Someone wanted to see some of my more straightforward reporting so I made this not very fancy video which I’m sharing with you, lovers, because I keep no secrets from you. What’s mine is my blog’s is yours. Also, I’m kind of shaky/overworked right now but I met the scary deadlines, I think. I say “I think” because sometimes turning in a story is like kicking a wayward child out of the nest—a lot of work and yet you know he’s likely to return with a few STDs or knocked up with editor’s notes. Oh, also I should say that I think maybe I was confusing in my post about going to LA. I went there to interview other people. One for Page Six Magazine and one for Maxim magazine. Not job interviews, except actually they are job interviews, just not for jobs. Did that make sense? Nothing makes sense anymore I’m so tired. I went to rest my head against the wall and because I’m retarded I “rested” my head too quickly and kind of bounced my head off the wall. It was refreshingly painful really. Like a breath of fresh head trauma. Like a concussive blast of nerve endings. Okay, here’s the video. I’m longwinded when my brain is pushing on my skull.
Author Archive | Alison Rosen
prune tease
When I have a moment later, readers, remind me to regale you with a deep thought I had about prunes! I was going to say remind me to regale you with an observation I had about prunes but for some reason that suggests that I myself ate the prunes and then observed, which is not what happened. It was more conceptual. And more from afar. Sort of like here I am on the sidelines, noticing things. Things about prunes.
Hello from the depths of deadline hell
Blog readers, I have not forsaken you, I promise. My love for you grows each day. Sometimes I look at you and my heart swells. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have an embolism[UPDATE: I MEAN ANEURYSM. THIS REALIZATION KEPT ME UP LAST NIGHT. NOT THAT MY LOVE FOR YOU ISN’T LIKE AN AIR BUBBLE] kind of love for you.
I’m just in deadline hell right now, which is a later stage of what I was claiming to be in a few days ago, which was article-writing hell. I’ll put it in Red Eye intro terms: If stress were horses, I’d be taking a crap in Central Park right now. But you see, I haven’t forgotten you, not one bit. I’ve been holding each of you in my swollen heart. In fact, yesterday I held you in my heart as I traveled up and down the 405 freeway. And for how long were you trapped in there near my ripe bosoms? Well I had to be in WeHo (that’s West Hollywood and I can’t figure out if it’s said ironically or not) at 10:30am so I left at 8:18am. I was flying down the freeway listening to music and thinking about how maybe I could get used to this driving lifestyle again and maybe I ought to give LA a chance (yes I’m from here but never really considered living in LA as an adult. So Cal was just a place I was caught for some years in an in-between stage, but that’s a story for another day). Anyway, so I’m flying along and loving everything and the morning is glowing and my chakras are oscillating and then I hit a half hour stop-and-go nightmare in Long Beach and I watched minutes tick by and everything slowed and got blurry and distorted and I wanted to punch everyone and everything and the world no longer held much promise, just a trafficky snarl extending out, forever, to the horizon. So finally after nearly running a light which made my heart beat in an exhilarating and yet potentially deadly way, I got to the damn interview. I could go into the rest of the day, but suffice it to say I saw a lot of famous people at the Polo Lounge, site of interview number two, and I longed for the convenience of the subway. “If I were doing this in New York, doing two interviews in one day wouldn’t be stressful at all because I wouldn’t have to drive,” I explained to my LA friend. “If I were in New York, I would be thinking, this is stressful, I wish I were driving,” he said. So there you go.
Oh and the ride home was a couple hours not including getting lost on the way to the gas station first.
The Goldenrod Footbridge
I used to live in Corona del Mar, California. In fact, I called it home for untold millions of years, so it’s quite a surprise then that I’d never been acquainted with the quaint charms of the Goldenrod Footbridge, pictured here:
It dates back to 1928, cost a mere $10, 229 (or something like that) and it’s made entirely of feet. As such, the smell is, shall we say, intense, especially in the summer, but still, you don’t have to be some kind of bridge-o-philiac to realize that painting bloody feet stumps to make them look like concrete and flowers is pretty amazing. In fact, I first thought the bridge was made of just that—concrete and flowers—until I read the sign. Embarrassment City, Population: Me!
Now I’m pretty sure I know what you’re thinking: What did they do with all the shoes? (That’s what you were thinking, right?) They probably gave them to charity or used them to make footprints in the sand to fool people into thinking God was carrying them. That’s what I’d do, and one thing I’ve learned in my 21 years on God’s green earth is that I’m not that unusual or special and there’s nothing new under the sun. Even if you were to take all the legs from the stumps and toss in the shoelaces and make some kind of stew or goulash and then put it in cans and sell it? Already been thought of! (Probably)
But a bridge made of feet? I wouldn’t have thought of that. Guess that’s why I’m an astronaut and also a doctor of Western medicine but a practitioner of Eastern, and not a civil engineer.
I get invited to their functions often—I mean, we travel in the same circles and they rely on my findings and general analytical acuity for things like blueprinting, drafting and Friday night trivia.
But have I actually built bridges before or designed anything on CAD software? I’d have to say no.
I’d say it while assuming the lotus position and drinking green tea but also wearing a stethoscope under my spacesuit. It’s just how I roll.
Should you ever be lucky enough to visit me in the flesh–that is, if I’m not in outer space–I’d probably offer you freeze dried ice cream because we astronauts get it by the barrel full. Actually, it’s kind of inconvenient to try to get it out of the barrel in outer space because it just starts floating away and then your spaceship mom (each spaceship is assigned a ‘spaceship mom’ who acts as a den mother of sorts) gets mad at you for space littering. It’s like, get off my back, spaceship mom! Don’t tell me how to orbit!
So
I discovered last night that the thing I thought was due April 7 is due the week of April 7. This fills me with dread/delight. Sort of like if a drug addict who wants to quit discovers a big crack rock in their sock drawer. I suspect I’ll be smoking this deadline extension and hating myself.
The wisdom of my dad
I overheard him say something sage on the phone yesterday. Appreciate it in all its succinct poetry:
“Yeah, shit seems to come in fuckloads.”
not that gender confused ED jokes really need context, but…
It’s unfortunate when you’re having a conversation on the phone with someone of the opposite sex—and the topic of health insurance comes up—and he says that he needs to made sure he’s fully covered for all the menopause drugs he’ll need, so you say that you want to make sure you’re covered for erectile dysfunction, and then afterwards you’re thinking that the connection was so bad you’re not entirely sure he really said that thing about menopause drugs, but you are sure you said that thing about suffering erectile dysfunction.
this cracked me up
“I need to talk to you about your jury dutice.” —my mom, in a rush, trying to say “jury duty notice”
(Yes, I’ve been called for jury dutice in a city in which I haven’t lived for six years. I think I’ll do it! I’ll do my dutice!)
I'm in CA
Sorry readers, didn’t mean to be so cryptic. Or did I?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Anyway, I’m back in California playing guitar at another wedding. Not really. I’m getting my hair straightened. Not really, I’m here for work. I thought it would be super awesome but now that I’m by the beach and on deadline(s) I’m realizing that I wish I were just on vacation! Not that I like the beach, but that the beach makes you want to be on vacation.
Could I possibly say and then negate anything more in the above paragraph? No. Get it?
I was thinking about liveblogging the flight, except I wouldn’t be able to truly liveblog it since you have to turn off the internal transmitters of the [this is where my brain tunes out] but anyway, the things I would have said were:
1. I found a loogie sitting on the floor of the airplane bathroom. I thought of cleaning it up, and then decided that I didn’t want to come in that close contact with it. Instead I had to basically do this uncomfortable hopping gyrating thing to move around in there so as to avoid accidentally dragging a shoelace through said throat snot. Just thinking about it makes me want to retch.
2. okay, maybe it was a small puddle of soapy water
3. I’m not sure though
4. it was about two inches from the toilet. I don’t even want to think about what it was.
5. Foamy urine?
6. ugh
7. Hell’s Kitchen is entertaining. I’d never seen it before. But Bobby? Infuriating!
8. Real Housewives of NYC is kind of boring.
9. Six hours and 17 minutes flying time is long time to try to get into a show.
10. The male flight attendant smelled good. First I thought he was albino and I was thinking that were I liveblogging this I would say that the flight attendant is albino, and I wonder if that’s good luck. But by the end of the flight I’d totally come around to realizing he both had pigment and smelled good.
11. I really liked that band Belly. Liked/like. I was listening to King on the plane which I recently found and put on my iPod and then I was thinking that I listened to this album 13 years ago or something and am I a relic? Are my tastes fossilized? I liked/like Throwing Muses too and I still list them when people ask about my favorite bands, but I’d forgotten about Belly.
12. So then I decided to listen to Whatever Hits from the 90s or whatever it’s called. But I only listened to a couple songs. I had to scroll past a lot of them.
13. I’m procrastinating.
14. I mean, the funny thing is that I don’t even really like girl singers, or in the old days I didn’t. With the exception of Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donnelly.
15. The old days being before I started playing in a band because I think that changed my tastes.
16. Tobey is as cute as ever, in case you’re wondering.
17. Fred the Jade Plant and Rita the Golden Pothos (yes, I have another houseplant. I was waiting for the right time to tell you. Number 17 is as good a time as any) are doing well, for those who asked.
18. “Wouch” or “WOWCH” is what you should say when someone surprises you by saying something insulting. (wow + ouch)
19. Guyvice is when a guy offers you guy advice (guy + advice) except I was recently told that “guyvice sounds like a device to make my head explode.”
Still at the airport
So I'm still here. The flight is delayed. What am I wearing, you might be wondering, since I so publically made an issue of how I travel in comfortable clothes even if it means I look like crap and in fact I kind of like looking like crap when I fly bc its insurance against people talking to you although now that I think about it, that doesn't quite hold up. Even the ugly are conversed with. But anyway, I'm wearing a prom dress with pumps dyed to match. The whole thing is lavender but I'm wearing large black and fuschia enamel earrings for a pop of color. It might sound uncomfortable–taffeta can be scratchy– but you see I'm wearing it over an oversized tie dye tshirt and leggings outfit with the face of a tiger appliqued on the front. You can't see the tiger bc of the prom dress, which is on purpose. The tiger takes an otherwise tasteful tie dyed pink (oh yeah, did I forget to mention?) tshirt and leggings outfit which I picked up in atlantic city and pushes it over the edge, and I think when you're traveling that's a time to reel it in. For that reason I'm only wearing one armful of bracelets instead of two. And I'm not wearing my headgear, I don't care what you say Dr. Leir! Oh, looks like we're boarding now!
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