A writer who loves fantasy, avoids reality, and who knows the value of hanging a death skull outside my door to ward off uninvited visitors.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Oh the webs they weave....

Okay so, there I am, minding my own business last night, innocently planning a midnight trek to Walgreens for a few needs and wants. So I head outside and what do I see, but a full-on plan of attack by a spider web the size of Texas, spun the spider sitting in the center of his carefully constructed death trap. This spider was so big, I was sure it was a close cousin to the mutation we all know as Spiderman himself.

I mean, this thing seriously looked like it had headed up a meeting with other neighborhood spiders to see how best to utterly block the exit from my own house. I'm not kidding here, the web (beautiful as it was), ran from the top of my roof, down to the two pine trees that border the entrance of my front porch, like the great wall of arachnid. I didn't want to make too much noise by going back into the house, but I had to break up the web or chance being a prisoner in my own home. Held hostage by the ginormous spider that was staring at me like it was fully prepared for a battle of wills.



The only thing I could find was a helpless little snail. "Yes, let's feed the spider," I muttered under my breath. "That'll scare it off." I stared closely at the spider, then threw up my hands in surrender and went back inside to get my husband, the captor of all things I don't like. He brought out a stick and whisked away the web, which clung to the stick as though it had been imbued with the spider's steadfast will of not giving in.

With the web gone and the path clear, I let out a breath of relief, kissed and thanked my husband, and went on my merry way. Low and behold, little did I know that the evil spider was not quite done with me. When I got to the corner of my block, I rolled down my window for a moment, and there it was....another freakin' web....probably an extension of the Texas-sized mammoth.

"How special!"

So, when I got out of the car at Walgreens, what did I wind up doing, but walking right into the web. Needless to say, the other night-trekkers to Walgreens that dotted the parking lot got a live midnight showing of Watch That Fool Dance! And I was the star. Wriggling and wrangling my way...or trying to...out of the clutches of the web that refused to let me go.

Now, I love animals, and I'm that proverbial, "I couldn't hurt a fly," person. But come on! I never signed up to be a fixture on a web, spun by a spider that did his bidding to ensnare us helpless humans. No sir!

So, after five minutes of an infinitely embarrassing, audience-filled, web-be-gone dance, I finally got it off me and went inside the store, head held down in absolute mortification and a total sense of eyes narrowing in on me like I was the star of a freak show.

Spiders be warned. You're now on my list of enemies!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Don't Hate Me For Hating You

Okay so, there I am, minding my own business one day, just going through Directv's guide of daily distractions, when I come upon something called H8Rs (You Have to See it to Believe it). Now, in this era of lazy restructuring of the English language (along the lines of LOL and OMGIJPMWL (Oh my god, I just pissed myself with laughter), I felt compelled to see what new form of abbreviation made it to prime time television. Turns out, H8Rs is a new reality show about regular people who, after extensively reading those irrefutably-reliable sources of truth that we call tabloids, have concluded that they hate certain celebrities.

The curious kitten in me couldn't help but record the show to see what all the hate was about. Well, needless to say, the first episode left my jaw on the floor, my eyes bulging in a this-has-to-be-a-joke sort of way, and my mind scrambling for some sense of understanding as to why any celebrity would ever agree to appear on this show, or, for that matter, why these haters haven't yet found something better to do with their time than sit around hating someone they don't know, based on what the media gossip-whores have deemed news-worthy information. You know, like how short Brittany Spears skirt was at one point, or how J-LO almost cut off all her hair and ran through the streets after discovering she wasn't the end all-be all of the entertainment world. You know, the news.

The premise of the show is essentially this: Mario Lopez and his dimples appear with the celebrity who's been spotlighted enough to apparently warrant actual hatred in the eyes of "regular people". And they listen to said haters as the haters moan and groan their way down their rationally-constructed list of I-hate-so-and-so-for-this-and-that-reason. Then, the celebrity confronts the hater to inquire about the hatred and to then spend some time convincing these haters to look beyond the tabloid gossip and like the celebrity for who they are.

The first episode of H8Rs was an hour long, and took me and my hubby about 2 hours to watch because of the constant pausing for fascinating and ultimately hilarious give-me-a-break infused discussions. Episode 1 involved a total loser that hated Snooki (Jersey Shore) and some girl who hated the Bachelor guy. I won't go into how mentally defeated both those haters were. Well, I just saw the second episode last night, and I gotta say, ".....to the H8Rs of Eva Longoria and Scott Disick (from the Kardashians) (and anyone else you haters don't personally know, in fact)....GET OVER YOURSELVES!"

First off, Scott's hater was a girl with a chip on her shoulder so big that I was sure she'd topple over; though to be honest, it might have been her glaring I'm-not-a-celebrity-therefore-I'm-a-better-person-than-you attitude that stems from hunchback of hatred syndrome, which she was clearly born with. This girl repeatedly called Scott Disick "the ultimate douche" because he (and I quote, because honestly, I couldn't make this up...well, I could, but only at the risk of sounding like a complete moron), "He has never done manual labor like regular people."

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!

Is she actually under the belief (or self-delusion) that the only jobs regular people hold involve manual labor? This girl criticized Scott's Lamborghini, then, after spending some time with him (bowling and telling him to prove himself worthy of her presence, by scraping gum off bowling shoes), she decided she wanted to drive the very car that, earlier, she called unimpressive and disrespectful to people who can't afford one; not a direct quote, but a fraternal twin to her underlying implication, mind you. She actually went on and on about how Scott was a bad person and deserved to be hated by her because he's never held, what she called over and over, "a real job. And this knowledge comes from where now? Her lifelong probe into his private life?

And then there was the hater of Eva Longoria. Or should I say, the hater of her weight. He was this guy who criticized her for not being Latin enough, and for having a small ass. And THIS is something to hate someone for? Really? So, after spending some time making tacos and hearing directly from her, he found that...surprise surprise, the tabloids aren't the truth-mongers he, in his early-twenties-long life-experience, believed them to be.

I have to wonder, why do these celebrities even give a rat's hairy ass who hates them or why, when clearly these haters are of no importance in the celebrities lives? These celebrities have far better things to do with their time than to pander to these pathetically-jealous people that hate them for being in the spotlight on a daily basis. Personally, the one I tip my hat to is Scott Disick, who put it best when he said (at the end of his excruciating time with his hater), that he had better things to do than sit around worrying about this girl and her ridiculous reasons for hating him, and that he refused to dip to her level of existence (again, not a direct quote, but honestly, close enough).

Now, to all those "regular people".....GET...A...LIFE! If it's not someone you know or have personal contact with, leave them alone. Stop publicly insulting these celebrities (or anyone else for that matter), because in the end, all you're doing is making yourselves look exactly (and even worse, in fact) than the people you're openly bashing. Not to mention, in these perilous cyber-bullying times, is that really what you want to look back on your life and see yourself as? A Cyber-Bully? That's not to say that these celebrities are in danger of leaping to their deaths because someone doesn't like them. But still. You know, I can't imagine that the girl who hates Scott Disick will ever look back at her 2-seconds of "fame" and smile proudly over her ultra-informed views of Scott and her appeal to the side of him that, in her self-absorbed and self-important opinion, should be ashamed for her not liking him. And that goes for anyone else who hates someone.

So there it is. My take on a show that is downright laughable and utterly ridiculous. Or should I say, the bottom of the barrel of t.v. show ideas.

Have a good one, and for Pete's sake, don't hate. It's such a strong and ugly word. And in these crappy-ass times, hate is about the last thing we need amid all the lies, betrayal and corruption we see every time we blink.