Le maudit Mo D.

maudit internet pics

The next time I find myself in a heady debate with the big boys, I hope to double for Gore Vidal. What a wise little old bitch! I love his quotes. Esp. the one about Hillary.

This is just fucking hilarious. I wonder how many "you are such a retard" e-mails this person got?

a thought on spanx

As a member of the jiggly abdomen community, I wear Spanx-brand tights and "Higher Power Power Panties" to keep my midline trim without diet or exercise. I'm a big fan of the Spanx as are many similarly proportioned women. I was just sliding into my Power Panties to look my best for my 42-year-old birthday husband (not like he gives .25 of a shit about this) and got to thinking about the hole in the crotch of every pair of Spanx. I guess if I were on the dating scene, I'd have to think about such things. Revealing to one's evening date, should the date end up in the bedroom, that you were rocking the Spanx all night and having to remove them, revealing your ass and thigh flab, would be extremely embarrassing. Is the crotch hole there so you can access the girly goodies without, you know, taking off the Spanx? I'd be similarly embarrassed to request that I be fucked in my Spanx. Fortunately, I'm with Bob and don't have to face this harrowing situation. My heart goes out to my ladies who do.

1,827 days!

For you Bob fans out there, his odometer rolls over to 42 today. He has dubbed today his "Douglas Adams Birthday," as apparently the meaning of life is 42. This also means that Bob and I have been together five years as of today. T'was his 37th birthday when I came over with a metal robot and a 7 birthday candle and left with a boyfriend. Yay us!

Post-travel malaise and ennui. It is way too hot for me to even think. I really hate this weather so much that it makes me cry. I know, whiner. Please do not waste a moment of your time indulging me or even respecting me. Coming off the plane from S.D. yesterday was like walking into a bowl of hot vanilla pudding. Slow, hot, thick. I have a tempest inside me that is poking me to call a moving van and hogtie Bob to the passenger seat as we make our way northward, to cooler weather and prettier trees and a sensibility that I miss. The hole in my heart has a curly Cape tail.

I gots to get my groove back. A summer of half-assed novel-writing and bitching about the heat ain't gonna cut it. I've got higher aspirations.

As for me, I'm off to El Swanko Restaurant for our big day.

daddy-o

My dad, sometime in the '60s, at some cheesy but thoughtful Vegas casino. The photo is from a complimentary postcard they must have given him.

Diamond Jim's existed from 1962-1969 according to Ye Olde Internet.

cough sneeze sleep

Tonight the reunion committee had a post-mortem phone call to discuss what went well/what didn't with the reunion. There is still paperwork to be filed with the college--the Ladycollege doesn't shit around when it comes to reunions. I related this truism about my weekend to these ladies and now I will relate it to the world at large:

"I was so physically and emotionally exhausted from the reunion a week later, I sleepwalked through an entire improv festival and skipped most of the social events to sleep. And I'm still coughing my head off and I still can't get enough sleep."

So yes, agreeing to participate in an improv festival less than a week after the reunion was bad foresight on my part. Not that I didn't have fun at BtBB. Mini-golf on Saturday was the most fun mini-golf experience I've ever had. Flinging myself bodily over a hole at a family mini-golf center was an incredible experience and I'm glad I got to share it with friends! The weather was perfect (so easy it is to forget that L.A. is very beautiful). But I was conscious that my body was falling apart and that I was being sort of anti-social and I regret that. I still feel like crap and can't seem to shake this nagging cough. SoCal air probably doesn't help. Anyway, the Geegsters had a fabulous show (we did Space Station even though we agreed we'd never do a space show again but it was only half a space show and half about a dysfunctional pair of twin sisters.)

Being chez maman is like being suspended in a bottle of honey, only this time around, Little Bro's new (I guess?) boyfriend (nature of relationship unclear at this juncture) is hanging around late into the night. Young gay love in one room, a coughing, exhausted 30-something married woman in the other, their 60 year old mother downstairs watching CBS programming. Gotta love my family.

hellacious

At the risk of being accused of being antisocial, I've strayed from the improv flock to spend my day at a cafe with free wi-fi instead of attending today's official Beyond the Borders Baja event. I have my ten-minute agent pitch thing next month so regardless of my feelings on Novel #1, that is the book that is being pitched, so I should probably work on my hook a bit more. I do have to elevator pitch it. I need to think more about that.

L.A. is L.A. It smells the same as S.D. only it has more clutter. Go figgy. Saving up my energy for the show. I need to quit the dairy products. I ordered a chai and I think it was made with whole milk. Why oh why is Austin the cheapest city ever? My sandwich today was $8. I never pay more than $6 for a sandwich in Austin.

I do have to recommend flying jetBlue into the Long Beach airport for all your L.A. transpo needs. This barebones airport consists of one runway. You disembark via a jet staircase (a la Arrested Development) and enter a small building with maybe five or so gates (one gate was for a flight to FRESNO!). The rental car offices were in a trailer! Seriously, with the palm trees and the lack of airportly sophistication, I felt like we had landed at the airport of some tiny island nation, not metro LA. The luggage carousel was outside!

Hertz tried to rent us one of those damn Chevy HHR clownmobiles, like we had in Massachusetts last week. I shouted NO and we were given a quality Toyota Camry instead.

Maple cone. :)

plug plug

Hey L.A. readers:

my improv troupe plays the Westside Eclectic in Santa Monica Friday night at 8pm.

If you want to, you know, see musical improv in Santa Monica.

flashy flashy

I just got in the mail my scoresheet for a manuscript contest I did not win. You send in $50, a synopsis, plus the first ten pages and some anonymous published author tells you what they think. I am beginning to question the taste and integrity of the judges, because they gave my book a 77 out of a possible 100. I got a higher score on the same book last year, but with fewer comments.

This reviewer wants more sexy, fast-paced, over-the-top characters a la Sex and the City?!?!? He/she also said that my opening dialogue is flat. WTF? I can take a note--I know my book ain't perfect, but flat? Sex and the City?

Anyway, I know what's wrong with my book. I'm deciding whether or not to give it its sixth or seventh rewrite or to just focus on Carol and Philip. I've got a killer hook on the second novel and since its not mired in family baggage, I think I can do better work on it. Although Carol and Philip are not sexy in the least (they are plain, Catholic New Englanders, although I thought about setting it in California in the '80s). I'm not really excited to work more on PoE, but I have dumped quite a bit of time into it.

I go to LA tomorrow.

rebel rebel

I'm headed to California tomorrow. First LA for Beyond the Borders Baja (our Austin fest has a sister fest out in Cali that the Geegsters are playing) and then mommy's house in the 'Mar. Mom asked me what I want to do whilst at the homestead and I told her "sleep and let you make my food." She was down with that.

I'm pretty much at mental odds with the state of Texas based on this map:

Why oh why do I live in the one place (besides Arizona) that's clocking 90+ temps in MAY? I hate the heat. I gain weight in the summer because I won't go outside and exercise. I need either a gym membership or a summer home. I guess I could hang out at my mom's all I want. There's no weather in the 'Mar. Just a beach, a bunch of horses, and boring rich people. And Little Bro's obnoxious high school friends. I don't know why, but those 'Mar kids come off as 100x more obnoxious than the C-Juana kids did.

Oh, life. Oh, denty chest. Oh, improv. Oh, Ladycollege. All I know is, I have query letters to write and send over to Elinor before my trip tomorrow. Vite vite vite!

reunion

What can I say about college reunions that hasn't been said before? There's some gung-ho freak (this year it was me) who gets off on ordering 288 tote bags (they looked nice) for a bunch of bitches (that would be the Ladycollegians). Maybe she does it because she spends her weekdays lonely and questioning her writing talent, so having a palpable responsibility like ordering tote bags makes her feel better about herself. Pathologize all you want, my reunion kicked ass, even though Karen C. elected not to come.

What can I say about reunion that will make Karen feel bad about her decision? Were there any hookups? I don't know. Police situations? I got a talking-to by the Lawrence House HR about emergencies and parties. The Larryettes who were in house while we were imbibing Magic Hat in their parlor looked rather sullen. We would have been tickled to include them in our revelry, but I didn't know what to do with the over-30 crowd back then, so whatevs. I do know that the Class of '98 is aging well. Prez Christ told me that when she walked into our Friday night dinner, she thought we were all students, so we're still rocking our 22-year-old skin or something.

Karen, I will now resort to photography to show you what you missed. Here's the aforementioned controversial sign, which was saved from censorship and found itself into the hands of Miss Patterson:

Definitely not as funny or apt as NOW WE'RE THE ONES EXPLAINING "I DIDN'T HAVE SEXUAL RELATIONS WITH THAT WOMAN," but what are you gonna do?

Here's a slab of the delicious Smith College Mud Pie that Karen didn't get to have:

I ate the shit out of that thing. I waited ten years to eat it! Like sex, only cold, and coffee-flavored.

Karen also didn't get a mug:

Or gaze out upon the world from the banks of Paradise:

But other than that, par for the course! I think everyone's reunion experience is unique. I helped run the damn thing, so I was tired, caffeinated, and buzzed on adrenaline the whole weekend. I hung with my Baldwin ladies mostly. We had some Taipei and some Tokyo, drank some drinkies, talked about life. There were babies for admiring and toddlers for Bob to entertain (he is esp. gifted with the 2-4 set). Smith was its usual self. Northampton was gorgeous and verdant. There are a few new shops on Main St. Illumination got rained out. My filet mignon at the class dinner was overdone and dry but Bob's was perfect. Yours truly is the new class president because I can't get enough of tote bag ordering and free trips to Northampton.

During Ivy Day, they do that thing where the head of the money-raising department gets up and reads off the totals each reunion class has given to the college. The '58s gave the most, of course, something like 1.7 million dollars. The in-their-prime-earning-years '83s gave a little over 1 million. The Class of '98 gave:

(drumroll)

$13,000! That's about a semester's tuition w/o room and board for one lucky Smithie! We all started laughing when the total was read, but I was like, Reaganomics have hurt Nancy's alma mater's bottom line (was she there? Class of '43 was in the house, all 5 of them or whatever). The only thing trickling down in my generation is last night's beer piss. A few ladies boasted that they had recently made their last student loan payment, but our class lacks heiresses and young millionaires, so $13,000 is going to have to do it for now. I'm not embarrassed in the least. History really isn't on our side.

I had a great time and as per usual, didn't want to leave. Austin is getting the stink-eye from yours truly for not being Northampton. Austin can take its Money Magazine Best Place To Live awards and shove 'em up its 102-degree ass. I don't even want to acknowledge the existence of barbecue sauce, I'm so peeved about having to leave ol' Noho.

I was shocked at the profuse thanks I received from classmates I don't even really know. People really did go out of their way to acknowledge and thank me for ordering those tote bags. So I got all the external validation that I don't get writing novels in one felled swoop last weekend. Yay me.

can't you just be funny?

I am so drained after this past weekend. I'm an exhausted teary mess, and as such, I am spending the day indoors with my laundry and my computer. I will write about reunion at some point this week, but today I will write about improv.

I really wanted Bob to like Northampton. No, scratch that. I wanted him to love it. He says he likes it, a lot, and that is all I can ask for. Last Wednesday, we wandered into the Masonic St. Laundromat for a little washy-washy of the clothes we had dirtied during our three days in Boston/Lowell. The laundromat has a vast bulletin board with leaflets (or perhaps posters, handbills, broadsides, or tracts) advertising the usual college town things: room for rent, Subaru For Sale, lectures on a gay theme. And then I saw it:

IMPROV.

Improv in Noho? Would my little town now be perfect? Was there a burgeoning improv community to be had? I looked closer. It actually said:

IMPROV
for recovery and healing

My heart sank a bit. Why does everything in the Valley have to be about recovery and healing? Why can't it be Improv for Fun? Improv for entertainment? The last thing I want to watch is a bunch of people rehashing their crappy childhoods on stage. Where's the fun in that? Further, where's the challenge in that? Everyone is going to be oh-so supportive and loving and tell you you're peaches and cupcakes no matter what you do. BORING.

If the laundromat bulletin board is any indication, Improv For Recovery and Healing is the only non-college game in town. Poopers. I can change that, though.

Maybe IRH and IFE could get together and do a show sometime. IRH would leave in tears.

insides

Whenever I'm in Western Mass, I feel that all of the things inside me that make me me are measured correctly (flour, salt, oil, water) and that I'm just brighter and happier. We took some pictures at the Mill and I look positively euphoric, and all I was doing was drinking an iced tea and looking at the waterfall.

I love it here so much that I question what I mean when I say "going home." I don't mean to be a heretic. I know there are fervent Austin lovers and rightfully so. Austin and me are sort of like that marriage that you don't leave because he doesn't beat you and he makes a living. Western Mass and me are sort of that smoky passionate thing but in a garret with no heat and canned soup for dinner.

In other news, THE ECONOLODGE HAS A POOL! A rinky-dinky chlorinated eye drop of a pool! I wish I had brought my bathing suit. The pool is indoors and the door is right next to the communal microwave. The (We Jam) Econolodge is the parking lot of the former "dead mall," which, in the decade that has intervened between my college graduation and now, has been transformed into a giant Wal-Mart. So much for rustic small-town New England.

The Ladycollege offers its reunion attendees rooms on campus, but somehow, I didn't think Bob would be down with the creaky beds, the inadequate blanketry, and the coed bathroom situation (by coed, I mean women's bathroom but with male privileges). Although the Ladycollege is renowned for having the best dorms of any small college, without one's belongings to brighten them up, the rooms are rather spare and sad and uncomfortable. I want him to like WMass, so I'm shelling out for a hotel.

mass

1) I forget how expensive everything in Mass is compared to TX. Esp. in Boston. Yowza.
2) Had a wonderful time w/Katy. She has a new boyfriend who seems to be a decent sort of chap. We saw some improv and ended up at a bellydancing show and had a great time.
3) I had a Magic Hat #9.
4) Saw Ann F-K yesterday. We discussed my desire to return to lexicography. Apparently they're always looking for people but she doesn't know if they'll hire me as a telecommuter.
5) We are now in Noho. Bob managed to make friends at Haymarket last night. He's such a friendly guy. He wants all the t-shirts at Faces.

What to have for lunch? So many culinary options. Whee!

onion

Yesterday I smelled like a giant onion and I don't know why. I didn't eat anything with actual onions in it. I had tofu scramble at Bouldin for lunch and leftover spaghetti for dinner. The spaghetti sauce had a sauteed onion in it but other than that, I don't recall any onion, unless the culprit was a copious shaking of onion powder in my tofu scramble. Stanky. Also, my feet smell like Fritos.

Reunion planning has hit fever pitch, as I had a reunion emergency this morning. Fucking A.

I must return yesterday's Nordy's purchase (too small on my butt, thanks Spanx!) and finish packing before meeting the Lucai at CM for din-din. Tomorrow: MASSACHUSETTS!!!

mo's artistic statement

I realize that the market is flooded with novels. Some are good. Some suck. Some I think suck but others really love and vice versa. The truth is, I don't think that the market or the American public really need what I write. I'm just another writer doing what I love. I'm not changing the world, here. I've had numerous unrelated people tell me that I'm talented and funny, and so with that in mind I have put my mind to realizing my dream of writing novels. I don't expect anyone to be terribly impressed by that. You know who impresses me? Firefighters. They put out fires. Much more important than what I do.

I like to think that I'm not full of shit or pretentious or annoying or high on myself. I like to be funny and my books reflect that. If you don't like what I write, that's okay. Everyone has their tastes. Mostly, I like to make people laugh. I don't have a political agenda. I don't think I need to have one. Some artists are masters at the intersection of Politics and Entertainment. I think my intersection is somewhere up the street, like the corner of Entertainment and Eating a Mango.

Also, I am a very privileged person from a privileged background. I am acutely aware of how damn lucky I am to be able to write full-time for as long as I had and not have to take some soul-crushing job. If my novels get published, it will have more to do with loving, supportive hands helping along the way than with talent. That's just how these things work and I know that it's a lot of work and that I will (and already do) have a lot to be thankful for.

If my novels never sell, if they remain dusty relics of my 30s, then I will come to terms with that. The universe doesn't owe me anything more. I do long to hold my novel in published form in my hand someday. Everything I have weathered in my life will be so worth it in that moment. But if not, I've had a great life, full of love and promise and fun. Mo cannot complain about anything. I have friends, I get to spend my life with an amazing man whom I love dearly, and I have an excellent education and a great network of Smith and improv people. I'm also a bad-ass in many things. There has always been a place for me at the table. I just have to figure out where that table is.

I do hope to be a bestselling author, but if not, I can be a bestselling something else.

Love,
Mo

(I got a really annoying letter from someone today, and I just want to put out there that my idea of the art I make and her idea of the art she makes are really different)

i want a job

I've been planning this reunion shizzle for almost two years now, and damnit! I should do this professionally! New job idea: alumni/ae director for a small college. I'm a wicked smaht planner of this shit and I have extensive, albeit unpaid, experience. My class president send me a huge compliment via e-mail today:

You know, you rock Monique - your leadership and consistency are making this reunion happen. I really appreciate it - and your double duty as VP and Sec. Jeez...

NOTE TO FUTURE EMPLOYERS: I ROCK! Leadership and consistency! I am tooting my non-writer horn today. Toot!

tote bag

If you're a member of the Ladycollege Class of 1998 (and chances are, you aren't. you might be a member of the Class of 1999...T-square!), next week you'll be receiving a swank red tote bag filled with the following goodies:

1) A custom NAME TAG with your NAME ON IT.
2) A custom MUG with an INSIDE JOKE ON IT.
3) A schedule of events written by ME.
4) A CD of 1998's hottest hits compiled by Thea.
5) A list of people's cell numbers for late-night drunk dialing.

You know you want one.

my log-line

"Hansel and Gretel with Armenians."

it could have been christmas

I was never a kid into Christmas. I was one of those kids who defined the saying "too smart for their own good." I pretty much smarted myself out of the Santa Claus legend in an exchange with my mother that probably shredded her heart into Parmesan. There was no way, I explained to her, that a fat man could slide down a chimney and give presents to every child on the planet, especially since my presents still had the Arthur's Toy Store price sticker still on them and were wrapped in wrapping paper that I had seen my mother buy at Bullard Drug just that past week. "Well, Santa needs help, so I volunteered to wrap this year's presents for him!" my mom offered, but I countered that Santa didn't do his shopping in Fresno. I was that kid and still am.

HOWEVER, once in awhile I am overtaken by Christmas-style anticipation and this week is is my impending trip to my favorite state, the Bay State, the state with a curly tail, a state so small that its representation on the United States puzzle of my childhood had it clustered along with its three smaller neighbor states. The state that GWB usually follows with the word "liberal," the state that brought you John Kerry, Moxie, Marshmallow Fluff, and your favorite red dictionary. The state that has THREE Seven Sisters colleges in it and highway signs with buckle hats. That's right, folks, MASSACHUSETTS! With a brief stopover in CONNECTICUT, which I don't love. MASSACHUSETTS I love. Other states, not so much.

I find anticipation exhausting, however, and depleting. And pointless. I always fail to live in the now, and this, again, is one of my failures. I am also greatly anticipating my monthlong writing holiday to VERMONT five months hence. On my childhood state puzzle, VERMONT was paired with NEW HAMPSHIRE. They are kind of fraternal twins, yes?

I like state shapes.

I had a very long and tiring day. I feel like an amoeba in a dish. I am going to repair to my bed for some dreamy time and some cuddling with the meat man. He currently has '70s porn star hair and I find that kind of hot.

sentimental journey

My long-awaited, long planned tenth reunion is two weeks from now. Time flies, doesn't it? Taking stock of the past decade of my life, I can see why Douglas Coupland refers to one's twenties as "muck and shit." They were, mostly, that just for me. I spent a lot of time unlearning bad messages and trying to figure myself out. I don't know if I'll ever have everything figured out. I'm sort of a loose cannon that way. I do know that I need to have my chest lobsterized and that in 2009 I need to return to the worky world, albeit not in any archives sort of way. That is the muck and shit I'm talking about. Stupid, stupid mistake, and one with an outstanding balance of $11,000 at 5.35%.

There is a restaurant in Austin that I absolutely hate but I often find myself there at the behest of others who absolutely love it. I suspect that the reason this place is so popular with my friends is for reasons of sentimentality. It's the sort of UT place where one goes for their first legal Mexican Martini, or their first illegal Mexican Martini. I suppose if you are the type of Longhorn who lionizes irresponsible drinking and doesn't mind bad parking, dangerously high decibel levels, mediocre Tex-Mex cuisine, and a beleaguered staff who clearly aren't making enough in tips, then this was your place during your school years and you love it in spite of its flaws. As someone who scoffs at this particular category of Austin culture, I've never been able to get with it. I also can't drink very much for health reasons. (I'm having dinner there tonight and am considering popping a Xanax beforehand to take the edge off)

Fifteen hundred miles away I have my own version of this. My favorite Asian restaurant, Taipei & Tokyo in Northampton, is probably not all that and a bag of wasabi peas to anyone outside of my college clique. I think its the most delicious Chinese/Japanese place in the country and make a beeline there for steamed veggie dumplings the minute my rental car crosses into Hampshire County. I've had spats with latter-day Smithies like J. Shine over its position as the finest Asian restaurant in Noho. I guess T&T doesn't get too much love from the locals anymore. Even Elinor was confused by my insistence that we have lunch there the last time I was in town. "We really don't go there anymore," she said, meaning her and her husband and all of their friends, of which she has many.

In my mind, T&T is still the best, even though it has its flaws. The waitstaff was kind of weird to me last time I ate there by myself. They kept asking if someone else was coming, which hurt my feelings. They still have the same delivery guy who stopped his car to look at all the Albright House breastage, and seeing him made me so happy! T&T is always quiet and there are no drunk/rowdy dudes in white caps lurching about, punctuating their slurs/drawls with "Dude." I can't wait to eat there in two weeks!!!

emo puppet bitch

I ventured to Puh-flugerville, TX tonight to watch the This American Life movie theater simulcast of Ira Glass on stage in NYC peddling his TV show. I've only seen snippets of the TV show, being too cheap to shell out a whole $1.99 for a full episode on iTunes, and it looks quality. Any sexual attraction that I once had to Ira is really gone, but I can see how he just stabs his metaphorical dick into the hearts and minds of women of my demographic. Dreamy, nerdy, overeducated white chicks past the age of 30 LOVE THIS ASSHOLE. Hell, I love him. I drove 13 miles to a BF suburb to pay $20 to be emotionally played like a harpsichord for two hours. AND IT WAS GREAT. No regrets! Play me!

I still have my Shrine to Ira, created c. 1999. In it, I have some old photos of him, the first-ever TAL-themed premium (rub-off tattoos, still intact), a 29 cent LOVE stamp (29 cents!!!! Don't forget the postage hike on 5/12--42 c!) and a cut-out from an article of the phrase IRA GLASS: RADIO TURN ON. I can't even begin to think about who I'd build a shrine to (its all in a silver picture frame) these days. Any votes?