adverse event

I work in the drug research industry. You know all those commercials for drugs you see on tv with their list of nine million side effects? Those are what they call in the industry 'adverse events'. If anyone person in a drug study experiences one of these 'events' and the doctor conducting the study concludes that the event was caused by the interaction of the drug -- it has to be disclosed to the public once the drug is marketed.

Crazy huh?

This morning I had my own adverse event, caused by a dream. I was shopping at Urban Outfitters (I could tell b/c of the cracked glass), and I hear this "Hello". A familiar Hello that causes my stomach to turn and my face to get hot. I look toward the voice and it is in fact my ex-boyfriend. In my dream he starts making small talk and then asks for a hug, I freeze and then start crying. I tell him I have to go and turn away toward the exit. He grabs my arm as I turn around and asks me what's wrong. I shake my head and plead with him to let go of me and I run out into the street, bawling.

I woke up crying. I woke up with the same emptiness I felt when we broke up. Two seconds later I realized the space that I was in -- the fact that it was only a dream, and I made myself stop crying.

I've come to the conclusion that everyone should have their side effects on other people disclosed prior to beginning a relationship. Honestly, you would think twice about taking a drug that causes 'anal leakage', why not think twice about the guy that 'causes remarkable stress due to insufficient attention span'.

I would.

baseball and the rents

So I'm gonna try and make this a Doogie Howser style journal -- but without the cute puns/moralistic endings.

So, my boyfriend Aaron's dad had a birthday on Thursday. Aaron decided he would buy tickets to the round rock express for his parents, us, our friends and my mom. The game was on Saturday night. We all met up at Joey and LD's and went to a hole in the wall Mexican restaurant. This would also be the first time Aaron's parents and my mom would meet.

It turned out to be a blast.

it was so much fun -- the ride there and back we sang Van Morrison and Beatles songs off Aaron's I-pod (it was 9 of us inone large Ford expedition) -- my mom had a great time at the game.. we ate probably every form of sugar they had to offer.(funnel cakes are the bomb).. Aaron got his dad's name up on the big screen for his birthday, and his dad was just blownaway..

I had jammed my toe really badly about 2 hours prior and it was swollen and pinky/purple.. so on the walk back to the carAaron noticed I was stepping carefully to not injure myself permanently.. he asked me if my foot hurt, and I nodded and he charged at me, picked me up like a wounded soldier and carried me to the van... my mom was laughing and also freaked out a bit cuz he was bouncing me around a lot. But it was fun -- I haven't been picked up like that -- well, ever.

I always tend to forget how much I really love baseball until I'm actually at a live game. When Golly and I go see the Mets every September I try and tell myself to remember how much I love the sport, but I guess it's kind of hard when the only team in driving distance to watch is the fucking rival Houston Astros. Please, people.

What freaks me out about baseball stadiums is the fact that they have all the "activities" for children to do when they're there. They have a pool, sand volleyball, batting cages, and a whole bunch more to keep the kids entertained-- here's an idea assholes... Howabout they watch the fucking game?? When I was a kid, I was thrilled to go to the ballpark -- even little league.. and when we went, we sat and watched the friggin' game, we didn't go running around in our bathing suits screaming and gallavanting around, or wait in line to hit at a batting cage.. you did those things when you weren't at the ballpark.. I'm so disallusioned with kids and parenting these days. I would think that the ballpark would be the perfect place to spend time with the kiddos..

What I saw more of were half-baked teens on "dates." These kids had eyeballs that looked like they were dipped in cherry juice. All were gathered around laughing and talking on their cell phones, annoyed at the fact that the announcer kept "announcing."

I think that if you get to go to a ballpark that it should be mandatory that everyone has to watch at least 40% of the game.. it shouldn't be an event where parents can be alone while your kids are taking whacks at a 35 mph fastball, and cracking their heads open on the bottom of the 4 foot deep pool. It shouldn't be where teenagers go to hang out, that's what the mall is for, or the streets...

But, you know, maybe I'm making too much out of this..
Minor league ball does suck.

Sandy ego

I spent this last week in San Diego with my friend Tommy. I had been promising for the past 7 years that I would visit him...and finally, it happened.

Little background on Tommy..

We were really good friends around the 98-99 session. When we first met, we were drinking buddies. If I remember correctly, the majority of the time was spent trying to get alcohol, drinking alcohol, and getting as trashed as possible. This was the year of the house party, partly because half of us were underage, and partially because none of us had the cash flow to hand over as cover charge.

One of my first memories of Tommy, we were sitting on Erica's (the resident hoe) couch, wasted as can be. Someone was in the middle of telling a buzz-kill story about some parapalegic, when Tommy, who was quietly sitting next to me, turned his head and licked my arm. Not a porno lick, more like an ice cream cone lick. This sent me into hysterics of laughing and crying from laughing. After that, we were inextricably licked..
er.. I mean 'linked.'

Our friendship was somewhat curbed by a blonde harlot backstabby trashy fake tanned chubby upstate NewYorker who had a knack of scrwing up other people's lives. A little update on her.. she got knocked up at 20 and got married to some guy with the last name SIMONETTI.

I'm sure she and her husband are very happy owning their very own meatball sandwich stand on Jersey shore.

Back to Tommy.. he moved out to San Diego 7 years ago or so, went through a whole bunch of crazy, inclusive of the scary hot crazy bitch girlfriend who, of course, fucked him over. And smoked, snorted and ate as many drugs as possible.

Ahh, to be 20-something and reckless.. especially with a nice tan.

Tommy's great. He's one of the most pragmatic people I've ever met. He never makes a decision without turning over every possiblity in his head first. He figures things out. And unlike most people, he actually follows through.

I've been telling him for years that I'm unhappy in my station, and he's pretty much been waiting for me to get up and turn the dial. But he'll never tell me that. And I guess that's why I respect him so much.

Maybe

Is it always the breaking up part that hurts the most? I'm gonna venture a Carrie Bradshaw and say that when a relationship ends, the first thing that happens is a realization of potential lost.

Go through the reasons for why I stayed around...

- The best date of my life happened with him. We ate sushi, had drinks and saw the Hepburn version of Sabrina at an old theatre. There aren't many people that can stand seeing love on the screen in black and white. He was one that would have been up for a double feature.
-For the first time in my life I heard a man say to me, "Small steps." Which translated to me as "Let's take this slow. I know this is amazing and I don't want to fuck it up."
-There is always the one person in your life (I've heard) that is supposed to make you laugh and cry the hardest. He has had me in both kind of tears.
-He was the first guy I had dated that didn't think the AFL-CIO was an expansion league for football.
-He loves my cat, a little less than he loves his own

All of these potentials, wrapped up nicely with a big fat bow sat before me, as I nodded away the disallusionments..

but I won't trouble you with those...
maybe later.

It all comes down to one simple truth that has nothing to do with the lack of availability, communication or even foresight.
You can plan and plan, and have state of the union conversations on how to improve your relationship.
You can fight the inertia.

But you can't make someone love you.

He didn't love me.
Yes, maybe it wasn't the right time.
Maybe he is going through too much to deal with it.
But it's still there, dead as silence..
He didn't love me.

And what is the point in fighting for someone that is inevitably going to break your heart?
To make sure, I guess. To feel alive.
There is a moment at the beginning of a relationship where it is mad, passionate and extraordinary... and people have told me that relationships are meant to settle down.. the drive goes away, that the excitement is in the chase and once you've arrived at couple nation, you take the solemn oathe to settle.

One thing that I realize about myself? It's never me who suggests the slowing down. It's never me who gives into inertia. The only thing I have ever done whole heartedly in my life is love someone. I'm good at it.
It might be the only thing I acknowledge that I am good at.
And at some point maybe I'll start to figure out why this scares them. At some point I'll figure out why it's easier for them to fuck up than to fix things. And finally, at some point I'd like to know why it takes me six months to figure out that this is what makes me better than them.

At some point, maybe mad, passionate and extraordinary will become more than a distant memory.

maybe.

I have a confession...

I'm about to say something that will forever mame me in uppity film circles around the world.

I HATED 'BEING JOHN MALKOVICH.'

Man, for me that was equivalent to being a first timer at an AA meeting.

"My name is Sujata, and I can't stand Charlie Kaufman movies."

Don't get me wrong... great premise. Great, great cast.
As the Youth from Auschwitz said "Quite a movie. Weird and idiotic sense of humour! But does make one think."

Yes, yes, young Petr, it does make one think. It makes one think about the time when weirdness was not a theme in mainstream movies. I remember back in the day when movie critics would stick to their trade..
Forrest Gump, two enthusiastic thumbs up!!
Terminator 2, double the energy! double the fun!

What killed it for me? People. More importantly, psuedo-intellectual privileged asshole college students who decided it was their mission to usher in the 'new' direction of filmmaking..

Where weird became interesting, unmotivated characters became a commentary on the mediocrity of today's American youth, and ugly became misunderstood or sometimes, genius.

I liked being weird, unmotivated and ugly... now I'm classified as an interesting, misunderstood genius who has issues with defining herself within the confines of her own generation.

Kaufman.. you told on us.. we used to be able to be geeky and tragic in the privacy of our own homes.. now it's..

Mainstream.

Ugh.

it's not limited to Kaufman though..

without this constituent, Owen Wilson would have never been 'good-looking.' He would have remained the ugly brother of Luke Wilson with the shmank shnoz.

And it's not like Luke Wilson is friggin' Adonis.
Okay, I admit it. I liked the Tenenbaums. I liked Rushmore.
Wes Anderson movies will make me laugh... but it's not the writing, it's the absurdity of the language.. it's not the acting, it's the lack of consistent timing/beats, it's not the outfits..well, no..it is the outfits..kudos kids.

But I stand by my initial assessment.

I won't even start on Paul Thomas Anderson.. did anyone like Punchdrunk Love? oooh, Adam Sandler!! He's sooo dreamy!

Please.

For those filmmakers of future generations who have posters of the original release of Bottlerocket and have sad dogeared copies of the Magnolia script, I beg of you to stop your worship of these so-called "pinnacle" films of your generation.. don't warp your ideas of great filmmaking on a trend of the strange.. remember.. there will always be cool kids, and there will always be the pee-ons.. Stories are always better when the pee-ons get back at the cool kids..
When the pee-ons become the cool kids.. you kill the us and them construct..you kill the underdog component... you kill all the geeky kids in the world that were fine with being the geeky kids in the world.

For my sake and for the sake of future pee-ons, geeks and losers.. stop making us mainstream.. and Kaufman..stop being such a goddamn genius, and go back to being ugly... we'll still love you.

My hero

It was 17 years ago today that my life changed. Seventeen years. The amount of time allotted in one's life for a majority of the non-threatening fuck-ups. Once the big 1-8 comes along, people say, that's when it counts.. that's when every mistake you make will follow you around like a cat in heat, clawing and howling at you relentlessly. I don't think that's true, I think we systematically fuck up. And then as we grow older, find ways of rationalizing the past fuck-ups in a way that makes our current fuck-ups that much easier with which to deal.

But more on that later.

Seventeen years... I can't imagine what I was like at 8 years old. My friend Priti used to tell me if she, as an adult, met herself as a young child, she was pretty sure that the little hot-head that was her pre-adolescent 'her,' would kick her adult self in the shin and run away..

Me? As a child? I remember whining. I recall my love for Chicken McNuggets. I could watch The Goonies everyday 4 times a day if need be. I loved tearing open milkweeds and watching the fuzzy seeds escape. Jumping in leaves. Sledding. Snow men, forts, chairs, balls and anything else I could fashion out of the 'packy' kind of snow.
But actually remembering how I used to think?
No.
Remembering what it was like to be confused as a child?
Unh-unh.

I remember Superman was definitely my hero, and I remember thinking that all 'heroes' were supposed to be built like him.
This line of thinking would, of course, end Tobey McGuire's career.
My dad had the Superman build. At least I thought so. In actuality, he was about 6'1," maybe about 190, had a 38-40 inch waist, and a comb-over.

He also smoked.
A lot.

But despite all of this, he was my own superhero. Sitting in the living room on his velour recliner, placing dishtowels on the armrests 'for protection' against wear, and there at any time to rescue me if the need presented itself.

He was the popular one in our family. The one everyone wanted to sit next to, the one we all took our cues from, the one we looked up to, literally.

The one we loved. In Dad we trusted.

My dad had a massive heart attack and died in the very early morning of Halloween '87. I had plans to spend the night at my friend Chrissy Novak's house. I had stuck a large ball of cotton to the butt of my pink footed pjs and had taped paper bunny ears to my pink stocking cap. Poor Chrissy Novak got a call from me, desperately apologizing for the fact that I was unable to attend her party due to 'my dad dying and all.'

I won't tell the story of how I found out.
I've told it so many times and each time I get further and further away from that little girl.
I can't channel the 8 year old in me to tell you how unfair it is to lose your 44 year old father. How she woke up morning after morning the days after unable to realize that her nightmares were much more vivid with eyes open.

Every year that passed, my dad became more and more of a legend in my head. He surpassed the achievements of Beowulf, all the labors of Hercules and could kick Reagan's ass if necessary. He was all powerful, and according to my grandmother, he was living with Hindu Gods.

I go through my head to rationalize the what ifs..

Maybe he would have become the conservative Indian father that I would have constantly bumped heads with.
Maybe he would have lost all his hair and grown obese.
Maybe he would have disappointed me a few times.
Maybe he wouldn't have understood me.

Would my dad have received Superhero status if he had lived?

I would give anything to find out.