Can't see the forest for the Frey?

So call me crazy, but I have to wonder, really, why the world seems to be folding in on itself over the fact that some writer, in a drive to get published—we’re all familiar with that—is the media and greater community’s punching bag, just because he fabricated a memoir.

Okay, okay, I know I’m gonna get the electronic shit kicked out of me for this, but considering the fact that there are so many people out there in the public eye who fabricate on a daily basis, with consequences far more dire than giving Queen Oprah a black eye for not seeing this one coming, my question is:

Who fucking cares?!!?

Can somebody help me out here? Because my current (and first, let’s be honest here) book is a bit memoir mixed with some fabrication, fudging of the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth, and some existential drama tossed in for emphasis. Basically, my life sorta’ but not really.

If I get the fucker published, and it comes out as a memoir, am I going to have to give back all the body-waxed male hookers, blow and really goddamn good wine I know I’m going to buy from the first wave of riches? I’d like to know now, not because I’m going to not do all the aforementioned things, I’ll just be sure to a.) make sure I have a really motherfucking good time doing it and b.) avoid Oprah. (Which saddens me as, I’ve posted before, her couch is a bit like pop-literary Mecca for me…)

tick-tock...

I had an epiphany this morning. I've been sleeping a lot lately—too much, really—and so I got to bed at a respectable but not too early 12:30 a.m. last night, waking just before my alarm went off at 6:42 a.m. (Don't ask, I like to fool my brain and so I set the väckarklocka for an odd time … I know… I know…)

 

Funny thing about early a.m. is that it really takes the brain on odd journeys down paths—many treacherous and painful, others amusing and inspiring—that don't usually get visited during the busy-brain work-monkey daylight hours.

 

So, I'm laying there it occurred to me I've been going about this growing-aged-hand-me-the-cane-and-coffin-it-might-was-well-be-over time in my life all wrong, and instead of looking at what I, or in most instances, society, tells me I'm missing I should look at what I actually want.

 

I know, it gets tough, especially when you're not doing the usual thing, and you do things like look around a room and realize you're the only person without a wedding or engagement ring.

 

And so, as I was laying snuggled in my L.L . Bean-ly flannel warmies, Gordy the stuffed pig at my side, I decided I've had enough, I'm not waiting around for someone, anyone, the one, the hearts and flowers incarnation of Godot because, and this is the important part: I don't want to. I am still struggling with the raging uncertainty regarding my one—discovered at age 18 and always on the brain and gnawing at the heart—who I summarily kicked to the curb a few years ago, and whether or not I seriously fucked up.  

 

Not that I'm giving up, or plan to head to the Humane Society anytime soon to look at cats, but the pressure has been building at such an impossible clip to get hitched. I'm about ready to hire someone just to get everyone to shut the fuck up because I am tired, and too deep in things I enjoy to stop and find some dude to buy me a bunch of smelling-the-roses-roses.

 

So I'm ignoring the peanut gallery, dedicating my life, and heart, to having a good time… and in the meantime, I've got work to do: Philly Rollergirl tryouts are February 27!!!

Coachella sucks!

Um, yeah, so this has got to be a joke, right? I mean, wasn’t last year’s fest significantly better?

And, ah, sure, like I’m gonna’ pay to see all this collective crap in one place. I’d be afraid I’d go into a lactose-intolerant coma thanks to all the fetid cheese on stage over two days.

Although, oh gosh oh gee, the entire cast of Rent? Ooh, now that’s a teaser….

I always was a tomboy

You Are Boyish Sexy

You're the kind of girl who gets along with all the boys Whether it's holding your own in a game of touch football... Or kicking some major butt while playing Xbox. You hang with the guys easily, while still keeping your girly sexiness.

What Kind of Sexy Are You?

It's My Birthday! Gimme' Stuff!

Is listening to Coldplay an indicator of aging? If so, the birthday that looms before me, growing closer with each annoying buzz of the a.m. alarm clock, must be for real: I’m veering away from the fun 20s living with the roommates emulating the coffee shop — albeit welfare-state — set vaguely reminiscent of fake TV fare such as Friends and barreling full speed ahead into, well, okay: kinda’ old.

Holy shit, if we’re talking scary ’90s TV, I’m Thirtysomething, only this time’s for real. Argh!

But alas, it’s true, I’m no longer on the young side of my third decade. In fact, in a matter of days I shall be smack dab in the center of my 30s, with youthful escapes — out until all hours partying with friends, flirting with people I don’t know, paying rent instead of a mortgage, caring for nothing more attention-intensive than a house plant (and even those have died … sorry Basil…) — being replaced by…

by…

Oh wait, erm. Okay, well, ah… not being replaced so much as, er, happening with less frequency. Heh.

I have to admit that for me, my birthday seems more like New Year’s than the night last week I’m still trying to fully piece together via eyewitness accounts, various news reports, receipts, flashbacks and strangers coming up to me like they know me…

So, as I do every year, with varying levels of scrutiny, I find myself taking stock and looking to where I’d like to be this time next year, (somehow “Take over the world” is always No. 1, yet annoyingly enough, I’m still not. quite. there.) and where I’ve been.

2006 started out with a backwards glance to a decade earlier, in full-on rose colored glasses mode, with a shot of absence (as in “makes the heart…”) for flavor:

West Coast, 1996, sex, drugs, rock and roll…and mice. Lots of them, rivers of them taking over the Oak Street flat; stepping over the crackheads lounging on the front steps as we’d make our nightly Noc-Noc jaunt; Café Abir, Muddy Waters, The Grind, Jeremiah stamping my card on Tuesday nights for lots of free joe when he wasn’t working at Royal Grounds; graveyard shift at Sparky’s with Phil, Jason (yes, that Jason), Kelly…

I vaguely remember marking the occasion of my 25th by getting my nipples pierced, dancing all night, and inhaling enough methamphetamines to keep me wired long enough to piece together a massive quarter-century manifesto, scrawled throughout the night of the 15th and, I thought, a masterpiece until, in the cruel, cold, sleep-deprived daylight it was revealed to have devolved into repetitive scrawling “fuck you fucking fuck motherfuckers fuck,” eventually deconstructing until it was something akin to, but not nearly as noteworthy as, “All fun and no play makes….”

These days are the same in many ways — my character stays pretty much the same no matter what the year, locale or hair color — but I also feel a bit like I’m standing on a precipice.

Which could be kinda’ cool, if I were a windsurfer or something, but as it stands right now I’m pretty sure I’ll feel better once this coming weekend is over… after the hangover subsides, that is!

In the meantime, in the spirit of the glass being half full and all that gobshite, I offer up the following up-to-date inventory of why, old as I may be, I rock and shall continue, until further notice, to get out of bed on a daily basis (excluding hangovers and avian flu):

Gray hair: none (that I know of). And neither I, nor anyone else, will ever know for sure. In fact, my to-do list includes making a living will so as not to become a tool for the religious right should the next car that runs me down hit a bit harder and I end up in Shiavo-esque drooling state on national TV. Included in said document will be a provision for someone to come to my bedside every six weeks to cover any roots and/or gray, pluck eyebrows, give age-renewing glycolic peel and full makeup should I have smudged it while attempting to revegetate brain in order to beat down Frist-like jackass purporting to diagnose me via video feed.

Wrinkles: none, save for the big, ugly one that appeared across the entire expanse of my forehead in high school. In order to make myself feel better managed to do at-home brainwash that I’d actually been abducted by aliens, and that’s where they put my bigger, far superior brain. Unfortunately, I must have gotten alien intern as superpowers seem to consist of sniffing out closest Starbucks and being wildly attracted to mentally unstable, substance abusing, impoverished, jerk-like men.

Mice: There seems to be — knock on wood — only one at my current residence, and he’s teeny-tiny. At least, he was …

Job: Holy shit, I’m employed! Not only that but I actually like where I work, and the people I work with while, at the same time, am paid enough to live on. And, it doesn’t involve schlepping food, drinks, packages or my soul.

Philly: Not my favorite city, but residing in the City of Brotherly Love has it’s own perks (cheesesteaks notwithstanding…). Oh sure, I work in the ’burbs, which comes with its own irony, but this is home. In fact, in those very ‘burbs the original life plan was hatched with compatriot-in-crime Kristin as we made mud pies by the creek and plotted our next escape. (You’d think being brought home in the back seat of a patrol car after running away again would have made a lasting impression…)

Sadly, we never made it to NYC together, never made our love nest with Baryshnikov (making the final season of Sex and the City that much more painful), never got to live the life we envisioned for ourselves from kindergarten.

At least, not totally, not for me: the old toe shoes from over a decade of ballet hang in my parents’ house, I’m halfway to NYC with the amount of time I spend there, and I’m still holding out for the Baryshnikov to my idealistic, hard-headed Gypsy runaway.

In fact, it’s the last part that makes the cliff I may or may not be standing on seem not so bad: there’s hope.

2005 nearly kicked it and everything else out of me, but somehow it’s still there, and that’s the reason, I think, I’m still doing what I’m doing, living my life, not changing a thing for anyone. (Which, I should add, is vastly different from learning what might be best to stop doing, such as the realization while I may get as wild, crazy and out of control as a rock star when I’ve had a bit too much to drink, I do not, repeat, do not have the fame and fortune to back it up…)

There’s just one thing that worries me: Will it literally come crashing down when I slow down?

Granted, I’ve already established the anti-gravity fund in the form of an old glass milk jug full of change (by the time I need it, it should be full, right?), but, I can’t help but wonder if eventually the real world’s going to catch up to me, and just when I think I’ve beat the odds I’ll wake up to find my ass is at my knees, my boobs and belly have melded into one shapeless mass and my chin is where my alleged cleavage used to be!

As it stands, I can practically feel my eyelids begin to droop and the corners of my mouth purse and stay that way when screaming children are around …

Is it only a matter of time?!!?

To be on the safe side, I’ve stocked my Amazon.com Wish List with plenty of age-defying products and goodies, should anyone feel the need to mark the upcoming anniversary of my birth with material goods.

Yes, it’s a whorish plug for stuff, but damnit, why the hell not? he he!

Don't Make Me Hurt You...

If you’re alive and have had any exposure to mass media this weekend, you know that tonight is the big, bad premiere of Rollergirls on A&E.

Essentially, it’s a reality show about tattooed and pierced chicks who skate around a rink and beat the living shit out of each other.

Fucking awesome!

So awesome, in fact, I will not be glazed eyed in front of my usual weekly television viewing pastime, Medium (god I fucking hate TV), but rather will be interested to watch the carnage.

And it’s not just for voyeuristic purposes, I should add, as I out one of my secret aspirations: for a few months I’ve been hearing about the Philly Rollergirls, a group of waaaay more tattooed, pierced and badass chicks than the glossy Texas women from tonight’s show.

I soooo want to be a Philly Rollergirl … so, I e-mailed and asked them to let me know when the next tryout date is.

Now, it really does make sense in light of the chronology of my life:

Ages 2—16: ballet
Ages 4—16: gymnastics
Ages 5—teen: rolling around my concrete and asphalt New Jersey ’hood on rollerskates… that’s right, four wheels for all you younguns out there
Ages 7—18: cheerleading (Captain in high school, no less. That’s right fucker, c’mon, give me a smartass response and I’ll pop you one… er… I mean, go team!)
Ages 18—30-something: chronic mosh pit participant
Ages mid- to late-20s: bike messenger (SF. Fueled by nicotine and caffeine.)

And now, seeing as I’m fucking old, why not continue the body-carnage? I mean, getting smashed up thanks to a little endo this fall was par for the course.

I really just want to hurt people, and unfortunately, when I’m trying to navigate the ridiculously hard to maneuver aisles of Trader Joe’s, driving surrounded by oblivious suburban fucks whenever I travel beyond Center City or my West Philly 'hood, or just attempting to deal with assholes like Aetna health insurance (the single worst company in the history of the entire universe, which should be burned to the ground by angry peasants such as myself for being such motherfucking money grubbing fuckheads who cannot do a single thing right, let alone actually provide any services related to health care, aside from sending out erroneous bills in the hopes that, I’m guessing here, people like me will get so frustrated at their outright lies and utter ineptitude we’ll simply pay up in order to never, ever have to deal with their imbecilic bullshit again. They’re tied for worst “customer service” in the entire universe with Hitler-sled manufacturers Volkswagen as far as I’m concerned. I hate them both. I’d like to get some of the lying assholes they employ in a dark alley some night …. But alas, I digress….)

… anyway, it seems like a good idea….

Of course, if it’s hoity-toity NY Times-level entertainment you’re looking for, you might want to check the listings for Masterpiece Theatre, considering the tone of today’s review by apparent tightwad Alessandra Stanley. In fact, my guess is she’ll be spending this evening attempting to remove the stick that’s jammed so far up her Ivy League ass it probably hurts to sit.

I’m not too upset by the piece, though, considering the fact that she appears to be a moron who makes countless fact errors for a living. (Which, in j-school, gets you an instant F, and in the real world will usually get you fired if you rack up enough, which you'd think she has.)

Of course, considering the fact that we’re pretty much surrounded by idiots at every level of government, I guess stupidity and lazy work is par for the course…

NYE

me, drunk, midnight, the blonde center of a snog sandwich....

not too shabby.

WELCOME 2006!

Please god let it be less horrible than 2005, and for chrissakes, would somebody in D.C. clean some fundamentalist dumbass Texas born again coke addict dry drunk house already?!!?!!?

Sheesh!