Dead Sea Monkeys

So I recently reprised my role as "booth bitch" for the Dead Sea Pavilion working for a week at the Columbus Circle street fair. I have worked a lot of street fairs and I have seen a lot of crazies. I have gone loopy and come back again, only to find I am still loopy, but often not as loopy as those that visit the booth. I can't even recall all of them, and that makes me sad since they definitely thrust me into a pseudo reality wondering if I was in some strange dream as they spout out unintelligible gibberish with behavior only seen on SNL, Mad TV, and In Living Color. People say strange things, and do even weirder things, such as accepting a free Q-tip we were offering just to be silly and walking away staring at it with a gleam in their eye as though they had just won the lottery. My favorite thing ever uttered in the booth happened this past week when a pretty normal looking woman came in and was interested in the face cream with the Dead Sea Minerals in it, but what she said was... "Umm...hi! Do you have any of those face creams with the dead sea...monkeys....or whatever?" Instantly I smiled, as I always seem to when monkeys are involved. Then the brilliance exploded when I realized there is such a thing as Sea Monkeys...and she was not only requesting Dead Sea Monkeys, but in a face cream! I immediately got visuals of microscopic sea monkey cadavers rubbed all over her face. I started cracking up, and she looked at me like I was insane. She thought I was insane for laughing at her having asked for face cream with dead sea monkeys in it. A last she walked away wondering what was wrong with me. What's most wrong is that I didn't tell her that the dead sea monkeys cost extra.

Funky Spam Subjects

I'd like to share with you the bizarre subjects of the spam I have been receiving lately in my yahoo account. They perplex and amuse me. I spend at least a few seconds wondering not only what the purpose of spam is, but then...how and where "they" (whoever "they" are) could pair up such random words and why....I have been collecting my favorites and thought I would share them with you. Perhaps they will inspire you in some way.

Sketchy Bohemian
Correspondingly Absent-mindedness
Obtrusive Shiver
Not waggle no yachtsman
All of us havestrayed away like sheep.
He rod a canny
convalescent prohibitively
Have unicorn the vicksburg

Little Gretl...

Okay, so the cutest kid in "The Sound of Music" is always the youngest, Gretl. The girl playing Gretl in our production is absolutely adorable. I can't possibly do her justice in words, but she is so cute you just wanna chop off her sweet little head and use it as a keychain. Big brown eyes with soft and thick black lashes, and just the slightest natural blush to her cheeks. Stick her in a white dress and she's an angel. She is just 5 years old, and already a consummate professional. She knows all her lines, and songs. Just when we thought she couldnt' get any cuter, she has taken to hugging me and a few others every time she sees you. Several hugs later I mentioned that to her and she said "I'm Gretl, I just want to be loved." That is a line Maria says in the show explaining each child to the Captain. That cute bitch is getting into character! She hands me edelweiss at one point in the show, and after working with it for the first time she asked me where I put it. I told her I put it back on the prop table. She said she wanted to check. So we both walked back to make sure I put it where it goes. She's checkin' her props! I know adults who don't check their props. She is incredible. Some of the kids take a while to warm up to, but not her. She is just unbelievable.

fuckin' walkie-talkie phones and Greyhound buses

I rode the Greyhound bus home from upstate last night so that I could spend Thanksgiving with my friends (couldn't make it to see the family). The bus ride was less than pleasant, but I was totally expecting this. At least I had my two roomies from the show to enjoy it all with me. Aside from the coughing of a wee child who refused to cover his mouth the ENTIRE way here, there was the obnoxious ghetto couple in front of us with a few kids (think Whitney and Bobby on even more crack). Upon sitting down they acknowledged that their baby just pooped his pants and it was starting to stink...within just a few seconds there was a baby's ass with poo in our face as they wiped it clean. mmm. They set the tone for the trip, but we were all in relatively good spirits. We even had some fun moments with the little baby when she was turning around to smile at us. At some point the man was suggesting that they play some music instead of trying to run the dvd, which was only playing audio and nothing on the screens. Out of nowhere he asked me if I had any Sarah Mclachlan. What? I do have a lot of her music at home, but don't have it on my ipod (damn me), so I mentioned that...asking if he liked her, to which he replied "Umm, she's okay I guess, she's a bit prudish." This makes little sense, regardless of the question of why he would even bring her up in the first place. So then he listed a few of her songs that have been played a lot on the radio as ones he liked. That was totally random. Finally they fix the dvd running and we can SEE it and sort of hear it...it's Lindsay Lohan in "Just My Luck". Not my choice, but it'll pass the time, and it turns out to be a great choice if you want to watch Ms. Lohan experiencing several misfortunes. We are all struggling to hear the movie for a bit when the people in front of us get another call on their cell phone and answer it (again) in the freakin' walkie talkie mode. I hate that fuckin' walkie-talkie phone bullshit. I don't want to hear your conversation. I don't want to hear the loud and unnecessary BEEP before each of you speak to one another. I don't want to hear you shouting into it. I don't have any idea why anyone uses these in public, let alone on a bus or subway with tons of other people. Why do you want other people to hear your entire conversation? Why are you such a fucking asshole? These always piss me off. I don't care if it doesn't use up your minutes to talk to someone that way...do that at home! So we seeth about it for a while as we learn that it's her brother calling her...and he is wasted...and she finds this incredibly amusing, and wants her man to talk to him...loudly...but, as we are having difficulty hearing the stupid movie, they must be having difficulty hearing her brother, so they turn up the volume and speak louder. Finally one of my traveling companions speaks up...sort of as I do a bit as well, though it was more her. We ask them if they could please open their phone and talk ON it, because it's too loud. It was in that moment that this woman sat straight up and turned to look at these horrible people who asked her something SO inconsiderate, and in the dark I could see that she wanted to punch us. She held her gaze a few seconds longer, in case we didn't get what she was saying, but she turned back and opened her phone and angrily explained something about what just happened...saying something about her need to physically hurt "someone". She soon was off her phone, but she steamed over this for a little while longer and I guess eventually got over it. I must say that I am surprised she didn't try to start something when we were getting off the bus later. I don't know why it surprises me when people behave this way. I don't know why this isn't the first time I sat someplace where ignorant people are completely disturbing everyone's experience as it ruined whatever I was trying to do, and all I could think was "if I say something, they are going to hurt me." It is times like that I wish I were large, and strong, and knew karate. Or something. It is those moments that I stand up, walk over to them and kick them hard in the face with my heel...in my head. So we said something, and we didn't die. Woo hoo. Everyone who speaks on the walkie-talkie feature on those phones should be palmed in the face with their own cell phone, repeatedly, while they are mid conversation, so the person on the other end might hear as well.

And yet, this was definitely not my worst experience on the Greyhound.

A Mexican Man and his teeth....

So I was heading out of my house yesterday...VERY early evening hours...trying to get some errands done before the Halloweeners were out and about. I walk down the end of my street and see one of the strangest things. In one of the little driveways on my quiet little street, I see a mexican man passed out flat on his back, in between his legs is his cellphone which appears to have lost it's battery. So I start to worry...is this man drunk? Did this man get mugged? Is he alive? I see his beer gut moving which means that yes, he is still breathing. He doesn't look distressed. He looks like he is having a sweet sleep there on the sidewalk. I am just baffled. This wouldn't stun me so much in midtown, or even where I used to live, in Sunset Park, Brooklyn where I know there were plenty of drunk mexicans, but here it was, like 4:30 or 5pm on a Tuesday Halloween afternoon, and nothing close to this ever happens on my street in Astoria. But the BEST part of this was, as I was still trying to process what might have happened, I noticed something else. This man's dentures from his top row of teeth were lying a few feet from his...feet. The man lost his teeth. Now I definitely thought there had to have been fowl play. But the sweet smile on the sleeping Mexican's face said otherwise. All sorts of images flooded my mind as I imagined him tripping to his sidewalk bed dropping his teeth and phone along the way...or I saw him wobbling sideways up the sidewalk with his drunk mouth agape, no longer able to control the position of his jaw, or the placement of his fake teeth...perhaps that is when they slid out, and he grabbed his phone to tell his friend how drunk he was and passed the fuck out. All I know is that a mexican man and his teeth were on the sidewalk on my street at 5pm on a Tuesday. Luckily he was gone when I returned home a few hours later. His teeth were gone too.

To the memory of you:

"The last time I had tank tops and flowing skirts on, I was happy to be spending time with you." "There's that place we used to grab dinner when I was falling in love with you." "It felt so great when you'd lean across the table over the food to kiss me sweetly just because you needed to." " I remember when the weather changed last year I was happy and thinking I might be love with you." "The last time I put on this hat and scarf I was happy and still in love with you." My mind is booming with thoughts like these. The pangs of hurt that once were present every single moment now only return each time I do something that reminds me of you. When I pass a corner we kissed on. When I smell the perfume I wore when we were together. When I think of how you were one of the best things that happened to me all throughout last year when other things didn't seem to be working out...and in that instant I am sad again. I am sad because we are no longer together, and I remember how much you meant to me. In that moment I also remember that you didn't ever feel exactly the same for me and that is why we are no longer together. I remember denying that what I felt was love, even though I knew that was what it was, because I knew you didn't feel that for me. I don't want those moments anymore. I am sick of feeling sad about you. I know we shouldn't be together. I don't want to be with you again. I haven't wanted to be with you since just after you broke up with me. You ended it because we both knew I couldn't even though I knew things weren't right. Will these memories I have of you ever be good or happy? We were very happy quite often. When will these memories stop hurting so bad? I want to be in love again, but not with you...so stop haunting my heart! I want to be in love again, but this time with someone who loves me. I won't stand for anything less ever again and it feels so far off I can hardly take it sometimes. But I do, because I have to. I do because I want to. I do because I know that it is possible, no matter how long it takes to find it. So I will continue to wait. But this is my message to the memory of you and I. Get out of my head and get out of my heart. I don't want to walk these streets thinking about what we almost had. It was never enough then and it's way too much now. Each time that I think of it I just wonder how I let myself feel so much and continue to hurt so much for someone who couldn't or wouldn't do the same for me.

Mmmm...piss in a cup....

Ah...the piss test. I recently began working a new job and had to visit a local drug testing facility this past week. There aren't too many experiences quite so humbling as pissing in a cup and then handing it, still fresh and warm, to the lab technician. "Here, this was all just in my bladder, but I just hovered over the toilet holding this cup between my legs, aiming the best I could and squeezed it out just for you to pour into a plastic tube and label for me. Thank you for the lovely hand sanitizer to cleanse my piss off my hand, since I wasn't allowed to turn on the water at the sink until you checked the bathroom to make sure I didn't tamper with anything."

I am not sure why I just launched into the preceding rant. I am not at a point in my life where I need worry about the drug test, but somehow, I obviously have a lot to say on the subject, much to my own surprise.


I suppose I understand why companies want to drug test, but really...I don't totally get it. I mean, drugs are bad, mmkay? We all know this. Doing drugs at work is bad. But only if you are an idiot, and are totally fucked up to a point that people realize that there is something wrong with you. If you are stupid enough to take drugs at work at all...or an amount that makes you retarded at work, then you should just be fired, because you will act stupid and people will have no choice but to fire you. What's the point of all this ceremonial peeing in cups and testing shit? If someone has some fun outside of their job, I don't understand why that is anyone's business but their own. You should get fired or penalized for not showing up, calling off all the time, or showing up and being wasted in any way shape or form. All of those are grounds for some sort of consequences, and I don't need piss in a cup to show me that. Maybe if a piss test could indicate whether a person was going to complain while they are standing next to you at work all day, or if the results were to show that a manager was going to be overly condescending or constantly be on a power trip, that would be useful. I think most employers will know quite immediately that they are interviewing a crackwhore or a junkie, and if one slips through the system and gets past that day of training, their ways most certainly won't take too long to be revealed. All those others need to just keep their shit together and save the parties for their off-time.
Thanks for listenin'.