New material

Ann and I did sets at the Comedy Studio tonight. I did a bunch of new material that made me laugh so hard on the stage that I actually started crying from laughter.

What's that new material all about?

Thanks for asking. I would tell you, but then you wouldn't be interested in coming to an awesome show at PACE on Friday night, 8 p.m.

Yes, Girls! Girls! Girls! is upon us. It's me, Ann, Deb Farrar-Parkman, Mandy Donovan and Maryellen Rinaldi. Don't you want to come and get the full Girls! Girls! Girls! experience?

Seriously, I pretty much tore up the room tonight, as much as a room can be torn up on a Wednesday night. Whatever. Just come to the show.

Also, Thursday morning, I'll be on WHMP with Bill Dwight talking about this show and Saturday's Hot Chocolate Run from 9:30 to 10 a.m. Listen for hilarity.

Can I just say that I love Bill Dwight? I'm not just saying that because he's having me on his show. I actually love him. So does, like, half of everybody. But still.

Thank you. That is all.

Overwhelmed

I'm kind of overwhelmed by my life lately. I think it might be time to call the nice lady I sometimes pay to listen to me cry.

Work is really getting to me. I'd say more about it, but everyone knows where I work and I'm not interested in getting into any hot water over there. It's hard being in a place with so few kindreds and swimming with - gosh, I don't even know what. I've never worked anywhere where I didn't feel safe making friends with people. I don't have crazy career ambitions. I just want to work and have health insurance and enough money to pay my bills, save a little and spend a little. That's all I want. I'm not trying to climb the ladder on anyone else's back.

The career I want to care about is my comedy. I'm putting a lot of me into that venture. But I need to do more. Problem is time. I can't do it all without burning out a little.

Right now I'm doing, on average, two shows a week. Sometimes three. I work my corporate drone job five days. I work a few hours on the weekend at the radio station. The nights I have free, I'm so tired I end up just lying around.

I need to figure out how to do less, but how?

(Aside: Want to be my patron?)

This is the first time in my life that I haven't been broke all the time, though, and it's all because of this work-a-day job that's been getting to me. Really, it's a huge relief not having to worry about money all the goddamned time. Instead, I can worry about coming unglued.

And who am I kidding? If I were a billionaire, I'd still worry about money; it's part of my DNA.

I'm sure this will blow over. It usually does.

Meanwhile, remember Girls! Girls! Girls! is on Friday. Even if I'm still in this funk, I'll be hilarious on a stage. I promise.

Horizon = chock full o' fun

Seriously, I don't know how I'll be able to process all the fun we're about to have. Seriously.

Next weekend alone, it's going to be pure madness:

Friday night, it's Girls! Girls! Girls! at PACE in Easthampton.

Saturday, it's the Hot Chocolate Run for Safe Passage. My pal Bill Dwight and I are the official emcees of the event. We'll be the people shouting about where the toilet is and who the sponsors are and where you should go if you're walking or running in this fundraising event. Meanwhile, when we're not shouting and carrying on, my pal Bex Taylor is playing upbeat tunes for an invigorating Saturday morning of running around in the outdoors.

Then the weekend after, it's time for Santacide at the Northampton High School. My pal Kelsey Flynn and her pal Hilary Price wrote Santacide, because they're both super talented and fantastic. Kelsey's in it, actually. It's Friday and Saturday at 8 and Sunday at 2. I'll be there Friday night.

In the middle of all that madness, Ann and I are going to be performing at the Comedy Studio on Wednesday, the 28th and Saturday the 8th.

AND, just to take it through the roof, I'm getting my teeth cleaned on the 3rd.

Like I said, chock full o' fun.

Let it snow

I, like basically everyone else, was shocked to wake up to snow yesterday morning. I was particularly shocked because the night before Scott checked the weather forcast and read it aloud to me. It said, "Showers likely." We did not realize it would be snow showers.

As I was rooting through the trunk of the car to find the snow brush, a salt truck came by and sprayed me all over about the legs and feet with a salty compound. They treat the salt with something to make it stick to whatever they spray it on. I had a bitch of a time trying to wipe it off. Even when I thought I got it all, I trip to the bathroom mirror at work revealed I hadn't gotten even a portion of it.

Awesome!

Now that, my friends, is what I call invigorating.

Growing pains

I was catching up on some blog reading, because I've been woefully negligent. Sassypants moved in with her fella. I knew it was going to happen, but I didn't know that it had.

Man, do I know all about the pains of moving in with another person. Good god, do I ever.

With Scott and me, Scott hardly left my apartment for about a year before he moved in, so I thought it wasn't going to be all that different when he moved in. It turns out it was, and it was all subtle, I-can't-quite-put-my-finger-on-it different.

One thing is he came with a lot of stuff, which he put anywhere he wanted. I had lived alone in the apartment and had already determined where everything belonged. I would find things in the exactly wrong place and just want to shoot him. He couldn't seem to understand that I had a system and why I was so annoyed when I found something in the wrong place.

"You haven't gone home in a year!" I would bellow. "How do you not know where pots and pans go!"

If we were independently wealthy or something, it would have made good sense for each of us to give up our apartment and to get one new apartment together for us both to move our stuff into. But I had (and we still have) such a sweet deal on this place, I didn't want to find another place that I know would have been inferior and more money. Also, I made this vow that the next time I moved, I would be moving into my permanent home. I've been working on the Jennifer Myszkowski Permanent Home Fund for a while now and is finally starting to come along, you know, and I didn't want to blow money on first and last.

Anyway, if Sassy and her fella were Scott and me, I'd be playing the role of her fella and Scott would be Sassy. I'd be all, "You figure out which cabinet canned tomatoes go in, motherfucker!" (except I would not actually say that; I'm not that bad of a person) and Scott would be all cool as a cucumber. "You're pretty angry about the cabinets," he would say. "Do you have low blood sugar?"

And of course his identification of my irrational rage would only serve to enrage me further, but I'd have to be smooth about it so as not to appear to be an asshole. And as I acted cool about it, what I'd really be doing is quietly hatching a plan to put signs on all the cupboards until he knew where to put things. Lesson one: if you open a cabinet and there are pots and pans in there, it's a good chance that that's where the pot in your hand belongs! But I never actually label anything. And then it blows over. And then we are friends again and crazy about each other.

Sometimes, during my darker moments, I think to myself, What the hell am I doing with this guy? And then I think, What the hell is he doing with me?

Gosh, are we ever a pair...of lovebirds!

Seriously though, it is just so hard, the working out of the kinks. I don't think I was prepared for how hard it is. And it's lucky we're so crazy about each other, because I can see how other people would just crumble under the pressure.

I sure am lucky.

Know what I mean?

Back in my old blog, I wrote a cranky piece a couple years ago about how my sister hangs up the phone by saying, "Loveyoubye" and it drove (and drives) me crazy because the "I love you" part, to me, becomes a sort of wallpaper that you don't even notice. It's a part of a greeting and not a meaningful, heartfelt utterance. I'm of the notion that those are the kinds of things you save for when you really mean them, and you use them sparingly and not at every turn.

Anyway, I'm over that now and on to much more annoying patterns of speech. For example, the use of "Know what I mean?" at the end of every sentence.

Actually asking a person, "Do you know what I mean?" isn't the culprit here, but it's only not the culprit if you're actually checking in to make sure the other person understands something complex.

If you're saying, "Man, I need a snack - know what I mean?" That's when you get into hot water. It's the peppering of a normal conversation with a constant flow of "Know what I mean?" that's driving me to the demon liquor. It seems to me that people are using "Know what I mean?" as a time buyer, perhaps in place of, "Um."

For the record, I heartily endorse the use of, "Um."

The other thing that's been driving me up a fucking wall is when people say something, then say, "In other words," and then start saying it over again using slightly different phraseology.

For example, "I could really use a snack. In other words, I'm hungry."

I just want to scream, "I wasn't a moron when we started this conversation, and I didn't turn into one since we started talking! You don't have to break it down for me!"

Now here's the real problem: these things have bothered me so much, and even though they've bothered me, I've picked them up from the other more annoying people and now I'm afraid I can't stop using them.

Friends, I am the problem.

For whom the bells toll

One of the best things about my apartment - (ahem) our apartment - is living next to Holy Cross. The bells in the belfry aren't just for show over there. They sound daily, but Sundays are really fantastic. Right now, for example, the bells are playing, "Softly and gently, Jesus is calling, calling for sinners to come home..."

If you don't have a religious upbringing, you wouldn't even recognize these. It would just sound like bells.

Oh, now it's Amazing Grace.

I love the bells.

Now it's God Bless America.

When the realtor took me on a tour of the apartment back in July of 2003, I asked him if the bells in the church ever rang. He stopped and looked at me and obviously didn't know what the right answer was. I laughed and said, "I love bells." And he said, "Oh, well then, you'll love to live next to Holy Cross."

There's a flourish of bells that starts and ends these medleys Sometimes it gets stuck in my head, which is fine by me. Also, at certain times, a single bell tolls. As luck would have it, it tolls every weekday morning at 8:30, right when I have to leave for work. If I'm not ready to go by the time the bell starts, I'm pretty much going to be late.

There is a church not far from here that plays piped-in, fake bells. The recording sounds tinny and terrible. On a clear day I can hear that other church too and I'm sad for the abutters in that neighborhood. I can see how the fake bells could make a person hate bells. But up here on Suffolk Street, gosh, it's just beautiful.

The question on everyone's mind: What's going on with your feet, Jennifer?

Thanks for asking. Well, I think we've had an actual breakthrough. It could be a fluke, but I think it might be for realz.

My massage therapist, Cassie at Abundant Wellness, started scraping the hell out of the bottom of my feet with a Chinese soup spoon. Not with the bowl of the spoon, but with the hard edge of it. I have never known pain like this before. Even when Cassie gave me hell of painful massages before, I didn't know it could be like this. Seriously, it's the worst ever. My feet have jumped away from her - recoiled in fear, if you will - and she's had to hold them down. I have had no control of the movements of my feet.

But here's the craziest part: all of a sudden I can move my feet better than I have in more than a year. After crying from the pain, I was crying from the joy of it. I think this new method is just the thing to whip me into shape.

I just want to make an announcement: I will get over this Plantar Fasciitis. I'm not joking. It's my first order of business right now. I want - nay, demand - a full recovery in short order and I will not stop until I have it in my hand (foot). I intend to be most of the way better by Jan. 1 and all the way better by the end of the first quarter.

First quarter? Look who's been working at Big Company a little too long.

Who cares. By the end of March, I'm going to be 100% and I'm not fucking around about it.

Thank you for your kind support in this and many other matters.

Let's become acquainted with our new surroundings

I just spent the better part of an hour fussing with this Blogger template and the only thing I can't figure out is why the top part of my header box seems to be being eaten by the blue blogger bar at the top of the page. If anyone has any tips, I will accept them graciously. You can e-mail me:

j e n n i f e r @ j e n n i f e r m y s z k o w s k i . c o m

Pardon all the spaces; I'm trying to avoid the spam.

One new thing you'll notice is that I've included show dates on the side of this page. Awesome!

Also, you can now make comments! This is ideal for my mother, who has often felt maligned on these pages. Now, if she wants, she can rebut.

The truth is, I'm a different sort of blogger than I was back in the day, so maybe she won't feel like rebutting, but she can add something if she wants. Awesome!

I'm really excited about this and I'm impressed that I still know enough about the internet that I could pull this off and have it show up at the same URL as my old blog and everything. I'm feeling pretty amazing.

This is in light of my recent MySpace fiasco. I created a MySpace page because, well, I was peer pressured into it. My friend Boney, who many of you know from comedy, she really laid into me recently how not being on MySpace was just stupid, how I was missing out on networking opportunities, etc., so I finally took it to heart and created a page there. Trouble is, I can't figure out how to properly use it. To help remedy the problem I'm having (I'm trying to get my page to show the red comedy navbar that all my comic friends have), I enlisted a 14 year old I know and a 15 year old who calls my radio show. Neither one was any help. Gah!

Aside: Please notice how I can't seem to make friends on MySpace, except for the guy who works at MySpace. How embarrassing. If you're on MySpace, make me your friend and put me out of this misery.

Anyway, fantastic. You'll be hearing much more from me.

The un-magic of Christmas

Maya's been champing at the bit to find out the truth about Santa. Tesia's been dodging her at every turn. "I'm not talking about this during dinner." and "Isn't it time for bed?"

She enlisted me to do the dirty work, so I did some research, talked to the ladies at work about their kids and Santa and tried to have the talk today. "Santa is a gift adults give to kids," was my ace in the hole. Ann actually lent it to me. And, well, it backfired but good. There was crying - oh, was there crying! - and there were accusations of lying. It was just terrible. And now I'm at home kind of feeling bad about it.

The good part about it, if there could be a good part, is that I delivered the bad news, so I'm the bad guy. She went home with Tesia, who turned out to be the good guy.

The whole thing went down in Northampton today, which was Bag Day, in case you didn't know.

For you out-of-towners, Bag Day is this abomination of a day when they (the Chamber of Commerce, maybe?) give you a bag and you take it to any store in town and you get 20% off one item in the store. Basically everyone in town participates and it's total mayhem. Don't get me wrong: I'm all for savings; I'm just decidedly not all for mayem. Had I realized it was bag day before we made plans for demystifying (and/or ruining) Christmas (after having a fun lunch out with her), I would have changed our plans.

The crying and wailing began in Haymarket and continued on Crackerbarrel Alley and became all-consuming in the parking lot by the Peter Pan station. The child had to take to the car while the mother and I had to talk in the outdoors about what came next.

I tried to reason with her. I said, "If the presents didn't come from Santa, who did they come from?"

Silence.

"Who do you think brought you all those presents?"

More silence.

"Mommy and Auntie and Grandma and Pop and Grammy and Grampy and ..." This list went on for a while. "Look at all the people who love you and wanted to share the magic of Christmas with you!"

And then the wailing.

I feel like crap. I tried to do the right thing for the child, at her mother's request.

I'm hoping she can get over it by Christmas.

Starting all over again

Starting all over again is not so rough, it turns out. I've been wanting to restart my blog and I just did it using Blogger. I used to code it all myself and it just became odious because I'm just so busy these days. And tired. But I'm a good person. With this new blog, I promise (like, for real) more and better blogs.