It shouldn’t be surprising that this toy was featured by Dave Barry last year. After all, he’s always been one to know about the edgy, the subversive, the just plain disturbing. (And I swear I’m not making that up.)

It also shouldn’t be surprising that I first heard of this toy, not from Mr. Barry’s column, but from my friend The Fabulous Klae, who is just as much in the know as any Miami humorist, and also makes amazing cappuccino. (He does Improv, is on the hot-button of the Funny, and makes espresso drinks. *Swoon*)

What is surprising is that I, who have never really been a doll person, since purging my house of Barbie dolls at the age of ten, and who really doesn’t need any more small cluttery items that might be tempting to chew-happy dogs, am intrigued by this doll. I think it could be an excellent stress reducer, for one thing. Or even a bizarre kind of weapon. (“But Mooooom, she shot a HEAD at me.”)

You can order the very fine Marie Antoinette Action Figure here.

Improv Everywhere has long been on my radar as a group I’d love to be a part of some day, because rather than formal shows, they do happenings.

What’s a happening? Wel, about a month ago, the folks at NYC based group had their 2007 No Pants Subway Ride, in which their various agents boarded the subway, removed their pants, and rode the train to a specific stop, before turning around, and riding back to their point of origin.

Past versions of this event have included pants sellers, who collected the cast off garments then “sold” them to other participants. (According to the website, this was discontinued because some people didn’t get their pants back.)

Thirteen Things about MissMeliss 13 Games I Love to Play Clue. It’s classic, and you can turn it into a light roleplaying game. Monopoly. Especially when I get to be the banker. What? No, I’m NOT hiding an extra $500 under the board! Scrabble. Because it’s all about those 50-point words, baby. Jeopardy. Trivia is so much fun. Zuma. There’s something Zen about making those colored balls explode. Woosh-Bong. An improv warm-up. Sort of like a virtual video game married to invisible pinball. (Every troupe uses their own variations – we have “Sheild” instead of “Denied,” for example.) Phase 10. Gin Rummy meets Uno. Much more fun than it sounds. Weffriddles. Granted, I got distracted around #58, and never went back, but it was amusing while I played it. What? It’s played in cars, mostly. The object is to avoid using the word “what” (or its equivalent in any known languages) while trying to get fellow players to use the word, during the course of a “normal” conversation. Rigmarole. It’s much like the improv game “Story,” except that the point is to actually tell a story to conclusion, and there’s no eliminations. A really good example of it can be found in the novel Little Women. The Sims, except I don’t really play it, as much as use it to release my inner psychopath, by finding new and extreme ways to kill my sims. My early favorite was to stick them in a swimming pool and remove the ladder, but I’ve branched out since then. And yes, I do name them after people who’ve pissed me off lately. Cranium. Charades, trivia, and purple clay, all wrapped up together. Much fun! Balderdash! The ultimate word game. Can be as complex as players care to make it. We generally throw away the board, and just use the cards.

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If there was a personal theme for the show last night, it was one of being out of focus. I wanted to be there, I wanted to play, but I just couldn’t focus. And then, I was terrified, not merely nervous, and I clammed up during 185, which is something I’ve been working on NOT doing. I just…couldn’t push past the fear.

It started with a soda can. I needed something fizzy to drink when I got to the arena, and bought a Coca-cola. I sipped about a third of it before getting distracted by something else. And then we started warm-up, but, like the wine-glass teetering on the edge of a table, that pulls focus from actors on stage, I was more worried someone would kick my soda can, than I was about the warm-up game. More than once another player chastised me – gently, and rightly so – for not being all there.

There’s this deep pressure in my brain that’s pushing me to break through some invisible barrier and figure out a way to release the sparky vivaciousness that’s always been a part of my personality, and that I keep repressing, but there’s also an equally insistent inner voice that reminds me I like to write about dark spooky things…and the clash between the two is getting harder to mediate. I’m 36 years old and I still don’t know who I am.

Clay and I talked about creative personalities and a sort of non-clinical bipolar effect that we all seem to have, where we’re either going non-stop, or sinking into misery and plodding doldrums. Sometimes, it just makes you want to chew a couple of lithium cells, or move to a foreign country.

Speaking of which, I’ve felt a very strong urge to really learn to speak and read French. I’ve always loved languages, I usually pick them up pretty quickly, and my smattering of French isn’t enough to achieve what I want to achieve these days.

Back to the show. Overall, it was good, but I’m not pulling my weight, and I KNOW better. I mean, intellectually, I get it. I just feel sort of…lost in translation.

I posted this originally exactly two years ago, but it stands as my favorite Valentine poem ever, and so I’m posting it again. The words belong to John Fuller.

Valentine
The things about you I appreciate may seem indelicate:
I’d like to find you in the shower
And chase the soap for half an hour.
I’d like to have you in my power and see you eyes dilate.
I’d like to have your back to scour
And other parts to lubricate.
Sometimes I feel it is my fate
To chase you screaming up a tower or make you cower
By asking you to differentiate Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.
I’d like to successfully guess your weight and win you at a fte.
I’d like to offer you a flower.

I like the hair upon your shoulders,
Falling like water over boulders.
I like the shoulders, too: they are essential.
Your collar-bones have great potential
(I’d like all your particulars in folders marked Confidential).

I like your cheeks, I like your nose,
I like the way your lips disclose
The neat arrangement of your teeth
(Half above and half beneath) in rows.

I like your eyes, I like their fringes.
The way they focus on me gives me twinges.
Your upper arms drive me berserk.
I like the way your elbows work, on hinges.

I like your wrists, I like your glands,
I like the fingers on your hands.
I’d like to teach them how to count,
And certain things we might exchange,
Something familiar for something strange.
I’d like to give you just the right amount and get some change.

I like it when you tilt your cheek up.
I like the way you nod and hold a teacup. I like your legs when you unwind
them.
Even in trousers I don’t mind them.
I like each softly-moulded kneecap.
I like the little crease behind them.
I’d always know, without a recap, where to find them.

I like the sculpture of your ears.
I like the way your profile disappears
Whenever you decide to turn and face me.
I’d like to cross two hemispheres and have you chase me.
I’d like to smuggle you across frontiers
Or sail with you at night into Tangiers.
I’d like you to embrace me.

I’d like to see you ironing your skirt and cancelling other dates.
I’d like to button up your shirt.
I like the way your chest inflates.
I’d like to soothe you when you’re hurt
Or frightened senseless by invertebrates.

I’d like you even if you were malign
And had a yen for sudden homicide.
I’d let you put insecticide into my wine.
I’d even like you if you were the Bride of Frankenstein
Or something ghoulish out of Mamoulian’s Jekyll and Hyde.
I’d even like you as my Julian of Norwich or Cathleen ni Houlihan
How melodramatic
If you were something muttering in attics
Like Mrs Rochester or a student of boolean mathematics.

You are the end of self-abuse.
You are the eternal feminine.
I’d like to find a good excuse
To call on you and find you in.
I’d like to put my hand beneath your chin. And see you grin.
I’d like to taste your Charlotte Russe,
I’d like to feel my lips upon your skin,
I’d like to make you reproduce.

I’d like you in my confidence.
I’d like to be your second look.
I’d like to let you try the French Defence and mate you with my rook.
I’d like to be your preference and hence
I’d like to be around when you unhook.
I’d like to be your only audience,
The final name in your appointment book, your future tense.

Tonight is the Valentine’s Day Battle of the Sexes at ComedySportz, and I find myself being more terrified than excited. I keep thinking that there’s an error, and I really shouldn’t be on the liners, and I feel like a little kid getting to swim in the big pool for the first time.

Acting classes over the years have all pushed the concept of grabbing your fear, harnessing your nervous energy, and USING it – channeling it into your performance. Clay said last night in IM that I should own the “swimming in the big pool” feeling, and play it – let it give me a kick-ass attitude.

So I’m trying to focus on my punk rock (well, not really, just cool red highlights, but it’s edgy for me) hair, and my special Valentine’s Day bandanna, and the promise of nookie when I get home after, and later today I will brew chicory coffee, and nibble on the special Starbucks cupcake I bought last night, and I will sing along to rousing music, and pretend that I’m a braver person than I really am.

I wonder if they’ll object to me wearing water wings on stage though.

My friend Clay of Moron Life shared this video with some of us before it was actually available for public consumption. I think it’s hilarious – watch and see.

If you were going to ask your favorite author five questions, what would you ask?

If you were going to ask five questions of an author whose work you weren’t familar with, what would those questions be?

I’ve moved and redesigned my bookblog. It can now be found at Bibliotica.com.

DO have a look?

Yesterday afternoon, I had a much-anticipated salon appointment, to cut and color my hair. This was crucial, not just because the-color-which-shall-not-be-named was showing itself in force, but because I hadn’t had it done since October-ish. I’d missed my December appointments because of rehearsals for Lessons & Carols, and various other commitments that conflicted with salon hours.

I arrived at the door to Salon Worx, which is an Aveda lifestyle salon, just before three, nonfat venti cinnamon dolce latte in hand, and with a good book in my bag. My stylist, the sweet, funny, and talented Natalie, met me, and we went back to talk about What to Do.

I said I’d been flirting with pink hair, but I wasn’t really brave enough to do my whole head. She said, “Let me go dig out our funky colors – we can do the dark dark red/brown we’ve been talking about and add streaks of bright punky red.” I said, “YEAH!” and she first brought Jennifer the receptionist over so I could see the color, and then went diving into the storage pantry, surfacing with “Radiant Red.” I liked the name.

I once read an interview in which actor James Marsters talked about adding sweet-n-low to hair bleach to ease the burn, when he had to bleach his hair for his role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel. Even though we only had to bleach selected streaks of my hair, I will remember this advice for my next appointment, because bleach does burn. Actually, the red – the funky red – burned a little as well, and my scalp is still coated with it. (I had to wait for this morning to wash my hair.) My pillow, because I’m stupid and forgot to put a towel on it, looks like someone was murdered on it, actually. Rather alarming.

I had asked about getting an eyebrow wax after the hair appointment, and they booked me, but forgot to tell the aesthetician, so when I go back next week, the waxing is free. I’m having a mini-facial as well. My skin’s been so crazy dry lately, I feel like I’m wearing a mask, and nothing I do is helping.

But at least I love this new hair-color. And next time, I might add a few more streaks, as we kept them kind of subtle for me to ease into this.

I love the cut too. Just a bob with a few layers around my face, but it’s FOUR INCHES shorter than it was when I went in. No wonder my friends commented on how long my hair was. I haven’t seen it that long for years.

And on that note, I’m off to wash the salon smell out of my hair.