mendacity |
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::exploding the myth
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bleeding from the
the odds
white jazz la confidential outside providence drive ears
sloan/pretty together
dj abilities/for persons with dj abilities garbage/beautifulgarbage fabolous/ghetto fabolous cannibal ox/the cold vein backstreet boys/drowning pj harvey/stories from the city, stories from the sea radiohead/amnesiac timbaland and magoo/indecent proposal modest mouse/everywhere and his nasty parlor
8 crazy nights
harry potter and the sorcerer's stone monsters, inc. prozac nation mulholland drive my first mister hearts in atlantis high heels, low lifes waking life ghost world index finger
medianews
daily variety detroit free press cnn nytimes arts&leisure espn.com: nba tvbarn reality blurred memepool chowhound the onion modern humorist fuckedcompany mrscott dslreports saddle creek records POKEY penny arcade atlas |
5.31.2001
story finally came around, and i signed off on it. dinner menu came around, and i signed off on crispy prawns with walnut sauce and crab/pork soup dumplings. i don't expect either to be good, given that this is midtown chinese delivered. yuck. and lastly, the headache i went to bed with after attempting to extinguish with 600mg ibu, the headache i woke up with and went to work with after attempting to extinguish with another 600mg ibu, and the headache that gave me a temporary stay of pain during the day, has come around. i just signed off on it with another 400mg, because that's the amount i get in a prepackaged packet of advil. where is my darvocet? answer: not here, because i don't have any. (i find it highly interesting that i developed a headache a day after coming off prednisone; while on it, i had none. this from someone who eats ibu for the express purpose of combatting headaches like candy. coincidence? i think not.)
it's spelling bee time again, which is a far more entertaining time than girl scout cookie time, in my book. i just love the train wreck aspect of the bee, with these poor, brilliant, adolescence-ravaged children. it makes me feel better about myself. plus, it's fun. yes, i am pathetic. i've been noticing today at work that there is a disproportionate number of tall women here. i'm not sure what that means or portends. i suspect it means and portends that i've discovered yet another way to procrastinate through fruitless pondering. watching the spelling bee causes me to use larger words for no particular reason. it also causes me to draft trying-not-to-be-nasty emails to daily arts editors who have stood by while the film staff has gone to shit. (but not send, because i'm not sending email. well, trying, anyway.)
how cute that the drugs i took last night had no effect. monster headache reigns supreme. time to gobble more. today is going to require copious amounts of red bull, as well as my fish shirt. 5.30.2001
well, the transcription is now completely done. i am faced with the hideous task of trying to assemble some sort of streetwise, hip collection of words to do justice to the soft-spoken, impossible-to-record mopete. looking at the stuff i got in the interview, i am an incompetent screw-up, without a doubt. and i am fucked. current plan: draft cheeseball timestamp framework, weaving in bio stuff and rookie season stuff and college stuff and other stuff (and inside stuff?). then de-cheese. fucked. after last night's four hour sleep performance and the fact that the blue ox i drank with dinner had zero effect on me except to elevate pulse and the fact that i now have a monster headache, i'm going to eat a bunch of ibuprofen and go to sleep. fucked.
good: getting a cheesesteak from the cynthia and robert cart for $3.75. bad: asshole putting some sort of heinously bad spicy garlic sauce after i specially said NO SAUCE, and again after asking "do you want garlic sauce" and i said again NO SAUCE, causing my cheesesteak to taste like ass and my breath to reek the rest of the afternoon. good: finding the bill walton tape. good: discovering it also had a few snippets of lockerroom stuff. bad: having to transcribe it. bad: having to write the story. bad. bad. bad. i am avoiding all email until i get this shit done. well, sending. not reading. consider yourselves warned. it's not because i don't like you. it's because i don't like me.
[jameswatch2k]: 720a. radio. talking dj. music. and of course even though i couldn't keep my eyes open when i finally went to bed i still didn't fall asleep for an hour. blah. where is that damn tape? i brought like fifty tapes to work to listen to in my search for bill walton. this is going to negate all of yesterday's productivity.
finally finished the tape. my skill at procrastination is truly unrivaled this side of the mississippi (i-p-p-i). my desktop is up currently because dad needed to download something off my big drive, which means i now have another 20 gigs of albums to listen to if i so choose. that's a nice choice to have. i can hardly keep my eyes open, and have been that way all night, which i find a bit odd given that i did drink that redbull. my tolerance can't possibly be that high. what up what up? as for mopete, our phone interview taped fine, and the tape is totally blank otherwise. nothing in the lockerroom recorded. not a single fucking word. i think i do have a few other random quotes on another tape somewhere, because bill walton is not on this tape and i know that recorded okay because i listened to it afterward. unless i imagined it, which i would really cry about because he gave me a great quote that i no longer remember except for the basic gist. oh, fuck me. this sucks. i desperately need to find that tape. tomorrow, tomorow. i need to stop doing things in interview like saying "uh, let's seeeeeeeee" when i'm trying to figure out what to say next. although it is heartening to listen to myself talking like a feeb in an interview and realizing that i don't have an unconscious "like" habit. when i say it, it's, like, on purpose. that's a relief. sometimes i, you know, like, wonder. "is life always this hard, or is it just when you're a kid?" 5.29.2001
i went to sweet'n'tart for dinner, all by my lonesome. read my new yorker, adventured with a dish that was pan-fried bitter melon and dried shrimp pancakes. it was quite tasty except for the bitter melon part. word to the wise: bitter melon is bitter. it does not taste good. luckily the multicolored pepper brown sauce it came in was good, as was my bowl of white rice. i then decided to be completely oinky and ordered stir-fried turnip cakes, which were delicious. the adventure dish turned out to be a little pricey, so next time i go i will stick to stuff that is on the menu whose cost i am fully aware of. still, yum. on my walk back to the train i noticed for the first time a storefront on bowery called "triple a noodle mfg. company." i'm intrigued by this moniker: manufacturing? are noodles really manufactured? that conjures up an image for me of a teeming third-floor sweatshop full of hunchbacked little chinamen (and dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature, asian-american, please) dexterously pulling at pasta while a menacing mao type cracks a whip from up on high ala the ten commandments. "one, two, three, vermicelli! one, two, three, soba! one, two, three, spaghetti!" noodles just don't seem the sort of thing that are manufactured, in the purest sense of the word as i understand it. and now i am transcribing mopete. no, really. i'd like a redbull, but i think at this late hour that would be a mistake. but maybe i'll do it anyway. i can always balance with a couple of benadryl.
i take back everything i said about seth's brilliant bachelor party email. he is a dick-led moron who i suspect has put a major kink in the bachelor party plans. but at least it yielded this email exchange, which is quite amusing.
and with that, i am off to dinner. and then mopete. no, really.
my productivity level today is off the charts. stunning, especially for a day back after a long weekend. doesn't get much better than this. observe: and i swear all i'm doing tonight is grabbing dinner and then going home to transcribe mopete. no, really. for anybody who wondered whether ebay's still got it, i submit this auction. especially catch #2.
[jameswatch2k]: well, we had a good run, kids. the last appearance of mr subwoofer was april 4. granted, i've been out of town a lot and i'm sure he's been active, but today was the first day it really woke me up - and it was pretty minor. hopefully it will stay minor, and not increase with the heat of the city in summer. (i was actually woken around 7a by music coming from behind the building; james didn't start until around 8a.) conveniently, the gate to the basement was open as i was leaving for work, so i went downstairs expecting to find franklyn because i haven't seen landlord steve in ages. but lo and behold, there was landlord steve in all his greek bearish glory. gave him a rent check, asked about getting screens on the windows, and was unable to bite my tongue about james, at which we both had a hearty laugh. as for the windows, steve claims he is in some sort of dispute with the window installers, who are saying they can't put screens on. i give a shit, steve-o, i just want screens. i'm thinking about perhaps going to my old hardware store one night this week if i get off work early enough and getting a small screen to lodge in my bedroom window; that's the one i really care about at the moment. arrived at work to discover i had no story assignments for digest; then the ultimate cable stories started pouring in. blah. at least nothing is deadlined until thursday. up next: frites, post office, microcassette tapes, not necessarily in that order. 5.28.2001
okay it took like two hours for my food to come and then i got distracted and then and then and then. wow, i suck. i transcribed about thirty seconds, and now the benadryl is kicking in and i desperately need to sleep, but first i have to shower because i didn't shower before my extended travel travails and now i am gross. when i went to get my food downstairs i checked my mailbox. i was hoping for a tvg paycheck, but no such luck. instead i had something from "rebate center" in arizona. i found this odd, given that i can't remember the last time i sent out for a rebate. got back upstairs, opened it up, and it was $10 from linksys. uh, hello, i sent that rebate six months ago - and was paid on it in february. so now i've gotten twice the rebate from a product i ended up returning. maybe i'll treat myself to a movie, because that's about what ten bucks buys you in this one-billion horse town.
food crisis solved: ordered overly expensive sushi for delivery. i guess that means i should put on pants and find some cash. up next: mopete. really. truly. i swear. honestly. it's gonna happen. yes. itchy feet are so annoying. especially when they're yours.
home again home again, yippity yay. much to tell, much of which is sitting in a file on my laptop that i worked on over the course of the weekend, but right now i have too much shit to do to deal with it. suffice it to say i was severely punished by tptb for electing to take the train when i could have taken the bus. blargh. weekend recap coming sometime in the next few days. 5.27.2001
okay, so manchester pretty much rules and i think this is going to be fine. i really do. the area where our apt is has this store called the "cheapo depot" two blocks away and it is ridiculous, and there is a drugstore and a used bookshop and a typewriter shop and a gas station and a 7-11 and a bank and it is ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous. maybe i will work at the drug store. maybe i will see where the bus picks up. ridiculous. 5.25.2001
ITCHY. ITCHY ITCHY ITCHY. goddammit. i was doing so well all day, and then like clockwork, nighttime rolls around and my skin starts marshaling its nerve endings against me. it's interesting, though, there's been a change in the nature of the scratches in the past 36 hours. now when i scratch, i get these raised ridges in addition to the redness. but today was better. loads better. i still think i'm on the road to wellville, sometime, soon, maybe. dinner with feldy and stinky was fine, new thai place that was okay but not out of this world. afterward went to stinky's apt, which i'd never seen. it's decent. he pays like half what i pay in rent. he has a much better deal, although he does have to climb five floors on scary stairs every day. i do give thanks for small favors, like being on the second floor, especially when i was given the option of taking a fourth floor apartment and realizing, no, it's better to live on the second floor when you're as lazy as i am. it is way past my bedtime. just popped a benadryl to aid in fight against itch and waking, and now i have to pack for the weekend. i already have my service outfit up in boston. i need a little black dress for the party saturday night, a nice pants outfit for friday night, and another nice pants outfit for sunday morning because i'm not sure if i really need one or not but i might as well bring one. i think i can just bring my nice banana pants and two tops. and shoes. will require my nice party heels and my chunk shoes. will also require purchasing panty hose sometime tomorrow, because i don't think i actually have any. then will require some regular shleppy clothes for sunday and monday in nh. i can do this. i can do this. work tomorrow is going to be such a waste, totally stupid to attend, but i do have to get in there and email in my invoice so i can paid (payroll called me for the fiftieth time this week to make sure that my name is e-r-i-n and not e-r-i-c. how much crack do they smoke?). roll in at 10a, roll out at 12p, shoot back up to my apt, grab my suitcase, shoot down to uncle's, pretend my suitcase is smaller than it really is since i claimed it was "small," get in car with family and vroom to boston. came home intent on finding my gecc contract only to realize that it must have been in the box i threw out this evening during my sublet cleaning frenzy. how much do i suck? answer: at least as much as tommy cruise. oh, fuck it, i'm just going to pack in the morning, i just mapped out everything i need and i know where it all is. i so do not need to be out of town this weekend. and my toes are on fire. (f-eye-ah.) "breathe, echoing the sound 5.24.2001
story of course closed at some indeterminate time that will never be known. i was liberated by an email from research chief michael saying guess what, you can go home. blah. came home, did some more trash eradication work in prep for the sublet couple, watched last minute of sopranos, entire 48 of dawson's. the sublet people came, saw, and i'm not sure that i conquered their wallets. we'll see. i have the sneaking suspicion i'm going to have to drop my price and relist my ad. oh well. as long as i break even on the venture, i'm happy. going to dinner at some new thai place with feldy and stinky. avoiding both parties i was invited to tonight. i was going to try to go to one or both, and then i remembered: i hate parties, and they only succeed in making me feel more stupid and ineffectual than usual. so i'm just saving myself a little pain and suffering and anguish and self-hatred. (and i'll not even touch the fact that i would have to be at those parties stone cold sober, since i'm still in abstinence mode because of all the drugs. a thought too frightening for words. this weekend will also be interesting. major will power involved in not touching the open bar at cousin anna's bat mitzvah. blah. fucking health. blah.)
i fall down, and they pick me back up. when i checked my po box the other day, in addition to the million magazines i will never get around to reading there was also a package slip inside. i hadn't ordered anything of late (i am po', mr popo, please donate, especially after yesterday's megabucks purchase of md player), and i was annoyed, because i'd have to make a return trip to the post office to get the package since it was past lobby hours, and it was probably just some oversized piece of propaganda from citi or the thousands of small theatre companies whose mailing lists i seem to now be on. but, lo! it was not largely packaged spam, but a continuation of the saddle creek roller coaster of the past few days: the new cursive ep, fresh to my box, in all its promo copy glory. i love you, saddle creek, and you, robb nansel. currently hating: flooz fuckers; being boring with nothing to do or having something to do but not doing it because being boring is easier; finding a subletter (feel free to send people my way; i offer a friend discount). currently loving: cursive/the great decay; video game people who call me back; when my stomach doesn't hurt. "and i've seen what it can do
it is a dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark day. moral court is dead. long live moral court. drinking redbull to combat this dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark day. eating "smart puffs" with "real wisconsin cheddar" to wash down drugs. they're kind of gross this morning. i want frites. at least the episode of to tell the truth i'm watching has dave coulier as a guest. and, wonder of all wonders, he's not wearing a red wings jersey. still doesn't make up for the demise of mc, though. sigh. double sigh. triple sigh. it's been nice knowing you, vinnie guzman. you too, mr brown. and you, larry elder. i'll treasure my press photo of you three yahoos forever and ever and ever. 5.23.2001
got out of work at 6p again. i don't know what the deal is with that. it's worrisome. had my first experience with the local cuisine for dinner. picked up half a roast chicken, some yellow rice with random vegetables, frijoles, $6. it was pretty tasty, and i'm not dead yet. so, good. the bright eyes craziness continues unabated. new shit got ripped and put on the scene. i am in heaven. watched simpsons, nypd blue, sopranos. sops cut off at the end so i'm taping it again tonight with padding. grr. i cleaned a little - well, shifted stuff around, really, creating new piles, moving old ones - and now i can see a few square feet of desk, which is a major improvement. now i'm watching felicity, which is almost too depressing for words. and just when i thought it couldn't get worse, an ai commercial. so sad. so sad. heartburn sucks. legitimate heartburn, which i am getting from the shit that i am on. and emotional heartburn, which i am getting from the shit that i am. "the drunk kids, the catholics, they're all about the same
minidisc ho-oooooooo! i've decided on the sony mzr-900, which just came out stateside. unfortunately, it's only available in red, but when you gotta have it you gotta have it. (the japan version comes in four colors, three of which are superior to red, but it lacks the digital pc link bundle, which is something i want so i can easily dump mp3->md.) i'm getting it from crutchfield, some rep named jr who was tres helpful. plus i just found a $25 referral code, which knocks the price down. i've had good luck with customer service all day, in fact, calling around for information on products and microphones and pricing and release dates. odd. i think i'm going with the sony ecm-ds70p for a mic. i like that it comes with a cord, that will help if there's excessive machine noise from the player, which the minidisco guy i talked to indicated there might be. sadly, crutchfield doesn't have them in stock, but j&r does, and for slightly less and i can use ebates. excellent. so excellent that i think i will also buy blanks from j&r since i get the rebate back, and upping my spending at crutchfield gets me nothing. best of all, i can have everything shipped to work since if i have it shipped home i will never ever get it. i know ~$450 is a lot of money to drop, but in the long run i think it will be worth it, it's half-work/half-gift, and it's tax deductible, and i can pay for it with one freelance assignment. plus i'm paying for everything with my cashback internet citi cc, so there's another 1% saved. not much, but $4 is $4. my thriftiness astounds even me. got mail from one of the saddle creek boys (did they know i was having a bright eyes day?) telling me that the faint are coming to ny and do i want to do interviews or anything. hmm. i don't really have any outlet other than ironminds to dump something like that in, but it could be fun all the same. something to consider, something to think about.
latest news from the dermo front: he thinks i should be better within a week or so, and wrote out four, count em, four scrips albeit not all related to this ailment. (more prednisone! yeah! and we have added atarax to the arsenal of sleep-inducing itch fighters.) i'm to call friday with a report. i actually am feeling slightly better today, i think, but that might be because i've been able to stop myself from scratching and just grit through the itch. hopefully tonight will be similarly less bad. i got to work this morning and the editor of the section i'm working on had dropped a revised version on my chair, along with transcripts for "worth repeating." now, i wasn't originally assigned that part, but because i'm dumb and gullible i decided i just must have been assigned it this morning for some reason or another and set about checking it. it's about half done now. of course, it wasn't reassigned, but because i'm kind and generous, i refused to redump it to the guy who originally had it. feh. meanwhile, another potential subletter called at 815a. he is from yale, and he has a wife, and his name is paul, and her name is paula, which i find a little unnerving if not downright creepy. also i think i found evidence of him on a biblethumping page, which is also a little unnerving if not downright creepy. but i'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt, because he wants to stay the whole time til the end of september, and didn't blink an eye when i said the rent was $1900/mo. i think they're going to come see the place tomorrow night, which means i need to clean tonight, which sucks, but i'm willing, because it would be nice to get it rented. i'll just ignore the fact that they'll be having sex in my bed. or maybe i'll buy a rubber mattress cover. or both. i had my revenge on yum thai by calling to order pad thai for pickup and then *gasp* not picking it up. i got sidetracked by shawarma and falafel. hey, it happens. 5.22.2001
called dad to apologize for no particular reason, also to gabe. it's all so fucking stupid. blip blip blip. i think the benadryl might actually be working its woozy goodness over my poor brain. let's hope so. "so i stand in the sun
story closed out early, again, and tomorrow doesn't look too heinous. went to the post office to fetch magazines, then uptown to riteaid for water and benadryl (oh glorious sleep-inducing narcotics), then for sushi. it's funny, i haven't really felt hungry in a few days, but i still feel obligated to eat. sushi was good: chirashi bowl, edamame, ate too much as usual. i like how when you get an edamame with just one bean in it, it looks like a green tadpole. i don't know why i ate, though, really. there's no reason for it, really. midway through the meal i started feeling like total ass and then my hands and feet lit on fire and i thought i was going to die waiting for the crosstown bus but i made it home and now i'm on the couch popping pills and scratching and dipping my feet in calamine. dermo better have some answers tomorrow. preferably involving seconal. ah, the nightly call to dad, where he tells me that my brother told him i was renting an unfurnished apt in nh (thanks for blabbing, jerkface, i know it wasn't a secret but you should know by now what will set him off and chap his ass) and proceeds to chastise me for "not thinking things through" and that now i'm going to have to buy furniture and why am i just letting y carry me along and have we looked very hard for a furnished place and what am i thinking and why haven't i tried harder and i say that he's being overbearing and then he starts in with the "well i didn't tell you to rent that apt in ny or work that job or that you couldn't go to nh" and the "why are you speaking to me in that tone of voice" and i do not have a tone but i do and it's because i like the fact that you care but you care too much about a lot of stuff, trivial things that in the long run mean nothing and will go uncharted and unremarked upon in everyday life and will not matter one bit when we are judged, when i am judged, and now i have a massive throbbing pain and burning itch behind my nose and i think it's an aneurysm and soon my brains are going to be splattered all over the wall and i will have a large gaping hole in my forehead where things used to be locked up safe and sound. why can't i just have my adventure without somebody sitting on my shoulder? it's three fucking months. it's a blip. it's a sneeze. fucking hell. i didn't think i could feel worse. live and learn. "and this feeling always used to pass
slept heavy, strange fragmented dreams. don't remember much: forced to wear oven mitt-like things and thrust my hands into an inferno, given 15 seconds to wriggle out of the gloves before my hands melt and i'm fired; a convulsing earthworm on the subway station floor; a girl who used to work at davis, running into her on the street and finding out that she left her job at starz and was going back to davis for reasons i couldn't fathom. finally getting into high gear on the video game programming story. (hi brandon! pay no attention to the procrastinator behind the curtain!) tentatively set up interview with founder of digipen, put in requests with westwood and ea. and i've still got some irc peeps to contact; i love that because i'm in the scene, i can generally find people who know people who know people and get shit done. totally makes any threat of federal indictment worth it. not that that's ever going to happen, no sir. besides, information and mp3s and warez want to be free, right? i think this is going to be less horrible than i'd been fearing while i put it off in favor of a) onmag stuff b) inside stuff stuff c) a2/festival of new works stuff d) clipping my toenails. i hope. there's really no excuse for why i do this, other than the fact that i've never actually been bitten in the ass by a deadline. just close. just enough to make myself stressed to the point of abdominal distress, which i guess, in retrospect, i kind of thrive on. the thrill of the hunt, the skill of the shot. (the skill of gymnastics. the kill of karate.) or else why would i keep doing it? answer: the force of habit is strong with this one. i'm not really hungry, but i decided i wanted pad thai for lunch. haven't had it in forever, why i don't know. so i call up yum thai and i'm all set to order delivery because i'm mad busy today with tvg research bullsit and it's raining out and i'm still feeling drained and they have the nerve to ask me to come pick it up because they're too busy to deliver, unless i want to wait an hour? i reiterate: as fucking if. annoying cubicle guy is ordering from john's shanghai, so i'm getting soup dumplings, which hopefully will combat what i'm sure will be the ol' reliable eau de dirty diaper wafting over the divider. more on edub: apparently they finally filled the movies ea position. i'm so over it. and i feel good about that. 5.21.2001
i so rarely watch the local news that i feel i'm learning a lot tonight. lesson 1: gaspricewatch is vaguely cool. lesson 2: serafem, the anti-pms pill, is actually just repackaged prozac in a pink-and-purple capsule. lesson 3: miss cleo is working on both a tv show and a book! how cool is that? too bad i'm sure it's a lie. maybe i'll work as a phone psychic for the summer. that could be fun and illuminating. time to scratch myself to sleep.
this woman on the local fox affiliate news is named penny crone. she looks it. i'm watching in anticipatory glee for a story on my good friend cleo. i hope it's good. i also hope i stop itching. sigh. maybe miss cleo knows when i'm going to be healed.
feeling utterly exhausted, been falling asleep all day. it's late now, the day is about over, and i think i can safely go home in a little while. knocked out most of the shitty story i'm working on, only a few facts left to gather tomorrow. i was, as usual, in itchy misery this morning, but i popped a prednisone and an allegra when i got to work and within about an hour was feeling better. but tired. so tired. crappy, boring, tiring day. called dermo a few hours ago. he didn't really have anything to say when i gave him the update. i'm seeing him wednesday morning. (note to self: don't forget this time.) i'm sure it'll be another $150 down the tube. blah. let's hope i get more drugs out of it. i'm going to call my uncle tonight to see what dermo had to say to him; when i called this afternoon, he was on the other line with him, which warms my heart. truly. hopefully we have some info. basically, i've been flatlining since saturday, a million times better than the hell that was thursday and friday, but still not great. crappy, boring, tiring day. on the plus side, i got mail from joe garden. it seems to hold the promise of softball. rad. also i just met jill for a late lunch after her mtr interview. slice of overly expensive pizza, and an ice cream cone from ben and jerry's. normally i would never get anything sugary like that, but i figured the hype would do me good and my chest was feeling funky and the cold seemed very appealing. and it was, except for the bitchy, irate ben and jerry's staff. when i work retail this summer, i am going to be pleasant. i will bitch about it here, but there i will be pleasant. i do solemly swear. walking under rock center back to the office, i ran into justine from ew.com. she is super. she is on vacation. she told me that two ew.com people got laid off last week. that's sad. fucking economy. i am doubly glad that i currently have a paycheck. crappy, boring, tiring day.
not a bad trip, except for the whole raptors losing thing. got into 30th street station on time, caught a cab to first union center. cabbie was a total moron who did not know how to deal with game day traffic and getting me inside, and actually had the immigrant balls to suggest dropping me off at the side of the road and me walking the quarter mile to the complex. as fucking if. he eventually trial and errored his way into vip parking and then managed to go the wrong way down a one-way road parallel to the side of the arena, where we actually made it about halfway to where i wanted to be dropped before an irate parking dude jumped in front of us and started screaming. i walked the rest of the way. nbd, but god, what an idiot. once inside, i went to the press room to get my seat assignment. score! not skyhigh tonight, not i - i assume because henry the hatter wasn't attending the game, i ended up with what would have been his seat, four rows behind the baseline. suh-weet. i dare say that's about as close to the floor as i've ever been. unfortunately, press dinner was pure ass, both nasty pork-laden dishes. i ate roasted potatoes and drank over-syruped pepsi. barf. luckily, aunt maribeth and cousin andrew were attending the game, and were seated in a section adjacent to the press area. they hung around after the game waiting for me to get my post-game interviews and then we headed out, just enough time to spare to hit up pat's for cheesesteaks (the real kind, with cheezwhiz - fuck that american cheese noise, processed kraft is way too tony for what a philly cheesesteak ought to be) and speed to the train station so i could go home. nice to see them, even though brief. things that suck: my recorder, as usual, fucking up in the lockerroom. you know what? this is the last straw. i am starting the hunt for a proper minidisc recorder and mic in earnest. i got that check from inside stuff for lanier and it's enough to cover this purchase, and honestly it's something i need if i'm going to be doing this shit more often. fucking piece of shit olympus assrag. anyway, a bit sad that the mopete saga is over (at least until i write the story). it was fun while it lasted. i want to turn in something so good that they assign me something else, although i don't know how much i can do from nh. i think i can make this good. i've written the opener already, and figured out a frighteningly albom-esqe hook that i'm fairly embarrassed to employ but probably will anyway, just because i can, and just because i can pretend it's a heydey-era albom homage and not a smarmy post-morrie albom homage. shh. i decided to take the subway home because it was only 11p when i got into penn station. stupid me. waited half an hour for the train when i could have had a taxi home that i would have eventually expensed. pay now, pay later. dumb. (today's cultural musing: what is the deal with ghetto wannabes wearing racing logo stuff? this has been bugging me for about a year now. it's ridiculous. autoracing is whiter than hockey, and that's a pretty mean achievement. they'd be better off wearing golfwear. i'm at a loss for an explanation.) y left me a message of sheer apartment bliss regarding the place we're almost for sure renting in manchester. i called from the train and got more of the 411. it sounds truly outstanding except that it's unfurnished. i can just see us decking the place out with cheap blow-up furniture from the dollar store. it'll be like a nursery school, or a place where all the patients wear helmets. i am now officially, without a doubt off my ass for nh; apparently the apt is a mile or so from downtown and there are strip malls and stores all around. i will see it for myself on sunday. can't wait. i didn't make it to the drugstore, which means no water and no benadryl. and i am fucking itchy right now, and getting itchier. i'd better go try to crossword myself to sleep. stupid stupid stupid. 5.20.2001
blah cockroach. smash. no further responses to sublet ad. that makes me sad. my hands are almost normal now - i can make fists no problem, although i can't hold them because pressure is bad. muscle contraction makes my arms hurt. i think i am also slightly less itchy, although not if i get going with a scratch. however, my chest is still unhappy, although less so now that the drugs have seemingly loosened it up. when i woke up this morning it was really bad, breathing shallowly, kind of scary but not horribly so. since the drugs, now i can take a marginally deep breath without breaking out in coughs and wanting to crawl into bed and sleep and die. mostly i'm just really tired. i talked to feldy on the phone for a while and told him about my michigan trip and my allergies and last night's dinner, and then bailed on 9th ave because i'm just too tired and i really need to go to phila to game 7. i just bought my tix; $50 more today than wednesday because both trains are metroliners. 3p train out from penn station, 945p train out from phl. dad woke me around 1030p to tell me to get dressed and come to breakfast. i told him it would be 30 or 45 minutes and that i felt crappy and blah blah blah. he had me print out his boarding passes for the flight home with e-checkin. i was halfway to the subway before i realized i'd left them in the apt, so i had to come back, and then i had to wait a long time for the train, and then again when i transferred to the local, and by the time i got to the diner they were waiting outside and said they'd already eaten. i thought they were joking. but they weren't. we went to zabar's and i got a bagel and lox and oj, and dad got a chocolate croissant, and shelly went next door to shop. dad said he was worried about me and i said i was too and why couldn't i breathe right and then he said he didn't mean that and it turns out he now officially thinks i am chemically imbalanced and depressed. this is interesting because, while i have been aware of this for years upon years, i think this is the first time he's ever out and out said that i'm just like him and gabe, with this running in the family the way they are, the way we are, and that he thinks i'm sad, and that almost makes me feel worse because i'd just been the happiest i'd been in so long, feeling good about myself and my life and things i was doing and things i can do, but really i know he's right, and that, yeah, i feel this way 24/7, and it would be nice not to. one of the true miracles of modern medicine, he called antidepressants. and here i thought that label belonged on preparation h. oh well. this is all going to have to wait until i have insurance either from a job or moving back home to live under his roof, which he invited me to do if i want to. and sometimes i do want to. but not right now. right now i am going to new hampshire, and i am going to get my shit together, and i am going to rewrite ytwt, and i am going to get an agent, and i am going to sell ytwt, because i know that i can. because i know it can be that good. if i can just get my shit together. i can continue operating at this level of function and get my shit done. and who knows if i could if i flattened myself with prozac or xanax or whatever they threw at me. who knows what that would do. visions of awakenings. and visions of numb bliss that i so long for. i can keep trucking along. i can do this. i can. phila bound. my ears are burning.
i think the swelling in my hands is on the rise again, but i can't be sure. i could just be paranoid. my chest feels funny now, breathing-wise. probably my own fault for attempting to take a deep breath. now things feel unright. tight and unright. i'm going to finish watch snl and go to bed and feel better in the morning. i will make it so. is it possible for rivers cuomo to be any better looking? no, i didn't think so. 5.19.2001
within half an hour of posting sublet ad i had a response from a jhu kid named julian who is interning at goldman this summer. he offered $1600, which is pretty appealing since there's only one of him and he was interested in a written agreement, which leads me to believe he won't be a snaky little assmunch who will steal all my stuff and trash my place, and since he's working at goldman he'll hardly ever be home anyway because they run those kids into the ground while giving them a nice stipend. sucka! i think he's going to come look at my place one night this week; unfortunately, he only wants it through mid-august, but he said he'd pay for the entire month of august, and i bet i can still find somebody for september. or even better, somebody for the full three months who will pay more than $1600. this is all coming together so well, it frightens me. i'm sure something will go wrong soon enough. i think i'm going to rent a car to get from nyc to manchester. it won't be that much more than the bus/train (even though i will also be raped with an acid-dipped dildo of a surcharge because i'm under 25) and will save me from the huge pita that will be dragging my huge army duffels to the bus/train station, which i have done before and is really, really not fun. i start sweating just thinking about how i dragged all my shit around the columbia campus until i finally found my dorm last summer. and i can bring a little more stuff with me, even my tivo if i want, although i think it would be best if i didn't vis a vis its inversely proportional influence on my productivity. also amtrak doesn't even go to manchester, so really i'd be stuck with the bus, and there are few things i hate more in this world than long bus trips. (these include but are not limited to elaine loeser, what about bob?, and whatever it is i'm currently in the throes of.) after a failed attempt to get a le bernadin res, it was decided to go to the palm on the east side. i scrounged through my closets to find appropriate attire, which meant non-shlepwear that wasn't tight or binding given my current skin sensitivity. outfit was easily acquired and donned, and i think i will use it for friday night dinner in boston next week for cousin anna's bat mitzvah. worst part was shoes, but i survived. went to dad and shelly's hotel to meet them and then downtown to the restaurant. portions huge, lobster bisque too salty, in general good but not great. i had the presence of mind to get swordfish and not steak, although it was more because i didn't want something that heavy as opposed to the real practical genius i realized midway through, which is that managing a knife and fork and cutting would have been impossible. holding things that press into my palms results in an exquisite sort of itchy pain that radiates for about five minutes, which i suffered the first time i scraped off a forkful of fish and avoided the rest of the time with a different forking method. i am a good little handicapped grrl, living in itchycoo park. i have not had any alcohol since tuesday. surely this is some kind of record. i left the lovebirds at grand central and rode back home. checked mail, and lo and behold, there was a paycheck from inside stuff, just as my editor promised. i am so in love with working for them - they paid on time! before publication! without me signing a contract! (i probably should, but i have great trust for my editor; she is truly outstanding.) fabulous. $320 for me, $80 for uncle sam that i will hide in my savings acct until april 15. also in the mail, an electric bill, which i just paid, and that inspired me to pay my cable bill on time for the first time in months. i wonder if i should put my cable on hiatus while i'm away this summer; i think you can do it for something like $2/mo, which is a hell of a lot better than $53.75. fuck you, time warner cable. tonight: sleep, or transcribe mopete, or put a dent in the btvs backlog? hmm. tomorrow: 9th ave food fest with feldy and maybe stinky, philly for game 7. i'll hold off on buying train tix until tomorrow morning in case i relapse during the night. called uncle morris out in amagansett to give him an update on how i'm doing. he says he's going to call dermo on monday to ask why he's putting me on new meds after i had this reaction on the first stuff. he is genuinely concerned. he is earning boucoup points by being a loving family member; every once in a while i wonder if he has it in him. he does. that's comforting, and a good thing. i am out of bottled water, and i am dying of thirst. i filled up my bottle with tap water. it's either that or beer/bad wine/vodka/red bull. or putting on clothes and walking down to the corner store. i feel so dirty. i also feel SO ITCHY. it all just hit me in about ten different places, and i don't know why because i'm sitting indianstyle on the couch wearing nothing but boxer shorts and not touching anything. gah. i can't remember if took allegra twice today or not, but i think i'll take another anyway because that might help the itching a little. tomorrow i'm going to look into benadryl, which will help me in the evenings. my stomach looks very albino-zebra right now, because whenever i scratch it leaves red marks for another hour, no matter how lightly i touch. g charles, you truly rock my world. come scratch my back. pretty please?
they finally showed up. i suggested barney greengrass for breakfast because i was in the mood for their chopped liver and comped barney greengrass is good barney greengrass, so we went. pit stop at starbucks, short wait for table, i had a triple decker (wasn't very) corned beef/onion/chopped liver on rye, they split whitefish salad and kippered salmon salad and bagels. i ate half, the rest is in the fridge. goddamn, that is one good sandwich. they went down to tkts to grab matinee tix, i came back up here to moan and pity myself, as well as try to get a res at le bernadin for the three of us. unfortunately, they only have cancellations for 6p and 1045p, neither of which really work. oh well. i should just stay home and work, anyway. i think the time has finally come to post a sublet ad, carried forth on the wings of the new lucinda williams album. i need a nap.
okay, dishes done, room cleaned up, living room moderately tidied. shifted everything to the desk. i'm sure dad will have something to say. i don't really care right about now. dishes were a major pain with my hands, but it's good i saved them til now. no way i could have done them last night. i could hardly hold a pen to crossword myself to sleep. where is dad?
passed out around 230a. slept heavy, woke around 7a with itchy ankle, just like yesterday. got up, calamined, went back to sleep. dad called a couple hours later to wake me; they're coming over at 11a. next orders of business: shower, dress, clean. meanwhile, the swelling seems to have gone down a lot. i can make fists now; not tight fists, but probably a 75% improvement in mobility. hands are very blotchy, though, and feel like they're burning, like they have furnaces inside. more hot than itchy right now. ankles also a little smaller. i think i might have a patch of puff or two on my face now, but i think it might go away since it's probably due to sleeping on it. things hurt when i exert any pressure. thank the lord for nsync keeping me from going nsane.
holy shit, the new nsync single is a) fabulous b) TOTALLY michael jackson c) COMPLETELY michael jackson and d) UNBELIEVABLY michael jackson. scare-ee. "what's the deal with this pop life and when is it gonna fade out?" 5.18.2001
i think that being dead would probably be more pleasant than how i feel right now. my ankles are the size of tennis balls, my hands look like they belong to the staypuft marshmallow man, and my lips look like i'm post-collagen goldie hawn. in short, i want to die. now. i was doing okay all day, and then around dinner time things headed downhill. i got out of work right in time for 545p dinner with dad and shelly and uncle morris and aunt laurie - a minor miracle. walked to cite grill, sat down, ordered, food was good, way too much, and as i ate and ate it got worse and worse. i had to have dad crack the lobster for me because i couldn't deal with putting forth that much pressure. the swelling started in earnest. i went to the bathroom as the meal was ending and took five minutes just to unbutton my pants, my hands were so clumsy. if this keyboard were a regular desktop keyboard and not a laptop keyboard, typing would be a near impossibility - as it stands, the pain and tingle and itch of pressing the keys, however lightly necessary, is mounting a significant challenge to this blog entry. so we went to see the producers. my father the genius had purchased tickets a few days after the show was announced, months ago. aunt and uncle had balcony seats, but us three were on the floor, row m. a short little old man sat in front of me, so even though i was slouching because i felt like total ass, i could see fine. and it was great. all the reviews are right on target. brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. i just wish i could have enjoyed it more. by the middle of the first act i was in tears. and then at intermission shelly took one look at me and asked if i wanted ice, and i said no, and then i said yes, and she went and waited in the huge line and got me a big bag of ice and i wrapped my hands around it for the next hour, squeezing the life and the cold out of it, water pooling in my lap, freeze taking over my extremities, relief temporarily flooding until the pain echoed out through my joints from pressing the ice. it was a very mom thing to do. damn, the play was fucking good. i recommend it to all. i must have looked like a feeb, not clapping and hooting and hollering. as we filed out i realized that my feet really did not like having pressure put on them, and gimped my way to the subway, where the 2 train came immediately and i left dad and shelly, who were going to uncle morris's. i was supposed to go too but i was about five seconds away from total simpering despair and breakdown and decided it would be best if i came home and melded myself to the couch. meanwhile, my couch is now covered in random pink splotches were calamine has rubbed off. i need to purchase a dustbuster, bad. i really would like to not complain about this. it's all so fucking boring. sigh. at least now i know what my hands would look like if i became inexplicably fat. today's drug intake: 60mg of prednisone. 40mg prescribed, then uncle morris told me to take another 20mg at intermission when he saw what was going on. sigh. shelly asked if i wanted somebody to come stay with me tonight, or if i wanted to stay with them at the hotel, almost insisted, i think, but i said no, i'm fine, i'll be fine, i'll be fine. and i crawled home. almost literally. helping: talking to y, listening to new travis album. intriguing: my boobs are not swelling. life is so not fair. and fabulousing: the raptors won, mopete had a great game, i'm going to philly sunday for game 7 provided i'm feeling better, and i suck for not taping the game. "the grass is always greener on the other side
back at work. the night wasn't so bad - things calmed down enough on the dermis for me to sleep, and i can now walk without my thighs screaming in itchy pain. so we're seeing slow improvement. now, of course, everything is achy. and i can't take ibuprofin because it reacts badly with prednisone. all are invited to my pity party, just don't forget the gifts. i should be fine by monday, so be sure to fedex them overnight. meanwhile, my day just improved exponentially: the crappy item that was going to be horrible to check got shitcanned. hooray. i just might get out of here in time to make dinner with dad. photo update: unfortunately, the batteries did not charge in time to capture me at my lumpiest, so i think i'll forgo the photodocumentation. there isn't much to see now beyond some redness. bummer, dudes. 5.17.2001
story closed miraculously early, so i trudged home with my calamine and my cotton balls and my scrips and slithered out of clothing the second i set foot in my apt and now i am chilling on the couch in my fabulous boy underwear and dried pink lotion. feeling a little better. things are itchy burning less. how sad is it that this is probably the worst health crisis i've ever had, unless you count the time i fell down that mountain in aspen. or the time i tripped on a crack in the sidewalk walking next door and broke my finger. i hope you're all enjoying this fun road trip into the medical travails of moi. seriously. i know i am. coming soon: photos!
i couldn't take it, and at 215p i called up dermo and started babbling about how i had reskedded my missed appt to tomorrow but i was freaking out over these hives and this reaction and could he please please please squeeze me in and they caved and said how soon can you be here and i said half an hour and they said okay get here by 3p and i said okay and then i hung up and gave the bad news to research editor robin and gave some changes on the story i'm working on and got the hell out of dodge, or at least out of the newscorp building. made it there just before 3p, made it back here before 4p. i rule. long story short: yes, allergic reaction, no, probably won't go away by itself, goodbye minocin, hello prednisone and, later, tetracycline. already popped 20mg of steroid he gave me as sample. i shucked clothing the better to see my welts with and my ankles and feet are in bad shape, no wonder they've been tingly. fingers becoming clumsy. next order of business: hit up the drug store, fill scrips, pick up calamine lotion. tomorrow i am to call dermo and report on progress or lack thereof. legs are zinging. walking is sucking. agony. "help me i am in hell"
the trick to successful consumption of fast food is to just power through it. if you find yourself faced with a wendy's double cheeseburger, dripping with melted processed foodstuff, and you take that first bite, for the love of all that is holy and caloric, don't stop eating. put it down for 30 seconds - nay, 10! - and the sheen of fatty goodness fades into congealed "meat". $6.49 down the tube.
i'm feeling a lot calmer now. this is good, but still itchy. some diligent googling has revealed that, as opposed to this problem being a body politic epidemic of jock itch, apparently one out of every hundred people manifests an allergic reaction with killer hives two to three weeks after starting these meds. yep, we're coming up on day 20. at least it's not herpes, gonorrhea or dyslexia. yet.
i watched sopranos (there's something to be said for not sleeping, namely clearing space on tivo), dressed, came to work. now i am fucking freaking out. new bumps on my right hand, as well as a massive red splotch swatch from top of thumb to base of hand on the outer side. a smaller version on my left hand. then i pull out the appt card to call the dermo and i had a fucking appt at 930a, which i could have been at since i was up at 530a. i hate myself and want to die, but not until tomorrow afternoon when i have my reskedded appt. or maybe i will, given that i just opened up my stories for the next two days and it's going to be a fucking nightmare. on the plus side, the lady at the office didn't seem too concerned when i told her what was going on, but maybe she was getting back at me for missing the appt. i am giving serious consideration to puking/crying in the bathroom in about five minutes. it just occurred to me - could this be something from the game? specifically, the lockerroom? i didn't really touch anything other than shaking mopete's hand post-shower, when it was presumably clean. and i certainly washed my hands after, at the train station when i went to the bathroom before leaving and again the second i got home, as always. also this manifested itself first on legs and back, not hands. gah. leprosy. soon i'll be typing with my nose, until that too falls off. ARE YOU THERE, GOD*? IT'S ME, ERIN. WHY ARE YOU PUNISHING ME? IS IT BECAUSE I SNEAKED LOOKS AT NAKED PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL PLAYERS LAST NIGHT IN THE LOCKERROOM? DID I SIN? I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF! THEY WERE EVERYWHERE! I LOOKED BUT DIDN'T TOUCH! THERE'S SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR THAT, RIGHT? it's always. fucking. something. (hello, my name is "slathered with hydrocortisone," how are you today?) *==does not presume belief in god.
just watched dawson's and west wing. skin seems to have calmed down, no compulsive itching. i am treating all with fingertips to minimize irritation. all bumps/welts/lumps/whatever still present and accounted for, though. i so want to be asleep right now. "well you shouldn't doctor yourself he was a sucker for your double dose with a broken sink for a face it's already half past i was sticking up for my friend 'cause when i talk to you on the phone
okay, i took a shower. that helped minimally. this is still fucking bizarre. they look like bugbites yet i see no point of entry on the welts and i searched my bed about twenty times and found no sign of any insect. took an allegra and attacked biggest "bites" with hydrocortisone. there is a lump about an inch and a half in diameter on the right side of my left heel. unlike other bumps, it does not itch. hmm. smaller ones on my right index and middle fingers, base joint. right big toe. right elbow. possibly left shoulder and right shoulder, i can't tell for sure. scalp, towards base of skull on right side. itchy areas with no major bumps (but a few smaller ones): upper right thigh, small of back, upper left thigh. now i'm sitting in my towel on the couch trying not to move. if i just don't move, i might be okay. i think i need to call dad.
what in the blue fuck is happening to me. why am i covered in bumps. what the fuck. itch itch. scratch scratch.
back from phila. great night, felt so much more comfortable being there and being media than i did when i broke my sports press cherry. train was a little late getting in, i grabbed a cab to the first union center and went in the employees entrance as the uberwonderful henry abbott had instructed me to do, got my media pass, went inside, wandered about for a bit scoping the terrain, then went out to the floor to await henry. we'd agreed to meet at 630p in the press endzone. i told him i would be the shortest and whitest person there. he found me immediately. we talked for a little while about general crap, and i was so cool and together it was like i'd had some horse tranqs before the trip. beautiful. he went off to do an interview, i went to wait for lenny wilkens to emerge from the shadows, which he did, and i waited my turn in the crowd around him and asked why he had mopete riding the bench, and he kind of laughed and said something, and then something else, the latter of which i wrote down afterward because i remembered it verbatim and, of course, my tape recorder didn't work. i will never puzzle out the mystery of my recorder. there is no rhyme or reason to when it picks up sound and when it doesn't. it pisses me off. it makes me want to buy a minidisc recorder and bi-directional mic and just vroom. sigh. someday when i win the lottery. luckily after much testing and coaxing and praying, my recorder successfully captured the post-game, post-shower words of my man mo, who did me a huge favor with this story and actually got some playing time and converted some shots. thank you, ball powers that be. for the game i was stuck up in the "hockey box," which is about as high as you can go without being on the roof. i sat next to some radio guy and managed to impress him by tossing off some raptors facts and mopete specifics when i overheard him gabbing with another guy. little do they know that i could do it simply because i am now well-versed in raptorese. after the game i went down to the lockerroom, for real the only girl in there. my oh my. my oh my. that place needed a rooster going "cock-a-baller-dooooo!" also, junkyard is fucking built, and he went to chill with his moms on the floor after the game. i love that guy to death. henry dropped me at the train station afterward and i made the earlier train with ten minutes to spare. it was a little late. no big deal. got an english-speaking cabbie on the way home, lamont dandridge. lamont was great fun. he claims he has a radio show or something down near phila and had been there earlier today. we talked about ball for a while, and how his wife is originally from toronto, and about living where i do when i gave him the address ("that's my turf! you know better than livin' up there!"), and then about how i got my tickets to the game, which led to him saying that i should write a story about cabbies, which led to me asking what the craziest thing that ever happened to him was, which led to this long, incoherent story about driving a prostitute and pimp who ripped him off for $260 with a gun to his head and then the prosititute ripped off her pimp and the very next day ended up back in his cab leaning through the window with a huge wad of cash dangling out of her pocketbook and the pimp on the other side connected to her neck trying to strangle her, and lamont grabbed the wad and took a bunch, what he thought was just enough to cover what she'd stolen from him the day before, and hauled ass out of there, and when he got home to his wife they counted the money and it turned out to be all hundreds and twenties and a couple random bills and totaled out at $5466. i'm sure i misunderstood half the story but he was very clear on that point: $5466. great googly moogly. 5.16.2001
note to self: don't drink martinis. i decided it was soft shell crab time, so i emailed morrow and asked if he wanted to go with me to mary's fish camp, which i'd heard was good and currently had soft shell crab on special. morrow, of course, said yes. so we met around 730p, put in our names and went to while away the hour wait at a bar a few blocks away. note to self: don't drink martinis. actually, we only had one apiece, but a) they were $10 per and b) note to self: don't drink martinis. this all probably would have worked out fine, actually, if we hadn't gotten an excellent bottle of wine with dinner. note to self: don't drink martinis and then get a bottle of wine with dinner. i'm blaming the fact that we were experiencing what i like to term "foodphoria". use your imagination on that one. got an appetizer of a half-dozen malpeque oysters - pristine - then ordered a lobster roll entree and the jumbo soft shell crab entree, both of which we split. holy. shit. was it ever good. or not even good, but amazing, sublime, incredible, unprecedented. we are definitely going back before i go to nh. if i go to nh. when i go to nh. we were sitting there, me talking about my time in a2, him talking about his time in turkey, and every few minutes we'd stop and just look at each other and go, "holy shit." and then - and then - it happened. tin tin's kiss me started playing. and i just about crapped my pants. perfection. except for that whole martini thing. reason #275 why i heart cable neuhaus: 'tis i, and i am back from my exile in the motor city. just wanted to check in and say hi and make sure you're still alive. i worry, you know. you're old. -erin I'm sorry, could you repeat ... I'm sorry... 5.15.2001
im with katie banks==good way to avoid work on this awful ali-frazier story that just will not die. also good: walking around the office going about my business and people saying "welcome back." there's something about being missed that makes you feel like a real person. research chief michael called me out for another meeting. yet again, mum's the word on my attire (today: jeans that i really need to replace this week because they're about two washes away from developing a large hole in the crotch; my favorite yellow/blue-stripe polo that is unraveling in a dozen places). i reupped until june 15, and told him i was probably going to be gone for the summer after that. he wants me to come back after i return from nh, if i go. this is good. this is very good. energy-sucking, but good. plus being here through june 15 means that counting this week, i will make about $5k pre-tax, which should cover most of my expenses both here and in nh. i hope, anyway. it'd be nice not to have to touch what i've put away, although i am willing. i've still got hopwood money sitting around, anyway. had a cheesesteak for lunch, but did not wear a murder king hat while eating. it was much improved by grilled onions. i wonder if i'll have one tomorrow in phila. probably not, probably won't be enough time. i think i'm going to catch the 410p train into philly, which should get me there with plenty of time. grab a cab to the first union center, meet up with henry abbott, who will be leading me around like the obedient little doggy that i am, and work my magic. i think it will go better this time. (well, it couldn't go much worse.) but my confidence is up a little, since i've done it before and had the nice chat with mopete on the phone. if i can just nail a quote from lenny wilkens and maybe vince carter (yeahright), i think i'd be set. also apparently i'm sitting in the "hockey box," whatever that is. let us hope it is neither obstructed nor nosebleed. i got a return ticket for the 1132p train, but i'm not sure if i'll make it or not since it's an 8p game and i'll hang around a bit afterward. i hope i do, because the next train isnt until 1239a, and that won't get me into penn station until after 2a. still, this should be fun. i hope. also my editor put in for press cred for me for the nba draft on june 27. too bad i plan on being in nh then, which is a shame, because i think it would have been fun, especially since i've been following the early entry list with some diligence. maybe i'll come back for a day or two. or maybe not. i think one of the best parts about having people act out sd is that i can now more easily imagine how my words sound when they're out loud, and pick people in my head to assign them to. like i can pretend to have katie banks be emily, or davy jones be wells. it's a little easier than thinking about ben foster, just because i've spent enough time with them to at least begin to guess how they'd attack something, as opposed to ben, with whom i've spent the equivalent of a bunch of sitcom episodes and a movie or two. (and let us not forget that i would have spent more if the little bastard hadn't had to go on leno the same day i was skedded to interview him and inform him that we were getting married. hrmph.) i have to take advantage of this momentum. i can't let inertia take hold. 5.14.2001
in the subway station while waiting for the train, i saw a woman wearing a gerardo shirt. that's right, rico suave writ large over falling tits and gut. it was pretty frightening. as you can imagine, the day can only be downhill from there, although i'm doing my best to flip that by eating my cappi and drinking redbull while i watch moral court. i must say that this batch of capricola is not so wonderful, though certainly not bad. bah. happily, i received information regarding tim's bachelor party today. yes, although i am not a boy, i am going to a bachelor party. i rule. i would like to take this opportunity to announce that in discussing the bachelor party plans, seth oppenheim has finally surpassed the most excellent email he has ever written, in which he pinpointed the location of gotham city as somewhere over scandinavia (link forthcoming when i have access to that email). congratulations to seth. also in the mail today, love from g charles (also present in the picture: my fish shirt. although only the red fish are visible, and there are also pale blue and yellow and green). i miss him already. rolling rock worked its magic and i feel asleep with ten minutes to go in last week's west wing. this is annoying because a) i wanted to finish it before work today and b) i read an email this morning that spoiled deaths in both that episode and in last night's the practice, which i also have yet to watch. thanks for the spoiler warning, bucko. talked to dad this morning. dad: "eric has this acquaintance, tim dick." me: "that's an unfortunate name." dad: "that's why he changed it to tim allen." long story short, eric, who is a close family friend, vaguely knows timmy (i'm guessing they must have gone to school together at some point growing up, since he is to the motown born) and also is actual friends with some jerry guy who is actual friends with tim, and told them about the weekend shit (eric came to a performance) and t&a wants to read sd. well, okay, whatever. i sent dad the latest version and told him what brads to buy for binding, and to say that i'm in the middle of a new draft. well, okay, whatever. work==suck. lack of finger==suck. mc, however, ==fab (best line today: "patricia, i think you was an undercover hoochie from the start!") keep forgetting to spotlight ebes' return to hilarity. so there, i've done it. 5.13.2001
what the fuck is up with my allergies? i'm breaking out the big guns: nasal spray. i have this horrid suspicion that subletter had a cat here after all, but maybe i'm just being paranoid - why would she lie? not to mention all the shit on the ground makes it look like everything bloomed while i was away. so that's got to be it. right? right? meanwhile, i just tried to sleep but i can't. no reason. just me. i am so fucking tired. i really need to figure out a way to get some real drugz. i am open to suggestions. my brother is awesome. not that this is new news. he should really give writing a shot. i am not the only one in this family who can write. well, either that or drug dealing, because i am in desperate need of a pusher. thanks for being my brother, gabe. you, too, are mr fabulous. might as well watch malcolm. came up with a good plot today on the plane for my spec, although i'm not sure if i'm going to use that one. i have a whole page of ideas, but i think today's has a lot of room to play with, a lot of directions to explore. it might be a bad idea to wash down meds with beer and capricola, but at this point i don't really care.
took a field trip to columbia hot bagels (got two as usual, found i could only eat one; i should cut down on calorie intake), deposited paycheck at citi, and got half a pound of capricola and a roll and some milk for mac'n'burger tonight. it's really nice out today, and because i'm not buying a monthly metrocard until tomorrow on my way to work, i walked both ways. nice breeze, sunny. only bad thing is that the air is thick with pollen and i have been sneezing since what feels like the dawn of time. let's pop some pills!
the lowdown: friday went well. saturday went well. about 80% of the audience each night was in some way related to me through family or friendship, so i was pretty ooky about the whole thing but dealt nicely. it helped that i sat up in the booth for both performances, which means i didn't have to have people staring at me the whole time while they watched, or see anybody crying or anything. and i could sit up there and laugh at everything i thought was funny, especially when the actors flubbed. which i did, and they did. terry and jb came. i caught terry smirking at "schwinn fucking bicycle" which amuses me to no end. jb busted out the massive ego massage in the talkback and was positively beaming and soon everyone else was too. creepy. unwarranted. kind of fun. but honestly: it went well. it went really well. people laughed where i wanted them to laugh, and "brothers kreepamazov" finally got the guffaws that stage direction so richly deserves. the actors nailed it 99%, and covered their asses when they didn't. (my only lingering complaints are that davy never hummed the super mario theme song when describing the gameboy music, and zach never correctly understood/delivered the line "your mother made me a father, you know," which is a line i really like but didn't want to deal with explaining and giving a line reading. in retrospect, i should have.) and i felt good. i want to feel that again. (i also want to hear from jb what he thinks i should do now. what the next move is. fuck, i want to move to la. but i don't. fuck. terry thinks all i need to do is pick what i'm focusing on, and focus, and i will find success. but how can i choose? how can i pick screenwriting when the chances are so small, when i know that if i have to get in a room and pitch and win people over, i can't do it? or rather, i can; but i'm so afraid that being me won't work out there because everything is so predicated on looks that i am not girl enough for it, on top of my ineffectiveness when dealing with people. i'd like to think that the writing will stand up, that they will see and appreciate my sarcastic sheen, but how can i count on that? what if i pick wrong? what then? and more importantly why am i afraid to take a plunge - take the plunge? what exactly do i have to lose?) put up or shut up. shut up. friday night, party at zanzibar and then logan's. logan's party was way less good than the night before. i'm blaming it on the lack of g charles. saturday night, got a quick beer with shtim, seth, josh bogin, jill, and some other randoms at ashley's, then booked it to northwood where i thought the party was. wrong-o. i show up and nobody is there except caroline watching stop or my mom will shoot on cable. i want to run because where the fuck is the party? where is jimmy meade and gb and katie banks and everybody? i have to be awake in six hours to go to the airport - from detroit! luckily, katie banks showed up a few minutes later and we sat there for a while and then lisa showed up and informed us that, haha, the real party is at david reiser's, and i followed her car there and she has no fucking clue how to get around a2 despite living there for four years, and i got there and katie banks had beaten us there due to our circuitous route, and i walked in and spent half an hour saying goodbyes to gb and jim meade and g charles and darren and dan green and katie banks and everybody and then i drove home. alone. slept for about three hours, had a minor freakout over finding keys to apt until i tore about suitcase in the driveway and found them, got to the airport offensively early. got in line to check my bag - the real line, not the good e-ticket line because umfvpgm got me a real ticket - and even though it was wrapped all the way around, it moved faster than i've ever seen. i attempted to get a burger and fries at burger king but they stupidly only serve breakfast food until 930a. got a cinnabon and a pepsi instead. way too much sugar - they should put a warning on the cinnabon box that says "may cause diabetes". i was zombieing my way up the moving sidewalk, planning a pitstop at c6 to say goodbye to grandma norma, when out of the corner of my eye i saw darren walking the other way and out of the corner of his eye he saw me and we rejoiced and escaped from the sidewalk and then hung out at c20 for about (aboot?) an hour since we had a lot of time to kill. darren is truly super, just as i first suspected upon meeting him, and not just because he reminds me more than a little of jim carrey and he's canadian. (hmm, so is carrey.) so that was cool. then he went to catch his flight to toronto and i got on mine. window seat in the first row behind first class, arrived a few minutes early at the gate, didn't wait long for my bag, picked up a taxi and vroom. so now i'm back in nyc. home, but not. i paranoided my way in from the airport, holding my breath as i turned keys in locks to discover that, whew, all of my possessions are still my possessions. the subletter was a model of good tenantdom. hell, she even cleaned the toilet. also i noticed when i flicked on the light that the mysterious men came in while i was away and replaced all of my fixtures with ones that are energy-efficient and vaguely fluorescent-like. rad. i'd like to make my bed and go to sleep for a while, but james is listening to music that i know i've heard before, like years ago - i thought for a minute it was janet jackson circa rhythm nation 1814, but it's not. later, maybe. 5.11.2001
tried to blog this yesterday at the ugli but blogger was having none of it. so let's pretend it's 6p, thursday, and i have just come to the library to check my email and vent my spleen about what happened at the performance. it was a fucking unmitigated disaster, and i wanted to die a thousand painful deaths. i suppose i was setting myself up, finally feeling all was right with the world, feeling at peace, feeling like a human, and that word was sent to whomever word gets sent to and they decided it was high time to crush me like a bug. it wasn't just that the audience was a bunch of rude, immature assholes who decided to laugh at every thing they could find to laugh at (not with) in the show (or at least, just the ones who were awake - these kids walked in and went to sleep before the show even started), but that the actors fucking fell apart. it wasn't just a phone-in. it was via carrier pigeon, and they were pigeoning-in a script that i sure as hell didn't write. it got to the point where the actors and the audience were feeding off of each other in all the wrong ways. it was horrifying. (i walked out in the middle because i needed some food after puking all night and couldn't take any more of the laughter/snores, and when i came back jim was standing in the hallway with a mountain dew. me: "what the fuck is going on in there?" jim: "i have no idea.") different line readings, different lines. i wanted. to fucking. die. luckily their bus was waiting for them after the show so we didn't have to do a talkback. i was dreading that. instead, jim yelled at everybody for ten minutes for embarrassing themselves and me. i wouldn't have been quite so upset if a) i hadn't been so jacked after tuesday's show b) i'd gotten any sleep the night before (too excited/nauseous) and c) anderson hadn't been there. i emailed him saying to come the day before and he did and i was fucking mortified. afterward i told him "i'm sorry you had to see that." gb spoke to him on the phone later and told me he didn't think it was that awful, so that's something. feh. i'm feeling a little better about it now; or at least, i'm just going to pretend it didn't happen. start new. tonight can be better, will be better, better be better. oh god, i hope so. anyway, after i finished shit at the library i went to red hot lovers to meet matt for dinner. mmm, slamburger with cheese and honey mustard. then we walked to the michigan to see amores perros, which we both deem excellent. i love movies. i want to write a good one. i have to find one inside of me that is presentable to the world. after the movie i went to casa fabuloso to hang with david the puppeteer and wait for the return of fabu and jim. fabulous turned out to already be home by the time i got there. downed a couple of coors extra gold (which i give a thumbs up) and then made our way to party at logan's. no curfew this time, w00t. party was fucking excellent and way made up for my horrible afternoon. beer galore, bong escapades in the kitchen (no, dad, i don't poison my body with that shite, unless you count the second-hand high), fun theatre people, more beer, g. charles wright who rocks my world, more canadian band spoogage with broadway joe star darren, and giant ego massage por moi because dan green, the director of gb's show, wanted to hear all about my adventures in the magazine trade and so did other people and then i looked around the room just offhand and there was ew #568, in which i wrote an internet lede, so i proved my publishedness with a hard copy and impressed the hell out of everyone. that was pretty cool. drank slightly too much but consumed like a gallon of water before bed and now i feel less horrible than i normally would but still not 100%. hopefully i'll be okay by zanzibar tonight because tonight's gonna be fatal on the party tip, y0. we fell back into gb's apartment around 3ish, although i stayed up a while longer trying not to be dizzy and watching sportscenter. david the puppeteer and gb had beds. jim and i each claimed a love seat. and i slept a surprising amount for sleeping on a loveseat with no blanket, i must say, and i'm pleased about that. david the puppeteer and fabulous and i just went to the fleetwood for post-party vittles. breakfast special owns. coke owns. everything owns. now i'm at the library again, emailing tvguide people to ask to leave early wed so i can go to phila, doing my shit, pondering the world, wondering why i can't stay right here forever. if only things were that simple. "it doesn't matter which side i'm on 5.10.2001
why do i still feel so fucking nauseous? maybe those scallops were bad after all, although they did taste fine. this isn't a flu because i feel fine otherwise. i think it might also be a function of sleeping like two hours because my brain was too busy. this sucks. PUKEY THE PENGUIN.
omfg, my brother is putting my surfing skills to shame. i think he and i should make a matching set of hug-a-bill t's. i would be fucking untouchable wearing one of those. (u can't touch this.) it is bip ass late. but i was very, very productive. nailed both the laundry transition scene and the meg/michelle scene that had been falling flat. i'm still trying to come up with another line regarding stoffer but i can deal with it in the morning. progress, folks. progress. "take no prisoners here in this knock down drag out war
just pawed through all my earthly basketball card possessions because i decided that we need a little luck o' the bad boys for the rest of our performances. i plan to distribute skybox inaugural pistons cards to each member of the team. it will be beautiful, but not as beautiful as the tshirt mark aguirre is wearing on the back of his 91-92 upper deck card: "have you hugged bill laimbeer today?" i still feel like there is a large chunk of the collection missing. i could have sworn i had a complete second set of skybox inaugural, but i can't find it. i'm really tormented. also i still can't find my d&d miniatures, although i did find my paint and my books. i should sleep but i am not tired. need to get up early so that i can watch sopranos and get my ass to a2. early performance, then dinner and movie with matt and possibly xian. ownage. no idea where i'm going to crash tomorrow night, though. still no clue on what to do with this horrible scene that needs rewriting. also i need to fix the laundry scene. maybe i'll chew on that for a little while. somebody build me a time machine. 5.9.2001
good: jb read the new page i wrote last night and pronounced it excellent, allaying all fears. bad: our show was cancelled today because we only had five people show up and they all wanted to see broadway joe anyway. fuckers. good: getting to see broadway joe. bad: having to miss rehearsal afterward to go to dinner in detroit with family. good: dinner in detroit with family. bad: puking it up in the restaurant bathroom before dessert came. good: sixers winning against toronto, ensuring a game five in philly that my editor emailed today to ask if i wanted to go to in the event it took place. bad: having to ask for another day off work at tvguide to go to philly. good: seeing the levinsons. bad: not seeing enough of the levinsons, or anybody else that i wish i could spend hours with. important announcement: i am happy. "anna crowe... i am in love. in love i am."
i was going to go to bed a few hours ago, on the verge of passing out in my chair, when a bug bit me in the ass about the rewrite i did this morning. it's still not working. so i wrote and wrote and bounced and bounced with sheri and jeremie and hammered and pulled and birthed and it's still not where it needs to be, but we're making progress. we're getting there. i'm getting there. what i really need is a laugh and i'm just not tapping it. annoying, and frustrating. oh well. time to nap. tomorrow perhaps i'll tackle the other page of really awful dialogue. i got an email from onmag editor saying that, guess what, we've got some bureaucracy to wade through before you can get paid. but there's a silver lining in the corporate cloud (aside from the fact that i knew this was coming, thanks timeinc): she didn't just say, "well, this is too much of a pain in the ass so i think we're going to go with somebody else in the future. seeya!" she didn't fire me. instead, she asked when my story was coming in. so this is what it's like when people want you. 5.8.2001
jim's workshop was good. i like listening to jim's shtick. he just loves being up there, schooling kids on the joys of screenwriting, it's his bread and butter and it shows. i didn't care that i didn't really say anything other than comment on titanic's budget. and i was much amused that he managed to go an entire workshop without mentioning cameron crowe. must be some kind of record for jb. dinner with mr fabulous. he is so not in love with me. f him. the show went well today. some things better than yesterday, some just okay. davy jones and katie botched the "i probably would have been grounded til the tigers win the pennant" scene but i'm not too bothered because they got the new dialogue 30 seconds before the show. most importantly, i really feel like the acting is coming together and the actors are playing well with others. i've never done anything theatre-related, so all of this is totally alien to me, and to see it.. to see it, well, happening, it's incredible. it's like watching something being born. also today's audience was true high school, mostly juniors and seniors, and they responded really well. laughed in most of the right places. also i had a few of them just fucking bawling their eyes out, which i have to say, made me feel really good. really powerful. i am developing a small degree of pride in my work. this is a very unfamiliar feeling.
slept heavy like the dead. dreams involving katie holmes dating three different boys i'd known since kindergarten, me telling her this and her being all offended and mean; a plane crash (this time the plane pitched 90 degrees downward, only the seatbelt saving me from flying down the cabin, pressure going to hell, blood pouring out my nose, a click somewhere in my brain, and then unconsciousness as we hit the ground); another plane dream later where dad and i were on a plane coming in over very rough seas and i was scared and he was telling me not to be; something about katie banks that i can't remember. planes, kates, no automobiles, in the subconscious, apparently.
i feel so wonderful right now words cannot describe. after excellent dinner/dishwashing with e and i (polenta rounds with mushrooms and shallots, pasta with pesto and parmesan), i walked a long, long mile to good time charlie's, where i have been exactly once. it was raining lightly but i didn't use my umbrella. i was two hours late and didn't know if any of the sd gang would still be there. and i just didn't give a shit. (i was late because of dinner and because then i got a call from dad: "do you know somebody named morris peterson?" "did mopete call???" "yes, he just called looking for you. i was almost asleep." keep in mind this was at 930p. nice, dad. so i went to the bathroom (my name all day has been "pees like racehorse") to psyche myself up for the interview, because mopete left his number, and i got psyched, and i stopped monkeying around and just called, and we talked for like half an hour and he is nice. and my recorder worked. thank god.) but they were there, although i almost missed them. i looked in the windows but didn't see anybody, almost gave up and then decided i should do a sweep inside, just in case they were squirreled away somewhere away from the public. and there they were, behind the round inner bar. felt awkward for about two minutes, got up to get a beer at the bar because i saw no waitress (the guy asked where i was sitting as he handed me my beer and was like 'next time you have to order from your server' and i was like 'well i'll just give her your tip then, bud' but i didn't really say that, just thought it, because there are limits to my nastiness in a public forum), sat back down with jim meade herr direktor and katie banks frau starlet. i wish i'd known jimmy meade earlier than last week. he is a good guy. meanwhile, katie banks and i get to talking and she's like three years younger than me, which scares the shit out of me, and then it turns out she went to cranbrook and we spent the next hour talking about it. it was very bizarre. i have decided that she is fabulous after being unsure for the past week or so. she can carry on. had a couple of pints of killians that not only cost $2.25 but had a massive attack effect, so quite a good value. busted balls all around all evening, on jim and katie and lisa. i hope they know i'm never serious. hmm. busting balls is fun, but only if they know you don't mean it. today was the first performance and the first complete run-through i'd seen. before that, though, bambi and i ran a screenwriting workshop for the visiting high schoolers. we used american pie as an example of three-act story structure, with the following description: eighth graders, dude. needless to say, the bay city room mothers were not pleased. maybe if these kids had been from the detroit burbs they'd have seen the movie, but not from buttfuck saginaw. oh well. showed a couple clips from tootsie and rushmore, listened to and discussed a couple of truly heinous pitches from these rubes, filled up the time and packed them off to lunch. we had to do it without mr fabulous, who bitched out to sit in rehearsal and do more rewrites. that's okay, though. i think it went well, and i kind of enjoyed it. i dont' have to go again today, but i'm going to. the performance also went well, no major fuckups (literally, since by the middle the actors were censoring the profanity for our little audience). i realized watching it that, damn, this shit is depressing. i think i need to rewrite it a little lighter. hmm. it's pouring again - wasn't on my way home, although jim drove me back to main street which saved me a walk, thankful thankful - so good timing. sheri is asleep on the couch with pooh bear, so cute. college rules. i would just like to say that right now, i am the coolest person on the planet because of this keyly excerpted email: Dear friend of Modern Humorist, You are hereby invited to Modern Humorist's first anniversary celebration. We are sending you this highly personalized invitation because you are very special to us. Seriously. You, ____name_____, are very special to us. Anyway. [Note: You may notice that on our web site or in our Banter newsletter, we list the party start time as 8:30, not 8:00. That's because we want some quality time with you, the MH family, before the hoi polloi arrive. You are special (see above).] 5.6.2001
willens in the house yall. i'm crashing at david's tonight and later in the week (but not tomorrow). he picked me up in front of the frieze after rehearsal and vroom to bfe near ypsi where his apt is. (near, not in.) steve glick is also here, since he lives here, and we made chicken stir fry for dinner. tasty, and i ate a bunch even though i'd had jjs (#14 plus mustard) an hour earlier. eating machine, tis i. then steve and i did dishes (david cooked) and i told the story of my last few months or so (snooze) and then we watched mitm (lame, except for stevie) and then i bogarted an ip from their cable modem router and now i am happy online. it is good to see david, even if he does kill puppies for a living. i don't think i've seen him since thanksgiving. that's a long time. a long long time. rehearsal was decent again today. i am mightily irritated that i missed it yesterday, because they did a complete run-through and today all we did were scene changes and not complete scenes. actually, i am mightily irritated just because. i felt like i took a bitch pill this morning and proceeded to say every third nasty thing that came to mind, although i did succeed in keeping the latter two thirds to myself. still, i'm deathly afraid that the actors are going to blow my few-and-far-between-and-not-very funny lines. today's rehearsal culminated in me giving a line reading for "I LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU, DAD!" which mikey parodically trumpets towards the end, directed at sarah. and the guy who plays mikey, after blowing the line three times in a row, turns out never to have seen that commercial. where was he in 1989 or whenever that "just say no" psa was running? vietnam? jupiter? jesu cristo, hombre. i think i found the only person in america not to have seen that ad, and he's in my fucking play. if he blows it again tomorrow i will give another reading. this aggression will not stand, man. this aggression will not stand. josh herman showed up in the middle of rehearsal. it occurs to me that i now know at least five joshes. that's a lot of joshes, it seems. i hadn't seen him in a year, so we stepped outside to catch up for a while, but did not complete that task - too much to talk about, and we got interrupted by some theatre moron who was about as tall as josh and i stacked on top of one another. but josh seems well. he's coming to nyc for three years to go to school at columbia for film and psych. that will be rad. i think i'd like to hang out with him. plus he's been in the trenches in la (and been stomped on) so that will be good to learn about. plus he was looking better than he ever has. my desperation knows no bounds. josh herman, jeez. what is wrong with me? i am defective in so many, many ways. i must be sterilized immediately before i inappropriately lust again. quick, somebody pass me my joshua jackson scrapbook (oh my lord, i am beset by joshes!). tomorrow: finish aniston, adventures in bus land, screenwriting workshop with high schoolers, first performance, return to jeremie and sheri's. there is a bug that keeps flying at my laptop screen. ain't no irritation like an erin irritation cause an erin irritation don't stop.
i've been up for over an hour and i'm feeling pretty okay about it. alarm clanged at 715a for me to get up and feed/water the dog, which i did successfully. i tried going back to sleep but it just wasn't happening. so irritating. i think i'm about to completely chuck it and go shower, then fold my laundry, figure out what i want to wear in a2 this week (so annoyed: i thought i brought my grandaddy tshirt with me, but it turns out i did not), and turn the tables and wake dad up to go to the eatery for some corned beef hashish. i was actually productive this morning already, because i downloaded the printer driver for the printer mr fabulous has stowed in his dad's office at the frieze. i tried using it the other day to print out some new pages but there was no love being had between my laptop (also named phil) and el printero de fabuloso. usb, you are useless to me. now i have the file sitting on my hard drive and so when i try to use it later, it should work. i'm also going to bring my headphones with me to a2 this time so that when i go to the library to write the mopete hideousness, i can zone with weezer or somesuch. actually what i'd really like is the soundtrack to the natural, but it's trapped on my desktop in nyc. crumb. 5.5.2001
dim sum==bliss except for being 45 minutes later than my brother in arriving. going again next weekend. it don't get no better. then home again home again yippity yay, where i watched nypd blue and half of start the revolution without me with dad, which featured orson welles all cute and unbearded and moderately obese. futzed around for a little while doing nothing and then dragged brother gabe over to joshva's for bbq. as i informed joshva when i looked in his fridge, "i haven't seen that much meat since the last time i saw you naked!" ha very ha, i'm sure. the meat was lovely, the beer was better, and the company was acceptable. josh has one of these ultrarad toys, although not that exact one; his actually has, i shit you not, more games on it. 128 to be exact, a much nicer number bitwise than 76. this is a frightening device, one that i cannot welcome into my home for fear i will never ever get anything done ever again, ever. sheri and gabe and i brainstormed malcolm ideas. the list is small but growing, and motivation is building. hopefully librarian phil will acquire a malcolm script by mid-next week; i asked him to get one or two on friday, and he said he thought he could have them before i go back to nyc. i so enjoy the fact that i am something of a star within the fv dept, that all of the key players know me personally and will do things for me, that when i'm in the frieze i feel at home and among friends. this brings me to the love i am currently feeling for the fv library. it's turned into a really warm, welcoming facility, the kind of place i wish was available all four years i was at school. it's a shame it didn't come about until my senior year. they're expanding it next year - after only a year or so in operation, they've run out of room for dvds and screenplays. phil says they're taking over the room next door and moving the viewing kiosks in there, as well as adding a few more, and giving the entire main room over to storage/couches. in the unlikely event that i attain goal of becoming FILTHY RICH, i will donate money to the library. it is a Good Thing (tm). guzzling water to wash down meds. then sleep.
blah, we woke up late. now sheri is threatening no dim sum. i will go shower to speed the plow. i will sing backstreet in the shower, because i have backstreet in my head. shoot me, please. bubble bobble. best news today, especially since i'll actually be able to go (ie not in detroit for shtim nuptials): "i will be late, don't stay up and wait
okay, i definitely need to go back to college, but undergrad, not grad. maybe i can pretend my transcript never happened. that's doable, right? party tonight was rad^2. mr fabulous picked me up on the corner with flame-haired david turner, who is also cute, and some dude named chad in a mom-mobile. drove over to lawrence, which is about half a block from where sheri and jeremie and i lived last year, and went to the party. the party was good. innumerable jello shots, several cups of kegged labatts. i felt vaguely at home. theatre people are nice, and especially the ones in my play talk to me so i don't feel like quite the idiot i usually do, plus dave turner and i basically spent the evening spooging over britney and nsync, and the cd mix in the stereo hit up one backstreet, two nsync and two britney tracks. love all up in this bitch, y0. then i realized it was five to 1a, and i said i'd be home at 1a, and i tore out of there like a bat out of hell. and in the back alley behind the loft, there were bats out of hell, flapping around in their batty glory. all the jello in my system seems to finally be dissolving into drunkenness. time to sleep. rad. 5.4.2001
fuji==bliss. and they've readded lunch hours, so i will go again next week. w00t. and to top it all off, mr fabulous called just like he said he would! he is picking me up in 15 minutes to go to par-tee-down. jello shots ho-oooooooooooo.
rehearsal not so bad again today, except when one of the actors blew a line, thus rendering a joke completely unfunny. lobster bisque+paesano bread+45 cent coke==bliss. jjs #2 plus mustard==bliss. hopefully fuji for dinner tonight, possibly with joshva. then another of the actors is having a party that involves coors light and jello shots. god, i miss college. photo manip of the day. rewrite of the day:
today's reason to love kenny:
well, two out of three ain't bad. jeremie and i went to jj's for dinner. #14 plus mustard==bliss. then i walked (well, that implies that i haven't been walking everywhere in a2, which i have, because i am a walking ma-sheen) to casa de fabulous where gb was not but jim meade, who is directing sd, was. gb showed up later. finale was pretty good, i was pleased with the outcome and even more pleased that i didn't have to put blinders on until saturday to avoid spoilers, because i suspect that would have been an impossible task. as for third out of three, i was so close to the wagon and then mr fabulous plopped a lienenkugel red in front of me and how can i say no to him? i can't. and i didn't. two of those, then onward to logan's apt next to the bell tower hotel for hot pockets and budweiser taboo. i have decided that bud is very much like diet pop. they taste alike: unpleasant, but in a pinch, they'll do. and now i am home, or at home base. i blew it - i thought that e and i would be up late since they were last night, but they were somewhat in bed and i woke them up coming home. bad me. i am fired. but i am trying to redeem myself by helping them get rid of their beer. i am such a quasi-good samaritan. lunch with jb was excellente senor. i wish i'd had another year under his tutelage. yet another way i blew it. i ran into hugh cohen wandering about the frieze and we chatted for a bit. hugh 0wns, always has, always will. i also met bambi haggins, who is the newish tv history prof. she seems pretty rad. we talked about the brilliance of cable access. glug glug. 5.3.2001
summer goals: immediate goals:
woke up early. there's a strange patterned noise that doesn't seem to be bass that filters in through sheri's bed. i hope it's gone tonight, but other than that, sheri's bed is a happy place. been chilling in front of the tv with jeremie for a few hours now, mulling over the stupidity of agreeing to write an item on jennifer aniston and her involvement with voxxy, especially since my editor seems to want me to make fun of her and i feel slightly bad about that because i've been suckered into thinking she's actually a nice person and means well after reading her vanity fair article. stupid me, huh? at least voxxy itself is an easy target - they promised jenjen's new "show" to be launching in the spring. spring has sprung, baby, and i don't see no show. also they promise monthly chats with friendly jenny. well, there was a chat with her highness and her friend (small f) melissa etheridge that took place in february.. and there hasn't been one since. it's amazing how these techtv anchors fill airtime. i'm impressed, although bored. not boring: itv's feed of japanese news. japanese news is way better and more interesting than american news. domo arigato, mr news anchoro. lunch with pater fabuloso jb. pray for career advice. pray for rain. 5.2.2001
not as bad today. that's good. i got three free ice cream cones - ben and jerry's and stucchi's (why have they no website?), which are right next door to each other on state street, had dueling freebie day. it was beautiful. i saw people get a cone from bj's, then go eat their cone in the stucchi's line and get a new one in stucchi's. i at least let a couple hours go by before going for refills. i ate two; the other one i brought to terry, who was hiding in jb's office grading scripts. i hope he appreciated it. i think he did. i got rid of the most truly horrid dialogue ever written that has always bothered me but i never got around to fixing it. and i wrote a vaguely funny line; or at least, it made people laugh. apparently a lot of things i say in rehearsal are funny. i'm not sure why, or if that's true or not. lately i have been wondering whether i am amusing to others or just an unfunny dork. especially since people who say things that aren't funny but think they are annoy the shit out of me. hmm. 5.1.2001
same as yesterday. i realized sitting in rehearsal today that a) my script is fucking boring and b) the dialogue is total ass and c) i'd rather see them do ytwt, because that's much more interesting to me, not to mention.. fun. sd just makes my skin crawl. i want it done and buried. i don't want to see these people anymore. unless, of course, it can make me FILTHY RICH. speaking of, i'm such a moron that it wasn't until 630p today that i realized, oh shit, today is the postmark deadline for the nicholl. vroom to detroit, frantically search for post office that will postmark me may 1, find none, beg joshva for assistance, print out script there on three-hole punch i bought last time i was in town, use brads holding my copy of sd together, throw everything in the car and vroom to fedex depot, where i am anally violated to the tune of $44 for a may 1 postmark. if that somehow fucks up and i am disqualified, i will be royally pissed. i'll find out in six weeks if i'm in or not. after that, something like six months to find out if i made it past the first round. doubt i will, but you never know. the first half of ytwt is quite killer if i do say so myself. let us not speak of the second half, hmm? this morning i dropped my bike off at the shop for a tune-up. that's a real, tangible step in the direction of nh. that's a good thing. then y and i went to noble, where i ran into cathy fridson and discovered that, as i had suspected and feared, the entire woods knows about sd. great. fucking fantastic. after that we went to bhs to find kerch. kerch was good. i should try to be less churlish when with people i like. then, off to a2 for hours of garbage (gabe-rage?). so mr fabulous claims to be "in heat," but apparently not in my general direction. sigh. now taking applications for husband. please enclose $30 processing fee, made out to "cash". i went to dinner with him and two actors from his staging, darren and caroline. those two are both super. darren is super super and should submit an application. he is canadian. he is from nova scotia. i forgot to ask him if he likes sloan. perhaps tomorrow. all this crap makes me want to move to la. mr fabulous is going. he got a job offer from a couple of screenwriters who teach itinerantly at umich, to be their assistant. they've got pilots going. odds are he's a staff writer in a year or two. gah. can he please die? can i please take his place? or at least be satisfied with what i've got going on? short answer: no. long answer: no. "teach me to sleepwalk
no sleep for the wicked. my room is too hot. i need to move back to the basement, where it is cool and spidery. it's so aggravating to be three steps from the precipice of sleep and not be able to go the distance. yawn. so sorkin was finally charged with drug possession. it turns out he not only had shrooms, but brotha had a crack rock, yo. this leads me to believe that he was trying to get robert downey jr to jump ally ship and join the west wing. nice try, no hypodermic. |
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