night owl

May 25, 2014 By Martha Louise Hunter in My Internet Addiction, Uncategorized, Weird Shiz About Me Tags: arianna huffington, beauty sleep, marie forleo, marieTV, my mother, sleep deprivation Leave a comment

whooooo whooooooo

me.

guilty as charged.

i think sleeping is so boring.

i do — i mean, it’s just not that thrilling to me.

maybe if i remembered my dreams i could write them down in a dream journal or something — that might be cool, but to me, the best thing about sleeping is waking up & having my lunchtime coffee.

yeah, i know — sleep deprivation is supposed to be bad for you. that know-it-all ariana huffington of the huff post — it’s her new thing she’s touting. wrote a book about how it was causing serious problems in her life. i saw her talking about it on marietv, btw – look it up on youtube… it’s my idol marie forleo’s show, & don’t think it’s all stuffy just because she had ariana on. besides, i’d never watch a show like that.

sorry — i just had to get off on that for a second.

okay, back to ariana. am i spelling that right?

in case not, let’s call her AH. okay – seems AH was taking her daughter to look @ colleges – excuse me, institutions of higher learning …. places in paris, rome, barcelona & bejing, no doubt. anyway, her daughter goes, listen mom — i absolutely insist you leave your blackberry in the hotel room & only check it @ night — which i’m sure to AH was right up there with cutting off her left boob, or something.

so, in the middle of the night, AH wakes up face-down on her keyboard with a huge, bleeding gash on her forehead. it was her wake up call.

did you like that one? i couldn’t resist.

hearing this, i told myself, all right, all right… i get the picture. but were there any changes on my part?

hell to the no.

then my mom called last week. you know, martha, she said, we’re both vain & care about how we look.

okay…

& not getting enough sleep is going to age you.

so, what are you trying to say, mom, i said, that i looked like i was 90 when you saw me a couple of weeks ago?

well, i didn’t say that, dear, but not getting enough sleep causes bags under your eyes & it won’t be long until they begin to sag.

say what?

i stared at my reflection in my computer screen, as i’ve been known to do on occasion. my mirror is in my bathroom, but that would take actually getting up from my computer.

&, you know, dear, she couldn’t help saying, that means your cheeks, too.

why do i even answer my phone sometimes?

i went to dinner with a couple of close friends on friday — the kind that you dispense with the pleasantries like, how’s your dog & get straight to the nitty-gritty. when i told them the situation, you know what one of them said?

martha, if that’s the time you’re most productive, just do it & stop beating yourself up.

exactly why i love this friend.

but my mom’s declaration that i’ll soon be looking like an old hag was still looping in my brain. not only that, but although my friend is a night owl, too, she’s also 20 years younger than i am.

so here’s what I’m going to try tonight. or rather, tomorrow morning: the mere thought of it gives me the riggers, but 1:00 am will be beddy-bye time.

i’ll let you know how it goes.

TTFN

what is art?

May 24, 2014 By Martha Louise Hunter in Deep Stuff, Inspirational, Uncategorized, What's Up in my Neighborhood Tags: chaddick dance theatre, modern dance, what is art? 2 Comments

essential.

it made me cry tonight. like with tears rolling down my cheeks.

that’s the thing about art — it makes you feel.

because art is an interactive experience.

that probably sounds heavy, i know, but you didn’t see the dance performance i did tonight. think how staring at a magnificent painting can make you feel, reading an incredible piece of literature or listening to a symphony & maybe you’ll understand.

it was modern dance — the kind that some people would say, that’s not dance, just because it’s not conventional. the dancers were male and female, different shapes, sizes, & colors, but none of that mattered. it was the dramatic emotion they were able to convey that was important. with just the dynamic movement of their bodies set to music, the dancers were able to make me understand things i never had before.

the art was that powerful.

i’ll never forget the night i went to a concert — it was a beatles cover-band, so i thought i knew what to expect — a little “eleanor rigby” & “love me do,” but it was so much more. the music lit me up in such a way that i couldn’t wait to get home & write. i set my computer keys on fire that night, & the story ideas & word combinations were so exciting — well, i didn’t come up with them all by myself.

have you ever seen ballet performed to hard rock? i have, & it changes the experience entirely, in a way that’s damn cool. it’s the unexpected that makes you consider things in a whole new way. & that’s good.

so, yes — art is an interactive experience that inspires the expression of the human soul.

no kidding.

TTFN

larger than life

May 20, 2014 By Martha Louise Hunter in Deep Stuff, Tributes, Uncategorized, What's Up in my Neighborhood Tags: #kickass, jesse sublett, kick-ass, muddy waters, muscian, perfect hair, published author, punk rock, raul's 6 Comments

a dear friend of mine was having a special birthday — you know one of the dreadful birthdays with a zero at the end?

i was lucky enough to be invited to the party.

the hostess asked everyone to bring a story of their favorite memory of the birthday boy, because it’s a shame that people usually only do that at funerals. totally rotten timing for the corpse, not to mention a being a tad anti-climatic.

& this story — you weren’t just supposed to jot something down on a napkin — you were supposed to like think about it & actually print it out. then @ the party, everyone took turns reading the stories while the birthday boy tried guessing whose was whose.

this took a while — I hang out with a bunch of writer-ly types, some of whom are rather VERBOSE, and you know who you are…

anyway — my friend is a super cool-cat. one of those guys all the women want & all the men want to BE? you know the type — they kind of make you vomit a little bit because they’re so damn awesome, but not this guy. several people, myself included, mentioned the fact that not only is he tall, dark & handsome with perfect hair, no less – but he was also his high school valedictorian, lead singer & guitarist in a punk rock band — I mean a groundbreaking performer, used to play at raul’s on the drag & even LA (how rockin’ is THAT?), an accomplished, best-selling novelist & historian, oh – & a kick-ass lyricist, bass player & showman. plus, he’s funny as hell & that humor comes out in everything he does. & i probably left half-a-dozen things out.

& he’s a loving & devoted husband & father. couldn’t leave that part out, because that’s the most important thing of all.

so, anyway — one day, he up & decides he wants to become an artist. like a month later, & i’m seriously not kidding, he’s showing in a gallery on south congress avenue. not too shabby. next thing, he becomes a blues-man. changes his whole musical schtick, pulls out the standing bass — you know one of those huge things, like a 10-foot-tall guitar – & starts composing & yowling like muddy waters or something. if muddy waters was like somebody you could actually stand listening to. you know what I mean.

many of the stories said my friend is a master of reinventing himself.

yeah, that’s right, everybody nodded & said.

then, another story said something profound. or, at least it was to me.

that my friend wasn’t reinventing himself, he was simply calling upon parts of himself that were there inside him all along.

it makes it sound sort of easy, doesn’t it?

easy enough for anyone to do it, right?

i guess in the back of my mind i was thinking…. hmmm. i’ve always wanted to be a potter. not a stoner. i mean like throwing pots. ceramics, okay? i seriously imagine myself doing it. sounds like fun, you know? wouldn’t have to get all artistic — lopsided pots can look kinda cool, in an avant garde sort of way….

you’ve got something like that in mind for yourself, i’ll bet.

come on, yes you do.

i don’t mean self-improvement especially. more like self-enhancement. making yourself larger than life.

or, how about larger inside your life?

just a little something to think about.

because i sure am.

TTFN

pennies

May 17, 2014 By Martha Louise Hunter in Deep Stuff, Inspirational, Tributes, Uncategorized Tags: grateful, lucky penny, pennies, soft blanket, thumb sucker, wackadoodle 2 Comments

a friend of mine picks them up every time she sees one & she sees them a lot.

she was going through a hard time many years ago. she moved back to her hometown from los angeles. her family needed her.

this was the 80’s. you remember the 80’s, right?

the decade from hell, according to my friend, & not just because of the unfortunate fashions. jobs were scarce & she couldn’t find one.

so, she did what most of us seem to do when we’re in trouble. she talked to God.

I mean really talked to him while she’d be out taking a walk.

that’s when she started seeing pennies. lots of pennies.

she’d bend down & pick them up off the sidewalk & slip them in her pocket.

soon, she noticed it wasn’t only on the sidewalk she’d see them. it seemed like they were everywhere.

sitting on a windowsill.

on top of the morning paper outside her door.

pennies.

a flicker in the grass would catch her eye. she could see it from a mile away.

beautiful, copper pennies.

sparkling in the sun. like they were following her.

she got some spotty temp jobs, a demeaning stint peddling yellow-page ads. she had to sell some of her things, but somehow, she always made rent. & she knew she had a lot to be grateful for.

she pulled up to a traffic light. there on the pavement next to her car.

a penny.

she opened the door.

hello there, she said. you’re so pretty & shiny, & i know you’ve been working hard all of your life & you’ve got to be tired. why don’t you let me give you a lift?

as she picked it up and looked down at it in her palm, she remembered something.

she’d sucked her thumb when she was little. it’s how she comforted herself, always wrapped up in the same soft, satin-edged blanket.

& like kids do, she gave her blanket a name.

penny.

that’s when she knew what they all meant.

the pennies were God’s way of comforting her now. letting her know everything wasn’t going to just be okay, it already was okay.

now, if you’re thinking i’m making this up, or that I swiped it off the back of readers digest, or that my friend’s a wackadoodle, which she’s not, just work with me & listen to the rest of the story. okay?

do you always pick them up, i asked her.

the 1st penny was over 30 years ago & even now, she finds one almost every single day.

absolutely, she said. of course.

what do you do with them? i imagined them spilling over her flowerbeds at home.

lots of them are in piggy banks, & regular banks, too, she said, because she’s traded lots of them in. but, she also has books & books of them under her bed. she’ll tape them to the pages and write a little something alongside. like where she found them.

& how she was feeling that day, before she found them & after.

she’s been seeing the same penny on her drive to work. right in the middle of a busy street & she sees it again on her way home, too. twinkling on the pavement, it seems to wink at her.

it’s been several weeks now, in the middle of all those cars whizzing by & the penny hasn’t moved.

freaky, huh?

all right, remember that line from grease? somebody’s got to say it, so i guess it’s got to be me.

“see a penny, pick it up. all day long you’ll have good luck.”

i think it sounds like a spectacular idea. don’t you?

TTFN

yes, i am OCD

May 13, 2014 By Martha Louise Hunter in My Internet Addiction, Uncategorized, Weird Shiz About Me Tags: gertrude stein, little twitter bird, voices inside my head 11 Comments

i hear it a lot.

the voices inside my head tell me.

the television, too — when i’m watching hoarders.

but mostly, it’s my computer who lets me know.

i’m obsessed with my website. maybe you’ve seen it — http://www.marthalouisehunter.com

maybe that was a shameless plug, but my fingers just type that uncontrollably. my dog, bitsey thinks i’m weird at night when i start typing it on her head in my sleep.

maybe you don’t realize it, but all of this social media stuff is a pain in the ass.

yes, i said it, & you can even tattle on me for cursing, because at this point, i really don’t care.

this site of mine — jeez louise, martha louise, — it’s so time-consuming, you wouldn’t believe it. well, maybe you would, but here’s the thing that’s really the worst. have you ever noticed when you pull up a website on your phone, it’s an adorable little mini-version of the one on your computer?

did you think it shrinks down like that like magic?

there’s not a little genie in your phone. it’s me.

it takes hours upon hours to get it right. not only do things move around all over the place, sometimes you lose them altogether. you should’ve seen me searching for the stupid amazon icon earlier. poor little thing was hiding underneath the little twitter bird.

this one time, i changed one teensy-weensie thing & my face looked like gertrude stein.

so, next time you look at something online, give a big old “you’re AWESOME” to the little computer geek who made it all happen.

omg, i’m ocd… look @ the time. seriously? it’s 3:25 a.m.

i know my posts routinely have typos, but this time, get over it.

TTFN

casino a-go-go

May 12, 2014 By Martha Louise Hunter in Random Stuff, Uncategorized, What's Up in my Neighborhood Tags: blackjack, casino, cleavage, cocktail waitress, gambling, one-armed-bandit Leave a comment

gambling makes no sense, but these places are packed, i’m telling you.

i’ve heard they pump casinos with oxygen to cause subtle mind control.

i looked it up to see if that’s true. the answers were mixed. a couple of sites say no, but ask.com says they do it to keep people awake so they won’t wander off to bed in the early hours of the morning.

even if it’s not true, SOMETHING’S going on & it’s working.

here’s what happens: you sit down at the slot machines — the one-armed-bandits. you load in your dinero & keep pulling down the handle even though you’re losing your ass. but, I’ve just GOT to win, you think. I’ve already lost so much that it’s only fair.

now, repeat after me: nothing @ the casinos is fair.

i mean, come on! everything is rigged. how could they afford to have a million tuxedoed blackjack dealers & scantily-clad cocktail waitresses swarming the place, otherwise, not to mention those rows and rows of flashing slot machines?

here was my personal low-point of the weekend.

oh, sorry — i was @ a schmancy casino in lake charles, louisiana & i forgot to tell you that part.

i plopped down in front of “pharaoh’s fortune.” there was another machine called “kitty glitter” — like kitty litter, get it? a little casino humor there.

& about those scantily-cocktail waitresses. you have to feel sorry for them, forced to dress like a bunch of hookers in head-to-toe gold sequins with 4 inches of cleavage & their belly buttons hanging out, because they’re really sweet people & they don’t deserve that. i became BFF’s with a few of them while i was losing my ass, but I’m getting ahead of myself, here.

i finally won $200 with one pull of the handle. old pharaoh threw me a bone.

woo-hoo, i thought, but like a total doofus, instead of taking my golden tokens to the money cage, cashing in & calling it a night, i kept going until i lost every cent.

so, why is that considered fun?

must be the risk. like jumping out of an airplane.

or maybe it’s not oxygen that’s pumped into the air, but stupid-elixir.

or it could be plain old peer pressure — you are surrounded by masses of idiots, after all.

and, we sure had a good time.

TTFN

i slam doors when i’m mad

May 5, 2014 By Martha Louise Hunter in Random Stuff, Uncategorized, Weird Shiz About Me Tags: elvis, mad, my haters are my motivaters, my mother, rainbows & unicorns, slamming doors 4 Comments

i never realized how much my mother has influenced me until i started writing this blog. i’m serious.

no, she wasn’t a door slammer, but her big sister was — the very reason it was the ultimate no-no when i was growing up. let me rephrase that — the ultimate hell-no when i was growing up & my mom wasn’t going to have it in her house.

the very reason i do it in mine.

may have been the first thing i did when i was old enough to have my own. imagine me signing the papers, walking over the threshold and

SLAM

here’s why i think door slamming works. it’s the watered-down version of throwing a stack of dishes at the wall, or firing a bullet through the television screen like elvis supposedly did. kind of like stark raving mad-LITE.

& besides — are you kidding? i’d never hurt my own stuff. took me a long time to acquire it. not only that, but i really like it.

today was a real door-slammer for me. think i did it 3 times before lunchtime. if no one’s home, sometimes i’ll throw in a couple of long, loud monkey screams but there were painters outside, re-staining my garage doors that look like hell. &, no — i didn’t slam the garage doors. they’re the roll-down kind.

so why was i so pissed today?

just got some not great news about something i’d put my blood & guts into. someone wasn’t quite as impressed with it as i was. not nearly as impressed.

so, what did i do? after i slammed the doors, you mean?

3 times?

got on my old buddy facebook, of course. isn’t that the 2014 salve for the soul? all your pals in one place ready to give you a big old

didn’t have to search long. there’s a woman on there who’s the real rainbows & unicorns type. here’s what was on her page:

after reading that little ray of sunshine, i think i went & slammed the door a couple of more times. ate a dozen more lemon cookies. didn’t mention that part before, did i? my bad.

with only a few crumbs left in the box, i switched FB back on & began scrolling. here’s what i found:

best damn idea i heard all day.

here’s another one from the archives:

can i hear an amen?

thanks for listening. i feel better now.

TTFN

holding my nose in idaho

May 3, 2014 By Martha Louise Hunter in Better Than Dear Abby, Uncategorized Tags: dear abby, gentle reader, lucy and ricky 7 Comments

i check dear abby everyday & this morning, she finally had something i can work with.

this woman’s been married to the “love of her life” for eight years. Great husband, father & provider except there’s one problem: he bathes once a week & brushes his teeth even less often than that. that’s two problems, i guess.

he makes the move on her & she’s so totally grossed out she can’t go there. she’s tried “making bath time fun” — i think i catch her drift but the thought of his raunchy, greasy hair stuck to the bar of soap kinda kills it for me. anyway, she says she’s not up for the rub-a-dub-dub routine every night.

she doesn’t mince words. even spills the beans on what everybody else has been saying about his nastiness. nothing works. she’s a clean person & keeps hoping he’s going to follow her lead. advice, she asks?

just so you know, gentle reader i don’t read abby’s advice before giving mine, so here we go.

dear holding my nose in idaho,

did you ever see that episode of i love lucy, the one where she & ricky are in a huge fight & she draws a line down the middle of the apartment, straight through their bedroom?

you’ve got to set down the gauntlet, girl.

next wash day, change your side of the bed only. that’s right, just leave his nasty, stinky sheets on there. stop washing his clothes. stop dropping his suits @ the cleaners. feed him on dirty dishes. serve his coffee in the same crusty mug. don’t wash his bathroom sink. i’d say don’t windex the toothpaste off his side of the mirror, but i don’t see where that’s an issue.

you’ve got to be hard core on this or it’s never going to work.

so, what does dear abby have to say?

give me a second to read it.

okay, I’m back.

lame & useless.

if he has the energy to make advances @ the end of a long workday, he should have enough energy to bathe & brush his teeth. unless you plan on wearing a clothespin on your nose during marital relations, you should insist upon it.

abby, are you smoking weed? what do you think she’s been doing, you dolt???

how does abby keep her job? i don’t get it.

word’s going to get around about beingmarthalouisehunter.com & the phone’s going to start ringing. just saying…

TTFN

for those of you who’re new around here, that’s tigger-speak for “ta-ta for now.”

	Martha Louise Hunter on starting over
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being martha louise hunter

……. and, i'm the woman for the job

Monthly Archives: May 2014

night owl

what is art?

larger than life

pennies

yes, i am OCD

casino a-go-go

i slam doors when i’m mad

holding my nose in idaho