Awkwardly Social

There was a ‘big’ news story recently about some woman finding the word vagina offensive and when she saw it on a marquee she complained.  The venue decided hoohaa would be less offensive.  And here’s where I started laughing.  Can you imagine you’re walking down the street and you look up and there’s a huge billboard advertising “The Hoohaa Monologues?”  It’s a Saturday Night Live stunt.  It’s guerilla theater.  Nope, just some lady who is so uncomfortable with the word vagina she can’t stand to see it on a marquee.

First of all, I don’t even know where to begin with how fucked up it is that a woman doesn’t like to see the word vagina.  It’s a clinical term.  You know how I know it’s a clinical term?  I’ve heard that word, that horrible dirty word spoken aloud when I was in a clinic.  You know what the doctor didn’t call the opening between my legs where things are inserted for pleasure and periodically blood absorbtion?  She didn’t call it my hoohaa.

I guess I feel sorry for the lady who thinks vagina is a dirty word.  It’s not like they’re calling it “The Cunt Monologues,” or “The Pussy Monologues,” or “The Hairy Clam Monologues.”  It’s just another sign that women have been convinced that our bodies are something to be ashamed of, something to hide away and never touch.  Something dirty.  Poor thing probably doesn’t even know what her clitoris is for, I hope she finds out soon.  A clitoris is a terrible thing to waste.

It’s been a while since I’ve been pulled over, and I guess since I spend upwards of 10 hours a week in my car not including my weekend jaunts and mid-day driving, that’s pretty good.  This morning I got caught in an intersection.  The light turned red and there I sat looking kind of stupid, but no traffic was blocked by me.  It’s an intersection that is often screwed up because the timing of the lights is wrong.  I know this because every day someone gets caught in that intersection.  Every day.  You know how the City of LA has decided to fix it?  That’s right, give people tickets!  Today was my turn.

My question is this, why did the police officer first ask me if the car was mine, then ask me for my proof of insurance?  Why bother with the extra question?  Yes, officer, this shit box car that was so hideously blocking your intersection is all mine.  Free and clear.  Not a dollar owed on it!  As I sat there waiting for my actual ticket, not even a warning, (I totally missed Camp Verde at that point, one time I was going 75 in a 45 zone and Shitball Brady gave me a warning… hee!), I watched the light change three more times, and saw three more people get stuck in the intersection.  There was even a honking fight.  I started to get more and more indignant, and wanted to point out to the officer that it’s the light, it’s badly timed, please just give me a damned warning, but I figured if I went down that road, the next thing I’d be doing would be calling him a fucktard and a shitbag (and not in the nice way we did it with Shitball Brady) and getting my ass hauled to jail.  I guess it would do my writing some good if I did.  I’d have something interesting to blog about.  Of course, I’d have to blog on tiny strips of toilet paper and smuggle it out via someone’s butthole and have Allie type it into the computer for me.  Because I know Allie would do it.  Louie?  Not so much.

The rest of my journey to work I noted every other person who was breaking the law and not getting pulled over.  It made me very, very angry.  Their time will come.  It.  Will.  Come.

Oh my, it is February.  I don’t want to alarm you, but I thought you should know that this is a short month.  I know, I was as surprised as you are.  Can we get a leap year up in here?

Theo and Rudy are doing well, but I’m having a hard time treading the line of over mothering them and totally ignoring them.  I know they’re more comfortable when I’m not staring at them, because I’ll catch them swimming up to the top third of the bowl to check things out and the second they notice me they’re back to pretending they see something really interesting at the bottom of the bowl.

Fuck.  This is becoming a fish blog.  Goddamnit.

I was going to tell you about our trip to Catalina, but that has fish in the story too.  I’m not joking.  I’m even putting four of my digital camera video captures, that I took while we were in a semi-submersible fish watching, together as a little iMovie project.  I just discovered how to use that program (shut up, film school totally spoiled me with Media Composer) and it’s kind of fun.  Now I just need to get some more fish footage so I can give you a whole fish montage.  And then I will alienate all of you but create a whole new fish porn following.

There are new creative pursuits in the making that I’ll be able to reveal to you next month which have nothing to do with fish.  So that’s exciting at least.  And I’m massaging a bar story from the island.  It’s nothing big but the punch line will be available on a t-shirt soon (totally serious), so I want to make it good.  It involves drunk yacht owners, so it’s both really easy and also really difficult.

Now the Gilligan’s Island theme song is running through my head, except I can’t remember the first verse.

The millionaire and his wife, the movie star, and the rest!  Here on Gilligan’s Isle…

We were in Avalon last weekend. Avalon is the little town that everyone thinks of when they think of Catalina Island.  It’s charming, built into the side of a mountain and I adore it.  In the off season it’s mostly locals, and that my friends is why this little story happened.

I haven’t been hit on in a bar in a long time, I think mostly because I give off a very mean vibe when I’m out. I like to avoid making eye contact because when I do, drunk men take that to mean my vagina is hot for them. (I’d like to have in on record that my vagina is never hot for them.) They other reason I don’t get hit on in bars is because I rarely go to bars anymore, and when I do, I look like an old granny who accidentally stumbled into the bar and decided to stay a while and whoop it up with the young ‘uns.

Anyway, we were in (on?) Catalina this weekend and since it’s almost identical in vibe to my home town (in terms of smallness and townieness, not location) we went into a bar and I let my guard down. Louie was singing karaoke and it’s hard not to look nice and smile when your boyfriend is singing Doobie Brothers on stage. So, of course, I got hit on. I’m not telling you this because I think I’m hot and that men obviously would hit on me if I smiled. No, I’m telling you I always get hit on when I smile because I look like I’m easy to talk to and generally I’m surrounded by very attractive people who the hitter-on-er actually wants to talk to so they use me to get to my hot friends. But Saturday night, this was not the case. A very drunk leathery man was sitting in front of me and turned around and said, very drunkenly sort of half to me and half to my second face that was obviously hovering next to me, “You have beautiful eyes.” I sort of looked around because it actually wasn’t clear that he was talking to me, and he said it again, this time looking deeply into my eyes. I politely laughed and said thank you. And he said, “You have beautiful eyes. I have beautiful eyes, too.” Then I squeezed Louie’s leg and drunk man realized I was with someone and turned around to nurse his 19th cocktail.

Um…. Is this how old men think it works? “You have beautiful eyes. I have beautiful eyes, too?” I’ve been out of the game too long. It’s so much easier now.

If you watch both 30 Rock and Top Design, you’ll know what that title means.

Louie and I were marvelling at the eerily familiar voice pattern of Todd Oldham and wondering how we’d ever figure out who he was reminding us of.  (ew, that’s an awkward sentence construction, sorry)  Until I blurted out Kenneth the Page, then the rest of the episode became so hilarious and awkward it might be a detriment to our sanity to continue watching.  Also, the show is kind of lame.

I got another fish last night.  It’s so easy.  You just point out the one you want, the fish person scoops it (or one similar enough) out and away you go.  I might be addicted to gold fish.  I’m seriously considering getting one for the office, but I worry about what would happen to it on the weekends.  This isn’t an early sign of biological clock ticking is it?  Because, I can’t handle that, if it is.

Last night I went on my lame “artist date” wherein I am prescribed one to two hours of time alone with me and my inner child. My inner child wanted to watch TV and eat leftover lasagna while cuddling with my boyfriend, but since I am the grownup I have the uppper hand and forced my inner child to go to the pet store and look at the caged little animals because nothing brings story ideas to me like staring at rats and geckos.

I was roaming around trying to keep my inner child from freeing the guinea pigs to wreak havoc upon Hancock Park when I decided to go to the aquarium section and look at the clown fish. My favorite fish, even before Nemo, were always the clown fish. They are a delight to watch and I have seen one in person snorkeling in the Caribbean, so it kind of brings it all back by watching them. Adjacent to the clown fish was one of those tanks teeming with the fish you feed your pirahna. They’re gold fish, but they’re also deemed too cheap to put in a tank without one thousand of their closest friends. And it costs a mere 10 cents to bring one home. I started asking the fish man some questions and he told me it was a better idea to get a Beta. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think Betas are really beautiful, but they are the slackers of the fish world. They live comfortably in small bowls because they don’t like to swim around. They just kind of float there. So I steered Fish Man back to the teeming mass of gold fish and he told me that if I wanted a gold fish I was really advised to get a tank. I told him I wasn’t going to do that. A tank would be too big and really, if I got a tank what was to stop me from going all the way and taking home an angel fish and some sharks and having my own little National Geographic Channel showdown in my own home. He didn’t think that was funny. He did a lot of blank staring and blinking when I told him he couldn’t stop me from getting a cheap goldfish and an attractive bowl. Which I did.

I heaved everything to the check out counter, paid for my purchases and began to saunter out the door when I realized I didn’t get Theodore Frederick Jackson Turner Roosevelt any fish food. I said to the 18 year old working the register, “Oh shit, this fish is totally doomed.” She blinked at me and I left everything at the counter to find the fish food.

I finally drove home and showed Louie our new family member. Then I remembered I didn’t buy any rocks for Theo’s bowl. Poor Theo is living kind of ghetto at the moment. Louie really loves Theo. We’re both rooting for his survival. Tonight, I go back to the pet store for rocks and maybe a friend for Theo, because he seems a little lonely. Hopefully, Fish Man won’t remember me and think I killed Theo.