This is so daft: I could play fashion plates with my own characters all day. But I'd rather watch a Jennifer Lopez chick flick triple feature (Clockwork Orange style) than make a living doing the same thing for real people. Back in the 90s there was a really bad movie with one really good line about fashion being the art of the street. Me being me, I took that observation directly to heart. I've always defined art two ways, as the mythology of stimulus and the lens of identity, so the whole fashion-stylist movement is kind of a slap in the latter's face. Sylists aren't paid to be objective, so whatever their clients end up wearing is going to be the result of external debate. That just squicks me for some reason. Fashion is the most personal form of self-expression. Anyone can hear a song or see a movie or look at a painting, but with very few rule-proving exceptions, it's one person per outfit. Public opinion should matter to the designers because they need to move their shit off the shelves (ten bucks says this is all part of a conspiracy to keep their product from looking bad because it's in the best interest of their profit), but it the buyer shouldn't give it a second thought. Think about it. You wouldn't feel comfortable telling Wolfgang Puck how to cook a meal or Martin Scorsese how to direct a film or Mozart how to write a composition. Granted, not everyone plays on that level, but if someone genuinely enjoys engaging in an artform, and they've got the basic hang of it, why would you want to stand over their shoulder and badger them with your input like a meglomaniacal asshole? And why would they ever want to pay you good money to do it?

Hiring a stylist to doctor your outfits is like hiring a megaproducer to doctor your songs. In both cases the individual is secondary (if not tertiary) to making a surefire hit. But surefire hit after surefire hit loses its teeth pretty quick. It sells, but it's boring. Part of the reason it sells is because other options are being limited and people get unwilling to reset their ears and eyes for something truly out of the ordinary.

When I did this topic with Mike, he asked me what I expected from a medium as shallow as fashion. But one could argue that all visual art is shallow. Michelangelo deified the human body. Picasso distorted and disfigured it. Munch freeze-framed dreamscapes. Mondrian fetishized geometry and color saturation. O'Keefe gave souls to inanimate objects. Warhol turned pop culture into an acid party. At the end of the day, it's all eye candy. Look at it, react to it, get on with your life. The most shallow thing about fashion is how ephemeral it is--instead of savoring it, we're supposed to get a jump on the next trend. Totally patronizing, frustrating and exhausting.

Paradoxically, I've nothing against interior decorators. Unless they're the kind of compulsive insurgents who'll turn a Japanophile's living room into Austin Powers' jumbo jet--there's no excuse for making someone feel disconnected from their own home. But fixing up a living space is to getting dressed what Antarctica is to an ice cube on the levels of size and term limits, plus there's more accessorizing, more mixing and matching, more ways to fuck it all up in one go. And the practice is more concerned with style endurance than sniffing out the next big craze. So there's no shame in appointing a guru if the project is bigger than yourself and meant to last longer than one day. Just make sure they don't get lost once they venture outside their own taste.

Last night I had two people tell me I smelled like bananas.

"Something smells like bananas." *sniffs my hair* "Oh, it's you."

(Later) "Why do I smell bananas?" *first guy points to me, second guy takes a whiff* "I see."

All I did was switch shampoos.

There's other shit going on, but right now I don't have the energy to take my life seriously.

Researching swine flu...machinemolle's oldest son has it and the dude is about to keel over from sheer panic.

So far our only exposure to this stuff has been the media, and of course they've painted it as The Stand come to life.

Fuck sensationalism. Fuck N1H1. Fuck my mother for laughing at me when I called her (any palpable show of concern for anything but your financial situation is goddamn overkill, to hear her talk). Fuck this decade.

And fuck everything, now that I think about it.

Just a stopgap in the bits I'm working on. I'm typing this from memory, so I'm sure I'll fuck it up somewhere.

(A/N: L'Oreal lipstick is the scent of win. I could huff that shit all day.)

* * * * *

Familiarity doesn't breed contempt alone; that's just the cynics trying to turn an essay question into multiple choice, with no all of the above to bail you out. And there's a world of difference between admiring someone's beauty and feeling a genuine chemical pull toward them. Once Billy was subjected to Xan's torrent of red hair and miles of bare leg as a member of the band, once Dom was out of the equation and marooned in Hawaii and not there to feed off his testosterone hunger, he suddenly became twice as susceptible to everything she offered. What she offered was an escape from the sterile, overglossed side of entertainment and full immersion in the Paper Cuts' glamoursnipe culture, which gave reality bright colors and sharp edges without wiping away any of the grit. The perfect life after Dom, just what he needed. She'd say his name and his heart would seize up; he'd smell her perfume and immediately get a tightening in his groin. And their duets...he always discovers these things too late.

Billy thinks about Xanadu all the time.

Strike that. Not all the time all the time, and probably not as much as he thinks about Dom. But he thinks about her a lot.

Kissing, licking, sucking, nibbling, biting that perfect, creamy skin where her neck fuses with her shoulder--Billy's go-to place for dispensing kisses. No words beyond vague permutations of desire and assent, those confined to hot ragged whispers. Gasping for breath as their lips link up. Her tongue digging into his mouth, her hair swathing either side of his face like a silken red cocoon, her hands laying open his shirt and making deliberately slow work of his chest, her thighs trapping his hips between her molten pussy and the mattress...

This scenario and others like it are safe inside his head; there it's not Elijah's business to know. Or Dominic's, Ali's, anyone's. Being human is a secretive venture.

Billy brought Ali to Xanadu and Elijah's wedding in San Francisco, Los Angeles having been deemed too conspicuous or insensitive. It couldn't handle the truth, that these things happen, and this one wouldn't even be scandalous if it had taken place behind the scenes at a mall in the Valley. Aside from them it was just the rest of the band, Elijah's mother and siblings, Xan's brother and uncles, and Frank from the mortuary, who officiated. Lucky thirteen, fifteen with the couple, took to the penthouse suite of a small boutique hotel with op-art murals covering every wall and the darkened, rainsoaked, lightning-rended skyline peering through the windows. Xan, who made headlines by slicing her hair an inch above the shoulders earlier that same day, was awash in white metallic silk pleats and beaded tulle, with a corset-boned belt and a clutch of orchids (the final effect was "Like a Virgin" meets Shanghai Deco); Elijah wore a smart navy suit and a charcoal tie with an understated pattern of cherry blossoms. The ceremony was short, not even ten minutes, but apparently long enough for incident. At one point Elijah flubbed his vows and killed fifteen seconds with high-pitched laughter; Ozzy dropped his sister's ring and had to chase it across the room--Whoa, come back here, you! Then, during what Billy would have called a perfectly nice kiss, Gretchen sneered, "Come on, Frodo, you can do better than that," leading to a muffled yelp as Xan was bent tango-style in his arms. And what of Dominic? His absence hurt quite a bit, could have hurt much more had they all not forcibly shut it out of their minds. Xan and Elijah had been so busy with change they probably hadn't had time to discuss it in a while, but getting married should have stood as a grateful reminder of what Dominic made possible. How would they have met the blue-eyed hobbit/ neo-new waver of their dreams hand Dom not become the only degree of separation between them? The chain of reaction. It piles up.

( Snip... )

"Never trust a big butt and a smile"...how about never trust more makeup than Dee Snider and half a bottle of cheap perfume?

Way to turn a gas station into a gas chamber.

The days are getting shorter. That's what everyone else is saying.

But if you ask me, the nights are coming sooner.

I like that.

* * * * *

My best friend and I are kinda sorta working on a screenplay together. He doesn't have a lot of free time, so it's extremely slow going, and the odds are against us ever finishing. But we're giving it a shot. It's called DC, and it's a political satire. We've even agreed to include a scene where the early-thirtysomething House staffer heroine dances around in her underwear to "Things Can Only Get Better", the unofficial theme song--how cool is that?

Look. When someone only has a certain amount of time to do something they really want to do, you don't ever cut into it. Got that? Unless it's the only way to prevent a life-threatening emergency, you will WAIT YOUR FUCKING TURN. I don't bend this rule for myself, why should I bend it for your sorry ass? Cutting into my time is one thing guaranteed to make me go hair-pulling, glass-breaking, wall-punching batshit.

What really ground my goat yesterday is there were six unoccupied stations when I fucked off, but they were all in the Young Adult section. The library's age-based segregation initiative has got to go. People hate it. It's an insult to everyone under eighteen, and a damn pain in the ass for the rest of us. Tell me, what difference does it make if the minors are playing online blackjack five feet from the main desk, or fifteen? Do they honestly think these whiskered old farts who come scuffing in every morning aren't here for the beaver hunt? Shows what they know.

I can't even check out a book from the YA floor after three o'clock. Sorry, but that borders on fascism. Like I'm really going to torture, molest or otherwise harm some airheaded teenybopper I'd sooner not even look at. New England acts like it's all progressive, but everything Massachusetts does is in service to chronic paranoia.

* * * * *

Dear Fred Phelps,

Go die, so my friends and I can wait in line to dance on your grave.

Sincerely,
Dani O.

My two favorites from the series. Nothing but the best for my F-List.

Goddamn Veteran's Day. Goddamn all federal holidays. They wouldn't aggravate me so much if 75% of them didn't revolve around the fucking military. It's just so one-track...and don't give me that balloon juice about willingness to die for our country. While it is in its own dehumanizing way a necessary and noble exploit, people risk death every moment they live. On that note, why not Doctor's Day? Astronaut's Day? Scientists Day? (On second thought, scratch that one, the fundies would have a cow about their being no Preacher's Day, despite Sunday still coming once a week.) There's a Secretary's Day, and we kowtow to teachers for a whole week. So what's the story? As a matter of fact, I've got a great idea: Make Your Own Holiday Day. One say set aside for everyone to celebrate whatever the fuck comes to mind--modern architecture, twilight picnics, legwarmers, MonaBoyd--so long as no laws are broken, ie. don't celebrate explosives by planting a bomb in your neighbor's Honda. Shut up, it's brilliant. And can you imagine a better icebreaker?

http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/11/07/Atlanta-bus-driver-suspended-for-praying/UPI-61241257623242/
I have no words. Scoffing, rolling my eyes and rueful laughter don't count. But why suspension? Mike thinks he should be forced to publicly break one of the ten commandments. Love it, but which one is up to his supervisors--I confess I don't know them all. Or what order they're in.

This wingnut on the morning sports show was complaining that in President Obama [Bin Laden]'s recent address, the one about the shootings in Texas, he never mentioned the words Terrorism, Islamic or Muslim. I was mystified until I reminded myself that Jerry Callahan is the syndicated Bostonian version of a creep who was always writing letters to the local papers when I was a teenager. And we're off--blah blah those pesky liberals are at it again blah blah moral decay blah blah gay lifestyle blah blah baby killers blah blah repent in the name of Jesus Christ blah blah blah and the needle's on E. Refill in t-minus two weeks, and counting. Awopbopaloobop, alopbamboom!

Jewelry is mutating at such an alarming rate, I'm starting to wonder if the designers haven't been keeping radiation-zappers and toxic waste in their workshops. I'm all for quirky accessorizing, but this new stuff--it's way too bulky and it looks like scrap. Give or take the s. I'm waiting for some ingenue to be decapitated on the street when her 50-pound Dries Van Noten "Junkyard" choker comes to life and attacks her in a bloodthirsty rage. That's what I call putting the victim in "fashion victim", yo.

Two nights ago at work, my boss pinched my cheek and I threatened to sic the Sexual Harrassment Panda on him. "Inappropriate physical contact makes him a sa-aaa-aad panda." Shits and giggles, don't worry. The prick still won't let me use the office computer, though. Two nights before that, one of the waitresses brought in the latest People and we somehow ended up discussing Fergie and Josh Whatshisface. This stripper he allegedly dorked? Ugliness From Beyond. Fergie isn't my cup of tea, either, but she's far from nauseating, meaning I can at least get behind someone's attraction to her. The skank, however, could scare lightning back up a tree. Another bleach-blonde who thinks she's hot just because she's a bleach-blonde. We've all known them. In the plural form.

Back in the 80s, Robert Zemeckis gave us the first two chapters of Back to the Future--colorful, breezy little movies built on science-fiction and existentialism. Score one for solid entertainment coexisting with unforced originality. His latest project, I understand, is the fuckzillionth film version of A Christmas Carol--why? Who needs it? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that story exists and there are several versions of it I love watching this time of year: the Albert Finney musical ("Thank You Very Much" is like the catchiest song ever), the one with the Muppets, and the set-in-the-late-eighties update starring Bill Murray. But if you're going to retell something we all know by heart, you better find a way to put some kind of new spin on it. Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy as the Cratchits = awesomesauce; sterile Pixar-style animation is about as thrilling as bread and water. No wonder the box office is about to croak. Movies would almost rather be easily-digested pieces of branded commercialism--not altogether different from Campbell's soup or those pantyhose that come in plastic eggs--than movies. Instead of storytellers who like their efforts to feel lived-in and touched by human hands, we've got a bunch of hyperactive geeks playing with their toys.

Speaking of Jim Henson's universe, I'm getting a major kick out of seeing Sesame Street references everywhere I go. Lots of good memories there. (Yes, Mikey, I remember Roosevelt Franklin. You did not hallucinate him.) Oscar the Grouch was my favorite, which should tell you something--except I always called him "Oscar the Trash Can", tickling my pops to no end. I dug the Count, too; I still impersonate that crazy motherfucker almost every time I deal with numbers, and Bert and Ernie were cool. Are they supposed to be getting busy off-camera? Hell if I know. Nor do I care. First and foremost, they're puppets. Grow up. In a show subversive enough to have few white people (Gordan and Susan: black, Luis and Maria: hispanic) among its flesh and blood regulars, it wouldn't surprise me at all, but for their sake I'll exercise the don't ask, don't tell option. (I still think Vanity Smurf is the biggest kiddie-show fag of all time, but that's another story.)

* * * * *

Hoo, boy. Now I am pissed off. Someone just made a reservation on this box and cut into my time. Cut it almost in fucking half. Not cool. You do not fucking do that to me. Ever. Fucking impatient motherfucker couldn't even wait twenty fucking minutes to take over...you fucking stupid worthless inconsiderate asshole, I will fuck you up. GODDAMN IT, ANYWAY. People, by and large, are not stupid. That must sound relevatory coming from me, but hold your applause: most of them are ignorant as fuck. There's a difference. Stupidity is no one's fault and can't be helped. Ignorance could be reversed, it's just that most of us are too lazy and self-absorbed to make the effort. Left untreated, ignorance exhibits the symptoms of classic stupidity. Those affected get described as dumbasses. They have the nerve to take offense to this. Catch my drift?

Whatever. I'm outta here. Sorry I'm stiffing everyone who responded to the compliment meme--it's nothing personal, I'm just down to three minutes. The jerk responsible is about to get a go-to-hell look that'll haunt them for at least a week. Word 2 ya mutha and all that BS.

My excuse is that it's a meme and therefore at least partially legit.

One little compliment can make you feel great. So give me a compliment, anything in the entire world, even that my shoelaces are pretty. Put this in your journal. Once you get some comments, put that entry in a memory or tag and when you are feeling down, just go to that entry and this will remind you how great you are.

I went cherry-picking through their "catalogue". Nothing better to do when you're on the virus defensive.

It seems the Paper Cuts' worst nightmare was factory-generating more of the interchangeable pop songs that litter primetime TV dramas. Occasionally their efforts were written off as irrelevant eighties revivalism by five tall, thin stunners playing their looks and style more than their outdated instruments, and Xanadu Piper (soon to be nicknamed "the Minx") took plenty of flak for what seemed at the time like an ever-present supermodelish pout. "The Paper Cuts are experimentors, not purists or anarchists or mystics," she explained in an Effect Without a Cause-era interview. "We're being as true to ourselves as we can, but neither our personalities nor our interests are static. We'd bore ourselves to death if we had only one thing to say and one thing to say it. There's a huge push right now to make recreation all-inclusive, especially in the media, and we find it patronizing. If you try too hard to offer something for everyone, you're going to end up having nothing for no one."

"Narcissistic Echo Chamber"
Five minutes of the world's fiercest glamoursnipes at their panty-peeling, bullshit-calling, dancefloor-mobbing best. This electrobanger splices a hilarious self-satire of the band's love for loves hitting the town and looking good and feeling mean with their trademark vocal outbursts ("Yeah-yeah!", "No way!", "Hah!", Kyle Holden humming over his rubbery bassline) and instrumental faceoffs (Alyssa Straight's muted trumpet versus Xanadu Piper's lounge sax). It all adds up to a sleeper summer anthem for listeners who want to bring back the cocaine-fueled Bret Easton Ellis heyday as much as they do.

"Simone (Was Here)"
Simone (aka Gretchen Rafferty) is a French immigrant. And living in FoxNews America. And afraid to speak in public because both her accent and her viewpoints could mark her as a threat to homeland security (her father has already been hospitalized by neo-patriotic thugs). Music's premiere new wave revivalists tone it down for a midwinter night's ballad about a good woman in a bad time, using Springsteen's overcast palette and Tom Waits skeletal arrangements to frame a narrative that distills fear, anger, heartbreak, confusion and gallows humor. Trust us, you won't need a translator to get chills from Xanadu Piper and Kyle Holden's tres magnifique chorus. It's as serious as the Paper Cuts have ever been, and it's seriously fucking awesome. Let's just hope our scrappy young glamoursnipes can address the inevitable red-state backlash with the same steely wit and grace.

"Long Division"
The Minx and Company score another for musics whodathunkit archives. This time they're pitting the tale of a goody-goody teenage girl trying to seduce her beloved older brother away from a fundamentalist megachurch against a breakneck groove that owes as much to Clivilles and Cole as to early INXS. Lifeguard whistles and retro samples (read: Jimmy Swaggart and Frank Zappa) pop up like ironic battle cries. When Kyle Holden, playing the brother, sings, "Better come and play your last card while you can," it almost tears your heart out, but your feet don't stop moving. Calling all glamoursnipes, hobbits, and incestuous siblings around the world: everybody dance now!

"Chain of Reaction"
On one hand it's textbook Paper Cuts, if there is such a thing. FIG 1-1: You've got Joey Dziardziel's schizo drums, Kyle Holden bearing down like a demon using Bernard Edwards as its host body, Gretchen Rafferty diddling her guitar as if the previous decade never happened, and a sick keyboard showdown between Xanadu Piper and Alyssa Straight that evokes insects, icicles and artificial intelligence (if not robotic bugs surviving a hard winter). FIG 1-2: You've got the rest of the band joining Piper for each verse, guys and girls switching off, the story of a bored couple who gets off on staging public domestic disputes surging forward like a tidal wave until it explodes in an Alpha Twins chorus. On the other hand, they have the audacity to sing over what sounds exactly like a deconstructed cover of the theme music from Friday the 13th, Part 3-D. FIG 2-1: Ch-ch-ch, ah-ah-ah.

"Mission Control"
Everything you could possibly want in a postmodern protest song: creepy lost-in-space robo-synths, squawking sax, incongruously laid-back guitar, and Xanadu Piper getting her Frau Blucher on until Kyle Holden retaliates by evoking a smacked-out Bart Simpson in a spoken-word bridge. Oh, and audio samples from a circa-1985 East German newscast and a Tibetan protest march from 1999. Don't ask questions, just go with it.

"Demograph"
This spirited Top-40 radio dis is the horniest single we've heard since...well, let's just say it's been a while. Drummer Joey Dziardziel gets things started with a nasty beat that echoes an accelerated pulse, married couple Kyle Holden and Alyssa Straight synchronize bass with synth bass in a lurid headboard-pounding groove, and with the chorus comes the guitar porn: Gretchen Rafferty axes out a guttural, who's-yer-daddy snarl offset by orgasmic moans and wails and howls from Xanadu Piper's v-neck. Props to Xan for injecting a little heavy breathing into her trademark rasp and audibly fogging up the windows, but the coup de grace has to be that vocal orgy in the middle, where the whole band sings three different verses right on top of each other. We need a cold shower just thinking about it.

"Yesterday's News"
Admit it, you were gobsmacked when you learned that "You Oughta Know", Alanis Morissette's classic woman-scorned anthem, was about Uncle Joey (Dave Coulier). So, we'll take the liberty of warning the three people who hadn't already guessed that this thoroughly funktified kiss-off is directed at Merry Brandybuck/ Charlie Pace (Dominic Monaghan). Over bloodthirsty guitar spikes, z-shaped keyboard stabs and a rollercoaster of a bass groove, Xanadu Piper cuts her ex down to size in a conversational tone--getting in a few shots at her tabloid-ordained rival Evangeline Lilly while she's at it--before descending along a silken R&B arpeggio that seems all the meaner by comparison. Then the chorus twists the blade as she reiterates the title like a hex with her bandmates on her backup. Nor do the Alpha Twins try to hide the contemptuous little snarl in their voices as they na-na-na through Piper's synth solo. Rumor has it Pippin Took (Billy Boyd) might be in here somewhere, too. Ouch. If songs could kill, the Paper Cuts would have needed a permit to record this one, and Monaghan would need Kevlar headphones to hear it.

"Metroplex"
Trust the Minx to zig where she once zagged. Maybe, after taking Dom Monaghan to the New Jack funk-gutter via "Yesterday's News", she didn't want Elijah Wood to feel left out. Whatever, it's been a while since a love song brought its full weight to the table, rather than a single fleeting, knee-jerk moment or an impersonal throng of Hallmark grotesqueries. Breathless sex-in-church vocals offset an instrumental treatment that suggests gazing out your bedroom window across a foggy, rain-spattered maze of city lights as Xan offers to bring her new husband the universe, one star at a time, even as her motives for doing so are publicly called into question. Nor is she ashamed to get casually nostaglic for the time when they were just good friends, if only because they were as well-matched then as they are now. Call it the anti-prom ballad, ooh-baby flareups, gothic keyboard flourishes and all. Because any glamoursnipe worth their salt knows that heartstrings are much more malleable when the song keeps it real. Without that, it's all Celine Dion.

VITAL INFORMATION
There is no such thing as a good landlord. Take it from me. Either they'll slack off on everything and treat you like shit in the process, or they'll do everything by the book and treat you like shit in the process. Eventually, they all want a power fix out of it and the tenant's getting screwed. Our collective sanity depends on holding this as a universal truth and a scientific fact, as consistent as gravity. LANDLORDS = ASSHOLES. Do not befriend these people, do not open up to them, do not establish a line of communication unless it's necessary to maintain an agreeable living condition. Even if they bake you Christmas cookies, stand hard, because sooner or later you're going to leave a few empty shampoo bottles in the vanity or fail to replace a light bulb outside your front door or stretch a phone cord between rooms, and they won't hesitate to write you up as eviction material.

As a society, we'd be much better off if we deep-sixed all this misplaced idealism. I don't know what the hell the current owners were tripping on when they bought that rat-trap I live in, but they took a wrong turn at Albequerque and didn't look back if their idea was making it over into a squeaky-clean white hive for squeaky-clean white people. Get serious. This is trashville. Small-time drug dealers. Wannabe gang-bangers. Probably a registered sex offender or five. Every spring the cops catch at least one knucklehead running naked down some street. My neighborhood is so pathetic it doesn't even have the balls to become the malignant urban war zone it fronts like it wants to be. No wonder the real enemy--ignorant well-meaning elitists--keep trying to gentrify it behind our backs.

I've just about had it to the teeth with everyday people being treated like liabilities (at best) or the scum of the earth (at worst) for harboring everyday desires, vices, and habits.

THE REALITY: Some people smoke.
THE REALITY: Many people own, or would enjoy owning, a pet.
THE REALITY: Most people do not dust and vacuum every five minutes.

No one breaks the law, everyone keeps the noise down between 11 PM and 8 AM, what's the fucking problem?


DID YOU EVER WONDER...
...if half of any gay couples in the Victorian era ever posed as members of the opposite sex to keep the Morality Club off their backs? There's a story here, but I'm not the one you want to write it.


INTERMEZZO
HIM: Donnie Wahlberg's gonna be on Dale & Holley later, talking about the Celtics.
ME: And?
HIM: Well, you know, for whatever it means to you.
ME: Not much.

Shit fire and save matches, am I going to be associated with New Kids on the Block until the day I die? I want to go back in time and shake my 12-year-old self like a rag doll. "No! You will not submit! They'll torture you when you give a fuck and they'll torture you when you don't! Turn up Living Color and stay strong!"

For the record, I've heard a a whopping two songs from The Block. Didn't think much of them. Honestly, I'm not into that heavy-breathing fake R&B slow-jam crap anymore. And as long as we're on the subject, I can't sit on this forever: Justin Timberlake's "My Love" is one of the most annoying, nerve-scorching, make-me-wanna-bust-a-cap-in-the-stereo songs I've ever survived from beggining to end.


BOTTOM LINE
Calgon, take me away. And if you won't, at least give me directions so I can get there my damn self.

Well, whaddaya know? Here I am, saturated with sick. On top of that, I don't trust LJ to behave because the computer I was on before this one froze up twice, and both times, I was here.

I've no goals for today apart from a bubble bath, hot tea and lots of sleep.

Later.

THIS JUST IN
I'm a redhead. Garnier Pomegranate (True Red).

This would have happened sooner, exept I didn't relish the idea of those who've been to my ficverse thinking I was trying to copycat the heroine. No. Just a case of a bored brunette who'd be hard-pressed to pull off any shade of blonde. I'll leave the Frost & Tip to all the tacky tan-whores out there who still fancy themselves cheerleaders.

OUR TOP STORY
I almost destroyed the microwave yesterday by being a scatterbrained moron. I was making egg salad, because it's nice to have stuff like egg salad around when you come home starving in the middle of the night but suspect you'd pass out before you could so much as heat up a can of soup. So I did what I normally do. Put the eggs on to boil, set the microwave timer for twenty-five minutes, and decided to spend that time in the tub. About halfway through my soak I smelled scorched food, which made absolutely no sense but still wasn't good. And here's what happened: I'd punched in 25:00 on the display window, but then accidentally hit "cook" instead of "timer", so the befrigged thing was zapping its own interior--and the dregs of a Marie Callendar chicken parmesan dinner--on high. I hadn't heard the telltale activating whoosh because the exhaust fan over the stove was running. So yeah, I'd call that an epic close one.

MORE ON THURSDAY--STAY TUNED

Holy. Shit. R'lyeh Calling, the big 80s-themed throwdown Elijah puts together for Xan's 27th birthday? This would have to be the cake. Have to be. In which case, no wonder she dry-humps his brains out three hours into the party.

(People are turning into right little bitches about embedding, aren't they?)

* * * * *

"Something in My House"/ Dead Or Alive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHb3wj9roy0

"Somebody's Watching Me"/ Rockwell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu1RP34FLXU

"Pet Sematary"/ The Ramones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6GzVCYqoyY
(*BONUS* Rammstein's "live" version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCaxa2xS3pU)

"Good Man in A Bad Time"/ Ian Hunter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CD2GYiXmh0

"Flesh to Flesh"/ Joe Lamont
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHNouGz4FOo

"Lullaby"/ The Cure
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uD17tNip1s

"Fear of the Unknown"/ Siouxie & the Banshees
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQUcjt10NGg

* * * * *

Dig on it a while.

My landlord is playing ding-dong ditch with my nerves. My downstairs neighbor seems to think she's entitled to slam furniture around all night and still get uppity over the scent of cigarette smoke. My boss is acting like the cliche machine. My BFF needs to shit or get off the pot.

People wonder why I've spent half my life inside my own head. It's the only goddamn sanctuary I've got. Major fuckery goes down in there, but at least I'm calling the shots.

Subject change. Please.

Got my stupid costume together. After finding a used Trivial Pursuit Genus Fucksomethingorother at Goodwill, along with a bubblegum-pink pillbox hat that could be painted to resemble one of the plastic pie-wedge holders, I finalized my choice. A coworker stenciled the logo on my long-neglected navy dress in gold, I used a glue gun to add various question cards/ game bits, and I've scored accessories like whoa: a light blue pageboy wig, green nail polish and orange lipstick, to which I'll add navy tights and my cheap yellow pumps. I'm still debating whether to carry around the folded-up game board like a demented clutch purse, or rest assured I've made my point. All conundrums should be so grueling, ja?

Yo, Dominic, do me a favor: you and that ungrateful little cunt stay broken up this time. For real. Read my lips: SHE AIN'T WORTH IT, never has been, never will be. While her missionary history suggests she can care for people, probably she's aces at that so long as she has full Biblical clearance, I don't think she could care about anyone--numero uno excluded--if her life depended on it. Not to mention, she thinks that pissing in a trash can for twenty bucks is the stuff of bragging rights. If you're not going to do the right thing and sail off into the sunset with Billy, at least find yourself a woman whose hype and/ or ego is in proportion to her looks, talent, style and allure.

Here's a guy who needs an Eat Me, Beat Me Lady, stat.

Speaking of Dom, I miss mine.

Watching The Lost Boys yesterday afternoon gave me an idea vis a vie R'Lyeh Calling.

APRIL 1992
As the Greyhound bus bearing Xanadu and Oz Piper from Knoxville to Highlandstown approaches their final destination, they see a "Welcome to Highlandstown, Georgia--Waterfall Capital of the South" billboard, the announcement emblazoned over an unassuming Norman Rockwell-style landscape. But the wilder elements have defaced the back with graffiti, illegible slogans and tags squiggling around a width-spanning message toward the bottom.

BEWARE
1942 1955 1968 1981 1994

Then, ten years later, when she returns home along the same route with her hobbit posse in tow, Elijah (in the backseat) directs Billy's attention to the same message, plus a new date.

BEWARE
1942 1955 1968 1981 1994 2007

* * * * *

I also think that Lake Cherohala could use a boardwalk, an erstwhile/ ostensible place of guileless family entertainment that's gone progressively seedy over the decades.

Being inconvenienced is not the same thing as being opressed, victimized, persecuted, abused--I'm well aware of this. But when inconveniences take over your life, back to back to back and day after day after day, it starts getting hard to tell the difference.

I can't do this any more. I refuse to keep living in a pressure cooker/ Jenga tower. Do you know what happens to a pressure cooker when the lid isn't properly secured? That's right--kaboom. Before the year is out, I guarantee, some poor sucker is going to be standing there festooned with my guts and hair and brains and eyeballs, wondering what the hell that was all about, unless it's somebody I know.

Call it a crossroads.

Slash.

Now that I have your attention...I ferociously love it, but it's not always a sure thing with me. Not much is, but the one thing that seems to get my pulse crashing without fail is a heterosexual relationship that includes frequent and unplanned reversal of traditional gender roles. Bullshit feminist posturing? If you have little exposure to male-female relationships outside commercial fiction, where women are either saintly heroines, neurotic media science projects, sexual catalysts or exist mainly as a foil for something, I can see how you might think so. I just like the idea of telling convention and human instinct to go straight to hell. It's an outgrowth of my classic "problem with authority." Look at my ficverse, for the love of Christ. The Paper Cuts? A woman sings lead (while playing a keytar/ saxophone/ v-neck guitar without irony or shame)--the same woman who eventually marries a diminuitive baby-faced actor considerably more docile than she. The guitarist? Woman--whose boyfriend totally plays the role of the scorned one after she hits the off switch for good. The tech-nerd instrumental multitasker? Woman. So it's an all-girl outfit singing about what their love trials, then. Right? Not so fast. There's the bassist, whose sperm has hit a bullseye twice over with one of his bandmates. And about my only concession to business as usual was installing a male behind the drum set.

With that in mind, it's no wonder I'm secretly obsessed with Frasier. Think about it--on a lot of levels, Niles is the bitch and Daphne is the butch. As for Roz (who got knocked up by a college junior when she was at least thirty-five): play on, playette. Respect.

If I were to sketch out a thermometer-style gradient of my sexual poisons, turning the gender tables would threaten to shatter the glass, with M/M slash not quite there but way into the red zone. Traditional het and girl-on-girl would be somewhere in the middle. There was a time when F/F would have ranked much higher, but that was before the Trend Nazis sucked all the meat (forbiddenness) out of it and turned it into another empty spectator sport. BDSM? As long as the bottom isn't merely a receptacle for the top's abuse, hit it.

I could muse on topics like these all day. Fuck this one-hour shit.

If I'm in one of my dick moods I might get putdownish (with little regard to whose joke it is), but usually I'll just say "Funny," monotone, and jump to a new topic, or I'll smirk while doing that rueful oh-kay headshake. If I really like a joke, I won't say anything at all. I'll just laugh.

And no, I don't get annoyed if someone else laughs at a crappy joke, unless they're clearly faking it. There's no accounting for taste.

I swear to God, my mother gets these ideas in her head that I just have to have something, that the quality of my life will nosedive without it, and I tell her no, I don't want any, I seriously couldn't care less, save your money. But as usual, I don't know what I'm talking about and soon thereafter, I'll be the owner of something I specifically asked her not to get for me. The woman's like a date rapist: no means yes.

The problem with LJ: we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. So ask me something you want to know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you. (Unless you'd rather not.)

Something tells me I've done this meme before. But it's a good day for reprisal. Hit it.

Woo-Hoo! Guess who just secured the terminal with the headphone jack? And it is AUDIO TIME, baby!

Can't talk, gotta musicate.

I'm here ten fucking minutes and...

"The computer classes are starting at 11, so we're gonna need all the computers today. You'll have to sign off in fifteen minutes."

That does it. That fucking does it. Someone out there is going to fucking die for putting me in this position, and I want a new fucking system. Not tomorrow, not after lunch, but RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

So I'm bitching full-tilt about the snow, and machinemolle's like, "There were flurries in October almost every year when I was growing up [in Schenectady]. And when I lived in Burlington [Vermont], we were lucky not to get snow in September. So cool it." Fine, it's not unheard of. Doesn't mean I have to be into it. He and I actually got into a battle of the regions the other day, after a seven-year resistance. During a turn in our conversation, I thought he was implying that people from Southern Appalachia are ignorant, uncivilized meatheads, so I told him that New Englanders are stuck-up, emotionally repressed tightasses who live for feeling superior to each other. We weren't being hostile, per se. It was more like a debate-club excercise than a true blowout. In the end, I admitted that the South is still a hot political mess, what with the Moral Majority all up in everyone's business whenever possible, and he said that Massachusetts could use nicer people, more elbow room and a less breakneck lifestyle. Amen to all, baby.

Surgically altered yesterday's entry, for a change. I always seem to get really great ideas--like gravlax breath and how to use it--about half an hour after I think I'm finished with something. Three months ago, this would not have been a problem. There's more. When I can't set my own pace, the quality of my output always suffers. For instance, there's been a serious decline in my LJ content since my system went down to that goddamn virus, not just in frequency, but in style and substance. This displeases me something fierce. Combined with desperately seeking both privacy and audio while leaving my online friends in the lurch all the time, well...insult, meet injury.

I am so eager to address that topic again. Just like I can't wait to see the Yankees buy themselves another fucking World Series title. Because they're going all the way, why delude myself? And I'll be drafting beer and setting out pretzels for every obnoxious slice of white bread in a Mariano Rivera jersey from here to Worcester. It's not the team I hate; it's their ownership and approximately seventy percent of their fan club who give them a bad name. Do the Yankees even have a fucking farm system? I mean, apart from the one that involves heatseaking every other power player in the Major League and throwing money at him. On top of that, there's Red Sox Nation's sad sack bloc pissing and moaning and wanting to run Jonathan Papelbon out of town. Fuck that shit already. What the hell were Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia doing at the plate in that series while the Angels made mincemeat out of their defense, besides standing there scratching their nuts. If the fucking bats hadn't up and died for the first two games, we'd have a much healthier outlook on a few horseshit pitches.

Screw it. I'm done with baseball until next spring; I'm giving it a kick in the ass. Go Celtics.

Acoustic guitars and me. Sonically, I don't hate them. I don't love them. They don't bring me to anything like passion in and of themselves, though the right voice can fix that. Earthy singer-songwriter chicks with acoustic guitars is a cliche that gets my eyes rolling, though, because it just seems so self-opressing, the "weaker" sex consigning itself to a "soft" instrument. Female bass players are always good for a smile. Some would feel justified arguing that point, because the bass gets written off as background noise a lot, ie. girls on the side, but here's where I call bullshit. I fucking love the bass. Done right, it's the skeleton of the song, holds the whole thing upright, and if that's not a traditionally masculine detail, I don't know what is. I want to hear bass solos, bass melodies, two basses in one song--hello, "Big Bottom"? For crying out loud, you philistine motherfuckers, help a girl out. There ought to be more to popular music than plucking a chord from a twenty-year-old hit and looping it over a hip-hop beat, or gray-on-gray guitar palettes representing an overcast wall of angst.

Another subject I've bitched inside out. Turn the record over, Dani, that side sucks.

Slapstick? Why not? I'm going to identify everyone by their initials--by now it's obvious who's who in my ficverse. With the exception of "MD": this would be Marcus Dunlop, a man who fancies himself a hardcore skinhead nihilist and gets his jollies taking girls out on dates, being a perfect gentleman, then disclosing the swastika tattooed on his shoulder to see how they react. Back in 1997, Xanadu Piper fell victim to this routine, and kicked him soundly in the balls. The rest is history. The usual disclaimers apply.

June 2003. Outside the Rafferty mansion, on the sidelines of a black-tie soiree in honor of Gretchen's sister Gabrielle and her latest career achievment: she's been on the cover of seven-hundred romance novels. Fade in on a small marble/ wrought iron gazebo to the right of a sprawling staircase, where Dominic, Xanadu and Billy, dressed to kill, are in the act of concealing an unconscious Joey Dziardziel under the wraparound bench. Kneeling and grunting with effort, they get the drummer situated on his side, hoping to prevent a Bon Scott-style death by misadventure. They bolt upright and whisper curses when they hear someone approaching, whirl and sit and try to play it cool, but it's only Elijah, locked in battle with his personal music device and in no hurry to peek behind their legs--it's a good bet he already knows what they were up to. He parks next to Billy.

EW: Come on, not how. *tries again, no dice* Piece of shit.
DM: So riddle me this. We're at a party honoring the fact that a woman we all hate has been on the cover of seven-hundred books we wouldn't be caught dead reading. And none of us even thought to beg off tonight?
BB: Oh, face facts, Dom. We're so starved for each other's company, we'd party at a Militia compound if it meant free hooch and eats. By the way, I think the coordinators finally herded my fan club back to the koi pond.
XP: A flotilla of swans with a kilt fetish. I've officially seen it all.
DM: So have they.
EW: Let's just get out of here. I was over that "Female Fabio" shit before it even started and I'm about one more reference from cracking up.
XP: Forget it. The Girl in the Crystal Display Case is not going to cost me my license. And we're all too plastered to drive.
EW: Me? Not I. Anyway, you're the one who insisted on us taking your car.
XP: Yeah, and that was two mistakes in one--the valet staff speaks less English than an Iranian toddler. By the way, Elijah, you've been slurring and repeating yourself since your last Stoli tonic. Take it from me, you're three sheets to the wind.
EW: Me? Not I. Maybe a pillowcase, at most.
DM: Where'd Kyle get to? Surely he and Alyssa are as done with this as we are; we could all squash together--
KH: *staggers into view, yellow silk tie lying open, red-faced and singing between spasms of hysterical laughter" Don't need nothing but a good time/ How can I resist?/ Ain't lookin' for nothing but a good time/ And it don't get better than this... Howdy, y'all. Check this out. Took three Long Island Teas before the Wonder Squid here failed a hand-eye coordination test. Robert Downey, Jr. had to cough up fifty bucks.
DM: Cheers, Wonder Squid.
KH: Tell me about it. *boogies back into the crowd* So I spend my money on women and wine/ But I couldn't tell you where I spent last night/ I'm real sorry 'bout the shape I'm in...
DM: That goes double for us, mate.
BB: No use looking for Orlando or Ozzy, either. By now one of them's been dropped with a Thorazine dart and the other's setting a love trap in Gretchen's bedroom. *long silence* Think there's enough caviar? This party's going to live in infamy among the beluga sturgeon community.
XP: When it's women, it's an abortion...but when it's fish, it's an appetizer. Republican logic cracks me up.
EW: Chickens, too. Long as they can make something edible out of it. They should start turning aborted fetuses into Soylent Green. That would end the debate once and for all. *Xanadu bursts out laughing*
DM: *leaning across Xanadu and whispering to Billy* Wasted. *Billy nods, eyebrows aloft*
MD: *appears much the way Kyle did, only rather less bogged down by beverage pollutants; he's even hewing to the dress code* No Mexican whores? Laaame Somebody needs to show the idle rich how to get loose. *the Fearsome Foursome glares at him, equal parts incredulous and not overjoyed to see him again* Whoa, Billy, look at you. Not that I blame you Scots for wearing kilts--those sheep can hear zippers a mile away. *Billy shoots him the bird, his face revealing nothing but boredom*
XP: Dunlop, I don't know what you're doing or what you think you're doing...
MD: I was in the neighborhood, figured you and your friends were due for a visit. You clean up nice, for a dirty hick. Speaking of which, it's been weeks since I've beat off to that picture of you making out with Ozzy. But hey, I completely understand, sometimes you've just gotta test-drive your brother's come cannon. *pantomimes blowjob, makes slurping sounds*
XP: You're history. *leaps at him as he yelps, turns, and runs for his life* Come back here! *Elijah, Dominic and Billy exchange looks, follow*

Inside, the solarium. Gretchen, resplendent in pleated gold Blumarine, is sipping a martini and chatting up the last two male models to tears her sister's bodice asunder when Alyssa, doing justice to a sculptural YSL number, appears at her elbow.

AS: Gretch? Excuse me. *takes her aside, speaks softly* Xan...has company. *before Gretchen can ask for details, Kyle's upper half pokes through the side door*
KH: Fight! Fight! *doubles back outside, yelling over his shoulder* FIIIIIGHT

Outside, the swimming pool. A crowd has gathered to watch Marcus, pinned prone across the diving board, try to squirm out from under an enraged Xanadu, but she's glued to him like a feather-trimmed Viktor & Rolf barnacle.

XP: *hammering his shoulder blade with a fist* After scalping our tickets and selling us out to the tabloids, you think you can come around here and start talking shit! Idiot Nazi-poser douchebag, I'm gonna rip your greasy little spine right out of your fucking back!
MD: You're lucky this is getting me hot, otherwise I'd be taking you apart right now. *Xanadu wrenches his head back, panting* Christ Almighty, woman, how much gravlax did you eat? *she sinks her teeth into the nape of his neck* Ow, fuck, that hurt! Dom, you've gotta help me, your old lady has totally lost it.
DM: Not in my book, she hasn't.
GR: *strides onto the scene* What the hell is going on here?
BB: *waves her over* Can you believe she ran him down in those heels?
GR: Billy.
*Xanadu and Marcus jump up, talking in unison*
XP: Man, you will not believe what this jackass--
MD: This thug attacked me. All I said was--
*Shouting at each other, indistinct, Dominic/ Billy/ Elijah join in*
GR: Hey, hey, hey, hey! *inserts her thumb and forefinger into the corners of her mouth and shuts them up with a piercing whistle* Here's the thing. I don't care who started what or in what disgusting manner. Tonight is not about any of you. Tonight, if you'd stop pounding liquor and popping crab puffs long enough to remember, is meant to be in celebration of my sister.
BB: Which should stave off her ego for the next six hours. *Dominic and Elijah giggle*
GR: *monotone* Billy, I'm begging you. Xan? Fix your hair. And you. Where's your invite?
MD: Oh...I'm with the entertainment staff.
GR: Then your work here is done. *silences him with an upraised hand* Don't give me any lip--a skinny chick in a party dress just kicked your ass, and I'm sure there'll be photographs.
MD: Fair enough. Not my scene, anyway. Say hi to your hot sister for me. *smacks Xanadu's butt and books before she can take another swing at him*

Inside, five minutes later, a downstairs office. On the other side of the window, Kyle and Billy are leading the waitstaff in a rendition of Poison's "Fallen Angel"; Elijah and Dominic sit to one side on the grass, mesmerized.

XP: *ducks in* Be right back, gotta fluff.
GR: Fluff fast, that room's supposed to be off limits. And tell Kyle and Billy to save the hair-metal singalong for Dom's bachelor party.
XP: Yeah, yeah. Killjoy. *faces a full-length mirror, upends her clutch over a credenza and starts making repairs*
MD: *stomps up and sticks his head through the doorway, his left eye already blackening* Hey. Xan. Blow it out your ass, okay? We've known each other for six years, and I've spent the last five making sure people give a fuck about the goddamn Paper Cuts. Maybe I don't gift-wrap my efforts or tie them up in a pretty pink bow, but at the end of the day they get butts in the seats, and you could climb down off your left-wing high horse and look at it that way, but noooo. I've paid with my job for wrangling you an audience, and you don't see me out here peddling publicity for System of a Down, or Evanescence. Well, this is it. I'm done. *Xanadu mock-pouts and swivels her fists under her eyes in a boo-hoo gesture* You, your shitty band, those hobbit fags you hang out with--every single one of you can lick my sweaty nuts.
XP: *crosses over to the desk* Somebody's made out of mouth. *takes a stack of autographed photos from a cupboard and unloads them on Marcus* Here. At least you won't be forging our signatures this time.
MD: Wow. Thanks.
XP: Of course, the bad gets forty percent.
MD: Ex-squeeze me? Oh, come on. Twenty.
XP: Forty.
MD: Twenty-five.
XP: Forty.
MD: Thirty. Final offer, take it or leave it.
XP: Our new lawyer is dying to meet you.
MD: Fine with me. Tell him we'll all get together in the sewer tomorrow.
XP: Why, so you can have home field advantage?
MD: You're such a biatch. Thirty-five. *Xanadu exhales in his face, he recoils* Forty it is. *drops glossies into his backpack and fans the air*
XP: *takes something from the blotter* Here's our manager's business card. You can give the check to him.
MD: He'll just sign it over to himself.
XP: Not if he wants to keep his teeth. *addresses the mirror again, shoves a hairpin into place and finds a tube of lipstick...leaning in to apply it, she notices Marcus leering at her from the doorway* Get out of here!

Depends and depends. There is a lot of shit I write just for kicks and don't give a damn if it ever goes public or not. But when I get stuck on trying to be impressive, or on shock value, ten to one the material shows it, and I'd say that's a universal truth. So, ideally, I wouldn't give reader response a second thought, but the problem is, I'm human.

Fuck me running on fast-forward. I bust my ass to beat that son of a bitch here today, the one who hogs the only station with a functioning headphone jack and uses every library card in town to extend his sessions to three hours or more, but he must've snuck in through the children's library because he was settling in right as I turned the corner. Just forget it; I've resigned myself. Until my machine is repaired, replaced or otherwise reinstated, I'm never going to hear any of the video clips I've amassed again.

*Goes away kicking things and snarling*

Apparently there's a puppy-getting epidemic going on down south in general and among my peeps in particular.

First, my brother acquires a beagle-blue tick mix through some local rednecks. He was going to call it "Sonar", but due to its looking exactly like the Tennesse Volunteers' mascot, my dad insisted on "Smokey". For my part, this is going to unleash a deluge of quotes from a certain Ice Cube/ Chris Tucker movie when I finally meet the little guy. Not necessarily a bad thing. I'm kind of looking forward to it.

Then my best friend gets a dalmatian from one of his new neighbors (he just moved to Spartanburg, SC). So the onus was on me to name the goddamn thing, natch. Everybody wants me to name their pets; I should start charging a fee. He was like, "Don't get me wrong, I love my kids very much, but I'm not having a dog named 'Naruto' or 'Tinkerbell'--they've already got two guinea pigs named after Pokemon. 'Pikachu' and some other damn crazy thing." At my suggestion, he's going to call it "Sprocket", paying homage to the dog on Fraggle Rock. Am I good? I'm good.

Ah, shit. That'll teach me to wear four-inch heels in the pouring rain.

Some events, you'd think, would merit the suspension of partisanship. Of course, those following the immediate aftermath of 9-11 put an end to that notion. Still, I got into a conversation with machinemolle this morning, spurred by radio discussion of some wannabe skinheads proving their macho mettle by fileting a nurse and slashing her sixth-grade daughter's throat...okay, for the archconservative host's benefit, here's my left-wing liberal idea of suitable punishment for those heathens. In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, there's this thing called a "particicution". Long, drawn-out, the kind of thing that could justify ticket sales. Need I say more? Ideally, I'm all for the illegalization of firearms, but considering where we stand as a society, if we just up and go for it right now, we're screwing ourselves. And I don't forsee ever fully removing the need for weapons, not without the intervention of an evolutionary level propositioned by a far more intelligent extraterrestrial race, so there's really no right or wrong outlook on the Second Amendment, is there?

All that talk reminded me of my brother in the end. For the most part he's a good kid and I like him well enough, but I get so sick of his goddamn compulsive macho posturing. And his Medieval-Times interior decorating aesthetic. And his all death metal, all the time (because, y'know, nothing else is masculine enough) personal soundtrack. One shot to the jaw would probably take his ass down the necessary few notches; if I had more money I'd be plotting and scheming with the bouncers at my workplace.

For Halloween I think I'm going to be some kind of human board game. Glue a photocopy of the board and some actual paraphernalia on an old shift dress, add a coordinating wig and makeup. I'll never top the Statue of Liberty as a rape victim for timely political statements, Samara Morgan (the creepy little girl who crawls out of people's televisions in those Ring movies) for deluxe creepiness, or a Stephen King short story ("I Am the Doorway") for inside moves; all I can do is go in a new direction. So give it up for competitive leisure activities, and lead me not into the never-mind-my-costume-it's-all-about-my-flapjacks slutwear ghetto. College kind of soured me on costume contests, though. I was forever losing to my gay friend who dressed in drag every year--rather a cop-out; he went around in drag half the time as it was--or someone wearing something completely dumb and random like a bunch of dead leaves glued to a Hefty bag. Grandeur > originality...but I already knew that.

glitter-graphics.com

Dedicated to my homeboy twopiearr, some time in advance. Hope you like it. I combed the hell out of that website for something decidedly uncutesy.

*Blows kiss*

Trip out on this: I'm a MoME nominee. Me. As in Dani O./ glamoursnipe, black sheep of the whole Hobbit RP microcosm, whose audience couldn't fill a table at Dunkin Donuts. How the fuzznuck did I even get in for consideration, much less on the ballot? Has money changed hands?

Seems I can express only acid-tinged puzzlement which borders on disbelief; it's because when I'm this mystified I fall back on moderate-to-heavy sarcasm for fear of looking like an idiot. Let me put it this way: if I wake up in a drunk tank on Coruscant tomorrow, I doubt I'll be that much more suprised than I am right now.

The gratitude should kick in before long. Just for Christ's sake, don't let this be some kind of pity-fuck nomination. Let there be someone, somewhere, who truly enjoys my stupid writing.

Some fartknocker threw a liquor bottle out their car window and the goddamn thing shattered all over my front walk. Looks like I'm going to have to vacuum the lawn.

More nightmares. This is getting ridiculous.

Dani O, I do believe it's time you faced your fear.

*Googles "daddy longlegs"--three images come up, along with the following statement: If we feed daddy longlegs spiders the right stuff, they'll grow to the size of Alsatians. They'd be faster than the dogs, they'd be able to climb up walls...*

Ah, fucking hell! Okay, I'm not ready. Retreat! Retreat!

TITLE: Flight Simulator (Complete)
SETTING: LA, November 2007, after dark
RATING: R (pervasive sex talk)
PAIRING: DomLijah
SUPPORTING CAST: Billy, Xanadu, and Celeste...well, sort of.
SUMMARY: Dominic and Elijah have the house to themselves.

Whoa, you'd like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah
It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough...

( You know you're gonna have to face it--you're addicted to love... )

OMG, when are the nightmares going to back off? Living pillows with contaminated entrails indeed. At least there was a waterfall in this one, but it was flowing backward.

Never mind. Tonight, this entire weekend, is going to be like drinking a bottle of gin on an empty stomach. I just feel like I should be dreading something, and I've felt that way for days now. Watch whatever it is be my own fault.

Go away, Megan Fox. You're fucking everywhere. Seriously, I am thisclose to rescinding you as Pizzazz in my Jem! movie dream cast.

Learn to tell the difference between a mood and a symptom. This means everybody.

I am twenty stories tall. I am a giant, towering above it all.

Sometimes I don't give my friends anywhere near enough credit. At the same time, I give my "haters" (such as they are) way too much.

*Meanders in looking like someone who's had their head clanged between a pair of cymbals*

FACT: The nightmares have started up again. Asleep or awake, there's going to be a hostage crisis between myself and my imagination.

FACT: People who are chronically late, especially by at least half an hour every time, REALLY fucking piss me off.

FACT: I've about had my fill of babies and small children. Don't insult our mutual intelligence by attributing it to latent maternal instincts on my part. They've been surgically removed. It's just that the only thing I enjoy less than a sonic assault is a protracted, high-pitched sonic assault. Mommy-Mommy-Mommy! I want this. Noooooo! Why can't I have it! WAAAAAAH-HAH-HAH! Recently I almost had a no-shit panic attack at Stop & Shop because I'd fled across the store to escape some bozo whistling his way through the frozen food aisles, and met up with a similar asshole in the produce department. I'm starting to wonder if there isn't an imbalance at work, for example, a case of aural sensory defensiveness (misinterpreting normal stimulus as threatening signals). It would explain why I have to keep music on at all times and practically freak out when the batteries in my personal audio devices start losing juice--I'm fighting sound with sound. I've always been sensitive to smells as well, nauseated by too much of either a good or a bad thing, I rip tags out of my clothes like a fiend and I hate being touched or hugged for no good reason. Vivid colors, on the other hand, don't fase me--I'm not wild about bright lights, but who the hell is? Strong flavors aren't a problem, either, unless I just plain don't like the underlying taste. Incidentally, I'm a hypervisually-oriented person and a major foodie, so I trust my eyes and my tongue more than my ears, nose or skin. Should I, like...see someone about this?

FACT: Speaking of retail--robingurl, my Dommeh, listen up--we were at the mall the other day, and I saw the craziest thing at Cards & Collectibles. A Treebeard action set with moveable joints, Merry and Pippin included. More expensive than the average meal for one at Red Lobster, but less expensive than going there on a date. I damn near bought it, too, except I would've had no way to utilize it aside from terrorizing the cat, chasing him all over the apartment with it, chucking miniature plastic hobbits into his food dish, and I swear that fucker's got PTSD or something as it is. I also considered a ceramic Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, a couple of Sin City figures, and a few Red Sox/ Celtics home decor items that I don't seem to remember in detail. Then, for whatever reason, I must've had a change of heart because I overheard myself muttering, "Between here and Spencer's, have you ever seen so much useless crap in your whole life?" Also, that store seems to have a new location in the mall on an hourly basis. I'm about fed up with having to hunt the son of a bitch down every other time I go.

Now for some fiction. There's a point on the RC timeline, from late 1998 to mid-2001, where all five Paper Cuts are living at the Rafferty mansion (though they do spend eighteen grueling months of it on tour), the whole band squirreled away in a guest wing like those Flowers in the Attic siblings, minus the imprisonment. Not to long ago I had a satirical, sitcom-ready image of them still abed just after daybreak, circa after Xan meets Dom/ Billy (and Elijah's telephone voice) but before the infamous car wreck from which they all walk away without a scratch. I'm only posting this as filler, well aware that I'm the only living person who gives a frog's fat ass about any of these characters, but it spared me a few minutes of boredom, so shut up and deal. For me.

GRETCHEN RAFFERTY: Snuggled from either side by a man and woman in matching wedding bands, red silk scarves still threaded through the headboard slats, other tools of sexual enhancement (whipped cream, designer vibrators, feather-topped tickling wands) and discarded clothes strewn around the room.

KYLE HOLDEN AND ALYSSA STRAIGHT: Alyssa sleeps as peacefully as a princess next to their restless three-year-old son, Oren. From a cinematographer's POV, we'd watch Oren slide off the bed and scamped into the adjacent sitting room, where Kyle is zonked on a sofa with his head thrown back and his mouth open, fully clothed and glasses askance, a video-game controller on the floor below one limp hand, a fast-food bag and cup standing by on the coffee table. He awakens to the sound of Oren digging in the bag for leftover french fries.

JOEY DZIARDZIEL: His defacto bedroom is as spotless as a freshly-turned hotel suite, but the balcony outside is a college-dorm horror, complete with a sticker-encrusted bong and several magazines specializing in naked women. He's cocooned in a sleeping bag with his face smashed against the wrought-iron railings, drooling into a koi pond twenty feet below.

XANADU PIPER: Hugging an old-school ghetto blaster like a teddy bear on top of the covers, a litter of reading materials at her back, plus homemade cassettes, an ashtray and a can of Coke stacked on the nightstand. As the camera lingers on her, she'd jolt awake without opening her eyes and click her teeth together. We'd watch her blindly eject and reverse the tape in the machine, hit play to unleash another round of songs from her childhood (let's go with Sheena Easton's "Sugar Walls" to start), then smack her lips as she resettles into the pillows.

What the fuck? I'm, like, all 32 and stuff.

Yo, lijahlover. This one's from me and the boys.


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