My favorite form of punctuation is the ellipse. Because so...much can happen betwixt those three little dots...
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Mistaken
OK, so this is a little complicated to explain. I am a dork. That is the first thing to know in case you didn't already. You remember how I used to write things for the Scheherazade Project? Anyhow, I did. This is a variation on this month's theme. A friend (who is also a dork) and I decided to take on the project and write a short story 100 words at a time. They would write 100 words and then I would read it and critique it shamelessly and with much complaining and stomping around, I would then write 100 words on top of that and so forth and so on until we got to... I forget our goal (1000 words?), but we reached it. It took us the bulk of October, but we reached it. Here, in celebration of all things spooky on this hallowed of all hallowed weenies, I give you a mish of a meshing of stitched together story... 100 words at a time.
Do you ever wonder what it would be like to kill yourself? I mean really. Just put the gun against your head and.... POW. That would be kinda messy though. Maybe pills. Or jumping off a cliff. That would probably be the best. Still kinda gross but at least you'd get to fly for a few seconds. At least try to.
I don't think I could do it though. Odds are I'd just stand there on the precipice trying to will myself to take one more step. Nope, couldn't do it. I guess if something really really bad happened to me. Maybe that's what you have to think about first even before you think about how you'd do it - WHY you'd do it.
He read through the highlighted portion of the email one more time and then placed it back in the coffee ring stained manila folder labeled simply, "Accidents".
He removed the news clipping and the photographs. The day after she sent that email, she had gone hiking near Havasupi Falls. One misplaced step.
A beautiful place to fly.
The newspaper had called it an unfortunate accident.
"Accident".
Just like all the others, and there were so many others...
Sometimes he thought his job was just so cliched. Suicide itself had become a cliche to him, to the world really. What hasn't already been said about suicide after all? What hasn't already been written? Haven't we tried every possible way to kill ourselves? Of course that doesn't make it any less tragic, doesn't make his job any easier, just more... cliched.
The most bizarre story, however, the most disturbing, the one he almost couldn't believe was what happened to that late 90s hip hop DJ and his girlfriend that night late last spring outside of Tempe. What an elaborate "accident" that was...
You would have thought that DJ Spic would have been able to handle a bad trip. After all, illicit drugs were certainly commonplace in his vocation. And despite his well-publicized rehab stints (Betty Ford, Crossroads, Cirque Lodge - you name it), he still maintained his habit for self-medication.
They had only been dating a few weeks. The gossip mills were abuzz that Sara Crookedfeather was just a convenient beard to cover up his gay trysts with Tex Mex Rex, his longtime collaborator and boyhood friend.
By the time paparazzi photos began showing her bikini-clad and riding piggyback on Spic's shoulders, she had already begun converting him to a much more "organic" drug habit. Less meth and heroin. More psilocybe mushrooms and mescaline. He told his friends that this "natural" therapy would unblock a dark chi clouding his creativity.
If he only knew.
When you first looked at the photos, it was as if one was looking at one of those calendars where they dress babies up like vegetables or... No. That's not right. It was as if someone was doing a surrealist take-off of the Victorian collar. You know those lacy, disk-like affairs all stiff and making pastries out of the common human head? But then, of course... Upon closer examination you saw that they were, in fact severed. The heads. Both of them. How it was possible to turn a vinyl record into a weapon is any one's guess. One would imagine they were just going through some kind of psychedelic adventure or other when one decided to throw them like.... a frisbee, I suppose.
That's not the most fascinating part of it though. The most fascinating is that it was simultaneous. It would have had to be or else how would they both be dead in the same way with no one else in the room? You can just imagine that moment, that force, Christ, the force it must have taken them both. The creepy part is, they were making eye contact. A sort of post mortem "oops" if you will.
What a weird way to go.
Since Crookedheather had the good sense to be involved in a mutual murder-suicide with America's favorite sexually-ambiguous hiphop icon, she sky-rocketed to "legend" status faster than anyone since Nancy Spungen's body was found half-naked in a hotel Chelsea bathroom. You couldn't walk a half block through West Hollywood without seeing some form of Crookedfeather merchandise. "I heart Sara" tshirts became the fastest selling items in street vendor history. Two punk bands had top-ten hits with Crookedfeather-inspired songs - "I Lost My Head Over You" and "Decaptivated".
It was an ironic end for a young woman deadset on making a name for herself.
That was also the case for the dearly departed DJ. His latest CD spent 13 consecutive weeks at number one. Conspiracy theorists poured over his entire discography to find prophetic lyrics from his debut album from 2001, "The Headless Wonder".
"I been dodging bullets
and spinning records
bitches can't shut up
they talking my head off"
DJ Spic soon became permanently linked with Lennon, Morrison, Cobain and Tupac - cut down in their prime, robbing the world of their gifts.
It was all very gaudy and theatrical. The ABC mini-series was the prophetic straw that broke the camel's back.
Still, you needed these stories to break up the soccer moms who left the engine running in the garage, the fat teenagers who slit their wrists in the bathroom, the misunderstood poets with guns to their heads.
Just then there was a knock on the door to the windowless room. Jacob realized he had absolutely no concept of what time it could be, how long he'd been there, and who could possibly be knocking.
His voice cracked from under-use at the words, "Come in".
And immediately he regretted it. Not just his invitation to invite an unknown entity into his home (as humble as it was), but the fact that he was stupid enough to let anyone know that he was there in the first place.
Another knock on the door.
"I said to come in!" Jacob said, louder this time.
KNOCK KNOCK
Now optimistically hoping it was a deaf person soliciting for some charity, Jacob pushed his stacks of books and files to the side to make a path to the door. He peered through the spyhole to see a black-clad man looking at his watch. Black suit, black shirt, black tie, black hat. A stranger.
Jacob opened the door and the man spoke.
"Good evening, Jacob. I am Mr. Lamort".
As soon as he heard that voice, that whiskey burn, baritone gravel, he knew immediately who was standing before him. Not a stranger, not a stranger at all. A necessary... Evil.
"I am aware of who you are. I wasn't expecting you until Sunday."
"I had a cancellation. We must begin tonight. If you'll put on your shoes and follow me, sir, we really don't have much more time to stand here dilly dallying."
Jacob shut his front door on Lamort with a satisfying click and stood on his out-of-season seasonal welcome mat wondering why such a man would employ the use of phrase "dilly dallying".
He slid into his sad loafers and took a final sip of coffee that went cold long ago. With the slightest trace of a sigh and a hunch of his shoulders, Jacob hesitated with his hand on his cool front door knob for the second time that evening.
It wasn't supposed to be that way. He never saw himself resigned to any particular destiny. In his mind, he always envisioned himself fighting bloodied until the bitter end.
But that's not how it was going to be.
Rather than being vanquished in a spectacular blaze of glory, he would instead meet his fate in worn leather loafers, head slumped and courage safely tucked away deep in his surrendered soul. There was no serenity in defeat.
They walked single-file to a dilapidated old station wagon ambulance - the kind you'd see in old Steve McQueen or Evil Kneivel movies. The moment was cinematic in its simplicity.
"Should I get in the back" Jacob asked, unsure of how exactly to proceed.
"That won't be necessary quite yet" was Lamort's ominous reply.
Lamort opened the passenger seat with an audible complaint from rusty hinges. There, on the front seat rested a solitary, pewter key looped with a green satin ribbon. Jacob registered the key only for a moment before a bony grey hand engulfed it.
Lamort closed the door, just less than a slam...
And began walking west on Cheever street.
Jacob looked back into the passenger side window, onto the faded seat where the key used to be as though, through it's having just been there, he'd be able to decipher its meaning. Having no luck at all he turned west and followed. What else could he do? Loafers scuffing the sidewalk, hands as deep as they'd go in his pockets, there was the distinct smell of burnt toast hanging in the autumn air. He walked past the homes of neighbors he hardly knew, knew only by their vehicles parked in driveways, by their pets who shat on his lawn, lights on in the kitchen, an upstairs bedroom...for the first time he really thought about them, who they were, what their lives were like. He almost ran into the back of Lamort, not realizing he had stopped walking in front of him.
Without so much as a turn of the head, with an air of speaking to himself, or reciting multiplication tables, Lamort spoke.
"Jacob."
"Yes?"
"What is your biggest mistake?"
And immediately, as sure as the smell of burnt toast surrounding them, he knew...
Socket
Guess who ripped her knee out of socket while dancing in the club scene last night?
Mother fucker.
We open on Friday.
Ow.
Is this normal to happen all the time? I first ripped my left knee out of socket in July of 2001 while playing "football" on the lawn of a Victorian mansion beside the Pacific ocean. Since then, it rips out of its socket on occasion. I deal with it. Sometimes it's a quick out and then in, startling me momentarily, shooting a blast of pain through me momentarily, and then it quickly subsides and I go on with my life as though nothing happened.
Sometimes it takes days for it to get back to normal and I have to put ice on it and shit and can't jog or walk like a normal person for a week or so.
Mother fucker, I think this is this time.
I have so much physical stuff I do in this play. It needs to be back to working this evening.
Any ideas?
I have my little brace thing on it and I iced it last night after it happened and I've taken some anti-inflammatory.
Stupid knee. I kneed you! Come back and work for me! Oh well, my limp really completes my zombie persona for the day. 6 hours of sleep in 3 days. Let's not look at the average on that. UUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGhhhhhhhh...(limp...limp...limp) UUUUUUUUUUnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNNNnnnnnggggGGGGGGGGGhhhh... My face is falling off in crusty sheets. Come here, let me chew on your arm a while. (limp...limp...limp)
Sentence of the Day 10/30
"Thanks for donating your taco."
Labels: sentence
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Sentence of the Day 10/29
"The Red Sox win the World Series!!!"
Labels: sentence
Monday, October 29, 2007
Hello and welcome to Tech Week Part XI
-What time is it? What's the score? Do we know what inning it is?
-You can totally see my panties through this white spa uniform. And since I'm wearing pink panties, I look like I have a giant pink ass. Attractive.
-How could I forget my radio at home. Fuck. What's the score? Did your brother text message you yet? Do you think they can get Internet on the computer running the sound?
-Could we please maybe finish this table? That is the 5th splinter I've gotten from it.
-Oh gee. These are on wheels now. I guess I can't lean into it like I usually do now, huh. Or else we'll go rolling...Weee!...across the stage.
-You know? The projections and shit don't look nearly as amateur as I thought they would. In fact? They look pretty bad ass. They look kind of like we might actually know what we're doing.
-OK, so if he makes out with you in that scene, and you both drink after each other and then I take the flask from you and drink some and make out with her later.... We basically all have swapped spit. Great.
-What's the score? Do you think we'll actually sweep? I wish the Rockies could win just one game at home, you know?
-There is no fucking way that I have time to make that costume change.
-Hey! I'm the only one dancing back here! It's supposed to be a club! Guys? Where are you guys?
-Cough gag. Stupid. Gag. Fog. Cough. Machine. Maybe we could aim it so that it doesn't shoot up our noses while we dance? Great. That would be great.
-How could I forget the radio at home?
-So, if we can't read the projections that tell us what we're supposed to be doing, how are we going to know what we're supposed to be doing?
-Woah. With wheels, suddenly this table is taller and suddenly I have to use much more upper body strength to pick you up all wrapped in aluminum foil and place you safely on this table, fellow actor. OOooof.
-Oh my god! Did you see that graphic?! That is so cool! Wow. Very cool.
-Um, so... Am I going to have a costume for this one scene or what?
-Are we seriously supposed to do all of this choreography while wearing blazers and a skirt? You have got to be kidding me.
-My costumes already stink and we haven't even gotten to final dresses yet.
-So, umm. Are you going to flake out on that line every time? Because it is. Every time.
-We open in 5 days we open in 5 days we open in 5 days.
-Why is all the snacky food out in the house and not back stage where we can munch it?
-Since it's tech, I can flush after I pee, right? Gross. I hate not flushing...pee meshing... Ew.
-OK, you know what? You're giving me a complex. I "look like an oversize doll"?! What the hell is that supposed to mean?! Sexier, be sexier. Fine. Can you tell me HOW? How NOT to look line an overstuffed doll and BE sexier? Fuck. I get notes like, "You're just too cute, you need to be more dominatrix. That gesture is too adorable. Stop making kitten faces. You look like an over sized doll." What the fuck is wrong with me?!!! Sexy. I can be sexy. Right? RIGHT?! Fuck. I suck. I must totally suck. She's wondering why she cast me. OK. Dominatrix. I can do this. I just need a cat of nine tails or some nipple clamps or some crotchless panties or something. Help? I hate being cute. I don't WANT to be cute. Damn it. I need to get this character right. PRONTO.
-He he. That voice over I did sounds just like a stewardess and not like me at all. Yay.
-Psst. What's the score?
-Is it OK for me to bend over and rub my ass against your groin like that in the club scene? Cause I am.
-Oh, your black skirt is far too big for you, like 3 sizes? Oh, you'll have to pin it, it's so big? What's that you say? You think it will fit me perfectly? Are you calling me fat? You're calling me fat. Fuck you. Don't make me feel fat. I hate you, don't talk to me. I'm sorry? Did you say something? Fuck off, I already have a cute complex, I don't need a fatso complex on top of it.
-The "Best by" date on that case of beer in the fridge is October 31. Just so you all know. Cheers.
-Shit! I can't forget that I do that scene change.
-Talking on microphones in NPR voice is FUN!
-Are we done now? Are they still playing? What's the score? Are we really going to sweep? We'll get to see the last 2 and a half innings? Woo!
-We open in 5 days we open in 5 days we open in 5 days.
Labels: tech
Weekend Sentences
10/26
"Our sound designer is downstairs performing alchemy."
10/27
"What is the biggest mistake you have ever made?"
10/28
"Celia,
Sorry about the hat rack looking like a penis. Completely unintentional.
-The Technical Director"
Labels: sentence
Friday, October 26, 2007
Hmmmm
People have been "Hmmm"ing me lately and it's kind of pissing me off. I got about 3 yesterday and maybe 5 the day before. The "Hmmmm" usually happens after I suggest something. It seems a bit patronizing. Like a parent saying, "That's a very good idea, honey, but we'll have to think about it."
You know what? You can all take your "Hmmmmm"s and shove them up your ass. I have good ideas most of the time and you need to stop pretending like you're considering them just to humor me.
For instance, when I demand that my character needs a septum piercing, you should jump on that boat. This is a perfect way to put our extensive budget to use. Get me a septum piercing. It will add everything to my character. Or at least buy me a magnetic one, they have strong magnetic ones. But just giving me a "Hmmmm" and leaving it at that?
Enough! No more "Hmmmm"ing me!
Although, I guess getting and mmmmm-y noise is better than, "That's an excellent question!" I hate it when people say that. No shit. You're stalling. Answer it.
Hmmm...
Sentence of the Day 10/25
"You got ID?"
Labels: sentence
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Car Spider
I have a little car spider. He is cute and green and spindly. He crawls around things in his spider way, singing his spider song in his spider pants. The other day he dropped down from the top of the circle of my speedometer and just swung there for a while, just swung there as I made turns and stopped at stop lights and navigated other such obstacles of the road. Hanging there, blinking at me, my little green car spider. I think he likes the red lights of my dashboard. He's been living in my car now for a while, maybe a week and a half? How long do car spiders live? What is he eating? Is he living off of my dead skin? Wow. Suddenly I feel closer to him.... Eating my skin all day. Munch munch munch. Sweet little car spider. You need a name. Today, let us press our noggins together and name him, shall we? Then I will decide on a winner and I will craft a tiny scepter out of a tooth pick and a single sequin to dub him suchly later on this afternoon.
Let us begin.
Sentence of the Day 10/24
"Are u at tha world series game?"
Labels: sentence
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Black Forrest Cake
When we were little Plimco girls, our birthdays were such a big deal, you'd think it was a bank holiday.
It started with the cake. Mom would pull the Betty Crocker cookbook down from the shelf (no, I am not making this up) and let us pick which cake we wanted. We'd flip through the pages carefully and inquisitively "hmmm"ing at this and "maybe"ing at that. My mom would be sitting at the other side of the table crossing her fingers that we wouldn't pick something too elaborate.
The best photograph in that cookbook was of the Red Velvet cake. (Or was it Black Forrest?) It was huge. It took up a whole page and the angle and the lighting was just perfect on it. It had creamy white fluffy icing arranged in perfect flowing curling waves and circle layers towering up and shiny shiny plums (were they plums?) bumping the top, playing in and out of the cream in a decorative fashion. You'd flip to the picture of that cake, and it was as though the sky opened with a chorus of angels. "AAAAAAAAH LAY LOO YAH!" It was the birthday cake to end all birthday cakes. I mean, look at it. It was perfection.
Mostly this was due to the photography, but still... It appeared epic.
None of us had requested it yet though, we'd go for something more traditional, something less risky, something we knew we liked like yellow cake with chocolate icing.
Until....
Until the year I just couldn't resist that temptress anymore. I flipped to that page, that photograph, and with a sticky almost 7-years-old finger said "That one. I want THAT cake, Mommy." And my mother sighed and shifted in her seat and said, "Are you sure, honey? It may LOOK really pretty, but I'm not sure you'll like it. You don't really like plums. It's not chocolate. It's Red Velvet." Oh, I was sure. I was convinced. Only an occasion as prestigious as the anniversary of my birth was worthy of such a cake.
We also got to pick what we wanted for dinner. Of course. I usually went with lasagna. I love lasagna.
We had this small wooden circular yellow table that we pulled out and put in the middle of the living room on our birthdays. This was the birthday girl seat. We would put on our birthday dress and sit there all frilly and lacy and birthday shiny and wait for the festivities to begin. Gramma, Grandaddy, Little Grandma, Big Grandpa, Aunt P, Uncle D, Cousin M, everyone would be there...politely munching favors...waiting to sing. The lights would go out and then you could see the fire coming from the kitchen. They're singing my song. Here it comes, the cake to end all cakes! And oh my, it was beautiful. Gorgeous. Mom really out did herself on this one. It was a cake to make Betty Crocker proud. It looked very very similar to the photograph and it was set before me flaming. I made a wish and blew out my candles.
Then the cake was whisked away and my presents were brought to me one by one to open and ooo and ahh over.
One year we rented (rented!) a VCR so that I could watch my favorite film of all time ever, Annie. One year I got a gold fish. My Aunt P and Uncle D ran the pet store in town. They got me a goldfish. I named her Elvira after that song by the Oakridge Boys. I thought that song was about a gold fish until about 2 years ago. "OOm pappa ooom pappa MOW MOW!" I mean, doesn't it sound like it's about a fish? The chorus is fish noises!
Anyhow, I think I got Elvira that year. She was magnificent. I love fish.
So, after the presents were opened and I had put on a fashion show of all of the new clothing I had received*, it was time for cake.
I remember hearing Mom talking to her sister and her mom, "I know, I know. It's what she wanted though, so I made it. I told her it wasn't chocolate, but she couldn't be convinced. It turned out rather well though, don't you think? If I do say so myself..." They're in the kitchen cutting the cake. I get the first piece because I am the birthday girl and that is the way things work.
I take a bite...
I hated it.
It was so gross. I hated that I hated it, but I hated it. I couldn't even force myself to eat it all. Mom was crushed. She hated that I hated it. She said, "I told you you may not like it." She was right. I felt bad. Mom felt bad. Meanwhile my grandfathers were having seconds.
The next year I opted for a turtle pie from Baskin-Robbins.
I'm sorry, Mom. It really was a beautiful cake.
*You know? It's no wonder I'm an actor. How theatrical was this, looking back? We were literally placed in the center of the room at a table. We were the event of the evening, the center of attention. And you know? Both my sisters have absolutely no problem getting up in front of people and entertaining them for an extended period of time either... Interesting...
Sentence of the Day 10/23
"Ever since I met you, I've noticed that you make these kitten faces."
Labels: sentence
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Sore
We had our first choreography rehearsal the other night.
I am so fucking sore.
Turns out performing this play is going to be like going to the gym every night. I love how dancers can show you a move and it looks so good, you know? It just looks amazing and perfect and then a bunch of actors can attempt the same exact thing and we look like a bunch of dorks.
There's this club scene where we just have to dance and dance. I learned some new club moves. Aww yeah. There's this cycle of 6 that we're supposed to go through. You just have to convince yourself that you look good, you know? Otherwise it will look like shit. You just have to trump your self consciousness and dance like you mean it.
I woke up Saturday and the sides of my neck hurt. What is that about? There are muscles in the sides of your neck? Not the back, but the sides. Ow.
Then, there's this part of the play where we all emerge as these different voices from this woman's brain, right? Sure! Sure we do! So, there we are in different spaces on the stage and we're doing this very specific repetitive movements, right? Very stylized, very kooky. The initial movement I was given the other night was... OK. Imagine someone puts a hook under your sternum and starts pulling... But your feet are stuck to the same place. Pulling pulling pulling....and then you go forward when your sternum can't take anymore, your back is totally arched, your head looking backward and then ooooomf! You go forward and your head collapses over and then you turn around and do the whole thing over again. I do this. Over and over and over for an hour or so. OH, I also have lines, I have to speak during this. OOf. Apparently that move wasn't working, it was too fluid compared to all the other moves on stage which were full of all this tension. So, then I was given the physicality of reaching reaching reaching for something that you can never quite grasp. It's on the ceiling, I'm on tip toes, reaching reaching reaching, jumping, reaching reeeeeeeeeaching. So, I did that for a while.
Mother fucker, I am sore.
I have this body, you know? And I use it, I do. I go for jogs and do yoga and sit ups and push ups on a daily basis, but... I don't think I've ever used it in quite this manner. It's neat, this flesh I have to manipulate, to move around and communicate things with. Back when I had the gig at the mansion, we used to have balls all the time and we would dance and dance and dance for hours, waltz and polka and gallop racket. I remember what that felt like, that kind of sore. That dancing in a corset and high heels all night sore. This kind of sore is different, but I like it. It's a good hurt.
I hope I can make it look better by the time we open though.
Sentence of the Day 10/22
"The dryer is broken."
Labels: sentence
Monday, October 22, 2007
Go Sox!
I am so proud of my boys. Just... So very proud. I love them.
In more selfish news, the timing of the World Series is really not ideal and interferes a bit too heavily with tech week, so if we could maybe push things back a week or so, that would be great. Thanks. Get right on that.
They're killing me with the lack of sleep.
Weekend Sentences
10/19
"I'm as old as Jesus was when he died. Poor Jesus. It would
suck to die so young."
10/20
"Never trust a man who can't lie."
"Some of the most compelling things in life are completely irrational."
10/21
"Says who? I didn't have a successful long term relationship until I met (my wife) and that wasn't until I was 38."
Labels: sentence
Friday, October 19, 2007
Favors
Today, in honor of Dr. J's birthday, I am going to tell you how to make Favors. Birthday Favors.
First you have to get those cupcake paper panties. You know what I'm talking about? Those stacks of pastel paper cups that you pour the batter in for cupcakes or muffins or whatever. You set those all out in a muffin tin, but you're not baking anything. Then you gather equal parts
M&Ms
Peanuts
Those creamy mint pillows that also come in pastel colors
Do you know those creamy mint pillows? I don't even know what they're called, but they do look like little pillows and they are pastel and they are minty. I think the Favors recipe also used to call for raisins, but I hate raisins and I never allow them in my Favors.
So, then you pass out all the little treat-filled paper cupcake panties to all of your birthday guests to snack on and hold them over while you open all of your presents until they get to eat cake.
And that is how you make Birthday Favors.
Sentence of the Day 10/18
"There's a bug on me, I have a stain on my face, and I'm not wearing my glasses."
Labels: sentence
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Love letters to playwrights
As we all know, or maybe not if you're just paying attention or new or whatever, but... As we may know, the last play(s) I was in, I worked very closely with the playwrights. Aunt B wrote one, with me in mind to play the character and allowed me access to the first several drafts and accepted feedback on them and such. One of the plays was directed by the playwright in which I was playing the playwright. The other play I was in, on stage with the playwright as an actor. All this to say that I had uncensored access. I could pick and prod the writers' brains as much as I chose and got to say, why the hell do I say that then? What am I thinking here? What was her history like to get her to this point emotionally?
It was fucking amazing.
I got spoiled.
This new play is written by a person I have never met.
I found her though.
She has a blog, of all things.
I emailed her.
I am such a nerd.
I was all, blibbity blibbity bleee, I'm doing your play and gee it's wonderful and great and butter butter butter, oh and here are 5000 questions about my character intentions and relationships and such.
She actually emailed me back.
She may come see the show.
I'm not sure how I feel about this.
I'm fairly certain it is pretty damn cool.
She is so hip though. I mean really hip. Like New York hip. Like traveling writer going to Berlin and dining with artists and politicians and poets hip.
I can't believe I was so forward and saucy with her.
Who do I think I am?
I am Celia Amelia Plimco.
I am an actor.
I want answers.
Heh.
I am also a huge nerd.
And I will piss myself if she actually does show up to see us perform her crazy play.
Sentence of the Day 10/17
"Can you let me know if you find my Lego man?"
Labels: sentence
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Take your clothes off
I sometimes forget that I have to take my clothes off in front of people sometimes. I get used to... You know. Taking my clothes off in private and then... There comes the time when I have to take my clothes off in front of other people again and it's always a slight adjustment of modesty. I can do it, I can adjust. It's just that first time in the dressing room with the costume designer and the new cast where you look around and realize you're the fattest girl in the cast and oopsie, didn't shave my legs or my pits or my crotch for a couple days...forgot about this part. Welp. I'll just shimmy out of my pants here and try not to check out that package over there and Dang! Ahem. Focusfocusfocus... Yeah, she totally looks better naked than I do. La la la la la. Taking my clothes off in front of people again. No problem. I'll do some more sit ups in the morning. Oh and I should wash a load of clothes so that I can wear my good underwear during tech week and opening weekend. No one should really have to see these panties. Ever. I should just throw them away.
Sentence of the Day 10/16
"We have hope...and then we have reality."
Labels: sentence
SotD 10/15
"sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays. :-("
Labels: sentence
Monday, October 15, 2007
Nightmares
This show is giving me nightmares. I think it is a testament to the writing, how gritty and juicy and stinky and subconsciously scarring it is, but damn. I would like to not have such horrible dreams for the next month and a half, please.
The other day I dreamt I met this girl and she seemed... Something. Bitter, sad, angry. I was talking to her and she seemed shocked and then I just gently touched her arm for some reason, she was beautiful and then she touched me and... Then I saw it. Her hand. It was repulsive. It was clubbed and had this giant scaly claw where a couple fingers should be and what appeared to be an infected crescent of a hoof where the others should be, but I had already been friendly, so it just took every ounce of my being not to wince and pull away, but my god... I wanted to pull away and retch. It was so horrifying.
Then yesterday(?) I had a dream that my entire side of my house (only it was the house I lived in in Memphis) ripped from its seams and fell down crash in the street due to some street pipe construction and I was homeless and all my possessions were there and I had no idea where to go and what to do and I was packing up my truck and my landlady came over and said, huh. Well at least MY side of the house is still OK. Then she started snapping pictures of me.
It was awful.
In the play, I make reference to giving my friend, the woman I'm in love with who doesn't love me back, an abortion. I'm a medical student, so I assume I know what I'm doing, but still... It had to be in our apartment. I had to make that real for me. I'm still working on it. Scraping a fetus out of my friend, blood on her inner thighs, her screams.... And what did I do with the fetus? I don't think I showed it to her. I looked at it though... I had to. And then I guess I just....wrapped it in some paper towels with cartoon vegetables printed on them and... Threw it away. I bet that made me fall in love with her that much more, knowing she trusted me to that extent, seeing her that vulnerable...
Christ. No wonder I'm having nightmares.
I have to make it more real though, that love. It's coming off as so... Just imposed, not real. I'm often cast as the lesbian pursued, not the pursuer. Certainly I know what unrequited love feels like, it's not that... I just have to figure out how to be sexually aggressive toward a woman as a woman without it seeming too womanly. Does that make sense? Whenever I kiss her or fondle her neck or whatever, in rehearsals, I'm treating her like I would treat a guy, like I'm making out with a guy and that's... It's not working. Ugh. It's pissing me off.
My NPR voice is apparently almost perfect in its accuracy on the other hand, so... There's that.
Weekend Sentences
10/12
"Give me a call if you decide to come."
10/13
"Are you a Harvard grad student too?"
...
"You're a lesbian, aren't you."
...
"Philosophy! I studeid philosphy in undergrad. Who's your favorite professor?"
...
"You're lying to me, aren't you."
10/14
"I don't think you're disgusting. I think you're crazy, but I don't think you're disgusting."
Labels: sentence
Friday, October 12, 2007
Solemn Vow
One thing that has resonated with me from the wedding last weekend, was that moment in the ceremony, when they're saying the vows and after they get through everything, it ends with, "this is my solemn vow".
That's so beautiful. It is solemn in some ways, you know? It should be. I mean, of course it is a celebration, but it is a big important deal and there should be moments of great seriousness as if to say, no really. I'm not kidding. Forever. We're doing this. Forever.
I just love that word choice in that moment, "solemn".
I don't know, it's just something I've been thinking about.
I don't know that I've ever made a solemn vow to anyone. I wonder what that feels like...
Sentence of the Day 10/11
"This longing you express is itself what you're longing for. The only rule is to suffer the pain."
Honorable Mention:
"I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I still know it's you no matter what disguise you're wearing."
Labels: sentence
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Foily and try not to be so adorable
My new play is so fucked up. The other night we were figuring out how to pick up a person completely wrapped in an entire roll of aluminum foil and get them on a table and then back off again like a little burrito person.
The more we rehearse, the more I love this playwright.
I get to finish the play smeared in amniotic fluid and blood.
I have to figure out how to dance sexily to really loud and fast punk music though and also somehow make out with a girl while doing this.
My dyke is too... Too everything. I'm not dykey enough, I'm too soft. I have to constantly come on to this person, but I just feel so feminine when I'm doing it and it's pissing me off because I need to take control and be rough and not kiss her neck or flirt with her like Plimco flirts with people.
Bull, the script says I'm like a bull. I need to get my bull on. Right now I'm more of a bunny.
My director keeps telling me that I need to stop being adorable. She says that I have these adorable ways of saying things and doing things that are very much "Plimco" and that I need to knock it off. What can I say? I'm just an extremely adorable person apparently.
Fuck.
I don't want to be adorable! I shouldn't be, I can't be in this role, these roles. But I'll be damned if I don't know what it is I'm doing and if I don't know what it is I'm doing, I have no idea how to stop doing it.
I do like my one character though, the ad agency dominatrix boss. I decided that I need a clicky pen. The clicky pen is very important to my character. Clicky clicky clicky clicky. It's perfect. Oh and I get one of those spinny rolly chairs and I get to be British. So, hey. At least one of my characters is working right.
The other ones are these ectoplasmic nightmare blobs of character anyhow and everyone is still confused as to how the hell we're supposed to do them.
So yeah. I've played butch before, just not butch in a sexual situation, so I need to figure that out and not kiss her or dance with her like a fruit. Any hints on how to go about this would be greatly appreciated.
Smentence of my Day 10/10
"It's a contract!"
Labels: sentence
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Sentence of the day 10/9
"i DID bake a pie"
Labels: sentence
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
The first time I stayed in a hotel room by myself
It was January of 2002 and I had driven by myself from Tennessee with all of my personal belongings shoved into my little grey Escort and my yowling orange cat. It was a constant Yeeow? Yeeow? Yeeow? Hours and hours of this, of him making laps around the car, tail in my face, questions out the back window. It was cold and I thought I could make it all the way to Providence in one trip, but at hour 21 or so, I just gave up. I pulled into some crap ass cheap motel just south of New York city. It was too cold to leave the cat in the car overnight, but the place didn't allow animals.
I decided to sneak him in.
I got my room key, opened the door, threw the cat in the room, went back and got his litter pan and a change in underwear. I get back in the room and it hits me that something... Isn't quite right. The light in the bathroom is on and there's a window open. Is that steam from a shower? I notice the bedspread for the first time, the unmade bed, the stain on the pillowcase.
Someone was just in here.
Are they coming back?
Did they just forget to clean the room?
Or did they give me a key to this room accidentally when someone else was staying here?
Is someone still in the bathroom? Some teen with slit wrists in the tub? Did those curtains just move? What is that smell and more importantly, what is that stain?
I freaked myself right the fuck out.
I just knew the mob had been there moments before and all jumped out the window and they were going to come back and kill me.
I couldn't change rooms though because, see... The cat. I had already hauled his nasty stinky pan in there and him without getting caught.
I didn't sleep much that night, hardly at all. I was in all my clothes on top of the comforter on top of the stained sheets.
I kept waiting to find a murder weapon.
It was really scary.
I cried and felt just so alone and not ready to be moving to a big city so so very far away from my family and everyone who loves me. I felt small and little and incapable and scared and angry at myself for being so scared and I just... Didn't think I could do it.
I somehow made it through that night and threw my cat in the car the next morning and drove to Providence to my tiny-ass shoe box apartment where I slept on the floor for months until my parents mailed me an inflatable bed.
I had forgotten all about that night in the hotel room. I must have repressed it. I was thinking that this past weekend was my first experience alone in a hotel room, but I got there and unlocked the door and... Remembered what that felt like that night. That steam coming from the bathroom...
Monday, October 08, 2007
Sentences of the first weekend in October
10/5
"We have too much cock in that section."
10/6
"Remind me to make ridiculous rhymes about polkas more often. . ."
10/7
"It's my birthday, I can do whatever I want. Wait. No. It's my wedding day. Same difference. I can still do whatever I want."
10/8
"Architecture is like The Force, it's all around us and effects us all whether we know it or not."
Labels: sentence
Friday, October 05, 2007
Menstrual Math
I'm breaking a tradition here at Bumbershoot Casserole today. Hold onto your hats.
I'm going to talk about my period. For the first and last time.
Yes, I know I know. It's shocking. I do, in fact, have a uterus. On occasion, once a month or so, I shed its inner lining like a little inside out snake. Boop! There it goes. Reminding me that I am very much like a chicken or a fish what with the eggs and the ability to procreate and the hey hey.
I take this pill though, that makes this not happen ever ever ever, no baby time please thankyouverymuch.
So! So! Why am I breaking my tradition today? Because, people! I have been doing math. Menstrual math, if you will and I have discovered that... Oh my gracious this is so exciting... I have discovered that if I just start taking my pill on a different day of the week, say Friday instead of Sunday, do you know what will happen? Do you? I'll tell you.
I WILL NEVER AGAIN HAVE MY PERIOD ON A WEEKEND EVER EVER AS LONG AS I AM TAKING THIS PARTICULAR PILL!!!
How fucking cool is that? Why didn't I think of this before? They just start you up on Sunday because it seems like a good place to start, but fuck that.
I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I don't know about you, but historically, I get laid on the weekends mostly. Not that I've never had sex on say, a Wednesday, but just going by my past record, it's mostly weekend fucking.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?!
That one weekend a month that I would be a bit more hesitant to jump in bed with Fast Eddie down at the Pub N' Tub is now NONEXISTENT. Poof!
But fuck that, it will just be nice to not bleed on the weekend period. Ha.
3 day weekends, weekend day trips to peep at the leaves in Vermont, Memorial Day, Labor Day... Ahhhh.
I am a genius.
OK. Now let's never talk about my period again. Sound good? Great.
So. How bout those Sox, eh? Eh?
Sentence of the Day 10/4
"You look like a model. You don't believe me, but when get your licence in a week or so and look at it and say 'She was right!'"
Labels: sentence
Thursday, October 04, 2007
The Bowling Post
I woke up this morning and one of my first thoughts was, "Oh yeah and I need to write that bowling post today."
I have no idea what I meant. What bowling post? I'm not sure that I have much at all to say about bowling.
Bowling is much like Billiards for me in that there is a very brief, very small window of drunken-ness where my confidence level is high enough to fool the game itself into thinking that I know what I'm doing. This is a slippery moment though, because one beer more and I become goofy I-suck-at-this girl.
Umm... I think that's it, folks.
Oh and I used to get dressed up in costumes in high school with my friend, Misty Popo, and we'd go bowling and pretend like we were someone else.
It is very much like a stage, that smooth shiny wooden place where you stand and prepare and the rest of your team looks on...
So, ok. There you go, just waking self. There's your Bowling post. I hope you like it.
Sentence of the Day 10/3
"Yeah, let's go listen to Girls on Top."
Labels: sentence
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Sentence of the Day 10/2
"Can you please tell me one more horse story and then sing me a song?"
Labels: sentence
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Could-have-been Romances
We met Friday night at 6:00PM and had dinner and began interviewing her. This jolly lady, just a regular old lady you'd see on the street. We sat in a huge circle with cameras running, notes being scratched onto legal pads, click of photographs, artists, designers, choreographers, actors, composers. She told us her life story.
Then she left.
Then we started brainstorming, the stories that stuck out, the ones we wanted to tell on stage in less than 24 hours.
We broke into groups.
We began rehearsing, composing, designing, pulling costumes, props, writing monologues.
It was incredible. That whole building was just this hive of activity. It's amazing to see what happens when you put those kinds of time constraints on creativity.
I was my team's captain. Captain Plimco! I like the ring to this. Our portion of the story? The Could-have-been Romances. How apropos.
The whole point was to put this surrealist lacquer to things, to take the story and put it in a surrealist blender and present it back.
Tech was at 3:00PM the next day.
I found myself that next night in a turquoise blue sparkledy dress with hair and shoes from the 50s, dancing in a spot light center stage in front of a sold out audience while several men crawled and sniffed around me making monkey tiger jungle noises. I made a sock puppet. At one point the sock puppet was thrown to me and it was just me and Eddie the sock puppet with his button eyes and bow tie...twirling...having a conversation somehow...just...dancing in this spotlight...while so many people just laughed...and laughed... Me and a sock puppet I had hurriedly made only a couple hours earlier.
Surreal indeed.
Not to mention the fashion show of gigantic hippopotamus heads only they weren't hippopotamus heads, but another similar yet horned animal and I just sat there watching and... It very well could have been a dream.
It was a blur, this blender blur, but it was so successful. A triumph. One of the coolest things I've ever been involved in in my life. I went home and got into bed around 2 in the morning and... I couldn't sleep. I just tossed and turned thinking about this part of the process, recalling that, the laughter, the applause, the hippopotamuses, the songs, the choreography... What a crazy thing to do.
And you know? I think we honored her. Which was really the whole point in the first place.
Sentence of the Day 10/1
"Either you're wet, or you're lactating."
Labels: sentence
Monday, October 01, 2007
Strange things are happening
- I keep getting this text message from an unknown number. The area code is my area. The message simply says "Hi!" It has happened a few times now. I have not responded for fear of opening up communication with someone I'd rather not communicate with. Still.... It makes a girl wonder...
- The other night my friend and I were looking for this hole in the wall on the east side of town that apparently has the best pizza in the city. We were driving in circles, so eventually I pulled over at this shady gas station, went in and asked for directions. There were a couple people at the counter having a conversation with the attendant and they were all willing to help me with directions, but all had different versions of the best way to get there. The door to the gas station opens in my peripheral vision. Suddenly I feel a warmth around my left leg. I look down and there is this child, he must have been four, his arms encircling my left thigh and he's just looking up at me smiling and squeezing. His mother is all, "What are you doing?!" and is embarrassed and apologetic. It was so strange. Who was that kid?
- Yesterday some unidentifiable person sent me a picture of boobs on my phone. They were nice boobs. I just wonder A) who they were from 3) whose boobs they were and V) why they needed to show them to me.
Strange things are happening...
Some Sentences
9/26
"Welcome to Maine. The way life should be."
9/27
"Can you pass me the bag of fun?"
9/28
"I remember washing my panties on 42nd Street."
9/29
"Love and other sticky things,"
Labels: sentence