Yes, The Y'All's Are Back

It's Halloween! To tell the truth, I kind of hate Halloween, because I hate having the kind of attention drawn to me that comes with, say, wearing a leotard and roller skates on the streets of Manhattan. For this reason I've mostly opted for large, shapeless, unweildy costumes and as many grotesque props as possible. I figure if people are going to notice me, I'd rather have it be for lumpiness than for sexiness. I get hit on by enough old men as it is.

The best costume I've ever seen - and I so wish I had a photo to post here - was worn by my sister, Zoe LaMarche, in 1992. Zoe was dressed as a Hershey's kiss, and wore a huge dome made of wire and tin foil. She looked like the cutest little upside-down mushroom, with her little arms and brown tights-clad legs sticking out. The best part, though, was that she was in brownface. It's not racist if it's for art, people. And have you ever seen a beige Hershey Kiss? I didn't think so. Incidentally, if you've never seen a six year-old in a Hershey's Kiss costume roll down a hill, you haven't lived.

This Halloween Jeff and I decided to bring a pair of our alter egos to life. Since Jeff is an actor, and I am just a general spaz, we often have improvised dialogues in character. Our favorite characters, who we brought to life on Saturday, are Earl and Leila Mae, backwards yokels who spend their time discussing the care (or lack thereof) of their numerous children, all of whom are named Earl (with numerous 'Jr.'s tacked on to the end). I like to think I'm a fairly cosmopolitan girl, but put me in a mullet and I am walking a scary Aileen Wournos-Chryssie Hynde line.

Jeff really blew me away with his Earl costume. Mostly I just couldn't get over his resemblance to Patrick Swayze in Point Break.













This just makes me so excited for future family Sears portraits:




















Happy Halloween, y'all!

Yes, The Y'All's Are Back

Six Degrees of Celebrity Baked Goods

So, my favorite celebrity encounter to relate to others is when Robert Sean Leonard ate my muffin, because it sounds so dirty when announced without explanation.

I was working on a documentary film shoot with the cast of Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”, and there were muffins in the vicinity – specifically a delectable corn muffin, half of which I had eaten when I was called away to do something. The next thing I knew, Robert Sean Leonard was eating the rest of my muffin. I have to say I was pretty jazzed about it. I mean, in his day RSL was pretty tasty, if a little on the skinny side. So if Robbie Sean needed my corn muffin to put some meat on his bones, I say amen. However, it is kind of fucked up to take somebody’s half-eaten pastry.

That said, I did it today, in a perfect, celebrity circle-completing way.

A certain star was in the office today. A not too famous but not unfamous movie star. We had thrown a goodbye party for one of the employees, and there were left-over cupcakes in the conference room. I had already eaten two (which is neither here nor there nor relevant, but I just want you to have all the facts). Despite being super teeny, the actress helped herself to a cupcake. I thought she had eaten it all, but when I went in later to forage for Diet Coke I saw part of her uneaten cupcake sitting on a plate. Now, I am not the kind of person who would sell Britney Spears’ half-eaten corndog on eBay, but I eat left-over junk all the time. I’ve been known to eat M&Ms off of the floor (I even picked one up off of the New York City street once – hey, it has a candy shell, okay?). So really, it wouldn’t have been at all out of character for me to have eaten the cupcake simply out of sugar lust. However, I saw more than just a crumble of cake and a smear of frosting; I saw an opportunity for justice. Robert Sean Leonard had eaten half of my muffin, so I would eat half of this celebrity’s cupcake. The world would be at peace, finally.

Update: The world may be at peace, but my stomach is not amused by the two and a half cupcakes. On the bright side, I think I have a good t-shirt slogan:

Robert Sean Leonard ate my muffin and all I got was IBS.

Six Degrees of Celebrity Baked Goods

Fantasy Reality Show Ejection: America's Next Top Model

Stupid Friendster wouldn't accept my full testimonial for my dear friend Beth, so I'm posting it here in it's entirety:

Beth and Una, TWO beautiful girls stand before me, but I only have ONE photo in my hand. That’s TWO girls and ONE photo. TWO minus ONE. Get it? Got it good? Better recognize my math skills.

Una, the judges were very disappointed to discover, during the last challenge in which you were photographed water-skiing in full African tribal garb, that you have been on stilts this whole time. Even more troubling are the multiple skull fractures suffered by your fellow contestants when your stilts slipped off of the skis and flew at them at speeds upwards of 70 miles per hour.

Beth, while you are very beautiful and not a midget like your friend, the judges felt that you were not fierce enough in your interpretation of Buk, Goddess of Rivers and Streams. Furthermore we feel that you did not “work” the feral Chilean monkey you were given as a prop. Mr. Jay says that other girls saw you nipping from a bottle of Tanqueray prior to getting on your water skis, and I know I don’t need to tell you how that could have turned out …

Make sure it doesn’t happen again, Beth. You are still in the running towards becoming America’s Next Top Model.

I have also written a fantasy ejection from The Amazing Race ... why do I waste my time on this, you ask? Because having an overactive imagination and using it for useless projects IS HOW I ROLL. If I can find it you know I'll post it.

Fantasy Reality Show Ejection: America's Next Top Model

One Singular Sensation

I am already prone to emerging from Broadway musicals doing high kicks and swooning “I want to be a dancer!”, so going to see A Chorus Line last night was basically inviting a big, sparkly, lamé aneurysm.

And I loved every minute of it! If I could go back in time to when I was six and demand that I wanted to be a dancer, future saddlebags be damned, I so totally would.

One Singular Sensation

Wedding Journal Day 1 ... neither a journal nor about weddings

Days left until wedding: 365
Number of wedding magazines read: 1
Number of Diet Cokes (so far): 1
Number of fake breasts currently on person: 2
Number of co-workers frightened: 3

So a few months ago my friend Chessa got married and I was her maid of honor. The dress she picked for the bridal party, while gorgeous, did absolutely nothing for my rack. I resigned myself to a withered chiffon bust … until one day I came across a website selling curious little silicone cutlets that were intended to be stuffed into bras to increase cup size. I ordered them, and they came in the mail ….

Yesterday.

Ordered June 2006, arrived October 2006. Oh well. The important thing is that I have them now, and am indeed wearing them in secret. They feel a bit funny, but I’m hell bent on getting my money’s worth.

So far, no one in my office will take me up on my dare to poke me in the chest with a pencil, but the day is young …

Wedding Journal Day 1 ... neither a journal nor about weddings

Wheeeee!

So I’m a bride-to-be. It’s wonderful, it’s weird, and it’s conducive to drinking lots of champagne. I know that weddings are often portrayed as stressful events, but four days into it, I can tell you that being engaged rocks so far.

The engagement “story”, for those of you who want to know these things, goes like this:

On Friday night (the 13th, which some might consider a questionable omen, EXCEPT that 13 is my lucky number as I was born on the 13th of April. Which also means that Friday was my half birthday. But I digress…) Jeff and I went to a dinner party hosted by my mother and attended by a randy British couple, a few other mixed-and-matched parents, and their collective progeny, who passed an enjoyable evening shouting and hurling themselves down flights of stairs. In other words, a recipe for romance.

No, but seriously, the dinner party was a lot of fun, and Jeff and I wandered home around 11:00, both of us tipsy from too much wine. Nothing was out of the ordinary, so I was surprised when, upon entering our apartment, Jeff dropped to one knee.

“Honey,” I said, taking off my coat with inebriated patience, “Did you drop something?”
Jeff looked up at me adoringly. “Marry me,” he said.
I laughed. “Yes.” I replied, and kissed him. We migrated to the couch.
“Will you marry me?” he asked again.

What followed were about ten minutes of my asking the same question, rephrased: “Are you serious?”; “Really?”; “You’re drunk, aren’t you?”; “If this is a joke, I will kick your ass.” (Not a question, granted, but a related threat). Jeff assured me that he was very serious, and, as a last protective measure I threw down the gauntlet.

“I’m calling my sister,” I said, watching his face for signs of surrender. “Once I call my sister it’s real.”

Jeff leaned back and cocked one eyebrow. “Go ahead,” he taunted.

I called Zoe, and she screamed and squealed and cried, and then I screamed and squealed while Jeff looked somewhat taken aback. Then he took me into the dining room and we danced to Fred Astaire singing “Cheek to Cheek.”

And now, not five days later, we’re set to be married on a Friday next October. And we couldn’t be happier.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! You guys, I’m getting married! I fear that you are in for a long year, dear readers. I hope you care a lot about things like place settings and fabric swatches. As we go through the preparations together, just remember:

Champagne makes everything easier.

Wheeeee!

Something Old, Something New, Something Blogged, Something Blue

So, the earlier post was an homage to the Juliet Lewis-Giovanni Ribisi flick "The Other Sister", in which two mentally challenged people find love.

But yes, for real, Jeff asked me to marry him, and I said yes.

WHAT?!

This is so surreal. But I can't stop fucking smiling.

P.S. We were drunk when we posted that last night ... and my Dad called me this morning, all "Do you have something you'd like to tell me???" I didn't mean to tell the whole world (read: 27 people) before my immediate family, but we were giddy. My apologies.

Something Old, Something New, Something Blogged, Something Blue

He Loves Me, Mom

... and he's going to marry me!

He Loves Me, Mom

I Get So Emotional, Baby

To paraphrase Grey’s Anatomy, there is a land called Irrational Hysteria, and I am their queen.

I am an artist working on a tear-streaked canvas of indignant rage, a master sculptor of outlandish ultimatums, a thrower of glorious fits. I am an emoter of the highest degree and I say woe unto him who tries to navigate my deep and tempestuous waters.

If you didn’t think I was dramatic, see above paragraph.

Seriously, though, if there was a prize for emoting, I would win it. I have always been prone to extreme hysterical outbursts. When I was two, I screamed, cried, and tried to climb out the window of a car because I wanted fried chicken that was being transported in the trunk. At age eight, I had a tantrum at my birthday party because people weren’t arriving on time and, as a result, we were going to be late for The Gods Must Be Crazy II. Most infamous (among my family members at least) is the Great Christmas Cookie Incident of 1992. Every year, my mother, sister and I bake and decorate roll-out cookies. After a tumultuous start to my junior high life, during which I started a new, incredibly competitive school and developed insomnia, resulting in my sleeping on a futon on my parents’ floor and sobbing when asked to return to my own bed, I was looking forward to the familiar comforts of holiday traditions … until I dropped the cookies. I dropped the whole tray, and the cookies broke on the floor. I was inconsolable. I screamed at a pitch that only dogs could hear. I beat my fists against the wall. I cried until my eyes were swollen shut.

This episode is a good example of how I roll, emotionally speaking. I have – for better or worse, genetically encoded – a tendency to feel things very acutely and indelibly. I also have a compulsion to express every feeling I have, which results in the sort of over reactive hysteria that one associates with silent movie damsels in distress or, of late, David Gest.

I don’t really question whether this behavior will go away (it won’t), but I constantly struggle with how to live with it. On the one hand, my emotional outbursts embarrass and humble me – coming down from the high of passionate feeling, I am humiliated by the things I said, the way I acted, and the very fervor with which I justified my behavior. On the other hand, I’m secretly glad that I’m so passionate and emotional. It may make me a bad sport sometimes, or a scary girlfriend, but it also makes me a compassionate friend, a great artist, and someone who loves very truly, madly, and deeply.

There’s no conclusion to this post. I just need to end it by wondering: how much can we really change about ourselves? Is it more important to accept ourselves as we are, or to try to change so that we can avoid the embarrassment, guilt, and sadness that comes from letting our messy selves come out to play?

I wish I could come up with a good, thought-provoking metaphor to close this post. Here are a few; choose your fave:

1. I guess, in a way, we’re all reaching for that fried chicken in the great trunk of life.
2. I guess the Gods really are crazy.
3. I guess, in the end, I’d rather be the queen of Irrational Hysteria than a mere page.

I Get So Emotional, Baby

Ode to My Ones

I have many Ones. I have the One who shares my bed and a love of David Sedaris, Dane Cook, and chocolate chip cookies. I have the One who birthed me and who lets me do my laundry at her home even now that I'm technically a self-sufficient grown up. I have the One who shares at least half of my genes (but with better legs) who understands me better than anyone. I have the One who is my father and who therefore, for oedipal reasons, cannot be referred to as the One (but he's pretty great).

And then there are my friends, my army of Ones, each luminous in his or her own way and coveted to extents they cannot possibly grasp (or, perhaps, do not want to know).

I hope that you know who you are, but in case you don't, here you are:

Ode to My Ones