Find Me I'm Yours (4 page)

But while you're there,
PLEASE DON'T BUY
any of her pinup photos!!! It will only encourage her! (And she makes even MORE money when she has “specials” and sells AUTOGRAPHED pics like she's some rock star!! What is up with that?!)

Here she is clothed, so you can only imagine…

Check out “more” of her at
www.ShariActs4U.com

(Oh, and see if you can find the insane pic where her knees are up and they look like they're her boobs. Would anyone really buy a photo of a girl with knee boobs?!)

Coco's fake laugh jolted me out of my S.H.A.R.I.mare, signaling that Malcolm had just told one of his idiotic filthy jokes. He repeated the punch line, “Liquor in the front, poker in the rear,” and I joined in with more of a faux chortle than a guffaw (I change it up for Malcolm).

Very happy with our response, boss man took a red velvet cupcake and strolled out in his three-inch-heel lady boots. Coco picked up where we left off.

“So when do you start filming?”

“Really?” I grabbed a cupcake, too, since Coco always brings extra for us both. “You think I should go for it?” I was already having doubts.

“Absofuckinglutely!”

“OK, but I want to use a real camera,” I said, licking the frosting off my top lip. “No iPhone bullshit with some trendy filter app. I'd even get a Super 8 if I didn't need a projector and screen! Don't ya think?”

“Fine, whatever it takes.”

“So where can I get a camera?”

And simultaneously, like we were Siamese twins conjoined at the larynx (would that be
Siam
ultaneously?), we both said, “Craigslist.”

So I guess I have a date tonight after all. I'll be hanging out with Craig.

 

What is it that makes someone think someone else would be interested in buying a tarantula for $15.00? Or for that matter, who would offer a hand job in trade for tickets to see a giant panda at the Washington, D.C., zoo?

I spend hours of my life on Craigslist. When I'm not trolling for better paying, less torturous jobs, I'm reading my fave things, the Missed Connections. These listings bring strangers together who experienced a brief moment of serendipity, and then take it a step further, trying to actually find the boy or girl or man or woman or other that they had five seconds of eye contact with (or even just spied from afar), buried among thousands of mundane postings.

“You were wearing a red hoodie in CVS, buying Gas Ex.” “Burger King Cashier—you were on a headset and said, ‘Thank you for your order.' I said, ‘You have a great voice.'”

TOTALLY HOT, right? But who am I to judge? Maybe if I did a listing for even ONE of the random strangers I cruise on a daily basis, I would find
my
missed connection.

Before I even had a chance to get to the FOR SALE section to look for a cheap video camera, there was a knock at my door. My kids jumped from the bed and went crazy barking. I have two dogs that I rescued—one in Echo Park and the other on the Hollywood Freeway north, where she was running through traffic. Somehow I single-handedly managed to stop the cars and scoop her up like
Xena: Warrior Princess
, only stupid.

I did everything I could to find both their owners, and when I couldn't, I tried to place them in homes. Uh, for about a week until I realized Boo (shout-out to my first love!) and Toupee (well, she looks like one!) would be best off living with me even though the TWOCtress is allergic. Or maybe BECAUSE she is!

“Maggie!” S.H.A.R.I. called out in her sickeningly coy, manipulative, super-sweet voice that grates on me EVEN MORE since I caught her trying to grind herself into my boyfriend's lap. “Can you help me zip my dress up?”

Seriously? I mean it's no surprise she can't fit her surgically enhanced XXX-large lassies into her dress all by herself, but she has to ask ME to help? What's next, “Will you adjust my thong a little left so it goes right into my crack?”

“All right, come in.” If I were going to be her dresser, she would have to go on her date with an allergic reaction runny nose and itchy eyes under her Latissed Miss Piggy lashes. Fair trade.

She backed a few inches into my room, lifting her bottle-blonde hair up off her spray-tanned shoulders. “I'm having drinks with a big producer who works at Paramount.”

Well, a fitting studio since I have no doubt that after drinks, the Pair will Mount. Not that I have a problem with that, just as long as it's not with one of MY friends.

“There you go,” I said, once she was fully zipped in.

“Can I borrow your black boots?”

Having an identity-stealing roommate is one thing, but does she have to wear the same size shoe as I do? “Sorry, I'm wearing them tonight.”

“How about the black strappy platforms then?”

“Nope. Sorry. Those too. I'm going to some weird gallery opening,” I started lying, something I never used to do before I met the Lacktress, “and I'm going to wear one of each.”

As much as S.H.A.R.I. wants to mimic my every move, I knew this would be going a bit too far for her.

“Whatever,” she said. “ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO!” She sneezed three times as she ran out of the room. Boo and Toupee were doing their jobs. As an added bonus, they even chased her down the hall, barking.

Since I slept at Jason's most nights, I had spent more time in the last five and a half weeks at my apartment than I had in the entire two years since I moved in. That was utterly S.C.A.R.I.

Back to the task at hand. I scoured the ads on Craigslist, looking for video cameras in L.A. under fifty bucks.

OK, how could there be three different cameras (JVC Digi Camcorder, Sony Handy Cam, and an RCA Camcorder) for sale, and on each ad it said that the seller ‘lost the charger at Disneyland'? It's either a theme park epidemic, or a total scam, and my money (if I had any) would be on the latter.

And what's with the misspellings, peeps?! One “missed placed” the lens cap, and another “mipsplaced” the charger. I found the lack of proper spelling more concerning than the mipssing items.

AND just like the lack of production values on the “creative” dating site videos, don't people get that maybe their item would sell faster, or for more money, if they took a picture of it, say, on a solid background rather than
next to their cat's litter box
? Or on their
dead grandmother's paisley bedspread
?

The smart thing to do would be to research the difference between all the cameras offered in my low-income category. But I've never been one to do the smart thing. I just looked for ads that caught my eye.

And one definitely did.

YOU WANT MY CAMERA? CAREFUL, DESTINY INCLUDED

I clicked through and didn't even care what the ad said, or if there were any mipspellings! I was sold by the pic alone.

COME ON!!! Who does that? And what about the viewfinder? That was exactly the entire reason I was getting the camera to begin with! To make art AND find my match! So, HELLO hella destiny!!!!!!

The rest of the ad was short, and charming:

OK, I had to meet whoever placed this ad. Man or woman, straight or gay, young or old, I was sold.

I dropped an email that said that the ad was killer, and I wanted to buy the camera. Seconds later, I thought about writing back and saying OOPS, NEVER MIND! Really, how can I justify spending $42.47 for another project I'll probably start and never finish? I can't have my “destiny” to be flat-busted broke until I get paid in eight days. I made a list of everything else my cash might be better spent on:

Everything Else My Cash Might Be Better Spent On

By Mags Marclay

1). Paint, card stock, leafing pens, adhesives, foil tape, ephemera from flea markets, etc.—supplies for my collages so I could actually make some art!

2). SAVING (what a concept!) so I could move out someday in the next century!

3). A plane ticket to go home to NY to see Cooper, my seventeen-year-old tech-wiz pothead brother.

4). Contribute to an animal shelter, a homeless shelter, help feed the poor, clothe the needy, end discrimination, build schools, or even get a child's cleft palate fixed through Smile Train.

But I'm seeing this as an investment in my future, where my financially stable husband will say, “No need to work at a dead-end job, Mags. Stay at home in our beautiful two-story Craftsman house and focus on making your art,” and then I'll churn out tons o' work that I'll sell at top galleries worldwide, and I'll have so much more than just $42.47 to give—for multiple cleft palate surgeries!

Before I changed my mind, I closed out Craigslist and FaceTimed Cooper. He surprisingly answered (usually he ignores my semistalking).

“Yo, Bro. What up?”

“Nothin' much.”

It's like pulling teeth getting Cooper to talk. He was lying on his twin bed in his dark bedroom. “How's school?”

He shrugged. “Sucks.”

“What else is going on?”

“Nothin'.” But then he did something out of the norm. He sat up. And even turned on the light. Then he looked straight into the camera at me. “Do you have $500.00 I can borrow?”

“Are you fucking kidding me? What do you need $500.00 for?”

“Never mind, it's nothing.”

“There's no nothing that costs $500.00. Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“No, just forget I said anything.”

Before I could go any further, I heard my mom's voice. “Is that Mags?” She opened Cooper's door.

“Mom, stay out of my frickin' room!!!!!” he yelled.

My mom's big, giant face appeared on my screen—she's always way too close. “How are you doing, honey?”

“Excellent,” I say whenever she asks, just so she won't launch into what she always does. And this time was no different.

“But aren't you struggling in L.A.?”

“NO.” (YES.)

“Come back home. You don't have to pay rent. You can focus on your art.”

Tempting, but she always leaves out the part about being Cooper's full-time wrangler, her grocery shopper, errand runner, cook, maid, and basically a personal assistant to my own damn mother. Everything is ALWAYS about her. In fact so much so that since her name is Marcie, years ago Liza started calling her NARCIE and she's been living up to the name ever since.

“Mom, I've got to go. I have a date.”

“Tell Jason hi.”

“Seriously? I broke up with Jason almost six weeks ago. I told you that.”

“Oh, I'm sorry honey. I have a lot on my mind.”

“Well, say hi to Dad—oh wait, you guys broke up seventeen years ago. Sorry, I forgot.”

“You don't have to be nasty.”

“Mom, I gotta go.” Then yelled out, “'Bye Coop, I'm calling your ass tomorrow, and you better answer!”

The main problem with FaceTiming or Skyping or even a cell call for that matter, is that you can't effectively hang up on someone. Like in old movies when a person's mad, or simply disappointed and eager to get off the phone, they slam down the receiver.

So I just said, “Good-bye, Mother,” thinking she'd pick up on the nuance between MOM and MOTHER, and tapped on END.

I finished dinner, a bag of Funyuns, and wondered what kind of trouble my baby brother could possibly be in.

 

“Mornin'!” I waved at the emaciated woman who smiled her toothless grin at me and winked. I almost said “Mornin', Lady Macmeth!” since that's what I've named her, but stopped myself just in time. Every weekday before work, I walk Toupee and Boo twelve blocks to K & C Donut to get the cheapest cup of coffee I could find nearby, and I pass three or four regulars who call our streets their home. And how can you not make up names for them? There's Asian Johnny Cash (dressed head to toe in the same black outfit daily), and Ticky Minaj (with some hard-core facial twitches). But my fave is Lady Macmeth, and I always bring her a cup of coffee.