Click Here To Be Grossed Out!

I am freaking out right now.

It was bad when I knew one of my neighbors managed to grow maggots in her room.

An actual conversation I found on her FB page after the incident

It was bad when a lady and her son moved in and somehow managed to make their entire hallway smell like hamsters.

The weird thing is, there are no hamsters in their room. Only one conclusion is logical: They ARE hamsters.

But now, a guy just a couple rooms away from me has BED BUGS.

I hear about those in the news all the time, but I've never personally known anyone who has actually run into them. They've always seemed like somewhat of a distant, unimportant threat. But now, knowing they have made it into THE BUILDING WHERE I SLEEP, I'm freaking out a little bit.

Naturally, I became psychosomatically itchy the minute I heard the news (which was about an hour ago). I checked my mattress. I changed my sheets. I checked everywhere that they could be hiding. Luckily, there was no sign of them, but I'm still edgy about sleeping here tonight. Maybe I'm being overly neurotic, but those things can travel fast.

I feel a cleaning rampage coming on...

Your Daily Dose Of Commune Drama

I'm angry.

The Management is building a case against The Chef. They are trying to evict him. They are taking the stance that he is crazy and shouldn't live here anymore.

Sure, The Chef is eccentric. Sometimes he's downright profane. He's a loud alcoholic who is never afraid to express his opinions. He takes up a lot of wall space with his paintings of babies shooting laser beams out of their eyes. He occasionally disrupts art openings with his noisy, psychedelic air mattresses.

But he isn't crazy. He's not dangerous. In fact, he's an important part of our community. He drives us all nuts sometimes, but the halls are way too quiet whenever he leaves. He gets in weird power struggles with people out of boredom, but he also gets stuff done. He's the reason we have a big friendly wooden table in our kitchen instead of plastic break room-style tables. He was one of the main forces behind getting us a decent refrigerator. He's also the guy who pressed a recent investigation of some pipes in the building that turned out to be full of asbestos (and we wonder why everyone is sick all the time...). He's a little rough around the edges and will tell people he doesn't like to f@#$ off. But he's got a very kind, generous spirit underneath the gruff exterior.

Actually, I think The Chef was my first official friend at this place. He gave me some soup in the kitchen the first night here and told me my music was beautiful (he had heard me practicing). A couple of nights later, he knocked on my door and invited himself in to drink beer out of a mug and eat cheese puffs on my couch. At the time, it was a bit awkward for me. I mean, it's not everyday that a chubby old guy comes into your room and starts crying over lost love.

But The Chef quickly became one of those people that always sides with me. He gets drunk and cheers at my shows. He's offered to design stage costumes for me (usually his vision involves fairy wings and too much glitter). He eats out a lot and keeps me updated on which pizza places have the cutest boys. He gives me pep talks in the kitchen when I'm unsure of where my life is going. And when I update my Facebook status to miscellaneous David Bowie lyrics in the middle of the night, he is always the one to complete them.


Really. If they need to get rid of somebody, they should evict the scary kid on the second floor that trashed the kitchen a few months ago. He's much more dangerous than a quirky old man who brings a three-eyed oil painting to a dance party as a date.

I also think they should get rid of Tweaked Out Elvis Costello if they are indeed trying to evict people who are a detriment to the community. He's gotten downright creepy, not to mention he's perpetually high on a whole cocktail of mysterious illegal substances. I really wish The Management would stop complaining about the artistic peace banners that The Chef flies out of his window and start cracking down on people who have closets full of "that new French diet drug."

I've always known life wasn't fair, but this whole thing is just ridiculous to watch.

Of course, The Poet isn't about to let them actually evict The Chef. He's going to go have a few words with The Management. Meanwhile, a bunch of us are going to figure out how to make banners and fly them out our windows in protest. If done correctly, it will be a bit of a "Save Ferris" moment.

And if that fails and they really do evict him, we'll just have to hide him as if he's Anne Frank.

A very loud, drunken Anne Frank. Hopefully it won't come to that.

Ugh...

"And the words of the stranger came back to me -
I said 'It's hard to be a 21st century girl.'
He said 'I think it's hard in any century!'"

I have so many wonderful friends. People that believe in me. People that will do ridiculous things with me, then be there to pick me up and dust me off when the ridiculous things don't go like I planned.

My friends are a unique batch of people. Most of them are pretty bizarre and some are just downright uncouth. But they are people that love and encourage me. I'm really lucky to have the friends that I have.

So why do I keep contacting the one person who constantly brings me down?

I should just accept the fact that this person has changed and that I will never be a priority. It's just hard for me to let go of everything I had (and didn't have) with this particular friend.

Facebook doesn't help. I miss the old days where you could drift away from somebody and not have to be alerted every time they are playing Farmville or eating spaghetti. Ugh.

The 21st century is rough sometimes.

Caught In A Bad Romance

I think I have already confessed to you guys that I love Lady Gaga.  I know, I know, I fail at being a true hipster.  But "The Fame Monster" rocked my life when it came out.  I fell in love with her outrageous fashion sense, her bizarro music videos, her impeccable choreography, and her crazy fun beats. 

At first I was somewhat embarrassed to admit that I, the queen of all things indie and alternative, admired this glitzy pop icon so much.  However, it didn't take long for me to become unashamed of the fact that I had joined the ranks of the millions of Gaga fans (or "little monsters") roaming the planet.  "Bad Romance" has been my ring tone for months now. 

She even pops up in my dreams occasionally.  Yes, Lady Gaga is alive and well in the world of my sleeping subconscious.  Once I had a dream that Lady Gaga and I were at Costco together and we were throwing meat around like it was a football.  The intro to "Bad Romance" played repeatedly (probably because my phone was ringing next to my head in real life) and I couldn't help but note that the meat we were tossing around was raw, raw, raw-ah-ahhh.  Sigmund Freud could probably have a field day with all of that.

But I digress.  The point is, I have an ongoing affinity for Lady Gaga. 

That being said, I must confess something else:  I'm not digging her new songs. 

"Born This Way" was fairly contrived and unoriginal.  But it was catchy and I was glad that she was finally coming out with new stuff, so I let it slide.  I downloaded it and jammed out to it on my iPod, being careful not to cringe at some of the cheesy lyrics.

I was a little bit turned off by the video.  I know that Lady Gaga videos are weird by definition, but her slimy, cosmic, alien mythologies took things to a whole new level of strange. 

And then she went public with "Judas" - the ultimate train wreck.  I expressed my disappointment in the form of a lengthy Facebook status.  This only resulted in a conversation with a random Italian guy who friended me because we both like "playing the keytar." 

When I went into the kitchen that night, The Chef was singing "Poker Face" while downing clamato beer (it was on sale at the gas station).  He had read my Facebook status and had his own opinions on the matter.

"Don't be too hard on the girl, Lauren," he says, taking a swig of the bright red liquid in his glass.  "She's boring me too, but I think she's just tired.  She needs to take a break so she can get back on her game.  Her stuff is so lacking right now."

He launches back into a chorus of "Poker Face."  I become slightly relieved that he chose to have this conversation with me in person rather than on my status.  Though I always enjoy a good awkward Facebook moment.  Consider the following:

 

Note To Self:  Gay Italian Theatrical Electronica jokes belong in the kitchen, not on the Internet.

I'm getting off-track again.  I apologize.  

The moral of the story is this:  Lady Gaga is bumming me out.  

I even ranted about it on Facebook again yesterday after listening to her new single, "Hair."  First, it was received with crickets.  Then, it turned into a conversation about something else.

As you can see, I never heard back from this friend.  I'm beginning to think it frightens people when I refer to my fictional characters as if they are living creatures.  Personally, I think it's hilarious.  But I also think it's funny to list "THE UNIVERSE" as my employer and put my job description down as "Freelance Rock Star."  

It's official - I'm an obnoxious Facebook friend. 

Anyway, Lady Gaga's album comes out next week (assuming the world doesn't really end).  I really want to buy it and fall in love with it, but I don't know if that is going to happen.  I'm already unimpressed.  I'll probably end up streaming it on Grooveshark so I can construct my inevitable Gaga-related Facebook status appropriately. 

Though I don't know if any of my Facebook friends actually care at this point.  But you know what they say:  Once you kill a cow, you gotta make a burger. 

And with that, I think I'm going to go to bed.  Wow, I think this might be the most trivial post I've ever written.  I'll be back tomorrow to ponder the meaning of life.  Or something like that.  

But in the meantime, what do you guys think of the Lady Gaga craze? 

Goat Man Wishes The Phone Would Ring (And So Do I)

I hate phones, but sometimes I get so sick of Facebook communication. Sometimes it feels so impersonal. Phone calls take more effort, but sometimes I really like them.

I've spent years hating phone calls. But now that the whole world is transitioning over to text/Internet-based communication, I miss hearing people's voices. And on days like today - when my phone doesn't ring at all - I wish that someone would work up the old-fashioned initiative to call me just to say "hello."

Of course, there's a good chance they'd be saying "hello" to my answering machine. I'm notorious for not answering my phone. But that's besides the point.

In other news, I searched my entire house today and finally found my purple notebook that has been missing for a couple of months. I archive my entire life in notebooks and am terrible at keeping track of them, so it's not completely weird for one to go missing. But the notebook in question had the main theme and some important notes for my "Goat Man" musical I mentioned in my last post. I was about to give up and start over on the theme when I found it in the very bottom of a box buried in the closet (don't even ask how it got there - I'm not really sure...). There was much rejoicing.

Then I opened the notebook and realized that the theme wasn't as developed as I thought it was, and the notes weren't as extensive as I had remembered them being. But it inspired me a little bit. Actually, I spent a good chunk of the afternoon excavating old songs from several notebooks and trying to make sense of the play's plot line.

It's a messy job but it has to be done.

I'm still a little stuck on why Goat Man is a goat man. He is half man, half goat and I don't really know why. I don't want the reason to be something bizarre/disgusting, but I want it to be believable within the story's suspension of disbelief. I've been reading up on Greek mythology (thank you, Wikipedia) in hopes of gaining some sort of insight on how one becomes a goat.

But alas, no real insight was gained. So I'm sitting here wondering if having a reasonable explanation about Goat Man's goatyness will really matter to audiences. Maybe it's just a weird gene that runs in his family? Maybe he ate too many oats as a kid?

Hmmm. He's in a psychiatrist's office for half the play anyway, so maybe the fact that he doesn't know how/why he is a goat man can become a plot device.

It's ridiculous. I've got almost 20 songs in the works for this project but barely know plot details. I know it's (mostly) a comedy. And a love story (goat meets girl, anyone?). And a musical. An existential rock opera in the key of despair, to be exact.

There I go walking that line between quirky and dumb again...

When Someone Sends You A "DRINK-THE-KOOL-AID" Request, Please Click "IGNORE"

Another morning. Another cup of coffee. The sun is shining again today, but it's quickly gone from being pleasantly sunny to being obnoxiously hot. I love the heat just about as much as The Wicked Witch of The West loves taking a shower.

I'm such a wimp when it comes to the heat. Good thing it only gets hot here twice a year.

Anyway, enough about the weather and onto more interesting things. Like Facebook.

I've recently realized that Facebook is a bit of a cult. I tried deactivating my account the other day because I just needed a little break from always having to know who is talking to who and who is playing Farmville. Unplugging from Facebook is not an easy task.

First, it guilt trips you:


Note that it drug my mother into this. If that's not meant to manipulate my emotions, I don't know what is.

It was tough knowing that my own mother and three people I talk to IRL (in real life) would miss me if I dropped out of an online networking site, but I decided to stay strong and click the daunting "DEACTIVATE" button. It asked me why I wanted to leave and told me I could come back at any time. In fact, coming back to Facebook after account deactivation is as easy as logging in. It's even nice enough to save all 700 tagged pictures and archived wall-to-walls for you.

That's another reason I wanted to escape for a bit. I'm sick of having my life archived. I don't want to meet someone new, befriend them on Facebook, and know that now they can see pictures of me when I was 18 and living in the dorms. I also don't want to have to know that much about other people right off the bat. I miss getting to know people the old-fashioned way. I miss actually having to ask what kind of music someone likes. I miss being able to interact with members of the opposite sex without alerting the universe. I miss the ability to loose track of people - you know, to meet people briefly and enjoy their company without having to become a lifetime subscriber to their status updates.

Entire conversations are being replaced with the clicking of the "like" button. Sure, Facebook makes everyone more connected, but it also makes the world seem too small and ultimately lonlier. Maybe I'm thinking about it too much, but it felt like time for a break.

So I deactivated my account. But five minutes later, Facebook sent me an email thanking me for returning and saying that my account had been reactivated. Confused, I trudged over to the site and saw that my account was indeed alive and well. I tried to kill it again, ignoring another guilt trip message. But five minutes later, the email popped up in my inbox congratulating me on my recent reactivation.

This happened four times before I gave up.

Facebook is a cult.