Been working my way through several years of DAR: A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary. So far, this one is my favorite for summing up how I ended up married, contrary to expected the Crazy Fish Lady spinster-future, and the results thus far.

Heh: I ♥ heternormativity...

Today there was proper snow on the ground, several actual inches of good packin' stuff, and it was awesome, even tho I did at one point slip crossing the street and ended up in a sort of W-shaped hands-on-pavement kama sutra position but did NOT land on my ass.

Yay!

We are taking part in a reality show of sorts, holed up in the wrong side of town where each person has a tiny room with no windows. My teammates consist of 2 girls who are working on our project all hours of the night and will not let me have any part of it. they are secretive and cruel and when I ask the head of this competition how much of this work is allowed to be done on our own time, they shoot daggers from their eyes at me. We hold a meeting on something resembling a porch, elevated, one room over from the living space. It overlooks the parking lot and when we see the owners cherry red sports car pull in we all scatter like pillbugs when the rock’s been pulled away.  

I head for my car, this car that is my own contraption, made of cardboard and wire but still functioning somehow, for as long as I don’t give it too much thought. It takes the turns hard.  

And the boss spots me, asks me to move his car to the next lot over, which I do and my father sees me parking it there. He is not my real father, but rather the screw up type of man who squanders his children’s hard work with his own repeated mistakes. He wants to borrow the car, he needs to. We are two miles from the center of town and it is a straight shot. I don’t plan on returning so I say alright. Be careful, I warn, and though I do not accompany him, I know that the windshield will end up spiderwebbed. There will be bullet holes from people mistaking the driver and this is the sort of thing that is not necessarily his fault, but will be.  

This place is an island and though it is Astoria it looks and feels like northern Long Island, around Huntington, where I have gotten lost so many times. I am meeting with someone on his deck and I am telling him about a story I was writing – something about local Spanish or Italian gangs, people who wear zoot suits.  

And a scene in a school gym where I am 10 years old and everyone is pairing up for a dance class I have organized in part because I am in love with my best friend, who is in love with someone else, a wretched girl who preens and pouts all day. I pair them up together anyway, because it is the right thing to do.  

And later, I am on the subway, with a camera, fully grown, my shoulders sunburnt doing pull ups on the bars while I talk to my crew about the idea of passing for someone or something other than what you are.  

This is what I am talking about in my deck interview. The man I’m speaking to has charcoal skin with gray undertones and a young boy sitting with him. The air is swampy and when I take off my blazer it barely helps things. Don’t dress like that around here, he says, they will confuse you for the cast. In the distance I see the zoot-suit-ed stars. What do you write he wants to know and I tell him everything and he raises an eyebrow, interested not suspicious. And I begin to tell him that there are very few things in this world I care enough about to explore and I am about to start listing them off when a group comes over and starts setting the table.

My father, the real one this time, is at the table. They are serving beignets and I lean next to him and wonder if this is where his friends had come not too long ago. It is the only place I’ve heard of in Astoria that serves these things. But they are blonde and Nordic and would not last long here, as the conversation reveals. I am allowed to stay because I am dark eyed and tanned dark enough to facilitate the illusion that I belong, even if they know better. They ask the countries that compose my heritage and laugh when I tell the truth, announcing their superiority.

  It is a strange place.

ONE:                                                                                There was a carnival during the day, some kind of festivities and at night there is a movie shown on bleachers in a classroom of sorts. I am sitting next to a friend, getting sleepy and he puts his arm around me and I lean deep into his shoulder. His hand wanders down my arm to my waist. Don’t you have a girlfriend? I ask and he hesitates only for a moment, smiles a bit. We are whispering close enough that we can feel each other’s breath on our faces. Our kisses are short and stolen and disappointingly uncharged. When we get up, I realize my boss is sitting right behind me and am embarrassed.

TWO

A villa at the end of a cobblestone road in the city where everything is enclosed by stone. Some combination of Italy and New Orleans, though I do not claim to know either well. I have been living there, with a group of girls and a hugh hefner type man-of-the-house. I have been practicing using feminine wiles to get my way.

THREE

 It is a Monday and I’m supposed to be at work, but am instead in a cabin room somewhere. Somehow it is already 6pm and I am instant messaging with my exboyfriend who I have not spoken to in years and whatever we are talking about it confusing me.  He shows up with his new girlfriend and I am not entirely sure how he found me but he is there and he wants to make a stop action animated porn. It’s never been done before, he says and I cite things close – aeon flux and team America and they are not quite the level he wants to take it. he has suggestions, ideas and pretty soon we have enlisted dozens’ help in constructing the set and I am arguing about the way to do it, the size it ought to be and we are hammering into uneven wood to create a model as wide as the one in the beetlejuice attic.

ME: I just want to take a quick picture.
BOYFRIEND: It's 2:30am!
ME: I know! No one is out except crazy people like us.
BOYFRIEND: You can take pictures in the back yard in the morning.
ME: Just a couple quick ones.
BOYFRIEND: It's dark!
ME: I'll use the 50mm and crank it wide open.
BOYFRIEND: I'm going inside. You are crazy.
ME Wait, I don't have my keys buzz me in..... B? (door shuts)

Dragged the husband out to see the very very Robert Zemeckis version of A Christmas Carol. He ended up liking it more than he thought he would, and me…hell, it’s an unbreakable classic. Many have tried, but few have truly destroyed the tale.

Aside from a few pod racing-ish scenes (I have special effects, and I will have wacky chase scenes to justify them!), which were pretty enough to look at I won’t complain, it’s quite a good version – focusing more on the horror aspects of the ghost story and adult iterations of nostalgia and regret than the treacly kids’ stuff. Actually, the graphic depiction of Marley alone makes this really not a kid’s movie. I’m gonna get nightmares about the unhinged jaw thing. *shudder*

I like this story because I love Scrooge – both pre- and post-ghosting. Before, he’s a complete bastard, but he’s an honest, intelligent bastard. When everyone else is piously running about doing their Christmas-only good deeds (and don’t you have to suspect those charity collectors spend every penny they collect on delicious, delicious bacon for themselves?), he’s adamantly the same cynical asshole. I love the many ways writers demonstrate what a terrifying curmudgeon he is that sanctimonious wankers wilt at the sight of him, and hope to grow old just like him.

And afterward? He’s usually realised how much of life he’s missing out on by the second ghost. The ghost of xmas future exists to give the audience a good jolt and hammer the unfamiliar good intentions home. It’s just not Christmas until I’ve seen both Scrooge and George Bailey running around acting truly deranged and freaking out the usual holiday-spiriters. I like to think, though, that they both retain their brains and slightly miss the point - and that Scrooge, in becoming a ‘second father’ to Tiny Tim, fondly grooms him well in the finer, ie knee-cracking, techniques of professional usury.

Holy crap, it's snowing (after hailing like a mofo).

This would be beautiful and awesome if I didn't have to walk to work in a little while.

At yesterday's Gremlins / Die Hard Cameo double-feature, Phoebe Cates' dramatic dead-dad story justifying why she hates Christmas got the biggest laughs of the afternoon. Was that always supposed to be bathos-y goodness? When I was a kid that story scared the crap out of me, so I always blocked up my ears until the next scene.

Was woken up this morning by a knock at the door – answered it bleary-eyed and be-robed to find what I assume to be mother-and-daughter proselytisers with pamphlets. Seemed to terrify the kid, who manfully handed me a pamphlet with a shaking hand while repeating that my suffering was nearly at an end.

I’m not sure that wasn’t the absolutely perfect line for someone foolhardy enough to peddle religion in the vomit-splattered streets of Dalry before noon on a weekend.

Also – finally got by email my rejection form letter re Monday’s interview. Sheesh, just take your time, guys!

This is my first Christmas tree in 7 Christmases of living in NYC.

It’s getting surreal, having worked in so many university offices. Two deans from the Bad Place just came by for a meeting and were amusingly startled and confused to see me at reception. I just gave them a big smile and, thankfully, they kept going…hopefully they’ll leave without attempting conversation. More fun are the tradesmen, who usually recognise me after a squint – the admins, though, the dopey ones who always insist on making a big fuss when I leave an office, they walk right past while I chortle inside. I am invisible, bwa ha ha!

I really hope bozo and bawjaws from the Very Bad Place never show up where I’m temping. Edinburgh’s small as Baltimore some days.