4

I’m Melting. I’m Melllllltiiiiiiing…

I have been held hostage at my Corporate POA meeting this week. POA, you ask? Plan of Action, or as I like to call it, Parade of Ass-kissers or Plethora of Assvice. Do sales people EVER stop talking? Really?! My manager inquires as to why I’m not contributing much to the discussion. BECAUSE I CAN’T GET A WORD IN EDGEWISE AND WE ARE ALREADY RUNNING BEHIND SCHEDULE BY TWO FREAKING HOURS! How did I end up here? I swear if I hear the term empowerment, evidence-based selling or super-probe one more time, I will personally super-probe my darling J. Crew flat up your anal cavity.

Did I just refer to the butt 3 times in one paragraph? My brain… it’s withering away…

Luckily, I had a couple of much-savored minutes to re-introduce myself to my Mac. Oh, how I missed you! A friend sent me this circulating email and it actually helped me forget about my meeting for 5 minutes and have a good laugh at the expense of my fellow Southern Californians.

Hollywood Power Outage Sends City into Chaos.
No electricity for 56 minutes. ‘This is our Tsunami.’
By Joshua Gates Actor, Photographer…Victim

LOS ANGELES, CA, September 12, 2005 – Horror and disbelief swept through the greater Hollywood area this afternoon as a minor power-outage turned the city into a virtual war zone and local residents struggled to deal with the devastating aftermath.

The outage struck at 1:35 PM, during L.A.’s busy afternoon coffee and Pilate’s rush hour. Traffic lights fell dark, local gyms and sushi restaurants were without power for nearly 30 minutes and many businesses were illuminated only by the light of the sun and its blistering 78 degree heat. “It was horrible,” said out of work actor and voice-over artist Rick Shea. “I was in a Jamba Juice on Melrose when it hit and the blenders simply shut down. A woman lunged for my Berry Lime Sublime and after that, well, it got pretty ugly.”

In the ensuing panic, local radio stations broadcasted conflicting reports as to exactly which local businesses would be offering relief supplies. Almost 100 people flocked to the Starbucks at Santa Monica and La Brea only to find helpless baristas, no hot coffee and a totally meager selection of baked goods. “My mother is 83 years old and we heard on the radio that this Starbucks was going to be up and running. If she doesn’t get a venti Arabian Mocha Sanani, I don’t know what’s going to happen to her, I really don’t.” said Lucinda Merino of Los Feliz. To make matters worse, those few people who did manage to get coffee were further thwarted by a total lack of artificial sweeteners on site.

“Sugar in the Raw? Are you frigging kidding me?” sobbed local homosexual and avid salsa dancer, Enrique Santoro. “I’m on the South Beach Diet and my insulin levels are going to go crazy if I use this. Why isn’t the rest of the country doing something?”

Deteriorating conditions will force authorities to evacuate the thousands of people at local Quiznos, movie theaters and upscale shopping centers, including the The Beverly Center, where a policeman told CNN unrest was escalating. The officer expressed concern that the situation could worsen overnight after patrons defaced multiple “So You Think you Can Dance” posters, looted a Baby Gap and demanded free makeovers en masse at a MAC cosmetics store during the afternoon.

At least 2,000 refugees, a majority of them beautiful, will travel in a bus convoy to Beverly Hills starting this evening and will be sheltered at the 8-year-old Spago on North Canon where soft omelettes with confit bacon and Hudson Valley foie gras was being airlifted in by The National Guard.

Honorary Mayor of Hollywood, Johnny Grant told a group of embedded reporters at a Koo Koo Roo Chicken restaurant on Larchmont that, “The scope and scale of this disaster is almost too much to comprehend. Local car washes are at a stand-still, the tram tour at Universal Studios has been on hold for almost an hour now and I’ve been waiting for a rotisserie leg and thigh with a side of greens beans for upwards of 15 minutes. This truly is our Tsunami.”

“We want to accommodate those people suffering in the Beverly Center as quickly as possible for the simple reason they have been through a horrible ordeal,” Grant said. “We need water. We need edamame. We need low-carb bread,” said Martha Owens, 49, who was one of the thousands trapped in the Beverly Center when the escalators stopped moving. “They need to start sending somebody through here.”

Along miles of coastline, the power simply surged, causing writers to lose upwards of a page of original screenplay material, causing Direct TV service to work only intermittently and forcing local residents to walk outside and look helplessly at the Pacific from their ocean view decks. “I can hardly begin to put this experience into words,” said longtime Two and a Half Men writer John Edlestein. “I was just getting into my rhythm and making some real headway on a scene where Charlie Sheen parties with a busload of female volleyball players when my Power Book crapped out. I have nothing. Simply, nothing.”

Delivering his weekly radio address live from the White House, President Bush announced he was deploying more than 7,000 additional active-duty troops to the region. He comforted victims and praised relief workers.

“But despite their best efforts, the magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area this sunny and trendy has created tremendous problems,” he said. “The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in the
Hollywood Hills, and that is unacceptable.”

15

Oh, Cabernet, why must you be so delicioso?

So I had been planning on writing an entry this evening, but then I casually suggested opening a bottle of wine to my husband, who wholeheartedly agreed and then we drank lots and lots of wine and now I’m pretty drunk. No, not DRUUUNK, but definitely feeling warm and happy. I also know I’m tipsy because I am sitting here with my iPod earphones blasting “If I Ain’t Got You” by Alicia Keys into my ears. Hell yes. When I hit the sauce, I always find it necessary to blast music for hours on end, just to dissect chord progressions, lyrics, etc. I adore all kinds of music. Seriously, words can’t express. However, now that I have the good ol’ ball-and-chain around, blasting music isn’t very welcomed in the household, but HEY, that’s what my little earphones are for. Earphones rock. Well, I guess they rock unless you are earphone-less and trying to enjoy the silence (as Depeche Mode would say) and are in the immediate vicinity of someone who DOES have earphones on and they are belting out some harmonies completely out of tune. That’s not so enjoyable. But, hey! Not the case here! Don’t forget, I ROCKED the Ponderosa in Hamilton, Montana.

So, here I am, jamming out at my desk on a Thursday night. Good times. Gorillabuns, where are you when I need you most!

Jesus, I’m already losing my direction here. My whole point of writing this was to ask you guys something. What is your all-time favorite song? Ok, Ok, I know that can be a tough question…I have about 50. So how about this, what is your favorite song right now?