Cross-posted at thebloggess.com 

The day before yesterday I got invited as a "member of the media" to go to a Planned Parenthood thingie.  I think it was a fund-raiser or a plan to picket them or something.  I don't know.  I wasn't really paying attention to that part because all I really wanted to do was meet Joan Walsh, Editor-in-Chief of Salon.com, and they said if I showed up I could go to a special blogger/media chat afterward with her.  I got there about five minutes before the Planned Parenthood presentation ended and snuck into a back table and nodded solemnly while people talked about something that was probably important.  Then the presentation ended and I expected to get wooshed into a room with like a hundred media people but turns out it was just eight of us.  Which is terrifying because you can't hide in the back and play on your phone with only eight people in the room and it was even worse because there were like six important Planned Parenthood people milling around to help us, plus some guy who looked CEO-ish, and Joan Walsh and her handlers and this is when I thought I was going to have a panic attack and I thought about hiding under the table but instead I just made my way as far from Joan's side of the table as possible so I'd be less noticeable if I suddenly freaked out  but then after everyone sat down I realized that we were at a board-room style table and I was heading one end and Joan would be on the other and she'd be looking right at me and would totally realize I was wearing a wig and would probably think I was some sort of stalker and would throw me out.  Awesome. This is when I started to sweat a lot and took some xanax.  I only remember pieces of the rest but luckily I wrote most of it down so I'm just going to transcribe what I wrote in my journal at the time.  Also, I like to think that this is probably exactly the sort of thing Dan Rather is writing when he's taking notes at important press meetings.  From my journal:

Everyone else at this table has laptops.  I have a broken camera that I'm pretending is a tape recorder so I'll look more professional.  No one is buying it.  Also, I'm writing in a Smokey and the Bandit journal.  With a pencil.  Hi, I'm eight.

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Some guy is talking to us.  His name is Peter.  I am awesome at this.

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Hang on.  His name is Pete.  Fuck.  I suck at this.

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Media-lady -in-charge just said "Since you're all online you can check out our sex education link at www.blah-blah-I-didn't-write-the-url-down-because-it-was-long and then she came around to help everyone find it on their laptops and totally saw Smokey.  She's looking at me strangely.  Probably because she wonders where you even get a Smokey and the Bandit journal.  I lean over and whisper, "I have connections".  I don't think she understood though because she looks unsettled.  She probably thinks I'm in the mafia now.  Which?  Kind of awesome.

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Laura Mayes is sitting beside me.  She's dressed like she's straight out of Mad Men and looks super professional.  I'm wearing my red wig so that if I embarrass myself I can run out and whip it off and come back in saying "Who the fuck was that red-headed chick that ran out of here screaming about fellatio?  Do you people even do background checks before you let someone in here?"  Then I'll roll my eyes and be all "Carry on, Joan" like we're old friends and she'll be all "Do I know this woman?  Why is she wearing the same outfit as the girl before?  And why does she have a knee-high on her head?"  It's not a knee-high, Joan. It's a wig-cap.  You wouldn't understand because you have good hair and aren't emotionally unstable.  This is when I take another xanax.

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That Pete/Peter guy just said he has a blog on Mom Houston.  "I HAVE A BLOG ON MOM HOUSTON!" is what I say in my head.  In real life I was very quiet and acted unimpressed because this is how you act when you are on lots of xanax a professional.

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"...I just sit around in my underwear..." ~ A mostly direct quote from Pete/Peter after complaining about the dangers of being misquoted in the press.

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Joan Walsh = totally smart.  I don't even understand half the stuff she's talking about.  Like, she's the kind of chick who could make a turbine engine out of palm trees if she had to.  I'm just looking at her with a raised eyebrow like I may or may not agree with her because I kind of suspect that she's just making shit up to see if I really belong here.  Clearly I don't, Joan. But everyone else here is smart too and they seem to be agreeing with her so I may just be paranoid.  I'm tempted to take another xanax but I just reread my notes and I've already had two and that's my limit. Thank God for Journals. This is probably why Dan Rather hasn't OD'ed on xanax yet either.

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Note to self: Joan Walsh does not swirl around in her chair like I do.  How does she not do that?  Maybe she purposely looks for a non-swirly chair to sit in.  It's taking all the strength I have to not push back from the table and just twirl around and around in this chair.  Maybe she's in a different chair than me.  Hang on.  Surreptitiously dropping my pencil to look under the table.  Nope. She totally has the same chair as me.  Fuck.  Plus, now I think she thinks I just looked up her skirt. Awesome. I will never get invited to work at Salon.

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We're halfway through this interview and all I've written about is twirly chairs.  Everyone else is asking questions about "torte reform" and "the cesspool of legislative something-or-another" and "abortion legislation".  I cannot contribute intelligently to any of this.  I'm tempted to say that I had an abortion just so I could join in the conversation but it was actually a D&C and it was medically necessary so I'm not sure it counts.  It should though because it totally sucks.  I do notrecommend.  Also, people tend to stop talking when you bring up your D&C, especially at fancy press conferences with strangers.  Trust me, I've made that mistake before.

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Someone just asked about something that I don't even think was in English.  I think we just moved to Latin.  I'm fucked.  I'm not following any of these questions.  Instead I'm just going to make up answers to imaginary questions.  Just like the pros do it.

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It's kind of a shame really because I did actually have a question, sort of, because when I was high school I would go to the local Planned Parenthood and the lady at the front desk always had a fishbowl of free condoms, which was awesome, except that she'd stapled the Planned Parenthood card THROUGH the condom so it wasn't actually awesome at all.  And I was all " There's a staple through this condom" and the lady at the front was all " Yes, the card's there so you'll remember to use it" and I'm like "No. There's a hole.  In the condom.  From the staple."  And she looked at me like I was an idiot and she was all "The condom is sealed, so it's protected" and I'm all "But you stapled though the package!" and then she told me to go sit down and kept stapling condoms and she was probably responsible for like ten thousand teen pregnancies and I was going to ask Joan if she could call that Planned Pregnancy and explain to them how staplers work since she obviously has some pull with Planned Parenthood but then I realized that that was like 20 years ago and the woman at the front desk is probably dead now so I didn't bring it up.  But if you are a teenager reading this and someone gives you a condom with a staple through it, for God's sake, don't use it.  That's my special message to you, slutty teenagers.

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Important people are still talking about important things.  I'm counting how many times I've swirled in my chair vs. how many times Joan has.  178 to 0 and counting.  I'm winning.  Or losing.  Depends on what we're being judged on, I guess.  If it's "form", I'm totally in the lead.  I'm kind of kick-ass at twirling in my chair.

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Each of us was given a shiny golden envelope with "Planned Parenthood" written on it.  I want to open it but no one else is opening theirs so I won't.  I get Laura's attention by waving the envelope and I whisper "I've got a golden ticket!  All the abortions I want!"  She moves to another seat further away from me.  Probably because she's never seen "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".

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" 'Cause I've got a golden ticket!  I've got a golden ticket!"

Holy crap, I will never get this damn song out of my head.

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Interview is over.  Thank God.  My eyebrow muscle is spasming from raising it suspiciously for so long.  Laura came back and explained that she moved because of her computer and she demands that I go talk to Joan since that's the whole reason I came.  While we wait for the room to clear a bit I push back from the table and twirl around a lot.  Then Laura takes a picture of me pretending to be professional.  We're both a little shocked at how well I blend in:

I'm like if Murphy Brown had a daughter. And then gave her up for adoption. And she was raised by bears in the woods. Never mind.

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Actual conversation between me and Joan:

Me:  Hi!  I'm Jenny.  I'm a huge fan.  I'm not really smart enough to follow all those other questions but the whole time you were talking all I could think about is the fact that you never swished in your chair.

Joan:  Oh!  Uh...what?

Me:  You know...swished.  Twirled? These are twirly, spinny chairs and you never spinned even once and it was all I could do to keep from spinning around to see how many cycles I could make with one push (my record is 11) but you NEVER twirled at all and you looked way smarter than me and probably part of it was because you don't twirl and I was just wondering how you did it.

Joan:  Oh.

Me:  Like, do you look for a chair that doesn't twirl so you aren't tempted ,or do you put a clamp on the chair so it doesn't move or do you just tell yourself "DON'T SWIRL, JOAN".

Joan:  No.  It's just the valium.

Me:  Dude.  That is the best answer ever. High five.

Then I high-fived Joan Walsh.  All this is true.  Then she looked worriedly around and was all "Am I going to regret this answer?" and I assured her that no one ever believed anything I wrote anyway and everyone else in the room agreed and I was kind of proud that my reputation preceded me and also a little bit insulted.  BUT THEN!  Joan Walsh told me that I should cross-post this on Open-Salon.com and I don't know what that means I think it means I just got made Assistant Editor or something.  Except that I don't know how to post to Salon-Open so I think that means I just turned down the position.  Except shouldn't the Assistant Editor position come with a secretary to publish this shit for me?  I think so.  So basically this is all my secretary's fault.  You are totally fired, secretary.  Collect your last paycheck from HR.  But first tell me where my office is.  I don't really need it because I work from home but I've got a lot of stuff in a storage unit I'd like to move over there because spending $40 a month to store old comic books and broken furniture is bullshit.

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I just looked through my phone for a picture I took of my professional journalist set-up during the press conference but I can't find it.  I blame the xanax my secretary.  But I just recreated it here for you.  You're welcome.

Ignore the cat though. The cat's mine. She just horns her way into every picture I ever take because she's kind of an asshole. They didn't have cats at the press conference. That would be ridiculous.

The end.