You're Only Dating Yourself

Somewhere in all my self-help travels, I had an epiphany about Semi-Homeless and every other Mr. Wrong I dated and mated.

On some level, I was dating who I was at the time.

Hard to wash that one down on an empty stomach, given the calvacade of losers that have made pit stops between my sheets.

But it's true.

When I met Semi-Homeless, I was a broke, broken, irresponsible, lost person who was sponging off my Great Aunt. And the only real difference between me and Semi-Homeless was the degree to which we were both broke, broken, irresponsible, lost and sponging off other people.

I looked better. I smelled better. I had a degree. But on a certain level, Semi-Homeless and I had a lot in common: We were both bums.

Opposites don't attract. The head on the coin and the tail on the coin look different on the surface, but they're made out of the same material and they're hiding out in the same wallet.

Are you dating a loser? Someone who's bad for you? Someone who seems to be your opposite?

Chances are, you're dating your own insecurities, your own disappointments, your own unresolved issues.

Get better.

I did.

(Semi-Homeless Diaries Parts 1-12: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Lessons Learned Part 2 of 2: 1 2)

---

Please "Like" Don't Be a Slut on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

When in Crisis, Wait ... Don't Date

The most important lesson I learned from my Semi-Homeless debacle is that it's impossible to make good dating decisions when you're in the midst of a major life crisis.

When you're home situation is so bad you're spending 12 hours a day in the mall, you don't need a man. You need a new place to live.

When you're deeply depressed and suffering from an STD, you don't need a man. You need a doctor.

When you're broke and your career is in shambles, you don't need a man. You need a job.

Having a man is not going to make the mess you've made of your own life magically turn out alright.

It's up to you to save yourself.

Because the bum you pick up off the street – in my case, literally, not figuratively – is not going to make your life easier. He's going to be one more nasty, smelly problem for you to solve.

Please do yourself a favor, and just start solving the problems you already have.

(Semi-Homeless Diaries Parts 1-12: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Lessons Learned Part 1 of 2: 1 2)

---

Please "Like" Don't Be a Slut on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

The Beginning of the Rest of My Life

Obviously, I didn't kill myself. After that rock-bottom night, I began the hard, slow task of pulling my life back together.

The first thing I did was decide that the quality of my life mattered more to me than my so-called acting career. And quality of life meant getting out of my Great Aunt's house and getting my own apartment. And getting my own apartment meant getting a real job with a real paycheck. And getting a real job with a real paycheck meant putting myself first. And putting myself first meant no more following other people's agendas for my life.

I definitively cut Semi-Homeless out of my life.

He continued to stalk me by telephone, sobbing into my answering machine and begging for this, that and the other. One day, he even resorted to leaving me a gift basket along with a poignant love letter: "You dropped something – my heart."

Oh, ick.

My mystery STD turned out to be trichomoniasis. A week of antibiotics vanquished the horrible parasite that had been stinking up my panties for nine months.

I advised Semi-Homeless to get tested, and replaced him with a guy from my acting class.

A white guy from my acting class. A 6'2", 200-pound, body-builder white guy who once doubled for Ah-nuld as a stunt man.

Was it a long-lasting, close, satisfying relationship?

No.

It was a relationship of sexual convenience.

But at least it was sane. Stunt Man looked good, smelled good, turned me on, owned his own home, and most importantly, had good sense.

I started packing. I didn't have a place to go yet, and I didn't have a job yet. But I was 100% clear that my days as a nursemaid were over.

Mr. Sweet Talker tried to lay the guilt on thick. "You are all that old lady has got. Don't leave her. She loves you. If you leave her, I don't know what will happen. You know, she doesn't have long to live."

Thank God, I didn't listen. Great Aunt outlived Mr. Sweet Talker. She outlived Neighborhood Watch. She even outlived her nephew, my Uncle Gaunt, who moved in after I left. She lived to be nearly 101. It took another 12 years before she finally passed away.

If I had stayed, she certainly would have outlived me. Because I would have slit my own throat.

Less than a month after nearly ending it all, I got a $35/hour gig, proofreading and formatting a sales proposal for AT&T. That was my moving money. And this time, I didn't let an abusive psychic con me out of it.

A few weeks after that, I had a job offer. It was a sucky secretarial job, but it was enough to live on. (And it led to me finding the love of my life. More on him later.)

A month after that, I found my own apartment, in the Mar Vista area of West Los Angeles, 12 miles and a world away from the grime and crime of South Central. I moved in September 1997, and it was the beginning of the rest of my life.

Not an easy life. Not a perfect life.

But a much, much better life than the casting couch / semi-homeless nightmare I'd just barely survived.

(Semi-Homeless Diaries Part 12 of 12: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

---

Please "Like" Don't Be a Slut on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

The Bleakest Night

Of course, Semi-Homeless refused to go quietly into the night.

When I realized I couldn't take him anywhere, because he wasn't even housebroken, I broke up with him. Not that that did any good.

He begged me to meet his mom. So the next day, off we went to the ghetto boondocks, better known as Lynwood, CA. I met his mom and sisters, who seemed like normal black folks of normal intelligence. His mom even confided, in an embarrassed voice, "I don't know why he turned out that way."

I broke up with him again. The next day, I woke up to three answering-machine messages, which I promptly deleted.

A few days later, I met a self-proclaimed mogul and would-be Motown impresario the same way I had met Stripper Pimp nine months before: from a bogus casting notice in the Hollywood trades. He talked the same sleazy game as Stripper Pimp. He would make me a star, but first, I had to prove I had the good sense to put out.

The thought of screwing that short, fat, no-name loser thrilled me about as much as tongue-kissing the foul-breathed Semi-Homeless. This new loser got three weeks of my time – time where he tried to rope me into a stupid pyramid scheme, time where I started learning Mary Wells songs because he promised I'd play her in a show, time listening to his lectures about how I needed to be smart enough to screw the right people, namely him.

At least this time, I didn't take the bait. I'd already tried selling my body, and all I had to show for it was seven months of a mystery STD that no amount of denial, herbs or supplements would heal.

I went out with Semi-Homeless one last time. He gave me a miniature rose-bud plant. I had no desire to care of it, just as I no longer had the desire to take care of him.

Ten days later, I told him yet again to get lost, that I didn't want to see him or talk to him "for the time being."

He asked, "Would a year be ok?"

A year might have been fine. But ten days later, there he was calling again and again and again and again and again. Leaving message after message that I never returned.

He was the last straw. The final proof that I was a loser. That my life was a joke.

I'd just turned 26. I'd been out of college four years. I'd been in Los Angeles one year.

And I had no money. No man. No job. No apartment. No acting credits. No career.

Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Except an endless, godawful future of taking care of my senile Great Aunt. An endless stream of stinky white stuff gushing into pantyliners. An endless, repetitive cycle of dating the wrong men. The endless disappointment of watching my dreams turn to dust.

I spent the darkest night of my life in my tiny little powder-blue bedroom. Crying.

All I could thing about was all the different ways I could end this misery. I could slash my wrists with a kitchen knife; I could O.D. on Great Aunt's blood-pressure medication; I could drink cleaning solution; I could drive down PCH and jump off the rocks into the icy, dark Pacific Ocean; I could stop my car on the train tracks and be demolished by a slow-moving freight.

There were all kinds of possibilities.

Or I could just try to spend as much time as possible in bed until the mood passed.

(Semi-Homeless Diaries Part 11 of 12: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

---

Please "Like" Don't Be a Slut on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

Malibu Boo-Boo

I'd been dating Semi-Homeless for four months, and it was starting to occur to me that if I hitched my wagon to his star, I'd soon be dragging the ground and eating dust while my head bounced off the concrete. For the first time since I gave up my virginity, I had no desire for sex at all. Zero libido. Zero.

Could it possibly be that my soulmate wasn't really my soulmate?

Two incidents answered that question once and for all.

The first was the arrival of my uncle, whom I'd only met once or twice in my life. He straggled into town on a Greyhound bus and came to see Great Aunt. I didn't know very much about him, and what I did know wasn't encouraging: He was a lifelong drug addict, and he and my dad didn't get along.

Needless to say, I was not looking forward to our reunion. I was afraid he'd steal my computer and rob Great Aunt blind.

My uncle was so tall and so bony, he looked like a skeleton. I'd never seen anyone so gaunt. But while I never felt comfortable around him, I quickly realized that Uncle Gaunt wasn't the crackhead ogre I made him out to be. Like the rest of the family, he was very intelligent (and hard to take).

I was driving Uncle Gaunt somewhere, and made a pit-stop at a strip mall where Semi-Homeless was painting a sign. Semi-Homeless made a point of introducing himself as my fiance, and Uncle Gaunt gave me a piercing look that plainly asked, "Have you lost your mind?"

I figured that if my down-and-out crackhead uncle thought I was nuts, maybe I truly was.

A few weeks later, on the four-year anniversary of my Yale graduation, came proof positive.

I drove Semi-Homeless to a beach in Malibu, for what was supposed to be an afternoon of relaxation. He had sprung for the food with his own money: fried chicken, supermarket sushi, cookies, Reese's, potato chips and soda. We had our little picnic, which consisted of him getting food all over his mouth and singing trite little love songs like an off-key 12-year-old. Turnoff, turnoff, turnoff.

Then he talked me into a massage. I half fell asleep as he rubbed my back, when suddenly he stopped. After a bit, I sat up and looked around to see where he was.

He was sandwiched between two sheriff's deputies, a big blond lady officer and a male officer. They were pat-searching him. I called out his name, and they all turned and looked at me. He held out his hands as if to command me to stop, and the three up them disappeared up a cliff and out of sight.

Clearly, the relaxing part of the afternoon was over. I gathered up what was left of our picnic and headed toward the car, wondering if Semi-Homeless had gotten arrested and wondering what for.

Indecent exposure? It was quite possible he might have whipped out his favorite plaything while giving me a massage.

Thankfully, he wasn't arrested. He was sitting on my car, scowling, pouting and looking really ugly.

As we drove back to L.A., he told me his sad tale of woe. He said he could feel the cops watching us for about 15 or 20 minutes, so he got up and walked toward them so they wouldn't bother me. He asked them where the restroom was, and instead of pointing him to the in-plain-sight porta potties, they told him he looked "suspicious" and ordered him to open up his jacket.

Semi-Homeless replied that he had his hands in his pocket, holding his genitals, because if he let go he would pee on himself. The lady cop ordered him to let go anyway and laughed as he did just that.

The story ended with, "If anyone asks, this spot on my pants is Coke."

(Semi-Homeless Diaries Part 10 of 12: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

---

Please "Like" Don't Be a Slut on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

My (Thirty) Five-Year-Old Boy

The problem with Semi-Homeless was that he didn't need a wife. He needed a mommy. And the problem with me was that I believed God was playing some hideous trick on me by sending me that fool and calling him my soul mate. It never occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, dating a smelly dufus wasn't a life sentence from Almighty God, it was a personal choice.

Semi-Homeless and I settled into a dysfunctional and totally stifling routine.

Initially, on days when he worked and actually got paid, I might spend the night with him in a $30/night ghetto motel. Where he might suck on my toes even though I've always hated people touching my feet. Or worse, despite the fact that he never brushed his teeth, he might lick my privates, while I secretly worried about germs making my already-infected lady parts even more drippy and disgusting.

I say initially, because eventually it devolved to me paying for the ghetto motel more often than not, with money I didn't have. He was always going to pay me back, but somehow never did. And it wasn't just motels. Often, I found myself reaching into my purse $3 at a time, even as I fumed, Why am I buying a hamburger for a 35-year-old grown man?

He wasn't just a drain on the little money I had, he was also a drain on the money I was trying to earn.

I had decided, at the urging of Mr. Sweet Talker, to stay with my Great Aunt. Mr. Sweet Talker bribed me with a salary of $800 a month, on top of the free room and board I already had. It was just enough to pay my car note, my phone bill, my acting class. In exchange, I tried to turn over a new leaf, sitting with Great Aunt more often, cooking occasionally, taking her to the doctor.

Meanwhile, I found a part-time job reading tarot cards on a psychic line. I could set my own hours, and I could work from home. It wasn't the easiest job in the world, listening to the problems of redneck housewives and ghetto girls, of blue-collar cowboys and hard-luck home boys, none of whom could afford $3.99-per-minute amateur advice. My tiny piece of the action was $.25 per minute, and the clock started only when a client was on the other end of the phone.

In order to make money, I needed to be disciplined and work at least six hours a day. Most days, I worked no hours a day. Or two hours. Or three.

There were the inevitable Great-Aunt distractions. She constantly wandered uninvited into my room to ask pointless questions, even when I was on the phone. Or I'd plan to spend the morning on the line, but instead find myself searching every conceivable and inconceivable place in the house for her missing teeth, only to find them three hours later wrapped in paper towel at the bottom of the kitchen trash can.

But Great Aunt was nothing compared to Semi-Homeless.

In addition to paging me 10 zillion times a day and leaving 10 zillion messages on my answering machine, our dates and get-togethers were a study in wasted time. A one-hour dinner break would turn into a three-hour, multi-stop excursion through the streets of South Central L.A., as I ferried him here, there and everywhere on his various shoeshine-boy errands.

By the time our relationship finally ran its course, he had progressed (or regressed) from paying for motels to me paying for motels to sleeping in my Great Aunt's garage to showing up unannounced in the middle of the night so I could let him in the house.

What finally made me give Semi-Homeless the boot? Urine and a drug-addicted uncle.

(Semi-Homeless Diaries Part 9 of 12: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

---

Please "Like" Don't Be a Slut on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

10 Signs You Might Be Dating a Hood Rat

I've never understood all the silly R&B songs of the last 15 years or so about wanting to date a roughneck, a thug, a soldier, whatever. Take it from me, ghetto boys are nightmares. Semi-Homeless put the toe in ghetto. Here are some of the lowlights of our relationship.

1. He called me Boo. I hated being called Boo. (For those of you new to my blog, this was 1997, when Boo was common slang for boyfriend or girlfriend. There was even a stupid song called, "My Boo.")
   
2. Semi-Homeless took CP Time to a new level. His five minutes was always 15. His hour was always three hours.
   
3. He didn't live Biblically, but boy, could he quote the Bible. He declared my new job as a tarot reader to be the devil's work and would quote Revelations to prove it.
   
4. Semi-Homeless engaged in chronic pager abuse. My pager would ring 5, 10, 15 times a day with some random number followed by 911 - 911 - 911. When I'd call back and ask what the emergency was, he'd go, "Honey, I miss you!"
   
5. When I screamed at him to stop paging me and asked him why he kept paging me when he knew I didn't want him paging me, his answer was: "Because that was the only way I could get your attention."
   
6. Then, he added in his most humble, apologetic voice: "I apologize for being in love with you."
   
7. His no-car-having self thought I was the equivalent of a ghetto chauffeur. "Uh, Boo, stop here so I can ask this guy about the money he owes me."
   
8. Semi-Homeless would pretend he was "just joking" if I called him on his crap. Like the time he asked if he could crash at my Great Aunt's house, then pretended he wasn't serious when I asked him what would possess him to even ask me that. "Oh, Boo, I was joking! I was joking!"
   
9. He thought dining out was going to Popeye's or Burger King. A special date called for Friday's.
   
10. He was always whipping out his private parts, demanding that I kiss and pet him.

My nerves were worn down to a frazzle. Semi-Homeless annoyed the piss out of me. But I tried to convince myself that he was The One because after all, he said he loved me.

(Semi-Homeless Diaries Part 8 of 12: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

---

Please "Like" Don't Be a Slut on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

Instantly Engaged

Five days after I met Semi-Homeless, we were engaged. In a self-proclaimed, no-ring-in-sight, no-date-set, don't-know-his-last-name, ghetto sort of way. I didn't tell anyone, not even the best friend who had recently steered me through my casting-couch crisis.

I was too embarrassed. Even I knew I wasn't making any sense.

Semi-Homeless was either a genius or a retard, I'm not sure which. There were moments of deep conversation where he seemed extraordinarily bright. He claimed to have scored a 1360 on the SAT and to have once held a six-figure job.

But the Semi-Homeless I knew was a common, dirty, smelly day laborer with no car and no place of his own. He made his living painting signs and doing odd jobs.

The day he proposed, I met him for brunch at a little diner where he was painting. He said he'd be through in an hour, and we'd go to the movies. I came back two hours later, and he was still painting. An hour later, I drove him to the vacuum shop that seemed to be his second no-home away from no-home, so he could change his clothes.

We barely made it to the movies before it started, and he spent his days' wages on tickets, popcorn and candy. In the middle of the movie, he decided to get nachos, which meant standing up and blocking my view of the screen. Not to mention, talking during the movie and trying to hold my hand. At some point, he even spilled his drink on me.

By the time the movie ended, I was pissed. But in the car, as I drove him to his second no-home away from no-home (some middle-aged woman's residence), he suddenly turned intelligent again, and I softened.

He sprang for a seedy motel at King and Western, where he paid cash for one night's stay. Instead of going home to the dreary circus that was my 88-year-old Great Aunt, I stayed the night.

We didn't have sex, because I had an as-yet-untreated STD. I'd been oozing discharge for two months, and penetration was just too uncomfortable. So we did everything but, and in the soft haze of orgasm and 10-dozen professions of undying love, he asked me to marry him. And I said yes. Not once. Not twice. But five times.

(Semi-Homeless Diaries Part 7 of 12: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

---

Please "Like" Don't Be a Slut on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

Yuck at First Sight

Have you ever had sex with a man you were not attracted to ... at all? I have. As a matter of fact, I had sex with said man at a mall.

It was about three weeks into my mall exile, and less than two months after the casting couch. Maybe by the time Semi-Homeless came into my life, I was so beat down that I thought I couldn't do any better. Maybe I was so needy that any form of love was enough. Maybe after being surrounded by Hollywood predators, I needed someone I could push around.

Whatever the reason, Semi-Homeless ranks as my weirdest, most embarrassing, most what-the-hell-was-I-thinking relationship ever. And that's saying a lot.

I was sitting in the Crenshaw Mall food court studying my tarot cards when he came up to me. Semi-Homeless claimed to be 35, but he looked much older. He had a prominent caveman forehead and a pot belly.

So what was the draw?

You have to understand that the only thing I prayed and wished for more fervently than being a successful actress was being a wife. And the one quality that I prized in a potential husband above all else was the capacity to understand my moods and to not be fazed by them.

Semi-Homeless gave me an impromptu psychic reading, proclaiming that I was a "roller-coaster ride" and an "adventure;" that I had a jazzy singing voice; that I looked and acted just like my father; on and on and on until he said the magic phrase, that he and I were soul mates.

Then he immediately did two things right: he bought me a slice of pizza, and he massaged my back. Right before he slipped his hands underneath my shirt and inside my panties, right there in public!

He asked me if I wanted to go somewhere else, and somewhere else turned out to be a stairwell. Where he proceeded to lick parts of me that weren't supposed to be exposed on the back stairs of the Crenshaw Mall. He pulled out a condom, and I said no. I felt like the cheapest of cheap hos, and I barely just managed to pull my clothes on before a security guard came on the scene.

"I need to leave," I said.

He asked if I could drop him off at a vacuum shop a few blocks away.

Another really big turnoff. Semi-Homeless didn't have a car.

I drove him to some random house in the hood so he could pick up a key to this vacuum shop, then to the shop itself. When he asked me to "come inside for a minute" that should have been my cue to leave, but I followed him inside to a little back room, where he tried to finish what we'd started at the Crenshaw Mall.

Sexually, he did nothing for me. I didn't like the way he smelled, and his breath stank. I let him eat of the forbidden fruit, and I gave him nothing in return. I simply said, "I don't want to do this" and got dressed, while he all but burst into tears and confessed his love for me. He wanted to marry me. He was going to take care of me. He was going to come into some money, and he'd be able to help me. He tried again to hump me, and my exact words were, "Get off me!"

He was undeterred. He said with absolute certainty, "You are my soul mate, and one day we're going to look back on this and laugh."

Part of me wanted to believe him. But honestly? I was physically sick to my stomach.

(Semi-Homeless Diaries Part 6 of 12: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

---

Please "Like" Don't Be a Slut on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

The Mall Solution to My Nightmare Situation

I started living in malls the day after Great Aunt's friends accused me of beating her. It was God's will. You see, I'd read somewhere that writing with your non-dominant hand was a great way to tap into divine wisdom. So I kept asking God how to deal with my situation, and the burning bush that was my left hand answered back: Try to be gone from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day, even if all you do is sit in the mall and read.

On day two of my mall exile, I came home to an answering-machine message from Mrs. Battleaxe, who had apparently declared herself my supervisor. When I called her back, she pulled out a list and began ticking off chores.

"First of all, there's that food situation. Well, I just want to know: DO YOU KNOW HOW TO COOK?" It was deplorable for Great Aunt to be eating the TV dinners she'd been eating for decades. Now, according to Mrs. Battleaxe, "They should be for emergencies only. And about Great Aunt's skin. It looks terrible. I have never seen her skin look like that."

"Mrs. Battleaxe, I am doing the best I can."

"Well, I know you are. No one is BLAMING you. It's just that no one has told you these things before. No one has TOLD you to cook before, have they?"

I took 60 percent of the sarcasm out of my voice, then added 15 percent saccharine and 2 percent rat poison. "As much as I appreciate your instructions, Mrs. Battleaxe, I am really not absorbing them very well right now. I have had a very exhausting day. Thank you very much for calling."

God had instructed me to go to the mall. Those were the only instructions I was following.

About a week into my mall exile, Neighborhood Watch called me to apologize. He was sincerely sorry he'd accused me of hitting my aunt. And something else was on his mind. He was in love with me.

"I been wantin' to make love to you so bad, 'specially when you was wearin' all those short dresses ... Ain't no chance, huh?"

Great. He had a key to the house. And I had no lock on my bedroom door.

What I did have was a big audition. The musical Rent, which had taken Broadway by storm the previous year, was about to have its Los Angeles premiere. I was up for the role of Joanne, and I was totally freaked out. I was scrambling to find the songs, then trying to learn the songs. With a cold. In my car. While driving to and from various malls.

The nerve-wracking Rent audition happened about two weeks into my great mall escape. I gave it everything I had, but knew immediately I would not be making Los Angeles theater history.

Fortunately, I had lined up what I thought would be a well-paying day job with a completely flexible schedule. I would be a tarot-card reader on the psychic hotline made infamous by a fake Jamaican urging the desperate and foolish to "Call now for ya' free psychic readin'!"

Of course, it was impossible to work, because my aunt would wander aimlessly into my room asking if I'd seen her scissors or her checkbook while I tried not to scream. I could only work late at night, after she passed out, or very early in the morning, before I escaped to the mall. Any mall.

Three weeks into my mall-hopping adventure, I was starting to feel like a vagabond. Not surprisingly, I met a vagabond. The unattractive, smelly vagabond who became my instant lover.

(Semi-Homeless Diaries Part 5 of 12: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

---

Please "Like" Don't Be a Slut on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

The Kitchen-Table Confrontation

I didn't even have time to take my coat off before the tribunal of bourgie b*%#tches started in on me, attacking me for not properly taking care of my 88-year-old Great Aunt.

Betty Boop, the least concerned for Great Aunt's well-being, was the first to attack. You see, 11 days earlier, I had committed an unforgivable sin. I had escorted Great Aunt to Mrs. Battleaxe's New Year's Eve party looking absolutely stunning. Better than Betty Boop, if her reaction was any indication. She had pursed her lips.

Now she simpered, "I didn't like your attitude yesterday."

"Her attitude toward you?" Mr. Sweet Talker asked.

"No, she was fine toward us. Her attitude toward Great Aunt." And Betty Boop began to rattle on about how "mean-spirited" I was.

It didn't take long – probably less than five minutes – for me to completely lose my temper.

"I was asked to come here to look after Great Aunt!" I shouted.

Great Aunt suddenly showered her stubborn, ill-tempered side. "Then go home!" she croaked.

"I will gladly do so," I spat. I glared at Mrs. Battleaxe and Betty Boop and said, "Y'all can deal with this sh*t on your own."

I stormed into my room, with about 10 gallons of steam coming out of my ears.

I could hear Neighborhood Watch signifying from the kitchen. "I always knew she had it in her!" Mr. Sweet Talker remarked that he'd never seen me like this, while Betty Boop kept adding logs to the fire with her catty comments.

When I calmed down enough, I re-entered the kitchen, ready to do battle: "All the sh#t you've been saying behind my back, you can now say to my face!"

I started with Betty Boop. "There are three people in this room who take care of Great Aunt: me, Neighborhood Watch and Mr. Sweet Talker. You and Mrs. Battleaxe are nothing but invisible friends."

Did they think I enjoyed pulling Great Aunt off of bloody floors in the middle of the night? As far as I was concerned, I hadn't received an ounce of appreciation or support from anybody but Mr. Sweet Talker, and I had sacrificed months of my life for nothing.

That's when Neighborhood Watch decided to open his big, loud mouth.

"God, forgive me in my heart if I'm wrong," he began dramatically. "But I believe you slapped the sh*t out of Great Aunt. I don't believe she fell on no flo'! She been drinkin' fo' yeahs, an' she ain' neveh fell till you come around."

I was stunned, furious, upset.

Neighborhood Watch rested his case. "See, you mad now! An' you know what I think that is? 'The truth hurts.'"

I looked Neighborhood Watch dead in the face. "F*ck you."

And since he wanted to talk about the truth, I added, "The truth is, you know in your heart that Great Aunt needs to stop drinking, but you're not going to let her stop drinking, because as long as she drinks, you drink free."

I told them that if this was the thanks I got, I was leaving. And when I left, there wasn't going to be anybody there to notice when Great Aunt left the gas on or put metal pots in the microwave.

Neighborhood Watch grudgingly admitted, "Yeah, Great Aunt do leave the gas on."

Great Aunt responded, "I don't do it every day, do I?"

The bourgie little kangaroo court was beginning to worry that I might pack up immediately, leaving Great Aunt completely unsupervised and a danger to herself.

So on their way out, Mrs. Battleaxe and Betty Boop made a big deal of hugging and kissing me and saying they were so sorry I was so unhappy.

Mr. Sweet Talker whispered in my ear, "They won't even be back, so don't pay them any attention because Great Aunt needs you."

I no longer cared what Great Aunt needed. I needed to move out. Soon.

(Semi-Homeless Diaries Part 4 of 12: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

---

Please "Like" Don't Be a Slut on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

The Tribunal of Bourgie B*%#tches

Anyone who has ever had the displeasure of taking care of an elderly or disabled person knows that visitors are few and far between. Friends and family may come around for birthdays or special occasions, but day-to-day? Hardly. It's too depressing. Boring. Smelly. Weird.

In the days after Great Aunt's second drink-and-fall, three invisible friends decided to pay me a visit and give me a piece of their mind.

The first was Mrs. Battleaxe and her assistant, Betty Boop. Mrs. Battleaxe, a 70-something long-time friend of Great Aunt, lived in Baldwin Hills. Betty Boop was her 36-year-old personal assistant, a silly, vapid, pretentious, materialistic, keeping-it-young-while-still-posing-for-lingerie-calendars Los Angeles snob.

I was in my bedroom, about an hour into the three-hour job of braiding my hair, when they realized I was home and demanded that I join them in the living room. So there I was, half Buckwheat and half braids, facing down perfectly coiffed bourgie bitches.

Neighborhood Watch, the loudmouth from across the street, was in on the action, too. He had a key to the house and was a constant, nosy presence.

They were full of concern about bruised and confused Great Aunt. They'd never seen her look so bad. She was too thin. What in the world was the problem?

"You want to know the problem? This is the problem."

I shoved a recycling bin in their faces. It was filled with empty liquor bottles. One or two gallon-sized jugs of wine. Two or three empty bottles of hard liquor. All of it consumed by Great Aunt, with a little help from her drinking buddy, Neighborhood Watch.

The phones must have been busy that evening, because the next day, Cousin Inglewood paid me a surprise visit. I came back from early-morning grocery shopping to find her sitting in the living room. She had previously been cordial to me, but now she was fixing me with a hard, beady-eyed stare. Cousin Inglewood obviously thought Great Aunt had hit my fist, not the floor.

She watched me like a hawk as I stuffed a thousand TV dinners in the freezer.

"What? Y'all don't cook?!"

No, in fact, we did not.

Cooking was never my thing to begin with, but living with Great Aunt made a dreaded chore an impossible one. It took infinite patience to fix something as simple as a pot of grits. Because if I left the kitchen for even a minute, Great Aunt would turn off my pots.

So TV dinners it was. And the kicker was, that's all Great Aunt had eaten for years, even before too much vino and too much gin turned her wits to mush. She herself didn't cook.

I left the house and went to acting class. When I came home, court was in session.

Battleaxe and Betty Boop (who normally didn't visit at all) were back for their second visit in two days. Joined of course by Neighborhood Watch. And by Mr. Sweet Talker. He greeted me with, "You are the subject, and I am the predicate. Sit down here and join us."

I was on trial, and before it ended, I cussed all my elders out.

(Semi-Homeless Diaries Part 3 of 12: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

---

Please "Like" Don't Be a Slut on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

Mr. Sweet Talker (My Great Aunt's Lover)

When I moved in with my 88-year-old Great Aunt, one of the first things I noticed was that she didn't particularly enjoy the company of other women. She adored men. In fact, she was downright boy-crazy when it came to one particular man, Mr. Sweet Talker, a dapper 87-year-old.

Mr. Sweet Talker had allegedly been a friend of her late husband, who had passed away two or three years before.

I say allegedly because the other man in Great Aunt's life considered Mr. Sweet Talker to be a charlatan and a fake who appeared out of nowhere to swindle a forgetful, befuddled old lady.

The other man was her neighbor from across the street. He was an uneducated loudmouth who watched everything that happened in the neighborhood and had an opinion about everything that happened in the neighborhood. He checked in on Great Aunt every day, did odd jobs for her and last but not least, drank with her. Neighborhood Watch hated Mr. Sweet Talker.

"He ain't no frienda Late Husband. I ain't neveh, eveh heard Late Husband mention his name once. I ain't neveh seen him 'round here in all the years I been here. That Mr. Sweet Talker is a crook! He put his son's name on Great Aunt's house. And you don't have to believe me, you can go to the courthouse and look that up yo'self."

Was Mr. Sweet Talker a crook? Possibly. I'll never know for sure.

It's true that Mr. Sweet Talker did try to sign over Great Aunt's house to his son. It's also true that he drove Late Husband's Mercedes, which Great Aunt gave him as a gift. He controlled all of her investment accounts, retirement accounts and safe-deposit boxes, and directed all of her financial mail to his address. But he also handled all of her bills and taxes and paperwork, something she was clearly incapable of doing.

Great Aunt would gaze at him adoringly with her blue-green eyes and utter with heart-felt sincerity, "Oh, I just feel so safe when you're around! I don't know what I'd do without you."

When he'd call on the phone, her voice would instantly turn all musical and she'd start chirping like a little bird. Once or twice a week, he'd visit in person, usually bearing three chicken dinners. He and Great Aunt would hold hands across the kitchen table and make goo-goo eyes at each other and sing love songs from a bygone era.

Once, I came home and walked in on the two of them having sex. Thank goodness they were both hard of hearing. I tiptoed into my room, hid in the closet and tried to erase the memory of two naked near-ninety-year-olds going at it.

Too bad he was married to another woman, his gravely ill wife of many years. Other than that, the love story between Great Aunt and Mr. Sweet Talker would have been perfect.

I liked Mr. Sweet Talker. He was kind to me, and kindness had been in short supply ever since I moved to Los Angeles.

"You're just the sweetest little girl in the world," he would say to me, usually right before imploring me not to move out, something I'd been threatening since her first drink-and-fall months earlier. "She needs you. Don't go. She needs you."

After a second drink-and-fall left Great Aunt's face bruised, friends and family came out of the woodwork just long enough to accuse me of hitting her. Mr. Sweet Talker was the only one on my side.

(Semi-Homeless Diaries Part 2 of 12: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

---

Please "Like" Don't Be a Slut on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

Life After the Casting Couch? Initially, Just as Bad

I wish I could tell you that after my casting-couch ordeals, I immediately came to my senses and straightened out my life. But things aren't that simple. My life didn't change overnight. And, in fact, it initially got even stranger and even more embarrassing. Because my next relationship was with a semi-homeless man, who may or may not have been mentally challenged.

I met him at the Crenshaw Mall.

But before I describe how we met, let's talk about why I was in the mall in the first place.

I was in the mall because I practically lived in malls. My living situation with my 88-year-old great aunt had become so intolerable, my solution was to leave her house in the morning and stay gone until night. Malls were relatively quiet places where I could think, sit, read, write and just be. The little green hell house I lived in was a chaotic mess where I was monitored, insulted and pestered to death morning till night.

Living with my aunt meant dealing with an interesting cast of characters, starting with Great Aunt herself.

Every family has one person who represents glamor and success, and in my family, she was it. She was the well-to-do aunt who lived in Los Angeles and traveled the world and sent checks to my dad on holidays and special occasions. She had a Master's degree from the University of Michigan – a major feat for a black woman born in 1908. She was one of the first black school psychologists in the Los Angeles Unified School District. And last but not least, she was a natural blond with blue-green eyes. She could almost pass for white.

I'd met her on a few occasions. She had come to Detroit to visit once when I was in high school. Then, my last year in college, I came to Los Angeles to visit her on my spring break. To say I didn't know her well was an understatement. Especially after her husband's death, when she began to fall apart.

She'd been a closet alcoholic for decades. But outwardly, Great Aunt was a nice, prim, proper, well-dressed, middle-class, card-carrying member of the black bourgeoisie. And nice, prim, proper, well-dressed, middle-class, card-carrying members of the black bourgeoisie didn't have drinking problems. (That was reserved for those lower-class Negroes.)

Because she was a lady, Great Aunt didn't drink during the day. But 5 o'clock, like clockwork, the drinking would start. A glass or three of wine with dinner. Then a nightcap or 10 – hard liquor mixed with orange juice and a handful of peanuts. One after another, as many nightcaps as it took to make her pass out on her bed.

The problem was, she was starting to miss the bed and hit the floor.

The first time it happened, I had been with her less than two months. At 2 a.m., I was awakened by a sickening thud and found her in the hallway, lying in a pool of blood. A 9-1-1 call. Paramedics. An ambulance. Iodine and stitches in the emergency room.

Six months later, when I was emotionally raw from the casting couch and literally oozing slime, she fell again. This time, she busted her lip and scraped her arm.

And this time, I was accused of beating her.

(Semi-Homeless Diaries Part 1 of 12: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

---

Please "Like" Don't Be a Slut on Facebook or follow on Twitter.