May 31st, 2005

In one week I have been up for two jobs where they wanted people who wrote just like Sex and the City. I’ll be honest with you. Although I am sure people who read my stuff think it is very much in the vein of that show, I hated that show. I did not get either job.

Anyway, for the past year one of those companies keeps threatening to hire me for different jobs that end up either disappearing or going to other people. But not before I am strung along for months before I hear the “no”. I now know when they call that the job won’t end up happening but I pretend for their sake that I think it will. I figure it’s better than laughing outright and saying, “This job sounds great but we both know it’s either not going to happen or I’m not going to get it, so let’s save us both the trouble and forget it.” Why rob them of the string along? About a month ago they first brought up the idea of the latest job. I met with the people there for the fourth time. We played our usual parts. They all said how much they want me to do it. I said I was available (for a fictitious job). (I whispered the last part.) Then I didn’t hear from them. Then a couple weeks later one of the people called me and said in a rushed tone, “Can you go to Italy on Wednesday?” I said sure. They are heightening their fictitious job offer appropriately and I appreciate that for the sake of humor. I will play along and agree to go as if it is a real possibility. Next time I hope they offer me my own private maid service, or at least ask if I might be available if a maid were to wait on me. So two Wednesdays roll by and I am still decidedly in New York City. B train still not running on weekends? Yup, still in NYC. Then today as I’m finishing an errand I get a call from the company. “The Italians want to speak to you in an hour.” Well I have not looked at this material in two weeks as I assumed the job was up in smoke or at least flew off with another writer to Italy. Then he tells me more. “They really want someone from Sex and the City, but they don’t know if they want to pay that much. So right now they are speaking with a writer from Sex and the City. Then at 11:30 they will speak to you.” I have to tell you I am not the kind of person who gets energized by talking to people who clearly see me as the lesser version of what they really want. Especially when they are talking to the person who they really want right before me. This does not bring out the “I’ll prove to you how great I am!” in me. It brings out the, “Oh God don’t make me go through this. Just take her! We both know you want her!” in me. So I am nervous not because I even really want the job, but because I can’t get past the fact that everyone knows they don’t want me. I try very hard to imagine a scenario where I don’t lead off our phone call saying that and it only makes me more nervous because I know I can’t say that without looking insane. Then a half hour goes by and I’m not nervous anymore, I’m getting kind of sleepy. Ten more minutes go by and I’m really thinking about taking a nap. Ten more and I resist the nap and wonder what TiVo is taping for me. Sabrina the teenage Witch again? I mean okay TiVo between you and me I like that show, but not enough to tape it three times this week. Another ten and I try and get Oakley to pay attention to me. When I realize I am demanding my cat to pay attention to me I decide I should just call them. The guy answers. “Oh. God, I’m sorry. I guess the phone call went well with the other woman. They went with Sex and the City.”

If I had a nickel! (I’d have a dime. At least this week.) Well I got my wish, I didn’t have to go through with it! I can’t wait for that imaginary maid to come by. This place is a mess.

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May 29th, 2005
pluggity pluggity

I don't often (ever) use my blog to plug my shows, but I have two coming up that I want people to come to and I have a sneaky feeling no one actually reads the performance page! (I wouldn't either, let's face it.) So Wed. June 1st at 9:00 Stickerbook is playing CBGB's. During our last show in Williamsburg as I was singing Here I Go Again by Whitesnake I actually thought to myself, "How the hell did I get here?" And I can only imagine that feeling will be tenfold when I am singing on the stage of CBGB's. It's very exciting!
And then on June 17th and 19th I will be in the show Mortified. I'll be reading from my actual diary when I was eleven years old about my plan (complete with diagrams) of how to break into the Knicks' locker room so I could meet them. I had plotted out entry ways and janitor exits with authority even though I had of course never actually seen the Knicks' locker room. It should be fun and ridiculous. Mortified, not breaking into Madison Square Garden. I'm performing with a lot of really funny people. So go to the performance page to get details if you are in town!

Also, for anyone who is interested the kittens I mentioned earlier survived and are getting homes! So that's great. This Friday I will be trapping more cats to be neutered to ensure that I am safely on the side of insanity.
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May 26th, 2005

Am I old fashioned or should a restroom be reserved for peeing and pooping? I just felt like a Sex and the City episode. I can hear Carrie Bradshaw asking that question in her breathy thoughtful tone. They should have done an episode exploring the complexities of that question and maybe I would have been able to stomach that show. Anyway I can’t tell you how common it is for me to use the restroom at work to find two or three people gathered around discussing things as if they were hanging out in their living room. I feel like I should apologize for interrupting them with my excretions. Why can’t they go out to the kitchen or the hall? There is also a woman who likes to nap in there. I’m not kidding. Okay, there is a couch, but I don’t think it was supposed to be taken seriously! It’s like a throw couch. Like, rest your things here but don’t get comfortable because hello? You’re in a toilet room! But no this lady likes to take her nap in there only you know she can’t really sleep. She’s hanging on your every tinkle and fart. Everybody take your napping and talking out of the bathroom! Let’s keep some things private!
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May 25th, 2005

I just saw this commercial, I don’t remember what it was for but I’m going to guess it’s for laundry detergent where the woman says, “My mother said always wear clean underwear in case you get hit by a bus.” I realize this is an old expression but I was struck when I heard it this time by how completely ridiculous it is. What I want to know is, what’s going on in that woman’s pants that when she is run over by a bus, people are grossed out by her underwear. Her legs are broken, brains splattered all over the place, but it’s her underwear that disgusts them.

In other news Oakley, the cat you never hear about, does not seem to be upset and I would even venture to say seems happier since Starks has gone. This has not stopped me from projecting that he is very depressed when he so much as meows in a way I think is different. “Oh, poor guy misses his brother! Did you hear that meow? I should stay home with him.” The truth is he is purring constantly and has stopped spending 90% of his time asleep. As I write this he is chasing a bug and running around like a kitten something I have never seen him do. If I find out Starks’ death was suspicious that cat is going to pay!*
*Just kidding!

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May 24th, 2005

I would love to take a break from dead cats, but I can't swing a dead cat without hitting one. I swear I'm not a crazy cat lady, but I just found out these cats I was going to go rescue to then neuter (the same place that last year I rescued kittens from) were poisoned, one of whom had kittens two days prior. Now it's a race against the clock or there will be a litter of dead kittens. Yay my blog!! It's so uplifting. Come here for your relief from an otherwise crazy world.

Speaking of a crazy world, Tom Cruise has lost his mind. He was on Oprah yesterday and TiVo did me the favor of taping it. I would love to give TiVo credit for taping it for comedic purposes, but whatever the reason I'm so glad it did because it was a laugh riot from beginning to end. Wow, is he nuts! I thought so years ago when I saw him on Barbra Walters and he couldn't stop laughing at every question, even those about his very recent divorce. But he is now so off his rocker it's undeniable. I love defamer.com and really they capsulated it better than I ever could with their photoblog of the appearance:
One more reason to love Defamer.

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May 23rd, 2005
In Memorium

As most of you know, unfortunately the hope for Starks was short lived. Well, I should say my hope was short lived. I actually think Starks is a lot happier now where he is and he got what he really wanted; peace. We had to put my sweet boy to sleep on Friday May 20th. I always said this journal wouldn't be personal and now it has suddenly gotten to be the most personal, but I couldn't not update everyone about Starks. I'm sure some people think I'm nuts, but that cat was and is more than a cat to me and I will miss him like crazy. Here he is doing my favorite thing in the world. (After this I promise not to be such a sentimental sap.)



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May 19th, 2005

It has been a very trying time, but it looks like there is hope for Starks. He is in the hospital which may sound awful but is actually a huge relief and sign of hope, so that’s an indication of how bad it has been. I realized before this whole thing that I was ridiculously attached to my cat, but these past few days made me realize that people ridiculously attached to their cats have nothing on me. I’ll show you attached! Panicking that nothing matters because your cat is sick? No? I didn’t think so! Ridiculously attached, please. I guess that's not a label I should be striving for. Oh well, it’s been more than 13 years in the making I can’t do much about it now. While at the vet Brett said I had a palpable “don’t fuck with me” energy. I can confidently say I have never in my life had a “don’t fuck with me” energy before. I’ve had a “I’m sorry, that’s my fault” energy, but never a don’t fuck with me one. I guess this whole thing has brought out the mama bear protective side of me.

On the plane Monday we had a moment where I experienced more turbulence than I ever had in my life. It was really scary. I immediately thought of Lost and looked at the people around me and realized if we ended up on a desert island it would be a group of the most curmudgeonly castaways. The couple next to me were fighting in a passive aggressive way, the stewards seemed like they thought they were too good looking to be there (they weren’t) and everyone seemed annoyed. The captain even said, “I know you don’t want to be leaving sunny California.” How does he know whether or not I want to be leaving sunny California? Maybe I want to leave sunny California! Maybe I like New York! Anyway, those other people were really curmudgeonly.

I’m feeling snarky enough to post! Yay!

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May 17th, 2005

I have been in California and came back to find Starks doing badly so I'm not going to write much. But I thought I should at least check in to say:
I love Dave Chappelle.
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May 12th, 2005

I realize all I talk about here is television, but you know what they say, “do what you love.” Actually Oprah said that on her show Monday, which is a perfect segue because TiVo, the greatest invention that ever was (inarguably) taped Oprah for me and who was her guest? Cesar Milan! My two favorite television personalities in one show! You could tell Oprah was a little resistant to Cesar’s ways at first, especially when he told her she wasn’t a leader. “I’m not a leader?” she said, and looked over at Stedman with the look my mother has given me most of my life. I like to call it her combo shock/I’m gonna puke/who the hell do you think you are, look. Of course my mother gave me that face when I would say something like, “Are we out of salt?” but that’s not the point. Cesar was brilliant, not backing down a bit saying, “You are a leader in the human world. In the dog world, you are a mom.” Oprah could not help but become a Cesar devotee and vowed to bring Cesar her new dogs to train as soon as she got them. My other favorite Cesar moment was when he told her that dogs don’t care about millions of dollars and fame. Oprah seemed to agree. That was after we saw a montage of pictures of her dog Sophie flying in Oprah's private jet and lounging around her estate with a baseball cap that said: O.
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May 9th, 2005

Last night I watched Grey’s Anatomy as I folded my laundry. Please put your jealousy of my exciting life aside for a moment because that is not the end of the story. I know it could be, but it isn’t. Although on a side note, I knew my life was really in need of an overhaul a few years ago when I woke up from having a dream that I was watching the Partridge Family and folding my laundry. There was nothing else happening in the dream. It wasn’t even a particularly interesting episode of the Partridge Family. I had no idea people actually dreamt monotonously until that moment.

Anyway back to the meat and potatoes of this post. The woman who I guess is the star of that show (it’s an ensemble, but she’s in a love triangle, so she must be the star) is so unbelievably boring it’s stunning. She’s so boring she becomes interesting because her lack of emotional reaction is distracting enough to make her compelling. And it was really highlighted by the fact that there were times that people had to respond to her after she supposedly gave them a wordless reaction. It was something like this:

Co-star: You are putting everything at risk.

Boring lady stares at her blankly.

Co-star: (as if she was given a look remotely expressing anything) Oh my God you’re falling in love with him!

Boring lady: I am not.

(I believe that she isn’t because she looks like she’s about to go into a coma, but it’s clear I’m not supposed to believe it.)

Co-star: (reacting as if she isn’t acting opposite a statue) Yes you are!

Really that co-star deserves some kind of award because she almost made me believe her co-star was making her feel something. Incredible! I of course still watched the entire episode.

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May 6th, 2005

I feel bad for the people who google the ivory beaked woodpecker and find my site expecting to get information. Not only did I say nothing about it aside from the fact that it made me cry but probably only because I was pre-menstrual, but I also mistakenly claimed that it was spotted in Kansas. It was actually found in Arkansas. Those two damn letters kept me from bonding with scientists! But now I look forward to those readers, because I can confidently educate them! Of course I realize if someone is bothering to google the ivory beaked woodpecker, there is no way they didn’t know that already and also now think I’m a jackass, but so what! Hello scientists! I still have a lab coat that I borrowed from the hospital so I could pretend I was a mad scientist while I sang Paranoid by Black Sabbath! We have a lot in common!
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May 5th, 2005

Starks is under the impression that I have asked him to wake me up every morning at 6:20 NO MATTER WHAT and to not stop meowing until I have physically gotten out of bed. I know that he is under this impression because he is such a great cat he would not do that unless he thought I had asked him to. I’ll just have a quick talk with him this evening to sort it out.

What follows is a conversation I had with a computer “tech” person earlier:

Me: I need the footnote to say “A” in one section and then “B” in another, but it says “A” in both sections.

Her: (as if she has solved my problem) It says A in all of them!

Me: (doing my best not to sound frustrated) Yes, yes, it does. I don’t want it to. I want it to say A in one and B in another.

Her: (Again, as if she has solved my problem): It’s in all of them!

Me: (Doing my best not to go over to her desk and strangle her) Yes it is. That’s true. The thing is, I don’t want it to.

Her: Oooh. (beat) Can you turn your computer off and on?

Me: (Trying not to kick something as this is always her solution) I can. I can. But I just turned it on, so I don’t think that’s going to help.

Her: Oh, okay. (beat) Can you turn it off and on?

Me: (Probably creating cancerous cells from the repressed anger) Okay. (I turn it off and on.) Okay, it works now.

I hate that it works! It shouldn’t work to just turn the computer off and on! She should know how to solve these problems in some way that’s much more complicated than that!

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May 3rd, 2005

It is impossible to say something to the lady that sits next to me without her feeling that she needs to solve the “problem” although 99% of the time, there is no problem. She answers any idle talk with, “I don’t know what to tell you.” It took me a week to realize I needed to stop talking to her. I don’t like feeling like I am constantly creating unsolvable conundrums for this lady.

Previous conversations:

Me: “I’m hungry.”

Her: “Did you eat breakfast?

Me: Yes, I’m just really hungry.

Her: I don’t know what to tell you.

Me: How about you just not tell me anything! There’s nothing to figure out here, I’m just hungry! (I didn’t really say that.)

Woman behind me: “I can’t run more than 10 minutes on the treadmill without getting winded.”

Her: “I don’t know what to tell you.”

Listen lady, she wasn’t asking you to tell her anything. She was just talking!

I also always know if something has upset her because she will start laughing uncontrollably. The amount of passive aggressive laughter in this place is startling. There’s almost no real laughter! Laughter has now become a grating sound to my ears! (Just here.) A guy came up to her yesterday and said, “May I borrow this book for a moment?” Intense laughter followed. “Go ahead!!” she said, followed by more powerful laughter. You would have thought her favorite comedian was giving her a private performance with the amount of laughter that followed, “May I borrow this book.” She was reminding me of the time I was seven and my mother took me to see Bill Cosby in Vegas and laughed so hard she fell out of her chair three times. (I just realized she may have been drinking.) I hope this lady next to me can laugh at things that don’t make her want to kill someone. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her because I knew she didn’t want him to borrow the book. Just tell him he can’t take it! Is that so hard? I don’t know what to tell her.

Does this entry make me sound like a horrible person? Don’t answer that. I’m saving cats all over the place, I’m not all bad!

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May 2nd, 2005

Holy crap. I just got an email that said I could receive $4,000 in cash by Fed Ex every two weeks! I could be a member of the upper middle class really soon! This is amazing. Apparently it’s some sort of online referral system (They didn’t get into what I would be referring people to, but so what, right?!) and they mentioned that “this system is red hot!” I can’t wait to be associated with something like that. It’s crazy how things just fall into my lap sometimes. Because THEN I got an email that said they were just giving away a cellular phone! To meI can also get glamour shots for Mother’s Day! (I don’t know why I want my mother to look glamorous, but okay.) Holy Christ I love America!
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