I had a weird experience. I talked to a guy who I don't know that well who reads this a lot, and it was weird. You know how things are weird? Yeah, they're weird. Web sites are weird. He called, and at one point he interrupted me, and I was like, please, let me finish because I was talking about my health, and at another point he made a joke about shut up, bitch, or something and I thought, huh, what impression do I give, on this thing, this thing, this thing. It's a problem I have. I enjoy more than anything else, really, talking to genuinely funny people. There's nothing more. I enjoy. Nothing. When I can't do that, or when I can't hear a sensibility that is akin, that cuts through, that I get, that is true, I sometimes feel as if I'm choking, I feel this weird terror, this kind of incapacitating slowly encroaching oppressive terror.

A comic made a joke about how are we ever going to have a president? Everyone is going to be haunted by their MySpace profiles. And I wonder about being haunted by this, but no, I think it is, yes, I do. I do.

So with that, I present to you, "That's not comedy!" Terrible title. Excellent sentiment, terrible title.

That's not what it's called, actually, but here's one thing I do know, every time the walls seem to be closing in, if I can write or say or interact with one person where they understand some of the same joy and some of the same terribleness and some of the same joy that can be derived from the terribleness, then that is what I find. I was told that this can be dark, but no, I don't know about that. I think life is dark, and I think that life for me is finding joy and lightness and connection and sensibility in the dark. I do. So that's that. I performed this twice. Once to rousing sassy gay applause. I'll perform it again sometime. I love saying perform. I feel like the not very talented girl with the dyed purple hair in the Second City fantasy camp acting class with the nose that was just not quite right and the inability to do the monologue to save her fucking life and she said, I just love performing. I just love it! And you hang your head in embarrassment for her. Because that is you. Oh. And I think it's really the truth, the inability to share the truth at times that can kill me, because I interact with you and her and me and she and write things and you get about 1 percent of it because it doesn't fit an overall larger strategy. I wrote something to someone, and I said that the most difficult thing was trying to convey the truth in the paradigms the conventions of things. And rules are good. They are, and structure is excellent, but there's something emboldening when you see something that actually owns the more difficult things. So yeah, so there's this. There's this. I wrote this in Florida.

So the sad realization is that men are only nice to women because they want to get laid. They want to kiss them. They want to touch their breasts. They want to stick their penises in their vaginas. And they want to kiss them. And that's okay. But it's something where it's kind of like, it's important to always go to a Denny's on your own so that you are within the earshot of a crowd of businessguys who are talking honestly about the previous night. Because they're like yeah I was talking this chick up. Women will never be like men. But they like to pretend that they are. They like to pretend. Like right now I'm kind of pretending by telling you honestly about my weekend. The thing is that women are about as far away from men as you can possibly get. As far, as completely far away. There is nothing more different on the planet. There are women, and then there are men. There are partners in crime. There are, there is loneliness. There is a big cloud of loneliness encompassing the planet, and that is what I like to look at. So I booked a trip to Florida this weekend, and it was one of those things where I had to do it. I just, I have no plans anymore, I have no strategy. I had a really big strategy, but then it got blown to hell. That was my marriage. And I don't want to be one of those bitter women who have some story that they have to tell you but at the same time it's probably important for me to tell my story and do it in an honest way because I've realized that the most strong things in life come from honesty. Honesty is what triumphs but then here's the thing. Honesty has a lot of different sides. Like I can go to a party and I can meet someone who you know they have some influence in some world that I want to be a part of or am already a part of but then they turn out to be a total tool and I will still be nice to them. But it's hard when you are nice to someone and you are also looking at them at the same time like god I want to fucking murder you I hate you you pretentious unfunny arrogant fuck. Because there's nothing worse than those people. And they're everywhere. They are everywhere. And I meet new people like every week, every day because it's just like what I do, it's what I've always done, I've always met 8,000 new people a day and that's just kind of my thing. I will go out right now and there's something in my eyes that either says I like to meet interesting people or I like to fuck or both and that somehow invariably leads to conversation. And the worst part with guys is waiting for them to make a move. Because you kind of want them to make a move but then you are also completely repulsed. You can't handle it, you want more than anything for them to not make a move because they are going to ruin everything. And I'm no big prize. I have a handout of all the things wrong with me. I get that. My life has been spent tilting on one side of my foot to try to be more like the rest of the girls. And then when I finally figured out how to fit in, and I finally fit in and I started dating this guy who had a yacht and a lot of money and my parents started calling me a lot more and said yeah? Yeah? How's the guy with the yacht going, is he still calling you because there is one truth in life, and I will tell you what that one truth is with more certainty than anything else: If you date a guy with a yacht, people are going to ask you about that guy for the rest of your life. Because everyone wants to know with a morbid kind of curiosity, can you keep a guy with a yacht, can you keep his interest up? And it's all your girlfriends especially the ones that you hate. So Mandy what's going on? Is what's that guy's name again is he calling you still? Are you guys still hanging out? Is that happening? Oh yeah, well that's great. That's really. Uh-huh. I think that's great. And here's the thing, he was actually into me but then I just reached a point where I couldn’t handle it. I mean probably it was mutual. It was a mutual parting of the ways besides the fact that I moved to New York and he lived in Chicago but there was a point where I was lying next to him and my voice was kind of gruff from sleeping in and I said you know I just I have serious doubts about the casual misogyny of our society and he looked at me with this big grin, this big placid doe eyed grin and I said what, what are you smiling about? And he said what does misogyny mean and I said you're fucking kidding me, you don't know what misogyny means and then he lent me his copy of FHM for the plane ride on the way back. And you know he's someone who has this big fat fucking belly and on that trip with the guy with the yacht I was having all these gynecological problems I guess I still am because I haven't had my period in like six months now but they did a million tests and now eventually they've just told me well you know during World War II ladies never had their periods so I guess for me getting divorced is like you know defeating Nazi Germany. Some people defeat Nazi Germany, I file for divorce. And I'm thinking about all of this as I'm sitting on the lap of this crystal meth kid who I hitched a ride from and I'm smoking one of his friends' cigarettes and we're passing by a place that says "U Will Stop Smoking" like a strip mall sign that is just flashing and they're talking about how you know this a chance for them to start a new life in Florida you know being as he has a record in Texas and all and I'm thinking about this and I'm thinking about my doctor asking me if I am suicidal and of course I'm not I just like flirting with the extremes of life but never in any way where I do anything interesting or substantial like develop a heroin habit it's always just shit where it's like a 10 minute flirtation on the lap of a crystal meth addict.

See things are done differently in Florida. Everyone is red faced drunk and stoned. They've just given up. I think I just needed a test of that for this one weekend. I needed a taste of giving up. That's what life is about for me I guess is flirting with that idea of giving up of living purely for pleasure and that's what telling a lot of these stories are for, it's living for pleasure.

It's hard when someone gets over you. I don't think I would mind breaking up or in my case getting divorced if I could just know that the person never got over me. Never. If I could just know that their life was completely destroyed and that their one chance of talking to me was the one bright spot in their lives that day. That's all I want. It's not too much to ask. Just complete misery and then from time to time again I would brighten up their day by calling them and giving a little bit of hope.

I stayed at this motel and I overslept and I missed the breakfast and I called the hotel operator lazily asleep and I said um so is there, you know, is there, breakfast left? And she was prepared for this, this was the highlight of her morning every morning being able to tell people that they had missed the breakfast cut off that it was totally and finally too late.

When I hook up with a boy I remember everything I do. I remember every little single thing and there is something fascinating to me about the constant desire for new knowledge about if other people are dating if something is happening. Because I don't understand why the interest, I think I just because there is the chance for failure in the other person's relationship. I think that is why girls are always checking up on other girls' lives. Because there is just the chance, there is the hope that something will go completely and absolutely wrong.

When I was younger I had a fantasy where all I wanted to do was hang out and sit in the middle of a freeway divider and have a picnic. I hadn't plotted it out too much I just thought that it would work itself out somehow. I thought that it would work itself out and that would be the thing that I would do.

With drugs it's such an interesting question because there are two kinds of people there are the people who can handle drugs and then there are the people who absolutely positively can't. And most people like probably you know 98 percent fall in the category of they can't handle it or if they do handle it they just become wastoid losers or also additionally they do shit like overdose or they tell you that they had a lucid dream when they were on the subway and it felt like they were flying and they're well over 40 years old and then both of you just feel extremely awkward and uncomfortable and you wish that the story had never been shared at all.

I'll tell you in South Florida when you see an old man and a young girl you just pray that that is the daughter. Even when he is inside her while they are watching Bratz on TV you are still hoping it's just an outrageous approach to parenting that's all.

I try to justify everything by telling a story about it. Someday I'm going to lose all my money, go for broke, kill a guy and then I'll say, but there was this one really funny sad poignant moment your honor, I think you'll agree it was well worth it.

I took a cab to my motel in Florida and the cab driver took me all over, to the wrong part of town, he had no idea where anything was, no idea where anything was and he dropped me off in the middle of nowhere and that's where I met these two little crystal meth heads who I got a ride with by hopping on one of their laps. The tattoo artist I think. They were listening to Old D B and I tried to be down and said well at least you have good taste in music but then I had to bring up Big Baby Jesus and then I didn't even know that he was dead so right there I established myself as a striver as a wanter, as someone who wasn't quite in their scene but pretended to be.

Except for right now I somewhat have my looks, I mean it's an interesting question because I like it when normal investment banker guys look me up and down and judge me and in that 10 second decision they are deciding is she hot is she hot no no no no she does not quite look like the chick who I paid $100 to jump on my lap last night. She is close but there is no cigar.

I think that every year we should designate someone like Lindsay Lohan or someone that is just chosen to be the person who is elevated and just given a lot of money a lot of coke a lot of clothes a lot of attitude maybe one good role and then another one starring a talking car and then we can just have one channel devoted completely to that person because I've got to be honest with you I would TiVo that. I would TiVo that except it would be 24 hours so I would watch it all the time. It would be a problem because I would watch it all the time and then eventually my life would be over but I would have come up with the perfect clever quip to say about the designated celebrity. The DC. The DC would, there would be competitions of people all over the land trying to come up with the most clever bon mot about the DC and then eventually the person who might have a really terrible quip they might get their legs or their arms chopped off as punishment just to fill a little bit of network programming on other channels. It would solve a lot of problems at once.

Here's the addendum. And it's kind of comedic! After performing this at Rev. Jen's, I got my period the very next night for the first time in six months. It was awesome.

As my friend Maggie said,

Congratulations!

Did you kiss a sailor?

All comes back around. Fleet Week, you see, and that's The Word. Thank you.