A Whole New Level Of Depression

I didn't sleep one wink Sunday night. I checked the clock every hour and kept saying, Well, 5 hours of sleep will be enough, then Well, 2 hours of sleep will be enough and I kept pushing the alarm further and further back until I just gave up and got up.

So Monday morning I got McLoserstene and Mike, her friend from Sydney, and we drove to the doctor for my 10:45 am appointment.

Only the appointment was for 1:45 pm because someone can't remember to look in her date book that she carries in her purse so she'll never forget stuff only she never uses it because isn't it better to just guess where you're going to be on what day and at what time?

As we're sitting in the waiting room deciding to stay the 3 hours, it occurs to me the valet parking will be about 400 dollars so we leave and go to Starbucks. Coffee doesn't help and I'm melting into my chair. I realize everyone is looking at my yellow cast. Mike had written I Heart Cock on it. Mike is not gay. Well, maybe just a little. And I had written a very tasteful message on it as well: Get This Motherfucker Off Me, Dr. Bob. Suzy Soro + Australians = Not very subtle.

I was so looking forward to this day. I just wanted my freedom back. So now is a good time to mention I never thought I'd miss the cast.

My foot looks so grotesque and bloody and my calf is half the size of the other one.

I had taken pics of my feet before the surgery because I have pretty feet and wanted to remember them as they were. I've won CONTESTS with my feet. OK, I didn't but I could have.

Yes the calf will re-build and the scars will fade but I'm so full of scars already that it really upset me. My stress levels are so off the charts that I walk around with my shoulders up to my ears which has pinched a nerve and made my fingertips permanently numb. I can't write very well; it's just a scrawl at this point. I'm sure it will eventually go away but it's a constant reminder of what a wreck I am. Three months alone in this apartment has taken its toll on my sanity. I'm depressed, which two people who've gone through the same thing and some bloggers have told me they went through as well. I want to do my laundry. (not really) I want to take a shower. (really)

The Dr. told me I can put 10% of my weight on the bad foot when I walk with crutches. Remember when it was 20%? He said I was healing well but that 10% just set me back in my already-full-of-shot-nerves head. He said I could get a pedicure. Yeah, well first I have to drive there and unwrap and rewrap. That will add hours to the pedicure.

Dr. Bob's technician showed me how to walk properly but I couldn't do it. Every time I tried, the bad foot automatically went into the air, like it's been doing for 3 months. The technician had to HOLD my foot down while I leaned on crutches with my forearms and hands and leaped like a bunny on the good foot. Place bad foot. Move crutches forward. Jump on good foot to line up with bad foot. Most people think you can use crutches to lean on but it's your arms that move you forward. If you end up with sore armpits, your crutches aren't custom-fitted and you're doing it wrong.

A guy in my building had given me his black boot and saved me the $125 the Doctor was going to charge me for a new one so that was a huge relief. They started preparing my foot by wrapping it in an ace bandage, being sure to tighten the crap out of it. The technician told me to pay attention. Due to having no sleep I couldn't remember who he was much less what he was saying. Then came the black boot. I thought it was something you could take off before bed, or when you were sitting watching a movie. But it's not. It's another full month of claustrophobic incarceration. I'm just glad I didn't know this before I had the surgery.

Again, if I didn't live alone on the second floor, this wouldn't be such a huge issue. It now only takes one person to get me down the stairs but it still takes two people to get me back up. I learned by falling over a chair that I can't be on crutches and talk on the phone. So the fear of what could happen has immobilized me because the only person here to pick me up is me.

I do not look like this except for the boot part. Bitch.

I came home and tried to sleep. The boot goes all the way to my knee and is lined with a Siberian Husky. Because it's so big it creates a pup tent under the covers. And if I turn my leg on the side the foot starts to throb and ache and pain shoots through it. The scar over the area where they scraped off the bone spur is extremely sore. I got up and attempted to remove the boot but couldn't because I don't have a degree in engineering. By the time I figured it out I decided that could destroy the surgery so I leave the Eiffel Tower on my foot. I figure it's just better to try and get used to it. If the pain continues I'll have to get more pain pills. Suddenly Steven Tyler's rehab makes a lot more sense to me. I thought he was exaggerating because I had a foot operated on and I had no pain. As the saying goes, Never judge until you've walked a mile in someone else's high heels.

I lay in bed and channel surfed but had no attention span. I finally fell upon on a rerun of Bonanza and started to watch it. I noticed that Hoss really was such a kind person only he never got the girl because the chicks preferred Little Joe. Finally I realized GOOD GRIEF I'M WATCHING BONANZA and got up to read emails.

I didn't go back to sleep until after midnight-thirty after I tried everything. Benadryl, Advil, sleeping pills. NOTHING. I slept about 7 hours, finally. But I feel like crap and I'm depressed. Thanks for all the emails, the ecards and the phone calls. I wish I had the energy to return them but don't.

End of chat.

Today Was

Not a good day.

It's Everyone Can Bite Me Friday!

UPDATE RE GEORGE CARLIN at 2:00 pm LA time. After George's daughter left a comment on this blog about youtube and his estate I talked to a lot of people about it because I felt bad that I might have incorrectly summed up the incident. McLoserstene called it when she reminded me that networks routinely bar youtube embeds so that you will watch their network and not the internet. Yeah, the networks are so batting at an invisible pitcher here but whatever. So she guessed that HBO did the banning. And yes, they're running George's specials so it does make sense. I just want to apologize to Kelly, George's daughter, for my haste at slamming their estate. I've written her privately and said the same thing but I did want you to know that once again, I'm part of the problem, not the solution.

I can't believe I just spent 3 months cloistered in my apartment. I've left it exactly 4 times, which is also the amount of times I've wanted to saw this cast off my leg and throw it into the pool. I've developed restless cast syndrome and it's screwed up my sleeping big time. It's enough already. It comes off on Monday. Three days.

In the good news department someone from Sydney, Australia wrote I Heart Cock on my cast. How embarrassed are all the people at the doctor's office going to be when I show up with that? Why am I not embarrassed? BECAUSE MAKING FUN OF MY LIFE IS ALL I HAVE LEFT.

A lot of comics have sent me emails and called to talk about Carlin. I went to one of the youtube links my friend Matt sent me. While I was watching I noticed the embed had been disabled upon request. I'm guessing George's estate stepped in to stop the world from downloading, embedding etc. George would have fucking died (again) over that. He was so not that guy. If he could come back for 4 minutes the first 3 would be him yelling at youtube and his estate. He wanted you to hear what he was saying and he didn't care how you heard it. If you got it for free he would consider you a genius.

One of my commenters, Maureen, mentioned that SNL was rerunning the 1975 show that Carlin hosted. As happy as I am about that, what pisses me off was that according to Comedy on the Edge, the definitive book by Richard Zoglin on the evolution of standup, George was the guest host on that show, their first one ever and yet never hosted again. 'Carlin remains the forgotten man in the oft-told tale of Saturday Night Live's birth. Michaels never asked him back and he was pretty much written out of SNL's seemingly endless retrospectives and tributes.'

I'm upset that it takes death to set the record straight. So NOW they're all on board the Carlin Express. First Stop? Fuck You, New York.

The last three months I've spent most of my time online reading articles. This one made me laugh out loud, about how much coinage people leave behind in airports.

The cash leader: Los Angeles International Airport, where passengers left behind $89,375 from Sept. 30, 2004 to Oct. 1, 2007, according to TSA reports. Las Vegas' McCarran International was a distant runner-up.

The cash laggard: Chattanooga (Tenn.) Metropolitan Airport, whose 300,000 departing passengers in 2007 left just $1.20.

Biggest underachiever: New York's Kennedy International Airport, the nation's sixth-busiest, which generated just $5,228 from 2004 to 2007, including a mere $607 last year.

When have you ever heard that New York has been an underachiever? All in all, in the U.S., over a million dollars was left behind.

Then there was this article about James Dyson and his vacuum machines.

James Dyson has made quite a name for himself with his bagless vacuum cleaners. Now the inventor is spending some of his $1.5 billion fortune working on a gasless car --specifically, one that runs completely on solar power.

His engineers in England are developing a lightweight electric motor that, according to Dyson, could power a family vehicle for hundreds of miles. The battery would be charged by solar panels mounted on the vehicle's roof, and/or on the roof of a garage where the car is stored. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the motor is actually based on those used in the company's vacuum cleaners and hand dryers.

Seriously, why isn't this guy in charge of the world? Have you seen his newest vacuum cleaner, the one that operates on a ball? It came out this year. 2008. How long did it take people to figure out that vacuums only operate in a straight line? 139 years. That's when the first one was invented, in 1869.

And finally, more motorists are buying locking gas caps for their vehicles.

The minute I read that, Will Smith's song Wild Wild West went through my head. I filled my car with gas before my surgery. I have no idea why since I wasn't going to be driving anytime soon. But three months ago gas was a lot cheaper so I'm glad I did. I fill my car 4 times a year. That's because I walk everywhere and even if I drive, my car gets great mileage. Oh, and I don't have a job, that helps. It's currently parked underground in a gated part of our building and the gas tank is flush with the wall. Unless the Druggertons have figured out a way to crawl under my car and siphon out the gas, I think I'm good to go.

MONDAY MONDAY. The Mamas and the Papas had that right.

End of chat.

RIP George Carlin

I only met Carlin once. We were both appearing at Bally's in Las Vegas. He was in the showroom; I was at the comedy club Catch A Rising Star.

I had just moved from New York City to Los Angeles in the hopes of pursuing a bigger career than New York offered. I had agents and an apartment by the Hollywood sign and I felt I was on the right track. One of my first gigs was in Las Vegas; how horrible could life be?

Driving into Vegas and seeing Carlin's name on the marquee at Bally's and knowing I was going to be in the same place, doing the same thing made it seem like I had moved for all the right reasons. I immediately wrote him a note saying I was at Catch and that I wanted to see his show. I dropped it off at reception and wondered whether George would get it. He did and called me in my room to ask how many tickets I needed because it was Valentine's Day. He assumed I needed two. I had just started dating The Impotentate (GET OUT. RUN AWAY. YOU'RE GOING TO WASTE 7 YEARS OF YOUR LIFE WITH HIM.) but left him back in L.A. It was my first time playing Vegas and if I went down in flames I didn't need him to see that. So I asked George for one ticket and a fire extinguisher.

The first note pinned on the yellow sheet below is the message the operators at Catch A Rising Star took from George telling me to be at his 9 pm show. You know I'm the Queen of the Qeepsakes so I have this hanging in my Hall of Fame. You can't see it in this photo but it hangs down on the left, under the Muscle and Fitness magazine with my sister on the cover.
Valentine's Day in Vegas couldn't be more annoying if it tried. People running around all in love and shit and strangers looking at you with sad eyes because OMG you're alone! But I didn't care because I couldn't wait to see the guy that all comics put in their top 5 of best standups ever. If you don't get that, chances are you might not understand what makes great comedy. It's hard to explain if you're not in the business of making people laugh. You're just going to have to trust me and every other comic on the planet on this one. Can 20,000 of us be wrong? Uhhh. No.

Standing on a stage for over an hour trying to hustle an audience into laughing is not for the weak. It's so difficult that sometimes I look back on my younger self and wonder what convinced me that I could tackle such a job. How did I believe I had the wherewithal to make an audience love me? Or make them laugh or require them to think? Few of us will ever attain the rank of making an audience think. That requires enormous skill and I'd be the first to admit that I can't do it. I'm not that gifted. But Carlin had it in spades. Imagine trying to talk about religion, as George did in his bit on the Ten Commandments, and yet point out how ridiculous those Ten Commandments were. Who makes fun of that and wins? George. Because he was a master of comedy. My friend and fellow comic Matt Davis sent me an email that really summed up George's genius. He was a maestro with his words. He would start a premise or a story and he would zig and zag and weave and go off onto several different tangents (all of which were relevant and hilarious), and he would always come back and join it all together 10 or 20 minutes later and tie the end piece with a bow. It was amazing. It made me want to write more jokes and quit comedy forever at the same time.

That's really the hallmark of great anything. That it makes you want to do it better and yet quit because you don't think you'll ever be as good at it as the ones you admire the most. Comics can make a room full of strangers laugh. We don't know if it will work every time, and sometimes it doesn't, but we do know that most people can't do it and for some reason, that's why we keep doing it. And most of us hope we're one hundredth as good as Carlin. And know we're not.

The next night there was a message from George. "Want to know if you saw the show." I've had boyfriends who have dropped me off in front of my building and haven't waited to see if I made it inside alive. I have relatives who assume I'm dead because they never call. George was a real class act. And p.s., how many comics have you seen remain successful through their 60's and on until their 70's? Newhart. Cosby. Rivers. Carson. Believe me, we should all be so lucky.

Those of you who read me on a regular basis know I struggle with what I did with my life but when Carlin died I realized I'm grateful that I chose to be a comic, no matter how difficult the road. I remember once when my career was in the toilet and I didn't know what was going to happen to me and I called my Dad. I told him I had wasted my time flying around the world doing comedy and what did it bring me? And my Dad said "You made a lot of people laugh. Not many people can say that about their lives." And over the years I realized how right he was. Making people laugh is a lucky gift to have. It also reminds me of what The Laugh Factory here in L.A. puts up on their marquee when a comic dies. RIP George Carlin. Make God laugh. So if I can do that one day when I'm long gone and forgotten down here, make God laugh? Well, there will be no regrets. Except for this one: GET THIS CAST OFF MY FUCKING FOOT.

Another great comedian died the same day as Carlin but at 93, her heyday had come and gone. Dody Goodman was in both the Grease movies and played the mother in the hilarious sitcom Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. But more importantly, she was a Johnny Carson and Jack Paar fave. And if those two guys didn't know great comedy, no one did. Dody also did Broadway in her later years. I came across this quote from the producer of one of her shows about her prowess on the New York stage:

"Dody had the most impeccable comic timing," Goggin said. "When we had her in the show Nunsense, she was the only person on Earth who could walk on stage and say, 'Are you ready to start?' and bring the house down."

It's all about timing in comedy. If you think you're funny, try saying that line when you walk into a room. Good luck with the crickets.

R.I.P. George. And Dody. We'll miss you.

George Carlin Dody Goodman Grease Jack Paar

The Naptime Winner Is....

Before I forget, I have a new piece up at Scrivel today called He Married Who? About how shocked I am with my exes and the women they've chosen to be with.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this contest. I have another one coming up with a very funny book written by a man. Remember them?

There were ten people who had the correct answers for this contest. Jami, Martha Jane, That Chick Over There, Jennifer, Melly, chicmama!, Mrs. K, Deb, Mrs. S, and gm country mama. Mrs. K has guessed correctly on every shoe contest, 3 so far, so I was hoping she'd win. But she didn't. I was also hoping gm country mama would win because she's an old friend of Stefanie's and is mentioned in Stef's first book. But she didn't.

Four pairs of the shoes have appeared on my blog because they're mine. The only pair that did not belong to me were B. All of the shoes are new except the ones in D. Those were the boots I wore on New Year's Eve at Lompoc Maximum Security Prison in 1993 when I did two shows there. Spare me your snipes on them unless you've played a prison. No one? Didn't think so.

So congratulations to the winner, That Chick Over There! Chick, send me your snail mail and I'll forward it to Stefanie so she can sign and send your book out to you. It's a very funny read and for those of you who don't own this book or Stefanie's first one, Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay, shame on you. Run to Amazon.com. Or Barnes and Noble.com. Or to a bar. Although you won't get much reading done there. And they don't sell books. Did someone say Mojitos?

End of chat.

Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay Naptime Is The New Happy Hour Stefanie Wilder-Taylor

Naptime Is The New Happy Hour Contest

If you haven't heard of Stefanie Wilder-Taylor's books, you might be dead. She's been on The Today Show five times and is also part of The Fashion Police for Us Weekly. She's currently working on her third book, Why Won't Suzy Soro Stop Stealing My Preemie's Meds?

So here's the question that could win you her hilarious latest book, Naptime is the New Happy Hour. Which of the shoes below has NOT been on my blog?

You only get ONE letter guess and the winner will be announced on Wednesday.

Because I'm leaving the contest open for two days. That means until Midnight PST on Tuesday 24th. If there are multiple winners all the names go into a hat and I choose one without cheating. Anonymous entries will not be accepted unless you've signed your name since I'm really grouchy these days.

To get an idea of the other fabulous, funny books my friends have written and given away on this blog, click on the Contests link at the bottom of this post. If you want your funny book to have a shoe contest, start kissing ass now. Fortunately I've lost 16 pounds so it shouldn't take long back there.

A

B

C

D

E

End of chat.

It's Everyone Can Bite Me Friday!

No more Vicodins and I didn't have any reaction from going off them except my own personal hysteria at being incarcerated.

HOWEVER, if a bottle of Vodka walked into my apartment right now I would marry it. I'm grateful that I have no weapons on me because if someone broke into my apartment I would shoot to kill. Turns out I left my door unlocked on Wednesday night so that might have happened, only I don't have a gun. So I would have stabbed someone to death after I pushed my scooter over to the knife drawer and then followed them around my apartment yelling, "Don't make me come over there because I WILL. Eventually."

10 days until this bitch comes off my leg. It's enough already. If I had a vacuum saw, like the one they use chez le medecin, this fucker would be lying on the floor and I'd be doing the Happy Hoppy Dance with one leg.

ANOTHER SHOE CONTEST! Shut UP, you say? No YOU shut up.

This one stars my good friend and hilarious comic slash writer Stefanie Wilder-Taylor. Dasright, she's going to autograph and give away her latest book, Why Suzy Soro is the Queen of the World. Or as some hateful people prefer to call it: Naptime Is The New Happy Hour.

I know that anyone who has read Stefanie's blog or her first novel Suzy Soro Taught Me Everything I Know, also referred to in some spiteful literary circles as Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay, will want in on this contest.

It starts on Monday and will run for 2 days. Winner announced on Wednesday.

End of chat.

More Shout Outs To Our Soldiers

I once had a 7 year relationship with a man who was impotent for the first 4. He refused to talk about it so we broke up and got back together about 900 times. After one of those separations we reunited and he was not impotent for the last 3 years. This is why I refer to him in my blog as The Impotentate. My friend Mike used to call him Dick Al Dente. So even after we broke up and remained in touch, he refused to talk about why he was impotent during those 4 years. When we dated he was broke; now he's a multimillionaire. Natch.

Which brings me to the picture below. This is the Army K-9 unit of Osan, South Korea. They are holding a pair of The Impotentate's briefs. Even though he was never a jealous guy, he hated it when I went overseas to entertain the boys. So one day before I left for Asia, he gave me a pair of his briefs with this written on them: "Don't forget me. I love you. Please don't be a whore." Actually I have no idea what it really said but I remember he wrote it in green magic marker and put a heart in red with an arrow through it. During the entire 7 years I wasted with this individual that is the nicest thing he ever did for me. I know; I'm a retard. But not a whore.
Below are some very serious German Shepherds. Civilians weren't even allowed to stand next to the gate. We watched a presentation they made for us, where the dogs rushed a guy and ripped his protected arm to shreds. Sometimes I fantasize that it was The Impotentate's arm. A MULTI-millionaire, in case you read that first paragraph too quickly.

Below are some of my most treasured possessions. Every Army unit is issued a coin. You must carry the coin on you AT ALL TIMES. If you don't and someone yells out Coin Check then you have to hold up your coin. If you don't have it on you, then you have to buy everyone drinks. I was persuaded to yell out Coin Check before one of the shows and the moment I said it I realized they all knew someone didn't have a coin. And he didn't. To this day I feel bad that I fell for that. It's an honor if a soldier gives you a coin and you can't ask for it, you need to be singled out for them.
The first coin in the top left hand corner is from the 1st Battalion 506th Infantry. In the middle it says Stands Alone and at the bottom North of the River. On the back it says Bushmasters. Hmmmmmm. I got this one at the post at the DMZ, which separates North and South Korea. I remember the officer took us aside and made a little presentation of the coins.

The coin underneath it has the map of North and South Korea and is from the same outfit. They both say Currahee on them.

The one with the black shield says No Slack and Warrior Main. It's from C Company, 702D, MSB. How butch does Warrior Main sound? And how many of you wives out there are married to No Slack? That's what I thought.

One of our trips took us to Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, 717 nautical miles west-southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. Nautical Mile is Spanish for Far Away.

It's 2 miles long by 3/4 miles at its widest point. It's the home of the operational chemical weapon demilitarization point. In English? This is where they stash the leftover Mustard Gas and Agent Orange from previous wars. You are issued a gas mask upon arrival and a kit full of antidote. You are shown a movie where they demonstrate how to plunge the hypodermic into your thigh in case the alarm goes off. If you cross a certain point of the island you must have your gas mask on you or you have to turn back. The indoctrination takes over an hour. They want to be clear that you understand what's going on. Below is a picture of me in my gas mask with my medical clearance certificate. And the first person who says I look better this way can bite me.
We woke up every morning to the loudest motherfucking siren in the Universe. I spent most of the shows making fun of the guy who ran that siren. Then I started talking about those hypodermics and everyone began laughing. I asked one specialist from the south why it was so funny and he replied, "Ma'am, by the time the Mustard Gas hits the air? You'd have no time to get that hypodermic out of its bag 'cause you'd be dead." Well then.

The people at Johnston get a really bad case of cabin fever since there's nowhere to go and they have to serve a tour there, sometimes 2 years, which they are financially well compensated for due to the extreme situation. They drink a lot. Once some of them get so drunk they jumped into the waters and were sliced to shreds by the coral reefs. One died.

As you can probably tell from this blog, I documented my career in a very meticulous manner. Pictures, mementos, scrapbooks, postcards. Because I figured someone as single-mindedly ambitious as me would forget to marry and have children and I wanted to account for all that time. And I was right. I forgot to marry and have children. A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE, yo.

End of chat.

Bushmasters Currahee 1st Battalion 506th Infantry C Company, 702D, MSB Warrior Main Stands alone

Johnston Atoll Osan Korea South Korea MWR K-9 Units War In Iraq Military Coins

A Shout Out To Our Guys In Pakistan

I was looking at the global map I keep on the bottom half of my sidebar and noticed I've got some repeat customers from Pakistan. It looks like some of the readers are coming from Islamabad so if there are soldiers who are reading this, we're all praying for your safe return.

This post is for you.

I entertained the troops during the Bosnian War and made other trips to South Korea, Johnston Atoll and Japan for MWR. The comics were given G-17 status and at the time that pissed off my Army Dad, ret. and now deceased, buried in Arlington. He had only gotten to G-14. I said, "I told you I'd amount to something ONE day." And he replied, "Yeah, as long as you're in a war zone you're fine."

I spent time in red-tagged bunkers in Macedonia and did meet and greets out of a Blackhawk flying with almost zero visibility in some no-fly zones, for which I did NOT receive hazard pay. (Surely one of you guys can put in a word for me about that, no?) I yelled at that pilot because he took us over a mountain and dropped the chopper straight down, thereby scaring the FUCK out of me. He promised not to do it again and told me not to feel bad since when he had the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders on board they all puked when he did that to them.

At the show that night I ripped that flyboy a new asshole and got a standing O. Hooah!

The Blackhawk and the pilot.

The note that was left on my door after that show. I went to their commanding officer to try and track down the guy who wrote this and was told, "We're all just soldiers here." And yes, their humility made me cry. Shut up. At least I didn't puke.

End of chat.

U.S. Soldiers in Pakistan War In Iraq

Quit Yer Whining, Woman

For the last few months I've been obsessed with people who are worse off than me. Being unable to walk for 3 months has convinced me I'm at death's door. And I might be. You don't know. All the plans I had to make this time productive have dissolved into a haze of Vicodins, microwaveable food products and a craving for pie. I was at first pissed at myself for not doing anything of value but then realized I've never been good at doing something of value so why ruin a perfect record?

Since that strange tingling came back in my fingertips, which I haven't mentioned to save myself the agony of reading helpful reader comments like "Well, then just cut them off,' coupled with my life on a scooter slash crutches, I felt assured of the valued pole position at this year's Crippledome. I reluctantly called the scooter people to come pick up my metallic best friend on July 1st, the day after the cast comes off. Then I'll have the black boot and be able to put 20% of my weight on my foot while using crutches. 20%? Haven't we been over my ineptitude with all things math? One fifth of my total weight = what the fuck does that mean. I did a practise run with that contraption that Carson gave me to wear around my neck. Thank God big necklaces are in style right now; maybe people will just mistake it for a very poor fashion choice. You can stick food and drinks in it while hobbling about on crutches. I managed to go 3 feet until I dropped a paper towel and just stood there staring at it because someone forgot to make bendable crutches.

Carson and her friend Charlie came over on Friday for movie night. We watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I was familiar with the story and knew it was brutal and depressing so of course I was very excited to see it. My shrink used to tell me to stop watching the 11:00 pm news because it was too depressing. That's when I started watching the 11:00 news. Diving Bell is the memoir of the French editor of Elle, Jean-Dominique Bauby, who had the rarest form of a stroke, called locked-in syndrome, and could only blink his left eyelid. With that one eye he blinked out an entire memoir. He wrote a book while blinking at the letters his therapists read to him. Whereas I would be staring at a dropped paper towel for the duration of my recovery. I'm half French. Obviously the American half is more dominant.

End of chat.

It's Everyone Can Bite Me Friday!

Is it just me or are there 2 Fridays in every week? If you hate this feature, imagine how much I hate it. And you'd think I wouldn't, what with all the NOT BEING ABLE TO WALK and HAVING NOTHING TO DO for 3 months thing going on. And especially since I have 17 days left until cast-off, no more Vicodins and 18 days until they take away my scooter, you'd again think I'd have plenty to bitch about. And you'd be sort of right but mainly wrong because now I'm in that JUST KILL ME NOW phase, where patience is NOT a fucking virtue and if I ever find the asshole who said that I will rip him limb from limb. Why do I think a man said that? BECAUSE MEN ARE THE DEVIL and one of them operated on me and has cost me almost $15,000 out of pocket. THAT'S WHY.

And in case you're wondering, Darvocets suck. Big time. They must have pumped air into the pills. The only good news I have to report is the advent of a new blog by my sometime commenter and fellow standup comic Hollywood Dad. It's hard to find really funny male bloggers, whereas it's easy to find funny female bloggers. I'm guessing because more women blog? Whatever the reason, Tommy's blog is hilarious, his wife is always annoyed with him and he has two small children that we think are his. He doesn't have a SiteMeter on his blog YET so if you comment, tell him I sent you.

I went away last weekend to the McLoserstene Manse in Southern California, or, as it's annoyingly referred to on the local news, 'SoCal.' Apparently no one has time to say the entire phrase so they've reduced it to SoCal, as in, "So Cal, how about those Lakers?" This part of our state is also referred to as The Inland Empire, as if we were a 17th century Chinese dynasty. Our local L.A. weathermen are named Johnny Mountain and Dallas Raines and they are as ridiculous looking as their names imply. We are the laughing stock of the United States. LaLa Land, Hollyweird, HellA, it's all just part of a conspiracy to make us dumber and more retarded than we actually are. Although to be honest it doesn't take much.

Which brings me to my sojourn chez les McLoserstenes. They wasted no time including me in their weekend plans, a birthday party for their grandchildren. I was the greeter for all the toddlers who streamed by my chair, clutching their parents' hands while crying and pointing to "the monster lady sitting in the chair."
Notice the subscription bottle of drugs in the basket of the scooter? It's a good thing I still had some left because they made sure to include me in their many sophisticated outings. Here we are at Rite-Aid, where I was put in charge of, I believe the technical words for it are "Watching our shit while we shop."
Due to the lovely roses from their gardens that they placed in my bedroom and bath area, I had to spend $20.00 at Rite-Aid on an inhaler as I am allergic to roses. I'm pretty sure they knew that in advance.

They thoughtfully made sure I had plenty to read and left these books on the nightstand next to my bed.

Did I mention they like to drink?

A lot?

I didn't have the heart to tell them this dog wasn't real and there was no reason to keep giving him dog biscuits, as their actual dog looked kind of pissed-off the whole time I was there.

End of chat.

L.A. Sign Of The Times #37

Who takes one can of soup out of their grocery bag, or pocket, and just leaves it on a wall in a parking lot? It was there for two days in March until it disappeared. I feel if someone had been considerate enough to leave a spoon it might have been sitting there empty. Rude.

End of chat.