The Susannah Stomping Diaries #1

I love my upstairs neighbor, the fab Susannah "Sudah" Jones.

But Susannah is a stomper. Fortunately I really don't mind. She's asked me to call if it ever bothers me, but I never have because it really doesn't. But it DOES fascinate me. Most loud neighbors have a pattern. I can't figure out Susannah's. So because I have not been blogging much lately, and Susannah agreed to it, I am going to use this blog to figure out what the heck Susannah is doing!

12:45pm: Susannah, are you okay? It sounds like you fell over.

12:59pm: Okay, now it sounds like you are just walking around, so I guess you are okay.

More from my 2nd Grade self

Because this is so much easier than making up something to blog about right now. And probably explains why I turned out to be a cat person:

I got a new dog. She jumpes up on people. But wen we got her she did not jumpe. Her name is menndy. She is a jermon shepered. She is still a puppey. But she dose not look like one.

Note: The illustration I drew is me running away from Mandy and yelling "Help Mom!"

Sucks to be a garbage can

A more philosophical entry from the 2nd grade journal. This entry appears above a xeroxed drawing of a garbage can labeled "garbage can" and a cat peeking out from behind, which is glued to the page.

If I were a garbage can I would be graet use to the people in the city. I would hold great loads of trash. Every week men would take away the loads of garbage. I would hold tin cans, candy-wapers, old glass bodls, papars, and other things. I would be very smelly. Cats would get in me and eat old roten food. They also would nock the lid off of me. Nothing would be fun.

My teacher gave me a check mark, a smiley face, and wrote "very descriptive" on this one. I want to know if the other kids had to write about being garbage cans or if they got better pictures glued to their pages. And if they got smiley faces too. And why the teacher wanted me to think about what it was like to be a garbage can.

I was a literary child prodigy

Just in case you have doubted my writing talent up to this point, check out this little gem from my 2nd grade journal (which I found while cleaning out boxes in my closet on orders from my Mother)

Once on a rainy spring day a small cat was running through the woods. Help! Help! she shouted. The big dog is chaseing me. A little squerle heard her and said climb my tree and come into my house. So the small cat climbed up and went into the squerles small hole in the tree safe and warm. Just then a big black dog walked by. He called to the squerle have you seen a small cat I lost her sent in this rain. Yes said the squerle she ran that way. the dog ran away. Oh thank you said the cat. But the squerle said wait. "come and live with me so the cat did later the some kittens were born. there in the hole the squerle and the cat raised there babys and lived there forever.

The End

A scary life and death chase! An unlikely friendship between species! Cat-Squirrel hybrid babies! Can you imagine the possibilities if I had just been able to spell "squirrel"???

If you're a boy you might want to skip this one....

Because it is about going to the Lady Doctor. I don't know any ladies who don't dread this annual visit...here are my theories as to why:

First, 89% of the waiting room is really, really pregnant and I'm always terrified one of them will go into labor at any second.

Second, all the magazines have to do with parenting and babies, two subjects that still terrify me at this point in my life.

Third, no matter how many anti-anxiety meds I take beforehand, there is some sort of force that negates their effectiveness from the second I walk in the door.

Fourth, they weigh you.

After this trauma, you are asked to pee in a cup. WITH YOUR NAME ON IT. Then you have to walk out of the bathroom holding your clear pee-cup with your name on it, a walk of shame much more embarrassing than the college version.

You are then sometimes asked to tell the nurse what other prescription drugs you are taking, VERBALLY, and I would really prefer that the other three patients and five nurses within earshot not know this information.

After this, you are led to the room of ultimate humiliation and scariness. You are handed a smock that only comes down to your waist and instructed to undress completely and put it on "open side in front." To cover your other lady parts, there is simply a huge sheet resembling the largest paper towel ever to use as a blanket.

Did I mention it's always FREEZING in the room of ultimate humiliation and scariness?

Then....you wait. There are not even baby or parenting magazines to distract you, so all you have to do is try not to stare at the scary posters on the wall of female anatomy, STD pamphlets, and the frightening, unfamiliar, and extremely sharp metal objects that will soon be inserted up your vagina. I recommend mentally "going to your happy place" during this time, although I have never been able to achieve this myself.

Then your doctor comes in and makes small talk about the weather, your job, etc. and you try to answer without thinking about the fact that he/she is feeling up your breasts and sticking things inside of your stuff, aka, how you are basically being medically molested.

FINALLY it's over. You are allowed to dress and slink out, trying not to make eye contact with the next poor girl coming in as you are going out, or at least not look too traumatized. I always say a silent prayer for her, as I know exactly how she's feeling and what is in store for her. Poor soul.

Movin' on up

Most of you probably already know this, but just in case, one of the more fascinating tidbits of my life (not really to me, but to other people it’s a definite “conversation starter”) is that I work as a body parts model. NO, not THOSE parts, dirty mind! Specifically, I started as a foot model, literally kicked my way into the world of leg modeling via a tampon commercial, and most recently my cute little hands are featured in an AT&T commercial, also featuring the band Blink 182 (of mid to late 90’s fame).

Life is funny. I spend a substantial amount of my time working on my acting career, yet this little body parts modeling thing has become quite lucrative, literally paying my bills the last year or so. So since I’ve gone from feet, to legs, to hands, and skipped all the unmentionables, perhaps someone would actually be interested in my FACE sometime in the near future? Eh, eh??? Any takers???? Not that I’m desperate or anything.

The people you meet at Starbucks (or on airplanes)

Yesterday I went to Starbucks for a nice relaxing break with my triple mocha and a good book. Unfortunately for me, the only available seat was across from a Comic con-obsessed former hippie. I REALLY wanted to finish my book, but there's no way it could compete with this guy.

He told me his business mantra was "Artistic Conception to hard working action." Awesome. He also proceeded to unroll a 6 ft banner by a "world-famous muralist" and tell me all about the funding he had from many large companies to fund Comic Con murals all over the world, the real deal Comic con from the 70s, not that bullshit they do now.

He also told me that he is doing a documentary the behind-the-scenes documentary of comic con. A documentary within a documentary, if you will. And how he pulled himself up by his bootstraps to achieve this level of success. He asked what I did, and then offered me some of valuable nuggets of wisdom: I too, can achieve the same level of success if I write and produce instead of just acting, but only as long as I don't date producers or directors.

If this guy wrote a book, I would totally take it to Starbucks and read it.