The Last Time I Smoked Pot. I Think.

I had a gig at The Comic Strip in New York the first year I did standup. My friend Melanie came to that show. She and I went to the same university in Paris and after graduation she moved to London. I visited her there but hadn’t seen her in years until she relocated to New York because she got a job working for director Martin Scorsese. I can still hear her chastising me for mispronouncing his last name. “It’s ScorSESSY, not ScorSAZY.” Rude.

Melanie arrived at the club that night with two men. After my set I hung out at her table and we started to catch up but one of the guys kept interrupting her so he could talk to me. He was annoying and kept touching my arm and I rolled my eyes at Melanie who appeared not to get the Girl Eye Roll. Maybe they didn’t have that in London. I finally gave up trying to talk to her and asked Annoying what he did for a living and he said he worked for Werner Herzog, the German film director. I smiled and said ‘that’s nice’ as Melanie glared at me. Londoners don’t get the Girl Eye Roll but feel perfectly fine shooting you The Girl Glare? Eventually Annoying went to the bathroom while the other guy went to get us more drinks.

“Who is this moron?” I asked Melanie.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Oh my God I’m sorry, is he your boyfriend?”
“No, he’s not my boyfriend. What’s wrong with you?” she hissed from across the table.
“Me? What’s wrong with him? I mean look at him, look at me. As if I would give a guy like that the time of day. Why won’t he stop touching me?”
“Well maybe because fifteen years ago you slept with him in London.”

Oh. Well if you’re going to count that, fine.

Sidebar: I can hear you judging me from here. Like you never forgot the face of a person you slept with. Or their name. Or in what country you slept with them.


Nine years ago I remembered the story of Annoying because nine years ago was the last time I smoked pot. I had given up alcohol a few months prior to that and apparently was not entirely clear on the meaning of sobriety. I was having dinner in my neighborhood with a girlfriend when a couple of guys asked to join us. The one who sat down next to me seemed familiar which made me flash back to Annoying in New York.

Familiar lived a block further down the street than I did so he offered to walk me home after dinner. He knew a lot about art and since I collected it, I invited him upstairs to see what I owned. Familiar flipped through my CDs, put something on the stereo and then brought out a baggie of weed. I liked the guy but hoped he wasn’t a pothead like my friend Ken, who lives up the street. Ken is a musician who doesn’t get gigs and who smokes dope for breakfast, lunch and dinner. If parents want to show their kids how potheads never get ahead in life, they need to buy them tickets to see Ken.

Familiar was getting over a bad break-up; his girlfriend had left him for his best friend. He was so sad that it prompted me to tell him that I was having trouble getting over Elvis, the love of my life. As we commiserated, he extended the joint he had just rolled and I took a hit. Within seconds I took another hit because the first hit always fools you into thinking you might not get high and God forbid you shouldn’t get high in one point two seconds. We talked for a while but then, like with all good pot, we started to laugh. I’m sure it was about something really funny, like how air conditioning works. Suddenly Familiar leaned in to kiss me and I pulled my head back.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. I just stared at him so he tried to kiss me again but this time I turned my head away at the last minute.
“Your face, has it…has it always… been like… that?” I sputtered.
“What?”
“Is that the same face you had back at the restaurant?”
“Dude, how high are you?”
“Just answer the question, is that the same face you had back at the restaurant?”
“Okaaay, here’s the deal. I’ve had this face since I was born; only it was a lot smaller. But since the restaurant? Yes, this is the same face I’ve had since the restaurant.”

And then it hit me. No wonder the guy seemed familiar. He looked exactly like Elvis. I was about to kiss a facsimile of a man I wasn’t getting over. Great.

I didn’t kiss Familiar and never smoked pot again.

You’re all sitting there trying to think of everyone you slept with, aren’t you? Admit it; a couple of those faces are pretty blurry aren’t they?

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

I haven't done a Bite Me post in a while. I started them in February of 2008 and have written 103 of them. They came about because in 2000, I was dating a man who I've referred to in this blog as Elvis. He didn't live in Los Angeles because to quote my dad, "If there's an easy way to do something and a hard way, you'll always pick the hard way."

One day I was particularly annoyed. The local supermarket had moved the sushi display to the other side of the store without telling me and I had wandered from aisle to aisle looking for the crew from Punk'd. Later I called Elvis and said, "Well, it's everybody can bite me Tuesday!"

He laughed.

When I started this series I changed the day to Friday because Friday just sounds more badass than the sad and sickly Tuesday. So here we go. Number 104.

The drama in my building continues. The manager, the one who turned this complex into an Amphibian Park, was fired two weeks ago. The tenant who complained about her the most went around with a petition that said she was unjustly fired. He bypassed my apartment because he did not want to die young.

We used to have 8 dogs in 6 apartments. Frogs and Lizards, my name for the manager, put in 4 more dogs so after we finally got rid of 4 (2 of which didn't bark at all) we're now at 8 dogs in 5 APARTMENTS. (Did anyone get lost in that math problem?)

Did I mention Frogs and Lizards is partially deaf? Being deaf is not a big deal, but when people in 20 apartments have to talk to you and you can't hear a thing? Kind of a big deal. For 3 months she refused to put her name on the intercom as the manager. Since I had been interim manager for the month of February, my name remained and my doorbell rang constantly. Luckily it's hooked up to the phone and I have caller ID so I never picked up when the front door rang. After I complained for 3 months, during which time Frogs and Lizards accused me of tampering with the intercom code and not telling anyone what the new one was, Upper Management got her to replace my name with hers.

Tampering with the intercom code? Seriously, I know I don't look that busy on any given day but are you kidding me?

If you're one of those individuals who can't leave your house without a phone and must be tethered to it at all times, have you noticed that everyone who lives in my building is an asshole? No? Why? Because you were on the phone.

An iPhone in LA costs $1200 a year to operate. Apple will keep churning out new ones until they have sucked every last penny from your bank account. Along with ATT they're laughing all the way to the bank. They may even own the bank at this point. T w e l v e h u n d r e d d o l l a r s.

Today I was talking to Verizon and they said I was eligible for an upgrade to a DVR. The salesperson launched into all the perks of DVR ownership. Not ownership. LENDERSHIP. It pauses and replays live shows. It tapes shows and all this goodness will only set me back $240 dollars a year, $10 a month for the box and $7.99 a month for the service. So for $240 dollars a year I get to pause and replay a live show. And for an extra $1200 I can call you on my iPhone and tell you about it.

This weekend is always nostalgic for me. July 4th was my parent's wedding anniversary. They were married for 29 years. They should have been married for about 12. Our name means *stubborn* in German. Mom married one more time after Dad and Dad married 2 more times after Mom. Our name also means *unlucky-in-love* in Swedish.

10 years ago this holiday I spent the best 3 day weekend of my life. With Elvis. The best sex, the most love and laughter, the most connected I'd ever been to any man before or since. The next morning, when he asked me if I remembered when he picked me up and threw me on the bed, after we did it on the floor, I looked at him and said in a dreamy voice, "Ummmmmmmm."

"You don't remember that, do you?"

"Not at all."

This week's award goes to Apartment Managers everywhere. For not remembering that the most important part of your job is to keep your tenants happy FIRST. Not to put lizards in the lobby.

End of chat.

Sucky Sucky Now

Four days sans scooter and the crutches have reactivated the body tingles. Because of the pinched/fucked/missing nerve in my neck, the crutches have aggravated it because my shoulders are now permanently up around my brain. Which I'm pretty sure I still have although there are days when this is unclear to me.

And the day the boot is done I'm killing it. Only it belongs to my friend Tony but I will kill it in spirit. Sunday I was so over the whole thing that I just started walking without the crutches. It hurt my foot but ask me if I cared. This has gone on way too long.

About a month ago I started having muscle aches in the thigh of my good leg. Sharp painful aches that made it hard to walk, even with the scooter. Well the scooter is gone but the thigh ache is still there. If I had this to do over, I would get in the best shape of my life and have an Olympian body and THEN have surgery. But only if working out involves the computer or watching TV. Or sleeping.

There's only one other time in my life that I was this miserable and it was when I lost Elvis, the love of my life. And No Not Elvis Presley. This last four months I wouldn't wish on anyone. Everyone talks about the depression you get from going through this and maybe it's better I didn't know that going in. I've heard from so many readers and from teenagers to adults, they've all suffered the same. I've told everyone that when this is over I'm never going to speak of it again. It was that horrible.

People I didn't think would be there for me were and the ones I counted on weren't. My friends Karen and Carson told me that would probably happen because it happened to them and they lost friends over it. I almost lost a red chair over it because some fool in Melbourne thinks she's the boss of me. (dude, you totally are)

And if one more self-involved asshole calls here and bleats on and on about their life without even asking me how I'm doing, I'll wait until I'm walking and then drive to their place and put them out of my misery. Here's a clue, if you know someone who can't walk and has been indoors for FOUR months, a Joey How YOU doin'? comes in pretty handy. And don't wait for me to finish talking so you can bust a move on your own life. Have a...what's it called? Oh yeah, a CONVERSATION. Filibustering is out. WAY THE FUCK OUT.

End of my rope.

It's Everyone Can Bite Me Friday!

And today I really mean that everyone can bite me. I went to the doctor on Wednesday. I have 6 more weeks in a cast and even though I was aware of it going in, it still plunged me into a depression. After the cast comes off the doctor said I get the black adjustable boot contraption for 3 weeks and finally get to put my foot through his face on the ground. That visit cost me $425 dollars, $125 for the pretty colored fiberglass alone. I took a Vicodin before I left the house, which I never do when I go to the Doctor, just in case it makes me weak, fall down on the crutches and go boom. But I was glad I had taken one because without it I'm pretty sure I would have melted down completely. You know that D.C. Madam who killed herself rather than go back to prison? At first I thought she was really overreacting but now? Not so much.

Then McLoserstene dropped me off at California Pizza Kitchen while she popped into Ikea and as I was waiting for her so we could have lunch, I saw this:

Those little feet sticking out from a completely hidden ten month old baby named Brian made me smile for the first time that day. I really wanted to crawl in there with him because that's how I want to finish up this recuperation. Or my life. Hidden under a blanket and wheeled about by loving, devoted parents. Psychologist, party of one.

I do not have that loving and devoted family. I think they were like that when I was younger but sometime in the last 15 years there is no love from them to me. My biggest fear for many years was that I would get famous and then die and news crews would talk to my mother.

COMEDIAN SUZY SORO FOUND DEAD IN HER HOLLYWOOD HILLS APARTMENT.

CNN: "Was she depressed these last few years?"
MOM: "Well, she never listened to me when I told her to change her hairdo."
ABC NEWS: "Was her career in trouble?"
MOM: "She never had a career."
CBS NEWS: "Did she get along with her family?"
MOM: "I'm not in touch with her family."
NBC NEWS: "But...aren't you her family?"
MOM: "Please don't mention that in the article."
MSNBC: "Did she have a lot of friends?"
MOM: "I don't think anyone liked her except her dog, and he's dead."
FOX NEWS: "Well thanks for your time."
MOM: "That's it? Don't you want to hear about my life?"

Yesterday was my sister's birthday. We haven't spoken in almost 3 years. I no longer talk to my mother either and my Dad died in 2001. After he died, the other two got strange. He left me and my sister money but not my mother. She and my sister tried to wrest control of my portion but failed. No one in my family was ever honest. Not even me. I learned it at the feet of the masters. Between my parents they had 5 marriages and my sister and I were terrified to get married, even though I was engaged three times. My mother had someone on the side for most of her marriage and my father was married once before my mother but no one ever told us until after their divorce. Then Dad didn't bother to inform us when he married for the third time. We weren't even invited. You see what I'm dealing with here? Maybe it's better they're not in my life. They're so hyper-critical that it's impossible to feel like any type of success around them. Especially of the emotional kind.

And now, all these centuries later, I feel I wasted my life chasing my career and not marriage and a family of my own. But after what I saw at home, it was obviously the last thing on my mind. I also have the worst possible taste in men so that didn't help. Due to my inability to be honest, intimacy is a huge problem for me. If I am intimate and vulnerable, only bad things can come of it in my head. It's better to let them think I barely care. Pretty fucked up, I know. And yet now I wish I had a husband who loved me and children to get on my nerves. As it is, if it weren't for McLoserstene and her family, I'd be fairly lost right now. And thanks to all my friends who have visited or written and called, I couldn't have gotten through this without you either. Even my arch enemy Jenee visited me last weekend and brought me lunch and signed my door "You're a 'funny cunt' and if you understand our profession, you know that's really a term of endearment. The word 'funny', I mean.

I picked the color yellow because it was cheerful. Maybe eventually it will work. I don't smoke or drink anymore but this last surgery, the third in five years, has tried my last addictive nerve and I swear I could start either again with not even one wee regret, that's how shitty and depressed I feel. I sometimes wonder if all the good stuff has already happened to me. Now every day brings some letdown, some sadness, some small misery I can't change. Up until 7 years ago, I loved my life. It was perfect. But then my Dad died, I lost the love of my life, Elvis, my remaining family turned into assholes and I had to watch as my body disintegrated due to a childhood disease. Is the next step me getting into a plane with a Kennedy and nosediving into the ocean?

There's a lot of things I don't talk about on this blog. Because it wouldn't be fun, not for you and definitely not for me. Over the years I've had four therapists and although they've changed my life in so many positive ways, the one thing they can't do is mend a broken heart. Even the Bee Gees can't do that.

End of chat.

When You Don't Want To Have Sex

Oprah had a doctor on yesterday who was talking about why women don't have time for sex. Having been in many long term relationships over my lifetime, I can tell you that the reason women don't have time for sex is because they're not turned on by their man.

There was only one man I dated, Elvis, who constantly turned me on. I spent years in other relationships not wanting to fuck the guy. Ever. One dumped me because of it, although I never told him that I didn't want to have sex with him, it just became evident when I came up with twenty million excuses. I spent 3 years with him. WHAT THE FUCK?

Women have other issues at play in relationships. It's safe, you're not alone, he can mow the lawn. I sold out because he could use power tools? God help me.

Yeah, this is all about sex. For him.

If someone isn't looking at you this way, get the hell out.

After I was with Elvis I realized I never wanted to have sex with any of the men I'd been with before him. The problem with finding that kind of chemistry is that it's hard to find it again. If any guy out there is reading this and believes the I Have A Headache Line, run for the exit. She's really not into you. At all. And it ain't gonna change back. Ever. And for all those people who say that relationships aren't ALL about sex, psychologists tell us it isn't all there is but if you're not having regular sex, that's a telltale sign that something is wrong.

Women are too lazy to leave, don't want to lose his paycheck, feel bad because of the kids? Trust me, these women will find it somewhere else. My mother was not happy in her marriage and eventually the excuses gave way to sleeping in another room and back aches and other lies. She and my father never had one argument. NEVER a good sign. My sister and I urged her to leave the marriage since she was so unhappy. She always said, "Well, you girls....." like we were the reason she stayed even though we begged her to leave. She eventually moved to our apartment in Paris and still my parents didn't divorce. If only they'd known how unhappy they made their children.

This does not look good.

All that time Mom was having an emotional affair with a man she met in France when my sister and I were teenagers. It was only when my dad went to a high school reunion and met another woman that he finally asked for a divorce. Why waste your life like that? Is it better to settle or is it better to get out and try and find some happiness with someone you are attracted to? Mom eventually married the French man but Jesus, take your time why don't you?

So cheating on her.

End of chat.

Collection #1

I've always wanted to read a magazine with only weird shit in it. Like an Andy Kaufman of magazines. If there is such a thing and I've missed it - and how that is even possible that I have missed one since I am Queen Zeen - please send me the name of that publication.

Every day this week I'm posting pictures of some of my atypical collections. Here, I'll save you the trouble; I'm not normal. And by normal I mean boring.

One day I was holding a tie clip that belonged to my Dad. It was one of a few pieces of jewelry of his that I kept after he died in 2001. Another one had his initials, HA, on it but I gave it to my then boyfriend Elvis since he was a comedian. The one I was walking around with two years ago had the comedy and tragedy masks on it. As a kid I saw my father wear it with the matching cuff links that made up the set. I always thought it was weird that my Dad had something like that since he was a Colonel in the Army and also worked for the government. I see the tragedy in those two jobs, but the comedy? Not so much.

I don't know why I was walking around with this tie clip in my hand but I have no job so maybe the two are connected. As I stood over one of my desks wondering when my phantom maid was going to straighten it up, I absent-mindedly attached the tie clip onto the shade of a lamp.

And the rest is EBay history.I got rid of the lamp last year and was left with 56 bazillion tie clips. So I decided to put them on the curtains in my bedroom. The curtains are made of black leather so the tie clips clamp on nicely. I guess the next question is why I have black leather curtains in my bedroom.

Because I'm not normal. And definitely not boring.

End of chat.

Nobody Likes Suzy

-My father called me Susan
-My mother calls me Suzo
-My sister calls me Snookie
-The first guy I was going to marry called me Possum
-The last guy I was going to marry called me Bunny
-The Doctor called me Q-Ball
-Elvis called me Q
-My friend Prinny calls me Pooz
-My friend Colleen called me Snooze
-Another friend called me Hank
-My friend Metia calls me Burl
-McLoserstene’s friend Kristin calls me The Distracter
-My neighbor Joe calls me Sue
-Last week my neighbor PJ called me Lady S
-Anyone else have this problem?
-End of chat

Withholding Taxes - Part 2

After Dad asked me if he had suffered a heart attack, in that small instant that I had to answer him, I thought about lying. But I knew that some other dumbfuck doctor would come along and tell him so I told him the truth. I’ve often wondered if that’s when he took a turn for the worse. That the fear of a bigger attack had turned him towards the light.

While Dad was in the ICU, my sister and I started bringing a flask of vodka on our visits. Every time there was an update from a nurse or we heard another family break down crying, we reached for the flask. And I did what I always did when something overwhelmed me. I joked around. One day Dad called me over to his bed and motioned for me to bend down close to his face. “The people here like you, they all tell me how you try and make everyone laugh. But you know what? No one likes a smart mouth.”

And there you have it. Knock knock knockin’ on heaven’s door and that’s all he had to say to me.

Ever since my friend Clark died and I was not there for him, I am now the person who takes care of my friends and family if they’re in trouble. And no rejecting motherfucker of a father is ever going to take away that part of me.

Your father did the best that he could, you say. No. He didn’t.

I’m so tired of people using that as an excuse to absolve others of their behavior. I know when I’m being an asshole; a three year old knows when they’re being an asshole. Everyone knows. Everyone knows.

Dad's lawyers kept asking us where the will and the trust were and we couldn't find them. I suddenly remembered that years before he had sent me copies in L.A. I had no choice but to leave Dad and my sister and fly home to retrieve the documents. He died while I was gone. I don't think that was an accident.

I wrote a novel about my disastrous sex life and the story of my sudden addiction to alcohol after years of being a social drinker and how I eventually quit, then slipped, used it to get me through a surgery and then quit again. As I wrote it, story after story presented itself to me with the same ending. And I finally made the connection. My Dad had stayed on the East coast and yet followed me everywhere I went. The writing of the book illuminated my darkest truth; every time I had taken a drink it was to mask the pain of being ignored. It was really simple and yet totally complicated. I didn’t have a disease, I didn’t need a meeting, I needed to wake up and start issuing pink slips.

In the last two years I have finally rid my life of anyone that treated me like my father. The list was as long as it was variegated. I had surrounded myself with a cluster of Punishers because I was addicted to being ignored, dismissed and otherwise overlooked. It’s all I knew. And I carried it with me from town to town, state to state, country to country and person to person. It’s really no surprise to me that I became a standup comic. Approbation from an audience became a life’s mission, a subconscious and useless attempt to plug up a hole that could never be filled.

I’m hyper vigilant now with people I meet. In a way I’m lucky because if I’m around them for a while and suddenly I feel like drinking, I know that person is not someone I should keep in my life. In some silent sign language of the heart, they have communicated neglect and disregard to me and I’ve picked up on it. As time goes on, my reaction time gets shorter.

What if they apologized? You ask. Withholders and Punishers are not Apologizers. Because that would make them wrong and the one thing a withholding person can’t do is admit they’re wrong. They get defensive and re-explain what happened, thinking that it’s you that are dense and just don’t ‘get it’. I get that a person who thinks highly of themselves will think highly of others. They will apologize because they would want to be apologized to. But The Punisher has such self-loathing and low self-esteem that he or she projects it onto you. They treat themselves poorly, so they treat you poorly. Yeah, I get it.

I don’t blame any of the people I attracted; I take responsibility for that. I don’t believe in a random Universe, so I believe they all served to show me the way out of the deep hole I was in. The heartache over my breakup with Elvis, the love of my life, was what eventually sent me spiraling downward in alcohol. But ultimately he saved my life since I finally figured out what was wrong. And I will never, ever again have anyone in my life that ignores me. I’m all sold out.

End of chat.