Spam Comments

If you're a blogger you know that the majority of comments coming in are spammers. While so annoying, the stuff these people say also make me giggle.  I just got this comment on the post "My Exploding Breasts":

Woodrow Gerber's "In the Beginning"

A music vid I filmed a few months back for my good friend Woodrow came out this week; check it!

Some Peoples' Children

Okay, can I just tell you guys that the last few days have been filled with the most interestingly inappropriate interactions with strangers EVER?  It's left me wondering what constellation is in what moon house (clearly I don't understand astrology).  Here are just three of my favorite encounters:

Dopey The Model

That's me on the far right pretending to be a model.

So last week I get a message from my friend Flo of Flopi Wear telling me she's having some last minute fashion show and would I be one of her models.  Now. I'm a teensy tiny short little thing with about zero experience walking a catwalk (unless you count strutting my hallway, but I don't think they do), so I don't get calls like this, oh, ever.  Uh, let me think, YES, yes I will.  About 10 seconds after I obligated myself I started freaking out about that whole lack of experience thing.

I've been around fashion by way of photo shoots and runway shows a tad more than the average Joe as I've had my hand at wardrobe styling.  This is actually where I met Flo.  After I set down my phone I figured she must be calling me to style the show or help out in some other backstage way and the word "model" was a total accident.  So I picked my phone right back up to double check.  Nope, no misunderstanding.

After closing all of my doors and windows I immediately switched on Hulu to marathon some America's Next Top Model and strut around my house.  Then I felt like a giant douche, told myself I could never do it, and resolved to let Flo down gently.

Over the next few days I beat myself up a bit for being such a chicken that I couldn't do something so many chicks (including myself) dream of doing.  Granted, this show was far from the tents of Mercedes Fashion Week...but there was still a runway, with a shit ton of strangers staring at me as I strut in heels portraying the confidence that I think I'm the bee's knees.  Folks who know me IRL know it is typically physically impossible to get me in front of a crowd.  I just won't do it.  Well, I guess I can eventually get up there but not before puking and everyone asking why that small chick is crying.  I'm awkward.  The point is, I didn't want to miss a chance to cross something off that bucket list (did I really just use that expression? Gross!) because I'm a pansy ass.

The fiance is a photographer and he was actually shooting the show, so we showed up together.  Resolved to let my pansy side win I plonked myself down backstage and told myself I wasn't moving all night.  That is, until Flo said "get over here and put this on" and I jumped up with excitement and started getting ready.  My resolve clearly isn't that strong.

Back when the fiance had a clothing line and would have fashion shows I always felt so left out not walking the stage.  I mean, I'm super short so I get it, but I'm also built like a hanger so I figured nepotism could take over and he could throw me in the show.  I styled and directed every one of his shows, though, and it would have been physically impossible to do both.  But I did always feel...lesser than?  Not pretty enough...?  Not cool enough...?  All of the above...?

On Saturday night the show was over super quick.  All in all it felt no different than doing a lap around a party, in all honesty.  It was so fast I didn't have time to get self conscious that People. Were. Looking. At. Me. OMG. I don't know what that says about my attitude while walking around parties...hmmm In the grand scheme I was floating Flo a solid by helping her out of a bind, and not the other way around.  But.  That shit totally boosted my confidence yo, I'm not gonna lie.  It was awesome and fun and radical.  And because I had to act too cool for school then (no smiles please. only pouts), I can finally relax and giggle and gush and be real now: Loved it!  Recommend it!

The Birth of a Phobia

Last weekend I was reviewing my list of "Verisimilitude" stories trying to feel out which one I felt like writing about first.  Going through a bit of a writer's block I texted some folks who have been a part of my life long enough to know my stories.  One texted me back suggesting I write about a white-water rafting accident I had when I was 15.  I immediately dismissed it saying "I need things that had lasting effects on my life."  But the more I thought about it over the following few days the more I realized how much of a lasting effect this incident really did have on my life.

Growing up I was pretty damn "prissy".  I was a ballerina and a pageant girl.  I preferred patent leather shoes and dresses to sneakers and denim.  Whenever I attempted something athletic I failed miserably, or just felt a fish out of water.  So when I fell hard crush in love with white-water rafting and kayaking at 14, I was totally shocked.

Aside from the giddy thrill of navigating tough runs, I found a love and connection for the outdoors previously unknown.  I'm from a very small town in the Rocky Mountains that has a perfect rafting river with awesome rapids running through it.  This allowed me to get out on the river nearly every day.  I'd go after school and on weekends I could run down it three times a day.  The fussy little girl who could never even jump in a pool for fear of getting her hair wet was suddenly laughing with intense joy every time the river would drench me through a rapid.

Living high up in the Rockies, our river was entirely snow runoff from the mountains.  As soon as the snow would start to melt in mid-April our river would begin to surge.  One day, when the river was practically overflowing with runoff, we decided to take a raft out after school.  The river was running so fast that no one was on it.  This should have been an indication for us, but we relished in the openness of it.  This particular day we were training a new guide how to steer the raft.  High water? Newbie guide?  F*ck it, let's get on the river already!  Warning signs be damned, we launched the raft and were on our way.

Only about 15 minutes into the adventure, we came to "Main Street Bridge".  The river was pulling to the left, so we gave instruction to the guide to navigate through the middle of section of the river.  At the very last minute his ego got the best of him and he decided to take the far right section, but the river wasn't having any of that action.  Our raft hit the pillar at an ungodly speed, causing it to flip and get pinned vertically to the pillar by the rushing water.  Us, and all of our equipment, was immediately thrown from the raft into the water.

As we were so close to land, everyone was able to swim to shore rather easily.  Everyone, that is, except for me.  When we hit the pillar, I blacked out...with a throw rope tangled around my wrist: I was caught, unconscious, and under a rapid.

My eyes fluttered as I was at long last pulled out of the water by an EMT and revived on shore.  Have you ever seen someone revived via mouth-to-mouth?  The part you don't see on TV is that they 100% of the time throw up all of the water they just inhaled...along with the contents of their stomach.  Drowning aside, I was still a teenager, and immediately horrified that I just ralphed orange-cracker puke all over this super hot dude whose LIPS. Were. Just. On. Mine. OMG just let me float back on down that river please.

The physical recovery was pretty quick.  I slept off the fatigue and I could finally move my fingers and toes about a month later.  I got a touch of giardia from the river (yum!), but that passed with the hypothermia.  After our raft was pulled from the water by cranes, the city put a ban on anyone using the river for a good three weeks after that - which definitely made me the most beloved chick among my kayak buddies - not.

All of my friends told me to get back into the water as quickly as possible, to "get back on the horse" so to speak.  But I just couldn't do it.  Even now - 18 years later - I have an intense fear of getting in any body of water larger than my beloved bathtub.  Even at water parks I have paralyzing panic attacks - and not just from the germs!  Any time I stand at the water's edge and contemplate overcoming my agonizing fear of drowning, my eyes inadvertently focus on the deep scar on my hand from rope burn by the rope that held me under water so many years ago.

I said up at the top that this event had a lasting effect on me, and I don't just mean my water phobia.  Each time tears swell in my eyes when trying to force myself into water, I am reminded how important it is to get control of a fear before it controls you.  I realize that might sound hypocritical considering how much this fear controls me, but it was formed because I refused to get back in that water soon after my accident.  And that's a mistake I certainly won't make again.

Vulnerability

I've been feeling pretty lonely lately.  Though maybe that word isn't accurate because I am actually surrounded by people.  What I've been longing for is a sense of community.  I guess that more accurately describes it.  This feeling isn't necessarily new, it's just been hightened the last little while.  A few weeks back I got the news that the world lost an old friend of mine.  As we are prone to do when this happens, I started trekking down memory lane of the time of my life in which he was a part. 

The truth is that I hadn't seen him in years, actually since I was in college in a small mountain town in Colorado.  This time in my life was richly filled with great friends and gatherings filled with comforting conversations.  We would gather each week for potlucks and just talk and eat and laugh.  And whenever I was feeling anything at all I could be with a good friend in a matter of minutes.

Fast forward to my life now.  The city is rough. Being with friends means long drives made longer with traffic.  Everyone has jam-packed schedules making it near impossible to make time for even a quick lunch of a cup of coffee.  So much of the time when I try to make weekend plans I am told that their week(s) have been so stressful they don't want an "obligation" for the weekend.  Mostly the only opportunities I have to see the people I call friends are at loud clubs watching their bands...but never having the opportunity to talk.

I find it odd considering I've always considered myself completely independent.  I guess I'm learning that "independence" isn't synonymous with "alone".  Maybe after being so sick last year I've discovered a desperate need to surround myself with people I love; to take advantage of every second together.  I'm frustrated and inevitably hurt by the idea that our lives are so busy, so stressful that the idea of seeing friends is found to be an "obligation" and a stressor...rather than a welcomed relief.

The bf and I make plans and hold potlucks to try to initiate community.  The simple fact, and I know this is harsh, but Los Angeles (is it limited to my city?) folks tend to be flaky.  Several times in the past year I've had plans ranging from lunch to a girls' night dinner to a group trip to the drive-in theater only to have people cancel at the very last minute, or simply not show up at all.  Our monthly potlucks turned into me cooking all of the food and most of the guests just seeing how drunk and loud they could get.

Perhaps I'm overly dramatic, or overly sensitive, or just an outright bitch.  Perhaps I'm totally coming off as desperate.  But maybe that really is what I am - desperate.  I am desperate for community.  For people to make plans, and show up for them.  For conversation to occur against a backdrop of good music, and not the other way around.

I'm the first to admit I can be totally awkward.  I'm pretty guarded with new people, and that guard certainly doesn't drop easily.  I'm absolutely open to the idea that these traits are off-putting and far from welcoming.  I know this problem of mine has a two-way street solution.  But just what are the solutions for lonely?

Verisimilitude

Verisimilitude.  It means a slice of life; an event so real it appears to defy reality.

Since I first came across this word years and years ago I have aimed to let that word define me, define the chapters of my life.  I lead a colorful life.  I have a natural curiosity that leads me into sometimes extreme situations.  I travel.  A lot.  And when I do it is typically to places not frequented by tourists because I love experiencing cultures so far from my own that they appear outright alien to me...at first.  This presents my favorite challenge - finding a way to relate to someone who seems completely unrelatable to me.  There are some who call my innate curiosity naivety, and some who call it fearlessness.  I guess I understand both views, but I still go with simple "curiosity".

What does this have to do with "verisimilitude"?  Well, throughout my travels and my colorful little life I've collected a series of stories that, I feel, exemplify this word to it's fullest.  And I plan on writing about them in posts to come, so this is the "intro" so to speak.  It sounds silly, but when I picture this word I see a rainbow with pie-piece-shaped slices removed, and each of these slices is one of my memories; one of my stories.  I'm a very visual person...

What's to follow in these stories of my sometimes surreal life? Here are a few previews:

• That time my guardian angel (or whatever you wanna call it) saved my life;
• That time a mob of Muslim extremists swarmed around me screaming "you will die today";
• That time I met a life-long friend while wandering lost 100 yards out to sea;
• That time I ate some magical mushrooms and demons came out to play.

Stay tuned; I'm excited to share!

Crossfire

This is about an event I witnessed a few years back.  Though I scoured the newspapers, I never found out what it was about.  I still recall this event every time I drive through this intersection in Hollywood...

It's Monday night, and I am driving home from a going away party in Los Feliz. Back at the party, the guest of honor requested a photo with me, and I fell apart in sobs just as the flash popped. My behavior signaling that my time at the party had come to an end, my soon-to-be-missed friend announced "why don't we walk you to your car now." Driving along the darkened city street, my sobs have subsided into a sort of disconnected melancholy. The "Cure-ish" playlist on my iPod providing an apropos soundtrack. The first chords of Modest Mouse's "Invisible" prompt me to turn the volume up. Red light at the corner of Western and Melrose, I have allowed my eyes to glaze over until I am greened, and I whisper "You're not invisible inside your car/No matter what stupid sort of mission you're on..." like a depressed backup singer for Isaac. My listless eyes register the light has changed, and I offer them bribes of a future sleep sleep to focus on the road.

There is only one car ahead of me, but I have yet to move. I am searching my steering wheel to locate the seldom used horn when a white sedan swerves from somewhere behind me at about 80 miles per hour, careens across the street, up onto the sidewalk and screeches to a halt narrowly missing a storefront. A nano-second later the passenger jumps out of the car and escapes down the road on foot. My eyebrows have barely had time to form themselves into a furrow when swarms of cop cars come from every direction and surround the errant vehicle. Cops emerge from everywhere, guns drawn and ominous, some of them close enough for me to touch through my car's open windows. I am suddenly reminded of all the newspaper articles I have read about similar situations in which innocent bystanders were shot in wayward crossfire. For some reason I have never been able to fully picture this; somewhere in my naive mind honestly believing those not involved were ushered to safety before the bullets fly. How foolish I have been!

It is so surreal, like I am watching some new-wave technology television that puts the viewer directly in the action. I am literally surrounded by rifle-wielding cops using the doors of their cruisers as shields. But I am not in a movie. This is live action, totally real-life drama happening all around me. My car is locked in; I can't drive away, and there is nothing in this world that will get me to leave my car on foot. It is a coping mechanism I have had since pretty young to try to escape "unpleasant circumstances" by viewing them as though a distant observer, and what is happening right now is no different. I know that doing so is quite dangerous as I won't be focused enough if I need to act in an emergency, so I struggle to maintain focus now amidst the shouts of officers, the echoing of gun shots, and the roar of the helicopter circling above.

As quickly as it started, it is over. Our good vs. evil scene has concluded with the falling of a fugitive, his lifeless body crumpled in the spotlight of my headlights. Weapons are sheathed as our players exit the stage, and I, the audience, leave the auditorium.

An Unexpected Date Night

Dude.  So last night was pretty unexpectedly awesome.  The BF and I go out a lot, but mostly it is to see our friends perform in bands or to their art shows.  Rarely do we go out on a "date".  If you're asking what the difference - as he often does - the point of a date is US and spending time together vs. supporting our friends.  Last night was technically a bit of both, but I take what I can get.

We already had plans to see our friend Donato play in his band, Give Me Your Hands, at the Silverlake Lounge.  Out of the blue I decided to forego my typical jeans, boots and beanie ensemble and throw on a dress.  With all that primping I totally forgot to make supper for us so when the BF asked if we should just grab something on the way, I jumped at the chance to turn it into a date night.

We very, very rarely eat out.  When we do it is typically grabbing something like a sandwhich real fast en route to somewhere.  But sit down? Tablecloth? Metal utensils? I can probably count on one hand the number of times we've done that in our five years.  As much as I love to cook, and to cook for the BF, I effing love the eff out of food.  Love it.  So I love restaurants.  Also, I love not having to cook and clean it up afterwards.  I think the dim light and sitting side-by-side is all sweetie-pea mushiness, too.

So when he followed up the first question with "wanna run by Subway?" I waaaay too loudly replied with an emphatic "NO!" and we instead found a surprisingly cute and romantical place disguised as a hole in the wall down the street from where our friend was playing. If you're in LA, check out El Conquistador on Sunset and sit on the enclosed patio.  Bonus: you can see people run into the tricky door after having too many tequilas at the bar!  We started counting and got to six nose-smashes :-)

However, I totally lost my favorite ring (well second favorite if we include my beautiful engagement ring) at the restaurant.  I took off the chunky black onyx ring to wash my hands and accidentally left it by the sink.  I didn't realize until we were at the Silverlake Lounge later then ran down the street and crazily tore through all of our coats (I think I must have looked a little looney...or like a thief) until I remembered having taken if off.  Sadly, it is gone.  I even called the restaurant twice today to see if anyone had turned it in, but nope.  Finders keepers I guess :-(  Ahhh the prices we pay for dates.

The Fiance, Part 1

It Started with a Shirt: Kaviar & Cigarette's Kissy Fish

When I met the fiance nearly five years ago I was in a "no dating" mode.  Famous last words, eh?  My little heart had just been smashed to smithereens by a cheating jerk, and I was self-healing by hanging with homies and being a "Hollywood Party Girl".  One pre-fateful weekend I went to a local designer sample sale in downtown LA.  It is part of my hippie ethics to never buy anything new - including clothing (except for the delicates, but that is for sanitary reasons).  However, I make an exception if I am buying something from a local designer.  I have a lot of friends with clothing lines, and I really believe in supporting their art.  This said, I am also incredibly frugal (not cheap, FRUGAL), and could never fathom spending the amounts some people charge.

So when I stumbled across Kaviar & Cigarettes sample sale and saw their prices, despite my attraction to their unique and custom pieces, I just couldn't do it.  The price tags had three digits BEFORE the decimal for tops and this was a SAMPLE SALE!  If you've never been, this is when designers clean out their sample-size inventory for waaaaay cheap - like $5-50 for everything.  Then a certain t-shirt caught my eye.  Totally not my style, but something told me I had to have it, and I plonked down the 50 bones for it.

The next weekend I was lazing around the Hollywood Farmers Market with three of my party pals, sporting my new Kaviar & Cigarettes tee, when I hear "is that Kaviar & Cigarettes?"  I look up to see who asked and find myself face to face with Mr. Hotty McHotterton.  He was wearing dark and stylie shades that kept me from making eye contact, which is totally a pet peeve of mine.  Below the shades was a very stylie ensemble that told me this cat was too cool for school. "Uh, what?  Oh, yeah, yes it is" was my uuber suave reply.  Long story short he said he knew the designer and had a line himself.  He asked my name and I said "Dori" (coz that's my name).  To this he finally pulled down his shades (um, hello sexy eyes) and said "No way! My name's Jory".  Yes.  Our names are Dori and Jory.  Puke.

This little street exchange happened just as LA Fashion Week was starting.  He invited me to his show the following week and handed me a biz card, and I walked away feeling more than a little butterfly-ish.

...and that's the story of how we met: all due to a fateful t-shirt.  Though if you ask me in person I typically just say "on Hollywood Boulevard".

Stay tuned for parts 2-1,000,000...or maybe I'll condense it to like three parts...?  We'll see.  I like the dude, so talking about him is one of my top 10 favorite subjects.

Getting to Know Dopey

Hello Internets!

Now that I've posted some from the archives to break the web ice, I suppose I should say a little somethin-somthin about myself.

I'm currently 33 and I live in Los Angeles with my fiance, a former fashion designer (7Lightningbolt) who now owns a screen print shop.  We've been together going on five years and got engaged last summer in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt...but I'll write about all of those gooey details in posts to come.

For my day job, I am the Outreach and Development Director of the non-profit Build.Create.Kenya, an organization I helped found last year with my fiance and two other dedicated volunteers and close friends.  My biggest hobby is my all natural skincare line SkIndulgence.  Those, and being a house-girlfriend, keep me pretty slammed, but when not doing either I love to crochet and make and build things for my house.

Let's see, what else...how about some simple fun facts?  I love coffee.  I swear A LOT, but I'll try to tone that down a bit for readers with sensitive ears.  I'm originally from Colorado.  I love love LOVE to travel; I've been to somewhere around 14 countries in the last few years.  The fiance and I go camping at least once a month, and I'd probably go totally crazy if we didn't.  I've been a vegetarian for 99.9% of my life.  I have two tattoos, and I plan on getting many, many more...much to the dismay of my mother.  Oh, and I was an English major in college, so I am fully aware of all of my grammatical errors and fabricated words, but I leave 'em in coz I'm a rebel like that.

I think that's enough to get us started, so now let's have some fun!

The Valley Had to Remind Me that it Sucks

One last post from the archives and I'll start in on life in 2013.  From 2008...

Over a year ago I moved out of Hollywood and into the Valley (yeah, I know) because my sis was moving here from the sticks and we needed a house with a yard in a low-key area. Well, Sis LaRue has since moved on home to Colorado, and I thought it was high time I got myself back to the city, so I am once again back in Hollywood and lovin' it. To get all sappy for a sec, lets all take a sec to say good bye to Sis LaRue and wish her well in the Rockies: Good bye Sis! We love you and wish you well, and we will miss you! K.I.T., K?!?!!?

Now on to the actual moving day...

Overall I pride myself on being pretty low key and able to easily roll with those proverbial punches; however, when I am in the midst of a move - even a move just across town - all that goes straight out the window, and my cool is lost at the drop of a hat, or box, as the case may be. I have lived in over 30 places in my 28-year life, so I consider myself to be a seasoned mover. None of that, but NONE of that experience came into play on this particular moving day.

I planned my move for Labor Day weekend so I would have three full days to move and settle into my new place. Like the great planner that I am, I made arrangements for my movers well in advance. I searched my local listings, compared costs, determined my best option, and carved in stone the appointment well ahead of my moving date. I acquired boxes and other moving supplies, and had everything packed neatly and ready to go in my living room. I called to confirm the movers. I forwarded the mail, canceled the utilities, informed my bank, my auto loan people, and my auto insurance. I called to confirm the movers. I sold all my major appliances that I will no longer need now that I am out of a house, and took boxes and boxes to Goodwill. I called to confirm the movers. I crossed all my t's and dotted all my i's.

Sis LaRue shipped out the day before my big move, and after she drove off into the sunset I got a tad emotional. Ok, so I got pretty damn emotional. Friend Devin said she would come over and help me put those final pieces of tape on my boxes and whatnot, so after sitting on my kitchen floor for a while crying I phoned Devin up to choke out "where the [sob] heck are [sob] you???" She arrived shortly thereafter and we finished neatly stacking the boxes and cleaning the house as the movers would be there at ten sharp the next morning.

I went to sleep and awoke at 8:00 am fully pumped and rip-rearin' to go. I headed over to the ATM to get enough cash for the movers then to the grocery store for a quick and easy bite to eat and by 9:55 am I was perched eagerly on my kitchen counter, eyes peeled for a moving van.

10:00 came and went...

10:15 came and went - they probably just got lost. Yeah. That's it. Not everyone is as obsessively punctual as you, Dopey, relax!

10:25 - Alright! Time to call. Dial. "Hello! You have reached the voicemail for..." GRRR! Leave a message. "Hi! This is Dori, and we had arrangements to move me to Hollywood this morning at 10. It is coming up on 10:30 now, so I just want to make sure you are not lost or anything." Repeat the procedure at every single phone number I have for him.

10:35 - Where the fu....

"RIIIIIIING" Sweet! That's him!

"Hello? This is Dori"

"Hi Joy* this is Lame-O-Movers. Hey listen, the latch on my truck broke yesterday so I am just gonna move you in my pick up, cool?"

"Come again? So, [stay calm] what you are telling me is that I agreed to pay you by the hour to move my life in what should be one trip in the secure, enclosed moving truck you advertise, but now you want to move everything I own in what will most likely be at least four trips in your open, my-stuff-flappin'-in-the-breeze pickup truck and you are asking me if that is cool???? NO! If that is what I wanted I would have called a friend!"

"So...you want me to come or what"

"How far away are you even? You were supposed to be here over half an hour ago!"

"Yeah, I can probably leave here in about half an hour"

Click

As my phone snapped shut it dawned on me that I had cancelled all my utilities so I would have no Internet connection to search for alternate movers, and that it was Labor Day weekend, the end of the month - a time when most people do their moving, and the day of my move so chances are finding another moving company were about as great as me marrying Keanu Reeves anytime soon (i.e. not good). To add to that, BMF was helping another friend move this same day and couldn't be there to help, not to mention the fact that his cell phone decided to hate me and break so I couldn't even get a hold of him.

This is when my relaxed persona was stomped to death in a hissy fit that could rival the most spoiled of My Super Sweet 16ers. I didn't have to unpack a mirror to know that it wasn't pretty. "OK, self" I said to myself. "Looks like your only option is to find a U-Haul and yank a few day laborers off the street." Seemed like a simple enough plan to me and I patted myself on my back for being so quick on my feet under the circumstances. Even so, I called BMF to leave a message informing him of the change of plans in the off chance he would get my telepathic cries and be able to check his messages.

Turns out he did. Also turns out that he wasn't as impressed with my idea as I was, "Can you HEAR yourself, Dopey??? That is the DUMBEST idea I have ever heard! Listen to what you are saying! GRRR! Just try not to do anything stupid and I will call you back in a minute." We really do communicate like an old married couple...or a couple of sibling-rivalry-addled kids, but it is all out of love. Really. Five minutes later BMF calls back, "There is a dude coming at three with a big truck and two helpers. Good guy; helps a lot with [BMF's place of employment]. Tip him big; this is a huge favor." Thanks duder.

As I had a couple of hours to kill I headed over to Home Depot to pick up some paint as I had to return my slate-blue bedroom walls to boring white before vacating. Picked up some primer, paint, and extra rollers and headed to the checkout. Where I discovered my ATM card was gone. Lovely. I pay for my packages, run out to my car and proceed to throw yet another tantrum. I am finally able to convince myself that it is far more productive to call the bank than to freak out in a parking lot. The bank is actually able to help me surprisingly fast. We made sure no fraudulent charges went through, cancelled my card, and reissued another within five minutes. I even had enough time to run to the nearest bank branch to pull out cash before they closed for the three-day weekend.

Back home from the bank with paint in hand, it really seemed like the day was back on track. But because my body couldn't deal with things going well, it decided to start purging the contents of my stomach, as it is apt to do when I am under pressure. So now I am vomiting. Violently. And out of my nose, too. Lovely, eh? Thought you'd like that. This was the last kink, though, and everything went decent after that. I painted my walls, the movers came, we relocated me, I went back and finished cleaning my old house, and was in my new place and completely unpacked by the time I returned to work on Tuesday.

You know how people say sit-coms aren't real because problems aren't solved that easily or quickly? More often than not it seems like they really are. Oh, and my new place totally rocks, but that is another post.

*This never ceases to amaze me. Just how in the heck is it possible for SO many people to hear "Joy" when I say "Dori"? I inevitably and reluctantly end up saying "like the fish...yeah..."

80s Hair Bands: Useful for SO Many Reasons

One more from the archive...

80s Hair Bands: Useful for SO Many Reasons...but I am only gonna talk about one.

My big sis and I are two veeeeeery different beans, indeed. Like, in pretty much every way possible: looks, likes, dislikes, music, etc. If she is digging on something, chances are I am bound to hate it, and vice versa. She hates on my beloved Marilyn Manson and I bag on her electronic/gush-gush "music" (I totally just put that in quotes to mess with/irritate her, hehehe). We also live together. This makes life interesting.

However, this weekend big sis (in this blog we call her "C" because I am all cryptic and secretive like that) did the sweetest thing EVER and gave me the very bestity best of birthday* presents: tickets to the San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker. A lot of you know that I started dancing right around the time they cut the umbilical cord and just stopped a few years ago when the warranty expired on my knees...and hips...and ankles. This particular ballet is extra special to me because not only did my sis and I dance in the Nutcracker for years and years and years, but the San Fran Ballet was always the company I wanted to dance with the mostity most. All together now: AWWWWWWWW!!!! So the ballet was SO beautiful and it was SO great to see it (I seriously cried all the way through it since I am such a little bitch). It was also super specialness to see my God Ma and her family when we stayed with them Saturday night...and if this blog was all about sentiment, I would just focus on these things...but I don't dig on mushiness, SO back to my point...

It was the getting there and back that had me worried. As much as we heart each other, my sis and I DO live together and we ARE sisters...so, you know, we tend to bicker...and 12 hours in a car together made me just a teensy weensy bit apprehensive. Especially because we simply cannot agree on music and who can drive without music!!?!?!? But then I dug deep in the depths of my Caselogic and out came Skid Row. And Guns & Roses. And Whitesnake. And Poison. And these 80s Metal Gods showered us with sweet salvation. What followed was some intense headbanging bonding sisterly love (not like that) action. And it was good. Oh yes. We totally rocked Interstate 5, my friends. I don't want to point fingers, but one of us (it wasn't me) might have even been inspired to flash a Greyhound bus.

It IS the holidays, and a lot of you might be seeing family. I know I am not the only one who doesn't hail from Cleaverville, so this Christmas, I invite you all to discover the bonding powers of Sebastian Bach and Bret Michaels. You'll thank me later.

*It's next Tuesday, ya'll...yeah, Christmas. Yes, it IS Christmas Day, OMG!

It Was in the Stars...and they aren't too nice

Another from the Dopey archives, circa 2008...

The horoscope I read this morning:
It's a good day for you to try something brand-new, especially if it relates to helping other people.

What happened after I read the horoscope this morning:
While driving to work this morning I stopped at a red light (because that is the law) and looked to my right to see a car rolling slowly, the door open, an unconscious woman roll to the street, and the car keep driving. My initial thought is "whoa, they are totally dumping a body"* which led me to question the intelligence of doing so at 9:45 am in a busy intersection. So then I looked up at the driver in order to provide a description to the 5-0 later...only there wasn't a driver. Which is when I realized that the unconscious woman WAS the driver..and I was about to get hit by a driver-less car. I avoided that catastrophe and the car proceeded across the aforementioned busy intersection, miraculously unscathed, before a tree was kind enough to stop it. So I flip a bitch, pull over, grab my cell phone and run to the lady who was, by this point, semi-conscious, and call 911. Apparently what happened is she had some sort of seizure or something. She was fully conscious by the time the paramedics came and didn't appear to be altogether too hurt, thank God.

Some crazy freaking morning, eh???

ADDITIONAL NOTE: Just realized - I was there until the paramedics took her away and the scene was totally cleared...but no one took the car away; it remained in someone's front yard resting comfortably against their tree...that's gotta be a weird one to come home to, eh?

*Which, no shit, really happened once. Well, it has probably happened a lot, but I mean, in my vicinity when some dudes offed a tranny prostitute, rolled her up in a rug, and threw her body in my garage in Hollywood and was discovered by my next door neighbor..."everyone who comes to Hollywood has a dream - what's your dream?"

Dating Sucks (Spits)...or...How I learned to Stop Worrying and Dump That NSYNC Bobblehead Collection Guy

This is another post from DopeyLaRue from 2007...

Right? Not all the time, I will give you that, but we gotta go on a lot of stinkers to get to that good one. Me? I am still waiting. Take this one, for instance...

K - so I meet this cute little southern, and yada yada (not like that), we decide to go for coffee. So we go for coffee and he is mad charming and old school and whatnot and is all "yeah, I think girls need to be courted"...so...I am hooked, right? So once the obligatory pre-date coffee was done, we went to dinner. Again, super sweet, super charming, super old fashioned. Then comes our first "Saturday Night Date". This is the real deal, right? Yeah, that's what I thought, too. So Saturday rolls around and I spend the afternoon doing all of the things we girlies do to to primp and powder and whatnot to look oh so beautified for you guys. Dude said that he would plan it, and just to meet up with him and he would take over from there. After I was properly assured that these plans had absolutely nothing to do with a hacksaw and the Hollywood Hills, I agreed. So I show up, all dressed up for a night out. I am greeted by someone slightly resembling the dude I have been seeing (you will soon see was very different indeed), who leads me to his car, and this is where the night took a very wrong turn. Please note that any one of these acts, if done independent of the others, would have been easy to overlook (well, some of them anyway), but...all together...just, so, so wrong...and we're off:

1. Dude doesn't open the car door for me. I am not necessarily old fashioned in all areas, but c'mon guys, open the freaking door already! OH! And clicking your little unlock remote thingamabobber is SO not the same thing!

2. Dude informs me he needs to go get gas; while filling up he stands outside the car and doesn't speak to me. I just spent a few hours getting ready, and I am willing to bet it didn't take him nearly as long since he neither wears makeup (thank god, I really can't handle another of THOSE), nor does much to his hair, so, REALLY, he coulda taken a few minutes to do this beforehand...or at least spoken to me during the fill up.

3. Dude's car is filled with Britney Spears, NSync, other pop music of same form. Just take a look at my music tastes in my bio section then try to imagine how this passed muster with me. When I teased him about it, he says "don't front, you know you like it". No, no I don't. At all. I think it is everything that is wrong with the music industry. I am pretty freaking serious about my music. Sidenote, when I was telling my pops about this afterwards, I asked "Pops, do you think I am too harsh about judging the music people listen to!?!?!" His response "Hell no! It is THE number one way to tell who someone is". Go Pops!

4. After planning to take me to somewhere in the OC, Dude abandons the idea because of traffic and gets off the freeway in South LA without an alternate plan and asks me if I had planned anything. I will be the first to admit that I am an uuber princess sometimes, but when a dude asks me out, he had better have a plan. It is my ultimate annoyance, and a sure fire way to never get another date when you ask me "so what do you feel like doing?" Aside from that, this is LA! OF COURSE there is traffic! It, like, DEFINES us as a city!

So dude decides to stop in Pasadena to walk around and perhaps eat....

5. Dude will not stop trying to PDA me on the street. Yuck. Hand holding and the occasional peck WITH A STEADY BOYFRIEND is as far as I will take the whole PDA situation. I am not generally a prude, but yeah, I think making out on the street is classless and tacky and just makes me go "ick".

Here's the kicker. You ready? You SURE you're ready?

6. DUDE SPITS IN MY HAND. Yeah. Read it again. You were right the first time. After stopping for coffee (which, btw IS another no no in my book to get coffee BEFORE eating), Dude says "let me see your hand", and after holding it up questioningly, dude bows his head and spits his gum into my hand. Since I am totally NOT a fifth grader on the playground, I found this utterly revolting, disgusting, rude, crude, classless, tackless, and just plain dumb.

And that was probably when I should have asked to have been taken back to my car...but...I was hungry...? I don't know. I was trying to see past all of it...? Yeah. But it went on. So despite the fact that we were in a place where every other establishment was a restaurant, Dude suggests we go get some pizza and take it back to his apartment. I am not dumb, I know exactly what that means. But, you can pretty much convince me to do just about anything with pizza. Unless....

7. Dude bypasses many independent, New York style pizza joints, and pulls up to Domino's. Is that even pizza? Where he hands me the box to carry. Nice.

So then I ate my pizza-ish-flavored soggy bread and was ready to say "so long, fair well, good night"....when...

8. Dude says "So [enter name] is gonna croak soon, huh" referring to one of my besties who is currently on chemo.  I don't think I even need to explain why this is the most disgusting statement of all time.  With a look that I hope whithered his nether-regions, I turned on my heel and walked out.

I was going to NOT write about this in the off-chance that Dude was a reader; I just didn't wanna hurt feelings like that. However, about a week later Dude IMs me saying he would like to see me again. I respond with "yeah, that's totally not gonna happen". After he refused to take my polite refusals and pushed the issue too far, I gave him this list. His response was that I just needed to tell him these things, but since I am not the boyfriend school (or the school for class) I moved on. So...now the story is no longer copy written, and I can publish it here for all of you to enjoy! So...ENJOY!!!

p.s. I don't know how I almost forgot, but Dude also had a complete Nsync (or N*Sync or *NSYNC or whatever lame way it is spelled) bobblehead collection on display in his apartment. I am totally serious. On display. Without irony. Because he just likes them THAT much.

Un-Writing the Rule of Perfection: A Meditative Epiphany

This is an exerpt from an essay I wrote on, well, myself I guess, in 2007...

I am a perfectionist. As a perfectionist, when I sat down to write this, my conditioning to be perfect at all things and times tempted me to open with “Webster’s Dictionary defines perfection as…” But I was too tired to look it up. I am just so tired…of…perfection. Of a constant smile on my face despite what I am feeling inside. Of a stick-straight back and squared shoulders. Of holding my head at a perfect angle. I am just…tired. I want to relax and sprawl out and get comfortable, but I fear falling off this pedestal I have forced myself up onto.

Do I really feel perfect? Was it worth it? I mean, lets be honest here. Do I really feel perfect? Do people look at me and say “Wow. She really is perfect”. Is it even about “people”? Nobody forced me up here, you know. I did the climbing myself. Each step up saying “You will never touch me! You will never judge me! Most importantly – you will never pity me my faults because I will be flawless. I will be perfect.”

I won’t lie. For a while I was pretty pumped to be up there. Every sleepless night spent studying was redeemed when I received that perfect grade. But it was never about the grade; it was the looks of admiration and envy and even frustration and self-hate on the faces of everyone around me. I was that girl. I was that girl that was in every activity. I was that girl that took Advanced Calculus as an elective. And, oh yeah, I was the girl that still found time to bring freshly baked cookies to class. I thought that was the answer. The big secret to happiness. What is happiness worth if you can’t share it with someone? Perhaps if I hadn’t isolated myself from everyone, someone might have tapped me on the shoulder and told me that my biggest imperfection was my quest for perfection.

I have recently realized that what I have always thought of as a pedestal has really been my prison. My innate ability to romanticize everything meant that this was a medieval cell high up in a tower with a huge rusted lock on a solid wood door. But when I stopped distracting myself with the décor of the place, I realized that this was the loneliest place in the whole world, and I didn’t want to be there.

I thought that meditation would help me find the key that would fit that rusted lock. That if I was just able to “do it right”, my cell would open and I would run into the world shouting “I’m free!” We are told every week in here to just stop thinking. But, since I am so perfect, and I always know what’s best, I didn’t do that. I would go into meditation, both in class and at home saying “where the f*ck is that key?!?!?” Needless to say, I didn’t find it.

There was a moment when there was a ceasefire of the civil war in my head – we’ll call it an “epiphany” because I’ve always wanted to have one– where I found an answer. My answer was this: there is no key, because there is no lock, because there is no cell keeping me apart from everyone. I put myself there, I held myself there, and only I could let myself out. All at once I was very aware of my heartbeat, and I realized that this is the answer – this is what connects me to every other person on this planet. And because I am big into visuals, I saw a web connecting everyone, and when I looked down I saw a web grow out from my own body and connect me to every other being. I felt supportive and supported and loving and loved right back…and I wasn’t tired anymore.

It was a really rough day when I realized that I wasn’t perfect, and that everyone already knew that, but it was, nothing short of glorious when I realized that I was just like everyone else.

My Exploding Breasts

I originally posted this on DopeyLaRue in, maybe, 2008-ish when I was still a worker bee for the man.  It was a reader favorite at the time, so I thought it would be a good "gettting to know all about you" post for this new url :-)

Did I ever tell you guys about the time my fake boob exploded during a staff meeting? NO?!!? How could I not have???? Well, ready everybody? Here we goooooooooo!

I am Flatty McFlatterton in the chestal region. I mean, seriously, when you are a 95 pound twig such as myself, large chesticles just aren't even a remote prayer...that is unless you pay for them. So I did. Not the $10,000 kind that require a highly trained professional to install or anything; mine are of the $30 chicken-cutlet variety from Frederick's of Hollywood. 'Coz ordinarily I kinda love being inverted, say, when working out or when running up or down stairs or when trying on a slinky top. It is just that, every so often, there comes an outfit which I feel could be enhanced, so to speak, with an extra cup size. You know, just to sort of balance everything out. And, of course, by "balance" I mean "tip the scales in favor of the top".

I think I had these babies for about a year, and had definitely gotten my money's worth out of them, when "the incident" occurred. You guys are already well aware of my monthly staff meetings at my day job because you read every line I ever write. So there I was at one such meeting, sitting directly across from the president, feigning interest in his every word on percentage increases of blah-did-di-blah-blah when I felt it - an odd sorta warm-ish, greasy, liquidy feeling spreading across my top. I looked up from doodling on my notepad to see all of my work homies [all male, of course, as that is my luck] stiffling laughter and glancing at my chest every other second.  Not wanting to be too obvious, but wanting very much to figure out wtf was going down, I stole a discreet look down and adjusted my top. And that is when I saw it. My very obvious deflated half-chest and a sopping wet shirt-full of silicone. THAT, my friends, is what I like to call "class".

*That title totally got your attention, didn't it? Yessssssss!

Intro

Thinking of kickin' this blog old school.  I used to have this blog, DopeyLaRue, that I started way back when blogspot was brand new.  Back then narcissists wrote blogs and voyeurs read them.  I'm a bit of both for sure.  Then when blogs started to be about making a ton of money or transforming into a novelist, I don't know, I felt that DopeyLaRue should have a direction.  I deleted about 3/4 of my content, and created the tag "The City Through my Silly Eyes".  Rather than just writing about myself, I felt I could only write the silly things.  Since I am an actual human being and I have more than one emotion, this totally cut out a lot of writing material!

Then I lost someone...and I got sad.  For a really, really long time.  And Dopey disappeared into the blogosphere.  Literally.  Someone hacked my shit and it is gone and I am SOOOO not techie enough to even begin to know how to get it back.  And I figure it is better that way.

Now we are close to five years since the demise of Dopey, and I feel like I wanna throw some more self indulgent dribble out there.  I think what it is, is that I work from home now.  I LOVE working from home, don't get me wrong.  But I am one chatty chica, and with no one but my animals to talk to all day until the other half gets home, I get a little lonesome.  So, from now on, when I am feeling the chatters coming on and I need to spill some dirt, I'll log on and bend the ear of the internets...