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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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Friday, January 19, 2001
1:30 AM
 not being "emotional" when I stand up for myself in the face of someone calling me a liar. Honestly, I don't know why I bother. This is strike three and he is OUT.
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1:38 PM
happy to say things seem to be improving around here for some reason. The Boy is being an absolute angel -- no whining, no arguing, no complaining and no need to remind him to do any chores.
My mother even wants to have a family meeting to get organized and start having a family night where we turn off the TV and video games and talk to each other. What a radical concept. I'm all for it.
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1:44 PM
leaving for a road trip in just over 2 hours and I still need to cut off all my hair, shower, pack, bake 2 dozen more cookies and mop the kitchen floor.
As a result, I cannot tell you what a great time I had last night seeing John play, about my latest fight with J, about how Cousin Oliver from the "Brady Bunch" was there playing bass with pink hair and looked exactly the same, or about how much I've been looking forward to getting away for a weekend, with people my own age.
See you on Monday.
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2:03 PM
out of my mind, I leave in just under one hour. Where'd all that time go?!
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Thursday, January 18, 2001
4:03 AM
a true music lover, or so one of my favorite musicians told me once. Of course, he said a lot of other less than kind things about me later, but I think that early assessment (and his advice that I become a DJ with my great voice...I'm dead sexay!) rings most true. I can't imagine how anyone would survive without music. I suppose you could live, if you could call it living.
I like it all, too: country and western. But seriously, though songwriter-centered rock has ruled my world for years, I cannot eschew pop, metal, jazz, swing, gospel, way old school rap, soul, psychedelia, classical or just about anything else.
Right now, I'm so into Jazz on PBS, it is unreal. What I find so amazing is that music is such a microcosm of society at large. Yet music has been responsible for introducing so many subversive ideas into the mainstream. On the one hand, I am dissappointed that there isn't more integration among musicians in this day and age, the option is certainly there. Too few take advantage of it, except to commercialize and whitewash yet another black music innovation. Eminem? I'm looking at you.
I often wish I'd lived in the '30s because, despite the depression and segregation and social restrictions on women, there were also the speakeasy, the roadhouse, the juke joint, communists everywhere and smart, snappy women in the movies. We're so pampered and afraid these days, maybe what we need is the feeling of nothing to lose.
I just imagine myself in with some integrated, genuinely bohemian, creative crowd in New York. There'd be actors and writers, but most of all I'd hope for musicians. If I tend to romanticize musicians, I suppose it's because I've never learned how to play an instrument myself and I doubt if I can sing well at all. My friend Ken was the first person I sang in front of, even along with a recorded song, because I got so sick and disheartened from being told to shut up.
Really, what I've always wanted to do was be part of a jam session. I just like the way that sounds.
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4:30 AM
convinced my subconscious found Jazz relaxing because the narrator is Keith David. You might remember him as Mary's step-dad in Something About Mary. Anyway, Keith frequented the bar around the corner from me in Brooklyn.
One night I went there to unwind after a truly terrible day at work. Before you start calling A.A. on me, I went there to sing obnoxiously along with some good music in the jukebox. There are three things I don't think you can be depressed while doing: eating, singing and fucking. The beauty of singing is the euphoria lasts longer with no known, negative side effects.
I'd seen Keith there before and recognized him as an actor, though I couldn't think of what he'd been in (ironic, since it was the winter of the year Something About Mary had been the big summer hit). I could picture him as a soldier in Vietnam, so I figured he was probably in Platoon (and I'm right, my mind is an endless storehouse of useless information!), one of the few war movies I ever liked.
I was still a floater at the record label then and that day I'd worked for one of the most prolific lawyers. While I don't deny the man is a whirlwind genius, working for him was a breathless marathon. There was scarcely an opportunity to go to the bathroom, let alone lunch and I'd be let off 10 minutes before I qualified for overtime pay and a car home. Oh joy!
This particular lawyer was so frenetic, it was like working for my hyperactive 10 year old brother on crack. Working for him left me drained and yet I needed to get up and start all over again, perhaps working for him again or perhaps for Mr. Mind Fuck or even The Yeller.
I don't know why that night was any different, but Keith came over and introduced himself. I was surprised at how big he was. I lived in New York, had grown up around Los Angeles and stumbled onto movies and TV shows being filmed all over San Francisco. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that actors are always puny little people.
Not Keith. He was well over 6 feet tall and yet radiated a warmth and spirituality that belied his intimidating size. He has large, beautiful teeth and I always remember him in movies grinning wide and letting out big, deep chuckles. So he was in person as well.
We got to talking about goodness knows what and he seemed to sense the tension in me. He offered a shoulder rub and, soreness beating out cynicism, I happily accepted.
When the shoulder rub didn't work, he did this really clever move where we stood back to back and he bent over forward. It not only streched several muscles out, but cracked my back. I've never been a big fan of that, but it was just what I needed at the time. He was my angel that night and it was the beginning of the end for me at that place. While it took well over a year for my ass to follow, that's when I began to free my mind.
So, as he narrates Jazz, I just hear, "Just let it go...release it!" and remember the stress is really never worth it in the end.
If that whole acting thing doesn't work out, he'd be in demand by all the best spas.
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4:39 AM
glad I watched The Five Heartbeats for the first time tonight. However, I could not help but marvel at its digs on racism existing in the same film in which all the women were not only just arm decorations, but most of the girlfriends were light-skinned women with long-straight hair.
*ring*
*ring*
Robert Townsend? It's the clue phone and it's for you.
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Wednesday, January 17, 2001
12:06 AM
a hypochondriac. I always have been. When I was 5, Bactine could fix anything from mosquito bites to scraped knees.
My eyes hurt. They feel like they might burst, like when I was on the pill and my blood pressure skyrocketed. It all started when my mom said cell phones cause eye cancer.
Although she loves the convenience of being able to nag me at will, she's really paranoid about my cell phone. Somehow she has it in for the phone. I haven't used it in weeks, but she's sure I'm on it all the time and am going to get cancer.
It would be a shame if she had to waste her money on chemo and a funeral. My, but I feel sorry for her.
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12:26 AM
livid. What kind of manipulation is it to threaten kicking me out everyday now that I have no money and am stuck in the house taking care of my brother all day? When am I supposed to get a job or learn to drive when he can't be left alone for 10 minutes without doing something reckless and she refuses to consider a sitter or day care?
If that's the situation, that I'm expected to be here all day when he's off track for 4-6 weeks at a time and by 2:30 every afternoon when he's on track, how the hell am I supposed to work? The nerve of telling me I'm mooching off of her when I gave up my entire fucking life to help her out. Now that I have no money and no way I can find to earn it, suddenly she wants me out.
All I can say is careful what you wish for. I'll remember all of this when she's calling me complaining about my grandmother's manipulation or about depending on friends when my grandma can't help. I'll remember that I tried, that I was initially gung ho, that I stopped helping when I realized it would never be enough, that I had to just take care of me.
I never claimed that I was coming here to be a servant. I was never big on cleaning. I pick up after myself and try unsuccessfully to get my brother to pick up after himself.
It's more than I can take to get yelled at by a 10 year old all day, only to be yelled at by my mother all night. Then she wonders why I could give a shit less about the fancy fixtures she's buying for the cosmetic remodelling of her room, when there are no working lights in the garage/laundry, only one working outlet in my brother's room, my water bed is empty, there are two broken drawers in the kitchen and the house is otherwise falling apart. We have real problems here and what does she do first? Paint her room and get new bathroom fixtures.
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12:36 AM
tired of stinking because my brother breaks all the soap and leaves it in the bottom of the shower and also squeezes out all the body wash in 2 or 3 days.
We are constantly out of these things and my mother refuses to get antibacterial or deodorant soap. Perfumed body washes with no antibacterial ingredients are like putting perfume on the funk.
I'd really like going to a job interview the way I smell right now, how charming!
I know I can be a pill, but I don't think I can tell the yelling, the stinking, the no money, the complaining, the windy feeling in my ears and the whole miserable, where can I put my stuff so I can get the fuck out of here process that will take over the next few weeks. I feel like I'm about to break.
So, if I don't write much these days, it's probably because I'm losing my mind, packing all my shit or just at a loss for what else to say.
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