Sunday, November 30, 2008

Ripping myself off from an earlier post. Let's see how my priorities have changed, shall we?:


One day I will get up and sing in front develop a perfection healthy crush on of my peers a boy and not suck.

One day I will open my mouth and out will come exactly what I expected all along, exactly what happened in the practice room in my mental preenactment of the scene mere moments before. My throat will not feel like it has little throat-gnomes creeping out of its walls lost the ability to make functional sounds, constricting my air flow awesomeness, adding little scratchy noises baseless paranoia, which, I swear, were not there before was pretty much always there. One day, my knees confidence in my awesomeness will not shake nor my balance wildly pessimistic thought process test me. F#s Semen Charm will flow out of me like semen. Wait, that's gross the point. Like blood in a Disney movie. Actually, not a ton better rarely does semen flow in a Disney movie. Is there any single substance romantic situation that emanates from our bodies my mind that is not disgusting fucked in some matter? I'm gonna go with no holy hell, I hope not. Where was I? Oh yes, the awful, baby-crying F#s sweaty-palmed rejection fantasies. Yeah, those will be awesome stop. One day I will not have to float above myself in real time thinking "Oh Christ on a bike, not again!" and I'll actually be able to do a character nonchalantly call someone up and ask him to coffee rather than some shallowly emoting caricatured writing annoying blog entries about it. One day I will not finish a performance conversation with a friend and want to go up to every single person in the room on the bus and say "I'm sorry! I over-sung in the practice room over-think every single moment of my life and I can do it better, really I can am so sorry you had to hear about it! I swear, I have made progress in the last four eight years!

One day all this will happen.

Today, however, is not that day.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Know what I learned today? There are 27 potted plants in my building.

This guy is gonna need his own tag pretty soon.
It's Thursday and you know what that means...




It's Hottie Who Waters the Plants at Work Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is the day when all the little girls and 8-10% of the little boys in the world gather around 2:15pm to wait for the great Hottie to bestow upon them gifts of tight fitting jeans and miniature potted mums. Naughty children will receive nothing but seeds, which they must plant themselves instead in order to to teach them the real value of beauty in the world. (You see, the HWWPW is all about proactive teaching rather than just being mean like that asshole Santa. Lump of coal? That is harsh, yo!) It is customary to leave a Snickers bar or small bag of Hickory Sticks along with your phone number; a good supervisor knows to leave a note behind thanking the child (or 24 year old temp) on behalf of the Hottie, explaining that they're very special and good looking, and that while his company blackberry does not allow Him to dial externally, he will cherish your number forever. Also included is a sexual harassment waiver (though I can't imagine why).

Also, for those who haven't noticed, I spent half a work day last week assigning labels to all my past posts so you can now customize your Fleekin Floygn browsing to suit your mood. Really though, I was just bored.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Time I start work - 7:50am

Time my bus comes - 7:28am

Time it takes me to get to the busstop - 5:00min

Time my alarm clock goes off - 6:42am

Time I stopped pressing snooze and looked at my alarm clock - 7:18am


I made it to the busstop in time. At this point, I'm thinking I'm pretty much Moses.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

New York.../Chicago?

Sunday morning at 5:00 I flew to New York for an open house & preliminary interview at HUC. The flights were fairly uneventful as I slept the entire time and didn't get stranded overnight. Upon arrival at Laguardia, wily Jew that I am, I took a shared shuttle van into Manhattan at a fraction of the cost for a cab. What I didn't anticipate was waiting an hour for it to show up, being crammed in with 9 other passengers and having a driver who verged on abusive. He was like one of those psychotically-protective/abusive husbands you see on Maury that can just snap at a moment's notice. Everyone in the van was soft-spoken, extreeeeeeemely white and most were over 70. These factors made getting yelled at collectively by the driver almost comical. We developed this group mentality of survival, comforting each other in extremely hushed whispers when someone would get the verbal smack down and when one of us would reach their destination, we'd all smile, as if to say, "You survived! Huzzah!" and they would return the smile, meaning, "This, too, shall pass."

Finally, at the 2 hour mark, I got out of the van and cabbed the rest of the way. The $11.50 was well spent to get off of the Hell-mobile and it got me to the door of HUC just as the meet & greet (with snacks!) was beginning. We were given a tour of the school, dinner and an exercise in interpreting Jewish law, which left me more than a little bewildered ("I just want to SING," he said). There was an evening prayer service that got me all choked up, perhaps due to all these people being moved by the same (or at least a similar) spirit and looking really happy about it. I felt like a kid who was allowed into his older brother's tree house for the first time and didn't really know how to react. Though certainly not intentional, it was ironically isolating. I went home that night feeling incredibly confused about the whole day, with more questions than I'd had before.

The school had matched me up with a current student for a home stay, a third year student living in Brooklyn. Also staying with her was a 19 year old from Phillie who was, well, 19, and we all know how well I do with 19 year-olds. What is it about teenagers that fuels them to try to impress their elders with knowledge? First of all, we know more than you and secondly, a lot of times the info you're trying to impress us with is wrong. Epic fail: adolescence. He had me up past midnight watch Daily Show clips on my laptop. Ach, well, look...

The following day was significantly better. After a day of sitting in on classes, talking with current students, personal meetings with admissions staff and a kick ass salad lunch, I was much more at ease. The thing that really impressed me is how much the faculty really wants success for their students. The hoops that are presented for jumping are not put in place to intimidate but rather as a means to develop necessary skills. Novel concept, no? I'm still a little wary of the Kumbaya-esque element of the services, but I'll either get on board or learn to adapt. In the end, I got the green light to go ahead and apply, which is why I went in the first place, so yay. I also talked to the most adorable lad who gave reeeeeeeeally good eye contact (holding a gaze is up there with oysters on the aphrodisiac scale) and also gave me this secret handshake in which the index finger is extended during the grip. I remember learning this one but I can't remember for the life of me if it was a Jewish thing or a gay thing. Given the venue, I should probably opt for the former, but damn, pretty eyes.

That night, my host and I grabbed some Thai for dinner and had a great time talking about the school, Judaism, personal history. It's so delightful to connect with someone when in this kind of completely isolated environment. This conversation really added to the good vibes I'd caught at the school that day and that this was very much a Come-as-you-are kind of place, where individualism is embraced. How many faith-based institutions can claim that?

That night, I volunteered at their soup kitchen (I'm an asshole, but helping clothe the homeless and working with volunteers at the Fringe felt a lot alike) and then went for Thai food with my hostess, who is an absolute delight and that dinner was probably a big part of why I'm feeling so positive about applying. These really are very down-to-Earth, rational people who have chosen the clergy as a profession; they have shades of gray. They have their own personal morals but the level of autonomy is really quite astounding.

The next day, I flew to Chicago to transfer to Winnipeg, so of course the flight was cancelled. Satan, thy name is United Airlines. I therefore had a 27-hour layover in Chicago, staying at the lovely and decrepit Wyndham O'Hare (the skid row of airport hotels) and was given one meal voucher valued at $15 during my stay, to be used all at once at one of the astronomically expensive airport eateries. Hellooooo, $9.35 pannini! That night, after much hemming und hawing, I took the train into the city to visit Boystown, the first nationally recognized Ghay Ghetto in the US. It was rainy and deserted. The highlight of my night was a spontaneous Spice Girls sing-a-long by the table next to me at one of the homo restos. It was cute, innocent and didn't involve anonymous sex or narcotics, so big ups. In all, the trip took 5 hours, less than 2 of which were spent actually doing anything. Still, better than sitting in a shiztastic hotel room all night.

The next day, I went to the airport, used $14.78 of my voucher at Quizno's and went home. I feel like I have not slept in 3 years.

Also, last night I ran into, or more accurately avoided running into, a former of mine at Starbucks. This is one of those painfully awkward situations wherein you both know that the other is there and yet you pretend not to notice. At one point, he passed me while on the way to throwing out his cup and did this weird, sound effect-aided jump and half-salute/half-shielding of his face (designed to be playful?). I couldn't help but think, Really? Is this what we're going now? It was 7 years ago. 7 years. For 3 weeks. Like, c'mon. This is Winnipeg, a city wherein you have heard of most everyone before you even start dating them. The pool is that small. The thing that kills me is that if we had met now, 7 years after the fact, we'd probably get along really well. I've had that line from Jesus Christ Superstar in my head all day: Can we start again, please? What an insipidly futile question. It's been done already, like overcooked meat that can never be remoistened. Wow. That was the single worst metaphor I've ever thought up. Still, it kinda makes sense. Ish. The point is, there's no real going back after you've written an angsty adolescent song about them, complete with ever-so-clever homonymical allusions to their name. There's no relationship mulligan, no green 'Back' button. Ooh, but imagine if there was! You could click the adjacent arrow and pick the exact spot you'd want to return to!...

*cough*

Ok, maybe I am just as neurotic as I was at 17.

Friday, November 07, 2008

Evidently there is a dearth of songs that can be created in this mortal coil. Yesterday's lyrics practically wrote the music themselves, flowing in synchopation with the words. During the course of the day I revisited them and realized that I had completely forgotten the tune. So I would read them over a few times until it sprang back to me. Only - like Buffy at the beginning of Season 6 (werd) - I think it came back to me...wrong. How wrong, you ask? By the time I got home at 10pm and could finally sit down at my keyboard, it had become Piano Man. I wrote Piano Man.

I don't even really effing know Piano Man! How could I write it?! Well, evidently this sponge-like brain of mine was so infatuated with awful Crazy Concert performances that it took some great lyrics (by my own capability's standards) and matched them with the biggest Billy Joel song of all time. Mmmmmfuck you, brain!

To be fair, it was really only the chorus, and even then it was just the bass line. And part of the melody. But still... Now I have to go and reimagine the whole thing, which, frankly, is a lot of work for someone who hasn't even been writing music in the past couple years that isn't performed by the internationally-ignored Chai Folk Ensemblah.

Other updates of recent Fleekin Floygn charactères!

For the first time in...ever I sat at the front of the bus today so (of course) who should sit down right across the aisle from me? Why, it's freaky rave girl from a couple of weeks ago! Aw...big ups. Remember when I said that while she repulsed me for some reason there was nothing inherently wrong with her? Yeah, I'm-a have to retract that. Perhaps there was a memo circulated that I happened to miss, but when did Casual Friday imply no makeup, i.e. scary time, for the ladies? I pretended to be asleep until she got off. What? It would have been awkward.

I missed HWWPW yesterday cause of a &%$#ing staff meeting and only got out in time to watch him go. Oh, but how I love watching him go...

Speaking of work, a couple more stories from the Firecracker:

1.
Me: Um, I typed this code into the computer but nothing happened.
FC: (coming over and sitting down at my desk) Well, waddjya type in?
Me: [What I typed in]
FC: (types in the exact same thing) Huh, well that's weird. Why didn't it work?
Me: ...

2.
I am rifling through the supply closet.
FC: Waddarya lookin' for?
Me: White whiteout.
FC: Can't find any?
Me: Uh, no.
FC: Lemme look.
At this point she takes out an entire tray of whiteouts, most still under the plastic wrap, and starts unscrewing each one individually, despite the fact that each one has a green label, green cap and says "GREEN" on the side.
Me: I think they're all green.
FC: Well, you never know.
Me: ...

Hey, remember that time I invoked my inner-fifteen year old and went off on this guy? Yeah...he may have kiiiiiiiiinda had a sleepover last week... BUT he's been totally MIA ever since so I stand by the original post. 'Cept that he wasn't actually seeing anyone at the time and only told me that because he was "frightened that [he] wanted a relationship with [me]." Good God, somebody take this one out to pasture and shoot him. Enough. But really, enough. On the plus side, it kinda gave me my groove back because now it's over cause we're both ignoring each other. Equal footing, see? Look, it's not much, but it's all I have right now, mmk?

Thursday, November 06, 2008

A Waltz

I realize that lyrics mean next to nothing when read rather than heard, but his came to me as I was scanning my 3,000th legal land claim and writing it made me laugh.

HEY JOE

Joseph's come and gone
His success laying limp on the floor
The apology of lustful epiphany
And misbegotten form
Softly unappealing
Laughably kneeling
Almost turned his own trick
A boozy, hazy
do-not-want-but-i'm-lazy
That blew his divining stick

Hey Joe, wadda ya know?
A lot about lust tonight
The omniescent angel is nothing quite new
This act never turns out quite right
I'll stand up for you whenever you need
As I've layed down most times before
As you come and you go, come and go
And breathlessly fall to the floor

Oh me, Joe
Oh, my Joe
Mi hijo
Mojito

Oh me, Joe
Oh, my Joe
Mi hijo
How I grow

Rockstar
In the mirror, baby
Let me play at American Psycho
Rockstar
Deep in your lovin', honey
Don't you see just how this goes?

Joseph's come and gone
Far gone and out of town
Roaming the street for lost scraps of meat
No thought as he slowly slips down
What fun, this seduction
We all long for suction
From the ones we do adore
And when it's all over,
Then just play red rover
And paint crimson the living room floor

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Ticket:
$45

Homemade bloodied wings:
$22

H&M t-shirt:
$15

Hair colouring:
$123

Coloured contacts fitting:
$29

Party favours:
$22

Realizing that this doesn't work, never has worked and never will work, that this fantasy life is by no means conducive to my real one, that it doesn't even succeed at replacing what I'm missing, not for a second, that after three years it's time to accept that this really needs to be finished:
$256. No, not priceless. Can't you add? What a stupid thing to say.