with apologies to tom brinker

Once tagged by this entry, the assignment is to write a blog entry of some kind with six random facts about yourself. Then, pick six of your friends and tag them; no tag backs. This explanation should be included.

Six Facts:

(I did ten. To hell with boring convention.)

1) I come from a New York family with a pronounced carnival and vaudevillian background; oh, and a strong East Coast "family" background -- if you know what I'm saying, and I think maybe you do. Leave the gun...take the cannoli.

2) Every time I read about all the controversy that continuously swirls around this whole "pink/no pink" issue, all I can think of is: CHRIST, ANOTHER BULLSHIT BUSY-WORK FIRST-WORLD DISTRACTION. Enough already. Who really gives a fuck? Dress your kid however you want to dress them -- pink, purple, black, blue, yellow, flowing diaphanous burlap: WHATEVER -- and then just teach them that people can be whatever and whoever the fuck they want to be NO MATTER WHAT COLOR THEY ARE AND NO MATTER WHAT COLOR THEY WEAR. As a female, to have my choices limited to just pink is fucked up -- but to CHOOSE PINK IN THE FIRST PLACE JUST BECAUSE I LIKE IT, despite the fact that annoying busy-body pricks are constantly yammering in my ear that choosing pink is some raging political statement as opposed to merely an aesthetic preference, is BUTCH...and god knows, I'M BUTCH.

My two FIERCE, feminist daughters -- who are now 18 and 22 -- both LIVED for pink EVERYTHING when they were little. Hell, the older one, in between inking her arms, piercing her face, and studying to be a wardrobe designer, STILL worships at the altar of the pink and the sparkly...and I DEFY YOU to fuck with either of them, my friend. Go ahead -- though I have no idea how on earth you'll manage to eat your annual 4th of July corn on the cob WITH NO FUCKIN' TEETH.


3) After over four years of very odd but specific symptoms, I was just diagnosed three years ago with a very rare, chronic, and incurable autoimmune disease. Whatever. Fucking bring it.

4) Every night, I sleep surrounded by a king's ransom worth of fine pillows. In fact, my husband and all three of my children do, as well. I decided a long time ago -- even when I was poor, poor, poor as a churchmouse -- that soft, luxurious, high-end bedding was a necessary splurge. Even in their cribs, my babies have slept on/been surrounded by down and feather pillows and irrationally high-thread-count sheets at all times. What decadent pigs we be.

5) I am endlessly shocked that so many of the awesome, hilarious people I went to high school with back in Fresno -- who used to be TOTAL AND COMPLETE STONED, DRUNKEN, BELLY LAUGHING, HOSEBEAST FUCKPIGS and CUM-GUZZLING COCKHOLSTERS -- are now born again HARD. I mean, once you have children you gotta get your shit together, no doubt -- but, goddamnit, you don't have to lose your humor and your humanity, become a fucking Republican, worship Rush Limbaugh, get all up in a faggot's marital bidness, and defend ABSOLUTELY LUDICROUS, WORTHLESS piece of shit morons like Sarah Palin just to pay penance for the time you got caught giving Tom Brinker a handjob in your mother's station wagon behind Foster's Freeze sophomore year, bitch. Look I can totally understand needing to clean it up a bit after you have a family. I mean, despite the fact that I front otherwise, except for an ice cold Corona with lime about once a year, I pretty much quit any and all hooch back when I had my first baby some twenty years ago. The thought of that little baby girl waking up scared in the middle of the night and having her only comfort be some boozy, slurring, smoky, stinking hooker was just something that I could not abide. And I have just never really been a drug or substancey person -- mostly because I crave clarity and communion above all else. So, consequently, I probably live a FAR more righteous life than most hardcore neighbor-judging, margarita-guzzling, in-tongues-speaking, xanax-gobbling, wife-swapping, tax-cheating, pro-life-except-of-course-when-it's-my-own-precious-teenage-daughter Christians I know. How fucking HILARIOUS is that?

6) My favorite ethnic food is either Mediterranean or Vietnamese; I can never ever make up my mind. Oh, and Ethiopian. And Afghani. And corn dogs with lots of mustard eaten under the lights of a carnival midway.

7) I rarely stumble upon actors who really do it for me...so, it is with great surprise that I find myself currently obsessed with Clive Owen. I normally go for the academic, intellectual, nebbishy type -- so the only thing I can figure is that the working class girl in me is drawn to the working class boy in him. It seems you can take the blue-collar girl out of Fresno, but you can't take the welfare cheese out of the blue-collar girl...or some such ridiculous metaphorical drivel like that. I think I'd just like to nail him.

8) And speaking of obsession, I am working on the film treatment for a true story that is so fucking ALL-talent, that I even visit it in my dreams. I can't get enough of it. It makes me breathless just to think about it -- which is pretty much all the time. How lucky I am to have a job that I love.

9) A few years ago, I banged around with my husband in the downstairs bathroom of the Seattle-Bainbridge Island Ferry whilst it was in transit across the sound. I got no shame.

10) I own legions of plain black t-shirts, as well as black dresses, jumpers, sweaters, skirts, and other assorted articles of clothing. If you peer into my closet, so much is it a vast sea of solid black...that a friend of mine actually commented that it looks like my husband is married to a nun -- at which point I just threw back my head and BELLY LAUGHED AT THE IRONY.


As for Le Tag -- do it if you wish...and if not, fuck off, lady.