The very kind and supportive M. is always pretty up on my animation efforts and I mentioned these to a buddy on the phone, so I’m throwing them out to the world.

Digging through files here are some very early attempts at claymation. At the end, I tossed in (once again) an animation I completed.

(By the way, one of the things I’m excited about in driving across country is all of those nights with nothing much to do (or days, depending on when I drive). I’ll have some time to kill and no reasons at all to think I should be doing something else. So, I plan on working on some 2-D animations.

Yeah, unclaimed time and no reason to hurry or feel guilty. I can’t wait.)

Here’re a couple of random shots. Check out the jugs on this claymation figure. Nice ego I got on my alter ego. The second pic is of a thing I never did that was going to have my only comedy boyfriend in it. All I got done was his head on a stick (probably should have seen that symbolism , huh?)

Found a random, stray CD-Rom, while trying to sort through (and ultimately pack) some software. I found some graphic files from an aborted animation starring myself (sad to say). Here’s the basic character, the clay version of Dee-Rob.

Procrastination isn’t exactly new for me. But, I’m proud of how I can continue to bring it to new heights (or, I guess, depths).

Today’s tool was the website for PostSecret, an art installation where people mail in secrets on postcards. I love that kind of stuff, partly for the voyeurism, of course, but partly for the imagination of Frank Warren, the guy engineering it.

The other night, I had a conversation with a friend about someone we know who broke up with her fiance to be with guy who would become her husband. I guess she ripped up the old correspondence and such and put that part of her life behind her.

I never much thought about throwing stuff out, because I’m such a packrat, and sentimental sap that I am I tend to hold on to every card and letter I have ever gotten.

But, now I’m fixing to go. Fixing to start something new, and the new life would be better served traveling light. How light, though? I’ve taken pictures most all of my life, and I don’t want to give up those photographs.

I started pasting some old pics into a scrapbook, and then I stopped. I thought what the fuck do I need a scrap book of the guy with whom I spent five years, who proved himself one of the meanest people I ever met. I have piles and piles of pictures of him, his kids and myself, ultimately looking awkward trying to fit.

It’s amazing when you flip through old pictures and see yourself from that distance.

One day a while back, M. was still in Cambridge and looked through a stack of the same Polaroids I was debating whether to paste into a scrapbook tonight. He saw me at the distance I saw tonight and let me know that I didn’t fit in to the world he saw in those pictures.

I can understand why our friend ripped up her old love letters.

Goddamn. I don’t know whether it’s that I could be them (cue Chaka and “I’m Every Woman”), but I loves me some drunken women, when it comes to people watching. Nothing, NO THING is funnier than a woman sloppily getting her groove on and the guy stumbling in her wake.

Sometimes, perhaps more often than not lately, I live primarily in my head, happy to stay home with my computer and the Cali boyo on speed dial. Problem is, if you stay in the house too long, you miss out on great stories. Lately, it seems like most of the stories have to do with the world reminding me that I am older, which is OK by me, because it also seems to be the same stories telling me I ain’t quite as mentally slow neither.

Tonight, I dragged myself out to the Studio and caught the tail end of a nice guy who’s a Boston native now running a comedy night once a week in Brooklyn and generally doing the NYC comedy thing. Afterward, I went out to one of the bar’s on Mass. Ave. It is one of the most excellent dance floors in Cambridge in terms of watching wonderful, wanton, carefree, unbridled dancing.

The story I ended up watching and hearing was worth the getting out of the house journey for sure.

Some chick, wearing leather or pleather pants and a red sweater (Why must all hussies own the red sweater? I own a couple.) was seriously locked with a dude at the bar. At one point, his hand was pulling her head back so low, as they sucked each others’ faces silly, I thought they would end up sliding off the bar and into a fully supine, sticky bar floor shag. She goes wavering to the loo, and the guy is a wreck of nerves. Anticipation I guess.

She returns and they resume some serious tete a tete, although without quite the vigor of before, vigor which had nudged a guy to waltz around me to stand on my right away from their oblivious leaning and vigor which had the bartender and me sharing eye contact and a laugh as he tried to get them to stop by suggesting their behavior inappropriate. Then she goes out to smoke a smoke.

I am intrigued to see how this story ends, but I don’t see what’s coming next at all. The guy, the paramour, her love interest of the minute, comes up to me speaking a flood of words. I am informed that he’s freaked out and doesn’t know what to do, because the chick is HIS COUSIN. Fucking beautiful.

There’s some story about her trying to cheer him up after a traffic ticket and some other confusing jumble about their having some other cousins who are illegal aliens afraid of deportation, because they have married (as cousins), which apparently is the greenlight moment for her drunken advances. I swear the guy didn’t take a breath in telling me all of this stuff, and I’m just grinning away amused as all fucking get out. Beautiful.

Somewhere in there, I offer that (a) it’ll be a good story to tell his buddies, when his cousin sucks his dick (extrapolating her behavior against the bar into something quite oral), and (b) I’d make the wager of $20, he ended up going home with her, so he might as well just relax and live through the inevitable.

The best drunken logic response ever to my offering a 20 buck bet he go home with her was his counter offer. I could personally assure that she didn’t make it home with him by offering to go home with him myself. Let me get this straight — I would LOSE $20, because they didn’t go home together, and I would get the chance to go home with a chubby drunk guy with beery breath and, from what he said, a bad driving record.

Yeah, goody, I’ll get right on that.

They were still weaving and sloppily holding each other (after a little dance-floor intimacy) and wetly clinging when I left. Must be a very close-knit family.

I figured I’d try to boost my readership through old-fashioned advertising. To that end, I’ve joined BlogSnob.

Nothing much might happen, and they have to approve my existence first. I’m cautiously optimistic, I guess.

I occasionally read weblogs on LiveJournal. One thing I always thought was cool there (and realized last night (this morning)was very, very useful) is the cut tag. It lets you essentially write shit on a second page behind the first, so as to give the reader the choice of whether to continue on with your ridiculous blather.

I found a plugin that caters to the LJ users of the world, especially people who cross post on their own space and in LJ. One of the things it adds is the mood thing and the music thing that all the kids over at LJ are doing.

So, in order to cut back on last night’s mildly inebriated randomness, I now have new levels of weblog queerness (which I will likely not use much). Technology is stupid. Or I am. Hard to say, really.

Sometimes I have in my life joined chat groups. Tonight, I did so while on the phone with my boy-o (must have been the wine, which I continued to drink because I never got the call where he was going to tell me not to (keep drinking)).

Anyway, here’s a chat transcript.

I guess it’s pretty fucking redundant to anyone who has read anything here, I’m not good with fucking idiots. Meanwhile, fucking idiots seem to be cool to me.

By the way, it is entirely possible this transcript highlights exactly what kind of an asshole I am.

N(03:05:50) peaceseeker1383: horribly fine
(03:05:58) dee_dash_rob: ? meaning?
(03:06:39) peaceseeker1383: i am honky dory
(03:06:59) dee_dash_rob: OK. But why horribly hunky dory?
(03:07:33) peaceseeker1383: caz i like being so
(03:08:08) dee_dash_rob: Are you pissed off about anything? Sounds like there’s an edge…
(03:08:33) peaceseeker1383: i get cheesed off once in a blue moon
(03:08:37) dee_dash_rob: Or you have some inscrutable Ford Prefect thing going on.
(03:09:23) peaceseeker1383: i like the day i live
(03:09:52) dee_dash_rob: You sound kind of full of shit. Like you are trying to trick me with “clever” words.
(03:10:07) peaceseeker1383: no need to do so
(03:10:17) dee_dash_rob: What?
(03:10:28) dee_dash_rob: Are you a bot?
(03:10:32) peaceseeker1383: i just want to chat with u
(03:10:35) peaceseeker1383: thats all
(03:10:56) dee_dash_rob: But you sound like you are trying to be clever rather than chat
(03:10:56) peaceseeker1383: besides im trying to find a way to have a good time
(03:11:07) peaceseeker1383: as u please
(03:11:09) dee_dash_rob: Like what kind of good time?
(03:11:24) dee_dash_rob: because “horribly fine” sounds like the opposite
(03:11:46) peaceseeker1383: no
(03:11:51) peaceseeker1383: not at all
(03:12:07) dee_dash_rob: Please explain why not
(03:12:08) peaceseeker1383: when imvery fime i say that
(03:12:34) dee_dash_rob: right, but a total stranger asks you how you are…
(03:12:41) dee_dash_rob: you say “horribly fine”
(03:12:47) peaceseeker1383: yes
(03:13:08) peaceseeker1383: that creats a kind of curiosity in him or her
(03:13:10) dee_dash_rob: she asks what that means and you get completely false sophisticated sounding
(03:13:19) dee_dash_rob: like yoda without the depth
(03:13:29) peaceseeker1383: maybe
(03:13:32) peaceseeker1383: but
(03:13:36) dee_dash_rob: it’s curiousity, but when I asked it was met with defensive
(03:13:49) dee_dash_rob: but?
(03:13:56) peaceseeker1383: nobody can say how he or she feels exactly
(03:14:06) dee_dash_rob: Oh, please.
(03:14:14) peaceseeker1383: they r just words
(03:14:25) dee_dash_rob: Right.
(03:14:33) peaceseeker1383: and sometimes with exaggeration
(03:14:40) dee_dash_rob: So, by that token no one should be moved by shakespeare
(03:14:52) dee_dash_rob: You know what?
(03:15:35) peaceseeker1383: u say “should”
(03:15:44) dee_dash_rob: ?
(03:15:55) peaceseeker1383: so there must be something in ur mind for it
(03:16:11) peaceseeker1383: u could have told must
(03:16:37) dee_dash_rob: Seriously, dude, or dudette, I can bullshit intellectually with the best of them.
(03:16:42) dee_dash_rob: Sadly, you cannot
(03:17:00) peaceseeker1383: oh ome on
(03:17:06) dee_dash_rob: What?
(03:17:17) peaceseeker1383: lets forget it
(03:17:28) dee_dash_rob: I say bullshit onto you and your Yoda speak
(03:17:37) dee_dash_rob: Does this work for you, usually?
(03:18:08) peaceseeker1383: well actually most of the time
(03:18:17) dee_dash_rob: Really?
(03:18:23) peaceseeker1383: sure
(03:18:27) dee_dash_rob: How is that?
(03:19:15) peaceseeker1383: it is also a way to get to know people
(03:20:13) peaceseeker1383: for example u

(03:20:28) dee_dash_rob: What have you gotten to know about me?
(03:20:45) peaceseeker1383: well
(03:20:52) peaceseeker1383: u
(03:20:57) peaceseeker1383: i guess
(03:22:12) dee_dash_rob: ?
(03:22:40) peaceseeker1383: r kind of calm
(03:23:05) dee_dash_rob: As opposed to what?
(03:23:14) peaceseeker1383: studying books
(03:23:22) dee_dash_rob: Nope
(03:23:44) peaceseeker1383: having friends handpicked
(03:24:00) dee_dash_rob: As opposed to what?
(03:24:14) dee_dash_rob: Friends thrust upon you?
(03:25:09) peaceseeker1383: there r people who get friends with everybody
(03:25:17) peaceseeker1383: and there people who get friends with some particular ones
(03:25:53) dee_dash_rob: My handpicking is not to be friends with dicks. Other than that, I’m pretty open.
(03:26:24) peaceseeker1383: those who r dick to u
(03:26:33) peaceseeker1383: may be brain to others
(03:27:16) dee_dash_rob: I’m thinking you’re more dick than brain.
(03:27:20) peaceseeker1383: #:-S
(03:27:35) peaceseeker1383: =))
(03:27:43) dee_dash_rob: But, what do I know, I’m just going by your complete lack of content
(03:28:47) peaceseeker1383: how have u come to it?
(03:29:16) dee_dash_rob: Seriously, are you a computer program
(03:29:27) peaceseeker1383: no
(03:29:32) peaceseeker1383: why?>
(03:29:39) dee_dash_rob: You don’t sound human
(03:31:18) peaceseeker1383: oh come on
(03:31:28) peaceseeker1383: u just called me a dick
(03:31:29) dee_dash_rob: You don’t really.
(03:31:49) dee_dash_rob: Yes, which isn’t quite human.
(03:32:04) peaceseeker1383: =))
(03:32:34) peaceseeker1383: can u voice chat?
(03:32:57) dee_dash_rob: I don’t have a microhone right now. And, I don’t actually see any reason why.
(03:33:08) peaceseeker1383: as u like
(03:33:20) peaceseeker1383: now u r defensive
(03:33:30) dee_dash_rob: It’s the “as u like” bullshit that sounds subhuman
(03:33:58) peaceseeker1383: so what should i say?
(03:34:01) dee_dash_rob: I know your response might be that it is polite
(03:34:20) peaceseeker1383: is it bad to be polite?
(03:34:24) dee_dash_rob: but, you haven’t said anything of content, but you appear to have an attitude
(03:34:37) dee_dash_rob: It’s not actually polite.
(03:34:43) dee_dash_rob: It appears pollite
(03:34:59) peaceseeker1383: maybe
(03:35:33) dee_dash_rob: I think you like to infuriate people and then feel good about yourself, at your cleverness
(03:35:38) peaceseeker1383: u define it based on ur knowledge and experience
(03:35:57) dee_dash_rob: Well, no shit. Such is the human condition.
(03:36:16) dee_dash_rob: What would I base it on instead, someone else’s life and knowledge?
(03:36:44) peaceseeker1383: so u mean everything is conditional?
(03:37:15) dee_dash_rob: No. Just perception. I can’t see through someone else’s eyes. At best, I can empathize
(03:37:53) dee_dash_rob: What I see is someone playing with words and offering abso-fucking-lutely nothing. From my experience, I have unfortunately met the sad type
(03:38:37) dee_dash_rob: Seriously, what gets you off. Making teenagers yell at you in chat rooms?
(03:39:50) peaceseeker1383: what i absotively can fathom out is ur trying to be meaningful at the same time telling me something for understanding u
(03:40:00) dee_dash_rob: What?
(03:41:07) peaceseeker1383: why not talk about other things?
(03:41:12) peaceseeker1383: like
(03:41:22) peaceseeker1383: ur favorite food
(03:41:25) peaceseeker1383: sport
(03:41:30) peaceseeker1383: movie
(03:41:35) dee_dash_rob: Sure.
(03:42:05) peaceseeker1383: what about ur sister?
(03:42:12) peaceseeker1383: sorry
(03:42:13) dee_dash_rob: That would be fine. But, to that question “how are you?” you replied “horribly fine” and provided nothing to suggest conversation
(03:42:25) dee_dash_rob: What sister?
(03:42:29) peaceseeker1383: 😉
(03:42:42) peaceseeker1383: i wanted to send it to my friend
(03:42:49) dee_dash_rob: My sister?
(03:42:55) peaceseeker1383: but i sent it to u
(03:42:59) peaceseeker1383: sorry
(03:43:11) dee_dash_rob: Send what?
(03:43:23) peaceseeker1383: oh take it easy
(03:43:37) peaceseeker1383: whats ur favorite color?
(03:43:42) dee_dash_rob: I’m easy, my level of giving a shit is pretty low
(03:43:59) peaceseeker1383: =))
(03:44:04) dee_dash_rob: what was the sister thing about and what were you talking about sending
(03:44:05) peaceseeker1383: ur great
(03:44:08) peaceseeker1383: il
(03:44:14) peaceseeker1383: i like
(03:44:18) peaceseeker1383: chatting with u
(03:44:23) dee_dash_rob: Really?
(03:44:31) peaceseeker1383: yes
(03:44:37) peaceseeker1383: believe me
(03:44:41) dee_dash_rob: Weird.
(03:45:04) peaceseeker1383: and if u dont consider it impolite i like u
(03:45:10) dee_dash_rob: I’m one step away from thinking a ballpeen hammer repeatedly to the temple would be preferable to this conversation
(03:45:10) peaceseeker1383: ur very kind
(03:46:47) peaceseeker1383: u chat well
(03:47:33) dee_dash_rob: Compared to what?
(03:47:47) peaceseeker1383: to me
(03:47:54) peaceseeker1383: u chat better than me]
(03:48:01) peaceseeker1383: know more than me
(03:48:04) peaceseeker1383: its great
(03:48:27) peaceseeker1383: chatting with someone who knows what to say and what not to say
(03:48:28) dee_dash_rob: Seriously, you’re a robot and this is some kind of fawning section of the script right?
(03:48:44) peaceseeker1383: why do u persist on it?
(03:49:19) dee_dash_rob: Because, I’m calling you a dick and busting your chops, because in my humble opinion you deserve it.
(03:49:39) dee_dash_rob: Yet, some chip in your brain somehow still thinks you are in control and are playing me
(03:49:47) peaceseeker1383: ican not change ur idea about me
(03:49:56) dee_dash_rob: Not really
(03:50:15) peaceseeker1383: so why should i try to do so?
(03:50:26) dee_dash_rob: Because it’s the smugness. Like why shouldn’t I chat (or in reality write) better than you?
(03:50:34) dee_dash_rob: You shouldn’t.
(03:50:39) peaceseeker1383: we r chatting even if u insult me in anyn way thats ok with me
(03:51:01) dee_dash_rob: The world will spin in it’s access and the sun will rise and set and you will find a dumb teenager to bait tomorrow
(03:51:21) peaceseeker1383: :-/
(03:52:21) dee_dash_rob: That’s in response to any reason why you would bother to try to convince me you are neither a robot or a total dick
(03:52:37) dee_dash_rob: Point being, it absolutely doesn’t matter
(03:53:13) peaceseeker1383: im not trying to convince u
(03:53:29) peaceseeker1383: u r u
(03:53:35) peaceseeker1383: i am i
(03:53:40) dee_dash_rob: No. But you wrote “why should I try to do so?”
(03:54:04) dee_dash_rob: Now you’re fucking Popeye, swell. I ams what I am.
(03:54:27) peaceseeker1383: why should i try to convince u who thinks knows more than me doesnt want to listen to me truly
(03:55:23) peaceseeker1383: i think we can never see eye to eye
(03:55:38) dee_dash_rob: True enough.
(03:55:59) peaceseeker1383: lets talk about other things
(03:56:00) dee_dash_rob: I can’t follow the syntax of the sentence about never seeing eye to ey
(03:56:10) dee_dash_rob: Walruses and kings?
(03:56:47) peaceseeker1383: i mean we can never arrive at an agreeing point
(03:56:59) peaceseeker1383: we dont agree with reach other
(03:57:07) peaceseeker1383: each other
(03:57:24) peaceseeker1383: lets find some agreement
(03:57:48) dee_dash_rob: Maybe so. But you editorialized with “who thinks they know” (cleaning up the sentence).
(03:58:13) dee_dash_rob: Here’s the agreement. You likely find me as full of shit as I have found you.
(03:58:45) peaceseeker1383: 🙁
(03:59:19) peaceseeker1383: can i add u?
(03:59:33) dee_dash_rob: No
(03:59:46) peaceseeker1383: thats very nice of u
(03:59:55) dee_dash_rob: Not nice. But honest
(04:00:13) peaceseeker1383: its nice to be honest

And then I decided peeing was far, far, far, far, far more satisfactory than continuing.

I swear to fucking Christ, computers are ruining us all. The end times are here.

Forgot to mention in the previous post:

In addition to trying to sell my last belongings to drunks via a party ruse, I’ll be giving out FREE BEANIE BABIES. Trade them, collect them, wipe up your alcohol-poisoning released vomit and other bodily fluids on their sweet, squishy, furry wonder.

When I’m not obsessing about other peoples’ websites (see below), I’m beginning my own little crumbling nervous breakdown that should taper into the road trip of my life.

For months I have been simultaneously agonizing and procrastinating. (A vicious cycle really, since my procrastination leads to guilt that leads to self-recrimination and self-loathing, reinforced by a look around my place, a standing edifice of procrastination, which all, in turn, leads to more agony.)

So, I have set myself several dates. Dates that will help me focus and (I hope) act.

Herewith:
❗ February 24: My last South Shore comedy show at Jimbo’s in Braintree (8 p.m.) (Thanks to Annette Pollack!)
❗ March 2: Turn 41 and work on the bitterness of that pill
❗ March 3: My last New England/Northeast/Cambridge Comedy show. It will be at the ImprovBoston Theater in Inman Square thanks to those wonderful, wonderful Walsh Brothers. (It’ll be 10 p.m. to whenever, and I plan on putting some effort into writing the shit out my swan song.)
❗ March 3: I will also try very hard on this day to not ignore a special birthday boy I know (who quite cleverly is planning ahead on this issue already).
❗ March 4: I have a Friday night party, perhaps like those parties of my youth. (Without my vomiting on anything or anyone or trying to look flirtatious while coming off pathetic. Ahhh youth.) Whilst providing free beer, I will potentially try to take advantage of drunks and sell my final possessions.
❗ March 4: Alternate plan. I try to throw a party and no one shows up. I mope at my loser life and plot revenge against the cruelty of New England.
❗ March 5: Sleep and tie up lose ends
❗ March 6: Woo Fucking Hoo, it’s me, my GPS system and the open fucking roads of legendary proportion that comprise the highways and bi-ways of the U.S. of A. I will be Kerouac, but more sober and without screwing Beat chicks.

(The true logistical challenge will be centered around the party and my desire to invite all the great people I have met through comedy and all of the great normal friends and relations from the real world. Sometimes parts of your life are better left compartmentalized. Although, normal people will likely appear early and leave early (kind of like the norm), leaving the misanthropic morass that is Boston comedy to abuse substances sullenly with its own kind into the wee hours.)

And so I hope it goes.

P.S. If you know me and you read this shit (else how would you come to read this sentence), your invitation to any or all events is implied.

If you’re part of Boston comedy and you have no reason to believe that I absolutely hate you, and assuming you don’t hate me, you are invited to the party.

If you love me and are part of usual waking life, I apologize in advance for the coming wave of neuroses and unbearably egotistical self-involvement. I’ll try to keep it to a minimum.