I Get You, Don Music

Sometimes I feel like this guy:



Does anybody remember him from Sesame Street? If not, you can find him at a site called (prepare yourself to be so excited you might need to bite down hard on something - I suggest a Twinkie) Muppet Wiki! It's a complete encyclopedia about Muppets! I just googled, "What's the name of the piano player on Sesame Street," and the site revealed itself! Oh and that guy's name is Don Music, which I never would have guessed, so this site is like gold to me, like more important than www.npr.org or my bank's website.

What does this have to do with how I feel? Am I saying that I feel like an orange guy with a tie and disheveled hair? Or that I feel like an unseen person might be controlling my every movement and supplying me with things to say? No, but I suffer from not knowing what to say so often that I wouldn't be opposed to the idea. Or the bit about a tie and disheveled hair, I think that might make a good look for me. This is mostly because my sense of humor was born from watching hours of The Muppets and Bugs Bunny so I developed an appreciation for ridiculousness and cross-dressing.

Major Momentary Change of Subject!!!!!

I just looked at npr's website and found the following headline, ""Hawaii: 'Let Nature Take Its Course' on Molasses Spill." Mo...lasses? Spill? There's a pipeline of molasses? I don't mean to make light of this because, according to the article, it's killed major amounts of marine life, but...really? There's a molasses PIPELINE? To me, it's a little like finding out that there's a pipeline of maple syrup that leads to a mountain of pancakes. Or like...I don't know. A leaking tanker full of jelly beans. It's interesting to me that there's been a major spill of something that's not oil. Hawaii really does have the most fascinating predicaments. And the best slack guitar musicians. If there was a pipeline full of those guys, I would be all about a major spill.

Major Moment of Self-Doubt!!!!!

Did I really just say I would support a major spill? Of any kind? I was just trying to make a clever transition back to the main subject.

Main Subject!

In episodes featuring Don Music, he was always trying to write a song, like "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and would become very frustrated with himself and bang his head on the piano keys. As a kid, the banging his head on the piano was the funniest part. Muppets were brilliant at slapstick because to make a puppet fall down the Muppeteer would just drop him. So when I was five, I found it hilarious when he would suddenly smack his head, causing his arms to flail wildly. So much drama and limp wayward limbs made for a hilarious contrast. As an adult what I find funny is that he apologizes to his bust of Beethoven that's facing him on the piano top. "I'm sorry Ludwig!" he cries, as his head hits the keys.

At work I have a picture postcard of Carson McCullers pinned to my cubicle wall, and sometimes, I'll say "I'm sorry Carson! Look at me! In a data entry job! HOOOOW did it all come to this!" I don't bang my head on my keyboard, but I'm tempted to. Instead, Carson and I just look at each other. My look says, "I want to go home and write," and her look says, "I know, you poor bastard."

The saving grace lately is that I do go home and write at the end of the day. Most of the time. Sometimes I fall asleep before this can happen, depending on the day, but on average I'm getting in 12 hours a week of writing on the side. 

So my challenge right now is to accept where I am. Even though I've had this emergence of writing power, like I want to write constantly, even if it's bad, and even if I send it nowhere and just stare at it like Emily Dickinson in her attic, I can't give up my responsibilities and go do that. For Emily Dickinson, sitting in her attic and reading her poetry about not wanting to be famous WAS her responsibility. Thus she is one of the most famous poets ever. 

This opposes everything I'm reading lately about marketing myself and brings it back to "we are not in control of the universe, some people market themselves and get nowhere, and some people hide in attics with no intention of becoming famous and become famous." I wonder how many attic writers there have been who we don't know about? We'll never know. Apparently, they didn't shut themselves in and not want to become famous enough. 

Regardless of this, I wonder if Emily Dickinson would have experienced my level of frustration if she had been a single mom with nine pets and school loans to pay. How much more angst and hamsters would have appeared in her poetry? Probably a lot. But it was the mid-1850's and, let's face it, she would have probably died in childbirth. That's just what ladies did back in the day. I thought about this EACH AND EVERY TIME I FOUND OUT I WAS PREGNANT. I experienced three things at once - exhilaration about having a baby/immediate love of my unborn child, anxiety about being able to support another baby, and the thought of "I could die in childbirth." I never did, but I'm also not sitting in an attic getting famous writing poetry either, so fuck you, universe. 

No, that's just not the way my story's going to go. I love my house, my children, my furry children, my scaly children, and my writing all at the same time. I just absolutely hate my day job. The problem is, whenever I think about getting another job and start looking for one, I always come back to "The only job I want is to write." It ultimately doesn't really matter whatever job I have, I'll still be sneaking off to write something on scraps of paper. I've always done this, no matter what job I've ever had. So all I can do right now, is do what I love on the side and figure out the day job thing. Because though no job has ever held a candle to writing, I have had others that don't make me want to pull my eyeballs out of my face. I need to go find another one of those. And I have an idea, but it's in the idea phase, where charts and graphs and envelopes labeled "Confidential" are involved.

Oh! Oh! But I just had this other idea! I want to have the job where I have to go find poets in attics in publish their stuff. Yes! That's it! Attic poet detector. I can dust them off, maybe spray them with air freshener and convince them that they're geniuses who should have blogs.

And this is why my change-of-day-job-profession idea is top secret. Because I impulsively keep coming up with other ideas. I'll be a school lunch lady! Something tells me you won't make enough money. I'll be a school teacher! You'll probably make even less money. I'll be a banker! You looked at your son's fourth grade math problem the other night and said, "What the hell is this?" I'll mow lawns, I love the outdoors! Genevieve, you have a bachelor's degree. You're beginning to make a profession out of aiming low.

So I'm still thinking. While I'm thinking, enjoy, if you will, this clip of Don Music composing "Mary Had a Little Lamb." And I promise that after this I'll stop writing about writing, and I'll start blogging about ludicrous news headlines again. Like this one, "Roman Catholic priest injured in Zanzibar acid accident," which I SWEAR I did not make up. This is a real headline on yahoo.com. I think the word "Zanzibar" would make any sentence instantly attractive but "priest" and "acid" seal the deal. The quality of my blogging can only go uphill with that kind of material.

Baked Lunch 2 - The Bakening

(Continued from the previous post Baked Lunch)

The guest bakers Bette Midler, Stephen King, Allie Brosch, Carl-Who-is-not-Jake-Gyllenhaal, and No-Risk-Angelina-Jolie are still lined up at the endlesssly long silver studio kitchen counter, they each have a large glass mixing bowl sitting next to smaller one and a pile of ingredients, they are all still wearing aprons that say "Genevieve Rheams is my favorite writer and overall human" except for Bette Midler who has modified hers to read "Genevieve Rheams is an overall twit" because I once mentioned that I don't like "You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings" and Stephen King is about to tell me that I need to stop writing run-on sentences.

"Well, look at it," he tells me. "That entire last paragraph is just one sentence."

"William Faulkner wrote run-on sentences all the time," I retort.

"William Faulkner is dead."

"...Because of run-on sentences?"

"He didn't pause to breathe."

I concede that this is a good point, and tell them to take up their eggs. 

"Now," I say, standing before them and lifting my arms like a maestro. "We're going to mix our wet ingredients in the small bowl. You want to start by cracking each egg on the side of the bowl."

"The shells are sharp," Angelina Jolie mutters through her mouth guard. "I think I'm just going to set them in the bowl here and let them dissolve in the oven."

"No, no, it won't work like that and then you'll have crunchy shells in your brownies, which could possibly cut your lip."

Angelina shrieks.

"That's right. So you want to give each egg a good, sharp crack-"

She shrieks again.

"Oy. Ok, everyone crack your eggs, I'm going to assist Angelina."

Allie Brosch, whose inner child is already going giddy at the sight of sugar, giggles as she smacks an egg against the rim of her bowl, letting everything -yolk, white and shell- fall into the mix. Carl-the-Tour-Bus-Driver-for-the-Green-Day-Tribute-Band-Who-Tells-Me-He's-Not-Jake-Gyllenhaal-But-Looks-And-Sounds-Just-Like-Him and Stephen King are gabbing about music and not paying attention to what they're doing so Stephen King has a little bit of shell in his bowl and Carl is cracking open a quart of milk. 

I move over to Angelina's bowl, crack three eggs, and toss the shells in the trash by her feet. She lays a hand on her chest.

"So brave..." she says.

I smirk. "I know. Now grab your forks and mix them up...good! and now we- Bette, what are you doing?"
"I'm adding some autographed pictures of myself and Lady Gaga. These brownies need style."
Stephen King nodds. He shakes a bottle of seasoning over the mix. "Needs minced evil."
"MINE NEEDS SUGAR!!" Allie Brosch growls and pours an entire sack of sugar into her bowl.
"Mine's still too dangerous," Angelina Jolie says, taking a bike helmet out of her pocket and tossing it in.
"Mine needs unsweetened baker's chocolate," says Carl.
We all look at him. He looks back at us. "What? It does."
"So now stir until everything is blended nicely," I tell them, and there is a general sound of clunking and tearing in the bowls as they attempt to cream butter, photographs, and bicycle helmets together.
"Excellent. Now you may pour the contents into the greased baking dish beside your bowl and put them in the oven where we will let them bake at 350 degrees for approximately 40-45 minutes."
Stephen, Bette, and Carl pour their batters into the dishes. Stephen King's is glowing green, Bette's is shimmering, and Carl's smell's vaguely of a bus. Allie Brosch's brownies don't make it to the pan. She finishes stirring, screams like Cookie Monster,and pours the contents of the bowl into her mouth, brownie mix dripping down her chin and covering up just enough letters on her apron so that instead of saying "Genevieve Rheams is my favorite writer and overall human" it says "Gen is all man." Angelina Jolie manages to pour the batter into the pan but then stares at the oven, eyes wide.
"I can't do this," she gasps. "It's too risky."
I walk over to her. "Oh now, come on, it's fine. It's just a preheated oven. Look," I pull open the oven door and a fireball erupts from inside, followed by demonic laughter. My eyebrows are singed and my apron burns off. Because Angelina is wearing fire retardant clothing and is slathered in 5000 spf sunblock she is unscathed. I close the oven door.
"Let's consult the cookbook shall we?" I say. A prop man brings me a copy of Betty Crocker's cookbook and I begin to flip through it. "Let's see...when Satan has possessed your oven....ah, page 63-"
"We need no book!" Allie Brosch growls. "Allie save you!"
Allie Brosch's sugar-charged inner child takes Angelina's pan of brownie mix, flings open the oven, and dives inside.
"Allie!" we all scream. Angelina faints.
The oven door has slammed behind her so all we hear is the demon snarling and Allie laughing as they grapple inside. The five of us are standing around the oven, watching and waiting with the exception of No-Risk-Angelina-Jolie who is out cold on the studio floor.
Carl-Who-Says-He-Is-Not-Jake-Gyllenhaal-But-Looks-And-Sounds-Just-Like-Him is overcome with worry and asks me for a hug.
I sigh. "Well, I suppose," I say, trying to appear nonchalant and hiding the fact that when he hugs me my extremities go limp and fall off.
"That poor kid," says Bette Midler, gazing at the oven. "She had such potential to be fabulous."
"She's not dead yet!" declares Stephen King. He cups his hands over his mouth. "Allie! If you can hear me, evil is sensitive to music! Sing something! Sing something lovely!"
I pull away from Carl as something in my brain begins to hurt. It's a pain that shoots through my ears and across the hemisphere of my mind.
"God," I say, with my hands over my ears. "What is that?"
Stephen King looks ecstatic. "She's doing it! Allie's singing 'You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings'! She's defeating evil, listen!"
The demon begins wailing from inside the oven and I begin writhing on the floor. Bette Midler stands over me with her arms folded and one eyebrow raised.
"So you say you like my song, huh?"
"Bette!-aaaack! I swear this isn't what it looks like!"
"Why don't you stick your head in a beehive?" she suggests.
And I don't want to tell her but that seems like a gentler alternative.
Then suddenly the pain stops. Allie flies out of the oven, and stands on the counter top. She has one hand on her hip and is holding a pan of freshly cooked brownies over her head. Her pink triangular dress and blonde ponytail are scorched but she is triumphant. She is still talking like Cookie Monster.
"Allie defeat demon with song about love!" she cries. "Brownie is reward!"
Allie shakes the pan of brownies over her mouth and she gobbles them up. She springs in the air and runs around the studio.
I clap my hands together. "Ok! So the rest of the brownies should be done. Let's take them out of the non-possessed ovens and see how they turned out."
Stephen King's brownies are still glowing green. He slices one and sets it on a plate for me to taste.
"It tastes like..." I say, chewing slowly. "Holy crap, this is the best brownie I've ever tasted."
"That's because I added evil. And it comes with a price."
I look back at him and his eyebrows have grown so long, they're touching the floor.
"I'm sorry Stephen," I say.
He shrugs. "No bigee. Do I win?"
"Let's see...Bette, may I sample?"
"Certainly," she says, and her grin makes me nervous.
I take a bite. "It tastes like fame."
"Enjoy it, sister, because it's the only taste you'll ever get. HA!"
"Come on, Bette," I plead with my mouth full. "I'm sorry about not liking your song. I really REALLY like a whole lot of your other songs, and I think you're hysterical."
She raises her eyebrow at me again. "Really?"
"Yeah!"
"Ok...but I only believe you because I shredded my greatest hits CD and put it in the mix. You don't seem to be having an allergic reaction to it."
And she's right. Other than the fact that my liver is failing because "You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings" is on that CD, I'm fine because I really truly am a Bette Midler fan.

"Carl, how about yours?" I say, turning to him.
He hands me a plate. "Carl...when I eat this the Brokeback Mountain theme song pops in my head. Why is that?"
He grins nervously. "Coincidence?"
"You're getting ready for a role as a bus driver, aren't you Jake?"
His eyes dart back and forth. "Am I believable?"
"I won't know for sure until you drive me around on a bus. Say, after the show?"
"Ok, I can do that."
"See that you do," I say, and I wonder if I should tell him that I consider this a date, but decide that it's probably better for him not to know, you know, because it might distract him from driving.
"And now Angelina-"
Angelina Jolie points to Allie Brosch who is running back and forth across the counter banging pots and pans together. "She ate them."
"Oh right. Allie! How were Angelina's brownies?"
"YUMUMUMUM!" she roars, and then suddenly stops. She becomes quiet. She looks at the pots in her hands and looks at all of us. "Angelina, I think the safety gear in your brownie mix worked as a antedote. I apologize for my behavior."
"It's cool," I tell her. "You defeated a demon."
"Rad," she says.
She climbs down from the counter.
"Ok, well since Allie ate her mix before they were baked she's disqualified. Sorry Allie. But you get special recognition for taming the devil. Everyone baked a good brownie, everyone well done. But unfortunately we can only have one winner and our winner is - Stephen King!"
Stephen King walks over to me, his cursed eyebrows dragging along the floor in his wake.
"Fantastic, what do I win?"
"You win five more guest appearances on my blog...Stephen, that's supposed to be an honor, please stop strangling yourself with your eyebrows."
But he doesn't and soon he is passed out on the floor, where he will remain until his next guest appearance on my blog.

That's our show, thank you for joining us. If you're wondering, I use the brownie recipe that I grew up with from the Betty Crocker cookbook which you can find by clicking on Ultimate Brownies. I would also like to recognize Bette Midler, Allie Brosch, Angelina Jolie, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Stephen King, all of whom I do not know in real life, so I'm just imagining how they'd react to being on my cooking show and you should not take me seriously when I say things like Allie Brosch jumps into ovens or that Stephen King bakes evil brownies. But I am pretty sure that Jake Gyllenhaal would go out with me.

Baked Lunch - it's like Naked Lunch only with brownies and with clothes on

After studying the figures, I've noticed that I get more hits on posts with the following labels: Literary panels, Angelina Jolie, Spleens, and Allie Brosch. The one with the most hits was the one where I wondered if Allie Brosch (writer of Hyperbole and a Half) was doing ok. The second winner was "No Risk Anglina Jolie" based on spam mail that I got. And third was "My Hetero Spleen," which could have been popular because I mentioned Jake Gyllenhaal, also possibly because of my sexual orientation questions, and also possibly because spleens are trending. I don't know. But somewhere in all of that is the winning combination to make me a Blog Star so I'm throwing them all in one post. And I'm going to include Stephen King who starred on my a literary panel because that was the fourth popular one, and also because it's in his contract. But what to make them all do together?....

They're going to bake brownies. Cue the cooking show music! (bah tah tah tah TAH! Bah bah BAAAAH! Ba-dum)

You are now looking into a studio kitchen with a really REALLY long counter. It's about the size of the low brick wall that Charlie Brown leans against when he's having a heart to heart talk with Linus - with no visible ends in either direction. Behind the counter, smiling back at you, is Angleina Jolie, Allie Brosch, Stephen King, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Bette Midler because I mentioned not liking the song "Wind Beneath My Wings" in one of my last posts and I'm afraid that I might have hurt her feelings so I'm going to make it up to her with brownies.
"That was a run-on sentence, Gen," Stephen King says to me.
"What was?" I ask him.
"That last sentence. It needs editing."
"Thank you, Stephen, we will not be discussing my editing skills today."
"It's what you brought me on for. And really if you want any success as a writer-"
I cross my arms at that guy. "Do you WANT a brownie?"
Stephen King closes his mouth. He lowers his head, and pushes back his glasses. "Yes."
"Well, alright then. Grab an apron."
He gleefully takes the apron folded neatly next to his bowl on the counter. It is blue and in white letters it says, "Genevieve Rheams is my favorite writer and overall human." In fact, all of them are wearing this apron.  "So I guess we should start by introducing our bakers for today," I continue.  "To our far left we have Angleina Jolie."
Angelina is wearing a helmet, elbow pads and wrist guards because she is the No Risk Angelina Jolie version of herself and she's nervous about baking accidents. She grins through her mouth guard.
"And next we have Hyperbole and a Half blogger Allie Brosch."
"Genevieve," she says, wearing her triangular pink dress and her blonde hair in a pony tail sticking straight up on her head. "Are you sure you want me around sugar? You've read The God of Cake, you should know that if my inner child eats too many brownies it could destroy you all."
"I know, it's why the producers asked you to join us. Ratings suggest that people like to watch cooking shows where the cooks tweak out on sugar and destroy the studio. If possible they would also like you to develop a moonshine addiction, sell ducks on the black market, and fall in love with Stephen King."
"I'm your girl."
"Excellent. And to Allie's right we have Jake-"
Jake Gyllenhaal's eyes go wide. "My name is Carl."
"We have...Carl?"
"Yep," says Carl who is not Jake Gyllenhaal, even though he has the same smile that makes my toes go numb. "I'm a bus driver."
"What kind of bus driver?"
"I drive the tour bus for a Green Day Tribute band called Teal Day. See, I enjoy pot brownies and I was sent here by the court to learn how to cook clean ones. I brought my paperwork."
He pulls a folded white piece of paper out of his back pocket and hands it to me. I scan over it.
"Yes, well, this seems to be in order. Ok, uh Carl, I don't know how much you'll like these brownies after you've had the special ones but-"
"Oh I've never eaten a pot brownie," he says.
"But," I hold up the paper. "Yeah, you have."
"No, no. I just enjoy the idea of them. I was sentenced by an ideal court."
I look back at the paper.
"Well I'll be damned," I say. "Ok. Welcome to the show. Next we of course have Stephen King, who is chatting up the baker next to him who is the lovely! The legendary! Miss Bette Mid-"
"Don't try to flatter me, pip squeak," says Bette Midler. She narrows her eyes at me and then begins sifting flour into her glass bowl.
"Oh Ms. Midler we haven't started yet," I tell her.
"I don't have to listen to you," she says, narrowing her eyes even more until they are coin slot sized. But what shows through that slit is so much loathing that I know if I put a coin in it wouldn't be candy that comes out but hate. "I know what you said about my song."
"Oh, uh, about that. I didn't say I necessarily disliked it. I just said-"
"That you'd rather stick your head in a beehive than listen to it?"
"Uhhhhhhhh..."
"Listen, sister. That song has inspired millions of people. Make that billions. BILLIONS of people, world wide. I bet everyone here likes it." She looks down the line of bakers. "Who here likes 'You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings'?"
One by one, all of their hands go up, Angleina Jolie pausing only to spray Lysol above her head before she sticks her hand in the air.
"See," Bette tells me.
"That song reminds me of Brad and the kids," Angelina muses.
"I play it when I need writing inspiration," says Allie.
"The guys in the band ask me to play it constantly on the road," Carl-who-is-not-Jake-Gyllenhaal says.
"You don't like that song?" Stephen King asks me. "Are you missing a soul?"
"The ideal court would not approve," Carl warns.
"Alright! Alright! Look, Bette, I'm sorry I said that. I think you're a fantastic actress and I love your voice. I love 'The Rose'."
She scowls at me. "You would."
Seeing that I can not win her over I decide that it's time for our bakers to start baking.

Which will happen in part two of this post. Oh come on, don't be disappointed. It's only a 24 hour commercial break. In the mean time, Carl-who-is-not-Jake-Gyllenhaal insists that you enjoy Green Day.

No Risk Angelina Jolie

I haven't clicked on the junk mail that got with the subject "No Risk Angelina Jolie" but I must say that I'm intrigued. One, I am certain that even if I opened it to find out, something horrible would happen. A piano will fall from the sky and crush my laptop, a gout of fire will spit from the ground, or the next apple I eat will be mushy. These are the things that happen when you open emails with viruses. Thus risk.

But "no risk" Angelina Jolie? Not just "Angelina Jolie," no. They offer me Angleina Jolie risk-free. I'm celebrity-gossip savvy enough to know that this is not true. Ok, maybe I'm not being fair because I don't know her personally and because I'm remembering gossip from ten years ago, but still. This is the woman who took on the role of Gia Carangi, who kept a vile of blood on a necklace, who pissed off Jennifer Aniston. These things are, my friends, very risky things I mean DEAR LORD what if the vile had broken! Those stains would never come out of Star Wars pajamas, which is what I imagine Angelina wears on her off days. It is this kind of risk taking that makes her who she is, and if I opened that email what would happen?? Would she suddenly become riskless? Would Brad Pitt come home one day and find her changing out the batteries in all of the smoke detectors even though none of them have expired, because she wants to be sure just in case? Will she refuse to wear blood on the outside? Will she take on the role of super models who AREN'T gay?

No, no, no, that clinches it, I can't open that email. I'm leaning towards the one with the subject "Anne Hathaway weight loss." I'll click on it and all of my excess weight will transfer to Anne Hathaway's body.

Here's to risky chicks:

Gia holds up a magazine cover of herself.