Hi Liam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For my birthday, I went to Phoenix to see my friends and family and have them feed me cake. My parents gave me a wonderful present a few weeks ago (a necklace that belonged to my grandmother), but on this trip my mother also gave me a scarf she'd given me a few years ago (when I refused it); I'm planning to save it and give it back to her for her next birthday. She also gave me half a pedicure machine with the promise that the second half (now lost) would turn up soon. I didn't tell her this, but I actually found the second half last summer when she sent me into her closet to find a few things for her (she was out of town). It looks like a sex toy-dildo device and this disturbed me for weeks. But it's not my mother's sex toy! It's a pedicure wand. That, in itself, was a good present.

Okay, let's take these one by one:

I don't know Aimee Mann. I do like Aimee Mann's music though. I don't know her because she's a beautiful rock star who lives in Los Angeles while I am a mousy little writer holed up in Tucson. Also, I don't know most people. However, I do know Lisa Loeb.

If I had to feud with a writer from the past, I'd choose Gertrude Stein. I don't want to attack her, I just think it would be great to deal with her in any way. I bet she'd feud like a rapper--we'd be like Lil' Kim and Nicki Minaj. For a current-day writer, I'll take Jonathan Franzen. (I can't fight with Roiphe; I'm crazy about Roiphe). Though it's true that I'm a big fan of the Frazen, I think that feuding with him would be good for my career. In the course of our skirmish, I'd try do that confusing, infuriating thing that makes everyone feel crazy, where I criticize him for things that I deserve to be criticized for myself. He writes too slowly! His characters are not nice! I sense inside jokes in his work--what's that about? Some of that stuff that happens is not realistic! Has he had botox? Gastric by-pass? He should get some sun!

I won't provide answers for your study guide. Except if you give me presents, I might.

I don't really like any of the Muppets. Their eyes don't move, and I've always found that disturbing. However, as I was watching Muppets in Space last night, I realized I do like the little minor-Muppet crab who speaks with a French accent. I wish Muppets in Space could count for the undignified thing I'm into lately, but I only watched it for ten minutes to see F. Murray Abraham. I'm a big F. Murray fan, and while I don't know him, I did once see him walking down the street in New York City. In fact, I only started watching it in the first place because I'd just finished watching a great episode of Nature that he narrates, and I wanted keep up my F. Murray Abraham roll. (It was the incredible dog episode with all the animated dog skeletons and the sled dog puppies born on the ice and the wonderful Belyaev foxes, as well as the sad-faced shepherd who says of his border collies, "I love them deeply." I love them deeply too! I don't even know them and I love them. In fact, if this writing thing doesn't work out--and it seems like it's not going to, especially given how long it's taking me to answer this question--then I'm going to get some border collies and spend the rest of my life teaching them language, or at least the names of hundreds of toys, everyday, for hours and hours. Then we'll go outside and go running, running, running).

I can't believe I'm still doing this. Ha ha, very funny. Okay: the most prurient/low-minded thing I'm doing (besides looking at porn) would probably have to be catalog shopping, for bras, a lot, I don't know why. Something's come over me. Also, the last two books I read were Why Me? The Sammy Davis Jr. Story (it's excellent) and Wunnerful, Wunnerful: The Autobiography of Lawrence Welk (which is not quite as good)--both ghost-written, out-of-print pap.

Is it ever appropriate to be passive-agressive? Wow. What a great question. If my life is any indication it’s always appropriate to be passive-aggressive, but that’s not my real answer. My real answer is: yes. First of all, it’s entirely appropriate, even worthwhile, to be passive-aggressive with your psychotherapist. Otherwise, how’s he going to help you see what an asshole you are? Acting like a dick is also a good test to see if the therapist is on his toes, but since true passive-aggressive behavior is unconscious (otherwise, it’s just aggression), you might have to wait for it to kinda just leak out. (I’ve been late four times in a row? No I haven’t! Whatever, I can’t control traffic, I’m not God. Nice shirt. I did so pay you! I don't run the post office. Etc.) It’s also customary to be sullen, late, forgetful, thieving, obstinate, dishonest, and catty throughout one’s adolescence, and though no one loves this, I would say it’s become a tradition and is therefore socially acceptable.

In all other cases, the answer is no. Try to stop yourself, good luck, but still: no. Instead, I recommend channeling your energy into indirect aggression—being sneaky. Slash her tires! Pee on the bed (for dogs)! Steal one shoe! Text a naked picture! Use the return envelope to mail a brick! Leak the porn video! Burn your leader in effigy! This takes some initiative, and therefore requires that you acknowledge the evil within, but we’re all horrible people anyway, so what the fuck? Oh sure, it's not as admirable as being direct, but it's not always smart to be direct (little woman, big man). At least being sneaky-aggressive carries its own little nugget of glee.

No.

Hi Tom. I've answered this before-maybe even several times. Why don't you page back and see if you're satisfied with my previous answer?

Ah ha! You're not the first person to ask, and the answer remains that I hardly listen to anything. I know it doesn't seem quite human but I'm not really into music. Occasionally I still love a song, or think something suddenly sounds great, but overall I'm disappointed by music and sound in general. Today, if I were forced to sit in a chair and listen to music for a few hours, I would choose ELO, The Feelies, and Blossom Dearie.

Hi Tom. Weird you should ask, because the night before you did, I literally was lying in bed thinking how I'd only read one book by Nick Hornby (How To Be Good), and that even though there was a lot about that was cool, in the end it was the wrong one for me to start with (I didn't like it that much). I think I should try High Fidelity next. I did enjoy The Polysyllabic Spree, but it's not really a book book.

The pirate novel is great! Everyone now has only one eye.

It's you. Yes, the world is going to hell in a hand basket, but it's always doing that. Young people have a knack for blowing off the danger of the world--they're terrified, sure, but it's more of a personal terror based on uncertainty about their own lives. (Will I have enough money to live? Will I be drafted? What will I be when I grow up? What does life mean? Will I ever get laid again? Will I ever have my own family? Am I safe in my apartment?). Once you get mostly past that stuff, you start to feel the danger of the world and a sense of yourself as part of it. Like, I have to go to school every night in my dreams. It used to be that I had to go to an unfindable Spanish/Math test lesson class, but in recent years I have to go to an unfindable History class test lecture thing. History--get it? I don't really. But I kind of do.

If it's any comfort, I think Russia, Mississippi, Cuba were all way worse than Libya, Wisconsin, Japan. Chernobyl was worse than Japan as a nuclear accident (at least they shut down the reactors in Japan, which is more than they did in Chernobyl), but it was cloaked in Soviet silence so no one knew what was going on until later. As far as I know, there were no pictures. One thing that makes the hellish stuff so vivid now is that we get to see it. Here's a thought--maybe I'm totally psycho--but there's something exciting about being able to see it. There's something amazing about having such access to history, to images and information. Maybe it's an exciting time to be alive. And it's way better than the fourteenth century! At least we don't have to worry about the Black Death.

Thanks! I'm not sure if it's in Demonology--I could get up and go look but I'm feeling too lazy. My novel is about capitalism, which just led me to type into my right corner oracle-god "Is capitalism capitalized?" with unenlightening results. Though for a while, I've been telling my father that it's about pirates, which is maybe kind of the same thing.

Hi Tom Hancock. Yes, I'm planning to write a novel. I'm writing one right now, in fact. I have to go finish it now. Or soon. Or something.

I'm not sure I know that story...there's one sort of like that by Rick Moody. I forget the name right now. I'll see if I can come up with it for you.

I'd be delighted to hear your ideas, but sad if you were disappointed if I ignored them or blew them off or procrastinated or otherwise showed my bad character. Mostly I'm just flattered and glad to be prodded--though I definitely could use some help figuring out website things, if you have any knowledge about that. If you still feel like it, why don't you email me and we can discuss it? It's stacey@staceyricter.com.