before it becomes !!resentment!!

listen -

i love you
and you're my friend
so this is important.

i have always, without question, with unfaltering devotion and sincerity
supported you
in all of your endeavors, creative and otherwise
because i respect you as an artist and - more importantly - as a friend.

never have i told you "can't" or "shouldn't" or "don't"
never have i challenged your artistic integrity
never have i patronized your ideas
never have i tried to hold you back or tether you down

so i'm struggling with the fact that you find yourself
incapable of or unwilling to
do the same for me.

is it so ??difficult??
..to recognize that my ideas are just as valid as yours? to make way for someone else's creativity in addition to your own? to support me, your close friend and artistic peer, in my endeavors? to keep your judgmental comments to yourself? to allow me to make my own decisions, cultivate my own visions, without your help? to refrain from patronizing me? to trust me?

because, contrary to what you may think, i'm not stupid. i'm actually very smart. so you telling me that i "can't" do something only makes me more determined to do it. i hope you know that.

you've announced your opinion to me with the intention of "protecting" me from failure. but it isn't about what you perceive as failure, or success. for me, failure is allowing the opinions of skeptics dictate my actions. failure is succumbing to fear. failure is not following through with something i'm passionate about because of what others may think of me.

so if i do this, to my fullest creative potential, in all artistic honesty, and everyone hates it and calls it complete shit, that isn't a failure - to me. because at least i've done it. and shouldn't art strive for that, rather than appeasing the masses (or perhaps a few people)? shouldn't art be about process, not necessarily product? but, i digress.

all i'm asking is that you show me the same respect and support that i've shown you for as long as i've known you. i'm not an underling of yours, i'm not a child - i'm your peer, and i deserve to be treated thusly. i will not tolerate being patronized. and i shouldn't have to justify my artistic decisions to earn your trust. after all, i've trusted you from the beginning, and -- -- --

i shouldn't even be having to address all of this, really.

...but i hope you've listened...

chris brown. rihanna. shit.

so let's get this straight:

chris brown's adolescent punk ass beats on his girlfriend rihanna - beats the SHIT out of her - and then she takes him back.

what.the.fuck.

?

i hate to say it but i think the trauma she suffered to her head has affected her decision-making abilities dramatically.

look, i can comprehend that most abused women take their abusers back after the bruises and dignity have healed.  i can't accept it, but i can comprehend it.  of course they're in a warped state of mind, and of course the prospect of leaving the abuser can seem more threatening than the risk of death at his hands, but it seems uncanny to me that a nation of people pleading for rihanna to leave chris brown won't sway her decision.

she has a responsibility to herself.

and, importantly, a responsibility to the little girls who look up to her.

what happens when some other young, naive girl is faced with such a dilemma and has no example to follow but that of rihanna's because that's all she knows?  what happens when an opportunity for that little girl to become empowered turns into her being overpowered by shame, fear, and isolation caused by her abuser again and again?  all the "sorry's" in the world can't erase the physical, psychological, and emotional damage she'll suffer, no matter how young and "misguided" her abuser.

as far as i'm concerned, there is NO EXCUSE for domestic abuse, emotional or physical.

and chris brown, though a product of unfortunate circumstances, is absolutely not exempt from the punishment he deserves as an abuser.  radio stations have boycotted his music, he's "backed out" of the nickelodeon teen choice awards and his place in the music industry has been dramatically compromised.  frankly, his record label would be smart to drop him.  but they probably won't - he's a money-maker.  and that's fucking sick and sad, but it's the horrible truth.

and to ice the proverbial cake, they've just recorded a duet together.  how precious.

barf.  seriously.  i mean, way to send mixed fucking messages to your public, guys.  i know chris is trying his darnest to cover his girl-beating ass, and rihanna probably feels guilty for all the trouble her poor baby is in, but what the hell?  it's disgusting and infuriating and it almost makes me want to smack the poor girl upside the head to try to knock some sense back into her, because i'm sort of wondering if she's just lost her mind at this point.

he's a CRIMINAL, rihanna.  the "umbrella/cinderella remix" days are long, long gone.  and you need to get yo' ass out of his life before his balls drop, his voice changes, and he really decides to beat on you.  because next time, you won't make it out alive.

and we all know jay-z is hankerin' to blow that punk ass bitch out of the water.

just give him a reason.

who killed jenny schecter?

a question that's been on the minds of L-word fans for months

because (let's be real)

we ALL wanted to do it.

now i'm not saying she was always despicable - she wasn't.  we all remember the early days of jenny, the quirky-edgy-rad-fashionable-tragically beautiful days.  we were small-town midwesterners in a brave new lez world with her, we were tortured souls drinking from her idea well, we were her chain-smokin'/self-mutilatin'/sandra bernhard-lovin' alter ego.  FOR THREE/FOUR (depending on your personal tolerance level) FECKING SEASONS.  

and then she snapped.

once production officially started on "lez/le/les girls" there was no longer any hope for a jenny character turnaround.  at this point, BITCH!jenny was an unstoppable force in self-righteous motion.  so, like any other L-word fan with an asshole-tolerance level on the low scale, i resigned myself to hating the be-otch.  

and i do -

but still -

WHAT the FUCK, ilene?  are you fo realz, girl?  because your big, mystery dinner theatre, whodunit bullshit tagline was "who killed jenny?" and your punk ass STILL.HASN'T.TOLD.US.

first of all, the plot line was an idiotic one, let's be honest.  i get it: showtime needed one more season of lesbian squabblery/sexy drama and you needed to deliver because you pinky swore them cross-your-heart you would.  but instead of what we deserved and expected - more of the same trashiness we looked forward to every sunday - you took a big fat shit on our lesbian parade.  for what sadistic purposes, i'm not sure.  all i know is you're an asshole.

listen, i would have been so perfectly content with one more season of less-than-enthralling plots, high-frequency sex scenes, strangely non-committal work and parenting habits, fashion, and the planet.  that would have been just stellar.  instead, ilene, you decided to throw a wild card at us.  it smelled like poo from the beginning, through the middle, and to the end.  oh wait, i forgot, you don't follow basic storytelling structure.  so i guess it was just shit all along.  

and after all that, after i conceded my frustration with the bullshit that was the jenny death subplot, even after i realized that the shitty writing of season one would be no comparison to the clusterfuck of crap that was this season, even after i STILL didn't get see jennifer beals' nipples, i reluctantly resigned myself to "you know what, at least i'll get to see who killed jenny, 'cus that bitch had.it.comin."  and your lazy ass failed to deliver.  it's obvious you didn't even decide to begin with.  someone should get to take credit for that, ilene, and just because you wrote the pilot six years ago doesn't mean it should be you.  

i mean, shit, i would've accepted "colonel mustard in the conservatory with the lead pipe" if it meant a solid answer to your fucking joke of a question.  listen, television isn't rhetorical, ilene. if you didn't already know that, maybe you should go take a class with sandra bernhard (i mean, charlotte birch...) and she can tell you all about the inner workings of a story with plot.  meanwhile, i'm going to beat myself in the head with my dvds of season one and try to dull the painful memory of the shit pile that was season six.  

so go fuck yourself, ilene.

oh, and just for the record,

i think the pomeranian sounder killed jenny.  that would make about as much logical sense as all of the other ass-shavings you ladled into this season.  jesus.