Essa Alroc's Blog, page 32

Unreasonably Angry for No Reason

 

You ever do that thing where you get so mad that you squeeze your computer mouse in your hands until you’re pretty sure you could crush it with a flick of your wrist with no effort at all? I just did that. I did that because I’m insanely furious right now and I have no idea why. Seriously, this is the kind of mood that politicians get in right before they beat a hooker to death and pay someone to cover it up. But I’m really not sure why I’m so angry, so I’m going to go ahead and use my audience as my psychoanalysts’.

1. I broke a nail earlier today and now I have one awkwardly short nail and nine awkwardly long nails. Then I got annoyed with my long nails and started chewing them. Now, my hands look like the hands of a 90 year old homeless dude and I’m too lazy to get a nail file.

2. Political updates on Facebook are driving me crazy. I told you all nothing would change and I would like to proudly point out that voter turn out was unexpectedly low this election. I’m going to take the credit. Now that’s its over, let’s stop taking about it. I totally feel for that three year old who was crying over how tired she was about hearing about “Bronco Obama”. Me too sweetheart, me too.

3. My computer is a piece of shit that can’t even download a YouTube video or upload a questionnaire. Seriously, its 1997 up in here and ‘reality bites’.

4. I haven’t gotten laid in months. And my friends, all being in committed relationships, don’t understand. Last time we went out, they took me to a gay bar. Seriously guys? A fucking gay bar? Maybe if I get tricky, cut my hair and suck in my chest, I have a slight amount of chance from getting some ass from a really desperate bi-curious dude. Other than that, I’m fucked. I really can’t wait until you all break up with your boyfriends and I can start hooking up with anonymous hot dudes in bars again while you’re on the rebound. No joke. You all suck and you were so much awesomer when you were single..

5. People keep asking me “what’s wrong.” What’s wrong is I want to punch you in the throat and I don’t know why.

6. My clients are driving me crazy. “I want you to edit my articles…but I want you to keep all the same information…and I don’t want you to change my tone….or my wording…or anything.” Why the fuck did you hire me then? If you don’t know, I can’t help you. Now stop wasting my time, I have Nigerian scam artists who need me to plaster websites with spam.

7. Maybe its people saying this to me. “Oh, you’re a writer? Well, I’ve always thought about writing a book. It’s about a woman who finds the meaning of life in crocheting pictures of Jesus. I should be a writer too.” You know what? Fuck you. So you have an idea. It’s easy to have ideas. Everyone has a goddamn idea. You know what’s hard? ACTUALLY WRITING THE FUCKING BOOK! So stop giving me vague, ‘genius’ ideas that you thought of while you were taking a dump the other night and assuming that if I write the book for you, I’ll give you 90% of the profits, because you were so kind as to share your magical ideas with me. Listen, today, I ate a bowl of alphabet soup and shit out an idea better than yours. Ideas are easy. It’s the writing that’s hard. The day you spend twelve hours people watching so you can accurately describe the unconscious moments that people don’t even think about, then putting them in writing so your dialog looks natural, then maybe I’ll agree that you’re a writer. Until then, stop giving me ideas. I have enough of my own and they keep me up at night.

8. It might be the booze.

9. 30 Rock is ending this season and I just can’t deal. Sure, there are still new episodes, but every time I watch one now, I have the famous ‘George Carlin Candy Bar’ mindset. For those who don’t understand, its how when you’re eating a candy bar, you’re fully aware that every bite you take is closer to it being gone. Because of that, you’re unable to actually enjoy the candy bar. Instead, your too busy thinking about how much it’s going to suck when the candy bar is gone. That’s how I feel about 30 Rock.

10. It’s all Obama’s fault…that I haven’t been laid in months.

Anyway, I’m not sure why I’m so mad. Maybe I thought my life would be better than this at 32. Maybe I’m a lonely grumpy drunk. Maybe I’m just pissed off at my computer. Maybe I’m watching time pass by and I know, in the blink of an eye I’m going to be 50 and I pray to God that I won’t be the same person I am now. I’m hoping I’ll have a life bigger than a 3 bedroom apartment in a quazi-nice part of town. I know that my wish sounds selfish to a lot of people, that they could only hope to have it as good as I do right now and I have to tell you…that scares me even more.

Or maybe, I just really need to get laid.

Last Minute Election Musings

 

So, if you follow me, you know that I am anti-voting on this years elections and this time tomorrow, will be passed out on my couch in a drug induced stupor, not giving a shit who our next president will be.

As I have decided that America is completely unfixable, I really can’t be bothered with driving the three tenths of a mile to my local polling place and sharing my opinion.

But, I have also decided to be prepared for the outcome, regardless of what happens. So, I have created a list of things that will happen, depending on the results of this election.

If Obama wins

- I will regularly check the TMZ website, hoping for more photographs of Obama without his shirt on so I can masturbate to them.

If Romney wins

- I will repeatedly suffer from electrocution after licking the screen of my television when any news conference with Paul Ryan comes up. Trust me; I’m not the only one. One of the automatic things that comes up if you put Paul Ryan’s name into Google is “Paul Ryan shirtless”. Not making this up. Seriously, check it.

If Obama wins

- I am really going to have to learn how to spell his damn name right.

If Romney wins

- I am really going to have to learn to spell his damn right name right. For some reason, my auto correct keeps trying to call him “Ramen Noodles.”

If Obama wins

- I will be forced to listen to Mrs. Obama ramble on about childhood obesity and how hard it is to avoid it, when all of her kid’s meals are prepared by a world class nutritionist and dietician in the white house.

If Romney wins

- I will be forced to listen to Mrs. Romney bitch about how hard it is to be an aging trophy wife who only had the assistance of her 4 Portuguese nannies and a giant pile of money to help her raise her children.

If Obama wins

- Key & Peele will be cancelled. The only thing that show had going for it is its “Obama and Angry Obama” sketches

If Romney wins

- The producers of SNL will have a voodoo like ceremony to raise Phil Hartman from his grave just so he can play Romney in sketches.

If Obama wins

- We will have a president with rock hard abs that only Chuck Norris could compete with

If Romney wins

- We will have a president with perfect hair and I will have more time to pull his image up on my high def TV to see if he had hair plugs, or if God just likes Mormons better.

If Obama wins

- My life will be exactly the same as it was during his prior administration.

If Romney wins

- My life will be exactly the same as it was during the prior administration.

 

Here’s the thing people, regardless of who’s sitting in that oval office, they don’t choose your destiny. You do. Neither guy can magically make the economy better. Neither guy can make your life better. They’re both the same guy. Our new national figurehead. So you decide. Do you want to move the black ken doll or the white ken doll into Barbie’s Malibu mansion? Because that’s about how much that vote matters.

As for my destiny? Well that involves a 6 pack of Bud Light and my ass on the couch. Every day after that is my decision. It ain’t Barrack Obama’s and it ain’t Mitt Ramen Noodles.

Fucking auto correct.

An Intervention Interrogation

I really enjoy the show ‘Intervention.’ I know it sounds kind of like a downer for someone like me, but honestly, there is nothing I like better than sitting down on the couch, pulling up an episode, cracking open a six pack and getting shitfaced before 4 pm. Somewhere during every episode, I will point a slightly swollen, wobbly finger at the TV and drunkenly declare;

“Well, I might be an alcoholic but at least I never gave anyone a hand job in a bus station for meth.”

It’s a pretty good feeling. A real self esteem boost, to be honest. I mean, I might be a fuck up, but at least I’m not that much of a fuck up. Good times.

However, after oh, around 10 hours of watching and about 400 beers, I realized I had some questions about the program that weren’t being answered, and I decided to come to my blog for help.

Has there ever been a reverse intervention? So, most people know at least one guy (sometimes a girl) who is a chronic, but functioning alcoholic. Mine was this guy I knew at my old office. He was charming, handsome and absolutely fucking hilarious. Life of the party kind of guy. Then, he quit drinking and turned into a sullen, grumpy, angry douche bag. You think that ever happened, and then the guys friendws got together and were like “listen, guy, we’re all super proud of you for quitting drinking, but your kind of an asshole now. We were all wondering if you wouldn’t mind taking up the habit again?” I mean, there are millions of people in this country popping pills every day for every condition under the sun. Who says shot gunning beers can’t be medicinal?

Do the addicts still fall for that “oh, this is just a documentary’ line? You know what I mean if you watch the show. Right as it starts, some fine print comes up, telling the viewer that the addict has only agreed to be in a documentary about addiction and doesn’t know they will soon face an intervention…follow by ominous music. I know they might be a little drug addled, but the show is huge. People know about it. I mean really, someone calls them from A & E and says, “oh, we’re just doing a documentary about addiction. It’s not that Intervention show though. It’s something different,” and the addict is just ok with that? Really?

Does the chronic masturbation episode really exist, or was that just an urban legend? I have heard through the grapevine that there was an episode filmed for a man who was addicted to masturbation, but that the network refused to air it because of the graphic content. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I really hope it is. But I doubt it. I mean who would admit to it? Can you picture this scene?

The bathroom door has been closed for over forty five minutes, and Tony’s 58 year old mother knows that her son is in there spanking it for the 50th time that day.

Mom: (rapping on the door) “What are you doing in there Tony?”

Tony: (rustling, grunting, the sounds of lotion being dispensed) Nothing mom, go away.

Mom: You’re masturbating again, aren’t you?

Tony: No, mom, I swear. I’m uh…doing meth.

Mom: (clearly skeptical) Oh, and is the meth the reason all the pages in the swim suit section of my Sears catalog are stuck together.    

Tony: I have a problem.

Am I a bad person because this makes me laugh my ass off every time I see it?

Finally, is it just me or does rehab look AWESOME? The addict always seems to get to go to some swanky, beachside, Lindsey Lohan resort as they recover. Who foots the bill for that? Does A & E? If so, where the hell do I sign up? No wonder these people are addicted to drugs. Their reward for years of using is a 3 month vacation in a 5 star hotel. I’d really like to see an episode where the interventionist sends them to some kind of “Trainspotting” rehab, where the addict is locked in a shitty Edinburgh apartment and forced to go cold turkey, as a Demonic baby chases them around the room with it’s head on backwards.

God, I am fucked up.

Anyway, that all I got for tonight. I have an executive from A & E on the phone, wanting to talk to me about doing a documentary about addiction. It’s not Intervention though. He says it’s a different show entirely.

Plot Lines I Could Do Without

I love a good cliché as much as the next person. Nothing gets me going more than watching an action hero walk away from an explosion in slow motion. In fact, thanks to that particular cliché, walking away from an explosion is on my bucket list. There is a high probability that I’ll actually get killed while trying to cross that one off.

For future reference, it was totally worth it.

However, when it comes to reading, I’m a little less cliché friendly. I find that once a certain novel gets successful, a million and one books come out trying to duplicate that success. Unfortunately, half the reason the book got successful in the first place? Angst filled teenage girls. Wanna know the problem with that? Angst filled teenage girls are idiots.

I know because I was one once.

So, again, in an effort to help the literary world make a comeback, and in the hopes that fan fiction will NEVER become a bestseller again, I was hoping my fellow authors would be willing to make some adjustments.

1. Enough with the fucking vampires (or vampyres, however the goddamn emo’s are spelling it now) and werewolves. The idea of a guy biting me while we’re doing it is not arousing. I think that’s how Pamela Anderson got hepatitis. How is the possible of hepatitis somehow a turn on? And werewolves? I have a dog and she spends the majority of her day with her tongue firmly planted in her rectum. Seriously, licking her own anus is like her hobby. I’m assuming wolves have the same habits and excuse me if I don’t want to make out with someone whose been doing that all day. Gross.

2. No more uptight, career focused women who need a wacky, laid back leading man…whose also a billionaire, to teach them how to live. You know how you become a billionaire? Backbiting, backstabbing, idea stealing, sleazy legal maneuvers and working 190 hours a week. Billionaires are not laid back. They’re assholes. You know how they got to be billionaires in the first place? By being assholes. It’s the American way.

3. This one hurts, but enough with the sexy single moms whose kids immediately fall in love with the male lead. I know, it bothers me to let go of the dream, but I’m a single mom. That shit doesn’t happen. Any man I bring into the house, even if he’s the fucking exterminator, is greeted by sullen suspicion and apprehension from my son. Why? Because I live in Florida and in an effort to prevent molestation and/or abduction, I have taught him to treat every strange man who comes into my house with apprehension and suspicion. If some man came by, who was desperate to raise another dudes kid, I would immediately determine that he was recruiting for a child sex ring and react appropriately by stabbing him in the balls…if my kid didn’t do it first.

4. No more Cinderella stories. Personally, I think this story is actually a little damaging to women. Think about it; pretty girl is sad because everyone is mean to her. Then, without making any effort whatsoever, a magic fairy god mother comes along to fix everything for her…but only for one night. Lucky for Cinderella, a big strong man is there; ready to make all their problems go away forever by using his magic money to make everything better. Too many women spend their lives waiting for Price Charming, only to find out that their actually dating someone a little closer to Hannibal Lector. Listen, its not that you’re not good enough for a rich man ladies. It’s that most of their marriages are already arranged in a merger designed to make the most possible money. If they need a pretty girl with a heart of gold, then they hire a prostitute. Stop waiting for Price Charming and stop writing books about him.

5. Stop with the “nobody noticed her until she got a makeover” bullshit. Pretty ain’t everything. In fact, it’s a hell of a lot of nothing. Now its time for me to be a narcissistic bitch (my favorite time of day). When I was little, I was fat and I had bad teeth. Then I got braces and lost weight. Now, I’m pretty sure I qualify as pretty (sober 6, drunk 7). Guess how much better my life got after I made that transition? If you guessed “not at all” then your right. I’m still the same person I was when I wasn’t hot. Only difference now? I get hit on by men twice my age on a regular basis. Yay! Believe it or not, personality does matter. If you’re pretty, but a complete cunt, life isn’t going to be great. One of my best friends from childhood is absolutely stunning. Seriously, she’s actually painful to look at, she’s that hot. She’s also never had an ex who doesn’t want her dead and she has spent most of her adult life searching for a man who wants her for more than one night. When I was in High School, there were ugly girls that were popular and pretty girls who weren’t. Life isn’t all about looks. People do see beyond that.

Anyway, I’ve had enough. The same old tired plot lines are dead. Let’s stop beating the shit out of them. Am I saying that everything has to be literary fiction that makes you think? Hell no! I hate thinking, even though I’m really good at it. I’m just asking that everyone stop rehashing the same old bullshit and think of something new.

Now, novelists, get to work. Get out there and write me a book about a 500 pound heroine who meets and marries a homeless man (who is not a vampire). It least it will be a decent change of pace.

So How Do I Get Reviews?

One of the biggest questions I hear from other indie authors is how to get reviews on their novels. Amazon and Goodread reviews can be a huge selling point on their platform, as long as the ranking is high enough, but the vast majority of people who get books never leave a review. Because of that, some authors with have a book out for weeks, or even months, without ever seeing a review come in.

But I’ve figured out to get them. I’ve figured out to get them and I am going to share my secret.

You fear them.

Yup, fear. That’s the ticket right there. Ever since I got my first bad review, I stopped looking at the reviews on my book entirely. It seemed like the best way to go about it. No matter how tempted I was to go take a look, I didn’t. I didn’t because of the unabiding fear that my book would have 30 one star reviews calling me a hack and demanding their money back. I expected to go to my Amazon pages and see a large group of villagers with pitchforks and torches.

I live in such deep terror of reviews that I never go on my Amazon page and I actually have two Goodreads pages. One for my author name and one for my real name, so I never have to accidentally read a review. Well, this morning, I fucked up and signed into my author account on Goodreads. I was forced to confront my reviews head on.

To my surprise, they weren’t as bad as I expected. Most people who read my book loved it and most of them wrote some pretty good reviews. There was one on that made me laugh out loud. The reviewer really hated my male lead, Cole, to the point where she stated she wished Sal had lit him on fire and tossed him into a swamp in the Everglades.

I decided that review had two positives. One, I apparently made Cole real enough to inspire that much hatred, and two, she gave me an idea for the sequel. Truth be told, sometimes I hated Cole too.

With my curiosity fully inspired, I decided to go over to my Amazon page, expecting a corresponding number of reviews. Maybe two or three…

Fucking 19!

Murphy’s law right there. Because I was afraid of reviews, I got a ton of reviews. Meanwhile, people who want nothing more than a review or two find their pages empty month after month. To my surprise, nobody wants me dead. The bad review that originally made me go into hiding was still there, but there were a ton of good ones on top of it that actually made me feel good about what I wrote and told me I was on the right track.

Turns out, you can write a book about someone who takes advice from a Gary Busey hallucination and still get people to take you seriously as an author.

While I’m very glad I looked, because it was a definite confidence boost as I try to finish my sequel and a novella at the same time, I think I’m going to stand by my original decision to avoid my reviews and concentrate on my writing instead. As far as I’m concerned, reviews are for readers and there is no reason to torture myself by looking at them.

Plus, I don’t think my heart can take the stress. I’m kind of a wuss. So readers, review away.

I’ll be in my room, hiding under my bed if you need me.

No, Seriously, Fuck You

Recently, I wrote a Q & A about BDSM with one of my favorite bloggers, Alejandro De La Garza. To my delight, a sexy little site called “Slave for My Master” picked it up and reblogged. Anyone who wants to check it out, it’s pretty hot, I’ve linked the address to the name. It’s pretty much the diary of a submissive, and even if you aren’t a submissive, it’s a hell of a learning experience.

Anyway, when I noticed the reblog, I decided to head over to the site. I saw there was an active comment and decided to pop it open to see what it said. I, of course, couldn’t resist commenting, so you’ll see my response above. Cowards who post as ‘anonymous’ don’t get reply buttons.

Apparently, the poster, who I will now permanently refer to as Anonymous Idiot, is under some impression that a child seeing this picture would somehow be scarred for life. Viewing of this picture, according to Anonymous Idiot, will inevitably lead to a life of burying prostitutes in shallow graves.

Well, Anonymous Idiot, let me show you how exactly wrong you are. How? Well, I guess I’ll just have to use myself as a case study.

 

Little Essa was born in a small NH town. She was raised by parents who didn’t really do the whole censorship thing. Little Essa’s dad had a “Playmate of the Year” calendar in his garage. He swore regularly in French and English and chain smoked like a chimney. Sometimes, Little Essa and her dad would stay up until the dawn, watching a TV show on USA called “UP All Night” with Gilbert Gottfried. One of little Essa’s absolute favorites was called “Vice Academy.” It was actually a porno where all the pornographic bits had been cut out, but little Essa didn’t know this.

Little Essa’s mom loved George Carlin and Richard Prior. Her mother would play their comedy tapes for hours. Little Essa loved George Carlin and Richard Prior too because they were funny and they said the things she was thinking anyway. Some people said George Carlin and Richard Prior were bad, because of the dirty words they used. Little Essa didn’t think so. Instead, Little Essa thought they were brave to continue saying what they said, even when no one agreed with them.

Here’s a part that’s going to be hard to stomach. Little Essa’s uncle Timmy was addicted to pornography. It played on the television at his house constantly. Little Essa leaned about Ginger Lynn and Ron Jeremy. Little Essa thought they were slightly ridiculous and super funny. She also thought the script writing could use work. Uncle Timmy was not a child molester. He was just a weirdo who couldn’t be bothered to change the channel when family came over.

Little Essa never wore a helmet when she rode her bike. She didn’t wash her hands 16 times a day and she didn’t cry to her mommy every time someone said something mean to her. Little Essa was a latchkey kid who enjoyed the time alone she got at home. It gave her time to think, time to dream…time to write.

So what happened?

Well, Little Essa eventually just became Essa. She grew up and experimented. She smoked a little weed, had a little fun and did a few things wrong. She joined the Army and did a few things right.

She had a baby, but she didn’t really love the baby’s father. Instead of staying and becoming a punching bag for his failures, she went out on her own; confident she could make a better life for her baby.

Then, she did.

She got a Masters Degree and never had a job where she made less than 30k a year and she was never on welfare. She didn’t date, because she knew, deep down, that when a single mother dates, her boyfriends are always competing with her kids. As far as Essa was concerned, there was no competition. Her son would always win.

Because Essa’s evil, censorship free family taught her a valuable lesson; Family comes first.

Essa is height weight appropriate. She doesn’t abuse drugs and she’s never been to rehab. She’s written a successful novel and believes she has more than one or two left in her. She has a large circle of friends. She does not back down from a fight and is not afraid to take a risk or go all in. Her risks always pan out, because Essa has faith in herself and knows she doesn’t need to depend on anyone to get things done.

Essa has no body issues. She is comfortable with what she sees in the mirror…even naked. She has never starved herself or made herself throw up, because she does not believe in a ‘perfect’ weight. She knows that the perfect weight is the one she is comfortable with and thinks she is beautiful at any size.

 

So, Anonymous Idiot, let me tell you what my censorship free upbringing taught me. It taught me that the female body, in all its forms, is beautiful and nothing to be ashamed of. It taught me that the ability to laugh is power. Like how I’m laughing at you now. It taught me to develop my own opinions, come up with my own ideas and to be an independent being whose every thought has not been planned. I make my own decisions. I adjust and adapt. And I do it all because my parents taught me the right way to live.

Truth be told, you want to know the most dangerous thing you can do to your kids? You can be a judgmental asshole. You can make them feel like they’ll never be good enough or do anything right. You can make them feel that their thoughts or feelings are shameful. You can make them doubt themselves and take away their ability to think for themselves. That creates the problem, not your kid viewing a nude picture on a site they shouldn’t have been on anyway.

So anonymous idiot, I challenge you. I challenge you to come to my site and give me a reason why your view of the world is somehow better than my own. If you don’t want to take the challenge, that’s fine. Feel free to come back to my site 20 years from now when my kid is an astrophysicist and yours is a neurotic basket case living in your basement.

I’ll reserve the “I told you so” until then.

How to Shop in The Grocery Store Without Being a Complete Prick

So today, after we finally had so little food left that my son got the delightful experience of eating chocolate pie for breakfast, I finally broke down and went grocery shopping.

I generally hate grocery shopping. As a mater of rule, I am an incredibly disorganized person. Because of this, I never make a list. I simply zip through the isles in no particular order, tossing things into my cart at random. Honestly, it’s always been a pretty decent system. I’ve discovered all kinds of new and interesting products, like jalapeño flavored Pringles and Depends (way better than tampons, once you get used to the bulkiness).

Anyway, today I ran into some issues while grocery shopping that could easily be fixed if people just adhered to a few simple rules.

If your kid is an asshole, leave him in the car. Listen, I understand. Your little brat isn’t hyperactive because of anything you did wrong. He just has ADD, or ADHD or ADHD with a shot of PCP. Regardless of his medical disability, if he’s racing around the store, breaking shit and treating it like it’s his god damn playground, he is not yet fit to be around normal people. May I suggest electroshock therapy instead of Ritalin?
 Grocery shopping is not a social experience. If you want to stop and chat with your friends, do it somewhere else. Not in the middle of the damn isle. Yeah, it’s super awesome that your 8 best friend showed up at Publix at the same time as you. Now move on to somewhere else to discuss this amazing fucking coincidence, and get out of the way of the Hamburger Helper.
Unless you are a surgeon coaching someone through open heart surgery, get off your god damn cell phone. If you really need to conference in four of your friends to tell you if you should buy pinto beans or kidney beans, your not ready from grocery shopping yet. Come back when you’ve gotten your borderline personality disorder under control, and can make your own damn decisions.
Lets make this clear right now. No, you may not cut in front of me. Seriously, who even asks this? WTF is wrong with people? I don’t care if you have one item or 47. I got here first and I have popsicles melting.
Men twice my age, half my age, triple my weight or more than 4% alcohol by volume; I don’t care what the magazine tells you. The grocery store is NOT a great place to pick up chicks. We’re stressed out, trying to remember what we need and worrying that we left the stove on at home. We don’t need your lame ass attempts at flirtation to distract us further. This isn’t a night club. It’s a fucking war zone and the rule here is every man for himself. That means I will not hesitate to punch you in the throat if you get in the way of the peanut butter again.

If everyone would take note, I’d really appreciate it. Now, if your excuse me, I have to go unpack my mango, banana canned chicken livers…I’m almost positive we needed those for some reason.

A Very Sexy Halloween

I have been invited to a costume party. I will tell all of you straight off, costume parties just aren’t my thing. The last costume party I went to was a dismal failure. It was a theme party. The theme? Dress as your favorite historical figure. My friend Karen went as Mary Antoinette. My ex went as Earnest Hemingway.

I went as a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Most didn’t get the joke.

Anyway, as I am apparently the only girl on the planet who doesn’t use Halloween as an excuse to dress like a prostitute, I find costume shopping incredibly frustrating. Every women’s costume is required by law to have the word ‘sexy’ before it. Sexy angel, sexy devil, sexy witch, sexy … zombie? Are you fucking kidding me?

When I was a kid, my costume was always comprised of one thing. A cardboard box. See, we didn’t have a lot of money, but both my brother and my mother are pretty artistically gifted. So, whatever they could make a box into, that’s what I was. I was a dice, an alien, a television and one year when they got particularly creative, a box of popcorn. None of those costumes required the use of garters or fishnet panty hose.

But now that I am an adult, apparently, the cardboard box costumes of the past are no longer an option. So I headed over to one of the ‘Spirit of Halloween’s’ that pop up every year this time of year. The following is an actual transcript of what happened there.

Me: Hmmmm, (rustling through a rack of costumes). Sexy pumpkin? Sexy librarian? Sexy cop? Sexy chicken? Oh, look! This one comes with its own tube of anal bleach. (eye roll)

Helpful Sales Clerk: Can I help you with something?

Me: Yeah, where do you keep the regular costumes?

Helpful Sales Clerk: (clearly perplexed) Regular costumes?

Me: Well, yes. Apparently, I wandered into the section reserved for call girls whose clients have very erotic tastes, as all these outfits either display my breasts and/or vagina. Do you have anything that doesn’t prominently feature my clit?

Helpful Sales Clerk: (still clearly confused) Hmmm? Well, you could go as a pizza delivery girl. (she holds up an outfit the approximate size of a napkin).

Me: That’s just a bikini and a hat that says “Domino’s” on it.

Helpful Sales Clerk: It’s actually more of a sports bra with some lycra boy shorts. (she excitedly holds up a tube) It also includes anal bleach!

Me: I hate you.

Seriously, dudes get some pretty cool costumes. They get Batman, Spider man, Michael Myers. Hell, they can even be a keg of beer with the tap strategically placed over their penis! Hilarious! Me? I get a god damn lycra thong and nipple tassels. I picture the designers of these costumes as a large group of teenage boys with too much time on their hands.

Anyway, looks like just like in the good old days, I’m going to have to make my costume. So I am off to find a cardboard box and trying to come up with a good idea.

I’m thinking I’ll go as a sexy cardboard box. Thank god I have the anal bleach for it!

Yes, Sometimes You Need Profanity

So lately, instead of working like I’m supposed to, I’ve spent a lot of times in the fiction and Goodreads forums. One thing I’ve noticed a lot of people complaining about it the use of profanity in novels.

Now, sometimes I get it. If the writer is just trying to be shocking, and just loading the page up with unnecessary swears, then it gets annoying and at the same time, takes you out of the story. However, the same can be said for lack of profanity.

This past weekend, one of my favorite movies of all time came on. The Last Boyscout.

What can I say? I’m a sucker for movies where Bruce Willis beats the shit out of everyone while dropping deadpan one-liners.

Unfortunately, this particularly awesome movie was played on a network channel. You know what that means. Tons of censorship. You know what sucks about censorship? Besides everything? It frequently ruins jokes.

For example, when bad ass Joe Hallenbeck wakes up after passing out in his car, he finds a dead squirrel laying on his chest. Following this, he has this exchange with his former partner.

Mike Matthews: What’d you do last night?

Joe Hallenbeck: I think I fucked a squirrel to death, and don’t remember.

That is the original quote as I know it. Unfortunately, this is what the network did to it.

Mike Matthews: What’d you do last night?

Joe Hallenbeck: I don’t remember.

The joke is completely gone! WTF!

They seriously ruined so many Hallenbeck classic moments, like

“You couldn’t nail a two dollar whore.”

“I forgot to tell you. “Bom” means “fuck you” in Polish”

“Eat shit you fucking redneck!” (Extra funny, because it was shrieked by a kid)

Sometimes, swearing is necessary. Why? Because it’s realistic! If you punch someone in the face, they’re not going to be like “oh, darn! You punched me in the face you jerk!” It’s far more likely to come out like this. “Ow, fuck! Fuck you motherfucker!”

So, to those out there who are profanity adverse, I completely understand. Now stop ruining my movies.

Also, I would like to announce an extra special milestone today. This is my ’100th f-bomb dropped post’.

Establishing a Brand Guest Posting

This week, for my guest post on the Film Annex, I wrote an article about establishing a brand in social media. I mainly did this because I’ve been thinking about creating an internet presence since my internet troll experience mentioned in my earlier post today. Made me wonder if this guy is trying to establish a brand as a famous internet troll, like that guy on Reddit who got busted out on Gawker.

Props out to Gawker by the way. Yup, I believe in free speech but if you’re going to demand it, you need to have the guts to stand behind your words and show your face to the world, not hide behind the anonymity of the internet.

Anyway, this weeks film annex post includes a video from the site founder who gives ideas on creating an internet presence (a non annoying one), with a blog written by your truly with some ideas of her own.

http://www.filmannex.com/posts/blog_s...

All of my Web TV videos can be seen here.

http://www.filmannex.com/webtv/EssaAlroc