The Silly Ones

Scanning my #$@! photos: A 21-Day Salute (Day the first)

look ma, one hand! Despite my busy-ness, despite my picayune woes, and mainly because I am both stubborn and perverse, I am going ahead with my monster plan for the next three weeks.

Yes, from the obsessive neurons that brought you Cheering the Hell Upâ„¢ and Cleaning My Damned Apartmentâ„¢ comes the next 21-Day Saluteâ„¢, Scanning My #$@! Photosâ„¢. You have The BF's anal-retentive brother to thank for this; on my recent visit to The BF Family Farm, I was both agitated and inspired by the masterful job The BF's Brother (a.k.a., TBFB) did on the family photos.

I suppose I should have dug deep, deep down into the detritus of my ancestors' photo boxes to find some more appropriate salutory photo. But frankly, I suspect that if one exists, it is at the very bottom of a scarily large pile.

So instead, I have chosen the above gem, taken on the set of one of the many Gatorade commercials I authored, me, whose lack of coordination was rivalled only by her lack of fashion sense.

Lest you miss the finer, more spectacular points of this photo, I must needs point out the following:

1. That actor-boy is holding up my out-of-shape, copywriter ass WITH ONE HAND!!!

2. My (white) cross-trainers have Velco straps!!!

3. I am wearing an actual Tilley Hat!!!

Betcha can't wait 'til tomorrow...

xxx c

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To do: demonstrate the beauty of listmaking

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  1. Acknowledge listmaking's traditional, order-making properties
  2. Show fancy, web 2.0 examples of above
  3. Introduce idea of listmaking as creative and/or social activity
  4. Show masterful executions of the above that demonstrate my unparalled genius with the form
  5. Show earnest misfire that humanizes me
  6. Show that list on epinions so I can get my last $10 and cash out
  7. Show how to beautify lists with Flickr
  8. Direct people to Lisa Nola's site (include link to her lists)
  9. Pimp the communicatrix's listography
  10. Get the hell off internet and work on actual to-do list

xxx c

Photo by magillicuddy via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

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Cleaning My Damned Apartment, Day 15: Don't forget your shower shoes!

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toes in tub Not, like the past two weeks, because of what you might catch in the scum-centric ecosystem that was my tub floor, but because it is newly smooth as a freshly-Zamboni'd ice rink and you might land on your ass.

Now if only I could find time for a soak with my new roomie...

xxx c

Photo by O Caritas via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

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Cleaning My Damned Apartment, Day 2: Things I Learned About Vinegar

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vinegar 1. It laughs at 6+ years of unsightly shower door buildup.

2. It dissolves in minutes the faucet scale that hours of swearing and hacking away at with a paring knife will not.

3. It has the potential to make corporate America very, very nervous.

4. Ditto the medical-industrial complex.

5. It burns! It buuuuuurns!

xxx c

Photo by evil Beth (best Flickr name ever!), used under a Creative Commons license

Searches, we get searchesâ„¢: superlong, tatty, remnant edition

searchesIt is a strange and wondrous thing: my fifty readers seem to be coming here on purpose, rather than randomly. Which is good for the ego, but bad bad bad for the Searchesâ„¢ feature. Should trends continue, I despair of anyone but my favorite diehards stumbling upon communicatrix-dot-com by accident. And god help my statistics if they ever puzzle out what NSA means on their own. Or if those freaks who want to see Peggy Hill in the altogether figure it out...

tricks for cutting brownies google.com

#1. Use a knife.

kierkegaard, dating google.dk

Book opportunity: Fifty Hi-Larious First Dates in Copenhagen!

forsaken all others in marriage google.com

Can you spell "pree-nupp"?

blooming onion diagram google.com

If you click on this, you get a third hand to help find your ass with.

writing a film analysis-sisterhood of the travelling pants google.com

Anatomy of a Plagiarism: BFA, 2006

theater sluts search.msn.com

Oh, please. Like there's any other kind.

blood coming out of your ass search.yahoo.com

If you have to ask, you can't abhor it.

neo-swiftian archetypes ask.com

This here communicatrix-dot-com is a CLASS ACT, people, a CLASS ACT!

"white jeans"drunk search.blogger.com

Don't blogsearch drunk, people. Especially in white jeans. The internets is forever...

monkey salad google.com

Why do I get the feeling someone was just too shy to add a comma and "toss my"?

coco search.arabia.msn.com

Okay, Bon, if I disappear, send someone to look for me in a harem in Riyadh.

mutual chemistry xxx google.com

True love, pornstar style.

similarities between casablanca and "the sound of music" google.com.br

A CLASS ACT film plagiarism site, people, CLASS ACT!

See you soon, my regular & faithful readers...

xxx
c

(Blue) List Wednesday: How to Swear Like The Communicatrix!

spiderman isn't happy It occurs to me that over the years, I have honed my swear vocabulary to a few tried and true favorites and a few (I think) completely made up swears. In the interest of sharing, or, more appropriately, in the interest of sharing to get you to share, I'm spilling them here, along with a brief provenance, where necessary.

Assmünch (n) (ass-moonch') Coined during the run of a play where all 36 of us were speaking with a different accent. Originally conceived in an act of extreme passive-aggressive frustration with a genial buffoon, it has with time mellowed to describe sort of a...genial buffoon. But, you know, with more affection. A-holio. (n) Fairly self-explanatory. I think it has a bit more playful flair than your garden variety "a-hole". Definitely a nod in here to the great Mike Judge and Cornholio. A-hole-a, rock-and-roll-a. (expression of frustration, usually uttered in car after a particularly egregious moving violation by a fellow driver) Written in iambic pentameter, it's important to chant this in the same rhythm of the line "Got a condo made of stone-a" from Steve Martin's comedy classic, "King Tut", preferably whilst turkey-bobbing one's head, to mimic the look of someone singing along with one's favorite song on the radio. Motherfuck. (extreme exclamation of dismay) Useful after dropping a large bowl of something sticky on a freshly-washed kitchen floor, or inadvertently deleting the contents of one's hard drive. Move your kiester, meester. (see "a-hole-a..." above) Not to be used for extreme driving infractions, this is more the verbal equivalent of foot-tapping or finger-drumming. Crap on a cracker! (mild exclamation of dismay) Sort of the swear equivalent of "well, I'll be!" Fuckmeister. 1. (n) an egregious a-holio; 2. (exclamation) a more extreme version of Shit on a shingle. (Note: when used to describe the former, accent is on the first syllable; for the latter, the second.) Fuck my potatoes. (exclamation of mild-to-medium dismay; see "shit on a shingle") Honestly, I have no idea how I came up with this one. But it has come to be my favorite swear, by far. I use it at least once a day. Fuck you, assfuck. (expression of extreme umbrage) To be used exclusively in the car, with the windows rolled up, at a safe distance from object of umbrage. Safety first, people.

So, you know, in case James Lipton never gets around to it: what's your favorite swear?

xxx c

UPDATE: Thanks to Erik for this ancient (but still excellent) link to celebrity swears.

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Photo by d_m_b via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Poetry Thursday: I am the COMMUNICA-trix

ctix lite paint Sometimes I think nobody reads communicatrix - dot - com except old boyfriends and people interested in the "trix" part.

They click here from Google and Yahoo! and comments I leave on D-Listed (my dirty little secret) expecting the hotness and probably the shortness.

Instead they find insanely long diatribes about poop and happiness and the importance of sorting out your poop if you want to find happiness and they leave.

Quickly.

Of course if I hammer on Microsoft or talk about my sex life or blog like a drunken pirate they can't get enough. What's an earnest middle-aged blowhard-evangelist of personal change to do? I want the eyeballs but I want them to care.

Caring eyeballs, that's what I want.

So for all of you who came here expecting sex and gossip and more sex I'm sorry, kids, despite the provocative name (which I'm not living up to) there's no leather and latex, no whips or crotch floss no NSA breathless confessions or Dear Penthouse Forum, You'll Never Believe What Happened to Me letters...

No gigantic cock sexy cheerleaders XXX porno MILF-granny-hot carl-dirty sanchez girl-on-girl action.

No pointy leather boots bustiers edible underwear nipple rings ball clamps butt plugs face masks or restrictive clothing here.

But if that's what you're into I hear Carly has a corset...

xxx c

With apologies to Robert Bruce, the really good poet who inspired me, and all other poets who actually get how to work in this form.

LINKY-LOOS:

Poetry Thursday is here. Neil Kramer (Citizen of the Month), from whom I heard about Poetry Thursday, is here. Carly Milne, who is hot and actually does own a corset, writes about lots of good stuff here. Finally, really, really good blogging & poetry at Robert Bruce's site, knifegunpen, here.

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Why I watch KING OF THE HILL every day from 5 - 6

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the guys as king of the hill Peggy Hill: (exasperated but patient) Luanne, have you ever wondered why I spend every Friday night with you?

Luanne: (tentative) Because I challenge you with my intellectual?

xxx c

More King of the Hill goodness at this GeoCities King of the Hill Information Site

Image "The Guys as King of the Hill" via MZ Web Productions Photo Gallery

Cheering the Hell Up, Day 14a: Special Numerical Bonus Edition! or "Reasons to Be Cheerful, Day 14"

numbers 1. 6 / 6 / (0)6 passed without incident!

2. Failure to wake up at prescribed hour of 7:30 made for exciting dash to first real estate appointment.

3. Airline moving my flight to a new gate with no electrical outlets in a concourse that was a 10-minute walk away on top of the 10-minute walk I'd just taken to change planes after I'd just plunked down $6.95 for WiFi creates great fodder for righteously indignant letter to the company.

4. Limit of two carry-on items made for even weight distribution on long walk.

5. Density and high poundage of aforementioned carry-on items made for excellent cardiovascular workout and strength training.

6. 6 / 6 / (0)6 passed without incident!

7. Approximate number of feet between me and Typhoid Mary on the flight from Chicago to LAX, whose key positioning offers spectacular real-life test of my seemingly robust health.

8. Number of dead mammals my rental car ran over on the drive from Bloomington to Indianapolis, whose key positioning filled me with gratitude for largish frontal lobe.

9. Number that all houses for sale and items at Wal-Mart end in.

10. 6 / 6 / (0)6 passed without incident!

xxx c

Photo by Mountainbread via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Cheering the Hell Up, Day 13: Stuff I have learned on my trip to the Midwest

indy house 1. There is a reason people are bigger here and it is called "potatoes".

2. Anyone who doubts the multiculturalism and quick wit of small town America has not worn pigtails, walked down a main street and had two brothers in a bright yellow TransAm yell "Pippi Longstocking!" at her out the window.

3. One-way streets may be the greatest traffic flow control device since the stoplight.

4. There are still places that exist where a house costing $200,000 is considered overpriced.

5. Even when the house is really nice.

6. And doesn't have wheels.

7. If you troll the unfamiliar neighborhoods of a small town in a rental car at slow speeds, prepare to be scrutinized with an intensity that big city liquor store owners can only begin to approximate.

8. If you troll the sidewalks of a college town and are over the age of 25, prepare to feel more invisible than a straight woman at the Gold's Gym in Hollywood.

9. When visiting land-locked states and given a choice between the fish or the beef, pick the beef. Seriously.

10. You can take the smartass out of the city, but you can't take the smartass out of the smartass...

Photo of an actual house that costs $200,000, including the parcel of land equal in size that abuts it.

Cheering the Hell Up, Day 08: Searches, We Get Searchesâ„¢

searchesIt has been a long time, my babies. What can I say, except perhaps that absence makes the font grow harder... home made lemonade stool softener (Google)

Just in time for summer BBQ fun!

.is there a patron saint for people of diets (MSN)

Um...Catherine of Bologna? No, wait, Jesus McChrist? No, no, I got it: Benignus of Dijon!

creamy snatch presents big gun (Google)

And people say the club scene has gotten tired...

flickr snatch shots (Google.com.ph)

I never get invited to join the good groups.

mercedes mccambridge techno (Google)

Enh. I liked the Joan Crawford remix better.

go take a long walk off a short pier (Google)

But don't forget to leave a comment before you go!

xxx spinach movie (MSN)

I'm comin' Olive...oh, I yam...I yaaaaam...

homemade pussy jello (Google)

Talk about not wanting to take the factory tour.

fantastic very sexy girl (MSN)

Uh-oh! Now are the foxes!

christians with ulcerative colitis (Technorati)

Jesus loves me/This I know/'Cause my colon/Tells me so...

xxx c

P.S. I will be Cheering the Hell Up offline until Tuesday, May 30th. Have a great holiday weekend, and LET'S BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!!!

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Cheering the Hell Up, Day 07: Why I love Global Warming

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inconvenient poster 1. Longer BBQ season.

2. Incessant worry over impending doom excellent for weight maintenance.

3. Oceanfront property in Stockton!

4. Hurricane/tornado/storm coverage makes good swirly patterns on Doppler Radarâ„¢.

5. Heavy winter clothes aggravate delicate Celtic skin.

6. Disproportionately large feet look better in flip-flops.

7. Warmer weather = more cool summer salads.

8. Costs less to heat spa.

9. Costs nothing to heat swimming pool.

10. Turns earnest, dull politicians into superhot slideshow presenters*.

xxx c

*Go see An Inconvenient Truth. If you live in NYC or LA, go THIS WEEKEND!!! It's moving, it's gorgeous, it will make you feel like you're a part of something bigger. Which you are, by the way, in case you didn't know...

Who's sexy now?

razr Dear Apple:

I love you. Seriously. I loooooooove you. I have drunk the Kool-Aid, forsaken all others, suffered through the application of an elaborate tribal tattoo on that little spot just above my crack. If you were an actual person, not only would I never forget your birthday and always bring you chicken soup in times of illness, I would probably also upon occasion drive around your house when you weren't there just to feel close to you.

So why you do me this way?

I know, I know, I used to run around on you with that bad, bad man. Not all the time, just for email and contacts. But I'm with you now. I abandoned my Palm for you. I started syncing to my eentsy-weentsy nano, even though I can barely make out those addresses in -4 font size. It wasn't a bad workaround, all things considered.

Still, a girl needs to feel connected. She needs to talk. And what do you do when I feel this need to express myself, to feel safe and connected? You proffer...the Rockr. The Rockr!!! 20+ years of bold, innovative thinking and the best you can muster is a half-assed music player cobbled onto a phone so ugly, it offends my ToastROven.

Good god, you're Apple! Apple, man! A design leader! A tech visionary! Creator of iTunes, the user-friendly UI and the hottest displays on the planet! And you're letting that behemoth Blackberry and that buggy-ass Treo horn in on your action? Get real, dude! No, I'm not seeing either of them...yet. I'm just dicking around with a Razr for now. He's not everything I want, but he can take care of my basic needs and, let's face it, I'm not ashamed to pull him out of my purse.

Look, I don't want to break up with you, but it's clear right now that we need some time apart. Who knows? Maybe this'll be kind of a wake-up call. Maybe once you see me juggling my Razr and nano and odd scraps of paper, trying to get by as best I can, you'll step up to the plate and be the brand leader I've come to know and love.

In the meantime, take care of yourself. I know the whole content upsell thing is fresh and new, but it can be a trap, too. You have one major asset over all your competitors, Mr. Hotty-Mc-Hot, and it ain't your price points.

Okay. I'm getting bitter now and I promised myself I wouldn't. I'll see you soon...white and silver and gleaming, vibrating with an iTunes ringtone, like a dream I dreamt but forgot.

Right?

Right?

xxx c

Photo by Brian Eric Ford via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

The online dating, she has tipped

Tasked with the challenge of designing a fake online dating site for a TV show, I registered with a few dating sites to gain access to their page layout.

Now before any of you cranks jump down my throat, I signed up (a) as a man (the fake site was supposed to be a chick's profile) and (b) with full disclosure to The BF, who was the one who commissioned the work in the first place.

I'm sorry to report that things have changed, and not for the better. I've already reported about the decline of the deliciously quirky Spring Street Network, but it's far, far worse now. Now, there is Chemistry.com.

An offshoot of its ho-clearinghouse cousin, Match.com, Chemistry is clearly born of Tickle's heavy 'psychological' profiling and the eHarmony pestilence that Dr. Neil Clark Warren has rained down upon us. Sign up for Chemistry and you will be led through a half-hour battery of personality tests. Tests designed to unearth the true you, so deep and probing and mysterious, you will marvel at the truths they reveal. Deep, probing, tests like this:

dating_2_hands.jpg

In hindsight, it's a miracle The BF and I have lasted as long as we have, what with our reckless disregard for digit compatibility. Neither did we have the benefit of prescreened testing for real-life assessment skills:

dating_1.jpg

Again, it's a good thing I gave The BF some extra-strong non-verbal cues on our second date, like inviting him in for a drink and having sex with him on the floor. Because I just quizzed him on the above picture and he was dead sure they were a sleeper anarcho-communist cell plotting the overthrow of the Mall of America.

To be fair, the fine scientists at Chemistry aren't leaving all the chemistry up to their psychological profiling. After running the test gauntlet, I had to fill out the extensive questionnaire so that my prospective matches could feel me via my charm and wit, and vet me for height, weight and eye color deficiencies. As I do not look much like a man in any of my current photos and am understandably reluctant to use certain others (I want my prospective dates to love me for me, not my proximity to celebrity), I elected not to upload a photo. But the magical matching computers at Chemistry did their thing and provided me with upwards of 50 matches, any of whom I could email right now if I forked over a membership fee.

I pulled up the first profile, the cleverly named "Mary" (remember, for our purposes here, I'm a man, albeit a very short, very slight one). Based on the extensive tests we'd both taken, here was one of my soul mate matches:

dating-mary.jpg

Well, as anyone who is even a semi-habitual reader of communicatrix-dot-com knows, it was like reading a mirror! Or maybe, reading something I held up in a mirror, only like maybe in a dream, so everything wasn't backwards. I injoy cildern a lot! I'm more a fan of dinning in than out, but hey, for someone who can turn me on to wica (pagan) and midevil reinactments, I need to make a few compromises! The chemistry is profound!

Alas, my profile was ultimately rejected. Apparently, they didn't think "Colleen" was a suitable name for a gentleman on the rarified rolls of Chemistry. Ah, well.

I'm sorry, "Mary." Sorrier than I can say...

xxx
c

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Behold! the fugliosity that was me in advertising!

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Today I auditioned for a spot I'd really like to book. The part is funny, the casting director is smart (meaning, the spots he casts are low in cheese factor) and, imagine, I could use the money. Casting directors often give a group explanation prior to a string of individual auditions to save time and so we don't stink up their tapes with super-creative, actor-y input. Today, after reiterating his usual acting directive, "Very small, very real, very 'film'", a directive which I now hear in some form from nearly every casting director on nearly every call, leaving me to wonder why there is still so much bad, over-the-top acting in commercials, this casting director drove the point home by letting drop that the director of this particular spot also directed Junebug. The implication being, if you know Junebug, you know what we're looking for and if you don't, you're going to give a bad, over-the-top performance which we will waste no time in erasing from our tape.

Now, I have not, in fact, seen Junebug, but I am familiar with the vernacular the CD was tossing out. You see, I like to keep up with my worlds colliding, so I happen to know that Junebug was directed by one Phil Morrison, with whom I worked on a series of Wheaties commercials which I wrote in my previous incarnation as an advertising copywriter.

Normally, this ain't no big thang. That life was long, long ago, and most people's memories don't extend that far, especially when it comes to remembering the copywriter, who is slightly less important than an apple box on a commercial set. In fact, we're seen as so inconsequential, we're frequently not invited to the shoot at all: I wrote a Gatorade commercial shot by the notorious Joe Pytka, but was subsequently hired as an actor on a couple of his commercials. Of course, I was not in attendance at the former and saw no reason to bring up the connection at either of the latter, so it really didn't take much to fly under the radar.

The Wheaties commercials, however, were a slightly bigger deal. There were lots of verbal shenanigans in my tricky little scripts, so I was actually consulted on this or that more than once. Plus the spots starred Michael Jordan! Michael Effin'* Jordan!!! This was a huge break for the then-very-young Phil, whom we found via some groovy interstitials he'd done for MTV. Plus...Michael Effin' Jordan! Surely Phil would remember every minute detail of that week we spent together on a Chicago soundstage, I thought.

That is, I thought until I uncovered this commemorative photo of me**, MJ, and an assortment of client-side and agency dorks:

MJ_and_me.jpg

Now not only am I certain Phil Morrison will not know me from Adam, I am also sorely tempted to submit myself to that Oprah show where they're looking for people who look better today than they did 10 years ago.

Because (a) I am pretty sure I'm fugly enough in my high-waisted, reverse-fit jeans to win a free trip back to Chicago and (b) if they give me two round-trip tickets, maybe I can convince The BF not to break up with me for revealing my shame...

xxx c

*And if his middle name isn't "effin'", I'd like suggest right now that he change it; my god, could he have a more appropriate middle name?

**If you can't find me in the group, I would be the one on second from the left, doing my impersonation of a really unattractive lesbian. Good at it, aren't I?

UPDATE: Link to larger sizes of my fugliosity at Flickr, here.