all the rage

On facebook you're supposed to post a note of 25 things about yourself and send it to 25 friends. I'm going to steal Amy's name for hers for mine : 25 blahs abut blah.

Anyway, no facebook at work so I'm posting it here first - I can copy it tonight if I still care.

1. I already have a secret blog where I've chronicled most of the feelings I've had, particularly angry, bad, or sad, for the last two years... I was self-indulgent already. So this note probably qualifies as self-indulgent-redundant - but, hey, I like the challenge- 25 things seems like a lot, and I'm going to try to keep it new.

2. Doing this reminds me of a childhood event that I'll never live down - to myself. To myself, I'll never live it down. In fourth grade, there was this thing that on Tuesdays all the girls would wear a (heinous) denim dress from the Gap over a bright yellow turtleneck (this was actually quite gorgeous - just kidding - it was also, obviously, hideous) also from the Gap. I didn't come up with this. But I made my mother take me to the Gap in Princeton on a Monday night like it was a total necessity that I do this just because the girls were ALL DOING IT and I didn't want to be left out. The next day all the girls in our class wore it but two: those two were like, 'Yea, we think this is stupid," and I immediately felt that I had done the Wrong thing - but there I was in a denim dress and yellow turtleneck. Yea, I'm still ashamed I was such a joiner. I tend to think that if I hadn't moved to New Jersey in second grade, awful things like being the kind of person that insists I need this dumb outfit from the Gap so everyone will like me wouldn't have happened. (This event just can never be fit into my personal myth where I am nothing like this!) But if I hadn't moved from New York, today I'd probably be some awful New York Type. Maybe in fourth grade I would have been snorting coke and shoplifting from Bergdorfs to fit in. That would be unequivocally cooler, but I also wouldn't know all y'all probably... I'd just know the Calvin Kleins... or something? What am I talking about? So... anyway, that said, no more apologizing for joining in and telling 23 more things.

3) I think the first half of "Fame" is the best movie ever made and the second half is the worst. I am totally amazed by this phenomenon. Irene Cara's breasts are basically your line of demarcation.... which side (best movie, worst movie) the exposure of her tits falls on is movable. What a phenomenon.

4) Put any amount of tabouleh in front of me and I will eat it all.

5) Some people love musical theater and some don't. If they don't, then they will not understand how it is that you can watch this movie, "Gypsy." I'm here to tell you it's pretty fun to suggest they watch it anyway, and look at their faces during "Have an Eggroll Mr. Goldstone." That'll really crack you up... if you love musicals (while understanding that most people don't.)

6) I miss my brothers and sisters. I'm way older than all of them, but I wish I could just hang out with them all the time. Some of them are mature, others immature - me, I just wish I could hang out with them all the time.

7) Teaching sixth grade social studies in that new school in Crown Heights was hard on me. Or, well, -- I won't mis-use the word "exhausted" again.

8) And four years later, or whatever this is, my job is actually excrutiatingly UN-demanding. It would be nice to find engaging work that isn't so much like being nailed to cross. ;)

9) I like it when people are brilliant and hilarious. Brilliant or hilarious alright too.

10) Oh here's one: I have a really hard time not liking any woman that I think is a knock-out. I basically like all celebrity women. I like talking about celebrities alright. It's decent fun. But I seem to like all celebrity women aside from Jennifer Love Hewitt. So, rarely a very dynamic conversation from my end. ("I like her." "Yeah. I like her.")

11) Then there's the actresses of great talent. These people I love. Edie Falco.

12) Pretty preoccupied with the battle of the sexes. It's in most of my writing.

13) My most bad-ass ability has been for getting into events/places where I don't belong/ haven't been invited. You can be this bad-ass too, but I don't want to tell you all of the secrets. Honestly, well here: the largest part of the secret is that you JUST GO IN. Another part of the secret is that people working such events really don't give a rats ass. Remember that. Even bouncers. They don't really care. Let this inform l'approche. No more information for you. This is my most bad ass thing!

14) I have conversations (in my head) with the advertising on the subway - sometimes kind of personal angry ones. For a while (while it was hanging in the subway -- a period of some months, about three years ago) I was probably spending 20 minutes a day annoyed at/ internally yelling at this advertisement for Interboro Community College; it went: "If I Can. You Can." Are you kidding? Later they changed it -- to a dash. A dash. "If I can - you can." That's still not right.

15) I'm also hung up on the proper use of "less" and "fewer". Even passing someone on the streeet saying, "Let's go somewhere with less people," I do not stand a chance of not thinking, "You mean fewer."

16) I'm a little concerned that this list is turning into the chronicles of an obnoxious woman. :)

17) Oh here's an easy one: The biggest obsession of my life is and has been The Sopranos. I'll never have my fill.

18) Not exactly on purpose there's a theme to my living room, and that theme is branches. I also have some underwear that goes with that theme and this is something I'm happy about.

19) On Neil LaBute: Fat Pig was pretty good - I read it yesteday. I usually don't like his plays because usually when he has an asshole character, that character is just an asshole. I am totally fascinated by assholes. I think it's a very rare asshole who is just an asshole. That is all. For now. On this topic.

20) Aaron said he felt like he could go on and on forever writing these. I am flagging. Maybe that's because Aaron has done things like collect the sleep from his eye in a jar. hahahaha

21) I show affection with teasing and some degree of meanness. I'll defend this to the end.

22) I'm officiating a wedding this Memorial Day weekend. What do you think of that?

23) I'm grossed out by quite a few things but perhaps most of all by drinking blood. Not like a vampire -- sucking it like a vampire is FINE AND SEXY - ever since True Blood I know for sure Vampires are damn sexy. I'm talking about just regualar drinking blood. That is so gross. Oh gross.

24) There was once a moth the size of a pigeon in my overhead light in my old studio. That was so scary my heart rate was all sped up until the morning. I was hysterical. I killed it by spraying it with Raid into a closet which I then did not open for a couple weeks. It can't have been good to inhale that much Raid. So far I'm alive to tell the tale.

25) Oh, sort of back to 13: I've worked in service and I can't stand to see people treat servers of any kind, people performing any kind of service, with condescension. Anyone who acts like that is a big horses' ass. Maybe what I mean is: I love talking to everybody. I love New York. Tip your cabbies.

XO
A


P.S. FOR BLOG READERS
BLOG THINGS
FRONT PAGE OF METRO DAILY NEWS TODAY
story 1: Queens is the best loved borough by its own residents!
story 2: A girl is suing the Hawaian Tropic Tropic Zone restaurant (where the servers wear bikinis) for saying she was too ghetto to work there. I hope she wins - I hope she wins on these obvious grounds: NO ONE is too ghetto for the Hawain Tropic Zone.

blog blog blog

So it's been a while. What am I doing? Oh, drinking vodka tonics, getting high, washing brassieres, throwing a very good dance party for said bras.

I might be a little too drunk to post.

All I really want to tell you is I've reached the point with my apartment that it's the place I always most want to be. So now I'm a crazy shut-in. But I'm so pleased to just know what I am and be it. :) I'm kidding. I mean I think I'm more than just a shut-in, but, as an MO (with the occasional forray into the wild world, then back as fast as I can be carried to) being a shut-in -- yes.

So here I am, just rocking in the dark, planning laundry, lighting candles....

If I were doing, like, an update, I'd tell you wow, everyone is losing their job. I say, "I guess I'll wait tables," but that's going to be the end of my happy home party? Well, maybe not... ugh, as I remember, waiting tables is exhausting and alcoholic making....

but

right now, everything good.

Love you,
Alexis

but now you only call me when you're feeling depressed when you feel happy/ I'm/ so far from your mind

going to blog quickly

Yesterday i worked on my nutso play for I think 12 hours. had trouble sleeping so in it, so ready for more.

And then WHAT happens? Why did I feel so crappy all day? I watched six feet unders for a bit (bad idea when you're by yourself feeling down) then I stopped, got ready to work more (i've been half-assedly "working" for forty minutes or something) and, you know, cried for ten minutes. I wanted to. It was fine. But I had been feeling so elated for a little stretch. Crying about nothing is always such a weird one. I will say it's better than when you feel the same way but don't cry.

Am I really insecure? Does everybody know but me? I was so weird this morning.. I have this boy, man... coming to visit me in January. I know he's excited to. It's this good thing I'm happy about. But I psyched myself out about it this morning. He said hi on facebook like he does most weekend mornings and I don't think he knows but I was taking everything he said (typed) wrong and bad and am i really that nuts? only one Sunday a month - post menstrual? only when I hermit myself away for the weekend. If I DON'T hermit myself away then I'll really go crazy because I won't finish my applications.

Still happy I swear.

I just stress myself out sometimes. A mind is a terrible thing to have. :)

love

Deep thoughts on Era inspired by watching TV

There's a Best Buy commercial now where this guy is a Best Buy worker - we're meant to understand he's from fly-over America and he Loves his job right now ("now" being pre-holiday-time - time to prepare for military leaves --- by the way, LIE, --- the military doesn't get holiday break) --- the military wives are coming in asking for "the one with the guitar" and dvds for the few days they'll soon get with their husbands... he's explaining their situation - they have just a few days - "this is it for them."

All I want to say is fine. That is fine. Co-opt the fact of the military predicament (in this case, "my husband might die, and even if not he won't be here for a long long time") to sell Guitar Hero from Best Buy. This seems very 90's to me --- being touchy-feely in order to sell. And furthermore, no one wants to see Best Buy go under either. We're in a situation here -- we've gotta be American, we've gotta save Best Buy; The way I see it, the advertisement can say anything if it appeals. What I want to say is that eventhough it's another lying commercial - one that plays on American optimism in a semi-sad way-- I think it is 90's like - in a good way -for corporate to be direct-to-consumer with their propaganda. I much much prefer it to the government being clandestine and pro-corporate and diabolical with their propaganda. Lesser of two evils I think. I am thinking of you Barack -- yes, we are all pulling for you --- make it what we want it to be -- disingenuous commercialism straight to consumer. That's the country I love.

Love,
Alexis

Now that it's glorious times again, for the first time...

can Gen X stuff come back in?... like being a slacker?

Oh no, that's right - we're having a waaaaaay different retro fashion........... the 1930's! (Oprah hasn't noticed yet, but it's time for us to all read John Steinbeck.)

Feelin kicky, just a little sarcastic, and in need of a backrub.

love
Alexis

It's my birthday!

Birthdays are fun. Eventhough there is some danger of the end of my evening resembling some aspects of the tv show Arrested Development b/c my mom is taking me somewhere where I think she likes the martinis (I am smiling about this, laughing, not bitching...) it is still my birthday and therefore it should still rock, as I rock, especially on my birthday.

True story: MyfriendHol likes parties. In the summer, she also likes the beer garden. So approx 3 times I meet this new friend of hers CrazyE - a young woman - 25yo? - very pale - that's her half Norweigan - it's hard to see her half Cuban - her mom's Cuban. She is, like MyfriendHol, in an MFA program at Adelphi. That is how they know eachtoher. I met her twice at parties at MyfriendHol's house and once at the beer garden. She seemed cool enough - interesting looks, an interest in cheapy accessories paired with black&white fashion...

So on the first 3 initial occasions that I met her she pretty much talked with only a few pauses or changes about this bf she had in Norway -- and their families knew eachother which was so magical and they all had the same birthdays - in a mixed up way - also, she thought, very magical. The third time she told me about all this I was drunk at one of MyfriendHol's house parties - feeling pretty honest - and also compassionate- and I told CrazyE something like "I don't know what will happen. But the times I've felt that way - like maybe our birthdays have significnace and stuff -I've usually felt later like it was a symptom of something that was wrong - or even missing. I mean he's in Norway?" To CrazyE's credit.... she didn't get angry at me, and I think some people would -- but everyone was pretty drunk and up for the honesty.

So two days later this bf in Norway breaks up with her and she calls me and thinks I am like prescient. Also she thinks I'll be a good listenener, I think, to her obsessive spiral - which I am actually - I get that - almost everyone is obsessive when someone has just really hurt them. Kind of usually an older friend's job to listen to, but she's kind of isolated poor thing. I bring her out to a friend's low key birthday party and they're all pretty brilliant people and they find her annoying but whatever -- they're used to me doing weird thing like bringing traumatized annoying people to their birthdays.

flash forward to the-day-before-my-birthday, yesterday. :) (In the meantime I've hung out with her two more times - over the course of about a year: The first was kind of strange but she was trying to get laid- sure, fine- the second was a good time at a bar where I observed that she's clearly made friends, good, doesn't need me anymore. Throughout the year she stalks my facebook - you know, that's allowed - it's facebook -- and lastly later in the year she seriously freaked out on MyfriendHol in an insane way.)

The stunning conclusion: At 4 am yesterday (not this morning - 4 am yesterday morning- I was awake because I had been scared nearly to death by True blood earlier in the evening.) I go check my email and I have a new post on my facebook wall. It is from CrazyE and I swear to God it reads something like: "hey girl - It's fo sho yo birfday! Wuz happening cuz it's fo sho been a minnit!" or was it more like "Hey girl happy birfday fo sho - we have to party 'cuz I fo sho haven't seen yo fo a minnit" It is 4 am. I don't have time to think about it. My gut reaction is that I am horrified and I delete it.

What a weird girl!!!!!!!!!!! I have told you about basically all of our interaction-we have never sat around speaking sort of minstrel-era ebonics to eachother. I think that would be pretty racist if we did--- but facebook is crazy, bitches, don't forget your girl told you get that dirt off your shoulders!

love
Alexis

laws of attraction

I am avoiding working on my play. It is shameful. But I will work on it tomorrow. I really will. I'll make coffee when I wake up early -- early enough to easily get dressed, drink coffee, watch some New York 1, and leave the house - read over what I've got on the train - and be ready to sit down and make some progress on it as soon as I sit down for tomorrow's great trudge of nothing at all to do at work.

I am very grateful for my job - loosely termed, of course, given the current economy.

So I'll entertain you with tales of dating being the usual grotesque sideshow! I must cancel eharmony. I've got two eharmoniers on the dating calendar now who need to get off the calendar because I'm not attracted to them. The first is nice enough (but what I'm really saying is not enough) but he does a terrible thing of inching closer to me or inching his hands toward mine like he's going to get physical contact secretly. That's all you need to know there. Sigh.

The other is a nice enough guy, but not hot (oh neither is the other), and I try not to eliminate on not hot alone, in case this is a brilliant wonderful becomes hot because of inner hotness person. However there is not hot working against him already. Working for him was the fact I had an allergic reaction to a pine nut on our date and he went to the hospital with me. But the second date revealed that a love connection shall not be.

I'm a little bored of this for writing about it...

oh blah - the people have needs- here - he said he could dance but couldn't actually dance. That's hard to get past.

It was so funny though -- after I was wonderful (read: drunk) enough to gracefully deal with the dancing situation, he said he might have a joint. I knew that meant he didn't -- you know when you have ajoint back home. So, you know: "well, do you have red wine?" "I have scotch" "Okay - sure - let's go have some scotch"

Half hour long conversation with his godfather who actually owns the mess of an apartment (there was an electrical fire there recently) later, God, I just want to pass out - where can I do that? "I have a trundle bed" "Oh great, that works" "But you can't actually use it becasue it's just a mattress box on it" Oh. I pass out in my jeans and fancy gold lace shirt on my back like a plank of wood on top of the blanket and somehow don't move an inch the entire night and just sleep through the awkwardest thing ever - good job Alexis!

So - not being a molester is not quite enough for me to like you. Damn these standards! :)

ANYWAY - I'm not complaining - just updating to avoid working on my play and to try to make the office day end. Who are these people meeting like guys with careers and without trundle beds on the internet?

Do I sound like a bitch though?

Hmmm... anyway, things are pretty good. Better when I actually do some writig tomorrow.

love
Alexis