* Today's entry was written in my journal yesterday. So any references to "holding a pen" or people coming up to me and asking me questions is not actually happening in real time. Just so y'all are clear on that.
"En Route"
It's Tuesday. I'm at some McDonald's in Norton(?), MA because I REFUSE to pull another stunt like yesterday. So now I'm two hours early, which is "nifty swifty" because I can chill for a bit.
However, I'm not sure how appropriate the word "chill" is because it's really fucking hot out. One more degree and PlayLand might be a pile of melted plastic.
"Tweeter Center: 3:15pm"
I have no idea what to do with myself right now. All my stuff's inside, but I'm not needed yet. It's all "hurry up and wait" but jesus do I need a nap.
"Here We Go. Told in Non-Linear* Form."
(* those who know me know how much I HATE the term non-linear but it's the only way this part works.)
...Sting finds me in catering and says his friend Bobby wants a massage. Bobby looks like a pirate. I work on him for about a half an hour while Sting does sound-check. Some woman comes in and tells Bobby he needs to stop so he can do a radio interview? Who the hell is Bobby?
So I'm wandering in and out and in and out of Sting's dressing room. Billy is getting me a seat so I can see the show when I'm done. Finally I just sit down against the wall and start to write. People are coming in, turning on lights, plugging things in - some woman is on her cell phone telling someone how her seventeen year old daughter got someone's band a gig at CBGB's on August 8th, even though they're booked solid until September. She'd clinched it by saying something like "I don't want to have to go to The Knitting Factory!"
They need to do two interviews in here. Does that mean I have to leave? Can I stay?
Who the hell is Bobby?
Who's the massage therapist outside doing the roadies? I told Dot I wanted to go out there and have her massage ME, and then say, "oh, sorry, I gotta go - Sting needs me." Dot's all about it: "Rub it in!" (I'm paraphrasing - and no pun is intended)"See if she's Heidi's chick! See if she's even MET Heidi! Tell her what team you're on!"
The team that doesn't do a whole lotta roadies these days, bi'atch. The Sting/Billy/Bobby(?) Team!
I don't feel like I need a nap anymore.
Sting just walked in. He sees me. He says, "Hey, baby."
Man, I suddenly feel like a fish out of water. Like Michael Flatley without his River. I'm a massage therapist from melrose who got an extra $500 back on my taxes because I fell below the poverty level, and here I am in a room of people who travel with their own sound equipment and make decisions like, "It would be easier to just pick Lily up in the helicopter."
F'in A, dude. F.N.A.
Turns out the interviewers were there for Sting (obviously,) who asked me to work on his shoulders while he answered questions. He saw Fahrenheight 9/11 today so he was all stressed out.
How amazingly dreadful.
So yeah. Here I am. Sitting on the floor in Sting's dressing room, leaning against the wall, just writing, people popping in and out: "Where's Cathy?" "Did you find Bobby yet?" "Ooh! Candles!"
And I'm just sitting there hanging out. Like it was something I did all the time.
"Hey, baby!" "Hey, Sting!"
So Billy got me a seat - well, technically he told me to go sit wherever I wanted and if anyone gave me any shit to just go get him. It's almost 9pm, it's gorgeous, some crazy old hippy lady wearing a Fuckin' Gonuts shirt is dancing her ass off, but in a way that kind of looks like she's in a production of West Side Story (if anyone wants me to demonstrate, just ask me the next time I see you.) I'm too far away to hear the conversation, but a guy on the Event Staff tells her she has to move, cuz I guess she was boogie-ing in the handicapped zone (she coulda qualified) and while I could tell by the animated way she spoke that she was tellin the guy off, but the whole time she never stopped dancing. She moved to a new spot, and the Event Staff guy walked away, shaking his head, laughing. Not surprised.
So my back hurts. My neck hurts. My left hip hurts. My blood even hurts from lugging my massage shit around all day. I don't even want to be holding this pen.
But I'll tell you what: When Sting came outside to eat before the show, carrying his plate of food and a soda, and he spotted me and walked right up to me and kissed me on both cheeks RIGHT IN FRONT OF HEIDI'S CHICK...
Fuck it, dude.
I'll carry more shit. Just say when.
P.S. I just paid 8 bucks for a Michelob Ultra, but then an Event Staffer asked me for my ticket and I got to say "I'm with Sting." And they APOLOGIZED for harrassing me.
I am just so cool right now.
*steph @ 10:43 AM*
the scariest part is I'm not even sure what day it is. I think it's monday. I went to massage Sting. and i was late as hell due to traffic, and i was sure it was gonna be the blackball of my entire career. but its all worked out okay. Sting knew me. remembereed me. When I walked in the room he said "Hey, Stephanie." William, who i was told would bite my head off, merely shook his finger at me and said i was reprimanded. So all went well. afterward i went to anne's and we drank a bit and made some funny fuckin videos. and tomorrow i need to be at the ritz carlton at noon to massage billy basher and then go back to the tweeter center for the stinger.
So how come all i want to do is cry?
It all ended up good. no one yelled at me, no one is sick no one is dead, i'm alive and home and my cats pooped the second i walked in like always...
But all i want to do is shrivel up and disappear and not have anything to worry or care about... and thats never gonna hapopen as long as i keep opening my eyes every day.
i guess sometimes its best to just stop thinking and let the hours continue and remain as you are... not wishing you were important or loved or respected. because at least that way there is never anyway you can ever be disappointed...
*steph @ 12:51 AM*
Today's Scorpio Moon will have a frustrating aspect to it. Everyone will be under intense pressure through the afternoon. Once the pressure is off, the unresolved aspects of our lives will become magnified and beg for a course of definitive action.
*steph @ 10:54 AM*
I'm fucking exhausted.
And fighting it. As usual these days. For no other reason than I havent been watching TV and it's upped my creativity level. Althought I'm too tired to do or even think of doing anything creative. So now i'm just irritated and need to vent.
I've been basically sober for almost two weeks. I say basically because I've had a few drinks here and there but I've been following my Rules (see june 16th.)
But Monday night I'm massaging Sting. The funniest. probably coolest part about that, is that I've worked on him before. So he'll recognize me.
Sting knows me. F'n A, dude.
F. N. A.
And Eric Clapton on Thursday... Damn. I need a pedicure. I never thought I'd ever have a job where the state of my feet was so fucking important.
Still, I need a vacation. I have to get out. Away. Just for a few days.
"i can sense it..." ~bjork.
where has everybody gone?
*steph @ 1:51 AM*
Dear Anne,
CLICK HERE to find out why I'm going to win the "Who's Got the Tackiest Pajamas" Contest.
And then bite me.
Love always,
your Favorite.
*steph @ 1:37 PM*
INTENTION:
to go to the supermarket after my massage to get coffee, catfood, and frozen veggies so I can just microwave up a bowl of HEALTHY green beans when i'm starving, rather than going over to the Mobil for a Hostess Cupcake on my way to work.
WHAT I BOUGHT:
1. catfood
2. coffee
3. 3 SuperSize KitKat bars because they were buy 2 get one free.
*steph @ 12:29 PM*
I haven't been very good at writing my "reasons for getting up in the morning." It's not like there aren't any, I just feel like I've been so busy. And I have been. I guess. Although I'm not sure with what. I get up. I leave. I come back. I leave again. Sometimes I work. Sometimes I take a nap. Sometimes I write. And soemtimes my writing sucks. Pretty much like this.
But if anyone feels like reading something a little more interesting - something past, something old, something that once happened and now doesn't seem real, try this. But if you're in a good mood and feel like laughing than I advise you not to read it. However, if you've been wallowing in your own misery and want to bring things down even a few more notches, by all means. Raed away...
Andy thinks I should write my memoires. I'm not quite sure how to do that without making the readers want to slit their wrists. My pathetic writing happens at home. My funny writing happens somewhere else. So I think i need a porch. A deck. A bench. A house with no roof. Sunlight.
Sometimes I think I'd be a good hippie - living in a tent and being One with Nature...
But then I remember how much I like make-up, shoes and shaving.
*steph @ 9:16 AM*
Gua Sha: "A healing technique used in Asia by practitioners of Traditional Medicine, in both the clinical setting and in homes, but little known in the West. It involves palpation and cutaneous stimulation where the skin is pressured, in strokes, by a round-edged instrument; that results in the appearance of small red petechiae called 'sha', that will fade in 2 to 3 days."
They make it sound so simple.
Meanwhile, I'm walking around looking like a burn-victim with a skin disease.
*steph @ 4:04 PM*
I'm stuck in a place and I can't get out. I'm fighting sleep. Not sure why. I'm exhausted, and all I have to do is close my eyes and the next time I open them it will be tomorrow. Today will be over.
Not that today was bad. It actually wasn't bad at all.
I'm just pissed at the fact that I have this overwhelming urge to MAKE something
DO something
WRITE something
(I have too many babies in my tire*)
but I'm completely fucking brain-dead retarded.
Stop stressing, Steph, because tomorrow you can make/do/write all you want.
Three weeks ago I hated the fact that I couldn't sleep for shit. Tonight I'm hating the fact that I can't stay awake. That must be what they call Irony.
I hate Irony.
And I don't like ironing, either.
*steph @ 12:45 AM*
It was the same routine as it always was. I planned to leave here around 11, but I didn't get on the road until about noon because I couldnt get Lenny in the box. I don't get it. he sits in the goddamned box 18 hours out of every 24 hour day - but when i NEED him to be in the box - well, jesus christ I may as well be trying to play golf with no arms. I plot for WEEKS to figure out the best, most sneakiest strategy to get him in there. George W could learn a few things from me about plotting.
But whatever. By noon, I'm sweating, scratched up and pissed off, so I leave the cats at home, and now need to figure out a way to break it to my mother that I'll only be spending the day and not staying until Wednesday like I'd originally planned.
Fucking Lenny. He's lucky he's cute.
So I got to the house around 1:30. Punk covers of 80's songs make me drive fast - and since each song is usually less than a minute and 45 seconds, you can burn a shitload of them on an 80 minute CD. Like, almost 70...
As soon as I walk into the house, I have no idea what to do with myself. As usual. I check out my bedroom - see if there's anything I need, which I won't take home with me anyway because:
1. I don't have the space in my dungeon of an apartment
2. Even if i did have the space, I'd forget to bring the stuff home.
So I check my email and then take a nap while my dad changes my oil, gets me new tires and gets my car inspected, which only makes me feel MORE shitty about the fact that I forgot his birthday - something I only realized once I walked into the house and noticed the "Happy Birthday Dad/to my Husband" cards lined up on the desk in the study.
Fuckin A, man.
Sandie and I go shopping. I (almost) max out my credit card, which isn't as bad as it sounds because it only has a $200 limit (the only kind of credit card I'm ever eligible for.) Mom gets home from work shortly before we get back from the mall. Now there's a whirlwind of leaving the house AGAIN so we can go out for sushi prior to the 7:35 showing of "Dodgeball." (i'd already seen it but I'd still see it again, so "cram in up your cramhole.")
By the time we get home it's after 10pm. This is when I tell my mother I'm not staying the night. She's disappointed but understands. Sandie is washing her hands at the kitchen sink. That's when my mother comes around the corner with a Wilson volleyball, yells "DODGEBALL!" and hurls the ball at my sister, who really, to be quite honest, wasn't expecting to be smacked in the head with a volleyball in her own kitchen. So a bunch of sentences containing the word "fuck" are exchanged, my mother only firing back what my sister fires at her (mainly for embarrassment) and this is my queue to leave.
So I pack up my car, forgetting the items I'd found in my room (as I previously mentioned would happen) and my battery is dead because dad didn't shut my passenger side door all the way when he got back from the inspection. I get a full demo in the dark on how to jump-start my car, something I've been shown a hundred times. Just because I've been shown a hundred times, doesn't mean I remember how to do it. I know in the back of my mind this time won't be any different, but I keep my mouth shut and repeat everything he says, implying that I'm listening, when really all I'm hearing is "blah blah blah battery la de dah de dah positive side first zipadeedoodah don't let anything touch anything." I guess those are the important parts though, right?
I get home and my neighbor hears me come in. It's well after midnight, but she's crazy. She come's rushing out her door to ask me if I can drive her to the Prudential Center the next day because she won George Thorogood tickets on the radio and needs to pick them up so she can sell them, because that's the only reason she tries to win things on the radio: to resell the prizes for much more money than they're worth. (FYI: This is a near-daily occurrance. Refer to My Weird Neighbor.)
And so now I'M goin crazy trying to find this ONE specific Bjork song, and if anyone knows of a way to associate Bjork song titles with the actual songs PLEASE let me know, because I see myself sitting here forever.
And, naturally, Lenny's in the box.
*steph @ 11:28 AM*
Sometimes, I think I embarrass my sister, but more on this tomorrow. It's been a fuck of a day.
*steph @ 2:04 AM*
Is it just me, or are there other people out there who have a british accent when they talk to themselves?
*steph @ 1:39 PM*
So I saw this ad on Craigslist and because I have nothing else to do with my time, responded in such a manner that I think will at least stand out, if not scare the folks away. I just wanted to share:
THE AD:
"Looking for comedic actors and actresses for a very offensive comedy project. A sense of humor is a must. It is a fun creative atmosphere and you will get a copy of finished project. Please send us your information and a picture of yourself. Also, feel free to list any unusual talents."
MY RESPONSE:
I'm Intrigued...
...by your ad on craigslist. I'm cute yet raunchy, sweet yet obnoxious (in an entirely i-get-along-with-anyone kind of way) and the only way to offend me is to puke on my shoes. I'm not afraid to make an ass out of myself, nor am i afraid to make someone else look like an ass. I have years of performance experience, and i've bartended much longer than one person should be allowed. I'm including a link which hopefully demonstrates my sense of humor and (questionable?) professionalism, and also contains a few images which I think you'll find show me to be able to adapt to pretty much any situation.
http://www.didujustcallmebitch.com/s2thezoomy.html
look forward to hearing from you,
stephanieZee
*steph @ 9:37 PM*
How many "addicts" are just attention-starved liars? "Admitting you have a problem is the first step." Well, if that's the case, how do you know if you really have a problem, or if you made it up so long ago in search of some form of warped attention, and now the problem is that you believe this problem really exists, when in fact, you said you had a stomachache so you could get out of going to school, and since it worked the first time and the second time and the third time and the forty-seventh time, all of a sudden, you were "plagued by gastro-intestinal problems" and now it's become the excuse that gets you out of almost every difficult situation you ever find yourself in?
And all you were trying to do was skip a math test...
It all goes back to blaming something else or someone else or some other situation for the reason you do really shitty things. So let's undo the GI problem, the "excuse" if you will... Let's start over.
So... How far back do I have to go to start over? What caused the stomach-ache to be an excuse? A math test. So why did you need an excuse? Because you didn't study the night before (YOUR fault, although we don't see it.) So why didn't you study the night before? Because I have a hugely dysfunctional family who never gave me any attention/any discipline/any love/any Coco-Puffs that one morning before school." So i guess 1974 would be a good place so start the do-over. Let's try May 17th...
I always thought the only way I could write was if I was drinking. Heh. I have no idea. Was my drunk shit as bad as this sober shit?
*steph @ 1:54 AM*
Please read the following list carefully.
If you can, memorize it. If you suck at memorizing, feel free to print it out or copy it to an index card and ensure that you carry it with you at all times. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.
1. If Stephanie has to work the next day, be it 930am or 300pm, she is NOT TO CONSUME ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES. This includes Saturday evenings, Tuesday evenings, and Thursday evenings. But ALWAYS ASK. Because she might be picking up a Tuesday morning shift and fail to mention it.
2. If on any given day in which Stephanie is allowed to drink, FEED HER FIRST. Even if she insists she has already eaten. Shove something into her mouth and make her chew and swallow. If in a situation where everyone is out at a restaurant or bar, HEED THIS RULE and get her a diet coke with a lime until said feeding is complete. Bar snacks do not count as food, nor does eating 2 nachos off of a plate full of nachos. If necessary, spoon feed her using the Airplane Technique, as this has proven to be very effective in infants.
3. NO SHOTS IN PUBLIC. Shots are to be consumed in the event where rules one and two are complete, and in the safety of a domestic residence.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Stephanie at didujustcallmebitch@hotmail.com. Thank you for your cooperation.
*steph @ 9:50 PM*
"hahahahA! word of the day!
bedizen \bih-DY-zuhn\, transitive verb:
To dress or adorn in gaudy manner."
thanks, dave. we appreciate the support. but I wouldn't get too cocky...
*steph @ 5:24 PM*
Remember that time when we were at Dave C’s house and we had a near-fatal catastrophic wipeout on the Coors Lite Bullet, and the time we went to Avalon with Jarrad who “drove a gold Mercedes” and you came over early to get ready and I had a brilliant idea to make a shirt which ended up just not working out... And the time it was so fucking hot outside and we were bored and not wanting to move but then got this great idea to go test-drive convertibles, which we ended up not being able to do because neither of us could drive a standard... And there was the time when things weren’t going so hot for you so you came over to chill out and ended up falling asleep watching “Armageddon” because you’d seen it a million times and if we watched a movie you hadn’t seen you wouldn’t be able to fall asleep to turn off all the shit that was running through your brain - and I think that was the same night we went to Polcari’s for dinner and ended up at a table right next to a butt-load of your extended relatives who were all so happy to see you but you couldn’t introduce me because you couldn’t remember any of their names... And I remember when I quit work for like 2 weeks, and when I came back you were the first one to tell me how much you missed me (because 2 weeks was a long time, I know) and you had this “scheme” for me to be your “prop” for the bartender olympics, which you won, naturally, after minutes and minutes of “practicing” and sausage egg McMuffins...
And it all started when you went home from work one night and found a card in your front door - you were dealing with one of your relatives dying and your whole family was on vacation in Italy or something, and the card was from me, which blew even my OWN mind that I was able to find your house and put it there, because I had only driven you home once before (which, incidentally, you’d promised to reciprocate by helping me shovel my driveway after that huge fucking snowstorm. I don’t know if you remember that part but if you do, you SHOULDN’T because you DIDN’T) but you made it up to me in so many other ways, so no worries. And from that came Drowning Mona and the Shit Salad and the Popcorn song (that I’d been trying to figure out the name of since third grade and there it was in Drowning Mona) and that scene in the movie where the guy gets smacked in the head with a frying pan that I had you rewind over and over again because it was SO GODDAMNED FUNNY. And then we’d rent movies and not even pay attention because we’d talk through the entire fucking thing...
And I think the last time I saw you it was about 2 in the morning and I was asleep and you rang my doorbell and we talked through the screen door for a little bit, and you put your hand on the screen and told me how much you missed your best buddy. And I don’t think you ever realized how amazing those words sounded to me, even if they weren’t true (cuz you WERE a little drunk) but I didn’t care if they were true or if they weren’t. Because sometimes you just need to hear that you matter to someone, no matter how much or how little...
So maybe, I hope, I’ve made my point. But I think I remember you being the kind of person who needed things to be black and white, who never was able to assume that everything was fine. I was the same way. I still am. Maybe you are too.
So, in black and white: I really truly miss you. We had so much friggin fun and today I feel like I took it for granted, because sometimes you don’t know what you’re missing until it’s gone, if that makes any sense. That happens to everyone. People come and go and no one really notices, but I want to do over the ending, because I know NOW. We just kind of faded out. It was one of those things that I never saw happening. And for that I’m sorry. Because you were one of the very few people who made it okay for me to be myself, who made me laugh, and who made me not care what you would think if I did something dumb or stupid, which I’m sure I did all the time... To sound like a cheesy fucking cliche, life happens and you make a shit se-alad. (Okay so I made that cliche up, but it’s a good one, no?)
I guess I was just wondering if you had the same memories I have. And I wanted to let you know that I still have them like they were yesterday.
Yours in the cheesiest fucking way possible.
*steph @ 2:45 PM*
I turned left onto Harrison, just like Andy had told me to do right before my phone died:
“Go to the end of my street, take a left onto Harrison, and your car’s like RIGHT there.”
Okay. I took a left. Right? Wait a minute. I closed my eyes so I could more easily picture which was my right arm and which was my left. Okay, yeah, I had definitely taken a left.
I walked to the end of the block.
I didn’t see my car.
Was a SURE I’d taken a left?
I turned around and looked at the street sign on the corner of Andy’s block. I tried to discreetly position myself so I was facing Harrison - simulating in my completely hungover brain that I was walking to the end of Andy’s street and actually taking a left. Yeah, okay, left. I’ll just walk another block.
Okay, two more blocks.
GodDAMMIT I wished I had sunglasses on. Not just to dim the searing noontime sun that was lasering itself into my eyes, but so I could more easily ignore the staring faces of the non-hungover-going-to-work-people that would stare at me as they walked by.
Okay. One more block and I’m going to turn around and start over. Maybe I’d passed my car without seeing it. That happens when your entire brain is soaked in Southern Comfort and beer. Things look different.
I walked back to the corner of Springfield and Harrison, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible among all the hospital doctors and nurses and interns that were walking around on their coffee breaks, among the important-looking people with their professional-looking shoes and their briefcases and their cell-phones. I CAN’T BELIEVE MY FUCKING PHONE IS DEAD. But of COURSE it is. It’s dead because I’m walking up and down the same four blocks looking so obviously like the girl who had partied too much at the club the night before and had to crash at a friend’s house and now had NO IDEA where her car was, never MIND what fucking neighborhood she was in.
Well, okay that’s not entirely true - she sort of knew the neighborhood, because she was walking back and forth in front of the hospital she had ended up at after a freak alcohol and marijuana incident.
Oh, Jesus Christ. I gotta sit down.
NO you fucker! Don’t sit down! What good is that gonna do you?! You have NO phone, you have NO car, you’re LOST and Andy’s on a bus to western Mass and you look like a fucking lesbian hooker. Sitting is NOT going to help. People who are moving look like they have an agenda, like they have somewhere to be and like they KNOW HOW TO GET THERE.
Maybe Andy got his lefts and rights mixed up. Highly doubtful. He hadn’t been the one doing $5.25 shot after shot of SoCo and finished the evening unable to drive and falling twice up the stairs on the way up to his fifth floor apartment.
No, that had been YOU, you loser.
What the fuck. I’m sick of this block anyway. I’ll just walk. Walk, avoid the eyes. To the eyes that are unavoidable shoot a look that says “Yeah, hi, yeah, I’m THAT GIRL so fuck you, you fucko.”
Jesus on a stick. A pay phone. I didn’t think they even made pay phones anymore. But thank God for us dumb folks who don’t turn off or charge our own wireless technology.
Fifty cents a call. Luckily, I’m one of those people who tosses change in my bag and doesn’t spend it because it’s too much of a pain in the ass to dig it out.
What the fuck is Andy’s phone number?
It’s in my cell. Of course. Cuz it’s dead.
So I call the only person who’s number I know by heart that’s not my mother, dreading the call because she had just reprimanded me two nights ago about my drinking:
“THIS,” she’d said, holding my Corona bottle in my face. “THIS is the problem.”
I’d cried, agreed, finished the beer she was holding in my face, and went out to do some hard-core partying 24-hours later.
And here I am.
Fucked again.
*steph @ 12:53 PM*