What's the frequency, Jenipher?

Jenipher just wrote me the following diatribe about R.E.M. Does anyone else have this concern?
_

While I do feel a particular fondness for R.E.M. because of the Athens connection, they are still really creepy. I must admit that I LOVE “Automatic For the People,” like, the whole album, including “Everybody Hurts,” which I know you hate (personally, I hate “Losing My Religion”). But as I was just listening to that song whose only line I know goes, “Sorry! Sorry!” I realized that I don’t like them because I CAN’T SING THEIR SONGS. They play a lot of them on Sirius First Wave. Here is my synopsis of all the R.E.M. songs I know and the portion of the lyrics I know from those songs:

Song 1:

Don’t go back to Rockville
Waste another year.
At night I drink myself to sleep
Mumble mumble, what did he say? Mumble

Song 2:

That’s great it starts with an earthquake,
Birds and snakes and airplanes.
And Lenny Bruce is not Mumble
Mumble mumble, what did he say? Mumble
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
And I feel fine.

Song 3:

Driver 8, driver 8.

Song 4:

Mumble mumble, what did he say? Mumble
Listen to your finest worksong.
Aagh! Mumble.
Finest hour.

Song 5:

What’s the frequency, Kenneth?
Mumble it’s a dream.
Mumble

Song 6:

I’ve got my spine
I’ve got my orange crush

Song 7:

Stand in the place where you live!

Song 8:

Shiny happy people holding hands!
(Shiny happy people holding hands!) arrrrrgh!


Song 9:

Radio free Europe.
Radio free Europe.


Song 10:

Fall on me.

Do you see a pattern? What is their deal, anyway?

How does this affect the price of beer in Romania?

The monthly scorecard, which governs the whole "how I'm doing" aspect of my job, came out today. I did as well as I did the previous month, though collectively that's not as well as they'd like for me to do or, arguably, as well as I can do.

I want to be at a 3.0. For the past two months, I've scored a 2.6. Cumulatively, though, I'm a 2.3.

Is it some sort of modern innovation that I'm able to talk about this stuff with any degree of understanding?

I don't even want to talk like this anymore. I don't want to know the formulaic breakdown of how each individual merit is weighed.

I'm judged so much by "performance numbers" that I feel like Nadia at the '76 Olympics. Except she was significantly better at her job. (And I'm not going to drink bleach like she did in that TV-movie they made about her.)

I, movie watcher.

Last night, I had an nice, interesting exchange at my store with this robotics specialist named Patrick. We discussed some robotics-infused, unmanned helicopters that he's helping design for the military through some university in Sweden and Georgia Tech.

I mentioned Isaac Asimov's Laws of Robotics to him, then mentioned the questionable ethics behind robots becoming too smart for our own good.

He and his team seemed actually impressed. Even after I mentioned that I adapted my philosophy on developing military technology from repeated viewings of THE TERMINATOR movies.

Patrick said they were actually going to use Asimov's rules to determine legitimate science as the technology evolves.

I said, "But all of Asimov's stories exist to show how Asimov's rules can be broken."

Before the group left, this hot, Italian aerospace engineer named Gianpablo told me he was originally from Turin. He talked to me about bluegrass music and The Police. He told me I ought to see Italy before I die.

Horrible things I've said to my mother.

In 1997, while I was home from school one weekend, I told my mother that the University theater troupe was staging "Hair" and that I wanted to see it.

"Oh right," my mom said. "I know you're only going for the nudity."

And, for a moment, I think I forgot who I was talking to because this was my reply:

"Oh Mom, I've dated members of the cast, and I know what they have to offer. Trust me, that's not why I'm going."

Her face went paler than usual.

Family trees that don't split.

This will reveal me as a giant hypocrite, but Friday's OPRAH pick made me curious about Faulkner. I deride him, though I've never read him.

So I picked up AS I LAY DYING, doing the one thing that my "Things to Do" list said not to do, and I've read 120 pages of it.

It's fun to read it out loud, using the accents I learned growing up in Buford around my stepfather and his backwater kin.

I thought it would be difficult to understand. Instead, with a little work, it reminds me of when I used to translate my stepfather's racist, redneck, ignorant ramblings into English.

Jenipher was telling me today, in light of my comparison between Faulkner's characters and my stepfather and stepbrother, that she used to be afraid to call my house.

"BINGY - BIIII-I-NGY!!!!!!!," I remember them calling to me. "TELL-UHHH-PHO-OOONE!"

Standing here solidly on my own two hands and going crazy.

My "insanity" comes to me on occasion, in waves, and it keeps me from sleeping. It hit me yesterday, and it's affected my mood today. It's passing now, but please keep talking to me. My mind tends to wander, and I get sorta paranoid.

It starts when I, for some reason, can't get my mind off of some slight that happened to me or some small thing that I did to someone 10 or 20 years ago.

Like when I told my friend John Thurman that it wasn't a good idea to come as a "Christian witness and Bible study guide" to the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Student Union meeting in college and then asked him if he was in the closet. Or when I told my art teacher in the fourth grade that none of the students liked her, which caused her to cry and run to the principal's office.

Where are these people now? Why do they even matter to me? They're not thinking about me. Why am I wasting my energy thinking about them?

Then I wonder the cause of it, fearing that it might be envy or dissatisfaction with my own life.

I remember that, as part of my therapy, I'm learning to let things go and let people go and let past slights go and let myself focus on the future.

It's maddening to think you're backsliding ever. Or to think that you're never going to be the person that you wanted to be.

Last night, I was watching the Tonys, and I started to envy the people who got to kiss and openly acknowledge their "partners" in public. And I had to remind myself that, um, I don't want or need that. And, if it happens, it happens.

And I'm fine. I hate having to remind myself that I'm fine.

The essence of cool.

Seriously, I'm asking you guys, who is cooler, James Dean ...



or Steve McQueen?



Who interests you more? Who's sexier? Who would you rather have a drink with? Who made better movies?

Things to do while yentas read the new OPRAH book.

- See Russell Crowe take his shirt off and beat up people in CINDERELLA MAN. Granted, Russell's not been as fun since he became a movie star, but he's still a good actor. (If you rent the Australian movies PROOF or ROMPER STOMPER, you'll get what I mean.)
- Go to the Landmark and see MAD HOT BALLROOM, a documentary about city kids in a dancing competition. The previews have been really, really funny.
- I've heard Oprah's picking a new book today, and I don't know what it is yet. Chances are, it'll be some lengthy, pretentious classic since that's what she's into these days. So, at my bookstore this weekend, housewives with strollers will likely approach me, asking me if we still have any copies of Proust's SWANN'S WAY, Stowe's UNCLE TOM'S CABIN or Dostoevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT or whatever she picks. Instead, if you're gonna read a classic, I suggest you not follow Oprah's pick. Go to the Summer Reading Table, pick up something the local high school is recommending to 14-year-olds and read that. Something fun-yet-challenging like FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON or THE CHOCOLATE WAR. Oh my God, it's worse. She's picked Faulkner! All my Southern lit friends will either be overjoyed or aghast!!!
- Use the new DVD box sets of Steve McQueen and James Dean to determine who was cooler. I mean, McQueen could drive and do his own stunts and get any woman he wanted, but, then, he goes and marries Ali McGraw. Meanwhile, Dean was prettier, bisexual, angry, became more of a legend and, most notably, couldn't drive. The man was able to romance both Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo on the set of REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, according to rumors. That takes skill.

- Pay your rent.
- Take out the trash.
- Finish last week's list.
- Read Chuck Klosterman's SEX, DRUGS AND COCOA PUFFS because it's pop-culture-infused and way funny. And Jenipher sent it to you for your birthday with homemade wrapping paper made from photos of really hot guys.
- Talk to a friend about the Runaway Bride's new haircut, which she sported on her day in court.
- Rent the films of director John Cassavetes from Movies Worth Seeing.
- Try to talk Kacoon out of circumcising her unborn son by pulling up "uncut" photos on the Internet and telling fun anecdotes from your own sex life.
- Emily Giffin, a local author I've met a couple times who's really, really nice, has just written a superior chick-lit book called SOMETHING BLUE, which I devoured last weekend in about a day. The book is a sequel to Giffin's SOMETHING BORROWED, which is really good, but SOMETHING BLUE is even better. Giffin's even doing a book signing on Thursday at the Margaret Mitchell House, which I plan to attend.
- This week, I guess I feel like a complete girl because, in addition to reading chick-lit, I'll admit that I went to see THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS by myself. I repeat, I was by myself. And, I swear to God, I was the only guy in the room. There were, like, 60 women in there all giggling and crying and bonding and sharing special moments, and I'm the sole Y-chromosome in the entire room. I was embarassed because, well, I was there to see Alexis Bledel because I unapologetically adore GILMORE GIRLS, but I thought all the mothers and pre-teen girls would think that I'm just some creepy guy walking around with his hands in his pockets. My experience at the movie was odd. I sat in that front section and crouched down below a wall so that no one would actually see me in there. Then, um, the movie started. And, well, I laughed. I almost cried. I thought, "Gosh, Alexis Bledel doesn't look the least bit Greek at all, but that fisherman guy she hooks up with is hella hot." I thought, "Gosh, the music in this is sappy." I thought, "Wow, this acting isn't bad, even though the story's a little trite." And then it ended, and I hid in the theater until all the women had cleared out.

Notes from abroad.

Jenipher in Chicagoland writes:

Oh, I thought I would tell you that I finished watching all episodes of “Higher Ground.” It just kind of ended with some kind of prom episode that they called a MORP, since they wanted it to be opposite of a real prom (no drinking, no stress of dates, etc.)…no one knew what a MORP was until the dyslexic guy walked in and saw the MORP sign…he said, we’re having a prom? Cool. It was kind of funny, for Canadian humor.

I will miss “Higher Ground.” I guess they were anticipating a second season, but never got one.



Meanwhile, the once-missing Miss Gibson in the Dominican Republic writes:

Sorry I´ve been so quiet, but email is slightly more sporadic here etc. Have been following the blog when possible. you´ve taken to this puppet stuff, haven´t you?? anyway, i have one week left before i´m back in my office. can´t really face it. ugh. but the trip has been good, if somewhat exhausting. this is a crazy country, but quite likeable. anyway thanks for your thoughts. more emails soon. xx



And Lupo, en route from Tallahassee to Idaho and Wyoming, writes:

Got your resume. Looks good - I have a couple of suggestions and some ideas for
cover letters that frame your experience of the last few years (think
undercover spy, j/k....)

I'll share them with you when I get back and, if you still need it and are
still interested, help you out with posting it online. ONWARDS!

Saw Birth and Sea Inside over the past few days. The first was an interesting
failure, and the other one was fantastic in my opinion.

Have a great few weeks....

Secret's in the source.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Objective.

Something I already knew has just been mentioned to me. My resume does not have an objective statement, which it needs. I know this. Trust me.

It's just that, well, I don't know where I'm applying yet, and I like to condition the statement accordingly. Of course, in the meantime, I also want to strengthen my resume to feature my, I guess, most valuable attributes. This resume thing sucks. I don't remember it being this hard when I got out of college. Of course, then, I was applying to people who basically already knew me through my byline, my friends or my work at the student newspaper. So this is different.

What do I want to do? What do I enjoy? What are my strengths? What am I capable of?

This is the sort of thing I'd be prepared to answer in therapy, but not on paper.

How is it that I can work for five years at two jobs and lose all my known, basic, marketable skills?

Alternative qualifications.

I wish there was a way that I could put stuff that mattered on my resume:

- Contributed significantly to at least 50 winning bar trivia games.
- Ranked 676 on Amazon.com's customer reviews.
- Successfully maneuvered through six years of therapy.
- Published online in The Guardian, Ain't It Cool News and worked freelance for Schroeder Publishing.
- Had a letter in ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY once when I was 13.
- Managed to be able to spell despite attending public school in Gwinnett County.
- See 6 to 10 movies a month.
- Member of the Margaret Mitchell House and ArtsCard.
- Received accolades for my blog from the Center for Puppetry Arts.
- Still insist to customers at my bookstore that NAPOLEON DYNAMITE and THE VILLAGE are really, really bad movies.

That's just what you are.

Last night, while I was at my mother's house, I updated my resume to the best of my ability. The resume seems weak to me. My mother pointed out to me that I neglected to mention much of the freelance writing that I did a couple years ago after leaving CNN, and it doesn't suggest how often I actually work. She also mentioned that it doesn't even begin to hint at what a good salesman I am or how much I know about movies, books and music. I couldn't figure out a way to turn "knowledge of general trivia" into a printable, marketable job skill.

My mom's supposed to be one of my biggest fans. That's her job. There's nothing I've written that wasn't "genius," even if she found some of it "inappropriate." Everything of mine that she reads, she suggests we "send it to OPRAH" because that Oprah loves "a good, human-interest story."

Arguments against me going on OPRAH are not acceptable at my mom's house. My mom's going to have me on OPRAH before it's all over.

She mentioned OPRAH last night when I showed her the chapters about my disability that I've been working on for my writing class.

As she read the chapters, she said, "Wow, I didn't know you thought this much about your disability. You know, if it's really a problem for you, I'm sure health insurance would pay for some physical therapy."

"Yeah, but what would I write about then?" I asked her.

She laughed, then said I could reference it "from memory."

It's my way. I want to complain about something, but far be it from me to ever actually do anything about it. At this point, I would prefer not to treat my minor limp any differently from the way that I do. It's just that, well, now I write about it, so it becomes fair game for discussion.

When I was carrying in my laundry to my apartment last night, I found my old, suede, snap-shut journal from 2001 in the trunk of my car, and I reread a couple entries from a particularly suicidal period in my depression, including the writings I did about Sept. 11 and the writings I did about losing my friendship with that guy Dax. Also, there were some rocky times with Lupo that I mulled over in the book. And, plus, that was the summer of my runaway car, the year I spent not talking to my parents.

Most of that journal was written after midnight on the formica counters of the Huddle House in Buford. In it, I mention this waitress named Melissa a lot. Now, of course, I wouldn't be able to pick that woman out of a line-up, but she was the one who talked to me the most when I felt like overdosing on pills.

That journal, which is a precursor to this one, I guess, is well-written but pretty damn difficult for me to read. (Of course, last night, I wanted to transcribe the thing into entries here, so people could get a better record of who I was versus who I am. But that probably would be both indulgent and unwise.)

I'm still in the same jobs I was then, technically. But my view is so different.

It's time to take more steps forward.

Laundry and DVDs.

It's fun discovering that my mother has installed a Broadband connection at her house, particularly because she was still trying to figure out how not to overuse the caps lock key in her e-mail when I lived here.

I'm here doing laundry because I didn't want to invade my friend Larry's condo while he was composing an opera. While I was waiting for everything to dry, I started to watch this movie LEON on DVD. I'd never seen it before, even though I'd always heard good things about it and about the Natalie Portman performance it features. What I've seen thus far has been violent and fun.

Of course, I couldn't watch all of it. Mom would come in to remind me that I had underwear to fold everytime the movie started to get interesting.

At some point this week, I'll watch it at my apartment.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying the washer and dryer. And the Broadband.

Miss Gibson is missing.

This is a test to see if I can learn more HTML code. This is completely silly, yet I don't know how to properly format a photo with wrap-around text. I want to learn. I feel like a complete dork.

Nonetheless, I've not heard from Miss Gibson in weeks since she headed to the Dominican Republic, and she's got a really pretty photo that I can use to figure out how to learn this simple, basic HTML function.

OK, it looks like I might have it, so now this blog won't have some glaring photo formatting errors.

Everyone else has already left my office for the holiday.

I have to go to the store soon, but the guy is still on the crane.

Things to do while everyone avoids that crane guy.

* See Daniel Craig in LAYER CAKE, playing locally at the Tara. Or you could see Sam Peckinpah's MAJOR DUNDEE at the Landmark.
* Read the first chapter of THE HISTORIAN, which is being touted as the summer's biggest non-HARRY POTTER book. It comes out June 14, but you can read an excerpt on Amazon. It's supposed to be some scary, DA VINCI CODE-like take on DRACULA.
* Pay tribute to the late Ismael Merchant by watching A ROOM WITH A VIEW, which is a fantastic movie adapted from an E.M. Forster novel. The Merchant-Ivory production features, among other things, nudity, beautiful Italian scenery and an early performance from Daniel Day-Lewis as a stuck-up, foppish nerd.
* Buy Kacoon's baby shower present at Babies R Us.
* Finish doing the stuff off last week's list, and continue telling people to see OLDBOY.
* Connect with an old friend, like my old bookstore co-worker Vicki. Vicki, it turns out, just returned from Indonesia, where she and other missionaries helped tsunami victims with medical aid and clean-up.
* Do laundry.
* Wash the dishes.
* Take out the garbage.
* Update your resume. Work on getting a new job, just for the fun of it.
* Go to Atlanta Jazz Fest.
* Go out of town. It's Memorial Day.
* Heck, because it's Memorial Day, visit a cemetery. Pay tribute to the war dead. Find a flag, and say the Pledge of Allegiance.
* Visit me in the music department at Barnes & Noble in Buckhead, if that guy ever comes down from the crane, because we're having a Buy Two DVDs, Get One Free sale there. And, if you're that linen-shirt-wearing guy named Colin who talked to me this week, come back to visit. Let's get coffee.
* Place bets on how the situation with the crane guy is going to end.
* Finish watching John Huston's THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. Bogart's cool.

Cliffhangers.

Last night, I was late getting to work at the bookstore because, well, to get to my bookstore, I have to drive through Buckhead. And last night, the roads in Buckhead were blocked because this guy was standing on a crane 350 feet in the air, threatening to jump. If he fell, the police were directing traffic away from the bullseye zone. Though it had something to do, I'm sure, with the genuine value of every human life, the cops mostly didn't want anyone's car to get hit.

I've always been fascinated by cliffhangers. When I was a kid, I figured that a movie HAD to have people in peril, dangling from the air, in order for it to be any good. The Goonies all had to walk the plank. E.T. and Elliott went flying through the air. Annie had to hang off that bridge.

If you think back on me a couple years ago, I wanted to write fiction stories about people trapped on Ferris wheels or jumping off a mall balcony.

I've always been fascinated, and a little frightened, of the idea of falling. Taking that leap. Jumping. The seemingly inevitable crash below always struck me as the ultimate - what's the word - abandon. Though I'm not much of a thrillseeker, I've always appreciated someone whose final choice in life came at them as so black-and-white.

Remember the idea of the life that you wanted to live?

Risks aren't easy. But risks, I'm thinking, are necessary.

What if we could have choices that simple? Do you ever get so frustrated with the small things you do that you know don't really matter - but you have to do them - that you envy someone who can just jump?

I'm not advocating suicide. I'm speaking of taking chances, risking things.

There are days on-and-off that I walk through my office feeling just numb. It seems so cliche to say that, but, honestly, it's not untrue. Why does any of this matter?

It matters because I have to eat. Because I have bills to pay. Because I like to go to the movies, and you have to buy the tickets.

I just called my mom, told her that I wouldn't make it to her barbecue tonight. She wanted me at Lake Lanier by 6. It's 6 now, and I'm at my desk, making up some work. Because it's the end of the month. Because I have a production goal. Because I'm trying to avoid traffic. Because I work best when no one else is around.

I want to be willing enough to let go of the safe life I have to try something different. It annoys me that I'm not that brave.

Me and you.

Everything I've heard about ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, which opens in limited release next month, gets me excited about it. I don't know yet if it's good or not, for I haven't seen it, but it's being raved about by people who know film.

My friend Jim at the Landmark e-mailed me to let me know they're booking the movie, and I thanked him. He said I was the one who mentioned it to him first. I actually asked him to try and get the movie to Atlanta just so I could see it, but now everyone's talking about it.

It's played to great response at Sundance and won awards at Cannes this week.

Miranda July, the performance artist who made the movie, also sounds like she'd be really fun to know.

In the meantime, see OLDBOY. It was really, really fantastic.

Reaching HIGHER GROUND.

Jenipher confessed to me yesterday that she did something really, really embarassing over the weekend. While she and her husband were out, their TiVo, programmed to catch anything Hayden Christiansen is in, "accidentally" recorded a marathon of every episode of this old, cancelled FOX Family show called HIGHER GROUND.

It's apparently a Canadian family drama featuring Joe Lando from DR. QUINN: MEDICINE WOMAN as the head of a Christian boot camp facility that takes in misfit kids. Our hero, Hayden, plays the main misfit, a drug abuser with a secret past and an attitude.

Now, first of all, I don't know why Jenipher wants anything and everything featuring Hayden Christiansen TIVO'ed in the first place, but I was not at all surprised when Jenipher told me that she had not deleted the 30-odd episodes. Instead, she started watching them during her daily treadmill workout, pleased by the soapy nature of the show and its innate Canadian flair, and now she's addicted. The whole thing sounds like DEGRASSI-gone-awry.

"I love how everyone on the show is supposed to be a smoker, but the makers of the show don't want to show kids smoking cigarettes on TV," she told me yesterday. "Thus, everyone's beginning the act of smoking. The cigarettes are in their mouths, but they're unlit. Or someone's about to light a cigarette. But the show's too wholesome to show anyone actually smoke."

She e-mailed me this latest episode synopsis, which barely makes sense:

Hayden (Glue Sniffer/Acid Tripper/Sith Lord) confessed to That Guy From “Dr. Quinn” that he was a victim of sexual abuse by his hot stepmom. He whined and cried incessantly, then threatened to beat up every other student when they looked at or talked to his slutty girlfriend, Druggie/Almost Smoker Who Never Lights Up On TV. Bulimic grew closer to Stereotypical Mexican Who Used To Be In A Gang And Is Now The Only Minority At The Whole School, and they made out in the janitor’s closet. Suicidal Goth Girl remained depressed and in love with ‘Shroom Eater/Bleach Sniffer, who almost drowned when he fell out of a kayak. In the end, everyone learned an important life lesson and remained very, very Canadian.

Jenipher admitted that she found Hayden very cute but said she felt wrong about it, for he's so young.

"I feel so wrong, like I feel like his stepmom on that show," Jenipher admitted. "I mean, I was watching it, thinking, 'Oh, Hayden, I want to be your incestuous stepmom.'"

It's all very PAX-TV. I think Jenipher misses her 90210 fix.

Tales of the cube.

So my friend Lisa just quit her job at my office to go work for our competition, and I guess I'm sorta happy for her. The new girl at the office came over to my cube yesterday and yelled at me because I made a mistake that my manager told me was relatively minor. But the new girl yelled at me. And I'm stuck at my office because I do have more work to do, but I'm also waiting for Edmondson to finish work so that we can go see OLDBOY.

Yesterday was tough. Today was really boring. I'm drowning in paper, and the idea that someone else got to leave here just made me, um, kinda jealous. I know I could leave my job. Both my jobs. Hypothetically.

Of course, when I found out that Lisa was essentially going to do the same job at a different company (and it's impossible for any of us to explain in under five minutes what exactly our job is), I lost my jealousy. If I left this line of work, I'd sincerely want to do something completely different. I'd want to work in the arts or something, do work that I actually enjoyed.

Meanwhile, the class really liked - or seemed to like - the chapters I gave them last week. One person told me that the first chapter featured too much exposition, but a friend at the Margaret Mitchell House told me not to change anything, at this point. She said to just keep writing, to just keep moving the story forward. So that's what I'm going to do. (Of course, since the next chapter's going to be written in the voice of my mother and feature a miracle, it's been a bit more difficult to get my head around it. But, if you haven't read it and aren't in my head, then you don't know what I'm talking about.)

I e-mailed Chris from Freshman English. I saw him when I went back to the puppet show. He was nice to me and asked me what I've been writing lately. Cool guy.

I was mean to Poli Sci Guy about his unpublished novel that he's been "finishing" for about a year. The way he talks about his book, dare I admit it, comes off as obnoxious, so I told him that he probably lacked confidence in his work since he never showed it to anyone. Which, when it comes down to it, is mean of me and unnecessary. (I told Marley what I did. She fears I'll generate mountains of bad karma and not focus on making myself happy. She's right.)

Oh well. It's late. I should leave work now.

Things to do while everyone else sees STAR WARS.

- See OLDBOY and CRASH at the Landmark.
- Go to XPT: XPERIMENTAL PUPPETRY THEATER again at the Center for Puppetry Arts since Larry, Andy and the Davids are going. (And there were a considerable number of cute guys at the Wednesday show.) Oh wait, I'm working.
- See my college friend Mary Claire Dunn in WIZZER PIZZER at 7 Stages.
- Read over the two chapters of my "novel" again, then write another chapter. Then print enough copies for class on Monday.
- Do laundry.
- Do dishes.
- Clean house.
- Finish Season Three of GILMORE GIRLS.
- Try not to work too much at the bookstore.
- Sleep off seeing STAR WARS at midnight a couple nights ago.
- Watch KINSEY's double-disc because, apparently, the cast's sex questionnaire answers are a special feature - which means you get to find just how kinky Peter Sarsgaard really is.
- Rent TARNATION from Movies Worth Seeing.
- Try again to re-read THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE because that movie preview looks cool.
- Reconsider reading THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS. Teen girl lit is really fun to read.
- Try again to read JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL because Chris read it and said it was good. And Lynda at the Margaret Mitchell House said it was good. And Mike read it and said it was good. And David read it and said it was good. And Vickye read it and said it was good. And you've met the author and have an autographed copy of that book.
- Pretend to read that Diana Wynne Jones book that Jenipher bought four years ago, since she's been asking you about that HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE Miyazaki movie.
- Try to find a way to make the ending of my short story, which makes sense to me, work better for other readers before even considering to send it to McSweeney's.
- Buy a gift from Babies R Us for Kacoon's baby shower next week. Make a joke in the card about naming her baby "Sirius Black Coon."
- Find a way to see Vic, maybe an arranged meeting at a bookstore one morning.
- E-mail Miss Gibson again in the hope that she'll check her e-mail while she's in the Dominican Republic, researching her thesis. Mention Papa Doc in e-mail, even though he's Haitian.
- Watch ROBBIE WILLIAMS: LIVE AT THE ALBERT on DVD, based on Mike's suggestion that Robbie Williams has the proper amount of "swagger" to pull off a convincing swing performance.
- Find a way to watch the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational THE MUPPETS' WIZARD OF OZ, which comes on tonight when I'm working. (Lupo says he'll record it. Lupo's my favorite person on Earth.)

Notes on the other stuff I did last night.

REVENGE OF THE SITH is absolutely terrific. My friend Mike loved, loved, loved it. The ending left me in a reverent silence, with my mouth open, for five minutes afterward. I mean, WOW. It's really damn good. The beginning is visually amazing. But the thrills really build momentum after Anakin's conversion to the Dark Side. After that happened, the movie completely had me and wouldn't let me go until that closing shot.

I sold my soul for a pomegranate.

So I went to the new adult puppet show, "XPT: Xperimental Puppetry Theater," last night not knowing what to expect. I didn't know whether the people at the Center for Puppetry Arts had read my review and invited me back so that they could, I guess, string me up - so to speak - for what I wrote earlier about "Anatomy of Melancholy," that pretentious puppet show featuring a Sept. 11 re-enactment.

Somewhere in my head, of course, I knew exactly what I was doing there. I was invited back to the Center to give the "art of adult puppetry," I think it was called, another chance.

And, with its new show, the Center for Puppetry Arts has converted me. I'm all about the puppet love now. Forgive me if I show a glaring lack of cynicism in this review. I promise I've not been brainwashed by the Blue Fairy into believing puppets can become "real." Also, this is not a plugola scandal involving my site and the Center for Puppetry Arts.

I just really liked "XPT." It's a fun, fun show. And, not coincidentally, it's running from tonight until May 22, and you can buy tickets here.

To tell you why I laughed out loud during some of it, I have come up with this list:

THINGS I THOUGHT I'D NEVER SEE IN MY LIFE

1. A green pear doing a sexually-explicit table dance.
2. A Creative Loafing "Karma Cleanser" letter brought to life in a stage production.
3. My friend Chris from Freshman English on a stage with no pants. (Though, for some reason, it didn't surprise me to see him using his "announcer voice" while pretending to be a news anchor.)
4. A re-enactment of a 1986 Russian video game called "Glasnost," featuring a falling hammer and sickle.
5. Frankenstein's monster dressed as a pimp.
6. Animal from THE MUPPET SHOW attacking the new Pope.
7. A puppet learning the hazards of attending a candlelight vigil.
8. Use of the word "humansexual" after a puppet and a woman start making out in front of a bandanna-wearing, angry beaver from Compton.
9. Puppets, puppeteers and a set entirely covered with black-and-white horizontal stripes.
10. A creature with eyes made out of badminton birdies performing a song about loneliness.

Granted, "XPT" is an anthology show of six skits, and some of them work better than others. (The "Rapunzel" skit, which is performed on one side of the stage while the sound engineers mess around on the other side of it in full view, falls flat.)

The first skit, the one with all the stripes, seems equally influenced by Samuel Beckett and Shel Silverstein. It's strange and confusing, but it inevitably works as an interesting piece of stagecraft.

Four of the skits really, really entertained me, and it almost made me wish that I'd bought my own ticket so that I could show these people my support.

But, since my ticket was comped last night, the best that I'll be able to do for the Center for Puppetry Arts is to go back for another show and another. (Their revival of "Avanti, Da Vinci!," one of their biggest adult hits, opens this summer, and I plan to be there.)

A friend of mine told me nine years ago that we in Atlanta didn't know how lucky we were to have the Center for Puppetry Arts, for it can, at times, feature the most innovative, wacky theater. Having seen something edgy and fun like "XPT," I know exactly what he meant.

On the road.

NOTE: I am dictating this to Lupo while driving on I-85.

Just left "Xperimental Puppetry Theater." It was hilarious. Review to come later. I saw a friend of mine from college with no pants. Will write more later after I wake up from seeing the movie at 3 a.m.

Thank you, Lupo, for typing this. Thank you, Sydney. I am a puppet convert.

Chaos theory.

Last night, since the settings for my VCR haven't been changed since last week's awesome VERONICA MARS finale, I accidentally recorded UPN's new reality show BRITNEY & KEVIN: CHAOTIC. And, yes, after getting home from a visit to Miss Q's with Larry, I watched as much of it as I could stand.

I made it through three commercial breaks.

Britney usually garners a lot of sympathy from me, but the love affair between she and I officially ended last night. Dear God, she's filming the show herself, and that video camera is aimed up her damn nose all the time. All she talked about was sex and how single she was before she met Kevin Federline, the dumbest, redneck, low-rent, white-trash, no-account, no-brained, cute, badly-dressed, backward-ballcapped hanger-on I've ever seen shirtless-and-tattooed on a celebreality show.

Britney, you were single for, what, a year?! Please ... The marriage will, by all accounts, last five years before ending horribly. The two of them will then fade into further obscurity (beyond appearing on a UPN show that's not VERONICA MARS).

The show needs to stop. Clearly, someone forgot that being dumb, obnoxious twentysomethings in love is fantastic ... but watching other dumb, obnoxious twentysomethings in love is annoying.

What to do in the event of an emergency.

The puppet show that I've been invited to by the nice people at the Center for Puppetry Arts is tonight at 8. And I was going to take my friend Brad since he's the one who helped me write the last piece. I figured he could be Statler to my Waldorf again, should the show merit that kind of reaction, and I thought, as well, that it would be, in a way, an odd reward for both of us.

Sydney at the Center for Puppetry Arts has been such a good sport about all this, and she gave me these great seats for tonight's show.

But Brad hasn't confirmed for me yet that he'll be able to go - and, even though I've been trying to communicate with him for weeks now, I only heard from him about it yesterday since he has a fear of phones (yeah, fear of phones), has been sick for weeks and doesn't respond to any not-completely-urgent communication. So I fear he's going to flake out on me.

I e-mailed Sydney that I may be alone tonight, even though I fear that makes me look either incredibly rude or, worse, like the only person on Earth who can't find a date. She wrote back that she hoped I had someone to come because the seats really are damn good.

I've been looking forward to this night for about a week. This whole situation amuses me, except for the part that I'm likely going stag.

Also tonight, I'm seeing STAR WARS: EPISODE III with my friend Mike in Duluth, which should be fun. (I can't take Mike to the puppet show for fear that he'll mock it aloud - like I did at last year's screening of Kevin Smith's JERSEY GIRL, but that's another tale altogether.)

Maybe I can hire an escort to the puppet show.

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

I often make fun of my friend Jenipher's job. She works for the visitors bureau of that county in Illinois where those little girls were stabbed to death this week. In talking to Jenipher for all these years now, I've never been able to exactly determine what her job for the CVB entails. She says she works in "sales," but usually she's just making up fun party signs or hip, happening posters. One time, she arranged a party with a Barbie theme.

Several times I've called her, and, I swear, she's been doing some project with construction paper, popsicle sticks and glitter. One time I asked her if she used the left-handed scissors much for her biggest projects, like arranging gift baskets or tying decorative ribbons.

And Jenipher goes on vacation, like, once a month. She says they're business trips, but I don't think so.

For instance, she just called me a few minutes ago from her car on her way to a "business meeting" to ask me if I knew the full lyrics to Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl."

I asked her if the meetings usually ended with she and her other workers in a pillow fight or with them braiding each others' hair.

She said, "No, we end with manis and pedis."

Jenipher's probably lying about her job. She's probably just living as a housewife and running a Girl Scout troop.

I asked her why she went to college for that job since it sounds like, um, all she ever really needed to know she learned in Kindergarten.

Gynecological tools for the study of mutant women.

Last night, eager to see this movie that's been long out-of-print, I rented DEAD RINGERS from this great, rare video store near me called Movies Worth Seeing.

Jeremy Irons gives this freaky, fantastic performance as twin gynecologists who routinely trade lovers. The movie shows them as they go from being pioneers in medicine to, well, rather disturbed individuals.

It's David Cronenberg, so the movie's more than a little sick. But, wow, it was good. And Irons is fantastic.

They're re-releasing it on DVD next month. It's been out-of-print a couple years.

The reviews are in.

So the reviews of MONSTER-IN-LAW come in, and everyone HATES, HATES, HATES it, which is set to happen to a movie you thought was pretty damn funny when you saw it in a crowd full of enthusiastic people and movie stars.

My mom called me first thing this morning and said, "Did you read the paper??? They gave it a D+!!!"

It's possible that I'm wrong in noting that, of course, the comedy was extremely broad, the scenery is chewed with fervor and the whole thing seemed intentionally ridiculous, and I thought it was funny.

Ah well. See it. Don't see it. Think me stupid.

It's OK. My mom liked it.

Battlefield: Mirth.

When I was a senior in high school and my friend Jenipher was a bored freshman at the University of Georgia, she used to send me interesting clippings from The Red & Black in the mail. She knew that I was interested in journalism, so she would send me the most ridiculous articles from the student paper, which I later worked for, in hope that she could improve my journalism skills.

At one point, she found this classified ad in the paper from the Eva Gabor Wig Company and sent it to me, complete with the attached note: "Have already sent them your address. Expect something soon."



Thus, on the day I graduated high school, a catalog of nicely-styled, silver wigs for women arrived in my mailbox. Since it was the day of my graduation, of course, my entire extended family saw the thing.

"Ooh, you should seriously forward that to your grandmother," my mother said. "The ones she wears aren't nearly as nice."

(A side note, someone recently saw a photo of that grandmother standing with my parents. They asked me how my parents knew Andy Warhol.)

I called Jenipher and laughed about it, telling her that it was a pretty good joke, but I also intended to one day get back at her for leading strangers to think I had some creepy fetish involving elderly women's wigs.

One day, while browsing through the library, I found a pamphlet and questionnaire that I thought Jenipher might find interesting, but I knew she would never fill the survey out herself. It was on Dianetics.

So I answered the questions for her and sent it, complete with her name, address and phone number, to the local Scientology Research Center.

Within weeks from arriving home from Athens, Jenipher received several phone calls from an L. Ron Hubbard-esque guru named Yogi. Seriously, Yogi would call Jenipher's house night after night to tell her all about how Scientology believes that energy waves communicated by aliens traveled through the ground into each human soul - or some such thing.

After about a month, the calls finally stopped, but Jenipher still says that I took that joke too far. But I still think it was funny.

Baby's coming.

Kacoon's scheduled her baby's birth for Monday, which means that next week we will have a brand-spanking-new Baby Coon to talk about and play with. We still don't know what Baby Coon's sex is going to be since it decided to play the Crying Game with the ultrasound photos. (Though I know it's not genetically possible, I think the baby gets that from me.)

I've not seen Kacoon in a month. She was really, really pregnant when I last saw her, so now she's probably got her own ZIP Code. From what she's written about it, though, I see that she hasn't lost her sense of humor. She says her swollen hands have developed carpal tunnel since she's entered her last trimester.

I think they've chosen to ignore all my old suggestions for the name of Baby Coon, which means that it'll stand a better chance of surviving the playground.

I love Baby Coon. This is going to rule. I mean, it's better than a new Harry Potter book. This time next week, I'll get to drive to the hospital and see a new baby, which I'll eventually get to teach sarcasm and the joys of shopping.

I should re-medicate.

OK, so if I'm mildly concerned that the 17-page document that I sent out in the middle of the workday didn't garner an immediate response from my very busy friends who all have jobs, then I'm clearly insane, need to get a grip, snap back to reality and what-not, right?

Yeah, that's what I thought, too.

I'm always nervous sending out my fiction, though, because I always think that my fiction (and this is a very, very rough draft) will be considered bad.

My friend Chris told me that, to take my mind off stuff, I should try to write a novella. And this is what I came up with.

If you didn't get a copy of anything I sent out and would like one, I guess you could e-mail me.

So what have you done since the breakup?

It's almost two months since my three-month-long relationship broke up. It's been about a month since I last spoke to my ex-boyfriend. It's been a week since I last hooked up with someone, though, really, that was nothing.

I've been attending my writing class, working at the bookstore, worrying about money, working on a short story and trying to keep busy around the city. I'm trying to keep my mood up. Things have been lively. (I'm actually still off my crazy pills, trying to maintain an edge while not becoming too annoying.)

I've been reading a little. I've been trying to write paragraphs that are longer than one sentence. I've been hanging out with some friends. I've spent some time with family.

The apartment's messy again. I'll get around to cleaning it one of these days. (Maybe someone should come check on me. I'll clean it if I have visitors.)

Things are good, I guess. Yeah, things are good.

I'm not babysitting some arrested-development guy with Roberto Benigni's attention span and energy level a lot of the time. I'm not sick over the love that was lost. I try, at those moments of weakness, to remind myself that the ex could really get on my nerves. There were times when we were terrible together.

The apartment needed to be messy for me to see that, I guess. I suppose that's one way to justify it. I could claim that the dishes in my sink are a sign of progress.

PETA, G-CAPP, J-Lo, Jane, Mom and Me

My mom picked me up from my office at 4:30 yesterday, and we immediately headed down toward the Fox for "Monster-in-Law." I asked Mom which famous people she wanted to see, and she said "Ted Turner," which I personally didn't understand - though I guess Mom likes money.

We parked the same place we always do, walked the short distance we always do and ended up in front of that grand awning once again. A woman walked by my mother with a neatly groomed, purple-painted poodle in tow.



My mom told the lady her dog looked really cute and asked her where she got the dog's paint job done.

I asked the lady a tongue-twister.

"You're walking that purple poodle past the PETA people?"

The lady said she wasn't with PETA and, of course, she would walk the dog past them. The PETA protestors were stationed right by the old Will Call window, to the left of the cordoned-off red carpet area.

I held on to the shoulder of Mom's neat, black pinstriped suit (technically riding her coattails, I guess) as we fought our way past the bloody animal photos. The guy holding the plastic model of the bleeding, skinned puppy dog caught my mom's attention, but she quickly shuffled past him. (She kept mispronouncing the group "petta," instead of giving the name a long "e." And she kept telling me that "those PETTA people are psychos.")

The real Will Call window was toward the back, through hundreds of people, but Mom's a trooper. Mom led the way through because she's short and could shoulder-pad her way past ladies in couture without apology. She was basically unmoved by sights of glitter, though plentiful cleavage was displayed throughout the crowded gallery.

My mom kept watching for crowds and camera crews, though, trying to see if she could catch a glimpse of someone famous on the red carpet over her shoulder. We never saw anyone out there, thanks to the hordes of people congregated around any sign of lights-camera-action.

We got to the real Will Call window, tried to discern if there was any real line there. I accidentally stepped on a woman's open-toed, sequined shoe, and Mom and I finagled our way in front of her.

"Sorry," I said to the lady.

"It's my fault," she said back. "I put my foot under yours. You didn't put yours on top of mine."

Another lady in line with us, wearing this puffy, turquoise jacket and this plastered, fake, real-estate-agent smile, was sent away by the ticket booth for not having her credit card. I loved that.

Once we got our tickets, we headed directly for the door of the theater.

"I just want to get in and sit down," Mom said. "I don't really care about seeing J-Lo. I just like the Fox."

So we went inside, and there was breathing room. Instead of lingering in the lobby to catch a glimpse of Dallas Austin or the beautiful Michael Vartan (who, I found out later, had to work on ALIAS and conspicuously wasn't there ... although I thought ALIAS already wrapped for the season), Mom and I found our aisle seats. Then, we headed to the lobby, grabbed some refreshments and sat back down, gabbing about what people were wearing as they walked by.

"I can see right through her dress," Mom said silently about a random lady who limped by while nursing her ankle.

One of the ushers helped that lady, telling the injured limper that she could lessen the pain of leg cramps by pinching the divot just under her nose. The usher said that home remedy was in Ann Landers. Mom and I misunderstood and almost offered the cramp lady a napkin for her apparent nosebleed.



When the seats finally filled and the program began, Jane Fonda came out from behind the red curtain on the stage, looking really good in this white jacket and ruffled gown. There was much applause, particularly when Jane said that this crowd was larger than the L.A. premiere's crowd and when Jane called Atlanta her hometown.

Our seats were OK, so Mom, wearing her glasses, got a pretty good look at Jane's outfit.

"She looks AMAZING," said my finally star-struck mother. "I wish I'd brought my digital camera."

When Jennifer Lopez came out in this short, pink-looking dress, there was more applause, of course. And I got a little excited because, as I admitted a couple days ago, I'm a fan. And, even though she was on a stage and I was in the aisle, it was really cool because, I dunno, she was right there.

Then they trotted out all the famous people, each of them getting applause - though there were audible boos when Jane announced that Michael Vartan wasn't there.

The 20-minute G-CAPP speech and presentation, which I figured would happen, kinda annoyed my mom. She just wanted to see "Monster-in-Law," not hear about some pregnant 13-year-old girl who made the Honor Roll.

"If that girl had been really smart, she wouldn't have gotten pregnant," my mom said.

"Mom, she's 13," I reasoned. "She's a kid, and she just made some really bad choices."

Mom rolled her eyes during the film about G-CAPP's housing initiatives for teen mothers.

"Why don't they show us some girls who actually listened to the G-CAPP arguments on safe sex and abstinence and didn't get pregnant?" Mom asked.

"Because their stories aren't as visual," I told her. "It's a documentary."

After the documentary, of course, the movie started. And, during the opening credits, one of the PETA people who'd managed to get inside yelled out something like "KILLER!" every time Jennifer Lopez appeared onscreen. Thankfully, the ushers put an end to that quickly.

Jane and her two dates, Big Boi and Dallas Austin, actually came into the theater during the opening credits and, I believe, watched the whole movie. Or, at least, most of it. (I figure that, once you're in a movie, you manage to see it in parts about three-dozen times before the actual premiere, so I didn't actually expect the stars to, you know, watch the movie.)

Since it was Jane's big comeback, though, and it was her fundraiser, I guess she felt it necessary to watch "Monster-in-Law." Thank God she was there, though, because her scenery-chewing, over-the-damn-top, broadly comic performance is HILARIOUS.

My mom said herself, "I never much agreed with her politics, but Jane Fonda is a GREAT actress. That was one of the best movies I've seen in a long time, and she should get an Oscar for it. She stole that whole movie. And I liked J-Lo, too. I thought she was sweet."

Maybe it was because I was in a good crowd (which I understand can influence the experience), but "Monster-in-Law" came off as a really, really funny movie. There were about a dozen laugh-out-loud moments, and it's the best Jennifer Lopez movie I've seen in a long time. And you get more fight scenes (real and imagined) than I thought possible. And Wanda Sykes, though her asides were planted a few times too many, has great delivery. Michael Vartan, sadly, doesn't get much to do besides look really good.

Mom walked out of the theater and called the whole experience a blast. Even though we didn't see Ted Turner or Michael Vartan in person.

It was lots and lots of fun - stepping on toes, watching PETA go crazy, getting to see celebrities and also getting to laugh out loud alongside my mother.

Puppetgate continues.

Apparently, this morning at the Center for Puppetry Arts, Sydney, the perfectly nice official who e-mailed me, received a read-out of where all the traffic on their website came from last month.

An obscene amount of hits (like, 238) came from my site, which she said is usually the amount of hits she gets from Yahoo!, so she checked out my site to see what could cause that amount of commotion. That's how she found my review of THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY and decided to contact me.

I called her. She said, on the phone, "Oh hi, hold on a second ... YOU GUYS, THAT GUY FROM 'RILEY MCCARTHY' IS ON THE PHONE!!!"

She's invited me to the staff preview of their new adult, local-artist show, "XPT: Xperimental Puppet Theater," on May 18 at 8 p.m., and I have agreed to go. It should be a lot of fun, actually. (I wonder if Brad wants to go.)

Beyond that, she said "Melancholy" appealed to their female demographic because it featured some beautiful puppets and an entire female cast of puppeteers. She figured that's why the show worked for those of the X-chromosome persuasion.

Sydney said the men in the audience that she spoke to, though, gave her an earful about practically all the stuff mentioned in my "review" conversation with Brad.

I didn't get a chance to ask Sydney if that Judi Dench narrator lately was local or where she got her fabulous "Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" cape.

Oh my God, best e-mail ... EVER!!!

This polite, hilarious note just showed up in my Inbox. I thought you'd all enjoy it.
_________________

Riley –

I really enjoyed your review of the Anatomy of Melancholy! It was well written, hilarious and made everyone in the marketing department laugh. My only concern about your review is that you may have developed an inaccurate opinion of the art of puppetry because of a show that isn’t as representative of the art as we’d like. We found that this show was more popular with our female demographic than our male demographic for several reasons, and because of this I can’t help but wonder if you would have a more favorable view of our center if you were to attend a different show. We do have another adult show coming up this month called “XPT: Xperimental Puppetry Theater” that I would be more than happy to get you tickets to. Keep in mind that this show is comprised of several mini-shows written and performed by local, young puppeteers. It’s crazy, funny, ridiculous, offensive (sometimes) and truly an experience. If you think you’d be more suited for a show later in our season that’s a little less unpredictable, I’m sure I can arrange that as well. Either way, we’d love to have you back at our Center and reviewing our shows (whether you like them or not)…and this time, you can sit where ever you’d like. Thanks again and I’m looking forward to meeting you!

Sydney F. Ellis
Audience Development Manager
Center for Puppetry Arts

Live from the red carpet.

In 1967, while on her high school senior trip to New York, my mother went with her graduating class to a premiere screening of Jane Fonda's "Barefoot in the Park" at Radio City Music Hall, or at least she told me she did - and I don't have any reason not to believe her. She talked to me about how the Rockettes danced, what the theater was like, and I always thought that was a pretty cool memory, one that I wished I had.

I've known about the G-CAPP premiere for "Monster-in-Law" for a couple weeks now, and I'm going. Jennifer Lopez (I admit I'm a fan) and Marc Anthony will be there. Jane Fonda, of course, is an organizer, and she'll be there, though I already met her when I worked at CNN five years ago. Wanda Sykes is supposed to be there. The film's director Robert Luketic, who is WAY cute and completely gay, is an organizer. And, thankfully, Michael Vartan, one of the most beautiful men on Earth, will be there. (It'll be all I can do not to scream out "VAUGHN!!!" at him, like a girl.)



The G-CAPP premieres always sound like fun - particularly since Fonda get all the stars of the featured movie to Atlanta, but I've never been to one before. This year, though, I thought it might be cool to venture down by myself and check out how accessible the movie stars were and/or if it was any fun. There was a discount offer on tickets, so I was going to buy one. But I didn't do that.

I bought two, and my mom - with her "Barefoot in the Park" memories - is coming with me to the Fabulous Fox tomorrow night. (Yeah, I know it's dorky to call the Fox that, but whatever ...) I figured this was a better Mother's Day gift than the latest Mary Higgins Clark book, though I should probably buy her that, too.

The movie looks decently funny (even though my friend Edmondson and I have a rule that most movies starting with the letter "M" are bad). I hope "Monster-in-Law" marks Jennifer Lopez's return to actual acting (a la her brilliant turn in "Out of Sight") and not one where she works off her persona. (Even if the movie's terrible, though, going to the Fox with Mom is always fun.)

LATER: Marley just told me not to forget my PETA poster.

Fairy tale.

My film prof made me a VHS copy of Jacques Demy's DONKEY SKIN from his laserdisc, and he sent it to me in the mail.

My mom was helping me go through my VHS collection once and saw the tape label.

"DONKEY SKIN? What the hell kind of porno is this?" she said. "I know you're into guys, but FARM ANIMALS???"

"No, it's an art movie," I told her.

"Uh-huh," she said. "Whatever."

Dollar daze.

This day shall forever be known as "The Day I Reluctantly Asked My Boss To Borrow A Dollar (At the Recommendation of a Co-Worker) and Had Him Not Make Eye Contact with Me, Scowl at Me and Complain About Something that Wasn't My Job."

My boss later marked this day by eating a Chick-Fil-A lunch with some other employees he considers favorites.

For the record, he did give me the dollar. I walked out with it, then turned around, put it on his desk and told him that I'd get one elsewhere. I think he said "Whatever" or "Suit yourself." He never really looked at me.

Adventures in subtlety.

Yesterday, after the puppet show, Brad and I were sitting at Larry's condo alone and having coffee.

RM: Hey, take off your shirt.
BF: No.
RM: Please take off your shirt.
BF: No, I'm celibate. You know that.
RM: Yeah, and I can help with that. And I didn't say we'd do anything. Just take off your shirt.
BF: No.

Fifteen minutes later.

RM: Hey, take off your shirt.
BF: No. What are you, Larry Flynt?
RM: If I were Larry Flynt, I wouldn't want you to take your shirt off.
BF: Well then, what are you, Chi Chi LaRue?
RM: No. And, if I were Chi Chi LaRue, I don't think I'd want you to take off your shirt either. You're 35.

Five minutes later.

RM: Brad, that puppet show taught me something. I have an existential hole in my being that I need to fill. Can you help me?
BF: No.

Twenty minutes later.

RM: I'm sorry about the flirting.
BF: You're good at flirting. You always manage to throw an insult in there in the middle of all the compliments.
RM: When did I insult you? I didn't insult you.
BF: Never mind.

"Moi will not cover her face!"

Inspired by yesterday's Sept. 11 puppet show, Lupo and I discussed possible casting for THE MUPPETS TAKE AFGHANISTAN, which will also use puppets to tackle prescient issues.

Lupo: Miss Piggy should play Jessica Lynch.
RM: I think having Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem portray the Taliban would be a stroke of genius, and we should have Sam the Eagle play George W. Bush.

No strings attached.

So my friend Brad and I just got back from this show at the Center for Puppetry Arts called "The Anatomy of Melancholy," based rather loosely upon the 1621 anthology by Robert Burton investigating the phenomenon of depression.

We are now sitting before my blog to discuss the highlights of the show.

RM: Brad, what did you think of the puppet-only recreation of the World Trade Center attacks, featuring a model plane and papier-mache fire?
BF: It really brought me back to that day. Especially the big close up of Brit Hume's distorted face on the screen. I wish the plane had flown into Brit Hume's face, instead of that tower set.
RM: And the sound effects?
BF: What about them? What did I think of them?
RM: The rewind sound, when the Sept. 11 plane went backward ... causing it to crash over and over. Right before they showed that puppet who looked like Dilbert jump out of the building.
BF: Oh, I guess the rewind sound was effective. I got the impression that they wanted to 'rewind' the event. Did Judi Dench do the rewind voice, or was that some other effect? 'Cause they had that Judi Dench lady narrate everything else. Did you notice her mike kept cutting out?
RM: She didn't need the mike. The cape she was wearing was loud enough.
BF: And the room wasn't very big. Do you think if Pearl Bailey narrated instead, they would've miked her?
RM: I don't think Pearl Bailey would've done that production. It wasn't quite THE FOX AND THE HOUND.
BF: She could've sang the blues. Wait, I think Carol Channing should've done the narration. She could've really brought life to the oversized poster-board scissor scene.
RM: How did the puppet (pictured above) make you feel?
BF: Angry. I had no sympathy for that puppet whatsoever. Did you? I didn't care if he hated life so much. Da-a-amn. Stay in bed and hit your pillow. I just knew, at some point, they were going to have a Sisyphus scene in there. Like, from the moment it started, I knew that puppet was going to push a rock up a hill.
RM: I didn't like the happy ending, where the puppet finds its missing piece in that Chinese puppeteer woman's pocket. Was she supposed to represent God, or could they just not come up with a better ending?
BF: I couldn't follow it after the puppet surfed on that giant Prozac pill past the giant bottle of booze and giant posterboard joint.
RM: What do you think the message of the play was?
BF: I think that the message it conveyed was to escape depression, you just have to let the butterfly out of your personal SECRETS box. I also learned that, when you're alone at a party, you shouldn't just stand in a corner and wave at everyone. You should introduce yourself. And, if your mother sounds like a chicken, you shouldn't get into an argument with her ... because she will win, and you will still be sad. And if a Chinese woman tries to put something in your belly, let her. You will be glad. Also, if your neighbor gets a purse like yours, don't cause too much of a commotion. No matter how many people try to photograph her, pretend like you don't care, or you will be overcome with sadness.
RM: What did you think of the title cards separating the scenes?
BF: I thought they were really pretty. I enjoyed the font.
RM: So, to sum up ...
BF: Among the causes of melancholy presented in the play, I would like to add one. Melancholy. Cause: Puppet show.
RM: Just because we got free tickets, why did we have to sit in the back?
BF: Yeah, that made me feel melancholy.
RM: If anyone from Puppetry Arts reads this, they'll hate me.
BF: Well, they need to know that show did not work.
RM: Do you think SNOW WHITE will be better?
BF: So long as they don't focus on a dwarf named Sadness.

Stepping away from your art.

When I was an art critic, I used to ask painters or sculptors the same set of questions, including things like:

"Why did you use this type of material?"
"Does the title of the piece have any significance?"
"When you were painting it, what did it mean to you?"
"What do you hope the audience will get out of it?"
"Are they supposed to enjoy it, or how do you want them to receive it?"

In my art classes, they used to tell us that any impression a viewer took from a piece or formed about a piece was probably not what the artist intended, but the viewer's impression of the piece was still valid because, like it or not, a piece immediately could lose any intended relevance at the moment someone new looks at it.

The artist's pet project, once it's presented to anyone, then belongs to "everyone," and the artist loses his say over what the piece "is." Thus, your extremely personal, brilliant painting exploring the darkness that exists within all of mankind becomes "random scribbling that could be done by a kid in grade school" to Average Joe Smith, and people might find his opinion just as true as yours. That's why I always asked both questions in an interview with an artist, "What did you mean?" and "How will they take it?" The answers can be vastly different.

When asked for what makes art "good," I used to tell people that, to me, art was passion practically (or tangibly) applied. And, from that, "good art" was not something that was pretty, but it was something that best communicated its intended message or gathered more meaning the more it was displayed. Art's quality is subjective and debatable, and, to me, it's always been fun to hear two incredibly smart people come at the same piece with vastly different opinions about it. Both of their opinions carry weight and should.



I can't explain, for instance, why the Rothko works at the Tate Modern made me cry. Rothko himself might've just been doing paintings of rectangles just to be pretentious or to do something funny. What you take away from art, in the end, is all that matters.

Last night, at my first writing class of the new session, I didn't anticipate all the new students who would be there, and I didn't bring enough copies of "Circle" to distribute. So that I wouldn't have to wait a week, I offered to read it aloud at the end of class, and Sarah, the professor, told me that would be fine. But then, in talking to me, she realized that I'd read the extremely personal, harrowing piece before to audiences. Sarah thought that it would come off as a "performance," that we would lose the ability to judge the piece on its own merit if I read it, so she did something else with "Circle," which is my baby.

She had someone else in the class read it aloud.

Actually, well, Sarah said that I had a tendency to "perform," which is true, so my friend Lynda (who'd read it before) came and ripped the manuscript out of my hand AND started to read the first sentence to the class.

I was not prepared.

"No ...," I protested aloud, interrupting Lynda. "Don't."

This belongs to me, I thought. This is my childhood. This is my monologue. Someone reading it won't know how to deal with the twist it takes.

"Is this too much?" Sarah asked me, offering for Lynda to stop.

"Not. This. Piece," I said at first.

But, I reasoned, I was already going to hand it out to everyone, and they were going to read it. And it's on the blog for the world to read, already. If "Circle" is going to work at all or if any of my writings are going to work at all, they're going to have to stand on their own, without me there to sell them.

So, in the next moment, I said, "Have Wade read it."

My friend Wade, aside from being a man (which is sorta necessary for "Circle," I thought), also used to be an actor. If I couldn't read it myself, maybe he would know how to sell the piece.

Wade started to read my essay on my place of solace from childhood sexual abuse to this group of my strangers and acquaintances in front of me, and I sat with another copy, trying to hide my face, doing my best to read along while reminding myself that I was going to have them read it anyway.

At first, oh God, oh God, it was horrible for me. This was going to alienate my new class before they even get to know me (though, of course, I didn't have a problem with that - and it was going to happen anyway when they did read it). So, a couple seconds into it, though, I just decided to let it happen because art, if it's good, can't just belong to the artist alone.

If "Circle" worked without me reading it, then it would really work.

I read along, hearing Wade trip over my brief, choppy sentences and hearing him repeat some of my mundane phrases over and over. He did his best over my quoted, ironic words. I cringed when he hit the "plot twist" involving the sexual abuse I ran from as a kid, how I'd stand in that circle in my hometown and scream. I heard him read the whole piece, and I kept thinking, "It's not working. It's not working."

Then, it was over. And Sarah called it brilliant, saying I had a unique style. She told other writers not to be intimidated by me, for my voice was unique.

She then chuckled, saying that she found it hard to believe that the only reason it was read was because I didn't bring enough copies.

And, then, I nervously said, "Oh well, as he read it, some of the modifiers were hard for him to follow, and the flow doesn't work as well as it could. And there are parts in it that really don't work. The piece could be much better."

Someone told me that hearing Wade speak of my disability as his own was jarring to hear, so I might want to excise that, lest it trip up readers not familiar with me.

Wade then stood up, handed me the copy of my essay, put his hand on my shoulder and said to me, "Damn, you've got balls, bringing that and having me read it."

I told him that it helped me to hear him read it, for it helped me find out the piece was flawed, something I never would've known if I'd read it myself.

Other people I knew came up and told me that "Circle" was good. And, of course, some strangers looked at me like I was insane and made a beat for the door.

But this one new student - a former English teacher - approached me and said something really touching.

"For me, it was an oak tree in my parents' backyard - not a circle - but it was where I went," she said. Then she hugged me.

I offered her one of the copies of "Circle" I had. Then, other people came up and got a copy from me. I hope some people mark it up, for I want it to be really, really good.

Last night was an extremely difficult experience, and I became a better writer because of it.

I remembered that art is effective if its meaning holds; art is effective if its meaning grows.

Like I shop from the Sears & Roebuck catalog.

My aunt, seeing me with my grandfather's hat on, decided to snap this photo after the rehearsal dinner.

My friends have all e-mailed me comments upon seeing it, including, "You look like Mickey Rooney from LOVE FINDS ANDY HARDY."

Black told me that I look like an old, drunken reporter, I'm guessing, because my nose is all red.

I was hoping, when it was taken, that this photo would be all cool. Instead, um, I'm not sure what to think of it.

Tryin' to do right by you all night, Annette.

I can't write a damn thing these days. I sit down at my laptop, and nothing happens. Nothing at all. Blank page. When I try, I end up looking through the 2 million songs I've loaded on RealPlayer instead, and my attempt at writing instead becomes this game of finding the best background music for a round of arcade pinball.

I suck. I've been moping for weeks, reading short stories, studying other authors' writing styles and dealing with this stupid-ass breakup anxiety (though it's not like the relationship was that long, honestly). I thought I could maybe come up with a good story. But nothing's happened. I'm keeping my apartment tidy, and I'm trying to keep my finances in line.

Still, when I want to write, all I get is a blank page and frustration. I'm here at a friend's house now, and we're looking over my "portfolio" of essays - and I can't find any shit that I think would be worth a damn. No essays are here that work out of context.

When I was in my damn relationship, I didn't write. I thought it was because I was so occupied and *in love* that it was excusable, that writing would happen when it was supposed to.

Now I'm out of my relationship, and I've got loads of time. I'm still not writing.

I've had experiences I could draw from. My brother's Catholic wedding, held on the day the Pope died, was filled with tiny, ironic situations - like my mother and stepmother working together to get dressed or me catching the bridal garter.

With the breakup, you'd think I could write a nice murder story, something ridiculously angry and violent. (After reading Roald Dahl, I tried to visualize for a story what it would be like to beat my stepfather's head in with a hammer and leave him in the basement crawlspace at my mom's house. But there was no plot there, just anger.)

I was hoping for a nice, dark piece - something frustrated and sexual and angry.

The second wave of my writing class begins tomorrow, and I have nothing to show from this interim of weeks. I have nothing to bring to class tomorrow, and I really wanted to be able to show them something impressive.

Instead, this class might turn out like the last class, where I mostly showed them old essays and didn't produce anything new.

I'm writing this to change that. I'm writing this to write something.

The only damn thing I'm good at is talking about myself.

I want to lock it all up in my pocket. It's my bar of chocolate.

No matter how much I thought I might be disappointed by two films coming out soon, the humor and look of the ads for both "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" have me really, really eager to see them.

"Charlie," in particular, looks like wicked fun.



I loved those Roald Dahl books when I was a kid, and I've been reading some of his short stories lately. I love how violent and dark he wasn't afraid to get. I mean, most of the kids in "Charlie" ended up either horribly deformed or dangerously close to death by the end of that book, and the original movie didn't disappoint in leaving them that way. It looks like the second one will certainly follow suit.

Looking through some images of the movie, I saw that they've reinstated the squirrel nut-sorting room, which is where Veruca gets hers in the book. It gives me hope for the movie.

I wonder if Tim Burton's going to let us see Mike Teevee after he's been subjected to Wonka's taffy pull. The other movie avoided that, for it sounded gruesome. I hope they do it. I hope they do it.

(The ads for "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith" look great, too, but I've seen too many of those great-looking ads turn into disappointing films to hold out much hope for George Lucas. I'm keeping my expectations low, and I hope to be pleasantly surprised when I see it ... at midnight on opening night.)

My mom in the sky with diamonds.

My mom told me that our family friend had managed to get a good picture of me dancing with my mother at the reception. She said she would e-mail it to me, and I thought, "Hey cool, I can put a photo of me and my mom on the blog!"

So she sent me this e-mail with, like, 50 photos in it, and I went through all of them looking for a photo of the two of us.

Eventually, I realized that she's talking about this one.



So I called her up and said, "Um, we're in the background of the shot on the right-hand side, and all you can see is the back of my head."

"What do you mean?" she asked me, incredulously. "You can see a whole side of your face."

"It's my ear," I said.

"I'm sorry you don't like the photo," she said. "I thought it was nice."

"I thought it was going to be a photo of us," I said. "It's a photo of two other people, and we're in the background. You made it sound like it was a photo of us."

Her voice shifted into a serious tone.

"I didn't even notice the other people in the photo," she said. "I only saw us."

When she said that, I remembered how my mother can sometimes be. She was always able to look right at something and see only what she wanted to.

I remember once we were discussing what her favorite music was when she was a kid.

"I liked the Beatles," she said.

"What about the Rolling Stones?" I asked her.

"Oh, they were nothing but a bunch of drug addicts," she said.

"Um, so were the Beatles," I said.

"They WERE NOT," she said angrily, as though I'd just spit upon Jesus.

"Um, lots of their songs were about drugs, Mom."

"Name one," she said.

"LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS?" I asked.

"That's not about drugs," she said.

"Yes it is," I argued.

"No, it's NOT."

"Look at the lyrics," I told her. "'Picture yourself on a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies,' Even the title spells out LSD. Mom, what did you THINK it was about?"

"I just thought it was a nonsense song," she said innocently.

And she was serious. When she found out from me that the Beatles had used drugs, it was as though I'd destroyed her entire childhood.

Denial is, in some ways, her guiding force.

She was shocked - SHOCKED! - over finding out I was gay while I was in college, even though she purchased me She-Ra dolls when I was a child, sang along as I memorized the songs of "West Side Story" in middle school ... and heard me gush over the two-disc set of "Barbra: The Concert" when I was in high school.

At one point, she actually swore our family wasn't the least bit dysfunctional, even though she was there while my stepfather called me names, while I went into therapy, while my brother Dan stopped speaking to any of us for years and while we all grew to despise one another.

Because of her denial and in spite of it, I love my mom. She's sweet.

How telling is it that, in her eyes, the above photo is a picture of us?

Elsewhere on Earth ...

Reports from Lupo and Miss Gibson suggest that their meeting at the Tate Modern in London went exceedingly well. Lupo apparently presented Miss Gibson with some Butterfinger bars from "me" to give her some of her favorite American treats, which she cannot find in London.

Shortly after arriving at my office today, I got this e-mail from her:

loved the butterfingers - you're very sweet to remember. as for Lupo -
well he's just fab, isn't he?? what a sweetie

The weather was dreary, but Lupo says he still got to look out over St. Paul's Cathedral.

Lupo wrote in an e-mail:

Glad the wedding went well...I'll have emo at my wedding, so we can dance then.

Carrie is so lovely & smart -- thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon. Someday we'll
all hang out together, which will no doubt be a fantastic time. I'm looking
forward to it.

At the conference, a guy who wrote a paper on Stifler quoted me in his
presentation. It's very strange to hear your name like that (and he said
Jonathan, which made it even more odd).

I'm going to see 'The Mousetrap' tonight and then heading home tomorrow am.

It's funny how, before today, they only knew each other through my blog.

The three of us need to hang out sometime, whenever we can tie together our individual ends of the earth.

Wedding bell blues.

* I was in the park with Solenn yesterday. Solenn and I
walked around for about four hours, then lay on a grassy hill and
watched people. Then we had margaritas at Zocalo. Really good day.

* When you wake up at 1 p.m. the day after your brother's wedding
reception to find that you ACTUALLY slept until 2 p.m. the day after
your brother's wedding, you get really, really pissed over Daylight
Saving Time.

* It's fun to watch people scramble to change the wording of certain
blessings when the Pope dies on the day of your brother's Catholic
wedding. "No, you can't say 'To our Holy Father on Earth ...' like you
did at the rehearsal. There won't be a new Pope for a couple weeks."

* My overwhelmingly Republican aunt asked when she was going to meet
my boyfriend Ash, then referred to herself as a modern woman with an
open mind. It was sweet, except that I had to tell her (and all my
cousins) that we'd broken up. I hope that's not the only time they'll
be open to meeting my hypothetical boyfriends, for I eventually should
introduce one of them. My aunt got the photo of Ash from my mom, and
she sent it to her daughters.

* My grandpa and his wife, on the other hand, called my father
"Benjie," even though my dad's 30 years older than me and bald. They
told me it was because Dad was wearing glasses, and they thought I
did, too.

* Conversation between me and Grandpa at the rehearsal dinner, wherein
he manages to ask me a dreaded question AND pick on my stepfather
(whom Grandpa despises) while sitting next to him:
GRANDPA: "So when are you going to get serious about someone?"
ME: "Um, never."
GRANDPA (eyeing my stepdad): "But Jerry will build you a house when
you get married. He does it for everyone."
ME: "Um, I don't want to live around here."

* I sorta caught the garter at the wedding reception. But there was a
scam involved in getting it to me. Samantha, my brother Dan's wife,
went to UGA - same as me. My brother went to Georgia Tech. So, during
her wedding, Samantha wore two garters: one for UGA, the other for
Georgia Tech. So, when Dan removed the garter, Samantha said it would
determine where their kids went to college. There were five total
single men at the wedding, and four of them (including the hot,
straight one with the fauxhawk) went to Tech. So the UGA garter went
to me once selected, for I was the only single Bulldog. All the Tech
guys walked away from it.

* I hope no one ever finds out that, after my sixth glass of white
wine, I idiotically asked the mother of the bride about their
estranged son. Her reply was, "Weddings like this bring people
together." And I said, "It's all right. There are people here that I'm
not speaking to ... Wait, I'm bringing the wrong vibe into this." No
one seemed bothered, but, honestly, WHAT IN THE HELL WAS I
THINKING???? (Yeah, I got so stupid I dialed Ash up a couple times
this weekend. It was like the "drunk dialing" scene in SIDEWAYS. Dumb,
dumb, dumb. He never answered his phone nor returned my calls. Smart
man.)

* My conservative Republican aunt and uncle laughed out loud when I
said my cool aunt's huge, throwback hairdo made her "look like an
astronaut's wife." I fear I'm betraying the cool people with my big
mouth.

* I wanted to slow dance with my stepmother, who looked phenomenal,
but they never stopped playing hip-hop, the "Cha Cha" slide and Jimmy
Buffett. I was in an emo mood, so I sat in a chair the last half of
the evening and sulked.

* One of the bridesmaids, I think, believes I hit on her when I walked
up to her on the dancefloor and said there should be more
representatives of "Y chromosome" dancing. Frankly, I just wanted to
find another gay man in the room. There must've been one ...
somewhere.

* The daughter of one of my father's friends came to the wedding with
her parents. At the start of the reception, she wanted to talk to me
about fiction writing, so I asked her to dance because no one was
dancing. She gave me her e-mail address. I think she has some sort of
crush on me now.

* My brother hugged me four times. His new wife bemoaned the fact that
we didn't talk at the reception when I said goodbye to her. She looked
completely amazing, of course. (I hope she never finds out what I
asked her mother about. Never, ever. Hopefully, her mother was having
cocktails and forgot all about the stupid thing I asked her. God, what
was I thinking?)

* I'm in wedding photos. I was invited to take part in the ceremony at
the last minute. They asked me to seat my mother and stepgrandmother,
which I happily did. Everyone said I looked great.