It is Friday

And yes, I'm having a margarita.
I know, I know, I know, the calories. But fuck it.

Today was a horrendous day. So horrendous I'm not even going to allow it the satisfaction of blogging about it.

Instead, I'm going to be all over the place on this blog, because there are things I want to say. I have things I'd like to ask. Little things, items I've been pondering.

Like this.
Exactly how successful does the media think this type of covert act will be, now that they've displayed a working method all over the internet? Surely the Culor Tyme tattoo parlor is going to lose business, probably there are some violent reprisals on the way. This is something that bothers me greatly (among a vast array of other items) about our media today. A successful sting operation, the cover story on CNN for the day. The method WORKED, assholes. So why do you out it and prevent it from working again?

Which is more important? The breaking of the story or the solution to the ever egregious gang and drug and violence issues that are breaking our country from the inside out?

The media is its own machine, led by itself in a vicious cycle of ratings and Gracie Awards. We Americans just sit there at our TVs, being force-fed this propaganda, buying duct tape to prevent terrorism, eating low-fat food because it helps your heart, until you find out it is loaded with High Fructose Corn Syrup, which, you guessed it, causes cancer. (kidding, it doesn't cause cancer...yet, but it isn't good for you and doesn't do what it is supposed to).

The media declares WINDSTORM 2007 in Seattle, the same day the extent of the "windstorm" is that my neighbor's trash can blows over. They have a graphics team, they have live coverage, they interrupt Oprah, fergodsake, to give us the update on exactly what is NOT HAPPENING.

I have to interject here, because I DESPISE Oprah. I'm sorry guys, I think she's an egomaniacal, enormously self-absorbed megalomaniac. She's got these legions of fans who hang on her every word, quote her, bring her up in conversation like she is their best friend, spewing forth every idea, cliche and trendy shift in thinking like it was the word of God. I've tried to watch her show, when an actor I like is on it, and every statement out of her guest's mouth gets turned around to relate to a personal experience of Oprah's. She has 15 seconds show, and then 4 minutes of commercials. If she was ever cool, it was a long time ago. She's a multimillionaire now, and still tries to appeal to the "everywoman," even though no one I know would throw a hissy fit if Hermes didn't open the store after hours for them.

She did have a cool book club, though. Really great authors. I totally recommend checking it out (not the current one, which focuses on acknowledged "classics," but the earlier one, the original) because she gave first time authors a huge platform, and some of them are now my favorites.

I know I've tangented away from my earlier media rant, but I'm not going back. I'm moving on.

I have a memory that keeps circulating with me. It was my wedding weekend one short year ago (and some months).

Skroll and CLP were here, and they were staying with us, along with three other people in our tiny house and somehow it was just awesome the whole weekend, not crowded, not awful, I have no idea how that worked out, being as how I am generally so irritable and all. Skroll and CLP made breakfast together. My two best friends, making breakfast together, and laughing and getting along all on their own. It was about 6 shades of terrific. We all spent almost every free moment sitting out on the back porch, smoking cigarettes and drinking and just.....hanging. I keep going back to this memory. Over and over. Randomly, with no context to anything I'm doing now. Usually when I'm stressed out. I go back there and love it again. I go back there and feel again, for a second, how great that was, and how I was just about the happiest I've been in a while.

Then the last thing. I want you to comment on this, if you can....

Who am I to you? What is it about me that is most vivid when you think of me?

Here is who I am, to me:

• Crazy, stupid hair. Never looks good, never looks right.
• Blue eyes that eat all my eye-makeup, all the time. But not soft, blue eyes, not warm, not welcoming. Eyes that can blaze like fires, pierce like lasers.
• Tough. Very very very tough. The only person who hurts me is me.
  
• Smart, but not in the ways I want. I'm sharp as a tack, but not philosophical. Not well read, not well spoken. Wasted any inherent talents I may have had by focusing more on life experiences. I'm not naive, not in the slightest, but I wish I weren't so cynical, I wish I weren't so jaded about everyone.
  
• 90 miles a minute, even while sleeping. I have no grace. I have no grace at all.
• Ruined. I think I'm ruined, polluted. Full of vices, very very little joy or beauty.
• Funny. Coarsely, though.
  
• I'm aggressive, too far from ladylike to even pretend. I'm rough.
• I'm a trainwreck. A bar fight. An avalanche.
  

Who am I to you?