Monday, October 31, 2005

Doing "The Thing"


Best Available's Deirdre Cooley has abandoned us and gone off to movie locations in other states, because she is, to quote Bridget Jones, "extremely busy and important." Before she left, she took me out to dinner for my birthday, and the one of our code phrases reared its ugly head.

You know how it is. When you're friends with someone -- close friends -- you develop your own little language, to which the rest of world just isn't privileged (unless one of the friends is a big mouth with her own blog... tee hee...). With Deirdre and me, it's... "The thing." It's the thing women tend to do when we are attracted to someone, in those stages before we know whether they are attracted back. It is the dissection, the analysis, the post-mortem, the reinterpretation, the folding, the spindling the mutilating of every e-mail, every look, every word exchanged from the desirable party, in order to suss out the "hidden messages." The conversation usually presents itself thusly:

"I'm doing 'the thing.'"

"Okay. Shoot."

"So, I was talking to him today, and he said the strangest (cutest/funniest/nicest) thing...."

And so begins the odyssey of what he said, and how he looked when he said it, and whether he meant what we hope he meant, or whether we're just reading way too much into it all.

We've both been doing "the thing" lately. She calls me with tales of hers and I call her with tales of mine, and we spend time doing the forensics ("Okay, just exactly what was his body language when he was saying this to you?"), like little bitty Margaret Meads, translating each gesture and intonation of tribal beings whose language we do not speak. Then we come to the conclusion ("Oh, no. He's definitely interested in you."), because what else can we say to each other. We're direly interested in us, so why wouldn't he be? Is he some kind of fool?

After a couple of years of enforced solitude, refusing to do "the thing," because being alone was safer and easier than caring about a man's tone of voice, or the exact inflection at the end of his sentence, I am now back in "thing" territory. And, as I confessed to Deirdre, as we sat in a movie theatre, waiting for the movie to start, it all makes me kind of nauseous.

"Yeah," she replied, "but it's a good kind of nauseous."

A good kind of nauseous? Uh-huh.

Anyway, I was on the phone with him today. And he said the strangest thing....

~C~

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

The Iraqi Monks Are No-Hit Wonders!


Forget the Iraqi Monks. I got my first communique as an MFA student today. The cohort name they've selected is....

Wait for it....

Purple Martins... they are running out of bird names, it would appear.

But I think it's a great name. I'm rechristening the all-girl punk rock band....

Jelly Belly Porsche and the Purple Martins....

Are we liking it?

Monday, October 17, 2005

My Band Name

Big, self-important voice-over: "Previously, on Naked Voodoo Chicken Dance...."

(I've been watching "The West Wing" again, haven't I....)

Last post, I mentioned that my punk rock band name would be Jelly Belly Porsche and the Reflective Egg Beaters. I still like it (you know it's going in a short story, don't you), but I went back to the website, and tried their "Band Name Generator."

The name for my po-mo alt music, KROQ band?


Your Band Name is:

The Iraqi Monks



The Iraqi Monks?

I love it.

I'm keeping it.

~CA~

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

A Me By Any Other Name



Catharine Amanda Sowards's Aliases



Your movie star name: Oreos Howard

Your fashion designer name is Catharine Berlin

Your socialite name is Tina Vegas

Your fly girl / guy name is C Sow

Your detective name is Cat Providence

Your barfly name is KitKat Vodka Collins

Your soap opera name is Amanda Vanowen

Your rock star name is Jelly Belly Porsche

Your star wars name is Catjer Sowdon

Your punk rock band name is The Reflective Egg Beater





I think Oreos Howard is a just-plain-silly name for a movie star. Come on ahready. On the other hand, I am actually thinking of forming a punk rock band called Jelly Belly Porsche and the Reflective Egg Beaters. I wasn't before, but I am now. And I think that "Amanda Vanowen" makes a better socialite name than "Tina Vegas." If "Tina Vegas" is a socialite, it's because she seduced the son of a wealthy family, got herself knocked up and insisted on a shotgun wedding, lest she go to the tabloids and sully their old-money family name (which I still insist is "Vanowen.") I'm digging the idea of a female private detective named "Cat Providence." I may have to write some noir short stories, just to breathe life into the name. And I'll be a Star Wars character named "Catjer Sowdon," but only if it's preceded by the title "Ambassador."

But let's get one thing straight, right here, right now. My fly girl name will never be "C Sow." Are we clear here? Good. Now.

I have to go now and find a bar, so I can randomly introduce myself as "KitKat Vodka Collins." I'll let you know what happens.

~C~