Day 65 of Unemployment
I am finally catching up with the talk shows, she says rolling her eyes. I’ve never been a fan of talk shows. I don’t get it really. What does everybody have to talk about ? Just alot of actors promoting their TV shows or movies and they make this innocuous conversation about what they like to eat for breakfast. Who cares?! Please make this more exciting! When's the last time you had sex? Who with? What time of day? Do you smoke afterwards or fall asleep or eat? Or at the very least, dish! Dish about the set, who was a jerk and who didn't the make up people like? We don't want to hear it was a labor of love. Boring. We don't want to know you can do Al Pacino impersonations. What we want to know is, do you do these impersonations during sex. See? I should have my own talk show.
I turn on the TV in the afternoons while I’m writing sometimes, just gives me something to do when I take a pause and makes some noise in the background. I like it quiet when I write but sometimes it’s just too quiet all the time when you’re home all day long. Then you’re listening just to your thoughts and that’s scary. I turn on Oprah or Opree as my Dad liked to say. One day this week she had this young male architect on (I guess that’s who he was, I turned it on in the middle of program) who had redone a house for a woman and her husband (? Was this guy her husband, I don’t know, they just looked so mismatched.) who had a severely damaged, water-logged home due to Hurricane Katrina. The story took us through the house as it looked after the storm and then now as the architect had redone it with all these major renovations turning it into an almost storybook home. I felt kinda jealous, like, hey, someone do that for me. And hard as I tried not to cry, even Opree was crying, I did. It really was amazing.
I watch Ellen from time to time. She’s funny but I can do without that dancing stuff. It’s just silly. I love that she dresses in comfortable jeans and sweaters and sneakers. The game stuff she does with the guests or the audience is kinda interesting and the gals who went to the Superbowl were funny.
Dr. Phil sucks. I just hate all that pop psychology stuff anyway. I mean, really people, you don’t know you have a problem? Sorry, but life is hard, and you have to work at it which means really paying for therapy that can help you over the long term. Unless you’re a sociopath in which case not even Dr. Phil can help you but at least you’ll get some time on TV.
I watched Bonnie Hunt on her show this week. She had Chandra Wilson on in some too large dress that looked like a bath robe. Can’t these hosts say something gently to their guests about wardrobe? I realize not, probably, but all the same, do you own a mirror? The best thing was the pix of Chandra’s family, adorable. I love Bonnie and I’d love to love her show but didn’t she have a sitcom for awhile there about a talk show with her as the host? And isn’t she a damn good actress and sometime director and why is she doing this? Ugh, come on Hollywood, don’t you have anything for these women? Please replace Sally Fields on that awful Bro and Sis drama with Bonnie Hunt. Somebody, hello?
So next week, I’m going to try to watch The View since I’ve seen it maybe once and it was before all the brouhaha with O’Donnell. In fact, when I saw it, they had on the original members and I tuned in once and thought, how insulting to women everywhere. Why does everything feminine have to call itself out? Like female comedy night? I refused to do those shows because I’m not just a female comedian. I’m a stand up comedian who happens to be female. I don’t write comedy just geared towards women or the feminine perspective and a few subjects. In fact, I’ve never been married or had children so that would leave out quite a few subjects. And while I understand the need for a hook in this business if I see advertised one more week at a comedy club with the Comedy Moms headlining or the Mommy Comic or whatever, I’m going to singlehandedly force a protest march on the club. I mean are audiences really yammering that bad for subject matter pertaining to kids and moms and husbands and marriage? Aren’t your lives a little fuller than that?
What else? I’m reading Slouching Towards Bethlehem—finally—by Didion. I picked it up in high school in my library years ago and didn’t get it. Now I get it in spades. The essay on Self-Respect alone is the reason you should read this tome. I’m so happy to have discovered her work at this late stage. Sometimes you’re ready when you’re ready and that’s all.
I’m reading a book on reading books, Shakespeare Wrote For Money. Nick Hornsby wrote this column about books he’d read and then compiled them, the columns that is, in one little tome. It’s interesting. I got through one column last night about his discovery of Young Adult literature. I thought to myself, what took you so long? I have read YA novels for years now. Some of them rival the best fiction out there in less vocabulary but no less literate story-telling and less pages. They’re spellbinding. What reading this reminded me of was that I have to take a break from all this heavy reading I’m doing to take in a few or more than a few of those novels soon.
I made an historic decision this past week. I am going to become a full time UCLA student. I am going to get certified in counseling, something I wanted to do for years actually going way back to my NYU days in SEHNAP, a school which doesn’t exist anymore, and my music psychotherapy days. I just can’t stomach going to back to find a perm job in the legal business. I need flexibility and time to write and create. I’m too old to not do what I want with my life anymore. And I’m enjoying immensely the writing class I’m already taking there and how it has set me on the path to other things that I could be doing as well. In some ways, this unemployment has been a really good thing for me, for once. As David Byrne says on his new CD, “Life is long when you give it away.” And that has been true for me. I’m not giving it away anymore. It’s mine and I’m living it for me. And me only.
And I must say what a wonderful Valentine’s Day I had going out with a wonderful friend last night to see a solo show and then aperitifs. That is what Valentine’s Day is all about, doing what you want to do and sharing it with people you care about. It’s not about sex, and dinner, and lingerie and roses and chocolate and balloons. Oh those stupid balloons. If you need to give someone an “I love you” on a balloon, you need help. You’re only announcing how badly you want it for yourself, not for them. I am so happy not to have had to deal with any of that obligatory Valentine’s Day stuff. It’s like New Year’s Eve. Everyone’s afraid to not have something to do but it’s all overpriced and overrated anyway. Yes, you could say I’m bitter, but I’m really not, I’m happy and relieved that I don’t need to prove anything to anyone anymore and that I finally get to do what I want to do without any guilt. So the next wonderful man that comes along will match my strength, my groundedness and, thank you, Joan, my self-respect. That’s all it is. AMEN!
I turn on the TV in the afternoons while I’m writing sometimes, just gives me something to do when I take a pause and makes some noise in the background. I like it quiet when I write but sometimes it’s just too quiet all the time when you’re home all day long. Then you’re listening just to your thoughts and that’s scary. I turn on Oprah or Opree as my Dad liked to say. One day this week she had this young male architect on (I guess that’s who he was, I turned it on in the middle of program) who had redone a house for a woman and her husband (? Was this guy her husband, I don’t know, they just looked so mismatched.) who had a severely damaged, water-logged home due to Hurricane Katrina. The story took us through the house as it looked after the storm and then now as the architect had redone it with all these major renovations turning it into an almost storybook home. I felt kinda jealous, like, hey, someone do that for me. And hard as I tried not to cry, even Opree was crying, I did. It really was amazing.
I watch Ellen from time to time. She’s funny but I can do without that dancing stuff. It’s just silly. I love that she dresses in comfortable jeans and sweaters and sneakers. The game stuff she does with the guests or the audience is kinda interesting and the gals who went to the Superbowl were funny.
Dr. Phil sucks. I just hate all that pop psychology stuff anyway. I mean, really people, you don’t know you have a problem? Sorry, but life is hard, and you have to work at it which means really paying for therapy that can help you over the long term. Unless you’re a sociopath in which case not even Dr. Phil can help you but at least you’ll get some time on TV.
I watched Bonnie Hunt on her show this week. She had Chandra Wilson on in some too large dress that looked like a bath robe. Can’t these hosts say something gently to their guests about wardrobe? I realize not, probably, but all the same, do you own a mirror? The best thing was the pix of Chandra’s family, adorable. I love Bonnie and I’d love to love her show but didn’t she have a sitcom for awhile there about a talk show with her as the host? And isn’t she a damn good actress and sometime director and why is she doing this? Ugh, come on Hollywood, don’t you have anything for these women? Please replace Sally Fields on that awful Bro and Sis drama with Bonnie Hunt. Somebody, hello?
So next week, I’m going to try to watch The View since I’ve seen it maybe once and it was before all the brouhaha with O’Donnell. In fact, when I saw it, they had on the original members and I tuned in once and thought, how insulting to women everywhere. Why does everything feminine have to call itself out? Like female comedy night? I refused to do those shows because I’m not just a female comedian. I’m a stand up comedian who happens to be female. I don’t write comedy just geared towards women or the feminine perspective and a few subjects. In fact, I’ve never been married or had children so that would leave out quite a few subjects. And while I understand the need for a hook in this business if I see advertised one more week at a comedy club with the Comedy Moms headlining or the Mommy Comic or whatever, I’m going to singlehandedly force a protest march on the club. I mean are audiences really yammering that bad for subject matter pertaining to kids and moms and husbands and marriage? Aren’t your lives a little fuller than that?
What else? I’m reading Slouching Towards Bethlehem—finally—by Didion. I picked it up in high school in my library years ago and didn’t get it. Now I get it in spades. The essay on Self-Respect alone is the reason you should read this tome. I’m so happy to have discovered her work at this late stage. Sometimes you’re ready when you’re ready and that’s all.
I’m reading a book on reading books, Shakespeare Wrote For Money. Nick Hornsby wrote this column about books he’d read and then compiled them, the columns that is, in one little tome. It’s interesting. I got through one column last night about his discovery of Young Adult literature. I thought to myself, what took you so long? I have read YA novels for years now. Some of them rival the best fiction out there in less vocabulary but no less literate story-telling and less pages. They’re spellbinding. What reading this reminded me of was that I have to take a break from all this heavy reading I’m doing to take in a few or more than a few of those novels soon.
I made an historic decision this past week. I am going to become a full time UCLA student. I am going to get certified in counseling, something I wanted to do for years actually going way back to my NYU days in SEHNAP, a school which doesn’t exist anymore, and my music psychotherapy days. I just can’t stomach going to back to find a perm job in the legal business. I need flexibility and time to write and create. I’m too old to not do what I want with my life anymore. And I’m enjoying immensely the writing class I’m already taking there and how it has set me on the path to other things that I could be doing as well. In some ways, this unemployment has been a really good thing for me, for once. As David Byrne says on his new CD, “Life is long when you give it away.” And that has been true for me. I’m not giving it away anymore. It’s mine and I’m living it for me. And me only.
And I must say what a wonderful Valentine’s Day I had going out with a wonderful friend last night to see a solo show and then aperitifs. That is what Valentine’s Day is all about, doing what you want to do and sharing it with people you care about. It’s not about sex, and dinner, and lingerie and roses and chocolate and balloons. Oh those stupid balloons. If you need to give someone an “I love you” on a balloon, you need help. You’re only announcing how badly you want it for yourself, not for them. I am so happy not to have had to deal with any of that obligatory Valentine’s Day stuff. It’s like New Year’s Eve. Everyone’s afraid to not have something to do but it’s all overpriced and overrated anyway. Yes, you could say I’m bitter, but I’m really not, I’m happy and relieved that I don’t need to prove anything to anyone anymore and that I finally get to do what I want to do without any guilt. So the next wonderful man that comes along will match my strength, my groundedness and, thank you, Joan, my self-respect. That’s all it is. AMEN!
posted by Maria @ 3:47 PM
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