Ernie & I were getting our nails done the other night when the fabulous woman at the front window suddenly gasped. A cow in Lycra from head to toe passed by.
Fabulous Woman: Why do they even make stretch pants that size?
Ernie: They don't.
Me: It makes you wonder what kind of friends let them go out looking like sausage.
The Fabulous Woman tuned to me and said: Well, not real friends, for sure.
Gobbles!
Even better than one thanksgiving dinner is a second thanksgiving dinner. Mr. Bernard cooked up a fabulous feast, and we ate with disco music spinning in the background. After several helpings and a little pie, we switched to the dishTV gospel music station & got lifted. Then we flipped over to South Park, one of my favorite episodes, the one where the boys adopt a starving Ethiopian child & name him 'Starvin Marvin.' Adorable. Then we ate more pie, and had some wine with cheese & crackers.
I just awoke from a thirty-two hour hibernation.
The High Road
I’ve seen the footage from Friday night's Pistons-Pacers game, which turned into a battle royal between audience members and players. It's an embarrassment on both sides of the sport, serving on a larger scale as an example of the growing loss of civility and decorum in this country, perhaps the world at large. Get pissy, start a fight, pass the blame around, then do nothing to change the behavior leading up to an incident of violence.
Instead, as in the Sports Illustrated article linked above, ominous warnings about how "things are getting worse" are peddled out with sincerity of wisdom, rather than as casual observation. Get a clue, people; it’s already gotten much worse than it ever was, it's never going to get better. On or off the court, we’re fucked. Dignity? Pride? Honor? Respect? Words as dead as "taking the high road," "having class," or "showing grace under fire."
Physical Assistant.
...and the winner is -- Nurse Kent
I received several applications for the male nurse position on my staff. Thanks to all those that entered & took part in the blogpoll.
FourThirty's reply.
(* see Nov.3 entry, bottom of this page)
Well, all I can say is I've never felt like more of a self-centered prick. I'll be over it in about two seconds. My personality may be toxic, but at least I have one.
Truthfully, I don’t know if I wrote the letter because: a) I was moved & felt compelled to offer some “liberating” advice b) I wanted to justify my own actions, or c) it serves as an illustration of someone who ran away in fear rather than being paralyzed by it.
Action equals change. Find your happiness 430, any way you may choose.
ps-you need a guestbook, girl!
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Would you believe...
I'm paralyzed? How about "temporarily" paralyzed? Okay, would you believe I pulled a back muscle and couldn’t get out of bed yesterday?
How about some degree of physical pain that prevented me from moving for the last thirty-six hours? Seriously, I’m not that lazy.
Anyone know a good private nurse? I do not prefer a physically attractive appearance over credentials, but hot boys that are less inhibited by a conventional uniform do gain favor.
Thanksgiving Dinner
I'm doing the holidays early this year. Working late at the office Friday night, Weezy & I ordered from Canters off Fairfax in Hollywood. The best part about Canters is that you can have Thanksgiving Dinner everyday. When I got home, kitty & I had the best thanksgiving ever.
It’s always about shopping, more shopping.
Last night I met a boy. His name was Jonathan. A bit shorter than me, milk chocolate skin, light brown eyes, and a great big beautiful smile. As a Levis salesperson, he wasn’t hard to convert. Jonathan agreed with the foundation of my belief system. Shopping is the answer, not Jesus.
Then he gave me a mark down on a fabulous fitted jacket.
Messages to Myself
Last summer, not this past summer but the one before that, I was working for a magazine doing feature interviews and profiles. I'd never done an interview, nor do I consider myself a journalist. A journalist leaves the office to gather materials and create the story. As an entertainment writer, I make stuff up, give a review, or use the press kit provided by the studio. I wasn’t particularly fond of taking on the role of the press. That’s really not the point.
The magazine, a cross-cultural guide map to Los Angeles, never took off. My only souvenir from the mismanaged experience is the micro-tape recorder I purchased to document my interviews. I could have opted for digital, but the old school tape format made me feel like a character out of All the President’s Men. I learned a couple of things by using the micro-tape, the first being that people generally flip-out, get super nervous, and almost completely change personality when you turn on a recording device. The second and even more important lesson is that all purchases made for business use, even if you’re not technically paid for the job they were purchased for, can be written off at tax time.
I’ve since found an alternative use for micro-tape recorder, although I seem to be stuck in phase one. Random thoughts pop into my head all the time, however I’m usually much too busy shopping or grooming to write them down. Now I just pull the sleek, jet blue micro out of my man-purse and record the mental inspiration for future reference. The only problem is, I never make it to the second phase, actually taking it out of my bag to transcribe its contents.
Even so, my accountant assures me that I can write off the purchase of additional tapes, the labels I use to archive them, and the pens I use to mark the labels.
There's a pill for that.
Yes. I really think if you're idiot enough to blindly trust drug companies that you have no right to bitch and complain if you die. These commercials suggest you ask a doctor if their product is "right for you" without mention of what it's prescribed for. Being ignorant does not make you a victim, just stupid.
I just saw a commercial for a medication in which the possible side effects, including blood clots & heart attack, took up two-thirds of the advertisement. You know what? I hope a bunch of people take it and they all die. Stupid asthmatics.
Damn.
Honestly, I blame the Kerry/Edwards team. They clearly had the opportunity and failed by 137,000 votes in a single swing state. As usual, media hoopla & political propaganda managed to overshadow the real issues. This served to shift ballots to the right and caused a few state wide propositions to pass here in California which might further serve to muddle the legal process and allow corporations to dump toxins into our neighborhoods [69 & 64, respectively].
Various anti-gay amendments were also passed in eleven different states. As I’ve said before, I don’t give a poo about no gay marriage. Marriage is marriage, neither straight nor gay; it’s a legal partnership. We’ll settle this one in the courts and win on the premise of equal rights. It still sets a tone, unfortunately, and leans towards civil unions.
Watch carefully as a thick gloss of unity is painted over the gaping divide over the war. We are still at war, you know. A study by the John Hopkins School of Medicine that estimates 30,000 – 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualties has gone mostly ignored in the States. To put it in a conservative perspective, a US soldier was killed today, another wounded. That’s 1,124 military fatalities and counting.
A few weeks ago I sent this email to FourThirty...
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Fergie wrote:
> Hey 430,
I come across a lot of online journals, but it’s rare for me to take the time and read every single post. Yours was an exception. Then again, you have a grand total of 4 entries.
I’ll keep it short, because I have no idea if the contact info on your site will hit an active inbox... so if you’re getting this, let me know.
F.
I’ve had no reply, so I feel compelled to post the following open letter:
--This is where you realize you should have followed the link above & read FourThirty’s entry--
4-3-0
Your words resonated deeply, taking me all the way back to March of 1996. That’s when I decided to run away from my life. I’d been contemplating the idea for some time. One night a friend called my bluff and started packing my clothes in a large duffel bag. We loaded that bag, two leather suitcases, and an oversized trash liner into my trunk; the absolute maximum we could both carry in a single trip.
I should pause to paint a clearer picture, because it was more like loading my ton-o-luggage on Glitter Queen’s lap while she sat in her wheelchair and clung to my possessions for dear life. We rolled into the parking lot without any loss of clothing or toppling over; balance and coordination were with us. That, and the Queen can grow ten-times strong for very short periods of time. Without missing a beat, we popped the trunk and stashed everything in the back with a giant heave.
When we got in the car, I knew she wouldn’t stop me from taking her over state lines. She called her daddy for a plane ticket back home, I withdrew every last penny from my bank account, and we hit the road for Hollywood. Two hundred miles passed before either of us fully realized we had no intention of stopping or rational thought.
So, if you’re not in love with your husband, if you honestly feel the way you say you do, and if you know in your heart that you need to move on, then stop the talk and fucking get to it. Clear your mind of everything except forming an immediate, logical plan to get out on your own. Make a clean [non-confrontational] getaway and do it now. Run far away, Simba, and never come back.
It goes without saying that things will be messy when life inevitably snaps back to daily reality. You may have to recover from a slight case of emotional whiplash. By the time the shock of what you’ve done wears off, you’ll be too far gone to turn back. No lie. I moved into my first LA apartment without a single piece of furniture and slept on the floor every night for three weeks. I sure as hell didn’t have much, but that means everything I’ve accomplished here in Los Angeles has been completely on my own terms. And that’s what life should really be about.
I’m fully aware this course of action is completely self-centered, seemingly detached, underhanded, and may leave emotional scars. You have a family, responsibilities, a routine, but does that mean your path is irreversibly chosen in life? You’re never going to be a hero for running out on your kids. Only you can decide if they’d be better off without you. When you’re settled, after the Big Change, you’ll be a different person on the inside. A happy person, a better one, maybe a better mother too.
I might be hitting a nerve. I’m a bit forward. I overstep my boundaries. I found your site because you added me as a d-land favorite; direct [or indirect] communication is not exempt from the same face-slapping bitchery I post in my blog, your choice to keep living in misery or admit that I’m right.
=F=
© copyright Wes Ferguson
2001-2006