November 2004 – LaDonnaWitmer

Mattresses and Mutts

Mood: Percolatin’
Drinking: Cranberry Raspberry Diet Snapple (so koolaidy)

It was much too short, as weekends often are, but I had a wonderful weekend and am strangely perky on this Monday morning. Not cheerleader-perky, mind you. That kind of perky just isn’t allowed in ladonna-land. More like I-just-got-a-new-CD-perky. Or the Lip-Service-catalog-just-arrived-and-i-have-lotsa-shopping-money-perky. Know what I’m sayin’?

Perhaps I can chalk my good mood up to the FABULOUS sleep i had last night in a brand new California King mattress with a pillow top and memory foam. It was like sleeping on a really snuggly cloud. Without all the pesky condensation that clouds most likely have. Not that I’ve ever snuggled in a cloud. Ok. Let’s just toss that whole analogy out the window. It’s just a kick-ass mattress, ok?

I think you know that you’re a real adult when you spend 2 hours testing out mattresses in a SleepTrain store and you describe it to all your friends as “a lot of fun.” Good god. I’m getting that boring already! It’s just that my mattress history has not been all that scintillating. (Pee-proof crib mattress to not-so-gently-used Twin Bed mattress to $200 queen-sized mattress complete with big pink flowers.) So to graduate to a 2 foot-high, very expensive, oh-so-high tech California King is a pretty big deal, okay? And if you got to sleep in it, you’d be all delirious with delight the next day, too.

I had a first-experience this weekend. The Leeler and I were invited to a dog birthday party. Yes. An actual birthday party with party hats and party favors and stuff. It’s even funnier if you know that the birthday bulldog, Phinneas, is LeeLoo’s internet boyfriend. He saw her profile on dogster.com and they’ve been hooking up ever since.

Okay, well, “he” didn’t actually see her profile because I’ve yet to see a dog who gives a crap about a computer. Anyway, we call him her internet boyfriend. And he turned 2 this weekend.

So there were about a dozen other dogs at the party, all yapping and tangling up their leashes. LeeLoo was true to form and tried to kick a golden retriever’s ass. There was much splashing about in the waves and smelling of butts. And fun was had by all. But I don’t think I’ll be throwing the Ler a dog birthday party anytime soon. I’ll just keep making her wear ridiculous costumes.

-Lo, who is crazy about her dog, but is not yet a crazy dog-lady. (there is a huge difference, you know.)

Of Sprees and Spotlights

Mood: Pretty Damn Tough and Balmy
Drinking: Crystal Geyser, oh so delicious

It’s a balmy November afternoon, and if you’re going to ask how November can be balmy, you really must remember that I live in California. None of that snow-covered-climate business for me. Not anymore!

Anyway, it’s balmy and it’s sunny and there’s just the right amount of wind. It’s one of those days when you might start to think that you can jump off tall cliffs and float. Which is to say, you feel invincible. I don’t feel exactly invincible at the moment, since I’ve just consumed an entire roll of crunchy and delicious rainbow Sprees. So there’s a bit of a stomachache rolling in, and it’s enough to knock me down off of my uppity invincible pedestal. But it’s only knocked me down one level, down to pretty damn tough. So I’m feeling pretty damn tough and balmy all at once and apparently that is enough reason for a girl to get on her blog and babble incessantly.

Hey, I never promised that this thing would be all eloquent and erudite or anything. You get what you get, and that’s all I’m gonna promise you.

I could tell you about how I recorded several versions of a poem whilst locked in a closet last night. How about that? OK, i wasn’t exactly “locked in”, but it was a closet. There were also big fat headphones and a fancy silver mic and one of those black filter circles that keeps your p’s and t’s and s-es from shattering eardrums. It was all very high-tech, without the whole studio glass scene. M and little C were there to make sure I was emoting effectively. And big C was there to be the techie-guy. (I’m not sure why I started referring to all the people in my life by their initials on this thing, but it’s bound to be confusing when you’ve got two C’s in one sentence. Bother!)

I recorded a poem called “freezerburn”. She’s not all that new–i wrote her about a year ago, and she’s not my favorite little poemtree, but she’s decent enough. And she’s the guinea pig for this spoken word video thing that we’re in the midst of. I spent lots of time last night whispering and yelling and just reading it straight. During the yelling part, I was going for a “sexy anger”, as M and C instructed me. But really I was just violently waving my arms about and screeching. It was very cathartic.

I could record poems all day long, really. It’s very fun. And it makes me miss performing. There’s not much about the old Chicago suburb days that I truly miss, but getting up on a big wide stage and performing my little poems was a definite high point. I didn’t mind the spotlight one bit, no matter how hot and sweaty it made me get. Guess i’ve just got to make do with other spotlights now.

Speaking of spotlights, here’s a virtual one:
http://www.sorryeverybody.com.
(You might be able to find a picture of me, Boy and Dog in gallery, say, #188, if you look hard enough.)

-Lo, who’s really not all that sexy when she’s angry.

Cake is overrated. Unless it’s a cake made of cheese.

Mood: Older and supposedly wiser
Drinking: Plain Diet Coke. No Vanilla. Grrrr!

I must say, as birthdays go, yesterday’s was a fine specimen. It was foggy and rain-spattered with just the right amount of gloom. Which makes it more fun to get long-distance birthday wishes from friends and family and huddle with your co-workers over gourmet cheeseburgers and skip out to the theatre for a middle-of-the-week matinee with a friend.

And that’s just what I did. S and I took our fabulous selves to the theater for some supposedly scary viewing. (Ju-On, my ass!) We may have squealed a little and spit popcorn seeds but mostly we entertained ourselves by making the “ghost noise” at random and inappropriate intervals. It won’t make any sense if you haven’t wasted your cash on said movie, but the evil blue dead chick makes a noise like this right before she rises up and smites you with her bloody eyeball: “Waaaaaaaaaaaa-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-oh.” There’s some strange inhuman clicking in there too. If you gurgle a little at the back of your throat, you can get the ghost noise just about right and make random passersby think you’re having some sort of melodramatic seizure. Fun times.

When I got home (still making the ghost noise), Boy had laid out a fabulous feast of homemade goodness, including a raspberry cheesecake. You couldn’t ask for a better birthday dinner. Well, you could, but you wouldn’t get one.

So now I’m back into the non-birthday routine on an even gloomier day and not feeling one stitch older. It will probably catch up with me in a few months. Sneak up behind me and plant a gray hair or something. Because that’s how mortality is…it’s a sneaky, spiteful little bitch.

Next up, a fabulous birthday beach bonfire. Don’t you wish you lived in California?

-Lo, who may have heard a drainpipe make that ghost noise this morning.

Headache, Heartache, Hairballs

Mood: Crabalicious
Drinking: Water of Doom

Did you know that after a cat hacks up a big hefty hairball, it just eats it right up again? Mmmm, delicious soggy hair! I learned this from my friend and neighbor J just this weekend. I’m sure there is an analogy somewhere in the soggy messy to our everlasting arse of a world leader and how our country just happily swallowed a big load of sh*%, but I’m just too crabby to go there. TOO CRABBY!

It’s a gloomy Tuesday and it is creeping along on very slow, wobbly spiderlegs. I have two things to look forward to today: my weekly lunch with my darling S and going home tonight to boy and dog. Happy, happy thoughts. Keeping the crabby at bay.

Tomorrow is my birthday. For those of you who didn’t know, don’t send anything. It’s ok. I don’t need the celebratory cake anymore. Just morning wake-up calls from Mom and Sister and the annual tear-jerker card from Dad and a fabulous home-made dinner from Boy. That will be enough. Okay, and a beach bonfire party from all my west coast friends. And some lavish presents. And general flattery and pandering. FINE, I admit to being a total birthday whore. Me, me, me! Happy Birthday to Me! I hope I’m still this excited when I’m turning eighty-three.

Before last week’s Black Tuesday, my friend C and I took an impromptu road trip to the land of blondes and boobs to see my Sister. Much fun was had, most of which is none of the internet’s business, but I must mention that my Sister has the Most Fabulous Bathtub in the Entire World. So fabulous, in fact, that when you take a bubble bath, only the tips of your toes and your nose stick out. It’s amazing. I wanted to rip it from the wall, put it in my pocket and bring it home. It’s going to be a tradition…everytime I visit my Sister from now on, I’ll greet her at the door with “When can I take a bath?” Uh-huh.

Hey, remember that fabulous new project that I made some mysterious mention of sometime ago? Well, it’s in the works. My friends M and C are taking me “location scouting” this weekend. It sounds so official. Maybe we’ll even carry binoculars and wear funny hats. There will most definitely be some official-looking note-taking. And maybe I can convince M to make the little rectangle with thumbs and forefingers so she looks all Hollywood. Maybe.

In the meantime, I’m also nagging my WebMaster to make it easy for me to show photos in this space. Because me and the LeeLer dressed up for Halloween and the results just must be seen.

Alright. Must go hunt down magic pills for headache. I’ll talk to you when I’m older.

-Lo, who really prefers that you don’t sing the birthday song. (Just bring presents.)

Sorry, Everybody

Mood: Bleak, Black and Bloodied
Drinking: Deep Draughts of Disbelief and Dismay

Dear World,

I am so sorry!

I’m sorry that our president is such an obnoxious, arrogant, bullheaded idiot. I’m sorry that half of our country seems to believe that he is NOT an obnoxious, arrogant, bullheaded idiot. I’m sorry that even though millions of us tried to kick his self-righteous ass to the curb, we failed. I’m sorry that my country has just unleashed four more years of fear, bigotry, greed and bloodshed upon the rest of the world.

I am sorry that my country has become the biggest bully on the playground. I am sorry that so many Americans seem to feel that believing in God makes all their decisions right and just and good, even when they are horribly and obviously wrong. I am sorry that you will now be bludgeoned repeatedly with lies, rhetoric and mangled English. I am so, so sorry.

My small consolation on this devastating day: At least I live in San Francisco.

-Lo, who wishes her voice were louder.

Down with Bush!

Mood: Prickly and Patriotic
Drinking: Freedom Water

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A Sense of Rising Dread

Mood: Salty
Drinking: Iced Tea

I am finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate. The fewer hours there are between me and tomorrow (election day), the more prickly I get.

It is nerves. It is dread. it is a feeling of impending doom. And mixed in there somewhere is a tiny pinch of salty hope. Hope that my country is not as full of stupidity as I think it is. Hope that we have nearly seen the last of George W. and his smug, self-righteous, stubbornly wrong-headed ilk.

Begone, fearmongers and homophobes. Run away, you bloodthirsty oil barons. Shoo, fly, you pestilent preachers of my-way-or-the-highway-doctrine.

I will wake up tomorrow, unable to eat, most likely, and trot down to my local polling place. I will vote for hope. I will vote for peace. I will vote for a better, safer, less hate-filled world for my unborn children. I will vote against George W. Bush. With a vengeance.

And then I’ll most likely spend the rest of the day chewing my already-stubby fingernails into bloody stumps and hyperventilating. I cannot remember a time in my entire life when I have been so hopeful for change and so incredibly wracked with nerves over the possible outcome of an election.

I’ve always voted, since I was eligible, because I grew up a good, Christian Republican and it was drilled into my head, everywhere I went, that good girls go to the polls. And I haven’t been able to shake the habit, even though I started voting like a bad, bad girl — all Democratic and Libertarian.

But this election, this year, feels so full of portent and potential, that I will vote with greater pride and greater anxiety than ever before. (Yes, with more pride, even, than when I voted against that big austrian oaf, Ahhhnuld.)

And once that’s done, all I can do is hope for the best. And thank the lucky stars that I don’t live in Florida.

Lo, who thinks P. Diddy looks more like Mr. T every day.