Insomnia

Yeah. I haven't been sleeping well for the past few nights. I get insomnia in the summer, always. I've had insomnia my whole life...trouble falling asleep, and now, lately, I'm waking up every freaking hour and a half. The cats don't help. And please, I've tried every remedy: homeopathic, prescriptions, meditation, therapy, change of lifestyle, blah blah blah....this is how I am. I've taken Ambien for a couple of nights, and while that usually works, it's been tricky lately. I'm one of those people who do funny things on Ambien...like call people at late hours to leave spacey voicemail messages, and just the other restless night on the drug I joined a dating website for a SIX MONTH subscription, at quite a chunk of change. I then proceeded to write quite an amusing "profile" of myself, and the banner or title of my profile was something along the lines of "I love seersucker! Boy do I love it. Do you wear seersucker?" I am shitting you not, this is what I wrote to attract men to me. It wasn't until I was on the subway the next morning that I remembered this, and I was mortified - not because I had decide to venture into online dating (ahem, AGAIN), but because I spent money I do not have, and because I know that this type of dating always makes me feel awful about myself. I feel as if I have to give my measurements and full body pictures in a bikini so the potential paramours are not "mislead" by my profile into thinking that I was skinny or voluptuous or whatever the hell they are mislead by. As I have mentioned previously on this blog, I am terrible, terrible on dates with strangers. Thankfully, in the middle of my mortification and regret haze I realized I could cancel this membership within three days and still get a full refund, according to NY State law. Unlike joining that insanely expensive gym I couldn't afford, and never went to, and to which I should have also terminated the membership, but did not...this time, I pulled the trigger quickly. Especially after receiving my first glimpses of potential dates (old! really fat! really old and fat!) and their badly-written/un-spellchecked/all-capitalized/completely-wrong-for-me profiles.

Listen, they are not all like that, I know. And I do have friends who have met their mates on dating sites - more than one, in fact. But after my last few horrid dating experiences, I have lost any desire to venture into the patience-testing territory of dudes with fuzzy teeth and bad manners. And I don't think I could bear to have another experience where I become very attracted to a guy through our emails and pictures, have a great lunch/coffee/dinner, and then never hear from him again. My rice-paper ego can't take it.

I know what my problem is. More specifically, I know who my problem is. I just can't shake that ghost. Maybe I don't want to. Maybe I am wearing this hair shirt of solitude to punish myself for sins of the past. The cat-o-nine-tails is pain and pleasure to a masochist. Or the devout.

God I need a beer.

When I am 91, I will wear red socks.

The Irack

MadTV is awesome. Must watch this. Must.

Saturdays

Saturdays are always the quiet day of the weekend for me. I might get one phone call, but there have been many Saturdays where I have not uttered a word to one human being. On this long weekend, I feel I should take advantage of the great weather and have more frolicsome fun, get more accomplished, do something to celebrate the advent of summer...but here I am, on a Saturday night, and like last night, I am contemplating my newly-arrived Ikea storage boxes and mentally reconfiguring my apartment for the 7,426th time. I am alone, and, for the most part, have resolved to enjoy this solitude...but right now I'd love to have one of my buddies call me up to grab beers at Dublin or The Room or somewhere cool in the east village and get the hell outta this 250 square foot design nightmare. The only movie I was remotely in the mood to see by myself tonight was Baby Mama, and that is not worth the trek to 72nd and Third on a bus, because the subway line by me has conveniently decided to run only express the entire weekend. My stomach is rumbling, and I will order food if I can charge it -no cash on me - and I will see what movies are on HBO. If there was someone here to share with me, it might be a cozy night, away from the annoying bus-and-tunnel crowds that take over the city on Saturdays. I am thinking now that this quiet evening will be good...I'll get to bed early, sans alcohols, wake up early, sans hangover, and go for a run in the park - something I've started just today. Then, perhaps, I'll venture to Coney Island and take photographs, eat a corn dog, and ride the Cyclone.

Maybe I am destined to be a solitary human observing the other humans and recording their foibles for others' amusement and enlightenment. There are worse things. Much, much worse.

Mother Nature's Son

This version of the Beatle's tune reminds me of a banjo-playin' friend of mine. This is for him. I hope he picks it up and starts playing again....

Weird things

Is it weird that I like these?

I think I'm just very into red and black. And boots. And patent leather. Okay, maybe that's too much information. But these just...call me.

Listening

My dad sent me an email this weekend - he has new hearing aids, and unlike all the other hearing aids he has tried in the past, these new devices have re-acquainted him with sounds he thought were all but lost to him. Dialogue in movies. Subtle chirpings of nature. The clear notes of the music he plays on his piano. He said he often had tears in his eyes as he experienced the "wonder of sounds [he] hadn't heard in many years." I am relieved that he has taken this step towards reconnecting with the world...I've noticed on my visits that my step-mother and brothers were frustrated at his not "tuning in" and were weary of repeating themselves to him and yelling at him so he could understand what was going on. I worried for him and the distance his increasing deafness was putting between himself and his family.

But hearing something is not the same as listening. I know very few people that actually listen well. It is a skill, and an extremely rare and valuable one, to be able to listen and register what a person is saying. To not hurry them along with the annoying "right,right, right" and "unhunh unhunh" and to ask questions with a genuine desire to know a person's thoughts and feelings. I have a friend, Jon, whom I've known since first grade, and he is the type of person who is always insanely busy with his business and travel and I rarely get to see him or his family. But when I talk to him, he actually listens, he remembers details, and he asks me questions about what I've just said. It's probably why he is so successful and well-liked. He waits until I've answered to ask something else. Even when I stop and say "Jon, I need to know how you are doing" he will ask more questions about me before talking about his own life...it's not that he's secretive about his life, it just seems that he really wants to know what's going on in mine.

It is a very rare thing for someone to ask how one is feeling and what one is doing and what one wants, really wants - and truly give a damn about the answer. Hearing is a sense. Listening is a sensibility.

Newsday article on Bad Album Covers

Best reporter assignment. Ever. http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/ny-worstalbumcovers-pg,0,531818.photogallery Yet another tidbit from Kerry. I love Fridays. Make sure you look at all 50 album covers. You must. I command you.

And now for something completely different - Brook Benton- Mother Nature, Father Time

My friend Kerry forwarded this trippy video to me. I pass it along to you, dear one. Happy Friday.

Black and White

Okay, first things first: my gig went very well - with a little help from my friends. I may have some nibbles in the creative world now, and that means so much to me...but what meant the world to me was the warmth and support (and, of course, laughter) from my friends who travelled from near and far to see me make fun of my kitty-cat whiskers in public. More on that later, when it has all sunk in....

Right now I am trying to move forward in in other aspects of my life, especially my living quarters. My teeny-tiny apartment needs some oomph and pizazz and generally someone to give a damn, so after years of watching Clean House and neat and reading stacks of Domino and Real Simple and Cottage Living, and staring at the Apartment Therapy website...I am ready to make some choices. As we know, decisions are sometimes a hurdle for l'il ole me, but today I hit the button at Overstock.com and bought a zebra-striped rug for my living room/kitchenette area, and a smaller zebra-shaped-and-striped rug for my bedroom. I wanted to purchase the above art from Andre Jordan http://www.andrejordan.co.uk/tell-me-something.html, but of course, it is sold. I saw the piece on my new favorite design website, http://blackwhitebliss.blogspot.com/. My design theme for my wee apartment is black and white, with bits of color or silver. I saw that Ralph Lauren Home was doing a very similar theme this year, so I feel in good company. I'll show y'all pictures as I progress ...first, I need to hire painters. Cheap painters.

My gig is tonight

(Yikes! Big picture of ME. And my hair is shorter now.) Okay, so my comeback as a stand-up comic happens tonight at Gotham Comedy Club, and I am a whore because I have been selling myself HARD. I do not enjoy cajoling all my friends to pay money to see me perform for ten minutes, because I feel funny saying "I'm funny! Look at me be funny! Aren't I funny?! Clap for me because I am funny!" which seem rather hypocritical for a performer...but there is something about performing for complete strangers that is so much more freeing than all your friends gathered to watch you possibly tank. Not that I feel I'm going to tank, it's just that I make fun of myself and reveal things about my insecurities, and talk about sex-ay thangs and my family and all that, and now all my closest pals and old grade-school chums and ex-lovers and potential lovers and drinking buddies and people whose opinions matter deeply to me are all gathered in one place to see what I can do with ten minutes and a microphone. I feel like I have to prove something - that all the times I was introduced as a "comedian" to connected folks at Elaine's might come back to haunt me if I stand on that stage and fummmfurrrr around and get lost and lose track of my set.

As if I have a set right now.

Ahhhh fuck it. It will be fun. Get back on that horse baby, and RIDE.

I can do that.

Thanks, Mom

Dating SUCKS

I don't get why I can't make this dating thing work. I think I screw it up on the second date, when I get a little more comfortable and reveal things. Maybe I say too much. Maybe I make funny faces that I am not aware of. Maybe I have secret halitosis no one tells me about. Maybe I have one really long chin hair that I cannot see but the guy can see because he sees my profile and the hair is, like, three or four inches long. Maybe I don't know how to kiss anymore. Maybe my insecurities ooze through my pores and smell like chicken soup. Maybe I choose the guys that will not call me after a second date because I like the process of re-thinking my every gesture, comment, clothing choice, entree selection, and the whim I had to cut my hair shorter. Some twenty-five-year-old recently called my shorter hair "Hillary-esque", which I assume is not exactly the same as "hot". The men who hit on me, and compliment me, and make me feel sexy are mostly married or in a committed relationship. Or the very old. I am that girl who entrances your weird-smelling old uncle who spits food particles on my face at your wedding reception.

At least I have my freedom. Shit, that's freakin' AWESOME.

Overwhelmed

I feel as if I am constantly playing "catch-up" with all my chores, both at home and at work. I have hillocks of laundry, clean and dirty, waiting to be sorted, or folded, or hung, or donated, or tossed. I have piles of paper that need to be gleaned for receipts and medical bills and deductible items so I can get some money from the IRS for 2006 and 2007. I have new and old furniture that needs to be moved, or put together, or sold, or painted. At work, my office is a neatly arranged mass of papers to be filed, or copied, or sorted and sent to storage, or put into as yet to be created folders. I have to write a set for my stand-up performance this coming Tuesday. I need space, and light, and order, and I am at a standstill. I'm not afraid of hard work - I just don't know where or how to begin, because it all feels like it will take forever and I cannot do it perfectly, or do not have the resources to stow things away in beautiful storage bins on my new shelves, because it costs money for those lovely bins.

I am so broke right now I haven't yet paid rent for the month...and yet, last night as I was walking home from babysitting (yes, I do that...and it shames me to take money from my friends, because they are like my family, and I love to hang with Maddie, and if I were not so desperate for cash I would refuse the pay. They have been so loving and generous to me, and treat me to fabulous meals and wine and beer and free concerts and free theatre tickets...ugh, I literally feel sick to my stomach getting paid) anyway, I was walking home to save money on the five buck cab fare, and wouldn't you know it, I get a grifter giving me the old "my house burned down that's my wife over there we have a baby would you please just buy us formula and diapers at the Duane Reade on the next block here are the papers to prove who I am and that we live in a shelter please please please help us shake my hand please I am telling you the truth" bit...I was so tired and burnt and I KNEW it was a line, and the guy had on more expensive sneakers than I, but I just gave him five bucks. The five I was saving from not cabbing home. Maybe it was the truth. But I have heard the story, in different variations, many, many times, and know I was probably buying them a damn fix. But I couldn't take being overwhelmed anymore. I just gave in.

Sometimes, I just want a boyfriend so I can have help with all the little things that add up and become big things. I am so weary of doing it all alone, all the time. Someone else's eyes, and hands, and perspective, to assure me that it will get done, and to help do it. Okay, maybe that is a personal assistant or maid. But I cannot afford a personal assistant or maid. Boyfriends require a different type of compensation.

Oh god, that sounds awful....

Passing Strange

This is from Gothamist (I loved Passing Strange, and think you should run to see it - hg) :

Broadway’s best show, the critically acclaimed Passing Strange, is still open for business, though struggling to compete against the usual insipid pabulum like Legally Blonde. Producers of this phenomenal rock musical were dealt another blow this week when CBS refused to broadcast their performance in the Tony Awards preview show. (The number, “We Just Had Sex,” is a cheeky, PG-13 homage to free love.) So if you haven’t seen Passing Strange yet, for crying out loud, do yourself a favor and catch it before it’s too late. You won’t have a problem getting $25 rush tickets before the show – we’ve seen it twice and would gladly pay double that amount.

– John Del Signore

2 p.m. & 8 p.m. // The Belasco Theatre [111 West 44th Street] // Advance ticket prices vary

Wish you were here...

So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?Hot air for a cool breeze?Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

Direct Relief Offers Assistance to Myanmar In Wake of Cyclone

The following is from the Direct Relief site (If you want to connect directly to donate to the victims of the cyclone in Myanmar, click on the title of this post to link to the donation page...or here https://secure.ga3.org/03/DRIdonate07):

In response to the cyclone that struck Myanmar over the weekend, Direct Relief International has offered assistance to regional humanitarian assistance groups.

The storm is reported to have caused tremendous damage and resulted in the tragic loss of more than 10,000 lives.

Direct Relief has contacted partners in Thailand and other neighboring countries, some of whom also run programs in Myanmar, to offer assistance to medical relief efforts for people affected by the storm.

The Myanmar government has yet to issue a formal request for international assistance - historically, the country rarely invites outside groups to provide assistance, even in emergencies.

Direct Relief has engaged in large-scale relief efforts in the region and is actively engaged in the recovery efforts response to the region's last major cyclone, Cyclone Sidr, which hit Bangladesh November 15, 2007, and resulted in 3,447 deaths and displaced 650,000 people.

Magnitude: Category 4 Cyclone
Incident: May 3, 2008
Human Cost: 22,464 people killed, 41,000 others missing as of May 6, 2008.
Damage: Unknown number of homes destroyed; at least 650,000 people evacuated
Direct Relief Response: Have reached out to partner network in South Asia, currently formulating response.

More Information: Reuters AlertNet News Archive
5/5/08 - Direct Relief Offers Assistance to Myanmar In Wake of Cyclone

Danish

This is from the Gothamist website... This idiot schmuck Danish (HA!) Qureshi put a hidden wireless camera in the bathroom at the Dunkin Donuts where he worked so he watch people poop and pee (and, I suppose, show some parts) from his laptop while he was sitting in his car. He was caught because some other dude in the neighborhood with a wireless surveillance system started picking up images from the bathroom-cam, and called police. The police caught Danish (tee-hee) sittin' in his car with his laptop and the camera he had just removed (from the smoke detector in which it was hidden).

Seriously, why are people so freakin' gross and creepy?

Still makes me crave a donut though. mmmmm, doooonuts......

Git'er Done

This is how I feel. On top of everything else that I need to do (oh, write a ten minute set for May 13th, unclutter and paint my apartment, do my 2006 AND 2007 taxes so I can get the money owed to me...) I need to shed a few fat cells. Because of this, I haven't bought new clothes in a long, long while, and just the other night, I shit you not, some rude older dude at Elaine's told me that "You wore that dress the last time I saw you in here" as if I had endless outfits from which to choose and parade for the patrons of the establishment. Elaine said "You know who says something like that? A YUTZ, that's who. A YUTZ." I agree wholeheartedly. I would never tell someone I saw them in the same outfit before, because that is RUDE. It's not as if I was wearing it the night before...it had been at least two weeks or so. I don't know...it just made me feel about ten years old and self-conscious and sad. I felt that way growing up in a wealthy suburb...there were many girls with huge closets full of Shetland sweaters and clogs and tartan skirts, and they had shiny, swingy hair and went skiing in Colorado in their white down parkas. I was one of the guys because I had very little choice in the matter...I couldn't compete, so I was the funny girl. The girl who hated her body. It's so tiresome.