Christmas is Coming the Goose is Getting Fat! or rather... the hippo!

I love buying xmas gifts. it is a contest for me with myself- can i get the best gift gag/serious or otherwise for my loved ones.

yes, the Kitty Walk Stroller.

The Singing Turkey Tom

The Daddy Doll

winners

sadly, i have not yet found the perfect winning gift yet.

facebook, friends, and growing young

what did we ever do before facebook? (i mean other than call each other, write letters, and have coffee)

it always surprises me when someone is getting married, having babies, and sadly even divorced. especially when i think of that person as i remember them- lounging in the cool coffee shop, scrunched in a hot school bus, slip-and-slidin' down my lawn...

yet another of my good friends is having a baby, i've just discovered, and it makes me miss crowding in her car along with too many others. afternoons spent at her house. even the "abs of steel" we did for a few months. it's hard to wrap my brain around.

so my introspection for the day: before the quasi-closeness of technology, did people suffer this conflict of past and present? i imagine one kept in touch and thus your perception of a person changed as life changed for both. or, you didn't. and they were relegated into anecdotes and memories and maybe old journals.

don't get me wrong-- i like the technological updates and sometimes it really does help you reestablish someone you shouldn't have lost. it's especially helpful for someone like me who is absolutely terrible on the phone. but i'm also a self indulgent wack job.

a couple of friends have recently been plagued with ex-partners and friends suddenly showing up back in their lives. live, in person. but me, i find myself half expecting a 15 year old to walk in the door.

then again, maybe it's not such a terrible thing. maybe it's nice to have these other versions of ourselves walking around, fresh in someone's head. i may be different than i was 8 years ago, even 3 years ago, but knowing that for some old friends, that's the me they carry around--well i guess i like that. maybe the versions of you that follow me around will help me remember the versions of me.

no i have not been drinking this morning. kisses.

Good Anecdote, Bad Reality: new york, carrie fisher, and me

i cannot explain enough how much i love carrie fisher's one woman show "wishful drinking." there are cheap tickets to be had on tdf and discount codes all over. there really is no reason not to see it. even watching it a second time and knowing what was to come, i was laughing outrageously. (plus this time i was ready to ask carrie a question-in the show-and can now say we've talked!)

you know, the show could easily be a litmus test for my friendship--you don't have to think it's hilarious, but if you can't at least get some of the things she says, there is really no point in you and i bothering to be anything more.



o, we can be friends, i'm happy to be friends, but if you can't appreciate some of the f*cked up life she has gone through, i don't know if you could ever really get me. then again, who says you want to?

on that note, after a highly enjoyable night on broadway, i had an iconic new york all-nighter--something i do very rarely. the progression of my evening from place to place is also very indicative of my life. and i kind of love that too.

from the chairman's lounge and Studio 54, to the fancy Beacon, to the always entertaining and highly glamorous Lips, to pub Deacon Brodie's (so that's what straight men do! :) , to a little late night eggs at the Galaxy Diner.

i don't bother with all that very often, so let me just put on record that it did and it can :p


to sing us out...
a couple of thoughts from carrie fisher that stayed with me tonight...

Years ago there were tribes that roamed the earth and every tribe had a magic person. well now all the tribes have dispersed, but every so often you meet a magic person, and ever so often you meet someone from your tribe...

the thing about manic depressiveness is [...] the facts of your life stay the same, just your emotional landscape changes

your mother is a manic-depressive drug addict, your father is gay, your grandmother tap-dances, and your grandfather shot speed! and my daughter laughs and laughs. "Baby the fact that you know that's funny is going to save your whole life."

Resentment is like drinking a poison and waiting for the other person to die.

I think ultimately i fell under the heading of: Good Anecdote, Bad Reality. i was really good for material, but when it came to day-to-day living, i was more than he could take.


Grandmother said, "Cry all you want, you'll pee less"

when did everyone else suddenly become an adult?

a couple weekends ago my besties was quasi surprised by her beau proposing. quasi because she has badgered him about it for months. so much so, in fact that when he actually did propose, she thought he was playing a joke.


it was actually a very sweet, spur of the moment change. too many friends were risking giving away the whole surprise, so he just called me- said come take the camera and hide, i'm doin' it now. and really it was the best. maria is a fabulous mix of fancy hotness, hiding in a pair of holey sweatpants and donald duck tee. so proposing in the middle of the farmer's market in union square was the best thing.


though i was hiding behind a statue and couldn't hear, my favorite moment was when he got down on one knee and she's like, "what are you doing? get up!" even when he showed her the ring, she was still busy shaking her head and gesturing around her, looking for the gag. it was incredibly sweet.


i unfortunately had to run to rehearsal, but before i did we celebrated with some champagne and oysters. my rehearsal was - ehem- well lubricated. ;)

the weekend was also a good excuse to see some people i haven't seen in a very long time, despite living at various times on the same island as them.

the only problem now, is i'm pretty sure maria is now an adult. boo.

does this mean she's now going to creep over to that third of my facebook friends who all have babies and pta and all sorts of other things i can hardly even imagine??? i'm not too addicted to facebook, but each time i'm on, i stumble across something from at least one person i last remember sauntering down the halls of high school, complaining about a crush or gossiping about an outfit or hanging "being cool," and now they are building houses and running carpools! this is meant in no offense to any of these people. you guys are still awesome. it just... your adults!

i may work a million part time jobs to cover my acting habit, my own apartment, a bottle of tequila in the freezer, and yes, i do have a spoiled cat, but somewhere along the way i missed the adult train. i'm still kissing on cute boys, wear way too many hippy clothes, and like my pigtails.

hmmm. i do live in new york. i guess none of those things really mean much one way or another.

can i buy my ticket to Where the Wild Things Are yet?

no more crazy

alright. enough of next to normal. it has been eating out my brain for the last week. i don't have that many good brain cells to spare. i don't want to end up like one of those crazy people on the subway, going in circles, talking to myself.

on the other hand, it is rather difficult to tell the crazy people from everyone else these days. the other night my friend michael admitted to being a random-line-singer. that is, he listens to his ipod on the subway, in the street, with his rather cool and remote expression. then suddenly he'll explode with a particular rockin out phrase, or a harmony on the chorus, totally oblivious to who or what may be listening. then it's back to his perfected bland, city disdain.

i think city dwellers are adversely affected by the need to have that perfected you-don't-bother-me, i-have-somewhere-to-be facade. you just can't rock out in the city, unless it's with your band, which 50% of the population has, or in one of the obscenely numerous karaoke bars. i don't really "club" but i guess that's the way whoever is left "rocks".

i don't miss driving, but i do miss rockin out in my car. no one should be denied the bohemian rhapsody experience, like my friends and i had--too many of us stuffed into my little car driving up to the mountains, on a college break i think, singing all the harmonies at full blast. that rocks.

alone is good too. spill your soul into the confines of your 4-door! i remember a director of mine told me he always warms up to his acting performances by singing opera in his car on the way to the theatre. i get that. open your throat, your breath, you heart and make the juices flow.

but what am i reduced to? toe tapping in the stifling sweaty subway. mouthing along the words. and yes, i admit it too, when the train rushes by and the sound decibels block out everything else, i let out a little wail.