Sometimes, when the writing life gets a little too isolating and I start channeling Jack Nicholson in “The Shining”, I seek out others of my tribe. So, I’ve been having writing dates with the fabulous, funny, and very cool Rachel “Don’t Call Me Rach” Cohn. (If you have not read Gingerbread–one of my avorite YA novels of all time featuring the awesome Cyd Charisse–well, you just need to stop reading this post RIGHT NOW and get thee to a bookstore. Just saying.)
Anyway, Rachel came over bearing these completely addictive espresso malted milk balls. It’s like she lit the crack pipe and put it in my hand. Chocolate and coffee! Together! Where is the Nobel Prize when you need one! However, I’m guessing that when they invented these at Oren’s Daily Roast, they thought of them as sort of like after-dinner mints. You eat one or two and call it a night. How quaint.
I’m not that kind of chocolate consumer. No. I tend to think of chocolate as my extreme sport, and I am the Bode Miller of it. If you put that bag down and leave it open, it’s like declaring open season. I will grab a handful and saunter back to the couch. I’ll grab two on my way to the bathroom. I’ll take two more if I need to get up to change the CD. I will eat them. Until. You take. The bag. Away. I’m not sure how many I ate but I swear that within an hour I was VIBRATING. I was sweaty and jittery and talking Rachel’s ear off about weird, weird stuff, and it is a testament to how cool she is that she didn’t grab her laptop and run screaming from my apartment.
But during our caffeine-fueled time together, Rachel filled me in on “High School Musical” which she loves beyond reason. I am told it has the worst acting. Cheesy basketball numbers. And the kind of bubblegum pop numbers that etch their initials into your gray matter. I must see it.
When I heard there was dancing on cafeteria tables, well, let’s just say that short of getting a foot massage from Ewan McGregor while Rufus Wainwright sings to me, it was the best thing I could imagine. It immediately made me think of “Fame”–a movie I think I saw about 4,875 times. I wanted to be Irene Cara so bad! I wanted to live in a world where people broke out into song and dance in the lunchroom. I begged, BEGGED my mother to send me to the High School of Performing Arts in NYC. She gave me the appropriate “You must have confused me with someone who has money” look and told me to go listen to the soundtrack in my room. And oh, oh I did. I put on my Danskin leotard and matching tights and it was Jazz Hands, Baby! in my room all winter long. I think there was some kind of dance move that involved throwing my arms into the air while simultaneously dropping to the floor in a crouch like the guys in West Side Story and I’m pretty sure I busted my lip on my bedpost doing it. I understood that the manufactured, I’m-hot-yet-so-so-lonely ballad “Out Here On My Own” DEMANDED that I lip synch mournfully into my bathroom mirror. (This post is starting to remind me of those espresso balls…I know I should stop but I can’t seem to do it.) Note to self: Put “Fame” on Netflix list. And I guess I’ll have to break down and watch “HSM” but not until I finish this book. By God, if that doesn’t get me motivated, nothing will.
Oh no. Espresso…balls…still…left…Spock…must…resist…must…oh the hell with it. Maybe I can get my laundry done at midnight.