Back in 2009 I was an extra in the gay romcom BearCity. I forgot all about this until I found it on Netflix yesterday.

This was not my first gig as an extra, but it is my best.

After leaving Shoegasm, I decided to reward myself for only buying a pair of shoes. So I went to Winegasm and had two glasses Pinot Gasm. A little tipsy I made my way homegasm. I took the traingasm, of course.

—

Sidenote: I’m still alive.

(a follow-up to The First Day of the Rest of my Stinky Life)

Dear Hiring Manager,

*Feel free to adopt the following customer interactions:

If a customer asks for a taste of cheese, pull out your knife and say, “No problem. I’m a master at cutting cheese. Although, my wife/husband says I have to stop bringing my work home with me.” If the customer is unfamiliar with the expression “cut the cheese” you should then proceed to break wind. I recommend eating lots of broccoli before attempting this, as less and less people are familiar with this expression.

If a customer seems irate say, “What’s the matter? You seem a little cheesed.” Pause for recognition of the witty pun and laugh along with the customer.

If a customer asks about the aging process of a certain cheese, find the most out of shape and/or unhygienic cheesemonger (preferably the guy who introduced me to Montgomery Cheddar), point to his armpits, and then pinch your nose in the pee-yew fashion. If this person is you, I recommend not eating as much congealed cow pus and/or general washing.

If someone asks to speak to your manager, say, “You mean The Big Cheese?” Repeat this until the customer is exasperated and finally asks to speak to The Big Cheese. Then tell the customer that your supervisor won’t be in for the next three to eight years.

I’m tired of all those things I don’t like getting in the way of things that I do like. Or things that I don’t like just sort of being around.  I wish someone would create a thing to get rid of the things that I don’t like.  An Unlikablethingnegator.  Who’s with me?  We can all have Unlikablethingnegators, each with a unique setting controlled by a FiOS cable ($89.99 a month) connected directly to our brains.  That way we won’t even have to consciously think about all the things we don’t like.  Your synapses just fire away, vaporizing all those nasty things you don’t remember existing.  What a perfect world that would be.  Of course, we would have to consider the inevitability that specific people (maybe YOU!)  would surely be on another person’s list of things he or she doesn’t like.  I say this from experience, knowing that I’m not fond of those who believe that America has dominion over other nations and the environment.  And they, being the douche-bags they surely are, must think of me as a liberal pussy-faggot.  For example, here is a list of all the people who, should I ever get my hands on an Unlikablethingnegator, would waft in all their unlikeyness up into the ether:

• Folks who don’t say “thank you” when I hold the door open for them
• Those who don’t hold the door for me
• People who bring Coors to a party
• Bullies who do it in the name of religion
• Bullies who do it in the name of Darwin
• Steven Soderberg (for making Contagion)
• Al Gore (for inventing the internet, which allowed me to “purchase”  Contagion)
• The unknown patient zero who will spread MEV-1 to all of us
• All American politicians (except for Bernie Sanders because his accent is neat)
• People who make blanket statements about entire nations, races, and/or ethnicities
• The religious right
• Party-line anybodies
• The conspiratorially minded (both people that conspire and those who fantasize about ridiculous conspiracies (see Reptiods))
• Mermen (they exist)
• The inventor of licorice and licorice flavored liqueurs (probably already dead)
• The 1%
• The 1% of the 1%
• The 1% of the 1% of the 1% (there is no way those white guys are doing good in the world)
• Murderers
• Rapists
• Thieves of the poor
• Suppliers of the rich (excluding the wage workers from whom their wealth was mined)
• Genocidal regimes and individuals
• Generic and unique evil-doers
• People who say, “Sure Bob Dylan is a great songwriter. I just don’t like his voice.”
• People who think Adele covered Garth Brooks’s song “[To] Make You Feel My Love” (see above).
• And Grover Norquist (not to be confused with this Grover)

Who controls the past controls the future.  Who controls the present controls the past.  Who controls the future is a Who you should get to know better.

—

Do not think of dying as the end of life.  It is the beginning.  The beginning of death.  A new, quieter phase.

—

Home is not a fixed place.  It is transitory, impermanent, forever changing.  Especially for those who live in boxcars.

—

Always trust the inarticulate.  They speak the fucking truth!

Meat hipsters:

Putting bacon on your dessert* will not make something taste better, but it will surely make you feel better about who you used to be.

—

Canada:

Stay open to the idea of me.

—

Future me:

Be proud.  Unless you have nothing to be proud of.  Really?  Nothing?  Not even this?  I admit that this isn’t your best work, but still…

—

*Thank you, Putter Tut

After a ten second discussion on funerals, Lizzie concluded that she would like a green burial.  When I mentioned that her parents would probably fight me on this, she sent me the following email.

—

My Last Will And Testament

Written and Edited by Elizabeth Marie Bell

I, Elizabeth Marie Bell, do hear by proclaim on this 25th day of February in the year of our Lord two-thousand and twelve that when my soul hath shuffled off this mortal coil I want to be buried all green & eco-friendly and shit like on this website: http://www.greenburials.org/.  In case you’re wondering, just like in that OutKast song “Ms. Jackson” (refer to article A:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYxAiK6VnXw), “I am fo’ real!”.

Signed: Elizabeth Marie Bell

P.S. Don’t print this shit.  Save a tree.

P.P.S. This email is legally binding forever, forever-ever.

—

Will this hold up in court?  If you are legal-minded, please let me know.  For I am too lazy to do research.

This one is legit:

I decided I wanted to get in on this meme business.  It was difficult deciding on an image that was inherently funny yet had enough nuance to open doors for interpretations and loads of hilarious captions.  But I didn’t want to intellectualize it too much.  So I just went with my gut:

Now how do I get it out there?

Whats good whose lookin to chill

or

Around hmu

or

I am incapable of being alone.  I am not seeking company of a specific person.  Just any one of my 500+ Facebook  who are reading this status update.

—

A brief message from SJB:

Try being alone with your thoughts.  Really try.  Just give it a go.  You might be surprised.  Or not.  But at least you can say you tried.

I promised a continuation of “My Quest for the Perfect Writing Space and Other Things I do to Avoid Writing” but I have a slight problem.  I struggle with finishing things.

I know a lot of people have this problem.  For most, I think it’s a result of laziness or insecurity.  But it’s not that with me.  I know that bullshit positivity, pseudo-psychological, “you can do anything you put your mind to” delusion isn’t going to help.  It’s not my self-doubt , self-hatred, or self-anything-negative that’s preventing me from completing what I’ve started.  Don’t get me wrong.  I have plenty of that going on at any given time.  But that anxiety, believe it or not, actually drives me forward.   Or so I tell myself.

With me, not finishing is pathological.

It’s not just with writing.  I could be reading the greatest story and it still happens.  I get to the last page, see that final paragraph, and some switch in my brain just shuts off.  I’ll read and reread the last paragraph and it’s like I don’t know the meaning of the words.  I hear them loud and clear in my head.  There’s just no recognition.  The same thing happens with novels but on a bigger scale.  Sometimes, depending on the page count, I might have to reread the last two or three pages.  The same thing happens with a really enjoyable film.

My theory is this: Just like the essays, screenplays, and stories I write, I internalize what I read or what I watch, build these personal connections, and because they’re now a part of me, I don’t want them to end.  And a way of delaying the inevitable, at least in my brain’s brain, is to simply never get there.  This theory holds up when I test it against film.  Take Exhibit A: I’m watching a particularly engaging movie at home.  I know the runtime.  We hit the third act.  My eyes drift toward the timer on the DVD player, and I start panicking.  There’s only 11 minutes left.  How can everything possibly be resolved in that short time?  Exhibit B is the exact same movie but at the theaters.  There’s no counter ticking away just below the screen; thus, no panic.

Don’t feel sorry for me though.  Even though I struggle, I always, eventually, at some point, finish what I started.

All that said, I think my problem with writing the second part of “My Quest for the Perfect Writing Space…” is that I got bored.  This would mean in this particular case, it is laziness preventing me from finishing something.  I wonder if that makes this entire piece irrelevant.  I don’t know, but I had no problem finishing it.