This post is an interview with the unnamed creator of Listen to the Babe. I wrote a thousand word intro to this interview which dealt mostly with how charismatic I am. I cut it, but trust me, I am still charismatic as fuck. Satisfy your need for proof of that with these masterpiece ass blog archives right here.

Did I really have to meet she-who-will-not-be-named in order to get these answers? No. Did I travel five thousand and seven miles to do it anyway? Yes I mother fucking did.

I found her inside a lean-to made of imported bamboo; she was writhing, in the throes of an ecstatic vision. She was screaming some kind of improvised dithyramb that sounded familiar and yet not at all familiar. She had a migraine, and she told me to leave.

Unfortunately, I had to work later and there was no time for pleasantries.

But now I have a little time. Let me tell you why I’d suck the babe’s dick if she’d let me.

She writes like a crack in the brick wall that grows when you’re looking at it. It never breaks the wall it just grows weirdly and in a fractal way. You get closer and look at the crack and it grows and grows and next thing you know, you’re looking outside of it. The crack is a canyon now, see? And you just got tesseracted into a perpendicular worldview. Also you’re very small now.

If she was born in Greece in the time of Socrates she would have clawed Pythagoras’s intestines out and told everyone about the dodecahedron in a short story about the sexual preferences of aging goatherds and by now we’d all be living in peace as part of the all soul.

She strives to free her mind and be adventurous without acting like a little dickbag about it.

Stop wasting your time here and go read her blog now.

Just kidding come back! What the fuck!

You can do that later. Jesus. Alright.

These are the things she told me, when her eyes paused from rolling around and her screaming wasn’t on the verge of bringing down that ramshackle hut.

Me:
What are some of the vague ideas/themes you are trying to convey in your writing?

Her:
I don’t really think about themes. But I suppose if you forced me to, I’d say much of my writing is about pain, how we get cut up and hung out to dry, and how we survive it. I like to capture how inevitable pain is but we tend to think it’s personal and accuse God of having it in for us. Then we wise up and see how indifferent life is, it’s not kind or malevolent, but it is beautiful. So beautiful I want to live to a hundred.

Me:
What elements of fiction would you say you are best at/which do you like doing the best?

Her:
I like creating characters. My characters tend to start out as fragments of me, but they quickly evolve until they don’t look anything like me. They are all my kids but with different fathers.

I’m careful with voice as well: the way a story is told. When I’m writing, I can’t move past the first page until I nail down the voice. It’s not always the same voice, it depends on the story I’m telling. But it’s the soundtrack to my story and it has to be there in the opening scene or the narrative will feel inauthentic.

Me:
Do you really believe you will finish a novel?

Her:
As Mulder says: I want to believe.

Me:
If you published a novel and one person said it was brilliant while no one else said anything, how qualified would that person have to be for you to be pretty okay with that?

Her:
That would be pretty dismal. I’d prefer at least a handful liked it. But if Junot Diaz rang me and said my novel was badass, I would be strutting. If you said my novel was motherfucking brilliant and you hated me for it, that would be cool too.

Me:
Are you really close to anybody?

Her:
It takes me a while to open up and trust. But I do have a few people who suffer me, friends who know me intimately and still want to hang around. I guess my best friend and lover knows me best. I’ve put him through the wringer but he seems determined to stick around.

Me:
Is this the life you imagined you’d have as a kid or is it better?

Her:
I was brought up pretty neurotic about religion that for a while I wanted to be a nun. Then I wanted to be the prophet who paved the way for the second coming. My life these days leans in the opposite direction. I’m glad to disappoint my younger self.

Me:
Are you exiled from your home state?

Her:
Self exiled. I didn’t want to die 20 miles from where I was born.

Me:
Will you go back home to visit? To live?

Her:
Visit, yes. As infrequent as I can manage. Live, never again.

Me:
Do you speak Thai?

Her:
I’m learning Thai, yes. I’ve been here in Thailand 18 months now. I moved from Hong Kong, where I lived for almost eight years. I’m a permanent resident now but I’m not sure I’ll live there again. It’s a great city, shiny on the surface but underneath people live truly inhuman lives there.

Me:
Do you like drinking in general? If yes, alone is better or with other people is better?

Her:
Yes I like to drink. With other people. I never got into drinking alone. I can happily smoke weed on my own though.

Me:
Are you into unusual sexual stuff?

Her:
I don’t think I’m particularly kinky; I would never agree to S&M, for example. But I like experimenting. I love sex. I’m fucking enthusiastic.

Me:
Do you like your family?

Her:
That’s a tough one. I love the family that I come from but on the whole I don’t like them. They’re part of the problem. The collective thinking in my family is to achieve financial security to insulate ourselves from all risks. They don’t bother with the poor and the planet, which makes no sense when you think about it. But that’s typical short-term thinking and very few people think beyond their lives or the next generation.

Me:
Have you experienced a lot of tragic shit?

Her:
Yes.

Me:
What would you do if you didn’t have to do anything?

Her:
I would write. Oh, wait, I’m already writing. Well, I’d just write the whole day, travel and run. I won’t bother with part-time work and needless socialising.

Me:
What’s your favorite book and why?

Her:
I can never answer this question. I almost hate getting asked this. There are too many to choose from. But I can tell you that Junot Diaz’s The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao rocked my world. I read it and thought, fuck, I can come up with something like this. That’s when I committed to writing the novel, and writing for the rest of my life.

Me:
Favorite movie?

Her:
Contact. I loved its protagonist, Ellie Arroway. She’s romantic and stubborn. I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of life on other planets. Proving the existence of extraterrestrials means we have to rethink our perspective on God and life.

Me:
Favorite drink?

Her:
Margarita. I also like SangSom, Thailand’s local rum, mixed with Coke and soda. Although I’m not a big drinker these days. At 42, it takes too long to recuperate from a hangover.

Me:
The one living person in the world you’d most want to spend a day with if they were exactly how you imagined them to be or better and there was no risk that they were actually totally fucking boring/an asshole/a violent psychopath who would murder you.

Her:
The Dalai Lama. Because I think he’s on to something. I have a ton of questions. First of all, I want to know if there’s a life after death. Or does it all end with death. Buddhists believe in reincarnation, and Buddhism is one philosophy backed by thousands of years of scientific research. I’d like to know what happens to the body, and if there’s a soul. I’d really like there to be a soul because I’ve worked hard on mine.

All I can say ya’ll if there is a soul, I got dibs on borrowin’ hers.

Boom. Interviewed. Read her posts on Conceited Crusade so everyone can feel a little better about life. Except possibly you, depending on how you get down.