avoidance, a loss of money, and possibly chlamydia.

Okay, neither one of us has chlamydia. Yet.

We haven’t been to our office in a week. That means that ¼ of our rent this month was wasted. Partially this was due to a computer being in a locked room belonging to a friend in an out-of-the-way location but also we’ve heard that several other individuals have been invited to share our space. What had started out as a three person share is now five to seven people in a single room.

It doesn’t help when two of these people are what we can refer to as “talkers.” We’re talkers, too, but we’re also panickers. As in, we panic, fight like hell, and produce stellar copy. Much like getting in the middle of a bayonet duel, it’s probably best to just leave us the hell alone when we’re working together.

My counterpart says that we should invest in some industrial grade headphones. (He’s serious.) While I think that wearing an air traffic controller costume might send the message that I want to be left the fuck alone because my medication has worn off, I don’t think this is a viable long-term solution. We’ll have to see.

Just like the cheating husband who buys his wife jewelry, if you’re cut a check that seems too large, chances are there’s something amiss.

This isn’t to say that we believe in selling our work for cheap. We don’t. Even when we’re down to our last nickels for bus fare and we’re sharing an apple as a meal we don’t lower our rates. Period. But when you sit down and have a project outlined in vagaries, incoherent business jargon (“We really took a bath but now we’re movin’ up, with your help, we’ll be movin’ up.”) and then you’re just cut a fairly sizeable check without being told what you’re supposed to actually do to earn that money, well, it’s a little dumbfounding.

And confusing.

But, hey, we’re more than grateful and walking out of an office, check-in-hand, feels a lot better than walking into a soup kitchen, bowl in hand. Besides, we turn in good work on time. Even if we’re unsure what direction this particular client is going with us, we’re still writing. And we’ll continue to do so until he tells us to strip naked and fuck on camera, ’cause, hey, kids, that’s what he’s paying for, etc.

Working with someone you love can mean wanting to kill the person you work with.

It’s great to wake up next to someone who makes you feel like the world’s a pretty rad place to be stuck to. It’s even better when you work on a project with someone who challenges you and makes you excited to do a good job. Celebrating your loved ones’ successes is part of the joy of having relationships and families and all that gushy interpersonal stuff. But financial strife and fear and hormones and just general day-to-day nonsense can lead to more tears than a The Cure fan-club meeting in a cemetery, not to mention the kind of fighting that gets Quentin Tarantino erect.

Meanings of some of the looks we’ve shot each other of late:

I know that tongue is good for something. Talking right now? Yeah, that ain’t it.

Several variations of the expression “fuck off.”

Hold me, leave me alone, hold me, leave me alone.

Right. Great idea. What’s next, buying a puppy and panhandling?

If I had a pen knife I’d slice off your fingers, stick them in your mouth, gouge out your eyes, and then open all the mail I haven’t had time to get through since I started dealing with your bullshit.

The plus side of this is that the things that turn out well are, for lack of a better term, double-happiness. The other day one of the projects that we worked on went live. He had done most of the writing, I had been on the revising end. I saw his words, thoughts, and vision on a website and it was better than seeing something I had constructed solo up anywhere. I felt proud, not only to be his girlfriend, but also to be a part of the company that churns out such brilliant work. (Back pats all around.) When you work with someone who pretty much astounds you daily with their intellectual and creative capacity it’s incredibly rewarding, even if that reward comes with a fair amount of risk and resignation. That said, our business account had best include a monthly sum put aside to post bail.

Don’t talk about cunnilingus in a business meeting.

Just don’t.

Keep reading, stay tuned, check out Bitchcraft as it becomes more regular, just like I hope my period will…

Sweatin' to the Oldies, like in the "Closer" video.

Sat, 24 May 2008 00:51:00 -0700

My current love/work arrangement can best be described as “like Richard Simmons and Trent Reznor trying to compete in a three-legged-race.”

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Fri, 16 May 2008 23:44:00 -0700

I’d like to thank Gawker for putting my Twitter page up under “Twelve People Worth Actually Following On Twitter.” I don’t know if I deserve it, but I appreciate it immensely. Hopefully it will result in some form of work. It feels really nice to be recognized. Almost as nice as a full stomach.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Yesterday Simon’s slogan for a local breakfast comfort food spot, Pine State Biscuits, ran in their ad in the Portland Mercury. Put your mouth down South.

I would like to state for the record that he absolutely knows what he’s talking about.

He has family from Louisiana and was raised in Oklahoma. He knows good biscuits. Pine State’s are fantastic buttery gifts for the mouth, I was lucky enough to sample one (with mushroom gravy) prior to my blogtastic vegan adventure. He likes to taunt me now by taking me to watch him eat there. He’ll get his. And it’ll be laden with soy.

Mr. Goetz has also penned this guest spot for Jerk Ethic, after much cajoling, pouting, and oral sex. Enjoy. Heaven knows we did. And, no, it isn’t a substitute for actual eating, but we wish it were.

Disclaimer: As stated before, we’ve learned our lesson. 50% upfront. It’s almost as much our fault as it is their delinquency. Hey, we’re new at this, and we used to believe in the good of mankind. We’re learning.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

AN OPEN LETTER TO CLIENTS WHO OWE US MONEY

Dear Clients Who Owe Us Money,

We realize this letter is only one of the many we’ve sent over the last few months. Chances are it will go unopened, deposited in the entryway to your office with the others, mingled in with Netflix envelopes and reminders from your dentist about your next cleaning. If stacked, they’d be thigh-high by now. You probably stopped reading after we mailed the first. If you hear the voice messages we leave every other day, we hope, in the kindest way, that the guilt is mounting in your chest and around your neck, like an albatross made of leaden hippopotamuses.

We’re tired of writing letters to you and beseeching to your answering machines. Our index fingers are blistered from punching in your phone numbers. But we’re going to keep doing both until you deliver the money you owe us. We’ve done work for your business. Now pay ours. Please. Please? We’re starving over here.

See that sun outside, the one you were golfing under yesterday while you let your Blackberry ring? Sometimes we feel like we’re holding that up, arms and shoulders buckling under its molten girth. The bills are piling up fast on the hollow-core-door-and-sawhorse desk we all share. We’ve been digging through our office neighbors’ chromed trash cans, foraging for Snickers bar crumbs, sucking on used Kleenex wads for the salt.

Months ago now, we wrote tag lines on your behalf, bouncing numerous emails back with suggestions and revisions and reassuring you that no, your fledgling product or restaurant didn’t need to borrow the aesthetic of the Hard Rock Café. No, the slogan for your company should not be three sentences long. No, your product should not have a lower-case “i” in front of its name unless you want to be fighting off more lawyers than there were Persians at Thermopylae. But now we know that you aren’t really concerned with that. You’re probably lining the floorboards of your BMW with our letters full of quiet pleading, lighting your cigars off our desperate and clawing invoices.

Do you know that we don’t even have cars, that it’s a financial impossibility? That to pay the rent in our shit-heap apartment with the mystery stains on the ceiling, we have to overdraw our accounts? Last week we fought over the logistics of rationing a bag of Skittles. There were some tears and some biting, and as a result one of us needed to sell their bicycle in order to afford antiseptic ointment.

We understand if you are poor (which, judging solely by the size of the hybrid SUV that you drove to our initial meeting, you aren’t). Even if you don’t enlighten us as to the reasons, we wish that you’d at least possess the decency to inform us that you are not paying so that we don’t run out to the mailbox every morning, eyes welling with hope.

If you continue to leave your debts to us unsettled, we will use the one thing we have to (gently) destroy you: words. We will sell our friends’ children in order to take out ads in the New York Times, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, Piantball XXXtreme, Better Homes and Gardens, and on websites across the illustrious adult novelty shop known as the Internet. We will combine the most cynical and atrocious words we know with the name of your business or product. And this will be done soon - yes, soon! - once one of us is able to reach the keyboard from behind our Biafra-wracked bellies.

So, before you take off to your beach-house, we ask yet again, with lightness of angels, pull out that Mont Blanc in your breast pocket. Fan out your checkbooks, pick one that feels right in your hand. Lick the etched-gold nib and turn need into have. Redeem yourselves. Save us.

Sincerely,
Everyone at Ministry of Imagery

PS - Sorry that this envelope is slightly wrinkled and stained. The most recent mailman made the mistake of knocking. It has long been established in our office that government employees are okay to eat.

Please Don't Count On A Discount

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:22:01 -0700

Gimme my money!

I disclaim by saying that the client I’m referencing in this post seems like a pretty nice guy. He makes eye-contact, speaks slowly, and up until I turned in the final work he was pretty attentive when it came to being in touch. I don’t know if he’s ever worked as a freelance writer in a new town with an unidentifiable fishnet stocking fetishist ejaculating into his clothes. I’m not foolish enough to assume that he’s never worked under pressure, or that I don’t sympathize with him on some level, but the following exerpt from my morning will hopefully illustrate why I’m becoming less convinced that humanity wasn’t just something that was used as a mood enhancer back when brontosauruses were still fucking.

Sample dialog from today when I met with him in order to receive payment —

Client:     I know we said two hundred dollars. But how about I just pay you one hundred and fifty dollars cash, right now?

Me:       Um. But you quoted two hundred dollars.

Client:     See…yeah, money’s real tight for me right now. I’ve got this new business, and my wife is on my back…

This was the moment where I remembered sitting on the floor of my tiny room, next to my even tinier semen soaked closet, nary two weeks ago. I was splitting flour tortillas ($1.37 for 50!) and refried beans ($0.67 per can) with my boyfriend. The silence that fills a room when two people who love each other are starving is like no other silence. It’s why the tale of Juliet and her Romeo exists. If those kids didn’t die there would be no story. Hunger is our Montague clan. Our clients are the Capulets.

Me:         You quoted two hundred dollars. I’m sorry. I did the work. Next time try to quote me lower.

And at that point two Grants and a Benji were literally thrown in front of me.

No harm, no foul, full pocket. I might have severed a possible ongoing business relationship with my inability to fold under pressure, but at least I got paid for the work I did.

And this is why I am learning that the ability to bust balls is perhaps not the greatest trait for a lady to have, but it does make for better business. Next time I’m demanding 50% up-front, 30% if it’s my dream job (read: any writing for or with Henry Rollins or Kim Addonizio.) Anyway, I don’t look very good in a skirt and I suck at cooking.

I know it’s against my usual policy of railing against white girls who are plagued with issues of entitlement, but I have to wonder if this guy would have tried the same bullshit with, oh, I don’t know…Glenn Danzig or Roger Bonair-Agard. I doubt it.

I also learned a strange lesson from all of this, other than the fact that I should start pumping iron and injecting anabolic steroids. It’s much, much easier to demand things when someone you love is involved. I know that if someone mugged me I’d hand over my wallet, but if someone tried to mug my dad in front of me I’d pull out my K.I.S.S. and become a human ribbon making factory. My boy and I, we are a team in this writing game. If I crack under pressure his side of the glass still leaks. We are not going to be scared any more if I can help it.

I don’t understand if I’m just ignorant to the way the world truly works. Perhaps I’m the one who is a hardass, demanding way too much, usually in the way of, you know, money. Maybe tomorrow I should just walk into Fred Meyer and stroll up to the clerk with my grocery cart saying

Wait, well, I know it says $4.49 for a box Corn Flakes but, see, how ‘bout I just give you three dollars after you let me take it home and eat some of it? Money’s tight, I’ve got a bike I need to get painted, and my boyfriend likes sweat socks, the fancy kind…

Mayday, Payday

Mon, 12 May 2008 23:04:44 -0700

“A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place.” Wall Street

I’m lucky enough that I can say first-hand that it’s true, if you do what you love you’ll never have to work a day in your life. Stick me in front of any old word processing program, notebook, whiteboard, paper napkin and give me something to write with, I’m happy. More than happy, I’m at ease more so than I am when I’m not writing. It’s weird.

The first paycheck I got for putting my cursor to work was back in 2000. The entire experience made me laugh, and not just because I knew, at the ripe age of nineteen, that I was being drastically underpaid, but because I had done nothing that made me feel as though I deserved an iota of monetary compensation. I sat down, I wrote about the topic I was instructed to, and a middle-aged editor in a loft overlooking Houston Street cut me a check. It was like I played the biggest joke on the world. It felt like a bank heist. I probably bought a tattoo with the money.

Fast forward eight years and slide a few bills under the door. I can’t call up T-Mobile and say, “Hey there! Don’t you just love allowing people to communicate? You do? Well, then look at that as my payment for your service. Your happiness.”

Not so much. However, it seems to be common practice in the world of freelance writing that your clients often won’t see the importance in paying you. They may openly gush about your work, they may refer you to their friends, they may say that your business card is the most creative and hilarious thing they’ve seen since Blue Man Group (seriously, that’s how dated most people who would hire me are) but ask for payment and you get…crickets.

I had a deadline today. I handed in my work on Friday (yes, early), went through the text with the client, sent in revisions. Sent two follow-up emails. Suddenly I‘m being avoided in a more severe way than the time in high-school when I wouldn‘t let Danny Lynch have sex with me in the backseat of my cousin‘s Civic. This cold shoulder would be fine, if it were a cold shoulder of beef I could carve up and eat. Unfortunately it’s not.

Tomorrow I’m going to have to call the gentleman and I can nearly guarantee what’s going to happen: he’s not going to answer. Or, if he has forgotten the only cell-phone number from Nassau County in this little town belongs to yours truly, he may pick up and be suddenly, inexplicably busy. But chances are that I sent the assignment off into the ether like Apollo 13, except instead of getting a heroic ending in the form of a deposit slip I’m getting a personal tragedy. That was my cell-phone bill and part of my rent, motherfucker.

My mentor, who is phenomenally successful and a bitch enough to be otherworldly attractive too, has told me to demand “at least thirty percent up-front.” I have now learned the hard way that this is more than crucial, it’s quite simply shitty business not to. And it reflects having the self-esteem of an overweight sixth grade girl going straight from the orthodontists’ office to a beauty pageant. I love to write, but not asking for at least some money immediately upon being hired just comes across as desperate. And stupid.

You’d think that I would have learned by now. You’d think I would have applied my east coast I’ll-cut-a-bitch-with-no-questions-asked mentality to work. But it seems that karma might be kicking my ass. I remember telling my paranoid pilates boss that she didn’t give her customers the benefit of the doubt. They would pay. If they said they forgot their wallet at home and that they’d pay next time then chances are they, you know, forgot their wallet. They’d pay next time. They weren’t out to get her.

I wonder what she’d have to say about this little predicament I find myself in. Two hundred dollars worth of work and I can’t get my client to respond to me, even just to man-up and say he’s not paying for whatever reason. (“I don’t want to” would even work in this instance because at least then one person would be triumphing over the Portland non-confrontational flakiness I see nearly every day on line at the nearest Stumptown.)

Simon is a copywriter as well. I could spout praise about him all over this blog but instead I’ll just say that if you’re interested in reading some insanely good writing go here. He is also fiercely intelligent, witty as hell, and hotter than a Scotch Bonnet. (Sorry, ladies. I aimed my blowdart gun expertly in this case.) But when it comes to business he’s gone through this not once, not twice, but three times, each lack of a paycheck accompanied by my tongue clucking, saying, “You know, you really need to start asking for them to pay you before you send out the work.”

Now that he’s taken me on as his business partner we’ve had to strategize and try to figure out a way to get the cash for the characters, the paychecks for the paragraphs, the Washingtons for the words. (Okay, bigger than Washingtons. We hope.) So far my list includes “call their mothers,” “cry,” and the not-so-business-savvy “hire someone large to threaten them, possibly with angry dogs.” I also thought “protest” but realized that this is Portland and a) it’s impossible to make anybody show up on time for anything and b) there are too many fucking protests.

So here’s the outcome, before we starve to death, I would like a list of suggestions.
If you have any - the ridiculous, the serious, the ones that have worked for you - please email me at

ainsleydrew at gee male dot calm.

Please.

Skin Flicks, Vol. 2

Thu, 08 May 2008 15:49:56 -0700

A flick of the wrist…

So I haven’t updated this blog in a few days longer than my usual dalliance, I know, and I’m sorry if anybody is reading this regularly. In the future I’ll try my damnedest to keep it more regular. At least I have a good excuse, and not that I was camping out for an Ugly Casanova show or got a bad haircut.

When I first moved to Portland I lived with my boyfriend, another half-Jew/only child/writer with particular tastes and a generally spoiled nature. Basically I’m dating a bald version of myself who is a better skateboarder and has fewer tattoos. Needless to say, living with him in a single room that first two weeks was like reenacting a scene from The Shining, only with more menstruation and cursing. I moved into the first place I looked at, which was a large room in the upstairs section of a house south of Powell.

For those of you not familiar with Portland’s quirky geography, there are a few basics that I‘ve learned since my arrival: Southeast is where the whitest of the white hipsters play and live, there are many tattoos and a lot of vintage duds and the attitude of apathy rules. Also, there are many, many vegans. North Portland is more racially diverse and is likely to be wholly gentrified by the time I finish typing this sentence. It’s like a different world up there, in a good way. Northwest and Southwest I have no idea what they’re about but I assume that one houses the Sharks and the other is the home of the Jets. South of Powell in Southeast, however, is what happens when a meth lab, a Western Union, and the dregs of American industry get drunk off of wine coolers and decide to light the cat on fire. It is not high-class. It is dangerous in that somewhat subversive way. I would walk home and would watch the litter at the side of the road change from arcade trash from the Avalon, empty packs of American Spirits, and the fliers for the new Band of Horses release to the used condoms, broken glass, and crushed cartons of French fries that were left behind by the SouPow ilk.

My roommate was a few years younger than me and perpetually looked at me with a mixture of awe and fear. (Mind you, this was back when I was still drinking, so the fear part was somewhat justified.) He worked as a waiter at a douchebag filled pub, and had the hopes of recording an album with his band. We had no light in the bathroom, no internet, and a broken TV with rabbit ear antennas that got channels “sorta 49” and “almost 47.” There were no locks on any of the doors. My roommate’s car was broken into and he had his radio stolen three times. One day the dog ran off and nobody knew for hours because the backdoor was always swinging open. One of the band members, a twenty-one year old ex-Mormon who had severe diabetes, lived in the basement next to where the washer and dryer were kept. He had to give himself daily insulin injections so the entire lower level of the house looked like a sequel to Trainspotting, only starring the members of the band Hanson. It was not quaint or charming. Other than my camaraderie with the band, and the way that my roommate would jump to do nearly anything that I asked (buy a whiteboard where I could write drunken notes, call the landlord to try yet again to get the bathroom wiring fixed, buy soda, give me a ride to a house party he wasn’t invited to, check to make sure the kid in the basement was still breathing, buy more soda) I wanted to move. My friends and previous job were far away, it was winter and the sort of depression that hangs over that general area of town is only heightened by the gray pallor of the Portland rainy season sky. I wanted a place where I could write and piss under Tungsten. I was hoping for a home, not a dorm.

A friend of mine asked if I wanted to move into his house, located in the heart of hipsterville in Southeast, overlooking several bastions of Americana - the all-night drugstore, a gas station, the library. The house was inhabited by my friend and two other men, both of whom I knew peripherally from my favorite vegan restaurant and bar where they work. It’s hard to explain the interconnectedness of the house and its landlord, its residents, and the owners of the vegan joints but suffice it to say, I was about to become the adopted kid sister to a bunch of guys that I thought were maybe the coolest people I’ve ever met. And I do mean cool in that high-school way; these are guys who are covered from head-to-toe with ink, who fix up classic cars on the weekend, who keep skateboards, guitars, and rusted tools on the walls as decoration. A few of them speak with a Southern drawl. They were friends in high-school. All of them have the name of the bar tattooed on their body, a sign of brotherhood and badassery that I can barely fathom.

Now, this slate gray house isn’t a palace, mind you. It might be the living, moving, breathing equivalent of Suicide Girls for the female sect but it ain’t pretty. There’s no furniture in the living room, we have a hot plate instead of a kitchen, and my ceiling is unfinished, with watermarks that seem to indicate where someone’s hiding the bodies. There’s the grill to a car and an organ (of the musical variety) on my front porch. Up until a few days ago the lawn was so overgrown with weeds that the mini-greyhound who lives with us was rendered invisible when she scampered about taking a pee.

I live in a dude ranch.

But I like it. All three of the guys I live with are like characters out of the graphic novel-esque adulthood I imagined for myself as a sophomore at Friends Academy. I sometimes spend my nights watching European car racing with one of the guys and then spend the morning discussing the merits of different strippers and porn stars with another. My boyfriend gets along with them. And the kind of squalor we live in doesn’t require a feminine touch. They piss with the door open. It’s home.

When I unpacked I took the hall closet as my own. There was nothing in it and it was the closest storage area to my room, even though it was “common space.” I threw my shit in it, the same way I always do, a tangled clump of clothing and a few random items like a duffel bag and a bike lock mixed in. Although both my room and my closet did not have a lock, and I had heard the story about how a bike had been stolen out of the house when two of the three roommates were home, I felt safe. I don’t have anything of value at this point in my life, so unless some meandering meth head is going to shove my cellphone charger, my boyfriend, or my thesaurus into his pockets, I didn’t feel that the safety of my stuff was compromised at all. Besides, these guys are large and scary looking. The kind of men mothers on suburban Long Island have nightmares about their daughters marrying. The kind of guys Bravo and A&E film reality shows about in order to market rough-and-tough testosterone to those who have none.

A few days into my residence here I had to get dressed up for something, probably a failed job interview. I donned my favorite girlie outfit of skirt-ripped-up-shirt-and-fishnets and went to leave. That’s when I saw the dried vanilla frosting on my tights. And then my skirt. And my shirt.

I was in a conversation with the original friend who led me to this house when I noticed it. I speculated that it was either confection or a human secretion of the male variety. He concurred.

“It’s not me,” he said.

I was grossed out but vowed to be more vigilant with my laundry. It wasn’t like me to, um, overlook that kind of thing. I might be more like a boy than a girl but I still have basic hygienic concerns and don’t like sauntering around wearing a stained outfit, let alone one stained with DNA of an unknown origin.

I told my boyfriend and laughed about it. Though we collectively couldn’t remember the situation or circumstances that would have led to this sort of carelessness, it was funny to think that we were still juvenile or love-struck enough to have souvenirs. I washed every article of clothing I owned and was meticulous about where stuff-covered-stuff went. In my OCD I developed a foolproof system. These towels are for that and they go here. Always.

So the other day when I found a pair of my tights at the bottom of my closet covered in spunk I was not amused. (Also, we were out of detergent, the purchasing of which is not my responsibility.) I told my boyfriend. I told my girlfriends. I was more cranky about it than uncomfortable. They are my fucking tights and it’s gross. The washer and dryer are in the basement. I don’t like having to walk up and down two flights of stairs. Etc.

The boyfriend suddenly realized that this could potentially be the sign of something really fucked up, and since he lives too far from me to skateboard over and knock in some teeth if anybody did anything to me in Southeast, he started to freak out. I, of course, am the type of girl who doesn’t worry about this sort of shit being a threat to my safety. Like I said, I just find it gross, not unlike finding a snotty used tissue in my closet. I’m the kind of girl who associates more with men than women, I was predominately a dyke for ten years or so, and I do not take well to men trying to protect me. The boyfriend and I started fighting about it. This is while we’re dealing with a sudden (and welcome) influx of new freelance clients, the investment in our first office space, and the logistics of adding me to his company. Fighting about man-mayonnaise while discussing deadlines isn’t productive or fun. It’s been a rough week.

I used two pink push-pins and put up a sign on my closet door that reads DON’T SPUNK IN MY STUFF. When asked why the sign was there by one of the guys I replied that I hadn’t set that parameter and just wanted to make it clear. I can’t believe that it’s one of them - I don’t believe that it’s one of them, I can’t bring myself to - but just in case it is one of my roommates and not the random dictionary stealing meth head I figured I’d cover all of my bases. And keep my tights in a Ziploc bag.

A few of my friends told me to move, I replied that I can’t deal with anymore upheaval, financial or otherwise, right now. Besides, I honestly don’t feel threatened, which maybe I’ll regret in the future, but I doubt it. My boyfriend offered to have me stay with him but since the last time we shacked up nearly resulted in one of those cage match Ultimate Fighting specials I think I’ll take the risk and just buy an extra bottle of Tide and try not to think about the other implications of the wash setting Large Load.

So sorry for the “dog ate my homework” post as to why Jerk Ethic has appeared to be devoid of work ethic. I’ve been busy - with actual work and stuff - so instead of writing about cum-covered sluts I’ve been one. Also, one of the guys forgot to pay the internet bill so I’ve been offline at home. But I swear I’ll write about writing about sex…or write about working with someone who seems like they’re going to kick ass in your name one minute and simply kick your ass the next…or writing about job interviews in vintage convertible Triumph Spitfires…on a more regular basis, as soon as the internet is back up and I’ve finished doing laundry.

Stay clean.

AD

Postscript: Since typing this out I’ve discovered that my room has ants. Anybody looking for a roommate?

Skin Flicks, vol. 1

Sat, 03 May 2008 09:53:00 -0700

I responded to a post the other day on a public domain that rhymes with Legs Wrist. It was for a freelance online movie reviewer for a website and it would pay up to $150 per posting. All you needed to do was write to the poster, state your interest, view 30 minutes of free footage, and then submit a review.

As an alum of distinguished (chortle, chortle) NYU Tisch’s screenwriting department that boasts many characters powering both the chorus line and the line at your nearest soup kitchen, I know me some movies. I be learned. Writing and movies are two of the two things I can do well.

So I wrote to the email address provided. Sent my credentials. Asked for the footage. And received a very professional response from an adult entertainment site. I would be reviewing pornography for money. And getting the perk of free porn. Free porn. Words. Money. All they have to do now is offer me food and we have pretty much all of my bases covered.

Of course I’m leaving out the part where I explain that pornographic movies make me more inclined to blush and giggle than go at myself with an itchy trigger finger. I am totally fine with porn and the industry, I feel more comfortable knowing that my three male roommates have smut as readily accessible as a roll of Charmin in the bathroom, but for my own personal intimate amusement I like to rely on the gyrations of my imagination instead of Jenna Jameson.

I was raised Catholic. I’m still convinced that I’m a stork baby. So needless to say I did have to wipe my hands on my pantlegs when choosing between Straight, Ass, Big Tit, MILF, Fetish, Creampie, and the rest of the menu options. 30 free minutes. One review. Money. Like a mantra.

I scrolled through the menu, looking over each offering like it was the salad bar at some smut buffet. It was between Handjob and Bondage. Don’t ask me why. I figured the former would be tame enough for me to remain objective, while the later would be so far out there that I could really let my expertise in expression shine. I mean, when selecting between Arab Street Hookers 3 and Grannies Givin’ Up Panties one has to think about which will have more engrossing content for an editorially successful review.

I decided that The Good The Bad And The Slutty #2 would probably be my best option, in truth this was because I liked the actress’ hair. I clicked on the link, below her exposed wares and uncomfortably jutting knees, and received a blank page. After clicking several times I figured that it wasn’t just my prudish computer but a deeper issue. Trolling my inbox I found the note welcoming me to the site, cyber-ink still wet on the screen. Below is our exchange thus far.

***
[Email]

Hello there!

My name is Cyndi a and I’m the WebMistress for SmutHut.

First of all, welcome! I think you’ll find this to be an interesting website that is truly like no other. As a reviewer, I’ve had wonderful experiences and have met interesting people.

So what does a WebMistress do? Well, it’s quite unlike an actual Mistress, more like a slave actually. I’m here to serve all of you, the writers! I’m nice, I promise.

If you are still waiting on your 30 minutes of free, steamy action (which can take a couple of days sometimes because of age verification), please feel free to review an adult movie you already own or submit a review on your favorite adult toy product. PLEASE NO MORE REVIEWS ON THE HITACHI HV250R MAGIC WAND. We know this is a remarkable product. So does the rest of the world with a pulse.

Truly, it is my joy to help you. Good luck, have fun, and if I can answer any questions, please let me know.

Now go and enjoy watching naked people have sex (for free!) and then write a review about it! Then cum hard, and cum back!

Thanks,
Cyndi
WebMistress of SmutHut

Check out my blog! Click here! http://***blog address removed ***

***
[Email]

Hi, Cyndi

I’m really looking forward to submitting my sample review to SmutHut, your site is quite expansive and has a really large selection of films to choose from. The only problem I’m having is accessing the 30 minutes. I’m looking to review The Good The Bad And The Slutty #2, featuring the sultry Audrey Bitoni. I’m sure that girl’s panties are like a sauna. I’d really like to utilize your offer for free 30 minutes because I have no movies on hand (no pun intended) and would like to submit a thorough and well-informed editorial. The only problem is, every time I click on the “Play Movie” option it goes to a blank page. Any suggestions?

All the best, and good luck with your blog.

Best,
Ainsley a.k.a. Hester Prynne

[Editor’s Note: I needed to come up with a nome de plume. I haven’t been feeling very creative of late, likely due to the recent influx of rejection letters from poetry publications and a dearth of calls from prospective employers. So I chose a go-to name that I figured would serve as both excuse and apology.]

***
[Email]

Hi Ainsley,

Thanks for your kind words!

Please direct all movie fulfillment questions to Jim; he can be reached at [*** email address removed ***] He is our tech support guru and can have your problem resolved much quicker than I could. He has been having a rough time, though, and is out of the office until next week. His dog Lucky died and he is really taking it quite hard. When you write him please do not include the words “dog,” “bone,” “hound” or “all fours.” I know this sounds silly — especially considering the fact that a lot of those words need to be included in the reviews he looks over! — but he is a great man with a big heart and it is very sad to see him upset. He will be back in on Monday, and I’m sure he will respond to your question then.

At any rate, please let me know if I can help further; I look forward to reading your work!

Thanks,
Cyndi
WebMistress of SmutHut

Check out my blog! Click here! http://***blog address removed ***

***

Okay. Well. Stay tuned for the next episode in my little work-free life, which, for this weekend, has the same amount of free porn as it has a steady paycheck.

(She has nice hair.)

Poached Eggs

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:12:00 -0700

My mentor tells me that “anxiety breeds success.” What I hear? Egg donation.

I’d read about harvesting eggs as a quick way to get money back in New York. Of course, back then, the idea appalled me. I regard the gynecologist as the Bowser to my medical Mario Brothers. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I take care of it when it needs taking care of, but basically if that area isn’t being used for recreational purposes I try not to dwell on it. I let it do its thing and I do mine. I think about babies in the abstract way Christians think about angels.

That was before I moved to Portland and decided to give freelancing a whirl. Two dollars in your pocket as you walk around a grocery store and pass a refrigerated display for a dozen farm fresh suckers (“Sale! $3.19/doz!”) makes new ideas hatch. I figure I’m carrying my own little precious dozen or so around, and if there’s a price tag on each ovary, well, then crack me open like a lobster and take ‘em. Sure as hell I don’t need to be thinking about my eventual cartwheel into motherhood because, let’s face it, I am in no shape to be passing on this set of genes lurking below my jeans. My current priorities in the queue include “buy hummus,” “learn Italian,” and “go to another rodeo” well in advance of “create human life.” The average egg harvesting, from what I had heard, tallies at around $8,000. That is a lot of refried beans and skateboard trucks.

The first ad I click on has the usual prerequisites that you’d expect when you’re stealing from the henhouse:

“Must be a non smoker (you will be tested.)
Must be between the ages of 23-35.”

Done and done.

But then I read:

“No more than 2 Cesareans
Must have at least one child of your own”

Oh boy. My first thought upon seeing the word “Cesarean” is a salad with anchovy dressing. And the closest things to children that I have is a Pomeranian in New York and the lady on my deck. If this list so far didn’t DQ me the last item most certainly did:

“Must be financially stable.”

As further proof to how hateful of a human being I am I have to admit that my immediate response was, “If I were financially stable why the hell would I be considering donating my eggs?” Um. Right. So much for those thirteen years of practicing Catholicism to teach me about humanity. Moving on.

At this point I felt much the same way I did when I pawned everything of value that I owned, which shop would take it, which had the lowest standards but the highest return…I half expected to click on the next ad and see a jpeg of the same old man with the lazy eye and the comb-over who bought my earrings for $250.

“Help an infertile couple attain their dream of having a family. If you are age 19-31, healthy, and a non-smoker or drug user you could have the satisfaction of helping someone in a very special way! All ethnic backgrounds welcome! Compensation begins at $5000 for the first donation, $5,500 and more for subsequent cycles.”

I’m 26. More or less healthy unless you include mild OCD and insomnia. I’m a non-smoker who thinks that drugs are lame. $5K for mine scrambled or over-easy? You got it. Click, click, boom.

Then I remember back in New York when I wanted a second job to supplement my income and bolster my savings account, back when saving was an option. I wound up applying for a part-time gig that was “easy work for a great for a girl who enjoys talking to people” with a “tattoo and piercing friendly work environment! Night shifts available.” It sounded, to me, like an office gig at either a veterinary clinic or a hotline. The hours were from ten in the evening until three AM. I figured I’d go for the interview, after all, the woman who called me (Chloe, looking back that should have been a red-flag) was very sweet on the phone.

Fast forward to me being shown around the dungeon and trying not to stare at the girl who was affixed to the wall by leather straps. “What’s your stage name, honey?” Chloe asked. My stage name was apparently a guttural moan which probably would have worked better than Petrified Privately Educated Pollyanna.

This time around I decide to investigate the risks. If there’s over a 15% chance of death or nipple clamps I figure I should sleep on the idea, at least through Monday.

Egg harvesting is some serious business, usually. You could be asked to meet with therapists and lawyers, in order to make sure you truly comprehend what you’re doing.

Also, you could be rendered infertile. Though it’s a small risk…it’s really not a small risk, if you get what I’m saying. Don’t tremble too much at the thought of a little me running around, I’m going to keep one in the kitchen (Cooking) and one in the living room (Cleaning.) I know those are original names, they’re French.

According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine you’re not going to be allowed beyond the velvet rope of egg donation if you…

…have a serious psychological disorder. I’m going to take “serious” to mean “not funny.” So no.

…abuse drugs or alcohol or have several relatives who do. I’m sober. The rest of my clan are more portly Jew than Mötley Crüe.

…currently use psychoactive medications. Couldn’t afford them if I needed ‘em. Nope. No pills other than Tylenol PM.

…have significant stress in your life. Well, compared to any action movie heroine I’m going to say no. Compared to my friends who are planning weddings, families, and corporate mergers I will also say no. Compared to myself last year? Okay. Yes. A little.

…are in an unstable marriage or relationship. Nope, though one could argue that any relationship that contains me as a member is fundamentally unstable. But I feel that I’m currently half of a functioning partnership made up of two people equally accepting of my crazy. Although possibly spreading my DNA around (via any method) might rock the boat a little, I’m guessing.

…have been physically or sexually abused and not received professional treatment. Thankfully no. The closest things to abuse have been in the form of self-flagellation, over-zealous dieting, and following Ally McBeal when it was on television.

…are not mentally capable of understanding or participating in the process. The jury’s still out.

Even after reading all of this and not-so-fondly remembering the last time a lady in a white lab coat played plumber and cleaned out the pipes, I still was thinking about it. Several thousand dollars is literally inconceivable to me at this point. Hell, I’d probably flash my A-cups for a twenty, I’d likely donate my eggs for a single G. But the hormones. Oh the hormones.

See, I’m one of those girls who will be your best-friend/girlfriend/favorite aunt/prize student for two and a half weeks out of every month. The other week and a half? Well, let’s just say that I make a pretty good case for the development of menstrual huts in America.

My best-friend Erin and my boyfriend would agree that injecting more hormones into my little body would be like asking Godzilla to perform a puppet show for some first graders. The entire egg harvesting process can take a while, especially with the frequent doctor visits and monitoring. Extra hormones for extra long? I love my inner circle, in fact at this point they’re literally all I have. Well, that and my girl parts. Neither of which I’m really willing to torture or compromise. Not yet, anyway.

I also read in the ASRM document the word “scrape” in very close proximity to the words “your cervix.” The level of fear that inspires rivals an additional Bush term. Call me a chicken but I’m keeping my eggs.

For those of you who are better women than me, below are some resources if you’re interested in egg donation:

Egg Donation Information Through the New York State Department of Health

Surrogate Web

Exceptional Donors (I’m so tempted to write “Egg-ceptional Donors.” Hilarious. Groan.)

Statements Said To Me In A Tone Not Congruent With Their Meaning

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:43:34 -0700

“I’m not firing you.”

- Freelance client

Team Building Exercise

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 14:53:00 -0700

I’m examining my skill set and narrowing my job search by applying my naturally negative, fatalist perspective that makes me so lovely to be around. There are many things I cannot and should not do, for money or otherwise. I’m taking regular experiences and shortening my list of possible professional paths.

For example, last night I learned from fighting with my boyfriend at a bar that I should not be a life coach, therapist, or housewife. I probably should not be a Girl Scout leader or locksmith in light of the fact that I ran out of the bar in a state that can only be described as that gray area between nearly homicidal and wholly misanthropic and promptly realized that I had left my keys at his house. The best solution I could come up with was to walk sheepishly back into the bar and try to troubleshoot the fight, which was just as ineffective as my attempted departure. Guidance counselor and hostage negotiator were both quickly crossed off of my list, as were park ranger and substitute host for Man Versus Wild, since I extended the shelf-life of the fight by roughly twenty minutes as I tried my best to avoid having to go back outside and into the forty degree Portland night without more than a dress blazer, a pair of jeans, and a lot of seething vitriol to keep me warm.

My general inability to negotiate with strangers or drunk people (strikethrough any and all retail positions, strikethrough police officer and preschool teacher) led to several frat boy types talking loudly and in my face as I called a cab company. Said company refrained from sending a cab to the bar so travel agent or personal assistant are not titles to be printed on my future business cards. All further attempts to disengage from the already asinine, Real World-esque dramafest boyfriend and I were putting on display failed, and in the end I was left with “reality show contestant“ and “my own mother“ on the list of possible future careers.

I should also add that I think that I shouldn’t be professionally employed by AA, Narcs Anonymous, or any rehab facility seeing that my solution - at less than sixty days sober - was to get as fucked up as possible off of well-whiskey with tequila chasers. Which I would have done. If I didn’t only have five dollars in my wallet and to my name.

Also, arm candy? Not me. My charms were outnumbered by my bobby pins. The best conversation that I had all night, other than the one I had in my head with the Jet Blue booking agent, was with a kid so drunk the entire interaction consisted of him telling me that his bike, which he was holding, was red and white. Thank you. I’m unemployed, not blind.

This morning not only proved that my days of having one night stands have gone the way of the dinosaur but that I also shouldn’t pursue a life of crime. The elaborate departure scheme that I’d set up, complete with laying out my outfit and prominently placing my keys on my shirt, was for naught. I type this blog entry on my pink SidekickID wondering when the boy will get up and how much vegan granola I can buy with five dollars. I can’t even quit a relationship successfully. But today that sort of seems like a good thing.

List of Jobs That I Will Not Have and Why

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:54:28 -0700

I might only have $15.00 left in my bank account but I still have enough common sense to know what I cannot do.

Trimet Bus Operator
Reason: I cannot deal with being asked questions and I’m not very patient. Also, sideview mirrors = target practice.

Professional Curler (as in the sport: lead, mate, vice, skip)
Reason: Not a big fan of sweeping, not a big fan of rocks. Unless we’re talking about Pop Rocks or Van Halen.

Actually, no, not Van Halen.

Burlesque Performer
Reason: No breasts, no rhythm, no interest.

Barista
Reason: I have neither visual impairment accessories nor good hair. Also, I’m clumsy and would likely chant things like, “Burn the witch! Burn the witch!” while incorrectly operating the Franke. Or the La Marzocco. Or the percolator. Whatever.

Landscaper
Reason: Any flying insect sends me into a paroxysm of fear that includes screaming and running, especially the ones with the names that are actually a consonant or are associated with the Wu-Tang clan. Landscaping means being outside, being outside means flowers, flowers mean…those things.

WNBA Player
Reason: I have no reason why not. I look gay, I run fast, I like being yelled at in empty rooms, I’m entirely uncoordinated. Sign me up.

Greenpeace Recruiter
Reason: I don’t want to want to kick my own ass.

Daily Grinding

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 22:45:32 -0700

I am not graceful. I am not adroit, lithe, or a delicate little flower. I was the child running through the screendoor after smacking her chin on a chair leg while eating paste. I have names for my scars the way that meteorologists have names for hurricanes. Among professions that I now know I should not pursue I can pencil “professional skateboarder” at the bottom of the list.

Why are you writing about this now, you ask. Well, I’ve been freelancing, which means that I get to structure my own procrastination…I mean workday. Inbetween going to the bathroom and getting another cup of coffee I have distracted myself by tooling around on a borrowed skateboard.

Over the past six months I’ve gone from a professional woman who wore blazers and dress shoes to work Monday through Friday to a girl-child who wears message tees, listens to Portishead (again), and seriously contemplates getting a facial piercing daily. My quarter-life crisis feels comfortable, similar to the first swig of a wine cooler or the warm splash of water as I rinse the Manic Panic dye out of my hair. Skateboarding was another tiny baby step back to the glory days, when I would go to the Wetlands in the Lower East Side to see hardcore bands and when saying, “Screw you!” to my mother was audacious.

Now finding a way to ask her to pay for my phone bill without crying is daring.

So I’ve started skateboarding between projects in the Walgreens parking lot. It’s fun. I don’t know what I’m doing. The other day I fell down so hard that my right thigh now looks as though it’s sprouting a mauve and green guava-kiwi hybrid. My elbow actually has a bruise that retained the pattern of the shirt I was wearing. I would go out and skate now but it’s nearly 11PM and I’m afraid that if I get arrested I’d have to pay for my own bail. That ain’t going to happen on a freelancer’s salary.

Skateboarding is a 2.5 billion dollar industry. Think back to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater that you used to play with your high school girlfriend when all you wanted to do was get to second base. Think of Quicksilver and Element, brand names that are practically suburban household staples if there’s a boy between the ages of twelve and seventeen around. Think about all of the sneakers, the clothes, the stickers that your parents told you made you look trashy and homeless. That stuff, that’s lucrative. That’s business. Professional skateboarders are sponsored. Sponsorship means money. Companies like Plan B can pay up to $120K for a ‘boarder. All you need to have seems to be a board and something to sell, which in short can be as simple as a personality and an image, right? Well, I’m a girl. I have tattoos and piercings. I sleep with both genders and listen to bad, aggressive pop music. I swear, once I learn how to skateboard without falling down or looking like I’m about to pee my pants I’m the next Bob Burnquist. Only without all the talent and the famous vert ramp in my yard and the money from Oakley.

So I gave the parking lot a hug. Does that mean that my pro-boarding dreams are dead?

“The most common reason for skateboarding injuries result from hitting an irregularity on the riding surface. Skateboards have much smaller and less compressible wheels than, for example, bicycles and are more easily affected by interruptions in the riding surface, such as sticks, stones and cracks. A study in the Journal of Orthopedic Trauma cited that almost 50% of skateboarding trauma resulted from hitting such surfaces, which is concurred by most other reports in the medical literature.”

Um. Irregularities. Does that include yellow paint?

I suppose I’ll just stick to my day job. Oh yeah, that’s right, I don’t really have one.

(Thankfully this is not the condition of the board I borrowed. At least not yet anyway.)

Facts

Article - Pro Skateboarding as Dream Job

"Are you hiring?"

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:48:24 -0700

I have started applying for jobs at shops where the clerks look beaten or jaundiced.

It’s like a lion scoping for sick gazelle.

Only gazelle with liprings and coke noses.

Let’s Hope It’s Not Genetic

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:39:00 -0700

Let’s Hope It’s Not Genetic. (The racism part, not the successful career part.)

I warn you in advance, this post is less funny, more ranty. I swear it will not become a habit. I’m not a fan of soapboxes, unless they store old pornographic magazines. Or soap.

The other day I was able to score a potential gig at a non-profit, supported living organization. I would work as an at-home companion to the severely disabled, making sure that they’re taken care of, fed, dressed, not eating cigarette butts off of the street, and so on. My companion and I would go to the park or to the zoo or just stay in the house and I would just basically play the role of a careful friend while getting a paycheck to do so. There would be paid time to sleep involved.

I am feeling pretty on the fence about taking the job for many reasons, and I found myself playing some serious handball up in my headspace over it.

When things get rough for me I often call on my dad for guidance. I do this for several reasons. For one, he’s very different than I am, opposite in fact, (a man of science, not of letters) and therefore will give me unique advice that can quickly be dismissed if I don‘t want to hear it. Also, he knew what he wanted to do with his life at the age of nineteen so sometimes I hope that, through inconsistent emailing, my sense of misdirection will be molded into a compass pointing towards some job with health insurance and a 401K plan. But mainly I write him because he’s always brutally honest. Emphasis on the brutal. That warm-n-fuzzy television brand of parenting? Not his. Then again, I’m not exactly the sitcom child.

Here is an excerpt from our last email exchange. It has not been edited.

“Ainsley: Let’s be up front and honest. Home health aides are black uneducated individuals. What in the world are you doing with your life to even entertain the possibility of doing such a job? Your past history has always been taking a job out of desperation. Look what has happened in that situation. It is time to change this mode of behavior. I really think it is about time you get a grip and start making a long range plan and commitment towards achieving a goal.”

For those of you who don’t have the pleasure of knowing me face-to-face, I am white. I am college educated, and have been accepted to graduate school several times, each time reneging on the ability to go because of my desire to write and my lack of desire for debt.

I am what I consider to be a child of privilege. Yes, at this point in my life I have no money, only enough to live off of for the next four weeks or so, six weeks if I sell my bicycle. No, my father does not send me any sort of assistance whatsoever, nor will he, in part because of my pride. I don’t want any handouts. I figure that the ability to go through high-school without needing to help put food on my parents’ respective tables was a gift enough.

And although I love him to smithereens I have to say that I think the only struggle my dad had to deal with recently was whether to choose the forest green Lexus Hybrid SUV or the black one. I don’t know if he’s ever had to pawn anything in order to be able to pay his cellphone bill. I doubt it.

I also believe that this sort of myopia, and not just the racist nonsense but the entire enchilada of ignorance, comes from a state of contentment that works against any real, positive progression. My father works with people. He is an eye doctor. The last time I checked the majority of his patients were old, non-white, and on Medicare. If any of you are reading this near your grandparents, read that paragraph that he wrote aloud. Now ask them who has trouble seeing.

It’s likely that I’m not taking the job, not because of my elite education, not because of my skin color, not because of my apparently stellar breeding, but because I am scared. I am desperate but I’m not willing to take care of someone else when I can barely take care of myself. My friend who works as an aid (also white, also educated) is extraordinarily patient and thick-skinned. I, admittedly, am not. I cry when I can’t open a jar of pickles. I curse, loudly, in coffee shops when I can’t find my wallet in my bag. I’m known to get bruises and not know where they came from. I have never successfully babysat. I shouldn’t be taking care of an adult who cannot bathe themselves.

Yet.

"Diabetes Starts Here": Job Searching In Candyland

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:08:00 -0700

I am good at taking orders and doing the same thing countless times a day until it’s rote. If that same thing includes pressing a button or saying the same mindless line more times than anyone but Raymond Babbitt can count, so much the better. In honor of my sudden and inexplicable foray into veganism (http://ainsleydrew.blogspot.com/) I decided to look for a job related to the last non-vegan food item I consumed: blue bunny marshmallow Peeps.

Just Born’s facility is in Pennsylvania, so already this is requiring relocation to an area I’m not really willing to call home. Pennsylvania, to me, has two things working against it, namely the Amish and the 76ers without Allen Iverson. Moreover, there’s something pretty creepy about a state having not one but two huge candy making factories. The state slogan should be You’ve Got Diabetes in Pennsylvania.*

That said, pumping marshmallow goo out of a machine while wearing a hairnet sounds kind of fun. And you have to get some sort of wicked sugar high from breathing in corn syrup fumes for eight hours a day. Besides, job perks would include free samples and the smug satisfaction you’d get at a bar with the line, “I can make you candy in six minutes.” (In 1953 it took twenty-seven hours to create a single Peep, nowadays it takes six minutes. The wonders of technology.) I wouldn’t be embarrassed to go to my ten year high-school reunion and say that I make Peeps. Honestly.

The problem is that apparently it’s just as rad of a job as I think it is. Out of all 530 associates they’re only hiring for three positions at the moment and all of them are dry as hell, such as Financial Analyst (“The projections for lavender Bunnies are in and they’re down, people. Seriously, if we’re going to get back up to the numbers we were at when green Chicks launched we are going to have to do some serious strategizing.”) and Mechanical Design Engineer. Well, it’s to be expected if your job title is Marshmallow Packer, Hand Stamper, or Panner you probably don’t want to give it up too easy. Not to mention that on the Just Born website they either intentionally or unintentionally have made a witty little career description: Are you motivated by encouragement to stretch, grow, develop; and become the best you can be? (Original punctuation kept.) Yes, they put stretch. For a job at a marshmallow candy making factory. Cute.

So much for being able to annoy my confectionary co-workers with manic, incessant giggling of the word, “Sweeeet!”

* Pennsylvania’s actual state slogans are “America Starts Here” and “You’ve Got a Friend in Pennsylvania.”

NDA. PMA. WTF.

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:23:16 -0700

I would tell you what I did for work today but then I’d have to kill you.

No, seriously, I signed a confidentiality death clause, otherwise known as a non-disclosure agreement. So all I can say is that it was rad, paid very little, but was the equivalent of taking a quadriplegic to a swimming pool in August. Free fajitas at work? Check. Coffee and lunch-break where I was offered margaritas? Check and check. I spent the day with an effervescent, deliriously happy secretary who talked nonstop about how employees were allowed to bring their dogs, have tattoos, throw parties and how she loved work so much that she never wanted to leave. Of course there are no jobs available at this company. Today was just a freelance gig for a friend, eight hours of work for fifty bucks, but still. Freedom’s just another word for food stamps.

Before you start connecting the dots between the previous posting and today’s allow me to say here and now that no, it was not porn or prostitution. Clothes stayed on. The only shower I took occurred at the end of the day and no alloys were thrown in the mix. But it was still fun and easy money.

Anyway.

Yesterday I took a look at a 1960’s self-help book entitled Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude. I have been told that I can be a trifle vitriolic and difficult when it comes to walking on the proverbial sunny side of the street. I can argue that this is because I both sunburn easily and enjoy complaining. In my previous job with the internet start-up I was told that I was “too East Coast” and cold on the telephone. So I picked up Success with the hope that it would both lead to a warmer, more cuddly me as well as a steady job. I hoped that the words of the author, W. Clement Stone, would be like oil to the rain rusted New York joints of my Portland tin-man, that from leafing through Success I would glide easily into a more easy-going and smiling work persona.

It was hilarious.

First of all, according to this book, “Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.” Well, I have moved to Portland, the unofficial hometown of, “meh,” shrug. It seems that out here the starting point of all achievement is whatever you put your weed in. For my razor-tongued self the only thing that’s definite is that I don’t have enough money to live in this town beyond April, and my purpose is to avoid leaving here at all fucking costs. Being that there are NO FUCKING JOBS it doesn’t seem likely that I can apply for a permanent position, secure a career, and receive a paycheck in time to prevent JetBlue from transporting my sniffling self back to Nassau County with nothing more than a blog and a couple of bruises to show for it. Thanks, positive mental attitude, for being as flaky as most of the people I’ve met in the 503. You say you’re coming? You’re just waiting until you finish downloading the latest Decemberists’ album? Yeah, well. Hurry up and get here.

“No matter who you are you can have a Magnificent Obsession.” Okay. This just sounds creepy. My last magnificent obsession was named Rachel and she had a labret piercing. I do believe that there is something sincere within this quote though, and it pertains to life in all fifty states: it’s true, no matter who you are, you can have a restraining order put out against you for peering in people’s windows late at night carrying a six pack of Pabst and a dozen (dead) roses.

Stone Not-So-Cold also recommends a daily mantra for positive self-suggestion to boost your PMA -

“I feel healthy! I feel happy! I feel terrific!”

I have tweaked this and modernized it to better suit the century and my personality.

“Fucking hell, I’m awake. I want to cut a bitch. Now where the hell is my change from last night, I need to get an espresso.”

Lastly, Stone says the very weighty statement “You are what you think.” In this case I am both bullshit and therefore also a self-help book.

Maybe I just didn’t practice the mantra hard enough.