... which of course begs the question, "Which iPod character are YOU?"*
1. The Shuffler (green) ... you wear cute shoes, you don't break a sweat, and everyone wants to be your friend.
2. The Wiggler (pink) ... you bang it and shake it so good, people want to eat you up-- but of course, they are afraid to touch you.
3. The Squatting Chicken-flapper (purple) ... so what if you look like you're throwing a temper-tantrum in a low-ceilinged room? You can't stop the boogie.
*Not pictured: The Melancholy Hip-swayer, The Jovial Fat-wagger, The Hopping Psychotic, and everyone's favorite, Spiderman.
Oh swell. Yet ANOTHER of my friends has taken up blogging. Which means I will have yet ANOTHER pit-stop to make on my endless nightly blog-ride.
Sheila's Brain: "Sheila, why can't you have a more positive attitude about it? Like Tina?"
Sheila's Mouth: "Fuck you."
Hey, I'm just kidding. It's my man. My man is blogging. We're gonna be like a blogging super-couple. Like Phil-n-Raymi but less salty. Like Jason-n-Lorraine but less wholesome. Now you can cross-reference us like crazy on all our outings, parties, marital incidents, what-have-you's... ROCK.
Incidently... for the record? I'm Not Happy about this.
:]
You know you're officially out of the loop when they make a documentary about it and you've never even HEARD of it.
Makes me wanna sing a little song.
Whoa, I'm so out of it, out of it
Got my head under a big dumb rock
Why didn't no one tell me about
This new kind of crazy dancing
With the shiny angry kids and the ridiculous abs
Yeah yeah yeah, oh yeah
Catchy.
NOTE: I have posted and un-posted this entry twice. It was originally intended as an honest description of my wacked-out blog-obsessiveness lately, but then I was advised by someone to just relax and stop ranting about blogging. But then I was advised by another someone to keep it up, because people like to read other people's meltdowns. So here it is.
Okay. I really hated writing that last blog entry. It took SO EFFING LONG. But I've really hated writing blog entries recently. I used to find it fun but suddenly I've gone all weird and competitive on myself. Like I have to rise to some invisible bar. I've begun to use this blog to COMMUNICATE to people, to RELAY my THOUGHTS to the MASSES, whereas before I was just entertaining myself and a couple others.
Well okay so FUCK YOU, BLOGOSPHERE. I'm not your bitch. I'm just a poor little playwright and you aren't paying me to do jack shite, so until I get a check signed by Jane Q. Blogosphere in the amount of ten billion dollars for all the time I've wasted STRAINING over you, I'm gonna write whatever the fuck I want. Understand?
Shit. Everything fun in my life gets laborious. Does that happen to you too?
Oh, and I'm closing my comments again. I like getting them, but it makes me feel too participatory in my own demise.
Okay nevermind, I just got bitched out by Mr. Unmediated. I'll keep them open. But I WON'T like it.
(Kenyatta also explained--in kindly, knowing, savvier-than-thou tones-- that every blogger at some point in her blogging career gets so obsessive about her blog that she has a little online meltdown. But then she gets over it. How humiliating.)
If you are currently an active member of the blogging community, please ignore the following advisory. This is meant exclusively for those who do not blog but plan to in the near or distant future.
So. ALL YOU FUTURE BLOGGERS. I offer you a series of warnings. Heed these carefully.
1. You will begin to see everything in the world through your blogging-eye, whether you are conscious of it or not (see Dup's post about this exact sensation.) You will compartmentalize most experiences into bite-sized verbal curios. Sometimes you may actually manufacture blogable situations for the sake of a good yarn. Which will make your life seem even more surreal than it already does. Which in some cases may bring about an aggravated case of solipsism… see earlier remarks.
NOTE: While Blogeye can be pretty distracting in everyday circumstances (on the subway, in a restaurant, during coitus), it is much worse if you find yourself in an unusual situation, say at a Coors factory in Golden Colorado or an abandoned insane asylum off the Appalachian trail; in such cases your Blogeye goes BONKERS, slopping crazily about all the blogable detritus like a rat in a sewer. (I shall now officially coin that term: “Blogeye.” My hopes are that it will eventually enter the modern lexicon, like such popular slang terms as “okay” and “kizash” and “dickweed” and “agro”. Feel free to use it often and be sure to credit the source.)
2. You will start to link to high profile bloggers (bloggers whose work you legitimately admire, mind you) with the small hope that they will see your site in their stats and link back to you, in which case your own hit-count will skyrocket.
Or you'll do it in a more covert way… you'll send them a cringe-worthy fan email that tries to sound nonchalant while subtly mimicking the tone of the blogger him/herself, and then casually drop in a link to your blog as an afterthought (click here for an actual specimen) (and for the record, he never wrote back), which of course he/she will read and determine immediately that you are a kindred soul-genius and will link the living fuck out of you, or at the very least blogroll you.
NOTE: EVERY BLOGGER WANTS TO BE BLOGROLLED. Don’t be fooled! If a blogger gives you a fruity cheesecake or a rare coin or a sequin from the lapel of your favorite country singer, DO NOT ACCEPT. It is a ruse to make you feel obliged to reply in kind with a link.
3. You will become obsessed with your stats. You will consult your stat page at least six times an hour, trying to recognize who your visitors are by where they work, which is often encoded into their server info (such as “hq.publictheater.org” or “a202d.bsd.uchicago.edu” or “Ogilvy & Mather”). You will find yourself saying things like, “Who do I know in Korea?”
And you will mentally separate those who found your blog intentionally versus those who happened upon it by using the search string “small+sheila+first+time+fuck” (at which point you will begin to wonder if you aren’t unwittingly attracting an unsavory element to your blog).
4. You will experience insane and uncontrollable blog envy. You'll stumble upon a blog writer whose voice is clear and effortless, whose observations are lucid and pithy and fun, who gets linked from other blogs twice as often as you (salt-on-wound courtesy of the technorati search), and whose comments are filled with folks going on and on about how hard his/her blog rocks.
Then you'll slip into a “blog coma”, where you do nothing for hours but read your own past entries over and over, attempting to approach them with new eyes each time, acting like you are a fresh newcomer who, my word!, has just found an ENCHANTING and UNIQUE new blog and can’t WAIT to tell all her friends.
5. You will feel slightly defeated when you see your friends socially and they don't comment on your recent posts. You will start to think they dislike your writing style, or find your life and your observations tedious and banal. You will suspect they are right.
6. Your blogging journal will EAT your regular journal.
7. You will suddenly have "no free time."
8. You will be tired.
9. Your partner will make fun of you.
10. You will write posts about the joys/pitfalls of blogging. Long, pointless, aggravating posts. Like this one.
Arrrghh. Phooey! I promised myself I would never write a post about blogging, and here you have it. So much for pretending that all of you are actually in my living room drinking tea and listening with wide eyes as I tell stories. Drat.
Small sheila first time fuck, I suppose. It happens.
1. The Car Talk dudes were discussing this insane piece of crap today. I had to google it for myself. It is apparently the number one selling accessory for SUV's in the UK.
2. The second place winner in the Contagious Media Showdown has an article in Slate about the making of his hysterical and often heartbreaking site. Personally, I think he was robbed.
Creepy bronze cowboy children. They were everywhere. I keep closing their mouths in my head.
These rapids were scarier than they look. A 53-year-old man drowned in this exact spot 24 hours after I took this.
Chocolat majora. Despite his unnatural affection for excessive amounts of chocolate, Soph was not a fan. It was as big as a loaf of bread and tasted like a sofa cushion.
Outside our lovely garden B&B. The woman who ran it told us it was haunted. I didn't believe her, at first... but one night after dark I wandered into the kitchen to stick my unfinished Starbuck's mocha in the fridge, and I felt four icy fingers brush the back of my neck... or I *could* have. Which is why I ran like hell back to our room. Luckily, I outran it.
Check out Table Mountain in the distance. That's where all the virgin tables are sacrificed.
We had the most demoralizing crush on this stray. We fed her chicken from our left-over fajitas. She repaid us by digging her ridiculously long claws into our spleens.
Kids gone to college, wagon overturned. Symbolism, punkin.
I feel weird posting this.... The wedding rehearsal was held two feet away from this man. I was afraid he would wake up and see everyone making merry, yet another cruel reminder of his own horrible luck. Later that day I spotted him at the farmer's market eating free samples of sour cream dip and pretzels.
Fermentation vats at the Coors brewing factory. The employee's lounge actually has free beer on tap. Employees are permitted two pints after their shifts. They used to be allowed to drink right on the production line, but the Occupational Safety & Health Administration put an end to that. Jerks.
Where the Wild Greeks drink their beer.
Fast beer.
Slow beer.
Sullen boy eating Cherrios. On the ride home from the reception he announced that tuxes should be outlawed at weddings, and that groomsmen should dress as pirates. We all nodded gravely.
Soph's ex, whose wedding we were attending. The one in white, not black.
Bride's dad.
Beer in bottles.
Chocolat minora. I wish I was a professional food photographer... I'd get to be around elegant edibles ALL THE TIME. Sometimes I go into pastry stores in the East Village and stare at the goods, just for the aesthetic gratification. Heck, it's cheaper than MOMA.
Ass-kicky swing band. All the men over 45 in attendance were in love with that singer. Rightly so.
I adore this picture.
Box beer. The slogan says it all... "Run Home with a Pig Today."
A wee little lost soul, scraping nail-polish from her wee little cuticles...
Storm's a-brewin'... where's Wyeth when you need 'im...
The owner of the B&B stood over us on the bed and took this. Just kidding.
I STILL DON'T GET IT. I never did. After all these years.
I feel so alone.
(Just kidding. I TOTALLY get it. Ha! And you're a complete loser if you don't. Sucker.)
Got my laptop on my lap, got my favorite striped cotton dress on, got the sound of cars swishing by on Lafayette street, got my Greek coming home any second (all chipper because he made more tonight on a consulting gig than he did working two weeks at the library)...
Five minutes ago I wanted a beer. It was past 11, all the beer stores were closed, but I had faith my Night would deliver unto me a gift. Slipped on my brand new sandals (came in the mail today), ones I bought with a gift certificate from my shower. Walked outside and was hit with a blast of lush and giddy-making Spring... and was aware that it was infectious.
A tall blond woman walking in front of me, peals of laughter tearing through her, the tall black man holds her hand to comfort her, she wears a yellow shirt and a blowy black skirt, he wears a white tank top and a white skull cap and his pert muscles. The joke cripples her and he pulls her to the curb so I may run pass...
I am running for my beer. The corner store should be closed, it is nine past. This is the corner store where the owner's son orders a special ice cream flavor for Soph and stashes it behind the orange sorbet so no one can get to it before Soph does. No one likes orange sorbet.
So I run, my new sandals my striped dress past the pealing couple, is there light on the corner or is the garage door down... YES my corner store is LIT! I only have four dollars and I don't buy beer often enough to know if I can afford something not-thin and not-crappy, something with the taste of molasses and chocolate because really, that's what got me all a-run in the first place, the craving for something sweet and rich and lurid, something that tastes like a humid spring night, like you can gulp that air until you are breathless and no one will stop you, and you can't believe something so delicious is actually free...
I dash into the store and immediately fret over the extensive beer case. Only the most expensive imports have prices. Finally I grab two bottles and hope for the best.
The owner's son at the register is laughing at me. "I saw you running."
"It's that kind of a night. But I only have four bucks."
"You only need three-fifty".
On the walk home, I swing my bag like a kid. I pass one dog owner with a beagle on a leash approaching a car with another dog owner and the exact same beagle in the back seat. The owners, strangers to one another, are delighted and can't stop laughing. Neither can their dogs.
Neither can I.
Back from Denver, but going to bed. Much I want to discuss, most of which I never will. S.S.L!! ("sorry so lame") (and it doubles the lame when you put the definition in quotes). More tomorrow night.
My comments don't work, if you hadn't noticed, so I'm turning them off. Thanks, Yatta.
Oh speaking of back... you know I just did a google image search for "hairy back" so I could post a clever pun-like photo here, but every photo I found was oddly unremarkable. So then I did a search for "big ass", and then "butt crack." And it went downhill from there.
Please send help.
As that wacky presocratic sophist Gorgias once wrote:
1. Nothing exists
2. Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it, and
3. Even if something could be known about it, knowledge about it can't be communicated to others
Sometimes I really am convinced that all of you exist only in my mind. It's a strange and lonely disease. Drinking helps, getting high makes it worse, eating and sex are excellent distractions from it. Writing plays is of course its ultimate gratification; making the people in my head talk to one another allows me to exercise SOME sort of perceived control over it. But this blog? The internet? The universe squeezed through a cable and shot into a small machine on my lap? I'm a GENIUS for subconsiously inventing that.
It is the Season of Rejections, mind you, and I always get a little nihilistic this time of year. This year is no exception... the "no's" are just rolling in. I should be used to it by now.
Is this a good time to tell you that this blog was conceived as a year-long experiement, and it plans to self-destruct on September 12th, 2005? More on this anon... in the meantime, I've opened up comments. Be kind.
Oh hey, there's a new kid on the block. Put THAT on your google-goggle.
Off topic... Johnny Z. sent this to me in an email and I thought it was real. I was relieved when he told me it wasn't, but sad at the plausibility of it.
Okay. I'm off to Denver. I'll talk to you on Monday.
(I love you. Even if you aren't real.)
They can get a stage full of equity actors to crank into a 45 degree rake for twelve minutes without one person rolling into the pit, but they can't learn how to hold a fake baby and make it look real.
People, please. LEARN HOW TO HOLD A FAKE BABY. Load a blanket with rocks. Practice in your local maternity ward. Whatever it takes, because you are not fooling anyone. I can convince myself of anything if you sell it, even that Harvey Firestein could be in love with Andrea Martin. But SELL THAT INFANT TO ME. I didn't pay $75 to sit here watching you flail that wad of laundry around and forget which end the "head" was at.
And please don't ask me what I was doing at that show in the first place...
Surprise bridal shower this weekend. The funny part is, they all thought that was the first time I'd dressed in toilet paper and worn cardboard on my breasts. Ha.
My blog's hits have almost doubled in the past week and frankly, it's making me jittery. We're talkin' pretty small numbers here, but still. And I've publicly humiliated myself in many, many more aggressive ways (as my readers know)... so officially, no biggie.
On the topic of bloggin'... this winter I applied for a job as a professional blogger for an online magazine, sorta like a Martha Stewart Living for the urban-mods. The first tier of the application process was online, and required the answer to this question: "If you were a beef stew, what ingredient would you be?"
As it happened, the previous week I had been introduced to a fancy beef stew which included a very unlikely ingredient. This ingredient so powerfully altered the taste of the meal that it changed my opinion of beef stew forever. No small feat, mind you. Beef stew is one of those guileless concoctions that wedges itself firmly in your taste-memory and stakes its boorish claim there forever. It's brown, it's runny, it has carrots. Someone should have named it "Duh".
So, in an effort to sound original AND inspired by my earlier revelatory meal, I answered the question something like this:
"Well, I suppose I'd be the fermented bean paste. You know, that one ingredient that when you see it on the recipe, you're like, WHAT THE HELL? But then you cook it all up and you realize your meal has just gone from decent to holy crap."
I didn't get the job.
Note to self and others... when trying to impress potential employers, please do none of the following:
1. Insult yourself by admitting that people initially respond to your presence by uttering explicatives;
2. Insult the employing enterprise by referring to it as simply "decent";
3. Compare yourself to a yeasty, fart-inducing soy spread.
Take it or leave it.
All I wanted to do was make a vlog. JUST A VLOG. Do you have any idea how HARD that shit is? Well let me show you... NINE attempts. Nothing to say. No idea why I thought I could just burst into spontaneous eloquence the moment I turned the camera on... but never fear my friends, it won't happen again.
And yes, I put the cow chair in the shot to pay homage to this dude... he can drive a vehicle, read an email, record a vlog entry, AND surf the radio, ALL AT ONCE. And he drives a Honda Element. Sweet. (His blog can be found here.)
I spent the weekend upstate conducting a workshop for a community writer's center... the workshop went well, the reading afterwards went less well, and on Sunday morning I was being pushed around Syracuse Hancock International Airport in a wheelchair with a wet cloth pressed to my brow. I'd tell you why but I'm afraid you'd think less of me. Maybe in a month or so... when it's more funny than pathetic.
But for now... from an email to Patricia last week:
"I just bought prosciutto and all I can think about is wrapping little pieces of melon in it... my friends Jason and Lorraine were talking about it on our hike the other day, about how when they were in Italy this was all they ate from little roadside shacks every day, and it made my mouth water for it. They brought salami along on the hike and as we were sitting there eating it in the middle of the woods salami seemed like the most perfect food on earth for some reason. It was good salami, a far cry from the slippery shit my mom used to slather with mayo and stick to mushy white bread for gradeschool lunch. Bad Breath Central. No wonder I had no friends growing up."
ATTENTION NEW YORK CITY RESIDENTS AND VISITORS:
When passing through one of these:
with one of these:
please be certain to use TWO of these:
rather than using just one and jamming both of you into the same turnstile, because you are likely to run into one of these:
who just might give you one of these (click for a close-up):
which will make you feel like this.
When each lovely personal engagement becomes a public enterprise without your doing, you know you've "made it" in the blogosphere.
