The Pitter-Patter of Tiny-Minded Feet

O how my blood is made to boil by conservative footsoldiers like that Skeletor-esque Kellyanne Conway, whose performance on Bill Maher's season premiere was irritating enough to make me want to increase my monthly contribution to the DNC and the DCCC tenfold. I was glad that Bill pressed her when she continually made unsubstantiated assertions, even going so far as to ask her what ass she had just pulled one of her claims from. But I couldn't help but feel that she should have been taken more to task. Whenever she was backed into a corner, she would end up saying something like, "Oh, come on, Bill." And that would be the end of her rebuttal. A tactic which was used with nearly as much effectiveness by Phyllis Schlafly, when Bill brought up the subject of her gay son. It's just that when people argue in this fashion -- never conceding a point, never acknowledging a misstep -- it's easy for the sound bites that get pulled from the discussions to be used as ammunition for their agenda, and most people are just lazy enough to accept someone else's synopsis rather than do the research firsthand. For instance, if you do not receive the HBO, and you are a liberal like me, you might read what I've written here and agree with me. And if you are a conservative, you might read this and dismiss it outright. But what always gets me so het up when I'm watching one of these shows -- particularly if I don't have the luxury of like-minded company to share in my irate flabbergastery -- is that the dialogue is useless. No one says anything real. Nothing that's said is of any great import. It's more important to try and get in a zinger than it is to make a point. It's exactly what happens in most arguments in the real world amongst real people who know nothing of the art of the dialectic.

There was a time when I enjoyed this. The sparring. The amicable disagreement. I was a debater for Pete's sake. For fun. But ever since the 2000 elections, I have gotten much more impatient, much more susceptible to flinching when that lingering road rash gets poked at. I wish we could talk about things with more than just the intention of winning. I wish we could try and get to the bottom of issues. Solve problems. Come up with ideas. Without being so concerned about who would get credit for the solutions. Without paying so much attention to the (D) or the (R) that follows the name on the chyron.

Somewhere along the way, I got it in my noggin that all this mattered. And then the fun started to seep away. Like blood draining from a turnip. So suddenly that you forget to ask how it got there in the first place.

Things that have been important to me.

In no particular order.

Notebook paper. Duran Duran. Violet Crumble. Shoestring potatoes. Egg custard. Paper clips. Names of characters in stories I have not yet written. Picture-taking. Bust support. Accomplished drinking. Perfect rice. Organized hosiery. Freesia. Chamomile soap that doesn't get made anymore. Big Top Pee-wee. Soundtrack albums. Long distance plans. Allergy remedies. Ive League education. Speech and debate. Air hockey. Swimming. Haircut. Hourglass figure. Strappy shoes. Frequent flyer miles. Diet Dr. Pepper. Hydration. Pedicure. Competitive sports (just kidding). Making the perfect bolognese sauce. Turtleneck. Blue mascara. Approval. Callbacks. Pantry space. High thread count sheets. That guy. Mendelssohn. Low-waisted jeans. Knee boots. That other guy. Black and white. Winning. Tongue-twisters. Superlatives. Correctness. Cuteness. Eraser collection. Fractal patterns. Books I've lost. Marilyn Monroe. Lined clothing. Silk. Mark Rothko. Japan. Dignity. Handel's Messiah. Soprano. Deep Space Nine. Salt and vinegar. Ballroom dancing. Perception of neurosis. ABBA. Spelling bee. Pedal pushers. Green. Juicy Fruit. Danny Kaye. Good side. Pork chops with cream sauce and mushrooms. Anodized cookware. Stovetop popcorn. Running. Stress urinary incontinence. Etymology. French. Christmas. Violin. Balance Bars. Arranciata. Campari soda. Whiskey. Mid-century modern. Simpatico. Phrasing. Sleep. Preparation. The Girl Can't Help It. Sebastian Shpritz Forte. Chicken fried rice. Olives. Stringed instruments. Memorization. Completiong. Jigsaw puzzles. Phyllo dough. Elephants. Late night dog walking. Ephemera. Binaries. Hard drive space. Bragging rights. Apple. Starvation. Sense memory. Certain sitcoms I'm embarrassed to list.

She's a real go-getter in a cardigan sweater.

I am not lamenting the end of summer. Not at all. I caught a whiff of fall in the air a few days ago, and it was fine with me. I don't care for slow cooking. Even though everything is always more tender that way.

I feel a bit stuck. Like the gears in my brain have halted. Leaving Tim Robbins temporarily suspended above the snow-covered streets of New York. When I invite my co-worker Michael out to smoke now, I say, "Cigareet?" But it doesn't happen often, because he usually manages to invite me first. In which case I just end up saying, "Yes."

I walked around in Beverly Hills today, shopping on my lunch break. I felt lousy. Tired. Filled with self-loathing. Awful. It was a lovely day. But that didn't really matter much.

When I was on the plane to New York, the in-flight magazine featured a cover story about Steve Martin and a book on tape he released about Beverly Hills and where one should go and what one might see there. It's strange, because everything the author of the article talked about doing is everything I do or see or walk past on my various lunch breaks from my office. And only a few short months ago, none of it would have meant anything to me. I have been to Beverly Hills. But now I actually know my way around. I guess I'm grateful for that. Working from home doesn't afford me as much opportunity to learn my away around different parts of town. But the trade-off leaves me sapped of strength and sort of perpetually despondent. It's unfortunate. And typical.

I am still filling my nights with improv workshops and performances and seeing shows and sticking around for drinks with friends. And not making hot dog dioramas and not putting my art supplies away. I feel as if I have burned away the part of my brain that enables me to feel pleasure and joy. I can't feel the effects of alcohol or caffeine, and nothing tastes good to me. And I'm pretty sure I never stole any Aztec gold or anything. It's just not fair.

Dreams are wishes.

An episode of Six Feet Under made me cry a lot recently. The way that episode of Ally McBeal when Billy dies did. It's weird to be able to muster that level of emotion for some fictional apparition. It makes me feel guilty and stupid. Surely there are better things on which to squander my emotions. Surely I can find better reasons to cry.

Hey, L.A., where've you gone?

Many Happy Returns

Today is the tandem birthday of my dad (Sam) and my sister (Sarah). I called them both to convey my happy wishes. When I called my dad, who turns seventy-six today, I said, "Happy birthday, old timer." And he said, "Seventy-six trombones." And I thought that was adorable.

It is also the birthday of my friends Geoffrey, Josh, and Becky. Which I think is ridiculous.

Catching up with missed luck.

Yesterday was the eighth of August. On past eighths of August, I have generally made mention of what a lucky day that is for the Chinese. I won't belabor the point.

I have been working altogether too much. My eyes are sore all day. Caffeine seems to have none of its usual potency. Every moment is a catalogue of ache. Even my beloved boozes are less appealing to me. I know they will make me sleepy and that I will lack the vigor to benefit from any of their more rewarding repercussions. It is a suckfest.

I was in New York for a few days last week. I stayed at the Dream Hotel. I would describe it, but I'm lazy and the spark is gone. I will post photos at some point. If I can find a free moment. The most noteworthy image I recall was riding up on the elevator and watching the doors open on floor after floor to display some artsy, impressionistic photo mural in cool blue hues and then arriving on the eighth floor to be greeted by a giant photo of a nude man running after himself. There were oranges on the pillows. But I had a room without a bath tub. So in order to try and get my mom's idea of my money's worth, I ate the oranges. Peeled 'em with my own hands and everything. It sounds crazy even to me.

It was so dreadfully hot and humid. Coming home to a hot and humid Los Angeles, I realize that I will probably never feel the need to complain about the heat here again. Even when it is its most uncomfortable. Even in my un-air-conditioned home. As hot and as humid as it ever gets, it's never like it was in New York these last two times I visited. Nights that never cool down. Air that smells of innards cooking in the bodies living about them. That filmy feeling on your skin and hair and teeth. All day long. I'm glad to be home. And if I ever end up living in New York, I will invest a great deal of money in air conditioning.

This is the third time I've been at a swanky hotel in Manhattan (and San Diego) when I was sent on a hotel blow dryer hunt. In each case I had to call down to the front desk to have them help me figure out where the blow dryer was stowed. At the W, it was in a little cloth sack in the closet. At the Marriott in San Diego, it was in a little cloth sack in the armoire. At the Dream Hotel, it was in a little cloth sack hanging from the back of the bathroom door. I even checked in the closet, hoping I'd discovered the new trend in blow dryer placement. But no. I had to call the front desk. They were nice enough. But I felt stupid just the same.

My teeth ache. I think I have been gritting them all day at work. And after an exhausting week of meetings and travel and work work work, I had to drive down to San Diego to perform, collect my dog, drive back up to Los Angeles to perform again, and then start the work week all over again with no greater an average of sleeping hours to my credit than before. I'll be dead by Christmas. I've been saying it for weeks. I have a lot of awesome belongings. I hope you get some of them, if that is your wish.

I don't know what else. My head hurts so much right now. Do we really need to be roasting Pamela Anderson? And if so, do we also need to be exploiting the ailing Kirk Douglas? He will always be Spartacus to me. And that sailor with a whale of a tale to tell. I don't want to see him working out his issues with his son on camera. This seems the height of vulgarity. Where's Steve Allen to object to things when you need him to?

I hate moths. And I keep having to prove it to them by murdering them and smearing their gross, powdery carcasses all over my walls. Why doesn't anyone ever take me at my word?

I'm a bit of a stickler.

You can lose me in two words. There's a commercial for Procrit that features an older fellow, soberly addressing the camera after we've seen him working as an auctioneer. He says, "I've always talked fast. And loved antiques." And loved antiques? Come on. How am I supposed to feel bad about you and your cancer when you say something so disingenuous?

When did baldness become so fashionable?

There are more shaved heads in my office than there are haircuts. And not all of them are heads that would otherwise be unadorned. Is everyone in the world looking for maps on their scalps? Dudes should consider the possibility that any maps they find might be presented in relief.

Continue spreading the news

I'm off to New York again for a few days. So if you live there and want to see me or if you have friends there you want me to wave at or if you just have a dozen or so balloons of heroin you want me to transport, you'd better get in touch with me soon. I like to know how to pack my bags.

SPAM continues to diminish my self-esteem.

I received an email today from someone named Grant Clay, with the subject line "bye bye big thighs." And if it weren't for the fact that I have never dated a Grant Clay, I would have assumed I was being broken up with.

Star War III: Backstroke of the West

Friends, allow me to share with you the funniest thing I have ever seen. It is this.

Thank you, Paul F. Tompkins, the Famous Comedian.

They want what they're not.

Poor Mary. Sickly and weak. If I cough again, I'll cry. Maybe I'm just looking for excuses.

No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful.
Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful.

When you were a young and a callow fellow

Yesterday was hot. One of those days so hot that it's literally all anyone can talk about. Heat apparently saps our imaginations. It crowds our brains until even the sight of something truly odd has no purchase. All you can say is how hot you are and how little relief you got from the various remedies you tried. "It was so hot today that I snuck into Ralph's and spent the day in the freezer, sitting on a pallet of ice cream." "I sat in my car and ran the air conditioner until it ran out of gas." "I drank hot tea." (That's what Chinese people do.)

Extremes of weather are peculiar in that way. I guess people are relieved about it. Having something to talk about. When there's a world incident or a noteworthy weather change, all of a sudden, you don't have to sit there in silence, wondering whether the person sitting across from you speaks English anymore. And yet who really cares about current events or the weather or how your family is doing. It's a shame that people don't just say what they're really thinking. Although, if I were to do that, I'd probably have far fewer friends. My brain comes up with monstrous things only I can enjoy.

I forgot that my workshop was over yesterday, so I drove to the building on Santa Monica and opened the door to the room to find another group of people in it. Two of them on stage, clearly offput by my very quiet entrance. I excused myself and stood there in the hallway for a few seconds, processing my error. Then I went to the Smart and Final on Wilshire to buy Red Bull and other things in large quantities. Then I went home to my hot apartment where my dog was in love with me and the sweating became second nature. I've been experiencing the nag of a cold all week. A dry cough and some congestion. I was thoroughly exhausted by late afternoon, so I tried to take a nap. But it was just a series of feverish wakings and discussions with myself about whether I should just lie still or get up and see what's on TV.

In the evening, I picked up my friend Kevin, and we went and got a drink at The Dresden before catching Ron Lynch's new show "The Tomorrow Show" at the Steve Allen Theater. We ran into the impeccably-attired and always-gracious Poubelle Twins, who were attending the same performance, so we all made our way over together when it was appropriate to do so. Then we watched the show. And then it was too late to go anywhere for a drink. The problem with a midnight show. So Kevin and I raced two a.m. to get to Von's and buy booze. We did. But it was no longer of interest to anyone else to share it, so we took it back to his house and sat outside drinking and smoking until nearly five a.m. I told him stories of work. We talked about a sketch he is writing. I offered some suggestions and thought as I was doing so, "Hey, Mary, I guess you DO know a thing or two about writing." And then I was immediately ashamed that I was not writing my own sketch instead of just helping someone else with his. Always an editor, never a bride.

This past week was one of the most taxing ever. My consulting job. My freelance work. My health. My wishes. I ended the escapade feeling bruised and battered. Canceling my plans to go to San Diego to perform. Knowing I wouldn't survive it. Wanting the opportunity to sit still. Knowing that I never take that opportunity when it presents itself. I want to be so much that I'm not. Some of that wanting is so lackluster and unambitious as to be content just going back to what I recently was. I'm not greedy. I could never get away with it.

Try to remember. Try to remember. It's not the right month for it, if you go by the song lyrics. It's never the right month. It's never the right day. It's never the right time. It's never the same for you as it is for me. It's never what I thought it would be or what I keep trying to make it. I'm just scrambling eggs over here. I prefer them over easy, but I'll eat them any way they are served.

Today's not so much cooler than yesterday. It's cloudy out, but still hot and humid. Tornado weather, if we lived in a tornado state, as I said to Krissy a while earlier. Krissy, who recently learned that she is the oven for a little baby bun. I am fearful of change. It has seldom been my ally. Except in extreme retrospect, when you adopt that worldview wherein everything that ever happened to you helped you get to where you are. And that only works when where you are isn't some place you hate. Or some place too hot to stand.

Loren Bouchard was kind enough to send me some photos he took at one of the after-closing hotel room parties we both attended during Comic-Con week. I am not the star of this photo, but I love what I'm saying in it.

Sir Laurence Olivier never played a character of that name.

This isn't specifically intended for Bob Newhart, but I kind of think that shows where the star gets to have the same name as they actually have in real life (According to Jim, for instance) are pretty pointedly indicating that the stars of the shows are such poor actors they can't be counted on to remember to turn their heads when a co-star says their character's name if it happens to be different than their own. I guess if I ever have a son, I'll name him Hamlet. So when they make a sitcom called that he can star in it.

Memories of Comic-Con
I had what I would consider to be a largely triumphant experience at Comic-Con last week. It's unfortunate that the aftermath of it was total work swamp, the onset of a cold, and general inability to get anywhere near the business of blogging. All I can really offer is a pastiche of memory spurts. Sorry. I'll try harder next time.
Firstly, I decided this year that I would not allow myself to endure the misery of parking woes and traffic bullshit and the laziness that happens when you are staying with friends or family. So I booked a room at the Marriott and stayed luxuriously and conveniently close to all the hot nerd action for five days and four nights. That was the right choice. I will make that same choice repeatedly in the future. Because it led to me actually fully experiencing Comic-Con perhaps for the first time. In past years, the Con has always been a series of day trips, ending before sundown in exhaustion and sometimes performance obligations. If you go home after a day walking the dealer floor, and "home" is more than a mile from Downtown San Diego, chances are you're not going to go back out in the evening. That has been my experience in every previous year. But this time, tired as I may have been every single day, it was not at all difficult to drag myself out of my room and hit the town. And that is a blessing.
Beulah came down and visited with me on Wednesday night. We went out for sushi and drinks and shit talk, and then she spent the night in my hotel room. And when Martín arrived the next morning, we went down to the hotel coffee shop, where Beulah had breakfast, Martín had lunch, and I had four bloody marys -- all served with flair by our waitress Blanche. Before Beulah arrived downstairs, I phoned to alert her that I had just walked past Mark Ryden on the stairs. That was the first of perhaps thirty times I would see him in and around the hotel and the convention center. I realize that we were staying in the same building and attending the same event, but there was still an uncanny frequency to our proximity. I would literally see him enter the convention center and then see him ninety seconds later as I rounded the corner of an aisle. He was everywhere that I was. With nearly cosmic significance. And I know him to be awfully nice and sort of shy, so I didn't bother him at all. Which is to my credit, I hope.
Martín and I rounded out day one of the Con with drinks in my room (I brought a full compliment of liquor with me, of course), countless martinis at the hotel bar, a photo-taking stroll to Embarcadero Marina Park at what I call "golden hour," and then dinner at Morton's, where I ordered us an expensive bottle of wine that we drank nearly none of but then took with us to watch the screening of the special edition of Free Enterprise, during which we traded slugs of a fine meritage like hobos. Wealthy, wealthy hobos. Towards the end of the film, we snuck out onto the terrace for a smoke. And then, for some reason, we ended up venturing out into the Gaslamp to look for smaller bottles of whiskey to carry around during the next day's show. But we didn't find a liquor store. All we found was foot pain. We went from exclaiming, "Best Con ever!" between joyous bursts of laughter to whimpering, "Worst Con ever!" betwixt groans of agony. Then Martín spent the night in my room. And I think we were both grateful that that convenience was available to us.
Friday morning, Mindy arrived. And the three of us hit the Con together. It was sort of magical to be taking a Con newbie around. Especially a hot one with a passion for Star Wars and anime chicks. It's what I imagine it's like for parents whose love of Christmas is renewed by the wonder in the eyes of their children. Beulah and Yen came down that day, too, and -- as I always do for my friends -- I went to the registration area and picked up badges for them, so they wouldn't have to wait in that ridiculous line. I look at the people in that long-ass line, and I think, "Is it possible that none of you guys knows ANYONE who can hook you up?" None of my friends ever has to wait for a badge. It's part of my Con evangelism.
Jessie came to the show on Friday, too. So did Richard. We lost him when we were staking out a spot for the Adult Swim panel, which was great and also less than. My friends Tim and Eric were my heroes, but the question-askers were stupid, and Cartoon Network didn't give away anything at the panel, which was a change from years past and the yearning for which is proof of my geekness. So many people to see. I have never had such a meeting-rich Con. It was grand-ish. Jessie and her friend Josh and I met at the hotel bar for a few drinks. And then I went back to the room to collect Mindy (after we caught some awesome fireworks off our awesome bay view balcony) and whisk her off to the Adult Swim party at the Wonder Bread Factory in Golden Hill. Eric had put me on the list. And that made me feel super extra special. And Mindy came as my guest. And we happened to find Jeff walking on the street towards the party when we were walking from our cab. So we all arrived together and made respective beelines for the restrooms and then the food tables. I guess it was The Prado catering the event, and there were these little Angus beef sliders that were unbelievably yummy and also tiny little deep dish pizzas that I later hated myself for not eating a hundred of.
The party was over too soon, and -- after a long curbside deliberation -- we all went over to the Top of the Hyatt for more drinks. Jeff and Mindy and I went downstairs for a smoke and ended up not being able to get back up to the club, as the elevators apparently respect last call more than most enthusiastic drinkers do. And we ended up bringing a whole gaggle of people back to my hotel room to continue with the drinking and the smoking and the general revelry. I ordered room service in the wee hours, and we ate pizza and hamburger and fries and shot craps in a drawer from my armoire and eventually had to encourage Jay and Tommy to make their way home, because the sun was coming up and we had a Con to get something from. Jeff ended up staying with me and Mindy. And he drew a picture of a giant frog. And I looked at it the next morning and said, "Oh, look, there's a little boy on his back," and Jeff said, "Look closer," and then I said, "Oh! It's me!" And it was. I could tell because of the rank insignia on the sleeve of my sweater. I'm a colonel or something when I wear that sweater that says "Destroy" on the front. You'd best watch yourself.
By Saturday, I had turned my ankle somehow. Probably the night before in some drunken situation. So every step I took on the convention floor was a bit ouchy. I had to rush in at the top of the day and get a pass for Jeff. And then I did the same for Krissy and her sister later in the afternoon. And when we went outside to find them, a guy with two ninja swords approached me and asked if he could take a picture of me. And I said, "Sure. But I'm not dressed as anyone." And I wasn't. He seemed convinced that I was. But really. I was just wearing my own clothes. Which is telling, I suppose. Later in the afternoon. Martín, Jeff, Mindy, and I were sitting out on the steps behind the convention center, and we decided to head down to that little sandwich shack down by the fishing pier, and as I stood up to leave, an older fellow with a disturbingly emotionless gaze said, "You look nice today." It took me a few seconds to realize he was talking to me. When I did, I said, "Thank you." And then I tugged my skirt down further and hurried on with my friends. We jeered the musketeers and bellydancer on the terrace. We're better than them and we know it. We ordered lunch, and I had the best nachos ever. And a hamburger that I so did not need after having eaten the best nachos ever.
By the late afternoon, we were plum tuckered out. And -- foolishly opting to miss the Tenacious D panel -- we headed back to the hotel, where we complained about our various pains and took brief naps and showers. Then we went out into the Gaslamp to find what turned out to be the worst Mexican food ever at La Fiesta on Fifth. After which, we met up with friends at Star Bar and drank cheaply until closing. At which time we headed over to the Westgate and continued on with our evening in resplendent Con fashion. Tim and Brendon performed an hilarious prank call for all of us, and I literally had tears rolling off the end of my nose. I'll never stop laughing about it. If I'm at a funeral and think of Tom Pickle, someone will surely think me rude. The same can be said for Tommy's thoughts on progressive cat math. And Jay's conviction that Mindy's sheets were made of orchestras.
By the end of the night. Mindy and Jeff and I piled into a cab with Tommy and the Poubelle Twins and made our way back to our various places of lodging. And I performed a dramatic reading from my email for Jeff and Mindy, and Mindy laughed a lot.
On our final day, we mostly just had breakfast, shopped, and went our separate ways. I took one of my favorite pictures ever of Mindy in front of a Han Solo poster. I also took a picture of Mindy with Caveman Robot, who seems to now recognize me as a friend and always wants a hug when our paths cross. When he hugs me, he grunts, "Woman. Urnh. Urnh." And I am charmed by it. One of his handlers gave me a free pin.
So that's about it, right? I yelled at the people at the bell desk. I attended one last panel. Then I got my car and my bags and drove to my parents' house to collect my dog and head home. Many pictures were taken. Many memories were made. Many opportunities were missed. I only wish it could be Comic-Con every week. I love it more than anything else in the world.

For the Sake of Comparison

Carlos Mencia is not funny. At all. That Baja California Starburst commercial where the mariachis get crushed in the guy's teeth, however, is.

Mind Over Mencia

I can't believe the tripe that gets on television today as compared to the much more delicious meats that don't. I'm speaking, of course, of Carlos Mencia and his new show. Perhaps Comedy Central is catering to a core demographic of the incarcerated that I'm not aware of. Those dudes will laugh at anything. And it's a shame, because it really skews the curve to the disadvantage of the rest of us. The promos call him offensive and support the claim by showing him saying the word "midget." Come on. That's not offensive. I'm more offensive when I'm plugging the parking meter in front of my office. No, really. I am. I totally pretend it's a sex act. I get all nasty about it. I finger the coin slot a little. Make it think I'm gentle. And then I lay on the racist epithets and tell it to give me what I paid for. You should see it. And if you're thinking, "That's not funny," you're right. But I also do not have my own show. Do I. And if you used Mind of Mencia as a measure at all -- however alliterative -- you might stop and also think to yourself that there's no real reason that I shouldn't.

P.S. If you are a development executive, I do not have an agent, but I have a number of friends who could convincingly pretend to be one on the phone, should you need to speak with one.

For the Sake of Keeping

I switched to a different handbag a couple of days ago. I buy a lot of handbags. I fall in love with a handbag and then use it completely up. Leaving it in shameful tatters. A dirty, frayed shadow of its former stylish glory. The one I am retiring is definitely ready to be put out to pasteur, if handbags can be imagined to be sent out to graze on the green hillsides of some idyllic country dell. And if that image can somehow be correlated to being hung from a hook in one of my overly full closets. The leather of its shoulder straps is cracking at the edges, its satin lining sheltering an unusually large amount of loose tobacco. It was time.

I went into the closet in my guest bedroom and found a handbag I haven't used in some time. It's in very good repair. Not as cute or stylish as its predecessor, but ideal for how many cameras I've been carrying back and forth and for the fact that I have to work in an office during the day. I abandoned it early in its life, clearly. There are none of the usual signs of wear and tear. Only five year-old pieces of flattened Bubblicious and a few tubes of lipstick in colors I don't believe I ever wore. It also contains a piece of gypsum.

This piece of gypsum was given to me by a friendly fellow at a chemical factory in Oklahoma, where I was consulting for a day. He was one of the plant managers, and he wanted to give me a token of Oklahoma goodwill to take home with me. He told me the importance of gypsum. I have long since forgotten what it was. But I was fishing around in one of the pockets for change for the parking meter, and my fingers found that smooth piece of rock, and I remembered that grueling trip, which forced me to leave a rather slapdash high school reunion early so I could fly out with all of my materials prepared. I remembered getting to the airport on time and finding that fog had delayed my flight, which led me to The Waffle Spot, where I ate breakfast and drank apple juice before heading back to the airport and embarking on a nightmarish series of trip segments, ending in Woodman, Oklahoma (Woodson? I don't know.), where I got in very late, ate Arby's in my room, woke up very early, spent the day talking about attachment-dependent cell culture, ate dinner at Chili's, and then flew back home. And had to go back to my real job the next day. I remember the after-midnight phone call in the room of the bed and breakfast. He was just making sure I got there safely. He was probably waking up the proprietor of the place, but he or she was very nice about it. It was so late that even a bath seemed an imprudent sacrifice of sleep. I didn't sleep much anyway. Time zone change. Work anxiety. The fear that my actual job would wig out if they knew I was taking the day off to fly to Oklahoma and train people in how to sell molecular biology products.

All this from my fingers brushing against that piece of gypsum. My version of The Dead Zone. He'll use the baby as a human shield. It'll end his political career.

Epilogue

Did I say gypsum? I think I meant quartz.

This risks breaking Krissy's heart.

It doesn't matter how much you love Michael Ian Black. Stella is not funny. At all.

Just smile when I feel blue.

My heart's seen too much action.

Blissful Detox

When my mother wants me to have things -- mail, a copy of Entertainment Weekly, batteries, a bottle of vitamins -- she leaves them on the dresser in the guest bedroom of her house. So that when I come to visit, I will see them and put them in my bag. I haven't been visiting all that much recently, but the second to last time I was there -- which was just before leaving on my New York trip -- I went upstairs and found that she had left me a book called Blissful Detox with the subhead "Over 100 Simply Delicious Cleansing Recipes." My mother makes no secret of her concern for my digestive health. It's just like in that laxative commercial when the mother asks the daughter about her regularity while they're sitting on a plane. I used to think that commercial was stupid. But then it turned into a blueprint for living. For me.

The War to End All Tom Cruise/Steven Spielberg Collaborations

Spoiler alert: This movie is no good.

I saw War of the Worlds for the second time last night. Don't think that means I liked it. I didn't. I hated it the first time I saw it, but I wondered if it might just be that seeing it in a theater in Burbank where the common folk were so audibly annoying might have slanted my take. But alas, no. Last night, I confirmed my first impression. Incontrovertibly.

It's sad that this is true, but Steven Spielberg, whom I used to consider to be fairly deft at playing at the human melodrama -- is apparently just as out of touch with the reality of human interaction as George Lucas. Beyond the admittedly very good visual effects, this movie just proves that some writers and some directors really have no idea at all how people behave or how they talk to each other or -- and this is the most unbearable part -- what children do and say. If you ask me, Dakota Fanning is what's wrong with children in film and television. I mean, maybe it isn't her fault. She's a little kid who can play an emotion and memorize a line and hit her marks. And that's all right. But if you've ever seen her interviewed, it's just the scariest thing imaginable. She spends one portion of the chat showing you that she's about to lose a baby tooth and the rest going on and on about how a-MAZ-ing it was to work with so-and-so and how BRILL-iant this such-and-such is, and all in the emphatic, cocktail-party elocution of a queeny creative type in the heyday of Truman Capote. She's not just too old for her age. I would find this kind of person insufferable as an adult, too. Seeing it in a child is just too much. Maybe Spielberg was trying to recapture the charm he found in a young Drew Barrymore or that Heather whatshername who died. He does seem to have a penchant for casting pale little girls with stringy blonde hair. But Dakota Fanning has none of the naivete of a young Drew Barrymore. And god help us if she grows up to be any worse an actress than an adult Drew Barrymore.

I was listening to Paul Feig on Fresh Air with Terry Gross last week, and I just caught the very end of his interview, when he was being asked about what shows he liked growing up, what shows influenced him. And he made such a good point about how shows like Leave It to Beaver and The Brady Bunch were good because they featured children speaking the way children actually speak. Whereas shows today constantly portray children speaking in the way that their adult writers wish perhaps they could have spoken in their own tortured childhoods. The Jonathan Taylor-Thomas syndrome, in my mind. One of the trailers I saw before my first screening of War of the Worlds was for this new remake of The Bad News Bears. And it isn't just because I love Walter Matthau or because I hate Billy Bob Thornton or because I hate Billy Bob Thornton's embarrassing hair plugs that I despise the very idea of this film. There is a clip where a girl shows the taunting boys that she can pitch, and one little four-eyes says, "I think I just entered puberty." And I just wanted to crush something in my angry fists.

One of the things that rubbed me the wrong way when I was in the Burbank theater was how, to much of America, everything is apparently a comedy these days. This happened when I went to see Revenge of the Sith, too. Now, I'll grant you that Yoda is kind of funny-looking, and maybe seeing him wielding a light saber with angry resolve is a little ridiculous, but not if you are allowing yourself to believe that he is in fact a Jedi master and that some serious shit is going down, and I'm assuming you're allowing yourself to do that, as you just paid twelve dollars to see a movie called Star Wars. And yet every time Yoda was on screen, I heard swells of laughter. The same was true in War of the Worlds. Even in cases of graphic carnage or (intended) gravitas. People kept laughing. And I kept wondering what was wrong with them. Maybe it's because of movies like Blade 3, where the seriousness and humorlessness of the Blade character is inexplicably "spruced up" by the addition of Ryan Reynolds' wise-cracking, steroid-pumped, shit-talking sidekick. The Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2 syndrome, if you will. To be fair, so many of the moments of high drama in War of the Worlds are so implausible and ridiculous that it makes sense that you might laugh at them. But not for amusement's sake. But I don't think this was wry laughter. This was the same disappointing laughter I heard when Kevin James dances in the trailer for Hitch. Shame on you, America. But then, maybe it isn't America's fault. Maybe America has just seen so many of these insufferable mood-lighteners and assumes that every uncomfortable moment is intended to tickle a little bit. Maybe it's the result of generation after generation of cinematic "bad touch." Maybe we're all going to end up strippers.

Oh, I have so many issues with this movie. The first fifteen minutes? Totally unnecessary. That sandwich shuffling scene? Waste of time. Morgan Freeman's opening and closing narratives? Largely uninformative. What did those aliens envy so much? What did they want with our planet? What was the value of the blood? And if it was so valuable, why vaporize so many people instead of sucking them dry? And while we're on that topic, the annihilation methods employed by these guys were hardly the portrait of good process flow. We have droves of more effective tools for mass murder. And certainly they could look to the Nazis for some lessons on efficiency in this area. Which brings me to another point, Schindler's List was only one of the many of his own films I saw Spielberg cribbing from this time around. Also on the list were Minority Report, E.T., Poltergeist, and -- if only in the sense that Robbie looked so much like Karen Allen -- Raiders of the Lost Ark. On the list of other people's films he cribbed from are Titanic, The Abyss, and Signs. And I should further note that I wrote the following in my notebook when I was about an hour into my first viewing: "Worse than Signs." If that is even possible.

This movie is a pastiche of convenient exit strategies in scenarios that have been painted to be impossible. It is also a multiple offender of a rule I learned in improv: If you introduce something, it had better pay off. If Tom Cruise picks up a piece of freezing cold asphalt and puts it in his pocket, that has to pay off later. Did it? No. If Dakota Fanning is shown to be a claustrophobic, that has to come into play at some point. Did it? No. Even when she was in a number of cramped spaces, including a basket filled with strangers freaking out and being sucked one by one into a big red rectum. She screams for no reason many times throughout the movie. She screams. Then stops. Then screams some more. There is no halo to the panic. It is both succinct and distinct. And therefore unnatural. But when she's actually in a small, suffocating area -- utter silence.

Even the music was evocative of Schindler's List in places. Especially when you're seeing a mass exodus of sad, trudging, hope-bereft people who have lost everything and have nowhere to run. But it was in one of those scenes that I wrote in my notebook, "No one would have minded if they were only here to kill the Jews."

Lord, do I have issues with this movie. Why did that marine decide to save Tom Cruise when he was getting sucked up into the thing and not the other guy that got sucked up into it only moments earlier? How did Tom Cruise know that there would be a grenade belt in that overturned vehicle? How did the pins for the grenade get into his mouth when he was hanging onto that marine the whole time? Why did that soldier at the end provide the narrative exposition about the erratic behavior of one of the tripods before hustling Tom and Dakota along as if he didn't have time to explain everything to a pair of meaningless strangers? Why did everything stop working when the electromagnetic pulse hit -- everything except digital cameras and camcorders? Why would an adolescent boy with a huge chip on his shoulder be able to convince his father to abandon him to certain doom by quietly insisting, "I need to see this. You have to let me go?" Why did everyone suddenly want to be on that ferry when the tripods showed up? What was so much safer about being corraled on a slow-moving boat than being on the shore? How many times did Tom Cruise escape death by mere millimeters? How did he get all that man ash off his leather jacket? Was that soldier at the end really able to say "Clear!" with any conviction when that alien's gelatinous hand went limp? Is he a space doctor all of a sudden? Was that TV news crew in the van even human? Come on.

Another thing that REALLY got on my nerves was the number of times characters in the film would speak to someone who would not respond, requiring them to just say the same thing over and over again. It was almost as infuriating as watching Tom Cruise say Matt Lauer's name to him over and over again in that ridiculous interview. "Dad. Dad. Dad." "Mike. Mike. Mike." "Robbie. Robbie. Robbie." "Ray. Ray. Ray." "Get in the car. Get in the car. Get in the car." "Get out of the car. Get out of the car. Get out of the car." Are these lines actually in the screenplay? Could it have been an accidental cut-and-paste glitch?

Oh, and that scene with the tripods scouring the scurrying masses with their searchlights could just as easily have been a Moonlight Madness event at Best Buy.

Speaking of the tripods, I know it's from the book and all, but these are as lamely unwieldy as the AT-ATs in Empire. You'd think they'd have vehicles that could like...fly or something.

I am so tired of the sameness of everything that is being churned out today. The few beacons of hope on the horizon are so very few as to be lost in the gaping black maw of everything else. Batman Begins was great, for instance (although I should write about that under separate cover and explain why it solidifies my misogynistic feelings toward nearly every ingenue in the superhero/action-adventure genre). But when trying to pick something to see last night, there were just so few titles out that were not guaranteed to actually hurt. I was left nearly no other option but to see this movie again. That's an algorithm the box office trackers probably don't factor in. Come on. Rebound? I'd rather be bitten by snakes. So I ended up seeing this movie twice. And no one is sorrier for it than I am. Although I have to say there is a certain sweet vindication in knowing that my first takeaway was not wrong. To my friends whose opinions I respect and who told me this movie was badass -- especially to the one among you who saw it twice and announced that it "holds up" -- I just have to shake my head, knowing that you and I probably want different things from a film. We can still be friends. And we can still play video games together and drink booze and stuff. But I can't really allow you to bandy your film recommendations so recklessly. Let's just get high and watch movies we already know are going to be bad. It's better for the friendship.

P.S. I think I like Christian Bale better emaciated. There is something wrong with me.

Trailer Watch

Stealth. Boo. I have managed to see this trailer on the big screen at least three times now, and it never ceases to cause me to make that face. First of all, are we really meant to believe that the three top pilots in America are a white dude, a black dude, and a chick? At least Top Gun was a little more honest about this. Face it. It would be three white dudes. Three white dudes with haircuts and ego trips and a tendency towards gum-chewing. Why do we have to be so beholden to diversity in our storytelling? If this was a movie where the world's top basketball players had to stop an unmanned fighter jet that had "gone rogue," they would be three black dudes. Period. Maybe one white dude. But really, probably not. I just love the way trailers these days give you every single important beat in the story right up front. We see the plane get hit by lightning. We hear them pronounce it sentient. We see that girl's ass. The only reason to go watch this movie would be to see if Jamie Foxx and that white guy accidentally touch each other's naughty parts in the mandatory three-way scene.

Narnia. I was excited at first. But it's already all wrong. What a shame. Every book from my childhood will be plundered before the end of it all. Who's slated to make the film version of Ferdinand the Bull? Probably Michael Bay. Fuck.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This may be the worst trailer in film history. It totally makes me not want to see the movie. It's possible the movie won't be horrible (although I'm leaning in the opposite direction), but the trailer is just this halting string of close-ups of Johnny Depp where the music cuts out just in time for him to utter an unamusing one-liner. And I don't think it's playing to his strengths to have him look so much like a girl.

Bad News Bears. I already aired my laundry on this one.

King Kong. The people on the island look like those freaks in The Thirteenth Warrior. And, although I want to see this movie, again I wonder at the logic of having the trailer expose every single plot point. Maybe Hollywood is just too used to promoting remakes. It's custom now to take it for granted that the audience might not know how the story goes. If The Crying Game were being promoted today, I'm sure the trailer would show Jaye Davidson peeing standing up. Not that that scene ever occurs in the movie. And, by the way, I hope I didn't just ruin the big surprise for you.

Elizabethtown. Cameron Crowe movies are really just soundtracks at this point.

Free Association

The work I'm doing at the moment is very much brand-focused. It shapes the way I think about things. I watch commercials a little differently. I notice messaging where maybe I wouldn't. But it isn't a keen eye that caused me to take pause when I saw an ad for Universal Technical Institute, or "U.T.I." It's a trade school, and I'm sure they're mostly marketing to men, but isn't there someone who wants to do something engineering-related who knows what a urinary tract infection is and maybe doesn't want to go to school in one? It reminds me of those appetite suppressant chocolate chews they had back in the '70s with the unfortunate brand name "Ayds." They didn't last long. Their brand message was eclipsed by a much more popular disease with a homophonic name. You have to be careful what you call yourself. Sometimes it actually makes a difference.

Take my love in real small doses.

I'm gonna pull you in close. I'm gonna wrap you up tight. I'm gonna play with the braids that you came here with tonight.

I like the sound of car doors. I like the sound of them opening and closing. I like the sound of the handle being pulled. Someone's arriving. Someone's going home. People are going places. I like hearing it in movies, even. I don't know why. I don't get all giddy when I'm getting into my own car, though. For some reason, that is an exempt experience.

I have been unable to put words together. Unable to breathe at times. I have been getting a substantial taste of a breakneck pace. And in so many ways, I can't feel it or figure it out. I can't feel my fingerbones moving inside my hands. I can't cry in public. I can't write neatly. I can't stop wanting both more and less. I can't stop.

If there was just one thing to do, maybe...But I am doing four jobs and being five people and dreaming six dreams. And there is so little space in-between that I don't even have time to look forward. Plenty of good times. Plenty of them. But all in that blurry mode. The way I set my camera. The slow shutter. Light trails. Double vision. Everything gets all mushy.

It's funny. When I get like this. I don't even feel like telling the truth. About anything.

Jersey Girl is an embarrassingly awful movie. I am embarrassed for Kevin Smith. I am embarrassed for Ben Affleck. I am embarrassed for Liv Tyler. A scene from Sweeney Todd? This film is about as enjoyable as a kidney stone. I am embarrassed for me for telling anyone that I watched even five minutes of it. In fairness, I've only watched about ten minutes of it, but that's nine minutes too many.

I will stand by all this drinking if it helps me through these days.

Nonsense.

This song always sets me off. Sets me back. And it totally shouldn't. It isn't our song or anything. If anything, it would make you think of someone completely else. Not me at all. It wouldn't be the song we would both hear while doing Christmas shopping and be simultaneously overwhelmed with a sense of the bittersweet as we stand in two totally different stores in the same shopping mall unbeknownst to us. Like some predictable little scene in a Nora Ephron movie. I don't even know why it means anything to me. It shouldn't. I didn't share it with anyone. It doesn't need to be evocative. It may be as simple as the place I was in my life when I saw the movie it came from. Or what I felt and what I knew at the time. It isn't even that great a song. Or that well-performed. Why. Why. Why. This is non-scientific.

But when I hear this song -- and, depending on how my day is going -- I think things I'm happy to think. Or things I'd like to burn out of my brain with a hot thing. But without exception, I think of you. And it makes me want to have a conversation about it or write something down. It impels me.

Music inspires action in me more than nearly anything else. Unplanned puppetry. The sharing feeling. How can anyone in the world hear something lovely or good and think, "Oh, this is lovely," or, "Oh, this is good," and not want to share it with someone else immediately? How can anyone keep such things to themselves? I sometimes fear I will have to clap my hands over my mouth to keep from telling everyone everything I think. Instead, I write it down. And sometimes I make something of it. And sometimes I don't. But when I let it get away -- when I fail to say it or write it or remember it in some way -- I get the blues about it. If you think I save a lot of tangible things, wait till you get a peek at my intellectual property.

I can write it all down for writing's sake. And by the time I've gotten it out, the song has changed, and I'm no longer forced to think anything at all.

Fucking nonsense.

Is being less fat really such a laudable accomplishmment?

When I was in New York a couple of weeks ago, I saw Jared on the street. Jared, the Subway guy. The former fatso who tries to interest me in puny six-inch sub sandwiches by comparing them to actual fast food and pretending it isn't a case of apples and oranges. Forget apples and oranges. It's apples and turds, as far as I'm concerned. You just can't compare them. Is anyone surprised that a crispy chicken sandwich has more fat in it than a cold chicken sub without mayo or cheese? Maybe you would also be stunned to learn that a cheesecake has more fat in it than a string bean. And furthermore that eating a turkey leg is more fattening than eating a housefly. Oh, the hours I could fill with interesting facts you would apparently react to quizzically.

So I passed Jared on the sidewalk of Lexington Avenue, and he looked much as he does on television. Maybe shorter than I expected. But certainly no better dressed. I'm reminded of it because I just saw a Subway commercial he's in, and I find his face so unappealing. His teeth look capped or veneered, and his lips are too big and rosy and wrinkled. I just want someone to give him a pinkieful of balm. Wrinkly, full lips are just gross to look at. And he has 'em. And frankly, he's not so very thin. I realize he's not as fat as he used to be, but I'd hardly say he has a cute body. I'm just surprised that his story appeals to America at all. America is usually so fickle. So ready to abandon a once-beloved celebrity for putting on weight or beginning to show evidence of sun damage. So short-tempered when it comes to age and infirmity and carbo-loading. Why would the America that wanted Kate Winslet to skip a crumpet or two get behind this only slightly less tubby Jared and take his advice on foodstuffs? I wonder what portion of Subway's clientele wanders in actually believing they're going to board a train and go somewhere.

Peacock Feather

When I was in the lobby bar of the W Hotel in Manhattan, a man offered me a flower from the bouquet he was carrying. I chose a peacock feather instead. A pretty commemoration of my last night in New York. The end of a week that felt like a bubbly drink.

When I finally finished unpacking one of my bags from the trip, the feather was tucked inside. Bent. Imperfect. Not unpretty. But not so nice anymore. And the colors looked duller, unenhanced by that W Hotel blue. A fitting metaphoric closure for my return.

I heard a song today and it made me sad for missing you.

Salutatory

Hello. I adore that it adores the Steve Martin.... we can be friends? I speak of the Brazil (São Paulo City) and I wait contact. Kisses and Sorry my english.....

This was my latest Friendster message. I am in love with it. Not just because I am an "it" in the prose, but certainly that is a contributing factor.

Ambush

Oh my God. I just accidentally watched like five minutes of Def Poetry Jam. Gross.

Don't wait for the translation.

So, my mom finally browbeat me into letting her try out that dog translator device she bought. We were sitting by the pool, after a delightful lunch of barbecued meats and fancy cupcakes on Father's Day, and she was talking about how obnoxious Audrey becomes when I'm around. It's true. She spent two weeks with my parents while I was in New York and starting my new job, and she was apparently quite nice to them. And then I come around, and she turns into a little monster again. So Sarah and my mom put the batteries in the thing, and I attached it to Audrey's collar. The device transmits to a handheld walkie-talkie-looking receiver that is supposed to tell you what your dog is "really" saying. And when my mom first pitched it to me, I rolled my eyes and assured her that it would not reveal any of the nuance she was probably aspiring to. On the outer packaging, the word "Bow-lingual" appears. So you see.

Now, I have to be honest. When Sarah started programming the thing, it wanted to know Audrey's name and what breed of dog she is and a number of other details that made me wonder if maybe this thing might actually be legit. But then my mom began antagonizing Audrey in an attempt to get her to start barking, and when Audrey barked -- viciously -- the receiver said, "I want to see the world!" And a little smiley dog face appeared. Then, when Audrey got so violent in her barking that she unintentionally bit my arm (P.S. It hurt like a son of a gun.), Sarah laughed and announced that it said, "I'm happy!" Touché, pet marketing industry. Touché.

Up. And also at them.

So that's it then. Two weeks of having to be up for morning meetings and apparently I get up early on my own.

I drove down to San Diego last night, tired when I began the drive and anticipating more of the same. I ducked into a liquor store before stopping by the comedy theater, so I was armed with sugar-free Red Bull and the small (but not the smallest) bottle of Bushmill's. I watched the second half of the second show and then went to C.J.'s with Krissy and Dorian and David and Janet, and we stood outside, smoking and talking until the bartender came to the window nearest me and asked me wanly to let everyone outside know it was last call. I did. And a discussion ensued with a guy who was probably trying to be clever. There were a lot of moments when I was spinning yarns and I noticed that strangers standing near us had positioned themselves as if they were in our party. Peripheral vision powered up, I could see their facial expressions registering the appropriate amusement or horror or curiosity or disbelief, but I wondered if it felt weird for them to be standing there listening to me talk about my mom without ever knowing who I was or why any of it mattered. No one really tried to make friends. Rather they stood there and acted as if they already had. Only skipping that important step of actually doing it.

I stayed out last night until C.J.'s was nearly closed. Then I drove the twenty-some miles back to my parents' house and reunited with Audrey, after having not seen her for two weeks. It was sweet to say the least. I got ready for bed and found that I couldn't get onto my parents' wireless network, so I turned in a bit earlier than blogging and messaging might normally have had me do. But still. I was not drifting off until at least three or so. And there I was, up before eight. Surprised to see that my parents hadn't yet left for church. For the many weekends I have come to visit here and stayed out till all hours with my compatriots, I have never been voluntarily awake before they left for church. Unless I had not yet gone to sleep. I'm a little disappointed. I don't like it when things fuck with my clock. I always assume I should be out of the reach of such things.

It's a beautiful day in San Diego. A beautiful day to be the daughter of my father.

"Three women will understand that."

I came home from my workshop to find the last bits of a documentary about Yves Saint Laurent on the Sundance Channel. He is iconic to me. His name is on the perfume I have been wearing since I was a freshman in high school. I once had a very extravagant and pretentious idea of what my wedding dress might one day look like. It was inspired by a design of his. And it involved a turban. I know. Anyway. The lithe, swan-necked figures in his drawings are what mocked me in my pudgy girlhood. Even when pudgy became voluptuous, it still felt pudgy to me. I will never be that wisp of a creature whose angular shoulders and sharp-edged hips swivel in their sockets as she strolls past with Parisian abandon. I will never be the woman he wants to dress. And I've come to terms with that. I'm just busy struggling to be the woman I want to dress. That's a movie in itself.

When I was leaving the studio today, there was a shirtless guy standing behind a van with its back doors open. He was changing. And speaking to someone on what may have been a two-way radio about the directions he was to take. "Which way do I go when I get to Vine?" He was very pretty. The kind of pretty I find to be detestable. And I don't mean because of bitterness or resentment or because I want the world normalized. I just mean that there is a certain brand of handsome that I find gross. Guys who look like Chippendale's dancers are a massive disappointment to me. And I think if all the hours they spent in the gym and having their eyebrows waxed and having those highlights put in their George-Michael-in-the-days-of-Wham! curly hair could be turned into currency or fuel or a cure for cancer...well, the world would have more money, more fuel, and less cancer. It was a very Hollywood thing to see. I am surprised by how run-of-the-mill it has become for me. Standing in hallways talking to people about auditions within earshot of people who are standing in a hallway waiting to be called in for an audition. Postcards for shows and headshot photographers stacked on every flat surface. When I used to audition for theatre in San Diego, it always felt like something somewhat removed from the reality of living in that city. A very small community of people who know how to behave in this setting. A limited number of rooms where stacks of headshots with resumes stapled to them are being organized by a woman in a black outfit with an over-serious expression on her underexperienced face.

I continued past the van guy. I imagined he was changing on his way to his next singing telegram gig. And then I heard a whistle from across the street. Not a wolf whistle. A hey-look-over-here whistle. The kind of whistle you might use to call a pet. I don't know why I looked. I suppose there might be someone in my class who doesn't know better than to do that. Or who doesn't know my name and didn't know what else to do. Or who is just a very poor communicative whistler. So I look over and don't see anyone on the street looking in my direction. I hear, "Hi, there." And I have to scan the horizon twice to eventually find a guy sitting in the screened upstairs window of a building across the street. I don't know what the building is. Possibly a residential hotel. I assume he isn't talking to me and continue towards my car, and he calls out again, "Hey! Hi!" I look over again, and he says, "How are you today?" And while the polite me is tempted to answer, I realize that I definitely don't want to have a chat with someone across the street and one story up. I don't care who the someone is. I don't like having to yell.

Last night, I was on my way to meet Jessy and Brian at the Mountain Bar, but we changed our plans and met at Short Stop instead. We had a nice chat. I was tired but -- to the untrained eye -- effervescent. Engaging. That's a game I play well. Brian and I exchanged enthusiasm over Gibson guitars and rich neighborhoods in San Diego and Irish whiskey and the music industry. I told him about a fascinating Fresh Air interview with Les Paul I heard this past week. And the three of us gabbed about how deceptive a job interview can be. I likened a job interview to a date with someone you don't know. They present this lovely face to you and everything seems great, and then one day you're sitting at your desk and you realize, "This job has herpes." My job has not so far revealed itself to have an unpleasant venereal disease, but I am also easily distracted by a bomb ass espresso machine. We have a Miele.

When I was walking back to my car, I passed a crowd of patrons who were leaving another bar at closing, and one guy said, "I like your pants," and a girl said, "Great haircut." I thanked them both. I was appreciative, but truthfully I was feeling about as unattractive as I have felt in recent months. I'm still in that mode today for some reason. Frowny and displeased. Covetous of tapeworms. I'm not saying don't compliment me. And I'm not saying do. I'm not saying I'm ugly or pretty or anything in-between. I'm just saying that sometimes I'm oblivious because nothing exists outside of the narrow version of me I am currently judging in my brain. And that judgment never comes out in my favor. Maybe that's why I fear municipal authority as a rule. I just know that, if I were ever tried for any crime, I would be convicted. Whether by the judge or by a jury. There's just no way they wouldn't hate me. At least that's the way the script reads in my imagination.

According to this new documentary that started as I was writing this, Yves Saint Laurent got his grandmother to change her dress when he was three years-old and didn't like what she was wearing. I envy people whose lives have been such a singularity. I really do. I envy the public figures whose episode of A&E's Biography consists of testimonials from all who knew them that they were always on the path they eventually took. "It was clear that he should be an actor from the first...It was obvious that she had an attraction to and a gift for the culinary arts...He was never going to be anything other than a garbage man..." No such story could be told of me. Except that I was always talking and sometimes being asked to stop. But I wanted to be everything. A writer first. But everything else, too. A writer primarily. But on the weekends, maybe a ballerina or a paleontologist or a policeman or an astronaut or a U.N. translator or a filmmaker or a physicist. And let's face it. Ballerina was never very realistic.

I don't know how to choose what will be written on my file folder. I've been reluctant to write in permanent ink for fear that it would entrap me. I've been reluctant to have just one business card. Or to have one at all for that matter. I've wanted to be certain I would live at least three lives. Maybe as many as six. If I'm honest, twelve. I've wanted to try my hand at things. And I'm beginning to realize that at some point, your hands become old and palsied and you run out of things you can set them to with any deftness. A more organized person might have chosen to start the delicate artistic pursuits in girlhood and save the more abstract careers for later. I was never so logical. And it takes me time to catch up and settle in. I required significant adjustment cushions each time I changed the part of my hair.

Tomorrow is Father's Day. I had thought to buy my dad a really huge and hopefully sexually-charged poster of Denzel Washington so I could say, "Here, Dad. This is a poster of your boyfriend. You can put it in your locker." That would be a funny joke. And perhaps less of a joke than comfortable people would allow themselves to consider. But I never found anything suitable, and my schedule this past week has left me little time for such things. It's not just the day job that sucks up my time like so much soup through a straw. I think having a day job actually makes my life fuller in some respects. At the end of the work day, I am already dressed and still to some extent prettied-up, so I can accept invitations to meet for dinner or drinks or to attend some highfalutin affair and not require a great deal of preparation time. When I was working from home, I might work all day long in my pajama pants and get to seven or eight in the evening without having had a chance for a shower. And all of a sudden the prospect of having to get ready to go out is more complicated and burdensome. And that resulted in a few more nights a week in. I was out every night last week. And every night but one the week before. I don't know if the scales will eventually change their markings for me on this topic. If being out will cease to have more value than being in. I hope so. Otherwise, my old age may be a challenge.

Yves Saint Laurent looks a surprising lot like Crispin Glover. That is an associative shame.

Toe-Tapping

ABBA's Two for the Price of One came up in my iPod randomize-a-ma-tron, and I was sorry to be sitting in an office with earphones on. Oh, how the world would hear me singing along if there weren't such a thing as shame.

We felt the earthquake a couple of hours ago more pronouncedly than I think I have yet felt a quake in California. I actually thought someone was jogging my chair to get my attention. Then I realized the open beam and suspended architecture were all swaying and lurching. And the lamppost whose neck I can see out the front window was quavering like a weed in the wind. A lot of people in the office cried out when it happened. And then the loud murmur began. Everyone has a story to tell of a quake they've been in. And if they haven't, they can tell the story of how they've never been in a quake before. Talk talk talk. And then eventually we lose interest and go back to what we're doing. I was on the phone with one of my co-workers when it happened. We said the mandatory four or five sentences you have to say when that happens. And then we got back to business. What a resilient bunch of creatures we are. You feel fear when it's happening, and that fear comes from the anticipation -- I assume -- of injury. But once you escape unscathed, you forget that you were ever at risk. Maybe that's naive. Maybe it's pragmatic. The first people to fly on a commercial airplane after September 11 must have had to negotiate this territory. And if you play the odds at all, you know that it's far less likely to happen to you anyway. Not right after it already happened to someone else. Your brain spins through all of this in a split second. And then you realize you are a little hungry. You're not sure what you want. Maybe something sweet this time.

I miss watching Star Trek episodes while working from my couch. But I also love that I package my days differently. I'm not allowing myself nearly enough time to rest or recover. I took Tom to Ruth's Chris last night as a belated celebration of his birthday (which was in February), and we ate like bloody kings, he with his scotch and I with my whiskey, the both of us with our wine. And then we talked till the hours reverted to the wee state, and I shook my head, because I had begun the day yesterday in such a taxed and tardy state. After workshop, a few of my chums and I went to Birds, and I drank what was probably too much whiskey and for what was definitely too many hours. And I woke up very late and had to scramble to get dressed and to the office for a 9 a.m. meeting. Which I managed to arrive in time for, but not in the most put-together condition. Although, my assumption is that no one I work with was any the wiser. Except maybe Brad*. The day was packed from beginning to end, so when I headed home, I was already planning my Red Bull strike and a shower and lazy outfit choices. So anyway I do this nearly every night now. The price of a day job, I suppose. No real complaints. Just concerns about what part of my motor functions I will lose when I finally do have that stroke I'm expecting. I had a great big coffee and then a great big espresso and then a great big iced coffee. And a few pistachios. If I had to put money on it, I'd guess it will be some of my speech and the use of the right side of my face. But I'm open to your thoughts on this.

Do you think Stephen Merritt is a brilliant and stupefying genius like I do? If not, put this in your stupid pipe and smoke it: I should have forgotten you long ago, but you're in every song I know...I haven't seen you in ages, but it's not as bleak as it seems. We still dance on whirling stages in my Busby Berkeley dreams. I guess you feel pretty dumb right now. As well you should.

Earthquakes appear to make me unnecessarily combative.

*This time it was absolutely because you're reading.

A Hideous Cliché

I was in the women's restroom of the acting studio where my Saturday workshop is held, and I saw the following scrawled on the wall of one of the stalls: "The hard is what makes it great. -- Tom Hanks" With all those actors pacing on the sidewalk out front, going over their sides and running lines with friends or scene partners, I suppose it isn't surprising that the only graffiti in the john would be a movie quote. And one said by Tom Hanks, no less. That's actor graffiti if ever I saw it.

Outside the I.O., I admitted to Jessie, who is one of the ranks of friends of mine who likes to tease me about my apparent inability to smoke convincingly, that I am a bad enough smoker that I often manage to smoke right into my own eyeball. And Jessie encouraged me by responding, "Well, seriously though. You do have big eyeballs." That doesn't really excuse the thing I sometimes do when I use a lighter and then shake it out as if it was a match, though. I don't think there's any excuse for that.

The movie on my return flight was Racing Stripes. I could have told you that it was going to be a dung heap. I may actually have already done so. If only by reference to the trailers for it. But I can now expertly assure you that it is an awful, awful movie, and the fact that the end credits are accompanied by a Sting song written expressly for the film is not an unfitting detail. I also noticed on my return flight that, while I am not allowed to bring a pair of tweezers on the plane or a lighter or even to have matches in my checked bags, apparently the lady sitting to my left was allowed to bring a GIANT pair of aluminum knitting needles on board without any complications. I guess she must have been knitting some kind of freedom sweater.

I wrote in my notebook last week, "It's hard to feel sad when something is almost making you happy." Nothing that was true at that time is true any longer, but the truth of it at the time makes me want to keep exercising my hands, so that when another feeling of that kind comes along, I'll be able to hold onto it.

I'm always awake for earthquakes.

I felt this most recent one this morning. And I was awake when I felt it. But I don't know if it was what awakened me or if I just have a weird feral sort of premonitory power that makes sure my eyes are open when things wiggle around. It could be either. I place no value on it.

I didn't go to sleep until five thirty or so. So an earthquake in the eight a.m. hour that found me awake is saying something about me and my sleeping. I did go back to sleep eventually, but only for an hour or two. I did a lot of tidying today. And my friend Jeff stopped by, toting an iced coffee for me (praise heaven), to pick up boxes for his move. And we ended up talking about art and looking through my mountain of art supplies, and Jeff even drew a little guy with my super fancy Copic markers. It looks sort of like Hitler with a very healthy blush to his cranky face. All that talk and art time made me anxious to make a painting or something. And also to go to Comic-Con again, where I can't help but buy fancy art pens and books that make me want to draw things. I am still looking forward to it. But for some reason, I don't have as much hope and thrill tied up in the anticipation as I did earlier in the year. I'm not sure why that is. I know you only want what you can't have, but I didn't realize there was an algorithm pertaining to how can't the have is on an axis of time.

My landlord had some trees removed from the front of our building. The big, frosty louvered windows in my living room are brilliant white with sunshine. Blinding, almost. When I came out of my bedroom yesterday morning, I was confused. Wondered if I'd left my door open accidentally or something. How could there be this much light in here. Today, I was not as surprised, but I was dismayed at how much dustier and lintier everything looks when the room is so well-lit. My living room is all of a sudden very, very bright. And I suppose that will be good for some picture-taking. But it also means that -- when it's hot and I want the windows open -- I will have to rethink the "liberal" flavor of my at-home attire. Especially with that neighbor across the street still planning our wedding and everything. There's no need for him to get an eyeful of anything but what squirts out of one of those trick corsages. "Honk! Honk!" is the sound I imagine happens when you squirt one of those things. Even though I'm sure there's no horn involved.

From what I can tell, you need to be in pretty good shape to look good in spacesuits.

Maybe I will go draw a tree.

"Boffo, Lenny. Socko, Lenny."

The Muppets Take Manhattan is on again. And I'm right at the part where Kermit is executing part one of his three-pronged strategy: "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." I will fall asleep to its familiar intonations. A long, long time ago -- before there was a maryforrest.com, I was trying to think of a domain name that would be the essence of me. And I almost reserved the domain boffolennysockolenny.com, which is a reference to a line of Kermit's in the aforementioned feature film. The reason I did not is that I loathed the idea of having to spell it for everyone I ever said it to. The fact I did not proves that I am kind of a jerk and a loser when it comes to saying fuck everyone on account of my whimsical dreams. I should totally have just gotten that domain and made it bomb ass. Right?

I will fall asleep with little effort, I assume. I have been tired and bedraggled all day. I drank two sugar-free Red Bulls during my workshop today, and then I went to The Improv Olympic, where I was able to catch the last batch of shows in the last day of the festival. I met up with friends from my Tuesday workshop and ran into plenty of people in my Saturday UCB workshop and plenty of people from other workshops I've taken. What a glut of conglomeration that place is. It is something I dig. I think we began having cocktails at around five. And kept on keeping on long into the night. We watched the ASSSCAT and Beer Shark Mice shows. Ian Roberts was wearing the same shirt he wore when teaching my workshop this afternoon. And Neil Flynn appeared to have been wearing the same outfit he wore when he performed in my spec script reading last year. I do not mention this to be critical. I mention it because it sometimes even surprises me how closely I pay attention to what people wear. Even when I have no reason to log the data. I remember all sorts of details about what people were wearing. I remember a disturbing amount of detail about what I was wearing. In almost every circumstance. Even well before I began documenting nearly every day's outfiture (a word I just made up) with my various cameras. It is not uncommon for me to wear at least two different ensembles in the course of a single day. And by "at least," I mean sometimes it's more. And by "more," I mean sometimes it's ridiculous. Anyway, I guess it's a mnemonic device. I mark things visually. I picture stuff. I remember things in their place. When I can't find something, I can sort of close my eyes and divine my way back to it by remembering what I was doing and where I was going when I last had it in hand. Today it happened with a lipstick. I found it right next to the DVD player in my bedroom. And I totally remember exactly how it got there.

I'm happy to be back in Los Angeles. It's not that New York isn't full of things to be excited about. But I didn't really get to experience many of them. And the weather made me happy to come home to my un-air-conditioned apartment. It may get hot here very soon. But I will remember those days on the sidewalks of the Lower East Side, and I will notice that -- as hot as it ever gets here -- it hardly ever smells so strongly of turnips. Anyway, I'm glad to be back. The weather here has been stunning and lovely, and I have been comfortable in my clothes. And even though I feel a great push and pull on me at the moment, and even though my discombobulation appears to be temporarily unfixable by Red Bull, Jameson, or starvation, I have faith that it will abate, and I'm not so impatient that I can't sit still in the meantime.

By eleven, I had to make plans to go somewhere food would be served. So Jessie and I went to the Rustic, and Jeff met us there, and then Tim and Phil showed up a while later. Everything I tried to order could not be had, so I ended up having a burger which -- while admittedly delicious -- was not at all what I had in mind. And then I had to taxi everyone home, and that was a surprise to me. But the end result is I made it home all right, and I'm tired and ready for whatever comes next. And I have no problem falling asleep to Kermit The Frog. Partially because, when I close my eyes, I sort of pretend he's Ernie. And that makes for all the lullaby I need.

I like to wear horizontal stripes. I always have.

Different for Girls

Last night at Palermo, before the movie, Tammy swore off drinking because of being a little down. And I asserted, drink in hand, that I too am a little down. And she asked why. It seems that everything's going so great for me. And I said, well, you know how it goes. And she asked what was wrong, and I said, nothing nothing -- that I had had a few disappointments this week. And she smiled and said, "He's not worth it." And I laughed. Because I think it's funny how archetypal it is to assume that when a girl is feeling sad, it must be because of a guy. Does it always have to be a guy that's making me sad? Does it always have to be that? Can't it just be the weight of the world? Or the weight of me, for that matter? Or the exchange rate? But -- as with stereotypes in general -- that go-to assumption is archetypal because it is so often true. For instance, Chinese people really are bad drivers. I am a great driver. But I am an anomaly. However, I am not always an anomaly. Which is a little embarrassing. But then, nearly everything is.

Magical Mystery

After my first actually full day at my new job, I went to see Howl's Moving Castle tonight with Jeff and Tammy and Kevin. I was strangely tired and distracted and had trouble keeping my attentions from drifting. But when I was making sure to pay attention, I found the movie delightful. I really love the weird sort of fakely European world in which so many of Hayao Miyazaki's films seem to take place. They remind me of the Europe I imagined when I was reading Ursula K. LeGuin's Malafrena as a girl. A world where people eat bread and cheese for breakfast and make tea for something other than the smell. I've just gotten home from a trip out of town, but I still feel the tug of that familiar wanderlust. I still want to go further away. To places where I cannot recognize myself. To places where I can be someone else entirely and never be caught in the act.

I picked up six rolls of New York Lomos today. I have a great deal of scanning to do. And I am happy with a surprisingly thick stack of them. I like getting the hang of a camera. I like knowing what I'm doing in nearly every circumstance.

After the movie, we went to The Overlook (too loud) and then to The Dresden (too nearly closed) and then we stood outside and told stories for a while. And then I drove Jeff home with a new parking ticket on my lap.

There is a lot that goes on with me that never bears mention. There are a lot of stories that I will just plain never tell.

I'll be dead by Christmas.

Two hours sleep last night. Four hours the night before. Tonight, I will maybe get two and a half. I realize that I am in New York City, and that is what one does when one is here. At least when one is me. So do not misconstrue this as complaining. It is nearly five in the morning, and I've been out all night with one of my most precious friends, whom I've not seen since a brief airport rendezvous in the year nineteen hundred and ninety-six. He took me barhopping and stoop-sitting, and it was never nearly enough time. And I sometimes wish I could collapse the continent. Fold it right down the middle and bring my lovely friends closer to me whenever possible. I also managed to shatter a small candle and splash wax all over myself and him. At least he won't misremember me as someone not clumsy. Because that would be erroneous.

Today, I ate a plate of raw arugula with no dressing and a few raw oysters and yaki onigiri. I drank at least my own volume in iced coffee. And it's humid as all get out. And I wish I wasn't going to feel like I was never here when all is said and done, but there is a grave risk of that. Every time I step out onto the turnip-smelling street, I have to pause for a moment and go, "Oh, yeah. I'm in New York. Huh." Once I fully figure it out, I'll be back in Los Angeles, and convinced it never happened.

I should have packed a different wardrobe. I'm not at all pleased about my wearable options tomorrow. I like a Gershwin tune just fine. But New York in June is probably a bit lower down on my list. How about you?

There's no way around this being stupid.

I'm in my room at the W here in New York. It's more than quarter after five in the a.m. I have to be in the lobby in a few hours to begin my day of meetings. My alarm is set for seven thirty. That is not a lot of time between now and then. But I spent the sultry night casing the city, snapping Lomos, drinking, babbling, walking well in high heels, and wishing there was no meeting to go to. I got very little sleep yesterday to begin with. On account of it was my first day of work, and it included a flight to New York on an American Airlines jet that smelled of pee, a terrifying cab ride from the airport, a hasty change of clothes, and a realization that it's too muggy here for my hair to ever look good.

My awesome co-worker Brad suggested that he and I blog the shit out of this trip. So it is officially on. I've taken more photographs in the six hours I've been here than I took the last time I went to Disneyland. For serious.

I should have had a cigarette at that bar around the corner where people were smoking inside.

Push

I saw both of The Pixies' shows at The Wiltern last night, stayed up drinking whiskey until almost six a.m., and then went to Disneyland today for about three hours. I guess I'm preparing for the coming weeks when -- owing to a brutal work schedule -- I likely won't be able to do anything ever again. I had the best possible spot in the house for the ten o'clock show. And I have never been so much in love with a band ever. Inspired. Inspiring. Fucking bomb ass. I cannot sing the praises of the acoustics at The Wiltern with enough zeal. That joint is the only place to see a concert you care about, as far as I'm concerned. I'll see concerts nearly anywhere. Have one in your tool shed. Will there be booze also? I'll come. Especially if your shed is not all ages. But if you really care about the way the shit sounds, go to The Wiltern. You'll get your money's worth.

Anyway, I meant to be asleep already.

Admissions

I don't like a lot of anime. But I love Fullmetal Alchemist.

If I am eating a steak, and I realize I just got a mouthful of fat, I sometimes think twice before spitting it out.

I don't care for Angelina Jolie. I just don't see what all the fuss is about.

There are many things in my apartment that are lost to me.

For the rest of my life, I will always believe that Mozart really looked like Tom Hulce.

My heart races when I see police cars.

Chocolate-covered pretzels from Disneyland are easily more important to me than god or the bible.

I don't mind traffic. I like sitting in the car for long periods of time. And I also get motion sick. Even sometimes when I'm at the wheel.

I take a lot of pictures of myself, and I don't entirely know what the point is. It's sort of a project for me. But when people inquire about it or imply that I'm narcissistic or that there is something wrong with me or that they are concerned for my safety, it nags at me and I feel myself wanting their approval. Every criticism I face has the potential of changing me forever.

I still really wish dinosaurs were real.

Sometimes I think someone is not attractive at first, and then I realize that they are.

I compare myself to everyone. I don't like that I do it. But I do it constantly.

Things that used to make me cry or hurt don't always make me cry or hurt anymore. And then sometimes they still do.

I love comic books.

Part of me believes that the future really will be like Star Trek. And I can't decide which color of uniform I would most like to wear when I get there.

If harps have ladies' faces carved into them, I will always suspect them of singing.

I would rather be cold than hot. I am almost always both.

I get embarrassed easily. I am embarrassed almost all the time.

I am bonkers for my dog.

I used to think Sylvester Stallone was awesome. When I saw First Blood, I told people he was my favorite actor. I also once found a piece of notepaper with "I love David Hasselhoff" written on it, where the word "love" was actually a little heart. And I don't have any recollection of writing it, but it's totally in my handwriting. And I remember when Sarah and I watched the first episode of Knight Rider that Sarah said the guy who was the original Michael Knight was really cute, but I don't remember what he looked like at all. And I have never ever thought David Hasselhoff was cute, but apparently I loved him once. That scene with the close-up of his back and feet in the Spongebob movie almost made me barf. That's how much I don't remember ever having loved him.

I once got a detention for making fun of a kid with a broken arm.

I fantasize about reading.

I have been able to go out and have a good time without drinking. I don't like that this is true.

Sometimes I want to dance. And sometimes I don't want to. But I never want to dance when someone tells me to.

I believe I can fly.

I give a hoot. But sometimes I still pollute.

Given enough time, I will grow to hate anything I have created or performed. Sometimes, given enough additional time, I will come back around.

I don't like the taste of milk.

I always want to touch things you're not supposed to touch. And I am often tempted to poke at soft things in grocery stores. Like that crazy old lady in Tampopo.

I am irritated by the implausible cinematic representation of most computer interfaces. They are usually absolute bollocks.

I wish I had had braces as a girl. Partially because I have crooked lower teeth and partially because girls with braces were always so popular.

Very few things remain my favorite for long.

When I get angry, I cry.

It is easy as fuck to ruin my day.

I am always capable of identifying the worst case scenario.

I stopped eating onions and garlic because I was in a play wherein I had to both kiss someone and talk angrily at him at close range. That was almost nine years ago, and I am still in the habit of avoiding them. Sometimes I take consideration to apparent extremes.

I really, really, really try to be prepared for anything. It's very frustrating when I fail.

I want to be perfect. Every day is a failure.

I used to think I was a lot more awesome than I think I am now. I suspect that's what growing up is.

I am tired of waiting for Simon and Simon to come out on DVD.

I used to have a book of fractal patterns that I would color in with markers.

I want to understand the mysteries of the universe. And I have a lot of opinions about quantum gravity. I was a physics major at one time. And I liked it.

Routine is hard on me.

I spent the night in a bus station in Boston once. And I had many adventures.

I once got it on in a Burger King bathroom. (And it was in no way an homage to the Humpty Dance. That guy's nose was ridiculous.)

I am afraid of stairs and steep inclines.

I love it when something I say goes over.

I hate it when I'm the last to know.

I am more afraid of humiliation than of physical injury.

When I was in grade school, we gifted and talented kids got to go to this day camp for a week, where we learned about nature and conservation and animals and stuff. And each day, there was a mystery item in a box that you were supposed to stick your hand into and guess what was in it. And I could never bring myself to do it. I was so horrified at the idea that there would be a living creature in it or that it would be something that felt too disgusting to bear. So I never once entered the guessing contest. It always turned out to be like an empty tortoise shell or the molted skin of a snake. And I was always glad to have not touched it.

I lost my virginity to a Def Leppard song.

I have gotten away with a lot of things on the basis of my reputation.

I remember things the way I first experienced them. No matter how many times the experiences recur.

I think my father passed his pyromaniac gene on to me. My mom gave me the gene for loving noodles.

I don't like that there is a name for the madonna-whore complex.

I am growing more and more tired all the time.

This could be a much, much longer list.

I pretend I don't care, but I do.

Start Spreading the News

Well, wait. The next line of that song says, "I'm leaving today," and that's misleading, as I am not leaving until Monday. But I will be going to New York for a few days next week. It's for work and will be exhausting and will keep me from being able to go to Tom Brosseau's record release party (boo). But it also involves an aeroplane and packing a suitcase and probably at least enough time for a hot dog and the purchase of a postcard. And I love those things.

Business Card

So, I'm starting a new job on Monday. I just sort of fell into it, and it's nice having a new exciting thing to let my brain harp on. Nicer still to have an additional paycheck to deposit. Although I'm sure there is the risk of becoming overwhelmed and quickly. I had a brand strategy meeting today, and it was awesome going through that process again. I think I used the word "avatar" a couple of times too many. I'm no dot com bullshit artist. Really. But I sure know how to sound like one. If inadvertently.

This is an interesting, entertainment industry-type gig, and I've been hired on account of my apparently being dialed into the pop culture scene. Me? Who knew? I'm flattered. And already thinking of ways to turn my nightlife into a tax deduction.

I will be consulting, but I will be doing it on site in Beverly Hills. And to be truthful, I am even looking forward to having to be in an office again. Despite having a meeting to get to this morning, I stayed out plenty late last night, going to workshop, meeting Mig and Melanie at The Burgundy Room and then taking them over to Cinespace for drinks and a groovy bass line. Even stopping by Canter's on the way home to buy some chicken soup. As I was climbing into bed a little before five a.m., I felt triumphant in my certainty that having a day job again for a while isn't going to curtail any of my nocturnal shenanigans. I also noticed that the clock/radio beside my bed is still a few hours off. There was a power outage a few months ago, and I never bothered to set it. Which says something about how often I feel the need to rouse myself with an alarm. So, I may have to set that clock. And I may have to try and be sensible about sleeping, but I'm going to fight the sensible part. I'm going to fight it like some people claim to fight colds. I shake my fist at bedtime. The only real scheduling issue this new job will present involves having to walk my dog. And that will be an even bigger problem if I end up having to go to New York next week.

Really, though, even when I first moved here and had a day job and was often required to be at my desk long into the night, I nearly never said no to a night out. And I nearly never went to bed before the wee hours. There's evidence of that in blog entries of old. I like to behave as if I don't need the normal sustenance of other living creatures. I like to pretend I don't need food or rest or drink that is not booze. It's not true, of course. Despite all my chatter, I do eat, and I do sleep, and I do hydrate. I just try to do all those things when no one is looking and hopefully when none of it can be proved. I don't know if it's an innate rebellion against authority, but I fight nature every step of the way. You tell me I have to breathe, but I'm always thinking there must be a way around it. You have no idea how much I've tried to prove you wrong.

I guess I'm more forlorn at the idea of not being able to watch Star Trek all day while I'm working. And not being able to go hang out at LACMA while the sun's up. But I don't know. Maybe I will find something adventurous and unusual and else. Maybe my desk will be haunted or something. I always buy too many calendars. So, at very least, I will be able to get some use out of one of the ones I never decellophaned from Christmastime. Probably the Raoul Dufy one. And the Edward Gorey desk calendar. And maybe I'll drink a lot more coffee. And maybe I will find a sandwich shop I like. Or a sushi place. Or maybe I will break into an impromptu rendition of that song from Annie. And maybe I will get fired right after that.