Since writing about glory holes, I (a) established myself firmly as the sick and twisted, perverted fuck that I am, (b) grossed out my boyfriend and (c) attracted more searches from the porn curious than you can shake a stick at (and that there is a literal stick not a Freudian image).

Best search is “private glory hole.” I don’t really know dick about them (woohoo, I’m on fucking fire). However, “private” seems antithetical to the concept. Not to mention damaging to the re-sale value of your home. If it’s private, would you know all the members (oh, I got a million of ’em) thus decreasing the allure?

Now, here’s an important question — why the fuck am I even speculating on the mindset of those who suck anonymous peni? I like to think of myself as imaginative and empathetic, but, Jesus, I should impart some limits on myself.

There was something else quick and stupid I was thinking about — of course, the greatest preponderance of that which I ponder is wonderfully STUPID. Anyway, whatever it was it’s gone.

The only other thing is the three things I’ve been working on for the “blogosphere.” (God, what a pussy-ish, lamely intellectual-ish, wishy little word blogsphere is.) Anyway, I really should leave the house more, so I’ve been thinking of email posting and audio posting. I set up an audioblog at blogger, but hosted here. Nothing on it yet ‘cept for me weakly testing it. Turns out I really do have nothing to say.

The third thing, behind audio and email posting, is anonymous posting. I’m backed up with all of the things I want to write about in regard to some pretty overwrought emotions I’m feeling, but now fear doing so.

(By the way, recent job loss is a researched and medically sound point to consider in assessing suicide risk. It’s one of the major life changes with grief and divorce that flips on most folks’ depression switches. Not saying I’m going to off myself, though. Of course, I couldn’t stand giving the old workplace the satisfaction of thinking “Oh boy, we tagged that one, we are so smart, she really was a psycho.” I do admit, however, that there are immense comic possibilities as the word of my untimely demise leaked back to the office. But, shit, it turns out there is a limit to how hard I’ll work for a joke.)

Like many a writer, the obvious protection to write about one’s feelings and all safely is the time-honored nom de plume. But, the same braintwistedness that gets my stand-up comedy juices percolating, screams out me, me, fucking me, all id, all the time. That kind of id don’t do well in the dark shadows of anonymity. What a fucking conundrum.

This entry is likely to be the least hip thing I ever could write, but I need to write it.

Here’s the thing, I need to unload some Beanie Babies. Yes, I own some Beanie Babies. Why, because I’m a douchebag. That, and it started as kind of a collecting joke game among my brother, Pat and me. I know I’m a loser, and I needed the cute, cuddly marketing ability of collectible toys to ram it home.

(I’ll reveal a secret truth, though, I’ve always preferred stuffed animals to people.)

The reason I mention this shit at all is I’m trying to decide whether to (a) sell them from a box on the street in a yardsale, (b) list them on ebay or ( c) sell them to a dealer. Since I know dick about values (which are probably now nil), I could use any advice or leads or what have you from you the reading public.

Can you help a loser American consumer out?

Apart from the reality that I am quickly becoming one myself, I have an affinity for crabby older folks. Probably just a coincidence I was raised by someone whose siblings called Pat the Crab.

My next door neighbors are on their stoop or about their yard or in my yard constantly and always have something to say, even though there English is dubious and my Portuguese is nonexistent. The first week I lived here, they greeted me with repeated inquiries as to whether I was the boss of the house and more importantly the “bad tree” in my back yard. They threatened to call the police on me if I didn’t cut it down. They filed an insurance claim that the tree had cracked their foundation (It’s yards away and at the wrong angle; the insurance inspector sent to check it out seemed amused.)

Regardless, I still greeted them with a “Hello” and a smile most of the time. It was too funny hearing the old man’s broken English scolding a new victim on the street below my window to really feel offended. He seems to have two tones, loud and “I don’t know the English word, so I’m frustrated” way fucking louder.

A while back, he told me that “my friend, the man, the one with the…” he mimed something about his skin complexion and long hair, “my friend, very nice man, very nice. He pick up trash in street. He smile.” Again he gestured something about M.’s hair and skin, “What is he? Where from?” I love the question “What is he?” since so many amusing answers come to mind.

Figuring that I couldn’t really describe in an English we would both understand the geo-political borders, colonialism, trade routes and ethnic separations that characterize M.’s roots, I just said, “Chinese.”

“No, no, no, not Chinese. He’s a nice man. Gotta watch the Chinese.” He points a few doors down the street to the home of an Asian couple. “Watch those people. They have lot of people come to that house,” pointing to the street across from their driveway, “Don’t park, BOOM. They smack, hit.”

So, I learned, my man is a nice man, but I better keep an eye on him.

Last week, they shouted to me about my T-shirt, “Where is my shirt?” they wanted to know. Their son had pointed it out, and they all thought it was funny. The shirt in question was, of course, the becoming infamous “Fuck Bush! No more in 04” shirt. Apparently, they are not Bush supporters.

The old guy told me the other day, “You know, the other guy? His woman, she speak Portuguese. Lot of people they vote for her, vote for the new guy.” Who knew Theresa Heinz multi-culti bullshit was actually working. I fucking hope there are a couple more immigrants like my neighbor who dig her foreign langauge skills. Whatever it takes to get the Bush ejected.

Today the old couple both were out and saw me with a bunch of empty boxes. (Either way, if I move or M. moves back, I have to pack up piles and piles of shit and get the old life and homestead under fucking control. Well, as best as I can be controlled.) They told me if I move I had to definitely come by and tell them. They told me that I couldn’t move, because I’m a nice lady and a good neighbor.

Almost ten years, and we’ve warmed up to each other.

I can’t even read what I wrote below or discern a clear meaning, and I was there. All hail PBR, the anti-muse.

(You have to fucking give credit to the great drunks of literature. I don’t have any idea how folks like F. Scott and Ernest could get so stinkingly stewed and string coherent sentences together. Sure, I can get the periods and capital letters in the right places, but make sense at the same time? No way. Their gift is not mine. Worse still, I had a vivid dream in which I was drunk as well, and in the dream I was doing a lot of driving. I woke up feeling guilty as hell, even though in the non-dream world I did no harm and did not drive. The great drunk writers would have been coherent and guilt-free in their macho excess.)

Here’s a lucid version of what happened.

I knew in advance that one of the other performers on the show last night lives with a guy who works at my former place of employment. I had prepared in my head my very simple, “I don’t work there anymore,’ knowing that since he is new to comedy and we do not really know each other, the common link would be mentioned. No need to go any further, and I was ready for the cordial moving on to other topics.

All is good, but as the show is starting, I still haven’t seen that other performer and had somewhat put the whole think out of my head in order to concentrate on what jokes I would try and whatnot. I was number two on the list, so during the first guy I thought about my set list of bits, and I got ready for my turn. When that guy was done, I listened to the host from the de fact on-deck circle on stage left and checked in that the audience was still tight as hell, not relaxed, not laughing and re-thought what I might say to loosen the mood.

Then, as I literally was listening for my introduction, the roommate of the former co-worker bounced up to me, shook my hand and asked me how work was and named my employer as maybe the fifth word out of his mouth, and then re-reminded me how he knows me. I was completely caught off guard, because I was preoccupied with waiting for my turn. I stammered and quickly said I didn’t work there anymore and to say “hi” to our friend in common, but it was rushed and awkward and unlike what I had planned in terms of cool, hip and breezy. Stammering always makes you look SMMMMMMOOOOTHHH.

About a minute later, gloriously now off kilter from what I had planned to say, grindingly out of gear, I was up on stage. TOTALLY distracted I bounced around in my head, not remembering which jokes I had planned, how each joke was supposed to sound, nothing. I stepped on not one but two punchlines, reversing the words so the “surprise” was talked over in the middle and the fizzle of then non-witty words dripped out after. I did this in my first joke, my opener, my introduction to the audience, the one that is meant to give them the confidence I know what I’m doing. In the middle, I blanked and was silent for an uncomfortable pause, thinking not about jokes, but about the guy who knew me through work. And, I allowed some really loud and persistent table chatter in the front confuse me and take away what little resolve I may have had left.

The zen of comedy is your head hasn’t to be on the stage with you and along for the ride for it to work. Mine wasn’t, and it showed.

All of this would probably be OK, given that shit happens. But, I chose to commence to drinking as a way to lick my wounds, rather than going home and crying in peaceful isolation. DUMB-FUCKING-ASS move.

The club owner and his girlfriend were both buying me my poison of choice, and the three of us talked. On a good day, the owner and I don’t exactly see eye to eye on who or what is funny and how it all should work. But, now, he had my very, very bad night of work to use as an example of what not to do. I think a face punching at that juncture may have stung more but felt great compared to my ego slashing.

Next time, I’ll just bring along a hari kare blade in my backpack, next to my bike helmet. Then, a quick slice or two into my abdomen and my ego can maybe climb out of the gutter on the back of my broken corpse.

Now doubt, I shall read what I wrought below and truly wrestle whether to delete it.

For you all, I wrestle my own shit. GOD, that must be some kind of love. (or drunk.)

I sucked it hard and long and painfully and fully tonight. I drunk richly from the pond scum that generally I choose from which not to drink. But it is nonetheless, now, it is the scum I have chosen. Stage, comedy and being something which I am and am not. But I failed.

I love the moments in which I don’t feel it. I love the moments in which I do not understand that my job is to not mind the pain. I love the waffling. Honestly, I do love a good waffle.

Tonight, I let myself get thrown by the elephant that is not in the room. Earlier today, I hated what I had to offer. I could not read, struggling, I heard different words. I did not know these words. I swallowed my pride, I listened, I took direction and I allowed f0r other’s words to be my words. I acted. I was an actor.

When I listened, and I took direction and I abdicated my own control, it was OK (or okay, as I am told a screeenwriter would write). Finally, after how many times? It felt like ten, but probably three, I listened and I replied and the group felt what I felt and I was the character and I acted.

Tonight, though, in contrast, the words were mine, the control should have been mine and I was ready. I knew from one degree of separation that the thing I cannot mention was known. Or maybe not known, but close. Like warm breath is close whether or not you want the attention. I planned for it. I was ready. Until the associataion I am not allowed to say or make or want to say or make was made.

“Wait, aren’t you, don’t you….”

“NO.”

Everything I thought I knew is thrown. The rhythm is thrown. I don’t know whose elephant is in my room anymore, and I don’t know what to say.

BAsically, and far less obtusely, I knew what my words should be, but I wasn’t prepared for moments before someone aiming at me what I wasn’t going to say. FUCKKKKKKKKKKKK. I jumped on the grenade. My words suffered. My writing suffered. My timing suffered. I HATED IT, but I did it. And, I knew exactl;y what I was doing.

Afterwards, someone who didn’t know who could not possible in seventy thusand moons or years or deaths understand, saw my failure and took it at face value.

So now, the humility, the buddhist lesson, my chance for salvation intellectual or otherwise presents itself. Can I live with idiots not knowing that the fact that I ignored the elephant doesn’t mean the elephant isn’t there.

AAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHH. I hate my own coyness. AND I HATE WORSE, Someone misunderstanding my coyness for lack of comprehension.

Next time, I stick with dick and fart jokes. Universal themes have their place.

By the way, if I were not as funny as I think I am, and instead were as funny as it appears I were tonight, no doubt I would have an amazing fucking years as any accountant living large with 35 cent mileage and receipts for it all. Fucking hate me for having the temereity to thing my funniness and insight had just a tad bit (a soupcon) more.

By the other way, I can’t decide which is worse — comic advice from a comic who I will never share a comic sensibility and the humility of listenting to his “older” “wiser” experience OR dancing with the questionably oriented, crooked teeth gal who just wanted to teach me how to feel dancing to shit music I don’t know. Shitty dancing or shitting comedy? Now, wait, why do I even try again?

MEANWHILE, COME ON DOWN TO THE COMEDY STUDIO at 8 p.m. Sunday night, August 1, 2004. Looks to be a good show, including the one and only intrepid writer and infamous ‘blogger Dee-rob.com, the Studio’s August “comic in residence” Baratunde.com, newcomer Eskunder Boyd, delightful Dot Dwyer, I think newcomer Shane Mauss, wish I knew more Aaron Shepard, much-lauded up-and-comer Abe Smith, talented Travis Tack, wry and dry Gregg Thibodeau and featuring Heidi Foss, a TV writer, producer and stand-up from Canada, aboout whom I have heard raves.

So far, the only thing I know about my set is that I will not be thinking about, let alone discussing any elephants, in the wild or in the room or eleswise. No elephants.

Long talk with M. tonight. It’s interesting and challenging to be planning into the future with another person. Challenging mostly because my whole life, thanks to the constant value-hammering by the one and only Pat, has been predicated on the thought you have to take care of yourself.

I’ve modified that a bit in my head to allow for my helping others, like my friends. But, the notion of accepting help. Egads, what a notion.

I’m mostly kidding. Just another life’s lesson to push on through, I guess.

The fun part is we each have a couple of options/choices we are mulling over in our respective skulls. His about possible jobs, mine about, hmmm, I guess, the opposite. How best to be jobless, perhaps? It’s kind of a ballet, where we each are working our own options in a pas de deux with the other. My GOD, the notion that little old me, and an actual flesh-and-blood boyo might dance rather than spar. How truly, unusally mundane and respectable. By god, next I might just stop swearing and act like a perfect young lady. OK, not young, and fuck the non-cursing, that’s just not fun.

Meanwhile, the Bush Focus Bush project is occupying another weekend. It’s an interesting process about which I shall write in a day or so, I think. Mostly, I love watching the group dynamic. I am feeling back to my old, lovable self in a conference room, meeting, discussion session. I may even appear a fucking leader or at least a team-player, contributor without anyone treating me like an affliction of boils. What a thing. What a treat. It makes for less interesting posting to be sure, but fucking hell why did a buy into the certain perceptually altered state of my recent past? What the fuck was that mind control experiment all about?

Apart from my fingernails not being bloody stumps, my weight chilling to a summer fit, and my hauling my fat ass around on my newly tuned up bi-cy-cle, I now can sit in a disjointed, competitive attention-seeking meeting with a sense of fucking humor. Life’s a giggle in it’s little trials and tribulations.