Villain Elle

Miss me?

2008-05-04T10:55:00.002-05:00

It's been a long time. Sorry blog.

The last few months have been seriously crazy--worrying about B-school (as usual), working on a number of shows, figuring out where I'm going to be this summer--everything has been up in the air.

But last week was amazing. My writing partner and I closed our night of one-acts, and it went beautifully. I had been terrified for weeks beforehand about whether or not we were going to find an audience, whether they'd find it funny, whether it would reflect the "vision" I had (a vision of silly jokes and partially veiled anecdotes).

If I weren't so tired from all the nothing I've been doing this morning, I'd write more. But suffice it to say that I'm getting back into the blog, and will hopefully have something interesting to say one day. If not, I'll just talk about things that irritate me and pretend that that's enough.

A Little Experimentation

2008-02-18T18:03:00.004-06:00

So, I came to a decision today. It was laziness more than anything else. But I decided I'm not going to wear any makeup this week. That might sound incredibly banal, especially coming from someone who doesn't look like she puts a lot of thought into her appearance to begin with, but I have been finding myself getting more and more preoccupied with stupid things lately, like worrying about the straightness of my hair or the length of my eyelashes, and it strikes me that I could save time and mental energy by just taking a vacation from thinking about all that for a while.

The experiment is as follows:

1. From now (including today--I'm proud to say I was able to walk around in public today without any makeup on) until the end of the week, I will not wear any makeup, which includes lipstick, eyeliner, mascara, or colored lipgloss (I still have to allow myself lip balm in this weather though). I don't wear eyeshadow, foundation, or blush (or glitter, or kajol, or ash, or any other special womanly stuff that I don't know about) and am not planning on starting to now.

2. I will also not blow dry my hair because it's getting damaged, and I'm kind of liking its wavy texture these days.

3. I will limit my "getting ready" time to 10 minutes in the morning (showering is separate). It's actually pretty easy to time--the cd/alarm clock in my bathroom has a disc with two songs that pretty much add up to 10 minutes: "Bohemian Like You" by the Dandy Warhols and "Gold Digger" by Kanye West. So when those two songs are over, I've got to be done.

Ho : No time over the week will be saved; I will continue to feel exactly the same about makeup's importance in my life.

H1 : My impression of makeup and perhaps even of my appearance without it will be altered.

Again, I know this is stupid. Maybe that's part of the point--it's so stupid, yet I think about it anyway. Hopefully this is the beginning of some necessary reprioritization.

What should I be prioritizing? Well, draft 3 of the play that's opening in April is probably a good idea. And draft 1 of the new play I want to work on is another. Also, I'm working on a sketch revue that will hopefully be going up shortly so I need to put together some sketches for that.

In short: writing comes first. Everything else falls into line after that--except makeup. That shouldn't be part of the equation for a while.

Dessert Recipe #2: Raspberry Shortcakes

2008-02-12T17:53:00.000-06:00

When I started this blog last Fall, I wanted it to be a warehouse not only of my incoherent ramblings, but also of some of my favorite dessert recipes. You may remember the crepe recipe from a few months back (I need to learn how to tag things--as soon as I do, that'll make the recipe aspect a bit easier). It was very easy and very versatile. Crepes are, indeed, one of my favorite dessert options.

What you may not know is that my favorite dessert in the world, in THE WORLD, is Strawberry Shortcakes. I don't know if its because I still associate them with a cartoon I liked in my childhood, I don't know if it's because the name sounds so inherently wholesome, or if it's because the combination of fruit, cake, cream, coolness, and warmth is complete perfection. It could be all three.

Anyway, the last few weeks have been a bit draining emotionally as I work towards the next phase of my life. So, I decided to slow things down today and cook a bit. And, I decided to attempt my favorite dessert because baking in of itself is relaxing, and if it worked out, I'd have a delicious treat. Ain't nothing wrong with that. The dessert was an unabashed success on every level (except that I didn't have strawberries, just frozen raspberries--which was really more than adequate as a replacement):

I opted to make little individual shortcakes so that I wouldn't have to worry about my dessert getting soggy--if I were cooking for a large group (e.g. what I need to do on Thursday), I would have made one large shortcake.

Here's the recipe (from Better Homes and Gardens, 2002, probably THE BEST cookbook out there for any novice chef):

Strawberry (or in my case, Raspberry Shortcake...from here on out, just assume you can substitute fruits):

Ingredients:

6 Cups Sliced Strawberries
1/2 Cup Sugar
2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
2 Tsps Baking Powder
1/2 Cup Butter (1/2 cup=1 Stick, by the way)
1 Beaten Egg
2/3 Cup Milk
1 Cup Whipping Cream, whipped (recipe for that is below)

[This is somewhat consolidated--for the real deal, pick up the book]

1. Take your fruit and a 1/4 cup of your sugar and combine them, then put them aside.

2. Take your dry ingredients (flour, your remaining sugar, baking powder) and combine them. Let the butter soften, and add it to your dry mixture until crumbly.

3. In a separate bowl, combine your egg and milk. Then add that mixture to the flour mixture from step 2 until you get a slightly moist dough.

4. For your whipped cream: take 1 cup of whipping cream (not whole milk, not half and half or table cream--you need whipping cream), 1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla extract, and 2 tablespoons of sugar. In a chilled medium sized mixing bowl (just toss a bowl in the freezer at the start of the process), beat the three ingredients with an electric mixer on medium until soft peaks form. For me, that takes about 5 minutes.

5. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. For individual shortcakes, take heaping tablespoons of dough and put them in rounded spoonfuls on a baking sheet. Then flatten them a bit (not less than 3/4 of an inch). Bake 10 minutes, or until golden.

6. When the shortcakes are done, cut them in half so that you have a top and bottom. Put a heaping spoon of whipping cream between the top and bottom--then put a layer of your raspberry compote on top of that. Then repeat on top of the whole thing (this should be intuitive--if not, see the picture above to get a sense of what it should look like).

7. Enjoy, then brag to your friends and family about the delicious thing you just created. It's easy, fast, and so very tasty.

Inventory

2008-02-04T19:14:00.000-06:00

Okay, so this is what I did today:

1. Looked up and applied to some internships in DC, New York and Chicago. So now, wherever I spend my summer is completely up in the air--a little spooky to be honest.

2. Did my taxes. In fairness, because I don't have a lot of issues like student loan interest or property taxes or having to pay a nanny, and because any of my potential itemized deductions are way below my standard deduction, doing my taxes is ridiculously easy. But still, they're done, and a good 2 months early, so I go girl.

3. Cleaned and then dirtied the kitchen. I can't help it. A clean kitchen, though it looks great, is just too easy to want to cook in. So I made some fettucine alfredo with spinach and chicken. Tasty, but now I'm logy and don't want to clean again. At some point I'm going to throw in the towel and just go out to eat.

4. Called my company to discuss the status of a reimbursement that they still owe me. It's been 10 months since I initiated the reimbursement process. I'm not kidding.

5. Wrote the arc of my play. --> This is the part I haven't done yet but hope to shortly. It's getting there. I keep saying that, and it's true. But I wish I were actually at the "there" part, not the "getting" part.

By the way, I can't believe I'm moving in six months. It sounds like a long time, and it is in a way when I think about how slow time seems to pass these days (it's winter in Chicago--the fog was so thick today that I woke up and immediately thought someone draped a huge white sheet over my building, I couldn't see outside at all).

But, I so need to focus on getting myself prepped and ready for this move, for this paradigm shift. However, I made great strides yesterday by rooting for the NY Giants to win the Superbowl which, everyone knows, they did in spectacular fashion. I am not a football person. But the spectacle of the last 3 minutes (and to some degree, really, the last 10 minutes of the 4th quarter) was compelling even for someone like me who doesn't know what a "down" is and why people have to advance down the field or any of those other nuances.

I was incredibly happy when the Giants won, like a possessive-fan type of happiness even though I'd only been a fan for maybe a few days. But their win was meaningful to me, which I think tells me that I might possibly potentially be ready to become a New Yorker, even temporarily.

Anyway, someone sent this video around recently and I think it's one of the best things I've ever seen. Every theatrical experience I explore must aspire to be at least partially this amazing. I can only hope.

Acting this good has to have a home on my blog: it's from "The Room", a vanity project by Tommy Wiseau, the black-haired lead who says "I did not" with facial expression usually only seen on hungry babies. Head to YouTube for more clips...you know you want to.

Comfort Food for Thought

2008-01-28T23:50:00.000-06:00

Daydreaming about an ideal future, remembering times when I'd put my head in my mom's lap and she'd stroke my hair, brunch at the Carlyle in Shirlington (homefries, asparagus, and broiled salmon with an amazing pomfrey mustard, and beignets with powdered sugar of course), three hour long conversations with my best friend, making ice cream or kulfi, writing, reading books written by contemplative malcontents like myself with pages of platitudes that culminate in little more than confirmation that my general and pervasive sense of dread is justifiable, making dinner for other people, writing, feeling snow or rain on my face, winding the curls of my hair around my finger, falling asleep as my grandmother tapped a light rhythm on my shoulder to calm me, thinking about the lush, rolling hills at Sanchi, sitting in the Art Institute, writing, taking pictures, a huge cup of coffee, imagining God, remembering the time I could have sworn I felt my grandfather's ghost touch my back, writing, writing, writing, writing, writing.

Dearest Bard,

2008-01-24T22:53:00.001-06:00

I apologize in advance for the coarseness of my language--your writings are timeless and transcendent, while mine makes a mockery of the public school system. But enough about me.

Tonight, you saved me, just as you've saved me many times before. Of course, you are probably used to being an agent of positivity for many (including Gwyneth Paltrow, which I have almost forgiven you for) but tonight, like never before, I felt a connection to you that was nearly euphoric. But why should I be surprised? How do I love thee? Let me count the ways, while also pilfering some of your best known lines. My apologies.

My initial fascination with you was purely selfish. I must have been six or seven, looking at one of those books that tells you who you share your birthday with. It might have actually been "The Kids' World Almanac" (do they print that anymore?) which told me I shared my birthday with you and the 15th President of the US, James Buchanan. While I was devastated to learn that I had something in common with the only bachelor president, I was ecstatic to learn that you and I had that in common as well (Note: it was only much later that I learned that we also share our birthday with Vladimir Nabokov, but I suppose the Kids' World Almanac didn't think that was appropriate information for people in my age group).

Upon learning that my birth date was auspicious because it was shared with such a famous author, I wanted to find out what was so great about you. Through school and an ambitiousness that I seem to have left behind in my youth, I read many of your plays and even acted and directed a bit. I had the opportunity to act in a modern interpretation of "Much Ado About Nothing" as Benedick (!), an experience that still leaves me exhilarated. I then got to play Margaret in the same play, though a different production, which was a bit strange and anticlimactic. I think she was a bit overlooked--made out to be little more than a plot device, but maybe that was just a fault of the staged interpretation.

The following year was perhaps the last time you and I worked together until now. I directed a scene from Henry V, and also, more importantly, performed a scene from Henry IV part i as...Falstaff. It was one of the strangest casting decisions ever made, but to this day, I am honored to have played one of your most iconic characters. I even received an award for it--kind of a tongue in cheek award, but one I treasure.

However, it has been ten years, almost exactly, since I've really immersed myself in your amazing stories and luxurious prose. Of course, I've seen some movies and a few staged adaptations of your work--a few have been amazing (Much Ado, Branagh's Hamlet), and some of have been truly terrible (Julie Taymor's Titus which, to be honest, wasn't great in terms of its source material anyway...I was pretty apathetic about all the characters, most of all Lavinia which I think was probably not your aim). But here I'm being incredibly arrogant--even the worst of your writing bests any of my efforts and will continue to dwarf me in the future.

In a way, though, that's kind of comforting in two ways. The first--well, it's sort of a relief to admit to myself that there is a level of excellence that I can't even consider aspiring to because it's completely out of my league. It keeps me humble and keeps me grounded in reality. The second comfort is that, if I need a reference point or inspiration, your work is incalculably valuable.

Which brings me to tonight. This week, I have been near tears trying to put together a piece of work that won't completely humiliate me. My writing partner has been incredibly helpful, but her talent completely eclipses mine and I don't think she has any idea how hard it is for people who are not naturally gifted writers to put together something that adequately represents their ideas. So this has been a huge struggle for me--who are my characters? Who can I identify, what do I want them to do, what kind of a plot is streamlined enough to be understandable but dense enough to be interesting?

In discussing a character of mine, my writing partner and I reached a turning point, changing some of his most significant attributes to something more palatable to me--and something exploded in me like fireworks. The plot, the characters, the arc, the conflict, everything clicked and I think I smiled for the first time today. I had completely internalized one of your plays, and it was manifesting itself in my work. Unlike finer writers who want to be completely original, I am honored that my subconscious was smart enough to find its way to your work as a source of inspiration.

My faith in you in unmeasurable, and now I know that this can be a success because your work is the perfect backbone. I feel a renewed sense of creativity, and feel the impact of your mentorship even though we are centuries apart. So thank you for your amazing work and genius. We'll have a great birthday this year.

Sincerely,
A Different Dark Lady

In Case of Emergency

2008-01-20T19:31:00.002-06:00

I saw "Cloverfield" last night. I loved it, and I'm not ashamed to say so. During the movie, I was glued to my seat. After the movie, I talked about it incessantly. There are moments that I can't get out of my head. I know I sound like a complete dork right now, but I don't care. It was one of the most unique movie experiences I've had in a long time.

However, it did bring up some interesting questions for me, and humbled me considerably as I thought about how I would react if some crazy 30-story beast started demolishing my city. Below are spoilers, but honestly, you're not going to see this movie for the plot anyway.

Question 1: Would I run, or would I hunker down and wait it out?

I'm pretty sure I would run. I would run slowly, and stop a lot because I have no endurance and a small asthma problem, but I would almost certainly run. Why run? Because I don't want to be trapped in a building, especially not on the 20th floor, while some random thing is running amok and knocking stuff all over the place. Sure, you run a lot of risks by wandering around on the streets, but at least by getting on the streets (hopefully in a car or something) you can mobilize yourself away from danger instead of waiting for something awful to eat you.

Question 2: Would I head underground?

No no no no NO. This movie, for one, makes a very good argument against going underground (large, insect-y things that can quietly follow you and then attack you like a rabid puma). But the major issue is freedom of movement. Underground, things can collapse on you, and your ability to move around in the direction you want is limited by where you are. If you are, for example, stuck in a tunnel, your choice is to go forward, go backwards, or curl up in the fetal position and wait for death to take you. I prefer to have lots of room to wander around screaming and freaking out. That's just how I roll.

Question 3: If someone called you crying on the phone and begging for your help, would you go back and help them rather than head towards certain safety?

Unfortunately, I'd have to say it depends. I wish I could be the type of heroic protagonist that could get a call from her 8th grade math teacher and spring into action to save him or her (I can't even remember my 8th grade math teacher, so my apologies there). But the fact is, I'm an only child and I have to consider what I'd put my mother through. I can't imagine someone telling my mom "Yeah, your sole offspring perished while trying to save this person she was in Girl Scouts with 16 years ago."

On the other hand, if it were a family member like my young cousins, mom or dad, or grandma, I would probably attempt to hijack a tank or car (whatever vehicle is at my disposal) and spirit them out of harm's way. But it's almost for selfish reasons because I know at the next family gathering, someone would end up saying something like "well, Nani usually brings the halwa, but since Ms. Thing over there couldn't go back to save her, I guess we'll just have to go without dessert tonight." And then everyone would look at me and shake their heads.

I'm just kidding. I just don't want to reveal how crazily sentimental I am about my family. Seriously, I can't even imagine the insane stunts I would pull to get them to safety.

Question 4: Would I let a loved one head back to try and save someone?

Absolutely not. My guess is, I would find a heavy object and knock them out (not an easy feat, I admit) and then try to drag their unconscious self to safety. Certainly, my friends are allowed to make their own decisions, but hurling themselves into certain doom is not considered optional.

Question 5: What qualities do I lack in surviving a "Cloverfield" type situation?

Well, for starters, physical fitness. If pressed, I can run a mile or two without stopping. Slowly. I can walk for miles and miles, again, if pressed (and wearing the right shoes). But, I cannot sprint more than 30 feet. I am not adept at scrambling over debris, boulders, people lying supine on the ground having been trampled. I would be a tramplee, not a trampler.

There's also my contact lenses. The moment I got a bit of dust in my eyes, I'd be completely helpless. Take off my contacts, you say? Without corrective lenses, I can barely tell colors apart. I'd end up walking right up the monster and snuggling its leg thinking it was some wayward elephant escapee that could shelter me in my moment of need.

Another issue--I am irrationally decisive. This might be okay in some scenarios, but in a "monster eating the city" type crisis, one probably needs to spend at least a few seconds considering the validity of certain options. For example--if one does not know the scope, location, or motivation of your monster, you probably should not put yourself in an all-or-nothing situation (e.g. on a bridge). However, I would probably rely too much on my flawed instinct and would just run willy nilly in whatever direction everyone else would be running in. Not a great choice to make if everyone in front of you is running straight into a monster-tummy-territory.

Question 6: What do I think are our chances of dealing with a monster? What are our expectations of survival?

In Chicago, we have two advantages over our monsters. The first is weather--if a monster tried to attack us right now, he would mostly likely freeze to death because he, like most of us, forgot to purchase longjohns in advance of the season. The second advantage is space. We are a very spread out city. We are not encumbered, like Manhattan, by natural boundaries like water or New Jersey. Sorry, that was a weak New Jersey dig. Not only that but, I give a lot of street cred to the CPD. This city for the most part is run like a well-oiled machine. Not that the NYPD and US Military are incompetent by any means, but the CPD has some additional midwestern moxie that I'm proud to be protected by.

In closing, while I am not completely certain, I do believe it is probably premature to fear a monster invasion similar to what I saw last night during "Cloverfield" (again, damn that's one amazing movie...firefights, crazy angry alien insect things, excellent special effects, a brutally beautiful shot of the monster from the ground level towards the end right before the ersatz cinematographer gets eaten). However, I still think it is better to be ready in any case. Tomorrow I am starting my "Monster Preparedness Program" which entails my saving up for Lasik and running long distances while screaming, waving my arms, and saying "Oh my God!" over and over again.

Let Me Clear My Throat

2008-01-10T10:56:00.000-06:00

I'm old enough to remember when that was the jam. Right now, I feel, and probably look like, what's going on below:

I'm still sick. I hate being sick. I'm going to see "There Will be Blood" tonight after rescheduling twice, but I don't want to be that jerk in the theatre alternately coughing into my hand and unwrapping cough drops, but I also don't want to keep delaying this until I finally am forced to see it on video. Argh.

Anyway, two things I am working right now (besides getting my part-time jobs locked down, hopefully, by the end of the week).

1. At the end of February, I have to take a trip to New York to start meeting my fellow classmates and 'bond'. I think I'll also be bothering some profs and looking for places to live at the same time.

2. I am committing myself to writing at least three hours a day. Doesn't have to be all at once, it doesn't have to be good or even coherent. If I come out of it with one page, that's legit too. But I need some kind of output. That's the main thing. Complacency has been my main vice over the last few weeks, and that's not how I wanted to start the year. Dang it!

Okay, I'm going to take some more Tylenol and curl up on my bed and wait for the dizziness to pass. Vaya con Dios.

I Do As I'm Told

2008-01-07T19:27:00.001-06:00

"Brevity. Soul. Wit." suggested taking the first 20 songs that play on your mp3 player or other newfangled audio device and listing out their first line. I can already feel how embarrassing this is going to be.

1. I've become impossible, holding on to when, when everything seemed to matter more
2. Bend down and touch, the door is shut, in the end, you're just too close
3. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life
4. When you tire of all the bright lights, haste that's killing and you're willing to stay home nights, when your feet are back on solid ground, look for me, I'll be around
5. I need a ruffneck, a dude with an attitude who only need his fingers with his food
6. I'm 'bout to throw some game, they both one and the same, Cupid's the one to blame
7. When the rain breaks the road, are you holding on?
8. In the dark I like to read his mind but I'm frightened of the things I might find
9. Someone take these dreams away that point me to another day
10. Oh, oh oh oh, you don't have to go, oh oh oh oh, you don't have to go, oh oh oh oh, you don't have to go.

Okay, I could only make it to 10. My brain is addled and lacks commitment and there's other stuff I want to go over.

Thing 1: I have a pretty nasty cold and I'm in a bad mood about it. So I'm going to pamper myself ladies and gents. That means no cleaning, thinking, or working for the rest of the night.

Thing 2: Those ASPCA commercials featuring Sarah McLachlan have been driving me crazy. See below.

Maybe you are made of sturdier stuff than I, but every time I see this commercial on tv, it sends me scrambling for the remote control because I can't handle sobbing on my couch anymore. It has all the basic ingredients for inducing a good cry--puppies and kittens, puppies and kittens IN PERIL, those same animals staring innocently and desperately up into the camera, Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" playing in the background, Sarah McLachlan holding and petting an ostensibly rescued animal, and worst of all, animals with one eye. You show me an animal with one eye, and I will dissolve into tears. Why? Because I'm a huge doofus, sorry.

So, I may be going into some weird do-gooder territory in the next few months out of species-specific guilt. I know a lot of my altruistic tendencies irritate my friends and loved ones because it usually results in my hitting them up for money but, come on people. It's been five years since I did any fundraising. Go ahead and watch that commercial again and see if it doesn't make you want to do something. Yeah, I know I'm annoying. Just wait til April rolls around.

Odalisque-esque

2008-01-03T21:24:00.001-06:00

There is something languorous about this painting, something that reminds me of myself early on January 1st after my evening foray into what my mom and I call our "annual New Year's gorge" which consists of chips and dip, brie and bread, and now, buffalo wings and bleu cheese dressing. After eating so much I developed a stitch in my stomach, I went from one end of the Metro system to the other (MD to Virginia cutting across DC at its broadest point) to usher in the New Year with some friends at a bar.

We acted like old people ("why can't they turn that music down? I can't hear myself think!" "Where's our waiter with that water? This is too spicy!") and talked about third-wave feminism and brought the New Year in with cretinous hats and plastic leis. In short, it was a pretty good time.

I relate that only because I feel obligated to talk about my New Year's Eve. What I really want to talk about is one of my main New Year's Resolutions. Oh sure, I've got the usual "get in shape", "get my finances straightened out" and "stop watching VH1" in my list, but the rez I'm most looking forward to is:

Develop an affectation.

I feel like it's about time. I mean, I'm going to find a new nose stud because my old one, which was supposedly pure gold, was apparently made out of something flimsy and gross so there's that...but I don't consider my nose piercing an affectation because I've had it for so long and it's meaningful to me. There's also the fact that my optometrist told me that I need to wear my glasses more frequently during the day because I've been getting eye strain that's been making my eyesight worse--but I would hardly consider myopia an affectation (plus I hate my glasses so that's an issue).

"Brevity, Soul, Wit" (formerly "I am a Force of Nature!") suggested the old standby of a British accent, but we both agreed it's a bit too predictable. In Spinal Tap, Tap's road manager had that cricket bat, but my being Indian, it might be a little too fobby. So, this might take a while for me to figure out. Maybe I could buy a pocketwatch with a chain attachment? Or maybe I could draw a mole on my face. Or develop a limp. I'm not sure. But I do know that this year would be so much more promising if I could figure out just one little affectation--something innocuous, yet memorable, and preferably, not too humiliating.

I'll Show You the Life of the Mind!

2007-12-26T23:54:00.000-06:00

That line, and the image of John Goodman running down a hallway screaming, endures in my mind as one of the most evocative moments of "Barton Fink", a Coen Brothers movie that could be, painfully, reduced to a "surreal excursion into the life of a man with writer's block". The crazy images, I assume, are metaphors and though I flatter myself by comparing my challenges to those of the film's anti-hero, I too feel the wallpaper crumbling around me right now.

All I can think about, when I'm not nauseated about business school and what I have to do to earn it, is this play I'm trying to write. I want to write it, I like the idea behind it and I almost feel like the act of writing it would be therapeutic. But the characters still feel pretty distant (I couldn't even remember all of their names when talking about the play to a friend of mine) and the plot is still a bit of a mystery.

But, I did have a coup tonight. Talking to my friend, I forced myself to confront the details of my play and was helped immensely by the barrage of questions my friend threw my way. It was like he knew exactly where the blanks were, and I tried to answer the questions as quickly as I could, as though my characters had backstories that were robust and real:

Q:How long had the main characters dated?
A: Six to nine months

Q: Did the guy know about his girlfriend's affair with the professor?
A: Yes, but he didn't hold it against her until after the relationships ended.

Q: Did the girl's best friend have a crush on her?
A: No, I don't want to muddy the waters too much there.

The somewhat Socratic journey through the plot was really helpful and I ended up developing a major plot point, actually the turning point, through our conversation. I loved talking about the play, and got to a point where I was writing furiously on a napkin to keep up with the relationships between the characters, tweaking them, adding links, and then going through the critical point of the play to explore what the implications would be on the characters. That whole process felt amazing--I finally feel reinvigorated enough to really get into this and think I realize that, at least for me, I can't go through this process insularly, but need to bounce ideas off people and force myself to answer questions.

Also, side note, I proposed another play idea (one of the four I'm working on right now, and easily the most macabre) to my friend who actually really liked the idea. He seemed to think it had the most depth and was the most conceptually interesting, but he's also pretty dark so I don't know that the audience for what I want to do is really going to be anyone except him and anyone off their meds. But we'll see what happens. Maybe I am my harshest critic, though I should be so lucky.

Holiday Trauma

2007-12-24T18:26:00.000-06:00

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday tomorrow, but I also want to express my hope that you all stay safe. Holidays tend to be a magnet for accidents and trauma and I don't want anything to befall my loved, or liked ones.

Here is a true story of one of my personal favorite stories of holiday trauma. I think this happened when I was about six.

You know those holiday lights you put on the tree? They sure look great all lit up, but has anyone ever noticed that they look pretty cool even while dark? With their glossy dark greens, blues, and reds, they almost look like hard candy, especially when you're a kid and, let's face it, prone to making bad decisions.

So, I was helping to unstring these lights, and apparently didn't realize that Christmas lights and candy are not synonymous. My parents were busy doing something else (probably getting clobbered by the tree or something) and I ended up sucking on the lights. I was so fervent in what I was doing that I actually sucked the color off of three lights before I realized that, you know what? These don't taste nearly as good as I expected. I think at that point, either my parents found out that I was trying to consume the lights, or I mentioned to them my disappointment that they weren't candy, and then I remember a lot of furious activity.

I think there were phone calls, there were angry words (how could you let her suck on the lights? Why would I think she would suck on the lights?) and I think there was some fear that this was going to cause me permanent brain damage or something, a result that the jury is still out on, and what seems to have been the end result in terms of a solution to this odd little predicament was--they had to try and make me throw up.

Unfortunately, and this is true to this day, I hate throwing up and can't really do it unless it's completely involuntary. So, I remember one of my parents placing me on a chair in front of a kitchen sink while I spit. I spit, and spit, and spit, like a featherweight wrestler trying to make weight. That's my favorite traumatic Christmas memory--me spitting into the sink after sucking on Christmas lights with my parents nearby, worried that their baby's going to be brain damaged.

Merry Christmas everyone and remember--Christmas lights are not candy.

My Nickname

2007-12-20T20:50:00.000-06:00

Despite a bumpy start (hotel being a bit annoying, rental car does not have a remote so have to manually open door and trunk, mom and I readjusting to each other because we travel differently), my trip to Orlando has been pretty excellent so far. Spent the day at Epcot Center (which I will write about later when my feet have stopped throbbing and my attention span gets back up to par) and the sunlight has been wonderful but most of all, getting advice from my mom, when solicited at least, has been great.

We were talking about my going back to school and a number of other things I'm a bit anxious about and, contextually, my mom reminded me of her (and purportedly my family's) nickname for me: "chapanchuri" (pronounced "chuh-pun-choo-ri" if you ever want to call me it) which translates to "56 knives". It's not exactly a compliment, but even I have to admit it's probably apt. I'll let you decide for yourself.

Note: If we are friends on Facebook, then you are not "Facebook-stalking" me...and how Rock Band is the BEST. THING. EVER.

2007-12-18T20:22:00.001-06:00

Item 1: The Cognitive Dissonance Behind "Facebook Stalking"

You cannot stalk me if we are friends. Seriously. Three people (friends of mine on Facebook) in the last 24 hours have shyly claimed to have "discovered" information about me via "Facebook-stalking". While I understand that's kind of a sweet and humble way of saying that they were reading stuff on my profile, I hate the word "stalking", even as a joke. The whole point of putting all that junk up on my profile is to inform my friends, i.e. YOU GUYS, of what's going on with my life without the arrogance of those "update e-mails" we all used to send out to people prior to these networking sites.

Plus, I am beyond flattered when people read my profile. I can't imagine why anyone gives two beans about what I'm up to, but if you are interested for some reason, then you're awesome and I appreciate it. And you are certainly not a Facebook-stalker. I read my friends' profiles shamelessly because, well, you guys are my friends. I don't find the "Minifeed" creepy. I find it a little sad that I found out a friend of mine was engaged via Facebook before I got the e-mail, but beyond that, I guess I feel like if you don't want to let people know what's up with you you can either 1) not put sensitive information about yourself up or 2) stop accepting every freaking friend request you've ever gotten. Just because your friend's cousin's dentist's pallbearer met you at a party one time seven years ago doesn't mean that he needs to know that "Babe: Pig in the City" is your favorite movie. Okay, sorry for that lame rant.

Anyway, here's a lame rave. Rock Band. Oh my God.

Item 2: Rock Band is simultaneously lame and glorious.

So, I got back to DC yesterday. We all know how I feel about DC. Luckily I was going straight from the airport to dinner with friends, so that gave me a bit of a buffer between me and the city undiluted. It was great to see my old friends, some of whom I don't think I've seen since I moved back to Chicago more than a year again. Luckily, these are types that are easy to pick back up with, probably because we tend to have a ridiculous amount in common, including goofy pasttimes.

After unsuccessfully trying to find a late night hangout after dinner (late night meaning 10pm, which is pathetic), we ended up going back to a friend's house. Our host, a quiet but effective gentleman, allowed us to blather on briefly while he unassumingly put together his console (I think it was an Xbox but I'm probably way off) to play Rock Band. I saw two weird plastic guitars and a headset being attached to the console and soon, on the massive tv in front of us was a list of songs--some I'd never heard of but many were wonderfully memorable and I was riveted immediately.

The five of us at the apartment descended on this game with an earnestness seen only among kindergarteners being handed the class bunny to play with: what is this? Can I touch it? I don't want to hurt it. We're a pretty dignified bunch when solo, but the combination of the five of us turned into, as it was described yesterday, a kind of Captain Planet amalgamation of dorkiness (by the way, I was deemed "Heart" which I found a little insulting since "Heart" is the most useless of all Captain Planet's sidekicks).

If you have not yet been acquainted with Rock Band, a brief introduction may be necessary. Rock Band is a four player game that requires each player pick one of four musical options: singer, lead guitar, bass, or drums. Our host did not have a drum set attachment, which was probably for the best because we did enough damage with three options as it was. Anyway, the game judges your performance on each instrument--for singing, it judges your pitch and phrasing/timing. For guitar and bass, it judges how well you "play" your instrument. Guitar and Bass is played on the same instrument option, a plastic guitar with 5 colored buttons each mimicking a chord placement, and a switch where the strings would be that you "strum". There's also a weird lever thing that I didn't use and can't explain except that it's easy to get it caught on people's clothing.

The game gives you the option of choosing from a number of very awesome songs, though some of them were pretty foreign to me (who is "Tribe"? Or, no one could figure this out, "Vagiant"? We kept thinking they meant to say "Vagrant", but we all saw "Vagiant" which is pretty inexplicable). But they did have Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun", some song by Garbage, Hole's "Celebrity Skin" (which I don't like, but I can sing pretty accurately, especially after I've smoked a bit), and some stuff by the Killers, Jet, the Smashing Pumpkins, and some other fun stuff. It would have been nice if they had more songs sung by females (where was Patti Smith?) but it wasn't a huge deal. Even though, to this moment, I wish so badly that they had some Amy Winehouse on there, even if she doesn't really have guitars in her repertoire. What about another version like "Retro Band" or "Experimental Jazz Band"?

Anyway, we were soon up and playing and, unfortunately for my host, his neighbors, and my friends, I ended up singing. A lot. I say "ended up" as though I didn't actively campaign to sing. Of course I did, not so much because I sing well (Note: I don't) but because I just love to sing. I ended up bellowing out Radiohead's "Creep" and when we got to the "She's...runnin' out the dooooooooooor....she's running out...run...run...run...ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun" part, I had practically lost my mind with the pure joy of belting out a line I normally only get to sing in the shower. Why was I so intent on punishing my fellow man? Why bring my odious voice from the shower into a semi-public arena? 1) Because I could and 2) because even being in a fake Rock Band feels badass. Plus, singing in the shower gets tiresome because every time you want to make a sweeping gesture, you end up knocking out the curtain or hitting the showerhead. The logistical issues behind shower singing are astounding.

I did end up playing (heh, "playing") guitar a few times and managed to get up to the level of medium without sucking too badly. I think my favorite song to play was probably Nirvana's "In Bloom" just because I've heard it so many times that I've practically internalized the chord progressions, despite not knowing how to play guitar (I do play the piano and once the violin, but until this company comes out with "Rock Piano", or "Motha' Truckin' Violin" I have to admit my limitations) and playing, or fiddling with or whatever I was doing to that poor plastic guitar-thingie felt practically natural. Unfortunately, as I understand it, real guitars don't come with colorful buttons and a strumming switch.

My fellow band frauds were far better than me. Our host has an amazing singing voice, which isn't all that surprising considering his pleasant speaking voice, but I guess it was the facility and emotion with which he sang that was pretty cool. Plus he was always on key--that fact alone made him the best singer out of the rest of us, hands down. Also, and I'd like to think it's because it's his game, he kicks ass on every song even at the expert level. Chord progressions would hurtle down the screen like flying monkeys, and our host calmly dispatched them all like a pro. Others in our group showed a natural talent for fake guitar playing and I comforted myself that I am probably the loudest singer in our group, and that should count for something.

Despite the fact that the five of us were not, and should never ever become, a real band we actually took the experience somewhat seriously. For one thing, the game actually grades your performance and will fail you, FAIL YOU, if you suck too much. For a bunch of overachievers, this is tantamount to waterboarding. I did fail a few times, but was saved by fellow fake band members and then returned the favor later--a feat that I think bonded us as a group even further. And, some of us got very attached to some of the songs to the point where we got a little bit repetitive. We played "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs approximately 700 times because, really, who doesn't want to be Karen O for 4 minutes? We bared our souls by admitting that we were afraid of taking on "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones, and yet went through it anyway.

We admitted our failings, shared in success, remembered our favorite songs, jammed and rocked out with little plastic guitars and headphones straight from a Hyderabad call center, and it was wonderful. I thought playing Wii with a bunch of older people was a riot, but Rock Band can save lives, heal wounds, repair international rifts, and even teach a person to love. Or maybe not. But it can teach you that the Bass player is just as valuable as anyone else in the band. Especially if you're playing something by Jet.

Scenes from a Bus or Let's Explore Anxiety

2007-12-16T09:32:00.001-06:00

On Friday night, a friend from college was going to be doing some standup at a club I had never been to before. I happen to believe that being supportive of other people's endeavors helps to build good karma (if we completely misuse the word karma) and also helps me with my networking because, well, that's one of the things I think about. I invited a few friends, one of whom was able to come and brought his own friend. And the moment that happened, I became obligated to show up on time. Bummer.

This of course meant that I was at the mercy of the CTA, an organization known as much for its efficiency as Bush is known for his facility with Euclidean geometry. It did not help that I had had three cups of coffee prior to this set just to keep myself awake. I ended up sitting next to a young man who, despite looking completely normal from afar, turned out not only to have topographically relevant acne but also was a mouthbreather with terrible teeth. And he shook his knee incessantly, the knee that was right next to me. Also, he had larger hips than me (and I am large hipped) and ended up taking way more than his share of the seat. Unfortunately, the 66 is always crowded, so my options are generally limited.

Anyway, we're picking up more passengers, and we ended up picking up an unremarkable looking young woman who made my seatmate react enthusiastically. He took out his headphones and his face turned towards her with a golden retriever-like desperation, waiting for her to notice him. She did and it was like he glowed from within. Turns out they are acquainted in some way--he attempted to show her his desirability by talking about how he was on his way to a party, and why doesn't she stop by? Also, he had just been promoted to a more managerial level at the bakery, yeah it's challenging, but he's up for it. The girl for her part seemed blase but that could have been a facade that hid the passionate magma of her soul.

In any case, the part that cracked me up the most was that the moment my seatmate spied his young female counterpart, he kept looking at me as though he wanted to demand that I get up so that the girl could occupy my seat and he could continue his earnest macking. I did want to indulge him, seriously, but I was exhausted. I was anxious with worry to get to my friend's standup and the bus was getting crazy packed with people. I was not going to get up, especially not for a guy whose m.o. revolved around such golden lines like "yeah, you should totally stop by later. We're gonna like, watch some movies and just chill." It was so awkward to listen to that I started smiling involuntarily. I am certainly not one to throw stones, but wow. It was delightful and creepy and weird and made me very happy.

Unfortunately for our Romeo, or perhaps more sadly, our Dante pining for his bespectacled Beatrice, she was spirited off towards the back of the bus as more and more passengers joined our little bus. He is now devastated and has resumed his crazy knee wiggling. At this point, my friend calls me to inform me that our friend's set is coming up soon. I, trying to keep my cool, announce to the bus "I'm sorry, but I don't know what you want me to do. I'm in hell right now, this bus is slow and packed with people and I'm about 10 seconds away from freaking out." Approximately 20 faces turn to look at me. Clearly, I am not actually going to freak out. No one announces that they are going to freak out and then actually freaks out (because in that case, it ends up being a premeditated act--to me, freaking out is involuntary and thus much scarier).

My friend, who I will say is not known for his sympathetic side, announces to me again, someone is taking the stage! It's starting! You better get here! I ask him at that point whether I need to call in a bomb threat or something. What do you want me to do? I hate moments like that, when you're already running late and you don't want to be late and someone reminds you of what you're about to miss and you're not in control and you can't do anything and the guy next to you smells like a Slim Jim and it's claustrophobic and you're wired on caffeine and aaaaaaack.

A note about public smells. When I was a young girl, on the cusp of adolescence, I remember a rather terrible girl at my school who told everyone in my gym class that Indian people smelled bad. Since that day, I have fought long and hard to be the best-smelling person anyone has ever met. I have taken up the torch for Indian people. I am determined, if I can help it, to never smell bad in public. It's also a way to show my respect for people. When you are in a public place, try to make the world a little better. To my knowledge, my attempts have not been in vain. Frequently, in elevators, large open spaces, bars, meetings, among strangers or friends, people tell me I smell good. I appreciate it, but also know that I have earned it.

However, many people, not having the same chip on their shoulder, don't feel a similar obligation. Here I ask you though--can you maybe just try? Can you just try to smell a little better? Make sure you're wearing clean clothes, deodorant. If you don't like to shower every day, it's okay but maybe just dust yourself with a little powder then? Toothbrush not handling your mouth hygiene adequately? Let me introduce you to Listerine and floss. I swear, there's an answer. Let's find it together.

So, yeah. Crowded bus, running late, bad smelling people in love, and caffeine. It was my personal hell. I don't know if I'm ready for New York. I need to go through some gauntlet/bootcamp type stuff to test my mettle.

Oh, just to let you know though--the standup sets were amazing. My friend was, of course, the funniest person there just like he usually is, though the comedians who were also part of the set were by and large pretty enjoyable. Another excellent side bonus was that I ran into a lot of people I hadn't seen since college, wonderful people who I was very happy to reconnect with. So, while the bus trip was pretty ridiculous and I am beginning to question the rationale behind my coffee intake, it's all worth it to get some great live comedy and socializing out of it. There go those lemons.

By next Saturday...

2007-12-14T08:16:00.000-06:00

I will be responsible for a first draft of my next project, a one act which will be performed starting in mid-April. No worries, I'm not doing this by myself--A Force of Nature (link to the right) is going to be onboard with me which means that at least one of our one acts will be watchable.

I love the words "one act". It makes me feel like a playwright instead of someone drinking coffee in her jammies and wondering how she's going to finance business school (answer, a kidney, lots of loans, and good old-fashioned gumption). So, I'll be around the next few days to talk about how things are going. I'm so passionate about this endeavor that I have no doubt I'll do it. Let's just see how well.

Back to my Resting Heart Rate

2007-12-13T00:17:00.000-06:00

The last few weeks alone have been pretty intense, and then I get to the last 48 hours which put me into a whirlwind. Maybe it wouldn't have affected other people as much as it does me, but I am very wedded to the status quo, once I've found one I'm comfortable with, and so the moment that is threatened, I go into an odd offense, trying to figure out how to cope--and this is only how I deal with good news.

Tuesday, I got the great news that I had gotten into the Said Business School at Oxford, which was phenomenal and, what's more, totally unexpected considering that they state their decisions go out mid-January. I was almost angry to get the news in a way because I'm kind of a jerk and because I wasn't prepared to hear good news--meaning that I was in a kind of pouty mood and sort of marinating in the December rut I was in, and suddenly I was being expected to respond to good news and think about all the life implications it brought. So, the news left me catatonic for a few hours, and after I told my mom and best friends about it, I finally started to thaw and think about what would happen next--okay, I have the next few months to enjoy Chicago, then I'd move to Oxford and figure out what I wanted to do. Or wait, maybe I needed to get an internship first to better understand where my strengths were. Or maybe I'd take a trip to Europe. Suddenly, all my options started opening up and revealing themselves to me and fear of change was replaced by an eagerness to start life at Oxford.

Then, that got totally upended. I woke up on Wednesday and checked my e-mail and found that my "application status had changed" for the Columbia Business School. Wow, finally! I had been waiting and waiting for what seemed like months to hear whether or not I would be granted an interview and now it looks like maybe I had gotten it--or got a pre-emptive rejection, which would have been a little sad. I literally spat my coffee all over my lap when I read the acceptance message on the screen, welcoming me to Columbia's incoming class of 2008. I had to reread it several times to make sure it wasn't a message thanking me for my application and then sending me on my way. No no. It was an acceptance, my second within a 24 hour period, and I was overwhelmed.

Overachievers and those who know them probably are already aware that acceptance and success are like drugs. Between our sold out show and this huge week in getting my life straightened out, I feel like I just did a few speedballs off a mirror in the middle of the Viper Room. I am a huge dork, and I know that metaphor just screams it, but it doesn't matter. The high is still there.

So, come September 2008, I will be moving to New York City and will voluntarily put myself in more than a hundred thousand dollars worth of debt. If people didn't do things like that every day, I'd probably be in the fetal position just thinking about it. But I wanted this so badly, I WANT it so badly, and I can't even begin to justify complaining about it. The first thing my mom and two best friends told me after their congratulations was "I'm so happy for you, I know this was your first choice". I don't often get my first choice, but that's what this is and I'm ecstatic. I'll stop bragging about it because a) I'm annoying even myself and b) when you start bragging about something you jinx it a little bit but I just have to absorb and love this moment because they come around so rarely.

I was talking to one of the wonderful people in my cast about this news tonight and she said something that affected me pretty deeply, more deeply than she knows, I'm sure. She said "I am really happy for you, but don't forget one thing--you're a writer." That hit me hard, and in a good way. Even after the show, and after having committed to another show, I have never considered myself a writer. But I want so badly to be one, and to be told you are by another person, especially a person you respect as an artist, is a good feeling. I promised her that I wouldn't stop writing, I couldn't even if I wanted to because it's become a compulsion, and then tonight I worked on two plays I've had up my sleeve for sometime--and managed to write for a good two hours.

There is a part of me that, despite its happiness over this news and feeling like I have something to look forward to, is devastated over the prospect of leaving Chicago. What hasn't this city given me? After four miserable years in DC, Chicago gave me every amenity I could ever ask for, great people to know, and finally got me to start accepting that I need to indulge my creative side, which is one of the first authentic moves I've made as an adult and has only given me rewards. Yeah, there have been some pretty terrible times, but I don't think I would have made it through them as quickly and successfully if I had been in any other city.

So in a way, I feel like I'm being unfaithful to this city which has been like a companion to me. But I know I want to commit to it some day, I guess I just need to date around a little bit first. New York will be an amazing change, and I'm sure I'll still get my jollies out on the written page (even if it's a far more competitive environment there). But I will miss this city, I'll miss this life so much. However, I am banking on the hope that the next phase of my life will somehow turn out even better.

And, if anyone is reading this right now and hating me for my optimism, I can only tell you that I wish I started this blog back in March of this year when all I could think about was setting things on fire and throwing things out the window because my life was in such a pit. We all get into trenches. And it's probably a good idea to acknowledge and be excited when you get out of one.

So, now I'm feeling pretty sanguine and I've wanted to post one of my favorite villanelles for some time now, but never really had any reason to. But this feels like a pretty good occasion for it and, honestly, the poem is so good that it justifies its existence anywhere and any time.

The Waking
by Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

I. Can't. Breathe.

2007-12-12T11:17:00.001-06:00

When it rains, it pours. I'll talk about it later. It's not a big deal to anyone but me, but oh my holy, sweet God. I can't move. The last day and a half I've been almost completely inert and it's not going to change any time soon. I thought my good news from yesterday was enough and then today I got something that was even less expected and, I think, even better.

I don't know who's behind all this, but thank you times a million. I feel like I owe someone out there something. If anyone actually reads this blog, I'm sorry for being an evasive dork, but I promise that when I'm ready to talk, we'll celebrate.

And can I just say that I am so freaking lucky to know some of the best people in the world? I am terrifically tickled by the fact that the same people I have on speed dial to talk about my lowest moments are the first people I want to celebrate with. By the way, I promise that once the adrenaline wears off, I'll be less annoying. At some point, reality will hit and I'll turn back into my usual "oh crap, now what do I do?" mode.

Smacked Upside the Head

2007-12-11T09:17:00.000-06:00

So, quick update--something just worked out this morning. I was not expecting it at all and in my typical fashion, I am handling it very very poorly. Instead of jumping for joy and running around the city embracing people, I am a ball of nerves and don't know what to do.

Why can't I ever just be appreciative of the massive luck that gets tossed my way all the time? I am a jackass.

Maybe I'm Amazed

2007-12-11T02:12:00.000-06:00

I love evenings like this one, where I spend 7 hours talking to someone the way I used to when I was younger and thought living room banter could change the world.

I was thinking about one of my favorite lines from "Lolita" where Humbert Humbert states "oh, let me be mawkish for the nonce! I am so tired of being cynical." Though my similarity to H.H. ends at our both having hard-to-pronounce names and a penchant for big words, I have to agree--cynicism has limited value. Cynicism seems to come from a desire to not look unprepared, to give ourselves a bit of armor in the form of lowered expectations, to appear wise and worldly. But human beings are naturally inclined to hope in even the most desperate circumstances, so why are we so wired these days to rail against optimism?

This is going to be a huge week for me. Today was already pretty huge, but I don't want to talk about it because it will bore you and make me superstitious. I'm trying not to start creating contingencies in my mind in anticipation of nothing working out, but I have this weird thing about planning everything down to the letter to make sure that nothing is unexpected and I can deal with any situation. But then I never get to really relish the pursuit of my dreams, which is kind of annoying.

But tonight, I got to hang out with a friend of mine that I haven't seen for a while and we went back in time to discuss college, what we used to think was important then and all the minor devastation we went through that in hindsight seems virtually irrelevant. We found out we had some wonderfully bizarre things in common and even gave each other the courtesy of rehashing some things we'd already discussed before because the stories were just that hilarious (and I even got one of the best hookup stories ever out of the evening that I am trying very, very hard not to put in a sketch lest I lose a friend).

Anyway, tonight reminded me that sometimes it's okay to slow down and stop planning and revel in the dumb stuff we've inflicted on ourselves, knowingly or not. I've lost out on so many opportunities but have no regrets about where I am now, which is pretty spectacular. I am used to being cynical and expecting the worst--I arrive at every situation with band-aids and bactine. But this week, I'm going to enjoy the anticipation of possibilities. I don't know if my life is going to change, but I'm pretty sure whatever happens, I'll be okay.

Unless, you know, I do something dumb like base jump off the Hancock building.

The Ghost of Guffaws Past

2007-12-04T08:24:00.000-06:00

On Saturday, before and after our wonderful show "Mass Recall" premiered (the experience of which I will write about later when our run ends and I have enough distance) some of us were talking about what we find funny which, interestingly enough, is not what we have always found funny. I myself remembered a time (about two years in my life approximately, beginning of high school) when I found the Kids in the Hall to be the funniest thing I had ever seen. Guy with a cabbage for a head? Hilarity! Guy dressed as a girl caught in flagrante with a guy dressed as a guy? On a kitchen table no less? How subversive! Man dressed as a chicken whose catch line is "gotta get laid"? Be still, my heart.

A few years back, I tried watching some of their stuff on late night Comedy Central and was horrified. I don't think I laughed once, or maybe did but out of politeness despite the fact that none of the Kids themselves were around to care. The show suddenly seemed desperately unfunny and it made me a little maudlin actually. It was like having a crush on someone for years and then running into them on the street and realizing they smelled bad and had lost all their teeth.

But there are a number of people, shows, and bits that endure. We all know this. What I'm not sure we all know is what that special quality is that makes a comedic entity successful in the long-term. I guess it has to do at least partly with connecting to a part of humanity that is also enduring--or it's something so new and groundbreaking that it becomes unforgettable.

For me, what I've found enduring is certainly a matter of my personal preference but I wouldn't be surprised if it showed up on other people's lists as well:

1. Frasier--which I've adored since 1993
2. Chris Rock's "Bring the Pain"--loved since 1996
3. Fawlty Towers--loved since I was a little kid, maybe the late 80's?
4. The Simpsons--yeah, I still think they're funny...since the late 80's as well
5. The movie "Sneakers"...can't explain that one except that I'm a huge geek
6. Arrested Development--which will probably be one of my favorite shows until my dentures turn green
7. Three's Company--zany and dumb and probably my first favorite t.v. show (side note, my first crush was on John Ritter...I was about 5)
8. Anything Mel Brooks (History of the World Part 1, Blazing Saddles, and Spaceballs are standouts)
9. Airplane! the movie is still a delight...standout moment for me is the bouncing heart...clip below, around 6:05...I wish I could tell you why I love that part.

10. My mom tells me I was a huge Eddie Murphy fan...I'm assuming she's not talking about "Raw". But I would agree, I still find Eddie Murphy ingenious.

There is of course much much more. But to me, I wonder what it is about these items that makes them classics (in my opinion anyway). One could argue that its the subject matter that endures, but I don't agree because execution is such a major part of it. Eddie Murphy's "Beverly Hills Cop" doesn't really deal with a subject that is particularly deep but Axel Foley is so charismatic and to some degree relatable that he makes the movie work.

Anyway, I'm not going to come up with anything even remotely new or intelligent about this topic, but it's something to consider as I ponder writing idiotic sketches about "crackberries" and trixies and other random stupid things. Maybe there's a comedic ideal to aspire to. Or maybe I need to buy some charisma.

In Praise of Older Women

2007-11-29T22:45:00.000-06:00

My mom is 50. She is a smoking hot woman. Regardless, she is uncomfortable with her age and all the implications it carries with it. But considering that these days, many women over 50 give women my age a run for our money daily (and in my case, I can't hold a candle to any of the lovely ladies listed below), I want to take a minute to recognize some of the hottest women around--who just happen to be more of the fine wine as opposed to grape juice variety. I can only hope to one day look half as good as these women. And, by the way, even if any of these women got plastic surgery, botox, dyed hair whatever, doesn't bother me--they still had to have something to work with, so more power to them.

So, onto 10 hotter than hot hotties who make 50, 55, or even 60 look fierce.

1. Shohreh Aghdashloo--Age: 55

2. Isabelle Huppert--Age: 52

3. Charlotte Rampling--Age: 61

4. Bo Derek--Age: 51

5. Diana Ross--Age: 63

6. Rekha--Age: 53

7. Jacqueline Bisset--Age: 63

8. Cheryl Ladd--Age: 56

9. Shabana Azmi--Age: 57

10. Lena Horne--Age: 90...and still a red-hot diva

Do not go ugly into that good night. I tip my hat to you, ladies.

Atonement

2007-11-28T23:33:00.000-06:00

So, I was thinking about two things today..."Atonement", the movie version of which is coming out shortly (and I am ecstatic--for once, I have really high hopes for Keira Knightley's performance) and its writer, Ian McEwan.

While the two topics are linked, I've been considering them separately which means this blog is probably going to make even less sense than usual. Let's look at each in its turn, starting with Ian McEwan.

I used to be freaked out by Mr. McEwan. His books, which tend to deal with the darkest subjects that haunt the human soul, also tended to strike me as somewhat misogynistic. Women as harpies, sexual objects, succubi, obstacles--all caricatures of people. However, his male characters don't tend to fare much better--wishy-washy, sexual obsessives, pathological liars. There is no human flaw that Ian McEwan cannot or will not exploit to its fullest potential. But I'm not really doing him justice. These human flaws are not synonymous with his plots, which tend to be rich and deep.

Not only that, but I wonder if Ian McEwan's female characters belie his own personal fear of women, particularly strong, vocal women. I'm not sure why I feel that there's a tie-in there, but I suppose I just see such a struggle between the genders in his novels, generally where the woman has the upper hand and the man either succumbs to her will or to some fatal flaw and is then lost to the world. Spoilers below, but I just wanted to exemplify my point a little more...

Look at "The Cement Garden" which explores the odd family dynamic shared by four siblings who live on their own after both their parents die (an event that they hide from the rest of the world). The eldest sibling, a sexually precocious girl, understands that her sexuality can wield power over men including her younger brother who eventually succumbs to her advances (really a self-fulfilling prophecy). The sister is clearly the aggressor in the scenario, whether her brother was ready for the opportunity or not. She ends up providing the mechanism by which we see him ruin himself psychologically through incest.

In "Enduring Love", which is in my opinion one of McEwan's best (not that I've read that much of his work, but still) at least in terms of exploring a psychotic personality profile, we have a woman who represents an obstacle to one man's love of another man. The man who is the pursuer feels that his prey is essentially owned by this woman who must be dispatched.

In "Atonement", the entire plot hinges on a young girl whose lack of objectivity, and particular biases end up ruining two (or three, or five depending on how you look at it) lives and, to be honest, I don't know that I could see her character as a male. Briony, the girl who is the fulcrum of the story, has a strength coupled with a self-centered naivete that seems particularly female, but in the worst way. Her personality seems to combine many traits that I imagine men fear: strong will and stubborness coupled with self-righteousness. Men seem to love innocent women, but when women guard their virtues with strong words and determination, they lose their appeal and gain a new, scary set of teeth.

I could be way off, but this is how I see Ian McEwan's perspective on women, or strong women at least. They may be rife with issues and negative character traits, but they are traits that have equal and opposite complements in their men. I suppose I should read more of his books, but to be honest, they're so emotionally draining, I'm not sure I'm up for it. But he is an excellent and evocative writer, and "Atonement" is going to be a big deal for me. I can't wait to see it.

The idea of "atonement" is an interesting one for me right now. I remember one of the first times I ever really heard it discussed was from Louis Farrakhan. It was utterly crazy. He was describing the day of atonement, and what atonement meant to him. In the way only he has, he started breaking down the word as such. I am not kidding:

A tone--like a harmonic sound, a tone that calls us, blah blah something like that.
At one--we are all one entity, blah blah.
At one men (I told you, I'm not kidding)--something that didn't make a lot of sense to me because it just seemed to build off of the "at one" idea in a redundant way.

Anyway, that was what I remembered from that speech (which probably meandered off, as his tend to do, about the significance of the number of steps in the building he was standing near, or the number of pillars around him, or the number of eyes he has or whatever). I didn't really feel like I got a clear idea of what he actually thought atonement was. What's the difference between atonement and apologizing? Or atonement and contrition? What makes atonement so special that in many cultures and religions, the idea gets its own day?

If you look up the word you see that, though archaic, the word was once associated with the idea of reconciliation, specifically with God. I wonder about that though, what does one need to do to atone and reconcile with God? How do you know you've had a falling out? What kind of mistakes or offenses require atonement?

I like the idea of it though. For some reason, apologies these days seem valueless and common. You end up torturing a bunch of animals in a dogfighting ring, then apologize and serve some time--or you cheat on your spouse, drunk drive on the road and hurt someone, etc. etc. and apologize, and that is supposed to give you tabula rasa. But atonement implies that you understand that there exists a breach between you and the idea of an ultimate good and that only you can repair the rift. An apology just implies that you understood that you did something wrong and regret that it has been done. Atonement shows that you are willing to make amends.

That seems dignified to me. The desire to make amends as opposed to feeling gratified for admitting an error in judgment. I'm certain that, as usual, I've oversimplified everything (I blame lack of sleep and an imminent food coma), but I have to say that I'm pretty grateful that for once in a long while, I can consider my ideology thoughtfully. I never realized that those kinds of musings were in fact luxuries for me.

Wistfulness Writ Stupid

2007-11-25T19:55:00.000-06:00

Every time I come back to DC, it's the same thing. I am gratified to see my mom and my friends (who despite their intelligence have not made the right choice to leave DC for less snarky pastures, but whatever) but immediately break out in hives. Even though I grew up approximately 30 miles from DC, I've never considered DC to be my home. After living here for four years, I considered DC even less my home. At no point did I ever take up the mantle of DC and parade around touting the merits of our Metro system, our timeless monuments, or our quirky traffic circles that tourists tend to be drawn to like a black hole such that they twirl around in the middle of our city like they're on a merry go round from hell.

There are very very few positive things I can say about DC. I fly back here with clenched teeth. I plan my time here meticulously to distract me from how annoying I find this place: breakfast here, lunch with this person, dinner at this time, museum rounds on this day, copious shopping the rest of the time. I don't know why that is. DC seems to make quite a few people happy. But I feel nothing but a soulless, transient world around me when I'm here. Last night, I met up with a friend and owing to the fact that nothing is freaking open in the area where we were at 10pm, we ended up spending most of our evening at the Barnes and Nobles. Could we have gone to Georgetown instead? Sure. I also could have punched myself in the face repeatedly or hurled myself down a flight of stairs--what's your point?

I spent four years in Georgetown. A good 16 hours daily were spent around M street between work and school and walking around in a daze because I couldn't see through my tears. Some people would love to trade places with me. What's not to love about Georgetown? Wisconsin Avenue? Washington Harbour? The Rhino Bar? It is my own set of personal defects that prevent me from looking at DC the way those people do.

It would be too hard, and with no payoff, to analyze why I am allergic to DC (as much as it seems to be to me). All I know is that the allergy seems to extend to the Maryland suburbs, elderly Asian ladies in outlet stores (and their sharp little elbows!), and Finger 11. Don't get me wrong, I have had a wonderful time here, so far, but I don't tend to dwell on the positive. Who here wants to read about how awesome it was to run into a friend from high school, or bonding with mom, or teaching the cats how to be less annoying, or writing part of my one-act, or taking pictures all over the place? No one. I don't even want to write about it because for some reason, overanalyzing my happier times takes all the joy out of it. I am an odd little monkey.

Anyway, the bad points. Well of course, all elderly Asian ladies aren't bad, but the ones I saw at the Coach outlet in Hagerstown had apparently sharpened their elbows and patellas on diamonds because they poked the hell out of me even when I was trying to get out of their way. It reminded me of when I went to Hanuman temple in Delhi a few years back and was just trying to get a pooja done, and standing a full head and shoulders taller than everyone else and being embarrassingly American, I tried hard to politely let the others in the temple kind of go on about their business only to have them throw arms and elbows and shoulders around me in a whirlwind of limbs, all pointy enough to take out an eye. "Go ahead!" I practically yelled as I tried to protect my vital organs from these desperate worshippers. There is absolutely nothing more terrifying than a determined lady pushing 70. I'm not even sure mace would take these lasses out.

Another annoyance: Finger 11. God, I hate you guys. I hate you so passionately that just the name is making me scratch myself violently. I know it's random in a blog about DC to just vent irrationally about this band, but I've been hearing them ALL OVER the place, aaaaargh. First, they plagiarized from Peter Gabriel's beautiful Solsbury Hill to create some toothless facsimile that warbles something idiotic like "if I traded it all for one thing, wouldn't that be something"...I mean you guys didn't bother to write the music for the song, could you guys have at least devoted more than 15 seconds to writing the lyrics at least? Or was there a tight deadline at the Intellectually Impaired Camp for the Musically Incompetent?

Then, on top of that, they have a new song (probably like a year old actually because I don't listen to the radio anymore--sorry, I tend to stick around 1997 as the pinnacle in musical achievement) whose lyrics are even more nonsensical and plagiarize from an even better song. This time, they've massacred Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out" to create something that sounds like (I'm paraphrasing, so I'm guessing the lyrics are even stupider than this) "I'm not paralyzed but I seem to be struck by you/I want to make you move because you're standing still/if your body matches what your eyes can do/you'll probably move right through me on my way to you."

To me this makes about as much sense as when Bush gave us this clip where he talks about "in Texas there's a saying--fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me can't get fooled again." Well folks. Finger 11 has fooled us again. Can they be arrested? Can we quarantine them from the general public? Why do I have to listen to this? Yes, I changed the channel, only to have these guys pop up on another one. And they're on t.v. They're freaking everywhere, ready to plagiarize every decent song they've ever heard. Will they lose track of what they've plagiarized and eventually plagiarize themselves? One can only hope.

Oh wait, I just remembered something that made me blissfully happy today. I was taking Mom to the airport and while driving home, I got to hear "Personal Jesus" TWICE. To me, that's a good omen. I love that song. I love anything Depeche Mode. So thanks DC, for throwing me a bone--while I was getting lost trying to find New Hampshire Avenue amongst the crackheads and other denizens in the NE, you helped me keep my cool with one of my favorite songs of all time. Yaaay.

I sound, and am, bitter and exhausted. Chicago, I miss you. Please don't laugh at me when I reach Midway and collapse on the floor from relief and joy. Chicago, you and I have chemistry. Let's make this last.

An Open Letter to My Homies Back in the Motherland

2007-11-19T08:26:00.000-06:00

Dear Indian people in India,

I beg of you, please stop doing the following:

1. Setting widows on fire.
2. Marrying dogs to atone for something.
3. Sending one legged homeless people after me to take my money. Despite the absence of an essential limb, those guys still run faster than me.
4. Erecting temples devoted to rats.
5. Raising furor over things like Richard Gere pecking Shilpa Shetty on the cheek, while ignoring the thousands of sexual assaults on women that occur daily in the country. Shilpa gets kissed on the cheek and there's a call for Gere's head--my cousin gets groped on a train and no one bats an eye. That's beyond messed up.
6. Dumping piles of trash right next to your own domicile.
7. Sending your children out in the mid-day sun to beg for money while you sit in the shadows threatening to beat them with shoe leather.
8. Having babies with four extra limbs. I know that's kind of out of your control, but maybe taking in more folic acid would help? I'm not sure. I'm the one Non-Resident Indian who's not a doctor.
9. Asking me when I'm getting married. I'm just going to keep telling you that I'm married to God, okay?
10. Embarrassing Indian people around the world by doing any of the above.

Seriously. I have worked my entire life to free myself of the stereotypes I was shackled with the moment I emerged from the womb wearing this year-round tan. I am immensely proud of my heritage, my family, and myself, but that pride begins to ebb when I read in the news about some enormously idiotic thing some bumpkin has done in Biaora or some random place in India. Every time you guys do something like burn Richard Gere in effigy, it ruins my credibility a little bit.

In fairness, India has a lot of beautiful things going for it. But its PR is terrible. Just like the rest of the world thinks that America is a gun-toting, crack-smoking, den of iniquity, violence, and arrogance, the world sees India as a hot, nasty place filled with equal parts snake charmers and outsourcing phone personnel named Tim, Mike, David, or Chuck.

Has the US earned its reputation? Somewhat. But we as Americans feel that we are often misunderstood despite our good intentions. I hope no one wakes up in this country feeling guilty for being a US citizen. I am so grateful for what I have here, my opportunities, my lifestyle, my freedom. However, I think every sentient American recognizes that once you leave our airspace, you are liable to hear someone from another country complain about our government. The weird thing is, I often find myself in defensive mode when that happens. It's like when you complain about your parents--you are allowed to complain about your own parents, but not anyone else's. If it's out of your family, it should be out of your purview for complaining purposes.

Anyway, take the US's situation and take away the cultural influence the US has on others, and add cows, lepers, roaming dogs, beeping trucks all over the freaking place, and mustachioed men who think nothing of trying to stare you down in public places (which is why you need to adopt my method of making irritating crazy faces at them to make them back off--let me know if you want advice) and you have India's reputation in the global marketplace. People, do you want to keep up your FDI-initiated growth rates that are enabling you guys to buy from Levi's and Pizza Hut and Marks and Spencers? Then stop turning my birthplace into an international joke. Because right now, companies are looking at Brazil with their hot women, Carnivale, and cheap plastic surgery and for my part--I know the choice would be easy (not that Indian women aren't hot, but seriously--unbraiding the hair occasionally could go a long way, ladies).

And I haven't even gotten started on the monkeys. When you get to the point where monkeys frighten a politician to the point where he falls over a balcony to his death--really, what more needs to be said?

In a way, much of India's idiosyncrasies is what makes the country quaint and unique. There is much about India that I hope never changes. But there is a not-so-fine line between "quaint" and "all-out-crazy". Your aunt Gertrude dressing up the cat for Halloween is kind of quaint and kooky. Aunt Gertrude dressing the cat in a onesie and parading it down the block in a stroller is completely crazy. India--you're getting close to cat-in-a-stroller type craziness.

Again, I want to reiterate how much I love India, and how much I love to go back and visit my family, see the natural wonders and the thousands of years of history laid out in our monuments--the reason I complain is because I care about you as a country, and I know we all deserve better. You deserve better than the undercurrent of misogyny that runs through much of the place, the blind religious devotion that can go from absurd to deadly in a matter of minutes. You have history, literature, music, culture that is transcendent and glorious, elegant and uplifting. But we are completely betraying our legacy with our willful ignorance and closed-mindedness. Woman wears a low-cut shirt in Delhi and she's branded a whore. A man marries a dog to atone for his crimes against other dogs and he's labeled a devotee. There is something seriously wrong there. Please stop forcing me to explain my country to other people. I just can't do it.

I'm Thinking of Somewhere I Want to Be

2007-11-15T21:57:00.000-06:00

Something I probably should have mentioned earlier is that I have a travel blog. I haven't updated it in quite a while because I haven't traveled anywhere worth mentioning in quite a while, but I hope to remedy that shortly.

The blog, in case you care to read it, is www.indienne.blogspot.com and has some pictures and anecdotes from my trips to India, Tanzania, London, and Paris. Some of my most memorable and beautiful moments have been spent abroad and my feet are really itching to wander again, the sooner the better.

One regret that I have from the last few years is that I haven't seen Sanchi in a long, long time. Sanchi, which is a few miles away from Bhopal, my birthplace, is a place that I think of fairly often. It seems odd to me that hills, which are generally roundish tracts of land covered in grass or some herbaceous being, look different in India than they do in the US. I don't know why that is.

In Sanchi, especially, there is something especially beautiful about the rolling hills, the Buddhist relics, which are called stupas, are supposedly the oldest Buddhist relics in the world. The time I went, there were rolling grey clouds and light misty rain. I was with my cousins, aunt, uncle, bhabhi ('sister-in-law', or as much as one as an only child can have), and mom and a few other people. There were some random wildlife as well, perhaps most notably a little calf that my youngest cousin liked to run after.

For some reason, I felt very peaceful at Sanchi. It's designed to be that way, but I can't understand why. What is it about the crumbling stone, the round stupas, and maudlin day that was so comforting? I can only assume that it's because that's all there is there. I don't remember any raucous restaurants nearby, or crazy internet cafes, or loud huge trucks beeping the way only big Indian trucks can beep.

Somehow, the distance from all that insanity makes Sanchi feel sacred. Even if you're not Buddhist or Indian or ideological in anyway, Sanchi is a beautiful open-air monument. It forces you to meditate, slow down, and breathe in.

By the way, the picture above is of a stupa. I didn't take this picture and don't know who did, so I apologize for not giving appropriate credit.

My Ideal Weekend

2007-11-15T13:57:00.000-06:00

This weekend, I'm going to have "the ideal" weekend, where everything I do has purpose and a place and I work on enjoying the entire 48 hours I'm given. But wait, you may say, you have recently quit your job and are looking for a new one--can't you just do what you want all the time? Ah, grasshoppah, I wish it were so. But generally on weekdays, I am looking for jobs, working on a business plan I've concocted, running errands, writing, and/or cleaning. Looking for a job, as the cliche goes, is like a full time job, even more so if you don't quite know what you're after.

So anyway, here goes my ideal weekend:

I wake up on Saturday morning to a clean apartment, the coffee maker having been set the night before. I drink my coffee, read CNN online, and stretch a bit so I don't feel like such an old lady. I get into my gym clothes and pack my swimsuit, and then head to the gym for a nice long session.

After about two hours at the gym, I head home, take a nice long shower, and fix myself a nice lunch which I do while watching one of my favorite movies. Probably "Hot Fuzz". Lunch will probably be something I don't usually cook because it feels like too much of an effort...perhaps sauteed tofu with green beans. I eat it and it's delicious.

After lunch, I let my stomach settle a little bit. Maybe around this time, I call my mom to chat for a bit, get her advice on my evolving business plan. Maybe I call my cousins too because I haven't done that in a while. Then, I head out with my digital camera to snap pictures around town. I won't just focus on the usual art deco buildings that I love, and I'll probably take myself to the Art Institute as well and visit some of my favorite exhibits, taking pictures of them.

A few hours later, I'll upload the pictures to my computer, and upload the best of those to my photography website which I haven't updated in quite a while. At this point, I'll probably be ready for dinner. I'll probably have some leftover pizza dough, so I'll make myself a small pizza with sundried tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. It will likely also be delicious.

At this point I'll relax because I need to. Around 7, I'll head into the shower again to kind of wash the day away and also to get a chance to redo my hair. I'll be going to Soundbar with some actors-turned-friends later that evening and would prefer to have straightened hair which is a little easier to dance with since curly hair gets poofier and less manageable every minute I spend in a club. So, that pretty much takes care of the rest of the night.

Sunday morning, assuming I can pull myself together early enough, I will head to the gym again, take a shower and then head to Second City to watch our amazing teacher Jay block through some scenes of ours that are going to be put up in January. I'll take notes and make sure to use her as a guide for what our group is attempting to do at Gorilla Tango.

Later that evening, I may or may not have plans to go to dinner with a friend of mine. If dinner happens, that will be excellent. If not, I'll probably walk back from Second City and make sure to spend a lot of time browsing through different stores on Michigan Ave to see if I can get some inspiration for my holiday shopping. My mom's birthday is four days before Christmas, so the heat is on to get her some nice stuff.

I'll come home on Sunday night, relax a bit, write a little, keep my place tidy, make my plans for the week, maybe bake some cupcakes for rehearsal the following night.

So now we all know how incredibly boring I am. This, in a nutshell, comprises my ideal weekend. For now, anyway. Maybe it's healthy that I keep my expectations low. That's what we'll go with.

Dessert Recipe: Crepes

2007-11-14T20:58:00.000-06:00

So part of this blog was supposed to explore my love of dessert making, but I haven't yet posted any recipes. One of my favorite recipes in the world is also one of the easiest and comes from someone who created a great web page that will walk you through the motions of crepe making in a great, encouraging way:

Crepe-making or How to Use a Jar of Nutella in One Morning

You will need only the most basic ingredients to make the crepes themselves--the filling is a bit more exciting:

4 eggs
Pinch of salt
2 cups of flour
2.25 cups of milk
1/2 stick of melted butter (equal to a quarter cup)

The website, you will notice, has some helpful pictures and is fairly specific about the order in which you combine the ingredients. I myself am not that careful and haven't had any problems just tossing everything together. One thing I have noticed however is that sometimes the butter will start separating itself out if the batter has been left to sit. This isn't an indication of any spoilage or anything, just that you want to be vigilant about making sure all the ingredients are properly combined so you don't have any issues when you cook.

In actually making the crepe, me and M. Roy differ a bit in our techniques. I have a 10 inch pan and, maybe it's because I'm inefficient but I generally need about a 1/3 cup of batter in order to get the whole surface coated. But the operative word is "coated"--you don't want a thick layer of batter. You want it to be thin enough that when the batter starts to dry out a little bit on top, you can see some of the lacy pattern forming at the bottom.

If your pan is at a good temperature (I prefer it between medium and medium high), your crepe will start to dry out almost immediately--for me, each crepe takes about 45 seconds to make. Your first crepe will likely be too soggy or too dark/crispy. Just take that as a test-crepe and use it to figure out what temperature works best for you.

Then, it's easy as pie (or easier really): pour batter around pan, swirl pan around until the bottom is coated, wait until top is dry, flip over and finish cooking, then put crepe on a plate for future (or imminent) consumption. Pretty easy. M. Roy's recipes usually yields me about 16-20 crepes.

Now for the filling. My favorite options are:

--Nutella and Bananas
--Dulce de Leche and Bananas
--Mandarin Oranges
--Strawberries and Whipped Cream
--Berry medley (blueberries, raspberries and blackberries, can be bought frozen from Trader Joe's) and Whipped Cream

What if you prefer a savory crepe to a sweet one? No fret. Try:

--Hardboiled eggs and a Mexican cheese blend (try Sargento's) and a tiny bit of salt
--Asparagus and Cheddar Cheese
--Mushrooms and Cheddar Cheese

Basically, cheese tastes amazing on crepes. I would recommend a softer, sweeter cheese on your crepes. Somehow, the idea of goat cheese or bleu cheese strikes me as a little strange (though I suppose if you added some sun-dried tomatoes to the goat cheese, that could be doable). But I recommend you raid your fridge and cupboards--odds are, you will find something that will be lovely with your crepes.

Bonne chance.

A Little Help from my Friends

2007-11-14T20:27:00.000-06:00

Thank you, JM, for validating me and resurrecting my paltry, fragile online ego that had lately been feeling the brunt of rejection from a theatre-type that will remain unnamed despite the fact that no one reads this blog and even if they did, I'm not sure said person would be offended.

Anyway, I've had a lot on my mind during my hiatus away from the blog. Luckily, I Love New York 2 has proved to be an effective opiate for me and has reduced my need to think about life at warp speed, which is normally what I do when I'm being quiet--yes, those 23 minutes a day when I'm quiet.

I really do love New York. There is of course a fakeness to her, enriched recently by mammary enhancements that dwarf my own the way Jupiter dwarfs Io. The thing is, my voluptuous, lusty frame can take what I've been given--New York constantly looks like she's about to pop and spray candy all over the place like a great pinata, or like she's going to fall over because her center of gravity is now somewhere in her clavicle. It's uncomfortable to look at, yet I cannot look away. Mainly because she's my hero. She's says what she thinks, and more importantly she says what everyone else is thinking. And she does it while rocking a weave that is as luxurious as it is flammable. She is equal parts sylph, savant, and skank.

But beyond the world of New York, what else has been going on? I've been baking cupcakes by the gross because I find it relaxing. I've been writing a lot, not much of it good though, and I've been thinking about the future. I'm at a place where I have a number of wonderful options to pursue, though the main obstacle is turning out to be a) a lack of focus and b) complete and utter laziness. I'm beyond blessed to have a mother who is discouraging me from looking for work just because I feel like I have to and is instead beseeching me to try to carve my own way and bravely take on the unknown, at least making the attempt before I decide to rejoin the world of firms and 401k's and what not. There is absolutely nothing wrong with working for a firm. But I'm never again going to make the mistake of taking a job for the wrong reasons. I'm proud to say that I've realized money, for me, right now, counts as a "wrong reason".

It could be that I'm living in a delusional state of bliss right now because I'm in the process of directing a show--an experience that leaves me high every time I think about it, even more so when I'm working with my colleagues. My fellow writers are brilliant, kind people who inspire me to do my best and who make me laugh every time I see them. The actors I'm working with are incredible to the point of making me feel humble with gratitude. I walk away from rehearsals having laughed so hard that I can't breathe and my weak, sad abs throb with pain.

The idea that I'm working with nine intelligent, funny, capable people who were all complete strangers to me only a few months ago is very odd--the fact that I look forward to seeing all of them weekly is a total blessing. It makes me wonder what it's going to feel like when the show is over. I'm glad I'm already thinking about the next show--I'm not sure I could live without theatre now that I've gone through this experience.

So, if anyone's paying attention, that singular person might realize that I haven't really talked about what my mind has been racing about except to touch on points briefly. But I'm censoring myself slightly so as not to bore you to death, and to avoid prolonging the mental blitz I inflict on myself every time I sit down for 10 minutes or more. Whatever inertia my body feels, my brain makes up for by competing in triathlons. So, my brains going to sit the rest of the night out and just fade out with a manicure...or maybe baking a quiche. Let's see if the milk's still good.

I so love Hem

2007-10-15T23:09:00.000-05:00

I'm woman enough to admit this. I heard an awesome song on a commercial and Googled the lyrics and then quickly jumped into bed with this band. The song, which was from a Liberty Mutual commercial (I know--that makes it so much worse) has a languorous melody that's superseded by one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard. It's a feminine voice that doesn't try to sound young or vulnerable but manages to come across as belonging to a fragile source, even though it has its own strength to it. Hard to describe and I'm not doing it justice.

Anyway, the voice is Sally Ellyson's (a mellifluous name if I ever heard one) and she makes me glad I have iTunes. Except that it makes it way too easy to indulge myself. I downloaded "Half Acre" by the band she sings for, a band called "Hem", and have already listened to it multiple times. It's a little bit country, a little bit lullaby, a little bit make-you-maudlin, a lot calm-you-down. I see myself baking cupcakes to this song, with an apron on, my hair tied in a bun.

I don't frequently fall so hard in love with bands, but occasionally, I'll find one band or singer whose entire catalog just knocks me out. Last year it was Electric Six. The year before it was Neko Case. This year, it's been Amy Winehouse, and now Hem.

In a way, their music feels too pretty and valuable to attach to commercials but I forgive it because a) these people deserve to eat and support their families more than most of the musicians whose crap makes it to the radio, and b) if not for the commercial, I would never have found them. So thanks Liberty Mutual. If Aetna or Chase ever do me wrong, I know where I'll be turning to.

And, Hem, when are you people going to make it to Chicago? I'll bring cupcakes that I baked while listening to your beautiful music.

Don't Look

2007-10-02T23:14:00.000-05:00

I'm making a promise to myself. I'm not going to look up people anymore. I'm not going to Google, Facebook, MySpace (I'm not on MySpace, so that helps) or anything to anyone anymore. Because it just confuses everything.

I recently met a person who reminded me a lot of another person. So I looked up the other person. And found out way more than I ever wanted to know about said person. What was I looking for? What type of information would have made me happy? Once you learn everything about the person you're looking at, short of their blood type, how does that enrich your life at all?

I googled myself. And based on that alone, I appear to be far more interesting online than I am in real life. My "Google Self" runs races, writes papers, wins awards. My real, live, actual self makes ice cream on the weekends, loves cats, and knows the entire nighttime lineup on Lifetime: Will and Grace, Frasier, the Golden Girls, and the Nanny. Which is an inversion of their morning lineup. So you can see the discrepancy.

I suppose we (meaning me) want to look at the lives of people we know because we're too cowardly to actually reach out to them. In some cases, I guess we want to compare ourselves to others, though I tend not to do that because I always disappoint myself. Oh, she's married and has three kids and has gone hiking in the Andes and won a MacArthur Genius Grant? Cool. I recently learned how to straighten my hair without singeing it.

But, what's the point of looking for these people if you're too scared or unwilling to connect? I don't like being a voyeur, it just makes me feel distant and alienated from my past experiences. Maybe it's just too creepy. And though my method is probably more annoying to my past acquaintances, I'd rather go ahead and just drop them a line. I know if someone out there was stalk-Googling me, I'd prefer them to just say "hi". Assuming we've been friends at some point. I have my limits.

Nice and Simple

2007-10-01T23:01:00.001-05:00

So today I was considering things I like and things I hate, just because when one is stuck in an airport/on a plane/in general transit for more than six hours (a thing I hate) one can't help but consider the issue. So, let's live up to the title and make it nice and simple:

Things I Hate:
1. The act of traveling. I love the idea of traveling, and I'm really big on destinations. But traveling sucks like nothing else, especially when one must do it every single freaking week, with a broken suitcase, hair that's totally crazy especially after being mashed up against a pleather Southwest seat, or having to deal with people who suck. Examples of people who suck? Oh, lots.

Take the dude today who freaked out on the plane, so badly that we had to taxi back to the gate to let him off. What was the ironic message written on the back of his leather jacked? "Root of All Evil." Oooooo. You badass.

Or what about guy who kept pushing all my stuff out of the way at the security line? If my contact lenses hadn't been trying to lemming jump their way out of my eyeballs, I would have kneed him in the groin multiple times. But it was six am. I had my limits.

2. I hate hate HATE hate hate Gwen Stefani's "Lamb" perfume. I love Gwen Stefani, don't get me wrong. She has this jolie laide thing about her that works fantastically well, like Charlotte Gainsbourg or, before all the plastic surgery, Hilary Duff. But the perfume, for which I had high hopes, made me smell like a cheap hooker that someone sprayed Windex on. It was weird. I do not exaggerate when I say I started rubbing my wrists against each other Lady Macbeth-like in a futile attempt to rid myself of the damned smell. I'm not a perfume snob, but I knows what I likes. And considering the most expensive items I own are the $500 worth of perfume I am obsessed with, I'd say I'm a fair judge of what sucks. And "Lamb" totally sucks.

3. I hate being tired. Lately, I've been incredibly tired to the point of passing out around 8pm. The fact that I'm awake right now can only be attributed to my circadian rhythms doubling over from dysfunction to the point where my body probably thinks it's actually 10am. This does not bode well for my multiple meetings tomorrow. Yipes.

Things I Love

1. Baby goats. I don't even think I need to explain that.

2. My mom. Why'd I put Mom after baby goats? I didn't want to be *that* obvious, so I thought I'd surprise you.

3. I love the concierge level at the Hilton. Because honey mustard dressing and free vodka gimlets takes the edge right off.

4. I love bad (and good) 80's music. But I seriously need to stop listening to "White Lines (Don't Do It)" by Grandmaster and Melle Mel because every time I take my headphones out of my laptop without turning off my iTunes, all my coworkers get an earful of "rang dang diggity dang da dang".

5. I love lip gloss. My lip gloss is cool. My lip gloss be poppin'. Whatchu know 'bout me?

6. I love Southern guys who open doors just because I happen to be vaguely female (or at least they give me the benefit of the doubt).

7. I LOVE David Letterman for this clip alone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKSxHYK_wfs

8. I love per diems. Really, I can find meals for under $5 a day. So thank you for rewarding my frugality, I love it.

9. I love that I'm so addled that I still think, on some level, that I could be anything when I grow up, including an astronaut, cowgirl, or marine biologist. Or writer.

Random Thoughts about Stendhal Syndrome

2007-09-22T11:20:00.000-05:00

Stendhal Syndrome, which you may or may not know, occurs in certain people when they are exposed to art--they tend to be overwhelmed, breathe funny, pass out. At least, that's how I understand it. I was listening to some songs I hadn't heard in a while, that do tend to overwhelm me, and I started considering the moments that I've encountered art so beautiful that, while it may not have made me pass out, it made me breathe all funny.

1. The Taj Mahal

If I had to choose between getting married and getting to see the Taj Mahal on a regular basis, it would be a toss up. The first time I ever saw it, it was an ecclesiastical experience. A sunny day, my mom is introducing it to me (or me to it) and tells me to close my eyes as I walk through an open-air hallway in a red stone building that is an entrance to the gardens of the Taj. She guides me through, Miracle Worker style, and then tells me to open my eyes. I remember my breath catching, and actually starting to cry. If you haven't seen it, you haven't seen it.

Whenever I go back to India, the Taj Mahal is a mandatory stop on my itinerary. It never gets old. And while every description out there is cliche, the experience is overwhelming for me in every way. Even the air smells better around the Taj. It's not just the gleaming white marble that changes colors with the light, or the pools of water that soften the landscape. It's not just the baghs, gardens, symmetrically surrounding the site and making it look manicured, but not into submission. It's not even the fact that, when you approach the Taj and stand atop its platform, you can walk around to the back and look at the Yamuna cutting like a silver filament through Agra.

I think the beauty is in how it pacifies everyone. Either I go deaf when I'm there or no one speaks above a whisper. This is a building that could bring world peace. If you were to ingest in pill form, you would walk around embracing everyone you ever saw. The bloodshed and pain and turmoil that went into the Taj is transformed into the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

A friend of mine got engaged there, and for a moment I felt a pang of envy, but then realized--I'm not sure I'd want that. I feel like my relationship with it needs to be separate from my relationships with any other people. I don't want to visit the Taj and think about other people, and have it start tainting my experience there. I'm not faithful to many things, but the Taj is one of those things that feels like it stands on its own in my life.

My favorite time at the Taj was in 2005, on July 4th in fact, when it was raining all day long. I was just disgusting, sweaty and soggy and smelly. But I just didn't care because the Taj doesn't care how I look as long as I visit. When I walked slowly up to the marble, it was so slippery, and I had no shoes on. But the wet marble felt very sensual beneath my feet, and the greyness of the air somehow made the building seem whiter. I wished I spoke and read Arabic so I could understand what was inscribed in the main entrance. I walked around the building, looking at the alcoves, looking at the Yamuna, taking pictures and accidentally making it seem that I was interested in some young Indian guys there based on where I was standing and shooting. But normally, where I'd be annoyed and put off, I was blissed out and didn't care and didn't even think to respond bitchily.

Instead, I found an alcove where I could sit and look over the green lush lands (India is alive and beautiful in the rain, more so than any other place in the world I've been to) and just wrote in my diary, words that didn't even make sense, just random synaptic firings from my overwhelmed and ecstatic brain. A random white woman came up to me to ask what I was writing and I couldn't even tell her.

A while later, I went and sat on a bench on the main platform in the middle of the gardens that gives a perfect view of the Taj (it's where everyone stands to take pictures on sunny days--if you've seen a picture of the Taj, 99 to 1 it was taken from this platform). Since it was raining, there were very few people there so I just sat in the middle of the bench with a perfect, unobstructed view. A few hours later (hours, I'm telling you), a Swedish guy about my age asked if he could share my bench. I didn't even mind sharing my bench, even if it meant destroying my symmetric perspective by a degree or two. Johan (Johan, I'm telling you) and I talked for a while with lots of silences in our conversation, silences that were so comfortable because they were filled with admiring the view. Of the Taj, not each other. We talked for a few hours, just about India, his adventures, mine, how much we loved being here, how lucky we were. Probably my favorite 4th of July ever, and there weren't even any fireworks.

2. God Only Knows by the Beach Boys

From the opening bars to the odd first line ("I may not always love you") which then turns ironic ("but long as there are stars above you"), the music and harmonies and softness and confluence of longing and promises of love contribute to one of the most satisfying musical experiences out there for me. If the Taj Mahal dumps me and I have to get married, that's going to be what I walk down the aisle to. Even if I already promised a friend I'd be walking to "Heaven is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle.

3. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Okay, so this is another huge cliche, but I sure don't care. Even if I'm not a synesthete, the words in this book are so loaded with stimuli that my synapses almost burn out. It's the type of book I would make my 10 year old daughter read despite the provocative subject material. It's so beautiful and hysterical and sinister and I can't even imagine what it would be like to put a sentence together worthy of this book. If I'm bored or sad or frequently both, I can pick up the book, turn to any page, read for a few minutes and feel refreshed. I remember when my mom first bought it, in Maryland, many many years ago. I must have been 11 and she went to Waldenbooks where, I'm not kidding, she had to special order it because it was too racy to have on the shelves. She wouldn't let me touch it, let alone read it, which of course started my long fascination with finding and exploring it.

When I finally started to read it, around the age of 13, even though I was around the age of the eponymous heroine, I could completely understand Humbert's insanity and delusion. Even back then, I knew this was the type of story that could exist as a book, that would be destroyed on film (and was). When I found out I was born on Nabokov's birthday, I took it very personally as though this book and I had kind of a "Shining" type relationship. Yeah, it was weird.

So now I'm kind of wondering, if I were to read Lolita, while listening to God Only Knows while sitting by the Taj Mahal, would I need my inhaler? Would my head explode from the sensory overload? It might be worth checking out, though I have to be careful of what edition I brought with me. I brought a copy of "Ada or Ardor" to India, an edition with a picture of a naked woman running through some flowers, and didn't even realize that members of my family might consider the book salacious, or outright pornographic. India's crazy as all get out, but the Taj Mahal redeems it to the point of making it heaven.

Because I have time...

2007-09-18T12:52:00.000-05:00

...and I just realized how much I'm thinking about it...I thought I'd mention that I recently bought an antique typewriter (my first eBay purchase ever, hopefully the last) and am practically salivating over its arrival.

Is an antique typewriter a complete cliche? Of course it is. But I don't care because I badly want one. And it's not like I have no idea what I'm doing. When I was younger, in fact up until I was about maybe 10 or 11, I only typed on a typewriter. I remember the spools, the clicking of the keys, forcing myself to focus, forcing myself to accept my mistakes and move on.

On the computer, you can close a window and go online, or play minesweeper or do something wholly unrelated to getting output written. You can start focusing too much on formatting or spelling errors or rewriting the same line over and over again. I think owning a typewriter is going to send me back to that place where all I did was move forward in my writing because I had no other options. As it is, the temptation is too great to distract myself with other things. Typewriters are like hungry cats. They're pretty hard to ignore unless you put them in an airtight container.

Disclaimer: I would absolutely never attempt to put my cats in an airtight container. Because otherwise, who else would I knit for?

So, supposedly my typewriter should be arriving in the mail very soon. I hope so. I can't wait to bust that baby out. Bonus! It looks a lot like the typewriter James Caan uses in "Misery". I can't be the only person who's all excited about that.

Numero Uno

2007-09-18T10:49:00.001-05:00

A while back, I had a blog. It was nothing special, it just kind of existed as a way to embarrass myself online by discussing my various exploits and thoughts. The most embarrassing part of the whole exercise might have been that my exploits were uniformly tame and boring while my thoughts were jejune and frequently misspelled.

But I miss that innocent time when I thought someone out there might actually be reading about my life, maybe comparing themselves and feeling superior (which is fine, I don't mind living my life as a cautionary tale) or nodding in agreement about how much they too hate it when people misuse the word "mortify". Yes, "mort" is in there, which indicates an allusion to death, but it is not about being "scared to death" so much as "being so embarrassed you could just DIE." One day, I will write a valley-girl-speak dictionary.

Anyway, even if me and and my grandmother are the only ones reading my blog, there is something satisfying about owning a tiny bit of real estate on the internet and knowing that you have some element of control over its contents. And that maybe there is in fact some potential to affect the way people perceive issues you find salient, though in my case those issues tend to be things like "why isn't there a White Castle near me?" or "what's wrong with YouTubing videos of kittens for hours on end?"

My most embarrassing blog-related issue right now is whether the people whose blogs I read will think I'm worthy enough to be on their links list. If I request that one of the people I know through my attempts at comedy writing link to me, I'm almost certain that this individual will gently inform me that his blog is linked only to talented theatre types. Or worse, I might get a link and then have to live up to people clicking over to me. What do you people want to read? I make ice cream on the weekends and volunteer at an animal shelter. All the salacious stuff in my life comes from watching "Rock of Love" on VH1. And there goes my street cred right there.

One thing I've noticed, and I hate to say it but I will, is that I've so far met very few genuinely funny women in my, admittedly limited, experience thus far. I've met even fewer, if any "people of color" (a term I hate, hate, hate but what else can I say?). In fact, I am the only female "of color" that I know of since I started this odd process a year ago. And, I hate even more what I'm about to say--that I actually don't mind. It makes me feel less competitive, as though me and others in my demographic cohort would be compared to each other to see whose "disgruntled immigrant" sketch works better, or whose "my parents and I have a culture clash" story was more rousing. This way I can stick to cliches and feel relatively pure and novel because I have the benefit of being "unique". However, I know the moment I meet a truckload of "funny colored females" like myself, I will completely lose the vanity and self-confidence I've built up.

So, what's the point of these musings, which don't even have enough passion behind them to classify as a diatribe? The point is that, I want very badly for the two sides of my self to be indulged. But while one, the business-y side of me, is kind of hanging out in a calm kind of purgatory that I'm moderately comfortable with, the other "writer wannabe" side of me is constantly being thrown up against people who have talent and experience and verve and personality. And, me being me, I actually feel a little shy around these people, ready for them at any moment to call me out as a dilettante or hack. And I have no reason for this anxiety as far as I know--everyone I've met has been very kind and encouraging to me, making sincere attempts to help me improve my writing even when I submit work that really would have been more useful setting fires to houses or precious artifacts.

But, and I hate to say this too--I do want to be accepted by these people. "These people". This tribe of comedians and theatre junkies whose career is expressing themselves to an audience who will actually pay to hear what they have to say. I think that's amazing, and I want to be a part of that, but boy do I feel like I'm missing some of the important parts it takes to make that plane fly.

Thanks for reading. It'll get more interesting once I start my scholarly descent into alcoholism.