Thursday, February 7, 2008
best sentance ever uttered by a comedian
"call it my mockingbird instinct, but i'm a little hesitant to accept any verdict handed down by a jury in a courtroom with a ceiling fan." -dennis miller
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
good times
a friend asked me today if i had ever been to "casa bonita," that shit hole of a gem of a mexican restaurant on pecos street in denver. i replied emphatically that i had indeed been to said shithole/gem and it brought me to this memory:
a really, really excellent thing about my mother is that she let us call the shots as far as what we wanted to do on our birthday. she'd yank all of us out of school so we could celebrate the day with our siblings in exactly the fashion we wanted. if you were my brother ben, you sat at the "house of pies" all day and ate, well, pie. if you were my sister margo, you hung out the ball room at the children's museum on bannock street. and if you were me, you headed to the "beautiful house."
now there are scant words to describe how fabulous this place is to an eight year old kiddo. take the best kid's birthday party you have ever been to and add in swords and fire and men in speedos and sopapillas on demand and puppet shows and glow in the dark necklaces and tunnels and fake money and, well, there you have casa bonita.
so it was my birthday and i was livin' large at el bonita. i was on my third bowl of sopapillas and my second canister of honey, blissfully watching the man in the yellow speedo dive off the fake cliff into the lagoon, i.e.basement of a strip mall, when i started to feel a bit queasy. i don't remember what happened after this so this is where my mom's recollection takes over.
acccording to her, i was no where to be found for a full 40 minutes. and just as she was about to call the police, she went outside to find me next door, passed out on a bed in the showroom of a 'big sur' waterbeds. mom said when she got closer she could see the honey dripping down my chin onto my grey "member's only" jacket.
now that's what i call a birthday.
fuel for thought
"Love is a fire, but whether it will warm your heart or burn your house down, you never know."
Saturday, February 2, 2008
on baths
ever since you were little, i've crawled into the bath with you. i remember our first one so well. you were about the size of a cowboy boot and when i floated you on your back, your eyes got wide and you folded your top lip over your bottom one as if to contain the joy of the sensation you were experiencing. when you were about two years old, you wouldn't want to do anything but lay on top of me. i called you my frog and told you that i was your lilly pad and taught you how to "rrriibbit". nowadays it's pretty crowded in the ol' tub. you insist on having a gajillion toys and you put on your bathing suit and speedo goggles and take flying leaps into the water, not caring a bit about how much you are bruising your mother. you wash my hair and then you ask me all sorts of questions about my boobs. i think we are where we're supposed to be with all of this.
why i love my job: #15
my clients often let me book the bands. like for this christmas party. i mean, do i really get paid for this?
Friday, February 1, 2008
friday's liner notes
i worked from home today. in my bathrobe. and opened the fridge every 10 minutes. because it was friday. because i can.
and then a string of small things happened which included me stubbing my toe, erasing a word doc, and forgetting a birthday which led to this big feeling that we all sometimes get that doesn't have a name. i always refer to it as a 'liner note emotion'. and there it sits. that feeling. and then you do what shouldn't be done. you start thinking. and if you're like me, it's totally existential:
"what am i doing here in this robe writing this press release?
who cares about a valentine's day dinner?
st. valentine was a prisoner and what we call valentine's were actually his cries for help.
maybe we're all just prisoners crying for help.
is this was love is?
a cry for help.
is it? is it!!!
well then i don't want it."
this is probably why people get up and go to the office.
st. cinnia
born on this day in the 5th century (wow. what was going on then? i think rome got sacked.), st. cinnia was converted to christianity by st. patrick. when she entered a convent, it is said that st. patrick 'gave her the veil'.
i am sure this has got to be code.
dear beauty,
got your message yesterday. i called because i couldn't get this picture of you out of my mind because i, too, am flying high these days. and yet, somehow, i am aware that it's all being held together by an apparatus not unlike this. i love YOUR blog. i have hope that things will thaw and that i'll be seeing you in new york very shortly. the two seem inextricably intertwined. much love to you and mr. callihan. exes and ohhhs, kate
a poem by friend ada limon
Marketing Life for Those of Us Left
(by Ada Limon)
Stuck in the answer of day,
all we’ve got are these people to rely on,
and trees, and the grasp of a river in the mind.
All the beautiful girls in the office are laughing and I laugh
along. And all of us good people, honest and clean,
And what puts the mean in some of us?
Sumptuous mountain, midnight milkweed,
come to the valley of neon and no-crying.
High hillside of home,
I’m waving from the cement center, can you see me?
I’ve got this big city in me. Pretty on fire, pretty high wired.
It’s been a year since Jess died, she said,
“I always knew it would come down to pills in the applesauce.”
And the house is not haunted, nor the office.
I wish it was, don’t you?
We were wilder before, see-through shirts
and model boys and bouncers in hotels lobbies
across the country.
Who knew it would be hard to get to thirty-two?
A friend says the best way to love the world is to think of leaving.
We’re all in a little trouble, you know?
Piles of empty stars we’ve tossed aside for the immediate kiss.
Push me around a bit, shake my pockets, I store everything
in my mouth, going to make an apple out of plastic,
going to make a real star out of the apple, then I’m
going to sell it to you.
I’m going to tell you it’s the most important thing.
I’m going to tell you I’m sorry, I’m going to crash
on your communal couch of unwanted.
Let’s say bloom.
Let’s say we’re a miracle of technology.
It’s harder to not say anything. It’s harder to admit
we are alive sometimes, isn’t it?
It’s all we’ve got, say it, pinch me.
You’re here. So am I. So there.
Ada Limón is originally from Sonoma, California. A graduate of the Creative Writing Program at New York University, she won the Chicago Literary Award for Poetry and has received fellowships from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She works as the Copy Director for GQ Magazine and is teaching a Master Class for Columbia University’s MFA program in Spring 2008. Her first book, lucky wreck, was the winner of the 2005 Autumn House Poetry Prize. Her second book, This Big Fake World, was the winner of the 2005 Pearl Poetry Prize.
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