See my hangover girl/She waters down the rain when I get home

I am, in a word, hungover. I painted for the first time in over ten years last night. It was awesome. I also got a bit inebriated. And I was with good people, listening to good music and watching good TV, eating rather good jalapeno hummus which has contributed to my rather intense beer shits today, two so far.
Dear god.
I wear a bathing suit for the first time in over a year on saturday. And when I wore it last summer, it was the first time in over five years. Christ. I need some pantaloons or similar. That's how much I hate my lower half and the wrinkled flesh that hangs just over my knees, the possibilities of a mini skirt dashed to the ground along with any hopes for not turning into my mother of the bunioned feet and dimpled thighs. (Sorry, Mom).
I do remember the first and only time I saw my mom naked. I think I could've handled it except for, well, the bush. It was massive and dark and scary.
"Well, excuse me!" my mom said, watching me stare.
I'd never seen such a thing before. It frightened me. I had to look away, even if my mom hadn't been embarrassed.
I'm suddenly horrified that I'm typing about my dead mother's pubes. Yikes.

Wise cheese doodles

On a daily basis, I email with my friend Tim. About once a week, depending upon any number of factors, the weather included, I turn to him for guidance about any number of things. More often than not, men and matters of the heart are hot topics. Or hot pockets, should Jim Gaffigan come into play, as he often does.

Today he shared with me the following and I shall attempt to hold it close when the dark thoughts knock around my head as is their wont:

(from a letter by Henry James to his friend Grace Norton)

"Only don't, I beseech you, generalize too muchin these sympathies and tendernesses -- remember that every life is a special problem which is not yours but another's, and content yourself with the terrible algebra of your own. Don't melt too much into the universe, but be as solid and dense and fixed as you can. We all live together, and those of us who love and know live so most. We help each other -- even unconsciously, each in our own effort, we lighten the effort of others to live. Sorrow comes in great waves.... It wears us, uses us, but we wear it and use it in return; and it is blind, whereas we after a manner see."

Pretty fucking genius if you ask me. And lest any of my other friends who are not Tim feel that their wisdom has gone unrecognized . . . oh, don't you worry.

Rush rush . . .hurry lover come to me

Sorry, I was listening to "Pure 90s" at work today and this Paula Abdul favorite is on it. I'm a lil tipsy, I'm not going to lie to you, dear readers. i spent about 5 days with my family. And it was great. But for some reason, I needed to celebrate my homecoming with some wine. In such situations, I traditionally call my friend Virginia. She also drinks wine by herself. We call each other when drinking wine to convince each other, "if I'm talking to you, I'm not drinking alone."

I tell myself my vision is a little blurry at the moment because the prescription on these glasses is weak and I daresay, that's part of it. The other part is the heat of August in New York and about 3 glasses of pinot grigio. I'm working on a one-woman show and I'm scared. Scared of failure . . . probably not. I've done much worse theater than this. Scared of exposing this much of myself and making it precious? Yes indeed. I hope for it to harness some sort of universal truth and thus be acerbic and smart and hit some chord within the heart of the masses.

To be more truthful, I just hope it doesn't suck. Ain't no characters here. Just the story of me, my dad and his dog and a couple of douchebags thrown in for good measure.

In the meantime, I toss shredded cheddar cheese on microwave popcorn and sip pinot grigio, banging out draft after draft to the tune of "Rockstar: Inxs" and again mourn for the loss of Dave Navarro's heterosexuality.

Strip the color from the meat of my eye

Sorry, got Archers on the brain lately.

Last night I was at the Mets/Pirates game. Four boys, barely 15, sat in front of me. What killed me is that they were yelling things like:

"You fag! You pussyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" at the top of their lungs and yet their voices hadn't even changed yet. They were breaking all over the place. I'd seen them smoking cigs just outside the stadium. They were the sorts of boys who wouldn't talk to me when I was at that ever-awkward age. Their skin was shiny. Their hair was carefully coiffed. Two of them had clearly bleached their shiny straight locks. They were skinny, not even on the brink of broadening out. One of them, the one most adamant about calling any given Pirate a pussy, had his shorts down to his mid things, his entire boxer-clad ass hanging out.

After several people around me asked him to shut up, Assboy promptly lit up a cigarette. His friends laughed at him. He was asked to put it out. He asked me if I'd buy him a beer.

Later in the game, he stood up and yelled "PUSSY!" his little voice cracked. I couldn't take it anymore.

"WILL YOU PULL YOUR FUCKING PANTS UP?!!!!!" I yelled at him, my voice a full octave lower than his.

Several people clapped and laughed.

"She has a point," one guy behind me yelled.

The boy looked embarrassed and pulled his shorts up. One of his friends pulled them back down. At the end of the game, the alpha male of the group, a guy in a blue oxford, khaki shorts, long hair pulled back with expensive sunglasses and white socks in flipflops shook my hand and said "sorry about my friend."

"It's fine."

Then Assboy tried to apologize. I waved him off.

"Man, that's fucked up."

No More Fatty Day and the Spineless

No More Fatty Day was a raging success, dear readers. Grilled vegetables, a little mozz and tomato, some salmon, some chicken, some taco dip (Nic, everyone wants that recipe. Do send around straightaway, por favor. Like a good Mexican.) A shocking amount of beer and wine (thanks, all!) Good people all in one room who all seemed to like each other. (if I'm wrong, please don't tell me). I don't think I've had such a dorky and continuous grin on my face in years.

I'm into song lyrics these days that have the word spine in them. Perhaps because I've dated so many spineless tools. Or, perhaps because I couldn't feel their spines through the layers of haircovered blubber.

(Neutral Millk Hotel)
Two headed boy
With pulleys and weights
Creating a radio played just for two
In the parlor with a moon across her face
And through the music he sweetly displays
Silver speakers that sparkle all day
Made for his lover who's floating and choking with her hands across her face
And in the dark we will take off our clothes
And they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine

(Archers of Loaf)
Stuck a pin in your backbone.
Spoke it down from there.
All I ever wanted was to be your spine.
Lost your friction and you slid for a mile.
Overdone, overdrive, overlive, override.
You're not the one who let me down,
But thanks for offering.
It's not a voice and I'm not around.
But thanks for picking it...


(Bjork)
I adore
Back of necks
Beautifully shaven
Gives me
Always, always, always, always ...
A pretty rash down my spine

All those boys
With fascinating fingers
Working creating
Touching their tools
Gives me
Always, always, always, always ...
A pretty rash down my spine

(Filmmaker)
I've been going out, when you're coming in
I've been waiting here for you.
As we go out cowards, we come back kings.
I didn't have the spine to say what you didn't have the heart to ask.

Okay, so they're not all winners.

Fucking Nemo

On Saturday night, I got into a heated debate at the bar called Tom and Jerry on the lower east side. There I was, outside with a few peeps when the godawful Disney/Pixar sugarcoated waterventure, "Finding Nemo," came up.

My issues with this bullshit excuse of a film are many:

Just before Nemo is born, his mother and all his little brothers/sisters are eaten. Nemo is born into the ocean without mother or siblings and with a bum flipper to boot. Rebelling against his understandably overprotective father, Nemo is lost in the ocean and separated from his father only to end up in a dentist office fishtank with no hope of reunion. Although the film has a "happy ending" involving Nemo's widower father potentially shacking up with another fish, I hardly think it's children's fare.

"Oh, but it's a growth process!"

That's what people tell me. The thing is . . . both Nemo and his father are already in the throes of a growth process at the top of the movie. There's no need to separate them further and have them risk death to find each other again. The trauma they've both endured, coupled with the weak flipper, has already cemented them as survivors. Haven't they suffered enough?

"You're taking it too literally!"

I'm gonna play the dead mom card on this one. Forgive me. It is my feeling that Nemo has already been thrust into the world of adulthood at a very early age. His family, potentially 200 fish strong, was shot to two in a split second. He feels the reverberations of that tragedy every day when he wakes up and swims with his fucked up flipper. There is no need for him to then be separated from his father and endure the danger of the ocean with his limited means. His father, in turn, has lost his wife and all of his children, save the cripple. He's already got a full hand with which he must deal. "Finding Nemo" is Disney's interpretation of "Dancer in the Dark" but with the aforementioned "happy ending."

I think it was a tragedy that this horrific film won the Oscar for Best Animation over the superbly crafted, beautifully woven "Triplets of Belleville." I can't believe people show this tragedy to their children. In my opinion, it is horribly inappropriate.

Picture it. Harrisonburg, 1996.

One of my favorite songs ever is "Web in Front" by Archers of Loaf. I've never, ever known the lyrics to it or the origin of the titled. Below are some of the best lyrics ever in my opinion.

And a mouth kept shut and a tongue twist tie.
You're the web in front, you're the favorite lie.
You're a buck my lip, you're a lash my lie.
You're the web in front of a favorite lie.

Ogling pots

Sorry, Tim, I stole that phrase from you.

So, I'm not gonna lie to you, I'm looking pretty good today. In that, Margaret "Hotlips" Houlihan, first-season-of-MASH-kinda-way. Cute shirt, cute pants that flare out at the bottom, cute summer shoes with a platform heel made of cork. That being said, I go downstairs to drop something off with a co-worker and pick something up from said co-worker and he looks me UP AND DOWN.

"Hey, I'm just dropping this tape off."
"Wow, you look . . . GREAT."
"Oh, um, thanks."
"I mean, wow."
"thanks."
"Wow, I'm just completely ogling you. And now I'm telling you I'm ogling you."
"Lisa said you had a couple CDs and a tape?"
"Oh, yeah, they're over here."
"Great, thanks."
"Please, feel free to come by later and walk around some more."

Ew. Ew. Ew.

Admittedly, at some point in time, he and I had a flirtatious non-relationship going on but it ending up going nowhere and now I'm neither interested nor available. So, even further . . .

Ew. Ew. Ew.

Me, my drums and you

So, I've been watching a lot of movies lately. A lot of movies. Here are some gems that I recommend:

Unfaithful
High Art
Giant
Freaks


The first two contain very little dialogue and were shot beautifully. And the sex scenes you ask? Not too shabby. And High Art is about lesbians on drugs and was shot almost entirely in Williamsburg, NY. Giant is the epic starring James Dean, Liz Taylor and Rock Hudson. Freaks, starring real circus performers (not actors), will fuck your shit up. Bearded ladies, midgets, dwarfs, hermaphrodites . . . it is beyond disturbing. And quite brilliant.

I have a bad habit of ironing my clothes while I'm wearing them. Sitting at my computer, I stare down at the untoned flesh just above my left knee at the remains of last week's burn. It made sense to me at the time. I don't have an ironing board. And, I've seen costume designers do it. Yet, I suppose, their iron is more of a steamer and they're professionals and they're not wearing the clothes which require the ironing. I stand, half-asleep, just out of the shower, thinking, well, the front of my skirt is ironed rather nicely given the lack of ironing board, the back . . not so much, I'll just reach around and ow.ow.ow.

I've become deeply concerned about the roll of armpit flab I've developed. I'm confident I didn't have this roll as recently as last summer ... no, come to think of it, the roll began last summer. Now, the roll has come to fruition, to harvest in my armpit. I'm scared that once you have acquired the unfortunate armpit roll, you can't get rid of it. I tell myself that I've seen pregnant women with yoga arms and if they can have ripped arms, surely I can remedy this situation. I always told myself that no matter how dimpled and pasty my thighs became, I would at least have an attractive upper half. Now, I'm not so sure.

I've also been drinking a shocking amount of beer recently. The last year or so saw me blacking out repeatedly and making poor choices in terms of men and men-related activity. Hence, I've laid off the strong stuff and am only drinking beer and wine. I feel great about this decision but I have developed a bit of a paunch.

I'm going to shit, is what I'm saying, dear readers. The armpit flab leads to borderline BO. I attempt to cool down by drinking cold, delicious beer. Which makes me fatter and gives me more rolls in which to gather sweat and create additional borderline BO. Which makes me even more neurotic about my appearance and I iron my clothes while I'm wearing them. Surely, if my blouse is ironed, no one will notice the armpit roll just sneaking out of the sleeve.

Speaking of fat, I could really go for some sushi. But sushi is vaguely healthy, you say. But I love the philadelphia rolls: avacado, salmon, cream cheese nestled on a bed of white rice, dipped lovingly in sodium-laden soy sauce. Hmmm. Sodium.

One nice thing about the summer, besides iced coffee and pedicures, is that, if you lick someone's neck, it tastes like salt. It's sorta like doing part of a tequila shot. I like salt. Who needs a licking?

Fatties on ice

A week from today, I'm hosting No More Fatty Day, in honor of my one-year breakup with Fat Weekly. My friends actually requested this fiesta as they hated him. He was, indeed, a fat hairy slovenly douchebag who had a tendency to crap his pants regularly. I will serve fried, fatty foods prepared with much love for my poor friends who were subjected to his presence.

Last night I was outside, having a smoke, at Black & White when who appears before me? Fatrick McDouchebag. Dear god. He looked like a wrinkled asscracker. And he looked especially short and a bit hunched over. He didn't acknowledge me. I didn't acknowledge him. He was with two girls. One was a Gaf regular, much like Fatrick and myself. Weird. Weird. Weird.

So, I was checking out a guy on match.com for a friend. She had a date with him that night. Next thing I know, he's emailing me! (There's that wacky thing on match.com where you can see who's been checking you out). He writes "touch . . . don't look!" I respond that I have a boyfriend and am just checking him out on my friend's behalf. I know it was unnecessary but I said, "you're not my type."

And this was his reply:
a. who is your friend, I'll make sure not to bother with her
b. you have a boyfriend and your profile is on match..?? I feel sorry for him
c. not your type? only idiots have "types"..
d. you'd be worthless for more than a blast of cum in your face anyway... too old, too short.. and need to look up the definition of "slender" . .. don't think it includes pasty, fat legs . . .

My friend went out with him last night. He was a gentleman. Very cute, very charming. I'm content knowing she has a wicked ace up her sleeve for when he gets dicklike with her.

Kath's thoughts of the day

1) granola plus vanilla yogurt plus blueberries equals delicious
2) one of my favorite episodes of Seinfeld was on last night. Junior Mints. And Jerry dates a woman whose name rhymes with a part of the female bodypart. It takes him the entire episode to remember her name. It's Delores. (sp?). By then she's dumped him.
3) burgers, fries, shake plus good friends also equals delicious.
4) it's nice to know, on some level, that you and your friends share some of the same neuroses. you can kick each other in the ass that way.
5) sometimes, i worry too much. perhaps i should return to binge drinking. nah . .

Ah, Fatrick McDouchebag

The man previously referred to as Patty Mean in earlier posts shall hereafter be referred to as Fatrick McDouchebag, of the wifebeater-clad beergut and black backhair.

Said Fatrick recently called me "a very bitter and angry person" over IM'ing. I laughed out loud. His impetus for this verbal lashing of the IM variety, you ask? I chastised him for his overzealous use of exclamation points, referring to them as femmy and overused in written communication, much like the smiley face. I also suggested that he was femmy and overused. This brought me great joy.

I'm here to tell ya, folks. I don't think anger and bitterness are especially bad things. (Mind you, I'm giving Fatrick's statement far more creedence than it deserves). I am angry. I am bitter. I've been an extremely nice person for most of my life and where has it gotten me? Dicked over by more people than I can count, including two "best" friends, countless men and a priest.I've given people the benefit of the doubt, excused unacceptable behavior as a fluke rather than a pattern of douchitude and swallowed my pride in the name of politeness when I should've been biting someone's head off and/or kicking them in the groin.

That being said, I think I'm entitled to some anger, Fatrick. And why shouldn't I throw some of it your way? You pussed out on me when my dad was at his sickest, when I needed you, or at least the role you were claiming to fill, most. And if you didn't fuck someone else while we were dating, while you were professing how "into" me you were, you certainly got secretive/evasive/quiet on me all of the sudden. And if a guy you just started dating suddenly doesn't have his hands all over you, he's got 'em somewhere else. And where hands go, a dick surely follows.

And even now, when you claim that you want to grab a drink and catch up, you make no attempt to make that happen, knowing full well that you work across the street from me and we frequent the same bar in my neighborhood.

You, Fatrick McDouchebag, are a dick. And that's not bitterness and anger. That's just the truth. Clearly women in your past, probably not terribly intelligent ones, have allowed you to get away with such ridiculous behavior. It makes me laugh out loud.

May you find all the happiness you deserve, you fucking tool! :-)