James and The Blue Cat

I have just received my very first comment on my blog!

This is a huge milestone in the world of Bloggery, or Blogdom, or Blogitaina, or something. The comment comes from James Henry, (not to be confused with Henry James who has been dead for a long time) no other than the publisher of:

www.jamesandthebluecat.blogspot.com 

and one of the writers of, among many other things, The Green Wing, a British Sitcom that eclipses Scrubs by a long shot.

James is A Full Time Writer.  He is not at an electronic accessories company in Oklahoma City clipping paths around images of...electronic thingys for a 1000 page catalog of, um thingys for Consumptive Americans.  I don't mean consumptive in the sense of tuberculosis. Or do I?  I think American Consumerism is a sort of disease, like alcoholism. Or tuberculosis, actually.

Anyhow, I have the first comment on my blog. A quantum leap and a 25% increase in my fanbase. That might be pushing it. He did not say he was a fan. He just recommended a podcast. So a 25% increase in my readership. A milestone.

I also heard from my friend Janet that she read the blog start to finish.  She was telling me that she recently heard about Laughing Yoga (Mira Nair, of Monsoon Wedding made a documentary about this) and that she thought that my blog qualified.  These little tidbits keep me going. Janet is my accountant who is mentioned in a previous blog. Hi Janet!

Another thing that is keeping me going, that has in fact injected some much appreciated oxygen into my writing is that I heard back from my Sitcom Mentor that my new outline, or Beat Sheet (part of the new show business vocabulary I am acquiring. So far I have Beat Sheet and Cold Opening, which means the opening credits are rolling as the episode starts...) Sorry. Tangent.  She says that my new Beat Sheet is ready to go, but this time she called it a "treatment." So I now have 3 works. Here is what she said:

"Just read treatment. It's great. The story is solid, the characters are great, the details show a real writer's eye for detail."

I know we are meant to find appreciation and acceptance within.  Like, "until you love yourself, you will not find love outside of yourself"...or something like that.  But I am new to this show business stuff and I need outside approval from time to time.  Besides, I don't want to come off as smug, like those self-loving people do.

I have to go now because the electrical thingys await me, but not before I select an image for this blog, which will be difficult as I can't think of any images that relate to this blog.

Okay, I found one. It's me with Chutney and Snort. Snort is nibbling on my hair.  This was in January when I was last up in Aspen and went to a dogsled race in Redstone.  And I am going to Aspen next week, where I will meet with my Sitcom Mentor, who also grew up in Aspen.

And now through a roundabout way the image relates to my blog, and Snort definitely approves of my hair, and so do I.

leaving the big smoke

Due to unforeseen circumstances I find myself in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. And after nearly 12 years of being accustomed to having a Big Red Limo at my disposal 24/7/365 in London, I now find myself relegated to having to provide my own transportation, like some sort of regular person. The indignity does not stop there, however; I am currently living in my mother’s house, which at [##] is increasing the burden of humiliation that is mine to carry at this particular point in time. I find myself saying things like, “Mom, can I borrow the car?” Which will, no doubt, in time lead to getting caught making out on the sofa.

Here is how I try NOT to imagine it will go down: I will meet a Hot Guy and we will have “chemistry”. After a few coffees out, a movie and some phone calls we will go to a gig and engage in the Devil’s sport of dancing [OKC is in The Bible Belt] which in turn will lead to the following verbal transaction:

HG: want to come back to mine?

Me: ummm…

HG: or we could go to yours if you prefer…

Me: ermmmm…

CUT TO: Close-up of my alarmed face as I imagine how that would work out, then

FADE OUT AND UP TO:


NIGHT, INTERIOR: Camera pans across the darkened interior of my mother’s well-appointed home. Me and HG are locked in a clinch on The Celery Green Silk Sofa, The Needlepoint Pillows are on the floor and my shirt and bra are in a careless pile next to the Scalamandre Covered Louis XV Fauteuil. HG’s shirt is unbuttoned to the waist. The camera slowly zooms in on me and HG.

Me: mmmmschlurpahhh

HG: mfwgggrrrrr

Me; ooooohhh

HG: schlopmfwaaagahhh

From another place in the house the sound of a footstep is heard and the camera
CUTS TO:

The shadow of a be-robed woman slowly descending the stairs in the dark

Mom: [VO] Lovebug…? Darling…? Is that you...????

Here we do not fade to black. We CUT to BLACK quickly, quicklyquicklyquickly, because I don’t even want to go there or, go back there because there I have been before. Different house, different city but same Sofa, Pillows and Chair with a Fancy French Name:

To wit:

Ian in 6th Grade
Brad in 7th Grade
Lorenzo in 8th Grade
Ivan, Summer Break, Junior Year, College
Dietrich, Christmas Break, Senior Year College

Gentle Reader, I have the Gestalt on this scenario, good and proper. Let me enlighten you. My mother, who I love with all my heart probably more than anyone else in the world in fact, persists in referring to older divorced couples who are co-habitating as being “shacked-up.”

I need to find my own place, but before that can happen I have to buy a car.

Where to start?

Here is a list of things I have been thinking about writing but not writing:

First, a trek to Aspen with my four-years' dead dog Pigeon's cremated ashes to drop in our fave spot up Hunter Creek, where we used to swim and hike 12 years ago;

Trying to manifest a 70's Mercedes SL for my trip to LA;

But manifesting a rusted out '71 380CD instead.

Trying to de-manifest said Merc;

Starting my second [unfinished] novel to avoid rewriting my sitcom for the US market;

The pleasure of reading Malraux's Anti-memoirs aloud to myself [I'm not as pompous as that makes me sound, I'm just weird]

Madeleine Goes To Aspen Where She Meets Ötzi The Iceman

Aspen is surreal. I grew up here but I have never become inured to the whole Famous People thing.

Like waiting in line at Carl's Pharmacy for a prescription to be filled with Stephen Hawking,

or being asked by Tom Cruise and Emilio Estevez where the cool parties are on New Year's Eve the year after Repo Man came out. For example.

I see Famous People daily in London, but it is a roomy city. Perhaps, in Aspen, because it's such a small village there is an uncomfortable intimacy when The Illuminati and The Glitterati rock-up in their Lear jets and then start doing things we normal people do.

So, I'm here in Aspen for a 3-week visit and the climate is very dry. Aspen is, in fact classified as an alpine desert, and I have forgotten to pack my face creams. It's the middle of day 1 and I already need to get my hands on some Weleda products, namely Iris Day Cream and the über emollient Skin Food to lock in the moisturizing benefits of the IDC.

Rents are very high in Aspen and a lot of businesses don't make it. So year-in and year-out there is a constant turnover. Not a big problem if you live here full-time or visit frequently. But nothing is where it used to be since I moved to The Big Smoke 12 years ago, except for Carl's Pharmacy, which had already been here for 14 years when we arrived in '73. And Carl's has EVERYTHING, don't let the name fool you. And because its Aspen they even have caviar in their little grocery section. But they are sold out of my Weleda products, and nothing else will do. I know what I am talking about. So I am thinking I need a health food store, right? So I'm schlepping all over Aspen looking for places that do not exist. Prada is now in what used to be Andre's where we went for Sunday Brunch if we weren't going to Arthur's, the original one, before the Chinese people bought it. Dior, Gucci & Vuitton are where Poppycock's use to be before it moved to The Aspen Square where Scandinavian Design was after it moved from the place next door to The Epicure, but after the Epicure closed and the first Pour La France opened before moving next door and later became Farfalle, but now seems to be some sort of Asian-fusion place. The Cantina is STILL in the old Epicure spot from 12 years ago acting as North Star for my Ullysian Face Cream Adventure, thank God.

But back to my face. My skin is starting to feel tight. I can't see my face, so all I have to go on are the sensations emanating from behind the mask [hahahaha]. And I think: "This must be what Ötzi the Iceman, [the early man-dude some trekkers stumbled across in 1991 on a glacier somewhere between Italy and Austria] would have felt had he lived to see his discovery.

But then.

I see this lady! She has Purpose! She looks like She Knows Where She Is Going! And she even Looks Familiar! Aha! A longtime local, me thinks! My tightened hide relaxes in a Pavlovian anticipatory placebo response. So I make a bee-line for her. She clocks my moves, quickens her pace and ups her Purpose. But I friggin’ need to exfoliate, re-hydrate and lock in the goddamn moisture. I am hemorrhaging bodily liquids via my cutaneous and subcutaneous layers at an alarming rate. And whether she knows it or not she has been sent to me as a Guide from The Archangel of Youthful Dewy Skin, and I am not prepared to wait on the side of this [alpine] desert road for another opportunity like this to pass by:

Me: Excuse me, excuse me...do you...[woman ignores me, so I speak up and add a tone of Authority] Pardon me, would you happen to know where the health food store is...?

Woman: I'm sorry...?

Me: A health food store or, like, an organic spa that sells Weleda or Dr. Hauschka products...I need to get some moisturizer...its so dry here, an Alpine Desert I'm told. [Beat, then] I feel reptilian...

Woman: [Tersely] I can't help you, I'm visiting myself.

Me: [I pause and consider woman] Are you Madeleine Albright?

Woman: Yes.

Me: Oh. [Beat, then] Does your skin feel dry?