Tickets to the Bauhaus show this weekend here in Denver are $40-$50. With the fuck-me-up-the-ass-with-a-tampon-and-no-lube $8.95 TicketBastard service fee, that’s steep. I may skip this one.

I had to miss the Hallowe’en shindig at The Church last night. Not because of expense, but because United Airlines lost my suitcase on the way back from L.A. It had my costume in it. No costume = no party = a very sad Diva. Ah, well, at least I already have a costume for next year’s festivities.

The difference between goth and emo is a power failure.

Los Angeles is beautiful this time of year. The weather was in the 70’s, a cool breeze was blowing most days, and the freaks were out in droves for Hallowe’en weekend.

All in all, it was a great trip. Except for the driving part.

When you live there, you get used to the traffic. When you visit, it’s okay for the first two days; then you’re driving disposition changes to “white-knuckled maniac.” My anxiety attack had an anxiety attack of its own whenever we were on a freeway. On the AM dial, you can tune in to either 980 or 1070 for regular traffic reports, so we didn’t listen to much else in the rental.

At one point, we cut off a large, black Chevy truck with hardly any room to spare. It sounds bad until you realize Mr. Truck started to whip around from behind us after we’d turned on our signal and begun to move over into the lane. (Remember kids: A rear-end accident is always the person behind’s fault.)

He seemed to be in an awful hurry to get wherever he was going. But then Mr. Truck, horn honking and hands waving in various ways to indicate his displeasure, followed us off the freeway. Then he pulled up next to us at a red light and started yelling. We both smiled and rolled down the window, but just then, the light turned green. So we yelled, “Ooops! Sorry, I’d listen, but we have to go now!”

This pissed him off royally. How could he tell us off if we wouldn’t listen? So he followed us down the street and got behind us at the next light.

Now a normal person would worry about people in L.A. having guns in their car. Not us. We opted to fuck with the poor guy.

I have a knack for finding the strangest routes to a destination. Our hotel was located in a spot where it was nigh impossible to turn left into the parking lot so, the first day we were there, I found a route through the adjoining neighborhood that would take us where we could turn into the lot from the right.

This was information Mr. Truck obviously did not have, because as we turned into the neighborhood, he followed.

We are talking about residential streets in the Hollywood Hills. The streets there are essentially one-way and barely that when cars are parked on either side. The speed limit is 15mph, and there were not one, but two forks in the road which led to dead ends. I had done my homework; Mr. Truck, obviously, had not.

We whipped through the neighborhood at about 30mph in a rented Ford Fuckus - as I said prayers aloud, hoping there was no oncoming traffic - and took Mr. Truck on a nifty wild-goose chase involving at least one sudden U-turn. Have you ever seen a large pickup truck try to make a U-turn on a tight street? In the time it took him to turn around, we headed down the opposite fork from the one we’d come in on. He assumed we’d headed back out the way we came, so that’s the way he went.

How funny it was to wave at him from the opposite side of the road as he passed us. How much better to lose him for all time when he attempted to turn around, right there and then, while we rounded a corner behind him just where he could no longer see us and turned into our hotel. How hilarious it was to watch him go speeding up the street to catch us while we watched from the safety of our parking garage.

Even better was the police car which followed him.

Aaahh, I love me some poetic justice.

Here’s a link for what it could be like to order a pizza in the future. It’s pretty funny until the end, when you realize it’s going to beat you over the head with a political agenda. Still, it’s cute.

I believe in my right to privacy … or is it I believe in my right to piracy … ?

Well, he did come back from the dead, but based on the actions of his followers throughout history, I think he’s more zombie than vampire.

So, what is Anne Rice is up to these days? Here is the Gospel According to Anne, and it’s really, Really, REALLY depressing.

I cannot get anything done without a 400mg dose of SAM-e, one cup of coffee, and a hard-boiled egg in the morning. It takes about an hour for all of it to get me going, but it works.

I get to the gym at least 4 days a week, which helps me stay motivated, too. And if I forget to take my handful of vitamins sometime during the day, I’m screwed.

I didn’t know my own chemistry would get so unreliable and weird as I got older, but it still beats Paxil / Xanax / Prozac / Zoloft / etc. Anti-depressants have a few nasty side-effects, including a loss of libido.

Honestly, do you think I could survive without my massive libido? I’d have to kill myself.

Two tabs is one too many.

I will never do this again as long as I live … and this time, I mean it. [Larry Miller]

Looks like I may get a chance to be in L.A. this week/end, that is Wednesday to Sunday. It is my intention to spend time at the Hallowe’en celebration here at The Church (this link has music) on Sunday night, so the plan is to be back in Denver early Sunday for preparations.

The trees here in Denver have already changed color to bright yellow and they are now losing their leaves at a rapid rate. I liken it to explosions that happen overnight, that is one afternoon a tree is full of brightly colored leaves, the next morning there is a load of raking to be done. Lucky for us (and perfectly planned), we are surrounded by nothing but asphalt and cement where we live, so no yard work. Ever. That makes me very, very happy, especially when the wind picks up and the freshly raked leaves are blown back over someone else’s lawn once again.

Yes, occasionally I take joy in another’s suffering. It’s called Schadenfreude. Don’t pretend like you don’t do it, too.

I adore Autumn, but only where there is an actual seasonal change. Los Angeles and the whole of Southern California is the home of “Talking Heads Weather” … that is same as it ever was, same as it ever was. I like to visit - after all, everyone in my family is there - but after about 2 days I’m sick of traffic, rude people, and the general superficiality of everything there. Especially after spending time anywhere near Hollywood.

In my travels, however, I have found one city to be more fake than L.A.: Orlando, Florida. If you haven’t been there, you can’t imagine how bright primary colors can really be, nor what the term “lowest common denominator” really means. This is the land of the Mouse, my friend, and they don’t ever let you forget it. Not that there is Jizzney everything, everywhere. It’s just that every business or attraction or mall or whatnot there follows the Jizzney theme of loud colors, larger than life buildings, and marketing which attracts midwestern families like flies to shit.

And you know how much I like kids. I am rather like Anjelica Huston’s character in the movie The Witches .

So of course we have to be in Orlando in a couple of weeks. *sigh* The annual NBAA convention was scheduled for New Orleans this year, which is a much better city in which to spend time, but you know why that plan went all to hell. It’s been rescheduled for the land of the Mouse, which doesn’t make me terribly happy. This is because all the after-hours convention events (read: the ones I can attend) occur either at the restaurant attraction area of Jizzney World (this link has sickening music), at the Universal City Walk (no music here, hooray), or other garish, idiotic, gauche, inane, banal, lowest common denominator, mundane, tourist spots.

It’s enough to make a goth girl insane, but I’ll go. Like I’m going to turn down a nearly free trip to anywhere.

Doesn’t mean I won’t grumble about it. It’s what I do.

I’ve awoken the past two mornings with a particular song stuck in my head. Specifically, Fearless by Pink Floyd:

You say the hill’s too steep to climb
Climb it
You say you’d like to see me try
Climbing
You pick the place and I’ll choose the time
And I’ll climb
That hill in my own way
Just wait a while for the right day
And as I rise above the treelines and the clouds
I look down, hearing the sound of the things you’ve said today

And who’s the fool who wears the crown?
You go down
In your own way
And every day is the right day
And as you rise above the fear-lines in his brow
You look down, hear the sound of the faces in the crowd

My intuition is on overdrive. Pay attention. Be careful … or at least understand the consequences.

If you haven’t seen it, tune in. Now.

Let the Gravitas Begin!