I can't feel my legs...

I had a catering job this morning at 6:45 am. That, my friends, is too damn early for anything. It was a ten hour job for some conference (we set up breakfast, we break down breakfast. Set up mid-morning snack, break down mid-morning snack. Set up lunch, break down lunch. Set up mid-afternoon snack, break down mid-afternoon snack... Clearly, food is the only thing keeping these people awake) and I'm too pooped to pop.

I think I lost a toe.

He's so very not gay.

I read today that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are a couple. Their reps have apparently confirmed it.

There's an entry in here someplace but I'm just too exhausted. Between Britney attempting to be a mother (I guarantee that girl's never babysat) and now this... There's only so much a gossip-hound like me can take. I mean, come on now.

I'm proud to be an American.

Rumor has it that Topeka (or maybe it's the entire state) is voting on whether or not to teach evolution in the classroom. Please tell me I'm misinformed and that the leaders of my home state aren't quite that backwards. Please.

Sing. Sing a song.

Billy has also taken to singing, if you can call it that. He stomps around the apartment warbling

"La-La-LAAAAAA!", "La-La-LAAAAAA!"

over and over and over until I'm ready to grab the duct tape. I guess this is an improvement over Christmas where he pretended he was a performing cat and meowed a medly of show tunes non-stop for about two weeks.

I keep suggesting he join a choir but he refuses to do it because he doesn't like "guided singing".

And by "every day" I clearly meant "every other day"...

Yeah, this isn't going to be much of anything because I just babysat for 13 hours straight.

"Billy" has created a character called MOSS MONSTER. (Which is really just Billy underneath a blanket, but whatevs.) He adopts a deep(ish) voice and is prone to pronouncements like, "MOSS MONSTER DOESN'T WANT TO TAKE A BATH! MOSS MONSTER HATE MOSS MONSTER'S MEAN BABYSITTER! MOSS MONSTER MAD!"

There are about 40 different variations. I know I shouldn't encourage it but it cracks me up.

The subway car I chose on the way home was sprayed with fresh puke. Not that that stopped me from getting on because, hey, there were open seats.

At least he said please...

Overheard on the subway. Homeless man to a gaggle of giggling tourists -

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY, PLEASE!"

It's something.

My friend Valerie just had babies. Twins, to be exact. Reading her blog (www.home.earthlink.net/~vekann/) makes me feel like the laziest son of a bitch ever so I've decided: If Valerie can update her blog every damn day, by God SO CAN I! I don't promise that it'll be interesting but it'll be... something.

Today I made Rice Krispie treats for the second day in a row. (Yeah I ate the whole pan yesterday, so what?) Unfortunately I ran low of Krispies so I used Organic Spelt Flakes instead. It's... "good" might be a bit strong a word. But it has marshmallows!

The store where I'm interning (we'll call it "HOUSE") was good. The poor owners, I'm always fucking something up. I try to show initiative by telling the customers about how the SALE pottery is such a great deal because it can go in the microwave and the oven until I hear the owner whispering that it can't, actually, which is why it's on sale, or answering a question about the washability of the fantastic throws (FYI, you can't) ... Don't get me started on the gift wrapping. The owner has to stall for time while I'm back there wrestling with the freaking tissue paper. (There will be no tissue in my store. None.) At the rate I'm going I'll be working there for the next five years...

I need a bath.

Where's MY damn Oscar?

I keep almost meeting Hilary Swank. At a voiceover audition last week the casting director came bustling out to whisper that we "might see Hilary today"! Apparently her husband Chad auditions quite a bit for this casting woman and Hilary often tags along. I was planning on hanging out after my appointment to see if I could catch a glimpse but I crashed and burned at the mike and I just wanted to escape. (It was for Stayfree - yes, Stayfree - and I was supposed to sound like a mother of three. Scratch that - a mother of three on the rag. The copy was awful - anyone who can make factoids about "odor and wetness protection" sound like casual conversation deserves the damn job. PLUS I was following Jessica Hecht. Who, you ask, is Jessica Hecht? Remember that little show "Friends"? Remember how Ross had a lesbian wife, and that lesbian wife had girlfriend with long, curly brown hair? That's Jessica Hecht. She works all. the. time. Trust me, you don't want to follow a celebrity, no matter how minor. Not that it mattered because I was so bad that the casting director wouldn't even put me on tape. After the rehearsal take she was quiet for a bit then said that I wasn't "feeling it" and that, as they say, was that.)

So no Hilary.

Then yesterday I was getting my hair cut at the Aveda Institute ($18 a cut! Best deal in Manhattan.) and the students were all a-twitter because, you guessed it, Hilary was coming in to get a cut. I was like, "Doesn't she make enough money to go to a real salon?" but apparently she was getting it done by some master stylist. She was supposed to come in at 4:30 and (again) I wanted to wait around but my coif turned out a little... less than. I have a cotton ball on my head. I met my friend Chintamani for coffee today down on the LES (that's "Lower East Side" for the Kansans) and a guy sitting next to me leaned over to tell me that he had been admiring my hair-do and that ("Don't take this the wrong way!") it reminded him of SHIRLEY TEMPLE.

Is there any other way to take that than the wrong way?

ANYWAY, I decided not to stick around. Although who knows? Maybe Hilary would've wanted to touch the puff.

More ass than class

I catered some hotshot art auction/drunken mess last night. Normally my tolerance for pretention is pretty high due to the amount I'm surrounded by on a daily basis, but last night took the cake. People, please!

- Badly Dressed Texan saunters out of auction room, smirking:
"I just spent $5000. I think I deserve a cupcake!"

- I'm holding a tray of cupcakes. A sampling of questions:
"Are those cakes?"
"What are these small, cake-like things?"
"How do I eat one of these?"
(pause. pause. pause.) "Are these cupcakes?"

- One woman fell down an entire flight of stairs.

Classy.

Frankenhumping

It has come to my attention that a rather incriminating photo of me lurks deep in the heart of cyberspace. It was taken years ago during my wilder days and was never supposed to be seen. I'm truly, deeply ashamed and wish to issue a public apology to any family members who have suffered emotional damage due to the photo's explicit nature.

It might be a photo of me getting humped against a bathroom stall by Frankenstein. I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying.

I'm also not saying that you should blame Missy and Jeff for digging it up because that would be wrong. You should also blame Dan.

In LA I was part of a theater company called Sacred Fools. Every week they'd do midnight shows that occasionally veered toward... the dumb. This particular one was called "Frankenstein and Vicki", a sweet story of love and reanimation set in a suburban high school. I played one of the popular girls who gets attacked by Frankenstein ("Brad") and turned into a zombie. Hifalutin' stuff, yes indeedy. It was insanely popular and ran for weeks which was a problem for the poor guy playing Brad as he was allergic to the blue body paint.

Ah, art.

It BURNS!

Ah yes, the Prevacid shoot. It was an early call but they plied me with with expensive breakfast foods (unaffordable smoked salmon, how I love thee) which chippered me up right quick. I hung out with the ad folk most of the morning (F.Y.I., all ad guys look the same: White. Bald. Tired.) listening to them debate whether "It burns" or "It's burning" was stronger text. Since it was a child's photograph they were using, "It's burning" was nixed due to it's association with genital issues.

Have you seen the ads? (The ones running in magazines now show three women in bowling shirts looking various stages of icky.) The photog is some famous German fashion guy who shoots with a wide angle lens. Apparently the distortion and creepiness is intentional which is nice change from all the other soft-focus, “look how happy!” medication ads (the ones where people who are clinically depressed or suffering from herpes all suddenly go canoeing). At first the photographer wanted me to look like I was in a scene from The Birds (“Oh my Gott! Dere iz… BIRTS behind you!”) so I gave it my best Hitchcock Blonde, but since I’ve never seen the movie I’m not sure I even came close. After much furrowed-brow discussion amongst the ad men over my Polariods it was decided that I should convey something a little less panicked, something more like, “I’ve stopped drinking coffee, doctor. What else can I do?”

I want you to go to your mirror and practice that for a minute. Then show me what the hell that face looks like.

We spent two hours just doing Polaroids. (Much discussion, many furrowed brows…) Apparently I’m a walking cartoon because they kept telling me to “make it more real” or not to show any expression at all (“but more than that”). My favorite was when the photographer pursed his lips together and told me to make my jaw muscle move, like Tom Cruise. I kept mushing my lips together, trying to make something move but then he’d start yelling about not moving the rest of my face, "ONLY MOOF DE MUSCLE!" and, and... no. We shot TWENTY-EIGHT rolls of film (that’s after the two hours of Polaroids) until the photographer finally gave up. Hell, I ran out of faces by the second roll.

I should start running in magazines next month. There will be probably be a teal background, flames around my face, and a look of exhaustion.

I'm getting to it

Stuff is coming, I swear. I bit off a little more than I'm used to chewing this week so posting will commence here... soon. ish.

A correction

The job I'm shooting tomorrow is for Prevacid, not Prilosec. Anybody who knows the difference (Hi Mary!) feel free to let me know.

The Big Questions

"Billy" is the eight year old I babysit. He's great and super smart; the kind of kid who drops phrases like, "Impressive use of alliteration" into the conversation, just because he can. ("Don't forget to mention my penchant for physical comedy" was another winner.) He explains how gears work and then sympathetically pats the knee of his confused-looking babysitter, knowing full well she will never understand what the hell he's talking about. He routinely uses the word "frigates". I don't know what that word means.

Today Billy had a playdate with a boy from his class, a boy whose mother adhears to a different set of nutritional rules than Billy's mom. Billy's favorite snack is yogurt with wheat germ. His friend, on the other hand, was noshing on guacamole flavored Doritos and drinking some blue sugary beverage that bore a striking resemblance to Windex. These are not the sort of things Billy eats, ever. As we were walking home I noticed that he'd gone quiet. He was silent for a few blocks, clearly mulling something over. Maybe he was wondering how his friend's chips tasted or imagining the flavor of that blue soda. Whatever it was, it was a whammy. Finally he looked up at me and asked,

"Alisha?"

"Yes, Billy?"

"What's your favorite kind of lettuce?"

ixnay on the reviewsay

Matt pointed out the maybe it might be a teensy-weensy bit illegal to post my reviews here since they haven't yet been published. Since I don't want to spend 8-10 in lockdown with a sweet lady named Tiger, I'm gonna take them down.

Coming soon to a magazine near you

I booked a print job for Prilosec, which is... heartburn? Stomach upset? Who the hell knows. All I do know is that I'm getting paid a shitload of money to look vaguely uncomfortable and that's just fine by me. At the audition they had a mock up of the shot and over the girl's face (soon to be my face) someone from the ad agency had scrawled, "NOT TOO PRETTY".

They sure know how to sweet talk a lady.