MILF Fever

One of my brother’s best friends has the hottest, most charming, delightfully flirtatious mother E V E R.  This lady is seriously killing me.  She gets me all drunk on tequila and touches her chest/plays with her hair a lot, while telling me about how she fondly recalls her days at all-girls college in Connecticut.   Clearly, it’s all innocent flirting, and I’m not trying to holler, but I always walk away from her with ants in my pants.  And so SR gets my vote as Top MILF, with her enviable house, her prestigious job, her almost-famous (totally rad) musician husband, and her Bond-girl hair working together to make me blush when she puts her hand on my arm for emphasis.   Mmmm. 

I got a job offer at a local university in the newly-remodeled theater department.  I don’t know what I’m going to do yet–keep on with the scribe gig, or sew and paint and be all stressed and harried and tired and sore all the time.  Also, it would alter the timeline of my return to Asheville, and that makes me uncomfortable.  It’s a good problem; a year ago, I was sweating having zero jobs, and now I’m going to have to decide between two good jobs that I enjoy, and both pay decently.  Some who? 

I met a rollergirl that teaches school and designs sets on the side.  She was friendly and interesting and funny, and she has this incredible stripe of silver in her hair that might be natural or it could be a dye job because it’s so strategic and flattering.  She asked for my number.   I hope she calls!

Mary McCormack, Come Back to TV Now

Now that I’ve cycled through every. single. episode of Law and Order: SVU to see each piece of leather clothing Mariska Hargitay’s stylist can put her in, I’ve moved onto blonder pastures.  It seems USA has cornered my market in celebrities to fantasize about, this most recent incarnation in the form of Federal Agent Mary Shannon on In Plain Sight.  Seriously, this woman is smoking hot, and my lawd, she’s sassy and spunky and all honest and reliable and she carries a gun and wears leather jackets all the time.  Once again, I find myself wishing for a (ficitional) lethal lady to keep me warm at night.

I wish I knew what it was exactly about me and these authoritative women with gun permits (all imaginary, of course).  I would guess it has something to do with falling victim to the ultimate male fantasy ala Tomb Raider and a host of other TV shows and video games that pair big-busted women with large weapons.  I can’t help that I think it’s so hot; I only know that I like it, which is odd, because I’m mostly a pacifist that is mostly anti-weapon.  Maybe it’s an illusion of safety, like…if I dated a woman that was skilled in self-defense and taking care of perps, I’d never have to worry about somebody getting me in my sleep.  I dunno.   Maybe it simply comes down to the fact that I find self-possessed, strong, brave women immensely attractive.

And I’m sure the fact that Mary McCormack and Mariska Hargitay are both incredible specimens of the female form has something to do with it all.

Man, I want a girlfriend.

My bad?

I think I may or may not have played a role in triggering a full-on midlife crisis with The Mechanic.  I got an email telling me that she’s fully addicted to me, all over again.  When I suggested maybe we just get it out of our system, she responded that that was a foolish idea (which, of course, it is), but that’s neither a yes or a no.  So I guess I’m going to have to make that call, and that’d be a no.  I don’t want to be a homewrecker, and I don’t want the same relationship we already had before; I know how that story goes.

Besides, I have a date this weekend with someone I think I could maybe really like, with whom I have no prior, loaded history.  We seem to have a lot in common.  We’ll see what happens.   She makes me laugh, and I like that.

Dating sure does get harder the older I get.  No two ways about that.  I have no problem making new friends, but where to meet eligible women around here is a friggin mystery.   Of course I have to go back to Asheville to go on a date with someone interesting, attractive, and gay.  Ces’t la vie.

Fortification Station

I’m all shades of fired up after a day of having to carefully listen with painstaking attention to Newt Gingrich.  Sometimes transcription can be brutal.  I could seriously feel my heart beat in my temples on several occasions from the sheer rage…and I have picture-perfect blood pressure, normally.  The hate and the lies and the propaganda and the fear-mongering and the smug nature of all it, wrapped into this psuedo-patriotic, moral package; it’s sickening. 

On days like today, it burns me to think that I signed my soul away to The Man in lengthy confidentiality agreements.  I mean, I’m seriously scared of the reprecussions of sharing, and given the subject matter of what I transcribe, I’d guess it’s not the craziest thing in the world to think I’m probably on a watch-list somewhere.  Kind of a catch-22 to know so many weird/bad/ugly/dishonest/shameful things about the corporations that run the show…and just have to sit on it.  It’s hard though, when the weight of it all starts to make me feel like I just want to hit my head on something until I fall asleep to no dreams.  This is probably why I can’t sleep–my eyes are open so far, they have a hard time closing. 

How in the fuck did I get this job?  Ha.  It’s so strange, some days; our tiny little office full of miscreants, dutifully transferring words to paper for the Big Guns, all of us inflamed.  My boss runs a late-night jazz radio station, and everyone’s known each other for years, and we’re all really concerned about grammar and punctuation.  And the ramifications of secret global practices and philosophies.  (sigh)

Suffice it to say, whatever you might think about where industry, commerce, oil, arms, food, religion, financial, pharma and a technologically-induced disconnect are leading us, sickened and weak and somehow dehumanized, you’re totally right.  Times 34.  The thing I grapple with the most is how calculating and thoughtful The Machine has been with orchestrating this global existence.  Greed scares me more than any other flaw.  Fear is the ultimate money-maker, opinion-swayer, and they’ve mastered it, driven by greed.  How much does any one person really need?  Is there a difference between 30 million and 300 million, really? 

They’ve gotten to me, too; I feel the fear.  But I’m not scared of terrrrrrrists or universal healthcare turning me commie or heathens killing God in my backyard; I’m scared of the fact that the road that 1% of the American population would have 99% of us walk can only lead to our ultimate demise as a world power, and a civilized nation.  The clock’s ticking, in so many ways, with the cancers from the foods we eat, and drugs they would shove at us while refusing us basic, affordable healthcare, and the weather that will just keep getting more extreme, and the war the war this war that war, and our resources drying up, as the population explodes into a society with a faltering education system.  The black-hating, immigrant-hating, gay-hating, mysoginists puppeteer our ‘better world’, all the while keeping an Orwellian-intrusive watchful eye on those who disagree.  They strive for a paved world, where everyone loves Jesus Christ Amen, and has an SVU or two to park in the tidy subdivision, wherein you live by the light of the TV and grill Bubba Burgers with your sanitized neighbors…unless you don’t; in which case, fuck you.  You clealry hate America.  

The upside of being privy to all this insight, via MP3, is that my long-held paranoid distrust has been validated, and now I don’t have to feel so crazy anymore that I’m slowly but surely starting to think in a long-term survival mode, realizing that I should know how to make things work in the absence of power tools, electricity, or a GPS signal to guide the way.  Ya know, just in case.   I feel like if I want to eat chicken occasionally, I had better know that I can raise it, and then muster the intestinal fortitude to pop that sucker’s head off, myself.  Some days, I feel so much sorrow to know that I am watching the slow slide to something different, something that’s going to be very hard, and very ugly, for a great many people, for a very long time.  The strange part of the equation is that I am entirely optimistic that after the hump, life will regulate, and rebuilding will begin.  I just wish I didn’t think that we will have to slog through some medieval shit to get people living right again.  But I think we will. 

Could be the impending eruption of Yellowstone, could be the statistically long-overdue plague, could be the continental ice shelf making it’s way down to Maryland, could be a civil war, could be a large-scale invasion from the east, could be a bomb.  There’s just no telling, really. 

I might be crazy, who knows, but I’m smart, and I’m observant, and I feel more tuned in and aware than the Gen Pop, on any given day.  There is a liberation mixed in with all this apocalyptic doomsday rhetoric; if we’re all living on borrowed time, we had damn well better do what we know is good and right and happy and fulfilling, while we can.  I have great hope that a better world is around a few corners, but I’m not looking forward to the journey through the rubble. 

xoxo

From the Way Back

When I was 16, I feel wildly in love with a woman far too old for me.  Problematically, she fell wildly in love with me, too.  She took the high road, because she is a good person, and she knew it wouldn’t end well on a wide variety of levels, and so we tortured ourselves for a year and a half until I found Percoset and forgot about forbidden love.  Soon after, she moved away, and we haven’t seen each other or spoken since.

Oh, Facebook, the curve balls you deliver.

And so, 15+ years after meeting The Mechanic, there she is again, in pictures and words; ones and zeroes, instead of Fawcett hair and grease-stained fingernails, live in person.  We have been emailing back and forth.  A lot.  Apparently, there are some unresolved feelings hanging static between us.  This couldn’t have surprised me more.  I have rarely thought of her this last decade, and now I find myself day dreaming, again.  These are dangerous waters we’re treading, she and I, tidal pools best left undisturbed, and yet, here we are again, exchanging heartfelt emails packed with innuendo, lamenting years missed, and rejoicing in our reconnection.  Communicating with her again has filled me with an undeniable cheer.

She’s married with children.  She misses sex with women.  She’s 40.  There is no future for us.  And yet.  And yet.

(sigh)

I can’t tell if this is just about sex, finally consummating a Victorian love affair now nearly 16 years in the past, or if it’s something more; a longing for the strange purity of what we had back then: Two people bound together by common interests, passions, dreams, ideals, and how we made each other laugh, untainted by the exchange of fluids, and the expectations and ramifications contained therein.  She was a good friend to me, and I am glad to have that back, but it’s always been so loaded with us.  I’m just not sure that if 16 years hasn’t erased the feelings, anything ever will.  I’m worried we’re going to do it all over again, fall in love from afar, and drive each other wild until one of us simply can’t stand the frustration, and walk away, once more.  I know I should stay back. I know I should, but she excites me, still.

I’m not morally bankrupt, however, and it seems to be my turn to take the high road, much as it pains me.  Oh, my sweet Mechanic, destined to be star-crossed forever.

I’ve been cheating on you, WordPress.

I’ve been keeping another blog for a few weeks now.  It’s a group blog, and it’s entirely dedicated to myself and a group of my friends in our quest to lose weight.  Part of me is screaming, delete this now! because as part of our motivation, we have been posting our weight and measurements whenever we can force ourselves to do so.  Right now, this minute, I am figuring if our readership goes up, hopefully my numbers will go down, out of sheer mortification of knowing that all of you, dear friends, are privy to the actual volume of my fat ass.  My blog partners may not approve of this particular move, but…I’m not going to tell them.  We have always joked that maybe this will end in a book deal, or some broader, inspirational network, so come on over and check us out at www.back-that-ass-up.blogspot.com And please, don’t judge.  We’re trying real hard, here.  (And if anyone wants in, holler!)  I won’t be linking this blog to that one, from the other site, in an attempt to retain some level of anonymity here…

Door Closes, Window Opens

Yeah, you’ve heard it before, but this time I mean it.  I’m coming home.  Sometime between August and October, I’m moving back to Asheville.  I could list all the reasons that everything makes sense all of a sudden, but I’ll just say this:  Asheville has been my true north ever since I left six years ago, and I’m tired of resisting the pull.  I have threatened to move back many, many times, but this time it’s different.  This time I mean it.

I think somewhere in the back of my mind, I have been afraid of taking a backward step, back to Asheville.  It wasn’t until this weekend that I realized a backward step is impossible, because I’m moving forward, moving towards something there, as a different person than when I left.  That smells like forward progression to me, just a step towards the city I love best; Asheville feels right to me, and I am right for Asheville.  There will be a film production company; the pieces are already in place.  Verified and agreed upon; script-writers, director, cinematographer, equipment, and the whispers of potential funding sources.  Game on, Asheville.  So the project continues, only the location has changed.  And I already know it’s the right decision.

It’s the only decision that makes sense, really.

Also, I love Jeff Bridges.  The Dude abides.

Writing for Writers Block is like Dancing About Architecture

I’ve hit a wall with the script.  It’s so gosh-darned good thus far, and I think I am cramped up with trying to make it perfect the first time around, edits be damned! that I have inadvertantly set myself up for finger-biting agony for the duration of this process.  So I’m trying not to force, and make myself crazy, but I’ve set this mandatory one-hour writing block per day, and so here I am again, Dear Reader, expounding on almost nothing, for your enjoyment? 

Okay, so the truth is there are lots of snags in my plan.  My confidence in my ability to accomplish this wild feat of making a movie  is unflagging, but man oh man, it’s a complicated affair.  There is so much that I don’t know about business, I’m not even always sure where to start with my questions.   Right now, I am focusing on creating a mission statement, understanding what a business is really composed of, as it pertains to the entertainment industry, and then figuring out where to find those elusive Numbers.  Additionally, trying to realistically understand the barebones crew I will have to have, and how much money the people and the supplies will cost me, based on how much time it’s going to take us–it’s mind-boggling.  I will, however, figure it all out, and write a delightful little script, in the meantime. 

There are resources, so many resources; the second I decided what I really ought to be doing, really and truly, these people essentially start tumbling out of the woodwork with their Connections and their Good Ideas.  It’s like the universe wants me to make a movie or something.  But it’s scary, and I’m tired, and it’s so burdensome being poor when trying to do Something Big.  Kevin Smith did it with his credit cards, so can I.  Heh heh.  I’ve spent my entire adult life with no credit, disabling me to receive any credit, and now my big plan is to max that shit out the second I can?  Yes, quite likely.  Maybe I am a gambler, after all. 

So many answers I need are dictated by location, and that is another snag in my master plan.  I’m in love with Albuquerque, NM, and this morning I woke up thinking, there is no way in Hell I’m moving all the way to the southwest to undertake a venture that requires a network of people–I can’t do this alone, that’s for certain–and I’m going to sacrfice a network of 400+ in my time zone, for a network of 4 with a possible fifth?  It doesn’t make sense by the light of this day. 

Is it simply cold feet about moving three days drive away from 99.2% of the people I love the most?  Could be.  Is it the knowledge that North Carolina is the jam, packed with awesome people, diverse topography and mostly mild weather?  Yep.  Or maybe it’s the business know-how I’m acquiring free of charge, every day at work–see, how it works is, the most profitable, prolific businesses in the world pay these local folks to give their upper level executives 90-minute business seminars.  They bring in best-selling authors and CEOs and motivational statisticians to energize and inspire management, training them all in how to facilitate dynamic relationships that will increase efficacy and innovation.  There’s a whole bunch of sensitivity trainings and quizzes on how to be more likeable that I have to wade through, as well, like the dutiful scribe I am, but between that stuff, I get to hear the Big Guys tell other people the secrets of their success.  Almost as value as a semsesters worth of MBA, I’d wager.  Maybe more. 

The thing I keep hearing over and over is that it’s all about network, the team, team-building, team-diversifying, and what I can’t escape all day today is that my team is here.   An important part of my team is Over There in the mesas, but a giant majority of my team is right here on the East Coast.  I think for me to be successful, I need to stay where my team is. 

And she changes her mind again.  Shocking.

I’m getting to that point in my life where I almost get embarrassed to tell people, no, I’m not doing that thing that I thought I was going to be doing, after all.  I’m gonna do this other thing over here, and see what happens.  I’m mostly happy, so I guess that counts for something in the midst of all that uncertainty, but man! it would feel good to just go ahead and dig in.  My generation is different from all the ones that come before in that we are the first that have held an average of 3.5 jobs with the first five years after college.  Our parents might have had some career changes in their day, but it was the norm to hop on after you got out of college, and ride it until you retired, whatever it may be for each individual.  Not us.  We hop around, our ADD driving us to always be engaged, no coasting.  No settling.  We can be anything.  We can do anything.  The world is oyster. 

There are sacrifices, though.  Stability seems to be in short supply with a lot of folks these days, myself surely included.  I’m just not where I thought I would be, you know?  And that’s okay; my life is rich and entertaining, busy and beautiful.  I wouldn’t trade it, I don’t think.   There are just so many decisions; do I stay or do I go?  Do I focus on getting the money to make the art, or making the art to get the money?  How can I do both at once? 

My valerian tea just kicked it.  ‘Nite nite.

If I Can’t Think of a Good Title, What Hope is There for a Good Post?

It was brought to my attention last weekend that I don’t update my blog enough.  My bad. 

I’ve been saving up all my writing energy of late to focus up on the screenplay I’m currently crafting…paragraph by pain-staking paragraph.   However, tonight, I’m not feeling particularly inspired to write like my career longevity depends on it, and so…a blog post. 

Funny, my head is full all day of humorous, amazing or disgusting things I’d like to tell someone…and now I draw a blank.  (sigh) 

I’ve gained weight for the first time since my surgery.  Six miserable pounds backwards.  As it is the holiday season, I am trying not to engage in self-flagellation and too much criticism, but it scares me, all the same.  I can see it in my face, and feel it in my…everywhere…and it’s scary.  The weight loss had pretty much stopped, much to my chagrin, as I am still exercising more than I ever have, and eating light and right, mostly…but I’ve found creative ways to cheat, and I need to quit that shit.  I need to quit drinking alcohol, is what I need to do.  That little addition after nine months, cocktail-free, immediately slowed the weight loss down from 4 lbs. a week to the one.  I have faith almost all the time that I will, in fact, lose the rest of the weight, and I try real hard to remember that most people take three or four years to reach their desired results with the Lap-band, but still, I’m uneasy. 

I had a pretty incredible, action-packed weekend in Asheville.  I saw so many people I’ve missed, and I saw the funniest comedy I’ve seen in years (mad props to the ladies at LYLAS–I laughed for an hour straight, literally), and I had a delcious dinner at Mela with BMW, which was totally pleasant and comfortably platonic–exactly where we need to keep it.  I ate too much cake, which was awesome, and I watched Jason In Space, which is arguably the most hilarious of the entire franchise.  I caught up with my dear, dear, dear friend, a member of the LYLAS troupe, and spied on her beautiful, sleeping children in her ever-expanding house in West Asheville, and we laughed hard at volume two while the babes snoozed away.  God, I miss her.  I went to the Big Crafty, which was a claustrophobic nightmare full of too many things I wanted to buy.  The $20 spending cap I’d imposed upon myself was cleaned out in less than six minutes.  It was time for a new knit hat; I buy one every other winter. 

I also got ballsy and asked out someone I’ve never met, based on her performance Saturday night, and the fact that the only info in her bio was that she is single.  She said yes, which I think is good.  Or crazy.  But either way, she’s hot and funny, and I’m coming back to Asheville soon.  As one of my best friends is in her profile picture on the FB, somehow it feels less bizarre to me, less like internet-inspired dating.  We’re not friends in ‘real’ life, but we’re friends on Facebook.   We shall see…

I got 100 mint-condition Garbage Pail Kids in the mail yesterday, all pre-dating 1987.  Someone take my internet shopping privileges away, please!  For the love of Dog. 

Not much to report, really, reading back over this.  I’m just hustlin’, as always, tryin’ to make  a buck and be happy.  Happy, check; buck, in progress.

And another one bites the dust…

So I went to Durham to hang out with my girlfriend of six weeks, this past Friday.  On the way there, I had a funny feeling, like I really wanted to be at home instead of heading towards her fancy, Fort Knox-esque apartment building, for an evening of shitty chinese food, and no laughs.  Alas, that is exactly what I was in for, which culminated in my decision that we shouldn’t see each other anymore.  Shame, really; she is just so good on paper, and yet…something was missing.  And I realized that a lot about her irritated me, things that no one should hold against anyone else.  So I dipped.  She was upset, more so than I even thought was reasonable, which only reinforced my decision–she is entirely too sensitive for the likes of me, which is one of the largest contributing factors in the demise. 

And now, after six short weeks of some laughs and some sex, I’m happily single again…this time sticking to my guns about my resolution not to get involved with anyone until I have sorted my life out a bit better, and gotten a handle on a few crucial issues that have plauged my relationships in the past. 

Also, when she asked me what my views on monogamy were, all I could think was that if Dark Roast/Black Magic Woman and I had dinner that led to bed, I wouldn’t say no, or stop myself…a good sign that she wasn’t the woman I’ve always wanted.  I have a theory that when I finally find her, I won’t always wonder if the grass is greener; I’ll know it’s green enough right where I am. 

C’est la vie.