February 6, 2003
In the interest of posting an entry that doesn't degenerate into bitter ranting about my current crappy employment situation and subsequent search for a more gainful (at least monetarily) situation, I thought I'd blather on about all the random little things that don't rate their own entries.
Ah, here's a favorite filler of mine: Search queries that have led unsuspecting victims to this journal. "Dorothy Parker" is still number one. Number two is "Xanex". I think Dot would have appreciated that.
What scares me is that the Number Three Search Query is "Charles Nelson Riley". How absolutely bizarre. I suppose those people are quite disappointed when they click through to my entry and realize that I'm only talking about how my crackpot real estate agent had a picture of ol' Charles in his kitchen.
Speaking of crack, I get an awful lot of hits for "crack whore", "having sex while on crack", and just plain "crack" thanks to Teddy and his crack whore Linda. I also get a bunch of people looking for the "chemical makeup of ecstasy" and "recipes for making ecstasy" thanks to them. Although, I can't blame them for the "overdose of codeine" hits. That one was all me, babies. I guess the "codeine sex drug" hit was a combined effort. No wonder Julie's Internet filter at work won't let her access this site.
I swear, if you were just looking at the search queries for this site, you would think that all I write about is sex, drugs, and rock & roll. Well, give or take the rock & roll and throwing in some more deviant behavior. Apparently “Morning Glory” has a much darker meaning than just a pretty blue flower and my cutesy usage of it in “What's the story, Morning Glory.”
Writing about my high school friend Simon and the mole on his face has earned me several hits from queries such as "large moles", "pictures of men with big moles on their faces", and even more terrifying: "large mole on ass". Now, I'm a progressive girl; I like fetishes. Hey, all the hits I get for "glory hole sex" and "Slouch socks fetish" don't freak me out. But I have to say, the mole thing creeps me just a tad.
It seems that Billy Boyd (hey, it wouldn't be an entry if I didn't mention him) is giving everyone, including Charles Nelson, Mrs. Parker, drugs (both legal and illegal) and fetishes, mole-related or not, a run for their money. He is by far the most up-and-coming search query for this site. It seems as if I've finally chosen winner, people. How many entries did I write about my love/lust for The Belz, or Penn Jillette, or Steve Valentine and none of them ever got RDP dragged up on a single search query. Poor boys. The only one who was halfway successful was Miguel Ferrer and that was usually from Twin Peaks freaks.
But Billy. Wow. If my site stats are any indication, he is truly the breakout star of Lord of the Rings. I've gotten hits from 50 people last month, concerning Billy Boyd. And it seems as if there are quite a few women wondering if Pippin has a hobbit girlfriend. I get a lot of "Billy Boyd girlfriend" and "Billy Boyd wife". And there are also boys out there who are curious if Pippin might not fancy Merry instead because I get almost as many queries like "Does Billy Boyd have a life partner?" and "Billy Boyd boyfriend". Or much more disturbingly: "Billy Boyd slash". Although, those people would more than likely be women since it seems to me that for some bizarre reason most slash is written by teenaged girls. Teenaged girl or not, however, Fan fiction About Real People = Icky and Creepy. Well, the only thing that's worse is possibly Hobbit Rape and Torture fan fiction. Again, written by a lot of teenaged girls. What the hell is up with teenaged girls today? Not even Simon & Simon fan fiction is that disturbing. Then again, it's not written by teenaged girls. (Hey, I've gotten a couple of hits for Simon & Simon fan fic, too. Yup, that's me, sex, drugs, and Simon & Simon fan fiction.)
My favorite out of the Billy lot right now has to be "Billy Boyd slept with my girlfriend." Gee. Maybe sweet-faced Billy gets around. Maybe there's hope for me, yet. Now where is that underprivileged kids theater program proposal? [Actually, aside from the hope that query created, I'm just curious if the guy (or girl) who queried that is proud or angry about that fact.]
Let's all hope really hard that Billy doesn't like to Google himself.
Then there are the completely bizarre ones like "Poems of the deaths of our friends who were supposed to graduate" and "Pictures of my daughters on their first Communion" and "older women seeking younger men in Stamford, Connecticut" and "how to make a dollar float in the air for absolutely nothing" (Penn would be able to help with that one, I think; so maybe we'll count that hit for him).
And there was the person who basically asked the ether "Should I buy a house with my boyfriend?" and ended up with me. I hope I was of some help, although I doubt I was since there are days when I'm still not sure if I should have bought a house with my boyfriend.
But my favorite query from this round, hands down, is: "Fuck graduate School." I couldn't agree more.
~*~ While we're on the subject of higher education, I suppose I should clue y'all in to the fact that Holden is back in law school. Yes, it's Round 2 of Holden versus Civil Procedure. He's not at the school that he fled from five years ago, but he is attending an accredited law school. He decided sometime last year that he wanted to go back and he got his shit together, found a program that started in January, and is now outlining cases and writing briefs. He keeps telling me that he thinks I'd really like law school. I keep thinking that maybe I'd rather stick a screwdriver in my ear.
I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm still a little ambivalent about the whole endeavor. I mean, I'm proud that he decided this was something he wanted to give another shot and went out and did something about it; but, considering that five years ago leaving law school was either the catalyst for or a contributing factor to his major depressive spiral into unemployment and subsequent not getting out of bed for eight months, I'm still holding my breath and waiting fearfully for the other shoe to drop. But so far, so good. He seems to enjoy school and he hasn't come home with that glazed look in his eye that he had back in the day. And, believe me, I check.
So it seems that Holden will end up with Esq. after his name, after all.
~*~ As a result of Holden going back to school, we bought a car. It's a Ford Escape, so he can sit up high and I can have something to haul crap for Rose Theatre around this summer. It's in my name and the interest rate is obscene because my credit is horrific. I'm not sure how we're actually going to pay for it. All the more reason that I need a job. But I promised I wouldn't talk about that.
~*~ This past week, I watched Ice Age, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Ocean's Eleven, and The Royal Tennenbaums. Woo, Netflix!
I really enjoyed Ice Age -- the animation was terrific and apparently Ray Ramano would make a good wooly mammoth because all he did was play himself but it worked. I had forgotten how much I lust after Dennis Leary until I heard his voice again. Yes, you read correctly, I lust after Dennis Leary. You wanna make something of it?
Loved Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Amazing film. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it. What's more is that it succeeded in finally illustrating to me what Carl, my advisor at University A, had been trying (without success) to drill into my head about using pop culture references to define characters. In the film, we're supposed to realize that Yitzhak's auditioning for the role of Angel in Rent means that he wants to be a drag queen again, but if you're like Holden and have never seen Rent it's a lot more difficult to get that meaning out of the reference. So Hedwig not only entertained me, it also taught me a creative writing lesson.
Ocean's Eleven was fun in a slick, George-Clooney-Matt-Damon-Brad-Pitt-and-Julia-Roberts-all-in-one-film sort of way. I sincerely hope Topher Grace doesn't really act like that much of jackass in real life, however.
The Royal Tennenbaums was such a disappointment. I loved Rushmore but Tennenbaums was slow and far, far too precious. My big question for that film is: Why does every single character have to be eccentric and quirky? Doesn't making everyone eccentric only result in making their eccentricities either a) predictable or b) commonplace?
This weekend, we'll be watching Wonder Boys and The Anniversary Party. I've heard Wonder Boys is fab, but the Anniversary Party kind of sucks. But I love me some Alan Cumming so it'll be all good. (Christ, I shudder to think of the kind of search queries that will pull up that line.)
~*~ I've decided to start a moon garden on our balcony. A moon garden is a garden (obviously) of white and night-blooming plants and crystals. I think it will be a good place to meditate and to practice my magic. I'm excited to begin and I'm going to research planting and gardening from now until spring. I'm just afraid that even with the research, I'll still manage to murder the plants.
~*~ Anyone know where I can get large quantities of translucent different-colored, six-sided dice? I can give on the translucence, but not on the assorted colors or the six sides.
~*~ Finally, some blather about writing.
I'm working on two pieces. Well, I'm thinking about two pieces; I haven't actually written anything yet. No, that's not true, I wrote one line: "I'm sorry, Miss, but this is not going to fit up those stairs." Then I couldn't think of the other character's response so I went and laid on the couch and watched Fellowship of the Ring another twenty or so times. But since I haven't thought about any sort of fiction writing since I wrote my last short story back in May, I'm counting my thinking about these two pieces as actual work. So there.
The first is a short story. It's part of a collection I want to do about modern perceptions of witchcraft and witches. I want to do a bunch of stories that play with the archetypical witch symbolism, i.e., images from fairytales and mythology like the witch in "Hansel & Gretal" and the three Weird Sisters from Greek mythology and also modern images of witches such as the witches in The Wizard of Oz. I have one story done that revolves around a love spell that a young woman performs on an unsuspecting acquaintance and the guilt that is often associated with the power of spells. The one I'm supposed to be working on is about using magic to control your life, to keep things contained and emotions/people from getting too overpowering, but I'm stuck because I'm not quite sure why this woman is afraid of the magnitude of power and life in the first place. So that's going to take some figuring out.
Then there's the novel. I've pretty much decided to stop fooling around with short stories that don't further the witchcraft project and buckle down, swallow my fear, and write my book about stand-up comics. Holden keeps lecturing me on how I shouldn't write about stand-up comics because he maintains that books about comedy written by non-comedians are never funny. What he doesn't seem to understand is that this is a good thing because I don't want the book to be funny. I want it to be sad and dark. Low-level, open-mic-circuit comedians are just about the saddest, most ego-centric, most neurotic, most UNFUNNY people on earth, and since those are the comics I want to write about, I don't think the book should be funny. Well, the book itself should be funny, just not their comedy. Now I just have to figure out how to write bad comedy.
I could always go back to the open mics. As if that experience hasn't scarred me enough. Or I can shelve the comedy and start learning to do magic tricks and write my other novel about the priest and his brother and the haunted radio scam.
7 Deadly Sins and Other, Less Fatal Diversions
Pride:
Envy:
Wrath:
Sloth:
Avarice:
Gluttony:
Lust:
Book:
Does a mullet make a man?
Task at Hand:
Quest for Publication:
Total Submissions: 36
This entry did not degenerate into a rant about looking for a job.
Holly just had a guy from her past go to all of this effort to get her email address and contact her to tell her that he's always thought about her and would like to see her again. My former paramours would either be hard-pressed to remember who the hell I was or glad they had gotten rid of me.
The new car has rekindled my hatred of stupid, oblivious pedestrians.
Tonight is garbage night. So why is it still sitting in my kitchen?
Words, words, words. Enough words to write this novel.
Dreaming of a Geno's cheesesteak.
Even though Dennis Leary got a lustful shout out in the entry, the sidebar still belongs to Billy.
I haven't finished Return of the King, but I started Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones and so far it is, as it's title says, lovely, in a disturbing sort of way.
Tune:
Bowling for Soup, "The Girl All the Bad Guys Want":
Taking out the garbage.
After I take out the garbage, I am going to force myself to put together those 13 submissions.
Rejections: 13
Acceptances: 1
Withdrawals: 7