Part 3 of That Nasty Post

I took a deep breath. The moment of truth had begun. One at a time, the head judge called the contestants to the stage. Each contestant was required to bring their entry to the stage, hold it up for the audience to view, then give a short speech about their work. The first person who came out was a woman who'd brought an eagle her dad's best friend's brother had killed and stuffed himself. She'd grown up dressing the eagle in baby clothes and pushing it around in a pram. She loved this eagle because she thought it was really funny that her dad's best friend's brother killed the eagle and stuffed it.

Not quite what I had expected.

The next woman works as a professional bug-pinner for the Natural History Museum. She'd brought four tiny diorama's she'd created, anthropomorphizing various South American beetles. She mentioned how she keeps the beetles in her freezer next to her roommates Skinny Cows until she's ready to use them. Based on what she said about her work, I am certain that those diorama's were beautiful and compelling, but I couldn't see them. I couldn't see them because the stage upon which the contestants work was displayed was lit for a sweaty band of boys playing bad renditions of Iggy Pop hits, not for the art I was hoping to see.

The next guy was a short, round, sweaty, fast-talking Japanese guy with an accent so thick I could hardly understand a word he was saying. He used his own taxidermied skin to create squid-baby, two-headed baby and mer-girl. He tried to explain his process - I understood that "summer is best time peal skin" but I'm still not sure if he was actually skinning himself or just using flaked sun-burnt skin. Either way, it would have been really great if I could have actually seen his sculptures. But I could not.

I also couldn't see the eight-hour old yorkie puppie that had been given to the taxidermist by a devastated breeder who'd never lost a puppy. I could kind of make out the plastic skeleton being sold off as Mickey Mouse's actual skeleton and I did not think it was funny or clever or interesting. I was also not amused by the woman who entered into the contest a skull she found on a trip to New Mexico but she wasn't sure what it was, a shellacked alligator-head she bought at a Rite-Aid in Louisiana and a "really cool rock" that she alleged might have a dinasour fossil in it, but she wasn't sure, and she'd love to know if the judges thought so. I was even less interested when the same woman proceeded to read aloud an ad she'd found on the internet for a stuffed piranha from Japan. The ad was obviously written by a person who did not speak English as a first language, yet this "really cool rock" woman seemed to feel that making vicious remarks about someone's ability to write in a language not their own had some relevancy to a rogue taxidermy contest. However, it wasn't until a woman who's contest entry was a bottle of deer's urine and her entire talk was a sales pitch for a particular brand of deer urine that her father manufactures, I decided I'd had enough. Sure, Rabmer, the soft-mounted under-sea jack rabbit was incredible, but it was after ten o'clock and we had an hour ahead of us on the train and I just couldn't take it anymore.

The evening was a crushing disappointment. I haven't been that disappointed in at least four hours, but if I learned one thing, it was this:

DON'T MAKE EYE-CONTACT WITH THE HIPSTERS.

Click here for Part 1

Click here for Part 2

That Nasty Post, Continued

And the answer to last week's Question Of The Week is:

C) You'd let a Very Boring Woman give a Very Boring Speech about a Very Boring Book she wrote, follow it with a psychedelic movie about a deer's butt and then let random people come up from the audience to show whatever the fuck they felt like showing, while they yelled into a microphone about how their dad's friend's brother was a taxidermist who preferred stuffing eagles he killed over all other creatures.

---

The contest started at nine and it did not begin with an introduction to the rogue taxidermists who's work would be on display, no it did not. Instead, it started with The World's Most Boring Woman giving The World's Most Boring Speech. Who was this Boring Woman? A taxidermist? No. She's an author trying to sell the book she just published about taxidermy. Maybe I'd buy the book, maybe if she had cared enough about her book to make a smart marketing decision and hire someone to play her, because the real and actual her was so boring that if I had to choose between having hot needles shoved under my fingernails or listening to that Boring Woman give another speech, you can bet I'd go for the hot needles.

Next, there was an art film. It's too bad I can't accurately type out the sarcasm with which I use the words art film. They played a psychadelic art film about an endangered creature known as the "rumpape". From what I gathered, a rumpape is a face made out of a deer's stomach and placed into his butt. It looks a little like a monkey, but not really. The most surprising thing about the movie was that it actually succeeded in offending me.

You read that right.

The rumpape movie offended me. Me. Me, the woman who has planned to have Valentine freeze-dried and posed as if she's humping a pillow, because that is how I will want to remember her after she dies. I was slightly offended by the rumpape.

It was then, in the after-sting of slight offendedness, that the contest finally began. At nine-thirty. A full two hours after the show was scheduled to start.

To Be Continued...

This may be the nastiest post I've written

tax*i*der*my

noun

the art of preparing, stuffing, and mounting the skins of animals with lifelike effect.

Last week I was flipping through Time Out New York --

It just occurred to me that most of my readers are related to me, live in Southern California, and have no idea what Time Out New York (TONY) is.

It is my belief that at one time, TONY magazine was a great vehicle for finding interesting things to do in the city, great places to shop, the best places to eat, et cetera. Unfortunately, the TONY that I know is a giant wad of advertisements with four pages at the end detailing all of the places to go if you want to get spanked, poop on someone's face, find someone to watch you have sex with your stuffed panda and which porn shops specialize in celebrity look-alike movies with matching dolls.

Last week I was flipping through TONY because, I don't know, it was there and, ALL RIGHT I'LL ADMIT IT. I like reading about the people who think it's hot to wear butt-plugs shaped like horsey tails. It makes me laugh. So I'm flipping through TONY and I come across an ad for:

Drumroll, please.

......

A ROGUE TAXIDERMY CONTEST.

IN BROOKLYN.

......

I almost freaked out. My first thought was, Mike will never go. And it's in Brooklyn. That's like, eight hours away.

My next thought was: IT'S A ROGUE TAXIDERMY CONTEST AND IT'S IN MY CITY.

Do you know what rogue taxidermy is? I didn't either. But I started having these visions --visions of incredible, beautiful, enchanting, bizarre creatures, sculptures made of once living flesh, two-headed rats and four-nippled snakes. I did a quick little internet search for "rogue taxidermy" and read about these artists who use donated pets, roadkill, and other animals who've died of totally natural causes or met with accidental disasters, and they create these incredible works of art using dead flesh as their medium.

Is that not absolutely right up my alley? It absolutely is!

In reality, I wasn't very impressed with the pictures of dead-things art that I saw online. They were all right, but the stuff I was seeing in my head was so much cooler. I just knew that those photos weren't even important. The photos were barely the tip of the ice berg. This rogue taxidermy contest? It was going to be the zenith of my fantasies. It was going to be the end all be all answer to my questions about life and who I am and what I should be doing and what my secret dreams are. This contest was going to change me, forever.

Do you remember when I wrote about how big my expectations get? I'm just saying.

*Weird coincidence: I talk about roadkill in that post too.*

So I get all these ideas in my head. And before I know it, I am more excited about this rogue taxidermy contest than I can remember being about anything in ages, except maybe when I booked that Life On Mars episode. (But I won't mention how that was almost a year ago, because I wouldn't want to make myself feel bad or anything.)

By last Friday I was more excited about a rogue taxidermy contest than I had been about anything in a really long time. Saturday felt like the longest day of my life. Sunday I was practically hysterical. I was showered, dressed, had walked the dogs, had my shoes on, my purse packed, ready to walk out the door by ten o'clock in the morning, a full six-and-a-half hours before it was actually time to go.

I trust you understand the weight of that small detail.

We arrived at the venue at seven-thirty on the dot, and proceeded to wait around for an hour-and-a-half because although the contest was scheduled to begin at seven-thirty sharp, it did not begin until nine. NINE. Nine. They were running an hour-and-a-half behind schedule. They might as well have ripped out my heart.

Question: If you were hosting a rogue taxidermy contest, what would be the first order of business after making your excited audience members wait an hour-and-a-half for your contest to begin?

A) You'd introduce the evening's contestants to the audience.

B) You'd give a short talk about rogue taxidermy and then introduce the contestants.

C) You'd let a Very Boring Woman give a Very Boring Speech about a Very Boring Book she wrote, follow it with a psychedelic movie about a deer's butt and then let random people come up from the audience to show whatever the fuck they felt like showing, while they yelled into a microphone about how their dad's friend's brother was a taxidermist who preferred stuffing eagles he killed over all other creatures?

To be continued...

Animalia Chordata Amphibia Driedoutada

"She was, in a word, weird."

-- Robert McCammon

When I was a little girl, my parents took me to Kauai, Hawaii for a week. I wasn't sure whether or not to be excited about it, because all of the cool kids were going to Maui or Honolulu or Palm Springs. Kauai? None of my friends had ever even heard of Kauai. But then I realized that they had also never heard of Molokai, the Isle of Lepers, or Kaho'olawe, the Isle of U.S. Military Practice Bombing, so I decided to reserve judgment.

Kauai was incredible. A tropical paradise dreamed up for a hungry suburban child, thanks to the total lack of tourism. We visited a ranch where ducks and geese and chickens ran free and where I spent the whole day trying to catch a duckling I planned to smuggle home. We went to a luau, ate kalua pig, watched dancers swallow fire and learned how to put a chicken to sleep by twisting its neck. We snorkeled and hiked, we drank coconut milk from the actual coconut and slurped freezing shaved ice. The week was idyllic, but the very best part wasn't any activity or attraction. It was the frogs. They were everywhere. Beautiful fat brown frogs with slick, cool bellies. Their croaks were a chorus that lulled me to sleep then guided me from dreams in the morning. I could step off any road into jungle, and at my feet would be a carpet of wet, belching frogs. At night when we walked to dinner I chased frogs along the road, and in the morning as we walked to breakfast I used a long stick to pop their flattened bodies off the road. Lord, if the roads weren't paved with hundreds of their pancaked bodies. I'd never seen anything like it in my entire nine years of life.

When it came time to pick a souvenir, I wanted one thing.

"No."

"But WHY?"

"Do I really need to spell it out?"

"Yes."

"Because it's dead and rotting and filthy. No."

A couple of years later my parents sent me to horse camp for a week. It was heaven. In addition to riding and jumping, I learned all about taking care of a horse. I learned how to braid the mane and tail for shows. I learned how to feed them and muck out their stalls, something I actually thought was fun. One day, a farrier came and let us watch as he removed the horse's old shoes, trimmed his hooves and hammered new shoes on. While the other little girls ran around collecting discarded horseshoes to hang in their bedrooms for good luck, I ran around collecting hoof clippings for my own little collection.

I hadn't even been home from camp for a day when my mother came sniffing around my room.

"What is that?"

"What?"

"That smell."

"I don't smell anything."

"I do. It smells like something in here is rotting."

"No it's not."

"Where's your suitcase?"

"I haven't unpacked it yet."

"Open it."

That was when I flung my body across my suitcase and cried, "But it's for my collection!" Then I pointed to the shelf where I displayed my deer jaw, the mouse vertebrae I found in coyote scat and the leg bones whose previous owner I hadn't yet identified.

"We agreed. Nothing that rots. Open your suitcase."

I thought the hoof clippings smelled wonderfully gamey, but Mama said no, they were rotting, they had to go.

A few years ago my parents went back to Kauai. They called me after their trip and we had a nice visit. They asked if I'd gotten the gift they'd sent. I hadn't, but I'd definitely keep a lookout for it! They told me all about how the island had changed, how tourism had exploded; there were more hotels, more paved roads, more mosquitoes, and they only saw one frog the entire time they were there.

The next day I checked my mail and found a small padded envelope addressed to me in my father's neat hand. Along the bottom of the envelope my mother had scrawled, "This was your father's idea. I give him all the credit."

I carefully tore open the end of the envelope and right away got a good whiff of something fishy. The smell wasn't unpleasant, just surprising. "I think they sent us some fish jerky!" I called out to Mike, who was in the next room. I shook the contents of the envelope out onto my kitchen table, wondering why the jerky wasn't in some sort of packaging. And then I realized it wasn't fish jerky. It was a frog. A perfect, beautiful, flat Kauai frog.

I finally found the right display case for him. Isn't he lovely?

Three

Ooooooh. Looky who forgot to take any pitchers on August 14th. You're gonna get in trr0-UH-ble!

This marks the THIRD time I've forgotten to take photos since I started Project 356+ in June.

But you know what? IT DOESN'T MATTER. The whole point of the project was to get me to be a little bit more creative every day. And it's working. I haven't written this consistently EVER IN MY WHOLE LIFE. And I love it. I love writing. When I can't write because I have chores or work or other things I have to do, it pains me. Literally. It hurts. I am very in love with the writing.

And so I refuse to feel bad for missing another day of photographs. Instead, I will post a photo I took the following day, August 15, a photo that I am actually quite pleased with:

I think Ty would be proud.

My first dead thing in a while, I found this beauty while John and I were wandering the East Village on Saturday. At first glance I thought the mass of flesh on the ground was a pile of dead leaves. And the maggots? I thought those were a pile of little flower buds.

I'm not kidding.

Imagine my surprise when I realized I'd just walked through a pile of live maggots.

But the squirming, writhing maggots were not enough to deter me from photographing such a luscious dead thing. Nor were the many people who passed me, a look of utter disgust on their faces, as I crouched on the filthy sidewalk and snapped photo after photo.

Know why else John is cool? He took as many pictures of that rat as I did.

Because August 5th was a big day

I spent Wednesday afternoon with my dear friend Michelle, but Wednesday night I had the privilege of joining my brother and his lovely wife, along with our parents, for his birthday dinner at a great little sushi joint in The Valley.

It's been bothering me that I haven't written anything in honor of my brother's birthday. I wrote a story for my dad's birthday this month, then I wrote a special post for George when his birthday rolled around. I've written birthday posts for Mike, Adam, even Jesus*. But nothing for Ty's birthday. And it's not because I value him any less, oh goodness no. He's one of the most important people in my life. It's because I feel shy.

Growing up, Ty was my idol. He'd walk into a room and I was instantly start-struck. He was so handsome and smart and kind. He protected me, spent time with me, taught me things. When I had something to say, he listened as if what I was saying was the most important thing in the world. He was a teenager and he would let me, his 6-year-old kid sister, hang out with him and his friends and they treated me like one of the gang. He made me feel like the most special kid in the entire Universe.

Ty protected me and took care of me. He fixed my toys when they broke, he stood up for me when I was made fun of. If I woke up from a nightmare, it wasn't my parents I went to for comfort, it was my brother. His room was my favorite room in the house, despite the fact that his room was full of things that would terrify most little girls. He had floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed with things like snake shed and monkey skulls, live reptiles and taxidermied animals. But he had taken the time to teach me about what they were and where they came from, why they were beautiful. So instead of being afraid of these things, I loved them as much as he did.

Ty taught me the difference between spiders and daddy longlegs, he introduced me to pincer bugs and caterpillars, took me fishing and taught me the lyrics to his favorite Oingo Boingo songs, explained why Blondie was cooler than Madonna. He gave me my love of reptiles, dead things, Blue Grass and rodents. When Mike and I planned our wedding, we asked him to officiate because I couldn't think of anyone else in the world I wanted standing with us when Mike and I said our vows.

I adore my big brother, but he keeps his cards close to his chest and so I feel like I should too. Though many of my most treasured memories are of times I've spent with him, I'm too shy to tell him.

That's why I haven't written anything for his birthday. I worry it would make him feel awkward. I feel embarrassed. So instead I cross my fingers and hope he knows that even though I'm grown up and I don't need to knock on his door when I have a nightmare, he's still my hero.

8/5/09

*I'm lying. I haven't written anything for Jesus. But maybe I should.

I Love Dead Things.

ef·flu·vi·um (ĭ-flōō'vē-əm) n. pl. ef·flu·vi·a (-vē-ə) or ef·flu·vi·ums
1. A usually invisible emanation or exhalation, as of vapor or gas.
2. a) A byproduct or residue; waste.
b) The odorous fumes given off by waste or decaying matter.
3. An impalpable emanation; an aura.

nec·ro·phil·i·a (něk'rə-fĭl'ē-ə) n.
1. Obsessive fascination with death and corpses.
2. Erotic attraction to or sexual contact with corpses.

No results found for necroamicus.
Did you mean keramics (in dictionary) or Necromanis (in encyclopedia)?

Poompy says I collect effluvia. But that isn't really right. I don't collect invisible emanations or vapors or odorous fumes. That's what he does, sure, but only when he eats too much dairy.

I collect dead things. I have just spent the last twenty minutes doing an online search to try to find out if there is a name for what I do, something along the lines of "necroamicus" ("necro" being Latin for "dead" and "amicus" being Latin for "friend") but that doesn't seem to exist. I am certainly not a necropheliac even though one could call my fascination with dead things a little bit obsessive. Sure I might be obsessed with dead things, BUT I DO NOT HAVE SEX WITH THEM. YOU SICKO.

The night before we left for Gettysburg, I found a newly dead baby bird on the sidewalk. Poompy and I were walking to Jen's apartment to drop Theo off for the next couple of days (the Bitch was staying with our friend Stef) when I found the little gem. This bird was so perfect and so beautiful. It's little body wasn't even cold yet. I crouched on the sidewalk, Poompy waiting impatiently behind me, admiring this perfect specimen and bashing myself for having left my camera at home. Again. And since I couldn't take a photo of the bird, I decided to take the bird home with me and take a photo of it there. So I used a poop bag and carefully picked up my little treasure and that was that.

We arrived at Jen's apartment and got Theo all situated and chatted for a little while and then went home. And it wasn't until I walked in my front door that I realized I'd left my bird on Jen's kitchen counter. YOU CANNOT IMAGINE THE CRUSHING DISAPPOINTMENT. I picked up my phone.

"Hi, Jen? It's Frosty."
"Is this about the dead bird you left on my kitchen counter?"
"Um, yes. It is. Would you - "
"Oh god."
"Would you mind just popping it in your freezer for me? So I can pick it up from you when I get back from my trip?"
"No. No, I will not. That is just too much to ask."

When I was about 12 years old I returned from a week at Horse Camp with some interesting souvenirs. A few days after I came home my mom started noticing a foul odor emanating from my bedroom. The smell got worse and worse until she couldn't stand it anymore.

"WHAT IS THAT HORRIBLE SMELL?"
"What? What are you talking about?"
"SOMETHING IN YOUR ROOM IS STINKING UP THE WHOLE HOUSE."
"No it's not! I don't know what you're talking about!"

She walked over to my bookcase where I'd prettily arranged my Horse Camp souvenirs. She gingerly picked one up and sniffed it.

"OH MY GOD. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS."
"Horse toe-nail clippings."
"WHAT?"
"Horse toe-nail clippings. They're pretty. I bet you didn't even know that horses need their toe-nails clipped."

Then there was the time my father confronted my mother in their kitchen with a grim expression and a paper bag.
"What? What's wrong?" she asked.
"This is not funny."
"What is not funny?"
"This. This is disgusting. I thought there was a special treat in here for me. This is just mean."

My father dropped the bag on the kitchen table and stormed upstairs. My mother, completely mystified, opened the bag and found a little frozen mouse. A frozen mouse I'd left in their freezer probably four years before, since it had been at least that long since I'd moved out. All I have to say is, maybe they should clean out their freezer more often?

But you know, my family kind of encourages this little hobby of mine. A couple of years ago my parents vacationed in Kauai, Hawaii. They hadn't been there since the time they'd taken me as a child. The year they took me to Kauai, I spent the whole week running ahead of them to admire the hundreds of flattened frogs laying dead in the street. I was probably 7 or 8 at the time and I just couldn't get enough of these dead frogs. It seems that the frogs would come out at night and get flattened by cars zipping past. Then they would dry in the sun and turn into these perfect, frog-shaped pancakes. I wanted to take one home SO BADLY. But of course my parents wouldn't let me. So, now the year is 2006 and my folks are in Kauai without me. They've been there a couple of days when I get a box in the mail. It's marked "Fragile" in my fathers handwriting and my mother has written, "This is a special souvenir your father picked out just for you." I was so excited. What could it be? I eagerly, yet gently - minding the "Fragile" warning - ripped open the box. It was a frog-shaped pancake. I still have it. I'm trying to grow the balls to bring it to one of those framing stores to have it professionally framed. I will hang it in a place of honor.

Currently, my apartment is home to a box of rabbit and deer bones which I discovered on various hiking trips through the Santa Monica mountains when I was a kid, a box of snake shed sent to me by my dear friend who is caring for my python while I live in NYC, a box of cat whiskers which I add to whenever I find a stray one laying around somewhere, and of course, the flattened froggy. Oh! and let us not forget my Dead Things photo set on Flickr. It would really be awful if I were ever accused of a violent crime. People would come forward to testify: "She keeps dead frogs in her closet! And she collects animal bones! AND SHE ENJOYS TAKING PHOTOS OF DEAD BIRDS."

No One Memed Me

So, I'm totally obsessed with the blogging world now. Which is funny because, when blogs first started becoming a "thing", I thought they were the LAMEST thing EVER. I NEVER thought I'd be writing one, let alone reading the blogs of strangers. But I totally do it and I totally love it.

People In The Sun is one of my faves, and a few weeks ago, he memed the world in this post. And, since I'm stupidly bored at work today, I thought I'd take on his challenge.

(Oh, just in case you don't know what a meme is, and don't feel bad because I had to look it up myself, a meme is like a chain letter game, like the emails you get that say "send to 7 other friends..." This one is about 7 different things that you most likely do not know about the person writing. And like People In The Sun, I'm not going to challenge 7 specific people, but I WILL collectively challenge the universe!)

Ready? Go.

1. I'm afraid of monsters. Seriously. I'm terrified of the dark and I ALWAYS check for monsters wherever I think they might be hiding. The shower, closets, behind curtains, under the bed ... On a really bad day, I think they could hide in the most impossible places and I find myself checking in the oven and in cupboards and whatnot. God only knows what I'd do if I actually FOUND a monster one day. Probably stab it with a pencil* or something. And you know what really freaks me out about having kids? I just KNOW that the first time Frosty Jr. comes crying to me that there's a monster in her closet, I will absolutely LOSE my shit. No way can I handle that kind of crap. No way.

2. Other people coughing REALLY freaks me out. Really really really freaks me out. I HATE it when people cough without covering their mouths. It makes me want to throw up. And I hate it almost as much when they cough all over their hands, because you KNOW they're just gonna go touch something I have to touch, so they might as well have just coughed all over everything. I get so freaked out that I think I can actually SEE their germs crawling around all over the place. The only acceptable thing is to cough into a tissue, or at the very least, into ones elbow. Ones elbow does not touch the keyboard I have to touch, or the door knob I have to touch, or the support-pole-thingy on the subway that I have to touch. Which leads me to.....

3. I'm terrified of germs. I can't stand touching stair rails or doorknobs, or soap dispensers, or anything that is touched by the general public. I think the general public is generally disgusting. I'm afraid of my shoe laces and the bottoms of my shoes. I'm afraid of the ground because I believe it is crawling with fecal germs from the bottoms of shoes that walked on the floors of public restrooms and dirty sidewalks. I think a toilet seat is one of the grossest things in the entire world. And yet, somehow, I'm able to completely turn off that part of my brain whenever it is convenient for me. I LOVE it when my dogs, who happen to enjoy eating poo, lick my face. I will happily lay belly down on the filthy sidewalk if it means getting a really good photo of a dead thing. I'd rather let my bathroom turn green with mould than actually clean it. And I'd rather have filthy, germy hands than use that hand sanitizer crap because I'd rather have hands full of live germs than hands full of the corpses of dead germs. Because I just think that is grosser.

4. It drives me crrrraaaaazy when people are early. I think it's rude and inconsiderate. I'm not talking about for appointments or anything. For appointments, like a job interview or something, being five minutes early is appropriate. I'm talking about social engagements. If I've invited you over at 7 p.m. and you knock on my door at 6:45, I officially HATE you.

5. It is physically painful to wake up in the morning. Probably because I never get enough sleep. Because I hate going to bed. I dread it. No matter how tired I am, I just do not want to go. But once I'm IN bed, almost nothing can pull me out of it. My alarm will go off twenty times over a two hour period and I won't budge. Though, Poompy and a fresh cup of coffee usually do the trick. I usually get up for that. I heart Poompy.

6. My absolute favoritest favoritest favoritest FAVORITEST thing to do in my free time is to pull out the couch bed, pile it with pillows and blankets from my bed, curl up with Poompy and the beasts and watch hours upon hours of Netflix DVD's. Gawd how I love that. And Poompy and the beasts are all the most fantastic cuddlers in the world. Seriously. Poompy lays down first and I curl up into his side with my face on his chest. Then Theo squeezes in between us and buries his nose under my chin. Then Valentine lays down on top of Theo and pushes her nose in the little space between my face and Poompy's chest. Then Toby squeezes himself into whatever space is left up against my belly. And if we're really really lucky, even Amelia will come and curl up on our feet. Oh, it makes my heart swell just thinking of it. I live in the most exciting city in the U.S. and all I want to do is curl up in my tiny nest with my tiny family. It's just so heavenly.

7. I'm going to be famous. And by 'famous', I mean I am going to be a highly respected, highly paid, award winning actor. I know it, deep deep down inside my soul, I am absolutely SURE that that is who I am: a highly respected, highly paid, award winning actor. I just happen to be stuck in the body of a starving, non-working actor, but that is really just temporary. For reals.









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*I used to have a roommate who kept very different hours than me. One night I woke up around 1 a.m. and heard something shuffling around in the living room. I knew it was a monster come to kill me. I just KNEW it. I lay in bed, sweating furiously, shaking under the covers, barely able to breathe, trying desperately to figure out how to protect myself. I scanned my brain for every possible weapon-like-object in my bedroom. The only thing I could come up with was a pencil. I thought that at least, by sticking the pencil in the monsters eye socket, throat or even his knee-pit, I might buy myself some time. So I creeped out of bed, got my pencil, and stealthily made my way out of my bedroom. I tip-toed into the living room, pencil poised for stabbing, and found my roommate just sitting on the couch, goofing around on his computer. He looks up at me, my face white with terror, arm poised above my head, pencil ready to go and says, "What the HELL are you doing?" Uh...... I thought you were a monster?

Dead Things: Or Why Poompy Loves Me

If you've ever been to my Flickr account, you know my fascination with dead things. Sadly, since I've gotten kind of used to living in NYC, I've stopped carrying my camera with me everywhere I go, so now I regularly miss good photo opportunities with the city's beautiful dead. Which just drives me nuts. I'll be walking down the street and I'll see a squashed rat and I'll stop in my tracks, squat on the pavement for a closer look, dig through my purse for my camera and then curse myself for leaving the camera at home. And then a moment passes as I'm squatting on the sidewalk hovering over the rotting carcass of some poor creature, where I seriously consider putting the thing in my pocket so that as soon as I get home I can take a picture of it. Or, if the thing is REALLY dried out, perhaps I can bring it home and just ... save it. Maybe to put in a frame at some later date*. How cool would that be? I think. But then the practical side of me (yes, I have one too) takes over and I realize how upset Poompy will be if he finds out I've stuck this dead rat or pigeon or sparrow or whatever in my pocket and brought it into our tenement. So I sigh, wistfully, and walk away, knowing I'll never have the opportunity to photograph that particular dead thing ever again.

A couple of weeks ago Jen brought Sexy Sadie into work with her for the afternoon. Sadie is a good little doggy, so she has free run of the spa when she's there. A few hours into the work day, I hear Jen screaming in the back. Before I have a chance to see what's going on, she's running up front with Sadie in her arms. "Oh my god! Is my dog's face OK? You'll never believe what just happened!" Sadie's face looked fine, so I follow Jen into the back room where there are two sprung mouse traps on the floor - one of them with a dried out little mouse in it. Apparently, Jen had gone in to check on Sadie and found her crunching on something which turned out to be the mummified mouse in the trap. (Jen was worried that the empty trap had sprung on Sadie's face, but we've since decided that it probably wasn't empty when Sadie found it. If you know what I mean.) So here I am, at work, with a lovely dead thing and no camera. I took a deep breath, looked at Jen and said, "Can I take it home?"

ÅND SHE DIDN'T MIND. You have no idea how thrilled I was to be able to take that little dead mousy home. We put him in a biohazard bag (it was the only plastic bag with a seal that we had around) and put that in a Dean & Deluca bag. I was worried Mr. Mouse would just crumble up if I stuck him loose in my purse. I had a lot going on that night, so I wasn't able to photograph him right away. Instead, he stayed in his baggies on top of my fridge. Until Poompy found him.

We're in the bitchen** getting ready for bed when Poompy asks me, "Hey, what's in this Dean & Deluca bag? Did you get cupcakes?" And because at the core of my being I'm actually quite cruel, I respond, "It's a treat I picked up for you. Open it!" He opened the bag, looked inside, looked up at me, grinned, put the bag back on top of the fridge and said, "I should've known," And that was that.

Does that mean I have permission to bring home dead things?



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*In an envelope inside a box on the top shelf of a closet in the tenement is a dead frog that my parents sent me in the mail about ... oh gee, I guess that's nearly two years ago now. He's beautifully dried and quite gorgeous, really. I'm just waiting to find the time (and money) to bring him to a shop to have him framed. I think he'll look really nice in one of those glass, shadow-box type deals. A real conversation-starter, you know?

**You didn't forget about our bitchen, did you?

Winter Wonderments: NYC through the eyes of a Valley Girl, Part I

(This blog was originally posted on Myspace, way back in April. But as I begin to make the transition from once-in-a-while Myspace blogger to pretty-regular Blogger.com blogger, I will be re-posting some of my original Myspace blogs into this account. I know, you're thrilled.)

I once said: "L.A. is home and NYC is weird. But weird in a way that is fantastic and fun and exciting and wonderful." (That's right kids, I totally just quoted myself.) I stand by that statement. Kind of. Except that NYC is starting to feel a little like home. And now that I am beginning to actually get used to the things that seemed so weird about NYC when I first moved here, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge those things before I forget them.

You see, I'm a born and raised Valley Girl. Like in the movies. I basically grew up at the mall. No, Daddy never gave me his credit card, though most of my friends did carry their parents' plastic. Up until recently, I could count the number of times I've seen snow on one hand. And if you asked me to tell you how many times I've seen snow that wasn't man-made, I'd say, "snow isn't man-made?" I like to consider myself a well-traveled individual, having made my way through seven foreign countries and several U.S. states, however, nothing could have prepared me for New York in winter. And apparently, this winter was a mild one, though I wouldn't say so. Before I moved, lots of people warned me that New York was very different from Los Angeles, but they were really vague. They said things like, "NYC is sooooo different from LA" but when I asked what made it different, they just stared at me blankly and muttered, "....uh.... the apartments are really small...." which did not at all help prepare me for the change. So this post is really for the benefit of any other Valley Girls/Boys or born-and-bred Los Angelinos who might be considering a move to NYC in the near future. 

Things About New York City in Winter That Completely Baffled A Little Valley Girl:

1) Old ladies in fur coats with matching fur hats. Seriously. I'm not even kidding. I've never seen so many women draped in dead animals in my entire life. And no one even blinks. No one cringes. No one thinks it's a problem. Somewhere in my head I understand that there are still people who think that dead animals make for good fashion, but I didn't really believe that was the case until I lived on the Upper East Side in February. I really had to restrain myself from buying a can of red spray paint.

2) The actual, legitimate need for snow boots. Who knew they were actually a necessity? Did you know that snow boots keep your feet warm and dry? Because I didn't! 

3) The legitimate need for a shoulder bag large enough to carry one's snow boots. Women inLA run around with these giant bags which is ridiculous since they have TRUNKS IN THEIR CARS to hold all their stuff. But in NYC, in February, if you are tromping to and from home to the subway to work and what not, you have to wear your snow boots. But you don't want to wear your snow boots at work (or in my case, in auditions). So you bring your nice shoes with you and put them in your over-sized bag. Then, once you've put your nice shoes on, you need a place to put your snow shoes. Ah Ha! This is when the over-sized bag comes in handy. 

4) Let's talk about snow that feels like sand being blasted against your face. Holy Crap. Now I know what the mean when they say someone has "weathered" skin. 

5) Automatic heat. Um, WEIRD. I've visited/stayed in at least six different apartments in totally different areas of the city and they all have heat that is controlled by the building. It gets so hot that you control the temperature in your apartment by opening or closing the window. The heat comes out of a radiator. I'd never seen one before. You can drape your soggy socks over your radiator and an hour later they're dry. At first I was worried my socks would catch fire, but everyone does it. You can also put a pot of water on top of the radiator and it helps bring moisture into the room because the winters here are very very dry.

6) The actual and legitimate need to dry clean one's coat more than once a year. In L.A. I barely wore my winter coat often enough to warrant a dry cleaning once every three years. But I wore my coat so often the first few months I was here, and so often while sitting next to a stinky homeless guy on the subway, that next winter I will definitely need to get into the habit of dry cleaning my coat at least once a month. Maybe more often. Which means I'll actually need more than one winter coat because I will need something to wear while the first coat is at the cleaners. Which means I will need to go shopping.

7) Snow. At night, walking home from the subway station, the snow looks like glitter as it falls below the street lights. It's absolutely gorgeous. Icicles form on the street lights too, and they glitter and glisten like diamonds. Breathtaking. 

8) The ability to genuinely say, "The weather is so nice today!" when it's 22 degrees outside. (You know, when it's been 15 degrees all week, 22 feels tropical.)

9) Slush. I now understand why people say snow is only pretty the first time it falls in the winter and then it just sucks balls.

10) Frozen rats. I only saw one. It was on the sidewalk, up against a building on 34th and 8th. I cannot tell you how badly I wanted to pick it up and put it in my pocket and bring it home as a souvenir. But then I thought about the reaction I would get from the people around me and I decided it probably wasn't worth the commotion I might cause. Although looking back on it, it SO would have been worth it.

Perhaps you can begin to understand how all these things might shock a little sheltered Valley Girl like me. I wonder if next winter these things will still hold all the shiny newness they held for me this year? We'll just have to wait and see.

Next up: Spring Fever: NYC through the eyes of a Valley Girl, Part II