I've been having the worst trouble with my eyeballs, lately. You know those little floating, transparent bubbles you get in your vision, sometimes? Well, a few weeks ago I got a doozy, and since then it's multiplied and they've spread to my other eye. Now I've got so many bubbles in my eyes that every day is like the opening titles of the Lawrence Welk show. I went to Eye Exam 2000, this outfit in the back of Lenscrafters; it was all I could afford. The doctor there did all these crazy tests on me. He shined a tiny flashlight directly into my eyeballs until I started to see big throbbing veins on the ceiling (this is normal, I'm told), and he put my chin in a harness and had me look in a plain gray bowl with little, dim twinkly stars in it. Whenever a star flashed, I had to push a button. It was kind've like the world's most boring video game. When the doc finished with all the tests, he told me that my eyeballs are liquifying. He said that when you're a kid, the stuff in your eyeball-sack is like jello, but when you reach adulthood it turns to liquid. Apparently the bubbles in my eye are remnants of my solid eye floating around in my new liquid eye. My eyes are turning into chunky-style jello! He told me that these eye bubbles aren't going away, and that with time I can expect MORE of them. It's a truly horrifying prospect. It's not so bad indoors, or at night, but if I go outside in the daylight it's like I'm in the middle of a swarm of angry bees or something. Oh well, I've been looking for an excuse to become completely nocturnal anyhow. What's the sun ever done for me but give me moles?

Between my back and my bad eyes, I feel about seventy years old. I have been almost continuously ill with ailments major and minor for the last nine years, and to tell you the truth I'm pretty gosh-darned tired of it. I've had some silly, maddening illnesses, but this eyeball business takes the cake and the cookies too. Eye bubbles. Christ. "Life. Don't talk to me about life."
I'm awfully tired of myself just now. I doubt I'd ever really kill myself, but lately I've been considering the notion in a very calm and realistic manner. I used to be really scared of death. I'd lay awake at night, rigid with terror, waiting for the grim reaper to steal my breath. That all stopped a couple of years back, when I gained this weird insight from some Woody Allen movie. I don't even remember what the darn movie was, but it had some flashback where Woody was a kid, and he was having an argument with his father about death. Woody was very upset, saying that death was a bum rap, while his father was very resigned about the whole thing. At one point Woody's dad said something like, "What's the big deal? If I die and go to heaven, then great, I'm in Heaven! If I die and there's nothing, then what do I care? I'll be unconscious!" It's silly, but that really did put it all in perspective... So thanks, Woody's dad!

I toy with suicide, but I think I'd have to be completely hopeless before I'd ever actually try it. You never know, my health might actually get better someday, and then I'd be really glad I waited out all the bad times and didn't off myself. It could still happen. Maybe. 
This is Ursula Hitler, live, from the Pout Hole, signing off.

7/10/99
I took a brief trip outside the Pout Hole today, and actually had a bit of fun. We went up to Hollywood Toy & Costume, & K bought a black wig she wants to do an Edward Scissorhands goth makeover on. I was tempted by a couple of wigs, but I'm too poor to get any just now. Sigh. 
I need to do something new with my look, I'm starting to feel like my wigs aren't all that flattering to my face. I'm thinking of going with a ponytail or a swept-back kind of thing. I got this damn nose to consider, and I've noticed that girls with considerable noses often look cutest when they don't frame their faces with hair. Too much hair around your face can make you look kinda Howard Stern. I go back & forth & back & forth about whether I need a nose job. Yeah, my nose is "exotic" but I'm kind of tired of being so fucking exotic just now... I want to be pretty in a really generic, Barbie way. I think I look great from head on, but if I turn my head just slightly, BOOM, I'm Jamie Farr. A nosejob would hurt like fuck for a while, but when I healed up I could be the kind of flat-faced, pretty girl everybody wants! Ah, forget it. It's pointless to even think about it. If I can't afford a new wig, I definitely can't afford a new nose. Besides, two days from now I'll probably think my nose looks fine. Maybe.

7/11/99
I'm afraid last night's Dragstrip was pretty blah. I really wanted to go crazy & have fun, but it just wasn't happening. The club was mobbed, but nobody we knew was there, and it was hot as Satan's jacuzzi. The theme was shitty, too: Tarzan. The Dragstrip people are just not even trying anymore. "Oh, Austin Powers 2 is coming out? Let's do a sixties night! Disney's got a new Tarzan movie? Hey, I got an idea..." At least if they'd done a Phantom Menace night, I could have dressed up like a space babe or something. I guess I should just consider myself lucky they didn't have a Lake Placid night. The prospect of all those drag queens in crocodile suits is kinda horrifying.

I feel bad knocking Dragstrip, because they've been our regular drag club forever and we've had a lot of fun  there in the past... but really, these days that place is going downhill fast. The music last night was the absolute shits. You know that fucking TLC "No Scrubs" song? They never played that, but they played about ten songs in a row that sounded way too much like it. All the clone gay boys on the dance floor were in heaven (everybody went "Hoooo!" whenever a new song started) but me & K felt like we'd died and been sentenced to spend an eternity as Soul Train dancers. God, when is rap going to be OVER, already? I've been waiting for it to dry up and blow away since I was 13. We both really wanted to dance, so we tried to make the best of it, but this stuff was just... R&B torture. There was even one hip-hop number that kept turning into that old song that starts "Welcome all my friends to the show that never ends, where so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside..." I mean, Jiminy Crickets, kids, if you're gonna sample something, sample something DECENT! At least at Makeup every other song is danceable. You just have to wait out Kiss, and you'll be rewarded with some Bowie or something.

We finally got so disgustipated that we ran for the exits, but then we had to wait for about an hour while the valets figured out where they'd left our keys (in our car, as it turned out). These poor guys mean well, but we've had some seriously shitty luck with them before, and I don't advise leaving your car in their care if you can help it. You're lucky if you get your car back with the doors still on.

Jesus Christ, I am just full of badness these days. Forgive me, I don't get out of the Pout Hole much, and I am sometimes frightened and confused by the strange ways  of this modern world.

7/14/99
I think my eyes are actually getting worse. Argh! I went to a proper doctor the other day, not some Lens 2000 guy, and she said that there's a fair chance these bubbles will fade over time. It could take months, or years, but with time they might fade. I hope I hope I hope.

I've been so pouty lately that K bought me a wig to cheer me up. God, I am so lucky to have K, I just don't deserve her. It was a great wig too, exactly what I wanted. It's a brown, straight number with a built-in headband. Very yummy. I almost wore it to Makeup this Saturday night, but at the last minute we had some problems and we wound up not going. It was so dopey, and this one really was all my fault. K wanted to dress like a girl, but when I got a look at her in her outfit she looked SO fantastic that I couldn't help it, I got really jealous & pouty. As much as I love to see K when she gets dressed up girly, it's no fun feeling like the ugly step-sister, especially if I'm going to spend a couple of hours getting ready. I was feeling pretty hideous, and then K came out of the bathroom in this skintight, black vinyl deal she was trying on, and she looked SO good, I just about fainted. Talk about a rush of mixed emotions; I was in a full lust-swoon over my foxy girlfriend, but I was also pissy because I knew she would effortlessly outshine me at the club.

Lately I get the feeling that K's backing off from her boy persona a bit. She insists she's not, but she has been dressing girly a lot when we've gone out to clubs. Usually everything balances out, but sometimes, like Saturday night, it seems like we're struggling for who gets to be the girl in this relationship.

K really tried to be reasonable, and I knew how completely impossible I was being, but I just couldn't stop myself, I was in full bitch-froth. We spent about twenty minutes tussling, and then we gave up and decided not to go to Makeup. It was late, we weren't in the mood anymore, and neither one of us was feeling too great physically. Besides, the club had a Heavy Metal theme, and we were kind of scared we'd have to listen to Ozzy and Poison all night.

You'd probably think we would have just sat around being crabby all night, but believe it or not, we ended up having a great time at home. We talked a lot, played Tomb Raider 3, ate a bunch of popcorn, and poked like there was no tomorrow. I'd love to get more explicit, but unfortunately K won't let me. Suffice to say that you  ain't lived until you've played TR3 with a buck-naked girl!

7/17/99
Pop culture is getting so jocky and obnoxious these days, it's like America's been taken over by noisy 8-year-old boys. There's wrestling on every other channel, and all of a sudden HEAVY METAL is everywhere! Everywhere I turn, I'm running into horrible metal love ballads and Guns & Roses and Kiss Kiss Kiss! Eek! It's enough to make me miss grunge.

This isn't just some general pop critique for me. It's personal. You see, when I was a teen, I was a heavy metal geekboy. I dressed just like Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club, with lots of flannel and denim and long coats and the fingerless gloves and everything. I used to sit in my room with Iron Maiden's Powerslave cranked up to brain-damage levels, listening to Bruce "Air Raid Siren" Dickinson shriek out that unforgettable, 40-minute version of Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. Oh, the shame. I had a closet full of Iron Maiden t-shirts, and I probably heard Killers about 325 times in 1986... and I mean that literally. But even back then, at my Beavis and Butthead-iest, I still used to sneak off to listen to real sissy bands like Duran Duran and The Cure. I was always trying to prove what a bad-ass I was, and I would have died if my friends had found out I liked such "pussy" music. Thank God I discovered the Sex Pistols when I turned 17 and put this whole sorry period behind me. Nowadays I'm an arty freak girl, and I'm proud to listen to sissy bands. You'd have to get me pretty drunk before I could sit through a Maiden album. Well, except maybe Killers.

I know that the century's ending and we all just gotta  recycle and regurgitate every old fad before we can move on to bigger and better things, but PLEASE, for the love of God, let's all agree that heavy metal is just too pathetic to get nostalgic about, and pretend it never existed. When our grandchildren ask us what we were doing in 1986, we'll tell them we were in Africa working for the Peace Corps or something. Come on, I'll burn my copy of Number of the Beast if you will!

7/20/99
This site has gotten super-popular all of a sudden. You like me! You really like me! This sudden rise in my site's popularity is so neat that I've decided not to kill myself after all. I was all set to slit my wrists, but then all those hits started coming in, and of course I couldn't disappoint my adoring public. You are the sunshine of my life.

Still, ya never know... I'm a moody girl, and I could snap at any time, so if you want to keep me happy you better keep visiting this site a couple of times a day to keep those hits up! And I'd suggest sending me emails telling me how much you love me and how sexy I am. And visit all of my sponsors of course, that's also very important to my psychological well-being. Oh, and you gotta go visit my online store (Ursula's Galaxy of Values) and buy a whole bunch of stuff, as much as you can possibly afford. Take out some loans if you have to. If you do all of that stuff, it oughtta keep me from offing myself in some horribly painful and messy manner, at least for a while. Kiss kiss.

7/27/99
This site's daily hits are still way up from what they were just a few weeks ago. I guess all my suicide talk did the trick!

Recently me and K were talking about getting married. It's not like we were setting a date or anything, we were just discussing it in the abstract. We both agreed that it mostly sounds like a lot of bother. In August we'll have been together for seven years (!), and neither one of us is going anyplace. What's a big, expensive ceremony gonna change? We've been together so long that I really don't even think in terms of "married" or "not married" anymore... K's just the one, you know? We have our troubles sometimes, and lord knows we can fight like two spiders in a jar, but at the end of the day K is still my favorite person in the whole wide world.

I'd imagine we'll get married eventually, but we're not in any rush. There was an interesting development recently, though. We were at Makeup, talking to Misty Blue, this queen we know, when marriage somehow came up. I said something like, "Oh, me & K would probably just argue over which of us would get to wear the wedding gown." I just meant it as a joke, but K surprised me by saying, "Oh, I think a drag wedding would be cute!" Hmmm... Maybe I should take out a subscription to Bride magazine!

7/30/99
I wish I had some good news to report for a change, but it just ain't happening. My health keeps getting worse and worse. I've been to a zillion doctors over the years, and while they've never been able to figure out what's really the matter with me, they've all agreed that something's wrong. I've probably got some exotic, previously undiscovered malady, and when I die they'll name it Urula Hitler Syndrome. Hey, at least then I'll be famous.

I wish I could tell you about all the wacky sex I've been having lately, but my boyfriend's on the rag. Oh well, I'm glad she's on the rag; this period was a long time in comin', and we were getting scared. Periods are the weirdest goddamn things. They're one of the few aspects of womanhood that I don't envy a bit. I mean, blood comes gushing out of a woman's privates, for a week? Who the heck thought that was a good idea? I always wonder what the primitive monkey-women did back in prehistoric times. Did they let themselves just drip on the ground, or did they stuff a bunch of leaves up there, or what? Wouldn't the scent of blood in the air have attracted all the sabre-tooth tigers in the neighborhood? Whoever invented the period has a lot of explaining to do.

I've really got nothing to say at all. I'm in one of those horrible moods where you can barely lift your head off the sofa.

"God damn every god damned thing to hell."

8/02/99
Jeez, even I'm tired of all the whining I've been doing in this diary lately. At least things picked up quite a bit this weekend. On Sunday, me and K were partying with the Krishnas! There was this big Hare Krishna wingding going on down on the Venice Boardwalk, it was a big Krishna carnival, with booths and food and even a parade. It was a Krishnapalooza! The parade consisted of three red, four-story floats (you were supposed to call them "chariots") that were pulled down the boardwalk by a big bunch of Krishnas, all of them hoppin' around and singing those catchy ditties that don't have any words but "Hare" and "Krishna" over and over again. It was a really hot day, and all the Krishnas were aglow with sweat from all the hopping they were doing. You didn't have to be a Krishna to be in the parade, so we got swept up in it and marched down the Boardwalk for a while with all of the Krishnas and the girls in bikinis and the gangstas and everybody else. We had a great time. We even got pelted on the head by the flowers the Krishnas on the float were chucking out at the crowd. I don't know much about their faith, but if they're all THIS happy, it can't be all bad. It's so odd being surrounded by so many really happy people, you get a kind of contact happiness high. The only people on the boardwalk who weren't happy were these crabby Christians who were following the parade with a bunch of giant picket signs. They looked so sweaty and sad and tired. They were really killing themselves, trying to hold their gigantic "God Hates All Heathens" signs up above their heads while they staggered down the street on this hundred-and-twenty-degree day. One guy had a sign that was so big it looked like a sail on a big galleon. He should have gotten himself some rollerskates, and let the wind push him down the boardwalk.

There was this one display at the Krishna carnival that was really striking; it had about ten life-sized statues all clustered together, all representing the same guy at different stages of life, from infancy to adulthood to old age to a pile of crumbling bones. Grim stuff, but it was probably a more interesting work of art than anything I've seen in a gallery in a while.

Oh, & on Saturday night K's period ended & we finally got a chance to poke. Hosanna!

Makeup's next weekend, & it won't be soon enough for me. It seems like years since I've gotten prettied up & gone out on the town. I've no idea what I'll wear. The blue, sparkly number with the black crinoline? My black minidress with the dynamite neckline? My long, skintight, deep purple Drusilla dress with all of the tiny, embroidered black flowers? Decisions, decisions...

8/02/99
Well, this is an interesting turn of events. Garrison Keillor says I'm going to die! Seriously, the host of National Public Radio's hugely popular weekly music/variety program A Prarie Home Companion gave me his considered medical opinion about my eye problem the other day, and his prognosis was not good.

I've always liked Keillor. His show can get kind've irritating, what with all the cutesy skits and the banjo tunes & everything, but he's got a beautiful singing voice, and the News From Lake Wobegon always hits the spot. Well, a few months ago I discovered Mister Blue, this advice column Keillor does once a week on Salon. Keillor's advice usually strikes me as pretty sensible, so when I developed my eyeball malady recently I wrote to him asking how I could get past my bitterness and frustration and move on to more productive, pleasant things. I figured he might write me back with the sort of folksy little pick-me-up that he so excels at. To be honest, I'd forgotten I even wrote the email, until the other day when I checked out Mister Blue and found my letter posted, along with the following reply from Keillor:

I don't practice medicine, only psychiatry, so I referred your letter to my cousin, Dr. Blue, the internist, and he says you definitely should see a neurologist, and perhaps an ophthalmologist who is a retina specialist. You could be suffering from a tumor, or a visual migraine, which can cause swarms of spots, or "scintillating scotomata," or you may have a neurologic disease of the visual cortex: There is a long list of possible disorders that a thoughtful neurologist will consider. You say you have seen "a couple of doctors" but this is not adequate. You need to see a  neurologist. 

Jesus, I think I'll just nip off & shoot meself. The doctors I have seen have given me good reason to doubt that I have a giant throbbing brain tumor or anything really spooky like that, but now Mister Blue has got me worried again. I'd really, really like to go to an opthamologist and get this whole thing settled, but I simply can't afford it. I don't have insurance, and I've already blown about two hundred bucks getting my eyeballs looked at. A few weeks ago, when I was calling around trying to find a decent opthamologist, they all quoted me prices that sounded like the national debt. Arrgh!

That's the news from Lake Wobegon, where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the transvestites are dying of hideous brain tumors.