I spent the three day weekend appropriately stuffing my face and catching up with Friends With Kids. Strangely, a lot of my friend's kids seemed to have been replaced with bigger kids.

Towards the end of the day, I got my ass whooped at chess by an 8-year-old. Of course, I have no idea how to play chess. But still...he's 8! Not to mention, I had a secret weapon (Friend Who Rocks At Chess) whispering in my ear.

"Why do you have to wait for him to tell you what to do?" said 8-year-old Chess Champ.

"Because you're kicking my ass...I mean, you're going to beat me."

"Haha! I'm going to kill all your pieces!!!"

The thing about 8-year-olds is that you can't offer up condescending, eye-ball rolling comments about their lack of sportsmanship. It's one thing to deal with grown men who act like children. But any psychologist would classify his behavior as "age appropriate." (Why can't I be 8?) Nonetheless, I kept wanting to revert to my usual, "You're acting like a child. What are you? 8?!"

"Gosh....why are you taking so long?!" he kept asking before my deft (and instructed) moves.

"Because I'm a rank amateur," I told him.

"But you're not even good."

"Haha...you don't know what 'rank amateur' means."

I didn't exactly maintain a demeanor of mature stoicism.

But he was ruthless! Stopping not even at employing his own transparent version of psychological warfare techniques.

"If I were you," he said at one point. "I would move the queen to the right."

"Why should I believe you?"

"Because I'm trying to teach you how to play."

"No, don't do that!" said my friend.

His dad told me that he lets him win sometimes because if he loses he will cry.

"But that's what life's about," I told The Dad. "Better that he learn it now."

Giant sigh.

Just for today, I can play with kids.

True Sexy Never Ages.

I Want To Make Out With You.

Purple Orgasms.

Love In A Gold Sequined Turtle Neck Pant Suit.

(I have to say, Prince is the only heterosexual male in the world who could pull off the Gold Sequined Turtle Neck Pant Suit Look...there's that much sex appeal packed into that 4'11 100 lb. body.)

In junior high, we had slow dance parties consisting entirely of the Purple Rain album played over and over again. And after watching him (at 52) at The Forum, I had to wonder if we could be held entirely responsible for our actions. (Parents?). We had hormones, but his voice didn't help the situation.

Just for today, I'm a fan of the Purple One.

Today was my last day working on the other side of that big latex Orange Curtain. Aside from making me feel like a hairy feminist, the OC grew on me. Don't get me wrong, I do shave. But I'm pretty sure it's illegal to have a strand of hair on your body beneath the neck in the OC. What am I saying? If you've ever been in a locker room in LA, then you've seen the wave of 9-year-old hooches on grown women's bodies. The Hairless VJ Syndrome is an epidemic, if you ask me, but that's another issue...I don't know about the OC, but I'm going to really miss my girls here. Everywhere I go I adopt hot young girls, and support them to become strong and confident women. Maybe I should just be a full-time Big Sister.

But life is about growth, and if we don't move forward we become empty shells waiting for the Rapture to bring a different life.

Just for today, I'm moving on.

If I have to work for The Man, I have to say that I'm really glad he's Korean. Between the two full-time baristas staffed at the coffee bar and the view of the ocean, I can't complain. There were too many reasons why I needed to take a full-time J.O.B.:

1) Artsy Unemployed Creative was starting to look a little scraggly on me...(starting to?)...little have I ever known (coming from Berkeley, land of body hair) that the only thing standing between me and beauty was $100 a month in beauty products (for my skin alone). Along with paying rent and food, there's a lot of things that I think I need (though, I know I don't) that I never knew about (and often wished I still didn't).

2) Less may be more with regards to words, but "more" is far less than "less" when it comes to vast quantities of Unstructured Time as related to Writing. The more time I think I have to do anything, the longer it takes to do anything, like, say, get out of bed. Getting out of bed can take a split second or become a daylong project. [However, with regards to words on the page, less is always more. Mark Twain once said, "If I had lived longer, I would have written less." Judging by my long-winded blog entries, I must not believe I have a long life-expectancy.]

3) Everyone has a day job. (Unless you have a trust fund, in which case your job is supporting the drug trade/rehab industries and doing community service).

There's a dream that a chosen few love every second of their work (unless they just love "work," which seems kind of pathological). But even Prince has to play "Purple Rain" one more freakin' time. Ok, maybe playing "Purple Rain" in front of thousands of adoring fans night after night never gets old. But "Little Red Corvette?" There's gotta be one song (Nicky?") that he wants to puke every time he thinks of playing one more time, but knows it's part of the bill of keeping up the Purple Palace or Paisley Park or whatever it's called. Not that I question the integrity of the Purple One, (I'm still planning on seeing him) I just know that he has created a lot of other music in the past thirty years.

Just for today, I work for the Korean Man.

I think The Man is getting taller. Maybe it's the genetically modified food. Or maybe they are growing. I don't remember feeling so short. Or ethnic. And I do not look ethnic (hello blindingly white skin).

Working in advertising it's hard not to believe that if I were born with a penis and a foot higher, my life would be dramatically different. If you took the Tall White Men out of advertising you'd be left with a lot of attractive account people and project managers (and some guys connected with their feminine side), a token a black product guy and some short copywriters.

Just for today, I wish I were a tall, white male.

This whole Osama-Head-On-A-Stake Moment (I'll take a CGI retouch on a shot from Apocalypse Now) has left me feeling like the last unbitten in a zombie/vampire. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a hater. I reserve the right to openly judge and bond with others against a fellow enemy.But I guard the depths of pain whose sources still seem mysterious. Without mysticism one piece of new information can dislodge a boulder and before you know it the levy of heartbreak and disappointment has broken open and you're celebrating a dead guy half-way around the world. (I think...someone get me a map).

Sublimation. Having spent most of my life feeling asunder, I would love to believe that I'm just one CIA operation from living among the chosen people, but I didn't spend a good used Audi in therapy to believe that neglect, pain, suffering, and the squelching of all my girlish passions didn't at the very least teach me to unplug from the matrix, tap into the force, whatever metaphor works best before you've had your coffee.

Just for today, I'm totally creeped out by the celebrating of Osama's death.