playing solitaire till dawn with a deck of 51
The good:
I mailed in my official voting ballot. I’ll be honest with you; I haven’t voted every year, but I definitely wanted to do so this year, and not just because of the presidential election. In California, we have three very important propositions up for consideration: one about parental notification and waiting periods for abortions, one to overturn gay marriage, and one to require better living conditions for farm animals. If you can’t guess how I voted on these issues, hi! Welcome to my blog!
After much waffling, I FINALLY bought a copy of Silent Hill Homecoming. You may be shocked to learn that I didn’t buy it the second it was released, but early reviews and the fact that Konami handed the reins to an American developer made me very leery. I’m only about six hours into it, but so far, it doesn’t suck! There are flaws to be sure: the combat, the camera, the surprisingly wonky character models. But the backgrounds are gorgeous (almost like a photograph at times), the music and sound effects are fantastic, the story is compelling, and the creepy factor is off the charts. I’m eager to see where it goes next.
I bought some perfume from Nordstrom’s and got the best GWP (gift with purchase) ever: a faux alligator train case filled with samples. Good stuff, too, like Mario Badescu and Bliss, and generous sizes to boot.
I’ve saved the best for last: I'm spending Halloween in West fuckin' Hollywood! For those of you who aren't familiar with that area, it might as well have been named Gayonia. Aside from the dancers' dressing room at a Madonna concert, it is quite possibly the gayest place in the world. Back in my college days, I used to go dancing at Studio One (now sadly defunct), where I developed a massive, intensely doomed crush on a go-go boy named Jimmy. I actually have a picture of me with Jimmy, although I will never post it here because it's so incredibly unflattering. The Freshman 15 is for pikers; I gained the Freshman 50. (To give you some idea, I showed K this picture once, without explanation, and she didn't even recognize me!)
As you can imagine, West Hollywood on Halloween is something to behold. I've never been, but I'm really looking forward to it; I hear the costumes are amazing. R and her friend are flying in from DC, and G, C, M, and I will meet up with them in WeHo. We'll take in the sights, drink copious amounts of alcohol (we booked a hotel), and get crazy. I can't wait!
The bad:
The people downstairs are driving me fucking nuts. Why, pray tell, can I feel my floor shake when they’re walking around their apartment? Are they pulling a Lionel Richie and dancing on the ceiling? And they have a COUCH on their patio, where the man of the household likes to sit and smoke cigarette after cigarette, sending tendrils of toxicity into my apartment. You stay klassy, downstairs neighbor man!
One of my favorite restaurants is just down the street from where I work, and when I was taking my afternoon walk yesterday, I noticed a big “FOR LEASE” sign plastered on the front of the building. No! Unacceptable! They have the best steak I’ve ever eaten! They have a rice dish that’s so amazing I want to run into the kitchen, wrest the pot away from the chef, and scoop ladle after ladle into my quivering maw! Goddamn you, recession!
One of my coworkers has a plastic pumpkin full of candy on her desk with a sign taped to it that says “Have some Halloween candy…if you dare!” Well, damn right I dare, because she’s got Tootsie Rolls in there, and I love me some Tootsie Rolls.
So yesterday, after she’d left for lunch, I wandered over to her desk. I took two regular Tootsie Rolls and two of the flavored kind (one lemon, one lime). As I prepared to walk away with my sweet, sweet bounty, a woman I shall call Bitchy McBitchass, who doesn’t even WORK in my department, snipped, “I don’t think you should take candy from her desk.”
Oh, no, bitch. Don’t you even THINK of cockblocking my sugar rush!
I picked up the pumpkin and pointed to the sign. “She put these out for everyone,” I said pointedly.
“Yeah, but you took four. Do you really need four?”
“Fuck you, whore!” I screamed. “You got a face like a breadbowl full of pepperoni and you’re gonna tell ME how to eat?”
…okay, no, I didn’t. Instead I said, through clenched teeth, “They’re small,” and then I returned to my desk and ate them, fantasizing about dumping a can of tuna juice on her chair.
The ugly:
Those goddamn beetles have returned to my apartment, and they’re gnawing holes in my walls. I talked to my landlady, and she has the exterminator coming out tomorrow to look at the damage. I’ll be spending tonight putting Post-It flags above the holes (so he can find them easily; they’re not that big), hiding anything I don’t want him to see, and fuming silently.
I’m really not happy about their triumphant return to my apartment. Yes, they’re harmless, but I don’t want them chewing HOLES in my goddamn walls. And, not to sound all Julianne Moore in Safe or anything, but I’m not too thrilled about strangers tromping through my apartment and spraying chemicals all over the place.
I’ll grudgingly give those little shits credit for one thing: in a strange way, they were the catalyst for a major turning point in my life. But now that I’ve learned that lesson, can they fucking go AWAY?
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