Writing

…

Twenty-something lament.
I thought I pushed you out of a moving car on Route 10 somewhere near Lordsburg, New Mexico?
How did you drag your skanky, lumpy ass to Austin and find me?

I’d like to think that I suffer from depression, but I don’t. I suffer from nothing remotely near that.
In fact, I suffer from nothing at all.
I. absolutely. do. not. suffer.

The only adversity I face is not having the emotional resources to handle becoming an adult.

Right now is one of those times.

And it’s at these times I think of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” (and at no time do I think of The Dixie Chick’s “Landslide”):

“Oh mirror in the sky, what is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I handle the changing ocean tide? Can I handle the seasons of my life?”

But then I wonder what the hell mirror she’s talking about? Is this the mirror that Stevie did lines of coke on to help her deal with the ocean tides? Cause if so, I don’t have a bunch of nose candy and gigantic metaphorical plates of glasses to help (more…)

May 25, 2010 by
Writing

Why Can’t We Be Ourselves Like We Were Yesterday


“Do you see that?”

I didn’t see it. I wasn’t even looking.
Jimmy quickly pulls the car off the PCH and into the moonlit parking lot overlooking Malibu.

“What the hell is that?”

My head feels like a lead weight against the seat belt holder. I haven’t taken my eyes off the road for the past hour.

“Lil, look.”

Jimmy’s long finger nail pushes into the bottom of my chin.

“Look,” he says softly in my ear.

The warm wind feels heavy on my eyelids and it is at this precise moment I recognize every muscle in my face.
Off in the distance looms an object with a greenish glow, hovering six inches off the dash board, hundreds of feet off of the horizon.

“What do you think that is?” Jimmy asks rhetorically.

Such aberrant occurrences in Los Angeles lost their credible intrigue decades ago.
Their mystique only finds a home in the ones searching for a symbol.
Maybe this was my sign.
I focus on the object and burn it’s memory onto the back of my eyelids.

This will come home with me tonight.

Jimmy pulls the car up the driveway. (more…)

May 14, 2010 by
Writing

I Need to Return Some Videotapes

My super charming, middle-aged best friend from Germany who once froze a dead cat because he didn’t want the owner to think it passed away so quickly on his watch so he was going to microwave it right before the she came back from vacation, thinks I’m ahead of the curve when it comes to the movie/music/art scenes.

That is a fallacy.
I only give the illusion that I am. Just like how many people think I’m tall because I’ve been wearing heels since I was 13 (like my grandmother, which practice recently got her in trouble on the treadmill where she fell and broke her wrist). I’m typically anywhere from 2-6 months behind the latest music/movies/books which is why this blog will never be on the cutting edge for knowledge thirsty hipsters. Unless you want to know anything about Pee-Wee Herman, then I’m super on the ball.
So, I’m SURE you’ve already seen this video below. I typically don’t post videos on my blog (unless it’s Pee-Wee Herman), but this one I just can’t resist. It sandwiches together (more…)

May 12, 2010 by
Writing

Mom, Don’t Read This One, OK?

I’ve always prided myself on being an extremely self-aware person (“self-aware”= narcissistic only child). However, I have extreme difficulty writing about matters close to my heart. Matters that make me feel sensations other than hungry, tired, or gassy.

The Queen of All Matters Of the Heart is my mother. A woman that I so closely resemble in appearance, manner, and ethic that it’s near impossible to find any objectivity when talking about this woman. She and I are the symbolic definition of the greatest “Awkward Family Photo“. The fact that no clothing synchronized photo of us running through a florous ravine exists is surprising and disappointing.

(not my Mother and I or anyone that I know or care to know)

Mom, this post may be addressed to you, but I was serious about you not reading it.
I know you’ll call me later after seeing this on Facebook and say, “I saw that you wrote a post about me….” and there will be an awkward moment of silence, then I’ll have to explain that it’s actually (more…)

May 6, 2010 by
Writing

Mannequin Babies

Mannequin babies like to go to work with Mommy wearing the same exact outfit.
Skippy is giving Mommy problems with his beret. He keeps wanting to take it off.
Mommy doesn’t understand why Skippy keeps taking off the wool beret.
Mommy is wearing the beret so Skippy has to wear it too.
The beret makes you look nice, Skippy!
Don’t take off the damn beret!


This kid is a real pain in the ass, Mommy thinks.
So what if it’s 102 degrees out?
The beret compliments the outfit!
The outfit will not be the same without the beret!
Mommy and Skippy have to match!


Smile for the camera, Skippy!
Look up!
Don’t touch the damn beret or we’re going back inside and we’re changing out of matching outfits.
You want that?
I didn’t think so.
Now smile.
SMILE!


Look in that window, Skippy.
See what happens to mannequin babies that talk back to Mommy?
They get placed in American Apparel windows and forced to wear lamé leggings.
You don’t want your bow tie taken away from you, do you?
DO YOU?

May 6, 2010 by
Writing

When I Talked to You, I Could Tell That You Were Already Gone

It’s interesting how when life happens, the last thing that you care about is being funny.

These past few weeks have have been challenging on many fronts. Most particularly because the only man that I’ve known as a grandfather, the man who was most consistently rooted in my life, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease recently.
And though it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, it always is, isn’t it?
You overlook that turn down the wrong street to get home, or the repetition of a story that you’ve heard a hundred times before, brushing it off as simply old age. Nothing to worry about. However, when Grandma told me last week that Lionel informed the doctors that the year was 1999, the depth of reality finally sunk in.
I asked Grandma to put me on the phone with him. I needed to hear the Lionel I was used to. The jokey Lionel, the little kid Lionel, the man I always brush off when teasing me about something or other. “Oh Lionel, you’re crazy! Put Grandma on the phone!” Lionel was a noodge; (more…)
May 5, 2010 by
Writing

Mama Don’t Take My Kodachrome Away

When coming across new blogs, I’m constantly surprised to see that many people are more narcissistic than myself.
That is a tough chew to swallow (is that an expression?)
I mean, I thought no one could love themselves more than me.
My love knows no boundaries.
It’s blinding.
However, I’m finding that people in deed love to take pictures of themselves. In the bathroom, in the car, in the bedroom… wherever they can get it.
I kind of feel like I’m denying the world of something now.
So in honor of the art of self-lovin’, here are classic forms of narcissism caught in their natural state (tell me if I’m forgetting anything):
1.) Bathroom Mirror Shot– (male and female, worse for males)- I hate these photos so much, I almost refused to take one as a joke. Tell me, who still does this? I don’t want to see the contents of your bathroom. I understand that you may have the photography skills of an intoxicated primate but you look like a dude from Jersey. Put your shirt back on. Oh wait, you are a dude (more…)
April 26, 2010 by
Writing

Welcome To My Neighborhood

I work and live on the Eastside of Austin which means that I’m unique and hip… by default.

Anytime a young person moves to the east side of any city, their credibility suddenly goes up fourteen notches.

Or down.

Way down.
Eastside Austin is a culturally vibrant and enthusiastic part of our fair city. It’s the only place where you can sit back and watch a police helicopter chase while enjoying a nice $1.50 taco of your choice. It’s a place where warehouses are turned into art spaces, vacant lots are furnished with food trailers, and old dive bars are turned into new dive bars.
I myself work in said warehouse. My office was formerly a bus depot, then furniture store, now hipster art collective/squirrel habitat. Our building boasts a graffiti-esque sign of our name which is an exclaimed adjective followed by an exclaimed adverb. In front of the sign, is another sign posted by an anonymous local telling us to get lost.
At our office we enjoy watching prostitutes having sex with their johns outside (more…)
April 26, 2010 by
Writing

Crispin Glover is My Density

When I was a child, I lusted after Doc Brown.
I used to write my name as “Mrs. Emmett Brown” on notebooks.
My mother thought it was f’ing weird. My classmates gave me strange looks.

I mean, it wasn’t Christopher Lloyd that I was jonesin’ for.
There was just something about that wild white hair and manic eyes. I swooned after his near autistic dedication to science and inability to interact with anyone socially.
And that car!
Yep, Doc Brown could get my motor up to 88 miles per hour (weak).

But as time went on and puberty set in, my appetite towards Doc changed and my interest started to fall towards another.

Someone equally as brilliant and likely to have Asperger’s, but yet more refined. Like a fine Merlot.
With that strong jaw line, beautiful laugh, and amazing part in his hair- George McFly quickly won over my affections.
Why didn’t I see it when I was younger!? This man is beautiful!
My interest in George began to deepen and deepen. The pangs of desire would keep me up at night. It was getting (more…)
April 23, 2010 by
Writing

I’m a Big Kid Now…Wow!

My blog was born from a time in my life that I like to call, “The Time I Lost Me”.

Dear Lord, that’s an epically boring name for such a significant time in my life.
“The Time I Did Things I Secretly Don’t Regret”?
“The Time I Would Sit on Venice Beach with Homeless People and Drink From My Flask”?

“The Time I Wanted to Abandon My Life and Drive Out Into the Desert and Live in a Seedy Motel and Write Poetry on the Walls in Lipstick”?

Though I rarely addressed my “feelings” in the beginning days of my blog (at that time called, “PlasticLA”), I did often joke about certain predicaments that I would find myself in. Situations that could be labeled as “sad” or “pathetic”.
Waking up lying next to a bottle of cheap vodka with mascara running down your face and turning towards the mirror wondering who the hell you were looking at did make for endless writing fodder, but it did not make for a great life.

And though I dreamt since I was a little girl of being a bi-polar, substance abusing, romanticizing (more…)

April 22, 2010 by