Back Off Dan Cooney.

Guess who just called.Less than a half hour after my last post, I get a call from the stalker.

He called to give me a hard time about the post about him stalking me.

You see where I'm going with this.

After I made fun of him for proving my point for me, he tells me a story about a woman he met who was outrageous and "Absolutely Fabulous" who was married to a plastic surgeon and offered herself up for practice on a regular basis.

He thought, "Well, she sure looks good for her age," guessing that she was in her mid-fifties, based on the amount of surgery she had gone through.

She was in her thirties.

And I thought that was amazing. The irony of it astounded me and I just wanted to share.

They Put a Bitch in JAIL.

What do you get when you cross



with



?














Yep. Like Uma Thurman, I have a stalker. And like Vito Fossella, I have a record.

First up for discussion ... the stalker.I'm not planning to prosecute. I figure I should retrieve the bail money my boss put up and find a way to serve house arrest on my own case before pursuing any personal prosecutorial cases. Plus, I really like him.

Dan is smart. Handsome. And a filthy rich gallery owner who sells photographs for hundreds of thousands of dollars every day. You could do a lot worse for a stalker.

Dan is obsessed with me. And I get it. You deal with these kinds of things when you're a brilliant blogger who puts their whole insane life into words for the world to read. But, what bothers me is how he stalks me.

8:45 AM
Tits. (He calls me Tits. Has something to do with some Will Farrell movie. I just go along with it.) I don't know why you never call me. I'm officially putting you on probation. This is a warning. There won't be another one. Good bye.

9:08 AM
Susan. What is your issue? Why do you not call me back? It is offensive and rude. Maybe you're in prison again. I don't know. Bye.

9:27 AM
Hey Tits McGee. I'm thinking that you should start writing country songs. It's just a thought that came to me. You could make millions just writing your life story to music.

See what I mean? I don't even get a chance to call back and when I don't, he makes snide comments about my white trash background and digs at my recent incarceration.

10:23 AM
I've called you four times now and you never call me back.

Jack Jordan could take lessons from Dan.

So. Yes. The arrest. Here's how it happened:

As I told you, I drove to Kentucky for an event recently. I take two days to travel and finally arrive at the Brown Hotel looking forward to rest and a world famous Hot Brown. I park the truck behind the theatre and head in to meet with the rest of my crew and have a well-deserved glass of wine.

Of course, being an event planning (aka party planning) company, we're into having a good time. And my well-deserved glass of wine turned into a couple of vodka tonics and several glasses of wine. Who knows? I wasn't counting.

Then, it's time for bed and with our PowerPoint Guru in tow, I head back to the truck to retrieve my luggage before piling my drunk ass into bed. As Amy (PP G) and I are leaving the truck, the IATSE theatre guys come out of the backstage door and tell me I have to move the truck. (IATSE is the official Theatre Stage Hand union and they mean business.

Me: Dude. I'm drunk. I'm not moving the truck anywhere. Here are the keys.

IATSE Theater Guy: Can't. Union rules. You have to move it. What about her? (Pointing to PP Guru)

Me: She's as drunk as I am. Not happening.

IATSE TG: Seriously. It's gotta move. It's only 20 feet.

Obviously, what happens next is that I am peer-pressured into drunk driving in the back alley of a Louisville, Kentucky theater and of course, I hit the front fender of a car.

The IATSE lighting guy's mother's car.

As I'm going through my litany of, "I told you I was in no shape to move a 20' long truck," and "I'll pay for everything. Don't worry," guess who shows up?

Five - oh.

Yep. Someone somewhere called the fuzz. Or they just happened to be driving by and saw the crowd and the collision damage. Whatever the case, I ended up desperately trying to muster every bit of balance I have to walk a straight line and to follow his pen with my eyes. I fail miserably and next thing you know ...

Click.

People. For those of you who have never been arrested while drunk in Kentucky, let me tell you. There is no feeling more despairing than that first click of handcuffs around your wrist. I don't remember the second click. Perhaps that is because I was sobbing uncontrollably and begging this guy to please, please, please not take me to jail.

After all, I had to work at eight the next morning.

I drove to Kentucky last week for a job we were doing in Louisville. I rented a 20' box truck and picked it up from midtown at 11 last Friday morning. From there I drove to Long Island City to pick up video and audio gear and I was on the road by 2pm.

Our client had planned to use a local A/V company and at the last minute they bailed. Our gear is more expensive and there's a pretty big shipping cost, so to try to save them money, I volunteered to drive down. I was kind of excited about it.

One thing -- I like driving. Now that I live in New York and no longer own a car, I rarely get the opportunity to drive. Plus, a road trip all alone rocks. So, I take off and drive all the way to Columbus the first night. People. They upgraded me to the Presidential Suite at the Hyatt. I am so excited. I walk in and the place is enormous. I have three bathrooms.

One has a bidet.

I have my own little cedar sauna. Seriously. And I have a wet bar. By the time I got to the hotel it was past one in the morning and all I wanted was a glass of wine and to sit and watch TV. When I saw this place I was in heaven. Then I checked the fridge. Nothing. No wine, no beer, no water. Nothing.

Before I arrived at the hotel I requested that a cheese and cracker plate be left in my room for me. I knew it would be late and I'd be starving. Guess what. No cheese.

So I call Room Service.

RS: Ma'am. Room Service closed at midnight.
Me: I can't get anything? I don't need anything to be cooked.
RS:No, Ma'am.
Me: What about wine? Can I buy a bottle of wine?
RS:No, Ma'am! It's illegal to bring liquor into your room in Columbus!
Me: Okay. Thanks.

Now I go downstairs to talk to the desk people because there is no point in continuing this with her and time's a ticking.

DP:Yes Ma'am? [I swear I thought only Southerners did this.]
Me: Hi. I requested that a cheese plate be left in my room for my arrival tonight and it's not in there.
DP: I'm sorry ma'am. Let me check that for you. (Checks that for me.) Nope. There's nothing on your reservation. Did you get a confirmation?
Me: Yes. But that's okay. Can I get something now?
DP: No, Ma'am. I'm sorry. Room Service is closed.
Me: I realize that this is not your fault but I specifically requested that a cheese plate be left in my room for my arrival and I confirmed that I would be coming in late. I have just driven eleven hours straight and I was hoping to have something to eat when I got here. Isn't there anything you can do?
DP: I can get you some orange crackers with peanut butter.

Can I tell you how proud I am of myself? I did not freak out. I did not let the fact that I was hungry and cranky and sore from bouncing around in the world's crappiest rental truck.

I went back to my palatial suite, gave myself a little pep talk, drank some tap water out of one of the champagne flutes from the not-so-wet bar, and took a sauna.

I am SO growing.

You Can Hear That?

For the past few weeks I've been having an almost daily nightmare about being stuck at my mother's house. The story varies but there are exclusively two plots.

Plot One:
I'm at home for a visit and am frantically trying to leave. The reason why I can't get out is the variable in this plot. Mostly the reason ends up being something to do with my legs not working. This one fucking terrifies me. I'll be running to get out of Fitzgerald and all of a sudden both of my legs will stop working from the knees down. They become so weak that I can't pick myself up to keep going.

It gives me anxiety just writing about it.

One morning after waking up from this dream, I told Erica about it. She said, "Yeah. I hate those dreams." Now, being the center of the universe, I was amazed to find out other people had my dream. I honestly thought it might be due to the fact that I have knee issues because each of my knee caps turn toward the outside of my legs. Or, maybe the fact that when I was younger I was a dancer (which is probably why I have that knee cap issue.)

When Erica said that practically everyone she ever knew had had a dream in which their legs didn't work, I felt like Zorak from Space Ghost Coast to Coast when Space Ghost yelled at him, "Shut up, Loud Eyes!" Zorak, a praying mantis whose eyes click every time he blinks, was stunned.

You can hear that?

Plot Two:I am angrily cleaning the junk out of Mom's house and can't leave until it's done.

Mom, in real life, is an uncontrollable pack rat. She has literally drawers full of mismatched socks. She can't let go of any them ... you know ... in case she ever finds the match. Of course, she never thinks to look in one of the mismatched sock drawers for the match. She's probably got over 500 pair of socks in there -- and counting.

Then there's my niece's old baby clothes. Now, I don't mean just her first dress or her first pair of shoes. I mean every onesie and every t-shirt she ever wore. Mom saves these because baby clothes are expensive and one day she might know someone who needs them. My niece V is almost twelve and I don't believe one stitch of her clothing has left that house.Of course, my sister has had several friends who could have used a nice stock of little girl clothes, and a baby bed and a baby swing and all the other crap rotting away in the back bedroom, but according to Mom, my sister's friends are trash and therefore do not deserve V's twelve-year-old onesies.

In my Plot Two dreams I dump drawer after drawer of socks into huge black garbage bags, but when I get to V's closet, I can't part with anything. Mom claims to have an emotional attachment to each piece of clothing and each toy so although I attempt to get rid of these things, I am overwhelmed with guilt and can never complete the task and therefore will never escape.

You can imagine how rested I've been lately.

Then this morning I remember a session with my therapist when she and I discussed a dream I had the night prior. She told me that in your dreams, every character is a representation of a part of yourself. And I had one of those delicious moments of clarity where I realized I'm the one holding on and in my dreams I'm trying to get myself to let go of the past. And I feel fantastic! All this Power of Now stuff finally makes sense to me and emotionally I feel better than I have in over a month.

And, people, I spent last Friday night in jail in Louisville, Kentucky.

I just got home from having drinks with Dan and Patrick and I just wanted to talk about it.

First of all, Dan says my blog is too depressing for him. Which I can understand. Although we had a brief hiatus in our relationship (due to my disappearing off the face of the Earth) Dan and I are quite close and have shared a lot over the past several years. I think maybe he's too close to the story to find it funny or just interesting. I think he worries about me and that's why the blog's too much for him.

Which is the sweetest thing ever. So, even if this isn't the reason, I'm going with it.

Then, Patrick and I start having a conversation about politics. Now, Patrick is very politically involved. He is well educated on all of the candidates and he is committed to Hillary like gangbusters.

I am not any of those things. I'm not politically involved. I know nothing about the candidates other than headline stuff. I am committed to no candidate. Other than Obama, if forced to choose in a conversation, only because I heard someone say that they thought we should get some new blood into the White House who wasn't related to a Bush or a Clinton. Seems sensible to me ...

I am pathetic. I know. But really, I just don't care.

I put my energy into my immediate life. I try to attack happiness and good things on a personal level. I feel like if I'm going to make a difference, I'm going to take it bird by bird, rather than try to make a Nation-wide impact by casting a vote at PS 182 in November. Instead, like Gandhi suggested, I'm going to be the change I want to see in the world. I'm happier these days than ever. I focus on the positive things in my life. When I have arguments or when bad things happen, I've become really good at stepping back and looking at what I'm getting out of them. Rather than be bogged down in anger or bitterness, I try to figure out what I'm supposed to be learning from whatever shitty thing is going on.

Now, this is not to imply that I am all Zen and shit about this. I certainly have my moments. But they no longer have exclusive rule over my emotions. I have some control and it's nice. And in that way, I'm a happier person. And I believe that affects others around me. I mean, Erica certainly gets happiness out of it. People I work with ... you see where I'm going.

And that's where my energies go these days. I feel like my reactions to what happens to me on a personal level are things I do have control over. The government -- not so much. And honestly, I have very little faith in the media, or politicians, or anyone who has a public presence like that. Like my friend Leila, who was on a reality-based series says, "There is no reality in Reality TV."

Those big exclamations of surprise from the stars? Scripted. And if the first take isn't good, they'll re-shoot. And if producers will waste time and money on that crap to get it right ... just think about CNN.