On the Sept 12, 2010 episode of Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend, I attempted to cram viewer names into the show’s songs. (Music by Tom Rapp). http://alisonrosenshow.com http://alisonrosen.com http://twitter.com/alisonrosen (Distributed by Tubemogul.)
Archive | 2010
Clip from my appearance on The Joy Behar Show
An old but cute photo of Tobey I'm sharing because you're super into that
Bored on the plane yesterday and not quite feeling like watching my Facts of Life DVDs which I was smart enough to bring with me (last trip my biggest regrets were that I didn’t bring my Facts of Life DVDs or my fuzzy slippers which I like to wear on dates) I decided to look at some photos on my computer. I actually would have rather looked at email but this wasn’t one of those planes equipped with wifi. How did I feel about that? Lousy! Anyway, I came across the above adorable photo of Tobey which I’d seen before but hadn’t fully appreciated.
Lady Gaga's meat dress and other VMA thoughts
I’ll take three yards and use the leftover to make a scrunchie!
I have a lot of thoughts about Lady Gaga’s meat dress, thoughts which I’m going to share with you because you’re sitting over there looking lonely and like you might need a friend, preferably one who has thoughts about dresses made of meat. Actually, I have questions and thoughts. The questions?
Was it really raw meat?
Does it have to be refrigerated?
Does it smell? (What happens around dogs?)
What happens if you get the dress too close to a heat lamp?
Can you wear pork after labor day?
I mean, I should say that I find the dress brilliant. Not “Brillz” and not “brilliant” in the British slang way meaning “cool” but brilliant as in ingenious and clever because it’s the most talked about thing to come out of any otherwise pretty boring VMA show.
Also I find PETA and animal rights activists’ outrage over the dress perplexing because it’s not as if Lady Gaga is suggesting this is a hot look for fall and people all over are going to slaughter animals to wear their muscles. If anything the dress makes you think about the other parts of animals we use (leather, fur, etc.) and suggests those aren’t that different than bloody cuts of meat. Were the dress fashioned out of seitan or tofu or rice pilaf, the onlooker wouldn’t be forced to consider the brutality of fashion. Not that Gaga was intentionally making this particular point. She claimed today she was saying she felt like a piece of meat.
Also? I’m pretty sick of this Taylor Swift/Kanye West stuff and I was already sick of it after about a week of hearing about it when it happened. They’re like a couple that is really annoying when it fights and then even more annoying when it makes up.
Also? I think that might be all.
Oh! Yes! If you have questions for Angelina from Jersey Shore tweet them to @bcthomas, my radio pal, because he’s interviewing her this weekend and he wants to collect questions from my viewers or, in the case of this here blog, my readers. So get on that.
Also, I love you.
View from the balcony of my new favorite place
A sad and not very funny at all blog post which is also long
This will be a surprise to no one, but one of my defenses is to make jokes. It’s also one of my hobbies and oftentimes part of my job and something which brings me joy. But it’s definitely a defense, too. Recently Marvin and I were at a support group for people with parakeets and they were talking about portacaths. For those who don’t know, a portacath is a catheter implanted under the skin for people who need to be given IV drugs frequently or whose veins need to be accessed often (as in chemo or apparently hemodialysis, thank you wikipedia) and it saves unnecesary wear and tear on the veins and skin and instead puts it in the chest. See, I just made a joke and it wasn’t even funny. The point is everyone recommends these portacath things even though Marvin was resisting but more on that later. So there’s also something called (or referred to) as a “power port” which is like a portacath but has two areas that needles can be inserted into, or something. There was some discussion in the group about the differences. “What else can you do with a power port?” asked someone. “You can plug a hair dryer into it!” I wanted to yell, time and time again. I’m pretty sure everyone appreciated my biting the inside of my cheek instead. Then later a woman was talking about how she’d had a whole bunch of stuff removed and if she needed surgery again she wasn’t sure what was left to take. “Your money!” I wanted to yell. I’m pretty sure that one would have been met with laughter and applause and quite possibly the entire support group (“for patients, caregives welcome”) would have fallen at my feet and asked if I’m a professional. Then they would have told Marvin how lucky he/she is to have me around since my effervescent outlook surely keeps the dread at bay. I tell myself and Marvin this all the time. But I didn’t say it on the off chance that instead of making me queen of the support group they might turn on me and wonder who let this person who doesn’t even have The Marvins speak.
Anyway, Marvin availed him/herself of the portacath mostly because he/she was being pressured into it and it turns out that it was not the big nothing kind of outpatient procedure we’d been hoping for but instead the doctor was right when he said it would feel like someone punched you in the chest. I mean, it was outpatient and on the scale of procedures at the hospital not a major one, but Marvin was in pain after and was also kind of angry and just not having any of it.
So then the day after, Marvin and I went to a meditation class a the hospital not because Marvin wanted to but because he/she though it would probably be a good idea since the class is to reduce stress and learn to manage anxiety.
Though I don’t regularly meditate I’m fairly open to all that airy hippie shit and read self-help books and have had my head shrunk on numerous occasions and think it’s important and so it wasn’t hard for me to get into the groove. To grok it. To dig it. To vibe with it. To feel it. I’m noticing that apparently the only phrases that are coming to me are ones I’d never use because I’m not an asshole. Or rather I’m not that kind of asshole. Language has turned on me! Anyway, you get my point. Marvin on the other hand is trying to be open to meditation but I’m pretty sure fell asleep and slept through the class. I meanwhile imagined myself in a tiny canoe made out of a peapod, like the kind a mouse would ride in a Disney storybook, and I was bobbing along peacefully in the gentle waters in my peapod boat, listening to myself breathe in and out. The sky was reddish and I’m pretty sure my friends, The Rescuers, were nearby.
But then the woman leading the class told us to imagine we were standing on a beach, either in the sun or in the moonlight, and I chuckled a little to myself because couldn’t she tell I was in a boat? I was really enjoying the boat, too, and I didn’t want to have to come in to shore. Bitch kept talking though and before long I had to drop anchor and stand on the beach, which is not a euphemism in this case.
Then I started thinking about little Marvin and how I’d walked in on Marvin wearing an old, faded oversized pajama top that buttons in a way that doesn’t irritate the portacath, eyes red and rimmed with tears beneath his/her glasses with a bereft look on his/her face that said, “I’m breaking, I don’t know how to do this anymore,” the daily bullshit suddenly stretching out into a path of discomfort so total it obliterated the ability to hold out hope, to cling to small pleasures, to imagine a time the calendar won’t hold a series of frightening and possibly painful appointments, to feel safe in his/her body again.
And suddenly I ached to hug Marvin, to protect Marvin with my own body. And I began crying, thinking about how I wished I could just pick Marvin up on my own back and carry him/her until he/she was strong again. I imagine this is how a parent feels when their child is in pain. And the fusing of me with Marvin was so complete it simply became a situation where I’m in pain because Marvin is in pain. And then I wasn’t really meditating anymore, I was just sobbing.
Tobey is a tyrant!
My mom often talks about how Tobey gives her a guilt trip when she’s trying to leave the house without him and I often think she’s projecting/imagining because how can a dog give you a guilt trip? Then I take it one step further and think about how I grew up hearing that as an infant I demanded to be included in everything and had my parents wrapped around my little finger, which was exceedingly little as you can imagine. My parents were big on reading all those Dr. Spock child psych/behavior books, since this was the seventies (which is funny since I’m only 21) and so the way I’d spin my baby web was when they went to sleep I’d use my inexplicable baby strength to fashion a kind of hoist with my blanket and then I’d use a pop up toy to launch myself over the crib wall. Then I’d land safely, magically, and log roll into the family room where the books were kept. Sometimes I’d skateboard. Then I just shimmied up the wall like a mouse or spider or go-go dancer, grabbed the books and opened them up to “Ages 0 to 6 mos.” and changed all the prose to, “Do whatever your baby wants.” It was pretty easy, or, as my sister and I used to say in third grade, cinchy.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is when I hear volition being attributed to creatures who haven’t yet mastered walking upright (speaking of, when is Tobey going to do that? He’s already 3!), I’m skeptical.
But then yesterday I tried to leave the house without him and he really did look up at me as if to say, “We’re pals, we go everywhere together, you’re taking me with you, right?” I explained that this wasn’t the case at which point he sighed heavily, slammed the door and dyed his fur hot pink. Then he tied up the phone for what had to be hours. I’m trying my damnedest not to give into it but it’s difficult since he hid my keys and is now sleeping in my bed. (He’s letting me use his furry dog bed. He’s not heartless.) I’ve adjusted to the collar pretty well but the food is killing me. Hard, dry, pellet-type things which reek of some unidentifiable meat smell for breakfast, lunch and dinner. If I’m lucky someone will throw me a scrap of something that isn’t kibble. When it gets too much I sneak into the bathroom and pull Kleenexes from the trash. I can’t help it, they’re delicious.
Actually, this is why I'm single
Apparently I’m disgusting, as evidenced above. Previously I thought this was why I was single.
This house is a very sunny tar pit
I’ve likened my parent’s house to a tar pit before in that when I’m here I find it hard to get out and also I smell vaguely like gasoline and feathers stick to me, but usually that only applies to my relationship with the outside world. I get stuck in the house. As if there’s an electric fence surrounding it. An electric fence surrounding a tar pit. Today though I’m noticing an inability to go into the other room to get my portable hard drive which would allow me to edit a couple videos. Without it? Videos will not be happening, at least not at this computer. So then what’s stopping me from lifting my ass off this chair and using my legs to go into the other room and then sitting down and opening my laptop and ejecting the hard drive and then using those same legs to walk back into this room and diving behind this computer (over the pen jar and wastebasket and careful not to knock off the post it notes stuck to this computer) and plugging it in and then sitting back down in this chair? I fell asleep just thinking about it. Plus the other room is really sunny. Like too sunny to have to endure this early, which incidentally isn’t very early. It’s as if I’m hungover though I haven’t had a drink since August 8 or August 1. I can’t remember but it was after a show and it was one beer. Before that I hadn’t had a drink since months before. I make a beeline for fun and then I take a left turn right as I get there. So what I’m saying is I’m not hungover, I’m just lazy. But it’s not true laziness, it’s paralysis. This house paralyzes me and whereas previously it only kept me inside but free to move about, overnight it’s acting like insecticide, or maybe it’s nerve gas, in that I take a movement and then get stuck. Dammit, that would have been a somewhat decent metaphor if I remembered the science behind insecticide and nerve gas.
See, part if it is that I’m currently at my mom’s computer which is big and nice and orthopedically correct and has a nice big chair and though she’s left handed and I’m right handed which means I have to move the mouse when I sit here, I’m ok with that. This is juxtaposed to me sitting on the couch in the family room with my feet up on the coffee table and my laptop in my lap, squinting because the sun is beating the left side of my face through the picture windows and then trying to concentrate even though the TV is on, loud, and people are in the room talking or possibly arguing. Usually I get about as far as checking twitter and then I decide I’m done with whatever I’m doing, or maybe I sit like that for awhile and then I stand up and everything hurts. And then I realize I’m far too young for everything to hurt but I’m pretty sure the coffee table is at the exact wrong height to not create some kind of lumbar chaos. And while we’re on the topic, pretty much everyone in my family has orthopedic problems but I don’t. I have some kind of disc problem which I’ve had forever, ever since getting thrown from a horse when I was 9 or possibly I was born with it, we don’t know, but it very rarely if ever gives me problems. And I like to pride myself on being someone who isn’t complaining about physical ailments all the time, with the exception of that left eye twitch a year ago which I just had to talk about. It’s not that I don’t complain, I just like to only complain about superficial things or feelings/thoughts.
What was I saying? Oh yes, I’m squatting at this computer. Not literally. I’m in a chair. But I’m a squatter. I’ve done a land grab. I’ve annexed it. I’ve absconded with it except I’m pretty sure I’m using that word incorrectly. Let’s check. Yes, that’s not at all what I mean.
And if I get up to get my hard drive? I will quite possible lose this computer. So my plan is to sit here until plate techtonics cause the family room to move closer to the computer room. It’s unfortunate that I already need to pee.
And now I’m overhearing some bickering over which parent I’ll be driving where later. I’m like a yo-yo, only my parents aren’t divorced. They’re just irritable.
You guys, remember when I used to be fun and funny? I miss that!
An update of sorts
Marvin is doing well. In fact we just got back from going to a place where people with parakeets receive medicine and I wish I could say specifically what was going on however recently this conversation happened:
Me: Are you still wanting to keep this secret?
Marvin: Yep
Me: Can I at least say what the situation is since I’m not identifying you?
Marvin: I’d prefer if you didn’t.
So, onward with the parakeets and the Who Is Marvin and whatnot. I was pretty nervous about going to this particular aviary, shall we say (side note: that may not be the best metaphor) because for some reason it just freaked me out even though I’d heard that the mood in these places is light but when you really stop and think about it the spectre of death is right around the corner (past the inspirational posters and shelves of little porcelain angels), but then when you really stop and think about it, the spectre of death is always right around the corner. But at aviaries, when you go out to use the bathroom in the hall you hear some barfing/retching sounds, which is weird because so far Marvin hasn’t felt barfy/retchy.
But anyway, aside from the fact that someone was crying in there which then triggered my feeling like I wanted to cry response, it wasn’t bad at all and the chairs were comfy and I was able to avert my gaze when needles were being inserted into things (pin cushions, voodoo dolls, haystacks) and the magazines were gossipy and I marvel at the way some of the people with parakeets keep their spirits high. Speaking of keeping your spirits high, Marvin and another family member and I (spine-tingling side note: would it be nuts if it turned out that Marvin was ME? That would be an exciting twist, speaking strictly of narrative. But Marvin isn’t me.) listened to this guided visualization meditation CD because Marvin and this family member had gone to a meditation class and I hate that I’m so immature however I had a tough time not laughing during the CD because the woman leading it had a speech impediment. I’m not making this up. Her voice was still relaxing though, in an unfortunately comical way, and when she told us to relax and let it all out and someone farted (yet again, not me!) I tried to keep a straight face but I just couldn’t instead emitting the kind of laugh that’s produced from trying really hard not to laugh. A snortle-splosion.
In other news, I was just invited to play on a softball team. Like right this very second. My response? “Are you looking for someone who’s actually good at sports?” I just want to make sure these people are as serious about it as I am because if I have to carry the team again I’ll be pissed.
What team? What do you mean by again? (That’s you saying that.)
I’m referring to the time I led the 1968 Olympic downhill skiing team to victory before I tore all my rotator cuffs and had to have them tailored. It was a nightmare because the tailor didn’t know what he was doing. “Are you not trained in surgery and buttons?” I demanded. “You’re dangling by a thread there,” Armando yelled back, jabbing at the air with his little chalk marker thing which may or may not actually be soap. I forget what happened next but I was hauled off by security even though I was an injured —and now irate—Olympic medalist in an ill-fitting shirt.
In other news, James Fletcher will be appearing on my show soon. I mentioned him on the last show and I can’t get his album out of my mind! (Track number 4 “Don’t Say a Word” is my current favorite.)
Also, I have pictures of the food I ate in first class (did I mention I flew first class on my way out here? I did? A million times? Never mind then) because I was planning on interviewing myself about it, however I haven’t gotten around to it probably because I insist that I fax myself a request and I have neither a fax machine nor the time to deal with some spoiled starlet’s ridiculous demands.