a reason i feel inadequate as a writer.

a good deal of the reason i never feel up to par as a writer (beyond the fact that i am lazy with my diction and also just lazy generally) is that basically everything i want to express has already been written. specifically, it's already been written by Douglas Adams. he passed away in 2001, but not before shaping much of my comedic and written sensibility. most of what i write is in a specific style i attribute primarily to him. he worked in radio and comedy before becoming a novelist, and therefore most of his books SOUND many times better when read aloud than when read silently on the page. if you know me at all in person, and you imagine me saying the words instead of just reading them on the page... it sounds more... right. i am not sure if that is a deficiency of the writer for not being to create a written voice that can express itself in a verbal way ONLY, or if it's a specific effort to take into consideration the aural aspects of communication. regardless, there is a very specific, very English rhythym to Douglas Adams' work that affected me deeply, in addition to his quirky, playful, dark and intense worldview. hearing George Carlin talk about his incredibly dark views of humanity in recent retrospectives has convinced me of two things; 1) i should have worked harder to familiarize myself with Carlin's stuff long ago and 2) Adams was the British, novelist version of Carlin. Carlin aside... aside, i miss Douglas Adams terribly, and suggest his books (specifically the books on tape that he read) to anyone and everyone. below is the specific passage that i was reminded of shortly after writing yesterday's 'pizza and boobs' entry. this is from 'The Long, Dark Tea Time of the Soul', the main character is Kate Schechter, a New York writer who now lives in London.

She enjoyed the notion that New York was home, and that she missed it, but in fact the only thing she really missed was pizza. And not just any old pizza, but the sort of pizza they brought to your door if you phoned them up and asked them to. That was the only real pizza. Pizza that you had to go out and sit at a table staring at red paper napkins for wasn't real pizza however much extra pepperoni and anchovy they put on it. London was the place she liked living in most, apart, of course, from the pizza problem, which drove her crazy. Why would no one deliver pizza? Why did no one understand that it was fundamental to the whole nature of pizza that it arrived at your front door in a hot cardboard box? That you slithered it out of greaseproof paper and ate it in folded slices in front of the TV? What was the fundamental flaw in the stupid, stuck-up, sluggardly English that they couldn't grasp this simple principle? For some odd reason it was the one frustration she could never learn simply to live with and accept, and about once a month or so she would get very depressed, phone a pizza restaurant, order the biggest, most lavish pizza she could describe - pizza with an extra pizza on it, essentially - and them, sweetly, ask them to deliver it.
"To what?"
"Deliver. Let me give you the address - "
"I don't understand. Aren't you going to come and pick it up?"
"No. Aren't you going to deliver? My address - "
"Er, we don't do that, miss."
"Don't do what?"
"Er, deliver. . ."
"You don't deliver? Am I hearing you correctly... ?"
The exchange would quickly degenerate into an ugly slanging match which would leave her feeling drained and shaky, but much, much better the following morning. In all other respects she was one of the most sweet-natured people you could hope to meet.

how can anybody know / how they got to be this way? (-the national)

my thoughts are pretty confusing and frustrating this week. a combination of continual lack of sleep, hormones and generally being a moron are mixing together into a lovely maelstrom-cocktail of me being a pathetic, panicky weirdo. and because i am chronically extroverted, when i feel these crushing waves of panic and ennui, i react by being even louder and more annoying and offensive than usual. often, my behavior is pretty funny, since until i get to the point where i am just inappropriate, i am a witty and energetic person. i have also found that people tend to laugh in panic when a crazed, small woman starts being incredibly weird at them in public. i think it must be an instinctual physiological reaction. a desperate attempt by our deepest lizard brains to subdue that member of the tribe who's completely lost it. laugh, and subdue the crazy person. chuckle, and help me with this rope. grin, and you grab her arms.

basically, on a semi-regular basis i tend to freak out and become a brittle and discomfiting weirdo, who is highly sensitive and negatively and intensely introspective. i am trying to work on it. partly by being more honest about what i am feeling. i always suspect that none of my friends really like me and when i feel weird or off or upset i usually clam up instead of expressing to people about how i feel. i had (improv, not red hot chili peppers) john frusciante as a coach recently, and he told me that when i am about to say a line that is loaded with emotion in a scene, i will say 'oh ____' or 'BUT ____' or 'REALLY _____' and put all the emotion into that first word, and let the rest of the statement fall flat. it's away of expressing my emotions a little bit, but then distracting everyone with a bunch of words at the end! and i totally do that in real life too! constantly! ugh. so now that i am aware of it, i am going to try to watch displacing my emotions away from their sources and feeling things in a more 'regular' way. in addition to hoping that i will grow as a person if i work on that, also, selfishly, i am hoping it will help me be a better improviser. hey, if you aren't an improv nerd, you don't really have to read that last part. i guess i could have told you that before. but i didn't.

there is a douglas adams passage about black, crushing despair and how it always hits students when they have essays due. i am no longer a student, but i do have several projects that i desperately need to sit down and focus on, including my resume, and writing my 1 person show, and doing the 4+ loads of laundry that i have been procrastinating doing for 2+ weeks (i am awesome at washing necessities in the bathroom sink you guys!) so that may be adding to the deep despair clutching at my heart and scrambling for a toehold in my soul. MAYBE. or maybe i am just allergic to inexpertly handwashed socks.

tonight, i am just going to sit and shut up and watch harold night. maybe i will give people hugs and just try to reconnect with people without doing a million bits.
YIKES.

shit's gettin' real, mothafuckas.

hi blog. someone told me they thought my blog was funny last night, and since someone else told me about chris gethard's weekly series of stories he's been posting, i've been all bloggy this morning. i am working on some ideas for something more creative to put in this blog, not just alternating between long-winded exposition on my daily exploits and the occasional humorous aside when i am bothered to think of one.

i am now in the midst of the THIRD cold i have had since xmas. third. that is unacceptable. each one's been a different kind of cold too, which probably means they are all technically different diseases, but frankly i don't give a fuck. they all suck wicked hard. i haven't been incapacitated by any of them, and bad data's had a nice lull in performances so i am not trying to perform all dizzy or whacked out, but it's frustrating since i generally take care of myself. i don't smoke, i rarely drink, and if i do it's never to excess, and i generally sleep at least 6 hours a night, which is pretty good, for me. (i do not ever voluntarily go to bed early. ever. i loathe waking up, even when well-rested, so i guess i try to put it off as long as possible. or something else equally self-sabotaging.) anyway, i've been fucking good and my body repays me by feeling a low-grade shittiness most of the time? wtf? i just want it to be spring already. boooo. i've been saying 'boo' a lot lately. it's fun.

other things: i actually got asked to audition for the thing i was putting together an actor's resume for, so that was both quite surprising and pretty cool; i was being unacceptably negative abou the whole thing, but i couldn't help it. i fucking hated everything about what i submitted, but i did it anyway so i am proud of myself, i guess. and a little ashamed.
i tried to be fucking cool as shit at the audition, and mostly failed, but whatever. i think the audition was fine, and i didn't look as nervous as i felt, but i would have liked my effort to have been a credit to my abilities, and not just 'okay'. i would have loved to have nailed it, you know?

however, i loved seeing a bunch of great people and friends hanging out beforehand, even though most of us were equally nervous, it was really fucking great to let off steam and just bullshit around. none of us were being assholes or cutting anyone down or fucking with people so that they'd be more nervous. it was supportive and fun and hilarious. love. it.

unfortunately, i was nervous ALL day before it, and then i proceeded to like OD on adrenaline for the rest of the day after it. douglas adams has a great passage about adrenaline hanging around in your body and going sour, and i was repeating it in my head like a mantra. and an hour of improv rehearsal immediately following it was not enough to stop me freaking out. and our rehearsal was kind of tough. we could NOT stop making the same mistakes over and over again. i hate that.

in conclusion, i have a huge and unacceptably creepy crush on carter beauford, who is a genius. there are many reasons i will never denounce my love for the dave matthews band, but the #1 reason is probably the awe and satisfaction i derive from his motherfuckin polyrhythymic bad-assery.