If You Belonged Here

Alice Gets All Dol'd Up

Alice: Ok, lady, you ready?

Dol: If by ready, you mean drunk, then sadly no.

Alice: Well, then: I’m ready. You can have one-word answers since this isn't a hazing, like it was for Chance. How do you think he did by the way? You think he's gonna fit in here?

Dol: He seems to have the right amount of admiration for all of us.

Alice: Exactly. So, you're a pretty die-hard right winger, correct-o?

Dol: Me; a teabagger? Do you know what that means?

Alice: I do. But only because I looked it up.

Dol: Me, too. My gay friends kept chuckling and nudging each other, and I didn't get it. At first, I figured the right wingers didn’t get it either, but then again with all their crazy sex scandals, it could be a really clever inside joke—only they aren’t clever. Which is why I’m a dirty hippy.

Alice: You do a lot of work in your local political scene—is any of it paid work or do you volunteer?

Dol: I'm a Democrat, so it's all volunteer.

Alice: Good lordy I love that answer.

What do you think of people who get all amped up at election time and then do absolutely nothing otherwise?

Dol: Well, I realize that not everyone has the free time to get involved. I forgive them as long as they vote. People who don’t vote are schmucks. But the people that really irritate the hell out of me are the people who have big noisy opinions but don't have a clue what they're talking about. Like climate-change deniers or people who oppose gay marriage.

Alice: Have you seen any episodes of Brotherhood?

Dol: No. Is it good? Because I need something new to watch while I fold laundry.

Alice: Wait, you fold laundry? I thought you were too good for work and had a cleaning lady. So, then you're not a complete snob? Damn, that kind of ruins things.

Dol: When I said "fold laundry," I meant I supervise my laundry-folding staff.

Alice: Phew.

Dol: Sorry, I forgot I was amongst commoners here.

Alice: Moving on. Would you say your top two causes are animals and politics?

Dol: Are you basing this on my facebook posts?

Alice: I’ll take that as a “yes.”

If you had to give up one of those, which would it be? And I mean give it up—no sneaky phone banking late at night or facebook updates: Give. It. Up.

Dol: Easy: politics.

Alice: I did not expect that to be so easy. It’s obvious: you don’t really love your country, do you?

Dol: Of course I don’t. All Democrats hate the United States. It's officially in our party platform. We heart France. They are so much better than us.

Alice: Don’t you think, though, France has it a bit easier since they are like, a little smaller and have more homogeneity?

Dol: They have good wine, too. I really think that deserves a solid amount of credit for the awesomeness of the French. Plus, they have the most fabulous socialized health care evah.

Alice: Thanks for telling me all that—I’m bitter with France now.

Who would you rather go on a date with: Bush, Cheney, or Rove?

Dol: That is disgusting. I would rather join a convent in Siberia.

Alice: Sorry, you're gonna have to pick one. I bet Karl Rove is a pretty fun guy!

Dol: “No” to Rove. Sure he can rap, but his stage name is “Turd Blossom.” And I definitely cannot see myself choosing Cheney, because I doubt his status among the living.

Alice: Bush likes to golf!

Dol: I hate golf. Golf is for Republicans.

Alice: Dude. You know I heart golf, right?

Dol: I can give you that mini golf is okay.

Alice: You still haven’t answered the question.

Dol: But this is a disgusting question.

Alice: I know. That’s the point. Answer!

Dol: Given the awfulness of the other choices, I think I’m willing to allude to Bush. But there’s no way I’m going to come right out and say it.

Alice: Okay.

Your family consists of you, Baby Doc, one girl, two dogs, and two cats, right?

Dol: I'm also fostering a bunch of dust bunnies.

Alice: Baby Doc is a pediatrician. Does he have any adult patients that just can't move on because he is so wonderful?

Dol: I asked him for you. He says he thinks they accept the inevitable, even if they don't like it.

Alice: I bet it would be kind of nice to have a patient as a baby and as a grandma. Ask him.

Dol: He says no.

Alice: But life is so cyclical, you know—he would get to see his patients with diapers and without teeth and in floral prints at two stages of their lives. Wouldn’t he like that?

Dol: He says he wouldn’t like that. He says you're fixating, Alice.

Alice: I’ve been told that I have that problem.

So did him being a baby, well, doc, make you as a parent of a new born, more or less wacko when it came to bumps, scrapes, falls, health scares in general?

Dol: I was definitely less of a wacko having him around. You know who was funny, though? Polly.

When Secret Lulu was a tiny baby, Polly called our house at least once a day, usually with a question about poop. One time, Baby Doc and I watched Lulu for a couple of hours, and when Polly came to get her, I reported that Lulu had pooped. I figured, given Polly’s preoccupation with Lulu’s poop, she’d be glad to hear it. But Polly got kind of quiet. I guessed what was up right away. I asked, “You want to go get it out of the dumpster and look at it, don't you?" She said, "Kind of."

Alice: So, she was more—you were less. There couldn't have been a better answer there. What’s more likely for your family: another baby or another pet?

Dol: Easy: pet.

Alice: Does that mean you're getting another puppy?

Dol: I'd appreciate it if we could keep that under wraps. We haven't told the cats yet. I think they’re hoping for a gerbil or a fish, so a puppy is going to be a big disappointment.

Alice: Will you answer a few questions in the character of one of your pets?

Dol: Didn't I already tell you that I'm not drunk?

Alice: Yeah, but my chihuahua Santos, who is a mean Mexicano, has a few questions for your Frodo, the 3 legger you rescued via Mexico.

Dol: Go ahead, Frodo's ready.

Santos: Hola, Frotto. Esta Santos. I lives in the Ohio but me gusta Mexico mucho.

Frodo: Ohio? Who you think you joking at? You ain’t no mean Mexicano. I am Mexicano for reals— auténtico!

Santos: Haly Sheet. Tu mean for a handicap dag.

Frodo: We is calling it Handy Capable, pendejo.

Santos: Homo, tu didn't—if I’m ever get to Sandi Ego I'm to sheet on your lawn.

Frodo: What you weigh? Like five ounce? You look on my lawn, I kick you ass—and I don’t need no stinking four paw to do it, either.

Santos: Dis enough. Tu mean dag. I’m unfriend tu on DogBook right now. Later, tres legger.

Frodo: Tu mamá!

Alice: I'm not sure that turned out as had Santos hoped.

What’s your number one guilty pleasure?

Dol: I downloaded a Britney Spears song recently. Does that count?

Alice: It counts.

Fiction or non-fiction?

Dol: Definitely fiction. Non-fiction is usually too boring, but not always.

Alice: What’s the last book you read that you absolutely did not want to end?

Dol: "The Endless Forest," by Sara Donati. I think I cried for the last 10 pages.

Alice: Favorite movie?

Dol: I guess in terms of re-watchability, I love the Lord of the Rings movies and the Harry Potter movies.

Alice: Schools for your daughter: public or private?

Dol: Public, absolutely. I am a commie pinko that way.

Alice: What job would you least like her to grow up to have? You can’t say "stripper."

Dol: Republican operative.

Alice: So, then, what if she grows up to be a republican operative?

Dol: I would much rather she become a stripper. I'd even prefer stripper over registered Republican. If she turns out Republican, I may have to adopt and start over.

Alice: How old does she have to be to: color her hair, pierce her ears, go on a date?

Dol: She needs to be able to pay for her own hair color. She can get her ears pierced whenever she wants. What is a date anymore? Do kids do that?

Alice: If they do, how old before she can—for the sake of definition—go to the movies alone with a boy. Or girl, of course.

Dol: But not a Republican, right? Because I couldn't care less if she's a lesbian but I'll have to go into therapy if she dates or becomes a conservative. Anyhow, I guess I'd say about 15 for a date.

Alice: I only have one more question: is it true what they say about red heads, do they do it better?

Dol: Yes, everything. Better.

Alice: That’s a wrap.

Dol: Really? This has been very fun. You're totally better than Terri Gross. She never does pet voices.

Bookgirl is Begging the Question 12

You have the opportunity to time travel.

(I work in kids' books now, people. My life is full of things like time travel and magical winds and talking creatures. Deal with it.)

So you have the opportunity to time travel. You can go to any moment in history and sit in, but not change the outcome.

What do you choose?

I feel like I should say something smart and deep. That I should pick this momentous moment of discovery or some pivotal historical moment. But I have absolutely no interest in that crap.

I want to go back to the Algonquion Round Table.

Picture it: The Roaring Twenties. All those bookish types, sitting around talking about writing and literature and gossiping about everyone else. Can't you just picture me, in some fabulous dress and hat, with the New York literary elite, whispering to Dorothy Parker?

Wait. I just remembered Prohibition. Maybe not...

Alice Gets Lucky with Chance

(This post is the first in a series of interviews--conducted mostly by Alice--of the If You Belonged Here team, starting with our newest member: Chance. Chance has been commenting as Mattie for a while but, as with all great cults, we have stripped him of his identity and given him a new one. He gets to go first as a form of hazing. --Polly)

Alice : Let's get this started. These are the rules:

No one word answers, except when that is the funniest or only appropriate way to answer. I'll give you one pass. Or one mulligan; you golf right?

 Chance: You can call it that.

Alice: Good, so you know the value of a mulligan?

Chance: Yeah, it means you get to keep hitting the ball until you get the shot you like.

Alice: Right. You get one. Or a pass. Use it wisely, Chance. Also, we will be referring to the rest of the writers on IYBH as "the team." And you should realize that I am most likely going to ask you questions that will get you in trouble with the team.

Chance: Great. Just what I love: women mad at me. Do you realize the extent I have gone to just to make sure that doesn't happen?

Alice: No, we just met.

Chance: I have watched weeks' worth of Lifetime Movie Channel just to keep the peace.

Alice: That's sweet. Boxers or briefs?

Chance: Neither. I just let them hang there. I’m trying to keep the sperm count up. 

Alice: Well. Moving right along. Water: Bottled, tap or sparkling?

Chance: Tap or reusable bottles.

Alice: That's so Seattle of you.

Currently you are living in two fabulous cities but you're trying to narrow that down to just one. Is that because the economy tanked and you had to sell the private jet that carted you between the two?

Chance: No. I still have the jet but the gas prices are killing me.

Alice: Oh, good. Which one of us on the team will you let borrow it first?

Chance: Whoever most wants to join the mile-high club. But you can have first dibs at making out with me.

Alice: Is it a major boost to your already large ego to be invited to write here with 7 hot women? It was for me. Don't be shy.

Chance: My ego varies in size and shape depending on the day but, yes, it was an honor just to be nominated.

Alice: Name your favorite book, movie and song. You only have 1 minute or it’s going on the record as "no answer." Please don't do that to yourself.

Chance: Beach Music or maybe Young Blood Hawke. She’s Having A Baby or maybe The Matrix. Ghost by Indigo Girls or maybe Luckiest by Ben Folds.

Alice: That was the only timed question. So if you're sweating, you can stop. I sweat a lot, especially when nervous, so I assume you do, too.

Chance: Not as much as I would like.

Alice: Interesting. I'll read Beach Music—is that really a book? I’ve already read Young Blood Hawke. I will see She’s Having A Baby and ridicule you for not answering The Departed. I hate The Matrix. Ghost and The Luckiest are two of my favorites!

Chance: Beach Music is a book by Pat Conroy. There is no way you already read Young Blood Hawke. The Departed was just okay; Good Fellas was better. Those two songs are on the opposite sides of every love affair I have had, of which the first was an Alice. No bullshit and that can be on the record.

Alice: So you have a blog, "I'm coming back as a bug!", and it's fabulous. What made you decide to keep a blog?

Chance: Nobody would listen to me for that long. Also I needed the writing practice. Mostly I just wanted to have some female fans write to me about how great I am and then send me naked pictures or fly to Seattle to use me for sex.

Alice: You think you're funny but you know that no one on the team is going to have sex with you, right?

Chance: Maybe. That doesn't mean some of the readers won't.

Alice: Well, Chance, if that happens I want to be the first to hear of it.

Since I don't know you at all, I read your blog to come up with a lot of these questions—lest you or anyone think I'm crazy—this is the stuff anyone who’s reading your blog wants to know, I can promise you that.

Chance: I'm sure they've been waiting.

Alice: Have you read A Foreskin’s Lament by Shalom Auslander? Because he has the same problem with God as you do with karma.

Chance: I haven’t read it. But what problems do I have with karma? Besides the fact that it bites me in the ass a lot—and not in a good way. 

Alice: I would send it to you but I'm unemployed—read: broke. So given my circumstances, you'd feel terrible accepting gifts from me, right?

Chance: Anything but love.

Alice: I'm still not sending it. When you read it you will see what I mean about the God/Karma similarity. You say you're looking for love, kind of, right? And you're 36 years old? Maybe it's time to lower your expectations?

Chance: I don't know how much lower than getting dumped by a hooker is. Maybe I should go hang out next to a rehab center.

 Alice: Whatever. How do you feel about internet dating?

Chance: I feel $49.95 lighter every month. It's nice to look at the pictures and dream. Match.com owes me a free six months soon.

Alice: I don't know what that means. But Polly has been known to make quite convincing profiles for her friends on internet dating sites, which has, on occasion, ended in marriage. On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad do you want Polly to do this for you? Remember we're talking potential wife here.

Chance: A wife I would like—herpes I would not: 7.98.

Alice: Let's see if Polly offers. I hear she's a little busy these days. What’s the single best quality of all of your ex-girlfriends?

Chance: They where all smarter than me. Except for Jill. And the hooker.

Alice: Is the hooker real?

Chance: Not yet.

Alice: How many girls have there been, to be exact?

Chance: I have to count. Hold, please. Wait! Is this a sex number or a girlfriend number?

Alice: Are they different numbers? Because I doubt it. But, for the sake of argument, I’m asking about girlfriends—of the serious type.

Chance: 4 and they were all better looking than me. Well, maybe 5. Does naming your unconceived children when you are both drunk count as serious?

Alice: It can count. But it shouldn’t. Also, from your blog, any reader can see that you're way into random acts of kindness. What's the latest act?

Chance: Talking to you. Kidding. I told an old woman I liked her scarf—babushka, or something like that.

Alice: Are you gay? I mean, I've read about your girlfriends and sex life but you know, it never hurts to ask.

Chance: No. I like boobs too much. I have kissed a guy with tongue. Once.

Alice: Would you be gay forever for 30 million?

Chance: No.

Alice: I don't see what the big deal is. You must really be a boob guy?

Chance: Alice, you are fixating. I'm not gay.

Alice: No 30 million for you. Moving on. Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, what are you doing to celebrate? I'm having friends over to watch the movie. But this is about you, so, you know, go ahead with your answer.

Chance: I don’t have an answer.

Alice: Fair enough. What’s your favorite groundhog day quote?

Chance: Do I need one? 

Alice: You got your teeth knocked out. 

Chance: I have twice. I have a temporary bridge and am waiting to get the real one.

Alice: Are they removable is the question. Like could I be knocking boots with you and suddenly have your teeth fly out?

Chance: I guess it depends on how hard you knock. But, not really.

Alice: Scenario: You meet a super hot girl and she says she is a vegetarian and before you can help it, out of your mouth flies "me, too." Do you actually become a vegetarian or do you sneak meatball sandwiches while she’s not around?

Chance: Sneak.

Alice: Shady.

Chance: Totally.

Alice: In one post you describe breaking up with a Kelly for a googly-eyed Jenny and you said the grass was greener. Now that you've grown up is the grass ever greener or just a different shade of green?

Chance: Well, that post was two years ago but that situation was a while back. Since then I have learned that grass is grass. Just learn to pick the weeds.

Alice: So, it's not greener?

Chance: No. If you love the grass you have, then don't walk around barefoot on someone else’s lawn. It feels the same after a couple of times.

Alice: So, can we agree, the grass is never greener but just a different shade of green. Do your parents read your blog posts? 

Chance: My mom used to, but stopped pretty quick.

Alice: Would you rather be a washed up star on a show about living in a house with other washed up stars or a future std victim with Brett Michaels?

Chance: I would rather be the std victim of a std victim of Brett Michaels. But those women are pretty gross. What kind of choice is that? 

Alice: It was a question from your very own blog.

Chance: Nice. That's what I get. My answer is washed up, I guess.

Alice: Wait, you can’t answer both.

 Chance: Yeah, I don't follow rules sometimes.

Alice: You claim to be doing pretty well on the environmental karma front — have you seen WALL-E? What we learn there is that the only things to survive the mess we are making of our environment are a cockroach, a Twinkie, and a robot. I assume, given a choice, you're going with bug on this one?

Chance: Robot. I hate bugs.

Alice: On July 4 of 2008 you claimed you were going to stop flic’ing your bic (smoking). How's that going?

 Chance: Sucks. Still trying.

Alice: If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?

Chance: This is a phone interview, so the short answer is "no."

Alice: Is there anyone you want me to kill for you? I'm not in the business, I'm just trying to find out if your a sick you-know-what.

Chance: No, bad karma.

Alice: Good answer. Since this blog is going to make you famous, is there anything you’d like to say publicly to your ex, Jill?

Chance: Yeah sure: when I am rich and famous don't contact me.