Out of Hiding (And Happy New Year)

Um. Well. Hi, all. Been a while. Wish I had a creative excuse to explain away my absence. I can think of a few off the top of my head. Feel free to use any of them for your own nefarious purposes:

1. Laid up in bed with a debilitating case of typhus (not to be confused with typhoid, by the way. You contract the former from lice, and the latter from contaminated water.).

2. Revelling in an erotic maelstrom with Kevin Kline, Liam Neeson, the long-haired greasy guy from the Metallica cover band that plays down at that bar on the Lower East Side where the kosher deli where the Rosenbergs shopped used to be*, the Hitachi Magic Wand, and various fictional characters including but not limited to Rhett Butler, Atticus Finch, and Konstantin from Chekov's The Seagull.

3. On a six-week goodwill tour of Africa, trying to undo the damage wrought by overzealous, ill-informed Mormon missionaries. I was nice about it, though.

4. Smashing each and every roach in my kitchen with a stiletto heel.

5. Getting wasted with Jimmy Page.

6. Learning to clog dance from a band of schizophrenic midgets.

7. Writing the Great American Novel, getting it published, winning the National Book Award, punching Jonathan Franzen in the face at the book release party, and spending two weeks in Riker's.

8. Spending two weeks in Riker's without all the glam-fab prelude.

9. Playing Stella Kowalski at Circle in the Square. (Hint, agents, directors, et. al.!)

10. Imprisoned in a straitjacket in a padded cell at Bellevue after distributing leaflets emphasizing the political importance of eating a teaspoon of wheat germ with every meal.

Impressive, no? Sad to say, I was engaged in none of the above. Oh, I could well have undertaken the roach project, and there are plenty of times wherein I think the men in white with the butterfly net should well cart me off to the bin and dope me up with Thorazine, but the truth is, as always, so much more mundane. I was working a temp job at a property management office in Midtown East/Turtle Bay and instead of using my considerable computer time to subject y'all to my verbal masturbation, I spent it reading the old "7th Heaven" recaps on Television Without Pity. Now, there are certainly far worse ways to spend one's time, but I nonetheless allowed myself to be lulled into a state of passivity that, while it afforded me the opportunity to feel superior to a TV family of the Xtian faith, prevented me from coming out of my head and doing the things that needed to be done to join the land of the living.

Oh, yes, and I came down with a stomach bug, and just as I was recovering from that, I came down with a cold, and in the middle of transitioning from one disease to another, I found out that someone was using my stolen driver's license to (badly) forge my signature on some cheques that may or may not belong to a couple in Mount Kisco who may or may not exist. Fortunately, the NYPD was very helpful and efficient and caught that rapscallion thief in no time. (How much of that statement would you guess is true?)

On the bright side? I finally met the lovely Ayun Halliday at Vox Pops in some neighborhood in the middle of nowhere, Brooklyn--no one seemed to quite know where we were, although Miss Ayunee suggested the name of the enclave was Ditmas Heights. Missed the reading, and stood around feeling like the most awkward, dweebiest lump of nothing this side of the East River (I swear, I have not felt that awkward and lame since college! Well, except for that time I was in a bar and I went up to say hi to this singer on whom I had a huge crush and he snipped "Hi" at me and turned away and the friend I was with kept giving me pitying stares and I didn't know who to bash with a meat axe first, and I include myself in that. We're all cool now, except I haven't actually spoken to the friend or the singer in two years) until I introduced myself to Ayun H. and she recognized me as "Karla from the MySpace group". Sigh. Double bonus points for letting me use her cell phone to make several interrupted and thus panicky calls to a friend whose party I was agitating to attend way the hell down (up?) by the river in Williamsburg. (Did I make it? I'll never tell! Oh, the suspense!)**

I'm hesitant to mention this next item, because I don't want to jinx it, but I am very strongly in the running for a slot in an improv comedy troupe called the Grown-Ups Playground, which struts its stuff at the New York Comedy Club (East 24th between 2nd and 3rd in Manhattan) every Saturday night at 6 pm. I'll be performing my trial show on January 13, so if you're in the NYC area, please come down and take a gander. Well, unless I fuck up, in which case, stay the hell away. BIG SHOUT-OUT to Sarito for the tip-off!

New Year's Resolutions? Feh. Lose weight, I guess. Be a better person. Maybe I should make some. I need some focus right now. Odd-numbered years throw me off. They're too linear. I prefer the roundness of a six or an eight. Don't ask why, 'cause I don't really know.

I can tell you this--I feel MUCH safer now that Saddam Hussein has been hanged. I'm sure we all do, as well as supremely vindicated. Har.

Till next, loved ones...

*Doesn't exist, but it could!
**Yes--barely. But that's another story, and I'm a tease.