back in new york! i love you new york!

okay super quick update.

minus 1: aerobed
minus 1: a father who keeps the house at 64 degrees
minus 1: not having sunglasses on a sunny fucking ride to poughkeepsie
plus 1: new phone!
plus 1: great battery life!
plus 1: phone has qwerty keyboard!
plus 1: UNLIMITED TEXTS!
minus 1: $160 for a NOT A COOL iPHONE!
plus 1: sister figured out how to get old pics from old phone!
minus 1: poughkeepsie.
plus 1: got along with family! had fun!
plus 1: presents!
minus 1: terrible allergies --> asthma from papa's house.
minus 1: having FIVE heavy bags to bring on metronorth.
minus 1: ticket to 125th street from poughkeepsie: 18 fucking dollars.
minus 1: carrying 5 HEAVY bags to train, getting on train and walking to apartment (almost collapsed).
plus 1: apple crisp!
plus 1: gen-u-ine new york starbucks iced caramel macchiato!
plus 1: harold night! friends! comedy! chelsea!
plus 1: jammin with ralph!
plus 1/minus 1: own performance in jam
plus 1: mcmanus
minus 1: 6 train running express
plus 1: 6 train running local north of grand central
plus 1: tate's cookies, bodegas AND tuna fish sandwiches
plus 1: a sweet cat!
minus 1: crazy asshole cat PUTTING A DAMN HOLE IN MY NEW DAMN MITTEN.
plus 1: new years! dresses! parties! friends! dancing!

okay i am done. i don't feel like doing the math BUT here's the result of the equation: I AM GLAD TO BE BACK IN NEW YORK I'M GONNA GO GET IN MY BED NOM NOM NOM!

note to self, via george carlin:
language / big world / little world

p.s. attitude!

still. in. maine.

i need to get out of here. i think i'll just walk to camden; it's like a quarter mile down the street, and i can get some espresso and sit at a cafe table and pretend i am in brooklyn. but have people SMILE friend...-ily at you. that's a thing they do, apparently. i forgot about that. people kept smiling politely and warmly at the grocery store yesterday. and points to hannaford's too, they actually had sabra hummus, which is kind of the best hummus.

oh yay, another home-for-the-holidays blogpost from someone living in the city, SHOCKED at the friendliness and availability of common goods in the uncharted backwaters of the SUBURBS!!!1 how tiresome.

i think we are going to stop at a verizon store tomorrow so i can pick out a new phone. i've had a really shitty razr for just about 2 years, which i loathe to the core of it's shitty battery and terrible software navigation. maybe if i have a phone i like i'll actually USE it to call people! right! that should be plenty of impetus to get one, right? eh i don't care. all phones that aren't iphones or smartphones seem to totally suck right now, so i don't really care what i get as long as it's nicer / more functional than what i have. which shouldn't be hard.

boring!

i have been charged with two creative challenges: 1) write a paragraph of hemingway as douglas adams would, and a paragraph of adams as hemingway would write it and 2) write 3 jokes so nerdily embedded into the world of dune as to be too inexplicably intertwined as to not be funny or even understandable to someone without an intimate and immediate knowledge of
DUNE. i am less entranced with actually doing either of these than the idea that i was given the challenge to do them. my friends is CRAZY!

i am too tired to get ready for bed.

in maine. back in this gorgeous guest house. utterly exhausted. i got like 4 hours of sleep last night.

i am even failing at blogging. sigh. i need to shower and make a bed up. i am such a brat! i am a jerk!

okay. i WILL get up and take a shower and try to get some rest so i am not a jerk for the rest of my family time.

new york, i miss you. will you have me back?

and NOW i'm hungry. great!

john frusciante, you're always right!

i am watching craig ferguson, which is not a show i usually attempt to catch, but i think i love it. i've been a fan of mr ferguson since the drew carey show, and following him in several adorable british tragicomedies, and have seen the show on occasion, but DAMN - his opening bits are so fun. he revels in how fun it is, which i singularly adore. i think i'll try to watch it more regularly. and grill john reynolds about the show when i get a chance. i don't know about the quality of the rest of the show, but i am enjoying the monologues. plus he's an addict who's overcome adversity AND he loves rolling his eyes. and 'R's, being all scottish and all.

oh man, newbury comics still exists? point to you, new england.

there's actually a fair amount of shopping i want to do in MA, but i will not get the chance. maybe this will encourage me to come back more often. jk, it won't.

long and rambling / seriously i mean it / don't read this

---- midnightish, christmas day -----

very fun day, although i had a little freak out on the path train to hoboken (where you catch the new jersey transit train that takes you up metro-north to new york. obviously.) because i kind of hate new trains and traveling. once i have taken a particular train or trip a couple times, i am fine; but at first, i loathe it. there is a reason i never thought i would live without a car; i much prefer driving and being in control over fucking asshole trains being inexplicable. but it's also probably better for me. anyway, there is basically no signage at the 14th street path train, which is fucking infuriating. i just guessed and got on the first train that came; always a great fucking idea with new york metro area trains, right? and fortunately the hoboken path train is connected to the NJ transit station-that's-actually-the-metronorth-west-train-line. OBVIOUSLY.

remind me to go to the doctors. my heart keeps beating weird. and not in a romantic, fluttering-heart-clenching-pit-of-your-deepest-being associated-most-commonly-with-love' way. in a real 'i should probably be scared by this but instead i just find it kind of interesting way'. i don't get dizzy from it, but i am also fairly convinced your heart shouldn't go 'thumpthumpthump ---(ominous pause)--- bumpdathumpthump thump da bump thump da bump'.

------the next day-------

it's late. well, late in the day when i should be traveling already. i still need to pack and head to boston. i am not looking forward to it. i am in a way, i want to see my family, but i need a day of nothing, no travel or anything. sigh. i gotta get ready now. and i need to clean and get the apartment cat stocked / ready.

i am trying to decide if i should bring my usual giant back-packing bag or a big duffle bag instead. and i think i am bringing my laptop home too, which is another weight / thing to pack.

god damn this is boring. sorry everyone. i kind of suck. self-loathing is a terrible, wonderous, motivating, paralyzing thing.

nicole's family was a total blast and i had a really fun time with nicole and chris. it was maybe the first time i've ever gone to a friend's family's house for dinner and they just put food out, let you get it yourself, and didn't subsequently nag you about what you ate or didn't eat. it was heavenly. i did have to take my shoes off at nicole's parent's house (AHGHGHGHGGGGHH) but fortunately not at her aunt's, where we had dinner. i've gotten a lot better* about most of my peculiar OCD dislikes, but the shoes one is NOT one of them.

---------later still--------

i am on the bus. i was going to try to take bolt bus for $20 instead of fung wah for $15, but you seem to need to print out your boarding pass for bolt bus, and i don't have a damn printer at my house. they have internet on their busses; worth it! however, instead i am on a shitty fung wah bus, sans internet but plus laptop. and $5, for that matter. i missed the 4:00 bus because the idiot woman in front of me in line at the atm took FOREVER. and i needed to get cash because i damnedly forgot to get anything for the super / cleaning guy for my building, so i awkwardly shoved some money in an envelope and signed it from me and tay. i'd also left some trash outside my door to take out in the morning, and he'd brought it down for me. i don't even know his name. i. am. an. asshole!

------a bit later-------

bus stopped at a rest area. thank goodness. i'd had to use the bathroom on board the bus, and while i had used a pre-moistened washcloth thingy, and a spray hand sanitizer, but it's not enough!!!1 washing is categorically different from just wiping cleaning stuff on your hands. so i washed my hands and even bought a 6 piece chicken nugget. the only fast food i ever eat is wendy's, which is hardly fast food, and the last two times i had mcdonald's (over a year ago, at least), i've gotten rashes. so we'll see how bad of an idea that was soon.

there's some guy clapping really loudly along to his music across the aisle from me on the bus - like he's a flamenco dancer. it's fucking annoying. oh good, the guy in front of me made him stop. interesting!

i've been reading dune; it's finally starting to catch my attention. it has foreshadowing 'retrospective' passages at the head of each 'chapter', which always kind of stress me out about shit that hasn't even happened yet. gods, i am so weird. i am reminded of a toothpaste for dinner blog entry; 'it's exhausting being this weird, but thank goodness i am not normal'. i've probably butchered that terribly and bent it to suite my nefarious needs. like usual.

---- a poem (?) -----
the smell of sadness; nicotine pouring off a man's coat
a memory; the smell of stuckness; old nicotine and big red gum
but it's okay if he's grinning.
recycled air on a bus; the smell of frustration
that kind of headache that hovers around the sides of your head; but doesn't quite dare to settle in fully.
screaming, running kids in mcdonalds; the sound of family that wants a quiet car.
looking out through severe glasses - punishing weak eyes by taking them off.
an old couple leaning against each other like newly-in-love teenagers; they've already begun looking like each other. i can tell their genders, but only with some effort.
how to say something to someone when you barely understand it yourself.
i guess that's most communication though. we just usually pretend we know what we're talking about.
i don't respect bitterness and resentment marinated and turned to cruelty; the lashing out of immaturity.
don't get afraid; get angry. and there's so much to be afraid of.


----- a clarification -----
*okay not really that much better. a little better though. although i've had to start not letting myself redo things if they 'feel' wrong. that's a little too crazy, even for me.


------just kidding, gonna keep writing-----

thinking about college a lot lately. maybe because i was able to see takacs on xmas eve. maybe not though. i dunno, that's not the point. college was.so.huge; you learn so much, so fast. i loved it. that first fall break home, when i felt like i had grown up entirely in 2 months and was treated the same; meeting the preppy WASPS; shockingly, growing up in a rural, swamp yankee backwater of massachusetts affords little insight into that particular population subset. a capella! gah that shit is HUGE at elite liberal arts schools; the groups, the politics, the greek aspects; the DRAMA. and the music is usually decent. i guess i just get to laugh extra hard at andy on the office. the only a capella i have is one copy of 'insomniac' from rachel's ham tech mix. i am glad i have it.

some lyrics to leave you with:
angel you sing
about beautiful things
and all i wanted to do
was believe
but i traded my dreams
for this mess of memories
and they just stopped working for me
-matt nathanson



there's no meaning
in clothes and coffee cups
cheap hotel furniture
where silence never stops

through the water
through the rain
to the soul of everything
i throw my heart out
on the stones
and i'm almost gone

and now i'm dreaming
i'm staring at the walls
the cars all frozen now
in late night waterfalls
-david gray

we just passed a bob's discount furniture. still on the damned bus. i brought my lighter, but longer coat. hope it's enough for massachusetts -> maine -> poughkeepsie. the national weather service seemed to think it was going to be quite mild all weekend, and in all those places

------ home in uxbridge, several hours later------

home, in my parent's living room, watching friends. damn satellite tv recorder. ate pizza with my parents. got yelled at for swearing by my mom. sorry mom, you don't get to tell me not to swear after... 7 years ago. and i learned it all from youuuuu!!

i am washing all my clothes so i don't bring any cat hair to maine. my dad's family has a ton of allergies.

okay, i am seriously going to end this now. NOW.

rash update: no rash yet.

happy holidays

i am about to go get a down blanket from my room, and then snuggle up on my couch, dim the lights and sip down on my spiced hot chocolate with hand cut marshmallows, and lie in wait for my nemesis, the infernal st. nicholas. you'll not avoid my poison'd arrowtip another year, you fiendish elf!

gonna lay some realness down on ya.

my cat's kind of freaking out. i think he misses teh roommate. he'll be all sweet and lovely for about 25 minutes, and then he starts freaking out, attacking ghosts or some shit. CRAZY! see!? he just ran around the living room twice and half jumped on my stomach. weirdo!

i managed to pull my left leg / ass muscles while teching a show last night. god damn i hate teching at the creek. the booth is in the ceiling and next to the heater; it was at least 95 degrees up there - i SMELLED by the end of the 2.5 hour show. and it has the most awkward ladder / stairs ever. and i'm always convinced i am about to fall 16 feet to the floor. and my leg hurts like hell. i ran around all day at work, limping like an ass. walking around my apartment with a cane is actually much more comfortable, but i don't think i have the gall to leave the house with it. hopefully this won't take too long to clear up. but ow!

phrases: i go through phrase phases; lately my thing's been to call any number 'a billion'. not very interesting. but i have been swearing by saying 'holy cock and balls'. not very interesting either, but there it is. and i like to put a good ole 'jiminy CRICKET!' when i am really astonished/appalled by something.

improv thoughts: i am terrified of making mistakes. i will put things off for months because i am afraid of failing or fucking up - and yet i go onstage and make shit up with other people in front of other people. i mean. what's wrong with me? i can't puzzle that out. however, i have decided to not be mad at myself for fucking shit up onstage. i have PLENTY of other shit to loathe myself for. i don't need to hate myself for making shit up with other people. ALWAYS HAVE FUN. i'll forget that.

people thoughts: people are pretty awesome. i keep replaying some conversations from this weekend in my head and laughing at how fun it was. parties! people! fun! also thinking about an old friend. i learned a hard lesson from him; disappointing people. it's vital. we cannot be everything to anyone. if we, as humans, are lucky, we can be everything to someone. or if we're, probably equally, lucky we can be a lot to a bunch of people. but we (i) have to disappoint. lying to people to try to please them NEVER works, and is hurtful to the person you're lying to. MORE hurtful than just displeasing or letting them down. it's a lesson i had a hard time swallowing; both that my friend was... not nearly the person he portrayed himself as and also that i needed to do that myself. my mom is very much a people pleaser - she can't say no. that's not quite the same thing as trying to BE everything to people, but it's similar. fortunately, i am more of a bitch than my mom, and i can say no. however, the core lesson is one i needed to learn, because i want people to like me, and i am at least reasonably skilled at being likable. regardless, i was reminded of the lesson today. lessons! eventually they don't suck! (right?)

new favorite game: watching the people in the background of antiques roadshow jealously looking on at people getting jackpot appraisals. also, being grossed out by the outfits.



see? now the cat's asleep. weirdo!

a random miscellany of thoughts and the promise of an update unfulfilled

it's fucking cold outside motherfuckerrrrrs.

attention: ladies; wear more than tights when it's 13 damn degrees outside! i am wearing legging UNDER my heavy jeans and freezing my damn ass off.

i am now ready for the damn holidays already.

i am not leaving the city until the 26th, and have some rough plans in place already, but if someone's around and wants to hang out, let me know. i'll being a slightly more social version of my first christmas alone; that's good, right? yeah i am pretty sure it is.

that's IT

i hearby declare not to care whether or not anyone thinks what i have to say is interesting or valid! e.g. i am listening to matchbox 20 right now.

expense reports are making me insane.

so is procrastination.

my tv is on my cedar trunk. it looks adorable. and so, so small. tay had a massive plasma HD tv. roommates!

i think i need more caffeine. and also, to stop drinking so much caffeine.

i saw a two people get into a nearly full-blown fight on the train platform last night. i didn't walk away, and i stayed right close so that i COULD intervene, but i didn't. my brain just kind of strangled out 'AUTHORITY! PLZ! SOMEONE IN A UNIFORM TAKE CARE OF THIS!'. finally a goth kid got up and stood between them. the guy in the fight wasn't huge, but he was definitely bigger than the woman he was shoving all around the platform. i feel like a fucking dick. thanks A LOT, stanley milgram.

damn it, firefox

i had a pretty solid entry going, which i actually 'liked' according to the scale of how loathsome i generally find my writing, and firefox fucking ate it. it's been kind of sucking lately, which i hate because firefox is supposed to be awesome. i was sold on its awesomeness factor. and the fact that it is the default browser for my company!

lately firefox's been totally fucking up my emails in gmail, and the formatting on most blogspots. if gchat or the codes on the messagboards i frequent were also getting fucked up, i would probably be moved to see if there was something i could do to fix it or update something, but instead i choose to be annoyed by it on a daily basis.

unrelated: expense reports can choke on a big fucking bag of broken dicks.

mr. stephen fry recently wrote a blog entry about taking joy in language that really got to me; i think i stopped or at least smothered my instinct for this part way through college in an attempt to make myself into an intelligible writer. however, lately i am finding that i am giving myself leeway in playing with the sounds and flow of language as i utterly fail to write things that are cohesive and interesting, or even have legible syntax. but i'd rather have fun with words, i think. and maybe eventually hire a life-editor.

i leave you with a quote:
'i have to believe i am a desperately pathetic lyricist... or i will become the desperately pathetic lyricist i know that i am.'
-david john matthews

the phrase

'aw, you guys would make a great couple!' should be banned henceforth from all lexicon.

that's all.

here's an animated GIF for your time:

see?

told ya so.

eliza wins our battle-that-is-not-at-all-a-real-battle-in-that-it-exists only-in-my-mind by her latest her efforts in the field of descriptive violence on the internet. see? i SHOULD have read comic books as a kid! hey maybe i'll check out the watchmen you guys!

oh god, why is my dick full of poison?!

counting crows, damn yooooooou!

oh man! i just remembered! i am supposed to hate the counting crows for canceling a show on us my freshman year of college! shit, i TOTALLY forgot about that until just now.

that was such a big deal when it happened. wow. i guess i have to 'unlike' the 6 songs of theirs i recently got for the first time ever and decided i kind of liked.

remembering! it's crazy!

finished

i finished 'watchmen' last night. i think kevin hines was right, not the best one to start with. i'll probably try V for Vendetta next. or sandman, but that's a pretty big undertaking.

ugh i feel like shit.

oh and quick review of son of a witch: good but not satisfying. and i doubt the one in the series that just came out is going to add to or change that.

this happened friday night.

friday, i had a show at the creek in long island city but it ended in plenty of time for me to make it to the east village for the rogue show, so i did. and it was plenty of time. people performing had been concerned that there wouldn't be enough people at the show so i decided to make the effort. plus i hadn't seen rogue in ages and i love them. however, to my pleasant surprise, the place was packed and the only seat available that wasn't in the front row (and i won't sit in the front row) was an awkward stool, so i perched on it for 20 minutes. then literally 1 minute before the show started, nate asked me to tech for them, so i popped up into the booth, tried desperately to figure out how he'd set up the lights, and switch the music and start the show. it was a little frantic, but it worked. they like a really tight, short show and i've finally learned to just accept it and do what they want. i am so opinionated! but anyway it was fun. we trapsed over to grassroots, where a table of hot girls assembled to talk about boys and laugh at them and fulfill all their nightmares about what girls really think of them. generally, a fun night.

HOWEVER, UPON PREPARING TO DEPART early saturday morning, i walked to the back of the bar to find two guys GOING THROUGH MY PURSE. one had my IPOD in HIS HAND. i flipped some serious shit. i snatched my ipod away and started berating the kid and going through my purse to make sure everything was still in it (it was), and found that they’d broken my damn eyeglasses case and pulled stuff out and then shoved it back in. the guy made some comment to the effect that they thought ‘anyone who had that music and was reading 'watchmen' was a friend of theirs'. ??? i don’t know how that makes going through someone’s shit okay, but apparently he thought it did. he asked me if i wanted any money for my glasses case and i said no, but i probably should have said yes. UGH. at least i caught him and was able to berate him for it for a few minutes.

many drunk thanks to my drunk friends who tried to drunkenly follow the drunk guys out and drunk punch them. fortunately the assholes had left so no one could get into trouble. friends are pretty awesome, you guys.

fucktards. i should have gotten his name too. assholes!

the rest of my weekend was spent in a weird haze. i guess i was just tired. still trying to bust out of it now.

longest harold night of the year tomorrow. this year's marks the 3rd anniversary of the first harold night i ever saw! nerdy!

what? no!

my last post got all kinds of erased, but the gist of it was that i am now reading 'watchmen' for the first time, and i am having to learn how to read comic books, because it's not like regular reading. i got it on tuesday, and it's slow going, but i like it so far.

then i was waiting for a train last night in the miserable rain (the entrance to the C E at 25th street was FLOODED ENTIRELY - there was no possible way to get to the entrance from the stairs with out jumping into several inches of water. i swore for a bit and then walked to the 23rd street entrance). i was reading said graphic novel when a guy approached me and said 'that's watchmen', to which i tried to reply non-sarcastically, as the title is emblazoned upon the front of the book in black and yellow. we began talking, and he assured me he was 'not just some guy', but rather from the UCB. apparently he'd just taken kate spencer's class (which met while i was the intern on duty) so he recognized me. kate was really great about telling her class to see the 'In A World...' shows, so several of the class did. Apparently this not-just-some-guy-but-rather-a-UCB-guy had been told about me (?) by someone else, who raved about 'THIS GIRL WHO KNOWS EVERYTHING ABOUT COMIC BOOKS!!1'. presumably because i have a vagina, this is exciting and noteworthy news.

however, because i am a nerd, i felt the need to insist to him that i actually didn't know much about comic books at all, despite being caught red-handed reading the Graphic Novel to End All Other Graphic Novels, which is in and of itself ABOUT comic book characters, and having done the core scene of a comic book characters deconstruction show (which, i assume, is what this other person had gathered his conclusions from). i went on to explain that i was having a hard time reading 'watchmen', and that all i know about comic books comes from either the early 90's x-men cartoon or 'the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay'. and thinking back to that show (which i don't even like doing, as it was pretty frustrating show), the only real cache i had was that jean grey was phoenix... but x-men 3 established that! it's not even cool to know that anymore, right? i don't know because i don't know that much about comic books.

i felt guilty! i wanted to point out all my friends who are INFINITELY bigger comic book fans than myself, merely by dint of actually liking comic books! brett white! matt little! dave bluvband! will hines! kevin hines! basically everyone i know! or eliza skinner! she's hilarious, gorgeous, possessing of a vagina and ACTUALLY knows about comic books! like, knows a lot, as far as i can tell, which isn't that far because HAVE I MENTIONED I DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW MUCH ABOUT COMIC BOOKS!! i was looking for anything to assure him that i didn't presume to actually have any real knowledge about comic books.

but he didn't ever seem to believe me. so i can only conclude, that thanks indirectly to kate spencer, i now have a reputation for being both a comic books expert and a pathological liar! thanks! THANKS A BUNCH KATE SHEESH!

not really, kate's the best. i am just... weird. it was weird. i guess i just need to be more careful about where i read that book. but really it was weird to be known, in whatever small and specific way. stop it! don't know me! i'm nothing! i haven't even read batman year one! BAD NERD!

however, in related 'in a world...' news, i am heading out to do sweaterprov at the creek in LIC with a mash up of the two teams (just who was available to do it, we haven't changed the line up). the show is free and at 8 pm. come out if you want!

room available jan 1

a room in my lovely east harlem abode is opening on january 1. the building is gorgeous. 1.5 mintues from the 6 train, 8 minutes to the 2/3 express. decent sized room with a big window, high ceilings, hardwood floors.

i have a cat. he’s very affectionate.

let me know if you are interested or know anyone who is. khealywu at gee mail dot com. i shall provide a plethora of more details upon request.

no weekend, no cry

i ended up having to cover part of a shift on saturday and an entire shift on sunday at the training center. having to be there at 10:45 isn't THAT early, but i want to level with you, internet, that when the single thing you love most about your weekends is that you can and will get up whenever you damn well please, it sucks. also i like to sleep as close to 12 hours as i can manage at least one night a week. and i tend to really enjoy my anti-social days. unless i call my sister, on a weekend day i might only talk to the starbucks person, my cat and / or myself. i like it. i get really into some music and read most of a book and walk around the east village and debate with myself if i should get thing terrible to eat or just wait until i am home to eat something terrible there. or i do something totally different, because i can. now i am at work and feel like i didn't get a weekend. don't get me wrong, i actually had a lot of fun chatting with people at the offices, and i got a mere handful of annoying calls about ASSSSSSSCAT. and i got a lot of reading done. but it didn't feel very weekendy, and last weekend was weird too, with the holiday, and i just need a break.

i almost got into a fight with a rude bitch of a bartender last night. i book a lot of shows at the parkside lounge, mostly because on of my BFFs from college does all their booking and i also love the staff. unfortunately, last night i didn't know anyone working and the bartender working later in the evening gave me some huge attitude about turning the music down in the front of the bar. it was SUPER loud in the back (someone had turned the bass way up, which was part of the problem; bass travels more) and her bitchy retort to me (nicely) asking them to turn the music down was that they had a bar to run. no fucking way, lady, i know, that's why the two comedy shows you have scheduled tonight brought 60 plus people to your PREVIOUSLY EMPTY BAR. there were 3 people there who weren't either performing or attending the shows, and of those three, only one was a patron of the bar, the other two were staff people. i was livid, but tried to be bigger about it, and explain the situation to her again after i'd cooled down. she suggested that i mic the stage (i explained that it wasn't possible) so she just fucking pulled out that they had a bar to run again, and that they'd turned the music down twice already. which wasn't true; they'd turned it down once when i'd asked and then she'd turned it back up about 2/3s of the way through my show. i was pissed again, nearly froze to death walking to the train, and i think almost got into a fight with some mexican dude who thought i was calling him a cunt. obviously, i emailed my awesome friend to tattle on the bitch.

>breathe< i stopped by whole foods and bought a serving of ginger bread with toffee ginger sauce and vanilla ice cream. it helped!

i saw part of a show on TLC called 'living as a giant' and during the course of the show, a guy who'd been measured as 7'5" was measured by a doctor who declared him 6'10"; he looked so miserable that i had to change the channel out of embarrassment. apparently his spine might have curved, but i think even a super tall guy like would have noticed losing 7 inches in height. shudder. i will also change the channel when watching the soup do segments on andy rooney or that willard scott because their old-person social ineptitude and weirdness embarrasses me. so... i guess what i am saying is that i never want to meet willard scott.

sorry, this isn't a funny, clever, uplifting or even particularly cohesive post. there's not really even any point to it, i am just bitching. i am going to put this out of me here, so that when i see you i will be lovely and happy and interested in you, cool? i don't really care, i am doing it anyway.

more book reviews for books no one but me would be interested in

i grabbed a couple books when i was home in massachusetts; at the very barnes and noble i used to work at after i graduated from college! i had wanted to pick up one of stephen fry's novels and a book by bernard cromwell that an intellectual, currently studying english at oxford friend of mine suggested. however, the B&N didn't have the particular cromwell book (the winter king) and had NOTHING by stephen fry, which i took as a personal affront. i also saw a girl working who had been there when i worked there, and who i am pretty sure was my age. i felt all sad for her, and then like a jerk for pitying her (maybe she LIKES working a steady job in a nice town and didn't want to be working as a 'comedian' in new york, eh!?) and ultimately fled away from her, and towards the fantasy section.

WHERE i happened to see that 'son of a witch' had finally come out in mass market paperback (it first came out over 3 years ago, so it took awhile) so i decided to grab it. it is the sequel to 'Wicked' by gregory maguire, which still stands as one of the most intensely epic novels i have ever read. i am sure that makes me sounds like a prattling idiot; 'omg they made a musical out of it so sexy i love singing omg LOL OLOLLll'. well, the book manages to be about civil rights, the gold standard, genocide, love, family, aids, and the process of growing up. not to mention trauma and friendship and magic and 1930's middle america. and all those themes are in one, generally cohesive story. i've never seen the musical, and i understand it's WAY simplified, but it's an instance of the source material being GREAT so i am not surprised it's been fucking huge. anyway, i haven't read it since 2005, in part because it's an intense and emotional book for me. i definitely cried in public while reading at least one part. not as much as i cried during the last 1/5 of 'the dark tower' though. and i was on a chinatown bus. and i am pretty sure some girl i went to college was sitting across the aisle from me. sigh.

ANYWAY, i just started 'son of a witch' and i am looking forward to finishing. i am kind of regretting not rereading wicked before starting it, but i think i've remembered most of it now.

the other book i got was 'the alchemyst' by michael scott (lulz). i'd seen the damn things every where for the past year or so, but had avoided picking it up because on suspicion of it sucking balls. unfortunately for me, it was, indeed, pretty terrible. similar to 'twilight' in that it's a GREAT idea hacked to death by a sub-par writer. it's like if harry potter was written by whatever abortion wrote the babysitter's club. i was hoping that the young adult / children's authors coalition would realize, once and for all, after harry potter that they don't need to write as if they expect their audience to be mentally handicapped guppies with 3 second attention spans. i was wrong, it seems. the author's irish too...disappointing. i don't really feel like describing the plot, but it's kind of like... american gods written by the babysitter's club in 2008. yeah, that's pretty much it.

Reading! It's FUN-damental!

HA!

i love being right.

my team tried to convince me that isabella rossellini was the daughter of ingrid bergman (yes) and INGMAR BERGMAN (what? no.)... i responded that i was pretty sure she was half italian, and they responded that she'd probably married into the name. since i couldn't think of any italian directors besides fellini at the time, i dropped it, even though i was positive they were full of shit.

bam i win.

although to be fair, one of roberto rossellini and ingrid bergman's other children was name 'roberto ingmar'. damn italians-swedes.

In a World...

my first 600 class' last show of our run was last night and it was totally awesome. both teams really nailed the form and the show generally, AND we all had a ton of fun. i loved my team so much! the class was a great experience, and had it's share of serious ups and downs, but we really pulled together last night and i am beyond proud of the whole class.

which leads me to my next point: how fucking proud i am of the illustrious harold team whorenado. they had some serious struggles early on, and at some point (i choose to believe it was sometime after their kickass performance at my show, the lorelei) they all decided to commit SO HARD to their team, and commit to extra rehearsals and commit selflessly to their teammates. and their hard work has paid off so much recently. they support each other's weaknesses and ideas in such a fucking fun way. this is extremely cheesy, but their example has given me a ton of hope about the power of attitude and commitment in improv. they are obviously all talented individuals, but they are a great TEAM because they are all working so hard to commit and support that TEAM. OMG I LOVE WHORENADO.

<3
katey

p.s. Always pack a suit, even if you think you aren't going to need one. ~ Anton Chekov.

exhausting

i have a bunch of stuff to do today, work-wise. far more stuff than i actually have time to do. normally i would just ignore most of the work until i was about to be in trouble for not doing it, and then do it all quickly (i suck) but today i just feel fucking tense and stressed out about it. i think it's mostly because i need to eat something and i can't seem to get that croissant into my mouth.

sigh.

my apartment's really clean though.

i listened to an interview with eddie izzard on the train this morning. his style is a pretty massive influence on my conscious comedy development. he's conversational and intelligent and passionate and silly. and british. sooooo everything i want to be. plus we both love playing with make up.

i have 2 pretty solid jokes to write out today, and i thought of something in the shower last night. i don't think this is capable of being funny, BUT it is one of my guiding principles so i need to be aware of that. is it weird that i think you need to be aware of your own perspective and guiding principles in order to really write comedy from your perspective? a little. does it mean i think about comedy too much? yes, definitely. but onwards to my guiding principle revelation:
behavior HAS to be rational. always. but art (particularly music and comedy) does not. both of those genres (in the post modern age at least) are almost designed to be irrational. i think that's part of why i connect with both so deeply. and emotionally. emotions are not rational, but i want them to be. so i don't deny that i feel them, but i do ALWAYS require that my resulting behavior be rational. which is one reason i think i get so frustrated with people who do what they WANT as opposed to what (i think) is rational and good for them. i know that makes me an insufferable, judgmental cunt basically. but i don't care. and to clarify, that behavior doesn't make me not like people who do that. it makes me crazy, yes, but they are still people i care about and i try to remain an 'objective' friend to them. unless they weren't people i cared about to begin with, in which case i then find their behavior an excuse to be warmly and smugly condescending of them. ha ha!

croissant update: i ate most of it. things are looking up, world!

oh right. i need to play make up, that will make me feel better. thank you for the reminder, mr. izzard!

oh why, stephen fry?

i don't think i mentioned that i've become utterly obsessed with stephen fry on this blog, but i have. UTTERLY AND HOPELESSLY OBSESSED. i keep trying to read his novels, but none of the bookstores i have tried have had the one i want to start with yet. anyway, i just found out that he has a blog. this is worthy of an entry:
http://www.stephenfry.com/blog/

i don't know why i am surprised

i always get things before I get them. it's the same way with academic writing. or writing generally. if i were to read my shit as critically as i read other stuff, i would want to scratch my eyes out for writing stuff so stupidly. my college mentor and i had some discussions about this. however, i think it's because i am nothing special and most people get things before they can replicate them.

the 6 train choked on a bag of dicks this morning. took me almost 40 minutes to get to grand central. i need to look into neighborhoods for potential moving-into. i am thinking long island city or astoria maybe. i think both might be pretty expensive though. grumble i hate change.

my starbucks lady said she LOVED me this morning. i am barely functional at 9:... 45 in the morning, but i can still make baristas fall in love with me. I HAVEN'T LOST IT YET, NEW YORK! YEAAAH!

my favorite pens are pilot razor points in blue. THERE ARE CABINETS FULL OF THEM AT MY OFFICE! IT'S AWESOME!

i still need to buy a winter hat. i saw one i liked at REI at home, but i didn't buy it because my sister had a coupon, but then we didn't get back there before we left. i sort of want a mad bomber hat, but my OCD tendencies make me hesitant to get a hat with fur that i can't really wash. it'll be touching my face and stuff you guys. WHAT IF IT FALLS ON THE GROUND I WILL HAVE TO BUY A NEW HAT THAT'S WHAT.