You're breaking my heart, David Tennant. :(

So, a coupla seasons ago, I stumbled across an episode of Dr. Who, a series I reviled my entire childhood (when it was Tom Baker) as ridiculous camp with terrible special effects. But this Doctor was a fast talking, irreverent scamp, and despite myself - and Billie Piper - I started watching the show. And promptly fell in love with David Tennant's Tenth Doctor. I even came to like Billie Piper, and the episode where the Doctor had to leave her behind in another dimension made me cry. (What?! It was a really well-written scene.) Since then, I've watched the Doctor - and Tennant's is the only Doctor for me - charge across the universe with Martha Jones, Donna Noble, and briefly again with Jack Harkness, and I am just crushed to find - late, I admit, but then, British television doesn't get a lot of attention here in the States - that my beloved Tennant is leaving the show.

I don't want to watch someone else be the Doctor, I want David Tennant.

No one else will properly chew the scenery and fire off technobabble at proper breakneck, barely comprehensible (and sometimes completely INcomprehensible) speed. No one else will be half so rakishly, adorably dashing or boyishly, impishly handsome. Plus, I really *like* this Doctor. I like what Tennant's done to make the character so completely his. I love how complex and sad he is. Not that I want him to be sad, but Tennant nails it so very, very well, that I don't want someone else to come along and step into his shoes. It just won't be the same. I suppose it's just as well, as I totally LOVED Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, and the two of them were really good together, so it's kind of fitting that since Donna had to go back to being just Donna after all she'd learned and seen and done with the Doctor, that the Doctor she did it all with is leaving too, and I can consider the story resolved and over, but it still makes me sad, all good things, and all that.

So goodbye, Mr. Tennant. I would have been thrilled if they *had* had to pry the TARDIS key from your hand, many, many years from now. I will miss watching you every week, you cheeky, mad, wonderful Doctor, you. I had a bit of a crush on your marvelous creation. So thanks for the seasons I got. They were great, great fun.

Happy Thanksgiving!

To you, my 3 faithful readers. :)

I hope your turkeys are juicy, the stuffing is without giblets (unless you like it that way ::shudder::), the mashed potatos are plentiful, the cranberry sauce is the real deal, and dessert is your favorite. :)

I will be staying home because I have a lot to do and 2 dogs in the house (not so much clean stuff to wear, though, laundry being one of the things I have to do), and with the rain comes the leaking, and TB needs to be on top of that. Plus, he loves the football, and I don't want to leave him with 2 dogs to supervise when his team will be playing. (His family is up in Mammoth or somewhere.)

Thanksgiving's never been that huge a deal to me, anyway, though I have to say that if Tom makes the insane squash (gourd?) soup he made last year, I am going to weep and wail for having missed it. That stuff was AWESOME.

The CV boot is going on my car, and I haven't the money to fix it anyway, so it's better I not drive. I'm on borrowed time as it is. :(

So that's all I got. I hope your holiday is happy. :)

xo,
kd

You really have to be careful how you phrase things.

I had a shite day. Like, completely, 100% crap. Almost nothing went at all correctly. About the only things that actually went according to plan were a) I was able to withdraw money from the ATM, and b) I was able to purchase a stamp at the post office. The rest of the day? Shite.

1. I had to go today to the County Clerk's office to renew my business DBA registration. Had to be done *today*.

The building is closed until further notice, and the only way to do it was to drive downtown, a feat I had neither the time nor willpower to do.

2. I had to buy a printer ribbon for the fax machine.

Nope. Not in stock.

3. I needed to go see a man about a purchase I ordered ages ago and then forgot to go pay for.

Not open on Mondays.

4. I went into Baja Fresh nextdoor, to buy a badly needed chunk of deep-fried carbs known as a churro.

Out of churros.

I need to move out, and I have no way to pay rent, no idea what to do to pay rent, and no idea where to pay rent, since I can't afford to continue living in Los Angeles, especially with two large dogs, but I have no way to get my shit crosscountry to anywhere else. So I have decided just to pack my shit and decide where to put it afterward.

Sorry for the use of the pejorative, but damn it, that's the day I had, one in which the only appropriate way to refer to all the belongings one has accrued in one's lifetime as "shit." It may not sound like much on "paper," but believe me, it was a really crap day.

I then came home and cleaned the kitchen, which was part of what the fight was about, and believe me, there's a crapload more to it, but let's just leave it at I needed to clean the kitchen.

I then left home to take the dogs to the bark park without remembering to turn on the dishwasher, so when I got home to make dinner?

No clean dishes.

So I went to start the dishwasher.

No dishwasher detergent.

Earlier in the day, I had remarked aloud that the only way my day could get any frigging worse was if someone ended up dead or in the emergency room.

Would you care to guess where my day next led?

If you guessed puppy ER, give yourself a cookie and 100 points.

While TB and I were discussing the crapitude in our relationship at the moment, Napoleon, who was at my feet, rooting around the edge of the floor as he always does, began to choke. TB had to get down and remove whatever it was from his throat. I will spare you the grisly details. 10 minutes later, Napoleon was still trying to hack/throw up whatever was in his throat, so I took him to the ER, where they gave him stuff to make him throw up...and then came out and gave me a HUGE lecture on what a bad pet owner I am as they showed me the contents of his stomach, which was, aside from the obvious disgusting, appalling. Pine cones (copious, copious amounts), 3" long pine needles (both brown and green), pine twigs, whole chunks of Natural Balance deli roll he did not bother to chew (the largest of which was approx. 1.5 x 1 x .5" and earned me an extra scolding), kibble, canned food, small rocks, the fabric from the underside of a sofa, cardboard, bits of a red bottle lid, and the piece de resistance: several chunks of green plastic safety netting. Almost all of which he ingested while I was out running errands today and TB was supposed to be supervising him. So TB has paid the vet bill and does not expect to be reimbursed, since he feels largely responsible for the entire escapade. And the cost of the bill?

$300.

For stuff to make him throw up, stuff to stop him from throwing up, charcoal to coat his entire digestive track, incase he ate anything toxic or caustic which is what made him choke, and syrup to give him tomorrow to coat his throat and stomach, in case all that sharp crap ulcerated the lining of his stomach and/or esophagus. Frankly, I thought it was going to be $500, so 3 was a bit of a relief. He can not go outside unsupervised or do anything more strenous than go on a short, leashed walk for the next 3-4 days. He's currently passed out in his box behind me, where I put him when he insisted on wrestling with Razzle until he rasped and wheezed so loudly you could hear it from 6' away. :(

All of this after I put my knee into his ribs at the bark park for repeatedly doing a bad behavior, and he yelped sharply, then immediately sat and gave me the single most heartbreaking look ever, which clearly said "what did you do that for?" in an utterly confused and betrayed fashion. It made me feel like the biggest jerk ever, and I had to work not to cry for being such a loser to my dog. Now he's been shot up with drugs twice, made to throw up, and imprisoned in his box so he'll be still. :(

When the vet tech brought him out to me at the end of his 2 hour event at the ER tonight, she remarked, "Your dog will eat anything." To which I nodded sagely, as I know this about him already, and said, "Yes, he will."

"No," she said, "you don't understand. We gave him charcoal. We have to force feed that to 90% of the dogs that come in here, but he wolfed it down like it was candy. He'll eat anything."

Awesome.

peace out,
katie

Yep. That's My Hometown...

A guy swinging samurai swords was shot and killed by a security guard at the Scientology Celebrity Center yesterday. I've been there, and frankly, if there's a more Stepford place on the entire planet, I don't ever want to experience it. But this story poses two questions for me.

1. How the hell does a man bearing not one but two samurai swords show up in a red convertible on Franklin Street,

and

2. Why the hell does the Scientology Center employ armed guards, and is that standard practice at all Scientology properties? (okay, 3. sue me.)

No Money 4 H8rs

Here's a list of the people, businesses, public officials and organizations (church and secular) who supported Yes on Prop 8, for those of you who don't care to give your money to haters and bigots.

I got it by way of Jonny-C, who went to the big march on Saturday and blogged it here. :)

I'm already boycotting Cinemark theatres, whose CEO gave $10K to the prop. I'm considering when I open my website again making sure the front page says that I'm equality-based. I don't really give a damn if people see that I'm supportive of my gay and lesbian bretheren and that makes them not want to buy from me. If that's the kind of person you are, I don't want your money anyway.

That's kind of ironic.

Yesterday's entry earned it's first comment by a person whose Blogger ID said Fitness and whose "blog" is nothing more than a spam account setup to enable them to more easily spam blogs.

So I write an entry about how much I don't like assholes, and an asshole is the first to comment, with spam.

I reported you to Blogger, "Fitness," though I realize you probably have at least a dozen accounts from which to spam and abuse. I don't care - at least you'll be inconvenienced enough to have to create another one. You are the type of person who makes this world everything poor and dumb and shitty. YOU are the guy who leaves his dog at the pound because it's not convenient. You're a user and con who would sell out everyone you know for a measley hundred bucks and congratulate yourself on your pathetic little score. You're the guy people make fun of at parties when you aren't around, or the girl they all smile at but talk major smack about how dumb or fat or skanky she is and can you believe she actually thinks that looks good? I know you. I know you really, really well. I've laughed at you my entire life and thought how pathetic and useless you are. Your major contribution to life is hiding behind a firewall and spamming people you think will click a link to take them somewhere where you can sell them a fake or shit product or infect them with a trojan or keylogging wyrm. I'm not impressed. You aren't enterprising. You're just useless. And I love the feeling of disdain you give me as I paste your profile address into the spam bar. It brings me a certain satisfaction just knowing how much better than you I am. So I guess thanks for that. You're good for something, afterall.

Reasons 49 and 1 why I don't like people. Otherwise entitled "Whew."

So, last week went better than expected, in that my mom and I did not kill each other, and she did not spend much time rehashing the past. Possibly because both my remaining uncles were losers who refused to help sort through Gramma's possessions once it became clear to them they would not be making any money out of the deal. We all went by the storage unit after Uncle John's service on Monday, and the oldest uncle took an expensive lamp and something else, and my aunt his wife took the dishes she wanted, then took the lampshade and bulb out of the lamp and left them for me and Mom to deal with, and they all cruised. My younger uncle was supposed to come back the next day to help me and Mom pull furniture out of the unit so we could go through and remove any personal items we might want, and he called me the next morning and said he couldn't make it. Then the next morning he called my mom and out and out refused to come help. So she and I had to find a charity to donate the appliances to, which took 4 days, on accounta the first charity that was supposed to come flaked out - which is a mini story all its own. So finally, on Thursday, we gave up and pulled all the furniture we were able to move out so that we could at least take photographs of the antique organs in the back corner for the auctioneer. That was a lot of fun, since my mom is 70 years old and has a bad back, and the space was stacked up to the rafters with heavy stuff like electric massage chaise lounges from the 70s, naugahyde (pleather) sleeper sofas that weigh about a billion tons, ash bookcases, oak rocking chairs with high backs, kitchen chairs, exercise equipment, an old RCA rear projection big screen television, plate glass mirrors, boxes of office equipment, an old Army filing cabinet from WWII that was The Colonel my grandfather's (not the cool Grampa I adored), the double doors from the fridge which were removed for some reason and were pretty heavy, an old (like at least my age) braided rag rug measuring roughly 8x10' that I have photographs of Gramma crawling around on with baby me on her back (and if you don't think THAT's heavy, think again), a coffee table made from the roots and a cross-section of a California Redwood tree that I snagged my arms on about a million times and remember very well from my childhood, having learned to color on it, an old desk from around the 40s, antique bedside dressers scavenged from what used to be my grandmother's vanity way back in the early 20s, an antique 4-poster headboard, and a plethora of other items. We moved out as much of it as we could, but we couldn't get to the boxes in the other back corner, because the dressers and bookshelves standing on top of the sets of fullsize mattresses were just too heavy to get down. We used sliders to move the desk out so I could take pictures of it and the organs. I should have taken pictures of the huge dresser that was behind the desk, but I forgot to. By the time we moved all that out so I could take pictures, I was pretty exhausted, and then we had to put it all back. It took us the entire day to move it all out and then stack it all back in.

As for the charity who flaked, they were supposed to show up Wednesday after lunch and never did - Clue #1 - so I called them around 2:30 to find out where they were. They were going through a drive-thru (I heard him ordering), and the guy said oh, they'd be there at 5, and then asked me when the storage place closed. Clue #2. I told him 6, and he sucked the breath in through his teeth in a sound that clearly said that wasn't going to work for him, which made me wonder why, since he said he'd be here by 5. Clue #3. He said okay, they'd try to make it there by 4. I said great and relayed that to my mom. We were bummed, but we continued moving stuff out of the unit, trying to get to the stuff we needed to. By that time, we'd already moved the front half of stuff out of the unit 3 times and in twice. Five o'clock rolled around, and there was no sign of the truck. I called the charity and got the first guy's son, and he said he'd call the truck and see where they were. He put me on hold for over 10 minutes and then came back and said he couldn't "find them" and he'd call me back. Clue #4. I called him back at 6, and he said they'd gotten caught up at another pick up and were running late. I said well how late, because we really needed the stuff picked up before Friday, and he said too late to come by that night, but they'd be by the next day (Thursday) "between 12 and 1." Clue #5. I asked if we could be the first pick up scheduled, because we had to move other items out of the unit, and it absolutely had to be done before Friday, and we could not do it until they came for the appliances, and he said "12 and 1 is our first pick up, ma'am." Really? You don't pick up your first donation until the middle of the day??? Clue #6. I stressed how important it was that they show up as early as possible, and he said no problem. The next morning, I called and got the first guy I'd spoken to, and said I was just touching base to make sure they were going to be there between 12 and 1. He whipped out the snotty and said, 'Ma'am, I told you yesterday, we would come to get that stuff on Saturday,' like I was an idiot, to which I replied, "No, you didn't," and he cut me off with this shitty little rant not to talk to him like that, that he was not one of my children, and I had no business speaking to him like that and being rude, and that I could just call back and speak to another representative when I could be polite, and he hung up on me.

Oh, no, you di'int.

I immediately called back and the coward let it go to the machine. So in a very modulated and cultured tone of voice - my Disney heroine voice, in fact, less the saccharine - as we were exiting my mom's hotel and crossing the parking lot, I left a very calm and detailed message telling him that in point of fact, he had told me they would be there yesterday, and we had waited the entire afternoon, at which point he said he'd be there by 5, but had neither actually showed up or called to cancel, that I had spent my entire day waiting for him, I had depended on him, and he had not show up. Then I had been told by another representative at his company that he would arrive between 12 and 1 today, I had believe that and depended on that, and he had screwed me over, so now, HE COULD SHOVE IT UP HIS ASS. Which, yes, I shouted into my cell phone as we were crossing the parking lot, causing my mother to have about 8 million conniptions AND a kitten, she was so appalled. I then flipped my phone closed and apologized to both my mother and the man who was walking past us at the time, and roughly 7.2 milliseconds later, my phone rang. I look down at it and go, "Gee. Guess who it is," and she asks if I'm going to answer it, at which point I say, "no." She says well maybe he's calling to say they're going to come pick the stuff up, and I said doubtful - he was more than likely calling to tell me off, and I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction, and oh, gee, I don't have voice mail, so he won't even have the pleasure of leaving me that. I hit the silence button on my phone, and we headed to the storage unit again, where we called my cousin, and she arranged for another charity to come and pick the stuff up the next morning. Which was great, but also meant that we had to move the damned appliances out ourselves so that we could get further into the unit, to the organs. Which is the day we spent the day moving all that stuff out. And let me tell you, by the end of that day, any shame I might have felt for cursing at a guy working for an AIDS charity had completely gone the way of the dodo, the lameass ***********r. That was one hell of a bitch of a day, and I was really pretty pissed off, not only at him, but at my lameass uncles for leaving my mother to deal with all of it on her own. They didn't even know I would be there, and it turns out the older one had promised my mother he'd come up on Thursday to help, and not only did he not show, he never even called her to say he wouldn't or why he didn't, even by the time she left Saturday afternoon. But I guarantee you the day of the auction, he'll be there with his hand out for a cut of the sale money. Which I told my mother I'd be really f'g pissed off if she gave him, not for the money's sake but for the principle of the thing. You may remember when Gramma died, these same two uncles accused me of stealing their inheritance because I took home some stuff no one wanted and some to mail to my mom so she wouldn't have to take it on the plane and to mail to Gramma's relatives on my GG's side. Also Gramma's sewing machine which doesn't work and which my mother had given her, and since no one else wanted it and I hadn't taken the china cabinet and antique buffet, dining table and chairs Gramma left to me because I don't have room for it all, they all announced I should have. They wouldn't let me have the grandfather clock that I wanted either, but it's been sitting in that storage room for the last 5 years, getting filthy inside, with the original bill of sale on top of it. My uncle said at the time that his boys wanted it and that they should have it, so he refused to let me take it. Imagine my irritation to see it sitting there, and then to find the bill of sale on top of it with the original price of $623 in 1973. Which is exactly why they didn't take it: it wasn't an antique and it wasn't valuable. Losers. But, NOW I get the clock. :) At this moment, it's sitting there with a pink post-it with my name on it. Ditto Grampa's armchair.

So all's well, I suppose. Now I have to send the photos I took and the unit inventory to the auction people, and the auction will be some day in December, the day of which, I will meet Mom at the unit, where I will pick up the clock and armchair (and I think the rug) and the boxes we aren't selling, and haul them all back here, where some of it will be sold to used booksellers, and the rest will go to a thrift store. I'm sure when my uncles show up for their cut of the sale, we'll go into this again, but let's not till then, shall we?

The week was really emotional, because it's really hard to come to grips with strangers buying my gramma's stuff, let alone for cheap so that they can turn around and sell it in another auction or on eBay to other strangers. I had a hard time letting go of things, and I'm sure it will be worse the day of the sale. It's hard to see things you grew up loving in the only place that was really home to you and know that other people who don't care for those things and don't know what they really are will look at them with a stranger's critical eye and pay all of $5 for the green bookshelves that housed Jonathan Livingston Seagull and World Book Encyclopedia and your mother's yearbooks and photo survey books of far away and exotic places to which your grandmother had travelled and the handcarved knicknacks of those travels and heavy bronze elephant head bookends and bookends with spinning Old World globes. They won't care that you slept in that four poster bed every single time you stayed with Gramma throughout your childhood and into maturity. Or that you have a recurring dream about that very same bed. They won't care that you had Sunday dinners at that table, with a hand-tatted white lace tablecloth and engraved sterling silver service and Beaver Cleaver water glasses and roses Grandmother grew, cut, and arranged herself in a cut crystal vase in the center, or that dessert was strawberries from Gramma's own garden and still warm from the sun. They won't care that just looking at any one of those pieces of furniture, you are instantly transported back in time and can see it as it once stood, with all the trappings of life carefully laid out upon it and smell the room it was in, from the smell of books and wood and dust in the den to rosa damascena in the bathroom or roast beef and gravy in the dining room. They won't care you learned to color on that redwood table or played horsie with Gramma on that rug. The happiest times of your life will sell for pennies on the dollar, to cretins who will see no value in any of it beyond what they think they can get for it at auction somewhere else. It lends a whole new perspective to estate sales, let me tell you. I was never someone who bargained with people having sales anyway, and I can guarantee you now that I never will become one. It's a hard thing to see from the other side.

At any rate, the week is done, and now I'm back at real life, with a boatload of stuff to do this week, not the least of which is my taxes. So...yay!

And um, stuff.

Today, I went to get Napoleon's license, and TB asked me to go through the cats while I was there and see if Meows was inside. That was tough, and then when I was leaving, some asshole was turning in his dog, which looked like it was maybe 3 years old, tops, and I'd guess actually right around a year. The woman warned him she couldn't guarantee the dog would not be put to sleep, to which he replied, "That's okay."

That's okay.

Then he went out and got the dog and brought it in, and it was a pitbull mix that looked just as sweet and trusting as can be, but while I was watching went from happy dog to a dog shaking with stress, and it just broke my heart. I went out to the car and called TB, sobbing. I couldn't drive for a while, I was so upset. I wanted to beat the living daylights out of that asshole. It was on the tip of my tongue to snarl at him, "Why don't you at least fucking take a week to put him on Craigslist, you fucking prick," but I didn't, because this is LA, and men here don't think anything about getting physical with you later when you call them on their bullshit - as you know I have experienced more than a few times here - so despite opening my mouth and taking a breath to say that, I didn't, and now I wish I had. But I was so upset, I went down to Big Lots and bought $80.11 worth of blankets and towels (10 60x70" fleece throws and 8 bath towels) and turned around and took 'em all back to the shelter. Which made me feel a little better, but the only thing getting me by was the mantra, "I believe God will help and save that dog, because I asked him to," because I said a prayer to God and to Jesus, and my faith sucks it, but I really need to believe that God will give that dog comfort and help him not to be afraid and then send someone to adopt him, because that's the only thing getting me through. So if you don't mind, please say a prayer and cross your fingers or whatever it is you do when you need help from above, so that God knows that poor dog needs help. And maybe while He's at it, he'll sling some charity around the entire shelter. And I believe that if you have faith - 100% faith - that God will answer your prayer, He will, but you have to have faith. And I'm really not good with that, so I said that mantra for the next hour and a half, and I'm still saying it, because if I have faith, that dog will find a home and hopefully won't be too horribly freaked out while he's in the pound. The way he was shaking really crushed me. So please spin some help that way, huh?

Peace out,
Katie

Apologies & Bygones (I hope)

I need to step back from my vitriol of Wednesday.

I'm frustrated, and spewing anger is not going to help the situation. The thing to do now is to take a proactive stance and move forward, not point fingers. I was really upset when I wrote that, but it's no excuse. And it's entirely possible that in pointing the finger, I upset people I would not want to offend. People like Jon & Tom, whom I love. It's never really a good idea to devolve into an us and them sort of thing, which is kinda what I did. I didn't mean to, but I did, and I don't want to do that. There's already enough of it going around, the last 8 years. So please accept my apologies for being so freakish. I'm sure plenty of LGBT peeps voted against the prop. Maybe there are fewer of them than I think in the state, and it's just that there were way more jerks voting for it than all us straight allies and LGBT peeps voting against it. And I never meant to make it sound like straight people don't hold blame for not voting either, because they do. I just had that whole people who won't stand up for themselves thing in my head. I'm sorry I wrote it, and I deleted it. Suffice to say, I'm really disappointed in the whole Prop 8 thing and looking to move forward in anyway I can to help destroy it.

Peace out,
Katie

Somebody Help Me

I've got this stuck in my head now. For like, 3 weeks.

Help.

Of Bullets Dodged

According to a piece in the NY Times which from what I can tell seems to be factual - insofar as anonymous sources can be verified - Sarah Palin did not know that Africa is a continent (country, check; continent? the deuce, you say) and could not name the three countries involved in NAFTA. I don't know if she thinks North America is only composed of America or America and Canada, and I realize she's way the hell up there in the forgotten Great White North, but dude: North American Free Trade Agreement. How hard is it to suss out who the signatories might be?

I really don't know which is the stronger emotion: relief to have dodged a bullet of Howlitzer proportions or shocked dismay that John McCain actually considered this woman a viable running mate (and presumably viable VP).

It's a train wreck in slow motion - albeit an incredible, rather gleeful one - watching the Republicans and McCain campaign team turn on each other. It's McCain vs. Palin - even if the two of them aren't publicly slugging it out, their aides are...anonymously, of course. It's only too wonderful the press is happy to oblige in airing all the dirty laundry, right down to the socks and $98 onesies, thus insuring us plebes front row seats to the snarkfest of a lifetime. It's not often the Pubbies turn on each other, but when they do, it's a thing of joy and beauty to behold. I just hope someone is taking thorough notes, because you KNOW Palin is not just going to melt away like the Wicked Witch of the West. Hubris seems to be her middle name, and if she's got any brain cells at all to rub together - and I suspect she might have at least 2 - she'll run for Congress in 2010 before making a bid for the White House herself, perhaps in 2012, but not until 2016, if she's got any sense at all. If I were her, I'd hedge my bets and get some actual national experience under my belt before I staged a run of my own. Until then, I'll be making some popcorn and pulling a chair up to my computer screen. Because reading all this muck while the two camps try to blame each other for Tuesday's colossal failure?

Priceless.

You win some. You lose more.

As I write this, a black man has finally been elected President of the United States. It's a day for the record books, a fitting end to an election "season" that lasted way too long.

Unfortunately, also as I write this, 58.7% of precincts reporting have recorded the passage of Proposition 8 - the proposed amendment to the California state constitution to ensure discrimination against gay people - by 5%.

I want to cry.

Arguments I heard today in favor of Prop 8 included "I have no defense for voting for it, but my gut reaction is that it's just not right for people of the same sex to be able to get married," and the woman who told NPR she voted for it because if it failed, schools would "teach gay" to little kids who would grow up to be gay, and thus, we would suddenly find ourselves overwhelmed in a flood of gay people, as if homosexuality is the plague, and merely by talking about it, we would infect the entire nation with a virulent disease from which there was no respite. When it was pointed out to her that schools do not teach homosexuality and that parents have the right to opt-out of any sort of sex ed for their kids, she said she knew that, but she didn't want her children to hear that it was okay for gay people to be married, because then they might want to do it. I was pounding my steering wheel and shrieking at my radio in frustration. The ignorance and outright stupidity of that is untenable. Maybe if someone's breaking down your door to rape you at gunpoint and you just pretend they aren't there, they'll suddenly cease to exist and you can keep watching your "stories" without interruption or pain too, but I highly frigging doubt it. That, in and of itself, is the most moronic thing I have ever heard, but pile the whole "teach gay" thing on top of it, and I really wanted to just slap her. And as it turns out, I live in a state full of her. Millions of her. And they're allowed to get married and reproduce, propogating their ignorance and stupidity to the end of days, making sure that no one outside their safe little boxes has the right to live the same lives. But gay people are what we should all be afraid of.

Yeah. Right.

Let me Photoshop you. Pleeeeeze?!

So, I looked at an old paystub, and I started out at the BCB at $8/hour. Then I got a raise to $8.25. Then Cali min. wage went up 50 cents, and my pay went to $8.75. Then for some bizarre reason, the BCB cut me a check this summer for a week's worth of vacation pay and the like, even though I hadn't worked there since the beginning of the year, and they paid me $9/hour for it. And my new paystub for last week? $9.25. I thought I'd gotten a 50 cent raise no one thought to mention to me, but then I saw the vacay pay for 9, and I don't know what to think. And on top of THAT, they took out money for my health insurance and dental from the last check, despite the fact I'm paying for COBRA for dental and don't have health insurance with them anymore, on accounta I went temporary.

I'm so confused. And wondering if I have to keep paying for COBRA and if I maybe have health insurance again, or if they're just taking money out, and if I try to use my old insurance card, I won't be able to...what UP with that? Curiouser and curiouser.

I need to go to bed, because it's already 11:26, and I have to get up at 5:30 for work in the a.m. It's nice only working 3 days a week, because by Day 3, I'm pretty exhausted from all the cumulative lack of sleep, but I wish I was working more. It was supposed to be 5 days.

When I finish tomorrow, I get to go cast my historic vote for the first black man running for president. :) I'd rather be voting for the first woman, but that's not because I like either one more, just all the hype around Obama really turns me off. I'm waiting for the man to walk on water and then turn the stuff into wine. I kinda won't be surprised if he turns out to be the anti-christ, they hype around him is so huge. I'm just saying.

I took Napoleon to the barkpark today, and it was adorable. :) He's such a cute little dog. So earnest. :) I started doing this thing someone told me about where you pick up your puppy and hold him against you so that he's on his back or halfway on his back, and you rub his belly and chest until he relaxes, and then after a few minutes, you turn him loose again. It teaches them that you are in charge and they are part of your pack. I call it puppy time, and Napoleon loves it. So does Razzle, but Napoleon just gets way into it. He fell asleep on Ty while they were having puppy time tonight. So adorable it just melts your whole heart. :) Razzle looks like he's grinning when he gets puppy time. Napoleon looks like all's right with the world.

And now, a picture of me I photoshopped the hell out of. I did it because someone else I know did it, and I wanted to see how good I was at it. It's based on the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, namely the short film Dove did called Evolution, where they showed how the advertising/marketing industry distorts what women really look like in order to sell product.

This is what I started with, color corrected (the original was yellow because I shot it in low light):



This is what I turned it into. I removed blemishes, airbrushed, lifted, tucked, resized, changed color, and processed the everlovin' crap out of it. This one hasn't been processed much, but I had done all the other stuff, for sure. All I need to do is figure out how to get the skin smooth and lovely without the airbrushed look. There are actions for that, but so far I haven't found one I really like that does enough to smooth the skin without whacking everything else out too, with Gaussian blur. If you airbrush too much, you *have* to go the high key route, or it looks too painted.



And my personal favorites are these. Most people look awesome in high key, I have to say. These are actioned to death. I kinda think I might have skillz. I got lazy with the nostril being blurry (I ended up smudging it because liquify did really weird stuff to the shape of my nose). My nostrils are whack. The right one is waaaaay huge. It's freakish.





The lion's share of processing these was via a set of actions by Lakshal Perera, available here. I highly recommend them. :)

If you want me to PS you into glamour oblivion, please send me a picture of you (preferably 6x8 or 6x9 and around 100dpi). I would love the practice. It's fun to do, but I can only look at my own face for so long before it starts to look like a Picasso.

Happy voting!
Katie

Yummy Chunks of Goodness

Curse you, Jack In the Box, and your mini churros of deep fried cinnamon-sugary goodness, too. I am powerless against you, and you KNEW I would be.

Brace yourselves for this, peeps: I am enjoying my job at the BCB.

Yes, I said I *am* enjoying it. I get up at 5:30a, which is not so enjoyable, but I only work from 7-11 (7-12, if I want to work late), and for the first 2 of those hours, there are no customers in the store for me to deal with. I get to do displays, which I really LIKE doing, and even when we open, there aren't many people in the store for the first hour or 2, so I mostly get to work uninterrupted. I freaking LOVE it. And?

I got a raise! :) 50 freaking cents, which is awesome. When I got my last raise, it was only a quarter. Then the minimum wage in California went up 50 cents, which meant I got a 50 cent bump last fall, and now another raise. Awesome awesomeness. It still doesn't pay great, but it's as much as unemployment is, and it's a whole dollar above minimum, and I'm enjoying the work, so I'm actually quite happy. If things were going well on the home front, I'd really be totally satisfied.

Unfortunately, things are not going so great there. Let's not talk about it. I'm really just trying to figure out how to get out of this mess I've created for myself, and floundering in the process. Let's just say both of us will be much happier when we are no longer living under one roof.

I had more, but I can't remember what. I'm happy to be voting Tuesday...no on Props 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, and 12. Yes on the others. No on the measures. Barack Obama, baby. Fingers crossed.

xo,
kd