I laughed until I cried. :)

We will be ending today's entry on a happy note, but first...

The frosting on the cake of my year was finding out TODAY that I have to spend my birthday TOMORROW standing in line at the DMV. Do not ask. Put it down to the SNAFU that is California public-service-slash-government right now, and let's move on. Suffice to say, it sucks it. The DMV here is not like other DMV's, except for maybe New York. In Dallas, when I had to go to the DMV, the longest it ever took me was an hour, once. Usually, I was in and out in under 20 minutes. Here, it's an arduous 3-hour-minimum wait in line which usually culminates in the bitchiest civil servant you will ever encounter in your life shoving a piece of paper across the counter at you in the most hateful manner possible and barking at you to go stand in another line. And since I live in the west end of the San Fernando Valley, I get to do it with all the human flotsam and jetsam the universe has seen fit to dump in the Greater Los Angeles area commonly referred to as "the suburbs." In the 40's and 50's, the Valley was in its heyday. Lucille Ball & Desi Arnez lived out here. The Warner movie ranch was here, and just about every western shot in Southern California was shot a mile from my house. It was orange groves as far as the eye could see, and Sherman Way was THE artery that ran from Los Angeles way out here to "the country" and the stars.

But that was 50, 60 years ago, and my how things have changed. Now it's mostly a rundown dustbowl filled with old buildings badly in need of face lifts and an overflowing population. The Warner Ranch is now Warner Center - a collection of office buildings, a few hotels, HUGE apartment/condo complexes, and the emptiest shopping mall I've ever been in. Sherman Way is now lined with billboards, ancient strip malls of repair shops and dive bars, used car dealerships, fast food restaurants, pawn shops, dollar stores, and ethnic establishments from supermarkets to Latino music stores. Its gutters are usually peppered heavily with refuse, which - in addition to the usual fast food wrappers & broken bits of automobile - may include (and usually does) portions of furniture or items of clothing ranging from single sneakers to pairs of jeans or someone's coat. I once saw an entire arm chair in the middle of the road, lying on its back and held together with tons of duct tape.

The DMV sits in the midst of all that and is probably my LEAST favorite place to have to go in all of Los Angeles. (So far, anyway.) So I'm thrilled I get to spend my birthday hanging out there. I've decided I'm going to buy a lottery ticket tomorrow, because with all the karmic debt I've paid off this year, I kinda feel like the universe owes me a little change.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, the single most adorable and hilarious 12 second video you will ever see. I literally watched it until I cried, I was laughing so much.

Yeah, this isn't working for me.

Hideously depressed. The Wellbutrin honeymoon is over, and clearly what I was getting from it was the placebo effect, because I have crashed and burned hard the last 2, going on 3, weeks.

Somebody please make the black hole in my chest go away before it swallows me alive. I can't breathe. :(