Jittery Rant

Yesterday, I took a half-day off from work so I could practice for my audition. Afterwards, I read my homework and came across an interview about how one guy dealt with pre-audition nerves. He said he just went about his day as a regular person, because he noticed he would say things like, "No, I can't have a beer the night before. I've got an audition." And that would start a long list of things he couldn't do until he had gotten to the point where he stayed inside all day long freaking out about the event. It wasn't helpful for him, so he just went about his day-to-day activities. This was awesome to read because I'd been starting my own list of "do-nots" and I was hungry and really wanted to have a beer. So I did.

I went to bar across the street from the University. Let me stress this again, I went to the BAR across the street. They serve some bar food, too, so it answered all my needs. It's the type of place that, before the Clean Air laws, would have been a smoky bar. (Don't even get me started on the stupidity of the Clean Air law fad; smokers are still people and you know if a place is smoky within the first few seconds; don't like it? don't stay and don't work there! But I digress...)

Right, it would have been a smoky bar. They still are a bar, there were many drunk college kids, there is a pool table, there are sports on the t.v.s. It's a bar. So. When I realized that as time progressed, families were coming in and seemed to think it was o.k. to have their many small children running around, I started getting freaked out. I don't go to Chuck E. Cheese's to drink and be beligerant...that's what a bar is for. Bars are not daycare with running, screaming small children.

Bars do not serve family food! When you have to ask the bartender if they have milk and he's not sure, this is not a place to take your kids for dinner. Seriously. What are they going to eat? Hell-fire chicken wings? A basket of fries? Chips and salsa? I'm a grown-up and I know these are tasty-not-good-nutrition foods. So when the bartender asked if I wanted another drink, I said, "No because I'm freaked out that it's bring your kids to the bar nght. I'll just take my check." It's a bar.

When I was in my late teens, I was with Grandma Jam in a casino. While waiting in line to pee, the lady in front of us was saying things like, "Fuck this and fuck that la la la" (she used more nouns that I gave her credit for). There was a lady behind us in line with a 2-year-old who said to lady 1, "Can you please watch your language? There is a small child present." Lady 1 said, "Hey, it's a fucking casino, not a daycare center." Just as you don't move into a nudist colony and complain about people always being naked, and just as you don't move into a house next to an airport and start complaining about noise, if you choose to go somewhere with your kids that isn't kid-friendly, you need to take responsibility.

Anyway, after this highly disturbing evening, I had the most efficient anxiety dream, ever. My anxiety dreams usually involve some long, drawn out feeling of mysterious unsettlement. Last night I had just fallen asleep and the dream was about five seconds straight of me screaming in panic. Nice.

An Erinku:
heater on
growling heat
if portable
I'd carry you around.

Tequillianations on Ruminations

Dear higher self,
Thank you for the lessons you've sent my way this past week. While I DID need to know about my lack of being a complete human, the lessons are awfully rough this time around...although I do thank you for sending my favorite cheesey 80's music as an accompanant; it helps!

Another helpful thing (you can work on this, you know) is to channel my two-margarita-self-honesty without the help of two margaritas. It's been done too often for it to be a novel educational experience. And please let that spot dry very soon where I dribbled margarita in my lap; it looks like I peed myself, just a little bit.

Higher self, which some call god but I call "Myself two Tuesdays from now," I eat too much out of stress lately. If I'm to lose my jobby-job from layoffs, let it be quick, with ease, and with something even more kick-ass to come. May the echo of my life I hear inside come to pass with full volume. And that last sentence, taken out of context, is completely schizophrenic. Fabulous. Ramen noodles (a.k.a. R-Amen).

An Erinku:
Note to self-
whacking self against doorway
doesn't counteract
two margaritas!

The Home Stetch

I am five days away from my big grad-school audition. I've had little to no social life for the past two months. Everyone in the Hobbit Hole has heard my practicing over and over again. Dylan does his impersonation of an eye-roll when I start unpacking my cello and he hops to the top of the closet to nap on my clothes. I'm sadly boring and mightily relieved I'm on the home stretch. None of this explains why I'm drinking a shit-beer though. Mysteries.

An Erinku:
pillow
de-fluffed
slipping
out of case

Oh Wait, No, Don't!

Today, while waiting for a bus ride home, I started thinking about being told not to do things and then doing them. I had an elementary teacher talk about how if you stood while locking your knees, it would cut off the blood flow to your head and you would pass out. She then hastily added, don't try it, you'll whack your head on something.

My elementary school class then proceeded to pass out one by one over the next week or so. Except me. I have a very active imagination and I could imagine passing out, cracking my head on a radiator, waking up in 2009 to the knowledge of having massive doctor's bills (having been in a coma for a good 15 years) and knowledge of having missed recess (and thus having missed playing four-square).

The teacher was pretty pissed off that week as her students were tipping over in hallways one by one. It was pretty cool, because you never knew who'd go next. It could be the person next to you in line for the library! This moral/factoid that "locking your knees makes you pass out" runs through my mind when I'm standing for long periods of time. So while waiting for the bus, and in order to avoid cracking my head against a garbage can and waking up in 2024, I did a little knee woggle to make sure they weren't locked. What an exciting day.

An Erinku:
When Tim Curry
sings about going
home, I sing along
instead of Erinkuing.

Whiny Tuesday

Today I was followed by a car with very small headlights. This, for some reason, really annoyed me. Especially since this car of small headlights seems to live two houses down from me and kept following me with its small headlights. They looked like two tiny little suns that were as bright as two small headlights. (I'm still going through the phase of comparing things to themselves when I make analogies. I find it really funny.)

What is not funny are small headlights. And having to wear nylons while drinking decaf coffee. And having people put salt on your margarita when you specifically said "no salt" while you still can't solve a SUPER-DUPER-EXTRA-EASY crossword you've been working on all day. I think this pretty much sums up my week. Seriously, what is a four letter word (ending in R) for "bakery worker?" I finally got the three-letter word for acquire (GET) and 19 across was CELLO (for musical instrument) and that made me feel pretty smart.

It's too bad the title of my crossword book is in bright flashy colors and all caps (superduperextraeasy!) because I take an ego hit each time I pull it out. Since there is vanity sizing in clothes, they really should do vanity titles for crossword puzzles, like "EXTRA SUPER HARD YOU GENIUS YOU! CROSSWORDS" or "YOU TOTALLY NAP DURING THE SUNDAY CROSSWORDS BECAUSE YOU ROCK EVER SO HARD CROSSWORDS!" and onward. AHA! 38 across is KOALA (Australian "bear"). The little quotes in the clue don't make me feel smart. In fact, they annoy me as much a tiny little headlights do. Grr dammit.

An Erinku (or two, since I've slacked):
photocopy
of picture
creepy guy
on paper

------------
distant coughing
makes me
feel thirsty..

O, beer!
-------
A third Erinku because that second one was me quoting myself and my O Poems:

sock
against carpet
as cat is
to fridge
--------
A fourth Erinku because the previous one was another self-refence to when I wrote analogy/test poems:

Dylan with
repeatedly dropped mouse
waiting for me to
play fetch.

OK Bye.