Actual email string between myself and a guy on Match.com last month.

Okay, so here's the backstory. As anyone who knows me is aware, I play a lot of paddle tennis. Usually I play on tuesday and thursday evenings from 7:30pm - 10:00pm at a park in culver city with a fun group of people .  Sometimes, when i get there early, a guy named Paul is there with a bucket of balls, giving one or both of his two sons a tennis lesson. He's in his 50s, he's african american, he's a decent paddle tennis player--but I have never been in the least bit interested in him.  Well, I logged into match.com the other day to check my  messages, only to find one from Paul, who's name on the site is "Vitamin P."  Mine is "Hotttpocket" (it was my beloved dog (Maurice)'s, nickname, and after he died, I adopted his nickname, out of sentimentality.)

he said

Jun 14

I think I know you and I know you know me!

you said

Jun 14

Yes, Paul. I know you. But how is it you are so sure that I know you but not that you know me? That's a touch arrogant, doncha think? ;)

he said

Jun 15

Not arrogant at all just another crystal clear example of how some things (like my sarcasm and sense of humor ) get lost in this medium. Good luck in your search. Best.

you said 

Jun 16

Paul, If you think that people don't tend to "get" your humor or sarcasm. that's because they don't know you! It's best to wait until you've gotten to know someone a bit before you use sarcasm in a message because it's confusing. I am not really sure though, what is funny about the statement "I know you know me, and I think I know you?" You think it's funny to suggest that you are memorable but I am not? Because that's not very nice! If you are going to use humor/sarcasm, I would suggest you make yourself the butt of the joke and not the person you are hoping to get to know better. It's just a suggestion, take it for what you will. esme

he said

Jun 20

First and foremost, when I want your suggestion, I'll give it to you. It's obvious that you are taking this matter and yourself way too serious [sic]. To spend time and energy on something so trivial is a waste. Aside from paddle tennis, we don't know or mean enough to each other to go that deep in this conversation, matter or topic. I think this site has a much better purpose for you than to evaluate, summarize and analyze my humor, sarcasm and method there of. That being said, on my end, I'm done with this and will only deal with you on the courts going forward. I'm sure you can understand, relate and appreciate my position and thus my decision. Take it for what YOU will.

Thank you, VitaminP, for revealing what a deranged, insecure and aggressively passive aggressive person you are. I'm so sorry but I have no interest in dating you since you a.) are unfamiliar with both my name (even though we have played paddle no less than 15 times together in the past two years and also with the part of speech called an "adverb"...oh yeah, and because you're a fucking super mega douche bag!

Joy Ride!

No, you can't pet me! ...well, ok.

Please, please disagree with me. I love ignoring you people.

Spike channel is airing a new show called "Waco," about the Branch Davidian cult headed by a high school dropout named David Koresh, who convinced his followers that he was a divine prophet of god. Now, I find Koresh to be a despicable, repulsive con man--but really, is he all that much different from the Jesus of the New Testament? In fact, Jesus is, essentially, a primitive, cartoonish version of David Koresh, or, as I've come to think of him, "Jesus 5.0." (because I'm sure there were others which predate D.K.), but without the 12 member dream team of publicists/apostles.


IMO: JC and DK are near-perfect dopplegangers. Not just physically--although the resemblance is uncanny--but in terms of their objective, their message and their method. True, Koresh was a faint (and hollow) echo of Jesus's legendary charisma and influence, yet to some, he was a convincing facsimile nonetheless.

And, even if you don't agree with me and think Jesus was NOTHING like David Koresh, because DK was a perverse, delusional, egomaniacal sociopath with a messiah complex, and a penchant for pre-pubescent home-schooled snatch (velvety smooth!), utterly devoid of any and all originality or sincerity.  And I would 100% agree with you; Koresh was a monstrous douche bag. But, in all fairness, wasn't Jesus equally so?

I met "Jesus" one evening while he was on a low-profile, terra-firma vacay from his stressful job up in heaven.  Apparently he likes to hang out at the spa of the Bellagio hotel. I immediately recognized him, since he was wearing the same filthy, mangy-looking shroud, cheap-ass sandals and, (believe it or not!) a thorny head band. An outfit he's apparently so fond of that he he refuses to torch--or launder.  He was sitting in the sauna, talking to no one in particular (there were just two of us in there at the time, and neither of us seemed in the mood for a discussion about ourselves or interested in his personal details, but this did worry him in the least), "My dad is GOD! I mean, my mother, bless her, was a VIRGIN! I was born from an IMMACULATE conception! And you know what's even MORE crazy? For like, a few weeks after she had me she was STILL a virgin...even though she was officially married and didn't have to be one anymore. She held out for a way super-long time (Joseph will back me up on this, it's a shame you can't ask him, since he's dead) compared to other homeless, unmarried and pregnant/shotgun bride drifter chicks from her town. Don't misunderstand me, she wasn't a perma-virgin, I mean, I have brothers and sisters and all that...but they came later. They weren't special like me, they had a REGULAR dad (regular, as in not immortal, not omnipotent, not omniscient). I mean come on, dude, admit it! MY dad, he blows doors on that mustachioed merkin-muncher you call Daddy!"  He pauses, looking hard at a fit, handsome Puerto Rican guy who's sitting just a few feet away from him. The guy stares at him for a second, and then gets up to leave. It's just me and Jesus in here now. He goes on. "My dad is special. He's God. You know GOD? He created everything and everyone! He knows all and sees all and has infinite wisdom and and he is the origin of all things--even of the very thoughts at this moment forming in YOUR very own head--every single solitary quark contained within each proton around which every electron revolves within all the atoms of the universe..." I start to drift off.  He notices and leans closer towards me, shouting "When I was born three KINGS schlepped their mangy asses hella far to drop off these rare, precious, uh...things--one of which was GOLD. As in, shiny yellow duckets, bitch!" Finally, I've had enough too, I leave.

Okay. So that's the kind of guy Jesus is. I'm sorry but he just BUGS! That's what I think. I'm 100% certain that there are people who will disagree with me. Not just disagree with me, but think that I am, merely by articulating this opinion and sharing it publicly, guilty of a violent, unprovoked attack on them, personally. An attack that's tant amount to karate chop to the bridge of their noses. But I don't give a shit. They're wrong. I do not care one whit if they and think the sun rises and sets in Jesus's 'taint and that his sermons were divinely inspired soliloquies which will serve to define humanity and all of its wisdom and beauty unto eternity, that's perfectly fine with me, I simply  (admittedly NOT respectfully) disagree. He's no better than David Koresh--he just didn't stockpile a bunch of weapons and fuck a bunch of underaged girls (that we know of) and get himself immolated and a bunch of innocent people killed on national television. That's the only difference.

Letter to FIlm Director

I worked as wardrobe assistant on an independent film project titled, "Crazy Bitches."  It was a horror film of the "slasher" variety, with a fairly large cast and non-existent budget. The script was not aggressively awful, but the director was inexperienced and untested. She was also bat-shit cray cray.

Like all film productions, the first week on this project was dedicated to doing all of the necessary "prep" work. For wardrobe department, this is an incredibly busy week, spent buying and renting clothing for each character, "breaking down the script" so that you can track all character changes scene by scene, get personal fittings done with all principal actors at their home/apartment. This mean going anywhere from Laguna Nigel to Chatsworth to Burbank to Malibu at any hour of the day or night, (as early as 7 am to as late as midnight) to take their measurements, have them try on whatever wardrobe pieces which have already been purchased for their character(s) and to make sure everything fits and that whatever doesn't fit, can be tailored to do so within our tight schedule) Mikel, the Costume Designer (who hired me to work for him on the project) called me late one evening after having received an email from the director telling him that one of the actors had complained to her about his fitting that day. Now, this actor was one of the minor characters in the movie and not in a position (we thought) to cause waves of any kind, because he could be replaced without any difficulty at all, he had only a few lines of dialogue, and he was only averagely good looking. Apparently, he didn't recognize this fact and immediately started causing problems for the costume designer, by being late for his fitting (at his home! He showed up late for an appointment that he didn't even need to leave home to be on time for!) Anyway, apparently he had called the director to complain about Mikel's treatment of him during his fitting and she sent Mikel a rather rude and sanctimonious email which accused him of being unprofessional to this actor, Blake, and listing a bunch of new demands that she had for him to do for her for the duration of the project. Mikel called me, hysterical, immediately after reading it, begging me to write a response for him since he's "not much of a writer" (his own words, not mine). I dragged myself out of bed and wrote the email below.  (I signed it as Mikel, because that who was going to send it to her. I think knowing that it wouldn't be coming from me made it easier to say what I might not normally say in a way i might not normally say it.)

Please respond in the comments section if you think I was inappropriate, unprofessional or if you thought I was right on. I would love to hear any feedback at all about it!

Jane,

Of course, it is my goal to have every actor in any project I work on feel comfortable with what they're wearing and Blake is no exception. However, I believe that the primary issue he had with his wardrobe was that he did not look like a "security guard."  I reminded him that his character wasn't supposed to look like a security guard, since he was a groundskeeper. Unfortunately, I did not know that he had not been told (by you, the director) that you'd opted to make him and Derek's characters "groundskeepers" instead of security guards to save $150 on uniforms.  I would have preferred not to have had to be the one to notify him of his character's career demotion (as that is not my job), since, obviously, that has tainted Blake's opinion of me and my choice of wardrobe for him.  The fact that he was also late for our meeting did not help, since I had another appointment scheduled immediately after and could not spend the time explaining things to him more delicately.  The fact is--the budget for this project is shockingly small, considering the size of the cast (30, plus extras), half of which have 5 changes, and many of which require matching doubles.  May I remind you, we had a discussion about this two days ago, in which you specifically requested his look be "groundskeeperish" and that you wanted his shirts to be altered by cutting off his sleeves. I am unaware of any security guard uniform which would satisfy both of these caveats. Please just tell me what you want him in. If you want him to be wearing a security guard uniform, then you need to come up with more money for the wardrobe budget and I'll make it happen. 

If you expect me to send you photos of each character's changes so that you can personally okay them in advance, then I'm afraid I'm not the right person for this project. Because I simply do not have the time, nor the inclination, to be spending my time clearing individual looks with you. May I remind you, there are dozens of cast members with multiple changes that I have to shop for and prep in the next 48 hours? If you don't trust my styling expertise and wardrobe decisions, then why did you hire me? 

I'm concerned about the fact that there are numerous other plot points which involve wardrobe (2009 Prada stilletto's, Pucci blouse, for example) which are unrealistic, given the budget. Am I going to be thrown under the bus by you every time a cast member is unhappy about the downgrading of their wardrobe expectations? Because that won't work for me.

Respectfully,

Mikel (Last Name Withheld) 



Shockingly enough, we didn't get fired. But I wish we had because the job was a fucking nightmare. Truly, one of the worst productions I have ever been a part of. And I have worked on a low-budget Christian film in an non-air conditioned wardrobe trailer in the valley in August. It was literally 180 degrees in that trailer at 2 in the afternoon.  I was so dehydrated every night when I went home that my pee looked like lemon-lime gatorade.

My husband's sister is possibly feral, most definitely evil (Journal Entry dated 12/28/00)

So, Mike and I got to the "Red Setter" at precisely 9 o'clock last night, right on time, thanks to my husband's (very real) threat that he would "leave without me!" if I wasn't in the car by 8:45.  Nonetheless, I was pissed when I realized that we were the first ones there out of the entire group. Mike's cool, pretty, funny sister, Karen, arrived a few minutes after we did, alone, without her husband--which no one mentioned.

"Hey! Have you two been here long?" she asked as she sat down. I shook my head, deliberately vague.

"Nah. We've been here like 20 seconds." Mike answered, much to my annoyance.

I realize that I should not have been aggravated by that answer. But I didn't like the fact that he'd given a specific amount of time we'd been waiting--and it wasn't even accurate. I mean, I thought we'd been there for at least a minute, maybe even two. If you're going to give such a detailed and specific answer to a question that warrants merely a yes or no answer, then do it in our favor, so it comes off like we've been sitting here drumming our fingers on the bar for a while, killing time, waiting for everyone else to show up. That way people start off feeling a wee bit guilty towards us, and more likely to pick up a round or two.

My annoyance at losing potential "guilt points" was totally unnecessary as it turns out.  The real reason that Karen had asked the question was not to satisfy some needling concern that we might have been kept waiting, but rather because she had been sitting in her car, waiting to come inside and had not noticed us entering the bar. She was not asking out of concern, but merely curious as to how she'd missed us.

Eventually the rest of the group arrives and I quickly remembered why I never go to bars in a group...because it fucking sucks. It sucks because you're obligated to "hang" with your "crew,"  But these are not people you necessarily find interesting or would be seen in public with otherwise.

Anywho, Lisa, Mike's oldest sister, was there with her boyfriend, Joe, and Joe's brother (who's name I forget). Lisa is really, really ugly. In fact, one cannot adequately describe her without turning to the animal kingdom.  She looks like a ferret, only pointier and less housebroken.  She is possibly feral. I am frightened of/by her and have already determined that she is dangerous. So, I try extra hard to get her to like me, I buy her drinks and feign interest in her self-absorbed, tedious monologues and nod and smile and look her in the eye when she talks to me even if it is to ask rude and condescending questions like, "Is that what you wear to a bar?" Obviously, since we were in a bar, and I was fully dressed, this was a rhetorical question, and I just nodded and smiled and bit my tongue.  Why did I bite my tongue? Because as my new husband's older sister, she gets a great deal more leeway than I might normally afford someone who insults me publicly...especially someone who's ensemble consists of the following:

1. a pair sloppy, homemade cutoff jean shorts (Wranglers) cut just above the knee, folded instead of hemmed, with straggling threads dangling out from the folds past her knee, 
2. a pair of dusty, dirty, ancient cowboy boots that instantly explain why boots are sometimes called "shit kickers,"; because that's exactly what it looks like they have been doing all their long life.
3. a stained "wife-beater" (a thin, white tank-top undershirt) the cheapest kind imaginable, so thin, threadbare and shapeless it reminded me of the wet newspaper strips we used to make paper mache animals in grade school) which wouldn't be a problem, only, she hasn't bothered to put on a bra...and she doesn't have the kind of breasts which make that advisable. Her breasts look like two pastry bags which were going to squirt ganache piping onto the folds of her jean shorts at any moment. Also, did I mention that she had a copious amount of underarm hair? So much so that, even when she had her arms down at her sides, there were these tiny little afros trying to escape from the crack of her underarms. Totally distracting.

Okay that's where my journal entry ends...but I want to insert here an update to this journal entry, defending my less-than-kind attitude towards my sister-in-law. The woman is a straight-up bitch. Not only did she insult me the very first time I met her:

Mike introduced us. She looked me up and down and said,

"So you're the girl who "got" Mike." she snorted, "Never thought he'd settle down so quick." (translation: "FYI: I'm on to you bitch. You may have fooled my little brother, but I can see right through your facade and I ain't buying what you're selling. Not by a longshot.")

My eyes glaze over as I desperately grasp for the appropriate response.

"Uh, yeah? I guess."