Happy Halloween

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love fall. I love sweets. I love the macabre and the scary. I love pumpkins. I am sad to see it go.

Today was a great day. Kay and I cooked up some egg sandwiches, the weather was perfect for an afternoon run, I audited the improv class I will soon be teaching, my sister cooked a killer zucchini pasta, and the Giants won. (One more game baby!) Not so Halloweenie though. I mean, we're doing haunted houses next weekend, and I did enjoy a fab party at Cocoa's last night. Still. No mini candies, no tiny costumes. No school-sanctioned orange cupcakes.

There are very very VERY few times I consider having children. It's definitely not the time and generally not my interest. But today...I wouldn't have minded toting some kiddos around. Maybe I could have rented some.


middle school camping trip 2009

Que sera sera. Whatever will be will be.
The future's not ours to see. Que sera sera.

EDIT: After thinking about kids on Halloween for about five more seconds, I was re-horrified by the memories of children screaming, crying, and tantruming ... Nevermind my Halloween was perfect.

Yatchy Entry

Sometimes don't you wish someone hadn't taught you how to think? That all you did was enjoy watching Survivor and grinding on guys at bars and reading TMZ every day? I'm not dissing any of those activities, but wouldn't it be nice if that was it? If you were illiterate and didn't believe in global warming and thought trash disintegrated into the ground and human rights were a last priority and money really for real wasn't important and wasn't limited and guilt wasn't a sin and wasn't a reality and everyone who didn't like you needed to get over it and all the work you didn't do right was just whatever because the paycheck keeps coming baby and consumerism was fun again?

Right now the high school Lincoln-Douglass debate resolution is that states ought not own nukes. As I was watching some awkward kids in suits last week I began to day dream I was in the debate with a neg case arguing that the owning of nukes will lead to an accident or use of nukes which would put brains and consciences out of their miseries. Value criterion: utalitiariansim--happiness for all the lil minds and hearts in the world through total destruction.


Tokyo Disney November 2008

This happened to me twice before, won't happen to me anymore.

Eating Animals

Veggie lasagna baked by Kay Summer 2010

Last night I got home late from an improv jam. I am so grateful I found this group. It's perfect. They're friendly, flexible with learning curves, but challenging. Last night, for example, I nailed nothing in four hours of working. But, I made progress--which feels SO good. There are definitely times I reflect on an exercise and realize I was the weakest link, but I am sucking it all down and learning so much.

I was beat and tapped on my window. Kay was over, lying in bed and reading Eating Animals. He opened the curtains, slid the glass, and I crawled in. The extra steps to a door are worth a lot when you're sleepy. He showed me something I had written in the margin of the book last year about nihilism. I explained. There are roughly four things that defer existential crisis for me:

1. Continuing my commitment to vegetarianism.
2. Running and exercise.
3. Writing--usually on this blog actually. It's bite-size.
4. Improv.

There's a lot else I love--but it gets tricky. Spiritual literature can be a savior or a jerk in times of pointlessness. Sweets can make you sick. Sleep can make you tired. The Office isn't always funny. You get chapped lips when you kiss too much. So, I thank you God for my four little reasons to get up in the morning.

You have to be the cutest gravedigger I've ever seen.

Up Now

I know the night. I know this night.
I have been up doing small things upon things
for no reason
besides I can't sleep.

After the surprise
"It's late!"
come the tries
to drift, but
the clicking lamp back on, the rolling, scoot, sit.

I am up. I know this night. Boredom.
Moving slow. So
slow. Then, sweet night
is here. I know this night! This night
reminds me that it's all fine. I am alone.
It's so quiet. Blanche whirs, stops. I write, stop.
There's something personal here--something very
velvety. I love this night!

I move with more excitement. I sort through new inspirations.
I gracefully gather up all the yolk of dreams and ex-worries.
I whisk them into night's filling. Night's work.
I work. I plot. I plan--it's all good until--

I know this night. Oh, how I know it.
I'm alone again.
It's fall again.
It's cold here. I need some noise to drown out my own remembered conversations!
Please!
A noise!
I know this night
of let-downs. Of pasts--they do not change.
I know the night now. I know it now.

Way to Go, Slim!

But if we can hump dead animals and antelopes
then there's no reason that a man and another man can't elope

My iPod was on shuffle, and I heard this little old tune by our friend Eminem. I was obsessed with "The Real Slim Shady" back in the day. I taped it off the radio using my Hello Kitty boom-box. I know all the words, but today I realized I hadn't been listening to most of them. When I heard the line seen above, I was moved.

Think about it--Slim just defended gay marriage. In a rap. In 2000. A rap that was top of TRL and Billboard. Heck yeah, Em! Way to go! I know, I know--he's been notorious for using the F-slur...Even now that he's had to come out and say that term doesn't mean "gay" to him (okay, he's an idiot--neither here nor there) and has graciously (?) refrained from calling gay pop stars the word by switching it out with "fake its"...THE POINT is that in 2000 he had a ballsy little line worked into his nation-wide hit.

Women wear your pantyhose. Sing the chorus and it goes!

Muff and Jamba--Married October 23rd, 2010

Everything changes today.
Usnavy's on his way--
off to a better place.
Look at Vanessa's face.

Sixteen

In hindsight my first day of school at my new high school was hilarious. At the time it was horrible--why it's such a good story now.

I'll tell it briefly: At lunch I walked with purpose and confidence into the cafeteria. I sat at a long empty table. I knew someone would eventually sit at least at the other end. I had absolutely zero friends, so I had no idea at all what was going to happen, but I also had little shame. I wouldn't even know who to be embarrassed in front of.

The kids came swarming in, but unlike my old Chicago school where seats in the caf were coveted, and some people had to smoosh onto one small stool to eat, it was easy to space and spread out in St. Louis. No one came. No one came. No one joined me. Kids kept flooding in. No one sat with me, and then, suddenly a boy about my age--a cute and nice looking boy came up to me and asked very sweetly if anyone was sitting across from me. I said no, and he pulled out the chair, beckoned his friends over, and they swarmed the table, grabbing up every single chair that wasn't mine in about ten seconds time. I was aghast, alone, at a huge table with no chairs eating a PB&J. Eventually, halfway through lunch, the principal came over to me and tried to warm the situation by discussing how good PB&J is.

I did not tell that story to anyone at school--even after I had plenty of happy friends. Too mortifying, and the dreaded table still existed. I had daydreams of setting it on fire.

The next year in winter I was casually auditioning for a page to stage production at a theatre festival. It was no big thing--just some audition experience, but they didn't ask for a monologue. They asked you to tell a story on the spot, and that was the story that came to my mind first. So, I told it. I talked about my pathetic first day of school in this huge studio space with some hundred other high schoolers watching. I hadn't thought anyone from my school would be there, but then I finished, looked up, and saw J-Rod standing in the back of the crowd. He and I were stars of the school musical. He knew my secret.

Snow Started Fallin'

February 2008


This will be the year I stop hating winter. This song helps.

Well I met you at the blood bank
We were looking at the bags
Wondering if any of the colors
Matched any of the names we knew on the tags

You said, "See look thats yours!
Stacked on top with your brother's
See how the resemble one another
Even in their plastic little covers"

And I said I know it well

That secret that you knew
But don't know how to tell
It fucks with your honor
And it teases your head
But you know that its good girl
Cos its running you with red

Then the snow started falling
We were stuck out in your car
You were rubbing both of my hands
Chewing on a candy bar

You said "'Aint this just like the present
To be showing up like this"
As a moon waned to crescent
We started to kiss

And I said I know it well

That secret that we know
That we don't know how to tell
I'm in love with your honor
I'm in love with your cheeks
What's that noise up the stairs babe?
Is that Christmas morning creaks?

And I said I know it well
I know it well


December 2006

I Woke Up Early to Run

And yet, I am not running. This is a trend I've realized in myself lately that I really don't like: I get scared and annoyed by things in a big looming shadowmonster way without really seeing what the problem is. This morning I woke up--not groggy. I got up, I brushed my teeth, and then I quivered contemplating the run.

I exercise every day, so I should just run now rather than later. Also, I feel fine and healthy, and its not too cold out. Also, I really like running. I don't usually push myself too hard, and I find it very relaxing. Yet, there is this huge breathing beast of fear here in bed with me as I type. I got very quiet, still, and began to ask questions. It took a long time because at first all I could feel was the saliva drip of the monster as he exhaled sharply onto my cheek. Rationality flew out the window--all that mattered is I listen to FEAR. But, I continued on, "Why don't you want to run? What is wrong? Let's go through step by step."

I figured it out. My running headphones broke, which means I have to use a different set that bounce a lot and I have to hold at an awkward angle and they have started to break, and I don't want to run sans music this morning. I've thought enough these days. Now, I'm not sure what to do. I cracked the case. Is the answer to pat myself softly on the back and stay in bed? Do I get going right now and have an annoyed jog? More importantly, how can I stop myself from doing this with every aspect of my life? The fear is too much.

She started freezing, lungs all collapsing
The momentum is passing, but the moment is eating us whole

Bloody Mary

Tonight Big Taco was here. He is en route to a new life in a new city. He has been promising me a ghost story for almost a year, so tonight he came over. It was good to see him--this guy who used to b a good friend. College is funny like that. One quarter you eat dinner every day together, and then you see each other a couple times a month in passing, and then one of you leaves, and then you may never have a traditional spooky story telling night again.

Tonight Big Taco came over to tell me about eerie things that happened to him while he was living in Alaska last year. As to not bother Wiz who does not like scary things, we decided to go into the bathroom and turn off the lights. We were in there no longer than twenty seconds before he said, "I don't like bathrooms without the lights on because of Bloody Mary--" and before he had even finished speaking I had bolted out into the light, banging my knee in the process, and he was right behind me. Exploding from the tile and rustling shower curtain. We howled with laugher, amazed we could be so scared in under a minute. Roommates Wyn and LC heard and came out. What? What's this? We explained and they grinned--also fans of the macabre.

We sat in a circle on the floor of LC's bedroom and scared ourselves silly. I just realized something about myself: I'm really happy when I am scared. I always knew I liked scary stuff, but I am actually really happy when I expose myself to scary stuff. Internally, I checked in as my heart was stomping. I was frightened and happy.

I died so I could haunt you.

Men

September 2010

There are so many good men in the world. I know everyone keeps saying there just aren't, but on the contrary, I am blessed with many good men in my little life. Men who send postcards with pictures of us stuck to them, men who give me hot chocolate making appliances and boxes of powder, men who suggest new albums, men who stop their cars as I walk by--sweating from a late night run--wanting me to know they say "hello," men who do improv, men who try, men who invite me over for tea, men who ask for copies of my work, men who did high school policy debate, men who are shy and lovingly silent.

I met a man last week who was a fast friend. We bonded in a matter of ten minutes about Japanese culture, professional improv, the city, the suburbs, script-writing. It was wild. But, you know, how do you say in a loud bar, "No. I know where you think this is going, and I know I have no ring, but this isn't it for you" besides, of course, denying his drink offer.

I want to keep these men. All of these men. I love these men for being good despite the rumors. And, I do want to keep meeting more--more Japan/performing/funny enthusiasts. I wonder if they are notes from God reminding me that if something happens and Kay is no more, there's always more. Or, if the men will increase a millionfold--the most difficult test of loyalty.

Today I can think of nothing else besides the kind of man who spent the day judging a speech tournament with me, who is impressed with all the right things, who loves baseball and soup, who held my hand in a haunted forest, who drove with conviction and sunglasses, who is just feet away as I type. Unaware.

We were just kids when I first kissed you in the attic of my parent's house, and I wish we were there now.

Mozza-rella!

This weekend I was slicing some fresh mozzarella for salad while Kay cooked dinner, and out of nowhere I was belting in an Italian/Spanish accent the story of young girl whose step-mother (Colby Jack) would not let her go to the ball and dance with Prince Gjetost. Her name...was Mozza-rella! And, then, after like, seriously way longer than that type of thing should go on (ten minutes?) I looked at Kay who was trying to inch out of the doorway. Boop.

Yesterday morning I was running with my broken iPod, trying to gain a sense of peace about the day. Yes, I have officially become the kind of person who listens to spiritually motivating lectures while I run. Anyway, the iPod works, but the volume is permanently on full blast, so it's this peaceful woman's voice screaming into my ear. Anyway, I was running in the middle of the woods and I got a huge whiff of marinara sauce. It was overwhelming. What's weird is that out of all the millions of times I have eaten pizza in my life, the memory I apparently associate mariana smell with is the community pool I went to growing up. During adult swim, my sister and I would eat pizza and nachos and pretzels and ice cream etc. etc.

I began to think about the teenagers I thought were so rad when I was four. They were twelve to fifteen years older than me. That puts them in their late thirties now. I didn't like that. How on earth could those side-ponytailed gals and those big haired dudes singing along to Paula Abdul have kids and careers and do anything besides serve pizza!?


Lincoln Park Zoo, 2009

Tennessee

Peace Please! Bradley & Nac, 2009.

"So far, the law has been challenged only once. Filed by an anonymous waiter, the complaint contended that allowing guns into a tavern creates an unsafe work environment for servers. His complaint was denied by the state’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health." -Malcolm Gay on Tennessee gun laws that say loaded guns in bars = A-OK

Of course at first I was frustrated beyond belief. WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?! Seth Meyers on SNL made some Weekend Update crack like, "If you're from one of those states wondering how you're gunna die...You're gunna be shot in a bar." But, you know, I've never been to Tennessee, maybe it's really as full of rapists, killers, and thieves as the NRA and Tennessee court systems seem to think it is. Tennessee: So Many Criminals We Need Guns Everywhere. I never understand that. Do gun-loving groups realize they are devaluing the place they live (their town, city, state, country) when they say it is necessary to have guns? Are you really making a case for the safety of Tennessee civilians when you make it seem like 4 out of 5 people are going to walk into restaurants on a killing spree? I sort of want everyone in Tennessee to die if its become that riddled with crime. At least that would be good for the environment. Think about it--some million extra bodies promoting the heat death of the universe disappear and country music decreases tenfold. I like it. Shoot on!

Do me a favor. If I should waver, be my savior, and get out the gun.

Never Gonna Get It

Lately I've been feeing sorry for Blanche. She has figured out that the top hatch of her cage is freedom. She now spends 75% of her time climbing the bars, doing a backbend, and waving her paws and/or teeth at the latch. She grabs hold just as she falls back--pomp--into shavings. She may be improving how long she can hang on to the latch, how long she can stand on one foot as she bends, how to swing and grasp the ceiling in one try, but she's still never gunna get out. The hatch opens up, and unless she built some type of cannon, she could not propel herself fast enough to bust out of the cage.

Plus, freedom would be horrible. She'd be sucked up in a vacuum cleaner immediately. I live far from the forest.

I aspire to be the kind of person never pitied for her goals and progress in achieving them. It's possible that her attempts at escape make Blanche's life meaningful, but I sorta doubt it.

They hand you the knife and tell you to cut it up right.

Stranger Pumpkin

Last Halloween

Target is so dangerous to me right now. Also bakeries. I absolutely love pumpkins in every possible sense. Pumpkin candles, scones, coffee, chocolates, stuffed animals dressed as pumpkins, pumpkin piggy banks, real pumpkins, pumpkin sweaters, a pumpkin card I bought.

Today my dad was were visiting. We saw Devil together. We have a tradition with M. Night movies. It was okay--not as good as the ol stuff, but not as horrid as the past couple movies.

The thing was, it's been out a while, and we went in the middle of the day. So, there were a total of four people in the theatre. And...then this random girl came and sat right next to my dad and I...and she insisted on not sitting on the side by the stairwell. She actually came a couple minutes late to the movie and wanted to sit right next to me, and she wanted to scootch past both of us to get there. Remember, there are four people in the theatre. What?

I'm sure this type of thing would have made more sense fifty years ago. You go to a movie alone, so you sit with some strangers and make a friend. I know I'm a horribly anti-social person and the internet has eaten my soul. Funny though right?

Since I moved in high school I'm never afraid to make new friends. I figured moving into adulthood etc. I would be meeting peeps and making friends all the time, but I'm actually pretty darn busy. New friends? Who has time?

Turn the lights off. Carry me home.

Please

Tonight I prayed.

I have been praying very hard lately. I will say that. I have been hoping for happiness for myself and all the others I know transitioning in life. I guess that is really everyone. All the time.

I have been praying for the health of my family. For the crumple of terminal illness. For the light of Truth. For the overdoses to end, for the poor to feel clean, for the rich to feel safe, for SNL to be funny, for circuit three to end faster, for winter to walk slower. I have prayed.

I have prayed for sweethearts in Canada, for a writer in South America, for the several strip clubs in East St. Louis, for the few brunch places in the city, for postcards to be invincible, for a wedding to be successful, for musicians to make their best work yet, for the good books never to end and the wars to stop today.

Tonight I prayed for Hilary Swank. Insomnia tricked me into thinking Boys Don't Cry would put me to sleep. And, oh, I was so sad. I was so heartbroken. I was so pained. I prayed for those men who ruin everything. And as I saw the time run close to the end I prayed so very hard that once all the horrible things had happened, once it was all over, the credits would role and there would be no screens with words that told the future for those people. No, I prayed, please do not let this be based on a truth. Please.

It was.

I hadn't known.

Random Thoughts

My stomach is arguing with me. Rude. I fed it salad, coffee, greek yogurt, a piece of pumpkin bread, a sip of cider, a FiberOne bar, and a shortbread cookie. My guess about the culprit: the GD cookie. Uck my innards are making all these noisy little squelches. Stop that! I just tried to calm my tum tum with string cheese. Perhaps not a good idea. One can never tell.

This is a true sentence: My sister married my mom.

Sometimes when I am feeling blah running, I pretend I am in a music video of what my iPod is playing. Tonight on the dark dark track I was in Powerline's "Stand Out" video. Nevermind that it is a cartoon. Never you mind!

I love my Koh Hos. I spent a fair amount of time this morning texting Trelly while we both watched The Biggest Loser in our respective cities.

Honestly, when I think about things I enjoy, eating greek yogurt is consistently at the top.

Scream 4 comes out in April!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MY HAMSTER IS SO FREAKIN' CUTE! (Yeah, I am one of those people. Whatever. Be grateful I haven't made Blanche her own Facebook...imagine how cute it would be! "Activities: Running, Napping, Climbing, Planning Escape, Waiting for Special K to Fall from the Heavens")



And my first sin was a fear that made me old.
And my first sin was a fear that made me old.

Dream October 7th, 2010

There was an important dream in last night's sleep. Rather, an important part in last night's dream. I was in a truck with this random person I know from college--we're not friends. We came to an intersection and saw a handsome man slam on his breaks at the red light. We were adjacent to him and had the green. We both saw him, recognized him as this cool dude we knew, and then we saw him scream an expletive, his face blood with anger, his hands smack the steering wheel. As we made a left turn, he saw us too, smiled very enthusiastically, and wave. My carmate and I burst into laugher at the sudden change in temperance. The man in the other car smiled genuinely and began to chuckle at himself as well.

We can be so angry in one moment, but if the right person walked by, everything would be sunshine again. We always see anger as an entity of its own--out of control, but it's really not. It's actually manageable--especially outwardly. And, really, it is quite silly. When you think about it.


Birthday Breakfast--2010

Better find yourself a place to level out.
Got a cricket for a conscience, always looks the other way.

Light Pink

Let's not talk about cancer anymore.
Let's not buy the light pink mixers, water bottles, ribbons.
No football players in pink leggings.
Let's not listen to it. In the most literal sense.

Let's kill it like it has killed us.
More and more of us all the time.
When did it become so stylish?

I hate you, cancer. You selfish spreading germ.
You aggressive little brat. Die, scum.

We need no awareness of a nagging jerk.
Let's burst awareness. Let's ignore it like it has ignored our joyful wishes.
Let's let it whimper and fizzle alone and scared.
No more wigs, books, jokes--close up shop.

Napper

Awesome nap in Fukoi, Japan 2008.

From now on, World, I am going to nap when I wanna nap. No more storing up sleepiness for an inherent night of insomnia anyway! Forget it! I'm sleeping! I was going to do a ton of work after leaving the office today, but instead, I decided to just sleep. For two hours. And I. Feel. Great. So, that's the kinda gal I've become, World. I am Alice: a napper.

In other news: I just sent a text with the word "sign" in it and deliberated for an extensive amount of time if that was the right spelling. Editing all these writing portfolios is weakening my brainpower.

So, baby kiss me like a drug, like a respirator.

Real Gold Two Years Ago

But I'm still in your blood.
You're still in my blood.



I can't take it 'cos I just want you back.
I just want you back.

Recounting Failures

MI 2010

Never do remember how bad failure feels.
How slick, stuck, overpowering, all knowing, all seeing, all
acting, all wise, and
temporary.

That vein-pop,
strain on the lower back, blood sprinting upstream to my cheeks.

I can only cringe at the long washed away aftertaste.
How is it I can never remember how thick a bite it really is?
Is this what
people talk about
when they talk about
"blocking it out"?

Or, is this a too-cruel joke on us,
the humans. This is what we get
for a life of plastic spoons and paper napkins. We get
to relive each failure--worse than the last.
There's no strength in that.

Or, is this harsh repetition just
attempt at survival. The only way we could ever scootch off the mattress,
into tennis shoes, exercise, read, go to work, dine with family.
God help us if we remembered the screaming mistakes of past.
Falling short, falling out.
We could not then look even in a mirror. It would be a fast-over life.
Living in swamp of errors is not a life.

I'm not sure, but I know
I can't know what it was like then.
In those times.
I cannot remember until it's happening.

Easy A...Minus

Hunny & me in 2006

LC, Pookie, and I went and saw Easy A a couple days ago. I actually really enjoyed it. I mean, part of it is that over the past year my taste in movies has gone from believable dramas to trashy comedies I don't have to think about. But, regardless, there were a lot of really funny literary-esque lines...like referring to girl friendships as "Gossip Girl in the Sweet Valley of Traveling Pants."

Of course, in movies like this the ever-obvious problem is that plain girl goes sexy is always way cheesy because let's face it, it's a movie star. You know--She's All That or whatever. But, here, it was like...they didn't even TRY. She was super cute and trendy but "invisible"--not possible. I mean, come on, they didn't even put her hair up or give her glasses! Classic moves of geek to chic!

Anyway--the other thing is that Emma Stone looks, like, identical to my HS bestie Hunny. They make the same facial expressions and everything.

I get on my dirt bike and ride to my girls'. I'm gunna lay down the law and tell them what's goin' on.