thea lux (dot) com

To My Darling Wife,

What a New Years, Maria! I know I apologized earlier while I was revisiting my alcoholic choices in the loo, but I’m truly sorry I dropped that bottle of vodka as we were on our way to your sister’s house. You were so excited, at least I’m assuming that’s what that foreign expression on your face meant, but what good is New Years without a drink or two in your system–especially when family is involved, right? Don’t be upset about missing the gathering. That’s the great thing about New Years, it happens every year, whether or not you’re alive to enjoy it. Things go on, such is life. I’m not saying that to discourage any hope you have regarding your sister’s treatments.

Now, on to more important matters.

I awoke with a start tonight as we were trying to sleep. I was trying to clear my mind of all thoughts but was unable to do so since being medically diagnosed with my large cerebellum. And you, with your heavy breaths that would convince anyone in the world to get over the awkwardness of a CPAP Mask–I’m sorry to digress, darling, but you don’t look like an elephant with that mask. Would you rather be a dead elephant or an elephant that sleeps soundly? And even if you did pass in your sleep with the mask on, I promise I would not participate in any making-fun-ofs when the coroner arrived. I would not mention the floating pink pachyderm I drunkenly imagined only to find your cold body lying next to me in the morning still in that pink fleece sack of a nightgown you insist on wearing. I believe I read somewhere that elephants are cold blooded due to their skin being so thick so that’s probably why I would be fine with a cold, dead elephant next to me in bed… Wait, that doesn’t completely prove my point, but well… I said it was a digression.

Anyway, my love, as you were blissfully comatose with your mixture of pretty blue pills, my mind was racing and I had to get up and pace a bit. I thought to myself, we’ve just entered a new decade, it’s been a whole year since the episode of your “episode,” and 2009’s resolutions have remained untouched. I’m not as rich as you would like me to be, and you haven’t attempted that diet you insisted on putting in air quotes. I thought I should make a new list, and since you never really seem to care much about things of worth other than e-cards these days, I made your resolution list as well. It’s just easier, darling.

1. Join a Gym - It’s important to take care of ourselves, because we don’t want to die young and leave the other to have to pay off extraordinary credit card debt. And if you need it to be, the phrase “joining a gym” can be a malleable definition. It could mean fine-tuning an already well-oiled muscle machine, to which I’m referring to my own frame. It could mean just exercising your tear ducts to control the awful amount of liquid that seeps out when too much boxed wine has entered your system. Or, just finding the strength to remove your legs from beneath the bed covers. Either way, it’s for the best. I don’t want to be married to a fatty. Again, I know it’s a digression, but you had slightly more big to your bones when we were courting, being a size 6 and all, and I thought secretly buying your dress two sizes smaller would inspire you to fit in it. Now I claim “my bad” because, as we all know, instead you just looked like a glowing sausage wrapped in rice paper. I do feel bad for keeping that secret during those three years of our engagement. I thought your own self-deprecation would eventually evolve into motivation. So, yes, back to joining a gym. I’m sure you know of a YMCA or something with all those fruits you hang around with, right? They look fit. Most gays do. Get on that. Not the gays. Don’t get on the gays. They won’t like that.

2. Raise a small dog — Since I don’t like children, I’m sure you can get over those psychosomatic allergies of yours. Here’s what I figure: a small dog is easier to remember than that hopeless charity box coin purse you bring around. It’s easier to run to Pet-Co than to mail pennies in an envelope to a child with a click in its unpronounceable name . Besides, if I don’t spend my extra change on a sugary snack, I come home unbearably cranky. Low blood sugar alone may jeopardize our marriage. I can’t bear to think of such things. And I mean really, what is 25 cents going to do for a family in need? Will they buy their own sugary snacks to help them be less cranky about being starving or having a case of AIDS? Ring up a Zebra Cake and take it home to the family to compliment their dusty bag of rice some hippy brought them? They have Zebras in their front yard so why would I want to confuse them? We’re getting a terrier dog puppy and we’re naming it Chumpo. Or you can name it that clicky name after your charity case. I don’t know why we’re still on this topic, darling. These are resolutions to improve OUR lives, not others.

Well, it seems you’ve woken up, so I’ll have to complete my list another time. God, why did I let you keep that nightgown from your sister’s closet? You look like a pathetic mascot for a breast cancer walk. People see you wearing that and they want to get cancer.

I love you darling, Happy New Year!

Yours,

Charles

P.S. Would you mind taking the trash out in the morning? My resolution is to get more beauty sleep.

return of the “butt hoe” artist

January 2, 2010

3 comments

A belated holiday post.

Last year around Xmas, I went to a good friend’s holiday gathering as I do every year. There was a holiday graffiti artist that was out in full force using snow and unsuspecting windshields as his canvas.

This year, I was pleased to see the return of the snow artist. For those who worried his work would become stagnant and rely heavily on repetitive fecal references, luckily he’s branched out to images of dicks and balls.

What’s made this art even better for me was Photobucket’s suggestion of all the things I could put this artwork onto:

super-sized hyperbole

December 27, 2009

5 comments

I joined a new gym.

Having felt a little meat and potato-y since a hairdresser decided to frame my face with a cut rivaling Ramona Quimby’s, I joined the gym downstairs in my company’s building. I decided that I wanted to forgo the feeling of relief that you gain when a new better paying job provides a financial breath of freash air. I believe that my natural state is one of flailing. This gym causes weight loss by removing the extra pounds from the wallet. You no longer spend money on food because you have convinced yourself that the convenience of an expensive gym downstairs justifies the price and outweighs rational thought.

I’m used to going to a gym with Norms. The Norms wear old T-shirts and Umbros, they sport a pooch of a belly that never quite leaves because they have to leave the gym to feed their dogs at home. They grunt, they sweat, they understand that they’ll never be models, their frame is what it is, god bless us, everyone. I’m used to this.

This new gym is for Superheroes. Superheroes who work in sales and power up with Miller Lite. Superheroes that have tight butts in tight butt pants and shoot from work to the gym in pneumatic tubes. They spend three hours in classes that have puns in their titles. “Fant-ASS-tic Workout!” “Be More BUTT-iful!” ”ASS! ASS! ASS! ASS!! ASS!!!” After the classes, they emerge glowing (not sweating), maybe even twinkling like Twighlight Vampires, and hover towards the dressing room. There, they proceed to pose and flex without shirts. In the women’s locker room, a staff photographer captures their perfect frames as they do 20 push-ups with their perky breasts before continuing to vogue topless. They drop their towels and mousse up their already magazine-tousled locks as the photographer captures their god-like figures, shamelessly displaying a half-boner beneath his jeans. Now, I know I live under a rock, but I was quite surprised at how many naked people there are in the locker room.

Of course there are a few other Norms at the gym that can be seen doing leg lifts under a heavy blanket in a dark corner, or are straining to keep up with the über-race in the “Save America from Burning Buildings with Your ASS” class. They’re there. We’re there. And you may even see us buying some tight workout pants some day because they’re like, totes supes cute. In fact, we gain confidence walking amongst the Superheroes. We know that we are protected and we are not really threatened by this race of Übers. They go about their business, and we go about ours. Them with their lightening tree legs, us with our excess packaging. It’s focused and calm in the gym since there is no sexual tension or possibility of mating betwixt the two species. You don’t see humans lusting after cheetahs. The Norms and the Superheroes are two different breeds. In the bedroom they would cancel each other out and there would be some sort of, I don’t know, sparky explosion as their piston-like genitals attempted to climax in a vat of sex dough. Capes would get caught in ceiling fans and Norms would have heart-attacks, breathlessly attempting to rescue the spinning lover just out of reach above them.

So in the gym, we feel safe, at ease even. The Superheroes are there as eye-candy, as inspiration, and as protection in case there is ever an Evil Villain lurking, waiting… plotting… Ready to attack at a moment’s notice–

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!” scream the Norms, struggling to sit up with their medicine balls.

The Superheroes’ ears perk to the sound of the gym walls crashing, the building’s innards shoveled forward. The smell of cedar overtakes the room as the sauna crumbles and is pushed into the main machine room. A steely tank-like machine now sits breathing smoke and steam in the middle of the workout room blasting Ted Nugent ominously from a tinny boombox strapped to the roof. The Norms stare in horror as they see a now half-toweled Norm, startled at this repositioning, scramble to safety away from this geared creature.

The metal beast begins to move forward, and The Norms now look to the Superheroes gazing calmly at this impending danger. Just then, the top of the tank opens and a leathery Norm dressed in an ill-fitting track suit emerges from the tank. He delivers his manifesto. A lot of evil plan blah-blah-blahs similar to the ones at the end of movies, grandiose statements and gesticulations, those snap-poppers you throw on the ground during the 4th of July… But still, it’s not something The Norms see every day, so it’s pretty scary. Then, a giant laser death gun rises out of the tank and sheer panic erupts in the gym. The leathery Norm unleashes his fury and workout equipment explodes with a push of a button. Yoga mats rocket across the room, slicing and mauling any slow-moving victim in its path. The Norms desperately cry to the Superheroes for help. Surely this is the time when Good and Super-Good unite against Evil! The Norms begin to psych themselves out for this great battle. They have taken enough step-aerobic classes to help throw at least one punch at the side of their muscled comrades! They look around to sound the battle cry, but the Superheroes are no longer found. Realizing they are now alone, the slack-jawed Norms are left to be es’ploded by lasers.

If you were to check the surveillance video you would see a flash of spandexed individuals bolt out of the gym as the Evil Norm struggled to deliver his lengthy evil plans in iambic pentameter. In perfect form, they speed off in their Audis and laugh about it later on leather couches over a Miller Lite and an episode of “America’s Got Talent.” Tomorrow’s just another day at the ‘ol office.

a birthday for my dear wife

November 3, 2009

4 comments

To my darling wife, Maria,

I know they say that age is a relative thing, like, our relatives are aged and grow old and die, and that’s exactly what crossed my mind earlier this evening.

This, your 30th birthday, is something to celebrate. And not just at TGI Fridays.

I don’t want you to expect gifts or songs or cheer, because think if I did not give you those things. What if I instead gave you one word: “Life.” Now, some would throw a fit and lock themselves in their room and eat the last of the Raisin Bran claiming it was the only thing she was going to have for her birthday dinner. And that someone would be guilty of two things: Not finding the $10 Borders gift card under her pillow, and not understanding that I just gave her the best gift ever. Technically the gift of life can only be given to a child from a parent. And technically that may have some truth behind it, but I am the one who will remind you of your alived-ness.

So this, on your birthday, seize it like you seize those sour cream potato chips. Stop saying the word “old” to describe yourself. You’re not old. You’re just “alive.” You’re at the age where people stop themselves when you tell them how alive you are. When you say, “I’m turning 30,” people say, “You don’t look that–you don’t look like you’ve…reached that milestone.”

You’re at the age where previously mothers would hang themselves with their newly born baby’s umbilical cord once she realized the gestation period and birth alone nearly killed her and she had two more years before a dog with teeth ate her in a cave. You have not been eaten by a dog with teeth! That’s really living!

Thirty is the new twenty! Plus, you apparently don’t look thirty, I mean, a haggard thirty. And how are we supposed to act when we’re of age, really? I wouldn’t know since I’m not thirty, but these are all phrases that popped into my head while I was looking at birthday cards. Being thirty means that you don’t have to finish that bottle of wine. Now, there’s wine in a box now that’s perfectly acceptable for you to purchase, AND that has at least 2-4 bottles in it! Who’s going to gossip about you if you drink 2-4 wine in a box bottles? It’s not like you go out with friends or anything because they all have babies, probably.

What to do when you’re another year alive-r? Are you supposed to sit and check your messages on your phone as the young people joyously play Catch Phrase? Are you proud of your ability to spend more money on alcohol because of your discerning taste? You should boast of your many credit cards. Young people have to spend two dollars on swill to have a good time. Young people, or should I say, dead people.

(Okay, I know they’re not really dead, but they’re more dead than you in this metaphor, even though you’re like, way closer to actual death. So maybe they’re more like comatose vegetable people. Or the walking dead. Vegetable people might be less creepy.)

So you’re thirty and looking at these zombie vegetable people and still feeling sorry for yourself because you didn’t get a cake or phone call or other meaningless expressions of good will? That shit doesn’t matter. ALIVE is what matters. You know you’re alive and you know who you are. You have to go to bed at night because you have responsibilities. Young people don’t have that. They are doing things like lolly-gagging that require frivolous double letters. Your responsibilities are mono syllabic: Work. Home. Drink. Sleep. You know what’s important. You are not lost in the complications of whose bed you’re going to end up in, or what adventure you will find yourself in next. Your path is mapped.

I hope you read this birthday card. I’m sure you remember, but last year’s was nearly unintelligible after your tears smeared the ink so much, so hopefully this birthday’s message will last for years to come, unless you die within the year.

So happy birthday, my love. I know you like marble cake, but they didn’t have any, so I just got us toilet paper, which we needed anyway and you said you were going to buy but apparently didn’t get around to it.

Yours, as always,
Charles

vacation prep

October 11, 2009

Going on vacation to Puerto Rico where there is apparently something called “heat” and “sunshine.” Even though it’s considered US territory, that’s a foreign concept to me. But when looking at the weather report I see something more familiar to my vocabulary, “rain and thunderstorms.” Hopefully that’s not Spanish weather talk for “tropical storm.”

Also prepping for swimsuits and traveling. Bikini waxes, even basic ones, make the female region so much more amusing than usual. Pained and raw after the initial procedure, the freshly shorn pelvis appears vulnerable, injured even, as the non-waxed area is surrounded by a moat of seemingly sunburned skin. If you ever had trouble locating a woman’s genitals, never fear; a waxing will clearly outline the approximate region. Also after a waxing, if you put your ear close and listen hard enough you can hear the faint crying of Gloria Steinem.

Eight minutes of small talk while a woman rips out your follicles. 55 dollars (plus tip) for a week without razor burn. God I love beauty and being so beautiful. Now, it’s not like I’m craving an hour long session or need endless small talk from the esthetician as she’s noodling with my noodle parts. It’s difficult to talk about the weather (and you know that poor girl must have to talk about the goddamn weather with every goddamn client who comes in all the goddamn time) when every three seconds you’re attempting not to wince or bleed from your eyes. But 55 bucks for 8 minutes? That’s more painful than the waxing. At least compliment my socks or something. But hey, no razor burn, right Gloria? Beauty is so worth it and I love being full of beauty.

And with that too much information, I’ll be on vacation now.

you’ve found me

September 24, 2009

5 comments

With this new website I can finally track what people search for to get here.

It’s pretty easy to find me online–something I think about each time I’m handing a customer my business card–but sometimes folks seek out something different and land on this lil’ blog instead. (I enjoy reading others’ Keyword Analysis” posts, so I’m following suit.)

A lot of times it’s just my name in various forms, with or without spaces, cAPS lOCK oN… And you’ve found me, I see. Hello, again. How’s that computer working out for you?

Second, either people were seeking out that gross-out zit slaughter video I posted, or there is a poor soul with bubbly epidermis in serious need of a dermatologist. And third, I’m hoping someone just misspelled “public.”

Of course all this analyzation does is make you Google to see what actually comes up as the first hit. Because mine is not the first when seeking out “women AND beer.” Why does one scour the depths of the intra-web, browsing through page after (generally slightly sexual) page and decide to settle on clicking on this site? Looking at the search, “women AND beer,” it’s very apparent how important it is that both words are recognized.

LIGHTS UP

“Look up something to do tonight.”

“Seriously, c’mon.”

“I want to get laid and have a beer, what do you want me to search for?”

“Be specific.”

“What? Look, ‘I’m feeling lucky.’ See?”

“Do you want to get laid or have a beer?”

“I want both.”

“Well, put both words then.”

“No, but I don’t want to drink “women beer.” That’s just gonna pull up an Amstel Lite page.”

“Okay, so…?”

“So, there has to be both things designated in the search engine. Because we’re not looking for just chicks. We’re looking for chicks AND liquor. But not liquor, because those liquor chicks are stuck up, like, with their flavored cotton candy vodka drinks and shit, you know?”

“Yeah, that pussy shit is awful. AND expensive.”

“AND expensive, right!”

“Okay, let’s rephrase. So, I’m not looking for chicks, because chicks are bitches who are all too young and crazy.”

“AND crazy.”

“Young AND crazy.”

“Yeah. We’re looking for women. And I don’t know about you, but I like a beer after the game, right? AND I like a woman after the game.”

“Hey, maybe we should look up if there are any women AND beers out there.”

“No, you gotta capitalize the word ‘AND,’ otherwise Google won’t know.”

“We’re gonna get laid.”

“We’re feeling luck-kay!”

“Ew…What the fuck? What’s this site about zit-lancing?”

SCENE

beauty: real talk (or) fuh realz

August 28, 2009

I did an audition for Dove today.

It’s one of those “Real Beauty” campaigns where “real women” are featured as the actors. For real.

[Optional Rant Read: Yes, beauty standards for women in this country are obscene...Girls, fo'gettaboutit, it's at a point where idols are born out of the womb with belly shirts and navel rings, sexualized as the sexy sexy zygotes they are. Women are unable to age in the public eye without inflating their lips--like a tree, their age is measured in lip circumference--and eliminate unnecessary expressions with Botox like "happiness", "anger", or "OHMYGODABEARISEATINGMYFACE!!" While men on the other hand (she says, stepping on the second tier of her soapbox, bra and lighter poised for fire-magic), can age gracefully, shifting into character roles like Rumplestiltskin or Tom Brokaw.

Models are only models after hours of prep work, a 40: 1 ratio of shit:keeper, and an army of airbrushers. I know this because me and Tyra Banks are BFFs and ANTM is [insert text-speak equivalent of "cool."] The adjective “beautiful” seems to be saved for brides and red carpet celebrities and princess parties (which I do admit are really fun). I’m slightly ashamed that I subconsciously avoid using the word “beautiful” intentionally and instead say or hear my appearance described as “sassy”, “hot” or “cute.” All wonderful words, kind, complimentary words, but WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO OUR SELF IMAGES TO REJECT CALLING OURSELVES BEAUTIFUL AT ALL COSTS?!… Eh, you can read all of this on the liner notes of an Ani DiFranco album, you get the picture.]

So back to the day.

There were women with head shots and then there were women without sitting in the waiting room. The women with head shots went into one room and sang behind the closed doors, the other women brought their moms and sisters and were wearing more comfortable shoes.

“Okay, who here are my ‘real women’?” the casting director asked and separated the lot of us. Regular Women do not make their living as actors, apparently. In her defense, the casting director did come out after the audition and said, “Okay, I know that sounded stupid.”

Real Women are still commercially attractive. If god forbid this Real Woman is not completely symmetrical in her bone structure (which can be changed and shaped at an early age, so let’s keep that in mind, mothers who say you love your daughters), her look is considered “unique”–it’s different than normal, average, homely, handsome, freakish, or ugly. Real Women can sing, often quite well, even professionally maybe if you gave them twelve bars in an upbeat tempo. Real women are friends with their mothers and/or sisters and find comfort in bounding around in their undies together. Real women are real. Unless they are actors, and then, well… uh… quick, look at their boobies!

Also, don’t get me wrong. I’d love to get a SAG gig and run around in my underwear* promoting the idea that society’s image of beauty is skewed and we need to educate and talk to our daughters before MTV sucks the self esteem out of them. But it’s still the TeeVees. It’s still the Hollywoods. And that’s okay. Because these Super Real Women are nice people and we like them. Unless they’re not nice people and then we hate them, which we tend to do by default anyway because we actually hate ourselves.

For real.

*We were not told how much (if any) under-wearing will occur in this particular ad campaign.

a proposal

August 3, 2009