My Inflammatory Writ

limbo

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:39:00 +0000

Last night, I got a comment on my last post that said this:

If you're going to end your blog, don't end it with this. Go out on a higher note.

While I really had no intention of going out with a cut-and-pasted gchat about Palin's tragic hair choices (although that would be very me), it made me feel like I had to address the fact that I've not been blogging. To be honest, I have about 4 "This is the last post at My Inflammatory Writ" drafts in publisher, but I can't bring myself to finish them. The whole truth of the matter is that my heart hasn't been in blogging lately. I feel as if trying to be a blogger was a distraction in a lot of ways. It helped me to avoid my real work, which is playwriting. I started to want stuff like Blog of Note and more followers, and honestly, while both those things are cool, neither are of importance to my theater career.

I am also currently in pre-production for a show, and any venting I would do about that process would inevitably be read by the people I am working with. As such, blog-as-sounding-board won't work, and frankly, I'm going to be all-show-all-the-time until May. My energies need to be focused there. There is a lot at stake here professionally and personally. I can't afford distraction. Also, to tell you the truth, I've felt less and less like I can be honest here. I always wind up inadvertently offending or upsetting someone in my real life. I know that I shouldn't care so much about that, that being a writer inevitably means you will piss someone off, but frankly, it makes me feel unsafe and defensive every time I go to post. I second guess everything I say.

I'm also just tired of the internet kind of in general lately. There is no conversation anymore, no discourse. You're either a fan of something, or a hater, and there's no in-between. I'm just as confused by the insane, unconditional love for Lady Gaga as I am the vitriolic, hyperbolic hatred of Katy Perry. I am confused by the fact that you either love President Obama and think he's the best thing ever or you hate him and think he's a Kenyan. These are just two examples I can think of off the top of my head, so please no one take it personally. I am just so desperate for nuance, for real conversation. I try, for better or for worse, to be the same on the internet as I am in real life. I am opinionated and argumentative, but I am also empathic and more open minded than people think. As the world spirals further out of control, I feel this desperate need for conversation. I'm starting to hate pop culture and I am rebelling against my own participation in it. I feel like I'm dumber than I used to be. The things I want to write about are just me perched on top of a soapbox. I am desperate for something more than that. I don't know what that is. I don't know how to interact in a world that feels less and less real. I think the definition of "real" changes every day.

That was kind of long, so sorry about that. Here I am, though, in Blogging Limbo. I'm not sure if this is the end of this blog or if this will kickstart my posting again. Whatever the case, I hope I'm not coming off as ungrateful or holier-than-thou. This blog, for better or worse, is a living document of my life over the past four years. I've come a long way in that period of time and it's nice to look back and see the changes. It's hard to even consider shutting it down, so I subconsciously chose to ignore it, and by extension, all of my readers. That was unfair, and I'm sorry about that.

I don't know if I'll be blogging that much over the next few months, but I promise, if it is to end, I won't go out with hair snark or this sorry excuse for a post. I like to think I'm just a little better than that.

elevating the political discourse - WITH HAIR SNARK!

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 20:26:00 +0000

I had a longer post about the Arizona/Palin debacle, but my computer ate it. I am currently reworking it, but this conversation between my friend Ben and I will suffice for now. Here it is, in its glory. And yes, we do make fun of Sarah Palin's hair, because really, what is going on there.

Ben: what uppp

me: nothing

Ben: fun fun

me: snowpocalypse etc.

although it wasn't bad here

CT got slammed

Ben: oh right

time for NYC's bi-monthly snowpocalypse

me: srsly

let's see, what else...

sarah palin is a dumb cunt

and uh

yeah

that's it

Ben: oh

yea

me: i mean REALLY

Ben: the video is password protected now

so either vimeo is pissed or they know she done fucked up

me: she really fucked up

Ben: she's just horrible

me: blood libel made the jews at work go LE GASP WHAT

Ben: i know

i mean

me: i was like

oh man.

that's just wrong.

Ben: she just doesn't know what it means, and heard it somewhere, and thought it sounded good

but just, ugh! the persecution complex

me: oh i know

and I'm not so sure she didn't know what it meant. It seemed like a way to lash out at the "liberal media" and put in a dogwhistle with 99% of the general population being none the wiser

she didn't write that fucking speech

its too articulate hahaha

Ben: oh no

no way did she

me: so maybe SHE didn't know

but SOMEONE knew

her writers are cuckoo for cocoa puffs

either way

Ben: hahaha

me: i'm just hoping that we can all be like BORED NOW and hopefully she's done

Ben: yea

i think it's the beginning of the end

me: i mean

Ben: for her

me: a 9 year old girl died

there's nothing to say except "wow, that really is awful:

but NOOOOO

Ben: i know

me: WAAHHHH IM SO OPPRESSED111

Ben: it was just a long-winded way of saying

"anyway, about me..."

me: yes, Sarah, in your $5000 suit and $800 Jimmy Choos with your VERY MUCH ALIVE children

so hard, your life.

its just unreal how legitimately persecuted these rich white people in the GOP are

*feel, not are

Ben: yea, it's bad

me: and I mean, no, it wasn't her "fault", as much as anything like that can be someone's fault

but like

how do you not at least make up something like "hey, you know, maybe we should ALL learn a lesson about being more careful with words"

and bring up some other example of misused language on the Dem side, which wouldn't be hard

and then it would be like the end of South Park all "Hey, I learned something today!"

Ben: asdlkjfasdlfk

me: BUT NO

Ben: oh, and can we talk about the hair?

me: ugh srsly

Ben: to be completely superficial?

because, wow

who did her hair

me: she looks like hell, which is satisfying to me

Ben: yes

i hope it's some sort of lady macbeth thing

her guilt is manifesting itself through her appearance

me: and that haircut is straight from a Supercuts in Des Moines near the 99 cent store

with a highlight "artist" named Darla who smokes a Virginia Slim out the side of her mouth

and says "hon" to everyone

that's what that haircut is.

Ben: yes

me: (hot pink lipstick too, acid wash jeans)_

Ben: darla. alsdkfjalsdkfj.

me: there. I made up a new character inspired by Sarah Palin's hair

Ben: inspiration can come from anywhere

me: it really can.

the one where I cop to being socially awkward

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 13:58:00 +0000

Yesterday, I had to walk down the street to do a key exchange with my cat sitter since Mike and I are going to Orlando today. I'd never met the girl before in person (Mike was the one who met up with her last time), and all I had to go on was that I knew she was probably of Asian descent because of her last name. This, already, was making me nervous.

I know very few people who would tell this story, but I have no shame or pretense that I'm perfect, so I'll tell it. I realize that it probably makes me a total asshole, but whatever. At my local grocery store, the produce section is usually being stocked by youngish Hispanic men (usually Mexican). This is fact in NYC and true pretty much everywhere. So imagine my horror when one day, I'm holding a bunch of carrots in my hand at the store and ask what I think is one of these young men (he was kneeling beside me) how much they are per pound.

"I don't work here," he replies, in a voice meaning to invoke the maximum amount of shame that I, of course, totally deserve for assuming that this Mexican kid worked at the grocery store. That makes me a giant fucking asshole AND a racist, even though I like to think I'm not either of those things, and that makes my poor liberal brain turn into Cream of Wheat. I slink away, still holding said bunch of carrots, humiliated and apologizing all over myself. From then on, even if I know for a fact that someone works at a grocery store and is even wearing a shirt with the store's name on it, I am NEVER ASKING ANYONE FOR HELP EVER AGAIN. I don't care if the guy walked up to me and said, "Hello! I work here! Would you like help?". It's a trap for feeble minded distracto-spazzes like yours truly. So yeah, I was petrified that I was going to see some young-ish Asian girl and walk up to her and say, "Melody?" and she would respond with "Who?", and meantime someone of a completely different race who is actually Melody would approach me and be all "WHY DID YOU ASSUME I WAS ASIAN?" and then I will have a breakdown.

Fortunately, this didn't happen. She recognized me first, which was weird but then I remembered that this girl has been in my house without me there and probably saw pictures. We had a pretty awkward conversation for a minute, and then I gave her the keys. She said "Have a nice trip!". What did I say?

"Thanks! You too!"

??!????????!?!?!??!?!??!

This is another thing I do; utter polite but completely inappropriate responses to awkward interactions. If someone bumps into me and says sorry, I'll also say I'm sorry even though it's not my fault. I'll say thank you for any old thing. It's terrible.

I then proceed to turn on my heel and nearly fall over a short concrete driveway barrier, and in trying to avoid that, did one of those trip-and-then-run things on a giant crack in the sidewalk. So, my cat sitter probably thinks I have some sort of disorder that impairs my motor skills. I'm not sure that she's wrong. Now, when I have to retrieve my keys from her, I am going to be concentrating on not falling and looking like an asshole.

This is why I fear social interactions sometimes.

Another year gone

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 15:32:00 +0000

2010 is coming to a close. I really can't believe it. This year went by SO fast, and so much happened. I don't know if I can call this a good year or a bad year. It was a productive year, for sure. Here's a quick recap of my year (not like you care, but hey):

I finished my last full length play, which got picked up for production by a small indie theater company. I'm pretty sure it's my best play....no...I'm positive it is my best play. I am super proud of it. I am so excited to see it come to live.
I traveled a fair amount! No international jet setting, but I went to Costa Rica, the Berkshires and Chicago. Costa Rica was amazing and my husband and I had a really great time.
I stayed (reasonably) smoke-free for the second year! While I admit to indulging on occasion at parties or drunky times, I can't ever see myself being a daily smoker again. It's a Good Thing. I do miss it but less than I used to.
I gained more weight, bringing the grand total of post smoking weight loss to about 16 pounds. It's horribly depressing and makes me feel like a big fat failure. I ABSOLUTELY plan to do something about it in 2011.
I started working out with a personal trainer, and while it did not facilitate weight loss, I am strong and in better physical shape than I was when I started. This may have negated some of the weight gain. Maybe? I don't know. I can lift stuff and my back hurts less and I feel generally good.
I learned to love my new apartment. It's really nice and we worked hard on it. It just took a while.
I almost had a nervous breakdown, and then didn't.
In addition to my full length play, I wrote three ten minute plays and started a whole new play. I chide myself for not writing constantly but then I write a whole bunch and don't even realize it.
I saw a lot of great concerts this year! Sufjan Stevens, Arcade Fire, Joanna Newsom (3 times!), The National and The Antlers. Amazing shows, all of them. I couldn't possibly pick a favorite.
I joined the board of a theater company, which is a lot of work but super cool.
I said goodbye to two friends who passed away.
I saved a lot of money this year. I am very proud of my financial restraint.

Not too shabby. I'm sure there is stuff I am forgetting. I wish I had something profound to say about it.

I am really looking forward to 2011. I have a lot of good stuff cooking and I'm REALLY BUSY but it's so good to be busy. I only have one resolution: write more. That's it. That includes here. Thanks everyone for reading this year. Happy New Year to all of you!

SNOWMAGEDDON

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 16:19:00 +0000

Apparently, I have moved to Antarctica. Things have gotten completely out of control. I do not remember a worse snowstorm than the one we just had Sunday and yesterday. It snowed nearly three inches an hour at it's worse. Nothing is more disconcerting than looking out your window onto the idyllic snowfall and seeing a bolt of purple lightning and hearing a massive clap of thunder. The winds were howling - up to 65 mph in NYC and recorded winds of 80 mph in Cape Cod. When my husband and I were finally able to leave the house and get some groceries, we were astonished by how much snow there was and how freaking windy it was. Nothing around us is properly plowed. It's a really good thing I'm off from work this week, because commuting is a blessed nightmare. The MTA is still urging people to stay home. Cah-razy.

Here are some photos I took around my apartment complex.

Crazy.

comfort and joy

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 00:29:00 +0000

I don't have a lot to say today. Christmas is exhausting, and despite all my many blessings, it renders me emotionally and physically drained most of the time. Thus, I'll keep things brief.

Yesterday, I went to the church of St. John the Divine (a place I once posted about). It still evokes the same feelings in me, not least of all the stunned fascination with the fact that religion has simultaneously thrust immense beauty and ugliness into the world. It is a singularly beautiful place. Despite freezing our asses off to get there, I wanted to see the Peace Tree. The Peace Tree is their Christmas tree, decorated with one thousand origami paper cranes. Those of you reading this blog or who know me in real life know why it was important for me to see it. Here are some photos.

It is in the spirit of peace and hope that I wish you all a happy, healthy holiday. This Christmas is less about surviving for me, and more about cherishing the ones I love. Sadako and her cranes taught me a lot of things as I was writing my latest play. I hope that working towards peace is the most lasting lesson of all, for me and for everyone.

winter blues

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:12:00 +0000

Winter has come to NYC. It is back with a vengeance.

It was twenty degrees and windy when I left the house this morning. Twenty is pretty cold, but with the wind, it becomes HOLY SHIT cold*. By the time I got to the train, there were tears frozen to my face, my nose was running, and my teeth were chattering. I also have hat head and I am bone tired. Getting up in the morning is impossible because it’s dark. Getting home in the evening is sucky because it’s dark. The sun never comes up all the way. Christmas is in (eek!) less than two weeks.

I fucking hate winter.

Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t move to Southern California**. The idea of it being warm and sunny year-round is so appealing to me sometimes. Winter in NYC is the worst. Fuck seasons. I like Fall and Spring as much as anyone else, but I’d trade them for never having to walk home in sub-zero wind chills being pelted in the face with ice. I’d trade them for never having a windy “wintry mix” shred my umbrella into bits and leave me walking home in wet socks because it’s just one degree too warm for snow. I’d trade them for not having to shovel our car out from under four feet of snow that the snow plow pushed against it, causing a frozen grey mountain with garbage stuck to it.

I hate dressing for winter. I hate figuring out how much I should layer and what scarf I should wear. It’s nearly impossible to look cute when I have the range of motion of the Michelin Man and my hair is slick against my head in a combination of sweat and wool. I freeze my ass off on the way to the subway, and then sweat it out in a packed car full of overdressed, angry commuters. By the time I get to work, I have a gross layer of cold sweat on my back and I’ve cried half my makeup off because of stinging bullshit wind blowing in my face every damn minute.

What happens in December is that I freeze in every way. I feel frozen right now. I can’t write, and what’s worse, I simply don’t want to. I keep opening up the publishing page for this blog and I’m just like “????”. What the fuck do I tell you all? I can’t make this a blog about how I’m not writing, because who the hell wants to read that? I find myself so tedious lately. Tales of buckling down and just surviving are dull. I’m trapped in ice. At this time last year, I was knee deep in a new play and teetering on the edge of a full scale nervous breakdown. This year I’m…not that. I’m nowhere. I’m not doing much of anything. I feel like I’ve gone into early hibernation. All I want to do is stay at home and drink hot cider and watch television.

I am already eagerly anticipating the thaw of Spring. I have a production coming up and I know that the work will focus me, will warm the cold parts, and will hopefully start the flow of creativity anew.

*I know my Chicago friends are reading this all “Sack up, ho. It’s not nearly as bad as Chicago!”. Yes, I know. That’s why I didn’t move to Chicago. It was one of my choices for college but I read about the winters and was like “no”. I went there once in January (don’t ask, I don’t know why), and walking outside was like walking into the portal to Hell, except hopefully Hell is a lot warmer. Chicago is one of my favorite places on earth, but only in summer, when the vodka lemonades are flowing and the lake isn’t frozen.

**I think in order to deal with the fact that I don’t live in SoCal, I’ve demonized LA. I’ve never been, but I just imagine a plastic place full of plastic people driving around in Malibu Barbie cars and talking about how they ate lunch with Mark Wahlberg once. I know that’s horrible and wrong. I know at least ten utterly fantastic people who live in LA and I know it’s probably fabulous and I’m just missing out. I do know, however, that the moment I set foot in San Diego I will want to move there like immediately.

the tree

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Yesterday was the first actual cold day this year. It was refreshing, somehow. Despite my well-documented hatred of winter, something about yesterday nodded to me and said “Everything is as it should be”. I took that comfort along with the knowledge that things may never be as they should again in these terrifying and uncertain days.

Last night on my way downtown for dinner, possessed by some need I cannot explain, I decided to take the subway at Rockefeller Center which is both out of my way and a nightmare to walk through at this time of year. I wanted to see the tree. I don’t know when I started to become infatuated with nostalgia, but I guess that’s what happens when thirty is sneaking up on you like a cheetah in the grasses. I suppose I wanted to channel some of that youthful exuberance that all but completely eludes me now. I’m a giant Scrooge these days, and I’ve abandoned religion entirely, but dammit I wanted to go see that tree. So I did. And there she was, alight with thousands upon thousands of twinkling lights and the camera flashes of no less than a thousand people or so, and my heart felt full but with what I’m not sure.

I have this need to point a finger at my childhood and say “You were better than I thought you were”. Maybe it was better than I thought it was. It probably was. I remember being a little kid and insisting that we light our tree at the same time as the Rockefeller Center tree, that majestic evergreen flanked with trumpeting angels (my dad used to call me “angel” when I was little. I forget that sometimes, as if it was ridiculous that someone would ever call me that. Or maybe it just breaks my heart to think about it).

I didn’t always get my way around the tree lighting, but if the timing worked out for me, I’d wait for that countdown with baited breath and that magic moment would set my nerves on fire. I’d light our tree in time with the television and squeal and screech and make way too much noise and undoubtedly annoy the hell out of my folks in the way a mouthy, overexcited, sassy seven year old could. I suppose it’s the thing people found endearing about me then and the thing that drives people away from me now. That little kid danced her ass off all over the house, flapping her arms like a bird. When I was little, I used to run back and forth and flap my arms like a bird when I got really, really excited. I think it was probably a mild form of Tourettes. If you’ve known me for any length of time, you’ve probably caught me do it at least once. It’s like suddenly I am made of electricity and thrust and I think I’m going to fly, except I’m twenty-nine and not a bird and all that flailing never got me anywhere, anyhow. I always notice it, and I turn it off right away. I haven’t thought about that in a really long time.

I sometimes wonder if I’ve switched off some of the most magnificent parts of myself.

My love for my life is boundless, and yet, I am gnawed at by my own discontent. I am always so aware of myself and I worry about judgment. Even when I was gaping at that tree I felt like I was being consumed by my own feelings for no reason at all, so I got my phone out of my pocket to snap a picture, so I could post it online, so I could share my moment with everyone. What I should have done was put the phone down for once and just let myself be excited. If my brain had shorted out and I had started running around flapping my arms like a bird, well, I wouldn’t have been the first person to act like a freak in Midtown Manhattan.

Maybe this time I would have flown, flown right over the heads of those trumpeting angels, flown right over Saks Fifth Avenue, flown right over the cold night chill of the East River, and then I would have been home.

grateful

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:20:00 +0000

Almost a year ago, I wrote about the death of my online friend Michelle, who I knew from a message board I post on. A few weeks ago, we found out that another member of our community, Rachel, passed away in her sleep of what turned out to be a pulmonary embolism. She was only 39, just two days short of her 40th birthday. I didn't know Rachel as well as I knew Michelle. In fact, Rachel and I didn't get along for the longest time. She was very opinionated, and as a friend of mine pointed out, "gave no quarter" when it came to debate. We used to get into heated debates about everything from music to books to movies to politics. Once Facebook became popular, she friended me, and I started to realize we had a lot in common. She was passionate about theater and the arts, as am I, and she was born and raised one town away from where I grew up. Our relationship of conflict and debate turned into one of mutual respect. She always had kind and encouraging words to say if I posted on Facebook about how I was struggling with writing, and was obstinately optimistic (something I am not, but perhaps something I should work harder on). Despite her strong opinions, she was one of the most consistently positive people I have ever encountered. It's tragic and unfair that she was taken so young, and the online circles I run in will be less spirited and interesting places without her. I "attended" her memorial service. Her family, seeing how many online friends she had, decided to live stream her memorial service on the web. I, along with many people on my message board, streamed the service and watched it while posting comments together. I must say that it was a strange and lovely thing to mourn one of our own with people I have known for the better part of a decade. Rachel had a lot of close friends on the forum and I was really happy to be there for them as they were mourning and remembering. Unfortunately, I had to log off early in order to go to dinner and a show with a friend, but was definitely teary eyed on my way out. It was very sad and yet joyful - an appropriate celebration of her life.

On this Thanksgiving, Rachel's death has me reflecting on how fleeting our time on this silly earth really is, and how unbelievably lucky I am to be healthy. I know a lot of people with insane health problems. My friend Reid from college has been battling leukemia for the better part of four years. I'm grateful today that he's on the home stretch of treatments and is still with us. My friend Romina has lupus, which is a terrible disease and it's dreadfully unfair that someone with her energy and spirit has to be bogged down by their own immune system. I am grateful today that she has a great new job and has been feeling pretty good. My mother is half crippled by scoliosis and nerve damage to her sciatic nerve, and is currently unable to work because of her constant pain level. I am grateful today that she was able to manage her pain enough to make it on a plane to Florida to visit friends (she hasn't traveled in a very long time), and grateful that I am able to pay her COBRA payments every month so that she can have decent health insurance until she qualifies for Medicare. Another friend of mine got a pretty shitty diagnosis earlier this year, and they are also coping with a long term illness. I am grateful that they are feeling good for the moment and managing the best they can.

As of today (and as far as we know), my husband and I are healthy and reasonably happy. We both still have our jobs, we are celebrating the first year of moving into our new (well, not so new now) home, and we are still together. We had a very challenging year. Through love and teamwork, my husband and I faced these obstacles head on and came out of the experience stronger, more stable people. I am thankful for that, and I am unbelievably thankful for him.

I am also thankful for all of you, my readers. I know I haven't been blogging as much lately, but you are a devoted following and I always look forward to sharing with you and reading all of your blogs as well. My online relationships are as important to me as my real life ones, and I am more appreciative than I can say.

Long Island Sound

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 18:22:00 +0000

I am from a place unrelenting in its preciousness; a town full of colonial houses, gazebos, shore side restaurants, soft serve, roller skating rinks by the beach.

The beach there isn’t smooth, like the Caribbean or Gulf Coast Florida (before the oil got to it); it is rocky, and rough, and grey and brown. Razor clams and mussel shells slice your feet, letting caustic northern salt into already stinging wounds. Rocks the size of toads dig into the arch of your foot. Seaweed swaddles your calves, and your ankles are sore and throbbing from unreasonably cold water.

I never escaped Long Island Sound.

I only crossed it.

I am from a place where teenagers collapse under the weight of time distortion. You’ve outgrown the roller rink and the playground, but you’re still too young to do anything cool, and your life feels interminable. The days sludge by like seaweed on that shore. Like pond scum.

And you’ll never be more beautiful, or more stupid.

And you’ll never be more miserable.

And you’ll never revel in that misery again, for misery turns to bitterness

And then one day you’re old

And where you are from no longer seems as terrible as it did then.

I ran away from where I am from. I ran and to this day I am running still. But my ankles are caught in seaweed, and my hair is thick with salt, and all at once I’m eleven years old, too fat in spandex pants (only now, I’m at the gym, not at the roller rink. I was skating in circles then, now I’m running in place).

And instead of blonde, I’m red

And instead of bullied I am loved

And in being loved I’ve the knowledge of how tenuous that is

And at any moment I could be hated and abandoned

And I’m flushed and sweaty, and again and again I go.

The mussel shells are still cutting my feet and the wounds are stinging, and across the harbor I see the lights of New York, and I swim towards those lights, but the current pulls me sideways and I’m treading. For all the homes I’ve tried to build, sometimes I feel like I’ll never really be from anywhere at all. I’ll be treading in the world in between.

Where I am from, loneliness is built into the foundations of the old houses and the arch of the gazebos.

Sometimes I think I’ll always be lonely, even when I’m not.

Bringin' it back!

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 17:24:00 +0000

One of my all time favorite bloggers, the lovely Lauren of Hipstercrite, posted a HILARIOUS entry about things we should bring back into vogue (like how some fashion designers inexplicably think that shoulder pads should make a comeback, which I strongly disagree with). Considering I've nothing else to blog about, I thought I'd take a minute to make my own list. Thanks to Lauren for the idea, and go subscribe to her now if you already haven't!

1. Grunge

Yeah, you're god damn right. Grunge. Grunge, for those of you born past 1996 (note: get off the damn computer! Stay in school! Use condoms! Don't do heroin!), was an era in the early-mid 90's where Seattle bands were king, flannel was all the rage, and being miserable was totally cool and existential rather than the trendy, Hot Topic way being miserable is now (kids, listen to Mama K - Jared Leto is NOT a dark tortured soul). You could throw a flannel shirt over a band T-shirt, throw on your shitkicker Doc Martens, and call it a motherfucking day. Also, the music was amazing. Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Hole, Smashing Pumpkins. Sure, there was a lot of crap out there too, but it was better than Nickelback (Nickelback literally offends me). There was something to be said for lazy fashion and crunchy guitar. I kind of miss it sometimes.

2. Dressing up to go to the theater

As you're all aware, I am not remotely a religious person. That being said, if I were to call something my "church", it is the theater. I don't care if it's a tiny house way downtown or a Broadway house, it is a sacred space too often shat on by tourists from Texas wearing pajama jeans and fanny packs or hideous knock off Coach bags. People, would it kill you to throw on a pair of black pants? Seriously. I, personally, would not wear jeans to a theater because I believe in SOME level of decorum. I know that theater needs to be accessible, folks need to relax, yadda yadda, but shit. Don't walk into my church looking like you just rolled out of bed and hit the Shoney's buffet at some cheap hotel in Kissimmee. Black pants. Not gonna kill you. If I had my druthers, people would DRESS to go to the theater. We never dress up anymore. I can't even tell you the last time I got super dressed up. That brings me to number 3....

3. Dressing up

Do we really have to wear hipster clothes all the time? Come on. Put on a dress. Let's go somewhere fancy.

4. Not being Slutty McWhoresteins

This goes for men, too. Manwhores are also gross. Just...stop it. As I commented on Lauren's blog, postfeminism does not mean behaving like you just fell off the Rock of Love bus. Having safe, casual sex is totally fine, mind. However, if you wake up tomorrow huddled up half naked in the basement of someone's apartment building with a dildo in one hand and a bottle of Jager in another, and no recollection of how you got there, maybe consider cutting down on your drinking. There's a difference between slut shaming and wishing people would be careful. Additionally, tact is always nice. Showing your vagina to Bret Michaels within 10 minutes of meeting him is nasty, I'm sorry. Texting photos of your penis to a girl you just met is also nasty (looking at you, Brett Favre).

5. Film cameras

I kind of miss being surprised seeing developed photos after a night of patrying or after someone's wedding. I remember being in high school and RUNNING to get photos developed and having hilarious laughs with my friends upon seeing evidence of our debauchery. Another bonus: you can't delete the ones you don't like. There's something about this digital age that makes deleting all too easy.

6. Old Hollywood

Instead of Miley Cyrus, can we have some of these folks back?

Honestly. Movie star glamour + illusion that these people were perfect and fabulous >>>>>> papparazzi shots of unwashed starlets in ratty ass Ugg boots, tabloids, and Access Hollywood.

MORE OF THIS PLEASE.

7. PB Max.

The champion of all candy bars. Where did it go??!?!

What about you guys? What do you want to see make a comeback?

things I have done today to avoid writing (or rewriting)

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 18:21:00 +0000

Chastised myself for not blogging enough.
Went to the gym
Went to the Sunnyside farmer's market and bought a bunch of food I don't need.
Went to coffee place and bought two pounds of coffee.
Made french press of said coffee.
Watched The Soup
Downloaded "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry. Felt shame over doing so. Then proceeded to listen to Teenage Dream at nearly full volume on my headphones while playing Angry Birds on my phone.
Ate falafel from the King of Shawarma cart (which was delicious)
Browsed eMusic. Previewed Andrew Bird's instrumental album. Came to terms with the fact that no, I still don't like instrumental albums.
Wrote this blog post. Realized that said blog post makes me sound like a card carrying member of the doucheoisie
Put on Tori Amos' christmas album because I feel like listening to it for no reason.
Realized I've wasted 20 minutes making this list and wondering why it takes me 20 minutes to write a simple fucking list of shit I did today.
Shame again.

There it is. I don't know what to tell you, guys. I'm dry as a bone. I've got nothing. I poured ten years worth of pain and aesthetic influence into my last play and it's dried me out. I hate rewrites anyway, but these have been like someone shoved hot pokers covered in habanero sauce up my ass. I feel like a hack. I've been so consumed with PRODUCTION HAPPENING IN SPRING FIX FIX FIX. I feel this impulse to sand down all the rough edges, then I remind myself that I'm creating theater, not building fucking Ikea furniture.

And writing something new? I can't even journal. I sat down to journal on the train home last night and couldn't even write about my day. How sad is that?

Fortunately, I'm in really excellent company. Polly Syllabick is one of my fave writers and bloggers and buddies, and we share the ability to procrastinate through French Press coffee making. Here's hoping that Polly and I both get out of our slumps with the quickness.

Marie Claire sucks (but we don't have to)

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:24:00 +0000

As you all can probably surmise from reading this blog, I'm not a fan of so-called "women's" magazines. In fact, I think they are vile, vapid, and potentially harmful publications that are designed to make women feel terrible about themselves and be mindless consumers of every overpriced wrinkle remedy under the sun, not to mention to make women completely fucked up about sex. I actually saw an article in Cosmo about how to conceal your "jiggle" while you are having sex (how messed up is that?). I used to consume those magazines voraciously as a teenager (Seventeen was my guilty pleasure), and all it ever did was make me go on fad diets and wish I could afford stuff from DeliA*s (I know you're with me, teen girls of the 90's!) when my folks were on a JC Penney budget. I couldn't even afford Pacific Sunwear or real J'nco jeans. CRY FOR ME AMERICA.

I guess, considering this, that I shouldn't have been too shocked when I read this vile piece of shit by Marie Claire blogger Maura Kelly. Ms. Kelly lives in Brooklyn and claims that she's never been in love, despite being in her thirties. After reading this piece, I can see why! Being an insensitive self-hating c-u-next-tuesday probably narrows the dating pool a little bit.

In a nutshell: Ms. Kelly claims that her editor asked her if she thought the show Mike and Molly on CBS made people uncomfortable because it showed overweight people making out. Ms. Kelly then proceeded to make appallingly shallow and heartless judgments on overweight people, including but not limited to; watching fat people kissing is disgusting, fat people showing affection promotes obesity (?), fat people walking around is offensive, and that obese people should, like, stop eating so much or something. She then posed the question, "What do you guys think? Fat people making out on TV — are you cool with it? Do you think I'm being an insensitive jerk?". The comments section, naturally, exploded. I even cop to being occasionally judgmental about people and their choices. Hell, I think we all do. But whatever happened to empathy and understanding?

My favorite part of the article (besides the part where she spelled the word "heroin" as "heroine" - good job, editors!), was when Ms. Kelly dispensed this sage advice:

"..eat more fresh and unprocessed foods, read labels and avoid foods with any kind of processed sweetener in them whether it's cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup, increase the amount of fiber you're getting, get some kind of exercise for 30 minutes at least five times a week, and do everything you can to stand up more — even while using your computer — and walk more. I admit that there's plenty that makes slimming down tough, but YOU CAN DO IT! Trust me. It will take some time, but you'll also feel so good, physically and emotionally. A nutritionist or personal trainer will help — and if you can't afford one, visit your local YMCA for some advice".

WOW. I never knew that eating less food and exercising could make you lose weight! What a fucking revelation! Obesity is unhealthy? NO. Next you'll tell me, water is actually wet. Where did you read all this, on the back of a cereal box? If only I had known before that all it took was a personal trainer and a diet change to lose weight, I'd have done it sooner....OH WAIT. I have a personal trainer! And I changed my diet! However, I am still holding onto 15 pounds. Why? I quit smoking and it changes your metabolism. I am also approaching 30 and have a hormonal imbalance. All of these things have conspired together to make me hold onto some weight. I have talked at length about this on this blog. I struggle and despair over it constantly. I absolutely cannot imagine what it is like to be actually obese. Even at my heaviest I was not obese, and despite that I have struggled mightily with my own weight. My heart goes out to whatever overweight or obese (or, hell, average weight) eighteen year old girl read that blog entry and was affected by it. One woman in the comments section (who said she worked as a rape counselor for teens) said that the article made her cry tears of shame in the bathroom at work. All because of some idiot blog post by some shallow, overprivileged brat who clearly has nothing better to do than get faux offended by OMGFAT people on television. Worse - she claims to have struggled with an eating disorder. Self hate much? Making fun of people with eating disorders when you have an eating disorder is just as bad as being gay and a fan of Ann Coulter. It's hypocritical and baffling.

Offensiveness and objections to the article aside, it kind of breaks my heart that I have brave, brilliant, beautiful friends who have actually been rejected from such esteemed publications as Marie Claire. They have more insight and compassion in their fucking pinky toenail than this woman appears to have in her whole body. I wish I could link teenage girls to their websites rather than ever have them stumble along something like Marie Claire or their inane counterparts. On top of that, this woman is a piss poor writer. Naysayers might pick apart the writing I do on this blog in her defense, but if I were getting paid for writing, I'd have the decency to at least use spellcheck.

The real shame in this is that this got past Marie Claire's editors. Have you no decency? Christ, at least pretend like you give a crap about women and their struggles. At least give the pretense that you want to make women feel good about themselves. That's what women buy your stupid magazine for; the illusion that you truly care about their problems and want to help them improve. It's called escapism, and you can't even do that properly. FAIL.

If any of you stumbled onto this blog by googling Marie Claire, or you read women's magazines, please don't let them fool you. They don't give a crap about you or your problems. They care about making you feel fat and worthless and making you a good little consumer who gobbles up every overpriced aging and weight remedy on Planet Earth. They don't give a crap if someone will fall in love with you or if you will be happy. They care about ads. They care about page hits. I think the only reason they let this vicious article fly is because they knew it would get them press. The problem isn't Maura Kelly, the problem is that we live in a society that promotes and encourages Maura Kelly and her ilk to make people feel like crap about themselves for money. It's all about the Benjamins, baby.

I almost feel bad for Maura Kelly. She's going to be the fall guy for what Marie Claire and the entire beauty industry secretly endorses - the shaming of women and their bodies for profit. She is probably lonely and petrified of gaining weight, as most eating disordered people are. I'd feel worse for her if the "apology" she posted were actually an apology rather than the justifications of her vile beliefs, but I won't attack her any further than she deserves (which, believe me is, is plenty). I have love and happiness in my life no matter what size I am, and I have a feeling she's seriously lacking in both. It makes me sad when unhappy people feel the need to project their issues onto others. There's a lot of that going on in this country today, isn't there?

We can be better than this. We can stop falling for the tricks of the beauty industry and subsequently attacking each other. We self hate and binge and self hate and purge and self hate and binge, and women are dying and young girls hate themselves and round and round we fucking go like the proverbial dog chasing its tail. It has to stop somewhere. Some commenters on the Marie Claire site said they were canceling their subscriptions. Some had been longtime readers. Maybe some good will come of this after all. Maybe a few people will say "enough is enough". Call me Pollyanna, but I'd like to think things can, and will, improve for young women (and men, for that matter) everywhere.

and I'm gueeeesst....guest bloggin'...

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 13:44:00 +0000

(to the tune of Free Fallin' by Tom Petty, which is inexplicably lodged in my head)

I have a post up on The Sassy Curmudgeon (written by the fab Una), along with posts from the amazing writers of Blackberries to Apples, Year 31, and more! My contribution is something you guys may have already read, but it's a subject near and dear to mine and Una's heart.

Hope you're all enjoying the beautiful Autumn weekend (I'm stirring pumpkin butter into my oatmeal as I speak. It's decorative gourd season, bitches)!

a fail, a win

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 14:32:00 +0000

We had an accident about six weeks or so ago. It was a...er....sex accident. No other way to put it. It was late at night and during the time I was ovulating. Nothing will rob you of the endorphin rush of afterglow like the realization that you may have just inadvertently procreated. All couples go through it.

Let me preface the rest of this post by saying that I am a 100% advocate of emergency contraception being available over the counter. I am a staunch, fierce defender of a woman's right to choose and of not bringing more unwanted children into this world. Emergency contraception is safe and legal, and I believe that pharmacists should not be able to choose whether or not they get to dispense it. It does not cause abortion and it does not terminate an already existing pregnancy (not like I'd care if it did, but some people think this). All over the country, young women searching out EC are turned away by hospitals and pharmacists for religious reasons. It is unacceptable that any woman should be denied a safe, legal medication. It's unconscionable and it needs to stop.

That being said...

The accident happened on a Thursday night, so bright and early Friday morning I did the walk o'shame to my local drugstore. The irony of said walk of shame is that I recently wrote a play about a woman who is denied emergency contraception by a religious pharmacist, and said irony was making me angry and nervous. Adding to said irony is that a Tori Amos song was playing at the CVS.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I said to my husband, "I'm getting the morning after pill in a CVS and there's a Tori Amos song playing? Christ. I feel like an inept teenager. Why are they playing Tori at CVS? Is this what she's become? Pharmacy music?". Then I remembered I heard one of her songs buying paint at Home Depot when we bought our apartment, and suddenly I found myself longing for the halcyon days of analyzing paint swatches and looking at carpet.

"YOU ARE ALMOST THIRTY YEARS OLD SACK THE FUCK UP", I told myself, but I was still as nervous as the proverbial whore in church.

Part of the reason that this epic failboat even sailed into my harbor (heh) is that I can't take the birth control pill. My experience with hormonal contraceptives is a well documented shitshow. I've run the gamut of unpleasant side effects: weight gain, anxiety attacks, massive breakouts, you name it. Therefore, I am stuck with the barrier method, and to be honest, we're not always as, um, consistent as we should be. I know, I know. I took sex ed. I know that this is bad. I definitely learned my damn lesson.

I approached the counter gingerly. A very sweet girl who couldn't have been a day over 19 approached me and I very crankily said "I would like to buy Plan B, please" in a voice that said "Do not fuck with me right now", and she very sweetly got the box for me and advised me to eat and purchase some Dramamine to ease the nausea. If you throw up within two hours of taking it, you have to take it again. She rang me up. ONE PILL cost FIFTY DOLLARS. If men could get pregnant, that shit would cost 99 cents, and you'd get a lollipop with purchase.

I took the pill and braced myself. The nausea was pretty nasty for about 15 minutes and then it wore off. I felt sort of off for the rest of the day, but by the next morning, I felt pretty normal. I was relieved! Business as usual!

Not so. Over the next few weeks, I had a vertitable cornucopia of unpleasant side effects. I was, putting it mildly, a psychotic, mood swingy psycho bitch. I was starving 24/7. If you put it in front of me, I ate it. My boobs swelled so large that Christina Hendricks would have looked at me and asked if I needed to borrow her top. I was miserable, and worse, completely freaked out that I was pregnant.

By the time my period actually arrived (the night of my birthday party, of course), I gained SIX POUNDS OF WATER WEIGHT. Practically overnight. There is a photograph of me and a friend of mine, and it is positioned as such that it looks like my Plan B tits might eat his face. By the time we got to the last bar, I was sitting with a pint of Arrogant Bastard ale, groaning and rubbing my belly as if I were Buddha. I had tights on, and by that point they had surgically grafted themselves onto me.

The point is though - I got my period! The shit WORKED. And thank god. Cause let me tell you all, I learned something very important about myself, which is that I absofuckinglutely do not want a baby right now. I cannot quite express to you the sheer panic I experienced that fateful night. I thought that with my late twenties crisis and my newfound bouts of baby lust that I would have at least thought about it. But no. No, all I wanted to do was haul ass to the nearest Duane Reade at 1 am in my PJ's to get the morning after pill before Mike talked me into getting some rest first. I thought about my next production and how I'd be 7 months pregnant on opening night, and was ready to tear my ovaries out with my bare hands.

A month later, I'm still pretty bloated and I'm still bordering on psycho, but things will amend themselves soon enough. I'm just relieved that I know I'm not ready to be a mom. I don't know if I ever will be. And you know what? That's totally okay.

an open letter to Patti Smith

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 14:25:00 +0000

Dear Patti,

Let me begin by saying that I really have the utmost respect for you, but something's been eating at me.

A while back, you gave a talk at Cooper Union, and you said the following:

"New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling. But there are other cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City has been taken away from you. So my advice is: Find a new city."

My Twitter feed and Facebook exploded. Some people disagreed. Some people used it as an excuse to relentlessly bash NYC every chance they got. I tried to ignore it, but it has come up again and again and again. It seems that you have made a decree, and people are paying attention, so while I have a few readers paying attention to what I say, I feel the need to respond.

So, Ms. Smith, here it is: I totally fucking disagree.

Yes, it is true that New York City is expensive. Yes, it's true that it is hard to make a living as a young artist. Yes, it's true that a lot of art is now dependent on corporations for funding. This is all true. It is also true that the one constant thing about New York City is change. You of all people should know that. You came up in a time where you could squat in a tenement on Bowery and live in the East Village on the cheap. You also came up in a time where it was very likely you'd get raped and shot by some crackhead on Bowery, too. Yes, Patti, there were tradeoffs even then. NYC has always come at a price. Nothing is free. It was also true that Brooklyn and Queens weren't exactly hospitable places to live in the 70's and 80's. Hell, Manhattan was barely tolerable. My best friend grew up on the tony Upper West Side and has memories of crackheads fighting on the steps of her apartment building. Yes, it got cleaned up and sanitized. Yes, it got chain restaurants and Old Navy and rich people and smoking bans. But you know what? So did the rest of the country. Welcome to modern day capitalism. America looks like a fucking strip mall, from sea to shining sea. It's hard to make it nowadays, period, anywhere. Everything is harder - travel, grocery shopping, planning. Parents both need to work to support their kids. People lost half of their retirement. Prices keep going up and the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This is not a New York City problem. This is an America problem. It's not going to get fixed by running away.

That's not to say that everyone should live in NYC, or that it's easy, or that it's fair. I struggle immensely between having a day job and my art. It's a neverending balance and I feel like I'm tipping on a tightrope every single day. Would I rather things be cheaper and would I rather not have to work full time to have a salary and health insurance? Yes. Do I want to squat in some god awful apartment crawling with roaches and crackheads? Hell to the no. Do I want to be poor? No. Can I make art regardless? Absofuckinglutely. I do it every day.

You're also leaving out the all-important fact that the artists have pretty much left Manhattan. You should know that artists live in all five boroughs, since you spent a great time of your early artistic years at Pratt in Brooklyn. The island has been taken over by the well-to-do elite, it's true. I cannot deny that. It is a shame. It's terrible that CBGB's closed and that there's a fucking clothing store in it's place. It really is. I hate that artistic and cultural institutions are being closed down and being replaced with commerce. Again, though, this is not just a New York City problem. This country values money, not art. We know this. It's a terrible thing. It's a terrible state when people prefer to watch reality TV and Fox News, inundating themselves with neverdoneing emptiness. They want their hard earned tax dollars to go to Middle Eastern wars to put gas in their Hummers. This is what we have been taught to value. Some high schools don't even have music or theater programs.

Again - an American problem. Not a New York City problem.

You insist that NYC has closed it's doors to artists and advocate that they go to Detroit. Detroit, Patti? Seriously? Nothing against the Motor City, mind. Some of the best and brightest hail from those parts (Sufjan Stevens, for one, who is a musical treasure and lives in Brooklyn), and some of the best people in the world live there. However, Detroit is a place of despair and staggering unemployment. What are these kids supposed to do for work? You have to work, Patti. You have to make a living, whether that's waiting tables or busking or whatever, but you have to work. And Poughkeepsie...well...for fear of offending anyone I'll stay quiet. I do see what you are saying, that artists should create from the ground up, that there's a certain level of freedom in building an artistic community in a place that might not have so many institutions in place. That's exciting, for sure, and I salute those brave pioneers who are heading out there and making it work. There's a lot of possibility.

But I don't want to move to Detroit or Poughkeepsie Patti, and I'll tell you why:

The Met Opera. Lincoln Center. Staten Island Ferry. The Statue of Liberty. The ceiling in Grand Central. The Chrysler Building. Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. NYU. Columbia. Brooklyn Brewery. Junior's Cheesecake. Bakeries. Italian delis. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. MoMa. The Guggenheim. The Frick. Central Park. Prospect Park. Kinokuniya Bookstore. Bleecker Street. The Public Theater. The Brick Theater. Cherry Lane. Bergdorf Goodman. The White Horse Tavern. Beer gardens. Hot dogs. The Plaza. Broadway. Bowery Ballroom. Mosques. Churches. Temples. The subway. The Bronx Zoo. The West Village. The East Village. Delivery all day every day. Any kind of food you could ever want. Amazing, crazy people. The Yankees. The Mets. The fact that you never, ever know what's going to happen.

The artists are here, Patti. The artists are in Brooklyn and Queens and The Bronx and Staten Island. Astoria and Woodside and Sunnyside in Queens is becoming a great place for artists to live (I'm proud to live in Queens). Brooklyn has it's trendy spots, for sure, but there are artists expanding into Crown Heights and Bed Stuy and Bushwick and Gowanus (Gowanus has The Bell House, which is arguably the new "it" place for live music). They are creating and trying to find a way to circumvent institutions. I am making art, Patti. I am an artist in New York City, and maybe I'm not a squatter and maybe that makes me a poser but I am a fucking artist, and god dammit, New York City has held me in her arms for eleven years. She hasn't pushed me away. She's challenged me and made me strong, she's hurt my feelings and made me cry and despair, but she's never ever pushed me away. The doors are not closed. They are wide open. Everyone wants to live here because there's nowhere else like it in the world, but the fact remains that it will always change and it will always, always be hard to live here.

Don't talk shit about the city. So many people do that already. She gave you so much when you needed her most. Don't invalidate the good work we are doing here. You and your peers planted the flag and furrowed the soil. We're just trying to keep the garden blooming. The artists are still here, and we're not going to run away. We will rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Respectfully,

Kari

redecorating!

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 18:34:00 +0000

I gave my blog a little makeover! I am glad that Blogger finally got on board with some good templates and options. The old stuff was starting to look a little dated.

What do you guys think? I really want to keep the original header because Meesh made it for me and I want to keep it. I feel like the actual text part is a little narrow, but any wider and the header looks wonky.

in my skin

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 13:24:00 +0000

Friday was, by all reasonable standards, a completely shitty day.

A bunch of stuff happened at work, which I can't really write about freely here because it could likely get me fired and all, but all I can say is that it was humiliating and unpleasant and is probably something I will be dealing with for some time to come.

I felt pretty okay about myself on Friday night. I wore this really cute black and white BCBG dress and was feeling good about it. I practically lived in it this summer. It's short for me (just above the knee, which is practically a miniskirt for me), and I know that I am a little bigger in the leg, but what are you gonna do? No big deal, right? Had a beer and some Korean BBQ and was on my way to see my fabulous friend Melanie in her big Off B'way debut (and she rocked it, btw).

On the way into the theater, walking down a steep flight of stairs, a voice (attached to a burly African American man, who may or may not have worked there) called out:

"Yeah girl, shake them stretch marks all night!"

I know, I know. It's stupid. In fact, you probably read that sentence and laughed, because it's funny and it's ridiculous. He was looking for a reaction out of me. I know I shouldn't take it personally, but I shriveled up inside like a slug covered in salt. I felt three inches tall and three hundred feet wide. My husband was appalled but both of us were too stunned to react. I'm still not sure if the guy was a bouncer or what, but he disappeared outside before either of us got a chance to get a good look at him. It happened too fast for me to give a hearty "fuck you" or whatever tough girl thing I would normally say. I was utterly humiliated and had a really difficult time enjoying myself during the show (except when Mel was singing, because she was AMAZING and I love watching her on stage). My husband sat in stony silence through most of the show. He knew how much it affected me and if there's one thing he hates, it's when people hurt my feelings. He did a sweep of the place to try and find the guy (and get him fired), but to no avail.

I know that I am not that skinny right now. I've blogged ad nauseum about my post smoking weight gain and it really sucks. There's not much else to say about it. I am doing the best I can. I am exercising with a trainer and the diet is...well it's a daily struggle, let's put it that way. Of course, to add insult to injury, I spent most of the night chatting with friends of Melanie's, one of whom is a Weight Watchers leader and one of whom is a Weight Watchers success story like whoa. Both of them were SUPREMELY lovely and helpful and supportive, but I walked away feeling like total shit about myself. I am a lifetime member of WW, and that program got me down to a healthy, reasonable weight. Having to confess that I gained most of it back is always a really painful experience. By the time we were in the cab on the way home, hot tears of shame were streaming down my face. It had nothing to do with them and everything to do with the fact that I know I need to change. I'm going to need to make sacrifices and I'm going to have to struggle to get back there, and I may never be able to. I'm burdened by a 50 hour a week corporate job (which isn't an assistant job anymore) and a full time writing career. I have a show coming up in the Spring. I'm already under so much pressure. Scheduling yet another thing into my life (like WW meetings, tracking food, etc) is making me anxious.

I resolved that this year I was going to be happier in my own skin. Why did it take less than ten days and one flippant comment to unravel that resolve?

29.

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:28:00 +0000

I turned twenty nine years old today.

I feel old and young all at once, but mostly old.

My feeling older comes somewhat from the fact that I made some pretty adult decisions very young. Most people I know who are my age don't own an apartment, aren't married, don't have a stable job, and may frequently do the walk of shame home from someone's apartment in last night's clothes on a Monday. I cop to some jealousy about this sometimes, but I do realize all that delightful freedom also comes at a price.

When I moved here at the ripe old age of 17 (two weeks from 18), I was fresh off the worst year of my life. My mother had tried to commit suicide the winter of my senior year, and my father entered rehab for alcoholism three days afterward. Everything I thought I knew about life fell away. I had to grow up really fast. I had a choice between staying in Connecticut to deal with the aftermath of my family, or to do the selfish thing and get the fuck out of there. I chose the latter, despite the fact that I knew leaving meant being financially on my own (along with a plethora of other consequences I couldn't have possibly forseen at the time). While I'm glad I did it, I admit to a lot of hubris going in. I thought I was going to defeat every odd and make this city my bitch. Sure, I was marginally talented, marginally attractive, marginally sane, above average in intelligence, and was hellbent on making myself the weirdo in possibly every social situation, but hey! I'm gonna be a part of it! I'll make a brand new start of it! If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere! Et cetera.

Eleven years later, thirty seven thousand dollars in student loan debt, and a lot of drama later - it's fairly clear who the bitch is. New York City is no one's bitch.

I stumbled through my early twenties in a vague haze of confusion and depression. Holy crap, I thought to myself, nothing's going to work out the way I'd planned. The only real and stable thing in my life was my now-husband, who for some strange reason decided to marry me even after experiencing the shitshow that was me in my early twenties. Everything else was totally up in the air. I had college beat the love of acting out of me like that kid who got caned in Singapore. I was waiting tables to support myself nearly 40 hours a week, just to keep my head afloat and pay my tuition. I was probably drinking too much. I was trying to keep my feet in both worlds: the world of a partying, college theater kid and the the world of a responsible adult in a stable relationship. So much happened. 9/11 happened. I made some of my best friends. I had a short play produced. I graduated. I got engaged. I went out on auditions and shortly thereafter I quit acting. I had no idea what to do. I kept waiting tables. I kept paying bills.

I fell the fuck apart.

I felt like I had tried everything to fit the mold of what a young artist "should" be in New York. I tried poverty by living with a friend of mine in Brooklyn in a terrible railroad apartment, walking home from work at 2 am with my paltry amount of tip money tucked into my shoe, but I soon discovered that poverty was neither romantic or fun and that squalor may have been okay for Patti Smith but definitely not for me. I didn't actually WANT pull a Dylan Thomas and drink myself to death at the White Horse Tavern. I didn't want to make grilled cheese on the radiator. I didn't want to be poor. Being poor isn't cute. I don't care who says what - poverty and happiness are almost mutually exclusive. I felt like I had gone nowhere and done nothing. My relationship suffered. We postponed the wedding (and thank god...but at the time it broke my heart).

During the tail end of my depression, I wrote my first full length play. I wrote it almost entirely at a now-closed coffeehouse on the Upper East Side. The barista always flirted with me and gave me free mochas every so often. In so many ways, that play saved my life. That play helped me face some of my worst fears head on, most of all that I was terrified I'd be crazy forever. I started making friends the way that freaks usually make friends - on the internet. I met a lot of amazing people and my life began to change. I took an admin assistant job, despite feeling like a sell out, and began to slowly start my playwriting career. Waiting tables had taken too much out of me, physically and emotionally. Being an admin at least gave me something resembling a schedule and steady source of income, not to mention health insurance. I dragged myself back to my alma mater and confessed my sins of Corporate Douchery to my theater prof, who took my hand and looked at me and said the words that stick with me to this day:

"My dear, there is nothing wrong with wanting a normal life. You just have to be able to live with the sacrifices you have to make in order to have it."

It was in this sentence that I knew I could do it. Being an artist didn't mean I was going to have to live in squalor, or travel the country in a tour bus in some terrible regional production of Oklahoma!. I could marry the man I loved and live in New York City, and work full time, and be a writer! It was totally possible. And here I am, six years later, doing just that. I had my first production two years ago and another one coming up in March. I have found an artistic community and I am working my ass off at two full time jobs (one paid, one not). I am proud of that. I have a loving and happy marriage, not without its ups and downs, but it is the best thing in my life. I still manage to behave like a twenty-something a lot of the time. Sometimes I make dumb mistakes and sometimes I drink too much and sometimes I spend money on dumb shit and sometimes I act like a kid (although as the years tick by, I am acutely aware of how much I am not a kid anymore).

There was recently an article in the New York Times about twenty somethings being spoiled and immature. Do I think twenty-somethings are spoiled? Of course we are. We come from a generation of kids whose parents told them they could be whatever they wanted, that there weren't such things as limitations and that we shouldn't manage our expectations. We were fed the American Dream bullshit and worse, we were expected to chase it at all costs. We were taught to value materialism and individualism above all else (perhaps not by our parents, but certainly by society). Unsurprisingly, there's a lot of entitlement and fantasy that comes with the territory. I think it is an American problem, and not just a second-decade problem. We have a lot of work to do on ourselves. The entitlement and delusion has gotten out of control. This is something I have really begun to look at in myself lately, and perhaps part of the reason I've been blogging less; maybe I have been keeping things closer to the chest, trying to be less self-indulgent. Why should anyone care about my story? I'm lucky and blessed and privileged. My struggles pale in comparison to so many.

I am, however, a writer. It's just what I do. It keeps me alive. That's something that's been true my entire life. I suppose this blog is a living document of my successes and failures. It keeps me in check. And so I go.

As I enter the last year of my twenties, I feel like I've lived a lot, but I have a lot more living to do. This year, I really want to just be okay in my own skin for a little while. I know that I can't be whatever I want to be (I can't be Gisele Bundchen and live on a yacht, for example), but I can be who I am. Maybe it's time I was okay with that, and that means all of it. Maybe that means I can let loose and have a little fun without worrying all the fucking time. Maybe, just maybe, this will be my best year yet.

Obligatory 9/11 post

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 04:01:00 +0000

I had a 9/11 tribute post all ready in draft. I did. It was all "in remembrance" and "celebrate heroes" and all that nonsense, but fuck it. I just can't do it. To be totally honest with you guys, a small part of the reason I've stayed away from blogging the past few weeks is because I am so angry that any post I start writing about this country or all the stuff going on in the world makes me type all in CAPS and use massive amounts of profanity. Between Koran burnings and the right wing and the protests about the ~~mosque~~ Muslim YMCA and the recession and everything else, I've about had it.

Then I said, "Fuck it, I'm going to write what I want". So here goes. It will be reasonably short.

Nine years ago, when 9/11 happened, I was almost twenty. I knew nothing about anything. I was blissfully ignorant of most things, lucky me. Then, some idiots took a few planes and flew them into buildings. The buildings fell and things got really fucked up. I started to learn some stuff about US foreign policy. I won't go so far as to say we were asking for it, but there are days I definitely feel that way. I'll never go so far as to say we deserved it...but the Iraqis and Afghanis who have died at our hands didn't deserve it either. The world is just horrendously sad and unfair.

Nine years later, there is an empty pit in the ground that just sits there while dumbasses from bumblefuck redneck America ride around on inactive missiles in protest of a fucking community center. We are still at war and that war still has pretty much fuck all to do with anything but controlling the region for oil. The economy is in the shitter, everyone argues about stuff constantly, Fox News runs the media, and it's depressing as hell. Nothing changes. Nothing gets better. Every day I hope, and every day it gets clearer that hope is stupid.

So, happy anniversary 9/11. You sucked, and you continue to suck, and everything sucks. "Never forget" - how the fuck could we?! It's shoved down our throats every damn day, and I'm tired of it. I don't ever need to see the footage of those planes crashing into the towers ever again. I remember. We all remember. The repetition is starting to make it meaningless. It just blends into Glenn Beck screaming, TMZ stalking celebrities, and Jersey Shore reruns. It's another sound byte, another "remember when", another piece of visual porn for us to forget about in five minutes (except the people it actually happened to, of course, which are the families of the victims. They don't get to tune it out. It's there forever, like gum stuck on the bottom of a desk. You may not see it all the time, but it's there).

No one actually cares about what happened on 9/11 anymore.

All anyone cares about is themselves.

Maybe even me. I participate in the complacency, and there are days I see no way out. I hate my complicitness and I wish I could find the part of me that's brave enough to escape it.

It's just too hard. It's all just too god damn sad. I don't even know how to write about this stuff anymore because I'm stuck in sick syrupy molasses sadness and everything else seems like I'm just playing in the dance band on the Titanic.

It's been nine years, and the worst part is that no one learned a damn thing.

Danny and Annie

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 01:44:00 +0000

So this has pretty much gone viral by now, but I felt urgently about sharing it.

This is what marriage is all about, people. It's not all passion and flowers and dresses and champagne toasts. It's about being there until the end, through bad and good. This moved me to sobbing, snotty tears. Please watch this while I go hug my husband and cry.

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

shedding

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 03:28:00 +0000

I drink, only sometimes, to not be anxious.
Then drinking makes me more anxious.
And then I have to take a pill
and then I fall into oblivion.

and when I fuck up like that (not often, but still)
I think of my parents, my coding, my bloodlines
and how they were my age once
and how they thought it wouldn't happen to them either

and I don't think it will happen to me
but I don't know, I suppose it could
because there are days I'm not steering this ship
there are days I'm not in control of myself

I'm sitting here with headphones on
losing myself in music, losing myself in me
and wondering if I should do something reckless, for once
Quit my job, maybe. Something anything something anything.

days like today I realize I'm getting fucking older
the years fall away now like skin flaking off, like shedding
rather than molting, rather than sprouting wings
rather than bursting out. Nothing remotely interesting.

when a cat sheds it's fur, it doesn't suddenly become bald
like a sphinx, which is all wrinkled pink skin and very little cat
it just becomes a little less fluffy, a little sleeker, a little pared down
maybe that's what aging is, after all. Paring down.

at a certain point, this shit ain't cute anymore
this figuring yourself out, this aimlessness, this wanting
at a certain point, it's you and you and no one else cares.
No one's waiting for you to find it. Whatever it is. No one's waiting.

In which I rant about the """Ground Zero Mosque"""

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:59:00 +0000

I opened up my facebook this morning to find this charming status update from one of my fbook friends (who is NOT a friend anymore, and frankly, I don't even really remember who the hell they are so it was not painful deleting them):

FRIEND: I can't believe I voted for Obama!! He's letting the terrorsts build MOSKES NEAR GROUND ZERO! Can u imagine how the firefighters and families must feel...i want my vote back

I hit the "unfriend" button because, frankly, anyone who spells "mosques" as "moskes" isn't really worth my time anyway. Of course, being me, I posted this on my facebook this AM.

Dear idiots on Facebook: 1. it's not a mosque, it's a community center that includes a mosque within the building; 2. It's not at Ground Zero, it's several blocks from there, and there are (GASP) other houses of worship including mosques (OMGTERRIST) downtown, 3. not all Muslims are bad people, and furthermore, our Constitution you're all so bent out of shape about protects freedom of religion.

...at which time I saw my friend count immediately go down by 4 (ha!), and I received a Very Angry message in my inbox all "how would you feel if you lost someone at Ground Zero?".

I didn't lose anyone at Ground Zero, it's true. I was very lucky. Many people I went to school with or worked with at least knew someone who died. I did, however, lose something in that whole experience. I think it was one of the first times in my life I felt genuine, gut wrenching terror. I lost my job. I lost what was left of my innocence. I lost two buildings that I loved, buildings that I shopped and worked in. I lost a plaza where I used to catch free shows and dance in, a plaza that's memory is tainted for me forever by footage of splattered bodies all over it. I lost downtown. I lost the ability to ever get that smell out of my nose. I lost a good chunk of the neighborhood I used to live in. It was like going to school in a war zone for the better part of two years. It fucking sucked. The fires burned and burned. Every day I walked by those walls of pictures posted by families who would never get that happy phone call, who would never get that tearful reunion. I watched the photos fade away and curl up with days, weeks, and months of rain, snow, sleet, wind, until they'd all but disappeared. I watched the yellow ribbons become worn and tattered. I watched how slowly, very slowly, the city's inhabitants began to walk around without a haunted look in their eyes and without ghosts of memories stealing the light from their faces. Very slowly things got back to "normal", but they'll never be the same. New Yorkers who were around on 9/11 live with that every day of their lives. It will never stop hurting. It will never stop sucking. It will never ever end. So, to answer their question, no, I cannot imagine how I'd feel if I lost someone there. I do not deny those families their right to grieve and I do not judge them for their emotional and utterly misguided opposition to the community center being built.

It's everyone else I judge.

Let me clarify something: I deplore Muslim extremists. I hate their guns and their weaponry. I hate that they keep women shrouded and chained. I hate that those motherfuckers had the audacity to blow shit up in my city. If I saw Osama Bin Laden on the street, I'd shank him with my stiletto heel for putting us through all this. I shudder to think how we've given him exactly what he wanted. He's managed to take the best things about America and flush them down the proverbial toilet (with a little help from Bush and Company, of course). We're now embroiled in a Civil Cold War. Instead of uniting as a country and maybe changing some of our bloody and violent foreign policy, we got four hundred times more violent, more entitled, and more greedy.

Let me clarify something else: I deplore Christian fundamentalists. I deplore Jewish fundamentalists. I deplore the ultra right wing. I deplore the Lord of the Flies/Ayn Randian society these people want to create. In my eyes, there is absolutely nothing good about extremism or organized religion that makes up for the enormous amount of pain, bloodshed, and backwards thinking it has caused. To hell with all of it, I say. However, just because I'd prefer to never see another church be built ever again doesn't mean that they shouldn't be, or that they shouldn't be allowed to. Freedom of religion and religious expression is explicitly protected by the Bill of Rights, a document that a lot of conservatives give lip service to, except when they want to change it to suit their own needs.

That all being said, and the fact that bigotry seems to be totally acceptable practice in this country these days, here's the main issue: IT'S NOT EVEN AT GROUND ZERO. You'd think that the Twin Towers were being replaced by some comically giant mosque, replete with an animatronic Osama Bin Laden pointing and laughing at all the mourners/tourists walking by. It is several blocks away from Ground Zero. There's an argument that it is "hallowed ground". Oh, okay. Guess what else is on "hallowed ground"? The Pussycat Lounge, a sex shop, a McDonald's, and a plethora of other morally questionable businesses. Are the sex shops and strip clubs supposed to shut down too? Let's stop fucking pretending this is about respect for the dead, okay? It makes me sick. I am tired of these people's names and lives being used for political gain and for bigotry. It's disgusting. Doesn't anyone remember that Muslim people died on 9/11 as well, and not just the hijackers? Do they not deserve a thought?

Second: IT'S NOT ONLY A MOSQUE. It's a community center, and the proposed building is envisioned as a community center that, in addition to a mosque, would also have a swimming pool, an 500 seat auditorium/theater and other cultural events/amenities. It's not a House of Jihad Terrorism, it sounds like...well...it sounds pretty rad actually. NYC always needs more spaces like this. I'm in full support of it. I have enough to do than spend my precious time being petrified of a YMCA.

Third, and final: Part of what makes NYC great is diversity. In this city, we have Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses, Krishnas, Scientologists, Pentecostals - you name it - all living and working together in (relative) peace. The thing that the rest of the country hates about us is the thing that I love the most. Preventing this center from being built is definitely "letting the terrorists win", an expression that has become synonymous with "having an excuse to fear the Other". The spectre of 9/11 haunts us still, and will for always, unless we learn to start letting this go. No one is going to get closure by restricting the freedoms that we've waged wars pretending to protect. It's not going to bring them back. It's just going to make us lose even more than we already have. Enough already. When does this end?

Neglect

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:45:00 +0000

I can see the tumbleweeds flying over this blog.

I just haven't had time. I also don't have anything remotely interesting to say. There are lot of things going on right now - good things! - but I've been scheduled within an inch of my life. I'm dealing with some stuff at the day job right now that I can't legally talk about, but suffice to say I've been working 50-60 hour weeks as a result of it (hoping that it's over soon). Work also blocks blog publishing, so that doesn't help. I have to schedule posts ahead of time and publish at home. While I'd love for you all to have the image of me being a Super Productive writer and blogger who spends a lot of time at her desk in the evening looking all scholarly and what not, you are more likely to find me on the couch drinking a glass of wine watching Jersey Shore. Sorry to say, but it's true. If not that, I'm out doing theater stuff. I just had a reading of my latest play, and it went really well, and I think I can somewhat safely say that it will open in March 2011. Getting all those balls in the air is taking up a fair amount of my time. I also just spent some time in Chicago visiting friends, and am trying to be social and have as much fun as humanly possible with the rest of my summer.

Hoping you are all well. I'm sorry I've neglected you. Unfortunately, real life stuff is just taking precedence.

Now and then

noreply@blogger.com (inflammatory writ) — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 20:21:00 +0000

If you are of my generation, you probably remember the movie Now and Then. If you are unfamiliar, the movie was the story of four girls who were best friends growing up and shows their lives as both children and adults. It's really not a very good movie. It's overacted and it's unabashedly sentimental. Yet - it remains one of my favorites. It has some great kid actors (Thora Birch! Gaby Hoffman! Christina Ricci!) and some divas too (Melanie Griffith! Demi Moore!). It's basically the epitome of chick flick. It was manufactured in a lab somewhere to appeal to women.

Still, despite that, it's one of my favorites, because I was one of those girls once. I cannot watch this movie without bawling my little heart out.

I had the good fortune of having a reasonably happy childhood for the most part before my early adolescence/teenage years went directly to shit. Most of my happy childhood was due to the fact that I lived on a street with a very tight knit group of neighbors, who all had kids my age. My first friend was B, who I mentioned in a post I made about her grandmother a few days ago. There were two other girls - R and W - who I became friends with a few years later. R and I were very similar in personalities, and definitely didn't get along at first. In fact, we fought. We fought a lot. In fact, a lot of what us four girls did was fight. We fought over unplanned deviations in Barbie-playing story lines. We fought over which New Kid on the Block was going to be our imaginary boyfriend that day. We fought over who was going to choreograph the Paula Abdul soundtracked fashion show we were going to torture our parents with. We fought over who was going to eat the last Pixy Stick. We would scream and write nasty notes to one another (one of the more hilarious notes I can remember is when R called me a "bicth"), someone would get grounded, and then the next week we'd all be zipping around on our bikes like nothing happened. Ah, the short term memory of little girls.

Our moms were all friends with each other, and we'd always be at someone's house (mostly mine, though, as my parents were the "cool" parents, which is another post for another day). We played outside incessantly. Cold, rain, snow, blazing heat - it didn't matter. Being inside was lame. Our ideal day was riding our bikes and hanging out in the parking lot of the church down the street. Even better was when we were old enough to walk to "the Green", i.e. the small shopping area down the street, by ourselves. In the winter, we went sledding and built snow forts all day until we couldn't feel our toes and our cheeks were stained red with cold. By night, we would put on plays, fashion shows, dance recitals - anything you could think of. We made up stories and we invented alternate realities. We had sleepovers that kept us awake until sunrise. We told each other the truth about what was really going on at home. I remember teary confessions and breakdowns. I went to a different school than they did (I was in a gifted program at a magnet school), so it was hard when I went through being bullied and couldn't turn to them during the day. We got in trouble. A lot. Someone was always doing something unbelievably stupid. Someone was always falling off their bike. Someone was always telling a lie. Someone was always looking in places they didn't want to go, and finding things they did not want to find.

When we hit puberty, we all stuck together for the most part. Navigating adolescence was pretty awful all of us. None of us elegantly blossomed into women. We kind of kicked and screamed and flailed and stumbled, somersaulting and backflipping all the while. We promised each other that we'd be sisters for life, pledging solidarity in the face of a world that grew scarier and the uncertain future that awaited us. We went through so much together as kids, and then what seemed like a lifetime of fresh hell in high school. By then, more friends had joined the fold, but the four of us were still the best of friends.

I was the first one to go off to college, and I remember drinking a bunch of Captain Morgan Parrot Bay rum and smoking a lot of pot and standing on my coffee table making a teary speech about how much I would miss everyone. I don't remember much else except throwing up. A lot. I loved them all and they had my heart. They were my home.

As our problems got more adult, the cracks began to show. We were all very different, after all, and we all wanted very different things. Old resentments began to hurt more than heal.

This is where the story is not like Now and Then. At the end of Now and Then (sorry for the spoiler) the girls all return to their hometown for the birth of one of the girls' first child and have a touching reunion and acceptance of their past and their hometown. It ends with a voiceover and is very moving and makes me sob like a two year old. At the end of our story, R stopped speaking to me right after I got engaged. Turns out that R is a lesbian, which is something I definitely already knew, but for some reason she cut everyone off (except W, they'd been friends since they were babies). I heard from someone that she was trying to get rid of "toxic people", or something. Now, I do not discount my giant bag o'batshittery in high school. I was nuts, believe me, but I did not have a monopoly on crazy. None of us were exactly bastions of sanity and good behavior. Turns out that she dropped B, too. As a result, we stopped talking to W soon after, since we knew where her allegiances were. That was fine. The Fab Four was dismantled. It was hard for me to take.

B and I are still friends but not as close as we used to be. We're both grown ups, with grown up lives. She just had her first child last summer (!!) and is married. B was the only one who was actually in my wedding, which I felt very strongly that day. I loved the girls who were in my wedding party (L and J - both my besties and girls I'll be friends with for always), but it didn't feel right without my sisters. I don't think I'll ever understand what happens to people and to friendships. I've lost so many friends and people in my life, yet my heart still holds a place for them. I can only hope that somehow, some way, their hearts hold a little place for me too.

Somewhere, in my mind's eye, there are four little girls just like us with streamers on their 12-speed Huffy bikes riding around a little town in the northeast. They are loud and they are crazy and they are young. They solve mysteries and make up stories and torture their parents with impromptu musical theater. They are innocent and they are free. Some of them will stay friends forever. Some of them won't. Nonetheless, they are lucky to have each other. I was lucky.

They're just like us, and regardless of everything, we're just like them.