Awkwardly Social

When I was kid I didn’t do much furniture rearranging.  My collection of stuffed animals, hundreds of books and kitten posters were rearranged, but the furniture pretty much stayed put.  My parents gave me really heavy furniture and I was not a very tidy child.  I stuffed things under the bed, the closet was overflowing and I had an active imaginary life.  I think I’ve told you about the Barbies.  Poor Barbies.

I had friends who, pretty much every week, would rearrange their room.  It seemed so natural for them.  I was always surprised they could do it.  Without even a second thought, a dresser that was once on one wall, was now on another.  A bed that once had the foot facing the window, now had it facing the door.  They were the rearrangers.  I sometimes was enlisted to help them rearrange.  It was exciting.  When they moved their bed, ten thousand hidden and forgotten things didn’t get revealed, usually it was just a lip gloss or a sock - not a half filled journal discussing their lack of boobs or even an embarrassing pair of dirty underwear.  Just a fashionable little sock with a pompom or a sparkly tube of gloss.

On Monday, Louie brought home two gigantic IKEA bookshelves that we have been coveting.  We had scoped them online, then actually made a trip to IKEA to see them in person, then he found someone with a big enough car to transport them, and finally we spent Monday evening assembling them.  We had made the executive decision to turn our dining room into a library.  We made a very George W. Bush decision in doing so - ill-informed, under-researched, and badly planned.  With both shelving units assembled and in place and Louie’s ratty old chair hovering under the window, it looked like something out of a scary movie.  A scary movie where a guy sits in a ratty chair under a window and is surrounded by the heads and penises of his victims artfully displayed on gigantic IKEA shelves.  It was clear the dining room was meant for only one thing - a place for me to throw my unopened mail.  It was also clear we were either going to have to disassemble the shelves and return them to IKEA, or find another place for them.  Both options were daunting.

Louie doesn’t like bookshelves in the bedroom.  I think this has something to do with him being raised in Beverly Hills where little children are taught that reading is not sexy and one should never encourage reading in the sex room.  Guess where the only room with enough wall space for our new book shelves is?  The sex room!  It should also be noted that Louie’s sensibility for decorating is still undetermined.  He usually is skeptical about my ideas at first, tells me he doesn’t like clutter (plants equal clutter to him…I think?) and then I do whatever I want and hope he doesn’t break up with me.  It’s fun!

So we both spent a few moments at our respective computers seething about the ridiculous shelves from IKEA that we had so carefully purchased - just like George W. Bush carefully went to war with Iraq, and I finally came up with an idea so bold… it just might work.  Rearrange the office!  Louie sort of hated my idea at first.  I told him the desk would have to move, and his immediate idea was to move it into the dining room.  I balked because that’s where the desk used to be, and I hated it there.  So finally we got the tape measurer out and figured out our plan, and guess what, we’re rearranging the office this weekend.   Which means I get to clean baseboards.  I love cleaning baseboards.  Not as much as the goldfish (update on their health tomorrow) but I do love doing it.  It’s so completely satisfying.

It also means the stacks and stacks of porn I’ve been hiding behind the old bookshelves will have to be moved.  Since they aren’t allowed in the bedroom, due to the no books in the bedroom rule, I guess they’ll have to go where they have always thought they belonged - the dining room.

I’m writing this thing that takes place in the 1993/1994 school year, and because I have a really bad memory and lost most of my mix tapes from that time, I’m wondering if you can help me out.

What would you have put on a mix tape then?
Did you listen to classic rock? What were the classic rock ballads of the time?
If you didn’t listen to grunge, what were you listening to?
If you listened to country, what was your favorite song both fast (for line dancing - ala “I’ve Got Friends” by Garth Brooks and ballady for couples dances)?
What rap song was your favorite (not including “Nothing but a G Thang)?

I’ve done some research on-line and I know what was in the top 100 in most of these categories, but I’m wondering what some of the older stuff was that you were listening to, or what kind of music that wasn’t necessarily Top 40, was on your mix tape (i.e. for some reason we loved Loggins and Messina’s “House on Pooh Corner” and “Danny’s Song”). If you’re too ashamed to say in public you can e-mail me your answers.

Thanks ever so.

I lost my family’s Oscar pool again. I seriously have to stop listening to industry people talking about upsets and surprises.

At one point during the night when we were making fun of what it took to win one of the short documentary or short subject awards, we came up with an Israeli orphan with AIDs being raised in Palestine by penguins who survived the Holocaust. I think someone needs to write that script.

At another point deep into the show, I had a glass of pink champagne in one hand, a bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade in the other and a tremendous scowl on my face. When holding such riches of alcohol in her hands, a girl should remember to at least smile.

I thought Ellen was a fine host. The speeches were boring as usual, but we had such a loud crowd watching it, I didn’t really hear any of them. My favorite part of the evening was the Will Ferrell, Jack Black, John C. Reilly musical number, despite my current dislike for Jack Black. It was the kind of thing I wish they did more often.

Yesterday, Los Angeles was clean and sparkling and the sky was bright blue. You could see the mountains in the distance and the snow capped peaks beyond them. I always forget how big Los Angeles is, until I can see all of it without a smear of smog.

The show is on again this weekend, and I opted not to go. I was invited, but I think once down the red carpet as a civilian is enough for me. If I’m going again I have to have a really good reason - like I’ve been kidnapped and forced to go to the show as an assassin only to get free just in time to not have to kill Jake Gyllenhaal and instead we fall in love. What, that could happen. (Louie, it would totally be a platonic love.) If you watch all the way to the end I’m supposed to have a credit, so you can look for that, or just trust me. I worked on them.

I’m exhausted. This week was particularly draining for me. The ‘reading ban’ was totally not done. I think I cheated every single day. Reading is like breathing for me, sometimes I would find myself reading something and not even realize I had picked up a magazine. It made me so resentful of the program that I actually stopped writing. I think I’m back on the wagon though, so, fingers crossed.

Have a lovely weekend.

Right now I’m working on a script that requires me to delve into my teen self and hence the previous entry.  As a teenager I was a crazy feminist.  I was so mad about every injustice against women, I basically made everyone around me terrified of speaking.  I think everyone will be really happy when I can go back to being my post-grad school self - laid back, drunk and willing to laugh at the foibles of youth without doing the Black Panther salute to Britney Spears or whoever else is caught up in some scandal and then vilified in the press.  But it’s going to be a while, this script is important to me in a lot of unexpected ways.  I feel compelled to tell our story.  It’s pretty rare for me to feel this way about something I’m writing for the screen.  I hope after I get through some of the more difficult parts I can emerge and have a drink without wondering if I’m going to need to chase it with a shot of teen angst.

Because I’ve been immersed in 1994 and all it’s glory, I’ve been reaching out to people from my past.  Last night I got a call from the guy who probably came the closest to breaking through my bullshit during that period of time without losing an appendage.  He and I have a sordid history.  I fell in love with him in 8th grade even though he was three inches shorter than me and I was hideous with glasses and braces.  He, of course, dated Kristy Schafer.  Then in 9th grade I met his older brother and boy did I forget about him.  His older brother and I finally got together in 11th grade and again in college, but only after I had made out with Brain* and tried to get him to give up being a Catholic (read: have sex with me) which he declined.  My sister dated his oldest brother for about a second (or maybe it was Cassie, or maybe it was both of them.)  He was the guy that never failed to make me laugh, got me through Mrs. Hudson’s geometry class (purely through letting me cheat off him) and all the while trusted that I was going to be ok, no matter what kind of trouble I was getting into.  I know in a lot of ways he put up with me because when I was around him I was funny, I was smart, I was the best version of me.  I didn’t know a lot of people back then who brought that out in me.

Brain comes close to being a long lost brother now, in that Flowers in the Attic way.  Camp Verde was our attic, we were trapped and slowly being poisoned so there was nothing we could do but make out every once in a while.  He was a smaller part of my senior year than he should have been, but I was on drugs, drinking and totally in love with Bob - all things he totally didn’t get.

When it all comes rushing back to me for a scene or a moment, I get crystal clear glimpses of his driveway, the carpeted steps leading up to the second floor, the single bed in his room, the breakfast nook where we ate cookies and drank milk with his dog Snickers growling at me from under the table.  He called me Touchdown Tommy, Tommy Baby, and he called.

*Obviously “Brain” isn’t his name, or even his nickname.  I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want his clients googling him and finding an entry about him refusing to have sex with me.  The same probably goes for his wife.

First of all, whether or not Britney Spears is actually very troubled shouldn’t be in doubt.  It can be seen in the poor choices she’s been making since she decided she was ready to be a mother to Kevin Federline’s kids.  From her horribly embarassing reality series, her ill-advised interview with Matt Lauer, her re-emergence into the club scene on the arm of publicity whore Paris Hilton, and the inability to get her publicist to stop telling news crews where she is at any given moment - all point to the fact that Britney needs a break or she’s going to end up like Anna Nicole, dead.

My problem isn’t that we care about Britney, of course we do, we’ve been programmed to believe that what she does is interesting.  But please, let’s take a closer look at what we’re saying about the latest incident of head shaving debauchery.  It all is starting to sound like something out of day one’s reading in Feminist Studies 101:  Your Hair Makes You a Woman, (unless it’s on your Vagina then it makes you a dirty filthy pig whore).  Let’s check our Western values at the door and get real.  Her hair doesn’t make her a good person, a good mother, a good performer, or even a good woman, her actions do.

I completely understand the reaction to it, because I was raised in the United States and I know that women are expected to have beautiful flowing locks of well cared for hair.  Our identity is tied to the way our protein strands hang gracefully around our unwrinkled faces, lightly kissed by the sun, curling just so, making it look like we might have just gotten out of bed to make you breakfast or rub your feet or kiss your dick.  Now that Britney’s hair is gone it makes it a lot harder for men and women to imagine her dancing to stripper beats and flinging her sweaty locks in your direction.  In a weird way, I’m sort of proud of the Brit, she’s cut off her shackles and is ready to party like it’s 2050 - a time when women can have hair or not, suck dick or don’t, raise kids or have a career, and still be considered a woman.

Another woman who’s been accused of the crazy says it best -

I am doll eyes/ Doll mouth, doll legs/ I am doll arms, big veins, dog bait/ Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, they really do.

I stayed out past my bed time two nights in a row and today I am totally wrecked.  Like, college level stayed out until dawn wrecked.  I will say it was a fun weekend.  So fun, in fact, I got my period 11 days early.  My body is like, “Woo, par-tay!  Let’s give her something really awesome.  Her monthly gift of annoyance and heartache - Eleven.  days.  Early!”

I can’t wait to fall asleep.

I’m supposed be on a reading hiatus this week for the stupid Artist’s Way that I tried once before, and I failed miserably.  Already today I’ve read a couple of blogs, checked my e-mail and altogether cheated.  Already.  Day one.

Anyway.  It’s lame to be on a reading hiatus, because guess what I did today instead - I watched 5 hours of television.  Like I had to prove this bitch wrong about how not reading was going to help me find other things to fill my time.  Oh, I filled it all right.  Take that, lady!  HA!

Now we’re off to a “Three’s Company” party, and normally I hate dressing up, and avoid any semblance of ‘party’ parties, but tonight I thought, “What would Scott and Jenn do?”  And my answer was, “They live in Brooklyn so fuck ‘em.”  And then I pulled my hair into pig tails, put on frosty pink lip stick and threw on the poncho Allie gave me for Christmas and decided half-assing it was way better than not assing it all.  So, Scott and Jenn, um, when are you guys moving out here so I have someone to call when I need a costume?  It’s too hot here for Louie to wear a jacket tonight, isn’t that the kind of weather that might make you just a tad bit jealous and throw up your hands, pack up your car and move your shit here?  Come.  On.

I never knew Valentine’s Day was such a big deal in Los Angeles until tonight.  I just spen

One thing I despise about February is that it begins the year long onslaught of made-up holidays designed to make some people feel really good about their lives and loved ones and make other people feel really bad about their lives and loved ones (or lack there-of).

The past two years Louie has purchased flowers and some kind of random stuffed bear with some sort of heart thing attached.  And while I think it’s kind of funny to have a bear that lights up and sings “You Light Up My Life,” while simultaneously moving it’s arm in kind of a masturbatory way, I would rather it not be something that I have to deal with after the initial novelty wears off.  For 9 months that bear sat in the corner of our living room, hidden by a cabinet and long curtains.  I would have shoved it into my toy box (dirty) but the toy box is filled with my thesis film dailies and dubs.  Occasionally I would pull the dumb bear out and make it sing for someone like Allie or Tara who always appreciate random singing stuffed animals, but really it was just collecting dust in the corner. It was making me feel guilty and maybe a little vengeful.  I kind of wanted to do something terrible to the bear.  It was so white and earnest.

Some of you may recall the fact that I have a balcony, and that at one point I spent a lot of time on said balcony.  Now that I don’t smoke any longer and don’t have any outdoor plants, I spend exactly 3 seconds a week on the balcony.  And those 3 seconds are spent closing the screen door (that Allie and I accidentally broke the latch off of in an ill fated attempt to bring some electricity to the Christmas lights that are actually still hanging and still have no electricity running to them) so that the family of very stubborn pigeons who take up residence on the open door have no place to land.  You also might remember that last summer we installed an air conditioner in my closet window.  This apartment is architecturally confusing, but my closet has a window and that window looked out over the balcony until we installed the air conditioner and now provides my stubborn family of pigeons with a new place to land.  Since I can’t be home all day to deal with pigeon landing zones I needed to find something to deter their shitty little asses from taking up residence on my beloved air conditioner.

I thought of buying that spikey stuff that you see on cornices and building roof tops, but it seemed like a lot of work to go to Home Despot, figure out how to get just enough to cover a 1 foot by 2 foot area and then bring it home and install it.  Three steps are two too many.  So instead I searched around my apartment for something I really didn’t like and would obviously be frightening to pigeons.  Thank you, Louie, for giving me a White Enourmous Masturbating Bear!  The bear sits atop the air conditioner holding court over the Garden Gnome, a stone frog, the Pigeon Detering Owl (that has never once detered a pigeon) and several thousand empty pots that once held beautiful plants and now hold only empty dreams.  It’s like a little slice of crazy out there on that balcony.  And that, my friends, is what I am all about.