Look, I've Got Money to Spend in Here!

Although I've harbored a rabid hatred towards six-foot-tall forehead vein Julia Roberts over the years (think of me as Hugh Grant's best friend in Notting Hill, crying and screaming "Don't you see she doesn't give a shit about anybody but her fucking self?  Stop giving her chances!"), one thing I need to give her entitled ass half the credit for is whenever and wherever I go shopping - be it the 7-11 or Rodeo Drive, baby - this golden nugget of early nineties love plays through my head:

The other half of the credit obviously goes to my goddess of everything Natalie Cole.  If anybody owns and wants to sell that two-piece checkered suit Ms. Cole is whipping her hair around in, I know the EXACT song that will be running through my skull while I'm speeding over to buy it.

8 Things I Learned on My Vacation from Raggle Rock

1.  Being unemployed for a stretch longer than two months is something I never, ever want to go through again.  Fucking never.  The feeling's akin to how I felt when that cyborg I once trusted tried rolling up and jamming a porno mag down my throat while the rest of the crew was just like "La-di-da-di --- wait, Bill, did you hear something?"  Dark thoughts entered my head.  Days just rolled around into each other, collecting dust, beer cans and anxiety.  I forewent brushing my teeth all that often, and so I sat there and groaned away on the couch with smelly breath while watching reruns and reruns and reruns of Chopped.  You'd think it'd be cathartic to write during this long vacation from work, but all I could really think about was how the hell was I going to keep the car that was saddled up in the parking lot, thirsty for gas.   

2.  I learned that recapping TV shows is a cruel sport that the gods imposed on us unsuspecting bloggers long ago.  Since I'm about seven or eight years late in the blogging game, I didn't bother heeding the warning that terrifying little old man at the grocery store that smelled of farts and carpet told me about recapping being a sordid and maddening competition with time.  I shall never recap again, never.  My disappointment in Eastbound & Down truly unnerved me.  Was this still my beloved show?  But why is Ashley Shaffer back, in this scene and that, stealing screen time from my favorite anti-hero?  So, I stopped mid-season, abandoning all three diehard EB&D recap fans in the dust.  Recapping and I are not going to grow to love each other; all we are is dust in the wind.

3.  Haha!  Speaking of competition with time, and deadlines and whatnot, my attempt at completing a March Madness in March fell right into the shitter.  I was sitting on the can, and my cat was curling around my legs, biting my toes, when all of a sudden a thunderous clap, clank and plop sounded in our ears.  I accidentally flushed the toilet too soon.  Me and Sofia just sat there, watching helplessly while my mojo for finishing what I start just whirled and whirled, crying out, gurgling, bubbling until it was all gone.  It felt like an eternity.  Anyways, I bet we can all safely assume that the snake from Anaconda totally won the movie animal competition, right?  Hooray!

4.  My body is not engineered for anal sex.  I actually relearned this one evening a few weeks ago, in the exact same way as I relearned this another night about five years ago, in the exact same way I originally learned this one late afternoon after an arts festival about seven years ago.  It always happens in the midst of my drunken, stoned stupidity, when I grin real weird, and say, "Hey asshole, take a walk on the wide side," to which my asshole responds time and time again, with a shrug, "You're still doing things I gave up years ago."  The next morning, afternoon and early evening, every time I try to take a shit, I howl as violently as that bad-kid-turned-donkey from Pinocchio would.  Not pretty.  Did I finally learn my lesson for good this time, you ask?  Will my brain take the ass bait once more?  Only time will tell.

5.  Posting long, sprawling Raggle Rock posts can be dissuasive to maintaining a blog in general, and is a nice, limp way of glutting for punishment.  Sometimes, I just want to post brevitic comments like, "Look at this...look at this picture with the fucking goat reading a book on it, hahahahahaha!"  So, you know what?  Things are going to change, baby.  I'm posting whatever the hell I want, when I want, regardless of the depth and breadth.  I say who, I say when!  I say who?

6.  The one small thing that I enjoyed about being unemployed was that in the midst of job-hunting on the internet followed by endless job interviews concluding in disappointment, I got to spend a lot more time with my boyfriend than I ever had before.  I've always been a daywatcher, he a nightwatcher, therefore our schedules have crashed into each other like those sorry bumper cars that aren't even fun anymore because they're too old and sticky.  So, yeah, for awhile, [Redacto] and I got to sleep in late together, lounge around the apartment together, and drink the nights away while we talked and talked and talked.  Then one day, I went back to work.  The big take away from this story should be when returning to a schedule that only affords the bare minimum of contact between you and your S.O., after being so used to the relative luxury of impoverished time spent together, fully expect your relationship to be filled with poison.  Hopefully, when it all falls down, you'll remember to be an adult, and have a mature discussion about your frustrations, rather than storming off to your ex-boyfriend's house to sleepover and watch Gremlins 2.  Hopefully.

7.  So, I spent some time mounted in front of the mirror for the past few months, deliberating whether I should give stand-up comedy the old college try (I KNOW!!!  Seriously, not writing and not working make Ashlee go something something...grand delusions of talent was all that was.  I mean, talk about being caught up in the embarrassing trappings of "Bleeurrgh, mah buffriend duzett, wha cain't ah?").  After a long, glowing, masturbatory dialogue with myself, I decided against it.  Ciao, laughter; I never knew you.

8.  This.  People that start paragraphs with the word 'this' followed by a period need to just go and fall off a cliff already.  Don't you remember when everybody was amused by their own cleverness by using the word 'fail' in just about every sentence on Facebook?  This.  is the same thing, I'm afraid.  This.  may not be a lesson as much as it is a grievance of mine, but who knows?  Maybe we'll all be better off by me caring so much.

Great to be back, guys!