In Heaven, I Would Barf on Your Cat

When I was a kid, I had to go to Sunday School.  In a church.  A church filled with old ladies wearing ugly hats and old men who coughed weirdly.  I had to go to church NOT JUST on holidays, but every Sunday.  (Side note: I don't think people who only have to go to church on holidays are lucky.  Holidays are the worst times to go to church.  Holidays are when you wake up and there are presents under a tree or chocolate hidden around your house.  Church does not have that.)

So I went to church and I went to Sunday School because.....I don't actually know why.  Because I was told I had to. I'm going to ask my mom next time I'm talking to her why she made me do that.  My family should just consider themselves lucky that I hadn't discovered and started making my way through the Seven Deadly Sins back then, or the fire department would still be putting out the flames that would have broken out the second I walked through the church doors all those years ago.

I don't remember much from Sunday School beyond the words to every song they made us sing about sunbeams and mangers and how Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, and that's why they don't mind when land mines blow them into smithereens, because even though they are in 137 individual pieces, they are precious pieces.

(I'm going to stop here and make it clear that I am NOT picking on religious people or people who go to church.  I respect your beliefs just as much as I assume you respect my lack of them.  You're cool with me not believing the same things that you do, right?)

I think most of the people I know who have faith do respect that I'm not a religious person.  It's not like I prance around all "lah-de--dah, I don't believe nuthin'!" but it's not really a secret that I'm a non-believer.  I do not believe in god.  Any god.  I'm not just ambivalent about it, either -- I.  Do.  Not.  Think.  Any.  God.  Exists.  Not being a dick about it, it's just how I feel.  We can have differing opinions and not hate each other.  Oh, wait -- I forgot that people live on this planet.  I meant to say "we can have differing opinions on things, and should try to convince people who don't believe what we believe that they should believe it, and if they refuse, they should be hit with sticks and called bad names and shunned and you know what, just set the fuckers on fire."  Not ALL people are like that, but way too many are.  (One person qualifies as "way too many," by the way.)  

And finally, we come to the point of today's little story: Why the hell is it so bloody important that I believe what YOU believe?  Do you get a prize if you change my mind?  Is it like a country fair, where god gives you a shitty little pencil-topper in the shape of Generic Big Bird if you recruit one person, and a giant stuffed ape wearing a cowboy hat if you get 50 of us to switch sides?  Is heaven like Amway?  Are your profit margins bigger if you can get me to sell cheap hair conditioner, dietary supplements made out of wet cardboard and your message of Peace and Love? (Peace and Love not available in the Middle East or Africa.  Offer void in California unless they fix this whole Prop 8 thing and keep those darn gays from getting married.)

Here's the thing, folks:  You don't want me in heaven with you.  I'm not saying that just because I don't believe in heaven -- I'm saying it because I don't want you to make a horrible mistake.  Have you ever had a party at your house, and invited your neighbour just so you wouldn't seem rude, even though you really don't like that neighbour because he doesn't have a job and he walks out to get his mail in his bathrobe without bothering to tie it closed and you're pretty sure you've seen him piss off his balcony on more than one occasion?  But you invite him to your party to be nice, and he lurks by the chips and dip double-dipping and drinking really cheap beer while leering at your wife and scratching his nuts and then throws up on your cat?  Well, in heaven, I would be that neighbour.  It doesn't matter where or how I end up, if I'm anything more than bug-food, you're not going to want me there.  I don't feel like behaving myself while I'm on this planet, and if it turns out I'm wrong about the whole after-you-die thing and I don't end up just rotting in a box, I'm not going to feel like behaving myself when I get to wherever I end up.  

I say this not to the people I know who have faith and leave me be to not have mine -- I say this to people who will never read this anyway.  I just want the words out there:  Leave the rest of us alone.  Stop trying to convince us we are wrong because you are right.  Stop trying to save us sinners so we can go to heaven with you when we croak (hopefully while doing something hilarious and naked that will give the emergency responders a wicked-awesome story to tell for the rest of their lives.)  Stop knocking on our doors to talk to us for a minute, or putting signs in our faces and lobbying for bills and laws that are mean and hurtful to the people you hate. (Yes, you hate them.  Don't feed us your bullshit about how you love everyone, and you're just trying to save them. You are trying to keep them from being happy, and that's something you do to people you hate.)  Mostly, I want you to ask yourself why you need to change our minds.  Why isn't it enough for you to have your faith and love your god?  It doesn't make it any less real to you that I don't believe it, and it won't make it any more real if I do.

Also, I was in the middle of watching some totally awesome porn when you knocked on my door, and you've totally harshed my mellow, so fuck right off.

~~~~~

Wanna Get Killed With a Swiffer Wet Jet?

On vacation again this week -- which means I've consistently failed at sleeping in, I'm up $5000+ in computer solitaire while playing by the Vegas rules, and my house is so clean that the only thing that would happen if you licked the floor is that you'd dirty it up with your disgusting spit and I'd have to beat you to pieces with my Swiffer Wet Jet.  Which I would then use to promptly soak up your blood.  My DVDs are completely alphabetized, the food in my fridge is lined up according to height, my clothes are arranged by colour in the closet, and if you move any of it, I.  Will.  Kill.  You.  I will kill you neatly.  I will kill you the way Dexter kills other serial killers -- everything covered in plastic, your individual body parts wrapped up carefully and dropped in the river because to me, fucking with my stuff puts you in the same category as a serial killer.

Yes, I know that's crazy.  I.  Don't.  Care.  I don't like people moving my stuff or messing with my stuff or changing how I've set up my stuff or questioning why I've done stuff with my stuff the way I've done it.  It's my stuff, and I get to do with it what I want.  And for the love of all things good, please don't ask me to explain why all the spines of my books have to be facing the same way, or why the slats on the blinds have to be completely even up both sides, why I can't function properly if someone writes in my notebook at work, or why I start having seizures when closet doors are left open.  I really don't know.  I just like it to be that way.  I need it to be that way.  Stuff is easy.  I can make stuff do what I want it to do, because it is just stuff.  It can't move itself around or change where it goes or get bigger or smaller or go away.  If I put something somewhere, I know where it will be when I need it.  And if it does get messed up, I can fix it.  I can put it back the way it's supposed to be.

Yep - stuff is awesome.  Easy, inanimate, dumb stuff.  It's people that suck.  They suck harder than a drug addict after you tell him meth comes out of horse dicks, then leave him unsupervised at a ranch for a few hours.

People don't actually suck.  I take that back.  I could delete it and just type something different, but then you would miss out on the experience of reading the words "suck harder than a drug addict after you tell him meth comes out of horse dicks," and quite frankly, I'm pretty impressed with myself for coming up with that one.  People don't suck.  They just do things you don't want them to do and say things you don't want them to say.  Sometimes they move around or change where they go or get bigger or smaller or go away.

For someone like me -- someone who somehow JUST KNOWS that something in my house has been moved an infinitesimal bit and I have to find out what and put it back where it's supposed to be or I will not be sleeping tonight and I'm going to lynch the jerk that did this to me -- this poses a particular problem.  It's not that I want to control what everyone does or says or whatevers, I just don't know what to do after they do or say or whatever it.  It's not something I can put back, like a salt shaker that someone set down on the table in the wrong place or a Pirates of the Caribbean 2 DVD that OBVIOUSLY shouldn't be on the shelf before the Pirate of the Caribbean 1 DVD.  Cripes.  Who does that???  And why does that person hate me so much???


I don't like change, and I'm going to speak for each one of you when I say none of you do. Not basic, everyday changes -- the big ones.  The ones that NO ONE can stop.  The changes that come hurtling at us like Bret Michaels running toward a Greasy Blonde Wigs For Scuzzy Hair Metal Losers Who Are Obviously Bald and Also Probably Have ALL of the STDs Sale.  The changes that walk up to you, say "Hi!  How's it going?  You look like you're having a super duper day!" and then hit you in the stomach with a fucking electrified crowbar with glass super-glued to it.  Those changes are never ever good, never make anything better, and can hardly ever be fixed.  They always hurt, they always break you and they always leave a scar.  You can get all the help and all the support and all the hugs, and it's still going to blow.  I have no words of wisdom or magical solution.  I'm just an idiot who comes home after a bad day and lines up all her furniture so it runs parallel to the lines in the hardwood floor.

My way of dealing is a bit insane.  I'm ok with that.  It makes me feel better to put my stuff where it's supposed to be, so I'm going to keep doing it.  You should, too.  Find your stuff and put it where it's supposed to be.  Maybe your stuff is your husband or your wife or your kids or boyfriend or girlfriend or dog or cat (even though cats suck) or a teddy bear or a sweater that still smells like your best friend or your gramma or whatever.  Take your stuff and put it where it's supposed to be -- tight in your arms and as close to you as you can get it, as often as possible.  It won't stop the bad changes that have come or will come, but you'll always know your stuff is where it's supposed to be, and that always makes me feel better :)


~~~

Don't Worry -- I Didn't Actually Get a Rusty Nail in My Ass

There's a scene in 'Forrest Gump' where Forrest helps create the saying 'Shit Happens.'  It involves a t-shirt and some shit, and I'm not describing it beyond that because you've seen the movie and you already know.  I'm just reminding you of it, in case you don't have an over-active brain with a frigging giant vault for remembering crap ALL THE TIME that you don't actually need to remember, like I do.  This is the same brain that can't remember what the stupid password is on my cable box so I can watch Pay-Per-View, yet for some reason remembers the licence plate for my first car, which was four cars ago.  YTF 848.  Why the snotty hell does my brain think I need to know that???

So, yes.  Shit does, in fact, happen.  What I'm dwelling on today is why.  Or is there no why?  And if there IS a why, then why does the whatever that decides why it should happen decide it should happen?  As far as I can gather, there are three common schools of thought.  Let's examine them, with a little help from my sweet ass and an imaginary rusty nail:

God/Buddha/Sky Bully/Something has a plan, and everything that happens is part of it.

I am on a bike ride.  I fall off my bike and land on my ass.  My ass lands on a nail, the nail is covered in rust, the nail gets stuck in my ass, I get tetanus and the left side of my body falls off.  If there is a God/Buddha/Sky Bully/Something, and that God/Buddha/Sky Bully/Something's plan involves me falling off my bike onto a rusty nail so the left side of my body falls off, then that God/Buddha/Sky Bully/Something is a dick and I can't imagine why anyone would worship him/her/it.  If some giant bully named Sven decided to punch me off my bike onto a rusty nail because it was part of his plan, I wouldn't start building buildings in his name and hanging out in them one morning a week.  I'd punch him in the nuts.  Comedian's Consensus:  If there's a higher power, he/she/it is not very nice, since there is no good reason for someone to get a rusty nail in the ass.

Everything happens for a reason.

Similar to the God/Buddha/Sky Bully/Something school of thought, but without the God/Buddha/Sky Bully/Something.  This one just figures that if I fall off my bike and land on my ass, and my ass lands on a nail, and the nail is covered in rust, and the nail gets stuck in my ass, and I get tetanus and the left side of my body falls off, then all those things happened so that something else will happen later.  Something 'better,' apparently.  Well, yes.  I assume that if half my body were to fall off, whatever happened to me after that -- short of the OTHER half of my body falling off -- would be 'better.'  It's like those dopes that say a bird shitting on you is good luck.  Yes, because for the rest of the day just about anything that happens to you that doesn't involve shit plummeting out of the sky from a bird's dirty ass onto your face will seem like a shot of good luck.  Comedian's Consensus: Shut up.  I can't hear you very well anyway, because my left ear fell off with the rest of the left side of my body........but for a reason!

Things.  Happen.

Every time something happens, a thing happens.  Sometimes it is a good thing.  Or a bad thing.  Or a thing that is just a thing and doesn't affect anything.  There is probably a reason that LED to it happening, but there is not a reason FOR it to happen.  Maybe I fell off my bike onto a rusty ass-nail because I got distracted by a memory of a naked dude, since that's apparently what my brain thinks I need to think about 75.9% of the time (SCIENCE FACT.)  Therefore, there is a reason I don't have the left side of my body anymore: because I am a pervert.  There is not, however, a reason for me not to have the left side of my body.  It will not lead to anything better.  Nothing awesome or wonderful or good will happen because half of me fell off.  It sucks hard, it's lame, and I can't fix it.  Comedian's Consensus: Yeah, you all knew already this is the one I believe in, so there's no real need to go into it any further than that.

But here's the thing:  Sometimes, I wish very very hard that I believed one of the first two.  It would be so much easier to know there was a reason for something, as opposed to knowing that sometimes the worst things you can think of will happen, and you can't stop them and you can't fix them.  I don't look down on anyone who does believe (even though I made that snarky comment about building buildings and Sunday mornings earlier - sorry) but it just doesn't work for me.  I'd probably be happier if it did.  Then I wouldn't have to spend all this time trying to think of ways to fix everything, and I could concentrate more on naked dudes.


~~~

Punching, Swearing and Boobs

(***DISCLAIMER*** None of the following opinions have any merit, since I do not have children, because studies have shown that if I were to have children, they would probably eat other children or at the very least scare them really badly by carving soap statues that look like their classmates then melting them with a lighter at recess, while staring blankly at what appears to be nothing, but is obviously something, or why would they be that focused on it?  And has anyone seen the class hamster?)

I hate the Parents Television Council.  My hatred starts with their name: Parents Television Council.  Now, if they were only monitoring shows aimed at children, I wouldn't give a crap what they said or did -- but they don't.  These people voluntarily watch EVERYTHING, then tell you why you shouldn't let your children watch it.  So they watch, for example, CSI.....then tell you all the reasons why you shouldn't let your kids watch CSI.  Um, how about because the entire premise of the show is murder?  Here's some helpful information, Parents Television Council: parents who will let their kids watch a show that FOCUSES ENTIRELY ON MURDER will not check your website to see if it's suitable for their children.  Logging onto your website would mean logging off of the WWE website, and that ain't gonna happen because then how would they know who will be in Saturday night's Super-Duper Ball-Punch Double-Death Match?  Plus, they don't even know what their children are watching, because it's hard to focus when you're that drunk on a Thursday night, but you're only drinking because those little brats ruined your life and you could have really been something if it weren't for them.  You could have almost finished your GED, even.  Still, these dickheads at the PTC continue to monitor and bitch about shows, often campaigning to have companies drop their sponsorships because holy shit, someone got killed on Law and Order at 9:00 last night.

So, yeah, I think they suck a whole bunch.  But their existence makes me wonder about a few things -- mainly, why do we hate swearing and boobs so much?  Violence, I understand.  Violence is bad.  Violence hurts and makes people be dead sometimes.  But swearing?  Meh.  Say this out loud: ass fuck hell damn shit.  Did anything bad happen?  Was there a knock at your door and the devil was there and he was all "Mwah ha ha!  You said ass fuck hell damn shit and now your soul is mine" and he threw a pitchfork at you and totally pinned your foot to the floor then violated you with his devil-dong?  No.  That did not happen, and if you say it did, it is because you are a liar or you are on meth or your neighbour owns a devil costume and is really weird.  Swear words do not hurt anybody.  There are worse words, but I don't need to type them here because Lethal Weapon and Kramer from Seinfeld have said them enough.  If we teach children that swear words are bad, we give power to those words that they don't deserve.  I'm not saying we should teach kids to say ass fuck hell damn shit, but by pooping ourselves every time one of them DOES say one of those words, we just make them want to swear MORE.  Do I think prime time TV dramas should start using ass fuck hell damn shit in every episode?  No.  But I also don't think kids should be watching prime time TV dramas.  Problem solved.  You're welcome.

And that brings us to boobs.  Not just boobs, but all body bits and just sex in general.  "This program may contain scenes of violence, coarse language and nudity."  We've lumped the naked human form into the same category as hitting someone in the face with a pail of hot tar.  Two characters getting their shaboink on under the covers is apparently just as bad as a character throwing darts into someone's eyes.  A shot of boob is going to destroy a child as much as a shot of a pool cue to the nuts.  In some cases, movies or shows with sexual content (I'm not talking hardcore porn here, either) receive more restrictive ratings that movies or shows with violence.  I have a theory on that: It's easier for mommy or daddy to explain why the bad man is poking shish-kabob skewers into the other man's ears than it is to explain what the lady is doing with her tongue.  "Little Jimmy, the man is peeling the other man's skin off with a knife because he is mad at him.  It is wrong.  Don't ever peel someone's skin off with a knife."  "Little Jimmy, the lady is under the blankets because........um........she's kissing his...............uh................well................she's looking for her contact lens, I think.........why is she making that noise?.............um, she's......got.............a cold?  Maybe?  Never touch girls."

I don't think we should teach kids that they should run around boinking everything they see when they grow up (especially since there are so many ugly people out there) any more than I think we should be teaching them to kick the shit out of each other, but why are we raising people to believe that sex is just as bad as violence?  Maybe we should be teaching them that it's about respect and feeling good, not embarrassment and shame.  Grouping violence and sex together, making one as bad as the other when it comes to media and entertainment, says a lot about society -- and none of what it says is good.  

So I say go forth, consenting adults of the world.  Wander the Earth, looking for other (not ugly) consenting adults -- all the while hollering our battle cry: ass fuck hell damn shit! as you (responsibly) spread love and happy feelings and vulgar words and substances (which you really should clean up afterwards - don't be a slob and don't just use a sock.  Get some paper towels, for chrissake) across the globe. 

Then we will film it and make a TV show and air it in prime time.  That should keep those fuckers at the Parents Television busy for a while.

~

A Not-Funny Blog Post (with I guess maybe a few funny bits)

I don't feel like laughing about anything today.  Not even the Mystery Smell in my freezer, which, despite its obscene grossness, is hilarious in its elusiveness.  Know what's in my freezer?  Ice cubes.  So someone please tell me what the fuck is causing a smell somewhere between vomit stuck in a sink drain for a week and poopy shoes resting against a heater.  Not ice cubes, I can tell you that.

I usually feel like laughing every day, about something at sometime or another.  Dog doing something stupid ..... friend making a funny face ..... sudden memory of something funny Malcolm Reynolds said.  (Watch Firefly.  Seriously.  It's awesome, and you'll thank me for making your life 14 episodes better.)

I feel like laughing every day, except for the last few weeks, when I haven't really felt like laughing very much at all.  I've felt like crap.  I've been mopey and whiny and depressed.  I, I, I, me, me, me, blah, blah, blah, shut up already.  We all have days like that -- days when we feel like the world is throwing railroad spikes at our head, and it turns out the world is, like, Railroad Spike Shotput Champion of the Super-Olympics or something.  Days when we just want to crawl into bed and never leave, or crawl into a hole and never leave, or crawl into a friend's arms and never leave. (I recommend the last one -- it feels pretty good, if you've got the right friends.  Plus, never leaving bed = bad smelliness, and hole = um, well, it's a hole, so it obviously sucks.)

So I've spent the better part of the last few weeks feeling sorry for myself and driving a really nice friend nuts with my feeling sorry-ness.  (He knows who he is, and if he's reading this:  I'm sorry, but it's all your fault because you're a really good listener.  Maybe if you, I dunno, started clipping your toenails or punching yourself in the face or screaming "SHUT UP!!!!!" while I'm talking to you, I'd leave you alone.  Maybe.)  Feeling sorry for myself, trying to figure out what's wrong with me/why no one loves me/why I'm broke/why my dog stares at me/why I can't lose those last few pounds/why I'm such a big baby and can't just suck it up/why etcetera/why etcetera/why etcetera.  Soul-searching ... asking others to search my soul for me ... deciding I have no soul ... deciding I did have a soul, but I obviously traded it to Satan so I could get my Mustang ... wondering if I can make the hard decisions I need to make and give up the things I have to give up if I want my soul back (not the Mustang, though,  I'm keeping the damn car.)

I think I've started to ramble.  Meh.

Basically, we all have days/weeks/months when we hate ourselves and our lives and for some reason today an unfortunate grey shirt which now lay in tatters on my living room floor because the elastic was loose and I apparently thought I could fix it by throwing ninja stars or a blender at it or something.  We all go through times when we hate our jobs and those hilarious pieces of paper called "pay" stubs and our homes and our kids/pets/evil houseplants (I'm not kidding -- they want me dead.)  We want to move away to the woods and live off the land which is stupid because I don't know how to hunt and I'm not eating frigging tree bark and sticks and after 31 years, I've grown quite accustomed to toilet paper.  There are days for us all when we're pretty sure it would be easier to lay in a bathtub and wait until we shrivel up and lose necessary cohesion and leak down the drain in clumpy, fatty people-chunks.

But there are also days when you wake up and see a canary on the tree outside your bedroom window -- not singing or making weird noises and driving you nuts.....just sitting there being beautiful.

When the first person you see smiles at you, even though you don't know them.

When you turn on your iPod, and the first song it plays is the song you used to dance to with that cute boy in Grade 9.

When you get to work and someone who you didn't think even knew your name tells you what an amazing job you did the day before.

There are days when a good friend comes to your house and lets you cry in his arms.

When you get a text message out of the blue from someone you haven't talked to in months, who just wanted to say "hi."

Or when someone you can't stand finally stops telling you about his effing cellphone plan.

Days when the dog doesn't bark at the mailman or lunge at the neighbour-kids, not even ONCE!

When you realize one of your friends is the strongest, most wonderfully stubborn person you've ever met.

There are days when you stuff yourself with burgers and fries, and don't gain a single pound.

When you don't feel like working out, and you don't get mad at yourself for it.

You find a grey hair, and you don't care at all.

And when you tell a friend you love them, and they say it back.


The bad days always stick out the most, because they're the ones that hit us the hardest.  They're the days when our emotions kick us in the balls and leave big, purple ball-bruises.  The days when we cry ourselves to sleep because it hurts to just be still.

Those days are assholes, and I'm not going to be their friend anymore.

I'm going to remember the days when my friends make me laugh so hard that tears pour down my face, and the days when I go to sleep smiling because I've spent time sitting in the sun and talking with people I love who love me back, and the days when absolutely nothing happens - because those are the days when everything happens.

Hug your friends.  Tell them what they mean to you every chance you get.  Also sometimes poke them in the back of the head and tell them they smell like turds.  They'll appreciate it all (even the turd part.)




~~~

Murderous Houseplants, Pointy Air Molecules, and Dr. Phil's Wife is Sleeping With Her Tennis Instructor: What Working Mornings Does to My Brain

I'm working mornings this week. I don't work mornings often and when I do, it's usually only for a week or two. Not NEARLY long enough to get into any kind of healthy sleeping pattern. That means I become one Warmed Brain Salad away from turning into a full-blown zombie. I swear, I cry, I try to rationally explain to my dog why she doesn't need to bark at the mailman EVERY DAMN DAY, I resort to yelling at my dog when the rational explanations don't work, and eventually (usually about a week into the morning shift) I become convinced that my houseplants are talking to me. The English Ivy next to the front door is a particularly unpleasant bitch, and also the ringleader of their insidious little houseplant gang. I am SO on to them. They don't even know.

I can feel air molecules touching me. They are pointy. Everyone on the bus looks like they want to steal my purse, but they can't have my purse, because THAT'S WHERE I KEEP MY STUFF. Everything I sit on is itchy. I can hear colours. Green is fairly quiet, but orange sounds like Bobcat Goldthwait if his throat were made of a blender and he'd just swallowed ball bearings and they hadn't gone all the way down yet and they were bouncing around in the blender blades.

If it's below 5 Celsius, I'm convinced I will freeze solid but still be alive and aware, and my dog will lick away all my skin because I'd basically be a delicious meat popsicle and it would take weeks for me to die and I would feel it the whole time as my skin is slowly licked away. If it's above 30 Celsius, I can feel the individual threads in my clothing punching me.

My eyes stop working properly......or do they start working BETTER?..... I can see things SO SMALL that they might technically not exist. Yet I apparently can't see the wall next to my bathroom, since I keep walking the fuck into it.

But nothing compares to the most horrific thing of all. The one thing most inhumane about working mornings. The one, terrible thing that – try as I might – I cannot escape. There seems to be no physical way to avoid it, even though I KNOW you will say there is. But you don't know. Oh, how you don't know. It's mesmerizing. It's addictive. It's like getting gonnorreah and herpes and ebola in your eyes and ears all at the same time, but the gonnorreah and herpes and ebola have unicorn dust in them, and it TRICKS YOU into thinking you want it.

I hate you, Daytime TV.

I hate Oprah and Tyra and Rachel Ray and Dr. Oz and The Doctors and OH MY CRAP I HATE DR. PHIL. Dr. Phil is the Asshole Neighbour of Life in General. He has an opinion on EVERYTHING and HE IS WRONG ABOUT IT ALL. Will disect him later – though, sadly, not literally. And, even more sadly, not while he's still alive and paralyzed with that stuff that leaves you alive and paralyzed so you can feel yourself being disected. I think I saw that on TV once on that show Law and Order: CSI.

Oprah is a bitch. I know it, you know it, and everyone in the whole wide world knows it. She's all understanding and interested and caring, but you just KNOW she is a bitch. And she thinks she's so awesome. It wasn't enough that she had her own TV show. Noooooooooo – she has her own magazine. And her picture is on the cover of every single issue. Gosh, Oprah, I'm sorry you weren't told enough when you were little how pretty you were, and now you have to put your face on a magazine every month to make yourself feel better. And she's going to have her own TV channel. Thank GOD. I was so worried I'd never be able to find a place to watch hour after hour of Misunderstood Celebrity Explains Why He Called Jewish People Bad Words That He Really Didn't Mean To Say, or How To Make The Most Out of Your Life Even Though All You Do Is Sit At Home And Watch a Shitty TV Network.

And Tyra. Oh, Tyra – you are so FIERCE! You don't suck AT ALL. You don't have a freakishly large forehead or misconceptions about just how inspiring you are to chubby teenagers and girls with zits. They TOTALLY think you get how they feel. You are JUST LIKE THEM!

Rachel Ray is legally retarded.

Dr. Oz is the least offensive. He at least provides useful information. Too bad his audience is filled with pantsuit-clad women who are psychotically in love with him and scream til they pee every time he shows them what the inside of their stomach looks like after they've eaten eight pounds of ice cream sprinkled with salt.

What can I say about The Doctors? Nothing much, because I black-out whenever I watch it, and when I've come to I discover I've somehow used my toenails to scratch “WHY DOES THAT MORON WEAR SCRUBS ALL THE TIME ON A TV SHOW? DOES HE THINK A MEDICAL EMERGENCY WILL BREAK OUT IN THE AUDIENCE EVERY DAY EVEN THOUGH SO FAR IT'S NEVER HAPPENED? AND HOW COME HE TALKS LIKE A SURFER-STEREOTYPE WHO'S BEEN HIT IN THE HEAD WITH THAT HEAVY LID-THINGIE ON THE BACK OF A TOILET? DOCTORS SHOULDN'T TALK LIKE THAT” into my living room floor.

If I believed in Satan, I'd believe he was Dr. Phil. As I type this, he's talking about fame whores who will do anything to be famous. Hmmm, like perhaps become Oprah's bestest friend when Texas gets mad at her for saying something (I don't remember what or really care) about cows? And then maybe start appearing on her show even though you're just a hack psychiatrist or something? And then maybe get your own show because everyone must care a whole lot about what you have to say? And then write books about how not to be fat even though you're not exactly an Olympic athlete yourself? Eat shit, Dr. Phil. Stop being on my TV. Even when your show isn't on my TV, my TV can still feel you inside it, raping it with your stupid southern twang. And everyone can tell you're wearing, like, AN INCH of pancake makeup -- even on your big, empty bald head. And that thing at the end of each show where you walk into the audience, take your wife's hand, and walk out together – I call bullshit on that. She hates you. There's no way she sits in the audience for each and every one of your crappy shows. The producers sneak her in three minutes before you're done, and they pay her to stay with you but behind your back she's having an affair with her tennis instructor Fernando. Think about it, Dr. Phil – have you ever SEEN her play tennis? No, you haven't. That's because Fernando is taking the money you give him for lessons and he's using it to buy silk sheets to boink your wife on.

If I ever get a full time job working mornings, I'm going to have to cancel cable.

And I'm going to have to kill the houseplants. I can hear what they have planned. It's me or them. If you don't hear from me after this, they won. Check in the basement for what's left of my body. And NO ONE is to give those murderous bastards ANY WATER, no matter how much they beg. Understand???

~~~

How to Be a Melanie

For any of you out there who are terribly jealous of my awesome life and often lay awake at night wondering how you can have a life exactly like mine, I'm here to tell you how you can be me in 23 Easy Steps.

1. Wake up confused about what day it is. Think back to what you watched on TV the night before. Was it 'House'? Then today is Tuesday. Was it 'Grey's Anatomy'? Then today is Friday, and last night you had a dream about Hot Redhead Doctor with Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome Who is For Some Reason Still Attached to That Horse-Faced Bitch. Was it 'Ghost Whisperer'? Then today is Saturday, and you're a fucking loser because you stayed at home on a Friday night watching 'Ghost Whisperer,' you jackass. You probably ate popcorn made soggy by your loser tears, loser.

2. Put on coffee before you walk dog so you will have coffee when you get back from walking dog.

3. Walk dog, after finally remembering that you sleep in your underwear and need to put pants on before you go outside. (At least twice a week, you will almost not remember that in time.)

4. Put on coffee, since you didn't frigging remember to do it before walking dog.

5. Have shower, since you can't have coffee yet because you are a moron. Brush teeth in shower so you don't end up with toothpaste-crust on face, because heaven FORBID you just wipe your face off when you're done. Attempt to shave legs in shower. Fall over because shower is slippery. Resort to sitting under shower head while shaving legs using $10.00 bottle of conditioner because you keep forgetting to buy $2.00 bottle of shaving cream.

6. Go downstairs for coffee. Suffer embarrassment of neighbour seeing you through open window while you are wearing towel tucked into cleavage. Wish you had better-looking man-neighbour so the embarrassment would be worth it.

7. Go back upstairs. Immediately go back downstairs because you forgot to feed dog, so dog is trying to trip you into the wall. (Dog does not understand that if you are dead, YOU CANNOT EVER FEED HER AGAIN.)

8. Open closet. Try to figure out why anyone needs that many black shirts. Open dresser drawer. Try to figure out why anyone needs that many pairs of jeans. Open underwear drawer. Immediately regret not doing laundry the day before. Select jeans and black shirt. Hope that you don't end up in a car accident today, because the doctor at the emergency room will think you're a total dork for not wearing underwear.

9. Apply make-up. To BOTH EYES. Leaving the house twice in one lifetime looking like the guy from Clockwork Orange who rapes people is enough. Yes -- twice. Shut up.

10. Where is your iPod?

11. Get on bus without iPod. Spend entire ride listening to the people on the bus. Contemplate jumping from emergency exit, screaming "I'm doing this because of youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu............SPLAT."

12. Arrive at work. Enter building and see something weird because there is a TV station where you work, and sometimes there are weird things on TV. Like mermaids. And bagpipers who start playing as soon as you walk in on the one day in a month that you wore a plaid skirt. And also once a pony. The pony crapped on the sidewalk.

13. Work.

14. Finish work.

15. Walk an entire hour to get home because you can't comprehend riding the bus again without your iPod and having to listen to those 'people.'

16. Arrive at home. Reach into purse to get house keys. Pull iPod out of purse. Punch door.

17. Walk dog, after dog finishes climbing up your leg because SHE HASN'T SEEN YOU IN EIGHT HOURS AND EVEN THOUGH YOU COME HOME EVERYDAY MAYBE THIS WOULD BE THE ONE DAY THAT YOU DIDN'T AND WHAT WOULD I HAVE DONE WITHOUT YOU AND I HAVE TO PEE AND I'M HUNGRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

18. Go to kitchen-like room that is really just a counter with a sink drilled into it and a fridge that for some reason clicks. Get out everything you need to make delicious pasta and toast and salad.

19. Eat cereal for dinner.

20. Watch TV. Remember what you watched, because you will need to know what it was when you wake up tomorrow and can't remember what day it is.

21. Go to bed. Stare at ceiling doing math in your head for some stupid reason. Why??? You hate math. You suck at math. All the math you are doing right now that is keeping you from sleeping is incorrect. You would fail high school using that math. Stop thinking about math. Start thinking about whether there might be a spider somewhere in your room. There probably is. It's probably really close to you right now. You should try to find it. Nah -- if it wants to kill you, it's going to kill you. You'll be sleeping - you'll never know what happened. Spend next 20 minutes trying to figure out what kind of IDIOT would stick that many glow-in-the-dark stickers to a ceiling. And why are half of them painted over? And why are some of them fish and some of them are astronauts? Those things don't go together. That doesn't make any sense.

22. Fall asleep and have a dream about Spider Astronauts who go to space but space has fish for some reason.

23. Go to step 1. Repeat until you die.

~~~