On September 3rd, 1972 – I was born Aria Melonfish D’Antonio. As a stroke of blind luck on my part the Melonfish was omitted from the birth certificate despite my parents having every intention of branding me with this unfortunate moniker for all eternity. Makes sense I suppose, being I was concieved in a teepee on Marthas Vinyard. So thank you kind hospital administrator with enough mercy to strike that one from the record; I really do appreciate it. Unfortunately the name stuck with me as in “Aria Melonfish you listen to me when I’m talking to you” and “Aria Melonfish, you put some clothes on RIGHT NOW!” or the ever popular “Aria Melonfish D’Antonio! Stop talking to your imaginary friends in the front yard, the neighbors think your posessed!”.

Throughout the years I’ve been called just about every variation you can think of. Some of the better pronounciations remain ah-ree-ay, AH-ria, AIR-ee-uh, uh-REE-uh, and ay-riuh. At least those are honest attempts and, however strangely, actually derived from the word aria. Most people give up entirely and decide to call me something they think suits me better, as if their caveman brains say – ‘no wait too much comprehend use some else name’. The list for these is a long one and the possibilities are ENDLESS. Arianna, ariella, adrianna and yes, the dreaded AERIOLA – to name a few. The ultimate, and I’m not kidding when I say I’ve heard this one a gazillion times, is Ariel followed by the ubiquitous “Oh like the Little Mermaid? I love that movie!”

Eventually I stopped correcting everyone; it was just awkward and hard to do without traces of “what are you fucking crazy?” in my voice. So certain people, mostly at work, I just let call me whatever they want and like I said not ten minutes ago to my newest coworker – I say – “Yes, JUST like the Little Mermaid!”

**Update: I just recieved a piece of inter-office mail addressed to Ariba.

{tags teepee marthas vinyard little mermaid}

• 7:30am, I-10 E
  Ryan Seacrest, Beyonce, 50Cent, Snoop, defy death creepily unaffected, spill coffee, Ryan Seacrest, cell phone, slam breaks, Shakira, 50Cent, Justin Timberlake, Ryan Seacrest, Britney, Beyonce, sneeze 586 times, 50Cent, Beyonce, 50Cent, Beyonce, Britney. And so it goes as I swerve my way through downtown traffic – screeching into the parking garage at work with the other sardines. Wait untill this morning’s crazy motherfucker is at a safe distance. Today a barefoot businessman slash bushman with really nice rollywheel luggage is yelling into a cellphone. He looks curiously like the Quentin Tarentino I saw driving maniacly down Beverly in his big yellow Pussy Wagon screaming at his cellphone. No joke. I Stomp inside.

  Get to my desk and grep kill grep kill grep kill kill kill. Escalator, elevator, escalator, elevator, escalator, elevator, escalator, elevator, grep kill grep kill grep kill kill kill. And thats me for the next 6 – 10 hrs.

  6:30pm, I-10 W
  Opressive heat; I have to pee. Traffic. I join EVERYONE IN SANTA MONICA at the supermarket for food. The lady in front of me pays with a check. A fucking check! I have to pee so bad. I finally get home and I’m locked out. Oh. My. God. Blanca, our housekeeper, has hermetically sealed the place up tighter than a fallout shelter. Shit Shit Shit. I can’t help wondering if the end of the world is near and I feel like I’m in that Day After Tomorrow movie. I consider peeing under the tree out back like my cat does; instead I sit in the car and cry, blasting 50Cent untill Chris saves me from myself.

  {tags santa monica grep 50 cent beyonce}

Today is one of those days where your cruising along and all is well with the world. Good coffee, good handle on the days work, sense of order, sunshine, kittens, unicorns; you get the picture mellow people. And then kapow! Something sends you spiraling into the cold, black heart of darkness.

Those of you who know me are are probably stuck wondering where I get the nerve refering to myself as either delicate or flowerlike. Brick shit house – I’ve been told. But delicate flower? Not even on my most graceful of days.

I was being ironic since right now I could scorch out the eyes of the innocent with a white-hot fury of one thousand suns. Thats how frustrated I am and how demonic my subsiquent glare has become. Boo!

{tags unicorns sunshine demonic kittens}

• I have to first preface this with a statement of love and respect for the most brilliant, handsome, hilarious, caring, understanding, patient, FUCKING SAINT of a man that is my husband. I am so thankfull to find him and to those of you still looking – don’t worry, you will too.

  Now thats settled: I challenge you to come to my house and watch some TV. Thats all, turn it on and watch a show of your choosing. If by chance you stumble upon the correct combination of remotes and button pushing and somehow manage to traverse the labrynth of cables and connectors between the mind bending array of computers/cable box/tivo/xbox/playstation/projector/audio, not hanging yourself either by accident or intentionally – I will bake you a cake. High-five.

  AND I’d say that you; the quivering mass on my livingroom floor are ready to salvage whats left of your functioning body parts and attempt to watch a dvd. For this I’ll equip you with alcohol and a Linux handbook. And I promise not to mock you – at least not to your face.

  {tags playstation tivo xbox linux labrynth}

now I’m feeling slightly deranged. I did find $5 on the ground though, which is wierd because I never find anything and I also found a girls purse this week. Conflicted, yes – but I called a number on her cell and returned it like a good girl. The whole process took way too much time and I was not pleased but could use the deposit into my carmic bank account these days. Especially after following that woman home in a maniacal road rage and sitting slinked down at the wheel outside her house waiting for her to come outside so I could interrogate her on her driving methods and generally go batshit. I’ll just let the reader wonder if I really did that or not.

The mayoral inauguration of Antonio Villaraigosa is this morning and the street I work on is blocked off. The Terminator is here along with a whole parade of politicians slash actors slash whatevers so I’ll never make it too the freeway. He’s not even in office one day he’s already fucked up the streets. Here’s a neat image from earth.google:

• Speaking of work, yesterday was bad day in the open systems storage dept of a life insurance conglomerate. I’ve been having trouble all week with mysterious hardware errors. Yesterday backups stopped dead in their tracks and I was forced to find the problem – for real this time. Upon further inspection I discover these very tiny plastic pieces below have broken this very large piece of machinery: what.ever.

  

  • {tags storagetek legato google earth}