Stupid Dream Journals

This came in an email from a yoga teacher. Because yoga teachers 
Buried Dreams: An Exercise

do stuff like that. I will answer them here. 
PS. Whoever made this exercise up went back and forth 
from using "5" vs "five." Pick one. 

1. List 5 hobbies that sound fun: 

- Trying to learn Dinosaur names, horseback riding, trying to become a psychic, 
becoming a psychic, trying to un-learn how to be a psychic because
I keep accidentally using my new found powers for evil, not good. 

2. List 5 classes that sound fun

- Horseback riding, modern dance, AA. 

3. List 5 things you personally would never do that sound fun

- Go to a Furry convention, wearing a Furry costume, creating my Furry identity,
get thrown off a horse, kill someone. 

4. List five skills that would be fun to have

- Detective

5. List five things you used to enjoy doing

- Singing, journaling, algebra homework,  writing on T-shits and/or
cutting out the sides in a "cool" way, Pam Concerts. 

6. List five silly things you would like to try once

- Really yelling at a stranger. I mean like, really give it to them. Punch 
someone in the face, do a backflip, read Marina Raether's poetry
 out loud in a really sarcastic voice with a lot of eye rolling in front 
of a large crowd that she is also in, 
  buy a fedora.  

More on Hashtags

What if someone's last name was Hashtag?
Just a few years ago it would have been an innocuous enough noun-based last name.
But now, due to the Twitter revolution, this person's life will forever be tainted and followed by:

Cindy: Hi, My name is Cindy Hashtag! Nice to meet you!
Stranger: Hashtag what?
Cindy: Just plain ol' Cindy Hashtag!
Stranger: I'm not getting the joke. I usually understand hashtag jokes because they are simple enough that even the not-funniest people in the world can make one.
Cindy: Cindy Hashtag!!!!
Stranger: HASH. TAG. WHAT!?
Cindy: FINE!!!....... My name is Cindy Hashtag #that's my real surname.
Stranger: Oooohhhh. I get it. That's a funny joke!! I love and understand hashtag jokes because they tell me exactly where the punchline is.

Cindy rolls her eyes and stabs herself.

When You and a Stranger Both Assume the Other is a Homeless Person but Neither of You Are

. 

So this guy I thought was homeless came up to ME this morning because he thought that I was homeless!! And all this time, I thought HE was the scamp! Isn't that a kick in the head!?

In my defense, he looked way more homeless than me. I guess he was just cold and didn't like buying new clothes. A lot of people in my neighborhood look like homeless people but are in fact not. They are in fact neighbors in my building. Or getting ready to audition for the ensemble in RENT

In his defense, I was squatting over a gutter in an alley at 8:00 in the morning trying to open a can of tuna and cursing loudly. And looking back, yes, this probably did make me look crazy. 

So I don't eat a lot of tuna, okay, guy. So I was using both the wrong end of the can opener as well as the wrong side of the can to open my lunch! Big woop! That makes me so "crazy looking," does it? And so it was early in the morning and I was "crouched" over a motel gutter opening tuna. Maybe SOME people don't like opening tuna in their studio apartment because it's STINKY. I'm sorry I don't STINK, guy. Don't condescend to me because generally I KNOW how to open a can of tuna, but this morning I forgot. SORRY. 

Now I need to pick a new Least Favorite Homeless Guy in Studio City.

Everything One Needs From A Dining Experience

#BekahBrunstetter

Is this how I use a hashtag?

Why don't I just write "Bekah Brunstetter?"

What's the difference? 

#HashtagProblems

My High School Friends Work for the Pentagon

I get a kick out of people that think I'm smart. I am in no way a smart person. I'm not fooling myself, and this is not me projecting any "lo self-esteem." Proof that I don't have lo self esteem: 1. Every post below 2. The fact that - as you can probably tell- I don't feel the need to proof anything before "publishing" and 3. I have a fucking blog. I am definitely okay with myself.

Compared to the people I went to high school with though, I am a groundling; a savage pauper that doesn't deserve a seat because they would just poop in it accidentally. Or get their tomatoes all over it. Compared to my friends, I am Smeigal.

One of my close friends, Nicolette Leung, works for the pentagon... tracking rainfall...on the roof?  And makes sure that the pentagon... doesn't get all wet? Because then Y2K would happen. That's my synopsis of your job, Nick!

But today is about Marisa Raether. Yes, she is The Glam Girl that posts on this website from time to time via her fictional website The Stinky Heel, or something like that. I know this will come as a shock to most of my (non existent) readers... But her posts are actually written by me. Ha HA! No, the real Marisa Raether has never written a word on this Blog of Blogs!!! All of her posts have been *post-humorously written. And for good reason.
She's... okay... I can do this.... She went from being a receptionist and in a few short years, the V.P. of the entire company... The company?  Oh, well.... okay... it's this company that runs all the electronic databases for the military's health information. So like, when a guy gets wounded in Afghanistan  and they need to pull up his medical records to make sure he's not allergic to penicillin or something... It's hard to pull up because like, they're in like a cave in Afghanistan.... and cave's only have ONE outlet (like everyone knows) .... so they gotta use some pretty good software that has to constantly be top-notch and cutting edge. So like, when the software isn't working, Marisa may be having a mai tai in Cancun, but she'll like  get a call from a General (no really, we've seen her say, "Uh, I have to take this call"... "Marisa, who's calling?"..."A General") who yells into the phone "Raether!! The software... the SOFTWARE!!!!" and she has to order people to fix it and manage and do other Vice President-y things.
 To simply her job, we all just say she's  in bed with the military industrial complex. 
Same diff.

And the amazing part of this tale, is that she was given no help from her parents, was the second oldest in a family of eight children, and she did it heeeeeerrrrr wayyy!!!!!!!

Now, good journalists usually, at this part of the essay (I'm going to start calling my blog posts essays. Sooo Leena Dunam), ties it back to the beginning  or somehow works themselves into it. And how does this make me feel? But I don't really need to do that. I don't have any way to relate Marisa or any of my friends' incredible triumphs to myself, except to say that I am constantly amazed by them. I could never do that shit. Nor get a 1600 on the SATs without studying just because... what, they're easy? My dumb friends!! God damn your simple logic!!! You take it for granted!!!

But because today is Marisa's birthday (maybe it was a couple days ago.. whaaa? I a ah don't know! I am ah stupid-o!)... and for all of your viewing pleasure, I present something she actually did write.
Enjoy:

*Marisa's favorite thing in the world is catching my many and colorful malapropisms (see essay titled "My High School Friends Work for the Pentagon"). Here's one for you, kid!

I emailed Marisa when I lost a whole bunch of money because of shitty airport shit. I couldn't articulate any of my thoughts. I told Marisa the facts via email, and asked her to articulate them for me. Within 5 minutes, she sent me this... this would have taken me at least a month. Enjoy, and feel free to copy and paste. You get a lot of free shit when you can talk this good:


To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to inform you of a recent travel experience I had with Air France during which I encountered a dismaying lack of customer service and a level of unprofessionalism I found to be both inconsistent with previous travel experiences with your airline and, more importantly, entirely unacceptable.

On August 28, I was scheduled to travel from Los Angeles (LAX) to Paris, with a connection in Boston.  My flight from LAX to Boston was on American Airlines, and I therefore had to make my way to the Air France gates at the Boston airport when I arrived.  My American Airlines flight arrived on time and I made it to the Air France gate 55 minutes in advance of my flight to Paris; at this point, I was directed by an Air France employee at the gate to go to the baggage claim area.  A group of passengers from my American Airlines flight to Boston had the same itinerary, and we all followed the instructions from the Air France employee, only to be told minutes later that we were not going to be permitted to board our flight to Paris due to the fact that we had not arrived at the gate within an hour of our departure time.  Not only had this piece of information not been relayed to me (or to any of the other travelers in my situation) at the time of booking or at the time of my arrival at the Air France gate, but the information was relayed in a rude and outright dismissive manner by the Air France employee in the baggage claim area, with no offer to assist me in any way.  When I accepted the fact that arguing to get onto my flight was futile, I inquired as to the location of my luggage; in response, the employee promptly refused to look into the matter and simply stated that he "couldn't help me at all".   No effort was made to assist me in either rebooking a flight or locating my luggage; instead, I was dismissed with no explanation or apology.  After doing my own research, with no assistance from any Air France employees, I was able to book a flight to Paris for the following day, expending an addition $$$ of my own money that I had not anticipated; in addition, I had to spend the night in a Boston hotel and pay cab fare to and from said hotel.

I made a second attempt to locate my luggage when I arrived at the Boston airport the next morning.  Upon approaching the Air France counter and inquiring as to the location of my luggage, I was told by the employee that there was nothing they could do and I would have to inquire in Paris as to the location of my luggage.  Once again, no apologies were offered and no attempts were made to assist me in any way.  When I then arrived in Paris, I made a final attempt to reason with the employees of Air France, to no avail.  The only piece of information that was passed along was that my bag was most certainly not in Paris, since Air France has a policy of "never putting a bag on a flight without the passenger begin on board".  Interestingly enough, this was the first time I had been informed of this supposedly hard-and-fast rule; it was at this point that I was able to discern, without any assistance from your airline's employees, that my bag was still in Boston.  After a series of futile phone calls, my baggage inexplicably turned up at the Paris airport five days into my stay.  At this point, I had been forced to purchase new clothes, undergarments, and toiletries, adding to the list of unintended and unnecessary expenses brought about my your airline's utter lack of refusal to assist and communicate with me.

At this time, I am requesting full reimbursement of the expenses outlined in the attached receipts.  I cannot overemphasize the frustration and disappointment I feel in the appalling lack of interest I was afforded by the employees of Air France throughout this travel experience.  At no time did I make unreasonable demands; rather, I simply expected someone within your organization to take an interest in my situation and offer to assist.  Unfortunately, I was dismissed at every turn.  Having made the trip to Paris on previous occasions with your airline without encountering any such difficulties or inconveniences, I was surprised and dismayed to see such behavior from your employees.  I sincerely hope that more effort is made on your organization's part to instill and foster a genuine interest in your customers and their concerns.  I look forward to hearing from you regarding this matter.

Respectfully,

Mackenzie Yeager

This Should Not Be That Hard

I have a whole bunch of "maybes" in front of me in the writing-for-television-world. They are all slight maybes, but could very well lead to a JOB. I feel very comfortable handing people something I wrote and saying, "here, look at this. I'm a good writer. Give me a JOB." I'm comfortable saying this because  I think I am very, very funny. You show me a hand full of 25-year-old women that are funny and I will show you I deserve to be in that group. (note to self: don't make that a saying). 

Why just women, Mackenzie? You aren't funny enough to be compared to GUYS? Shut the fuck up, other Mackenzie, I'm less interested in this conversation than I am with people asking me how I feel about "Girls." I don't feel anything about "Girls"!!! Stop asking me about "Girls". I should make a webisode called "Stop asking me about 'Girls'." Things to do list...

No! SEE, THIS is the reason I don't have anything to hand over to people who may give me JOBS!?! Because I cannot for the life of me sit down and write a 30 minute multi-cam sitcom. I keep trying to do that, then I think... "What if everyone started using sting-can-phones instead of cell phones... what if that was a new retro-hipster thing to do..." I'm going to make a webisode about that. Where can I get some string?...

Mackenzie, this is a sitcom. It's not fucking rocket science. Your main characters don't have to be a manifestation of the Ego, Superego, and Id. (Oh, man, I was joking and now I want to do that). You don't need to start with a overarching theme of Man Vs. Himself, or Man vs. Mountain, or Man vs. Wayne Brady's improvisational singing abilities. 

I talked with one of my dear friends Ike Holter (a wonderful, wonderful playwright whom I bet in a few years you will know his name!! - Fame) and he walked me through it. It's simple. 

- It's a girl (me) that lives in L.A.

- It's set in a comedy/improv club (because that's where I spend all of my time)

- She wants to do stand up, but is too afraid (let's make her not like me, then ( because I'm afraid of NUTHIN!!! *Eats a piece of metal*) 

- That is her main drive. 

- But it gets complicated when she starts LiKINg A BOi! (why not let the main story line be her crush on a guy? It's simple to follow and will be fun/ easy to write. Don't over think it) 

- She has a sassy best friend because Ike wants me to write a sassy best friend (I'm going to make it Ike... his real name in real life is actually Ike "Isaac" "Sassy" Holter.)

- The first driving action is that she finishes whatever training classes they have at the comedy club.

- The teacher says that she has a set next week because that's a thing. 

- She's scared. But not terrified. 

- Because she's going to get terrified later when her crush is in the audience!

Nope. I'm already lost and I don't have any desire to write this. 

- See, this is hard, Mackenzie. 

- It's not that hard you stupid idiot.

- This is why I don't get things done, because you call me things like a "stupid idiot."

- It's an endearing term... You know I don't actually think that you are stupid.

- You KNOW I'm stupid. MUST we bring up my 3 digit SAT scores again...

- Oh please, that's a test scoring how well you take a test. So you can't take tests. That's a good thing!! You think outside of the box...

- I fucking hate it when you start patronizing me like this. 

- I'm not patronizing you...

- YOU'RE ITALICIZING EVERYTHING. OF COURSE THAT'S FUCKING PATRONIZATION!!!

- Look how smart you are, Mackenzie! You spelled "patronization" right on your first try. 

- See. This is the reason. THIS is the reason I can't write a fucking 22 page sitcom. Because you're always in the way, making life miserable. You're like Hitler. I'm like a Jewish diamond seller who is JUST trying to do his job (sell diamonds) that he's had for the last mashugana-15 years in his same little store that his grandfather's grandfather owned, and then you come in, and Hitler-shit all over everything.      I KNOW how to sell diamonds. Can you PLEASE just let me sell diamonds without putting me in a concentration camp? Is that so much to ask?!?!

....

Hello...?

.....

Hitler, are you listening?!?!.....

....

Wow... I think I just defeated........................................................................... myself. 

- This essay was first seen in the Op-Ed section of The New Yorker, titled, "How To Write a Man vs. Man Story Brilliantly."