my queendom for a cool breeze.

look.

who.

else.

is.

back.

/\

"...well in order to fully develop the characters, i think there should be just one unicorn, and the ninja and pirate have to ride together and are always arguing over who rides shotgun, and every time the pirate dismounts, he leaves a mess of pirate filth on the pure white stallion, who then has to concentrate super hard to make a rainbow, which he then bathes in to clean himself of the pirate grime. but the ninja can't clean his uniform in the rainbow, cause the rainbow turns his swords into sunflower stems and his throwing stars into petunia blossoms..."


brandon is writing again. and the above insanity is just an excerpt from the comments.

Guess what! Cool peeps like to work with me (and Hilary)!

Many have asked: what exactly do Hil and Jill do? Like, on any given day? Hmmmm...?

And to those and everyone: here is the answer. We track down cool folks that we want to collaborate with us. And we meet them. And email them. And chat them. And love them. That's right we looooooove them.

Get your minds out of the gutter, people! We mean that in a very pure and gloriously life-loving way.

So without further ado, we shall now introduce you the amazingly talented and ubercool artistes who are already on board with The Boy on the Other Side of the World.




Marielle Heller (Actor) as Playwright
(Also check out her lovely headshot on her IMDB profile!)



Jennifer Saltzstein (Actor) as Girl
(Who NYTheatre.com described as having "open, delightful energy" in a role last summer as a young girl... not everyone call pull off 'precocious 5-year-old'.)



Lillian Vince (Actor) as the Female Muse / Stage Manager
(See her co-starring with Hilary on the 24 Hour Adventure blog!)


(We're still casting the male actors. If you know any actors who fit these descriptions, let us know!)



Monster-O / Daemon Hatfield (Composer / Sound Design)
(Composer of delicious digital ear candy. Listen to his stuff on his MySpace!)



Charlotte Bair (Costume Design)
(She's awesome in a variety of ways. But why don't we have a link for her?!?!)

Who else wants to play with us?

Yet another reason to love ChickyBabe.

She's turned out another witty wicked theory I'm sure you'll all find amusing.

Title: How To Tell What A Man Is Really Like In Bed

Thesis: The way a man communicates via email bears a direct relationship to what he is like in bed.

So what type are you?

...Oh wait, I probably already know!

*clicks over to thousands of archived emails in gmail*

Heh heh heh.

Introductions.

MysteryGirl!, goddess of stick figure porn blogging and fellow lover of candy, is currently weighing the pros and cons of taking a vow of celibacy.

Spaceman Spiff, reformed prettyboy manwhore (still pretty, stopped whoring) is urging all of his blogging sexually-prime she-buddies to do themselves and society a favor by Ms. Robinson-ing a young man with too much testosterone and not enough technique.

MG!, Spiffy. Spiffy, MG!


Also... tangentially related... (in that this is another introduction, not that this has anything to do with sex... Um... I mean... strike that!... damn, that's going to get me into trouble...)

Two of the sexiest man-geeks!
(Yeah, that'll work, ya think?)
In all the blogosphere!
(Except when I'm talking about, you know, all the other dudes on my blogroll)
are co-authoring a blog.

Casey (of some blog that he renames all the damn time but always is about geology, sex, motorcycles and music) and Grad School Reject of the Friday Flare-up may now also be found at The Five. Every week they make an obnoxious list of (duh) five items. This week: The Five Best Songs by Really Bad Bands Ever! And you're invited to offer the number one choice!

Internets, meet some of my buddies.


P.S. All of these folks are always found on my "places I comment and embarrass myself" list (aka "I treat their cyberhomes as my own").

Does this mean we get a Batmobile?

Teeny Tiny Feminist...
Originally uploaded by Brooklyn Hilary.

Hilary, that Flickr goddess, shot a very alluring portrait of an... um... gentleman companion of hers. Then she let me see it. Cause we're cool like that. And my reaction:

Jill: HOLY HOTNESS!

Because she captured an endearing boyish smile. On an shirtless man. Sitting at a computer. Yum!

So Hilary tells aforementioned shirtless man (aka Kevin).

And his reaction:

Kevin: "Holy hotness"??? That's like superhero sidekick language. Is Jill "Robin" to your Batman?

Hilary: I think she and I take turns being the sidekick!

And Shirtless Kevin says something priceless that catapults him from "Eye Candy" to "Retinal Scan Accepted for Entry".

Kevin: See, that type of power exchange is a distinctly female evolution of what it means to be a superhero. A new paradigm for the extraordinary.

And that, gentlemen, is how you get this dynamic duo to cough up the location of the secret superhero lair. Kevin, you may enter the clubhouse.

P.S. Two homes for Hilary! The above link is her Flickr. But check out her NEW BLOG!!!

Exit Curmudgeon.

Last week, I got to hang out live and in person with The Chronic Curmudgeon. He had something going on in the Times Square area, so we planned to meet at Haru, a "Modern Japanese Fusion Restaurant". Or, as I like to call it, "the sushi place across from the Yahoo sign". The food is fantastic, but the acoustics suck. One listen, and we high-tailed it to an Irish pub a few blocks east, where we drank and ate cheeseburgers. This was clearly a much better choice.

Until the woman who was pouring out of all available oddly-ruffled seams of her white blouse walked by. Then there was some indigestion.

So what's my point? Mudge has retired the Mudge Blog. He's making some career moves and sees the wisdom in not having his interior monologue fully accessible to anyone with a tin cup and a wire. Good move, dude.

I, on the other hand, am saddened that I will not have his completely random lists of musical opinions pre-written for me to argue each morning. "The Humpty Dance" on a list of top Hits of One Hit Wonders? Shaaaaaame, you.

Of course, this just means I will get to harass him more via email and other e-tools of musical ambush. And glorify opinions that I announce, at this point, purely to annoy the ever-living dissonance out of him. SURE, The Ataris had every right to cover "Boys of Summer". And "Breakfast at Tiffany's"--poetry. Absolute poetry, I tell you.

Heh. It was so easy to play devil's advocate on the Mudge blog.

Anyhoo, rumor has it, Mudge is still going to be frequenting the Jill Blog and contributing to the war of the sexes that my comments boxes normally evolve into. And I feel fortunate to have him around and call him a friend. So let's bid a fond farewell to his lil corner of cyberspace, and welcome the itinerant Curmudgeon whenever his busy-ness allows him to throw Y chromosome poo here in Jill-land.

This is why I keep her around.

Okay, maybe not the only reason.

I mean, she does bake some killer devil's food - cream cheese - chocolate chip cupcakes.

She's also damn good with power tools.

She has no problem being the one to do the dragging of my sorry ass home if I'm the one who's drunk the wrong stuff. (That's my alcohol pitfall--I'm excellent at pacing if I've actually started with the right beverage of choice. But no, I'm not going to tell you what I shouldn't drink.)

She totally acts as if I'm perfectly normal when she emerges from the bathroom to find me standing in my underwear, having taken over our hotel room for an impromptu photo shoot.

And she writes stuff like this. I present to you: Thinking Violet and Achieving Nirvana Through the Chili Peppers.

If you've ever once used a song to bring you back to where you needed to be, you need to read that.

Unfortunately, she doesn't have comments open on her blog. So feel free to complain about that RIGHT HERE.

These are the kind of people I'm friends with.

"Somewhere in Newark, a Chinese man does a double take into a hotel room. What he THOUGHT he saw, what his brain tries to wrap itself around (probably in some Cantonese dialect), is a sweet-looking, adorable young woman with a gag in her mouth and her hands bound by duct tape. Three men surround her. One of these men brandishes a video camera."

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I didn't write that. It was written by none other than the BGFQ (Best Guy Friend, Q.) And while I will admit that I may be acquainted with some folks who possibly possess minds of a somewhat perverted bent (heh), what you've just read is actually the set-up for a sketch comedy video that The Tenderloins recently shot.

Go watch! Go vote! (The voting deadline for this challenge is February 1 by 3pm ET.) And if you're really in a procrastinating mood, you can check the boys out on MySpace, where you can also check out their blog, and add to the nearly 750K views their videos have gotten.

By the way, this one's called "My Husband, the A-Hole".

And my favorite line: "You want to play knock-knock, who's there... my vagina?"

the beautiful-ugly

Please indulge me in a moment of introspection.

The lovely, talented, and insightful Amanda of Orchestrated Happenstance is tackling the subject of body image and its impact at a second blog called The Beautiful-Ugly.

She writes:

What is your beautiful-ugly?

A beautiful-ugly is hard to behold. It's striking, odd, contorted, misunderstood, and unique. It's something by which you can't help be entranced, something on which you can't help but focus. But, it's also something you just want to turn away from. There is a beautiful-ugly in each of us. It's that weird thing that you always find yourself doing, that maybe you wish you didn't; that thing you focus on, about which you wish you could care less. Or maybe you really love your beautiful-ugly because it makes you, you. What if we stared into the beautiful-ugly, confronted it face to face, and tried to embrace it for making us what we are? What's your beautiful-ugly?

and requests replies. The site, inspired partly by Naomi Wolf's book The Beauty Myth, is mostly targeted toward women, but I think it's worth a look by gentlemen as well. Everyone's experience is valid, I believe. Please take a moment to click on over and give Amanda's work some thought.

Is this how we say goodbye?

In the time since I entered the blogosphere, I have noted more instances of synchronicity than in all the previous years of my life combined. I'd go into more detail, but... well--no, I won't. We're just going to call January 16th Kit Kat Day at JillWrites and move along to today's feature presentation...

*****

jillwrites is beyond thrilled to host a guest blogger today, a writer i have admired since i first encountered her work, and the author of one of my favorite pieces of work to grace the blogosphere--kat of i hate kit kats. which has unfortunately been retired. which is why, after a delightful catch-up chat this afternoon, i have the distinct pleasure of presenting to you, dear readers, kat's most recent work, "Is this how we say goodbye?" i love it; i love her; we disagree on the beauty of kit kats, but she's totally hot.

so without further ado... all work below, including the photo, is copyright kat. please delurk and welcome her.

*****




Is this how we say goodbye?


She brushes fingertips unsure across the keyboard, h . . . i . . . b . . . r . . . backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace, sighs at another failed beginning. It’s not as if she has lost the will to communicate, nor the uneasy longing engendered by his withdrawal. It’s that she has lost him somehow, that with the sobriety of another year passed she ceased to exist.

This is how it starts; she well knows this terrain. Soon enough she will be nothing more than a bitter mistake, a drunken indiscretion on his part. But if only she could find the perfect thing to say, they could turn back, together, to that vast field of gold where they once frolicked as children. If only she could take a step in the right direction they could hold each other once more in air dry despite stormy skies.

*****

He sits in boxer briefs with his back to her, desk curiously configured against the wall in the darkened room. He feigns occupation, busily clicking and typing, eyes presumably darting back and across the glowing screen though she cannot know for sure.

Come to bed, she admonishes, abandoned once again beneath crisp white linens.

In a minute, in a minute, he replies softly, knowing that in a minute she will drift into a heavy sleep, dreamless. She will have left him, and come morning in clear conscience he’ll be able to break her heart and call it love.

*****

Tiny scratches decorate her wrists, penance meted out by blackberry brambles for grabbing that which ought not to be taken. In lust her lips and fingertips are stained red, the dye flowing like streams along the tiny ridges of her hand, spreading and swirling, an indelible record of her transgression. She reaches for another juicy berry, only to find the branches picked clean in greed. She slinks away guiltily, hides beneath the dense foliage of a gardenia bush heavy with the scent of a thousand waxy petals.

This is how I love you, six of seven deadly sins and only one virtue with which to save myself, too proud not to be angry, too generous not to give you everything I’ve no right to give. Broken on the wheel, smothered in fire and brimstone, this is how badly I want you.

*****

We were two coin tosses from hopping on a flight to London this coming Thursday.

This part is true.

Either it's a beginning or it's an ending. I can't tell which.

The wonderful wondrous ChickyBabe recently celebrated her 600th blog post with a fun game. She randomly selected 20 of her regular commenters and posed a question to each of them--but she listed the questions in alphabetical order and did not say whose was whose. I was positive, though, that is one was mine. In a way, this is yet another installment of Ask Jill.


You've always wanted to visit my city and see my bridge. Now that you're here at the other end of the world, you run into someone you know. What story will you tell?

The following was my response. Perhaps it is the beginning of a longer story... would you like to hear it continued?

*****

We are at a café full of light, you and I, whispering finally in person all the secrets dreamt of sharing, communicating with only our eyes our ratings of the male passerby, occasionally giggling for effect. Suddenly, I am struck dumb. You know it’s not just because of the solid legs, the perfect ass--you know where to look and how to recognize him… and indeed you do, as if you had known him all along, as those times when you had seen his face on my behalf.

Melty inside, you know I am, though time has changed much else. You know also that I must speak before he turns to recognize me, or I might never speak again--to him or of him. And so I call out that name that I call him, that he altered to suit his public purposes, and now that he is reminded of, every day, his own choice. When I say it, it’s maybe a whisper, perhaps a gasp--wonder and anticipation and relief all at once. Without so much as a sideways glance, he laughs. It is me; he knows it's me.

In a moment, he turns, and there it is again: the ocean in his eyes, sunset in his smile. And though we have much to catch up on, to consider, to sort, it is just as important that you are there. This he recognizes as well. He too must meet the woman that helped me hold it together when the specter of him in my world, previously free of phantom distant perfect love, had me falling apart.

*****

Those unfamiliar with CB might want to check this post, a "Medley" of thoughts, phrases, and emotions from some of her signature (and sensual!) posts, which also happen to be some of my favorites. Congrats to CB on 600!

I pimp, therefore I am. Or: have you met my cousin Tina?

Every now and then I feel compelled to share some real-life person that actually has a name. You know, as opposed to those nameless creatures from the hazy great beyond of my personal life that I write cryptic prose-poems about? Right, yeah. Well, this is one of those posts that includes an actual, documented, living, breathing human being that I know, and whose name I will actually divulge.

And not only do I divulge them name, but I encourage you to remember it. And not only that! (This should probably be where I throw in the six extra steak knives for free.) I urge you to seek her out elsewhere in the ether of cyberspace. Find out as much as you can about her! And indeed, be her friend. Are you ready?

Tina Mancusi.

Oh yeah. And she's my cousin.

Now, if I were really a publicity pimp, I'd have written:

The name: Tina Mancusi
The CD: Rivington Hotel
Buy it now.

But how smarmy is that? And we all know how Jill hates smarmy.

Oh we don't? Well, we will soon. But that's a story for a different day. Anyway, back to Cousin Tina. She's a hottie, no?

You may recall a self-portait I took a few weeks ago, in an unfamiliar bathroom, on four hours' sleep, with possibly a bit of a hangover. Yes. That one. That's the morning after I began attempting to write publicity materials to promote Tina's new CD. Alas, there was much wine and ogling of photos of attractive internet personages and very little productivity on my part. The problem (besides how easy it is to procrastinate when there are hot guys to be perved upon) is this: I love music, but I don't regularly write about it.

Hell, I spent six years studying theater and I still bang my head against the table attempting to come up with the right words to explain that.

And also: Cousin Tina is a bit eclectic. There's the pop/rock "Man of the Year", my new dancing around the house in my undies favorite (and I'm not just saying that because she's my cousin--listen to it on GarageBand.com and tell me if you don't move some part of you). But that's not representative of the CD. In fact, her sound is a melange of Americana. Someone help me articulate it!

She gets bluesy with two Tom Waits covers (which, of course, can't be posted on the internet). The lyrics she writes are strongly visual, and her signature tracks are these driving, sultry rock ballads.

The title track, "Rivington Hotel" boasts one of my favorite song lyrics, possibly ever. Are you ready for it?

"The best part of you, baby, just ran right down my leg."

Oh yeah. How could you not love a chick who has the balls to write that?

And then perform it live all over New York City? Okay, maybe some of you boys didn't appreciate that so much. But you'll appreciate her delivery if you listen.

"Dusted" (also on Garage Band.com) calls to mind--if I may be so bold--what might happen if someone set one of my cryptic posts to music. (Listen to that one and there will be no doubt in your mind that she and I are related.)

My absolute favorites, though, are "Visions" (sometimes I fall for those songs that all-but-demand you to sing along) and "High Hard Bone". Yeah, it means what you think it means. This one was actually written by a male friend of hers, and the narrator "should be" a man. Pah! "Should be", our sweet asses.

So, loyal readers and music-maniacs, what's the point here? Of course I'm asking you to check her out. (The music, dudes. Not just her legs.)

Give her a listen and rating on GarageBand.com. Say hi on her MySpace. I've already pimped the CD above. And if you have some words to help me articulate, let me know! Tina and I shall drink a toast to your assistance.

Oh, and if you know of any indie record labels searching for a downtown-rock-chick-chic type who owns her vocal poetry and can put it out there live, do us a favor and send them our way, will ya? Thanks.

And Tina? This means you can't call you-know-who and tell him you-know-what.

I didn't take these photos, but I really wish I had.

Day 8
Originally uploaded by ©Andrew.

I saw this one first.

Row upon row: faces and isolated body parts, snapshots and carefully composed portraiture. On that page, thirty cyber-strangers exposing their everythings. But my eyes are drawn inexorably to that eye.

It's not just the color of the iris, of course--pleasing though it is to my always-skyward gaze. It's that stare. He's a picture on my screen, but I find myself staring right back. What is it about the intensity of the male gaze that has this damned effect on me?

Guys, admit it: you do it on purpose. Because you know it works.

Or don't you?

I found him on Flickr, in a photo pool of self-portraiture: Andrew Kavanagh, self-professed nerd, perfectionist, and procrastinator. Quite charming, too, if you ask me--and either exceptionally modest or woefully misinformed, considering his description of this shot reads: "dead bored / dead? bored?" Cute. But no woman I know, had she caught that look from across a room, would interpret that guy as dead or bored. And not boring, either.

For real.
Ladies? Tell him.
It's okay. I've screened him.
He's not a jerk.
Quite nice, actually.
(And yes, sorry, he's taken. By a woman with a sense of humor--or believe me, I wouldn't be writing this. But do me a favor and tell him anyway.)

I know what I'd be thinking if I saw that. His skin looks awfully warm, and that pupil is focused. Intently. He's thinking something, and I really hope it's naughty. And about me.

Dead? Bored? Silly boy!

...Or am I the silly one? I mean, you do know what a look like that will do to a woman...? You've read the comments on your photostream... Right?

Day 2
Originally uploaded by ©Andrew.

...And you did take this shot, as well. Clearly, you know what you're doing here. And I'm not discussing technical skill at the moment. I'm saying you obviously know how to get a woman's attention. So, was this one with conscious intent and aesthetic purpose? Or did you just stumble upon it? Were you thinking something feisty just before the shutter clicked? Or are all of us women who have been commenting on your photos about to find out that we've been trained to be aroused by the look of a guy who's pondering his next beer?

Wait! Don't answer that! I don't want to know.

Let me mention that my actual comment on this photo was "um.... this is sexy in more ways than i can articulate at the moment." A more veracious statement was never made. Now, whether my inability to articulate was due to mental exhaustion or due to aroused speechlessness is debatable--but I'd attribute it to some combination of the two. Then throw in a bit of laziness, and the desire to just sit back and appreciate the sensation of being caught in his gaze. Because I happily admit to enjoying it.

But then he had to ask "But you articulate for a living, do you not?" Damn you for daring me to do my job! Perhaps I should have asked, "Is that a hand in your wet hair? And if so, why is it not mine?" If I had listened, that's probably what I would have heard the voice in my head saying. (Whispering, probably. For effect.) And it would have been a good deal less work just to write that from the start.

But I wasn't listening to the voice in my head. I was too focused. On him. And those eyes. And the eyes of every man I've ever mentally photographed. And stored away. Because always, when I command myself to remember, it's because a man has looked at me like that. Next thing I know, I'm nibbling on my lip and wanting him to look again. And... you know... hoping next he'll be nibbling on my lip. And then maybe...

Whoa. No. I think I'll stop right there.

Dead? Any man who can manufacture that gaze on demand certainly is not. More like deadly. It's a damned good thing he's married.

*Andrew is actually a reticent model whose oeurve mostly consists of wonderful travel photography. I'm also greatly pleased by his homage to his athletic footwear. So guys, I urge you to go on over and take a look at his work for reasons other than what I have listed here. And tell him I said hello!

And thanks for the inspiration.

BOOOOOOOBIEEEEEES!

You are cordially invited to attend a comment orgy hosted by the lovely, wacky, insightful, crazy-fun Tequila-conner Sandra of Internal Monoblog.

Will you see boobies? Not necessarily. But you are welcome to make copious boobie references in your comments.

(Ya see, Monday's boobie post was a warm-up. I support my blog buddies, dammit!)

And while you're poking around Sandra's boob--whoops, I mean Sandra's blog, do check out Marilynn Mills, Best-Looking and Most Talented Actress in the World, Dies Tragically. It's QUITE witty. And DAMN! I wish I'd written that!

Happy Orgying!

My blogroll. Alternate title: I'm not really concerned with cleaning my room, either.

Note: The paragraphs of this post do not necessarily build upon each other, or make much of a logical argument.

There are people in the world who are very obsessed with detail just for the sake of detail. I am not one of these people.

There are people in the world who immediately put away all their clean laundry rather than letting it sit at the foot of the bed until they have worn it all again. I am not one of these people, either.

My students are often shocked when I tell them that we will worry about grammatical errors in the last draft. First we have to focus on communicating what we actually want to say to our audience. This often occurs in a relay with communicating to ourselves what we actually want to say. Sometimes "ourselves" is our only intended audience. That doesn't necessarily make the writing process any easier. And it doesn't mean we don't have an audience.

In many situations, my priority system is different than other people's. My mother has always thought that one should make the bed before going to work. I have always thought that an extra few minutes of sleep (or in the shower, or reading the arts section of the newspaper, or...) is of a higher priority. And why should I make the bed when I'm just going to get in it again later? An unmade bed does not bother me.

My blogroll is pretty much like my bedroom. I'll toss stuff about until I can't find a damn thing, and one day I find some time and open the windows and organize. I don't store my yoga apparel with my sundresses. Every now and then, if I haven't worn something in a really long time, I'll give it away. And my closet door is always open to new items.

I love to read. I really love to read. I read constantly. My reading list is inclusive. My teaching style is inclusive. My blogroll is inclusive.

I approached the most recent re-organization of my blogroll, though, not as a my bedroom, but as my mp3s. Yes, I love to mix metaphors as well. Regard my blogroll as a series of playlists. Except, they're named after plays, not CDs. But anyway.

My mp3 playlists, like my wardrobe, like my blogroll will evolve unevenly. One day I will obsessively clean and organize. A few weeks later, the underlying plan is barely a remnant. Does that phrase even make sense? "Barely a remnant"? Who the fuck cares, really. I don't feel like going to Thesaurus.com and looking for a better word. My priority at the moment is to communicate these scattered thoughts to you, because the truth is, if I leave this post for another day when I am in a better state of mind for organizing and arguing intricate detail, this discussion topic won't even feature on the priority list.

Point. Sometimes I organize a lot. I have every intention of maintaining the system I establish. Then my priorites shift. Over an extended period of time, things get messy. Then, I completely re-organize with a new system. The truth is, I just enjoy creating organizational systems. I did it in nearly every job I've ever had.

Moral. My links are organized more or less in this way: one of the lists are new acquaintances; one of the lists consists of people I knew before blogging, or got to know pretty well through blogging--so on any given day, I don't go longer than an hour at a time (not counting sleep) without having some form of communication with at least one of them; and the other lists are like "mixed tapes" of bloggers that I got to know in different ways or during different times over the course of my "blogging career".

So if I've missed linking you, then introduce yourself so I can make a new playlist. But be patient with me; my time management skills suck lately.

And for a good laugh, this review of The DaVinci Code from the New York Times is more entertaining than the movie can hope to be. Which isn't to say I won't go see it. (If only to see Paul Bettany.)

blogcrushers anonymous

(To borrow the too-fab title of Fictional Rockstar's blogroll)

I'm still catching up, but I'll have something new written for tomorrow evening. I may be slaving over a warm laptop, but there's going to be a hot discussion going on over at ChickyBabe's and Faltenin's places.

They're discussing blogcrushes. If you've ever found yourself strangely intrigued by a person you've only just virtually met, pop on over and join in the chat.

If it gets exciting enough, I just might divulge who I'm blogcrushing on...

(Insert wicked laugh here.)

And thanks to The Caitlinator, who so thoughtfully sent me a picture of a hot man to keep me company while I work!

P.S. But if your blogcrush has broken your heart, and you're more in the mood for venting, then check out the email that Lil Bitty's daddy sent to the folks at Lean Cuisine, comparing the experience of eating one of their panini to... well, let's just say he knows a lot of creative ways to say "this sandwich sucks". As if I wasn't already ready to list him as one of my blogcrushes!!!

Drat! Foiled again. Updated. Twice.

I was nearly done with a post answering one of my reader questions. I was really proud of it. I was really excited to discuss it. I forgot to hit "Save As Draft". I tried to open another window. Bloglines crashed Internet Explorer. I am too exhausted to get emotional about this right now. It is time for me to be more conscientious about doing my writing on my desktop, and not in a temporary internet file. I am embarrassed of my own carelessness. I will try to write it again in the morning. Please come back.

*Update*
Thanks for all of your kind, sympathetic, and empathetic words about allergies, internet woes, and job evaluations. Sounding worse than Peter Brady, I spoke to the professor who was supposed to observe my class, and she graciously agreed to postpone until later this month. So I cancelled my class today and am trying to catch up on work, relax a bit, and--most of all--not speak. I am practicing compulsively hitting "save" as I begin to recreate the lost post.

In other, more titillating news, the comment orgy continues at Scott's, so please stop by and try out the tapioca slip 'n' slide. Tell 'em the margarita-smelling porn store clerk sent you.


*Update #2*
What's a day of work without some blog-surfing? Especially since I can't exactly interrupt it for phone calls. As I was catching up on the always-humorous Neil at Citizen of the Month, I came across a link that Neil's talking, blogging penis put up while Neil was sleeping through April Fool's Day. The link is to the Grassroots Blogger Book Marketing Campaign (heretofore known as GBBMC), organized by blogger Kevin Apgar to promote The Lost Blogs:From Jesus to Jim Morrison, a forthcoming book by Paul Davidson of Words For My Enjoyment. The subtitle of the book pretty much sums it up: The Historically Inaccurate and Totally Fictitious Cyber Diaries of Everyone Worth Knowing.

The above link to GBBMC provides all the details, but the premise is this: friendly bloggers give Paul a hand in promoting his book by spending the work week of April 10-14 blogging as historical figures (of their own choice, but that aren't included in the book). Readers guess who they are. I've decided to play along. So next week, I will be posting two sets of posts--as Jill, and as an historical non-blogger to be guessed later. If you're interested in historo-blogging along, the GBBMC link provides further details. I will be putting up an additional blogroll of the other participants so you can check out their mystery bloggers. Happy guessing!

And by the way, people are still orgying at Scott's.

Welcome to Scott, World.

Some of my readers may remember that we kicked off Valentine's Day (VD, for those in the know) Week here at JillWrites with a comment orgy. Well, that (like all good little VD's) had to get passed on.

Passed it on to Scott, I did.

So with the sprunging of spring and other things, in this time of fertility and Cadbury creme eggs and gods that get torn to little shreds only to live again, I invite you to join me in a revel--a bacchanalia, the Commentius Maximus over at the ever-entertaining Caveat Emptor. If you see bits and pieces of my Barbie dolls... well, if it was good enough for Bacchus, I guess it's good enough for them.

Hello, World. Scott is ready for you.

Please come and say hello.

Literary Crushing, Not Necessarily Hetero

In the comments on my Good Ways to Ruin Your Life for the Sake of Inspiration post, Popeye shared his appreciation of the character of Atticus Finch. I began a reply, then realized it would take a bit more than just a comment paragraph to respond. On my homepage, I have a list of (male) fictional characters I have lusted after. (I'd provide the link, but my homepage is all in one Flash file, and therefore I cannot currently link separate pages. I'd love for you to read it, though. It's under "Lists".) But I don't have a list of female characters. So without further ado...

Jill's Possible Same Sex Literary Crushes

1. Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series was the first one to come to mind. She's a geek; she mothers her friends, well; she always knows where to find the information to help save their asses, and has put her own on the line more than a few times; she charmed the heck out of Viktor Krum, world-famous Quidditch star. Sure, maybe early on, her hair needed a deep-conditioning treatment, but I think she's learned to take care of that. Especially now that she's clearly got her heart set on the oh-so-oblivious Ron. This choice might make me a pedophile...but just a fictional one, right? At least I didn't say Lolita.

2. Next, I thought of Arwyn of Lord of the Rings fame. Except I don't think I actually have a crush on her. It's more like I want her immortality, or her man. Or both. She's not really fiesty enough for me. I'd love to slay her and take her place. Which is something Eowyn could have done. Now, there's a crush-worthy Tolkien woman.

3. Tinkerbell. Forget. Wendy.

At this point, this list becomes a truly informative exercise. Because, if I am limiting myself to literature...well, there aren't a whole heckuvalotof female characters that entice me. Let's examine Shakespeare. Lady Macbeth is trying to act out her own ambitions through her husband, Ophelia can't cope, Gertrude is either an adultress or too easily manipulated, Miranda is sheltered, Juliet is naive, as is poor Desdemona, Cleopatra is...Cleopatra, Cordelia is somewhat likable, though her sisters clearly aren't, the girls in Midsummer's are too simple (it is a romantic comedy, after all), but...

4. Beatrice. What a wit! And fiesty indeed.

5. Katharina. The Shrew. Taming, my ass.

6. Elphaba. From Wicked. I don't care if she's green. No, I haven't seen the musical. I may be the only person in New York, or that has visited New York in the past year or two, that hasn't. I'll get around to it.

7. Catherine, of the Pulitzer Prize-winning David Auburn play, Proof. Young but complex. Plagued by people making false assumptions about her. Some of them false, anyway. Deadpan humor. And brilliant.

8. Sabine. From Nick Bantock's Griffin & Sabine series. Bantock is an artist, illustrator, writer and creator of pop-up books. This series tells the story through the correspondence of the title characters. Each page--their letters, postcards, and the like--is an artwork. And Sabine is the mysterious woman who initiates it all. If you're the type of person who wanders through bookstores looking for things to touch, and flip through, and lose yourself in, sit down with these. The text is limited enough to read over one cup of tea, but you really won't want to leave without the book(s).

Literary crushes, anyone?

The Things We Learn from Aussies

This post is a bit long, but if you stick it out, you will be rewarded with titillation in the end. No, don't just skip down!

I fluently speak the language of love in (American) English and Italian. You'd think I'd be fluent in Spanish or at least Spanglish by now, after all the... er... um... just forget I mentioned that... but alas, my knowledge there is limited to a few choice words and phrases. Still, it's more than I knew before. And that's really my goal: how can I expand my vocabulary? I'm all for learning international synonyms for horny.

I've been to fourteen other countries and learned a bit in each. Jamaica was a good time, but Thailand... I'd share, but I'm not sure I could spell what I learned in Bangkok's red light district.

Yet with all my globe-trotting, I've still not yet been to Australia. My knowledge of Aussie slang has therefore been limited to what I've learned drooling over rugby players on cable television. You don't pick up a lot of bedroom talk watching ESPN, I'll tell you that much. All right, so I may have learned a thing or two from the boys over at Eight Mile Creek, an expat-run pub and restaurant here in NYC’s…get this…Little Italy. Yes, I went to Mulberry Street for sticky date pudding. And I learned a thing. Or two. But not even as much as I've learned of French, and that doesn’t range far beyond the lyrics to “Lady Marmelade” and the text on Toulouse-Lautrec posters.

What makes my limited Oz-speak so grating is the fact that over the past year or so, it’s been positively……raining Australians here at the headquarters of JillWrites. Not just in cyberspace. IRL. Seriously. Aussies falling from the sky. Like how I spent the month of August with a theater company from Melbourne. If you’ve ever worked in theater, you know that theater folk are generally pretty open about their sexuality. How did I not expand my vocabulary? Yet there we were, outside a vegetarian restaurant in the East Village, comparing educational systems. You know how I embrace the word "geek", but frankly, this was just nerdy. We could have been comparing pillow talk, but there we were, debating the merits of balanced literacy. Hey, I hear there are a lot of books in Australian classrooms! Not text books. Like, real books. You know, New York City is implementing the Australian literacy model—WHO THE F*&K CARES? How about learning some dirty words, you nerdy English teacher? No. What did I learn instead? Euphemisms for yeast infections. Oh yes. Apparently gals down in the sultry South Pacific have a slew of words on the topic. I guess it’s like Eskimos and snow.

But then, finally—FINALLY!—an Aussie gave me a word that I was truly excited to learn. So for the second time this week, I’m going to thank Steph—yes you!—for leading me somewhere fabulous. This week, I learned the word “toey.”

F*ckin’ A.

I’m reading Steph’s post, and I get down to the bottom, where she throws in this cute little footnote: *Toey, Aussie speak for horny ;). Score! New word! So being the nerd that I am, I have to Google it for etymology, connotation, precedent—you know, the normal things that people are curious about when they learn how to talk naughty. And I come across this absolute gem of a paragraph, from Adam Ford’s website The Scam:

“I like it because it implies so much more than 'horny' - being toey has the additional connotation of being edgy, on your toes, ready to spring into action at the slightest provocation, blurring the lines between fighting and sex which confirms what we all know, that sex is best when it approximates fighting, a good bed throw, a hand around your throat, being aggressively pulled into position by the dominant other, sweat, bitemarks, a loss of control, the nagging feeling that you could maybe be out of your depth.”

Yes please.

Read it again.

(I did.)

Thank you, Adam Ford. That’s the single best explication of a word’s connotations that I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

Though I’d probably throw in “itchy and restless,” but that’s just me. (They should be used together, otherwise “itchy” could be taken literally, as you will see if you read on.)

Then I called Violet and read it to her.
“Could you read that to me again?”
I did.
“And email me the link?”

Violet is the woman who forced me to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVD’s so that I could experience Spike. In case you haven’t figured it out, Spike makes me pretty damn toey.

I enjoy expressing my wonder in rhetorical questions, and this paragraph had me in absolute awe. “Where the hell has this word been all my life?”
Violet likes to state the obvious. “Uh…Australia.”
“Like, who knew about this, and why didn’t they tell me?”
Violet starts listing random Australians.
“Why don’t we have a word that means that?”
She agrees. “"Horny" doesn’t really do it for me.”
“Well, we should make one up.” Oh, yes. One of my brighter ideas. And just like that, the quest begins.

Dialogue ensues:
Her: How do you make words up?
Me: You pick out sounds you like.
Her: It ought to sound like moaning.
Me: Toey does not sound like moaning.
Her: But it shouldn’t be too smooth. It shouldn’t be a smooth moaning. Because he’s got his hand on your neck. It’s hard to moan that way. And there should be a guttural-ness to it. But a pretty word. Something with a lot of consonants. Three syllables? A compound word. Do people make words up?
Me: Uh…"flibbertigibbet"? But that was a few hundred years ago.
Her: Well of course, people made up more words back then, because they didn’t have as many words.
Me: Something like “writhing.” I’ve always liked the sound of “writhing.”
Her: A word that you can slide into. Something that’s not explicitly sexual. And not exactly like itchy. Rashes. Aren’t. Sexual.
Me: And it needs to be something you can draw out. Like wriiiiiithing.
Her: That’s my number one problem with toey. It’s too short. You don’t want someone to turn to you and say “Hey baby, I feel so toey.”... “Well, can I get you some powder?” It’s the same problem with "horny". It doesn’t work.

I personally think it should be the kind of word that sounds good whispered.

We could have gone on like that all night, but it was quite late. And I already knew what had to happen next...

I had to tell you all about it. What good is the blogosphere, if not to promote "toey-ness"? Surely, there's more out there! So I dropped Adam Ford an email and here we are. Any suggestions? Or lessons? Lessons are most appreciated.


And if you haven't checked out Adam Ford's work, definitely do! He's a poet, novelist, zine-maker, and comic artist, among other things. And he was cool enough to let me dig up that old post and quote it. Check out his homepage.

Prime

I thought I could just write a post about how much I loved this movie; then I realized critics are tearing it to shreds. This has fueled my competitive streak. Now I feel as if I need to see it again and write an in-depth analysis and defense of it. Truly, I loved it. I'll get back to you on this. It's going to require more work than I had anticipated.

For Fans of Orchestrated Happenstance...

Here's a picture of a jack-o-lantern.





And here's a picture of a jill-o-lantern.
(Thanks to my brother.)












Oh yes...and here's a picture of Amanda, lounging on the "fainting sofa" because she "ate too much candy corn." On the left, that's Sarah, a genie. Not in a bottle.

Come back later so I can urge you to go see Prime, which might be my new favorite movie. Right now I'm off to teach the youth of America.

So Be It, Jedi

I may have died and gone to geek heaven.

Anyone who has ever, even once, wielded an imaginary light saber needs to see the One-Man Star Wars Trilogy. In a one-hour one-man show, Canadian actor and uber-geek Charles Ross barrels through the original trilogy, running, jumping and tossing himself on the stage floor, playing every actor, robot, and sound effect, stopping only twice (between films) to sip some water. He is brilliant.

Cute, too. In that "I may be six feet tall with stunning eyes and an adorable smile, but I'm still a geek at heart" kinda way.

But mostly brilliant.

You see, while the rest of us geeks were spewing Star Wars quotes while complaining about our jobs, searching for motivation, and eating junk food in the middle of the night, he decided to turn the obsession into something highly entertaining and marketable. Since then, he's performed it at the Toronto Fringe, the Orlando Fringe, in Chicago, and (of course) at Star Wars Celebration III. Now he's Off-Broadway. Gotta respect a man who makes a plan and follows through.

Now, it is true that the more you have seen the trilogy, the more you will enjoy the show--but even casual viewers of the films will get more than a few laughs, and will no doubt marvel at Ross' boundless energy. And anyone who has ever made fun of Luke That Whiny Bitch will have a heck of a good time. Ross' eerily dead-on muppet voice for Yoda is especially entertaining, but not nearly as satisfying as seeing him transform his boyish energy into the seriously sadistic Emperor. But what truly makes the show is his (literally) pitch-perfect rendering of the musical scores, which weaves the scenes together and adds emotional color to each moment. (You know, like an actual musical score would do. Only this guy is apparently a one-man orchestra as well.)

Ok, now I go off on a theater geek tangent...
And speaking of color, the show is done on a bare stage, and he provides all the sound effects, so the only tech help he gets is from the lights. And it is a spare--but dead-on--lighting design. Ambers for Tatooine. Blues for Hoth. One red for the Emperor's throne. And a few well-placed gobos. Simple. Elegant. Ironic. Brilliant.

I need to see this again.

Someone Else Who Answers to Lally

Lally is my new friend. Most of my family calls me Lally. (How's that for Jill trivia?) Lally is the only other person I've ever met who answers to "Lally." This is only one of the ways that this may be the strangest connection I've made with a perfect stranger since Kim didn't even blink when I announced a burning desire to chop up one of the other members of our Drama Since WWII class. If you knew my life, you'd know that for this to be the "strangest connection...", well...it's going to have to be really, really strange. The condition of someone being a complete stranger does nothing to stop me from saying exactly what I'm thinking. Except in really, really, really strange cases. But that's a story for another time. For me to self-censor, you know it's gotta be a winner. And now I fear I have over-used the word strange, and perhaps been too lazy to find a better candidate.

Lally comes to FringeCENTRAL, and I am helping her take care of administrative ticket-buying stuff for the performances of her play, The Eisteddfod. We discuss real estate. We feel we should own some. Other people, younger than we are, are making us look bad. Playwriting isn't immediately the most lucrative of professions.

Yesterday, I go see the show's first performance. I'm in the lobby, rifling through my bag, looking for my staff access badge. "I love your necklaces," she says, "or is it one?"

"It's one," I tell her. "I actually wrote about it in one of my essays."

"Can I read it?" she asks.

I watch the play. I love the play. It's absurd and dark and wickedly funny and true while still retaining the air of the imaginary. "Your writing style," I tell her, "it's spare, and the characters have this intriguing darkness to them."

"Come out for dinner with us," she invites, and later answers my thought, "We think we we're attracted to people for their light, but it's their dark side that keeps us intrigued." We giggle wickedly and I tell her that that's exactly what I'm writing about right now. "I have to read it," she says.

Lally is a waitress. "Hospitality and theater," she believes, "are really so much the same. You're putting on a show whether you're accomodating guests or on stage." I marvel that that's almost word for word what I wrote in one of my essays. She's up for reading that as well. Oddly enough, it's the same essay that prominently features the necklace she loves so much. This is getting freakier by the second. It's not like she's reading my mind; it's like all the stuff in my head is in hers as well. What the heck else is in there? What the hell else is in this essay, she wants to know.

Eventually, I have to leave to meet Kim and go to the egg-breaking show. Lally and I exchange all sorts of contact information and plan to do lunch or dinner or whatever before she goes home. "You really ought to come to Melbourne," she tells me, "You would love it." It's always been on my to-do list, I tell her. We part ways on 9th Street. "This is so funny," she says, "I feel like I have a new friend."


Ok, so besides the fact that I've just befriended the playwright, you all should go see The Eisteddfod. First of all, you know that I can't be friends with someone if I don't really respect their work. But also, the direction is superb, the visual design is striking and spare, the lighting is used creatively to perfect effect, the soundscape is unnervingly haunting, and the acting is phenomenal. The cast of two, Jessamy and Luke--it's impossible to take your eyes off them. She evokes such a wounded vulnerability with this character, it was surreal to be discussing silliness and shoe-shopping with her only an hour later. And he is an absolute chameleon, shifting with seeming effortlessness from puppy-dog passiveness to abject humiliation to raw masculine command. The theater company is Stuck Pigs Squealing. They have six more shows during the festival, then are remaining in NYC for an August 31-September 10 run at Ontological-Hysteric Theatre.

"Oh, Westley!":The Princess Bride and Comfort Food

Yesterday was a hot, sticky day. It's been like that all week. August in New York is one of those experiences that you erase out of your consciousness after every instance, and the next time it happens, you're blind-sided. I've been living on Gatorade, fruit, and random salty things all week. The air conditioning in my car gave up again. And yesterday, at rush hour, I had to drive through Manhattan, up to Kim's, for a quick run-through of the show in preparation for our final performance.

The West Side Highway was like a parking lot. It took me 47 minutes to drive...8 miles? I had forgotten to recharge my iPod, so I couldn't use the transmitter. But, because it was rush hour, all the radio stations were trying to be supportive. And because Bryan had taken the time to pre-set all the good rock stations on my radio the last time I'd been staring out at the Hudson wishing I could jump in, there was very little searching for me to do. For some reason, every rock station in NYC became obsessed with Joan Jett and Van Halen between 4:30 and 6pm yesterday. This, of course, was not a problem. In fact, it made me very, very happy, even though I was sitting in a pool of sweat and un-triumphantly watching the Carnival Triumph sail by. I opened all the windows, sang along, and tried not to bang my head against the steering wheel.

By the time I got to Kim's I was starving, but so was everyone else. For some reason, they allowed me to pick the take-out place that we would order dinner from. I think it had something to do with the passionate way I was reading menu selections aloud. With mashed potatoes...oh my God... Barbecue sauce was sounding so damn appealing, and I'd been fantasizing about those sweet potato fries since I'd first laid eyes on that menu two months ago. So yes, we went with the barbecue chicken sandwiches (all white meat, kaiser rolls, unbelievable sauteed onions) and those orange orgasms.

After we ordered, we sat around in the living room, staring at each other. There was just no way work was going to get done until we were fed. That was abundantly clear. So we did the only thing a bunch of reasonable people wanting to goof off could do--rifled through Kim's DVD collection. We decided on the cinematic equal to the comfort food we were eagerly awaiting--The Princess Bride.

Now, I love this movie. Everyone I know that has seen the movie, loves the movie. (Amazingly, Ingrid had never seen the movie. We all tried to not ruin it for her. We tried.) But you've got to admit, Buttercup is a priss. What Westley sees in her, I have no idea, especially when she's standin