I'm A Hater by Rhonda Hansome

I’m a hater!  I admit it.  

If day or night you know exactly where you are, where you want to go and how to get there, you are a direction savant and I hate you; you road sure, path confidant route sage.  Direction savants on land or sea, simply gaze at the fother mucking sky and know the direction in which to move.  

I’m disoriented stepping out of the bathtub.  I have to leave a trail of bread crumbs...

                            to find my way out of Macys.  

I came out of the birth canal backwards!

“Walk this way”, say the direction sure with a confidence I disdain and envy.

I have lived in NYC all my life, but every time I exit the Lexington Avenue subway I have to grab the nearest Japanese tourist and ask in a faux, non-specific Asian accent: “Which way to Madison Avenue?”  

I have a sense of direction. And with apologies to Sarah Palin and all who’d be mistakenly offended, my sense of direction IS retarded.  Yes, I suffer from Geographical Dyslexia.

I’m convinced that Geographical Dyslexia (my self-created term describing my direction dysfunction) is just one manifestation* of my unresolved father issues.  Dad, thanks for abandoning me in utero.  I think of you frequently – every time I walk 3 blocks in the wrong direction.  

              

Dear Reader** do you know what this disability, Geographical Dyslexia, did to me who learned to drive in the previous century – BEFORE GPS?  It resulted in horrors too terrifying and numerous to recount here.  Suffice it to say that many, many times I have just parked my car roadside, rocked in the fetal position and sucked my thumb while I cried.  There is a club for the multitudes who have given me directions, Platinum Membership if they advised me while I clutched a tear stained map.  When I look at a map I don’t get which way to go, I get vertigo!

The last century is more than a decade in the past you deride.  The GPS has come to my rescue, you chide.  So what, I scoff.  The satellite based GPS is a technological marvel that mocks my Geographical Dyslexia with every accusatory declaration of “recalculating.”  My GPS and I have a love - HATE relationship, reminiscent of my erstwhile marriage. My GPS is helpful while condescending and supportive while passive aggressive. 

For example…

GPS:  In 500 feet get in the left lane, stay in the left lane,  bear left, right turn here.  

Me:  Right turn here!?  Bitch*** this is a six lane highway and I’m in the left lane!

GPS:  Turn around when possible.

Me:  The next exit is 6 miles!

GPS: Recalculating, recalculating.

My animosity is legitimate and fervent.  I’m a hater!

*I have math anxiety and dread computing any scientific formula

 

**You three are the delight of my blogging life!    

   

***That’s her name!

                                                                  

AUGH. AUGH AUGH.

by Helene "How Dry I Am" Greseser


I ate a banana yesterday. Then I met a friend for drinks before seeing a play. Then had a drink during the play. Then met some more people for drinks after the play. Then went to another place to have a couple more drinks. Yup, all on a stomach with a banana in it.

I cannot bear the slowness of my computer today, and typing makes my head hurt. I am going to have a good talk with myself after I manage to drink this here Coke. In the meantime I am going to venture out to a book party and NOT have a drink.

Just typing the word "drink" makes me want to die.

-hmg

Under That Pink Skirt

Most of us are multi-taskers out of necessity, so I’m really glad there are many things that happen automatically that I don’t have to think about, like breathing and my heart beating, blinking and swallowing, digesting food and being a female.  It would be so exhausting and consuming to have to be constantly establishing how not a man I am.  Imagine …

“That’s right I’m a woman; I’m menstruatin’ right now!  Yo, can you spare a pad?  Oh thanks.  You’re a doll.  No lesbo or anything.  Just thanks for the pad, girl.  ‘Cuz I’m a woman and I don’t go that way.   I’m a woman; these are real (points to breasts and then adjusts them exaggeratedly).  That’s right.  I ain’t no dude.  I’m menstruatin’ big time.  So don’t get any ideas. Why ya gotta stand so close to me?  I can hear you from over there.  No lesbo.”

There are so many times I want to tell a man to relax.  Nothing will fall off.  Some are really so driven by this need to remind themselves how they aren’t gay and they aren’t a “bitch.”  Besides their disclaimer “no homo,” my young adult student also told me about the disclaimer “pause.”  I asked, “So if you are kind to another male, you have to say ‘pause’?”  He nodded.  I told the class that if a man goes home with another man and has sex all night, I don’t think that pause button is going to work.  Everyone laughed but the one I meant it for. 

I’ve been taken for the opposite gender several times in my life, and I found it amusing.  So why is it such a thing, I wondered.  Then it dawned on me.  It’s the same thing with blacks and whites, gays and straights, etc., etc.  They’d be afraid of being treated the way they treat us.  Being thought of as childlike and cute or ugly and worthless, a bitch or a slut, being harassed as we go about our daily business and endangered by those lacking self-control must not seem very appealing.  And so some scramble around, holding their package while baring their ass, calling us bitches and complaining about not getting pussy. 

A man I know, who does not fit that description at all, doesn’t doubt his maleness all day either.  He has other insecurities as we all do, but he doesn’t obsess about not being gay or not being female.  It’s a given.  He assumes his dick is still attached and doesn’t use one hand to cup it all day.  And when a bunch of women he knows wanted to dress him up as a woman for some kind of costume party, he was fine with it.  He’s not very feminine looking; his features are manly, and he is quite hairy.  They had fun trying.  He looked funny and not at all like a woman, more like a man in kooky clothes.  They took photos which were amusing.  He said that now he won’t be able to run for president. 

He told me, in a voice as sure as nipples harden in the cold, that he didn’t care if they put him in a pink skirt with fringes because he knows that under that pink skirt, he has a big dick. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mindy Matijasevic will be performing her stand-up on December 13, 2012, 8pm at the Grisly Pear, 107 MacDougal Street, Greenwich Village, NYC  (NO cover & NO drink minimum!)

Tis The Season

by Samantha DeRose








Well, it seems I've survived another Thanksgiving weekend of family, friends, food, and folly.  I'm not going to tell you about my method of storing leftovers on my front porch (weather permitting)... and I'm certainly not going to tell you about how I went out to the porch on Friday morning, fork in hand, donning threadbare pajamas, and how I devoured (a less-than-lady-like portion of) the gluten free carmel apple pie only to see my neighbors across the street looking in at me as I enjoyed my a.m. feast.  I felt like Templeton (I originally wrote Carlton but had the presence of mind to Google it because I knew it wasn't right) the Rat from Charlotte's Web after a night at the fair grounds singing "A fair is a veritable smorgasbord!"

Thanksgiving was at my mom's house...again.  I have to say, the highlight of every Thanksgiving is creeping my cousin, Sue, out with my mother's antiques.  Zelda in particular.  My mom is a collector of the absurd.  She and my dad used to own an antiques store and when it closed, their house became the museum of oddities that it is today.  Zelda is a dolly that sits atop my mother's china closet.  Zelda is the cause of many a nightmare.  Sue and I named her Zelda because she looks like the sister in Pet Semetary.

I don't know if you remember the movie, but the mother in the movie had a flashback of caring for her disfigured sister.  The memory haunted the mother in the movie much like the way that the dolly haunts my cousin and me.  Nothing like some good old fashioned horror on Thanskgiving.

Of course, I did have the good fortune of having a touch of a stomach bug this weekend... which I consider a blessing after my glutinous endeavors.  Seriously, I am I the only one who gets overjoyed when this happens?  It's like a gift, I tell ya.  A GIFT!

Speaking of gifts, it's Cyber Monday.  Considering that I have no money, I have to say that I'm glad that online shopping has become a holiday tradition.  As a rule, I'm not a good shopper.  I'm the one who waits until Christmas Eve to do EVERYTHING.  I'm the one who gets angry when I hear people saying, "I finished all of my shopping in September."  To them I say,  "Go #$@% yourself, you overly prepared twits!  Does it make you feel good to shove that in the faces of us ill-prepared @-holes?  I bet your halls have all been decked with boughs of holly, your tree is trimmed (since the week before Thanksgiving), and you can sit back, relax, and enjoy the holiday joy!"

So, I'll click and I'll clack in my threadbare pajamas (I'll put them back on when I get home from work), I'll eat more carmel apple pie from the porch (the neighbors need another show), and I'll fill my e-carts with gifts that will only be returned or obsolete by the time they arrive at my house.  Of course, I'll procrastinate with wrapping until Christmas morning.  That's just me.

Let the madness begin, my friends.  Enjoy.

THANK YOU MOM, GRANDMA, LAVERNE DIFAZIO AND BIRTH CONTROL!

By Lisa Harmon

My life is sweet.  I have spent my entire life doing pretty much whatever I feel like doing.  OK so I have to work, I’m not independently wealthy, but that’s it.  After work its all Lisa time!  For that I need to thank my mother, my grandmother, Laverne DiFazio, and of course, the most wonderful invention ever -  birth control.

The sixties were a pivotal time for women.  Women’s roles were changing, and women were becoming independent. 

As a girl growing up in the late sixties the old and the new were right in front of my face.  My grandmother was a married woman.  My grandfather was the boss, and my grandmother did most of the work.  I saw that with my own eyes.  They were the old generation.

My Mother was the new generation.  Single, with a job and her own money.  She had it going on.  If it wasn’t for my brother and me, she could have had the life! 

But who really had everything that I wanted, who really was living la vida loca, back then, well, it was Laverne DiFazio.  I loved her and I wanted to be her roommate.

Laverne DiFazio – she had a job, an apartment and she was tough and funny.  She had no kids slowing her down.  Sure she had to work a shitty job, just like me, but she was free, free, FREE!  She was my idol.

It was fantastic knowing that I didn’t have to get married, that I didn’t have to have kids.  I knew I could just get a job and an apartment and be happy!  And believe it or not, that was my plan, when I was twelve.  I was going to get my own job, my own apartment, and done.  That was it.  That was the plan.

The plan came into effect at eighteen.  I left home, got my own place, and made my own rules.  I can listen to the stereo whenever I want!  I don’t have to make the bed!  I don’t have to do anything anyone tells me, because this is my place that I paid for with my money which I procured through my own hard work!  This is Lisa’s world.  Lisa’s apartment.  Lisa’s rules.  I was ecstatic.  I had my freedom.  In my entire life, that’s the only thing I ever gave a fuck about.  Being free.  And when work would get shitty and awful, I knew I was working for my freedom.  And I kept at it.  I loved being on my own, and I didn’t care how much I had to work for that little apartment.  I loved that place.  It was my little place to be me.  It was my tiny piece of this giant world. 

And none of it would have been possible at all without Grandma, Mom, Laverne DiFazio and birth control.  Thank you!  I love you all.

Laverne & Shirley Theme - Theme to my Life!

Guys, I forgot

I'm such a shit, I totally forgot today was Friday. I woke up and I was like "aw, happy Sunday to me!"

I love you, I'm so sorry (Flashbacking to previous relationships right now)

But most importantly...

COME TO ESTRO FRIDAY NOVEMBER 30th!!!!! I will be performing with an amazing line up of female comedians.

10PM | $5! Visit here for info:

http://estrogenius.org/stand-up-for-estro/


I LOVE YOU.

Thank You By Rhonda Hansome

At first thought, I was going to talk about the terror reigned on the indigenous people of America,  position it tangentially with the enslavement of my ancestors,
 

                   

connect it with the United States’ dominant corporate culture of vulture capitalism and hopefully somehow make it funny.    

By the time I sat down to the computer I felt gratitude for the computer and the electricity running it. I felt gratitude for the heat, hot water in the humble abode that welcomes me home after exhilarating rants on the comedy stage.

My heart filled to overflowing when I thought of the unceasing succor of loved ones, friends, family, professional associates and even random strangers.  Yes people I don’t even know have been kind to me.  I’m talking about you who held the door, offered a seat, proffered a smile; thank you.

Dear Reader** I am so thankful you are in my life.  I could kiss you all over for coming out to see me live* and in color!  I spend most of my time thinking of things to amuse you.  It’s your response that lets me know every occasion I hit the mark.  As we move full throttle into our holiday season know that you are appreciated, cherished and loved; if not by those with whom you share Thanksgiving dinner, at least by me.  

                                                                                 

Dear Reader, as for the decimation of our Native Americans, the enslavement of generations in ongoing racist subjugation, or the relentless greed of the 1%, there’s not much funny about that this Thanksgiving Day.  In fact we have so much work to do, but I am so grateful to have your support and thankful for your laughter as we labor together for a safer saner world.  Thank you.

*All beautiful lovable three of you!

** Yours truly is a “Surprise Female Comic” with the comedy force of nature that is Phyllis Stickney, Sat. Dec. 1^st & 8^th  8PM & 10PM at The Poets Den, 309 East 108^th St. @ 2^nd Ave. NYC http://www.facebook.com/phyllis.stickney.1?fref=ts

SMILE THOUGH YOUR HEART IS BREAKING

by Helene "Ole Waterworks" Gresser

SPOILER ALERT: I REVEAL SOME CLIMACTIC SCENES FROM CLASSIC FILMS!

Maybe it's that I haven't had my Pristiq antidepressant for a few days, or I am possibly premenstrual (oh, I can never keep track, and my PMS always starts so early - like ten days before,) or perhaps it is because I always miss my family around the holidays, but I am welling up like that penguin in the Looney Tunes cartoon:

Or the Marc Antony with the kitty cat cartoon:

I am brought to tears by beautiful music lately (okay, just the past couple of days, in my hormonal/non-drugged state) and was standing outside my bar Monday when I heard a group of high school kids singing a choral piece (Samuel Barber's "Agnus Dei" from Adagio For Strings) as they walked to/from practice. I instantantly choked up. I mean, felt my throat close up and tears spring into my eyes so fast I was taken completely by surprise. Just listening to it as I post this has me overcome with emotion. Oh Lord.

Last night - watching To Kill a Mockingbird on TV - this scene wrecked me. And all she had to say was "Hey, Boo...."

Kills me. "Hey, Boo."

Around these holidays, the TV runs It's a Wonderful Life. I weep every time George's brother enters the room and toasts him:

If you haven't seen the movie, it's just about the most ironic and poignant statement about the life of George - he is broke, feels as if he's made nothing but bad decisions in his life, and he's trapped living in a small town when all he wanted was to travel the world - and he sacrificed his dreams to take over the family business and let his brother be the one to travel the world. But George is rich with friends and people he's been kind to his entire life. He is the richest man in town, as his whole community gathers to help him out of a bad bind. He is rich with love and friendship, the most valuable assets a man can possess. And most of us tend to forget that.

Charlie Chaplin understood this even earlier, as he showed in the scene from City Lights that brings a sob to my throat each and every time. He is the Little Tramp, but helped a blind woman to regain her sight by finding enough money to help her get an operation. She thought he was some rich man. And she only knows the feel of his hands, and has no idea he is a tramp, until he happens upon her as she is settled in her new life as a flower shop owner. He didn't even know that the operation had been successful, as he had been in jail for months, until:

You see?

I am a ball of snot and tears now, and my chest aches. I am a sap. Especially this week. I am filled with gratitude and auld lang syne and holiday homesickness. I miss my mom and dad and stepmom and brothers. I miss my hometown in Wisconsin. I miss my friends scattered far and wide in Arizona and Ohio and Alaska and New Jersey. I want to run out and buy presents for everyone and spend hours wrapping. I am so touched that my guy asked me to spend Thanksgiving with him and and his family that I fear I will cry as we start to say Grace: "BlessedOLord, andtheseThygiftsthatweareabouttoreceive..." and I am not religious.

 I miss my Grandparents. I miss my Aunt Mickey and Uncle George and my cousins Jeffrey, Jill, and Jerry, who used sing this in four part harmony as their dinner prayer (this video is not my family, just a great example of singing the Doxology - I am weeping as I provide the link. Oh, tomorrow should be GOOD):

Twenty-five years ago, when I was twenty-one and living in Manhattan on my own, I spent Easter with a famous playwright, his actress wife, and their family in Massachusetts. We went to a little white church where the actresss' mother was a member, and they sang the sweetest version of Amazing Grace I had ever heard. I sat there in the pew, tears running down my face, feeling so confused by my non-religious brain and aching, homesick heart. Judy Collins sings it beautifully with the Harlem Boys Choir:

I have to stop sniffling now and get ready to head to Queens to see my guy. Tomorrow we drive to Connecticut, and I will hold it together, hopefully. I will think of all my loved ones far and wide, and count my blessings. I will laugh and hear stories and feel happy to be with a man I really admire and adore. I have a place to live, food to eat, and people who hold me up when I am low and feeling lost.  I am the richest gal in town.

I will likely watch A Trip To Bountiful some time this holiday season, where the song "Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling" plays so heartbreakingly, and Geraldine Page slays me with her performance. I can't wait to see my family again, and have my mom sing You Are My Sunshine with me, and hear my dad sing "O Tannenbaum" in German.

As my mom would say: "I cry because I am happy." It's true.

-hmg

 Count your nights by stars, not shadows; count your life with smiles, not tears. - Italian Proverb

Muffin Tops & Butt Crack (not my thing)

I thought of writing the following as a Venn diagram, but I’m not a computer whiz, so I’ll stick with paragraphs.  Also, I’d only be addressing the overlapping center.  See, recently, due to backlog of undone laundry, I was wearing low-rise jeans from when that was all I could find in my price range.  They are now my no-clean-laundry-day jeans.  They are so fuckin’ annoying.  As I was listing in my mind all that is wrong with me in low-rise jeans, I realized that the same list applies to what is wrong with me having been with my ex.

I don’t feel good about myself with either of them.  They both accentuate the negative        

   

              

                                              ...and give me a pain right about here.

They may seem okay at first, but they are terribly lacking.  Some think they look good, but they look ridiculous.                

  

They are irritating and annoying.  While they don’t help me feel upright at all, they require pulling up so often just to appear and feel normal.  The similarities go on and on.

Since giving less fabric/love seems to get accepted as the norm, we unfortunately get used to this discomfort as too many of us do a crappy marriage.  The bar gets lowered, and what was normal gets renamed.  Now when I am looking for normal pants that know where to hold me, I have to ask for high-waisted pants.   And if I want to meet a normal, loving man who knows where to hold me, well … 

 I suppose if one takes the time it truly deserves, one can find a good fit.                         

After discovering a store in the Bronx called LuLu’s and H&M in Manhattan both carry normal and affordable jeans, I’ve been slowly getting rid of the unflattering kind.  And as in the separation and divorce, I’ve found…

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                    

M is for...

Marvelous!  Writing this blog and interacting with the other She's has been a fabulous experience so far.  Some of us know each other from performing but a few of us haven't had the pleasure of meeting face-to-face yet.  I had the opportunity to work with a couple of She's (Rhonda, Helene, & former She, Maribeth Mooney) this past Friday night...and to our delightful surprise, Mindy came out to support the show.  We hadn't met Mindy, but I must say, it felt like we were old friends.  Meeting Mindy and working with the other gals just reinforced my feelings about this blog and our work as female comics.  I thinks it's really important to establish supportive connections, especially for women in this business.  Anyway, I left the show feeling very inspired and uplifted by all of the women who I saw.  (Guys at the show, you were awesome, too...except the guy who called me "a piece of shit" in Greek... after my tzatziki underpants joke).

On another note, it's Monday, and ya wanna know which days better than Mondays?  Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Now, I hate to be cliche, but I really despise Mondays.  I'm probably the only one in the world who feels this way, I know, but I do.  When I worked in an office, Mondays were tolerable because my desk faced out the window and I had developed a napping system by which I'd balance by head on my left hand, right hand poised on the mouse, important report displayed on the monitor.  Back in the day, I'd be able to get a good 20-30 snooze time in at any given time of the day.  Now.  Not so much.  A classroom full of teenagers doesn't lend itself to napping, what with rules, regulations, and shit like that require teachers to be attentive.  This is my Monday today.   I took the day off on Friday and made the mistake of assigning essays (as test grades) which I am now grading.  In light of my blog last week, I asked the students to write complimenary letters to their favorite companies.  Some random samples: (Letter to Coke)  "And so that they can know drinking pepsi is a sin, and drinking coca cola is good for the soul."  (Letter to Hershey) "I am so addiced to it I even color my room brown and I even have a shirt that said to me Heresy" (To ConAGRA - makers of Slim Jim) "As you can tell, I like the original flavor of the slime jim because eating any pork is against my religion." (To Kelloggs) "pop trats is the best idea for a slight breakfast."  "Dear To Whom it May Concern"

Does that sound like fun to you?  It's definitely better than being called a piece of shit in Greek.  Shoot.  My students call me that in English (Spanish and Arabic).

Anyway, I'll get through this here Monday.  I just found out that one of my fabulous students was on Undercover Boss this weekend, so I'll watch it and that should be a nice break from grading those essays during my lunch.  The cool thing about this student is that she's a strong, hilariously funny, hard-working young woman.  For all of the whining that I do about the day job, Mondays, yada, yada... these kids keep me laughing non-stop, and that's what it's all about!  And...

Yes.  It's a short work-week.  Thanksgiving is upon us.  Enjoy, be thankful, laugh, and if you have some spare time, help me grade some papers (I have wine if it helps to entice you).

Road Gigs

Corner Bistro

You never know what to expect from a road gig.  Sometimes it sucks ass, sometimes is amaze-balls.  Last night, I did a spot at Corner Bistro in Carbondale, PA...and it was AWESOME.  I haven't performed for such a freaking crazy ass audience in a long time.

I just wanted to use my blog entry this week to thank the folks that came out to Corner Bistro last night.  You guys kick ass!

OBSTACLE COURSE POINT VALUES

By Lisa Harmon

OBSTACLE

PARKING SPACE 50 POINTS

Get car out of space without losing mirror on the pillar or hitting any of the other cars parked precariously close.

OBSTACLE

4 WAY STOP 50 POINTS

Navigate the four way stop between yourself, two people that don’t know rules of the road and one guy that just blows right through while the other two are thinking.

OBSTACLE

NARCOLEPTIC GUY MAKING A LEFT 50 POINTS

Make a left turn even though you’re stuck behind a guy that stopped for pedestrians, then forgot to get going again.

OBSTACLE

NO PARKING  100 POINTS

Find parking at your destination by aggressively following people with keys, making very fast, sharp turns, and learning how to find parking where no one else can.  Have you tried murder alley?  There are usually spots back there.

OBSTACLE

NO MONEY  100 POINTS

You finally make it to the store but you have no cash.  Find a way to get your munchies with debit/credit or five-finger discount.

OBSTACLE

YOUR OBNOXIOUS FRIEND IS IN THE BODEGA  150 POINTS

Find a way out of the bodega before your friend notices you and hits you up for a twenty because his mother is being a bitch.

OBSTACLE

GUY LEANING ON YOUR CAR   150 POINTS 

WITH A 40 OZ. IN A BAG  200 POINTS

Get across that you’re pulling out now without engaging miscreants.

OBSTACLE

BOYFRIEND/GIRLFRIEND IS A JERK      500 POINTS

Ditch the loser and keep your self respect.

Avoid a scene:  150 POINT BONUS

OBSTACLE

THAT TIME OF THE MONTH.  Lose 100 points.

Two Motrin:   25 POINT BONUS

 

OBSTACLE

YOUR MATERIAL SUCKS  1000 POINTS

Work that material.  Whip it into shape.  Get on it.  There’s something funny in there.  Get going.

OBSTACLE

YOU THINK YOU COULD BE PREGNANT.  LOSE 5 MILLION POINTS.

YOU’RE NOT PREGNANT AFTER ALL!  YOU WIN!