OMG OMG Oh my fu*king god, I met A.V Flox.  If you haven’t heard of her yet you are missing out on all things sexy and fabulous.  Picture her writing her blog OMG. OMG! OMFG! in just a tee shirt and a pair of stiletto heels.  That’s the kind of images you’ll get if you follow her twitter stream.  She also spends her time blogging about sex and relationships on BlogHer.  The column is called Love 2.0 and A.V. lays it all out on the table, from her provocative 2009 sex guide to her more recent post that was an honest portrayal of her marriage.  Anywhere you e-stalk her, and trust me you’ll want to, she is a completely open book, and that is something to admire. I finally got the chance to talk to the infamous fox who was recently called “a one woman stimulus package“, here’s what she had to say…

Info

Name: A.V. Flox
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Blog: OMG. OMG! OMFG!

Five Questions with A.V.

1. What brought you out to Los Angeles?

The same thing that brings everyone to Los Angeles: dreams, based on wild hopes and great expectations.

A couple of weeks ago, I read a piece by Mark Groubert in the LA Weekly called “Box of Broken Dreams,” about a box he found on a sidewalk.

“You know the box,” he writes. “The box that’s left by folks who are not moving to another place in Los Angeles, but home. Home to Wallace, Idaho, or Quincy, Illinois. Home to Greenville, Alabama, or Ardmore, Oklahoma. Small-town America. The places where dreams are born. The box is the stuff that can’t fit in the back of the U-Haul. The box is the life being left behind. It is the box of broken dreams.”

Sometimes I imagine Los Angeles as a vampire entity that runs on dreams and sweat and cum and youth and blood. It’s this stark contrast of illusion and tragedy that makes me love it so much more.

Or maybe I’m a drama queen.

2. Some people would say that you over share on the internet, is anything too personal?

Six years ago the author Cathrynne Valente wrote that reading my personal blog was “a lot like watching someone else masturbate: you are startled, not really knowing what’s going on, somewhat interested in the grotesquery of the rhythm, but the perpetrator doesn’t give a Christmas fig whether you like it or not.”

She’s still right, even now that I blog mostly about social media and web culture more than my own life. My Twitter stream is replete with information that many would consider TMI. It’s a form of self-expression in the way that painting is. A lot of times I’m surprised to receive replies or direct messages from people I don’t know about something I’ve said. It’s like, “oh, someone’s watching?”

People get confused when they meet me in person because I’m much less open, yet they feel this bond with me because so much has already been shared by me. They don’t realize how much of my sharing is a conversation with myself. It’s really startling to meet someone IRL and see them go from the handshake to, “wow, so how’s your marriage?” in 2.5 seconds.

It’s, like, whoa. What’s your name again?

3. When did you start your blog and what was your inspiration?

I rarely call people because I hate the phone, so when I do, it’s usually for a reason. My friends always joke that they’ll know it’s not me if ever they answer and don’t hear me scream “OMG. OMG! OMFG!” before dishing some juicy details. So, you know, I did what anyone would do: I bought omgomgomfg.com.

I had no idea what I was going to do with it at the time, and even after I set it up and actually started writing in it last year, I still didn’t know where I was going with it. It’s started to take shape as a running commentary on how the web is developing and how this is changing the way we interact with one another, as well as how it’s catalyzing the fall of old media. It’s happening so fast and it all feels so full of consequence. Will it matter in ten years? It matters in the same way that old pictures matter–because we were there.

4. Name one thing that people don’t know about you that would surprise them?

My favorite animals are the nudibranch and the chironex fleckeri. I am fascinated by the dangerous illusion of vulnerability.

5. What’s next for you?

I’m currently collaborating on a book of interviews called Dear: Americans Talk About Love, edited by journalist John Bowe, who wrote Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs and the film Basquiat.

It’s a really exciting project because it’s all about crowdsourcing: anyone can be a part of it. If you’re an American and you have a story about love that needs to be heard, whether wonderful or tragic, or if you know someone with one and want to interview them for us, you can contact us and get involved.

I’ll have more information available on my site as the project develops. In the meantime, tune in to Salon, which runs one of the love interviews bi-monthly. It’s great stuff–especially if you’re into other people oversharing.

Photos of A.V.

Photo by Sean

Photo by A.V. Flox

Photo by A.V. Flox

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