Le maudit Mo D.

More writermins, please

I had a bad writing day today. I guess every writer goes through doubtful phases, thinking, "This sucks balls, yo. I'm a no-talent hack. This sentence is lame. I'm creating more shit than dinner at Chuy's." It is of little comfort that crap writing sells and is published and read by folks who don't know the difference. I'd like to think that I'm (cough) good.

Seriously, do I sound like a guy on the phone? Some cracker telemarketer just called me "Mr. Appleth****" for the umpteenth time. Do I have to break out the lilting falsetto to be recognized as female by these folks? Bob assures me I don't sound like a dude, but he's biased because he's seen my girly parts. I don't think I sound like a guy, but I do have a somewhat deep voice. Not like James Earl Jones, though.

Halloween night ten years ago, I was wearing Dyna's white feather boa, walking across the campus of Wesleyan U. in someone else's high heels. I heard a passerby say, about me: "is that a guy?" When I dress up uber-femme, I guess I look like a drag queen. Great. Maybe I'll put on Bob's suit and go as a man to tonight's party.

Predicate

I'm tempted to start my 2006 retrospectives early this year. This has been one of the most emotionally difficult yet compelling years of my life, with a birthday that ended in zero, an "I wish it were science fiction" scenario involving my dead father and his doppelganger, job loss, and the forced consumption of frilly things. Oh, and I got married. That was heady shit.

Am currently sedating myself with old Beat Happening videos on YouTube. I think Calvin quit aging at 35. There's one of them playing "Black Candy" in front of some cubicle partitions, obviously in the '80s.

Jacqui '05 graced Austin with her mysterious powers this past weekend. T'was awesome to see her. She's so '90s drinking chai. We commiserated over ghost daddy shit. Dead parents are so hurty. She reports that dudes in her grad program are from Douchemenistan.

I should go read something.

I'm a stud

October 26, 2006
I wrote
between 5,000-6,000 words
on my
NOVEL
today
MEANING
that I am a
SUPERSTUD
of the writing.
Yes!

I got J-Rat
SEETHINGLY JEALOUS once
when I told him I wrote
2,000 words in a day.

So 5,000-6,000 means that
I am
WRITERMIN FORTIFIED
with
TALENT ADDITIVES.

That is muchas palabras, mi amigos.

IF YOU WANT MY BODY
AND YOU THINK I'M SEXY
you should keep that information to yourself.

The French word for word is
MOT.
And we all know how that is pronounced.

Say it 5 to 6 thousand times.

Chant it Gregorian style.
Mo-o-o is a stu-u-u-d.

Armo

I got to see my latest GGG headshots tonight. Damn, I'm looking very Armo in them. I am half blond white person, but you'd never know it.

Little Nudges

I have reason to believe that low vaginal moisture levels are a requirement to obtain a position in the hoppin' field of HR. Surely the combination of diminished estrogen, scratchy privates, and knowledge that you've hit your peak working in HR create the ideal environment to enfore arcane, Draconian corporate rules and act against the best interests of your fellow worker. Sheesh!

ESSAY STARTS HERE

What is it about women named Karen? A woman named Karen is responsible for my move to Austin. She was briefly an archivist at Smiff while I was there. I was vaguely interested in pursuing a MLS, so I asked her where she had gotten hers.

"U of Texas!" she cheerfully replied, and told me things that to my wanna-be-Yankee ears sounded awful: barbecue, two-stepping, tubing in a lake, long, humid summers. She told me that UT had one of the best libskools in the country, and that living was fun and easy in A-town.

"Yeah, right, I'm not moving to Texas. No way." Not even Slacker made it sound cool.

I've been on both sides of the Texas vs. Everyone Else cultural struggle. At my bucolic New England college, we often made blatant fun of our resident Texan C-Lee, who was openly ashamed of her Dallas upbringing. If we couldn't get a hometown woot-woot from one of Texas's own daughters, who was I, entranced by daily contact with brick, ivy, and Sylvia's ghost to dispute that Texas was a hick shithole full of meat-chewin' yokels?

Something about Karen's pro-Austin stance must have stuck with me, because two years later I was furiously filling out UT admissions forms from my Brooklyn apartment, casting my eye towards a future of football field-sized supermarkets, generous parking lots, cheap burritos and indie rock shows (no more Teenbeat shows, but I had to draw the line somewhere). And here I am, six years into life in Austin, a life decision that has surprisingly been a good one.

My current writing teacher is also a Karen. This Karen has opened my mind to the exciting and lucrative world of genre fiction, which until now I have ignored with all the brio my younger self possessed in those days of ivy and Sylvia. I think about what I will write after this novel, the one I've wanted to write for years, and I guess perhaps the answer is, "romance novels featuring nerdy girls." Maybe that means romance or maybe YA. But genre's not a bad thing. There's a Smiffie, not named Karen, who is a prolific romance author and she enjoys what she does and does it well.

I'm thinking about nerd love. I think about nerd love all the time, really.

Modern Love

I am obsessed with the NYT's Modern Love column, so much so that I am considering going against my better judgement and paying for the TimesSelect subscription. I am pissed that they have these quality essays in lockdown, but what's an aspiring writer to do? I had a good idea for a column, but it appears that the topic has already been broached by another author, one with a similar improvisational pedigree as me. I want to read it to see how similar it is to my Modern Love issue.

FOR REALZ, BEYOTCH!

nooj

I was informed today that I did not get the job I had successfully interviewed for on Friday. The other candidate was selected, so it's back to just me and the novel. And I'm okay with that. Me and the novel have a lot to discuss. Such as "how can I make you more awesome?" And "how can we cuddle up to stay warm this winter?"

I just made two hefty pizzas. I had dough issues (too much moisture + too much white flour). The second one had more charred pepperoni than the first. I like charred pepperoni. Gristly pig is damn nice.

Am working on a script for a short film called "cockblocking bride." I hope that Bob will choose to collaborate on it with me. It's based on a defensive statement I rendered a few weeks after my wedding, disputing charges that I was a cockblocking bride. So in my movie, a bride will commit several cockblocks, with commentary from the cockblockees.

Today at the coffeehouse, while I was working on the novel, a random dude with a noticeable penchant for controlled substances came up to me out of nowhere and told me that I needed to ditch my PC laptop and get a Mac, because PCs suck and he went to engineering school so he knows. I told him that I was busy, that my husband is a computer god and only touches PCs and as part of the agreement in our marriage I am to own a PC. And then he went off on how PCs suck if you're a filmmaker, and he's a filmmaker and you can't do decent editing on a PC, and he kept running his mouth, his eyeballs looked sweaty, and I bet he was trying to assuage an unwarranted erection while jonesing for meth. A lot was going on in this man's translucent skin, and he was inconveniencing me. He soon found another warm body to shout at and I was left to my writing.

In related news, now that the season has turned, I have been ordering hot drinks, but they never stay hot for long. Should I revert to iced beverages or just slam the hot drinks while they are still hot?

Mittenland

We're spending Xmas in Mittenland with the Bob family. Bob spent his "formative drinking years" in Wisconsin (I didn't have "formative drinking years"--I drank schnapps in a mansion in western Massachusetts with a bunch of lesbians! What the hell is THAT?) but his parents moved to Michigan about ten years ago. They live on the southwest corner of the mitten, reasonably close to Chicago. In fact, we're flying into Chicago, thanks to the wise businessfolk at SWA, this endeavor proved affordable.

I have to purchase footwear suitable for the snow now. I can't be traipsing about Mittenland in Texas shoes. I look forward to being bundled in the cold.

gabba gabba hey!

There have been a few times this past week when I sincerely thought I was going to lose it, and that the precious gift of mental health and clarity was going to end up in the recycling bin with my Inko's Tea empties. Perhaps my psyche was taking revenge on me for actually asking Elinor a few years ago how I was supposed to be a successful and fertile writer while maintaining optimum mental health. Well, due to fate's cruel bitchslap, I was dealt a pretty low hand and have been trying to whine and snivel my way out of it. Therapy only helps so much. So I decided to take the comedy approach to my predicament-du-jour and wrote an absurdist novella about it, in a single-sitting poop-out of self-serving psychedelia. WRITING HELPS. And apparently, you can't be a stepping stone without someone putting their foot on you.

Speaking of shit, I had a lame job interview today. You know when you're five minutes in and you think to yourself, "no-fucking-way? These people are from Planet Turd and there's no way I'm going to let them tell me what to do?" That happened. They always tell you to ask a question to make it look like you give a crap, but I didn't and I didn't care. I have another job interview tomorrow, with a more prestigious and promising entity. This might even be worth rising with the goats and chickens again as I once did so many months ago.

I just want to be happy. And I want you to be happy, too.

ANOTHER WEDDING FOTO REVELATION: In the ring shot, my PINKY FINGER looks fat! I have the skinniest damn fingers, but somehow, it looks pudgy. Odd.

Ghosties

In order to make a small income, I signed up to give downtown ghost tours this Halloween season. Basically, I memorize a script and deliver it in a semi-spooky way to Halloween revelers and others who get a big thrill out of scary shit, only this tour is more historical and educational than spooky. I am making the serial killer story more gruesome though (A-town has the distinction of having the first incident of a serial killer in the US!), So until 10/31, I will be spending my evenings running around downtown telling the same ghost stories over and over.

I have never been one to believe in ghosts or be attracted to the paranormal, but there's one story in our repertoire that has got me believing. Due to copyright restrictions, you have to pay to take the tour to hear it. I don't want to get busted giving out intellectual property here.

I have two job interviews this week! One is a part-time admin gig at the UT college of education. The other is in the marketing department at the local university publisher with a very obvious name. That one is full-time, putting an end to my afternoons sipping coffee and tippy-tappying my brilliant forthcoming novel. Speaking of, to quote the published author who teaches my novel workshop:

I just read through what you have, and think you should keep going.
I knew when I heard you read that you have talent -- and I can see
it in the pages.

So suck that, stupid lady who rejected me from her writing class at Smith (not Elinor)! And any other doubters! That's FOUR PUBLISHED AUTHORS who have called me talented. And screw modesty: I'm awesome!

I also heard today that a major studio has taken an interest in one of our good friend's screenplays. So the tide is turning good 'round these parts.

Geegster show report

Geegster Show! 10/14

"Evil Scientist's Laboratory: The Musical"

RACHEL (Andrea) is a young science prodigy. She is offered a cush job at Proctor and Gamble at the age of 14 with the help of her dad (me). Not far away, an evil scientist named ESMERALDA (Shana) is concocting a potion that will make everyone as ugly as her (she has a disfiguring scar).

Her assistant IGOR (Mads) has a magic hump and a love interest named HENRIETTA (Jen).

RACHEL is captured by ESMERALDA and put to work. And then into a dungeon with Igor and the walrus-dog.

It turns out that ESMERALDA is RACHEL's mother and DAD's ex-wife, who disappeared one day. DAD admits that he loved ESMERALDA very much. ESMERALDA is softened by this news. Then DAD is killed by IGOR.

ESMERALDA, feeling horrible about his death, drinks her own potion, and ends up being beautiful! So happy about this transformation she decides to go find RACHEL and be a mother again. IGOR and HENRIETTA get together.

FIN

I Love...

Bob.
Calling people "chief" in a sarcastic way.
"Blowing out" the iPod.
Feeling like a goddamn celebrity because my Geegsters won an award.
The extra floor space I have in my room now that the giant stoopid box has been 86ed.
Writing my novel as a full-time job.
Not being in archives anymore.
Austin, now that it's not excruciatingly hot, just warmish.
Gogol Bordello.
Ginger Krinkle Cookies at Quacks. Their coffee is also the best tasting coffee in my coffeehouse repertoire.
My ringy-ring.
Bob's eternal battle with a local side dish vendor who shall remain nameless for fear of lawn burnings.
Carbs.

Celebrities, drinkies, party

We just got back from the Chronic party, which was festive and was at the same hall where I married The Borpester. It was nice to be there in a laid-back environment where I didn't have to worry about my mother accosting me with the last extant 35mm camera. We got a banner and a nod and there were famous people. The Geegsters took a picture with the #1 Weatherman in Austin and with our beloved state rep, The Honourable L. Dogg***. I almost fell on L. Dogg***. I admire him greatly. He was gerrymandered away from us in '04, but represents our interests to Congress! Booya!

I'm one picky beyotch when it comes to music. In attempt to force myself to like an extremely popular national indie rock act, I burned a CD of some of their songs to play it in the car, but couldn't get through the first song before denouncing them as "whiny faggots." (I meant that in a nice way) Also, I will never like filk, no matter what. My music should be mopey and reflective. I get my chuckles from elsewhere.

I wrote 1600 words today.

BEST OF AUSTIN!

Please behold the Best Improv Troupe, Austin Chronicle "Best of Austin" Reader's Poll, 2006!

Novel Novel More More

Musings on my first real novel

1) There really isn't a book for children of abuse survivors who themselves were not abused. I don't really want to write that book--it's sort of an unstable subject. No one beat me up and I've had a relatively nice life, but there's still this thing, this icky thing that has followed me around for years. So I guess in a way, I am seeking to acknowledge this experience through fiction.
2) I know it sounds hackneyed, but my female protagonist is not me. She's kind of like me, but more serious and afraid. I don't think Olivia would ever try improv, and she's not tall.
3) Writing about abuse is emotionally difficult. I am trying to confront it with that women's studies spirit I could never quite muster in college, but still, I am making up these incidents and have asked (begged) my mother not to give me specific examples. The ones I've heard are atrocious and very, very painful to hear. So we'll see if my fiction and her truth intersect in the end.
4) I'm really rolling on this writing thing, to the point where I appear to be threatening to my writer friends. I don't know if this is good or bad.
5) I figured out that if I spend $3-5 a day in coffeehouses five days a week, that's about $100 overhead I'm spending to write this novel. I can't really write it any other way. I love coffeehouses during the day.
6) I re-purchased Lolita today at the local used bookstore. I felt like reading it again.

Maudit Relocation

In a few days, this blog will have the URL of maudit.austinimprov.com. Or maybe it will be maudit.austinimprov.com/blog. I have to check with Bob. I'd prefer it to be maudit.austinimprov.com.

That's pronounced "moDEE," fyi. And it means "damned" or "cursed." I am amused by this.

Sunday afternoon coffee houses in A-town are jammed to the gills with laptop toting unversity folk, rendering table, chair, and outlet unavailable to those who arrive after 1pm. So I came home and cleaned up the last of my painting mess. Since last Wednesday, I have been painting the marital bedroom a sunny primary yellow. The room used to be a light-ish shade of gray. When I started painting, the yellow vs. gray looked like a storm front was moving in on an otherwise sunny day. Now it is all sun, all the time (much like Austin, still hitting 90 degrees in OCTOBER). Waking up in the yellow room is sort of shocking. Like, WOW! Wake up! You are being bathed in bright YELLOW! The name of the paint is Sun Shower, but it's more like Lemony School Bus. YELLOW!

Sex and the Funny Girl

During a personal fact-finding mission that presented itself as a result of my relentless unemployment, I came to realize that the majority of women who are successful in comedy are there because of a string of unfortunate, embarrassing sexual encounters. Forgoing she shield of youthful stupidity, these women actually invited bona fide losers to insert their penises into their vaginas, move it around in some contraindicated fashion, and roll off of them like broken luggage at the airport all so they could make millions and attract the attention and adoration of girls like me, who kept their legs shut for the better part of their premarital years.

If I stand before you in a small theatre, hopefully where liquor is being served, and I explain to you that I waited for a real meaningful relationship before having sex, would that be boring? Would you crane your neck to note the nearest exit? I was nineteen when I lost my virginity under circumstances that are far more entertaining than the man it was with. In fact, I've mostly edited him out of the entire fable, recasting him with a hyper, over-intellectual weirdo with ballpoint pen tattoos who didn't ask permission before he stuck his finger up my ass. This substitute virginity-taker would have been far more worthy of legend than the bland, polite, respectful young man who graciously and painlessly relieved me of the burden of my maidenhead, as the experience would have been marked by bloodshed, screaming, theatricality, or even better, notice by bystanders.

If I'm going to use my own personal sexual history as fodder for entertainment, eyewitnesses to the occassion make a standout flourish. During my college years, I and a group of housemates returned to our college dorm after an evening at the theatre to find one of our friends impatiently standing outside her own door. She pointed at it urgently and stage-whispered, "THEY'RE HAVING SEX IN MY BED!!!"

Indeed, N___ was hosting two fellow students in her room for an evening of light socializing. She got up to use the bathroom and upon her return found these two guests passionately humping away on her futon. She slammed the door and waited outside, all to eager to share what was happening on the other side with whomever happened to pass by. When the two red-faced lovers emerged from N's room to find at least ten housemates standing their, mouths agape, wondering why they wasted money on theatre tickets when the best damn entertainment was happening in the 4th floor hallway, did these fucking fuckers anticipate that they would be remembered nine years later, their story borrowed to make a point in an essay by me about me about other people's sex lives? One of the fucking fuckers lives in Austin and has no recollection of this happening, so either she's extremely modest, extremely prolific, lying her ass off, or I have lived vicariously through this and other stories belonging to others for a very long time.

I have no eyewitnesses. A good number of people who lived in the dingy university housing co-op that I lived in while I earned a masters degree in library science (!!!) knew I was shagging the beautiful and tragic 19-year-old boy down the hall, but that was because for the first time in my life I was being reckless in the sexual arena! And I was proud of it! I was adding to my comedic toolbelt. Finally! A sexual situation for Mo that will soon go awry. Tears will be shed, humiliation will soon erase any memories of pleasure, but in return, parlor stories. Parlor stories that make you think.

Parlor stories. There is an air of envy in them. When I overhear a friend casually remark that she and a couple friends had had a three-way recently, I'm not envious of actual three-way. No. I'm envious of the attention that the three-way, after the fact, will command. Because women and comedy, it's all about trading in the shit and muck of our pasts for admiration and applause in our presents. If you accidentally fuck a goat in front of your parents on Christmas eve, so much the better for you now, for you, and me, and everyone else will be smiling, and leaning in closer to hear more.

Thank you.

Observations from 300 photos

Because my ol' dad is deceased and I find my stepdad to be an unpleasant waste of space, I called upon my little bro to walk me down the aisle. I thought that would be cute and meaningful and not totally representative of the male handing female chattel off to other male history of the tradition. I guess it never occured to me that Little Bro might have been unfamiliar with this custom, having not attended a wedding since he was little, and most likely not giving a shit about weddings. He looks utterly confused and bored in the shots of our little stroll down the aisle, and it appears that I am walking HIM down the aisle. The honor is lost upon him. He's at that age where everything but being a pain in the ass is meaningless. My bad.

I can really tell that I chose not to wear a support undergarment. Maybe others can't, but I sure can, and I feel kind of sick over it.

Gee, my body language really lets you know who I was excited to see and who I wasn't.

My mother looks either nauseous or confused in all the shots that are not of Omar kissing her, in which case the lady is ebullient and effervescent with the possibilities of life. I hereby declare my support of my mother taking on a younger lover! Live life to its fullest! Go Mom!

Bob made his goofball face a lot and isn't happy about it.

I think the most important photo is this one:

Succulent, moist brisket and flavorful Texas-style sausage. The real star of the wedding! Everyone but the vegeterrorists wanted to wrap their mouth around that shiz!

I think my armpits might need touching up. Why am I being vain about my armpits? Should I have applied makeup to them?

Great Lives

I, like many other Americans (and pretend Canadians) aspire to live a great life. Rather than rescue children from burning buildings, or give my life in service to my country, I will do this by sitting on my duff in a borrowed chair in any number of hip Austin coffeehouses and pound out A Novel. Not just any novel, but a Great Novel. How will I know it is great? Other people who have aspired to greatness will proclaim it so. After this important induction into the world of greatness, I will command five-figure speaking fees. The goal: speaking fees, preferably five figure.

Only people who live Great Lives get to command a $10,000/hr wage for essentially standing up in front of defined group of persons (such as Students, Retirees or Ticketholders). People less great (like the current version of myself) command a wage of $10/hr for filing papers into searchable schemae or answering telephones in a pert, nonthreatening vocal tone. This disparity in income (and tax bracket) can only be explained that being Great raises your cost of living. Surely the Great do not purchase jewelry at Target or live in bland, conglomerate-built track homes in exurbs with ten churches and no bookstores. The Great live in Great Cities: London, Paris, New York, San Francisco. They live lives of ease to accomodate their daily job of Being Great. And that means writing.

Why we live in a society that places more value upon the lord of the manor who can fabricate false words with a pen more than the team of gentlemen who relieve our city streets of trash makes little sense. Surely if these gentlemen joined together in union and refused to clear the streets of garbage, the stench would send even the greatest writer away from his or her writing chair into a tizzy comparable to that of an irate schoolteacher or administrative associate. Strong, unpleasant odors being a great social equalizer comparable to the public library, an occasion such as might allow society to reexamine the place of the municipal sanitation worker and come up with a token of gratitude for their essential work. I believe that until Harvard educates its undergraduates in the theory and methodology of upturning a trash bin, only the Writer, the Thinker, the Statesman, etc., will own exclusionary rights to the term "great."

This goal, this greatness, smells attainable from within the kitchy, coffee-stained walls where I toil in the name of greatness every afternoon from 1-5pm. I am seducer, murderer, doctor, and king. Admire me!

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