This is one of my favorite scenes from a movie. It's Almost Famous.
Marvin worked on this movie. I got to go to the wrap party. He told me people got all dressed up for wrap parties, so I wore a taffeta skirt and patent-leather wedges.
Everyone had on jeans and tank tops. I looked like an idiot.
But Peter Frampton was there! He kind of stared at my taffeta skirt.
The good news for you is, this is the last weekend you have to hear me bitching about having to work on freelance stuff. I mean, other than when the statistics textbook company gives me work. I can't quit ALL my freelance work. It's like prostitution or stripping. It's hard to give up all that extra cash. I know each and every one of you know what I mean about the prostitution and stripping. You bunch of minxes. Particularly that stripper Target Steve.
Oh, was that a secret?
Do you like this couch? Or does it look like Fred Flintstone's couch? Because we are thinking of getting it with the $$ I make from this job I am currently doing that is killing me.
I worked until 9:30 last night when I realized I was not paying any attention to what I was reading anymore. I told Marvin I was going to bed and he had his usual reaction to when I announce I am going to bed, which is to act like I just said I was auditioning for the NFL.
You probably don't "audition" for the NFL, do you? See. This is why they never call me back.
"You're going to BED?" He says this every time, as though normally I am a vampire or have been an insomniac for 18 years or an astronaut who sleeps upright or something.
Today I plan to work for eight hours, then we are supposed to go to a party, but I may be decidedly cranky by then. Plus? And I know I never really talk about this a lot, but I do not drink, and last night I had a dream that I was talking on the phone and I looked down, and I was sitting there slugging down a giant glass of wine without realizing it. So instead of going to a party I may have to pop in to a certain meeting I like to attend from time to time.
But before I go, I wanted to tell you about the woman who irked me.
I went to lunch the other day, and I was joyfully eating my french dip, because I'm healthy, and also reading the paper, when I noticed someone was speaking at the top of their lungs.
It was this woman at another table. "WHY DIDN'T YOU GUYS TELL ME YOU WERE GOING DOWN TO LUNCH! I WOULD HAVE COME DOWN TO LUNCH TOO! HA HA!"
She was wearing a suit, and in my building at work, my company (yes, I own it now. I climbed up that ladder fast, didn't I?) takes up two floors, and the rest of the floors are bank corporate offices. This is hilarious because our building therefore consists of people in (a) really formal suits (no business casual for the banking business, apparently) and then (ix) my company, in our shorts and sparkly shrugs and ironic Tshirts and so forth. There is really never any question whether someone at that restaurant or on the elevator works for my company or the bank.
So this loud woman in her business suit was chatting maniacally at these similarly suited men, who looked peaked at the idea of being caught by her. I tried to ignore her and go back to my hard-hitting article about Laura Linney, but she kept TALKING. Loudly. And clearly thinking she was funny, with her dramatic gesturing. OH, she was bugging.
Then they saw a truck that didn't know where to pull in, and I'm lyin' I'm dyin', this woman steps into the alley, puts her stupid fingers in her lips, and lets out the loudest, piercingest whistle you have ever.heard.
That is when it hit me.
She was me.
She was DYING for attention. She thought she was the funniest person alive, and was doing all she could to prove it to the world. You know, they always say the people who bug us most are the people who remind us of ourselves.
Oh, the humanity. Am I really that obnoxious?
You should have seen me that afternoon when I returned from lunch. I was as silent as the tomb. I was as meek as Melanie Hamilton. Oh, I tried not to be that woman. I do not want to be that horrid woman.
At least I don't know how to WHISTLE like that. God, she was dreadful.
So that's my story. I am Carole Lombard without the looks. Or Clark Gable.
Comment of the week goes to my friend Sleeping Beauty, which is really gonna irk my friend Pal from MA, who was funny in the comments recently but I refused to give her the award, the coveted award, of comment of the week, because it would look like nepotism or something because I know her in real life. And now here I am awarding Sleeping Beauty, who I know in real life.
There goes 43 years of friendship down the tubes. I mean, we were on the edge of losing it when we were five and I insisted there was no "G" in the alphabet, but we got through that rough patch. Now it has come to this.
