Streetcar at the KenCen

My gay boyfriend and I managed to score tickets to see Cate Blanchett in Streetcar Named Desire this week. We had been reading reviews and random blogs, all saying it was fabulous and mind blowing. So we were really looking forward to this.

The first half was good. Really good. But maybe not quite crossing the line into mind blowing. We also talked during the intermission about how there was just no one to root for in this story. They were all awful people really. The second half, however - wow. It was awesome. I've said to several people that it basically set my hair on fire. At some point I stopped breathing. They're all lying and all have an agenda. And then Blanche has to be dragged out from under the bed. When she says that so famous line about the kindness of strangers, you could hear the entire audience exhale. We had all stopped breathing and that line felt like a punch that forced the air out of us.

In other versions of Streetcar that I've seen, I've always hated that line. I mean really hated it. It never made sense to me. It seemed like a completely wrong response to the situation. I think it was wrong because it was too chirpy and flirty, like Blanche was just moving on to the next man who might save her. It was too hopeful when it was obvious that there was no hope left to be had. I realized in this version that the line is incredibly powerful and sums up all of Blanche's tiredness and feeling of being played out and abandoned by her family - there is no one left to help her except this stranger. And all of that emotion and exhaustion is in that sentence. It made me want to weep.

I Will Steal Your Dog

I took the beast to the vet this morning for some blood work. She's considered a senior kitty now, which seems to mean "come spend a couple hundred bucks every few months" on wacky things I swear the vet is just making up. The Dirty Frog is the official cat wrangler at my house, and he's really good at it. This morning was a little more traumatic than usual since the beast figured out something was up before she was wrangled. She had to be flushed from beneath a bed and then dragged from behind the couch. In other words, she was good and pissed when we got to the vet. I felt kind of bad for the tech who was going to have to draw blood. I hope he's well paid.

While the beast was in the back wreaking havoc with the vet techs, I was out in the waiting room admiring the puppies. There was a woman with the cutest damn yorkie. She would rub his belly and he'd make this growling noise. She told me he had grown up with a cat and had learned to purr. How freaking cute is that?

I wanted that dog. I mean really wanted that dog. Had there been no witnesses, I would have clocked her with my purse and grabbed her dog. But there was a guy with a couple of scotties that I was pretty sure would put a stop to that...so no puppy for me. Just a very angry senior kitty for the foreseeable future.

Yay Christmas?

I went out for dinner tonight and noticed that the shopping center we drove through was already decorated for Christmas. The light poles were wrapped in garlands and there were wreaths up all over the place. Now, I kind of expect to see Christmas inside the stores. I mean, Halloween was three whole days ago so of course we're in the mood for Christmas now. But, decorating the parking lot? That has normally waited a few more weeks, hasn't it?

By all means, let's start racking up the credit card debt again. By all means, let's buy more crap we don't need or even really want just to say we did. By all means...it's not like we've learned anything from this year's economic catastrophe. Something about all this is just soul sucking, isn't it?

Needin' a Little More Crazy

I think I finally figured out what I've been missing while living in the burbs. I've been missing crazy.

It started the other night when I was on my way back from the gym and noticed two state troopers parked on the side of the road in my subdivision with blue lights flashing. There was someone sitting under a tree while the troopers went through a back pack. I couldn't tell if the person was male or female but got the impression s/he was definitely homeless and maybe living behind the brick wall that announces you've arrived in my neighborhood. I have often walked by that wall and thought someone could camp behind it and no one but the landscapers would ever know. My first thought was, wow somebody actually tried it! My next thought was what's the big deal about a homeless person being in the neighborhood. Really, we need TWO state troopers to deal with this?

Then today I ventured into DC for the Art2Wear show at the Building Museum. I'm always on the prowl for handmade jewelry. I was disappointed I didn't find anything and thinking my afternoon had been a bust when I decided to get lunch at the Ballston Mall before getting in my car and returning to the country. I have a deep and abiding love of Noodles and Co, and it's been cold and rainy all day so comfort food was in order. I had to have some mac 'n' cheese. I wanted to avoid the screaming children so sat in the back where there was just some guy and his son and another guy off in the corner. This other guy had the distinct look of homeless about him, but I figured if father and son were abiding peacefully with him than so could I. I pulled out my book and didn't really give him a second thought. Until...he started to rap. Loudly with utter concentration. Then quiet. I read some more. And then he starts laughing and laughing and laughing. More quiet. Some rapping under the breath. Quiet. More laughter. I guess since he didn't really get a reaction from me, he mostly stopped. Till a couple came and sat close by. I could tell he was gearing up for more rapping. As soon as the guy got up to get something to drink, full on rapping right at the poor girl. Stopped as soon as the guy returned. I was done eating by then so left. I have a feeling he's still there randomly rapping and laughing at whoever sits in that section.

And I realized - I miss the crazy! There is no crazy in the burbs. None. I've looked. These people don't even have a decent sense of humor. Everything is whitewashed and sugar coated - because god forbid the kiddies find out there's a real world out there that isn't. We've lived here for 18 months and I still can't tell the strip malls apart. I know we have an Applebee's out here, but I can't find it because I can't remember which strip mall it's in (not that I'm an Applebee's fan - it's just I know it's out there somewhere but can't remember where). Somehow I always wind up at the wrong one looking for the one store that isn't there. Every restaurant is a chain. Every store might as well be JCrew. There is no there there. No personality. I'm starting to think it's just not allowed.

So, we're talking about moving back to civilization. I need crazy people and homeless people and dark alleys and unique stores where who knows what you'll find. I need personality and originality. The biggest surprise to me out here is that it's so impersonal. I somehow thought we'd get to know our neighbors and see them around or something. Not so. I couldn't tell you any of our neighbor's names. I recognize their cars; I could probably recognize them and their kids. But we've never spoken to any of them. I find that so odd. Everyone assumes living in an apartment building or condo is so impersonal, but it's not at all. Because think about it - if your neighbor drops dead in his/her apartment, you're going to smell it and do something about it long before I'd ever know one of my neighbors drowned in his/her tub. In a condo, you know when somebody's having a bad day because you hear the feet stomping and the doors slamming; you know when there's a party too - and depending on how well you know the person, you might even invite yourself over. Never gonna happen in my current neighborhood. We have a huge shared green space - in 18 months, I've never seen anyone use it except to walk their dogs (and those people moved so it's not even used for that anymore). If you're on an elevator for 10 floors or more with someone and their cute dog, you're going to chat with them. Same thing if you see the same couple all the time coming and going at the same time you and your significant other are coming and going. But, if all you ever see is that couple as two heads in a car pulling in and out of a garage, there's no opportunity to chat. It's sad really.

One of my favorite crazy moments happened in San Francisco about 8 years ago. I was staying in a part of the Tenderloin that had been cleaned up and revitalized. The part that had not was between the hotel and the rest of San Fran. One morning, I was sitting in the hotel restaurant eating breakfast one morning when this homeless guy wandered in, following some woman. The hotel hustled him out double quick, apologized profusely to the woman, and bent over backwards to make it all up to her. About 20 minutes later - about the time the whole scene was fading from everyone's mind - the homeless guy pops up outside the window and starts banging on the window and yelling at everyone in the dining room. Best breakfast ever. I'd like seconds please.

I Love a Good Prosthetic

All my favorite stories start with my grandfather’s wooden leg. How could they not? My love of a good prosthetic is well documented. I am fascinated with the medical world’s ability to make us whole again - even if it means strapping a wooden peg to what’s left of a limb and declaring you “whole.”

I had terrible nightmares as a kid. I mean TERRIBLE. I don’t think I really slept until I was in high school, and then it became a full time hobby. I would be so terrified at night that I would sleep on my stomach with all the blankets pulled over my head and every inch of me completely stiff. I was convinced if I moved I would be seen and that would be it. Seen by what I don’t know, but I was scared of it whatever it was. And my parents - bless their hearts - decided to deal with my nightmares by sleeping with their bedroom door locked, completely oblivious to the fact that I was having a heart attack a minute and was too scared to even scream. I could be out in the hall hanging off the doorknob of their bedroom door, and they’d just holler “go back to bed.” To this day, my mother prides herself on her children’s independence and takes full credit for it. As she should…

One of my earliest nightmares that I remember was about my grandparent’s house. I dreamt there was a man who lived under their living room floor in ice. Now, I don’t know where I got that idea. But the scariest thing that ever happened to me when I was around that age was finding out about my grandfather’s wooden leg. See, mommie dearest forgot to tell me he had one.

My nana always said mommie dearest had no common sense. Mommie dearest gets supremely pissed whenever nana says that, but then she always takes things so personally. Nana doesn’t deny mommie dearest is smart; she just tends to focus on mommie dearest’s ability to gloss over the obvious. In my mother’s defense, she did grow up with a father with a wooden leg. To her, that was normal so not necessarily something that needed to be included in a description of her father. I kind of get how she could “forget” to tell her kids. But her further explanation that she thought we’d just know makes no damn sense. It’s like she sometimes thinks we were born knowing stuff that nobody else would ever think was preprogrammed information. Like the time she thought I’d just know how to make spaghetti sauce from scratch - but that’s a whole other story that has nothing to do with prosthetics.

So, anyway - one day we’re over at my grandparent’s house for lunch and my nana asks me to go wake grandpa up from his nap to let him know lunch was ready. I, at all of maybe 6 years old, head for the den where he’s napping. When I walked in, nothing made sense. There was grandpa on the couch sound asleep. There was his leg on the floor. Grandpa - couch; leg - floor. WHAT THE HELL??? I headed back to the kitchen double quick. When nana asked me where grandpa was, I said something to the effect that he’s sleeping. Thinking I was as lacking in common sense as mommie dearest, nana went and woke the man up.

You’re probably thinking I said something about what I saw at some point, right? You obviously aren’t familiar with my family. It was years before I told mommie dearest about that afternoon. I never said a word about it to either of my grandparents. Somehow, I knew I’d be the one to get in trouble - not sure for what, but I would have. I know it to this day.

Instead I had nightmares for years about their house. To up the heart attack nature of those nightmares about their house, my mother did think it appropriate to tell us that a woman had died in my grandparent’s bedroom. The wife of the previous owner had died. I think it was ruled a suicide but “everyone” thought that really the husband had done her in. Isn’t that a nice bedtime story?

As I got older, more wooden leg stories emerged. Like my mother and her sisters putting marbles in the leg so that when my grandfather went to work his foot would be rattling the entire time he was on the subway. Or how one of my aunts decided to get even with some little bitchy kid in the neighborhood none of them liked by getting her to come into the house and into my grandparent’s bedroom only to pull a wooden leg out of the closet and scare the poor girl enough to send her screaming down the street. Or my grandfather asking a lady in church who had scooted past him to an empty seat to turn his foot back around - it had twisted around when she scooted past. He thought it was funny; she didn’t quite have the same sense of humor. Or how when he passed away, that was the big question all the grandkids were thinking - is he being buried with his leg? My mother thought this was the stupidest question ever and of course it wasn’t in there. Not that any of us would ever be brave enough to ask nana, who is the one person who would know. I like to think it was in there with him. I don’t like to think of him hopping around on one leg wherever he is.

Turns out there was a closet full of wooden legs at my grandparent’s house. My grandfather had a series of legs that he had “outgrown” in some way. When he died, my nana didn’t quite know what to do with them so one of my aunts took them back to Long Island with her. I have this great mental image of my aunt and uncle speeding up the Jersey Turnpike with a back seat full of wooden legs rattling around, clinking against the windows or maybe seat belted in for maximum safety. Can you just imagine if they’d had a wreck on the way home that week and the highway became littered with wooden legs, confusing all the rescue workers? My aunt thought the legs could be refurbished and used again, but the guy she thought would take them said that wasn’t so. So, now she had a closet full of wooden legs and no idea what to do with them.

Her suggestion was to use them as planters along the walkway up to her front steps. Go ahead, you can laugh. I did. Nana did not. Turns out, there is a line that can be crossed in this family and that was it. I kept my suggestions for table legs, door stoppers, and strawberry pots to myself. Well, I didn’t tell nana. I did tell a table full of friends over dinner one night, and we almost got kicked out of the restaurant for making so much noise howling with laughter. We tried to explain to our waiter what was so funny, but he didn’t quite have the sense of humor for it. Poor guy, he’s going to have a dull life…

So, this is where my love of a good prosthetic comes from. A history of wooden legs as worn by my grandfather. And while he wears it with pride, wherever he is, I continue to haunt flea markets and swap meets on the lookout for a good prosthetic that can maybe double as a planter for my front steps.

Trapeze School

Trapeze school came to DC this summer, and I don't think anyone was more excited than me! I don't know why. I'm afraid of heights and have the upper body strength of a quadraplegic. But I emailed everyone I know and begged them to go with me. We had a good group together and signed up for a Saturday night. And we all actually showed up!

Here's the thing: you have to climb a rickety ladder to get up to the platform. I could not stop myself from pointing out to everyone involved that even high divers get a real damn set of stairs to walk up before they jump to their death. So I get up that sketchy ladder and crawl onto the platform and cling to the little ladder there until my safety lines are switched out. Here's where it gets fun. This guy who's about the size of my leg announces that I should lean waaaaaay out and grab the bar while he hangs onto the back of my belt. Oh sure, no problem, String Bean. I'm sure you can hold all of me...

Before I jump off that platform, let's go back in time just a bit. I spent that whole day getting ready for this moment. I had hydrated but not too much because I didn't want to pee myself while flying through the air. I ate so carefully all day so that I wouldn't be too full of anything. I had freaked out a couple of times and talked myself down throughout the day. I was excited; I was scared; I was giddy. I could not wait to try this trapeze thing. I so wanted to be the kind of person who would master trapeze school. I wanted to go back to work and tell "this one time at trapeze school" stories. I could not wait.

So, there I am on the platform feeling really scared. Not about the heights really. More about the hanging from my weak hands from that little bitty bar and being expected to get my legs up over the bar and back down. Oh, and there was supposed to be a backflip dismount. Sure. No problem.

The little guy hanging onto my belt tells me to grab the bar with both hands and lean way out and try to keep my body straight. And listen for the guy on the ground holding my safety line to tell me to jump.

To my credit, I jumped on the first try when told to. At least there's that. The next part isn't so suave. Turns out, my weak hands can hold onto that bar with no problem. Turns out, watching the net whiz by below me made me so dizzy I wanted to puke. The things I did not know about myself...So I swing back and forth a little bit and announce that there's no way I'm getting my legs over that bar. There's also not going to be any backflip dismount. How about I just let go for now? Oh, did I mention I might have screamed a little bit when I leapt off that platform? And possibly again when I let go and hit the net? It's on video so I can't pretend it didn't happen.

Second time up there didn't go much better. I was even more sick to my stomach and basically just asked to get down. And then I quit. Because as I went to clip my safety line back on for a third climb up that rickety ladder, I realized I was a grown ass woman who didn't have to do this anymore if I really didn't want to. So, I didn't. I happily sat the rest of the class out and watched my friends have a great time. They were happy; I was happy.

My only regret is that I am not the kind of person who can master trapeze school and tell wacky "this one time at trapeze school" stories. I'll just have to go back to telling drinking stories, I guess...

1 Week Down, Eternity to Go

Here I sit with my week-old chipped nail polish, cute dress hanging in the closet because I have no idea where to take it to be cleaned, and a table full of presents. Our wedding was a good time! Neither of us thought we'd enjoy it, but we had THE BEST TIME EVER. It was great. But you know I can't get married without something stupid happening. So let me tell you my sad story.

For the record: It was my own damn fault. It always is...

Remember how I mentioned that I needed to get my eyebrows waxed? Well, for future reference, the morning of one's wedding is probably not the best time to try out a new waxing queen. But I forgot for a brief moment that I was getting married. I was just running errands, as you do on a Saturday morning in suburbia. I had 10 minutes so thought I'd just run into the nearest nail salon/sweat shop and have them rip some hair off my face.

Here's where it went pear shaped...She's waxing away, and the wax felt a little warmer than usual but not hot. Nothing that made me think I should tell her to stop - because you know I would have. I'm not going to just lay there and let somebody fry my forehead off. She does her thing, and it's taking forever. I have never had anyone take that long to rip my eyebrows off. She finally announces that we're done, and I sit up and take a look at myself.

I am red. Very very very red. Even she looked alarmed. That's not good, by the way, when the waxing queen thinks you're too red. But I get red easy so at first I didn't think about it. I paid, put on my sunglasses and headed for the car. Well, by the time I got home, I was RED. I had two huge rectangles of RED over each eyebrow. Think Bert and Ernie - I had Bert's eyebrows in RED over my real eyebrows. And my eyelids were starting to look a little puffy. And red.

I ran upstairs and refused to let my soon to be husband see me because if he was looking for an excuse to back out at the last minute this would give him the reason he needed. I called Pickles first, and of course he screened me. So I left him a message telling him I had been disfigured and how could he not be there when I needed him?? Then I called mommie dearest.

She was at lunch with all her sisters who all began to holler out suggestions for what I should do - ice, preparation H, cortisone, ice then cortisone, a bag of frozen peas, go back and get my money back. I went with the bag of frozen vegetables. For an hour.

By the time I got to the salon for hair, nails and makeup, I was just pink. And it felt very tender. So, they iced me down and then put some green goop on me - and asked me to stay away from mirrors because they didn't want me to freak out about the thick green line across my forehead. Think Oscar the Grouch eyebrows now.

The ladies at the salon decided this wasn't really a burn, but a case of an over zealous waxing queen going over the same area too many times. When I explained that she had done my eyebrows in sections (yes, sections - and no, I don't have such huge eyebrows that extend from ear to ear that would require anyone to wax them in sections), the salon ladies realized that this was a case of being overwaxed. You see the eye area is extremely tender. It can only be waxed once and then cleaned up with tweezers. With the section thing, the waxing queen managed to basically wax my eye area about three times which is why I was so very very RED.

Between the magical green goop and some heavy concealer, I looked normal. Unless someone were to take a picture at an odd angle - which happened at least twice - in which case, you can see how swollen my forehead is. I look like a forceps baby in one of those pictures. Not pretty.

The makeup girl asked me if I thought I'd cry during the ceremony - if so, she'd lacquer my lashes with some heavy duty water proof mascara. My response: Seriously? If I didn't cry when I got my forehead burned to a crisp, I doubt I'm going to cry during the ceremony.

There you have it. My stupid wedding day mistake. If that hadn't of happened, I would have worried the rest of the day about tripping over my feet or spilling red wine down the front of my dress right before the ceremony started. Or something. So, in the end, it was good that my stupid thing happened in the morning and was over with before we got anywhere close to the wedding. And there were no tears at all the entire day. That's a damn fine wedding day, in the end!

Didi's D-Day

It's the morning of the big day. Kind of exciting. The Dirty Frog and I are both remarkably calm about the whole thing. Weirdly calm, actually. Who wants to bet we completely fall apart right in the middle of the ceremony tonight?

We had dinner with the out of towners last night - mostly mommie dearest's crazy family. Much fun was had. Roadkill was there with her Chinese baby. And let me tell you, he is the cutest little man ever! Completely overwhelmed by the crazy surrounding him at dinner last night, but who wouldn't be? I think the Dirty Frog felt kind of the same but at least had beer to comfort himself with. What's a 4 year old going to do besides crawl under the table? Seriously, though, is there anything cuter than a toddler in the Southern male uniform of khakis and blue blazer with brown oxfords? I kind of wanted to take a bite out of him, that was so freaking sweet.

My favorite part of the whole night? Sitting at the hotel bar with Roadkill and one of my good friends and just catching up and talking and telling each other wacky family stories. Roadkill won that competition too. She always does. But, really - who can beat a story that involves one of those classic old Southern women with the big bouffant hairdos that reach for the sky (full on Flannery O'Connor character, as Roadkill described her) saying with a completely serious face with a heavy heavy Southern accent "Ryan does not have an anus." Think on it for as long as you want, you are not going to come up with anything funnier than that. I'm now planning a short story that starts with that very sentence. The sweet baby Jesus does not hand you a line like that just to waste it.

So, I've got a day ahead of me. I need to get my eyebrows waxed and somehow wrestle a Biore strip or three onto the Dirty Frog. Then I've got to make sure I don't somehow wind up with Texas hair and Star Trek makeup for this shindig tonight. And ensure that the Dirty Frog's mother doesn't wind up with one of those good Southern bouffant hairdos. We have a table full of wedding favor bags and another table full of cute little boxes full of jordan almonds (apparently, there's a law or something in France that requires jordan almonds at a wedding...), and we have no idea how we're getting all of this to the restaurant tonight. I have a feeling the back seat of the car is going to be full up with bags and tissue paper and jordan almonds, and all we'll see of the Dirty Frog's mom back there is her hair....maybe she should get a big bouffant 'do just so we can find her in the middle of that mess tonight...

The Bullshit Artist

The Dirty Frog has started looking for a new job. He's convinced there's nothing out there for him though. He's spending loads of time on the USA Jobs site, and still can't seem to find anything. So, I asked to see some of what he was looking at. Turns out, we have fundamentally different ways of deciding whether we're qualified for something. He's honest; I'm not.

He was all worried with the one job because he didn't know anything about web page design. Oh please, all they wanted was a simple knowledge management system to track FOIA requests. Anybody can throw that together. I told him to just tell them he knew basic HTML but would really recommend a wiki to organize the requests.When all else fails, Excel can be used for just about anything. Or, heck, I would imagine they would already have some kind of system in place. FOIA isn't new, and tracking the requests made to an agency isn't new because they have to report those numbers every year. In a case like that, I would act completely surprised that they didn't already have a system in place and change the subject to that. Deflect, people. It works for just about everything. But, he's too honest and straight forward.

My MO in job interviews is to just say yes to everything. You want me to lug boxes as big as me around the country from conference to conference - no problem. You want me to manage all the publications for your agency - piece of cake. You want me to stand on my head and recite the Cyrillic alphabet - I'd love to if only I weren't wearing this skirt today (which, if they insist, they really just want to see your panties and don't really care what you can do - decide for yourself if these are people you want to work for).

All the really valuable things I've done and learned in any of my jobs were things I had no clue about when I went to work there. I talked a good game in the interview, landed the job, and would from that point on place my trust and faith in being able to find quick answers online (or from clever friends) and figure it out from there. So far, it's worked. If only the Dirty Frog would be a little more adventurous in exaggerating his job skills...

Proof That I Am Losing My Mind

I had the wackiest wedding dream last night. See, it's 2009. I can't say I'm getting married NEXT year anymore. I'm getting married in three and a half months. That thud you heard was me hitting the floor in a face plant...

So, last night, I swear I had nothing to drink and didn't watch anything weird on tv before crawling into bed. I dreamt we had some kind of bollywood themed wedding that included an unsuccessful wheel of death Cirque du Soleil kind of act. And it all ended with a monkey attack.

I know! I need therapy. Or drugs. Or something. This can't be normal, can it? Because I can't take 3+ months of monkey attack wedding dreams. They'll have to wheel me in Hannibal Lecter style but without the mask. Because I'll need to be able to say "I do" or whatever.

Man, I'm going to be PISSED if my dress gets all messed up by a straight jacket!