April sours bring May flowers?

April 2010 was perhaps the roughest month of my life. Ever…people! Ow! Can I get a winning lottery ticket now? Or a hug from a hunky guy wearing a Speedo. It mostly had to do with  cancer, of course. I went through 12 days of radiation which nearly burnt the lower half of my face  off. Good news….it did shrink the tumor in my chin and neck. Doesn’t mean I’m cured however, since  I will be  starting “Cancer: The Musical Part 2” with some heavy duty chemotherapy in two weeks. And it could well mean Bald witty. Can I make that look hot? Maybe. I’ve already lost almost 20 pounds this month.  I mean I’m already almost on the verge of being hot as it is.

Did I miss any school? Hell no. I’m a tough Irish chick, although  many of my co-students were shooting these semi-frightened side-ways glances at the weird chick with the bright red chin and wondering “What’s up with that?” You know how 18 years old are though.

I did try to punctuate all the doom and gloom with some occasional fun, so besides painting and drawing for school, I also participated in the  uber cool bi-yearly Goth-Dead People-Big Boobed Women’s art show. Had two paintings and a photo of me in my much more photogenic days….

I’m ready for my close up, Mr. De Melbrooks.

It was a fairly fun night, if you count the transsexual (Marny) who ran around the bar yelling and screaming and eventually ending up in the alley, face-down in her own puke. Thank goodness my friend, Sci-Fi Guy  noticed this rather Lindsey Lohanesque incident and made sure he flipped her over so she wasn’t inhaling crusty bits from her incredibly liquored up stomach.

And you think I’ve got it bad!! I actually made that  into my mantra recently.  Like I’ll see a dead possum on the middle of the road and say “See witty, it could be worse. You could be a squished possum!”  

As mentioned, I did attend school the whole month. Fortunately things are going better in that arena. My artwork isn’t necessarily the first one people look at during our class critiques anymore . But it is, indeed difficult to maintain a high level of awesomeness when you’re taking morphine to blunt the worst  pain in your life.

Squished possom. Squished possom. Squished possom.

 But like wow, have I everbeen  able to draw clouds on morphine. I felt like all I really needed was to cue up some Grace Slick music, stand on a hilltop in a halter dress with the wind blowing blowing through my hair as I watched the dancing pink rabbits do the watusi around me.

My mom has been freaking out every time I drive though. There was only one day I was driving home from her house  when suddenly I didn’t know where the hell I was. And I NEVER get lost. I’m like a human GPS instrument. As a kid, my mother would even look down at me at nearly every corner and say, “Which way?” Naturally, since I was only 5 years old, I didn’t know my left from my right, so I’d just poke my arm up and point in the apparently correct direction, since we always got home.

But yeah, that one particular day I looked through my front windshield and pretty much saw an Impressionistic version of reality and couldn’t quite place where the hell I was. It was a little unnerving. I actually think perhaps it was more the pain than the drugs.

Lets see, what else? Oh, there was “The incident” where Tall Skinny Guy totally trashed my writing ability. Can you imagine? Me? My writing ability? What? Really?

My art group is having a conference next month and I was going to write a press release for the event,you know,  since Tall Skinny Guy writes like a squirrel on Metamucil. Naturally there was a slight delay from me,  since I was dealing with a lot of junk and needed a few days to finish up my radiation treatments and do mountains of homework. He knew this. I told him both in e-mails and in person.  So what does he do a mere hour after I specifically told him this? He sends out a frantic e-mail to our board members telling them he needs someone to write a press release ASAP. Help, help!  This really ticked me off, but since I know he’s kind of a dweeb, I let it slide.

So the very next day, as promised, I finally sat down and wrote the damn press release. I used quotes from our artists. I indicated that our two day event was tied together, so yes, sign up for both classes, not just one. I did everything correct. And then I sent it to him. No response.

Then two days later I see him at the Goth art show. For some reason he has this incredibly heavy duty crush on me. I’ve never encouraged it any way, that’s for damn sure. So he plops down on the couch next to me and starts jabbering about something. A rock band was playing so I couldn’t really hear him that well. I then hear, “By the way…the press release you wrote? It would  really only appeal to little old blue haired ladies”.

WTF???  WHAT-T_T-T? I can write circles around you. I’m like Elvis the King to your cook at Denney’s. WTF??? He then added a few more offensive things like wondering aloud if it was okay to submit my homework  as my artwork for the show.   I finally just got up off the couch to go talk to “L” the Hippy chick. I didn’t tell her what he said since she’d probably go kick him in the balls.  He then later found me again  and told me he was leaving and could he walk me to my car.

In your dreams, buddy.

 So I steamed around for a couple of days and then I did the worst possible thing. I suddenly believed him. Yeah, like  maybe he’s right. Maybe it did  totally suck. And it was just about the same time I had to write an artist statement about my upcoming solo art show in May. I had the worst problem writing it. I had written another one for my last show and was trying to find it in my new computer (yes, the sale of two  paintings in April happily afforded me the ability to finally buy my own new computer. Yay! Thanks art buyer, you know who you are. 🙂

He finally wrote me a note two days later saying he was a jerk, but somehow managed to sling off yet another insult (he said my press release read like a stale newspaper article). And he then had the audacity to ask  me to write something up on our website for an event we had just had. No.fucking.way. I ignored his e-mail.

So tonight I attended a friend’s art show here in the Village. My decision to walk down there and back was possibly one of my worst ever. I now have a really bad cough right now and coughed so severely going up the hill, I almost threw up.

Anyways, Tall Skinny Guy comes  in all smiles, like there’s witty, my goddess. Oh how stunning  she looks in that red thrift store sun dress (and I did dammit!). Naturally he cornered me and started talking like crazy, something he’s usually incapable of. I guess he just started seeing a shrink (probably regarding penis envy. Just a guess though.) Unfortunately that is my favorite subject. Shrinks. I’m like the ultimate expert on shrinks, since at one point I was seeing  two of them simultaneously….you know since how in the hell could only one person  handle the 3000 feet deep swirling caldron of wittykitty angst.

So yes, I gave him a few pointers on how to handle shrinks. Like never say “You’re right. I should put an ad in Match.com”.  Stuff like that. It wasn’t until he uttered the word “sex” in some context, that I kinda recoiled in sudden horror  and walked out on the porch of the gallery to knock back a few glasses of Diet Coke with some old dude who told me that the Belgium beer tasted like codeine.

… But like Eeew! Sex. Tall Skinny Guy…. sex? does not compute, does not computer, does not compute. Eep!

Lets just say, it was just slightly more creepy than when Guardcat excitedly hauled ass over to my desk tonight with a live mouse in her mouth….the one she  dropped abruptly at my feet and it ran under the couch that I sleep on.

Bad kitty …Eep!

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fifty two chances to be awesome

I turned fifty two last week. Its such a dull number. I mean there’s no movies named after it like -“Ten” or musicals  like “Nine” or even TV shows like ’24’.  And its not even like 50, which was one big fucking deal. I had three birthday parties that year and I’m not even popular.

Nope, it was just boring little 52. Yawn. What? You want us to notice you? You better at least lift your shirt or something.  Okay, I was pretty damn popular on Facebook. I think I had close to 40 birthday greetings. They didn’t know about the boring number part though. I just pretended it was something fabulous like 46, which is what my neighbor guessed I was. Of course I do live at the Crazy Hilton and she might have just needed a medication adjustment. I also had some nice gifties from my awesome diaryland buddies (yes, diaryland still exists…I think)…the sexy cast of “Nine” all rolled into one… Ms. HissandTell, my secret penpal AnnaNotBob, the hilarious Poolagirl, who shares my birthday and the lovely Bluey from Canada.

Life has been crazy if not stressful lately though. The birthday thing included my yearly birthday party at my aunt’s house. She makes pretty little cakes and my mom sits and talks about herself endlessly.  Hey! Sorta like the last 52 years. She forgets that I’m the guest of honor. I usually eventually wander into my aunt’s living room and play Broadway musicals on the piano, you know, briefly living out that fantasy I had of being in show business many years ago. My first few jobs were actually  in the theatre field…playing the piano for musical productions. The last one was playing the piano in a whorehouse…for a show of course (heh!)  and getting fired. Can you imagine? Me getting fired from a whorehouse! It was a travesty!

But I got my revenge, dearies! I became a theatre critic for newspapers. Ha ha ha! Off with their heads. Slash, slash, slash! If there was one thing I learned from my mother was how to criticize people!  🙂

After cake and some Broadway musicals, it was off to see “A”. I haven’t seen him as my therapist for a really long time. I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately, you see. Cancer. School. Mothers. Did I mention Cancer? Oh, and 300 days in a row of snow and gray skies which tend to cause depression. We had a good session though. I didn’t make “A” guess my age or anything. He wasn’t overtly medicated like the lady at my apartment complex. And I didn’t want him guessing 57 or something.

Anyways, last Friday was my actual birthday. It was pretty low-key. I had freaked out “A” when I told him I had a massage scheduled the next day. He immediately thought I had hired Married Guy. Would I do that? Well, almost. I’m not perfect, ya know. I’m wittykitty. I had written Married Guy a lengthy emotional e-mail the weekend before and nearly hit “send”. What can I say? When I was sitting here feeling lonely, thinking about how good his hands used to feel on my ass, I guess you can say, I experienced a 45 minute lapse of nearly regrettable behavior.

Fortunately there were no blizzards the next day (sending love and kisses  down to Washington DC for taking all our BIG blizzards this year. Thanks, guys!!!), so I drove over to my cute little Eye-talian masseuse. This was our second session. He talked a little more this time and he’s definitely from Jersey. It was so nice getting a no strings attached massage from an Eye-talian.

 The rest of my birthday was pretty uneventful. Didn’t I just mention how boring 52 is? Are you listening?

School has been limping along. Evidently I have something called Chemotherapy-Brain, which is making it difficult for me to remember much of anything, which is like totally perfect for going back to school. Yay!  I’ve yet to do any of my homework correctly yet. Every week I either forget some sketchpad with my homework in it or I can’t comprehend what I’m reading  in one of my textbooks or I paint something completely wrong.

Our first assignment was to paint a “virus”. I might have mentioned this. Anyways, the day we were supposed to pin them all up on the wall to critique them I almost fainted. Everyone’s work was in black, white and gray. Mine? Mine looked like some freaking multi-colored Mardi Gras cat vomit. After the first week’s comment from the teacher about how my work was not something  anyone wanted to copy,  I really didn’t want to put it up. I mean really. But there it was…looking like Liberace in the middle of a bunch of nuns. Eeep!

The teacher just looked at it and said, “You’ll have to do it over, but don’t destroy it.”  Which I think in Teacher Talk, at least this Teacher, might have possibly been a vague compliment. And like duh! Like I would destroy any of my artwork. I like my Mardi Gras cat vomit virus. Wouldn’t you want that on a birthday card? Maybe by my 53rd birthday, it will be.

Its sorta like “Grease” except there’s no musical numbers and I’m really old

Okay, apparently people care about me sometime. Weird huh? Like what’s up with that? Stop it!  You’ll ruin my record of feeling totally ignored like some child reality star from the 70’s and than I won’t be able to whine anymore and then what will I talk about? “Glee”? Jessica Simpson?

Three weeks ago, a mere four days before registration for college would be ending, I hauled my lazy ass up off the couch…..LIKE FINALLY…..its not easy in the winter, since its at the height of my depression and I’d much rather hibernate amid the thick layers of fur dispensed by my very furry room mate Guardcat. Anyways, I drove up to the college. It was like the first time the sun had been out in like 376 days and I was like, OMG, its a sign from Yahweh. I must leave my house, although let’s be honest, I also had to detach my hands from my computer keyboard and stop looking at Facebook updates from the entire universe including people who were mean to me in high school. Why did I say yes to their friend requests? Why??? Because suddenly it was 1976 again and they were  being nice to witty and not making snotty remarks about her blue checkered polyester pantsuit she wore to Disneyland on Graduation Night.  

(Hey, I wasn’t always cool and I may not be now. Delusions still abound in this thing I call my head).

Anyways, I walked up to the registration counter at the community college thinking it would be easy like on my new favorite TV show “Community College” , but instead I hit an instant brick wall.

First they said registration had already ended. I knew that wasn’t true, because I had looked it up on their website. I did a little pouty lip thing. That made them send me to another person down the mile long counter. She was a lot nicer. She looked up my account. As you might remember I was a registered student back in September until that little fucker called Cancer decided to make his unwelcome pitstop. So I was still officially on the books, as was my funding. So Nice Girl sent me back to the Registration Nazis and what do you think? They were unhelpful again. I mean I had already gone to the art department secretary who had sort of blown me off. All I was trying to do was get  the frickin’ class numbers for a certain teacher’s class, since their names are not listed in the catalogue. But since I was so annoying, having interrupted a personal phone call, she gave me the info really fast and all I had was a post-it note to write 300 numbers on.  And then back at the Registration Nazi’s counter, I was told I would not be “allowed” to take any of those classes because they were “ADVANCED” art classes and I’d have to take like “How to draw a circle” class first.

I very rarely Diva myself up in real life, but I sort of huffed out my chin slightly and might have said something kinda snarky like, “I probably don’t really need the “How to draw a circle class” since I’m already an artist.” And then the guy behind the counter, probably thinking, “Oh, one of those…” (rhymes with itch), started typing really furiously into his computer and then announced rather triumphantly  “ALL ART CLASSES ARE FILLED, M’aam. Sorry.  Next….”

Since its winter and I’m depressed, I pretty much backed down immediately. Diva-Girl too deflated immediately and I just sort of backed away, whispering thank you. Truth is I cried all the way home in my car.  Not exactly being in cheerleader mode, I guess, I  figured, that was it.

When I went to my drawing group the following Wednesday I told JS about my adventures at the Community College. He’s the one who drove me to the cancer center and had all the car trouble and was totally even-tempered about the whole thing. Most of my friends are wing-nuts (but it an entertaining way, mostly), so its nice to have at least one go-to guy when you’re needing help. I actually wasn’t asking for help that night. I was just recounting what happened.

Anyways, the next morning the phone rings. Its JS. He says, “You’re registered for your art class on Tuesday. And I just happened to bump into WP (the art teacher I wanted) on campus and she said she will let you in her second class. No problem!”

Me: “Gulp!”

Guess I can’t use cancer to get out of this.

I was a little unnerved by what  he did, since, in a way, I had settled in my head that school was perhaps, not meant to be. That’s my depression speaking however and since depression is an idiot, not to mention pretty lazy, not liking its minions to succeed, we”ll just ignore it or better yet, let it drive off a cliff and crash like Charlie Sheen’s Mercedes.  

So I had to call the organization that is funding me and say “Surprise! I’m back! And yes, I know school starts in only 6 days, but can we get this thing rolling!” My counselor, I don’t think believed me nor wanted to make things easy, so the next week was pretty hellish and slow moving and stressful. Nothing got ok’d. I was without books or school supplies. I finally bought at least one sketch pad so I wouldn’t be doing tons of homework the night before the second week of classes.

So yeah, lets just say I’m almost old enough to be everyone’s grandmother in class. And so far no one  has recognized me as a cool, older person who they might entrust their secrets with and ask 1970’s movie trivia questions of. I’m pretty much ignored. Hey! Kinda like real life!

I’m taking two classes. A basic drawing class and then some other more  exotic class which really defies description. Our first assignment? Draw five viruses. Huh? Like Republicans? The other class just had us doing a basic still life. We also had to paint a color wheel of black fading to white.

I had done that assignment first.  Painted as asked, a kind of avant guardcat style, Watercolory. Slop. Slop. Slop color wheel that would have made Van Gogh want to chop off his other ear. Definitely. That’s just how I roll.  So as the teacher was walking around the class, she stopped and picked up my sketch pad and said, “Class…this is an example of what NOT to do.”

OMG….Mom????

 Sorry, just having a flashback to everything I ever showed my Mom growing up. I felt terrible, as in lets melt under the table. I told her I would re-do it. She said, “Yes, I know” or something equally encouraging.

(Editor’s note: At the age of 81, my mother has finally realized that when I ask her to look at my artwork, I’m not asking for her to look for its faults. Just to, hopefully see its beauty. Its been a real breakthrough).

Anyways, after that wondrous first encounter with the teacher I had pursued so relentlessly because of a previous good encounter at my art group’s conference, I suddenly felt like I wanted to go home.

Dear Brain: That is your depression speaking. It was just a stupid comment. You know you’re a good artist. Hang in there, witty. Love, witty’s angst department.

There was a brief 15 minute break between the two classes, so I ran over to the bookstore and fortunately the funding was finally ok’d for my two textbooks. My second class was the beginning drawing class. The one I supposedly couldn’t get in because I had to take something called like “How to draw a circle” first.

Ha, I say! Ha!

It was pretty obvious within seconds that I was  over qualified for the class when the same teacher had us all put our work up on a wall. This was a still life I had drawn over the weekend.

I mean, its not a Rembrandt or anything, but it certainly wasn’t like most of the other one dimensional drawings of Nutella jars and football jerseys. And also for the first time, the teacher finally saw in me what she didn’t see in the first class…potential.

And I have to remember that too.

the day darth vadar did a little heavy breathing

Dear Ms. Blogenstein:

Its me Guardcat. witty is resting. She’s been all crazy the last couple of weeks (yeah, I know, when isn’t she) with several art shows, three days of cyber knife radiation, funerals, Eye-talian guys acting up, computers dying, stalker girl suddenly re-appearing, a new sudden speaking “career”  about how art is healing at various locations….Lookie….

She made me put that photo in since she looks skinny and she says she’s channeling Meryl Streep while she’s drunk leaning sideways after winning a Tony award or something, but you know witty, we never know what the hell she’s talking about especially lately since she’s been running from art show to art show, putting up her group’s show last week in a dark, dank cement gallery at the local university,  a kind of pseudo Soho kind of place with glaring florescent lighting that according to Tall Skinny Guy made it impossible for witty to take any good photos because she was too short and the light was glaring on all her artwork. I’m only a cat, but I think he was just jabbing her because he’s so jealous of her and Charlemagne, so she “accidentally” repaid the favor by putting the wrong name tag on his artwork. It really was an accident. A subconscious one.

High five, sistah!

This was one of witty’s many death oriented art things she’s been doing lately.

Anyways, the next night was her show at the more upper class snooty art gallery. She had invited “A” since it was sort of a big thing to have a painting there. As in there. (said with your pinkie up). Poor witty. She is still controlled by that guy. That night the show was to start at 5 p.m. She was still sitting around playing Facebook at 4:15 in her jammies,  and who calls on her cell phone? “A”. He wants her to meet him there at 4:45….15 minutes before the show even opens and 30 minutes from her house. Gah! So naturally she wigs out and starts throwing things in the air and brushing her hair and getting all girlie. She even wore a short black skirt with black ribbed stocking that made her legs look totally hot. “A” didn’t notice of course. And he was late.

men are so stupid. I’m so glad I’m a cat and don’t have to deal with them.

Anyways, the rest of the night, witty mainly just stood around near her painting, pretending to look at her new cell phone as if she was waiting for text messages from Johnny Depp.  She’s not sure if anyone was looking at her hot legs art work. She did circle the gallery about 50 times and ate some cheese, going, “Woo! This is fun!” Did she mention she was exhausted? Must be the cancer thing. She won’t tell anyone though…or very few people, because she doesn’t want any sympathy. But the exhaustion was pretty obvious when she got home that night.

That weekend she went back to the hoity toity gallery and spoke about how healing art is for the soul and her depression. Her aunt was weeping afterwards. It was a little embarrassing but totally affecting to her psyche, since she’s not really used to people crying about what she says.

Even though I’m a cat I did know when it was Monday two days later and that it was the beginning of radiation for witty…a thing called cyber knife. She seemed really nervous that morning. Like REALLY nervous. Like telling me to shut up nervous.

What? But I’m so fucking cute!

She left around noon. (I know how to tell time too, dammit! I must be smart if I’m writing a blog, right?) I guess she tried to call “A” repeatedly but her phone number was blocked on his private cell phone. Bummer! He had even said he’d talk to her right before the radiation too. Cell phones are stupid.

Anyways, she got zipped into this skin-tight Mary Quant-like (thanks Scott) mini skirt contraption for the radiation treatment and asked if she thought she’d be able to lay still on this long skinny table for two hours or whether she’d needed to be strapped in. witty? strapped in?

Yeah…baby.

But she eventually decided against it, you know in case there was a nuclear event or she needed to pee.  The first day she didn’t realize she had a choice of music, listening to classical music for two hours, but day two it was the Beatles while this large massive machine whooshed and pivoted over the top of her, making weird high-pitched screeches, intermingled with deep Darth Vadar like breathing…sighing…swooning….orgasmic at time. Just witty and him. Darth and Cyberknife Girl.

Who’s Cyber Knife Girl?

I think witty might have gotten a little much radiation, because by the third day she thought she was a Super Hero.  And indeed she did get a lot of it. When she was finally done on Day Three she came out of her little radiation dungeon and her Michael J. Fox doctor came running up to her smiling broadly (of course, she HAD just been asked to disrobe to total frontal nudeness in the radiation room where there were ceiling cameras rolling but I digress) and grabbed her hand and shook it vigorously saying “Congratulations!”. She asked for what, since she was about as lit as a Hanukkah candle by Day  Eight. He then told witty she  had just had 6 weeks worth of radiation in three days and she went ” Whee! WTF??? Am I going to pee neon?” Ok, she only thought  that in her head.

She also knew she didn’t want to miss her drawing class that night, you know, since she would get to see her favorite Frenchman Charlemagne. The doctor said it would be ok, since the tiredness wouldn’t really hit til the weekend.

oh witty, you so silly.

Charlemagne was merely 25 minutes late that night, you know, the night witty had TOLD him she had just been radiated into a hot mess by that dude Darth Vadar, so she was not happy when he was so late. It’s a good thing she thinks Charlemagne is cute and gives good hug, otherwise she might have hit him in the head with something that looked like 12 easals strapped together.

In the meantime, witty is now just waiting for the beginning of chemo, which will start around December 7th. She’s really scared about that, especially in the depth of winter and her time of depression. But she’s gotten pretty good at turning negatives into positives lately. Maybe she’ll just convert herself from Cyberknife Girl into  singer Sinead O’Connor and go sing on some hillside with a herd of goats.

Just as long as she doesn’t forget to come home and feed me a bowl of Friskies every so often.  Priorities, you know.

now I remember why I’m a neurotic recluse

Greetings from the hot and steamy writing salon of awittykitty. I’m just momentarily resting on my lazy ass laurels a mere 48 hours after the opening of my one woman art show. Oh yeah, it sounds impressive all right.  Fall at my feet you mere mortals. Feed me grapes, oh naked boys who might possibly give me a lap dance in some wildly inappropriate setting like the set of “Deal or No Deal”. But the truth is, its only a bipolar woman who painted a bunch of stuff and then some lady took it to a beauty spa. The end. Ya got it?

But witty, why were you totally off the ledge with anxiety and angst for the last freaking week or 47? The truth is I had a lot happening. I just deleted about 5 paragraphs. Why? They made me sound even more neurotic and crazed than I usually am. Let’s just say its been a combo of “Fatal Attraction” and  “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” all kind of dwooshed up together with  a really bad hormonal Movie of the Week starring Meredith Baxter Birney.

Shall we start at the beginning? I guess I mentioned that some rich wife of an artist I draw with had shown some interest in my work at another art show back in May. I was a wreck when she came and picked 8 pieces at my apartment. She’s the kind of person I generally make fun in my blog. Bubbly yuppie type with a cell phone glued to her ear. And then suddenly there she was standing in my apartment. It was a strange juxtaposition. A sort Pygmalion sort of thing, ya see.

So we hung the show about a month ago at a beauty spa. It was a nice place. Not Beverly Hills glamorous, but nicer than say like Hairs-R-Us. And they even had FAUX Marble walls! I liked it. Me and “P” agreed on where and how to hang everything and got along really well. And then suddenly  I didn’t hear from her for like 10 days. I didn’t know what to think, other than the worst of course.

She finally called and said she was writing press releases for a couple of  local newspapers, as well as “an article” for the small local publication in the town where the spa was.  I sent her over some photos of my artwork. And then she sent me a copy of the article. I cringed. People who are bubbly and chatty may not necessarily be able to write I quickly realized.

I had thought I had finally gotten over that thing called “being a control freak” but evidently there were still small fragments lodged in my calm and rather adorable exterior.  So I wrote her back a note with a few suggestions about the article, you know, since I have an extensive journalism background, which I mentioned numerous times to the point of perhaps (cough) totally humiliating her.  It was my mood, people.  I’m bipolar!!!  So I re-wrote the paragraph about me, even though she said she had already sent it to the editor and sent it back. I don’t know why I cared so much. It was just for a crappy little paper  probably scanned by only about 12 people.

Incidentally, this is a painting I was working on while all this chaos was going on.  Do you think it shows the angst and loss of control I was feeling?

Yeah, I think so too.

Anyways, “P” finally set a date for my opening…Thursday, August 13th.  She was sending out info to everyone she could, including local art guilds, like the one Married Guy’s wife belongs to. Erg! She also wanted me to self-promote too.

Self promote?  Does not compute. Does not compute. Does not compute. What’s that?

She then brought some color flyers up to my art class Wednesday night. I had sent her two images of two different paintings, one of the Virgin Mary and one of Johnny Depp. Naturally I had to make a joke when I saw them next to each other on the flyer. Like, “Yeah, I heard  that Johnny Depp and the Virgin Mary have been dating  since the Teen Choice Awards….” (rim shot). 

I’m much funnier in print obviously.

She  handed the flyers out to all 20 some people in the class. I was still worrying about the reason I talked about in those 5 deleted paragraphs. I’ve had a stalker recently who has been making me even more nervous and paranoid than usual, so I had been trying to shield the time and place of my show from this person. I had just planned to ask a few people in the class because I was beside myself with worry as my info went public.

I had also invited my best friend “L” the Hippie Chick but had made a stupid mistake. Her young grandson was up visiting her and this weekend we had gone to see a free theatre production and he had been, shall we say, a bit free-spirited. As in he didn’t want to see the show, so he walked out of the theatre and left the building and I had no idea if he was out on the road getting hit by a car or what, since “L” had switched seats to sit with him in the back and then he came to sit with me and then he just left.  I was freaking out during the whole show. Do I get up and go look for him? Is he safe? Where’s “L”? She must be looking for him. I kept looking in the back, looking for her.

Anyways, I told her I didn’t want him to come to my art show since at our art class he was also constantly running and sliding on the floor and rolling around and making  noises and knocking stuff over. I just couldn’t see him at this tony beauty spa. “L” walked away from me angry Wednesday night. I started crying immediately. I think it was the combination of everything.

Zue, my second least favorite person, talked to me for about 20 minutes afterwards. She wasn’t too obnoxious. She was one of the people I didn’t want at the show, but what the hell, she earned it, listening to all my drama queen whimpering. Now she’ll probably want to be my BFF too.  

Anyways, fast forward to my art opening, since this entry is getting longer than “War and Peace”.  Had a few calls in the morning including “L” saying that she would be there without her rambunctious grandson. Although she added, he would have gotten a lot out of seeing my art. Okay, I deserve that I guess. 

I got there about 10 minutes before the opening. “P”, my “agent” was getting her hair done. She said I looked “fresh and cool.” Ha! I had just driven 15 miles in a hot-ass car with no air conditioning, but thanks. I had brought a few additional pieces, since she said I could, including the sinful “City on Fire” pictured above (which had been rejected by her for the show as too stressful- heh heh! Try living in the body of a bipolar woman during a hot spell with a stalker).

People finally started filtering in. My mom came and was very well behaved. Folks from my art class. My aunt. Even some people who had said they weren’t coming showed up. Good ones, not the stalker fortunately. “P” was flitting around, mostly promoting the salon now. That’s fine with me. Her husband came. He loaned me this book called “Postm0dern Heretics” . Basically it was about sex, art, sex,  religion…and did I mention sex with explicit photos of such things as a semi-ude guy nailing himself to a Volkswagon a ‘la the crucifixtion.. Ummm, interesting.

It soon got even weirder. I was walking around with my camera, of course. One of the male hair dressers asked if I would take his photo. I said sure, no problem. So he grabbed a manikin head used for wigs off the counter. It has a vague female face. He asked me to come into a little side room with a lounger.  So I followed him in there and he jumps onto the lounger and buries the mannikin’s head down in his crotch and says, “Take my picture….just don’t get my face in it.”

Ummmmm?!?!?!

 But I’m an idiot. I took his picture. Nothing like bonding over a little porn with a total stranger during your art show. I should have made him buy one of my damn paintings for that.

Anyways, the rest of the evening went much better. I mostly talked about art with my friends. Afterwards, me and some of the girls went next door and got some ice cream cones. Naturally after about 4 licks mine fell on the ground. I bent over and wiped off the top layer. Everyone was screaming. “No witty. Ewww!”, but I just continued to eat it. It fell on asphalt for god sakes. Its not like there were ants or dog poop or anything. Anyways, “L” the Hippie Chick disappeared for a couple of minutes and then came back with this humongous waffle cone with a huge pile of ice cream on top of it and said, “Here.” 

See, that’s what friends are really about.

By the way…Virgins are cute.  Buy them and take them home. OK? Thanks.  

 

a note for my teacher

Dear Mrs. Blogenstein:

Please excuse wittykitty from her blog for the last 25 days. She’s been a little under the weather and yet suddenly overwhelmed by popularity, but also depressed, and yet hanging solo art shows, registering for school, acting like a poser while standing in the line at the yuppie grocery store (ha, ha, I just added that one), not to mention exhibiting an extreme addiction to home makeover shows since she got cable in June, bumping into people she’d rather not see,  exhibiting extreme road rage thereafter, eating far too much chocolate, still nursing a sore knee, taking naked photos of herself and then deleting them from her digital camera, running into her shrink and making an appointment with him after almost a year (all I have to say about that witty is OY!), spending way to much time Twittering and Facebooking, staring at her male neighbor across the complex who walks around naked in his apartment, celebrating the fact that Garden Hacker is gone, being so manic that she painted three paintings in one week, talking to strangers, joining a women’s writing group, going to nearby nearly abandoned carnival and riding on a ride called Laffland which she accidentally thought was a new diagnosis for her mental condition, drinking vast quantities of caffeine, not sleeping, plotting the murder of her next door neighbor who leaves her loud bathroom fan on for hours and hours and hours including 3 a.m. in the morning which makes witty so angry she wants to take an exacto knife and carve “redrum” into her  planter, listening to my mom’s endless stories about her new kitten who she named after witty’s deceased cat which makes her really sad, like why did she have to name it that, and who cares if her cat jumps up on top of the refrigerator 12 times a day, there are worst things happening like all the government offices witty had to go to this last week whilst dealing with the 1,020th sinusitis infection in the last six months, like wtf, no wonder she’s all grumpy and depressed all the time, sniffling AND seeing former people she was in love with and logically knowing it would be stupid to go to their house, and yet having that stupid tweaking emotional gland near the chocolate intake gland which is obviously malfunctioning saying hey, remember all the fun you had “being part of the family” and all the good massages he gave you, but then all my real life people are saying, you idiot, you’re such a fucking idiot, and I’m like back off, I just had to  buy my 300th package of M&Ms as a way to console myself, but of course I also had to go to my cousin’s wedding this weekend, which is exactly the place witty would want to go, given her state…a wedding…like whee, two people in love, two loving parents there to see their beautiful blonde daughter joined in happy matrimony and she absolutely didn’t hold anything against them, but having to sit there for four hours looking at all these happy people in the name of love just seemed to hold a giant magnifying glass up to witty’s miserably solitary life even though, my god, people have been absolutely flocking to her, but she just doesn’t see that, you know, or understand why people are trying to be her new friends and offering her help and the head of a local arts organization actually coming to her little eentsy apartment and looking at all her artwork and acting all bubbly and excited like she had just found a lost Michelangelo or in witty’s case maybe an Andy Warhol and then coming a week later and taking them to a fancy beauty salon to hang, although naturally witty forgot one, since her brain has gone on strike indefinitely its seems (which is exactly why she’s going back to school! Yay!), so then the poor lady had to come back to her eentsy apartment and pick up the missing painting and discovered another painting of Johnny Depp which totally demanded to be hung in a beauty shop full of women and gay men, so off he went, and yet the demure and extremely insecure witty is still nervously waiting for the opening but what does she expect, this woman is important and witty is just someone who dabbles and has little self esteem and thinks going to college will really help her and she even had to lie to the government agency helping her, because they kept asking and asking, like what could YOU ever do with an art degree you silly 51 year old woman with cancer and low self esteem and a funny looking chin and she then blurted out, almost like a brave person, “Well, since I’ve been mentally ill since 19 and I can suuuuure paint perty pictures, i wanna be an art therapist!! Ha! Ha! You know instead of working at McDonalds like you suggested last year, since I can’t stand the smell of rancid meat, but I do love me some snorting of pastel dust.” but the woman just looked at me like she always does, like I’m a statue of a transvestite hamster with a disco ball, you know, since she doesn’t realize that almost every single thing you look at in the universe was probably created by an artist including a stop sign. So Shut the hell up. Right?

Despite everything, including witty’s rather low mental health state at the moment, you really can’t keep her down. She did all her paperwork for college. Got all her damn shots including mumps, fercrissakes. She’s going back to her shrink for the first time in almost exactly a year. Will it be good? I’m not sure. I just think she needs someone who knows her, to say its ok.

Sincerely, Guardcat

artists, strippers, manic depressives, all in all a fun evening

Oh dear, some people get so confused when they’re talking.  I’ve been going out to lunch and walks with my former co-worker “J” for quite a while now. He’s a very nice and thoughtful guy, albeit married, but you know witty. The more married they are, the more likely I am to be going out to lunch and walks with them. Anyways, he’s been a little lost lately, so I’ve been trying to be a friend to him.   Unfortunately when I invited him to Sci-Fi Guy’s bi-yearly wacky Goth art show this last Saturday, he offered to come and pick me up, and officially deemed our trek a “date”.

Not intended, I assure you.

Ya see, I had already driven down to town once earlier that day, picking up “L” the Hippy Chick, to bring our artwork to the dive bar to hang the show. That’s always kind of fun. Okay, the first eight minutes weren’t so fun. Why? Because the Sci-Fi Guy usually has a bunch of the male artists hanging the art work while “L” and I stand around cracking jokes and looking totally glamorous. But on Saturday he said, “Hey witty, here’s some wire and a ladder. You  just need to throw the wire up over the pipe near the ceiling and try not to touch the wiring…otherwise you might get electrocuted.”

Whhaattt-t-t-?

I’m not a real big fan of being 1) electrocuted and 2) being more than about….maybe….1/16″ of  an inch off the floor. But I thought, well I’ve been being really brave these last couple of weeks, having English people sleeping at my house and skulking around in Garden Hacker’s serial killer apartment for stray plants…I can most certainly climb a silly old ladder!

WRONG!

OMG! The moment I climbed to the uppermost  step and nervously tossed the 24 gauge wire over the water pipe, I suddenly realized my stomach was all knotted up, my hands were shaking and when I looked down it looked like what James Stewart saw from the church tower in “Vertigo”.

Fortunately, I still have the capacity to act like a Defenseless Female (help squeak, help)and let men take their rightful place as the Manful Men They Are Meant To Be. because there was the guy “M”, the guy who paints massive canvases of vaginas in various configurations. I mean, everytime I meet him at these shows I always wonder if he’s somehow sizing me up. Wondering if, hmmmm, I bet she would be a good one to paint…even though he is the most incredibly quiet and thoughtful person in person. Its just his paintings that are, well, pretty explicit shall we say.

Fortunately, since I’m still fairly hot from the waist up too apparently, he stepped in…quite literally and took over the  task of hanging my artwork  which included a self portrait of me as the Malcolm McDowell character in “Clockwork Orange”. This so begs to be put on sMatch.com, don’t you think?

 

“SWF, 51,  enjoys walking and bashing fucking sods in dark tunnels, watching “Dancing with the St@r“….”

Professional Artist Guy soon appeared and I helped him with what they called “The Babe Wall”.  Needless to say, there is no “politically correct” classifications in our art show. Oh how proud the nuns at St. Raphael’s would be of me now. Like when we were all talking and someone said the word “Banging” and we all burst out laughing like a bunch of 12 year old adolescent boys.  I did chat  with a few people after the Babe Wall was done including this old woman with white hair who was a friend of “L”. She was like one of those Intuitive people who shakes your hand and knows your whole life just by doing so. I gave her and “L” a ride home afterwards. I was really tired. Turns out I was coming down with my absolute favorite illness. Sinusitis.

I don’t know if it was the massive canvases of vaginas or the huge painting of a naked Dick Cheney and Elvis with a halo made of pizza peeing on his head from the show…

 ….but when I got home I was so horny. Me horny? I know, I haven’t been horny in like 27 dog years. But I’m sure if you go back, you might find an entry or 277 of me having a date with B.O.B. (battery operated boyfriend) a few years ago. But my goodness, I got home and even though I was getting sick, I couldn’t get my clothes off fast enough. Poor Guardcat had to hide her eyes. I didn’t even bother to close the windows. Its Spring, people!!!!!!!!!!!! Even Old People get frisky!!!!!

I did finally manage to pull myself from the boudoir long enough to cook a brief dinner before “J” came to pick me up. Since our show are all about sex, monsters from outer space and general debauchery, I decided to wear a slightly naughty shirt my sister had sent me. You know the one I had vowed to never wear because it showed my cleavage. Yes. I do have cleavage…apparently slightly more than I thought. Because when I went out front to wait for “J” to pick me up, my neighbor was throwing bread crusts off her porch for the birds and yelled down, “I hope I don’t get any in your cleavage.” WTF? Ouch!  Passive aggressiveness, be thy Mistress, sistah!

Anyways, “J” finally pulled up and yes, it did feel like a date. More than any of my sMatch.com dates have felt in the last year. My bad, I know. I did let him wander around the event by himself most of the night though and rather strangely a woman he’s told me about in recent conversations, did appear rather abruptly mid-evening, making me think, that was pre-arranged. I asked him later and he said no. But I think different.

Men! Can’t hit them in the head with Buicks, can’t send them to Dick Cheney’s house for a little, well, you get the picture.

The art show was its usual naughty self. It was a smoking event which was hard on my virgin lungs. I managed to hold out until the first act which was a burlesque show with girls gyrating in bejeweled evening gowns, feather boas and then less and less clothing, ending with two girls exploring each other with a riding crop. Hiss, you would have loved that one. It was during that, that I was standing at the edge of the stage, that the Intuitive Woman I had met earlier came walking towards me. It was loud and dark and she literally fell right into my arms with her lips slowly sliding across my face.  eeep! She whispered, “I’m three sheets to the wind, honey”. So I just picked her up and sent her towards the bathroom where all the strippers were congregating. Maybe she could get lucky with one of them.

Really the strangest thing that happened this last week was at my drawing class. We have this certain male model who is also an artist. He started out as an artist with our group, but then one night modeled and has been doing both since. And lets just say he also has an ego the size of Donald Trump times 47 trillion. Sure sweetie, ITS kinda big, but not enough so that you can talk to girls who are still in high school during the break. (A no-no in our rules of models fraternizing with artists, as in “Hi! I’m blah, blah. Would you like to get kissed by a naked man”).

Anyways, so we’ll called him “Buddy-Boy” gets up on the modeling stage with his robe. Usually they just drop the robe and we start drawing. But no….Buddy Boy had a rather earth shattering announcement for all of us lonely, shuttered-up artists who might not obviously aren’t  “getting any”. He stood there rather boyishly, yet rather proudly and asked for forgiveness in advance. It seems his (cough) lower regions “were going to be rather reddish tonight”. It was a dermatological condition, and YES, DEAR GOD (okay, I just put that part in, so its not a direct quote), the condition was being dealt with by his dermatologist. None of the artists asked what it was naturally….BECAUSE WE REALLY DIDN’T FUCKING CARE. But Buddy Boy went on, grinning rather sheepishly and said, “I’ve been having a helluva lot of sex the last 7-10 days, so the constant friction has made it a little red. I didn’t want to alarm anyone.”

God….I think we just located The Very Definition of TMI.

But since he did already have our attention, now, like we were just seconds away from seeing some massive blood red beet shaped penis, about the freakin’ size of Alaska protruding from his hip or something, the tension in the room was palpable. So he dropped him robe and yes, his wee-wee was slightly pinkish on one side. OMG, call CNN! Call “Dateline”!!! Call Geraldo Rivera!!!!!! This is like a bigger story than when Lindsey Lohen walked on…on… a sidewalk yesterday!

Incidentally, this guy used to date Married Guy’s wifie in high school. ‘Nuf said!

wishy and washy sent packing

I went to see my Oncologist on Thursday. Have I mentioned that I have a bit of a crush on him? No, he’s not the egotistical Indian doctor who told me he paid people to say he was good. No, this guy is a tall Eye-talian with large shock of white hair (WTF?), black nerd glasses and this maddeningly sexy sardonic look he gives me everytime I ask a stupid question.

Thursday was my second visit. Apparently, there’s a minute possibility that a tiny cancer cell  might have slipped through a severed nerve ending in my chin and escaped into my body. He’s there to keep an eye on it and look for clinical trials for me. 

Naturally I have questions…like will I ever be able to kiss hunky Eye-talian Doctors anyone again and feel anything, since my lower lip has no feeling and is now deader than AIG’s chance at being voted America’s most trusted insurance company ever fucking again. But mere seconds before I was able to ask that, I suddenly got all blushy and giggly.  Why?

Well, during our first visit, we had been accompanied by a young female Physician’s Assistant. But this time we were alone. With the door closed. Me. Him. His dark Eye-talian eyes. And I’m pretty sure I looked  particularly fetching in my black bell bottom corduroy pants, circa 1987 and black sweater with chunks of cat fur. I mean who could possibly resist?

I guess we’ll have to briefly head over to NBC comedy “Thirty Rock”, for a quick consult with Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), the patron saint to possibly all insecure, sarcastic women. I mean, we’re practically twins anyways, especially on Thursday’s night show where she had been dating this guy…a doctor… who was so perfect that absolutely everyone gave him everything he wanted and tended to overlook all his incredibly apparent flaws. Liz does too…at first, letting him win at tennis, so they could make out in the cab, and then feigning interest after just mediocre sex. But then one night, when she almost chokes to death on salmon doused in Gatorade (his recipe),  he just  stands there oblivious on how to do the Heimlich maneuver…A doctor! Its at this point, Liz finally sees the light.

That is kind of momentarily how I see my “relationship”  with Dr. Mastri-de-Lips-are-so-perfecto-ani playing out. He’s calling a doctor in Buffalo on his Blackberry, just looking at the phone, knowing his good looks will eventually dial the right number somehow. I mean, I know that’s always worked for me. I’m just sitting there  looking at him. Who wouldn’t? He’s hot.

See, that was something I never did with “M”, my date mate from February. I never looked at him…like he was a rock star. Or even the guy moving the equipment after the show. Its not that I’m shallow or anything. Its just that I realized after going over the Good list and the Meh List, the Meh List was longer.  It was also the first time I ever realized I was allowed to make that incredibly decisive decision. In fact, I  guess you didn’t notice  the impossibly clever title of my last blog entry….”(S)he’s Just Not That Into You”.  I’m sure he was grateful you tried to save him with all your thoughtful comments.   But the deciding factor? Well,  it was what he said about an hour into our date.

“I’m really wishy washy. Even my kids tell me that.”

Whh-a-a-ttt? That’s not something you tell a woman on your  first date.  I’m like totally wishy washy too, but I would never actually say that to a person I just met. I mean in my case, we’re talking about a person who got into a guy’s car and still wasn’t sure which restaurant to go to in a 2 minute drive down to the mall. Do I take him to the pizza place where I take all my men….HEH (witty, there’s only been 2 fercrissakes) or do I go where I originally went with Handyman, which is more expensive?

Truth is I like and need men who take charge. Married Guy was like that without being obvious. He just took care of everything  and I didn’t ever have to be resentful that he was being bossy. He was just a kind of “git er’ done” kind of guy without any of the usual attached guilt.

But can you imagine what life would be like for two wishie/washies?

“So honey, what do you want for dinner?”

“I don’t care, whatever you want.”

“No, its up to you.”

“Whatever you choose, is fine.”

“Salmon with Gatorade?”

“If you want.”

“Are you sure?”

“Only if you are.”

“Your choice, sweetie”

“You did say salmon with Gatorade, right?”

“Whatever you think…”

OMG, “CSI: New York” would eventually just find both of our skeletal remains sprawled by the stove.  Cause of death? Inability to make a decision due to extreme wishy-washiness.

In the meantime, I still check my winks and notes on sMatch.com. I have some dude with photos of his mansion up on the Finger Lakes and of his boat, but none of him. One of his qualities listed is: Horniness. On his notes, he keeps typing “LOL” after things that aren’t funny. Like WTF? That is such a “No”, sweetie. Who do you think I am…your 12 year old niece?

The hunt is still on though. sMatch.com sends you 12 “new” men every two days. This last crop was the worst. Twelve men…only 2 had photos. One guy even had a hand gun pointed in close proximity to his head. I guess he was indicating some level of desperation for a date.

So I guess I’ll also just be on the lookout in the real world too. Newly single doctors with nerdy Austin Powers glasses. Stray artists. Perhaps even a nerdy accountant with a penchant for neurotic, insecure women in the mold of Liz Lemon on “Thirty Rock”.  

In the meantime, I did want to mention I recently had one of my paintings selected for an art show opening in May at this trendy new art gallery in town. Their shows are geared towards social activism and political themes. The gallery owner said she “loved” my painting. That made me feel especially good since this is the first show I’ve ever had work selected where I didn’t know somebody. I feel that makes it even more of a victory. The 24X30 painting, by the way, is called “The Magic Coyote”.

Don’t you think Dr. Mastri-de-Lips-are-so-perfecto-ani might need some new artwork in his office?  I could certainly use a little after hours IN-stallation, if you know what I mean.

(s)he’s just not that into you

I’ve now been 51 years old for a little over 3 weeks and its been…

fabulous

better than sex with Johnny Depp

…so fucking boring that I haven’t had neither the strength nor inclination to write a blog entry about it, so shut the fuck up….

Oh sure, I have left Casa de wittykittyon a few occasions, like taking my mom to the ER on Sunday night thus missing “Celebrity Apprentice”, a show I was going to review for my first column at the newspaper. But our E.R. has this little problem, ya see. You go in at 6:30 p.m. and you tend to not leave until 3 a.m., you know, since the  staff is out in the hallway laughing and talking to each other and there wasn’t  exactly anything ER-worthy wrong with the patient.  So I missed the TV show, the time to write the brief 150 word newspaper article and the deadline. I figure they probably think I don’t want to write for them since I was MIA on the very first week of publication. Yay me!

The previous week had been far more exciting. I actually went on a date. You know, I always am required to go on at least 1 to 2 dates a year or  my Vagina License is revoked. And you know how hard it is to renew the damn thing. The long throbbing masses slamming against the single window at the DMV. Its hideous. I basically just have a photo ID, so I don’t have to act like I’m interested when the guy at the window asks me questions like “Where do you live” (wink, wink) and “Is this your correct address?” (wink, wink).

Dude, you’re bald and you’re wearing polyester. Back off!

Oh! My date! So like the day after my surgery I had gotten a note from a guy on sMatch.com. I think we already went over this. He said he’d  wait until I healed up from my surgery. I thought that was pretty decent of him. We wrote back and forth about every 3-4 days. He called me on my birthday on February 12th. I think we talked about 35 minutes. He was going to be picking up his daughter at the airport in my city and said, “Oh, I should have taken you out to dinner for your birthday.”

Indeed! So many missed opportunities! Free meals are always heartily accepted by starving artists, but it was already like 6:45 and he lived about 45 minutes south of here. So he asked me out the following Friday, the 20th. I said fine. He said fine. I think we even possibly saluted the Beatles somehow, since that was something we had in common, because we were both really old and remember seeing the Beatles on something besides YouTube.

The Wednesday before my date I started feeling a little angsty about it.

WHAT????? WITTYKITTY ANGSTY?????? omg…CALL CNN!!!!!!!

Yeah, I know, its hard to believe. So when I went to my art class I was hoping to see “L” the Hippy Chick because she’s my only real female friend I can talk to. Unfortunately she wasn’t there and instead I made a really huge mistake. I talked to Zue….the biggest expert in the history of the universe on absolutely nothing everything, but especially on sMatch.com things. Why? Because before she found her current boyfriend she probably dated every dude in a 800 mile radius. For a while she was even attempting to toss me her leftovers (criminals, child molesters, banks robbers, Bernie Maddoff). I, of course, never took any of them.  I mean, I don’t want to ruin my 1-2 dates a year thing and I especially am not going to date Zue rejects.  That would be like eating what raccoons won’t eat out of  garbage cans.

So I told her about my impending date and she asked who he was and I stupidly said three words: his first name, the fact that he was Jewish and his city and she’s like “I dated him!” And I cringed inside. Ugh! Zue cooties! And then she did a true disservice to both me and him. She said some things that weren’t very becoming about him. They weren’t terrible, but just discouraging to someone who only dates minimally and always hopes for the best (I bet you didn’t know that about me, huh!!! Neener!!!).

The next day I just decided to make the best of it. It was sunny and nice all day and then blam, around 5 p.m.,  a really  severe snowstorm blew in. I was worried about “M” driving 45 miles, up through the hills because there were traveler’s advisory in effect. But he arrived exactly on time. 7 p.m. He got out of his car and walked up and kissed me on the cheek.

Really? That was sure a first for a sMatch.com date. Must have been because we were in the middle of a blinding snowstorm and he thought I was Angelina Jolie or something.   

Dinner was good. Conversation was better in person than on the phone. He was not exactly my usual “type”…..dark hair, dark eyes…but he was pleasant enough. I was very well behaved. No ribald jokes about sausages or anything.

But when we walked out of the restaurant it looked like the final scene in “The Shining”. The snow was horrific. I felt somewhat stricken. What do I do? I would feel bad if he drove over 80 mile round trip for a 45 minute date in a blizzard. He asked me about the art opening I had mentioned to him earlier. But I felt stressed….what if Zue was at the art opening. She had told me she was going to see her boyfriend in a nearby city….but….here we were in the middle of a massive blizzard. And I just knew she’d be there and I didn’t want to subject him to her or me to her or anyone to her without our rabies shots.

So here we are driving around in circles in a mall parking lot and I was like, “ummm, ummm. I….ummm….well….” Can we see why I don’t date much? I finally told him to turn right at the mall exit and we finally headed out towards the art gallery. It was a pretty treacherous ride and the route I took him was really dark and twisty. Fortunately he was a good driver. So we pulled into the place and we were running pretty late, as in the opening was actually officially over. 8:30 p.m. But there were still people there of course. And who is the first person I see? Zue.

Damn! 

I don’t know how I managed it, but I introduced “M” to about 7-8 of my art friends, looked at the art and somehow got him out of there without Zue ever seeing us. And it was a small place too. I was astounded. She had her back to the door and I just worked around her.

When we finally got back to my apartment, “M” ran around to get the car door for me. I figured he was just going to say goodnight or “Hey scarface, I didn’t feel any spark, so why don’t we just save a little computer time and end it here”, but instead, suddenly he had his arms around me and was kissing me and then his tongue was darting around in my mouth.

Who are you, The Bachelor?

 Of course I almost didn’t realize it since my chin and lip are still completely numb from my surgery and you could probably hit me with an anvil and I wouldn’t feel it, but mini-ick. Our date wasn’t going THAT well.  I guess he finally realized I wasn’t returning “T-T” (The Tongue) and walked back to his car. I did tell him to call me when he got home so I knew that he was safe in the storm, which he did.

Geeze, I’m such a nice date. Slurp. Slurp.

The next morning Zue called me to see if I was “okay”. Or something. (“Hey “M” its Zue, she wanted to see if I got laid!”) I told her I was fine.  What I wanted to tell her was to “Butt the hell out”, because her pre-date “warning” had put me on alert in such a way, that hadn’t really been fair to him or me.

He did write me a brief friendly note the Monday after our date. I was expecting the “I didn’t feel any spark” thing which I usually get on every single date, but it wasn’t there. Unfortunately I got spooked and never wrote back.

sigh.

goth show yields unexpected results

I had the first of my four art shows in October last night. It was the Goth/Zombie/Big Boobed Women/Robots one at a local bar, you know, the one that I totally fit into….Not. But when you’re an artist, you never feel like you fit in anywhere and feel appropriately angsty and then go anyways.

I picked up “L” the Hippie Chick about 1 and we brought our stuff downtown. I am now totally paranoid about parking on our city streets  because I have gotten two parking tickets in the last month, after never getting one for the last 18 years.

I am fighting the first one since it was a freak of nature. I had put the parking receipt on my dashboard…like I was supposed to. And while my friend and I were in a bakery, evidently a gust of wind from an open window, swooshed the tag across the dashboard and it was now face down. The damn car windows were open. The doors were unlocked. The meter maid could have easily just flipped over ticket to see that everything was in order, but no. A $25 ticket! So I’ve been fighting it, including photos from several angles, witness statements from my friend, a weather report from the National Weather Service telling about wind gusts up to 25 mph that afternoon and even an e-mail from Wayne the Weather Guy at our local TV station regarding the weather conditions that day. A little OCD?

Ya think?

Anyways, so we got to the Pub and it was most of the usual suspects except for some young girl who was uber excited to be wielding an electric drill and making sexual innuendo jokes, which I have to admit were pretty damn funny. Naturally all the guys were guffawing. There was also another woman, who I didn’t know, who told me I would be meeting her “alter ego” that night. Ummm, ok.

I hung around most of the afternoon, listening to 1980’s punk rock music and watching people bring in art. My favorite little Goth Twin and her sister came in. It was nice to see her. She’s down in Brooklyn now going to art school in NYC and is really blossoming creatively.  I felt pretty tired and achy though. Have been under the weather most of the week, fighting off some kind of mad cow disease thing. I finally left about 4 and came home and crashed with Guardcat on my bed. I was totally exhausted.      

At around 6 I kind of half-heartedly made dinner. I was starting to have doubts whether I had enough stamina or energy to drive back to town to an art show which 1) had really loud music, 2) had humans who might expect me to talk to them and 3) had heavy cigarette and cigar smoke, since it was billed as a Smoker event. Smoking is against the law in public venues in NY, but for this event, they let it slide.

Finally at the last moment though, I pulled on my tightest jeans, lowest cut sweater and put on some very dark blue eye shadow, something I normally never wear, but since I had dark circles under my eyes, why not balance it out, right?

 Naturally I had to circle the damn place about 59 times. Its really busy downtown on Saturday night. Plus I was still fearful that some rogue meter maid might be lurking about, ready to write me a parking ticket because the Moon was in Scorpio or something.

Bastards!

It was still pretty empty when I got there, but I talked to a few people and scoped out a safe spot on one of the 2 small couches.  “L” and her friend “E” finally arrived so at least I didn’t feel like a total social outcast. And even though I didn’t know her and she had far too much bronze colored eye shadow and lipstick on, suddenly I was pouring out the whole Married Guy saga to her. Ack. Not sure why that happened.

No therapy appointments since July, witty? Maybeeeeeeeeee.

The place finally started to get crowded around 9. You know, like with the woman who had told me I would be meeting her alter ego and then appeared looking like a Goth Martian. And of course, lots of guys with mohawks and skull shirts. And geeky nerds, who were actually cool because of their geeky nerdiness. I, of course, just sat on the couch, looking at the Z0mbie Surviver’s Guide, hoping to survive the cigarette smoke.

The music finally started at 10, I think. I could barely see the stage for all the smoke. It was thick. I was sitting next to this kid with this really fierce mohawk, piercings and camoflauge pants who was smoking. To look at him you might be a little scared. He looked like a total bad ass. But he was insanely polite. He apologized for the smoking several times, made sure he wasn’t blocking my view of the stage, and even asked how I was doing. That was better than my last sMatch.com date!!

I only stayed for the first act however, since I nearly went into a panic attack because I couldn’t breathe with all the cigarette smoke. The singer was really good though. He had songs about The Jerry Springer Show and whether Jesus has a guitar and the funniest one, “P0rn” (“P0rn is good, p0rn is great, p0rn doesn’t even make you wait.”) He even sent one song out to all the people with restless leg syndrome and everyone on our couch leaned back and started madly shaking our legs in the air.

Oy. I’m too old for this. But it was funny.

 I did wait until the guy’s set was over before I went to get my purse. I then went back to say good-bye to “L” and her friend. “E” had been looking at the photo books from past Goth Art show events and had spotted my painting from last Spring. It was the one with a female devil sitting in her easy chair watching George Bush on TV with a nuclear explosion happening outside the window. She loved it and asked me if it was for sale and how much. As usual, I kind of fumbled. Ummm, ehhh, umm. And then she said she was going down to Virginia and would be back in November and we could talk then.

Strangely, that is not even a painting I ever saw anybody wanting. I painted it solely for the Goth Show. But ok.

Anyways, once I said my goodbyes, I attempted to push my way through the crowd towards the door and fresh air, hallelujah jesus! But suddenly I had someone tell me that someone was interested in my zombie photo. The Sci Fi Guy had originally told me that when I came in but I just sort of sluffed it off, like oh sure, yeah, ha ha ha!  He had been really busy, so I didn’t get who it was and whether he was even still there. But then there was that second person telling me.

So suddenly Sci Fi Guy appears with this big huge, hulking guy with a sleeveless torn punk rock shirt and blonde scruffy hair, about 50. No. Not.my.type. But he was absolutely effusive about my photo, saying it was the best piece in the show and he should know since he’s from L.A. (ha!). And that he was convinced that it was Patti Smith, a punk rocker from the 70’s, but how would I know since I was too young to remember. Ha! I guess the smoke was thick in there! So I finally just gave him the bad news that no, it wasn’t Patti Smith, but just me and some Photoshop. But fortunately that didn’t seem to impede his interest in the photo.

He then started asking that now dreaded question….”How much do you want for that?” By then a friend from MySpace was standing there watching this all unfold. I had told her about the photo at the Hippie Festival two weeks ago and she had wanted to see it. So she decided to step in and be my agent and said “$200 and I get 50% commission!” and laughed. I blanched. $200! Yikes! No, no! So I blurted out the far more reasonable $20…$25. He looked at me funny, like don’t go higher, you said $20, and then pulled out a $20 bill and gave it to me and bought the photo.

WTF?? Am I being punked? Is Ashton Kutcher gonna come out from behind the door, laughing his ass off? So I just stuffed the twenty into my pant pocket and took him over to Sci Fi Guy and told him that the piece had been sold, so he wouldn’t think the guy was ripping it off. I then shook his hand and he asked if I had any other work anywhere.

I told him about my current show at the little community gallery (who is still advertising the last show which has now been closed over a month! Grrrr!). I then gave him one of my business cards and just hope he’s not a serial killer since it has my address on it.

Driving home I was like totally high from that ridiculous $20 sale. I was actually laughing in my car at every stoplight…like sucka! I don’t do that for all my art sales. Just the ones that I run off my ink jet printer and put in a Dollar Store frame.      

P.S. My job interview went really well. Whether I get hired remains to be seen.

P.S.S. I suppose you want to see the Zombie photo, huh? Its really strange….but then again, consider the source. A person who is slowly discovering that they are an artist and that its ok to be weird.

New Match.com photo?