guys and dolls

i've always hated dolls.  i recall having three in my life:

- a life-sized baby one that would cry "ma-ma, ma-ma!" when you took the pacifier out of its mouth.  i would cling to that babe for dear life whenever my mother would leave to work leaving me sniffling and alone with my not very affectionate and completely uninterested father, usually in a freezing cold home.  that little bitch was crying "ma-ma, ma-ma!" for both of us.

- a fake red headed Cabbage Patch that I named "Suzie".  that was the time when Cabbage Patch euphoria was sweeping the country and perhaps sensing that my parents were too poor or perhaps poorly inclined to dolls, some of our friends from the city came up with her one weekend.  i always made sure her fake cabbage patch body - probably picked up off Canal Street - was well hidden whenever we found ourselves in the presence of one of my more affluent upstate friends with their absurd patches of 'real' ones.  

- my absolute favorite, a Pink and Pretty Mattel Barbie who met an unfortunate, mangled end when she pissed me off one day when i was trying to dress her, so i threw her in the fire.  watching the poor lass's leg melt, i obviously immediately regretted that impulsive and poorly considered decision, but i see it now as my first and very telling instance of inadequate anger management.  i can't believe i wasn't even spoken to.

i just said that i've always hated dolls, but now i see that i actually gave a lot of love to at least those three.  today, when i see dolls, with their perpetually staring, non-blinking, creepy eyeballs, i want to run to the closest house of worship and cower in the foyer.  i think that's why the deep midwest completely creeps me out - i've never been, but i imagine that they're all a bunch of weird, plastic, unfeeling, eyes wide shut creepazoid demons.  shallow, i know, but what am i saying - sometimes i feel like large swaths of upstate are like that, too.  shit, what am i really saying?  half the time, i feel like my response to the rest of the world's bullshit is about as effective as a scary, plastic depiction of human adolescence.  oh, and that's the way i felt around him.  alive, but dead, really.

it turns out i can get a Pink and Pretty off of ebay for $19.95 and an original Cabbage Patch for 295.  that's two hundred and ninety five good green american dollars.  evidently the recession hasn't hit that part of the garden.

            

get up, you sluggards

a couple of weeks ago, i spent a quiet afternoon at the beach.  there was no one around, and having come unprepared, i spent my time lying on a couple of warm, sun-kissed (yup, i did just say that) boulders.  i was pretty depressed, actually, so i literally just lay there letting my thoughts drain out of my head and body, down the sand, and into the sea.  i imagine some helpful seagull came along later, swooped them up and dashed them over and over again against the rocks, bashing their nasty little useless bad thought brains out.

i had gone out east for the weekend with someone i loved, but in whose presence i feel pretty much nothing - nothing - but anxiety, fear and perpetual dissatisfaction.  there was a pretty face, a pretty house, a pretty car, and pretty much nothing - nothing - else.  woe was me, really, whoa, with my hands empty of everything but the sand running through my fingers on that gorgeous, sunny day.  

when i finally got up to head back to the pretty car, i followed a really pretty, colorful path made by the tide of all these beautiful, shiny shells and stones; it was truly hypnotizing.  i felt like hansel and gretel, following the path of stones back to the safety of home and i was almost overwhelmed by this burgeoning belief i have that the Universe really does take care of you.  it was truly uplifting, and i was starting to feel better: the Answers would surely, shortly be revealed.

i followed the stones back to the car, got in, sat down, and looked out to meditate over the water one more time before i left, and this is what i saw:

if that's not a message from the Universe, i don't know what is.  

you're all i need

i used to be obsessed with Motley Crue.  my brothers listened to them all the time, so i quickly caught on that Tommy Lee was very obviously the love of my life.  i think i was probably ten.  at some point, they eventually rolled into town and my brothers and the boy next door went to that concert, obviously leaving me all disconcerted and crying, forlorn and heartbroken, alone at home.  before they left, I BEGGED them to get me their autographs.  i imagined then, in my little ten year old baby head, that they could just walk up to one of the greatest hairbands of the 80's after the concert and be like, yo man sup, great show, sign this here autograph book for my nerdy little sister yo (....did they actually talk like that then...?) and the next morning, i got up at the crack of dawn, salivating over the autographs i would soon be pressing close to my heart.  

naturally, my brothers cruelly sneered and jeered at me over breakfast, but later that day, Brian, the boy next door, came over with four little slips of paper with completely disparate signatures on each: Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars, and, oh JESUS, TOMMY LEE.  I kept those little slips rolled up in a little China shoe I had on  my nightstand for years, even when it finally dawned on me that Motley Crue really never had been sober enough to sign shit that night, let alone for three pimply little boys from the stix.

a couple of years ago, Tommy Lee crashed some party i was at.  it was electric seeing him - he had a shirt on that said, "I would fuck me", and i managed to sidle my way into some personal space with him where i promptly realized he was absolutely fucking disgusting.  i spent the rest of the night trying to get over multiple  buzz kills, mainly through having to lean as far back as i could hoping that he wouldn't sweat on me.

i celebrated a birthday the other day, which is always great, but you know what i've just now realized?  it's time to grow up.  

here's to you, Kid.  

  

father of man (the child is)

i have a concern that we're all being technologied out of our minds.  more specifically, that men are being mommy-technologied out of their minds, into a very poor state of existence.  i look at it like this:

men grow up to be boys.  they were enabled their whole lives and nothing changes just because their testicles drop.  they go through puberty and then they have little mini-mommies running all around them, fawning their faces off, bringing them tea and cookies, literally and figuratively, and then off they trot to beat their hairy chests and ejaculate enough sperm to fertilize every woman in Europe each time they come to climax (this is not even close to Hyperbole; it is completely, simply, scientifically true).  who wouldn't have a Zeus complex in this instance?

this has obviously been the case since the time of Adam, but the thing that bothers me today is that you couple this state of being with the fact that we're part of a growing oppressive culture that barely encourages any real thinking anymore, and then, BAM, you have a real catastrophe on your hands.  what i wouldn't give for some real thinkers struttin around here callin the shots in their bowties behind smokey pipes, but no, you have these men...cock in one hand, ego in the other, more product in their hair than i've ever even considered in my life in mine, making decisions in life and love as quickly as they can shoot off an email or status update on their smart phone.  it just doesn't seem to work out very well in the end for anyone now, does it?

it just does not.

what to do in these cases?  move to Colorado???

this guy says yes.  no shit.

stop. smell this flower

so, a friend told me about a wedding she went to over the weekend.  by all accounts, the couple and ceremony were beautiful and the young bride was just a sparkling sight to behold.  apparently, however, *immediately* following the ceremony, flush with the grand newness of being a Mrs., the missus took off to the ladies room....and proceeded to stay there for the *remainder of the reception*.  therein, she missed the first dance, the father-daughter dance, the chicken dance, and every other cheesy dance there is at these things, and exited the john only when all the guests had nearly dispersed, at which point, she made a mad dash to her car and drove away.

i can't stop laughing.  is that bad?

i mean, i feel bad for the poor baby.  i personally do NOT understand this weird western obsession with weddings, but ok, she really must have been looking forward to the blessed event, and to spend it all in the bathroom???  evidently, she had a panic attack and spent four hours on the crapper.  all that money Pops must have shelled out, right down the drain, literally.  and HOW do you deal with THAT recollection the morning after??  man oh man.

oh for God's sake.  why didn't anyone at the party pull out a Xanax?  and what's with this wedding obsession anyway.  what's with this weird MARRIAGE obsession, honestly.  what year is this???

here are some flowers i saw along Park, some version of marigold, i think.  look how perfect it is with all its little mini-flowers, it just blows my mind.  sometimes i wonder why humans can't be like nature, which is pretty cool and plain ol' perfect, but then i realize maybe we are.  i will need to exercise some serious mind bends to get my head around that one.

  

buns

this morning, i happened across an article about how girls as young as 19 are turning to sperm banks to just, well....get it over with.  good for you, Ladies.  i hate to say this, but i haven't met a single -single- man in the NYC area who's truly ready for a committed relationship, let alone a little tyke running around the kitchen table when they're trying to get over a hangover....

guys, guys, guys.

one of my more seriously bad-ass girlfriends recently announced that she too was headed the route of cryogenically-kept spermies.  after years of trying to find Mr. Right, she decided to circumvent all that harrowing business of 1st, 2nd, and all other uncomfortable follow-up dates, and made an appointment for something that should really take.  can I be the godmother???

i clinked on a link in aforementioned article by a therapist who treats men only, and she pointed out that men have such a hard time opening up to others that, for the most part, they don't even understand issues they might have themselves.  not just not understand them, but simply even speak about them in order to remotely assess or know what they are.  can you imagine a woman not able to speak incessantly on any single one of her many emotional afflictions, at length, for days, months, even??  well, as it is, women let loose, on average 28,000 words a day - guys take the road less traveled, with almost half that at TWELVE thou.  my heavens.  it seems like a lot really can get lost in there.

sigh.

here's the pie that i ended up having for breakfast.  never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

best served hot

i got three things on my mind:

these protests and the pool of prospective Republican presidential hopefuls.  i don't want to be too much of a naysayer, but i'm thinking that shortly, it will be time for me to retire to a quaint residence of simple country living, otherwise known as a mud hut, where i can grow potatoes and live off the land because i feel very strongly that, very shortly here, the shit is going to HIT the fan.

the last time i stood on a square chanting, it was the night of the election of Barack Obama.  New York was a fucking walking party that night, everyone hugging and dancing and laughing and cheering and and screaming and crying tears of joy - i stood on Union Square at 4AM singing the Star Spangled Banner with a hot guy named Nick who kissed me after in this great - so great - embrace who i never saw again before or after and then i walked down to the LES for a celebratory drink and that was that.  i missed work the next day but i was sooooooo fucking happy because i really thought that maybe Jesus' black twin brother had come....i really did...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

i'm not at these protests now because, thankfully, i have still have that job (that i actually think i love), and it takes up a lot of my time.  during that time, i try not to think about how fucked up we are as a nation and since i can't stay up till 4AM, let alone midnight, or really do anything too energetic anymore without serious repercussions for days to come, what i do is look out the window of said job out over the skyline of lower Manhattan, before i even clock in 7 minutes late for a job most people would actually kill for, come to think of it, and kinda guess where the protesters are and go there in spirit a little, guilt be damned.  

anyhow, i feel there's no real choice now, other than the Slippery Slope and we're all gonna get seriously dinged at the end of it, whether we're calling in a paycheck this very moment or not.  there'll probably be The Other Side i'm sure, whatever comes after, like there is say, after the Apocalypse, but who wants to be hangin around all lonely for that?

my last concern is whether or not it's too late to eat this pie.

  

there's an app for that

so, Steve Jobs died.  that was bound to happen.  i give the man credit for plenty of things, and i'm sure part of his vision wasn't the gaggle of annoying young people that would marry their iPhones if they could.  i take it back, maybe it was.  obviously it was.  there's that freak genius gene again - how do the rest of us NOT have it???  


Jobs: 


You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.


and 


Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.  






The man evidently said that those who hadn't tried hallucinogenic drugs could really never understand him.  May you rest peacefully in the the land of shimmery colors and lights, a good trip and Godspeed man...without the paranoia and debilitating fear, of course.  And I might not own one single Mac product, but...thanks. Why can't we have so many more like you? 

thank God. knock on wood.

in an attempt to free myself from many harmful habits of the past, i have now turned my sights on superstition.  i'm Bosnian, so this is kinda like performing a lobotomy.  growing up, we shifted, spat, blew, twitched, turned, knocked, coughed and crossed ourselves endlessly away from the evil eye and perhaps even into oblivion, that perchance being the case even with myself.  i am so terrified that an evil djinn will overhear and sabotage any happy plans that i may have for the future that i am endlessly choked up, and not just from emotion.  every morning on the way to work, i touch wood, like, literally, i stop and caress a tree.  when a cat crosses my path, i cross myself and the road ahead of me, then switch streets and even counties, if possible.  i wear red underwear, red strings, prayer beads (from every faith, just to be safe) and try not to cut anything, swear, sweat, or lie, on Sundays.

my therapist tells me that these are all just a series of lame crutches, but she has very obviously never had her Turkish coffee grinds examined or Tarot spread read.  wtf?

the other day, someone asked me if i were given the chance to look into the future, what would i want to know?  well, shit, i don't know that i'd want to know anything, because what if it's good and i jinx it, and what if it's bad and i can't move forward?  i guess i'd probably want to see if i'll be 90 and still worrying about this.

who am i kidding?  there's so much i'd want to know.  for starters, i really want horses.  will i ever get them??  the fact that i'm putting that out there just BLOWS away my previous notions on keeping super wishes to myself, but fuck it.  serendipitous sprites must have ears and read, too.  

look Universe - here's one i might like:

 

call me in the morning

sometimes i think that i'm either going to die soon and unexpectedly, probably when i find out that i've had cancer all along, or, more likely, that i will live to be 120 and just be absolutely miserable.  every time i go see my doc, i ask if i have cancer and he laughs, but i don't fucking find it funny, not one bit.  

you know what else is sort of like cancer?  football.  i don't understand this American obsession with a shit culture that serves for nothing but brain rotting.  think about what Sundays and Monday nights and whatever other nights the games are on now must have been like back in the day.  i imagine that people either read, spent quality time together in the outdoors, ruminated on certain unfortunate circumstances in the world and how they might be solved, gathered in jolly congruence and ate heartily - or not, who cares, they just didn't watch football.  whatever it was they were doing, i bet it was better than sitting on a smelly couch throwing crumpled, empty Doritos bags at your 97 inch flat screen while belching over your 16th beer and feeling valid stress over the fact that some fat assholes did or didn't just move the ball a couple yards down a field.  i mean, this shit fills stadiums, "football night in America".  why doesn't the fact that we're dumb as sin move people to react in similar fashion?  these kids marching now on wall street might be up to something, except for the fact that they're all probably carting around iphones, so....shut the fuck up already then.     

i just found out that someone i love so so so much has cancer, stage iv.  i'm glad this isn't 100 years ago, or even 10, but THAT is a hard, hard pill to swallow.