ooooh...

I don't fucking understand this:

kat -- [noun]: A beat poet working the streets 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

This one is ironic since I'm from Texas. Maybe quizzes on the internet have the key to my future!!

In a Past Life...

You Were: A Friendly Assassin. Where You Lived: Texas. How You Died: Hung for treason.

Who Were You In a Past Life?

I need some SALVATION, already!

Oh. My. GOD.

So, turns out the most difficult thing to do in the whole world isn't climbing Mt. Everest or the Sunday New York Times crossword. It's donating shit you don't need anymore to charity.

About a month ago I got a lovely idea. I was home on a weekday, a rare weekday home all day from work, cleaning the living crap out of my apartment. I managed to fill a couple of large garbage bags with old clothes, and I still have that old computer from college I have been meaning to offload. All in all, a small but respectable amount of stuff.

I called the Salvation Army to schedule a pickup, and, hearing that there was a substantial wait to book such a small one, told the guy I would try again after seeing what strings I could pull. My idea was to check with the management of my building and pool together some of the 200+ residents to see if we couldn't get more things, warranting a bigger truck and a more timely pickup date. The first few people I talked to, after casting fearful eyes at the office, told me I had to talk to the monster lurking within known as "Denise." I figured, hey, who could possibly have a problem with a charitable donation they themselves don't have to do shit with? And it might even be a tax writeoff for the building! I will be the marveltenant by which all other marveltenants are measured!

So I go and talk to the succubus Denise, lurking behind a caramel half-caf triple-soy latte the size of my bike. I told her my idea, suggesting that it was, in fact, me who would do the work, call the Salvation Army, put up flyers and spread the word to the other tenants. Without missing a single beat, she allowed an enormously patronizing smile to spread across her face before simply saying, "No."

"No? Just 'no?'"

"See, what you don't realize is that it would be a gigantic pest hazard."

"Pests? Like rats? Ants?"

"Bedbugs. Among other things."

According to Mme. Denise, Mistress of Pain, our building is simply CRAWLING with bedbugs, or at least the POTENTIAL for bedbugs. And other things. Like, I don't know, MALAISE. She basically glowered at my optimism and pushed me out of her office so she could get back to the business of raising rents and installing ugly carpet and evicting old ladies.

So I, being an accomodating person, went back up to my apartment I called the van man back and we fixed a date a month away since I had such a small pickup. I consigned a portion of my bedroom formerly housing my view to a pile of crap.

The date we had fixed came. It was, in fact, yesterday. I had promised I would be home without exception from 8:00-4:00 anxiously awaiting the truck people. I did get the laundry done and do some intense swiffing, but other than that the day was a loss. Made more so by the phone call I received at 3:15 pm from someone named Nolan from Salvation Army, explaining problems with the truck, needing to reschedule. I told Nolan I couldn't be home all day again today, and he suggested I leave the crap with the door staff. I've left things with them before -- keys for the catsitter, scripts to be picked up, etc. So I imagined it wouldn't be a problem. I went down to the desk just to double-check this hypothesis with the desk sitter. He said 'no, no problem at all' and looked at me like I was paranoid.

I rang Nolan back and fixed it for today, then went out for a walk to celebrate being allowed to leave the apartment. Not 5 minutes after I had returned there was a vicious knock on the door.

Denise, blowing steam and badly in need of an attitude transplant, stood jubilantly outside my door. She handed me a rent statement (never a good way to begin, in my opinion) before launching into her tirade.

"You can't have this cart out here. You can't have anything at all in the hallway."
(I had taken a moving cart from the basement for transporting my things to the front desk).

"Ok. I'll move it. Should I just bring my things down now then, even though they're getting picked up tomorrow?"

At this she gave an audible twitch and stepped closer to me. She then proceeded to explain, as if to a 7 year-old, that she remembered me from a month ago, and she remembered explaining to me then that I couldn't store anything in the common areas of the building.

"But I've just been told that it was ok to leave things for a couple of hours when I'm not in to meet the truck."

"That's not true. I remember our conversation perfectly well."

So the bitch pretty much accused me of lying. Then she re-iterated what she perceived to be my three options for getting rid of stuff: I could buy a car and take it to the center myself; I could stay home all day to hand it to the people; I could throw it in the garbage.

"You're telling me a COMPUTER that works perfectly well should be thrown in the garbage because it's a rick for BEDBUGS?"

And then she said something so completely ridiculous and offensive I had to really pay attention to not smacking her one:

"I'm not saying this to be mean."

Now, I honestly don't understand this kind of nerve. Why anyone, ANYONE, ever talks to adults like they are kids or babies or petulant teenagers is so totally beyond me I can't even describe it. The phrase Denise just uttered, complete with requisite patronizing smirk, made me so angry I had to carefully pick and choose my reply.

"Here's the thing, Denise. I never accused you of being mean. I don't have time to think about whether you're being mean or not. The only aspect of this that I care about is what the HELL I am supposed to do tomorrow. I don't actually give a rat's ass whether your intention is to be mean, or to be friendly, or to be the tooth fairy for Halloween. Nothing could really matter less to me than that. What matters to me is my life and my situation, and the ramifications for that if I have to restructure yet another day of my life around resolving this tremendously overblown problem."

And then, because she was treating me like a teenager, I slammed the door in her face.

Needless to say, it was by then too late to call the truck people back and have them not come. So here I sit, for the second straight day, waiting to give something away for free.

The Man, and by that I mean Denise, has won this round. But I'm really curious about what I can do here. It seems very wrong to me that giving things to charity has to be so difficult. No wonder there isn't enough stuff to go around. People are always throwing useable things away because not everyone can call off work for half a week to sit home and watch the potential for bedbugs happen.

What I need is a handle on some citizens' advocacy group, or someone who knows how to fix this problem. I don't want to file a complaint against my management company, because there is only one person I want to feel this one. Every other person who works in my building has never been anything but nice, helpful, and friendly. If the company gets a fine for discrimination or something, the money won't come out of her pocket anyway. I want the one person who is discouraging the well-to-do denizens of Lincoln Park from donating goods to charity to catch this one right in the ass.

Any tips? Any lawyers out there feel like 'donating' some advice?

Back on the theatre horse

So. 2 auditions today, for plays, and then a film audition on the 8th. Wish me luck. I'm trying to do the 'plant plenty of seeds, pick a few flowers' approach. Or maybe it's called the shotgun effect. Or maybe it has to do with having hands wide enough to throw two baseballs at the same time.

Anyway, I figure if I start auditioning for things I don't entirely depend on, I can afford a few practice rounds before I get really invested.

I never used to hate auditioning like this before. I never really liked it except when I was a kid, because I got the first three parts I auditioned for. I was something like nine years old the first time I didn't get cast, and all of a sudden there was the, 'wait, you don't want me? someone did it better? how? why?' that all actors understand at a certain point if they keep at it long enough.

Several people (friends whom I think know me pretty well) have assumed I will quit, which hurts a little. They ask, 'soo, now that you have the L.M.T. license, I guess you'll stop doing shows, right?' or 'it must be such a relief to not have to worry about auditioning anymore!' Well, sorry to rain on your relief parade. I don't see myself ever stopping. The whole reason I went back to school and got a massage therapy license was so I could work fewer hours, make more money, and have control over my schedule. And I don't want these things because I'm lazy. I am trying to corral my work obligations to make room for WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO WITH MY TIME. Which is theatre and film. GOOD theatre and film.

On the upside of all this. I do find myself pickier about the auditions I'll go to. They can't be plays I don't like and they can't be shitty student films and I won't put up with raunchy commercial auditions where I'm asked to simulate an orgasm caused by Philadelphia cream cheese. Sorry. I guess that's just me.

The Steppenwolf audition I didn't tell anyone I had went well. I felt wrong for the part, but I was well-prepared and didn't embarrass myself. So I figure at least they saw me do a good read. It's way too early to know if anything will ever come of it.

That's the whole story. I'm off to staple headshots, and work on monologues, and figure out what I can do with my hair that makes me simultaneously look like a French cafe society-type and a sixties prostitute and a teenager from Cuba!

A hair self-indulgent, but cheaper than therapy...

ok, so maybe that title is overly judgmental and obnoxious. I don't think people who see shrinks to figure things out are necessarily self-indulgent. That point is neither here nor there. Another day maybe I'll talk about therapy (what I know of it, which isn't a lot), as well as my complicated relationships with SSRIs (selective seratonin re-uptake inhibitors ie. Prozac), which is complicated given that I have a long unsatisfying history of never taking them and yet having them indirectly affect me.

Yep. It's going to be one of those.

I have a good friend who writes a great sex column. She is a completely fabulous girl to hang out with, and personally I find her very inspiring because she works 7 days a week, multiple jobs, remains buoyant and not tired-looking and manages to write a lot and have great sex and not put up with any crap. At least this is how she appears to me.

The latest column had to do with sexual slang. The word in focus was slump-buster. Apparently a slump-buster is the token non-hottie in a group of female friends who makes all her friends look and feel more gorgeous by comparison. Guys usually sleep with the slump-buster when they are in a bit of a low patch sexually and need to get laid again in order to raise their self-esteem for the hunting of more serious contenders. Another name for the slump-buster is the grenade. As in what one guy has to fall on top of to keep his buddies alive.

Here's what's puzzling to me. In my groups of friends (work friends, school friends, friends friends, etc.) I am often the single female out with couples. I am often the one who isn't dating anyone. I am frequently the one required to provide the humorous 'single perspective' on world events. Tales of the odd men who hit on me, the strange, puzzling pick-up lines that come my way, stories of the weird things I did in college, when I was not the only single person anywhere. When I go out with the girls I work with, many of whom are unmarried yet still in full thrall of their dating potential, I frequently have to leave when they start talking about the guys they're dating, because I have nothing to share.

My work pals and I always get the following comment: "You ALL work at the bookstore? But you're ALL gorgeous!" And then everyone but me gets to go home with someone, and I am left with the underage brother of someone, or the divorced dad from out of town, or someone's ex who wants to 'commiserate.' There is not one girl I know who is clearly a grenade or a slump-buster. Which makes me wonder: given the track record and the history and everything else, are there some groups of gorgeous women where there isn't a slump-buster? Or am I the slump-buster? And then: I can't be the slump-buster; I'm not getting enough action! And then: maybe other slump-busters are hotter than me! And then: how do I know if I'm that girl?

The inviolable secrets of the universe taunt me. Who shot JFK, or for that matter, JR? Why are parkways where you drive and driveways where you park? And lastly, most scarily: How do you know if you're the low-roller?

Sniffin for love

According to a piece playing on the radio behind me, women on the pill are encouraged to go off it for a brief period before they get married. The logic behind this, according to whoever is talking, is that hormones in the pill cause women to crave "protection," ie. being with a man whose smell reminds them of their father or brothers. For this reason, the pill is apparently being accused, albeit by teeniebopper radio, of perpetuating dishonest relationships and divorce. ie. if I marry someone because the pills I take tell my brain his smell is comforting, then years later I go off the pill because I am trying to have a baby or I don't need the pill anymore for whatever reason, I may no longer be attracted to this man because the attraction may have been based on the heaps and heaps of progesterone in my system.
Is this just another attempt to undermine safe sex? What if I'm attracted to someone in spite of what they smell like? What if I didn't grow up with brothers, or what if my father's smell has no protective connotations for me? Hmmm? What do you say to that, bopper radio?

First and only..

It's amazing! I always discover things 1-2 years after they're cool. Any tips from my numerous blogger friends would be appreciated. Helllloooo Kat! Welcome to the 19th century!