I went to the spa yesterday and got my very first facial.

Here's how I imagined a facial:

Hello, Jill. We're going to slather pleasant things on your face in a joyful way. Sometimes we will wipe them off and alternately do other pleasant things like massage your shoulders and tell you how nice you look in mauve. When we are finished, you shall be refreshed and happy and your face shall be just precisely like a baby's bottom except less smelly.

In reality, the facial was much more like this:

Hello, Jill. We ARE going to slather pleasant things on your face, but that's just a ruse to throw you off so you won't expect it when we start to poke and prod your face in an extremely ouchy (to use the scientific terminology) way. So ouchy that, in fact, you will want to pull out our fingernails so as to express the pain you're in. We'll call it "extraction." and insist that we're just extracting "blackheads" when, in reality, we are extracting "any and all life force left in your body." And then at the end, we'll smile like we've really done a wonderful thing.

Not SO different really. If you would, however, like to mourn the loss of my blackheads, please send flowers.

LESSONS I LEARNED DOING COMEDY ON THE ROAD:

1) If you smile a lot and giggle a little, people in the audience will send you as many shots onstage as you can possibly drink. I suspect they think that, if you drink enough, there's always the slim possibility that you MIGHT get confused and take your shirt off.

2) Don't say, "Is anyone from out of town?".

They're not.

NO ONE comes to these places from out of town. Except me. And that's only because they pay me.

3) Never date a road comic. I have noted that, whilst on the road, many will happily cheat on their wife/girlfriend* at the drop of a hat**

4) If you're doing 30 minutes of comedy and the audience hates you in the first five, you have two choices. You must either: a)"get them back" by convincing them you are secretly a comedic genius and were just hiding that fact from them for the first five mintes all the while dodging tomatoes and insults, or b) take off your shirt.

Sigh....this blog entry isn't really working for me. I think I'm going to stop right in the middle. Because you guys can't throw anything at me even if you want to. And I don't think that taking off my shirt will help at all. I'll try again tomorrow.

*I say "wife/girlfriend" as opposed to "husband/boyfriend" because so far I've only only worked on the road with male comedians. I think the fear is that, if someone actually booked TWO female comedians on the same night, something terrible might happen to the space-time continuum.

** Plus or minus the drop of a hat.

The U.S. army keeps bragging about how it's an "Army of One."

In which case, how's about we let Donald Rumsfeld be the "one" and send everyone else on a vacation to Bermuda?

Just a thought.

I'm going upstate to do shows for the weekend.

Thusly no internet access. I shall just have to sit and churn butter and weave my own clothing like they did in the old days.

I shall see you monday :)

You can get high from licking toads, you know.

I just read it in a factual place.

I would, however, like to know how many kittens and bunnies got licked before somebody discovered that it was toads that got you high.

Because nobody STARTS with toads. If you're licking something to get high (and let's be honest, you are.) then you're gonna start with the cute animals. Toads would be far down the list, I think.

Right before cockroaches and Gary Busey.

FUTURE OLYMPIC EVENTS IN WHICH I COULD WIN THE GOLD MEDAL:

1. Procrastinating doing Dishes: Winnings strategies include alphabetizing things, trying on all of my shoes, and making a table out of plastic bottles.

2. Eating Ice-Cream for Breakfast: The key here is in choice of flavors. Many people will go with "vanilla" but that's simply not breakfasty enough. Flavors like "mint chip" and "butter pecan" are FAR more breakfasty. And if you don't understand why, frankly you don't even have a chance in this event.

3. Making-Out: Oh, I really am quite good. It's a gift.

4. Punching that Dell Computer Guy in the face: Lots of people, I'm sure, attempt to punch him in the face. But the fact that I can do it simply by willing it from my TV screen gives me the added advantage in this event.

5. The javelin

I'll see you all in 2008. Well, maybe 2006. Because I feel that Eating-Ice-Cream-For-Breakfast might be a winter sport.

So much for that "I've got this new job that's going to give me tons more time to write" plan.

But you didn't really believe me anyway, did you?

You were secretly thinking to yourself, "No, Jill will find another excuse to dress up like a carrot or some such nonsense and will leave us blogless for days at a time."

And you were right. Like always.

But I'm going to try really hard to get back on track and writing every day. And if I don't, oh well, 'cause you knew I wouldn't anyway, right? It's a win-win situation, really. If you think about it the right way. And I think that you do.

A little tidbit, though, to tide you over:

MY TRUE-LIFE MOMENT THAT SOUNDS AWFULLY LIKE A TAGLINE FOR A BAD SITCOM:

Jill gets a tad drunk and proceeds to introduce herself to the police force as Officer Jill. In fact, insists that everyone present refer to her as Officer Jill. Mayhem ensues.

Buh bye.

A miracle has occurred.

A real-life, for suresies, call-the-pope-'cause-somebody's-gonna-be-a-saint miracle.

You see, somewhere in the middle of high school, I stopped growing. I was five-foot one-inches and not getting any taller.

After much dismay, I gave up my dreams of modeling and a career in the WNBA and ever being able to change my own lightbulbs. I had accepted my fate:

Five-onedness forever.

Doomed.

But today all my years of prayer and never once using heroin or punching babies paid off

Just a few short moments ago, on a whim (or, as I like to call it, by grand design), I decided to measure myself. And well.....

I'm five-foot-two.

I am. I'm not just making that up to make you jealous. Because, trust me, I know what it's like to NOT be five-foot-two. It hurts. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

And I certainly wouldn't want to rub the fact that I am five-foot-two in people's faces.

But I am.

And let me tell you, it's a whole different world when you're five-foot-two. I have an entirely different perspective on the world. I imagine I'll just spend all of my remaining days bumping my head on things and reaching things on high shelves for people less fortunate than I.

And looking down on people.

It'll be splendid.

Miraculous, even.

The newspaper headline today said, "Bat Attack in Brooklyn."

I thought, "Ooh, vampire?"

Turns out it was baseball.

Sigh....