Annoint my head, annointy, nointy

Getting onto certain talk shows puts a star in the artist caste. One of these shows is Charlie Rose. I love Charlie, I really do. My first boss in New York was friendly with the producers of Charlie Rose and used to send them faxes all the time with publicist speak and salutations like "lovey". That's when I first became aware that there was a person named Charlie Rose who had a floating table in blackest space where alien life forms from various media would land.

I think some of the interviews are pretty insightful and/or incisive, some are the usual worshipper fare and some of them surprise the hell out of me. Like last night's interview with The White Stripes. The White Stripes? What in God's name were they doing on Charlie Rose? I mean I know they get tons of buzz and rave critical reviews, but aren't they a bit, I don't know, gothic or something for Charlie Rose? Just seeing them sitting there like this was going to be an intellectual discourse about their innovative technique made me blink a few times. (Side note, why does Jack White want to look like the spawn of Satan and the Pillsbury Dough Boy?)


What scared me even more is that Charlie Rose was practically genuflecting in worship of them. Isn't Charlie Rose a little mature for their sort of thing? I would think somebody kind of brought him up to speed on who they are (hell, I'm not even cool enough to know more than a couple of their tunes), but he was seriously smitten. And what's up with the two White Stripes, anyway? What a weird kind of relationship they must have.

Meg White seemed shallower than my daughter's bath water and Charlie didn't even try to draw her out much. I'm still giving her the benefit of the doubt, but her portion of the interview was kind of like, "I just want to reach people and feel their energy. I do whatever Jack wants me to do."

So, Mr. Rose spent most of the time wanting to know how it was for a God like Jack to dwell on this earth with mere mortals. I have to admit that Jack did seem pretty smart. Weird in kind of a scary way, but smart. Did you know that he produced Loretta Lynn's recent album? Yeah, it was one of those shows.

It happens to everyone

I've never been a big fan of crude humor, save for a few hilariously funny movie scenes (Dumb and Dumber) or snippets from novels (Grapes of Wrath). In general I find toilet humor or sexual humor to just be stupid. I think it's because it's all been recycled a little too much. Plus, I'm kind of a snob, anyway.

So translate my mild disgust with, uh, natural urges to real life. I hate all the noises associated with bodily functions, my own and especially other people's. I'm not talking about sex noises. That's a whole 'nother realm altogether which is more of a...keep it on the DL issue. I mean that I hate when people's bodies make telltale noises that say something's just not right in here. When someone has a chronic cough or throat clearing issues, I'm often thinking, "God, can't you do that somewhere else?" Pretty snotty, right? Don't get me started on things that people can control like chewing loudly with open mouths. Eeewwww.

I think my mom sort of fostered this sensitivity to noises because she was always, always making a big deal about manners, particularly table manners. Over time, I myself became accutely aware of all the sounds of impolite eating. Now I can't even stand when people drink too fast and you can here glugging and liquid traversing the esophagus. I often point out to those closest to me when their noises are putting me off (you know, when they're horrendously ill, suffering from allergies or in need of the Heimlich Maneuver). I displayed my full caretaking capacities this very night when I sent a sick family member off to fend for himself because I couldn't take his sinus' soliloquy anymore. I'm a nurturer, can't you tell?

Funny how instincts work, though, my daughter's noises never bother me. In fact, I find them all endearing. But one day I'm sure I'll get my come uppance, as they say, when this same girl will be nauseated by the wiggling of my dentures and the tap-tap of my cane when I come over to her house for Thanksgiving dinner in 2050.

I always listen to the words

So I was very proud of myself for reopening a story that I'd previously written. For whatever reason, it had been on my mind lately and I kept thinking that it just had something. A nugget of brilliance, if I do say so myself. But you have to do some serious mining to find it.

It's been resting now for a good six months, so I figured I could be more objective about it now. I tend to fall in love a little too much with my own description (this is where I excel), so I need the resting period in order to stop cooing over accidental, but lovely alliteration and the turn of the phrase. I don't know why my brain works this way, but I've always been a sucker for words. I like clever and sometimes I get too rapt in the melifluous words to see that the whole piece needs CPR.

I opened the piece as it was last revised. I had a time limit since my daughter was at nursery school, so I got right down to business. I turned on the comments to give myself a good talking to. The first page was great! Man, it had a catchy opening, the dialogue was good, the description was right on. The characters were taking on a personality. I was grinning to myself, thinking, "You see, you were right! This one is good. It has something."

Then there was the second page and the third. Still interesting, some great elements, but I already had to insert a few comments. Then the plot began to escalate and the climax was coming (oy, please don't go there) and things were starting to get, well, a little ridiculous. This story was a spinoff of a larger idea which I had never fleshed out and somehow I guess I figured the whole world would know that when reading it. It made no sense whatsoever! G-sus.

The comments couldn't even keep up anymore. I realized I had worked my lovely story into an almost undoable, tightly pulled knot. There was action and suspense (are you surprised?), but no freakin' basis in any kind of reality. What was I thinking? I'll tell you what. I was thinking that I liked my own words, who needs plot anyway?

Now I am still trying to figure out if I can salvage something good from this conundrum. I might be too lazy to write the whole long story that I originally dreamt up. (I don't think dreamt is a word, but I like it. My grandma says words like that.) Anyway, at least I cracked the cover after a very, very long hiatus. I have to put the little math/science nerd that lives in my brain to work on this puzzle. As most of my deep thoughts and ideas in life, I hope the solution will appear in my sleep. If not, at least in the shower.

Just so you don't think I've forgotten...

I'm a lazy, tired, extremely round bump on a log. Too tired and liquid-brained to write anything worth reading on this blog. I've tried to start a few times recently, but my complete apathy for anything but sleep, food and desperate hope for relief from the now chronic pelvic joint and bone pain makes it impossible. Damn. I only have three more months until my life is literally swept away in a storm of baby crying, boobies and toddler jealousy and what am I doing with it?

Nuthin'. Nada.

I think I'm in that nesting phase or some other mental retardation. All I do when given momentary access to the wireless connection is research cloth diapers, look at maternity clothes, look for blinds and read completely mindless forum or "news" chatter.

Once in a while I watch something with redeeming value on TV. I saw Jodie Foster on the Actors Studio. God that host is an ass. One of these movie yo-yo's has to call him on his blatant pomposity sometime. Geez. Anyway, Jodie is one of those special people that's brilliant and beautiful and doesn't give a crap what people think about her. She's accomplished a ridiculous amount in life. There I was eating trail mix with lots of chocolate chip type things, building energy for my exertion of stretching out on the couch far enough to make the remote work with the cable box.

Now I have to start sleeping at an earlier hour before this baby literally kicks my ass. With that my favorite people, bon nuit.