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April 22: A Magnificent Band of Outcasts
Believe it or not, I was not always the popular person I pretend to be today. No, I went through a long friendship drought as a child. Luckily, I subscribed to the philosophy that a girl’s best friend is a book, also maybe her cat, so I wasn’t terribly unhappy. But I was aware of my pariah status, and I didn’t much care for it. Still, there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot I could do about it, so I just eked out a marginal social life in elementary school, getting revenge where I could (and I’m not talking about that on the Internet until I’ve checked statutes of limitation) and enduring the rest. It was an acceptable level of self-esteem annihilation. I could survive just fine on my own.
Then came Junior High, the crucible in which youthful character is deformed. It was a snakepit, underfunded, understaffed, on double session (one set of students 7-11:30, another 12-4:30) since another junior high had burned down. No doors on the stalls of the bathroom, hence my still remarkable bladder control. Narcotics officers on full-time duty on campus. Just for pot, I think, since that was all that had been invented for children under 15 at the time. Anyway, I went from being shunned by maybe 60 kids to what seemed like a cast of thousands. Correction: shunning would have been a blessing. I was small then (curse you, late onset growth spurt!) and a target of random bullying by a pack of girls in denim dusters with painfully plucked eyebrows. It was like regularly being beaten stupid by The Runaways. Wanna know the best way to leverage yourself out of a dumpster behind the Stop-n-Go? I can show you.
But I was still game and determined to excel, having bought the whole “now is when it all starts counting towards college” speech given to me by my guidance counselor. Even though the English class was so woefully remedial (and this was the only class available) that the teacher actually read aloud to us, “The Pearl” and “Shane” if I recall correctly, and most of the grades were weighed in favor of attendance, even so, I wanted to do whatever it took to be Ivy-League-track.
So sitting in T-107 (that would be a temporary building, a portable metal shed) on a hot September afternoon, waiting for the meeting of the Aeronautics Club to start was where I made my first Junior High friend. He was a tall, fair, chunky boy with bad skin who was clearly a target as well, but somehow wore it with much more elan than I. He sat behind me and out of nowhere passed me a note. It said:
HOW ARE PEANUT BUTTER AND A HOOKER ALIKE?
I looked at him and shrugged. He handed me another note:
THEY BOTH SPREAD FOR BREAD.
I laughed, shocked by his naughtiness. That was Jon, and we would become tight. Jon was known around campus by a variety of pet names: Queer Bait, Fag, Big Fag, Queer Fag, Super Faggy Fag, you get the idea. Since I was known as Casper, Whitey, Ghost, Spooky Freak, Exorcist Chick, etc., I figured we were a natural fit. He made me laugh, he taught me to have a sense of humor about myself and not to take any shit from people I didn’t care about. Remarkable life lessons, upon reflection, but mostly Jon was just somebody born brave and funny and I basked in his confidence. Eventually we were joined by two others: Amy, who was a lovely young woman being raised by horrific, gun-toting, racist, religious fanatics who dressed her in baggy dresses and thick knee socks, the better to protect her from the lascivious glances of “those anti-Christ Catholic wetbacks,” and Man-Ling, a recent immigrant from Hong Kong, who spoke little English yet seemed to appreciate our jokes. We found hiding spots together, we were afraid together, everything was okay because we were together.
I don’t know what happened to everyone: I fled to the safe haven of Catholic girls’ high school as soon as I could. I tried to bring Amy with me, but her mom threatened me with a shotgun if my Papist ass ever darkened her doorstep again. That was it, I haven’t seen her since, but I think of her a lot and I worry. I’m sure Man-Ling is fine, her family was wonderful, warm, loving, really making a place for themselves and their children in a new country.
And one day, quite a few years ago now, I was back in San Jose, just tooling around the local strip mall running errands for my mom, when this man approached me. He was godlike in his gorgeousness, blonde hair shining in the sun, magnificently sculpted body in blue jeans and tee shirt, green eyes a person could get lost in. “Kuda?”
He was a stranger to me. I cautiously replied “Yeah?”
“It’s JON.”
CHRIST. I flat out fell into his arms, and I never do that. But I was so happy to see him as beautiful as that, as shallow as that may be. It was a victory, somehow, over those people who’d tried to make him feel freakish and deformed and perverted. We talked, and it turned out he was happy, he was a well-adjusted gay man with many names on his dance card. He was still unbelievably funny and sweet and open. How did he get through it all without turning sour and mean? He did better than I did, I know that. But then again, I always did bask in his reflected saintliness as well as getting a contact high off his confidence. He understood I was a little more nasty than he was, and he liked that because he liked me. Jon, I think about you a lot. Jon, Amy and Man-Ling, I think about you all a lot. Please be well, you meant the world to me once.
04/22/02
From Kuda, With Love And Squalor
We need to talk, Reader. I know I’ve been distant lately, what with my solipsistic, constant need to talk about myself, what I’m thinking, what I remember, somehow trying to wrest meaning from--I’m sorry, I was doing it again, wasn’t I? Someday I’m going to disappear into my own navel, haha. Enough about me. It’s been too long since we talked about you.
First of all, you are really good-looking. I know I don’t say it enough. I guess I think you know you’re a fine, fine, striking specimen of humankind. But I should say it more often, how physically attractive I find you. Damn this rigorous blogging-sleeping-staring into space routine I must maintain! Else I would spend all my time appreciating you and expressing my deep, soulful desire for you more dramatically. I would bake you a cake and write humorous, off-color expressions of affection on it. Hey, good-lookin’, what’s cookin’? My cake of love for you, that's what!
Also, you are very intelligent. I appreciate that you don’t throw that up in my face, that you don’t talk down to me. But I have seen you sneaking volumes of Proust in the original....German, is it? Hiding them behind true-crime paperbacks so as not to shame me. Your insights are keen and I am constantly enlightened when you choose to share them. I bask in your wisdom and thank you for sharing with me.
Have I mentioned lately how terrific you smell? You do. I don’t know how you do it, no matter what I do I seem to consistently smell of Sure deodorant and fear. You, on the other hand, are a cool ocean breeze, a wafting, haunting scent of cinnamon and vanilla, a rich, complicated aromatic tapestry that mercifully excludes patchouli. Birds suddenly appear, strangers lean close and smile furtively, you are so freaking nice to be near. Bottle yourself, you’ll make a fortune.
I’m kind of embarrassed to have to say all this aloud, because I think you know how much I appreciate you, being so terrific and all, reading my squirrelly wordings. But before I turn back to myself, with all my fascinating irascibility, I want to say one more thing: you are the full-size Snickers bar in the Halloween candy bag of life. You liking me makes me happy.
Hey, I can pat my head and rub my tummy at the same time! I gotta do an entry about that soon.
04/18/02
April 17: Apres Mois, La Brea - Part Three
Oh lord, what have I enmeshed myself in this time? I am no mighty griot. And believe me, I have known some mighty griots in my time, from creepy albinos smoking unknown substances and predicting scary, impotent futures for us all, to my big liar friends who like to predict my demise surrounded by a near hundred filthy cats who will later eat my face for failure to provide tuna on a timely basis. What have I to say to you all about my to-ing and fro-ing during my lifetime thus far, mostly in the limited delta configured around a narrow inlet of the Pacific Ocean? Look to me for nothing. I’m cranky. Plus I will punish you with fire and locusts and baldness if you provoke me further.
Okay, the idle threat portion of tonight’s entry out of the way, here we recommence recherche-ing things that were that are not any more. Maybe they will be again and I will look stupid. But that’s only because Rand-McNally has it in for me, ever since I beat him up in a bar once. Continuing, in a rational fashion:
COUNTRIES
Burma: Is it Burma any more? Is it Myanmar? I don’t even know, I get all dizzy. I remember I worked on a case that involved Burma and all of a sudden it was “Myanmar.” Why? I don’t know. To fuck with me and make me have to reformat a whole lot of documents is what I surmised. Are the Burmese trying to avoid a knee-breaker over an exorbitant gambling debt? I’d know this if I paid any attention to geopolitical events, or if my local paper had such a thing as worldwide coverage. Unfortunately, back when this occurred, Herb Caen didn’t mention it. Bastard. Meanwhile, I have to say, “Myanmar-Shave” is far less catchy.
Upper Volta: “Burkina Faso?” “BURKINA FASO?” Didn’t she dance nude at the Condor back in 1972? Thank god that the capital, Ouagadougou, remains the same. Because that was where the only sister school of my teeny-tiny Catholic girls high school was. Every year, Burkina Faso, or whatever it chooses to call itself now, I honor its name-change journey, makes a film. Every year I see it if the San Francisco Film Festival sees fit to show it, which it has, every year until this year. Maybe you should rethink that name, Burkina, babe. These are stupid, Hollywood-friendly types who took over my local cinematic exchange. If they thought you were doing Harvey Weinstein, they may rethink putting your film on the schedule.
Zaire: I don’t know why it was Zaire, it just was. Before that, it was the Belgian Congo. Now it’s the Congo, period, full stop. Soon it will be “Hewlett-Packard Presents The Congo On Ice!” I met a lot of Doctors Without Borders in Uganda who had been evacuated to Kampala and they all said “Zaire (The Congo) is the most beautiful place on Earth.” So I will go there. When I figure out what exactly is going on there. And I’m an Africa-phile. Oh God. I try, but I am a moron on events outside of the greater Bay Area. But you have the most amazing guitarists ever in residence, please know I will continue to enjoy your tapes! Yikes. I gotta get my French back in order so I'm not dependent on the U.S. rags.
You know, I had a near-brilliant discussion regarding the Middle East today with my supervisor. I want the spacemen to know, I am not as lame as this entry might suggest. If you have the technology, and why wouldn’t you, please resuscitate my ice mummified-form and ask me a couple of pertinent questions. I’m studying up as I type this. Honest.
04/17/02
April 16: Apres Moi, La Brea - Part Two
Oh man, it’s so cold here in my front room that my teeth are chattering and my fingers are frozen. This is mid-April in sunny California. Meanwhile, I am reliably informed, it is unbelievably warm in New York City, 80’s and 90’s Fahrenheit. It may well be the endtimes, what with ice shelves the size of Rhode Island falling off of Antarctica. Wow. I best download my priceless pearls to CD and pray those medium degradation predictions are grossly exaggerated, so that the spacemen will have the benefit of my extensive knowledge of that which has transpired during my time on this planet, before I am either frozen into an ice mummy (my colorful purple sweater over black tank top over grey sweat pants garb revealing my status as high priestess of an animistic, taste-challenged cult) or reduced to a puddle of sweaty ash, depending on the vagaries of the Big Plan. Back to what I was talking about before, things which have disappeared.
PROFESSIONS
Proofreader: This was my first gig out of college, all educated and prepared to do exactly nothing. Despite what this log may indicate, I have a keen grasp of the mechanics of business communication, due to a mother who actually experiences physical pain when noun and verb fail to agree. This profession was noble, back in the day. Noble, lucrative and desirable. When I moved on to my current profession (putting things in files for lawyers), I still hired in batteries of temporary professionals at exorbitant rates to make sure that the comma after “hereinafter” was properly placed. Gone now, eradicated by software that swears on Bill Gates’ mother’s grave that it can do the same thing for free. Oh yeah. Meanwhile, my toes curl involuntarily from horrific commas after descriptive dates (“1/14/02, memo cited herein,” shudder, shudder, die). Come back, Strunk and White-savvy Shane!
Small Electronics Repairperson: Back when I was a pigtailed girleen, when something broke, you fixed it. Or, more precisely, you paid a highly qualified vo-tech professional to do so. The hi-fi on the fritz? Go see Joe at The Sound Barn, he’ll make it nice, take that nickel off the tone arm and still get the needle to play to the end of the LP record for nothing extra. Television hiccuping on channel four, making you a prisoner of Norman Lear and his com-symp programming agenda? That’s Nick at The TV Hut’s specialty, no problem! Now, it don’t work, you junk it. Buy a flat screen, buy something cheap and disposable from Circuit City, hope you don’t pollute the groundwater when you dispose of the previous clunker. I realize I’m sounding particularly old-crank right now. Nyar. Get off my lawn, you punk kids!
Psychoanalyst: I’m told that, back in the Paleolithic Era, you would take your disturbances and troubled psyche to a trained, multi-degreed doctor of bugs in the head and get it sorted out. Then there was a big breakthrough, with the neurological and pharmacological sciences coming together to pinpoint specific chemical deficiencies which caused such irregularities. That’s great, truly. That is a huge milestone in Western Civilization’s understanding of mental illness as a physiological phenomenon, not demons, not bad parenting. At least, not solely. And that’s where I quibble. Because, unfortunately, such insight coincided with the dawn of the evil era of “managed care.” According to my health plan, you’ve got 20 sessions of whatever mood malady you manifest, and then you’re out. So, instead of talking a bit, getting to know you and maybe gain some insight to what’s going on in that cavern of mystery called your brain, you get your meds tweaked. I hope I’m wrong, I hope that there are still sympathetic practitioners of the art of listening and insight who still give enough of a damn to pay attention to symptoms not so easily treated with a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Maybe you are on the verge of searing self-knowledge and just need someone to hold your hand as you navigate this new corridor. But I don’t trust Aetna or Blue Cross to provide it.
Done for tonight. Damn, now you’re skateboarding on my lawn! I just planted peonies! I weep for our youth.
04/16/02
April 15: Apres Moi, La Brea
Sometimes a lifetime is a catalog of history; other times it’s just a catalog of discontinued items, priced to move. We’re in the countdown to my birthday, babies, and it’s time for me to list those notable things which have come and gone so far during my hour upon this stage, plus my very special personal recollections thereof. I grant you, some of the items listed may continue to exist in drastically reduced, and thus sad, form. But this is for posterity. Just in case in the year 3002 the Creationists, sorry, the Intelligent Design enthusiasts, decide to expand their franchise to history and social science, and thereby declare the CD player a manifestation of divine intervention, I’m gonna patch that gap in the fossil record right now. Tonight’s installment:
PRODUCTS
Black and white television: Our upstairs television, a Zenith, “the kids’ teevee,” in the parlance of the suburbs. Pre-dated either my brother or my appearance on the planet, but ran just fine, apart from the stuck brightness, which caused one to sit as far as possible away from it to avoid blindness, and the high-pitched shrieking noise it emitted constantly, which one soon grew used to. Plus it had the added benefit of blowing out the upper range of my cochlea, mercifully sparing me the oeuvre of Sarah Brightman.
Eight-track cassette player: Never had one, but the product design of the Panasonic models? Mmmmwah. I remember groovin’ poolside at an elementary school party to “Smoke on the Water,” I think it was at Lauren Galluci’s house, when that tell-tale “ka-CHUNK” indicated that the tape had run out on that side and was switching to the other. And “Smoke on the Water” resumed from the beginning. Ex-cell-en-tay.
Betamax VCR player: This is a sad tale, babies. The Betamax was, by all accounts, a superior product to the VHS models that supplanted it. It was just too pricey or something, I forget. Something happened to it. Plus we never had one, or any VCR for that matter, my parents were cheap and technology averse. But Doug Delluomo did (his folks were loaded and flashy, we all loved it over at his house), and he would tape Letterman and The Twilight Zone for later marathon viewing. Think mere possessions can’t make you popular? Think again.
Floppy disks: So cute, so cheap, so easy to format, load data on and then lose. Downside: they make less attractive coasters than the CDs which have replaced them as information repositories.
Tab: Whither Tab? The original diet cola in the pretty pink can? Was it disappeared in favor of the Diet Coke because dudes wanted the saccharine without the feminine overtones? Tab was tastier. Summer days laying out in the backyard, listening to Rufus, working on my tannage, drinking Tab. It was good to be a girl, once. Diet Coke is way too fizzy, by the way. It’s just not ladylike to burp the alphabet between sips.
Tomorrow’s installment: probably professions, unless I think of something better.
04/15/02
April 14: Help me help you
You get a whole lot of bull hockey from the Diet Industry, am I right, my heavyset homies? Can I get an amen, Oprah? All of y’all strapped to the treadmills of Rice University, throw your hands in the air and wave ‘em like you just don’t care! That’s right, I feel ya. There’s a million plans out there, all of which will ultimately let you down hard on your bigger-than-ever patootie. You want to be flab-free in 2003, chances are you won’t fit through the door in 2004. Stop the insanity of dealing your meals, bowflex your right to a thinner you without abdominizing anything you don’t absolutely want to abdominize. This is America, am I right? If we can build a missile defense shield, we can all build our own personal calorie defense shields. It’s all physics or something related. Or it’s a mathematical statistic. Thermal dynamics? Something like that.
[NOTE: Chet, get the boys in R & D to punch this up a mite, and see if any of them are presentable enough to stick in a lab coat for a couple seconds of video. Thanks, doll!]
Anyhoodle, we all know from experience, and isn’t experience the best teacher, that taking and keeping off weight is dang hard. Word. Don’t I know it! In the past twenty years I’ve weighed up to 415 pounds and dieted down to 78 pounds, with pit stops at every number on the scale in-between. My doctor believes I have gained and lost the equivalent of several beef steer. I say, I wish I actually got to keep those beef steer, at least I’d have something to show for my efforts. Instead, I’ve got some interesting skin irregularities and an enlarged heart the size of a Volkswagen. But enough about me, this is about YOU and the miracle that awaits you.
[Chet: check that my key lighting is peach, by the way. Peach, not pink. You rule my world, you stud.]
On Spring Break a couple years back, after being cruelly taunted about my personal appearance by Carson Daly, whom, I would like to note, has packed on a few recently, I decided to make it my life’s work to get slim and stay slim. But how could I? Food is delicious and necessary. Exercise is hard and boring.
Then, a friend of mine from Kudaglamour Products turned me on to a revolutionary new product. Imagine being able to eat all you want to, and never gaining an ounce! In fact, over time, a very short period of time, maybe even in time for bikini season, you’ll lose all those unseemly inches! Best of all, it’s 100% natural. No chemicals! No harsh abrasives! And it’s coated for easy swallowing. No gagging! It’s “KudaTrim 3000” and now, for those of you who are really motivated to shed those unhealthy pounds, the supplement “Kudazrine” with miracle ingredient Kudacac! I guarantee you, you won’t feel hungry, you won’t even want to think about food with these two helpers on your side! Best of all, your exercise routine will be a breeze, thanks to increased energy. Plus, KudaTrim 3000 has a revolutionary new effect that makes your body exercise all by itself, you don’t have to do a thing! Washboard abs will be yours in no-time flat, nice as Janet Jackson’s or that handsome black man who takes a bath in his video. It’s fantastic! Your abdominal muscles create their own daily workout routine without any thought or planning by you! You would pay thousands of dollars to a fancy Hollywood trainer to achieve the same result. But you don’t have to! KudaTrim and Kudazrine are each yours for the low, low price of $49.95 for a month’s supply! Wow! While you’re getting out your credit card and dialing our free 800 number to talk to one of our qualified telephone operations personnel, please listen to these satisfied, happy Kudaglamour believers!
[Chet: please get me the videotapes so I can select the best testimonial subjects from our various focus groups.. Survivors only! I don’t want a repeat of the situation with that woman in Albuquerque. Sure, she looked great in a thong, but she was dead by the time the ad aired, it ended up costing us a lot of real money. Anyhow, honey, blame is for the backward-type thinker, we’re going forward here. Just don’t do it again, okay? Thank God we don’t have to deal with the FDA or we’d have been toast on that. Tapeworms, Guinea worms, they looked the same in the lab. Shudder. Moving forward, always moving forward, bad thought go away. Clear now.]
Amazing, isn’t it? I swear, I’m crying, these are real tears of happiness. And look at me! I’ve taken off the equivalent of yet another beef steer and I feel great! Carson Daly, eat your heart out! No, wait, I want to do that! Hahahahahaha! Skinniness and vengeance are fun! I kid. But seriously, I’m serious about you being as happy and desirable to an MTV veejay as I am. Maybe you want Ananda Lewis to like you, we can make that happen. Call today. Don’t waste another moment of your life, you miserable tub of goo.
[Chet: book me the usual suite at the Sedona place before the shoot. And make sure Courtney Love isn’t there at the same time, the woman never shuts up during the nature hikes. I’ll bring you back something nice, cactus soap or something.]
04/14/02
April 12: Very Bad Things
WARNING: This is a navel gaze if ever there was one. Mo’ funny later, tonight, not so much.
I saw a terrible movie on corporate ethics tonight, “Changing Lanes.” I will save you some money; no, do not see this movie, sorry to whatever-googleplex-will-now-be-denied-your-patronage. On reflection, this should not have surprised me. This was the product of corporate media, a collaboration between two or three of the six multinational corporations which own virtually all of the outlets for filmic communication. So, of course it pulled its punches. Of course it spoiled a perfectly workable neo-noir set-up with a ready-made “I believe that people are basically good” message (a message which, by the way, is ridiculed three-quarters of the way through, only to be validated by an obviously tacked-on ending--freezing sleet in April? Clearly reshoots were done hastily.) I went in to be chastised, to be provoked out of my comfort zone, to feel that I have, in fact, participated in my own small way in some wicked works upon this earth. I went out rolling my eyes, albeit with a greater appreciation of Ben Affleck’s impressive stolidity. He is the perfect Portrait of a Young Jackass as Tool of the Man, too bad any remake of “Sweet Smell of Success” would end with a group hug as everyone realized that we are all part of a gorgeous tapestry, movie starlet, P.R. hack and incest-minded gossip columnist all one under the skin.
I’ve been handmaiden to The Man for going on eleven years now, with frequent breaks to go do something else until, exhausted, I return to the devil I know. I have pretty much assuaged my conscience with the good works I have performed during that tenure: preparing the voluminous record and finding testimonial anomalies that helped get a guy off Death Row, working with the mentally-ill homeless to get them the Social Security income they are rightfully deserving of and scandalously denied, occasionally turning in ethically-challenged associates to minimally more conscience-bound superiors. I got a good eye and scads of good intentions. Does this mitigate: finding out an essentially irrelevant but useful bit of information that torpedoed a litigant’s credibility and thus her case? Going in as a hired gun to fire stranger after stranger as part of one of those evilly euphemized “Reduction-in-Force” after a merger of giant banks? So I don’t make as much money, okay, not nearly as much money, as the guys who call the shots on these things, I’m not a made man, I’m just a runner. What’s my guilt in all this? I’m helping, no doubt. I’m not part of the solution.
One of the characters in this movie, played by the ever wonderful, ever reptilian Sidney Pollack, expresses disgust with ethical quandary and its attendant paralysis. “At the end of the day, I’ve done more good than harm.” I’m not quite that comfortable with balancing my moral books like this.
I don’t have a neat resolution to this, unlike that suckfest movie. The one thing I must credit my residual Catholic training with is that it does make me want to be good, and thus wonder what exactly “good” is, and how to make my own personal moral decisions without being a self-sacrificing fool. I realize that I’m pragmatic: that’s what’s kept me out of cults. I realize too I am not comfortable with moral absolutes; that’s what’s kept me out of both the Republican and Socialist Workers Parties.
Just gonna end this with the following: I am not twisted up in torment or anything. I do this all the time. I hope I don’t stop trying to be good. Because I’m smart and well-versed in the ways of The Corporate Man at this point. I could do some serious damage if I wasn’t worried that I might make Baby Jesus cry.
04/12/02
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