July 15th, 2003 12:38 am - A Day in the Temp Life
I am tired of the monotony of my days It's all my fault I am tired of the monotony of my days It's all my fault I am tired of the monotony of my days It's all my fault I am tired ...
Walk down to the subway tunnel. It's humid as hell. You're sweating already. The train finally comes. It's hotter on the train. Sit next to a middle-aged Asian woman reading the Holy Scriptures. There's an ant crawling on her white pants leg. You start to smell a fart. Get up immediately. If you think they'll stop at just one then you're a Pollyanna fool. I can guarantee you, they'll keep coming. Anyone who lets a fart go in a crowded train's got much bigger problems coming down the pike. Get up. You don't deserve this. No matter what you've done in the past -- who you've hurt, who you've cheated on, whose kid you hit -- you don't deserve this. Treat yourself. Move.
Arrive at work covered in sweat. Make a beeline for the ladies' room. Peel off your thigh-high stockings and throw 'em in the trash. They're too tight and they make your thick, sweat-slicked legs look segmented.
In the copy room, a big, fat lout of a woman who's been working in the same department for 15 years sneers at your already-grimy feet with scabs on the heels from your bad shoes. Also, the polish is completely chipped off one toenail. Resist the urge to inform her that you can always get a pedicure, but she'll always be...
Attend a meeting where you're informed that the mountain of mind-numbing paperwork you've finally accepted as your lot will be tripled. Also, would you like to work there permanently? They want your response now. Try to stop sweating.
Pray that they can't hear the pounding of your heart. Try to breathe evenly. Hold them off with feigned enthusiasm as you calculate exactly how many seconds it'll take to Tae-Kwon-Do your way through the room to the nearest emergency stairwell, or through the window if need be. Stare at the ghost of your six-year-old self staring right back at you, who knew she'd be a ballet dancer or an astronaut, whichever she liked more.
Then take it.
July 13th, 2003 10:34 pm
Everything I've Ever Slept On or With, in My Own Bed (a partial list)
1. Boyfriends
2. One-night stands
3. Gay (male) best friends
4. Husbands
5. Roommates
6. Cats
7. Cousin (female)
8. Cookies, potato chips, M&Ms, ice cream, etc.
9. Food wrappers & containers
10. Silverware
11. Ants, spiders, June bugs, fleas, roach eggs, scabies
12. Dirty clothes (esp. socks & underwear)
13. Shoes
14. Sweat, jizz, pee, poop, santorum, blood, tears, snot
15. Kleenex & toilet tissue, sanitary napkins, MonistatTM applicators
16. Hair, dander, scabs, toe jam
17. Earrings, bobby pins, barrettes, hair ties, ribbons
18. Plastic & paper bags
19. Pens, pencils, White-OutTM, notebooks, textbooks, literature
20. Coins & bills
21. Dirt, sand, dust
22. Cat hair, spray, vomit, & roundworms
Things That Have Never Been in My Bed (the complete list)
1. Crabs
2. Lice
3. Priests
4. Asps
5. Tiramisu
6. Meteors.
The Moral of the Story: Everyone's got a colorful history of what they've slept with. That's what binds us together -- even more than sex. So from now on, let's try not to be so judgemental, shall we?
July 13th, 2003 5:31 pm
Why, just look at the time - it's been more than 24 hours since my last entry, and it's not late at night. This is terrible! No Discotown tonight (only tonight, it'll resume next week) due to a sudden cancellation at the Ramada, very disappointing - the show with the Beef Curtain Cowboys, Joe Wagner, and drag queen Jackie Beat was one of our most illustrious lineups ever. With no Disocotown, I'm all messed up. Or, as my Yid dad likes to say, "I'm all geshmettered!"
Every time I visit my parents, my dad blurts out another Yiddish word I've never heard before. Last time, it was geharget. (Please forgive the spellings if they're wrong; I'm no rabbi, I got no Ph.D in Heeb, and he's from Milwaukee, so it's probably a little bastardized by the Midwest.) I don't remember what the hell geharget means. Probably another synonym for "fucked up", like 90% of the Yiddish words my dad uses. I don't know if it's just my dad, or if it's the language and the Jewish psyche itself that's obsessed with fucked-up-ness. I think it's both, 'cause my dad's friends use the same vocabulary.
Here are all my dad's Yiddish words for "fucked up" or "confused" that I can remember off the top of my head:
1. geharget
2. geshmettered
3. fachatted
4. fermisht
5. farblungent
6. futummelled
7. ferkrempt (I think this is how Wisconsin Jews mean to say "verklempt")
8. irrebuttal
And that's just off the top of my head! If my brothers were here, we'd come up wtih twice that many. Wait, I'm gonna call him and see what else he comes up with...
9. meshug
10. fershmettered
...Okay, that was my dad's brother, Uncle Bobby, a retired personal injury lawyer who belongs to a "Smoke Fish Club" whose purpose is to discuss, glorify, and eat "smoke fish", and who wears SPF 0 suntan oil.
July 11th, 2003 6:29 pm -- "Disguiseman" Strikes Again!
I'm starting to feel like The Daily Planet with those screaming headlines. And you know what? If I don't get out on my bike, I'm gonna start looking like The Daily Planet. Or at least a planet. Now go to the Mail Column and read Disguiseman's newest piece of erotic, uh, literature. Really, read it. It's less than an hour old and I am paying him 50 cents per word.
Come on, I'm kidding! I'd never compromise the integrity of my site by paying people off to write Nut Mail.
I can only offer internships.
July 11th, 2003 8:05 am
How quickly can I dash this off before I go off to hell - I mean to my temp job. I'm no freaking Carrie Bradshaw, arching her back for the camera in her modest-yet-spacious New York City (yeah right!) apartment, taking leisurely drags on a cigarette, knowing she's got hours to kill to bang out her column.
Ha, ha. Bang.
Anyway, I was supposed to write more before I went to bed, but I went out drinkin with some journalists (yeah, I know some journalists) and, for the first time ever, I became the star of my own ABC After School Special and got the keys taken away from me and my car driven home by a stranger. Then they made me walk home alone. No, I'm just kidding. Someone gave me a ride & their friend drove my car behind us. And they were very, very kind. The man who drove me even allowed me to keep my dignity by offering, "I personally don't think you're that drunk." They were very sly, these journalists. I wasn't smashed...well, maybe I was. I do remember, as I was escorted from the bar, muttering to all of 'em, "Frickin' A.A. people. They always have to ruin a good party by calling you a drunk & taking your car."
Have a great Casual Friday, everybody! Not.
;~(
P.S. This took 25 minutes. I must still be impaired. I hope so.
July 10th, 2003 6:16 pm - Finally, Some Great New Nut Mail!
Check out the Nut Mail from "Disguiseman" in the column on the left, under today's date. Now that's what I've been talking about! A person who reads my diary, and responds with an entertainingly weirdo (yet still flattering) message. I particularly enjoyed the mention of my "swollen breasts" - what a relief! I thought I was the only one who noticed how heavy those bee-atches have gotten lately.
More later. Gotta drive to the valley and it's hot-as-balls. I need to move to England, where it's damp & cold & gross. I love that weather. Then I could also try my first faggot dish. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, go to my June 14th diary entry and read up on "faggots" -- British style. Get yo'self some culture, y'know-whahm-sayin'?
July 10th, 2003 8:01 am
Yeah, anyway, can you believe J.Lo’s boobs on that “Gigli” poster? Who pushed them up so high? She looks like she’s on one of those centrifugal force rides, where you get against the wall and it spins and the floor drops and someone vomits and spoils their first date. Her boobs are pushed up into her mouth, fer Chrissakes! And it doesn’t even look “good” (like in a horny guy way, which I’ve become an expert on); she looks deformed!
Why can’t we let J.Lo’s nanas just be themselves? Why all the pressure? Can't anyone remotely related to her get a break?
And while we’re at it, they’re big stars -- why didn’t they Photoshop a bridge into her nose and some character into Ben Afflict’s face? I'm sorry, that’s just a terrible picture of both of them.
I, on the other hand, came in fresh from my morning bike ride. I am glistening with asphalt particles and insect parts (a fly flew into my face) and my eyes are nearly swollen shut from pollutants. Jump on this sh*t and take a ride!
July 8th, 2003 12:00 am
I just saw 28 Days Later, that zombie movie with Sandra Bullock. It scared the beejezus out of me. Everybody warned me how scary it is, but man, am I freaked out. Call me a lightweight, but I just cannot handle all the carnage, the stinking masses of living dead, in those Sandra Bullock vehicles. My heart's still pounding!
Wait - it was 28 Days. Yeah, okay. I know there's a new movie out that sounds sorta similar, but that's not what I meant. Anyway, Sandra Bullock flicks scare the santorum out of me! Am I the only one? I hope I sleep tonight.
July 7th, 2003 12:54 am
I went to bed at 5:30 am, got up at 10:30 am, felt like santorum so took a nap from 12:30 to 3:30. Turned my apartment upside down for the next three hours, looking for my wallet (unsuccessfully) 'til the Hour of Discotown arrived. Then, when I opened the car door, I saw the wallet wedged between the seat and the door frame. I live a charmed and productive life.
Tonight's Discotown saw the newest incarnation of Smoking Grandma: comedian Jennifer Kirkman. She was great, and got the same applause break for the same move that Peter Boyle did in Young Frankenstein during "Putting on the Ritz". I don't know the name of the move, so if you don't know what I'm talking about, rent the movie. Young Frankenstein, that is - there is no movie called Smoking Grandma...yet. We're still waiting for the financing to come through.
By the way, anyone who can supply the names of all 4 comedians who've played Smoking Grandma gets a free lapdance from her at the next Discotown. Not Kirkman. The other one, Victor Varnado. There, I've just supplied two of the four names for you. This should be a cinch!
I decided that maybe for once, Discotown should have a disco song in it. So today I started practicing that ELO song, "Telephone Line". I know, it's not disco, but it's from the disco era. Baby steps.
I'd say ELO is a "guilty pleasure", but I don't feel any guilt whatsoever. They made some great songs that will color my life forever. And if you find their over-the-top, oversynthesized sound nothing but vomitous, then you're taking life way too seriously, my friend. Lighten up and eat some Cheez Whiz.
What I discovered is I can't play that song "Telephone Line" and sing those lyrics without breaking down in tears. Behind all that overproduction and "Doo-wop, do-do-do-do-wop, do-wop do-laaang"s are some bleak-ass lyrics.
Don't you realize the things we did, we did
Were all for real not a dream
I just can't believe they've all faded out of view...
Doo wop, do-do-do-do-wop, do wop do lang,
Blue days, black nights
Doo wah dee lang
I look into the sky
Your luck ain't really gonna see you through...
"Blue days, black nights" really gets me. I guess if I took Paxil, it would go back to being just a regular old crappy pop song. But where's the fun in that? Plus, my out-of-tune antique piano that sounds like it's on the Titanic and the fact that it was 120 degrees helped the pathos considerably. But then again, I did say recently that I can cry at "Mr. Roboto". He's just a man whose circumstances went beyond his control. I'm sure you find that as tragic as I do.
I gotta get some Kleenex. I'm snotting all over the keyboard.
What songs make you snot all over your keyboard, and, if I may be nosy, why? Audience participation time! Send your answers to RArieff@sbcglobal.net and I'll post 'em and you'll really feel like an exhibitionist.
July 6th, 2003 11:32 am
Wow, I'm really partying hard this weekend. Fourth of July parties, drinking, roller skating parties, drinking, midnight shows, drinking, pancakes at four a.m...I'm really smoking this diet!
So I've started to ride my bike semi-regularly up a hill again. I always see this lady walking her dogs. She's in her fifties, with a body like a refrigerator and a blonde, helmet-like bob. She's always walking six pug dogs at a time. And she looks exactly like them. Same body, same gravity-pulled, frowning Orson Welles face. They even walk the same! I wonder if she has any idea of the visual impact they all make. I hope to God not. Or maybe she doesn't care. Really, why should she? She's probably got more important things to worry about, like grooming appointments and ordering more IamsTM.
This is what we single ladies have to look forward to in our spinsterhood: not only the decline of our bodies, but, to add insult to injury, the inevitable resemblance to our furry, four-footed Life Companions.
Great. Can't wait. Lemme open up another bottle and celebrate.
I'm a bit luckier, though, 'cause I have cats. It wouldn't be too bad ending up looking like them. Jocelyn Wildenstein seems like a pretty happy lady.
July 4th, 2003 3:35 pm
Well, this one couldn't wait 'til night time. This is just too important a day.
Plus, I know I'll be bombed off my ass.
Happy "Right-to-Privacy Lifestyle" Day, Everybody!
Look, we didn't fight a war of independence against the British just to squander our newfound freedom on ridiculous concepts like the "right to privacy".
As Republican senator Rick Santorum beautifully put it, the "right to privacy" is the cornerstone of a dangerous new alternative lifestyle: the "Right-to-Privacy Lifestyle".
Arm-in-arm with other perverted "lifestyle choices" such as The Abortion Lifestyle, The Secular Humanist Lifestyle and The Homosexual Agenda, the "Right-to-Privacy Lifestyle" glorifies some alleged right of Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures in order to protect deviant behavior aimed at destroying the American Family. That's right - these "privacy lifestyle" warriors claim to be fighting for the rights of all Americans, but their true aim is to overthrow mom and pop, church on Sundays, 2.3 heterosexual children and the family dog by spreading gay sex, pedophilia, and yes, family-dog-fucking throughout this great land.
So as you're enjoying the fireworks tonight with your lovely, straight families, please make a silent pledge to enlist in the battle against the foul and unholy Right-to-Privacy Lifestyle.
Let's get the "right to privacy" out of the bedroom, the birth control clinic, and the personal conversation, and back into the corporate boardroom and the political process!
Remember: the "right to privacy" is only dangerous in the hands of individual American citizens. It is only allowable in cases of corporate greed, heads of state a la Dick Cheney (see also "corporate greed"), and when some nosy "independent" reporter starts asking questions about un-Kosher elections.
Happy "Right-to-Privacy Lifestyle" Day!
7/4/03 2:52 am
Just 'cause I'm not funny or interesting right now doesn't mean you can't get it somewhere else. Go to my favorite advice column, Savage Love, and see what's been going on in Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum's name... literally.
Santorum made some brilliant comments both about the right to privacy (there should be none) and gay sex (comparing it to incest, bigamy, adultery, pedophilia, and "man-on-dog" sex). This prompted the folks at Savage Love to call for submissions naming a sex act after the senator. And, being the educational sticklers that they are, use it in a sentence.
But first, in case you missed it, some background:
From the April 7th interview -- Santorum On Privacy:
AP: Speaking of liberalism, there was a story in The Washington Post about six months ago, they'd pulled something off the Web, some article that you wrote blaming, according to The Washington Post, blaming in part the Catholic Church scandal on liberalism. Can you explain that?
SANTORUM: You have the problem within the church. Again, it goes back to this moral relativism, which is very accepting of a variety of different lifestyles. And if you make the case that if you can do whatever you want to do, as long as it's in the privacy of your own home, this "right to privacy," then why be surprised that people are doing things that are deviant within their own home? If you say, there is no deviant as long as it's private, as long as it's consensual, then don't be surprised what you get. You're going to get a lot of things that you're sending signals that as long as you do it privately and consensually, we don't really care what you do. And that leads to a culture that is not one that is nurturing and necessarily healthy. I would make the argument in areas where you have that as an accepted lifestyle, don't be surprised that you get more of it.
AP: The right to privacy lifestyle?
SANTORUM: The right to privacy lifestyle.
From the April 7th interview -- On Gay Sex:
SANTORUM: If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything... Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that's what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality -
AP: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out...
READ THE FULL INTERVIEW
Now see "santorum" used in a sentence.
It's 3:02. Gotta go to bed. If I don't, I'll feel like total santorum in the morning.
7/3/03 1:03 am
The ants were coming in a thick line all the way across the carpet to a pile of fresh cat puke from Charles Van Doren, the 2nd cat that i never talk about 'cause he has no talent except the ability to spew everything he just ate onto whatever's valuable that I left laying out. Today he puked on the scanner and power cord to the Dell Dimension computer I'm trying to sell. Anyone wanna buy a real value pack for only $100? The deal includes not only 17" color monitor, Dell XPS M-200 hard drive with 32 megs RAM ("Wow-ee! Why didn't you just buy an abacus?" you're thinking), but also speakers, an extra keyboard, and an excellent HP 722C color printer. Damn, when I bought that machine, I was still running around with no pants on in the World Trade Center. But I've wiped it all off good as new. And the ants had Thanksgiving early this year. Everyone wins! BTW, I'm looking for a bass guitar, and I'd be willing to trade this computer crap for that and an amp. What is this, the Recycler?
Anyway, just got back from "The Greatest Karaoke Show on Earth" at El Cid, and boy, was it. If you haven't seen this show (and chances are you haven't, 'cause it's quite a sleeper), you must, 'cause it's too brilliant to miss. A bunch of comedians doing karaoke as characters. Disturbingly real characters, I should add. Go see it next show, which will be the first Wednesday of August: August 6th, at 9 pm, at El Cid, 4212 Sunset Blvd, in Silverlake, LA. And if you wanna get on the mailing list to be reminded - and why wouldn't you? - say so to <kkristen@earthlink.net>
Sorry this was boring, had wine, tired, gotta go to bed now. Gotta go to work tomorrow.
7/1/03 7:09 pm
God damn, why are there ants all over my keyboard? They're crawling on my hands!
MORE LATER.... GOING TO SEE "CHAVEZ RAVINE"...
12:03 am Chavez Ravine is a play about the Mexican immigrants who were evicted in the '50's from the community they'd built for themselves in the hills where Dodger Stadium now stands. Funny, sad, infuriating and ultimately depressing. Go see it. I cried. But then again, I'll cry at Li'l Kim ads on bus stop benches. But I have to admit, Chavez Ravine tugged on my heart strings more than "Suck My D**K".
Now do you wanna hear more about the ants? Since I did bring it up, and I have too much of a headache to talk about much else?
I live with ants. I've been living with them ever since I moved in. I accept it, 'cause there's nothing I can do about it. I'm not dirty, I don't leave food lying out; they just love my apartment. It must be the view, and the convenience to subway stops and nail salons. Ants are superbly organized, and when they make up their mind that they like a place, they start pouring in and that's that -- just like the whiteys in Echo Park!
So far, the ants have 1) filled my fridge & freezer, by crawling through tiny cracks in the door seals, even though they die en masse once they get inside; 2) made a hiking trail around (and in?) my IMac; 3) flocked to the bathroom, kitchen, living room, and bedroom - in other words, all the rooms; 4) crawled on me in bed. Now, this last one is the only thingt I really can't stand. I don't like to feel things crawling on me when I'm trying to sleep, unless I'm hallucinating. But when you go to scratch an itch and you end up rolling an ant body in between your fingers, it's a bummer.
Why would ants decide to go in the bed? For the protein. What protein? Guess. That's right - the last straw was when one of the fuckers bit me right on the hoo-ha! I couldn't believe it! I screamed, my hand flew down there...and came up with a crushed, fucking black ant! That's when you start calling your friends at 2 A.M. crying, and begging them to let you move in.
This ain't the worst, though. My friend Fred Armisen told me that ants once came into his bed and bit him all over his nuts! He woke up and was covered with 'em. Of course, he could've just been making a metaphor for all the poon he's been getting since joining the cast of Saturday Night Live.
Well, I hope we've all enjoyed this bedtime story.
SWEET DREAMS!
7/1/03 1:10 am -- "Crap Jobs"
Good evening, class. Today's topic is Crap Jobs. But before we begin, I first want to thank Dr. and Mrs. M____ for your generous contribution to my Panty Rent Fund. Your gift, freshly arrived from Western Union, is much appreciated, as it will help my ass not get thrown out on the streets this summer. Again, muchisimas gracias. Hopefully, the rest of the readers will fall in line (wink-wink).
Now, on to Crappy Jobs:
I've had what I believe to be some crappy jobs in my lifetime. There was the cashier job at Zorba's Greek 110-Degree Hellhole on the Summerfest grounds in Milwaukee, when I was saving up to get my life-changing plastic surgery. There was the routine at the Austin Plasma Center, which served as a relaxing, debilitating pitstop between my two other crappy jobs - a morning waitress job at the Driskill Hotel, and a 2nd shift proofreading job at the Texas Legislature. I still have the track marks to prove it. Eleven bucks a pop to sit there and have your lifewater sucked out and spun in a centrifuge before your dry platelets were ejaculated back into you. No wonder I was always so hungry!
And then there was my last job, working for a scumbag Orthodox Jewish sexual harassing sociopath (it's really tragic how these words make so much sense together) who'd corner you in the kitchen (always the kitchen! Freud was right!), reach across you as if he was looking for something in the cabinet (just to stick his armpit in your face and let you know it was his perogative to invade your personal space), stick his horrible face right in yours like he was gonna kiss you, and then make some weirdass comment like, "Don't put your breasts or ovaries in front of the microwave, Rachel."
Gee, thanks, Mr. Brownstain*! My breasts and ovaries can finally get the personal attention they've always craved in the workplace.
Then Dickwad would walk to the doorway and kiss the Mezuzah. This meant: not only did God forgive him...God high-fived him! Slap. "Nice work on that broad, bro." "Thanks, Lord! You know I do it all for you, bra."
But you know who kicks my ass in the crappy job department? My mom. She told me (once, after a few wines) that, right after she married my dad, she'd worked for this fat letch who had an insurance company. And one of her jobs was to go in this crawlspace in the office and pick up all the pairs of panties that had been left by lord knows how many women he'd banged. Were they former secretaries? Duh!
Anyway, one day he told her to make hotel reservations for them to spend the weekend in Chicago with him for a "convention". That's when she quit.
Her job was definitely more crappy than any of mine.
Now you know wanna know who had an even crappier job than her? Harriet Tubman. That job she had, before her Underground Railroad gig. That job fucking sucked.
*Name has been modified to protect person's place in the Kingdom of Heaven.
WANNA READ MORE OF MY DIARY?
