Why the fuh would I want to see Dreamgirls. Enlighten me, please.

My reasons for refusing even a free screening are as follows:

1. I do not want to see a singer act (Beyonce).
2. I do not want to see an actor sing (Eddie Murphy).
3. I am tired of all this cross-over bullshit. Greedy sunsabitches.
4. Yes, Beyonce. We see your ass. I know, famous butt. Big fat hairy deal. (Or was that Jell.O.? Whatever.)
5. In the still photos, I keep seeing a fatty (read: off-camera, normal looking girl) as a member of the Dreamgirls. On the poster, there is no such chub; only three skinny girls. WTF gives.

Yeah yeah, The Supremes. Whoopityfuggindoo, with the wigs and the sequins and the "STOP!!! In tha name of lubbb!" and the glavin.

No. Just...no.

Before you call me a racist f*ckhole, I totally loved Ray. But I have no desire to see this. I'd rather watch Judi Dench eat dry toast for 3.5 hours.
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Post-Xmas day in Hollywood: some drunken miscreant is wandering down the street singing, "motherfucker, ass, fuck." over and over to himself.

'Tis the season, and all that.

It is finally, FINALLY quiet, except the street sweeper just drove by at Mach 3. Fuck, those sons of bitches can move when they think no one's looking. Unless of course you are driving behind them, in which case they are slow as fucking turds in molasses.

Yeah, so I'm a little bitchy. I had no power while my neighbor's apartment, which she decorated with approx. 3,000 lights, bottle trees, etc. was lit primly, taunting me through its windows. I didn't even have any festive lights or trees or any of that bullshit; I was just trying to plug in a lamp. A lamp that had worked perfectly well the night before. A lamp that Cranky made for me out of the guts of the previous lamp he had given me, which Beeker broke in 5 seconds flat, immediately after it was taken out of the box.

This is all Cranky's fault, because the lamp he gave me, which I didn't like in the first place, was rewired to form a second lamp, which is also questionable (cords run through a mike stand marked "Beakerproof"); he was not here for Xmas, and it zotzed out all the lights in my whole apt. except for the kitchen. Like I was going to use that.

Suffice to say I spent most of Christmas Day calling DWP, running up and downstairs, throwing switches to see which circuit I'd broken, only to discover my antique fusebox had blown all but one of its even antiquier fuses. And that no one open on Xmas Day carried them. So I bought frozen pizza and some extension cords at Walgreen's.

The only thing more depressing than that was the fact that about two spillion others had the same idea. That place was packed. Which makes null and void my thinking that anyone with half a brain (self included?) or a dollar (self excluded) would get the hell out of L.A. for Christmas, if they could. I did not understand why there should still be traffic (!) here on Christmas Day. Not to mention the fucking conjunto music being blasted from apartments everywhere.

Oh, for the love of fuck. Doesn't anyone care about Faith, Hope, Love, and !@#$% peace and QUIET around here...?! "Silent Night," my a**.

This is what I think of the holiday this year.
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'Twas the week before Xmas, and what do I get. Another day older and not necessarily deeper in debt, because I have no money to spend, period.

Lovely bi-weekly payroll never lines up with my needs/wants/bills. Why should I expect it to care about the baby Jesus' birthday?

I wish someone would explain that to my credit union, which I joined when I was fortunate enough to get a weekly paycheck. Now they're calling me at 8 a.m. to what, remind me that my rent check just went through, and I'm negative 8 squillion until payday?

I KNOW that, a-holes. It's not like I dip into my credit limit unless it's something dire, like the rent. I have hardly been frittering it away, and have not bought Thing One for Xmakkah. I'm also expecting a half-squillion in retro pay from my employer due to the increase I was "given" LAST SUMMER. I am not the only one who is behind on my shit. I have direct deposit. Now get out of me. (-Kat.)

Then there was another lovely "Christmas card": a notice from my landlord.

Dear Tenants of Casa de Los Insectos:

It has recently come to our attention that we have a termite problem.

On the following form, please note any evidence of termites (actual termites, termite doots, etc.) that you have noticed so we can then come barging into your apartment, do the white glove test on your floorboards and complain if you have not been cleaning properly/using the approved floor wax, then attempt to charge you, in advance, for any damages we may find. Also, we will need to make your life a living hell throughout the coming holiday week, to ensure that there are no further damages.

In other words, your ass (and your apartment) will be our playground for the next several weeks; we will need access to your apartment at all hours of the day, you will get no peace and quiet, so just leave the doors unlocked and don't be naked, or try and make holiday plans, or anything.

Merry, Merry Christmas,
C.D.I.

P.S. We may need to tent the place, so we would prefer if you would pay next month's rent in advance, so we can thoroughly screw you when you have no place to live in January while we fumigate and kill your pets.

I replied with the following:

Dear Casa de Bugs,

While I greatly appreciate your concern for my floorboards, do you really need to come barging into my apartment, just to see if there are any termite doots, when you already claim to know, in fact, that these termite doots exist?! And what's with the "investigation", Inspector(s) Closeau? Because I, for one, am not even really sure what termite "evidence" looks like.

Perhaps you should rent an anteater from the zoo - I understand they like to eat the little buggers.

In addition, I am allergic to any/all insecticides, and my cats lick their feet. So please explain how this is my problem, and/or relocate me to another bldg. Preferably one that doesn't have car accidents outside every day at 3 a.m., so that car parts fly into my window. There are cars wrecked on the lawn every morning, and little piles of car on the sidewalk every afternoon. This is something of a nuisance.

Also, do you really have to do this THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS?! Aren't the termites, maybe, on vacation this week? Some of us have live Christmas trees, perhaps the termites are occupied with eating those. And my peg leg.

Thanks for taking all my money, then making my life a living hell,
Your Respectful Tenant.

P.S. The termites also ate my rent check. Or maybe it was my credit union. I really can't them apart these days.

Merry, Merry $$$!@#mas.
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Please, I can't take any more of this depressing Xmas shit, let alone people getting fired and laid off around the holidays. Not to mention all of the damned obligatory gifts I have to hand out from various production offices. And the cards. And not to mention the goddamn food baskets. Which always seem to come to the people who need it the least.

Does an executive person really have a wine and cheese deficiency...? I don't think so. My old bosses, both with rather extravagant lifestyles, used to shaft those off on me. I lived on that shit, but I don't think your average CEO is really going to nibble on dry salami, water crackers and cheese ball when he could be having prime rib.

My favorites are actually the "thoughtful", "handmade" gifts.

Now what in the world would my boss possibly need with a coffee cup containing some recycled Easter grass and three cookies on a stick.

I don't know, but I left it on the seat of his chair.

Pointy surprise-!

Me, I'm not going home this year. The plan was for my mom to come out here, but she has all sorts of technical difficulties with the house and she's overwhelmed; it's too late for me to buy a ticket now, and my family is...my family. So here I'll stay.

I suppose I should be grateful for the work, considering a good chunk of the company is being let go or tacitly forced to take time off, unpaid. But I am, as ever, a thankless bitch who would actually be ecstatic to receive my walking papers, at this point. It'd be an easy way out, an excuse to find something even less challenging elsewhere. I'd probably give my boss a hearty handshake while cupping his 'nads, hop up and down, clap hands, make Daffy Duck noises like "wohoo, woohoo!", and grin a shit-eating grin from ear to ear when the doorknob hit me in the ass.

But I keep eking out an existence and somehow being passed over for layoffs, although they did cancel our holiday party this year, offering no explanation; there are no Christmas bonuses, and I just saw a VP eating Top Ramen. Perhaps I should become alarmed...so, make with the holiday sporking-!

If anyone's in town and wants to spork it up & drown our sorrows in bottom-shelf peppermint schnapps while putting up a fake tree, only to have the cats knock it down repeatedly, and spend the night in one progressively drunkener attempt to re-erect the plastic Pinus (well, that's what it's called-!)...lemme know.
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I am nearly drowning in my own irritability of late. Not sure what to do about this. Drinking less coffee left me functionally retarded, and our co-pay for prescription meds just went up.

Hell.

I've been taking an animation class, which I thought was great, because there are only two students (counting me). But it might as well be an entire room full, because between me running out of the room every 5 seconds to defrost from the subarctic temperature, the instuctor's family problems/creeping crud, and the fact that English is not the other student's first language, it is about as much fun as mange.

First of all, even though she's an ESL student, the other girl still has the nerve to be smarter than me. Also, she blatantly interrupts and talks over me and hogs the instructor, who has managed to contract, over the course of a mere four sessions, every single one of her kids' communicable diseases, and there are five of them.

Kids, not diseases. But at that age, same difference.

Plus, one or the other of her five maggots calls every five minutes either to inform her that the baby fell off of something, and/or to guilt trip her about being a terrible mother, even though I'm sure they are calling her on the phone which she paid for, while eating the food which she paid for, in the house, which she also paid for.

I can't hate on her too much because a) hey, free birth control, b) she is patient as my ass is wide, and c) I have almost as many cats as she has kids, and my previous instructor graciously pretended not to mind that my cell phone went off (on vibrate) every 5 mins. for similar reasons, when Zippy was in the hospital. So, karma, baby.

But...she has some narsty snot-nosed brat-cooties and persists in grabbing my mouse, leading me to long for strip decontamination just to de-cootify myself, and her breath reeks like it does when you have a really bad sinus infection. Christ, woman. Take some antibiotics...but she probably can't do that, either, because she's too busy secreting breast milk onto my mousepad.

Sorry, gross. And mean...I'm just jealous I can't grow four superfluous nipples and rear a litter of my own. (Me --> ---> hell ---> ----> handbasket? = YES.)

Meanwhile, the other student is a skinny bitch with a tiny head and big tits, despite the fact that she keeps demanding breaks to go out and buy donuts. Then she decides it is a good idea to eat an apple in class since she already burned the break on her sugar binge. She does this while I quietly seethe with murderous thoughts, because if there's one thing I cannot STAND, it's eating noises (thank you, Carl's, Jr.) For crissake, if you HAVE to eat anything in a non-eating type situation, for fuck's sake, at LEAST make sure it's not crunchy food. Although, even the disgusting smacking, sticky, wet noises of an ex-lab partner eating an orange EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT we had class FOR A YEAR were enough to send me over the edge...but no. Bitch has to eat an apple. AN APPLE! What could be crunchier than an apple - carpet tacks?!

I think, somewhere in the back of her disproportionately tiny head, she knows her audible mastication is intensely irritating, so you know what she does?

SHE EATS SLOWER. Which does not make it less annoying, you overly-endowed Einstein. BECAUSE NOW IT TAKES TWICE AS LONG TO FINISH the goddamned apple.

Maybe tonight, I'll wear a respirator mask, rubber gloves, and a sneeze guard and offer the other girl some nice, chocolate covered NAILS.

Merry, Merry Christmas.
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Once again, the badvertisers are pushing the limits of racially targeted marketing:


What next, Ebony! It's black, like your a**! ?

I am oh, so deeply offended.
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You know, every time I go back to visit Texas, I have to ask myself - why?

Because: I hate L.A. so much that sometimes I forget how much I hate it there, silly.

I think, for once, my hatred of L.A. and my hatred of Texas are in near perfect equilibrium, which leaves me to either bolt for New York, run for the border, or end up somewhere in Arizona.

But it's already too dry here and my face would fall off.

So, here I am. Back in Cali-fro-nia and fully off my nut.

At least I think I'm beginning to understand what it is that I hate about Texas. I mean, besides all the ignorant, bastard redneck squirrel killers.

King of the Hill's Hank Hill best demonstrates it, I think - it's the whole, The Boy Ain't Right syndrome.

Meaning, anyone with a dream, other than buying a square house with a square yard and raising a square 2.5 unit family in a house surrounded by 2x4s is considered = a queer.

Not fitting nicely into that category, I am considered = a queer. I have cats and enjoy sleeping. Also, I'm not entirely opposed to the concept of work, though I will acknowledge that my idea of work is a hell of a lot less stinky, messy, and generally less hard than raising a fambly. And by hard I do not mean difficult, I mean...well, tedious. I like to spend at least 3 hours just reading and drinking coffee on the weekends; I do not enjoy housework. I also have a non-traditional pseudo-spouse who picks up after me, cooks for me, and washes my soiled thongs when I throw them on the floor, because I am an asshole, but I make up for it in other ways, such as by doing his website (badly) and not being completely hideous. But yes, eventually, I am going to die alone and go to hell, and my cats would, indeed, eat my face, if I hadn't already set their asses up with a trust fund (granted, that mainly consists of 2,000 lbs. of Fancy Feast in a safe deposit box in Iowa. It's a start.) And I'm okay with that, but in Texas, it really chafes their hide.

The thing about California is that it gives you the opportunity to reinvent yourself. You wanna be a sword-slinging, tightrope-walking, bad fake-English accent-having butt pirate?! Well, go right ahead, fancy pants. Knock yourself out, and your poofy shirt too.

Not so in Texas. At least, not without being asked repeatedly and directly, why? And told what you should do about it. Unsolicited advice everywhere you go, and probably at least one person per week will tell you what you really need is The Jesus, regardless of whether you already belong to another major world religion. They do not care about that, Satan-worshippers. Because Jesus loves all the little children and whores and pirates (although their first order of business, for some reason, is to tell you why you can NOT be any of those things). Hell, He can probably even un-queer you, while He is at it.

Yep. The boy ain't right.

So, here I am, being neither a boy, a pirate, nor queer (mostly), and my shirt ain't even all that poofy. Yet I am still deeply offended by the lack of celebration, or even respect, of differences in the deceptively pretty state to which I somehow had the misfortune of being born.

Oh yeah, it's probably the you-should-git-yerself-hitched-'n-Betty-Crockered-up-with-a-coupla-buns-in-the-oven thing, although anyone who really knows me probably doesn't think I should.

Besides, I love squirrels, I would kill to have a backyard full of 'em. And why am I living in a shit apartment when stupid rednecks who are blessed with houses and yards are trying to kill or relocate every raccoon, possum, squirrel, grub, etc. in a 3 mile radius? Because they are aging control freaks and that male pattern baldness is NOT a solar panel for a love machine, asshole. Why they don't just cram some Viagra pills up their butts and go beat off to Field and Stream in the shower while their Frito-eating wives are simultaneously painting their toenails Perky Christian Pink, complaining about their husbands on the phone to the in-laws, and plotting to kill them for the insurance money, I do not know.

Excuse me, but I think I need to go put on a rainbow unitard, dress up like a giant Schnoodle, and walk a tightrope while doing an interpretive dance expressing the innermost thoughts of a latent homosexual endangered limpet living in sin with a blue-green algae, go vegetarian (again), learn Mandarin, feng shui my shit apartment, balance my chakras, and perfect my "craft" now (even though I automatically hate people who say that). Because it is nice, just for once, to express a thought, idealized hope for positive change, or a damned human emotional feeling, that does not get shot to shit and stomped all over like so much dirty dog business on their otherwise pristine lawn by my Texas family for not fitting into their narrow realm of experience, for being so Californian.

Yep, this always happens when I go home. Damn you, Texas.

Damn you all to hell.
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