aprilgem's journal

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April 30, 2003

Secret Message #8: Goddess of Love

My own birthmonth and namesake has been rather hard on me, giving credence to that famous line: April is the cruelest month. Where's the love, people?!

First of all, the company for which I work is experiencing a massive brain drain. In the span of just one week, three key people (all in leadership roles) began their exits, and as of today three more key people (not leaders this time, but go-to people with a lot of knowledge) gave notice as well. So I suspect that there will be... oh, I don't know... just a tad bit more work for me to do in the coming weeks.

Second, I've been sick the entire month. Yes, the entire month. One consolation is that the symptoms were ever-changing, which gave me a variety of diversions. It helped to keep me from getting too bored with either blowing my nose until it chapped and fell off or coughing up a lung or two.

The last few weeks of being sick were a coughing-wheezing hell, though. It got to the point where H.E. began calling me Camille, and I began calling him Screwyou. Yesterday, I finally managed to see a doctor, and she prescribed for me some antibiotics and a cough syrup with codeine, which not only supresses my coughs but puts a loopy, sleepy smile on my face.

Third... it's difficult for me to admit this, but...

In March, I was feeling smug about being listed fourth on Google for a search on "April." Throughout the month of April, though, I've managed to disappear entirely from the face of Google's green earth. It's true; I looked through 95 search result pages (and would have looked even further if Google had let me), and I could not for the life of me find my damn site on there. Damn! Damn! Damn!

Many, many thanks go to all the web sites out there that actually date their entries April something or other, therefore stealing all my thunder. Or to all the web sites that chose to discuss April Fool's Day, linking to various other sites that detail the history of April Fool's Day, or Fish Day, or Earth Day, or Tsunami Awareness Month, or what have you.

I thought about campaigning to Google-bomb the search engines so that I'd be a top find for "april" again, but hell... if I don't show up in the first 95 pages, I just don't see how that will work anyway. I'm crushed. I'm totally crushed.

However, there have been a few of bright points this month, the latest one being a friendly e-mail regarding this site, which only serves as a reminder that despite everything I am still a goddess of love.

Posted by April at 10:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 24, 2003

I Think Wear Alone Now

I was a teenager the first time I ever saw that cliché involving two women who discover they've worn the same dress to a party. The first woman would enter full of confidence, a sashay in her step as she showed off her new dress, only to stop dead in her tracks when she discovered that another woman in the room was wearing the exact same thing. Egad, how embarrassing!

The first time I saw that, I didn't get it. Not even a little bit. I just couldn't understand what the problem was.

Of course, the first time I saw that, I was in my early teen years, and my friends and I happened to like wearing the same thing. We'd call each other up the night before, discuss what we'd wear the next day, and voilà, we'd show up as twins, triplets, or quadruplets—wearing matching sets so that the entire school would know we were all the best of friends, sharing the same mind of the same irresistable borg.

Well, I'm an adult now. I don't do that sort of thing, and I have my own boring way of dressing lately that I'm not likely to wear what someone else is wearing on a certain day. So for a long, long time I haven't had to experience that duplicate party dress cliché. Instead, I'd find myself amused as I watched it happen to other people—amused, because I still didn't understand what the problem was.

My creative director at work, for instance, always managed to match someone in the building at least twice or three times a week. If he happened to wear blue jeans and a certain shade of red shirt on Monday, inevitably someone in purchasing or merchandising would be wearing the same thing. If it's a grey-green shirt the next day, he might match one of the executives,... dark blue on Wednesday, someone in admin.

I watched this happen for a year and actually thought it was neat, but every time it happened he would stand there with his arms spread low, palms open, and mouth gaping open as if to say, "Now, come on. What is up with this? Who said you could wear that today?"

Those of us in his department would tease him about the situation. "Come on, admit it," we'd say. "You guys called each other up last night and planned what you'd wear." As if two men in their late 30s would be chatting on the phone late at night with gossip and giggles, planning what to wear. Or we'd tease him about his psychic abilities and his mental connection to certain people.

Then it started happening to me. I'd wear blue jeans, a black sweater and black boots, and a couple of people would be wearing the same thing. Grey-blue turtleneck, grey-blue thermal shirt. It didn't seem that big of a deal at first because the match wasn't quite exact; they might be wearing sneakers to my boots, a sweatshirt to my sweater, or short sleeves to my long sleeves, so that the match was more in color than in cut. But later, it became evident that two or three other women and I like to look through the same racks at Target. My black blouse with the white stripes, my purple hooded sweater, my tan hooded sweatshirt—the exact same brand, style, and color could be found in various other closets, and I'd have to be careful or I'd inadvertently call attention to my cheap wardrobe.

Finally, one of the women put her foot down. "You know," she said. "We're going to have to agree on this: I'll wear this shirt only during the first half of the week, and you wear it during the second half. That way, we know for sure that we won't wear the same thing on the same day."

I shrugged. "Okay."

Then today, because she had run out of clean clothes, she wore hers... just as I decided to wear mine, and now, with us having matched each other from sneakers to sweatshirt, I completely understand the feeling behind the duplicate party dress cliché. I understand it now because compared to her tan hooded Target sweatshirt, mine (with all its lint balls and cat hair) seriously needed a good laundering or two. Maybe even three. Ew, now the whole world knows that I haven't done laundry in ages, and I actually had the gall to wear something I'd already worn once or twice without washing...

Egad, how embarrassing!

Posted by April at 11:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 22, 2003

Yanking Doodles #2: The Undeniable Trip to Casa de Bandini

I admit it. I kept a sketch diary that chronicled my lame adventures during my high school years.

They were nothing special, just quickly doodled comic strips full of inside you-had-to-be-there jokes. For instance, look at the third page—that bubble with the cotton swab after Annalisa called me a dweeb? Yes, I know that doesn't make sense, but I honestly thought it was funny back then; every time I heard the word "dweeb," I would think of Q-tip cotton swabs, and it made me laugh. So into the sketch diary it went.

What a dork.

Other things to note:

• Dialogue was color-coded, and the color depended on the person's birth month.
  (Jenny and Annalisa were both born in January.)
  
  
• The Undeniables was a name that either Jenny or Samantha came up with for the four of us; it was based, I think, on the name of some perfume.
  (Jenny and Samantha were also part of another perfume-based group called The Untouchables, the third and final member of which was Rina.)
  
  
• Jenny, Annalisa, and Samantha were all dressed alike because they were all wearing Samantha's clothes.
  
  
• I was always the driver on these outings, yet I never knew where I was going; I depended almost entirely upon everyone else's directions and eyes.
  
  
• I never wore perfume.

So with no further ado:

Posted by April at 09:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 18, 2003

The Nose Knows

Why haven't I updated or responded to your e-mail?

Well, I've blown it. Too often. My nose is being such a drip and wants to run off with another girl. I've smothered it so much that he's feeling a bit chapped in the hide.

"You're only running to spite me," I said, simply unable to imagine my dear sweet nose absent from my familiar face. "You know you love it when I blow you."

He grew an angry red. "No, I don't. You've lost that soft and gentle touch. You irritate my skin. I'm leaving you."

I cried, with my throat sore and my eyes watery. My shoulders heaved with racking sobs hacking coughs, but he was unrelenting and stuffy. Then I tried once more, for old time's sake, to caress him and blow him one last time.

He wouldn't produce for me, wouldn't budge. That stubborn stuffed shirt!

"Fine!" I cried. "Leave me, then!" My congestion broke up and settled into my chest with a heavy and rattling breath. Oh, to be so lovesick. I spent my evenings curled up in bed, sleeping away the depression and sickness.

It's partly why you haven't seen any updates from me and partly why I haven't answered many of my e-mail. I only came on tonight to let you know that I'm doing my best to recuperate. My nose and I have agreed to go to therapy, and hopefully we'll be fine again and up to our old antics, with him turning up whenever I despise something or him crinkling up with such cuteness whenever I'm grossed out. While he barely tolerated me picking at him, he used to love it when I thumbed him at people.

We're taking this time to kiss and make up, only he won't let me kiss him yet. Come to think of it, I've never been able to, but that's beside the point. He's stopped running, and that's all that really matters to me.

So anyway... now you nose.

Posted by April at 11:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 14, 2003

Odds and Ends #2: Eavesdrop

When they grocery shop, he picks out and weighs the vegetables while she gets the plastic bags and ties. They tease each other, but only they get their jokes.

He (picking up a tomato and gesturing for a plastic bag): Bag!
She (handing him a plastic bag and shivering): Asshole!
He: Are you cold? What a pussy!
She: Of course I am. What a dick!

Later, they get back, and he starts making clam chowder.

He: Want me to make you a clam bisque?
She: Must you? Don't you like me the way I am?
He: Ha. Ha.
She: What's a clam bisque, anyway?
He: Oh, about 250 miles an hour.

Right. As you can see, they take turns having the last word.

Posted by April at 10:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 12, 2003

How Taxing!

I'm considering a name change to Dingbat, which fits me best during tax season. Every year I promise myself to keep a better accounting of all my financial records, and every year I end up adding, "Damn it, this time I mean it!"

I thought it would be easier when I got myself a tax preparer, but it's sort of like hiring yourself a babysitter; sure, you no longer have to cook or clean up after yourself—and someone else can get those cookies and that juice box for you from the highest shelf—but now, you have to go to bed when she tells you to, and if you misbehave, then you get no TV for the rest of the night.

With a tax preparer, you never need to add two and two to make two-and-four-fifths (since, you know, the IRS takes about 30% of whatever total you earned). No, the tax preparer can make those calculations for you himself because that's what he does for a living, telling you, "I'm sorry, but you made quite a lot less than you thought you did, and not only that but you owe the tax man all the money that you've been saving to buy a replacement for that hand-me-down dinosaur of a computer you've been using since the last century." Is that all, really? All forty-two cents of my life savings? That's such a load off my shoulders!

See? All worries about incorrect calculations are completely eliminated. Now all you have to worry about is organizing all the numbers required to make the magic happen.

Right. Well, I moved twice this year, if you'll remember; my numbers are all over the place. Are they in this box? Nope. Hmm... that box? Nope. This one? Damn it. That one? Crap! Crap-crap-crap!

It doesn't help either when one of your past clients sends you two different sets of 1099 forms with two different numbers, where there should be only one set of forms and one number. Of course, being the dingbat that you are, you don't discover this until you're at your incredibly patient and good-natured tax preparer's desk, so your taxes will have to wait while you sort this out with your client, and of course, it takes you a full week to get the issue resolved. In other words, you better get the correct numbers from your client—who loves to play phone tag—or you don't get to watch TV tonight!

You? Your? Who am I kidding? No one would be as badly blessed and as flaky as I. Such a thing could happen only in my Murphy-driven life, so why bother with the second person pronoun?

Why, indeed. The tax man cometh, and he taketh away from the person with the least to giveth. That would be me.

So if I'm a little slow in responding to e-mail, comments, postal mail, and sexually perverted telepathic messages, you know why: I'm busy digging my way to China through all these boxes, trying to get organized again because I promised myself that I'll do better next year.

And damn it, this time I mean it!

Posted by April at 10:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 11, 2003

Bad [Free Writing] From My Writing Past #7: May 28, 1993 - Cloud Watching

I watched a cloud die today; it was the saddest thing I ever saw.

I could no longer stand the cruel heat of the sun, so I sought the shade and lay on my back, sunglasses shading my eyes from the glare peeking through the leaves of my guardian tree. When I finally got settled, I noticed the cloud above me and realized how quickly it moved. It came down on me like a sort of evil, magical mist, spreading its soft and deadly fingers, growing larger in its descent. I slowly became aware of my fear, my awe, until I no longer saw an evil nature in the cloud, only its beauty as it changed form with a slow and fluid movement.

The cloud spread, its fingers fading into nonexistence. It disappeared bit by bit, killed by the heat of the shining, glaring sun. As though the cloud finally saw its own fate and wanted to escape it, the dying mass of puffy white moisture ran in all directions, splitting itself in two. In one half, I saw a mermaid trying to swim away to safety; in the other, I saw an eel slithering towards the cooler regions of the sky, with a wildly frightened horse and his rider following right after.

I felt an odd sort of pity as I watched them fade slowly away, until the mermaid was no more than a lady's lock of hair and the mounted rider a screaming face, mouth open as it called out for help. The face thinned, became a skull crying out in despair, and still the sun's heat ate at its edges, melting it away. When the last of the cloud had disappeared, every trace of it gone, I felt as if I'd just witnessed a murder by an evil overlord, the sun.

What do you see in the clouds?

Posted by April at 10:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 10, 2003

Do I Look A Day Over 30?

I don't feel a day over 30. Maybe 8 or 80, but 30? Not quite.

I was asked if I'd rather have Baghdad or my boobs fall on my birthday, and I said, "Anything, just please not my boobs." So there you go. Baghdad fell yesterday, and you have me to thank. Had they asked me on another day to choose between a bunny and a princess, I don't know what I would have chosen. I hope they never give me such enormous responsibility in the making of history again.

But I said I would post photos of me. You asked if I celebrated with wild abandon and had the time of my life wearing lampshades on my head. Well... I took the day off from work, and that to me is nirvana better than an April's-gone-wild photo shoot.

So photos... yes. But fauxtos...? Not quite yet. My digital crapera has been crapping out on me, so to speak, and I haven't been able to download much of anything except maybe a shot or two of Tony down in Mexico (which is really remarkable as I've never even met Tony in person and haven't been down to Mexico in almost two decades; yes, my crapera's that good, except for the downloading part). So I have to buy an Ex-Lacks adapter cable before I can show any fauxtos.

But the photos...

I figured that readers would prefer more photos of me and my hair. Since I've never shaved my head, the hair is a given, so I thought I'd raise the bar a little and post the following (woohoo!) photos:

• April in a bathing suit
• April in a wet shirt
• April in the bath, naked

Now you have to tell me, seriously. Do I look a day over 30?

Posted by April at 09:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 08, 2003

Extra! Extra! Read All About It

Once, back when I was in high school, there was a big hullabaloo on campus about some Karate-Kid-like Mickey Mouse Club movie being filmed nearby. They needed extras, a ton of them, and all of the popular ROTC guys took a day off and tried to get into the movie. I actually got to see one of them when the movie finally aired on the Disney Channel. He sat among a crowd in the bleachers, and his bold blue, gold, and white letterman jacket stood out like a beacon.

"Oh, my God!" I exclaimed. "There's Ernest Escalante! Oh, my God!" I was never so excited in my entire life.

My mom actually had a chance at being an extra on a serial drama once—a speaking extra, no less. They shot Silk Stalkings down in San Diego, and on one of her days off from work she decided to try to get in it as an extra. She came home that night and told us that they wanted her to come back and play a Filipina maid—one with a line to be spoken in Tagalog, even.

I was so excited that I started raining questions on her, but she quickly doused it and said she wasn't going to do it. The pay was so low, she reasoned, that it wasn't worth doing; she'd rather go to work the next day and get paid three times what the studio paid extras. Her reasoning made sense, but I was disappointed just the same. She would have been immortalized had she done it.

One of my choir classmates, however, didn't seem to mind the low pay of an extra. She went to the Silk Stalkings set regularly for a while when she was in her acting phase.

My cousin Zee, on the other hand, was an extra on Ocean's Eleven. You have to watch it on DVD, though, because she's on it for about seven frames, and even then she's a blur. Still... she's immortalized! She also wrote me recently about being an extra for a new NBC show coming out in the fall, so she's immortalized twice!

H.E. takes the "extra" special cake, though. He was once or twice an extra on Cagney & Lacey, and he had lines! So he is forever immortalized with a fake Bronx accent in some lady detective show. Something to show the grandkids if it ever comes out on DVD.

Me, I've never been an extra for a TV show or a movie. I've acted and directed in school plays, been on TV a few times, and all in all had every opportunity to stand around all day for low pay, waiting to be an extra. I just never got around to it.

I would totally have loved being an extra on Monsters, Inc., though. The only reason they couldn't use me? I had one eye too many and three legs too few. Plus, my tourist visa to Monstropolis wasn't long enough for me to stick around. My disappointment could not be contained.

How about you? Have you ever been an extra?

Posted by April at 11:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 07, 2003

Letter To My Editor

Dear Inner Critic,

You have got to stop hounding me. Seriously. You have got to stop telling me what to post and what not to post, what readers will like and what they won't. I am not a child or an idiot. I can friggin' think for myself, thank you, and I have a writing degree; damn it, let me put it to some use. I'm almost certain that I can post something acceptable, even if it isn't my best work.

Who says it has to be good anyway? Who says it has to be compelling? As if the quality of writing has anything to do with readership—pshaw! My writing hasn't changed much over the years, and yet even the dullest blogs get more readers than I do. Even if I wrote the next Great American Novel, that fact wouldn't change; you know that. Besides, the size of our audience never mattered to you before, back when it was nonexistent, so why should it matter now? I thought you said that this log was just for us, for me. Why ruin that with premature criticism? I mean, really!

So please... just leave me alone, okay? And quit arguing with me; the cat's beginning to wonder why I'm muttering to myself, waving my fist in the computer's general direction. Are you trying to paralyze me? Render me unproductive? Make me the laughingstock of the entire online world? What kind of friend are you anyway? Here I am with a ton of ideas and a ton of half-written entries, and there you are, knocking each and every one of them down.

You arrogant jerk, you're fired, and I never want to see you around here again. Get lost, and good riddance!

With everlasting love and friendship,

April

P.S.—We're still on for lunch tomorrow, right? My treat. Don't be late.

Posted by April at 10:55 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

April 06, 2003

Life Lesson #4: What H.E. and His Nose Learned When Dealing with Cat

See also, Life Lesson #4.5: What Cat and Her Tummy Learned When Dealing with H.E.

Posted by April at 11:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 03, 2003

April By Any Other Name Is Mighty Aphrodite

I have more baby name books than I care to count, and strangely enough my purchase of them had absolutely nothing to do with naming babies. When I aspired to write for a living, I believed in the power of the name. Every one of my characters had to have a name that meant something specific, something to help characterize the person they were.

So it should come as no surprise that in my search for identity I've looked up my own name several hundred thousand times. Many books will tell you that April is derived from the Latin Aprilis, meaning "opening" or "to open" as in the opening of the earth for spring, and that is usually as far as they will go. A person can be open, true, but it's hardly enough of a blueprint to govern my life.

Lucky for me, my name also happens to be a month, which broadens my list of potential research material, so I've whipped out John Ayto's Dictionary of Word Origins and read this:

April [14] Aprilis was the name given by the Romans to the fourth month of the year. It is thought that the word may be based on Apru, an Etruscan borrowing of Greek Aphro, a shortened version of Aphrodite, the name of the Greek goodess of love. In that case Aprilis would have signified for the Romans 'the month of Venus.' English acquired the word direct from Latin, but earlier, in the 13th century, it had borrowed the French version, avril; this survived, as averil, until the 15th century in England, and for longer in Scotland. The term April fool goes back at least to the late 17th century.
»Aphrodite

So there you have it. I, April, am somehow tied to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Of course, that means I'll expect some kind of worship from you mortals.

If you leave your offerings at the temple, I'll tell you what your name means.

Posted by April at 07:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 02, 2003

An Exquisite Easter Egg Hunt Challenge

Pardon me. I'm distracted. I should be working on other things—a new topsy turvy image, for instance, or even my new art site—but I find myself visiting old haunts and getting involved in group activities.

The ultra mainstream hip and trendy blogging netizen might be familiar with An Exquisite Corpse, in which member artists collaborate to create a single image out of four or five, each artist working on his or her own panel without knowing what has gone on before.

Child's play.

Seriously, compared to collaborations like this*, this, and this, An Exquisite Corpse simply pales in comparison. Not that I am putting it down, mind you—I've often dreamed of joining them myself and creating corpses by the dozen with the net elite. I just like the results better at the artist forums.

Why am I writing about all this? Because the challenge I chose to join needs more people. As I write this, there are 13 tiles left out of the available 25. This is the first time I've ever signed up for anything of its like, and I don't want it to fall apart just because not enough people signed up. I might not ever try anything like this again if it does!

So hey, if you're artsy and into challenges like this, browse the thread a bit and help us out if you can. I'm counting on you!

Posted by April at 09:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 01, 2003

Bad [Dialogue Writing Exercise] From My Writing Past #6: 1-900-DRM-GIRL

I am sitting in the back seat, with my mother and her boyfriend up front, when BJ, sitting beside me, leans forward.

"Ma, you know what? I had a dream last night, and I called up Art, and I started yelling at him."

"What? What? Why?"

"'Cause I was mad at him, that's why. He was in my room and throwin' all my junk around, you know? And you know I ain't havin' none of that. I was all like what the hell are you doing? You're messing up my room!"

"What? Wait a minute. He was in your—?"

"No, Ma. This was a dream, God-dog. Hello. I was dreaming that he was in my room, sitting on my beanbag, okay? And while I was sleeping, I had picked up the phone, and I had called Art, okay? I called him up at home, and he woke up. I woke him up. Okay? It was like four in the morning or something, and I was dreaming that he was in my room and throwing all my stuff around, so I was mad at him, and he's all BJ, what's wrong? And I'm like, you're messing up my room! Get out, get out! You're messing up my room!"

Here, I manage to get a word in edgewise, and I say, "Sheesh."

"And what did Art say?" my mother asks.

"He's all like, what? What are you talking about? Who the hell's in your room? And I'm all like, you are! You're messing up my room! Get the hell out of my room! 'Cause in my dream, he was messing up all my stuff, and I'm kicking at him and yelling get out, get out, but he won't get out, okay? He's just throwing my stuff around and laughing, and I'm just yelling at the phone and kicking at the sheets. I am kicking at my sheets, okay?"

"Sheesh," I say, and I laugh, remembering all the shouts I heard through the wall between our bedrooms. "Was that what all that noise was about?"

"You know it. I was mad. And Art's just all confused, and he's telling me, BJ, calm down. I'm not in your room. And I'm all just like, yes you are. Yes you are, and you're messing up my room!"

"Sheesh. And you were asleep all this time?"

"You got that right, and I don't even remember calling him up. But I guess I did because Art says I woke him up big-time at four in the morning and all. God-dog, I swear he must have been like, what the hell is going on here?"

I mutter "I'll bet," and I laugh again. "BJ, you spend far too much time on that phone."

My mother says, "One day you'll drive your boyfriends crazy."

BJ just laughs. "You know it," she says. "You know it."

[Today's posting, which I wrote some 8 or 9 years ago, is dedicated to my sister who turns 25 today. Happy Birthday!]

Posted by April at 06:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack