Shitty Book Review; Sweet Valley CONFIDENTIAL

Francine Pascal, creator of the suburb-wide phenomenon of our youth "Sweet Valley High", has brought to our adult selves a piece of melodramatic nostalgia that has taken over my entire fucking day. In Sweet Valley CONFIDENTIAL, the better-than-you Wakefield twins are, swearing, fucking and (gasp) having their nipples described (awkwardly, as" taut", which I'm not sure is the right term, but whatever) in a book that aims to tie up the loose ends of a pre-teen book franchise that should've died in it's infancy.

When I was in grade school, the Wakefield twins were pillars of femininity, one ruled by reason, the other by impulse. They were the literary version of Barbies, for the girls who liked to read trash at an early age. And they were always just a little bit older than their target readers, just enough to make them seem like the glamorous older sisters we all wanted, living the affluent-super-hot-but-not-slutty-blonde life we all wanted to live.

10 years (yea, right) later, and these fool-ass bitches are 27 years old. That pissed me off immediately because those cunts were like, 17 when I was 12. Your fiction-math is wrong, Francine. My old-ass is 33. And they are living all of our dreams. They are writing off-Broadway plays, they are marrying rich dudes and fucking on yachts, they are a fabulous PR agent for make-up. That's right, all of it. All of make-up. So now, in the same way those beauty queen wonder twins would make me feel soo young and exited for the future, they are making me feel old, and bummed out on my past!! But I still can't be that mad. They're really pretty so they probably deserve everything everyone could ever want, ever.

What the hell, Francine? Fuck you.

Brianna does open mic night!

Leaving a job can be tough in the stupidest ways. You might hate 99 out of 100 things, but the one thing you like is always really, really good. For example, unless you're a total dick, you're going to make lasting friendships, and unless you've not a shred of humility, you will probably learn at least something.

Meh..

I am cursed to forever hate my jobs. There are people that are built to serve humanity, meant to revel in their communities, to build families and payday based friendships that last for decades. People that thrive off positive reinforcement and who's true joy comes from making everyone's life easier in a their own unique, quiet way.

I want the same things, but I want to be loud about it. Loud and selfish. I want you to think I'm awesome because I'm totally fucking awesome and it's undeniable. I want you to make your life better by being awesome. I want to be your friend because I'm awesome, and I want to share that with you and make your life better for having known me because I just make everything fucking awesome. I don't want to do that in an office, I don't want to do it while serving you a coffee, and I sure as fuck don't want to do it on a pole. Fuck, is that too much to ask???

I have known for a while now that jobs with bosses and paydays and lunch breaks are never going to work for me, and I'm too old and fat to start stripping. So, here's a video of me doing stand up comedy:

And then there's this sort of thing...

A few years ago I was tapped to do some live caricature at a trendy multimedia event. The premise was this; a photographer would wander around the event floor and snap photos of the attendees, then send them to a computer, where I would do a quick cartoon rendering. The whole process was projected to a huge screen beside the stage.

Zero minus two hours before the event and I receive a panicked call from the promoter. Some unavoidable last minute drama occurred and they could not provide a laptop for me to "perform" with.

I needed to bring my own computer.

(eeek)

At the time, Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliff was starring in the Broadway production of "Equus", which is a controversial play concerning nudity and horse love. As a perfectly hu-uge fan of HP, I had procured some promotional photos of young Dan Rad, fully nude, shot from the front, softly caressing a white horse.

That photo was the screensaver on my computer, which, when rigged up to that big screen, projected a monster size photo of what I now lovingly refer to as "Potter Cock".

An entire wall of 18 year old Harry Potter's naked dick.

Now sure, that's kinda funny, but then there's this.

I was awkwardly positioned in the center of the dance floor, at a makeshift computer station that consisted of a folding card table and a wobbly plastic chair. Every mustached sweatervest in the crowd was curious as to why there was someone sitting in the middle of the dance floor, staring at a cheap laptop with the intensity of a thousand suns.

And so the crowd around me grew.

Every time I started a new caricature, my computer crashed and defaulted to full frontal Potter Cock. And as the crowd grew denser, and my small area more heavily populated, my computer, possibly feeling overwhelmed by new file sharing programs and the thick air of aggressively fashionable assholes, began crashing more frequently, flashing the crowd more and more Potter Cock.

Every time that offensive, possibly illegal photo dominated that wall, hundreds of eyeballs focused first on the perturbing photo of the world's favorite boy wizard and his uncircumcised magic stick, then on me.

I wish I could say I'd never been so mortified, but once when I was kid, my panties fell off in the Safeway parking lot, so, yea, it takes a little more than some nebulous pedophilia to embarrass me.

Radical Ways to Break an Arm

Mr. Boss broke his arm. I asked him how he did it. He was tired of answering that question. I told him, "No bother. Actually, I really rather not know". I instead imagined 30 stories in which a radical person breaks their arm.

1) Base Jumping Accident:
got tangled up in my parachute base jumping from the worlds tallest building.

2)Rodeo Accident;
I was thrown from the nation's orneriest bucking bronco. But not after I rode that son of a bitch for 42 seconds.

3)Bar Brawl;
Called a wannabe biker gang a bunch of puss-nuts, kicked over all of their stupid Harley Davidsons, then broke all the bones in my right hand punching each of them out.

4)Concert Accident;
Broke arm while protecting horde of underage scene kids from a terrible trampling at the Lady Gaga show.

5)Ice Skating Accident;
Lost footing and ate shit trying to land a triple axle, especially bittersweet since I nailed it repeatedly in rehearsal.

6)Frisbee Accident;
While enjoying a friendly game of frisbee, I jumped too high and slapped a helicopter out of the sky.

7)Juggling Accident;
I was stuck in a one handed juggler's purgatory for 78 hours.

8)Camping Accident;
Had to fight a mountain lion away from camp with one hand while I restrained an adult male elk with the other. I rode the elk back to civilization, then I killed him with the same hand I used to punch a mountain lion to death. I smoked his meat and fed all the hungry children of SE Portland.

9)Nude Beach Accident
Attacked by several middle aged nudists after removing my trunks and showcasing my junx.

10)Party Accident;
Strained all the muscles in forearm while breaking the world's record for "longest one handed kegstand."

11)Diving Accident;
Dove off the longest, tallest bridge known to man in order to save the drowning puppy of a small weeping child. Dog consequently bit through my entire wrist. Returned pet to child, then slapped child for raising such a shitty dog.

12)Poetry Accident;
Wrote 10,000 lines of prose, which when complete read as a palindrome. Developed severe tendonitis as a result. Never again wrote a line of prose, yet won the nobel prize for literature.

13)Playground Accident;
Attacked by a army of bloodthirsty 3rd graders. Received worst indian burn of all time.

14)Philanthropy;
One man campaign to bitch-slap every deserving man, woman and child in America.

15)Science;
I'm growing a stronger, more flexible, super-arm

16)Thumb Wrestling accident;
Challenged "Long Thumb Cunningham" to a balls-to-the-wall thumb wrestling match. Lost.

17)Arm Wrestling Accident;
Won 12 consecutive matches against the nations top ranked wrestlers, only to have my arm broken during a photo op with my 12 year old protege. I taught that dumb-ass a little too well.

18)Physical Education Accident;
Got carried away while demonstrating perfect pull ups. Did 8000 one armed pull ups, then dazzled everyone with a 45 minute, one armed gymnastics presentation. (**it's worth noting that the real Mr Boss, he says "I'll show you a 45 minute gymnastics presentation..."**)

19)Sisyphean Accident;
Read too much goddamn philosophy in college. It made my bitch ass bones all soft.

20)Stage-diving Accident;
No one caught me

21)Philanthropy #2
Fed my arm to all the starving children of SW Portland.

22)Breakdancing Accident;
Windmilled 376 times in a row. Also now suffering from vertigo.

23)Competitive Eating Accident;
Mistakenly stuck hand in the pie of reigning cherry pie eating champ of Idaho, Jerry Sizzerlean.

24)Self Inflicted;
I broke my own arm to prove to you what a badass I am.

25)Physical Education Accident #2;
Demonstrated dead lifting 500 lbs one handed. Then I high fived everyone and did 1000 push ups with THE SAME ARM!

26)Camping Accident;
Needed to start fire, used own arm for friction. The sparks were 10 times more intense than that of the usual lame wood or flint/steel friction sparks.

27)Fishing Accident;
While noodling (that's bare-fist fishing for all you intellectual assholes) I became locked in a battle royale with the worlds largest catfish. After my victory, I smoked that bastard and fed all the hungry children of Gresham.

28)Ecological Accident;
Tried single handedly to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Literally.

29)Pervert Accident;
Look, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

30)Realistic-if-you-know-me Accident;
My pimp hand is strong, but not that strong.

Closet Bombshell

On the second grade playground, two "play-leaders" of a higher grade, got into an argument over who the cutest second grader was, me or Gwen Guererro. The play-leaders in question were popular twin cheerleaders. I can't remember what the outcome was, but that was the day that I learned a lesson that would stay with me forever.

I am cute.

Unfortunately, that is not the healthiest lesson to learn nor the healthiest place to learn it. Yet, this new found knowledge was not lost on me. However, it did lie dormant until I got boobs.

From adolescence to my early 20s, I used my boobs and my cuteness for evil. I had no code of ethics, and everything was fair game.

That was a regrettable time, and the ethical backlash was so intense it resulted in my hiding under layers of baggy, unwashed, unisex attire until I felt that I had somehow paid my penance.

Now, my work keeps me mostly covered up. And when I get a chance to release the combination of confident 2nd grader and 25 year old sex beast, it is so explosive that people who see me every day don't recognize me.

It is a phenomenon I call closet bombshell.

Just when you thought you liked me.

So, I'm at work, and I'm manning the register, which looks out onto the atrium/dining room just outside the cafeteria. Most of the cashier shift involves staring out into the atrium/dining room. Snoresville, to say the least.

A customer comes in and purchases a cup of ice for 10 cents. She's obviously ill, her walk is pained, and she is on her way to dialysis. She ambles past the cash register and into the atrium, and almost immediately passes out. She falls hard and suddenly.

If you've ever seen a legitimate pass-out, you know it's not all "I got the vapors" and then a gentle drop to the floor like a feather. It's a lot more like a tree being snapped off of it's trunk, and falling headfirst to the ground.

It is disturbing to see someone pass out, it's infinitely more disturbing when that person is frail, dying and probably has no business walking around in the first place.

However, in the course of these events, the sick woman falling face first onto a hardwood floor, and taking out 2 chairs and a table on the way down, was surprisingly the least disturbing.
The most disturbing of these events is that i stood and watched. I watched her walk like an unsteady, malnourished baby deer, I watched her knees buckle and give way, and I watched her face slam into a table edge, before coming to rest on the cold shiny floor.

And she just laid there, not moving.

And I just stood there, watching.

Several employees in the periphery ran to her aid, fanning her, checking her vitals, bringing her back to life. A security guard rushed to provide a wheelchair for her, my co-workers rushed to the dining room to mop up her spilled ice. Rush, rush, rush.

And I just stood there, less that 5 feet away, and did nothing.

I am losing my faith in humanity, and it's my own fault. I was the closest to that fallen woman. That fallen woman who is probably somebody's mother, somebody's daughter, somebody's sister. What if it was my sister. Would I just stand there like some asshole?

Fuck.

A car collided with my moped a couple of years ago, and as I lay on the ground, dizzy and hurt, I could hear the screech of tires as people pulled over to help me. Several people milled around me, trying to protect me. I handed my phone to someone I had never seen before and instructed them to call my boyfriend. And they did. My phone rang again, and I handed it to another nameless, faceless person. It was my job calling. Someone who had never met me, who didn't even know my name explained to my boss that I had just been in a serious accident.

Someone took off my helmet and stroked my hair, and told me evrything was going to be okay.

When it was finally my turn to pay it forward, I just stood there. Not frozen, not scared, just completley uninterested.

I think I even caught myself rolling my eyes.

And that is why I am probably going to hell.

It's the #3 ranked haunted house in the nation.

Ah, my birthday weekend. Let's talk about it.

My friends and I finally gave in to popular temptation and shelled out 20 bucks for the " Scream at the Beach" Halloween event that occupies the parking lot of the Jantzen Beach Mall every October. The theme of this years haunted house appeared to be "Attack of the Drama Kids". From every darkened corner lurked a 15 year old, screechily performing as if their lives depended on it. I screamed till I choked, for nothing is quite as frightening as a shitty teenager on full display, like an angry peacock, getting paid to punk you.

((Fun Fairs like this one are some of the most sociologically interesting examples of youth culture. Observe the native pimply teenager in it's most desired, if not natural, habitat. Relieved of parental supervision for the most part, these teenagers are volatile kegs of hormonal discord. Oh my god, am I wrong to love it so much?))

Upon exiting the haunted house, we found ourselves deposited on the theoretical doorstep of a good old fashioned carnival. Within minutes i had a face full of radioactive-green cotton candy.
I approached the ticket booth, slid my cash across the counter and through a mouthfull of cotton candy, ordered my ride tickets. The charming lady of distinction behind said counter looked at me through evil carnie slits, which I assume are the equivalent to human eyes, and picked up a big-ass pickle on a stick. She never broke eye contact with me as she took a huge sloppy bite out of that pickle.

So she's looking at me while she fights a pickle off of a popsicle stick with what's left of her teeth, and I'm looking at her while I brainlessly shove cotton candy at my mouth, with only 75% of the candy actually making it inside.

You wonder, "was that weird?" the answer is "yes, it was very fucking weird".

Later that evening, as i was simultaneously eating an elephant ear and a caramel apple, it occurred to me that all the elements of a perfect birthday were present. The fist fulls of sugar, the racing, blinking, hyper-colored lights, the creeping chill of fall in the air, my friends concerned faces as I approached what was clearly a heart attack or a minor stroke, it was the perfect birthday storm.

My tongue has been sugar swollen all weekend. It is a small price to pay.