Le maudit Mo D.

shameful and retarded

I'm listening to Dave Matthews. Quick! Shun me! Toss me out of the Church of Cool on my fat ass!

No, really, I like one and precicely one DMB song (notice how that is one letter short of DUMB), and it is Two Step, on "Crash," an album made for white-capped eastern college boys to fuck their female similars to. Between beer bonging and law school apps. It's a hot and sexy number. He gets right to the point, none of this hipster shyness, singing about crayons and holding hands when what you really mean is La Nasty. Dave's got that strained, eager, pained, "please fuck me or I will die" voice that your friendly neighborhood A&R man had the good sense to unleash on the masses. From a marketing standpoint, it's brilliant. And you can dance to it, pretend to make out with anyone from your mental cache of unattainables to it, and down brewskis with your college buddies to it. Dave Matthews the man is attractive, but not too attractive. He could be the guy down at the bike shop or the hottie from down the hall. His poster-ready visage appeals to women who want to swoon and to dudes who want to rock. For a shining moment in the 1990s, Dave Matthews was a musical everyman to anyone who didn't think he had major-label cooties.

Lately, it has become acceptable, cool even, to admit to liking porn. No longer the province of shame-faced wankers' furtive meat-beatings, it is now socially acceptable to discuss and share porn-viewing tips with friends in a polite, relaxed manner. To put it in t-shirt slogan terms, shame is lame! Like what you like! Love what you love! Dance as if no one's watching! Drink Bud Light, 'cuz it's cheap! You don't have to be cool to impress your friends!

Still, I am not exactly comfortable expressing my adoration for Two Step in mixed company, and by "mixed" I mean "the white people who I perceive as judgemental." In college in the mid-1990s, Dave's ubiquity on the small New England college scene made hipper-than-thou me vocally disapproving of his fans. Indeed, as I rolled my eyes from behind the black-rimmed glasses that announced to the world that I was a hardcore Indie Kid as one of DMB's songs played on the pub jukebox, I incited the ire of Madness, Smith Rugby Big Dyke on Campus, who through the insularity of Smith's housing system spent three years accidentally part of my social circle. Having just finished a Guinness, she stomped over to my barstool, where indie-rock me was primly sipping a Magic Hat #9 and being a pain in the ass. "Shut the fuck up, Monique! Dave Matthews Band is...MUSICAL!"

Madness sure showed me with her unique selection of adjectives there! Content as I was to hate on DMB and his lamey lamers who bought his shit, this interaction only served to prove me right: I was better. Me and my radio station friends had it all figured out.

Another "I turned 30" revelation here: music snobbery itself is lame. It is not an approved-of attitude at my current place of residence, or among my current set of friends. Shame is lame. Lame is awesome. And those A&R dudes got me: just like every other girl who was twenty ten years ago, I'm a sucker for guys who whine into a microphone.

At least I admit it.

fucked up ring

The engraver dude muffed up on Bob's ring. It looks like it says the opposite of what I wanted. Instead of MO LOVES BORPE, which is the requested phrase under 35 characters, it says NO LOVE BORPE! Uh... The M looks like an N on "MO." And there's no S on the LOVES.

Uh...

I assured Bob that my true sentiment is not NO LOVE BORPE, but in fact MO LOVES BORPE, which I do, but apparently the jeweler thinks otherwise. Or he did a shitty job.

Feh.

mental real estate and the threat of community property

There's a part of me that mourns the passing of my interior life. The idea of marriage, the notion of rollerskating down another person's hallways and touching their thoughts is lovely and a cause for celebration, but what about those times when you want to keep all your personal mental real estate for yourself? Because no matter how much you love someone, there always has to be you and you alone?

I guess being in a relationship doesn't jive with my outmoded idea of Who I Am. Mo in Mo's mind is perpetually single, crushed-out, dreamy, and hopeful. She's eternally twenty-years old and cares about vintage skirts and doesn't worry about things that aren't sung about in indie rock tunes. She has homework. She makes up boyfriends in her head.

Back when I made up boyfriends in my head (not something I've done in recent times), my boyfriends never looked like Bob, or were anything like Bob. They were indie boys, skinny as their guitar straps, wearing clothes formerly owned by dead people, who loved books, and were essentially characters in books. Every one of them an English major who understood Nabokov. Cloaked in tragedy, fictional, sidelong glances across dark, woodpaneled library rooms, a backbeat following us up and down autumn paths.

This is nothing like my life. This is not a bad thing. I live in a virtual Sesame Street with my Borpe, my muppet partner, my puppeteer.

Once in awhile, I meet a guy who I made up in my head in college. The Mad Beautiful One, for example, fits that bill to a tee. And I can't stop loving the fiction, no matter how ridiculous the real person is. This is bad.

I love fiction. I'm a book girl. I can't stop loving books. But can I stop trying to live in them?

Live bait

Geegster report: "Cabin in the mountains: The Musical."

Okay, that's what the show was officially called. HOWEVER, the story line I was involved in was about how I had really foul vaginal odor. And if there ever was a night for me NOT to wear a skirt, which I did, tonight was the night. The audience was treated to a view of my crotch. My smelly vagina crotch. The scene called for leg spreading, and I willingly obliged.

I was complimented for accepting the offer of "your vagina really stinks" and running with it. I did crack up, however, when Shana came on as the proprietor of the cabin and said, "Now, I can see that you've brought your own live bait..." Brilliant. And at my expense. Love that Shana!

The very un-Smithly ending of the show, in which I acquire a lesbian lover who is immune to my noisome genital region, because lesbians OF COURSE can't smell rotten cooter, was also very funny, if not completely un-PC.

Next show: August 11. My family will be in the audience. Ha!

How to save hundreds on your auto insurance

I bet you're wondering, "how can I save around $600 a year on my car insurance?" Well, in the US of A, the answer to that question is GET MARRIED! That's all it takes. A ring on your finger means you are a safer driver! And therefore, insurance companies bust their nuts to save you $$$!

This is one of those "marriage benefits" those sneaky homos are trying to get their hands on, yes?

I called up my insurer, since my bill is due anyway, and told them I was getting married, lets merge the two cars, because there is that "two car or more discount" they talk about. Well...that is a substantial discount!

I was paying around $800 a year for insurance!
Bob was paying around $1100 year for insurance!
Now that we are one person in the eyes of the law, we TOGETHER are paying... $1100 a year for car insurance!

It's like I've just stopped existing. $800! That's a hell of a lot of burritos!

Folks, the tax man, the law man, the preacher man, and The Man all want you to GIT MARRIED! Cash incentives! Buy now!

happy period

I just opened a fresh pack of ALWAYS maxi-pads. On the adhesive backing, they have written the message "Have a happy period!"

Clearly, the times, they are a-changin'. Or they hired some twenty-something feminists in their packaging or marketing departments. No one, not even my maxi, has ever wished me a happy period before.

PAGING MS. CORDAY

I need your help on a little project.
In Northampton.
In September.

Bachelorette Slut

In an unusual turn of events, I find myself home alone on a Saturday night. And I'm loving it. It's serene, and I can play Sufjan really loud and Bob's not here to diss him.

Last night was my bachelorette bacchanal. The ladies of Austin Improv took me out for a wild evening on the town. Bob's bachelor bash was the same night, and we all came together in the end for karaoke, which is always mad fun. Improvisers love karaoke. My lady Cargill had a t-shirt reading BACHELORETTE SLUT made up for me to wear. She originally wanted to put on it I'M HURTIN' FOR A SQUIRTIN' but that, she conceded, was a bit too vulgar. So I was a slut last night. A monogamous slut.

I was bequeathed gifts of a sexual nature, most notably a product made by medical lubricant giant KY that one is meant to use to wash one's vagina so that it smells like something other than a vagina. Or as it was called last night, the va-jay-jay. So if I use this product to wash my va-jay-jay with it, my nethers will smell like "Bali Moonlight." I don't exactly associate "Bali Moonlight" with an enticingly-scented pubic region. When I think of Bali, I think of cockfighting and rice paddies. Not va-jay-jays. But apparently the medical-grade, yeast-infection promoting folks at KY think differently. FWIW, I hate KY jelly.

I think it was a joke gift.

I had a bad pectus moment, where I realized that I felt like crap and I couldn't breathe after drinking alcohol and hoofing all over downtown in the hot, humid night air. My cramped lungs were taxed and I knew there was no way I could go dancing. So I had Jules drive me home for a little nappy before downing one of those canned Starbucks coffee shots (ickums) and heading out for three glorious hours of Korean karaoke.

Today I had a stomachache, diarrhea (no doubt caused by mixing strong, girly, sweet cocktails with a giant pile of enchiladas), and general malaise. Bob and I took two naps.

I really love Bob and am glad I am marrying him.

Friday we went to get our marriage license, and in case anyone had any doubt, the form you fill out drives home the point that Texas code whatever clearly states that marriage is between a man and a woman only. And in case you didn't read the fine print on the bottom, the part where you put your name and date of birth says in block letters: MAN and WOMAN.

Fuck that.

Hot Hot Hot

Herein I will bitch about the weather, something I have failed to do thus far this summer.

Oh, Moisture! The environment is sucking you out of my body, leaving me damp yet dry. I am thirsty all the time! And the sun, you bastard, the sun is a bastard that beats its children, blinds its young, steals the energy from man and beast! I hate you, sun! The sun is so close and so angry in Texas! It hurts!

No one in Austin is wearing a dry shirt right now. I promise you this.

Eyes are squinting, sunglasses are sliding up and down the noses of the populace! Even with the air conditioning on, it still feels hot and sweaty inside.

In a month, I will be in HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, where dulcet ocean breezes will whisper over our newly married heads! Blankets upon the bed will be useful and not a distraction! Air conditioning schmair conditioning!

But then, we will be back in the balls of a Texas summer, blinded, choking, struggling to breathe, urinating in lesser quantities than our more northern bretheren.

I hate summer.

self-doubt

I am mired in self-doubt. Film at 11.

And by "film at 11," I mean, "whatever film I pick, people are gonna think it sucks 'cause I picked it and I am lameypants loser dishrag douchebag with ketchup in her eyebrows."

Tonight's Essay: "Oh Barton, Where Art Thou?"

As the date of my wedding rapidly approaches (fuck! one month?!?!) I find myself looking back on my years of not dating. I didn't date more than I dated. I blame self-doubt. For starters, being deformed and having a large Armenian nose never fostered confidence with the opposite sex. My prediliction towards odd behaviors, exhibitionism, intellectualism, and brutal, cutting honesty were also not very strong selling points in pursuing the affections of the men. Though I had ample opportunity to dive into some hot Smith pussy during the mid-nineties, I confess that I even believed myself to be lacking in popularity with the women, whom I wasn't really interested in anyway, save for one, but she didn't like me, which didn't help matters.

Until Bob came along, I had nothing but a string of embarrassing encounters, ill-conceived attempts at attaining love, and if I actually did attract the fancy of a guy, it was usually awkward and horrible. My first relationship, of which I have completely disavowed save for blurting out while drunk to the occasional Portlander the exact location where my virginity was forfeited, existed solely for the purpose of simply having a relationship. My pursuit of the short bald man was equally appalling, and while I had modest success here in A-town, swapping spit with a close friend and bedding the heavenly angel manchild with the large adderol stash were not stellar accomplishments. Oh, and the heroin kid. He was fun.

If any guys throughout these lean years were pursuing me, I didn't notice. I spent my early twenties believing that the inpenetrable cootie layer bequeathed to me by evil, overprivileged Fresno kids was still intact and that the only place where love's alcohol swab might wipe me clean was either a Star Trek convention or Molokai. At this time, I invented the Pakistani Cab Driver Conundrum (100% of Pakistani cab drivers want to have sex with me; I do not wish to have sex with 100% of Pakistani cabdrivers), which I still quote occassionally to Bob when I'm feeling extra self-doubtful.

It was at an extremely odd party at the home of a friend of a friend in San Francisco that I was bashed over the head with a pick-up. His name was Barton, and at age 32 and freshly divorced, he was not exactly a catch. He was decent looking, and his nervous manner gently told of many telephone calls with his parents in which he repeatedly disappointed them. He spoke with a slight stutter, leaned a little too sharply forward when he spoke to me, and fidgeted with his beer bottle. I suspected that I was one of a minority of women in the room that he had never met before, but only now do I believe that perhaps this guy might have found 24 year old me attractive.

The party was billed as one part sex orgy, one part Shabbat gathering. Indeed, while couples and triads fed each other grapes and amorous glances, the hostess of this party, an outgoing Jewish redhead, lit the Shabbos candles and recited each of the prayers in Hebrew before passing chunks of an oversized braided challah around the crowd that had solemnly huddled around the table. My best friend Cassi, a somewhat liberal evangelical Christian, warned me in the car that this would happen.

"Why are we here?" I asked her. "This doesn't seem like your crowd."

"They're kind of fun," she offered.

In my earlier days, I couldn't have realized how louche it is for a guy to pick up a girl by reciting a litany of his exes trespasses. Perhaps this party was his post-divorce redemption. If he could convince a woman to sleep with him, then maybe the divorce was okay?

When he began with, "Hey listen you want to, uh, go in the back and..." I abrupty cut him off with a NO. NO, because this sort of thing doesn't happen to me. NO, my extremely Christian oldest friend is here and I cannot have a one-night stand on her watch, NO, this is San Francisco and you might have an STD. "Oh, uh, okay." He began.

A few moment later he returned. "Hey, I just found out you're 24. I thought you were older. I'm sorry."

Now that I'm older, I realize what he meant by that. Eight years in the grand scheme of things isn't such a big deal. But it wasn't just about sex. It was about understanding. And he knew at 24 I couldn't have possibly been that redemption girl, the one who put out and who totally got it at the same time.

Anniversary forgetter

Yesterday marked the 5th anniversary of my blogging days.

Also, on Monday, Bob bought Green Wage. Or rather, we adopted him. He wears his receipt (adoption papers) in his apron. He and Original Wage were seen staring at the ceiling fan together.

My Dad's Bizarre Vandalism Rampage

I hope you're wondering: Mo's Dad's Bizarre Vandalism Rampage, at the age of 73?

Yep!

My parents were divorced in 1983. I was led to believe it was amicable, that my hotpants 35 year old mom didn't want to spend her remaining hotpants years nursing the old man she had married thirteen years previous, when it was totally normal for a 23-year-old to marry a 59-year-old. Indeed, it was the '80s, she was still young, and damnit, there were single, hairy-chested, young Armenian men in that town for the taking. So they split up, Dad moved out, and then went on a vandalism bender.

I never asked him why he was moved to use black paint and a brush to paint bizarre slogans on our trash cans, our garage door, and other walls and flat surfaces around our neighborhood, but he did. Perhaps it was the early stages of dementia, perhaps he was jilted, knowing he was at the end of the line, ladywise (not true: he had plenty of retirement home nookie towards the end). Or maybe he was really taken with the idea of graffiti as public art? Indeed, in the early '80s, national news frequently showed images of tagged-to-hell New York City subways, a rich palimpsest of the cries of urban unrest, perhaps an image so potent and transgressive in my aging father's mind that he just had to try it?

Or maybe he was just fucking crazy. That same year, he reported my mother dead to the Social Security Administration. Were it not for the internet many years later, when I typed my dad's name into the Social Security Death Index, discovering that their records indicated my mother had perished in 1983, we wouldn't have known. My father's petard, hoised by the technological revolution he totally missed! My mom had to go down to their offices with my brother's birth certificate, indicating she indeed was not dead, having given birth in 1991.

He painted "Dior" on our trashcan. Dad, I love you, but over twenty years later, I gotta tell you, that's just fucking weird and fucking lame. If you're gonna tag, tag something edgy.

Inventory

I've been a lifelong book lover. I learned to read at a very early age and have my nose in a book constantly ever since. I can't be sure of this, but I think that one of my early classroom teachers was probably gunning for the honor of instilling in me a love for reading. Indeed, my 3rd grade teacher, who had the journalistic name of Mrs Stringer, had identified me as a prodigy early on and lavished quite a bit of personal attention on me. At Fresno State they had a poetry performance event called the Peach Blossom Festival. For children in the early elementary grades, the performance usually consisted of an entire 30-child classroom standing up on a set of risers and reciting a kid-appropriate, hackneyed piece like "Casey at the Bat." But I got to do solo poetry readings. At the tender age of 7 or 8. And I always won the award, which was a certificate and a pin. I think my mom might still have those pins somewhere.

So even though my mom was in no way a stage mom, driving me from audition to audition (indeed, I was too much a gangly, austere kid to be considered "cute"), I was paraded around at an early age in front of the university/literary community of F-town. And something from that must have stuck.

Also around this time, I was identified as a talented writer. This must be inate, too, for at the age of seven my life experiences were very limited to school attendance, riding in the backseat of the car, McDonald's Happy Meals, and afternoons discussing age-inappropriate subjects* with my elderly father. Indeed it was at this age that my love of fiction was fostered. I was encouraged to write short stories (I can't remember what any of them were about, but it was encouraged that I do so). I was bumped up three grade levels for reading.

Society loses its girls somewhere around twelve. I was lost and only recently found. The minute you start getting boobies, its as if your mind stops mattering. I know there have been a lot of books on this, a lot of debate, but it's true. When my body went crazy, I was no longer amazing literary prodigy girl. And when my body stopped going crazy, well, amazing literary prodigy girl was lost to the sands of time.

There has been very little chronology in my life. I was expected to be and treated like an adult woman from a very young age. My father was a creaky old man when I was a little girl. I had to watch him age and die when I was a friggin' teenager. I spent my middle teen years changing diapers and cleaning up baby puke. My mother wanted to be my daughter more than she wanted to be my mother. I was tall and birdlike and looked like an adult by the age of 12. Nobody ever wanted me to be a kid. I was taught to believe that me being childish or childlike was wrong. I say I don't enjoy children because I never was a child. But was I never a child because I inately ever was, or because I was taught not to be?

*the beheading of Anne Boleyn, Al Capone/1920s-era organized crime, gambling, wine drinking/appreciation, how his first wife was an alcoholic and a nutcase, urinating in the snow as a boy in northern Maine, the credit industry, Reagan vs. Carter, Anne Rice's ascent to literary stardom (she was his niece via his first wife), poor customer service, bitching out the manager of the Fresno Hofbrau because I dared insinuate that my turkey sandwich was dry, my dad's bizarre vandalism rampage (at the age of 73), Shakespeare, Alice Walker, 19th century trading on the St. Lawrence, Jean Talon, 1980s economics, etc.

Goodbye Barky Dogs

At the end of our street lies a dilapidated house that has an odor wafting from it. It is currently vacated and for sale. Bob and I have been anxiously awaiting this moment for a while now, as their house was an eyesore, a paean to redneck Texas living, as their yard, which surrounds the outside perimeter of the house on two sides, was occupied by about five aggro, barky dogs who would threaten any and all passersby, however innocently one might have walked past. It was unpleasant to say the least. I told those dogs to Fuck Off numerous times, but they had been trained by their debris blanc owners to protect their cheap sticks of furniture and Pa's gunrack and whatever else might have been lying within their tin-roof-rusted heap-o-shit house that was clearly bringing down property value. Those dogs and those people are gone!

Of course, now that the white trash family and their pack of beasts have left, who knows what wanton developer will buy and raze the house (I'm sure whoever buys it will knock it down) and put up another Metro Home or other modern architecture home that costs twice what the 1950s houses around here go for.

I think that's better, though.

Sorry if this post seems intolerant of people who don't take care of their houses.

Happy 4th

T'is the 4th of July. I was born in 1976, the big Bicentennial year. I spent that year crapping in my diaper and looking around for the boob, so I was not privy to any cultural/political events other than some weird "Spirit of '76" fabric one could purchase to make clothing and/or jammies. But I am only 199.75 years younger than the Declaration of Independence. And I love Canada.

Not much happened today. Bob rose early to chop wood with his big, hulking muscles. We drove down to South Austin to partake in my favorite Mexican egg dish, Huevos Divorciados, in which two eggs are positioned on opposite ends of the plate, one with red sauce, the other with green. Standing between them are the Protein Mediation Team of beans and papas rancheras (potatoes in a spicy red sauce). By the end of the meal, the red and green huevos are forced to reconcile in your tummy.

Bob wanted to drive up St. Elmo's Street, which is Austin's industrial red light district. It's a row of metal-sided heavy-industry shops. Bob is currently obsessed with machining, tools, metalwork, building, etc. I was actively discouraged from singing "St. Elmo's Fire" during this drive, which was painful. I commented that the only things that I produce are words and temporal theatrical performances, and Bob huffed at at proclamation. Indeed, I am not crafty. I don't make stuff, except for the occassional semi-complicated dessert. Bob is the untrademarked and sexually mature version of the fictional Bob the Builder. Only without requisite yellow hardhat and blue overalls. Indeed, once, at the San Marcos outlet mall, Bob tried on overalls at the Oshkosh store and they made him look like he was entitled to an assortment of government-issued placards and services. Not good. So he doesn't wear overalls.

I removed another live lizard from the house today. I scooped him into a plastic container and set him free in the front yard. After he ran away, I noticed that the container was full of red blood. Do lizards bleed red? I assumed it was lizard blood, and while he was going apeshit (or lizardshit) in the container, fearing for his safety, sure that he was going to end up in some larger animal's digestive tract, he cut himself on his oddly shaped toenails. I threw the contaminated container in the trash. No need to ingest lizard blood here.

Banana Pudding

Yesterday, in a brazen act of selfishness, I chose not to take my first-ever batch of homemade banana pudding to a party I was attending. Usually I am stricken with feelings of guilt and inadequacy when I notice people bringing Pyrex dishes full of homemade foods to parties. So I made some banana pudding from the recipe on the Nilla wafer box, which was no small feat. Constant stirring over a double boiler for fifteen minutes on an afternoon in July in Austin? My hand was red and pruny by the end. Then I forgot that we are a Cuisinart family, stirring the egg whites by hand until I realized what a jackass I was, with our stout bladed friend just sitting there on the countertop. Then it goes in the oven. It took about an hour to make. And it didn't make that much. So I put it in the fridge just for me. Bob hates bananas, so I get to eat the whole pan!

I am currently enjoying my second helping of the day, the first being breakfast. I am also trying to figure out to what to have for dinner, which is a daily ordeal. During my single days, dinner was a no-fuss affair that more often than not included salad-in-a-bag, canned black beans, and an avocado. Now, it's a debate, you can't repeat dishes, I don't really want to exert any effort into a meal. Bob only likes meals that have effort exerted, so we usually end up going out. That way others exert effort and the mess is elsewhere and everyone is happy.

I spent the afternoon collecting audio for my next podcast odyssey. I know a guy from improv who invented his own sport, Mojo Kickball (www.mojokickball.com), so it's about that. I've never done sportscasting before. It's hard. People don't really want to talk to you, they're tired, and they all say the same thing. I don't claim to be really good at this whole audio thing, but I want to keep doing it, if for no other reason that stopping doing something because you believe you're bad at it is really stupid. Yes it is.

I can't stop listening to The New Pornographers. Can't! Stop!

Chest Hair

If there is one thing that currently titilates the improv community here, it is chest hair. Just take my word for this. Chest hair is HUGE these days. A certain guy's hairy chest is the most popular prop on stage and off at present, with no foreseeable end to this trend.

Bob has a hairy chest, but it is not a public hairy chest. It's a private hairy chest, and only I get to enjoy it. Once a hairy chest goes public, forget it. It's like taking a sip off of the Community Beer Bottle.