Overcompensation

Dear James,

We regret to inform you that this morning (Tuesday, December 18th, 2012), Alice Lee Johnson, of the Ridgemont Johnson’s Family, was found dead. The official police report stated that she was found “hung from a ceiling fan with a chiffon floral scarf.” The final autopsy report claimed that she died of ligature strangulation and her death was announced a suicide. At the site of her death, she left a copy of a recent positive pregnancy-test tucked into a page of her diary. The diary page stated the following:

♥Monday♥ Awesome ☆ To-Do-List ☆

Bring Cheerleading Uniform to Dry Cleaner

Talk to Mr. Samuels about extra credit in Honors AP Chemistry

Meet with James after skool☆*:.｡.Yay! I ❤ ♥ ❣ ❥ ❦ ❧ ღ ɞ ♡ JAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Call PP about *the test*

Practice for the Church Choir Solo

Stop by Daddy’s office to drop off dinner for him. Working late! Boo 😦

Finish Powerpoint presentation on The Wrath of Achilles for Homer/Iliad Lit class

Organize my desk drawer (What a mess!)

Watch last episode of Gossip Girl. 😦 😦 😦

I ❤ ♥ ❣ ❥ ❦ ❧ ღ ɞ ♡ JAMES!!!!!!!!!!    (Please note, that this was written many times in the margin. CSG). 

We are friends of the family, and informally representing them in communication matters related to their daughter’s death. A pastel purple Post-it-note attached to the pregnancy test stated, “Please tell James that I forgive him and will always love him. Please give him this.” As her death was sudden and her wishes unclear, we have replicated the diary entry here and enclosed, please find a copy of the pregnancy test.

Our Condolences,

Christopher Gold, Esq. Ridgemont Law, LLC

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All the Starlets

Have you ever attended one of these television award shows? I have. They aren’t what they look like on tv. Sometimes you’re literally standing there in your Sunday best, a Valentino suit (for instance), eating nachos and a hot dog from the concession stand. At the events with a sit down dinner, you wait until you’re starving and the food is cold. It’s worse than a wedding. I carry a granola bar, just in case. Pretty people are the most self-conscious and since this is a work event, it’s doubly bad; everyone gets drunk. The poor saps that have to present for the television are trying to keep it together, while the rest of the room, a lot of entertainment executives that the general public doesn’t know, are wasted.

Blotto.

Last year I didn’t go. I dropped some friends off at the event and went home. The only thing worse than going to one of these award shows in person, is watching them on tv on a Sunday night. At home, staring at the tv, you get seduced into a fantasy that The Spectacle is real. It’s not. These award shows are nothing but a parade of dead people. What I mean is: we’re all gonna die. No glittery dress, television appearance, or gold statue is going to protect you from the inevitable. Yes, I’m referring to Death. Capital D. It’s inevitable. George Clooney: A handsome corpse.

Sure, I’ll concede that some people have a real talent for pretending to be another person. Why not do something like pretend to be someone else until you die? These people that have a talent for being someone else, also think that they want to be famous and receive praise. They don’t; they’re merely afraid of death. It’s an unconscious fear, of course. The starlet’s death anxiety is just more garish than the rest of ours.

Who are all these people?

Dead.

Sexual Harassment

It was after work. We had walked over from the office. We were sitting at a chic bar in an upscale part of town. She pulled out her smart phone and said, “wanna see something?” Her tone of voice had a kind of omen in it that you can sense while watching a film, but not in life.

I said, “Sure.”

“This is the guy I’m dating.” She pushed the phone in my face and a close-up of an erect penis was two inches from my nose.

“Isn’t he hot?” She snickered.

WTF? I thought. Fat girls. They have such low self-esteem.

Hot Tub With A View

I flew out there for something that I assumed was love.

Nearly lost my bags in Madrid.

I had never seen a hotel room with three rooms; like an apartment. I swung open the French doors to the balcony and there was a hot tub. I only saw him once. The rest of the time I sat in the hot tub overlooking the coast and the Rock of Gibraltar.

It wasn’t love.

“I make the other’s absence responsible for my worldliness.” ― Roland Barthes