rant – LaDonnaWitmer

Room and Bored

busy

Today someone asked me when my next book is coming out.

I didn’t know whether to get stabby or fall over laughing.

I haven’t written even one single poem in almost three months, even though my to-do list has, in the number two spot, the title “evacuation” followed by the imperative “WRITE IT!!”

It’s not a lack of words that’s the problem, you see. It’s a lack of time. As I told the aforementioned someone, “I have a six month old baby! I’m lucky to put my shoes on the right feet in the morning.”

So then, the follow-up went, “Well, what keeps you so busy? You know, besides the baby?”

(Warning: Impending rant. Take a deep breath and duck.)

Besides the baby? What do I do all day? Other than working 40+ hours a week at one job and landing myself a brand shiny new job and commuting back and forth and coming home and doing laundry and dishes and diapers and feeding the baby and dressing the baby and feeding and dressing myself and sometimes even brushing my hair? What else?

Well, there’s the cinepoems that get entered in film festivals and there’s the etsy store orders to fulfill and there are irises in my backyard that desperately need repotting. And once in awhile I try to exercise. And get a manicure. And even a pedicure, if I’m feeling really cheeky.

Wow. Ok. Bitter, party of one!! I shouldn’t get stabby about the question, I know.

Because I do remember what it was like to be bored. To have oodles of hours to fill. To lie late in bed and luxuriate in the question of “What should I do today?”

But that was eons ago in a time before Boy and Baby and video poems.

Today I’m just wallowing in guilt over letting another month nearly slip past with nary a blog post.

And the trouble is, I can’t promise to get better! Life is just a blur these days. And so am I.

But for my own sake, i swear, I will trap some of these words on a page. And then, if I deem them worthy enough, I’ll share them with you.

It’s not a new book, no, not at all. But it’s something.

-Lo, who hounds her own favorite authors for their next works and knows that really, all this means is that she should be flattered.

The Not-So-Friendly Skies

airlines_suck
Mood: Disgruntled
Drinking: Caffeine

An Open Letter to American Airlines

I used to love to fly. I’d arrive at the airport nearly giddy with anticipation. But it wasn’t just arrival at my final destination that was making me tingle — it was the whole process of traveling, from the minute I pulled my suitcase from the closet to the moment I returned it.

I loved arriving at the airport, checking my luggage, watching the planes roll in to the gates and out to the sky. I loved the little bags of peanuts, the repetitive “Thank you, have a good day Thank you, have a good day” mantra of the flight attendants as passengers disembarked. I loved the vertigo of takeoff and the gravitas of landing. I loved it all.

But you, American Airlines, you have ruined it for me.

After years of being a happy traveler, a docile passenger, you have turned me into a disgruntled, truculent, reluctant one.

And this isn’t just a rant about your baggage fees, although those piss me off, too. Why not just raise your fares? Why make already tired and stressed-out people whip open their wallets once again at the airport? Just let us pay your damn fees ahead of time when we buy our tickets.

But my real complaint should worry you a whole lot more, because it’s indicative of everything that is making airlines go bankrupt.

Because it has become painfully obvious that you just don’t give a shit anymore. You don’t care about your employees. You don’t care about your passengers. You don’t care about your planes or your schedules or your flight plans. And you have no problem communicating that arrogant ambivalence to your customers, thanks to your equally disgruntled employees.

I flew on two American Airlines flights within the last week. One from San Francisco to Chicago O’Hare, and one return flight along the same route. Both flights sucked beyond measure, and it was only complicated by the fact that I was flying with my sister and her 6-month-old baby. We were traveling back to where we grew up so her new son could meet his Great-Grandma, who is too old and ill to make the trek to California.

We arrived at the airport without incident and made it through security before any trouble really began. First our flight was delayed a half hour, then an hour, because of “wind” in Chicago.

Yes. Chicago, the windy city, has wind. How inconvenient!

When we finally got on the plane and pushed away from the gate, we thought our troubles were over. But no. It wasn’t until we were safely tucked in and locked up that we were told that we’d be sitting on the runway. For another hour.

So we finally arrived at our destination nearly 6 hours later, and we were happy to be there, so we put it out of our minds. It’s ok, we figured, our flight out was the unlucky one with all the delays, so surely our flight home will be a good one.

Silly, silly hope.

When we made it to our gate at O’Hare on June 11 for our return flight, we were happy to see that the flight was on time. But that was the last time we were happy for the next 8 hours.

I don’t know if you’ve ever traveled with a baby, but no one in this country makes it easy to do so. You’re met with dirty looks, loud sighs, and mumbled complaints of “Oh God, it will just be our luck that they sit next to us” everywhere you go. Doesn’t matter if your baby is incredibly well-behaved. Doesn’t matter how quiet he is. Doesn’t matter how much a young mother has prepared herself for the trip with all the necessary supplies and distractions needed to keep an infant happy. Americans, as a whole, are a loud and selfish people who don’t want their space invaded by small and needy children. And they have no qualms about making that as passive-aggressively clear as possible.

So having to deal with all that discrimination from fellow travelers, it doesn’t help when you get the same treatment from airline employees.

While we were waiting for our flight to board, I asked one of the gate attendants if my sister and her 6-month-old could board early. Not only was I told they could not, but I was given an eye roll to go with it.

When I protested that she had been allowed to board with group 1 in San Francisco, the woman wearing the AA uniform told me, “Well, we don’t do that in Chicago. There’s too many children. If we did that, the plane would be just full of children.”

Blink. Blink-blink.

What kind of sense does that make? The children are going to get on the plane anyway, why not make it easier for them and their parents? I for one would prefer to board the plane without a small toddler dragging a pink princess backpack slowly down the aisle. I’d be happy to have her already in her seat. But apparently there are too many children in Chicago, so they will have to wait until the grown-ups drag their backpacks down the aisle.

I swallowed that one, but then I was told that if my sister had a stroller she was gate-checking (which she did), that she needed to gate-check it immediately. Even though we weren’t boarding for another half-hour. Even though she had just gotten her baby to go to sleep. Even though HE WAS SLEEPING IN THE STROLLER. No. She had to lift him out of the stroller and hold him in her arms for the next 30 minutes while we waited for all the businessmen and first class passengers to file slowly in.

Fine. Whatever. We just wanted to go home. So we stood and waited and finally filed in to our seats at the very back of the plane. We stowed our bags, buckled in, and heaved a sigh of relief when the plane pushed back from the gate.

And then we saw ahead of us on the runway a long, long line of at least 30 planes of all sizes and carriers, just sitting there, waiting. My sister looked at me in disbelief. And then the pilot got on the intercom and said “Well, folks…”

Apparently because of “weather” in Kansas, we had to sit on the runway in that line for over an hour while planes were re-routed. And so our nightmare flight home began.

The entire flight, including the time we spent sitting on the runway, there were 2 flight attendants right behind us in the galley, gossiping. They talked and talked and talked, loudly, about neighbors and boyfriends and fellow employees while all around them babies tried to sleep, or woke up crying because they were so loud, while passengers futilely pressed flight attendant call buttons again and again.

At one point I looked down the plane and saw at least 5 call lights on, but no one answered them. And it wasn’t because the flight attendants were strapped in for take off… One of them walked right past all those lit lights at least twice and never once looked at the passengers who were requesting help.

After about half an hour, one of the flight attendants who was so busy with her tales of soap opera intrigue in the galley finally waddled out to see what all the fuss was about.

Since when do airline passengers rate such poor treatment? Since when do flight attendants get to ignore the people who provide them the reason for their entire job? Since when do airlines not give a shit about the people who keep them in business?

Do you realize that many of the people who fly on your planes are going to visit loved ones or going on a much-needed vacation? These people are usually limited in their vacation time, and when you are so swift to cancel or redirect or delay a flight, you are in effect stealing time from these people. Time they could have spent with family, with friends, with lovers. The very least you could do, then, is act like you actually CARE that you have just ruined people’s day, that you have just shortened their vacation, that you have just stressed them out, that you have just complicated their life. I realize, of course, that weather cannot be prevented and that sometimes things go wrong with planes and with schedules. But when these unavoidable things happen, could you at least work up a sincere apology? Why add insult to injury by being so arrogant, so callous, so annoyed? What’s so hard about acting like actual human beings?

I could go on and on about our awful flight home, about the flight attendant who slept, snoring, directly behind us in the last row that they wouldn’t let anyone sit in because “the oxygen masks are broken”, or the flight attendant whose wide posterior region bumped shoulders of passengers on both sides of the aisle every time she walked past, or the kid who was awakened by the unnecessarily chatty intercom and then screamed for an hour, or the way the pilot gave my sister’s baby a dirty look as we left the plane. But I’m tired of ranting. I’m tired of remembering it. And I’m sure you’re tired of hearing about it. After all, this isn’t the worst travel horror story you’ve heard, is it? So let’s end with an appeal to your business sense:

Do these slogans sound familiar to you?
“We know why you fly.”
“Doing what we do best.”
“Something special in the air.”
They should. Those are a few of American Airlines’ advertising slogans. And after hearing my story, don’t they all sound like complete bullshit?

No wonder you’re going bankrupt.

-Lo, who thinks if this is what airlines do best, we should all start taking the train.

Stupid Girls

Mood: Soapboxy
Drinking: Water

I swear, the dumbest things make the rounds on the internet. This is news to no one, I know.

But today I saw this awful list posted on facebook, and it’s not the first time I’ve seen it.

Apparently a gaggle of single women (girls?) out there think it’s undeniably profound, the ultimate guide to how a guy should treat his girlfriend. And so they keep it alive, posting it on the profiles of the boys they’re crushing on, thereby ensuring said boy is scared off forever.

But you can’t share my angst if you don’t know what I’m talking about, so I’m going to post the offending list here. I apologize in advance.

Here we go…

When she walks away from you mad [Follow her]
When she stares at your mouth
[Kiss her]
When she pushes you or hits you
[Grab her and don’t let go]
When she starts cussing at you [Kiss her and tell her you love her]
When she’s quiet [Ask her what’s wrong]
When she ignores you [Give her your attention]
When she pulls away [Pull her back]
When you see her at her worst [Tell her she’s beautiful]
When you see her start crying [Just hold her and don’t say a word]
When you see her walking [Sneak up and hug her waist from behind]
When she’s scared [Protect her]
When she lays her head on your shoulder [Tilt her head up and kiss her]
When she steals your favorite hat [Let her keep it and sleep with it for a night]
When she teases you [Tease her back and make her laugh]
When she doesn’t answer for a long time [Reassure her that everything is okay]
When she looks at you with doubt [Back yourself up]
When she says that she likes you [She really does, more than you could understand]
When she grabs at your hands [Hold hers and play with her fingers]
When she bumps into you [Bump into her back and make her laugh]
When she tells you a secret [Keep it safe and untold]
When she looks at you in your eyes [Don’t look away until she does]
When she misses you [She’s hurting inside]
When you break her heart [The pain never really goes away]
When she says it’s over [She still wants you to be hers]
When she reposts this bulletin [She wants you to read it]
– Stay on the phone with her even if she’s not saying anything.
– When she’s mad hug her tight and don’t let go.
– When she says she’s ok don’t believe it, talk with her.
– Because 10 yrs later she’ll remember you.
– Call her at 12:00am on her birthday to tell her you love her.
– Call her before you sleep and after you wake up.
– Treat her like she’s all that matters to you.
– Tease her and let her tease you back.
– Stay up all night with her when she’s sick.
– Watch her favorite movie with her or her favorite show even if you think it’s stupid.
– Give her the world.
– Let her wear your clothes.
– When she’s bored and sad, hang out with her.
– Let her know she’s important.
– Kiss her in the pouring rain.
– When she runs up to you crying, the first thing you say is, “Whose ass am I kicking, babe?”

*Sigh*

Ok. Now do you feel my pain?

It’s just the most juvenile perspective of love, as if the author watched every Nora Ephron rom com, read every bodice ripper, and bought into every fairytale version of love she’s ever heard.

Girls who believe this are just setting themselves up for some deep-seated disappointment. I don’t care how stellar your partner is, he (or she) will NEVER be able to live up to this list. Nor should they.

Because if you take this list to heart, then a girl can treat her partner like absolute shit and still get treated like some kind of Disney princess. Kick your lover in the teeth, call him a motherfucker, cry and whine and bitch and wail and stop brushing your teeth altogether, and he will happily turn the other cheek while telling you how beautiful and wonderful and magical you are.

Really?

Nowhere in this ridonk-ulous piece of fantasy does it mention what the girl should do for her partner. Nowhere does it talk about mutual respect, or having consideration for the other party’s feelings.

Perhaps in the earliest throes of infatuation, before you’ve let Wonderboy into your pants, you can spit in his eye and he’ll still find you sexy. But let me assure you that 10 years down the road if you’re still spitting, he’ll be spitting right back. Assuming he’s still around.

So here’s what I really want to say to the girls who are circulating this bit of idiocy: Grow up! And pick up a bit of self-respect while you’re at it. No lover is ever going to give you everything that you need, want, and think you deserve. It’s impossible.

So quit waiting for Prince Charming to read your mind and pick up your glass slipper. Pick up your own damn shoe.

Stop loading up your lover with unrealistic expectations and feeling sorry for yourself when they can’t perform, when they don’t make you feel the way you want them to.

And ask yourself this: If your current crush gave you this list, do you imagine for one second that you could live up to it? Because it goes both ways.

If you want respect, give it. If you want to be heard, listen. If you want to be treated like you are the only girl in the world, then treat your partner like a treasure, too.

The world could use a lot fewer stupid girls and spoiled princesses and a lot more women who understand that true love requires sacrifice, selflessness, and commitment.

Rant over.

-Lo, packing up her own princess tendencies.

How many assholes does one need, really?

Mood: I don’t like Mondays
Drinking: Morning caffeine injection

I have a low tolerance for a great many things.

It may be one of my most irritating and endearing character traits. I used to fight the urge, used to pretend that 99% of humanity didn’t make me want to tear my face off, used to try the kindler, gentler thing. I got over it.

It’s one of the things I enjoy the most about getting older. The wise ones will tell you that you’ll experience this whole “getting comfortable in your own skin” thing, which is sort of true. But there’s also this whole side effect wherein you just don’t give a shit anymore. You like what you like and you hate what you hate and you stop apologizing for it. (Confession: I hate onions, and I always have and always will and you can’t make me eat the slimy things!) It really is a wonderful thing.

Which is why I am not going to apologize for my sudden and irreversible disdain for the sweaty, arrogant technogeek I saw on TV last night. I was innocently folding laundry while Boy clattered away on his laptop with the TV tuned to some random HDTV channel. (Sidenote: HDTV is awesome, except when you’re watching a panel of mostly middle-aged, overweight, overdressed “experts” sweat in the limelight. Because the wonder of HD lets you see every single bead of sweat in all its overheated glory as it slowly sliiiiiiiiiiides down one bulbous, balding forehead after another. It’s so realistic, you can almost smell the condescension.) Anyway…

Most of the dudes on this panel were gray-haired and suited up, but then there was the t-shirt wearing, greasy-haired thirty-something braniac behind BitTorrent. (An admittedly clever bit of technology.) He was demonstrating his uber-coolness and obvious superiority to all his fellow panelmates by sighing loudly, smirking to himself, muttering, threading his ballpoint through his fingers and clicking it on the table, and generally acting like every smelly, arrogant know-it-all slumping in a desk in the front every high school chemistry class.

Since I was doing the housewifey thing with the laundry and not really paying attention, I don’t know what the panel or discussion was about–something web- and technology-related. Mister BitTorrent, Boy Wonder, was yammering on about how the market is saturated with wannabe musicians today, and then somehow segued into poetry. “There’s just too much out there,” he said (paraphrasing). “In fact, I think some people need to take it upon themselves to just stop writing poetry.”

moment of silence

WHAT?

Ok. I’ll give him the point that there is a lot of crap out there. A lot of people who think they can rhyme and therefore write. A lot of people who are very good at crafting steaming piles of shit that they pass off as art. Hell, there’s a lot of published work that is just embarrassing. (*cough*Jewel*cough*) And I will be the first to admit that I don’t like very much poetry. BUT. I’m not sure that I can agree that there is too much out there. I mean, if you’re going to start getting rid of an overpopulation of something, why pick on poetry?

How about road rage. There’s definitely too much of that. Homophobia. Violence. Abuse. Scams. Hunger. Litter. Poverty. Disease. War. Big hair. Greed. Pollution. Inequality. Racism. Genocide. Purple fingernail polish. Conspiracy. Fear. There’s too much of all of that.

But you won’t see me marching against poetry anytime soon.

-Lo, who would definitely march to ban Jennifer Lopez from producing any more albums. If only such a thing would work…

The Jumping of the Shark

Mood: adamant
Drinking: one guess

Heads up to all the things on the following list: I am over you. Even if I was never into you in the first place, I am SO OVER you now.

You make me want to harm small children. You make me want to stick my head in a bucket of dirty mop water. You make me want to run through Mikasa with a brick bat. You make me want to rip the heads off small teddy bears and set them afire.

You have so jumped the shark! Consider this your final warning. The door is to your left.

The List
* Reality television and it so-called stars
* Starbucks
* Ashton Kutcher
* Gap commercials
* “Creative” ringtones
* Hate blogs
* Fat guys in hawaiian shirts
* Loud talkers
* Close talkers
* Jesus fish
* Bright yellow H2s
* Any color H2, actually
* Pit bull prejudice
* Muni riders who sit on my front step and wait for the train
* Litterbugs
* Public Nosepickers
* Nosehair
* Visible thongs
* Butt ruffles
* Paris Hilton
* People who ridicule war protesters
* Mudslides
* Hair extensions
* Manic Panic (it doesn’t last long enough!)
* That Sugar Ray buffoon
* Changing the name of your company (hello, ofoto!)
* Newsboy caps
* Hilary Duff
* Fellow fliers who ask what you’re reading when you obviously have zero interest in conversation
* Poetry slam voice
* Platform flip-flops
* French manicures
* The Bush administration
* The Da Vinci Code
* Sarah Jessica Parker
* Horrible hip hop lyrics
* Lindsay Lohan’s boobs
* Lindsay Lohan
* Blogs with consistently horrible spelling. (I’m not an grammar autocrat. Occasional spelling errors happen to everyone. But when you can’t spell anything right, ever, maybe you should just stop. Or consult a dictionary. Please!)
* Jewel’s “poetry”
* Writing f**k. Just spell it out. FUCK! What’s the difference?
* Brad and Angelina rumors
* And while I’m at it, Jennifer Aniston
* Burberry anything
* Tazmanian devil tattoos
* Gas prices
* Red State/Blue State
* Arnold’s delusions of future White House glory
* Body builders (speaking of Arnold)
* P.M. Bay Bridge traffic
* The cat vs. dog argument
* Ashley Simpson’s acid reflux
* Playboy playmates
* People who sing along at concerts so loudly that you can’t hear the people you actually paid to see sing
* In the same vein, people who make noise in movie theaters
* People who think Marilyn Monroe was fat
* Pamela Anderson’s hair
* Women who think Mick Jagger is still hot
* Michael Jackson.
* Court TV
* Anything approved by Oprah
* Hurricanes
* “Stale incense, old sweat and lies, lies, lies!”
* Frat boys in goth clubs. This. Is. Not. Your. Scene!
* Frat boys, anywhere
* Personalized license plates that state the model of your car. Original.
* Saying something is the new something (“pink is the new black”, etc.)
* Prince Charles and Camilla
* Britney and Kevin
* Cheetos
* Mosquitoes
* “Hella”
* Ugg boots
* Earthquakes
* Beauty pageants for little girls
* Beauty pageants for anybody
* People who ask if your tattoo/piercing/scarification hurt
* Christian “rock”
* Take-your-kid-to-work-and-let-them-run-the-halls-screaming Day
* Ludakris
* The Rivers women and their plastic surgeries
* Paparazzi
* Celebrity baby/breakup/wedding rumors
* Acceptable anorexia (speaking of celebrities)
* Everybody Loves Raymond (except me)
* Chick fiction with shoes on the cover
* Homophobia
* Faded hair color
* Irrational fanaticism disguised as “patriotism”
* Tsunamis
* Stale pretzels at the movie theater
* Wadrobe malfunctions
* American fucking Idol!
* Lists that go on for way too long

-Lo, who could go on and on but has to start thinking of a list of things that don’t annoy now, just to balance out the universe.

Blog? Bleah!

Mood: Oh, so superior
Drinking: DVCoke

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs lately. Trolling about the internet, clicking on random links and flipping through the intimate details of the lives of people I don’t know. This is not necessarily a good thing. (TMI, anybody?)

So I’ve decided that my little corner of the net is NOT a blog. It’s a newsletter. An op-ed piece. A post. An essay. A rant. An update. But heaven-help-me, it is not a blog!

(I hate that word! “Blog.” Sounds like a tumor. “I’m sorry to tell you that you have a blog on your lymph-node and only six months to live.”)

My beef with blogs does not extend to every weblog in cyberspace. There are several little sites that I visit most diligently and wait for new entries most anxiously. But then there are those other ones. The diary-blogs. The ones where the authors have no shame.

The ones where they talk about their co-worker crushes, the frequency of their cat’s bowel movements, the consistency of their morning bowl of Wheaties, the way their favorite undies ride up the crack, and on and on. The ones where you sit there for a minute, reading, and thinking “Dude, seriously?”

(Exception to this rule: sites like dooce.com. I’ve been reading Dooce’s site for years. It’s an oasis in the diary desert where poop is not only interesting, it’s hilarious. Dooce knows how to make you care about her bowl of Wheaties. And so she is excused from this self-righteous lecture. Mimi Smartypants can be excused, too. Really, if you can make me laugh because of your wit and charm, as opposed to your idiocy, you are excused. Pack up your textbooks and head to the snack shop!)

I completely understand the urge to at least try to read these things…I’m admitting to being a lurker. It’s the voyeurism. You get to be a virtual peeping tom, except most of the time you don’t get to see anything scandalous.

What I don’t get about the bleah blogs is the need to write about every damn detail of your little life and publish it all over the internet. The thing is, you’re not a unique snowflake. Every single thing you do is not fascinating. And did you stop and think for a sec that the “www” stands for worldwide web? So you’re telling the whole world (or at least the five hapless souls who stumble across your site) all about the interesting texture of your boogers. There are diaries for these things. Tangible paper blankbooks in which you can write all about your temper tantrums and sexual escapades and whatever else you do on Tuesday nights. And then hide it under your mattress for safekeeping.

I am a diary whore. I love the feel of pen on paper. Even more than that, I love the way a page gets all curled and crispy after you’ve covered both sides with ballpoint scrawl. I’ve kept a journal almost since I could write the alphabet. (My first one had a lock and key and a big blue elephant on the front. The first entry consisted of three pages of me trying to spell my name in big block letters that sloped steadily down into the corner.) I now have a suitcase chock full of finished blankbooks, each one carrying with it all my tawdry secrets and oh-so-naive aspirations. First-kiss confessions and bell jar blackness. I don’t expect that anybody will ever read them. Hell, I don’t even go back and read them. It’s too horrifying to see the silly things I was so sincere about at age 16. Not to mention the penmanship!

For me, keeping a diary, journal, scrapbook, whatever, has always been a quest to understand. My diary was my confidant, my therapist, my muse. I could pour everything out onto the blank page, then shut the book and walk away and feel somewhat satiated. And I didn’t have to feel stupid about what I wrote, either, because nobody was ever going to see it. It was secret. It was safe.

Perhaps all these online diarists, these look-at-my-tits bloggers hope that by spreading all their miniscule moments out there for anybody to rifle through, they will find a kindred spirit. Somebody will come along who finally understands them. But to me, writing about personal details is writing to understand, for yourself, not to be understood by someone else.

I should make it clear, again, that all blogs are not created equal. There are the online diaries wherein far too much is revealed (and believe it or not, they’re not all published by teenage girls), and then there are the other ones. The funny ones, the interesting ones, the artistic ones, the political ones. The sites where the writing has some substance and some value. It’s not all verbal diarrhea and insecure rambling. And those are the blogs that I tend to visit on a daily basis.

I realize I’m treading on thin ice. Because here I am ranting about blogs while writing on a web site. But I don’t see this as a pot/kettle situation. For one thing, I’M A WRITER. Putting words on a page is my job, my calling, my raison d’etre. And this is not my diary. I’m not going to give you any intimate details. You’re never going to lay a finger on those. Most of the time, I’m not even going to give you the real names of the characters in my little stories.

“She Says” is more of an exercise in writing. I aim to be readable, interesting, provocative, even witty sometimes. I write when I actually have something to say. I try to write the type of entry that I’d be interested in reading. That’s my measuring stick.

In an effort to extricate myself from the sticky blog mess I’ve so foolishly waded into, I’ll say this: I fully understand and encourage the need to “get it all out” by writing about it. Doing just that has saved my life more than once. And I know how the Internet works. I know I can click on the little red X anytime I want and make it all disappear. I’m not bound to a chair with my eyelids clipped open, forced to read so much drivel until I crack. All I’m advocating is a little old-fashioned “think before you speak” etiquette. A little more buying of blankbooks. A little less “OMG, HE, LIKE, IM-ED ME BACK AND IT WAS SOOOOOOOOO HOTT!”

A note to all my “real-world” friends out there who have blogs…No, I’m not ripping on your blog! Don’t get paranoid, lovies. I wouldn’t visit your cyberspace cubbyholes every single day if I thought they were boring, now, would I?

-Lo, who’s just sitting here waiting for the backlash.

Girl , you know it’s true…

Mood: Blinken Nod
Drinking: The thing with the vanilla and the coke

It’s just a Monday kind of Monday and I am currently enjoy the humiliation of li’l Ashlee Simpson on SNL. It’s like throwing babes to the lions to watch these little upstart poptarts falter and fail. And I do get *such* perverse satisfaction from watching it all go down. Much more than is healthy, I’m sure. Anyway. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, just visit this site: http://lipsync.us.nyud.net:8090/ (who the hell had time to build an entire site just for this freakshow, anyway?)

Also, what’s up with all these little sisters dyeing their hair brown and snatching at fame? (Nicky Hilton, Ashlee Simpson, Solange Knowles, etc.) Nepotism is everywhere.

One more rant along the same lines before I get off the dead horse: WEARING A PUNK TANK TOP MAKES YOU NEITHER PUNK NOR ROCK, BITCH! Come back and talk to me when you’re utterly broke, purple-haired, safety-pinned, snaggle-toothed and have the anarchy symbol tattooed on your dimpled ass and then I might not be offended by your glittery punk tank top. (That goes for you, too, Avril!)

Ok. In news of the not-so-Access-Hollywood variety, I had a scandalously exciting weekend doing a whole lot of, erm, painting. Let’s just say that I have always wanted a red room and now, thanks to Bruce and Carly and Lowe’s paint department, I have one! It’s gorgeous. And shiny. And red. I want to lick it, it’s so pretty. I never thought that painting your very own house could be so satisfying and so utterly exhausting. I’m now propping my eyelids up with toothpicks and it’s only 3 in the afternoon.

Hey, I’ve been getting lots of emails from lots of you who think the new web site is the bees knees, and I thank you. And I’ve passed your flirtations and flattery on to my web guru, Chris, as well. You can expect some new and fabulous entertaining devices on my web site within the next month or two…I’m working on a project (think music video but then take away the music and put in poetry and there you have it) with some friends and we should have something scintillating to show you soon. (“soon” being such a relative word.) But still. Something is in the works, just for you.

So. Stay tuned. And stay away from Ashlee Simpson and her lawnmower mullet-cut. And now I must go shoot up some caffeine. Or find new toothpicks.

-Lo, who likes lawmowers, but not mullets.