If only my mom weren't on Facebook

Today I got sick of reading the status updates of people I went to high school with and my cousins' wives. I'm really fucking tired of hearing about nothing but their kids and husbands. There are a few people in particular I have in mind. With every post it becomes more and more painfully obvious that these women have no real identity of their own.

I had the urge to post in my own status:

I'm so goddamn glad I am not participating in the nightmare of suburban domesticity. I don't know how you people can all be so fucking complacent.

I'm gonna go listen to some trashy goth music and drink wine and make some art now. Just to celebrate.

It wears on you

A big and very lame part of my job is called "lock-ups." Locking it up basically consists of keeping the general public out of the movie, and it is done for various reasons. It entails asking people to wait a few minutes while the Company completes a shot, or altenatively, to divert them entirely to a detour. The NYPD helps us lock up car traffic, but we are entirely responsible for locking up:

Pedestrians, bicycles, rollerbladers, skateboarders, stray dogs, errant squirrels, flash floods, the mentally disabled (homeless and otherwise), the suspicious characters, equestrians, professionals, the elderly, young schoolchildren, the obnoxious Red Bull promo girls, renegade crew members who inexplicably enjoy blowing takes, delivery guys with handtrucks stacked ten feet high, idiots who have their headphones too loud, snobby rich people who believe they are exempt from silly rules, Cyndi Lauper (it happened today), store customers, bike messengers, Postal employees, people with appointments, people with dogs, people with big scary-looking dogs, people with scary-looking faces, the NYPD, the clergy, the paparazzi (they like to be called 'photojournalists'), the starstruck masses hoping to see famous people, and occasionally, some background actors who weren't on their marks on time.

The point is that all these people have lots of stuff to do, and they firmly believe their business is the most important in the world. So in the past, I don't know, week I guess, I have been screamed at, laughed at, hissed at, sneered at, jeered at, nearly spat upon, hit by a bicycle, personally threatened, and called nearly every awful name I have ever thought of.

I'm sure tomorrow the general public of New York will come up with something new for me.


kyle the girl
(on iPhone)

Weird dreams continue: a disturbance in my personal Force.

I just woke up from a really disturbing dream. I was in Ohio visiting my family. I wanted to drive out to see my grandparents, but the only car available to me was a little electric truck with a giant yellow shop vaccuum attached to it. I went to school (Catholic school) with Carolena, the Mother Of All Bellydancers, where I learned dance and filmmaking. There were about six women in my class. Our graduation was flame themed, and I kept obsessing over adding red flames to the yellow and white flame decorations. My dad's parents were the only ones in attendence at the ceremony, and afterwards my grandfather walked up the grassy hill with me in the twilight and gave me sentimental advice. This is completely out of character for him.

I somehow met up with The Starlet, who moved out of out apartment and away to Boston over a month ago. While I was waiting for her at her pole dancing class (which she really does) her frumpily dressed teacher heard I graduated from the Carolena school and asked if I could do a split, demonstrating. Then she showed me her mad breakdancing skills and I suggested that for Halloween she should be one of those kids who breakdances on the subway. Her students thought it was a dumb idea.

Finally Starlet came out of wherever she was, wearing a lace bodystocking and a faux fur stole. A randomly placed gay man asked where she got it and I suggested in my way that maybe it had come from a sexy junkstore. She glared at me and gave the name of a sexy junkstore.

We decided to go to Marshall's together, and I wanted to help her pick things out, but I saw a throw pillow I liked. I got closer and realized it was ugly (I find this type of thing happens often in stores like Marshall's), but I went into the furniture section to see if there were more. I got sort of trapped in a maze of ugly ceramic furniture. Ceramic tables with ceramic chairs. Ceramic bureaus and vanities. Ceramic sofas and end tables and not a stick of wood in sight. I really have no idea how I made my way out.

Here's where I remember stuff way more clearly.

On my way back I traveled on a dusty dirt road and was waved through a cleanup crew, then suddenly realized I saw a couple dead bodies. I figured it was a car accident and carefully drove through the cleanup crew, but suddenly I noticed the bodies were everywhere. I was having trouble avoiding them with my weird electric truck. They were mostly covered at first, but as I kept driving they were just laying out. At one point I saw a whole bunch of them piled up. I tried hard not to freak out but I could feel my heart beat faster and I hit the gas a bit harder. I accidentally ran over a dead woman and I heard the coroner yell at me as I sped away.

I drove to a nice, shady street and got out of the electric truck to call my sister, and while I was on the phone the shop vac part of the truck disengaged and rolled down a hill-traffic was coming, so I had to just watch it fall into somebody's hidden driveway. A woman with a bullhorn came out of the wooded yard and crossed the street, and as she raised the bullhorn to her lips I waved at her and said, "it's mine. I'm sorry." She just walked off in the direction I had come from.

I crossed the street and walked down the driveway. I knew I was related to these people somehow. The woman's husband and their adult son were there with a big rubber industrial hamper, dead bodies leaning upright against it on two adjoining sides. I tried not to freak out. My shop vac had landed in the middle of the hamper, and as the men lifted it out for me they told me they were helping the cleanup crew with the poor people who died in that awful car accident in 1975. I accidentally got splashed with some kind of fluid. I realized there had been no cars on the dusty road I'd driven on earlier. I left them the shop vac, thinking they would have better use of it then me and I walked away, but I woke up before I reached the end of the driveway.

Money makes friendships not-as-good.

So Starlet is moving out. She's going to Boston to live her dream and work toward becoming a veterinarian. Great for her! I'm so happy and proud whenever any of my friends decides to live the dream! Go dreamers!

So today, the day before rent is due, she drops a bomb on me and asks if she can use her deposit as her rent for this, her last month.

Excuse me?

We'd discussed getting the deposit back before - discussed it and said it would come back to her when she moved out, like any deposit. Now she's throwing a fit and saying that since we have a renter for next month it shouldn't be any big deal. She has to pay for her classes. Blah blah.

I need to pay for my LIFE!

I wish I could help her out, but I don't have my rent AND her rent sitting around in a bank account somewhere. I can't just throw money at it and say whatever, I've been pouring every spare dime I have into my credit card debt! If she'd come to me a month ago and told me this was coming I might be able to float her the cash as a favor...but with no notice? I'm not exactly rolling in it, you know? If I was do you think I'd be living in Crown Heights? No! I'd be living in a nice place in Park Slope with roommates who understand that your deposit isn't your last month's rent, it's your DEPOSIT.

Goddammit.

Dealing with my own Clint Eastwood reality

I stopped dating. Some few weeks or couple months ago I just threw in the towel and quit. I stopped answering phone calls, blocked a few IMs and broke off any other communication with people I'd been out with. I declined a couple invitations, "accidentally" confused the day of a date (lame, I know) and then suddenly, blissfully, it was gone. My whole little (microscopic) dating life just poofed away. It made me happy--like cutting off the little nasty bits of fringe of the back of old jeans that you never got hemmed.

When I began I wasn't entirely sure why I was doing it but I think I may just have been looking for the wrong things in the wrong places. I wasn't really interested in anything more than a distraction from my loneliness. I'm not good at this dating crap anyway. It seems to require some bizarre balance of opening up to someone without getting "too close." It makes me feel like both parties are expendable and immediately replaceable which, I think, is opposite of the kind of human interaction that actually feels good.

I am uncomfortable with all the stupid effing rules too, like who pays for what and what that means and what you can't talk about and where you meet and when you call and stupid stupid blah blah blah. I don't want to feel like I'm being judged in the Miss Desirable pageant anymore. Maybe I don't want to be desirable. How come I can't just be my crazy, wacked-out, overaffectionate, space cadet self and if you don't like it, fuck you?

That's kinda where I am right now, with everyone and anyone. I finally get that the world does not really care, so why bother caring so very much? I'll just keep falling on my face, or finding people I don't really honestly care enough about. I don't need to make friends with them--I have plenty of friends, and I'd rather have those. And as for the friends, if they want me they'll call. If they don't call they're not my friends, so why bother? I think I'll let someone else make the effort for a change, and I'll just work on getting some stuff done for myself.

It isn't particularly warm or fuzzy or whatever, but it allows me to feel like I'm not compromising myself or wasting my effort. So far, it's really working out for me; I've been spending some time with my friends and it's been good. Sometimes, like tonight, they all seem to be too tired to go out or otherwise occupied, but whatever. I'll just wander the streets alone. I don't enjoy it nearly as much as when I'm with a friend, but at least I'll be spending my time doing something I like.

kyle the girl
(on iPhone)

PS - The picture came from iamnotfunny's DeviantArt page. Go enjoy, I did!

Pity Party

I'm writing a blues song. It's called "DGA Got Me Down." It's part of my new album, which is entitled, "There Goes Another One." The central theme is how I can't seem to keep any dudes as friends before I go and ruin it somehow and how helpless I feel in my career and how I feel like crap any time I go home.

Not that home is bad or anything, it's okay. It's what I can do right now given what I have to work with. I just kind of wish I had a nicer place. A place worth hanging out in, in a more convenient neighborhood for hanging out. The girls and I are working on it, but it's not easy since I'm still financially recovering from my last stint of unemployment. And also.... I love the girls, but I feel like maybe we want different things in a home. I worry we won't be able to balance our priorities all together.

It's not the living situation that upsets me about home though, it's the being there with nothing else to do. It's the not going out part. I know my job isolates me from keeping up with friends who are doing different things a bit but come on, 10:00 isn't that late, even for a weekday. I want to be out with people. I want to spend my free time talking and laughing and dancing and celebrating. When I'm home lately I just feel like I have nothing to celebrate.

Know why? 'Cause I feel like a failure.

I know the DGA thing was out of my control. It wasn't even decided by anyone involved in the film industry - and the President has taken to saying she thinks it's a sort of remedial program for the less-capable. But I still feel like I failed. I'm stuck, still PAing. Not even set PA, so I'm technically not even working toward anything (if you're a reader you know I'm goal oriented, so you must realize that this has really got me miserable about my current job). I really wanted that trainee spot. I really wanted the health insurance and the computer - stuff I can't afford for myself (did I mention I'm making barely enough to survive and my job is ending soon?). More importantly though I REALLY wanted the opportunity to succeed. I'm a smart, capable girl. I can do almost anything and, given a learning curve, can get good at almost anything. I just need the opportunity...and getting myself the opportunities has always been my biggest challenge. I really need some help with that.

I hate to be a victim and I really hate entitlement, but since I'm having a pity party here I may as well come out and say it: haven't I gone through enough horrible shit that the Universe can just cut me a break? Haven't I? I mean, fuck--my Dad, merciless torment as a child, my alcoholic stepfather, my sick mother, my family who all pretend nothing's wrong and then goddamn Hurricane Katrina! And that's just the big stuff... That doesn't even start with money, which I've never really had, or relationships, which...yeah. Let's not even get into that.

Actually let's. Let's get into that a little, because I'm also dealing with PDF, who suddenly seems to hate me for no good reason; Helicopter, who is supposed to be back from Iraq but still hasn't called or written, no less than three different boys who I am desperately trying to get away from but keep popping up out of nowhere; the Sound Scientist, whose girlfriend hates me and who treats me like it's a chore to hang out; and Cheshire, who, after a barrel full of mixed messages suddenly acts like I don't exist. And remember about a year ago when I was all fucked up over some dude? Yeah suddenly he's chatty again. Mama Squirrel has her own deep dark stuff to deal with, R went away to California just when we were starting to be good friends (xo), and Banana, Thinky and Aunt J have totally disappeared off the planet. AND MY EX-BOYFRIEND IS MARRYING SOMEONE WHO SWF'ED ME AND THEY ARE LIVING IN MY FUCKING HOUSE.

It hurts!

Particularly the disappearing acts and the nonexistent treatment...that crap is my biggest source of interpersonal angst. It makes me feel like a fool for even trying and for actually caring about people. I probably am a fool. I feel like there has to be something I'm doing wrong. I feel like I ruin everything I touch.

I just want a reason to be happy again. I was so happy when I first got here to New York. I want someone to shake me and tell me to snap out of all the self pity and fear. I want someone--friend, lover, whatever, it's not about that--to think I'm special and to really care. I mean, think I'm kinda special...to come out of everything that's happened to me and still be standing on my own two feet--albeit barely--is pretty fucking special.

I know I have friends. Good friends, who care. I know that disappearing is not any reason to discount them from caring. I know they have their own stuff going on and that the world does not revolve around me. But I have a void, a best friend void. I want someone who will be my go-to, the Butch to my Sundance, the Ethel to my Lucy, the Peter to my Wendy... I've always had that, ever since I can remember. There's always been one person who was stuck to me like glue and vice versa. Best of friends. Partners in crime. Peas in a pod. Someone to laugh with and have antics with, but also someone I can cry to, because lately I really need a good cry.

It embarrasses me to say these things in public like this, but I really want to blow off this steam just the same. It's therapeutic and will make me feel better. So now, please forget everything I just wrote. Go back to thinking I'm bright and chipper and completely invincible, because I don't like showing my face this way and I'd much prefer you to see me smiling and pressing courageously onward in my adventures.

Stolen Identity!

This ho stole my identity!

I was Miss Adventurous six months before she came around. Just who does she think she is, trying to say SHE's adventurous? She's a kindergarten teacher or something, not a fabulous unemployed moviemaking rock star like me.

I guess I can share. I mean, whatever...they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... If people want to aspire to be just like me then it just goes to show how amazingly cool I am, right?

Right??

Cheers, assholes.

So a few months ago at this awesome party, Banana Payroll and The Art Shrew and I were approached by some nice enough lady. We talked to her for a while, but as the evening wore on she got progressively more and more drunk and more and more obnoxious. We tried to walk away from her, but she just kept following us around, sloppily raising her wine glass and slurring, "Cheersssh, assholeshh." Try as we might to just leave the situation with some dignity and do our own thing our own way, she was just so lame and pathetic that she could not let us go and she kept making the situation worse for everyone. I don't know, maybe she was fascinated by our ability to just move on with our lives.

I feel like this is the perfect metaphor for today.

So.

Yeah, I write down my feelings--sometimes those are hard to deal with and I write things out of anger or frustration... But I give myself this outlet so that I can keep the anger and frustration out of my life. After all, I would hate to become so lame and pathetic that I can't let someone walk away from a bad situation without making it worse for them. Right?

"Cheers, assholes!" has become a sort of rallying cry for Payroll and Art Shrew and I. Life got you down? "Cheers, assholes!" In a dating slump? "Cheers, assholes!" Stressed out? "Cheers, assholes!" Lost your job? "Cheers, assholes!"

We own it now; it's ours. We have taken her attempt at insulting us and completely subverted it.

The three of us have danced with Rock Bottom, so when someone treats us like crap it just rolls off our backs now. We're used to it, and we're prepared to laugh in its face. We have nothing to lose because we expect nothing. It's like walking into battle with no armor, just a body full of scars...you're not afraid of one more. So by all means, raise your glass of wine with me, give a "Woo!" and sing it out to the world at large, to each other, to anyone who will listen. Say it with love. Say it with irony. Say it just because it sounds good.

"CHEERS, ASSHOLES!"

In which I bitch about Blogger

Okay, seriously. Why does Blogger not yet have an app for the iPhone?

I know, I know...Google is launching some awesome gPhone or something, so they probably think Steve Jobs is the devil or something, but COME ON. Third party apps have been free and clear for a month! Wordpress has an app...and I've played with it here and there and it's not half bad. It would be so nice to be able to use my iPhone to publish a nice looking entry like this one instead of a funky-formatted mess like this one.

That is all.

Knee high by the Fourth of July.

The only available seat in the subway car was near a group of five young boys. They were around thirteen or so, all gangly limbs and awkward movement. They were all Middle Eastern, their voices cracking to the consonant-heavy, percussive cadence of their language. They had with them a black plastic bag; one of the recycled bags that are stocked by all the bodegas.

One of the kids reached into the bag and distributed small packages of cheese doodles and corn chips...the generic kind that come with extra grease. They each reached grabby hands in for a plastic bottle of "juice" too. You know what I'm talking about...it's basically corn syrup and water, with a hint of tangerine...

They guzzled the liquid corn. They used their fingers to scoop handfuls of fried corn into their mouths. The salt in the snacks made them thirsty and they drank more. Watching this, my own mouth became parched as I imagined the thick sugar water sliding down their throats and totally failing to deliver the clean H2O their cells needed. I knew that in about a half hour, when their bodies noticed the lack of nutrients in the food, as the high-fructose corn syrup blocked communication between belly and brain, they would be hungry again, craving more of those salty snacks and sugary drinks.

They would each shove a few snacks into their mouths and then wipe dirty fingers all over their pant legs. One boy left greasy streaks on his blue shorts. Two of the kids were standing and holding on to bacteria-infested subway poles, alternating hands to reach into their own snack bags or each other's snack bags or lick fingers or wipe mouths. They all fought grabbily over a PSP--I can only guess how many varieties of diseases the thing carried.

On their way out, the boys were good about staying clean...one tried to furtively leave his plastic bottle under the seat and the other four clearly chided him for it, making him pick it up and return it to the black bag with the rest of their trash. They all swarmed out the door at Canal Street and the bag holder did a little lay-up motion, tossing the bundle into a garbage can. As the train pulled away I saw one of the boys picking his teeth through a window full of greasy fingerprints.

Mmm, corn.