United in Dryness
I’m sure a lot of people have been anxiously awaiting an update on my progress with kicking my lip balm addiction. Since freeing myself from Vaseline’s clutches over two months ago, I’ve had two nights when I needed a little comfort slather but other than that I’ve been sleeping lip balm free.
What really irks me is the lack of enthusiasm I detect from people when I tell them about my accomplishment. When an alcoholic says he hasn’t had a drink in two months, people are popping champagne and buying drinks all around. But when I mention that my decades-long battle with lip balm has come to an end they just say, “What the fuck is a lip balm addiction? And why did you stop me on the street to tell me about it?”
It made me realize that it’s time to bring this disease (yes, it’s a disease; because I say so) to the forefront. We need to show sympathy to the one billion* Americans who may not even be aware they suffer from this and could unknowingly be spreading it through oral contact. So I have started a non-profit organization called United in Dryness to call attention to this matter.
This isn’t an organization of idle talk, it’s one of action. I’ve arranged to have kiosks set up in all CVS stores where people can safely turn in their lip balms, no questions asked (except Carmex- just throw that shit in the trash). The kiosks are shaped like little red baskets usually located near the front of the store, though occasionally representatives will be walking around carrying them. Feel free to drop all your old lip balm products right into the rep’s basket. This will ensure that lip balm is out of the hands of kids. At least, it will be out of the hands of kids who don’t go to CVS.
I’ll also be going around to junior high schools speaking to teenagers about how to avoid the temptations of lip balm and I’ll espouse the virtues of living a Chapstick-free life. A court order prevents me from actually going on campuses so I’ll just be hanging out in the parking lots giving away pamphlets and free cigarettes to anybody who wants to be enlightened about this serious addiction.
And of course I’ve created the obligatory pin representing our cause as featured in the photo above. The lips represent lips and the heart represents a heart (I like to keep my symbols pretty straightforward). I strongly encourage all Americans to wear these pins to show your support. Sure, those little pink breast cancer ribbons are lovely but let’s face it, we’re never coming up with a cure and you’re only wasting valuable lapel space by wearing one.
United in Dryness: throw away the lube and lick those lips instead.
*Data provided by the same pollsters who predicted the outcomes of the Democratic caucuses so actual numbers may vary by +/- 100%.
Three Minutes In Hollywood
The action never stops.
1:12 am- Two guys run full speed toward my car. One tosses a bag to the curb as they keep running.
I’m guessing they weren’t getting a jump on the next Olympic trials.
1:15 am- I have to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting Ron Jeremy who darted in front of my car. I know he doesn’t look like he can dart but I assure you, he darted. The funniest thing to me is that even in the dark I knew it was him before I ever saw his face. He’s certainly got his own inimitable style. This of course got me thinking about the inevitable headlines had I actually struck and killed the beloved Mr. Jeremy:
“Comedian Brings Ron Jeremy’s Life To A Head”
“Driver Doesn’t See Dick Run”
“Woman Whacks The Hedgehog…For The Last Time”
“Poker Pro Offs Pro Poker”
“Porn Star Reaches His Climax After One Final Blow”
15 Minutes In Hollywood
2:30 am- A man crossing Hollywood Boulevard pulls a role reversal when he stops midway and signals for a cop car to complete its right turn. The cops motion for him to finish crossing but he continues signaling forcefully for them to turn. They go back and forth like this a few times until the cops decide that instead of making their right turn, they’d prefer to have a little chat with this obviously intoxicated pedestrian. I avoid any sudden movements in their vicinity.
2:37 am- I enter 7-11 and pour myself a cappuccino but the cup doesn’t fit under the nozzle so when I pull the filled cup out, some scalding liquid drips on my hand. It’s just hot enough to leave a dark red mark but probably not hot enough for a lawsuit. Damn.
2:39 am- I take my place behind the SIX people already in line… at 2:30 in the morning.
2:40 am- A tranny waiting for someone ahead of me compliments my outfit. I want to return the compliment by saying her outfit is “fierce,” mostly because I’ve never actually said “fierce” out loud and I want to see if I can pull it off. However, I’m not entirely certain if that’s a compliment or if straight white girls are allowed to say it and since her heels give her a good six inches over me, I decide she is not a suitable test subject so I merely respond with a meek “thanks.”
2:44 am- The grande finale: tranny fight! While I don’t advocate violence, I totally advocate watching a fight between two trannies should the opportunity ever arise. Stilettos and mini-skirts that provide the potential for a little dong slippage always make for amusing altercation attire. Naturally, I’m rooting for my fierce new friend even though she’s struggling to decide which gender identity to commit to for the brawl. Fortunately, she doesn’t disappoint when security guards break it up and she yells, “Bitch broke my nail!” How often do you get to hear a fight between two dudes end with that line?
Free At Last, Free At Last, Fuck You Vaseline, I’m Free At Last!
One of my earliest blog posts was about the lip balm addiction I’ve suffered from for more than a decade. Over the years I’ve made the occasional attempts to quit using and, though I usually didn’t last for more than a couple hours, sometimes I managed to get through the day but as soon as I put my head on my pillow I realized sleep would be impossible without dipping into my giant jar of Vaseline that sits on my nightstand right next to my salt shaker (that’s a whole ‘nother addiction).
I hit rock bottom many times. I would get into my car and fret over my naked lips so I’d grab the emergency Chapstick I keep in my console (along with some salt packets) and desperately swirl my finger around the tube that’s been empty ever since it was stored in the car I had two before this one. I would have to scrape what residue I could get out of it from underneath my fingernails then I’d rub it across my lips knowing deep down that all I was really applying was some greasy finger oil. Then I’d cry out, “Why? Why? Why must this gooey goodness have this control over my life?”
Then last week something amazing happened: I realized that a good 16 hours had passed without a slathering and I wasn’t experiencing the usual withdrawal symptoms. I decided to see how long I could go without it and I actually made it through the night! For three days straight, I applied absolutely nothing to my lips, a feat I haven’t accomplished since I was back in a training bra. Over the last five days, I’ve had to wear lipstick on a couple occasions and apply SPF 15 sunscreen to my lips while in the sun but I swear that isn’t the reason I’m laying out 14 hours a day.
I realize I have a tough road ahead of me, one that involves the annoying habit of licking my lips every couple seconds. And I fear that first incident when someone pulls out a tube of lip balm and offers it to me. Will I be able to say no? Is there some kind of LBAA (Lip Balm Addicts Anonymous) keychain to help me garner the sympathetic congratulations to which I’m entitled? Most importantly, is this something I should write to the Vatican about? The sudden disappearance of this addiction is a miracle in itself but if a day ever comes that I utter the phrase, “This is too salty,” it will surely make a believer out of me.
Even Shaq Could Make This Free Throw
Living in an apartment means I get to wash my clothes in the building’s laundry facility. And anybody who’s ever had to wash their clothes in a public location knows that sometimes you have to handle other people’s clothes and vice versa. Usually it’s not a problem for me because I tend to do my laundry in the middle of the night and there are several extra machines for any other night owls but occasionally it happens.
I always do two loads and leave an empty basket on top of each of the machines that I’m using but I estimate that 70% of the time when someone has to take my clothes out of the washer they put them somewhere else- on the table, in the rolling laundry cart, in the dryer. On a couple occasions I even had people pay to start the dryer. They may have thought they were doing me a favor but I have a lot of stuff I don’t put in the dryer so I’d just as soon cover the fifty cents myself.
I’m writing this in the hopes that somebody can provide me with a possible explanation as to why a person would remove the basket from the top of the machine, pull my clothes out and then not put my clothes in that basket. Anybody? As I said, this occurs in this manner more often than not and it’s happened over the course of many years of apartment dwelling so it’s unlikely that it’s one idiotic culprit. Does the basket on the machine have some meaning I’m not aware of, kind of like putting quarters on a pool table? Or am I simply being too tough and the connection between the empty basket and the clothes inside isn’t as blatantly obvious as I think it is? If I could attribute it to laziness I would, but since throwing the clothes in the basket is the easiest way to get them out, that can’t be it.
Part of me hopes that I’ll run into a person who does this just so I can get some answers but part of me is scared to encounter such a person. Druggies and criminals in the building I can handle. Jessica Simpson I can’t.
Tick Talk
I think I’ve mentioned here before that I never know when the clocks change since most of the clocks I use do so automatically (cell phone, computer). Sometimes several days have passed without me realizing the time has changed then I’ll glance at the clock in my car and have a moment of panic in which I think I’m either really late or really early. This year I actually remembered the change was coming and that it’s always before Halloween so I was waiting for it. Two Sundays ago when 2 am passed nothing happened so I figured last Sunday must have been the date. That passed again with no clock changes so I had to do a little Googling and learned that George Bush changed the dates for Daylight Saving Time so that starting this year it ends tonight. It’s pretty pathetic that extending DST past Halloween is probably the smartest move of his entire administration.
Anyway, in case there are any other losers out there who never get the memo on the clock changes, here it is for you.
Dos Anos Aqui
I’ve become such a bad blogger that last week the biennial anniversary of “People are Idiots” passed with nary a word from me. I’m compensating for it by using terms that haven’t been used since Truman was in office and I’m not sure if I’m even using them correctly.
Part of the reason I didn’t post that day is that my damn site was down for 10 hours, instead it was redirected to a page that said: “Account suspended. Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible.” Naturally I read that 15 minutes before leaving town so all I could do was shoot off a nasty email to my hosting company demanding that they get my site back up. The message included at least one variation of “fuck” because this was the second time that message was splayed across my site in the last two months and neither situation was a billing issue since I pay for the entire year in advance.
When I was able to check on my site again about seven hours later the message was still there so I sent off a few more “fucks.” Mind you, there were no “fucks” the last time this happened, I was actually quite polite but I also made it clear at the time that it better never happen again. I exchanged several emails back and forth with tech support (because their “24/7 phone support” apparently means they answer it 24 minutes out of every 7 days) and they told me that my site was receiving too many connections and exceeding its allotted RAM. I asked what was causing it and they basically said, “We don’t know what’s causing it and there’s no way for you to verify the problem exists while your site is down… but you have to fix it before we’ll put your site back up.”
I informed them that I would work to fix the problem but directed them to their own Terms of Service, which states they can take my site offline for such an issue, but nowhere does it state they can redirect my site to another page, particularly not to one that publicly humiliates me. My demands were ignored until finally I called the sales department (someone always answers the sales phones) and insisted that he get a techie on the phone for me. My man Jude took some time and figured out what the actual problem was and it turned out that some people had posted images from my site on other sites but hadn’t uploaded them elsewhere so I was doing the hosting for them (and actually, it was a breakdown on my web host’s hotlink protection that even allowed that to happen so it was their fault). If anybody reading this did that, allow me to say, fuck you. I renamed the images that were the biggest culprits and fixed the hotlink protection but there were a couple images used by people in MySpace comments that I decided to have a little Photoshop fun with by editing the pictures in profane ways that will surely guarantee removal and hopefully embarrass them into learning not to steal my bandwidth.
All bitching aside, two years and 249 posts later, I’m still here (I know, barely). Way back then I remember looking at other bloggers’ long lists of archives and thinking I’d never last that long but I have. And I want to thank my loyal readers- both of you mean a lot to me and I plan to stick around for a long time to come. Or at least until my web host screws me over again.
The GUYnecologist
This morning I had my annual Pap smear. Yes, morning, as in 8:30 am. That’s because I just love to heap misery upon misery. Actually I always schedule my appointments for that time thinking that having the first appointment of the day will mean I won’t have to wait around but somehow doctors always find a reason to make you wait.
For the last six or seven years I’ve had my Paps done by a doctor I suspect is a lesbian. Probably my main reason for thinking that is her lack of lipstick and nail polish so my assessment may not be correct but I don’t mind if she is because I figure who’s going to know vaginas better than a lesbian? Certainly not a man.
Well, apparently my usual doc was out today so who came in? A man. I think male gynecologists are just plain creepy. Sorry, but there are a ton of medical fields and all the reasons I can come up with for a man becoming a gynecologist make him seem suspect. To make matters worse, this guy was HOT. L.A. is supposed to be the land of beautiful people and it is as far as women go but there seems to be a dearth of handsome men. So sitting in the presence of one had me blushing to the point I had to cover my face with my hand to hide my constant smirk. As he spoke, I kept hoping he was just a nurse giving me the run-down but soon it was clear he would be the one performing the exam. I remembered the Seinfeld episode in which there was a hot male gynecologist and women were making appointments every week to see him but I was having none of that. I just couldn’t risk the possibility of blurting out mid-exam, “Oh yeah. Right there. Right there!” so I had to tell him I wasn’t comfortable with him doing it. I didn’t mention the creepy aspect but I did tell him his attractiveness was an issue and suggested in the future he should enter the room swishing and speaking with a lisp. Complimenting the patient’s shoes would be a good touch as well.
As he exited, I thought for a split second about asking him out then realized if I wasn’t comfortable being the patient of a guy who spends all day with his head between random women’s legs, I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable being the girlfriend of one.
A little while later a female resident and nurse entered and mentioned that the doctor had told them I preferred a female doing the exam. I felt lame that a big deal was being made of it and told them it would just be weird because he’s a real-life McDreamy. They didn’t even feign professionalism; instead both joined me in gushing over his good looks. I’m telling you, this guy was hot.
As I sat on the end of the table the resident opened a drawer of speculums then closed it and pulled one from the lower drawer. I noticed that the first one was labeled “medium” and the second was labeled “large.” I wasn’t too pleased with someone eyeballing me and deciding I must be sporting a big canyon down there and felt a bit of vindication a few minutes later when it was deemed too big and she had to return to the medium. I was under no illusion that I might qualify for small because if I did then someone like Nicole Richie must be having her Paps done with a straw.
Just as the doctor finished and I started to sit up, I heard the nurse say, “Oops.” “Oops” is not a word I like to hear. Sure enough she had dropped the swab on the ground. I don’t know how- maybe she was twirling it like a baton and it slipped- but I knew that it meant I’d have to lie back down and go through the whole procedure again. That’s pretty typical for me- I never get the do-overs for fun activities, just for things like a Pap smear.
Fortunately that’s all done for another year (assuming I don’t get a letter in the mail starting with, “Oops…”) but I have some suggestions for both doctors and patients:
Suggestions for doctors to make Pap smears less miserable:
– Get rid of the florescent lighting. Frankly, I think florescent lighting should be removed from all locations except bikini and fashion models’ dressing rooms. Those girls need a healthy dose of negative body issues, the rest of us already have plenty. Everything the doctor needs to see is on the inside so what’s the harm in track lighting or a soft lamp?
– Offer patients a glass of wine beforehand to soothe the nerves: “Here’s a urine cup and a glass of cabernet. Try not to get them confused if you’re on your period.”
– Crank up the heat a bit to avoid the inevitable embarrassment when the breast exam is performed.
Suggestions for patients to make Pap smears less miserable:
– Wear a sarong and no underwear so you can skip the paper skirt.
– Wear a button down sweater and front clasping bra so you don’t have to wear the paper shirt.
– If you follow the first two, then when the doctor says, “Get undressed and I’ll be right back,” she can’t pull a disappearing act for half an hour while she has sex in exam 2 with McDreamy. Tell her you’re ready to go. Block the door if necessary.
– Bring an Ipod/video phone to prevent the doctor from engaging in small talk and to block out any other unwanted sounds that glob of gel might create.
