Well I've gone and actually bought tickets to Fangoria's Weekend of Horror. Yep, me and whole bunch a spookifyingness.

Sorry I'm so tired I barely have the energy to think.

I have to begin to get my supplies together-my killer bunni slippers, decide on appropriate bunni wear, finish my cthulhu pocketbook, round up my DVDs for signing. But I just want to lie with my cat.

Gonna go see Feast tonight. Let me know if anyone wants to be my horror movie buddy.
Well the men of NYC apparently missed me something fierce. I've been getting hit on, oogled, complimented, courted ever since I returned to this fair metropolis on Tuesday. Is it something in the water?

Last night was the premiere of Jeremiah Kipp's The Pod, a short film about a couple who takes a psychedelic drug that promises to enhance their connection. I'm not going to say much about it now because I want to really think about it, but if you have the chance to see it-definitely do so.

Anyway, Larry Fessenden has a role in the film and after the premiere we all headed out for drinks. At the end of the night it essentially ended up being me, Larry, and Jeremiah at the table drinking. We talked about My Dinner With Andre and about the current attitude in America in terms of consciousness and experience. I stated to talk about my former students and near the end Larry said, "Your sense of outrage and propriety is refreshing."

Oh I love that man.
I got spam today from a life insurance company. The subject line said, "You die...but love goes on." I thought, "Fuck you, I'm still alive. And love hasn't even begun."
I was out to dinner with Jane Rose last night. She's a horror film director and her segment, an adaptation of the Last Statement of Randolph Carter, was one of my favorite pieces of LoveCracked! The Movie. Anyway, we had dinner at the Great Jones Cafe, which has great comfort food (even though I need to lose weight-my time in upstate was not good for the waistline), and very cute cook who was oogling me as I licked sauce off my fingers. I was totally into those wings, sauciness all over my fingers, just a messy good time, and looked up to see this guy grinning at me. Oh the shame. But I still ate up those wings!

So I had a thoroughly wonderful time with Jane, who has had dinner with Joe Bobb Briggs. (For that I hate her, just a little, and in a loving way, but yeah I hate her. On the other hand, I couldn't even speak to Joe Bobb when I saw him last year so the odds are if I had dinner I would do something genius like throw up on myself in sheer anxiety. Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have dinner with him.) We traded books and talked about movies. She likes Coney Island! I have a new Coney Island buddy! So exciting.

I digress.

So I was walking home all thoroughly fattened and gurgling with the satisfaction of a decent night out when this woman walked passed me, turns around and says, "Nice breasts." She meant it as a genuine compliment. Out of surprise, I just said, "Oh, thanks." "No, really." She continued, "They're very cute." And then she turned around and kept walking.
Because I am an ass I totally got the title of the book wrong. It is, in fact, After many a summer dies the swan. And last night I came across this quotation which, to my mind, completely sums up why I stayed in that job as long as I did (I called a career counselor yesterday and am going to retain her services):

To most people radical change is even more odious than cynicism.



Well, my mother hadn't updated her virus check in like two years. Her computer was running very slowly and so I decided in my infinitive wisdom to Fix The Problem. This became my Mission. I was going to at least improve my mother's computer. I updated the virus signatures and ran the test. It came back with something like 143 viruses. Thing is it wouldn't delete them. Finally I devised a system where I would stop that scan while it had only 6 or 7 viruses and then delete them. That worked. For a while. Got it down to about 60 viruses. And then the scan refused to work at all. I decided to shut down the computer and restart it. It wouldn't boot up. So now my mother is having some techno wizard who helped her a few months ago come out and figure out where I fucked up. Apparently my mother's computer worked better when it was broken.

Well I did at least learn that I shouldn't pursue a career in IT so I suppose it is not a total loss.

Then my mother's cable went out entirely. So for two days I was trapped in an isolated house in the coutry with no TV and no computer.

It was like my childhood all over again.

But I digress.

Sunday my dear Princeton took me out to dinner. Princeton being Princeton asked me all sorts of questions about what I want to do, and, of course, I started and ended in tears. Poor thing, he kept saying, I hope this isn't upsetting you. I wanted to tell him, it's not you, it's what I'm talking about it, or thinking about it. I mean, here I am 31 and totally collapsed. You know, I kind of sold myself on the idea it was OK not to have a boyfriend as long as I had job. And now no job and no boyfriend. When Eric first left I was ddicted to mornign talk shows. I had the "At least it's not me" virus. Sure I didn't have a man, but on the other hand I wasn't 16 years old and paternity testing 5 different men either. I didn't have any credit card debt (still don't). But the truth is I could have been living my life for some utter twit and ended up in exactly the same place. OK I wouldn't have gone to Paris and walked in on my paramour's brother having sex on the grand piano, but really I could do without that memory anyway.

And what's actually worse, I don't have any passion for anything. I mean I talk to these directors at places like Mingle and Mangle and it's invigorating to hear them talk about these projects that they've worked on for years. But then I suddenly feel this emptiness. Princeton kept saying, "What do you really want to do?" I have no idea. I'm pretty much out of rage even. I love to write and watch movies. I like to crochet. I like doing research. I love snuggling. But passion? Yeah, I think I'm pretty much out of it at the moment.

Right now I'm reading After Many a Summer A Swan Dies by Aldous Huxley because you know even my depressions need to have some sort of literary context. The beginning of the novel rather reminds me of The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh a personal favorite (and the inspiration for the first episode of Six Feet Under). What I like about Huxley is the frame of his novels are always the same-some outsider is suddenly thrust into a new culture and environment-although his dystopic vision of Brave New World is the most famous, I also rather like the utopia he depicted in Island. If you haven't read the Devils of Loudon, his investigation of a French nunnery that suffered a sudden epidemic of demon possession is definitely worth reading. I would recommend you skip his rather lengthy digressions into Eastern philosophy, but aside from that it's a fascination examination of hysteria, manipulation, politics, and religion.

If you've read After Many a Summer, I would like to ask a question. Is it me or is Dr. Andrew Weil actually modelling himself after Dr. Obispo? In the novel, Dr. O is obsessed with longevity, and one of the things he claims leads to a shortened life is reading the news a theory that Weil espoused in one of his books (Weil's reasoning was as follows: not reading the news leads to reduced stress which in turn leads to a longer life). I have to say I give more credence to Obispo's theory that the secret of longevity is somewherein the intestinal flora of carp than Weil's spontenous healing theory, which is just downright offensive to anyone who follows his chain of reasoning to its legitimate end. Is it me or should I be nervous when one of the best selling medical writers actually seems to be parroting advice dispensed by a fictional doctor in a satirical novel published in 1939?

Am I wrong in thinking that's a Bad Sign?

But I'm all unfocused. So I guess this post mirrors my actually psychological reality. Scattered.

At dinner one of the things that Princeton kept saying to me is, "How do we get you over this whole disability thing?"

My whole life has been about how to get over this whole disability thing. . I mean it isn't just the disability, it's a constellation of factors. The disability paired with a striking physical appearance which leads people to stare, laugh, whisper, point, and out right ridicule (feeding my feelings of self consciousness and low self steem), my father's depression and paranoid delusions, my parents reaction to my disability which fostered an intense distrust and fear of abandonment by others especially men, my own mood disorder (chronic depression and panic disorder), my PTSD ( post traumatic shock) which manifests in dissociative trance, flashbacks, free floating anxiety, and insomnia, my self conscious and overly sensitive nature, the real physical limitations of living with a physical impairment, and the ultra competitive high stress environment of NYC.

And what's really frustrating is I know people who are far crazier, far less wel adjusted, far less attractive, far less educated, and far less together than I am, and they still manage to get married-to have boyfriends. People keep asking me "What happened?" I don't fucking know! I was born under a bad sign I guess. I mean serial killers get more marriage proposals during their trials than I have during my entire existence. But I suppose in a world like that there is a badge of honor in being single. The I'm not fucked up enough to be a relationship badge of honor.

But the answer is if I was loved, if I had someone to come home to like I used to have, if I felt beautiful like I did then, I would be over it by now.

And you can say it's wrong and you can threaten to send me copies of He's Just Not That Into You or the Rules or The Second Sex but it's not going to change that Fact. Because that's what it is. A Fact. You want to know what would make me feel better? Having someone to come home to.