03.01.10
I’m not entirely sure what to make of this year of our Lord 2010. It’s nigh on March already and I feel as if I’m waking up from a weekend bender – my brain is foggy and I’ve the uncomfortable certainty that I have made some terrible decisions and I need to go through my contacts to investigate who I’ve done wrong and how to do damage control. It’s The First 48, only I’m investigating the crime scene of my life. Where’s the tape, the blood splatter expert, the donuts? I need Dexter Morgan up in this bitch.
I’m out of a job March 12, a matter with which I’m not entirely comfortable and over which I’m fighting feelings of failure and inadequacy. California and I appear to be white-knuckling our hostilities for each other and the end doesn’t seem to be in sight. I want to go back but I want to stay, obviously, and I don’t want to have to return with my tail between my legs. The voices in my head yell and sigh dramatically and ask me with exasperation how many signs I need from the world to accept the fact it’s just not meant to be.
I want it to be, though, and so I stay. I try. I perch on my doctor’s uncomfortable couch and timidly inquire as to new medications, I knock down new prescription recipes with a mixture of hope and dread. Hope: this might be the right mix! Dread: even if it’s the right mix, it’s about four weeks of misery and confusion. Everyone who has ever relied on meds knows not to trust anything in those first few weeks. So, what’s up and what’s down?
Wellbutrin and Prozac make things hazy. Are they with me or are they against me? When will I find out for certain?
I want to turn this into a positive, this job loss thing, and open myself up to finding some writing projects. Maybe this is the window that opens when the door closes. Or whatever the saying is.
I started my gig with MamaPop this past week, and I have to say, I am having so much fun. And that’s not a sunshine-blowing exercise, either. The people behind the scenes are truly awesome and I feel like a seal, dumb with excitement and joy, clapping hysterically. It means something to me to step out of my shell and actually give myself a shot, even if it’s just for fun and doesn’t lead anywhere else but to good people and a great time. Methinks that’s how things should always begin.
I’m going to throw myself into writing, to really try to see where it can take me. It seems to be as good a time as any to take a risk like this, to really throw myself at the mercy of the Gods and my laptop, my prescriptive cocktails and leaving myself open to what could happen if I apply myself and actually work toward something I want to achieve. I am slowly discovering that I am actually capable of things I never before believed myself to be, so why not ride that, right? It’s like riding a bull, only it’s a rainbow between my legs. I’m just going to concentrate on riding the hell out of this fucker. I will be goddamned if I fall off.
What’s the worst that could happen? A concussion? Impregnated by rainbow? I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?
Um, but, say…if you happen to have any leads on writing gigs, let me know.
On another note, Kris and I decided to take the plunge and register for this year’s BlogHer conference and we, along with Kristabella and Laurie, might actually be allowed to say a few things. So, who knows? Maybe this is a sign of good things to come. It’s certainly a sign of fun, that’s for sure. And if you’re going, we’d better make certain that that, at the very least, is what happens.
But still…the writing gigs? Help a bitch out, won’t you?
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02.23.10
I have performance anxiety. And I wish there were another, stronger, statement for such affliction, because it doesn’t quite capture the actual feeling in the pit of my stomach when I share my writing and photography with anyone.
Odd, considering I blog publicly, using my real name and discussing real issues deeply personal to me, but I digress. I’m scared to be judged.
I am, I guess you can say, scared to try, to put myself out there. Instead I’ve been content to let opportunities pass me by so I didn’t have to experience the possibility of rejection.
That changes today. Today is the very first time I have overcome my fear and anxieties and posted anything of mine in a different venue, with a wider audience, a wider reach.
Oops, I just crapped my pants.
Go see me on MamaPop, won’t you? Today and every Tuesday. Tell your grandma, your mom, your sister’s fiance’s second cousin. Need some handholding today, peeps. I’m breaking my publishing cherry.
Which is really a disgusting thing to say, but I have to say *something* to break my nerves.
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02.21.10
I. THE DENT
I have, as many folks already know and have filed away in their brain’s “Things That Don’t Matter” cabinet, a dent in my head. A real, honest-to-Hay-soos dent. And it came up the other day and I described it in response to a question and now someone who has chosen to remain anonymous (Mom?) wants to see said dent for reasons I can only attribute to curiosity or investigatory insurance purposes,* kind of like at the circus, when your friend is all, “HOLY SHIT, COME LOOK AT THIS! SOME BITCH HAS [A DENT IN HER HEAD/BEARD/THIRD NIPPLE/HAIR MADE OF FURBALLS THROWN UP BY A CAT!!!]!” And you’re all, “Dude, STFU [We're only saying the actual letters of the acronym now, because it's more ironic that way. - Ed.]! You must take me there, where you were whilst hate crimes were being committed on your eyes, FOR I MUST EXPERIENCE THIS AS WELL.”
Backstory: The inimitable Whitney asked a very thoughtful question the other day on Formspring:
”
Which then prompted the question:
And, so, okay. I live to give. I found a photo that captured my little meteor impact site. I’ve written more personal things than this here dent in my head and I’ve probably shown worse pictures, although I cannot think of any in which my gums were so…gummy. My hope in posting this photo is that I am fulfilling some sort of Dent Head Awareness and that, next time you see a gal or fellow with a dented head, you’ll know that that son of a bitch is probably batshit nutters and that you’ll throw a few dollars at the circus oddity ($10 would be great) and then flee. Flee with a lightning fast quickness you’ve never thought yourself capable, for, and this bears repeating: BITCH IS CRA-ZAY.
II. THE ACORN
Late last year I had my dream fulfilled of seeing live one Mr. David Sedaris, angel of spoken and written word and who I adore more than Corn Nuts, which is to say, A GREAT DEAL. Naturally before the show they cut the autograph line off at the person in line before me and the rest of us were told that Mr. Sedaris would be here after the show to sign our books (possibly my left thigh?). I sulked away sadly, knowing that I would never get an autograph because the line would be too long. And it was. We would have waited for several hours, which would have been fine with me were it not a work night and were it not the sad fact that if I am in bed after 11:00 pm, my eyes morph into something like this. And those eyes are adorable on a cute pup, but not so much on a bitter gal who wishes hate on pretty much everything from the hours of 8-5 Monday through Friday. I embarrassed myself fairly completely when I met his sister, Amy Sedaris, at BlogHer 2007, so I was confident in meeting David and humiliating myself 2 for 2. In one of his books, David Sedaris compares a dent in a person’s head (!!) to something that could quite literally hold an acorn. And this I thought not just topical, but brilliant, like a sign from the Gods that All Ye Who Have Dented Heads Are Blessed By Ye Olde Hilarious Sprightly Scribes.
Those of you who know my particular brand of jackassery know exactly where I am going with this story. When it was my turn to meet him, I planned to ask him if this (at this point I would reveal my dent) was what he was imagining when he wrote those words about the dented head and acorn line. I thought at first he may be uncomfortable – maybe he’d think I was throwing it in his face as if he had insulted me – but I was certain the look on my face (a demented excitement only a true fan could exhibit) would soothe his fears and that he might even go so far as to stand up and say, “My God! It’s the EXACT SAME DENT in my head when I imagined it! It’s like your dented head came to me in my dreams!” And he’d step back in shock, as though fearing the fact that his imagination had indeed come to life, but I would engulf him in a hug, quite literally lifting him up in the air. And from that point on, I would be known as the Carmen Electra to David’s Sedaris’s Prince. I would be a pouty, dented head muse in diaphanous gowns and caramel highlights. (With less boob reveals and whoreish behavoirs.)
And it would all be because of an acorn, a dream and a dent. Dents do make dreams come true.
But it was not meant to be, for I did not meet him. I will never really know if mine was the dent he imagined as he was writing his book, locked in his own creativity. And I’ll never know if my dent is such that it could hold the acorn of David Sedaris, International Best Selling Elfin Humorist of My Dreams and Idols.
This concludes Dent Head Awareness Month, as I can no longer contain my emotion.
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**AAAHAHA, HO HO. Hooo. Insurance settlement. That’s rich. That’s hilarious. No such luck, not for this Acorn Receptacle!
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