Megan Stielstra's Blog

Nothing happens to the blogger who doesn't answer the tag. That's why I said, when tagging you, that you are free to IGNORE IT. Just because I have a sick need to respond to these stupid things doesn't mean you have to.

The funniest thing about the responses of pretty much everybody I tagged with this STUPID thing is that they all had to ask other people what the weird things about them were. I didn't, because I'm well aware and proud of how I am weird. But everyone else did, and I am trying to figure out what that's telling me.

What this STUPID tagging thing is telling me, though, is that everybody is equally weird, meaning that everybody is normal, and people are, in general, weird, and that's okay, and that's probably the whole point of the goddamn thing in the first place, to show people that what they think is weird isn't really all that weird, and that when they find themselves having to ask their friends or significant others or children or what have you for five weird things about them, those people can always throw more than five out there, meaning THOSE people think you're weird but love you anyway. See?

I shouldn't post comments after exercising on one of those stupid elliptical things. It makes my brain go in circles.

Oh, and a friend gave me Million Little Pieces to read, and I was all hesitant and haughty and "this guy is a fucking liar and I don't want to read his stupid book" and my friend said, "no, you'll like it, really, it really spoke to me" and I looked at her like she wasn't fit to breathe the same air as me because when trying to tell me about the book he reads while in rehab, she mispronounced it, calling it "tai chi or chang or some such thing" and I said, "you mean the weird slow exercise the chinese people do in the parks in New York in the morning?" and she said, "I don't think so" and I said, "Or do you mean tao te ching?" and she said, "Yes, yes, that's it" and I said, ah. Okay. I'll read it. And I stayed up until 1 a.m. reading it and eating the bag of York Peppermint Patties that Santa forgot to put in my kids' stockings because I forgot where I hid it, occasionally scoffing because I swear to God if he says I am an Alcoholic. I am an Addict. I am a Criminal one more time I'm going to reach through the book and say "Get over your fucking self, JAMES." Plus, there's no way he did that many drugs. I'm not buying into the meth thing at all. He's exactly my age. Meth wasn't really around then. At least, so says my husband, because I really wouldn't know.

Have I said enough? When I'm not scoffing, I'm being struck by how similar his vein of thinking is to my own at a certain uncontrollable portion of my life and it's scaring the pants off me.

I'm going to finish the rest of it today. I will pass final judgment then. Just so you know.

Is this comment long enough?

oh my god...that was hilarious!

pulling out your eyelashes? woah, now that is a tear jerker!

Get, it...ok, I tried.

byron is funny.

i really really love the "(speaking very fast)" part. like spontaneous combustion due to girlfriend's potential evil eye if he said something she didn't like was right around the corner. ;)

i have lots of feelings about this book. but most of them are too long to talk about.

however, i'm glad you don't eat flan. my cat's name is flannery o'connor. and i call her flan. but it's FL-aaan. not fl-ahn. and yet, every time i see the word flan (mexican custard dessert), i think of her. even though i HATE it when people try to call her fl-ahn.

she's FL-aaaan. aaaaannnnn.

thank you.

Viki, did you finish that book yet?

Should I read it so I can have an informed opinion?

Currently, I have an uninformed opinion. Which is: I've got a bitch of a totally fake memoir if anyone's interested. It's about how I grew up (tragically) in China.

i also can pick up things with my toes. i think it is handy, my mom thinks it is creepy. not gross like "ew you touched that with your feet" but like creepy "you can do that and that is not natural"

Yeah, I finished it. And I've lost all faith in Oprah as a result (before she read him the riot act on Thursday). How could she possibly believe any of this crap?

Now, if the idiot (Frey) had kept his mouth shut and had, instead of insisting over and over again that everything was true, and then continuing the lie in his next book (it apparently begins while he's in jail for that supposed 87 days, but he never did do any time at all), I'd defend him. I'd say, okay, memoir is memoir. We write them and possibly embellish them a little in order to get the point of a certain feeling, or a certain change in life view, or whatever across to our reader.

But this guy shopped his crap around as fiction and nobody wanted it. Why? Because it is CRAP. Poorly written and totally unbelievable CRAP.

It was only after he changed a thing or two and slapped MEMOIR under the title that publishers (the great and mighty Nan Talese, no less) became interested.

But if this CRAP was labeled fiction, and somebody convinced me to read it? I'd read a few pages and say, "What's with the shitty, pathetic attempt at Burroughs (William, not Augusten)/Selby/whoever?" Who the fuck does this shithead think he is anyway? In fact, I thought that anyway, but I felt obligated to finish the book so I could say something about it, much the way I vote so I can bitch.

AND, if this idiot could write, I wouldn't care what bookstore-shelf label was slapped on it. I'd read it. But he can't write. He has a love for capitalizing the first letter of all of the Important Words in his book. Like Alcoholic and Addict and Criminal. And that's not good writing. It's a pathetic device.

I sound so bitter. I think I'd better go to bed. Or post on my own blog my thoughts on this book/controversy/marketing drive instead of filling up your comments section.