The Golden Age of Me, Me, Me

I’m not sure when this country slipped into the depths of plasticity, but the worship of all things fake and shallow has gotten completely out of control. From my knowledge of history, I can tell you that at the turn of the 1900s there were a few big socialite families, like the Rockefellers, who ruled the society pages, but never to the extent that we see now. It seems as though our country has become increasing focused on those who are shallow and self-centered.

Although our culture was obsessed with an unrealistic beauty ideal coupled with the pursuit of all things material prior to the rise of Paris Hilton, it was this bitch that really drove home the belief that if you do nothing, think nothing, and contribute nothing to society, you can still be worshipped by millions. At first I was opened-minded when it came to her, and I watched The Simple Life thinking that maybe she would be one of those naturally funny people with a radiant personality, which would justify all of the hoopla surrounding her. By the second episode, I realized that she was pretty much a waste of skin. Nicole, pre-anorexia, did all of the work, contributed all of the wit, and had the personality, Paris just seemed to be there like wallpaper; skinny, Mystic tanned wallpaper.

Unfortunately, the “Paris attitude” seems to have gripped the youth of this country like one of her over-priced, bejeweled chokers. I see young teenage girls walking around the mall sporting $500 handbags. They must get the money for their pricy schwag from their parents, because the other Paris doctrine that seems to have taken hold is that working is for the lower class. As a mommy, I can assure you now that my daughter will have some sort of job, and there’s no way in hell she’s carrying around a purse more expensive than mine while she lives under my roof. Hopefully, I’ll raise her right and she won’t buy into this idolatry of uselessness.

It would be one thing if the “Paris attitude” was exclusively reserved for naïve kids, but one of the cable channels featured a new show called Real Housewives of Orange County. This program features five of the most self-centered, shallow, useless, middle-aged cunts you could ever come across. One of them was throwing an “Orange County style” party for her daughter’s graduation. All the woman did was talk about her kid’s celebration in terms of herself. A few minutes after her “me fest” commentary, you learn that she ditched her first husband, because he didn’t make enough money to provide the kind of lifestyle she wanted, and that she was looking forward to sending her daughter to college, so that they could now be more like “friends” instead of mother and daughter.

The rest of the show, which I couldn’t even watch much of, were the five women going on and on about themselves. In fact, one of the women who worked as an event planner opted out of own her son’s graduation, because she had a big event that had “been on the books for a year.” I do events, and nothing would ever come between me and my daughter’s graduation, then again, I’m actually in this life for someone more than me.

I made my husband watch a little of this show, because he grew up in Orange County, and he was completely perplexed by it. He said that vacuous, socialite attitude was mainly a Beverly Hills thing when he was growing up in The O.C., and by the way, when he grew up there, they didn’t call it The O.C. that was an Aaron Spelling invention.

Maybe it wasn’t Paris, but the generation that came after us Gen Xers that began this ridiculous trend of plastic worship. We had the movie Singles, they had the fashionista melodrama, Clueless. We had Nirvana and L7 to keep us centered and down to earth, and they had Sugar Ray and Ace of Base. How could they not have arrived in this sorry lost state, after all, you can’t possibly come up with anything relevant with Mariah Carey wailing in your ear.

For those of us who are used to looking at the bigger picture, and don’t like what we see most of the time, this shallowness is annoying and a big part of the problem. However, there is a light at the end of this vacuous tunnel; all of this obsession with “what’s hot” and “what’s not” means that trends don’t stick around that long. Perhaps the glorious day will come when Paris is no longer posh, being clueless is considered absurd, and horrible pop music is banned from even the corporate media. Then again, that’s the kind of naïve wishful thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.

Tidbits of Wisdom Gained During Sick Days

For the past couple of days, I have taken up residence on my couch gulping down gallons of green tea seasoned with spoonfuls of local, organic honey in an attempt to shake this bad cold/flu bug thing that has infiltrated my immune system. The positive thing is that I’m able to indulge my passion for observing popular culture, thus giving me plenty of fodder for comment. Here are just a few of the tidbits of wisdom I have gained during the four-hour stints between snorting Zicam up my nose, and chugging another glass of Airborne.

The Price is Right is still the most rockin’ gameshow ever! Sure, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Deal or No Deal might have spent time as the show du jour of the moment, but when Bob Barker calls you down from contestant row to spin the enormous, glittery wheel you are not only trying to make your spins add up to $1.00, you are participating in a longstanding daytime television institution. Realistically, Bob won’t be around forever, I mean the guy has to be in his 70s by now, but we can all rest assured that as long as he’s able to play a good round of grab ass with his “Barker’s Beauties,” he’ll be able to keep the contestants on track, and give out a few new cars in the process.

Fox News, in a pathetic attempt to keep the attention away from their favorite White House fuck up, have uncovered the most discriminated group in Hollywood. It’s not the negative stereotypes of the thug life black, or the happy, ditzy homosexual, or even the militant, butch dyke feminist; no, the group that Hollywood thinks is an absolute piece of shit (according to Fox News) are the albinos. Yep, that’s right, if you were born with genetics that left you void of pigment in your skin, then Hollywood hates your colorless ass.

A young woman from The National Organization of Albinism and Hypopigmentation was on Fox News claiming that Hollywood portrayals of albinos have been largely negative, and that with the release of the DaVinci Code, the stereotype will only get worse. Apparently, there is a killer in the film who is an albino, so NOAH is worried that the general populace will assume that all albinos are devious. Like your average citizen comes across multiple albinos on a daily basis. I’ve traveled the world and I’ve only seen two albinos in my entire life.

This interesting news report only advances two theories I have; the first is that Fox News will go to any extent possible to use whatever bullshit, no matter how ridiculous, to avoid talking about the country going to hell under George W. My second theory is that there is a support group for absolutely everything. From Premature Ovarian Failure to Gluten Free Dining to Supporters of Tibetan Freedom; if there’s a group of at least ten to 12 people who want to meet up and discuss a topic, then there’s an official group with an official website willing to address this need.

Other nuggets of learning that have entered my realm of educational psyche during my stint as a sickly couch potato include the realization that I can actually watch five straight hour of Law & Order and not feel like my brain is melting. Seriously, there are two channels that play six hours of Law & Order back to back episodes, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

There are way too many of the same shows on television. MTV decided to do a crudely titled show called Pimp My Ride, where they get people who look like former carjackers to soup up some teenager’s rusted out shitbox of a car, and make it look appealing to current carjackers. They have a nearly identical show on TLC or one of the home/gardening/self-help/improvement channels. Don’t get me started on the cooking or clever chef programs or the home makeover shows; those programs are everywhere. In fact, I don’t know why cable attempts to give their channels distinction with different titles since they are all becoming increasingly homogenized.

It’s official: there is no difference between Nyquil and Jagermeister. They both have a weird, dark green, witch’s brew color, they both have the same nasty taste, and after one shot, you end up hearing Jimi Hendrix singing “Purple Haze” whether your radio is on or not.

Thankfully, I’ll probably give up my home on the couch in the next couple of days as the green tea manages to wipe out bad bacteria from my system. However, I’ll take these valuable observations with me, and be forever grateful that I go to work during the day instead of having to endure the continued realization that our culture is fucked up beyond repair. Sure, they can try to pass legislation to advance some sort of backwards ideas of decency, but to the members of Congress, trust me, a few tit shots here and there are the least of this society’s worries.

Unqualified Advice from the Weight Loss Front

When I was pregnant, I read a plethora of books where future mommies said their main annoyance came from unsolicited advice given to them by other women. This was not the case with me. As a first time mom, I knew I was unqualified for the job and any hints of wisdom given by women who were far more experienced were very welcomed. The unsolicited advice that irks me the most these days comes from people, mainly celebrities, who decide to take on an “authority” label and give their Cracker Jack box tidbits of wisdom about weight loss.

Dr. Phil and Star Jones have both written books on weight loss. This is not only laughable, but completely ridiculous. First off, Dr. Phil isn’t the sveltest person in the world. He is also in the psychiatry field and has access to countless medical journals that talk, in depth; about the damage that unrealistic body image does to females, and a small percentage of males, in our society. As an actual doctor, if he was going to write a book about weight, shouldn’t it be from the standpoint of “deal with your own body and love it” or “your health is more important than the aesthetics of your physicality, so do that extra jog for cardio vascular fitness instead of a tight ass.” Instead, he gives the same old diatribe about smaller portion sizes, eating slowly, and all of the stuff that everyone else tells you, but with the signature Dr. Phil bluntness that melodramatic daytime television fans seem to love.

Then there’s good ol’ Star. The woman obviously had a some sort of procedure done or has spent the past year living on Slimfast shakes, because you don’t drop a heaping ton of weight, like Ms. Jones has, in such a short span of time without taking radical steps. If she doesn’t want to come out and say how she lost her weight, that’s fine by me, because I don’t give a fuck. However, when she writes a book about health and weight loss, I have to stand up and call bullshit on it. Hollywood and the media may be marketing the gastric bypass as the latest miracle, weight loss procedure, but it has a really, bad side to it. People have died from having this procedure done, others have had major infections that have led to various health complications, and for some who did the procedure successfully, the reduction of a mass amount of weight in such a short period of time, has put a strain on their heart thus leading to the prescription of medication. So much for miracles!

When Star Jones doesn’t want to reveal her secret to losing weight, yet attempts to sell a $27 book telling you how you should lose weight, that just wreaks of hypocrisy. She also includes info in her book about how to have a happy marriage, have a relationship with G-d, be successful in business, and a bunch of other crap that, once again, appeals mainly to melodramatic daytime television fans.

The other day, I went to check out a few gyms in my area, because I’m down 40 lbs. and now I need to concentrate on toning up. I went into one of the national chain places, and the guy congratulated me on my weight loss then told me that his gym offered a better program to get results faster and more effective. He insisted on giving me his sales pitch, and all I could hear was the sound of the cash register from the beginning of Pink Floyd’s “Money.”

What the two television talk gurus and the little guy at the chain gym don’t realize is that quick fix weight loss doesn’t work! As someone who has dropped three pant sizes and 40 lbs, I’m more qualified to give advice on weight loss than any of these people. It’s taken me since the end of June 2005 to get to where I am. Some weeks I lose a half a pound, and just have to be happy with that. I chose Weight Watchers as my program, because I have tried every fad diet in the world, and WW is the only program that teaches you how to alter your lifestyle instead of giving you a diet regimen.

The other major secret no one wants to reveal about weight loss is that it’s not easy. There is no magic pill or secret liquid or bullshit meditation. I resist sweets regularly, sometimes while watching my friends and family enjoy them. I workout four days a week, sweat like a pig while I’m doing it, and have sore, tired muscles afterwards. I measure my food at dinnertime, and keep a daily journal of everything I eat. Yes, I might look better in my clothes, but the advantage I have now over my former, more zaftig self is that when my crazy-assed toddler decides in a nano-second to run like hell through a store, I am able to be right behind her.

It’s kind of sad to think that the best celebrity weight loss advice I have heard in recent memory came from Kate Hudson. When one of those ridiculous entertainment news shows raved over her weight loss after she had her son and asked her how she did it, her reply was “I worked my ass off.” She went into detail about how she spent six days a week exercising for three hours per day, and existed for nearly a year on a 1200 calorie-a-day diet. Kudos for her honesty, but let’s keep in mind that Ms. Hudson probably also had a nanny, housekeeper, chef, personal trainer, and an army of other assistants to help keep her on track, while most of us average folks just have a spouse who asks us if we’re working out tonight while wolfing down Cheetos.

Weight loss is not an easy thing, and while the majority of Americans could use to drop a few pounds, I think the media has a heyday exaggerating the idea that most U.S. residents are one piece of cake away from a triple bypass. The unfortunate thing is that if we are in a serious health crisis, unsolicited, idiot advice from celebrities looking to cash in on unrealistic ideas of beauty isn’t going to lead to any sort of long term solution, and will only serve to annoy the rest of us who are trying to make a legitimate lifestyle change.

Lie in the Bed you Made

Has anyone else had as much fun as I have watching these neo-cons and war mongers as they attempt to back peddle their stance on Iraq in an attempt to look like something more than George W.’s bitches? From Time to Newsweek to CNN all I’ve seen lately are right-wingers admitting they may have been too hasty to support their boy in office, while not really apologizing for supporting their boy in office. What they are doing now is attempting to salvage credibility instead of admitting that three years ago they were a bunch of pussies that were unwilling to question the supreme word of their ruler.

The thing that pisses me off is that I don’t want to hear their half-assed attempts at legitimacy, nor do I want to hear another speech by the Resident in Chief about how we are basically doing G-d’s work over in Iraq. I’m fucking sick of people who are supposed to be educated defending a lie. This war was nothing more than a personal vendetta that the Bush family had with Saddam Hussein. When the debacle that was the 2000 election happened, I said to my Republican co-workers at the time, that if I was Saddam Hussein, I’d get the hell out of Bagdad, because it was only a matter of time before Junior would try to avenge Daddy. They laughed at the idea, and unfortunately by the time everything I predicted actually happened, I was no longer working with the doubters.

Three years later all I want to hear are these fuckers admitting they were wrong, and that they lied to everyone, and that’s it. Then I never want to hear from them again. I don’t want to hear a cheap, long-drawn explanation that nullifies their admission of wrongful support, nor do I want to hear them blathering a small attempt at redemption for their ruler. Frankly, they can all fuck off and die, because their existence on television, radio, and the internet, as well as their influence on the frontlines of our government have not made any of our lives better.

In 2000, the Grand Old Party asked us to hand over the reigns of the country to them promising that with absolute power they would do the good things they always have dreamed of doing. They’ve had complete control for six long years, and in that time our country has gone to total shit. We are so crippled in the eyes of the world that we couldn’t invade South Dakota if we wanted to right now. The Arab countries think we’re a big joke, Europe thinks we’re crass, and the Asian countries think we are fiscally irresponsible. Not that I give a flying fuck what anyone else in the world thinks, but if we are seen as bumbling idiots, then it’s only a matter of time before some really bad things start happening here.

I liken the U.S. right now to that bully in high school who seemed like a total bad ass, until you found out that his favorite song was “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” and that he had to do the special reading and math classes, because he was a “little behind”. All of the sudden his threats didn’t seem to mean so much to you when you thought about him rocking out to Cyndi Lauper circa 1984, while reading the Dick and Jane books.

We are a country of kick ass people, but for some reason we have the worst fucking government! Part of me feels that, in the grand tradition of you get what you deserve, I should just let the dumbasses in the mid-West who voted George W. into office, because he used the word Jesus, suffer the consequences. However, the rest of us who are of a higher, less mainstream, intellect suffer as well.

There is no good solution right now, except to clean house during this next election and vote for independents. No Democrats! No Republicans! They are one in the same. For right now, all I ask is that the media quit giving play to the neo-con pundits who followed like sheep and refused to stand up to a wrongful White House.

No more sob stories or tales of woe on how they sort of felt like objecting, but didn’t want to seem unpatriotic, and after all, a world without Saddam is a better world, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. See, it’s easy, no real apology or admission of wrongdoing needed. Maybe I should take a job as a political speechwriter penning bullshit without really making a point or admitting fault. I could make a lot of money, and be a star in Washington D.C.; the only bummer would be at the end of the day, unlike the current group of assholes who actually do this for a living, I would have to kill myself upon the realization that I contribute nothing but senseless noise to society.

Inspirational Sayings and Beautification Attempts

A friend of mine sent me an email today from a woman going off on a new marketing campaign by Kotex. Apparently, the feminine hygiene manufacturer thought it would be nice to insert “helpful” hints on their products. They advise women to drink more water during their menstrual cycles to keep fresh, and other annoying shit like that. This woman penning the email didn’t like it, and neither do I.

Kotex isn’t the only product line now offering inspiration and advice on items that should have neither, and lately I’m wondering why every marketing department has turned into a bad version of Stuart Smalley. Starbucks is also engaging in this five cent psychobabble with messages on their disposable cups. Now instead of just staring lazily at the warning that my coffee is hot (duh!), I have to read inspirational messages from bleeding hearts who feel that what they have to say is actually something someone might give a rat’s ass about. Today it was a woman from Oregon whose hobbies include gardening and reading. She spent the entire length of my Venti-sized coffee basically echoing the “do unto others as you would have done to you”, only with a lot more incoherency that included a traffic reference. I’m sure she thought she sounded intellectual.

It was bad enough when Alaska Airlines years ago began putting Christian bible verses on little cards inside their in-flight meals. Thankfully, I’ve never had an Alaska Airlines meal, because I don’t want to be preached to, and I hate airline food. They fuck up simple things like cookies, so you can imagine what havoc they would wreak on a sandwich.

The inspirational messages are only a part of it, because I’ve also noticed efforts to beautify products that really don’t need any aesthetic improvement. Case in point; about three weeks ago, I had to slog to the store to purchase my regular supply of maxipads. I chose my usual brand and noticed that another brand had begun putting large, colorful flowers on the packages of their products. Why! First off, to the makers of pads: you don’t need to make the packages pretty or take out large advertisements in magazines or on TV. because women will find your product whether they want to or not. Your product isn’t attractive, helpful, or desired; it is a necessary evil that every female is required to use until menopause.

I thought I was safe with my plain-colored package of pads, until I got home and realized that on the face of the thin, waxy sheet covering the adhesive, they had printed little daisy flowers. This was annoying, but not a big deal, until my toddler saw it. Right now we are attempting to potty train her, so on occasion, we let her observe hoping she will follow suit. When she saw the neat flowered paper, she thought it was the coolest thing. In fact, I couldn’t pull it out of her hands to throw it away.

I left the bathroom and proceeded to make dinner, until that moment while I was shredding the cheese when I realized it was too quiet. I went upstairs to find Rachael pulling the pretty little pieces of waxy paper off of all of the pads in the package. I know the goal of the maxipad company was to increase revenue with this beautification move, but I hope this isn’t what they had in mind.

Now, all of this beautification just ticks me off. I don’t want my money to look like rainbow currency, I don’t care if the packages of flour and sugar have smiling children on them, and I really could give a shit less if the whole grain rice I purchase has large pictures of wheat on it. I’m a minimalist at heart, and this entire attempt to make the world more beautiful by infusing large, colorful art into places it shouldn’t be, like a package of maxipads, is just mind-cluttering. Whatever happened to simple and elegant, or for that matter, just simple?

If marketing people were really interested in making the world a better place, they would keeping their inspirational slogans and ridiculous art to themselves, and instead, lobby their companies to manufacture their products in countries that abide by the Kyoto Treaty. If I want to read something inspirational, I’ll pick up a book, and if I want to see something beautiful, I’ll go to a museum. In the meantime, leave my disposable coffee cups blank, and for fuck’s sake quit printing flowers on my maxipads!

While I Was Out

For the past three weeks, I’ve been working like a pathetic dog putting together a fundraising auction for The Facility. To sum it up without going into detail, I did at least 12-16 hours per workday for 16 days straight, the event raised over $270K, and I fell completely out of the loop with the goings on of the world around me.

I spent the day after the big event re-connecting with my family, and catching up on the news. Some interesting shit happened while I was in workplace hell. The greasy, hairy, over-dramatic guy from Creed got busted doing a sex tape. No big deal, right? That’s what I thought until I found out it features a guest appearance by Kid Rock, and the main activity in the tape includes groupies inserting objects into the Creedster. I’m all for a little something wild to take the old sex life up a notch, and if you’re a dude, who’s into dudes, then be who you are. The ick factor for me here is not the groupies, or the inserting of objects, it’s the fact that Kid Rock and the Creedmeister might be naked and doing something sexual. I guess this tape and the arrest on his wedding day takes the Creedmaster out of the whole “in touch with Jesus” loop.

There is a rumor that this tape may be available for sale on the internet, but who would actually want to buy it? The Tommy Lee tape was cool, the Vince Neil one, not as cool, the Bret Michaels one was so-so, I never saw the Colin Farrell, but his unibrow would have been very distracting. However, the Kid Rock/Creedman tape is just the stuff that nightmares are made of. Why can’t someone hot do a sex tape? Then again, at the present time I can’t think of anyone I would want to see naked, on tape, having sex unless it was me. Scratch that, I don’t want to see my own naked ass when I look back in the mirror before showering, let alone on DVD.

Right now there is a big controversy over the death of the Serbian butcher, Slobodan Milosevic. During this bastard’s tenure as President of Serbia, he condoned genocide, ethnic cleansing and mass rapes, and the powers that be are worried that his death might not have been due to natural causes. Who the fuck cares! His death probably wasn’t due to natural causes, it was most likely either suicide or murder, but does it matter. He got what he deserved, and I hope it hurt like hell when it happened. Worrying about the way Slobodan died is as pointless as losing sleep over the way Hitler died. They’re dead; they are no longer taking valuable air that other people need to breathe, and that’s all that matters. Good riddance, asshole, rot in hell, now let’s move on.

Just when I thought reality television couldn’t get any more warped, the FX cable station has come out with a show called Black.White where a black family dresses up in whiteface and a white family dresses up in blackface. Not since the whole midget dating show that Fox put together has something on reality TV perplexed me so. First of all, the white people look weird dressed up black, except the teenage daughter, who kind of looks like the late popstar, Aliyah. The black people look completely bizarre, and just at a glance, you can tell that they aren’t completely white.

I haven’t watched the show, and I probably won’t, because at this point, I think most people are completely done with reality TV. Lately, I just really want to slap the shit out of Mark Burnett. Survivor was interesting, The Apprentice was okay for the first two seasons, but now all of the copycats and ridiculous garbage just pisses me off. People watching used to be something fun that you did on a lazy Sunday every once in a blue moon, while having coffee near Pike Place Market. Now that all of television seems to be like a morning at Pike Place, it just isn’t fun anymore. I really have no desire to know how freaky and fucked up society truly is. It’s bad enough I live, work and exist in the weirdness of Suburbia, I don’t want to have to watch it on television, too.

What else happened during my work-my-ass-into-the-ground hiatus? Resident Bush went to visit the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina for the millionth time in an effort to save his reputation, and instead of help or aid to rebuild the community, he went to a mom ‘n’ pop style restaurant and overpaid for red beans and rice. It’s nice to know that no matter how out of touch you are with the world around you, the president of the last world superpower is still consistently incompetent.

Channeling the Inner Psycho

In any given situation, I make the perfect supervisor. I don’t pull rank. I don’t make demands, and if you do what you’re supposed to do, or at least look like you’re doing what you’re supposed to do, I don’t care. I’m pretty easy going, and at the place I work, there are three other people in my group who are fairly casual, or so I thought.

The assignment I gave my co-worker was simple, and I thought it would break up his usual, mundane routine. He is the department admin, and spends most of his days dealing with numbers and the software system, so when I pulled him in to help me with a component of an extravagant event I’m currently working on; I thought he would be cool and take to it.

All I wanted him to do was put together a simple 60-slide PowerPoint. This entailed getting photos (many of which I already had on file), and putting them into a presentation. The background of the PowerPoint was a little intricate, but he told me he had done websites, so I figured he was competent enough.

For the first few days, all was good. Due to our shitty, ancient work computers, he had to work on the PowerPoint at home, but the background to the presentation looked killer, so no one doubted his abilities. It came time to gather the photos for each slide when his inner psycho began to show. He demanded that I make a list and get the photos for him, which pissed me off. Like I said, I’m not one to pull rank, but in our department, I’m higher on the food chain than he is, plus I don’t appreciate anyone making demands on me.

Opting to keep the peace, I informed him that it was his duty to get the pictures, because he agreed to do the fucking PowerPoint. He quietly agreed, and began going home on a regular basis to work on the presentation. My supervisor and I became a little concerned when nine days stretched into 15 days.

When my supervisor, who is second down from the top, asked him where the presentation was at, his inner psycho revealed itself in a harsh way. He began yelling about how it was his project and when she continued to press him about what slide he was on, he was illusive and defensive.
At this point, it was up to me to take the bull by the horns. It was my event, so every project was inherently mine, plus unlike my supervisor, I knew PowerPoint, and I know that a simple, 60-slide presentation doesn’t take 15 days to complete.

I waited for him and confronted him about the PowerPoint. I was determined not to take, “I’ll show it to you when it’s finished” as an answer. I demanded to see the PowerPoint, and slowly he revealed the reason for booking nearly 40 hours of overtime. This fucking loon was actually emailing every website that had a photo he wanted to use and asking them for permission to use the photo, plus he wanted to have a selection of photos to choose from, so he would pull a minimum of ten photos per slide.

When I told him that he was wasting time, and demanded that he give me a disc with the PowerPoint, he got all Green River Killer on me, and snapped telling me that he wasn’t going to give me something that wasn’t done to his standards. Little did he know that he wasn’t dealing with some sweet, suburb mom, he was facing off with one hardcore bitch who was not about to have her ass handed to her by a fucking subordinate. Although he towered over me, I got in his face and told him he had one more weekend, and then he was done.

The next day, the number one guy in our department talked to him and got the same psycho defensiveness. Who knew that the sweet person who kept our data perfect would turn into a complete nut over a simple assignment and take it way out to left field. My supervisor and I are somewhat in awe about this person, although I have to admit that I kind of got a little bit of a weirdo vibe when I first met him. I inherited my grandfather’s sixth sense about people, so I knew there was something strange going on in the upstairs office, but I didn’t know the extent until I asked him to complete a simple PowerPoint.

I guess the lesson is never underestimating the ability of someone who seems normal to go completely psycho on you over a random request. The kicker is that today he asked me what I wanted him to do after he was done with the PowerPoint, I guess “fuck off and die” would have been completely inappropriate, but I would have felt a lot better. Instead, I just shook my head, smiled, and told him that he could go back to his normal duties. After all, I wasn’t going to be rude to him, or you probably would have seen some mug shot of him on CNN with blaring title “Workspace Killer” running underneath. The story would have started out with the chiseled newscaster dryly announcing, “It began with a simple request to see a completed PowerPoint, and ended in bloodshed…”

The Crazy Bitch in the "Women's" Magazine

Every other week, I try to schedule my nail appointment on a low traffic day, when I can just zip in and out of the Vietnamese salon. I don’t really enjoy my 45 minutes in the nail shop, but I was born with the stubbiest, midget fingers, so the acrylic extensions that grace the tips help. This past week was filled with working way past the 5:00 hour, so I had to make an appointment for Saturday; the busiest nail salon day of the week. I arrived early, but ended up waiting a half hour. I sat on the ugly, but comfy couch searching for reading material.

I browsed through the latest issue of Star, but I don’t give two shits about any celebrity, so I ended up discarding it completely. I dove into a couple of the “women’s” magazines hoping to find something remotely amusing.

After flipping through pages of ridiculous crap, I settled on an article that I thought was a profile of a female private investigator, but after a page and a half realized it was about some neurotic bitch that went through her boyfriend’s old letters and journals and decided to hold it against him. She was way over dramatic about how she was weak in the knees and felt sick to her stomach, while confronting him and how she lost five pounds from crying and stressing out all week about his letters.

I didn’t even make it through the entire article, because all I wanted to do was find this cunt and kick her ass. Her constant whining made me want to vomit. At the beginning of the article, she lets her readers know that her boyfriend is 34, and that they both live in New York City, which means that he probably had a life prior to hooking up with her. Let me clarify something, these were not letters or emails that she found as evidence of cheating, they were things he had written before their four month relationship began. That’s right, all this fucking childish drama for a four month relationship!
To her boyfriend’s credit, after days of silence on her part, he shows up at her door with flowers to take her out to dinner and try to make everything better. Little does he know that he is involved with a crazy, drama queen who proceeds to refer to his flowers as a “$4 bundle of weeds” and claims that the restaurant he took her to was “cheap.” In case you’re wondering, the whining rag is 26 years old.

The one positive thing about this ridiculous profile is that they actually ran a couple of real pictures of her, which is good because men’s magazines everywhere should re-print those photos with a warning label underneath that reads, “This snooping, psychobitch isn’t worth the trouble!” I’m angry, because these chicks give women bad reputations by playing into the whole tabloid, drama queen, ‘I’m unstable, but I need love’ stereotype that give these crap magazines fodder for their glossy, over-priced pages.

All of this drama was so unnecessary. If you don’t trust someone, break up with them. If you are dating someone who is in their 30s, then unless they’ve been in a Buddhist monastery their whole life, they had a past prior to you. If they are using the same lines like, “you might be the one” or “I really feel a connection with you” on you that they used on previous love interests, it’s because you are in a relationship with a man, and they only have a few lines to express their emotions. Our society doesn’t let men be flowery with the language, so every guy has a cache of about seven to ten romantic lines that they use for everyone they are with, it doesn’t mean they are disingenuous, it’s just that their lexicon isn’t that developed.

Either way, I find it ironic that our society makes such a big deal about women in their 20s being the shit, when in actuality, women 30 and up are so much easier to deal with. If you don’t call us an hour after a date, we don’t get upset, because we are usually sleeping. We have our own careers, lives, friends, and confidence, so we are less dependent. The kicker is that women in their 30s and up are way more sexually adventurous than chicks in their 20s, which is some sort of weird taboo in this age-obsessed, American culture.

I’m not branding all women in their 20s as immature; in fact, I’ve met some young gals who are more responsible than I am. Hopefully, this crazy bitch, whose name I can’t remember or I would publish it, is the exception to the rule. It would be very unsettling to think that the majority of women in their mid-20s were this obsessive and over dramatic. When I was in my mid-20s, I was more dramatic than I am now, but nothing I ever did came close to this wacky broad’s antics.

Next time I have a minor layover at the nail salon, I’m taking my own reading material. In fact, as a rule from now on, I need to take my own brain candy everywhere I go, because in this celebrity-obsessed, drama queen, ‘a stupid woman is a sexy woman’ culture, material branded “for women” is as pointless, mindless, and ridiculous as that shit they push in those annoying men’s magazines, minus the attractive, half naked, B-list Hollywood star.

Bad Vampires

On an average day, I don’t have too much to complain about, accept for the usual stuff about the state of the world going to shit under the nincompoop in the White House and women still not having enough power and control worldwide, but in my daily life routine, it is what it is. The other day, I had to deal with a new issue that came up from out of no where, and really annoyed the fuck out of me. I encountered bad vampires, and I can’t stand those.

Vampires is a slang expression I use when referring to someone who has to draw my blood for medical tests. I got it from the phlebotomist who regularly drew my blood during my pregnancy. She confided that most phlebotomists and lab techs sometimes refer to themselves as vampires, and from there it just stuck with me.

I’ve always been open to having people who were almost doctors observe my medical appointments; after all, they have to learn sometime. I had a young resident in the room when I had my daughter, and my doctor actually let the “almost a doctor” stitch me up, while she stood over her shoulder. On a regular basis, I don’t care about medical students sitting in on my appointments, because even if they see me naked, I figure I don’t look any worse than the cadavers they cut into in their anatomy class.

The other day I had to have blood taken for a baseline liver function test. No problem. I have absolutely no fear of needles, and I don’t even get nervous when they strap the tourniquet on my arm. I knew that perhaps this blood draw might be a little different, because the usual nurse wasn’t there. It was a new, very bubbly and personable nurse, but not the usual one who is quite an efficient vampire, and can draw blood like nobody’s business.

During my session with the doctor, he had an “almost a doctor” sit in on the appointment, and she re-appeared with the new nurse when it was time for the blood draw. I guess the words you never want to hear as they’re prepping you for a needle is, “I think I’d like to try this.”

They both studied my bare arms and, at first, I thought new nurse was trying to be polite as she kept quiet conceding power to the “almost a doctor”. New nurse leaned over suggesting a vain, then handed “almost a doctor” the needle, and no luck; it didn’t hit the vein. Okay, no big deal, back to the drawing board.

“Almost a doctor” took another needle, and they tried again right in the middle of the same arm. Again, they failed to hit a vein, which is very odd, because I have had my blood drawn an average of every three months for the past four years for one reason or another (mainly pregnancy) and I’ve never encountered this missed vein problem.

Finally, new nurse stepped in and I thought all was well until she turned my hand over to scope a vein. Aside from an I.V., I’ve never had a needle in my hand. At this point, I just wanted to get this fucking blood draw over with, and third time’s a charm, right? Wrong. I learned a valuable lesson that day: needles in your hand fucking hurt!

New nurse and “almost a doctor” decided at that point to give up the blood draw realizing that their vampiring skills were inferior. They chose to send me on to the lab, which was good, because I no longer trusted them with needles or my illusive veins. I was happy to get the walking papers, and guarantee that I will thoroughly scope out the phlebotomists in the lab picking the one who looks the most like they had a wailing heroin addiction at some point in their life. Let’s face it, if you’re used to slamming needles full of smack in between your toes, you’re not going to miss a luscious arm vein.

I’m more than a little annoyed at the poor vampire skills of new nurse, more so than “almost a doctor”, because once “almost a doctor” joins a practice, she won’t be drawing much blood, but new nurse has an entire vampire career ahead of her.

From now on I’m going to be a little less trusting when I have to get blood drawn. If the vampire I’m dealing with can’t even hum the chorus to Alice In Chains’ “Down in a Hole” or “Godsmack”, then I’m moving on, because the last thing I need in my life is a bad vampire.