Girl With a Tail

Monthly Horoscope

Aries The coming month shows great promise for independent Aries! It’s a good thing you like your alone time because you’ll be spending most of your days in solitude. It really won’t matter if you surround yourself with others, because inside your heart will feel cold and abandoned. You’ll feel the way I did at the 7th grade dance when my mom told me to blow dry my hair upside down for body and it looked like I got electrocuted and I wore a fuchsia dress made out of sweatshirt material and stood against the wall crying because I thought that would lure a sensitive guy from the swaying crowd of slow dancers over to me and we’d dance to Live and Let Die by Guns n Roses and his hands would slowly travel from my waist to my hips and THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN AND THAT’S HOW YOU’LL FEEL.

Taurus Sensitive Taurus is not a fan of change and that is evident this month. The things you have been unsatisfied with continue to weigh you down because you refuse to better your situation. You know those days, dear Taurus, when you lie in bed until 2 PM because try as you might you honestly can’t think of a reason to get up and as you lie there, staring at shapes in the popcorn ceiling (a depressed person’s cloud watching), you think, there are a million things I could do to better my situation and then you roll over and get a head ache from the sunlight penetrating your eye lids and finally end up having your first cup of coffee at cocktail hour? That’s what this month will be like.

Gemini Ah, the twins, the double sided sign that creates both harmony and conflict in clever Gemini. This month, though, like Sophie before you, you will be forced to choose. You’ve spent your life breezing from one self to the other but now you will have to kill one. This reminds me, sweet Gemini, of the time in 9th grade when, on a long and quiet ride home in his silver jeep, I told Simon I loved him and he tossed his blonde pony tail and said, “I think I need to get my alignment checked. Also, Kat and I are getting back together.” A part of me died that day, much like Buttercup in the Princess Bride, only I looked more like a cross between Blossom and Atreyu the warrior boy from The Neverending Story so I didn’t get a prince or a horse or perfect breasts. So read up on Sweet Valley Twins, pick a sister: Jessica or Elizabeth, then stab, stab away.

Cancer Moody Cancer will face some challenges this month. So will everyone else but you’ll feel like your problems are bigger and more important. They are. Like your sign suggests you should wary of giant crabs attacking. Scratch that, the all-seeing eye was blurry. You should be wary of getting crabs. I used to be called the Crab Queen when I was younger because I caught a lot of crabs in the sand dunes. Unfortunately, just the aquatic kind.

Leo An exciting month for loyal Leo! Melodramatic Leo always finds herself the cause of trouble and this month is no different. Someone close to you has been getting on your nerves for some time now and finally you can hold your tongue no longer. Like when I was eight and my sister had been driving me NUTSO and just as we walked into my grandparents’ house I said, “Meg, you’re such a fucking whore.” (She was 5) And then I looked up to see my Nana who said, “What did you just say?” and I did not realize this was rhetorical and so REPEATED MYSELF TO MY NANA. Yeah, have fun this month.

Virgo Skeptical and analytical, level-headed Virgo will have some surprises in the coming months. That’s right, as Jupiter’s moons pass through something cosmic, the Universe will bestow some serious emotion in Virgo’s life that won’t be helped by analysis! Speaking of moons, moons reminds me of periods which reminds me of the 6th grade slumber party where I learned what red wings were. Honestly I was more shocked by the fact that people PUT THEIR MOUTHS ON OTHER PEOPLE’S PRIVATES than by the whole period thing.

Libra You’re so vain you probably think this horoscope is about you. Well, it is. Vanity can get you in trouble, though, like the time I was walking by a store and I saw this woman and I thought, “Thank fucking God I’m not her!” and then I realized it was my reflection. I couldn’t take advantage of myself for a week.

Scorpio The sign that is supposed to be my love match. Riddle me this, Scorpio, why are there so few of you? Furthermore, why, when there is one of you do you a)smell like milk, b)call it finger blasting, c)manage to be moodier than me which, let me tell you, is a serious feat, and d)have weird mom issues? How do I know what this month will be like for you, why don’t you ask your mom?

Sagittarius As the philosophical explorer, you’re used to figuring things out on your own. That’s awesome. If you love yourself so much, why don’t you marry yourself? I like cheese but 2 KINDS ARE BETTER THAN ONE, HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO SOMEONE’S HOUSE WHO ONLY OFFERED ONE KIND OF CHEESE?…… WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT CHEESE?

Capricorn This is the month to let those inhibitions go! If you don’t, you could end up like those guys who, when making out, go, “Do you like that?” If you were actually paying attention and not worrying about how you look, you could tell very easily by the BREATHING, SOUNDS, and MOVEMENTS whether or not she has entered the pleasure zone. Same with, “Can I kiss you?” If you have to ask, don’t. Lucky Love Days: May 32, 33, 34.

Aquarius Get over it, it is not the age of Aquarius anymore, just like I am not in my twenties anymore and some guy compared my relationship with a younger guy to HAROLD AND MAUDE, and a 60 year old ex-trapeze artist told me I looked old, and I make out with the 7/11 guys who still card me.

Pisces It’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be grey, and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life. Don’t get excited, that’s a Bill Murray quote. Remember Groundhog Day? The rest of your life will be like that except rather than each day repeating it will only FEEL like it is. You will keep getting older, you will not learn to sculpt ice, and if you start balding it will not be charming.

Official Music Fanatic’s Must-Have List

1. “Torn” single.  A man showed Natalie what it was to cry then left her cold and shamed lying naked on the floor.  I think it might be figurative, though if not, abusive and disturbing.  Either way, I want to be her.

2.  The Cruel Intentions soundtrack — this eclectic mix includes the Counting Crows.  Adam Duritz sings about the color grey even though it plays during a scene in the movie where the color scheme is blue.  I met Adam backstage at an REM concert in ‘95.  I told him his music made me cry and he said, “It makes me cry, too.”

3.  The Buffy soundtrack — Pay special attention to track 14 in which the woeful, childlike vocal stylings of Sarah Michelle Gellar speak disarmingly of her (SPOILER ALERT) fall from heaven.  When I worked for Casting, Spike (he had a real name I think, but really, who cares) came in and I made 50 copies of his headshot while he was auditioning.  They may still be in my trunk.

4.  Really, any Sarah Michelle Gellar soundtrack is probably worth purchasing.  Like that one where she makes magic food and there’s a dancing crab and Freddy Prince Junior.

5.  The Top Gun soundtrack.  Try NOT to make out during “Take My Breath Away.”  Oh, it’s possible, I’ve done it like millions of times.

6.  The Brokedown Palace soundtrack featuring tracks by Sarah Brightman and Plumb.  The song Damaged by Plumb is about a girl who is sad and alone and has a lot of regrets.  Maybe you can relate to it.  I just listen to it over and over and over again for the catchy melody.

7.  The My So-Called Life soundtrack.  Except it doesn’t include the Buffalo Tom song that plays during the scene where Jordan Catalano approaches Angela in slow motion flannel glory and finally holds her hand in front of all their friends.  Sadly, the importance of this gesture has not been lost in adulthood.

8.  The Baz Luhrmann Romeo and Juliet soundtrack.  There’s a lot of good stuff on here but the best is the instrumental love theme.  If you position yourself in front of a mirror in a dimly lit room, you can pretend to be both Claire AND Leo as they meet through the fish tank, make out in the elevator, and then tragically discover the others identity.  (Warning: this can lead to smashing your own nose during the kissing part).

9.  Really, any Claire Danes soundtrack unless they made a soundtrack of the non-musical Les Miserables because it makes more sense just to buy the musical soundtrack.

10.  “Rush Rush” single by Paula Abdul.  Fun facts: 1)Keanu Reeves is in the music video. 2)I used to practice slow dancing and talking sexy while this song played in my room, summer of ‘92.  This was the same summer I got a pet rat and named her Christian Slater.  When she died I ran to tell my mom and she said, “Oh no, was it drugs?”  To be fair, my Christian Slater died right on the heels of River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain.

11.  The Armageddon soundtrack.  I like to pretend I’m Liv Tyler saying good bye to Bruce Willis before he (SPOILER ALERT) sacrifices himself to save the world.

12.  The Lord of the Rings soundtrack.  I like to pretend I’m Liv Tyler pledging my (SPOILER ALERT) Elfin devotion to Strider.

13.  The Best of Tom Petty OR Why Steve Almond never fell in love with me and instead married ANOTHER Erin who probably agrees that Free Fallin’ is for losers.  How can any song that starts out on a dirty road, starts out kinda slow be BAD?  It’s a METAPHOR Steve, he didn’t REALLY free fall.

14.  The Boys soundtrack.  This is that movie where Winona Ryder is in a mental institution but not Girl, Interrupted.  Don’t you sometimes fantasize about being institutionalized and wandering around medicated, writing in a journal, and staring wisely out barred windows as you slowly fade from the world?  Like a vacation.

15.  The Back to the Future soundtrack because The Power of Love is literally about the power of love and that is an important subject.  I used to simultaneously want to KISS and BE Marty McFly.  I’m pretty sure that’s still how I form crushes.

16.  The Sneaker Pimps.  I don’t know the name of a specific album but I forced my first boyfriend to play three songs on loop when we made out.  Apparently I dry hump like I write.

17.  Rap Song.  That’s not the real name of it but that’s what I named it in my iTunes because, besides Vanilla Ice, it’s the only rap included in my 153 song collection.  It’s by Snoop Dog and it makes me want to commit violent crimes and fuck shit up and then have a gin and then some juice.

18.  End of the Road by Boyz to Men.  If you are keen to slow dance, there is no other choice.

19.  Pieces of You by Jewel.  Jewel suggests that maybe we hate people because they have pieces of us in them.  Fucking profound.  A lot more profound than say, Belle and Sebastian who stole their name from a really sad cartoon about orphans and a large white dog.  I used to get cold watching that.  Inside and out.

20.  Stockings By the Fire.  This Christmas compilation is a Starbucks classic.  I played it on repeat this Christmas when I was on a no sugar diet and baking cookies for my family.  During the cover of that Joni Mitchell song where she wants a river to skate away on I shoved a giant spoonful of dough in my mouth then burst into tears. 

Erin Whitehead - Professional Resume

Erin Whitehead
isorrybug@aol.com

PROFILE
Enthusiastic over-sharer, able to keep secrets most of the time, punctual because not usually coming from anywhere important, proficient in ice breakers, making out, and phone tag, experienced active listener, wing man, and cat-sitter.

EXPERIENCE (‘94-‘01)

Dave – 29 yr old I made out with when I was 16. He lived in a warehouse with no windows. Walls covered in black velvet and embedded with rhinestones. Shaved chest. First wang I saw (except for my friend’s boyfriend when he pierced it and bled all over his sheets).

Dylan – Kurt Cobain with elephantitis. Rocked an acoustic guitar. Kissed me (Violent Femmes in the background, a Salvador Dali rendition of naked breasts overlooking us) and said, “It’s so great we can do this and it doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Dan and Dave – Cutest guys at Nordhoff. Kissed both of them on St Patrick’s Day because I told them my name was Erin. They were too drunk to remember the next day.

Kevin – Bird-loving science guy I dated. He took me to a Weird Al concert at the Ventura Fair. Famous quote: “I love you tiny breasts and big ass.” I cried.

Blue – A buck-toothed tweaker I made out with on the hood my ‘87 Volvo. Inside the car we had an ongoing war over the parking break – I wanted it up to avoid third base. I still have his bootleg Pearl Jam cassettes.

Adam – Albino guy I made out with at Emerson during a bored depression. I would stage dramatic conversations in hopes of eliciting some kind of emotional response from him.

Ethan – No wait, we never made out. But I imagined we did so much it seems real.

Patrick – Off and on bf for four years. Blames me for his grey hair. Current next door neighbor.

OTHER EXPERIENCE

Cat-sitter – Took blood sugar, administered insulin injections, and forced pills down throat of elderly feline named Bridgette.

Extra – Sat on couch eating donuts in oversized scrubs, listening to conversations around me and thinking, ‘this cannot be my life.’

Voice Over – Narrated fetish scenarios for friend’s “classy” website. Improvised “Mmm’s” and “Oh’s.”

Domino’s Delivery – Got lost for approx 2 hours during every 5 hour shift. Got called “Pizza Boy” a lot due to hip, 90’s pixie haircut and required ball cap.

Substitute Teacher - Couldn’t keep track of who was who so would pretend to write notes to the teacher about who was bad when actually writing things like, “Girl in front row will probably be pregnant by 9th grade,” or “Red head boy is both so stupid and so ugly he will never feel up anyone.”  Then I would wish I was them while watching the clock tick.

EDUCATION

School of Life – ‘79 – present

Emerson College– Majored in writing with a focus in fiction from an adolescent point of view (or: fiction from the pov of a college student in serious graduation denial)
–    Improvised on a team named “This is Pathetic” which often lived up to its name.

-    crushed on writing instructor who later married a woman named Erin whose music collection comprised more than soundtracks.

-    made Felicity-like tape recordings on the subway in hopes of catching the attention of a dark, handsome stranger.

SKILLS
Knowledge of most Disney songs (Princess part only), dry humping, Twitter.

The Usual Suspects

Sitting in the waiting room of Kaiser Permanente this morning, smoked out of doctor hiding by a salmon colored rash below my left eye (Note to self: One wrinkle cream is sufficinet, three results in pink scaliness which is less attractive than wrinkles), I pondered why this doctor’s office freaks me out even more than most.

I always get the high blood pressure, the neurotic joke-making followed by pulling my arm hair out, realizing this looks neurotic, and subsequently tearing up like a five year-old. But here it’s worse. For one thing, you have to pay a dollar to park and once you’re inside the malllike multi-leveled structure, you feel you’re in for good, they own your car, they own you, you would have to rush the orange and white barrier (“Save yourself, sweet Latino ticket taker, you angel working Death’s toll booth!”) to make a quick escape if, say, they were chasing you with needles…

Maybe I shouldn’t say “you.” Everyone else looked pretty calm. I was congratualting myself on believably pretending to read my book while thinking, “I’m not coming back out, Dear God, I will die in here.” I was staring blandly out the windows at the Glendale foothills, so green under a grey swell of storm clouds that I wanted to take a big, dirt clodden bite, and repeating the chilling words in my head, “Kaiser Permanente, Kaiser Permanente, Kaiser Permanente…” when they morphed suddenly into, “Keyser Soze, Keyser Soze.”

God, I mean that MIGHT explain the sheer terror I experience deep in my core at the mere mention of the place, and the reason I allowed a month-long flu to persist into a 2 month flu citing, “They’ll just tell me to get in bed, take vitamin C, and watch Sex and the City which, hello? I’m already DOING.” (The real fear being they would diagnose a runny nose and minor depression and tell me to go back to work).

But Still. Keyser Soze. I let that one rattle its own mantra a few times and realized my blood pressure was not in fact shooting skyward. I am less afraid of the mafia than I am of the doctor, particularly an HMO, particularly one where you have to pay for parking. This is when they call my name. There is of course that split second where a dumb white flash of a thought says, “Ignore her, just keep reading,” but knee jerk reaction beats out thought every time and I am standing and doing my pleasantly surprised face, ‘Why, that’s me! Aren’t I lucky, not much of a wait today,’ knowing in my heart that this moment may be one of my last.

The Diagnosis: Over the counter hydro-cortizone cream (no more expensive wrinkle creams…okay, okay, I think, fingers crossed). Okay, easy enough, I walk out not feeling too resentful about my parking dollar, thinking maybe these Kaiser folks (Kaiser, Erin, not KEYSER) know a little something about some things, not that I’d trust them to my thyroid or anything.

In the ointments aisle of Rite-Aid I turn into a stalking predator. It seems cortizone cream is used for more than just rashes of the eye, and there is not a box in sight without the large word ANAL or ANUS or RECTAL. I fucking refuse to buy something that says that. I have in the past, despite my (let’s face it, unhealthy) youth-obsession, refused to buy the skin-tightening Preperation-H because God forbid the check-out girl think I have hemmoroids.

Damn it. I skulk, squint-eyed, looking for a box with the SAME ingredients but a DIFFERENT use. When other people invade the (MY) aisle, I sashay browser style, “Can’t quite find what I’m lookin’ for,” and my eyebrows say, “Ha, certainly not this shelf.” My territorial pacing frightens away an old man who I think is probably after the SAME product I am but for a DIFFERENT purpose.

I finally settle on one that only has the words anus and rectal in small print on the back, along with other words like eczema, rash, and poison oak— things I am much more comfortable with. I throw in a box of Air-Born to show that I am ailing, not hemmoroidal. As I leave with my bag of purchases I am certain I now feel an itch on my eye BALL, not LID, and that the fucking HMO “doctor” has, as usual I suspect (har, har), misdiagnosed me.

Mr. Sensitive

I think a certain amount of self-awareness is fine, necessary even, so you don’t walk around like a schmuck with no concept of your effect on the rest of the world. But let’s talk levels. Have you noticed that people who pride them selves on being ultra self-aware — super in tune to their every emotional whim, conscious of each thought bubble — are more selfish than aware? There are two major categories: The I-feel-ers and the Do-You-Hate-Me’s.

Take my friend, *Craig for example. Craig is an I-feel-er. Craig, do you want to come over for dinner? “I’m feeling like my body needs to be home. You could come to me.” Craig thinks about why he does things, why he thinks things, why he simply is… A LOT. Right, I know, we ALL do that. We’ve been taught, too late in life probably, that the blood bath that is childhood fucked us up good and that now, our job as adults, is to unfuck ourselves. And to do that, we have to turn inward. INward, I said, not UPward as in your head is up your ass thinking how comforting your anus smells and what traumatic event (shared bath with the farting cousin at age 6?) caused you to think that. Being self-aware doesn’t have to translate to being UNaware of others. I’m so happy for Craig that he is always exactly certain of what he wants to eat, where he wants to go, and what he wants to do. I would be even happier if he learned the words ‘What do you want to do?’

Here’s the other kind — the Do-You-Hate-Me’s. This kind is harder to spot because they appear, initially, to be extremely in tune to you. To everyone. They read behavior, they listen closely, they watch your every move… to see how it relates to them. Try to vent about your life to one of these people. Me: “I’m so tired of making plans and then getting flaked on.” Person: “Wait, are you talking about me? I don’t flake, I mean, sometimes I might not call back, but I have a good reason. Like this one time…” And then guess what? The conversation is about reassuring HER. Listening doesn’t count when you’re listening for hidden meanings pertaining to YOU. You are not actually sensitive when you assume every tone, gesture, and glance is about YOU. This kind of person will hear you say you have a cold, your car got a flat tire, and you’re overdrawn at the bank then ask if you are mad at them because your tone sounded like you might be. This person assumes you hate them if you respond to the comment they made under your facebook status. These people describe themselves as sensitive when really they have never listened to anything anyone said without relating it back to themselves.

Listen, I come from a large extended family, each branch of which boasts it’s own brand of self-righteous bullshit. We span everything from My-parenting-is-better-than-yours to My-pallela-beats-the-shit-out-of-your-taco-bell to My-political-activeness-(activeness?)-is-superior-to-your-sad-bumpersticker-support. Mine is social brains. Just because you’re book smart, street smart, or even therapy-smart, don’t mean you got social smarts, which to me is the most important kind. So go think about that. And how it relates to YOU.

*name has been changed to protect the *sensitive.
*word has been changed to protect the douche bag.

Nice Fucking Work

A few years ago, in an attempt to calm my road rage, I traded giving the finger for a sarcastic thumbs up. I only ever felt like an idiot anyway when I would flip the bird — angry people always look worse than the person who angered them, it’s an unfortunate truth. A cool thumbs up says, “Way to go, Jack Ass. You didn’t make me angry, no, I’m simply NOTING your stupidity.” Which seemed better, until tonight when the DOUCHE BAG parked on the red curb in front of Rite Aid, blocking the entire lane, forcing me to wait for not three, not four, but FIVE oncoming cars to pass before going around, self-righteous thumb already poised, my expression saying “Nice fucking work,” turned out to be… a tiny, sweet looking old lady. As I left the parking lot I could picture it — she wasn’t feeling well, not at all, and her tiny old husband took her to the doctor. They both had trouble walking and then sitting in plastic chairs. She reached into her purse, fished a bit of used kleenex from between a lipstick and a package of lifesavers, and blew her sore, red nose. Her husband, blurry-eyed, patted her shoulder. Finally the doctor saw her. He was short and impatient, she was kind and apologetic. After making her wait an hour, he prescribed some antibiotics in under two minutes. By the time they got to Rite Aid it was dark and they had not eaten supper. “I don’t feel well enough to go in,” she told her husband. “I’ll get your prescription,” he told her kindly, pulling up to the red curb and getting, with difficulty, out of the car before hobbling on an artificial hip into the store. There she sat, alone in the car, the blur of commuters on Glendale Boulevard in front of her, thinking of times when a silly thing like a head cold wasn’t such an ordeal. Her head hurt and she was hungry and trying to think what she might have in the kitchen to make. Then I drove by. Man, sometimes I hate myself.