June 2007 – LaDonnaWitmer

Nobody Special

night_notredame Mood: Withdrawn
Drinking: The Usual Tea

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the nature of celebrity. (And no, this isn’t a post about Paris. I refuse to waste any energy on such a waste of soul.)

My conclusions are simple and baldly unoriginal… I don’t want celebrity to ever happen to me.

Not that I have no ambition, no desire to make a dent. I do. I just want to retain enough anonymity that papparazzo and gossip bloggers never know where I live. I want to remain boring enough that nobody ever cares what I wear to the grocery store. I want to keep a low profile so that the crazies would have to bend down to notice me.

(Although, lately? Crazies score 1 to my big fat zero.) It’s mystifying to me how you can accidentally attract the attention of an unstable person and then, no matter how hard you try to shrink into the shadows, no matter how much logic and reason you have on your side, no matter how preposterously insane the rants start to get, no matter whether you choose silence or rational conversation, you cannot get the crazy to look somewhere else, to stare at some other shiny object. You cannot make it go away.

True, I could pack up my website and run and hide. But that would be letting the terrorists win, or something. No, I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to be scared into submission by one small and lonely bully. I’m going to carry on with the usual, inbox aside.

But if I, with my small and quite modest fan club, if I am so powerless to stop such pedestrian harassment, if I just have to put up with it and pretend it doesn’t exist, how much worse must it be for the actual fame-ridden? To everyday pull on the famous facade. The bleached perma-smile. The public persona. To get used to the lack of personal space. The random Joe from Pokomo assuming he actually knows who you are. The constant press of flesh. The terrible things that get written and whispered about you that aren’t anywhere close to true.

And in the midst of it all, even behind their high walls and moneyed mansions, the fortunate & celebrated can’t really defend themselves against the false perceptions and the fictional pull quotes. People will always believe whatever they want to believe, truth and actuality be damned. (I’m even guilty of it myself. Notice the way I started this post with a snide little Hilton aside.)

It’s horrible… I don’t even want to think about living a life like that. They can keep the wealth and the privilege and the notoriety. I don’t need my face to be billboard-sized. I don’t need the whole world (or even a whole town) to know my name.

When my sister and I were small and got into the usual sibling spat, I liked to try to shut her down with brilliant retorts such as: “Mind your own beeswax!”

It’s what I feel like yelling out into the ether now, though it would do me no good. “Mind your own! Leave me and mine alone!”

-Lo, who really adores peace and the lovely quiet that comes with it.

Doggone

hairyeyeball Mood: Dirty
Drinking: Daquiri

Two dogs too many.

That’s what I have.

For the past 2 weeks, I’ve been dogsitting McKinna, my sister’s extremely huge, panda-headed hound. (The one on the right.)

She’s very sweet and adorable, as you can see. But, and I know I’ve said this before — it bears repeating — DUMB AS A BOX OF VERY DULL ROCKS.

The good thing is that she’s too thick to know how strong she is, so she flops around like a tiny puppy, knocking over anything (or anyone) in her way, and then gets her feelings really hurt when you tell her to knock it off. If her wee brain was a bit larger and she knew that she’s got the muscles of the Incredible Hulk, well, I’d be in a world of hurtin’. There’d be no listening when I tell her to “Leave! Me! Alone!”

She’d just be all, “Oh, yeah, tiny lady? WHO’S GONNA MAKE ME?!” And then she’d want to arm wrassle and when I’d try to run away, she’d pin me to the rug with her four ginormous puppy paws (the size of Christmas hams, they are) and lick my face right off.

Her mum and pop are coming back tomorrow, and I’m sure the Loon and I will miss balancing our tea cups on top of her outlandishly large noggin and saying things like, “Pffft! She’s sooooo immature!” (I just know that’s what LeeLoo’s thinking when she sits demurely on the couch watching all the shenanigans. She’s very adept at the eye roll and put-upon sigh.)

I, for one, will not miss the roughhousing, though. McKinna is a man’s dog, and I am clearly not man enough for her. She’s gonna go home and tell all her friends that her aunt is “so boring” and “a total stick in the mud” and “like, such a crabby beyotch! I hate going to her house.”

At least she’s learned a new trick. Now in addition to “sit” and “high five”, my large fur niece will return home knowing exactly how to “fuck off!”

-Lo, who really does love that damn dog.

Reading Accomplished

reading3 Mood: Well Done
Drinking: Sweet Tea

Thanks to everybody who came out for the reading last night, especially those of you who had to stand in the back because of the lack of chairs. I hope we made it worthwhile.

I didn’t know any of the other poets who read, but it’s always fun to hear other people’s work.

I’m still recovering from the bug that has whupped my ass for the past 8 days, and midway through my reading, I realized I sounded like Nasal Hazel, all twangy and honky. For those of you who haven’t heard me read before — I usually sound quite a bit less like a stuffed goose.

Things at home are beginning to settle down after the vacation/sicktime upheaval. Although there is an extra 4-legged beastie in the house, and she just might be 4 legs too many.

My sister and peeps are on vacation, and since they kindly babysat the Loon while Boy and I were away, it’s our turn to sit for McKinna, the giant-headed christmas-ham-pawed panda-faced freakshow of a creature that my sister calls Dog.

McKinna is sweet as pie but dumb as a stick and I think I’m going to be happy to see her backside leaving through the front door this weekend. Two dogs make life more interesting than I need it to be right now. I’m ready to get back to status quo.

Speaking of normal and getting it back, Shel and I are FINALLY getting around editing Abattoir this week. We’ve been more than a little bit busy with other things, but I know you’ve all been waiting a good long time for a new cinepoem, and I promise you’ll have one soon.

Then after Abattoir comes Kiss & Fly and then Apres un Reve, and we’ll soon be shooting even more. Back to normal, indeed…

-Lo, who thinks that naptime should be normal. Every day.

Getting a Read On

overlandbook
Mood: Medicine-head
Drinking: Medicine-stuff

Vacation is over and onward comes reality.

My lovely new head cold prevents me from having any thoughts that could be construed as intelligent, so I’ll save the holiday reminiscing for later, when the kleenexes are all used up.

Here’s the new news that you need to know:
I’ll be reading from The Secrets of Falling this Sunday, June 17th, at The Great Overland Book Company at 9th and Judah in San Francisco. The reading is produced by the Writing Salon and includes 8 other local poets.

The reading starts at 7:15pm and ends at 9pm. I’ll be the first one to read after the break, so I’ll probably take the mic around 8 p.m. But if you live in SF, come out and support all the other poets, too. It’s sure to be an evening full of good words.

-Lo, who is realizing that vacations are just as exhausting as real life.