Well, yesterday's entry was quite full of name-dropping, wasn't it? Sorry, I really didn't mean it that way. It's just that, sometimes I'm a little overwhelmed with being involved in show biz, however tangentially, and I get a little excited. Not as bad as some pages I've seen, but still...

Though you wouldn't know it to look at me while I'm working. Outwardly I'm the very personification of pleasantly professional page-osity.

I guess years spent repressing my feelings come in handy, after all.

I know I promised wonderful Tucson stories tonight, but I'm in a really crappy mood tonight over some basically stupid reasons and I just can't shake it. I'm trying to get over it, but all I want to do is throw shit around my apartment. Problem is, throwing shit never makes me feel better. It just makes me feel angrier.

First of all, just being at work is enough to put me in a bad mood. Multiply that with the fact I've been in pain all day due to a little fall I took at the awards yesterday, the effects of which I didn't feel until I woke up this morning, and you have the makings of a not enjoyable day.

But it was going to be ok, since one of my fellow pages informed me yesterday that I could stand in line and buy tickets that hadn't been picked up from "Will Call" for the sold-out M*A*S*H reunion seminar that I really wanted to go to tonight, but didn't have a chance to buy tickets for, since the tickets were offered to Museum of Television and Radio members a full week before the general public and sold out in less than two hours. (Follow all that?)

So I get out of work at 6pm and drive straight over to the Directors' Guild, where the seminar starts at 7pm. I get in the area at 6:30pm, and spend a full 30 minutes trying to find a fucking parking spot. (I hate L.A. parking laws.) During this time, I think I find a spot on a side street and pull into it, then realize I misread the street sign. I thought it said no parking between 4pm and 7pm, except for permit parking. I get out of my car and decide to reread the sign. Shit, it says 4pm to 7am. Double shit.

So I get back into my car, put the key in the ignition and turn the key. The engine won't turn over. I try and try and the g-ddamned engine won't turn over. It sounds like the alternator. Triple fucking shit.

Finally, after punching the gas peddle a couple of times while trying the damned key again, it turns over and I breathe a sigh of relief. And repeat circling the area like a vulture.

Finally I find a spot right in front of the DGA and run inside. It's 7pm on the dot and there's a line of about 30 to 40 people waiting to do the very thing I want to do. Ok everybody, say it along with me: fuck!

I see the page I spoke to yesterday, about ten people from the front of the line, and I go over to say hi, secretly hoping he'll offer to let me cut in line. Yes, I know it wouldn't be fair to the others waiting, which is why I didn't want to ask him, but if he offered I certainly wouldn't refuse. He didn't offer.

So we chat for a minute or so, he and his friend tell me that they're not going to start selling the tickets until 7:10pm, we wish each other luck, and I go to stand at the end of the line.

Fifteen minutes later they're still not selling tickets and I'm getting antsy, pacing in line (I'm still the last one in line). Finally the line starts moving and I'm hopeful. I see Fellow Page and his friend get their tickets and go to the auditorium as they look back at me and wish me luck again.

The line stops moving for another endless five minutes, then someone with a walkie-talkie starts handing out cards to the last half of the line and I see people putting their money away and sounding disappointed. I get my card (for free admission to the Museum, so I can see the video of tonight's seminar at a future date, if I wanted to watch a video I would have fucking stayed home and popped in one of my M*A*S*H videos).

I stomped off to my car, screaming "Fuck, Fuck!" in my head, on the verge of tears, for heaven's sake, and drive off, perhaps a little more recklessly than I should, heading for home, still in pain (my left tricep hurts every time I move it). Of course, while trying to get onto the freeway, a fucking white sports car twice almost pushed me into the path of another car as it sped up to keep from being behind me when the lanes merged (because I'm such a damned slow driver when going five miles over the speed limit). Like I was really in the mood to die tonight.

I guess I decided that I really wasn't in a pissy enough mood, so I go to my local Sav-On to pick up some photos from my Tucson trip that I had dropped off the week before, which were still at the lab the last two times I tried to pick it up. (I had dropped off three rolls of film on the same night and got back two of them a couple of days later.)

You guessed it. It still hasn't come in. Could I call back the next day so they can check with the lab? No, I cannot because I don't have the time or the inclination to follow up on someone else's fuck-up before 6pm. I'll leave my number and someone can call me tomorrow. I tell the girl that I know it's not her fault, but I'm very angry because not only did this happen before, but the other girl I spoke to previously brushed me off very rudely and I was not in the mood to have that happen again. (I should have asked for a manager that time, but it was late and I had just finished paging after a long workday.) So the girl takes the note and posts it where someone can see it tomorrow and follow-up. Hopefully someone will.

So here I am, typing this up, hoping the act of getting it all out while listening to VH1's "100 Greatest Artists" (they're showing Queen right now, whom I love) will relieve some of my pissiness, and it has a little, but the kittens have decided now is the time to be all needy and meow for my attention, plus Edison has decided that I make a great scratching post.

Really no reason for me to be in such a horrible mood (upset, yes, but not enough to beat people). I think I just need a nice epsom salt bath, some light reading, and a punching bag.

In the process of typing the above tantrum, I came up with a new word that I rather like: fuckling. It started as a typo (accidentally inserting an "L" in "fucking"), but I really like the look of it. For some reason, I think of it as an alternative word to "bastard" (the old definition of the word).

Not a nice word at all, but I like it. I think it would make a good insult.

(Here's a fun little game: count how many times I typed fuck or some varient thereof. I think I've used up my quota for this month, and it's only the 6th.

Tune into...

Rob compares his "beard" with others, both famous and infamous.