Wednesday, April 30, 2003 Holy fucking shit, my thesis is due tomorrow.
"I loved it! I chuckled. I roared. I wept. It became a part of me. It's a must.....," America raved! ––From the cover of a 1964 edition of Up the Down Staircase
Ninety-five percent of everything is crap.––"Sturgeon's Law," by Theodore Sturgeon
Epigrams. Oh! Those epigrams. Crispy crunchy graham cereal, brand new breakfast treat.
The senior reading was last night. As far as The Money goes, it's something of an equivalent to the evening gown portion of the Miss America pageant. It doesn't tell you too much about who's going to win, but you can mentally make the first round of cuts.
A reporter from The Baltimore Sun was there, talking to all of us, trying to get a feel for what the atmosphere around here is really like in the weeks before they hand out the oversized novelty check. He seemed to take to Wong and I. This may be partially due to the fact that we said things like, "We want to win the money. " Rather than, "Gosh oh gee, Mister," (hairtwirl) "I, like don't think about it whatsoever." I feel that the kids who are saying that are lying. It may be sour grapes, because I wish I could forget about the fucking Money for maybe like five minutes, but as I said to Wong yesterday, it's really the delusions of grandeur that keep me going. Yesterday I caught myself worrying that I would look too awkward on the Today Show.
The paparazzi helped the illusion that I'm not a nobody from nowhere. Miss Lesch was onhand to photograph Wong and I talking shit about the other contenders (or complimenting them and biting our nails), and the Sun sent a photographer as well. I noticed that I was conspicously unphotographed. I tried not to take it as a sign of my inferior talent, and more as a sign that he was out of film.
There's probably going to be LOTS of blog entries today. I have a lot to put off. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/30/2003 07:32:00 AM
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Tuesday, April 29, 2003 [the]America[s'] favorite house guest
I was going to post some boring shit about the writing process, but then I was like, "No, actually, time for more star fucking .
An old friend I used to go to summer camp with throws a party every year. It's a week at her families 1930's era summer cabin in the mountains of North Carolina. It's often the highpoint of my year, and I couldn't tell you why, exactly. It's some combination of the pretty woods, the nice people, and the freakazoid. My friend doesn't do this on purpose, but every year, there's someone at the party who is not like the others.
For example, a few years ago, most of us were american college students, except for D., who was in his 40's and had just come back to the states from a monastery in Brazil. D.'s parents were missionaries who had raised D. and his brother A. in Brazil. The sons consider themselves absolutely Brazillian. Once I thought about that for a while, I felt really arrogant that I'd assumed they would consider themselves as being U.S. Americans.
Anyway, D. told us all about his life, at length, and at every oppourtunity. D.'s brother had gone on to become a pop star of some note, who was especially big in the 80's in Brazil. I was not impressed until D. mentioned his brother's cameo in Desperately Seeking Susan. Then I was totally impressed. His brother is the guy Madonna gets the key from in the bus station.
Anyway, D. has doen a little of this and that: settling mines in the Amazon basin (and later, giving preemptive lectures to anyone who doesn't grin happily at the news of this that they are arrogant fools and their country should stay out of the affairs of others.), pretentious art installations, talking. He's a good guy, who walks the fine line between entertaining and insufferable. What makes D. my hero, though, is his unmatched skill as a moocher.
Sometime in the last 20 years (I'm unclear on the exact time frame), D. walked up Caetano Veloso's steps, opened the door, and asked "OK, so which one's my room." This is the equivalent of say, me moving in with Bruce Springsteen (perish the thought. Ugh! Axle grease on everything.)
From what I understand, pop stars in Brazil are a much bigger deal than they are here, in terms of how much attention real people pay to them. They're more like popular poets. Or that's what I heard on NPR one time (Shut up, Miss Wong. You listen, too.)
Anyway, D. parked his butt in Caetano Veloso's house for about 10 years. After that, he was off to the monastery. Last I saw him, he was visiting a certain South African family whose son's not exactly unknown in showbiz himself.
Hats off, D., wherever you are. You are an inspiration to us all.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/29/2003 02:30:00 PM
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Monday, April 28, 2003 pow!
I crashed my car on Saturday, for no goddamn reason that I could see. It was, of course, and accident. I was driving to school in the rain, and I slipped on wet pavement and went off the road. I spun around somehow, and hit a ditch, and then bounced out of it backwards into an electric pole. Some friendly hunters (who may actually have been the same SUV that I thought I was drifting too close to when I overcorrected) stopped and called the cops, who called a tow-truck. I'm fine, except I feel like I've been doing lots of sit-ups the wrong way. The way where you're doing them with an anvil attached to your chest, for example.
I feel like a total dummie-head. Ever since I moved away from school, I lived in fear of something happening to my car and complicating the commute. Then, in the final week of classes I go ahead and wreck it. The hunters, who were generally kind of bloody minded, pronouced it totalled, but since they aren't insurance adjustors, they can go fuck themselves. I think they were kind of disappointed that no one was hurt. "Yeah, yeah, she's walking around," the one with the cellphone told the 911 operator. He sounded kind of bored.
The other one said, "Boy, you couldn't have done that again in a million years." I didn't ask why I would want to crash my car into a pole, but maybe he thought (as did the Class-Conscious Towtruck Drivers a few years ago) that since I was a student at The College, I got into whatever autotrouble as I did because I was too busy hurrying back to my sumptuous dorm to light cigars with hundred dollar bills and discuss self-actualization to pay attention to the rules of the road. He looked at the steaming wreck of my little car and said, "Wow, boy, if you'd hit there with your driver's door, you'd be dead."
Yes, Folksy-Joe Assbutt, and if I'd managed to stay on the goddamn road, I'd be igniting the day's first hundred dollar bill by now. I hate you. Oh, how I hate you.
The cop showed up. He was a nice guy, who had immaculately groomed eyebrows. I was Thisclose to asking him where he got them waxed, but it seemed inappropriate. We drove around trying to figure out which power company owned the pole I'd cracked, and then an apprently non- class-conscious towtruck driver showed up and towed my wreck away.
Enough of that though. On to:
More Starfucking!!!
A former boyfriend of mine went to college with Little Pete from The Adventures of Pete and Pete . He and little Pete didn't actually, like, "hang." Little Pete was too busy with his jam band, and having one night stands with girls who were doing him for the novelty value.
Tom Clancy's kid goes to my school. I want to protect his privacy, so I won't tell you his name, but his initials are T.C. . When he arrived at school my sophmore year, some friends and I hatched a get-rich quick scheme. We would make and sell "I fucked Tom Clancy's kid" t-shirts. We were going to do this without his permission, but then we thought, shit, if anybody at this school has armed goons at his disposal...So we ended up scheduling a lunch meeting about it. He nixed the proposal, since it was technically his father's name we would be using, and "Guys might wear it, and I wouldn't want people to think I was gay." So we had a yard sale instead. Tom Clancy's kid now wears goofy big pants .
Chocolate, a boy I dated when I was 15 was a stunt kid in an obscure straight-to-video production called Trading Moms that was filmed in Richmond. Chocolate got to drive a bus down Riverside Drive, a curving narrow road above steep ravines. Also, he got to play cards with Andre the Giant .
There are more, so many more, but I don't want to fuck all my stars at once.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/28/2003 12:46:00 PM
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Thursday, April 24, 2003 Starfucks and memories
In response to Helen's account of various brushes with death by glamour posioning she and her many, many friends have suffered, I've decided to post and solicit my own pathetic celebrity encounters.
* When I was 11, I went to the same pool as Some local TV anchorwoman
*When they were in middle school, some girls I was friends with for a while in highschool used to routinely call Billy Surf, the afternoon DJ for Q94, Richmond's top 40 station.
* I'm sure I will think of more tomorrow. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/24/2003 01:25:00 AM
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Sunday, April 20, 2003 Pretty pretty pretty
The drive to school is a pain in my butt because it's soo long, but now that it's getting to be really and incontrovertibly Spring, it almost feels like it's something I do for fun.
It makes me wish that I had some nice little children to tote around, because I pass so many things that are appealing to kids. One stretch has a tractor store, than a horse farm, than some fields covered with dandielions, and then more farms, some of which have shit like a trotting race track and mini horses. I never stop, because that would spoil it. Also, I'm kind freaked out by mini horses. A girl I used to go to school with trained them, and she told a really hair-raising story about a rogue mini.
Yeah, I giggled, too.
But this one was truly bad. When she tried to train it, it bit her hand and wouldn't let go. She was about 5'11, but it managed to pull her to the ground and drag her around the paddock. She had to get all kinds of surgery.
"That mini horse has gone rogue," she told the barn owners. "You should have it destroyed." They refused, but they promised her they would keep it for the rest of its natural life or have it put down rather than selling it to anyone unsuspecting.
Well.
She ended up having a falling-out with that barn, and she only learned the whole terrible story after it was much too late.
It seems the unscrupulous barn owners hit hard times, financially. They sold a lot of horses, and in order to have some much needed tax write-offs, theyd onated others to various organizations ("Hello, Goodwill? I have something for you, but it won't fit in the drop box.") Among the horses they gave away was the rogue mini.
They donated it to a petting zoo. Not three days later, a group of handicpaped children was visiting, and the terrible little horse ripped a little boy's arm off This kid already had to use a freakin' wheelchair, but these terrible people exposed him to a dangerous animal.
They probably didn't take it seriously, merely because the idea is so hilarious. Well ha freakin' ha. I bet that poor kid can only go in circles now.
Happy fucking Easter. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/20/2003 01:15:00 PM
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Friday, April 18, 2003 Serving the community through crime
It's been a couple days of bizarre surprises. This morning, for example, I went to the dentist for a filling, and ended up with a root canal. It wasn't as bad as I thought, and I was fascinated that dentists actually use dental dams. I thought it was just a polite fiction.
Still, it took a couple hours, and just about maxxed out my dental benefits for the year. After I graduate, I will have no more dental insurance. Whoopsie. Maybe eating Little Debbie products for breakfast every day for most of my childhood is coming back to haunt me in ways that have nothing to do with my biggie-sized ass. Oh, that's so going in my payback memoir.
The dentist, who is much more hulking, and yet somehow less creepy than my lifelong dentist, tried to relate to me on my level: he and the hygenist were heating the metal poker used to cut the little rubber strings they replaced my nerves with (yeah.). They were using a bic lighter to heat the poker, I was a little uneasy about that, and I must have communicated something with my limpid brown eyes, because Dr. Lurch turned to the hygenist and said, "She must think that she's at an encore of an April Laving show."
I decided I really, really liked Dr. Lurch.
I liked him even better when he explained that the temporary filling he put in meant that I had to be careful, "because right now, essentially, you have a hollow tooth." That's probably the single coolest aspect of my being right now. Spies should be the new pirates.
The big bizarre surprise came yesterday, though. It seems that I've been nominated for my school's community service award. I told my friend Miss Lesch, and she said "Do you do community service?"
The other people being nominated are the go-getters who are active in student government and routinely go and force games and activities on senior citizens. Me, I get arrested. That has to be why my name came up, but it still makes me giggle and giggle. Shit, I haven't even done my court ordered community service yet!
Well, I did house various vagrants in my dorm room off and on for the past couple years. That has to count for something.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/18/2003 01:03:00 PM
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Thursday, April 17, 2003 Cocka-doodle
It's morning! Time for me to act like a rooster and just yell and yell and yell for no goddamned reason. I really just can't stress this enough: roosters start a-crowin' whenever the mood hits them. They don't wait for dawn, or anything like that.
I just put my penultimate Pravda to bed. We had very little content, so there were a lot of rather large photos this week.
As I type this, it's time for me to be getting home, but a friend I'd been out of touch with for a while just IM'd me. Last summer, we would stay up late working on our own projects in our own states (he lives somewhere godforsaken.), and type away at each other. He knows and cares more about philosophy than I do, and I know more fart jokes or something.
It was nice to have someone to type to when I was trying to copy my first draft onto the computer. I'd written it in longhand, partially to fool myself into thinking that *maybe* it was good. My handwriting is barely legible, even to me, so I couldn't glance at the last sentence or paragraph I'd written and wince.
Also, I hated feeling tied to a computer, especially in the summer, when it was nice out. I liked to be ablr to write anywhere I went. Re-typing it was such a bitch, though.
Ah, meeemories. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/17/2003 03:44:00 AM
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Monday, April 14, 2003 blogger, why are you being a butt? posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/14/2003 03:21:00 PM
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"Have you grown in your work?"
It's getting closer and closer to time for me to put together my writing portfolio to try to win the coveted Catloving Spinster prize my school offers to *ahem* the graduating senior with the best literary instincts. I'm really tempted to include the stuff I wrote when I was about 10. I still think it's some of my best, and they did ask for an introductory essay about "the genesis of your work." My thesis involves a malcontented 12 year old, who shows up in the story by way of her old journals. When I look at my old stuff, I do feel like I've stumbled across another person, but one to whom I'm connected. Did that sound convincing? I hope so. I really want to add my weirdie kid's stories to my portfolio.
Here's one of the best, a series of letters and school assignments from a little boy much like the Little Precious I now live with.
My Favorite Place in the Whole House
By Billy Sugar, age six
My favorite place in the whole house is the dryer. This white metal palace of wonders has held me in its revolving trance ever since I was very young.
When I was just three (3) years old I watched my mommy clean the lint trap. I was hooked! At first I just learned to clean it myself (all the while hiding my booty under the bed––wasn’t Mommy surprised…), but after awhile I discovered its pleasure was two-fold. It happened quite by accident when I was four (4). Mommy had just started a load, and I was putting in the hallway rug to make more lint, and….Wheeee! I was sucked in. It was so much fun, just like the teacups at Disneyland.
Sometimes I just sit in it, and sometimes Mommy turns it on. She used to check to see if I was in it or not. Now she takes it for granted that I am.
Once after Sunday school, I decided to share the blisss. I brought my cat, Mr. Spanky, in with me. Then I had to go to The Emergency Room, for I was bleeding on the socks.
Pretty much the same thing happened when I brought my friend “Gordo” over to play. Except “Gordo” got stuck. Mommy and me didn’t notice. For five long hours. We had to call the fire department. They had to get the “Jaws of Life.” I even got to be on T.V.!! I don’t see “Gordo” any more.
Bye for now,
Billy
Billy’s Letters from Camp
Dear Mommy and Daddy,
I have completed that first magical day of camp. After you slowed the car down enough to give me that friendly shove au revoir, I wandered around until I found the new camper warden. I got assigned to cabin three (3). My counselor’s name is Pherd. Pherd is nice but sometimes he screams and howls and scratches his skin for no reason. Then he has to take some white powder medicine up his nose.
There are many nice people in my bunk. There used to be seven of us, but there are only six now. The seventh one was “Gordo.” You remember “Gordo”. He got stuck in the dryer and I got to be on T.V.! Anyway, as soon as I saw him, I ran up to him, kissed him on both cheeks, and yelled, “Hi, ‘Gordo’, remember me?!?”. When I did that, ol’ “Gordo” turned white as the proverbial sheet. He fainted. He had to go to the infirmary. The nurse called his parents. They came to pick “Gordo” up. They saw me. You should have heard the tires squeal.
Well, Pherd says that we have to go make bug juice.
Bye for now,
Billy
Hi Mommy, Daddy, and Mr. Spanky!
When I closed last, I had forgotten to tell you of my fourteen new friends. His real name is Timmy, But he claims that he has thirteen different personalities. He pushed me off the canoe dock. Actually, the personality who pushed me was named Eddy. But I digress. His personality named Phil is going to teach me how to build a real fire after lights out.
Sincerely,
Billy
Greetings Family,
Camp is lots of good clean fun. They make us do all kinds of things. We learned how to make lanyards in arts ‘n crafts. It is great fun. So far I have made seventeen lanyards. (Guess what you’re all getting for Christmas….)
Some people got to make wooden birdhouses while I was lanyarding. The counselor thinks that it is better if me and my friends stay away from sharp objects after the wood carving debacle.
There are only thirteen of my friend now––Howard turned against me, but I’m okay as long as he doesn’t surface. (When he does, he tries to scratch my eyes out.)
S.W.A.K.,
Billy
P.S. What is a lanyard? What does one do with a lanyard? The counselor won’t tell us.
The True Meaning of Christmas
This year for our X-mas extravaganza, our family went to the land of oranges and outsized roaches and talking cartoon characters. The place trip was great, but I had put all my free stuff in my little bag. Then I had to use my little bag.
We arrived at the airport, but by some bizarre twist of fate, I took the wrong bus. (Actually, Mommy said it was the right bus, but we all make mistakes.)
I was taken to a picturesque little area that I found out was called skid row.
Since I had lifted Mommy’s Mastercard, I had no trouble in finding motel accommodations. I chose the Hotel Coral Sleeping Camel Palm Mirage because I liked the name. I was thrilled to the marrow when I saw “Gordo’s” family’s car in the lot. It’s easy to recognize.
After “Gordo” and his family ran screaming. “Get thee away, Hellspawn” (That’s their pet name for me), I checked into my room, only to discover that I was thirsty. I decided to visit the bar. When I walked in the door, to what should my wondering eyes appear but……Santa Claus! I ran over to him immediately. There were a few things I wanted to ask about undelivered presents. I slowed down as I got closer. Not only was the stench almost overpowering, but Santa had a hook for a hand! Undaunted, I leapt into his lap. Santa had been asleep, and was not expecting me. I narrowly missed getting stabbed. After I calmed him down, he explained that he was not the real Santa Claus, but one of Santa’s helpers. He also said that he was homeless, wanted by the police, and that when he found the Santa Suit, he figured it was a good disguise.
I started to bawl. I was hoping he could give me stuff. He patted my head and told me not to cry. Then he gave me his hook! I gave him a hug and a kiss and three lanyards. He said, “Thanks, now what the @#$% are these things?!!” Just as I was about to tell him that he could hide from the fuzz at our house, the cops kicked in the door and arrested the Jolly Old Elf.
The last sight I saw was the paddy wagon pulling away. Santa was holding onto the bars with his hand, and waving his stump. He called, “Au revoir, Billy, I promise to look you up after I get out.”
Then Mommy and Daddy showed up and whisked me off to Disney World. I forgot everything, and only remembered this much after lots of therapy.
Tootles,
Billy
My Greatest Ambition
My greatest ambition is to own a laundromat.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/14/2003 02:42:00 PM
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Sunday, April 13, 2003 Dese nuts
Today I had to get up early, drive to school, sit through a meeting of the college's board, and introduce the new Pravda editor. (I only have two more issues to put out. Ever. Dude.) My original plan had been to get up not just early but butt-ass early, zip down the picturesque country lanes, and get a couple hours worth of steady work done on my novel before the meeting started. Instead, when the alarm went off, I got up to stop the noise, nearly lost my balance a couple times, looked around blearily, and decided that I would just work on my obligations *during* the meeting somehow, perhaps by re-writing entire chapters in longhand. I re-set the clock and stumbled back to bed.
The mate was awake, not because of the clock, but because he hadn't been to bed yet. Lately he's been on an absolutely bizarre sleep-wake schedule that means he and I are rarely sleeping at the same time. He told me the amusing things I'd said in my sleep, and I said some groggy morning-scented breathy sweet nothings and dozed intermittently until it was really, for real, time to go.
I threw on some clothes that seemed fairly respectable, including a skirt that would've pleased a fairly liberal amish woman (it was a little worldly, in that it was some kind of faux-satin, but It was basic black and came past my ankles.)
I got to school after a drive that, due to my new policy of obeying the speed limit, has become "painfully long" instead of "charming". The Board was still in executive session, so I stood around drinking complimentary morning beverages and nibbling fruit. I schmoozed with various not-ready-for-prime-time board members and some (comparitively)lowly staff members who, like the Pravda editors, have to go every year for form's sake, but have nothing to say in the meetings. My favorites include the Sea Hag, who works in one of the administrative buildings and sports a withering scowl at all times, the Staff Members Who Think We're Buddies, and the staff members I actually genuinely enjoy speaking to.
One of the board members mocked me for trying to eat grapes with a fork. I was trying to be genteel. "You are going to fail. Those are going to go shooting off the plate and onto the floor, and they will get sstepped on, and then where will you be?" she said. I made a few more token stabs, but she was right, and I had to eat my grapes with my fingers, like a peasant. They weren't even peeled.
This year I managed to sit through the entire meeting without spilling my coffee, and I knew better than to read the agenda before the meeting, so I was able to make a game of sorts out of guessing what ostensible purpose some of the remarks served.
The Board is generally a jolly bunch of people (whose average age is 412) with lots of money and sinister jobs in the military-industrial complex or public relations. They are prone to making little in-jokes about one another and tittering. I'd say at least 1/20 of the two hour regular session meeting was taken up with tittering.
Last year, at my first one of these, I got a kick out of that. I like to see people having a good time, and an up-tight, fakey, quietly desperate good time is usually more fun to watch then some kind of Dionysian revel involving keg stands (Shit, you see one, you see 'em all.). Then came last summer's internship at the Podunk Weekly. One of the few shit-jobs I had to do as an intern was cover local government meetings when the real reporters were on vacation or feuding with entire towns. (One reporter, whom I will call "Pancake" has been involved in a standing grudge with the mayor of "LousyTown" for about 15 years and refuses to set foot there.) I got to know all the permutations of tight-lipped pseudo-humor that regular attendees of civic meetings turn to to make themselves think they posess souls. It makes one long for barked orders and sterile white rooms.
My favorite board member today was Old Dirty, who was my least favorite last year, because he seemed so grouchy to Naive Me. He is buzzard-faced and stern, and asks hard-ball questions about just about every report. This is particularly exciting when someone has just spouted a stream of buzz-word-laden bullshit about community building or some such nonsense. People turn different colors and sweat visibly when Old Dirt turns his eagle eye on them. He never makes cute little jokes. I wanted to go shake his hand afterwards, for 0wn1n9 the m33t1n9 like he did, but I was afraid it would break off in my own iron grip.
Finally, it was time for the student government president to introduce his successor, who in this case was not actually there. He still spoke for several minutes, even bobbing his head as though he was reading a teleprompter. After that, it was my turn to introduce the new Pravda crew chief. "This is New Editor. She's going to be a junior. She'll do good," I said. That was why I'd had to sit there for two hours.
After the meeting was adjourned (I went dead last.), I was like, "time to rock the buffet table." I went downstairs to where the food was, and braving suspicious stares from the caterers, I cased the joint. As usual most of the food available was crab-based, and I was like, "fuck that." I was about to leave, when I noticed that what I'd thought were inexplicable white cheese shreds in a bowl of greenbeans were in actuality... pine nuts!!!
Pine nuts may be my favorite food. If they weren't so expensive, I'd live off them exclusively untiil I got rickets, eat a bucket of oranges, and then go back to the all-pine nut diet.
Unfortunately, dipping into the deliciosity kitty meant further smalltalk with the elderly and the go-getters. The student government president and I and two older men ended up at the same table. I ate the green beans while the older one explained why the faculty should realize that if they want to make more money, they need to bring more money in. Then the other one started reminiscing about his days on the football team. As the story progressed, he found it necessary to keep touching my arm and leaning closer. I didn't hit him, but that's only because then I probably wouldn't have gotten to finish the pine nuts.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/13/2003 03:40:00 AM
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Friday, April 11, 2003 Calesthenics, OR there but by the grace...
I'm about a hair shy of becoming one of *those.* One of those vintage-wearing oolong sippers who only listens to records on vinyl because easily destroyed, cumbersome media units have so much more integrity than pretty, easily portable ones. One of those foody snobs who cocks a snooty nostril whenever anything artificial is mentioned. One of those who pretend to be absolutely ignorant of what's on television tonight, or tomorrow, or ever again. I could be one of those so easily. I like old things. Old cars, old clothes, history, weathering, rot or decay. I like moss and worn rocks, and avocado green kitchen wares. I could be one of those.
Just as easily, I could be one of *those,* a velvet-wearer who enjoys quoting British comedy and has a "Shakespearean insults" poster prominently displayed, who rolls her eyes at hip-hop diction, or science fiction, or Jesse Spano's caffeine pill addiction, because these are the vices of the unwashed and uncultured.
I could be that kind of bizarro-culture Walter Mittiy, one of that hoard of lit nerds who probably would've snobbed along with Pepys that Romeo and Juliet was some of the silliest stuff they had ever seen, had they actually lived in Shakespeare's time. How far from that am I? Not far.
Hair update: Today I realized how much the current length, color, and humidity-induced poofing of my hair resembles that of John Stamos' when he played the role of Uncle Jesse. It's a conundrum, because I think it looks hot, but I was never a huge Stamos fan.
Thesis update: Yesterday I made a lot of changes to the worst chapter, and I think it worked. I haven't looked at them since last night, but I'm betting I'll cringe less today when I read that chapter. It was the one that made me want to chew at my wrists every time I read it.
I posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/11/2003 10:34:00 AM
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Thursday, April 10, 2003 Lark and Mark Paul were once in love.
Dear Visitors who have come to this site looking for Saved by the Bell porn,
I understand that you are the demographic which is responsible for most of the traffic on my blog. I thank you for your support, and I feel like a real heel for disappointing you by writing about writing or hair dye day after day with only hot little teasers about steamy sex romps and stuff. I wish I could say that all that is about to change, but it is not. I am too self-indulgent to write erotica to titilate anyone but myself. Beyond that, if I do need to stir up my greasier emotions, I don't actually need to write anything down. Merely thinking about how pretty I find myself is really enough. I don't need to have gross furry fantasies about Screech in the Bayside Tigers suit sneaking up on Slater's juicy, acid-washed denim clad bum as he leans over to do a few bicep curls. Oh, wow. That is kind of hot. Never mind anything I just wrote.
Love,
Cara posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/10/2003 01:29:00 AM
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Wednesday, April 09, 2003 I abuse power
I just granted some friends of mine the second facetious Pravda interview in as many weeks. I ask earnest questions, and they lie and lie and lie. If anyone ever read the paper, I would be in so much trouble! I actually felt kind of bad for my friends, because after the first article came out, they asked if people read the paper. I had to tell them that sometimes freshmen pick it up by accident.
Wong reminded me that sometimes people read it, which is why I get irate letters to the editor. Usually, they're about Wong's column. She is a controversial figure.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/09/2003 01:46:00 PM
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Monday, April 07, 2003 These damn foodstamps don't buy Clairol
Where the freak is E? I've got a fashion emergency, and I need aid, stat. My hair has been fading from red to pink for about a month now, and while that was fun and all, I've had enough of the frat boys in two towns insulting me with compliments. "Hey, Pink! Loved your last album," they will scream. It wears thin.
Beyond that, it was "wintery mixing" when I got up this morning, so I stayed home. I'm boycotting April until it starts displaying some more reasonable weather traits. Unfortunately, that means that my paycheck is still uncashed, and therefore useless to me. Also, I drank the last bit of my landlord's coffee this morning, and now I have to replace it.
That means that soon I'll have to cross my own picket line and brave the wintery mix. Damn caffeine and fashion, the twin monkeys of my back.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/07/2003 03:48:00 PM
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Thursday, April 03, 2003 I'm putting my "Victory laps" series on hiatus until I get a little more done on my thesis. It seems wrong to write about writing more than I write. I'm going to take Helen'slead and post some stories of my bizarro childhood and youth instead.
The tapes are real
My mother used to go to La Leche League conferences wearing a wire. She would tuck a mini-cassette recorder into her purse and surreptitiously attach a tiny lapel mic like the newscasters wear to the front of her blouse. Then, for weeks later, she would replay highlights of presentations about the best solutions to engorgement or improper infant sucking patterns.
We didn’t get a television in the house until a year or so after we moved to Richmond, when I was about five. Even then, my sister and I were only allowed to watch an educational, wholesome and short list of programs. Years later, when I was finally in a position to interact with my peers on a daily basis, one of the things that made me feel like a space alien was my lack of knowledge of shows like Carebears, Thundercats, Punky Brewster and the rest of the pack of campy 80s offerings that the generation right over my head is currently weeping for on VH1. To this day, people will say shit about Voltron, and I’ll kind of just nod and bow my head in shame, hoping my igtnorance won’t be discovered.
Left with the option of Little House on the Prairie or Bob Ross, the family televison lost its novelty fairly early on. My mother moved it to the basement, where it sits to this day. My (somewhat brighter) sister used its new seclusion to watch forbidden shows, such as Murphy Brown. I turned back to the old household stand-by: the tape recorder.
When they’d set up their homestead in Buckingham County, VA, cable hadn’t been invented, and regular television reception was snowy or non-existent, so my parents became big fans of public radio.
My father is from the era where you had to build your own hi-fi out of its component parts, and my mother is from the era where you didn’t give your parents lip about being bored, so they saw nothing weird about depending almost exclusively on audio entertainment.
They began to record each week’s production of “A Prairie Home Companion” with the fervency of Dead followers. They progessed from putting a simple cassette recorder next to the radio to a complicated taping and editing process on their state of the art (for the mid 80’s) stereo system. My mother distilled the raw tapes down into gem-like best-of editions. She sought a balance of comedy skits, “News from Lake Wobegone,” and humorous folksongs. We would listen to them on long car trips, and in this way I remained ignorant of 80’s pop until I was well into highschool.
Not willing to let others supply all the content, my mother started a campaign of reading "quality' kids' books onto tape. The entire Little House series (so much more palatable without insipid seventies moralism of its television counterpart), The Secret Garden, a Little Princess, a series called The Great Brain (about a pre-teen swindler in 1890s Utah), National Velvet, and half a dozen others gradually filled a brown plastic tape caddy that I would manage to overturn and spill disatrously every few months.
The top rows were taken up by store-bought cassettes of a series on famous composers, “their lives and their music.” This was my father’s abortive attempt to instill us with culture. To this day, I can tell you little known facts about Giuseppe Verdi, but I’m foggy on my Boy George lore. I feel like VH1 could be my ticket out of my personal Molasses Swamp of pop cultural illiteracy except I find that my eyes begin to bleed after only a few minute's of Soleil Moon Frye's passionate commentary on her own show.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/03/2003 04:12:00 PM
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Tuesday, April 01, 2003 Victory laps part II
It didn't happen that way. It's April now, and I only have one draft of one novel. I'm halfway through a second draft, but it's not as briliant as I was hoping it would be. It is also tedious. I think the whole revision process would work better as a montage of me typing away and calendar pages flipping, rather than me having to actually sit and re -do the whole friggin' thing.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 4/01/2003 01:41:00 PM
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