made the fair this year. it was a week night towards the end of the run, so we had virtually no lines all night. i had one drink at hula beforehand that was so strong that i was officially drunk before i finished it.

we staggered past the animal exhibit, looking for a bathroom and vowing to see them on the way out. you can imagine my dismay, of course, when they had already closed the whole thing up by the time we left. no rabbits, cows, or fancy chickens! best part of the fair. ugh! we did see the pigeons.

not exactly carnivale, is it.

i love how trashy and ridiculous the fair is. i love the hokey cowboyishness (of the north sector only?), the all-indian rodeo, the huge barbecue pit set up by the entrance, the totally absurd things people buy there, the ancient photo booths, the scary foods, all of it. i love the coliseum, i even just like that city block because that's where the fair is held. i guess i just loved it that much as a kid, i can't let it go. back then, the prized items to bring home from the fair were glittery plastic "rockstar wigs" and those foam lizards that came on wire leashes. when you twitched the wire, it made the lizard dance and walk. what the hell happened to those!

O M

F G

today was so incredibly taxing and dramatic. i woke up with a mini migraine, which should have been a sign.

so there were lots of complications with the surgery, but he is fine. i could die to look at him, though. 8 stitches in his little face with the skin all rumpled. he looks like frankenstein's monster. he wouldn't settle down tonight, just wandered drunkenly in his e collar, stumbling and whimpering. finally i dosed him with some pain meds and he's sleeping now. this is going to be a rough week!

my dog is having surgery tomorrow. i'm very nervous about this, but his tumor is so volatile and hideous that it's got to come off immediately. the thing gets larger and changes shape every day. nightmare! it still doesn't seem to hurt, although i think it itches as he swipes at it once in a while, and it is now weeping a watery fluid tinged with blood. i would describe it more as it's pretty epic, but i suppose no one wants to know about that.

i feel like he knows. i am so nervous that he's going to die! or have cancer.

did people really sleep in those lucy & ricky his & her separated twin beds OTHER than on television? is that even a twin? what a frigid and uncomfortable setup. who the fuck! i need some stats on how often this kind of thing actually happened.

sunday = lying in bed watching 30 rock while the dog eats crumbs off my shirt.

1. at what point do i just become liz lemon (sans cool job) and

2. will it be as cute as it is in the show or

3. will it just be pathetic

?

TBA

i want to go to this! but mostly i want to see the salton sea. no way will i be able to talk anyone into this. except one person, probably, but she has a kid and probably can't. come to think of it, i haven't seen hide nor hair of this girl since she disappeared into the oblivion of a new relationship. oh, people.

who knew sonny barger was such a piece of ass?

i have a couple of his books but somehow have yet to read them. i was working at changing hands when one of them came out. sonny arrived for the book-signing with a blonde on either arm and two behemoth meathead bodyguards, and it was STILL kind of underwhelming! it was a very awkward signing. he seemed pretty put out by the whole thing. either way, it was entertaining enough to see him at changing hands, of all places. the baddest guy around, seated at a folding table in the hippiest, earth-motheriest, most granola place ever.

my dad used to go for drinks at the cave creek clubhouse's bar. i want to go! i'm sure photos are ~not allowed~

he told me he was there as a meeting was about to start once. guys streamed in with hands full of cash which they laid onto the bar one by one. club dues. i wonder how much they have to pay. evidently the HA is the moneyed dirtbag's gang - not everyone can afford to be a brother and often have to look elsewhere for less expensive clubs to join. fringe bike gang castes! hilarious.

either way, i'd hit it (then)

but i seem to have an unhealthy interest in terrible people. damn! better luck next time, i guess.

i hope that it falls on you

can't hold a smile

halloween at work with the girls.

i've been watching grey gardens a lot over the past two days again. "everything's good that you didn't do." big edie reminds me of my grandma alyce over and over. i love the silent shot of little edie walking over to a steadily growing hole in the wall and floor where raccoons were tearing at the house. she throws a loaf of bread to them in the hole, not resentful, just taking care of them because they're alive and they're there. no concern for propriety or whatever the decent folk are doing. bring me that life asap!

heldt lumber. i've always had a soft spot for this place. the man who owned my dad's old house before he did, fred fuller, worked there. he was a very eccentric old man with cabinets full of awesome treasures for me to go through as a kid. when he died, his daughter sold the house and everything in it, and my dad kept it all! cigar boxes full of pipes, poker sets, office supplies from the 60s, stamp collections, boxes of bullets, old decks of cards, and, most importantly to me at the time, paper. hundreds of pads of paper half of which bore the letterhead of heldt lumber and the other half of santa fe railroads. he must've worked for them, too. boxes of these pads of paper on which i scribbled endless stories and pictures. over a period of five years i used every pad. anyway, i noticed recently that they put up this awesome installation on the side of the building, subtly spelling out the company name in the wood. can you see it? H E L D T. the wood was green when they put it up and now it's deepening. i should increase the contrast so it's obvious, but i'm too lazy to fire photoshop up.

love this cat at hollywood regency. shit! i almost forgot about the cat at metro retro. this thing reminded me of some kind of 70s sci fi movie. a huge, angular white cat with one green eye and one so icy blue it looked white. it was so austere and angled, like an egyptian statue, sitting all symmetrically with two paws perfectly tucked under. when i walked over to it, it let out this meow that sounded like some kind of broken electronic clock chime. BRAUUUUU. i should go back just to get some shots of it.

so my dog has a tumor. the vet is concerned by how fast it's grown and recommends that it come off immediately & be tested to see if it's malignant or not. fuck! when i took him in for it last month, the vet said not to worry, that it was just a bite or scratch that had gotten infected, and to put some antibiotics on it.

last month:

now:

he told me that even if it were malignant, issues with tumors like this are usually taken care of with the removal. no spreading. but then, he also told me it was a bug bite. i hate to put vaughn under anesthesia because vets are often underskilled or understaffed when it comes to monitoring the animal's condition under the anesthetic throughout the procedure, making sure they don't "slip away," which, according to my paranoid googling, happens all the time. that's why i have refused to have his unusually gross teeth (for his age & massive milkbone consumption) cleaned by the vet. can't risk it!

so anyway, i'll probably have it done at the end of this coming week. poor doggle!

speaking of poor doggles, i am totally calling the sheriff's office on my grandma's neighbors tomorrow. i suppose the only good thing about arpaio is his alleged rampage against animal cruelty. i have not researched whether this is just a spectacle or whether he really is making things happen. anyway, i think the neighbors are beating the dog. he used to be robust, barking and raising hell all the time. he was annoying! now he just slinks through their backyard like a little shadow, never barking, flinching at any sudden movements and acting like a broken thing. he's also totally underfed, way too thin. god damn people. hopefully the agency will actually send someone out. i guess if nothing happens, i could get all ALF on their asses and cut a hole in the chain link fence with some wire cutters, then abduct him and take him to a no-kill shelter. i can't add to my barnyard, but he's sweet and good looking and probably wouldn't languish long before someone adopted him.