Back from the Dead

As you may have noticed, this blog has been a ghosttown for many months. Lots of things have conspired to make it difficult for me to make regular updates. Lack of time is the biggest issue, but lack of motivation has been an issue as well. I’ve tried to write a few posts recently, but they never manage to see the light of day. I can’t quite seem to kill the blog entirely, and gosh darn it, I’ve still got stuff to say. But how to get back in the habit of regular posting?

When Jordan Baker posted an interview on her blog and offered to interview anyone who was “lingering in a creative void,” I jumped right on it. I thought perhaps with someone else giving me the topics, I could actually manage to pull something together. She provided some excellent questions, and the answers are below.

If anyone else is having my issues, I’d be happy to help. Here’s how it works:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. Be sure you link back to the original post.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions

And without further ado…

1. What's the strangest thing you've ever done in the hopes of combating insomnia?

Despite having chronic insomnia, I haven’t done anything that crazy to combat it. Mostly, I just lie in bed and hope for the best. Sometimes, I embrace it. About a year and a half ago, I was in the midst of a really bad, months-long bout, but I just went with it, started getting to work at the crack of dawn, and spent much of my waking time writing. It was actually pretty productive. I would still prefer the ability to sleep.

2. You're stuck in an awful place where there are only four television stations; you have to choose one to watch in perpetuity. Each station shows a different awful ongoing storyline from a different season of House--Evil Vogler; Lusting for Stacy; Evil Tritter; or Thirteen's Pretty Dying Girl Tragedy. Which one do you choose and why?

This is a really hard one. I can eliminate Evil Vogler and Evil Tritter immediately, because of my complete and utter loathing for both storylines, which were, in essence, the same storyline. I wasn’t crazy about the Stacy storyline, and I stopped watching shortly after the Tritter mess, so I haven’t seen the Pretty Dying Girl Tragedy, but everything I’ve heard about the addition of the new characters sounds exceptionally annoying. Also, the actress who plays Thirteen seems really annoying, and I have a feeling that having to watch her tragic life would make me want to throw things at my TV. So, I’ll have to go with Lusting after Stacy, because it would cause the least amount of teeth grinding on my part.

3. You mentioned having a bunch of half started blog enteries that for one reason or another, you haven't finished. Give us a brief (1-2 sentence synopsis) of 3 of them.

a) A post about the overuse of the term “style icon” and how it’s lost its true meaning and how no matter how many times Vogue tries to tell that Sienna Miller is a style icon, I am never going to drink that Kool-Aid. It’s also a listing of my personal style icons, and it’s at a more finished state than most of my other unfinished posts, so it may actually see the light of day sometime soon.

b) A post praising guilty pleasures. I have had a lot of guilty pleasures over the years and I was trying to write about why I should stop feeling guilty about them. Sadly, most of my guilty pleasures are so guilty, I’m embarrassed to write about them. See item 4 below.

c) A post about why I’ve been neglecting the blog for so long. It’s a boring recitation of excuses that no one really wants to hear.

4. I know you would totally never watch potentially embarrassing TV shows like One Tree Hill or anything, but if you did, what would be a) your longest lasting guilty pleasure program; b) the guilty pleasure program you currently enjoy the most; and c) the one you feel guiltiest about? (You can use the same choice for more than one, but we'll need a detailed explanation of why it qualifies in each category).

a) My longest lasting guilty pleasure is Guiding Light. I’ve watched it on and off since I was 9. Sadly, a little over a year ago, Guiding Light pushed my patience to the breaking point and I had to stop watching lest I turn into a crazy lady who throws things at her TV and yells things like, “You dang writers are ruining my stories!” I still haven’t forgiven them.

b) I currently don’t have a TV guilty pleasure. This feels very strange. A couple of years ago, I stumbled up Season 4 of One Tree Hill. In the first episode I watched, a married pregnant teenage cheerleader nearly suffered a miscarriage and was then deliberately run over by a car driven by a gangster who wanted revenge on her husband for not throwing the state high school basketball championship, which he was supposed to do to pay off his debts to the gangster. Right after the hit and run, the husband’s half-brother suffered a heart attack while his brother was attempting to beat the gangster to death. It takes three or four months to achiever that kind of drama on a daytime soap. I was totally hooked and ended up watching the earlier seasons on DVD. It was very much in the “so bad it’s good” category. Sadly, season 5 was so excruciatingly awful that I gave up watching it.

So, I have no TV guilty pleasures anymore. I tried Gossip Girl, and it was ok, but it didn’t do it for me. I liked Dirty, Sexy Money, but it was actually pretty well written, so I’m not sure it really qualified as a guilty pleasure, and then it was cancelled. The few TV shows I watch currently are generally literate and well-acted. What’s a girl to do?

So, I was forced to turn to another medium for my guilty pleasures. I ended up reading all of the Twilight books and seeing the movie. And they were an excellent guilty pleasure. Sure, the books and the movie aren’t great, but it definitely fulfilled my need for fun trash and furtive pleasures.

c) I definitely feel the guiltiest about Twilight. With other guilty pleasures, I’ve sometimes claimed to be enjoying them ironically. And sometimes, I actually was. But there’s nothing ironic about Twilight. Sigh. My shame is now bared to the world. (On the plus side, Twilight introduced me a large world of vampire/demon/fairy-related fiction that I had no idea existed, so that was another guilty pleasure in the making. But that’s really the topic of its own blog post…)

5. You're a (native? long term resident?) of the DC area, so the new First Family has come to you looking for advice--how to fit in, where to eat, where to shop, and Malia needs the names of the best dive bars for future reference. However, because of security concerns, you have to tell them everything they need to know during one three minute covert interview in the back of their limo. What essential knowledge do you manage to impart during that time?

I’ve lived in the area since age 4, so I can give some good advice. But I also have decided prejudices against some of the newer elements in DC, so my advice is more about what to avoid.

a) Skip Georgetown entirely for food since it’s mostly overrated and overpriced. For shopping, there are a few smaller boutiques in Georgetown, but don’t bother with anything else. They’re chain stores you can find in any suburban mall. Shop the smaller stores that are located all over the city and keep them in business. DC doesn’t need to be another Times Square.

b) Don’t ever read Washingtonian magazine. If you do, do the opposite of whatever they suggest. It appears to be written by and for people who believe that chain restaurants serve the best breakfast food in the area. Sigh.

c) Avoid any place that has a line. People are sheep and just because everyone is going there doesn’t mean it’s any good.

d) DC does dive bars well. Check out [redacted], [redacted], and [redacted]*. The dirtier the bar, the more awesome it is in my opinion. Anywhere too clean and you get the khaki and striped shirt douchebag crowd. The stickier the bathroom floor, the more likely they are to stay away.

*Redacted for security reasons (i.e., there are enough douchebags overrunning DC’s bars and I don’t want to advertise anywhere they haven’t invaded yet).