Bob

A few months ago a severe windstorm blew down a portion of our fence.

We share common fence with 6 neighbors, so everytime there’s a mini-disaster, we get together with the involved neighbor and hope that a fair and equitable deal can be worked out and that the neighbor will actually want to fix the fence without any coaxing on our part. We’ve never had a problem with any of our neighbors in this regard and Bill and I were talking about how lucky we felt to be part of this neighborhood.

Anyway, this time the part of our fence that gave up the ghost was a part that’s been standing unmolested for 18 years; consequently we had never met the neighbor attached to that part of the fence. To our delight, we became acquainted with Bob, a French man who has been our neighbor the whole time we’ve lived here and we had no idea who he was. A tall, large boned, blue-eyed fellow in his 60’s, Bob arrived at our front door one weekend and offered to build the fence back himself if we would pay for half of the materials cost. We agreed to this and offered to pay for his labor as well, but Bob would have none of it.

“I have a lot of time to kill so I don’t mind doing it” he said in his delightful French accent. He subsequently said that he wasn’t married, but since he also mentioned having children, I can only deduce that he is a widower living alone. I began to feel a little sorry for Bob and wanted to “adopt” him. I invited him over to have dinner with us. He thanked me effusively, but refused. He refuses to accept gifts of wine, gift cards, or being taken out for dinner as a thank you for his fence construction efforts. I became mildly frustrated until I realized that I was feeling bad for myself - I wanted to do something for this nice fellow and he did not want me to. At this point I realized that it became about me - I wanted to do something nice for him, but it was not something he wanted.

And besides, who am I to feel sorry for him? We cannot assume that just because someone lives alone that they are unhappy. Though my motives were pure, I made a judgment that was not necessarily true.

So as the final fence posts are set in place, I realize that I will probably never see Bob again until the fence blows down again, which is unlikely in his lifetime. I regret not getting to know him better.

Sometimes you can only give by not giving.

Robin Rice Lichtig and DramaMama.net

Due to the fact that I have been dealing with BPV and Vestibular disorders for the past several months, one part of my life that kind of partially went out the window was my memory. This was also followed by keeping up with my blogs - Voodoo Jive and Ornery Woman.

I had promised Robin Rice Lichtig, a fabulous playwright who has an amazing website that showcases excerpts of her work as well as provides actors and theatregoers with a calendar of events, that I would add her to our blogroll and forgot to do it...

So it is there now, and I ask that any and all women interested in theatre please stop by Robin's website. She is friends with Sportive Tricks and is someone invested in the theatre community.

:)

I know I can't rely on the "I was sick and am taking meds that make me forget shit" excuse for too long, but in this case, it's the truth...lol

My New Favorite Corner in NYC

Virginia Madsen: From Left Field

Not that I'm knocking her, really - I've always thought Virginia Madsen was an interesting actress and enjoyed her work. And let's not forget the fact that her Brother Michael is hotter than sex on a stick.

But I found it really weird/fascinating/interesting that we haven't really heard much from Virginia in a while (yes, she's been on several TV stints and supporting roles, but not starring film roles), and then all of the sudden she has two films opening up within about two weeks of each other: The Number 23 with Jim Carrey, and The Astronaut Farmer with Billy Bob "I love to boink psycho chicks" Thornton.

How did this happen? Who did she sleep with? Of whom did she have incriminating photos or blackmail material?

Or, is it possible that the pendullum is swinging toward giving women over the age of 40 a chance to be prolific film stars...that all of the leading actress roles are not just going to skinny waifs who can't act or to women who have been around for 100 years...that perhaps there is room for actresses who are in that middle ground to be successful?

I hope so. In the meantime, though, I still wonder how in the hell she got two lead roles in these two films...it's like she came out of left field.
I mean, let's face it: she's interesting and has done some good work, but she's not a great actress...and there are a lot of other actors out there that could play those parts. I mean, does anyone really remember anything about her other than her tits in Two Moon Junction?

I told you I was a bitchy actress.

29

Hello...this is a Myspace blog from last week I'm reposting per flattering request...with spell check this time...enjoy!

Last week, I turned 29. As stated in my previous blog, 28 is – mathematically speaking – a perfect number. 29 is not a perfect number:

"It is an Eisenstein prime with no imaginary part and real part of the form 3n - 1. Since 18! + 1 is a multiple of 29 but 29 is not one more than a multiple 18, 29 is a Pillai prime."

That's Wikipedia – the idiot savant of the internet. Numerical analysis aside, I was experiencing a mild sensation - resembling pride - at the thought of being an Einstein Prime.

Einstein! Synonymous with blithesome genius.
Prime! A gay detective novel by Poppy Z. Brite.

A thrilling and rhythmic pair of words concocting images of intellectual fabulousness! How perfectly me!

On a second look, I realize I am no such thing...no physical manifestation of tolerance and mystery...no brain child of the world's most famous tongue-sticker-outer. No, my little-thought-about numerical identity is An EiSENstein prime, the manic musings of Ferdinand Gotthold Max Eisenstein "irreducible (or equivalently prime) in the ring-theoretic sense,"

To put simply.

My mild pride dissolves into mild disappointment. I am just about to exit Wikipedia in a mild huff, when I decide to check the page on Mr. Eisenstein , who's alien gibberish caused a sensation amongst the alienated and gibberating mathematical geniuses of 19th century Germany.

Unfortunately, there isn't much written about him. There couldn't be. He died at the age of 29.

You would think such an interesting coincidence would render my thoughts reflective. But honey, I've been writing eulogies and playing It's A Wonderful Life "what-if" games since I was old enough the cogzinate. Maturity has morphed my morbidity into an amusing hobby. Read on, if you will, a short list of famous/influential persons who I have outlived, how old they were when they died, and how old they would be now if they had survived:

Kurt Cobain: 27, 40
Basquiat: 27, 46
Buddy Holly: 22, 70
Tupac Shakur: 25, 36
Janis Joplin: 27, 64
Bobby Sands: 27, 53
Stephen Crane: 28, 135
River Phoenix: 23, 37
Lee Harvey Oswald: 24, 68
Karen Silkwood: 28, 51
Otis Redding: 26, 66
Crispus Attucks: 27,. 264
John Keats: 25, 111
John Wilks Booth: 27, 167
Egon Schiele: 28, 117
Caligula: 28, 2993
King Tutankhamun: 18, he died in 1323 BCE, you do the math.

Of course, there is also the rest of the famous "27 Club," Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and so on. Some of these were surprising to me - I had no idea Mr. Oswald was so young, and for some reason I kept thinking River Phoenix died in his late twenties - 23 seemed so adult to me at 15. Now they are practically the same thing, except one has a credit card.

Perhaps more on this later...for now, though, I have to get back to work.

7:38 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

I have been to Hell and back

Wow. This weekend was really one for the record books. After all these years of people telling me to go to Hell, I finally went. Not voluntarily, of course, and obviously I managed to escape, but even still I went....and now I shall tell you about it.

Chuck E. Cheese's is Hell. No, no, it's not like Hell, or even hellish....Chuck E. Cheese's really is Hell. Indisputably, without a doubt, Hell.

Saturday afternoon, my daughter's friend/colleague's kid/whiney, miserable, offensive little bitch (henceforth known as WMOLB) had a 7th birthday party at a Chuck E. Cheese's somewhere in the 4 outer boroughs. I am no fan of kiddie birthday parties, but far be it from me to limit my child's social life, so we dropped by Toys'R'Us last week and picked up some ridiculously overpriced gift for WMOLB, and headed off to the party Saturday. However, if I'd known then what I know now, I'd gladly risk the chance of the girl growing into a socially-stunted spinster with 50 cats, helmet hair, and a brown cardigan sweater to stay as far the fuck away from Chuck E. Cheese's as I can possibly get.

Call me sheltered, call me a bad parent, call me what you will, but before this weekend, I had never set foot inside a Chuck E. Cheese's. I had no need to. I do not eat pizza. My daughter does eat pizza, but she's just as happy eating it someplace where there aren't any rank-smelling, paedophilic costumed characters crawling up her arse as she does so. I am also not terribly fond of anyplace that touts itself as a restaurant-cum-amusement park, as I see the whole thing as a gigantic choking hazard, as well as a big freaking mess looking for a place to happen. But hey, I thought, a few hours worth of a birthday party....how bad could it be?

Answer - worse than I'd ever imagined.

Basically, nothing I say or show you here could do this place justice....you really have to see it for yourself to get the full effect of the horror of it all. But picture if you will a place brimming over with screaming, crying, giggling, food-hurling, greasy-napkin-throwing, straw-shooting, ADHD-riddled rugrats hopped up on sugar, caffeinated soda, and whateverthefeck that orange goopy shit all over all the food might be. Picture their parents, who are basically larger (and in some cases slightly more lecherous) versions of same. Picture filthy restrooms, filthy tables, filthy chairs/benches, and filthy floors, mentally retarded staff, inedible food, and 'entertainment' equipment that even looks dangerous from halfway across the goddamn room. And of course, the image would not be complete without maybe 10 escaped convicts with really poor personal hygiene walking around in rat costumes.

I'm telling you, if I ever needed an incentive to go back to Manhattan, this here is it. The city proper may be a rude, unfriendly, stress-fuelled place....but goddamn it all to hell, man....at least they haven't got a Chuck E. Cheese's.

Is it just me....

....or does it seem like the more technological gadgets and electronic thingamabobs we have to keep in touch with our friends and relations, the fucking harder it is to actually reach the bastards when we need them?!

I'm old school. For most of my life, there was no email, no IMs or text messages, no pagers and no mobile phones. People had phones in their houses (my best friend growing up actually kept hers OUTSIDE her house in a shed....and shared it with the neighbours) and had to be at home to use them. Some of them had answering machines and some did not, but all of them short of those on holiday or in hospital were usually reachable within 24 hours of the first attempt. EVENTUALLY people answered their phones or called back, and rarely if ever did phone tag exist outside a business context.

Today, though, all that's changed. People are THEORETICALLY reachable all the time. Damn near everyone over the age of 7 has a cellphone, complete with call waiting, email, text messaging, and AIM. Everybody and their grandmother has MySpace. I don't know anyone (including my own parents, who for people not terribly old, live in the fucking dark ages) who doesn't have internet access, at least one email address, and at least one form of IM service. Some folks still have pagers and land lines, and everyone.....EVERY FUCKING ONE.....has voicemail. Hell, there are even ways to get in touch with people that I know nothing of the use of....like this Skype thing everyone's talking about.

Bottom line is, in this day and age, you should be able to contact whomever you want whenever you want. But you can't. In fact, it's more difficult now than it ever was.

At the moment there are at least ten friends (NOT business contacts, mind you, but actual friends) with whom I'm playing exasperating games of phone tag. We no longer talk to each other, but to each other's voicemail, and occasionally respond to a text message. I have gotten to the point where I cannot even be bothered talking to a recording anymore. I have nothing further to say to anything that goes 'beep'. I call to talk to people, not machines, and it burns me quite a bit when I have to waste my precious WhenEver Minutes on one-sided chat to a voicemail server. I despise and abhor email and god forbid MySpace mail as a main form of communication, but it usually ends up being a last resort.....when I can be bothered. What can I say, technology has made me lazy and semi-brain-dead like the rest. It's way too easy to lose people in a giant pile of email.

I spit on your technology. Bringing people closer, my ass. Give me back my fucking rotary phone, at least it did its freakin' job.

Napoleon the Mighty

Since we are Ornery and we are Women, and I know this group’s founder is a radical, no-holds-barred animal lover, I assume most of us have a great affection for our non-bi-pedal friends, furry or otherwise. I’ve posted an email recently sent by a close friend. Her and her husband have been active members of the House Rabbit Society in St. Louis for a number of years, spear-heading fundraising campaigns and developing some of the most adorable Rabbit calendars ever produced. While she was on vacation last week in Cancun, their beloved dwarf bunny, Napoleon, died quite suddenly of a stomach ailment. She hopes there can be a silver lining in Napoleon's death, please read on:

While we were at my sister’s wedding in Mexico we were
shocked to find that our sweet little bunny Napoleon
had passed away. Napoleon died Wednesday night
1/31/2007. He was found the following day. He would
have been almost 5 years old.

Napoleon was a very special bunny who liked nothing
more than to have attention poured over him. He
particularly liked when you would rub his entire face
and ears at once. He loved bananas and in spite of
being such a tiny bunny was incredibly vocal. We
never realized before him that rabbits could oink like
a pig or coo like a dove. He was always a cautious
bunny who liked to peek out at his surroundings and
explore once he had observed everything. We always
made sure to give Napoleon various hiding places
around the apartment knowing that this made him happy.
Napoleon was such a cute tiny bunny that anyone who
saw him immediately was drawn to him and he ate this
attention right up.

Jeremy and myself have always treated our bunnies as
though they were our children and so Napoleon was much
more than just a pet to us. He was a member of our
family. To loose him at such a young age has left us
very shocked, upset and confused.

Napoleon was always a healthy bunny. Having just been
to the vet two weeks before, they marveled at what
good shape he was in during his checkup. Napoleon was
never sick. His good health has made his untimely
death all the more startling.

Napoleon died because a hole formed in his stomach
causing it to fill up with liquid. The vet who
performed the necropsy said this is not uncommon in
rabbits. During the necropsy a growth was found that
was possibly cancerous. We are still waiting on
tissue samples to see if this growth may have been the
initial cause of Napoleon’s stomach problems.
Napoleon did not stop eating before he died, which
means that he did not suffer long. There was no way
of preventing this tragedy.

I would like to mention, that the Missouri House
Rabbit Society, the organization of which we are
members and who we adopted Napoleon from, holds an
annual vet conference to educate veterinarians on the
best available practices for rabbits as well as to try
to find cures for diseases specific to rabbits.
Studying rabbit health is a much more recent practice
than studying cats and dogs, so these conferences are
very important to improving the lives of rabbits.
Napoleon should have lived to be 10 with a normal
rabbit’s life span. If any of you would like to make
a contribution in Napoleon’s name to the MOHRS vet
conference it would be appreciated by anyone who has
had their rabbit’s life cut short due to health
issues. Please go to the MOHR website.

We feel a hole in our lives at the loss of Napoleon.
He will be greatly missed and never forgotten.
Napoleon’s ashes will be sprinkled where our apartment
once stood. It was where we welcomed him into our
home and our lives for the first time. I have sent a
separate e-mail with some pictures of Napoleon at his
best to be remembered by.
Sandee and Jeremy