"I realize it's about letting things go and not adding more things."*

   I haven’t written a lot lately because everything I do is emotionally fraught and disturbing and seems poised to lead to buckets of tears because I apparently cry at everything now: episodes of Wings, Iron Man III, people not texting me back…seriously, anything. I know, on the slightly rational side of my brain, that much of this has to do with my impending move and the sense of epic-ness that it adds to every song I hear on the radio and every show I see on TV; but more than that, I think it’s still antidepressant withdrawal. Or I’m just back to my pre-medicated level crazy. (Uh-oh. Please, dear lord, don't make me like I was when I was 16 again! It wouldn't be right or fair or decent!) Either way it’s exhausting. And it makes me want to cry more.

   Last week (oh shit, actually it’s been two weeks now), I went surfing. And I went when I was in the death throes of antidepressant withdrawal. And it was the best thing ever. Gabe and Em had gotten me stand-up paddle-surfing lessons and I was nervous and excited to give them a try. I won’t bother you with the details, but they ended up just being regular surfing lessons. But that’s okay because it was great. And I think it was just what I needed to jump-start my brain from the hideous funk I’d been in for a week. Hanging out in the ocean and constantly working at getting up on the board and getting sun on my face and water up my nose and sand everywhere felt really great. And the dolphins swimming around the area (I’m told they’re very social and love people) made it even better. And even just sitting on the beach and watching the water felt good and therapeutic and right. It was wonderful and a much needed distraction from the “must do” list…which is far too long at this point and gives me minor strokes when I think about it. 

How I pictured myself as a surfer.

Closer to reality.

   Brief aside: it was clear that I wasn’t in my right headspace that day because I didn’t even think about Shiders ONCE.

   But in the very fast two weeks since that day, I’ve been overwhelmed with the amount of things I have to do before the movers arrive May 30^th. I’ve been packing, on average, a box a day, and yet my cup still runneth over. This place is ridiculous. When did I accumulate so much crap? I’d like to sort the things into boxes in a way that makes some kind of sense. You know: kitchen, office, bedroom, etc…But there’s so much of it I feel like I’m drowning in piles of garbage. Precious, precious garbage. You can often find things as diverse as a sewing machine, a throw pillow, three pens, two forks, one sock and a coffee table book in a single box at my house. Nothing makes sense. Everything seems at once incredibly important and easily disposable at the same time. I’ve taken bags and bags to Out of the Closet and LA Shares, the electronic recycle and the street corner and still the things keep coming. It’s kind of humiliating in a way. And it makes me want to cry. Again. And more. And maybe one last time for the cheap seats in the back.

A sample of how I pack to move across the country (half-way).

   For instance, today I was cleaning out my dresser and held a t-shirt in my hand for three minutes. My college roommate, Lindsey, gave it to me. It has a picture of a bird of some type (a crane?) in front of a sunset and it says, “Nebraska: Big Cock Country.” After thinking really hard on it, I decided to keep it. But into the give-away pile went an equally amazing t-shirt from a dear friend who shall remain nameless (lest I make that friend as sad as I am). And I’m still agonizing over it. I may even cry over it, if I get the time later.(Oh wait, I forgot: apparently there is always time to cry.)

   That’s my problem: I’m too sentimental. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by no longer keeping a gift they gave me 12 years ago. Even if I never use the gift, part of me dies seeing it in a garbage bag on its way to the charity store. That’s why I’m a hoarder. I love things too much.

   In a perfect world, I would be less lazy, less sentimental and more driven. I would take these clothes, tchotchkes, unused kitchen shit, and piles of outdated electronics to Out of the Closet tomorrow and then go surfing again and try to re-center my chi and spend some more time with the dolphins. (The dudes at the beach are very in touch with their chi's...not so in touch with the proper use of the English language. When my friend Rebecca pointed out the fire smoke, our surfing instructor asked if it was "arsenal." Sigh. You can't be beautiful and brilliant, it would seem. At least not with all that water in your ears.)

   But the likelier scenario is that I’ll keep drinking cupfuls of chicken broth (that's my new thing...sodium, anyone?) and watching old musicals while I weep and stuff 13 years of accumulated crap into boxes upon boxes upon boxes. (I know. Nice attitude.)

   I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I hate moving. Moving sucks and it can blow me. (Don’t think those were my exact words before, but that was definitely the feeling behind them.)

 
*This is from Dry by Augusten Burroughs.

"For what do we live but to make sport of our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?"*

   Well, it’s official: I’m an asshole.

   Remember how I told you about my neighbors Jay/Jaye/J and his/her mystery roommate/boyfriend/girlfriend/buddy? Well, the mystery is officially solved and I solved it in a terrible, asinine fashion of which I am ashamed and can’t stop thinking about and obsessing over. (Yeah, I ended another goddamn sentence with a/two preposition/s. It’s a stylistic choice. IT’S A CHOICE.)
 

   So, I was heading out to pick up Chad and meet some friends for bowling the other night when I ran into Jay’s roomie (lover? Best buddy?) outside their door. Roomie was wrangling a pair of the most adorable twin boys I’d ever seen.

   I immediately dropped to my knees to chat with the kiddos (I hate children as a rule because they’re inherently evil, but these two were quite fantastic looking) and since I was already in good humor (what with having social plans and all), I used it as an excuse to chat up Jay’s companion.

“Hi, I’m Lacey! And who are these boys?”

“Oh, they’re my sister’s kids.”

“So you’re their aunt?” Fucking rookie mistake.

“No, I’m their uncle.”

   I decided to just keep talking as though I hadn’t made one of the worst possible of faux pas in the world.

“Oh, their uncle! Of course. What’s your name?”

“C.J.”

“It’s so nice to meet you finally!”

   C.J. was holding one of the twins and had a stethoscope around his neck that the toddler was trying desperately to get hold of.

“Where did you find a stethoscope for them to play with? Are you a doctor or something?”

   (At this point I was kissing his ass in the hopes that he’d forget that I called him their aunt. I should’ve corrected things immediately and said something like, “Oh, crap. I misspoke. Of course I meant uncle, but my friend from Oklahoma just became an aunt and she talks about it so often it just flew out of my mouth and how about those Dodgers (see—I remembered he liked baseball).” But I was so thrown that I felt compelled to just keep on talking like the moron I am. Why a DOCTOR would live in this shitty apartment building is beyond the scope of reality anyway, so there's no remote chance that he bought any of my brown-nosing bullshit.)

“No, I have asthma, so I keep a stethoscope around.”

“Ohhhhhhhh.” I tried not to let him know that this was a huge revelation and was answering so many questions. EUREKA! Finally I understand why the tuberculosis-style coughing happens in the bathroom every night.

If I were a doctor (which I'm not), I would totally have one of these...

“Well, your nephews are completely precious. Are they living with you?”

“Thank you! Yes, but just for a little while. My sister’s moving to L.A. so she’s staying with us while she's in transition.”

   While he held one twin, the other kept coming to the door with random objects and saying what they were.

“Shoe.”

“Phone.”

“Stethoscope.”

   I gave the little genius as many compliments as I could. Mostly so C.J. could stay standing with the one while my face tried to cool down from my intense mortification. Whenever I’m embarrassed I flame red and immediately run a mild fever. It makes embarrassment a million times worse when everyone knows how embarrassed you are, so I thought I’d crouch low to the ground and interact with the toddler. The way I acted, you would have thought the kid was reciting Tennyson.

   C.J. could not have been nicer. Which made/makes me feel EVEN WORSE. He was so sweet and friendly and warm. Everything Jay/Jaye/J had not been on our one and only encounter.

   It breaks my heart to think of C.J. sitting in his apartment with those two noisy twins and thinking about how his dumb bitch neighbor thought he was a woman. AND I DID. If you’ll recall, I definitely thought he was (maybe) a lady.

   But I feel like as many questions as were answered, a million popped up in their places. I mean, IS that a one-bedroom apartment? In which case, he and Jay are clearly the gay lovers I initially thought they were. UNLESS Jay is a woman, which is clearly possible. BUT, if C.J.’s sister and the twins are staying for what has clearly been well over a month, how can that possibly be a one-bedroom apartment? 

   And why does C.J. have better breasts than I do? And a higher voice? I've heard of hormones in people's foods doing such things. Maybe he has a dietary deficiency?

   Okay, so sometimes when I start diagnosing people and their issues, Em will say to me, “Is Dr. Rouse making a house call?” It's obvious that I think I know a lot more about everything than I ever actually do. If I were a doctor (which I’m not, for the record) I’d say, “Physician heal thyself!” Which, in this case seems to mean: I gotta do something to make it up to my neighbors.

   Stay tuned for what is sure to be a foray into some ill-conceived baking.

*This quote is from the divine Ms. Jane Austen. I certainly hope my neighbors are "making sport" of me, because I fucking deserve it. Sigh out loud.

"I always thought the saddest feeling in life is when you're dancing in a really joyful way and then you hit your head on something."*

   I know what makes being a stripper so hard: it’s the dancing.

   Every time I see a scene in a movie or television series that takes place in a strip joint, I start watching the dancers' moves to determine what the budget was on said movie or TV show.

   If the budget is low, or it’s a half-hour comedy, the strippers will be terrible dancers. That’s because they aren’t really strippers, they’re extras who’ve agreed to get semi-nude in the hopes of one day getting their S.A.G. card.

   If the budget is high, the dancers will probably get naked and the dancing will be phenomenal because they’ve either hired real strippers for the scene and maybe shot on location in a strip club or they hired a stripper to train a famous actress to dance convincingly: Demi Moore in Striptease or Natalie Portman in Closer are good examples. Or Jessie Spano a.k.a. Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls, if you like (and I know I do).

   But if you watch an actual stripper dance, you can see that they are quite good at what they do and very unselfconscious about their movements and the exposure of their body parts. Especially if there’s a stripper pole involved because good lord, that looks tough (but I heard that their shoes are magnetic, so that probably helps a little bit).

   But I don’t think the nudity is really what keeps the majority of women (or men) away from stripping. I think it’s the dancing. Taking off your clothes is easy: we all do it every day. But dancing around while you’re taking off your clothes is hard: it probably feels silly and forced. And more than that, if you’re a bad dancer, you probably worry that everyone is judging your moves rather than focusing on your exposed vagina/penis. (Though I’m pretty sure they’re doing both.)

   I would like to see a stripper that is not a dancer. And I’m not talking Gypsy Rose Lee: she had a burlesque routine going on and while it wasn’t quite dancing, it was pretty darn choreographed. But what about a stripper who just comes out onto the stage, sits on a chair, and takes her (or his) clothes off? There could still be loud music playing so it’s not totally dead in the room, but no dancing or crawling around like a tiger. Just walk in, take your clothes off, and take a bow. Maybe stand there for a minute so the crowd can soak it all in like a solemn moment at a memorial service. Then flash some jazz hands as though to say, “Ta-da” and pick up your clothes and saunter back out. Or put your clothes back on and saunter out. A reverse strip tease! Wouldn’t that be something? It could be “performed” to the song “Eye of the Tiger” or “Working for the Weekend”** to give it some real oomph.

   In other (unrelated) news, my parents both called me in regards to my previous post. I felt guilty because I thought they were worried that I was sad and that they were calling to make sure I wasn’t in need of some professional psychiatric help. Or calling to make sure I wasn’t so crazy depressed as to run out and start stripping and crying at the same time (like Coco in Fame).

   Well, they were, in fact, worried but they were only worried about my battle with the diarrhea. Ah, they know me so well. Because, you see, I’m a product of their collective gene pools and they know how I feel about regularity because they feel the exact same way. And in an odd sense, that cheered me up much more than anything else has in the last few days. You will also be relieved to know that things have cleared up in my intestines. But now I have a cold.

Here's how much my Momma loves me: she sent me a huge supply of facial tissues. To use whenever I want! Like a rich person! Unfortunately, they're currently being put to use on this cold. But look at all the extras I'll have when I'm well!

   And when I was putting away my groceries this afternoon, I dropped the grocery bag with only one item remaining in it: a bottle of red wine. It shattered into a quadrillion pieces and bled through the bag and all over the floor and crept behind the fridge to get at the power cord. And when I moved the bag to the sink, it splashed all over the counter and the cabinets. It looked like a goddamn murder scene. When I started cleaning it, I ran out of paper towels and started using kitchen towels. I decided to just throw the kitchen towels away because I have nowhere to put them until I next do laundry and I’ll be damned if my clothes hamper is going to smell like a distillery the way my kitchen does. Also my floors are incredibly sticky. But good news: I did not electrocute myself while cleaning the wine away from the refrigerator cord. AND it’s much, much cleaner under my refrigerator. It was gnarly under there, I’m not gonna lie.

   The best part: the wine was shattered inside a bag, so I didn’t end up stomping through glass and adding real, live human blood to the crime scene. The worst part: none of the wine was salvageable. 

The remains of the wine. It would've been weird if I'd taken a picture DURING the catastrophe, no matter how artistic.

   I’d like to philosophize about the wine debacle moment. I think that when I’m feeling blue I create more drama for myself through the sheer powers of negative thought. I’ve heard people say that the opposite is possible as well, but how do I begin to dig myself out of this trench of self-inflicted poopiness?

   Which leads me, albeit sloppily, back to my initial thought: I would love to see someone stripping without dancing. I think that would really make me chuckle and put my life problems into some legitimate perspective (hey, at least I'm not a stripper!). And yeah, that’s probably not going to happen, so I just gotta ride this out like the Great Shit Storm of 2006-2007,*** and know that things will eventually get better.

*The quote is Lena Dunham, my imaginary BFF. 

**Lover Boy's classic "Working for the Weekend" is also the song in a great stripping scene from S.N.L. featuring the late Chris Farley and the late Patrick Swayze. Such a good sketch. Such great actors. For serious.

***I may talk about the Great Shit Storm at some point, but suffice it to say I had a run of really bad luck during this time that lasted about 6 months. It was so bad, I almost joined the Church of Scientology.

"I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them."*

   I’ve discovered a new way to get attention: wrap a bandage around your hand.

   I burned myself somehow the other day in that really inconvenient spot: the top of the knuckle of my first finger on my right hand. So everything I did (getting something out of my purse, folding laundry, washing my hands) made the mystery wound open back up. So I put on a band-aid and the band-aid kept getting wet or falling off randomly, so I wrapped my hand in bandage tape.

More intense than it looks?

   I really didn’t do it to get attention, but everywhere I go—even the gas station—people ask me what happened to my hand. And I have to say I’m loving it. Of course the injury has escalated in severity from “mystery burn” to “savage knife-fight wound,” but what stranger is going to know if I’m lying?

   In other news, I have another dream to share, even though I’ve insisted on numerous occasions that I hate sharing dreams. Maybe what I really hate is listening to other people’s dreams. So this is different because it’s my dream and therefore I am highly entertained by it. And you can skip this part if you want.

   In my dream, Em and I were bridesmaids at Gabe’s wedding. And we were at the rehearsal and her whole family made a conga line to go down the aisle. I remember feeling like that was really embarrassing, but that’s how Gabe wanted it, so that’s how it was going to be.

   But then the back of her dress split open and we had to fix it before the wedding later that night, which for some odd reason was set to begin at 10 p.m. She entrusted Em and I to go to the fabric store to get thread and fix it, but she kept saying, “I’m serious, you guys. You can’t smoke in the car with my dress in it.” Like we were 16 again. Ah, memories.

   But in the car I said to E, “I don’t think Gabe really wants me to be her bridesmaid.”

   And E said, “No, she doesn’t. But you complained about it so much that she decided to let you so you’d shut up. She’s really mad at you because you keep mailing pine cones to people.”

   Hmmm….what possible symbolism could pine cones have? And why would I mail them to anyone? Let alone repeatedly mail pine cones to many people as the dream implies?

From my forthcoming Pine Cone Series.

You will be happy to know that I did some pine cone research and came up with a few shocking/highly gratifying interpretations:

1.  Pine cones in a dream can symbolize wealth and good fortune. (I find this one suspect, as I think most things in dream dictionaries signify wealth and good fortune. On the other hand, if I was sending the pine cones to other people, it signifies how good I am at making money disappear.)

2.  They can also represent life and fertility. (Which has horrifying implications always.)

3.  According to a website which sells “Third Eye Pinecones” (I’m serious), the pine cone has for ages represented the human enlightenment. This website goes on to suggest that the term “pine cone” gets its name from the “pineal gland” of the brain, which is responsible for our perception of light. Hmmm…I always thought it got its name from the coniferous Pine Tree. But this is still my favorite interpretation for various (and obvious) reasons. So this is what I’m going with.

Pine cone with third eye. Pine cone series. Forthcoming. (Does anyone else think this looks like a California Raisin?)

   Anyway, this post is asinine and random, but I don’t really care too much. I may fix it later, but that seems doubtful.

*Susan Sontag.

"Don't ignore it, then. Talk back to it! Say, 'You can't do that number on me, Shit-for-Brains' or something like that. Otherwise it kind of weasels its way into your head whether you like it or not. What I'm saying is, you can't just sit there, you got to get pissed off."*

    Yet again I feel the need to give you an abbreviated rundown of my life, as I have no real points to make about anything and not enough (or maybe too much?) excitement in my life to siphon down into one solid point. So here are several “snapshots” of where my brain has been over the last few weeks.

1.     So I was in the waiting room of the dentist’s office yesterday when the World’s Most Annoying Human came in. She had long dark hair (dyed, clearly, since she looked upwards of 60) and she really wanted some new tooth-whitening gel. The receptionist said she would go in the back and look for the brand the woman was requesting. While 60-going-on-12 lady was waiting, she went over and knelt in front of the fish tank. She said things like, “Oh, you sweet wittle fishes! You so pretty! Oh, why you on you back, wittle fish? That’s not good!” I had to think it was for my benefit, because I was the only person in the waiting room and who the fuck talks like that when she’s by herself? It made me hate her. And it made me wish there was a T-Rex in the fish tank that could scare the shit out of her and her stupid I Heart Barcelona t-shirt.

This is what it would look like if a T-Rex lived in the fish tank. Lacey 2012. (8 million dollars)

2.     I realized recently that my shampoo and conditioner boast “lupine botanicals.” What?!? My shampoo is made from wolf extracts? I thought that was really sick and really awesome at the same time. But then I looked up the word “lupine” and it turns out it can also refer to a type of flowering plant. Bummer.

My shampoo.

But what's this? Wolf parts?

3.     My buddy Sam made me a pillow for my birthday that looks like this:

How great is this? Nebraska with a heart on Omaha!

It's very similar to my tattoo!

4.     I’ve decided I don’t care for Miley Cyrus. She said this in the recent issue of Marie Claire: “You always see the 70-year-old man driving the Bentley. He’s saved up his whole life and now he’s going to do something crazy. Liam and I are really lucky because usually people can’t afford to do the things we do. You should be driving the Bentley when you’re young and hot. That’s when you look dope!” Sorry, Miley. Not everyone is a quatrillionaire because they grew up as a talentless Disney tween. Sorry. Some of us earned our Bentleys (not me, obviously) through hard work. I think you’re an un-nice girl. I don’t like you. At all. And I think your teeth are freakishly small.

5.     Mike burned me a CD with a bunch of Prince songs! I love Prince! Prince, Prince, Prince!

6.     Em and Gabe got me paddle boarding lessons for my 30^th birthday! Bucket list!

7.     My awesome BFF Michelle came in town over last weekend with her BF Danny. Michelle added a new word to my lexicon: maybe we can call transvestite ladies of the night in Hollywood Mandy’s? Get it? Are you an Amanda or a Mandy?

8.     The ants are back...but they've congregated in different areas of the apartment. One or two in the kitchen, one or four in the bathroom, one solitary soldier on the coffee table. What the fuck is happening? I'm washing dishes before I use them! What's going on??

*The quote, irrelevant as it may be, is from one of my favorite books: The Bean Trees by excellent novelist Barbara Kingsolver (who is also Gabe's auntie!). It sort of speaks to my current/ongoing need to express my frustration when people act like douche canoes.