RAPIST

I am for equality.

I try to make the world a little better by giving every person - regardless of the colour of their skin, their sexuality, nationality, or gender - a blank slate when I first meet them. It is up to that individual to give me a good or bad impression of their character. Mostly it's worked out to my benefit.

Sometimes it backfires really fucking badly.

I used to believe that even though some of my friends are male, I could trust them because they knew me as a person and wouldn't try to take advantage of me sexually. Even as the number of trusted men dwindled, I believed. Last night I was forced to do a tally: to date, every straight male friend of mine has betrayed me, except one, and I haven't even spoken to him in almost a year. I can no longer rule him out, even though his parents raised him right and he clearly knows what's what. And that's what I mean by suffering. I can no longer go out with my friend because he's a guy and every other man in my life (excluding relatives!) has violated my physical trust to some degree.

Guys: Does it bother you that no female will ever completely trust you? That you will always be a predator...no matter how many times you have proved that you aren't? That now the slate that you are offered is no longer blank, but inscribed with the word RAPIST and it is up to you to erase those words with every enounter? And that you are never in the clear, that those words won't be erased, until you and your female friend have parted ways...because you could go bad at the last second? It hurts me to know these things. There are tears running down my face as I type these words: I can't trust men. I don't trust men.

They don't deserve it.

$200,000

You wanna know why I don't subscribe to SPIN anymore? It sucks now, that's why. They used to have Marc Spitz and Chuck Klosterman and I even kinda liked UltraGrrl for a while there. And then they got sold to those British fuckers who made it just like everything else. Now I have to read Radar or whatever and that magazine takes itself too seriously. Anyway, here's a picture of what is wrong with Spin:



Problem 1: Acknowledging Gym Glass Heroes,
Problem 2: Look at that fucking wallpaper! Of COURSE Modern Spin would do an interview in a room that looked like Robert Pattinson slept there.
Problem 3: LOOK AT THAT STEREO. That is pathetic. No wonder they had to be bought by the stupid Britons. MISSPENT FUNDS. They probably spent four thousand dollars on the aformentioned shitty wallpaper and they can't even afford a stereo that was manufactured AFTER 1996?

I hate music publications and I'm GLAD they're all going extinct.

Has Seen About 2 Episodes of Sex and the City

Kyle: So what are you doing today?

Priya: I'm going to get my eyebrows done at the salon.

Kyle: Ooohhh! Are you going to have girl talk there?

Priya: Maybe...like what?

Kyle (falsetto, imitating conversation between women): MY boyfriend has a big dick! MY boyfriend has a small dick! Does YOUR boyfriend have a big dick? God knows it's the only reason I'm in MY relationship! *twitter*

Plus...I'm a bitch!

I've never had pets. No dogs growing up, no cats at my apartment in LA, no hamsters or fish or turtles. Ever. I think my lack of experience in the "caring for/about another living creature" arena has made me somewhat callous in the face of other people's suffering. For example, consider this exchange, had near my place of work not too long ago.

Teary Woman who, I'm sure, is perfectly nice: "I'm sorry I'm crying. I just had to put my cat down."

Me: "Oh...that's okay."

TW: "I had her for 17 years."

Me: "..." (thinking: Isn't that an abnormally long time for a cat to live anyway?)

TW: *breaks into tears*

Me : "..." (thinking: "FUCK.")

So my parents just got a puppy because they have (I suspect) empty-nest problems and it;s going to die eventually and I'll have to, like, comfort them or whatever it is you do in those situations. No, I don't have a soul...why do you ask? My "thing" is that I'm a diverting conversationalist, hur hur.

ANYWAY, I think the same principle is true for babies. Like, I'm sure they're very fulfilling, but I am not at all interested in your kid. And this applies to spawn of all ages: if you are bragging about someone ELSE's accomplishments (She can roll over now! Just graduated middle school! Is pre-med!), you are forcing me to imagine your head exploding in lots of different ways just to keep from falling asleep. And that's gross. Even writing about how boring you are is boring me.

And yet...

And yet...

Advent of my Internet Usage

I remember at the beginning, I was astonished by all the times I managed to be the 10,000th one to visit any particular site. It happened to me literally dozens of times; what were the odds?

I got a lot of spam in those days, too. I wonder if those two are connected.

A Conversation in the Kitchen at 5:30AM

Priya: "Mom?"
Mom: "Priya? Why are you awake?"
Priya: "My body's internal clock has 28 hours! What's your excuse?"
Mom: *focuses one bleary eye on Priya, closes other* "...What?"

And so it appears that while one of us never went to sleep at all, the
other has just woken up. It's always felt so creepy for some reason that
I'm still awake while some people are getting ready for work.

For Heath Ledger

I'm speechless about Ledger's death...as someone who fell in love with him as Patrick Verona, I have to say that I will mourn the loss of opportunity to watch him get better and better with every role. I'm not much for eulogies, so I'll just say this much more: I'll miss him terribly. I hope he went without pain, and my heart goes out to his daughter and all the family and friends he left behind.

Mindy Kaling is Killing Me

I sometimes imagine a few celebrities as my friends. This usually only works for a couple of minutes, because I chose them as my "friends" in the first place because I admire them. And my ego is too weak to be constantly outwitted by my friends. I need to have friends whom I can occasionally dazzle. People like Chuck Klosterman, Morrissey, Bruce Willis...they seem like people who could really bring a conversation (or at least a hefty dose of the sexy) to the table, you know? But it would be too much. Chuck would be too clever and altogether too unimpressed, Morrissey would be - god love him - exhausting, and Bruce Willis would mesmerize me with his teeth and I would just sit there staring at his sweet little dimples with my mouth all agape and that would be all she wrote.

Mindy Kaling, however, and yes I know I've written about this already dammit...I think I could be friends with her. Like real friends! For more than just a couple of minutes! The fantasy could get too real and as the wavy "dream sequence" lens lifted from the scene we'd still be shopping and laughing, LAUGHING!!!!!! But not as creepy as that looks. Okay, from the top.
Never mind, there's no way for me to go over this without sounding like a freak so forget it. And now she's going to google her own name (no points deducted, everyone does that) and find this and we'll NEVER be friends! Not to mention the fact that I'm pretty sure once you're famous you can only make friends with other famous people, and/or keep a select few of the friends you had before you made it big.

*pouts* Seriously though, whenever I read her website I get pangs. And this isn't because I don't think she's brilliant! I do! It's just that she's not afraid of saying "and I like me some shiny things too." THERE'S A WHOLE POST ON HER BLOG ABOUT SHOES WITH BOWS, PEOPLE. SHOES WITH FUCKIN' BOWS ON. That's amazing. I worship at the temple of Shoes With Bows, are you freaking KIDDING ME!? Is this starting to sound like the small town Indiana girl who moves to Hollywood with the dream, nay, the goal of getting married to George Clooney? Because if it is, that was not my intention. I feel like deleting this whole post out of embarrassment but I pretty much spent half an hour typing this and at this point I've cycled around to "oh god, that's terrifying...I can't believe I typed this...someone should find this amusing though, huh?" Okay, POST!

Whoaaa! Posting Overload!

I'm back again. I saw Cloverfield today. Or is it Cloverfeild? I can't make an educated guess because they never explain what the word "Cloverfeild/Cloverfield" is supposed to mean. Anyway, reports of this movie being the next Blair Witch Project were right in many respects.

Handheld camera: check
Main characters under attack at night by someone/something whose origins and motives are never explained: check
Cliffhanger ending: check

It was scary, but in a "AH! Oh, that startled me! *nervous twitter*" kind of way, rather than a "gives you incurable heebie-jeebies which will haunt you every time you close your eyes or turn the lights off for the rest of your miserable worthless life" scary (as was The Orphanage).

And I know I've been doing something that may be construed as "ragging" on The Orphanage, but the more I do so, the more I seem to think I liked it. At the very least I'm sure that I want to take all my friends to see it and watch as they shit their pants too. Is that so wrong?

YOU WON'T LIKE ME WHEN I'M ANGRY

What is it with Ricki Lake? That woman has been hit on by John Mayer AND John Cusack (my boyfriend) recently and has done nothing about it. Seriously? JOHN CUSACK AND YOU DO NOTHING ABOUT IT? By "do something about it" I mean that I want her to accept because John Cusack is hot. Jesus, it's like she thinks she can just pick and choose who gets to date her fat buttcheeks...actually, she clearly CAN. Oh god.

Also, by "recently," I mean "before Christmas but I'm just now getting to it 'cause I'm a very busy girl so shut up."

That bitch is about to make me angry.

Post Script

So I see in the comments section that Guillermo del Toro had nothing really to do with The Orphanage besides putting up the money for it to be shown in the United States. Well, damn. There goes my theory. BUT STILL DUDE OH MY FUCKING JESUS GAY.

It was scary.

My Work Here is Done

Devin loves the Vice Book of Dos and Don'ts. He loves it, and so should you. That is all. End Transmission.

More Movies, Y'All

So I've been in Houston for 3 days now, and Whoa. I've always hated the pretention involved with someone going away for a long period of time and then coming back to Houston, only to proclaim it a hick town full of hicks, but...IT's TRUE. I was driving through my neighborhood at 1AM last night and I WAS THE ONLY CAR ON THE ROAD. Given, it was a Wednesday night, but that has never stopped LA. I need to shut up about this.

Last night I saw Atonement, with high expectations. Everyone thinks it's going to get an Oscar for something or other. And I quite agree. It was good, I think. I can't tell. Maybe I'm an exceptionally harsh judge of acting prowess, but I didn't think Kiera really brought it. James McAvoy, though, HOLY SHIT IS THAT MAN A SEX. I don't know what that means, but never has "being arrested in a tuxedo" looked so fucking good. Jesus God. There are no words. Here. I will let the pictures do the talking.

Oh, that was a picture of Tila Tequila giving us a peek into what she'll look like at age 55. Yikes!

The Orphanage, or: JESUS FUCKING SHIT BALLS...from here on out, I sleep with one eye open. Or preferably not at all.

My friend KJ and I just went to see The Orphanage, the new movie by Guillermo Del Toro. And it was fucking scary. It was TOO SCARY, guys. I loved it. But I will never sleep again. Seriously, the guy who brought you this image



which was scary enough in its own right, outdid himself. This time, however, instead of messing with you visually, he goes inside your mind and scrambles your brain with fear. SCRAMBLES IT WITH FEAR.

This is your brain.



THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON GUILLERMO DEL TORO.



That's right. Your brain is a Rooty Tutti Fresh n' Fruity. If that didn't just make you crap your pants, you have no soul.

It's Ho-fficial or: My 200th Post

I'm going to be in Houston from January 13th through February 4th. If you're in town, give me a shout. We'll party, as they say, like it's 1999.

This One is Good

I've kind of fallen off the grid as far as my celebrity sighting reports go because I'm pretty over it (the other day we saw Luis Guzman). Last night, however, Kyle had a close encounter with someone everyone can get a perverse thrill from: Jim Carrey.

He's been filming a movie called Yes Man on our street for the last week. So there you go. A real live movie star!

Could I sound any more like some tourist fuck? Yeah, probably not.

Oh My God! I'm Retarded!*

You guys,

I just realized that in the show title "Party of Five", the word "Party" means "entity, group" rather than "festive celebration, a get together, soiree".

*Read that title in an exuberant voice. Kinda makes you let go of the pain and rejoice in all the responsibility for your actions that just got dumped in someone else's lap. Preferably your parents'; they should have known better than to marry their cousin.

There Are No Words

You may be wondering why I haven't said anything about Tiffany "New York" Pollard in a while. After all, the whole second season of I Love New York has come and gone, and I haven't uttered word one on the subject. And you know how much I love to hate that mouthy, squinty, be-falsied ignorant sag-ass. *sigh* There I go again.

The truth behind my silence is that I haven't been watching. I've been without cable this whole time and honestly, I rather enjoyed the sanity. Celebrity news morsels passed before my very eyes like so many motes of dust in a sunbeam, and affected me about as much. Until I read this:

Tiffany "New York" Pollard: I don't like parrots, because they don't speak English diction.

AAAAAAAAUUUUGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What is it with this stupid bitch and animals? First it was the dolphins (of "I don't trust dolphins because I don't know where they keep their brains" fame) and now it's the parrot. I didn't see this episode, but I bet you twenty dollars it took place in Brazil at some lush-as-fuck resort in the middle of the jungle, the kind of lush-as-fuck resort that most of us will never see in our lifetimes because VH1 does not come to our houses offering to foot $20,000 bills. Stupid VH1. Anyway, in my mind's eye, she's here in the middle of the Amazon rainforest...in full New York regalia: where most would be wearing a wife-beater, athletic shorts, runners and a camera, Tiffany is wearing a silk minidress with the top of her lace push-up bra peeking out of the top. Her breasts jiggle nauseatingly. Her eyelashes (thicker than a boar's hair paintbrush, fake) are beginning to melt off her face, as the heat is too much for the glue that suspends them. She is wearing three-inch heels, the soles of which are clear. There may or may not be rhinestones. There may or may not be a cocktail ring. She is seated with some rube on a sad, sad excuse for a romantic excursion in a boat on the river, and someone - probably an unenviable, underpaid tour guide - points out a beautiful bird, perched in the branches above them. Tiffany ducks, since her first instinct is to look for bird shit. Then she utters the gem seen above (I can't bear to type it again). Cut away from the tour guide's beyond-disappointed/disgusted face, just in time to see the "date" puke off the side of the tour boat. Tiffany looks irredeemably haughty, tries to cross meaty thighs in a huff, crosses arms under miraculously hiked-up breasts.

This is all speculation, of course, since I didn't see the episode, but couldn't you just imagine it? What a pig.

An Open Letter

Dear Britney Spears,

I never thought I'd say this, but THINK OF THE CHILDREN. Please get better. Your insanity is beginning to bore me.

I'm not going to give you kissies because I'm afraid of what you have, but I hope sincerely that you do not take offense to that,
-Priya

The Holiday Aftermath Post

WHOA. So much. Okay.

The other day I posted pictures of our hallway in the beginning stages of being torn apart by the plumber. I was depressed because everyone told me that once he cut away the wood they'd have to replace it with some other flooring material, or as Alison put it, "maybe tile?" NO. No No NOOOO!! I realize I'm fully outing myself as a spoiled American (resident), but I can't help it. I winced as they sawed away at my beautiful blonde maple floors, and I unabashedly frowned when I walked into the kitchen over the patch of floor that was missing, especially when the plumbers had finished and covered their work site with the sides of discarded cardboard boxes.
Here's something, though. The building manager loves us, so he sent in a flooring guy right away, who took one look and said, "oh yeah, we can fix this. We'll install the wood tomorrow, and finish it first thing on Monday." So soon nobody will be able to tell that there was once a sad, wilted cardboard box there, and all that tearing asunder of garments on my part was for naught. Isn't that neat? Also, we get to take $100 off our rent for the inconvenience(s). Yes! Moneys!

Next topic: Alison and Elias left yesterday (she to work in Seattle, he to await his acceptance to the Peace Corps and the subsequent instructions), and while Kyle and I will no doubt miss their mind-boggling tendency to wake up at 8 every morning - even on weekends! - bright eyed and ready to discuss international politics or domestic environmental policy and practices, I'm glad that I now get a moment to myself to clean. Yes, I'm excited to go home and scrub the kitchen floors, and swiffer under the bed, and reorganize my vanity counter. I don't know why, but I prefer to clean in solitude, so I didn't do anything remotely domestic for the two weeks that our guests were here, and my sanity/the state of our respective closets is suffering. It's kind of gross.

I think the craziness of the last few days and the rain that's been pouring down since yesterday have teamed up to give me a cold. I've been taking Grapefruit Seed Extract to try and ward it off but I believe I have finally succumbed. Wah. I just talked to Kyle, and he seems to think that yet more GSE will help. O RLY???

I still don't know when I'm going to be in Houston. I keep suggesting dates, and then my mom keeps countering with "why don't you come this weekend and stay for three weeks?" I would love to kick back for a month on a whim, but I have a job and stuff. And rent to pay. I don't know, it's hard trying to tell her these things because she doesn't relate.
"Well, why don't you just quit?"
"Then I wouldn't be able to pay rent or eat when I get back."
"So stay here! You won't have to pay rent to us!"
And then we're right back where we started.
*Pulls hair out*

Yesterday I walked home from my bus stop in pouring rain, which was fun. *sarcasm* I arrived home dripping and shaking, so Kyle started up a hot shower for me and then tucked me in bed to watch 3 movies: 10 Things I Hate About You, Aliens 3 and Aliens: Resurrection. It was a nice night, full of teenaged witty banter and the horrific images of extraterrestrial mutant monster carnage. *contented sigh*

Anyway, I'm going to go wallow in my contagion now. Don't feel sorry for me. I don't need your pity (But just so you know, I'm pretty sure I'm going to die. Cholera, FYI). I don't need your charity! (Sniffle)

Photos from the Holidays

So Elias just gave me photos he's been taking for the last two weeks...I'm posting a few of the first ones here, with captions for your amusement, while I sort through the rest.



Here is a picture of Kyle and me waiting for the bus. It was cold out, as you can tell by the way Kyle's eyes are only a little bit open. I wanted Elias to photoshop them closed but it's funnier this way I guess. And Kyle isn't one for altering the truth to be more aesthetically pleasing, so everyone will just have to deal.



Here's a picture of me, very pleased with myself evidently, on our way to the karaoke bar with Elias and Alison a few nights ago.



And here is a picture of Kyle and me on the subway the next morning.

Destroying My Apartment

When we moved into this apartment in September, I took pictures because I was so excited. In the last month, however, everything has been falling apart little by little and my enthusiasm has been dwindling. Here's a list of shit that's broken:

- The electrical sockets in the front room and in our kitchen occasionally do not emit actual electricity, with no regard to rhyme or reason.
- The kitchen has a leak in the floor somewhere; sometimes it leaks only a little bit and we think it's over, sometimes we leave for ten minutes and come back to find that the whole kitchen floor is covered in water.
- the heater doesn't work.
- the light in the vanity is broken.

So on December 31st, after a month of gently reminding our property manager, Tom, every week and a half about the problems, Kyle wrote a sternly worded letter to the effect that we would not be paying rent for January until the aforementioned problems had been addressed.
January 2nd, 9AM: The plumber knocks on our door.
January 2nd, 9:10AM: The electrician knocks on our door.
January 2nd, 9:15AM: The property manager knocks on our door.

Apparently (and I know it's surprising that I'm just now finding this out), there is nothing like a sternly worded letter to get shit done.
I should write more of them.

So now I'm sitting here in the kitchen, trapped and watching as two maintenance men tear up the beautiful hardwood in our hallway to try to get to the source of the leak in our kitchen. And also listening to them break a whole straight through a wall into the bathroom. Goodbye beautiful floors. Goodbye privacy. Goodbye soul.

EDIT: Here's an image of the beginning of the "renovation"...it pains me to post this, but misery loves company.



LOOK AT WHAT THEY'RE DOING TO MY BABY!

Though this does give me an excuse to look further into a beautiful apartment building I saw on Hollywood boulevard last week...

Internet at Home

Hey guys.

You may have noticed that my posts have all reformatted themselves. Well, I reformatted them. That's because I'm sitting in front of a PC and I have the internet. AND I'M AT HOME. Hallelujah. I guess the neighbor that went away for the holidays (just before Thanksgiving) is finally back.

Anyway, What was I going to say? I forget. The last few days I've been hanging out with Alison and Elias (Kyle's sister and her boyfriend) and it's been great. I've been prompted to do so many things out of the norm and seen some great things in the process. For instance, the cheap $3 theatre near Kyle's work that actually shows pretty current movies, and the vendors on the street next to ours that sell amazing hot dogs wrapped in bacon with lots of trimmings for TWO DOLLARS. Fuck yeah. It's been a truly edifying experience.

We saw Lars and the Real Girl yesterday (at the aforementioned $3 theatre) and were absolutely blown away. I'm so glad they didn't reveal how not stupid the movie was in the previews. It was really great. I was crying freely by the end, but in a good way. When/if you see/saw it, contact me. I have lots to talk about.

Tomorrow, if the weather holds, we plan on going to the beach and poking around. Should be interesting, because my uniform of late has been skinny black jeans, peacoat, black patent leather ballet flats, and scarf. The outfit doesn't really lend itself to letting it all hang out, is what I'm trying to say. Damn!

God, I feel stupid writing all this down. I feel bad that I've been sliding in and out of blogger mode for the last two months. I need to shape it up.