October 31, 2007
My Halloween tradition
America has its scary Halloween tradition of overeating and general gluttonizing. The Castro has its scary Halloween tradition of stabbies and shooties. And now I, too, have a scary Halloween tradition of being yelled at by a terrifying Weird Sister who is just as creepy but much less coherent than the witches of Macbeth.
This tradition began when I lived in my studio on 17th and Market. In the weeks leading up to Halloween I was frequently woken in the darksome night by a homeless lady yelling in the alley outside my window. I described it this way:
Last night my schizophrenic homeless friend spent an hour (between 3 and 4 in the morning) screaming her mantra outside my apartment ("HolyshitHolyshitHolyshit...") When I say "my friend," what I mean is "the disembodied voice who comes along every few days to wake me up and creep the shit out of me."
On Halloween night of that year she really lost her shit and I think was actually trapped in the alley for a little while until she figured out how to open the door.
Now it is a few years on, I have moved house, and she has learned new tricks. As I type this, she is standing on the small patch of Market Street I can see from my window, yelling her head off.
"I didn't abduct you! I didn't rape you! I didn't leave you in a bucket of ice!"
It goes on like that. I'm trying not to listen, because it's terrifying on so many levels. Like, where is this story coming from? Who did this happen to? Why does she have to face my building and look up at my window while she yells this?
I realize that being freaked out by a poor, mentally disturbed woman who is obviously having a really hard time of things is probably not the best reaction to have. I still don't know what is the best reaction to have. Can you call social services for this kind of thing? Would that be at all helpful for her? I just don't know. But at least I'm maintaining my personal Halloween tradition, and I guess that's something.
Posted by didofoot at 03:52 PM | Comments (4)
October 25, 2007
The Mediocre American Novel
National Novel Writing Month begins next week, and I have signed up. The challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November, beginning at midnight on November 1 and ending by midnight on November 30. You don't get anything, except 50,000 words you've written; there are almost no guidelines; and if you fail, well, no big deal. The thing the website offers is support: online forums to discuss everything from plot points to coffee brands to what to do when you've been locked in the bathroom crying for the past two hours (I made that one up), and also in-person groups and meetings and parties.
We'll see whether my enthusiasm for this project extends beyond this cup of coffee I'm drinking: whether it extends all the way to attending the kick-off party all by myself on Saturday, then talking to a bunch of strangers (but book people, book people), then actually writing a novel in a month. We'll see.
I am posting this for two reasons. One, some of you might want to try this as well, although some of you (and Jason knows who he is) might be able to write a good novel all by yourselves instead of a crappy novel with 80,000 other people helping.
Two, the site recommends the following:
Tell everyone you know that you're writing a novel in November. This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who've had to hear about your novel for the past month. Seriously. Email them now about your awesome new book. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse.
Humiliation, here I come.
Posted by didofoot at 09:00 AM | Comments (6)
October 24, 2007
Bugville
The heat wave seems to be driving more bugs into the house, maybe because I'm leaving more windows open. Just this morning, for example, I noticed a spider crawling around on the floor near my workspace and neatly trapped it under a glass for Gene to deal with when he comes home from work.
Next month Gene is going out of town for a couple of weeks, and I am feeling grateful that we have so many water glasses. I imagine that by the time he comes home I will have built a small city of bug towers, where bugs live trapped beneath cups that I do not dare move in case they escape and creep me out. Maybe I'll try to trap multiple bugs under the same glass and make little labels for them, like "Bug Library" and "Bug Saloon" and "Bug Dance Hall." I can print out little screenshots from movies and tape them to the insides of the glass to make a bug cinema. Or I can make a tiny stethoscope out of a paper clip and a little EKG machine from a Christmas light and call that glass the bug hospital.
Or I guess I could just learn to kill my own bugs. But I think the bug city is more likely.
Posted by didofoot at 12:56 PM | Comments (3)
October 18, 2007
Older, if no wiser
Even though I'm choosing to be 27 for one more year, rather than turning 28, there are some undeniable signs that I'm getting older.
1. I didn't even consider eating my leftover birthday cake for breakfast, instead fixing myself some responsible peanut butter toast.
2. I got all het up over a perceived slight and wrote an angry letter to the editor (or in this case Michele, who is not the author of the perceived slight if you're wondering). Two minutes later I knew I was mad but had completely forgotten why.
3. Wait, what am I listing?
4. Seriously, what's going on?
5. Stay out of my rose bushes!
Posted by didofoot at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2007
Things Mindy Kaling has bought that I love
Mindy Kaling (who writes for and plays Kelly on The Office) co-authors a blog called Things I've Bought That I Love which I've been really enjoying. As the title suggests, this is an unapologetic paean to consumerist pleasures and I have seized it like a life raft as I float about in the non-consumerist sea of life with Gene.
Plus, I got a couple of gift certificate/shopping spree gifts for my birthday (thanks Christine and Michele!) so I am rolling in potential buying power like a Playboy bunny on a mink rug.
(None of this accounts for today's similes, of course. Maybe this is a function of being 28.)
What fascinates me most about her blog, apart from her far-out talent at writing intelligent sentences that still retain a giggling overtone, is that most of the entries have zero comments on them. I don't understand how an interesting famous person has a blog that no one comments on. It makes me want to go comment on every single entry until I've shamed her into being my friend and letting me stay at her house when I come to LA.
She even makes me interested in her fashion posts, even though fashion kind of bores me stupid. Most fashionable clothes these days seem to me so unattractive, unflattering and boring-colored that I frankly would rather go naked than wear them, and not just because I am kind of a nudist by preference.
Sometimes I worry that when I'm old I'll regret not having dressed this reasonably excellent body, this gift basket from God, in the latest whatevers to maximize my attractibility. But then I think, when I'm old I'll probably be grateful that I spent my time thinking about sci-fi novels instead of worrying about when I should switch from body glitter to body shimmer. Sparkle fashion is fleeting, ladies, but space ships are forever.
Posted by didofoot at 08:39 AM | Comments (13)
October 16, 2007
The Corrections
I just finished The Corrections, which I picked up for $1 at the booksale per Sean's endorsement, even though after reading the dust jacket I felt pretty confident the whole thing would just be way more reality than I wanted to deal with and would consequently depress me.
Fortunately, no. The multitude of problems encountered by the characters, though mostly realistic, are set in a Foster-Wallian framework of fantastical scientific breakthroughs (a chemical process to change your personality, a drug to eradicate shame, plus a kind of lurking-in-the-background implied corporate conspiracy) which make the dementia and breast fixations and Lithuanian currency crashes easier to deal with, emotionally.
Franzen's great strength, apart from writing complex sentences that are easy to follow, is his characterizations. I sympathized with everyone, even though everyone behaved horribly, because their internal monologues make sense of their behavior. It confirmed my secret Pollyanna belief that everyone in the world is basically wonderful if you could just get inside their heads to see it.
Read The Corrections if you liked Infinite Jest but felt like David Foster Wallace was maybe laughing at you a little for reading it.
And a side-plug: from this experiment I have learned to trust Sean's opinion, which I was pretty confident about anyway. Trust Sean if you like things that are good, things that are funny, or things that are Irish.
Posted by didofoot at 08:08 AM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2007
No one keeps a cow for a friend, and other good advice
We are approaching the season of giving, only partly because my birthday is on Wednesday, and this year, THIS year, I am determined to get my shopping done early.
But of course no one but me knows in October what they might want for Christmas (and if you're my dad, you might not know until, like, January), so I have to get creative. Which is fine if I'm writing a dog-based article but tougher if I have to gift shop.
Anyway, I thought I would open the floor to gift ideas. We've all had those most awesome presents that bear repeating. Maybe someone whisked you off to Des Moines for a great ironic mini-break, or bought you a sampler pack of maple syrups ("Syrups come in kinds?" -Dawn) or got the most expensive thing on your wish list. What was your best present ever, and what was so great about it? How do you figure out what to get people? All advice/stories are welcome.
Posted by didofoot at 12:30 PM | Comments (2)
October 14, 2007
Gene sets up the third television in our eternally lengthening parade of living room televisions, while I make helpful comments in the style of Michael Scott
GENE: Aha! I do have a cord. Wow, it's really long, too.
ME: That's what she said!
GENE: Hm, wrong gender though.
ME: That's what she said!
GENE: I can't believe we can even fit three of these in here.
ME: That's what she said!
GENE: Man, do we even need television with you around?
ME: That's what sh -- oh. No.
Posted by didofoot at 11:14 AM | Comments (1)
October 10, 2007
Global warning
Sometimes my liberal friends tell me about meeting people who do not believe global warming is a real thing. And then we all make fun of them. But we liberals DO believe it is a real thing, and we still don't make any inconvenient lifestyle changes. So who is stupid now?
Posted by didofoot at 11:48 AM | Comments (1)
October 09, 2007
John Wayne be damned: a hero should be needy
At first, like everyone who watches The Office, I was drawn to Jim. Tall, rangy, witty and with an extremely malleable face, Jim was everything I look for in a television crush.
But soon I began to realize my true love for Toby. Yes, he is balding and is 40 years old, but Toby is a nice man who needs your love so much more than Jim. Jim can go to bed with the purse girl, or confident Karen Filippelli. Toby has nothing and no one.
Imagine a date with Toby. How hard he would try to impress you! Maybe he'd be one of those guys who buys you an awkwardly expensive dinner on your first date, or proposes marriage. (For the record, and here I speak from experience: a marriage proposal on the first date does not impress me. But I will continue to date you for a few more weeks out of a sick fascinated need to see what you will do next.) Or maybe the date would be punctuated by long silences that slowly fill up with your sense of his overwhelming need to be acknowledged by some woman. Any woman at all.
If needy guys do not do it for you, you might still enjoy the real-life Toby, Paul Lieberstien. I especially like his post about what he ate during the Olympics.
He also wrote for the short-lived Dead Like Me, which is probably the reason I fell in love with the needy dead guy played by Mandy Patinkin on that show. What can I say? I like 'em needy.
Posted by didofoot at 01:18 PM | Comments (2)
October 05, 2007
Single mother gets hers
Grateful nation breathes sigh of relief
After three days of hard deliberations, a federal judge ordered Jammie Thomas to pay $222,000 for her crimes against the music industry. Thomas, a single mother, was identified as a prominent ringleader of a music-downloading crime ring located on her computer. There were no other members of the crime ring.
"This woman lives in glamorous Minnesota. As a single mother named 'Jammie,' her life is already packed with joy," the prosecutor said. "Why does she need to steal money from struggling artists like Britney Spears and John Mayer?"
Three cents of Thomas' $220,000 payment will be donated to the artists in question.
"We just want the artists to receive their due," said a spokesperson for a prominent record company. "And if we can bankrupt one of our fans in the process, well, that's just gravy."
Posted by didofoot at 08:31 AM | Comments (4)
October 04, 2007
Surefire cure for the blues
1. Open window.
2. Sit in window. Do not fall out, no matter how blue you are feeling.
3. Blow bubbles out window. (Requires bubbles.)
4. Watch fighter jets. (Requires Fleet Week, or a war zone.)
5. Blow more bubbles.
Posted by didofoot at 01:21 PM | Comments (0)
October 03, 2007
Near, far, near, far
I've been freelancing for a little over a year now, and I've decided that the toughest part of this job is measuring my own progress.
In admin work, it's easy. You judge your day's success based on whether or not you reacted to things. When the copier broke down today, did you fix it, or did you not fix it? Only one answer indicates a successful day.
Working for myself, not so easy to judge. If I apply for three jobs in a day, that could be considered good. Or I could remember that there were two job boards I didn't even look at: bad. Maybe I wrote two article drafts and emailed my editor: good. But if I also watched three episodes of Buffy, was it still a productive day?
I've never missed a deadline, I've never had an article rejected, and I regularly get new jobs. I've been freelancing for a year and I'm halfway to my financial goal, which may sound slow but seems to be a normal pace for new freelancers. I've learned to ask strangers personal questions, set my own rates, manage my time, and run a business.
On the other hand, I still goof off for part of every day, Gene still has to pay my rent, I am a crappy housekeeper even though I have time to spare, and I sometimes have days where I don't do one single productive thing.
So it's hard to say how I'm doing. The only real progress I can measure is internal. Just a few months ago I was still telling people I was a professional sponge. Now I tell them I'm a writer.
I don't know other freelancers, but I know most of you manage your own lives just like grownup type people. How do you judge a successful day, or week, or year? Is this even something I should be worrying about?
Posted by didofoot at 12:45 PM | Comments (4)
October 01, 2007
All I'm saying
I'm just saying, it's possible that a breed of catfish has evolved to where it can swim through air instead of water, so if that thought comes into your mind it's not completely crazy to scoot your chair back and check under the table to ensure no air-swimming catfish are flopping up to rub their whiskers on your calves.
That's all I'm saying.
Posted by didofoot at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)
