Robert Manners

Scattershot Friday

I'm in the weirdest mood today. For example, I just noticed, after being at the office for three hours, that I'm not wearing my watch. Now, I know what time it is, there's a little clock in the bottom of my computer screen and a clock on the wall in front of me, not to mention three more in my sightlines on the walls of other rooms. There are clocks in the microwave and the coffee pot in the kitchen, a clock in the telephone base, and the radio DJ announces the time every now and again. And my watch isn't as accurate as all of these, being the sort that has only four trés chic dots on it and no numbers or second-hand, so when I look at it I can only guess to the nearest quarter-hour. So why should I care if I have a watch on or not?



Because I feel naked without it, that's why. And to get all the way to the office, do my morning correspondence, transcribe the messages, make coffee, eat crackers — all things that bring my left wrist into plain view — without noticing that a key accessory is missing, worries me. Next I'll be coming in without my glasses or my pants or something. "Gee, didn't you used to have a head?" my coworkers will say to me when I finally forget it.



Well, good thing it's Friday. No coworkers on Friday to see me at my worst. The boss is off-site at meetings, though she doesn't generally come in on Friday, either. I have a mailer to put out, and a couple of phone calls to make, but in general a quiet day. Perfect moment to have a total mental meltdown. To scratch my head and drool. To babble incoherently:



Woo-Hoo! I passed the hundred-hits milestone today! Quel frissonant!



I really want to see Gosford Park this weekend. I think I will. I mean, what more could I ask of a film? Fabulous English country-house, 1930s setting, gorgeous costumes, Dame Maggie Smith on the one hand and Ryan Phillippe on the other...it's better than an orgasm!...not to mention Sir Derek Jacobi and Kristen Scott Thomas!...Stephen Fry and Helen Mirren!...Richard E. Grant and Jeremy Northam and Clive Owen! Mother, fan me with a tulip! And with all these in place, the movie itself could totally suck and I wouldn't care. But since it's a Robert Altman film, its chances of sucking are fairly low. Hell, why wait? I think I'll go see it right now! Oh, stop, I have to work until 6pm. Never mind.



I had a good thrill today when visiting Little.Yellow.Different: go check out the magic!



I just love Mermaniac! Not only does he link me up (it's such a thrill seeing your name in other places), but he points me to all these other great sites and places; he furthermore gave me a great idea for a number to perform at the next Galaxy show...more on that later, but definitely a testimonial to "Better Living Through Show Tunes." You're the best, Bill! Have a virgin mai-tai in HI for me, darling.



I'm not the only advice-spewing critter online. Following links around from my favorites to my favorites' favorites and thence to those favorites' favorites, I find all sorts of fabulous people...who end up becoming my favorites, and then it all starts again. A couple of days ago, I followed links from Philo's blog (another link to me! Thanx!) to Glacier's blog, where I found my new advice-giving heroine, Sarah at Tomato Nation (I would totally link there in my page layout, but today the very thought of HTML makes me want to scream). In her advice page, The Vine, Sarah counseled a young woman who is going through a friendship breakup similar to one I once went through...and gave her the exact advice I would have suggested. And she was a lot nicer than I would have been. The rest of the site is a great read, too. Love it love it love it!



Finally, in my neverending dual passions of whoring out my website and furnishing the world with more information about me than it could possibly want, I stumbled across a link to the Friday Five and decided to link it all up with yet more trivia about Oh-So-Fascinating Me.



1. What was your first job? Aside from baby-sitting and lawn-mowing, my first paid job was in a frozen-yogurt shop, the summer after High School graduation. I was pathetic. The bizarre Korean couple that ran the place always made us eat our mistakes: since I made a lot of mistakes, I put on quite a bit of weight, broke out in super-acne, and probably overcalcified my blood system...and of course I can no longer stand even the thought of frozen yogurt. I also got in trouble for thinking that four $20 bills made $100 (because four quarters make a dollar, so four twennies should make a c-note, right?), and depositing four twenties in hundred-dollar envelopes in the safe for a week. Though I was great with the customers, and caught on pretty quicky with the cash-register, the sandwich board, and the convection oven, they eventually fired me when they realized that I wasn't going to get any better at pouring the correct amount of yogurt.



2. How old were you when you had your first kiss? The first serious mouth-on-mouth kiss I remember was with my best friend Eva in high school...I guess I was 16. The first time I kissed a boy, I was 19...but I remember that one a lot more clearly...taste, texture, tension! Joey Papendik, where are you now?



3. What was your first car? What happened to it? My first car was a 1995 Hyundai Elantra sedan, bright red with a moon roof and a spoiler. I hated that car. What happened was that my cousin and her husband bought this car together, and then they split up; cousin couldn't afford the car on her own (they had a 1-year-deferred payment financing plan at 19.5% interest - and five more years of $350/mo payments); she went crying to our Grandmother, who convinced me (since I wanted a car and had just started working) to take the car and make the payments on it. I had that car for a year and a half, experiencing problem after problem with registration (DMV frowns on registering cars that aren't in your own name), keeping up legally-required liability insurance (insurers are also shirty about people driving cars they don't own), and the Highway Patrol (the car went 0-60 in nanoseconds and would go 90 mph without provocation, but it was bright bright red and therefore a glittering beacon to bored cops). Finally my cousin hooked up with her current husband and could afford the car again, so I gave it back to her and bought a 1981 Camaro (which was even worse, and another story altogether).



4. What was your first concert? This one's kind of embarassing: Donnie & Marie Osmond. My sister and two step-sisters were big D&M fans (remember the TV variety show, circa 1978?), and when the Yodeling Mormons went on tour, they cajoled my rather poor father and stepmother to get tickets. Then, just before the Osmonds arrived, we all came down with the chicken pox. The older stepsister and I got over it pretty quickly, having just enough self-discipline to not scratch, and my sister was healed fairly soon as well...but my younger step-sister could not and would not stop scratching herself, and was practically bound and gagged in a tub of calamine for weeks. And of course you can't take a pink mummified little girl to a concert, so I had to use the leftover ticket. I was bored out of my mind...it was, if you can believe it, even more stultifying than baseball.



5. How do you plan to spend your weekend? First, today, I have to get the Christmas storage boxes out of the attic and delete all signs of Yuletide cheer from the home. Tomorrow I have rehearsals with Ivy, Cookie, and Daisy for the upcoming Galaxy 2001 Flashback Show. After that, we're going dress shopping. After that we might go see Gosford Park (spurt, drool, see above). On Sunday I will probably have to go to church, but later on is my friend and co-performer Susyn Eunice Smythe's birthday party. Then another episode of Queer as Folk (disappointing and predictable, but I'll still walk a mile to see a nekkid man on TV).



So I guess I'd better get to it. Finish my work here in the office and get going with the weekend!