LaDonnaWitmer

Three-Three

Mood: Absolutely positive
Drinking: One for the road

1. I believe in change that is both sudden and well-planned.
2. I believe in a quieter kind of love.
3. I believe in sour candy.
4. I believe in flipping the finger when necessary.
5. I believe in unnatural hair color.
6. I believe in things yet unseen.
7. I believe in keeping some things to yourself.
8. I believe in postcards.
9. I believe in unexpected compliments.
10. I believe in long Sunday afternoons spent reading.
11. I believe in english teachers.
12. I believe in collecting beach glass while barefoot.
13. I believe in winged things.
14. I believe in long motorcycle rides with no real destination.
15. I believe in snail mail.
16. I believe in a really good mix CD.
17. I believe in pedicures.
18. I believe in the lifelong search.
19. I believe in “Generation X”.
20. I believe in letting the dog sleep on the bed.
21. I believe in violets.
22. I believe in sometimes ignoring the time zone to call your mom.
23. I believe in second drafts. And thirds. And fourths.
24. I believe in being completely self-absorbed on your birthday.
25. I believe in wearing dresses over jeans, with big boots and bracelets.
26. I believe in Someone to watch over me.
27. I believe in sister weekend.
28. I believe in cutting off all your hair, because it’s yours, and you can. Damn the man!
29. I believe in checking your spelling.
30. I believe in daddy’s little girls.
31. I believe in the nice guy getting the girl.
32. I believe in the right amount of glitter.
33. I believe in aggressive dream hunting.

-Lo, who appreciates the birthday song and all, but who are you supposed to be looking at when they sing it to you? And is it okay to sing along and say, “happy birthday, dear me-ee!”?

The Littlest Bitch

Mood: Off-Duty
Drinking: Sodapop

For all you LeeLoo fans out there, I have a new little treat for you:
The Loo has her very own store.

See, it all started a coupla months ago when I was dogsitting for my sister’s pup, the Yodes. I had my friend M come over with her bullydog, Winston, and we had a photoshoot bonanza in my dining room that involved a lot of children’s halloween costumes, “sit” and “stay” commands, and nummy bribes of the hot dog and snausage variety.

My intention was to create a hilarious 2006 calendar for family and friends, which I have done (now you know what you’re getting for Christmas!). However, everybody who sees the costume calendar asks if they can buy a copy. And who am I to let the LeeLoo fans down?

So I trotted on over to Cafe Press and hooked ya’ll up with not just a 2006 “Gone to the Dogs” Calendar, but some magnets and mugs and memorabilia, as well. Click here to have a look-see.

-Lo, who once tried out the taste of Purina, but spit it right back out. (Oh, like you haven’t?)

The Best Cheerleader Is a Dead Cheerleader

Mood: Spooky
Drinking: Haunted water

Halloween was always a bust when I was a child. But I didn’t really know what I was missing. We lived waaaaay out in the country and never got any trick or treaters. My school discouraged dressing up (unless you came as some character from the Bible)and most neighbors either weren’t within walking distance or would sooner give us carrots than candy. So. Not big with the ghouls and goblins back before I grew boobs.

But now? Now, with the boobs and the city-living and the adult-ness? Now I am ALL ABOUT October 31. I’ve got quite a stash of costumes in my closet, but this year I had to recycle last year’s…with a twist. Last year me and the Loondog were Anarchy Cheerleaders. This year I am an Anarchy Cheerleader again, but I am dead.

My friends and fellow worker drones, K and S, are also cheerleaders, but from rival schools. So the story is that we all killed each other in a fit of peppy pride. Or we were all trying to screw the same football dude. Or something. (I never was a cheerleader, so I’m not entirely sure how these situations work.)

So I’m dead from a knife to the neck (lots of gooey blood), K got run over (large tire track across perky uniform), and S took a bullet to the brainpan (squish!). We expect to be awarded a nice gift certificate or something for our pains and fake blood.

Happy Halloweenie!

In even more self-absorbed news, I got tagged by one of those blogosphere things, and must answer some questions, as follows:

FIVE THINGS I PLAN TO DO BEFORE I DIE
1. Write more.
2. Read more.
3. Travel more.
4. Buy more Mary Janes.
5. Cut my damn hair off! (It’s getting ridiculously long.)

FIVE THINGS I CAN DO
1. Ride a horse. (8 years of english riding lessons, thankyouverymuch)
2. Ride a motorcycle.
3. Knit, sew, and mosaic. (They don’t deserve separate line items b/c they are all in the “crafty” category.)
4. Poetry SLAM, baby.
5. Do the goth dance. (Catch the bat, love the bat, release the bat).

FIVE THINGS I CANNOT DO
1. Vote Republican.
2. Wear Lee Press On Nails.
3. Listen to the White Stripes.
4. Talk smack about Angelina.
5. Buy a pet snake.

FIVE THINGS THAT ATTRACT ME TO THE OPPOSITE SEX
1. Tattoos.
2. Piercings.
3. Black eyeliner.
4. Motorcycle boots.
5. A really good laugh.

FIVE THINGS I SAY MOST OFTEN
1. “Fuck!”
2. “Shut up?”
3. “Hey, Bruce.”
4. “LeeLoo, sing!”
5. “Dooooooooooooooon’t.”

FIVE CELEBRITY CRUSHES
1. Franka Potente.
2. Johnny Depp.
3. Charlize Theron.
4. Asia Argento.
5. Well, of course, Angelina.
6. This one dude who’s name I cannot remember, but I WILL. And when I do, I shall write it down, because I know the Internet is just DYING to know who it is.

-Lo, who thinks that every day should at least have some halloween potential, with the black eyeliner and stompy boots and whatnot.

Aeon Crush

Mood: Reports of slight drooling
Drinking: Water

Back in my college days, in the days of my guitar-strumming, pot-smoking, NIN-loving, star-gazing, stupid-friend-having first boyfriend, I was introduced to (among other thing) Liquid Television.

This was back before TRL and Ashanti and Bam Margera and all the shallow MTV shit that the kids love these days. This was back when the Real World was new and Julie the virgin wanted to be a dancer and Eddie Vedder hadn’t yet lost his cool. Or his flannel.

Liquid Television was weird and confusing and slightly dangerous. (Remember the bubble sound?) Especially when it came to an assassin named Aeon Flux. I’ve lost count of the nights I spent mesmerized in the blue glow, curled on a cracked leather couch in the basement of first boyfriend’s house, surrounded by all the paraphernalia of his rock band…guitar stands and keyboards and crumpled bits of rejected wrapping papers. And Aeon Flux with her big, big guns.

So I am DEFINITELY looking forward to being mesmerized all over again, come December, (only in front of a silver screen this time) as the ever-fabulous Charlize Theron brings an even sexier Aeon Flux to town.

Be still my heart.

-Lo, who was done for as soon as she heard about Charlize dyeing her blonde hair black.

Back to Insanity

Mood: Running on vapors
Drinking: The usual poison

Returning to the real world is proving to be more difficult than I thought. It’s my 2nd Monday back in the swing since returning from the lands across the sea, and I still feel fuzzy about the brainpan.

Can’t blame it on jet lag anymore. Not reliably, anyway. But I may be able to blame it on my weekend of geek theater ecstasy, since I saw both Neil Gaiman’s MirrorMask (gorgeous) and Joss Whedon’s Serenity (orgasmic). So I’m lost somewhere between the streets of flying fishes and River’s ballet of Reaver death. And if you understand none of that, I guess you’re not a true geek. Which is good or bad, depending on your point of view.

I think I need to see both movies a dozen or more times to thoroughly saturate myself in the otherworlds, but I do have a living to make and so here I am, deskbound, procrastinating by babbling incoherently. Fun!

About the Italian adventure…my real world friends should prepare themselves for an avalanche of photos, coming to inboxes soon via Ofoto. For the virtual world, though, I’ll condense it to a list of highlights, since I am as yet unable to post photos here. Consider yourselves starcrossed.

When In Rome…
– Be sure to eat not only pizza and pasta, but nectarines from fresh air fruitstands like the one on Via Imperiali. Juicy and delicious.
– Rent a scooter, if you dare. We did and I found myself alternating between laughing maniacally while speeding in between moving buses and swearing incoherently (ohfuckohfuckohfuck!) while trying to maneuver my way out of a traffic circle. It was great fun!
– Marvel at the Sistine Chapel. Not just the ceiling, either. God and Adam are just part of the crowd.
– Get a tattoo near Vatican City from a man named Massimo who speaks no English. When it’s finished, smile and tell him “Bellissimo!” He will laugh at you, but you won’t care at all.
– Touch the stones of the Colosseum and wonder who was touching these same stones on the other side of 2,000 years or so.
– Make friends with the stray cats, but don’t let them follow you home.
– Imagine the Roman men dressed in Centurion outfits. You won’t be disappointed.
– Instead of throwing coins in Trevi Fountain, throw yourself in. It’s more fun. (I should have taken my own advice on this one.)
– Eat all the pizza you can stomach.

The Five Wonders of the Cinque Terre
1. Steps. So many stone steps.
2. The water is bluer than the sky.
3. Follow every path you see because you never know what kind of wonders lie at the end of it. Or not. But either way, you’re walking off all that Roman pizza!
4. The cats know many secrets.
5. Don’t miss Vernazza — it’s the best of the five towns.

Venice Must Be Seen To Be Believed
* Streets of water are even more beautiful in person than in all the books you’ve ever read.
* St. Mark’s Square is better in the early morning hours, shrouded in mist and empty of people. The pigeons are always waiting, though.
* Rent an apartment between St. Mark’s and the Rialto bridge. Never leave it without applying red, red lipstick.
* When taking a gondola ride, be sure to do so at dusk. None of your photos will turn out, but some pictures are better in your head, anyway.
* Mask shopping is a must. You should go into every shop you see, find a favorite, and visit it three days in a row. Then when you make a purchase, be sure to buy at least four.
* Internet cafes are magical.
* Don’t be fooled by the creme-stuffed canolis and their sultry red cherries. Try the apple-filled ones instead.
* Avoid the Rialto bridge at noon unless you want to be caught in a sweaty tourist sandwich.
* Get lost. Over and over and over.
* Ride the public boat for at least an hour, just to see what you can see.
* The mosquitos in the shower are actually tiny vampires. You won’t feel them bite, but they will leave a mark that lasts for a week or more.
* Leave your windows open at night so you can hear the drunk gondoliers singing Italian opera as they float down the canal outside your apartment. (The mosquitoes are already inside, anyway.)
* Gwen Stefani looks better on Italian MTV.
* Ricky Martin is SO gay. You know this without a doubt after seeing his new music video five times in a row sometime in the middle of the night.
* Decide that watching old Italian men arguing is your new favorite hobby.
* You don’t have to go to Murano to buy pockets full of glass.
* It’s ok to dream of Venice, as long as your heart is still in San Francisco.

Five Things You Should Do In London When You Only Have 25 Hours
1. Sleep.
2. Walk to Buckingham Palace.
3. “Look kids! Big Ben. Parliament.”
4. Ride the London Eye, but try to get in a pod with the German tourists. The Americans are too annoying.
5. Eat pub food. Not just fish and chips, either. Try the bangers and mash.

– Lo, who’s already planning her next overseas adventure. How about a hike to Count Dracula’s Castle, eh?

Home Sweet …

Mood: Lagging
Drinking: Sweet Tea
I’m back, stamps on my passport and blisters on my toes.

I’m tweaking on some hardcore jet lag at the moment, or “free drugs”, as some people call it, so I’m not going to write the unintelligible and giddy post I could be capable of writing right now. Although that would be fun for you, wouldn’t it?

I’ll just say this…between steering a scooter around Rome, shooting still photos for an experimental cinepoem in Venice, counting cats in the Cinque Terre, and stuffing my face with pub grub in London, I had an amazing time. A-maze-ing! And I have the vampire mosquito bites to prove it.

More to come. Must enjoy the lag time now. Vacation’s almost gone for good…

By the way, between Neil Gaiman’s MirrorMask, Joss Whedon’s Serenity and Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, ALL IN THEATERS NOW, it’s a pretty freakin’ fabulous time to do some cinema sitting, eh?

-Lo, who had a somewhat convincing eurotrash accent there for a day or so.

Ciao!

Mood: Expectant
Drinking: Soon

Buongiorno, my friends.

In about 7 hours, Boy and I will be settling into our seats on a 777 headed to Italy.

We’ve been planning this trip for about a year. Two whole weeks, just the two of us, wandering around Italia. We’ve got big plans — we’re going to see the Coliseum, get lost in Venice, walk down Appian Way, rent scooters, hike the hills of the Cinque Terre, stare at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, get new tattoos, float along in a gondola, and eat a lot of amazing food.

So. Depending on internet access and energy levels, I may not post for the next 2 weeks. Or I might drop in with an update from Rome. I’ll recover from my jet lag and let you know…

Until then, be well. Arrivederci.

-Lo, who’s packed clothes designed to channel the inner Argento. (Asia Argento, that is!)

Dig. Dug.

Mood: Accomplished
Drinking: Drink-free

Cinépoem #4 has arrived.

The newest cinépoem, “Dig”, is a bit, um, different. It’s a bit of Jekyll & Hyde situation with Polite Girl and Angry Girl. And I promise you, Angry Girl lives up to her name. She is pissed off.

I have to give special props to the LeeLoo for this cinépoem, because she helped me dig the hole. And if you’re saying, “Hole? What hole?”, well, go watch the poem already.

-Lo, who actually didn’t do any of the screaming herself.

The Leeches Are Coming!

Mood: Mystified
Drinking: Fountains of soda

It was late. I was dreaming.

Boy and I were on vacation. Location? Absolutely no idea. But the LeeLoo was there with us. And from the (blurry, nondescript) place where we were staying, we could see, over yonder across the water, the famous Island of Cats.

The Island of Cats is, apparently, a happy place not unlike an 83-year-old spinster’s apartment, where cats of all shapes, sizes and temperaments roam free. They hang from the palm trees. They frolic in the sand. They prowl through the tall dune grass. They feast on island rodents. They leave land mines of kitty poo all over the beach. A magical place, indeed.

Anyway, apparently when planning our dream vacation we didn’t consider the danger of bringing the Loon (a.k.a. Extreme Cat Hater) on a trip within sniffing distance of the Isle of Cats.

It didn’t take long for dream LeeLoo to smell out the offending felines and take off, swimming (which she would never attempt during waking hours b/c she has a healthy fear of drowning), through the choppy blue waves to the Island of the Fierce and Foul Felines.

Boy and I were horrified and leapt into the water after her. (I couldn’t tell you if it was warm or cold. Apparently dream water has no temperature.) So there went the three of us, swim swim swimming. And since LeeLoo got there first, you would think she got to happily chase down oh, about a thousand furry beasties. But no.

Suddenly, the dream Island of Kitties became the Island of Sucking Leeches. Yes. Leeches.

So Boy and I spent the rest of my dream pulling long, brown, slimy leeches from underneath our skin (yes, they burrowed beneath the skin in a most nightmarish fashion). We magically had buckets of salt on hand, so we would carefully pour the salt onto the leeches and they would turn green.

Yes. Green. They wouldn’t die screaming or anything. They just turned green.

The end.

I usually don’t remember my dreams upon waking, but this one is just too weird to forget. I mulled it over on the ride to work this morning, which means I nearly crashed into about 7 different cars b/c I kept thinking about cats, leeches, and salt.

I have no idea what it means. Perhaps it was just an after-effect of the two Twinkies I consumed after 10 p.m. whilst watching The Daily Show.

I welcome your bizarre and hilarious interpretations.

-Lo, who definitely dreams in color.

The Eyes Can’t Be Trusted

Mood: Sobered up
Drinking: No, thanks

The vampire fangs weren’t the only thing that made him hypnotic.

Something about the way he moved, full of predatory confidence. Something about the way he watched you from across the room, as if you were the most fascinating creature on the dance floor. Something about those fangs.

I was new to the scene when I met him. Just discovering the thrall of the black cotton mafia. I hadn’t done my time with Louis and Lestat yet. But the fangs, they got me. The fangs and his green fishnet shirt. He called it his “Madonna phase” that night. But Madonna never looked that good.

It didn’t hurt that he was a “bad boy” and that I was in my “bad boy” phase. For about 6 months, he was my #1 crush. My pulse took a crash course in speed racing whenever I saw him. I was so enamoured, I even wrote a poem for him, folded it in squares, and slipped it to him on the dance floor between JukeJointJezebel and Queer (the heftybag remix).

But once I got over the lure of those fangs, I realized that somehow, we had made a connection. And somehow that connection turned into a friendship. So that even now, eight years later, I can pick up the phone and call him and there will be a friend on the line.

My friends at the time thought my crush was ridiculous. What did I see in this underage roadie-turned-lead singer who spent more time on his eyeliner than most girls? The guy who had a dentist fit him for prosthetic, pointed canines. The club kid who got high in the boys room. The rockstar wannabe who taped razorblades to his mic stand (and used them on himself). The “freak” who got beat up by frat boys in alleys just because he looked weird. The poster boy for piercings — literally. (His photo was all over the tattoo shop on Belmont so you could look at it and say “I want that kind of hole in my head.”)

But all of that, it’s just what he looked like.

The person he actually was far more shocking.

He’s the guy who held my hand, just sat and held my hand, because he found out I was having a bad day. He’s the guy who took a whole box of my poetry books to show off to his friends. He’s the guy who always has an extra grin and a big huge hug for me, for Boy, and all my friends. He’s the guy who married the gorgeous girl of his dreams one warm night in New Orleans — and then posted giddy photos online. (He’s still married and still giddy about her, too.)

And today I found out that he’s the guy who just spent two days loading food, water, and supplies onto semi trucks headed for New Orleans. Who put together a New Orleans Charity CD to raise money for gas to get the trucks to New Orleans. Who spent the hours after the storm, after his last-minute flight to Louisiana was cancelled, emailing and calling everyone he knew to make sure all his friends in New Orleans were okay, were safe, were alive. Who was frantic with worry for the people and the city he loved.

To those who thought he was nothing more than a freak, a drama queen, an attention whore, a vampire boy, I say — yeah? Well, he’s not the one who sucks.

In the aftermath of a bitch named Katrina, we’re all seeing what really lies beneath. The apathy and amazing arrogance of the man who “leads” this country. The absolute incompetence of the powers that be. The courage of the destitute. The incredible will to survive that beats deep within all of us. And the compassion, the heart, the endless energy of an erstwhile “bad boy” who just wants to do his part. Hell, he wants to do more than his part. I think he’d drag the whole goddamn city to safety if given the chance.

There are so many unbearable stories in the news right now. So much sorrow. So much horror. So much to be ashamed of. But then I think about my friend Jeff. About how well he loves his friends. About how far he’ll go to help them. And it gives me enough hope to make it through tomorrow.

-Lo, who sends this one out, with love, to the Damnits.