Woody Allen

I just watched Annie Hall and Manhattan Murder Mystery; the latter of which I hadn't seen before, and I loved it. So here's Woody Allen! Husbands & Wives is on as I write this, but it's getting far too late to keep watching it too.

Letters: Volume 4

Dear Stairs;

I hope I never fall down you.

Have a good day!

-Allie


Dear Cheese Grater:

Have you ever thought about self improvement?  I mean, you have a successful career and everything, but I think everyone can agree that you haven't reached your potential yet.  Haven't you ever wanted to be the absolute best you can be? No?

Okay.

-Allie

Dear Orange Juice;

Thanks for being awesome.  No other juice could ever compare to you.   Not even strawberry - kiwi.

-Allie

Dear Readers;

You realize I am writing letters to inanimate objects, right?

Well, did you realize that I just wrote a letter to juice?  Juice isn't even an object.  It's... juice.

But you're still reading, huh?

Just checking.

-Allie 


Dear squirrels;

Why won't you let me catch you??  Can't you see that I really need to touch your delightfully furry little bodies?   You are so cute and I just want to pet you.  I won't keep you.  At least not for long.   

DEAR CAPS LOCK;

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??  DO YOU HAVE A BREAD CRUMB IN YOU?  I PROBABLY SHOULDN'T EAT WHILE TYPING.   I AM SORRY I MADE A MISTAKE AND RUINED YOU, BUT IF YOU COULD PLEASE JUST GIVE ME ONE MORE CHANCE, I PROMISE THAT I WILL NEVER DRIP BURRITO GREASE ON YOU EVER AGAI -   

- WAIT, WHAT?  

NO, I'M NOT YELLING AT YOU.  IT ONLY LOOKS LIKE THAT BECAUSE YOU ARE BROKEN. 

NO, NO, NO - I'M NOT BLAMING YOU.  IT'S... JUST... I COULD REALLY COMMUNICATE A LOT MORE EFFECTIVELY IF IT DIDN'T LOOK LIKE I WAS YELLING, THAT'S ALL.   IT IS HARD TO EXPRESS SYMPATHY WHILE YELLING.  IT IS ALSO HARD TO EXPRESS SINCERITY.  PLEASE JUST BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY THAT I AM NOT ACTUALLY YELLING AND I AM SORRY THAT YOU ARE BROKEN AND I REALLY WOULD LIKE TO HELP YOU BECAUSE WE BOTH WIN WHEN YOU ARE WORKING PROPERLY. 

IF YOU COULD PLEASE JUST FORGIVE ME AND JUST LET THINGS GO BACK TO THE WAY THEY USED TO BE, THAT WOULD BE GREAT.  

THANKS

-ALLIE

Nightmare on Third Street: A Tale of Constipation, Masturbation, Heroin and A Suit of Armor

I wanted to live alone.

It was the only option after a string of emotionally traumatizing roommates.   I thought that if I found myself a nice little studio apartment, I could finally be done with the crazy.

(If you bet five dollars on me being wrong about that last statement, you would be five dollars richer right now.  Too bad you didn't.  Live and learn, I guess.)

I started my apartment hunt with high hopes.  In the back of my head, I think I was imagining that I would end up in some New York penthouse with shiny wood floors and floor-to-ceiling windows.  Which was just unreasonable because I had roughly $500 a month to spend on food, rent, emergency room trips, and beer.  And I was living in Montana.

With every passing day, I sunk deeper and deeper into despair.  It had become clear that I was never going to find an apartment that a) was within my price range, b) didn't have vagrants already squatting in the living room* and c) was actually an apartment and not a room in the house of some grizzled old man, advertised "cheap rent for the right young female roommate."

Just when I was about to give up hope and move in with the first reasonably sane person I could find, I came across the shittiest apartment complex ever.

"This might be the one..." I thought.

The building, which had once been a hotel,  was built some time in the mid to late 1800's and had obviously been renovated into an apartment complex in the 70's, judging by the funky wall-to-wall carpet.

I walked up the decaying staircase to the landlord's office.   The landlord was not there, but on the door was a notepad which read "if you are interested in renting with us, please leave your name and phone number and we'll get back to you."

I did as instructed and roughly a week later, I got a call from the landlord.  He said he hadn't been in to his office in awhile and that he was sorry for calling me back so late.  I asked him how much it would be to rent from him.  He said (and I quote) "well, if you don't mind having a room with no bathroom it's only $260 a month."  I asked about utilities.  He said those were included in the rent.  I suddenly didn't feel like bathrooms were that important.  I must have forgotten that I am terribly shit shy and avoid using public restrooms at all costs.  Did I mention I was desperate?

There was one room available.  I snatched that sucker up like it was a flaming baby (you would have to act quickly if a baby was on fire, right?)

It was such a relief to finally have a place to live where no one could bother me!  I was so relieved that I turned a blind eye to the sections of rubber tubing I found in my closet (people use those for non-drug-related activities, right?).  I was so relieved that I dismissed my horror upon inspecting the "shared restrooms."   I mean, it's totally normal for 30 people to be forced to share two toilets, right? It would be just like living in the dorms!  Except, instead of sharing my shower and toilet with hygienic, female students, I would be sharing them with a mixed bag of ex-convicts and drug addicts.  It couldn't be that big of a difference...

I remember my first night at my new place very clearly.

I lay awake on my bare mattress, trembling and crying and wishing that the drunk people in the alley outside my window would shut the hell up so I could forget I was alive for just a little while.

I finally fell asleep at around 3:00 AM because the bar/casino across the alleyway from me closed.  It took a little while for the yelling drunks to disperse in a flurry of screeching tires, but they didn't hang around too long after their source of drunkenness was cut off.

I woke up at 5:00 AM to a the sound of the loudest garbage truck in the history of history.  Apparently there was a dumpster right outside my window that must have been filled at an alarming rate given how often I was to be disturbed by the sound of said garbage truck.   It came almost every weekday morning, between the hours of 5:00 and 6:30 AM.  Sometimes more than once.  I quickly learned to resent the garbage man, even though he was just doing his job.

After the garbage truck came for the third time that morning, I decided to just get up.

My mornings usually consist of a very specific order of events: coffee, bathroom, breakfast then everything else.  I succeeded in accomplishing the coffee part, but as I was walking down the hall to attend to the bathroom part, I was intercepted by one of my new neighbors.  A portly, unshaven man in his forties, John introduced himself and immediately began regaling me with war stories.  I could tell he was high - on what, I didn't know.  Yet.

Just as John was showing me the bullet wound on his face that earned him a lifetime disability stipend and a future of reckless drug abuse, I realized I wasn't going to get to use the bathroom.  I had missed my window of opportunity and I would have to spend the rest of the day constipated and angry.

Apparently John and I bonded during that conversation because, from that point onward, he was unbelievably excited to see me every time our paths crossed - which was often because we were sharing a bathroom.

One day after school, I was ten steps away from being locked safely in my room when I heard "Dude!  You have to come check out my sweet suit of armor!"

I turned around slowly to see John beaming like a new mother.  He was almost wagging, he was so excited.

Partly out of crippling niceness and also because of morbid curiosity, I followed John to his room.   Sure enough, there was a full suit of armor standing in his living room.

John said "I got it on Ebay."

I said "cool."

John said "do you want to see what it does?"

I said "yes" even though I didn't mean it at all.  I actually wanted to go sit in my room and binge drink, but I spent the next half hour watching John demonstrate how to use a suit of armor.

Just when I thought he was wrapping up, John asked me a question that I never thought I would be asked ever in my life.  He said "do you want some heroin tea?"

In an instant, I understood so much yet I was filled with questions.  I halfway thought about drinking liquid heroin just to escape that moment.  However, I politely declined and muttered something about needing to go do homework.   John let me leave only 25 minutes later.

Back in my room, I sat down to do some studying.

I usually studied until eleven or so and then got ready for bed.  I have always been a quiet neighbor, so I was surprised when the man who lived below me started banging on his ceiling and yelling at me to stop making so much noise.

I continued to not make noise.

He continued to yell at me for the noise I wasn't making.

I was already in bed when I was startled by banging and yelling at my door.  Of course, it was the man who lived below me and he wanted me to stop moving furniture around because he was trying to sleep.  I hadn't been moving furniture but I doubted very much that I could convince the angry man at my door of that fact.  I huddled in the corner with a blanket, trying to cry as quietly as possible so as not to upset the man further.

I have since come to the conclusion that he may have become enraged over me scooting my chair out from my desk.  It is the only logical explanation.  Then again, there may have been no logical explanation.  Sometimes people are just crazy.

As sensitive as this man was about other people making noise, he sure didn't give a damn how many people overheard him masturbating.  Bad porn, throaty moaning and sickening squishing sounds made me wish my floor was just a tad thicker.  I didn't realize until later how good I actually had it.

The ancient building in which I lived was heated by radiators.  Broken ones.  Sometime in mid-November, my landlord finally got around to turning on the heat in the building (there were no individual thermostats - either everybody had heat or nobody had heat).   That night, I was awoken by what sounded like someone beating a metal pipe with a hammer, six inches from my head.   This alarming sound continued for a few minutes before winding down to a hiss.   The next four months of my life were filled with alternating hissing and clanging.  There was rarely a moment of silence.  At least I couldn't hear the masturbating anymore - even though I would have gladly listened to it over the new noise.

I quickly found that there was nothing I could cram into my ears that would completely drown out the radiator.  Earplugs, two pillows and a whirring fan only succeeded in dampening the wretched sound.

As the winter wore on, the thickly carpeted halls of my apartment complex became a temporary home for several vagrants.  One of them lived in a nook right outside my door.  He was a friendly fellow with a dolphin tattooed on his face.   Every morning he told me that I looked beautiful as I was leaving for school.  One day he told me that I had an innocent and beautiful soul.   I was actually a little disappointed when my landlord got around to shooing him off the premises.

When the daytime temperature dipped below zero degrees fahrenheit, I finally had to shut my windows.  I had kept them at least partly open for as long as I could because I was terrified of succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning.  And it was a good thing too.  If I had not, I may have died in an explosion.  Or at least that's what I'm told.

I noticed the smell early in the morning.  I recognized it as natural gas, so I called the gas company.  I'd had a gas leak earlier in the year and a nice man with a magic beeping wand came over to fix it for me.  Naturally, that is exactly what I expected to happen again.

The woman who answered my call sounded alarmed when I told her I had a gas leak.  She told me that she would send someone right over and that I should go wait in my car.  I groggily pulled on a sweatshirt and trundled out to my freezing vehicle to wait for the man with the beepy wand.

The man with the beepy wand never showed up.  Instead, I watched in horror as two fire trucks came screeching to a halt in front of my building.  I cowered in my car for a couple minutes before one of the firemen found me.

He said "Do you live here?"

"Is this about the gas leak?" I asked.

He yelled some numbers and code-words into his walkie-talkie and ran off before answering my question.  I reluctantly followed him inside.

There were firemen everywhere.   It was barely after 6:00 AM, so people noticed.  The firemen were tromping around in their huge boots and yelling at each other urgently.

I sheepishly directed them to my apartment.

When I opened the door and they could finally see what they had been called to protect me against, they looked at me like I was nuts.

One of them said "this is the apartment that is going to explode into flames at any second?"

I said "um... yes?" I suspected that the woman who took my call had overreacted just a titch.

The fireman shook his head and began inspecting my room with three of his fireman friends while the other firemen made sure the hallway was secure.

I stood in the middle of the room and watched them poke fruitlessly through my things.

"I think it might be the stove..." I finally ventured.

All four of them clomped over to the stove to have a look.   One of them noticed the pilot light and just kept saying "I can see a burning glow..." over and over.  He seemed desperate to find fire somewhere.

I asked the firemen if they would mind of I called the guy with the beepy thing.  They looked a little offended, but agreed to let me do it.

They stood there and protected me until the guy with the beepy thing arrived.  The one fireman was still enthralled with the pilot light.  "I can see it glowing orange faintly..." he was very poetic in his observations.

When the beepy-thing-guy finally got there, he shooed the firemen away and used his beepy wand to locate the source of the totally non-threatening gas leak, which did indeed turn out to be from the stove.

He put a tiny piece of electrical tape around the gas hose leading to my stove and told me to have a good day.  The beepy-thing-guy always made everything better.  That's why the lady who answered my call should have called him instead of freaking out and getting the whole fire department all excited about nothing.

I had created quite the stir.  Both John and the janitor offered to help me if my apartment ever actually did catch on fire. (Of course, if my apartment was on fire, their apartments would also be on fire soon.   Their blinding need to help me must have overshadowed their critical thinking skills momentarily).

John said "Dude, if you ever, like, need anything - just come and hang out in my room, okay?"

I said "Okay" even though no amount of being on fire could cause me to actually mean it.



Coming Soon:  A detailed account of the events leading up to my intense desire to live alone.

*One of the apartments I checked out came with a homeless man!  He had trashed the interior with cigarette butts, old pizza boxes and beer cans and was just as happy as could be.  The property management could have saved me the trouble of checking out a key if they'd just told me to ask the squatter how to get in.   

Edit:  I guess I should clarify that I no longer live on Third Street.  I lived there for a dismal year and a half in the heart of my college career.  Regretfully, I cannot do a housing swap or start a fund on eBay to get me out of my shithole.  I sincerely wish I had thought of those options while I was still living there, but my brain wasn't working properly due to lack of sleep and chronic inhalation of natural gas fumes.  However, if I ever find myself in a similar situation, I will now know what to do!

Letters: Volume 3 (Magazine Edition)

Okay you guys, this is the last Letters post for awhile - I promise.   We'll move on to something else tomorrow.   But I had to post this one.  It's just too sexy not to post.  You'll understand shortly... 


Dear Cosmopolitan Magazine;


I have written a column about 100 ways to spice up your sex life.  I think this piece would be a refreshing departure from your usual lineup.

I promise, you have never, ever, ever heard these ones before.  These are completely new concepts.  My article does not contain one single word that your readers will recognize from previous issues.  I have most definitely not listed exactly the same things on every other list you have ever published except with a few bizarre twists that no guy actually wants done to him.

My revolutionary list entices the reader to "try massaging your partner's perineum with Neosporin" or "tie your partner up with a rope made from completely renewable resources that costs $4 more than other ropes" or "try exploring each other's erogenous zones - and do it while wearing a scuba mask and singing along to Sting's 'Every Breath You Take.'"

And I have liberally applied the concept of combining the word "sex" with other words.  For sexample:  sexceptional, sexorcism, sextraterrestrial, sexcommunication, sexistentialism, sexport, sextermination, sexaggerate, sextrapolate, sexponential, sextreme, sextemporaneous, sex (that's sex combined with ex - like if you had sex with your ex boyfriend, you'd say you had "sex." LOL), FedSex, complsexity, sextrovert, sexamination, sextortion, sexplosive diarrhea, Kleensex, Microsoftcore sExcel, sexcalibur, sexacerbate, sexalted, sexasperated, sexcavation, sexceedingly, sexcrement, sexcretions, sexcruciating, sexcuse me, sexcuse moi?, sexecutive branch, sexecutive power, sexecution, sExedrine, sexemplify, sexonerate and my personal favorite, which is the very embodiment of what your magazine is all about: sexfoliate.  ISN'T THAT THE MOST AWESOME THING YOU HAVE EVER HEARD?   I bet you are just shitting yourselves over being able to publish that word for the first time.

But that list is not representative of the magnitude of my actual collection of sex/word hybrids - it is just a sexerpt!  If you want, I can sexplain more clearly.  LOL (that means "laughing out loud" which I'm not really doing - more like chuckling or merely breathing a little faster, but still).

If you don't feel comfortable publishing such a reformative piece, I have also prepared a list of 10 Must-Have Items for Fall.   Just a hint - it doesn't include an EPMotion automatic pipetting machine.  Or does it??

You won't regret your decision to publish me.

-Allie


Dear Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition;

Here is my submission:

You're welcome.

-Allie


Dear Time Magazine;

I am writing to request inclusion on your list of 100 Most Influential People.   I don't know if you've noticed, but I have over 100 followers on Blogger.   I get roughly 200 page hits every single day.  Well, except for Saturday and Sunday.  Apparently my readers have better things to do on the weekend than devote every waking second to reading my blog and commenting.  It's okay.  My feelings aren't hurt or anything.

Anyway, I would like it if you would include me on your list - possibly in your top 10.  And please use the following picture on my two-page spread:

Because I think your readers would appreciate seeing a sexy woman featured prominently in your magazine. I mean, don't you think they ever get tired of constantly seeing boring pictures of men in suits?  Playboy didn't get famous for covering the conflict in the Middle East.  Just saying...

Anyway, you can visit my blog if you want to check out my qualifications.   I think you'll find my style to be intelligent and engaging yet never heavy-handed.  I address tough issues with poise and clarity while still maintaining the image that I am speaking directly to each and every American.  I'm kind of like a younger, whiter, female-er Obama.
Okay, TTYL.

-Allie

Letters: Volume 1 (Descent Into "Totally Inappropriate and Actually a Little Crazy-Sounding" Territory)

Dear Readers;

I had a really creative spurt today.  I probably shouldn't say "spurt", but whatever.

Anyway, I wrote, like, 75 letters to things, people and myself.  It may sound stupid, but I promise that it's brilliant.  You'll just have to see it for yourself.

I swear to God, I was laughing so hard at myself that I got a headache.

You may be wondering what this is all about.  It's simple, really: I write letters to things, some of which are offensive (the letters, not the things. Except for a few of them) and then I post a few of them at a time and you laugh and tell your friends that I'm a genius and then I get famous and rich and I don't have to look for a job anymore because looking for a job is a fruitless and painful process that is making me feel like I should just become an alcoholic so that I at least have something external to blame my failure on.

Are we clear?

Okay.

Thanks for reading.

-Allie


Dear Me;

You sounded like an idiot just then.  You are confusing your readers and alienating them by pressuring them to make you famous.

It is not their responsibility.

Wait, yes it is - but you should make them want to make you famous instead of writing stupid little letters about how poor you are and how they should make you rich and famous out of pity.

I know that you have lost 4 pounds in the last two weeks because you can't afford real-person food, but you don't need to tell other people that.  They don't have money either and they'll just feel bad for being unable or unwilling to help you which will make them retreat into denial about your existence and then they won't read your blog.

It's kind of like how you feel about those starving-children commercials - which is a topic that pretty much every funny person in the history of the world has joked about, but you are going to go right ahead and do it too, just because you think you did it differently.  You didn't, by the way.  You just said some unexpected things afterward.  That's like putting a hat on Jesus and saying you invented Him (good catch with the capital H).  Stop being a pompous asshole.

Okay, I'll agree with you that it is a good idea to test out how people will react to the words "Jesus" and "asshole" before you post your other letters.  I know how excited you are to post them, so I commend you for showing a little self-restraint.  Your audience will appreciate the awkward-but-present segue into the more offensive and disturbing branch of your sense of humor.

Well, you better post some of those letters you were talking about.  Maybe post some of the really short ones. It'll be like a preview.  But whatever you do - do not post the Jesus one or the one about Mexicans.    I know, I know, I know - they really aren't that offensive, but people are really easy to offend and you want to be famous, remember?  You don't get famous by being honest - at least most people don't. Maybe Abraham Lincoln.  But not you.  You have to ingratiate yourself to everyone.  I know it's hard to restrain yourself, but just do it, okay?  Please, please, please, please do it.  Just for a little while.  Just until you find out how many followers you'll lose from swearing and taking the Lord's name in vain.  Pretty please?

Okay.

I have done all I can.  I hope you choose to be smart about this.  Good decisions are like making a deposit in the bank of your future.  Really?  That's the best you could come up with?  You better hope that people think you are really funny because you definitely don't have a future in advertising or inspirational speaking.

Carry on.

-Allie


Dear Cup;

Thank you for being waterproof.

I'll talk to you later!

-Allie


Dear SuperBalls;

I am 24 and a half and I don't have a job.  Please stop looking so goddamn fun.  Thanks.

-Allie


Dear Inventor of Watermelon-Flavored Things;

Have you ever eaten watermelon?

Just wondering...

-Allie


Dear Me;

You did it!  You didn't offend anyone's religion, ethnicity, culture or sexuality!  I mean, if the inventor of watermelon flavor is one of your followers, he might be kind of pissed, but you managed to not offend people in swaths.  I think that is an accomplishment. Go have some cake.

-Allie

100 Followers

Sorcerer is my 100th follower!

People seem to like celebrating round numbers (and especially 100 of anything), so I figured I would offer him a prize for being the 100th person to like me.  That's right.  He gets the prize and not any of the 99 people who discovered me before him.  Just because he was 100th.

But don't fret, other 99 followers!  His prize really isn't that cool (pssst... Sorcerer... your prize actually is cool, but don't tell anyone).

As mentioned, probably ad nauseam, I am poor, so I have to get creative with my gifts.

I hereby grant Sorcerer the opportunity to choose the topic of a blog post.  He can pick any topic he wants and I will write about it and try to make it funny.


And... go!


Edit:  Okay, now I have 99 followers... whoever it is that un-followed me:  I know what you are doing, you prankster.  If you really want to pick a topic for one of my blog posts, go ahead.  You don't have to be 100th to be special... 

Action Comics #457

Like the Yogi cover I did for Covered blog, I did another one, but unfortunately for me it's getting assloads of submissions, and since I'm not famous, and have already had the honour of being on, it was declined. So I am sharing it with aaaalll of YOOOOU!
(click to enlarge)

And here is the original.

Obviously Superman is copyright DC blah blah blah.
I just gotta say, in response to the original cover, what kid would know who Clark Kent is?! Does this tot read the newspaper and pay attention to the bylines?