Call Me Morbid, Call Me Pale...

I'm distressed about my skin tone.

I've always been "fair." One of the hereditical highlights of being of decidely Northern European ancestry is the pallor of the moors/fjords. My dad is very black Irish, so he tans, but my base skin tone is more of a sort of light furniture beige color, so that doesn't do anything when I go out in the sun. I've noticed that three years in the California sunshine has made me look like Cloris Leachman after a bender. Not so good. How do we solve? Aggressive moisturizing? Scraping? Dermablend? Dermabrasion? I long for the smooth skin of my youth. Would I care about this if I lived anywhere else? Yes, but only if it was NYC. Everywhere else it is a little more acceptable for men to look like their age. Heck, some people even like a man to look his age.

Los Angeles is wonderful, and is not the real world. I'm sure it can be the real world if you do not work in the entertainment industries. The bad rep that the movie industry enjoys - of being a hermetically sealed world of solipsistic assholes - is somewhat warranted, but since we all work 12 hours a day, a little removal from La Vie Quotdienne is to be expected. Where else are colonics lunch conversattion? And a serious conversation at that? There's a Decemberists song about LA, called Los Angleles, I'm Yours. It sums up the constant contradiction of living here with a desire for "real life" while not being able to lose sight of the essential cotton candy of it all.

Eh.

I would like someone to serenade me with a rousing rendetion of "I drove all night" to communicate their undying passion for me. I would have to be drunk not to be mortified by it, but you get it. You know you do.

Beauty Paegent

I'm thinking about child molestation.

Not about doing it, but that there seems to be a lot of it these days. Apparently there was a recent sting that nabbed 125 people that were trading kiddie-porn online. I realize that the Internet has made child pornography way more accessible to those who need it, but I have to wonder at the strange stupidity of that when it's so easily traceable. I guess I've always wondered how kiddie-porn was distributed before the Net. Because even if you found a printer that was willing to make a glossy mag dedicated to children being sexy, wouldn't that person not do it simply because it would mean he would lose his business if ever found out? So then I immediately imagine guys in their basements in Milwalkee (sp?) dilligently developing their own negatives, making the copies on some sort of ancient xerox or mimeograph, and sending hither and yon in a sort of newsletter style. I don't know why I think this stuff goes on only in middle America, but that seems to be what I beleive.

I'm not going to accept that this stuff is made in Thailand either.

So, it leaves me to wonder, why are there so many people who think that kids are sexy? So much was made of Jon-Benet and her, to be frank, whorish appearance at the time of her murder. People seemed shocked that anyone would dress a child that way. Again, I think what freaked people out so much was not that there was a little girl who had been dressed as bait, but instead that someone actually took the bait. No, this is not to excuse the killer, or any child-rapist anywhere. I think it's just my general feeling of "ick" when I see commercials for products marketed to little girls that center around putting on fairly adult make-up, doing aerobics, dating games, et al. I suppose it's one of my general bugbears - the immediate brainwashing of children into their "appropriate" genders, and thence into the gender-specific drone career needed to keep the economy moving.

I'm sleepy and a bit crabby. And reading that 125 people trade kiddie-porn freaks me out.

A Marvelous Time Will Be Had By All.

I'm fed up with being an adult. There, I've said it.

I got away with adolescent behavior for all of my 20's, and even the first two years of my 30's, since I was in grad school. Now, there is no denying the fact that there is no more school left to me unless I pursue some other sort of advanced degree. I'm not sure what I would seek a PhD in... perhaps Japanese Anime Theory? Generation Blah impact on consumer culture? I call my generation Generation Blah since we are really too young to be X'ers (they're getting to be 40 now) and we are too old to be Gen Y. So, here we are, listening to our Older Brother's REM tapes, driving his hand-me-down Ford Taurus, and wondering what's next, and if it has any meaning anyway. Just feeling sort of, well, Blah.

Actually, we probably drive Priuses and have Ipods, but you get the drift. The bands that I associate specifically with my peers (and my de rigeur high school radio show) - The Primitives, Transvision Vamp, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss me -era Cure, have all been relegated to the bargain bin, if they are even remembered that far. OK, Transvision Vamp, isn;t a good example, but you know what I mean. New Order's amazing record Power, Corruption, and Lies was already like five years old when I got my hands on it. We won't even go near The Smiths, it just hurts too much.

We seem to be the conduit group through which those bands went from being Alternative acts that play places like the 40-Watt club to being the megabands that took over MTV in the early to mid 90's. Remeber the B-52's circa Rock Lobster? And Strobe Light? And then there was Love Shack. Which was a fun song, totally. I also think that song (or video) is the reason why RuPaul hit big, and if you know why that is, bully for you for paying attention to your television screen.I think perhaps some of the reason why my generation seems insistent on dragging their heels so much into the future is that we have simply been allowed to. You know that ad that's on right now with Dennis Leary talking about how the Hippies are going to re-invent retirement? You know why they are?

Because otherwise they have to admit they are going to die.

Now, I know it's totally expected to blame one's parents for one's craziness, but I am going to take it one step further. I am going to lay the blame squarely on an entire generation. The selfish, self-absorbed, mostly annoying baby boomers.

After having been told for decades that they are the most important thing to come along since photosynthesis and Jesus Christ (TM) are we really surprised that they find the idea of getting older odious? Their idea of mortality is being killed in a war in Vietnam, or by being murdered by a sex maniac in movies like Klute, Looking For Mr. Goodbar, Dressed to Kill, etc. etc. That sexual bit of navel gazing seems mostly to center around the thrill of being caught with your pants down when you are doing something naughty, or at least naughty in the minds of their parents. On a related (no pun intended) note, that's the generation we've been told was the greatest generation ever - over and over and bleeding over again. Apparently WW2 was really bad , and here's another movie about it. Meanwhile, let's talk about how your 60 year old mother is going parasailing because American Express has told her to. I'd like to submit that maybe Mom shouldn't parasail as osteoporosis does not care whether or not she saw Hendrix at Woodstock. This is the anethema presented to the Boomers. And we, as their children, are the best way for them to hold onto their youth. If we never, grow up, then they are still our caretakers, and so thereforem they must not be getting older either, right? It's the only thing that makes sense to me. That as much as it kind of freaks me out, we want them to stay as self-absorbed as they are, becayse if they are still our parents, our requirement to assume adulthood is put into forbearance like so many student loans.

And another thing, when "our generation" had a "Woodstock" I thought it was more evidence of how our parents' generation had commodified their own sincere, genuine experiences and hawked a watered-down version to their kids through MTV and Pay-Per-View. I'm also going to go out on a limb and bet that most people at the original Woodstock thought that being naked and dirty was pretty lame after the LSD and Shrooms wore off. Granted, even the "new Woodstock" was a decade ago, but I still think about it now and again. And I guess that's the point.

I need to ruminate on this more, but I have to help my dad learn to surf.

Sunday Morning Memory Lane

I've eaten two chocolate frosted donuts (Entenmann's, but of course) and am sipping my coffee. It might as well be 1993. I'm also watching the MTV show Made, and I have to say, I'm sorta into it. The first one was about a girly-girl who wanted to be a Rugby player, and the second one I am watching is about a Emo girl who wants to be a cheerleader. It's interesting to note that both episodes seem to have to do with girls either rejecting or embracing gender expectations, but there it is.

I think that my "adult" friends here in LA have probably noticed that I am still very close with many people from my high school life. It's true, I am. There is no use denying it. It wasn't so endemic in New York, in fact it was just the opposite, I sort of just hung out with my college friends and that was it. But college friends are not the same as high school friends, because high school friends are the friends that are around when you go through the major transofrmations of your life. I have to admit, I've always wondered what kind of person I would have been if I had stuck it out on the football team. I mean, in the anti-universe, I did well enough to play all four years of high school and had lots of friends and self confidence etc. I think that was the thing about the Emo girl that hit me the most, her looking for "self-confidence."

Not that I have an issue with self-confidence or anything. Of course, if I had a tough-but-loving gay black man (scorchingly gay) teaching me how to play football like this girl has her teaching her how to cheer, things might have gone differently. What's kind of frightening is the scremingly gay black man wants the little white girl to "dress like a cheerleader." So I think it goes to show, that no matter that you should in fact indentify with the little emo girl's need to be different, a brain washed black man will stamp it out and make the Emo girl wear pink and aqua until gender expectations are met. I mean, Doug James, my freshman football couch, was a big, mean, annoyingly erudite scholar-athelete who had no room for any 14 year old giving less that 100 percent etc. I guess I always choose to forget I was one of the last to drop, but there it is. When you look back - in regret - you never think comparitively, i.e. I didn't fail as early as some, right? Then there isn't as much to regret.

I imagine that a lot of this stuff comes up because of the work Betty Ann and I have been working on. That's part of it, but then there is just the simple truth that some of these things just never go away. I mean, who was your worst childhood/adolescent nemesis? Do you still think about that person? If you saw that person on the street, would you say hello, or would you walk on by, hoping they wouldn't recognize you? Of course, if we've achieved "self-confidence," you'd be able to say hi and even engage in conversation.

I guess it's odd though. No matter what happens, I always get the girl who has to be true to herself and play Rugby, than the girl who wants to be a cheerleader so people will like her. Even though her name is Morgan Ward. Not kidding. Creepy, right?

An Old Entry about Yogurt

2/14/05 12:37 PM PST

Valentine's Day. Yeah. OK.

I'm still shockingly lax in keeping this webpage up. Let's just say it's been a helluva couple of weeks kids.

One of the major events in these past few weeks is that I discovered my arch-nemesis Dannon Yogurt Girl is one of the lezzies on the L Word. I don't watch the show so it came as a surprise. I must get a hold of some episodes and continue to think about how she is my arch-nemesis. I decided I needed an arch-nemesis and she seemed the most likely candidate. She's so freakin' cheerful in those yogurt ads with her mysteriously chilly black girlfriend.

Hmm. Must plan.

An Old Entry about The Swan

10/26/04 9:29AM PST

What's it all about, Alfie?

I hear those words, and I am immediately transported to a breezy Bachrach world, in which Dionne Warwick (back when she was fab) takes my hand and we glide over green fields hazy with valium and cocktails.

That's what it's all about for me, how about you?

I watched the Swan last night for the first time, and I realized that the Biggest Loser is some sort of odd angry derivative of the Swan. I didn't do much reading on the Swan when it first went on the air, but someone's bright up the eerie similarites to the old game show "Queen for a Day," right? That was the old game show in which the female contestants would come on and talk about how horrible their lives were and then the audience decided who was going to get the washer/dryer combo based on cumulative misery scores .

Every contestant on the Swan has had a suck-o life. They pick two of the swans-to-be and send them through the bionic-woman process, and at the end, they are judged and one is selected to go on to a "beauty paegent" that will happen at the end. The women seemed to be matched in their rounds by the severities of their problems, or you would think that would be the logic.

Last night the girl who won her round was a burn victim. Yes America, a burn victim. I found it interesting that the only woman who was considered to be equal in horribleness to the burned white girl was the black woman with an "attitude." They both had Mommy issues.

Next week some woman whose life sucks is going up against a deaf girl who - if I followed the preview right - finds out she has cancer or her house has been destroyed in a flood or something. Who do you think will win that round?

I want a nose job.

An Old Entry about The Military and The Terminator

11/13/04 1:21PM PST

The US MIlitary wants to build their own sort of Internet. Apparently the idea is that all the different facets and systems of the military would then be able to communicate to one another through this system. Making wars faster and more efficient.

People, have we not learned anything from the Terminator movies? Clearly this will bring about the end of the world. Skynet will achieve sentience and take over all military hardware. We will be decimated by our own machines and the Governor of California (GOC) will have to save us all. But that's only when he's been re-programmed.

Also, that this new system costs billions upon billions of dollars while the public education system falls apart seems to not be part of the equation. But then again, an ignorant population is easier to control from the skies...

An Old Entry about Strategy and 9/11

11/04/04 7:28AM PST

I have reconsidered my plan for the next four years. I was just going to take enough valium and other members of the holy trank family to remain semi-comatose for the entire second Bush regime, but that's how I spent a lot of the mid 90's and feel it may be time for a new strategy.

My new strategy is just to get up every morning and to be as scorchingly liberal as possible. Again, this is not much of a stretch for me, but perhaps I will be more outspoken again. In my age, I have mellowed. I, like most other non-militaristic nice people, became comfortable with our progressive nation, well, progressing. I felt like the cultural war had neither been won nor lost, but that perhaps more conservative people in our midst had finally seen there was no need for a cultural war in the first place. Everyone could do what they like, do who they like, and do what to whom whenever they like as long as it was within the confines of the law and that was that. Looks like I got that one wrong. It is time for me (and you) to dust off my mini-megaphone (and yours) that is festooned with many colorful and agit. prop-y stickers from the early 90's. I'm sure i have it somewhere, back in the box with the Nirvana posters and the Sundays tickets.

Apparently terrified people are running around convinced that gay people are the end of the world, a woman's right to choose whether or not she allows herself to be an evolution pod should not be up to her, and that sending more young American soldiers from our inner cities and from our economically demolished industrial centers over to Iraq to be blown up is the answet to...what now again?

I feel like I am going to blow if I see one more of these ignorant, hateful people jump up and down to defend this so called "war or terror." I want to grab each one of these people, shake them and say "Were you in New York on 9/11? You weren't? Oh so you mean you are just reacting off of what you saw on the Tee Vee and what your preacher, I mean President, has told you what to think?" When I watched the Towers come down - from my apartment - my first thought about what to do was not nice:

"Whoever did this, kill them all."

Hey, I'm human.

But after a few days, I realized that perhaps it is not as simple as going there and killing the enemy, especially if we do not know where the enemy is. The enemy could flee into a series of tunnels in the Afghani mountains, or hold the highest office in the land. On a side note, I am also tired of people co-opting 9/11 as their own personal tragedy when they live in friggin' Mississippi. You don't know anyone in New York so shut the fuck up. It's like when someone's mom dies in high school and that fat drama club girl wails and moans and sobs about how sad it just get some attention thrown her way in the lunch room. Yuck. You know what? I did know someone one one of the planes, I do know people who were at the WTC and I do not remember signing anything that said "please send poor black kids from Compton to get blown up for an entirely unrelated matter."

Bush stole his first election. Flat out stole it. What do you think he would not do after that to get and consolidate power? His VP is the Penguin fer chrissakes. I think he is capable of doing anything, because he is a nut job and not terribly bright. That's a super bad combo.

An Old Entry about Fat and Old People

9/29/04 8:28AM PST



I'm having coffee and watching a stunningly beautiful time-delayed dietician on the Today show talk about diet plans that can be found online. Apparently there is a special edition of People magazine coming out that is all about dieting. The figure that was just barfed on me by my 13" inch televsion set is that 70 MILLION Americans diet a year. I don't know what the exact percentage of the population that is - I still use the census numbers I remember from 3rd grade - but I think that 70 million is somewhere in the 1/5 - 1/4 range of the total population of our nation.



I feel as if we are sliding on a slippery slope to becoming a nation of ballast.



8:35AM



Willard Scott is on now, doing that 100 year-old person thing he does. That this segment is historically sponsored by Smuckers Preserves has always vaguely unnerved me. As in these people are well preserved now, and Smuckers is going to make sure that they are going to be VERY well preserved after they finally shuffle off this mortal coil toothlessly humming "Surrey with the Fringe on Top."



Perhaps Smuckers is in a triumverate with the Pharmaceutical Syndicate and the Federal governement to track these American Centarians (or Centurions? Who's to say.) for some sort of toast-and-jam based genetic engineering project with Willard Scott appearing in these oldsters' homes in the middle of night in a flurry of X-Files flashlights and helicopter noise.



I see him gliding over to the bed of a cowering immortal and using a frightening, glistening glass-and-chrome sort of reverse air-charged syringe thingie to take DNA samples from our mewing victim. After he has sampled of the vital blood of the eternals, he'll lean in close and whisper "Thank you my darling." The wind in the room will rise as the rotors of the choppers on the lawn outside speed up, making the whine of the engines louder and higher in pitch. Pill bottles will go flying and Precious Moments figurines will knock into framed photgraphs of pets long dead. With a flourish of his Smuckers red gingham cape he is gone, leaving our victim wondering if the Angel of the Lord had come for them and had decided to leave them behind, shakily rubbing a now sore arm from whence the secret of their longevity was drawn while pieces of porcelain gently finish their tottering off the edges of Levitz furniture.

An Old Entry about Procrastination

12/04/04

Awake since 8am, but still seem absolutely unwilling to do any of my work. Of course, its due mostly to the fact that I am unwilling to work unless I am within a 11 hour window of an actual due date. This leads to scrambling, screaming, crying, great gnashing of the teeth and occasionally brilliant work. But to be honest, most of the time what's produced is pretty slip shod.

I have to ask myself why do I (and many others) do this over and over again? I suppose the answer could be simple idleness, or that I just had to catch up on that Augusten Burroughs book that a friend gave me, but perhaps the pathology lies deeper than that.

On this cloudy sort of day here in Los Angeles, typical of mid-Autumn in my own Massachusetts homeland, I find myself wistfully depressed and wandering up the street to the internet cafe hoping that a large cup of coffee and their bright yellow decoration scheme will somehow invigorate me and inspire moments of brillance. I look around at the quiet houses an the Orthodox Jewish kids who are hanging out now that Temple is over, and suddenly their outfits are (finally) seasonally appropriate. And I don't particularly feel like being brilliant, I feel like taking a few pills and then a nap.

I think I am rather typical of a certain kind of person. The kind of person who was told over and over again that achievement is really the only true barometer of value, and that simply existing is a state of being to be immediately scrutinized and then discarded. Wandering back home with my coffee and not feeling particularly energized, I noticed that there was a crow perched high above me on a streetlight, cawing its presence to the world and the indifferent, speeding Melrose traffic. Its a species of bird and sound that, again, I associate much more with where I grew up than sunny SoCal. It's the sound of leaves turning, of strange middle school soccer games under dwindling October skies, and of waiting for something to happen while looking out of an afternoon living room window at a little harbor fed by an Atlantic blue sea.

I'm in a mood.

So none of this really explains why I would rather stay in my room for the rest of the day with the door closed and listen to the Charlie Brown Christmas Album over and over again. Well, I could just chalk it up to it being a kind of winter-y day that makes the New Englander in me want to immediately retreat to bed with a good book for the rest of the day. Thailand is getting further and further away from me in time, and perhaps will become one of those "fantasy" memories until I get the clams together to go back there to toodle around again in a tuk-tuk through the humid midnight streets of Bangkok.



12/03/04 11:13AM PST

Back from Thailand. Rapturous, breathy and moist descriptions to come soon with links to photos if I can figure out how to do it.

In the meantime, I have been back in the States for about a week and am already sick again. I am filled with hate.

giggle!

An Old Entry about Oligarchy

10/27/04 9:10AM PST

The election is coming. Oligarchy in our government looms. Well, a more blatant oligarchy in our government looms. George W. Bush does not care about anyone who makes under six figures. This unto itself is not necessarily evil, but it could create a conflict of intertest when you occupy an office that is charged with steering of a nation in which there are lots and lots and lots of people who do not make six figures or more.

I have been hearing for some time that George W. is a born-again Christian. I find it hard to beleive that he is a real, dyed-in-the-wool, soaked-in-the-river born-again simply because his mother is Barbara Bush. I don't know Barbara personally, but I do know a lot of old conservative ladies. I think the idea of a bible thumper in the summer house on Nantucket/Kennebunkport/Quogue/wherever would most likely create more consternation than excitement for an old-school lawn party warhorse like Babs. But anything to get her son off the sauce and the coke I suppose.

Did she raise her eyes to heaven and thank her dusty Connecticut Jehovah for sending his more viscous and bubbling emanation to raise her son out of sin? Or did she merely watch in wonder as Billy Graham transformed her boy into an oily soldier for the American God? Did she fret over how the maid was going to get the grass-stains out of his new madras pants as his knees sank deeper and deeper into the muddy summer lawn while the spirit of the lord filled him? Did the sea-spray of rocky Maine fill her eyes as George W. breathed in deeply of the Lord?

I call on Barbara Bush to help us reclaim our country. I know she loves her children, and is immeasurably proud of their achievements. Granted, most of them got to where they are through family connections, but what's done is done. I don't necessarily trust Michael Moore, but the footage of a President reading Pat the Goat while my city was being attacked still sticks with me today. We need someone else in that office.

I want Barbara to take her son by the hand and lead him out of the oval office, smiling gently all the while, and perhaps luring him with a liquor-filled truffle or something.

We are no longer in a historical period in which good madras pants from Brooks Brothers are enough to govern a nation. And I know madras is totally back this season, but they're for golfing.

An Old Entry about Art and Elections

11/03/04 8:19AM PST

LALALALALALALALALA...that's the sound of me pretending this isn't happening!!!

Are we really going to have four more years of this?

As I watched the map choose its colors last night on all the networks, I did have to stop and think about the old stereotype about the middle of America versus the coasts. It seems for the most part wherever there is a lot of water, or no history of slavery, people tend to vote Dem. I find this interesting because a great republican president was the guy who ended slavery back in the day. Extra points if you can name the president.

I need Bill Clinton back now. Just pump him full of that heart medication and get him up there. Now.

Remember when Cinton was President? We all felt like things were pretty ok and the middle east was sort of ok and people had jobs...

But thank G-O-D we have a lame-ass oil executive in the Oval Office for four more years. Perhaps he and his vice-p (the Penguin from Batman) can steer us towards even better wars in which the children of people who NOCD get blown up.

I need a pill.

Well, I always need a pill, but I REALLY need one now.

This sucks,

I would like to know who was in office when the Taliban blew up those wonderful giant Buddhas in Afghanistan and why they did not think this was the sign of worse things to come. I would like to start there. Remember America, anyone who would outlaw love and blow up art are not your friends. At all. Outlawing love is bad. Blowing up art is bad. Standing by while people blow up art is BAD. Becaue then they get high off of it and want to blow up other things.

An Old Entry about Voting

11/02/04 3:12PM PST

Well. election day is in full swing. For some reason, I can't get the image of Captain Eo (M. Jackson disneyed out)voting in his full regalia.

I voted as soon as I could this morning, as I am compulsive and enjoy things of a civic nature. As per the stereotype, the polls were being manned by cranky octogenarians who were not very friendly, and who tended to get pissy if they caught a whiff of sass.

I was simulanteously heartwarmed and made extremely squeamish by the attractive gay male couple in line ahead of me. It was an interracial couple - white guy, attractivish, 30's, and his boyfriend, latino or philipino/asian and real, real, real good looking, also in his 30's. Does white dating latino or asian count as interracial anymore? Anyway, I saw the democratiaclly gay couple inform the pollsters that they did, in fact, live at the same address. The unspoken thought on those ancient lips being why would two adult men live at the same address unless...oh...you know. But everyone was polite.

When I finished voting (I am one of the annoying fuckers who reads everything on the ballot and then double checks when I am done) I gleefully accepted my "I voted" sticker and headed out into the clear morning sun. I sipped my decaf and reflected on my grandfather's service in the US Army during WWII. I do this everytime I vote, its another compulsive thing I do to make me feel less guilty about not calling my grandmother as frequently as I should.

As I walked home, I could see my interracial gay couple a few blocks ahead of me, winding their way home. From there, they would presumably kiss eachother goodbye and head to work. The grass was green, and the sky was a cloudless blue. They have lives just as mundane and screechingly boring as everyone else. And that's what makes our nation great. The right to free boredom and ennui and vague dissatisfaction safe on American soil.

We live in a wonderful, dangerous time. But I honestly believe it is no less wonderful or dangerous than any other time in our country's history. It's just that the danger is configured differently than it was during, say, the 80's when all we could do was watch endless "life after the bomb" movies.

The only thing I really fear right now is a government that would keep the nice gay couple ahead of me in the voting line from having equal pretection under the law and instead make them into second class citizens. While claiming to be acting in our best interest, our current President and his administration have used tactics of fear to hold power. They are interested in dividing and conquering, both overseas and here at home. Anyone who wants to outlaw love is not your friend.

I keep thinking about the green grass, and all the bugs that crawl underneath it. Unseen, but there nonetheless.

Old Entries about Paris Hilton and AFI

6/8/05 11:09 AM PST

OK, I'm bad. No updates in forever. I've been busy folks. It's been a mad time trying to get all my writing done for the end of the semster.

Today is graduation, but as it is AFI I have another 10 weeks or so of school. Such is life. Personally, I'm just grateful for the reprieve from the loans.

I do get a nice cap and hood today that has set me back about 100g.

Weee.

5/12/05 10:01AM PST

The myth of the happy couple is perpetuated by people who only want to make you even more unhappy with your God-forsaken life than you already are.

5/08/05 2:29PM PST

Mother's Day. Need more medication.

4/29/05 12:24AM PST

Is it wrong that every time I hear "Mary Kay LeTourneau" I think "Mary Kate and Ashley?"

Paris Hilton interests me again, but House of Wax looks like it would scare the bejeezus out of me. Everytime I see the commercials I think Marilyn Manson is coming to turn me into some sort of 18th century German party favor.

Old Entries about Graduation and Topper

4/25/05 6:15PM PST

allergies. cranky and sleepy. hateful.

4/11/05 4:30PM PST

Too much Anne Sexton, stringbean.

4/10/05 11:50 AM PST

Anyone notice that during this current junta in the white house shows like Buffy and Xena are gone? The closest we have is Nancy Drew, I mean Veronica Mars.

Hmmm.


4/9/05 5:16 PM PST

It's your fault the Pope is dead. Just so you know.

I had one of those over-the-top THC experiences last night that left me saying things like "my teeth feel really, REALLY good."

I'm watching some random Helena Bonham Carter movie. She's in Italy (again) trying to get some dying girl to leave her and her boyfriend all her money through wispy deceit. I think I need to re-stock the diet coke supply.
4/6/05 11:14PM PST

I am a mess.

Impending ejection into the real world - albeit in five months - has me in a tizzy. My friends in the immediate area around me have already gotten an earful, so I won't go into too much detail here. I've been writing a lot, freaking out a lot, going on bad dates and watching all the episodes of the new Battlestar Galactica series. I've become obsessed and watch them over and over again. It's all about Mary McDonell. Hot.

I am also sore as all heck, as my 20 year-old trainer decided yesterday to actually earn his paycheck. Ow. I went back on my own today to quietly work out in a corner because my abs apparently were replaced at some point in the last two years with a bag of wet sand. Not a lot of strength there. It's always embarassing and fab to flash back to that 6th grade place where you know you aren't doing the sit ups right. I guess the difference this time is my core of meanness is well in place to overcome any former fatty shame.

For now.

One of the men in my life who always inspired me/made me jealous with his physique was my friend Jenny's dad Topper. Topper is a character too funny and gruff to go into here, but one of his defining features was his very developed physique and his supertan. I spent good portions of time for three summers running with Jenny's parents. And I really came to enjoy Topper.

I found out yesterday that Top has pancreatic cancer. Bad. It's massively unfair. He and Janis - his wife/Jenny's mom - are in Florida and I sit here in my room waiting for news. I've been doing some thinking and I hate situations I can't change.

But there's always sit ups.

Anything on Here with "Old Entry" is from the .mac blog

An Old Entry Illustrating How Neurotic I Really Can Be.

11/18/05 5:05 PM PST

Normally I write in this thing in the morning. But the urge to type on this has struck me now, so I might as well go ahead and do it. Why look a little bit of initiative in the mouth, right?

Speaking of initiative, it turns out that I graduated from AFI about five months ago. Whoops. Well, I was in classes until August, but the ceremony was in June. Sometimes I do miss it, but other times no. One of the odd things about school is that while it is something that provides a very "safe" feeling, it also makes me feel a little bit lonely. I was on capmus last night to do a table-read for some friends, and I looked out over the hill to the glittering carpet of city lights below. LA from that angle can be truly awe-inspiring and profoundly weird at the same time; it's very clear how much land has been taken away from the desert and turned into tract-housing. But somehow you don't think of all those little cookie-cutter houses when you see those lights at night. All you can see is the whole thing that is Hollywood, and the sounds of some radio broadcast ftom 1931 fills your ears. Then it passes, and the city looks like something out there that shimmers, hovers, and freezes. All at the same time.

I've been agressively entering the online dating world. I'm not just looking at the internet to be my source of no-attchment sex, I'm also looking now for it to provide some sort of real mate for me. How successful this will be remains to be seen. A few very nice people have begun interacting with me through emails, and I have comletely balked at meeting any of them. I guess that means that I am "not ready" as the shrinks say. We'll see.

I also need to stop eating every day like it's a bithday party as I am getting porkers. It's also been interesting to note that a suspicion I had that a group of people here at work were being inclusive of me because I have become attached at the hip to someone "popular" here on the floor was sadly confirmed. I went in for our now-normal lunch date with this group, the only difference bing that the aforementioned popular person is out of town. To say that the meal was incrdibly uncomfortable is putting it lightly. Everyone was polite, and incredibly strained and no one had any idea what to do with me as a free agent. I know that everyone is nice and just neurotic but I haven't had one of those experieces in some time. I decided instead of freaking out that I was just going to watch TV and hope for some warking up. It did, a bit, but not that much. Oh well. I don't hate anyone because of it, I just realized I'm not as "in-like-flynn" as I thought.

Like I said, hovers and freezes.

An Old Entry About Drowning.

10/11/05 10:13 AM PST

I'm at work and a little out of it after sleeping in. Accidentally sleeping in. I'm having territory issues since they have brought in another temp. Granted he is doing something different than me, but is also essentially sucking air and getting paid for it, just like me.

I interviewed for a job yesterday that would be great if I got it, but it would mean no time to write at all at all at all. As I am struggling uphill as it is to get stuff done it does give me some degree of pause. Oh fret fret.

I'm feeling very romantic in a very adolescent way these days. Lots of Susie Suh on the cranky ipod. One night stands are fun, and abound here in LA, but even that loses its novelty after a while. I watch a friend of mine who compulsively fills his bed with college students and I get really depressed. That child is a person, not a floatation device, put it down already.

I always seem to prefer to drown.

Old Posts about Sinusitis and the Bible.

3/16/06 12:38 PM PST

OK. I am such a lame "blogger" that I am no longer going to even try to make excuses for my lameness. I am sick/sinus infected AGAIN. I have already done a course of anti-biotics this month, and have made an appointment with a new ENT, so maybe that will help. I have to admit that I am sort of on the verge of throwing my hands up in the air and then going to bed for the rest of my life. I always love the firs two days on antibiotics - I'm chipper, clear and raring to go. Nothing really works on the infections anymore. So I am sort of doom and gloom over the whole thing. In my life I have taken: Amoxicillin, Bactrim, z-packs, and cipro. I think in the last 8 or so years I may have hit the 30-odd number in terms of perscriptions. I have also now have had two sinus surgeries. Kinda helped, not really. I am kind of done with all of it and I really want the whole works taken out and replaced with ceramic tile. It makes me moody, affects my concentration, so therefore my work suffers. It's not coincidental that I finished a good polish of Stella during the short week of no sinus symptoms after the last course of drugs. I guess I should just be happy that th epolish is done and pretty good, according to the people who have read it.

I want to go back to bed.

In good news, I am moving soon.

2/22/06 10:33 PM PST

I'm tired, and I have a cold sore. Fun. Dana has gone to have her baby, which means I am taking over her desk midway through my incomplete training. Gersh and Paradigm both want to read Stella Marks, but of course I pitched them a draft that isn't written yet. Ha ha. Yeah, so already sleep deprived and hitting up roomie's bf for adderal. Welcome to your thirties. Hopefully the incessant stress and fast food won't kill you before 33. I want lipo, and pills. Right now.


2/21/06 2:25PM PST

I had Indian for lunch and there is a whore living in my house.
:)

2/4/06 10:41 PM PST

BUY DANISH!!!

And I am recovering from my surgery, thank you for asking.


1/25/06 4:09 PM PST

I think that the euphemism for sex in the Bible is "knowing" for a reason. Maybe because when you have sex you are supposed to actually learn something about the person who are you are touching in a certain way; to get to "know" them just a little bit more. Deepen the mystery. Each moment of physical contact a question, looking for an answer.

Yeah, it's one of those days.

An Old Entry About Low grade Depression

9/18/06 12:50pm PST

Low Grade Depression.


Is it because the seasons (such as they are here) have begun to turn. I find myself listening to April March and Los Cincos over and over again, which always makes me pine for snow and winter, which is odd since I hate both of those things. I suppose what I am truly missing is the quiet, the solitude, the smallness of the world on a walk through the woods on a winter's day.

Of course, there are other factors, and certain people who seem to pop up like a strange chorus in the pop-song of my life. Except I would like to know why this particular chorus is coming back with so much quasi-fame. Sort of odd.

I think I am going to go and get that song "Untogether" by Belly for my itunes here at the studio. It sort of sums up the way I feel dairly succintly. It's also 13 years old, and from the time period where the human pop-song in question first started playing out of the radio in my head. Google the lyrics if you want, I'm going to drown my sorrows in this Fresca.

I wonder what it would be like to actually love someone this much who actually lives here with me, in this town, in this now, and with all these damn refrains.

An Old Entry About Cube Sitting

7/31/06 9:06am PST

Sitting in my cube sitting in my cube sitting in my cube sitting in my cube sitting in my cube sitting in my cube...

You get the drift.

I just got my breakfast delivered to me, which is pretty sweet. Pedro, sweetheart that he is, hit a key on my keyboard with the decaf latte and the brilliant entry that I had typed up got zapped into some ether or other. Oh well. I have food, and my hand accidently brushed Pedro's, so there was a minor thrill as well. And so early on a Monday!

The weekend was fairly delightful - went to beach again, and I think now after several weeks am now beginning to see the tan fruits of my labor. Carcinomas ahoy! I spent Sunday alone (heavenly) doing laundry, recovering from the massive doses of THC that a friend's brownies gave me, and watching old movies, including some Tom Baker "Doctor Who" serials on DVD. I think it may have been the best Sunday afternoon ever. I did have to leave the house (wretched) in order to get a haircut and to pick up my Zyrtec from the ratty Walgreen's I have to use now, but for the most part a truly five-star day. The phone did not ring ONCE. I think people are finally getting it - I just like to be left to my own devices during the weekends and require little to no personal interaction.

Perhaps if I pretend I'm in a Doctor Who serial today, things will be better. Then again, when have I not been in a Doctor Who serial? Is my cube a poor-open air excuse for a polics call box that whips me through space and time? They are both rather square in shape. Perhaps someday it will take me away. For now though...

sitting in my cube sitting in my cube sitting in my cube

Shoplifters of the World...

Kids:


So the weekend is almost here. (Cue: white-water rafting stock footage, people hoisting beers, hooting, etc.) and I'm looking forward to a nice weekend of napping, and possibly organizing my dvds. That last bit exhausts me even just looking at it. How do we become these people? I remember being someone who would drive around and do stuff, and now I don't like to drive anywhere on the weekends if I have a good parking spot near my house. I will be working on the pilot script with Betty Ann, which is nice, but I also need to think about at least the possibility of thinking about another feature. Plus I also need to find some sleeping gas to pump into the apartment next door after 10pm to make those kids stop yapping and get to sleepin' some. I'm aure they are super nice and all, but the incessant giggling gets on the nerves at 12am. I wonder if they go to school. I assume they do because the 11 year old seems to have no end of little girlfriends that he talks to on the telephone. Now, when I say "girlfriend" I mean it in the "girlfriend, you're fierce!" kind of way. It's always a little heart-warming when I think of the parental disappointment felt when people realize they have a little screamer amongst them. I'm hoping the illusion will be shattered while I still live there, because if I have to live there with these people being loud all the time, I want to be able to hear the good stuff.

Lovers of the World...

Rejoice.

I finally figured out the old, old, old password/email set up I had used to create Sucktime.blogspot oh these many moons ago. Consequently sucktimela.blogspot shall be ignored, most likely destroyed in the near future. Also, the original mac site will most likely become a place for me to post my photos, and probably not much else.

I'm sleepy and desire an immense pizza. With bacon.