badinia, Author at Virginia Jones ⋆ Page 18 of 63

Supporting Tommy Johnagin at Helium!

I’m so excited to be visiting Portland’s Helium Comedy Club to support the hilarious Tommy Johnagin March 6,7,8! I won’t be at Bridgetown this year, so this is your only chance to see visiting Portlander Virginia Jones until next year!

Postscript: It was a fun week of shows, although Ian Karmel came out to run his late night set and that made me feel like a schlub, which is usually how I feel in my hometown.

Breakfast Club Revisited

I have now watched Breakfast Club for my personal jillionth time. I still think it’s a movie that holds up over the years, but I have the following questions about the “Happy” ending.

1. Molly Ringwald is overjoyed to have started a relationship with a commitmentphobe alcoholic with rage problems, who screams and stabs desks with knives. Great. I don’t have to point out that every teenage girl who watches this film is in love with John Bender. Apparently, we want to spend our adult years in probation hearings and Al-Anon meetings. A girl who goes out with nerdy Brian has a life of high-end Silicon Valley condo-living ahead of her, and anyone who winds up with Andy will just watch him gain weight after he tears his ACL wrestling but continued to eat a bag of groceries at every meal.

2. Emilio Estevez winds up with a fantasist kleptomaniac pathological liar who showed up to detention because she had nothing better to do, which is like if I showed up at a prison to do time for no reason. He is also overjoyed.

2a. What, is that white shit she’s wearing supposed to be her underwear? She’s wearing frilly long johns underneath her outfit like she’s a Mormon? What is her hair tied back with, her panties?

Highschooooool!

I was home this week and paging through a stolen copy of my high school’s yearbook and wanted to point out the following image:

Alan Tudyk is pretty cool and is from Firefly and and more importantly, plays a cult leader in two episodes of Strangers with Candy, alongside fellow PSHS alum Jeremy Schwartz, who is also a totally awesome actor person.

Alan Tudyk never hung out with me, but that’s ok. Hardly anyone did, possibly because I had an earring I made out of a rosary and a lock of my boyfriend Chris’ (last name redacted) hair. Maybe it was because everything I am wearing I got from yard sales, and wore when we took pictures in August in Texas. Perhaps it was because I was identifying with Andie from Pretty in Pink so much that I drove a Kharmann Ghia that was constantly vandalized because I had a KEEP ABORTION LEGAL sticker on it in North Texas. Who knows?

Eliza Rickman’s Start with Goodbye

I have known a creepily lifelike doll named Eliza Rickman for several years, and today she released a video for her song, Start With Goodbye. It’s composed of forced perspective vignettes with taxidermied animals. Please enjoy it.

New Year Photos

Jonathan Saunders took this picture of me this week, largely because neither of us had anything better to do. He’s shot George Carlin, Bernie Madoff, Don Imus, and me. He’s an expert marksman, an artist, and a real weirdo. Check out his photo blog at www.iliketotellstories.com.

It’s a Very Vegan Christmas!

My talented best friend Pete Ellison (designer of my website, music impresario, DJ and artist- previously mentioned here, here, and here, and here and here!) has made this adorable t-shirt, suitable for you or your vegan/vegetabletarian friends and family!

It’s available in yellow, green, or blue, and is hand-printed in Pete’s home studio in soft, eco-friendly waterbased inks. I like this tee especially because it doesn’t have the “and you’re a dick” subtext of a lot of veggie tees, it’s just a fun burger that loves you and wants to be eaten, because everyone knows that tofu is a very masochistic food. Click HERE to order!

This first run is limited to 75 pieces! You’ll be wearing the only tofu burger tee in the whole vegan grocery/yoga class/tall bike ride/waterpark/DJ night/transgender dance party/coffee bean tasting/hula hoop class/laundromat dance party/bear bowling event!

A New Day Hypnosis

This is an interview with my sister, Austin, TX therapist and hypnotherapist Laura Ryan! She has been a practicing hypnotherapist since 2001 and has helped thousands of people lose weight, quit smoking, or work on other issues. Everyone I’ve ever mentioned this to have been very curious about her business, so I thought I’d post an interview here! She has some great reviews and feedback here!

Q: What is your favorite thing about helping people with hypnotherapy?

A: I have helped a lot of people who have tried several different avenues before meeting with me and it feels good to see people make progress and grow in ways that surprise them. I love seeing the excitement in clients who initially thought that their situation was hopeless or that they were past help, but discover through dedication and commitment, that they are able to make significant improvements in their behavior.

Q: What is something surprising you have learned about human nature in your work?

A: I have learned that most people are doing their best and that I should never judge a new person when I first meet them; many of the people that I would consider to be most difficult initially become my favorite people to work with.

Q: What is your opinion of stage hypnotists, i.e. the comedians who make people eat onions onstage?

A: I understand that everything has a place in the world and that there is a purpose for stage hypnosis. The problem that I have is that it casts a shadow over the whole profession and makes hypnosis seem like some kind of trick or joke. I take my work very seriously and it is annoying to have to explain to people over and over again that what happens in a stage show is not what happens in my office. Hypnosis is not about tricks and mind-control, it’s about helping people guide themselves to solutions and change ingrained behaviors.

Q: I know a lot of your work is with people struggling with weight loss, what advice can you give to lose or maintain weight during the holiday season?

A: I recommend that someone who struggles with these sorts of things begins to unpack their triggers and beliefs about food and determine what emotional problems that they are trying to solve with food. Also, understanding that food has the same caloric value regardless of the calendar date or location of the food. (IE: a piece of pie at your Aunt Mabel’s house on Christmas eve will process the same way as it would in your living room on March 9th).

Q: What do people seek in hypnosis that they won’t be able to get?

A: Because of stage hypnosis and myths about hypnosis that run rampant in popular culture, a lot of people think that hypnosis is magic and works instantaneously with little effort from the individual. I explain that hypnosis is a tool and will only work with the commitment and dedication of the person seeking help. Also, hypnosis is not a state where another person is controlling your mind, no one can give you suggestions that you don’t accept or agree with.

Q: What led you to start working with hypnosis?

A: My parents were into hypnosis when I was in high school and I had a pretty remarkable experience with it when I was 17. When I graduated from college, I saw that a hypnosis center was hiring, so I decided to apply. During my work there, the owner suggested that I do the hypnosis training, so I pursued it and then followed that with an NLP certification.

Q: What inspired you to get your therapy degree after working as a hypnotist?

A: I realized that the problems that were being presented to me at the hypnosis center were beyond the depth of my certifications. I really wanted to help people to the best of my ability and I realized that I needed further education to get there, so I went back to school for a Masters Degree in Counseling.

Q: Why do most of your clients come to see you?

A: Over the years, I have come to realize that every presenting issue that I help people with ultimately comes down to anxiety. People try to escape anxiety with food, cigarettes, alcohol, and other compulsive behaviors. People become paralyzed by anxiety and try to control it with obsessive behaviors and unhealthy relationship patterns; a big part of hypnosis is really about learning to manage your day-to-day challenges without crutches or dysfunctional coping strategies.