My 2009 New Year's Resolutions

1. Stop Smoking
2. Exercise at least 3 times a week
3. Take daily vitamins
4. Stop farting around Charlie so much
5. Update status on IM
6. Write more
7. Cut online gaming in half
8. Get responsible about taxes
9. Sort out all the legal stuff
10. Get debt free
11. Clean the house
12. Purge closet
13. Surf & Snowboard
14. Call mom and dad more
15. Stop trying to fix broken people's lives
16. Stop buying clothes that don't fit
17. Make Art
18. Write a song
19. Educate self
20. Slow down
21. Stop giving Charlie a hard time
22. Recover from TV addiction
23. Travel
24. Stop killing plants
25. Marry Charlie
26. Water > Diet Coke (Added January 2)
27. No more New Years Eve Parties (Added January 2)

28. Count your blessings (Added January 7)

Master Cleanse - Day Zero

Tomorrow I am starting my 10-day Master Cleanse.

It would make sense that on the day before my Master Cleanse I would forget to eat all day and then go to the birthday party for a dog whose owner is Vegan. Of course I was so starved that I noshed my ass off on carrot sticks, Hummus and taro chips so that by that the time Charlie and I went to my “last meal” at Honda Ya for a good ol Japanese tapas pig out, one little plate at a time, that I was too full to eat.

Of course this wasn’t my first Pre-Cleanse mistake. I did my cleanse supply shopping at, of all places, Whole Foods. Instead of stocking up on the delicious organic products, frozen pastas and over-priced groceries, I’m fighting the urge to rationalize just going grocery shopping since “I’m at Whole Foods, It’s all healthy anyway!” Suffice it to say, a shopping trip to gourmet grocery should be reconsidered if starvation is imminent.

Shopping List:
Organic Lemons
Pure Maple Syrup Grade B
Cayenne Pepper
Uniodized Sea Salt
Peppermint Tea
Senna Leaf Tea & Psyllium husks Pills
Bentonite Clay Liquid (Just THINKING about having to drink this makes my gag reflex go ape.)
BPA Free-Plastic 1-Quart Water Bottle

Next Stop – K-Mart for a Juicer. On the way to the Kitchen and Housewares section, I walked thru the Women’s Apparel department. HELLO GINGHAM SHIFT DRESS…I almost bought a dress at Kmart. And not it’s not like buying a dress at Target, which totally doesn’t negate my hipness. What in the name of Jaclyn Smith and Kathy Ireland. REBOOT. Juicer. Juicer. Juicer. What’s a bitch gotta do to get a juicer up in this mug? I’m pretty sure there are no employees that are WORKING at Kmart.

Now that I’ve got my cleanse kit fully stocked, including the recommended Tucks Medicated Pads (100ct), I’m ready to blow this shit out. Literally.

Ugh, Tucks. This cleanse is totally murdering my cool.

#5 Update status on IM

OK, Souris, unblock me already. Sheesh. 

(PS-I use Adium and no matter how many times I go to Preferences > Status and change it to automatically change my status when I'm idle or away, it still doesn't do it. I always have to manually do it. Ugh. If anyone know why this is happening, please help me.)

#4 Stop Farting Around Charlie So Much

In the beginning there was love. We used to say “please” and “thank you.” I sucked my tummy in, wore pretty panties, shaved my armpits and legs, painted my toenails and never, EVER farted in front of my boyfriend. Soon we moved in together and things like burping became funny. From there it became funny to ask him to spoon me in bed and let ‘er rip. Oh it was such a gas! Literally.

We’re at the point now where farting has gone beyond funny and it’s just something we do. Like ignore each other when the TV is on. I don’t know what it is that makes me always need to cut one around him. I seriously don’t think I even fart when I’m not around him.

After I wrote my resolutions and published them, I got a lot of remarks from readers about how they always pass gas in front of their lovers too. I was not alone. It was almost enough to shelve the resolution and say write it off to the maturing of our relationship. I negotiated with myself and thought, “This is what we do once we shed the mask of the girl we wish to be in the beginning.”

Now we’re engaged. I’m going to marry the best man I’ve ever met in my entire life (next to my grandfather.) He has never ever been less than a caring, patient, beautiful and dedicated man. I am super stoked to have him and the thought of getting to be his wife is, like, THE SHIT. I think about that mask I wore in the beginning of our relationship, the polite, proper and less flatulent girl. I think she’s all right and I think she’s the kind of girl he deserves to marry. So at the end of the day, this resolution isn’t so much about not farting around my future husband anymore, it’s about behaving like a lady and treating the man I love with a the same respect we had when we first were together. I can’t promise him Queen Elizabeth, but saying “Please” and “Thank You” and not farting is a good start.

#3 Take daily vitamins

I'm so bad at committing to seeing anything thru. I can't even drink an entire can of Diet Coke and lord knows how much I love those. Charlie is always walking around the house finding half empty cans of DC and yelling at me about how wasteful I'm being. I'm sure there are children in Africa who would love to drink the other half of my Diet Coke. I'm sure. 

Anyway, I have expired bottles of vitamins and other healthy-making elements in pill form in deli bags in my Bathroom. First of all, throw them away, second of all, start taking them! Well there's a one and a half of all in there, and it's buy new bottles. 

Aging is not fun. My joints are suffering from two car accidents and 8 years of stiletto galavanting about in NYC during my 20s. I swear my knees hate me. And sometimes, my hips just decide to give up on me. If you don't know what that looks like, thank your lucky stars. So I should be taking Glucosamine. Lord knows I have three huge bottles of it at home in various states of expiration.

Let's talk about the hair, I swear I'm one big recessive gene. Thanks dad for my early hair-loss. It's not enough that you gave me daddy issues, your temper and the big breastedness that curses the women in your family. Now I'm losing my hair too, which is another thing to add to the list of things that are perfectly fine on men and so not ok on the ladies. So Vitamin B6 and B12. Got those too. 

Oh trust me, this lack of commitment does not end at Vitamins. I can't finish a prescription of antibiotics to save my life. I already am going to marry a man who thinks that Anti-biotics and Anti-Bacteria product will bring the end of man. Now I am contributing to this, according to Charlie, by creating SUPER INFECTIONS in my body,  resistant to antibiotics because I don't finish my scrip. The end of the world is a lot of guilt to lay on my shoulders. I'm Catholic, thanks, I'm all loaded up on guilt already.

Anyway...I'm throwing away all my vitamins, I'm going to talk to a nutritionist and get on a proper vitamin regimen that I will follow. Fingers crossed one Flinstones chewable multivitamin will satisfy my daily intake.

#2 Exercise at least 3 times a week

My experience with body dysmorphia is this:
My skinniest girlfriends: "I'm Fat!"

These anorexic bitches really make me want to slap them sometimes. I, on the other hand, am the opposite. Instead of being a walking bone complaining about being fat, I’m someone who is fat that didn’t think she was fat…that was until someone asked me if I was pregnant.

That incident happened while I was living in NY. During that time, I was planning a trip to LA to visit friends and sent a message saying, “When you see me, I’m not pregnant, I’m just fat. So don’t ask.” If you ever wanted people to ask you if you’re pregnant non-stop, send out a message like that, because my friends apparently think it’s funny to live in opposite-land.

Enter the trapeze, shift and tunic silhouettes. The timing couldn’t be any more perfect. However, this only opened me up to more pregnancy scrutiny. It’s a slippery slope between billowy sundress with an empire waist and a maternity dress. This also was about the time I decided I’d rather have people WONDER if I’m fat/pregnant than actually prove I am fat, by wearing clothes that “hugged” my shape. That shape of course is a circle. Because I am now the shape of an M&M Cartoon figure. Big and round in the middle with normal size appendages. I am a walking optical illusion; or rather I’d like to think I am. However, I think the gig is up and people are on to my game.

The bottom line is, my boyfriend, he’s skinnier than me and that’s just wrong. We are the living breathing manifestation of Jack Sprat and his wife and it’s not fun. I’m officially the girl with the “pretty face” and that usually means the girl with the pretty face is “fat.”

Time to change this.

Weight: None of your business
Goal: Minus 40 pounds

#1 Stop Smoking

It's not a good look.

This is such a throw-away resolution. It’s perpetually on the top of my New Years Resolution List every year. Two years ago, I quit smoking for a few months, it was pretty easy, no patch, no gum, just sheer will power. I approached it by saying, “I’m not smoking TODAY.” and I’d never tell people “I quit smoking.” It seemed a lot less intimidating that way. Next thing I knew three months had passed. It was pretty convenient since I was living in NY and cigarettes are dumb expensive out there.

I “relapsed” when a co-worker asked me if I was pregnant. Don't EVER ask a woman that question unless you are absolutely sure. And by absolutely sure, I mean 1) she's either announced it or 2) a baby is crowning. All the sudden, all the times people offered up their subway seats to me started making sense. I didn’t even notice how much weight I gained when I quit. I was enough to make me want to smoke again.

So to Jana F. and Tony Toni Tone, this 13-year resolution is for you. If I didn’t have a stressed out boss who chain smoked Newports, and if I hadn’t worked at a time when people were allowed to smoke in their offices, and if my very first project as a "professional" was coordinating the travel and promo tour of a band in the midst of a acrimonious breakup, I'd probably have something like "Lose Weight" in the #1 spot all these years.

Current Abuse: 1 pack of cigarettes every day and a half.
Goal: ZERO Packs of cigarettes by end of the year.

TV-Sitter

WARNING: IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE IN NATURE, DO NOT READ!

IF YOU ARE A PARENT AND A FRIEND OF MINE, I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU, UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED BY THE WORDS..."A friend of mine did," or "One time, one of my friends.."

THIS IS A SOCIAL COMMENTARY ON CHILD-REARING IN AMERICA.

In response to: Baby Einsteins: Not So Smart After All

Dear Disney Parent,

I'm sorry I contributed to the retardification of your child and the dumbing down of America, but, what do you expect? I'm a multi-national corporation out to make a buck, YOUR buck, in fact. So, yes, it's my fault for making these videos and selling them under the guise of education, but it's your fault if you abuse and misuse these tools by making them your de facto babysitter.

DON'T FORGET TO PICK UP Baby Einstein Shapes & Sounds!

Available on Disney DVD RIGHT NOW!

And coming on August 21^st!

Disney's Little Einsteins: Rocket's Firebird Rescue and Handy Manny: Tooling Around.

Pre-order your Disney DVD with FastPlay* right now!

Love,

Mickey Mouse

* What is Disney's FastPlay?

Disney's FastPlay is a new technology that puts you in control of your viewing preferences.

You can choose to use your remote and navigate through our user-friendly EasyFind menus, or you can simply put in the disk and go sit down and relax and the DVD automatically begins. You don't have to push a button!**

You can watch the feature presentation just like you would in theaters. After the trailers and feature, stay tuned for an exciting selection of Bonus Features.

(From http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/fastplay/faq.html)

**In other words, all your child has to do is find the DVD they want and serve themself up a heaping spoonful of 2-hour babysitter without interrupting you while you peruse Perezhilton.com.

Dear friends of mine who I gave the Einstein DVDs to while I was working at Disney. I'm sorry. Please feel free to give me back the DVD and I'll get you a proper gift.

Dear people who have mentally impaired children and are offended by my use of the word "retardification." I'm sorry to offend, I think all children are beautiful and wonderful and I'm making no judgment on you or your child. And unless I actually gave you an Einsteins DVD, I'm pretty sure that if your child has any mental handicaps, it's not any fault of mine, but I'm sorry anyway, cos I guess that's what I'm supposed to say.

Dear people who peruse Perezhilton.com while your child watches DVDs unsupervised. Any likeness to your reailty is purely coincidental.

Love,

Gen

He’s Different but You’re the Same

I'm in love right now and I gotta tell you, it's totally rad. There's nothing like it. Every morning I wake up next to Charlie and I get filled with this disgustingly warm delicious feeling. I love the way he sleeps and walks and talks and how he looks when he's working and I love his talent and his mind and his kindness. It's amazing how much love there is. The capacity for it is limitless. I miss him when he's not with me and I get excited when I know I'm gonna see him. There's nothing like feeling that way. It's addictive.

For some people, it's so addictive they make a point to feel like that every month with a different guy. OK, I get it, you're single, and you're young and new relationships are like, thebomb.com. But enough already with how every single new guy you date is different from the last one. This one is sensitive, that other one is ready, this one actually holds your hand in public (are you serious?), the other one has two turntables and a microphone for genitalia.

I have news for you, he is NOT different. He is just a man.

And I have other news for you, every guy is different. DUH.

Otherwise you'd just be dating a guy named Mike over and over and over again.

Here's where the problem is, he's different but you're exactly the same.

You're still desperate and needy.

You're still trying way too hard to prove your worth to him and every guy before him.

You're still the same girl who is so busy building this reality in your head that two weeks from now is gonna crumble into a imagination heap in your fantasy filled head when he tells you he isn't ready, or you're too good for him, or when you decide that a guy who cries while he's making love to you is just too FUCKING sensitive.

And then, who's eating crow now? You.

And then two weeks after the last meaningful two-week relationship, who's gotta meet a new boy and hear all the reasons why he's different from the last one? Me.

CUE THE DIAGRAM.

Guy 1, Different, but it didn't work

Guy 2, Different, but it didn't work

Guy 3, Different, but it didn't work.

Guess what the common dominator is?

You.

So calm your ass down, enjoy your new lay, stop trying to make him the new future husband of the world and do us all a favor and talk to us about him at least two months after ya'll start dating.

You can only hide crazy for a month, two tops. If at the end of two months you all are still together, you either 1) found the guy who squelches the crazy in you or 2) is willing to accept it.

Either way – he's a fucking keeper and I wanna hear all about him.

And if you think I'm talking about you, chill out. I'm not talking about any one person. You might want want to check out the section in my blog www.NotEverythingIsACrisis.com called Not Everything Is About You. And yes, that seccion is about your nuerotic ass. If you think this blog about you, you might want to consider why. And no, it isn't. You're seriously not that important to me.

Dude, Your Bitch Is Crazy

So how come guys like to date bitches that are crazy? And I don't mean not just date, but like, make them their girl and shit. All kinds of pussy whipped on a bitch that quite honestly is gonna kill you in your sleep.

One time, I dated a guy who complained about his ex to me nonstop-which, in retrospect is a red flag. She was living off of him and lazy. When he was finally over it, he broke up with her and soon after started dating me. She showed up one evening at his door and he let her in. She proceeded to get all crazy eyes on him, flipped his house upside down, Mike Tysoned his ear and got arrested by the cops.

That morning, as soon as he could, he bailed her out of jail.

That morning, as soon as I could, I broke up with him.

Soon after, they got back together.

Right before Charlie, I dated another guy who had a restraining order on his girlfriend. A FORMAL RESTRAINING ORDER. Despite this, she'd still show up at his door and get around the security of the house he lived in, and I'd have to tiptoe around our relationship like I was the other woman. When I started dating Charlie, I stopped seeing him, and soon after, THEY got back together too.

Part of me tells me that being with me is so bad that being with a psychotic is a walk in the park.

The other part of me tells me that the fellas like their bitches a little bit touched in the head.

It's almost across the board. The finer the broad, the more insecure she is, the more sprung your ass is, the more she thinks you're cheating all the time, the more you can't even have a proper bachelor party with strippers for your wedding, the more crazy she is gonna be despites your attempts at pacifying her, the more you can't have chicks for friends, the more you can't even bro down with the homies, the more she's gonna threaten suicide every time you two get in a fight, the more likely you're gonna end up dead and in an episode of Dateline titled "That Dude's Bitch Was Crazy."

One time, I was on the other side of this conversation where I was consoling the crazy bitch. She monopolized my whole weekend crying about how it was REALLY over this time with her boyfriend cos "it got physical" (and those are quotes.) I was swearing I'd kill the dude all up and down town for touching a woman which she didn't react to, of course. When they got back together at the 49^th hour after our 48-hour non-stop consolation session, I was like WTF!

As it turns out in a little language called crazese "It got physical" meant, I beat my boyfriends' ass in the middle of the street in front of all his neighbors cos he was too tired to let me come to his house when TO ME being a girlfriend means I should be invited anytime I want to so when I showed up and he wouldn't let me in I caused a scene in the front of his house until he came to the door where I subsequently beat him up.

Now? They live together. Because, of course, that kind of behaviour is perfectly acceptable and, admit it, crazy is just a little bit sexy.

Matchmaking and Advice

Today I went to lunch with guy friend and a girlfriend. En route to lunch I counseled a friend with some problems. When I got off the phone, my two friends, who were strangers up until today, took turns telling me their problems while I doled out my advice. By pure happenstance, at the table next two us were two of my friends who met through me and are about two years into a happy relationship. My friend said to me that I should start a dating service a la Millionaire Matchmaker, but for broke people and sans the shop for trophy wife quality that I seem to get when I watch the show.

I feel comfortable saying I am directly or indirectly responsible for 4 marriages and a dozen or so happy productive committed relationships, (some which have ended but c'est la vie, not everything ends in marriage and even those end sometimes.) I thought about this for a little bit and realised that currently I'm in the midst of trying to set up a two friends, not with eachother, but now that I think about it, it's not such a bad idea. So why not make it official? I've decided to start setting up blind dates for friends and strangers. If you're single and you're looking for love, not a lay, email me at askalphafemail@gmail.com.

If you haven't noticed, I've also changed the name of my blog. It used to be the name of a column I had in a few websites around the country so I thought I'd kick it old school. In going with the theme of the new blog name, I opening up the floor to give advice to the public. Instead of blowing up my friend's spot, maybe I'll blow up yours.

So to review: Looking for love, holler. Looking for help with your love problems, holler.

And by holler I mean email me at AskAlphaFemail@gmail.com

Love,
Gen

Sensitivity Training

I've recently been told that I am insensitive. As if this is somehow new news to the world at large. I have never claimed to be anything less than a straight shooting advice-giver. However please note, Sob Story Parts 1-3 (AKA the Trilogy) is privy to the listener and sympathizer. Part 4 conjures up the you're getting pathetic so lets try to help now. Part 5 - I really start reconsidering if I even want to be friends with someone as gross as you. Honestly, you should be able to wrap a story up by the third iteration. Anything after the Three-quel is unnecessary and honestly, self obsessed. Get over yourself already...

To be clear, everyone who knows me knows you don't even come to me unless you want straight up advice…..or money. But that's another story.

Let's get something straight so that people don't all the sudden wondering if they know me at all.

1) I'm there for you 100%

2) If you need anything and I can give it to you, I will

3) How it is (according to the information you have provided) is how I'm gonna tell it. And it's not gone be served up with a side helping of unicorns and rainbows.

4) I'm not here to blow smoke up your ass or enable your bad behaviour.

5) My middle name is Crass. Actually it's Christine, but "Crasstine" is a nice middle ground. When I write it's all about Less Class, More Crass. Unless you're Asian, then Less Crass, More Class. Cos they get their L's and R's messed up. Get it?

6) I don't tolerate stupidity

7) I don't tolerate people who drive drunk

8) If you are an idiot, chances are very likely that you will inspire a blog. Because at one point the only answer is public humiliation. If you're not going to learn from your mistakes maybe someone in the blogosphere will.

9) I do tolerate the excessive use of all words unapproved by Al Sharpton and his cronies. In fact I encourage it.

Now with that said, there's been a lot of stuff I've wanted to discuss with people but I never did.

A – Coke

What's up with the resurgence of Coke? When did it all the sudden be totally cool to go out of your way to make yourself annoying? Coke – The Ugg Boot and Von Dutch of Summer 2007. I seriously can't wait til you sheep move onto something less annoying. At least with Ugg Boots and Von Dutch I could avert my eyes. You, yes, you, are super fucking annoying right now. And because I actually love you, I am forced to interact with your annoying ass. You've become a close talker and you're interrupting my conversation by constantly asking me what I am talking about while I'm talking with other people. And unlike how you are when you're on weed, you're actually not that funny. You're just loud, too close and nowhere near calming the fuck down.

B – Driving Drunk

When did it become to cool to brag about driving drunk? I can't tell you how many times I've actually been told "I drive better drunk." In fact one person told me that three times in one conversation and one of those times was after I told this person that My sister was killed in a car accident two days before my bday and two bday's ago Carlos was killed by a drunk driver 15 minutes after LEAVING my bday party. This person actually said, "Oh that's terrible, but I'm serious, I just drive better drunk."

Let's all consider the following:

1) Think of people you've found attractive. Consider that while you are drunk, you're ability to gauge your driving skills may also be impaired by whatever mechanism in your head is also telling you that beast next to you looks like Angelina Jolie.

2) If you drive better while while drunk, maybe you shouldn't drive sober either, you fucking knob.

3) If it's isn't enough that Carlos and Dusk both died from an accident with a drunk driver, what is enough?

Someone I know actually was recently pulled over by the cops drunk and after being cuffed for thirty minutes he was let go. Then he called people all slurring all braggadocios about being let go. As if one second before while he was all cuffed up with the cops he wasn't as articulate as a Yale Graduate. Way to go, you got pulled over by a cop and got let go, maybe next time you'll get lucky and kill someone!

Your iPhone is a Piece of Shit and so is Your Face

Sorry, Charlie. I know you love your iPhone, but you love it more than me.

It doesn't help that you're more in your iPhone's face more than you are in mine.
It doesn't help that it's skinnier and prettier than me, therefore I am jealous.
It doesn't help that your phone's volume is so low that you never hear it ring, therefore you never pick up your phone, therefore I think you are always cheating on me now.
It doesn't help that when we get in these debates about something that I know I am wrong about. Instead of deciding to "Google it when we get home" and me praying you'll forget, you go straight to the iPhone and prove me wrong.
It doesn't help that you go to it for all your iAnswers.
It doesn't help that when you needed to get a cover for your iPhone, we went to the Apple store and you patiently tried on EVERY cover in EVERY colour, debating every ever subtle nuance from colour, to texture, to dimensions, when you can barely stand to wait for me to try on clothes.

iHate your iPhone.

iPhone = P.O.S.

PS - ya'll, I'm actually joking (sorta) about all of the above. I love me some Charlie and I'm waiting for 2nd Gen iPhone. You know, when we'll actually be able to cut and paste. MAYBE.

www.jetbluehostage.com

I was a victim of JetBlue's poor decision making on Valetine's Day.

An 11-hour ordeal is now my newest blog.

www.jetbluehostage.com

Chilling in the Garden with Adam and Eve

Open letter to all miserable couples,

I know I said I was sad and all that you two are back together (or communicating, or hanging out, or banging, or whatever you crazy kids are calling it nowadays) but trust me, I couldn’t be happier.

You two back together means that there are two LESS miserable people on this beautiful earth. Heck, this means there are infinitely less miserable people on this earth because of your sacrifice to be together and make each other miserable indefinitely.

Sure, you could (and should) easily go on your miserable lives without each other and meet another person with an untapped potential for happiness. You could trigger the miserable in them. And then those relationships would end and the four of you would go on to make more people miserable and so on and so forth.

This could go on exponentially forever, like a virus.
A miserable, abusive co-dependent, suspended-animation relationship virus.

And the only immune people would be people who already are in love, like Charlie and I.

Sure I spent the ENTIRE weekend helping you cope with the guilt and embarrassment of attacking “the one person you love most on this earth.” (Yes, even more than your family and yes, even more than you love yourself-as if that was not already obvious.) Let’s not forget how I spent two days sitting across from your and your perpetually watery eyes to keep you from calling him and emailing him, plowing you with positive sentiments: No, you’re no crazy, (yes you are,) No, it wasn’t to much to ask for (yes it was,) Yes, he’s selfish (so are you,) Yes you’ll find love (that’s not really what you want,) only to find out FROM HIM as soon as I left your side on Day 2 you had emailed him.

I should have suspected that a life-sucking emotional vampire was in the midst the second that you came to someone you’ve only known for two months, instead of running to an old friend with this “dilemma.” And I should have KNOWN when you replied with, “I don’t really have any friends” when I asked you about it.

I should have remembered that, two Fridays before, I was the one you came to when you broke up FOR REAL last time and swore “This is it this time” because it had gotten “physical.” I spent the evening dancing and getting to know you better and keeping you busy.

I should have remembered that that same Saturday (the next day) you showed up to dinner with my boyfriend and I with your same "ex-boyfriend," the one who attacked you, the one who "it was really over" with “this time” just the day before. You spent the evening grinding your body into his and counting the minutes before you were naked together taking pictures you could post on Flickr.

Yes, I spent many words in our email exchanges supporting you in your decision to stand firm and not see her.
Yes, it WAS the right thing.
Yes, you always do the wrong thing.
Yes, this should not surprise me.

Of course I begged you to stay strong, to not contact her, to not post pictures of her on your Flickr page, to not comment on pictures on her Flickr page.

Of course you didn’t listen.
Don’t we just love how effortless the internet makes obsessing?
Oh, the vast improvements technology makes in our lives.

You guys really are PERFECT for each other after all.

Where are you, (insert male name here) going to find a woman who is willing to forgo marriage and children (something she, up until she met you so desperately wanted.) Heck, where are you going to find a woman who is content to not live with the man she loves just to be able to say she is his girlfriend. Where are ever going to find a woman who is small enough to attack you with all her might and yet doesn't REALLY cause much damage? Where is the woman that is lacking in enough pride that is willing to face all the same people on your block and in your building after having a very public and vocal display of abuse? I tell you where, right here.

Where are you (insert woman’s name here) going to ever find a man that will allow you to abuse him and disrespect his personal space (physical and otherwise) who will still want to be with you? Where else can you find a guy who cared enough to go to his neighbors and share horrible stories about you and show them the wounds you inflicted on him who can turn around and entertain your fits of desperation, not caring what his neighbors and friends think about it?

I mean people like you two are rare and far between. You two not only bring out the worst in each other, you encourage it and reward it with pretty pictures and comments on Flickr.

So bravo and two Myspace kudos to you two for your dedication to making each other miserable and your conviction in carrying out this misery. You raise the bar.

Stay strong in your fight to keep the misery concentration pure and not spreading it out into the universe. I only hope that when your uterus expires and this relationship does end, which it will, that Barak Obama is our President and that stiffer gun laws are in place so that you don’t actually end up getting a gun killing someone.

Love,
Gen

NotEverythingIsACrisis.com

In an attempt to get people to STOP coming to me with their so-called crisis only to not listen to sage advice or become defensive when I shoot from the hip and for those who are secretly just looking for an audience to say "Hey Buddy. You're A-OK. You're awesome and all that good stuff with a dollop of Cool Whip," I've registered my latest domain.

www.NotEverythingIsACrisis.com

Nothing is up on it right now, but I'm thinking of doing a couple of things with it. I'm also taking advice on how to execute it properly.

1) List all the new ridiculous things that people come to me about, my advice and how that advice was or was not applied and the outcome.

2) Make it a shoot from the hip advice column leaving it open for people to chime in with their own advice people won't follow.

3) Create sections like:
    The world is conspiring against me
    Girls who can't get along with other girls
    The other (wo)man
    My  (boy)girlfriend neglects, cheats on, beats, yells at and/or doesn't satisfy me, but I'd rather stay here perpetually agonizing about it 
    I'm a martyr
    I wanna die
    I need to be the center of attention for all
    I sleep with every (wo)man I meet
    Every (wo)man I meet is in love with me
    (S)he's not my (wo)man but we're in love, they said it on a text message. 
    I'm perpetually broke
    I'm clinically depressed but I don't want to take meds, or talk to a shrink or be proactive, I'd rather lay on the floor in a pool of my own self worthlessness and bleak unsolvableness.

Each section will contain lovely stories and advice dispensed on each topic. Oh how we've cried while we've lived thru these stories. But now I can just send people directly to a specific section in my website and save me a lot of trouble and help friends know that they're not alone in their "crisis." I'll set it up like how it is in Citysearch and we can put some kind of ticker in there to indicate how many times this advice was followed with a vote-y thing saying "Did you find this advice helpful?"

Suffice it to say, all names with be changed to protect the self indulgent.

Anyway, this is not directed to ANY ONE person. Seriously, I know since a lot of my friends are very sensitive, they'll take it personally, but when the site is up, please reference "The world is conspiring against me." It'll say, "Not everything is about you."

Love,
Genevieve
   

Something very weird happened to me tonight. I went out with my beautiful friend T for the first time in a long time. For a while I’d been doing this dance with her where I’d tell her I’d meet her out and not show up. I was kind of over the scene or be seen scene. I’m at the point where I just want to shake my ass, not stand around with my thumb up my ass mentally assessing my imperfections and participating in random non-versations with random non-friends.

Tonight T and I went to a very penis-heavy party at LAX where the man to woman ratio can only be likened to your local fire department. I ran into the Harry to my Sally and did some heavy flirting and entertaining of latter evening impossibilities. I spend half the night shaking my posterior and the other half breaking my neck looking for the one person I did want to see. Chances of sighting? Bleak.

I found solace at one of the outdoor patios watching T and some of her friends smoke cigarettes. “I’m on day three of not smoking for the day. I’M ON DAY THREE. I’m practically a non-smoker,” I tell myself. Not surprisingly, this is not comforting. Not even a little bit. But somehow it still works.

For reasons that still escape me, I’ve been cajoled into going to Teddy’s. Ah, door people. It really is a skill to be that much of an asshole. The door people give T and I grief. Apparantly there's a dress code now and jeans don't satisfy the code. This reminds me of invitations Puffy sent out for his Bday party at Cipriani's that read "PLEASE DO NOT DiSTURB THE SEXY." It's amazing how some people's superficiality knows no bounds. (e-hem, not name-dropping, I READ about it here. I prefer to keep my inner circle un-celebrity, thanks.) This is my chance to escape. And yet I’m still here. I grow tired by the second.

My other friend Jason is ringing me asking for my company at The Bar. I’m too tired to even make up an excuse. “No, it’s not happening” is all I can muster. I’ve got text messages waiting from another asking for an episode’s length of my time. All I can think of is my bed. I reply “Grim.”

I tell T that Teddy’s is lame and that we’re not missing out on anything. I tell her this but it means little as the principle is apparently being compromised. I understand so I support her in a very half-assed fashion.

Bed. Pillow. Bed. Pillow. Me on Bed. Head on Pillow.

I’m finally in my car. Jason rings in once more. “There’s dancing” he says. You know I’m tired when even dancing is not enough to incentivise me. I’m tired. I’m yawning. I don’t even want to go to a boy’s house to kiss him. That’s tired.

I don’t really know how I got this way. I’m slapping myself on the face and driving with the A/C on. Not even track number 12 on my new favourite CD is keeping me from wanting to fall the fuck out.

I turn left on Fletcher. Right at the 5 underpass my car is blanketed in this white fluffy cloud. It’s totally white all around like some over achieving fog machine was following me. My lights only exaggerate this effect. I slow to a crawl. There are no cars around me, or rather, if there were any, I still wouldn’t have been able to see them.

I turn off my CD player, because I suspect that there is something about silence that will all the sudden make this all make sense. I was wrong. I’m too scared to open my window and I feel really strange. I feel really alone and detached from everything.

I started wondering to myself. Did I fall asleep and die? I think back and really ponder this. Did I die? Did I really die this close to my own birthday? Did I die this close to the anniversary if my own sister's death? All these morbid thoughts came to me. I wondered if death was really this seamless. Did I just die in a car accident and without pause I’m all the sudden driving in a cloud? I'm thinking, when did did happen? Was it when I was on Franklin? Did I run a red at that light when I was rushing to catch the yellow? Aren't I supposed to be walking down a long tunnel with a light at the end? Are people talking fast and running their hands over my body right now trying to save me? Is this what it was like for Mary when that car made a left turn into her in the night? Does my mom know yet? Did my brother feel it?

I am thinking really fast and suddenly I realize I’m more alert than I have been all night. This just lends itself to the “I am dead” theory. In death there is no exhaustion, right? Because that would for real suck eggs. I somehow maneuver my way onto the 2 and still seem to be the only occupant of this magic cloud ride. I really let my mind get carried away from any semblance of reality. At this point, I’m pretty convinced that I’m dead. I’m not even fazed. I keep looking around waiting for something to happen, half expecting my sister or my grandfather to apparate in my passenger seat.

The only thing that happens is that I see the red lights of a car merging onto the lane to my right about a hundred feet up. I drive fast to catch up and no sooner than I catch up to the ghost car am I out of the fog. I realize there’s been a fire. I realize I’m alive. I realize I’m fucking awake now and I should either be kissing a boy or dancing with friends. But instead I’m here writing this.

I have a feeling that Day four of not smoking for the day will be a lot easier now that I’ve come back to life. Living rules.

WILLY WANKER AND THE MOVIE FACTORY

Tonight I watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory . I like it so much better than the original when it was called “Black Hole Sun” by Sound Garden. I mean, Chris Cornell is fine and all, but a 3.5 minute video just can’t compete with this 1hour 46 minute spectacle. So anyway, I loved this movie, I thought Michael Jackson did a great job reprising Gene Wilder’s role as Willy Wonka. Gee whiz, this is his greatest role since “Smooth Criminal”, isn’t it?

I’d like to say to all those people who loved Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory so much that they are boycotting Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. THIS IS NOT A REMAKE. THIS IS TIM BURTON’S GENIUS ADAPTATION OF THE ORIGINAL CHILDREN’S STORY AS WRITTEN BY ROALD DAHL. Golly, the movies even have different names if you haven’t noticed. And if you cared so much about remakes, where were you when they were remaking, “Dukes Of Hazzard” “Bad News Bears” “The Honeymooners” and all those other great remakes. Go fight those battles. Now, that’s a fight worth fighting.

So, where was I? ...I watched this movie in Pasadena and here are some tonight’s highlights:

Everyone in Pasadena is ugly or has whack style. Some are really lucky and are some combination of the two. I swear this girl had a khaki mini-skirt, black thigh-high fishnet stockings, those pink polka dot flats that are supposed to look like a hybrid Converse Chucks and ballet flats, and a plastic Hello Kitty purse. Honest to God, this actually HURT my feelings.

Don’t ever go see a movie the same day a Black movie’s opening weekend. I truly I thought I was going to the BET awards: people had their hair all did up and all the boys were wearing their longest t-shirts and basketball jerseys.

Who wears stilettos and fancy tops or dresses to the movies? Everyone, that’s who.

Note to Pasadena: Ten Thousand Fashion wrongs don’t make a right.

Riddle me this? When did they start serving soda in KFC buckets. Yea yea yea, we all know, soda is big nowadays. I’m not buddist, but I’m not kidding you, this soda cup was a KFC 15-piece bucket in another life.

I remembered for the first time ever that movie popcorn makes me sick and want to vomit BEFORE I ordered it and ate the whole bag. I actually ordered nachos this time. Note to self: Movie nachos make me sick and want to vomit. Never ever order again.

“From the Makers of ‘Mean Girls’ and ‘Freaky Friday”” does not incentivise me to see your movie. Mark Ruffalo and Napoleon Dynamite do.

The only thing that is as bad as seeing “Harlem Nights” in Richmond (think: Oakland on a country budget) on the opening night (which I actually did) is sitting next to two emo boys who thought they did the best Napoleon Dynamite impersonations and were apparently triggered to demonstrate this at the site of Jon Heder.

I’m a sucker for Romantic Comedies.

I’m a sucker for John Cusack.

How badly to I want to see “40 Year Old Virgin”????

HURRY NOVEMBER HURRY!!! It’s both my Birthday AND the next Harry Potter movie. God blesses us TWICE in one month. Thank you sweet Jesus.

Thinking about “The Chronicles of Narnia” makes my bladder twitch. (That means good.)

Who cruises Colorado Ave. in Pasadena on a Friday night in a teal Toyota Paseo? First of all, get out of my way. Second of all, didn’t they recall all Toyota Paseo for ugliness? Third of all, get out of my way.

So…true story. Once upon a time, I was working on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley at a little store called Futura. One day I was wearing a dress and started my period. So I crumpled up toilet paper and wedged it in that tender spot between my panties and my no-no parts. And I ran across the street to the bodega, except in California they’re called convenience stores, but they’re not really very convenient cos they don’t ever really have shit. Anyway. As I’m running across what could be likened to Melrose or Vermont or Hillhurst right on those two blocks that are mad busy or 8th street for you NYers, someone taps me on my shoulder and tells me I’ve dropped something. Laying in the middle of that part of the street that connects to the sidewalk is this bloody tissue. So awesome.

Well tonight, a full two days after my period was over, I use the rest room and I realize that my period has decided to come back for an unrequested encore performance. I was like, “FUUUCK, YOU AGAIN?!?! And in my favorite panties to boot. Or course I’m wearing a skirt cos it’s hot as Jessica Alba’s ass in Sin City out here. And of course I have to crumple up tissue and shove it in my panties. I walked around all night like my knees were fuse together at birth like that little mermaid baby.

So as I’m drawing this blog to a close, I’ve got “Forensic Files” playing in the background to combat the silence of my room. PINKY PROMISE-I just saw a commercial for Restless Leg Syndrome. They’ve even got a foundation Are you kidding me? Next thing, you’re gonna tell me is Alcoholism is a disease. Well, me personally, I’m gonna start a foundation called Jerk Magnet Foundation. Whose in?

Tonight is weird, I’m going to sleep now before it gets any weirder.

It’s Getting Hot In HEERRE

OK. For real. It’s so got damned hot I can't do anything but complain.
 

It’s too hot to even smoke a friggin cigarette.

Everything on TV is a damned re-run, I’ve had to resort to watching the Travel channel.

I just took a cold shower and for no good reason, it’s so depressing.

The last couple of nights we’ve been having blackouts. LA is so lame. When they had black outs in NY, it turned into a city wide block party. But NOOOoo! For me? I go out on my patio to smoke and am told by my neighbors that I shouldn’t be outside in the dark by myself since there have been rapes and robberies in the area in the last few weeks. Good god.

Of course during one of the black outs, my latest guilty pleasure, RockStar INXS, was running so I didn’t get to TiVO it. Now I’m short an episode.

My latest delicious piece of man-meat makeout pie is a forty year-old divorcee with a baby and living in an apartment. Ugh.

He’s also got the same exact birthday as me. So, we’ll either kill eachother. Or kill eachother.

I’m scrolling through my channel menu and seriously considering watching I Want to be a Hilton.

I have to watch Tarzan (yes the feature animation), Herbie (with Lindsey) and Shark Boy and Lava Girl for work this weekend. Anyone who tells me my job is easy, bite me.

I just found out that my latest comedian crush, the host from E! Channels “The Soup”, is married.

I hate all my clothes.

I hate my feet.

My brother’s birthday is tomorrow and I have to stay in LA recruiting influencers for this Jamba Juice program that I’m working on.

I’ve officially seen every episode of Law and Order AND Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

Vincent D’Onofrio is no longer cute to me.

My friend bought a Hitachi magic wand and suddenly my Reach-Easy back massager is obsolete. I have vibrator envy.

I have my second job interview for a new job one week from today.

I’ve spent the last two weeks sleeping next to a pile of shit I haven’t sorted thru on the side of the bed that used to belong to my lover.

I haven’t yet filed my taxes.

I haven’t yet completed my application to refinance my house because I haven’t yet filed taxes.

Interest rates are rising. Fuck you very much, Bush.

I need to buy toilet paper, Q-tips and cotton balls. Every week, Albertsons has a sale on all my favorite brand name paper products. Every week but this week.

I have a pimple on the side of my nose that neither wants to surface and graduate to a white head, nor go away. I HATE YOU UNDERCOVER PIMPLE, I HATE YOU!!!!

Something in my refrigerator stinks, and I can’t figure out what the fuck it is.

I found out the hard way that my legs sweat. Add that to the growing list of wierd things on my body that sweats. Those that say Asians don’t sweat, you lie. May God strike you down.

 

I don’t know, but I think I got most of it out. Thanks for listening. Now go away.

 

Love,

Genevieve

Gambling Addiction

My mother is a funny lady, smart and experienced, kind and sweet. I should learn a lot from her experiences but I’m stubborn, hard headed, determined and a bunch of other things you could read about here. She loved my father very much and he loved her. They were so in love with each other it was retarded. My dad, he was such a romantic. He sang to my mom all the time, he was always looking at her like he was lusting after her. All along he was cheating on my mother with so many women we lost count. Eventually, he left us for one of those ladies.

In my adulthood, I’ve done everything in my power to fulfill my Oedipus complex and date people just like my daddy. Except a helluva a lot less attractive, a helluva a lot less charming and a helluva a lot less attentive.

After my daddy left us, my mom started dating a guy named Mark. She wasn’t in love with him, but she kept him around to keep her mind off my daddy and his new young girlfriend, Sheila. Keep in mind my mother, my father, Mark and Sheila all worked at the same branch of the Post Office and saw each other daily. It was like “ER” where everyone sleeps with each other in the workplace except with real hurt feelings. Mark was this banal, boring guy who looked like Jack Tripper with Cliff Clavin’s personality, it was so odd to me how my mother could go from the crowd pleaser that was my daddy to Cliff from Cheers. 19 years later, my stepfather, Mark and my mom are so in love with each other is sickening. They’re always laughing and kissing and making me nauseous and shit. It’s really gross.

My mother has since told me “A woman and a man are different in that a woman’s heart can learn to love a man that is good to them.” She’s always advised me to date the men that I may not be crazy about and give the guys who are good to me a chance. I met her halfway on this. I date men just like my daddy and date men just like my stepdaddy. I’m a fool for those like my daddy and a bitch to those like my step daddy. Go figure.

The whole point of this blog is to give everyone access to the one piece of advice my mother gave to me that always resounded with me and many of the girl friend’s I’ve shared this with/ My mother’s a gambler so bear with this analogy.

Bad men are like slot machines.

You go up to a slot machine with $20 in quarters. You stay and spend $19.75.

You’re on your last quarter and right when you’re ready to leave empty handed the slots spit out $15 in quarters!!! WOOT! YOU’RE RICH, MAN!!!!!

So you stick around. And you stick you’re quarters in and every once in a while, you get $5, $2. Little by little, you stay in the hopes that the big pay out is right around the corner.

Hours pass, and you lose your whole wad. At the end of your day, you’ve only lost $20, but you’ve lost something you can’t get back, your time and your hope.

I hope you are all smart enough that I don’t have to break this down for you. Figure it out.