4/20

There are so many different things I could talk about here, but you know what, we're not going to talk about any of them. Instead I am merely going to point out that you don't see alcoholics having a holiday solely to celebrate drinking alcohol. No, St. Patrick's Day isn't that, and while there is Catholicism, you can't have it. I would think the repealing of Prohibition would be Alcohol Day. But nobody really treats it that way. Probably cause you were all too hungover in history class to care.

The truth is, alcoholics have always been seedier than potheads, no pun intended. What are alcoholics known for? Temper tantrums, violence, pissing themselves, killing people with cars. Potheads? Sterility, memory loss, not leaving their house, and eating awesome food. Sometimes job loss, I've worked with those guys. Sure, weed can make an already unreliable and lazy person more so. And like any mood altering drug, people will abuse it to escape their drab or overwhelming lives, if they are the type of people to do that. But lots of you are perfectly responsible, pleasant occasional users that I'm more than happy to call friends. I don't usually continue to call alcoholics friends, though I may still keep fucking them. Kudos to reasonable people everywhere.

I guess my point here is that if you want me to respect alcohol as much as weed, then don't let the POTHEADS be more organized than you.

My favorite 4/20 tweets from the day:

iscoff

HAPPY OBNOXIOUS WEED CULTURE DAY FOR DICKS WHO DRAW ON BINDERS AND NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT HEMP

bryan_champ

420, Skynet, and Adolf Hitler: According to Twitter, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a stoned, racists robot attack

Dave_Chappelle

How many potheads does it take to screw in a light bulb? - F**k it, we got lighters.

mattkoewler

Some guy is getting road head at east portal #happy420

SingActBieber

#happy420 hahahahaha not...#happybiebertuesday instead...I'm obsessed with him...not drugs...THANK GOD

Thinking about Murder

So while I lay here in the throes of unlovable contagious plague, watching Antiques Roadshow from Billings Montana, which is great because nobody in Billings ever throws anything out, here is a train of thought I had:

1) I eat meat.
2) But I can't fish or hunt. It's too hard for me.
3) Also I keep my cats alive even though they do nothing for me except shed and puke.
4) I support the right of women to have an abortion. I think it's important.
5) I wouldn't have an abortion myself though, probably, cause I do think of it as a form of murder. But the kind of murder that doesn't bother me.
6) For example, I eat murdered things all the time.
7) Except squid. I can't eat squid. Because they are intelligent.
8) Pigs are intelligent too, but I eat them.
9) I guess this means I value squid over fetuses.
10) I wouldn't eat a fetus though. I would probably eat a squid if it was that or starve.
11) Murder is just this thing that happens a lot, you know?
12) Fish are basically just mobile plants, right? I wish I liked eating them more.

My friend Camilla is bowling in the National Abortion Access Bowl-a-thon, and you can go pledge money for that here.

My friend Sarah is raising money for the Cleveland Animal Protective League, and will be matching donations up to a 100 dollars. Her donation page is here.

13) My friends are all probably much more moral than I am. I'm kind of a bad person.

Being Single and Being Sick

So I've been varying degrees of sickface for like, EVER. If March was my month of getting laid, April has proven to be my month of spontaneously producing whole new mucus universes in my lungs and then coughing them up chunk by chunk. Destroyer of worlds.

It started two weeks ago. I got really horrible sick for a few days, feverish and all that nonsense. Spent the day at Mommy's and called off work for a day. I got better, but I still had a cough. The cough got a little better. Then about a day after I got back from Pittsburgh it hit me hard. Another fever. I wanted to sleep constantly. A horrible cough that happened every five seconds, every time I took a breath or moved a muscle. Yesterday was the worst though. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't lay down. Every time I put my head in anything approximating a horizontal position, like lying on the couch or snuggled under covers, the coughing just got worse. Throw up anything you eat worse. Wear a pad because you might piss yourself coughing worse. Your neighbors are convinced you have lung cancer worse. I didn't go to sleep at all last night, except for about a hour's nap I caught after discovering that if you masturbate, it opens up your lungs, something to do with bloodflow I imagine. It didn't last though.

The worst part about being sick is that I get so emotionally needy. Like, this morning I got really really mad about a facebook post one of my friends had put up DAYS ago, about hanging out with the Toxic Ex, Ayers. And a bunch of my other friends had "liked" it, all people who said they didn't talk to Ayers anymore, and logically I know it is the dumbest thing to get mad about ever, and they were just "liking" the Big Lebowski video. I wouldn't have even thought about it twice if my stupid phone app hadn't thrown it up on the wall again. But this morning? Sleep deprived and crying every time I hacked a new piece of lung into the Cup for Pieces of Lung that I keep now by my bed? I almost called this friend and told him we couldn't be friends anymore if he was hanging out with him for this very long and involved reason I won't go into. I almost defriended him. It was, for about thirty minutes, the worst most painful thing in the whole world. Everyone was against me. I was going to cull my entire facebook list and get rid of anyone that might know him, or drink with him, or meet him in the future. Since this is Cleveland, I think that would work out to roughly a third of the people I know.

Then I ate some pudding and watched Inception, which quickly put it all out of my head. Because that kind of shit is crazy. Seriously, when I'm really sick? You might as well be dealing with a prepubescent girl. A paranoid weepy prepubescent girl. Also that movie needed to calm the fuck down.

It's a weird thing, living alone and being really really sick. On one hand, you just want someone to crawl into bed with you and hold you, and watch bad movies with you, and go get you vapor rub when you run out. On the other hand, you want another person to Want to do that, just so you can tell them to fucking go away and leave you alone to bleed out. The worst part about being sick when I lived with Ayers was that on top of the whole Dying thing, there was also a thick layer of guilt and disgust at the state of my own body, for keeping him awake or looking so nasty. So it's nice to be able to ferment in your own inevitable rot without any witnesses.

Nice being a relative term. I still wish I was dead. And I have to go to the store myself right now, to restock on tissues and look for some sort of miracle sedative that will allow me to fall asleep at some point in the next 48 hours. Like, wasp killer? What I would like most is for somebody with very large hands to squeeze my skull hard for about fifteen minutes, and then leave.

If another person tells me to get more vitamin C, I will fucking scream. Do you have any idea how much pineapple juice I drink? I mean seriously, OBVIOUSLY, I should quit smoking. But no, fine, go ahead and tell me how to avoid getting scurvy.

PS I think it's inevitable I am going to end watching a lot of Harry Potter tonight. Or Narnia. Really anything with CGI talking animals, right?

There's Blood in the River and It Isn't Mine

First he went with me to Hipster Mass, The Mountain Goats at Mr. Smalls in Millvale, so no really I meant it, actual Hipster Mass. It exists. No one smokes there anymore. There is whiskey at the bar. Girls will go wild. I waited at the bar down the street from his house for him to get off work, and so I might have been a little sparkly and excited. I might have felt that grip of fandom in my chest, turning my cheeks pink. I remember the first time I saw Dylan in high school, smoking weed with the old guys at Nautica. Or the first time I saw R.E.M. Or staring intensely at Scott Spillane a few weeks ago. Like that. Exactly like that. Oh, let me take off work for a few days, drive to another city, meet up with a friend, and then go to the hills to see my hero play in a church with blacked out windows. Let him play at least two songs I had on my short list. More in love than ever.

I think Pittsburgh may beat Cleveland because they have more church based venues. Didn't we just close all those churches? Lets do something about that, people. Also let's build some mountains. And listen to Flashdance a little more. And drink way more than we should, so that we forget the people with us are also drunk, maybe forget we are drunk at all.

Then there was the obligatory trip home, gathering up people, being late to meet other people, handing over of the keys to people who know how to parallel park, more whiskey and at some point I ordered a cherry lambic which was disgusting why did I do that? There were meetings in booths with curtains, and being kicked out by bouncers There was walking in the rain. There was pretty much the whole Southside thing, which is a thing I can get behind, as long as it's not a Saturday night. There is a bath house I have to go back to, because it has the same stone window work as my old high school.


The next morning I set out to explore. Well first we slept till 12, and then ate pad thai, and then I set out. His house is so fucking clean. I had a general idea, and a phone with google maps, but the Pittsburgh highway system exists to mess with me. I found a beautiful abandoned place, but it lived alone, across three lanes of backed up traffic, on 28 North. Which took me about an hour to get to, all because I took a wrong turn right as I left his house. But now I know that Greenwood exists. I guess. I finally made it back to where I wanted to go, only somehow I was in Millvale again. Millvale loves me. Millvale never wants me to leave. It held me close and tight, up and down the one ways and hills and pretty much any way you can get on Grant street ever. I knew where the bridge was that I wanted across the river (which river? I have no clue. There are rivers?), but every time I got to the place I thought I wanted, I took a wrong turn. It was adorable. Millvale is like a puppy dog you really want to take home cause it keeps following you down the street. It was like "Look Bridget, a park! Look Bridget, really old signs! Stay here, love me!"

But finally, ultimately, I made it to Lawrenceville. So I could relax and get really lost there.

The general rule, you know, go to where the water is. Always head towards the banks, that's where the stuff you want to see is. The industrial rollercoasters and chunks of broken rock and train tracks with boxcars sitting on them. Dear Pittsburgh, paint your bridges as much as you want, but I know where you really live.

Lawrenceville was great, except for this one strip that had trash cans painted with the artsy community logo. That part, geez, why do people paint their trash cans? I was the worst driver down Butler, peering down the side streets, looking for the dark dinosaur silouhettes at the water's edge. People were getting pissed at me. Another thing I noticed, and maybe this isn't true really, but I saw very few trucks and SUVS, which given the hills surprised me, and made me feel safe.

I wandered around the train tracks, the soft cold gravelly mud squishing into my ballet slippers left over from last night. I walked between the depots and the sun kept teasing me, until finally it gave in, slut. I said hi to guys in hard hats, and listened to a lot of guitar rock, and at one point I did actually taste that whiskey again in my mouth, but only for a moment and then the wind washed it away.

Someday I will buy an entire city block. Or I will just take it over, with dogs, it will just become mine because I choose it.

I took Butler down to 8, and drove through the strip mall paradise that I can't help but like because the crazy on top of each other bright store signs are backdropped by such pretty undeveloped hills and trees, and all those little broken mechanic shops and bike shops and ancient gas stations. I saw that cellphone tower/giant cemetery cross we found once. I had a conversation with Sam recently where he said that he preferred states with natural borders, and I thought about that as I crossed the state line, how flat Ohio got almost immediately. And how much flatter Michigan is further on. The flattening, the rolling out pancake like of Middle America. The trucks were lined up on the toll road like migrating elephants.

The Car is King

First of all, today, cause it is today already, is my Dad's birthday. Happy Birthday Dad, I love you very much and I'm extremely grateful you of all people are my father, and I'm sorry that your daughter is so weird. Also thanks for the eyes. I like those very much.

And this will always be the song that makes me happy because of you.



Do you know what this morning means? It means it's finally here, Spring and all subsequent consequences of the same. It means we no longer have to get up Monday mornings and ponder the weather, trying to figure out if we can go exploring. Like, sure it was gray and rainy and got pretty chilly in the end, but I still walked around all day in just a t-shirt splattered occasionally with sweat and raindrops. And got to drive with the windows open and the radio on. My hair got all fucked up from the wind. Inside me is this constant quiet ringing of joy.


We were going to hit up a building, but by the time I got to his house, and we had a minute or two to catch up, it was decided the thing to do really was to drive all the way down the Valley, to Kent maybe or to Akron, or Helltown. We drove for a long time. Hours going around curves and hills and highways. There were remnants of mud tainted snow melting on the ski slopes, and the moss was shining bright green along the road.


I appreciate people who you don't run out of conversation with, maybe most of all. And people who know how to just get in the car and drive for a while. We drove through all the places Peter used to drive me to in the dark, where he used to have me shine the spotlight out the window into the black woods to spot deer because I had never seen one in the wild before, and I thought about the long line of boys who have driven me places. Peter was the first and therefore the standard. It's his fault I do this. But all the others, they've just reinforced this addiction, oh some of us we had the best drives. It's the way to my heart, Ohio. Now I'm the one who does the driving, and that took a minute to get used to, but in the end it turned out to be the thing I was meant to be doing too.

We stopped off places and walked around. Locks and woods and parks. Train tracks. I was reminded how much I want to go back to Hope Furnace, that place down South where we went camping, and at the base of the huge stone fireplace we would collect those shiny black glass pieces of slag. When I was little, I loved those black shinies, and they lived with the fake gold, quartz, and tiger eyes I got from the Natural History museum gift shop, and the geode we found when the neighbors were digging up their yard.

In this tunnel, we found this guy, waiting out the rain with his hiking gear. He had been walking the Buckeye Trail for a month. He has a blog about it. There's a thing to do at some point in your life, huh? Jere told me a story about the old times in the Flats, when there used to be street brawls there every Friday and Saturday night, over stupid things like cars, and a girl he met once who said she came down every weekend just to photograph the fights. That girl and this guy are cut of the same cloth. A specific sort of genius.

The canals are a strange thing. 300 miles stretch of barges, supplies, people, mules. Now sitting all weeded and choked up, more like a statewide garden fixture, a landscaping project overgrown. Someday you know, people will dig them up and look at them like pyramids. Here is the best quote from the wiki article on the Ohio and Erie canals:

"As a teenager in 1847, James Garfield worked as a Hoggee, driving mules to pull barges along the canal.^[12] After repeatedly falling into the canal on the job, Garfield became ill, and decided to go to college instead"

I don't know if that's true, but it is just like that ITT Tech commercial. "And I thought, I'd better get in school."

We went to a place in Akron for lunch, and on the back of the bathroom stalls they had pages from today's Wall Street Journal hung. I had to steal the one in my stall, fold it up as discreet as I could in my pocket, because it had this headline: Kremlin Connection Fails To Save BP From Oligarchs. Which is pretty much the best sentence of the day.

On our way to Akron, we passed this scene, which is either an art project, or an upcoming sacrifice to a gray unknown farm god. Maybe horses are really scared of themselves, and these are like horsie scarecrows? I mean, I'd stay out of any field with straw effigies of myself too. I assume the Daddy horse is the tall one, and the Mommy horse is the shorter one, and that raises my hackles a little, which should tell you I'm definitely in the mood for hackles, cause that's pretty dumb, that's just me being contrary. It's all the excitement.

We ended the night at Annabell's, meeting up with his Akron boys and drinking our hackles up. The bouncer there had the exact same tone of voice as Boots, the same bloody Irishness, and did impressions of Ronald Regan and Rocky. There was a mark on his arm that looked very much like a large bite mark, from an extremely large mouth, like maybe a prehistoric fish. I was sent to the jukebox to put on some Wilson Pickett, and he stopped me to remark on it, to point out he had put similar music on just before. Okay. His dog was awesome.

The Internet is Killing Me, The Sunshine is Trying to Save Me, It's All Very Complicated

Today was 80 degrees. This was a big deal to some people, who lived in this farcical little post industrial city, which had been trying to function, despite the cold and the wind trying to blow it down every day for the last six months. I had forgotten what it was like to not be cold. I too had rejoiced at every little 45 degree break that winter sometimes throws at you, but the thing that hadn't changed was me sitting in my still running car, after driving home late at night, not wanting to leave because the car was warm. At one point, 3am in the morning, having refused to wear a coat that night because goddamn coats damn them to hell, I remember having the thought that maybe I would never be warm again, because I was no longer capable of being warm. My nerves had deadened, and I wouldn't recognize being hot, if it ever came again, which it wasn't going to. Desperation leading to acceptance leading to death.

But then the strawberries came back.

We walked around the park, and it was full of people. Not attractive people. Not rich or successful people who liked their jobs and had found the love of their lives, or any kind of affective shit like that. Just the people of Cleveland who couldn't stand it anymore, who didn't give a fuck about what they wore out of the house, just as long as they could actually get out of the house. They were fishing in a river that was too cold for fish, and breaking in the grills, and following their dogs and children around, who were all slightly dazed as if they had just broken out of the egg and were seeing the sun for the first time. Some of those kids and dogs were pretty young, so that may have actually been the case. New things.

So we walked around the river, and got around to the other side, away from the crowd. We did the first careful climb of the year down a muddy steep hill heel to heel, little slide here and little stumble there. As our reward, there were flowers and clover and sprouting things, which, fucking A, is pretty amazing. Is pretty miraculous every time it happens, even though it's happened 31 times for me now. Then we wandered back to the group, and ate food outside, and sat, dazed ourselves, in the heat and light. Urban lizards, and I got reacquainted with that sweat that comes not from exertion but just from above, like the sun's version of rain. I felt my skin burning, the old worn out cells that had done such a good job protecting me from the cold and ice, and now they are going to sizzle up like tiny little Phoenixes each and every one of them. That's their reward.

Later, as the sun drifted down, I drove home and started throwing things away, just everything I could come up with any reason to throw away at all. What I really want is an entirely empty place, where I can just sit in the middle of the floor and do nothing. I cleaned up the back porch, where I had forgotten a carpet I left out there over the winter, and it had rotted to pieces. It fell apart in my hands as I tried to stuff it into bags. There were large plastic looking brown folds of mushrooms all over it. I stuck both of the cats on the porch when I was done. Eddy was all about it, probably cause she's as sick as I am of living and breathing and sleeping in her hair. Nina was a little freaked out, which is fine with me cause I'm sure one of these days she's going to end up on the roof, once she figures it out. Stray cats always hate being put out of doors again, like I'm just going to change my mind about keeping them and never let them back in again, where the food is. Abandonment complexes. I haven't done it yet, even though the fucking garbage bag with the cat litter broke TWICE on the way to the curb, despite being triple bagged. I still have cat litter in the hallway outside my door, which I will vacuum tomorrow, and litter in the front yard by the sidewalk which I am honestly just going to leave there until it rains and hides it. Tonight it was more important to just get the shit out of my house. I put out 12 garbage bags of stuff, and still didn't go through my clothes.


Then I watched Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by myself, and spent way too much time on Twitter and Facebook in this odd head space. That's sort of like smoking an entire pack of cigarettes in one go, you come down and vow to give it up completely, never do it again. Especially when you're watching a movie like that, a movie that will remind you of every demon you have ever seen in the mirror. You will catalog them, and then feel even worse because you know when you inevitably go crazy, HI: Historical Inevitability, you will not be hot like Elizabeth Taylor, you will instead just be the wild haired wide hipped middle aged drunk woman, rejecting reality out of a misplaced sense of safety and security in love which will be your punishment. Ending up with a guy just like you, who tears people open and rips them to shreds to see how they work, and between the two of you there will be so much blood. I emailed Don "It wasn't my parents that soured me on marriage, it was this movie."

Watching that and going through all my stuff and things and stuff and junk, made me realize how much there is I don't get to say to people, because they are what? Dark thoughts? Mean thoughts? Crazy sounding? A friend asked me yesterday if I just spent all my time getting fucked up and posting on facebook, and I was like, "dude, I'm not usually fucked up." Dude, wait till you see me actually fucked up, like bleeding and maudlin and desperate. Then my words escape me in waves. But you can't be honest on the internet. You're not supposed to, because it's just like the outside world. No sweety, instead you are supposed to be writing that shit down into actual stories. Remember, that thing you love to do and also hate? That doesn't involve dissecting each thought for mass consumption, separated from it's context? You know, I don't really miss having a boyfriend most of the time, but there's that thing you can do with someone you fight with and fuck with, which is telling them everything. However sometimes, when you're me, you actually tell them everything, the way you see it and try to communicate the entirety of your world, and it's a massive failure. Usually the parts that apply to them. Oops. I wonder sometimes if I write just to keep throwing myself out there into the void, hoping someone else gets it one day. Not just the pictures and the pithy diary entries, but the enormity of it all. Like, this is me! I'm shouting! Somebody love me for realsies! Be somebody I can love too! Be dirty and weird and enormous! Martha's a romantic at heart. Wild broken Martha.

Mostly I'm just whispering things to myself and writing memos on my phone I can't use till later because someone will recognize themselves in it. I have some good memos though. You have all been stars lately. Please don't mistake my holes and rips as having anything to do with my love for you, oh general life and face of the universe whose name I probably forgot at least twice. That lives strong and quarantined in the seat of my soul.

It's dark now, the wind is picking up in the trees, and I want the rain to come. I want to go to sleep tonight with no covers on, and wake up cold with all of the windows open and the rain blowing in and the sunburn on my skin. And tomorrow (today) is going to be wonderful.

I'm So Susceptible to Lights

Things that happened:

I totally forgot about how much I loved the Starlight Mints. So that's happening for at least the next 2 days.

We did this thing for Pechakucha where we got up in front of like 500 people and told 15 second stories that were kinda melancholy all around frankly, and then did shots from the stories. I totally didn't want to get wasted, even though we basically were doing six shots each in 6 minutes, cause I didn't want to embarrass the friend I was with by being my drunk self. So I only had an Irish coffee to calm my nerves beforehand, and then a beer when we got there, but also maybe some cold medicine, non-drowsy, cause I was terrified of breaking into a barking coughing fit in front of everyone. Well, that may have been my undoing. But it totally made me talk fast enough. And talk a lot. Perhaps..maybe...too much? Oh, no such thing.

No, it's a thing.

Shots done: Southern comfort, tequila, pineapple and vodka, vodka, another vodka. In combination with the experience of Vodka night, I'm starting to think straight vodka is my gin.

We went all scurrying into the Higbees building, which is very white and office like when you first walk in, but then the elevators betray it, darling stamps of the industrialists, that totally knew sexy elevators. Up to the 10th floor, where the ceiling curled around like a movie set, and I twitched my nose and bounced my feet a lot while waiting. It's nerve wracking you know, it's shattering to sit there waiting to take your turn. Especially when you can't be drunk beforehand, which is the way I got through it last time. This time I tried wearing sequins instead. I mean, it's not quite the same. But random strangers will always tell you how shiny you are, like you've forgotten, and so it's a cheap way to get an ego boost. Using strangers as medication.

I also forgot how much I liked Cake. Jesus. It's totally going to be one of those weeks.

So we got up there and did our thing. So this thing I do when I have to be in front of people, I sort of zone out and I'm in some sort of time bubble where the audience is frozen and it doesn't matter what I say, it's just bouncing off of them in icy waves and falling to the floor crackling. Anyway, it seems to have gone well. People were awfully nice afterwards. We were leaving, and somebody in their car driving by shouted "Good job!" and that was so cool, to be jaywalking across a dark cold city street, dodging cars in a shiny dress with two cute boys next to you, and to get yelled at like that from a car. Best moment. Reason #356 to wear sequins, when you do something, people will remember you and be able to spot you cause you were wearing That Dress. Probably that should be the way you pick all dresses, the ones you keep. Only ones that help people pick you out from a crowd.

After our thing, it was a break, and I had to run outside to stick a cigarette in my mouth and try to erase the taste of Southern Comfort/tequila/water of the Polish wanderer. Like blood. More nice people saying hi, and Public Square being it's well lit abandoned blue dark self.

When we went back upstairs, I could barely stay still, I was drunk and wired from the cold stuff and the nerves and so James and I went wandering around into rooms. Everything on the tenth floor was weird hallways, bathrooms with rows of vanities, freight elevators and old christmas decorations stored in between concrete pillars. James posed with a cigarette and pulled off dashing. Eventually I came back, unwillingly, and tapped my fingers nervously watching the rest of the presenters. I'm pretty sure I really liked at least two of them, but frankly, I was floating off somewhere ADD, until afterwards someone gave me dice and then there was the same embarrassing thing I did last time where people kept coming to talk to me and I was all like La La La I'm incapable of listening to you, or not being drunk but I really love that you're here! And really maybe if you see me do something in public and you ever really wanted to watch me being stupid, afterglow is the best time for that.

Later I met a girl who had one of those faces that makes you happy, makes you smile somehow regardless, and man, I wish I could be a ray of sunshine. But it's hard to pull off. You don't want to give someone sunburn, right? And some of us, we just aren't those people. But hey, we got some other things going on at least. Like a burning desire to listen to indie pop music from 2003 all the time, and wear shiny inappropriate things, and take a million pictures of walls.

ANTM Cycle 16: Ace of Spades

Sometimes I look at this thing we've got called American pop culture and it's sort of like walking into the house of a lifetime smoker who died sitting his armchair, all the windows shut and the tobacco resin tears dripping down the faded kitchen walls, everything coated with this burnt orange sheen, even the ceramics his wife left behind in the credenza. So at first glance, everything is gross, right? Disgusting. But the chandelier in the hallway, the tea set, the kitchen clock, they're not made of gross nasty smoke puke. They are just temporarily covered in it. And sure, most of the stuff in the house is going to have to be thrown out, or burned. But some of it has got to be worth cleaning. If you've got the patience to stand there scrubbing chandelier crystals for hours.

Some of us do.

This show, however, is not a chandelier. And last week, I did not have time to stand around with grease cleaner eating away my knuckles. But it was an important episode last week, because my friend James Asmus was actually ON ANTM. Which is sort of AMAZING. When I heard about it, I literally jumped a little in my skin, like Christmas. I mean, it shouldn't be that great. This is what he does for a living after all. Well, I mean, this and other things. Like writing comic books and plays. And being funny. When I think about it, I kind of hate that boy a little. But one year Tara and James and I sat around eating a 5 pound Ghiradelli bar we bought him for his birthday with a hammer, watching Kids in the Hall. That sort of experience means loyalty for life.

Just not enough loyalty to stay at home that night. That's what DVRs are for after all. It's not a chandelier. It's not a chandelier. It's not a chandelier.

I sent James a couple of questions about his experience on the show, cause seriously, aren't you curious?


----------------------------------------------------
What did you actually go on to ANTM to do?

I was hired (due to my improv background) as a plant to mess with the girls when they had to 'meet the public'. Specifically, my job was to hit on all of them and act as creeptastic as possible. Which is soundly within my wheelhouse.

What do you think you SHOULD have been hired to do?

Honestly? I was pretty happy with this gig. I would feel terrible if I had to prank innocent people on the street, but making sheltered, arrogant teenage girls scared was entirely fun. So, if anything, I'd say it would have been better to make them do a 'sexy' photo shoot - only to have it be with a completely un-model-like guy (me) who still does creepy and inappropriate things during the shoot. That way, you trap them even further into the nightmare.

How tall is Tyra really?

She wasn't there! That was the biggest disappointment. Though Ms. J did compliment my ruthlessness in putting some girls through the ringer. So that was nice.

Which girl is the oddest looking one in person?
Some of the eliminated girls were still around. (I guess because their friends would 'know' the outcome if they were back home after 3 weeks.) And Dominique is even more jarring in person. But of the remaining girls? ...Molly? I had the hardest time picturing her as a model.

I feel like the girls get wrapped tight in reality blankets during the show. Is it like all secret service up in that place?
They were escorted in and buffered by *dozens* of people. But once the challenge was over, most crew whisked off with the 'losing' girls to film something and the 'middle' girls were left to stand around with the previous losers in the plaza - abandoned. They really looked like dazed sheep for about an hour.

Best part of your day there?

My favorite part was probably dealing with Britany. I could tell she was on to me right away. As a result, she kept trying to jump in and say or do the 'right' thing - even if I was talking to somebody else. So I took great pleasure in turning around everything she tried into some sort of insult or other cause to act hurt, offended, or scandalized. She got pretty furious with me, and was the only one to say something to me after the shoot. Essentially, she said that she knew I was a plant, but I didn't have to be such an asshole. But yeah, Britany, I did. Because that's exactly what they hired me for.


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So Good Job James, Cleveland is Proud! And moving on to this week....

This is Nigel with hair. I don't know why. I watched the damn thing and I still don't know why.

You can read the live blog here. This week a bunch of stuff happened, but what mostly happened is Alex proved she was almost ready to be a big girl serial killer, as she batted and toyed with the girls like a nasty little porch cat. Also she won a car. Britani lost her shit finally and snapped, and did that "I'm having a panic attack on tv" thing that always causes me pause, because for a small moment in space and time, I can absolutely understand the feelings of a person who drowns kittens in burlap sacks for fun. Tyra was all like "If it were up to me, you wouldn't be here, but THIS IS A DEMOCRACY. LOOK AT ME BEING A FAIR AND BENEVOLENT TYRA". And Britani got to stay. Till next week anyway. When Tyra has her sold into a Ukrainian sex ring. For their photo shoot, the girls had to pose as deranged Gossip Girl fans, which turned out pretty much the way you would think that would turn out. They dressed up Alex in the skin of dead animals, and she turned her lips just so, and did her best Knight Rider impression. That girl is going to up and kill her whole church one day, just you watch.

The other crazy thing that happened last night is Sarah FINALLY told me about what Lisa from Cycle 5 has been doing. Which is this.



Seriously Sarah, it's Cycle 16. Were you saving this for a wedding present, and just gave up?

Movie Reviews from the Sickbed

The concept of a sickbed is so gross. The bed where you lie and wallow in your own germs. And it's so medieval sounding too, so it's not just conjuring images of sick people, but unwashed terrible dying peasants moaning in the corner of some one room hut, while the rest of the family works farming mud.

I don't know why it is that colds always wait until you have to work to be worse, but I really thought I was going to be okay today, and then I woke up and boom, it was like I was delirious. I mean, that really lost feeling where you can't seem to wake up even a little, and I couldn't stop coughing and I went back to bed for like 5 hours. When I sort of woke up, I pretty much just lay around dying and watching movies, sort of in and sort of out. So many of you assholes had this flu, I should have known it was going to get me. But I really thought I might avoid it. It was probably all that time at the film festival last week. Large crowded places. But Kawasawki Rose was pretty great. I'm putting that down now in type so tomorrow when I'm not hopped up on over the counter cough suppressant, I'll remember to look up the other two films by that director.

So anyway, here's what I watched today and what I thought about it.

The Switch

I don't know why I gravitate towards the most awful romantic comedies when I'm sick. It's the same instinct that caused me to only read Sweet Valley when I was sick in high school. The plot of this movie is that Jenn Aniston is some career woman who decides she's going to get pregnant and have a baby, and Jason Bateman plays her neurotic best friend who doesn't have the balls to tell Jenn he loves her, so INSTEAD he drunkenly switches her SPERM DONATION with HIS OWN. SPERM. Hilarity ensues.

Lessons learned from this movie: 1)If you force a woman unknowingly and against her will to have your child, even though she's already made it clear she's not interested in procreating with you, its okay. Because she'll just cry a little, and then totally be in love in with you. 2) Even if you are not in your child's life for the first six years of it, they will still totally grow up having your hand gestures and facial expressions and hypochondria. It will be obvious to everyone that this is your little seed all grown up because they are an asshole just like you, genetically!

Bye Bye Birdie

Oh Ann Margaret. Oh Jesse Pearson. Whatever, I don't need to defend shit to you.



Strangers on a Train

My very favorite part of this movie is when Guy is getting into a cab, and he sees Bruno standing on the building steps far away watching him, and he just stands there as they drive away, this small undefined silhouette against the white marble. Also Ruth Roman who plays Anne Morton, is one of those women who are handsome, not pretty. You forget that used to be a much more common thing, style, trend, whatever. You know, like she's honorable, not cheap. Weird funny America.

Dinner for Schmucks

Remember this one? With Steve Carrell and Paul Rudd. Oh Paul Rudd. Geez. Why for art thou Paul Rudd? Out of what cursed late 50s doo wop crooners loins did you spring? My personal theory is that deep within a South American communist research facility they were trying to clone John Cusack circa 1997, and Paul Rudd is the closest they got. If Jennifer Aniston had been the love interest in this movie, it would have totally been ruined for me.

My favorite part was when the vulture grabbed the finger and ran all the way down the table with it. Vultures are hilarious when they run. Also all the dead mice were adorable.

Tigers on Surfboards was the other thing I did all day.

Me and Alcohol

So I'm working on this project with a couple friends of mine, and I'm supposed to come up with 5 meaningful stories that involve alcohol, but that aren't drinking stories. Rather just important things that have happened around alcohol. Not because of alcohol, just in the presence of.

I can tell drinking stories. I have drinking stories. Like when Peter made me take that shot of Yukon Jack and I spit it up all over the bar at Edison's. Or the 20+ jello shots I ate that during that one birthday party of mine. The time Joe at Trinkas made me take a shot of this bright orange stuff in a jar that he said was all the dregs of every bottle that ended up with less than a shot in it. The phase I went through of trying to create my own drinks at martini bars, one of which unfortunately involved a honey liqour. I have stories about drinking to impress people, or drinking to put up with a boyfriend, or one night stands. But that's not what they are looking for. They want stories about things changing in my life, and the alcohol that marked it, that happened to be around at the time.

Only it turns out I don't have any of those.

And I think it's because I don't have a lot of life changing events. Or I just don't look at things like they are life changing. There's what? City Year? Phoenix? Peter dying? I don't associate alcohol with any of that. My most alcoholic boyfriend I actually met and broke up with sober. Ayers and I did a lot of drinking together, but the fighting was always sober. The drinking was just there to keep us from being bored. I didn't really drink during high school or college, I did other things. And my family doesn't drink together except on holidays, and then we just sit around and talk a lot. There are three times I can remember being extremely wasted - once was with Krista at Funky Buddha, once was the first date I had with Corrigan when I fell down the stars, and the latest one was at the vodka party. Nothing really happened as a result of any of those times, except, you know, I was hungover.

I guess the point is, when I really examine my emotions towards things, I don't consider the large things important, only the details. The story about me drinking in a bar in the middle of an afternoon with Ayers? That's important, because that's how things were for years. And drinking sprite mixed with boxed wine in my Kent dorm room with Sarah and Amanda? That's important, because those were my closest friends there. Also cause I thought it was kind of gross. Peter always ordering a Celebrator at Edison's, and giving me the little white horses to collect is important. Drinking goldschlager in the basement of the Grid with Buddy and Tommy, because we were underage and it had gold in it, that's important. Chocolate martinis are important because they were my gateway drink to the world of adult bars. The specific brand of Romanian wine that Buddy and I spent years ordering from Northcoast, to the point where he only kept it stocked because of us, because it was the first red wine we actually liked. The cheap champagne I started drinking exclusively after Marty's wedding, because it occurred to me I liked champagne so much and I could just buy it, I didn't have to wait for things to happen.

There are drinks that are important to me, because they are the drinks that have been with me through my life and represent phases.

But the conflicts, the fights and moves and boys that made or broke me, none of them have anything to do with alcohol at all. I've been surprisingly sober during the immediate moments of my life.

Which leads to an interesting conclusion - do I drink more because it means nothing bad will happen, or do I drink less because otherwise nothing bad will happen?