Living it up in Lebec, CA.

Last weekend was not the greatest.  I had a fight with a family member that I let ruin my Sunday and as I tried to fall asleep on Sunday night I found myself fretting that that might have been my last free weekend and I'd wasted it.  Suddenly, after 7 months (I didn't know I was pregnant for the first two months, which you can read all about here if you haven't already.) I felt panicked that I should be spending my final days before my life is irrevocably RUINED by this miracle blessing child being impulsive and rash.  With two weeks left and a body that's making pretty much everything a task, I don't exactly know what I think I should be doing with my time, but I worry that I'll look back at these months with regret that I wasn't running around taking advantage of my finite freedom.  It's not like I want to run out and shoot heroin or do body shots off a stripper.  Just spending one night not on the couch would make me feel like I still have some semblance of a life.

It was with that in mind that Kurt and I took an impromptu road trip on Monday night up the 5 to Mount Pinos to watch the tail end of the Lyriad meteor shower.  We booked a last minute room at the Econolodge just off the freeway in Lebec where we had stayed nearly 4 years ago when we took the same trip to see another meteor shower.  After checking in at the motel, with its ubiquitous aroma of stale cigarettes and desperation, we headed up the mountain with the moon to our right, peaking through the trees like a very high watt light bulb.  The road up the mountain ends in a large, round parking lot which feeds into a few foot trails into the woods.  We parked, hopped out of Kurt's truck and I zipped the giant down jacket he brought for me all the way up, jamming my hands into the pockets.  It was much colder than we had anticipated.  We stood at the back of the truck, shuffling our feet and hunching our shoulders against the blustery wind.  After about five minutes we saw one shooting star.  We waited another five minutes.

"Hey, Kurt?" I said.

"Yeah?"  He replied from behind his scarf.

"Fuck this."

"Yep."

And we got back in the truck, blasted the heat and headed back down the mountain.

About halfway down, just as I was imagining a Yeti lumbering out into the road ahead of us, Kurt said, "I keep imagining Sasquatch walking out into the road."

For those of you without Animal Planet, this is a Yeti:



And this is Sasquatch:



This is why we're having a kid.

Back at the Econolodge, as I futilely tried to locate the source of a great and steady hum that filled the room, I pulled back the curtain, which resembled the bedspread not only in color and pattern but in fabric as well, and looked out at the meager pool just off our tiny "patio".  The freeway was a stone's throw away and I wondered who, if anyone, ever actually used the pool.  Lebec, with its 6,000 liquor stores, doesn't exactly seem like a destination city and certainly this dingy, dank Econolodge was nothing more than a convenient place to sleep on the way to more exotic locations like, I don't know, Sacramento.  Truly anywhere is more welcoming than Lebec, CA.  The only person I could imagine using the pool at the Econolodge was perhaps a crack whore, trying to squeeze in an hour of down time before heading back out for her next fix.  Though broad daylight is not something one usually associates with crack whores. 

The king sized mattress (complete with three limp pillows) was cleverly designed to allow one to feel every little movement of the person with whom one was sharing it.  This is a particularly awesome feature when the person with whom you are sharing it is 9 months pregnant and has to get up to pee every half hour.  Moreover, I was having early labor cramping all night that made it impossible for me to get comfortable.  The window curtain on our bed wafted the odor of stale cigarettes every time either one of us moved.

And then I had this dream:

I was in labor in our room at the Econolodge.  Our midwife was with me (though she wasn't our actual midwife).  I was standing up and she got down on the floor with her face right under my business.  I warned her that that was a really bad location given what all was about to come out of me.  I then gave birth to a tiny baby.  Not as tiny as the pocket protector baby I had in a dream 6 months ago, but tiny.  Under a foot long.  I put it in a star shaped onesie, like this:

 

Except it zipped all the way shut.  So, I zipped the baby into it, umbilical cord and all.  My actual midwife arrived and asked to see the baby.  I gingerly unzipped the onesie and carefully took the baby out, passing it really slowly over to my midwife who took it like it was a doll, flopping it all around.  I was like, "Uh, aren't we supposed to be kind of careful with it?"  She scoffed and said, "Oh, no.  These are tough little things."  I looked down at my baby in her hands and it was now a roasted Cornish Game Hen.  "You need to learn how to pick better hens at the market.  I'll take you and show you."  I was really offended.  I know how to pick a good Cornish Game Hen.  I'm pretty sure.

Between the extremely well built mattress, my tossing and turning and frequent bladder emptying I think we got an hour of sleep between the two of us.

We headed back home just before 6 a.m. and stopped at the gas station/food mart across from the Econolodge so I could find something halfway acceptable to put in my face.  On the way out I noticed along the wall two shelves devoted to plastic hooker shoes.  All some variation of this:

and I will never forgive myself for not taking a picture of them.

So, the meteor shower was a bust, the motel room was a shit hole and I didn't get a picture of the gas station hooker shoes, but damn it, we got off the couch.  Besides, now I have one more thing in my arsenal when my kid starts throwing tantrums.  "Oh, boohoohoo, you can't get a Playstation 500.  You wanna hear about how I spent my last days as a free woman????  I DIDN'T EVEN GET TO SEE A YETI!"

I love this damned roasted Cornish Game Hen.

I Enjoy Being A Girl

I have a little over 2-4 weeks left.  Despite an extraordinarily easy and complication-free pregnancy, I am very ready to not be pregnant anymore.  The problem is, I'm not really sure I'm ready to have a baby (either in the actual act of having it or in the the act of, you know, having it...).

Hormones have finally caught up with me.  I find myself not only going to prenatal yoga classes, but loving prenatal yoga classes.  I hold my belly and sway, softly singing "May the long time sun shine upon you" acutely aware that this alien inside me has turned me into one of those women.  And I'm grateful. 

At the same time I frequently find myself completely out of patience over things that would normally go unnoticed.  Friends leaving innocuous comments on my Facebook status updates can prompt a 20 minute rant that poor Kurt listens to quietly and nods, smartly saying little to avoid becoming the focus of my wrath.  And God forbid you give me any advice.  Especially if you've never been pregnant.  And no, I don't care if you're a father.  Feel free to give me parenting advice, that's fine.  Or you can tell me what the mother of your child experienced.  But do not tell me what pregnancy and/or childbirth will do to me physically, mentally, emotionally or otherwise.  Because you know why?  YOU DON'T KNOW.  I promise I won't ever tell you what having a penis feels like.  Okay? 

But really, anyone who knows me will agree that my short-temperedness is nothing new.  It just happens to be far more pronounced than it's ever been before.  And my threshold is much lower than normal.  Today while walking my dogs some dickhead in a Lexus SUV didn't want to wait the extra 30 seconds it would have taken for me to cross the street, so he took off ahead of me, cutting me off in the middle of the crosswalk.  The things I imagined doing to him.  It used to be something like that would prompt a "fuck you!" and a brief fantasy of pounding my fists into his hood.  Today instead my fantasy included a dark alley, a switchblade and his intestines all over the ground.  May the long time sun shine upon you, motherfucker.

A couple weekends ago I had what I thought were Braxton-Hicks contractions.  It was the first time I really got scared about having an unmedicated labor.  That shit fucking hurt.  I told my midwife about it and she said Braxton-Hicks don't hurt and that more likely it was signs of early labor.

The other night I told Kurt I wished we had taken a picture of me every day during the pregnancy.  I then burst into tears and wept for 15 minutes.

Last night during one of my 57 trips to the bathroom, I was imaging our child at 4-years-old climbing into our bed in the middle of the night after having a nightmare.  I thought, "Chicken is going to hate that."  Then I thought, "Oh, my God.  Chicken probably won't be around anymore by then."  I then burst into tears and wept for 15 minutes.

Here is a picture of Chicken in his usual place when I go to the bathroom:

And here is a picture of me from just now:

I'm really pregnant, you guys.

Here is a video of what will most likely be my last public performance before I squeeze this kid out of me.  Some of you have seen me do this number before.  Being pregnant lends a certain new element to it.



Also, I am pleased to report that my unemployment insurance debacle has finally come to a satisfactory conclusion (for now).

Look at what I did!!!

And that, kids, is how it works.

Take Care of Yourself

Today marks the beginning of my 36th week.  Four more to go.  My pregnancy book suggests I take some time in these last few weeks to pamper myself.  "In a few weeks you won't have any time to devote to yourself for the next 18 years.  Your entire life will be consumed and ruined by this helpless little human and you will want to kill yourself.  So, get a hair cut!  Get a pedicure!  Get a massage!  Go now while you still can, you fool!" 

Lugging around an extra 35 pounds is murder on my feet and lately I've been getting excruciating shin splints if I attempt to walk more than a mile at a time.  So a massage would be awesome.  And a hair cut would be a nice treat.  Here's a picture of me from my latest gig:

But I can't afford these luxuries and, more to the point, I don't have time as my next few weeks will doubtless be spent on the phone with the Departments of Labor in both California and New York State. 

In my ongoing saga with the California Department of Labor I received a notification back in February that I would be required to complete a phone interview to determine my continuing eligibility for collecting unemployment benefits.  Because my original claim had expired in October and I was now receiving "extension" benefits, there were all kinds of hoops to jump through now to prove continuing eligibility.  The appointment, I was informed, had already been set for two days from then.  I would receive a phone call some time between 10am and 12pm.  Failure to make the interview would result in denial of benefits.  If I couldn't make this appointment and needed to reschedule I could do so by emailing the Department of Labor.  So, I emailed the Department of Labor informing them that I had a prenatal appointment at 11am on the day of the interview and unless someone called me between 10 and 10:30, I would need to reschedule.  The response I got back via email basically went like this,

"How is this our problem?  We gave you an appointment time and we're not giving you another one.  If you don't take the appointment we will cut you off.  Go fuck yourself."

On the morning of the appointment the phone rang at 5 minutes after 10.  I thank the guy profusely for calling me so early and he's like, "Whatever, you're the first person on my list today."  I explain that while I was looking for work, I didn't think anyone was really going to hire me considering my finite availability.  He gathers my information and reminds me to file for disability insurance when I hit the 36 week mark in my pregnancy.

I was deemed eligible to continue receiving benefits. 

Great.

A few weeks later I receive another notification from the California Department of Labor informing me that I was required to show up at the local jobs center and attend a training and interview in order to prove that I was looking for work and therefor eligible to continue receiving unemployment "extension" benefits.  Failure to show up would result in denial of benefits.

On the day of the appointment about 50 of us amass in a room with an ominous looking laptop, projector and screen up front.  As the reality that I'm going to have to sit through some kind of asinine "training video" about how to look for a job sinks in, a woman comes in through a side door and hollers,

"Are we awake?  Ha ha ha ha ha!" 

She asks us how we were all doing today.  Our response is apparently unsatisfactory, and so, like one of those really funny stand up comics, she says,

"I said 'HOW WE ALL DOING TODAY??'"

Har har har.

The next 30 minutes are filled with what may have been the dumbest questions ever asked by apparent adults in the history of time.

"I worked one day last week.  Do I put that down as that I was looking for that job?"

"You said not to list SAG/AFTRA under union membership, but I already wrote it down.  What do I do?"

"It says here we should apply for a minimum of three jobs per week.  But I applied for four.  What do I do?"

This is my competition in the job market.  Apparently hiring a moron is favorable to a pregnant woman who will have to leave by May but will at least do the job competently while she's there.


Finally the stupid video is started, which I figure couldn't be any more stupider than the stupidity I was being subjected to.  But at the part in the video where "how to open an internet browser" was being explained, I "struggle" out of my seat, "waddle" over to the stand up comic/training lady and use my pregnancy to get out of watching the rest of the video. 

I do my one on one interview and am released with the assurance that everything looks good and I would be able to continue receiving benefits.

Great.

THE NEXT DAY I receive a notification from the California Department of Labor informing me that I may be eligible to start a new claim and therefore will no longer receive extension benefits despite the balance remaining in my extension claim.  I could file this new claim, I was told, online!  So, I hop on the computer.  Unfortunately since I hadn't watched the training video, it takes me about an hour to figure out how to open an internet browser window.  I finally manage it, though.  I go through the steps and am then informed that since I worked out of state in the past 18 months I would have to file my claim over the phone.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of trying to get someone from the California Department of Labor on the phone will understand my urge to throw myself off a roof at this point.  Having spent countless hours trying to reach someone back in January when my benefits were inexplicably and completely erroneously halted, I did not have much hope.  And the thought of my "anytime" minutes being, once again, eaten up by repeated calls to the California Department of Labor was starting to make hooking look more and more attractive.

Despite my fears, however, I manage to get someone on the phone on my first attempt.  After an hour talking to her and a "multi-state claims specialist" I am cheerfully informed that I should not have been getting extension benefits since October because it looks like I was eligible to start a new claim with either New York or Illinois back then instead (I was on tour with a show whose payroll company was based in Illinois, or something.). 

So, what does this mean?

It means that if I am, in fact, eligible to open a claim in either New York or Illinois, it will date back to the middle of October and I will receive all of that money backdated from October.

Awesome, right?

Yes.  Except...

I will then be responsible for paying California back everything they paid me since the middle of October.

"Don't worry," the multi-state claims specialist tells me, "you won't have to pay any penalties or fees on top of that."
...

But, Daisy, I hear you say, won't it all just balance out with the benefits from New York or Illinois?  It would, except my benefit rate in those states will be significantly lower than what I was getting from California.  This not only means I'm not receiving any benefits at all (nor have I for over a month), but that when I finally do receive the benefits, I will have to turn them directly over to the California Department of Labor PLUS a check for the difference!

This is fun, isn't it?

So, I call the New York state Department of Labor to begin a claim with them.  After an hour and 25 minutes on the phone with the New York State Department of Labor I am told that yes, indeed, I am eligible and my benefit amount will be about $130 less than what I was getting from California.  But I need to call back in a day or two to give them time to collect and verify all my wages.  In the interim I receive a six page notification from the New York State Department of Labor telling me that I am not eligible for benefits.  Granted, there seem to be employers missing, but whatever.

This is great news as it means I can get on with my claim in California and I won't owe anything, right?

I call the lady in New York and she tells me they're still gathering the information they need to make a determination and to ignore the notification.  But it looks like I will be eligible through New York State.

The next day I receive another six page notification from the New York State Department of Labor telling me, once again, I am not eligible for benefits.  There are still employers missing from the list including one that was listed on the notification I had received just a few days before.

I call the lady in New York and leave a message.  I call again an hour later.  I call again an hour after that.  She doesn't call back and it's Friday which means I get to spend the weekend in limbo.

If it turns out I am in fact ineligible for benefits through New York State, I will then have to go through this entire rigmarole with Illinois which would be bad enough on its own, but I'll also have to deal with that God forsaken accent they use. 

Yesterday I received a notification from California informing me that because I'm eligible for benefits in New York State I owe California over $6000.  This, despite the fact that as of the last manifesto New Your State sent me I was ineligible for benefits... 

It basically says this:

"Dear Daisy, we fucked up by automatically sending you extension benefits instead of having you file a new claim.  Because of our fuck up, you have to pay us back.  Now.  You can send us a check or money order for the full amount or we can go into your various bank accounts and/or take any tax refund you might have coming to you.  Go fuck yourself."

And so, far from getting pampered, my last few weeks of pregnancy, like the last few months, will be spent on the phone with New York State trying to get them to make up their mind about my eligibility and navigating the lugubrious, paperwork laden, mouse maze of a process to file for disability in California.  Meanwhile, for all I know, at the end of that maze will be another notification informing me that any disability benefits I am due will be used to pay off the $6000 I owe California for their phenomenal fuck up.  But by then, I'll have a precious, screaming baby sucking the life out of me and I will be too exhausted to care what the hell is going on beyond trying to make sure its head doesn't fall off.

I was unemployed when I found out I was 10 and a half weeks pregnant.  Thank God I was able to collect unemployment benefits to begin with.  Otherwise I might have found myself taking a job at Walmart (assuming I could land a job at Walmart over my clearly well qualified competition.  "This says two for the price of one.  What if they only want to buy one?").  Of course a job at Walmart would pay less than what I was getting on unemployment and comes with no health insurance.   I know I should just pull myself up by my bootstraps, but I can't reach my feet anymore.

There are people in this country who think what I'm doing is leeching off the system (Never mind that I've paid PLENTY of taxes over the last 25 years of my life).  Those tend to be the same people who don't believe in abortion.  And some of them are also the same people who don't believe in contraception.  True, I am a godless whore who got pregnant out of wedlock and God hates fags and all that.  But my marital status has nothing to do with my financial status (also there is no god).  Even if I were married, I'd be in the same boat, so where does that leave me? 

I shouldn't complain.  Getting pampered is a luxury, not a right.  And really, so is preparing for my labor and subsequent massive life change. 

How to get Diabetes really fast.

Illinois Steve F asks:

"How did you eat all that blue cotton candy on that train???"

 I don't understand the question.  Isn't that how everyone eats cotton candy?

Somebody, yes, somebody is gonna rain on your parade.

Tyler Barton @tylerbarton27 asks:

I should like to know how you persevere when things do not go as you should like or as you might have planned them. Do you read a book to remove the circumstance from your mind? Do you blog about it to rally support and give yourself encouragement? How do you continue with being a performer if you feel that people do not take you seriously as one or turn their noses at the idea. You may not have such a dilemma facing you, but could you imagine how you might proceed for the sake of argument? I make no guarantee, but I may or may not be in a similar situation at present and seeking inspiration for what to say to best silence any naysayers.


In Kindergarten, our 800-year-old teacher, Ms. Mooney had us make bookmarks for our mothers for Mother's Day.  My mother was a published author.  She was not exactly hurting for bookmarks.  But that was the stupid assignment, so I sat down with my classmates and listened while Ms. Mooney explained each step before we began.  Apparently Ms. Mooney, though most likely trained in some fashion to teach children, didn't understand that giving a bunch of 6-year-olds 20 instructions and then saying "Go!" was like asking a dog to go do your laundry.  If you're lucky you have one of those dogs who can push a cart while walking on its hind legs, but when it comes to putting the quarters in the little slot, they're all thumbs (GET IT????).  It's possible we all remembered step one by the time she was done explaining the entire process, but likely the next step we remembered was, "Give it to your mother on Sunday!"

I got to step one million (it was a really intricate bookmark) in which there was a triangle on the paper that I had to either color in or not color in.  I couldn't remember.  I thought back to Ms. Mooney's demonstration.  I was pretty sure she said, "Don't color in the triangle."  However, she had one of those infuriating teaching techniques in which she demonstrated the opposite of what she wanted you to do.  "Don't color in the triangle like I'm doing right now.  See how I'm coloring in the triangle?  Don't do that.  Got it?  Don't do the thing I'm doing right now.  And Fido, remember to separate the colors and the whites."  I stared down at the triangle for a while and then decided she had definitely told us to color it in.  So, I grabbed a crayon and very carefully colored in the triangle, taking extra time to make sure I didn't go outside the lines.

You know in cartoons when someone gets mad and their face turns red and steam shoots out of their ears?  Sometimes their head morphs into the shape of a tea kettle.  That's pretty much what happened to Ms. Mooney when she saw what I was doing.  I can't be certain her head morphed into a tea kettle, she had a pretty big, square head to begin with.  But she turned red and steam escaped and she SCREAMED at me.  You'd think someone had murdered her cat.  She pointed to my classmate, Robyn and hollered, "Robyn did it right!  Why can't you????"  I wanted to say, "Because Robyn's the kind of girl who brings pompoms to show and tell and does a cheer about how much we love our teacher.  I bring deer turds in a ziplock bag.  I think that kind of explains it."  But I just let her scream.  I thought the 6-year-old equivalent to "This fucking lady is bat shit crazy." 

In the end I gave my mom the stupid bookmark and she hugged me and told me how beautiful it was, though I'm sure she was really thinking, "Great.  Just what I need.  Another fucking bookmark."

When I was about 7 or 8 I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and wept because I wanted to have afro puffs. 

Last October I learned I was 10 and a half weeks pregnant.  The father was a guy I'd broken up with but still lived with.

So, you see, Tyler, life is filled with moments you don't plan for or want.  But what can you do?  Sometimes you just have to let an old lady scream at you.  Sometimes you have to go ahead and have a baby you didn't mean to have and let your life be completely changed forever.

I learned a long time ago that I have no control over anything but myself.  And even then, I'd never have afro puffs.

In terms of continuing to be a performer in the face of naysayers, there has never been a naysayer louder than myself, so whenever someone has doubted me, unfortunately I've filed it in the "Proof that I am a total fraud" file in my mind.  That said, I keep doing it, so clearly that file is way in the back behind "Keep going in this ridiculous profession!" and "The next audition is THE audition."  Even after quitting performing "for good" I came back.  I don't know if that's called "passion" or "stupidity".  It helps (or hinders, depending on how you look at it) that I won the top award in my field.  I can always point to that and go, "There's proof that I'm good at this."  Though don't think for a minute that I don't also look at it as an anomaly ("Sure, you were good.  But, you know, you were also 11 and we were all just kind of impressed that you could walk and chew gum at the same time."). 

There will always be people who think they're being helpful by suggesting that you chose a more pragmatic profession.  Technically they're right.  You should chose a more pragmatic profession.  If there is something else you can or think you might want to do, for God's sake, do it.  I am not one of those people who will tell you to pursue your dream no matter what.  Performing should be a last resort.  You should carefully look at all the other things you might be able to do and if you really, truly decide you would rather die than do those things, then be a performer. 

Consider who the naysayer is before you absorb their advice.  It doesn't matter if your mom or your uncle or your dry cleaner doesn't think you can do it.  They don't know what the hell they're talking about.  Unless, of course, your dry cleaner is Luciano Pavarotti, in which case, he does know what he's talking about and you should take heed.  If, on the other hand, the people you are paying to train you consistently tell you you should think about a different career, you should think about a different career.  Of course I have never heard of a teacher actually saying, "You're wasting your money", because it's their livelihood on the line, but they should.  It's true that art is subjective to a degree.  Even the "best" performers have people who think they're awful.  But there's a difference between not liking someone's work and thinking that person is talentless.  And talent is not teachable.  You either have it or you don't.  Craft and technique are what you learn when you already have the base talent for the art.  If your theater teacher keeps suggesting you run the spotlight instead of playing Macbeth, perhaps you should consider a career in theater lighting design. 

Pursuing a career in the arts, like moving to New York City, is best left to the very young and the very wealthy.  The rest of us are just fools.

I hope that answers your questions.   Sorry I'm not more Suzy Sunshine about the whole thing.  But you've been following me long enough to know what to expect. 


And, for the record, I did eventually get my afro puffs:

No explanation necessary.