Girl with a Gun

I mentioned in a recent post that I wanted to learn to shoot a gun. So, last weekend, two of my friends and I took Beginner Firearms Training at a local Firing Range. The Range Master who taught our class was less hardcore than I expected, and actually made me giggle more than once. We learned the parts of the gun, the parts of a cartridge (often mistakenly called a bullet), how to load a gun, how to hold a gun, and finally, how to shoot a gun. In the classroom, my friends and I were laughing and joking as we took our stances, arms out in a triangular shape holding the gun tightly with both hands. But when it came time to actually go into the firing range and shoot a gun, the laughing was over.

The noise alone in the range was enough to send shivers of fear down my spine, but it was the reality of actually holding a loaded weapon in my hand that really terrified me. I was both nervous and excited as I picked up the 22 caliber revolver and loaded the cartridges one by one into their chambers. I began to sweat, and my hands were shaking as I pointed the gun toward the target about fifteen feet away. I squeezed the trigger, and a nanosecond later, my bullet landed smack in the middle of the target. The instructor came by to give me some pointers on pulling the trigger – it’s a lot harder than you’d think – and with a steady hand, tight grip, and powerful stance, I shot off the rest of the bullets with amazing accuracy.

My arms were tired, my hands were cramping, and my heart was racing. It was almost as thrilling as great, passionate sex with a first-time lover! I couldn’t wait to try the next gun, a 22 caliber Ruger. I loaded the magazine and slammed it into the handle of the gun. The trigger on this piece was much easier to pull, and I popped off the bullets, hitting my target smack in the center each time.

After that exhilarating experience, it was time to get out the big guns. The range master had two nine millimeter firearms to choose from. A Baretta and a Gloch. Of course, I had to try both! A larger bullet means more kick, but I was determined not to let the recoil throw me off. I emptied my magazines, shells flying wildly, while maintaining my steady aim, firm grip and deadly accuracy. I can’t remember a time I felt more alive.

Would I ever own a gun? I don’t know. I don’t feel I need it for protection. I live in a safe neighborhood. And I’d probably one of those fools that shot herself with her own weapon. So, no, I don’t think I’ll keep one in my home. But will I shoot a gun again?

Hell yeah!

Ciao,
Lucie

What Not To Watch

I happen to have access to cable these days, and what I’ve discovered is…I haven’t been missing a thing. Good Lord, how many reality TV shows do we actually need? It seems that 50% of the shows on cable are how-to shows on how to decorate, sell, flip or remodel your house. Another 30% are freakish shows with a Hollywood bent such as VH1s Rock of Love in which Brett Michaels is looking for his soul mate, Flavor of Love in which Flavor Flav hooks up with a bevy some very unappealing women, and Scott Baio is 45 and Single in which Scott is trying to figure out why he’s such an ass to women.

Another 10% are makeover shows – some clever, some boring. As a girly girl, I love a good makeover, but the most popular one, What Not To Wear, is just plain boring. The two American hosts are snide and catty, but not in a funny way like their British counterparts, Trinny and Susannah. I loved the British show of the same name because Trinny and Susannah were not only damn clever, but funny as hell, too. They steered fashion-wayward men and women on the right track with an airy, fun spirit that inspired the participants to change their ways, whereas Stacy and Clinton just seem to keep haranguing their victims until they finally give up and follow their advice. There were several times during one show where I wanted stab Stacy with a stiletto if she wouldn’t stop harping on the same topic over and over again, and Clinton, well, he just deserves a good slap, if you ask me.

But that’s not the worst (or best) of it. VH1 has a show called The Pick Up Artist in which 8 complete losers are schooled in the art of picking up girls by a man named Mystery. Now, Mystery and his cronies look like they just stepped out of a U2 music video circa 1988 with their mesh of glam, punk and grunge attire. They are certainly gawk-worthy simply because they seem to reside in another dimension where men over 30 don’t have jobs, treat women like DVDs (play them & return them the next day), and wear giant fuzzy hats in the middle of summer. All that said, I actually like this show. And I think every man on the planet should have to watch it if only to learn what not to say to a woman. The 8 men (I use this term loosely) Mystery is tutoring are absolutely pathetic. They’re awkward, nerdy, and in desperate need for a makeover, which Mystery gives them. But despite their new threads, they are still painfully shy about approaching women and continue to fumble clumsily through conversations in which I’m sure the women are silently begging for the place to be hit by a runaway asteroid, sparing them the misery of talking to these wretched souls.

But finally, cable does have one thing going in its favor. Burn Notice is a hip show set in Miami starring a rather fetching Jeffrey Donovan as an ex-spy scraping by on (very) odd jobs while trying to discover who done him wrong in the agency. And, of course, it also stars cult hero Bruce Campbell from Evil Dead fame. Packed with guns, fist fights, martial arts, guns, sex, comedy, guns, and even an explosion or two, what’s not to like?

Life and Death and Not Even a Cute Doc to Comfort Me!

So, my last post was a bit of a rant about being bored at work. Well, would you believe that not fifteen minutes after posting that, I got a call from an ER doc in Sun Valley, an apocalyptic, Mad Max-looking kind of place, saying that my mom was very sick? So, of course I shot out of my office and zoomed up the 5 freeway to this dust covered city and careened into the parking lot of a hospital that looked like it could be the main character in a horror flick. I found my way to the ER, which was stashed behind the hospital, surely in an effort to keep the wounded at bay, and found the doc who called me. He took me into see my mom who was lying on a gurney with an oxygen mask on. She’d been stripped of her clothes and placed in a hospital gown. The nurse gave me a bag full of her clothing and handed her ten-pound purse to me. After they transferred her up to ICU, I was tasked with filling in the nurse on duty with my mom’s medical history, of which I know very little.

That was 13 days ago, and my mother is still on life-support, still fighting to recover from a very nasty case of pneumonia. And I’ve been driving up to that industrial wasteland called Sun Valley every day to see her. And do you know what truly sucks about this whole thing? Not that my mom is sick – because I know she’ll get better. Believe me, this isn’t the first time my mother has been on life-support. She’s like the fucking terminator or Bionic Woman. Nothing can kill this woman! What really sucks is that all the while I’ve been trekking up to this god-forsaken hospital, I have yet to meet a single cute doctor. I know this is because working in Sun Valley is about as appealing as chewing on a piece of gum you just scraped off your shoe. Now, if my mom were in Cedars-Sinai (where she’s spent many a night before), I just know there’d be at least one cute doc roaming those hallways. Maybe he wouldn’t look like George Clooney, but still, he’d at least be under the age of fifty and probably a pretty snappy dresser.

So, in an effort to cheer myself up, I rented Crank with Jason Statham last night. I’d seen this movie at the theater when it came out, but I just love that bald baddie, so I had to indulge once again. This time, watching him kick ass, drive his car up onto an escalator, fuck his girlfriend in China Town and jump out of a helicopter wasn’t just an action-packed escape from my ordinary life. It was a cathartic experience. He was kicking ass for me. His steel hard-on was for me. His rampage through Los Angeles, my home, was all about making me feel better. And today, I feel rejuvenated. I feel like I can go out and kick some ass. So you know what I’m gonna do? I’m going to learn to shoot a gun. That’s right. Not because I want one to protect myself from intruders, but because I just want to crank out some bullets and show that paper target who’s boss!

So the next time you see Lucie on the street, watch out because she just might be packin’!

Ciao,
Lucie

Idle Hands

I really want to go home. I’ve been sitting in my office for five and a half hours already, and I’m so bored I’m actually thinking of doing some work. To be honest, I already did about a half hour or so of work today, and if you ask me, that’s plenty. Sure, there are stacks of folders on my desk just begging me to open them and get to work on a few nagging issues in each one, but I just don’t feel like it. At the moment, I’m not facing any deadlines. I could loll around all damn day if I wanted to. But do you realize how tedious it is to sit behind a big, fat desk for 10 hours a day when you really don’t have anything specific to do?

I could work on my novel. So why don’t I? Well, I’m a little fried. I’ve been working on that thing for four years. This is, in fact, the third time I’ve re-written it. And I spent all last week cutting and creating. I sliced 33,000 words from the beast and wrote about 15,000. So, to be honest, my brain just needs a rest. But taking a break while at work can be tricky.

I have a nice, big private office, and if I really wanted to be bold, I could just close my door. No one would have a clue what I was doing. But I at least want to appear as if I’m working, so I keep it open. I stare at my keyboard, fingers at the ready, just in case anyone walks by and peers in to see what I’m up to. But I’m not really just staring at my computer. I’ve checked my personal email about 50 times. I’ve surfed the net looking for shoes, I’ve stocked my queue with DVDs, I’ve checked my bank balance, I’ve read the top headlines, and I’ve even contemplated emailing an old lover for, uh, recreational purposes. I didn’t though – not because I thought it would be a bad idea (which it would), but because I thought he might not respond. How crushing would that be?

And typing up this little diversion has only sucked up about fifteen minutes of my day. Curses! I need a new job. Or, I need to not need a job. That’s what I need.

Ciao,
Lucie