Another Crush Bites The Dust

Okay, so I always have a short list of celebrities that I fantasize about. And the list is always pretty short because I’m picky and if I don’t think I’d actually LIKE the person I can’t get hot and bothered over them. Silly but true. I don’t have to think they’d want to have sex with ME but I have to think that after being in a room with them for an hour I’d still want to have sex with them. I’ve met just enough famous people to know that just celebrity or just power by itself isn’t going to do the trick.

And the list changes, usually very abruptly. For example I (like I think 75% of the women and 35% of the men on the planet) had a HUGE crush on Legolas in Lord of the Rings. I loved his hot little elf self and usually I don’t even like blonds. Or guys with long hair. But the moment I saw pictures of his actual brown haired brown eyed (normally something I’d prefer) scrawny ass cavorting on a beach with that skinny blond girlfriend of his it was over. And I even really liked the first Pirates movie but Johnny Depp in Eyeliner still did it for me WAY more thanOrlando ever could. And Johnny Depp hasn’t done it for me since I discovered over a decade ago that he just doesn’t shower enough to meet my hygiene standards. Another example is Johnny Lee Miller known for (in no particular order) being Sick Boy in Trainspotting, Being Dade in Hackers and marrying Angelina Jolie (who was in Hackers with him). I saw Hackers without any of that other knowledge and loved it (shut up) and loved loved LOVED him. Huge crush. And then I found out that he was married to Angelina Jolie and that when they said their vows she was wearing, wait let me find the exact description online, “The bride wore black rubber pants and a white shirt with his name written on it, in her own blood.” And that was the end of that. Anyone who wants a wedding like that is too weird for me.

Other obstacles, like being dead (I love Cary Grant) being gay (see: Cary Grant) don’t really seem to bother me. But if you’re a jerk or you smell bad or you’re a true freak then, well, you’re off the list.

One name that’s been on the list for a while is Robbie Williams. Who I probably wouldn’t know about at all if one of my gay friends hadn’t persistently exposed me to his music and videos over the years. He was huge in England (in a boy band that makes the Backstreet Boys look like the Mormon Tabernacle choir – don’t believe me – look up TAKE THAT on youtube) went solo, had one semi-hit here (Millenium) but has pretty much remained a big deal only to English people and Gay people because, despite all his protests, he runs around acting totally gay. But he’s got a fabulous body, I like his songs and every interview I’ve ever seen of him made me totally like him and think he was funny and a bit of a goof. And gay, but that’s fine because well, anyone who knows my history knows that gay guys and I go fairly well together. As my friend Tommy used to put it, “Laurel, just one more part of the coming out process… Girls, Laurel, Boys.” And since it took me way too long to learn there were many reasons not to date guys prettier than you I couldn’t really argue with him.

So I’ve enjoyed my Robbie Williams crush and several songs off his new album (driving through the Castro with the windows down and Rudebox pumping from my stereo – very happy making) including one called “She’s Madonna”

Let’s examine the chorus shall we?

I love you baby
but face it she's Madonna
No man on earth
would say that he don't want her
It's me not you
I've got to move on
You're younger too
but she's got her groove on
I'm sorry love
Madonna's calling me

Okay, so my take on that was Madonna walking down the middle of a street and men pouring out of their houses to follow her. Of course what Robbie Williams didn’t know when he wrote this is that the song doesn’t really work because most straight guys are terrified of Madonna. Between the weird outfits and how sexually aggressive (and potentially kinky) she is your basic straight guy would run in the other direction. GAY guys, on the other hand, love her for exactly the same reasons. But whatever. It is a cute song. Robbie Williams loves her, he got the Pet Shop Boys to sing backup, more power to him.

And then today I saw the video on YouTube. I will post the link to the video at the end of my post because I really cannot do it justice with words.

Okay. So Robbie Willaims doesn’t want to be WITH Madonna he wants to BE Madonna. And that? Is so not hot. I think I actually might have been able to survive the video (I mean I survived the one where he strips down to nothing and then strips his freaking skin off) if there hadn’t been the FREAKYASS interview clips of him dressed up as a deranged and badly done Madonna-esque drag queen. (and WHY were the drag queens in the video so angry?) I saw that and it was over. Done. The video ended and all I felt was vaguely creeped out and pretty sure Alexis Arquette IS post-op now. Oh and that straight guys don’t know who Alexis Arquette IS much less have him/her and a ton of other drag queens in their videos. And just as much of it as I saw finding the link to paste in creeped me out again. Because THAT GUY? I don’t want to have sex with and, a bit like finding out you were sleeping with someone who was cheating or on drugs or whatever, I feel a bit dirty for EVER having had sex with him in my own head. If I could mop my brain and scour the corners and spray Lysol around I totally would.

Instead I am going to delete his songs off my ipod (until I get some distance and get over it) and try to find some new fabulous person to have the fake hots for. Maybe one of those boys from that movie The Covenant I just watched on PPV last week. Yummy.

Related Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2vHGL7GVcg

ALL CHANGE HAS TO START SOMEWHERE

I may need to, I don't know, start an organized formal protest about this one in the future but for now this will have to do. If you agree with me maybe together we can really cause some change for good. But we have to stick together as women and speak up.

Yesterday while wandering through the Bloomingdales mall waiting for Joel to finish his dental appointment and meet me for lunch I had the opportunity to stare in horror at pretty much every display window of every store.

I now deeply believe this needs to be said to the fashion industry:

You cannot make me BUY formal shorts and you certainly cannot make me WEAR formal shorts. Not only can you not make me wear them but you most certainly cannot make me wear them with a sleeveless turquoise blouse with gathering along every seam and gold lame 3 inch spike sandals. And I am not even going to start on the plastic bead necklaces.

You can make formal shorts in linen. You can make them in polka-dotted satin (and you have) you can pair them with sequined chemise tank tops and scrunchy boots or puffy jackets and knee socks. I am not wearing them. No one I know is wearing them. Even the mannequins look embarrassed and the guy manikins standing next to them (who are not wearing any deranged guy equivalent) look like they have no idea how they got stuck next to the girl wearing the crazy.

I am talking to you BEBE and ANN TAYLOR and ANNE KLEIN and BCBG and GUESS and DKNY. Stop it. I am tired of buying all my clothing from American Eagle Outfitters online. And also I want new boots but I hate wedge heels so knock that crap off too.

I’m asking nicely. Please don't make me organize. I  already know the GO FUG YOURSELF girls are with me on this.

Pillows are supposed to HELP you sleep, right?

This all started a LONG time ago. Like when I was a helpless infant and my parents read somewhere that sleeping with a pillow was bad for your back. So they never gave me a pillow. Which meant I never learned to sleep ON a pillow.

For a long time this wasn’t really a problem. Occasionally I might get teased at slumber parties when everyone else crawled into their sleeping bags and pulled out their pillows and I HAD no pillow but other than that it didn’t come up much.

In college the dorm mattresses were basically like a large version of a plastic seat cushion, and about as thick and soft, so I stole the world’s flattest pillow from a boyfriend and used that for years. It was, no joke, about an inch and a half thick. It basically just made that end of the bed soft enough to lay my head on.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to purchase pillows I could sleep on (the kind you can flatten to nothing in the middle) but according to John 90% of the time I shove them off the bed within an hour of falling asleep anyway.

Why is ANY of this important? Well, because when I jack up my neck (usually by doing something like spending 7 uninterrupted hours in front of the computer, which is what I did this last time creating a photo book on Shutterfly) it usually takes the shape of the natural curve of my neck being lost. Which is a problem. It causes backaches, headaches and general misery and requires many trips to the chiropractor to fix it.

When we got our new mattress last month and were getting things free to go along with it I got one of those tempurpedic pillows that are supposed to be so great. But it wasn’t comfortable. So I didn’t use it. I asked my chiropractor about it and he said, “This it away!” Because, apparently, they are only good for your neck if you are sleeping on your back with your head perfectly in the middle. If you slide down or roll over onto your side it is BAD for your neck. So I tossed it into the closet when I got home and was really glad I hadn’t paid the $100 or whatever regular price for it.

But this still left me with no pillow. Our new mattress is really comfy but I could tell I still needed something to support my neck. And supporting the curve in my neck my chiropractor is beating the hell out of me to put BACK seemed like a good idea. I noticed that the chiropractor had pillows for sale. They look like regular pillows except there is a rectangle stitched into the middle creating an indentation. I asked, he swore how fabulous they were for your neck and I gave him $40 (well, actually I gave the receptionist $40). So that night I tried to sleep on it and by the time John finished reading to me my neck was starting to hurt and I was deeply uncomfortable. So I flung it to the floor and John SIGHED and I was like “well, I think it would make a really nice cat bed” and he sighed a few more times and asked if I would please STOP buying pillows I don’t use.

So I told the chiropractor about this yesterday and he told me that it takes at least THREE WEEKS to get used to the pillow that I should start out just trying to lay on it for 15 minutes, then move up to half an hour, then an hour and EVENTUALLY I will be able to sleep on it. So I now am TRAINING to sleep on this damn pillow.

Last night: I managed to lay on it almost half an hour before hurling it across the room. YAY ME.

FICTION: excerpt: The Soul Eater

Jennalise opened her eyes. Something had awakened her. By the movement inside her tiny cottage she could tell that something had woken her animals as well. A sound? No. She had always had very acute hearing and over the years she had trained herself to open her ears and her mind further. To hear sounds whose resonance still hung in the air after it was past hearing. Nothing.
 She swung her feet over the side of the bed and enjoyed the cold delicious feel of the hardwood on her bare feet. Without bothering to light a lamp she brushed her long gray hair away from her face and made her way to the door, carefully stepping over the silent but alert mastiff that lay protectively across her doorstep. “It’s okay Bayou” she said to him. The moment she opened the door both her cats leapt silently over the dog’s hulking form and scampered out into the night.  She nodded once at the dog and then closed the door behind her. She stood in the grass, wet and dewy and let the mist wash over her. Her thin nightshirt slowly was becoming damp. God she loved it up here. The weather, the thickness of the air, was one of the main reasons she had chosen to live up on this hill surrounded by the dense and pulsating city below. The air was thicker and there was more energy in it. All those lives and thoughts and words seemed to become almost trapped in the foggy mists that blew perpetually over the city. Some nights you could pull whole sentences, whole emotions from it. Most of her kind preferred the tree-covered hills to the north. Of course most of her kind also preferred being part of a coven. Not Jennalise. Aside from the training she had received from the old woman she had always worked alone. She found that solitary practice allowed her to dispense with needless ceremony and focus on her work. She didn’t bow and scrape to ancient god and goddesses. She listened and learned.

Tonight there was something in the air. Again. In the last month she and her animals had been woken in the middle of the night several times. Slowly she walked to the base of the huge Redwood tree that grew in the middle of her yard. At least 100 years old, it was huge and gnarled and strong. Taking a deep breath, she slowly relaxed her body until it was pressed completely against the tree. Her cheek resting against the bark, she slowed her body and her mind and let herself feel nothing but the tree. There it was. Just for a second she picked it up. One transient thought.  Evil. And it was near enough that some of it had been caught in the branches of the tree. Evil on her mountain. She steadied herself, patted the bark of the tree appreciatively and walked forward towards the back door of the main house that lay 100 feet in front of her cottage.

She quickly punched in the 5-digit code that dismantled the burglar alarm and then opened the door. She reached for the light switch and the kitchen lit up. She looked around and made a mental note that she really needed to dust in here. She had purchased the house seven years before because she had wanted the cottage and the tree that stood between the two structures. The large front house was her screen and she tried to maintain it. It was furnished and decorated and looked, she hoped, like the house of a very Spartan person who just didn’t remember to dust very often. She had the lights in the rooms on a very elaborate timer system so that they went on and off as seemingly randomly as the lights in the other large expensive houses around her. She spent very little time here, preferring immensely the tiny cottage with its wood floors, piles of books, tiny wood burning stove and comfortable single bed beneath the window. A witch didn’t need all this space to fill with possessions and distractions.  The one thing she did keep in the main house was her computer. Unlike many of her kind, Jennalise didn’t shun technology. At 47 she could have justified technological ignorance with the “I’m too old to learn all that new fangled stuff” excuse but she hadn’t.  The Internet had opened up a whole new world of exploration to her. She walked down the hall to her study, a room with a desk, chair and computer, and turned the machine on.

Three hours later, as the sun was just beginning to color the sky, she turned it off again. She gathered up the files she had printed out and hugged the pages to her chest. Three dead bodies on her mountain. No determination to the cause of death on any of them. Jenna knew that all you had to do to kill someone was take his or her life. That tiny fragile flicker was all that kept people going. With a shiver she quickly made her way back to her cottage where Bayou, her ever-faithful guardian, was still waiting patiently. She smiled and squatted down to pet his silky coat. “Good boy” she said to him, “Go on outside and have a romp. I’m fine.” The dog looked at her questioningly for a second and then got to his feet and padded outside where he immediately began sniffing a bush. Jenna smiled for a second and then closed the door firmly. She had work to do.

Bayou sniffed again. He trotted over to where the edge of her garden backed into the woods and sniffed again. Lingering in the air above the smell of ragweed and dill he caught the faintest whiff. They had been there. He had seen them. Yellow eyes watching him from the trees. But no sound. No howl or bark. Just the watching hungry eyes. The eyes that were growing in numbers. He looked back at the cabin. She didn’t know about the silent eyes. He marked their territory again, his only spell, and then padded back to the cabin and scratched politely at the door. When she opened it he stepped inside and then waited for her to resume whatever task she had been about. As soon as she sat back down at the small table, piled to overflowing with books, he placed his giant head in her lap and looked at her. Hard and unblinking. A few times before he had been able to get a hazy thought across to her. Somehow he had to make her aware of the not-wolves.

“Bayou” Jennalise gave his head a playful shove, “I appreciate the adoration but I’m working right now. Go lay down.” The dog merely continued to stand his ground and look at her. He tilted his head up so that, with her seated, their heads were almost level. As she reached for another book he laid his paw over hers. Startled she looked back at the dog. “Bayou?” she laid a hand on his head and met the dog’s gaze. Rarely had he looked at her that intently. “Okay boy” she said quietly “Okay.” She took a deep breath and then let it slowly out, emptying her mind of all the thoughts that had been swirling around a moment before.  Jenna pressed her forehead against the dog’s brow and waited. A hazy image flickered in her mind.

Yellow eyes…

Bayou felt her eyes start open and sat back on his haunches to look at her. Her face was white and she was sweating. He licked her hand and then walked slowly over to his post by the door. She knew now and he was tired. Turning around three times he laid down and quickly fell asleep.

Jennalise sat at her kitchen table with Bayou lying across her feet. She nudged his heavy frame with one foot, “Where were you, you silly swamp mutt?” She hadn’t been able to find him all afternoon, and then she’d thought she’d heard the faint ring of the doorbell of the big house. But when she’d finally pulled herself out of the cottage, crossed the yard, and opened the front of the big house, there was no one there, though she could still faintly hear a doorbell ringing. When she’d shut it and turned around, there was Bayou. “How did you get in here?” She asked him. He’d been acting strangely lately. The house was curiously silent, even more silent than usual. She listened again. No doorbell. Jenna patted Bayou on the head and walked back out the back door, making sure he was following, set the alarm again and went back into her cottage. Bayou only stopped once, perking up his ears, and looking back at the big house. Jennalise stopped too, calling him, and then stopping in the middle of his name. She could almost swear that she heard a little boy talking, but then the sound was gone.

In the last few days she had spent many hours on the Internet and even more reading through her oldest texts. Last night she had laid awake all night with the windows open, trying to pinpoint the source of the evil. Bayou had disappeared several times in the last few days. She hadn’t worried about it too much, he was his own dog, but she wished she knew what his canine senses had detected. She wished they could compare notes. In the morning all she knew for sure was that it was close. She sighed and decided to make herself a cup of tea. Stoking the wood stove she put on the kettle and then opened the cupboard and pulled down a loaf of bread, cutting off a slice and munching as she waited for the water to boil. She thought again of Bayou’s absences. She wondered if they were looking for the same thing. Tonight she would take him for a walk. Hopefully, he would walk her.

The Ballad of the Pink Cowboy Boots

It was Thursday, PMS Thursday to be exact, and I was sorting through the pile of mail that had been shoved into out box. Bills, a postcard and seven or eight catalogs.

I was halfway through the Lerner catalog when they leapt out at me from the page – PINK COWBOY BOOTS. Ever since I was a little girl I have wanted a pair of pink cowboy boots. I still remember showing a high heeled pair to my mother four different times during various shopping trips to theValley Plaza in the hopes they should show up under the Christmas tree. My mother, sadly, was of the opinion that 14-year-old girls didn’t NEED high-heeled cowboy boots in any color. Every once in awhile I’d catch sight of pink cowboy boots in a store display but store was always StrideRite and they were always for little girls. It seemed so unjust.

And now, all these years later, there they were, PINK BOOTS in MY SIZE and they were only $49.99! What a bargain! I was so excited. I carefully folded the page back and laid it on my nightstand to show John when he got home from work.

I forgot all about them until we were getting into bed and the sight of the catalog jogged my memory. “Look!” I said, shoving the catalog towards him, “pink cowboy boots and they’re only $50! And you said you were going to buy me a present because I have been so good lately!" He look from me to the boots and back at me again, a pained expression on his face. He was silent for a moment and then said, “Why don’t we wait a few days before ordering them just to make SURE this isn’t a PMS purchase, okay?” I happily agreed knowing that come Monday or Tuesday I would still want them. I had waited my whole life… I could wait a few more days.

Sunday, on the way back from running errands, John suggested we stop at the Playmobil store. We’d been checking in every few weeks to see if the new figures were in. A quick check of the shelves confirmed they finally were in. We happily marched up to the counter with a bag full of rocks, the Spirit, the Royal Guard and Robin Hood. As we were leaving John gleefully said, “See, now I got you a treat so I don’t have to buy you those pink boots… of course if you want to make them your yearly boot purchase that’s up to you.”  I glared at him and shook my head. I wanted those boots, but I only get one major boot purchase a year and usually they cost a lot more than $50. “Thbbt,” I thought, “I’ll just use my frivolous money to buy them for myself!” and then went back to being all excited about my new Playmobil figures.

Skip ahead to New Orleans. Evelyn and I spent a good portion of our time shopping (shocking I know). As we were passing this trendy bondage-y kinda store I spotted a bunch of boots and we wandered in (feeling and looking like tourists from Iowa in our shorts and tennies) I was admiring a lovely pair of cow patterned boots when Evelyn squealed and called me over. In her hand she was holding a pink, glittery, high-heeled platform boot! It was glorious and it was only $30! I grabbed the boot from her and thought with glee what great revenge buying them would be. If pink cowboy boots made John wince, pink glitter bondage boots would probably kill him. Or make him whimper at the very least. We decided to shop a bit more and come back later.

A couple hours and many blocks, stores and purchases later we came across a very trendy clothing store that also had boots in the window. I dragged Evelyn in and there found my true boot purchase for the year – kicky Crimson Patent Leather Boots. I knew these were the boots for me and I knew that although John probably wouldn’t love them they at least wouldn’t make him cry. And I’d probably get more use out of them because, honestly, how many places can you wear pink glitter bondage boots?

So now I am home with my new crimson boots lovingly tucked into my boot box but I haven’t yet been able to throw away the Lerner catalog. It has been sitting on my nightstand all this time, pink cowboy boots calling to me as I walk past. As for my plan of spending my frivolous money on them? I came back from New Orleans with -$4.00 and it is gonna be awhile until I get paid again. My compromise? To write the whole story out for you and then send you the page from the catalog so that you may enjoy them and I won’t accidentally spend money I don’t have.