Whip It

"We deserve better villains." -- Bliss Cavendar

First and foremost, welcome to the New Year ladies & gentlemen! Did you miss me? Did you miss us? Sure you did. You have been gazing intently at facebook waiting ever-impatiently for either Kaka or I to give your lives meaning in this New Year by updating our blog and giving you something to do with yourselves. Either that, or you're bored shitless and you wanna know what's up. Well, are you in for a treat, sir, or ma'am! I am here to tell you the tale of my New Years celebration and to recount my adventures in sickland.

Role Models

"Well, obviously we're not supposed to buttfuck these kids." -- Wheeler

Earlier today, I was sitting with a friend in his attic bedroom discussing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Really, we were discussing drugs, alcohol, anonymous sex, and the price of tea in China, but life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness just sounded like a better way to start out a post about being a role model and specifically growing up gay in Omaha, Nebraska without any real male role model to speak of, and especially no gay role model. This came up because while discussing the less-than-savory aspects of my life with this friend, he brought up setting a good example for our younger siblings. He was speaking metaphorically because he has no younger siblings as of now, and it got us to thinking about how we grew up, and how we learned to be the us that we are today, and I thought it would make a good blog post. I should mention as a preemptive warning that I haven't really slept, and I'm running on caffeine so this post may suck monumental

Clerks

Death to Duct-Tape

"Hermaphroditic porn. Starlets with both organs. You should see the box. Beautiful chicks with dicks that put mine to shame."

As I'm sure you've guessed, I work at a local Netflix hub. I have to first and foremost admit that due to a number of NDAs, I can't share too much about any of the things I do to make money. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get bitched at for the post I'm about to write. While reading said post, remember that this is a personal blog, and the views expressed, while logical, and generally agreed upon by employees of your local hubs,are my own and in no way reflect the official stance, practices, and observations of Netflix INC it's parent companies or subsidiaries. That said, I hate at least 40% of the people who have a Netflix account in the Omaha Metro Area, or the Sioux Falls, SD area, or the Sioux City, IA Metro Area.

112,000. That is the approximate number of DVDs that are sent into the Omaha hub ever week. The hub is active and running six days a week. In a given week, I process approximately 12,000 of those DVDs. Processing DVDs is actually a very Zen activity most of the time. I return anywhere from 530 to 600 DVDs in a given hour and, on average, work between 18 and 24 hours a week. Of the 500+ DVDs I deal with in an hour, at least 100 of them piss me off. Another 50 REALLY piss me off. Then, another 25-50 make me want to kill you. For the most part, I'm a good sport about it. I laugh it off, and continue about my work.

Lately though, things have become more and more outrageous. From disks that are written-on with sharpies, to people and their bitchy notes, I am becoming more and more annoyed with the people in my city and the surrounding area. If you're a blogbuddy, which is my new name for people who read my blog on the regular, you will have seen my Netflix Damage Flow Chart not too long ago.

Generally, my complaints fall into one of three categories. First: Discs misaligned. Second: Bitchy notes. Third: Bad decisions.

Misaligned discs are discs that have been put into their sleeve facing the wrong direction. I know, I know a minor annoyance, but when your job is based entirely upon speed and accuracy, having all of your discs facing the same, correct direction saves anywhere from 2 to 4 seconds per disc. On top of that, you get the discs facing forward when they show up to you, so why not return the favor? Misaligned discs also cover the category of sleeves which have been placed into the envelope upside-down, or backwards. Every envelope has a little window cut into it. This window is where the big barcode should go. It's where the barcode goes when you get the envelope too. It's super easy. I promise. This again shaves anywhere from 1 to 3 second off of the processing time of the disc. The best way to solve this? Put your disc facing forward, and put the sleeve where it belongs.

Bitchy notes are probably the funniest of the things I have to put up with. They range from very simple notes letting us know that there is a broken disc in the sleeve, or  that they've put multiple discs in the sleeve itself. I can round this out very simply. Your notes are not needed. Your notes are not wanted. Your notes are not appreciated. Your notes create excess work for me and the other employees. Work that can be avoided at 4 o'clock in the morning by you not being retarded. Here's the deal. You get the disc in the sleeve, in the envelope. The envelope reads, clear as day, "Please do not insert anything other than DVD & sleeve in mailer. To report a problem, visit www.netflix.com/help" Do you understand those words? I sure hope you do. Aside from the obvious  fact that you have at least a basic knowledge of the internet, considering the fact that you signed up for an account online and add movies to your queue and rate said movies etc... writing a note is just passive-aggressive and obnoxious. If you'd already submitted the problem online, then the computer that sorts our DVDs will catch the disc and spit it out for a Quality Check. If you didn't report the problem, then if there is noticeable damage, one of us will catch it during the return process.

Other notes that piss me off are notes along the lines of the following. Let me make this very clear that these are exact quotes from notes I received TODAY.

"Cancel my account, I'm not home enough to use it."
"Add Appaloosa to my cue[sic]."
"Send me another copy of this DVD"
"Chapter 3 skips, there are fingerprints on the disc"
"This disc skipped. I want a credit on my acct."
"This movie was disgusting. I want my money back"

1, 2, 3, 4 : These are issues that can be automated online.
5 & 6 : These can be dealt with online, or addressed over the phone with Customer Service.

Either way, sending your notes only make us annoyed with you. In fact, we dedicate a portion of our breaks to making fun of people and the notes they've sent in. So, aside from being douchey, you're being made fun of and people don't like you.

Finally, we have Bad Decisions. Let me give you some examples. You know that sleeve taht you spilled coffee on, then sent through the shredder, and caught half-way through? Don't send it to me. It's useless. You know how you like to put your DVDs on the coffee table, where the dog likes to get a hold of them and chew them? Yeah, don't do that either. You know how you give you kid crayons and they colour all over the sleeve? Annoying. Oh yeah, remember that one time when you stapled the mailer closed? Don't fucking do that again. Staples are the bane of my existence. I could write an entire post about staples and the woes they cause me. While on the subject of alternative envelope-sealing mechanisms, don't use tape. Don't use duct tape. Don't use scotch tape. Don't use electrical tape. If you absolutely MUST use tape, use gaffers tape, maybe masking tape. DON'T USE GLUE!

Other bad decisions would include putting more than two discs into a sleeve, and more than two discs in an envelope. Seriously. if I get one more envelope with 6+ discs in it, I'll scream. Legit. SCREAM. more than three discs causes so much stress on the mailer, and increases the chances of a disc breaking en-route. Envelopes don't take up much space. You can keep them, I promise.

Other bad decisions would be putting the wrong disc in a sleeve. I can understand putting multiple discs in, sometimes shit happens. Today though, I got a mailer with eight discs in it. All eight discs were in one sleeve. NONE OF THEM WERE THE DISC FOR THAT SLEEVE! Seriously. If you know that the disc you're putting in is broken or wrong, do me a favour, put a big black X on the sleeve. It would save me about a million years in wasted time.

These things said, I appreciate those of you who don't fail at life. I love and adore people who use their mailers as canvases and showcase art for us to enjoy and share with our fellow employees. I love people who put their DVDs in the sleeve facing the right way, and the sleeve in the envelope facing correctly, without notes, or piss-stains.

Hell, I didn't even touch on people who smoke eight packs a day and infuse their sleeves and mailers with the stench of their cancer. I didn't even bring up the people who leave food in their mailer either!Consider yourselves lucky that I didn't mention the staggering amount of porn people 'accidentally' send in to Netflix. Or the number of people who put their personal DVDs into their Netflix mailers, or their game discs. OR their blockbuster discs. Seriously, people who have both Blockbuster Online and Netflix accounts somehow mix the two up.

I swear all it takes is a teeny tiny bit of common sense, and we can all be happy people. I promises.

Zoolander

 "I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is."-- Derek Zoolnader

So, I have sex from time to time. I'm sure you may have pondered or suspected as much, because, in case you weren't sure the entire universe spends every waking moment wondering what is happening in my life. Likewise, in case you weren't certain, having sex often results in the potential of downsides, or negative side-effects. By which I mean that earlier this week, I got a phone call from a previous boyfriend of mine, who shall remain nameless for his own protection and my sanity. During said phone call, he revealed that two weeks ago, he took an HIV test and the results came back positive for antibodies.

Now, this young man and I broke up sometime ago. We also hadn't engaged in any risky behaviors in the last month or two of our relationship, so I was fairly confident of my status. Regardless, anytime there is a scare, especially in the gay community, it is a good idea to make certain that everything is alright. We are a community of bitchy, self-centered, self-involved and holier-than-thou cunts. I say this with nothing but respect and affection for the gay community, but let's face it, it's true. We're not nice people for the most part, and when it comes to sex, we're downright rude sometimes. I am no exception.

So, the first thing I do after the phone call is turn around and call the people I've done anything with since the breakup. it leads to a number of awkward conversations and several unusual explanations, as well as reassurements (not a word) that I am about 80% confident of my current status. Surprisingly, it leads to reconnecting with some people I've lost touch with, and allows me the opportunity to force my mind away from the dark place that it is destined to go to. Ok, I lied. The first thing I did was freak out, and cry on Katrina's shoulder for a few seconds before collecting myself and making the phone calls. I also got angry for a second there, but I recovered from that rather quickly. Sure he waited two weeks to tell me, but hell, I'm the first person he told.

So, Katrina and i decide that I need to go get tested. The soonest we can do it is Thursday. (That would be today, or if you're reading this at a later date, the other day that isn't today.) I spend the entire night staring at the insides of my eyelids and writing my gleecap. My heart is going insane, and my head is running at least eight-billion miles per hour. I'm calculating dates, looking at WebMD and doing things that are only making it worse. I ended up getting less than an hour of sleep before going in to work. This was the first time that I've ever had a conscious want or desire to go to work. At least while I'm at work, my mind is focused on the needlessly mundane task of sorting DVDs.

The next night is more of the same, until this evening when I hop into the car with Katrina there for support. We drive down to the Nebraska AIDS Project facility. It's just a few blocks from the McDonald's on 78th & Dodge. It's a pretty uick drive, and fairly easy to find if you know what you're looking for. It's a beautiful building, with the ugliest carpet known to mankind. I would have taken photographs, but I felt like it would be kind of insensitive to the anonymous nature of HIV testing. The lobby is pretty simple, a few chairs, an attractive secretary sitting behind the desk, and a TV playing the worst television programs known to mankind. Ok, I take that back, it was playing Scrubs when we first walked in, which kicked ass.

So, I take my number and have a seat. Katrina and I sort of chitchat for a few brief moments. There is a deafening silence in this room. She and I are sitting in a corner, down from us is a hairy man with a scent akin to nothing ok. Across from us is an adorable gay couple who look worried and a little flustered. Likewise, there is a grown woman wearing a letter jacket from 1998 and her gay besty.

I'll pause and say that earlier today, Katrina and I were just talking about people who can't let go of their high school triumphs. I have NO RESPECT for anybody who wears a letterman jacket after the summer following graduation. Period.

So, we kind of act nonchalant, and interject humor where possible to make things as not uncomfortable as possible. I feel a bit like Tyler Durden making single serving friends in the abnormally shaped lobby area while we listen to make-believe med interns be witty and share bromantic moments. Eventually, after what can safely described as an eternity, I am summoned through an imposing door, and into a long hallways which leads to a sterile looking room with the tackiest linoleum ever, and a little chair.

After a quick signature and my initials, I get stabbed in the finger with a force that suggests unspoken rage on the part of my tech. She explains everything that has already been read repeatedly. She eventually tells me that she'll be hiding me in a side room to wait for counseling and that my results should be done within the next fifteen or twenty minutes.

So, she deposits me into a room that is vaguely reminiscent of an airplane bathroom. It has three chairs, and a number of the worst paintings/rints and photographs known to mankind. Seriously, they must have stopped in at the nearest goodwill and just bought everything they could find. It's very ... eclectic. It's just plain outrageous, and the tiny trashcan in the room is just plain filthy. Before leaving, she asks if it is ok for the trainee to sit in on my counseling session.

After a few minutes, and text messages to/from Katrina, I hear a knock on the door. Why knock? Seriously. I know it's polite and all, but you obviously know that there is somebody behind the door waiting for you. A middle-aged man with an attitude problem enters, followed by a younger guy named Trevor. We exchange pleasantries, and he learns more about my sex life than I share with most potential boyfriends. It is interesting to note that situations like this are what I live and breathe for. I love when people attempt to maintain a sense and facade of respectability in situations where it is painfully obvious that neither party really wants to be having this conversation. There is a lot of apologizing, and awkward looks over our shoulders. The awkwardness is beautiful and fills me up. It's like a drug to me. You can tell he's expecting the other person, (me), to lie about everything, and when I give straightforward answers, he stares at me incredulously. All in all, it is delightful.

So, he tells me to wait in the lobby, and I rejoin Katrina. While there, i meet a charming blonde woman with a peasant demeanor and charming personality. We discuss current trends in television. We share a brief moment while watching some outrageous show where people who can't sing have to guess the lyrics in a song they're singing, If you know the title, let me know. I intend to watch it from now on.

Shortly afterward, I'm summoned into that imposing hallway, and ushered, by Trevor, into a different creepily tiny room, with different ugly paintings, to be given my results. After a brief conversation about drug use, condoms, and just how accurate my test is, I am encouraged to come back again sometime. I didn't want to  spoil the surprise, but suffice it to say that I tested negative for HIV antibodies in my rapid results test. I opted to have blood drawn, and an additional cheek-swab to be sent to two different labs in the area to make absolutely certain that everything comes back negative. I will know for certain in about 10-14 days. In the meantime, I'm satisfied with the 99.76% certainty, especially considering that I was tested shortly after our breakup.

All joking, bitchy commentary, and kidding aside, I would like to break for a PSA. Go get tested. If you don't know your status, or think you know your status, but have even the slightest tinge of worry or doubt, it's a great way to give yourself a bit of a pick-me-up. Luckily, here in Nebraska, we have the Nebraska AIDS Project which is a sensational public resource that offers free testing for HIV and low cost testing for other STDs. All in all, from start to finish, I was in the office for less than 30 minutes, and came out of it with a resounding sense of relief and comfort even with my previous surety that I was safe to begin with.

Hell if you need somebody to go with just for the sake of solidarity, call me, and I'm there.

A Night At The Roxbury

"Are you seeing planes? Is your name Tattoo? Because I swear to God, you're living on Fantasy Island."

So, I work at a certain mail-order movie rental service. Part of my job involves opening the envelopes sent in by you, the consumer, and cleaning them, then storing them so they can be processed and go back out to our valuable consumers. A pleasant side-effect of my job is the opportunity to smirk at the movies we get and sometimes make fun of people who rent things like Veggie Tales, or The Chronicles of Narnia.

Today though, while opening DVDs, I found two that stood out in my head, and stuck with me all the way home. The first was in an envelope that had the distinct scent of KB. If you think that stands for kilobytes, you should probably just keep thinking that and not pay attention to the following paragraph or two, and just skip to the second DVD I found. I'll mark the beginning of the second DVD with something noticeable.

So, like I was saying, I open the envelope and the scent of fresh bud fills my nose, so I'm expecting a C&C movie, or maybe something like Harold & Kumar. Now, of course not. What do pull out. Disc Two of Jorge Cervantes : Ultimate Grow. Oh never heard of it? Didn't think so. This would be a film produced by High Times Magazine, and filled with step by step instructions on setting up indoor grow operations. Now, I neither condone, nor condemn the use of recreational drugs. My general thought is that my mom gets her Xanax, and my cousins get 13 medications each. You can have you drugs. I'll even let you do them in my house. Hell, I've also been known to be a babysitter for people under the influence of hallucinogens.

These things said, REALLY?! You're going to rent a movie about setting up an indoor grow operation in fucking NEBRASKA?! Seriously. You're going to end up on a DEA watchlist doing stupid shit like that. You think they don't have drug dogs that check out the fucking post office from time to time? I mean come on! You have to resort to a Netflix DVD? You obviously have the internet,see the aforementioned Netflix Account. Why not avoid something as straight-forward as ordering a DVD via Netflix and just look that shit up?! At the very least, don't send the DVD back in an envelope that makes an entire warehouse wreak of pot. C'mon pothead! Think next time.

****DVD two. At first glance, this DVD was uninteresting. It is a dark green dvd with a neon rhino on it. I must have seen this DVD a thousand times. This time though, I checked in it, and cleaned it right before a break, so it stood on top of my stack for a few minutes, and I happened to read the title, "Zombie Strippers" As if the concept of Zombie Strippers wasn't enough to make you intrigued, I've taken the liberty of showing the description of said-movie as well.

A deadly government-controlled virus strikes a small Nebraska strip club, where the head dancer is quickly infected and transformed into a flesh-eating zombie -- and becomes an instant hit with the customers. To be or not to be a zombie: That is the question facing the remaining jealous strippers in this outrageous horror comedy, starring slasher icon Robert Englund (best known as Freddy Krueger) and adult-entertainment icon Jenna Jameson.

Question: Why the hell was NEBRASKA chosen as the setting for this film?! More importantly, what is sexy about zombie strippers?!  Even more importantly, how did they get Jenna Jameson and Robert Englund to be in the same film?

Needless to say, both films have been added to my queue, and the second is available to watch instantly. 

Tuesdays With Morrie

"When you learn how to die, you learn how to live."

Thanksgiving. It's a make-believe holiday, much like Xmas and Valentine's Day. no real meaning when it comes right down to it, but a great opportunity to soak up the presence of friends and family for a day or four. This year, Thanksgiving started on the 23rd and only ended this morning. It was a wild ride, full of fun and entertainment and closeness and the closest thing to love that I've felt in a good long while.

Tuesday evening, Jakob and I went to Ayn Dahlke's house for Reject Thanksgiving. It was a night filled with casual adorations, video games, dancing,  movies, AMAZING conversation, REMARKABLE people, and a reunion with the girl who I blame for my musical passion entirely. Ayn looked lovely, as always, and the food was delightful. I made cookies, which I took every opportunity to tell people about and Mr. Buss made Pistachio Salad, which was quick dubbed green marshmallow goo and was a huge success!

We played with the kinect and watched a bit of Resident Evil, I met some of the most sensational people I've met in a long time, and when the night ended, I was genuinely pissed off that I had to work at 4 am the next day. I have every intention of making Ayn a common trend in my life. She is on my permanent list of invitees from this moment onward, she and her charming boyfriend.

Wednesday, I spent the morning, after work, curled up on the couch with Jakob. We murmured sweet-nothings and made jokes. I spent the remainder of the day palying games and writing blogs. I even did my annual guest-spot on a friend's vlog/podcast which was afun blast from the past.

But the day this is really about is true Thanksgiving. like I've mentioned before this blog is for randomness, and for hilarity and for fabulousness. The week was nothing until Thrusday afternoon. After going to my mother's for dinner, i was sent on an errand for the family. It was supposed to be simple. Go to the Hy Vee around the corner to pick up mini marshmallows for the yams, then go to my Aunt Carrie's and pick up our Aunt Frieda and bring her to my mother's for dinner. It was at 2:00 that I was sent on this errand.

So, I get in the bright blue Escape and start driving. I make it to Hy Vee in less than three minutes and discover that every package of mini marshmallows is sold out. My mother suggests checking at walmart. That's another 2 or 3 miles away, so I stop in. Not only are all of the mini marshmallows sold out at Walmart, but so are all of the regular sized marshmallows. So I get back in the car and drive back to Hy Vee to buy normal sized marshmallows, which are now sold out. SO ... I drive another two miles south to Bag N' Save to buy marshmallows, grab two bags and head back toward Aunt Carrie's house.

I text my mom and tell her to let Carrie know that Frieda's ride is outside. Five minutes later, no response. I've already been gone for nearly 40 minutes and I'm getting antsy and I've been frustrated since my trip to Walmart to search for marshmallows. So, I park, I head up to the door, and knock. No answer. I sit in the car and honk. No answer. So I head back to my mother's and thus begins the end of my holiday. One plate of food pushes me into a tryptophan coma, and a little bit of video-gaming with my kid brother leads me to relaxation at long last.

The moral of the story? BUY YOUR FUCKING MARSHMALLOWS EARLY.

Edge of Seventeen

"It hurts"

 This is the first of a series of posts I intend to make. The series theme? Things I Have Learned from Boys I Have Kissed. Please note the distinction that I have made here, a kiss does not imply dating, and specifically, I mention boys, as the bulk of these will have taken place prior to my triumphant return to Omaha in 2008. I started thinking of this about a week ago while I was sorting DVDs, the movie, Edge of Seventeen showed up and it intrigued me, because the only people who watch films like this are gay kids who are sick and tired of John Hughes being such a douche bag. Well, and creepy straight girls who spend their lives attached to gay men an can't find any real passion in their own lives. 

I'll admit that being the only out guy in high school meant that I got a lot of play from young men who would later become the proud homosexuals of Omaha North High School. It got me a lot more play from boys who would never come out ever in their entire life, and to this day will probably deny that they ever did anything with a man. I've been the tester for numerous guys and I think I'm kind of satisfied with that. Each experience taught me a lot about who I am, what I like, and what my limits, standards and expectations are. Aside from being an introductory post, this is also about one of the first boys I kissed. I'm pretty sure he falls into the second category of toe-dipper, but I'll freely admit, he had the biggest impact on my development as a man. 

His name was Zach. He wasn't the first boy I kissed, not by a longshot. He was actually somewhere in the middle. It was my senior year of high school, and I couldn't tell you what grade he was in if I tried. I do know that we only started talking via email at school. He was dating an obnoxious little mousey girl with an attitude. I asked him to homecoming. When he said he had a date already, I was disappointed, but we kept talking, and actually became pretty good friends. It wasn't until a few weeks later, via phone-call that he asked me to be his boyfriend. It was cute. This was important because up until this moment, I had always been the aggressor in any sort of interaction with men. He was a pretty fantastic guy, one of the few that I continued to talk to after departing Nebraska for Arizona. He loves ducks. He's a whole lotta punk-rock. He bites when he kisses, which has stuck with me ever since. He came to my school play on opening night and brought me a carnation, something nobody has ever done since. He would walk me from class to class and we'd sneak a kiss before disappearing into our classrooms. He wore black lipstick that left cute little marks that I wore with pride. 

I haven't spoken to him directly since 2005. We're friends on facebook, but I never know what to say to him to let him know just how formative he was in my youth. I won't go so far as to say I love him, but I definitely enjoyed him and adore the parts of him I find in others I meet on a daily basis. There is rarely a day that passes that I don't meet somebody who reminds me of him in some way, shape or form.

Election

Tammy Metzler: "It's not like I'm a lesbian or anything. I'm attracted to the person. It's just that all the people I've been attracted to happen to be girls."

CONGRATULATIONS! The elections are done, and it looks like voter turn out this year is the highest it's been in a midterm year since 1982!

"WHAT?! Seriously? Wow! That's amazing, Josh," is what you'd say if i said that with a straight face.

Then, I'd say, "Bringing the nation-wide average to 42%"

42. That means out of every fifty people who were eligible to vote, and could have registered and voted, only 21 of them actually did it. 21. Do you realized how pathetic this is? Originally, I was going to bitch and moan about how civil rights have been pushed back about 40 years. Seriously, the next thing I know I'm going to have to sit in the back of the bus, use a separate water fountain and hell if we start electing more hyper social conservatives, I've already plotted out my path on the homo underground railroad (I'm going to Quebec {Or Iowa}.)

But before I could even start to type that post, I decided to check the stats and frankly, I don't think anybody who didn't vote even gets to know what's happening in the world. In fact, if you didn't vote and you don't have a damn good reason, please take the route of the fictional green lemmings, and  find the nearest ocean or fire pit, or devouring monster-thing and just end yourself as blindly as you've allowed yourself to exist.

I'm serious. Just die. Dammit. I'm too pissed off and frustrated to go on with this post. Expect commentary on Prop 19 and Gay Civil Rights. I might touch on the Fiscal situation, but for now, go and sit in the corner of shame.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

"It's astounding, time is fleeting, madness takes its toll."

It's Friday, the 29th of October. Kaka and Josh have decided that the only logical place to be, and thing to do on the Friday preluding the best holiday of the year, is the midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at Omaha's historic Dundee Theatre. It isn't often that we have the opportunity to go to the midnight shows at Dundee. I usually head into work at god-hates-me-o'clock in the morning so it's not easy to get out late at night and catch a movie; especially one that requires plenty of lead-in and recovery. This is halloween weekend though, my favorite night of the year, so I feel like I *need* this despite having to go into work at 4 the next morning.

Kaka, that's Katrina to you, shows up at the apartment a little before 6:00 pm and we decide to get dressed. Half because I want to have plenty of time to do my make-up, half because I want to go shopping and get food before we go, half because I want to get some drinks before hand, and half because I just want to be ridiculous. We do our hair and make-up. I go light and understated because I'm very classic and demure and don't want to make a big deal. That is where the sarcasm ends, hell, I'm a boy in a damn dress. Not just a dress, an effing ball-gown I look like Frank & Magenta had a love child and then had sex with her. In short, I'm effing fabulous.

Miss Katrina dons a dress she borrowed from me, and her 'Gaga' blazer. The slit on the side of the dress is like DAMN, and the blazer was part of a fantastic Masquerade costume from back in May. We topped off her look with a pair of RealD glasses with the lenses popped out, very brad-chic. So we're dressed, we're looking good, feeling good, being all kinds of smexy, and we decide to head out.

We need to make a few stops up in this bitch 'fo we get on our way.
1: Walmart - I need new eyelashes and fake nails.
2: Home - To get Katrina's phone because it needs charged.
3: Goodwill - To show off and pick up long-gloves.
4: My Mom's - For costuming assistance.
5: The Old Dundee Bar - For drinks.
6: The 1020 - For more drinks.
7: McDonald's - For Bad-For-Us Foodstuffs
8: The Old Dundee Bar - For More Drinks again.
9: The Theatre - For the movie, duh.

We go to Walmart and make the heterosexuals uncomfortable. Keep in mind, we live in Nebraska, accepting that it is Halloween Weekend, we are still less-than acceptably dressed. I make my purchases, and Kaka gets what she needs,the whole time amusedly discussing the lack of comfort we're spreading through the store. It always brings me great joy to make people feel creeped out, it's like a game for me.

We run home, get Kaka's phone and grab my pink flask from the freezer. It's filled with some pretty intense vodka, and we collect ourselves for the lengthy journey into Omaha to Kaka's workplace, which isn't far from my mother's house.

Fast-forward. We meet the gayest man ever, which is a lot coming from me. We go to see my mother and her DOTM, then onward to say hello to my grandmother, and then to Midtown/Dundee. The BIGGEST LONG ISLAND EVAR was accompanied by a glimpse of a stalky hipster boy, but I don't want to get into him just yet. I'm going to let Kaka pick which of the characters we each get to talk about over the next few blog posts. I feel like this night was just too damn much to squeeze into one posting.

So the charactes and stories from th evening are as follows:
1: Imaginary Hipster Boy
2: Creepy Chimo-Farmer Dad
3: Big Mac (with cheese)
4: Red Shirts (they always die first)
5: The Show (of the rocky picture and horror varieties)
6: Sexy Copper with a Tape Recorder