I Wish I Could Afford Therapy Right Now

Comedy is great therapy, and working out is great therapy, but therapy is also great therapy.

Does it sound weird when you say "therapy" four times in one sentence?

I need a nap.

Technological Difficulties, Lack of Proper Social Stimulation

If someone could explain to me why it takes a full hour for iMovie to put a letterbox I didn't specify around recently imported Canon HD footage, I would be ever so grateful.

And if anyone could advise me on why Gmail is not allowing me to add to the Chicago Underground Comedy e-mail list in any of the six thousand different ways I'm trying to do that, that would be swell.

Also, if any of my readers could help me find the 15 minutes of Prescott's footage for his Comedy Central thing that apparently turned to digital dust on my hard drive, never to be seen again, that would go a long way toward preventing me from hurling myself out the window right now.

I'm really stressed right now. I need a hug. Oh, wait, what?

"ERROR MESSAGE 987243: The hug so desperately needed by your oxytocin-deficient brain cannot be located on this machine. Please proceed to the nearest likely place to find a partner suitable for engaging in hugging and other oxytocin-boosting activities, including kissing, fondling, and sex."

Thanks a lot. Now I have to get drunk and to go Berlin.

Oh, No, Sprint Di'Int!

In the last two days I've spent six and a half hours on the telephone trying to get set up to use my new Blackberry with my new service provider, Sprint. Transferred from one person to another, one department to another, one heavily-accented nation to another.

Six and a half hours I could have spent working on urgent projects and earning some dough.

And I still don't have e-mail on my phone. You'd better make this up to me, Sprint.

I am cranky.

Shut Up, Ethan Hawke, and Not Just Because I'm Tired

Ethan Hawke: "To use cinema for self-expression in an age when everything is supposed to be a commodity for sale, I felt so privileged, and all of that was such a luxury. People who don't like my film don't like it passionately because they get this idea that self-reflective art is an act of egregious narcissism. And if that is true, what do we say to Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen, to Proust to Whitman?"

Given that you are saying this in relation to your steaming pile of crap book, turned into a steaming pile of crap movie, to that we say, Ethan Hawke, you reveal yourself to be a bigger and bigger douchebag every time you open your mouth. Please, please don't refer to "The Hottest State" as "cinema" or "film" when we can all plainly see it is actually a "shitty" "movie." And, extra please, do not hold yourself up for comparison to Dickenson, Austen, Proust, Whitman, or, for that matter, Jacqueline Susann. Your words were printed on paper, true. You were writing about yourself, true. But there's a difference between self-reflective art and insanely stupid self-centered tripe.

Okay, fine, I have made the choice to spend all day drying out my eyeballs writing and transcribing various things, and denting my soppy brain by chasing elusive interview subjects through different time zones all day (please call me, nice designer lady in Texas, and nice architect man in Utah!), and choosing to live yet another day in a largely text-based existence.

I stayed out late last night after a really great open mic for some very important comedy conversations and the initiation of some new friendships, and I didn't get much sleep, so maybe I'm a little crankier than usual. I promise, tomorrow I will blog about all the super great stuff that's been happening in my life. There's a lot. A whole lot. More than I feel worthy of, some days.

But for now, my carpal tunnel syndrome is paining me, my head is thick and dumb, I feel unaccomplished and awfully struggl-y and flail-y for all the hard work I've been doing lately, and I've worked so late that I have to go straight from the office to tonight's open mic, which means no makeup, sweaty fried bike hair, stinky tennies, worrying about lugging my laptop around on my squeaking and creaking bike on darkened Chicago streets, and feeling a little less than hilarious and sparkling. Oh, and Ethan Hawke is a douchebag.*

Just so you don't think I'm the only one, check this out: Googling "'Ethan Hawke' douchebag" gives you over 12,000 hits, including cartoons, a bit from the Portland Mercury, and, this, and shoot, there was another link that insisted that the camera should be forcibly removed from his hand. Can't find it right now. Doesn't matter.