Emily, Lived By:

I have a problem.  & the problem is this.  I can barely bring myself to write this blog post.  Because I am so absolutely paralyzed by my great admiration for men.  This is Admiring Men week & I always take the more psychological directives to heart.

The problem is, I already admire men very much.  When I put all my energy into it, I become rather dangerous.  & by “rather,” I mean, extremely. Anyone who has felt the full force of my adoration might understand.  Please direct any complaints about future heartbreak to Mr. Leidner, as he is responsible for any admiration I may feel for towards you now &, perhaps, to the end of time.

See, I didn’t feel like I was doing anything differently, but I must have been.  Today my inbox, usually empty, swelled near to bursting with emails from men.  Some of them were funny, some of them were angry, some of them were rude, some of them were kind, some of them were admiring, some of them apologetic & I have to say every one of them thrilled me.  I feel the way about men that Walt Whitman felt about himself.  & now I am officially a threat to humanity.

Or maybe I’m just a threat to manity.

I figured I better focus all of this admiration somewhere & decided that Mr. Leidner himself would be an admirable target.  He really clinched it when he sent me a top secret link to a video poem.  I mean, it was seven minutes long in a computer voice & I watched it on the metaphorical edge of my metaphorical seat.  I texted him to let him know I thought he was a genius.  That made him happy.  He texted me back right at the moment when I was thinking “I am, in fact, intimidated by his genius.”  So I told him, let’s see, what did I tell him… I told him: “I was literally just thinking ‘i’m intimidated by his genius.’”  I think that made him happy too.

Then I decided I would read every Tweet this genius had ever written from the bottom up.  Because I can’t admire him enough.  I wanted to read them all & make a top ten list to share with you.  There are over a thousand.  But that’s ok.  I sat there on Twitter clicking More More More for an hour.  I read them backwards & then I read them forwards.  I read some of them aloud.  I laughed & delighted in them.  I looked into his soul.

I pasted every tweet I wanted to share into a Word Document.  But it is over three pages long.

Then I emailed him saying that I was worried that making the list was like picking flowers that wilt after you pluck them.  The Tweets can only be fully appreciated if you read them in exactly the way I did.  He understood.

If you’re sad that you can’t admire me anymore, since I am semi-retiring from the public I (the public I, good & true typo), I suggest you turn your admiration energy into admiring Mark Leidner.  Do what I did & read everything he’s ever posted on Twitter.  Backwards & forwards.

I also admired Ptolemy in a Skype chat.  Now there’s another admirable man.

When I was getting ready to 1. go out & buy a Canadian flag I emailed Mr. Leidner twice from my phone to let him know how much I admired him.  But then I became anxious that my admiration would be irritating.  & I only want to make him happy.  So I stopped admiring him visibly.  I admired him invisibly.  For the rest of the day, I wanted to do things in such a way that they would make him happy.  This was difficult, since I don’t know anything about him, except for the brain part of him, which I now love.

I took to the streets to see what would happen.  I bought a small Canadian flag in a dollar store.  Then I got the man behind the counter to 2. give me a dollar by asking him if he could switch my change into a dollar.  He was a nice Asian man in an apron, about my height, & he smelled like alcohol.  Or maybe that was me. Because he seemed very sober.

He wanted me to take a picture. I never say no to a man I admire.

I gave the dollar to a homeless man in the street.  He’s one of my favorites. I admire the way he asks for change with a calm & cheerful dignity.

I found myself in a vintage store.  I thought maybe I would try to buy an outfit that Mr. Leidner would like & then put it on & send it to him.  But I didn’t know what kind of outfit he would like.  I saw this t-shirt that said “Home of the Walking Air Force INSTRUCTOR Survival School.”  It had a flying tennis shoe on it & it made me think of him.  But then I thought he might find incomprehensible hipster t-shirts irritating?  So I didn’t buy it.

But I knew in my heart of hearts that he would like to see what I look like when I am admiring him.

I hope he admires these spectacles

Then, because I am 3. playing it to the bone I started to feel very weak.  I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday & it was dark.  I had to go 4. eat something good.  I went to McDonald’s.

But because it’s Canada, I didn’t know this, but I guess in Canada McDonald’s is not good.  I had a Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal but the burger was about 600 years old & the fries were old & they had MSG on them.  It was like the RC Cola of fast food.  Speaking of cola, the Coke was fine.  Coke never disappoints.

Then I went home, & admired men privately with a calm & cheerful dignity like the recipient of my second dollar.

I contacted Braden to see if he wanted a flag.  He said maybe I should give it to his friend Dave.  I met Dave once during Week 4 or something? He came to my party.  I only know three things about Dave but I admire them all.  So he was perfect for the 5. flag ceremony. Dave lives apparently five minutes away from me.  But I’m a woman & I have a terrible sense of direction.  I got lost three times or so. In car, on foot.  It took me about 45 minutes to get there.  Boy do I admire men their sense of direction.

When I got there, Braden & Dave had just finished admiring men themselves.  I performed a dignified flag ceremony in which I 6. told Dave three things I admire about him while waving a flag. Then at the end I bowed humbly & 8. presented it to him. I think he was very touched.

There are 9. pictures, as requested.

I admire you because you speak French

I admire you because you are a horticulturist

& I admire you because you are very good-looking

Men are the best

When I got home, I sat in a stupor.  For a long time.  Admiring men.  Mr. Leidner had sent me a thrilling email & I admired that.  I realized that today I have not corresponded in anyway with anyone who does not have a Y chromosome.  Which is cool, because today was one of the best days of my life.

I realized also, that I almost forgot to make a 10. cartoon in MS Paint.  So I made one for Mr. Leidner, my hero.  It was under his watch that I discovered how to step out of the internet & take the project into its second, much better, phase.

Always.

What’s that, you say?  I’ve left something out?  Yes.  The 11. text to rule them all.  I hate to say it, but I don’t have one.  It was a good idea because this week’s puppetmaster is full of good ideas.  & I fully intended to do it.  But now it is past 2:00am & if I sent the text (because I forgot about it until just now) I might wake a lot of people up.  & I’m sorry, but I think that’s immoral.  & I can’t do things I think are immoral.  The text was going to say, though, “I know, I think I keep sending texts to the wrong person.”

Also, where is my 12. third dollar from a strange man? Well, I have faith in Mark Leidner & I think the dollar is forthcoming.  See, Mark Leidner doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to send me a dollar in the mail.  It might just be a dollar & a stamp to Canada for him, but for me, it’s priceless.  I want him to write me a note on a dollar & send it in the mail.  & then I want to keep it & cherish it always.  Actually I would like to frame it.  I think it will be worth something some day.  Because (don’t forget, 13. vanity is also a major theme of this week) I think he is going to be famous, & me only slightly less so.  Also, I will send him whatever he asks for in return, so long as it is no more than $2.

I’m confident that the admirable man will come through.  So I’m very pleased with myself.

I know that you might be sad that I am retiring the daily blogging thing, but I promise, you’ll hear from me a week from Monday & you will be thrilled with the secret plan.  I’m so thrilled myself I can barely stand it.  It will be worth the suspense.

There’s something else that I need very much to tell you, but I don’t remember what it is.

But I do want to show you this poem.  It’s a poem by Ivor Cutler & I copied it out into the front of my journal when I was 15.  Part of the reason I admire Mark Leidner so much is because his tweets often remind me of Ivor Cutler.  When you miss me so terribly you can hardly stand it, please console yourselves with this poem.

PRIVATE HABITS

I have private habits. So has everybody. What a relief! They are neither good, nor bad.  I enjoy having them. They are much the same as yours.  Notwithstanding, they will remain private, unless I am tortured by sadists consumed with curiosity.

In conclusion, I love men.