Man, what a fucked up day, and it just got unbelievable. It’s fucking hard to even write. I thought I knew more this time, but fuck, fuck, fuck.
I can’t believe it. I’m kind of numb. I mean I knew a long-distance relationship would be hard. We talked about it and all the angles, and I fucking trusted M. More than anyone. I really thought he might be the one.
But, fucking A, did he have to find someone else so soon?
SHIT!
Interesting conversation at work today, even though it teetered on causing me additional problems — My boss (putting aside the administrative structure who they (the people who keep me down) say is my boss), anyway, she asked me how things are going in comedy. I admitted not as well as I thought and what I had noticed and how I was currently unable to suss out how I fit in within Boston. So, the teetering, sketchy part, is she assumed that was because I’m realizing that a move might be in order. I learned a bit back, better to keep the hand with that final decision close to my vest. For now, I’m there, and we all gotta deal with that reality.
Anyway, I told her among my points of dissatisfaction with comedy was trying to figure out if enough of what my goals/desires are overlap with what stand-up comedy is. And, of course, there’s the fact that comedy is dead and the whole bullshit, brickwall, wacky comedy, funny voices, rimshot nightclub on the road thing has passed far beyond rigor mortis and beyond decay into dust. Maybe it ain’t that bad, but the world in which I fantasize about joining does not involve my traveling to small cities, performing comedy and sleeping in a club-owned condo.
I think M. is right, my future is more in writing, multimedia and maybe performance that’s not purely comic.
The good thing is the boss lady offered that she thought I should work more on writing, too. Better than her saying, what the fuck, you a writer? Get real.
So we were swapping story ideas. Her idea was that someone should write a story about when money kept disappearing from wallets around our office. We started locking more doors, reminding people to lock their drawers, all that kind of stuff. I was shocked one day when very confidentially one admin assistant (very young, white, from small town Conneticut, in an MFA program) told me she thought it might be the other admin assistant (a little bit older, high school graduate, African American, very urban, never left Boston upbringing). They were very friendly with coffee breaks, lunch, chats all the time. I think they are friends, but it’s hard for me to reconcile how you could think that about your friend. While all of this was going on, I was kind of out of it, first my mom was becoming much, much more of a critical worry in my life, then, she died. The two admin assistants ganged up on me as the worst supervisor, official complaints behind my back, blah blah. I never got along that well with the African American woman, minutes after she passed through her three month new hire review, she started bitching about all of her work and all of the doctors in the office. She became the ringleader in complaining about me to the docs for whom we all work. The story has possibilities. Despite suspicions there was also the total lack of proof. And, of course, her skin color in an office of well-educated, intellectual liberals is a natural subject.
My story idea was less defined, but I think it could work. The boringly autobiographical antagonist is a total underachiever working in the middle of super-achievers. The hook and point would be her perception of herself as a totally untested underachiever who manages to work among, hang out, talk to these movers and shakers. And, the comedy, the sheer arrogance of assuming yourself an underachiever who could be on par with them, even though there is zero evidence. Is she an underachiever, who could have been one of them, or is this really the best for her?
My other story ideas involve stabbing people in my office, I alluded to them, but I figured it best not to say too much to the boss, lest she stop me.
I keep trying to think of various images to involve a penguin, as a tribute to Linux, open source and, of course, my Linux boy. It’s kind of like saying it with flowers.
The iPod ad seemed fairly easy to tackle, so that’s why I’ve done it twice. The first didn’t really work. I think this one is better. The model for this version is me. I took a screen shot from my godawful public dancing display. I may never be a dancer, but my silhouette looks pretty good.
I got carried away in my violent administrative fantasies, and I forgot to write what I meant to write.
Over here, I spent a tiny bit of free time watching a shitstorm to which I can feel virtuous and amused in my distance of not being involved.
You see, on the same board, where that fight takes place, I have been known to voice my opinions. And, occasionally, I may overstate or overreact. But, in the end, I am a free speech activist at heart, so when there is hand-wringing of who can post and how they can post and what’s hateful and what’s funny, blah, blah, blah, I truly think let it ride and have the free market of ideas sort out the winners and losers. Or, just fucking pull up stakes and shut the fucker down. I guess, the last possibility is very clear community standards with policies written by the owner and rigor to enforce the rules.
I’ve actually asked for written policies and guidelines, and I have gotten hammered by people who think I’m too strident on the free speech beliefs. As a result, I edit myself far more than I used to, if only to save myself aggravation. {As a complete editorial aside, as though this whole site wasn’t purely editorial, and at the risk of alienating one person who reads this site, I do want to say what turned me off and led me to my own conclusions has been the responses evident currently on the board from the board administrators. Sometimes, I ask a straight question, because I want a straight unvarnished answer. It seems like the response has invariably been a snarky, smug “that’s for me to know and you to find out” kind of answer or an oh too clever smarmy reply bristling with martyrdom and patronization. Since it ain’t my board, I’ve given up on changing that dynamic. You know what? — To underscore and explain, I was going to point to a couple of “creative” writing exercises that used to warn the public about the content of the board. There had been two diferent levels from the main page, and they were really more stupid and condescending than clever. Thankfully, someone has had the sense to edit. I should rejoice in that, at least.}
Finally, for my own sanity I pretend to no one who is aware of this Boston Comedy microcosm that I believe the arena to have a taint of an “in” crowd/”out” crowd mentality. Some people can say what they want, some people can’t, and in the end some pigs are more equal than others.
So, now, watching this, I have distance, and I can laugh.
See, how mature I am?
It’s been crazy busy at work today, but not the kind of crazy busy that has me whetting my blade for a stabbing fest, which is good.
OK, there was one moment of doubt, in which my hand slowly began to reach for my shiv, so the cutting could begin… You see, for the DEMONware joy to commence, they must shut down all financial operations for two weeks (at least). Yeah, ’cause, you know, in any institution, it’s not like you need money to buy stuff or to do stuff. Anyway, there can be no purchasing through the Purchasing arm of Materials Management while the conversion converts stuff. Of course, in the moments before the shopping blackout is announced, not one but three people must immediately prepare for immense surveying of the U.S. population. Therefore, I must acquire 3,000 envelopes with our company logo.
I am a good administrator. I am a soldier in the force. I am the cog that helps the machine to help mankind. I order 3,000 10×13 logo envelopes, and, LaFayette, they have arrived.
So, I get a whiny email from a project manager, who regardless of the task seems predisposed to believe, I, the clever auteur herself, and our office administrator will not have the collective brain power to muddle through and get her what she needs. I will forego commenting on what I think of her collective brain power.
So, this paragon of research excellence, this anointed woman and possessor of the omnipotent “Master’s” degree, since she is surely the master of me and the other administrator staff, writes an email to whit, she is down to her last envelope. Egads, whatever will she do, and with the office administrator out sick, it is a crisis. A crisis, I say.
Yeah, except for one thing, did you see that huge fucking pile of boxes at the administrator’s desk by any chance? Do you think it’s a wild coincidence that we told everyone we would order all supplies for the next month NOW, before the blackout occurs. I’m sure, given the proximity of the pile of boxes to the door, that they could not have escaped your keen eye. The eye of an eagle, the eye of a Master’s degree holder. Further, did you notice one of the largest boxes was marked — “Look HERE. HERE LIE A SHITLOAD OF ENVELOPES” or something to that effect? Did you see that?
Yeah, I got your envelopes right here, bitch.
I’ll leave out the ensuing Abbott and Costello routine when I told her to “help herself” and explained “I allotted 1,000 to her project,” and she told me she was “taking 200,” and I said “you have 1,000″ and she said, w”hat do you want me to not take these 200?” and I said “no, you have 1,000” and she said, “should I take them all?” and I focused on that place below the curve of her ribcage where the stabbing would reach the soft organ tissue.
Politely I ended it with please, just let us know what you take, since when the other administrator is in, we are going to doublecheck whether we got everything, for fuck’s sake.
[thumb:1543:l][thumb:1543:l]This one didn’t come out as well as I hoped. The base picture doesn’t have as much separation of areas as I hoped. And, I think it looks more like a body than it should.
On top of that, I’m a little hung over (which I actually haven’t been for a while).
[thumb:1543:l]
Since I have been fooling around with Photoshop a lot lately, I figured I’d collect the images in one place. So within my photo gallery on this page I added one for the digital manipulations.
Please check out Phun with Photoshop. (I’ll work on a less lame name in the future)
I’ll probably keep adding to it, so feel free to visit often.
Taking a cue from Gethsamane, I couldn’t stay awake on the phone with M. last night–mind willing/flesh weak. Maybe it was because it was 3:30 a.m. here. Or maybe it was because I don’t speak Aramaic.
I felt bad, though. It’s interesting how much we seem to be alike in how things affect us. That should make me a better listener. But, instead, sometimes, it makes me have no idea what to say. In that, if I knew how to handle that stuff myself, I could help you, but I can’t.
Thanks to be exhausted from work, and mildly depressed by trying to sort out my position in the grand scheme, I haven’t gone to any comedy shows in a couple of weeks. The list of people who I want to see perform is now infinitesimally small compared to the one of people I don’t ever want to see. In the next month, though, I am going to have to try harder — go out to more shows, do more open mikes, since I did in the end acquire a spot in the Boston Comedy Festival. I’m in the line up for the Walk for Hunger Benefit Show on Sunday, April 25 at Nick’s Comedy Stop. Thank god (intentionally small ‘g’) it’s not a benefit for something I’m a against, like the GOP. That would be a tough situation — my desire to perform over supporting evil, very Faustian bargain. It’s the first night of the Festival and a benefit, so maybe there will be people there. Part of me might rather be in the competition, but on the other hand, this show will probably be more fun. Once again, I haven’t been asked onto the women’s show. It’s amazing to me how many women shows have happened without me; I guess I ain’t lady enough. Boo hoo.
Since starting this mastubatory experiment in writing/self-publishing, readership has apparently increased over time.
Today, for the first time the number of unique visitors hit the triple digits. Number 100 just checked in, and may be is the first to witness this little bit of bath of sadness post. (Considering the possibilities of web traffic, I feel like I’m bragging after school, “Mommy, I made a friend. One of the kids called me by my right name today before she dumped my books.”)
Speaking of stats, on the poll to the right five people have voted. Four say I should follow the sun west. One wants me to stay put. I think I know one of the voters is M.; The comic/tragic truth would be if he’s the one vote for New England.