on tenterhooks

Again, falling down on the comedy these past few days! I suppose you can't really go hunting down comedy in the seemingly big bad world. It must come naturally. I'm not there yet.

Sunday marks 33 years on Planet Earth for this female. Has it really been 33 years?

Random thoughts:

1. I am tired of shoplifters.

2. I am really ready for fall and my big black boots again.

3. I enjoyed Audrey Niffenegger's new book so much that I wrote her to thank her for a glorious work of art. She wrote back describing these weeks before its release as being 'on tenterhooks' and thanks for reassuring her.

4. I had to look up the phrase 'on tenterhooks.'

5. I had originally gone to France in 2005 to write for five months and come back with finished rough draft of manuscript in hand. I did not, however, account for the language division when my brain cuts itself in half to speak another language.

6. I have itchy feet to get the heck outta Chicago.

For right now, that's all I've got.

Comedic Revival 2

Boy, I am really falling down on the job with this one. (See previous posting for the challenge to myself.) The public is wearing me out, man! I could re-inact the phone call I took from a man on his phone driving while accessing Google maps with his screaming 2-year-old in the back seat. "I'm sorry, sir, but we do not offer babysitting services at our bookstore location."

But I have a real hard time finding humor in parents-who-don't-really-wanna-be-parents.

Or I could detail the near-brawl that occured on my bus ride home tonight, when an elderly man got on and starting yelling at a guy speaking Spanish on his cell phone. But that wasn't really funny.

Except for the Latina sister.

"Sit your ass down! What are you doing arguing with an 80-year-old Archie Bunker? You ain't gonna get nothin done with this!"

Over shouting matches picking up steam, her voice echoed through, "You don't have to argue with a bigot. You don't have to argue with a bigot, He is Archie Bunker. He is Archie Bunker," over and over again, she kept repeating, as I positioned my bag onto my right side so as to cushion myself should a punch get thrown my way.

It was getting pretty heated for about five minutes there.

Even NOT funnier is that this is about the third time in a one year period on this bus route that I have witnessed these occurences.

So what can I say, humor is a gift. It's a very particular gift. Especially humor writing. I used to be really good at it. Then all this 'big bad life' stuff got in me way and hardened me into serious intensity when I expressively write. I suppose if I didn't do it here, talk the serious smack I mean, then my silly jokester persona with my co-workers would be sacrificed for, you know, something a lil too heavy for the workplace.

It's good to have a variety about oneself, but what happens when one flavor out-spices the rest? It's like that chicken dish I whipped up last month when the French girl was here....Poulet a trop d'epices.

After I finish this awesome ghostly book (an advance copy of Audrey Niffenegger's new otherwordly book due out in September), I am going to throw myself back into some David Sedaris. And I also picked up the literary essay "Everything I Needed to Know About Being A Girl I Learned From Judy Blume." My husband laughed at me last year for grabbing all my old Judy Blume books at my parents' place in Indiana and doing a Judy Blume reading-binge one summer....

Comedic Revival

One who knows life is full of pain, heartache, dolrums, fatigue and dead-ends has every capability of climbing to the funny side of life again. This is necessity. I will eventually revisit the other themes I've brought up in my brainstorms here i.e. visit from the French Cousine, Beautiful Girls/Boys of the Lost Time in a Mental Health Facility, 2005 Escapade to France, various short stories, and other shenanigans of life as they happen to me.

But to have these in any kind of organized artistic platform would be anything but me. As mentioned in the disclaimer, I shall discuss the "contemporary musing on people, the universe and all observations in between."

I operate in brainstorm-format. I sometime plop my head on that pillow at the end of each day and my brain will simply not turn off. This is both a blessing and a curse. I know millions around the world could easily commiserate on that notion. The trick is to join these commiserations into a manmade centrifugal force. And what a powerful centrifugal force humor and laughter is to a group of human beings.

In light of John Hughes' passing, and that unrivaled, intelligent comedy his work left behind, I want to revisit my own comedic energy. Many of us who have lived a little life, experienced a few experiences, traveled to different lands, fallen in and out of love, danced a polka and fallen down flat, stared up at the stars in wonderment...well, there is no better medicine than laughter.

For this week, August 9-15, 2009 I am going to challenge myself to write one comedic anecdote to have taken place on each day. Today is Sunday, our first day of the week, and I am busy in the air-conditioning in our first 97 degree day of the summer pulling together items for a friend's garage sale. Not sure what I will come up with today. But it is only just before 2pm, and I've got the rest of the day ahead of me.

Laughter Centre, activate!

I had no idea John Hughes was missing.

And all this time I thought being a recluse merely meant one was depressed. If I didn't work with 'people' in retail, I'd be considered a recluse. Or perhaps I, too, ran away from a spotlight once or twice in my life. Yeah, that's what I'll pretend.

Speaking of 'people,' what a sweet tale. Fantastic writer.

I hope the world will wake up. I mean FINALLY wake up.

Open Letter to Mr. John Hughes

Mr. Hughes,

My brother just called me up during my commute from that wacky North Shore and told me the news. My heart sank! You just called me dear a few weeks back! Here are the things I ought to have said to you a few weeks back when I waited on you in another Saturday night in the ol' life of this underachieving shopgirl:

This pile of Criterion movies you're purchasing....yours ought to be included in the Criterion Collection catalog. They are genuine classics.

Pretty in Pink...what a part of my life.... the North Shore and the divisionism of richies and those who'd rather just crawl under a rock. I often have Molly Ringwald moments at the ol' shop and I wonder what some of those customers might say if they saw where I lived. My husband looks like Duckie, you know. That may have even been one of the reasons I fell in love with him. I'm sure it was a topic of many discussions of what the world may have been like had Andy gone to Duckie instead....

Sixteen Candles...my favorite part of that movie is when the jock bullies are getting the Geeks out of the trunk of their car and the last Geek scoots over a little bit to assist so the bully can pick him up easier. Subtle hilarity is one of the greatest joys of my life.

Breakfast Club....I drive around the old haunts with my husband as we're out and about running our lil errands and on our way to losing ourself in the movie theater for a few hours.

Mister Hughes, it was a pleasure assisting you and I just wanted to tell you what a smile you brought to my face not only tonight but throughout my life.

Sincerely,
Underachieving Shopgirl, who hopes to one day be a CLASSIC like you.

PS. about that James Stewart box set....if you didn't finish them all here in this earthly realm hope you're sitting up there in Heaven watching Weird Science with Jimmy as we speak...

This one's for you...

Orphan

Saw the movie Orphan today. I hesitated.... one side of me just simply loves a scary creepy movie yet the other side of me has to be careful with themes. Art, film, books....to experience something then find it roaming around there in the universe like that. Sometimes I experience artistic sensory overload. I prefer it this way. Makes one not feel so alone in the universe, nest-ce pas?

I read Time Travelers Wife while on medical leave on what they call 'pelvic rest' after a specific sort of trauma had occured. A nurse from the insurance company called to check on my pregnancy after she noticed something was happening from recent medical claims and I had just gotten to the part where the character in the book was in the the same hospital I was in after several days of lots of blood and no more little heartbeat or movement inside the womb. I had just gone through it....this same very experience....had that book sitting on the shelf for months...and just picked it up on a whim...same exact hospital as mentioned in the book and well....I just kinda lost it on the phone with that nurse. They say to stay away from certain themes and surround yourself with sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, but sometimes connecting to a fictional tale at that particular moment of pain is kinda God's way of sayin, "I wish this world was perfect and one never had to endure pain, but darlin' (at this point God brushed the hair out of my teary eyes with a tad of an Elvis-like swagger) women's pain is one of the most defining moments of divinity you may find yourself floating in. I am Here."

Mr. T and I caught the first showing of the film Orphan this morning. Even the opening scene was difficult for me to watch. Flashbacks. Surrounded by doctors and nurses in a hazy fog hearing, "I'm so sorry for your loss." Over and over and over again. Sitting on a bench outside the hospital while Mr. T went to pull up the car two years ago, my white box filled with items from the March of Dimes as a woman was rolled up next to me with her newborn baby in her arms and balloons and flowers and family all around. Yes, the opening scene of today's movie and whispers of it throughout the film were very difficult reminders.

But if I had to express myself and my experience, an angry horror film isn't too far off.

Sooooooo soooo many themes in this movie and I don't want to give away any of the twists. Controversial? What ISN'T controversial these days?

Anyway....

my heart feels a lil heavy during this time of the year.
i'd change the lyric in Lucinda Williams' 'Heaven Blues' from 'mother' to 'child.'

Theme Song