November 2005

The Bubble

"Do you want to live in a bubble?" That's what Jonny asked me today when I begged him for the umpty-umpth time to stop reading aloud every criticism of Diablo Cody he can unearth. Jonny has a morbid obsession with folks who dislike my writing, and he thinks I should casually absorb their every grievance. I'll admit to feeling a mild frisson of pride whenever my writing gets referenced (whether by fans or "jus jellus" types), because polarizing=provocative. But 99% of the time, I don't read letters, postings or emails about my writing. It's better that way, man.

(The 1% only transpires when I feel deeply, deeply misunderstood and feel the need to set the record straight. For instance: the time that crazy lady yelled at me for pointing out her kid's acne in City Pages, and I had to explain that I wasn't dissing her kid, I was referencing someone else who dissed her kid. Besides, if your child's appearance is being judged in a reality TV competition, her skin is totally up for discussion. Her complexion is now public domain, like most Christmas songs. Someone once wrote that I had a big ass. I coped.)

The Beatles catalog : Michael Jackson
My ass : everyone

That said, it's human nature to shield oneself from hostile projectiles. The entire sport of dodgeball is predicated on that response. And I can lob 'em, but I can't catch 'em. That's why I avoid any negative reference to myself, anywhere. I miss a lot of positive stuff by proxy, but I find peace in the void.

I wouldn't say I'm a total ostrich. I put myself out there from time to time. I mean, I occasionally go to the movies with my husband's ex-wife. If that doesn't show a willingness to be vulnerable, I don't know what does. I can expose myself and swallow the crit. But I just don't feel the need to hear inconsequential grumblings from peeps who ain't likely to split a bottle of Patron with me anyway.

But if they did? They would love me. 'Cause I'm America's lapdancer.

Posted by Diablo Cody at November 30, 2005 7:37 PM

I'm Checking In

To pre-holiday rehab, that is! Just kidding. Pretending to go to rehab is so early 2005.

Jonny took this picture in front of the Deuce Deuce today. I like that the strippers are billed third.

Thanksgiving was memorable, to say the bare minimum. The book is now manifest (though not yet available to the pubic) and I brought a couple of copies home to Chicago for Turkey Day. Little did I know that my mom would wind up reading it cover-to-cover while a fathoms-deep furrow developed between her eyes. (I mean, even if your mom casts dicks in plaster for a living, she's going to wince when she reads your peep show memoir.) I'm thankful that the wincing was kept to a polite minimum by most of my extended fam. But hearing my aunt read the book aloud to a rapt senile granny? Awkward.

I'm real busy and stuff. I get to be tricoastal next week. I got an offer to be on Geraldo today but I couldn't go. Jonny and I were joking about how I could have sneaked derisive references to Al Capone's vault into my spiel. Ah, that was a magic night in 1986.

In other, more unfortunate news, my cat Georgie (the fat one) is illin' big time. He's at the hospital having a biopsy on a mass on his lung. I'm trying to be Zen about this. George is my boy. My son. This differs from the Agnes situation because she got sick so soon and so suddenly. By contrast, I've had years to cuddle and coddle and adore George. If for some reason this is Fatman Scoop's time to go, I'll bid him farewell with a kiss and a salute (and a few thousand tears). Still, I'm praying that he'll come home again and make a surprise recovery, because he is a truly kickass cat, a stout purring Buddha who loves you back. The best animals are anomalies. And this anomaly is one of my best friends. Ever. Stay strong, Porridge.

Posted by Diablo Cody at November 29, 2005 5:00 PM

Bad blogger!

Yeah, I know, I suck balls.

New York ruled with a concrete fist. ROO-WELD. Now that I'm back, my esteemed director is in town for a few days and I'm trying to entertain him. And I don't mean "entertain" in the Laotian masseuse sense. But it is a lot of fun. We went to the Mall of America today and ate cheese curds and listened carefully for those classic Minnesotan accents that tend to charm out-of-towners.

I have neglected my email, voicemail and blog. I'm sorry.

It's beginning to look a lot like Thanksgiving, no?

Posted by Diablo Cody at November 18, 2005 4:37 PM

I'm in the trades again today

Check it out.

(If the link expires or proves bogus for some reason, it's an article in Variety about Brad Silberling directing my movie Juno.)

I'm no Lemony Snicket, but I hope I can do right by this guy.

Posted by Diablo Cody at November 10, 2005 8:20 AM

New York, Day 2

Now this is more like it! Today I tooled around assorted Villages and checked out some cool record stores and cafes. I had four meetings, but the spaces in between were priceless. I even spotted the Statue of Liberty from a conference room window.

I like it here. There are bars that have been here since the 1890s and delis that coax tears from my shiksa ducts. But the best part of today? Jonny and I got to go to the set of All My Children to meet with Leven Rambin, who is an absolute dollbaby. I wish I had looked that hot at 15! Leven gamely led us through all the AMC sets, which were surprisingly small and spartan. ABC magic makes them look semi-realistic. There were lots of stars hanging around, but since I don't watch the show, I feel the hot soap-stud action was wasted on me. It was weird watching veteran actresses hanging around in towel turbans and false eyelashes. Lucci wasn't there, sadly, but we still enjoyed gawking at all the daytime celebs,

We had a delicious dinner and got wasted before tromping off to Tasti D-Lite. Tomorrow: Chuck Klosterman!

Posted by Diablo Cody at November 9, 2005 10:08 PM

New York-- Day One

We just had some delicious cups of Tasti D-Lite and strolled around Times Square. It sure is bright here! At first glance, it reminds me of Chicago on 'roids with three times the litter. Tomorrow I get to see a lot more of Manhattan, as I plan to attend a few meetings when I'm not stalking Suchin Pak.

There is garbage on the street. I'd heard folks allude to this before, but I thought they were referring to cigarette butts and other detritus. Not literal sacks of garbage heaped onto the sidewalk like rat bait. Now, before y'all pile up on me, I'm not pulling a "Claire Danes in Manila" and dissing NYC like some xenophobic priss. Not at all. This is the city, after all. This is It. It's just that, you know, there's garbage. Gar. Bidge.

This is gonna be a sweet-ass trip, I think. I've already had a drink named after Sammy Hagar and I've only been in town for three hours.

Posted by Diablo Cody at November 8, 2005 9:28 PM

The best part about having a blog

Blogging, admittedly, is its own reward for a classic exhibitionist like myself. What could be more fun than airing my dirty g-strings for a mass of anonymous rubberneckers? I've always been a diarist (look for more on that topic soon) and blogging is much sexier than that closeted, furtive pastime.

(Of course, I've never been too furtive about my diaries. In fact, I spent New Year's Eve 2000 writing in my diary while fellow partygoers stared at me with pity in their eyes. I'm sorry, but the party was seriously boring. Also, an ex-boyfriend of mine was there--one of those exes whose very countenance makes you feel like Francis Ford Coppola is stomping your heart like a Chardonnay grape, even though you were positive you were finally, finally over him. I couldn't bear to look at his new girlfriend, who was flouncing around wearing ironic opera-length gloves. Her every flounce was like a finger in my aorta. So I wrote in my diary and pretended not to care about the TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM. Incidentally, I was not wearing opera-length gloves and no one kissed me.)

Still, the best part about blogging is getting letters (and yes, I consider email "letters") from strangers. I just caught up on about a week's worth of messages, and man, I love you people. Would you believe that I very rarely get hate mail? That's not because I'm universally likeable or something--quite the contrary. For the love of God, I've admitted to leering at breastfeeding women in the hopes of glimpsing nipple. I masturbate on city buses (well, technically that was a Southwest Metrolink suburban bus, but I actually came.). I make fun of other people's teeth in print. That's how big a dick I am, and yet I still get really nice letters from really nice people. It's wonderful to know that I can be flawed, selfish and pathological and still be understood by somebody. It means more to me than you know. And I am trying to be more normal.

Posted by Diablo Cody at November 7, 2005 10:42 AM

Start spreading the news...

...I'm leaving, well, tomorrow.

I'm going to NYC. I've never been there before, ever. My mental image of New York is a composite of movie stills and Sex and the City scenes. Oh, and that Babysitters Club book where they went to Central Park and ate lox ("I now pronounce you an official New Yorker," Stacey said). The savvy Midwesterners I've interrogated have described the city in breathless survivors' parlance: "It's so...huge. You're gonna, like, die." "It's like five Chicagos, and the people are way meaner." "Going to New York is like getting pistol whipped by Leon Spinks." I mean, is this a vacation or some kind of twisted urban version of Outward Bound? Am I going to enjoy myself or spend the entire trip cowering in the (ludicrously overpriced) hotel, batting mutant roaches away from my face?

I do have some fun meetings planned with publishers, producers and the ilk. I always have the comfort of business to fall back on when pleasure seems threatening by comparison.

I promise to take lots of pictures and post them when I return.

P.S. Jonny now hilariously refers to "Grey's Anatomy" as "Grey's." As in: "Hey, did you TiVo 'Grey's'? I want to see what happened with McDreamy." It reminds me of college, when everyone would refer to taping "BH-Niner" and "Dawson's." Of course, I had no time for nighttime soaps, since I was on a Lane Meyer-like quest to kill myself.

P.P.S. Jonny got a Xanax prescription and refuses to share! DRUG HOARDER!

Posted by Diablo Cody at November 7, 2005 9:32 AM

I still love you Ashlee!

DUDES! Have you seen this clip of Ashlee Simpson flipping out at McDonalds? Check it out at Perez Hilton. I apologize if I'm so yesterday.

I'm so glad nobody's ever been around to tape some of my late night drunk stunts at the grocery store. I mean, not that footage of me would ever make a gossip blog or anything.

Posted by Diablo Cody at November 4, 2005 9:45 AM

Sleep Study

I believe the very definition of "laziness" is: blogging by candlelight because you don't feel like changing a lightbulb. Forgive any errant typos; it is quite dark in my study and I'm drinking cheap sake straight out of the bottle. And I'm already a clumsy two-finger typist, my friends. I could wind up writing something about Balzac sucking when I meant sucking...eh, never mind.

I'm obsessed with photoblogging lately, but I've been too busy to take any pictures. Tonight, Jonny is at a sleep study at the hospital. He's hooked up to a tangle of beeps and blips and they're trying to figure out why he snores like a bonesaw. I mean, the boy's snoring is loud. LOUD. So loud that the first time I slept beside him, I thought I was being punk'd. I checked under the bed for some kind of novelty sound effects machine because I didn't think it was possible for a human being to generate the fifty decibel SNRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH emitting from Jonny's noble proboscis. Alas, it was real. The doctors suspect sleep apnea, so they're running tests. If the diagnosis is correct, Jonny will have to sleep in a Darth Vader mask, which should make for some unusual sex scenarios.

As for photoblogging, fresh pictures will have to wait. Besides, y'all don't want to see my tired mug. Check out these classic Pussy Ranch pics from the old site instead.

Here I am in 2003, waiting for something to happen. Hello,something? Anything? How about a fucking book deal? Hell, I'll settle for a self-published zine. Stripping is getting boring. Waiting for Jonny's divorce to get finalized is already boring. These $1.99 hair extensions from the ghetto should be boring, but they look like a particularly flammable Cher wig. SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING, I'M BORED. HELP ME.

I look like a transsexual here. I'm at Sex World staring down my greatest foe, Pinky. Pinky is the smallest, least reliable vibrator in the world. Pinky gives me little pleasure and never fails to disappoint
my customers, who are expecting a polished ebony behemoth. Pinky sucks. But not as badly as my wig, my big Alexis Arquette nose and my ancient strapless bra. Who's got a cigarette?

I believe this photo was taken before I had the balls to actually pose naked. So I unbuttoned my skirt in the hopes of tastefully arousing the nine people who read my blog at the time. I doubt it worked.

Posted by Diablo Cody at November 3, 2005 11:08 PM

I kHeart kHookers!

My command of Russian is extremely rusty these days, but I couldn't resist checking out Fleshbot's link to this Russian hooker site. I'm proficient enough in the language to snicker at almost everything on the page ("Analni seks") but I'm confused by one phrase: What the heck is the last bullet point under her "specialties"? I just can't seem to translate it. Do any folks who are actually fluent want to help a girl out?

According to her bio, this hooker doesn't speak English, which would put me at an advantage if I chose to fly her to America and ravish her on my new sleigh bed. I wish I had millions of dollars and a silver jet exclusively for shuttling Russian escorts to and fro, to and fro. What a country!

The closest I've ever been to Russia is the St. Petersburg restaurant down the street, where I was recently introduced to ultra-smooth Cristall vodka. They have drums of premium potato swill there, plus very strange live entertainment. I grew up immersed in Polish immigrant culture, which has a similar sequins-and-synthesizers aesthetic. Eastern Euros are unapologetically glam. When I was a volunteer translator for a group of Ukrainian preteens in 1998, all the girls wore white pumps and miniskirts. I'm sure they felt sorry for their plain, homely American perevodchik.

Posted by Diablo Cody at November 3, 2005 2:41 PM

Get behind me Choxie!

I've been lifting weights, sweating on the elliptical, and subsisting on limited food and Diet Coke for two weeks now in the hopes of slimming down my badonka-donk. Then I discovered these fucking Choxie truffles at Target. SO GOOD.

This can only end in tears. Delicious semisweet chocolatey tears.

The combination of Choxie + the new mulberry suede Sex and the City series box is a dangerous one indeed. The immediate forecast calls for gluttony and sloth in equal measure. I'm such a housewife!

In other news...yeah.

Posted by Diablo Cody at November 2, 2005 12:30 PM

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