Hi. I am not out carousing or anything like that, so I can write this nighttime warning. I will be posting a very huge blog soon. You don't have to read it. It's an unfinished blog I meant to finish a year and a half ago. It has to go somewhere. So, it's going to go here. There, you've been warned.
1 1/2 weeks in Fremont, Seattle. It's hip, it's hot, it's totally different than where I was before. Not that I would know, really. See, I haven't been anywhere but my room since I moved. Well, my room, my car, and my job. But mostly my room. Mostly trying to get it perfect for the rest of the nesting season. Misery outside calls for coziness inside. And I think I've finally managed to situate every item in a manner that screams coziness. And loneliness. Sort of a cozy loneliness. Loco-zoniness in the Lone Cone Zone.
Wonder how long I'll wait before exploring my new hip hot neighborhood. Three months of hiding out alone in a suburban house has rendered me slightly wary of that big world out there. I
feel like a carmelite nun who's been mistakenly dropped off at Studio 54. Okay, era mixing there, but you get the point.
Baby steps? Should I take them in platforms? Okay, wait. I said no asking advice in 2009--even to a non-audience. It still weakens the blades of self authority.
Baby platforms it is. Next week. For sure. Next week I'm off work and can explore. Next week, I make my grand reentry into the world of comedy. Great. No, really. I'm excited. I'm as excited as a coke whore in a carmelite convent. That's not nice. Comedy is wonderful. It's me in comedy. I know, there's no me in...wait, yes there is. Oh, in fact that's what is causing prolonged distress. Is the absence of me in my comedy. I do general inauthentic comedy that I thought I was supposed to be doing. Or did general inauthentic comedythat I thought I was supposed to be doing. General generic inauthentic everybody comedy that made my soul feel like it had been dunked in a cold shit bath. I did it til my soul felt cold and shitty. Until I couldn't do it anymore. So I stopped. I needed off the train because I was sitting in the wrong seats. I had somebody else's tickets. I want my own tickets and I don't want to get on the train again until I find them. But I have to get on the train, with or without the tickets, to host a gig at a casino. A gig I'm sure will do anything but leave my soul feeling warm and shit-free. Or authentic.
Where is all the magique I thought would be wafting in the air come the new season?!! That's what I took the break for, dammit. Why I jumped the train. And I said I wouldn't return until the spark seized me, until my voice bellowed from deep inside me, until I would be seized by a new and fierce confidence that would enable me to storm the page and the stage with the force of a thousand warriors!!!! And I was pretty damn sure this would be starting to seize me by late January--early February. I was sure. But, alas. Here it is. February 10th. And I'm still unenthused and anxiety-ridden and low self-esteemish and generally feeling unready to storm anything. And I still feel like I have somebody else's tickets.
I know. Make the magique. Yes, I am trying to embrace positivity as a tool. I believe it's working. All I can do is keep going.
This has been too much of a belly-button gazing session. Alas. But do heed the warning and skip the next post if you're not much of a reader. You'll never forgive me otherwise.
God bless you. Stay authentic. Make magique.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
countdown to relative independence/fearfest
i've got a day and a half left in my grandmother's house. holy hell, i want to leave immediately now. i'm thinking of moving over to the new location and just camping out until they open the gates and let me in. that might not be the best way to introduce myself as a roommate. but, hell. my uncle moved in here today. he has to move into town for business reasons and has decided moving into his childhood home is the way to go. he apparently couldn't wait the two extra days until i left to undertake this residential transfer. this is my weird uncle who prances around covered in eggshells and grouch glitter. he's "demommifying" my grandmother's room, he says. it creeps him out to be in there (of course, there are three other rooms he could occupy, but...) .he's gonna' have to do a lot more than just change beds. what, with all the asian artifacts, silk drapes, old china dolls, and bottles of perfume that grace the transformed one's former boudoir, i would think any man would feel overwhelmed. he says changing the bed will do it. i think he should invest in some girls-on-cars posters, a bowflex machine, a beer cooler, and a console at the very least. whatever. not my biz.
i've been here a year and a half. more than that, actually. and its' time. it's been time.
it was great to get to know my grandmother better. i wasn't her favorite grandkid (even though i was her only one), but we did manage to come to a greater understanding of each other as people over the course of my stay. that's awesome and invaluable and something i am so grateful for. and, besides, i was wayward and needed some purpose in my life. it gave me purpose. now, however, i have to rediscover some purpose, some new purpose. yikes. i guess learning to live with strangers doesn't count? well, it might have to. it's at least going to feel like a grueling test of my human capacitites (what?).
i'm terrified. as ready as i am to crawl out of my primordial familial cave here, i can't help but feel like failure looms high and low. see, i just have so much to work against--ADD (acute), generalized anxiety, depression, avoidance personality disorder (maybe, diagnosed by a friend who's got it and maybe just doesn't want to be the only one), only child syndrome, co-dependency with two parents whom i also consider my children, and a desire to dance to youtube videos of bad 80's hair bands. i also like cabbage, and fear that this in conjunction with all the aforementioned may just be cause enough for the roomies to drop the social guillotine on me before the first month is up. and, on the other hand, what if i hate everything about them? i won't, i know, but...okay, this is all just dumb brainshit anxiety. i'll end. but i'll be tracking my trepidation in the coming weeks. and it won't be pretty.
should i get "cool food" so they think i'm hip and healthy? what if they hate health? how healthy do i play it to come off neutral?
nuts. i feel nuts.
i've been here a year and a half. more than that, actually. and its' time. it's been time.
it was great to get to know my grandmother better. i wasn't her favorite grandkid (even though i was her only one), but we did manage to come to a greater understanding of each other as people over the course of my stay. that's awesome and invaluable and something i am so grateful for. and, besides, i was wayward and needed some purpose in my life. it gave me purpose. now, however, i have to rediscover some purpose, some new purpose. yikes. i guess learning to live with strangers doesn't count? well, it might have to. it's at least going to feel like a grueling test of my human capacitites (what?).
i'm terrified. as ready as i am to crawl out of my primordial familial cave here, i can't help but feel like failure looms high and low. see, i just have so much to work against--ADD (acute), generalized anxiety, depression, avoidance personality disorder (maybe, diagnosed by a friend who's got it and maybe just doesn't want to be the only one), only child syndrome, co-dependency with two parents whom i also consider my children, and a desire to dance to youtube videos of bad 80's hair bands. i also like cabbage, and fear that this in conjunction with all the aforementioned may just be cause enough for the roomies to drop the social guillotine on me before the first month is up. and, on the other hand, what if i hate everything about them? i won't, i know, but...okay, this is all just dumb brainshit anxiety. i'll end. but i'll be tracking my trepidation in the coming weeks. and it won't be pretty.
should i get "cool food" so they think i'm hip and healthy? what if they hate health? how healthy do i play it to come off neutral?
nuts. i feel nuts.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
moving monday?
moving? 8 pm. sunday night. i just realized i don't work tomorrow-- a fact that would normally make me feel like i had beaten the system (should be spelled "cystem", huh?) again, but that today/tonight has me feeling like i've been given tickets to a gala event i don't have a ride to. see, i am moving. i'm moving out of my maternal mater's home into a house with three other people my (st)age. and i have paid the next month's rent for the beautiful room (in the house in the neigborhood that's so not like the sleepy hollow i currently reside in) and i had been planning on moving in the middle of the night as i would be working diurnally to save for further rent. but i'm OFF tomorrow. I have NOTHING ELSE to do tomorrow. I could SOOOO be moving my unnecessary mound of personals into the new space but.....no answer.
so, they either hate me already based on the last visit when i went to pay and pick up keys (yeah, i actually have the keys) and are just like NOOOO!!!! NOT A DAY EARLIER THAN WE SAID, or they are drunk (one is English and the other is from Idaho and the other is a musician and therefore a drunk so it's possible) or they are really enjoying the fact that my first and last months' is furnishing their meth lab supplies for the week and I'll never see them again, or i'm yet again being reminded of the fact that i am no way now how above Murphy's Law.
irony: i have spent three and a half months in my g-ma's house taking days off at will--especially mondays . tomorrow is supposed to be different. i need to work. i want to work. i can't work so at least i could do something useful with self other than v-teer like....move the shit i've ALREADY packed into my new room. screw it. but ...i've already done the depressed thing. i've done the monday altar to g-ma thing. done the help out the mailman by being here to actually hand receive the mail so his hands won't have to touch the cold mail slot thing. i've already done the oops drank too much on sunday night thing. i did the snow day thing. the mlk day/day before obamification of the country thing last week....i have no reason to stay here and hang out tomorrow. i need to make it a day of action. i need...to MOVE goddammit. but it's already almost nine pm. shibbizle pizzles. those drunks are never going to call me and i'll spend tomonday watching The View and not making money. Or moves. timing is a ballbreaker. technically not s'posed to be there til next weekend. but...
this one has been for me.
so, they either hate me already based on the last visit when i went to pay and pick up keys (yeah, i actually have the keys) and are just like NOOOO!!!! NOT A DAY EARLIER THAN WE SAID, or they are drunk (one is English and the other is from Idaho and the other is a musician and therefore a drunk so it's possible) or they are really enjoying the fact that my first and last months' is furnishing their meth lab supplies for the week and I'll never see them again, or i'm yet again being reminded of the fact that i am no way now how above Murphy's Law.
irony: i have spent three and a half months in my g-ma's house taking days off at will--especially mondays . tomorrow is supposed to be different. i need to work. i want to work. i can't work so at least i could do something useful with self other than v-teer like....move the shit i've ALREADY packed into my new room. screw it. but ...i've already done the depressed thing. i've done the monday altar to g-ma thing. done the help out the mailman by being here to actually hand receive the mail so his hands won't have to touch the cold mail slot thing. i've already done the oops drank too much on sunday night thing. i did the snow day thing. the mlk day/day before obamification of the country thing last week....i have no reason to stay here and hang out tomorrow. i need to make it a day of action. i need...to MOVE goddammit. but it's already almost nine pm. shibbizle pizzles. those drunks are never going to call me and i'll spend tomonday watching The View and not making money. Or moves. timing is a ballbreaker. technically not s'posed to be there til next weekend. but...
this one has been for me.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
no freedom in family
The final chapter of death/goodbye/takeover time. Grandmother gone. Three months. No motiva...Nothing going on but family bullshit has an unmotivated captive soul feeling like it's swimming in family baby gravy. That's what I am. A lump in my family's baby gravy. Ew. The whole thing is just disgusting.
Why do families even exist? Can there be a cap? Don't we just get to forfeit two relatives per lifetime? Barring fathers and their sons. That causes gunslinging in later years. I know cuz I watch "Lockup". Okay, but yucky jerks who you have nothing in common with and who have antagonized you forever...can't we just forfeit dealings with them and have everybody understand and do their best to abet in the forfeiting process? I never want anything to do with my yucky relative. My not-so-yucky mother knows it. I asked her not to let Yucko know where I'm going to be moving once out of my grandmother's house. Which, incidentally, (and I know this grammar is shit. I've been eating a lot of goldfish.), he now owns and is moving into the second my parents leave (they're visiting because they hate my freedom). A week, incidentally, before I leave for my beautiful new haven of freedom and independence. Well, it's really just a room in the basement of a stranger's house but it spells liberty to me, goddammit. Or would have if my mother hadn't told Asscrumple what my exact address is going to be.
I know. It's immature to care that much. Who cares if somebody you dislike knows everything about your life and brings up all of it every time they can? Who cares about the very human need for privacy? I know. I also know it's unlikely he'll ever show up at my doorstep to say hi. But I just wanted to make a clean break by diving headfirst into anonymity. I'm a Scorpio sun sign. I know I just lost all the atheists. Flub off. You can't tell me that the fact that I feel most alive when hiding behind a giant can of corn at the bottom of a dusty pantry doesn't have something to do with my scorpionlike nature. Leave me alone and don't ask me questions or be interested in my life. Really. It creeps me out. And Yucko likes to get right into the center of other people's dusty pantries and start kicking the foodstuffs around. Can you tell it's been a while since I last produced a comprehensible analogy? Flub off for noticing if you did.
Leave home at twelve. That is my advice for anybody interested in achieving any semblance of an identity. Earlier if you can. Get the milk and get out. Four. Five. Whenever walking gets decent. Go. Do not bond. Forget the whole thing about "It's all about family." That is precisely the problem. .wait, the phone is ringing (I'm in Tully's using the wi-fi and charging my phone.) .That was my mom on the phone. Calling to say she's sorry. An hour ago she called and tried the disgusted-and-disappointed-but-not-enough-to-not-call-you-and-tell-you-that-a-W2-form-came-for-you-today approach. Christ. We had a little fight that involved me telling her..well, let's keep this family friendly (what an oxymoron). I monsterized and then left with all my things. And now, I am faced with another night in my overstuffed car and more bad feelings. Or, I can accept her bullshit meaningless apology/excuse to learn absolutely nothing about the effect her actions have on other people. And then we'll skip into the sunset of unresolved issues until we can't skip no more. Or until we both trip over another hidden patch of misunderstanding and end up hurling each other off the cliffs of elusive communication and into the angry waters of boiling family baby gravy. Oh, flub it. I can't hold a grudge. I'm going to call her back. Who needs dignity? Who needs to be respected and understood? I seem to have managed without all of those psychosocial frivolities. And besides, it's Obama's Inauguration Day. In fifty years, when somebody asks me "Where were you on Obama's Inauguration Day?", I don't want to have to say that I was camping out in a strip mall parking lot trying to catch some zzzzz's in a fetal position with hangers poking me in the ass in the back of my car because I was mad at my mommy for not treating me like a grownup. Flub it. Life is too short. What's the point of a long grudge? Flub.
Blub. Blbblbb.lublub. familyblubberblubflub. Glub. Glubbadubdub.
Why do families even exist? Can there be a cap? Don't we just get to forfeit two relatives per lifetime? Barring fathers and their sons. That causes gunslinging in later years. I know cuz I watch "Lockup". Okay, but yucky jerks who you have nothing in common with and who have antagonized you forever...can't we just forfeit dealings with them and have everybody understand and do their best to abet in the forfeiting process? I never want anything to do with my yucky relative. My not-so-yucky mother knows it. I asked her not to let Yucko know where I'm going to be moving once out of my grandmother's house. Which, incidentally, (and I know this grammar is shit. I've been eating a lot of goldfish.), he now owns and is moving into the second my parents leave (they're visiting because they hate my freedom). A week, incidentally, before I leave for my beautiful new haven of freedom and independence. Well, it's really just a room in the basement of a stranger's house but it spells liberty to me, goddammit. Or would have if my mother hadn't told Asscrumple what my exact address is going to be.
I know. It's immature to care that much. Who cares if somebody you dislike knows everything about your life and brings up all of it every time they can? Who cares about the very human need for privacy? I know. I also know it's unlikely he'll ever show up at my doorstep to say hi. But I just wanted to make a clean break by diving headfirst into anonymity. I'm a Scorpio sun sign. I know I just lost all the atheists. Flub off. You can't tell me that the fact that I feel most alive when hiding behind a giant can of corn at the bottom of a dusty pantry doesn't have something to do with my scorpionlike nature. Leave me alone and don't ask me questions or be interested in my life. Really. It creeps me out. And Yucko likes to get right into the center of other people's dusty pantries and start kicking the foodstuffs around. Can you tell it's been a while since I last produced a comprehensible analogy? Flub off for noticing if you did.
Leave home at twelve. That is my advice for anybody interested in achieving any semblance of an identity. Earlier if you can. Get the milk and get out. Four. Five. Whenever walking gets decent. Go. Do not bond. Forget the whole thing about "It's all about family." That is precisely the problem. .wait, the phone is ringing (I'm in Tully's using the wi-fi and charging my phone.) .That was my mom on the phone. Calling to say she's sorry. An hour ago she called and tried the disgusted-and-disappointed-but-not-enough-to-not-call-you-and-tell-you-that-a-W2-form-came-for-you-today approach. Christ. We had a little fight that involved me telling her..well, let's keep this family friendly (what an oxymoron). I monsterized and then left with all my things. And now, I am faced with another night in my overstuffed car and more bad feelings. Or, I can accept her bullshit meaningless apology/excuse to learn absolutely nothing about the effect her actions have on other people. And then we'll skip into the sunset of unresolved issues until we can't skip no more. Or until we both trip over another hidden patch of misunderstanding and end up hurling each other off the cliffs of elusive communication and into the angry waters of boiling family baby gravy. Oh, flub it. I can't hold a grudge. I'm going to call her back. Who needs dignity? Who needs to be respected and understood? I seem to have managed without all of those psychosocial frivolities. And besides, it's Obama's Inauguration Day. In fifty years, when somebody asks me "Where were you on Obama's Inauguration Day?", I don't want to have to say that I was camping out in a strip mall parking lot trying to catch some zzzzz's in a fetal position with hangers poking me in the ass in the back of my car because I was mad at my mommy for not treating me like a grownup. Flub it. Life is too short. What's the point of a long grudge? Flub.
Blub. Blbblbb.lublub. familyblubberblubflub. Glub. Glubbadubdub.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Times is shitty...part one
Hi. It's good to be back. I was just crying because I thought my blogs had gotten swallowed up by the bloggeymonster. But they weren't. Not that it would've mattered. Nobody reads this anyway. Not like the big bloggerjobbortunity faerie would've been hovering above my laptop just waiting for the right moment to zing down and zap me with a six-figure job requiring me to produce pithy entries upon inspiration. Hah. No such justice.
It's been a hell of a couple of months. Hell being the operative word. But not the real hot kind. More like the depressing end-of-an-era/recession-I'm still alone and have nothing to show for my waking hours-somebody please show me where the trap door is-kind. Ho-hum.
My grandmother died unexpectedly one week before Halloween, two weeks before my birthday. My favorite holiday AND my favorite birthday sucked this year. She had had ongoing glitches for a while. No one, of course, had managed to pinpoint the source of her ailment until it was too late. They sure seemed to find everything else in her system that was not functioning at 100%.
Amazing. You grow old. You get the best insurance. Go to the doctors they tell you to go to. They examine you. With prods and cams and everything else they can poke at you with. And they find stuff, sure. It's just never the stuff that's going to end up killing you. Instead, they manage to locate the stuff they can prescribe $200-a-month medication for. And who knows? Maybe they really don't see the killer. Maybe killer problems don't show up on medical cams or at the end of medical dipsticks. Or maybe you reach some point in your life, some really old point, where they simply stop checking. I think that's what happened to the old gal. They just figured it was a miracle that she was even showing up to the doctor's appointments. Never mind the intense abdominal pain that she'd been complaining about for almost two years now. Must just be all those wonderful memories filling up her GI tract. What a cutie. 94. That's wonderful. Why, she's lucky to be alive. Wonder if we should upgrade her vitamins. Persistent chronic pain in the same region for a prolonged period of time? That's adorable. Give her a lollipop and send her on her way. Tell her to follow up in six months. Next.
That is, granted, a very cynical view of how doctors handle elderly patients. Unfortunately, it is very much my view. My grandmother had had the same issue for a long time. Her PCP ("primary care provider", although I do find it interesting that the initials are PCP--a drug which often causes death. Coincidence? You make the call.) was very nice to her. She liked him a lot. He flirted with her, took her temperature, upgraded her vitamins, put her on memory pills, took her off them when they made her whoozy, etc, etc. He had a great bedside manner. And he did everything he was supposed to do. Everything except take into consideration that he was dealing with an elderly patient. Which brings me to the idea that maybe this system we got going here is not working out so well for everybody (news flash). Maybe not all PCPs have the sensitivity to deal with all kinds of patients. It takes a certain type to deal with kids. Why is it any different for the elderly, who are just as delicate in many respects? We say we want people to live long lives. We're working on getting the over-100 population as high as we can, supposedly. Is that right? Cuz from what I saw the last few months of G-ma's life, it would seem nothing but the opposite.
It's as if she got to some point where they were like "Fuck it. She's too old to waste real time on. Besides, I got golf at eleven."
I mean, yeah, she lived to 94. But so what? Maybe she was supposed to have lived to 104. And even if the hands of time had been slated to swoop her up when they did, why'd she have to endure the chronic pain? The problem was detected less than 24 hours before she passed. In the ICU. Not by her doctor. By a stranger.
The point: Keep yourself healthy. Educate yourself. Take your health into your own hands cuz the system won't do it for you.
And granted, she probably wouldn't have done half the stuff they would have told her to do if she had had her issue diagnosed earlier, but you just like to think...
part 2 in next blog...
It's been a hell of a couple of months. Hell being the operative word. But not the real hot kind. More like the depressing end-of-an-era/recession-I'm still alone and have nothing to show for my waking hours-somebody please show me where the trap door is-kind. Ho-hum.
My grandmother died unexpectedly one week before Halloween, two weeks before my birthday. My favorite holiday AND my favorite birthday sucked this year. She had had ongoing glitches for a while. No one, of course, had managed to pinpoint the source of her ailment until it was too late. They sure seemed to find everything else in her system that was not functioning at 100%.
Amazing. You grow old. You get the best insurance. Go to the doctors they tell you to go to. They examine you. With prods and cams and everything else they can poke at you with. And they find stuff, sure. It's just never the stuff that's going to end up killing you. Instead, they manage to locate the stuff they can prescribe $200-a-month medication for. And who knows? Maybe they really don't see the killer. Maybe killer problems don't show up on medical cams or at the end of medical dipsticks. Or maybe you reach some point in your life, some really old point, where they simply stop checking. I think that's what happened to the old gal. They just figured it was a miracle that she was even showing up to the doctor's appointments. Never mind the intense abdominal pain that she'd been complaining about for almost two years now. Must just be all those wonderful memories filling up her GI tract. What a cutie. 94. That's wonderful. Why, she's lucky to be alive. Wonder if we should upgrade her vitamins. Persistent chronic pain in the same region for a prolonged period of time? That's adorable. Give her a lollipop and send her on her way. Tell her to follow up in six months. Next.
That is, granted, a very cynical view of how doctors handle elderly patients. Unfortunately, it is very much my view. My grandmother had had the same issue for a long time. Her PCP ("primary care provider", although I do find it interesting that the initials are PCP--a drug which often causes death. Coincidence? You make the call.) was very nice to her. She liked him a lot. He flirted with her, took her temperature, upgraded her vitamins, put her on memory pills, took her off them when they made her whoozy, etc, etc. He had a great bedside manner. And he did everything he was supposed to do. Everything except take into consideration that he was dealing with an elderly patient. Which brings me to the idea that maybe this system we got going here is not working out so well for everybody (news flash). Maybe not all PCPs have the sensitivity to deal with all kinds of patients. It takes a certain type to deal with kids. Why is it any different for the elderly, who are just as delicate in many respects? We say we want people to live long lives. We're working on getting the over-100 population as high as we can, supposedly. Is that right? Cuz from what I saw the last few months of G-ma's life, it would seem nothing but the opposite.
It's as if she got to some point where they were like "Fuck it. She's too old to waste real time on. Besides, I got golf at eleven."
I mean, yeah, she lived to 94. But so what? Maybe she was supposed to have lived to 104. And even if the hands of time had been slated to swoop her up when they did, why'd she have to endure the chronic pain? The problem was detected less than 24 hours before she passed. In the ICU. Not by her doctor. By a stranger.
The point: Keep yourself healthy. Educate yourself. Take your health into your own hands cuz the system won't do it for you.
And granted, she probably wouldn't have done half the stuff they would have told her to do if she had had her issue diagnosed earlier, but you just like to think...
part 2 in next blog...
Thursday, October 9, 2008
obesity blog response
Here's some response I ended up spewing onto some blog I ended up on while looking for calories or something. Just wanted to see where my state was on the obesity rating index. Debate about why obesity prevalent in the South, why people are skinny in Colorado, shit like that.
MediumRare Says: October 9th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Has anybody thought of the less obvious factors of stress and depression? It’s not as popular yet, but there have been a lot of studies that have strongly linked stress to obesity. And this connection is only going to get stronger with more research. It’s all a cycle, though, and hard to isolate one factor. But what is true is that low income, stress, overwork, insufficient sleep, lack of education, accessibiltity to crappy foods, etc, depression, tendency to overeat, are all linked, and without question. Research it. You’ll see.This is not to say that the government or the corporations are at fault for an individual’s situation. They’re not. They are probably a strong cause, though. Unfortunately, as has been mentioned, blaming them is not going to get rid of the problem. The individual has to get fed up, realize that they can do something about their unhealthy state, and start taking the steps to get better.
In a nutshell, the whole culture–north, south, midwest, islands, whatever–suffers from the see-saw of too much/too little. Too much work, junk, bills, keeping-up-with-the-joneses, mortgage, stuff, competitiveness, etc. Too little laughing, relaxing, dancing, family, friends, etc. We’re sick as a whole. And unfortunately, the sickness manifests more in some parts of us than in others. Of course Colorado is skinny. They can afford to be. They can afford to wake up and bike 900 miles BEFORE work. But what if you work night shift at an ALLSUP’s in Northern Texas? And you have to catch the bus? And you have 49 cents in your hand? And a pack of vanilla creme cookies is the only thing you can get to calm your sorry rumbling stomach? People who work two jobs are tired. They are also usually broke. And they usually don’t spend their free time browsing the bioavailabilty of leafy green vegetables in the diet and exercise section of Barnes & Noble. Cuz they are probably passing out in front of a TV which is spewing messages at them about Pizza Hut’s new areterial terrorist item. Or whatever. But I digress.
Another fact is that there is a huge imbalance between people of different walks in terms of what they know and what they have easy access to. Middle and Upper class educated people get information sooner. They see doctors more regularly. Healthy living is a lot easier for them to come by. Poorer people tend to be around more junk, cigarettes, liquor stores, etc. Go to a poor neighborhood. Go inside a discount grocery store some time. See what’s on the shelves. I’ve been in places where there is NO PRODUCE. None. Not some. None.But again, all this is just symptomatic of a society’s imbalance. We don’t savor life. We savor ho-hos. And those of us who know better than to savor too many ho-hos are so scared of ho-hos that they have to get up and bike three hours before work so that they won’t feel anything other than optimal. Give me a break. It’s all so damn delusional. Is there any sense of moderation in this country? Can’t we just go for a stroll after having some ice cream? Do we have to train for the bloody olympics cuz we had an extra slice of pie at THanksgiving?
The FDA put out their recommendation for exercise a couple years ago when this whole obesity thing came to light. 90 minutes a day is what they are saying people should start doing. 90 minutes a day!!!! Are they nuts? Way to sabotage the average person by telling them that unless they do this ridiculous amount of exercise on a DAILY basis, no less, that they’re efforts are for naught. What kind of sadistic unpatriotic sabotage is that!!!??! Nobody’s going to be able to do that when they aren’t used to it, and even if they do, they won’t be able to keep it up for more than a month. Then, it’s back to ho-hos and KFC, and self-hate.
Dammit, America. What we really need to do is work less, sleep more, laugh a hell of a lot more, have some pie but not the whole pie, go for a walk, have some sex more than once a year on our stupid anniversary, and remember that we only go around once in this form (whatever you believe about coming back or having been here before, still only once in THIS form), and that we have been put here to enjoy and explore. Whether we have yachts or jalopies, whether we live in Aspen or Austin or Honolulu or Pensacola or wherever. I know this is simplistic, but I think it’s the only thing that is going to keep us from breaking down. And obesity is a sign of breakdown. And remember, its not the only one. There’s also depression and cancer, and those hit skinny rich people as much as poor fat people. Cuz they’re stressed out too. Matter of fact, the whole damn country is stressed out. We’re obese with stress. All of us. Yuck. We’ve got stress and loneliness seeping out of our pores. It’s gross. Really gross. Go smell a rose. But don't eat it.
MediumRare Says: October 9th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Has anybody thought of the less obvious factors of stress and depression? It’s not as popular yet, but there have been a lot of studies that have strongly linked stress to obesity. And this connection is only going to get stronger with more research. It’s all a cycle, though, and hard to isolate one factor. But what is true is that low income, stress, overwork, insufficient sleep, lack of education, accessibiltity to crappy foods, etc, depression, tendency to overeat, are all linked, and without question. Research it. You’ll see.This is not to say that the government or the corporations are at fault for an individual’s situation. They’re not. They are probably a strong cause, though. Unfortunately, as has been mentioned, blaming them is not going to get rid of the problem. The individual has to get fed up, realize that they can do something about their unhealthy state, and start taking the steps to get better.
In a nutshell, the whole culture–north, south, midwest, islands, whatever–suffers from the see-saw of too much/too little. Too much work, junk, bills, keeping-up-with-the-joneses, mortgage, stuff, competitiveness, etc. Too little laughing, relaxing, dancing, family, friends, etc. We’re sick as a whole. And unfortunately, the sickness manifests more in some parts of us than in others. Of course Colorado is skinny. They can afford to be. They can afford to wake up and bike 900 miles BEFORE work. But what if you work night shift at an ALLSUP’s in Northern Texas? And you have to catch the bus? And you have 49 cents in your hand? And a pack of vanilla creme cookies is the only thing you can get to calm your sorry rumbling stomach? People who work two jobs are tired. They are also usually broke. And they usually don’t spend their free time browsing the bioavailabilty of leafy green vegetables in the diet and exercise section of Barnes & Noble. Cuz they are probably passing out in front of a TV which is spewing messages at them about Pizza Hut’s new areterial terrorist item. Or whatever. But I digress.
Another fact is that there is a huge imbalance between people of different walks in terms of what they know and what they have easy access to. Middle and Upper class educated people get information sooner. They see doctors more regularly. Healthy living is a lot easier for them to come by. Poorer people tend to be around more junk, cigarettes, liquor stores, etc. Go to a poor neighborhood. Go inside a discount grocery store some time. See what’s on the shelves. I’ve been in places where there is NO PRODUCE. None. Not some. None.But again, all this is just symptomatic of a society’s imbalance. We don’t savor life. We savor ho-hos. And those of us who know better than to savor too many ho-hos are so scared of ho-hos that they have to get up and bike three hours before work so that they won’t feel anything other than optimal. Give me a break. It’s all so damn delusional. Is there any sense of moderation in this country? Can’t we just go for a stroll after having some ice cream? Do we have to train for the bloody olympics cuz we had an extra slice of pie at THanksgiving?
The FDA put out their recommendation for exercise a couple years ago when this whole obesity thing came to light. 90 minutes a day is what they are saying people should start doing. 90 minutes a day!!!! Are they nuts? Way to sabotage the average person by telling them that unless they do this ridiculous amount of exercise on a DAILY basis, no less, that they’re efforts are for naught. What kind of sadistic unpatriotic sabotage is that!!!??! Nobody’s going to be able to do that when they aren’t used to it, and even if they do, they won’t be able to keep it up for more than a month. Then, it’s back to ho-hos and KFC, and self-hate.
Dammit, America. What we really need to do is work less, sleep more, laugh a hell of a lot more, have some pie but not the whole pie, go for a walk, have some sex more than once a year on our stupid anniversary, and remember that we only go around once in this form (whatever you believe about coming back or having been here before, still only once in THIS form), and that we have been put here to enjoy and explore. Whether we have yachts or jalopies, whether we live in Aspen or Austin or Honolulu or Pensacola or wherever. I know this is simplistic, but I think it’s the only thing that is going to keep us from breaking down. And obesity is a sign of breakdown. And remember, its not the only one. There’s also depression and cancer, and those hit skinny rich people as much as poor fat people. Cuz they’re stressed out too. Matter of fact, the whole damn country is stressed out. We’re obese with stress. All of us. Yuck. We’ve got stress and loneliness seeping out of our pores. It’s gross. Really gross. Go smell a rose. But don't eat it.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
CLICKABLE?
I was really excited to get a DVD of a pay-per-view Comcast showcase I had done back in April. I could now post something on line. This would be emblematic of the new take-charge phase of my comedy journey. Oves to the wall. No more bushel dwelling. No more hiding in my comedy closet. No more waiting for the amateur comedy faerie to discover my obvious potential as a future comedy icon. I would now be clickable. Ha.
All Summer I waited for this damn DVD. I went back home for a week. Friends asked why I still had nothing to show for myself in the way of taped performance. No clips? No YouTube? I’d change the subject. But now things would be different. I’d be clickable. Ha.
I finally received the DVD at the end of September. There had been reasons for the delayed rendering, I was told. I didn’t care. I now had a crisp new disk in my hands that housed what I was sure was five minutes of crystal clear beginner greatness. I couldn’t wait to view my first clip.
Now, two years into comedy, most people are capable of producing something video-related. A minute or two of some “killer” performance highlighting their best joke writing and joke telling skills. Most people make some effort to record or have themselves recorded. It’s good to study yourself. It’s good to know what you’re missing, and what you need to cut out. It makes things easier, I’ve been told. To this day, I am unable to record myself for these purposes. I do have a mini camcorder, but….I just can’t bring myself to use it. I don’t want to know.
But this was different. Oooh, I knew I had done well that night. There had been a pretty small audience, a bit stuffy, but overall I would leave feeling that I had done them right. Yessirree. No reason to worry. This would be some honest-to-goodness clickable footage.
I get home. I put the DVD next to the laptop. I think about putting it in, but I can’t. It’s too overwhelming. I go to bed.
A week later:
Okay, maybe it’s time to take a look. The anxiety has worn off a bit. I’m copacetic. Let’s do it. Power. Screen. Arrow. Hourglass. Hourglass. Arrow. Arrow. Hourglass. Arrow. Aaah! The disk. Here we go.
Okay. Intro title. Classy. Goofball sheck music. Blah. My name! Ha-ha! Yay. And…Here I am! There’s me. Close up. Doing a mini mock interview. Real close up. Saying something mildly funny. He-he..man, is that close up. That is like..really close up. Is that me? Wait. Yeah, it is. Why do I look so gross? Where did those lines come from? I don’t have that many lines on my face. Keith Richards doesn’t have that many lines on his face. It looks like I’ve been standing on the edge of a fjord all night with a dried egg yolk mask on my face. And why do I have that awful grayish red tint to my eyeballs? What was I doing back in April? I mean, okay, I was smoking a little bit, and it was grey weather for like six months in a row. I guess I was a bit stressed, late nights, smoking, poor diet (saltines and candy bars), no sunshine, no make up. And it is a full-on frontal face close up interview. Chill out. Everybody looks bad in these things. Maybe the stage shots will be better.
Ew! Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!!!! Yuck! What is going on? Everything is wrong. First of all, my hair is done up in some weird self-hating Mrs. Olson bun deal. Or, it’s more like Jo from The Facts of Life. So, I look like Keith Richards if he played Jo on The Facts of Life. And I’m wearing what I’m pretty damn sure was a nice millennium-era velour peacoat, and NOT an eighties-style comedy blazer. However, in this shot, it has managed to transform itself into an eighties-style comedy blazer. Thank God there’s no thin tie. Although that might cover up the STAINED orange t-shirt I’m donning underneath the two-faced devil coat. My pants are fine, except for the zipper being down, and it’s a good thing there’s no shot of my shoes, because they are probably giant clown shoes all of a sudden. What is happening?
But at least the face is not so close. Wait. Oh, of course. Here we go zooming in. And we’re doing side shots, profile shots. Always good for unconcealed acne and scarring. This is a nightmare. The camera is alternating sides, and when I move, the combination of lines (still grossly apparent), scarring, and an overly oily complexion make my countenance look like a stratified desert that’s been glazed over by an unfortunate oil spill. There are even some dead birds on my cheeks. Wow. I’m numb. Totally numb.
And, of course, the performance is shit. I mean, not really shit. But..well…shit. I don’t screw anything up. I just…my delivery kinda’ matches my blazer coat. I never realized how shecky I was on stage. And why do I keep saying, “Y’know?”, and “Huh?”. Aargh. And my voice. Yuck.
But it’s still better than my face! Everything is better than my stupid face! I should have known. How could I not know that I look like this? I have a mirror. That lighting in my bathroom is way too soft and flattering. Fool. What a fool. Here, all this time, you thought you had good genes, that your people didn’t age. Fool. You’ve made up for all of them, you dried-egg-yolk-fjord-face-Keith-Richards-looking bitch!
Tears fall. I throw the demon DVD in the trash. I call my friend Cheryl.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing. I just got that DVD back.”
“The one..”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it sucks!!!. It’s awful. I look like..”
“Like Keith Richards if he played Jo on the Facts of Life?”
“Yeah. How did you know?”
“Well, I know how you like to do your hair, and I assume the performance was shot in HD, so..”
”HD?”
“Yeah, High Definition you idiot. Jesus. Welcome to the century, Dipshit. It’s the only thing they shoot in now.”
“Oh, right. So, what does that mean?”
“It makes everybody look like shit ‘cuz it magnifies every single little detail in your face. It’s gross. It’s why Michelle Rodriguez quit LOST.”
“Oh. Cool. So I don’t look like Gandalf?”
“No. But you do need to do something different with your hair. And you should wear concealer.”
“Yeah.”
So, basically, I’m still out of luck when it comes to having something on line. But I have learned some important things about preparing for High Definition recordings. And I’m sure all of this seems like a bunch of silly vain girly preoccupation. Most dudes could be covered in vomit and still post footage of themselves on line. I know. But that’s the way it is. And, frankly, I don’t care if I have to wait ten years for something decent. I’ll do it. I’ll post lithographic storyboards of my performances if I have to. As long as they’re clickable. Ha.
All Summer I waited for this damn DVD. I went back home for a week. Friends asked why I still had nothing to show for myself in the way of taped performance. No clips? No YouTube? I’d change the subject. But now things would be different. I’d be clickable. Ha.
I finally received the DVD at the end of September. There had been reasons for the delayed rendering, I was told. I didn’t care. I now had a crisp new disk in my hands that housed what I was sure was five minutes of crystal clear beginner greatness. I couldn’t wait to view my first clip.
Now, two years into comedy, most people are capable of producing something video-related. A minute or two of some “killer” performance highlighting their best joke writing and joke telling skills. Most people make some effort to record or have themselves recorded. It’s good to study yourself. It’s good to know what you’re missing, and what you need to cut out. It makes things easier, I’ve been told. To this day, I am unable to record myself for these purposes. I do have a mini camcorder, but….I just can’t bring myself to use it. I don’t want to know.
But this was different. Oooh, I knew I had done well that night. There had been a pretty small audience, a bit stuffy, but overall I would leave feeling that I had done them right. Yessirree. No reason to worry. This would be some honest-to-goodness clickable footage.
I get home. I put the DVD next to the laptop. I think about putting it in, but I can’t. It’s too overwhelming. I go to bed.
A week later:
Okay, maybe it’s time to take a look. The anxiety has worn off a bit. I’m copacetic. Let’s do it. Power. Screen. Arrow. Hourglass. Hourglass. Arrow. Arrow. Hourglass. Arrow. Aaah! The disk. Here we go.
Okay. Intro title. Classy. Goofball sheck music. Blah. My name! Ha-ha! Yay. And…Here I am! There’s me. Close up. Doing a mini mock interview. Real close up. Saying something mildly funny. He-he..man, is that close up. That is like..really close up. Is that me? Wait. Yeah, it is. Why do I look so gross? Where did those lines come from? I don’t have that many lines on my face. Keith Richards doesn’t have that many lines on his face. It looks like I’ve been standing on the edge of a fjord all night with a dried egg yolk mask on my face. And why do I have that awful grayish red tint to my eyeballs? What was I doing back in April? I mean, okay, I was smoking a little bit, and it was grey weather for like six months in a row. I guess I was a bit stressed, late nights, smoking, poor diet (saltines and candy bars), no sunshine, no make up. And it is a full-on frontal face close up interview. Chill out. Everybody looks bad in these things. Maybe the stage shots will be better.
Ew! Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!!!! Yuck! What is going on? Everything is wrong. First of all, my hair is done up in some weird self-hating Mrs. Olson bun deal. Or, it’s more like Jo from The Facts of Life. So, I look like Keith Richards if he played Jo on The Facts of Life. And I’m wearing what I’m pretty damn sure was a nice millennium-era velour peacoat, and NOT an eighties-style comedy blazer. However, in this shot, it has managed to transform itself into an eighties-style comedy blazer. Thank God there’s no thin tie. Although that might cover up the STAINED orange t-shirt I’m donning underneath the two-faced devil coat. My pants are fine, except for the zipper being down, and it’s a good thing there’s no shot of my shoes, because they are probably giant clown shoes all of a sudden. What is happening?
But at least the face is not so close. Wait. Oh, of course. Here we go zooming in. And we’re doing side shots, profile shots. Always good for unconcealed acne and scarring. This is a nightmare. The camera is alternating sides, and when I move, the combination of lines (still grossly apparent), scarring, and an overly oily complexion make my countenance look like a stratified desert that’s been glazed over by an unfortunate oil spill. There are even some dead birds on my cheeks. Wow. I’m numb. Totally numb.
And, of course, the performance is shit. I mean, not really shit. But..well…shit. I don’t screw anything up. I just…my delivery kinda’ matches my blazer coat. I never realized how shecky I was on stage. And why do I keep saying, “Y’know?”, and “Huh?”. Aargh. And my voice. Yuck.
But it’s still better than my face! Everything is better than my stupid face! I should have known. How could I not know that I look like this? I have a mirror. That lighting in my bathroom is way too soft and flattering. Fool. What a fool. Here, all this time, you thought you had good genes, that your people didn’t age. Fool. You’ve made up for all of them, you dried-egg-yolk-fjord-face-Keith-Richards-looking bitch!
Tears fall. I throw the demon DVD in the trash. I call my friend Cheryl.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing. I just got that DVD back.”
“The one..”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it sucks!!!. It’s awful. I look like..”
“Like Keith Richards if he played Jo on the Facts of Life?”
“Yeah. How did you know?”
“Well, I know how you like to do your hair, and I assume the performance was shot in HD, so..”
”HD?”
“Yeah, High Definition you idiot. Jesus. Welcome to the century, Dipshit. It’s the only thing they shoot in now.”
“Oh, right. So, what does that mean?”
“It makes everybody look like shit ‘cuz it magnifies every single little detail in your face. It’s gross. It’s why Michelle Rodriguez quit LOST.”
“Oh. Cool. So I don’t look like Gandalf?”
“No. But you do need to do something different with your hair. And you should wear concealer.”
“Yeah.”
So, basically, I’m still out of luck when it comes to having something on line. But I have learned some important things about preparing for High Definition recordings. And I’m sure all of this seems like a bunch of silly vain girly preoccupation. Most dudes could be covered in vomit and still post footage of themselves on line. I know. But that’s the way it is. And, frankly, I don’t care if I have to wait ten years for something decent. I’ll do it. I’ll post lithographic storyboards of my performances if I have to. As long as they’re clickable. Ha.
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