The, uh, er ... Oscars, Academys, Emmys?
Sunday, February 25, 2007, 8:02 PM

Oh my Lawd. Clint Eastwood is getting old and I'm cringing at him starting, stuttering and stumbling over the cue cards at the Academy Awards. Every time he misses a word or loses his thought, there I am, wringing my hands and wincing like it's me up on the stage. Triple-dog damn.

But I love, love, love him for coming out and lending his presence to the ceremony.

~*~*~*~

Meryl's going to win. I know it. I know it!

2 Did the Unhingey Jiggy Engage in Unhingenosity
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Fate's sense of humor
Saturday, February 24, 2007, 12:53 PM

Around 5:30 a.m., I woke up cold. I go to bed feeling cold, wake up some time during the night feeling as if my body is going to combust from an internal heater, then wake up feeling cold again. But this was Saturday morning and I could burrow back under the covers. First, though, I turned the heat on. A bit later, my alarm clock went off because I don’t turn it off on the weekends—I read or heard something about how it’s easier to face the weekday morning if you keep to the same wakey-up routine. On weekends I wakey-up long enough to turn off the alarm and grin-sigh over the fact that I don’t have to get up unless I want to.

So I got out of bed again to turn off the alarm and noticed that the room was cooler than it was an hour ago. I have an in-the-wall unit that doubles as a heater and an air conditioner. If I turn the knob right, the A/C comes on. Left, the heater. Apparently I’d turned the knob right.

My apartment lease is up for renewal. And in a few months, it will be my second year in Los Angeles. For the most part, I am content in LA, but there are so many people that the city is overrun with buildings, cars, pollution caused by the cars, and noise and trash created by all the people, myself included. When I think of where I’ll be fifteen years from now, I don’t see LA. Either I’ll be back in Fort Wayne, or living in a different area outside of LA and driving to work, suck!, or I’ll have found another city and state more to my liking, but I really don’t want to have to start all over again.

Then again, starting over again has its appeal. If I didn’t like my job or my work fambly as well as I do, I’m sure I’d start over again. But for now, I’m thinking about purchasing a condo because in LA, that’s a smart investment. Property is everything here, even if I end up in a tiny apartment like I have now. If the city keeps growing, or the population remains about the same, I’m sure I can make some money when or if the time comes. Last month, a condo on the street where I live went for a little over $300,000.00, which is a steal in this area. In Fort Wayne, a $300,000.00 property would be a mansion in Cherry Hills. In LA, it’s a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment with a balcony and covered parking.

Crazy, but it is what it is and it’s to my advantage to accept it. First I need to see if I can pre-qualify. I ran a what-if on Prudential’s calculator on the Finance page and great googly-moogly, it seems I can afford to buy a glorified shack. So I’m off to see the wizard.

4 Did the Unhingey Jiggy Engage in Unhingenosity
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Kitty nightmares
Wednesday, February 21, 2007, 7:25 PM

I don't feel like writing lately.

It makes me mad, sad, disgusted with myself.

Yawn.

I still miss my orange Pooky cat more than I should. I've dreamed of him as a kitty that has the ability to make himself multiply faster than a jack rabbit and I'm aswarm with little orange Pooky cats, and I feel awful because I can't give equal attention and love to all of them. And each of those little kitty boys are Pooky and I can't stand the thought of any one of them being overlooked, it's like a knife in my heart.

I've dreamed that Pooky's a hollow vessel -- a soft, warm, living breathing cat on the outside, but hollow on the inside like a plastic piggy bank. An empty piggy bank. I can't even begin to describe what I felt in the dream. Awful.

I've dreamed that Pooky's turned into a skinny, dirty female gray cat that no one wants because she's missing a limb and in its place is a steel rod. But because I took the time to pay attention to her in my dream, I discovered that she could talk (like a human) and she told me where I could find ... well, Pooky. When I went where she said, he was already gone, so I adopted the gray kitty.

There have been good dreams, too, but it's the cold, sad ones I remember. And so here I am, the neurotic kitty nightmare girl. Oogie would be so proud.

3 Did the Unhingey Jiggy Engage in Unhingenosity
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Defining moments
Sunday, February 11, 2007, 9:45 PM

Twenty percent of me won a writing contest when I was in high school; I was one of five winners. It’s crazy how I still regard it as one of my proudest moments, crazy how I still cringe over how they mispronounced my first name, but not my last name.

A local nighttime radio DJ wanted his listeners to write letters to the station owners, outlining reasons why the one-hour request and dedication show should be extended to two hours. I’m sure I rolled my eyes and scoffed at the idea of anyone actually putting time and effort into writing these letters because even at age 17, I recognized the DJ’s ploy for what it was: a pseudo head rush of a who’s listening barf-o-rama extravaganza. But they were offering $100 gift certificates to JB Robinson’s, a jewelry store, and the idea of writing a letter wouldn’t leave me alone.

Then I heard the Sheena Easton/Prince duet U Got The Look. The song ultimately had nothing to do with the letter I wrote, but it gave me the idea I ended up running with – a pair of high school lovebirds who’d broken up over a song request that never happened, ostensibly because one hour wasn’t enough time to submit a request. In the letter I wrote, I was the girl who’d lost her boyfriend over the song request I hadn’t made in time and while I was over the boy I’d lost, I’d met someone new … someone I had to impress with the perfect song dedication, if only I could get the argen-fargen dedication in. And it was this idea that my whole letter of woe hinged on. I made it seem as if my love life depended on another hour of song dedications and that if the station owners didn’t extend the one-hour to two hours, I was doomed to die without the look, loveless, a virgin.

I had an unholy blast writing it. I was sure when I mailed the letter that I would win. Maybe it was the perfect alignment of the sun, moon and planets, but whatever it was that made me believe I was going to win made me purposefully misspell my last name so that the radio station would pronounce it correctly. I laugh about it now, but that day when they said my name on the radio airwaves? I couldn't believe it. They said my last name perfectly … but they massacred my first name. I was crushed. The recognition I wanted didn't seem to belong to me and I felt cheated.

With my $100 gift certificate, I bought a delicate gold watch that I still have today. For the most part, I haven’t forgotten who I am, no matter how others choose to see me or how they choose to pronounce my name. I figure that as long as I don’t lose sight of me and what I want in the long run, I’ll be okay. Just, sheesh, I wish I'd realize I'm damn near past the halfway point of the long run.

1 Did the Unhingey Jiggy Engage in Unhingenosity
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Netflix I have known
Sunday, February 04, 2007, 5:18 PM

Since I’m like, waiting for the Superbowl’s halftime show and Prince, here be some incredibly short reviews of Netflix movies what I’ve seen.

The Usual Suspects
It’s not unusal for people to find my chin against my chest at the end of a movie, but by the end of this one, all the moisture had been seared from my throat.

Whale Rider
Anne of Green Gables, meet your Maourian counterpart.

The Sisters
Are you in to cutting-edge dialogue? Characters who have more layers than a three-inch thick onion? The unexpected? Men everywhere, take notes.

Find Me Guilty
Proof that Vin Diesel also looks great with hair. Okay, fine, proof he can act, too.

Brick
Every idiot high school girl should have a friend like Brendan. Dude, he is the shit in this movie.

Primer
I still can’t believe I watched this Sci-Fi all the way through, seeing as how my head fell nose-down into my lap five minutes after Aaron asked "What's worse? Thinking you're being paranoid, or knowing you should be?"

A History of Violence
Violence notwithstanding, this movie’s sex scenes played merry havic with my body temperature. Ew! La, la.

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
An unlikely documentary not about crackers, but personality.

Saint Ralph
The Pope might not approve, but he should.

Speak
A painful, frustrating exercise of forehead-slapping, but rent it anyway.

Nip/Tuck
Utterly enthralling, side-splitting and painfully comic, and graphic enough to upset my stomach. Still, I wouldn’t mind at all if Christian wanted to bite my thumbs …

Off to bite my own. Prince just came on and he’s singing my songs! Holy-

3 Did the Unhingey Jiggy Engage in Unhingenosity
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .