Please to be looking at this photo set I made?

Vegas 2009

More things to come!

My Irish friend Dave (whose Irish friends probably refer to him simply as: “Dave”) requested via Twitter that I write up an explanation of my 140-character hurrah that I saw myself in the background of the movie “Funny People,” as an extra.

Now, before I start, I should say that when this actually happened, back last November, I was brimming with excitement and Hollywood stories, and I had compiled them all in my mind until I was just about to walk out the door, and some rando wearing a headset who looked important said, “Oh, yeah, and if any of us find blogs or Tweets out there about your time spent today before the movie comes out, you can consider yourself no longer an employee of Central Casting.” My dreams of being a professional extra potentially being crushed, I decided to hold my tongue. Okay, seriously, though, I just didn’t want to be a dick or get dooced or sued or something. So my memory may be a little fuzzy. Just like my face was on the big screen!

Okay, so how this *really* starts is — when I enrolled in class at UCB, I was added to a mailing list. In a joking mass email, I was informed that the casters for “Funny People” actually wanted funny people to come and populate a comedy club scene. Although this goes against many a conversation I’ve had with fellow stand-ups — that comedians are the worst crowd ever because they’re grading you instead of just enjoying themselves — I sure as hell didn’t have a job at the time, and thought it might be fun.

I sent in my headshot on a whim, and lo and behold, got a “callback.” Pretty stringent casting process. I got there with “club attire,” hair and makeup done, even though I got to sit in the makeup chair for half a second as they touched me up. My clothes were approved in what was perhaps the first time in my life I was told to dress for something and a roomful of people could agree I had done it appropriately.

I wanted to eat from the delicious buffet provided for the huge crowd of extras looming around me, but I was nervous, which is ridiculous, but I hate looking like I don’t know what I’m doing and, here, I most certainly did not. Leave it up to me to meander over to a catering spread only to find out it’s Adam Sandler’s and I had mistakenly eaten the last fugu pufferfish imported for him from Japan, and had thusly ruined the entire movie.

But, as I said, jobless, and three meals worth of food were provided to offset the depressing minimum wage, so I got over myself and had some damn home fries.

A young man I met in my improv class named Jake was also there, and even waved to a few people he apparently knew from the Extras circuit.

“In our last movie, we played fake naked people at a convention,” he said wrapping his hand around a short blond girl. I think their last movie was “Yes Man,” which I haven’t seen, but I can only imagine what a fake naked person at a convention must look like.

I opened up my book to pass the time, taking a cue from some of the other professional extras, who looked positively bored while dressed to the nines. The blond girl pulled out a cellphone, where she remained for over an hour, saying nothing.

Sighing loudly at one point, she caught my eye and informed me that she was calling the casting agency, looking for tomorrow’s work. The “types” they needed were listed on a very long pre-recorded message that I assume led you to another phone tree, where you would later email to list what you were available for.

“I was all ready for some background scene work in “Samantha Who?” but then at the end of this 15-minute-long message, they said they didn’t want any blondes. I guess so no one would take away from Christina Applegate.”

It made me a little sad. It was 9:00 AM, and I knew we were going to be there until almost 11:00 PM. Then, provided she found something, she’d probably start the process all over the next day. Then again, we were going to be getting time-and-a-half, and, I can’t stress this enough — FREE FOOD. Lunch was mahi mahi.

We probably didn’t get called in until 3:00. Jake and I passed the time by playing games on a piece of note paper, but the second we were needed, the chaos started. They called us in by tables, which started to worry me. If only I had sat at a table closer to the door, I would be going in first. Ooh, but do the first people get the corner seats, and I will get front and center? Then when we got in there, there was more division, done by what I assumed were very trusted Production Assistants. I was standing with a girl, so I had to be herded over to a table with a boy. Or would I be better suited at the “girls’ night out” table up front? My shirt was black and white patterned, so should I sit with someone in all-black, or will that look to choreographed? I ended up next to an older guy in a blue collared shirt, and we made small talk, as he showed me the right way to “drink” the “cocktail” in front of me where I wouldn’t have to actually ingest the terrifying colored water that the “waitresses” ferried to other tables and then back again. Deciding Judd Apatow wasn’t worth herpes, I simply smiled, nodded, and made the acting choice to hold the drink in my hand while laughing heartily.

When everything was perfect, Judd came out on the stage of the set, (he said I could call him “Judd.” It’s cool, guys) introduced himself, and reminded us of the rules — don’t stand out, don’t look at the camera, don’t try to make a wacky-sounding laugh just so you can hear yourself.

As shooting started, two things stuck out to me as a comedian. The first was that Judd wanted genuine laughter, meaning we wouldn’t do too many takes of the same material. The actors had one chance to genuinely make us laugh, which must have brought them back to their stand-up roots at least a little bit. The final cut of Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Aziz Ansari, and Aubrey Plaza was minuscule compared to what we, the extras, got to see. They had full, actual setlists that they had to memorize, and I don’t know if it was the energy in the room, but they were genuinely funny. The curveball is, of course, the fact that they were guaranteed laughter, by us, the peons, which would have been a dream gig as a comedian. It had to have been fun.

I didn’t know anything about Aubrey before I saw her up there. All I could tell was that she looked terrified and had good stage presence. I think the terrified thing is part of her shtick — a shy person saying really hilarious, outlandish stuff — but she messed up one of the jokes, and Judd warmly assured her over the loudspeaker that she was totally fine and should start from a few jokes prior. She did, and of course we all laughed at the same places, but she was truly funny.

We broke for dinner, and while waiting in the line that wrapped outside the holding building, Seth Rogen ZOMG walked right by me. I could have reached out and grabbed him, informing him that his greatest and most underrated work was in “Undeclared,” and why can’t he get back to that instead of marijuana jokes, but I somehow refrained.

During dinner, we got the bad news that, although they were continuing to shoot for the evening, most of us could go home. They sent another well-trusted PA to scan the room for diverse-looking people to populate a scene that would take place later, as evidenced by a snappy costume change. I put on my best doe-eyed “Gee, I’m not over-eager, but it sure would be super if you picked me” look, and it appeared to work, because I was the last person they called in.

All of this is ridiculous, of course, because the person the cameras want to see is in the opposite direction of where the audience extras are, but it was nice to be part of something. It was nice to see all the costume and makeup people obsessing over a single curl that would only be seen from behind, in a shot over their shoulders, pointing up at Adam. It was neat talking to people from all walks of life, seeing how they came to have 14 hours on a Thursday free to come down and do this.

When I left filming, they handed me my W-2 so that I could be sure to give Uncle Sam his fair share of my 70-some-odd dollars, and I noticed they spelled my name Luaran, because of course, why shouldn’t I get to worry about being audited for another 4 months for my one day of work because Luaran and I oddly share a social security number? (I wasn’t! Thumbs up!)

So that, my dear friends, was my Hollywood experience. Everyone looks pretty much how you’d expect them to look in real life, and it was cool that it was Just Another Day for about 300 crew members there. I don’t know if I’d necessarily do it again, but I got to share the screen with one of my favorite actors and comedians, and that is pretty awesome.

Hey, guys! I was at Theater Camp in Pittsburgh for a month. Now I’m back in California, wondering if my job will sponsor a caffeine addiction such that I can get 16 hours of double-overtime every day. Is it possible? Only science can tell.

Although it paid mostly in “the love of theater” instead of “dollars to make rent,” I always miss camp when it ends. The best part was when I got to sit backstage, carry set pieces on and off, and make children be quiet. Not tell. Make. Some people ask me why I come back to camp every year, and I tell them that it is because I hate children, and camp is the only place I can go where I get paid to yell at them. Then the person laughs awkwardly and searches my eyes to see if I’m kidding. I am, of course. The real reason I come to camp is because middle schoolers are the only ones who truly get my sense of humor and where the old “I didn’t know there was a working escalator behind that ledge!” joke gets ‘em every time.

My hot cousin Jordan was “my” “assistant,” and she probably hates me now because I basically spent the month telling her, “Now, I know having OCD is nice and good in the real world probably, but here IT WON’T CUT IT. I have teachers screaming at me that I haven’t hand-fed them their sweet-n-sour pork. We don’t have TIME to arrange the lemons in a nice little wedge spiral!”

But somehow we made it, and maybe, contrary to my low self-esteem, not everyone hates me forever.

Yesterday was my birthday, which I somehow finagled, for the second year in a row, to have my birth celebrated on two subsequent weekends. Due to not recovering from camp for a few days and poor planning on my part, I wouldn’t have given my friends a chance to free up their weekends in celebration. So, while my close friends took me out and showed me how much they care last weekend…they’re doing the same next weekend at a wine bar! Where I have invited even MORE friends! Who apparently don’t like responding to Evites!

I kid, I kid. Or do I? How hard is it to check “maybe”? I see that you’ve viewed it, pal. You’re not fooling anyone. I also jokingly invited Gabe (from San Fransisco) and Kevin (from Atlanta) just to see if they’d come, because my mom, aunt Becky, and Jordan came to surprise me after a sort-of-joke invite two years ago. But they have access to free planes, whereas my Japan friends do not.

My Birthday Week 1 was delightful, though. My boyfriend was doting, my friends took me to expensive foods, and I will never grow out of feeling giddy when someone wishes me well via social networking sites. I especially won’t grow out of eating at a nice restaurant with Melissa and Traci, and when I have dressed improperly (It’s 1,000 damn degrees outside. Why on Earth would I bring a sweater, unless Benihana’s decided to sit me DIRECTLY UNDERNEATH THE ARCTIC CIRCLE), Melissa looks at my goosebumps, rolls her eyes, and says, “Ugh, it’s your birthday. Do you want my jacket or something?” And it warms the cockles of my heart. The sentiment *and* the jacket do, I mean. No, I didn’t take the jacket, but it was nice of her to begrudgingly offer.

So, I’m off to bed now, before another long day of making up for money lost by taking a working “vacation.” Another friend from Japan, Seth, is road-tripping around the country and making a stop on my couch tomorrow night. So, yes. This is a good week.

I don’t even know where to begin listing my problems with Sacha Baron Cohen. Is it because he wants so desperately to go down in history as the new Andy Kaufman? Who was also unfunny? Is it because everyone in the world is frothing at the mouth over his antics, and not getting what everyone else loves makes me angry? I guess it’s me. I don’t “get” him, and I don’t get why his MTV Awards thing was anything other than yawn fodder. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s here maybe.)

Nope, I don’t get how practicing a stunt with technicians, all who have cleared the stunt with the show’s producer Mark Burnett and the “mark,” Eminem, can be considered “stuff of award show legend for the next 20 years” (“source”). Even if it WASN’T staged, how is it hilarious? Or even mildly funny? I imagine the thought process of the audience went something like this: “Oh, no, did something really bad happen with the cables? Gosh, I hope he doesn’t hurt him– Oh, wait. It’s that guy. That guy who always pranks everyone. Ah, I see. He is pulling a prank. He very slowly “fell” on someone. Ah, Eminem. A macho-type guy, perhaps homophobic; the last type of person who you’d think a gay character like Bruno would be 69ing with. Okay. I see. So…what, uh…what’s happening next?”

I will admit also…I have not seen his movies, nor do I plan to. They stress me out. I have been forced “Clockwork Orange”-style by friends with otherwise-normal senses of humor — senses of humor I respect and that are similar to mine — to watch episodes of “Ali G.” I didn’t get it then, either. Okay, so he has a funny accent. Check. He wears silly clothes. Check. So, far, he’s achieved circus clown hilarity. Oh, and he’s a rapper/talk show host, I guess, so, what, is he holding up a mirror to rappers? To people who try too hard to be cool? Or is he doing a brilliant parody of the tiny subset of delusional rappers who take themselves way too seriously who occasionally trick members of high political office into doing inane interviews? I guess is it straight-man comedy? Like, “look at the stuffed shirt talking to the silly rapper about ice cream gloves. This is funny because the person does not get this joke!”

Sorry, I’d rather hear a joke.

And I haven’t seen “Borat,” because it came out in an uncomfortable post-9/11 time where it was suddenly super hip to HATE America. And he went out and tricked a handful of nuns and rednecks, and all of his sycophants LAUGHED and laughed at how stupid America is, without realizing that they themselves were examples of how a tiny microcosm doesn’t reflect the exact feelings of the whole. It’s the same reason I didn’t want to see “Religulous,” but I eventually did. I saw it and thought: Okay. Bill Maher raises some interesting points. But…I’ll bet I can find 20 dumb atheists to say something stupid, too. Does that mean all atheists are dumb and no one should be atheist if they feel like it? If I quote a vegan saying something silly, can I finally crush veganism for good, with a legion of ass-kissing followers behind me?

And I don’t want to see “Bruno” either. Let me guess. He’s going to put non-gay people in uncomfortable situations. Maybe he will hand a dildo to a shy grandmother. Wouldn’t that just be hilarious? Get it? Old, meek people. Hardcore gay sex. They conventionally do not mix! And yet here he is, juxtaposing them right here for us! The jokes write themselves! I guess that’s my problem with him.

When my roommate informed me that our new and improved air conditioning system can get down to 40 degrees and said she can’t imagine a situation where anyone would want it that cold, it probably would have been a good idea to NOT exclaim excitedly that if we ever had a dead body in here, the police wouldn’t be able to accurately determine the time of death.

In other news, I really love “Forensic Files.”

I have a strange technological problem. A mystery, really.

About, oh, 6 months ago, I started getting personal mail to my gmail account. To a Lauren who is not me. A few things became obvious fairly early on. This girl is in a “school” of some kind. She has many friends. None of them are very bright. And neither is she, for apparently giving them my address instead of her own.

I wish I had copies of them, but unfortunately I submitted them all to spam because they would not stop forwarding me chain letters asking how much I loved Jesus. The first of these was just such an email, to which I replied to the sender, “Hi. Who are you?” She responded “Only your biggest, bestest friend Jennifer [lastname]! I guess you don’t recognize my school address, lol.” I responded, “Sorry, I don’t know a Jennifer [lastname]. You must have the wrong email.” To which she replied, “HAHA, Lauren, such a kidder! See you in class!”

Now I’m getting annoyed, as apparently according to everyone I’ve ever MET, I am severely wont to do. Ahem. I now reply, “I am serious. I am an adult who lives in California. I haven’t been to high school in over 10 years. Please tell your friend Lauren she is giving out the wrong address.” And then, drawing upon years and years of undercover detective lessons taught on Nickelodeon and Disney Channel from 4:00 PM until bedtime, Jennifer LastName responds, “Oh, YEAH? Well, if you’re not my friend Lauren, how did you KNOW I was looking for someone named LAUREN, HUH?! And how else would you be accessing her email, lol!” After facepalming, I decided to let it go and spam it. Until the next day. And the next. And the next. Chain letters upon chain letters, angels, kittens, jokes about Bush. I couldn’t spam them ALL, because they were all different people. And I can’t figure out anything about any of them (and obviously, her) because NONE of their emails were searchable on google. No facebooks, no myspaces, nothing. I didn’t even know this doppleganger Lauren’s last name. Did they all literally JUST discover the internet?

And not only friend emails, verification emails to websites. “Lauren! You have just tried to join Team Disney! Click here to activate!” “Lauren! You want to join the Penguin Parade! Click here, so we know it’s you!” It’s not her! It’s me! Wh- Is she not noticing that none of these emails go to her? Does she just give UP and do something else? Clearly NOT, because *I* keep getting them.

I’ve “Who are you?”d a couple of her friends now, but there’s not much use. It’s the same dialogue. I’ve gotten her last name, and one of the girls mentioned what school *she* goes to, but it’s not necessarily Mystery Lauren’s school. It got to the point in the last “Who are you?” string of emails where I really thought I was gaining ground, being really polite with the “Gee, I’d hate to have your friend Lauren be missing all these important emails! You may want to mention to her that she’s giving out the wrong address! To apparently everyone on the planet!” And the girl was responding with a hopeful, “Well if u don’t know how I can find her real email, I guess I’ll ask next time I talk to her.” I thought I had won. Then she asked me to chat on MSN. I told her I was at work. Working. She responds with, “Can we chat whenever u get this message since u r hopefully my friend.”

I. I don’t even know. Is she accusing me of being her friend Lauren all along? Does…does she think *we’re* friends now? It boggles the mind. I guess nothing can be done with this gaggle of schoolchildren begging me to end the ruse and admit I’m their friend. Hopefully, this doesn’t end Highlander-style with my teenybopping doppelganger attacking me with a sword before declaring herself the One True Lauren and then taking in a Jonas Brothers concert.

Starting about three years or so ago, and with slowly rising frequency, I have been getting what I thought was a very nice compliment.

“You remind me so much of Tina Fey!”

My friends said it, my family said it, people I joked with at parties said it. It was nice. I mean, I sort of do pride myself on my lovable awkwardness, my well-intentioned schemes that never seem to go right, the Star Wars reference uttered at the least appropriate time. Tina Fey chic. The Naughty Secretary glasses helped. But, yes, it was nice. I’d cock my head sideways and crack a sassy joke at dinner with my parents, and my mom would should out, “You are SO Tina Fey!” Which is quite a compliment, as hers is the only hard-core liberal name my mom will utter without subsequently making gagging noises.

Recently, though, I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend. My brother’s girlfriend, funny though she may be, mentioned that people constantly compared HER to Tina Fey. I saw a facebook wall post of a friend of mine, where several people referred to HER as Tina Fey. Now, this girl is very funny, but it is not in a Tina Fey way. Actually, if you want to get technical, my brother’s girlfriend reminds me more of the women from “Absolutely Fabulous”. And my facebook friend is closer to a Maria Bamford or a cleaner Sarah Silverman.

These four women are no less funny but very different comedically from Tina Fey. So what really grinds my gears is that Tina Fey is, like, THE funny woman in America’s eyes. It actually reminds me of when I started comedy in 2003, and everyone compared me to Ellen. I didn’t understand it at all. She was clean and hilarious. I was telling dick jokes at open mic nights in Pittsburgh. She dressed in snazzy business casual on stage. I dressed like I held a stock in silly t-shirts and ill-fitting jeans. Oh, you mean we both have female reproDUCtion systems. Why didn’t you say so?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we’re finally getting recognition as a sex that is capable of telling a joke, but…like…you wouldn’t go up to a random black person and go, “You know who you remind me of? Obama!” Actually, in Japan they would probably do just that, but not here! I don’t know. It’s weird.

Whatever. I’ll keep taking it as a compliment, even if every girl who’s ever told a joke is a Tina Fey. It could be worse. They could call me Kathy Griffin.

Look. There are a lot of things I could say.

I could say, “Hey, due to things I’d rather not get into, I wanted to keep a low internet profile. No, Twitter and FB status updates don’t count. Shut up.”

I could say, “I found out I have a [ed. note: harmless] disease, and it hurt so much that my [ed. note: herculean, super hot] body was fallible and human [ed. note: and I wasn't secretly a robot, as I'd hoped] that I didn’t want to be creative and witty.”

I could say, “I’m so busy writing other things that it took the wind out of my blogging sails.”

I could say, “I’d love to blog, but I’m watching the entire series of ‘Twin Peaks’ with Melissa.”

I could say, “The Me that my friends from Japan helped me discover has finally emerged in Los Angeles, and not only have I gotten back into stand-up, but I spend my evenings and weekends being social and hanging out with new and old friends and going to parks and playing sports, and, yeah, the unfortunate side-effect of all that is not being around rule the internet, as I once did.”

I could even say, “I usually just blog about the latest thing that infuriates me, but now that I’ve met someone really amazing, it’s hard for me to find things wrong with the world, which now, to me, just looks like a chorus line of kittens and puppies dancing in front of me and brushing me lightly with their soft fur.”

But no one likes excuses, so I’m not going to say any of that! That you’re here at all is a testament to your enduring patience and forgiveness, and I’ll try to be better. I even have the daunting task nagging at the recesses of my mind of uploading the last [ed. note: "last" 3/4, that is] of my pictures from Japan, so if that’s your thing, look, um, look forward to it.

I’ve missed you. Let’s be friends still, okay?

Why does it gross me out so much when out-of-touch media reports on things they don’t understand to out-of-touch viewers?

I just watched this video, and I could barely contain my hair from bursting into flame. It got me that mad. I disagree with almost every word said here in this video.
Go on, watch it. I’ll wait here.

Let’s start with the host. She makes me angry because her demeanor just screams “Aw, shucks, America! I’m using lingo I don’t understand and wildly inaccurate statistics to disarm technophobes into using this new hip thing someone told me was popular, but I’m still going to look smug about it!” I don’t know if I’d call people NOT twittering in the minority, lady, but, hell, why would Joe Luddite ever want to use something that’s not already been wildly popular for years before you happened upon it? Right?

She goes on to introduce the Data Doctor because wacky nicknames and middle-aged people never fail to lull other middle-aged people into a sense of comfort and belonging. Far be it from the average curious middle-aged American to actually fucking go to twitter.com and read the FAQ or see some examples themselves. Oh, and she’s “following him,” she brags, proud of her ability to click the pretty gray button that said “Follow” that some 20-year-old intern likely helped her to locate. She also says there’s “lots of good stuff on his site,” which I assume she means his twitter page, but terminology, sherminology, right? Just memorize the words “tweets” and look pretty. I really pitied her in this interview, for looking so proud of herself while reporting things she clearly doesn’t utilize herself. It reminds me of those awkward moments when you offhandedly reference a personal joke to a friend, laugh, and a third, unrelated friend joins in the laughter to prove that he got it, only there’s no way he could have, and you share a look with the original friend that says “Just let it go. Let him laugh. It’s better that way.”

Of course you’re following him, dear. *pat, pat* Of course you are.

Now, the Data Doctor — who did not spend 4 years in Data Medical School to be called “Mister,” thank you very much — I have no doubt that he knows his stuff. I’m not ageist! Good for him for bucking the trends of the majority* of middle-aged computer users (*see, I can make up statistics, too!), and NOT using his computer solely for Minesweeper and sending chain e-mails about angels. I’m sure he’s a great guy and a lot smarter than I am. And, hell, I’m certainly not telling CNN my opinions about things, although it’s probably because insulting hosts and sprouting hair-fires are probably frowned upon in the Nielson ratings for legitimate news shows.

But I have to say I disagree with a lot of what he says. He gives a few real-world examples — mainly because the host’s journalistic digging for the truth consisted of asking the questions “What is twitter,” “What is twitter for,” and “Really, tell me another way, what is twitter for?” — and I gotta say that these reasons are not why I, anyone I follow, or anyone I have ever heard of uses twitter.

He really seems to pitch that twitter fills a void that text messaging, e-mails, and blogging (and actually also “cellphones,” but my team of researchers are trying to figure out what he meant by that) leaves in the void of data communication.

He and I agree on the first thing, which is that twitter is NOT for updating people on your whereabouts all day long. I am about one tweet away from deleting a few friends who really think it’s intriguing to share with the world their breakfast menu or the new pants they bought.

He then says something not too far off the mark, which is that it’s a good source of instantaneous communication, which was proven pretty publicly in the last couple months, with tweets broke the news of bombings in Mumbai and the Hudson Crash long before media had any information. I don’t appreciate that he spun his personal role as a twitterer as the one to save and warn people of looming tech evils in the days between his radio shows, but however you want to say it, yes, it gets information to people who want to read it. Done.

I don’t like his real-world example of a family utilizing twitter to get up-to-the-minute info on an ailing family member because, while you can lock your tweets to be seen only by people you approve, you probably have a host of other friends or followers you’ve also approved that don’t really need to hear about grandmama coughing up blood. Dude, send a mass text or something. It’s not hard.

He also says if one sister asks a question, another sister can see it being asked and also see the answer, which I’ll give you is helpful, but could be done just as well with a gmail conversation log or a forum. I’m not saying I’d rather use those routes mySELF, I’m just saying I don’t buy the fact that twitter is the only thing ever that can accomplish these goals, as he seems to suggest.

Next, he goes on to talk about a small wine company twittering about some new purchases, which, okay, cool, I’ll give him that one. I might personally want to put that in a blog post or website content page for easy reference for when you want to read it, I don’t know, any time AFTER the exact minute it’s tweeted, but for the sake of argument, yes, if I cared about wine acquisitions, that might be something I’d follow.

Following CNN for breaking news even, sure, I’ll give you that, although I would probably be bored several minutes after the first 30 stories about Angelina Jolie or if I’m SURE I don’t want a CNN.com t-shirt telling me that 1 in 3 workers hungover at the office. Yes, CNN, I’m sure. And I resent you setting my default shirt size to large.

At last, he finally touched on the one thing I 100% agree with, and maybe I’m a bit biased, but when people ask me what *I* think twitter should be used for, I have the same answer. Jokes. Comics. Interesting and humorous thoughts. Mmm, viral media to an extent. Life updates. I’m not a huge stickler. Every post doesn’t need to be steeped in hysteria or mind-explosions. I don’t mind if my friend Ryan updates me about his trip to his niece’s karate class because he has other interesting things to say. I don’t feel my time is wasted when @wilw posts about looking at the moon because he posts other neat things about his life. I look forward to huge things like the election or the Oscars because I’m following some pretty funny people who make it more enjoyable to me — like a pop-up video. Yes, @PFTompkins, that host guy from “Slumdog Millionaire” DOES look like the Indian Dennis Miller! You, sir, are amusing to me.

I don’t know why anyone would ever follow a politician, as I can only imagine their tweets would be like “Vote for me!!11″ or “I’m in your Senate, making your laws, ROFL!” but to each his own. I’m sure there are people out there who DO care, and THIS is where blogs and text messages can’t hold a candle to twitter.

Me? I try to tweet when I think of something amusing. 140 characters is pretty much the ideal length for random thoughts that come to me while jogging or showering or before I fall asleep. I tweet when I find an amusing link on the internet I think the people who follow me would appreciate. I try to tweet in cool places, just for neatness’ sake, like in the studio audience for the taping of a show or while riding a horse through a nature trail. Or sometimes I have an idea for a really short blog, and it seems like a waste to make a whole post, so I see how I can parse it and publish there.

I don’t know. When I mock my co-worker Danny for having the most boring tweets ever (example tweet: “waking up. deciding if I want to eat eggs or french toast”), he replies that his are no less interesting than Lance Armstrong, who wavers between posts about what’s playing on his ipod to various races he’s winning, so he can probably get away with it.

I suppose I shouldn’t be so ornery. If anything, this new wave of twitterers will likely end up the same way any of my family and real-life friends end up when they start blogs that I read religiously. It becomes more of a hassle than fun, the updates get further apart, and I eventually reluctantly remove them from my daily bookmarks. It’s sad, but they’re not trying to win at the internet like I am, so I’m sure they could care less. Pretty soon, it’ll be just one more fad that’s over, and left in the rubble will be those of us who cared about it before the national news told us to.

See? Look. I’ve calmed down now. All isn’t lost. Soon, we’ll get twitter back from the out-of-touch, video games back from frat jocks, and sexyback from Justin Timberlake, and the world will be bright again. Oh, but the next person who uses the word “tweetheart” is getting slapped across the mouth.

My Writers’ Group Homework. Prompt Word: Bell
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“The bell’s Broken, Come on in!”

The blue post-it note fluttered precariously off the phone box, and I sighed as several things irritated me at once. The comma splice, the random capitalization, the fact that some moron lived in these lavish apartments and barely spoke their native language, and I, an English major, forced by a series of happenstances outside of my control, worked as a delivery boy and lived in a shack where I was grateful if my Mexican neighbors refrained from throwing their plates at my house for one day.

And there’s nothing wrong with run-on sentences, so I don’t even want to hear it. Comma splices are a hard and true error of humanity. I see it as a little lit-up arrow that appears over the heads of stupid people, blinking, that reads “I also probably confuse ‘your’ and ‘you’re’!” as they neglect to tip me. Imbeciles.

My major frustration, however, as I kicked the pinecone keeping the door open out of the way, was that I had called this very woman minutes before. My delivery company serves especially in small businesses within the confines of LA county, and in an effort to shine above the corporate sycophants at FedEx and the nature-boy Neanderthals of UPS, we call our clients when we are moments away. For me, though, it’s at my previous stop, because I optimize my route to make the most stops in the least amount of time.

But I could make one delivery a day and probably make the same wage on my hourly salary. So, yes. I was a little angry that I had called one street away, and the woman took it upon herself to write up a grammatically incorrect note, tromp down here, stick it on the phone box, and hold the door with a damn pinecone, when she could have simply met me at the door within my foretold one minute of travel time, and I could have handed the package off to her.

Whatever, she was the last stop of my day, and since these are the caliber of things that often get my goat, I have been trying of late to let my inner goat roam free, relax, graze on the lush grass of apathy and blissful goat ignorance. Maybe get him a nice new brass bell.

These were the thoughts I was thinking in an effort to calm myself as I waited for the slow, decrepit elevator installed, I can only imagine, the week after elevators were actually invented. When it finally arrived, and I entered, I must have been lulled into some sort of goat-like stupor imagining the dull clank of a shiny brass bell, because – Butterfingers McGee here! – I dropped the package just as the doors were closing. I hadn’t even pushed the floor selection yet!

Where exactly were the sensors on this ancient torture contraption? What if that had been, I don’t know, a baby or something?! Anyway, the point is, the parcel, which was apparently packaged in light cardstock, for all the structural integrity IT maintained during the ordeal, had all but accordianed down to ¾ its original size once I wrenched it from the door. Trepidation turned to fear, which turned to MacGuyver, as I desperately searched my pockets for…I don’t know. Tape? An ironing board? Another cardboard box? There was nothing available in my truck, and I took a modicum of solace in the fact that the packaging hadn’t actually been breached. I could still maybe actually pass this thing off.

I got to the door, unconsciously smoothing the package nervously, as a young boy on the front step of his first date unconsciously smoothes…well, his package, and my heart thumped just as loudly. A large, matronly woman answered, wearing modest business attire I wouldn’t be surprised to see on Laura Bush if she gained a few hundred pounds, and I smiled weakly.

“Mercury Messenger Service, here to deliver your package, ma’am.” Yes, I was deviating from the script, but I didn’t have the energy to do our quirky singsong motto AND keep my face straight in front of what I was conveniently just now remembering was a “high-priority client.”

“Yes,” she sneered, eyeing the package, “when you called earlier, I couldn’t imagine what it was I had ordered from you folks, but I certainly wasn’t expecting this.” The string of pearls around her neck looked as if it were about to explode like a supernova in all directions from her rapidly expanding jugular.

“I’m really sorry about this, ma’am. It must have happened somewhere along the delivery line. It was like this when I got it.” If she couldn’t grasp the simple concept of a small business delivery company, I was counting on the fact that she didn’t realize no one along the line would have allowed this to pass without repackaging.

“Well, I’ve had issues with broken deliveries before, and in the state of California, you can only return delivered items if you refuse delivery,” she stated, actually turning up her nose a bit, which up to this point in my life, I had thought was just a figure of speech.

I stared at her blankly, trying to formulate my next lie. If she refused delivery, I could give her my cell as customer service and simply repackage it myself and deliver it tomorrow, easy peasy. Maybe even later tonight. I was already buzzing on an impending high that I could get away with this without an angry call to my manager. A smooth smile crept across my face, as she deliberated her course of action. Ah, sometimes rich cows are too easy to manipulate. It’s the sneaky poor people you have to watch out for, like me.

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

My jaw dropped almost imperceptibly. I certainly didn’t want to coax her into refusing delivery, but was there some other option I was supposed to be taking?

“Open it!” she demanded, looking as though she might pop out of her dress and scar me for life.

I’m sure somewhere in the back of my head was echoing some regulation about not touching the contents of our clients’ property, but my mind’s regulation rolodex was spinning off its hinges trying to keep this lady calm. I considered for a millisecond working the same charm that came so easily after hours in dark bars, but no. Business ethically and stomach churningly, no. While I could certainly use a Sugar Mama, that well had no doubt dried up years earli– ew, ew, ew, stop even thinking of it.

I shook myself out of my disgusting thoughts in the half-second of non-deliberation, promising silently to drink heavily later to wash that mental picture away, and I nervously pawed at the sides of package.

And perhaps she was right to almost refuse delivery, at least initially, because the package was now so easy to open, its contents slipped out of the thin hole I had torn and dropped to her hard wood floors. Vibrating.

On the ground, between us both, was an enormous, hot-pink, rabbit-shaped vibrator. Vibrating. I guess the drop had, uh, you know, triggered it. Or whatever. The woman’s suddenly large eyes belied any backpedalling she could spit out about a daughter or sister ordering this instead. The fear and shame on that enormous face told me that she was the – oh, God, no. No, why am I imagining this? What? She’s wearing nothing but the pearls? Oh, god, why was I blessed with such an overactive and crystal-clear imagination? Every contour, every crevice, dear God, make it stop.

And since neither of us could think of anything to say, stupid, stupid me — I tried to break the silence with what may have somehow made the situation worse.

“Looks like it works as intended. Well, not as, um, intended. Yeah. So. Please do business with us, uh, again real soon! I mean, not that…Yes. Thank you. Goodbye.”

And I ran the hell down her hall, hoping the elevator would have pity on me and take my life as I attempted to enter.