Oscar the Grouch

Here come the Academy Awards!! This weekend. Counting-down the hours, are you? Printing out your homemade ballots on your dot matrix printers and sharpening a wicker basket full of golf pencils? Stirring the punch and frosting the mini cupcakes?? Popping the antidepressants and doing the shots of Popov? Slitting your wrists and burning a pile of your old head shots? Screaming out the window, "I was the best I tell you, THE BEST!! And look at me now!! LOOK AT ME!!! I smell like a mediocre biweekly direct deposit and I feel like a sack of potatoes with a wig on"??

Well join the club. That's what ALL of us do on Oscar week. Cuz when it comes to shoving the fame, success and beauty of unattainable goals into our smushy faces, no one does it better than the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Sciences?! I just now decided that is weird).

My resentment/jealousy for these awards has long been a part of my inner workings. For instance, my Barbies** used to get dressed up to attend the awards every year. Because, astonishingly, at least one of them was always nominated! Actress roommates--who, between the two of them, never missed a nomination for 6 years straight?!  An unprecedented achievement to say the least. The only catch was (and here is where my resentment showed its ugly head) they never made it to the awards. One would always have sex with lie naked next to the limo driver minutes before they were supposed to leave! And the other would be jealous because she liked the limo driver too! And they would rip each others' Valentinos to shreds! And go to bed in a huff! But this was somehow a much more satisfactory end to the evening for me than if they had actually gone.

My clear issue was this: I didn't want to see my Barbies win instead of me. Even now, some version of that thought still lingers with me. Each year I (deep-down) think, "If someone is going to win that fancy award, why can't it be me?" And this absurd sentiment, I know for a fact, is shared across the board by my fellow longing-to-be-an-actor-of-the-A-list-type friends.

Ridiculous? Absolutely! Because...
A) I am not in a movie this year. Nor have I been in one prior to this year. And...
B) I am a regular person. Chubby, blemished, and just like the 1 billion other watchers who are sitting at home on their couch anonymously. All of us yelling at the TV. Calling perfect people "ugly", one-of-a-kind couture, "unflattering"  and decent, well-deserved nominations, "bullshit!".

[Hmmm. It seems that the mere topic of these awards is souring my disposition greatly. I just re-read this post and got the chills at how unrecognizably bitter and annoyingly actor-y I sound. But it's too late to turn back. So if you have made it this far in your reading, congratulations! You are almost through.]

Perhaps this year, instead of watching, I should rip my own Valentino and send myself to bed in a huff. Because when I DON'T watch--I feel like a perfectly happy, lucky, successful person with an interesting life. But when I DO, I feel like I am actually just watching life carve a notch on its bedpost-- indicating it has once again laid naked next to f#%ked me.


**Have I mentioned my Barbies before? I believe I have. I blame those b#%ches for a lot of my issues.

Flight of the Navigator

So I have been gone a few months from the earth blog city. And some things have happened. Don't worry, I won't recap them here***. I will spare you a long list of boring nonsense that is my everyday life. To tell you the truth, surprisingly few notable happenings happened. Nothing I've felt compelled to tell you about. But I realized this morning in the shower (where all my realizing is done) that I am BORED. And the only cure for the boredom is typing out my thoughts into a blank text-box and sending it out for people to read or not read.

That's enough prologue. Here's something I have thought about of late...

Almost three times a week I drive by a sign on Western Avenue near my San Pedro home (also near the San Pedro home of the late Charles Bukowski, but now I'm just bragging). The sign is a white poster board that has the phrase, "Computer Classes" written crooked across the board in black sharpie. The first time I saw it, I laughed out loud at the irony--because oh man-- I love me some good irony. I immediately decided that when I drove by it the next time, I would snap a pic. I thought this would make one heck of a facebook post! Can you imagine?!! That funny sign, with a clever caption underneath?!! Something like: "I guess 'making a sign on a computer' is not one of the topics covered in this class". Or...or...hmm...that is the only one I can think of right now. But anyway, it would have gotten "likes" well into the double digits, that's for sure.

The next time I drove by, I readied my camera to get the sign. However, the signal turned green before I could take the picture. Bummer. But I got another good laugh at it. Still funny.

The next time, I was in the passenger seat. So I couldn't miss. But NO! It was the wrong time of day and the sun was glaring right on it! The only thing my camera caught was a flash of sunlight. Dumb.

The next time my camera was out of batteries. And the next time there was a huge truck blocking my view. And then finally, I just stopped finding it that amusing anymore. It wasn't that great of a sign after all. It was only just the slightest bit ironic. Eh. I decided it wasn't worth a post or a picture. And I let the idea drop.

But then, two days ago, I drove by and the sign was gone. The thought immediately crossed my mind that I had missed my chance to take that computer class a picture of something that would never be replicated again. Something I had discovered and could have shown to the world for the purpose of making it the butt of a joke. And I just let it slip through my fingers. Eh.

But as I kept driving (ok, not ALL of my realizing is done in the shower. Some is done in the car.) I started to feel a little sick to my stomach. A lot of time had gone by. LOTS of time since I saw that sign for the first time. Enough time for someone to set up a class; advertise; have people drive by and notice and then ask their girlfriend "hey, should I take that?" and their girlfriend says, "sure"; so they enroll; the class begins; the class continues with quizzes and homework; the students study for the final; they pass or don't; certificates and handshakes all around; then the lights turn out for the last time as the teacher whispers to an empty classroom, "We did it again, computers. Until next time my little machines. Until next time."

All that time had gone by and I was still the same. Still driving on Western, coming from and going to the same places. Eating the same spaghetti/taco/spinach & chicken/frozen pizza dinner rotation I did every week. Looking at the same websites everyday at work. Waking up at the same time, brushing my teeth with the same toothpaste, blah blah blah blah. At any rate these thoughts started to make me sad. Really sad. And I didn't like it one bit.

So today's post, my little machines, has a bit of a moral or lesson or something stupid like that. And here it is: I am not going to sit lamely by and watch the world change and computer classes happen while I stay the same lazy person who doesn't even have the gumption to take a picture of things and make fun of them while I still can! So that is what this blog is for.

And that is why the blog is back. The end.

*** I will recap them HERE:

1. Pregnant? 
2. Yep, Pregnant!
3. Realized going to Vegas on Halloween while pregnant is actually my hell.
4. I thought about getting a Christmas tree. Then thought about how troublesome it was to get the ornaments down, only to have to put them away 3 weeks later. Decided not to get a tree after all.
5. I thought about setting up my Nativity Scene. But then I started watching an episode of the Wire and completely forgot about it.
6. Black mold scare at the office.
7. Changed my name at the Social Security office. Found out that Chubby Checker is the celebrity spokesman for the Social Security Admin.
8. Ate lots of bean and cheese burritos.
9. Got mad about some Republican shenanigans 
10. Black mold scare at the office was a false alarm
11. Stared at Facebook
12. Watched "The Kids Are Alright" and then shrugged and said, "eh"
13. Got told by the doc that I have gained too much weight
14. Ate a bean burrito and cried
15. "Strange Dust" scare at the office
16. Watched the Superbowl with indifference
17. Got flowers on Valentines day from my husband and bragged about it on Facebook
18. Procrastinated reading book for my book club so I could finish watching the final season of The Wire 
19. Decided it was time to write my blog again