The Other Side

“Do we have to pay into this place?”

“Nah. You just go in.”

He taps the bouncer’s shoulder and points to the two of us. The bouncer glances at us and turns back to him.

“Dey wit you?” Are all bouncers from Queens?

“Yeah.”

He looks at us disdainfully, unhooks the velvet rope and waves us in.

We are greeted by dim red lights, blacklights that indicate who forgot to de-lint their shirts, booths and bar stools clad in shiny black leather, and Swedish models with sashaying long blonde hair. This is it, we’re Home.

Or, rather, at Home, the latest addition to Manhattan’s Ring of Fire, centered around 27th between 10th and 11th. Celebrity (and celebrity whore) central. Crobar, Marquee, Quo, Bed, Scores, Bungalow 8. Disregarding Spirit with its winding lines of underage Asians eager to drop Ecstacy and bounce around the tackiest club in the city, this area comes with a patented “beautiful people” seal.

It’s Friday night, and tonight, I’ve forsaken my usual dive bars and three dollar Queens beers for a glimpse of the other side. The side where models who can’t speak English, investment bankers who drink Heineken and leer, and promoters with tables and free bottles of Grey Goose reign, and intelligent conversation and draught beers are obsolete.

Party Girl Extraordinaire and I have arrived at our first destination where she is meeting with a party promoter/model friend of hers. Upon coat checking our things, we are invited to join them at a table flowing with Finlandia vodka, cranberry and orange juice, and tonic water. After helping ourselves to two incredibly strong screwdrivers, we decide to “go look for the bathroom,” girlspeak for “wander around and people watch.” As we start to wander around, PGE spots a Dutch guy that Promoter/Model introduced to us. Not attractive in the least, but interesting and genuinely nice. One of the few Amsterdam natives who doesn’t take advantage of the liberty of legalized drugs. As PGE engages him in conversation about the differences between life in New York and Amsterdam, I continue to survey the room. All the men here are over six feet tall. All of them look like they just stepped off the cover of GQ. I don’t belong here, but tonight, I play the part.

My eyes rest on someone who is apparently trying to memorize my face because every time my eyes gloss over him, he doesn’t so much as blink. He stands there and smiles at me in a goofy, endearing way. I half-smile back, and he accepts that as an invitation to speak to me.

“Hi, what’s your name?”

“L, you?”

“Koo.”

“Sorry?”

“K-O-O. I’m Japanese.”

“You don’t look Japanese.”

“Well, I’m half German. My father’s German.”

I snort, “Interesting combination.”

“What about you? Korean?”

“Yeah.”

“I can tell.”

“How so?”

“Because of your attitude.”

Another snort, “Yep, that’s me. Typical bitchy Korean.”

Amidst our sardonic banter I manage to find out that he’s a graphic designer, he grew up in Manhattan and lives in the Upper East Side, and he’s 34.

“34? I would have guessed 27.”

“Thanks, a lot of people say I look young.”

PGE and I escape back to the table and slurp down another screwdriver as the club starts to fill itself to capacity. Pretty soon, Promoter/Model’s entourage has flooded the seats and the surrounding areas of their corner, and we decide it’s time to leave.

“My friend’s at Bed, and he’s got a bed. You wanna go?”

“Sure, where is it?”

“Next door.”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

I make a bathroom run, and on my way back, am intercepted by Koo. I say my goodbyes and worm my way through the crowd of beautiful people back to PGE.

“What took you so long?”

“I saw that guy again, and we were talking for a bit.”

“Cool. Didja give him your number?”

“Yeah, but he was like, ‘We’re in different phases in life. At my age, I just want to mess around, and you’re in the place where you wanna get married, so…’”

PGE laughs, “Good one.”

“He’s a good kisser though.”

“Hah! You kissed him?”

“Eh, why not. Not like I’m ever gonna see him again.”

We get our things, thank Promoter/Model and Company for the good time, and head over to Bed.

We are greeted by another of PGE’s friends. This one, a 22 year-old U. Penn Wharton graduate and investment banker at Goldman Sachs. Despite his pretentious stats, he’s a nice guy.

“Where do you meet these people?”

Bed can only be described as lush. Flowing white drapes, sky blue, lavender and silver walls, sheets, cushions. It’s like stepping into a Greek play. I’m half-expecting everyone to be wearing togas and drinking out of goblets.

We settle onto Investment Banker’s bed and make ourselves comfortable despite the biting glares we are getting from his other female company. PGE snuggles up with IB’s friend whom he has been trying to hook her up with for months. I snuggle up with a vile glass of Bombay Sapphire and tonic. PGE points and laughs at the ridiculous expressions on my face as I try to choke the concoction down in an attempt to cure my sobriety.

We decide to head to our next stop. But not before PGE shares a kiss with IB’s friend, and I make a right where I should have made a left and find myself face to face with a row of men using the urinal. Whoops.

“Ugh, he’s a terrible kisser.”

“He looks slobbery.”

“Actually, he’s the opposite. He’s got tight little lips and his tongue darts in and out.”

“Ugh, bird-lips.”

We giggle the entire two blocks to Quo, our final stop for the night.

There isn’t much to note about Quo other than the dancers wearing see-thru mesh dresses and little shorts wedged so far up their asses I have to sit on my hands to quell the urge to pick their wedgies for them. Another bottle of vodka, more screwdrivers, and I’m still surprisingly sober. Somewhere along the line, I became immune to screwdrivers.

A very drunk PGE, a friend of hers we picked up at Quo, and I finally head to Chinatown for eats at 4:30. One free cab ride thanks to Nelson, our Puerto Rican private cab driver who regales us with tales about his former wife, a major pop star in Puerto Rico (he had the newspaper clippings and photos to prove it), and blasts Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir throughout the ride, and we’re in a small, dirty Chinatown restaurant. He gives us his card and tells us whenever we need a free ride around the city, we know who to call. Good idea, bad idea?

After having our fill of roast duck and beef over rice, we stumble back to PGE’s Chinatown apartment and collapse into bed/couch. In the morning, we are awoken by her surgeon cousin coming to collect some of his things.

“L!”

“Nfurgn?”

“Get dressed, my cousin’s here.”

“Nggnuh.”

“I’m opening the door, are you decent?”

“Nunghh.”

They talk for a few minutes, discuss the previous night’s debauchery and when they will finally get together so she can meet some of his fellow surgeon friends, and then he leaves.

On the car ride back to Queens, we blast U2 and drown ourselves in coffee and tea.

“You weren’t kidding.”

“About what?”

“About your cousin being hot.”

She laughs, “Right? I told you.”

“Shit, man. I would have been friendlier, but I was thinking, ‘Goddamnit, the hottest guy I see in a long time and I gotta look like just woken-up shit.’”

We both burst into laughter.

“Interesting night.”

“Yep.”

“My friend’s coming to visit this weekend from Toronto, wanna do it again on Thursday?”

I stop and think. “Yeah, why not? I can pretend I belong on the other side for one more night.”

-L

Valderee, valderah, my knapsack on my back...

I love to go a-wandering
Along the mountain track
And when I go, I love to sing
My knapsack on my back



create your own visited countries map

*sigh* Still so grey...

I've gotta visit some bigger countries so it looks like I've been to more places. Russia, anyone?

-L

Censorship

One of the reasons I started this anonymous blog was so that I could feel free to write whatever I wanted to without feeling restricted and judged. Unfortunately, I've found the fact that I share it with my brother and that I jumped the gun and gave the link to a couple of people, who in retrospect aren't the best candidates to read what I have to say, prevent that.

For the most part, I've been pretty good about who I've handed this link to. They are people I know for sure are non-judgmental and open-minded, or fellow writers who find my, often offensive, sarcasm and bluntness refreshing. Something that surprises me (and also doesn't surprise me) is that I haven't told a single one of my friends whom I consider my closest friends about it, with the exception of one. Does this mean that I need to reevaluate these relationships, or is it that I know, because they are the people I interact with on a regular basis, they will piss me off at one point or another and I'll want to write about them?

Maybe it's a little bit of both. Something I realized during the two times I've lived away from New York, especially the last time, is that people grow up, they grow apart or grow together, shit changes, who cares. I used to feel guilty and horrible when certain friends drifted, and I knew that it was largely my fault for not making more of an effort to keep in touch. Now, I see it as a fact of life. There's too much going on to grasp at the remaining threads of a relationship that no longer comes naturally. So, now as I watch some of my adolescent friends drift away and even see some come back, I don't feel worried or sad. I just accept it as life. People who really know me know that I hate to email, I don't like to talk on the phone, I often prefer staying home with a bottle of wine and a DVD than going out and thrusting myself into the giant throbbing hormone that is New York City nightlife. The people who really know me accept this and don't take it as some sort of passive-aggressive personal attack or accuse me of being "dull" and "depressing." The people who really know me know that I can sit on the phone for hours and listen to their problems while rarely talking about mine, take a two-hour trek to Brooklyn and chug a 40 to catch-up, bounce around a club until 5AM and get greasy food in Chinatown afterwards.

This post was supposed to be about censorship because I wrote one just before about a bit of a dilemma B is having, but he told me I can't post it as it is offensive and "can cause a lot of problems for him in the coming months." I thought it was a good one, but alas, it will be lost in blog obscurity forever thanks to the fantastic restraint and discretion that is practiced by the beautifully tight-knit, shit-spitting Asian New York City society. I'd actually like to post it just to see how quickly it would get back to the subject of the post...a social experiment of sorts.

Somehow this post morphed into a depressing one about friendship and the like, so I'll leave off with a profound quote by one of my favorite hip-hop artists, Mos Def:

I seen her on the Ave, spotted her more than once
Ass so fat that you could see it from the front.

-L

Lesbanims

"Is that man or woman?"

"That's Ellen Degeneres, Mom."

"Man or woman?"

"Woman."

"She look like man."

"She's a lesbian comedian. She's really famous here."

"Ah, that explain. Lesbian look like man."

"Jesus Christ."

"When we sell old apartment to those lesbian lady, one of them come to pay deposit. I expect woman, but man come!"

"So they weren't lesbians?"

"No, no, she was woman! But she look like man. See, even lesbian, one of them have to be man."

"Oh my God Mom."

I guess she kind of has a point there though. Why are certain gay men attracted to feminine men and certain gay women attracted to masculine women? Doesn't that go against the whole point?

The mysteries of life.

-L

Puppy Love

After giving Dog his dinner (two hours late) and watching for a moment as he feverishly dug into it, I turned away to tend to my own hunger. I paused, head cocked, listening, when I heard a strange gurgling sound coming from his direction.

Gurgle gurgle.

Google gurgle google.

Blub blub.

I turned to see what it was and found Dog's face in his water bowl. Strange, he doesn't usually gurgle when he drinks.

Upon closer inspection, I found that a chunk of his food had made its way into his water bowl and he was trying, unsuccessfully, to fish it out. I took a few minutes to bask in the humor of watching him dunk his snout deep into the bowl, bubbles spouting out of his nose, coming up gasping for air, grumbling in frustration, and returning to his task. Suddenly the thought of my having to write a post tomorrow about how I let Dog drown in his water bowl rescuing an errant piece of dog food while I chuckled at the spectacle entered my consciousness. So I finally did the humane thing and nudged him over and plucked the offending chunk out for him.
___

For the past few days I've had random streams of consciousness that I'd like to write about, but once I get access to my computer, I suddenly don't feel the urge.

Some of those spent thoughts:

-I’ve created a monster(s). I popped in the first episode of Band of Brothers for my dad a week ago thinking he might enjoy it and now I wake up every day to the theme song blaring from the living room television. My mom got into it somewhere along the line as well, and now when I go out, she looks at me through teary eyes and asks how I can possibly go out and get drunk when there are people out there dying in wars.

“So you’re liking the series then?”

“It’s just so sad.”

“Yep. Well, I’m outta here.”

I still highly recommend it to those who haven’t seen it. Really good stuff.


-My sleep schedule is destroyed beyond repair. I sleep at 7AM every morning and am lucky if I’m out of bed by 4PM. Today I woke up at 5. The only good that comes of this is that I seem to hit my creativity peak for the day at around 4AM, and spend a good two to three hours working on the screenplay. It probably will never amount to anything, but it’s good to feel like you’re getting shit done. Especially when you’re unemployed and completely idle.


-Job hunting sucks.


-I got really drunk with a male friend a while ago and he made something that resembled a “pass” at me. More on this at a later time because I have a lot to say about this phenomenon. For starters though, I’m fine with it because I’m not one of those girls who gets really weirded out by this. I’ve learned to accept the fact that all men use their cocks more so than their brains when formulating thoughts, decisions, etc. Especially when they’re blindly drunk.


-I’ll be staying up all night/day tonight/tomorrow in an attempt to repair my unhealthy and unproductive sleep cycle. Wish me luck!

-L

Down Under

Some pictures of the Australian locals courtesy of the Eldest Bro down under.















Apparently kangaroos are delicious. That's a mean looking fucker. He probably looks better on a plate.















A koala's diet consists primarily of eucalyptus. Eucalyptus gets you high. No wonder this guy looks so damn happy.

-L

Jealousy

“Hello?”

“Hey, L!”

“Hey hun, what’s up?”

“Nothing much, just wanted to give you a call to say ‘hi’.”

“Whatcha up to?”

“Nothing much, studying. Trying to catch up on the stuff I missed when I went on my trip. I’m going to Vegas and L.A. this weekend too.”

“Oh, cool, with who?”

“N.”

“Oh, she’s in New York?”

“Yeah, she’s been in New York.”

“So did she ever go on that date with Edward Norton?”

“No, we’re going to have dinner with him this Wednesday though.”

"..."

In a little under a year, I’ve watched one of my closest friends undergo an incredibly rapid transition from extremely studious, harmless social butterfly to extremely studious, complete social whore. In high school, she was the one who became friends with guys who were older, who drove flashy cars, who paid for her dinner. Her social circle has elevated rapidly to celebrities, models, N (who has never worked a day in her life thanks to her ridiculously wealthy parents, who I know is fully funding their West coast adventure). It didn’t bother me until I heard she had been blatantly complaining about us (my circle of female friends). Saying that she preferred to be with the friends she had met abroad because they were rich, because they paid for her drinks, got her access to the hottest clubs, drove her around in Ferraris and Porches. Not one to keep my mouth shut, I called her out on it. I asked her what was more important, parties and free rides or eight years of friendship. She had her say, we worked it out.

In little under a month, my resentment towards her has morphed into full-blown, mind-numbing, jealousy. And it’s all thanks to a celebrity named Edward Norton.

For the majority of my four years in high school, I convinced myself and my peers that I would someday marry Edward Norton. I don’t know where this bizarre obsession came from. While most people saw Fight Club to ogle Brad Pitt, I was watching it over and over to swoon over the scrawny likes of Edward Norton. The one and only issue of GQ I ever bought in my life was one that featured him on the front cover. I bought every single one of his films (not even on DVD because I didn’t even own a DVD player at this point, but on VHS). A stupid schoolgirl crush that subsequently died down when the stars in my eyes started to fade.

And then there was the email a few weeks before I came back from London. Social Butterfly had spent a semester abroad where she met the crème-de-la-crème of Asian society, armed with a new friend in N, who divided her time between homes scattered across the U.S., Asia, and Europe. N had met Edward Norton in a Hong Kong club while he was filming in China, spent the rest of the evening chatting him up, and had gone home with his New York City cell number. Attached to the email was a blurry camera-phone picture of the two of them together, proof of the encounter. The email said, “She’s going to call him when she’s in NYC. You can come too, L!” I was already labeled the parasite, the barnacle, the social hanger-on.

I pushed it out of my mind. It was forgotten. And then there was the phone call last night. N is in New York. Dinner with Edward on Wednesday, Vegas on Thursday, L.A. on Saturday, mentioned awkwardly because it's clear that I’m not even worthy of being a social parasite anymore. The host has scraped me off and kicked me to the curb.

I'm sucked back into high school, fantasizing about premiere parties, limousine rides, designer dresses, famous boyfriends, lavish gifts. I’m angry that she constantly reminds me of the glamorous life I dreamed of. The one I pushed out of my mind. The one I still hope for, but accept that I probably will never have. Does it make me a bad person that I want it all? I don’t want to settle for the white picket fence, the 9-5, the dog. I’m jealous of the people who can be happy with that life. I’m jealous that Social Butterfly will get the life I dreamed of without having to work for it the way I will. I am the worst kind of person. The one who passes judgment on someone who openly pursues a goal that society deems shallow. The goal that I silently chase as well, but have too much pride to admit to.

-L

The Ugliness Gradient - A Theory

I'm not quite sure if I'm ready to write about this as it is something that has plagued my mind for most of the 22 years I've been on earth and I wanted to make sure I got it right before I shared it with the world. But I've had a few drinks and I've settled into a healthy schedule of sleeping at five AM and it's only 12:28, so why not? And yes, I'm well aware that it's a Monday night and drinking on Monday is socially unacceptable, but I'm also drinking a bottle of Bud that's been sitting in the fridge since I got back from London and heating up a Lean Cuisine as we speak, so I'm way beyond any level of "low" that is within the realms of normalcy (and don’t think I’m eating Lean Cuisine because I’m watching my weight, it’s because it’s the only thing I have that takes less than five minutes to make and requires absolutely no effort other than pushing microwave buttons).

So without further ado…The Ugliness Gradient – A Theory

After being in the dating game for quite some time, I can say with confidence that it is next to impossible for someone attractive to be intelligent as well. I can say with full honesty that I can count the number of men* I have met who are both attractive and intelligent on one hand. As I write this now, I can actually only think of one.

I know it’s difficult to speak about a subject as relative as “attractiveness” because a person’s view of attractiveness varies from one individual to another. But let’s say that purely physical attractiveness is generally defined by a few factors: somewhat tall (does not have to be incredibly tall, but a freakishly short man is not viewed as attractive), fit (does not have to be a muscle-inflated body builder, but someone with a beer gut that rivals a pregnant woman’s belly is NOT ATTRACTIVE), no visible physical deformities (strange moles, excessive acne, missing teeth, disproportionately large/small ears, eyes, nose, etc., extra fingers/toes), a full head of hair (although some men can pull off the bald thing), and a generally pleasant face. Everyone has friends that are accepted as attractive or unattractive. The question is, how many of these friends are intelligent as well?

Intelligence is also a tricky subject. No, you do not need an Ivy League degree (or any degree) to be intelligent. I know plenty of people who are incredibly smart who have no formal education. Someone with common sense and street smarts can be intelligent, but if you do not know basic math, reading comprehension, and who William Shakespeare and Michelangelo (not just a hero in a half shell) are, you’re pretty stupid or, even worse, ignorant (I honestly think there is nothing worse than a person with the opportunity and potential to learn who chooses not to). Alternately, a person with a Harvard education who doesn’t know that going to a stranger’s house because he wants to show you his pickaxe collection or that people in Ireland own televisions (I met someone in NYU med who actually was surprised to learn this) is an idiot.

Dave Chapelle had this stand-up bit about a woman’s test in life being material and a man’s test in life being a woman. “Men have nice cars. Not because they like nice cars, but because they know women like nice cars.” Although not entirely true, there is a decent amount of truth to this statement. Men who can get any woman they want seem to stop trying to improve themselves because their worth is somehow validated. The sad truth is that attractive men can get sex whenever they want regardless of how stupid they are, whereas unattractive men with personality find it much more difficult.

After years of dating attractive men who spoke at length about subjects ranging from sports to cars using only monosyllabic words and befriending men whom I had absolutely no sexual attraction to who were intelligent and interesting, I formulated this theory.

Givens:
-Attractiveness is defined in the aforementioned general sense
-Intelligence is defined as equal parts “book” knowledge and common sense
-The majority of what men do is driven either directly or indirectly by the pursuit of pussy
-Attractiveness is fixed (you cannot make yourself more or less attractive without major surgery)
-Intelligence is changeable (you can make yourself more or less knowledgeable)
-As attractiveness levels rise, ability to get ass rises (and vice versa)
-As intelligence levels rise, ability to get ass rises (and vice versa, but not as drastically so as attractiveness)

Therefore:
-As attractiveness levels increase, ability to get ass increases and necessity for knowledge decreases—intelligence levels move down
-As attractiveness levels decrease, ability to get ass decreases and necessity for knowledge as alternate means of baiting pussy increases—intelligence levels move up (this doesn’t go both ways. I know a lot of men who are both unattractive and stupid.)
-It is almost IMPOSSIBLE to find any men who are both attractive and intelligent, and the ones who exist are either a) cocky assholes because they can get whomever they want or b) gay

I know that this is a generalization and a lot of ugly and/or stupid people are going to come yapping and complaining but I’ve spoken to a lot of women about this and they have all agreed that this holds true. I challenge anyone who reads this to give me enough examples to deflate this theory.

Note: I actually thought of three more men who are attractive and intelligent during the course of writing this, but they are all incredibly dull, so I don’t know if they should count. This touches on the expanded version of the theory where other variables (sense of humor, ability to have fun, kindness, how motivated they are) are taken into account.

-L

--------------------------------------------
*For the sake of argument, I have to say that this theory applies only to men. Alright, not for the sake of argument, but, for the most part, it only does apply to men (although there are a lot of hot, moronic women). After speaking with numerous men, they have confirmed that they know several attractive and intelligent women, but most of their attractive male friends are borderline mentally retarded.

3:25 AM, A Little Bit Drunk...

If there's anything I've learned in this past week, alcohol, weed, or any sort of mind-altering substance is a complete creativity killer. I went on a rather long streak of staying up until 5 AM every night, my mind swimming with thoughts, creativity streaming out of my fingertips, filling a blank computer screen. But even one drink, one puff of a blunt, one Vicodin and suddenly all I can think about is stuffing myself with cheese and foie gras (give me a break, I just got back from Europe), watching some droning late-night television, drinking a glass of wine to top off the buzz, and settling into a restless, nightmare-ridden slumber.

This morning, I awoke at 7 AM to the sound of my mother's shrill voice screaming for me to sit on the couch and wait for the guy from Con Edison to come and check the meter and asking why the house stinks of alcohol as soon as I come home. I settled into an uncomfortable half-sleep on the couch while Dog licked my feet and Katie Couric babbled some nonsense on the television. I was jolted awake when the mailman came at ten, resulting in Dog's maniacal barking. Awake again at 2 PM when the man from Con Edison finally came, greeted Dog by name, gave him a pat, and regarded me with a dismissive wave of his hand. Dog is definitely more popular than anyone in the family if the Con Ed guy who comes once every six months still remembers his name but no one else's.

Now, after four drinks, one stolen car ride, the last ten minutes of Collateral (which is a shite movie in my opinion) and some overtly sexual Instant Message banter with the ex-boyfriend, I write this entry while my body sits sadly bloated from last night's excessive drinking and the four times I woke up to rehydrate myself with water, orange juice, and Grape Capri Sun.

Why did I feel the sudden urge to write? God only knows. Maybe I'm testing whether or not I can grow accustomed to productivity while drunk (or else I'll end up an unemployed alcoholic as opposed to my dream of becoming a successful alcoholic). Maybe I'm just that bored. Maybe I just don't want to break the cycle and keep posting consistently. Whatever it is, I'm fucking hungry now.

-L

2 AM

Two AM. I tiptoe upstairs, slip on my old baby blue bubble jacket, slide a pack of Camel Lights and fuchsia lighter into my pocket. Dog skips over, his nails tap-dancing across the hardwood floors, follows me to the door. His eyes twinkle, his head cocks to one side, asks me, “are we going outside?” I pat him on the neck, “sorry, hun, not right now.” I swing the door open fast so it doesn’t creak and squeal, announcing my escape. Even as a so-called adult, even as someone who spends most of the day searching for jobs, writing, sending emails to potential employers, trying to build a career—a future, I am still a child. I’m still in high school. Creeping out my bedroom window at midnight. The way B taught me to. Pretending to be a secret agent, swinging my leg expertly over the edge, landing soundlessly on the paved concrete even with my four inch platform heels. Trying not to wake my parents. Trying to escape into the freedom Outside promises.

My mother barred those windows when I caught someone creeping in the backyard watching me from somewhere in the darkness. Who? I still don’t know. By the time my dad switched on the backyard lights, he had fled. Doesn’t matter. She barred them to lock me in, not to keep him out.

I use the door now, grown-ups don't climb in and out of windows, but still feel the slight clench in my chest when I hear the screen door creak. Don’t want her to bitch at me for smoking. I know she’s been nursing the possibility that I quit while I was in London.

I stand outside, light a cigarette, take a deep drag, let the smoke permeate my lungs before exhaling audibly. I stop, look around, wonder why everything looks so strange, and only then I realize I haven’t stepped foot outside in two days. I’ve been holed up in my house. Rotting my brain with reality television. Obsessively checking my email for the interview requests that haven’t come. Fantasies of employers in bidding wars over me fading fast.

I stand out there, pacing back and forth, shivering against the wind, periodically engulfing myself in a cloud of smoke, watching a partially crushed Poland Spring bottle rolling down the empty street like tumbleweed. My mind wanders. Drifts to earlier this evening when my mother handed me a Christmas card, told me to write something to M. I stared at the blank card and even the “Dear M,” I had written across the top seemed inappropriate. What do you write to someone who’s lying in a hospital bed watching as Leukemia takes over? I hope you don’t die? I hope you got a lot of rest during that ten-day coma you were in? I’m tempted to tell him to be nicer to his mother because this is just as hard for her as it is for him. I’m tempted to tell him I never really liked him much when I saw him at church, an obnoxious, asshole punk who tried too damn hard. He reminded me too much of myself when I was in high school. Will I go to hell for thinking this? Is it worse that I only feel guilty about it now that he’s sick? I finally settle for “Get well soon. Hope you had a good Christmas. May the new year bring positivity and joy.” A standard Hallmark-esque thing to write. But what does it matter anyway?

I walk back to the side door, swing the screen door open, hold my breath when it creaks, slip back inside, look down expecting to see Dog waiting for me but he's already gone back to bed.

-L

Krista, Krista, Krista

Last night, i was furiously pounding away at my keyboard due to a long lecture I got from B about why I should work on the screenplay I've been meaning to write for the past three years, when I stumbled upon something both intriguing and disturing on Cinemax.

Let me start from the beginning.

Since I just got back from London, B doesn't live at home anymore, and the Eldest Brother is in Australia getting his Master's, the fam cancelled our digital cable. Upon browsing through the few channels we have left, I stumbled upon what appeared to be a premium channel. After doing a little research online (checking TVGuide.com to see what movie was playing at what time on what channel and matching that up with what was on on the mystery premium channel at the time. It was Taking Lives, by the way. Probably one of the worst movies ever made if not for one wild Angelina Jolie sex scene towards the end), I figured out it was Cinemax (I would have much prefered HBO, but stealers can't be choosers). I'm not much for sitcoms and most of the other general tripe that is spewed by network television (except for "CSI" and "The Family Guy"), so I've kept Cinemax on in the background at all times in case a good movie comes on. Wishful thinking...Cinemax sucks.

So last night, I'm pounding out a few pages of the screenplay when I decide to flip on the TV and see what mindless crap Cinemax is regurgitating to the insomniac masses. What comes on is immediately discernable as cheesy, late-night, soft porn. It wasn't even a sex scene, but the sub-sub-par acting, the nonsensical dialogue, and the poor film quality gave it away straightaway. Only this one was a little different from the usual budget soft porn, there was one girl who looked incredibly familiar and who was incredibly hot. One close-up of her face and it became glaringly obvious that it was Krista Allen of Playboy, "Baywatch," and most recently "HBO's Unscripted" fame, and also one of the women on my list of "Would Become a Lesbian For. "

I mean, I knew that Krista Allen had done soft porn. I think at one time or another, any star of "Baywatch" has done soft porn, but I was still shocked for some reason. I guess now that she's a B-level actress and not a D-level actress, she's more removed from cheesy porn in my eyes. I guess because I first saw her when she was on "Baywatch," portraying a much more respectable character whose peach fuzz wasn't showing, I couldn't really imagine her doing the funky monkey with a questionable-looking man with long Fabio-esque hair.

Anyway, the movie was called Emmanuelle 2: A World of Desire, and she, of course, plays Emmanuelle, who according to TVGuide.com is a woman from space trying to teach her people about earthly love or someshit like that. What she really does is screw pretty much every guy she sees.

Two things struck me: 1) the acting in the movie was so bad that it wasn't even worth watching Krista Allen getting naked, then dressed, then naked, then dressed...you get the point; 2) Not only did she play this cheesy space sex alien once, but twice (upon looking at her IMDB profile, she actually played her in eight, I repeat, EIGHT(!!!) of these films!).

So what have I learned? Krista Allen is a bad actress. Krista Allen's boobs are fake. Despite all this distraction, I managed to write eight pages of my screenplay.

Oh, and at four AM, I watched some independent Scottish flick starring Ewan McGregor (number three on my top five list) in which he screws every girl he sees. It also has a clear shot of his, rather large, penis. This film was actually pretty good though.

So last night it was score - slutty women: 1, slutty men: 1.

-L