Wonderhussy

Time for the latest installment of All My Children…which is what my life has felt like lately! This week’s episode is brought to you by Charles Shaw Vineyards: when your life is a mess, Two Buck Chuck makes it allllllllllllll seem manageable 🙂

After posting my last week’s blog, I got a very long, sincere, heartfelt apology/explanation from Sgt. Peanut. The gist of it was that he was truly sorry to have gotten me involved in all this, and that he had in fact broken up with the “girlfriend” (the slightly off-kilter Asian woman who approached me at the bar, wept, and then lavished me with excessive praise and flattery) back around New Year’s…but she was having trouble letting go.

This was all totally plausible, and the more I think about it, I believe him. She’s nuts. However…literally about 15 minutes after posting that last blog, I got a Facebook message from ANOTHER woman: “I hope you don’t find my contacting you odd, but I’ve been reading your blog for a few months now…and I am also dating Sgt. Peanut!”

WTF! A few email exchanges revealed that this third woman, we’ll call her Nancy, had been dating Peanut on and off since last year. According to her, they didn’t really do much at first, since she could tell he was still entangled with the nutty ex, and Nancy herself was still sort of mixed up in another dying relationship. But supposedly, around New Year’s, Peanut informed her that he had officially broken up…so they began dating for real.

Nancy said she knew the nature of their relationship was casual, and not exclusive — she suspected he was dating other people, and then too she knew he was a swinger, since he took her to some swinger parties in town. She said he had a regular swinger couple, in fact, with whom he “played” on a regular basis. (At the risk of offending all the swingers out there…I find the whole “lifestyle” of “playing” smarmy and creeeeeepy…I’ve spent a fair amount of time at swing parties and clubs, and it’s just not for me.)

Anyhoo, around the beginning of summer, Nancy felt that Peanut was growing distant and less available, so she spied on his Facebook page and saw “Sgt. Peanut ‘likes’ Wonderhussy” (you should all “like” it too, incidentally). Curious, she clicked on the link and began reading this blog. The more she read, the more she realized he was dating me and her at the same time (as well as others, she suspected…plus the “play” couple).

She said she never contacted me because she already knew the nature of hers and Peanut’s relationship was casual, so she didn’t feel like it was her place to get involved. Supposedly she loved reading my blog, though, and as time went by she realized I was liking him more and more…so she broke up with him. Not just because of me, though — apparently he got back into it with the nutty ex sometime in the spring, and the whole scene was just too complicated for Nancy to stomach.

So they broke up, but had lately been talking about getting together for dinner sometime to hash things out. They had ended up arranging to go out last Thursday — but with all these new developments (the events of last weekend), Nancy wasn’t sure if she should still go meet him.

I said ABSOLUTELY you should go meet him — and let me know where you’ll be, so I can show up either in disguise (to spy on him) or in my Wonder Woman costume (to kick his ass). But apparently, Peanut ended up cancelling the date — he suspected a setup, only he thought it was the nutty ex behind it and not me. They ended up rescheduling for Friday night, and that was the last I heard…Nancy mysteriously stopped emailing me, after a virtual barrage of long, heartfelt, “just between us girls”-type emails. WEIRD!

The last missive I got from her was after Peanut had called her to cancel their Thursday date. Supposedly they talked on the phone, and while she didn’t mention having talked to me, she told him she’d been reading my blog, and what the hell was up? According to her, he admitted to her that we HAD been seeing each other…just in a very casual way. He told her I was dating other people, too, so he hadn’t thought  it was a big deal.

She said he spoke fairly highly of me, and she thought he really was truly fond of me…and she said she’d fill me in on the results of their dinner date. But she never emailed me again, so I have no idea what happened.

After thinking things over, I’ve come to realize that this whole fiasco was caused by one thing: lack of communication. Peanut assumed I was dating other people — rightly so, since most of my friends are men. But I don’t sleep with any of them — and that’s the crux of my problem. Remember when I said I was “a whore in public, and a lady in the bedroom?” Well, that’s my curse — people think I’m the swingin’est whore of Babylon that ever lived, but in reality, I’m just a niiiiiiiiice girl 🙁 I know it’s my own fault, because I enjoy shocking people, running around naked and otherwise pissing on the moral code of the bourgeoisie…but I can’t help myself. I don’t want to change.

Meanwhile, all along in the back of my head I suspected/knew that Peanut was seeing other people — ever since the amateur porn party, I had him pegged as a true freak. But I guess I was too lazy to really think about it, and how it made me feel…so I just kept chugging along, figuring things would work themselves out one way or the other. I suppose what I SHOULD have done was have one of those awful, awkward “Sooo, what are your intentions for my daughter?” kind of talks…but being the passive puss that I am, I hate that kind of stuff and avoid those confrontations whenever possible!

Either way, the nutty ex showing up like that REALLY fucked things up. Because she took me by such complete surprise, I completely believed her entire story. I wouldn’t have been so upset to find out that Peanut was dating other women at the same time as me (as mentioned, I already suspected as much). It was “finding out” that he was in a committed 2.5-year relationship with someone, and talking kids and marriage, that freaked me out!!!

So now, with a week’s perspective, I see it all as a massive failure to communicate, and not really anyone’s fault. HOWEVER, it was DEFINITELY his fault to bail on me in the middle of a date like that, and not bother to explain anything that was going on! He basically threw me to the wolves. Nice! And I still think there’s more to the story than any of this weird cast of characters has been telling me. If he really “broke up” with the nutty ex around New Year’s, why did he get back into it with her in the springtime? Or did Nancy just make that up?

Arrrgh, it’s all very confusing, so I am washing my hands of the matter and moving on. Dating in Vegas is a real bitch….especially for someone like me. The old biddy at work who’s always giving me advice (“Listen to Mother Jane!”) just gave me a stern talking-to about the way I present myself — she said I give up too much information up front, and that I need to keep an air of mystery about myself or no “nice” man will ever want me (she’s a firm devotee of that dumbass book “The Rules”). Apparently I’m supposed to string a guy along for a few dates, being coy and demure, and then when he starts to really like me, THEN I can spring the whole naked-godless-bohemian-iconoclast shtick on him. In theory, by then he’ll be so smitten and hooked, he won’t mind.

Meanwhile, my friend Muscles Manischewitz also had some advice for me: no guy is ever going to accept me as a naked, godless, bohemian iconoclast. They will at first — just to get in my pants. But according to him, no man wants to seriously date a naked, godless bohemian iconoclast…after awhile, they’ll either move on or expect me to change.

Well, gee. I guess this means that I’ll be staying single — because there’s no way in hell I’m changing myself that drastically. I’d rather be alone and be myself — I learned that the hard way, when I was with my one ex-boyfriend (the one I bought my house with). He was much more conservative than me, and made me keep all my “kooky” stuff (art supplies, mannequin, costumes) in a room in the basement. Boosauce!

Sooooooo, Wonderhussy 2.0 is back on the streets, looking for action. It didn’t take long for me to set my sights on a new target: these two hot Croatian cellists who play in the band at the show I’m working at. As you know, I am a souvenir photographer at a certain ginormous showroom in town, and a new headliner just began a 3-year engagement — a 1970s gay piano-playing icon we’ll call Captain Fantastic. He played Vegas a few years back, at the height of the economic boom, and back then times were faaaaaaabulous — we made assloads of money, hand over fist, photographing showgoers posed at this little red grand piano out in the lobby. We’d dress ’em up with feather boas and kooky sunglasses, and it was genuinely good times — the only time, in fact, when I truly loved my job.

Well, now the bitch is back…but alas, this is 2011. The crowds are nowhere as lavish with their spending, and the show itself has been toned down considerably. The old show was totally over the top — inflatable boobs and bananas all over the stage, with exceptionally lurid, fantastic videos by my hero David Lachapelle playing on a giant screen behind everything. Meanwhile, the crowd was totally over the top as well — people were busted doing drugs, masturbating, having sex and pissing in the aisles during the show. GOOD TIMES! (I’m being serious…I loved that crowd, and would take it any day of the week over the roomsful of dour, humorless Quebecois attracted by Sally Dingdong.)

So anyhoo, the new show is basically the same as the old show, sans inflatables and lurid videos. Instead of Lachapelle vidoes, a series of fairly cheesy CGI animations play on the screen — stuff like morphing curlicues and cartoons that would be of interest mainly to stoners and heroin addicts. However, there are a couple of FANTASTIC additions to the show — one being an AMAZING percussionist who rocks the SHIT out of an array of crazy instruments. And the second being these two smoking hot Croatian cellists.

I first saw these two guys on the Ellen DeGeneres show about 6 months ago. I was running on the treadmill at the gym (the only place I’d get caught dead watching TV) and almost fell off the treadmill when I saw them, so I went home and looked them up. Little did I expect that 6 months later, I’d be up close and personal with ’em. Alas, however, a VIP insider friend at the showroom told me they’re gay…but I’m not sure, because they ARE European, after all… and sometimes it can be hard to discern: Gay or European?

Anyhoo, the new show just started last Tuesday, and thanks to my VIP insider friend I scored a free 5th-row ticket for opening night. Without the inflatables and the bananas, though, I must admit to being pretty bored with the show — I almost wanted to bail after the first few songs. But then the cellists came out, and gave me something to watch! It ended up being a pretty good show, especially during the latter part, when they invite people up onstage to come dance with Captain Fantastic. I was one of those lucky people, and danced my ass off with nothing more than a velvet rope separating me from Captain Fantastic and his piano. Unfortunately, I was so swept up in the moment that I focused all my attention on the Captain, and forgot that a mere  5 feet behind me were two smoking hot Croatian cellists 🙁 Damn! Valuable flirtation time, wasted. Still, I saw them again the next night out in the casino, and was at least able to kick them a little game…although my gay suspicions were confirmed by the company they were keeping.

Speaking of gay, Captain Fantastic is well known as one of the world’s most outspoken advocates for gay rights, so he attracts a hug gay following. Opening night was wall-to-wall well-heeled homos and fag-hags, with a few celebrities and other notables thrown in for good measure. In fact, none other than Doogie Howser, M.D. aka Neil Patrick Harris was in the crowd. Fabulous!! I gotta say, even though the crowd this time around isn’t quite what it was last time…I still really enjoy shooting this show. Yay for not being miserable at work!!

Aside from work, I also went topless kayaking with my little 18-year-old girlfriend, this super cool chick I work with we’ll call “Samantha.” Her dad has been chainsmoking Marlboros for years, and they saved up so many “Marlboro Miles” that they got a free kayak out of it, which we took out to Lake Mead for an afternoon of fun in the sun. Neither of us wanted tan lines, but I wasn’t sure if she’d be comfortable going topless in front of me, so I brought her a pair of pasties I’d gotten from one of the topless pools, and for myself just used a couple squares of duct tape. Of course, the first thing that happened to us was some pervy old nudist in a stretched-out Speedo who was picking up trash on the beach came over and chatted us up. I’m used to this kinda thing — I thrive on conversations with pervy old nudists and other nuts — but Samantha was like, WTF! Especially when he pulled down his Speedo to show his “tan line,” thus exposing his nasty-ass shaved dick-n-balls. I mean, seriously?! Did I NEED to that plucked-chicken-neck-looking thing, good sir???

After kayaking around the lake all afternoon, we went back into town to go check out this awesome haunted house one of my actor friends is working at, playing a vampire. I met this guy at the mascot convention thing that I worked awhile back, and he’s basically a full-time actor — he was even in Pirates of the Caribbean as some sort of bit-part scurvy knave! He’s super nice, and he got Samantha and I into the haunted house for free, and it was really cool — especially when he busted out a surprise “Birthday-Party-in-a-Bag” he’d made for me after reading about my shitty-ass birthday. It was too cute — he stuffed a gift bag full of b-day stuff like a card, gift, cupcake, hat and noisemaker. Too cool! After we went through the haunted house, I went downtown with him and his wife and friends to celebrate his birthday, which happened to be that day. His friends were very cool people who all work at the Natural History Museum together, and get together for these crazy godless holiday parties: they burn a Yule Goat at Christmas, and eat turducken and qua-duc-ant at Thanksgiving, among other crazy traditions. They invited me to their parties this year, and it’s enough to make me wanna stay in Vegas for the holidays! Normally I go home to California every year — I find the idea of staying in Vegas for Xmas extremely depressing. But my newspaper reporter friend Phil Connors says his best Xmases EVER were in Vegas — dinner at the Peppermill followed by holiday lap dances at the OG strip club. Then again, he’s Jewish, and thus used to weird holidays…so I dunno.

Anyhoo, while I was downtown with my new posse of museum friends, I realized once again how much I LOVE downtown Las Vegas. Really, anyone who’s ANYONE prefers downtown to the Strip these days. I’ve long preferred the seediness of Fremont Street to the sanitized corporate behemoths on the Strip, but lately there’s been somewhat of a hipster renaissance down there and now EVERYONE goes downtown. It’s kind of annoying — all my old parking spots are now taken, but the trade-off is there are more cool bars, restaurants, art and events down there.

I’m not even just talking about Fremont Street (the tourist zone that’s covered with the light show ceiling). I’m talking about ALL of downtown! I stopped for a snack at this new little kiosk on the street corner across from the OG strip club called “I Love Arepas,” and it is FANTASTIC! Arepas are these weird little Venezuelan corn pockets stuffed with various fillings — I had some down at a bus depot in the Venezuelan hinterlands back in ’09, but these were 100 times better! (They don’t like Americans down there, so someone probably pissed in my Arepa at that bus depot…which would explain it.) Anyhoo, “I Love Arepas” sells a buncha different type arepas for $3.50 each, and they are AWESOME! Plus, you get to sit right out on the street while you eat, and watch the weirdos go by. As mentioned, it’s right across from a strip club, and also near a dive bar and an all-night drugstore populated by pimps, prostitutes and crackheads. It’s GREAT!

As I drove down to Fremont St. on my way to meet my museum friends, I passed all the aforementioned nuttiness, plus a number of crazy boutiques, pawn shops (including the one from Pawn Stars), peepshows and wedding chapels full of tourists in prom wear. Then I saw a homeless man with a long white Santa Claus beard, shuffling drunkenly down Fremont St. in a t-shirt printed to look like a Santa suit. What a nutty fucking city, I thought — the perfect place for me! It’s rare that I feel any sort of fondness for Vegas, but downtown does it for me. And now I wanna move closer to the action!

My current humble estate, Villa Sinvergüenza, is technically considered to be “downtown,” but it’s probably a mile or two from the actual epicenter. And while I love my house (enough to bash my head repeatedly against a wall for the last 3 years, struggling with my lender to modify my awful unaffordable loan)…I am finally coming to the realization that I wouldn’t die if I had to move out. I bought the place for $380,000 and zillow.com currently values it at $91k. WTF! Meanwhile, I found a genteel hovel in the middle of downtown for $60,000. It’s nowhere near as nice as my current estate — faaaar from it, in fact — but it’s sixty thousand dollars! I could pay for it, CASH, and never have to make another mortgage payment for the rest of my life. Which means I could stop posing for stupid lesbian photos and kissing tourist ass!

I have a mediation hearing on my current loan coming up on Oct. 26th. At this meeting, my attorney and I are supposed to sit down with my lender’s representative, plus an impartial 3rd-party mediator, and hash out a deal that’s amenable to all parties. But I have my doubts. All I can really afford to pay on a mortgage is $1000 per month, and thanks to my friend J.R.’s amortization calculator I found out that means that for my $340,000 loan, they’d have to give me an interest rate of 1.8%. HAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The other option, of course, is for the bank to write down my principal to what the house is actually worth. I don’t think $91,000 is an accurate amount — zillow.com valued the boarded-up abandoned marijuana grow house next door, which has sat empty for over a year, at $150,000 — so obviously these numbers need tweaking. I’d say my house is worth more like $150k too. But it’ll be a cold day in hell before the bank cuts my principal IN HALF 🙁

Soooooooooo…I am completely and utterly lost. HELP! When this whole fucking mess started — when my ex-boyfriend left me with this insanely ill-advised, no-doc, robo-signed, fraud-ridden mortgage, I should have just walked away then and there. Why didn’t I? A sense of moral obligation, reinforced by my second ex-boyfriend (“You signed that loan, you should honor it”), Mother Jane (“Whatever you do, don’t ruin your credit”) and even one of those free consumer credit counseling services (“Your moral obligation is to honor the agreement you made with your lender”). FUCK!

If I had walked away then, I’d be richer, happier, and probably able to sleep. As it stands, I’m a hot fucking mess. I weep just about every day, because I’m so utterly confused and alone in all this. What I need right now is to blow a Senator or some other corrupt fucking good-old-boy in a position of influence, and get them to work out a special deal for me. OR, I just need someone to buy me this other $60,000 house. I’ll pay you back within 6 months, I promise!

Or, I need Jebus to come down and smite my enemies, and make everything better. But that doesn’t seem very likely, either. Arrrrrgh!

P.S. My depression this week was so deep that I wasn’t even able to enjoy a trip to the annual Las Vegas Bikefest with my friend Muscles…although while there, I did pick up this pair of metal testicles for my keychain. Next time someone’s trying to push me around, I’ll use them as my magic talisman…a reminder that despite my anatomy, I DO have ballz and I will not stand to be fucked with! Not by bankers, bosses OR boyfriends!

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