i can’t believe people have to look at me

Eric’s back is selling t-shirts.

Oh, man. I’m tired. Tired and sleepy and looking at the end of what has been a crazy three months. Can you believe this is the end of it? Tomorrow night and all three shows have come to a close. I was rehearsing seven days a week and now they’re all going to be gone. For how long? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is I’m going to get to go home when I get off work sometimes. Sometimes I’ll get to sit on my couch and watch television. I’ll get to do all of this writing that I’ve been contracted to do. I’ll meet deadlines and such.

Until, of course, we start the next show. But I don’t have to think about that now.

But really, I look terrible. The three months are starting to show. I’ve got bruises over bruises. I had cut my shoulder during Polaroid Stories last week and last night on the hard wood stage I busted it again. My shoulder is black. This would be fine if it wasn’t the congratulatory shoulder. You know, the shoulder where people pat you when they don’t know you well enough to hug? I’ve been patted on this bruise more times than I can count. And each time they’re trying to say something nice and I’m wincing. I feel bad about the wince, but it’s a reflex. I can’t help it.

My clothes have stage blood on them. My shoes have stage blood on them. My thighs are stained red from the stage blood. I have a callus between my pinkie finger and ring finger on my right hand. I have no idea where I got that. My voice sounds like I went to Kathleen Turner University. I have a red dot on my lower lip from the fake lip ring I wore for two months.

It’s silly, really. Because by day I try and fit in corporate America and I know I’m failing. I know they can see right through me when I come into their meetings and my face is puffy and dehydrated and I’m kind of falling asleep and my hair is wet because I slept as long as I possibly could before I showed up. They know because they pass by my office when I’m on the phone yelling, “No, if he can’t bring the crutches then we can’t have him fall in the blood.” “Well, I’ve already shown them my tits and had some guys face in my crotch. All that’s left is the butt wipe, right?”

I’m so fired. I know it.

I go out to have a cigarette, but the warm sun makes me sleepy. I come in here and I’m on the phone. I’m finishing my work, but in between I’m talking to actors, comics, my boyfriend. They know that I’m not completely submerged in the corporate world. I’m afraid they’ll see through me. They’ll see through me and they’ll know.

I’d rather be an actor.

For those of you who don’t live in the South, I’m terribly sorry that you don’t know the beauty of a Route 44 Cherry-Limeade from Sonic. There’s nothing sweeter. Literally.

I’m afraid I’m too much of a fadist. Really.

My Tamagotchi sits next to my arm, permanently on pause.
My other Tamagotchi’s batteries are dead.
So are the batteries for the cat’s laser light pen toy.
I haven’t turned on my Furbys since May.
Billy Blanks’ crossed eyes are coated with dust on my bookshelf.
Including one unopened Advanced Live Volume 3 tape.
I have three hundred butterfly clips, but one-hundred and fifty of them are broken. Seventy-five are under the couch. The others are in various places around my house.
I know all of the words to “Genie in a Bottle.”
I am wearing my Sketcher platform tennis shoes even though they make my feet hurt. I just like being taller.
I can’t even be original in my cigarettes– Marlboro Lights, like every young, white Texas girl.

The worst part about it is how I obsess when I don’t have it and then how I obsess when I first get it and then I never touch the fad toy again. I remember when I was twelve I honestly thought that my life was going to be perfect– I actually said, “My life will be complete when I get that Belinda Carlisle CD.” I was counting on a music CD to make my life whole. Then I got the thing, listened to it twice and decided that I only liked Belinda Carlisle because I liked the videos.

I spend too much money deciding if I like things. I buy books that haven’t been recommended, and then force myself through them even if I don’t like them. I will see films that I don’t want to see because I’m “supposed to.”

I’m a sheep… a bird…a cow in the herd… some other animal that follows other animals around.

Right now I want a Palm Pilot. I don’t know why I need one or even what-all they do. I just want one. I want to have a hand-held day planner. I want to write with my “stylus” and have the machine recognize my handwriting. I don’t even carry my cell phone around two-thirds of the week and I actually need that thing. It’s not because I don’t want to, it’s because I forget to charge the battery at night, and I end up carrying a dead cell phone in my bag for a week at a time, constantly borrowing someone else’s cell phone.

I’m gonna go through the Pottery Barn catalog and plot out what my future home will look like. That’s what we girls do, you know, when we’re alone. All we do is sit and plan our future homes. And we still make paper dolls.