Tomorrow afternoon I'm off to LA for a week and a half working on my two shows, and I imagine I will be blogging less frequently. So I'll leave you with a few links to keep you busy, depending on your mood.
Go here to be baffled and terrified. (Thanks, Yatta.)Go here to feel smart and literary and in on the joke.
Go here to have your heart broken.
Go here for a tale from my childhood.
Go here for the creepy, funny, and often unsettling beauty that is TromanT Blogart.
And last but not least... go here if you want to waste at least one hour of your life, because unfathomably and numinously YOU SHALL BE SUCKED IN.
Later gator,
Seven words a gal should never have to hear a month before her wedding (however innocently intended): "You were thinner when I met you." Followed in quick succession by a serious of damage controlly-comments like "but you didn't look healthy" and "I hate that New York too-skinny thing" and "it isn't good to work out 6 days a week". And now I am planning on gaining forty pounds in the next three weeks out of pure spite. Any suggestions?
Ha. No, I'm actually starving myself so I can fit into the dress I bought back when I was training for the marathon. Two years ago. And ten pounds lighter. Lord, was I optimistic...
Speaking of demoralizing women... read this bitchy essay and the ensuing comment war. It totally goes on forever, like a girl-fight for lit-fetishists. How sexy is THAT.
Soph and his new toy:
(Please don't tell him he's using it wrong. It will break his heart.)
I'm just not sure if these are working. As songs, I mean. I think they are. But I wouldn't know. This is all so new for me...
And anyway they're just demos. We need to record with real instruments. And start performing live. Which we'll do in the fall, once we have a bassist.
Know any bassists?
Why do I keep showing you these?
*sigh*
Anyway, here. I think it may have one verse too many... we'll fix it later.
Soph and I are attempting to revive the heavy metal scream with this one... wait for it. Oh, and we're also experimenting with a new vocal technique called the "Donkey Honk". You'll love it.
PS: Happy Birthday, Dupster... keep on raisin' hell...
It is done. I finally ruined it.
I'd worn it at least nine times and received hours of enjoyment from it, so I'm trying to be positive about it all. And really, it was doomed from the moment I bought it.
And it's my own fault. I tempted fate. I rode my bike in it last week. I knew it was a bad idea, not only because it was white, but because the sky was fixin' to rain.
But it was a sultry summer day and I was feeling white-dressy. You know what I mean. That kind of East-coast atmosphere that is so thick and heavy you wind up WEARING it, like a wool sweater... so best put on the lightest thing you own.
Of course, twenty minutes after I set out it started to pour. But merely getting wet wasn't enough to destroy the garment. Oh no. My back tire kicked up so much liquified NYC filth that the back of my dress was transformed into a Pollack painting.
And unfortunately, my experience with said dress was fairly undocumented. You can catch the top of it in my now infamous failed attempt at videologging... and here is a photo of me wearing it at a rooftop party earlier this summer (fourth picture down--I'm seated at the table, pretending to have good posture). More specific imagery now survives in memory alone.
BUT. I have to say I'm relieved? A little? Because every time I put on that dress I feared I'd get something on it. It induced a sort-of continuous low-grade panic. I felt weird eating in it, sitting in it, holding a colored beverage near it... So now it's like, hurray! It's over! I have nothing to lose!
I think this lends some insight into how I make most poor decisions in my life.
And anyway it was CHEAP. I got it at the source for "disposable clothesables", which isn't really known for its high quality garments...
And also it was see-through. A little. Like you could make out my nipples without much straining, and I had to wear flesh-colored panties with it. But that part never bothered me much... I always considered it one of the Spoils of Summer Attire (along with muscular shirtless men and pretty subway toes).
But the moral of this story? WHITE CLOTHING IS NOT FOR EVERYONE.
Last night marks the second night in a row of me falling asleep for the night fully clothed, without brushing my teeth or anything (exhaustion, not alcohol-related). Though yesterday I got as far as the bedroom, luckily...
Waking up in my clothes always makes me feel vaguely rock-n-roll. Especially when I wear them to a meeting the next morning. Which I DID.
I am. THAT. Bad.
On Monday Soph and I went to the Marriage Bureau in Brooklyn to get our license. A trying affair, with lots and lots of waiting and really obnoxious security guards who took delight in screaming across the room at women who tried to use their cellphones (inexplicably prohibited). Some couples looked like they were on line to get their teeth drilled. Others were holding hands, giggling, kissing. A few gals came in wearing full-on bridal gear. I passed the time picking out the couples who'd be divorced within three years.
On the wall leading up to the clerks' window were scrawled several hundred hasty ball-point hearts with two names inside: "Angel -n- Taniqua 4 ever"... "F-Dawg loves Teeny"... My favorites were the math equations: "Shawndel + Travis = True Love".
One in particular that caught my eye was written very low, in much smaller print than the others...
"I'm not sure."
I of course whipped out my pen and wrote Soph's and my names (though using our cutesy pseudonyms, in case the feds caught on)... And of course, the assy security dude saw me.
Too lazy to approach us, he began bellowing from his station, "IS ANYONE WRITING ON THAT WALL?"
A few couples moved in to shield me from his line of vision. Solidarity in romance...
"I HOPE NOBODY'S WRITING ON THAT WALL. IF I CATCH ANYONE WRITING ON THAT WALL IT'S A $500 FINE..."
We looked around us at the hundreds and hundreds of hearts written on the wall. Every inch of the wall within reach was literally covered in hearts.
The gal in front of us snickered under her breath, "Musta been his day off."
Hee.
In other news... why are these shoes so ridiculously awesome and why can't I afford a pair?
Discuss.
Did you ever let some gas slip, accidentally or not, and it smelled much worse then you expected, and so you tried taking huge sips of air through your nose hoping to 'snif it all up' before someone else catches wind (so to speak)?
If not, don't bother. It doesn't work.
For those of you who are new to this blog, I'd like to provide you with a little capsule overview of everything you've missed this past year. Here it is:
Me me me me me me theatre theatre me me me me my friend me me me my other friend me me me me RETARD me me LOSER me me me me PONTIFICATION me me me fun link me me me me MELANCHOLY STORY me me me me MY BAND me my fiance me me me PHOTO ESSAY me me me.
This pretty much sums up the future of this blog as well. Welcome.
(Hint on the fun link: click once to get the penguin to dive, click again to bash it.)
Worst thing I ever said to a boyfriend right before he told me he was seeing someone else:
(In a cute, slightly drunk voice, having just danced around my apartment for him to Dave Mathews thinking I looked sexy)ME: "Hey... are you not liking me lately?"
...for NYC theatre folks, anyway...
Rob Kendt is officially on the east coast, AND is reviewing for the Times! WHOO-HOO! (Thanks Jason, for letting me know...) Let's hope this begins a new trend over there for employing critics who actually ENJOY theatre.
And thanks for all yer comments from the weekend, folks... unnecessary but much appreciated. For this, I give you... an alarming beauty pageant portrait artist at work. (Note... do not be eating anything when you view this page... especially as you scroll down to the children.)
Okay, enough about my fucking band.... judging from my lack of comments, I understand you are Just Not Interested. And I AM your bitch, blogosphere. Regardless of what I tell myself.
You wanna know how low I've sunk? I invent people in my comments. I just wanted to tell you that. I do it when I am feeling especially vulnerable and I need to pretend anonymous people love me, not just people I know personally. (Okay that last person has never commented. But still.)
Here's one example:
Oh my god. LOL! I love your blog so much. YOU ROCK! Thanks for opening up comments.
Posted by Felicia at June 28, 2005 01:53 AM (rockpocket@gmail.com)
Here's another:
Forget it, I'm too embarrassed by that one.
In general, I make my commenters pretty dumb. This is in the hopes that an *actual* commenter will rise to the challenge of creating a wittier, smarter, more relevant comment to which I will be compelled to respond.
Okay, in all honesty, I've only done it twice. And I don't feel TERRIBLE about it, because from my stats I know I have a ton of lurkers who refuse to actively engage in my navel-gazing. So I just pretend the person I invent is a stand-in for an ACTUAL Callaholic (my new name for people addicted to my blog... all none of you.)
And for some reason, I always give my commenters gmail addresses. I guess I feel like it gives them techie cred.
Look, I never said I wasn't a loser....
Um...
HEY. Tina's preggers!
And HEY. This is fuckin' funny!
And HEY! What's that outside? In the sky?
[sheila runs away]
It's just a demo track. It's mixed pretty low... and it's missing all the other instruments. But it's the second song we've recorded to start practicing. We have a bunch of other songs, some more peppy, some more rocky, some more trippy, and all in a much higher and more comfortable register for me.... but anyway.
Ta-da. The band has landed. Sort of.
And if you need to know what the song is about, see previous post.
Can't get enough, you say?
Oh alright, here's another demo track. (Same disclaimers apply, please.) (And twenty points to the person who can identify the two ripped-off lyrics in the song.)
We'll be better live, I promise... now if we only had a name... the most recent entry from a list of hundreds has been Everybody Says Hello. This has kicked Chasko, Thumbthumb, Farley Drexel Hatcher, and Trumpet Windsock farther down the list. But they're still there, if anyone cares to weigh in.
And of course there's always Slacks for Patrick, our first band, once described as "an accordian and a vocal duo for the urban set" (according to Google).
Those were good times...
From: Heidi Brikin
To: Sheila Callaghan
Date: Jul 14, 2005 12:36 PM
Subject: Re: reading
Well, we may be way off base, so forgive us. And now that you say the thing about Adam I think we're wrong.
Jean-Michele thought you might have discovered that you're adopted.
From: Sheila Callaghan
To: Heidi Brikin
Date: Jul 14, 2005 12:53 PM
Subject: Re: reading
WELLLLL.
Jean-Michele is right.
BUT.
I've always known I was adopted. My bro and sis are also adopted, from the same family. We all grew up knowing this, thinking it was so awesome how we were all together, not really needing to find out anything else because we had each other. And we are pretty close to my mom too, so we have a healthy, stable family. And as you may know, my dad passed away in '96.
SO.
I have been looking for our medical history for quite a while, because the creepiest thing about being adopted is not knowing things like if we have a history of heart disease or breast cancer. The adoption agency that we came from was overtaken by a social services family planning institution, and their paperwork is all screwy, so I haven't had much luck finding out anything through them... so I decided to find out the names we were born with and do research on our medical records that way.
I went to the geneology room of the New York Public Library with Soph last week and, by using my birth date, my birth certificate number, and the borough I was born in (Queens), I was able to find my birthname. I also found my brother's and sister's names, my birth mom's last name, and my birth dad's first and last name.
That night I called Adam because I knew my birth mom went to Julliard and wanted to ask him to look up the alumni archives to see if he could find her (the records are closed to non-students).
The next day, Soph went back to the library by himself, just to look at the books some more (it was a pretty heady experience finding the name I was born with-- I'm Italian!) He called me from the library, and told me this bit of shocking news: He found out that two other babies were born to my birth parents, four years earlier than us. I have an older brother and an older sister.
As this news was sinking in, I started googling. Soph told me my brother's name. I googled and came up with an ICQ page with all these stats... and I asked Soph, "was he born on August 15, 1968?" The answer was YES. I was looking at my older brother's home page.
And he has HUNDREDS of photos of our family on it. Aunt Pat, Cousin Dina, our sister Nancy at her wedding, his two kids (who look like me!!!!!), and our DAD. Who also looks like me.
This was fucking NUTS. So much of my identity is wrapped around not knowing my roots, and to have that completely reversed overnight was stunning.
This past week has been mostly damage control. My mom took it very badly at first... it's almost like, to her, someone KEPT two more babies from her, ones that were rightly hers. Things are better now... but it was a hard week. I want to make contact immediately, but my sis and mom think it's a bad idea... so we're negotiating. Luckily, my bro is totally ambivalent about the news. It dillutes some of the drama.
And finally, my name when I was born?
Anne.
From: Heidi Brikin
To: Sheila Callaghan
Date: Jul 14, 2005 2:03 PM
Subject: Re: reading
Oh my god. That's astonishing.
Anne. Wow. I'm wordless.
What did you mother study at Julliard? How does it feel to be Italian. What do your new siblings do?
My god. Safe place of terror.
Mike Teavee: "Why is everything here completely pointless?"
Charlie Bucket: "Candy doesn't have to have a point. That's why it's candy."
It's amazing how applicable that statement can be to one's life when the word "candy" is replaced...
Not one bid. Pathetic. It's for CHARITY, for crissakes. I've got to eat, right?
Are they really that ugly?
Whatever. I don't need your stinkin' money...
But I DO need your love. Come on, gimme some of that FRINGE love. It hurts so good.
(Go here for the official site. And don't miss the show... it's a total gas.)
A while ago I asked you to remind me to tell you about my neighbor Willie. He used to sit on his front stoop every day with his dog and talk to people walking by. Neighbors mostly, but he was friendly to everyone. So was his dog. And somehow, everyone except me knew what he was saying.
Two years ago, Willie survived a bout of cancer of the esophagus that had taken a portion of his tongue. He ate through a feeding tube in his tummy. Most of his words came out sounding like scoops of mashed potatoes; all mush, not a lot of shape. He spoke through his nose mostly, and he required a bit of pantomime to get his points across.
Speaking with him put me freakishly on edge... I'm chronically late for everything, and Willie was always on his stoop, and I couldn't just blow by and act like he wasn't there... and so most times I would stand there with my face all corrugated in frustration, straining to translate his nasal expulsions while my nerves pulled tighter and tighter.
And so the other day I was ravenous and I knew we had nothing in the house to eat, but I didn't have the cash to blow on some bullshitty crap from any of the overpriced bodegas in staggering distance (not another lunch of cheddar Soy Crisps, please)... so I scoured the fridge and the freezer with the "I'll eat anything, even the frozen fucking peas" kind of fever... and I found two tupperware containers filled with chunky, brownish, ominous-looking material.
Each had a strip of masking tape on the top with scrawled writing. One read "Turkey Neckbone Soup", and the other "W. Bro. Pigfeet Soup."
Neckbone? PIGFEET?
"Um, Soph? What hell is this stuff?"
"Oh. That's Willie's."
"Oh."
(pause)
You see, about four months ago, Willie's apartment caught on fire.
He was microwaving some meatloaf and he heard a bang. He grabbed his dog and got the hell out of there. But by the time the firetrucks arrived his entire first floor was in flames.
The neighbors above him were not home, and their apartment was not damaged... but Willie lost everything. His extensive stack of blues records was one huge melted pile of black. All his furniture was eaten through with black. His lamps, his telephone, his TV, everything had melted from the heat. Every bit of glass in the room had turned to liquid. What took seventy years to accumulate was annihilated in less than twenty minutes.
And anything that might have been salvaged was damaged either from the hydrant water or from the firemen smashing through (they had to gouge open up all the walls afterwards to make sure nothing was still burning inside).
Soph was there when it happened. Afterwards he took photos for the insurance people while Willie climbed around his wreckage, pulling charred objects aside to reveal more charred objects. He tried to open his freezer but it was fused shut. Soph and another neighbor had to pry it open.
Inside, all of his food was completely intact. The ice had protected even the plastic of the tupperware.
Willie asked Soph to hang onto everything for him until he could come back for it. Soph said okay and stashed the food in our freezer. That night Willie slept on a cot in his basement, with water dripping all around him. We saw him through his window on our way home from dinner. He had a small battery-powered light next to him.
The landlord suggested Willie find somewhere else to stay, but Willie refused. He slept on the cot at night, and during the day he sat on his stoop with his dog. One morning I was rushing off to work and I passed him, saying, "I'm so sorry about your apartment, Willie... when do they think you can move back in?"
"Never," he said.
That I understood perfectly.
About two weeks later, contractors were hired to re-assemble the interiors of the old brownstone. Willie moved to a nearby hotel with some clothes donated by the neighbors.
Last month I came home to find the landlord outside our apartment, crying. Willie had gone to the hospital the day before, and had died that morning. Complications with his feeding tube. The hole in his tummy had partially healed.
He had starved to death.
So.
Turkey neckbone soup.
I defrosted it in the microwave.
The first bite almost made me gag. More the thought of it than anything... the word "neckbone" caught in a loop in my head.
The second bite was easier.
The third was spicy and rich, almost cajun.
I ate the whole thing.
Buy my shoes.
Seriously. I need to get rid of them. They're ugly.
I mean they're ugly in a super-cute way. I BOUGHT them, for cryin' out loud. I liked them at some point.
Read the item description. It pretty much explains everything.
Another term I'd like to coin: brain burn. It's when you've been thinking too long on the same topic and you get a rash on your frontal lobe. I got it. From twelve straight hours working on the project description for my Fulbright application to teach experimental playwrighting in Dublin and research the impact of IRA violence on the youth culture of Northern Ireland. At some point I actually used the following sentence:
"If I had to classify my pedagogical position, I would consider myself a loose pragmatist who falls between process and post process theory, using methods from both sides of the spectrum to formulate a teaching approach that is a malleable, non-didactic, and social, and also a rhetoric and perceptive proximity that has the ability to move beyond the classroom."
I was strongly encouraged by my editor to delete it. (Obtuse prostelizations are a tell-tale sign of brain burn.)
It was due at midnight tonight. When did I submit it? Eleven fifty-five. I made the mistake of re-reading it afterwards. I misspelled the word "Playwright." Nice.
And please excuse the ambiguity of my previous post... as I told my friend Mike in an email earlier, I am still trying to navigate the space between the public and the private, and sometimes I keep it a little too dark. (I used that exact sentence.... Overly descriptive metaphoric observations about oneself are also a symptom of brain burn.)
I need to go watch some assy TV now... anything to stop the burn...
I'd tell you about my reading but I'd have to divulge some unpleasantness, so I'll just say on the whole it was a positive experience (mad props to the awesome crew at PlayPenn... they were incredible).
I'd tell you about AFTER the reading, but I'd have to divulge a somewhat tormented encounter with a beautiful woman from my past, so I'll just say on the whole it was an informative occassion.
I'd tell you about right now, but I am feeling like a big bag of crap and that isn't very interesting.
I'd tell you about tomorrow, but I haven't gotten there yet.
But what I CAN tell you is my boss is gone. He left me. Moving to the smaller and browner pastures of Boston. I hate it. I may have been an atrociously irresponsible employee, but do I deserve THIS? What is a gal supposed to do without her sherpa?
And I just found out he has a tattoo of "Winona Forever" on his arm. Somehow this makes me even sadder he's gone.
Bye Sherpie. You will be deeply missed...
