Chelsea Martin

Chelsea Martin (b.1986) is the author of Everything Was Fine Until Whatever (Future Tense, 2009) and the proprietor of Jerk Ethics. Tao Lin interviewed her for MobyLives via email:

Tao Lin: What are your favorite two text messages you’ve received that are currently “inside” your cell phone?

Chelsea Martin: “That thing will die in twenty years or less. By that time, I’ll be twice as hairy.”
“it smelled like mildew and period thanks a lot”

Why did you choose not to include “McDonald’s is Impossible” in your current book?

Mcdonald’s is Impossible will appear in my next book, The Really Funny Thing About Apathy, along with three other paradox-based pieces, and will be published by sunnyoutside in August, 2009.

Does it feel to you like people five to ten years younger than you are more “tech-savvy” or more “[anything]“?

I think they’re on the computer a lot, but “tech-savvy” implies some kind of useful knowledge which, no, I think they probably don’t have that. I think they’re just updating their MySpace status and pasting html codes that make heart gifs float around on their profiles. Big deal.

What different kinds of “drinking alcohol” routines have you been in in your life?

In high school I drank infrequently but tended to put myself in dangerous situations like getting drunk and walking around bad neighborhoods and being invited in by strangers who were drinking on their porches and becoming more drunk with them.

In college I was pretty sober for a long time, and then I started drinking a lot, and overdoing it a lot. One night I chugged a water bottle full of vodka and got picked up by an ambulance and taken to the emergency room, where I was so drunk I offered the nurses my social security number so that they could follow up with a payment plan. They sent me home with some rectal suppositories that my friends administered for me.

What is the next book you want to write, or are writing, and can you say things about it?

I think I’m writing a graphic novel or some kind of screenplay that’s almost finished. But it might be a novel. It’s hard to tell. And I keep feeling like I’m writing a book of poetry but I don’t think I really am yet. Maybe. I think both are about a person who has no idea what she’s feeling and spends very little time alone.