i’m a bad, bad bloggrrrll

You know the best part of having hot pink hair? Sometimes, like today, I’ll be driving slowly through a parking lot, say, at the grocery store and a stranger will see me and he/she (usually a she, though) will burst out laughing. I love that. Somehow I don’t feel laughed at–I feel like I cheered someone up or woke them from their humdrum errand mind. I might just be blowing smoke up my own arse though and maybe they’re laughing AT me. Hard.
I’ve been feeling, as is my wont, a lot of angst and embarrassment and guilt for not posting much on the blog. Here’s the deal: KP [i’m best in the 3rd person] is great at starting things and has a whole lot of trouble seeing them through without other people. What I’m saying is, LB, please start nagging me!!!! All the time!!!! Ask me, “KP, you sexy stallion, have you blogged today?” Like, when I’m brushing my teeth or taking out my contact lenses or kissing my collection of Dukes of Hazzard action figures before I go to bed. It needs to be part of a routine. I admire my friends doing the NoBlowMe thing. Okay, one friend.

Also, here are a host of other excuses/reasons why KP hasn’t been holding her own on this here blog project:

1. Starting and continuing too many other projects (this is the job of the KP, after all): Miss Representation, Dido tour and workshop, PEP, the FreeDome [news on this coming soon], the IS (who is becoming less and less Insolent–we might need a new moniker that bespeaks her goofiness and spazziness), and let us not forget CLAW (charlottesville lady arm wrestlers)
2. After I get the IS all tucked in (which entails toileting, pajamery, teeth-brushing, mirror “work,”sink spitting, story reading, backrubbing, song-singing, cassette tape loading, excuse shooting-down, kissing, hugging, etc.) my ass is T-I-R-E-D. Ask LB. I’ve become a blob after 9 p.m. Still recovering from Shentai which ended 5 months ago. And maybe all the weight lifting I’ve been doing to prepare for CLAW (coming to the Blue Moon Diner in 08!).
3. Fear of writing poorly. I know, that’s lame because approximately 3 people read this blog. And you gotta start somewhere. And those 3 people are my adored people.
4. Ambivalence about blogs in general. I keep thinking, when I think of posting, shouldn’t i be applying my time to something more Significant and World-Changing. I have nothing to Say. Also, I am, as all friends of KP will attest, the absolute worst at relaxing and doing something “fun” or “lite” that doesn’t somehow more important implications. I can’t even read beach fiction at the beach. Let’s face it, I have trouble lying on a beach. I feel like a schlub [a word I think I just made up] and like time’s a wastin’.
5. Last, but not least, this blog is too dark. I’m talking about how it looks, literally. LB, we need to lighten this shit up. Give it some pizzazz. Right now it’s like jumping into a grave, aesthetically speaking.

Okay, patient readers. Time to get off the computer and recycle the miscellaneous brown/mixed paper, the one thing the city doesn’t pick up curbside. Come on City, get with it! You’re almost perfect.

Random

Saturday:

So, as you may have noticed the KP isn’t doing any “blogging”. I am having to pick up her slack and post again so that you will have something to stare at while you wiggle the saliva in your mouth around with the tip of your tongue.

You’re welcome.

I have used almost every category we have so I can wander aimlessly as I “write”. It is the last day of my work week and a good time to reflect because I try hard not to work on this day.

First, can someone explain something to me? I am wondering what is the appeal of, during a transaction of money for product, arranging the precise amount of money and coins you give the cashier so that you receive an nice round number back? Some people go to extreme lengths to make it so they receive no coins back from me at the register. Even if it means giving me a huge excess of money for what they are buying. Now, I’m not gonna judge (yes I am) I just want to know, is it worth it? Anyone out engage in this behavior? Do you feel fulfilled?

Sunday:

I managed to get out of work early on Saturday so that I could go to the Vintage Apple Festival. Our good friend Stank Williams was gonna be playing music with his band and there was Virginia country fun to be had. It was driving me crazy that I was not going to get to go since my Sister was going with my nephew, my mother, Stank’s family, the KP with IC, our friend Starrhillgirl. and many other friends. A last minute miracle (over staffing) occurred and I was good to go! So I crammed in a tiny fuel efficient vehicle with my family, Tay at the helm, and we headed south of town.

I was so glad I could make it. The day was beautiful. All my friend’s funny little kids are beautiful. Starrhillgirl looked beautiful in her modified T-shirt. The music was great. It was good clean Virginia fun. I really like where I live. I’m with Starrhillgirl on how pretty and fabulous it is around here. Even though we are lousy with republicans. My family took a hay ride. They reported it was a little scary and a lot of fun. The old folks sang along to Stank’s music, while wearing their John Deere hats. There were animals to pet and kiddy games to play and things to buy. Pickles, cider, apples, honey, plants, baskets etc.

We are all still sick in this house. Currently the KP and I are on two different computers. One up, one down. We are “IM-ing” one another so as not to have to get up. The Insolent child went off to the the safari park with Wistar and Darren. It is a weird place that doesn’t seem like it should be legal. I’ll let Wistar tell you all about that. I am fixin to have some coffee with the family before they hit the road back to NOVA. I might wash my bathmat. That is Sunday for ya.

A day of “Beauty”

Today was the first day of a brief little job I got through the local paper.

I am a model…….(I’m pausing for your laughter).

Though, they seem to like the way I look, the lady I am playing is a lot richer, a lot gussier and a lot more conservative.This morning I arrived at a posh local salon so I could get my hair did. The stylist and my contact from the paper were busy looking at a style they liked for my hair in a magazine. They asked me what I thought. “whatever”. I think I managed to put a little more shine on it than that, but that was the gist of it. Here I will digress. I loved the girl who did my do. Totally nice and cute and apologized in advance for giving me a non-me do. So , She chopped 6 inches off my hair and dyed it a dark brown. I can’t really complain but, maybe just a little. Let me just say that the last thing I want to be doing at 10am is sitting in a brightly light salon staring at my own sleepy mug for what seemed like hours. Oh yeah, it was hours. Apparently “virgin hair” takes a long time to dye. 2 1/2 hours into the process I am rushed downstairs for a manicure, still being “styled” as we go, so that the jewelry will look good on my hands. Once I am out the door, I quickly have an emergency cigarette before having my ass crammed in a seat at the cosmetics store so the nice lady can do my makeup. “Do you usually wear foundation”? Um, I don’t usually wear ANY makeup. Uh, do most people wear foundation? “the majority do, yes”. Gulp, I feel a little like she doesn’t approve. At this point I have also had a quick stop before the glop to put on my outfit. I am wearing brown high heeled shoes, nice jeans and a shirt I can’t be bothered to try to describe. It was hard to put on, involved pleats/puckers(?!)and came in what may be considered a “jewel tone”, nuf said. Now my face is on and the two paper folks are enjoying calling me “the talent”. This because they have to hold all my things for me and cover me with an umbrella etc. so I don’t fuck anything up. For the next 3 1/2 hours I try to look cute but not campy, flirty but not too sexy as I try to pretend to shop for things like giant shiny rings and $1000 purses . All the while trying not to smudge or smush or cause fly aways or JesusMary&Joseph, sweat!

It is a pretty good time, though.

You’re sitting on it (and other things I learned while traveling)

Who among the vast swath of greasy humanity does NOT know that, on an airplane, your seat doubles as a flotation device??? In case your airplane crashdives smoothly into a body of water and mysteriously floats long enough for you to remove the seat and walk outside? Well, it appears I shared a plane with that one person whose ears never heard and brain never retained that crucial and useless detail. After an uneventful car trip from my hometown to the airport with KPdaddy and KPstepmommy, I plunk down in a tiny commuter plane for my trip to New York Shitty as LB so neutrally calls it. A middle-aged woman behind me calls out to the stewardess who’s standing at the opposite end of the plane: “Where’s my flotation device? Where’s my flotation device? I can’t remember!!” She’s so panicked that I’m afraid I’m going to have to pull my oxygen mask down and service myself before helping her. The stewar–sorry, flight attendant saunters down the isle. She’s hovering around 55 and has long dyed orange hair and is chewing nicotine gum (at least it’s nicotine gum in my fantasy). You just know she takes aerobic pole-dancing classes for fun with her girlfriends. Anyhooters, I digress. The flight attendant saunters up to the panicked passenger and says rather tersely with a New York accent: “You’re sitting on it, sweetie, but we ain’t gonna need it.” Well, that’s just cocky (and accurate) enough that I look around for some wood to knock but airplanes are no longer made of wood it seems, so I just knock my number 2 pencil against my inner thigh. Mostly because it feels good. But that’s another (albeit titillating) digression. After reading an entertaining, but outdated, but still accurate essay about how Britney Spears is the perfect symbol of Americanness in Chuck Klosterman’s Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade Of Curious People And Dangerous Ideas, I look up and I’m in NYShitty.

Because I’m a badass traveler I walk off the plane with my one tightly packed backpack which contains all my belongings and some key handy travel implements: a fork, a knife, a coffee mug, 8 pairs of sexy underwear, a water bottle, and some shiny trinkets to trade with the natives. In mere seconds, I’m out the front door of Laguardia and immediately a woman surrenders her taxi to me. I know it probably just looked like she was already getting out of the taxi to go into the airport, but I’m sure she was intentionally surrendering it because I’m rather physically imposing. They don’t call me the KP for nothing.

I get in and the cabdriver sounds and appears to be from somewhere in Africa, though I don’t manage to find out where because I’m never sure when he’s talking to me, to himself, another driver, the taxi HQ, or to his Bluetooth earpiece. I awkwardly start and then abort a half-dozen conversations when it becomes apparent he’s talking to one of the other parties. He’s never not talking. He mentions as soon as I get in that the taxidrivers are on strike. As he’s driving away. The fact that he’s driving and apparently on strike confuses my brain so much, which is already a little muddled from the high-altitude depressurization process, that I smile and nod. I ask him what the strike is about, and he says “I’ll see you later.” I realize he’s talking to someone on Bluetooth, but he hangs up and says, “The city of New York wants to require us to have GPS and credit card machines in our cars. That way, the city can calculate its taxes exactly. I have no problem with the GPS because I have nothing to hide. I do have a problem with the drivers having to pay the 5% transaction fees on the credit cards.” I do not understand why he’s driving today and not striking, despite my best efforts to clarify. His accent is very thick and all the windows are down. He’s agitated at the stalled traffic on the expressway because he has to be in “motherfucking Bronx at one thirty.”

Just then a car pulls alongside us and a man looks across at my cab driver, waves his fist and says “Shame on you! Shame on you!” My cab driver looks across at him, laughs, and says “What? What? No speak English– What?” The man who appears to be Middle-Eastern continues to shout “Shame on you” until my cabdriver shouts back to him with the nastiest delight, “If we’d had GPS in Boston your brother Mohammed Atta would never have gotten that bomb.”

Huh??? Here I am witnessing the sort of outrageously racist, nonsensical thinking that is no doubt responsible for the endgame state of our civilization. Then my cabdriver says to me, “Those Arabs just don’t want the GPS because they’re all cheating, sharing medallion numbers because they all look the same. If they don’t like the new way, why don’t they just do something else?” Wow. I had no idea there are African immigrants in the neo-conservative movement. Here I am, a white DAR, in the middle of the sort of open conflict I’d only read about. And what the fuck do I know about what either of these guys has to deal with on a daily basis being from Africa and the Middle East. I found myself definitely siding with the striking Middle Eastern cabdriver, but the African cabdriver held my life in his hands so I said nothing more. He even got lost trying to deliver me to my friends’ apartment in Williamsburg and seemed angry at me for not knowing where the neighborhood was more specifically. Even though I told him I’m not from here and I’ve never been there.

Hooper Street in Williamsburg is pretty gritty and working class and, thankfully, not hip or clean or fully gentrified. I’m sure it will be in about 3 months. Come enjoy those colorful ethnic Dominicans while you can!

Okay, I’ve now spent the better part of an afternoon of my vacation writing about my vacation. I’d better get off the computer and back out there vacating so I have something to write about later. Miss you, LB and IC and OneStarWatt and Caved and ….

List of Items for Stank Williams III’s Birthday Party

1) 2 packages of twinkies

2) 2 cowboy hats

3) 1 tiara

4) 1 pack of cigarettes

5) Polaroid film

6) Polaroid camera

7) Gift from the insolent child

8) Gift from the Kingpin

9) Digital camera

10) One Little Babushka

If we stare they will come

We just created our blog and LB is staring at the machine and tapping her fingers waiting for the traffic to start flooding Crazytown. She’s so naive. I love that.