Uses For a Fat Friend

Poem now published on DOGZPLOT http://dogzplot.blogspot.com/2008/10/uses-for-fat-friend-malialinda.html.

The Quest for the Perfect Pair of Jeans

I’m on a quest for the perfect pair of jeans. In my whole life I’ve only ever once had the perfect pair of jeans and I miss them. It’s been years so it’s about time I find another pair, or they find me. I wore my old perfect pair of jeans so much that they had holes all over them and my mother finally threw them away. I was So upset at her. The perfect pair of jeans are like a best friend. They are laid back. You can always count on them to make you feel better. Mine are an average blue, well-worn, with a few holes. They are bootcut and make me look skinny and make my ass look great. The moment you see them, you know. I can picture them perfectly in my mind, I just need to find them.

Acceptance!

My second poem, "I'm Sorry I'm Insane and Weird and Utterly Immature and That The Word
Utter Makes Me Giggle" has just been accepted for publication at Breath and Shadow! And they're gonna pay me! The editor Chris Kuell is a fan of the Dead Milkmen (who I allude to in my poem) what a cool guy!

random thoughts

Your head would make an awesome purse.

I want to eat your lips because I think they would taste like gummy worms.

I want to search on Craigslist for an imaginary friend.

The Question of the Meaning of Life

So I was checking my e-mail and it hit me, there’s no meaning to life and then I got very depressed at this idea and I lay in a ball on the couch of my living room and contemplated what I should do since there was no meaning to life. I thought it wouldn’t really matter if I killed myself and if my boyfriend came home and found me somehow I would feel like I outsmarted him, then I was thinking that I was thinking crazy and I knew I shouldn’t have stopped taking my damn pills so I thought that some good old MaryJane would lift my spirits so I went searching for my boyfriend’s ‘cause I had accidentally bumped mine off the bathroom counter this morning. I found it in his sock drawer in a half sock with baby green on the toes and heel and I hoped it wasn’t a sock that he ever would wear and then I took it out and there was still some bud in it, but it was all black so I turned it over and the other side was green, so I smoked this, not having any idea how old it was since my boyfriend didn’t smoke weed and I didn’t even know why he had a pipe and the pipe looked like an average size penis and as I put it to my mouth, I felt weird. I don’t know how he can possibly smoke out of it and not feet gay. But anyway, so once I finished it I didn’t feel any closer to the meaning of life so then I thought, well what do normal people do? And then I thought, normal people waste their lives in front of the tv. I thought this was a brilliant idea so I went over to the TV and turned it on, only I only have three channels and all three of them were the news on politics and one of them was talking about the economy going down the toilet and news is depressing enough without hearing about stuff being flushed down the toilet so then I turned it off and thought that most people really must be stupid if they can stay entertained by that and then I thought maybe the meaning of life would be clear at the bottom of a carton of icecream, but I only had those small single serving ice cream cartons and that was already half empty, but I stuck my spoor in anyway but then I noticed some rice in the corner of my eye and changed my mind, maybe I will find the meaning of life at the bottom of the ice cream carton after I eat some rice, but rice takes so damn long to cook! 20 minutes! Can you believe that? It’s the 20-fuckingeth-first century and no one’s thought of a quicker way to make rice and then I sat waiting for it to cook and I thought of the poem “Waiting for Godot” and really related to the characters. Then I thought that the bottom of a beer bottle might have the meaning to life in it, because I swear I heard a song that said that somewhere so I decided to get a beer, it was my boyfriend’s last one and I don’t even like beer, but this was a desperate time so I figured I needed it so I took it out and tried opening it with an opener but it wouldn’t line up in any sort of way that would come close to working so then I peered closely at the top and I made out the words “twist” and I thought how is a drunk person going to possibly see that? And I thought it was very bad marketing savvy on the side of Trader Jose’s Premium Lager and what the Hell grocery store has their own beer? And the beer was nice and cold, even though it tasted gross and then the microwave beeper went on and I was so happy that I hadn’t killed myself before I got to eat my rice, but then I opened the microwave and the rice was all hard and crisp and burnt and then I cursed myself and thought there’s no way I’m fucking going to wait another damn 20 minutes, I could just eat Cup of Noodle in three minutes, but then I thought about Darwin and that maybe I was too stupid to deserve dinner so I sat back down to my beer. I thought if only I had cooked it on the stove like my boyfriend had taught me, or if I had checked on it, this wouldn’t have happened and maybe I’m always in a rush, always looking for the prize at the end of the rainbow and maybe that’s what I’m doing right now with the meaning of life, when it’s not for me to know, and then I shivered because I thought I almost sounded religious and thought fuck that, I deserve to know why I’m doing this bullshit, why I’m living in this sphere and then I asked my beer, but it just stood there all cool and collected-like and then I cursed the beer and wished I was it. Beers don’t have to worry about the fucking meaning of life. And then I wished I had a really bust a new buttcrack up movie, but all I have is fucking Disney movies, which used to make me happy, but don’t do the trick anymore, maybe I’m growing up or something, don’t grownups just find meaning in sex? But I don’t like sex and maybe that’s the problem, maybe I’m a lesbian, maybe I should get a sex therapist and see if she can make me like sex and maybe that’s why my life feels so empty because life is fucking me and I get no fulfillment out of it. Well, I am just going to get drunk baby disgusting sip by baby disgusting sip and hopefully I will find the meaning of life before I vomit. Then I watched the Office on Netflix, that’s a fucking hilarious show, even in the face of the question of the meaning of life so that made me laugh, but after two episodes I was tired of it and the question was still looming like a black cloud over my head so I figured I’d hide from it in my bed. After 12 hours of blissful sleep, I woke up, but that damn question hadn’t gone yet, so I went back to bed, then after 6 more hours, plus the 12 makes 18 hours the question appeared to be gone, but just for good measure I smoked a few leaves and drank a sip of beer. I’m feeling ok, so maybe the meaning of life is sleeping, or at least you can hide from it in your bed until the question leaves.

OMG Sam Pink talked to me! and he said I am a good writer! I think I'm going to faint.

Another probably illegal posting of an e-mail convo:

On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 3:39 PM, wrote:
>
>> Dear Sam Pink,
>> I'm Malialinda and I just discovered you yesterday, but I'm already a
>> huge fan of yours. I'm the editor for the Berkeley Fiction Review and if I
>> don't get a good submission soon I'm going to light my office on fire
>> and dance like an indian around it saying AHAHAHAHAHAHAH! So you see, I'm really in dire need here, it's a matter of sanity. If you have anything at all you would like to submit to me I would cum on your face. The e-mail is bfictionreview@yahoo.com or you can reply to this e-mail. The website, which I wish I understood HTML so I could fix is www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bfr. I usually don't do stuff like this, but like I said, I'm in dire need, else I'm going to stalk every one of our contributors and shake them upside down until I can hear their brains rattle and something good falls out on a crumpled napkin from their pocket.
>> ~Malialinda

Sam Pink's REAL words to me!:
> my heavens the prospect of someone cumming on my face is indeed most
> heartening. i would certainly like to give you something. i ask you,
> what do you want. i can give you something from the full length collection
> coming out, something from my first chapbook, YUM YUM I CAN'T WAIT TO DIE, or perhaps something from the collection i am working on now. the difficulty with giving people work is that all the work is different and sometimes people read one thing and have a certain idea. YUM YUM I CAN"T WAIT TO DIE is a long poem. the full length has just about everything and the newest work is a really long poem and a lot of short plays. let me know what you would like. also, if you give me your address i will mail you YUM YUM for free. i just got them printed because the initial press was "totally fucking me over hardcore style" and not sending them out to people who ordered them. so i printed them myself. you may have whatever you want. i am sure i have something for you.
if you read this email and think "what the fuck, this is too much shit,
> all i want is some fucking work" like i did, then i will simply email you a
> bunch of different work and you can pick what you want.

malialinda@berkeley.edu wrote:
Omg, I can't believe you really replied to me, I feel all starstruck. I
think I have an unhealthy obsession with you. Can you mail me YUM YUM and
sign it? that would be so awesome and I would carry it around with me and
show it to random people because I don't have friends and then they will
stare at me and think I'm a nutjob and I will just giggle uncontrollably
like the 20-year-old girl that I am and skip away and then my boyfriend
will get really jealous and hunt you down in his boxers with his shotgun
and a bottle of whiskey and tell you to stop seducing me and then he will
break the bottle and pretend he is going to glass you and maybe you will
be scared because he has that insane look to him, but then I will pop out
of the bushes and start laughing because he will look ridiculous and then
I will tickle him until he gives up the bottle and then we will all get
drunk and our lips will bleed on the broken glass, but it'll be ok cuz
we'll be drunk and the whiskey will taste even better mixed with our blood
and then we will shoot at the sky, or he will read your book and develop a
mancrush on you. Both are equally likely.
And hmmm, maybe something that you are working on now would be tasty. We don't really publish poems so just, yeah, don't make it look like a poem,
but it seems to me like a lot of your stuff crosses the genre between
poetry and prose, which I call prosetry, but that could just be me. Omg,
I'm so excited, I'm going to make yours the first story in the mag. There
are other staff members who have to approve it of course, but since you're
a writing god, I'm sure they will and if they have doubts then I leave
threatening messages written in colorful magnets on their refrigerators.

You're the coolest,
Malialinda

Sam Pink:
*oh no, no need to omg, everything is fine. malialinda, relax, do not omg. your copy of YUM YUM is in the mail tomorrow. i write a note to everyone. i wrote one for you. it is my best yet. i also wrote something nice in the book for you. i like what you wrote in the email to me. there were numerous instances in which i almost began lol-ing uncontrollably. you are a good writer. i hope your boyfriend doesn't attempt to murder me, but i am not afraid if he does. i am a mean dude. also, here is some writing below. i feel concerned with whether or not you will like it. the first thing is from the book that is coming out this winter and it is like "move in with with" it was actually a part of it initially. and the rest are things from a book i am working on now. if they all suck, print them out and be really mean to them. say mean things. i will understand. if you like any of it, you can have it. i am now very worried about your approval. i feel feverish. please validate me malialinda. you have a nice name. "linda" means attractive right? i am upset. **start publishing poetry. don't hate me. ***

(i'm not including his writings. you'll just have to read the Berkeley Fiction Review)

Malialinda@berkeley,edy wrote:
OK, I have been laughing about the “pretend I’m yawning” line now for five
minutes so much that my boyfriend actually got up from his all-important
homework to see what I was doing, but he didn’t laugh. He has no sense of
humor, he thinks I’m insane and really strange and I have this feeling
that you’re probably insane too, because I only like insane people. I wish
you could come over and we could say insane things to eachother all day
and crack up so much that we open new buttcracks and my boyfriend would
just roll his eyes and not understand and be amazed that I found someone
equally insane and then he would go play his alien game on the internet
and think to himself that he’s so mature. And maybe he will wonder how he
ended up with such a nutjob girlfriend.
OMG, I can’t believe I’m getting a hand-written note! I think I am going
to pee my pants! I am hopping up and down with excitement in my pink chair
and covering my face with my yellow-monkeys-dreaming –about-bananas robe
and screaming quietly. My boyfriend is ignoring me.
Is the book titled “Move in With With,” or is that a typo. Your Move In
With Me was the first thing I read of yours and it is what spurred on my
obsession.
Yes, Linda means beautiful and sometimes I like to say to people that my
name is Malialinda, as in beautiful and then they think I'm stuck-up, but
really I think they're just jealous that they didn't think about adding
the word beautiful to their name.

I’m going to send everything to my co-managing editor right now. There’s
this long process that submissions usually have to go to, but I don’t want
to submit your writing to that. I don’t want it to leave my hands. What if
it gets lost? Or what if it touched the other people's submissions? That
would be totally unallowable. Maybe I will conduct a conspiracy to make
sure it gets in, not that it would have a problem. I will wear dark
clothes and have meetings in black shadows and I won’t let my staff
members touch it, they’ll have to read it while I’m holding it.

I especially like the #2 play and I want to write you’re dead on a
lightbulb! That’s a brilliant idea. So while I was reading I was trying
really hard not to laugh, but I couldn’t help it and I’m sure my boyfriend
really wants to kill both of us now.

~Malialinda



good i am now feeling relief. you are a better writer than me. i have the same robe. if i went to berkeley we would hang out and say omg about things. the book that "move in with me" is in, is called I AM GOING TO CLONE MYSELF THE KILL THE CLONE AND EAT IT. if you like these things then i am sorry to say, but yes, as you mentioned below, there is something wrong with you. it is best to just let it be, and laugh at stupid shit.
i hope your editors like it. normally when someone asks me for work,it is like, someone who has an online journal called like "booger death journal for depressed people" so i am surprised to see berkeley. is it named after george berkeley? i like george berkeley. i am stupid. please enjoy the chapbook and pee in your pants. my dream is to one day post a video of someone reading the chapbook and then going "omg" then the video cuts to a shot of their pants and they piss all over. that sales technique would work with me. thank you again.

Well, it's actually the Berkeley Fiction Review because its the magazine
that UC Berkeley hosts. But the university is named after George Berkeley,
and I think the name is so boring, I think the reason we don't get cool
submissions is because of our name. If we were named Booger Death Journal
for Depressed People, we would probably get way more exciting submissions.
I will keep you updated as far as what my staff thinks.

Barry Graham the editor for DOGZPLOT is awesome!

(I don't know if I'm allowed to post this, I'm sure there's some privacy act against posting e-mails. Oh well, it's not illegal if you don't get caught.)

Barry:
hey - i like this piece a lot (referring to Uses for a Fat Friend), but i dont like the frame of seeing her walk by, that means you have to go back to the frame at the end, even though the story is over when you challenge her to the duel. i suggest
eliminating the frame and just say, i want a fat girl then start there. i think that will work. if you dont mind the edits then id love to use this piece. let me know.

thanks again for submitting - barry

malialinda@berkeley.edu wrote:
Dear Barry,
Yeah sure, that's fine. I don't care about the frame. OMG, I don't know if
I'm supposed to be like really professional and nonchalant. But I am SO
excited! This will be my first accepted piece! I wish I liked champage and
people so I'd have a party! lol Maybe I'll have a patry with my stuffed
animals and we'll drink apple juice and pretend its champagne and they'll
all pat me on the back and tell me I'm amazing. Please find the edits
below. Yay! Tell me if the edit is ok and if the ending is endy enough.
~Malia

Barry:
that sounds like a great party. wish i was there. i would rename all your stuffed
animals one name with umbers after them like george foreman names all his kids
george 1 george 2, etc. i would name them all george after george foreman's kids and
i'll give you apple juice but sneak all the george's champaigne. and you wont know
but we will all laugh and laugh and you will think all the georges are excited about
your publication, and they will, but they will be drunk too and i'll take pics and
post them on george 4's myspace.

yeah i like the edits. any chance we can lose the word kinda in the first sentence.

ok cool. send me one link to post with your story, email, website, blog, nude pics
wth stuffed animals, whatever, and the title and author of the last great thing
you read.

Dear Barry,
I would totally invite you to my supercool party, except that, hmmm, well,
I have this sneaking suspicion that you're a ... a... human! Nah,
nevermind, forget I mentioned it, you're way too cool to be one of thoose,
... right?

Off with Kinda's head!

The last best shit I've read, and I mean, really, like I was cracking a
new buttcrack over this, was "I, Sam Pink, Want to Have Sex with That One
Girl From "Clarissa Explains It All'" obviously, by Sam Pink (my favoritest author).

My blogspot is http://malialinda-feigningsanity.blogspot.com/ and my
boyfriend made me burn all the photos from my porno, but I did just take a
nakey photoshoot of my Unicorns George 203 and 206 the other day. Do you
think you would want those? If it's too offensive then I can draw
scribbles over 203s horn with a black sharpie and no one will know the
difference, they will think he's a hornless horse inspecting 206s butthole
for warts, honest- it would be no trouble at all.

~Malialinda

Barry:
yeah go ahead and send me all the naked george pics you want. i'll post some with your story.

take care and thanks again for submitting. i will notify you the week it will appear.

Conversation with Myself

When I'm High, like I am right now, I like to have conversations with myself so I can figure out what I'm thinking.

Oh yeah?

Yeah.

So, what do you feel about getting told by people on facebook that your prosetry about Fat People is offensive?

Well, I don’t think you should censor yourself and you thoughts. That’s lying. People on their high horses think the same things, they just don’t say them, or publish them.

wELl, wow my caplocks got on, remember back in the ‘90s on IM it was sO cOoL to write like that.

Lol. The 90s, fuck. We’re, I’m, fuckiing old.

But anyway, what I was saying, doesn’t one’s freedom end on the next person’s nose?

Well, fat people's noses are usually taking up too much room, so no.

Ugh, Ok, you have to do homework! You only have an hour til class.

What, to read 3 pages?

You’re gonna have to read them twice. You’re high. Maybe three times and remember, your presenting on the reading.

Oh, fuck.

ACCEPTED!

I've just had my very firstest writing submission acceptance! Uses For a Fat Friend will be posted on DOGZPLOT! Woot! OMG, I AM SO excited! If I liked people champagne I would throw a party, but instead I will just throw a party with my stuffed animals and we will drink apple juice and pretend its champagne and they will all pat me on the back and tell me that I am amazing.

Editor Woes

It's midterms and I couldn't give a fuck. I have my first one in exactly 6 minutes. I should be studying. But all I can think about is writing. Perhaps I haven't been writing enough so that now it's the only thing I can think of. I think I might be on the brink of discovering a new voice. My voice hasn't been used in so long that it sounds strange to me, I have to tune it. 3 minutes. I should read more, but not the crap the school gives me in my writing workshops, but new, in-your-face, experimental good-ass shit. I've been reading Opium Magazine and am really impressed with the stuff they get, I especially liked Sam Pink's piece. I'm going to look more into his stuff. Maybe if we started accepting more flash fiction, we'd get better stuff at the Berkeley Fiction Review. I should mention it to Rhoda. I'm bored with everything we get. Nothing is new or exciting. I'd like to reach out and grab all our contributors and shake them. I feel a new genre rising like a tidal wave, perched to take over everything, a hybrid between poetry and prose, maybe prosetry. I'm going to try to make sure the Berkeley Fiction Review rides it, if only we could get good writing submitted. I'm so tempted to submit a bunch of stuff under pseudonyms just so we can publish some interesting stuff. Ergh, I better go take my final now. grumble grumble.