Rock, Paper, Scissors

(August 15, 2006)

I didn't even check my last entry to see when I last had time to update. SO many things happening. To varying degrees of interesting. Sometimes I just see a cat and it makes me laugh and I want to write about it and don't. So in no particular order...relax, this'll take you awhile....

...I have a fucking earache. Anybody in Allston have a way to get free antibiotics? I say in Allston because I'm so swamped I don't know when I can GET anywhere. No, I don't have health insurance, are you new? Somebody help me feel better, please. I'm poor and ill. And cranky.

...I fucked up The Noise deadline schedule. Because I haven't felt so good and because I've been soooo busy at work, I kind of half-heartedly wrote a very important story: it's the 25th Anniversary of The Noise! This is HUGE! And I had the assignment to write about 1996 - 2000, aka "the years I spent the most time out seeing bands." The other Associate Editors were writing five year blocks too. T Max wanted the story two days before the deadline and I somehow didn't notice that he'd emailed that request. The "real" deadline is tomorrow. He called me today freaking out. I cannot believe I did that. I'm only half done! I wasn't working full-throttle because I thought I had two more days! I totally don't!

...Every leg of my office-bound pedestrian journey has some sort of construction or roadwork going on, and I'm tired of making small talk with construction guys and stepping around their shit. Sometimes their shit is THEM, because they take breaks and sit down right on the sidewalk where I am walking. Some are building, some are digging, some are doing stuff to water mains, some are doing stuff to the road surface. On Denby Road there is a huge...um...okay that "...um..." represents me pausing, Googling to find out what to call it, and based on the helpful graphics on the Caterpillar website I think it's either a backhoe loader or a hydraulic excavator. Well anyway, it doesn't matter, it's yellow and hulking and it's on Denby Road and it digs and it says CAT on the side. Well, when I get out of work all the construction guys have gone home and it's silent, and twice I've walked by and one of the Denby badass, mean roving black cats (there are four of them) was sitting on the road near the big CAT. Kind of eyeing it. Like "You're no cat. I'M a cat. You wanna piece of this?" Ha! I like that. Why don't I ever have a camera? Great shot, little mean cat next to a big huge CAT.

...If I did have a camera with me, I would have taken a daily picture of the watermelon. There was a huge watermelon on the sidewalk on Rugg Road about a month ago. At some point there were bugs. Now it's a shrunken, yellowed husk. I could have done a slide show. That reminds me of something. I forget what. Some music video.

...could we DISCUSS the Allston rats? I was at work tonight until WAY LATE, and on my walk home I encountered three big rats. It's because I take a few back alleys home. And it's garbage day tomorrow, the sidewalks are full of trash. It's their world, I just walk thru it at night. But lord amighty, have rats always been the size of Nerf footballs?

...I'm still bad at watching TV. No no, this is not the "I don't watch TV" thing that non-TV people like to tell everyone about. I LOVE TV, always have. However, I'm also still bad at it. I miss everything I'd had an interest in seeing. Maybe it's because I'm not naturally drawn to "routine" (I fucking suck at working out more than a week straight, I am always in shock that bills are late, I arrive at work anywhere from 7am to 10am, who knows when, whatever) but I never seem to remember "Oh, tonight it's CSI New York" or "Hey, it's time for Monk." Or "Let's watch Rescue Me, hello, the very popular show my brother Mike Lombardi is in?" What's my problem? If your brother were on TV every week wouldn't you write it on a calendar or something? I guess I just don't care. But it's a little embarrassing when I've had a discussion with someone about CSI New York, we're totally bonding over it, and the next time I see that person they're all "So, how great is CSI getting, huh?" and I've missed it for weeks. I got nuthin'. They look betrayed. I've let them down. I'm out of the "So, how great is CSI getting" club. I can't remember SHIT. With one recent, surprising exception...

...Project Runway. Have you seen this thing? I think I was flipping around the channels where I usally find something that isn't depressing, helplessness-inducing Hezbollah/Israel info (I have been obsessively watching CNN for the Middle East crisis lately, but that is for another entry). So yes, Bravo is a fave, they have Queer Eye, they have West Wing, and the Law and Order with Vincent D'Onofrio they show a LOT. Basically, when I flip to Bravo I find something I will watch. Well, one day they were in the middle of a whole block of Project Runway. I saw the end of Season 2. I didn't know it was "the end" until Season 3 started and I realized how the hell many designers are in the challenge at first! Holy cannoli! And for your information I KNOW that it is on Wednesday nights at 9 or 10, and I DO remember and I do watch it. I love it. I yell "Come on!" when it's over because I want more and there isn't any more until the next Wednesday. It's the sewing. It's watching them start with nothing and come up with clothes at the end. Sometimes hats and wraps too. Now, I was "costume designer" for a ton of theatre productions (particularly proud I am of "Once Upon a Mattress" where I did wonders with velour housedresses that magically became, with a great deal of trim, golden frogs closures, sheer curtains and stitch witchery, a stage full of convincing (from a distance) royal robes and gowns). That's your basic reconstruction. It's smoke and mirrors. I did a great deal of reconstruction in high school. We all did, that's how they came up with Molly Ringwald's Pretty In Pink character, it was a "thing" then. I did a lot of fabric painting and collar-adding and collar-ripping (oy, the Flashdance T-shirt phase). I used to favor reaaaallly long thrift shop skirts which I'd layer and tie at the hemline. What the fuck was that? I dunno. At some point I took a few sewing classes where I spent the whole time wondering why I was wasting my time on a project I would never in a million years wear (I recall one ill-advised lavender, polka-dot wrap-around A-line skirt, why? Why lavender, why polka-dot, why?) But I was never what you'd call "good" at it. Well I'll tell you, this Project Runway thing has launched a whole new desire. I wanna make shit. I've already looked up the dates and times of sewing classes at Brookline Community College. If I do this, though, the only local rock music stuff I'll still do is onlyone's film and TV music thing. Otherwise I'll be too distracted. Could I do that? Instead of going out to see local bands, co-organizing the Rock and Roll Social, writing stories and reviews...I'd be making patterns and designing clothes? I kind of want to do it just for the diary entry title. It would have to be "This Just In: Paper and Scissors Subvert Rock."