Caterwauling

Janeane Garofalo’s nerdy, nervous “Janis” character on 24 is simply not cocky or confident enough to fill Mary Lynn Rajskub’s “Chloe’s” clearly too-tight shoes. She cannot triangulate on command — ergo, what good is she to Jack Bauer? Damn government employees.

I probably won’t be home from work to see tonight’s episode of “24.” (We pack three meals for work on Monday, or else we will have our grubby mitts elbow-deep in Candy Corner.) But so far, the season’s looking promising, with great shots of D.C. landmarks and even a “news” clip featuring Fox5DC’s Brian Bolter. I give the producers props for paying attention to the little details like that.

Of course, those seem to be the only details they got right. C’mon, people. Skyscrapers? In D.C.? Parking lots? No gratuitous Potomac River shots, not even from National Airport?

I’m going to try to give credit to them for basing their layout of the city on wishes and dreams, so as not to compromise our “real” national security. But go check out WeLoveDC.com’s liveblog from the first two hours of Jack Bauer’s latest case of the Mondays for a much-more-detailed look at the geographical anachronism that is the new season of “24.”

If I were younger or dumber or looking to get fired, I would write about my day. But let’s assume that I’ve just spent the last 5,000 words describing every tool in the box, and we can all move on from here.

I feel better already!

Actually, you know what’s been making me happy in my captivity these past few days? VH1’s 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs of All Time countdown. Who knew that all the songs that defined my youth would appear in a five-hour retrospective special on the former Video Hits One, where adult contemporary once went to die?

I had to giggle when one of my F-book friends from high school became a fan of Poison. We were all such wannabe hoochies, dressing up like Madonna as we went to all the heavy metal concerts we could afford from our summer camp job money. She was going to marry C.C. Deville while I was lusting after a three-way with Jon Bon Jovi and Kip Winger.

My dreams haven’t changed all that much.

I’d say “seriously, though,” as a transition to the next thought, but I ain’t kidding … not one bit!

Nothing makes me happier than either dancing around Metro stations with R&B on the iPhone (check the security cameras at Metro Center from last weekend. You’d be amused), or listening to all that “devil music.” At a time when I’m feeling particularly lost and devoid of the bulk of life’s pleasures, it’s weird how I rediscovered my soul while listening to Megadeth and Dio and Dokken and Ratt and Motley Crue and Alice Cooper and all the other music that is now too loud because I’m too old.

I don’t have any deep epiphany beyond remembering when I was a wee lass, scribbling my early books in my spiral-bound notebooks for school, while listening to that music. Dreaming of those rock stars, of being the one they pulled up on stage for a song or two, of being a rock star someday myself and traveling the world and living the shit out of every day I was lucky enough to have been given.

I wrote my first book 20 years ago. It wasn’t any good and I’m sure I lost it about 85 moves ago (one hopes). But man, the dreams I had and the stories they inspired.

Wistful. I was so wistful. Now I’m nostalgic for that wistfulness. Funny, that. I always figured that, in 20 years (from then), I’d either still be partying like a rock star or I will have done all my partying and then I’d be settling down a little bit into a real life.

Not that I ever saw myself as a corporate type — I figured I’d be wearing flip-flops to work and being a cool mom who wasn’t embarrassing for the kids to be seen in public with.

And I do wear flip-flops to work — the better for sitting barefoot and Indian-style in my ergonomic chair — I just shove on “real” shoes for meetings lest anyone see my flagrant disregard for things like rules and decorum!!

I wonder if my Poison-loving friend would be shocked to know how many different kinds of music I follow these days. How I’d rush to the next Lillith Fair, were it ever reprised. How you might never catch me country line-dancing, but I know all the lyrics. How when you see me grooving and lip-syncing on the Orange Line, I’ve got some Montell Jordan/Next/Rico Love jam going on. And in the middle of it all, a little Christian/gospel for good measure?

Anyway, I totally get why older folk listen to the “golden oldies” station. It’s not really that they don’t like “that rock ‘n roll music” — it just didn’t define their dreams, their memories, their generation the way it did mine.

*making the ‘devil horns’ and headbanging, and then taking an Excedrin ’cause OW!*

SNL’s Hillary/Palin sketch:

From the Grey’s Anatomy blog:

“I feel for (Rose) though because when a man meets the love of his life, there is nothing else out there for him, no matter how great the girl.”

I believe that’s true for women or, at least, for me. You find someone and you’d probably forgive them downright anything and you’d wait for them if that’s what it takes and you’ll hide your heartache till the end of time because it seems like he’s got to be the one to come to his senses, to find you waiting there all along.

And all the while that you’re wondering whether you’re good enough for him, you squelch back every fleeting thought of, “Well, is he even good enough for me?”

In any case, maybe I just haven’t met the type that “could” settle down, even if it’s the love of his life. Or maybe I have and I just don’t know it yet.

I decided to work from home in the early hours of the morning, breaking my new tradition of being coiffed and dressed at the ass-crack of moi and being planted in my little cubby before the masses arrive. (A girl’s gotta get some peace at some point in her day.)

So I did my thing in my quiet room (with a door! Next time I’m job-hunting, I’m NOT going to go for the cube environment. No way in hell), and I was just about to leave when I yawned. It was a Technicolor yawn, unfortunately, as the Skittles I’d nommed on for breakfast decided they didn’t want to be digested after all. I can has sick day? Oh noes, too short-staffed! *barf*

Anyway, I was slightly riveted by “Grey’s Anatomy” last night. I wish I could just identify with one character instead of all of them. Maybe I’d feel less damn depressed at 10 p.m. Eastern on Thursday nights when the show goes off and I switch to Comedy Central for the duration of the evening.

I think, if I had to pick, I’d have been Cristina this week. (It’s a lovely name, so why not?) After the fruits of her labor have yielded a prestigious award for her lackluster ex, and the new boss doesn’t have the time of day for her, no wonder she’s disengaged. She passed up the opportunity to be part of a historic surgery on the founder of some awesome technique they all use, instead choosing to stick paper clips on a Dixie cup.

And what’s sad is I was thinking, hey that Dixie-cup-stabbing kind of looks fun!

I think I’ve fallen into a patch of quicksand insofar as why I was put on this planet. I’m developing mad (and marketable) skillz and I’m really growing on a personal level, too. But while I know the point of existence is to become who we’re meant to be, well, who exactly is that person? I’m sure she’s going to be downright divine, but what’s wrong with me as-is? And why do I have to be a different person to get where I’m going?

The other storyline that caught my eye last night was the gal with the brain tumor who spun a Cinderella-like story of her man Andre, whom she wanted to see before she went into experimental neurosurgery that could (and would) kill her. Nobody believed her, that she had this man in her life — there were no photos, no eyewitnesses, no way that anyone could imagine that she could meet Prince Charming.

I was angry about that — pudgy girls need love too, people. I’ve said it before on this blog and I’ll say it again, non-skinny girls give the best head because we’re HUNGRY.

Anyway, the patient’s sister convinced Meredith that there could not POSSIBLY be a man, which Mer of course used to attempt to convince Derek that Andre was the byproduct of brain-tumor-induced hallucinations.

What I loved about Derek was that he was willing to entertain the hallucinations. I don’t know that even he believed this man was real, but he was willing to wait until his (supposed) 3 p.m. arrival time.

What I loved more was that, in surgery as everything was going wrong, Mer perked up and announced — by intuition alone — “Andre’s here.”

So here I am at a character crossroads myself, between the disenchanted and directionless Cristina and the wants-so-badly-to-believe-it’s-real brain-tumor patient and even the now-crazy Ava who really seems to have believed she was pregnant but it was all a product of her own hallucinations. (No comments about me spontaneously exhaling my breakfast today!)

I’m rooting for hope to win out. I’m just starting to see that there’s so much more to life than what I’ve allowed into it so far. But I’ve always believed that it will take one small miracle to set off a domino effect of dreams coming true — even dreams I didn’t know I had. And maybe the key is to let others know that you have ‘em because maybe, just maybe, they would be happy to help further them along. …