Sucktime.

An agoraphobe's take on today's world. And movies. Inchoate.

2011-02-10T12:59:00.000-08:00

I love Joe Wright's "Pride and Prejudice". Although I didn't grow up in rural 19th (?) century England, I did grow up in a small town, verdant and venomous in its own ways. As I have aged and moved towards that blank field known as "middle-age", I wonder what would be made of me back then? Did the term "confirmed bachelor" exist? Did it have the connotation that it carried until the recent mass de-closeting of most people? Possibly for some of the more intellectual set, who have always had a unstable relationship with the concept of Inversion.

I think this is another one of my examinations of social media and the need for small communities. I work in an incredibly insular business, one that guards itself so obsessively that even breaking into it on the administrative/"business" side of it remains absolutely opaque until you are actually in it. Making it in on the studio level without a family connection or attending one of the Los Angeles schools is a feat unto itself. Navigating that system has been lampooned for generations now, most famously in Altman's "The Player" and it's indie counterpart "Living in Oblivion", a movie I still cannot watch because it gives me Vietnam-style flashbacks to my own experience in no-budget filmmaking in NYC during the 90s. Bringing it back to topic: the film business really is a very small business, in terms of how many people actually work in it on a full-time basis. There are many, many more industries with much larger numbers of bodies involved. And then even in that small community there are sub-communities that divide along lines of success, length of relationship, or even just (heaven forbid) who gets along with who.

So, in some ways I have moved from a small town to another small town, in which everyone is separated by barely two degrees. The comparisons to high school is an endless thing; as the cliques are duplicated in Hollywood - although I have never come across the dumb straight-boy jock clique, I'm going to assume it's alive and well at the agencies since that's where most straight guys in the business work, i.e. sales. Writers remain the quiet art-kids, and directors remain the megalomaniacs who intern for politicians in the summer. Producers are the kids no one was friends with, and could possibly go a little spooky at any given moment.

And everyone talks. Talks, talks, talks. Like, all the time. This business is really about the manufacture of conversation, and the end result is a movie. Sometimes. It's truly shocking and interesting how many movies that are NOT made, but developed for years, and are the subject of intense conversations amongst the parties involved. It almost feels like prom committee, except 9 times out of 10 the prom never happens.

I need to think about this more.

Procrastination.

2011-01-23T20:38:00.001-08:00

It is truly amazing how good I am at putting things off.

Lord Jesus

2011-01-20T16:42:00.001-08:00

Somehow I thought it was smart to go for a two mile run after a kickboxing class. I can't feel my legs. Except for their anger.

Only Connect: On the Platonic Ideal of Friendship. And your computer monitor. And that damn cave.

2010-12-08T13:55:00.000-08:00

Plato's Cave. Philosophy students - and their cynical semiotician cousins like me - have been studying it for a long time. Look here for a quickish explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

What's making me think of this today? I just saw on the cover of one of the trades today an ad exhorting Academy voters to vote for "The Social Network" for best picture. And all the other awards. At the bottom of all the voting commands is one of E.M. Forster's more famous quotes: "only connect". It's not attributed to him, but that seems thematically consistent somehow with the subject matter of the movie, i.e. a kid who made billions by supposedly stealing ideas from others. I'm not really concerned with that at this point. I do think it's interesting that everyone now thinks that Zuckerberg looks like Eisenberg, and will continue to do so for the rest of time, no matter how many twitchy interviews Zuckerberg gives.

How does this relate to The Cave? Facebook is something that millions upon millions of people now use every day, all day long. I am certainly one of those people. I have avoided seeing the movie because I don't want to know how awful the back-story of it is. Too many people I know have stopped using the site because of the movie. Well, only one person, but that's one too many. It's an indicator that something is amiss. Much like turning around in The Cave and seeing the fire and contraptions that cast the shadows on the walls of the cave that we misinterpret as reality, seeing the seedy underbelly of facebook would be a disillusionment. A word I picked for all of its connotation. If we indeed choose to "connect" in this day and age, it's something that has become synonymous for many with the website and its version of friendship. I've mentioned before that I think facebook's success is indebted greatly to our currently disjointed and "disconnected" world. It's one of the ironies of the information age. If you have a lot of information available to you without leaving your home, you don't have to seek it out from other people. Even going to the library and quietly asking a librarian questions is mostly done; Google has become our librarian. Wikipedia is acknowledged to be at least as accurate as Brittanica, the former standard-bearer of factual accuracy of information. Everything is brought to us by The Monitor, without ever having to actually interact with another human being.

Also gone are the days of being born, living and dying in the same small town, or insular urban community. We move around, we lose touch. The metaphor of communication as actual physical sensation/connection, something doctors have shown for decades infants will become ill without, is not an accident of language. We need the continuity of experience, because other people hold memories of us that we ourselves have forgotten, and when they remind of us of those experiences in communication, our own sense of self and identity is bolstered. Cohesion/Coherence is health. Without the physical presence of these people who have known us since kindergarten, their virtual contact through an electronic ether brings solace and a sense of stability. Even if those memories are perhaps traumatic, they are proof that things actually happened, that "you" actually happened, and continue to do so. The "feed" becomes a narrative, constantly unfolding, and even back-filled as you add more people from your past to your network. Your life as a Wiki. Memories of you become the projections on the Cave Wall/Computer Monitor. You can look at them and remember who you supposedly are.

Personal Stories and histories are the framework of the Self. If you don't have pleasant stories in your head (I raise my hand) about who you are and what has happened to you in your life so far, it can lead to neurosis. If you have nice ones, you are more likely to be "well-adjusted", i.e. societaly (socially) normative. The perverted version would be how certain personal improvement movements exhort you to "change your inner stories" or whatever permutation of that to achieve a sense of happiness or well-being. In those cases, it's bastardized psychotherapy, promising emotional healing with none of the work. In our current instant-gratification world, that's a tempting offer. But facebook provides a curious service that could aid in this or undermine it: forensic evidence of the Self. These pieces of informational/historical detritus that others "tag" us in (note the physical touch/children's game metaphor - the original non-familial "community" we formed in) are the smoking guns of our existence. We can no longer misplace these moments since others have held them for us. Like it or not, evidence of our past crimes are now discoverable.The images are shadows of memory.

I, like many others, have re-connected through facebook with legions of people I have met throughout my life, and some I haven't spoken to in decades. People from early childhood and high school are the most special and surprising. What's also surprising is how they are posting pictures of events and times I barely remember, if at all. Class pictures from first grade. Backstage moments from high school musicals. Wearing a silly hat in the dining hall. Parties attended and forgotten. Even people that have been forgotten. That's something that has struck me repeatedly: how many people have come in and out of my life, but require a photo to jog my memory of their relatively momentary presence in my life. These are moments that I had misplaced, but others had kept. They point to a larger, much more expansive idea/history of my Self, and my hair. Blade Runner, the sine qua non of post-modernity in film for quite a few people, goes for broke with the photo/self/memory game; Replicants - simulated people - hold on to photos as evidence of their (very short) existence. These images become totems against the fear of annihilation.

This in itself is interesting, since this fear of annihilation of the Self (death, physical) fuels a need for a constant infusion of belief in our existence. Photos of birthday parties long gone by help, but for many of us still to live is to dwell in an ontologically suspicious isolation. How many of us have been shocked into a vivid memory by an image of a spring day twenty years past? And, in the opposite corner, how many of us have discovered that some people we have always remembered need a reminder to know exactly who we are? Just because you remember someone doesn't mean they remember you. It's a momentarily humiliation then mollified by the reply of "Oh, yeah! How the hell are you??? You look great." If you play your cards right, you can become great online friends with the person you were most terrified of talking to in junior high. Of course, there may be an incredibly awkward silence when you meet at the reunion IRL (in real life). Great Loves long dormant will spring back to life with a ferocity imagined only by Austen. We all know people who have had flings with people from high school thanks to facebook. Long standing grudges have been let go and misunderstandings clarified, so it's not all bad.

I need to eat lunch. I'm typing this with a new friendship bracelet on, something a friend of mine tied onto my wrist yesterday morning before she left for the airport. The bracelet itself is a reminder of the past - an adolescent trend of my generation. It's a lovely reminder of continuance, and even the act of her tying it on was fun for the nostalgia it produced. I got into a minor altercation on the phone last night with a high school friend (although not directly brought back into my life by facebook, the internet Was Involved) after he made a shitty comment to me, leading me to make a passive aggressive status update this morning. He had had a bad day, and is sending me a Christmas Ornament. I have discovered that I am not the only one who is deriving a sense of community, however virtual, after years of separation measured in children and time zones. But even tiffs point to connection. I find you only fight with the people you trust to come back. And in the coming back comes reassurance of life. At some point, we will be able to join hands and walk away from the monitor, and stumble out into the daylight, blinking at the sun after another all-nighter searching facebook for people we once knew. And knew us.

Tag. You're It.

Side note: if anyone can easily convert a pdf to a jpeg for me, that would be great so I can post the cover here.

In case you were wondering.

2010-11-15T17:22:00.001-08:00

Today has been a total shitshow.

A Kiss With A Fist Is Better Than None.

2010-09-29T12:01:00.000-07:00

Hello reader!

I use an exclamation point to communicate how HAPPY I am. HOW EXCITED I AM!

I am neither. In fact, I'm Cunty (with a capital C) today and plan on remaining so for the rest of the day.

Ever have one of those days that you feel like your life is filled with Animals in Pants? At this point, I think that literally every facet of my life is populated by these perverse creatures that may as well be from the island of Dr. Moreau. I'm not even a cultural elitist, I just want to have a conversation with someone about a book or a play without ever getting into the subject of whether or not it's a "movie". I love movies, don't get me wrong. But the fact that all of this is so enveloping is awful. I am grateful for my job in the field, in many ways the perfect job for me to have as I pursue writing on my own, but Jesus H. Christ.

I am not a corporate person. I am not a "team player". I had to develop "leadership skills" in my 20s because more often than not on set I was confronted with absolutely insane situations that were somehow always blamed on me, usually by the person who fucked up, (I'm looking at you, First AD on every movie I ever worked on but ESPECIALLY the one where I was expected to GET 24 PRINCIPALS THROUGH HAIR AND MAKE UP IN 2 FUCKING HOURS - but props to Rose McGowan, Amanda Peet and the magnificent Sue Costello for not being pissy when they were in the middle of a Mess.) so then I would have to rally the troops to save my own skin. Luckily I have enough humor to trick people into thinking I care about them. That's their problem. You know you are in the wrong place when you have to lie about where you did your undergrad because it was somewhere they were rejected from when they applied, so now they automatically have a grudge against you. It's not my fault they're so boring, devoid of any genuine non-derivative personality traits and have absolutely nothing of interest to offer anyone, in any capacity whatsoever other than eating at whatever trough they pull up to in the strip-mall and have functioning reproductive organs to manufacture even more average people. How exciting. I hope their split-levels implode with their families in them. And if they keep having to trumpet how "proud" they are to have attended whatever second or third level school they went to, the lady doth protest too much.

There are second graders in the 9th ward with more native intelligence than the Pants-Animals, because they have had to navigate life and overcome real obstacles. The worst thing that has ever happened the Pants-Animals is they didn't have it in their size, whatever the fuck it was they were told they wanted.

Speaking of troughs - eating at expensive restaurants does not make anyone fancy, smart, or cultured. It just means that a lot of money was spent at a restaurant. And if the restaurant is Craft, money was just spent while being surrounded by agents. Terrific! Yes, I just contradicted my tirade about food-troughs. Shut up. I don't want to hear it. This is not a major publication where I have to worry about such things. Not even sure I would if it was a major publication.

Yoda didn't live in a swamp because he was hiding, he was just disgusted with everyone else.

I'm surprised

2010-09-21T15:30:00.001-07:00

Because I'm flirting again.

Sleepy.

2010-04-15T09:22:00.001-07:00

All I want to do is sleep for two months, on a low calorie drip. Then when I wake up I will be refreshed and (more importantly) thin.

I am...

2010-04-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

Feeling hateful!

There is only so long mediocrity is applauded and excellence ignored before you want to just spit.

I wish I had had the math to be a marine biologist. At least the slime you deal with then has an actual purpose as opposed to just taking up space and driving a honda, oops I mean a BMW 3 series.

Superman = Super-Simulacrum?

2010-03-26T14:59:00.000-07:00

Hi kids:

Normally, I don't do this sort of thing on here, but I was struck by something when I was watching the first bit of Singer's Superman last night.

Namely, all the different levels of Simulation that Superman and his particular diegesis embodies, if we enter that fictional realm as "the real" and not just as a text. Singer's film itself could be viewed as a simulation of the 1978 movie - the opening credits, the music, even the footage of Jor-El/Brando are recycled and/or imitative of the original 1978 film. I also happen to think that Routh's performance of Clark Kent is so Reeve-esque that it can only be intentional. So, perhaps in Singer's case the film itself was in a way experimental - he pointed out repeatedly that in terms of "canonical" time for the original 70s/80s films, his takes place between the 1978 version and its very good sequel. So by inserting/pushing his own story in-between the two films, it does make stylistic sense to try to make those films adhere to the artistic rules of its predecessors, with varying degrees of success shot by shot. It's almost like the film is a re-mix of other materials that were still in the vault. The degree of usage of these materials reminds me of the work of filmmakers (and former teacher of mine) like Leslie Thornton, who crafts films out of footage she finds in places like yard sales.

But back to Superman himself. Think about it - his Earth-birth is immaculate (that's been covered to death) and he is not *really* human, but raised as one. He looks like one of us, but is most definitely is NOT. He is The Other, and he is here to help. Some scholarship has been focused one Siegel and Shuster's creation of a Judiac Messiah figure, but I would contend that they have created a specifically *American* Messiah. As the Ultimate Immigrant, Superman embodies the American Dream as it has been consistently manufactured for the past two centuries. Come to America, and you will become more than you are in your homeland, or in his case, on your home planet. Superman's powers are directly derived from being physically ON Earth under our yellow sun, whereas the populations of immigrants - Jewish, Italian, Irish, whatever - arrived in poverty for the most part but were economically climbing up because of the opportunities presented to them here in the States. With money comes power. With presence on the Police Force comes power, with taking control of Construction Industries, comes power. Etc.

Kal-El's landing in Kansas and upbringing by (presumably) some sort of Protestant something-or-other adoptive parents makes sure his American (White, unspecified) pedigree is completely unimpeachable. If Superman had been raised on the Lower East Side in the 30s, he could have ended up being an Orthodox Jew, thereby marking him as an Unacceptable Other, and therefore not a hero for the total American public. What is fascinating (and telling) is the global adoration of Superman in both our "real" world and in the world of the comic book - he represents the American Way to everyone, everywhere. Democracy, and the chance to be who you are without fear of reprisal. He is available to everyone to identify with because he is not from Here, he is not born to any particular nation, he belongs to the planet.

But there is a catch there. He does have the secret identity of Clark Kent, that was so elegantly explicated by David Carradine in Kill Bill 2. There is no way for Kal-El to ever really "be" human, so he must pretend. He loves us, but he is not us. He is the Anti-Icarus, not punished by the Gods for flying too close to the sun, but rather rewarded with becoming one of the Gods BECAUSE of flying so close to our sun. He is not fueled by Pride, but rather by his sense of Duty, instilled in him by his adoptive parents, and later in his life by interacting with a simulacrum of his biological father Jor-El in the Fortress of Solitude.

The Fortress itself is not a piece of Krypton, but rather a small simulation of Krypton, built from a single authentic Kryptonian crystal that came with the infant Kal-El to earth. That said, it could be argued that the Fortress is a metanym of Krypton, since its origin is from an actual artifact/seed of the Alien World. It's like the Samovar that gets handed down through the generations of immigrants and placed in the center of the home, or at least in the curio cabinet. The kids have no idea what it's for, but they know that some ancestor brought the damn thing over on a boat, thereby giving it significance. So, the Fortress pulls off two things at once: it's a grown insertion of *actual* Krypton, expanding and creating a space for itself on Earth, and it is also at the same time being a total simulation of a planet long destroyed. Superman is the same thing, i.e. the real Kryptonian and the Simulated Earthling at the same time. Since we as humans are only allowed one position in discourse, this "dual-identity" in some ways place Superman in an almost trans-discursive position, and in that liminal space his powers are born. Interestingly enough, that's not that different than what Singer did himself by putting his film in-between the first two Superman films.

OK, I need to think about this more, but also finish this Tikka Masala.

On Writing.

2010-02-27T12:30:00.001-08:00

Jesus H. Christ.

Really.

2009-12-14T15:54:00.000-08:00

I swear to God I am a mostly cheerful person, really.

Fall.

2009-09-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

The weather holds steady at roughly summertime conditions, but the television tells me that it must be Fall because there are new shows on. My current fave is The Vampire Diaries - for those of you out there who know your Vampire TV History it's like Dark Shadows meets the 3rd season of 90210. So, I'm not sure how anyone drilled into my mind and excavated my deepest hopes and dreams to put on the small screen, but there it is.

In general I don't have much to report, which is in itself distressing. Well, I don't have anything to report on my end. In my friends' lives there have been much, much change. Mostly babies. This is great for me as in general I like babies. There have been a few babies I have met over the years that were total assholes, but they tended to be the exception rather than the rule. I also know a few grown-up babies that are total assholes, but I am not sure that the assholage (pronounced to rhyme with "collage") started when they were infants or as an infantile response to ongoing outside adult stimuli.

I suppose the biggest thing I miss about my East Coast Life is the Fall and the de rigeur falling leaves. This is not an unusual or unique thing; most East Coasters miss seasons that are signified by actual events of nature as opposed to only the seasonal holiday decorations available at the Rite Aid on the corner of Franklin and Western. LA for all of its myriad pleasures tends to seem a bit rick-rack at this time of year, but as someone who spent every winter overlooking a field of snow falling dark at 4pm and wishing it was summer, I'm keeping it in perspective. In a month or two, we Angelenos will be wearing our inappropriately chunky sweaters and scarves, feeling genuinely cold as our blood is thinner than most from months of heat. I'll watch with a combination of amusement, indignation and fear as LA drivers continue to drive 85mph on the 101 even thought it's the kind of January downpour that I know from childhood experience you shouldn't be driving in that way. Snow seems charming to me now, for I have mostly forgotten how it feels in my shoes.

The only thing that happens in LA that parallels the fall of the Autumn leaves back East is how friendship works here. For the most part I have observed that to every season there is indeed a turn. As someone who relishes friendships that unfold over decades, it's something I find distasteful. It might have something to do with the sunshine and lack of natural seasons, I think. Instead of leaves falling from a tree, people seem to shed the friends they no longer need. When you grow up somewhere with a history of Cold Weather, people seem to at least understand being in it for the Long Haul. Something about buckling down and waiting for the sun to come back out seems to do something to the psyche. Babies fall into that as well - in the back of my mind my friends' children that have been born in the fall need a pile of dried apples for the winter or something. But the lack of Winter seems to have done something to people here, or perhaps more specifically, has *not* done something to people here. If you don't have a primal need for community to survive, you tend to throw people away with less thought. It also seems to be related to whether or not your parents divorced, but my data on that is too inconclusive at this point. My parents are still married. It seems to have been what they wanted.

We are lurching through an economic Autumn, this much is sure. Our little wagon train plods along, hoping that there will be a clean stream or brook over the next rise before we have to tell our traveling companions that we really need the water. It may come to that, but I don't think it will. But you will find out who your friends are in that situation, which means that it's a valuable experience. In ye olden days (really olden), betrayal was a dramatic word I would threw around with abandon through gritted teeth as I loudly plotted revenge while pushing my hair back with great purposefulness. Next, I would order a pizza. Then I would nap. Imagine a sort of a slightly older Butters from South Park with a Preppy-Goth thing going on. And an ongoing acne problem and an over-reliance on carbs. Nowadays I skip the plotting and just head for the pizza. I'm no longer crazy enough to actually put any plots in motion, as it requires work and I'm VERY busy watching the new shows. I suppose one of parts of getting older is the realization you were never "betrayed" if someone was an asshole to begin with. Accepting your own poor judgment sucks. Uch.

So as a leaf drifting down slowly from the tree turning all the while (les sanglots longs des violons...), I think I can see things that I didn't see before. Nothing that unusual or dramatic, just a different perspective. Happens to everyone.

Sucks.

In the meantime, I am going now to see a brand new baby that a friend of two decades has just finished manufacturing with her wonderful husband and friend of mine, so that's very exciting. I don't have any dried apples for her, but she'll get whatever else her little heart desires. As a child of Spring (and you don't get anymore "Spring" than my b-day) I'm only following my nature.

Where is the Romance?

2009-07-06T23:42:00.000-07:00

I'm never going to tumble down artistically in the heather at this rate. Graphic tees do not a substitute for a waistcoat make.

If I'm so wonderful... why am I single?

2009-06-24T14:59:00.000-07:00

OK.

Again, apologies for being away for so long, if you even care.

So here's the deal: If I'm so fucking wonderful, why am I single?

This is not a new cry to go up across the land. Many others before me have hit their 30s and begun to look at the ashtray-left-out-in-the-rain of their respective lives and wonder if that's all there is. This is what happens when the party of "first youth" is over. I think our/my generation has a much better handle on aging and death than our parents' ever did. They listened to the Shirelles and Led Zeppelin; we listened to The Cure, The Smiths and, well, Led Zeppelin. In our generational case, the first two aforementioned acts made us feel all comfy and cozy in the concepts of isolation, unrequited love to the point of pointlessness, and bad accessories. The bad accessories are important. It's part of being an adolescent I suppose. Going into any mall and any Hot Topic is proof of this. Is Hot Topic even around anymore?

As our generation ages, we are doing things like "growing up" and getting married and having "children" and all that. Well, I'm not, and I suppose that's the point of this electronic ramble. Growing up carries with it the connotation of settling down, and if I am not doing that, am I growing up? Is being settled down with someone else a prerequisite for being considered "on my own"? Some of the people I know who are married and have children shouldn't be allowed out of the house let alone reproduce, so why do they get to do it? Nothing makes sense. Maybe it doesn't have to. This makes me insane, the lack of meaning. I like movies and stories because things are structured and have significance. Even pieces that are about the meaninglessness of life have that meaning built into them. Actual meaninglessness is a tough thing to face. Think of Circus of the Stars and how dead you felt inside when you watched it. Scary, right?

So, In fact, the Wet Ashtray just might be all there is. What are you going to do about it? Cry? Everything's already wet. Wasted effort. Why do the work again? The Party of Life ends. It's just a matter of making sure you are sitting in the corner with the good drag queens while you are at the party. No one wants to be in the corner with the bad drag queens. Especially in the morning. As the dawn creeps its way over sundry warehouse roofs and slides insistently into your hungover brain, you can see the glue on the false eyelashes. Not pretty. You slink out the door to your tiny tiled home, telling yourself you had a wild time and hope the train comes quick. At least that was how it was in New York.

Now, don't get all concerned about me or upset. I will learn to celebrate my abandonment by Life. That's the key difference: by Life not of Life. I will embrace being kicked off the kaboose of meaningful existence. Perhaps I will take to reading all those "Left Behind" books or watching those movies the Krazy Kirk Cameron has made from said books. I mean, since they are supposedly Christian novels, there has to be scads of Gay people - most likely all Gay people - left wandering about the world with a slightly stunned expression. Glittery Cowboy Hats a bit crumpled, KD Lang tees torn. No break on the cover charge at the club though.

What will I do with all my free time? I know I have been sorely remiss in doing any reading that doesn't have to do with work, so that might be a way to fill the time. Or getting back to writing more! Like I am doing now. I can use the time to work on my career. Or pick up a new hobby like knitting, collecting stamps or cutting myself.

The possibilities are endless. Truly. Endless.

Why some people don't like "Gay" marriage. Or, an Affliction of Perception. Sedgwick dies and this is what I think about.

2009-04-14T16:20:00.000-07:00

Here's the thing - they aren't going to ever go for this. Like, ever. You know who I'm talking about.

You know why? Gay people aren't *people* to them. I can only listen so long to so much love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin claptrap before the creepy realization that for a large portion of this great nation, Gay people have as much humanity as, say, a small dog. It's a realization that washes over me like a wave of artificially-sweetened frosting. Gross. That's not to say Americans don't love their dogs. But they aren't allowed to vote, and certainly aren't allowed to marry. And their owners are in charge of their mating adventures, if they can help it. And if your dog gets uppity and wants too much or acts up, you swat it down with a paper until it behaves. The gay-marriage "debate" would be a great example of totally out-there, completely unapologetic and systemic discrimination. A group of people has determined amongst themselves that another group of people are inferior, and therefore do not deserve the same rights as everyone else. Mostly because they have the temerity to attempt to be happy in a society that spends a lot of energy trying to erase them from sight, or at least break them down. This is why I find the arguments that posit Gay people being more visible on television means that things are better not to hold much water for very long. Although it is no longer permissible everywhere to make snarky comments about Gay people, it still rampant and largely tolerated. I still think violence against gay people is wildly under-reported.

As much as this sort of placing Gay people in a category of "less-than" is odious, there is another kind of humanity-reduction out there that is far more insidious, since usually the perpetrator is totally unaware of taking part in it at all.

I've been harping about this for a long time - Betty Ann and I have had a long-running joke about how well-meaning folks try to set up gay people on dates in a manner not too dissimilar from puppy mill dog-breeding, i.e. "I know you say you don't want to be set up with this random stranger you have absolutely nothing in common with other than your sexuality, but let's put you two together on the pee-pee pad and see what happens!" The Road to Hell is most certainly paved with good intentions. Invariably there is an uncomfortable coffee date that both parties try to make the best of and then eject out of ASAP. This will then lead to the uncomfortable email back-and-forth with aforementioned matchmaker the following Monday morning, if not later the very night of the Uncomfortable Coffee Situation (UCS) if blackberries can be involved, in which all kinds of annoying questions are posed. There are only so many times one can say "He wore a polo shirt two sizes too small with the collar-popped, talked for twenty minutes about how he doesn't eat dairy or wheat anymore, is as dumb as a Box of Rocks, AND DO YOU REALLY HOLD ME IN SUCH LOW REGARD???" before you just say "It just wasn't a good fit, but he's super nice." Over and over. And over. And over. So this would be an example of people erring to far on the other side of the Gay Marriage debate, but still coming from the "Gay People are Small Pets" place.

I know most of the people I know don't suffer from this affliction of perception, but some do. The Gay "community" is a unique one in that it is trans-ethnic, that is to say a bunch of people who identify (and are identified culturally) as being part of disparate ethnic groups all have one thing in common - their sexual proclivities. Or, supposedly have this is common because this is what is said to them. Over and over again. In one fell swoop, when one decides to come out of the closet, an interesting process takes place: all other sociological identifiers and categories are superseded by the category of "Gay". Suddenly you are not just a Black woman from Detroit, you are a Lesbian, who is Black and from Detroit. You are no longer a ranch hand, you are a "Gay Cowboy". In other words, everyone is trapped into being One or the Other. When a person moves publicly to have a partner, romantic or sexual or both, of the same biological gender, a statement is made into the larger world that changes perception of that person. As same-sex desires are still considered other/different by the dominant culture, there is no way that any coupling in that category can be anything but a sore-thumb. You stick out. I think well-meaning Not-Gay people can do a disservice to their Gay friends by constantly making a big deal about how OK they are with Gayness. What they need to be OK with is telling another straight person off when they say something stupid.

On a side note, and I'm going to stop now since I'm tired, I'd like to know when the Latino and African American communities are going to realize they are being totally used and manipulated for their voting power, and that people who are against Gay marriage still think of them as second class (if that) citizens. If it does happen, it's going to be an interesting moment.

Atlas Snugged.

2009-03-16T10:38:00.001-07:00

I am nowhere close to being original with any sort commentary on the current cultural hoo-ha that is The Snuggie. For those of you without a television, the Snuggie is a fleece blanket with sleeves. So you can stick your arms through them and grasp your remote whilst not having to move your delicate arm out from under the cozy warmth of fibers spun from recycled Mountain Dew bottles (that's what fleece is made of essentially). We did not know this remote situation was a problem until very recently. We now know we can grab the remote while remaining under the backwards bathrobe we call Snuggie because the commercial shows us this very act. And we can now also go to football games dressed like brightly colored extras from the temple scene in Conan the Destroyer. And presumably some sort of fetish community is already clustering around the Snuggie. "Let's Snug" and "I'm a Snugger" tee shirts are coming, I'm sure.

What does the Snuggie mean/signify? Is it just another artifact of current consumer culture, i.e. something we really don't need and is really just a tweaked version of something we already have, or is it something else entirely? I think It's both. As far as I can tell the Snuggie is a cross between a tatty fleece blanket from Ikea and a hospital gown. So someone got the idea for this thing when they were in the hospital for a colonoscopy or some such. That's my guess. Someplace cold. With cold floors as they trudged down to where ever the procedure was to be done. Most likely in a town where there is a lot of tailgating, if the commercials are to be believed. So, Minnesota. Could it be true that a descendant of the Vikings, of the people of Odin, the people of Mjolnir and Valhalla, has given us a blankie-as-symbol of a particular brand of American Depression? A depression both emotional and economic? These things are tied and twisted together now in the national unconscious. I have no proof that a Viking is responsible for the Snuggie.

When you have been laid off you have to keep the heat down to preserve what savings you have. Here comes the Snuggie! For those of you who are as nuts as I am about Science Fiction, I recommend the "Beggars in Spain" trilogy by Nancy Kress; especially the final book. That's an aside. If you read it, I think you will see the connection. Kress follows a line of logic that eventually American society will have to simply support an immense amount of people that are not able to work, simply because the economy can not provide enough employment because there are far too many people. In other words, most of the population lives in indolence, trying to convince themselves that that's cool. Predictably, massive class distinctions emerge almost immediately. It's not as Ayn Rand as it sounds, but it is, a little. The Snuggie will become the symbol of the current cultural landscape - we no longer feel safe, we long to retreat under a blanket spun from our own landfill surplus that shows us that we are both frugal and responsible, after years of taking out loans for a down payment on a house, a practice unheard of until recently.

We're in it for the long haul, people. And we are marching through this shrunken landscape with our Snuggies on, but presumably with our backsides still exposed.

By the way, I totally want one.

This is a nice day.

2009-01-20T07:47:00.001-08:00

This also makes me wonder if we have finally gotten to the point in our nation's culture where being African-American is just another ethnic identity in our lovely melting pot, as opposed to a ongoing reminder of how our Nation repeatedly (and so terribly) stumbled in the past.

American Idol

2009-01-13T07:57:00.000-08:00

I don't want to watch it. I just don't, OK?

I think it's mean; at least the beginning part. I feel it appeals to the people who watch Olympic Ice Skating (or, alternatively, "Ice Dancing") in the hopes they will see someone fall and humiliate themselves on the global stage. And if their hand gets run over by their partner's skate in the process, all the better. I went to school with a Gay who would literally watch the winter Olympics and shout "Fall!" every time some hapless athlete would jump into the air to attempt a triple fudge lutz or whatever, and then he would look displeased when whichever Ninja in Sequins managed to come back down to the ice without tumbling. I, for my part, would cheer whenever a jump was landed, regardless of nationality. Of course, everyone else in the room thought I was cheering because of the successful jump, or for the costumes, or music choice (My Heart Will Go On!); those who know me better knew I was cheering because this other person in the room was feeling disappointed. Disappointed in the lack of failure. So, yes, was I guilty of taking delight in someone else's tiny hopes being dashed? Of course I was, but the other person's hopes were petty and nasty, so I am not that bad of a person in this situation. At the worst, I'm like a Calvinist or something.

So, anyway, Idol. I can't stand it. So, some people are untalented who think they are talented. So what? Why do I want to see them humiliated? On GLOBAL television. Millions of people, everywhere, seeing someone's hopes turned to a pile of ash and melted hair product bottles right outside the door to conference room at some convention center in Cincinnati or some other place. Ugh. No thanks.

2009-01-05T20:37:00.000-08:00

Miss C.C.

2009-01-05T12:14:00.000-08:00

We will miss you.

2009!

2009-01-04T08:26:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are. 2009. Another year. Undeniably middle-aged. Still single. Dissatisfied with career.

I hold you personally responsible for all of these things.

But, in the meantime, resolutions!

1. Meditate more.
2. Write more.
3. Stop people from using the word "pod". It's just gross.
4. Eat a salad.
5. Do the mud run again.

All of these things seem doable. I'd also like to be less anxious, but that just might be my way.

Happy Christmas to the Ambien Generation. We do not rest.

2008-12-25T07:13:00.000-08:00

We used to be the Prozac Nation. I think that book was written by a girl who went to Brown with me. That's not really much of a shock considering everyone at Brown was on some sort of medication at the time, legal or otherwise. I suppose in another decade or so, we will annoy our children with tales of the "Wild 90's" as our parents did with their anecdotes of the apparently very muddy 60's. We did some lolling about in the mud at Woodstock 2, but for the most part I and my friends were more interested in putting on plastic clothes and clubbing until 10am. It was fun. Granted, that probably shaved about two years off my life with the lack of sleep and all, but I imagine the immense amount of aerobic exercise from the furious dancing has to counterbalance the damage somehow. We were beautiful, covered in glitter, and kinda sweaty.

But now we don't want to stay up all night and twirl glowsticks at 180 bpm; now we just want to sleep. We have the 90's are different than those of the 80's. The 80's were the years of the hippie come to Real Power. They decided they were going the leverage the world to make their fortunes. Tilt the very planet from its financial access with the force of will and Tony Robbins. Heal the Child Within was the battle cry, for he is the Center of the Universe, and he must be made whole before he inherits it all. Then they had their own children. These were the people who were called Generation X. My friends and I were some of these children, but a lot of us were also the children of the people who just missed the mark of the Summer of Love. But we all listened to R.E.M. or Bon Jovi or New Order or any combination thereof. We weren't all that optimistic, we did tend to be a little gloomy. Even our cinema reached for pathos unseen since the tortured performances of James Dean in the 50's. I think that generation - the one born just before the war - and ours shared the same fundamental crisis; the crisis of historically contextual meaninglessness. Those people born in the late 20's and 30's went off to war, and those born in the late 40's (the children of those soldiers and WACS) made a lot of noise about stopping other wars. So James Dean cried about how he was being torn apart, and in our multiplexes in the 80's Ferris and his friends had adventures based around the simple fact that our Hippie (now Yuppie) parents were so unengaged with us that running amok was beyond easy. The "twist n' shout" sequence in which Ferris' father doesn't even recognize his own son, the pied piper of Chicago, leading thousands of people in a singalong to a Beatles' song (not one of ours but theirs) stands as evidence of that generations particular solipsism.

But some of us weren't 16, 17, or even 20 when we went to see Ferris or Molly at the movies; some of us were 12. Or even a little younger. Those of us at the tail end of Generation X had a much different experience of it. Since "Power, Corruption and Lies" was already 5 years old when we got our hands on it, it already had the aura of nostalgia about it. When you are 14, 5 years is a huge chunk of time. My first Siouxise and The Banshees album was "Peephow", not "Hyaena". My experience of the band is affected consequently. Granted, I bought "Hyaena" later, but my Siouxsie really is the one in the Top Hat and the flapper bob, not the siren in the Egyptian eye make-up.

Then we went to work for the yuppies, and the older Gen X'ers. Along the way we sorta invented the social use of e-mail and then showed them how to use it. That was fun for a little while. Then we started forwarding each other meaningless electronic pieces of crap, most of which were tacky and dumb. It was as if the kids in remedial English had gotten a hold of the school paper. In a way, they had. How many times do you need to see "Two Girls, one Cup"? I'm gonna go out on a limb and say never. Not once. Yuck. I know it's faked, but still. Or stupid pictures of people being fat or whatever. Yes, let's send 'round that one of the morbidly obese naked guy with the beard siting at his computer, just one more time. Working for the older Gen X'ers leaves us feeling cold and weird, since they are cold and weird from their parents ignoring them. At our end of the X, we knew we weren't special, we got the joke. Most of us just want to have our lives and be left alone, preferably with an iphone because it is quite fun. We are overworked, sometimes underpaid, and utterly cut off from one another, except for facebook.

Facebook is an interesting thing. I would not be surprised if the largest group of people who are daily Facebook users is now not college kids, but people in their 30's. We've all run to it, and login to it while we wait at stoplights. Why? Because after years of being cut off from our childhood friends by moving around to where the jobs are, or at least to where the better restaurants are, we now can connect with people who knew us when lunch boxes were still made out of metal and could really cause some damage when you took a swing at someone with one. You remember, the ones that always smelled vaguely of sour milk. So now we delight in writing comments on the "walls" of people we haven't thought of in years. I don't think it's insincere in the slightest; and I've noticed conversations between people that I know hated each other passionately 20 years before. What causes this? I think only the real need to connect and reconnect. I think people long for the constant string of introductions that is day-to-day life now to end. How many new people do you need to meet in one lifetime? Just a century ago, most people never met anyone new, unless they were biologically produced on the spot, as it were. When I return home I am genuinely dismayed by seeing faces that I do not recognize, they seem unfazed by not knowing me. Why would they? They moved here from somewhere else. They are the real Gen X'ers, weaned off of Prozac so they can have kids.

But we do not take Prozac. Well, some of us do. But we do take something. We are the Ambien Generation. We listened to "Kid A" 10 years ago, an album apparently about a clone. I always thought that was the most brilliant comment on our particular generational sub-group ever: we are clones. Younger versions of other people. We no longer take Prozac, we take Ambien. We long for sleep, we are Generation A. This Christmastime, none of us dare hope for Sugarplums in our heads, since all the money just evaporated. We want to sleep dreamlessly and unbothered by the not-sugarplums of anxiety caused by this particular reality; we want a few hours of perfect peace, finally. So to avoid the not-sugarplums, we take a pill that lets us sleep that's closer to a coma than actual sleep. What will our children say about us in 20 years? Will their resentments be based not on being invisible to us but simply from their daily standing by the side of our beds, watching us sleep and anxious as to whether or not we will wake up this time? We move too much, both in terms of house and in terms of our day. Our minds are such mush from the ceaseless communication and flow of information that it can only cause - perhaps already has caused - the death of rest. To quote someone else: we have murdered sleep. We, as good clones, do not sleep, but merely simulate it with the help of a pill. We are Replicants trying not to dream of electronic sheep, Seven of Nine in her recharging in her alcove, Cylons endlessly duplicating themselves, Laptops "sleeping" until work starts again the next day.

We can track Santa now through NORAD. He's not real unless he's perceived electronically. There must be something in the iphone app store for that too.

Cold. As Hell.

2008-12-23T17:36:00.000-08:00

I've completed one leg of the annual Xmas tour. I'm back in Cohasset, and will be doing some shopping with Ms. Plante tomorrow, which will be fun. I'm staying up on the third floor while I am here which is nice. I am turning the heat up secretly as not to alarm frugal parents. I am afraid I have adjusted to LA temperatures; there's just no two ways about it.

Over the next few days I will be seeing a lot of people from my deep past. One or two have some serious significance, but all of them will be welcome faces to see during a dinner. The events of the past few months, so much of which have been so very ugly, has made me realize that I'm very lucky that I have these people in my life as long as I have had them, or have them come crashing back into my life, and me go banging back into theirs. I think we all crave simpler times, and certainly these people represent those times to me. I think I work with many people who went to LA to re-invent themselves just like it shows you in the movies. Now it just seems sad to me. I suppose it's because I just distrust new people so much to begin with, that the idea of chucking a group of old friends that I actually do trust to seem quite strange. That said, there are a few people from my past I could do very well never hearing from again, please and thank you.

I've been sorta stressed out for the past few months, and I think I will continue to be so until spring. For the first time in years I have that feeling like I have a cold chrome sphere the size of a baseball in my stomach. I think it's dread. I am going to continue to move forward, and just keep my fingers crossed. I am going to look up weather in SFO now.

Oh Jeez.

2008-12-17T07:18:00.000-08:00

So, we are now sliding down the slippery slope of the holidays. I am getting that vaguely apprehensive feeling that can only mean a visit with the family is imminent. I think I may be finally getting over the two months worth of colds and sinus infections I have been saddled with. Apparently I should leave the heat on in my apartment. It makes me feel better. This final proof that I am no longer a New Englander fills me with shame. Heat? IN the house? All the time??? Yes, it's happened. What's next? Vegetables? Now I must fly around my apartment like a pricked balloon as I get ready for work.

People lie.

2008-12-06T15:51:00.000-08:00

All the time.

I think

2008-11-06T11:51:00.001-08:00

"If you never say your name out loud to anyone, they can never ever call you by it."

Sadly.

2008-11-05T14:21:00.001-08:00

I am proven right again. You can't trust your neighbors.

I won't say no, how could I?

2008-11-04T10:49:00.000-08:00

Isn't the whole point of making a big confession is that you then get what you want? And deserve? And have put the time in for? I mean, there's been enough meaningful sacrifice and wacky antics/set-pieces to choke a horse at this point. This is why I like movies, people. I crave resolutions. So much of life is The Monolith otherwise. Was that what Stanley was trying to tell us?

I'm actually in a fine mood, just mildly amused at myself. Having a melt-down in the shower last night was key. Between the discovery that my brother was secretly married for a while and other ongoing dramas, even I finally had to crack.

Oy.

2008-11-03T13:56:00.001-08:00

Not exactly a terrible day, but certainly an interesting one.

Bravery

2008-10-31T09:42:00.000-07:00

Another odd, random thought this morning, whilst coming into work.

I was pulling onto the lot and was struck by one of the female security guards guiding traffic into the garage. When I say struck I mean I noticed her, not that she beat me. She was rubbing her hands, as it is a bit cold, and was doing her job with a fairly stoic expression. She's someone I've seen in the building and it's very clear she has a Story. Thinking of all of this in a second or two, the next thought I had was interesting: "I like brave people."

Granted, doing one's job outside in the simply frigid conditions of 60 degrees may not seem the bravest thing, but it was her expression more than anything that I noticed. Then as I was parking I tried to get more specific about my thinking. Those who know me well know that nothing enrages me more than vagaries, except perhaps answering a question with a question, which will always result in me going for the throat. So then my next thought was a question - what, exactly, do I think is brave?

I guess it's a few things. One version of it is the person who "jumps", i.e. they see what they want (or doesn't want) and decides they are going to take the leap to change the situation. Whatever the personal cost, discomfort or sacrifice. It can take the form of the cross-country move, the mid-life career re-set, the ejection from the bad marriage, the coming out of the closet, etc. Or it can just doing something as simple as going to a bookstore on a rainy afternoon if you are wildly agoraphobic. I guess it's the kind of bravery where you allow your anxiety to exist, but not dominate you.

The other version I have seen is the more resting kind of brave. It's the mode where you know you are in a situation you can't change, for whatever external or internal reasons, and you make due in the best way you can, and put on the proverbial "brave face". It's tough, but it's not the fear or desperation-fueled bravery of the other kind. This kind is sort of methodology of life that makes people stay out of duty, or expectation, and involves (sometimes total) sacrifice of personal needs for the sake of the group, or just one loved one. It's not easy either. More of a stick-it-out thing. The rock that sits square in the middle of the roaring river.

I think I've lived in both states in different periods of time in my life. But I also know that at some point you have to weigh the pros vs. the cons in an unsentimental light, and perhaps see a third way. And that is the way of simply letting go, and trusting that it will all work out. And it's scary as all Hell.

But you can always rub your hands to keep them warm when you need to. No one can tell you not to do that.

Birthdays N' Stuff

2008-10-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

It's the first time in 10 years that I am not going to send a forcibly chipper "Happy Birthday!" email. I don't know what's more upsetting; the fact I am not sending that email or the fact that I have been sending emails for over 10 years. I think I'm on year 14 of that. Ugh. I was going to spin some yarn about love that is lost in time, but I think I might just have to run to the bathroom and start moisturizing. I did love strongly though, once upon a time. I'm sure I will again. Right after I finish with this here botox injection... I want to look surprised when Love comes for me again...

This may sound harsh, but...

2008-10-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

There is no shame accepting that someone doesn't love you as much as they are supposed to. Because then you can stop making yourself crazy trying to believe that you love them back as much as you are supposed to. That was a thought between the cup and the lip this morning, literally. Whenever I don't sleep well at night I begin to wonder what my brain is doing. I suspect more of this sort of thing. I'm 35. How did this happen?

Monday!

2008-10-27T07:21:00.000-07:00

Rugby boot camp finally happened.

I am sore in places I have not been sore in since Coach James had his way with me 3rd form year, i.e. 21 friggin' years ago.

NYC

2008-10-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

So I'm waiting for the new itunes to finish loading up. I have to say I'm not that thrilled about it. Apple made such a fuss over that "coverflow" thing, but something like sixty percent of my albums still have a blank square with two quarter or eighth notes, whatever those things are, as their only "art". For whatever reason itunes can't pull the artwork from its own store. Sorta BS since apple knows the more OCD of us MUST HAVE ALL THINGS THE SAME. But I am dredging up my DIY/Xerox artwork/The Beauty Is In The Seams personality from my adolescence to deal with that. I haven't really been that thrilled with any apple product of late: I have a new MacBook and I am not into the keys at all, and the screen sorta looks like crap already. Granted, I don't want a PC either, but I sure would like something that combines apple's design sensibility with Windows' just "git 'er done" behaviors. I know apple claims they don't crash, but that's bs since this thing was crashy like right out of the box.

So, anyway, what am I thinking about this morning? NYC. It's getting a little colder here in LA, and that makes me think about running around NYC in various numbers of layers. I guess my only thought about NYC this morning, oddly, considering everything that happened to me there, and so much of it being totally awful, is that NYC really is a giant playground that lets you not grow up as long as you want not to grow up. It's a town that fosters this strange double immaturity/self-reliance. Something about hearing Regina Spektor's "Twenty Years of Snow" this morning as I type is also forming this impression. I didn't spend 20 years in NYC, but I did spend six strange ones there. I had tons of fun, but also tons and tons of not-fun. Granted, I wasn't shooting heroin and turning tricks in the South Bronx, but that was mostly because those activities involve effort - finding heroin is not easy and the South Bronx is a haul.

I have often remarked that in many ways my life between Choate and LA passed as a strange dream, and much of it I truly do not remember. I do have some great pals from Brown, and I have two great friendships that were created in NYC. I had a third, but she died. Suddenly and strangely. I suppose death is always strange, and I am certainly not the first person to note that. Time is so weird. I guess that's why I'm thinking about the fostered immaturity thing. In NYC, no one looks at you sideways if you are wearing the ame thing you wore to that punk rock show twenty years beforehand, as long as you are in the right part of town, which is always the East Village for our kind.

I could ramble on more, but I have to hop in the shower to get ready for work, I've dawdled and lost a lot of time.

Time.

2008-10-14T19:22:00.000-07:00

I'm having a minor meltdown.

That sounds dramatic.

I'm having a small freak-out.

I need a few more hours in the day, and I also need one extra day per weekend. So, say 27 hour days with 8 day weeks. This probably means I will have to move to Mars or possibly one of the recently discovered extra-solar planets. As we all know how I feel about moving, that's not likely to be happening anytime soon.

I think I might just be a little frayed. There's been a lot going on in the past couple of weeks. I always forget that things can build up slowly, creep up on you really, and you have acclimated to the steady level of crazy; so much so that you are now unhappy. I think I remember some line from some movie somewhere making the analogy of boiling a frog along those lines. Turn up the heat slowly enough and the little guy will just sit in there until you boil him alive. Something like that.

Also? Eveyone's crabby, and no one is dealing with their stress well. I need to eat something. I only ran a mile today. But I did do a little over 5 yesterday.

Facebook

2008-10-13T07:43:00.000-07:00

I think Facebook should have more than one option to describe your connections to another member. I do. I know there is a way you can describe your connection to a person after you become "friends" on the site, but at that point you're already "friends" and then putting in the comment "I actually don't know this person very well, but I think he's friends with this other guy in my department and I'm worried about offending people so I'm just agreeing to this. He loves the fax machine, which I think is kinda weird/lame since you can totally just scan and email things now." seems pointless to me. I mean, you've said you're friends. You've said it out loud, into the e-universe. Putting in that sort of descriptor after the fact just makes you look indecisive. Or that you are a waffler. Perhaps even an indecisive waffler. But I may have a solution.

I think there should be a "sorta friends" option. As in, "I like this girl, we totally hit it off at that party, and I may want to ring her up at some point if I need to get a hold of several cases of soda at a hefty discount since she's a production coordinator, but I just don't know if I ever really want to speak to her again." And then maybe there should be an option to attach, like, a LOLKatz or something after to the announcement to the e-world that this new particular electronic umbilicus is now in place. So your peeps can know you're all fun like that.

Or maybe some sort of pull down for when you re-connect with people from high school. I mean, there's the obvious ones: "lab partner" or "drama club" or "unresolved homosexual affair". That sort of thing. We all think we were very special and noticeable in high school, but we must face the fact that it simply was a long time ago, and we may or may not remember each other exactly as we were, or how well we actually knew one another. Hindsight is not only 20/20, it also tends to be rosy. Unless you were one of those people who was totally unpopular and got teased all the time and had no friends, and in that case you aren't going to be adding a lot of people from high school anyway. But with my pull-downs (pul-downz? pds?) so much confusion and head-scratching can be avoided.

I need to think about this more, but the faxing guy just sent me a facebook email that I have to answer. Because we're "friends".

The problem with dating.

2008-09-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

Is - when you are a helluva lotta fun, you have to sit through HOURS of boring smalltalk when you would much rather be setting the tablecloth on fire, just to get a reaction.

Smallville

2008-09-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

I think this show, the whole time, has just been about Chloe. I like it.

Wasting time.

2008-09-23T08:28:00.001-07:00

Oof.

So, it's Tuesday morning. I don't feel *horrible*, so I think that the slight sinus infection might be leaving us. Would be nice.

Fall is coming, and soon. It was cold in my apartment this morning. I always feel like I am in some sort of Eastern Euro youth hostel in this apartment in the mornings during the fall and the winter. It's dark, it's cold, and someone is speaking Russian or Armenian outside. It will be fine. I want to move sometimes but the thought of the actual process makes me want to weep. I know I could get the time off from work to do it, I'm just talking about the boxes. Although... movers are hot. But there are no guarantees.

I am still trying to get out there and Date Aggressively. It is, as no one has EVER noted before, totally awful. I don' like people, I don't like leaving the house, and I certainly don't like going anywhere after work. So as dating requires all three of those things, I am pretty much screwed, and not in the fun way. Why do we do this? What is wrong with arranged marriage? Although I shudder to think what my friends would match me up with, especially if they were hungover or had had too much sugar.

I also seem to be growing some sort of beard. And people seem to be really responding to it. So we will keep it. Now I have to get in the shower and figure what I am going to wear today that is also presentable for dinner at The Ivy tonight. Sounds impressive, it's not. And I don't say that in a snarky way, just... it's not anything I care too much about anymore. I've already begun to feel that Summering Housewife ennui setting in. I don't have the money or position to justify it, and we are now in the wrong season. It's the emotional equivalent of white after Labor Day. Once again I must settle down and accept the fact that, for the most part, all I want to do is sit on the beach with my friends and talk about inane things all day long. I think it's simply going to have to be the goal that I work towards. Everything else is just a means to an end.

Sex In The City

2008-09-16T10:32:00.000-07:00

I think SATC did a major disservice to the world: it reassured broken and unattractive people everywhere that love is possible.

:)

It's Autumn

2008-09-02T11:23:00.000-07:00

And I just got crabby for no apparent reason. Well, I actually think it's my sinuses.

I'm dealing with the weirdest thing ever, i.e. my script is getting lots of positive feedback, overwhelmingly so, but for whatever reason it makes me pissy. I think I am having the reaction of "if everyone likes it so, why hasn't it been bought???"

Meh.

My diet has also completely gone to crap. Meh meh.

New FAVE song not on itunes.

2008-07-31T10:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.spin.com/reviews/new-cold-war-kids-mp3-something-not-right-me

Earthquake!

2008-07-29T12:28:00.000-07:00

My first big one. I thought it might be the after-effects of long trm narcotics usage but it actually happened.

Back to expenses. Sigh.

And now...

2008-07-23T18:02:00.000-07:00

The fire is out.

It's hot.

2008-07-16T15:08:00.001-07:00

I want to drift around my apartment while "Goldfarb's Record" from the Klute soundtrack plays on a loop. You know what I mean.

Tonight.

2008-07-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

A fire finally burns on the horizon.

What the hell am I doing?

2008-07-08T10:43:00.000-07:00

I'm in that discombobulated state - again - where I have literally no idea where to begin with all the crap I have to do. Meanwhile, I age.

Work. Or, Work!

2008-07-02T09:35:00.000-07:00

Driving in my car (take me out, tonight) I was struck by some thoughts as I was passing that giant ugly Universal Amphitheater sign.

In order for us to do Good Jobs, we have to approach everything we do from 9 to 5, or 8 to 7, as if it is just as meaningful as the things we do for ourselves on our own time. At least for me, I think it will be the only way to get things done well. I suppose this is what it means when people talk about "owning" things or "getting their arms around" other things. The latter string of words falls squarely into a category that I have ranted on here about before. That phrase though is quite interesting because it calls to mind the concept of incoporation, actually putting an idea or task right next to or even inside your body, with perhaps even some sort of Capitalist undertones. Instead of hugging a person that we love to our collective breast, we are supposed to hug tight a concept, or a task, or series of tasks.

So, in other words, I'm supposed to press a meaningless task to mySelf and then I'm a good person/worker. Isn't that counter to every psychological professional's insistence that we must maintain strong boundaries? Am I wrong people?

Well, shame is a motivator.

2008-07-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

It's been four months since I've written anything here. So sorry.

A lot has been happening.

I seem to be in the middle of a mid-life crisis, which is not terrible, but seems to be visting earlier than it visits most. Since we only have our 3 score and 10 according to the Bible, and my birthday just past, I am apparently I am smack dab in the middle of it all now. I did the Camp Pendleton Mud Run, and I didn't do too bad, thank you very much. Something about finishing that race, which I had built up in my own mind as being such a major deal, seems to have set off other things in my head. I am sort of more "active" in general, and am now training for a 5k. It's half the length of the Mud Run, and does not involve swimming across a river, so I think it will be fine. Started the official training program for it last night, and my main complaint about it is what I have about running in general, i.e. it bores me. I think I will get over it eventually. I'm also considering (quite seriously) going out for a gay rugby team. I'm thinking they will be welcoming. From what I can see from Facebook, they really like talking about rugby. Justin, of course, played at Emory and wants me to ask them about "shooting the boot" or some such, which sounds more than a little filthy to me, so I am more than happy to do so.

And then there's marriage. Apparently I can do so now if I want to. Suddenly the urge for mating has become, well, urgent. A phantom uterus has begun to tick. Loudly. Desire for 3 bedroom home with two and half baths is becoming an obsession. This is also precipitating a scrutiny of my career path. Although I do not condone shortcuts in life, I am beginning to wonder if some adjustments in direction need to made (and soon) if I really want to be hanging out with some toddlers by the time I am in my early 40's. The idea being that they are my toddlers, not someone else's. Of course, all of this has nothing to do with getting married per se, but it seems to be connected in my mind.

Am I more conservative than I think?

Thoughts on Stuffwhitepeoplelike.

2008-02-25T18:07:00.000-08:00

OK, so this blog - stuffwhitepeoplelike, link to the right of the page - seems to be getting a lot of press. A LOT. I happen to think it's fantastic and funny, and some people are tone-deaf enough to think it's racist. I'm writing an entry about it here because I've been too damn lazy to think of anything to write about here, so now I am blogging about a blog, which makes me so meta and insane that it does not bear thinking about. People (mostly whites) are getting LIVID over this blog, and the great fun it has at poking at the media-class of white people. I call it the media class because inevitably the people it is poking fun at work in some sort of media. Like I do. I don't find it offensive, I find it fun. And it's not done in a mean spirit, just a terribly accurate one. Light-hearted fun aside, it definitely seems to be providing a much needed social service, that being getting people to talk about Whiteness in the first place. I encourage all five of my readers to check it out and to vigorously defend it in the comments section, which read like some rant area of a white supremecist site.

Golden Lights...

2008-02-13T11:28:00.000-08:00

I'm wondering if these days Brangelina are the closest thing we have to Liz Taylor and Dick Burton.

I miss movie stars.

Thought for the Weekend.

2008-02-01T17:42:00.000-08:00

Remember kids, as we all get drunk and have sex with strangers during the superbowl weekend, we should remember one thing.

If you end up in an apartment where the decorating scheme is entirely beige, cream and/or white, that person is a total asshole.

Shoplifters of the World, Unite etc.

2008-01-25T11:10:00.001-08:00

Beyond gross.

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-rove0125.artjan25,0,5662543.story

2008-01-10T07:50:00.000-08:00

Stop me If You've Heard This One Before.

2008-01-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

So back to this. Have a cold. At least, I’m fairly reassured it’s a cold after talking to Saas yesterday. Since she has all the same symptoms I do, including the waking in the middle of the night, we’ll accept it as a cold, and not AIDS. Unless it is the airborne variety, finally.

Realizations are unfortunate. Especially when I have one where I see a picture of me and realize I look like an overweight lesbian American history professor. Most unfortunate. I bleached some of my dishes and cups yesterday, to kill whatever lingering mildew crap was living on them and in them, let’s hope it doesn’t kill me. Now, everything faintly has the taste of cleaning solvent, but if it doesn’t kill me I’m not sure I care.

I long to retire to a French farmhouse and to type while overlooking a field of lavender or some such. I suppose I need to become a writer before that happens. Supposedly, I am a writer now and must keep in that mindset.

When I examine this high school playlist of mine on itunes, I’m struck at just how much Smiths there is on it. I guess I really was rabidly into the band. It’s interesting considering I didn’t listen to any male singers really. New Order was acceptable, but they were ultimately a dance band, and whenever Thurston sings for Sonic Youth it doesn’t really count somehow – sort of like Richard Carpenter. Somehow I don’t think Thurston would be surprised by nor mind the comparison. But Morrissey, oh Morrissey. To die to by your side, indeed. The thing is, I’m not sure he’s that pleasant. In fact, I would be rather shocked if he was pleasant. Between the open hostility to immigrants, hip hop, and all the other crap, I’m not really sure he’s exactly my cup of tea. He doesn’t seem to mind his army of latino fans, which is sort of interesting. I mean, here in LA, he has a massive, MASSIVE Latino fan base, and I’m sure some of them are the children of illegals. I guess he doesn’t mind the money. Or more to the point, it’s not an issue for him because they have not immigrated to England, just here to California. But I’ve thought he lived here for decades. Or is that Johnny Rotten? It’s difficult to keep the posturing Brits separate in your head after a while.

Christmastime is here...

2007-12-21T10:31:00.001-08:00

Well, one more year is practically done. I guess that's OK. One more year closer to death, etc. I just want to sit in my apartment and play with my new Airport Extreme with the wireless hard drive thing. All of a sudden three hundred cds that were not on my ibook are now available to itunes again, so a retro record-party was in full swing last night at the Franklin Allure. Also, I may do something crazy like tell the computer to wake me up in my bedroom with the Photek remix of Bjork's "Immature." He blended it with Kenzo Kawai's theme from "Ghost in the Shell" and it's sort of amazing and I forgot a) how much I like it, and b) how weirdly in step the two songs are in terms of theme. The sum of the parts does in fact surpass the pieces on their own.

We are now entering fifth month of relationship-land, and I guess that's OK. It's just been a while since I have been here, and I'm not sure what to do when I get what I want. My first impulse is to smash it, detonate some sort of nuclear device, then light my cigarette off of the burning embers and turn to camera and say "I told you this was going to happen, so I don't want to hear any whining."

Hot Damn!

2007-12-12T10:22:00.001-08:00

I now have four, count 'em FOUR, confirmed readers! You all know eachother, but I think that's enough people to start a fan site for me. Just sayin'.

No, I'm not pregnant.

2007-12-10T08:14:00.000-08:00

But I am late these days. Chronically late. Hmm. In light of recent scandals caused by computers in my life, my reluctance to go anywhere really isn't that hard to figure out, I think.

Yes, this is what I want for Christmas.

2007-11-29T12:46:00.000-08:00

Camera.

And I want lenses too. Snap to it.

Hmm.

2007-11-29T10:42:00.001-08:00

I don't have a set agenda for today, and facebook is now unavailable to me. Outrageous. "Site maintenance." Site Maintenance? Screw you! I need to be able to waste hours and hours at work when I should be taking advantage of my employer in other ways, like writing on the job or shopping for Yo Gabba Gabba toys! How dare you! Terrible. Typically undependable.

I've been eating immense amounts of junkfood in the past few days. My excuse? I am sick, so therefore I should be able to eat what I want and it will make me feel better. Maybe cutting back on the smoking would help me get over the cold, but that's crazytalk from doctors and other such untrustworthy people.

From an Email Tirade to Justin.

2007-11-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

I've been faced with ennui, and my mounting frustrations in dealing with it. My problem is that my old strategies of dealing with it have left me with only one recourse - talking myself out of it by believing in what I am doing and getting back to writing and film-making, etc.

Barf. The email I am cutting and pasting below outlines my dilemma.

-----Original Message-----
From: Morgan, Tony (XXXXXXXX) [mailto:tony.morgan@XXXXXX.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 12:32 PM
To: Justin XXXXXXX
Subject: RE: Thursday

It's work, and life that's making me so. Normally, when I was either a
teen or a freelancer as an adult, these were my boredom-reducing
options:

1) Pick up an addiction! Super-easy, and totally diverting. Provides a
center/goal to focus on. And it's always about the short-term immediate
gratification, which is great. It started with smoking, and I moved on
from there to other things. I've been appallingly responsible for four
years now.

2) Find someone to obsess over who will not pay attention back, thereby
creating the need to create schemes/plans to win affection! This will
also incorporate elements of general pining and mix-tape making! An
oldie, but a goodie. Clearly, this is something that I had perfected
back in the day. But it's not always the other person getting in the
way, sometimes there are exciting, exterior and possibly even political
factors at play. For example, I had months of spinning over the Serb
when he had to leave NYC because he had to return to grad school, but
then there was the time we thought he was going to be deported back to
Yugo-land in the middle of the Kosovo War, etc. I was ready to go with
my clapboard suitcase to smuggle him back out of the country. But then
he got a job at Levi's doing financial models so nothing happened.
Boooooring. Anyway, There have been zillions of these fellas - either
they live in London, aren't over their ex(es), are way too damaged for
anything long-term, etc. Now (XXXX) has come along and completely
demolished this standby-of-standbys. He calls every night to talk, but
not too long. He brings donuts on Sunday morning because he knows I like
them. Granted, he also knows that a bitch is way more tractable when
powdered sugar levels are elevated, so there are his own interests at
play as well, but I definitely respect the strategy. He also tells me
every now and then, but not so much as to feel fake or gratuitous, how
totally hot he thinks I am. And again, I feel I must mention the
spontaneous calling on his part. So... that whole thing is chucked out
the window.

3) Find an abusive/horrible job sitch! Everyone is nice to me here,
likes me, and my boss just took me to a $900 dinner at the Wolfgang Puck
steakhouse in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Blah. I do recommend the Kobe
beef sashimi, however.

4) Television is the best zoning out tool ever! Except when you are too
tired to watch it, and not even the pile of 200 or so DVDs in the living
room holds any attraction. Although I did watch Spiderman 3 last night
and I thought it was bizarre, and sort of an entertaining mess.

5) Read dense yet forgettable SciFi paperback novels with the door
closed while aggressively screening your calls! Again, a standby. But it
has lost its luster since I have realized I now live in my own apartment
and no longer need to hide from parents/roommates/the imaginary things,
etc. Plus my IQ has dropped since I moved to LA, so books are tiresome.
But I totally love the beach!

6) Go out clubbing a lot and get wasted! Turns out, we're old. I do not
recommend the moment when you realize you are dancing next to someone
who was born when we were in junior high, and "Love Shack" is a
retro-hit thing for them.

7) Feel crappy and obsess about lack of direction in career! Well AFI
nipped that in the bud, and even my experience last week as a sort-of
guest lecturer gave me a spark about the future. Plus I have Steven
Spielberg's direct line in my Outlook, so what the hell do I do with
that?

8) Write voluminous emails! Well, this one is still going on, clearly.

There's more, but I have to eat my breakfast that was delivered to me
and that I don't have to pay for.

Sigh.

Hmm.

2007-10-24T10:21:00.001-07:00

I think I'm a drug addict. Oh well.

I just don't have the math.

2007-10-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to wrap my head around Krasnikov tubes, as outlined in the Wikipedia, and I wish I knew more math.

Perez Hilton.

2007-10-17T14:44:00.000-07:00

You know, I read Perez. I shouldn't, but I do. I tell myself, and everyone else, that it's part of my job to be up on that stuff. I could get it from different places. Perez is just easier. And it's entertaining.

Except for one thing.

He hates Jennifer Aniston. With a passion. I happen to think she's great. I have absolutely no idea why I feel this way, since I do not know the woman at all. I actually thought "The Rachel" was hideous. But there was just something about her that I connected with. I don't think that's unusual since there about 200 million of us on the planet who also would like to pretend that she's our bestie of besties. I spoke briefly to her ex Vince Vaughan on the phone a month or two ago. He was calling about a non-Aniston related matter, but I was rendered speechless, mostly because all I kept thinking over and over was "He dated Jenny A!"

Last year, or possibly the year before, I emailed Perez to ask him why he hates Jen so. After some back and forth and wheedling on my part he said that it was because she wasn't nice to her fans. There was also some sort thing about how she doesn't smile, and is fake or something, i.e. pretends to be nice when she isn't. The proof of this, if my memory of the exchange is accurate, is that she doesn't smile a lot. At paparazzi. You know, the people who follow her around and stalk her while she's trying to live her life in Mailbu, or wherever.

Is it me, or does that seem weird? I've always imagined the real reason is that maybe a frothing Perecito got a little too up in L'Aniston's grill at some party or event, and maybe she read him the riot act. Or, more than most likely, politely ignored him and moved away quickly. This would, understandably, lead to a crushed homosexual fan. Again, I have no basis for this imaginary scenario. Totally my conjecture. But doesn't it make sense? "Not nice to her fans." Perhaps one fan in particular?

The reason why any of this even came up was because of a post I just read on PH's blog - this one about Britney Spears. Apparently, Britney is also terrible. She uses drugs, she neglects her kids, she's unprofessional. In other words, she's like most people who has ever worked as an entertainer in this town. I'm not offering any excuses for Louisana's greatest export or her behavior, but the constant shock people express in regards to her exploits simply boggles the mind. It's as if we are all involved in some sort of internet role-playing game based on "The Scarlet Letter." At least in terms of the tone of our judgement of her for her crimes, if not for the actual crimes itself. Perez has had strong words for Britney in the past few weeks, mostly condmening. But the post I read today sort of irked me. In it, Perez is plugging an interview that Rolling Stone did with him, and in it he talks about how he now feels about her Britness:

"I feel lied to and cheated, like that girl I used to know and love wasn’t the real deal. It was all an act. And this is the real Britney. And the real Britney is stupid. Like stupid stupid. A dumb, druggie, awful bitch.”

You knew and loved? In what context? A few videos on TV and a snake dance on the VMAs? Perhaps they hung out, and did Webkinz together, I'm not sure. I know I like Webkinz, and would probably enjoy doing them with Britters. But I digress. But do try the Tile Towers game. Super fun. OK, anyway, he's plugging this interview RS did with him in his own blog. He has achieved a certain level of celebrity that no gossip reporter has ever achieved, perhaps eclipsing even the legendary Hedda Hopper. He is a perfect match for our current celebrity culture - fast, brash, and clearly he eats poorly. He makes no apologies for his brand of viciousness, and the irrefutable evidence (at least in terms of measured mouse clicks) is that we want him for his viciousness. He is one of the more visible symptoms of where we are as a culture. A rather not nice place.

He's not totally awful though. He's brought a lot of great music to the masses, and I know I love Leona Lewis because of him, and Paul Potts as well. I guess what seems funny to me about Perez is something that no one has brought up, even though it sticks out like his pink hair:

Has anyone else noticed he has one of the most ridiculous Madonna/Whore complexes of all time? I mean, I was raised Catholic, I get it. Once someone falls off the pedastal, they are terrible and dirty. In psychological circles, the more advanced cases of this little problem can be symptomatic of a little problem called Borderline Personality Disorder. I'm not saying PH has such a disorder, I'm not his shrink. Not sure if he has one, even. A shrink or a disorder. But this constant admiration then followed by demolition of women really makes me a little uncomfortable. And the beating he gave Rumer Willis over her appearance? Or countless other women? And the fact that he insists on rating celebrties' wardrobes when he dresses himself like a psychodelic Cuban smurf is kind of funny. And on that tip, the whole "Hilton" of it all is sort of creepy, ultimately. I mean, he's an overweight sort of self-hating latino gay guy who has created an identity around a name that is simultaneously derived from the name of one of the whitest people around - the heiress Paris Hilton - while it is also pointing at him as a presumably inferior copy. I mean, if you are going to imitate an heiress, I'd say go with Patty Hearst, but that's just my taste in law-breaking socialites. I wonder if the adoration/misogyny problem is rooted in his being Cuban. Anyone who knows more about that sort of thing want to weigh in?

There's more to this rant, but I'm going to eat an apple and think about Jenny A. some more.

I do think Perez might be onto something when it comes to Gwyneth, though.

1234...

2007-10-11T11:37:00.000-07:00

You know what? No one is trustworthy and everyone is fucking terrible.

I may just stop dating and go into hiding.

A fatal error.

2007-09-20T12:17:00.000-07:00

Never mistake a sphinxlike silence for sophistication when it just might be someone calculating their next move. Don't delude yourself that just because someone isn't immediately asking you about personal matters in order to satisfy their own prurient interests that they are not waiting for the exact time your guard is down to sneak in a seemingly innocuous inquiry. For whatever reason, this day and age of instant communication seems to have engendered a society where the exchange of information has become as precious a commodity as it was in pre-Revolution France. We are all now constantly milling about in that hall of mirrors, waiting to get near an orange tree and see what the news is.

The Polite Frenzy of Whiteness.

2007-09-16T13:57:00.001-07:00

I just don't know if there is any other way to describe the spastic convulsions we all silently go through to belong.

Travelling.

2007-09-03T07:29:00.000-07:00

OK, once again I am writing this from an airport as I get ready to wing my way home to Los Angeles. In this case I am writing to you from the Jet Blue terminal at JFK. I would have typed something from Logan but that was just too damn early in the morning. I am wondering how long I am going to stay awake on this plane. My money is on not very long. I am apparently flying into an oven - weather reports that I have been reading sy that the weather has been around one hundred degrees. I think I might just splishsplash in the pool when I get back to the apartment, and then sit in my bedroom with the curtains drawn and the ac on. I should go to the gym and exercise, but I have to be honest and say that that holds no interest for me whatsover.

I did have a generally nice time at home, but I think that the three day rule really should be observed from now on. i have noticed that the time with the family is much less stressful if I just keep it short. That way the hurtful comments can be kept to a minimum on both sides.

Had a nice time at the beach yesterday with Jenn and the kids. We are approaching our mid 30's and those other grown up people down the beach is us. Kind of shocking. 40 looms close and heavy. Granted I have years more to go before I get there, but I am beginning to wonder what I will have to show for myself once I get there. And then it's 50 and then I think you don't care that much anymore. We will see.

Dumb it down. Or rather, be smarter.

2007-08-30T10:49:00.000-07:00

Oh, America.

A holiday weekend is fast upon us again. I spent time packing this morning, since I couldn't be bothered last night. I've developed a new habit - whenever I leave town I clean my apartment. I like to come home to clean carptets, apparently.

In other news, the pilot seems to have made it's way out into the Universe, and has possibly now croaked. I'm of mixed feelings about that. I'm thrilled to bits that it got done, and real proud that it even got read by people out there, and we got some good feedback. The problem is is that the good feedback is almost entirely from people who are not "in the business" per se, but rather other writers, or just of an intellectual bent. One exec and a reader really liked it, and some other peoples gave good feedback, but many of the executive types who read the script were less than ga-ga over it. A learning curve is had. I mean, it's nice and all that other smart people love it and think it's great, but I want a check in my hand. And an agent. I suppose these things come in time, and the Universe wants me to keep at it for a little while longer, etc.

Whatever. Am I really getting on a plane tonight? Ugh.

Meh.

2007-08-28T15:14:00.001-07:00

Meh meh meh.

Oy.

2007-08-21T15:14:00.000-07:00

Hey kids:

Sorry it's been so long. Saas and I were busting our humps to get the pilot done. We did. I think I have another sinus infection, possibly caused by the face plant I did at Zuma two weeks ago. Oh, body surfing, you seem so fun until you are not.

Caliphate.

2007-08-12T09:30:00.001-07:00

I don't the idea. Not one bit. Why are all those women wearing wimples? Isn't it hot?

Uh Oh Part Deux

2007-07-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

So now it's possible that the tonsils are a way for HIV to enter the body?

Everyone I know is screwed. Again.

Hot.

2007-07-22T19:22:00.000-07:00

I think I actually got heatstroke wandering around today. Yikes. Going to work on pilot with Saas over the phone in a bit. Currently in Laundry hell. I'm ready for the hsoue in the suburbs with the washer dryer upstairs and the central air, please and thanks.

I'm sorry.

2007-07-17T15:20:00.000-07:00

It's been quite some time since I have posted anything on here.

The dieting continues apace, and I am losing weight. I should be where I want to be by the end of the year. Just in time for the holidays to set me back a whole bunch.

I am adjusting to the lower calorie input, which means I am overdoing it with the coffee because I am sleepy. It's a bad cycle, and I am going to need to switch back to decaf for a bit. Hellish, but it's what needs to be done.

In other news - still in love with the past, and waiting for it to materialize like a genie from a bottle or some such. With the haze of happiness that food causes lifted away, you can see much more. And a lot of it it not nice.

I'm overfull.

2007-07-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

OK, so I have now eaten all of my alloted calories for the day. It's 4:30pm. There's a lot of time ahead of me. This means a piping hot bowl of icebeg lettuce with an extra scoop of anger on the side for dinner tonight. I'm not sorry; I wanted that pizza.

This brings me to think about other areas of my life that I binge/overindulge in. The foremost being the life of memory. Just a few entries ago I was waxing on about how memory cannot be trusted, and this is true. But memory, or at least the memory of emotions of the past is a tempting place to wander through. Or, not so much as wander through as to explore and then inhabit. If one is not careful, that is.

I find myself turning into a bit of a cliche these days. After watching "The Boys in The Band" again I am reminded that it all has, in fact, been said already. Most of it has been said already in alternatively hilarious and annhilating dialogue, delivered with timing that could only be beaten by a bitchy atomic clock. I also wonder if people have figured out that TBITB is actually the template for that other gay ur-text, "The Golden Girls."

Love is on the mind always. Love is the root of all evil. Sounds harsh, and a bit sophomoric, but what evil under the sun was not perpetrated by someone enraged by not getting what they wanted? The money, the girl, the guy, the whatever. All anger comes from unrequited or refused love. The latter of the two kinds of love is so much more damaging than the first, I think. Nothing is so nullifying as to be told that not only are you not loved back by the one you love, but your love itself is quite simply uninteresting in the first place. It does not even bear consideration. The ego rages to Heaven at the injustice. It should be enough for you - that I want you. The infant knows no other way. Just ask Orlando. Or me.

I've had my fill today, indeed.

Wait For The Second Entrance.

2007-06-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

Click here and see what showmanship is about.

The Mundane.

2007-06-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

It's all over the internet today. A giant man killed his wife, his child, and then himself. In the family home. It's absolutely horrifying. And, I think, something that lives in the back of all of our minds. It's like the Shining, except that it happened. Was there a struggle? Or merely cowering in fear? Was the event that caused the chain of events something small or something big? A moment in line for coffee and wondering what it was all about anyway? The futility of the driveway crashed over his head like an asphalt wave?

There is a darkness in every home.

Cozy And Cold, Put The Horse Before The Cart.

2007-06-25T16:28:00.000-07:00

Memory, at best, is a tricky thing.

I am dieting again. This is not anything newsworthy for the people who read this occasionally. I guess I should not call it a diet as much as it is "a change in lifestyle" etc. Gross. I had to eat another apple since I was getting hungry and did not want to dive headfirst into the bowls of candy that are strewn about here like so many gastronomical landmines. It's quarter to five and all I want to do is go home and sleep. I should get back to work on the book though. The reason why I think memory is a tricky thing is because whenever I eat an apple, it makes me feel slightly cleaner, which makes my body remember what it is like to be younger. And all the recollections that go along with that. Whether or not these recollections are to be trusted is another matter entirely.

Because I was reading a blog.

2007-06-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

There is nothing to make fun of if someone lives their life with sincerity.

Time goes by. So slowly.

2007-06-19T12:07:00.000-07:00

Kids:

We are a few days into our calorie counting. I am using fitday.com to track my eating. I tried the google calorie counter for two days but found it to be not so great. Not enough food items and I felt like I was clicking a lot for nothing. Fitday seems to be more comprehensive, and oddly entertaining. At least, I like the rush one gets when being controlling.

Meanwhile, I am adjusting to lower calorie intake, and am sleepy. Sleepiness might be a result of the immense amount of caffeine I am putting into myself.

Blech.

2007-06-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

In order for me to hit my goal weight, and in order for me to ditch the pounds I have piled on for the last three years, I am going to have to count calories. I can't count to 10 let alone add numbers. Disgusting.

Habits Appear So Quickly.

2007-06-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

It seems I turn to this before I start working on "The Weight of Rain." At least, that's its working title of the moment. When it was going to be a screenplay it was called "becoming." And the little "b" was used purposefully. I've just recieved a book written by Robert Harwell Fiske about overused words and turns of phrase. Flipping through, I can see that it's opinionated to the point of possible militancy, but having definitely feelings about something is definitely prefarable to wan, flaccid mealy-mouthing.

However, I wonder if I do read the whole thing, it will be another example of one angry white man telling the world what to do and think. It smacks a bit of that committee that meets in France to stabilize the French language, or at least attempt to. One of the joys of the English language as a work of interactive mental technology is its inherent ability to adapt and change. Quickly. Most certainly I am not proposing the inclusion of new words into the lexicon only on the basis of newness or faddishness - my previous rants here about businesspeak illustrate that - but our mother tongue's ability to consume and incorporate foreign terms and new ideas make it the Borg of languages. I like that.

Oh, For the Love of God...

2007-06-11T15:13:00.000-07:00

Just go here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9oxTy7KIAaA

And then we're all going to run away and live in mad passion in Italy.

When You Were Mine.

2007-06-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

It's a good song, no?

It's bopping about my head these days. Well, not really days as much as this morning. I'm sitting at my desk, and thinking about the now novel. We had a delightful time at Zuma this Saturday. We being Richard, Betty Ann and I. We made the delightful discovery that beach chairs do indeed provide a whole new level of enjoyment for the beach. Then there was the "Evan Almighty" premiere yesterday, which was fun and they had pigs-in-a-blanket at the party after so I was really happy with that.

There is a Light That Never Goes Out.

2007-06-07T11:30:00.000-07:00

And that light is the hope of continued weight loss.

I am wearing pants I have not been able to shimmy into for a year. It's a nice feeling. I celebrated by binge eating chocolate covered pretzels.

I am thinking, quite seriously, not just of My Darling but also of doing Barry's Boot Camp in August. Such masochism is extreme even for me, but I feel like it would be the kick in the pants to really put me over the edge into fitness, to the extreme. Monster Truck, etc.

What Goes Around...

2007-06-06T10:18:00.000-07:00

Very well.

So it seems I have discovered that my Southern-Gothic-but-in-New-England is transforming itself from a screenplay into a novel. As the story does not exist fully formed in either iteration is mostly irrelevant at this point; I feel the tightening grip of seriousness that I imagine swaddles a "novelist." It's like a very dramatic scarf - you love it, but there is no way you can avoid it being self-reflexively ostentatious at best, and merely showy at worst. I must confess that I do not find it disturbing as much as I find it familiar. Of course, I would like it to be a potboiler in a classic sense of the word - fun, entertaining, generating oodles of cash, etc. but I am concerned that because of the subject matter that people will make the mistake of calling it literary. If it must be categorized, let us put it into a new genre I propose here - the Homicidal Kitchen Sink Drama. I'm not quite sure of that category name yet, it's just not pithy enough to catch on as a cultural zeitgeist. I always have thought the key to establishing oneself as a dictator of The Zeitgeist is merely sitting back and uttering a zinger of a phrase, encompassing the work of others in a statement that only points to your own cleverness. Even disappeared from the quotation that becomes standard vocabulary, the inventiveness of the utterer is implicated. And in some unfortunate turns of phrase, the unseen utterer should be indicted. Recent examples would be words such as "steampunk" and "internet."

I suppose I should attend to my actual work, by which I mean what I am paid to do. But in all honesty, I feel like listless commentary really is my calling.

He said I just think you're depressed.

2007-06-04T12:53:00.000-07:00

This just blows the doors off of everything out there right now.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GgfrxZlrYR4

I actually think it's better than the album version. A little before the three minute mark she opens a hole in space and time with her voice and lets you glimpse Heaven for a glimmering, thrilling moment.

All Hail Diet Red Bull!

2007-05-30T10:03:00.001-07:00

Feeling much better today, and am drinking little cans of crack. It's my ritual whenever I have to do expenses.

Please cue "Windmills of Your Mind."

Happy Phantom.

2007-05-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

Ever feel like you're invisible? Or disappearing?

For some reason I am dealing with that today. Not really so much depressed as feeling like I am fading out. I suppose this light melancholy can be attributed to all the dreaded examination of old memories for something I am working on. I much prefer to keep it light and fun, but then the work does tend to feel a bit less sincere. Although I am not a strict believer in auto-biographical navel-gazing as the only way to write fiction, and I am not always on board with a hermeneutic reading of texts, there are just too many examples of writing being informed by actual author experience that it simply cannot be discounted as a methodology or practice, and it certainly cannot be dismissed out of hand as a way to interpret texts, even though some holdouts of the New Criticism would have it be so.

How about that for too many words to say one thing?

Lil' Player can't ever catch a break.

2007-05-28T09:45:00.000-07:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6698753.stm

Beach!

2007-05-26T13:26:00.001-07:00

We're at Zuma. Its everything we ever wanted it to be!

Meh.

2007-05-24T11:38:00.001-07:00

Not really much to report kids.

The Finer Things.

2007-05-22T12:14:00.001-07:00

Children of a Lesser God:

I am sitting at work, in that hazy space of not having anything immediately pressing down upon me workwise, so I find myself wondering what particular personal project I am going to tackle. I just finished reading about the Harvard Lampoon on Wikipedia, because apparently I needed to know about it. I've also eaten an apple, so I can check that off the list. I've scheduled myself for another piece of fruit in early '09.

I went to the premiere of "Knocked Up" last night and I do have to say that it is a terrifically funny movie. And Leslie Mann, as the sister of K. Heigl, really did make me laugh, and mostly because I saw a lot of myself in that character. Angry, but mostly because of a frustrated need to love. Or angry because she just loves so intensely and strongly. Maybe both? That's a bit personal for these pages, I'm sure, but I am slightly over-tired and full of OTC cold medication so I can say what I want.

I need to work on the "Teen Southern Gothic but set in New Enlgand" movie, and then I need to write a few novels. Looking at the Lampoon page and eating an apple has made me feel homesick again for the fall days of Massachusetts, a feeling I never once had before. It's odd to think you can miss weather, but there it is.

I just don't know what to say about this.

2007-05-21T10:10:00.001-07:00

http://www.callcentermagazine.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=194500022

I was given this page as a search result for something else I was looking up. I think it fits in very nicely with my whole thing about how I loathe how Business usurps language to try to make itself seem interesting. People with average IQs with unfettered access to a Thesaurus, etc.

Dating...

2007-05-17T09:37:00.000-07:00

... is for special people.

Ugh.

2007-05-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

New glasses are making me barfy.

I've never noticed the birds on that sci-fi channel promo bumper before.

2007-05-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

New glasses! New glasses! Correct prescription! I'm so blind without them it's terrifying!

They look exactly the same as my old glasses, except these are the teensiest bit larger and cost money.

In the meantime, everyone has the new Feist record, right? It's the only way to escape the computer-drawn parallelogram of desperation that is your life, so get it already.

Uh-oh.

2007-05-10T17:31:00.001-07:00

Oral sex gives you cancer. Everyone I know is doomed.