My wack-a-doo friend Kat often e-mails me with strange Photoshop requests, so I was not surprised to get this from her in an e-mail yesterday (along with some pictures she’d snagged for me off the Internet) :
“What I need is one of the Oprah heads (it can be sitting on the sidewalk if necessary and doesn’t have to be attached to a body, but a body might work better) -the cymbal flying through the air - the guy flying through the air - the band bus stuck under the overturned garbage truck. Simple, eh?”
Later she told me Oprah was to be decapitated by the flying cymbal… Yeah, probably information I should have gotten up front.
So, as I’m putting my photo masterpiece together, while simultaneously shirking my manuscript editing duties, something occurred to me:
Oprah could squash me like a bug.
Really, if you’re a writer who hopes to be on the New York Times Bestseller List one day, (hopefully before you’re too old and wrinkled to appreciate it) is it wise to be using Photoshop to decapitate the Queen of All Media? I mean, look what she did to that disingenuous James Frey when he dared to tell a few little (READ: humongous) white lies in his book. She took to Larry King and ripped his anus (and reputation) into a million little pieces.
The woman could drop me with the flick of one of her perfectly manicured pinky fingers. And yet… I threw caution (and common sense) to the wind and created the picture, anyway.
What the hell, you only live once. Being decimated by Oprah isn’t the worst way to go, I guess. But since I spent so much time working on Kat’s blog picture, I figured I’d parlay it into a blog post of my own. (Editing isn’t the only thing I’ve been shirking lately.)
Good news is, you get a double dose of yummy today - my back-story on the picture above, AND a copy of Kat’s blog to see what the image was created for.
Hopefully I’ll get back to blogging on a regular basis soon, but I just finished my first round of edits for Far From Happy and still have two more to go.
So, sue me - I’m about to become a PUBLISHED WRITER!!
Now, for our feature presentation:
WATCH OUT 2011, by Kat Nove *
I’m not going to start this by mentioning what a shitty year 2010 was for me personally. Millions had a worse year. And after all, some good things did happen to me.
A stranger begged me to take an adorable black kitten. I named her Mow (rhymes with WOW!) and she’s hilarious. This brings the official cat census at our house up to five. The unofficial number is eight due to three strays who now seem have made themselves at home.
I had a blast co-writing Waiting for Karl Rove with Jeni Decker. Now if only someone would publish it.
I won a writing contest and my short story It Ain’t Funny is now part of an anthology – The Cloud. Very gratifying since literary fiction is not exactly my comfort zone.
On December 30th Richard passed the test to become a master electrician, so within a few months we might actually go from living below the poverty level to sub-level middle class Americans. Woo-hoo!
Jeni and I have decided that 2011 is going to be our year. Her novel Far From Happy will be released soon and we’re making plans to finally meet in person so we can film ourselves doing something (no telling what) which will go viral on YouTube. Any suggestions? And no, I’m not into slap fighting. Unless it will sell books, and then I’ll slap that bitch on her bare ass if I have to.
For once in my life I’m going to be positive about a new year. I got up on the first morning of the new year and really looked in the mirror. I rarely do this because it’s counter-productive and can send me spiraling into a black hole of depression which makes a life sentence in a Turkish prison seem like a trip to Club Med. As I gazed at my reflection, I snapped to the fact that with the help of a professional makeup artist and approximately $10,000 worth of dental work, I could be beautiful. Who knew?
This year is definitely our year. After all, it’s 2011 and I was born in November. (The 11th month for those of you who aren’t calendar savvy.) My birthday is the 14th and if you add the 2 and the 2 ones, that equals 4 and if you put one of the ones in front of the 4, that’s 14! How could this not be our year?
Gotcha! I don’t believe in the power of positive thinking (or I would have won the Lotto by now), astrology, numerology or any other shit like that. There’s not a damn thing you can do about bad luck. Even someone like Oprah could be decapitated by a cymbal flying at thirty mph after a metal band’s bus collides with a garbage truck.
It’s our year because we’re good writers and we believe this well-kept secret is finally going to come out. (Now if Anderson Cooper only would.)
I refuse to let the silly omens which occurred January 1, 2011 diminish this belief in myself.
Omen #1 – The first sip of coffee I took slid down the wrong way causing me to nearly drown.
Omen #2 – One of the cats peed on the kitchen floor and I stepped in it.
Omen #3 – As I walked the first two miles of one of my new year’s resolutions, a punk biker tried to run over me. No, he didn’t have a skull and snake tattoo – he appeared to be about eight years old. I fucking hate third graders, don’t you?
Omen #4 - The first day of every year, my mother always made us eat black eyed peas for good luck. Next up to spoil my new year buzz – the black eyed peas. While eating mine, I discovered I am lucky since I didn’t choke on what I hoped was a piece of plastic and not a factory worker’s gnawed off big toenail.
Omen #5 – While watching a movie late in the evening, Mow decided to jump right on the stray cat Super Snatch. (I think Super Snatch loves me so much because I gave her such a cool name.). Unfortunately, Super Snatch was sitting on my lap at the time. I headed to the bathroom to staunch the bleeding in fifteen places. (Fucking cat missed with five of her claws so I guess that’s lucky.)
Omen #6 – In an uncharacteristic lapse into total honesty, Richard revealed he only watches dreadful movies like Megashark vs. Crocosaurus in the same room where I constantly sit in front of the computer as a form of retribution. For what? Can someone really receive a defective blow job?
I don’t believe in omens either. Even after I saw The Omen on my honeymoon and realized if I got pregnant that same night, I’d have a kid born on June 6, 1976. Three sixes in that birthday! Explain to the groom there’s no way you’re going to have sex with him because you don’t want your legacy to be mother of the Anti-Christ. (As if you can explain abstinence to a Mexican. So, yeah. We did it.)
So watch out 2011! You’re our bitch!
