Entries from October 2003 ↓

I went to high school in rural, middle Tennessee. A public school, centrally located, it was just one of two secondary schools in the whole of the county. In fact, it is not uncommon for folks from very small towns in the south to provide the name of their county as an answer instead of a city. Because you have probably never heard of it.

Ashland City, my hometown, is just 30 minutes northwest of Nashville, the state’s second most populous city (behind Memphis) and I’d say just 5% of people who ask where I am from know where it is. If they are older or are employing a spit cup, they are more apt to know. Ashland City is just a street light and a McDonald’s and a courthouse with kids in big trucks in front of it every Friday night. The school year’s biggest parties were held in fields around fire. Just down from the cows. And illegally. There was always the threat of getting caught, since everyone there was drunk and hollering, and parties often ended with teenagers scattering into the woods upon first sight of blue lights. I’ve heard tales of kids running full-tilt into a fence of barbed wire in the black of the night. I didn’t see it for myself. I hardly ever made it out for those things, as Bud Lite and bug bites weren’t my bag.
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For the first time in my life I checked espn.com for a game score.

I’ve been watching the playoffs at work, behind the bar, and for some reason I’ve really taken a liking to those Cubbies. The primordial underdogs. How can you not want to see them win? Unless you live in Florida, in which case, fuck you. Florida sucks and if you aren’t out of there yet, there is little help for you anyway. Especially if you’re rooting that godforsaken place on.

Now, I don’t care enough to actually watch the games (if I am not at work), but I found myself insanely curious as to how Chicago did last night. Which is very well.

Color me pleased.

Two women in the same dressing room at Old Navy:

Girl 1 (trying on a pair of pants): What do you think?
Girl 2: I don’t know. Do you think they look professional?
Girl 1: Yes. Why wouldn’t they look professional?
Girl 2: Because they are too tight.
Girl 1: No, they are not.
Girl 2: …
Girl 1: They are not!
Girl 2: Is it because you don’t like the idea of buying a size 7?
Girl 1: No! Jesus. It’s a damn good thing I am not as insecure as you are.

Whoa.

Check this shit out.

I have been submitting the new URL for my weblog to various search engines and was attempting to locate my blog through various searches. I type in Brittney Gilbert, without the quotation marks and find SIX sites that all claim to offer Brittney Gilbert Bikini Photos, Brittney Gilbert Fake Nudes Free Thumbails and Brittney Gilbert Blow Job Video.

Now, granted it says “Brittney Gilbert and Britney Spears Blow Job Video” and all six sites point to the same Britney Spears-themed porno page (which I will not point you to and suggest you steer clear of if you don’t want to kill your browser), but STILL! These are results 2-7 on Google for my name?! How did this happen?

Obviously those pages are designed only for the search results they bring in, but that does not resolve my little quandry. Why is my name associated with the likes of ” christina aquilera dirty lyrics or maybe natalie merchant guitar tabs” or “skinny whitney houston crucial to delivering work on new jc whitney coupons”? I’m just a struggling writer with a weblog. I gots no free fake nudes or blow job videos. (Don’t think I didn’t do some serious thinking for a second though.)

So, I wonder what the damn deal is. Because having potential readers or employers or high school classmates wondering if the writing career took a backseat to the web porn thing is no good. To say the least.

Here’s hoping this post about Brittney Gilbert Blowjob Video and Brittney Gilbert Bikini Photos will someday out-rank that misrepresentative porn site out there tarnishing up my perfectly good name. Then people will know the truth about Brittney Gilbert.

Which is that Brittney Gilbert will let everyone know when there are Brittney Gilbert Fake Nudes.

Air Supply’s “Making Love Out of Nothing At All”?

Kicks so much ass.

Things have been really quiet here, I know. I’ve been spending my time getting the mix CDs ready to mail out. They head your way on Monday. Little later than expected, but well worth the time, I think. I went to Kinko’s and had the little inserts I designed printed on heavy card stock. The CDs look great and sound pretty alright, too. I’m all proud and shit.

I’ve been spending the rest of my time with my face about five inches away from the VCB’s. When I see him from a distance, which is rare, he seems much less familiar, since I usually see him just at the end of my nose.

Oh, it’s not such a bad place to be at all.
The view is marvelous.

At the light, in the soupy early evening haze of the last day of September, you stare straight ahead while speaking at her. She sits stoicly, blinking evenly in the passenger’s seat, her hands out of sight, her lips slick wet. You push together words you form on spot, without thought, and she rolls her eyes in time with her tongue. At you.

Your lazy jokes don’t change what you said. You speak with authority and abandon, unaware of the weight you toss about with your throat. She finds you detestable, with your pea-stink denim jacket and your too-long, natty red hair.

She finds a swingset in her peripheral and focuses hard. The swings are dusty and bare, and she wonders when it got too cold. She stopped wearing any jewlery over a year ago, you said it hid her shine, and she wishes desperately for a ring or a bracelet to fondle. Instead of that zipper of your stiff, old hoodie.

You think about yesterday. And how it was pretty much the same. You think about the first time, how you hurt her, and how on that day you sort of made her.

She sits beside you, not struggling, not screaming, not feeling. Just silently, finally, deciding to go.

And you stare, still, straight ahead.