Funny Cry Happy Gift

This title refers to a weird Asian Jesus-merchandise-selling bodega-like-thing that was once across the street from Flannery's on 14th St. Alas, it is now gone. I love Jesus. "He's fun, Kad!"

It's best to embrace one's neuroses, I've decided. The relief it brings has no bounds. In a cab last night, I couldn't remember if I'd turned off my Hot Tool (it's a hair-straightening implement, douchies) which put me in a state of panic. Surely my bathroom, a water-laden place, would immediately catch on fire. Should I go home? Would the fire kill all of the wealthy Asians and German tourists residing in Worldwide Plaza? Dear God!

I then heaved a sigh of relief.

"You idiot," I told myself. "You're OCD."

Meaning, of course, I'd already unplugged the Hot Tool and doublechecked it about ten times before leaving my apartment.

In other news, there's this neato device in the can here at my job. It's an air-freshener thing that periodically shoots off a spray of strawberry mist whenever a foul odor hits the air; however, I've noticed it goes off when I'm brushing my teeth with no sign of shit in sight.

My brother has won the prize for the Hottest Williams. It's quite humbling to realize you're not the most attractive member of your family. Upon looking at a pic of my fam, my boss said:

"Oh, that must be your sister."
"Yeah and that's my nephew."
"He's a nugget."
"And that's my brother."
(pause)
"That's your brother? But he's so attractive! I mean, I- oh-well- you-geez- uh . . . I suck cock!" (high pitched giggle).

Visual Aids

It occurs to me this title suggests someone is dripping HIV out of their eyes.

Speaking of eyes, I have something called horizontal displacia, meaning I can't hold eye contact for any length of time. My eyes dart to the left and come back. I'm therefore unfit for most on-camara acting work, terrible at making conversation and am a shockingly bad driver. You can picture it, can't you? Eyes on the road, eyes to the left, eyes on the road, eyes to the left. . . add the fact that I fall asleep at the wheel and have terrible OCD and I'm more dangerous than Miss Daisy herself. I first realized I had a problem when I asked a boy to slowdance with me at my first boy/girl party. He looked to his right to see who I was talking to. He was like "Uh, Kath? There's no one standing next to me." Needless to say, I did not feel my first slowdance erection that night.

At one acting teacher's suggestion, I tried switching it up. Maybe instead of looking left, I could try looking right, up, down. As if I could control it. As if I'm clearly choosing to look like a tard. However, this atttempt also gets me in trouble. I end up looking at a girl's boobs or a guy's crotch or perhaps an especially pronounced and lovely adams apple, the boner of a man's neck, quite frankly.

My boyfriend has discovered my OCD. He accused me of judging him for mixing Codeine and alcohol. When he didn't believe that I honestly didn't care, I busted out my medicine cabinet: Ambien for insomnia, Lorazapam for anxiety, Effexor for depression and OCD. I said "See . . I mix one to three of these with alcohol on any given weekend. Believe me, I'm not judging you." He then proceeded to describe Nick Cage in "Matchstick Men" and his various and weird rituals: counting to three before opening a door of any kind. Somehow, that made me unplugging the coffee maker, iron and blender this morning before leaving the house much more palatable.

On a different note, I often count, probably too much, on my friends to distill any given emotion I may have. And each friend has a different area of expertise they dole out in their own special way. Tim is for not being dumb, under which many subsets fall. John is for a swift kick in the ass with a side of boyspeak translation. Nicole is for a no-nonsense approach tempered with sympathy. Shannon and I see each other through breakups and other assorted crises. And these are just some of my NYC friends. My Virginia friends ... whole other skillset based on seeing each other through puberty. Carol and I run the gamut from drunken calls to family bullshit and everything in between. And let's not forget Gabe . .. the ex now friend, good for witty banter in a pinch as well as telling me exactly why I may be fucking up my current relationship. Thanks, guys. This paragraph's for you. xoxo

It's a bird, it's a plane . ..

It's Kath's thong!
That's right, kids. My co-workers at the new gig just saw my Superman thong. The Superman logo is conveniently at the top of the buttcrack. My sister-in-law and I both got a pair. Not business appropriate. At all.

Get a haircut, get a real job . . .

I'm still adjusting to the fact that I have a job that requires some use of my brain and demands a certain level of accountability. It's quite odd.

In other news, a friend of mine recently told me that a mutual acquaintance of ours, a black Jewish lesbian named Shaq, told her that she and I had made out. In fact, we have not. Upon seeing her face in bright light, I was quite frightened by her underbite. It reminded me of our pet shih tzu.

My dad wants to go to the Westminster Dog Show this year. I went last year and it was a delight. I sent my dad a link to the website and he called me yesterday:

"Kad, when's da dog show?"
"Dad, I sent you the dates and a link."
"I know."
"Did you read my email?"
"Yes."
"I told you in the email when they were. Sometime in February."
"Don't get testy with your poor fodder, God love him."
"Dad, all I'm saying is that I sent you the info via email. Now you're calling me for it. It's the age of technology."
"Send it to me again."
"Okay.Will you read it this time?"
"If you call me."
"So I need to call you to tell you to check your email."
"Yes. "
(pause)
"Ya sista called me yesterday."
"Oh yeah? How is she?"
"I don't know. She called my cell."
"Dad, you know some people turn their cells on."
"I was at home. My phone was in the car."
"Dad, you know some people bring their phones into their houses."
"But I was home."
"Do you check your messages?"
"On my cell?"
"Yes."
"I don't know how."

It's amazing that he and I even talk at all.

In Place of Real Insight

I would love to write about the roomful of models I sat in last night. Gorgeous, cookie cutter girls with long, shiny, straight hair tossed just so, leaving the standup show at Soho House periodically to feed their coke habits. Or how I nearly ruined one girl's coat with handsoap when she asked me, without even looking at me, to watch it while she retreated into a stall, sniffling hurriedly. And the poor standup schlubs in their jeans and hairy chests and messy dos, the females with saddlebags in extratight pants, their little bellies just over their belts. The chubby and the neurotic dancing for the wealthy elite. And the anger that filled me watching the nearly six-feet tall women buying twelve dollar drinks as I carefully babysat the eighteen dollars in my checking account. Insecurity, for sure. But also a feeling of: they're beautiful, rich, and tall. How can their lives be possibly less than enviable?

And I hated them.

My anger frightens me sometimes.

And I had managed to drop crabcake dip on my left tit. My electric blue ribbed turtleneck had felt flattering and sexy before I'd entered Soho House. It matched my eyes. Now, well . . .

I came home, talked to a couple friends and worked on a play I've also been babysitting, allowing it to simmer for weeks till it burns a hole in my brain for the words to smoke through. And somehow the anger did what potheads pretend weed does for them. My head opened up and I fell in love with the characters I was writing about. And then the tears came. I felt for my parents and my dad's ex-girlfriend (upon who(m) the play is based) and a teenage version of me and all of the people who are inevitably stricken by your sadness as much as one can be touched by sadness that is not their own or shared.

And so it went. My angry evening deflated into something else, aided by Newman's Own Butter Boom popcorn and flat Diet Coke with Lime. I like to think the words I wrote in those hours were brilliant and chances are they're not but I have a feeling they were sincere. I take some pride in that.

No threeway for you.

There's nothing quite like meeting the girl your boyfriend had a threesome with. It's a completely different experience than, say, meeting an ex-girlfriend or, I don't know . . . sister. The Italian had once told me he'd had a threesome with a girl named Izola. Mind you, he works with a girl named Izola. He swore up and down that they weren't the same person. How common a name can Izola possibly be? No, no, it's not her. See that bartender, the one with the tattoos? He would've killed me if I'd gone near her. Threesome Izola and I didn't stay in touch, he said. His friend Texas Matt (who looks shockingly like Pacino in "Scarface") was the 3rd part of the threesome. I like him very much. I wouldn't let him near my daughter but that's beside the point.

So, there we were last night. Like so many nights. Drinking drinks at McAleers on the upper west side. Izola, her boyfriend bartender, Texas Matt, the Italian and myself. When it comes out that the Midget had hit on Izola while, and I quote: "[SHE] WAS FUCKING MATT!" She was screaming like Sam Kinison and I was ready to slit my wrists. Then I realized. This was, indeed, Threesome Izola, the girl the Italian had repeatedly lied to me about. I was pissed that he'd lied. After Izola and boyfriend left, I just looked at him. "You lied to me. You lied to my face. On three separate occasions." He said he did it to protect me . . . it was an awkward situation . . did I want to know he worked with a girl he'd had a threesome with? Of course Texas Matt chimed in as guys are wont to do. The Italian went to the bar to settle up. Texas Matt looks at me: "Look, I know it seems fucked up but he really likes you."

I thought about it. I thought of this girl's not-so-attractive face, her annoying voice, thought of Texas Matt's chicken legs and the Italian's awkward torso and found myself wanting to laugh. Did it, in the grand scheme of things matter? It's not that I care what he did before me and God knows there are plenty of things I'll never tell him. As much as I hate dishonesty this . . this just wasn't worth it. My anger left shortly and I found myself shaking my head and smoking the last of the Italian's cigarettes. It felt like my right at that moment. The Italian felt bad. Apologized profusely. I let it go.

Okay, so the girl in question wasn't really named Izola.. but it wasn't too common a name either.
That being said, before all this happened, we busted out our respective journals and read sweet things we'd written about each other, including the night we met. That was kinda lovely.

Death be not awkward

Sorry, kids. I'm on a death kick.

My boyfriend's roommate's dad died suddenly and without warning over the weekend. The roomie is a very private guy and although we're very friendly all I could do was say "I'm so sorry" and offer to talk. I wanted to say: "I don't know how you feel but my mom died without warning so if you ever blah blah blah" but all I could do was hug him and, well, be awkward. Because more than being sad or tragic or anything else, death is awkward. It's awkward for the people who experience the loss and the people who love those people. Awkwardness, like death, comes to us all. When faced with mortality, we all stutter.

My boyfriend doesn't want to know how my mom died for fear it might make me emotional. I tell him it's okay and fourteen years has made me used to the idea if not too thrilled about it. He says let it happen naturally. I want to deal him: it's death talk. It's a stilted monologue. No matter how casually I say it, you will feel bad for me to some extent. You won't know what to say. You'll be scared I'll start crying. An intrinsic part of me that has largely shaped my insides and the way I perceive absolutely everything will be lost to you until you deem yourself, not me, ready to hear it. And there's nothing I can do about that.

My dad has a hard time standing and sitting these days. As if sleeping in adult diapers wasn't humbling enough, my dad will shortly go the way of my grandmother: needing a supportive arm on either side to move him from couch to dinner table. From dinner table to bathroom. From bathroom to bed. Well, maybe the diapers will take care of some of that. He has taken to sitting in folding chairs without cushions. Not comfortable but infinitely easier to move from than his plush couches that I immediately fall asleep in when I visit his Battery Park apartment. In his new rental in Florida, he bought himself a gorgeous couch that he will probably never sit in. When I voice concern and disappointment for him, he's so calm: "It's not the end of the world, Kad." And somehow I just feel worse, realizing that the day will come when I will be okay with not being mobile. How do you make your peace with that? Going up and down stairs now, I feel the twinges in my knees, worse on rainy days and I fear what the the next forty years will bring to my damaged joints.

On a happy note, having a problem taking a dookie at work. A cleaning guy was waiting for me to exit to do his midday cleaning in the ladies room. Nothing like having a small Mexican wielding a mop to put the pressure on you to take a quick dump.

Cookin' with Katherine

That would be the name of my cooking show. Although lately I only seem to make food that gives me severe gas. I recently farted while leaving a message on my boss's desk. I had just eaten red beans and rice with kielbasa. Not such a good idea. Delicious as it was going down . . yikes!

I wish I had some pearls of wisdom to dole out. I've come to the realization that sometimes, and perhaps it's just the happy pills talking, you can enjoy some peace. As I sit here farting away in my last hour of work, I get a call from Liz Lewis asking me to audition for a Church's Chicken commercial. So weird. And my grad school deadline to NYU got extended, leaving me free to do my personal statement over the weekend rather than over my lunch hour at work.

Wow, really need to stop farting.

I don't know Jack.

The eve of New Years Eve, I had many drinks with my old co-worker and his friend. First we drank at the Social on 9th ave. in my hood, then we went to Private Eyes, one of the better strip clubs in the city. Friend bought me a massage ("You're a tight one!" she said) and a lap dance. Gotta say: I had a blast. Friend took off and my drunk ass and Co-worker went to yet another bar, the name of which I don't recall. Co-worker bought us more beers and some oysters. When we went down we chainsmoked outside the mystery bar and talked. His girlfriend of two years wants him to marry him. He doesn't want to marry her but he is interested in me. I was surprised. He's ten years older, a divorcee, and until the strip club adventure, didn't really know me outside the realm of the crappy temp job we shared for about three years. I found myself flattered and nervous but undeniably not interested. I gave him every reason for why he shouldn't date me. Even went so far as to point him in the direction of my ex-boyfriend: "Ask him. He'll make you feel much better."

Now he's calling me. Wants an "experimental date." Meanwhile, I'm oddly flattered but utterly enchanted with someone else. Also: he wants kids. Soon. Me? Not so much.