LOST ANGEL

I've got to get out of this place It's killing me. If someone had told me twenty years ago that this would be my life, I would've told them to just shoot me dead right there. This is BS!! I can't believe I hitchhiked across America to live in Los Angeles and ended up here, a dental hygenist in this shithole shopping center in the San Fernando Valley.

I know I used to complain back when I was a waitress at McFrackle's, but it was a cakewalk compared to this!! At least there I could call in sick when I didn't feel like coming in to work, and I got free cheesecake. Here all I get is lectures on flossing from the cadaver that passes for a dentist. The only thing I liked about him was that he is a classical music fan and so my background as an opera singer impressed him, but thanks to the little bitches at the front desk, we have to listen to that horrible pop music with those no-talent bimbos who pass for singers. They don't know anything about music. They've never even been to San Francisco, let alone Vienna.

My only solace is Steve, my angel. Being able to go home and lay in his arms while I bitch to him about how much life sucks almost makes it all worthwhile. His job as a billboard installer ain't all peaches and cream either. He has to spend all day pasting up faces of the assholes he went to Hollywood High with. Right now he's doing the campaign for the new smash comedy "Your Mama's So Fat...", and it's really messing with him because he and that bald guy who stars in the movie used to be friends when they were little, but as they got older that guy started making fun of Steve's lisp. We never watch his show. Well, I sometimes do, but only when Steven is in the shower.

Our apartment is tiny and too bright and there is a family of 56 Mexicans living above us. We can't afford to move anywhere else because I've lived in this place for 18 years so my rent is really cheap. I've tried to get the Mexicans kicked out, but they're doing cheap work under the table for the landlord. I've thought of turning the landlord in, but I then I would be out on my ass so I grin and bear it.

I still sing once a week, but it's a stupid chorale made up of retirees and green college students who are doing it for credit. No one's heart is really in it. I sometimes wonder why I even bother.

If I could do anything, I think I'd return to my hometown in Tennessee. Steven and I could get out of this stupid, empty ratrace. No more traffic, no more porn stars butting in front of you in line at Trader Joe's. I could just till a garden and work at some quiet little po-dunk library or something, and Steven could work on his model airplanes and sell them at craft bazaars. It would be heaven.
ANYTHING is better than this.