....and then my bed frame broke, and oh how we laughed...

Sometimes things happen to us and when they happen at first, we don't really know what to do with ourselves because we've been doing that same thing for so long, that every day seems like the same routine place, and we know everybody, and everybody knows us, and we get comfortable, and we slack off, while trying to look like we still give a shit, and most days we do, but then there are days where you just feel like your soul is being sucked out of you, or already has been, and you feel completely dead in every way. You know you should try something else, something that will make you feel the excitement of being like you were on that very first day, but you don't know where to start because every day when you get home, you are so goddamn tired, you would rather just cook yourself some dinner and watch the Jersey Shore marathon of season one on MTV2. And you do. Oh boy do you ever watch the shit out of some cable, and drink 1-2 bottles of wine a night by yourself, and you think, while you crack open that second bottle, "man, this really is the worst. My life really is a fucking joke." You drink more wine, pass out, wake up the next day, and lather, rinse and repeat. Propped up in a corner next to your bed is a graduate course catalogue that you've been staring at every single day since it arrived in the mail three years ago. Notebooks of blabber jabber and art magazines and things that you used to really love to do and see and listen to are collecting dust and cat hair and glitter shards. Books and movies and people talking about things you like to talk about, but you feel like you can't because you've been out of it for so long, you don't remember where you left off.

Every fucking day was the same unti this day. I lost my job today, and while i was upset and severely bummed out, I take this as a message, whether it be from some higher God-ish incarnation, or just the way time should naturally progress in my life, this is what was supposed to happen because otherwise I would have been there too long, and I would never have been given the opportunity to make a serious change in my life, in myself, in everything I once had a passion for, but threw to the wayside because I was too busy being one fake fuck. Change on the key change, and because I am awesome, maybe I have a chance to be an artist again, and write, and sing, and learn, and teach, and get back to who I was a few years ago.

This stings like a motherfucker, but, after that part wears off, we'll be back in business and maybe I can write something that doesn't sound like I'm listening to Jenny Lewis, which I am, and I can write you all something to bring the laughs back.

As always, thanks for reading, and thanks for being my friends( lame-o I know, that's the Jenny Lewis sads talking). Without you, I'm just some lonely cat lady talkin to her cat.

Love,
Betsy

They make it so hard on us baby.

The world is ending tomorrow. Well, please hold. Not so dramatic this time. Take two. This year is ending tomorrow. We've got one more night to do whatever we think we should have done all year, and we've got one night to try to remember all of the things we did and all of the things we said and did not say all year. All the people we should or should not have met, or known, or spent the time to meet or know. We've got hours people. Roughly twenty four hours from now, i will be wrapped around someone somewhere telling them that I love them, and that I couldn't have possibly lived this far in my time without them, even though it is a person I just met, this year, that minute, the follow spot on my cue into a rousing rendition of Auld Lang Syne. Dear Lord, Dear all ya'll. Are you ready? Are you ready for all of the love that is going to be barfed onto you in a few hours?


Every year I build the New Year celebration up to be something I think is going to be the best night of my life. Something to the effect of the first time I ever got drunk or did any drugs, or rode down Lake Shore Drive at six in the morning listening to "1979" and watching the sunrise on Montrose Beach, or spent the night with someone I truly loved on a massive level, and every year, the hangover of the New Years celebration begins before the actual hangover begins.

I love a celebration, please believe. I also love any time where it is customary to guzzle champagne and hug everyone. Right now, I've got the Jenny Lewis sads, and while taking a trip back in my time machine of patchy memories of what happened this summer/this year, makes me wish it would've never ended, I wished that before the summer ended. I've got the sads in a good way. This year, as opposed to the past few years, has provided me with enough hilarious stories, and loves of my life to last me the rest of my life. All sentimentality aside, this year I felt everything I could possibly feel with every single person who is important to me in my life. Uppers and downers. I haven't felt that in a long time, and I will admit that the majority of the time it was NOT chemically induced.

I had the best year of my life, and it was all thanks to every person I met/know/took in along the way to wherever I decided I was going to try to go, but then ended up somewhere absolutely different.

I wouldn't change any of this for anything, and I want you to know, that while I think resolutions are a waste of time, and sure, it is just another year, and sure we can all do the same thing next year, sure we can. We can do whatever you want babe.

This is an important time for me. I like an end of the year "wrap up" special, like what you see on the E! channel. I like watching things happen again that have already happened, and you think, "Oh mah gawd. That def happened! How totes perf!" "I can't believe that happened!" "I can't believe we spent the entire summer on my stoop watching the neighborhood get down with itself, and drank a milli beers, and sang songs together, and spent hot ass summer nights trying to figure out how to stop it with all the sweating..." we sure did learn a lot about ourselves didn't we? I mean, didn't we? At least a little? I'd like to think that I ring in the dead end of my 20s as something truly spectacular and then, once I turn 30, it will be like being born again.

The countdown has already begun, and I want you all to know, that even if things didn't work out exactly as you thought this year( I did try my best to love you, I reallly did, and, whatever, I still probably do, but these things have a way of not working out, but working out, and that is something that will just have to heal itself), we have another year, and another one after that, and then yet another after that etc. etc. etcetra. We have the rest of our lives to be everything that we think we want to be tonight. Tonight we will be everything we want, whether it makes us hate ourselves Saturday morning or not.

This New Years party is our perfect match, and I cannot wait to spend it with all of you. Wear something sparkly, and meet me at my place around 8. There will be champagne, and jams, and hugs, and everything will be perfect, we will all be each other's perfect mate, even if it is just for one night.

XOXO
Betsy

Betrayal and my betrayals

Tonight's post is brought to you by a Spanish wine named "Wrongo Dongo" that was recommended to me by the nice gay at the Kafka wine shop. So helpful! This wine is perf.

After the semi-rambling I puked out last night, I felt as if I needed to write about a little something else. I've been thinking heavily, while drinking heavily, about Harold Pinter. I've been thinking about minimalism, and I've been thinking about Harold Pinter, and I've been thinking about Betrayal.

I've been a performer for my entire life. Even though I spent my formative years on the stage, I never felt anything as painful and as bizarre as when I saw Betrayal for the first time. I was either a freshman or a sophomore in college, and I was taking an introductory acting class at my very bourgeois, very tiny private college, in a very small town in Wisconsin. The story is as follows: Three people spend their entire lives figuring out that they have all fucked each other in various sexual and non-sexual ways. There are the two marrieds, Emma and Robert, and then Robert's BFF Jerry(who is also married) who enters into an affair with Emma whilst at a party thrown by Robert and Emma. The story is told beginning with the end of Emma and Jerry's affair, and we take the horrifying trip backwards through all of the stolen moments, and almost uncoverings of the affair, right up to the very first illicit kiss between Emma and Jerry.


I want to hate these men, and this woman. I want to stop them from making mistakes that will ultimately ruin their lives. Every time I have the opportunity to see this show, I will see it. Harold Pinter is the master of minimalist theater because he doesn't waste your time talking and singing about every single arbitrary thing the people in the cast are doing at any given time. The dialogue is so short and loaded, and that is why it is so uncomfortable. It is possible to communicate with truncated language instead of a Gilmore Girls-esque verbal diarrhea landslide.

Any time I start thinking about Betrayal, I start thinking about our relationships with the people who are closest to us. I start to think about all the threesomes and foursomes, and in some sad, silly cases, twosomes we get ourselves into.

Two days ago, I was getting my hair cut, and my stylist, who is also my friend said, as we gossiped about our relationships and non-relationships, that "we never like who actually likes us. We always want the asshole." I don't mean to get all superficial, selfish, sonofabitch Carrie Bradshaw, but.....the FUCK? As much as I want to hate Harold Pinter for being a misogynistic man, I can't help but agree with Emma. Why not try to have both of the men you want? Because threesomes never work out as glamourously as the movies allow them to be. In real-time, they are very much like Betrayal. We start something with one person, knowing goddamn well that this is the person that is mean to be the "right" choice, and, then, cue the third party who is more exciting, even a titty bit dangerous, and absolutely the wrong choice. The wrong choice will always win because it makes a person disassociate. Psychologically, you spend the vast majority of your time rationalizing why spending time with the wrong person is ok, and why spending time with the right person is boring and will never go anywhere.

Betrayal can serve as a morality tale for all of us who are in-between friends/lovers. Telling a person you are in love with, that you are in love with them is terrifying, and can be, in some cases, totally out of line and a case of mistaken identity. The line you cross can and will become unclear, and you will decide that the wrong is the right, and the wrong is the absolute.

Pretty words are what sways us in the end. Both the "right" and the "wrong" have said the right things, and I have said the right things, but we cannot all live together in peace and harmoneeeeeeeeee...Make a choice. Claim this person or lose them forever to the shit show that is non-descript relationships.

Claim a person and eliminate the prospect of a Betrayal like betrayal.

I can never love you both the same way.

XOXO
Betsy

p.s. Even if you thought it was Chopin's Nocturne in C Sharp Minor, this is my favorite piece of music ever written.

Private Lives.

In my youth, I spent many nights wasted out of my skull, entertaining the idea that somebody out there gave an ounce of a fuck about what I had to say. I would spend my nights writing about everything all over the place on MySpace, and, even though the medium, for a few seconds of sobriety, felt like a diary that no one would read unless instructed to(in a last will and testament sort of way), i knew that it was basically like jizzing my feelings all over the internet. I used to mainly write when I was 100% drunk, and I only wrote about people I knew were not "subscribers." Jesus I am so cool. Every once in awhile I'd get a case of the sads, and write about some poor fool named Patrick who I used and abused for many years. All of this information is free to the public. Anyone can go into my old ass generic ridiculous MySpace profile, and not only see old embarassing photographs of me, but you can read all about it. If you want the LOL of your life, take a trip back in time with me.

I'm J/K. The story is that I'm home alone all weekend, and if you are my friend on the internet, you would already know this. If you're not, then I don't know you, because if we're not friends online, then who are you really? All night I have been updating my status about what movies I'm watching, what I'm doing while I'm watching them, what I think about them, how I'm teaching myself Chinese phrases so I can go to Chinatown and feel cool and show off my totally excellent learning skills, how I drank a whole bottle of Malbec(no big deal, I'm Italian, so my blood is actually wine), how I took some pictures of my cat, my apartment's cold, etc. etc. etc.

My point is that while everyone is pissing and moaning about how their privacy is being violated in a non-sexy way by Mark Zuckerberg and palz, I am over here writing(drunkenly, thus, more sharingly than normal) about all the shit I'm doing, where I'm doing it, and who I'm doing it or not doing it with (everyone who wouldn't hang out with me tonight thus forcing me to drink alone I'm directing this at you). At this point in my relationship with the internet, I could not give less of a fuck who knows what I'm doing. I'll tell you. All you have to do is become my friend on some friend thing on the internet, and I will tell you every single thing I am doing at all times. I will show you photographs of things I am doing and projects I am in the process of completing. I will tell you what movies I am watching and give you my opinions about said movies. I will relay to you a series of adventures I have had on any given weekend and most likely will post the accompanying photos. We will all laugh the next day, and then, I will ignore all the comments I receive that are redundant and idiotic and remind me that my attitude towards the internet can be, at times, for lack of a better descriptive terms, chilly and dismissive.

This thing is powerful in ways that it shouldn't be, and that is both confusing and exciting. I know that I am going to share this entry on Facebook, and that people will read it and mostly not know exactly how to process it. Wait, it's not funny, or about DJ Pauly D, or some art thing she's into, wait what? It's not celebrity gossip, or nail polish sparkles, or, for FUCK'S SAKE HALLOWEEN??????? WTFLOLROTFLKITRIPXYZ.

I enjoy talking to people in my real life, why not share with people online. If I want to share private moments in my life(which I don't unless you are a person I see regularly), then I will do so how I please. I can't be intimidated by the prospect that someone might find some information I have posted online and attempt to use it against me in some childish and insufficient way. I left that information out there in the middle of cyberspace for a reason. I was just some emo wino searching for some boy to love me in a way I'd only seen in the movies. That is where these things originate, and that is where they will shrivel and die.

If you people wanted privacy, you wouldn't be on the internet every waking second of every day, and you wouldn't spend all your damn time checking yourself into Facebook Places. You would tell all social networking sites to suck a dick, and you would go about your business as if they never existed.

Since I'm kinda drunk and sharing, and remembering the good 'ol embarassing days, here's a link to my blog on myspace. I just read the first few and boy am I wishing the internet would self destruct. I just keeeeeedingggg!!!! Read away. I love the attention.

XOXO
Betsy

Choose your own idiot.

I have a thing for idiots. Idiots of the male variety. They make my life more interesting, and always give me something to complain/gossip about. I like having idiot men in my life because it balances out how overly serious I am guilty of taking myself. Nothing clears up a case of the emos like a totally idiot dude pal who's around to make me explode into a fit of idiotic laughter and forget what I doing in the first place. I LOVE IDIOTS!!!

If I were ever stranded on a desert island with nothing but a couple of idiots and maybe the smoke monster(just for tree shaking purposes), these are the dumbasses I'd want to dick around with(celebrity edition).

DJ Pauly D


I don't know what it is about this guy, but recently, I was watching an episode of the Jersey Shore, and my first thought was, "oh dear lord, I am attracted to fucking DJ Pauly D." He is the king of the idiots, but he is SOOOOOOO CUTE! You guys seriously. Wouldn't we make the stupidest couple ever??? FUN! On day 357 of our stay on our deserted island, while he was sleeping, I would totally shave his Sonic the Hedgehog hair off, and then he would get totally mad at me and I'd be all, "Your hair makes you look like an idiot!" and then he'd be all, "well your haircut makes you look like a lesbian who looks like Justin Bieber!" and then I'd start laughing, and then he'd start laughing, and I'd say, "Oh Pauly D, I just can't be mad at that idiot mug." Then we'd skip off into the jungle. ZOMG cute tops.

Zach Galifianakis
Duh. He is like the Prince to Pauly D's King. This guy would be cracking me up all day and all night. DJ Pauly D and I would probably get super annoyed with him all the time, and it would be like a weird Three's Company episode now with more idiots! I would laugh at his poor choice of clothing, but I would insist on using his intense beer gut as my pillow every night. Pauly D would get jealous, and I'd be all, "go sleep on that pillow I made from banana leaves and that Brillo pad I shaved off your dome." These guys!

Martin Starr


I fell in love with Martin Starr when I saw him in Adventureland. I know he's part of the Freaks and Geeks squad, and has been in those Judd Apatow debacles, but his true idiot awkwardness shone like the last working bulb on the Ferris Wheel on the set of Adventureland. While Pauly D and Zachary and I were prancing around like total spazzes after we ate some psychotropic plants, Martin would be all, "Chill out you guys. You're totally embarassing me even though there's no one else here to be embarassed in front of. Shut up. Leave me alone." Then we'd all start giggling uncontrollably, and then Martin would say, "Ah fuck it, gimme some of those gross leaves you just ate!" Then we'd all dance like stooooopidz idiotzzzz until the sun came up.

Man, my Island of Idiots would be so totally fun. Let's make this dream a realititty!!!

XOXO
Betsy

Tennis bracelets and tiaras.

Tonight is my 10 year highschool reunion, and while most people will spend the night remembering the good 'ol days, and reflecting on the carefree days of yore, the days before marriage and children, I am preparing to make a hilarious appearance with my bestie Heidi, and then I plan to leave out and go hang with the folks I really want to see.

Today I tried on my homecoming tiara, and looked at some totally horrific photographs of me from a dance freshman year. A hilarious dress from the 60s that I'd found in a thrift shop in Minneapolis, white tights, electric blue platform shoes, NO makeup, and horrible skin. Let's NOT remember the good ol days. I mean, let's remember them, but like all good things, only in moderation. I got through one box of photos from highschool theater and Junior and Senior prom, and then I was all, "I'm out."

I will enjoy my time tonight seeing everyone I forgot about and people who I'm sure have forgotten about me. We will all awkwardly talk to each other while eating stale pretzels and drinking flat sodas. Then we'll all write on Facebook about how we had the best time ever and how it was great to see everyone, and then we'll wake up, but the top will still be spinning. IT WAS ALL A DREAM!

Just kidding. Have fun tonight everyone, whatever you may be doing. I love leaving because it makes the return that much sweeter. I hope your babies look like monkeys.

XOXO
Betsy

Time for Adventures.

This year has made me feel like I'm 20 years old again. It has been nothing but insanely fun and bizarre adventures from asking a cab driver to "drop us off in the alley behind the Double Door" on New Years Eve to my experience last week in the isolation tank. Everything in between, too many adventures to remember, but the ones I do remember make this year, this summer, this time in my life, in all of our lives, exciting again. It's that new life smell. We're all almost 30, some of us are closer than others, and while every once in awhile, we feel the overwhelming pressure of the fact that we are almost 30, we seem to have forgotten, or at least made the decision that what we are doing right will not be what we're doing in another 30 years, and this idea, to me, is totally comforting. I can get all of my 20s out of my system in the next two years because as soon as I turn 30, things will be different for me. For you. For all of us. Our lives with change, but it will be ok, because we are not meant to stay this way forever.

Why.So.Serious??? On Friday, I went to see a preview of my friend's performance piece. It was so different and inspiring to see his work in person, and not just as a photograph, or as some kind of an oral history lesson. Previously, I had a hate-hate relationship with performance art for many years. It wasn't until I took the time to hear everyone out that I began to understand it, and then...I started to like it. After I liked it enough, I loved it so much I wanted to marry it. It seemed to me like the purest form of expression. More expressive than even some of my favorite paintings. ESCANDALO! I understand that art in any form is a deeply personal and intimate thing, and if you make something out of anything, paintings, sculptures, words, yourself, you form a relationship with your creation. Sometimes when it's over, you want to immediately destroy it, but then there are the times you make something so special, you can't let it go. You dig your fingernails in and the next thing we know, you're living in the Misty Mountains, and asking a furry footed midget, "what's taters Precious?"

What I love love LURVE about any sort of performance art is the impermanence of it. Art museums are tombs for artwork. Sure it's fun to see Monet's "Water Lillies" or Picasso's "Demoiselles d'Avignon," but what else? Most people I see wandering through museums pass right by all these incredible pieces, and I can see them mentally checking it off of their list. There isn't any emotion, no connection, no immediacy of a situation. So what?

I saw Marina Abrovomic at the MOMA in New York doing a show called The Artist is Present. One part of the piece took place in the middle of the room, and you could wait in line to sit across from her and stare at her for as long as you wanted. She did this for about 2 months. If you didn't see it the first time, you will never see it again. Ever. Chris Burden stood in a room and had someone shoot him in the arm. Ladies and gentleman, one night only.

A few days after seeing Matt's show, I started thinking that what I love about art, and why I intend to spend the rest of my life in a relationship with art is because I am in love with the impermanence of it. Even if I were to have Matt perform this piece again, it would never be the same show. Seeing the same pieces hanging in the same places in the same museums is tedious and boring. What makes these adventures so exciting is the fact that we will never ever do them the same way again. Last night, I got into some hood rat stuff with my friends, ended up in some awful bars, drank some truly foul liquor, and then somehow made it home. That night will never happen again. Even if I went to every single place I went to last night, in the exact order I arrived, it will never be the same. Routines are necessary, and I understand that. I have them. I indulge them. I hate them.

To find the absolute adventures for the rest of this year, we should, like any great performer, act as if we are unaware of an audience. This is our time to be free. Take a chance to laugh out loud if you think it's funny. If you think I'm a dramatic idiot who looks too far on the inside too much. Do it. I dare you. Have emotions in public and share them with people. Speak words you actually mean, and make art in any form that will degrade and someday turn to yellowed dust in someone's alley. Art shouldn't be forced to last forever, and we should feel sad for paintings locked in museums. They are ghosts of ghosts who cannot die. Create to destroy.

Until then, our adventures continue, and if we're all going to be seen together, we need to all be seen wearing these.

XOXO
Betsy