Lucy's Spleen

1.  I'll take it back if, in the next five minutes, everybody in the web cafe catches Smooth Jazz Fever and they launch a spontaneous, island beat-inspired orgy under the sultry blue glow of their laptops. But, barring such an occurrence, I maintain that, with the exception of "Smooth Operator," Sade kind of sucks.

2.  I confess, I had a really hard time taking the temp agency seriously. For some reason the way I want to describe it is as seeming "small-town," but what I mean to say is that their standards weren't exactly off the charts. I tried to come at it with a professional approach, but the girls in the office were so diffident/procedurally indoctrinated, and the testing so redundant/pointless, and the Welcome Aboard Video so painfully directed to the lowest common denominator/dimmest temp-to-perm bulbs that I could hardly bother to stifle or apologize for my egregious yawning. Yet, I speak English! Fluently! And I have experience- with actual employment! Prior to going in I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get a job at all, but by the end of my "interview" ("Are you willing to show up for work? Name something you enjoy about showing up for work. In the case that you were to show up for work, would you be willing to do actual work once you got there? Really? Good! Okay, name a skill- it doesn't need to be one you HAVE- just whatever you can think of....") I felt confidant enough to start saying things like, "So it looks like I've got a little room to be choosy here, right?" and, "You'll work with me on that then, Kirsten?" So if all my tax crap and paperwork go through it seems as though I've got a few assignments to choose from, and of course they are TEMP jobs, but that's kind of what I'm after right now and I'm (knocking on wood while optimistically) thinking that I may begin to garner actual income sometime in the sort-of-near future huzzah!

3.  The other day I sat down to pee, then started trying to multitask and forgot what I was doing there in the first place. About halfway through trimming my nails I said aloud, "Pee." in the imperative like that, and thought What the hell am I talking about? Why did I say that? and then I remembered- ah! I have to pee. So I peed. True story!

4.  Moving along, then.

5.  I'm kind of disappointed with how the Iraqi tribunal is going. I'm not a real rabid news junkie, but I used to be getting a kick out of the trial and now it's really hard to give a crap without sulky Saddam getting all truculent and bawling around bitching about his dinner not being yummy enough or whatever.

6.  This kind of game we used to play consisted of laughing about how "sleeping bag" sounds really funny to say, but is also great because that's what it is! It's a bag! And you sleep in it! Then we'd think of other kinds of things you could claim were for sleeping and which could or could not actually make sense for that function but were required to sound funny like, "...and over here is my sleeping pole," or, "Do you need to borrow my sleeping slice?" Anyway I had forgotten about this game but then the other day I watched An Officer and a Gentleman which has one line that goes something like, "Meet me in five minutes- in the blimp hangar!" which made me laff all by itself, but also reminded me of the game and since then I have been thinking, "This is my sleeping blimp!" and crack myself up every time.

7. Apparently my "fans" in "Alabama" weren't really fans at all. That, or they were offended by my "reply" to their email because they never wrote me again and all my Googling for the "Church of Spleen" they claimed to have founded has proved fruitless. I think it may be because I told their leader his name sounds like luggage. Oh "well". It was fun while it lasted!

 

 

A New Lease on Loaf

Yesterday I was in full freaked-out, mentally ill premenstrual mode and wondering where are the women who all sport my same gang symbol? Why am I not having the usual Sunday Brunch with my girlfriends? I'm missing three unflaggingly supportive amigas upon whose reliably subjective-in-my-favor ears I can direct my wails and always receive sympathy and encouragement. I'm wondering What is this place, this “town” to which I have moved? And why are none of my girlfriends here in it and how can I get to where they are and how soon? Do you ever get panicked like this? I was not feeling very optimistical yesterday.

I've been dreaming a lot lately about food. More specifically, that I AM food. I can't remember all of the dreams, but a couple of nights ago I dreamed I was a beer (one of a six-pack!), and the following night I was some soup. I don't really know what inspired this theme, but it does remind me of this sort of nightmare I had in 1998 that was not really scary when I dreamt it, but which I turned into a big awful saga in my mind in the days and weeks that followed. The dream was this:

I am standing at the kitchen counter getting ready to make a sandwich. I have all these ingredients spread before me; Wonder bread, creamy Jif, and a whole array of other stuff from the fridge. I take out a slice of bread, smear it lightly with Miracle-Whip, top it with a heavy drizzle of honey and- wait, no! Fuck! How did that lettuce get in there? This is not the right combination! Anyway this is supposed to be a PEANUT BUTTER sandwich! Now I have to start all over again. I toss the ruined sandwich in the tall kitchen garbage at my side, feeling incredibly guilty for the waste, and commence again with a new slice of bread. As I pull it out of the plastic I am full of intention, doing this immaculate Choosy-Mom job of spreading the peanut butter and envisioning the completed sandwich with it's layers of brown and purple and a single perfect bite taken out of it how tasty it will be with a glass of cold milk and in my reverie I take another slice of bread and- whoops! Cover it with a heavy smear of whole seed deli mustard. This is not a proper peanut butter sandwich! I have to throw it away. One by one I remove slices of bread from the bag, and one by one I wreck my sandwiches. I seem to get off to a good start, but then I lose my focus; in go onions, bologna, ketchup, pickle relish- I'm just not paying careful enough attention! One by one I drop the polluted sandwiches in the trash, until I have no more bread to work with. I reach in the bag and find it's all gone, I have just wasted the last slice of the loaf.

I was haunted by this dream- the frustration of it. I talked and talked about it with friends and over the course of a few days I concluded that obviously LOAF=LIFE/LIFE=LOAF! My life = a wasted loaf. I was very unfocused at the time, and I had no idea what aim to take for my future. I felt as though I had been trying all these things, was interested in all these things, but that none of them were leading me anywhere- I was not hitting on the right combination, you know?

So lately I am thinking about this because I've been having these other food dreams, which are also possibly ambiguously-meaningful (I am part of something more than myself? In my dream I am not all of the soup, I am only a portion of the soup- yet I am mixed in with the rest of the soup, not ladled out neatly in my own soup bowl.), and because I'm feeling a lot the same way these days as I was eight years ago, namely- confused and without direction. I'm wondering, What have I been doing all this time? What has it taught me? and Where in the hell am I headed?

This is my version of an existential crisis (I can tell when start in with the worrying about the bread), and it only occurs when I have way too much time on my hands. I sit around doing nothing, wondering what was the point of everything that I was doing back when I used to be doing things. Where did all those things get me? Here, doing nothing? (And what were the things, by the way? I can't seem to remember.) Fortunately, this particular crisis seems so much less critical than in the past. At nineteen I thought, "My God! My life is going nowhere, and I haven't even been anywhere yet!" Now I tend more to think if I don't know what I've been doing all this time, I at least know that whatever it was it was pretty nice mostly, that while it was going on I was surrounded with people who loved me, and that overall it brought me a lot of happiness. And so what if now I don't know where my future is going? I reckon that means it's time (way way past time) for me to get an emmer-effing JOB,  because when I'm working and busy I tend not to be worrying and just to be living. And isn't that the whole idea?

So I've decided to stop fussing over what job to get, that it's not really important right now what job it is, because it's not really the job that counts. The point of the job is merely to give me the resources to be able to figure out what I do want to do, the ideal being that one day what I want to do and what I do for a job combine in happy union! And, while we're at it, that they earn me barrels of money! In the meantime (and back in reality), all I have to do is get a job because until I get one, I have no income, and that's beginning to be somewhat troubling. But also, once I get a job, I will no longer have so much time on my hands- there will be less time for the missing of girlfriends and less time for complaining. Of course there will be less time for the drinking of tea and of wine, but there will also be less time for worrying, which to me sounds just FINE.

Big News

Allow me to fascinate you with news of my exciting life!

For example, I'm wearing these really uncomfortable socks today! I have a stye! I tried my first homemade marshmallow! It was tasty, yet somewhat texturally reminiscent of swallowing semen! (No I don't think I will have another piece, thank you! No no, save my piece for someone else to try- SERIOUSLY.) I accidentally wore my shirt inside-out for almost the entire day yesterday! I'm moving to California in less than three weeks!

Oh, sorry- had I forgotten to mention that last thing before?

I've been wanting to make the announcement for a while, but haven't been able to figure out quite what the method of delivery should be. Finally I decided to just, well, you know- say so. So there it is!

I am moving to California to live with the man who, on our first date last January, prepared for me the rarest steak I've ever eaten. On this site he has been called "Date Guy," but now and henceforth I'm giving him a better name which will be "Eazy!" Can you even keep up? I don't know what I'm going to do for work! Or where we will live! Our new life will be great! We're way less strangers than we used to be! The second time Eazy and I cooked together ever was on my visit there two weeks ago! Somehow I feel sane and confident about doing this! Whoa!

The self-help book titles for my two main reasons for moving would be:

Long-Distance Relationships Just Don't Work

and,

U Have Got 2 GET A LIFE!

A large part of the point being that, while coffee shops and bakeries are fun gigs for a time, I'm thirty years old now,* and I want to do something worthwhile with myself. I want to do something that satisfies my interests, something that uses skills even beyond my special talent of Eating Many Pastry Items. I totally don't know what this thing is going to be, but I have a few ideas. Hopefully, and if I'm lucky, it will involve writing, event planning, perhaps a bit of fund-raising and perhaps a lot of schmoozing people. I want to do something that scares me a little, something that presents a challenge. And if you happen to know anybody who wants to write a letter of recommendation saying how up to the challenge I am, any and all submissions are welcome!

In other news...

There was a beautiful patch of sun(set)light on the wall of my apartment! I took these photos of our
silhouettes! See?   

"Tired of that piece of crap you're driving?"

Ira and Lucy.

"Are Poised to double?"

Just Ira.

"You will love this exciting game."

Lucy and me.

"Well well well Sir Emma, 150 types of pharmoze"

Just me. I really like this one.

* Not actually 30

Note to Self, Instructions, or Just Good Policy?

In large handwriting on the inside cover of a 3x5 notebook I found at the coffee shop yesterday:

DON'T BE SELFISH.

RESPECT YOUR WIFE.

How Not to Get Hired

Hey everyone, did you read what Mimi Smartypants A Chicagoland Institution wrote about the person who chose a very unfortunate email address and made the further unfortunate mistake of using it as the contact address on his or her RESUME?

Well, from the time I worked for the Chair of a major department in Health Sciences at a university, and I was sorting and processing and filing a stack of candidate CV's for some type of study fellowship or possibly a position for like, Division Director or something, I must respond to Mimi's post to say:

Dear Mimi,

I'll see your "SacredElvenPath" and raise you one [email protected](provider); and no, sadly, I am NOT kidding!

Inner Space: Mon Travail

I don't usually post about my job- my main job, for the non-profit- as it operates under the umbrella of "government" and is therefore a screaming bureaucracy in which those on high may not look fondly on the outfit being mentioned in proximity to such drunken cum-soaked Barn Sluts as are featured on this website.

However, tonight I want to mention here how maximally un-pynchy some of the fine folks I work with are. The only reason I have stayed in this job for the past six years is that I get to work with some of the cum-soakedest barn sluts around. Tonight I was reminded how truly cum-soaked they are, as we worked together to settle an event with a group from Singapore who had made our lives rather hard over the past week, and were finally loading out. It was almost midnight, all of us had already worked a loooong day (hey! mine started at the bakery at 6:30 this morning! It is now almost 1:00 a.m.! I just got home! From work!) and were a bit bleary-eyed, but still righteous as we closed out with the client. He said he had never before worked on a location with so many women in management, and that we were great, as if that weren't obvious in innumerable other ways besides just the one where we guided his ass through that settlement.

It was good to be reminded why, though I often resent having to go there, actually I don't hate my job. Isn't that miraculous?

Then I started shouting "Al-right wim-MIN!" lit fire to a torch of rags and pitch and ran cum-soakedly through the stairwells hollering a battle cry.

Amen.

They Came, They Went, We Ogled. Celebrity Impressions (Not the Kind You Do With Your Voice) By Me.

Here will be the last things I say about Queer Lounge Film Fest O' Rama:

1. In the early moments of the party for David LaChappelle's film Rize, Marzy and I ran outside to check out the line of RAVING FANS begging to gain entrance to OUR VERY FIRST PARTY. I was totally shocked. I had had no idea Rize was such a big deal, no idea David La Chappelle was such a big deal, no idea what Krumping even was, and in no way expected all the press and the fact that PARIS AND NICKY HILTON would be POSING RIGHT OVER THERE in front of us! And Paris had only styled the front of her hair; it looked like shit in the back. Her extensions were poking out at the roots and the whole back of her hair was all rumpled, like she'd been sleeping on it. Now wouldn't you have been even a little excited to see that? Yeah, don't try to act like you wouldn't, sucka.

2. Same party. Dancing on the furniture. Looking like utter hell. But I have to love her now because when my Hilarious Brother JAK! went up to her and said, completely straight-faced, "I just want to thank you for all your hard work," Pamela Anderson laughed.

3. Maggie Gyllenhaal. Supposedly also at the party for Rize. I cannot attest to this because I did not see her, but I believe it because A) my mommy said so, and B) the green wristband she's flashing in this photo? Totally from our party. Paris had one, too.

[I realize now that this entire post will be about just the one night and just the one party, so to draw you further into the experience, I will make a dramatic switch to present tense... Now!]

4. My job this night is that of bar-back, meaning I spend the entire evening negotiating the crowd outside the VIP room trying to get through with cases of vodka and ten-ton bags of ice. I race past Nicky Hilton and Press to pick up more ice from outside and- I admit it- I jostle her in front of the cameras completely on purpose just so I can say "Excuse me, Nicky Hilton!" like SHE is a total bitch for being in MY way. She is sullen, orange-y tan and, inexplicably, wearing a revolting wife-beater tank-top.

5. Same ice-hauling trip. I press and shove and maneuver my way to the front of the "line" outside the VIP lounge. The crowd is six people deep and clenched up like a tight asshole. The ice is heavy, I'm holding it above my head, and now I have to climb over the barricade to get into the room and I am tired and sweaty and a bit drunk and it shows. A charming voice from under a very furry hat asks, "Can I help you?" I gratefully drop my burden into a pair of sweatered arms, push through the last layer of humans, clamber over the stanchion, reach out to take back the ice, look (down, I think) into a pair of the dreamiest eyes ON THE PLANET and say, "Why thank you, Jared Leto."

6. Taking a moment to deliver much needed alcohol to my boys on the front lines, brother JAK! and my adorable protege, Jas, working the perimeter, I am now quite drunk and nearly trample the shockingly tiny Naomi Watts. She appears lovely and fragile. I sort of stumble into her or awkwardly embrace or maybe grope her and, always proud to be at my best, babble, "I'm sorry I don't normally do this and you probably hate it but I just want to say hey you are a celebrity and I like you." I think I may have also added a brilliant, "So there." But I suppose we'll never really be sure.

7. Jenny McCarthy, Tarynn Manning, David La Chappelle (duh) and others! Also at this party! Look it up online!

8. Overcome with exuberance and convinced for some reason that she'll care, I drunk-dial Heather B. Armstrong from the party. The ringing phone startles the young parents from slumber a mere four hours before their squawking infant will, and Heather's voice is rife with fear because WHAT ASSHOLE WOULD CALL AT THIS HOUR UNLESS IT WAS AN EMERGENCY? Such an asshole could, of course, only be ME, and I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly apologize to the Armstrongs and promise I will never NEVER drunk-dial them again, like for example I will not call this weekend from our Valentine's Day party- even if the really hot guy from the coffee shop shows up- I promise.

9. I get back to what matters. Little brother JAK! drives my drunk ass home, because he is not only the funniest person I know, but is also kind and always looking out for his "Sis-Tron" and I adore him. JAK! doesn't give two shits about celebrities because he is cooler than all of them.

At home still reeling from the thrill of it all I wonder who I can call at 4:30 a.m. who will not be sleeping and will not have a sleeping baby and an angry sleeping husband and I realize it's four hours later in Argentina and therefore daylight and not a completely unreasonable hour to be phoning so I ring up Asberger and regale him with the details of my Night O' Fame and WE LAFF. We really laugh together about it all and it's the nicest conversation we've had since the breakup and all that nonsense about celebrities and their fabulousness fades into oblivion because I am loved by Real Live People and this person thank God is still one of them.

My friend on the phone is genuinely proud of the work I've done and excited for my success and tells me so; he tells me, "Good job, woman."

It's the emotional highlight of my week.

Queer Lounge Is Like, So Gay

My dear and beloved Internet,

I am sorry for the long expanse with no postage. The reason for it was how insanely busy I was working up in Park City during the film festivals for the second year of Queer Lounge. This year on top of the grunt work like errands and ice-lugging and bar-backing, I had an actual title, "Utah Project Co-Director," and an array of duties pertaining to sponsorship fulfillment. This meant I got to spend a good deal of time chatting up the lovely reps from our sponsors (hello lovely sponsors!) and feeling like Grace Kelly in the film High Society, flitting about yelling, "How is everybody? Are we all fine? You're looking fine! Are you having a fine time? That's fine!" Fortunately for me, I love to schmooze. Unfortunately, I can never remember anyone's name, so I both THANK GOD for name-tags, and curse Him for giving me such bad vision that it's completely obvious when I'm staring myopically at a name-tag to figure out who I'm dealing with.

If you've ever been there, you know that Film Fest time in Park City is basically just a blizzard of self-promotion. I think it would be more efficient to gather the several thousand people who descend on the town in a couple of lines and have them just lob business cards at each other as fast as they can, but that would eliminate any need for the PARTIES, and then where would we be?

Parties is pretty much what Queer Lounge (and everyone else at Sundance) does for ten days; and what this requires is a great deal of coordination and physical effort. Thank God other people were taking care of the Queer Lounge coordination, mostly, because I was overwhelmed by the physical effort. Each day I somehow dragged myself out of bed, loaded a bunch of shit into my little car, drove it up the canyon as fast as the little car would let me (I'm sorry, little car! I promise I will get to the repair of your now-smoking engine soon!), hauled the shit out of the car, hauled shit around our space all day (that piece of furniture goes in this room, and that box goes in the other room, and all these cases of vodka go in the basement...), made phone calls, chatted people up about their sponsorship involvement, fell all over myself trying to explain why we hadn't yet branded their company appropriately (I'm sorry, your GIANT, WAY TOO BIG banner that we have no space for never arrived- do you have any smaller placement materials we can substitute?), hauled more shit, then had to dress up and try to look fresh for the party where I would (wo)man the VIP list and further chat up our lovely sponsors (I'm serious, I really did love you, lovely sponsors!).

And this, people, THIS is where a certain MAGIC CONCOCTION came into play. I am not typically a great promoter of abusing enhancing substances. Make no mistake- of course I luuuuuv to USE them, but abusing is a very different story. Nonetheless I abused the hell out of vodka and Red Bull those ten days. If it had not been for their respective components of alcohol, caffeine and sugar, I would NEVER have been able to drag myself through night after night of acting charming and alert while teetering on an adrenaline tightrope suspended precariously over an abyss of exhaustion and emotional meltdown the way I did. I'm totally not kidding, or using punctuation properly, so just bite me.

Anyhow each night after the party ended I helped tear down, clean up and haul more shit, then I drove another thirty miles back down the canyon (in killer fog, no less), and crashed out for three or four hours before starting the whole thing again. If I ate at any point during the busiest period, I have no memory of it. Also I squeezed in a few seven hour shifts at the coffee shop, just for good measure.

Anyhow, all you dear folks, there it all was: we had Prep Week, Action Week and Recovery Week, and that brings us up to about now, and now I will be BACK! Thank you for your emails and saying you missed me (I didn't think I'd been around long enough to miss!) and the general good reception for this site. Your support is most appreciated and I mean it.

Tune in next time for notes on cum-soaked Sundance Celebrities! Hooray!

Love,

Em