Insecurity Speech

for Grayson, who I will someday force to hop on a coffee table.

EXCUSE me everybody. Everybody, I'd like to say something. To all of you, fine, fine people. First of all I want to thank you so much for having me, to this party, event, thing. And um Happy Birthday to Francesca, I don't know you but you seem real awesome. And I know we only talked really briefly when I walked in and said 'I'm a friend of Brian's, Happy Birthday' but i felt something. I did.
I would just like to say from the bottom of my heart that i think you are really cool, like super cool, like cooler than cool. shit i already said cool.. And um I just uhhm i really don't think i belong here, because i am um not you know um cool. And I know cool people don't acknowledge the existence of cool, but I'm not. And that's ok, thats ok um but i just wanted to um thank you for giving me something to aspire to that i will never reach because you guys are just so fucking cool it makes me nauseous. So cool that I've been sitting in a corner pretending to check my phone watching how cool you are. And there isn't an app for that. Which is really really cool, like worse than ice cold. And um yeah. Because I look at you and it's like fuck man, your shit is more attractive and intelligent than me, not that I've seen or carried a conversation with your shit but... I should go. I'm going to go. Also Xander if you could tell me where you got that shirt man, I'd appreciate it

After the Fall

It's difficult for me to write about my mother. She has eyes like soul saucers and strangers tell her secrets. At 5ft 3 she has more conviction, and cool than I ever will. She also has MS. Two small letters we ignore. I can't express her experience, only attempt at mine. Below is that attempt.

It was always Fall. Always in Fall when it happened. When it started. We were trick or treating and I got half a house, just half a house ahead, because my costume broke. I was the earth, and I wanted to get a safety pin at home; down the street, because it broke. The 'earth' broke, and she slipped, she fell. And there it was, the Fall. The first fall. Here I was at seven holding the (cardboard) weight of the earth in my hands as my mother tripped on a step. She tripped not because she couldn't see it, but because she couldn't feel it. I ran back, saw my mother on the ground for the first time, saw her get up. She fell, she got up, and suddenly I didn't want my candy anymore, and the broken earth didn't matter, she did. Over twenty ears later that's what we kept doing; falling, getting up, and hoping no one would notice.

My mother was 33, newly divorced, had just started a company. She was told it was stress and not just two little letters. MS. Ironically my mom was always a Ms. before, not a Mrs, it was the 80's, but these letters weren't as liberating. M.S. : Multiple Sclerosis; this weird slowly blinding, slowly crippling thing that we couldn't see, that came as the seasons changed, that hit in Fall. Every Fall it would creep in, we'd forget, and there it would be. As we got older she got better at covering.  We weren't going to suffer because of two letters. We'd forget, we'd abuse her like all children abuse their parents. 'Oh mom's acting like a bitch... Oh, maybe it's because she can't see?  Oh yeah that'... And every Fall she'd pretend, pretend she could see, pretend she could walk, pretend she could feel as everything numbed, until she couldn't pretend anymore. On those days we'd get dirty looks at the grocery store because we used the handicap spot, because you can't see two little letters.

Before the first fall I was obsessed with make believe, obsessed with Halloween. My father would sit on the floor with me handcrafting costumes meticulously. He turned our house into a castle with tin foil, we'd craft every torret. I loved the idea of being someone else, being somewhere else, pretending. I delighted in the idea of having their thoughts, their feelings, their hopes. As I grew older, I stopped caring for Halloween, for pretending. We had enough of that. Pretending was for safe spaces, puppet theaters, sets and stages. Now I'm a professional pretender, but even then I didn't need more.

Every Fall I get a little restless. I want to move, or change, or in the very least get a new lunch box or trapper keeper. I want a distraction, a project. I go out too much, or hibernate.  I leave the house without an umbrella on purpose. I gain weight, or lose it, I come up with excuses to ignore parties involving masks. I feel it, the shift. My freshman year I found out my grandmother passed away on Halloween, minutes before I had to play a dead body in a play, and my relationship with the day just got more complicated. These scary things just seemed stupid. I lived in NYC for eight years and never attended the West Village parade. Unless I do it all the way, unless I can disappear completely, I don't dress up for Halloween. I don't care to court fear or dress up as a slutty janitor. I guess I don't like seeing people pretend when they don't have to, unless they choose to fully go there. I assume this is hypocritical because I make believe for a living. I become and create people who don't exist, while my mother created someone who did. This Halloween she's 'Mom who can see' she's wearing her 'Mom who can walk mask'. She's pretending that the MS is the pretend thing, and life is the real one. She told us a story and we bought it. We lived, pretending, and sometimes the fall was a little more rough than others, but it would be over eventually. She made us believe, made her self believe so she could keep going, and we did.

Friends from home who I haven't seen in a while always ask me how my mother is. Sometimes I forget, I forget about the two little letters. Sometimes even if it's not true I just answer "She's great". It's amazing the masks we wear.

(For more info on MS and donating please visit the MS Society)

the dobler effect

It has been mentioned to me consistently, that I have really bad taste in men. And they aren't bad men. They're not, so perhaps I have really bad taste in timing. I'll never know if I tend to connect to people when they are in the midst of change, or challenge, or if they are always in that place, or I gravitate to that. And I take full responsibility in this; my patterns, my part. For the most part, not all, they are restless, artistic, funny, intense, intellectual people who have difficulty multi-tasking. Across the board, they have nice eyes, like words, David Lynch, have/do chainsmoke, or are completely against chainsmoking. Emotionally aware, but not emotionally available who usually just 'can't deal with a relationship right now'.

And there's something in me that says that if you like someone enough it won't matter where you are, or what your 'processing' or if you have your shit together. Lloyd Dobler did it! Lloyd Dobler believed, and held on. And I realize most of my issues can be traced to Cameron Crowe's 'Say Anything'. Dobler. John Cusack, there are few women who are not attracted to John Cusack (and Ryan Gosling). The problem with Dobler, he was sensitive, self assured, and geeky; he was attainable.

And I think about these boys. These are boys who would have heldup the boombox when they were eighteen, but they're not eighteen, and boomboxes are heavy. They've made the decision to not ' to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought' and are looking around their late twenties/early thirties freaking out, making up for lost time, making up for lost art, lost money, and holding onto convictions. So the new consuming conviction is work,not the girl, they've tried that before, it's all or nothing. And we accept this because at one point they were the guy that held up a boombox, for some other girl when they were eighteen, and this boombox hurt them.

Lloyd Dobler and Diane Court would break up. He pushed for her, she'd push him to be better, get a career, try to change him and he'd try, but bolt. He'd continue hanging out with smart girls comparing them to her, but never really let them in, once he decided what he was doing. Or trying to do. They'd be stupid try to pry, try to get their own dobler moment. She'd consistently date guys who had Lloyd like qualities, but they'd never really love her the same way or own ' new soul classics'.

Lloyd is cynical and yet open; he is morose and yet curiously happy -- he believes.

This may be our problem, we see the internal Dobler and we want that, but that can't be sustained, that belief. With that boombox moment there's a guy whose going to be pissed off he got a pen, for the rest of his life. There's a guy who 'just wanted to be with a girl for the rest of his life' but probably woke up eventually and swung the opposite direction. And it's not entirely his fault Diane Court took him for granted.

I think most of us have had him, that guy when you were 18 who loved you so ridiculously it made you feel like they knew something no one else did. At that time his future and finances, and career didn't matter to him, because you mattered. We hold onto that guy, that feeling as we get older, because eventually that other stuff has to matter. So instead we look for that, and inherit other peoples doblers. And in turn we become the Lloyd, the believer. We wait, we make orations to people who give us pens, that we know aren't right. We say 'One question: do you need... someone, or do you need me?... Forget it, I don't really care'.
Diane Court went to London, and never got the baggage.

the super

My garbage disposal was broken, which is not necessarily a necessary thing, but we called for weeks about it. Then I called for weeks about it. People existed without disposals. So I did. Finally the landlord called me back. Barb. Barb was a massively obese woman who would never actually come in the building but would sit in her car. A 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee that looked like my mothers. Barb would drop off her 'boyfriend' Carl, who would then do the repairs, and sit in the car and wait. Not set foot in the apartments she owned. I had lots of questions about Barb, and why she sat in the car, could she leave the car and why a woman that large would wear a rainbow colored dress? I did not know how i felt about Barb, but I admired her commitment to fashion. Carl came in with a flashlight, it was 3pm. A flashlight and a large stick. He apologized for being 3 hours late, I must have work to do. Garbage disposals are very important, but he was in the hospital you see. He fished around in the disposal, oh wait there was that light in the bathroom they were supposed to get done could he take a look at that? Sure. 'Wait wait kid turn off the light don't want me or you getting shocked, don't need that. Least I don't'. Carl assured me before becoming 'Barb's boyfriend he was an actual electrician, for actual people'. I wondered if I were an actual person. The dog barked at him and he assured me he spoke dog, he apoke dog to the dogs they had at the house you see 'eeeweee oooee lapa lapa' the dog just continued barking.
So I took him out. Around the block, said hello to Barb in the jeep who was wearing a silk rainbow blouse, perhaps a pantsuit but I was unsure if she had a lower body hidden in the jeep grand cherokee. We were gone for about a half hour. Upon our return Carl was on a ladder, checking all the sockets, all the screens that were broken, all the broken things I had asked that be fixed in the last four years. 'I was in the hospital you know'. I was sorry to hear that. 'My liver gave out. Not processing things. Been sober 10 years, just wanted a drink. So no more of that' He came down off the ladder. 'I asked about the disposal. 'You see the fridge probably blew your socket cause these old buildings aren't cut out for all these appliances. That's the one thing I can do, that gives me joy, keeps me from drinking, fixing a problem'. He smelled like beer. 'So let's get back to that disposal' He ran it, it clinked, the dog barked. It never clinked like that before, just whirred. He reached inside it with the stick, he flashlight, reached his hand in and bulled out a Stella Artois bottle cap. The empty beer sat on the counter. 'Well problem solved kid, I'll be back tomorrow to fix the tub' and he left.

Stairwells

written on my iphone while with teenagers, teenagers who were ever so much cooler than me.

Dear God,
if ever I have a daughter please give her the common sense to wear shorts that cover her ass and not sit in stairwells late at night with Argentinian film/writer/actor boys. Even if they do quote Salinger. Or any film/writer/actor boys who are emotionally aware but not emotionally available, ok, no film/writer/actor boys, ever, fine, in stairwells at least. No stairwells. Even if they claim to be Southern or Midwestern or Southwestern.. Or Jewish or from unassuming central Pennsylvania. Please let her understand that New York and Paris are places for more than shopping. Please don't have her wear liquid eyeliner she's too fair for it, it disguises her eyes, she'll have time to do that. Please let her have convictions in the music she loves, that she not swallow all notes placed in her ears. Please allow her to take compliments and give them freely, genuinely. Please let her not need to always raise her hand and be ok with just knowing for herself, please let her speak when moved to clearly. Please let her know how to use a plunger and a vaccuum and reset our VCR clock or DVD clock or whatever space media clock we'll have then if we use one. Please let her not wear heels that look like transvestite shoes while at summer camp.
Please let her never utter the phrases 'lame' 'total' 'omg' or 'kewl' unless ironically. Please let her not confuse sensitivity with weakness or intelligence with uncoolness. And let her know that her mother was once one of those eager girls who raised her hand and was late to heartbreak from writer/actor/ film boys on stairwells but quickly moved to stoops, and rooftops, rivers and reservoirs. And hoped one day she'd be lucky enough to have a daughter even a fictitious one.
And if you can't do all these things God, can you at least let her be tall?

Are you there God? It's me, Mo Mo.

Lately I have been spitting these things out with reckless abandon. Reckless, seriously a few pedestrians got hurt. Some entries are just sitting waiting to be published cause they...are so reckless. (F you grammmar!) But it's a weird feeling to vomit words onto a page, and view counter goes up, but there's no dialogue. So talk to me. I like to talk. Let's do it, 'I mean I think it's that time in our relationship, you know where we really talk. Where do you see this going? Because I like you I really like you'.

dear internet

I fear I secretly hate you. Before you, the things I shouldn't know I didn't. You have made me care about things i don't, and made me want to see people i don't care about, doing things and going places I never knew I wanted to see. You have made me instantly connected yet sitting on my hands; saying too much, too little. You have made me want to be heard, heard, heard, seen, seen, seen, here, here, here, but not be. You have helped me build narratives around past loves and likes, and future maybes and their future and past maybes. You have made me google instead of question, answer instead of sit in the not knowing. You have led me to type this. To self indulgently type this, to feel like I'm speaking, to feel like there is someone, something on the other end, proof. that I am heard, heard, heard, seen, seen. seen, here, here, here but alone. You have shortened my attention span, and given me friends I never speak to, invites to places I never go to, and letters i can't hold in my hand. You have given the anonymity to be callous, use poor grammar, to love, disregard capitalization, and feel so hard all over someone's inbox or wall. You have made me tweet, ping, and chirp and make noises no one listens to, without regard to music or song. You have assisted me in ultimatums, orations, appointments, and disappointments, apologies, and offers. You have made me brave, and weak, and sensitive, and overloaded.
You have in confidence given me a blank space, a true canvas, and this, this is how I fill it, not always because I have something to say, but because I can.