uly 2nd I was heckled by a 10 year old girl--they grow up so fast. I ripped her a new asshole, I don't care if it was "family-oriented" party. I figured if she's old enough to heckle she's old enough to have a new asshole, I'm sure her college boyfriend will thank me in a decade. She wanted to gong me. I could tell she was threatened by my talent. She had performed earlier in this pool-side gong show. I believe she recited the alaphabet or performed quantum physics. Whatever it was she didn't stand a chance against my joke about dating a guy named Ross and she should have just accepted my superiority.

In the end no one won. The show went on too long and by the time it was over everyone was too drunk to remember any of the acts never mind award a winner. I thought about burying the hatchet with the kid--splitting an ice pop or something, but when I found her she was already on her 4th tequilla and there was no talking to her. Which was fine I really didn't want to share my ice pop. Maybe if I smoked cigars we could have bonded.

A friend of mine once told me, actually he tells me everytime I see him, that I'm not capable of love. I always laugh. He's a comic I figured he was kidding. But then last night I realized my buddy was right--I'm not capable of love. What helped me reach this ephinany? Yentl, the movie. It was playing on PBS. (God, that movie could be so good, if Barbara Streisand had nothing to do with it.) Yentl marries her/his best friend's crush in order that her best friend can be nearer to his crush. Meanwhile, Yentl is madly in love with this best friend. Yentl is so selfless. I could never do that. I could never marry Amy Irving, or any woman for that matter, so that the man that I love could be with her. Which in turn means I don't love him, so you'd think I wouldn't care if Mandy Patinkin wanted another woman, and therefore would marry a chick. (No offense women, I would also have a difficult time marrying a man for the man that I love as well. No offense men, I have trouble marrying.)

I don't like to think I lack the capacity for love. In order to get to sleep I thought of this possiblity. Maybe I can love. Maybe I love myself. Maybe I can love myself and simultaneously love Mandy Patinkin. (OK. Wait. I don't love Mandy Patinkin, Yentl does. Actually, she loves some guy, whose ethnic name I won't begin to try to spell, played by Mandy. Not that Mandy is not lovable. He's at minimum lustable, especially in Yentl donning that beard.) Anyway. I love both myself and a romantic partner, and so I want us both to be happy, but sometimes people's pursuits for happiness can conflict. For example, I want to be with my romantic interest and he wants to be with Amy Irving. If he's with Amy he can't be with me, not the way I want him to be with me, which would make me sad. So whose side do I take? I have to take mine. I've known myself longer. Me and I have been through alot together-like middle school. Which means Amy Irving has to disappear in the middle of the night. She'll leave a note in block lettering explaining she hates being Jewish and has run away to the circus. She'll go on to demand that none of us including my soon to be boyfriend never look for her.

Pat Benatar once sang the very dangerous phrase, "Love is a Battlefield." Its destructive power increasing exponentially when set to a catchy pop tune because now it's branded to our brains. A blog can not compete with a catchy 80's tune, but I've always been one to take on the impossible.

Love should not be a battlefield. Stop the battling against people you love. I know you're scared. I know all you want to do is post pictures of yourself on the internet making out with Jake Gyllenhaal to drive the dude you're casually seeing nuts. And I know that the married guy in the suburbs feels neglected by his wife, so all he wants to do is neglect her back. Stop! Stop now. Love should be less like a battlefield and more like golf. You and your partner should play against the course not each other. When you land in the rough don't take you're two iron out and just hack away destroying the fauna and everyone's patience. Take a moment and take a breath. Ask your partner what club you should use- ask sans the sarcasm. If you need to take a drop and loose a stroke, that's not weakness, it's playing within yourself. Yeah, I hate golf too. Let's move on.

"But how can I move on, Rachael, I think he still might like me." So call and ask him if he does. "My friends say that's a bad a idea. Then I'll loose 'hand.'" You're friends are stupid. Vulnerability isn't weak and foolish. You asking them to dicipher someone else's actions is foolish. They don't know what he thinks and feels. You know why? Because they're not him!!! In all likely hood he doesn't like you, but you don't know for sure until you ask. So ask so he can crush all the hope out of you. Hope ruins lives. Right now you think there is a chance, that he's big a Pat Benatar fan who just walks around his home singing "Oo Ee Oo Ee OOo. We are strong no one can tell us we're wrong...something something I don't know this part... Love is a battlefield." Which could be true, probably not, but could be true. So go find out. Call and call and call somemore until he calls you back. Or just call two times. You have to balance bravery with social norms, I guess. Something about harrassment laws. Though, if he refuses to give you a straight answer show up at his home and wait until he gets back from work. Then cry like a baby when you emotionally get kicked in the solar plexus. Next, try to force yourself to like that really sweet accountant. How bad could he be your friend thought he was cute, granted her ex boyfriend didn't shower, but still.I

I've been in complete agony for over 24 hours. Something lay in my lower abdomen and that something is not happy. It jabs and stabs at me from my inside. Logically, the pain must be an indication that my apendix has burst. I Expressed this theory to my father. He thought an apendix rupture was unlikely because my body was not drenched in sweat nor did I have fever What does he know about medicine? He works in the welding industry. However, I realize now, several hours after speaking to dad, that since I am not dead, my apendix probably remains intact.
What could be wrong? If my years of studying theatre at Emerson taught me anything it's that I have intestinal cancer. What else could it be? I mean, maybe I could be pregnant. Not that I have had sex recently, as my boyfriend is in a far off land. However, who the hell knows what polythesitic religion he's been practicing with remote peoples. He could have participated in an elaborate ceremony where he was able to release his spirit, that then traveled to Brooklyn to be wtih me. While I slept his spirit came to me and we shared an exquisite love. The expression of our love left me pregnant. I doubt remote peoples who still practice spirit releasing have developed spirit prophylactics. As a result I'm now carrying Jack's spirit baby. Which I should celebrate because it means i'm not dying, however, I am not polythesistic but secularly Jewish, so I shan't celebrate anything but fear the worst. Frankly, I don't know if my body can handle birthing a spirit baby. I'll probably die during childbirth. It's got to be something. If it's not a appendix ruptured than it must be cancer and if it's not cancer than it has to be spirit pregnancy complications.

It's dangerous business this pregnancy stuff. They never teach about spirit sex in health class, I think that's pretty western centrist. And with the world continuing to shrink I think the kids today need to learn about non-body sex. Let me be the example not to follow. Yes, readers of this blog let us start a campaign to lobby congress to make sure every child gets a complete story of the dangers of sex in their public schools. Who's with me?!

Yesterday morning at work I discovered a piece of chocolate on my desk. It was part of a larger hunk of chocolate and the portion on my desk was wrapped in the original packaging. I asked the cube dwellers around me if someone had shared there chocolate with me, there wasn't really a response.
It occurred to me that these people don't like me and they thought it would be funny to poison a piece of chocolate and see what happens to the temp. Well, I wasn't going to die for their amusement--if I die for anyone's amusement it will be for a paying audience. So, after staring at the candy for most of the day I threw out the deadly chocolate. One more day of life for me, take that you suits!

I didn't reach 28 by luck. I'm on to all of you. My demise will not be served under flourescent lights!

In the world of aging immaturity and nyc living I have found myself in a bind. My parents have lost my summer clothing. No, I do not live with them. However, I have arranged joint custody of my wardrobe with my parents. In the summer months my winter clothing lives with my parents. In the winter months my winter clothes come back to live with me and my summer clothes go to Jersey to visit with my parents.

The weather hit 80 degrees this weekend. I called my parents and said, can you guys stop by your storage facility and pick up my summer stuff. "Yeah, sure no problem," they responded. Two hours later they called me back, "We can't find them, are you sure you gave them to us."
"Well, I've searched each inch of my 8x11 bedroom and can't seem to find them."
"Hmm? well, maybe their in our house."
"OK."
Today I received a phone call from my father.
"Yeah, funny, we don't seem to have you clothes here either."
Hysterical. I can't believe these people want to be grandparents. They can't even keep track of non-animated, breathable fabrics. Granted, if I had children I don't think I would leave them at my parents' for months at a time, but then again if I still lived in this apartment in Brooklyn I'd have to. I can't store my kids under my bed like I do my rollerblades and computer paraphernilia. I mean, I could. My bed is about three feet off the floor and kids especially babies are small. But i'm sure they'd cry under there and I'd never get any sleep.

My parents' excuse for loosing my clothes is that they are in the midst of moving. They have sold my childhood home and moved into a small rental house where they live and wait for their new house to be built. (Estimated time of completion October.) This is some retirement investment plan. They say if they had any hope of me achieving economic success they never would have had to move; and therefore, they never would have lost my clothes. And I'd just like to mention I never chose to be born. They did choose to have a child. They only have the one kid and sure i'm nearing 28 and I should be able to live in a place that has enough room for four seasons of clothing, but I don't.

I'd love to be sympathetic to their retirement and old age concerns, but i'm about to find myself in the midst of a NYC summer. 97 degree weather with 90% humidity and all i have to wear is wool!

I'm not heartless. I would never turn my back on them in their old age. They are more than welcome to live under my bed in their golden years.

If you see me this summer wondering around Brooklyn insane and naked have compassion--hose me down and throw me a t-shirt. Please, don't call the cops.

Momma's Boy

My boyfriend Jack is unbelievable. My mom just received her Mother’s Day gift from him yesterday. It would have arrived on the Saturday before Mother’s Day, but Jack mixed up the shipment times of Baliti and Gavenese. He’s so silly he hasn’t been to Baliti in over a year. I’d like to say that this mistake could have happened to anyone, but really it could only happen to Jack. He sent my mom a piece of Nuruto folk art (Gavenese is a small village in the Northwest region of the country of Nuruto which is a small island off of Greenland.) It’s a collage of drawings of the night time sky inked on leaves. The Nuruto artists preserve their leaf drawings with some sort of wax or sap or honey. I’m not really sure, I kind of zoned out when Jack was describing the process. I’m a bad girlfriend sometimes. Anyway, mom stuck it on the fridge with some magnets. I have to remember to hang it in my parents’ living room before Jack returns to the States. Which is only 35 days away!!!!

My boy is so sweet. I can’t believe how considerate and thoughtful he is. His days are so busy with the one-legged, blind Nurutan children. (Supposedly there is some rare genetic disorder in Nuruto where babies are born single legged and blind) Jack teaches the children to fish and whittle along with other necessary skills. And yet he still found the time not only to send his own mother a gift and an e-mail, which was a 5 day hike round trip to the nearest internet café, but he sent my mom a gift too. We’re not even engaged. Of course his generosity got me in trouble with my own mother, as I merely got her a card where I wrote a few funny lines teasing her about her new hairstyle. My mom berated me yesterday after Jack’s gift arrived. She said, “Look, your boyfriend whom I’ve only met 3 times has sent me this lovely…what the hell is this?”
“Nuruto folk art, mom”
“Yes, these lovely sticky leaves that he shipped from half way around the world, and what did my own daughter come up with? A card from hallmark ridiculing my new hair dew.”
“Mom, it was funny, I was giving you the gift of my talent and art. I’m a comedian.”
”Really? Aren’t comedians supposed to be funny.”
"You're right. Next year I’ll get you a bracelet.”
"That really is a nice boy you're going with."