Le maudit Mo D.

really, folks

The ladies are funny fest actually came off swimmingly and were it not for some misunderstandings/hurt feelings, I'd be walking the streets shouting "YEAH!" right now. Also, it is thunderstorming and it looks as if Something Street is going to get floody later in the day. So none of that. But the fest was successful. I think playing with all women is very interesting and freeing and much can be learned from it. The posting below is a parody of some misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and anxiety that we were feeling. We would never hire anyone to keep penises away from a theater, or anywhere. We like 'em.

I'm clearly not setting the world on fire over at P.R. Quest. Go stoke my flames!

composite crush

I chose the John Hodgman Public Radio Quest button because if I weren't already happily married to a guy who kind of looks like John Hodgman, I would probably have a celebrity crush on John Hodgman. Which is why I should be the next Public Radio superstar. Public Radio has only recently acquired a star system, and while I enjoy Justin Timberlake as much as the next elitist college-educated thirty-something who owns more than three Yo La Tengo albums, the fact that women such as me can fantasize about smart, hip, glasses-wearing and yes, plump guys like Hodgman is truly a service that puts the "public" in "public radio." It is for this reason and this reason only that you should click on Hodgman's face and find my audio entry (my user name is m dee ay vee i a yoo) and give me five big fat stars.

Thank you.

LAFF festival recap

It was revealed this past week that I and my not-so-secret cadre of castrating feminazis hate men. Six months ago, we were sitting around eating papaya and just as I was chastising Dre for actually allowing one of those god-awful fleshy male protuberances into her vag, we had the brilliant idea of taking over the Hideout for two nights and forbidding all males from taking part in the performances. "This will show them what hateful, lowly, evil piles of shit men truly are!" we agreed, a message that we had previously all but tattooed across our foreheads. We had always made a point of either blatantly ignoring all improv performances with men or protesting their vile attempts at comedy with feminist street theater, armpit hair-growing workshops, and plenary sessions where people weren't allowed to leave until they took our solidary oath.

But this past weekend, we truly made our voices of hatred heard when we invited two female troupes from out of town to come and perform alongside us, spreading our manhating message. We were disgusted when one of these women brought her boyfriend, but what were we going to do except mercilessly talk shit about her behind her back? I hope she's not on Livejournal! Ha!

All in all, I can say that hiring Dykes on Bikes to make sure that nothing with a penis came with in 15 feet of the theater was a brilliant idea and when we do it again next year, we will be offering FREE castration and gender reassignment surgery with every ticket. It's about time that the true message of an all-female comedy festival be heard by everyone, and if someone isn't listening, then we'll just tie them to the nearest bike rack and beat it into their stupid, ugly heads.

flat-chested mama

Mo's Bowl
Will Cease to Exist
On
June 6, 2007

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Los Angeles, CA

Please send lovecards to me c/o my mom:
(addy by request)

between June 6-25

I hope to feel awesome by my anniversary!

an honest assessment

My feet stink. I wore sandals all day. Yuck.

don't blame the jesus freaks

The improv kids have been following the Mike Daisey story, in which an esteemed monologist (I love monologists) purported to be the second-coming of Spalding Gray, faced an unprecedented and frightening protest in which a gaggle of high schoolers from the SoCal shit-town of Norco (you drive through it on your way to the quintuple-ivory-tower that is Claremont) loudly got up from their seats and thundered out of the theatre. But not only were they very rude but well within their rights to exit a performance, one of their chaperones (supposedly adult, though he could be around my age and still have a teenage kid) defaced Mike's handwritten notes by dumping a cup of water all over them. Not only did he do this, he apparently stared down Mike like some Hitler version of the Cheshire Cat while he poured.

The viral video of this event has been watched by thousands and performers and elitists like me are aghast and agog that such a horrendous act of vandalism occured on the American stage. I mean, what a fucking asshole. I'd be livid if that happened to me, during a performance or anywhere, and I salute Mr. Daisey for his decency in handling it all.

However, there is one small point that even makes me uncomfortable. Early reports of the incident stated that the group was a Christian group, and it was inferred that their act was intended to make some sort of Christian point. When it was learned that the group was from a public school, and that it was overheard that one of the angry mob had said something about being Christian, these statements of this being Christ-motivated were redacted.

I feel a bit uneasy that this giant assumption was made, that these were small-town Christian crusaders who traveled cross-country to purposely destroy a man's monologue about fucking Paris HIlton. I felt this reaction was just us liberal agnostic NPR types who enjoy The Theatre's reactionary response: whenever something anti-art happens, blame the Jesus Freaks.

Part of me says, this is how they want it. This is the other side of the culture war, the one where scaring me into becoming a Republican failed and now my enemy is the dimwitted Jesus Freak who thinks I'm going to hell because I like art and don't have a problem with two guys kissing. But it also seems unfair to equate Christian with Conservative, with Hater of the Arts, with Jackoff That Would Deface a Man's Creative Property.

In sum, it is not fair to dump every act of hatred on Christians, no matter how convenient. However, I don't think the artists are to blame for Christian reputation of smallmindedness and extreme adversity to teenagers hearing the F word.

Beverly Hills Steve

I had a phone conversation today with the final contender in SurgeonSearch07. He has done several impressive things:
1) Responded to an e-mail TWO HOURS after I sent it, while on VACATION.
2) Responded to my follow-up e-mail a week later...while still on VACATION.
3) Reviewed my materials the day he got back from his vacation.
4) Called me today and spoke to me for 23 minutes.
5) Actually talked about the surgery as if he had studied my tests and said more to me than just "wow, that's really bad PE."
6) Told me while he usually does the N*ss procedure, that it would be wildly inappropriate for such a severe case as mine and would recommend the more traditional surgery.
7) May or may not use a bar. Can't tell me until he cuts me open.
8) BIS monitor to avoid possibly waking up (!) during surgery, plus an epidural.

I think we have a winner.

Date of surgery is contingent on mom's moving, which doesn't look like it will be until late May. Of course, surgery has to be set back due to the Yacht Rock Boat Party sponsored by the Alamo!!!!!!

WHAT!?!?!?

stuff

I've been reading Not Buying It by Judith Levine quite voraciously over the last few days. In this book, writer Levine and her partner Paul eschew the purchase of all but necessities as an anti-consumerist experiment. They cut out restaurants, movies, Q-tips, clothing, all doodads, but seek out and include the offerings of the cash-strapped public library, free entertainment (they live half-time in NYC and half rustic rural Vermont), and organic homecooking. Questions explored include, "why do people think nothing of buying a bunch of crap while the public libraries and tax-funded arts turn into a pile of crap?"

Since starting this book, I have been hyper-conscious of everytime I spend any money. A Coke at the Hideout--did I really need that? Sure, it was only $1.50, but if I have something to drink at the Hideout everytime I go there (and I am there at least once a week), that's almost $100 a year. That adds up to a lot of consumerism.

THINGS I WILL DO WHEN THE LOBSTERIZING IS HEALED:

1) take Ashtanga yoga, the hot and sweaty kind. I can never take anything above Hatha beginners classes because I don't have the lung capacity, so I get out of breath and dizzy 15 minutes into class.
2) Hiking and biking!
3) Show off my rack, because I'll have a rack to show off. No rack at present. Frowny.
4) Guitar lessons. We have several guitars but we never play them. I need to get my rock star on.

Frog

This is a children's pillow from IKEA. It bears a striking resemblance to the frog who sells his legs for love in that Chris Ware cartoon in McSweeney's about five years ago.

Anyone see that?

Andrea Blom

In an unfortunate copycat incident, Bob's work was evacuated after a bomb scare today. Bob hadn't bothered to go into work when it was reported, so he got the whole day off. Due to this unforseen holiday, we sojourned north to IKEA, where I purchased new bedding for my guest bed. I selected a rather loud hot pink and green duvet cover with the pronounceable name Andrea Blom (not unlike my loud hot pink real-life Geegster pal Andrea Y.). It covers my new Mysa Is cheap-screw down comforter. I've been through three upper-eschelon down comforters in my life, so I am excited to see how the $39 version works out. The tag, which has since been excised by Bob's handy pocketknife, stated that it was assembled in the People's Republic of China. It also came in a plastic tube and had to be shaken profusely (like a poloroid picture) in order to visualize a rebirth of downy loft. Downy loft=comfort!!

After last weekend's oriental rug fracas, I was hyped to acquire the colorful squares rug at IKEA, but after visiting it in person, I concede that it is not the right rug for our home. So the oriental is going back down. We decided to chonk the old southwest-flavors couch in favor of BEDDINGE, a futon couch that will expand our guest sleeping possibilities while providing a comfy place to park one's ass.

In other chonking news, I started an entirely different novel today, about a profoundly gifted teenager (who is of course isolated and uses crazy-$50 words, something I excel at on my own) whose single father whisks her away to LA to be with his Internet girlfriend, who just doesn't get Ella and whose own teenage daughter tries to manipulate Ella into writing her papers and stuff. Meanwhile, Ella is secretly carrying on a relationship of questionable integrity with a college student she met at nerd camp the summer before. It's a YA novel. I don't know how well it would sell. What young girl wants to read about a robotic nerd girl? I just set the stage today. Crazy shit will ensue.

Shopworn

Before I start my snarky tirade, I would like to offer my condolences to the people of VTU. If you can't be safe on a college campus, with your ideas and your food-service-prepared cookies, then where can you be safe? Very sad. And definitely more thought-provoking than what I have written below.

I failed to dress for the very important occasion of selecting upholstery today, and boy did the standoffish saleslady disapprove! She was polite but it was rather clear that she did not wish to help me. I observed that I was not only the only woman in the store born after the Eisenhower administration, but also the only one not wearing makeup and some matchy bullshit outfit from Chico's. Today's enormous fashion crime is mixing patterns. I have animals on my shirt and gingerbread men on my socks. I atone for this sin, but I think that the bubble-haired lipstickioed salesvixen had my number in spite of this.

While I dress like a grad student about to clean a toilet during the week, the fact of the matter is, I am a customer who can afford any high-end textile this lady can throw my way, and honestly, being prejudged in boutiques is something I am most certainly no stranger to. In F-town, the fancy, aimless wives of the Raisin Capitol of the World bide their time between child rearing and dropping dead by opening uber-feminine high-end gift shops. As the stepgranddaughter of the Subcunt, whose disposable cash has funded such ventures for decades, I certainly got my fair share of sidelong glares and plastic surgery referrals when tagging along with either her or my ragamuffin-esque mother to comparison shop for sterling silver mantelpiece tchochkes. Such businesses are lampooned like fuck in my novel (the one I made up is called PRECIOUS DECADENCE and is an official Limoges dealer) But as much as I'd love to buy everything I need at Target, the time comes in the still-parentally-funded-at-31-year-old woman's life when she has to put on her shittiest clothes and do battle with the dragon of uppity taste.

I ended up walking out of this boutique, figuring that my attempts at selecting upholstery without a swatch of what I already have (meaning my electric geriatric post-op gimpy chair) were vain at best. I kicked it back to my favorite furniture store, the La-Z-Boy Factory Outlet, where my personal saleslady thinks I'm a scream. I explored the personal enjoyment potential of the massage chair* for a bit while she hunted down the swatches I needed to make an informed decision regarding the all-important decor of our home. La-Z-Boy's boxy, comfort-focused design is all I need to make my nest as freakin' nesty as I want. Bob and I like to get nesty when we're at home.

*More jolting than vibrator-y, in my opinion.

happy?

I realize that there has been a palpable dearth of positive postings here on Le Maudit and though I am loathe to apologize for anything I say on these here weblog, I do wish to retain my readership and be entertaining not by being a D-pressed loaf of negativity hurling invectives and licking my wounds. So today, April 15, aka Tax Day, a day in which we celebrate the joys of arcane form-filling, I will be positive. For you. And for me too.

Last night I practiced downmind at the S-badoh concert, where I had a few friendly words with Lou. Lou, as I have said before, is perhaps one of my favorite indie rock figures, having driven me home from a concert in the Hamp back in '97. I reminded Lou of this, not expecting him to remember. He studied my face and said that he kind of remembered, so bully points for me, he KIND OF remembered, which is good enough. I was pleased to notice that there were a good number of youngins with black Xs on their hands, as well as the wizened and aging hipsters from the magical land of Back In The Day, a phrase I used with trepidation to Lou's face, but he later exonerated it by using it onstage himself. I failed to get a contact high from all the doobage being smoked in near my personal area.

As I am old and not in the best health, I left right as the first encore was starting up, lamenting that they did not perform Spoiled. Indeed, when they did play some old Sentridoh stuff, it was not acoustic, is was balls-out rockin', and my lungs were starting to protest all the smoke and having to stand. Also, while I am pleased to mention that the premiere indie rock venue of the ATX now has an espresso bar on its premises, and the gals working it had great enthusiasm and hooked me up with a load of whipped cream on my latte, we had some trouble with the proper distribution of change, which turned out a-okay skippy. My beverage was alright, but it was not a $9 latte.

I then hailed a taxi to attend the 30th b-day party of an improviser that I am fond of. He throws bad-ass bashes that, if you are ever invited to, you should attend, because his parties have something for everyone. Like day camp. Soon after I managed to hail a taxi (hailing is something that can be done from downtown on weekends), a pack of drunk, troubled young women in hoochie garments assailed my taxi demanding to be taken home. I told the driver that I would share if they were headed southward, but he shooed them away. I don't think he likes to deal with split fares.

Soon, I realized that my cabbie was from a foreign land, where brakes are only applies a few feet before the bumper of a stopped car, and constant swerving was common practice. "Guess where I am from because of my accent," he encouraged, and I thought about it for about two seconds and said Brazil and was correct. He was very excited that I had guessed correctly, and then asked if it was because I noticed the Brazilian flag he had hanging from the rearview mirror. I had not noticed that and told him so, and he proceeded to tell me all about the Brazilians in Austin. All I could think about was how Sampaio's stiffed me on shrimp in my bobo de camarao last year for my birthday.

I had a fabulous time at the party, witnessing the fine rap stylings of Terp and having another mindblowing conversation with Fred B. Soon, my fatigued ass was crying for sleep. It was 3am, a time I rarely stay up past, and demanded that Bob consent to going home.

So there you have it, folks. Yesterday was a great day! La vita e bella!

them's fightin articles, part dos

Well, I should have known that the NYTimes isn't going to do anything to potentially piss off their wealthier readership. Or all those nice old men with fresh babies who haven't yet been traumatized or diagnosed with any disorders yet. All the letters to the editor in response to the aforementioned old-daddy article were POSITIVE, save for the astute reader who wrote in to complain that all these men have one thing in common and that's $$$. I'm not upset that my letter wasn't published so much as a letter from a child of an older person who says its not so great wasn't published.

And regarding $$$, since when does the Times profile anyone without a lot of money, unless of course the article is about not having a lot of money?

I walked 2.2 miles this morning for the local domestic violence shelter's annual symbolic walk/fundraising effort. It was awesome to see thousands of people walking for this important cause. Major props goes to the "Hummus Lovers" team, who walked ahead of our team. Nothing stops domestic violence quite like hummus and for that matter, baba ghanouj. I was also thrilled to see Vitamin Water was a sponsor and got a gratis bottle of Focus (strawberry-kiwi) that fueled my march! But it wasn't about the hummus or the Vitamin Water, it was about the organization, and I feel very good about donating and marching.

them's fightin' articles

A bristly topic for the likes of Le Maudit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/fashion/12dads.html?pagewanted=1

I just spent the last hour crafting a Letter to the Editor. Which was civil. I would have liked to have added something about how Rod Stewart and Paul McCartney are enormous, inexcusable douchebags for fathering children in their 60s and that I think every woman who has a child with an old man (present company not excluded) is a fucking selfish moron who is just setting herself up for single parenthood.

Now that I have finished the letter, I can get back to writing my piss-poor second novel and watching "Yacht Rock" on YouTube, which is perhaps the finest portrayal of both Loggins and Messina I have ever seen.

do you really want to hurt me?

I hang out more than normal at the PE surgery support message boards. While most of its is a lot of bad spelling (I hate bad spelling), I have been able to glean quite a bit of useful anecdotal information from the post-op crowd, especially about surgeons, methods, post-op PAAAAAIN.

Today, one of the older guys who has had the surgery wrote that one of the nurses at J-Hops told him, after he had been given the go-ahead by his insurance company, "you have to really want to do this." And he did, so he did it. Which leads me to the fact that really, REALLY, I don't want to do this. The people who are absolutely tortured by their appearance and get their tiny divots done because they can't bear to not look perfect seem to have a leg up on me, deepest of the deep, with health problems to match.

I don't want to do it, but I know that 41-year-old Mo will probably be mad at 31-year-old Mo for not doing it, the way I'm a bit peeved that 20-year-old Mo was never told about the surgery back then or about how my mom never gave a rat's ass about it and I have to do through it now, when I'm older.

I don't think it's healthy to go through life with PE this bad; however, if it's a matter of desire, then I don't think I have that desire.

Of course, these days, with my damn heart medicine (Doctah Shapiro!) I don't really want anything. This medicine has made me a big lump of ambivalence. I feel no passion towards anything these days, so why would I desperately want to get cut open.

Of course, in my heart of hearts I feel that the surgery will be successful and after a rough couple of months I will feel better, look better, and be glad I did it.

I guess I can say that "I want to want to have the surgery."

I think I'm still going to go for it, though.

The Kind Surgeon

Man, talk about customer service. Back when I worked at the C-market, we were required to adhere our lips to customer ass with KrazyGlue, lest we get a tongue-lashing from the surly-assed brass. "If we don't fellate the customer, they'll spend their money at Whole Foods!" said the terror in their eyes, as I stuck on my Arlie Hochschild-approved smile and kept my yap shut when rude customers asked me to toss their dirty napkins into my trashcan. So I am actually glad to receive mediocre customer service from people earning less than $9/hr. However, once they start inching their way up the tax brackets, I start wanting a little support, especially when I am looking for someone to cut me open and break my shit. Which is why choosing a surgeon for Bowl Dismantlement 2007 has been so trying. Surgeons are busy, their support staff taxed, and good luck getting through to get your questions answered.

To my utter shock and joy, today, I e-mailed the final contender in SurgeonSearch, a guy out in L.A. and he returned my note with a detailed letter TWO HOURS LATER. He also said that he was currently overseas, otherwise he would have CALLED ME.

That's KrazyGlue I can live with.

ADDENDUM:

I in no way regretted missing YLT for BOS. I just felt my ascending aorta tear a little bit because I didn't get to gawk at...
McNooooooooo!

Hot tubby feminist guitar man! HOT!!!

Where is my mind?

I take 50 mg of Toprol XL everyday to keep my aorta from splitting and killing me. One of the side effects of beta blockers is it fucks with your short-term memory. I read an article that they give it to trauma victims to keep them from remembering details of traumatic events. As such, I have been forgetting/missing things in normal conversation lately and am starting to feel like an airhead. In fact right now, I am mildly dizzy. Bleh.

There's this mildly retarded dude that haunts the improv world who has proclaimed men funnier than women based on last night's proceedings on the forums that my beloved husband provides at his own time/expense. I regret playing that show last night for this reason, that the ignorant youth of today might actually BELIEVE that was the point of that exercise. These sad, unfounded beliefs in male superiority are clearly the riches of the poor. Tonight at rehearsal I requested that we do "women's college, the musical," as I was feeling very nostalgic for my halcyon ladycollege days, where gender issues were unchallenged and men were seen and not heard, and my ladies made Mount Holyoke go coed on my ass... Instead of paying attention to the proceedings, I spent most of show racking my taxed memory for the name of Wellesley's founder. I could remember:
Smith: Sophia Smith
MoHo: Mary Lyon
Vassar: Matthew Vassar

Wellesley is Henry Fowle Durant! I knew that! Damnit!

So beta blockers have destroyed my ability to remember what someone said two minutes ago AND I can't remember Henry Fowle Durant. I'm usually brilliant at arcane snatches of trivia. Where is my mind?

Anyway, it's not about being sore losers re: B of Sexes. I missed Yo La Tengo last night for that crap! I could have been gazing longingly at James McNew! I am blowing off improv this Saturday for '90s indie rock. Sebadoh (original line-up) is playing and I can completely get with Lou, whose wife is a Smiffie, and who, when I met him, could barely handle a conversation with a woman who wasn't his wife. That's the kind of man who entertains me and makes me smile.

pussy control

Last night the Geegsters performed in the rematch of the Battle of the Sexes Improv Smackdown and due to a variety of forces, we were not the victors. It was a long, tiring, but also fun show. Ultimately, the audience was dominated by a population of dudes who were going to clap for the Cups no matter what, so short of us flashing titties or pulling Margaret Cho out of our vaginas, we were not going to take this one.

It's amazing how distinctly disadvantaged you feel being female in a situation like this. Usually, when the Geegsters or any other mono-gendered troupe performs, its no big deal. All the guys we play with are supportive and we love them right back. But when you bring on the gender issue yourself...ouch. Men have so much more ammunition against us than we do vice versa. I felt that they could just get up and waggle and we had to work super-hard to be, at minimum, funnier.

While I am happy to concede that Los Cuphos are funnier than the Geegsters, I am not willing to concede that MEN are funnier. That is a sack of crap.

I was also revisited by the Smart Girl Hater vibe last night when I delivered my articulate, jabbing side of the debate against the other guys "yeah, whatever" retorts. The guy won, of course, because when I get my intimidating tall smart woman on, guys have traditionally hated me for it. But I couldn't see getting up there and acting like a spazz, because that ain't me. It's a weird thing, having always been praised for being smart in school and then being ignored/dismissed for it later. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. In the Ivy League of my mind, I believe smart should trump whatever the fuck that was.

The all-male troupe is no longer all-male, as they added a lovely female player. I was hoping there would be some sort of "girls are funny so we put one in our troupe" moment, but they made like she was a robot and didn't go there.

There was a lot of man-on-man kissing last night.

ALSO:

I am still pondering that f-ing NYTimes article from last week, since it seems that the main Amazing Girl is attending my 'mater in the fall. I had this college admissions moment where I realized that I was such hotter real estate than these blandly achieving types:

1) I went to a poor public high school near the Mexican border
2) My mother did not attend college
3) My dad was old and by then, freshly dead
4) My essay KICKED ASS
5) I wrote, produced, and directed my own plays
6) My SAT scores were average (what the hell is a 2400? In my day, perfect was 1600) but my grades were good and I kept taking math even after I got a C in whatever math class that was. I'm sure my stepdad remembers.
7) School paper!

I didn't do sports, I didn't volunteer much, I blatantly ignored all the Mexican culture that was everywhere, I took French, I wrote short stories, and I did improv.

Also, there was a baby bust in the mid-seventies. There were less of us to go around, and thus the acceptance rates were higher back in my day.

What I'm doing to SUCCEED today!

It's almost 2pm and I am still sitting around in my jammmies. I am reading the NYTimes. I am trying to figure out what to write to my mentor Elinor about my novel. I have decided not to have surgery at Hopkins for a variety of reasons, most of them having to do with being too far from home and not wanting the Nuss procedure AT ALL. It really scares me and that in and of itself is enough to tell me I shouldn't go there. Monday I will call the surgeon in LA who does PE repair without a bar. He uses bioabsorbable sutures instead of metal that has to be removed later on. If I go to LA, surgery will be in late June/early July so I can recup at my mom's new house.

Tonight the Geegsters perform in the Battle of the Sexes rematch. Come dirty your panties at the Hideout tonight at 10:30. Vaginal antics, penises, and a "big reveal," which everyone in the improv community has already heard about through the mill of gossip.

My trip to the DC metro area was really nice. I lerv my friends. Sarah and I worshipped at the altar of Manischewitz yellow cake, Dyna and I stomped around and I got jumped on by a small Asian boy at the Museum of Natural History which was INFESTED with grubby, wriggling children, and I ate eggs and matzoh with Lyd. Good times. I forgot I wanted to go to Dupont Circle and therefore didn't. I did, however, get to know Bethesda. They have a Salvadoran restaurant there.

Why is it COLD? It's ass-freezing in Tejas today. Wha?

precious freedom and democracy

I write to you from the scholarly bedroom of Scholarly Sarah Milkes. I have commandeered her computational device whist she lounges upon her bed knittin' like a kitten. Soon we will be reunited with hometown girl Dyna Monster doing some fun-ass-shit thing in our nation's capital. For the record, I dislike our nation's capitol and will be leaving as soon as we are done doing fun-ass-shit.

The purpose of my trip, as most of ye know, was travelling to Balty-More to visit the Grand Poobah of Pectus Paving. I had my consult this morning and I am feeling a bit unsettled. I am trying to figure out if my unsettled feeling was due to:

1) The fact that B-more is a depressing ghetto-ass creeptown that made me want to hold my blanky and cry.
2) Grand Poobah is a pediatric surgeon and as such, his offices are painted in disturbing primary colors where gimpified children are sated with back issues of Highlights magazine.
3) I dislike the mid-Atlantic states.
4) Grand P. wants to do the fearsome NUSS procedure on my deep, delicate bowl. This is PAINFUL, UNCOMFORTABLE version of PE surgery that involves having one or perhaps TWO pressure-exerting METAL BARS in one's chest for TWO YEARS! Whereas the other one is more invasive (involves peeling your chest open like a piece of fruit) I can request the aforementioned invasive cartilage-removal fest the RAVITCH, but at that point, why travel to Charm City when I can have the same operation done in beautiful downtown H-town, Tejas, close to my home and my Luxury Lift chair?!?!?

Probably not:
5) Lounging about the examination table in my bra in front of the comely young resident! BOOYA!

I'M SCARED.

I got in touch with my Pectus Pal L., who lives in the Lone Star State and who I met down at the H-town Dr's office in February, and she seems to be leaning towards the H-town doc for her surgery. I just can't pin down anyone who has had surgery with him. At least not this surgery. ARRGH.

There is always Option #3: the doctor in LA. But I don't want to do that until my mom moves into her new house.

I think I'd feel better being closer to home.

Milkes is a better archivist than I, having produced for my amusement a piece of notebook paper I doodled upon in 1999! Hurrah! I made fun of people I haven't seen in years on it.

i just read this

“The greatest gift you’ll ever receive as a writer,” she told Ruhl, “is the death of your father.”

---Playwright Paula Vogel

Hmmm...

Balloon Arch

Last night, Bob and I attended the "ImProm." I recycled my wedding dress. Here we are under the balloon arch. I married the King of Red-Eye:

Earlier yesterday, the Geegsters auditioned for new musicians. It ran the gamut from highly experienced piano bar guy to hippie bongo dude that reminded me of a toothless street busker. Very interesting. I felt we did a good job running the audition and it most certainly did not have shades of Simon from American Eyeball.

Quite frequently, the Old Gray Lady trots out these ludicrous, borderline-offensive articles on the topic of "women having it all." Their subjects are always squeaky-clean young white women from privileged backgrounds who live in prosperous Northeastern areas and talk about how hard it is to be so damn perfect. These articles always rile me up, because the author of said articles, as well as the female subjects, don't see "privilege" as I see it. I can't expect them to. I went to Smith, walked their walks and talked their talks, I know what this is all about. The giant cross with a Smith decal I carry on my back, the heavy feeling that I'm not being "amazing" enough, and the fact that I'm quickly aging out of what is considered "young."

I mean, come on...these girls are 17. Do they really need a big NYT article on how amazing their college essays and extracurriculars are? At least the author, Sara Rimer, who appears to cover the elite college beat for the Times (she penned an article on LUGs back in '93) didn't ask these young ladies the reviled "how are you going to balance work and family?" question. Well give these girls four years to focus on school before whacking them with that loaded question. And the author goes out of her way to make sure you don't find her subjects to be insufferably perfect and therefore unlikeable. Thank GOD Esther, daughter of a Smithie, is bad at sports, or else I'd find ample reason to hate her, right?

I didn't go to an uppity-ass wealthy high school. I went to good ol' C-Juana High in North TJ. The thing is, while I don't identify with the place at all, I had a good high school experience there, and I credit it with grounding my attitudes about class (I have many attitudes about class, after all). For half of C-Juana, getting a high school diploma and not getting shot or knocked up was success enough. Those of us who got to go away to college didn't make such a huge deal out of it. Few people knew the names of the fancy east coast schools whose viewbooks I pored over with zeal. These schools generally weren't part of the vocabulary of the counseling staff.

So, while my family could afford to back up such fancy-ass approaches to coming of age as SAT tutoring (isn't that cheating?) and unpaid internships (what? they don't pay you? that's legal? no way!), neither my mother nor my high school embued them with any sense of normalcy. They were to be out of reach for me because they were out of reach for everyone else, bank balance be damned. Though my family had the financial resources, the resource of knowing how to get to where you want to go just wasn't there. My mother, bless her poorly-informed little heart, has always had low ambitions for me. But in her mind they were high ambitions. I mean, who doesn't want to be a public school teacher? She had no fucking clue. C Juana had no fucking clue. Faced with the kids who came from households who had the clue I needed to succeed has been mindbogglingly painful. Not a day goes by that I don't try to figure out exactly where I fucked up. Not that the situation is untenable. I'm doing just dandy, but I desperately want a career that I love and enjoy and am proud of. I just wanted to be ____ by now and I'm not.

I made decisions based on bad advice, which it seems that these upstart teens are privileged enough to avoid.

So in order to be "amazing," as Ms. Rimer defines the word, you have to come from a family of Amazings who send you to an Amazing school and also have an Amazing bank account. Why can't you just say that, Sara?

privileged poop

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/education/01girls.html?em&ex=1175572800&en=5225b67158600604&ei=5087%0A

I have a lot of nasty things to say about this article in the NYTimes, but I am not yet fed, and am busy today, so it must wait.

Let's just say that I grew up privileged among decidedly non-privileged people, so I think this is article is a load of shit.