Dear God I Own Brown Pants

Like that one New Year's Eve when I was at a party and stood up at midnight to kiss someone, only to discover I was the only single woman there and all the couples were kissing, thus hangs my brown pants in the closet. Alone in a sea of black. A sea of black clothes kissing.

And not just any brown pants. Brown polyester pants. Jaclyn Smith's brown polyester pants. From K-Mart.

Can death be far behind?

It was 2008 and I had to go to India for surgery. Because of extreme pain I couldn't make it off the couch to the kitchen without 2 Vicodin and a walker. So I had put on weight. Up to 140 pounds from my constant 128. Nothing fit. How was I going to sit on a plane for 22 hours wearing the only thing that would fit me, four towels bound together with electrical tape?

So I dragged myself out to shop. There was a K-Mart over the hill in the San Fernando Valley. I went straight to the Overweight Section, which takes up about 97% of the store, and bought my brown no-wrinkle Jaclyn Smith pants. "No love will be lost when I donate these to The Salvation Army," I said to myself while I leaned on a store employee crying because I now owned brown polyester pants.

But when I got home I realized I didn't have anything to go with brown pants so I went to Ross and bought a matching cotton shirt. "Oh won't this make a well coordinated outfit for some nice person who loves the color brown?" I said to myself as I leaned on a store employee crying because I was now buying cheap brown tops to go with cheap brown pants.

Here I am in India wearing my K-Mart pants, my Ross shirt and risking my life in one of their pedi-cabs,  made out of plastic and spit. The necklace is from Planet Blue in Malibu and cost twice as much as the pants and shirt together. Notice how the pants appear to be riding up my leg. It turns out a big butt takes up a considerable amount of pant.

You really do learn something new every day.
I still have the outfit. I gave the necklace to my mom. And at 133 pounds and holding, I still wear the outfit. I miss the necklace.

End of chat.

More Boobs From My Sister

Not The One With Rock Hudson And Doris Day

When my sister Lindy first started modeling in New York she got a lot of different jobs. But when she booked her first cover shoot I was very proud of her even though I'd never heard of the magazine.

She called our Dad, who was living in Florida, and excitedly told him she had been chosen to do not one but two covers for a magazine called Pillow Talk. (not this one) She gave him the date the first one would hit newstands and then forgot all about it.

The day the magazine came out Lindy's agent called to tell her and she ran to the nearest kiosk. She came home and waved it in my face and said OH NO OH NO OH NO!!! I'd never seen her so excited.

But it wasn't exactly excitement.

It was more dread.

And fear.

Of the loss of her inheritance:
By the time she called Dad to say the magazine was NOT repeat NOT repeat NOT EVER coming out he had already bought it.

Thank God the next month they only used her body:


End of chat.

Public Speaking Isn't For Everyone

I'm no stranger to surgery. I'd like to say it's because I'm married to Dr. Oz and every day on the way to meet him for lunch at the hospital I stop off and spend all his money.

But no, I've had surgery for real reasons. None of which included a lawsuit and a huge cash settlement but that's probably just poor planning on my part.

Frankly, I'd hate to die on an operating table because they say when you leave your body you can look down and see the doctors working on you. I bet that's not what they're doing. They're probably going through your pockets.

During my last surgery, right before I went under, I remember the doctor holding a scalpel, the florescent lights and the smell of burning flesh. NIGHTMARE.

Do you know how bad you look in florescent lights?

In the operating room they make you count back from 100 when they give you the anesthesia. They make you think you're going to be awake for a really long time. Meanwhile you go 100, 99. Out! Why don't they just make you count backwards from 2?

When I woke up I drifted into consciousness and heard the loudspeaker crackle alive.

"Code Blue on the fir... (muffled voice) Gina, is that a 1 or a 7? A 7, realllly? Code Blue... (muffled voice) Gina, that's blue, right? Not purple?"

"(muffled voice) There is no Code Purple."

"(muffled voice) There isn't? Maybe I'm thinking of blue and red make purple. Like the blood mixed with the blue, you know?"

"This is Gina, ignore all previous announcements except this one: CODE BLUE ON THE SEVENTH FLOOR."

Then a nurse came in and said "I'm going to have to attach you to a drip." And I'm thinking, wouldn't I heal a lot faster if they hooked me up to a cool person? She gave me my pain meds and I cheeked the pills and saved them for later because double dosage later always trumps single dosage now.

Have you ever dropped a pill on the floor and then picked it up and taken it anyway? And someone will inevitably say, "Ooooh, that was on the floor." How do we know those pills weren't on the floor before they got in the bottle? There's probably a guy over at Squibb sitting on the floor going, 18, 19, 20.

I know you're supposed to take all the medicine a doctor gives you but it's better to have extra medication lying around. Once I ran out of sugar and had to put Cherry Nyquil on my Cream of' Wheat. Because I'm a genius.

A study says married men don't need as strong an anesthetic as married women. For women they give them intravenous Valium and for men they make them listen to a tape of their wives asking them to take out the garbage.

End of chat.

L.A. Sign Of The Times #67

A paparazzo waits in his car outside of my Hollywood Starbucks. For sitting in his car polishing his camera lens he gets to sit on his ass wearing Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses. Poor bastard didn't even know I was taking his picture. **




**to see the rest of the series click on the label below this post. I take strange pictures of Los Angeles. Because I am strange.

She Was A Sinner. She Was A Whore.

I don't have children. But I grew up around them.

I'm not a parent. But I grew up around them.

Is bullying someone's fault? Shitty children? Shitty parents?

When I was in junior high the girl down the street, Susan, got pregnant. The neighborhood buzz was that she and her parents were to be shunned. Her parents had done a miserable job raising this child. She was a sinner. She was a whore.

She was my friend.

And this is where the story splits in two and travels different roads until last year.

I remembered my mom told me to go to Susan's house and walk with her to school, just like I did every day. I always said I was lucky to have a mother who was not judgmental about that kind of thing. I also remembered that Susan's mother came by our house after dark one day and thanked my mother for her kindness. I'd repeated that story a million times.

Last year I was talking to mom about Susan. I wondered what could have happened to her. They sent her away to a girl's compound where unwed mothers, as they were then referred to, could have their babies. Susan's mother brought the child home and raised it as her own. We never saw Susan again.

I thanked mom for telling me not to avoid her.

My mother said she didn't believe she'd done that much. I asked her how she could think that and she replied, "Well, the day you came to me and said you were going to walk her to school, just like you always did, I realized that for you it was a matter of standing up for your friend and you really didn't care what anyone thought of you for it. So I didn't stop you. And when Susan's mother came by and thanked you for your kindness, I was very proud of you."

All these years I'd thought it was my mom who did the right thing, but it was me. She'd just agreed with my decision. Even if she hadn't I would have done it anyway. Throughout school I was always first in my class in the headstrong division.

Is a child born with an inner compass for right and wrong and even with their parents influence one way or the other, do they still feel that moral imperative? I believe there are good kids everywhere and some who aren't. I'm not sure parenting of any kind can help a natural born asshole.

End of chat.

Fall In Love With This Guy

Since I began the Teeshirter Program, not to be confused with The Betty Ford Center Program, in March of 2010, I've been surprised by what readers send in for their month riding shotgun on my sidebar.

This month is no different.

David McGrievey, the extremely popular blogger from An Illustrated Life, or as I like to refer to him, That Guy Who Draws Stuff Without Photoshop Unlike Other Bloggers Who Shall Remain Nameless, took time out from his very busy schedule of bar-hopping in the east village and making fun of badly dressed people in Bloomingdale's to draw me this:

I hope you're impressed.

I was.

Want your own free month of advertising that's not really free because you have to buy a shirt? Then click on the sidebar and order one. I'm currently booked through December so January is open.

If you're bored with old school blogging try the more fun blogging platform, Tumblr. I've started a blog over there on all things standup and other bloggers like Web Savvy Mom, Juli Ryan and Aunt Becky are over there too. It takes seconds to start your own and it's so idiot proof you can make your own template, change colors, load videos and pictures and just about anything else in no time at all. And the best thing about it? NO COMMENTS REQUIRED. And no one puts up long-ass posts about growing heirloom tomatoes or their vacation with pirates in Somalia, although I might actually read that.

The internet world has moved on. Again.

End of chat.

Not That It's Any Of Your Business But

People ask me if I forgot to have kids. And I always answer, yes, I was too busy.

I had laundry.

I have many reasons for not having kids. First of all, they run too fast; it's almost impossible to trip them. Plus they're too short to dance with and you can't borrow anything from them, they have no cash. What's the point?

They're also too loud. I had one next to me on a plane once and it emitted such a piercing scream we lost cabin pressure. It made me miss the smokers. At least a cigarette goes out in 3 minutes. In the bible Jesus says "Suffer the little children." I think he knew what he was talking about.

People always tell me, "You're a woman, you're supposed to have kids." Well, I always thought I was supposed to have a Rolls Royce but you won't see that at my house either.

And based on my personality this is probably the kid I would have had:

lolbaby.com

Did I ever seriously think about having kids? Getting pregnant: throwing up every morning and putting on 60 extra pounds, every woman's secret fantasy. Hearing the pitter patter of little feet running around my apartment, destroying everything I worked my whole life to get. Yeah, no.

Plus I would never voluntarily want to go into anything called Labor. Why don't they call it something I would want to go into? "Suzy, your contractions have started and any minute now you'll be going into... shopping."

And who are these women who want to be awake during childbirth? I don't even want to be awake during the conception. When you go to the dentist and he pulls out your teeth, you're not awake, so why would you be awake when they pull this giant baby out of you? And believe me, your mouth is a lot bigger. I’ve measured.

People with kids always want to know if they can bring them along when they visit single peoples' homes. Sure. Why not? And bring other things we don't have, like a plague of locusts or some fresh manure. Oh, and dip your kid in oil before you come, I hear that's good for wood furniture.

I don't think I'd be a very good parent. I was baby sitting this kid once and he said, "I'm going to drink a gallon of Sunny D without breathing" and I said, "Cool." And I'd be too protective. I can just see the day my kid came to me and pleaded, "Please Mom, let me go to school." And I'd reply, "You have plenty of time. You're only 24."

I like to date guys who already have kids. Then if they're screwed up I can say, "Not my fault, they came this way."

And to those women out there who have 6 or 7 kids and have never heard the words The Ozone Is Killing Us All, you need to close up shop. I was talking to this really drunk woman at a party and she said she had 8 kids. I asked her if she'd ever considered birth control and she said, "You know, it's really hard to get those little pills up in there."

Having a baby can lead to heart failure, pulmonary edema and a ruptured uterus. Forget teaching young girls about birth control, just tell them that.

End of chat.

Baby You Can Drive My Car - Part Two

I found a description of the difference between men's cars and women's cars. Men keep their cars spotless and their homes a mess. Women keep their homes spotless and their cars a mess.

I keep them both spotless but I'm a known liar.

I've noticed that a guy will cry if his car gets hit by another car. A woman will cry if she has to tell a guy that his car was hit by another car. That she was driving.

I really don't like any man driving my car.

I don't care what they claim but they have no idea where they're going. My ex-boyfriend and I took a trip to Palm Springs, in the desert. I fell asleep for 10 minutes. When I woke up there was snow everywhere. I said, "Where are we?" and he said "I think we're almost in Palm Springs." And I said, "Well, why don't we pull over here and ask this Canadian Mountie exactly where we are?"

When he's driving, it's always "We'll take a right at the light then turn left at the exit." When I'm driving it's “Get in the southbound lane and go west at that intersection." Like I'm Davy Crockett and there's a sundial in the car.

Moses wandered in the desert with the Jews for 40 years. I'm guessing that was supposed to be a 10 day trip. And Moses' wife probably spent the whole time saying, "Moses, don't be a schmuck, stop and ask Achmed where we are."

I have an elderly neighbor who I drive around so he can do his errands. He's 89 years old and reads every road sign out loud. FOOD GAS LODGING, 65 MILES PER HOUR, 280 MILES TO CALIFORNIA, which would scare me because he'd distracted me so much I'd crossed over into Arizona.

I'm still amazed they sent men to the moon with a car. What did they want to prove? That they couldn't ask for directions on two planets?

Los Angeles is a big city, 10 million people, and every one of them has a car aimed at you. The only time I was hit by a car I was standing in the bedroom. Of my apartment. On the second floor.

Everywhere you go you have to valet your car and depending on where you go, it can be very expensive. I once valeted at the new Wolfgang Puck restaurant and then couldn't make rent.

I hate to give them money to park a car. Maybe if they changed my oil I wouldn't mind so much. Of course if I go out with a guy and he won't valet, I think he's an asshole.

Another thing that drives me crazy about Los Angeles driving is when the stoplights go out and they send in police officers to direct traffic. Instead of, you know, catching killers. The cops start talking to you through your window. They’ll make 2 circles in the air and then point to the left and I’m thinking I got a 10 yard penalty and am offsides.

I understand why minivans put TV screens in the backseats for kids. Nothing is more boring than taking a long trip and having nothing to do but listen to the radio or CD's. Last year I started doing books on tape. Only once by accident I rented a dirty one and had to pull over and get a motel.

Which was embarrassing because I was alone.

End of chat.

Thanks For Stealing My Thunder, Oprah

Today is a very big day. Oprah starts her last year on ABC.

But more importantly it's my 4 year Blogoversary. And these are the 10 things I've learned so far:



1. Tell your story, of your family, your life, your every waking moment from breakfast to bedtime. Move your life forward. Don't move sideways. Or backwards.

I don't do this.



2. Leave witty comments on other people's blogs.

I don't do this either.



3. Don't swear.

I think we all know the answer to this one.



4. Comment on every single blog you follow, even if it means missing Christmas.

Ridiculous time suck.



5. Don't refer to people who leave comments as commentors. The correct word is Commentators.

I call them commenters. Wrong word and wrong spelling.



6. Don't name your blog something , like say Hollywood, that excludes anything else you might want to talk about because then people will expect you to talk exclusively about that and when you don't they will hate you.

Whatever.



7. Don't take sides. Don't have an opinion on anything. Stay as bland as you can and try not to offend anyone.

Open mouth, insert foot.



8. Give your family cutesy little names to protect their identities.

No way, if I'm going down I'm taking them with me.



9. Don't guest blog. Soon you'll run out of things to say and be sorry you gave away a perfectly good post. Since blogs and websites come and go with alarming frequency, you'll lose it for your own archives.

I've done 51 guest blog posts.



10. You'll lose most of your readers from your first year. People move on, get tired of reading about your life and move to other blogs, Facebook or Twitter.

@hotcomestodie



The most important thing I've learned about blogging is to be unique.

1. Can readers describe your blog in 3 words?
2. When they come to your site, do they always have a general idea of what to expect?
3. If you didn't put your name on a post, could someone pick it out of a group of other anonymous posts?
4. If someone was asked to write in your style, would they be able to?

If you answered No to any of these questions you have work to do. And by you I mean me. And by me I mean I need a nap.

End of chat.

September 11 bis

The day after in New York City

September 11, 2001

On September 11, 2001, I was at LAX waiting to board a flight to Florida. My Dad had died in January of that year and I spent a lot of time flying back and forth from Los Angeles, trying to get his affairs in order.

Our flight was boarding in less than 45 minutes so I went to the ladies' room to check my makeup in case I accidentally ended up on the pilot's lap in the cockpit.

As I entered I passed a little girl and her mother who were on their way out. "Why did that plane crash into the building?" the little girl asked. Thinking it was a story her mom might have read her, I wondered what kinds of children's books were being published these days. Wasn't Little Red Riding Hood and that wolf scary enough? Finding bears in your bed wasn't enough to give you nightmares? Now there were children's stories of planes crashing?

When I came out of the loo there was a crowd gathered around an airport bar, watching TV. As I got closer I saw that one tower of The World Trade Center was partially on fire and what looked like a plane was headed for the other one. Passengers were trying to explain to each other what might be going on but the sad reality was that no one really knew what was going on. A few folks reluctantly looked away, picked up their carry-ons and made for a gate as an announcement called them to their flight.

As people wandered away I elbowed my way closer to the bar to get a better look. I watched the coverage for a while and then I knew I had to leave. There was a pregnant woman next to me, alone and sitting on a bar stool. "Come on," I said quietly, "we need to get out of here." She looked at me but said nothing. Didn't even stand up. We stared at each other for a moment longer and then I took off.

As I ran down the corridors I heard the announcements over the loud speakers. All flights canceled. Go to baggage claim. Retrieve your luggage. Leave the airport immediately. At baggage claim Delta employees had flooded the area; there were three of them to every one of us. There was no panic. No pushing. No shoving.

A Delta employee found my bags and I went outside to wait for a cab. The line was long and I remembered thinking, "What if I can't get out of here?" But the taxis rolled up one after the other and people got in quickly. Silently.

As I drove away from LAX, I heard on the radio that they had just shut it down. No one was allowed to go in or out of the airport. I missed the shutdown by six minutes.

The next day I called my best friend, who worked at the State Department back then. I told her I needed to know if I was safe in Los Angeles or if I should leave town. She wouldn't give me any details about what was going on and said only this, "Be aware the target an icon makes and be careful."

To this day I don't know what my friend's cryptic message meant. She now works at Homeland Security so my chances of finding anything out are even slimmer than before. The only icons in California are the Golden Gate Bridge and Disneyland. Were they targets? Are they still?

I flew to Florida ten days later. There were six of us on the flight. The crew gave us free alcohol and sleep kits from First Class, which was empty.

A gay guy a few rows back asked if he could move up to my row. I nodded and as he sat down next to me he said, "Girrrrl, if I have to? I'm going to totally kick some ass."