Updates

January.
as the Titty Bear

February. Palm Springs.

March. Fresno. Rogue Festival.
Starr, Scott and Ed.

Krista & Matt

Regina & Jay

April.
Zoo.

May. Mom's visit.

MTA rate hike protest

June.Shingles.

July. Moved out of my old apt.

Maria's Sikh wedding


Thisbe and Elizabeth in San Diego.

Iowa Fringe Fest
Awesome Amy in Des Moines.

Me in Kirk's house.

Road trip with Becca and Hazel.

Harry, prodigal son of the Loomer Youngs.

August. Minnesota Fringe Festival.

Fiona, MInnesota friend and guide.

Totally dad, totally rad.

Kicking it @ Ralph and Diane's.

October. Tim and Aaron visit.

November. To Alaska. Exercise with mom.

Dinner with Skye.

December. X-mas show w/ Gay Mafia

It's February and I'm finally getting out my new year goals page.

I don't typically advertise my physical ailments because I like people to have the impression I'm always in impecable health and never have any problems. I'm not sure why this is, I imagine it has something to do with trying to attract a mate.

As the title of my goals page implies, this year is called "neck feels great 2008".
I'll tell you why: I have been in constant neck pain since June of 2005 when I was the passenger in a major car accident. Every single day my neck is in constant pain.
Over the past 2 1/2 years, I've done physical therapy, massage, accupuncture and more physical therapy and different massage. Last year I started seeing a doctor of osteopathy and I've found hope, although I have not yet irradicated my pain.

People have told me all kinds of horror stories about having whiplash and never recovering. I want to be the exception. I want my neck to feel good, healthy, flexible and able to do anything within the laws of science concerning necks.

The year 2008 will be dedicated to the purpose of changing my current neck situation into one without pain. I intend on achieving this goal through a variety of means. Notably, I am currently continuing at my Osteopath's office where I am doing guided pilates 2x/week and weekly massage. I am doing home excercises in the form of stretching my neck. I do these primarily at work. Also at work, I have re-arranged my erganomic situation to make it less neck-strenuous and I get up more often so as not to pain the neck with computer-staring.

I have other ideas regarding what might be useful. The following is a list of things I'm sincerely ready to imploy as needed:
-Additional home exercises- specifically stretching open my chest/arms which I should be doing anyway
-Go to the YMCA- (where I have a yet unused membership) for additional pilates and/or any other exercise class/program, including swimming.
-Hang upside down on an upside-down machine- which I would have to buy, but it's supposed to be really good for posture. I've been on one before and it felt awesome. I think it would bring more blood to my neck, which would probably be helpful for healing and circulation.
-Visualizations- I've actually started doing this too, but should be more consistant about it.
-Hot Springs- when I've had body pain in the past that was ongoing I've gone in hotspirngs and it's cleared it right up. I have done one hotsprings session with the neck I have now, but it did not seem to make much of a difference. It could be because they ran the springs into individual bathtubs or something, I don't know.
-Rholfing-I've heard this can be an effective technique for unresolved issues both physical and emotional. It also is seriously expensive and you're supposed to do like 10 sessions in order for it to make a difference, so we'll see, but I'm open to it.
-Accupuncture-I've already tried this and it didn't have much effect, but apparently there's a difference between Chinese and Japanese styles. So I would try the Chinese style this time.

Airport.
We got to the airport after our flight left, which was not a surprise. We went up to the desk fully expecting to have to shell out hundreds of dollars. Then, the angel behind the counter said “we’ll put you on standby and there’s no additional charge.”
I was glad and mad at the same time. If that woman on the Southwest hotline would’ve simply told me that if we missed our flight we could fly standby for free, I never would’ve risked our lives. That, my friends, is a lesson to be learned: do not drive in dangerous conditions because you can fly standby for free. Obviously the only sad part about standby is that you have to be in the airport at 4am with 800,000 other people, and then wait there all day until 2 seats open up. At least that’s what we did after staying up all night.

Staying up all night
In a fit of collegiate nostalgia, Trevor and I made the choice to stay up all night w/ Harry, his girlfriend and a bottle of rum. We were stationed at Harry's aunt's house because she had two of my boxes - which is a long story, one which involves her moving, Harry picking up boxes of treasures I’d left in the yard and a case of "mistaken box identity." Because of my adrenaline drive through the pouring rain, I had absolutely no problem staying up all night. Even after boozing a bit, staying up was easier for me than sleeping on a throw rug. Everyone else got some shut eye, including Trevor, who snores like an amplified jackhammer. (His snoring is actually a major wrench in our relationship machine. We’re not even 60 and we sleep in separate rooms.) Harry’s aunt lives in a little studio-sized one bedroom apartment, with no door on the bedroom. Trevor was snoring so loudly I could hear it outside. So I came in to tell him to quiet down. I thought I’d snuggle with him a bit, but sleepy/bitchy Trevor wasn’t having it, he moved his arm up out of the way and knocked a precariously placed pile of iron bars which promptly fell and woke everyone up. Then, so everyone could hear, Trevor said to me “nice going.” I was livid. What a jerk. I picked up all my stuff and carried it to the car. I waited there until everyone joined me. I proceeded to not-talk to Trevor from 4am when we left for the airport until 4pm when we finally arrived at his parents’ house where my car was. At that point, I was so tired and cranky all I wanted to do was go to sleep. But I knew I could never go to sleep if I was mad at Trevor. I was pissed that Trevor wasn’t a bigger man to come and ask me to talk, but he felt really embarrassed, apparently too embarrassed to approach me for talking it through. So I approached him, and we talked it through and we were in love again. Then we went to separate bedrooms and slept for 17 hours.

THE END.

Boxes
I had planned to send via Amtrak (my first choice in shipping) a few boxes back to LA and a few boxes to PDX for my friends w/ babies to take a look at. I had planned to have the boxes ready to go and get down to Chicago’s Union Station before our 8pm flight. My problem was that my plan involved coercing my “other little brother”, Harry, into driving us down there, kicking it at Union Station, then dropping us off at the airport. The problem with my little plan was that Harry has a life and can’t just drop everything to take me to Chicago. I was feeling super bad about it because he’d asked me to hang out on at least 2 occasions and I can’t remember why but I wasn’t able to do it and I hated that because I really love that guy and feel so flattered that he wanted to hang out. But regardless, Trev and I had planes to catch and boxes to send via Amtrak. We’d planned to leave in the early afternoon, but Harry had stuff to do. Then Harry made an offer I couldn’t refuse: to drop us off for our flight and send the boxes for us the next day. Perfect, I thought. This would give me more time with my dad in beautiful Wisconsin. So we enjoyed ourselves until a little later than we should have. Harry rolled up to take us to Chicago. Hopefully we’d make it all the way down to Chicago’s South Side in time.

Rain
Trevor wanted to drive. No problem. Harry and his lady were in the backseat. We were making reasonable time. As we got into the northern suburbs of Chicago, it started to rain. Then it started to rain really hard. Trevor tried to turn the windshield wipers on. The windshield wipers did not work. Not even a little bit. I stuck my head out the window to help Trevor find an exit. It wasn't like the wipers were stuck or needed to be replaced. The motor was broken. The wipers would never function without professional electrical repair. I called Southwest to find out what we could do about getting on a later flight, since driving was obviously super dangerous. There were no more flights that night. The woman I spoke to said that if we missed our flight we’d have to pay $300 each to get on another flight so we “better get to the airport”. At this point the rain had for all practical purposes stopped. I told the troops what the woman said and we got our asses in gear. I was driving.

On a side note; I am something of a braggart when it comes to driving. I pride myself on my history of safe driving while behind the wheel of ridiculous vehicles in ridiculous circumstances. These primarily involve parts or whole sections of car falling off while en route and/or dangerous or unusual external forces. Most notably “the time I drove a 3 gear, ¾ ton flatbed with bald tires, no insulation and no heat in a blinding blizzard” or “the time I was driving a 1984 Chevy Chevette and the door fell off on the way home, after the muffler fell off in the parking lot of Cub Foods” or “The time I parallel parked a ¾ ton flatbed in the heart of Chicago.” Because of these ego-inflating tales of vehicular triumph/survival, I’m a little cocky when it comes to driving. And I figured if anyone could drive us to the airport it would be me.

I was, as you may have guessed, driving my dad’s boat-like SUV. SUVs are known for tipping over at the drop of a hat and lighting on fire, but that didn’t stop me from cruising at 75-90 mph in tornado warning-style winds, including fog and mist with no windshield wipers at night. The torrential rain started again and I was basically blinded. The rain was coming down hard and the fog was so thick the only guide I had on the road were the white lines. I could barely make them out. I could only see about 1 foot of pavement in front of the car, in the immediate beam of my headlight. Other cars were not helpful guides because their taillights were just smears in my puddle of a windshield. I even tried driving with my head out the window, to no avail. I would just end up drifting left. It was terrifying. My adrenaline was pumping so hard I could hear it. I was trying to drive fast, to get us there on time.

My passengers were all giving me words of encouragement “you’re doing great, Starr.” “You’re great, you’re doing amazing.” “Keep up the excellent work.” It was like I was giving birth - no one can do anything but cheer. Finally it became ridiculous. I might as well have been driving underwater. I realized it was not worth risking our lives to save a few hundred bucks. I had to get off the road, which was a challenge in itself. Fortunately Midwestern drivers are used to foul weather driving and emergency scenarios. I put my hazards on then my turning signal and the cars behind me gave me room to get over to the exit lane. I was just guessing at where the "lanes" might be because I could see even less when I was moving sideways. I still could only see about 1 foot of pavement ahead of the car. I couldn’t see any signs at all, let alone ones indicating the exit I was at, or if I was near an exit at all. I just decided I’d pull over if there was no exit, because I didn't want to die. I followed the shoulder to an exit. This went on WAY longer than I wanted it to, but eventually we made it to an oasis.

At the oasis, I parked on the flooded pavement. We quickly got out of the car and bounced to the building for cover, grateful to have our lives. My three passengers immediately lit up cigarettes. They divulged they were scared out of their minds and had given me encouragement in an effort to not die. We waited out the storm in the Hinsdale Oasis, which I discovered was like 5 miles away from Midway Airport, our destination. I couldn’t be sorry. I was happy. I was happy to not be driving anymore, I was happy to be safe and happy to be with people I love.

Mount Horeb
On the way back home, we stopped at the Mustard Museum in Mount Horeb, WI. I needed to pick up some exotic mustards and use the restroom. After dropping a duce, choosing my items to purchase and having the salesgirl ring them up, I realized I didn’t have my purse. I must have left it in the bathroom. “This is small town Wisconsin” I thought. “My purse will be right where I left it”. It wasn’t. “This is small town Wisconsin” someone must have turned it in. Nope, no one turned it in. I could feel my blood pumping as my adrenaline skyrocketed. I started getting freaked out because I never carry cash, and that day I had $300 in actual cash in my purse. I went outside, thinking I’d see someone with two purses, or someone fiddling with my wallet. I called my cell phone to see if I could hear it ringing. I was brainstorming what to do: call the police? Literally run through the town looking for suspects? How could anyone find my purse? I’ve lived in LA long enough to learn that if your car or purse get stolen that is the last you’ll ever see of their contents. I was about to start hollering to everyone in the store, to ask if they’d seen someone sneaking away with a purse of Guatemalan flair. Then Trevor handed me my purse. Nothing was missing. He found it in the trash in the bathroom. Some weirdo chose to put it in the bathroom trash rather than turn it into the store. Immediately my blood pressure dropped. I smiled like someone who has gotten their kidnapped child back. All of a sudden the day went from the shittiest of all time to a regular day with an even number of bad and good things in it. And my faith in small town Wisconsin was mostly renewed.
But I couldn’t get over the weirdness of someone putting my purse in the trash. My father said “that’s an inside job.” Implying someone from the store was going to go through my purse after closing. He later said “that’s the work of a professional”. Implying a professional thief was going to return to the Mt Horeb Mustard Museum later in the day to go through my purse. Personally, I think the customer who went to the bathroom after I did wanted to give me a scare and punish me for going to the bathroom for so long and so smelly. It was a really effective punishment.

Dad’s house 2.
This time around at my dad’s house, Trevor was going to help me. The project involved clearing out the majority of a room that was completely filled from floor to ceiling with boxes of every childhood garment my brother and I ever put on as well as most of our and my older half sisters’ toys. On top of this cornucopia of dust treasures was about 80 pounds of trash/stuff for good will. Bless Trevor’s heart, he really tried to help. But after a while he said “I can’t do this anymore, my skin is on fire” (from the mighty dust mites). I powered on and did a fair job of getting stuff out of that room. Trevor helped by doing laundry after he nursed his dust-caused skin lesions to a manageable state.

Dad’s house 1.
I originally planned on 4 days in between the festival weekends to do “Wisconsin stuff”. “Stuff” like go to all the thrift stores for clothes that fit (because in LA I am an obese Amazon giantess, but in Wisconsin I’m of average proportion), visit Ken and Joanne, buy sea salt and find a used Oster blender. Thanks to the Minneapolis impound, I had 1.5 days to do any Wisconsin activities. So, during that time I consolidated photos of my dad’s side of the family from approximately 1870 – 1970. Give or take 20 years. I also had terrible allergies because photos that are 100 years old and have been in an attic for 60 of those years collect shocking generations of dust. The dust collected on items in my father’s house is so advanced it has weeded out the generational weak links making it powerful enough to cause allergic reaction on contact - not just upon inhalation. It affects the epidermis. I was sneezing for hours out of my mouth and skin.

MINNEAPOLIS pt 2.
I still had a second weekend of shows to do at the Minnesota Festival, even though this time I REALLY did not want to go back there for fear of being arrested for not wearing reflective pedestrian clothing or some other extreme law I wasn’t aware of. But, I’d made a commitment, so I went back. This time, I was bringing my father, who although not yet 80, he is very much pushing it. So my boyfriend and I packed him in the boat-like SUV w/ no air-conditioning and headed back out for the 5 hour trip north.

First Impressions.
This time we were going to stay with my good friend Krista’s mom and stepfather, Dianne and Ralph. They live about 45 minutes outside St Paul. I made this choice because they live on a farm and I thought it would be a nice environment for my dad. Also, they said “yes” when asked.
Krista’s mother had a very flattering image of me, which I think I systematically dismantled during my visit. Her positive image arouse when my brother and half sister and I stayed at her house one night 10 years ago. She was impressed with how well we got along and how polite we were. My family is like a closet smoker except our cigarettes are dysfunctional relationships. You can imagine Dianne’s surprise when she found out that the last time my brother and half sister and I were in the same room together was at her house, 10 years ago.

Houseguests.
I try to be a good guest wherever I go. I really want to be good and I don’t want to be a bother. But wow did I miss the mark on this occasion.
First of all, we showed up at about 11pm. Krista’s mom was in her nightwear, Ralph was already in bed. She greeted us at the door and said “oh, there are three of you? I thought it was just going to be you and your dad.” She of course rolled with the punches, but I wanted to punch myself in the face for not being clear that my boyfriend, Trevor, would be with us. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I felt like a jerk.
That night there was a really big storm. I woke up from the torrential rain and started closing all the windows and sliding doors, the rest of the house got up when the WW2 style sirens, intended apparently to warn the entire county of a tornado, started going off 50 feet from the house. We were safe from the tornado, but thank goodness an air-raid siren went off for 30 minutes to let us know some county residents might not be.
The next day Krista’s mom got up really early to go shopping for breakfast after asking us what we liked to eat in the morning. My dad: coffee and oatmeal, me: fruit, Trevor: eggs, bacon and toast. So of course, she got all of it and prepared it while I slept-in like a hobo on soft hay. We ate (like hungry hobos after a night of sleeping on soft hay) and headed off to Minneapolis.

Gas.
This next part makes me want to hide my head because it’s so embarrassing; WE RAN OUT OF GAS.
Yes, if you can believe it, 3 adults in a car, 2 who drive every single day in Los Angeles and we ran out of gas. I apparently left my brain in LA for this trip. So, since we’re on Minnesota country roads, and I’m not exactly sure where, nor how long it would take AAA to get there and I have a show to do, I decide to call Krista’s mom. She sends Ralph with a jug of gas and he follows us to the nearest gas station to make sure we get there. We start to fill up and he leaves. What do you do? How do you thank people for putting up with your dumbness? (Don’t worry the dumbness doesn’t end there for this trip).

Late.
We go on our way, and are really close to the twin cities, when of course I get lost. I get lost after we ran out of gas and Trevor can’t figure out where we are on the map and my dad is just kicking it in his green shades in the passenger seat. At this point I start to panic because I don’t know if I’m going to make it to my show on time and the MN fringe festival is really strict about starting on time, and then I remembered that I needed more programs which are a vital part of my show, and we didn’t know where there’s a place to photocopy them, and the time was closing in. Besides that, our maps were now possibly obsolete because of the bridge collapse.
Trevor called 411 for Kinko’s, I called Fiona who got me back on the right highway, and my dad kicked it in the passenger seat in his green shades. Amazingly we made it to the show on time, Trevor got photocopies there within 5 minutes of the show starting. But what was especially amazing was that the door staff HAD programs because they’d apparently kept a stack from the previous shows.
It was intense. I wanted to go home.
We went back to the awesome farm house with our awesome hosts, where we had to ask to stay another night. That’s right, after arriving in the dead of night with an extra person and then having them bring us gas, we wanted to stay an extra night.
So embarrassing. Not as embarrassing as not leaving the next morning though.

Leaving
It’s true, we stayed hours past when we were scheduled to leave. For that, I feel embarrassed, but not guilty and I’ll tell you why – my dad was having a great time. My dad is at an age now where he has good days and bad days. Perhaps it was a passive-aggressive tactic on his part to have some control over the trip since I was dragging him all over Minnesota. Maybe it was because the weather had come cooler, or maybe it was because he’d been eating a dozen ears of homegrown corn every day. Whatever it was, he was totally “on” that morning. He was telling stories, he had no problem hearing what people were saying. He’d told me the day before that he “really liked that woman we’re staying with, Dianne” and he remembered her name, which is amazing since dad barely remembers the names of his children. Eventually, I had to rip my dad away from his new friends, and get on the road.
Then it was over. The festivals were finally over. I had my dad’s car, I was in the beautiful Midwest and I never have to do either of those shows again.

MINNEAPOLIS
I did not want to go to Minneapolis. I was having fun in Wisconsin, I was feeling relaxed, the baby was starting to warm up to me and I was no longer in Des Moines. But as it happens, one must follow through on commitments, so that is what I did. I drove for 16 hours, first to pick up my boyfriend in Chicago’s south side where we got taken hostage by mid-day Chicago traffic for the better part of 4 hours in my dad’s boat-like SUV with no air-conditioning. By the time we rolled into Minneapolis it was 2am and I thought the long drive would be the worst of it. Oh how Wrongy McWrongdog I was.

Internet.
My first clue that things could get less peachy was when I set my boyfriend up to do a bunch of myspace postings about my Minneapolis performances. I taught him how to deal with HTML codes, and he was really rearing to go. Just as he was starting this project the damn internet went out, it was out until the job was no longer reasonable. It seemed that god didn’t want me using myspace to promote my show (which could be a comment on Rupert Murdock and Satan, but that’s totally speculation).

Impound.
By the second night in Minneapolis the geniuses running the city towed my dad’s car because the stickers had been stolen. THE CAR WAS REGISTERED. Everything was up to date, and yet the city of Minneapolis, apparently in an effort to stand-out from every other municipality in the nation couldn’t just issue a ticket and call it a day. The bastards towed the car and would not release it until I presented them with updated stickers. I repeat – they knew the car’s registration was up to date.
Presenting the Impound with 2007 stickers became a week long process. According to the WI DMV website, you can simply email them and they will send you replacement stickers. That is apparently a lie. So I called and was told “the stickers will be sent out right away”. Like a dense rock I believed that the DMV would follow through on this.

Bridge.
The next day I had TWO 3-hour tech-rehearsals for the shows I was in, a rehearsal with the boys for the sketch show and two showcase performances. This was obviously a nightmare since I no longer had a car. Taking the bus and/or walking everywhere made it impossible to do anything but the scheduled tasks at hand. Luckily, Bill, of Starr, Scott and Bill, had a car and gave me a ride to our group tech rehearsal.
THEN THE BRIDGE COLLAPSED.
When the stage technicians at our tech rehearsal told us “the bridge collapsed” I assumed they meant the oldest bridge in town which probably had major construction going on, right? Nope. IT WAS AN INTERSTATE HIGHWAY GOING OVER THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. An interstate hwy going over the Mississippi River that WE HAD BEEN ON 15 MINUTES BEFORE IT COLLAPSED. And which we were scheduled to be on again, to get to our showcase performances. As we exited the theatre headed to said showcase, the streets were teaming with people and cars. It was hushed chaos. People were respectful of the tragedy but had places to go and collapsed bridges to see. Traffic was an insane nightmare. We missed the showcase and barely made it home. Fiona, my friend we were staying with, is in her residency so she was called in for something ridiculous like a 16 hour shift at Hennepin Co. Hospital that night.

Bill.
The following day was the opening performance of my solo show. Still no stickers, still no car. What could I do, I had a show to put on. I asked Bill, who had nothing scheduled and no plans, if he would give me a ride to my opening night. “No. Sorry, you’ll have to find another ride” to my opening night, thank you asshole.

At this point, Bill was REALLY pissing me off. He had a solo show in the festival as well as our sketch comedy show. He used his solo show as an excuse to 1. Not have his lines memorized (which is amazing considering A.) we’d done this show in Portland and B.) he didn’t have lines memorized for sketches that HE HAD WRITTEN HIMSELF) 2. Be completely spaced out on stage 3. Miss all or most of his cues 4. Be a total dick when I asked for a ride somewhere. As you may recall I HAD A SOLO SHOW IN THE FESTIVAL ALSO. So I felt well within my rights confronting him about his complete lack of focus, presence and line memorization. He told me “It’ll be ok when I’m on stage for our opening night. My life is spinning out of control.” The phrase “my life is spinning out of control” seems to be code for “I am in no way willing to prioritize anyone other than myself.”

Starr, Scott and Bill.
My solo show went fine. The DMV stickers didn’t arrive and I ended up taking the bus or getting rides from Fiona all weekend. Our sketch show, on the other hand was being lambasted in the online audience reviews. If you want to see some of the reviews, just go to fringefestival.org. We were the second lowest rated show in the entire festival. It seemed to anger some people. This was puzzling because we did the show in Portland and were really well received, and we did Starr, Scott and Ed (mostly the same show) and it was well received in Fresno. So having these deeply harsh reviews was disheartening.

Eau Claire, WI.
Finally a week had passed and no stickers, I was 2 days off schedule and I somehow had to make my way to Eau Claire Wisconsin to the DMV to pick up the stickers myself. I was SO livid at the lumberjack woman at the Minneapolis Impound at this point I could taste blood. Bill was of course said no when I asked about a ride to Eau Claire. He had no shows, nowhere to be. He simply said “I only have four more days of vacation, so no, I’m not going to help you get to Eau Claire”. (It is notable that I drove this guy all over Des Moines when we were doing our shows there AND let him stay with me when otherwise he would’ve had to get a hotel room.) Luckily I have an amazing friend in Fiona and that special gal let me use her car to get to WI, which of course took multiple hours because I had to wait in line at the DMV. Then I got lost on the way back to Minnesota, making it even nightmarishly longer. That also forced me to call my friend Scott (who, although totally chummy with Bill-the-jerk the whole time, DID offer to help me rent a car if I needed to) and ask him to help me get the car out of Impound. During the call I started uncontrollably sobbing to the point where I had to hang up because I couldn’t control my words/anger and needed to get it together for driving.

At the impound the woman at the window said “you only have 1 sticker?” to which I shouted “THAT’S WHAT THEY GAVE ME AT THE WISCONSIN DMV WHEN I HAD TO DRIVE TO EAU CLAIRE TO PICK THEM UP. THE CAR IS REGISTERED!”

Finally, FINALLY I could drive my own dad’s car back to Madison. So at 10pm I started my 5 hour sojourn back to my dad’s.

The Iowa Fringe Festival
My trip started out on a bad note with the Iowa Fringe Festival. Sadly this bad note set the tone for a large portion of my trip. The Iowa Fringe couldn’t manage to do even very basic organizational things like put signs up or have a legible schedule. Out of town solo performers were apparently the most hated at the festival because they put four of us in a “venue” with a fake name, at the end of an alleyway, on the edge of town, totally hidden from the street with no signage. The “address” they provided for the fake named venue was odd numbered on the even side of the street. The venue itself was actually a storage garage which housed about 5,000 milk crates and office chairs all covered in dust and dirt. The door to the “venue” was locked until about 5 minutes before my second show, which only had 2 septuagenarians show up. I ended up canceling 2 of my 4 shows because only 2 people showed up. If you’ve ever seen my show, you know that the whole shtick of it is that the audience sings along. I just didn’t have the heart to put the Veteran of Foreign Wars through carrying the show alone.
At the time I thought that everyone in Des Moines hated me and my show. Later I discovered all the out of town performers had 2 people come to their shows. My experience was really depressing and awful, only made worse by the asshole “running” the festival this year. He showed up AFTER my show to put up a more visible sign for our "venue" and provide free water to the following show’s audience. This same man said that out of town performers were only there to “practice for the Minnesota Festival.” This was extremely offensive because I have a very tight show, as do most other traveling performers. After that, he charged me a hotel tax when I did not stay in the hotel. Regardless of the Iowa Fringe’s vast over-booking (50 acts for a market that can maybe support 15) I couldn’t help beating myself up over not being more aggressive in the promotion department. I tend to depend on word of mouth so when the one guy I knew in Des Moines got a job in China I was somewhat at a loss. Also I thought a smaller market would be excited about out of town acts (which had been my experience in Fresno). That was totally not the case in Des Moines. The local shows had 80 people at them. It was insane and extremely poorly produced. I am caught between never going back to the Iowa Fringe Festival because I hated it so much and purposely going back just so I can “do it right this time” since I know now what to expect. After my last show of the Iowa Festival which I had to cancel due to my audience consisting of 1 person, I had a long hard cry. At first it was just a whimper, but then it went into a hurricane of tears because it occurred to me that none of the other artists supported my show. I went to as many shows as I could while I was there, trying to see people who I knew had small turn-outs. When I realized that sentiment was in no way reciprocated by the other performers was a difficult pill to swallow. I guess sometimes when you’re dealing with actors, you’re in for, a lot of ‘stars’.

Road trip
After Iowa, I was totally depressed. The depression hung around like a cloud – a dark, foreboding cloud that kept saying “you suck and you’re going to suck in Minnesota too. Good luck having fun, because you suck.”
Needless to say, these feelings colored many of my activities. Like for instance when I went on a road trip with a baby for a week. That’s not entirely accurate; I went on a road trip with my friend and her baby. I was excited to have some great one on one time with my friend, but really, it was ‘the baby show’. I know you’re probably thinking “of course it was, babies are cute and require attention and care”. That may be true, but I don’t have a baby. I don’t have a baby and I don’t think I’m ever going to have one now, because talk about high maintenance! It doesn’t get much more high maintenance than a baby. And the part that was so frustrating was that the demands seemed so arbitrary. It wasn’t like the baby was crying because she needed milk or a diaper change. She was crying because she was not being held 100% of the time by her mother only. Every time I tried to pick her up she turned into Wailing Jennings. Wouldn’t you know it, just when I’m feeling blue and could use a hug from a baby, she turns against me.
When this baby was an infant, she and I got along fine. I would pick her up, she’d grab my thumbs, it was fun. All of a sudden it’s a year later and I’m the anti-Christ to this kid. Nope, babies are not for me. Maybe in another year the child will like me more. At that point, she’ll be able to talk. She’ll communicate her needs and be able to say things like “I hate you, Starr.” We’ll see how it goes.

THE WAYS MY TRIP SUCKED.
By Starr Ahrens

Next time we meet you might be tempted to ask “How was your trip, Starr?” In reference to the month long Midwestern sojourn I was on this summer. “Not the best.” I would reply. I am searching for what the Universe was trying to tell me through various signs including the I35W collapsing into the Mississippi shortly after we drove across it.

The other day I was watching the director’s commentary on Werner Herzog’s film, “Even Dwarves Started Small”. Werner went on a little diatribe saying chickens are unbelievably stupid. You look into their eyes and “see no intelligence there”. You can hypnotize them with a line of chalk on the ground. I kind of felt like a hypnotized chicken for this trip; mentally overwhelmed, wandering around not sure what to do, waiting to be slaughtered.

Moving
I know my hypnotized chicken feeling was partly because I decided to move to a new apartment a week before leaving LA for a month. It was wise from a financial standpoint, but from a “where’s my stuff” standpoint it was incredibly stupid. I moved because I had shingles for Memorial Day, which is something people my age don’t usually get unless they’re immune compromised. After soul-searching and double checking my AIDS status (which is “does not have it”) I determined that my immune system had been compromised because of lack of and/or poor sleep for the last 3 years.
This poor sleep was due to both my frequent night terrors and my 50 yr old meth-head neighbor who would at 2am break out into unintelligible death metal “songs” and super creepy gutteral bellowing, which sometimes involved extreme cursing. He also smoked so much marijuana that my towels were stinking of nasty, burned out old man pot. His crazy-town antics included 3 separate 4am episodes of banging on all of his walls and ceiling while shouting obscenities and then going outside to shriek at his upstairs neighbor about walking too loudly (he even called the police about her 'loud walking'. The upstairs neighbor weighs about 99lbs. The police gave him a warning about false cop calls). His rants were followed up by top-volume telephone shouting matches with the building manager. I must admit I was a little freaked out by this guy. I did not live in a secure building; my front door and window opened onto the sidewalk. It was a studio apartment, so my bed was next to the front door, the perfect location for intruders looking to commit bodily harm.
When my friend Scott’s roommate moved out, I decided to move in. I’m now in a secure building on the second floor, which is pretty much a gift from God, as far as I’m concerned. I have about 3 times the space and my plants are finally growing. So if you’re interested in taking a trip to LA I have a GREAT living room for you to sleep in. Unfortunately I no longer have assigned parking nor a pool, but I have piece of mind, and that’s arguably worth an occasional $50 parking ticket.

So this is pretty much what happened: I had a vastly more terrible time in the midwest doing fringe festivals etc than I thought I would. I started to write about it and all of a sudden I had a seven page singe spaced novella on only the bad parts of my trip. Seven pages and I wasn't even finished. I didn't even get through one of the worst parts.

I felt like I couldn't blog about anything until I put up a blog about my trip. So what I've decided to do is just post what I have. Maybe I'll do several short posts and that way no one is bogged down w/ seven pages, but each blog can be a fresh new look at a sucky trip.

The other part I feel bad about is that there were good parts of my trip, but for some reason I don't think good parts of trips are especially entertaining. Whereas people can be amused by self deprecating suffrage.

So, fuck it. I'm just going to start posting them. Maybe I'll get them all done today and then I'll be the only author in the "today" thing where new blogs are posted as they are posted. I don't know, just forget it.