Man, it’s only barely Wednesday and I feel fucking wiped. Probably just a coincidence that I’m tired that this is the first night I’ve been home since last Tuesday. I actually performed Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights. Even the night I skipped, Friday, I went to a party for a comic and attended by a lot of comics. Too much fucking comedy, that’s what that is. I should have gone out tonight to show some support for a buddy in the Boston Comedy Fest competition, but I just couldn’t.

And, that is why today I resent having had an 8:30 a.m. meeting set up without my input.

The Comedy Fest will be raging for the rest of the week, so by Sunday, maybe I’ll be ready to join the Catholic bloggers at Mass. Oh, Wait, I just remembered I’m nonredemptive. Better not go to Mass or take that communion wafer, since apparently it ain’t cool to do so, lest you can prove to the folks watching that you’re a true believer. And, yeah, that’s exactly how they portray it to the outside reader.

That entire paragraph would be enhanced with links, but I’m too much of a pussy to tangle with the faithful any more. Besides, these days they have much better things to blog about, thanks to the March last Sunday. I consider the single biggest religious miracle (is that redundant) of the last 20 years is how the “pro-life” movement has rewritten language and history. Apparently, all efforts toward planning parenthood are a new phenom, brought down to us all (like, oh say, seven or so plagues) from the cold, heartless feminists who bring their anger, bitterness, pityless scorn, and most especially selfishness to the planet.

Before feminism, of course, there was love and generosity, and no one ever tried to end a pregnancy. Except, of course, for every goddamn, fucking civilization that ever bore young happily or unhappily on the planet.

Seriously, though, how in less than one generation have people forgotten how it was and that the significance of Roe v. Wade was not that women were getting abortions, it was who was getting them and under what conditions. The advertising campaign that brought us words like “murder” and “baby-killing” is on par with the cynical success of Joe Camel.

An interesting minute coda to my entanglement with the self-appointed guardians of god was an email from the other side, apologizing for jumping on me with personal insults. I think she may have been one of the people who incorrectly jumped on what they thought was my youthful, callow foolishness. In the email she mentioned my mother, who I obviously write about, and offered her sympathies. Seemed like an interesting moment to make contact, so I told her a little bit about Pat. Mainly, how Pat made the choice (yup, a choice) to go to a different doctor and different hospital to have me, instead of the Catholic one where all of my brothers and my sister and probably all of Pat’s brothers and sisters were born. Even in 1964, she was in a position to make an active choice about her life, her body, her health care and ultimately for me.

I didn’t hear back from the woman, who also it seems is younger than me by five years (making her judgment of my youthful foolishness deliciously absurd and, um well, fucking judgmental). However, a bit after I sent her some information about myself and my worldview, she provided the last word over there on the ultimately 34-comment-long thread, scolding me for not admitting I started it and brought the shit on myself and had no right to bitch. Or some such malarkey (as a friend pointed out, as my sight does not purport to answer to a higher code, as theirs does, you woulda thunk they mighta slung a little christian charity in lieu of the mud).

I’m all over the fucking map babbling here, but the point, obscured by my rambling fatigue no doubt, is that this woman, who clearly plants herself on the “pro-life” side, and me, who she would describe as “pro-abortion” and I’m fine with that, are both essentially the same age. What the fuck happened back there in the 80s that allowed my peers to so largely fuck up and forget what the point was 10 years before.

I have spoken with women of my mother’s generation and the older half of my own generation about what sucked, what really, truly, fucking sucked and needed to change for women. The women’s liberation movement, feminism and all of the positive and negative connotations they might have were necessary. We still don’t get equal pay on the dollar for equal work, but more women get PAP smears and breast exams and understand their bodies. More women seek help for domestic violence and child abuse. Child support and food stamps and infant formula programs have grown to help more people. All because of what those women started rolling in the 60s and 70s. They were living it, and as someone I work with now pointed out it was no goddamn picnic, and she was from a stable, incrediby educated middle-class family.

Fucking hell, thanks to feminism, more women are coming harder and enjoying it more or maybe for the first time. That ALONE is worth the price of admission on that fucking carnival ride.

So what are older sisters and aunts and mothers brought on, we now take for granted. Hugely for granted. So much so that we now second guess them and say that they are all angry, selfish baby killers? What in bloody hell happened? What a crappy crappy backlash practical joke kick in the dick, that turns out to be.

I blame the bad music of the 80s, too much synth and not enough soul. All the middle-aged chicks on the pro-life side probably rubbed themselves under the covers to Depeche Mode and Flock of Seagulls and dreamed of the perfect curling iron and hoped to meet a man like dear old dad. Boring cunts, the lot of them.

Spent the morning with a loofah or two, since I may or may not be performing in the altogether tonight. I’m on the bench for the infamous “Naked Comedy Show.” If some on fails to show up, or there otherwise needs to be another performing, the coach will put me in. Either way, it should be fun hanging out and getting to use a rather nice hot tub.

I might offer to “take the bullet” and be the first performer anyway. Being a naked sacrificial lamb has a certain poetry to it.

Other than that, allergy season is here. One day they are going to find me cold and dead with snot running down my nose, a wild, desparate look frozen in my eyes, and surrounded by feverishly scratched at aluminum packets of antihistamines and Sudafed that I couldn’t pry open.

2003-09-14 – 12:51 a.m.
I started this blog as to mock blogs, but today I feel like being myself and writing about something real.

The Naked Show 2003

Wow, that was surreal and real and so many things. Driving home with the wind in my face and songs in my ears was the closest thing to how I remember feeling when I first got high. I felt alert and so much was going on that it was like nothing was going on. Just life, minute by minute. All explanations seem awkward and fake, but I feel like trying anyway.

So, my day was spent in anticipation and worry and nervousness. When I first tried stand up comedy, and then the second time I tried two years later, I tried to control all things that I could to quell the unbelievable anxiety. I ate early knowing my appetite would be gone; I planned my outfits down to the underwear.

Today was the same, even though I have now performed comedy every week for over two years. But, the “outfit” was my naked body, since the plan was to be onstage with absolutely only my words out there. FUCK! How do you prepare for that? I showered twice, once in the morning and later just before the show. I loofahed. I exfoliate scrubbed. I trimmed. I tweezed. I had the long hair on my head highlighted and trimmed two weeks before, so it would be comfortably coiffed. I looked in the mirror and thought about backing out. Ultimately, I put concealer and foundation on my bikini line to hide redmarks and bumps still lingering from a stupid shaving blunder a month ago.

Then, I went to the show. A private party and a benefit for an organization for which my friend works, this show was his idea and his to host.

I guess one of the oddest things about the show for me was that the combination of nerves was askew from what I’m usually nervous about. By planning my outfits, etc., before most shows, I’m pretty confident that I look OK and my nervousness is focused on whether my jokes are good enough (and mostly my self doubt says they’re not even when my mind thinks they are). Naked, I pretty much had to believe that the reverse was true — I looked stupid, but my jokes would carry me through.

Since I truly stiffen up in fear a lot on stage, which has been my biggest struggle, the whole thing had failure written all over for me in so many ways.

Being naked and performing is essentially a classic nightmare. For me, performing already is too often a nightmare of nervousness and anxiety for me. Anxiety I can’t explain or control or monitor in any helpful way just happens. When that happens, I get on stage and everything isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s off and not as funny as it should be.

So, I really should have crashed and burned tonight, self emoliated in epic proportions.

But, I didn’t. I came out and told my jokes and felt fine.

Or, I didn’t feel anything, really. I was in the moment to a weird nth level. At no time during my set did I consciously (read self-consciously) consider my nudity or the worth of my words or all of the landmarks that usually throw me into over analysis and frozen flat unfunniness.

I swang for the fences and played like a pro.

It was organic and cool and just was.

The entire ride home, I just felt the wind and that weird disconnected view of the world that was the bliss of smoking pot when I was a kid. And just like being high, I didn’t really want to hang at the party making small talk. Tonight I wanted only the warmth of the hot tub, followed by the coolness of the night air, followed by the satisfaction of a cold drink. It was all about sensation.

And, I was so contented to be back in my car alone. Riding in a convertible, too fast. Listening to a CD mixed and given to me by a guy I like being with (how could you not like a guy who gives you CDs labeled Girl Power Volumes 1, 2 and 3.

The lights the moon the night Route 9 at over 60 mph the city. Maybe that’s what happy is supposed to feel like.

And now as I write this and all the way driving home, I feel physically tired. The good kind of body dragging physical exhaustion you feel when you are fuck drunk. That weird, calm, smiling tired when your head hits the pillow because there can be no more orgasms. You and someone you like have used them all up and used all of the energy you could muster and now just collapse into sleep.

I feel that good, warm tired.

So, that’s the Naked Comedy Show.

Now, let’s hope I can bring this feeling back.

D