dirty fez

On travel:

2008-04-04T05:10:00.000-07:00

As I sit in yet another hotel room, contemplating the room-temperature remains of a fruit and cheese plate as a substitute for the mangy breakfast buffet in the lobby restaurant, I feel compelled to reply to the note so kindly left for me by this tiny-bathroomed hotel's housekeeping staff. Specifically, I am referring to the little card left in hotel bathrooms and at bedsides asking guests to please help to save the planet. Ooh, saving the planet! That sounds like a good idea. Let's read on!

The card goes on to say how so much of the precious earth's resources are squandered on washing towels and sheets that have only been used once. My god. Say it ain't so! It then goes on to implore me to voluntarily leave my towels and sheets unwashed for the remainder of my stay, using the same type of guilt-inducing language that my mother employs when she writes me letters about how I don't call her enough and oh my god will she live to see grandchildren. Excuse me while I shit all over myself trying to make sure I don't kill the earth with my clean towel! (Actually, that kind of backfired, as now I'll have to take an extra shower and use more towels to clean up that mess I just made.)

I have to hand it to the hotel ~~cartels~~ associations that came up with this plan to keep their housekeepers from working a full shift doing laundry and also save some cash on the shitty powdered detergent they no doubt use to wash their scratchy towels. I'm sure that true concern for the environment was their ultimate motivation, not the corporate bottom line. But way to use environmental concerns to put cash in your pockets, corporate dudes!

(Note: this was written when I was traveling a lot for work and was not in any way bitter about it.)

Spaceballs:

2008-03-23T22:36:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I have amusing conversations on the internets. Observe:

dirtyfez: i'm watching spaceballs
dirtyfez: but you are probably too young to know wtf that is
Goose: that's ludicrous
Goose: i love spaceballs
dirtyfez: oh right, you are a dude and all
dirtyfez: my bad
Goose: i don't have tim gunn, instead i have spaceballs
dirtyfez: haha
Goose: what part you at
dirtyfez: they just went into the ear of the giant transformers maid. after they blew the air back into druidia
dirtyfez: and daphne zuniga is looking all hot and stuff.
Goose: wow, why would you know her name
Goose: i mean, yeah, she's hot, but still
dirtyfez: and bill pullman is like "i have a promising acting career ahead of me!" and then whoops.
Goose: haha
dirtyfez: because she was on 90210 or melrose place or something.
Goose: what do you mean, he was a great president in id4
dirtyfez: and "zuniga" is fun to say
dirtyfez: he WAS
dirtyfez: he totally blew up alienz omg.
Goose: with windows 95
dirtyfez: and a dos prompt
Goose: i was like 12, i found that plausible
dirtyfez: totally.
dirtyfez: fyi, i may have to blog this part of the conversation
Goose: pay me
dirtyfez: k i'll give you 1 million spacebucks

God. Such nerds.

Dirtyfez 2007 Year in Review:

2007-12-31T14:22:00.000-08:00

Like everyone else and their adopted-from-another-country-by-overly-beautiful-yet-crazy-movie-stars brother, I am posting a year in review. For those of you who have stopped reading my blog because I rarely update, this should be a treat, as you can catch up rather quickly. For those of you who have stuck with me, you are awesome and all those other guys who quit reading are dicks. (But don't tell them I said that.) Anyway, here is my year in review.

In 2007, I:

- Got engaged. To a dude.
- Bro!
- Dude.
- Despite all that, I still like boobies.

I mean, other shit happened, but boobies are way more important than anything else.

Unlike most years in the past, I will be making a resolution for 2008: to post more, and to post more boobies. I think everyone can get on board with that.

xoxox

You want that fried, or deep fried?

2007-11-11T21:28:00.000-08:00

For my new job that is supposed to involve little to no travel, I traveled again this past week. I flew down to my least favorite city, Raleigh, for a two-day in-depth technical meeting. 12-hour meetings with grumpy people? Not my thing. Good thing I took a job where I have to do that a lot. At least we got to eat buttery, buttery steaks one night.

After all that fun, my flight back to New York was delayed a few hours. I think that the flight down there was the only on-time flight I have been on in the past six months. That wouldn't be remarkable if I had flown like, 4 flights, but I flew probably 20+ times during that time period. Fuck air travel, right in its ear. Especially to and from the New York area. There's actually an article in the current issue of New York Magazine about it. The NYC trifecta of airports have the worst on-time record for arrivals in the country. Super! I see a lot of road trips in my future.

I promise to be less bitchy soon. I swear. I'm just going through a thing. Hopefully it will lead to an upswing in photos of scantily clad bitches. That always makes me feel better.

An early midlife crisis:

2007-10-25T12:55:00.000-07:00

Lately I have felt a kind of general malaise regarding my career. Having a career at all is kind of funny, probably because I still think of myself as this young, nerdy kid that accidentally pokes herself in the eye a lot. I mean, I have always been really good at what I do, and nobody gives a squeaky fuck whether I have visible piercings or tattoos (though I do cover up the topless broads on my legs - I wouldn't wear a tshirt with a topless broad on it to my grandma's house, nor would I expose my half-nekkid ladyfriends to her, and that I think is a gold standard to follow in the corporate world). Though I do have friends who have been called "corporate" and "sellouts", etc. because they wear nice pants and work in an office, that's not even remotely the crux of the issue for me. (Though I am, obviously, a corporate sellout who isn't true to myself, what with my lack of bad facial tattoos and all.) I already look the way I want to, aside from the ass size situation, which I'm dealing with. However, I just feel like what I do isn't... doing any good. I go in and help these big ass corporations deploy their software or get it working again so they can go about their business of making huge amounts of money, and it just seems so, I don't know, empty, in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps I am much more of a dirty hippie than I would like to admit. Except I take showers.

Though I have started a couple of my own companies, I can't dedicate much time to them, and I'd really like to. I'd also like to move in a career direction that might make me feel less annoyed overall. The main issue with my current job is that people get vein-poppingly upset over a piece of software not working the way they expect it to. I realize it's frustrating when shit doesn't work the way you want it to (thank you Mr. Gates), but the level of emotional involvement in something that seems so completely unimportant compared to, say, an ebola outbreak or the poverty epidemic or the entirety of southern California being aflame kind of bugs me a little.

So - I'm seriously thinking about leaving my job and going to work for a nonprofit. But then I think that I can do more good by staying in my current job and just continuing to donate 20% of my salary to charity every year. Walking away from a secure job that pays me quite well to deal with a bunch of monkeys that are overly attached to their blade servers when I struggled to make enough money to pay rent for so many years is also a difficult psychological hurdle to overcome. I realize that I'm fine now, financially, and I can actually afford to take a pay cut. So then when I don't, I kind of feel like a dick. Which is really fucking stupid, considering that I worked my ass off to get where I am. I don't know what that is - guilt or something - but it also doesn't help that friends and family continually make snarky comments when I buy a nice computer (business expense) or travel to Europe (cheap tickets, using points for hotels). It also makes me want to punch myself in the neck for feeling the need to parenthetically justify said spending.

I'm probably completely overthinking this. Everyone has aspects of their jobs that they hate, and everyone gets shit from family and sometimes friends about choices that they make because you can't fucking please any of you bastards. I should probably just suck it up and keep earning a decent paycheck so that I can keep myself in nice pants for a few more years and then retire at 40. Then I can move to a farm and raise goats and live off the land like a good little hippie. But I'll still take showers.

In which I shamelessly drool on another blogger:

2007-08-30T15:10:00.001-07:00

Have I ever told you how much I love Bad News Hughes? My friend Sean thinks I have a crush on ol' Bad News, but who wouldn't, when he says things like this:

Lately I spend all my time on the couch, out of my mind on pills, drooling and watching TV. I�m one swank jumpsuit and giant peanut butter and bacon sandwich away from becoming Elvis.

I always said this is what I�d do if I got super rich. No philanthropy or adventure for me � just the trouble-free emotional flatline that can only be delivered by the time-honored combination of daytime talk shows and prescription dope, periodically spiked with the frisson of cramming a handful of deep-fried cake icing in my mouth.

I mean... really. How can you not love that?

Anyway, go on over and read his blog, and if it makes you pee a little, welcome to the club and come join me in line at the drugstore for some more Depends. Oh, and go buy a copy of his book, Diary of Indignities, which will also make you pee, probably while you are sitting next to your dream girl on an airplane or a Greyhound bus or a prison transport or something. It'll be a story you can tell your grandkids.

In which I reveal mysterious things:

2007-08-26T22:04:00.000-07:00

So, for a little over a year and a half now, I have been making veiled references to my lover, who has remained genderless in all of my posts. I pointed this out once or twice, leading people to not even try to guess, but to IM me all like, "omg, tell me!" Of course I caved, because I am a lameass pussy like that. Of course, I only have like 1.2 readers per month anymore. Like you even care. But something Super Huge happened recently, so I figured I should out my lover's gender.

By an interesting stroke of luck, my lover and I have birthdays that are one day apart, and this year they fell on a weekend. So we figured we should go out of town, and the town we chose was the other city that never sleeps, Las Vegas. I mean, nothing says "birthday extravaganza" like strippers, buffets, and gambling. So off we went. I didn't know the lover had a little something planned for the weekend.

While we were there, we enjoyed the company of friends, some gratuitous Klingon sightings, some poker (broke even) and roulette (came out ahead) and a show. In between all that, we got engaged.

That's right, bitches. I said engaged.

The proposal: very romantic. The ring: blingtastic. The proposer: of the male persuasion.

You heard that. I'm getting married in some semblance of a traditional manner. What. The. Fuck.

He's kind of a lesbian though. Even my lesbian friends think so. And they're way more butch than you.

Anyway, the fiance is a great guy - romantic, kind, considerate, helpful, affectionate, and a dynamo in the sack. And he has a beard that renders one speechless. You may view him (and his beard) in the photo area to the left. I'm rather fond of him, as you can imagine, since I'm such a cynical bitch that marriage would have never otherwise occurred to me. Fortunately, he thinks my comments about stabbing stupid bitches as we walk hand-in-hand through Union Square are amusing. Which means he must be the right one for me.

Enjoy my post-proposal joy:

Growing and growing:

2007-07-25T18:33:00.000-07:00

The lover and I went to L.A. this past weekend. While we were there I noticed my left wrist was kind of stiff and had random aches. On our flight back it felt a little worse, and by the time I woke up right before we landed it had graduated to a dull throb. After we got home, the lovarrr went to work and I ~~took a nap~~ sat down to a long day of working from home. When I ~~woke up from the nap~~ took a break from all my hard work, my wrist and hand hurt like a motherfucker. If I moved my wrist back, like I was pushing someone/something, it felt like I was being stabbed. Awesome!

So, despite my distaste for most doctors, I went to the doctor to get it checked out yesterday. I thought it was just a rockin' case of tendonitis, but I thought I should get it checked out just to be sure it wasn't a stress fracture or wrist-ebola or something. I was hoping that it was just a mild sprain and they would tell me that I needed to get it massaged, which would give me an excuse to go get a manicure. I love manicures. Because I'm a rich asshole.

Instead, the specialist they had me see (thank baby jesus for multi-doctor practices!) told me I have a ganglion cyst. Sexy! It's not sticking out like most examples you will see on the internerds. It's sneaky and hidden, kind of like that one ex-boyfriend I had that used to spy on me when I went out with my friends to see if I'd make out with other dudes or some shit. I need to get an MRI to see how big and how many cysts there are, and that will determine whether I need surgery or just occupational therapy.

Those of you who read this blog frequently (well, as frequently as I post anyway, which is... infrequently) know that I like to name things that grow on or in me. For example, last year, I found out I had a fibroid and named it Fred. So I figure since my wrist is having a synovial-fluid-filled baby, I should name it. After thinking about it for a bit, I decided on a name.

Lindsay. La Lohan if you're nasty.

Now, in light of the attention that Ms. Lohan's arrest is getting today you might think I am doing this because of her current media focus. Rather, I am doing it because I have enjoyed watching her career begin its spiral into what is sure to end up with B-movie soft-core porn. Also, after doing some research I discovered that my cyst is an occult (hidden) dorsal (on the back of the hand) ganglion, which kind of sounds like a satanic dolphin. Seems appropriate.

Do you see the resemblance?

Lindsay:

A ganglion cyst:

I don't know. I think it kind of fits.

The MRI is scheduled for next week. I'll be sure to post updates on my wrist-Lohan since I'm sure the one reader I have left will be on the edge of his or her seat. If you're really good, I'll post surgery photos. While you're eating dinner.

I hate technology:

2007-07-04T20:54:00.000-07:00

I arrived back at my place in L.A. yesterday to find that the DSL had stopped working yet again. Usually we just reset the modem about 7 times and eventually it reconnects, but not this time. After four(!) calls to AT&T's very friendly but completely ineffective technical support, I was told that it can't even be dealt with until at least tomorrow.

On the first call, my AT&T mobile phone dropped the call while they were doing a line test (so much for that "fewest dropped calls" bullshit). On the second, the person told me that there was an outage affecting the area, which was a line of bullshit because every single neighbor I have has AT&T DSL and they were fine. On the third, I got disconnected again(!) and on the fourth they finally told me that they think the problem is with the line but that their line maintenance department was already closed for the day and would also be closed today for the holiday.

Now, mind you, I have called AT&T for this DSL problem at least 4 separate times in the past (all of which involved multiple phone calls/callbacks like this one) and each time they told me the line was fine, it was the modem, or it was an outage, or whatever bullshit crap they decided to feed me that day. I am so fucking over them, but I am determined to get this fixed before I go back to NYC so that my roommate can have unlimited porn downloads again.

In other news, I got a red Blackberry Pearl, and in the meantime I can use it as a tethered modem for internet access. But getting that to work sucked a whole bunch of cocks too, and took about 4 hours of repeated phone calls to AT&T also. After threatening to drop every single AT&T service I have, they finally routed me to a nice Canadian fellow who talked to me like a person instead of a dumb girl who doesn't know anything about computers, and got the tethered modem working perfectly. All I needed was the goddamn initialization commands for the modem, but the first three people I talked to didn't know what I was talking about. So I'm going to write up a little tutorial on how to do it, since they apparently don't have it documented anywhere that their level 1-3 tech support people can find.

And on that note, I'm going to go make myself a nightcap and try to sleep through the fireworks and inevitable guns being shot in the air by my lovely ghetto-tastic neighbors.

Shallow Kat:

2007-06-13T19:07:00.000-07:00

Once again, I was in a city that I thought I wouldn't like that turned out to actually be pretty cool. Last time it was Pittsburgh, this time it was Cleveland. I was bummed that the Indians were out of town, since I like to go to baseball games and haven't checked that stadium off my list. (My goal is to go to every baseball stadium, but I only go when I am traveling for work, since I would never go to a lot of these places on my own. I much prefer to have other people fund my semi-apathetic baseball viewing aspirations.)

Instead I went to the fucking mall because I wanted to see which goddamn handbags and shoes were on sale. I did this even after I a) created a database cataloging all of my purses and shoes, categorized by designer and color, b) added up exactly how much I have spent on purses and shoes in the past two months and c) shot myself in the head for being that fucking shallow. While bleeding from a fresh head wound is bound to cause a saleslady or two to raise an eyebrow, I did manage to score some incredibly comfortable and cute loafers, and while doing so, mentally pruned the list of shit I have recently purchased and decided to return a bunch of it. Therefore, I am going to the other damn mall near(ish) to me in the next couple of days so that I can return two handbags and two pairs of shoes. (Not these skull ones though, as they are too cute to return. Plus I wore them already.)

I have been having some really odd dreams lately, too. Full moon? My subconscious trying to tell me I'm a shallow asshole? Or something else?

Swallowing diamonds:

2007-05-09T15:33:00.000-07:00

Today, I got shipping confirmation for my superhot purse and shoes and other new things that will make me look all glamorous, like a drag queen or perhaps Eddie Izzard. This makes me happy, because it means I will have these new things before our trip this weekend to visit family and I can go get my hair did, put on my ridiculous sunglasses, and look fabulous.

Today, I received our new living room rug and side table/bookcase thingy. The living room is almost complete, except for the three paintings that should be arriving shortly. This also makes me happy because our condo is really starting to look like our home.

Today, the cat puked three times, but not on the new rug or my furniture. This is quite a feat.

Today, I am wearing pants instead of pajamas. Things are looking up.

Obsession:

2007-05-04T22:30:00.000-07:00

I have a bit of a problem with obsession sometimes. When I find something I like, I will think about it, research it, and covet it and its ilk until I somehow satiate myself, usually through mass consumerism of some sort. An example: I hadn't purchased any new shoes in a while and my everyday pair is literally falling apart after two years of daily plodding through NYC and various airports. All that shoe removal at the airport security checkpoint takes its toll. Anyway, I made the mistake of going shopping with my equally shoe-obsessed friend this past weekend, and since then, after being reintroduced to the world of shoe shopping and introduced to a designer that I had previously been blissfully unaware of, I have purchased 5, count 'em, 5 pairs of new shoes. I now have some super-cushioned sandals for summer pedicure display, some mary-janes for cuteness, new patent leather heels for work, some of those goddamn ballet flats that everyone and Mary-Kate are wearing, and a pair of heels with a corset-y detail on them that look like hot sex. And then I just went online and ordered a bag that makes me jizz in my pants every time I think about it. Let's not even get into the fucking sunglasses I bought. I am ridiculous.

Sometimes your maleness amazes me:

2007-04-14T11:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel like all my days/weeks/months blend into each other and then whoops, it's been six months since I called my mother. That is pretty much how I feel about writing on the internets, anymore.

Anyway. Recently I have been in many places, such as Columbus, Philly, and L.A. I don't much care for Columbus, Philly kind of makes me feel like I need a shower, and L.A. is just plain sucky outside of my little artfuck enclave. I am realizing that I need to just get rid of a lot of stuff and move the rest of it eastward. To that end, I will probably be selling a bunch of shit soon.

Actually, on that topic, the lover and I will be back in L.A. next week for Artwalk. I really think you fucking assholes should show up; there will be art, cookies, and the opportunity to purchase some of my childhood. Not to mention the opportunity to walk around inside other people's lofts and ogle their personal belongings. This is a golden fucking opportunity, people. Plus, I might want to take your picture. On my gyno table. (Which is for sale.)

Details are on the Artwalk website.

You're just a love machine:

2007-04-04T18:30:00.000-07:00

Dumb things exes have said to me, Vol. 1: The Body and Sex Issue

"You know, you have a totally kickin' body." (Uh, no, I didn't realize it was "kickin'", but thanks for the memo. Also, what exactly constitues "kickin'"?)
"Don't call it 'fucking' or 'sex' - it's 'making love'. Every time!" (Said by a guy who considered himself "macho", which is in itself an entire blog post.)
"Did you have an orgasm?" (If you don't think I did, I didn't. If you think I did, I probably didn't. If I can't speak English anymore, I did.)
"I know I'm not King Cock or anything..." (Pinkie!)
"I can't sleep here tonight. My mother just called and she needs me to come over." (Said by someone over 30.)

I know you have some good ones. Hit me.

Take this job and shove it:

2007-03-06T14:36:00.000-08:00

In re: this post's title: What, I like cheesy country songs. Deal with it.

Last week I dragged my hot life-partner with me to some fancy shindig where we met Ira Glass, the host of This American Life, and sort of stood back and gawked at the fab columnist who made it popular to use the term "Santorum" to refer to one of the more raunchy scat-related sex acts, Dan Savage. (I also whispered, "Dan, I looooove you!" when he walked by. It wasn't creepy at all.) It was a fucking awesome show, and kind of inspirational in that it made me realize what I realized almost a year ago, which is that I am not exactly what you would call "fulfilled" or "happy" or "gruntled" (which, I suppose, is the opposite of "disgruntled") in my current job.

You see, I have been struggling with where to go and what to do in my career lately. I like what I do, but I am becoming increasingly disillusioned with the framework and context in which I do it. Meaning that though I like dressing in leather-and-steel stilettos, stepping on someone's back, and making him lick said stilettos and call me mistress, I would prefer to do it outside of the confines of the dungeon. Or something like that.

So, after discussing this ad nauseam with my roommate, partner, friends, and cats, I turn to you, the fine people reading this, all one of you, and beg you to give me some of the information stored in your tasty brainmeats.

I feel like I have a couple of options: find another job either with my current employer or some other big ol' behemoth of an organization in the industry, or quit and go work for myself. Having worked for many a corporate behemoth in the industry but having never worked for myself before, I would like to get some tips and information from those of you who have been self-employed or who have started your own companies. I don't care if you started a fucking lemonade stand when you were 7 and sold icy glasses of your own pee with sugar added to an unsuspecting public, I just need to know tips, shit to look out for, pros/cons, etc. I want you to tell me, "yes, you should totally do it and take over the world" or "ohmigod, for the love of all that's holy, don't fucking do it, it's awful", and stuff like that. And maybe that lemonade recipe.

Love to love you, baby:

2007-03-05T09:59:00.000-08:00

Though I'm all warmly ensconced in a committed, monogamous relationship, I sometimes think back on my wild days of wanton hedonism. I don't really regret anything, mostly because I think regret is not an emotion worth spending much energy on, but I do look at all of it as a learning experience. The times I spent in a hotel room with a secret lover (seeeekrit loooveerrrs, yeah, that's what we are), the forbidden passions with hot chix whose boyfriends were out of town, the orgy with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson and a couple of Finnish dwarves... all of these things bring back fond memories, though they're not experiences I'd like to repeat. (Except maybe the Owen Wilson thing.) They were experiences I had at certain times of my life, when I was looking for what I really wanted, and I finally found it.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that my partner (and non-seekrit lover) is a photographer and often has assignments to photograph hot naked chicks in which I get to be the photo assistant.

Sickly:

2007-01-29T09:39:00.000-08:00

What was probably inevitable has now happened - I have a cold of some sort, heralded by the arrival of a sore throat this morning. Though my throat has been dry and scratchy for the past couple of days, I had chalked it up to all the flapping of gums I did at the conference I attended last week. As it turns out, attending a conference with 8,000 other people on the grounds of a Disney property, which, by definition, is filled with germ factories (aka children), is a pretty likely recipe for catching some sort of illness, like the flu or ebola. Of course, I'd planned to take vacation days this week, which pretty much sealed my fate.

So, I will spend the next few days convalescing in my new condo, where I will be cared for by a wonderful domestic partner and an overprotective mother hen. Then I'll go back to work on Thursday and spread whatever microbe I have captured in my upper respiratory tract to the unsuspecting public. It's all a part of my grand scheme for world domination, one frighteningly sore throat at a time.

Presidential:

2007-01-27T22:28:00.000-08:00

I just want to say that if Hilary chooses a thin-bra'ed Natalie Portman as her running mate and insists that every single campaign stop be convened in a cold room, I will totally vote for them.

Yes. I am that superficial.

Just a goddamn job:

2006-12-19T21:55:00.000-08:00

This weekend ruled. I flew home from evil, evil Florida on Friday night in time to meet the lovarrr's flight as it came into LAX from NYC. We spent Saturday prepping for the fab cocktail party my roomie organized, and buying superseekrit Xmas presents. (Shh!) The party was awesome and involved the following: booze, holiday Roca, overly engineered appetizer platters, cat singeing, fresh gingerbread, cleavage, poker, beardbagging, and self-conscious gyno table posing. My parties are badass, motherfuckers.

On Sunday, we had a leisurely breakfast at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, which, if you have not had the pleasure, is the best thing that will ever happen to you, so you should go there right now. Then we went over to Anomaly with our friend Steve, who I like a lot even though he is a Red Sox fan and therefore is required by law to hate me. I, in true fashion, bought a whole bunch of shit. This included buying some Anatometal bling plugs, which have a flare that is seventeen billion times bigger than the wearing surface, so we had to stretch my ears a scoche to get them in. When I was considering them, I thought about what that stretch would mean - that I would need to keep the tunnels in for a while, even at work - and thought that maybe I shouldn't do it. Then I said, "FUCK WORK!" and we proceeded to stretch those bitches right in. I cursed a bit whilst the stretching happened, to the great delight of all present. For the record, I yell things like "SONOFAFUCKINGDICKFUCK" and "COCKANDBALLS!" when I am dealing with pain. Fun for the whole family!

The rest of the weekend was really sappy and full of camera shopping and disgusting professions of affection so I just won't go into it. Suffice it to say that you probably would've vomited if you'd seen us interacting. We are that sappy.

It's awesome.

Moist:

2006-12-04T17:42:00.000-08:00

I got tattooed last night. We added a lotus to my left leg, which is the leg that is slowly turning into a very brightly colored flower garden. The lotus is asphyxia blue, to go with my lily that is labia pink. Pretty! Photos to come when my eyes aren't bleary with post-endorphin sleepiness.

In addition to the monster amounts of travel I have been doing and will be doing for the foreseeable future, I have two more tattoo appointments this month - one with Chris O'Donnell and one with Dan DiMattia - and so I'm making a special effort to take really good care of myself. I'm taking lots of vitamins, keeping hydrated, washing my hands like I have OCD and using saline nasal spray when I fly. What can I say, I like to keep my membranes moist.

Today, I had a lot to do. Laundry, banking, acquiring q-tips... exciting stuff, no? Now I'm sitting in the airport, where I kick off a seemingly neverending trip during which I fly a lot and stay in a lot of hotels before finally going home to sleep in my own goddamned bed already. Can you tell I'm kind of over it?

Han shot first:

2006-11-18T22:20:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, my lovarrr and I watched all six episodes of Star Wars, much to the chagrin of my roommate, who kept poking his head into the room and yelling about what giant nerds we were. My conclusion is this: George Lucas must be stopped. If one man can manage to make a bad actor out of Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, and Liam Neeson, can choose an actor who quite possibly out-Ryan-Phillippes Ryan Phillippe in wooden acting to play the most pivotal character in the entire series, and makes changes to his earlier films that RUIN THEM COMPLETELY, then yeah. Fuck that guy.

Anyway, I closed on my condo on Thursday, which was simultaneously one of the easiest and one of the most surreal experiences of my life. I signed my name so many times that by the end it looked like my name was "kth mcsfjsi" and then walked out with a big fat deed to my very own shiny new condo. We have already started moving shit in, and the movers will come to get the rest of it next Tuesday. We still haven't decided on the details for the housewarming party, but you can be damned sure I will have one, if only to prove this goober right in his suspicion that I am only buying this place to have an excuse to have another housewarming party. Fucking Canadians.

Holy shit, I'm a homeowner!

Turn on the bright lights:

2006-11-07T04:54:00.000-08:00

Sometime around the middle of last year, I started toying with the idea of moving back to NYC. Eventually, after thinking about it, I decided to be bicoastal and have roommates on both coasts. After Keith died, I worked hard to make it happen, and in February, finally got a place in NYC with my good friend the devil. Alas, it is a rental, and at some point I wanted to buy, because buying property is a good investment and I'm all growed up or something.

So, one day I was in a cab on my way home and I went past this awesome building. It had a sign on it that said there were condos available. I went home and researched it and found out that the building had just been redone from apartments to condos and was in its initial sales phase. Hooray! So my lovarrrr, my evil roommate, and I all went down and examined the condos until we found one that was to our liking (and one that had bedrooms far enough apart so that I do not have to hear the screams of the tortured souls coming from Beelzebub's bedroom anymore). Then I wrote a freaking ginormous check as a down payment, and after we close this month, I will be the proud owner of an apartment in NYC.

I'm not giving up the place in L.A. - after all, what kind of bicoastal bitch would I be if I just up and left - but I will be switching my permanent residence and all that stuff to NY after the first of the year. And, as you may have noticed from my implication above, I will be shackin' up with my gender-nonspecific lover, who apparently doesn't mind living with a tempestous redhead and a manifestation of Satan.

(Image is the view from the roof of the new building.)

Bad penny:

2006-09-20T07:23:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to decide whether or not to take a formal hiatus from this and most of my other blogs, however formal a hiatus can be when you only post once a month to a weblog that is primarily read by people you talk to every day anyway. Sometimes I feel like I don't have anything interesting to say, and sometimes I feel like I have so much to say that I can't coherently put together a post without going off on 27 tangents and then arriving back at the original topic all winded and disheveled like a whore who just took on Kobe Bryant and his entourage. I suppose I could write about how the recent War on Moisture at US airports is keeping us safe from ~~grandmas with arthritis cream~~ ~~hydration~~ ~~envy over your seatmate's mocha frappuccino~~ terrorists, or how much I love mid-80s punk/hardcore/anger rock, or some sappy bullshit about how wonderful my life partner is (seeing as how I still have yet to use a gender-specific word about said life partner, and you people still haven't even hazarded a single fucking guess about whether I'm getting head from someone with a real cock or a silicone one, or both). I could write about all those things, but instead I sit and look at a blank fucking blogger entry page and never get started. Until today.

I guess this means I'm not taking a hiatus. Goddammit.

I think I fucked your girlfriend once.
Maybe twice, I don't remember.
Then I fucked all your friends' girlfriends...
Now they hate you.

TSA, WTF?:

2006-08-21T10:42:00.000-07:00

L.A. roomie and I have been totally hermiting it up lately. We like hiding out in our cave-rooms with our respective room air conditioners blasting and watching marathons of I Love the 70s on VH1. We did take a little field trip on Saturday so I could get a steakwich, though. Yum.

Afterwards, I went and purchased a nice, small carry-on that will accommodate one work outfit, a pair of shoes, and my camera. I have to check my regular suitcase because I'm bringing SUPER DANGEROUS STUFF like shampoo and sunscreen, and if they lose my checked bag I don't want to have to show up to client sites wearing my travel uniform of jeans, flip flops, and a West Memphis Three tshirt. I haven't checked a bag for a domestic flight in over 2 1/2 years. Now, due to the fact that I have to check my toiletry items, I have to add at least an hour and a half of extra travel time to every flight I'm on to comply with the "security" measures that the completely inept DHS and TSA have foisted upon the traveling public. Sure, I could buy crap in every city I go to and then discard the partially used items when I leave, but that's extremely wasteful and I don't want to fuck the environment in the asshole just because the government is fucking me in mine.

I think I'm going to send the Department of Homeland Security (which is the fucking lamest name I've ever heard for a government agency) a bill for the luggage. And I might fill my carry-ons with dildos that have condoms and lube on them. Hey, TSA, if you want to confiscate them, GO AHEAD. But you have to pick them up yourself.

Built for two:

2006-08-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

Since I got the fabulous bike for my birthday, I decided that I should maybe learn to ride again. Considering that I haven't ridden a bicycle since my life partner was born (yes, I am robbing the cradle), I am a little concerned about just strapping on a cute pink helmet and taking to the streets of New York. So, logic would dictate that the best thing for me to do is... buy another bike in L.A. so I can practice here. Therefore, I went to the bicycle shop yesterday and got an Electra Townie. This bike is really neat because the seat is low and back a little from the pedals, so when you are stopped you can plant your feet flat on the ground. I think this is a good idea for people like me who are balance-challenged. I still can't keep it upright, but hey. I'm trying.

This week I am working from home and trying to catch up on all of my administrative bullshit. I really, really need a personal assistant to do all of my expenses and stuff for me, and to write reports for me as I dictate them. Then they could yell at the software when it blows up and makes them lose their work, and I could lounge around eating bonbons. Any takers?