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I'm The One That I Want by Margaret Cho. I was so disappointed that I couldn't make the book fair at UCLA last weekend with my friend Tracey, so she thought to buy the book for me. I missed the one-woman show when I lived in New York, but Tracey and I went to see the film last fall in Santa Monica. If you want to know how much my friends rock, Tracey even had it autographed:
Erica
Good luck in New York!
-Margaret Cho
. . .
I'm also still reading Simple Indulgence: Easy, Everyday Things to Do for Me by Janet Eastman. I'm such a dork, I keep reading the quotes and ideas, but not doing the journalling portion.
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"Someday we'll find it
the rainbow connection
the lovers, the dreamers and me
alllll of us under it's spell."
-Kermit THE Frog
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Stuck in my head:
"Boogie-oogie-oogie get down."
Thank you, Disco Stu! (My favorite Simpsons sight gag-cum-character.)
I heard Britney Spears' "Bottom of My Broken Heart" while making a selection from the feminine hygeine aisle at Wal Mart and exclaimed, "Fucking Britney Spears...Gah!"
That's one of the videos I had to watch about a million times to select snippets for the web site and the enhanced CD single. Ever hearing it again is too much, too soon.
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The Simpsons, The Sopranos & Armistead Maupin's Further Tales of the City. I didn't even realize there were making another one, I just happened to see it listed. I'm going to have to finish the book series now, as I think I've only read through the fourth book and this mini-series is based on the third book.
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While you're visiting the Gallery of Regrettable Food, don't miss Meat!. This one in particular made me laugh until I couldn't breathe. "Sometimes meat likes to dress up and feel pretty."
Swanson Parade of Lost Identity -- women who, in probably their only 15 minutes of fame, were for the most part known only as Mrs. HisLastName.
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Co-Author of The Rules to divorce! So you can't manipulate a man into marrying and staying married to you? Perhaps you have to come into it as two individuals and show who you really are from the beginning? I guess this means that no amount of growing your hair long, pretending not to be smart or funny, and "training" a man will make for a happy marriage.
. . .
Ever wonder where that dollar bill's been? Mine was in Chicago two months ago.
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Another Elvis dream (I'm doing the Memphis section of my color scrapbook now, but I haven't got to Graceland yet), this one cannibalistic.
What started out as an autopsy to discover THE TRUTH, turned into Elvis Stew. It was rich and beefy. Ewwwwwwwww!
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Why is it that the same personality quirks are taken as crazy and stalky by some, while loveably wacky by others? Is there some litmus test for this, so I stop wasting my time?
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now I'm blogging what I'm eating, whoa.
Still literate as of 9/29/2000 12:20:01 AM
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just what I needed...another dorkblog.
Jeepers, creepers, I last used my peepers on 9/29/2000 12:24:59 AM
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My trip photographs, they're better than expected. Now to get them all organized, it's only been a year!
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Saturday, November 25, 2000
7:52 PM
 sappy and sentimental. You've been warned.
On Tuesday, I took a different bus home and came from the opposite direction. In doing so, I passed by the house in which I had my first kiss.
Alex was one of my best friends from the end of 8th grade, most of the way through 9th. He dated my best friend Kristi, but lived just a few blocks from me. In fact, we lived in the same house...the same floorplan, anyway, in the same development.
His bedroom was our den. It has double doors, one which locks above the door and the other which doesn't lock at all. He'd prop a chair up against it when the three of us were in there, so his younger sister couldn't get in. So many times everything would get quiet in the room because they were kissing. Thus began my long career as Third Wheel.
I'd just moved to our town the year before, so when high school started I transferred to the high school most of my new friends went to. Only Alex attended our school's cross-town rival. He and Kristi continued to date for much of that year.
I don't remember exactly when things all started to slip away. Kristi began to hang out with a cooler crowd, defined at the time by kids who liked The Cure, drank, did drugs and otherwise partied, and left her Durannie friends behind, Alex and myself included.
I went to see him one day, in the spring I believe, seeking consolation for losing my best friend. As it turned out, he had no idea that Kristi had supposedly broken up with him weeks or months before. He had a new kitten, the first I'd ever played with.
As the kitten climbed on me, Alex got this strange look in his eye and strained tone in his voice and compared himself to the cat. "You'd never let me touch you there, like him," he said, as the cat climbed up my chest. Thus began my lifetime of terribly bizarre pick up lines and situations.
In a moment, he was on me, all luscious lips and hands. He'd had a burrito for lunch, I could tell. His tongue was rougher than I expected, but his lips were full and sweet. I was amazed at how effortless that kiss began and ended, it looked so much more complicated, as if it would require more choreography than a Michael Jackson video. That kiss seemed to last but a moment, yet an eternity.
It was thrilling and frightening all at once. As he held me pinned to his bed, I was afraid things were going to go to far, that the situation was beyond my control. Suddenly, over his shoulder, I saw his sister peeking in.
Aa few minutes later, when his dad came home from work, he made me jump out the window and sneak around the back yard. I was terrified of Fifi, his doberman (his lap dog was named "Killer," naturally), and to this day I can't believe I made it around three sides of his house to the gate alive.
Like most of my memories, my first kiss was confusing, funny and weird.
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Thursday, November 23, 2000
3:13 AM
up until all hours, due to the cold medicine, but my head's not clear enough to write the handful of entries swirling around my brain at the moment. I ended up making lots of silly mistakes on the SCD revisions.
It's silly really, as the site's nearly done, I just had some minor changes...those always seem to take the longest to do. Anyway, I spent several hours on that and then took a nap before the whole afternoon insanity starts (when my brother gets home and mom shortly thereafter at which point I can get little done at all).
I'd had 72 ounces of water by noon, but I am so dried out, damn cold. I also feel like I'm starving all the time, but with barely enough brain power to remember if I ate or not. I think I forgot to do so until dinner tonight. Still, if I went by the hollow feeling in my stomach, I'd eat every hour. I guess you're supposed to feed a cold, (when I have a fever/flu, I can't eat at all), but I think my stomach really takes advantage of the old adage. Tricky bastard.
It's way past my bedtime, holiday or no.
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Wednesday, November 22, 2000
10:31 AM
all hopped-up on cold medicine, I expect to be updating throughout the day. First, however, I am returning emails from the last few months and revamping Some Crazy Dame. I did it all ass-backwards and finished the site before doing a template. Now I've got to remove formatting from all the pages thus far and apply the template to them.
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Tuesday, November 21, 2000
11:01 AM
piddling away my life, never quite giving it the full effort it deserves. Sometimes I think I'd be happy just to sleep through it, literally. Figuratively, I'm already doing that. I suppose many of us are -- just going through the motions.
When I walked into my PageMaker class this morning, I assumed the man sitting in my instructor's place was there to fix the computer. We were supposed to have an Internet connection and, already half way through the semester, it's still not up. Also, the instructor computer has been acting funky.
What I didn't expect to hear was that my instructor and her family were in a car accident over the weekend and broke two vertebrae. Needless to say, she will be out for the rest of the semester. Mercifully, there doesn't seem to be any spinal damage.
I'd just thought of her over the weekend, because I checked out her web page and saw that she'd said "God bless you" on it. It struck me as so out of context, but fitting for her personality. She's not the kind of person, from what I've seen, who'd say such a thing to impose her beliefs on anyone else. She'd say it because she genuinely wishes you well. She's the nicest teacher I've had since I can remember.
I got burned out on school for a number of reasons, not the least of which were the kind of ego-tripping professors who were nasty and put students down just because they were in a position of power and could do so. I'm smart, I'm talented, I don't expect a lot of special favors -- but there's no reason to talk to me like I'm a piece of dirt. I wonder how many other smart, talented, sensitive people have been driven out of schools and jobs because they got tired of eating shit with a smile.
Professor Ego would scoff at this, without bothering to consider it at all. If you really look at where schools and workplaces fail, I'm confident morale is one of, if not the top issues. At my last job, people felt overworked, underappreciated and often abused. They stole, goofed off, took long lunches, spent the last half hour packing up and otherwise found passive-aggressive ways to get back at The Man.
In the final analysis, this system drives talented people out and retains the mediocre, souless masses who don't know what else to do with their lives.
Luckily, there are teachers like Cathy. She's confident without being arrogant, informed but not condescending, fair but understanding. When she makes a silly mistake, she laughs at herself, instead of blaming the computer or lashing out at a student. She's in charge of the class, but her ego isn't so frail that she's afraid to risk being goofy once in a while.
Her class is one that I didn't even want to take. I wanted to focus on way new media and all that. Along the way I've learned that taking a DTP class is great practice and reinforcement for all kinds of design, including for the web. For that reason and because of the encouragement I've received in her classes (she also taught my Photoshop class), I've stuck it out through strong temptation to quit school altogether.
She appreciates that my commute is 90-120 minutes to school, each way and that I do my best to get to class regularly and on time. She does the same. She's also always helpful and available to her students. She treats us like adults which has two parts -- she expects us to fulfill our responsibilities and she values our input. If everyone has a problem with an assignment, she doesn't just say, "Well tough," she goes back over it and gives us more time to work out the problem.
I've been lucky as far as teachers go, because most of mine have known that their office hours are about the students. A few, however, acted as if I was bothering them. Sorry to expect you to do your job! Teachers like that could learn a lot from Cathy.
I hope she knows the difference she makes in her students' lives. To be perfectly honest, I haven't given school my best effort this semester, partly due to the stress at home and partly due to the poor study habits I've developed over the years (not to mention the distractions afforded by my site and email). However, I've pushed myself and improved dramatically over my usual level of effort and continue to push myself to do better. That's the power of a good teacher.
When unexpected things like this happen, you realize what a wimp you let yourself be, how many opportunities you let pass by saying, "maybe next time." We sleepwalk through life and take for granted we have plenty of time to wake up and start living.
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7:01 PM
so often amazed at the brilliance of my readers. The people I've met through my own journal are amazing, kind, intelligent people. The other day, Sandra suggested I come live with her and now one of my readers has blown me away with something she wrote.
When I referred to the Disnification of New York City the other day, I hadn't put in in a worldwide context. What a really great article! Please go read it.
I also found the theme held up in Memphis, due largely, but not entirely, to the Graceland phenomenon.
Anyway, the wonder of the web is that I put my little words up here and find like minds. That never ceases to astound and delight me.
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