i'm starting to get bra fat. i don't like it. but i don't like having bony shoulders either. i wish there was a way to stick the fat where i need it.

okay, okay, i'll quit my bitchin.

get this, no shit, i read (in a very reputable news source) that our feet are twice the size feet were in the 1900's. the average women's size is now an 8, then a 4 1/2. i guess that would explain why vintage shoes are so small.

anyway, i started thinking about all the historical houses i've been in and how all the doorways were shorter. and i heard somewhere that thomas jefferson was like 5'5, and that was tall. okay, so i'm taller than that bastard jefferson. that kinda weirds me out.

so i asked jayc what did this all mean? and he said "evolution doesn't stop"

and well, that was the end of that.

that's it. i can't keep it a secret any longer. i am totally in love with that disarano bartender guy.

i'd like to introduce you to a guy named count alfred korzybski. he grew up in a home speaking four different languages. he learned english later and then said some things that have been making my brain itch.

>>our perceptions/conceptions are shaped by the STRUCTURE of the language we use.<<

okay. that means people who speak non-indo-european languages (e.g. chinese, native american, african) quite literally live in a different universe than those of us who speak indo-european only.

and MATH is a language, so those of us literate in it also live in a different semantic system than people who just know verbal structures.

okay, i could go on and on, especially about the theories on "is statements", but really my point is that i really wanted to go to deanne's bbq and secretly converse in nothing but E-PRIME (you know what that is...the ommision of the letter E) you know, just a little thing to entertain the "other" erica.

the results of my little social experiement were disasterous. except for with rufus, (after i explained to him what i was doing, he joined in like the damn cool guy that he is, even though he just said "wow" a lot). but other than that, i did not feel that E-prime clarified or de-dogmatized a damn thing. i just found myself talking slower to people. and these people had a pained look of confusion on their collective face.

i called the whole thing off when i realized that i couldn't say "little weiners."

don't stare at me like that,
a. k.
i've told you everything
a woman's heart should
keep secret...
everything.
and there you stay
day after day
like it surprises you
that there's so little

FINALLY! the book that i've been looking for was released a few weeks ago...jase and me both picked up a copy at b&n tonight and got a few chapters in, right there on their overstuffed armchairs with mysterious white stains.

in the end, we bought ONE copy and the hubby was banished to play play station while i got into the bathtub with mr. moore to start grilling him on my endless questions about the PATRIOT act.

---->side note: did you know that "patriot act" is an anacronym that sounds really sinister when all spelled out?<----

i'm steadily nearing the books end.

written by michael moore, (yes the guy who won the oscar for his documentary "bowling for columbine" and proceded to make the best acceptence speech i've ever heard about our FICTICIOUS times) the book is called "dude, where's my country?" i am happy to report that he's giving me what i want.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING!

i'm dreaming about space again
and stars

and wondering why i can't breathe
when i think about breathing

all this marvelous oxygen
makes my lungs ache

i was helen of troy once
brighter than flaming jupiter

and little boys shot their spaceguns
thinking about ME

i'm lost again
dreaming about space

in the suffocating sweetness
of the dolce lactea...

erica opens up a new blogger post it.

what she wants to say is SO PRECIOUS LITTLE...

it's something to the effect of:
"I'm so PUMPED for d's bbq! little weiners will be in abundance!"

her only regret is that frank and the larsens won't be gracing us.
oh well, MORE LITTLE WEINERS FOR ERICA!!!

kitty wants to know why i haven't written about him for so long.

i tell him not to take everything so personal.

i remind him that not everybody wants to know that he got a plastic bag stuck on his head and ran into the wall a few times durning dinner.

random thoughts keeping me awake.

i should buy the book "keeping friends, for dummies"
chapter one: don't get two weeks behind on you email.

i think i'm ready to ride that scary ride at the top of the stratosphere. it's just time to take the plunge.

elephants always look like they're smiling.

should i get a hair cut?

will i ever get the chicken pox?

did princess di really predict her own death?

how many hours of sleep can i still get?

how many plays do i have left to read for play selection?

anthony kiedis is endlessly fascinating. he's pumped full of male energy but then opens his mouth and has that effeminate lisp. i liked him with long hair. androgeny is beautiful to me. i wish i was androgenous.

don't forget to send bills tomorrow.

i've got a headache.

tell deanne how much you're liking that j.d.salinger book of short stories.
find out if teej got your scenes for men.

try going to sleep again.

i'm kvelling
you make me feel so proud
like a return missionary
finding out
his first convert
is still active...

i love you man.

as the hour draws closer, you may find comforting to count your blessings.

e.g.
- you have hands below your wrists.
- you don't have wear a don juan suit to work.
- your mom skipped dinner during labor.

and remember, i'll always be a year older than you!
happy birfday,
erica

david blaine gets out today. i bet he's hungry.

beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
beaut-i-ful
soy

this is just to say

MYSTIC RIVER WAS A BIG HIT IN MISSESERICALAND!

did Brian Hegeland finally pull his head out of his arse and redeem himself from that last atrocious flick, the ORDER? of course, it WAS an adaption. so we'll never know.

thanks a lot, as always, your faithful critic,
e.

yes, you heard me. and watch out for next time cause i'm eating a lot of crisco and macdonalds until then.

CATERING SLAVES. i do not like mint jelly on the back of my hands in a prop tub full of brown cold water. "this is how much i love LVLT" i said to Walter.
'Nuff said.

mr. nickle is in town for a furneral director convention. i can't find his cell phone number. i'm going to have to crash his convention some how so i can catch him before he leaves town. i think it'd be funny to dress up like the grim reaper at one of those things.

but enough about death.

tony and me made up songs to go in a musical about bowling. STRIKE, the MUSICAL! included are: "somebody else's shoes" "i want to score" "that damn last pin" "pin pals" and "strike!"

that's what cherry coke and zima will do to you.

love you all, ta ta,
e.

p.s. don't fear the reaper, kyle.

to tumbleweed town. looks like only a few of us are blowing around tonight.

that's alright.

you know, today i've been a-pondering about the concept of TIME.

of late, i've been immersed in the world of samuel beckett, and the post-realism movement. i've also gotten a job, and watched in terror as my "free time" has slipped away.

"What time is it?" asks Hamm. "The same as usual," replies Clov. (from Samuel Beckett's Endgame)

I am unnerved by americans preoccupation with time. and saving time. i think we do it to give structure to our lives. meaning.

"Time is a hemorrhage of existence"

in asian cultures, time is considered a flow, something that cannot be saved, or grasped. something to be accepted and lived.

isn't that interesting. what are we doing with all the time we've "saved" by eating fast food, and multi-tasking anyway?

Americans are in love with TOMORROW. we've defrauded ourselves into loving the future, whatever happens we always have that magical feeling of hope that tomorrow everything will be better.

i say SCREW tomorrow. it's going to end up just like today anyway.

i don't know how i worked three jobs, had classes, and did two shows at once in college. those days just seemed to expand for me to fit it all in.

i've been unemployed for a YEAR, and it feels like i didn't get a damn thing done. in truth i have, a lot. but didn't make money to show for it. so that goes to prove my theory that americans are obssessed with time because "time equals money" and saving time, because "saving time is more time to make money." and why did i get a job? SIMPLE. to make some money. money. money. money. time. time. time.

"we are born above a grave"

thank you, mr. beckett. my god, let's not make the mistake of postponing life until tomorrow. it will just cost too much.

i like the smell of plastic.
that's why i used to chew on barbie legs.

i always thought bigbird knew something we didn't. like what the back of the flats on sesame street look like.

and speaking of children's programming, what the fuck was that mr. rodgers make believe land? lady elaine was the single most frightening apple head doll i've ever seen. i used to have nightmares of her chasing me around. that little horror aside, i wonder. i just wonder.

i don't like watermelons. i don't trust anything that dissolves that quickly in my mouth. simple carbohydrates do that. you will never catch me sucking on a piece of wonder bread. it's just wrong.

i like reading poetry. i'm a poetry nut. i read it everyday. there's just something so effecient about it. a novelist takes a book to explore a little thought. poets seem to condense big thoughts into savory little pieces. give me something i can chew on. but that's a blog for a different day.

there was this store called ben franklin in downtown kent that sold charms for charm bracelets in 1985. all the smells of my childhood can be wrapped up in the way that store smelt. PLASTIC.

we children of the 80's think of christmas and smell plastic.

it's true, isn't it? those he-man dolls, hello kitty stickers, cabbage patch kids, lunch boxes, poochie, star wars toys, smurf figurines, trapper keepers, keds, water bracelets, scratch and sniff stickers, puffy glittery stickers. Plasticky goodness. i fucking loved it. i chewed on barbie legs cause that smell just tasted so good.

it was only a generation or two ago that people thought of christmas and smelt, i dunno, things like holly and mistletoe, and apple cider, and fir trees, and basically natural scents. these ancestors of ours did really fruity things, you know. what's up with that popcorn string and bobbing for apples crap? come on, that stuff HAD to be corny even back then. give me a stocking full of nuts please. oh, and an ORANGE. those are so exotic. i can trade them with my school chums and be the most popular girl in class!

i'm sorry, but i LOVE the age i grew up in. i love that magical rainbow bright shit. i loved watching cartoons and jumping on a pogo ball. i loved a stocking on christmas that closely resembed a trick or treat bag.

god help us all. he live in a chewy rubbery wonderful world. let's chew on it a little more.

a very manifactured good day to you all,
erica.

last night i had a dream about ryan gosling and the circus.

ryan gosling, as you all know by know, is a former mouseketeer, and has starred in several late night guilty pleasures i've been hooked on from time to time, mainly one called YOUNG HERCULES.

mr. gosling is on the verge of being the toast of the town. mark hamil my words. he has been reeling out these fabulous sundance films and building a real career for the past few years and is about to take the world by a giant, mouse-eared surprise.

he is also, coincedentally, a mormon.

i've had a crush on only one famous mormon in my life, and no, it wasn't donny osmond. although he certainly is the only famous mormon i knew about for a long long time. him and orson scott card, nebula winning writer, and he was just too weird.

of course it was aaron eckheart, male muse of neil labutte, also mormon, who i worship as a playwright, that i crushed on. but for a different reason. eckheart's done this crazy thing...nurse betty, the core, your friends and neighbors, in the company of men, possession...all with his "g's" firmly in place, which means to you lay folk, an active mormon. sounds like an impossible feat to me, living in hollywood and sustaining your lifestyle. but i guess tom cruise has done it for years with scientology. you just gotta admire a guy that doesn't compromise his beliefs, no matter what success comes his way.

i dunno what the thing is. jewish people brag about who's jewish in hollywood, so maybe its the same kind of thing here. i'm just always so surprised to find these mormons out there representing.

i was at hollywood video the other day and saw the movie "charlie" which is based on a novel by jack weyland. jayc and i have the distinction of performing charlie at ricks college, under the absent minded direction of none other than jack weyland. he also wrote a screenplay for us and took us out to dinner a few times. the "importance of being a mormon artist" was a topic that came up more than once. boy was i idealistic.

years have come and gone and i have buried the idea of the mormon artist, and MORMON ART altogether. i pretty much think its an oxymoron.

in my single "day" i went out with this red-headed mormon artist named jon. he had dropped out of ricks but was still hanging around in the spori building. he drew jesus hands a lot. he drew me also, which was why i think i went out with him. one of our "dates" was a drive to a rest stop in sugar city where he tried to give me a footrub. i never saw him again. he was just too liberal.

its so funny to think about the old erica.

and more funny still that it was the pursuit of "REAL" ART that popped the nice bubble i was living in. that opened me up to a world of pain, and misery. and angry creativity. it has fueled my blank pages ever since.

i suppose jayc was right all those years ago when he said "happy poets don't exist." or something to that effect. and i've been writing a lot of poetry lately.

anyway, none of this has to do with ryan gosling and the circus, but really, what does?

okay, this is just getting ridiculous. i'm going to find a way to consolidate my evil blog into this one.

here we go.

i'd like to thank you for Miramax films. specifically for those sprawling movie montages that make me weep.

i am happy that you've gotten to the habit of green-lighting such fine films like quentin t.'s ode to californian snakes. Kill William part deux also looks like a winner.

thank you for letting g. clooney direct, although he did put in too many shots of s. rockwell's ass in confessions of a dangerous mind.

thanks for giving j. ritter a star on the walk way before he died.

keep up the good work,
satisfied customer #765484869490204969969599493030299954677

i make wishes. on shooting stars, fountains, wishbones, blowing out candles, the last bite of pie...everywhere.
i never say my wishes out loud.
but i write them.

-i wish i had a personal chauffer.
-i wish 3-D movies worked on me.
-i wish i had a photographic memory.
-i wish for more erotic dreams, and less dreams about getting chased in an amusment park.-i wish i could learn esperanto.
-i wish the word of wisdom had an ammendment or two.
-i wish the number 23 didn't exist.
-world peace.
-rice crispy treats.

the one that pops into my head the MOST, would be...-i wish to get preggers.

i've spent a lot of pennies on that one, let me tell you.
funny how we wish for the things that scare us the most, huh?

i can still see him, don juan the love monkey, with his precious little shriners hat and tight don juan clothing, skipping from one end of the tent to the other collecting dollar bills faster than a stripper with a coke habit.

this scrawny little monkey with opposable toes gave my husband a high five and took his money. it made me feel sick. i was really disturbed by the monkey's eyebrows. his face was passive, but his eyebrows told another story.

don juan was born to a womanizing father that had many monkey babies throughout spain. his mother stole bread for a living. don juan noticed at a young age that he also had a talent with the ladies, and would spend hours eagerly spanking himself in preparation for his coming of age.

then a cruel stroke of fate befell poor don juan. a man that stacks chairs for a living kidnapped him and his brothers and brought them to america.
just as he and his brothers were being sold to the chicken on a stick vendors, don juan's talents saved the day. he distracted the man by doing a little tap dance while his brothers safely escaped the meat factory.

but just as americans are obsessed with novelty, the man decided that don juans talents might just come in handy one day, and started scheming up ways to make money with his new little slave.

and to this day, don juan dreams of the monkey senoritas, of fulfilling his namesake and making his father proud. he is waiting for the great monkey uprising, and then, and only then, will we see the humans humiliating themselves for HIS financial gain...

spank on, little monkey. don't let the man bring you down.

that everyone you know someday will die?"

Frank and Jayc. thanks a lot. i was getting ready to go to the ren fest and now i have to sit down and add my two cents. or dollar fifty, since death is a topic i can never exhaust.

yes, it's all true. jayc + traces of death = upset hubbie for two weeks before he even MENTIONED it to me. death has always opened an interesting window into jayc's mind. the first year we were married, a guy shot himself in front of his wife in the hallway of our apartments. i went out and folded my laundry and watched as the clean up crew sopped up the brilliant life mess. jayc was so unnerved he couldn't sleep in the same apartment that night. we ended up at phill's watching happy movies to get his mind off of it.

then there were the very SAD years when we watched his sweet little sister lose three children after they were born. Joy, Kyle, and Bradley. and we had to sit through three baby funerals, which are the WORST kind of funerals. i watched jayc grieve as much as his own sister did. and i watched him never come to terms with it, which in many ways became the beginning of his "falling away".

that's where i'm going with this. the connection between death and religion.

i understand what you guys are saying. the documentary bowling for columbine did it to me. i got physically ill at how cheap human life can be. but mostly i'm morbidly (i guess it HAVE to be morbid) fascinated with death. or specifically my OWN death. what i'm terrified of is the lack of existence.

a concept in mormonism is that your spirit still exists after you die, and that is a good thing for me to believe. have you ever been to a mormon funeral? they're sad, yes, but everyone comforts each other with the thought that they'll see their loved one again. i like to think that. i like to think i'll be with jayc after we both die of old age or a car accident.

so this brings me to an interesting point in what religion does for people. i'm kinda of a mind that religion has existed from the beginning as a way to COPE with our own mortality.

death is the great equalizer. everybody has it coming.

we cling to our beliefs, whatever they are, so that we won't feel our lives are worthless.

jayc couldn't find his death comfort where everybody was telling him to. he found it on a stage with three walls. he found it in the same place he found his greatest joy and most sacrifice. when he says theatre is a religion, he means it in the deepest sense, a balm for the masses.

well, i have to stop here. i'm making us late. i guess that's what death does, in a way. maybe i'll pick up later, maybe i won't.

E.

I feel the question of your loneliness
Confide... 'cause I'll be on your side
You know I will, you know I will

My friends are so distressed
And standing on the brink of emptiness
No words... I know of to express
This emptiness

I love all of you hurt by the cold
So hard and lonely too, when you don't know yourself

Imagine me, taught by tragedy!
Release is peace...

I heard a little girl
And what she said was something beautiful
To give... your love no matter what
is what she said...

I LOVE ALL OF YOU

FUCK YES!!!

okay, if you haven't figured it out, we played hooky from the board meeting to meet up with some pals of mine, namely Anthony, Flea, John and Chad. the boys were sans tubesocks, but ROMPIN and a STOMPIN and in their prime!

I AM SO BURNIN UP WITH SOME SERIOUS PEPPER FEVER! I ain't sleepin for days...or HEARING for that matter, as i tossed the earplugs after the opening acts were over and mr. kiedis came runnin out in his baseball tee and shaggy-licious hair and started kiedicizing all over the stage. MMMMMMMM.

I was absolutely SPEECHLESS for five full minutes. remember, this is my FIRST moment with him- built on fifteen years of anticipation- (yes, i was THAT young when he started appearing in my dreams) and we had some smokin good seats too, although i didn't sit for much of it, that muzak just has a way of sneaking into my pants and making me dance.

and ah, the muzak. what a fucking incredible set. good blend of stuff from by the way and californication, and of course three "oldies" ending the night, give it away, under the bridge, and me and my friends. flea imparted a bit of wisdom before the end, which was, KEEP YOUR DIGNITY.

so instead of babbling on about how awesome this night was, or how much i love the peppers, or how i simply want to fuck AK's brains out...i'll leave the rest of it right there.

THANK YOU...
tonight was a dream
sustained.
or a two hour scream.
you'll always be the blue light in my red hot heart.

hello folks, yes, your favorite erica is back from the sublime surreal world of california!

never been to dinneyland in october? too bad, it was AMAZING. the weather was cool, the crowds were fine.

and IRONY rears its funny head, we go on gay weekend. a cast of a show about gayness, where most of the cast is gay, end up at disneyland on gay weekend. there were thousands of queers in red shirts that said GAY DAY, all holding hands and kissing to the backdrop of disney's discriminating purple castle. i remember when disney was in all that trouble for discrimination and wondered how on earth a day like this ever came about. then i remembered something called PURPLE DOLLARS.
disney's conspiracy is to make as much money as they can for their share holders. that's why they built the california adventure. which i liked a whole lot, despite people telling me it was lame. i sat in the MUPPET THEATRE and saw waldorf and statler making yuks. the best part of any muppet show is the descension into complete and total CHAOS, and i wasn't let down. by the end, the swedish chef (who was running the projector) had a full out canon poised at the stage and was busy blowing holes through it.

god, but i like chaos.

nyquil.
the answering machine.
kitty pushing my hand away.
ants.
copy machines.
cold hot tubs.
insomnia.

the best part of my day was eating an entire can of yams. with about half a bag of marshmallows on top.

i also liked listening to "don't fear the reaper" on repeat while i did the dishes.

i hope i'm not getting depressed again. it's october now, and that's my favorite month of all. i plan on eating a lot of squash and pumpkin seeds and pumpkin bagels with cream cheese. and i've been fantizing about grandiose halloween costumes i can't afford or know how to make. but it is my favorite time of year, so this is not a conveinent month to get all de-pressed.

i've got a wicked craving for nutella right now. i would have bought some last month, but there was a stupid picture of kobe bryant on the jar. damn kobe bryant. if i had some nutella, i would just eat a big spoonful of it. screw spreading it on anything. i want some nutella.

mmmmm. nutella. that stuff is made out of hazelnuts right? then why is it all chocolatey?

i knew a girl in fourth grade who claimed to hate chocolate. i thought she said it because she was such an attention whore. i never did believe her. until i was watching joe schmo the other night and he started gagging when he had to lick chocolate off a stripper because he hated chocolate so much. i guess there are people out there that really do hate it.

i've been talking a lot about flavors this week. i think one of the best flavors god created is only found in one place, and that would be those little lime tootsie rolls. other good flavors are: cherry and vanilla. good in coke AND in tootsie rolls. i like the flavor of cheerios too, although you can't really describe it. it's why i like beer so much. it tastes like liquid cereal.

you know, i never tasted a beer that i didn't like. they tasted like a whole bunch of different cereals. once i tasted a beer that reminded me of kix. remember those? my brother and i poured some kix on to our hungry hungry hippos game once and went for it. got little crumbs in the hippo jaws, but it was fun. we were rascals. he drinks a lot of beer. i think its because he's a nostalgic kind of person.

did you know my brothers name is jay? and my dad's? did you know he and i were born two days and two years apart? and we're geminis. and since we hit our growth spurts every other year or so, we were constantly in competition to see who was taller. for the most part i was. until he turned thirteen and he was taller than god.

it was good seeing jay last month get married. i was walking down the aisle for the ceremony and i winked at him and he at me, and that was all the words i needed to say the whole day wrapped up in one little twinkle.

twinkle, that reminds me of twinkies. thank you to whoever gave me a twinkie the other weekend. i don't reccommend leaving it in your car and eating it the next day. the cream was all hot and nasty and looked like...well you know...cream, but i ate it anyway cause i was hungry, like i always am, and it made my tummy hurt a bit.

god damn it, it's 430 am. i sit down and do a free write and all i get out of it is the discovery that i'm hungry as hell. hungry hungry hippos, wish i had some kix or something. hot twinkie will do. but anyway, i've gone to the edge and back of the stream of conciousness and you're all probably bored as hell now, or hungry, either way, i'm off to bed.

good night my little pumpkinheads,
e.

i am slipping
slipping
into soul samples

caused by
a swelling of
BLOG NEGLECT

let it be on your heads.

a friend of mine read my blog once, and it didn't catch on. he was troubled by the fact people keep each other at such a distance-
software asylums?
computer captives?

not me, i turn to my screen for comfort, for connection that forces no committment.

i look forward to looking forward to: messages, replies, quandries, laughs. all at my own leisure.

THE PHONE.
have i mentioned this fact? just a phone ringing makes
my hands sweat and my heart quicken and my throat tighten-
i suppose all the same affects of falling in love

but that's where it gets tricky, once i'm on it, i can't bear to hang up.
it feels so final.
so fixed.
why do i have to start things that are doomed to end?

i think you may be the only person being frank here.

all joshing aside, i want to comment on your to want or be wanted response.
specifically ammendments 3 and 4.

{3. The person being wanted must be able to give of themselves enough to fufill the other persons want.
4. This is true, not just at an emotional level, but it would appear at a physical level also.}

what alarmed me about these well thought through statements was the fact that they brought up a new question.

you've probably heard this old sicko-babble standby:
men give love for SEX and women give sex for LOVE.

the whole mars vs. venus thing aside, do you think its possible that human beings in general just need the right levels of physical AND emotional love to survive?

i know that all those babies in orphanges in eastern europe were never touched, never had any human contact, and they went crazy. children with little emotional contact suffer a similar consequence.

so what is LOVE, anyway? how can an intangible concept carry so much force behind it? is it possible that there is where the TOUCH comes in?

do these two things create each other? is it possible to love someone and never touch them? and is it possible to not love someone and be unaffected by physical affection? just some thoughts...

exxes and ohhhs,
erica

LANA, you're up! send your mystical forecasts and a groovy name to misseserica@lycos.com sometime before sunday...

"the quarters has spoken"

muchly, erica

It was easy.
I kept losing my way.

--Philip Dacey

hi there.

i can see everything you're doing.

and you're not writing a new blog.

so get to it.