Dear Fellas,

If you want any kind of success for yourself in this life and expect me to take you seriously, I suggest you rethink the soul patch.

Think I'm joking?

Love ya like a milkshake,

Kayla

CC: Howie Mandell, Jack Black, Guy Who Tried To Flirt With Me At Starbucks, Graphic Artists

Dear Gwyneth,

1. I can't eat any meat that is still attached to the bone. This applies most often to chicken. I don't love the taste of fried chicken (real fried chicken, that is) anyway, but I can't stand to see it being picked off of its bone and if I see veins, my stomach is gone. If I am in a situation where I have to eat a meat (chicken, or otherwise) in this state, my mom will still de-skin, de-bone and de-vein it for me. I don't really need her to cut it up for me, but she still does. I don't eat pork, just because in the 9th grade I decided I didn't want to. This decision wasn't based on any moral or religious reason, but simply because I wanted to think it was gross. It was easy for me to stop eating bacon, less easy to stop eating sausage because I love the breakfast burritos at McDonald's but I just learned to pick the little sausage balls out (now they remind me of dog food.) Once in 2002, I decided "that was so silly of you, Kayla" and tried to eat a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit and had to spit out the first bite. Then last year I was mistakenly served a pasta dish with bacon in it and I threw it up promptly. I have been able to successfully eat a ham and cheese since then, though.

2. I've only been a girlfriend to boys whose names began with the letter R. I am a repeat "Ryan" offender. In chronological order: Riley, Ryan S., Riley (again), Robert, Ryan M., Ryan G., Ryan M (again) and Raj. First dates that never lent themselves to a second date: Brandon, Bradley and Frederick (who went by his middle name: Boston.) I don't plan these things.

3. Asking me to be your maid-of-honor is the kiss of death for your marriage. I've been asked on two occasions and shortly after being fitted for the dress, the groom did something unforgivable and the wedding was off. (Side note: since I was seven, I've sung at fourteen weddings. All of those marriages are still going strong.)

4. When I get a new CD, it's impossible for me to listen to any song all the way through before I feel like I'm familiar with the project as a whole. Then I can go back and take the CD song-by-song. I tend to listen to the radio single last and hate it the most. In my opinion track 11 is usually the best on any CD and if there is no 11, track 2, provided it's not the radio single or namesake of the album.

5. Can't listen to commercials on the radio. Can't stand it when someone changes the channel during commercial breaks on the television. Go figure.

6. I am internally conflicted until I can identify a celebrity that reminds me of all the people I know. This is why I'm forever saying, "You remind me of Dakota Fanning" or "Isn't he like a young Dustin Hoffman?" etc. I've never really found anyone that reminds me of myself. It makes me a little sad.

7. I can't drop a deuce with shoes or socks on. Add that to the list of reasons not to take a dump anywhere but your home.

Pretty quirky indeed,
Kayla

P.S. You looked so hot in Iron Man!

Dear Pat Buchanon,

THIS* is the most foul thing I've ever heard anyone say EVER.

Right from the beginning, my ass,
Kayla

*First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Dear Rev.,

So you ask me in this ridiculously dramatized voice, 'What if "he" came into your church... What if he sat down and you could literally smell; not just see, but smell how dirty he was? What if he sat down right beside you?" I know you were trying to get me to think, but probably not like this:

I think we are trying to be "post-modern" in a "post-post-modern" world. We assume that the homeless and downtrodden, that the black eyeliner and white faced ones, that the pierced and tattooed, the the ones without teeth and the ones without SUVs need something we have. We generalize and profile and we become hell bent on "showing them Jesus." On ministering to them, because of course, they are the ones who need to be ministered to.

These, clearly, are the ones who don't know Jesus because if they did they'd be wearing pleated front Dockers and driving Ford Explorers and trading in art for theology and communal living for a 9-5 at Kinkos or wherever it is that you've chosen as a career. Obviously, poor people are lost and kids with dog collars and mohawks need YOU to go TEACH them something that they couldn't have possibly learned from the Holy Spirit themselves.

And while we're at it, the Catholics need to be "saved," too. And if one ever walks into your church, so help you, you're gonna be the one to do it. You're gonna explain to them exactly what's wrong with their doctorine and you're gonna be the one that leads them to Jesus because there's no Catholic on God's green earth - not Mother Theresa, not the Pope, no way, not anybody who claims Catholicism that knows more about who Jesus really is and what he really wants than you. Because you're Protestant. And you're wearing pleated front Dockers. And you drive a Ford Explorer.

And because his hair is matted together and hangs over the collar of his visibly dirty shirt and his shoes are worn on the bottom and he doesn't smell like he's had a bath yet this year there is clearly no way that he could have something that you need. That he could minister Jesus to you. That the very word of God could be in his mouth or that he know who Jesus really is and what Jesus really wants.

Yeah, what if? What if John The Baptist came into your church? What if he came as a thunder in the dry desert of your congregation? What if he came as a voice crying out to the wilderness of your comfortable and safe doctorines? What if he came preparing the way of the risen Lord to the spiritually dead places you've kept in your heart? What do you think he smelled like? What do you think Jesus smelled like?

What if someone with blue hair had the prophetic word of deliverance for your life? What if someone dressed as a mourner, a wailing woman - I think you would probably want to call them "a goth" - came saying "Repent. Mourn. Weep. Lament?"

You would automatically take John the Baptizer down the Romans Road, right? Teach Blue Hair the ABC's of Salvation and have Gothic Girl repeat the Sinner's Prayer. Am I right? Because surely that's what they needed. They need to be delievered and set free and born again into the Church of the Pleated Dockers and Ford Explorers who consistantly reject the Word of God Made Flesh unless it comes from someone in pleated Dockers or a Ford Explorer, or whatever your Sabbath Day Observances may be.

Yeah... what if?
Kayla

Dear Sasha,

I LOVE THE ALLEY OOP!

Marry me?

For reals,
Kayla

Dear Elvis,

If you really are alive somewhere and crusing truck stops these days, I urge you to come out of hiding and bring your dag'um guitar. I don't know if you've heard the wire out on the C.B. but they're saying that Madonna and none other than Mariah Freakin' Carey have one-upped you on the Billboard Charts. Can you believe that crap? Me neither.

I'm calling "shenanigans" on this one, and here's why: While genius is rarely appreciated in its time, it is far more often that we lose our heads about something and twenty years (or two weeks) later look back and go, "What were we thinking?" This is evident, oddly enough, in offender #1, Madonna, herself. You call it "reinventing yourself," and I call it "damage control." Madonna has not positively contributed anything to music, society, England, Eva Peron, Kabbalah, Britney Spears, etc. since... since, freaking, A League of Their Own. I'll give Mrs. Richie two thumbs up for Dress You Up but then she'll owe me some for Hung Up, the video that goes with it, that song from Austin Powers and I also believe she owes Don McLean an very sincere apology. I wasn't even angry about the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame thing, I really wasn't, but you better know that I wasn't gonna let this one slide. And you probably haven't heard this Four Minutes song but did you happen to catch Promiscious, Give It To Me, The Way I Are... SexyBack? Same, same. I'm not sure why Lady Gap Tooth gets the credit for this slight against God, but she did and that puts her at 37 Top 10 hits and you with a slighty shabby 36. Did they count Paul Oakenfield's remix of Rubberneckin'? Somebody check on that.

And Mariah Carey. This chick has cranked out 18 Number 1's. And by "cranked out," I mean, she threw a couple of sexy trigger words into the same MadLib from two years ago, borrowed T-Pain's vocoder and tricked a whole bunch of old men and jr. high school boys into think she wanted their grubby mits all over her. While she is infinitely hotter than you were at thirty-eight and sang the heck out of Vision of Love, I'm pretty sure even the people with Billboard smell something rotten. Whispery songs about sex, songs about sex sung in ridiculous octaves (both directions), songs with vague food and sex references featuring ugly rappers you and I both know she's not having sex with rapping about how they're "tapping that." Not only that, but the whole time trying desperately to convince us that she's twenty-two instead of thirty-eight in these ridiculous videos that have about a two week shelf-life on TRL or 106 & Park and, oh! The Billboard Hot 100. Also, the movie Glitter.

And apparently this is no joke, Mr. P. People on the news are saying this stuff with straight faces. "Mariah is bigger than Elvis." "The Queen of Pop takes down The King of Rock N Roll." They're suggesting that one day me and a shuttle bus full of other eighty-year olds will be touring her homestead one day. Or like, freaking, Madonna Ciccone BLVDs in every urban metropolis. I'm okay with people impersonating Madonna and Mariah at gay pride parades, but I don't think this fragile soul could stand up to it in Vegas or... like, Branson. And I imagine that you're none too happy about it, either.

Which is why I'm earnestly requesting a Return of the King. Just one two-and-a-half minute ballad will put those foul heifers in their places and (I can only hope) shut them up for good. These women are brazen and shameless and a reproach upon my generation, because I know it's not thirty-eight year olds downloading this non-sense. C'mon, Elvis! You didn't blow your cover when your only (only? I'm just assuming) daughter married that white lady, but if you're going to exact your revenge, do it now! It can only get worse.

Seriously,
Kayla

P.S. If John and George are around, please forward this letter to them, as Ms. Carey is only three MadLibs and a drum machine away from taking The Beatles.

Dear Ticketmaster.com,

I was pre-ordering my STEVE MILLER BAND (!!!) tickets on your website today and noticed that the words at my "security check" log-in were "president fatality."

Uh... any reason for that?

Just wondering,
Kayla.