manopause

Mens Rea

2008-09-06T07:10:00.000-07:00

The last time I broke up with somebody he had his head up another girl’s mock turtleneck, this is much worse. “The Guy Who hates Non Jungle Cats and Mushrooms” has his head up his own ass. I never get to break up with anybody but shockingly, I’m not entirely pleased about it AT ALL. I’m heartbroken. I have already dipped into the same exact chocolate milk I drank the last time I was heartbroken. Is this what it feels like to come full circle? For those of you that are mid-rotation, you should really stop. You should pluck and sniff each one of those roses your feet are gingerly trampling the fuck over because there is nothing but ripe, ripe manure on the other side. Ours was a relationship meant to last, I loved him with every fucking cell of me, even the tiny cells that are responsible for making your feet itch unpredictably. Though it was only a brief millisecond of love in the eternity that love is meant to last, it was probably the purest love I have had, it was love tailor made for him and somehow still, the inseam was too short. I’m so tired. I’m tired of threading needles to make love trousers for assholes, I know that sounds completely ridiculous but know that I am genuinely tired, I can feel the tiredness directly below my both my ribs, even though my heart is only on the left side. We declared text message war on each other today…him, me, and that guy Jesus, he’s always talking about. I think Jesus would have been pissed that he got dragged into this. Tomorrow he’s going to help Siouxsie Sioux move her drum kit from her parents house so she can sell it. She owes him a fairly hefty amount of cash which she does not have at the moment, as the salary of a Chili’s hostess is apparently less than desirable to most phone companies and landlords. Unfortunate. He asked me how I felt about his journey to his almost ex in-laws with his almost ex wife and I said that it kind of made me feel like a leftover sandwich crust, it did! She had been a prize winning bitch to him and I’ve been trying bake him prize-winning awesome pie since I met him, but I guess somehow, that pie fucking sucked. Yet somehow devoting his Saturday to her, felt more appropriate then doing something with me--MEN, another slice of wisdom- don’t submit to bitchiness, it makes the rest of us bitches think we have to be bitches in order to get your attention.-- I would like to note something else at this at this point because you all must be slightly astounded that this has happened to me again, I’m not ugly, I exfoliate, my mother gave me fantastic cheekbones and though my ass is small, it can fit nicely into the right pair of jeans yet still, my bony ass and bony cheeks tend to end up in the wrong hands. Am I an idiot? Probably. There has to be some explanation for my lack of expertise in the field of dude. Its not the ex fiancé that pisses me off, she must either be amazingly cool or amazingly manipulative to get somebody to love her that much, I just don’t understood how nobody with the right chromosomes and a decent attitude seems terribly interested in me. The break up is actually an awful story as silly as the above diatribe must read, I needed him last night and that need was ignored. I needed his friendship, compassion, and advice, and he didn’t have any for me. I felt slightly ruined at the time, I felt like I’d eaten my weight in cotton candy and then ridden on the “Tilt-A-Whirl”, and I knew immediately that was not a feeling people were ever meant to have, so I decided to walk away.

I got scared yesterday and I got hurt, the kind of hurt that only one person can only unscare and unhurt, I needed him and he didn’t come. As the clock moved into the morning time, I realized he was too late, what we had expired like the tub of very old sour cream in my refrigerator that I am terrified to open. So I decided to write him a letter. It was two and one third pages long and quite illegible, especially for his poor eyes which do not have 20/20 vision. I probably should have considered that he might have to squint, especially since his penmanship is beautiful, even the 8 year old scribble I saw at his mom’s house was better than mine, but I was too tired to keep the contents of that ripped spiral notebook page inside of me. It was a lump lodged halfway between my stomach and ticker, which might mean it came from my pancreas. Maybe my pancreas is busted? Maybe this wasn’t about him at all? Maybe my pancreas has a hole in it? Probably not, I believe the people of my family are known for their strong pancreases. Anyways, I grabbed a piece of paper and pen from my backseat, listened to “Secret Garden” by Bruce Springsteen about twenty six times, and wrote on top of my steering wheel, which at times, made my horn beep at the homeless cats walking by. “The Guy Who Hates Non-Jungle Cats and Mushrooms” would have loved startling those furry bastards. I tried to say at least some of the right things with my pen, that I loved him very much and that he deserved somebody extraordinary, I also recall saying that I didn’t want to fall in love alone. I hope I did say that because it makes a lot of sense, that’s how I was feeling. Where did I go wrong? I think I wasn’t needy enough, I didn’t declare what I needed loud enough the way Siouxsie Sioux used to, but that’s not really something I believe in. I’m more of an asker than a demander, my voice is a bit quieter, but I get hurt just as loudly. There was an hour of need, and that hour passed without aid, in my car, in the rain with nothing but a petrified french fry on the ground for comfort, potatoes have eyes not ears, so I knew talking to it would yield disappointing results.

After I finished writing in the strange form of Canadian hieroglyphics I invented, I did something silly. Why I developed a sense of humor at this particular moment, I’ll never know, but I grabbed a canister of thyme and put it in the envelope with the letter. “Time”, is after all what he seemed to require, he has a lot of things to figure out, one day he won’t feel very good about letting his very sad girlfriend be very sad in her car without so much as calling, but right now he needs to focus on him. He also needed to know that he was worthy of the time and if I could actually give him a canister of time instead of thyme, then I would have, but they don’t sell it at the Shell Station. This might be the weirdest gift he’s ever received, its within the top eight weird gifts I’ve given, but it came from the right place or at least, a nice suburb of the right place. I had a fancy manila envelope in my car so I used that, it’s a bit more clinical looking than I would have liked, but it had an adhesive strip so I wouldn’t have to lick it, I had a runny nose and I didn’t want to get boogers on my big yellowish apology filled envelope. I sealed it tightly, stuffed in awkwardly into this mailbox and said goodbye in my head to his street, his mean neighbor who is constantly calling the police on chronic street parkers, and his nice neighbor who has a big golden dog. I kept wearing my nice clothes throughout my pony express journey, fully hoping he would call and I could say goodbye to him the way I wanted, with my arms around him neck, but he didn’t.

Afterwards I went directly home and proceeded to get all 117lbs of me drunk off beef jerky, I got so drunk in fact that I dreamed about ordering pizza. When I was nauseated, ashamed enough fall asleep, and wanted to start life over entirely directly because of the sore tummy and shame, I cried some slow moving tears and let exactly two whimpers escape. I didn’t find the peace I wanted, I just overdosed on dehydrated beef....alcoholics and substance abusers take note, excess totally doesn’t work save yourself the twelve steps and don’t start in the first place. After I ate an entire herd of cattle, I fell asleep in my uncomfortable borrowed shoes with my phone in my hand, curled into a very small ball of human being and feeling very young for the first time in ages. How can somebody who loves the best they can be so terrible at it? Maybe this is my broken pancreas’s fault? Maybe I ask too many rhetorical questions? I am going to miss him, I miss him at this very second, probably more than I should but he’s extra missable and this was an extra hard impossible decision. I was given no chance to mull it over, it was immediately an ultimatum perhaps from "The Guy WHo Hates Non Jungle Cats and Mushrooms"' pal Jesus, that said " Do the right thing and give him time, or prepare to feel this shitty all the time" .

Man of God

2008-09-05T08:53:00.001-07:00

He got me a bible. No flowers. No small collection of chocolates filled with various forms of fruit gunk, the holy bible. It’s a nice looking bible, its small enough to fit in one of those impractical clutchy purses I’ve been carrying, which in truth I only carry in order to avoid public dancing scenarios, and its got a stylish leather cover but, I’m not a Christian, I’m not even halfway there, not even a Chris. I love that he’s got convictions that he can live by and hopefully, love by (maybe with the addition of some pre-marital shagging) I think everyone HAS to have some centre, I know everyone wants it, why do you think millions of women spend the hours of 7-8am pulling their hamstrings on yoga mats to the electronic sway of the fake babbling brook? Whether somebody finds peace in the lotus position, kneeling at an altar, or walking up and down a large, many staired structure in an orange robe, is up to them. Who the shit am I to tell ANYBODY what their personal concord with the universe is? I’m sure you think my relationship with “The guy Who Hates Non-Jungle Cats” is doomed now, and that there might be a vigilante army of believers outside my house fully loaded with rosaries, garlic cloves, and pitchforks right now, BUT I think it might be okay. See, if he’s a Christian he cannot not love me for my free formed spiritual education, that would just piss Jesus off... but then again, not all Christians seem to mind making JC shake his pretty head, especially that douche on the 700 Club who stole Bob Barker’s signature secular microphone. Besides, The bible and I do have some things in common,

1) Serpent-The Good Book, like me, is vehemently anti-serpent. Everytime I go to the zoo (which, sadly, is fairly often) I’m rather glad that the nature police locked up those snakes up for good, even if it is in a visually pleasing terrarium complete with a bilingual soundbite button to educate me on the adders value in my ecosystem. Guess what, soundbite? The snake has done jack shit for me, the snake squats under rocks in my garden, has terrifying babies and then LEAVES before I can bring by congratulatory cellophane balloons, AND snakes allow vermin come into my house to steal my apple jacks every winter despite the zoo’s claim that they are excellent hunters. Lastly, they just make me uneasy with all their coiling, striking, two headed Cobraconstrictaconda bullshit. I’m not exactly sure, but I believe the bible takes issue with the serpent because it trespassed in Eden, put something in Eve’s drink and all the sudden turned utopia into Cabo San Lucas, fair enough.
Dear Snakes, you’re gross,
Dear Jack Hannah, you’re full of lies
xo
S and the Bible

2) Facial Hair- The bible is not huge on grooming. Not a single location in the bible was restricted by a “No Shirt, No Shoes” policy, nor did employers frown upon things like excessive facial hair or lack of a post secondary education. I don’t even think I’ve seen the word PANTS once in whichever testament it is that I have, and as somebody who has been called to practice pantlessness daily (i'm pro dress), I find this to be a thrilling affirmation of my life choice. Bethlehem sounds a lot like Venice Beach, liberal and filled with sandals.

3) Proverbs 23:21 - Drunkenness causes poverty…aint that the bloody the truth. It also causes lewdness, breaking unholy manopausal vows, cheese pizza at 4 am, and waking up rank as a hobo’s left boot

All kindred spirituality aside, I’m no devotee. To quote Run DMC, “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts”, even the holy kind, especially the holy kind! If I’m gonna fear a spirit its going to the be the type that possesses my toaster and sends my appliances into a murderous poltergeist rage, not God/Jesus/Moses/Allah/Morgan Freeman. “The Guy Who Hates Non Jungle Cats and Mushrooms” is the god fearing variety of man, he’s probably more afraid of God’s wrath than the wrath of a homicidal blender, and I think that’s splendid. Not only does it mean he shalt not screw around me, but it also means that he’s thinking more about putting energy into loving the people around him than into an existential John Cusakian crisis like most guys I know. However, I’m mildly afraid he might prefer to love somebody who can recite psalms from memory and wears a cheap golden cross around her neck, I can’t even spell psalm, it took me four tries. Now, he wants to know what I believe, he asked, he wants to have a conversation about my view of the universe over a beer with a lime in it, just grab a brew and chit chat about the afterlife, eternal damnation, and god's plan…Thankfully, though I have through my life contemplated the Great Beyond (is that code name the oceans or the heavens?…I can’t recall but you know which one I mean) so I’m not entirely unprepared. I have broken it into a three stage Mickey Mouse Christmas Carol type model, a timeline of my beliefs and relationship with the God Man

PAST- HOLY COW

Growing up, I knew very little of Church despite the fact that my perpetually marching zealot of a gay aunt is a minister, I knew there were stained glass windows depicting slightly morbid “10 Commandments” stills, and I knew that local churches seemed to be secretly at war with one another over who had the largest, most powerful nativity scene. I was also made aware that there was a free cookie and Tang policy at most congregations…yum. I was in one vaguely religious ceremony. the preschool Christmas play. Sadly, I was cast as a Holstein cow in the manger. This consisted of wearing a white tracksuit and safety pinning so many construction paper spots on my body that I’m convinced I was fully magnetized. You want to fuck a kid up good and teach them a lesson in humility? Cast all of her four year old girl friends as Sugarplum fairies and make HER the cow. A roundhouse kick to the ego like that will put all four of their thespian stomachs in knots. Lesson One- Humbleness. Check. After my acting career was put out to pasture, my faith grew from two things 1) “Getting my ass kicked in elementary school by Kathy G. and her cronies” and 2)General feelings of strong compulsion. The only thing that terrified me more than Kathy G. from the ages of 6-23 was Grimace, Ronald McDonald’s number two dude, the one that looks like a large purple tumor. Kathy G. taught me about the kind of person I didn’t want to be, she smoked cigarettes, she drank, she dated older boys….weeellllll…. she was like me today, except really mean. She threw inflated basketballs at my head and knocked my teeth out on one occasion. I remember being disgusted by the bullying thing, and for a kid who wasn’t above licking the gymnasium floor in exchange for a fruit roll up, that’s a pretty defining life moment. The second where I knew I wanted to love other people instead of creating large dental bills for their parents will make the life flashing before my eyes image pastiche when I’m on my deathbed, its guaranteed. The second item is more pragmatic, I’ve always felt things mega strongly, even from a young age, whether its grief, or affection, or wanting a corndog so badly that I think my head might fall off. EVERYTHING. I’ve never wanted a corndog only 50%. Since a leaf, moose, and amoeba, don’t know the raw desperation that can exist for baseball park foods, I figure there’s got to be some sort of reason I can. Lesson Two-Purpose.Check

PRESENT-HOLY ROLLER

Present- I am at a place where I am comfortable enough in MY relationship with God to appreciate the beliefs of others. God lets me see other faiths without getting jealous and texting me all day. I’ll do Bar Mitzvahs, Yom Kippur, Christmas Dinner, I’d even hit up an Ashram if I had the chance…The Heavenly Daddykins and I are in a good place and he trusts me. SO, I went to church with “The Guy Who hates Non-Jungle Cats and Mushrooms” a total of twice, I will call this a “running total” because I expect I will go again. At first, I was terrified, and to be completely honest it still does terrify me almost entirely. It shouldn’t, the place is practically constructed entirely out of hugs and residual cheek kiss slobber and the people are incredibly nice, but not suspiciously nice in the body snatchersish sense; they don’t have those intimidating wooden benches, and the pastor wears shorts of the cargo persuasion, self ripped directly below the knee. Church really isn’t that different than an episode of Oprah but instead of talking to Tyra Banks or Woody Harrelson, they talk to god. The audience members are selected speak through the mic and do the whole “My name is Bill and I drove here all the way from Cleveland because I love your work God, you’re my favorite deity” thing and at times, people even throw their hands up in the air like they’re reaching for an invisible Oreo cookie. I like church, I would say that I like it better than the public library and better than playing pick up basketball, but I don’t feel any closer to God, in fact, I kind of think he got a kick out of the fact that I was there based on the giant pointed index finger that popped out of the clouds and the muted angelic chuckling I heard from above during the service. This could prove to be a problem. It could prove to be a steaming pile of Holy Shit on the bottom of my sneaker. I don’t think God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit, Moses, Judy Garland or Allah would appreciate if I used them to impress a boy, and I also couldn’t pull it off having not graduated Sunday School at the top of my class. Plus, I happen to like the rapport the big dude and I have, I feel like we could host a morning show together, drink Sanka and make lighthearted jabs at eachother through clip on microphones…I bet God would wear fantastic neckties like Anderson Cooper does. I would ask him if he knew the Philadelphia Cream Cheese angel in the Biblical sense and then he could say something funny about knowing my mom in the Biblical sense. I can’t give up the possibility of winning an Emmy in the afterlife for a man who might not think God should be hosting morning shows at all.

FUTURE-HOLY SHIT

I’m not sure what I’ll believe next week, my faith in earthly men was sacrificed a long flipping time ago but still, I keep searching it out hoping that what once was lost will eventually be found again. I’ve certainly had relationships spontaneously combust when there was another woman involved, but never another man, especially the MAN. How can I compete with that?! God drives the entire universe and I drive a Honda CRV with badly tinted windows, he created everything (regrettably, even ice dancing, which I intend to ask him about later) and I can’t even create exactly 6 rotund blueberry muffins for the fella I’m crazy about .The Chief and I have always gotten on great, I’ve always thought that if he were my camp counselor I would make him a friendship bracelet out of that braided plastic thread kids love so much and we could keep in touch over the school year, but what if I’m delusional and he’s just been waiting around to hang up his whistle and ditch my annoying childish ass, what if he’s just been polite to me? At the moment, I feel like I’m the complete opposite of that Amazing Grace tune that churches like so much, I WAS found but NOW I’m lost and growing blinder by the second. I have theological AND romantic cataracts. I guess I just wait and hope Snoop Goddy Godd delivers a little reassurance.

What to do….at risk of sounding like Brian Wilson, I’m not going to end this section with a resounding “God Only Knows…” but be aware that I am singing the song in my head, perhaps in the wrong key. I adore “The Guy Who Hates Non-Jungle Cats and Mushrooms” and I think there might be a dash of adoration on his end too, but neither one of us can just change our whole belief structure, only Madonna and Tom Cruise can pull that off. I love that he loves Jesus, its great for Jesus, you can never have too many fans, I just wish he loved what I believed because though it might not have a playbook that’s made its way into every motel bedside drawer in America, I know it by heart.

ménage à trois

2008-09-05T08:36:00.001-07:00

If my new relationship was family friendly television of the good ol’ days this is the point in the episode where a younger Cleaver boy would say “What am I? chopped liver?” and the fake audience would erupt into chuckles and prerecorded “gollys” with a pinch too much reverb on them. If I were the Beaver in this situation, which I ought to be considering my sex and Northern heritage, I would not go to the malt shop or ride bicycles or even sit and eat meatloaf with my model parents, I would hole myself up in my room and play internet scrabble with strangers from Finland. Sad fact- Last night, I turned to the internet, and I learned too much, it was like taking the wrong pill in the matrix. “ The Guy Who hates Non-Jungle Cats and Mushrooms” demoted me yesterday……on his myspace page. I realize that is probably within the top ten most idiotic things you have ever heard., and probably within the top four hundred idiotic things I have ever said The best thing about having an anonymous blog is that there is no way you can slap me in the mouth for being a child, unless of course you’ve been stalking me for months and reading over my shoulder, in which case: Thank you for your devotion , it is hard to come by, even if your commitment rests only in thrice weekly visits to the shrubbery outside my house for my hula hoping fitness hour. My state of Sherlockian moustache pulling confusion is much more complex and much less juvenile than it sounds, I not only have been exiled to the hinterland of the “Top Friends”, I have been demoted far below the ranking of the mean ex-fiancé, who I’m sure, he is still madly involve with and plans to have mean ex-babies with and live in a mean ex-gated community with a mean ex-three car garage. My love of Scooby Doo has instilled in me a deep love of deduction and tricked out paddy wagons, so naturally, instead of just allowing myself to be jilted by the fact that he declared my not-that importance in his life to mutual friends and millions of creepy strangers, I decided to investigate: I clicked on her profile in a fit of childishness/curiosity/rage/despair/boredom/peer pressure and discovered that “Things CAN always be worse” and “Dreams CAN’T come true”.

It seems as though the girl who was to be “Mrs. “ The Guy Who hates Non-Jungle Cats and Mushrooms” and I have nothing in common, apart from the appreciation for a certain comedy show that nobody hates. She is short and I am tall, she wears lots of make up, I do not (note- I might start if this is some heart snaring trick I was unaware of), she uses vaguely dark quotes that only half make sense grammatically, I have fantastic grammar and sense-making abilities despite the fact that I should have used a colon instead of comma to start that string of mildly shallow comparisons.... see what I mean
Let me provide a visual:
I am:

She is:

He might be something like this:

He is non-Labyrinth Bowie, someone who Siouxsie Sioux or Olivia Newton-John could feasibly date (My apologies to Iman, totally hypothetical, I promise) I have a little Siouxsie in me and I’m sure Siouxsie’s got some ONJ in her, though she’d probably never admit it. The Siouxs of the world are fans of the suggestive self photography that makes the internet so popular, whereas the Newton-Johns wear slips or cut off denim shorts under their skirts so nobody sees their bottom. So, GUYS, if you’re reading which would you prefer fishnet tights and pierced appendages or ponytails and summertime dresses? ……shit, I would probably go Sioux too (Rhyme-bo: First Blood). Sometimes its hard to be Olivia Newton-John.

Guess what else I learned from being completely pathetic and trolling the internet like a bored cop at a carnival? They’re still in contact, and not just the formalities, like the “Merry Christmases”, and “We should (but probably won’t) grab coffee”, I’m talking the “Man, you look like a smoking hot piece of something I’d like tap in that pervy self snapped photo…meeeeow, MEEEEEOW”. To be fair, the comment was more in the vein of “Lookin’ Great” but the private eye in me has decided the previously stated subtext is more accurate. My feelings are mixed on this discovery, but all the blended feelings are shitty ones that will eventually be baked at 350 degrees and emerge a steaming hot pile of “better luck next time”. If I wore less clothing and crawled on the floor of an apartment in front of my macbook I bet I’d be “Lookin’ Great” too, but I don’t, mostly because my self esteem does exist and it doesn’t need to be bolstered by 52 year old men from Wisconsin looking for a bedtime muse. I mean really, is it just me? Or does that shit gross anybody else out? Guess what No Lab-Bowie, an old man named Jimbo with a business card and professionally shined shoes offered to buy my fruit salad this morning, I’m pretty fucking cute too. I’m sorry that sounded a bit “irate” (NOTE- don’t use this word in scrabble, it makes you look smart but its only five points) but my feelings are a bit hurt, nobody meant to hurt them obviously, but they are, and since I have a blog, I’m going to let myself be steamed like a Miami drug lord’s linen pant suit......note:I hate resort wear.

Myspace left me with the sense that this girl is a little bit screwed up. Why? Myspace is like any other living space and if hers were a tiny apartment, there would be an open bottle of vicodin on the coffee table and some dirty laundry on the floor. Her page is good looking in all its teenage glory, with its pockets of contradictory poetic statements, her well thought out alias, and her large collection of photographs. She appears to be going through a phase in life we all go through, when we’re young, one that states truth and doesn’t seek it. I went through that phase, frankly, I kind of miss the lack of perspective. I’m sure she’s a nice girl, she probably wouldn’t have spoken a word to me if we were in the same high school math class, but a lot of people didn’t talk to me so I’ll let her off the hook. The bottom line, is that she appears to be in that confidently broken phase in life that begs for attention and tries to make vanity polite. Some men LOVE people in this phase and I fear that “ The Guy Who hates Non-Jungle Cats and Mushrooms” might be one of them, he might even have his own “Fix-a-Chick” repair shop that offers 15 minute affirmations and foot rubs. He’s a great guy, but maybe he doesn’t want someone who’ll give back to him. I am a giver, of presents, advice, of beer, and of my cursed flippin’ heart. If he likes a relationship that leaves him with that awful inside out feeling in the chest, I may not be the girl. Dear Men, I apologize that my parents did a fairly kick ass job of raising me, and that I have a job that I love, I really wish that when I had problems, I was more ashamed to talk about them, but sadly, I’m not that fucked up…yet.

“ The Guy Who hates Non-Jungle Cats and Mushrooms” seemed as though he was falling in really, really like with me and at the very least, in love with my nose, which he had declared perfect. My sniffer had some career highs pressed into his back, a more than familiar back, maybe even the back of my dreams, but sadly, a piece of ass seems to be worth more than a nose these days . My nose will soon move to Detroit where it will sniffle on the street and sell five dollar nuzzles to married men in towncars. As someone resolved never to fight for love but only in love, I suppose I should bow out, see my nose off on the five o clock Greyhound bus to Motor City, and carry on a noseless existence with a team of feral cats, at least the allergies won’t bother me at all. Leisa and Tommy think I should say something and I might, but even if I do, it won’t change the fact that I don’t own a single pair of fishnet stockings, or that his ex almost wife poses in her freetime, or that he might have a bit of a thing for fixing broken women, and it certainly won’t change the fact that my heart, despite its thousands of failures doesn’t need any new parts .

Manumission

2008-09-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

If ever this blog became a book, the little biography of the author under the black and white wallet size photograph would say-

S is a wildly successful human being. A Nobel prize winning dater, S was able to disprove the widely accepted theory that she is a complete and utter disaster through controversial research which challenged the worlds foremost scholars in the field of Romantic Chemistry. Turning down marriage proposals from Prince William, Prince Harry, Prince Charles, Prince, and Sarah Fergusan which spawned a record of one million white gloved duels in the house of Windsor, Briggs opted to devote herself entirely to “The Guy Who Hates Non-Jungle Cats and Mushrooms”, though at press time they had only been out on a few occasions. Her contended sighs have been rearranged and recorded by the London Philharmonic which will culminate in a two month run at Carnegie hall. They have been sampled in the current Justin Timberlake hit “Ahhhhhh”. Her favourite foods include crumpets, pickled things, and Orange Hi C and her hobbies include making her soulmate smile at full dimple capacity, and drawing mustaches on bathroom stall advertisements.

I have achieved the unachievable, the summit of Everest has got nothing on this, I have dated properly. Stop holding your applause, stop right now and just let me have it!!!! I wish I was a bacteria right now, that way, I could split myself in half and give myself a high five. The day to date ratio has been incredibly impressive (note- English for “Off the Hizzy”) and I somehow, have managed to not fuck anything up, not a single thing! I’m spilling less food on myself than average, my toe nail polish is staying put for once, and I appear to have rented Woody Allen’s brain. Seriously, I’m making funnies like Aunt Jemima makes pancakes. Conversation is seamless and smooth, as though my mouth were wearing a pair of Spanx or an alternative brand of control top pantyhose. I feel victorious right now which is a bit odd given the particular lack of star spangled glory romantic situations seem to produce but that is the honest feeling I have. even though there are hundreds of much better emotions I could be processing right now.The feeling of life altering success is not just mine though, its shared, its more of an oscar winning ensemble cast feeling where “The Guy Who hates Non Jungle Cats and Mushrooms” also gets bombarded by the press along with me and stuck on a People Magazine most important folks list. We are the Ben Hur of dating and have swept every nominatable (←take note Webster, this is a new word) category.

Best Supporting Dancer – There is nothing worse than dancing with somebody who is a much better dancer than you, they don’t lead, they dictate. I’ve been twirled, dipped, and lifted by all sorts of fools, and let me tell you there is nothing that terrifies me more than having an ostentatious stranger wearing a shit eating grin and shiny loafers extend his hand to me. Not a turn on. I am not Ginger Rogers, therefore I should not dance with Fred Astaires. “The Guy Who hates Non Jungle Cats and Mushrooms” moves just like me, which is unfortunate and perhaps embarrassing for him but excellent for our dancing purposes. On our first date, which by the way, was unabashedly datelike and was not covered in that ambiguous “Friendly Drink” cloud, we drank beers from the bottle at a near empty bar, discussed our distaste for all choreographed movements, that means YOU tai chi, and then he disappeared. When he returned, he brought with him a slow song and an extended hand, in the place of the shiteating grin was the nervous swagger of somebody trying to look smooth. We danced far enough away from the heavily waxed getting down slab of ground, to protect our fragile dancing integrity from the prying eyes of the college youth. We looked like a pair of baseball players shuffling above the plate, moving the dust with our toes and trying not to strike the fuck out…AGAIN. The music changed but we continued slowly shifting our weight over the invisible plate. It was perfect.

Best Skinimatography- All of Thomas Edisons’ future altering electric gadgets look like as sophisticated as lawn flamingos compared to the “hubba hubba” energy we emit. We have more electricity than an army of electric eels with light bulbs in their mouths, we are the Hoover fucking Dam. There is not a moment when I don’t want to touch him which will soon become annoying and will likely lead to a horrible reality tv type parting of ways….but what a way to go! The first kiss was mid slow dance, somewhere around the sixth song which was sang by somebody who sounded like Kylie Minogue imitating Beyonce. The kiss was outstanding . It made me love Beyonce for a second and think the word Bootylicious was more cute than annoying…I never thought I’d get there with that word. Right now, I couldn’t care if “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” lived six million miles away, he might as well be on Neptune right now (Pluto is a bit too far and seems rather lonely). His lips are perfectly crafted. I suspect they are made entirely of collagen, but I don’t care. We are like a Dr.Seuss book, the anti-Green Eggs and Ham, I would like him in a house, I would like him with a mouse, I would like him here or there, I would shag him anywhere. Especially if there was a vodka drink involved.

Best Animated Shorts- I thought pants shareability was the most important thing in a relationship….shareable trousers, trust, and lots of heavy petting… the unfailing trinity of perfection, right? WRONG, sharing shorts is what really brings a relationship to that next level. Like love, gastrointestinal activity is unpredictable and by inviting another person into your bottom wear, you are saying “I care…. no matter what you had for lunch today” If your bond can stand the test of baked bean burrito, you might as well save yourself some South African Diamonds and write “Just Married” on the bum of those jeans, your fate is set in stonewashed levis. Borrowing shorts is much more serious than borrowing pants. Somebody only lends you shorts for the following reasons: sports or sleep- both activities are dangerous and entail sufficient amounts of sweating, sports injury? Boom! Bloodstains! Bad Dream, perhaps about elliptical training? Night sweats! Shorts lending is selfless, its like organ donation or being a doctor without a border. You can imagine how touched I was on date number five when I found myself in a pair of just above the knee sporty shorts made of basketball jersey. He made me feel like a Chicago Bull and a natural woman at the same time. I still have the shorts at my house and I don’t intend on giving them back. EVER. They’re wearable memories and I have officially declared them mine. Some men end up losing their shirts lose over women, but the real good ones….they definitely lose their shorts

Now the challenge is not getting too wrapped up in it, in the emotional gltiz and glamour that is romantic stardom. Once you have a healthy supply of precious gems, hybrid vehicles, and mink stoles its hard to go back to buying underwear in packages of six and drinking generic bottles of table red. If I’m not careful I could end up like Lindsay Lohan, a critically panned, young, pretend lesbian with nothing to do but eat Kobe Beef sliders and defend the authenticity of my boobs. I think “the Guy Who Hates Non Jungle Cats and Mushrooms” might also be worried about turning into a Lohan too, or maybe a Feldman or a Haim. One day would could find ourselves washed up in small studio city apartments, hawking hoodia diet pills, and waiting to hear back from the producers of Celebrity Gymnastic Challenge, I guess eventual failure is the price of success, particularly of the romantic variety. In my dreams, I am constantly victorious, I might be the worlds leading producer of awesome dreams, its how I reconcile my complete inability to triumph over the trials and tribulations of my conscious side. I’ve won about three Latin Grammys, a booker prize, a WWF championship belt, and the Tour de France (Eat it, Lance)…..I plan to run for prime minister next week during REM so keep your fingers crossed. I’m supposed to be the dark horse with the weak leg when it comes to love, but somehow, I feel as though I’ve ended up in the winner’s circle at the Preakness with a big wreath of roses around my neck and a ninety four pound man on top of me (Ha! I love jokes). Its shocking based on the sad state of my track record, but I hope he keeps on believing in me and doesn’t get scared off by the laughing out loud, and hand grasping, and kissing on the face, the trappings of romance can easily cause a grown man to shit in his shorts, but I think together, we can do this.

MUFFIN MAN

2008-08-11T08:25:00.000-07:00

FACT: I bought my yellow dress specifically because it looked like the dress of somebody much more important than me and I felt like important things would happen if I wore the dress diligently. It has quickly worked its way into high wardrobe rotation and I am convinced that I might even be "The Girl With the Yellow Dress" to those who forget my name. It is the green hat to my Yogi Bear, the strange superhero balaclava with no mouth-hole to my Spiderman, the magic Carpet to my Aladdin. I even give it preferential treatment come laundry day, it gets the gentle cycle and is only allowed to mingle with other yellow items of which, there are only three. In my Lifetime Movie, which will probably be a murder mystery depending on how many people this blog/book infuriates, the heroine, perhaps the plumper more serious Olsen sister (me), will be wearing a yellow dress in all of the Emmy montage scenes. When the movie grosses record profits, the dress will hang in a Hard Rock Café in somewhere like Tampa or Atlantic City. Is it evident? Is my love of mildly grandmatronly daffodil frocks clear? I hope so because I think the dress is starting to blush and it would not be nearly so outstanding in pink. Anyways, the important moment the dress and I had been waiting for, finally happened, it was a few nights ago on top of a pool table with no shoes on (remove mind from lower reaches of the gutter, even proverbial standing street water can give you scurvy) I met "THE DUDE", how do I know this? I fucking don't, and to be honest, I can't recall the last time I made a good decision, but I will say that my pupils are actually shaped like five pointed stars and even when I see two loaves of bread sitting extra close together in the fresh baked goods section, I want to start crying and feel a disturbing urge to hug blank faced grocery strangers. I had met "THE DUDE" a few times before but had only ever engaged in idle chit chat and we had never really looked eachother directly in the face before. Now, all I want to do is look him directly in the face. I wish he could take the place of Aunt Jemima, Mr. Clean, and Chef Boyardee on the of all my cupboarded household things, I'm sure it would enhance both my ravioli eating and counter cleansing experiences. The feeling I have right now, is the feeling I have been trying to avoid and while obviously, manopause has been thus far, a royal mother fucking failure, THIS is the feeling that is the most dangerous, it is inexplicable comfort and recklessness that leaves those morbidly obese Jerry Springer guests who are spellbound by Fritos unable to leave their homes without a crane, it is a veritable surrender. "The Guy Who hates Non-Jungle Cats and Mushrooms"( remember this moniker I hope o use it mre than once) may not be "The Guy Who Falls Madly In Love With the Girl in The Yellow Dress", but that's not the point, the point is that he has forever changed my standards in "Hubba Hubba-ness". I am at the moment, perhaps for the first time in my life, symptomatically female, my hibernating girl genes (which by the way, he wears---Girl genes, Girl jeans...HA! double entendre!--- potential for pants shareability is high) are bouncing around like 16 year old ravers circa 1992

Observe the effects he has had on me-

SIGNS OF Active XX Chromosome

1)He made me want to bake. He made me want to bake him exactly six rotund blueberry muffins. I cannot recall the last time I ate a muffin and I don't even know what his stance is on muffins or blueberries, but for some strange, perhaps chemically imbalanced reason, I wanted to bake fucking muffins and put them in one of those wicker baskets the blond bird in the "Sound of Music" is always carrying through meadows. I also wanted to pour him a tall cup of orange juice, watch him do a crossword puzzle or a bloody sudoku, or some other brain teaser, and just take in the muffin smells. If he likes to watch Matt Lauer in the morning, I would also like to watch Matt Lauer with him. I have never had such a strong desire to make a relative stranger breakfast before. Imagine, me in my Magic Carpet of a dress and some flame retardant mittens watching berry infused gunk rise in the oven, I'm not even comfortable with flippin' Toaster Strudels (Pop Tarts don't even need to be toasted, therefore they trump the Doughboy and his pastry almost every time. Soon the Doughboy will be bankrupt). True or False: am crazy to think I've met somebody worth hand washing pots and pans for. True, but I can't help it, I didn't ask for these strange culinary desires, there was a time when I thought I'd be more than happy to eat Hot Pockets for the rest of my life, that time is over and a part of me laments its loss because hot pockets are awesome, especially the breakfast ones. I was fairly sure that I was female before, I have all the hardware, but now, I am certain. I am woman, upstairs and downstairs, hear me roar and try my muffins.

2) I have Parisites. Never in my life have I had that intrinsic female longing for Paris. Personally, I think the Eiffel Tower looks like the kind of wrought iron lawn junk my ex-neighbour, Italian Angelo, would display proudly among his gnomes, pinwheels, Fauxman bird baths, and statuettes of saints who were canonized for not getting laid. It looks like something to putt through on miniature golf course, its officially GARISH. Paris is of course, supposed to be the most romantic city in the world but for some reason, accordion driven Les Miserables covers and over priced slabs of raw meat don't really turn me on. I went to Paris once when I was sixteen, got sick, and spent my days in a four person hostel room spying on the deranged ping pong players in the mental institution across the street. The only romance I got was reading "Message in A Bottle" three fucking times, it was the only book I could find in English without a shirtless man riding a prancing stallion on the cover. It was a miserable week I didn't even get to ride an omnibus or touristy amphibious vehicle. Paris turned its back on me, so I turned my back on Paris. C'est vraiment desolee. I was shocked when woke up the day after our encounter, which by the way included a sweet text message from "The Resourceful Guy Who hates Non-Jungle Cats and Mushrooms" who had gotten my number from our mutual friend, and I was immediately desperate to skip on Eurotrash littered cobblestones, do that gondola thing in the Seine (I know that's in Venice but this is my dream, sorry Italy), and maybe do it in a hotel room, one not in view of the clinically insane. I even got internet drunk and checked prices the next day on cheaptickets.com. Contrary to the enticing advertisements, the tickets are not cheap. I should go to Delaware with this fella its probably much cheaper, and surely he could make Delaware into Paris for me, he is that beautiful. Little boys want to be astronauts and go to space, little girls want to stay little girls but taller and go to Paris….I've never really been behind either idea, you can get killed in space and accosted by mimes in Paris, but now I want to go to Paris quite desperately AND stare at space….what the fuck is wrong with me?

3) I like chocolate. Not only do I like chocolate all of the sudden, but I have discovered the glue that binds the late night clandestine female to chocolate relationship. The lady to cocoa marriage generally consists of making sure nobody is in the kitchen before stuffing half a Snickers bar in the side of your cheek, trying to swallow the evidence as soon as possible, and feeling mildly disgusted with yourself afterwards. The glorious epoxy is sexual frustration. At first I thought it was general self loathing that drove women to order flourless torte then complain about how much it is going to fuck up the diet, but its not, its just plain friskiness. Truthfully, I've never liked chocolate before now, were I in the Alps and had a choice between Swiss Cheese and Swiss Chocolate, I'd be making holes in that semi soft, sodium rich slab of fermented milk before you can say Emmentaler. Now, things have changed and it will probably make me fat and angry. After "The Guy Who hates Non-Jungle Cats and Mushrooms" had smiled at me enough times to convince my hormones that I was voraciously attracted to him, I felt an extreme need to self medicate, old school, the way Dr. Wonka intended. When we all left the pool hall and I let myself be mildly embarrassed by the fact that I had a somewhat Parisian merolt-stache and absolutely no bills at skilliards (I AM the most annoying person on the planet) I went home and consumed an entire bag of peanut butter cups while staring at the wall. An entire bag of Reece's cups is approximately equal to three chins. Catastrophe. Why. WHY?! WHY?! WHY Would I put the size of my ass on the line for foil wrapped Halloween treats?! Fear, confusion, slight humiliation, incredible excitement, and yes, randy-ness. It was a natural instinct and naturally, nature blows, if I were an ostrich this would be much simpler, (Note-I only compare myself to the ostrich because we have remarkably similar builds) I would just trot up to the cute Manstrich and ruffle my feathers a bit and get down, but I am not an ostrich, instead I am a chick, a non ostrich chick who probably looks a bit like a jacked up rhino after turning to calories for answers. Now, I am addicted to peanut butter cups and afraid I'll end up heartbroken on the lumpy brown couch drinking Chianti at noon yet AGAIN.

This stranger has turned me into a sentimental, slobbering pile of ballerina. I may as well just secure a lifetime rental of Dirty Dancing (there are no late fees anymore, thank you blockbuster) handcuff myself to the fattest summer issue of Cosmopolitan, and get a Yorkshire terrier named "Doily". I am certain that my influence did not turn "The Guy Who hates Non-Jungle Cats and Mushrooms" into an extra macho version of himself, he is probably neither in the woods chopping down trees, nor drinking a Budweiser and watching sports highlights, yet I, am fluffy. I am Fluffy the white cat of shrieking femininity. This is unfortunate. I am unfortunate, but I am also feel so flippin' lucky to have had the wind, sense, and diet control knocked out of me by somebody I can just tell, is extraordinary. I have been surprised, impressed, and allured by fellas, but never rendered completely and utterly female…… and hopeless. Now, I'm battling some sort of hormonal hangover, my heart is completely lusted out, it has pumped the keg dry and is sprawled on some figurative toilet seat wearing a "Kappa Kappa Shithead" sorority sweater, telling itself not too get so carried away ever again. The left and right side of my brain are shaking their index fingers and telling my ticker they're very disappointed but hearts will be hearts, and sure enough it'll be stumbling around wasted in the dark this time tomorrow.

Menial

2008-07-15T13:23:00.000-07:00

The state of South Dakota is basically a large principal’s office. Every room is painted some color of brown, Benjamin Moore would say the palette ranges from “Pot Roast” to “Meatloaf” completely ignoring the shades of brown that aren’t served Monday through Friday at office cafeterias. I enjoy the lower Dakota, but like lonely bricks of meatloaf under heat lamps, it makes me sad. My friend Julie got married this past weekend beneath a popcorn ceiling, in a carpeted church with 200 people wearing various unfortunate patterns of geometric shapes floating on top of each other and fighting for polyester space. Everybody dressed like Blossom. Less than one year ago, Julie lived in the south, most of the time on my rented couch in my rented apartment. She was cutthroat, she had a Blackberry full of important names, and a schedule filled with efficient lunches. She also happens to be one of the very sharpest knives in the drawer, and looks like a better dressed version of Lynda Carter in Wonder Woman. THis combination of IQ, T and A made certain coveted lunches very much, within her reach. She has mutated from the deadly corporate cleaver in the proverbial business drawer to June Cleaver, which is much better for her. I was really happy to be there, I danced to a Billy Joel song, the shower in my room at the Marriot Courtyard was large enough for about six handicapped people to have a Greek orgy in, and I thought my chest was going to explode when I hugged my long lost buddy. For some reason however, I also felt like throwing up a little bit the entire time. Julie, who less than a year ago, was falling asleep atop a pile of half crushed Miller Lite cans in my living room, had managed to find the love of her life while balancing her fancy job, a cross country move, and looking like a man’s illustration of a perfect leotard wearing woman, I on the other hand, have a blog, I have so much time that I spend hours writing about how much time I have, but I am still alone. I am sleeping with only my computer and my guitar ( Note- I tell people I’m sleeping with a guy called “Mac Gibson”….they think that’s a stupid joke too, so don’t feel bad) There is a reason for my failure and its no gypsy curse, I have concluded that my “vibes” suck. I am in possession of terrible vibes that escape from their viberglass insulated enclosure and ransack the world around me. Stupid vibes. Imagine if you were a lamb and all you wanted to do was hang out with some other likeminded lambs, maybe even get fluffed by a suitable ram. Imagine pulling this off if you bore a “striking” (this is a pun. no accident.) resemblance to a King cobra. So instead of attracting lambs and rams (and hams, strawberry jams, and trans ams..) I attract cobras and weirdos who stick me in hand woven baskets and expect me to dance to their terrible flute music like a snake. Why won't somebody take me to a meadow? Men tend to think I’m an entirely different person than I am, they tend to think I’m a flaming imbecile with the IQ of toilet brush. This became painfully evident to me at the carpeted celebration of my friend’s blessed union.

I got to South Dakota just in time for the rehearsal, I literally changed into my yellow dress, marveled over the fact that I had two queen sized beds and only one body, and was shuttled over to the church. Inside, I met “The Guy Who Plays Touchscreen Poker”, a not very distant relative of Jules. He was very nice, his shirt had lots of buttons and his blue jeans were from Italy. It was he, who was in charge of delivering me to the post practice roast beef and green bean extravaganza. He was quiet, almost to the point where I thought he was angry at me or an anti-Canadianist, until we got inside his incredibly clean BMW. Once he was comforted by the safety of his incredibly confident automobile, he wouldn’t shut up…about his self assured Beemer. If BMW was hiring any sales fraulein, I would be recruited tomorrow. I know things about run flat tires, GPS navigation systems, and suspension that I never, ever wanted to know. I know BMWs have an inline 6 cylinder engine, rear wheel drive, and 6 speed Steptronic with paddle shifters, how sad is that? I ride a bicycle with no shoes on most of the time, things like Bluetooth Wireless Communication don’t exactly turn my fucking crank. I should emphasize again, that he was very nice. If he sends me an email, I will send him an email back because I genuinely hope he will be doing lovely, even thought the things that make him feel lovely make me feel nothing. We hung out for the rest of night, linked only by our love of Jules and beer, and I got to hear all about how selling mini mansions makes you very rich and how girls who visit tanning bed like to steal money and pierce their belly buttons. I was sad by the recitation of facts and figures that he thought made up his person, I was even sad that he ran two miles a day, but I was most upset by the reality that I looked like the kind of person who gave rats ass about all that careless, kennel club-ish, information. Specs mean nothing to me, but my unfortunate runaway vibe suggested I was a real she-dick. He’d recently had a broken engagement so he was sad too, and after two hours of Touchscreen poker and Video Keno, he drunkenly confessed that he was smitten. He was not really, obviously. I suppose he thought I was a good investment of energy like buying plots of land, running two miles a day, or driving a German sedan the colour of a gun. I would be a shitty addition to his collection of stuff and that’s what I told him in a much nicer language. There was a good heart in there, even if he did have a tribal armband tattoo and knew where the oblique muscles were. I don’t think he understood why I wasn’t interested and I hope he doesn’t start running an extra mile because of it.

I wore an outfit to Julie’s wedding that had been rumpled by airplane travel, probably because I thought it practical to stuff all of my clothing into my laptop bag with my computer. It was a dumb idea. I would have been laughed at if I was not in a town where people were allowed to go in the shopping mall with neither shirts nor shoes because to be quite frank, I look like I’d been late night assaulted in a parking lot. Due to the fact that I looked like a victim on CSI I was surprised when ANOTHER renegade vibe escaped and returned with another unsuitable suitor. The wedding reception would have been a great place to meet somebody funny or a taxidermist because it was at the zoo and we were literally in a room surrounded by stuffed endangered species. There was a large stuffed walrus with scary plastic eyes staring at me while I ate my wild rice and very frosted cake. Sadly, I did not get to meet a witty taxidermist who would lighten the mood, instead, I met a man I have met at least sixty times in my life, a Jewish New Yorker. I love Jewish New Yorkers, they have ridiculous accents, every sentence spoken sounds like a retort in a heated argument, and they always know a bunch about Frank Sinatra and baseball teams. “The Guy Who Thinks I Have a Green Kitchen” walked up to me and did not say hello, he said;
GreenKitchen- I like what you’re wearing
GK-Its vintage isn’t it?
Me-Actually, I bough--
GK-Boom! I knew it was vintage. From the forties?
Me- Well--
GK- I knew it was from the forties. I bet you live in a period home, a period home with modern lines.
Me- I don’t really know, its--
GK- You like antiquing (←statement , not a question) I love antiquing.
GK-What colour is your kitchen? Its green. Boom! Its avcado green
Me- I wouldn’t call it gree--
GK- See? You got kitchen a green. I’m good.

Apparently, I have a green kitchen somewhere.
I don’t, but I let him believe I did because I was getting a bit anxious. “The Guy Who Thinks I Have a Green Kitchen” didn’t get to know people, he just KNEW people. He thought I was “real cute” and that I should move to Williamsburg, “maybe the east side” because "I look like like an eastside girl". I was trying to learn the differences between dead gazelles, gnus, and impalas as he was talking at my face, I needed something to do while he was thinking for the both of us. Eventually “The Guy who Plays Touchscreen Poker” rescued me, as even he could see that I had that “Gnu in headlights” look about me. . “The Guy Who Thinks I Have a Green Kitchen” was probably a great dude, he probably yelled at the Yankees, and knew where to get a killer Rueben at 3am in Brooklyn, but he didn’t know shit about me OR the colour of my kitchen (Its somewhere between buttercup and creamed corn in case you were wondering) and the end of the day, he didn't care.

After the wedding reception was ended in favour of Jules wedding conception, the whole lot of us ended up a Harley Festival listening to a band that sounded like REO Speedwagon, me, The Guy who Plays Touchscreen Poker”, “The Guy Who Thinks I Have a Green Kitchen”, a cousin from the quad city area, a cousin who was a recovering meth addict, and the former meth addicts’ 18 year old son ( a King Cobra in training) I didn’t sleep well when I got back to my two sizes too big room probably because all the newly constructed identities that had been made for me over the weekend were hogging the bedspace. I felt like I needed two Advil and a lobotomy to fix my shitty vibes. I at least needed a really distinctive haircut that had the words “I DON’T HAVE A GREEN KITCHEN OR DRIVE A CAR WITH LEATHER SEATS” shaved into the back. Unfortunately my head is not big enough to accommodate such a statement. I don’t think it was the state of South Dakota that made me sad, I think it was just my state of being in the state of South Dakota and THAT state was a state of distress (I just wanted to see how many states I could throw in there. Impressive) I makes sense that a great dude has not found me yet, its because my outside is making my inside look bad. I hope I will stop releasing idiot pheromones into the wilderness soon so I will not ever have to make polite conversation about Horsepower and paint chips ever again.

Menace

2008-07-08T16:48:00.000-07:00

I am about 67% certain that “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” drunk dialed me two nights ago. This is excellent news, the kind of excellent news that Neville Chamberlain would have proclaimed to the world before it was appropriate but only because he was so bloody well excited he could hardly keep his knickers on (← Sentence of an Anglophile) It is possible that he had been shot in the jugular by some sort of Zulu air rifle that contained some sort of Witch Doctorish sedative, or I suppose he could have accidentally recycled his telephone again and was stuck using a CB radio that made him sound like he was underwater and 1913 Miles Away, but given the fact that he had most certainly been drinking and to the best of my knowledge, has not made any Congolese enemies, I would bet the wool socks on my feet that he called me drunk. You would think he would be embarrassed and I would feel like I had some sort of an upper hand, but that’s horseshit, my hand still blows and I still think everything about his hand, game of choice, and poker face is wonderful and much better than mine. He could call me from Bordeaux, Fr., drinking a martini, in the midst of a moonshine bubble bath, and listening to the Champs’ 1958 classic “Tequila” if he wanted to, in fact I’d probably book an online flight, risking identity theft and possibly death, fly KLM to France making a horrible stopover in Amersterdam, rent a compact euromobile, and drive through Gascon on the wrong side of the road to deliver to him some Tylenol and the greasiest breakfast sandwich the world has known …NOT made with prophetic Ezekiel toast. I’m fairly certain that he would not be interested in driving in a car the size of a Labrador Retrievers’ house to come and see me in a stupor…. this, is unfortunate, but we’re just friends and friends don’t fly to Europe with fried eggs on toast for eachother, that’s dragon slaying caliber bravado. So, I just let him talk his 67% drunk talk and listened attentively to his beer recommendations and tales of eating forbidden poultry in the Lone Star state, and the lingering guilt of a vegetarian gone wild (he’d just returned from Texas). Its always difficult to tell if somebody is completely trashed in the age of mobile phones, they fade in and out and always seem to pick up phantom party noises even when somebody is in the Bank of America or the bathroom, so I try and not jump to that foolish place where girls feel special for getting a call from Captain Morgan’s first mate (←stupid girl thing, inflation of self esteem caused by something mildly demeaning..AWESOME) In this case, I don’t think I’m jumping any guns. Judging ones level of sobriety is simple based on the three “S” system of diagnosis, in this case, all three indicators were present

Salutation- Before I put my husky voice on and said “Hello” like an amateur sexy hotline operator, “ The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away sent a text message that said “WTF?” If you are 15, have braces, and your name is Kelly, this acronym means “What The Fuck?” If you’re name is not Kelly and you’re a yoga practicing democrat who just drinks like a 15 year old girl, it means “ I’m partying my face off”. I am not surprised that he has absorbed WTFs given his love of FYIs and PSes, but it did prove that he was saucy, especially since he also felt the need to translate the prepubescent term for me when he called, loudly exclaiming “What THE FUCK?!?!” to my left ear. His tone had a festive “ Its my birthday” jingle to it, which I found adorable because I am thoroughly pathetic. It made me shake my head out loud in front of one of my new favorite people, a mutual friend of ours, “The Guy Who Makes My Day” (I’m not sure why he does…but he always seems to) He reminds me of a much cooler version of myself, except taller and less accident prone. We were eating dinner when the drunk dial occurred and it was a bit awkward to process when our mouths were full of paella. The fact that he is a mutual friend means we are all in a platonic “Like Triangle” full of clandestine pints of beer and inside joke manufacturing. I think “They Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” might have been a little jealous that we were hanging out. I think that’s why he used the offensive Tiger Beat-esque acronym and why he drove home with a buzz instead of staying at one of our places. I think his goat was got. I’m not sure whether he was pining for me, “The Guy Who Makes My Day”, or both of us separately but I’m going to assume it was me because my hair smells nice and I have boobs, whats not to like? I don’t know if any of my self serving theories are true, but logic is incredibly flexible when you want it to be. He has never used “WTF?” before therefore he must have been drunk….and secretly in love with me (begrudgingly kidding)

Sesame Streetage-

When a person gets right shitfaced the only skills they bother to remember are the ones they need to pass a field sobriety test. They are the same skills we learn at a young age from the tiny, inner city cul de sac known as Sesame Street. The SS folk (←I’m horrid) teach children under 8 to recite the alphabet, hop on one foot, memorize their home address and challenge developing physical coordination in both the “head, shoulders, knees and toes” and “stomach rubbing and head patting “ areas. Remaining focused on your bilingual abcs while a gigantic wholly mammoth beast called a Snuffalufagus is plodding across the television is not easy, were I not conditioned to the colorful Sesame street urchins which simulate the distractions of the real world from a very young age, I may never have learned my alphabet and spent my adult years racking up DUIs with Kiefer Sutherland and the dude from Lost Boys. The last time I got pulled over I sang “the Hokey Pokey” in perfect pitch, the police actually gave me EXTRA merit points on my record, so if I ever crash into a pole, the pole will get charged for recklessness and its license suspended, not me. Anyways, I knew my gas guzzling, rural dwelling friend had been drinking when he decided to show off his counting skills listing off the name and quantity of each beer he had consumed. It was clear that he had studied under Sesame Street’s violet vampire sage with an almost religious devotion. I’m sure that if he ever had the job of deciding whose face was stamped on postage stamps, the Count would start showing up on all sorts of envelopes. He’d probably shove my mug on a couple of stamps too, since I am after all, important enough to drunk dial. He’d probably get a kick out of seeing my face on small packages everywhere at the cost of 5 measly cents. He also demonstrated geographical savvy and was able to name the origin of each beer he drained, they were however, all Belgian so I guess it wasn’t horribly difficult. I suspect at the time of the call, his excited were still excited but encased behind a foggy aquarium wall of tipsynes, a look I have seen and enjoyed several times before. I’m not sure he would have made the podium in the Roadside Sobriety Games and I’m certain that if asked by an officer of the law, he could explain the directions to Sesame street, I was concerned, by his state, naturally. I should have offered my couch (HA!) but I didn’t, as soon as a man goes from Hoegaarden to kindergarten, he can only do two things: vomit and fuck, neither of which were on my agenda.

Sleepiness- I received the phone call at nine thirty. He was on his way home. Questionable.

The second shittiest thing about a mildly inebriated phone call is that it makes you feel special, not because you SHOULD feel special but because you want to and you’re so desperate you’ve seriously considered doing the Dominos guy because he was nice enough to bring your cheesy bread in 30 minutes or less like he promised. This is not winning a Pulitzer Prize but somehow being the drunk dialee makes you proud for a second, and that’s just sad. The first shittiest thing about the “DD” (← tribute acronym), is the moment where you realize you aren’t fucking special. You aren’t being reached out to, you’re just reachable, five hour and twelve minute Dutch layover reachable. Girls are always telling themselves exactly what they want to hear without hesitation regardless of whether its true or not. The only thing worse than being manipulated by a dude is being manipulated by yourself. I’m convinced that silent films died because the very idea of women being able to put whatever thoughts they liked into the head of an unfortunately moustached man in a bowler was sp terrifying to society that they had to call Mickey Mouse in to “take care of” the genre. I am one of these girls, sitting with my dumb computer inventing reasons for things not worthy of explanation, I should be doing laundry or drinking heavily and calling him back. Dunk dials are just the pits because they invite us to turn a possible misdial into the most romantic charlotte bronte-ish gesture ever if we so choose. I’m glad I haven’t yet shagged the Dominos guy, but I’m not convinced I’m done mentally shagging “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away”, even though he doesn’t bring me cheesy bread in 30 minutes or less. I’m not convinced he’s done mentally shagging me either.

Man o' War

2008-06-24T16:18:00.000-07:00

I try do to my part in preserving the small amount of world peace I am in charge of, its pretty easy to do things like let somebody cut in front of me in the everlasting ladies bathroom line who clearly, has to pee more than I do, its not difficult for me to forgive somebody for stepping on my toe, or, to offer to man the grill in a communal grilling situation. I am not responsible for any world wars (except for Desert Storm….you caught me) I don’t own any firearms, and the last piece of public property I defaced was the parking lot of Oak Ridges Public School and it was for the sake of hopscotch. I pretty much don’t fuck up the balance of the vast, vast universe…. my OWN spacetastic solo system however, is completely discombobulated. NOTE:I have been desperate to use the word discombobulated for ages, just starving for it……. Tuesday is a good day. I’m feeling revolutionary, I’ve got a mean case of Che Guevara- itis, the symptoms include use of beret, random fits of Shaolin kung fu, and an uncomfortable burning that can only be compared to having a fire lit directly under the ass. I’m steamed. I’m steamed like broccoli florets, or a linen pantsuit, I’m steamed like the bloody circus pulling steam engine in “Dumbo” where all the animals sang that fucking awesome “Baby Mine” song to their offspring!! A good friend of mine shagged “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” and I found out from somebody else. “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” is crazy, we already know this because he didn’t want to date me, but she has invented an entirely new low. I wish he would give me back my season three of “Lost” so I could throw the DVDs at them both like ninja stars. I would even throw the special features disc and I LOVE behind the scenes footage. I am re-re-naming “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” the “The Douche Who Likes Manatees” and I am retracting the olive branch I extended and recapturing the white doves I released into the sky. No love, no dove, that’s my new slogan. He and I had started to write a song this week, I have decided to not finish it because it isn’t very flipping good anyways. From now on, he does not even exist to me, I would not pass him salt or pepper at the dinner table, and I will not afford him the obligatory “Everything’s fine because we’re so mature” hug when I see him out at night trolling the city for poon. If I were a submarine he wouldn’t even be a blip on my sonar, not even a whale noise. HA. SHE on the other hand will always exist to me, I was an outstanding friend to her who bought Mexican lunches and provided study company. It really bloody hurts when somebody whose nachos come straight out of your pocket and problems go straight into your ear drums, has I’m sure, mediocre sex in the missionary position with the very bastard that recently broke your heart. What a cunt. If she were a film created by two first time, vaguely attractive Bostonian actors she would be “Good Will Cunting”, if she were a popularly covered Cat Stevens song she would be “The First Cunt is Deepest….If she were an easy to predict baseball decision she would be the “Sacrifice Cunt”. I know I sound a bit mean right now and I should be sensitive to fact that her dirty whorishness is probably the result of Daddy Issues or low self esteem but guess what, when I’m having a shitty day, I manage to not jump on the nearest shlong to bone the pain away, I drink three for ten dollar bottles of wine like a normal person. She doesn’t know I’m aware of her Holiday Inn of a vagina so I have a few potential ways of dealing with this Trojan-esque back stabbery, but make no mistake, it is WAR:

Possible strategies include:

The Cupid- My experience as an archer has been limited to regular McDonalds breakfasts, so I’m not sure how effective this death by fluffy kindness approach will be. However, I do have goldish hair that curls a little, and I often spend my days flying around topless in nothing but an adult diaper, so at least I look the part. If I decide to go cherubic on her ass, I will be so sweet that the all the sugar I force feed her will cause her insides to decay leaving only her guilt and eventually, this will drive her bat shit mad. I already am a pretty sappy friend by nature so this really will not require much effort other than learning to look her in her shifty, shifty eyes again. I will of course, probably have to buy her more vegetarian nachos, but it will be worth it because karma will reimburse me by bestowing a large amount of cellulite on her thighs

The Jack Hannah-
Step One- Order a scorpion on the “Swifts Invertebrates” website.
Step .5 - Remember to pay off credit card so the scorpion is not repossessed en route
Step Two- Train scorpion in Brazilian street fighting techniques
Step Three- Put Scorpion in “Mary, Mary Quite Cuntrary’s” stupid bob haircut

The Danny Tanner-
This is what we call diplomacy, and what Patton would call pussying out. Danny Tanner was a tortured man, resolving all those conflicts between Uncle Jesse and Uncle Joey, and contending with the constant bickering three precocious daughters…it was all too much! Talking shit out over a cooing fake live audience and hugging inside a fake bedroom while Comet the retriever barks approvingly nearby accomplishes nothing. It’s a just a ceasefire, it doesn’t actually leave anybody feeling resolved. Plus, politely suppressing your emotions like the wife of an upper class Tory is not healthy. The Tanner house was full alright, full of fucking repressed anger. Once the cast was evicted from that full of issues house, where did they all end up? Stephanie turned to meth, Mary Kate and/or Ashley had body dismorphia, Stamos’ marriage to the most attractive woman on the planet crumbled, Uncle Joey emotionally abused Alanis Morrisette thus causing her to defame him through song and DJ can only be presumed dead. Bob Saget, how could you let this happen?!? Cha cha-ing around the important issues clearly doesn’t help anyone. Sure the Danny Tanner "hug it out" method would make me look like “The Bigger Person” but I would just feel like “The Bigger Asshole” until I eventually snapped and blew up a middle school or engaged in some other randomly selected act of violence (Will it ever NOT be too soon make funnies about that?) I think I like the idea with the mail order scorpion better.

The Ultimate Warrior-
I love this plan not only for its use of neon spandex but also for its use of performance enhancing drugs… In addition, I enjoy it for its audience participation, for its unbridled “rah, rah, rah”. Me (The Great White North) vs her (The Dirty, Unwashed South) in a room, in public, with me singing her great white threats through VInce McMahon’s microphone informing the cheering audience exactly why I’m going to put her in a figure four. I will simply let the whole world know that she’s a shitty, shitty human being but a fantastic slut. I will be the undeclared winner, I will keep my pants on because I’ll have a new championship belt to keep them up, and she will be exposed (not that she had any trouble with doing that herself before). Also, somewhere in this plan the crowd would boo her and a crazed fan would hit her with a folding chair. Oh, and just so you’re aware, I would look much better in my spandex than she would, that’s just a fact.

The Charlie Chaplin-

(That was it. It’s a silent treatment)

I wish this was easier and I wish scorpions were cheaper, or even better, that “Mary Mary Quite Cuntrary was less easy and not so cheap because she really hurt my feelings in the unforgivable kind of way. She always used to send me these really over the top, gushy text messages with about a hundred emoticons of various positive expressions that said things like “You Make My Heart Happy”. I think that the next time she does that I’ll reply “You Make My Heart Want to Slap You in the Jaw”. Maybe manopause should be womanopause too and I should go to the mountains in Nepal and live in solitary confinement with nothing but a yak and a wool sweater, conserving my emotional energy and eating nothing but yak cheese sandwiches. I should probably just be a little more wary of this world, yaks are probably costlier than scorpions anyways and humanopause does sound a bit drastic. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll do yet, but I am sure of one thing, I will not be trampled on by the filthy soles of a filthy tramp.

If she ever reads this, which she probably will because she’s probably paranoid that I’ve found out about her cowardly love making, all she needs to know is this: Its irreparable. We are very different people. I wish her good luck with the nursing job, the cowardly sex, the full bed, and the empty heart.

Mendacious

2008-06-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

I've been withholding information, I could be put in jail or even worse, the CIA could repeatedly dunk my head in cold water or spritz my eyes with malt vinegar until I tell the truth. I’m not sure what my particular offense is called but its somewhere between perjury and cowardice but its not quite lying, because nobody from the Blog Readers Union asked me a damn thing ( see you at the annual picnic retreat, cyber blue collars)

COMPLETE RANDOM FACT SHARING: I’m writing this at an IHOP eating crepes, I come here once a week because the best waitress ever, Jewel, works here, she never lets my juice glass go empty, plus,she calls me sweetpea and it makes my cheeks turn the colour of a plum. The girl sitting behind me is about seventeen and is breaking up with her boyfriend of two years, she wanted flowers on her birthday and never got them. Now she’s freaking out, she sounds like the kind of person I would not like to be friends with….wait, I’m wrong, she’s actually 28 years old, she just said it. Its very sad. She just blew her nose. Nonetheless, I think I would like to have my next break up at the IHOP, chocolate chip pancakes are pretty much the best thing a person could cry into. Oh, by the way, his name is Wilson, like the tennis balls

Anyways back to me, I saw “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” exactly one and a half weeks ago. It was an entirely preventable “ Lets Grab A Drink” meeting that I chose not to prevent at all. I got into the car, turned the key, and used 19,13 miles of gasoline on him. It was like going to Sandals in Negril and not wearing sun block even though there is a tube of Banana Boat SPORT right there. Furthermore, we could have easily catered the “Lets Grab a Drink” to number of non sexy environs including:
-happy hour-centric sports bar.
-bustling independently owned coffe shop
-my backyard, which is conveniently filled with dogs, dog poop, and plants that make you sneeze
-a vacant parking lot where we would wear basketball jerseys, sideways hats, and big chains holding stolen hood ornaments

But no, I went to his heavily foliaged hideaway of a home and vegetated with him, more than just willingly….I was so into it that I arrived three whole minutes early. He has not been missing in action, we have spoken on the telephone, sent back and forth some very sassy, and unnecessarily clever emails. He even recommended a pro biotic immune builder to cure my recent snuffly illness, it was made of smashed up mushroom caps and curative spores intended to aid my white blood cells in their fight against snot. Honesty time- It was so wonderful to see him. When I turned the corner of his house and saw him slightly distorted through the many squares of window screen, I very much wanted to remove my shorts, but I didn’t. There was extraordinary amount of uncomfortable silence mending drink consumption as well. Generally the combination of alcohol and forest results intercourse, but IT didn’t because I am an emotional gladiator. However I do have to mention because this blog is full disclosure, that there was a kiss, it was a kiss whose origins can be traced back to a bottle of champagne, not that I can continue to use booze an excuse but guess what? I STOPPED IT. I DID!!! If you feel like singing a Gloria Gaynor song about being a strong woman, you may begin. I know it seems a bit crazy that I could be half over somebody that rerouted the course of manopause, but I think based on my behaviors that night, I am at least 34% healed. Here is my compiled evidence.

CLOTHING- Not only am I able to keep my clothes on when his excited eyes are clearly picturing me stark nekkid, but I’m able to make clothing choices that directly result in my not having sex. Wardrobe is a form of pelvic security, if I had dressed like Britney Spears in that first video she did about Blackjack/physical abuse/the private school system we probably would have done it, maybe twice, one more time after one more time as the song suggests. That outfit would have indicated that my self esteem was JUST low enough to roll around frivolously. Conversely, every time I go to a wedding and see a weeping bride stutter through her vows and notice she’s wearing one of those dresses with ten thousand buttons up the back, I know the marriage is doomed. If you want to have a crazy post conjugal shag with your husband, you don’t dress your body up like it’s a state penitentiary. Seriously, ever heard of a zipper? It’s the metal thing that Levi Strauss puts on the front of his well tailored pants so you can pull them over your bottom. Anyhow, I’m deviating AGAIN. I was wearing a white eyelet dress that was a little bit see through that day, if I were in a room with a black light (not that I hang out in places with black lights) you would have been able to see my underpants and I would have been forced to hide in the bathroom. Thankfully I was not in a Warsaw nightclub before I left, I was on my friend Ashley’s porch and the moment she said she liked the dress I knew I had to change into something that did not encourage romance. I bicycled home and changed into shorts. I know that shorts do reveal a certain amount of skin, but when you have bony Anglo Saxon legs so pale that they should be pinned with a toe tag, its not exactly the Miss Hawaiian Tropic Contest. I would definitely not want to have sex with me in shorts, nobody would. Shorts destroy the pants shareability in any relationship too, just so you're aware. The particular shorts I chose were unforgivably ugly too, they had that terrible denim spaghetti coming off the bottom that always tangles itself together into giant gobs of trailer park spiderweb. I did everything I could to look like I’d be an amateur bedfellow, even though he knows full well that my nose pressing abilities are world famous. This was intentional, because I wanted to give my nose the night off. The important discovery is that I had the power to say "No flippin' way, Buster" through fashion. I took off a dress that was more than suggestive, it was nearly downright insistent…. AND I was able to replace it with the kind of lowbrow outfit that suggests nothing more than a Miller Lite with your Jalapeno Poppers. In some circles, they call choices like this progress.

DIET- It seems that every time I venture into Sherwood-if-I-could forest, I end up devouring the contents of “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away’s Refrigerator”. Generally I do my best to eat whatever tasty concoction he creates with the stifled grace of an upper class Tory, but this time I ate like an angry wolverine. I ate like a large Canadian weasel because I was doing my best to NOT end up nose to shoulder blade with a man who had zero interest in preserving the relationship between my nose and his lats (he actually does have lats too, I've seen'em). Like his designer bread, the EZEKIEL pasta he made was devoutly Christian, and we consumed it with two of the least aphrodisiac foods on the planet, black beans and garlic. I love garlic, I love it for its vampire slaying powers and I love it for its curative effects (truthfully, none of which I understand) but it does makes your breath stink and on this particular occasion, it made my breath nearly fatal. My breath could have been dropped from airplanes and used as a defoliant in Vietnam, exposure to one puff would surely have increased one’s chances of certain cancers…I do hope “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” keeps an eye out for sarcoma tissue since he was sitting across from me. It was a delicious meal. I ate the whole large stack of pious spaghetti, most of it landing on my lap and sticking in my teeth, it was garlicky, but at this point I did not expect that we would end up in a precarious position that would leave us at the mercy of each other’s herbicidal breath, but we did. I know I’m not the best at avoiding the arms of this man, but I really, truly, scout;s honour, didn’t think it would go there at all! And why would I? He’d had the opportunity to make out with me and feed me his fridge for an extended period of time and he opted against it, what would draw him back?. I am (well..I was) resolved with his decision, he has the makings if a life long friend, why waste that on a romantic Hindenberg-esque disaster with somebody who really didn’t want to give it a shot? So, I sat there, let my wild jackal breath stink (not that there are too many domesticated jackals) and laughed at my new, dangerously adorable friend. If I had wanted to try and worm my way back into foreplay town, there’s no way I would have let my breath become a carcinogen. I might've only scored a C minus in the "keeping my hands off him" department, but this slovenly feeding frenzy was a vast improvement from my old ‘cut-food-into-tiny-pieces-then-chase-it-with–a-“death mint”-gum” self.

BEHAVIOR- I feel I should mention at this point that there was some champagne involved in our little visit. Champagne also brought its ugly half cousin red wine. As a law abiding citizen I knew it would be highly irresponsible for me to drive home and also would cause an unflattering mug shot to surface on the internet somewhere between Sean Penn and Snoop Dogg’s.. and that would be devastating. Drinking to the point that I did was not acceptable and resulted in some badly formed sentences, but we were having fun, we might have even been celebrating, what I’m not sure, but there was a definite feeling of “woooooohoooooo!” in the air. I was incredibly pleased to see him and his wonderfully wound up eyes, and I loved talking about awkward things like strippers from Baltic countries and silly girls who are slutty virgins. He is impossible to not be terribly fond of, but its an important fondness that I’d like to keep for at least the next five thousand years so I must use it wisely. Moving on from the slightly pathetic gushing, we went to bed, and there was a kiss…maybe three kisses tops. Unroll your eyes, wiseguy, I halted it. I! ME! The person with less willpower than Marie Osmond at a Cherry Cheesecake Festival! Will it happen again? Probably. Will I be so incredibly moral next time? Who the fuck knows!? The important thing is that I know I am capable of sleeping three centimeters away from him and not letting my nostril blow hot garlic air onto his back. I respect him too much to make incredibly convenient love to him, to me, there’s just no attraction when it’s a matter of expediency, its just too easy to be that easy. ….<---Wait a second, was that just a principle? I think it was! I have principles and I’m not so sure that I such pronounced ones last month, I’m going through philosophical puberty!

I feel much better now that I’ve unloaded my large, large, truck bed full of lies onto this ginormous lawn of interweb ←could that be ANOTHER principle on the horizon….truth telling, imagine!!!!.... I had to process the recent events of this nomance into a neat piece of informational bologna before I shared it. To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it until now. There are certainly moments where I wish ‘The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” and I could be skipping hand in hand through a meadow to a Monkees song about love, but I’d rather be skipping in that damn meadow alone than have to drag somebody through it, that person would probably get hard to remove grass stains on the knees of their jeans and that would be a terrible, unlaundrifiable mess. I am resolved in the fact that I don’t want him or anybody who is in it more for the kick ass meadow than the kick ass co-skipper. I’m sorry if writer-reader trust has been betrayed, but I’d rather tell you something certain than proclaim something I didn’t believe.

Mennonite

2008-06-15T06:25:00.001-07:00

What do Mennonites and I have in common besides an obvious shared love of facial hair and suspenders? Fucking nothing. I dislike bonnets, especially on Easter, I only drink pasteurized milk, and I would never churn anyone’s butter. If Phil Collins came up to me and asked me to churn him some butter for his bread, I would say “Screw you Phil, screw you and your unbuttered roll.” I respect them for their life choices and the vegetable stands that sprout from such painfully honest living, but seriously long sleeved shirts WITH the wrist buttons buttoned, lets not pretend that shit is comfortable in the deep south... AND they must get a little bit hostile every time a shirtless trucker passes them, choking their cart pulling pony with diesel and causing them to dream sinfully (but not like THAT) of shirtlessness. I went to a river this past weekend, a river so rural that the second nearest town was called “Bucksnort, it was a veritable girls weekend filled with things like mimosas, hair braiding and talk of the men who touched more than just our lives (or lack thereof). Ring a ding ding. We are liberal women, we recycle and practice yoga, we have opinions about news items we only half understand, we have little in common with the Mennonites we met on the sandy landing one week ago. We encountered them first in the bed of a pick up truck, which I’m sure they were embarrassed to be seen in as I think it probably violates some sacred Mennonite horse and buggy rule. I bet the older ones were ashamed and wondered what their parents might think to see them bouncing along in the back of a Ram, a ram with wheels instead of hooves. I get that same feeling often except its not about riding trucks, not at all☺ Ita about making poor life choices that are little bit more risqué. What I would pay to be disappointed in myself for riding trucks. I would be a shitty Mennonite, I’m pretty sure that my name is on a WANTED poster in Shaker country for an incident three years ago involving public urination, a runaway sheepdog, and a flashlight toting search party. I think my ladyfriends and I are probably even terrible Mennonite neighbours. If you’ve ever wondered how to ruin an Anabaptist camping trip, which I’m sure you have because it’s a perfectly practical place for an idle mind to drift to, incorporate these three elements into your sabatoge.

Intoxication- For a people with such ready access to moonshine ingredients, it is surprising that the simple folk do not imbibe. I imbibe a shit ton, I imbibe more than fucking Blackbeard. Surely they have hundreds of spare potatoes to ferment. I guess it would be hard to milk a cow drunk or make one of those large, patriotic quilts, but I can’t imagine as a woman getting ploughed by a many generations older guy named Abraham without consuming a hundred fuzzy navels beforehand. It makes me a little bit sad that sweet apron wearing girls are having incredibly stiff, well starched sex sober, that’s no fun at all. We decided upon running into our friends and their hoes down at the cove-ish jumping into the water area, that we should maybe show them how happy happy hour can truly be, enriching the lives of others is good fun. We waddled up in our boots, stinking of coconut rum and depraved modern living to find the McMennonites having family time: One adult male, several of his wives/daughters and a couple young suspenderlings stoking and poking their fire which was probably the offspring of two very passionate sticks. They were not happy to see us and probably would have preferred were grizzly bears with a hunger for fresh from the coop eggs. The patriarch er…father would not even make eye contact with me, and I totally stared him down, I’m not used to that kind of avoidance from men until AFTER we sleep together. I do realize that there is nothing more annoying than a group of girls that have been seduced by the magic of coconut rum, especially for a group of people that have never had themselves, a single intimate moment with coconut rum. Anyways we were operating at Kappa Kappa Dumbslut volume, high decibel giggles escaped and we said the word cunt at least four times (by we, I mean me). For some reason, I decided it would be an excellent idea to walk into the river with my clothes on, rubber boots included, and have myself a little paddle. I emerged, a mennonite’s worst nightmare: I was Bo Derek in a wet t shirt contest, the water was not entirely warm and dusk had not darkened enough to disguise my highly visible cans, my headlights were highbeams and I was essentially giving Lucifer a lift all they way to their little teepee in my sinmobile. The next day we returned to the same spot and the wholesome American farmily was gone/driven away. Fact: People that look like Sir Quaker of Oatmeal do not mix well with mixed drinks.

Nudity- Oh no we didn’t.
Yes, oh yes we sure fucking did.
We went Euro.
Have you ever heard of the Buffalo Riviera? Probably not and it’s a damn shame. The good news is that you too can transform a regular contaminated waterway into your very own arrogant resort town with just a simple step, its so absurdly easy it deserves its own half hour featurette on QVC with a live audience and exciting music that makes you feel like your life is about to change. All you have to do to convert a boring river into a Riviera is show your tits. Toplessness is key to Rivieraness, people don’t go to Monte Carlo for the conversation, low, low prices, and French Hospitality, they go for the boobs. The higher the population density of boobs, the more luxurious your Riviera will appear. The population density of the Buffalo Riviera was astounding it was like Tokyo but instead of fashionable Asian kids in platform shoes, there were breasts. It was the best of breasts to, we all have fantastic racks, it was the “Cans film breastival. The day after our arrival and first introduction to the Mennonites, we decided to go back down to our tiny patch of sand and pebble. The family had been so appaled by our gregarious behavior and public intoxication, that they actually went further up or down stream (I’m not sure which way is which) I could see the suspenderlings in a tiny motorless (naturally) boat, they were too far to hold a conversation with but close enough to leer politely, they probably fishing or talking about how shitty it was to have a boat with no motor. By this point in the afternoon we had consumed about a thousand Bloody Marys so it was not hard to throw caution to the wind and clothing to the ground. I’m sure the boys were quite happy to be motorless after they saw several pairs of untanned boobs staring curiously back at them, it is probably one of the few instances where their Amishness resulted in tits, and maybe one of the last, unless you’re counting udders. I’m glad they didn’t get too close to our Eurotic topless beach as there were some rather trashy elements to it. With binge drinking comes excessive binge eating, had they been closer, they would have realized that we were eating pimento cheese and tuna salad with Fritos, toplessness becomes less attractive when one is talking with their mouth open and its cheesy neon orange contents are exposed. It is also highly unsexy, when tuna salad is carelessly spilled on to the right can. Then it becomes sad, like those strip joints that have lunch buffets and hot wings. I do think the young Mininites felt guilty because they eventually drifted back to shore or were eaten by a bobcat. There hunger for breast will grow, as will my hunger for pimento cheese even though neither of us will ever fully understand the confusing attractions we are faced with.

Blasphemy- If the nakedness, profanity, tittywild goodtimes, and spreadable cheese wasn’t enough to get us sent directly to Hades, we decided to perform tipsy baptisms in the river. I am not a fully trained, bible owning Christian. I have only been to church one time and I made a paperbag puppet of a giraffe that had nothing to do Jesus, giraffes aren’t even manger creatures, they’re too tall and don’t live in Bethlehem, SO I have no right to be a part of any vaguely religious riverside ceremony. We rebirthed ourselves not only in the name of in the name of the lord but in things unholy, like champagne, rubber boots, and mountain lions. My friend Reebs got baptized about four times, she’s a very spiritual woman and had been drinking since before she brushed her teeth. Why we felt the need to start our lives over right there in the murky water drinking murky beers and slurring our very murky words, I will never know, perhaps the chasteness up or down stream was wearing off on us and we wanted a clean slate, but despite our lack of convictions we sure as hell, we all dipped our head in that water. After this point, I never saw the tightly plaited family again. I’m not sure if they overheard our offensive celebration, or whether they had already gone home to a herd of sheep that needed a shearin’. If they did see our heretic acrobatics, they took the fuck off soon after we began as though a seven horned beast had just been rummaging through their picnic basket. Oh well, I’m sure they rode home in the bed of that same Dodge ram they showed up in so I guess we’re all worthy of a wrist slapping.

We absolutely ran those Anabaptists right out of the riverhood and I don’t think they’ll ever come back as the mighty Buffalo as it has been tainted by exposed nipple and white rum. I do think us girls will return though with new stories and new reasons to be re-baptized on a Sunday afternoon. I’m not a great neighbor to god fearing folk but I do know that I am an outstanding friend, I know this because I happen to be friends with some of the most outstanding women that god or science put on this rapidly browning green earth. If cocktails, breasts, and kicking faith in the balls are wrong, then I will never ever be right, and that’s okay because I really enjoy skinny dipping.

Management

2008-06-14T15:57:00.000-07:00

My internet is down. It has gone down like Paris Hilton on an expertly Handicam'ed member. I don't like coffee or hippies so that pretty much makes me feel like an exile in any independent javary and thats a terrible feeling. I have news, I have blogs, I am still relevant. I will post as soon as Y2K is over.

I am sorry you miss me with your entire being, that must be horrific.

xo

Manger

2008-06-05T06:39:00.000-07:00

I am in Canada. Our food is different. Every time I come here eat about 65 of these.......

Crumpets are fucking awesome and are the main reason why I’m proud to be a member of the Commonwealth. I’m fairly certain that it was the sharing of these teaside snacks that lead to the great success of British Empire. Seriously, I can say this because I am still technically at the service of the crown, but if I were an indigenous ruler and somebody gave me enough crumpets, I’d probably allow them to exploit my people, reap my nation of its raw materials, and sell them back to me at an inflated price. Instead of crumpets, America has biscuits and they try to overcompensate for their lack of crumpet by increasing the quantity of biscuits. They give you a dry, crumbly biscuit with every single meal and its impossible to choke one down without a large glass of milk and an incredibly strong tongue at your disposal. Crumpets aren’t like that, they are easy to digest and instead of monopolizing every meal they only show up for tea at four o clock, just like the Oprah Winfrey show…this “leave them wanting more” mentality is what made Oprah a billionaire. Crumpets are the smartest food around and if I ever make an extraordinary amount of money I will set up a trust for crumpets so they finally get the compensation they deserve.

I said crumpet at least seven times in that post. Its an incredibly exciting word to say, try it!

Mantra

2008-06-04T13:11:00.000-07:00

Today, I’m having a crisis of faith, I feel like how the Pope must've felt when he found out that all of his creepy bishops were diddling the altar boys and that’s a shitty feeling. I guess that’s what happens when you're too quick to subscribe to your own gospel, you walk in on Father Friendly and his boy wonder on the squeakiest pew of the cathedral using the lords name in vain….if you know what I mean. This sort of shock comes at you like a wrecking ball on a Saturn Ion, crumpling you up in a can of cream sodaish fashion. I've been totally Saturn Ionized by karma, likely because I think I'm smarter than I actually am (sounds awful, but its true). God hates my blog, he does, he surely hates the whole internet for its awesome power but he especially hates my blog …..even more than eBay. If he worked for a literary journal, he would write essays that rip my work to shreds and all the bohemians I secretly try and impress by being sardonic would think I was completely redundant. I thought I had this "following the arrows and signs that say “Destiny This Way, Keep Left" crap figured out, but apparently I don’t, or I’ve been rerouted or just plain doomed, its probably the doomed one. The amount of spiked karmic punch I’ve consumed over the past couple days is powerful enough to make Steven Segal as dizzy and nauseous as sixteen year old cheerleader at a kegger. Basically I have been notified that everything I thought I knew is complete shit, which makes perfect sense given the fact that I keep making the same rotten decisions over and over again. I spend a decent amount of time in this blog speaking candidly and sometimes, condescendingly about things and people. I should probably stop doing that before I get struck by lightening. I know it seems slightly outlandish and self important for me to think that every little thing that goes wrong in my life is somehow the byproduct of a larger lesson I’m supposed to learn, a divine slap on the wrist or finger in the face for the thoughts I have in my head, but I am slightly self important and very outlandish so I’m going to keep thinking it, plus, I totally have proof. I have hard evidence that I am being reprimanded for some of the generalizing and people slamming crimes I’ve happily committed over the past couple of months. I hate education sometimes, but these lessons came loud and clear in one afternoon that according to the sunshine was SUPPOSED to be perfect

“The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” got a flat tire the last time we ACTUALLY hung out, he insisted on changing the bloody thing despite the fact that it made him look like a complete and utter nerd (note: that nerdiness was highly attractive to me and raised my body temperature by about 20 degrees) He flipped back and forth throughout his instruction manual, almost gave up a few times or at least wished he could, he hopped up and down on his sissy little wrench, and nut removal by nut removal slowly demasculinized himself. It was pretty fantastic because it gave me an opportunity to tease him. I should not have teased him, it did not go over well at all with distributors of providence. A couple of days ago I was driving down my sneakiest, most favorite short cut, driving a little too fast and probably pushing the Green Hornet a little bit too hard. It was a perfectly summery Friday afternoon, I was singing along to “The Guy Who Witnessed a Live Pig Castration’s” new record, there were windows down, sunglasses on, and hair blowing in the wind, I was feeling my oats that day. I had decided to drive through the local drive thru to nab a grape slushy drink when I noticed the Ol’ Horny was limping I hopped out immediately, still in line, causing the six cars behind me to bray like assholes, I mean asses…you know what I mean. I quickly hopped back in and pulled my car around to a spot with a no loitering sign, but all I could do was loiter, fuck if I knew how to change a damn tire and I certainly wasn’t leaving my trusty automobile to die alone in the parking lot of a place that serves meat on a stick, No siree. I examined the Honda and discovered that its poor tire had been punctured by rusty nail. My first concern was for the health of my wounded ride, i had changed its oil religiously but never given it a tetanus inoculation. I had none of the necessary tools for tire changing and the only Jack I had was the kind that makes me dance and vomit, not the kind that kind that hoists foundering cars. I stood there for tenish minutes, loitering like I was at 711, buffing the Green Hornet behind the rearview mirror with my shirt sleeve and urging him to stay away from the light. Cars just don’t get lockjaw in the middle of a Friday afternoon for terrestrial reasons, its called wrath. I was being punished for giggling at “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away”, the holy spirit flattened my tire and that left me, like my rurally inclined friend, in a “difficult place”. Changing a tire is not easy, I know this now, it requires hopping on wrenches, the ability to read small instruction manual print and a knack for tuning out blonde haired assholes standing nearby...no wonder he had a hard time. I am sorry.

Just when Pa was going to fetch his twelve gauge to put my four wheeled friend out of his misery, knights in shining polos wandered up to rescue me. Well... I actually I slyly manipulated them and completely took advantage of their chivalrous, door opening, walking closest to the traffic heritage. I spotted these two, the type of kids I would almost certainly give a “Fuck Off and Die” look if I weren’t completely desperate, walking out off the fast foodery wiping the burger grease from their hands onto their cargo shorts. I think given the sheer number of pockets on cargo shorts, most people who wear them are pretty arrogant, who needs that much space? its just so showy. It was really only ever okay to wear cargo pants in ‘Nam and its only okay now if you’re having a flashback. Guys in cargo shorts also have a history of being rude to every girl I know, they yell things about boobs and legs, they cut you off in their Acuras, and they are responsible for a staggering 90% of suburban bar fights One time, if you’ll recall, I saw a punk just like these guys almost run over the oldest Target customer in the whole world and then honk and yell at her for being in the way, old people are always in the way, its their god given right. Anyways, I clopped up to them in my heels, inhaled their cloud of charbroiled beef stench, and begged them to help me, I not only pulled the foreigner card, I pulled the female card, and I believe the words “I’m a girl” actually left my lips….what a dipshit thing to say. FANTASTIC. They were nineteen, it was creeping into Friday night, and they were fresh from the golf course, so imagine my surprise when it turned out they were not at all total and complete douchebags as the excessive number of compartments in their pants suggested. They rooted through my car, in which the contents of my entire life were hidden (I’m mildly homeless right now and am being fostered by my friend Kat) I even saw one of them make direct contact with a box of Playtex Tampons while looking for a jack, he didn’t even bat an eye. I get the impression that these are the kind of guys that shoot turkeys on the weekend and smoke their own meat so I guess they aren’t exactly intimidated by a piece of scented cotton attached to a string but still, its pretty impressive. “The Guys Who Wear POW Shorts” got on the wet ground and crawled underneath the belly of the Hornet with their OWN jack and tried their damndest to convince my brave, brave truck to take the weight off its sore tire. Ultimately they couldn’t fix it, but they waited around with me until somebody that could showed up. They even asked me questions about trite tabloid fodder to distract me from the fact that I was a complete irresponsible fool. They asked what I thought of Lindsay Lohans lesbianism, and if I knew whatever happened to the middle son on “Home Improvement”. After more unexpected help showed up, I took these two young lads and purchased them 36 cans of domestic beer, sometimes minors deserve a drink and I couldn’t properly toast them with tall glass of Kool Aid now could I? Maybe people who wear cargos aren’t complete imbeciles? Maybe they like to have all those extra pockets around in case some poor stranger finds themselves with no place to put their car keys?Cargo pants and punks who wear them, I salute you like the decorated officers of charity that you are. My backwards opinions were fatigued and I am sorry (← HA, that’s two entendres, if you’re counting)

You might be getting cranky and bored, I don’t blame you, so I’m gonna reveal how exactly how my car and I did not die together side by side in the second spot from the left. The Green Hornet and I were rescued by one of its mortal enemies, the Hummer. I have always hated Hummers, they are the overpriced cargo shorts of vehicle and the world simply does not have enough oil for cars like that anymore so they should all be thrown into the ocean…wait, scratch that, the whales have enough fucking trouble these days, they should have their engines removed and be donated to families of four to live in because surely, there are enough bedrooms and tons of space for a large dog to run around. I blame Desert Storm and Puff Daddy entirely for their popularization, not just the owners, but I have always thought that Hummer drivers are responsible for letting their social conscience take a backseat (with extra leg room) to their lust for luxury. Yet again, however, I have judged unfairly, its shocking. Not all Hummermen are horrible people. I had left the boys outside to offer my nervous bladder some relief, when I heard a loud voice loudly order some chicken nuggets. “The Guy With the Cold Nuggets” was small and when I saw a barn sized monstrosity beside the Hornet, I knew who it belonged to. I went back outside and as soon as he exited, he came up to us and barked, “What seems to be the problem?” like he was a police officer or some other uniformed figure that is allowed to bark freely.He took a look at the tire and offered to drive home, get proper tools, come back, and fix my tire FOR FREE. I wouldn’t let him do it, his nuggets were getting cold and frankly his offer sounded too good to be true and the whole scene had a little bit of that Stephen Kingish Needful Things type glow to it. All of the sudden, he presses this big black button that should have been behind glass like the one on that Howie Mandel program with the matching briefcase ladies, and an air pump appears from the bowels of the truck, how clever. He and his Hummer patched that tire in about four point zero minutes. I asked all 5’4’’inchesof my hero if that’d ever come in handy with his own tires and he informed me that HIS car tires re-inflated on their own, immediately my truck and I felt very small beside this tiny tiny superman. He swooped in, saved me, scaled his very high front seat and galloped off in the sunset, never asking for a damn thing. Not all Hummers are used for evil, yes all extra small men who own them are probably overcompensating for something….. but at least its not their hearts!

Godish thing in space responsible for my destiny, lets have a chat, a personal one, I’m gonna call you Gord because it makes me feel more comfortable and like less of a sinner and more of a friendly scamp. Anyways, Gord, I’m sorry I was not only judgemental in my head but also in writing on the internet (which I know you hate) I know it was wrong so we can stop with the slapstick reality checks, I read ya loud and clear. Such a high volume of lessons in such a short flash of time is a little bit much, I must say, keep in mind there were THREE stooges to bear the brunt of your hilarious “teachings” (well four if you count poor Shemp), I’m the only stooge here and I’ve kind of had a rough go of it lately so give me a rest for a bit if you can, my genre is romantic tragedy not vaudeville, lets keep it to one form of disaster. I will try and be less haughty with my judgments and vow to one day:
-Let “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” laugh at me while I change a flat tire
-Wear cargo pants and not feel compelled to fill up all of the pockets
-Buy a Hummer

x

Menshevik

2008-06-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

The Red Army has descended upon the southern front! Rejoice!

Na zdorovje!

Manacle

2008-05-30T16:09:00.000-07:00

Dearest Interweb,

Do you want hear some amazing news? Yes? I’m several days late from starting my dreadful monthly cycle of girlishness. That’s right skulkers, the red army has retreated and there might be some heroic blue blooded soldier in my trenches who has just claimed yet another territory for his nation (Was Guam not enough?) Isn’t that fantastic? No. Its pretty much the least fantastic thing I’ve ever heard., its less fantastic than discontinuing Oreo Cookies or getting mugged in the afternoon. There is a chance that I might have a small forest creature in my loins right now, and I’m not talking about a badger. I should mention at this point that the sex with “The guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” was protected. I don’t have unprotected anything, I won’t even ride my bicycle up and down the street without wearing a helmet, but sometimes both condoms and bicycle helmets slip. I’m hoping my ovaries and uterus just got busy and forgot about the whole menstruation thing, maybe they’re just taking a summer vacation like elementary schools do? My fingers are crossed and from now on, so are my legs. This might seem like a slight overreaction, but I’m in a strange part of a strange country with a very high population of bibles, so I don’t know how easy it is to push the “Abort! Abort!” button in situations like this. Plus, as someone who really isn’t brothel material, I’m feeling like a two dollar bargain bin whore, even though my brief outward boundish adventure was anything but tawdry. I can’t believe I’m going to piss on a stick for an emotionally unavailable vegetarian with an injury inflicted by something called a “Downward Dog” (Yep, still appealing…WHY DOES HE HAVE TO BE SO AWESOME?!) I don’t know what I should do at this very exact moment besides hit my head with a rolling pin, I think I’m an idiot, all of you think I’m an idiot and if anybody would like to kick me in the pants I more than welcome it, if your foot can actually find some semblance of an ass I might even kiss you on the face….hey, I’m easy now, that’s what we do. I'm so anxious that I keep doing precautionary things that make no sense at all, I stole an entire carrot from my roommate this morning because I thought my “Maby” might want some proper nourishment, it is half vegetarian genetically after all and I feel like “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” would probably eat all the best legumes if he thought he might be carrying a future democrat in his abdomen. Even though this little figment of my fornication will not be sticking around long if it DOES exist, I would very much like it to enjoy its stay and relax in its organ view womb. This is a bloody disaster (I meant for that pun to be so very wrong) but I will get through it, I have already performed two of the three necessary breakdowns in dealing with potential pregnancies. I am not a wailer at all so this remarkable, this possible “The Boy or Girl Whose Father Lives 19.13 Miles Away” living in me is making me feel like the star of a sissy afterschool special.

Purchasing the pregnancy test is half the battle and tends to induce the most violent of the three cries.. Since I had already almost purchased a douche in front of my dashing highschool sweetheart in Toronto, I felt like I could handle any sort of embarrassment that any pharmacy section of a moderately priced grocery store could dish out out. I could have purchased that “First response” wearing nothing but a top hat, singing “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, and showing off a large full back tattoo of an equally nude Rodney Dangerfield riding a unicorn and been completely confident. What I was unprepared for was the shame of buying a pregnancy test south of the Mason Dixon Line (If I even am south, america has strange rules). In Canada you can buy them anywhere, they practically give them away as toys in McDonald’s Happy Meals and stuff them into piñatas. In the South, they keep them behind a locked glass encasement with the condoms , heated KY jelly, and the rest of Satan’s party favors. Seriously, you can buy beer, extra drowsy Benadryll, and hoodia diet pills like its no big deal, but don’t even think about figuring out how many people you’re eating for. This display was about an inch thick and seemed to be impenetrable as I tapped on that thing much harder than I would tap on the glass of the sea otter exhibit at the zoo, it was the kind of glass you enclose animals with venom and criminals in. I’m sure I looked stupid crouched right beside the Slim Fasts and diabetic Candies, ass crack exposed, and tugging on the bloody door of prophylactic impound, but honestly, I couldn’t believe anybody would find pregnancy tests and lubricant offensive enough to lock away. I thought the door was broken! The “Family Planning” products were guarded by a blue-haired sentry with a beaded string hanging from her glasses. She may as well have been a fucking black widow spider, she watched me yanking on the door for a good five and half minutes before speaking up and then she asks condescendingly if there is something she can help me with. What a cunt. “No, theres nothing you can help me with you old angora wearing bitch, I’ve only been pulling my arms out of their sockets in front of an entire grocery store full of people who probably think I’m desperate for eleven tubes of KY Jelly.” I didn’t actually say that, but I would have if I didn’t feel the cry coming on. I eventually tell her I need a pregnancy test and she asks me if I’d like to buy a few “just to stock up”. She thought I was the kind of woman who carries dollar bills in her cleavage and chews bubblegum all the time, I will always hate that old nag for making me feel like a slut when I was already feeling low from heartache and impending fertilization. Eventually without unraising her eyebrows she throws the little pink box at me and tells me “ Good Luck”. I left the store, got into my car and sobbed with Bruce Springsteen singing the River at me, reminding me how much it sucks to be overwhelmed.

The second cry is much quieter but much more sorrowful, it sounds like a lamb or a small dog that needs to go outside and use the bathroom. It’s the “what if” cry. I got home, stood the box on my kitchen counter beside a box of assorted crackers and began to think about what would happen if I actually were pregnant. Its not that I don’t like children, I’m just much pickier about kids than I am about men. My friend Ashley’s daughter, I adore, I could sit and colour with her for hours, we hide and seek on a regular basis and if I ever did breed, I hope that my spawn could fill the very big small shoes of this little red headed wonder. The kid I saw while buying the pregnancy test, I do not like. I wouldn’t colour shit with that little brat who was whining about Pop Tarts and kicking his mother in the elbows as she pushed the cart. It is evident that I would be a terrible parent too, I don’t even tie my own shoelaces and I can’t do a cartwheel…that has failure written all over it. Then I began to wonder what it was like at (un)planned parenthood, if the waiting room had old magazines with water stains and fake plants to distract you from your mistakes, if I would be allowed to keep my socks on in the cold stirrups, whether the doctor would call me by first name or Miss_____, and if there were nurses dressed in those fun looking scrubs to pat my head. This cry is almost immediate, as soon as the flowery thing on the front of the box looks you in the eye, your ducts start to drip those fat, slow moving tears that seem to be carrying something so much trouble in each drop. Would I tell “the Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away’ before I terminated the thing and if I did, what he would say? I think he would feel sadness for me, I think already feels sadness, I think he knows that time was the only thing that stood in the way of me being crazy about him and I'm sure knowing that I could have cared so much tore him up a bit when he expressed his “difficult place in lifeness”. If our reproduction-y parts did mingle successfully, it would only make his difficult place in life much more difficult and I would never want to be the one that took the excitement out of those excited eyes. I made several salty puddles on the counter and then I felt bad for embarrassing myself in front of the foodstuffs. This is the cry where you realize you are not at all as brave as the rest of the world thinks you are.

The third cry has not occurred yet, in fact, the apples of my cheeks are still wet from the second one. The third cry requires a shoulder, this well defined shoulder belongs to my friend Ashley from down the street who will let me piss on the stick in her bathroom, probably with the door open because we’re that close. This cry will occur after the pink or blue line shows up and will probably happen regardless of Dr. Stick’s conclusion. These are tears that sting a little bit, like the ones that come after you get shampoo in your eye and half convince you you’re about to go blind on account of you reckless use of Pert Plus. This cry will leave me looking oriental and my nose will be congested for a good three hours after . This pathetic display is called blubbering. I really hope Dr. Stick does not find evidence of baby in my urine, building a brand new man would be the ultimate failure in manopause. I actually really can’t believe all of this has happened, the vow of manopause itself, the forest, the sex, the wretched bravado of my wretched, wretched heart, the genuine fondness, and the genuine pain. I’m not ashamed, I still really adore my “Friend that Lives 19.13 Miles Away” and I want him to find somebody besides the four black labs from next door to visit him in the forest. I’m glad I had super fantastic sex that may have broken a condom, and neither the colour blue nor colour pink will mark me with any regrets. I just would rather not have to cross that line of zealots and their Bristol board, wait in a room with a popcorn ceiling, and have the last proof of our brief affection snipped off like it was a hangnail.
The third cry is not one I look forward to.

I shall keep you posted on my appointment with Dr. Stick, the results will take a few days as I’m hoping the Red Army will grow some balls and charge blitzkrieg style. I was going to have ahi tuna tonight, but I won’t just in case because it has lots of mercury and unborn phantom babies don’t enjoy that shit in their diet, instead I will have chocolate milk and black olives because thankfully potential fetuses love the same odd combinations of food that I do. Internet, I am glad you are here right now, I have not always enjoyed you and your fucking pop up advertisements that tell me my computer is going to self destruct or that I’ve won $25 000, but I love you dearly at the moment.

xoxo

Dear Period,

Hurry the shit up. Please.

Manic

2008-05-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

I am never watching television ever again. Last night was more young and more restless than any sudsy daytime saga could ever be. All that was missing with a character that came back from the dead, a creepy dude with an eyepatch, and lovers who find out they are actually brother and sister. I went to my drinking turf, the place where everybody actually does know my name (this is not impressive, this is sad). This bar has been my second home since I moved to the USA, I know I’m allowed to use the mensroom when the girls are taking too long, I know that I’m the only person who orders the peanut butter sandwich, and I know that If I have a hunger for exotic beers I can go buy them under the table and take them home, even though that really isn’t allowed. I was confronted with the fact that I have some pretty odd relationships in my life and found many friendships in (Melrose) Places where friendships don’t necessarily belong. Of all the weird nights I’ve spent on that patio, I would say that this was the blue ribbon winner of peculiar evenings, I ran into a friend who moved away that I met under THE strangest circumstances, a friend who I’ve slept with in the past week, and a girl who hates the living fuck out of me but who I think is quite lovely, all on one square of cement at the same damn time. As the world continues to turn in more complicated ways with every nanosecond, I swear I can almost feel its crusty bad self misbehaving. I find myself wishing I could see earth from a space ship right now because I know its orbiting in all the wrong ways, bouncing up and down, turning in loopdy loops, and sometimes getting a bit to close to the sun then scurrying back to its place after mercury and venus give it dirty looks.

In my hard hitting piece on leaving revenge douches on people’s door steps I mentioned the “The Guy Who Forgot his Two Girlfriends were Also Friends”. He was a proper piece of shit, but I have no hard feelings...I wouldn't object to him being punched but maybe by somebody smaller than him. I met him in the middle of a field last summer and I was wearing a white dress with a beer stain on the right boob area. He introduced me to my very favorite sparkling ale and my current roommate, both of which have remained extraordinarily faithful and generous of their time. In fact, I stole three Honey Maid Graham Squares from my roommate today and I leave my closet door a Chihuahua sized crack ajar every day so her dog can sleep between my t-shirts. We are very close friends. He also introduced me to Alisa, the finest bartendress an upscale brewpub has ever known. She and I became fast friends as I ate a peanut butter sandwich with a side of potato chips and ranch dipping sauce at her bar on a daily basis. For whatever reason, we never really talked about our love lives, but one day while floating on inflatable devices in the muckiest end of a mucky lake we discovered we had been dating the exact same dude. He would call us both from the airport when he was away, gave us the same sweet names, and even performed the same sexy tricks that he must have read about on the internet. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet, the sexy tricks were not effective. It wasn’t at all serious, it lasted about two months, I slept at his parents house a total of twice and I went to a movie about zombies with him and his little brother. We did not have sex, though he did drop the L Word once when he was very, very drunk (FYI:it was not reciprocated Also FYI: “FYIs” are something I have picked up from “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away”). Anyways, Alisa and I decided we liked floating in lakes and eating brunch together better than doing anything at all with him and his chronic douchebaggery. I trust her more than I trust the floor strength of my upstairs apartment, I even let her feed me a tainted brownie last Independence day and I never eat hallucinogenic desserts. She moved back to California last August and yesterday, she came to visit and called me from the patio where our bond was first built. I went over to find her surrounded by some of my favorite faces from last summer. I was so excited didn’t even put on long pants, I just drove right over, brushed my teeth in the car and planted a tartar fighting kiss right on her head. It was the best kind of strange to see her, it was like getting an egg with two yolks.

I had been sitting in my metal chair for maybe six minutes beside Alisa, developing a wafer-like pattern on the lower part of my bottom and I saw a pair of strangely excited eyes that even on the darkest part of the cement slab through smoke and drunken fog, were dangerously bright. “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” was 45 degrees and three metres away from me. I was immediately embarrassed by the shortness of my shorts and cocker spanielish hair-do. Of all the places he could show up he chooses my exact patio, that’s what I call a Stoli martini with twist of bloody fate. Don’t get me wrong, everybody with a whistle to wet loves this bar. They have a million and ten sorts of beer and the most unforgettable PB & J you’ll ever find, so it is the kind of place you run into people with good taste and also the odd haute couture alcoholics (and yes, light ale and children’s sandwiches work well together, shocking but true) Still, there must have been some stars that were craftily realigned. I’m sure he had a moment of “Christ…” when he saw me, it’s a holy shittable kind of coincidence that might have made a certain woodsman feel mildly uncomfortable, hell, it even gave a certain woodsman enthusiast a shot of the “Maybe I should go or somethings?” but at the end of the day, I kind of loved seeing him, I think I’ll kind of always love seeing him, because he’s kind of loveable regardless of whether that love is to be made on a sexy picnic table to a Guns N Roses medley, or whether its shared plucking guitar strings and eating ahi tuna. He told me he was just full of accidents yesterday, he suffered a yoga injury, which I’m sure he’ll find some sort of holistic cure for, and I think he might have gingivitis, but he seemed to be in good spirits, and for every pulled muscle and bleeding tooth he gets, he’ll have a long line of open arms to walk into, but I do hope he uses mine sometimes, they’re scrawny but I’d be happy to boa constrict him if ever needed me. His friends definitely thought it was strange to see me, they are charming women and proud protectors of “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away”. They are probably wary of people in short shorts who laugh at their own jokes and give out full body hugs like they’re free samples of angel food cake at the grocery store, I think I’m wary of those people too and I am one. I’m sure his security council thinks I implanted a tracking device behind his ear or on the belly of his Germanmobile so I could show up at inconvenient times, but I would never do that. I have too much pride to be insane, nor would I ever try to worm my way back into some warm spot in his heart, or in his bed for that matter. Despite the fact that he lives 19.13 miles away, to me, he will always live on my exact same street with the rest of my favorite people in the world….note: I still totally think he made a mistake.

So, after my bout of “Maybe I should go or somethings?”, I settled down with St. Peter’s Golden Ale and tried to convince Alisa to move back to Nashville. Then another familiar face walks in, the current girlfriend of “The Guy Who Forgot his Two Girlfriends were Also Friends”. She wanders in to pick up a pizza, the food share-ability in their relationship must be strong because they are very much in love. This situation should not be awkward at all really, I’m a nice girl who likes to see crazy smitten with eachother kids who share pizzas and bedspace, but she HATES me. Isn’t that awful? I was out with my roommate for her birthday and ran into them last week and apparently she kind of went all Mr. Hyde on him afterwards, like Mr. Hyde on a shit ton of amphetamines. The thing that’s the most balls is that I really like her, I think she probably enjoys playing shuffleboard and drinking red wine. She seems like the kind of person I’d buy a St.Peter’s Golden Ale for but I can’t because she thinks I’m a dreadful human being. Guess what?! she also knows “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” so the three of us had a three minute long awkward conversation that made me feel suffocated like a mandarin orange trapped inside one of those big dome shaped Jello molds. I’m sure she didn’t like seeing he and I chattering away at all as I am certain their relationship at least included some heavy flirtation. There is nothing worse than talking to someone who you know wants to pull your hair slap you in the mouth but who keeps it all to herself. She seems sweeter than a Baby Ruth chocolate bar dipped in funnel cake every time I see her, but I guess behind closed doors, she’s the kind of person who crushes ladybugs for landing on her right arm. I would rather have her street fight me and smash a garbage can over my big head, than to have her quietly fuming but I am powerless. So we are on the patio for the longest 120 seconds that have ever existed, Alisa (her boyfriends ex other woman) me, who barely dated her boyfriend and is happy to be rid of him, “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away”, her, and a to go box of pizza for two, all of us growing a little bit chilly. Suffice it to say, it was probably within her top ten worst food picking up experiences ever. One of my roommates just yesterday had told me to be careful of her, so that probably means my tires are going to be slashed or that there’s a hydrogen bomb on my front doorstep. I could end up blown to bits by someone that I have spent a collective 11 minutes with in my whole life. I would at least like someone to know my favorite movies and snacks before they assassinate me.

With me there is always a dull moment, and never an exciting one. In fact some of my dull moments are so agonizingly dull that I try and do things that make them exciting like eating cereal out of a mug instead of a bowl or trying to con traffic lights into changing with my Rasputin-like mind control skills. I should win a daytime Emmy for even surviving the kind of aberration that yesterday brought. I should win five daytime Emmys, a new car, and a vacation to one of the islands that beings with Saint. It wasn’t a bad night at all, I’d say it was halfway glorious. I drank expensive beer in bottles that looked like relics, I got to see my favorite new friend, and my favourite old one. I may have even convinced somebody who wants to back over me with a zamboni that I’m not the worst thing since canned ham. It was just a bit overwhelming for somebody not completely naturalized to patios with such exciting people on them.

Mansuetude

2008-05-28T07:15:00.000-07:00

I have outstanding news. Guess who’s not a douchebag? I’ll give you a hint, his eyes are extra excited and he lives 19.13 miles away. Seriously, not a single act of assholery. He has thrice called me and we’ve had what I would called mid to high quality conversations, complete with muffled giggling and personal but not overly personal information sharing, we talk how Levis blue jeans with a little bit, but not too much, of the stretchy material fit. I have caught myself being witty at least twice. Yessssssss!

I have a friend, our fondness is still a fondness, and I didn’t lose him entirely. “The Guy who lives 19.13 Miles Away” didn’t run 100 miles away, he’s still within earshot and I think he still wants me to put my hands in a loudspeaker shape around my mouth and yell at him once and awhile.

Man Overboard

2008-05-23T18:24:00.000-07:00

The Marquis Philips Roogle Red is an excellent breakfast wine, its full bodied and compliments an empty chest cavity beautifully. It would be terrible with whitefish but right now, I’m drinking it with saltine crackers, teriyaki sauce and three marshmallows, the residuals of a recent camping trip my roommate and her serious, longterm boyfriend took. In case you haven’t already figured it out by the combination of shiraz and pantry misfits, “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Away” had the “where is this going?” conversation with me at 2am last night, the conclusion was a resounding “nowhere!” that seemed to echo across the entire south east of the United States. As predicted, he claimed “difficult place in lifeness”, I don’t think that’s ever the reason for anything, life IS a difficult place. Even if he was stranded in a Nepalese prison on the top of Everest I don’t think the difficult place would be difficult enough to justify the entire dismantling of something that if not destined for greatness, was destined for really goodness. I feel like Garfield the cat right now, I’m bitter and I can’t wash it off (actually I might be able to, but I haven’t had a shower yet so I don’t know and I assume its semi-permanent) I’m like Garfield lost in Chinatown searching desperately for a slice of lasagna so he doesn’t have to settle for lo mein, hopeless, hapless, and hungry. Now I’m drunk in the afternoon and there have been no recent holidays so I can’t find a chocolate bunny and that’s really the only thing that makes me feel better in a situation like this as you know, Memorial day is this weekend but they don’t make chocolate shaped like forest creatures for that celebration, maybe I should just eat a roman candle or American flag? Its probably good that there are no chocolate bunnies because I think I might be off forest creatures entirely for a little while. The worst thing is when we were out at the place we always go with the smooth jazz, before I knew there was some sort of weighty conversational fare on the menu, I had a few moments where I thought “This person is more adorable than the double chin of a morbidly obese baby”, I was marveling and I don’t marvel all that often. He hiccups and burps at the same time and can’t seem to do either separately, he drinks martinis with twists and does the refreshed “ahhh!” after the first sip like they do in Pepsi commercials, and his eyes are just so fucking excited.....its out of control. IF you screwed a light bulb into his left nostril he would definitely light it up. I would have absolutely had sex with him right in front of his crab cakes, they would have been embarrassed in the presence of such ardor and longed for their old shells but I would have done it anyways, maybe twice. I’m pretty shitty at caring for things in moderation, this is a problem that has bitten me in the ass so many times I’m convinced it’s the reason my blue jeans don’t fit. I do think in this case, its slightly arrogant of me but what the hell, he totally made a mistake! There, I said it, he did. There is nobody else that finds hiccurps endearing or who presses nose like I press nose, and as our friendship continues to grow which it will because he’s been nothing short of incredibly wonderful to me and I couldn’t resent him or his refrigerated raisin toast if I tried, he will kick himself in the shin. I only know this because there were several signs from God(or just the patron saint of business causal sex) that indicated that he should have given this more of a shot.

1) FLAT TIRE- “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” really does live 19.13 miles away from any sort of civilization. His tires are well aware of their journey from town to home and I feel that since he drives a reliable German automobile, things don’t go wrong without responsibly blinking their respective warning lights but last night, he absolutely got a buckwheat pancake flat tire. This is because the universe was slapping him in the face with a white dueling glove and saying “ Dude, you are about to be the grand champion of douchebags. Rethink”. The cosmos wanted us to leave together and make incredible, incredible sex happen. I wanted to high five the universe, it was pulling for me, it had its shirt off and face painted in my team colours (whatever they would be…I have been a fan of mint green lately though) There must have been a divine laser beam that was expertly shot down from the clouds by a cherubic sniper, probably one of my grandmothers or my old pony, Kirby who got attacked by a coyote. “The guy who lives 19.13 Miles Away” completely ignored the message which will probably upset the balance of nature completely and cause the pistons in his Germanmobile to grind to a halt every time he is near me. He actually changed his tire in the parking lot of the smooth jazz and tuna-ry in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. FACT- He has not changed many tires in his lifetime it was not mechanical genius, but I loved it because I’m an idiot. He decided he would much rather fumble around with lug nuts, wrenches and bilingual instruction manuals than drive in the Green Hornet, my trusty Japanese vessel, and rely on me for a ride back the next morning. The image of him hopping on the wrench and holding onto my shoulder for support will always be a bipolar memory of glee and despondency that will cause me to make an ugly, emotionally confused face every time I think about it. Disregarding kismet should be a crime, like running a red light, they should take away his license to fornicate and send him to a class with an over head projector every Saturday day morning, then make him navigate through man made emotional obstacles before he’s allowed back on the street.

2)Pigtailed Prophet- “The Guy Who Lives 19.13” doesn’t even know about this revelation so he can’t be held responsible for overlooking it. He was still outside pretending he was in a pair of coveralls with “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” embroidered inside one of those perfect white patches, when I had to take pee. The combination of wine, giddiness, and my general flustered nature which makes almost everything I do appear amateur and on the brink of failure, makes me have to pee so often its as though my kidneys have more stones than the streets of Savannah. I have not been invited on roadtrips specifically because of my tiny bladder that jumps at every gas station it sees. Anyhow, look at me deviating….. I frantically jogged inside to use the bathroom when the bartender who is about the most Tracey-like Tracey I have ever met stopped me in my tracks almost causing me to pee on the floor like bad puppy. Tracey has moxie, I can tell, its rolled on her wrists and behind her earlobes and it just emanates from her. She was drunker than a buccaneer after a bad day with no booty and she was very wobbly making her wobbly table wobble even more. Out of her freshly lipsticked mouth comes “ Y’all are destined to be together, sweetie. I wish there was a man that looked at me like that”. All of her words were joined together in tipsy verbal glue that is Southern Comfort so it was rather hard to understand, I made her repeat it just to be sure. I would have kissed her on the face if I wasn’t one giggle way from giving myself a golden shower. Tracey might have been right pissed, but she works at a suburban resto-bar that practically caters to the sordid extra marital affair, she knows what frivolous sex looks like on peoples faces and our sex was not trivial nor was/is our bond. While I think DESTINED to be together is a little bit much, I sure as hell think the brake pedals were pumped a little bit too soon. “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” has a soft spot for this charming pigtailed bundle of woman and I’m sure he would have taken her advice as I suspect she has lived through more than her spunk indicates.

3)THE SEX- Who wants to lose a little respect for me?! Show of hands?! After we had our heartfelt conversation about not having sex, we had sex. Why? Is it because he has some sort of je ne sais quoi? Not even close, je totally sais all about his quoi, He’s all things captivating, and it kind makes me want to be naked. Its because people like us that are attracted to eachother are supposed to shag our brains out. I’m just so irritatingly drawn to that nerd. Theres’ something naïve about him that I can’t quite wrap my head around but also, something very well traveled, its fascinating and I wish I could just put that complex “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away-ness” in a velvet covered ring box or a snow globe and make a keepsake out of it. I really don’t know why he didn’t want to give it a go with me, at this point I can’t tell whether he’s a real wanderer or he's just the kind that runs away from things very slowly. I would like to borrow his excited eyes for a day and see how planet earth looks to him. The final sex was not at all wise, but sometimes it feels good to be careless when you actually do care. If we weren’t meant to have sex, one of us probably would have gotten salmonella poisoning or had a seizure, that’s how fate works the universe throws a cosmic banana peel in your path when you’re about to fuck yourself into the ground. It’s very clever like that. “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” must be asking himself at least three times a day if he made the right move. He still has my vest and belt, which I will get back from him soon, but I wonder if he gets a little bit sad when he sees them. I know it didn’t make any sense for somebody who was celibate to run off to a forest and screw around with a handsome stranger, but something about it felt kind of preordained, kind of like how the saucer ends up with the spoon in that nursery rhyme about intergalactic cattle who jump over the moon. The spoon clearly belonged with a fork and the saucer with a teacup, which I think are the prettiest of all kitchenware, but still they couldn’t avoid their strange attraction. I guess he’s still looking for some teacup to compliment his saucer, but I suspect he’ll miss that old spoon stirring things up as soon as its Red Rose time.

The higher powers of space and time are devastated. They’ve left me about a million sniffling voicemails and are eating black olives with chocolate milk for breakfast, they feel like they failed me…yet again, but they didn’t. There are only so many lightening bolts they can throw and at the end of the day, I don’t want to be with someone who is only halfway convinced, THAT would be 100% pure grainfed BALLS. I did get what I hope will be an old friend out of this, not all kindred spirits fuck, just ask Batman and Robin (well, except for that one time in Reno…Long Island Ice tea brings out the worst in all of us) so I don’t feel even a tinge bit of regret, but it’s a damn shame and I don’t feel awesome at all. Perhaps one day while I’m out in the woods visiting “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away”, patting his ass (heheheehaw) and helping him feed his horses he’ll come to his flipping senses, or maybe I’ll come to mine and realize this whole thing was crazy. Right before he woke up, he released a single snore, just one phlegm rattling snort, it was the most impossibly cute thing I have ever witnessed, I couldn’t have a single bad feeling for somebody like that…if he fails to step up the friend game however, then I’m allowed to give him a charley horse, but I don’t think he’ll falter. Rest easy, dept of heavenly intervention, I think I’ll be okay this time, just throw me some lottery numbers and we’ll call it even.;)

Man's Best Friend

2008-05-18T23:36:00.000-07:00

What do Sir Issac Newton, Robert Plant, and Helen Keller have in common besides making more money than me? All dog owners. Alexander Pope even had a dog called Bounce, who I imagine was purchased in order to drive his owner crazy with his incessant yipping while he translated the Iliad. Everybody important has a dog and I'm certain my doglessness is holding me back from a great number of life great things. I was standing outside the other day throwing sticks into the great beyond when I thought “ Shit, wouldn’t it be outstanding if there was some way to get these sticks back?” I went online boomerang shopping thinking it would be the ideal solution but its seems rather ludicrous to spend ten dollars is on something that inevitably gives you splinters, makes you look like a perfect fool, and won’t sleep a at the foot of your bed. Plus, I feel like the cultural novelty of the boomerang is a mildly racist. If I ran into my Australian friend Emily she would probably slap me in the face if I bought one, she would think I was attacking the dignity of her fine nation, which I would never do. She and I are forever related by strange commonwealth bloodlines and If I was was going to actually be terrible and “go there” my venom of choice would consist of the following: one of Jack Hannah’s domesticated wallabies, a case of Fosters and an all digeridoo INXS cover band, she would then retort with one of Jack Hannahs trained penguins, a mickey of Canadian Club whiskey, and a Leonard Cohen cover band that smelled of maple syrup and used almost too much distortion...I would be furious. The boomerang is clearly not the answer. I realized I should probably get a dog. Pretty much everbody of even mild notoriety in the history of the entire universe has a dog (I had to include space because of George Jetson and Astro. What a bond) so I feel that if I’m to be noteworthy, which by the way, would be fantastically excellent, I should probably get one too. Heaps of wonderful people have/had dogs, and even famous assholes like George Bush have terriers and things. Way back, even Adolf Hiltler had a hound, an anti-semetic German Shepherd named Blondi, No joke. When he offed himself in his crazy downstairs “in case of doomsday" rec room, he took with him only mistress and his dog... man, mutt, and concubine…gross. I bet that dog was real cunt, if you play fetch with a dog like that, it brings you back the stick, beats you with it, and steals your wallet. NOTE- Friends, don’t talk to strangers and don’t throw sticks for Aryan canines, rules to live by. “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles away” does not own, but lives among dogs, which is much more pleasant than it sounds he hasn’t been raised by coyotes or anything but I do imagine, that given a chance coyotes would take a liking to him….most things with a pulse seem to. “The Dogs Who Live 19,13 Miles Away” are more like next door neighbors who pop by occasionally to stare at the sky and say “It looks like rain” or complain about their arthritis (they actually are quite arthritic). They are wonderful. Allegedly, there are four of them, all identical black labs, perpetually out of breath and shimmying along to the wag of their tails. I have not once seen them altogether so I have presumed two of them are actually shadows. I will not reveal this information as I would be devastated to learn I had imaginary pets, I would rather just live in ignorant bliss, putting out extra kibble doing that fancy two fingered whistle. Getting a dog would solve all of my problems, I would never ever sleep alone, I would never throw a twig into the woods without getting it back, and I would also get to make something else roll over and beg for once which would be excellent, normally I’m the one performing tricks for people. The only thing holding me back is that I can’t seem to select the right breed, these are the past few I’ve test patted (NOTE- Animals name and occupations are anonymous)

Now, this, is a promising dog, this is the exact dog that the Queen of England has. I could watch a dog like this go up and down stairs all day long. He’s like a chubby stretch limo who would have to turn his body diagonally and buck his way up any incline. God that would be good to watch! Imagine him on a staircase!! HA! Dogs like that make third floor walks ups look good. Also, I love redheads, some of my favorite people are redhaired like Ginger Baker, Ann Margaret, Alfred E Newman, and my childhood friend Gwen who I haven't spoken too in ten years. Unfortunately, this pup and I, though he's foxy in appearance and sharp in mind, would have communication issues. He is from the UK and probably understands only a harsh cockney accent, which would mean I’d have to eliminate the letter H from my vocabulary entirely and also do away unnecessary syllables. It would be like trying to read bad vanity license plates but without inserting the crucial missing letters, I would sound rather stupid. Even though this dog seems positively BD2THABN our linguistic barriers would always separate us. Talking like a chimney sweep does sound exciting, but after the novelty wore off I’d just feel like Madonna, and I don’t mean that in the awesome “I’m-so-fit–I-could- crush-a-Volkswagon-with-my-thighs" way, I mean it in the shitty, shitty fake accent way. I also don’t think this dog would be terribly into me, by the sounds of of it, he likes older women with money. Don’t get me wrong, Lizzy’s got a certain sparkle and I’m sure she has an impressive selection of hats but if you think that her corgi is rolling over for dry food and a dog sized mock turtleneck you’re wrong. VERY WRONG. He doesn’t care about polo, he cares about the prime rib with au jus he eats every night on a silver serving platter. This beast’s attitude towards human dog relations is cavalier, more cavalier than those of the King Charles Cavalier Spaniel who are bloody cavalier by name. So, Corgi, it would never work between us, you have your way with socialites and fortunate ex wives and lap it up, but one day, it will not be so easy to swallow your foie gras flavored doggie pate.

This is the vainest dog I have ever seen. He looks like he’s humped every single shinbone in America. This is the kind of fickle animal that conducts business under the table, resting his snout on every lap he can begging for scraps of food, and then whining when hes too round for people food to play Frisbee properly. Later in life when he’s are old enough to switch to adult food,and conscious of retriever heavy media pressures, he will develop body image issues and eat grass to make himself throw up on the carpet. TERRIBLE. Many vicious cycles can stem from trying to keep up with the Rovers. Despite their insecurities, many Goldens are so pretty that they can become downright boastful, some know they’re good looking, Old Yeller was only the golden child of family pet friendly media for pretty much the entire twentieth century so this superiority complex is not surprising. They are constantly bombarded with images of themselves on suv commercials, Full house reruns, and Purina print ads, the precociousness of this particular breed has been perpetuated by popular culture and can’t be blamed entirely on these yellow haired wonders, but it still sucks. There’s something very ivy league about these fellas too, maybe its their mallard hunting heritage or the fact that they have better posture than I do (Ahem, I actually do have great posture, ask anyone), but really, I feel like they have degrees in things like Latin and dog houses with ivy covered walls. They should all be named ostentatiously after objects like “Van” or cities like “Boston”. If I chose this kind of hound, he would probably always be interjecting and trying to correct my syntax with a mighty woof. Van would hate this blog and think it quite juvenile, I don’t want a dog that thinks its that much better than me, I want to be able to look that thing in the eye when I shake its paw. Golden retrievers are all things elitist, they are stockbrokers and khaki pants and televised snooker tournaments, we clearly have nothing in common except for hair colour (← U are so beautiful to me) and our love of overgrown ivy.

If you put a blond wig and loudly coloured dress on this dog (I’ve been into various shades of awful lately, I don’t know why) , it would be me. Seriously, we’re both from the Great White North, we’re excellent at teamwork and we’re accustomed to dragging thankless men behind us through treacherous terrain. Frickin’ assholes walk all over the husky and me, coaxing us forward with the promise of some hopeful destination, turning us quite literally to ”mush”, and leaving us out in the cold while they buy Baileys for ski bunnies inside the chalet. Its sickiening isn’t it? “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” once told me that I had Husky eyes (a comment I obviously ate up like it was castle of carefully arranged tamales on a plate) and I thought that it was extra intuitive observation, its not just the coloring of my Iris (←look how technical I am, I learned that term from a contact lens commericial) but its what those irises have seen. Huskies bark a lot, especially when in the company of other tired sleddogs, but hardly ever bite. When was the last time you heard about a fatal husky attack? Never. Why? Because huskies don’t do that shit, that’s for unruly purse Chihuahuas and inbred pit bulls to do. Huskies could attack people but instead they just cart them around and hope for the odd bone. I wouldn’t mind a fucking bone right about now, I wouldn’t mind about eight hundred bones. Perhaps part of my and the husky’s problem(s) is that we look like wolves, we appear to be somehow more untamed than we are and people treat us accordingly. I'm not very wild at all, and it seems that every dude I meet is looking for some kind of novel adventure, and while there has been some Northern (and Southern!HA) Exposure, I really have always thought of myself and my relationships as more than kitschy tourist attractions for the wayward traveller. The husky and I thrive off of going places we don’t expect, we’re explorers who sometimes, we end up in dangerous places with no warning, we're always inches away from becoming grizzly food. I like forging ahead and I like hauling people along (anorak optional) but sometimes the man behind the whip will take you on a joyride, leave you standing at attention, tail wagging,and in Antarctic temperatures. The husky and I might have too much in common, I don’t have many demands for that dog and it wouldn’t have many for me, leaving us directionless and staring at eachother in my kitchen. Not ideal.

It is clear that is I did get a dog right now I would call him “Rebound” and he would be a castrated male. It would be a bit hasty to go to the pound and adopt something today, the poor pup would serve as no real addition to my life, only something that filled up a few empty spots. My temporary roommate (lovely, will tell you more about her later) has a Chihuahua who hates me. I mean seriously, hates me. Every time I walk inside the apartment she barks like I’m trying to steal the television makes the hair on the back of her spine stand straight up. She’s very old, probably old enough to qualify her for some sort of canine ambassadorship and I feel like she’s saying, “Don’t get a dog, bitch, get your shit in order before you drag a furry ornament/abettor into it”. Cece, the wise and slightly hateful Chihuahua is right, I’m not looking for a fix, for a “man’s best friend” simply because of its fabled comfort, I need something real, something that does not require quotation marks around it, and preferably something without a tail. I want something that will bark and bite proudly but whose crap I won’t have to scoop up with a garden ho. I haven’t heard from “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” since one o clock in the morning on Friday, I don’t know if that means anything at all but I do know, I’m unwilling to both be left outside in subzero temperatures like the husky, nor am I interested to clean up anyone’s shit.

Mandatory

2008-05-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

He called, you can put away your pitchforks and torches, or alternatively turn them on me:)

I should also note that he is excellent at phone talking, much better than me, there were some smooth transitions in that conversation that should have been applauded.

Golly.

xo

Mandate

2008-05-15T14:06:00.001-07:00

I am going to be condemned to the eighth circle of manopausal hell. Actually, I will spend most of my time in the second circle, where the lustful are punished, but visit circle eight on holidays and every other weekend. The eighth circle is for treacherous folk and general assholery. There will be fire, there will brimstone, and I believe Dante mentioned something about a violent storm. There will probably be a demon fronted lounge band playing Sepultura covers and mandatory CardioJam aerobics classes lead by perky seven horned beasts namd Carly. I also expect that David Caruso from CSI:Miami will be there, taking his sunglasses off and then putting them on again, over and over just because I despise him and it would irritate me. I totally did it last night. It wasn’t half did it, it was a full did it and a totally conscious not whimsical did it. “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” is the Bill Gates of shagging, he was all sorts of two word sports terms like “Slam Dunk”, “Home Run”, and “Touch Down” ( note- that may actually be a compound word) and I almost wanted to high five him or pat him on the bottom afterwards, but I didn’t because we weren’t wearing breathable sports clothes and drinking Gatorade, we weren’t in fact wearing or drinking anything at all. I was pleased with the sex, and I expect that we will either a) have much more it or b) have none of it because he’ll say something stupid like he’s “not in a good place right now”. I hope that if Lucifer is listening right now he realizes that I would like to defer my acceptance to Hades, not because I don’t think I’d fit in, I am a team player after all, but because I need a few minutes to consider what the fuck just happened before I am swallowed whole by an escaped Bengal tiger and before I pack up my warm weather clothes and give the world a final “Good meeting you, Planet” handshake. I broke my promise, a promise I made to myself and to the three very bored people who read this (three bored people. I fucking love you for friendship and interweb savvy) I promised to not date/make intoxicated mistakes/ be the recipient of male purchased club sandwiches for an entire year in an effort to conserve my emotional energy like a state park conserves rare species of bobcat, it was not a means by which to flip the common bird to the entire male population of the universe. I wanted to learn what I was doing so horrendously wrong and possibly even change it, provided of course, it did not require a lobotomy, extensive soul searching, or uncontrollable, runny nosed weeping, but I failed, right at the beginning. I fear I may have landed myself in that same mildewy brown easy chair of familiar situations, I might have stumbled upon, another member of the Douches Wild Poker League. I don’t know if this is anything remotely character defining at all and I kind of wish I had some Cliffs Notes for “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” so I didn’t have an everlasting “hmmmmmmm…..” pounding on my temples, but there was no “hey how about the fact we were so nude that we weren’t even wearing socks yesterday” telephone conversation. There was a text message, yesterday he communicated with his penis, and today he communicates using an alphanumeric touchpad. Interesting. The text message I should note, included no indication that he had any sort of remotely goodtime with me last night, it proved nothing other than he knew how to operate a forward thinking cellular phone feature. I saw a marmoset using a BlackBerry two weeks ago on tv, so I wouldn’t say I’m impressed with “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away’s” technological prowess. I’m just pursing my lips, twisting them to one side and hoping this is me quietly overreacting like normal. Now, there are several good, plausible reasons why I haven’t heard from him-

I’M NO GOOD-

This is pretty much the worst reason ever. I don’t want to be bad at sex, I’m already terrible at dancing and it’s a scientific fact that if you’re great at dancing you’re awful in bed , no person can have both. John Travolta for example, is impotent, but he’s a virile young tomcat under the mirrorball. I suspect that Kelly Preston-Travolta had to purchase a mirrorball, smoke machine, and cocktail waitress for their bedroom to simulate a discotheque environment and calm John’s anxiety. I’m sure this has caused problems in their relationship and the subsequent scientology that stems from marital problems and boredom. Based on my dancing skills, I should be a gifted sexist (←probably not quite the right word) My pelvis and my legs are sworn enemies , if the pelvis jerks one way, the legs will defiantly jerk the other. I don’t blame my legs for hating my pelvis with such passion. My pelvis is incredibly domineering and often belittles every other part of my body. It is like Kim Jong Il of body parts sabotaging any progress I make and assuming complete tyrannical rule over the rest of me. This is perhaps why I ended up sleeping in the forest in the first place, my general underpants covered area is incredibly bossy. When it wants to dance however, the rest of my appendages go on strike, a demonstration I can’t help but support in theory, but I am left with my smug little hips thinking they can do all the work on their own. My body can be so foolish, it is young, naïve, and impulsive. Though my separate body parts feud on a daily basis, but they all agree on one thing: having sex is awesome. I have to be good at shagging, I wouldn’t enjoy it so much if I was bad at it. I quit the rugby team in high school only because I was no good…. and because I kept finding myself under the hooves of twenty stampeding Catholic Girls. The humiliation of inferiority makes me averse to activities I have not yet mastered. I might have talked too much during the sex last night, but its not like I was talking about Monty Python movies or Bonsai Trees it was all sex related speak which, I think, is kind of warms a dark bedroom. I should clarify that it wasn’t the filthy talk that results in getting whipped by a riding crop or the purchase of a French maid outfit complete with a feather duster and crotchless panties, it was more pedestrian than that. I probably shouldn’t have said anything at all but my inner monologue was boring me, all it had to say was “THIS IS SO AWESOME” over and over again, I was just curious to know if he was having a good time. I also might make terrible sex faces, but since “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” is not David Hasselhoff and does not have a mirrored ceiling, I will never know. (←note- if he did have a mirrored ceiling, I would be worried) I don’t have any embarrassingly large forehead veins that pop and I know there was nothing in my teeth because I secretly flossed in the bathroom of the pool hall before we got back to his place. I do have the ability to make some positively terrifying faces but generally they require me to pull my eye lids down or fishhook my cheeks with my index fingers and pull them outwards, I know my hands were busy so it was fully impossible that I made my crypt keeper -Nicole Kidman hybid face. If I’m bad at sex AND bad at dancing, I might be the most unfortunate person the world has known. I would have to start a foundation for myself to pay for remedial dance or sex lessons from the National ballet School. I would use those little donation cans that sit at grocery store checkouts and could even put a photo of one of my disfigured sex faces on the side of the tin can to lure people. Then in three months when the campaign starts to take off, I will have a star studded telethon hosted by Dick Clark where people will join hands and sing “We are the World”, not because it has anything to do with sex but because that’s just the song you sing for charitable things.

HE’S NO GOOD

Obviously, he’s quite fantastic at the mechanics of lust making. He’s well schooled and was probably has a whole room full of sackademic accolades. What if he’s an evil genius though like Alex Trebeck or Prince Charles (Just kidding, Prince Charles, you’re a swell guy I’m sure) What if this whole thing was just a horrid conquest? what if I’m his Rhodesia? What if he just came in to break the manopausal treatise, and drain me of the emotional resources I was trying so hard to conserve? That would blow. I need to find a guy like James Monroe except not dead and equipped with a few more hobbies. James Monroe wasn’t all about sticking his flag pole everywhere he could, he chose sparingly and with the interests of the territory sincerely at heart (well, as sincerely as American politicians get anyways) James Monroe would have called me by now, even if he thought I was absolute shit in sack. I’m hoping he’s not some sort of swindling Lothario, but he might be. He’s probably not as bad as Bob Barker or Tommy Lee, but he might have a mild case of machismo and if he does, should receive an inoculation immediately before it worsens and a little James Bond looking parasite pops out of his stomach holding a bottle of champagne like those things in the Alien movies. I really don’t want this fella to be a jerk, and its not entirely just for my own sake, only because I know there’s a serious quantity of goodness inside this one and I would always like to think of him as the best thing to come out of the forest since the maple syrup regardless of whatever comes of our foliage covered affair. If he ruins my neurotic, prematurely forming memory of him, I might have to kick him in the shins (just once and not that hard, croquet mallet force) Why I am questioning the intentions of somebody who I have been giving a perpetual standing ovation since our first encounter (Ha! That’s not all I’ve been giving him)? 1) Post Coital Nose Pressing was virtually non existent. To be fair, I had been shagged into a vegetative state and he’s seems to enjoy sleeping on his back (my nose is furious) and I like to sleep on my tummy with my arms outstretched overhead so it would be virtually impossible to do the obligatory lightening spoon unless I slept on top of him creating in a Jenga tower made of person. 2) The next morning he was not interested in a sexual reveille or even a mid to large sized hug, this was either because he was sleeping or because he’s a scoundrel. Very tough call, but since I actually saw him sleeping and not plotting sinister activities I will assume he’s okay. Plus I have a belief that all true villains have an eye patch, peg leg, or physical handicap that can be created at a costume store 3) I’m a female and it is my god given duty to silently over analyze things and develop worry lines that will one day make my forehead look like the knee cap of an aged rhinoceros.

WE”RE ALL GOOD
There is also a chance that I’m a flaming imbecile. He could have been intuitive enough to think that I’m not the kind of girl who requires a post “the sex” telephone call ( I call it THE sex only because I don’t know if its ready to become a naked noun yet,,,it needs a pronoun to dress it up until it becomes a regular occurance) Generally, I’m not the kind of person who does, but I’m one romantic failure away from being a case study in Psych 101 or worse, a premature needle pointer. Maybe “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” is also worried, perhaps he’s at home right now needle pointing a picture of a kitten with a ball of yarn to hang above his fern and wondering when I was going to call? Maybe he’s dressed in a powder blue robe, drinking Chamomile tea, and feeling a bit sad that I haven’t left him a voicemail telling him what a derby-winning stud he is? Selfishly, I must say, that would be kind of awesome. Imagine him, dunking his little tea package thing, staring at his army of trees and wondering what MY deal was. Thats kind of a mean scenario, I take it back, I don’t even know why I said it. I realized the other day when I was eating my lo mein that I’m mother fucking INSECURE (← the lo mein did not contribute at all to my deteriorated self esteem, but it was very tasty so I feel it deserves a mention) I know this is shocking for you, how could I possibly be insecure with my cool blog, string of shitty, shitty man encounters, and my lazy hips that can’t even hold up my pants, let alone sway to music properly. I just don’t get to have sex very often and this particular sex was even more atypical because it was expertly performed and by someone who sings to himself, scrambles a fine egg and if the sole possessor of the worlds most excited eyes. Sex either makes you feel incredibly special or incredibly not special and common whore-ish. If you’re me, you have the wonderful opportunity to cart both feelings around like a shackled mule, its fucking great, really. The eventual conclusive emotion you’re left with hinges entirely on the phone call…. Guys, in case this information has been withheld from you because of its extreme balance shifting power, this shit matters to us. The quality of that phone call is as or more important than the quality of the sex. You can totally redeem yourself from really bad, clinical sex with a earth shatteringly amazing phone call. She will be satisfied. She will be thrilled. She will probably bake you something you don’t want like ginger snaps or a quiche….Anyways, waiting for that crucial call will leave the most confident of women feeling like a bipolar pack mule whose bad in bed. That’s how I feel, saddled down with a 500lbs of Colombian coffee beans

So I hope somebody can take over the blog for me while I’m being forced to run laps on a track made of porcupine quills and hot coals in the underworld, because I’ll be very busy being eternally damned and am sure the internet connection down there is spotty. Manopause literally got fucked to all hell but maybe it needed to get roughed up a little bit. I think the concept will look quite nice with a hickey on its collarbone, it makes manopause seem a little more dangerous. I guess in some ways, it has gotten more risky, I hate that I spent the majority for the day after thinking, checking my telephone, being silently irate, talking myself out of the fury because it was fruitless, and then being nervous, and I hate that if he doesn’t call me, I will probably feel like shit, but do love the fact that I just did it! I do! I don’t regret it at all and would like to get a T shirt that says “I had sex in the forest and all I got was this lousy but cool looking t shirt. That’s right, he didn’t even call” as a souvenir. The real failure is not in the deed itself it’s in the staring down the fucking phone,. Manopause is all about not staring at your mobile. I’m not Luke Skywalker or David Copperfield, I can’t intimidate it into ringing with my special powers. The only power i do have is not wait around like a bloody fool, that’s kind of shitty as far as powers go, perhaps I can trade my will power in for X Ray vision one day.

Mandarin Orange

2008-05-12T09:00:00.001-07:00

Eating at Wafflehouse in America is like being in a gondola piloted by a mildly homosexual man with a curly moustache in a Venetian canal. You don’t take somebody to Wafflehouse the morning after unless you’re at least 52% proud of what you did the night before and want to show off the messy unwashed hair do that everyone knows can only be created by repeated head to pillow friction. I suppose you would get a similarly gnarly rats nest if you do the cheat stomach crunches where you haul your head off the ground but don't use your tummy muscles even a bit...that doesn't strengthen your core at all, now does it?. You know what I don’t feeling like eating right now? Eggs over medium with hashbrowns instead of grits and Minute Maid Orange Juice Why? Because I ate that yesterday AT the Wafflehouse WITH “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away”. dead serious. He ate a double fried egg sandwich and was the best looking person eating an egg sandwich I have ever seen in my whole life. I wish the Wafflehouse had been bigger so it could accommodate more people to behold this handsome man and his also handsome sandwich. Our alpha server, Corenia was a 12 year veteran of the restaurant and I’m pretty sure it’s the aroma of romance and frying pan that keeps her there….it also might have something to do with the medical insurance, but its mostly the watching women like me trying to eat a waffle suggestively to impress the person they spent last night with. (note: it is impossible to seduce somebody with your waffle chewing techniques. Do not attempt) It was a very successful breakfast probably the most successful breakfast of all time. I had a first rate brunch with “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” once, but it was not at a Waffle house, it was at a busy cedar scented place with beeping devices that tell you when your table is ready, an establishment that was eerily similar in volume to the site of the great Relationship Crash of 08. It was nice, but I foolishly tried grits that day knowing full well I was, am, and will always be a hashbrowns girl at heart. Very disappointing decision making on my party. Anywhow, I learned what I felt were some high importance facts about “the Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” during the Waffle house excusion1) He is an ambi-chewer and does not favor either cheek. I’m sure that’s a sign of intelligence. 2) He makes me want to have sex near grills. I wanted to have raging Wafflehouse sex right beside but not on that Hibachi-esque contraption behind the cash register. This is a dangerous new daydream fetish that may result in third degree burns 3) He likes pickles. This is crucial. The mere idea of dating somebody who doesn’t like pickles makes me violently ill. I have never had even one good life experience with a picklephobe. I envied that sandwich, it had won the affections of this glorious recyclist of a man and it came with pickles to spare. The most important of all late breakfast time discoveries was that he might be growing fond of me. Just maybe, there could be some fondness, even if its just the kind that makes people vouch for each other and thats something, correct? There is a minimum of diet fondness and I have proof thanks to the Waffle House.

Food shareabilty is as important as pants shareabilty in relationships, maybe even more vital because in the summertime pants aren’t always awesome to wear and food is always awesome to eat, regardless of season (fruitcake is the only exception). He took a sip of my orange juice. It was just one sip but still, he could have taken a drink of anybody’s orange juice.There must have been at least eight other breakfast enthusiasts with full cups, but he chose mine….because he thinks I’m fantastic☺ (note- this is perhaps not true) I don’t even think he was that thirsty, as he looked especially well hydrated that day, but he wanted some of my OJ just because. Do I think the other patrons were jealous? Heck ya they were, you should have seen those swively stools swiveling. “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” is adorable, he’s the kind of fella you want to share your juice with. You want to give him all the vitamin C in the whole world, and the ladies are surely lined up to share juice with him and steal my side of the table if I was foolish enough make a bathroom run, which of course I was not . Also, we even shared a waffle. It was a premeditated share and joint order, a buttery declaration of lukewarm fondness and mutual hunger. He dressed that waffle up like it was going to the Golden Globe Awards. I have not seen a spreadworthy breakfast item with a more even condiment distribution, no square went without syrup, he was not messing around. We all know what happens when gals and men folk tandem order, Lady and the Tramp happens and hopefully unlike that whorish spaniel, you remember to use protection so you don’t end up with a litter of slack jawed street puppies. Even the strangely named waffle matron softened her browed and chewed her gum with a little less hostility when she saw us food sharing. She appeared pleased that we’d gotten into the food splitting phase despite the fact that she loses out on the sale of the additional waffle, I was pleased that she was pleased because I bet she’s seen a few morning after breakfasts and she seemed like she approved of “The Guy Who Lives19.13 Miles Away”. Anyways waffle sharing = big deal. Very big deal. Its one thing to let a strange Canadian have a few drinks and sleep in your bed, its quite another to pour syrup on her food. It’s the most important meal of the whole bloody day, If you pick the wrong breakfasting partner and the sharing is off, it could throw off your entire week. All bad days begin with poorly divided waffles, I am sure of this. Thank Aunt Jemima our breakfasting chemistry is so spot on.

You will not believe what “Mr. SaveATreeWriteABlog” did next, he ate not one, but two strips of bacon. He is both a vegetarian and goes for almost daily runs along a frighteningly tall bridge, meat is his worst enemy, he has nightmares where is being chased through a dark forest by a giant strip of bacon. In my dreams, I am running hand in hand through a sunflower field with a giant strip of bacon.Bacon and I get along famously. It is obvious that he ordered the bacon to impress me, what an outstanding move, he is a professional. Perhaps I should not order bacon next time to impress him? The worst thing that could happen is increased abdominal definition and arteries cleaner than the hallways of the Mayo Clinic. He took down the bacon like a seasoned carnivore didn’t even ask if they had some organically grown tofurky bacon substitute, this is a good thing because I think that’s the sort of request that gets you kicked out of the Waffle House, its like singing “Hungry Like The Wolf” to yourself in a public library (only happened once, I swear). Eating breakfast meat is the sweetest thing a man has ever done for me…note- at this time I have entirely convinced myself that I am the only reason he broke his meatopause because I am that presumptuous.) When I heard that bacon crunch I almost liquefied completely and melted into the pooled yolk on my plate, I should be tarred and feathered by literary scholars everywhere for what I’m about to say but it won me over easy (HA! twenty lashes for my chintzy jokes) “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” must be very taken by me, as he probably got extremely nauseated post pork and brushed his teeth sixteen times to erase the aftertaste. He has likely gotten involved in charity work counseling and fostering abused piglets, all because of those two delicious strips. If it would make him feel better, I would wear a black balaclava, break into a slaughterhouse, liberate every last hog and replacing them with cucumbers because I like grand gestures too. His alleged fondness just makes me fonder, it make me want to Krazy Glue my nose to directly to the middle of his back or at least take of photo of the place between his shoulders so I won’t ever forget about him, his forest, or the time I saw him carefully arrange the bacon and pickle on his sandwich before consuming it.

I have started to say some very stupid things around “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” this is because I expend so much energy trying to say clever things that my brain eventually just short circuits and black smoke puffs out of my ears. The good news is that his brain has also stopped communicating with his mouth. His tableside manner has also started to fail like an Irishman’s liver. This is fantastic news. My self esteem feels great about this recent development and applauds after every word of the longwinded digressions that leave his stories' thumbs pointed, stranded at the side of the road without destinations. I am certain this means there is a small bit of affection in him addressed to me and that makes me want to jump up and down and sing into my hairbrush, which everybody does sometimes or has thought about doing several times. I am not certain that he has ever sang into a hairbrush but I bet he’d enjoy it. I was privy to files upon files of information not intended for my eyes, he told me all about his spiritual guide who made him recite a small superstitious prayer, light a fancy Wiccan candle, and bury it in his backyard to evict a persistent ghost that been pressing its nose into his back and living in his guest cottage with him. Not only does he have a strange supernatural consultant, but he believes in haunted houses enough to bury a fucking candle. AMAZING. Conversations like that are just plain not supposed to happen, especially sober at 12:15pm, this is the time of day you’re supposed to talk about newspapery things or apologize for what you might have said the night before. We also discussed things like the joys of debt, strip club champagne rooms, and the communal showers. It was like he was playing pin the tail on the donkey with his words blindfolding them, spinning them around, and sending them out to fend for themselves, fighting off the emptiness of a big room with nothing but a string tied around a thumb tack. I do this ALL THE TIME. It’s a good thing I’m a fucking weirdo too because I find his verbal calamity ADORABLE. I want to hear more about burying candles, being young and reckless with a Mastercard, and the going rate of a lapdances in Manhattan. I want to learn phrases in German that I’ll never ever use or pronounce with any hint of accuracy, eat absurdly expensive slices of curative toast, and sing half songs on the floor of his living room.

I developed a new sign of fondness myself over the course of our magnificent feast of eggs, white toast and waffle for two, I cover my mouth with my hand. I do this to conceal the size of my smile, which is BIG, goofy, and eliminates any sense of mystery I might have managed to construct. Men like a little intrigue, this is what Vogue and the E!Channel say, so I do my best to keep it, even though a good ruse is real slippery. There is a decent chance that this could end in complete chaos but I’m just going to bloody enjoy it. Based on the food shareability, the bacon consumption and hilariously awkward conversation I am certain that “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” has at least a few tepid feelings for me, Christ, vegetarians don’t eat pigs for no reason! I’m rather fond of him too though, I’m beside the Waffle Hibachi Grill sex, and nose pressing into the back fond of him. I have no idea what the exact temperature of his affections are, or mine for that matter, but I know that he likes sharing orange juice, he flirts with pork products, and he can’t always find his way to the right words and none of that is bad news.

MAN OH MAN

2008-05-09T17:04:00.001-07:00

DISASTEROUS. I just had the perfect two-day working mini trip back to the motherland ruined by twenty two seconds of complete social calamity. This moment could be in one of those TV montages where they play orchestral music and show things exploding and buildings being demolished. It was as though every last bit of grace I had spontaneously combusted and turned to ash. It was unredeemable and will remain an infraction i’ll never be able to erase from my record. If interactions with other human beings required insurance, I’d be a high risk conversationalist….I would be the rusted jalopy with three wheels that fails the emission test and gets sent to a junk yard with a pit bull named Bruiser and a barbed wire fence, one of those places that always seems dark and mucky, even on days so lovely that litigators buy creamsicles and walk with a notable bounce. It was all going so well, and then I dropped the motherfucking ball like it was made entirely of blue flames. I was a champion at work, I was patted on the back and purchased beers. I was THE jolly good fella (you know the one that nobody can deny?) except obviously, with female bits and there are probably at least a few people in this world that would deny my jolly goodness. I even had an unusual amount of good luck on my Canadian adventure, I got an extra tall mountain of taters from the worlds greatest tater tottery/cafe AND the seat by the front window I’d always coveted, but never seemed quick enough to capture. Things weren’t good, they were extra good and sweetened by fact that I’d run into “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” before leaving and I serendipitously chose to wear the nice green dress instead the jeans that make it look as though I’ve had my ass removed and donated it to science. It was a close fashion call that required “Raiders of the Lost Arc”-esque grooming precision. Sadly the glory was short lived and was assassinated by the Lee Harvey Ozwald of shitty situations, I got DOUCHED.

Getting DOUCHED is something my glorious sweeter than everlasting original Big League Chew best pal/neighbor/longtime provider of couch and Chianti/birthday girl Ashley and I invented to assist justice in delivering vindication. We could be considered the pony express of karma bringing past due notices to those who have neglected the penance they owe. When somebody does something so unspeakably terrible to you that it requires the Marquis du Sade gene mutation of twisted genius, you should place a feminine hygiene er..refreshing system neatly and very conspicuously, by the front door of the assailant. It helps them answer that age old “am I douche bag? Or am I not” query in case there was any confusion, which with a true douche, there always will be as they are generally too busy intentionally giving people wrong directions to the Children’s Hospital, not flushing the toilet in public restrooms then locking the door and crawling out the bottom of the stall so it looks occupied when its not, to consider the effect they have on the world. They have cancer of the feelings. Getting DOUCHED is the best means of defense against habitual toxic behavior. Ashley and I are lauded authorities on this sort of behavior modification therapy. While I don’t like to say our work is “celebrated” because it sounds pretentious, it totally is and I might be a little bit pretentious anyways. Its not about revenge necessarily, its more about realization. When an adult male finds a feminine hygiene product in “Sweet Summer Rain” scent on this front steps as he answers the door, he becomes aware that the universe is trying to tell him something, something along the lines of “You’re a bit of a cunt, clean up your act”. It is ideal if there is somebody, like a courier or inquisitive Jehovah’s Witness on his stoop at the time of discovery, this flags him as a douche to important members of the door to door community and hopefully, encourages them to examine their own level of douchiness. Getting the gift of DOUCHE is getting the gift of knowledge and knowledge is power and power has never done anything destructive to human kind (ha…that was me jerking your chain). I have learned though, that this sacred garden scented education sometimes is not so inspiring, I know this because I was douched, I was douched with the fury of a hundred Amazonian piranhas, I was like the terrier of Pierce Brosnon that fell into the pool of magma in the volcano flick he did. It was bad, Baaaaaaaaaaaaad.

I walked into my ex-local Laundromat/convenience store/florist/grocer/internet café-ist/ news stand to find some baby powder. Baby powder makes girls’ bangs smell like a fancy hotel even when we haven’t washed it. Its one of many secret weapons that make us more attractive even if we’ve just gotten off work, or a ten speed Schwinn, or just plain gotten off. I just didn’t want to wash my hair for a TV appearance I was doing where I knew there would be ample hair and make up available, so I decided smelling like an infants bottom would be best method of grooming. I scoured the shelves of random emergency items like AAA batteries and double blade razors to my find my single solution, only to find an abnormally impressive package with “Talcum Powder” in it. I figured it must be high quality European talcum powder. I grabbed it, impressed by the sheer amount of pink uncorrugated cardboard required to make the package and turn around to see my very first boyfriend, “The Guy With the Angry Shih-Tzu”. “The Guy With the Angry Shih-Tzu” and I will forcibly get along forever because he took my virginity and it almost killed his parents unfriendly dog who swallowed the condom. Don’t worry, things turned out fine, we took him to an emergency vet clinic, pretending to be brother and sister and said he swallowed a water balloon. It was a mildly traumatic day that started with four thrusts and ended with a small dog barfing up a souvenir of our love in the parking lot of a Wendy’s. We are forever bonded, “The Guy With the Angry Shih-Tzu” is like the random arms length cousin who never forgets to send you a birthday card (though obviously not a cousin because that would be morally depraved and a worthy of a Deliverance banjo lick) he’s always incredibly happy to see me (not in THAT way) and is always doing “Just Great!” he looks the exact same as he did in high school except he wears distinctly grown up clothes embroidered with tiny alligators and polo ponies, and somehow, his nose seems more dignified. My nose does not seem more dignified and I still wear the same clothes as I did in high school, which were not fashionable then and are not fashionable now. He still drinks blue Gatorade though so I feel a little bit better about not metamorphosizing completely. We chat for a good fifteen minutes and use up every “ been awhile” type topic of conversation, yet manage to not discuss anything at all. He is super and its super that he’s been so super for the past six years. It turns out that everything around him is super also, his girlfriend, his environmentally conscious company, even the prophylactic loving Shi Tzu. Mid conversation, he started to look at me a bit funny, almost like he’d eaten burnt toast and was trying to get the black flecks out of his teeth. I wasn’t too concerned, so I just kept telling him about white gravy, cigarettes at drugstores, and other strange things about living in America. Eventually he paid for his sports drink and we said goodbye. At this time, I drop my ornately packaged baby powder on the floor and realize it is not talc, it’s a talcum-scented douche. Three cheers for public humiliation. I was twirling that shit around like it was a fancy baton, unknowingly celebrating its solemn vow of freshness.
I got DOUCHED! by my favorite Laundromat. Why the owners of “Splish Splash” would DOUCHE me, I’ll never understand. When I lived back home, I was a painfully loyal customer of the store, I learned first names, I learned the ages and quantity of respective offspring, and I always left, and never took a penny. Perhaps this was a reaction to my southern migration, or maybe it was my new slightly uppity hair do? It had to be a mistake, they could have been looking for my doppleganger, Suzette, who is a bank robber, a miscreant, and a mega whore. It must have been a tragic case of accidental douching. I can’t think of anything I’ve done to deserve that kind of abuse from the cosmos. I got DOUCHED! not in the privacy of my own doorway with a strange hydro worker or girl scout at my door, I got it in public in front of store clerks, bags of cheese flavored popcorn, and the guy who deflowered me. This would not be the worst time for a natural disaster, I know that’s a horrible doucheworthy thing to say but if there were an avalanche or some kind of sandstorm, I might be able to forget about the fact that I’m a graceless she-cad who deserves to eaten by a catfish or other bottom feeder. I wanted to grab the cheesecorn, consume the entire contents, and wear the bag over my head for the next ten years. I tried my best not to look ashamed, to avoid shrieking, dropping it on the floors and running out of the store with my hands over my face. I’m sure people do that all the time, just wander into Splish Splash, check their hotmail, buy some red licorice, and pick up an outdated douche…..no they don’t, corner stores have no right to carry stuff like that, they don’t even carry normal things peanut butter at this particular shop and until they do, they just can’t sell lady part cleaning devices. Its like buying a silk teddy from an Exxon station, it just doesn’t belong on those shelves. “The Guy With the Angry Shih-Tzu” will never forget what happened, he will tell everyone in our hometown, all of our old friends, the mailman, and the guy that owns Moon Garden, the Chinese Food/Pizzeria restaurant. I am now banished. They will not commemorate me in bronze statue form holding a guitar and a wad of cash, they will commemorate me in bronze statue form holding a douche and looking horrified, the explanatory plaque will just read “HA”

A douche manufactured in 1997 is one of the top three worst things to get caught holding, the others are a sign that says “Mattress Clearance Today 50% Off. This Way-→” and a rabid skunk with mange. I am sure it was an accident, that kind of mortification was meant for somebody else but falsely addressed to me. If I have done anything staggeringly atrocious to anyone like run over their house cat or steal the last bowl of soup from Whole Foods, I am very sorry and will buy you a new cat and a new bowl of soup. I want to make sure every single one of my wrongs and even my half wrongs, are fully righted so I never, ever get douched again, it is a dreadful feeling. I have a list of about four to five guys I was planning on douche bombing (I wanted to make a day out of it with Ashley, maybe eat lunch between douches or paint our toenails) it includes “The Guy Who Forgot his Two Girlfriends were Also Friends”, “The Guy Who Chose an 18 year old NRA Member Over Me” (we’re actually pals now but he deserves a douche nonetheless), and perhaps “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Away” if he turns out to be jackass, which I hope he doesn’t…anyhow, I’m throwing the list away. Its so easy to treat people fairly, even for the most selfish of selfish bastards, and I’ll never understand why this is a struggle for every dude I’ve dated but leaving a douching kit on somebody’s front porch with no explanation is also kind of unfair though, so I’m turning in my license to douchebomb. Standing there in the Laundromat with that little pink box was one of my lowest life points and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone even if they did deserve it.

Manpower

2008-05-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

I am the only normal person at the airport today…ME. Nobody else here is even CLOSE normal, they aren’t even in the suburbs of the Greater Normal Area, they are all lost on the outside, going slow in the left lane, circling Sane Diego on the interstate talking in jibberish, twitching at each other and beeping their La Cucaracha horns. Nobody is ever normal in the airport though, this is why we are forced to remove our shoes, and expose our toothbrushes to extreme radiation (Poor Jimmy Tartar is one connecti]
ng flight away form cancer of the bristles) They take extreme precautions like these in order to keep things like Molotov Cocktails out of the cockpit, they don’t fit properly in the cup holders anyways☺ Airports are the armadillo of public places, and I’m not talking about the ones that get hit by cars in West Texas, I’m talking exceptionally smart armadillos who are well armed and Fort Knoxy, hell, every time I walk by a mirrored surface on my way to gate C13 I am certain it is one of interrogation rooms with the single hanging bulb and the table to reach across and grab the alleged criminals shirt collar when he or she (but probably he because girls’ shirts have inferior collars for grabbing) refuses to answer the damn question. Everybody who works at the airport gets a badge even the makers of sandwich and wavers of orange cones. A wearer of badge is not a worker, he or she is an officer of their vocation, even if that post might just be sweeping the floors or driving an indoor golf cart whose beep is bigger than its bite. I respect badge wearers and card carriers, it’s a bit of a Sheriff complex I probably picked up from watching too much Dallas as a child and I would probably take a pay cut if it meant I got a five pointed star with my name on it. I would definitely take a pay cut if that star was made out of real metal. Yes Siree. Still, its amazing, with all the latex gloves, and the probing, and the Rhino sedative packing snipers hiding in the closets, that the airport still manages to fail miserably in the field of “Not Letting in People Who Converse with themselves in Secret Lord of the Ringsy Languages”. There are astronomical amounts of them, none of them with their Velcro shoes planted anywhere near solid ground, and all of them just fanatical, one carefully concealed matchstick away from blowing a 747 to scrap metal before the in flight refreshment service. If I’m going to die at the unsteady hand of a lunatic, I’d at least like to a few sips of my tomato juice from the can, and my package of unidentifiable potpourri of sodium rich twigs. I guess that means I would like to die with bad breath….gross. For somebody who is a relatively terrible judge of character in the bedroom and pre bedroom courting stages, I am remarkably impressed by my ability to pick out disturbed individuals at the airport. Perhaps its my destiny to throw chairs and grab collared shirts from across tables in sterile rooms? Perhaps its my duty!? Maybe the people who manage to pick out the Mercedes Bens and the Rolls Roys would make terrible airport security She-Ras? All I know is that I might be the best, undiscovered defender of the runway since the metal detector.

DRUG MULES-

Drug Mules are almost always senior citizens, especially the professionals, the career carriers. They are unsuspecting, old enough to wear Isotoner slippers outside of the house, shoot Metamucil like it’s a fuzzy navel, and say ” Fridee “ instead of Friday. We all see these people on a daily basis, asking bank tellers to speak up, falling asleep during matinee movies, and at Red Lobster crushing their Cheddar Bay biscuits into their chowder. Though inconspicuous while shuffling along the moving sidewalk, they are sophisticated concealers of crack rock. They are the Tupperware of the seedy underbelly, vacuum-sealed grannys with crannys. With their cumulous cloud hairdos, fanny packs, pill boxes, yards of unnecessary fabric, and dependable Depends, seniors are ideal for holding precious cargo. Plus, they are literally impossible to penetrate, nobody wants to take the rubber glove to Betty White’s rear, especially after she’s hit three pints of prune juice. Harassing seniors is a defaming lawsuit waiting to happen. People often neglect the darker side of the coin grandpa magically pulls from behind his ear because the elderly align themselves with benevolent community institutions like the Lions club and the bowling alley. Its pure genius. The final demographic are compulsive gamblers, have an advanced knowledge of pharmaceuticals, and unlimited vacation time …. they cannot be trusted. “The Woman Who Thinks A Bad Day on Vacation is Better than a Good Day At Work” (← This was embroidered on her beach bag/portable meth lab) was glaring at an ATM when I saw spotted her. She was not glaring because the ATM had done anything to anger her, like cut through her lawn, but because she was blinder than a blindfolded Ray Charles in a dark room. She probably struggles to read those Italian restaurant menus with foreign words and script font, which is why like most older broads, she sticks to buffets and salad bars where her enhanced sense of smell triumphs. There were several signs of her shady character that were ignored by the air police: She was wearing a shirt with parrots dressed like humans on it, think macaws in swimming trunks and cockatiels in hoop earrings. This suggests she was so blitzed that even her clothing had started to hallucinate. Also, she brought her own snacks and I suspect, was a chronic bringer of private snacks to public places. This is because she always has the munchies, andgets so fucked up that she falls asleep before dinnertime. How security failed to notice that her T shirt was tripping out or make a note of her tell tale Pringles, I’ll never understand. If I were a German Shepherd, which I’m glad I’m not because they shed and have extra sharp claws, I would have been all over that old bird. I wouldn’t even woof, the emotion would be so strong that I would miraculously learn English like Milo or Otis (I can ‘t remember which one was the pug) and say “You have the right to remain silent”. “The Woman Who Thinks A Bad Day on Vacation is Better than a Good Day At Work” is a menace, All of those teeth didn’t fall out because they found a better mouth to live in, and it wasn’t the porridge either…it was the dang opiates I tell ya,, the opiates.

BOMBERS (EXPLOSIVES NOT SASSY JACKETS)

I have imagined doing almost everything that has ever been done is the history of history. At this exact moment I am imagining participating in a steel cage match, and making a reverse sandwich with the bread on the inside and single lettuce leaf and mesquite chicken on the outside. I plan to spend at least half of tomorrow imagining myself constructing a house made entirely from pinecones. When I see someone doing something I have not even ever considered doing, I know that person is positively mad and absolutely capable of building a bomb or smuggling a dufflebag full of cobras onto an airplane. “The Guy With the Greasy Puzzle” was sitting down in the food court (Note: Food courts are the second most popular gathering place for the insane) for a quiet pre-flight plate of sausages. That’s right, nothing but sausage. There must have been thousands of them and they each emitted a particularly musty sausagey aroma. Due to the fact that all of the implements near him had been corked or hidden by a very responsible invisible orderly, he used his hands, first snapping the sausages in half like they were Kit Kat chocolate bars, and then putting about 8 halves (that’s about 4 complete franks) into the chipmunk pockets of his cheeks. Between bites of half sausage, he was trying to unscramble a Rubik’s cube. The more he twisted, the greasier it got making the challenge coaxing the shiny cube to perform a quarter pirouette rather than mastering the puzzle. I suspect this was more his speed anyways. Doing a Rubiks cube in public is like playing jacks or churning your own butter, people just don’t do it anymore, especially not in airport food courts four sausages past the legal limit. Don’t get me wrong, I ‘m sure this fella, with his expanding mind and his deteriorating arteries, is very nice, but unfortunately he’s also right fucking crackers. He probably has an entire room full of nothing but Rubiks cubes in his house, right next to the workshop where he mixes noxious gases and makes shoe bombs. Though fully insane, He does have excellent taste in slow jams. While consuming the perverse number of sausages and struggling to grip his cube, he listened to “ My Cheri Amour” three times in a row on this Mac (The brand name trusted by plane jackers) This makes “The Guy With the Greasy Puzzle” somewhat of a pioneer, nobody other than him has ever listened to Stevie Wonder whilst eating breakfast pork and letting a rainbow brain teaser get the better of them, I watched history in the making. Though oddly intriguing and among the top ten food court moments of my whole life, I knew he was a threat, he was the empty, ready to spin bottle at a 13 year old’s co-ed birthday party. “The Guy With the Greasy Puzzle” was obviously about to blow something up, I am sure of it for the following reasons-

i) Last Meal- People don’t eat a whole mess of breakfast sausages for shits and giggles, you have to special order that stuff. There was an urgency to his sausage consumption, a compelling and fucked up desperation. He had clearly wanted to eat all the sausages he could before he went the way of the kamikaze. A self made martyr never skips the most important meal of the day.
ii) Cranial Stretching- The Rubiks cube was intended to jump start his hand eye co-ordination for the crucial red wire / blue wire moments he was about to face. Its like doing that punch the air thing in aerobics videos, its not really exercise, and it makes you look like a tool, but it helps your bloodflow keep up with your spandex clad mojo.
iii) Pumping Up the Jams- You know how in all those heist movies where people listen to Mozart or something before inflicting terror onto the world? Like in Ocean’s 11/12/13? That’s what my Cheri Amour was to “The Guy With the Greasy Puzzle”. My song would be “Almost Paradise” if a was crazy. He was either going to take an entire flight hostage, or he was about to assassinate Stevie Wonder. Assassinating the blind just isn’t ethical, its just low, like poisoning somebody with severe peanut allergies. Taking advantage of a handicap is not high road crime.

I will never see a man methodically eating sausages, hitting the cube, and listening to the sexiest 7” of the late sixties again. How guard after guard would walk by him and think all was right in the world I will never understand, he might as well have been sharpening his sword. Since I have now seen this and David Copperfield, I no longer have a desire to visit the pyramids. I have seen my wonders.

PETTY THEIVES-

Why is it that as soon as a muffled loud speaker voice tells you not to leave your personal belongings unattended, all you want to do is shove your laptop in a dark corner buy duty free lipstick and Jamaican Rum. This kind of negligence makes me feel a bit dangerous, which I like from time to time, but I know that leaving my junk to fend for itself, even for just one piping hot minute, will result in identity theft and hundreds of mystery calls on my mobile phone to a Party Hotline in Vladivostok. I am a special target, my standing in the Scrabble and Hula Hooping communities make my ID a bit of a hot commodity. Also, I’m one smoothie away from a freebie on my frequent blender punch card and my passport has lots of pages left to stamp, a real plus for the sentimental fugitive. These reprobates can be recognized by the sheer amount of crap they have, all of it stolen. They are the yaks of the departure area, clouds of steam escaping from their nostrils and spines bowed from the weight of a thousand Jansports. I saw “The Girl with the Pinched Poodle’ waiting to board a flight to Miami, coincidently with many of the coked out, lawn bowling drug mules. She had more baggage than a child actor, most of it obviously acquired after the security checkpoint as she could never fit it all in an overhead compartment nor withstand the judicious eye of the troubleshooting beepy wand. Based on the softball size lump of cords she had spilling out of her stolen overcoat, it can be assumed that she was concealing approximately 80 IPOD minis, 12 palm pilots, 5 moustache trimmers, 3 DVD players, and a remote controlled car (or perhaps just the charger, but that would be a waste of pocket space). Also suspect was her choice in wardrobe, she must have stolen the jacket from somebody going to Anchorage because NOBODY wears an overcoat to Miami. People wear only tropical oils and lime green thongs ….it’s a bylaw written in stone. In addition to outerwear and electronics, this monster pilfered an extremely good-looking toy poodle and toy poodle carrying device which was in a zig zag pattern I recognize from a breathtaking sweater in an early episode of the Cosby Show. Unfortunately she forgot to swipe the pre flight dog Ambien, to sedate the pooch, a fatal error in judgment. If not apprehended by authorities and hauled away in an indoor golf cart, she will be clubbed over the head by her fellow passengers for bringing “The Poodle With the Five Octave Range” on an early morning flight. She’s a thief through and through, but an amateur delinquent, whose callow ways will one day, leave her poodleless and IPod Miniless in a South Beach slammer that stinks of frozen drink.

Hopefully none of these basket cases will be in seat 3A. I hope 3A just has a screaming baby or clears his throat every five minutes, I can handle that, what I can’t handle is sausage fingers showing up with a bomb strapped to his chest. I don’t think I’ll become an airport security goon, because I am too small and also have enough trouble keeping up with the lunatics in my own life. I could tell the people in the airport were certifiable only because the were held at such a distance that their proudly waving red flags overshadowed any redeeming qualities they may have. If any of the guys I had dated started wearing clothing with Toucans in drag, I’d probably start to ask questions

Manscaping

2008-05-04T14:10:00.000-07:00

I buy flowers for myself on a fairly regular basis, not because I’m a pathetic wench in training who acquires feral cats and odd hobbies like Christopher Walken acquires film cameos, or because I find flowers to be particularly attractive, in fact I’ve purchased some bunches that were surely inspired by the upholstery in the offices of the Women’s Gin Rummy Association. I buy flowers for several reasons: Firstly, I grew up in a city the colour of a soiled garbage can and unless you wanted to end up like Ernest Hemmingway alone on Valentine’s Day, you put some fucking gerberas on your kitchen table so you don’t start writing terrible poetry and drinking moonshine from an aluminum thermos to get out of bed in the morning. Secondly, flowers on the table distract the discriminating eye from the rapidly breeding dust bunnies on the floor of your shitty, shitty groundhog hole of an apartment. Lastly, visible flowers function as a romantic social condom….say your creepy half pal half cleavage aficionado comes over to watch tv and cleverly try to seduce you with Mikes Hard Lemonade, the flowers will repel him. He will think you are loved and not nearly vulnerable enough for him to prey on. Flowers have become a habit, but a good habit like clipping your toenails, or eating granola bars for breakfast. Flowers have never hurt me, mind you I have always stayed away from the thorny, Bret Michaels variety. Today, however, I saw some yellow roses that were beautiful, status symbols wrapped in cellophane. They may as well have been encrusted with Swarovski, drizzled in truffle oil, and worn on the wrist of Catherine Zeta-Jones to the Met. I was committed to those buds at first glance, probably only because I knew “’til death do us part” would last less than a week, yet still, a powerful emotion for a less than girlish girl to find standing in stagnated grocery store water. I have never been prouder checking out and I’m convinced that those very flowers distracted the rest of the line from the embarrassing amount of beer and cheese I bought because nobody looked uncomfortable by the imagined sodium intake on the cashier’s conveyor belt. These canary coloured blooms I was so enamored by, were not nearly the kitchen table candy I expected, they were algae in party dresses, they were used car salesmen who sold me a Buick with a dead body in the trunk. Whole Foods “Flowers On the Table” department, you ripped me off , you ripped me off worse than the ab roller did, how could you?! With all those hundreds of daisies we’ve seen eachother through. Is there no oath of Wholesomeness sworn, no badge of honour in wearing that green apron of a uniform? I’m going to march in tomorrow, load up a full cart with sliceable, diceable deli items and cans from the tallest of shelves and decide at the last minute, not to buy any of them, put that in your blender and juice it……… Perhaps, I’m being unreasonable, maybe I can’t blame these flowers for failing at their very flowerness, it just sucks that their best attempt at being roses was so shitty, I’d probably do better at pole vaulting than these blossoms did at blooming.

If you’ve never met anyone with halitosis, you’re officially invited over to sniff the bouquet of olfactory terror resting in my trash. It smells like an old couch made out of corned beef hash that’s been sitting in an attic for twelve years. It’s a terrible mix of greasy breakfast and old person that makes me never want to go to Denny’s before noon again. With all the aromatic wonders and heavily perfumed housewives inside the grocery store it was impossible for anyone, even a drug sniffing, border town beagle, to pick up the scent. This is mildly disgusting but the aroma did not surface until I was in my car and shifted to drive, not only did my eyes water, but my nose ran, my nostrils were so disturbed that they sobbed as well, especially while unwrapping the cellophane at home. It was as if somebody had turned the roses upside down and used them as a toilet brush. At first, I was polite to them, I quietly opened a window, I lit a stinky feminine, laundry-scented candle, all of it to no avail. I am certain that the bespectacled fellow that watched me pluck the bouquet of ass sphincters, knew all about their musty curse and didn’t say anything. I think he was selfishly proud of the sale, proud of the fact that I paid $12.65 for something that would permanently damage my sinuses. The following things are ruined for me due to his slimy “discretion”: Flowers, green aprons, planet earth, glasses, men with large adams apples, buckets, standing water, groceries, people who buy groceries. I felt like I got screwed over by two of the most sissy things in the world, roses and men in aprons, that’s like getting dropped kicked by an eight year old ballerina. I feel a bit bad for the flowers themselves, I’m sure being displayed like QVC wrist watches or bearded ladies at the circus was ather demeaning. Though I have yet to meet a QVC timepiece or a bearded lady (not counting a few non professionals I met in Little Italy) I’m certain they would say being the centre of attention was not always so glamorous. They might even say it was the pits. While I don’t hold the yellow roses responsible for their disability, I do blame that cruel, cruel florist who sold them to me despite the fact that traces of the mold on those petals will remain in my lungs for the next thirty years.

Also, these flowers reminded me a lot of a Bruce Lee film, except there was no villain. In its stead were my bare and so very delicate fingers. I’m not a total imbecile, I recognized that roses have thorns, “R” was one of my favorite Encyclopedia Britannica volumes growing up, and eons, and eons ago before they invented toasters and when people still harpooned things for food, a gentleman with a concealed identity left a dozen stems at my door step (I suspect it was my old married neighbor who once tried to kiss me in the elevator. I stomped on his foot very hard and walked 12 flights of stairs, remind me to blackmail him one day) I’m sure Bret Michaels is slightly full of shit, actually he’s probably quite full of shit, every rose does NOT have its thorn, it has about a hundred and sixteen THORNS, all of which introduced themselves rather aggressively to my palms. Encyclopedia Britannica never mentioned that in addition to the large, conspicuous canine tooth shaped spikes, they have the tiny hair-like prickles those of a balding cactus. I discovered the difference between peach fuzz and rose fuzz quickly and painfully, I didn’t just grab those things, I seized them and they seized back. I was a flailing sea lion with an open wound trying to shove an Islamic Great White Shark into a vase after Ramadan. I was repeatedly stabbed by my own token of affection to myself, and when you’re already enduring the humiliation of providing your own tokens of affection, its not really not fair that they draw blood. I wanted to blame the flowers, it felt like a direct insult, but I knew any missteps were probably mine. I was acting like that Grizzly Man dude with the mushroom cut who went into the tundra, named bears things like Mr. Chocolate and Marge, and then got eaten for berating them and treating them like cocker spaniels. I could not hold the roses liable for their sheer roseness, but I wish “The Guy Who Sold Me Fresh Cut Halitosis “ had thought to put a little sticker on them that said “Beware of Flowers” or “Please Refrain From Touching The Flowers” or even “Don’t Buy These Death Roses For Someone You Love” Theres a reason they tell you not to feed the cobras at the zoo, its because they will strike at your jugular and make you have convulsions until you’re a vegetable, I’m pretty sure that if I’d kept on taunting the roses, things would have been much worse. It is probable that one of them would have struck at, and killed me. Perhaps I should have listened harder to Bret Michaels during those “I’m Just Fucking With You” slow dances (nobody dances seriously to Poison. Its not healthy to press your nose into anything during those 4 minutes and 43 seconds) maybe there was a silent “S” on the end of “Thorn”? Maybe I was just too distracted by the mirrorball and the sexually obscure cologne smell to pay attention? It is possible that if he’d said “Every Rose Has its 12 gauge Semi-Automatic” I still wouldn’t have even noticed and would still have a big garden fang stuck in webbing between my thumb and index finger.

It was my understanding that colonies of ants live in three places: underground ant labyrinths, picnic blankets, and pants. No exceptions. I have for my entire life respected ants for their cracker crumb scavenging, ridiculous supernatural strength that not even a cast iron JC Penny Catalogue could contend with, and their agile scurrying technique. Well it turns out that ants, who have always stayed out of territorial disputes with me, and who perhaps wisely, have asked for no miniature seat on the Security Council, are finally getting power hungry and have adopted an imperialist doctrine. Concealed neatly inside the petals of my new yellow flowers like the Trojans in their Trojan horse, was an army of 100 ant foot soldiers strong, that’s fucking 600 legs. It is likely that this attack was in part, the wrath of nature punishing me for not sleeping with the “Guy Who Lives 19.13 Away”. Animal Kingdom, I get the message, I’m an idiot. Despite my best shooing efforts, and I am an expert shooer, they already annexed my kitchen drawer from the forks, sporks, spoons and other dishwasherables, I’m afraid that by Wednesday, I’ll come home to find my implements shivering, huddled together in a dark corner of the counter ousted from their own land to wander the stovetop as culinary refugees. The roses were the allies of the ant, accomplices even, providing them with the necessary protection and artillery to invade my household. The flowers were the United States ,claiming neutrality but still delivering aid to the mutineers (Sorry USA, I love you, but you know its true...north vietnam, afghanistan...need I go on? being anonymous is awesome) I don’t know why the roses would involve themselves in such a scheme when I all I wanted was to do was rescue them from the water smelled like a rotten split pea soup and looked like a condemned swimming pool. They must have mistaken me for somebody else, someone who uses DDT or trims her hedges into those humiliating topiary animal shapes. Either way, I’m switching back to tulips. I do suppose the ants could have intimidated the roses, perhaps they were threatening to go public with the photos of the Yellow Roses implicated in clashing prom corsages or maybe, they offered the roses “protection” promising never to tunnel into their roots. I’m sure some political wizardry was involved. With all those barbs you’d think that the buds would have a little bit more balls, but I guess THEY ARE roses after all, probably the sissiest plant of all time. Theres a reason they don’t name sports teams after flowers, they are weak and can’t be fully blamed for their frail, waxy petals and ego. Hmmmm…Cincinnati Begonias has a nice ring to it.

I’m going back out to Whole Foods and I'm going to try to let this whole thing go, I will buy myself a new bunch of flowers, probably the ones with the Mardi Gras colours that I saw yesterday. I’ve found myself pleased by greens, purples, and yellows lately, even though I’ve never been to New Orleans. Not even once. I’ll probably glare at Waldo the bastard florist but not for more than 30 seconds (of pure rage) It fucking blows to spend $12.65 on a nicely dressed disappointment but then again, I kind of invest in a lot of things that don’t work out. If I’d pressed my nose into those flowers, I probably would have noticed that they smelled like the bathroom at Chilis, I only wish pressing my nose between forest dwelling shoulderblades could be as conclusive. I guess I’ll just have to press on and see. When those defeats in life, some of which are pedestrian, others are of the” stop you in your tracks” variety…er…defeat me, I need to learn that neither plants nor people can always control what they become, the things they need, or the changes in their environment, and theres little point in holding a grudge against someone or something for characteristics beyond amendment. I should though, probably inspect the world a little bit better so I stop getting beaten up by anniversary foliage. That’s just embarrassing. Not everything in nature has its shit together, fuck if I do, but I do try and understand my own nature (←”Baby’s First Italicized Point of Emphasis” Milestones are rad). I have grown conscious of MY thorns and am learning to advertise them so I injure as few hands as possible…. now I just need to learn how spot the spikes on others, to discriminate between people with prickles and people who are just pricks.HA.

Man Vs Beast

2008-05-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

We’re totally going to have sex. It might be five years down the line when we stumble into eachother at a butcher’s shop ( In five years, doctors will have done a study that proves vegetarians tongues fall out from pure sorrow. I am sure of this, and the tongue of “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” must be salvaged) or it might be in two months when we decide its silly that we have let things get awkward and we go play pool to make unnecessary amends (Just so you know, I would prefer pool hall to meat locker any day. Meat lockers remind me of Sylvester Stallone… and slabs of dead animals hanging from hooks…for obvious reasons). It might even be in 67 seconds when he raps on my front door and we go at it directly to the left of the stove, I would have sex ON the stove but I am mid flip with a life changing grilled cheese sandwich with all the right cheeses on it and I would not like to have an element shaped brand on my ass. If I were to commemorate my love of sandwich, I’d go for something classy like a raspberry coloured heart, skewered by a fork that said “grilled cheese “in the middle. It will be surprise sex, a mad CLUE-sque affair complete with its own sleuth to declare, “It was The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles away and The Girl Who Wears Too Tall Socks against a tree in the forest” It will happen, oh yes, it will happen. Its just nature, good old fashioned discovery channel nature. I’m an animal, he’s an animal, surely we’ll mix wine with endorphins and end up in some precarious blue jeanless state with a older British chap narrating the whole sordid thing. That’s what nature is about, pine scented sex, hunting, and gathering. Note-I happen to have enough pent up hormonal frustration to get the fossil of a bloody stegosaurus good and jacked up. My cutoff shorts were furious with me for taking them all the way out to fucking Walden Pond and making them work overtime. They are the kind of shorts you wash a red Trans Am in, you don’t wear shorts like that unless your loins are trying to tell you something and your fashion sense is telling you nothing at all. Nature was also incensed. I’m pretty sure every last amoeba in that forest was praying that we’d just shag. The singy alongy bluebird that I’d met before was fully prepared to launch into a rendition of “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and the Cricket Philharmonic’s strings were perfectly tuned and ready for their solo in the breakdown. The bloodthirsty mosquitos even took the night off just so I wouldn’t get itchy bites that would distract me during the post coital nose- pressing extravaganza, but I failed them. I let nature down. Thank Christ it rained because everything in that forest needed a cold shower. I know it sounds a little bit wild, but now, the entire animal kingdom is rebelling against me. The birds and bumblebees have been unusually aggressive. After finally getting over my life long fear of carwashes, I deluxe hot waxed the Honda (Huge victory) only to have it air raided by a fleet of painfully accurate starlings. Now my car looks like a bloody Dalmatian, that is, if Dalmatians were made of green painted aluminum and fecal matter. I saw a brown rabbit in the yard this morning and he took off without even letting me see his white cottontail, how spiteful?! White cottontails are the only reason anyone gives a shit about bunnies. I was heartbroken, but I denied nature my tail so its only fair that it would deny me. I guess when I think of all the trouble the forest went to in order to set the mood, I’d probably think I was an asshole too.

Insects love “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” they love him for his open door, bright, probably eco-friendly-ish lights, and mostly for his steadfast commitment to the no-kill policy. I kind of love the no kill policy as well, its adorable, cuter than tandem bicycles, those kids that bury eachother to the chin in sand at the beach and take pictures, and even cuter than miniature bananas you buy in the novelty section of the produce department. Its almost unreasonable. Watching a grown man chase a dragonfly knock-off bug with a freshly clean drinking glass and failing repeatedly is better than eating ice cream….he is for the record, the two tone soft serve swirl cone of human beings. These expert bugs, clearly trained at the Locust Academy of Swarming, made it possible for me to watch him swashbuckling away with his makeshift butterfly net all night ,I thank them for it and will make a handsome contribution to LAS when finances permit. If exterminators caught termites wearing mismatched socks and using drinking glasses, they would get laid all the time. "The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away" also attempted the hand cupping method. This was as predicted, unsuccessful, but watching him heroically release the insect he THOUGHT he’d caught back into the wilderness and then stand there looking confused when nothing flew out of his hands, was awesome. He looked like doveless magician and it made my cut off shorts want to run for the hills never to be seen again. If I were in Playboy in one of those thrilling “Getting to know the Hussy” articles, I would not list humane insect disposal as a turn on, because its kind of odd and I wouldn’t want to alienate those entomologists with weird dead beetle collections from enjoying my boobs, but I’ll tell ya, I was a mere June Bug away from being very irresponsible. There was also one valiant cricket who went where no cricket has gone before, whose atmospheric chirping almost dismantled Manopause completely. He strolled right into the house, no fear of a rolled up Newyorker Magazine or boot sole, and chirped his heart out. This was the Yo Yo Ma of stringed insects, a virtuosic talent and innovator. I’m convinced this is the exact cricket composer they record for those sound machines with babbling brooks and things that help you sleep. “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” was concerned for the safety of this particular critter, especially when he disappeared behind the refrigerator. I wasn’t worried, as I know that most real artists are reclusive. The insects went to extreme lengths to ensure that their good-looking neighbour would get laid, and it almost worked. I would just like the creepers and crawlers to keep in mind that the aftermath of actual human sex can be messier than a summertime windshield with no wiper fluid.

The sexiest Disney movie of all time without a doubt is Bambi. Little known fact, not only did this sweeping tale of spring fever and sex in the thicket win Oscars, It won several of those Adult Film Awards they give away each year in Vegas. I promise that if you ask at any XXX store, there is a well-worn copy behind the counter. There’s just something about that frisky white-tailed deer that charges the libido. If Flower the skunk, Thumper the Bunny, and Bambi were Disney affiliated human beings instead of Disney affiliated animal sketches they would be the Jonas Brothers in matching vests and be making $12 million a year. “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” and I were driving home from the “Resto-bar with the Pottery Barn Light Jazz Mix”, where I must note, he drank a martini with a twist like he was an endearing organically grown version of James Bond, and we stumbled upon what felt like about nine hundred live Bambis. It was like they were demonstrating or something, I’m convinced that if they could hold cardboard signs with their cloven, they would have said “Down With Manopause, Off With Underpants”. They were some of the finest looking roadside deer that have ever existed, all vaguely Mia Farrow: lean, long lashed, and blessed with a pleasing, heel flicking gait. These were the deer whose heads people want on their living room walls, fashionable animals indeed. So there we were, on an empty road and staring at bucks encouraging unbridled buck wildness, there are no better conditions for environmentally friendly sex, yet I neglected to start tearing clothes off like the deer wanted. I’m sure they are right pissed off. Each one of these kamikaze deer will probably try and bound across the road in the next week, coincidently, in front of a Honda with Canadian plates, captained by an unsatisfied, blonde haired glutton for punishment. I will have a motor vehicle accident and be left paralyzed form the waist down…never to get it on, ever again. The deer’s plot to kill me will eventually be found out and after a long trial, they will be stabled in a penitentiary and forced to pick up garbage with their antlers on the side of the highway. Bambi, Bambi’s thugs, I’m sorry I couldn’t do it. You looked like a perfect 3D postcard, the kind I would buy and decide to keep for myself, but I want to make sure that my head doesn’t end up beside yours over a mantel. We all have targets on our haunches it seems, but that doesn’t mean we’re destined to become cheap accolades. While I don’t think “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” is the musket shining Elmer Fudd of men, just because he doesn’t burgerify pigs and cows, doesn’t mean he won’t hurt a human being.

Since “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” agrees to not eat poultry, in turn, poultry agrees to help “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” get chicks. It’s a you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, mutually beneficial kinda situation, like those little African tooth brush birds that fly into the mouths of hippopatomai and eat the residuals from between the molars. They need him for his vegetarianess the needs them for their breakfast protein. Colonel Sanders would not aid “The Guy Who Live 19.13 Miles Away” in any romantic pursuit and would likely slash his tires or pelt him with popcorn chicken out of a pea shooter. “The Guy Who Live 19.13 Miles Away” collaborated with his feathered minions to craft what was perhaps the most glorious middle of the night breakfast that has ever been created, and I am without question, the leading authority on middle of the night foodstuffs..sorry Carnie Wilson, but the title is belongs to me, better luck next year. Spontaneous breakfasting is one of my favourite things in the entire world, if I were to write a personal ad, it would say “must have skillet” in bold. Italicized. The grain fed, free range, hackey sack playing hippie chickens supplied him with eggs of the highest quality that were born to be scrambled, the golden goose from Jack and the Beanstalk would shit a golden brick if she had a bite (By the way Golden Egg Laying Goose, are you sure you don’t just have kidney stones?) There is nothing left-leaning chickens enjoy more than becoming affiliated with subversive action, in this case, burning Manopause to the ground. These high end eggs which I’m sure had a Rolls Royce emblem stamped on their shells, allowed “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 to show off his breakfast skills with a culinary finesse that would probably send most ladies into a hormonal frenzy before bite three of the accompanying, designer toast. These eggs were intimidating, I felt like I was outclassed and would have to begin running midnight breakfast preparation drills to get back in shape. My scrambling skills could be stronger and my toast is just toast with no petrified fruit immortalized it. Chickens and “the Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” are like Simon and Garfunkle, Al and Tipper Gore, or the Ringling Brothers (except circuses are mildly exploitive and breakfast really isn’t) they are perfectly in sync, and I’m sure he is the wind beneath their honey garlic wings. I’m sure the next time I find myself drumstick in hand, I will end up with Salmonella poisoning or a fatal wishbone to the throat. These magnanimous birds sacrificed their eggs, the vessels of their peeping young, and the result made my top five breakfasting experiences ever, however, as much as I wanted to positively violate the barefoot chef, I have to make sure I’m not subconsciously putting too many eggs in that basket or else I’ll end up like Humpty Dumpty, whose name perfectly describes the process of dating. I could end up blind sided, deconstructed, and waiting in a pile of my own crushed shell for man after king’s man to try and put me back together again….and again …and again.

When you’re sleeping beside a rare, mind numblingly beautiful Giant Panda of a human being its nearly impossible to keep your car washing shorts on, especially when your instincts and every organism around you are telling you to stop being such a fucking prude. Its hard to take the advice of an invertebrate when it comes to reconciling matters of the heart with matters of the box. Manopause is all about backbone, but it almost becomes a spineless pursuit if I’m denying myself of something I really, really really, really want. It’s a strange and rather shitty feeling when caution matures into fear, when your self assured choices are revealed as apprehensions. You stop feeling like a hero and start feeling quite cowardly. For other animals, sex is just a perk of breeding (humans just get tax breaks and family rates at six flags for breeding, which are also nice incentives) its scarcely about anything other than reproduction. Conversely, for humans, its not about racking up offspring (personally, I like to avoid the entire offspring producing aspect of shagging) it satiates emotional voids through physical relief, whether that emotion be love, lust, boredom, vindication, comfort, or three tequilas. So, Nature, if you’re still pissed off that I didn’t have awesome forest sex when I very clearly wanted to, its because I’m trying to figure out what it really means to want to ravage somebody in front of a herd of white-tailed deer when obviously, it can’t just be as simple as wanting to have sex. As someone who doesn’t find much fortune in anything casual, I’m slightly unsettled by “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away,” a brand new person in my life who has won sudden worth. The sex will happen eventually but I’d rather it not be a union of convenience, those end in disaster. They lead to heartache, and excessive drinking, which could result in more sex, catastrophic stranger sex, with married amateur wrestler/trucker who would ask me to call him his wrestling name “Talon” in bed, which I would hate. After the sex, I would forget what he looks like until I birthed his lovechild “Talon Jr.” nine months later. He would push kids on the playground, torture grasshoppers with magnifying glasses, and have a scrappy cowlick that would never right itself. He would grow up into a gold chain wearing douchebag, buying girls Beach Boys songs on the jukebox and then begging for blow jobs in the back of his Ford Probe. Talon Jr. would always know he was not conceived in love but in loneliness. Animal Kingdom, forest creatures, I appreciate your efforts and hope you will stop shitting on my car, I will have sex with “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” maybe tomorrow or maybe in ten years. I hope that you critters understand how complicated human sex can get, one false move can produce a bastard child named after a bird’s foot who tells jokes about guys walking into bars. Thats that’s just what happens when you have sex, you get your heartbroken which leads to drinking, then to more sex, then to bastard children who become real bastards.

Mannequin

2008-04-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

Manopause has been a lot like the summer of 1992, I’m on a holiday from men that began with a recess bell that sent me running out the door and directly towards the waiting season, followed by a trail of old papers. Unfortunately, its left me missing some parts of school, the friends that will be three inches taller when I see them next, the gold stars and pats on the head for juvenile excellence (also known as staying out of trouble), and even the sick tummy I’d get when called to the principal’s office trying to figure out how to talk my way back into the good books. Its not 1992 any more and there is no summer break for emotionally incompetent adults …no matter how hard we might try to lobby for them. While I am doing my very best to treat manopause like it’s a vacation sometimes, it feels more like a self-inflicted suspension especially by the third week when you get bored of eating Jello and watching Oprah while your mom vacuums . Today I am supposed to drive 19.13 miles again to see, you guessed it, “The Guy Who lives 19.13 Miles Away”. I’m going to sing on a song he wrote, so technically, this visit is completely within the blessed guidelines of my romantic fast ( I'm STARVING by the way), but I’m still not sure whether it’s a good idea, it certainly is not a pro manopausal one and I am sure that the fact that I have been thinking about his excited eyes and organic everythingness since I last saw him, is downright anti manopausal. If it were July of ’92, decisions would be easy to make and consequences, easy to avoid. I spent a lot of time on the groundside of empty seesaws growing up, I was a loner and in many ways, still am. I did't blame the other end of the emblematic seesaw for being empty, even in 1992, I think I gave off the essence of blog, I had too much nerd in me for the cutthroat politics of sandbox so I was left to my own devices. The closest things to me were treasured possessions whose emotional constructions were my own invention. Not a bad social cop out for someone still waiting for adult teeth. Choices were simple because the results were perpetually non threatening, I couldn’t hurt Raggedy Ann and she couldn’t hurt me. I wish I could still call on the guidance of my old “Made in Taiwan” pals, they could offer me enough of a distraction to clear my head and let me know exactly what I wanted. Perhaps if I asked their advice, as I often did growing up, they could help me reconcile what I should do, with what I’m about to do.

If my childhood Lego alter ego, Count Mc Gillicuddy P. Valentine, gem tycoon, were in my shoes, he would never go back out to Sherwood forest and frankly, would be quite cross with me right now for resting on my memory foam laurels. He would twist his plastic moustache, which was of the Heart of Darkness, British Colonial style, shine his monocle, holding it up to the light and deliver a long condescending “I saaaaaaaaaaaay”. He would think about going, but would halt as soon the road started to curl around the hills and turn back to Lego town. I wish I had the strength of my plastic, diamond-trading friend, if I had the conviction of even one of his easy to swallow pieces, I would catch the avian bird flu or the Honda would have an off day sputtering up the slightest incline, begging to go home. Of course, the decision to stay away would much easier for the Count. For one, he was not to the best of my knowledge, a homosexual and was actually quite conservative for his time. unless he finally got past his Daddy Issues in Lego therapy and made a surprising life choice that would be the talk of Lego old town hall, his natural desire to have a pine scented love affair with a highly attractive fella at four o clock in the afternoon would not be as strong as mine. Also, he would have been too busy running his diamond mine and secret arms trading business , which supplied the local rebels. Manifest Destiny is requires hard work and you can’t properly exploit the lower classes of an imaginary subtropical region without putting in an eight hour day. He was an intrepid businessman AND a veteran. The distance would also be an obstacle, Count Mc Gillicuddy P. Valentine traveling all 19.13 miles would be the equivalent of me walking to Hanoi, he would certainly die of heat exhaustion (plastic does not breathe ) or get eaten by a mountain lion. If he DID decide to go, I would advise him against it, because he wouldn’t make in past the curb alive. Most importantly, He was desperately in love with Sasha the one armed Lego seamstress/call girl. She was a young tailor’s assistant, He, a local scion, heir to a diamond fortune. Theirs was a passionate affair, were Emily Bronte still with us, she would buy a ticket and cry into bucket of popcorn if she could watch their romance unfold on the big screen. I, other than my vow to conserve the last gulp of emotional energy that is hiding between the ice cubes in the bottom of my half empty glass, and my vow to actually keep a bloody vow for once, have no reason not to go and no reason not to shove my face in shoulder valley... though it is a dangerous place by night, in my experience, it can be filled with "traps" (get it?! Like the muscle?! Have you NO experience with Billy Blanks?”) If childrens educational construction games could talk, Count Valentine would lift his permanently balled yellow fist, punch me in the nose, and forbid me from going back out to where the skinny trees sway. Some days I wish my pants were made of plastic and impossible to remove, life would be so much simpler and journeys to different counties would require much less analysis.

Mmmuffin, the plush harp seal, would hold the opposing view. I realize that the fact that my childhood toy was harp seal makes me perhaps the most ridiculous Canadian stereotype ever. Well maybe not the most ridiculous, seeing as though I have, for the past year, slept beside a large stuffed beaver (that.sounds.wrong) underneath a Canadian flag….no exaggeration. Mmmuffin was my closest confidant as a child and named after a chain of suburban shopping mall food court bakeries. Unfortunately, my parents and other authority figures neglected to tell me the word “muffin” was spelled with only one ‘M” so for several years in grade school, I spelled it with three and received very few gold stars I as a result. Were my parents huge assholes, which they were/are not, they probably would have tried to sue the muffery for giving me a baked goods learning disability and contributing to low spelling bee scores (Dear God, Please let the term muffery catch on. Thank you. Love, me) Mmmuffin was one of the top three most important things in my life I know this because each night I stuffed her into my “in case of raging fire” emergency pillowcase. I was slightly paranoid as a young child, an absolute Howard Hughes of six year olds. I was certain there was not only a monster under my bed, but that the monster was an arsonist plotting to burn down our home. Every night before bed, I would put my photographs, my Teddy Ruxpin audiocassette playing bear, and Mmmuffin in a pillowcase, for an eventual quick escape. I thought the fire was an inevitability. Teddy Ruxpin, sadly, was demoted after I rolled on top of him in the night and he began talking his audiocassette talk seemingly from nowhere, I believed it to be a poltergeist and he spent the rest of his years in the basement with the artificial Christmas Tree and golf clubs. After three fire free years of being stuffed into a cautionary rescue bag at night, Mmmuffin would tell me at 24, it was about fucking time to take a risk and stop putting out blazes before they start. She would raise her mangy white flipper and point it directly towards the forest, mock leather nose glistening like a melting raisinette. To this day, I feel terrible that I shoved that poor, northern delight of a stuffed animal into a pillowcase with a sadistic bear. My intentions were good, I wanted to protect my favorite cotton friend from impending danger. My intentions with “ The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” are also good, but if I stuff him in a figurative pillow case to prevent (another) disaster then I’ll never get to know if that epic moment of nose to back fireworks were part of an Independence Day celebration or the nice, campfire embers that never seem to burn out and let their scent settle in your hair. This is so bloody difficult, it was much easier when the things I was the most fond of didn’t have any pulse. Since now, I’m at the age where I sometimes end up with monsters IN my bed rather than under them, I need to learn to how to look them in the eye without fear. Note- I have never, to the best of my knowledge, slept with an arsonist monster, so I must be doing something right....maybe?

The magic eight ball was the most ambivalent of youthful diversions, its was also, a relatively pointless source of knowledge. It was a fixture at neighbourhood slumber parties and generally, we never asked it to make life altering decisions for us. We would ask eight ball trivial things like “Should we get pepperoni on our pizza?” or “Would we look good with electric blue elastics on our braces?”. Without fail, we would just keep shaking the ball until it provided us with the answers we were wanted to hear anyhow. If the eight ball were here right now, I might even be too scared to ask it whether going to see “The Guy who lives 19.13 Miles Away” was a bad idea because if I kept shaking it, which I certainly would, I would have to own up to the fact that I want to see him again and so much so that I would abuse a plastic orb filled with liquid until it said uncle. I have some unsettling and very unmanopausal feelings that are rolling around with fear and determination, pressing their noses into eachothers very tentative backs. The magic eight ball never did much to protect us from our own bad advice, we got pepperoni pizza even though Catherine S. was a vegetarian and the bright blue elastics never looked good on anybody’s teeth. It could never protect us from what our desires and never prevented us from shaking it, holding on it on an angle, or bullying it into submission. I don’t want somebody or something to tell me not to go, and really nobody or nothing can choreograph the various inklings, affections and reservations boogieing under my ribcage. The only thing that can interfere is fate, which may finally put my car out of its misery on the side of a strange road or alternatively may make my hair especially shiny and his eyes extra excited. The magic eight ball was not a toy, it was a children’s coping mechanism, so the dilemma is not what it would tell me to do, but what I would make it say.

I am leaving in exactly one hour and I know the counsel of old childhood comforts would do nothing to help me grow up. There’s a damn good reason that Count McGillicuddy P. Valentine, Lego magnate, my battered harp seal, and the mystical magic eight ball were left behind in my parents basement. I'm too old to find solace in the material, to a certain degree, in anything tangible... even sex, its the abstract byproducts that have really started to move me and scare the shit out of me simultaneously. People mature and finding love, distraction, or something to throw against the wall when we’re mad gets harder. Its no longer as easy as going to WalMart with your parents on Sunday and begging them for the latest fad to obtain the validation we all feel we deserve. Toys aren’t good enough anymore and nobody’s playing. Though believe me, my very odd collection of textile friends helped me pass the time in hilariously entertaining ways, now it’s the time thats passing me by and all of the sudden the characters in my life are real and sometimes shocking. I don’t get to put words in their mouths, lock them in a closet when I get bored with them (note- this would be very illegal), or find replacements when they go missing though sometimes, I wish I could. Off to the woods I go!

The Manor

2008-04-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

The good news is that I’m not dead, the bad news: the man I have been living with for an entire year does not know my last name. We use the same shower, and he has yet to absorb the one easy to form syllable that it is tap dancing across all my mail like Fred Fucking Astaire in the early years, desperately seeking recognition. Living with somebody is extremely intimate, you pick up the maverick underpants that heroically eject themselves from your roomie’s hamper, you share the same windex to clean the bug massacre aftergunk off your shared windows, and you rearrange the phrases they’ve created with the juvenile word magnets on the Frigidaire into slightly dirty ones and never discuss it. He was trying to write me a cheque and paused right at $205.6…….he panicked and hung onto that last decimal like it was monkey bars over a well full of poisonous blow fish, the ones that look friendly until they summon their evil superpowers, quadruple in size, and taser you repeatedly for 30 minutes with their strange aquatic barbs. Those fish would NOT be so kind as to learn the last names of the other fishes who live on the same reef. And to think, I let that silky haired bastard use my shampoo. Men don’t just happen to smell like tiger lilies, it takes the generosity of their female roommates. Sometimes I think our food, which also lives together in the refrigerator, might know one another better than we do. His Perrier and cottage cheese live in the penthouse area, and my club soda and showpiece vegetables in the basement apartment. These foodstuffs surely know each other’s names and make polite small talk about things like the rising price of Canola oil and roll their eyes (well the peas and potatoes do) at the incredibly large grapefruit in the crisper that has totally been genetically modified…she SAYS it was all holistic but I haven’t trusted her since she went sour☺ Surely they must have formed some relationship to pass the time in the icy confines of death row (note: lettuce, tomato, bacon, …leaving this world as a BLT is the most honorable death possible. I salute you, brave sandwich musketeers, All for One, One for All) Anyways, my feelings were kind of hurt, and by hurt I mean if it were medieval times and I was the drunken idiot of the fiefdom I would have spat in his face. Alas, it wasn’t medieval times, so I didn’t. Instead, my eyes grew about twelve sizes and my lower lip started seizing, I was an epileptic bloodhound, hydrantless, homeless, and (hehehe) boneless. I would have loved to have become lifelong friends with him and in 25 years show up to the graduation of the daughter he and his wife named after me, but I guess we don’t have that much in common, so I would have settled with a yearly Christmas card. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be able to send the festive greeting since he woudn’t know my bloody last name. I have decided that before you move in with anybody, you should sit down and have the “where is this going?” chat. Figure out whether its going to be weekly poker games and morning coffee, or nothing but polite nods in the kitchen and skulking around like the Phantom of the Opera.

I found “The Phantom of the Bungalow’s” ad on Craigslist when I first moved to town. I was reading the “Missed Connections” section like I would do on any other day because its hilariously entertaining and pleases me to think that people fall desperately in love while scooping cold pasta from across the salad bar or riding on stationary bikes at the gym. My eyes wandered to real estate where I stumbled upon an overly detailed super-ad filled with BUTS and THOUGHS apologizing for appliances being “new but not brand new" and defending the second bedroom which was “Smaller, though very livable”. He sounded like a rambler and I like ramblers because I am one. The clincher for me was at the bottom “PS-No pets allowed, poodles considered…severe allergies”. How could I not get along with somebody who puts a poodle stipulation in their advertisement?! That’s like not loving “March of The Penguins” or trampolines. We met twice before I signed the lease, both times he was wearing pants the color of swamp and buttony shirts with even the wrist buttons clasped. I don’t know many people whose wrists are comfortable under the restriction of the cotton anaconda. We both had side parts, so I instantly trusted his judgment. Side parts are the wisest hairdo on the planet, they smell of huge brain. He was the most Anglo Saxon person I had ever seen in my life, he looked like he could smoke a pipe in public without people saying “Why is that dude smoking a pipe?” and THAT is neat. Speaking of neat, he probably even understands what a “neat” scotch is. All digressions aside, I was fascinated by him, a strange, landlocked sailor, a perfect mixture of Gilligan and Skipper. He loves Bob Dylan like all boys in law school do, they love “Blonde on Blonde” but only because it sounds like the name of a potentially dirty movie. I like Bob Dylan, but not enough to have conversations about him over brandy. Plus, I think its rude to talk behind people’s backs and I know Bob Dylan never talks about me. During the the first few months of our cohabitation, "The Phantom of the Bungalow" had a girlfriend from Alabama. H loved his old girlfriend, almost as much as he loved Bob, Dylan, but not quite. She was very loud and liked to French kiss him in the living room, he looked terrified every time this happened. She was aces, a kiss stealing vandal that always left him looking robbed, the last pieces of his adolescence belong to her. His father was a psychiatrist and I think that contributed to his social anxiety, which he never mentioned on Craigslist, and consequent large collection of pills. I don’t know what the pills are for exactly, but I’ve always been tempted to read the bottles. I would feel awful if he caught me peeking. I DO know he does not take pills for Surname Memory Loss and is not suffering from Awesome Roommate Syndrome because he neither remembers my name nor asks me if I’ve had a good day. I think everyone who’s dad is a shrink probably gets mildly fucked up, I would probably have to take a mystery cocktail of drugs too if things like team building exercises and sharing circles were a part of my daily life. Hmmmm….its seems I do know him rather well, doesn’t it? In the beginning “The Phantom of the Bungalow” seemed like he would be fun and a little bit bonkers, I thought I might find that conservative insanity endearing, I didn’t take enough time to get to know him, and if we’d discussed the following items, I suspect we would never would have ended up under the same badly shingled roof:

FOOD- “The Phantom of the Bungalow” mainly eats three foods, PastaRoni Parmesan Herb Instant Spaghetti, Delissio Rising Crust Pizza with Feta Cheese, and strawberry Pop Tarts. There are no alternatives. He has no interest in pears or ham sandwiches at all. This diet results in high toaster traffic and a house that smells like rancid cheese all the time. The aroma of Mediterranean cheese is similar to that of working out, so our house smells like a sweaty block of cheese or a running shoe made of provolone. “The Phantom of the Bungalow’ LOVES to keep foods years after they expire, he’s strangely sentimental about half consumed preserves with spore farms on top of them. This means our refrigerator is overcrowded, like a Southwest flight to Vegas. My pears, hammy stuffs and other delights are confined to the little drawers near the floor, it’s the only place I know they’re safe. I made the mistake once of eating some of his Ranch Dressing from May 2005, it was like a cheap funeral in my mouth where everyone was invited but nobody showed up. There were unnatural lumpy formations in that sauce and they were not blue cheese, repeat NOT BLUE CHEESE. If I had known that the quality of living for snack materials was so low, I would not have become hovel mates with “The Phantom of the Bungalow’.

SEX- Some of us 1) Are NOT familiar with the sock on the door method of ensuring privacy because we didn’t spend four years of college playing beer pong and wearing togas 2) Can’t be held responsible for said sock falling off the door and exposing incredibly quiet sex in the missionary position. 3) Will remain forever scarred by the quiet sex and the even greater silence that followed it. If we had discussed what tube sock on the door meant, then there is a good chance that I would have understood what the tube sock on the ground directly below the door was trying to tell me. Had I known this, I would not have poked my head into a very plaid bedroom full of the most polite intercourse the world has known. It was like he was making a deposit at the bank, clinical, popcorn ceiling-ed, and calculated…each foul thrust.

SHARING- When you’ve seen somebody making mediocre love and they’ve seen you in your embarrassing shower cap, its fairly safe to assume you’re friends. Friends share, right? Wrong. So very wrong. “The Phantom of the Bungalow’ forgot to mention on Craigslist that he is a little bit weird about germs, and by a little bit weird I mean he won’t let anybody use even the same spatula as him. Once, I mixed up our respective grilled cheese sandwich flipping devices and I thought he was going to beat me to death with the bloody thing, a fatality that would have been almost as humiliating as poisoning yourself with cologne. He spotted his spatula from two rooms away and sputtered accusingly “What do you think you’re doing?”. Dead serious. It was VERY clear what I was doing, I was making the best grilled cheese sandwich a frying pan has ever seen, still, he needed clarification. He actually threw out the cooking instrument after I was done with it because washing it would not remove the essence of me and I was toxic. I apologized profusely for the mix up and did not make fun of him for freaking out like a small, small girl being chased by a tarantula, this is only because I thought he might uppercut me in the jaw. We are not friends, we do not share, and we do not make utensil faux pas without facing consequences. From now on, I will make sure that I only live in single spatula homes.

CLEANLINESS- My organization and spic and spanness have never been complimented, EVER. This is due to the undeniable fact that I am a complete disaster of a human being. If I am a complete disaster, “The Phantom of The Bungalow” is mother fucking doomsday. In a sick way, my self esteem loves that he’s a derailed train of messiness, but the fact that I’m a passenger in his wreckage is wholly balls. From June to October there was a hammer sitting in the middle of the living room like it was making an artistic statement. I tripped over it numerous times and might have thrice broken my left index toe. From November to February, there was a veritable army of navy seal rodents who dodged the eighteen traps he set more successfully than I did. Last week, the kitchen sink backed up, choking on three pieces of our “Intended for adults “ bald eagle jigsaw puzzle. These are only the highlights of the low times, we have hamburger gift wrap around every corner and Pasta Roni residue on most surfaces. I’m surprised I haven’t gotten hepatitis from the dwindling sand dollar of soap in the bathroom that is probably older than the Ranch Dressing that almost killed me. He is the sloppiest germaphobe on the planet, but maybe its not the germs that terrify him, maybe its me. Either way, if I had known I my shoes were going to become the lavatory for neighborhood vermin, I probably would have told “The Phantom of The Bungalow” to shove his PastaRoni, members only spoons, and poodle clause up his ivy league ass.

MEANESS- He is a bastard. He doesn’t know my last name. He doesn’t like me. I hope a rat with Irritable Bowel Syndrome squats over his favourite cooking tool. I wish I’d known, but I was foolish. At this moment, I would sell my soul to a celiac mouse if it would shit in the kitchen drawer. Ha.

I’m moving out of the bungalow on Friday, and leaving the Phantom and his personal spatula to fend for themselves. I hope that in a few years, after he has forgotten my first name, he accidentally names his daughter after me. I also hope she uses his spatula all the time and has a taste for older, unemployed men with gold teeth. I’m a bad person for saying all this, I don’t even need to ask a rhetorical question to figure that out, but after a year of waiting for his strawberry pop tarts to brown in all the right places, and having nightmares about his LL Bean catalogue sex, I think its fair. I had open arms, OPEN ARMS, but now they are crossed across my chest, middle fingers pointed proudly towards the sky. I expect the “Phantom of The Bungalow” feels like an expired clump of Ranch Dressing shit for forgetting my name and I hope he remembers that his next tenant is a human being, not just half of the cable. I am too quick to love everybody, even the weird guy I live with who irons his jeans. I never thought I’d get my feelings hurt by someone who loves poodles, but I did. My affection lights are only red and green but I need somehow, to find the amber in life.

Man Down

2008-04-28T17:28:00.000-07:00

I am writing this blog mere moments before my own demise. Whichever of the gods is the real god, the Director of Grim Reaping and death related affairs (or I suppose affair related deaths), is smiting me for my reckless skanktacular adventure. I had big plans for life. I had hoped to invent a new super condiment called "the Works" to put on sandwiches and dip french fries into, I wanted to see how long I could tread water for if I really REALLY tried, I was going to sleep outside in the summer time at least once a week to see if I'd wake up with dew on my face like the grass, but instead, I’ll leave this earth known only as an elementary school hula hooping champion and lover of juke boxes. I just remembered I left my lucky brown vest on the right side of “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away’s” bedroom floor and I would’ve loved to be wearing that vest to my funeral. Not enough dead people wear vests and they truly do bring a certain spunk to every occasion. I am on my laptop in my car beside a Nissan with an angry orange Pomeranian who keeps belittling me from a 1 inch crack in the window. That dog is an asshole, he has no idea what I’m going through, I hope he gets chased by a hawk. I’m in the parking lot of a Target and I have just inadvertently poisoned myself. I’m going to die in the parking lot of a place that sells hot dogs and underwear. I grabbed a stray piece of gum from inside my purse, it still had a wrapper but it was no longer in its cardboard sardine can with the other pieces. How daring, I had no idea wintergreen was so bold as to escape. This brave freshening soldier mingled with several different elements in my purse, cherry chapstick, mechanical pencils and four uncontained ounces of Stella by Stella McCartney Roll on Eau de Toilette ...with hints of Peony Flower and top notes of Amber. I don’t smell gum before I begin chewing it and why would I? I’m a seasoned chewer, I know my mints and I know what I’m getting myself into. Gum is not supposed to be dangerous but mine was soaked in perfume unbeknownst to me. I bet the Crocodile Hunter thought he knew what he was getting himself into before that bastard of a sting ray swam along and Ramboed him. I hope that if I don’t go to Hades with the other delinquents and fast women, that Steve Irwin and I can have a chat about the unpleasant surprises in life. I chewed the gum for a total of about one hundred and eight seconds and to be honest, it tasted quite nice .In fact, the only reason I chewed for so long without growing suspicious was because I assumed it was the innovative touch of a Wolfgang Puck-esque chewing gum chef. It wasn’t. It was fate saying “this is what I meant by consequences, asshole”. Trident and Stella McCartney should join forces nonetheless, to create a gum that tastes like the wrist of a fashionable woman, it would be a top seller if they can find a way to make it less toxic than my amateur recipe. IF I was going to live long enough to chew another piece of gum I might like it try something like that, with more sophistication, for high end breath.

I called my mom a few minutes ago but she picked up in the fifth ring, which is much longer than average for her, if she knew my insides were about to turn black she might have picked up on ring three like normal but she sounded like she was loading the dish washer. My mom is going to be inspecting big spoons and little spoons at the time of my death, holding them up to the light and staring at her concave fun house reflection. She would still be beautiful in a spoon, she would just have more beautiful chin and forehead to work with. I wish she were with me to hold my hand and yell at the small orange dog. She says doesn’t think the perfume consumption will kill me but I think that’s her way of telling me to head towards the light, the closest light to me is the one above those shopping cart mews in the middle of the lot. I was just at that light and feel like I might rather die in my car seat than hunched over a red plastic cart with germs all on it, at least my car has FM radio so I can have an imaginary last dance with “The Guy Who Likes Dancing With Me” (Note-this man does not exist, I am not pleasant to dance with, everybody knows this) Not thinking I fished around in my purse for another piece of gum to get rid of the taste of the first deathmint but then I remembered that entire contents of my purse was tainted, and smells like the shampoos and conditioners at the Hilton. I feel like an idiot at this exact moment: I’m dying alone in parking lot, beside a hostile squirrel dog, stinking of Hilton, devastated, confused, parked on an inexcusable forty five degree angle, and talking to my mother who is cleaning teaspoons. PLUS- I almost poisoned myself twice, dying twice from the same affliction in a ten minute period would be humiliating. She wants to talk about my love life now, probably hoping to distract me from my shortness of beat and internal bleeding, her heart is breaking right now and she is a brave woman, she asks about “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” because this is clearly the most awesome thing to talk about on your death bed, my last conversation will be about my dismal romantic failure that resulted in a three day Chianti and sofa binge. Smooth, mom, very smooth. My epitaph will not list those I left behind, it will just say “Left Behind” underneath my name which will probably be misspelled and in an ugly calligraphy font. I want to give her some salacious details from the other night in the forest and make tasteless jokes about how I “got in touch with nature”.Little Debbie loves all things with “if you know what I means” attached to them, Sadly, I can feel my skin becoming jaundiced and I won’t have time to explain it properly. Fuck. Bye Mom.

The aroma has climbed into my nostrils and when I blow my nose it feels like somebody is spraying Windex into my sinuses. I should probably go to the hospital. I wonder if this is how my little sister’s nose felt when she drank an entire bottle of eye drops in 1988? She was gluttonous toddler and could have played baby Pac Man if they ever made his Lifetime biopic, “ALL YOU CAN EAT- the life and times of an arcade icon”. Little Debbie was terrified that day, her youngest child began foaming at the mouth. Not sure whether it was rabies from a feral teddy bear, or baby gurble, the both of them sat crying on the floor not understanding life. Thankfully it wasn’t rabies, It happened that her two year old had turned to drugs. The eighties were a difficult time for babies and the pressures of “Keeping Up with the Olsens” drove many like my sister to consume topical medications. I was a recreational user of orange cough drops, but I never took it too far. Perhaps I should be in a backless robe, having my stomach pumped right now? We took little Roberta Downey Jr. to the Emergency Room and she turned out alright, but she was two and not old enough to be blamed for her reckless behaviour, if I show up with a eighty dollar fragrance running through my veins I’m sure psych will have some questions and the rest of the world will have a laugh. What if I end up on a television show about “The World’s Most Hilarious Deaths”? What if its hosted by Bob Saget? What if my ER doctors end up the victors? What if they end up dancing on stage with a giant sized cheque and balloons falling from the rafters? I can’t go to the hospital, its too public and the smell of my breath would be too strong to force on a waiting room full of sick people. I don’t want to be the bargain basement potpourri with its pine cones, orange peels and cinnamon sticks in a sterile building. I feel a taxi cab that tries too hard, one that stinks so much it causes the patrons get out three blocks early and walk. I should probably just stay here with the furry dog who might himself, be on methamphetamines.

I am going to use my electric toothbrush as I wait to die. Its brand new and even though I’ll just be swishing the taste of lilacs around my mouth, It’d be a shame to let thirteen dollars go to waste. I am also going to dry swallow a large “Centrum Performance” pill because then when they do the autopsy I’ll appear as though I took good care of myself. I’m not going to read the issue of People magazine I bought for no reason at all because I don’t care how much money Miley Cyrus makes and I don’t want to see anybody’s post pregnancy bikini body. The toothbrush is fantastic, it oscillates and has two speeds, both of which are more effective than my clumsy manual attempts. My teeth would have been so white and my dentist would have been so proud of me. I have always sought approval from my dentist, I wish she were here now too, my dentist, my mom, and a hawk that eats Pomeranians. The pill gets stuck in my throat a bit and for a moment I fear that I might die first from choking on this athletically inclined multivitamin, it’s the size of a fully shelled peanut for Christ's sake. At least I won’t leave this world with buyer’s remorse now, my toothbrush had a short but illustrious career and we both met our demise too soon.

If I don’t write anything tomorrow its because your tragic heroine has gone the way of Juliet Capulet except I’m alone, with nothing but a cutting edge toothbrush and entertainment news rag at my side. If reincarnation exists then I’d like to come back as a hawk so I could scoop up the condescending orange dog and drop it into the mouth of a Humpback Whale floating around the Arctic Ocean. Death by beauty product is an interesting fatality for somebody who claims to have no interest in the opposite sex, I feel in my last milliseconds that it might be slightly ironic that my desire to smell attractive is going to kill me. I guess I’m a charlatan and a swindler, but at least I smell nice and when they find me, they’ll be glad I shaved my legs and had my toenails painted.

Mangrove

2008-04-27T11:52:00.001-07:00

SATURDAY 26
“The Guy Who Lives 19 Miles Away” is actually “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” I know this because yesterday afternoon I drove every inch of every foot of each mile to drink beers from the bottle, sink into outdoor chairs, and not have hot picnic table sex to “Paradise City”. “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” lives at the end of one of those meandering driveways that I hate, but not a perfectly paved residential serpentine. His driveway meandered with purpose and was covered in white stones the size of hail that crunchily protested my tires. I could have chugged up and reversed that driveway at least twenty two times without getting bored, I might ask him if that’s an experiment I can perform one day but he probably wouldn’t let me because I suspect he’s the planet loving variety of man judging by his designer cinnamon raisin bread and also, because that experiment would be incredibly irritating. He lives in the middle of a forest crowded with tall, waifish trees that slowdance with each other in the wind. I would like to give each tree a cigarette lighter to hold so it would look like they were at a Cat Stevens concert but I can’t because it could start a forest fire that would leave “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” wooded arealess and angry with me. It looks like the forest where Robin Hood’s Merry Merry Men play William Tell with stolen apples. Much to my surprise and the chagrin of my autograph book it was not Kevin Costner (Robin Hood will always be Kevin Costner to me) who interfered with what was to be a perfectly lovely visit with a new friend full of no eyebrow raising surprises. It was another archer, with much better aim and a long time thirst for my hide on the floor of his study. I’m not sure whether it was the bucolic rolling hilliness of it all, the millions of bottled beers we drank, or the fact that he had a donkey in the backyard (its amazing what I’ll do for a little bit of ass) but that one thing leading to another process occurred and there was some degree of “contact”, probably the kind of contact that would be considered illegal and require a press release and an official, on camera apology with flashbulbs and uncomfortable questions whose answers would get trapped on tiny little tape recorder cassettes. I pressed my nose into a brand new back. I was in another county, I had some tequila, he was wearing a vaguely John Stamosish t shirt, there were tamales of the finest constitution involved, his excited eyes were especially excited….the reasons are endless but the justification is simple: I fucked up but it wasn't a mistake ,and I'm admitting it because I'm not entirely full of shit. Manopause is a sacred process that in rare cases can be halted without complete desecration of its principles. It can only be paused under very, very specific circumstances, when very specific stars align in a very specific way. Only then, is a temporary abandonment of manopause permitted. Neuro-sceintists at Johns Hopkins University coined the term “B.R.A.G.G.I.N.G Rights” to categorize the logic behind regressive manopausal behavior. All of these elements must combine in order to trigger a relapse.

B is for BOOZE- Drinking beers from the bottle almost always results in pregnancy. Some schools of thought consider beers from the bottle to be as necessary as the penis in fertilization, while it has yet to be proven, I expect this is a certainty. Given this theory, it could be said that I showed incredible restraint by not engaging in sexual intercourse with “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away”, I would not feel uncomfortable receiving some sort of trophy for this achievement and half expect one. I never became so intoxicated that I saw more than one of him but I almost wished I could so there could be two sets of excited eyes to look at instead of just one. If anybody has seen Michael Keaton in “Multiplicity” they will understand the knee slapping hilarity and raw sexiness that results from duplication. It would have been nice to have a few more of him around, one to drive to the gas station and buy more beer, one to act as music supervisor, one to do nothing other than stand with his shirt off directly in front of me, and the original model to sit cross legged on the floor with. If only…… There was also a small quantity of tequila involved as well, which unfortunately occurred AFTER drinking eighty four dark beers. Tequila turns all women into Fran Drescher, we become loud, unsightly leopard print human beings. We become conga lines, fondue parties, mock turtlenecks and all other things terrible in the world. I was like Spam last night, unclassy, embarrassing, and not appealing, yet still claiming to have substance. I would have not wanted to consume me on a cracker beneath a square of processed cheese. I wanted to hug “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” for about a month straight, only to take breaks to go to the bathroom, change socks and watch “Jeopardy” at 7:30 and I’m not talking about the salutation hug or the my condolences hug, I’m talking the holding on for dear life hug you’d give a tree if you wee being chased by a grizzly bear. I suspect I wanted to do that before I had any bottles beer but they certainly made me think it was okay to want to do this to someone I hardly knew. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry that I’m not sorry! I’m sure you’re wondering, and the answer is yes, the nose pressing was mindblowing, it might have been the finest nose pressing I have ever performed…… and I meant it. The gully between his shoulder blades will probably never be the same. I was the kid, his back was the pet shop window, and the front of him was a puppy with a perfect spot over his eye. He might even have a nose shaped bruise right now. I was drunk, irresponsible, imprudent, but left with no regrets other than the regret of having no regrets,

R is for ROBBIE ROBERTSON- Two people fumbling through a living room rendition of “Broken Arrow” is a form of foreplay all on its own. Listening to that song is like holding hands and having sex at the same time. One cannot deviate from Manopause unless Robbie Roberston is directly or musically involved. He is the only artist one can justify a romantical hiatus hiccup with, Sorry Sting, I know you thought you’d make the cut but frankly, you wear too many tunics and do too much bikram yoga to be taken seriously. Its carnal in the worst of ways, the words don’t eat away at me, they gnaw and scratch away at the marrow of the bones. If you play that song at a nunnery you will be Hail Marying until the end of time, I’m pretty sure thats somewhere in some Bible psalm, perhaps in the Book Of Love, “Thou better not play Broken Arrow to the ears of virgins”. Nuns don’t even know that song exists and if they did, it’d be off with frock and nose in the back of a biker named Spike before the last chorus.

A is for ASS- The don’t call donkeys asses because they tell bad jokes at parties and or because they’re cheap drunks, they call them asses because they are the ultimate in pastoral sensual mood enhancers. In the city, women are drawn to men with large pawed, mixed breed dogs with one syllable man names like ”Ralph”, in the country, women are drawn to men with sway backed donkeys. I would never under any circumstance have spontaneously reverted to my pre manopausal self without a donkey involved (That sound wrong to anyone else?). Even then, my misstep was miraculous. The theories connecting donkeys to sexy miracles are plentiful, This is science’s fault. There are donkey pheromones that cause elevated heart rates and slutty behavior in adult women towards men they hardly know, these pheromones are called Assrodesiacs. I hate to mention Jesus again because I’m pretty sure he doesn’t talk about me in his blog, but I am certain that donkeys were a big part of his creation because 1) his folks didn’t just stumble upon that manger with its conveniently well worn haystack and remote location, it has rendezvous point written all over it and 2) I am 99.687% sure there was a donkey present during the manger rockin’ conception, not only the birth. Though it may not have been immaculate, I’m sure it was divine for all parties involved. I have never in my entire life seen a nativity scene without a donkey and I think there’s a reason why. It would be like a shirt with no armholes. I hate to ruin things for you but since I’m already in the faith doghouse: Santa Claus-Bullshit, Immaculate Conception-Complete Hogwash, Assrodesiacs- Very real. While I’m uncovering truths, let us discuss another ass related wonder. Remember Winnie the Pooh? Didn’t you ever wonder why there was a single mother kangaroo hopping around with all the regular forest critters? Well one afternoon while in town from Sydney on business, she played “hide the carrot” with that grumpy rabbit whose over exposure to the Assrodesiac of Eeyore, the Donkey with the prosthetic tail, resulted in one amorous liaison and the world’s first kangarabbit infant. Last and well, probably least: attractive democrat president, slightly round, Delta Burke-ish intern, blue suit with shoulder pads, oval office, BOOM, SEXY MIRACLE. If history’s great feminine icons, Mary, the Kangaroo in Winnie the Pooh, and Monica Lewinsky, fell victim to Assrodisiacs surely I can’t be blamed.

G is for Garment Gratuity- Pants share-ability is an important part of any relationship, in my opinion, and certainly essential deviating from my freshly paved path of making wise choices or so I thought. “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” lent me something even more outstanding than pants, he lent me a right sock. I’m not a sock matcher, my feet are individuals and I advocate personal expression, sometimes though, this freedom is abused. One of my feet was wearing the sock of a lumberjack, the other was in the sock of an argyle loving great aunt. The thickness compatibility was way off and as a result, my left side grew taller than my right and I developed a small limp. Luckily, “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” was progressive non-matcher as well and had an extra emergency sock in my exact desired thickness. My right foot is crazy about this dude, it keeps wanting to skip while the left is plodding along slowly getting annoyed. I’m not sure whether I’ll give the sock back, its really quite the formidable foot textile and it might be nice to have a wearable memory of the time I went to the forest ended up with my face mushed against oddly familiar skin I’d never met before.

G is for Greenery- The glare of the sun off the foliage was so blinding that I almost needed to shut my eyes, I needed sungrasses (HA! ) I felt like I might turn green from all the excess chlorophyll if I didn’t first turn green from the twelve thousand and four beers I drank. “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” is a vegetarian and a recycler, I think is this because he’s secretly terrified that the greenery around would turn on him like a giant army of venus flytraps or the trees from Lord of the Rings. This is a legitimate fear. I think that when there are so many things pollinating near a person and they are on the set of what could easily be an Adam and Eve educational porno, its impossible to not want to hop into bed with a relative stranger. Mom, Dad, family authority figures beyond the grave, I drove out to a quiet house in the woods, drank excessively, and spent the night with someone I’d met twice in my life, fine decision making, you’ve raised me well, congratulations. All the photosynthesis distracted me from the fact that driving to strangers forest homes generally results in murder and an embarrassing milk carton mug shot. It was serene and I never use the word serene. When you end up in the kind of place you don’t want to leave you kind of don’t end up leaving until the next morning.

I is for Impaired Driving-Its is illegal to operate an automobile after an excessive amount of alcohol has entered your blood stream. Though remarkably spongy in consistency, there is only so much two tamales can do to absorb liqour. Imbibition destroys inhbition, everybody knows this. There was no way I could have driven without ending up with an impaled white tail deer permanently attached to the front grill of my car and (un)fortunately taxi cabs don’t just wait outside by stumps of tree in the middle of Sherwood Forest. I suppose I could have ridden the donkey home, but I would have felt bad making him haul my ass up that big crag of a driveway, especially on a Saturday when I’m sure he would have liked to sleep in or watch cartoons. So, I had to stay and I had to sleep unreasonably close to him and I had to grin all the way through my sleep. It was a sofaless environment and though I could have pushed two chairs together, the chairs looked so nice in the exact positions they were in, I didn’t want to disturb them or upset the delicate feng shui balance.

N is for NACHOS- I have a soft spot for Mexican food and that exact spot is the inch of flab that makes a perfect circle around my innie. I love that inch, though it makes things like bikini wearing and stomach crunches very difficult…. we all have a cross to bear. Before beers from the bottle lead to pregnancy they almost always result in the consumption of Mexican food, and then some times pregnancy leads back to Mexican food completing an entirely delicious cycle. Also, mountain climbing, combing your hair, taking deep breaths and talking on the telephone all increase the chances of Mexican food occurring. I count the number of tamales I eat each month and then compare that figure to the amount I use other conveniences. This April I have eaten 21 tamales in 25 days, I have used my bankcard fourteen times. Its my favourite self invented food game, closely following “Hot Dog or Hamburger?” which I will endeavor to explain in a later blog should it ever become relevant. “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” not only suggested Mexican food, proof his sheer brilliance, but he PURCHASED it. Buying somebody a tamale is one of the nicest things you can do for them. Fact- The song “Imagine” was actually about buying tamales for others, the tamales would then produce world peace. They should place tamales of various sizes and cuts in velvet covered display cases and shoot bad advertisements that would air around Valentines Day. I was not only touched by his kindness but also his fantastic taste in phallic ethnic dinnerthings. I was then, rendered powerless by these glimmering pork and cornmeal bars of gold.

G is for GALAXY- I can’t be trusted with an exceptionally good looking sky. It makes me want to either drive to Cape Canaveral, take the centrifuge for a spin, and be on the next flight to the final frontier, or rub my face in five o clock shadow. Space camp is really expensive and I don’t even like airplane food all that much so last night, I chose the latter and it was better than wearing moon shoes. I don’t even think it would be possible to interrupt manopause at all in the daytime, even in the evening it normally requires a three-comet minimum, but “The Guy Who Lives 19.13 Miles Away” is more than rather handsome so I bypassed the shooting star rule. I should also note that I discovered a constellation that perfectly spelled “It doesn’t count when you’re in another bloody county!!” I figured if space was trying to tell me something I should probably listen.

I probably should have mentioned earlier in the blog that I was a raging harlot swinger slut, swinging form bed to bed like Tarzan from conveniently placed vine to conveniently placed vine. Seriously though, allow me to have a non witty moment of personal crisis- THIS IS NOT LIKE ME, It took me 20 years to try natural peanut butter and I practically mapquest directions from my bed to the kitchen, I’m not sure whether I should be high fiving myself or hitting myself in the mouth, so I think I’ll just pinch myself and make sure this isn’t a peyote dream from the Mescaline Restaurant I frequent. Three things I am sure of

1) I am glad all of the “B.R.A.G.G.I.N.G Rights” were in place because I might have slept in the forest even if they weren’t
2) The, ahem, "contact" was matinee movie theatre friendly so it wasn’t like running the Manopause playbook through a paper shredder
3) I should like to return to the forest and not just for the ass

I think this means human I’m so that debate is finally settled, and instead of getting chocolate milk and olives for the drive back to civilization I got a huge package of Big League Chew to chomp on as I tried to look at last nights surveillance tapes in my head. Thats progress. My security system, with its fishnetted red laser beams and Indiana Jones styled boulder, broke down and the night watchman was asleep in his easy chair. Thankfully nothing was stolen or damaged, though its sure been ransacked before. I’m normally a very quick draw but I guess, apparently, not always

Oh, guess what else?! We totally saw a blue bird, a real, genuine, singing along blue bird. I don’t think they belong in this part of the country, but I probably don't either, there’s a first for everything.

Man of The Year

2008-04-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

Last night I encountered a species of man that is even more endangered than the ones in the blurry National Geographic photos I spoke of earlier, they are more rare than a platypus/unicorn hybrid with the colouring of a toucan (← You’ll notice that I use Canadian spelling for some words, this is because I am a grammatical patriot and because “U” are important to me) In my experience, men of this sort are entirely undiscovered, kind of like fraggles which I am half certain do exist somewhere underneath the bedrock and other earthcrusts that cover up all the worlds secret hiding spots (Fraggles if you have Wi Fi, try locate that Bin laden fellow, pelt him with rotten produce and put it youtube). We’ve all seen Fraggle Rock before and its evident that the kind of emotion in those creatures faces is not the work of a Jim Henson puppet army. …thats WIlliam H Macy quality performing (Fargo Rock is something I would be interested in). I want to be like Sprocket the Dog or the crazy old dude to the fraggle-like gentlemen l met up with last night and just peek down into their fraggle hole to watch them sing, hilarious, yet educational songs about sharing. They were…….wait for it………NICE FELLAS. I’m not talking buy you a drink nice, or tell you your ankles look lovely in your dress nice, I’m talking old souls with old very share-able pants ,and old stories to tell. They are the kind of people that make you kick yourself for going through voluntary manopause and then kick them for not revealing themselves earlier, developing interest in you, and therefore enabling you to avoid the million romantic Hindenburg disasters that were to come (Seriously guys, where were you six years ago when I watched Survivor with my parents on prom night?Mom and Dad, I thank you for the sympathy Pizza Hut and Orange Tang) I am convinced that men like these are not interested in me, and rightly so, these are the kind of people who should end up with girls who are sweet enough work at the Humane Society immunizing kittens, beautiful enough to pose for the naughty Sports Illustrated issues with painted on bathing suits, and smart enough to run Fortune 500 eco friendly corporations. They deserve to have oatmeal chocolate chip cookies delivered to them daily as a gift from women all over the world and I hope that if these two haven’t already found it, they find somebody who will give them “I love yous” and awesome picnic table sex on a daily basis. The one shitty thing about guys like these is that they never and I mean NEVER fall for somebody slightly rumpled like me, they need to work on that, rumpled folk are notoriously loyal and make fantastic grilled cheeses. I suppose their lack of giggity giggity eyed enthusiasm is fair as I have never inoculated an infant cat, worn a painted on bikini, or even been inside the foyer of a Fortune 500 company, not even to use the bathroom or see if the potted plants were made of nature of polyester. Regardless of my contempt for women who have all these Lynda Carter qualities (fancy ladies, if I ever find you, you’re in for the worst shin kickin’of us all) , I am glad gals like this exist for those that sincerely ought to have them. I just kind of wish I knew how to give feline rabies shots so I could be lumped in with the rich, Mother Theresa-esque, Brazilian body paint models. I know it seems a bit ludicrous to canonize dudes I don’t really know that well, so let me explain.

“The Guy who Witnessed a Live Pig Castration” is already a friend of mine, we’re actually going to be living on the very same street next week, both of us are moving to an area of town filled with exclusively wonderful people, serendipitously. He will fit right in, I will have to work on my oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe for awhile before I can be deemed an wonderful. He is a songwriter as well and a mind numbingly talented one who I am certain will one day benevolently dominate the entire world. He has been a good friend to me since I moved from Canada always offering me the directions, hugs, and bites of food I needed... and the serving of modesty that this slicked back, roof down town so desperately needs. If my sexy vibe sensors are accurate, he has not even thought about me in a hubba hubba way even once, yet has kept me around as a friend despite the fact that he doesn’t want to have Def Leppard music video sex with me. A lot of guys don’t do that, in my experience, some won’t befriend you at all unless they can use your image in a fantasy on a lonely hand lotion night...with facebook taking off like it is, I don't even know why some dudes bother to make Johnsonless friends at all. “The Guy who Witnessed a Live Pig Castration”, however, is much better than those artful moustache wearing phonies, I mean I’m sure he has raunchy man dreams and stuff like that, but he also has real dreams and an honest to G-O-D interest in the hearts of other human beings. He’s completely entitled to a sense of dickheadedness, he’s talented, BEEEEEEAUTIFUL, and has a sweet accent from a remote area of the country where people still go to church on Sundays and bake apple pies, yet he chooses to be more substantial. He has some of the best growing up stories ever, silly ones about the terror of watching pigs balls get cut off, and sad ones about old barns filled with the furniture of the local deceased, all of them poignant in some surprising way....though I'm pretty sure everytime I go to his house I will secretly wonder if his couch is haunted by a great aunt or second cousin. One of my favorite life nights ever was spent singing along to Desperado and eating brisket with him. He has no idea how amazing he is, not a bloody clue. I, on the other hand feel like I know in exactly what ways I’m exceedingly awesome and in which ways I am exceedingly shitty. Actually, I may not have any idea, but I sure as hell try and act as awesome as I possibly can. “The Guy who Witnessed a Live Pig Castration” doesn’t strive for awesomeness because he doesn’t need to, he just is. You might at this point ask, “Why haven’t you tried to have picnic table sex with this gem of a man?”, Well I know for almost certain he would not like to have picnic table sex with me, and he’s best friends with all of my friends and am sure they would absolutely choose his side with every spat we had, guaranteed, I feel like hes the most "related" person I have, who has come from a similar place but with better bakers,fewer swear words, and odd Albino gravy. I'm not being self deprecating, half the reason I have this blog is to shamelessly advertise and exaggerate the few remaining sips of coolness I have left in me, bu frankly, he deserves better than me, I mean THE BEST girl ever. If the Westminster Kennel Club Dog show was about women, his future bitch would definitely the blue ribbon winner. I hate when people say they’re blessed because it sounds so standard, much like answer c) on a multiple choice quiz. People down here say thy;re "blessed" more times a day than they burp under their breath and thats pretty incredible...they should probably read less bible and eat more roughage..it might give "blesssd" a bit more social significance. Either way, I am an-exact-emotion-just-like-but-not-specifically) blessed for every moment I get with “The Guy who Witnessed a Live Pig Castration”.

“The Guy who Witnessed a Live Pig Castration” was out with a friend when I ran into him last night (NOTE- Man-fraggles travel in packs) and this friend was also an outstanding specimen of dude, the kind whose outstandingness is visible from 19 miles away and you don't even have to squint or make a fake golf visor with your hand to spot it. It was the first time I met “The Guy Who Lives 19 Miles Away” but he never, ever, even once, acted like a stranger, apart from the cordial handshake thing which is kind of essential when you’ve never met before unless you just guess John or Phil and you're right. If there had been nametags involved, then the cordial handshake probably wouldn’t have happened at all, there may have been a clanking of beers or a good knuckle vs knuckle fist pound in its stead. I’ll be honest, there was a part of me that wanted to hug him immediately and there may or may not have even been a part of me that wanted to kiss him directly on the face. He had excited eyes and I love excited eyes, they absorb everything around them and are just happy to be open. They might even be happy watching "Meet Joe Black" with the sound off.YIkes, Bad people don’t ever have eyes like his, they’re too busy being shifty and plotting things like unwarranted vindication. If he has a wife or girlfriend which he almost certainly does based on his peepers alone, I would like to high five her and buy her a shot of Jagermeister, I would also like to be friends with both of them because I would assume her to be one of the top ten females ever engineered making them one of the top five couples ever engineered. We talked about simple kinds of things but in an entertaining way that made them seem like front page news. Larry King could easily do a news piece on “The Guy Who Lives 19 Miles Away’s” “Should I Get Another Beer” Debate. That piece would surely win a broadcasting award for “Excellence in Field Coverage Of Adorable Man Talking to Himself Out Loud” then, “The Guy Who Lives 19 Miles Away” would be a guest on the View and all the ladies would agree that he was simply magnetic and from what I understand, they never agree on anything. I was happy to see him, and though we’d never met before, I felt like we went to summer camp together in a past life and maybe were canoe partners (if past lives exist and they have children's programs). I got that feeling the first time I played barroom shuffleboard and now I play all the time, so I hope it means that he and I will drum up a lovely friendship and drink beers from the bottle together. Now, I know you must be asking why I didn’t try and have picnic table sex with HIM and I don’t blame you. It probably was stupid and I was told three moderate, chortle inspiring jokes that day that I could have employed for attractiveness increasing purposes. I assure you though, my reasoning is perfectly sensible and not the least bit harebrained like you’ve come to expect from me. Number one, in my mind, he has an imaginary girlfriend/wife who is amazing and I’m no homewrecker, not of even of pretend relationships. Number Two, I’m not supposed to have stomach flipping feelings about anything for another 350 something days, unless I eat Mexican food which is designed to flip the tummies. My tamale count has been higher than 10 for the past three months. Number Three, I would like to drink beers from the bottle with him and if I’d had picnic table sex with him it would be awkward to become beer pals afterwards. Number Four, he was unnervingly good looking, unnervingly witty, and unnervingly kind….I guess it could be said that he was just unnerving ….but in a pleasant way. I know that this is a bold thing to say, but I’m going to say it anyways because this is my fucking blog and I can: I really, honestly, swear on a stack of flapjacks, hope I get to know him better.

So not all endangered species of men bite you on the hand when you try and touch them thus, giving you malaria like those terrifying monkeys in “Outbreak”. Not all are predatory booty loving carnivores or defensive cave dwellers, some are actually friendly enough to be in a damn petting zoo. While I do think the “Guy Who Like Manatees” had some degree of petting zoo in him, I scared him with my loud, fast movements and flash photography. It wasn’t his fault, he acted on instinct, which is something none of us can escape, but it blew petting zoo goats when he trotted away leaving me with a freshly filled palm full of food pellets. Sadly, now I’m a little bit suspicious, while I wouldn’t say I’m jaded at all, I would say that my instincts have evolved or regressed to better suit my unpredictable environment. Sometimes I wish this environment was better designed for me. I wish would make up its mind between drought and flood or ideally settle somewhere comfortably in between, but I think my heavy use of hairspray and heartache have left it volatile. Its not to say it can't be revived, but it will take time and perhaps some tree planting hippies who get off on watching things grow, people who understand that I need to give "Peace" a chance before I give "Piece" a chance.

Manwich

2008-04-23T20:07:00.001-07:00

You know how sometimes before Thanksgiving Dinner you might do something utterly ridiculous, like fasting all day, in order to maximize your stomach’s Thanksgiving Dinner holding potential? Well, its not a healthy thing to do. As soon as you see that little butterball waving his wing suggestively and showing off those shapely thighs, you become a ravenous, yet festive werewolf of a human being, You immediately want to eat the entire thing, you forget the significance of the bloody holiday, you further anger dead pilgrims who are already angered by their hilarious hats, and Thanksgiving is ruined. RUINED. And its all your fault. I think I might be turning sex into a 25lbs bird by accident and I fear it will only lead to heartburn unless complete paralysis of the lonely loins sets in before the liberation date. I don’t want spoil sex the same way I spoil turkey every single year, but lately I’ve been surprised to find IT my mind (sex...not turkey….well, sometimes turkey) Normally I just think about regular people things like crossword puzzles and what it would be like to drive a different coloured car. Today however, I saw the champion o’ county fair Tom of gentlemen, all 175lbs of him. I was ready to trade my Honda in for a gravy boat, pull on some cut off shorts, and make an incredibly hot, figurative open faced sandwich with this incredibly hot man… right on the picnic table. It would all unfold to the sweet sounds of Def Leppard and I would love every bit of it, even if it left me permanently attached to a bottle of Pepto Bismol afterwards. I realize that metaphor went from slightly confusing to entirely disturbing but LORD he was a lunchthing if I ever saw one. Does this make me a hypocrite? Absolutely, but these feelings are entirely beyond my control. For all I know this fella could have been the president of a “Douches Wild” poker league, but I didn’t care, I was just pleased that I wanted to make splinter-free picnic table love to somebody other than “The Guy Who Likes Manatees”. Though I wouldn’t be so quick as to mush my nose into THIS boy’s back for 8 hours of solid nap, I might’ve have given him a high five after our fantastical romp and offered him a sip of my root beer. The primitive, Flinstonian feelings I had for the “The Guy Who Was My Imaginary Turkey Sandwich” do not mean I’m over “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” but it does mean that I’m in no danger of running off to a nunnery and forcing my ladybits into a hundred and six year coma. That’s a comforting thought for me and a horrifying thought for picnic tables everywhere.

My friend Ashley and I were outside doing the terribly hip Macintoshes at the independent coffee shop thing, marveling over our ability to eat, giggle, urbane college student watch and pretend to be working all at the same time, when a lovely friend of hers with one of the largest smiles I have ever seen came up to say hello. They did the fond-of-each-other idle chatter thing for a total of two minutes when his pal, “The Guy Who Was My Imaginary Turkey Sandwich,” strode up to the sound of imaginary coronets and imaginary applause. He was statue waiting to happen. I almost choked on my red onion as I tried to swallow it and clandestinely insert 75 Tic Tacs simultaneously. This was a man who deserved fresh breath. I wanted him to know that if his mind wandered to a place where we making out, my breath would smell like Clementine oranges. Theres nothing worse than an afternoon fantasy with a bad after taste. His adorableness alone would have caused Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp to jump the plank of the Black Pearl like they were fucking Thelma and Louise. Seriously, they would be swimming towards the shark jaws. Ash was engrossed in conversation, which was excellent because I was too busy listening to “Pour Some Sugar on Me” in my head and picturing this lunchthing without his shirt on, washing my Honda and the gravy boat I wanted to exchange it for, and mouthing "I love you!" in slow motion. His eyes were like lasers, but the good kind of lasers that give people Lasik surgery and guard important diamonds in museums. I was unfortunately not looking cute at his time, and I desperately wanted to. I smelled like onioranges and I think I was looking at my myspace page, which indicates to a man of his caliber that I am a complete nerd and entirely unworthy of his fake hot picnic sex. To him, I must’ve looked like the kind of girl who was going to Google fuck the hell out of him and read about his High School Drama Club production of “Annie Get Your Gun!”. if I had caught his name, I probably would have at least considered doing this….I like musicals. Though I have never even devoutly believed in even like at first sight, I began to think that if he was that same glorious five minutes of attractiveness and wit all the time, I might actually like to have a conversation with him after we pretend shagged on the patio. I tend to over analyze most things like most people who bring their Macintoshes to coffee shops, so I went over my special list of mandatory superficial attributes-

Pants Share-ability- I have found over time, that I get along best with people whose pants I would want to wear. This is why I have never dated a man who wears dockers or was a professional cyclist. I would even be so bold as to say that I have written off serious athletes and accountants entirely, specifically because of their choice in trouser. Its quite judgmental of me, but as somebody who only has five pairs of jeans in rotation, I can’t take any chances. I know I look rather boxy in pleats and spandex does nothing to make my one dimensional ass pop. “The Guy Who Was My Imaginary Turkey Sandwich” was wearing himself some nice denim. I couldn’t get a good peek at the brand, but I hope they weren’t from Italy as expensive jeans make me a bit uncomfortable, its like buying $20 Wonderbread to make ham sandwiches with. Fancy Mediterranean blue jeans are a deal breaker(note- I spelled Mediterranean correctly on the first try…For this reason, I will give myself a bathroom mirror high five later on). The fit was appropriately relaxed, but not too relaxed, slightly on edge and clinging nicely to the thigh. The wash was the kind of mint gum package or doctor's pants blue, and I happen to enjoy that blue, its soothing and it reminds me of friendly general health practitioners that smell good and even give adults Charms Blow Pops after a check up . “The Guy Who Likes Manatees’ “ pants were a bit too creative for me. They did that skinny, euro thing around the calf and I like to breathe a little more below the knee. I do the sixties Berkley throwback, he does the eighties LA throwback. We throwback in entirely different directions and there is fully awesome decade that stands between our pants. My pants are a bit to old for him, that was a sign, and I ignored it. He did however, achieve high scores in other areas of pants share-ability. I suspect our inseam was the exact same and he had a fabulous collection of sweatpants, I borrowed one pair for a total of 48 hours and was quite pleased. “The Guy Who Was My Imaginary Turkey Sandwich” definitely had longer legs than me, but its warm enough now that I could fold up the bottoms into those summertime pants that show off your ankles, and as someone in possession of eye catching ankles,(as the experimentation with dresses is revealing) his longer legs could be an asset. Overall (note-if he had been wearing overalls, I probably would have smooched him right there) given his wise choice of legwear, I would saw our future as very promising and highly fashionable.

Social Retardation- When I mull one thing over in my mind until it multiplies into a million mini-things, this interferes with the following: speaking, avoiding haphazard pedestrian injuries like walking into table corners, and decision making. I have a lot of trouble trying to figure out if I truly find someone attractive. I can literally find myself so distracted with a man’s fantastic snap front shirt or old running shoes that I will trick myself into thinking he’s irresistible. Self manipulation is not a redeeming quality at all. Never fear though, I rarely act on these misguided and very shallow mini-thoughts, my overactive brain may be the town whore but my bod and heart are the librarians. See, when I really am, under oath intrigued by somebody I become so desperately awkward that it would be impossible for the thought tributaries to result in real life sex. IMPOSSIBLE. I am fully convinced that “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” adored me when I was so alarmed and rendered socially incompetent by him that I thought I had asthma. It was when I actually stopped tripping over my feet and words that I was no longer as appealing. I blame my own transition in comfort entirely on him, though it is without justification…maybe he’s into wheezing, who knows? Anyhow, it turns out that I was legitimately enthralled by “The Guy Who Was My Imaginary Turkey Sandwich” because I acted like Kevin’s nerdy pal from the “Wonder Years”. Here are the misfortune that unfolded.

1) First Glance- He has laser beams for eyeballs so obviously they made me a bit apprehensive. I decided that rather that risk damaging my retina, I should bury my head in my visible myspace profile page on the Mac because obviously fear, potential snobbery, and impressive internet popularity are attractive qualities in a mate. I’m an idiot.

2) Handshake-Eventually he introduced himself to me and I stood up, forgot to say my own name and then upon realizing I’d forgotten it, I said “I’m so rude, I was staring at my huge lump of tuna!” Brain, that is unforgivable, I don’t keep you around just to fill up my skull and think about lumps of tuna! Get your shit together! All I offered to the conversation was uncovering my weird obsession with canned fish. I was so mad at that tuna afterwards that I didn’t even want to look at it, so I ate it simply to do away with the visible remains of my stupidity. I think this was the first time Ashley had witnessed my complete lack of skills, it probably helped her understand a little bit more about why men think I’m strange…its because I actually am strange, and they are right to think that.

3) Goodbye- The goodbye was the most graceful part of it all, it was my crowning achievement. It was a simple Queen of England cupped hand wave, nothing too ostentatious. It was the wave your grandmother gives you out the window of the Cutlass when she leaves your house. Was it sexy? Hell no, but at least my nose wasn’t bleeding, there was nothing in my teeth, and my fly was done up. After he walked maybe three steps away I loudly sang “The Guy Who Was My Imaginary Turkey Sandwich’s” smoking hot, Jack Sparrow praises, probably within earshot. Since I can neither confirm nor deny that he heard me sexually harassing him, I will count this as a victory. Point to me, no, 2 points to me, I could use them.

Sexy Thoughts- Oh, there were hundreds, maybe even thousands of naughty scenarios fully inspired by “the Guy Who Was My Imaginary Turkey sandwich” this is a bit above average for me at lunchtime. He was wearing a peach coloured cowboy shirt that was the exact color of the angels butts in the Sistine Chapel and so the thought process goes- peach shirt→ Sistine Chapel→ Naked Cherubs→ Naked Turkey Sandwich man. This is what logic is to me, how scary is that?! Let us try another, Tallness→ Resting of head on Shoulder in Slow dance fashion→ Prom night intercourse. Some days I think I could think sexy things about a matchbook…hmmm… lets see, matchbook→ fire→ fireplace→ bearskin rug specifically designed for fireside sex→ Fireside sex. When my brain goes into this crushed velvet, Barry White zone, I know conditions are favorable for some degree of genuine attraction. I had these feelings about “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” upon first meeting him but thank Christ the social retardation and fear of heartache kicked in to keep me from having picnic table sex with him at first kiss. We just ended up having awesome futon sex after a cautious pre-sex dating period. It was much more satisfying than odd picnic table thoughts, but also much more dangerous. TV specials don’t lie, real sex does lead to real feelings…and then you pretend those feelings are regrets when really you just wish you were still able to several more futon impaling nights together. Hopefully though, I’ll be able to stow those thoughts about him in the overhead compartment and have more make believe picnic rendezvous instead.

I’m not sure if its wrong to want to give a complete stranger a huge middle school hickey right below the left ear, but I know for certain its not illegal, at least in North America. If it is wrong though, I am very, very wrong. Sometimes, however, it’s a littler bit safer than wanting to give a huge hickey to someone you know you can’t have (note- his would be around the collarbone region). I really hope I see the “The Guy Who Was My Imaginary Turkey Sandwich” again, partly so we could go at it in front of the coffee shop again in my brain, and also because I would like to further investigate whether he’s the rare breed of male whose pants might be worth borrowing…… in 354 days. Either way, today was a very small but significant victory, my lady bits and imagination have made it out of this disaster unscathed. “The Guy Who Was My Imaginary Turkey Sandwich” would probably hate feeling like he was being stared at like an open faced sandwich, and if he was here right now I’d apologize (and get him drunk and find a picnic table,,,kidding) I know its kind of shitty to objectified. He seemed like a pleasant enough, beautiful dude and he might allow me to picture him naked if he knew it was helping to revitalize an exhausted heart. I think were our romantic situations reversed, I’d be okay with it….I might even think it was kind of awesome.

Manhattan

2008-04-22T18:57:00.000-07:00

In case you were wondering, I’m not unemployed. I actually do have a somewhat proper job with a salary, an office, and the odd trip with my boss to the local Indian Buffet for some beef vindaloo. I write songs, I’m neither a notable success nor a notable failure but am of the personality that my lack of notable success makes me feel like a notable failure. Its an occupation that requires an enormous amount of pacing around rooms and one's integrity must have the flexibility of a PussyCat Doll. I think being a songwriter is a lot like being a circus sword swallower, (I know this from my extensive sword swallowing experience) it hurts a little bit everyday, and its cheesy, but you keep smiling through, wanting the rest of the world to think its easy for you. I’ve enjoyed the vocation thus far for several reasons: I can wear jeans to work on all occasions which has made it an exciting year for my five pairs of pants, I get to play guitar all day long which has done wonders for my dexterity as a human being, my words per minute are WAY up, and mostly, I get to meet and work with an incredible amount of people who are absolutely bat shit crazy. Actually, “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” and I have written together before and we all know he’s bat shit crazy because he passed up an extremely dexterous, rapid typist of a girl who pressed her nose into his back between his shoulder blades . The employed songwriting community is more than male dominated, I’m actually surprised that I was able to get a deal without a beard, a stable of ex wives, and high cholesterol. Songs like “Honky Tonk DaDonkadonk” and “Save A Horse Ride a Cowboy” were quite shockingly, not written by women, they were written by bearded middle aged men and middle aged young men who have already adopted the cholestrol and lifestyle of their older mentors. While it certainly isn’t my job to say its dishonorable to trivialize love and life through song, it is my job to say its dishonorable that these "professionals" stare at my cans and talk to me like I’m a two pound Yorkshire Terrier while trivializing love and life. There are so many people waiting to sell their souls here that Satan has a yardsale after church every Sunday…. I have Phil Spector’s soul hanging above the television.(.....if I ever hit it big I’m gonna spring for something exotic like a genuine Castro, I find his combination of modernism and fascism to be quite compelling. I hear he started off left handed but turned out to be a righty…how odd;)

The terrifying thing about the consumer is that the departure of actual substance in music seems to go unnoticed just like my old back windshield wiper that ran off (I know he’s out there, dark grey, answers to “swishy” ). Tragically, most successful writers I know have sad eyes, they have dream jobs and dream homes and dream ladyfriends, but no more dreams. I think comfort can be a dangerous feeling, when there's no fighting for glory, you just stand there punching air like an asshole or one of those people who does Tai Chi in public. That’s why I swim laps in one of those plastic turtle shaped kiddie pools for exercise, while the more acclaimed have Olympic sized lakes in their backyard. My turtle pool keeps me motivated. If I had a real swimming pool, I’d probably retire and float around all day on one of those inflatable orcas. Today, I had to drive out to the fancy end of town, where everybody’s lawn has to match and nobody’s car is dirty. I was dropping off a finished work tape of a song I wrote with a man who has been riding the proverbial orca since 1993.

“The Guy Who Rides Orcas” lives at the end of one of those really long, impractical driveways that twists and turns for absolutely no reason. Driveways like this make me wish my car was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, that way, I could jump out and footrace my own vehicle to the door, just to see if the direct route was faster. He is about a million years older than me but he definitely thinks we’re going to have sex one day. I am sure of this as anytime we write together, regardless of the hour, he makes me a Manhattan in a proper glass, and threatens to buy me lobsters. I am dead serious. Every time I leave he always sees me out through the garage, so we have to walk by his Jaguar and upon seeing it, he acts surprised as though he wasn’t expecting to find an exotic red car there. He then says “ It’s a beautiful day, we should go for a drive”. He says this whether the day is beautiful or not and I decline….and try my best not to give him an “eat shit” grin. “The Guy Who Rides Orcas” does not understand why we haven’t had sex yet, and it secretly infuriates him. Our not having sex has contributed one wrinkle to his brow and stolen a half inch from his hairline. He doesn’t get why I don’t want to sleep with his marble countertops, or his koi pond, or especially his Jaguar. Girls are supposed to want to fuck the brains out of that whole lifestyle so he simply does not comprehend my reasoning . He is a very sweet fella aside from whole picturing me naked washing his sports car thing, and he’s incredibly successful. His mantle is one of the shiniest places on earth. He wrote a variety of irresistible power ballads and contributed music to ummm…pretty much the best TV show named after a zip code ever (Note: Jason Priestly is Canadian. Never say my country never did anything for you) but he has been surrounded by his victories for the past fifteen years and it must be rather uncomfortable to live in your own shrine (though, if somebody else was living in a shrine to you…it would be even more uncomfortable) Its as though all he ever wanted in life was to write a hit and he did. Now, he wants nothing, nothing artistic and nothing material,(except my bony ass for twenty minutes on the wet bar with Sting crooning the background) His songwriting has suffered as a result of his satisfaction, there’s no yearning and no pain and no wonder... just trucks, redneck women, Honky tonks, and the odd badonkadonk. That kind of satiation petrifies me, if there’s nothing missing, there’s nothing left to look for so you just close your eyes and wait for your own demise or some inspiration, whichever comes first. Though I would often like to use women’s self defense moves on “The Guy who Rides Orcas”, I feel bad for him. Someday, I would like to do something nice for him, maybe give him a platonic hug or take him on a platonic picnic with platonic watermelon slices. So, I decided today, I wanted to stay for that Manhattan and try and figure out where he lost his way.

I showed up disc in hand at approximately 10am. For some reason, it always takes him a little while to answer the door, I think this is because he wants me to marvel over the luxury and “drink it all in”. I’ve never been a rock garden kind of girl so it never works quite the way he wants. Eventually he answered the door, out of breath, and said “Welcome to the Casa”. He says this every single time we have a session. I hate when people refer to houses as “Casas”, there is no justifiable reason for me to loathe it, but I do. I truly, truly do. He said he didn’t hear me because he was playing with some new gear. By “gear” he meant a new, overpriced ethnic instrument that he can’t play at all. He has lots of these toys and believes himself to be a virtuosic talent. Today, it was a thumb piano smaller than a cheeseburger so I guess he couldn’t hear me pounding on the door over the thunderous roar of the new kalimba. He loves showing off his mislabeled “passion” for world music to his colleagues and friends by turning on some atmospheric, contemporary music, you know the kind they have on in the bathroms of fancy restaurants, and playing along. It’s a wildly uncomfortable ritual he insists on. The last time I was there with another writer and “the Guy who Rides Orcas” made us watch him attempt to play the steel drums along to what sounded like the soundtrack to NightPassion II: The Second Coming”. It was the best thing I’ve ever seen…..Anyways, he was especially happy to see me today (not THAT way;) He gave me a huge kiss on the cheek, in case you’re wondering, we’re not “there” as far as my comfort level is concerned. He really wanted to show me some fancy studio monitors, but what he actually meant by that was he would like me to come in, check out his babe lair and picture my life there. He seemed surprised when I agreed to take a peak at the speakers which were blaring out some sappy, sparkling disaster about a mother with breast cancer….how obnoxiously topical?! He’s sure it’s a hit and thinks Reba will love it. I thought it sounded like a milk chocolate covered turd with nougat.

After that, we sat by his koi pond on chairs that looked like they belonged inside a living room and I told him about my year long vow of romantic silence. That way, he wouldn’t try and bone me. We talked a bit about the “Guy who likes Manatees” and how I had come to my decision about the no sex thing, he squeezed my hand encouragingly and said, “You are so brave”. Then, things got a little bit weird. Shocking. He sprang off his outside-inside chair, ran to his study and he reappeared with a well worn book. He started reciting a poem about bravery…..from Chicken Soup For the Soul. If you need to take a moment to collect yourself and read that again, go for it, I know its slightly awesome. Pervy old men are not supposed to have books like that, they’re supposed to have leather bound classics for display purposes only. The smell of leather and intellect repel panties. I’ve never had to suppress that many smart ass remarks in my whole life, but the gesture was so sweetly unsettling that I managed to not ask him if he how long he’d been a member of Oprahs book club. He divulged that he hadn’t been able to keep anything up for a whole year. He was impressed (and dubious) with my challenge. He claimed to have tried lots of things: dating, the South Beach Diet, dating, sobriety (drinking Robert deNiro-ish at 10am….hmmmm….not ideal), dating, cycling, dating, and even growing a beard. He failed to mention his relentless pursuit of women less than half his age, the steel drums, thumb piano, autoharp, and sitar. Then it occurred to me, he was desperately searching for a new passion to replace music, which to him, had grown old and ragged. True, we were sitting by an infinity pool behind a bloody castle with a meandering driveway that belonged to him, but he’d lost his reason to wake up in the morning. He was having the teenage “What to do with life” crisis in his late fifties an instead of enduring the pain of combing his soul for an answer, he’d opted to just wait life out and read bad, polite poetry by tortured housewives.

He started to mention that he “dabbled” in poetry himself so I had to change the subject immediately, I was terrified that I might find my own “heaving bosom” among the others in his fantasy harem and a) starting weeping b) let some of the aforementioned smart ass comments escape or c) pepper spray him directly in the face. So, I asked him about his childhood. “The Guy Who Rides Orcas” talks like a movie narrator, always about the past, staring far away (which confuses me because I always follow his gaze into a shrub or blank spot of wall), and with extraordinary wistfulness. I think he believes he’s supposed to talk about his past wistfully, that’s what Tom Hanks does so that’s what all great artists SHOULD do. It gives the illusion of depth just like the dark liner in his strange edgeless pool. He’s from an extremely Jewish Brooklyn family and he referred to his parents as “mom” and “dad” in conversation without possessive pronouns so it made me feel like they were my mom and dad too, it was an amusing game, when I asked questions I also referred to them as mom and dad, just to play along. He never gets the Old Yeller eye twinkle when he talks about the future or even when he talks about the height of career which I’m sure included lots of Manhattans and lots of cocaine. I continued to choke down my drink, which tasted like Chloraseptic spray, and listened as he went on about his old job at the corner store in tediously verbose detail (I am clearly not familiar with verbose detail….at all) and told jokes about Jewish New Yorkers that I cannot repeat because I’m not a Jewish New Yorker, I just borrowed his parents for the purpose of the conversation. It was painfully evident that the best years of his life were between 10 and 16, when his dream was just a dream and not a cherry red reality sitting in his garage racking up insurance bills. He missed imagining the day he wrote his first big hit and the perfect years he believed would follow. Sometimes I miss those good naïve thoughts too. The ones that leave you crossing your fingers and secretly praying in your head even though you aren’t so religious;) I had those moments when I first met “The Guy Who Likes Manatees”. It was the earliest glances, the first strums of guitar, and the first kisses on the forehead that made me talk like Tom Hanks and stare into the distance like Old Yeller. It was best when I was still wondering how things would be and it was too early for either of us to be afraid of what we were becoming I felt for this old man who looked at me like I was a prime rib sandwich and I NEVER feel for old guys who look at me like a lunchthing. Its hard to look back at looking ahead, it makes you retrace your steps and look hard at the places where you tripped over own feet, ripped your jeans, and fell on your face. Also, it makes you count the steps you wish you’d taken.

As I began to feel like a complete degenerate for drinking a strange Martini at ten thirty in the morning with an uncharged sexual offender, “The Guy Who Rides Orcas” said something that made me feel even more like a degenerate, HE gave ME advice and not just work advice, actual, profound, LIFE advice. He said that at my age I had no idea what perfection meant. Holy shit, the man is a fortune cookie. We begin creating expectations and ideals before we take the time to figure out who we are. There is a natural tendency to want to predict our own desires instead of wait for them to tempt us naturally. Then if we meet the premature goals we've set, which sadly, are often attached to useless material things or proper accolades, we feel lost and rather stupid for charging down some crappy unmarked life path before figuring out where we wanted to end up. I wish I could have learnt that from me because its clever, or alternatively from a message inside a mystical cookie then I could put the slip of paper in my wallet an carry it around to self scold when I get too far ahead of myself. He knew where he went wrong and though it he couldn’t take back the eight balls he snorted in during the Priestly years, or the quick witted New Yorker he never called back who had “great stems for a dame her age” (that’s right.. He says dame), he could make sure somebody…..can’t believe I’m about to say this…….LIKE HIM didn’t make the same mistakes.

By the time my Manhattan had collected bugs and the stemware perspiring, I had to leave, not because I was afraid he’d put Spanish Fly in my drink but because for this one morning of nighttime cocktails “The Guy Who Rides Orcas” was my friend, and I wanted to remember him just like that, with his womanly paperback and his sad eyes. I was for once, not a fleeting distraction like the thumb piano, tin whistle, or South Beach Diet and he was more than a pervert who wrote mediocre songs with my breasts. He hadn’t let himself down, but like most idealists, he got let down by life a few times and that’s a hard Manhattan to swallow. When your entire career revolves around imagined realities and inflated true life stories, you have to bolt your sneakers to the ground, and you have to appreciate the way things are, not the way they could be because when they finally materialize they might break your heart. I left his “Casa”(yep still hate it), drove down the irritating, gravel labyrinth, and was kind of glad I didn’t own a Jaguar or an infinity pool because it meant I still had time to sit down with my young ambitions, teach them the facts of life and warn them that there would be more of uncomfortable chats in the coming years

Man Eaters

2008-04-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

Most of the people reading this are probably not pregnant it’s almost a statistical certainty. If by chance there happens to be a group of women gunning for the Guinness World Record for Largest Joint Baby Shower and they happen to be surfing my area net in the midst of their enormous powder blue onesie and non alcoholic white grape sparkling faux wine with added folic acid and vitamin A fueled extravaganza, I hope I don’t offend you, and consequently anger your birth canals into premature contractions…….though imagine if I was the impetus behind the Worlds Largest Group Birth at a Baby Shower? That would be top notch! Today, at the grocery store, I learned what to expect when you’re NOT expecting, and that, friends, is a whole lot of prejudice. I used to get rather excited about groceries, I kind of got off on buying mystery vegetables that look to be from the rain forest, or seeing how many cans of tomato soup can be slung in a paper bag before it breaks (nine so far, predominantly Campbells), Earlier I was so livid I didn’t look twice at the long stems of white asparagus, they had parsnips on sale and I wasn’t even tempted. The unwarranted privileges allotted to the pregnant shopper made me feel as though I was a second rate consumer, and it didn’t help that the creepy baby on the front of the Arrowroot cookies was giving me creepy baby sized cut eye. If I’d had a sling shot full of chocolate chip Teddy Grahams, I would have held up the store until they agreed to stop penalizing me for my lack of baby, until I could have a special parking spot after a rough day, and get the prompt service I deserve at the deli counter. I suppose to a certain degree, the inequitable system is understandable, its another yummy byproduct of capitalism. A pregnant woman is a grocer’s fantasy. The combination vulnerability, dieting, hormonal fireworks and credit cards leads to nine months of frivolous binge eating which leads to guilt which leads to more frivolous binge eating. I get it, lonesome blond haired girls who aren’t getting laid rarely fill their little baskets and shop infrequently, buying only canned goods which won’t decompose and stink up the fridge, and products that could survive a nuclear winter or Waterworld type scenario. Its all a matter of dollars and cents, the vacant womb cannot compete with the full shopping cart of a soon to be mother, so those of us not fertilized become the disenfranchised in yet another tale of socio economic grocery store alienation….that old chestnut., I’m tired of feeling like my broken family of one is less important than a solid family of five.

Girls at the World Largest Joint Baby Shower, if you do happen to be reading, you’re allowed to hate me for which I just said and the words on the tip of my tongue waiting to swan dive off, I kind of hate me for it too, I’m being outstandingly bitchy and am ill informed. Before you start training your babies Khmer Rouge style into the Worlds Largest Infant Vigilante Army so they can find, and immediately decapitate me with their Fisher Price cross bows, I want you to know that I love pregnant people. I think its incredible to make things, I can’t even make spaghetti and babies take approximately 8 months and 23 hours longer than noodles. So please, call off the Vaginal Liberation Front and use those Lamaze classes to breathe. Aside from the whole eating for two thing, we actual have tons of things in common: I like to get it on, you clearly like to get it on, I get bloated when I eat leafy greens, you get bloated when you eat leafy greens, you get morning sickness, I get sick the morning after, its uncanny! I think that in a different world where I wasn’t convinced that society was punishing me for my empty uterus, we could be the best of friends. I’ve seen every installment of the Look Who’s Talking trilogy, including the one where Kristie Alley gets saucy poodle, and I loved all of them. I support breeding, especially when it results in hilarious consequences on film. Though my religious views are rather unspecific, I think the whole Bilbely baby in the manger, mirth, and the kind eyed donkey mid wife (Somebody or something delivered that kid) is a nice story, I'm sure that if the Muppets decided to make a version, this immaculate conception thing could be a real commercial success. The only difference existing between is the fact that when you got screwed you ended up with a baby, a sexually ambiguous nursery, and an excuse to wear stretchy pants and a heating pad to black tie events, when I got screwed I ended up with a bottle of Macaroni Grill Chianti, a vow of celibacy, and a night of making excuses for myself. Your calendar of important birthdays is about to grow, while mine has diminished. Sorry, November, I was looking forward to it too, I would have gone to Baskin Robbins and there would have been three scoops involved. The fact that I have no dependents doesn’t make me Jane Austen though. Frankly. Those strong, independent women who do things like take spinning class, get angular haircuts, buy large, obedient junkyard dogs with German sounding names, and clean their own rain gutters terrify me, they tend to be compulsive over-perfumers and smell like rearview mirror pine trees (but distinctly more expensive). It doesn’t mean, however that I’m a sniveling “Notebook” loving sap either (wait…yes I am…kidding…half kidding) I’m just a bit steamed that I’m denied certain shopping privileges because I haven’t been in the mood to breed lately. Society, Suzie Homemaker and her offspring don’t need your help, she has GPS in her car, and I don’t even have a passenger side armrest in mine (which perhaps explains why I’ve had so much trouble keeping a passenger). Somebody already threw a bone at the pregnant woman (unless this immaculate conception thing is really taking off), so why not throw one my way and liberalize my grocery store by getting rid of the unnecessary convenience parking spots, cracking down on preferential customer service, and advocating positive pregnant shopper to not pregnant shopper interactions.

Every time I see a fleet of mini vans in the parking lot of the Harris Teeter store, a part of me dies. Don’t get me wrong, I love mini vans for their dual sliding doors, captain’s seats, and multiple cup holders, but I don’t love that the drivers of these wonderful soccer game shuttles get special parking spots just because they have children, while I settle for the illegal spot behind the dumpster where local drunkards piss at night. “Expectant Mother” and “Customer with Child” spots are just plain wrong, unless that expectant mother is in a fucking wheelchair. Today, I saw a pregnant woman who was abusing the system. This spry woman looked to be a “Tammy”, I cannot confirm nor deny that she WAS a Tammy but if she was in a police line up and they were charging someone with Tammyness, she’d be the obvious suspect. She sprang out of her “Caravan” in her gym clothes, talking on her Blackberry, and fully energized, looking as though she was borrowing holding her big tummy from a friend. Tammy was in fabulous shape and I am certain that if we were to compete in a decathalon, she would have hoisted her trophy and conducted several interviews before I finished the first leg of the race, and this is despite her elevated estrogen levels. Though she had obviously just come from a jazzercise class or some equally dancey form of aerobics, she decided she was impaired enough that she NEEDED to park in one of those five star luxury spots . Tammy bought one item, one medium sized bottle of designer fizzy water….ONE ITEM, no plastic or paper bag required, no cart. I on the other hand, purchased $74 worth of extremely cumbersome food, most of which was Chef Boyardee, the current man in my life. I had bags of canned food attached to me at all appendages, including the left pinky finger, which may have even sprained under the strain. We walked out in tandem but in entirely different universes, Tammy beeped her power unlock, bent down with unsettling flexibility to tie her shoelaces, and drove off, perhaps to a track and field meet. I, sadly, continued on, Bolognese sauce beating against my leg, across what felt like the asphalt Serengeti.Tammy, was an able bodied woman who judging from her giggle, offensively large collection of solitaire diamond jewelry and athletic choice of pants, was bending life over and showing it a good time. Was the blessed pregnancy, handheld precious stone museum, and push over husband not enough? Did she NEED a special parking spot?? I think not. She was a She-ra, and I was the fat chick from Scooby Doo. She already has a family, a fancy van, and one of the most cosmetically pleasing asses I have ever seen, she’s beating me at life, its not fair that she wins at parking spots too. I know my groceries weighed more than her unborn child, probably as much her husband, and they were certainly heftier than her imported, sparkling drink, but since she’s more successful at doing the nasty than I am, she got rewarded and I plodded along like a trained ox whilst being assaulted by my Green Giant spinach in water. INJUSTICE!

I’m not expecting a child, hell, the only things I expect from life these days are sales calls from telemarketers and bad morning hair, I do however, expect good customer service, which earlier today I was denied. A pregnant woman stole a pickle that was rightfully mine, and the Deli Counter just let it happen. Deli counter, don’t knock me down just because I’m not knocked up. I’m a model meat and cheddar buyer, I don’t abuse the sacred free sample trust system, I am open to trying new, experimental salamis, and I’m quick to offer words of gratitude to the man who so delicately cuts my cheese. If there were special awards for purchasing animal products, I’d be a multi-Hammy winner and receive lucrative meat endorsement contracts. I thought Todd, the cheese monger and I had a special bond,, but when very pregnant “Joanna” walked in, my friend turned on me like a crazed raptor on Jeff Goldblum. She walked straight past the line, in which I might add, there were bonafide senior citizens, seized my crown and septre, and took the title of Harris Teeter Deli Queen. Her first despotic act of defiance was stealing my Kosher Dill Pickle. Todd knows my whole diet revolves around those pickles. The pickle is the quarterback on my Lunch Team, when for most people, the pickle is just a nerd holding an encouraging sign for the entree. “Joanna”, whos name I am certain of as it was embroidered on the left boob of her windbreaker, walked right in front of me and asked Todd for the LAST TWO PICKLES. Without thinking, he practically gift wrapped and delivered them to her with a singing Lionel Ritchie telegram. I was devastated. She was a firecracker, and begrudgingly I admit I could see her mature “Murder She Wrote” like appeal but she was also sly, dramatizing the lower back pain, gloating and glowing simultaneously, and pushing her cart full of Ritz crackers like it was filled with cinder blocks,. Well played, Angela Landsbury, well played. Just because she and her husband got a little frisky after an episode of “According the Jim” (and with conviction for once) doesn’t mean she gets dominion over the pickle barrel, nor does she deserve any preferential treatment from MY monger. Those pickles were more than just a fleeting craving to me, they were to be savored, appreciated, by me, first in line, the way god intended. I could tell Todd was mesmerized by this incredibly swollen pickle thief, so I couldn’t hold it against him when he directed me towards A FUCKING JAR of Bick’s Crunchy Dills…. but it hurt, it hurt like brine on a fresh paper cut. She was the pregnant Vanna White of Cold Colds and he was Pat Sayjack the sexual tension was palpable and even the mortadella was mortified in the presence of such electricity. I was the contestant who’d lost her turn, the one who deserves the 2009 Jeep Grand Cherokee, but just can’t seem to win with the wheel. Joanna and her unborn accomplice manipulated their way to grocery store supremacy, and Todd let it happen. To see him shave her turkey with such care and desecrate the honor of a five person line AND a 99 cent Kosher pickle, destroyed my faith in Deli Counters completely and I don’t think ten jars of Bick’s Crunchy Dills could repair the damage done.

My last run in with pregnancy was probably the most offensive, which is hard to believe after the pickle barrel disaster. I can’t quite guarantee whether this encounter was related at all to hormones, but the woman I met was supremely bitchy, a jackal in cashmere. It was as though she was making a “Fuck Off and Die!” face one day as a child and it got stuck, just like urban facial contortion myth suggests. If she’d gone into labour right there in front of the frozen vegetable medleys, I would have said “Baby, listen carefully, turn left and keep running, you’ll never win her approval anyways” She hated me immediately, but in her eyes, the hatred was not unfounded since she was used to being pampered. I committed a crime that sent Mrs. Hummer (I only call her this because she was big pregnant shithead and I hate Hummers) straight into Salem Witch Hunt mode, I had trouble remembering if I liked green beans or snow peas better and it cost her a whole thirty seconds. I tend to daydream, and I may have slipped into a distracted, not so lucid state while perusing the frozen greens. I was imagining a world where I could justify buying both beans and peas to experiment Pepsi challenge style. Tragically, I was standing directly in front of the sliding door SHE wanted to open, staring blankly. She was furious, and with just one glance, I felt like I had been placed in the public pillory and thoroughly stoned for my indecisiveness. She did one of those exaggerated sigh and eye roll combinations that fourteen year old girls use when their parents won’t let them stay out past midnight. It was a hideous face. She made the sound my sister’s cat makes before it coughs up a huge hairball or other digestive refuse. It was a phlegm whistling sound only to be used for evil on the kind of people who ruin surprise parties or won’t go swimming when everybody else is swimming. I’m a huge fan of “excuse mes”, I might even advocate them, they generally lead to a concession AND a smile, its simple. We could have formed one of those short lived grocery store friendships where you keep bumping into each other in different aisles and nod politely. I love that shit. Sadly though, Mrs. Hummer gave me a complicated feeling of anger and terror at the same time, I wanted to streetfight her and also hide behind a bag of frozen peas. Just because she had boring republicanish sex with her boring republicanish husband that was going to result in a boring republicanish baby, doesn’t mean she’s entitled to wake innocent single girls from their fantastic mental adventures about thrilling vegetable based taste tests, I had just as much right to that freezer as she did.

So, World’s Largest Joint Baby Showerers, if I haven’t broken your water with the same typhoon force that pregnant grocery shoppers have broken my heart, then please let me reiterate, I think you’re awesome, even with the extra 50lbs and dill cravings that conflict with mine. If it were physically possible, I would high five your ovaries right now and say “Tuner, Hooch you make a great team! Way to dispense!”, but I can’t. I’m not trying to egg you on (that terrible pun was no accident) but, sometimes even us less productive folk deserve some special treatment too, whether it be a parking spot, a huge killer pickle, or kind words and courtesy instead in place of a hair ball sigh. While you’re making life, I’m just making sandwiches, which probably means nothing to you since you’re pissing every five minutes and dreading that epidural, but it doesn’t make my life less important or any easier. You’re starting a family and are mere ultrasounds away from experiencing true unconditional love, they don’t throw World’s Largest Joint Baby Showers because motherhood stinks, it’s a celebration, so enjoy it and share that joy with the world, that’s your victory, its not about being coddled for nine months. If the stork came quacking over to my end of town, I’d get out my pellet gun and string up a Hannibal Lecter scarecrow, Family is not for everyone, it’s a choice and it doesn’t make me less of a woman or make my groceries low priority. I respect your decision to breed and I know that there are physically debilitating aspects to the whole process, but you ought to know there are emotionally debilitating aspects to my way of life and I deserve just as much respect. So, stay the hell away from my Kosher dills, or else I’ll steal your babies, make them watch Schindlers List and return them to you with more issues and complicated questions than an entire Catholic School Sex Ed class.

xo

Manicured

2008-04-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

Did you know that Cher has a daughter named Chastity? And that I’m gonna refrain from doing it for an entire year? Spooky coincidence, eh?..Not really?...... Well, Chastity and a fondness for retro moustaches are not the only things Cher and I have in common, we’re both way into temporary retirement, I haven’t just given up sex (something that might take me year to find anyways) I have retired myself entirely from all things romantic and am now a fully functioning, platonic human being. The best thing about temporary retirement is the comeback, your own rejuvenation and renewed appreciation for what you do, and the renewed appreciation you receive from others. Every time Cher unretires she comes back looking ten years younger and ten times foxier. I could stand to be a little foxier, its true. Cher is an entirely different breed of vixen, she’s the kind you make into a fox fur cape, I’m the kind that eats from your garbage can. This is why I am going to study the refined grooming techniques and fashion savvy of ladies like Cher and the ladies around me. I'm going to steal their tricks and I’m not going to feel an ounce of guilt about it, I’m substituting my side of sex with intellectual kleptomania and I can’t be stopped. If I can't be hubba hubba stimulated I might as well be mentally stimulated, its my right as an adult lady to get off on inspiration, and get off on it I shall. Learning the tricks of my own trade actually seems kind of important, see, while I have agreed to not have sex, that doesn’t mean I don’t want people to WANT to have sex with me. I am going to spruce myself up like a cheap log cabin gets spruced into a chalet on the Home and Garden Channel. Over the next year, I will transform myself into a model of female preparedness. Though the lessons of Cher and the wonderful women I know are plentiful and hard to master, I have already been making remarkable progess.

When Cher first retired in 1992 she finally got to do the things for Cher that she had neglected to do in the 70s, sometimes, we should all take the time to please our inner Chers, its worth the energy. She took time off to make Cher name brand shampoos and hairsprays fo the Home Shopping Network, to explore her passion for artificial sweetener by becoming the Equal spokeslady, and to sing “I Got You Babe” with Beavis and Butthead….which, for the record, single handedly took 1994 as a year, from the bee’s knees level to the cats pyjamas level (completely subjective, I just much prefer cat’s PJs to bee's knee's). Its easy to forget about yourself when the thing that makes you feel best is caring for other people, but “life without SELF love” is exhausting. Retirement didn’t suit Cher, but the break was necessary, when she got back in the game victory was immediate. she must have gotten bored brushing her wigs and shopping for noses, because when she returned to the stage she jumped straight past the awkward, aspartame hawking phase and straight to the homosexual icon phase. She also found a veritable comeback anthem in “Believe” the massively huge dancey song where she sounds like Darth Vader’s robot mistress . Everybody loves that song.... at least sometimes. In 2002-2005, bitch quit again, but not without three years of “retirement” touring. In case you’re curious that’s motherfucking 1095 “So Long” parties!!! Can you imagine how many paper hats and “We’ll Miss You” emblazoned Dairy Queen Treatza Pizzas that tour must have required? Billions, I bet. I don’t even know if Dairy Queen has Treatza Pizza anymore, and I think I know who to blame for the decimating Treatza population….we all have a crutch, Cher, we all have a crutch. After her retirement tour and small hiatus, she unquit. AGAIN. Enter Comeback #2-Now, Cher has one of the most lucrative Las Vegas contracts in the history of ever after. They gave her so much cool shit, she has her own team of acrobats, works at a giant Roman palace of gambling, complete with shirtless Greek gods….they probably give her an all access casino buffet pass too…not that I’m bitter, AND she gets to where as many rhinestones as she likes every single night. Every time Cher retires, she comes out better than ever, making more money, acquiring gymnasts, dating younger men, and eating at buffets grand enough to make Shoney herself shit a brick. So, I have decided to embrace the magic of “Chering”. This next year will be spent studying for the year that follows it, MY comeback year. I will practice my Cher face in the mirror, which actually isn’t very hard since her skin doesn’t exactly move, I’ll experiment with new outfits, and most importantly, I’ll be grooming the shit out of all my groomables. Cher is so good looking that in some countries, “Mermaids” is banned because it lowers national self esteem. She’s the kind of person you assume to be a scientologist even though she isn’t. She has that trademark religious zealot “creepy hot” allure that belongs to Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Kelly Preston-Travolta. If Cher ever got a job on the View, they would have to fire everybody else simply because of their comparative ugliness. Sorry Barbara Walters, but Cher eats pieces of shit like you for breakfast between her bikram yoga lesson and her hot stone massage. I will transform into a finely tuned prettifying machine and the next time I watch “the Notebook” my mascara will run properly in beautiful rivers of black gunkiness down my face. I am gonna come out of this like a fucking champion, like an anatomically perfect, thoroughbred pop star of unknown age. Obviously, I will primp my way to Cher country without the restylene and traveling contortionist, but I'll get it there and will fully indulge any in frozen dessert and renewed zest that comes my way, There IS "Life After Love/Like/Heartbrokeness/complicated stomach flip flopping", after all.

My friends have achieved, even surpassed, modern Cher hotness. They should be invited to all those weird Playboy Mansion PJ and grotto parties with the great catering and nipple tassels. I’m actually certain that their invitations were compromised by the Hef’s three granddaughters…er wives. The Gold Spice Banglettes as I referred to them in a previous post, are more than smoking hot, they are liquid magma from one of those lakes o' fire on the sun hot. Not only are they naturally equipped with the kind of body and face parts that Cher shops for, but they know how to gloss, pluck, bronze, and blend each pretty part to perfection. Its fascinating, the beauty knowledge that seeps out of their invisible pores. Lately, I’ve been trying to carefully apply some of the sophisticated lessons of sexy I’ve learned from the fiiine pieces of grade A ass I call my friends. Generally,it takes them about twenty minutes to get ready, a respectable time to clock in at as an experienced groomer, however it takes them an additional three hours to adjust and blot MY frumpy ass. Its not that I enjoy looking like a soiled eightteen year old backpacker who just crawled out of the bowels of a Transylvanian hostel, I try my very best to look like the kind of person who smells nice, but I still end up looking like a perfect mix between Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain,, Flannel included. They actually made a baby, now aged fifteen years, I have not seen her but I expect she looks exactly like me or will when she gets out of her awkward phase and into her really awkward phase where your body starts to look like its made of spare adult parts picked up at a yard sale. My fashion skills are lacking as well, it has been suggested that I could be trendier and I wouldn't dispute that claim. I regularly wear children’s baseball shirts that say things like “Adams Construction” and “Rite Aid Blue Bears” and jeans that are a little bit too tired to hang onto my hips and cover my bum crack. The Northern tip of the Not So Grand Canyon is always exposed to world…and sadly, its not a geo/biological "wonder" to everyone. I have also been known over compensate for my flaws through the excessive use of black eyeliner. High school taught me that if you wear the required amount of black eyeliner you CAN make friends. Now, be aware, the friends you make will be misfit friends who make you read their poetry, listen to Alice Chains, and never give hugs…but still, they are people to eat macaroni and cheese with and in high school, eating macaroni and cheese alone at lunch will pariah-fy you before third period gym class (an unfortunate post lunch class indeed). Before turning to eyeliner and riff raff, I tried to eat my macaroni and cheese in the library but was eventually kicked out for getting ketchup in Gulliver’s Travels, so assimilation of some form was the only means of survival. The black eye liner thing must still be working a bit because I do have friends, and friends who give great hugs at that, but the looking a Slipknot roadie thing, is no longer for me. This week, I figured I’d start slow by addressing some basic fashion and skincare needs.

This might seem a bit masochistic but I have not only given up sex, flirtation, and letting boys by me club sandwiches and crinkle fries but I have also given up pants. There exists no denim force field to protect my business from the aggressive Johnsons of the world and from the temptation of the men attached to those Johnsons. Its like trying one of those crazy raw food diets that Demi Moore does (Also, someone who might have a secret L Ron Hubbard poster above her bed) and being Siamese twins with a deep fryer filled with crinkle fries, attached at the bottom lip. For fashion purposes though, this caliber of Super Dave Osborne risk is essential. I have said goodbye to the Levi family and moved out of the 501 area code. I’m pretty sure Cher never wears jeans, and if she does, I guarantee they are covered with 30lbs of Bedazzler bullets. My hotter than suicide wings girlfriends do at times, slip into a pair of ol’ blues…BUT it is the kind of denim you see in magazines and if Cosmopolitan deems your pants printworthy they no longer count as pants, they are “pieces”. All of my pants are still considered pants by most nationally distributed publications☹ The adjustment to dress wearing has been remarkably easy, it turns out I didn’t like pants that much at all! Pants are like sending your legs to their room and grounding them for a whole week with no TV. My legs are like Peter Pan’s lost boys right now or those unruly kids from the “Sandlot” and they love it. They are frolicking and up to no good. I have discovered there are few things more beautiful than having to go to the bathroom urgently and NOT having to deal with all the traditional trouser hardware. Furthermore, never having to worry about that hardware being lazy, falling down, and showing off your days of the week Snow White and the Seven Drawers underpants is a huge burden removed. I feel like I did when I discovered that Coca Cola out of the can tastes even better than Coca Cola in the glass. I got rid of the third party and business has never been better. Plus, not that I have any interest whatsoever because I am officially more retired than Michael Jordan and all the world Grandpas put together, but the gentlemen appear to really enjoy the fact that they no longer have to stare at the top part of my ass and can instead stare at my ankles, which for some strange reason seem to be the eye candy equivalent of ten breasts and a lower back. Though I haven’t taken a close peek, I think my ankles are well constructed and appealing to the opposite sex. The incredibly pro-ankle response is fantastic news.

The wonderful smart as a whip, red wine and rock and roll loving friend of “The Guy Who likes Manatees”, you remember, she works at the chocolate torte place, is full of scholarly wisdom in the field of attractiveness technology. If she were a beautifulness tarot card she’d be the High Priestess, and if looks could kill in Dungeons and Dragons she’d be a Ninth Level Wizard. She’s born with that shit, its not Maybelline (point to her, foul to Cher) Naomi Campbell would throw a cell phone at this woman to punish her for her infuriating gorgeousness but even disfigured, she’d still be way cuter than Naomi. Anyways, she said that if I rubbed cocoa butter all over myself twice a day for a whole month, then my skin would be like the skin of a small, small baby who has not yet been out even once, in the sun. That’s really soft. I went to the CVS today on a hunt for this mysterious cocoa butter she spoke of. As a first time user, I was shocked by the sheer variety of cocoa butters available. The cocoa butters almost deserved their very own aisle, or at least to have their name on one of those hangy down aisle signs that commemorate popular product types like “Family Planning” and “First Aid”. After purchasing a nine dollar mid range tub of butter, probably of a Country Crock-ish quality, I drove home and went a’ slatherin’. Cocoa butter smells like it should be spread on toast and ingested. Whilst slathering, I felt like I was having a pudding fight with myself and I’m certain that in some urban, avant -garde circles, this display would be considered poignant performance art. I could be famous in the confines of three Brooklyn blocks one day, so if they ever make a biopic about a compulsive moisturizer on A&E, know that I am that expressionist troubadour. (Note- they will probably cast Lonnie Anderson as future me….double note-I predicted this ) The result of this process, was shiny. Very shiny. I am in fact still shiny and at twice daily slatherings, I expect to remain shiny or even grow shinier as the month progresses. If the thought of reverting to a small, small indoor baby wasn’t so appealing, I may not continue on this greasy adventure, but I must persevere. This return to my youth might be the closest thing to time travel I’ll ever experience, and as a die hard Christopher Lloyd/ Michael J Fox tag team fan, I owe myself the journey. I’m pretty sure that if anybody saw my ass, which again, is not likely unless they take up residence in the hedges outside my house, they would see their very own reflection on my left cheek, perhaps with glare to spare. If “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” could see me now, he’d be pissed off that he gave up a girl who was not only charming but could also function as a mirror. Shagging someone equipped with that combination of convenience and personality would be like shagging the car from Nightrider but without the stress of rising gas prices. I trust in the “The Ninth Level Wizard of Beautifulness”, she’s rather nice, and I am confident that somebody like Cher would trust in her as well. The popularity of Cocoa Butter seems to be on the climb and the billion brains behind the billion Cocoa Butter products can’t be wrong. I already have to show my ID to bartenders on a regular basis, but I look forward to the egotistical thrill of having them examine it more closely and ask me my astrological sign and street address.

I’m not sure who the she-sadist is to blame for that “Pain is Beauty” phrase, but I’d like to hit her in the mouth for ever saying it. That phrase is directly responsible for bikini waxes, hair weaves, and partly responsible for anorexia. When I think of the amount of money that one axiom created, it makes me wants to barf in the backseat of a trophy wife’s Lexus. Sadly, I must admit however, that there is some truth to it. My friends are avid exfoliators, all of their skin is alive, well and glowing, not a dead cell in sight, they’ve all been long scrubbed off. For my birthday, the girls purchased me some exfoliating products so our glows would be all matchy matchy in public and also, to help me repair my previous attempt at personal aesthetics, self tanning (disastrous). That experiment left me looking like a feral tabby cat. Cher probably never self-tans and she probably has a special team of people around just to scrub her. I on the other hand, have to do all the hard work by myself. Though it had nothing to do with all that symbolic, post break up, rebirth baptismal garbage, I decided that today’s shower would be THE SHOWER to give sloughing a chance. First, I replaced the Irish Spring in my shower with a chunk of fancy soap with oatmeal it because Irish Spring is apparently for Dads and gym locker rooms only. As someone who has never wanted anything from oatmeal but to make cookies with it, I was wary about inviting it to my shower. Rubbing food products all over yourself while trying to get clean seems a bit counter productive to me but I figured the worst thing that could happen was that I would smell like gluey breakfast food for the rest of eternity and really, that’s not so terrible. From what I understand, the Quakers weren’t such bad people. Then, I put on my special, slightly Mickey Mouse-ish exfoliating gloves, which also made me feel a little bit stupid as people in showers are supposed to nude. Wearing mandatory gloves makes being naked quite impossible and looking a bit stupid inevitable, but I did it anyways. I scrubbed myself like a middle aged man scrubs his hot rot car, even though, for the next year, much of me will remain underneath one of those car storage sleeping bags desperate for a some dude in coveralls to poke around under the hood and maybe check the headlights. Exfoliating is not an entirely comfortable activity, its actually more abrasive than washing yourself with a rough patch of the I65N, but my girlfriends and Cher (presumably) are flippin’ adamant about physically assaulting themselves in the shower everyday so I’ll have to tough it out and get used to the sight of those little mitts dip drip dripping beside the strange block of Oatmeal Spring.

“If I could Turn Back Time”, I probably would have been more skeptical of “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” and perhaps not let him buy me tamales, kiss me on the forehead or give me awesome birthday globes (just kidding, the globe and I are deeply in love, if anyone feels like getting me more globes, that would be okay) unfortunately, that kind of time reversal is hopeless. Thankfully, being a pantless, shiny mess who showers in oatmeal makes me feel a bit younger and strangely wiser, I no longer feel like I’m letting my skin down. In fact, I think my skin is rather proud of me at the moment and it might send me a card and congratulatory bunch of flowers to honor my exciting new life choices (its very thoughtful skin, some would even say sensitive). This lady world, where toenail polish is to be maintained like a well fertilized front lawn, has been a daunting world so far and without the girls’ guidance, I’d be a tiger striped self tanning disaster again with no asphalt exfoliating gloves to save me. They’ve never complained about grabbing the stray piece of spinach from the top of my incisor tooth, or telling me when the Not So Grand Ass Canyon is showing, but I don’t think they’ll miss trying to dodge my untied converse laces everyday. If you think I’m going to stop dressing like I play little league ball, and start giving myself facials, you’re fucking crazy, but I might sometimes give my pants the night off, or buy more tropical smelling body butter to buff with because it feels rather nice to take care of yourself. “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” said I was pretty with my bum peeking out from my jeans and I frankly, think he was impressed with the sheer amount of American children’s baseball swag in my closet and I loved that, but I think he’d have been blown away by mere sight of my glorious, glorious bare, fashion forward ankles too….not that I even care what he would have thought;)

Somebody told me I looked like Robin Wright Penn today when I was buying those tasty Ritz cracker and cheese sandwiches at the gas station. It was awesome, I’ve always wanted a doppleganger. Plus, she looks even more like a scientologist than Cher does. Point to me.

xoxoxo

Manners, Manners!

2008-04-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

After a full half hour of concentrated deliberation, I have decided to retract the exclamation points from “Manipulation!!!!!”…or maybe just downsize from five to three. I don’t wish to erase the entire record of yesterday's living, but I do wish to change the sentiment from harsh to less harsh. It reads like a bit of a reprimand and it shouldn’t because I literally wrote that with steam coming out of my nostrils, whilst being prodded by Spanish matador harpoons on my haunches, and staring down a red bed sheet with “Toro, Jack Ass!” written on it. Now that my haunches aren’t being poked (believe me, these haunches will receive no poking at all in the near future) I’m feeling like less of a shit head. The full screen projections of the fella I had tried so hard make happy smiling adoringly at this ooooohing and ahhhhing Price is Right microwave displayist of a woman were playing all afternoon in my head. They were merrily skipping down the same path stopping only for lovemaking and water and the cinema reel in my brain was impossible to dispose of, so, I perhaps, went a little overboard on the hate mongering as a result. It was emotionally convenient at the time. I do however think there are a few men and women made of stagnant science project water out there who could benefit from knowing what their toxic behavior does to the tadpoles like me in their ecosystem. So, “The Douche Who Likes Manatees” gets to be “The Guy Who Likes Manatees again” and for the rest of this renunciation, I will refer to myself as the “The Douche with Five Pants, One Blog, and Zero Manners” as punishment (note: it is pleasing that I rarely refer to myself by name in these daily accounts...it makes my new tag more tolerable). So, friends, treat that last one as a cautionary nursery rhyme like Hansel and Gretel or a Harry Potter Movie, because when truth doesn’t reveal itself in front of your own peeping eyes, you can’t really tell whether its truth at all, it could just be a lie with a wig on and its man bits taped to its leg.

This is why I, “The Douche with Five Pants, One Blog, and Zero Manners” (repenting), withdraw two of these -!! -and any unwarranted meanness towards “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” -
1) While I trust “The Guy Who Stole Kwanzaa”, deliverer of shitty news, I don’t even know “The Girl With the Grommety Trousers”. She might be into untruth the way she’s into grommety things with fringe, knowing her feelings are wrong but acting on them anyways.
2) I refuse to believe that “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” has that kind of bad in him. People who order birthday globes with treasure mappy finishes simply do not want to bone people with grommety vinyl clothing (or wish to act as bonee for that matter)
3) I spoke to a close friend of “the Guy Who Likes Manatees” (who FACT- fooled around with him on a couple of occasions before becoming his pal….post coital friendship IS possible) and she assured me that he would never, ever, ever do that and I do believe her because she’s a classy babe world renowned for her potent awesomeness and dance moves.
4) The thought of him NOT making pretty eyes at “The Girl With The Grommety Trousers” is a much nicer thought to have Ponging around my skull than the one where he does make pretty eyes. I know that’s kind of lame for a number four reason, but its my list, go compile your own informationif you don't like it …make a chart, a Venn Diagram, even a small table, but don’t fuck with my list.
5) Maybe, just one child size slice of maybe, “The Guy Who Stole Kwanzaa” thought that somehow delivering some horrendous news in the form of a little defamation might bring me some closure and help me move on…even if the details were a bit ambiguous. I can understand why a person would do this and it doesn’t come from a bad place.

I was hasty, but when you write about what’s going on in your life and how those goings on feel in your gut, there’s margin for error and humanness in its very construction. Half of you are thinking, “You dumb slut, he totally shagged the grommets right off her stupid pants!”, and the other half are all “You need a firm slap on the bottom for the vile, vile things you said about a fella you clearly still have a few warm and fuzzies for”. I’m sorry either way, I’m Little Rascals stub your toe in the dirt, wobble back and forth, stare at the ground Alfalfa style sorry. I don’t just make itemized apology lists for the sheer thrill of it, its not like its bumper cars, or Speed Scrabble, in fact, itemized apology lists always make their architects look like flaming imbeciles. If “The Guy who Likes Manatees” ever reads this and is sharp enough to discover he is, in fact, THE “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” (Hey—a lot of people like Manatees!) I hope he knows that I never wanted to make him feel like contaminated pond scum on the inside. Even if he is making a small grommety lovechild in a back seat right now, I’m still sorry because its not my job to be his conscience and I’m too heavy to sit on his shoulder like a small, pirate mouthed angel and tell him the difference between right and wrong. I’m sorry to him, but not really to you and me (←I almost called you and me “us” but I didn’t want the commitment to scare you), because yesterday, I REALLY felt like Wil E. Coyote when the big ACME Anvil lands on his head and I had some honest to god anger skulking around me. I think that “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” DID make some careless decisions during our fleeting split second “thing” and I think he made them knowing I’d get hurt, so many of the feelings I had yesterday are still right here in my tummy. I still have to teach myself to learn and forget at the same time and regardless of any squeaky PVC back seat sex that may, may not, or may ever happen, I do have some forgiving to do and perhaps I should even spend some time asking for my own forgiveness as well.

Oh, and also if he’s reading this and is in the stage of mourning where he ‘s realizing he threw away a nice girl like she was left over Hamburger Helper Nacho Beef Casserole, there’s no chance in hell, Captain…..I’d sooner wear grommtey PVC pants with fringe to the Kentucky Derby;)

xoxox

Manipulation!!!!!

2008-04-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

Do you remember that lumpy brown couch I spoke so fondly of in my first entry? Well that couch and I got back together last night. We became one in the most splendid pairing of drunken incompetence in the history of living room furniture-human being hook ups. It was the most fucked up shit that poor, easily influenced sofa has ever been subject to, I tossed, I turned, I savagely fluffed the pillows, and I eventually wore out my rambling brain enough to become a drooling, sedated mess. If it was actual, proper, person to person intercourse, that couch would have been wearing a spiky collar, nine inch stilettos, and a Richard Nixon mask. I woke up, on this occasion stinking of high end Zinfandel and rock bottom Coors Light, with a gift from the mysterious Taco Bell fairy on the coffee table (Te Amo, generous sprite of nachos supreme), and curled into the breached position with my toes on the pillow. That wonderfully pale and awkward friendship I was ready to construct with videogaming and uncomfortable laughing has already been condemned. It turns out “the Guy Who Likes Manatees” didn’t treat me nearly as well I’d thought and wasn’t at all the endangered species of man I thought he was. Those striking features he had were just horrendous mutations, he was just a common termite with an extra big set of teeth to inflict damage with. Still, he was 20 000 leagues deep, but it was 20 000 leagues of the murky standing water with the really high pH levels that seventh graders study in environmental science class, the kind of water that kills tadpoles and smells like the asshole of an active volcano. Last night was supposed to be like fucking Mardi Gras minus the breasts and beads, it was supposed to be a Kid N’ Play movie, but instead it was like Pearl Harbor, or a cool holiday that i’d really like to celebrate but can’t, it was Kwanzaa. A friend, whose name I can’t tell you because then you’d think he was a tattletale, pulled me aside yesterday night and told me that “the Guy Who Likes Manatees” had asked out a local girl when he and I were dating exclusively, we’ll call this secret spilling chap “The Guy Who Stole Kwanzaa”. The girl, obviously, was classy enough to decline because she knew me, and also perhaps because she already had a little boy to raise, two of them would have been quite the handful for a single mom. However, it would have been nice for her six year old son to have a younger brother to eat dirt and suck thumbs with, “the Guy who Likes Manatees” belongs in a sandbox with a shovel and cool place to bury his head. It was bad news, my character judgement was disappointed in itself. I felt I had been turned inside out, the things that are meant to be covered by rib cages and belly buttons were hanging on the outside of me like ham hocks at a Polish Deli, I was hurt, frustrated by the fact that there was now something that had to be forgiven, and shocked that a person who seemed to want so badly, to see this world learn justice, could disregard it in his own domain. What a cunt. When my lips hit the first post-horrible news Coors Light, I felt like the deconstructed sweater in the Weezer tune, I was unmendable, unable to forget, and unwilling to gain anything from the situation.

That’s it, I’m even changing his handle. “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” for the remainder of this news item, will be referred to as “The Douche Who Likes Manatees”. If he was an ice cream flavour he would be Crème de la Douche, if he was a large scale agricultural conglomerate he would be Douchington Acres and be renowed for his free range, grain fed Douches, if he was a short lived sitcom about a trials and tribulations of a female mid thirties judge, he would be “Douching Amy”. The worst thing, is that during our time together my favorite nights involved sitting down a double scoop of Douchington Acres Crème de la Douche in a waffle cone and watching Douching Amy on Blu-Ray on DVD…including the special features disc. How could I not know?! I’m no Columbo, but shit, I’m not THAT daft. Laying on ol’ brownie, I wondered if there exists some sort of special police crisis unit whose job it is to swoop in from the ceiling, rescue the good gals and take the assholes away in a cruiser. Surely they’ve got previous offenders like him on file. Well, they certainly do now, his face is all over “America’s Most Selfish” beside the people who kick puppies and rob soup kitchens of their soup. I think I might even wish him ill, not horribly so, I don’t wish for him to be burgled or bitten by a fire breathing saber tooth tiger, but maybe some low to mid-range misfortune I could laugh pompously over would be nice, “haw haw ahaw”. I would like “ The Douche who Likes Manatees” to chip his left front tooth and I would like his dentist to be on an Alaskan Cruise for three weeks so he’d have to walk around looking like a gargoyle until he got the crown, which even then, would be a slightly different white than the rest of his teeth. That would be spectacular, but that’s asking a bit much, that’s the kind of thing people have to pawn their souls for. Even if he could fill up his truck with gas and realize he’d forgotten his credit card at home, yes , I would feel mildly vindicated. If Robin Williams was an actual genie and didn’t just voice them in ethnically offensive Disney Movies, I’d say, “Robin Williams, one dune buggy, one enchanted, never ending breakfast sandwich, and one heaping spoonful of karma to “the Douche who likes Manatees”. I would also tell him I was sorry about his divorce and alcoholism. I’m beginning to think it might be okay to have slightly diabolical thoughts like this when somebody does a very diabolical thing to you but I really don’t relish those moments, they make me feel like cackling and cackling is not attractive

As the day progressed into lunchtime, I had the depressed chocolate-milk-and -black-olives-third-trimester cravings so I wandered to an all you can eat sushi buffet that plays trance music in the middle of the afternoon. The Japanese are a wise people, so wise in fact, that I can’t even understand the exceedingly violent superhero cartoons they make for children, or how it is that my ancient Honda, “The Green Hornet”, has not yet exploded, they even invented wrestling for the morbidly obese so they could work out too. I needed some good knowledge and hoped to find a way to unJudo chop my dismantled heart. Surely somewhere between my miso soup course and my mung bean curd cake, there was an answer. Ru Sans is a favorite among people who wear button down/chino combinations and still believe that the “wet look” makes their hair look all ESPN post game. This is surprising, given the fact that the restaurant is anything but button down...it is but three Oompa Loompas away from actually being Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. I’m not sure I understand the magic that is Ru Sans, but I’d like to crack the code to that kind of crazy. It could be the fact that the bass in there is so loud that it not only shakes, but the vibration is so strong that it makes a honking sound, or it might be the absurdly friendly staff who are so smiley that I’m convinced they’re being pumped full of ecstasy (if there was a Crunchy E Roll on the menu, I totally would have been down), but I am 99.36% sure that they have a chocolate river in the back somewhere and I will find it….one day. I know it seems like an odd place destination for the sorrowful to land, but its perfectly overstimulating and entirely distracting and all I wanted was to forget that there was yet another man out there who gets off on tainting pure(ish) hearts. I wanted to be a part of this strange Tempura pep rally that was happening, I wanted to be right on the bottom level of the Ru Sans acrobatic wasabi pyramid, having fun but without the obvious participation. I was trying to forget about and learn from this disaster at the same time, which is nearly impossible.

The forgetting is easy when you feel like an extra in somebody’s bizarre sushi filled hallucination. A spell has been cast on the people who work at Ru Sans, and its perfect place to not think. Its as though they all went to a Las Vegas hypnotist’s dinner show, were invited on stage, put to sleep, and told to act like they were in a dance party, so they did…..he just forgot to snap his fingers afterwards, and dancing they stayed. I will with complete confidence, say that there is comfort to found in watching a sushi chef slice the tentacles off an octopus while doing a strange variation of the “Thriller” routine. I could have watched him tango with the frowning tuna heads for hours, I might as well have been in the audience one of those wacky foreign game shows where people do ridiculous things for Toyota Sedans BUT nobody was losing (The tunas were already dead…so even they weren’t complaining about the festive decapitation;) The ESPN khaki crew provided some low key amusement as well. A businessman handling chopsticks is like a gorilla doing ballet. They tried stabbing things, scooping things, and a few even did it primate style and used their grubby hands. Inevitably, the good ol' boys ended up with soy sauce blots on their sand colored pants....sad for them, awesome for me. It was sublime to forget, even though my mind often asked if any of these men, who were more visibly douchebagish than MY douchebag, had ever done anything so mean to the women who ironed their Dockers. I even wondered, a rather pathetic thought if you ask me, if these chumps would ever do something awful and shitty to a girl like me. See, it’s the learning part that’s fucking painful, and difficult, and balls, particularly the part where I ask myself hypothetical questions about strangers and expect real answers. FACT- “The Douche who Likes Manatees” had tried to get it on with a woman who was my polar opposite, she was sweet but entirely different. If you called and asked to asked to borrow her PVC pants with the fringe and metal grommets would reply “Sure, which pair of PVC pants with the fringe and metal grommets, I have about 70”, I on the other hand, own exactly five pairs of unexciting pants and they are identical enough to be fraternal denim quintuplets. The fact that she was so different hurt the most, it made me feel like he wanted to get on the city bus and ride as away from Meville as he could, but I forced myself to eat and people watch through the pain.... preferably without sobbing. The California Roll Dancers thankfully brought me a lesson between slices, dices, and high kicks, I realized that if they could boogie through the unpleasant task dissecting the entire ocean, maybe I could find a way of enjoying life while rebuilding the fallen Jenga block tower that was my bleak, bleak, mother fucking sordid love life. Hopefully, this process will not require me to do the Macarena whilst burning photographs and birthday globes (overreacting…I fucking adore that globe, it is not to be soaked in butane) but if it does, I’ll put on my best sneakers and get down. Perhaps, a few dance steps down the road, I could even forgive “the Douche who likes Manatees….or perhaps not, we’ll see.

Sushi for breakfast is pretty much a hangover’s worst nightmare, but I must say, it was both tasty and enlightening. I somehow traveled from couch, taco bell, and dejected to Willy Wonka’s sushi dojo, mung bean, and contented…and that’s a long fucking trip to make in one meal. Most of the time when I’m sad, I tell life lessons to “Fuck Off and Die”, but when they come in the form of a sushi preparing dancing queen from Osaka, they’re almost soothing. Its not all so terrible, I have a friend in “the Guy Who Stole Kwanzaa” that cared enough to tell me something I needed to know, I’m no longer burdened with feelings of sympathy for “The Guy Who Likes Manatees”, and I can learn things (and find a damn good laugh) in “The Guys Who Salsa with Salmon”. Rolling up something thats raw in sticky rice doesn’t change the fact that its raw, but it makes it easier to swallow and I’m not less of a person for still sometimes making a bit of a yuck face when think I think about the taste.

Maniac

2008-04-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

“Hi, my name is Bambi! My hobbies include laser hair removal, ponies, not wearing a bra on a winter’s day (“On a winters daaaaay…sorry…love that song), and making the worst of all meaningful social situations.”

Today, I slipped a pencil behind my ear, slapped on my proverbial suspenders, and spent some time trading possessions at the Relationship Stuff Exchange. One must be ruthless, quick on the feet, and calculating at the RSE to make it out alive. A devastating crash is harder to navigate than the fucking Pinta in an ice storm, the pressure would send any Wallstreet hedge fund hog off the top of a 500 story building. For a socially catastrophic force of nerdiness like myself ( I have a blog, I am a registered member of the nerd union) situations like these are not just awkward, they are the 2008 Humiliation Games. “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” and I had previously formed an exciting new syndicate and were fooling around on the Bodily Fluid Exchange. We were just rolling in the accumulated bed sheets, our value was skyrocketing, and clothes were all over damn trading floor, they were genuine good ol’ days. Then, abruptly, he bought me out. Now, I shuffle in circles outside 11 Wall Street holding a cardboard sign that says “The World Is Over” and spitting into a tin can. Participating in the Relationship Stuff Exchange stinks worse than a hobo’s unwashed beard. The most tragic thing, is that I totally thought I could salvage my dignity, driving over to his place, I was prepared for victory. Its not that I wanted to resurrect the joint venture, just let him know that MY enterprise was still in business. I might have even wanted to fib a little bit and tell him it was prospering. Instead of marching in there with my Rolex shining, my shirt starched, and my briefcase fully briefed.....I trotted in as Bambi, graduate of the Ron Jeremy Academy of Tittywild Goodtimes, and consequently, my stock plummeted. It was the least smooth thirty minutes of my life, I felt like a Psychic Friend or a Junior Varsity cheerleader or anybody else you just assume to have the intellectual prowess of a doily.

The night before, I had received a number of very telling, good natured text messages from “The Guy Who Likes Manatees”. Before YOU sell your stock in me, I am fully aware that the fact that I was getting excited about text messages was a little bit crazy. Let me indulge you with some factoids: there were not only colon parentheses smiley faces but semi-colon parentheses smiley faces.
When I see this
:)
It translates as- “I’m secretly in love with you”

When I see this
;)
It translates as- “I’m secretly in love with you and I would like to have my way with you on P. Diddy’s yacht in a P.Diddy music video at this very instant”

Shit, that is crazy, no wonder the partnership failed.

But….
I’m vulnerable, pumped full of chocolate and my vision is impaired, I can’t be blamed for taking emoticons to heart when I’m forcing them to tell me exactly what I want to hear. Regardless of the fact that I had been possessed by “Bambi, Goddess of Asshole”, I really thought I’d go into the RSE and make him wish he hadn’t sold a damn share. Instead, I stumbled through a mine field of bad jokes, bear traps and trip wires I laid for myself.

These are all the explosive ways it went wrong:

Preparation- Instead of smearing on war paint Shaka Zulu style, shining my musket (which, given the disaster that followed, I probably would have turned on my damn self) and doing some sort of hostile prayer dance around a large bonfire in my front yard, I decided to take the blasé, conservative approach because I thought that’s what a French chick would have done and French chicks always seem so bloody classy. What I didn’t consider, is that les dames Francaises drop the ball in certain areas of elegance….they don’t shave their arm pits, they have a gigantic iron Christmas tree in the middle of their capital city, and they made Gerard Depardieu happen. French people, though better looking than the rest of the world and strong of liver, do some stupid things. I decided not to wear make up, I lingered a bit too long, and I drank four dollar chardonnay out of a thermos before knocking on the door. I wanted to look nonchalant but I think I just looked like I was too sad to shower, too pathetic to let get go, and too drunk to drive. Not ideal. I should’ve channeled Grace Kelly, more America meets Riviera, less sewer meets brothel. Grace Kelly brushed her hair and probably never drank four dollar toilet water from thermoses

Asset Allocation- Was this entire ridiculous display of slapstick tragedy necessary? Was it essential to make “The Next Karate kid”? Hell no, but people are selfish...I am selfish. “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” was leaving for town for awhile and I wanted to see him, slap him on the back, and do the “I told you things wouldn’t be weird, ol’ pal” thing (while secretly dying inside;). I had hoped this would be a partial RSE day, maybe he might like to keep some stuff longer. He might like to watch “Canadian Bacon” again, or maybe listen to my John Fogerty CD backwards a few times to make sure there were no subliminal messages---note: I only say this because I know there is a subliminal message that says “She was the Secretariat of ladies and YOU sent her to the glue factory on Preakness Day, jack ass” but it wasn’t a partial RSE at all, it was the full unrated version of “Return of The Stuff: Reloaded”. He had meticulously scoured his room, probably even crawling halfway under the bed and rooting through dirty underpants to remove EVERY LAST breath of me from his life and pile it by the door. I had really just wanted to pick up the awesome globe he’d got me for my birthday so I could choose which remote location of the world to runaway to and become a reclusive nun….So far. the Sandwich Islands are looking good, only because that’s the geographical equivalent of living in gingerbread house. I didn’t NEED my Tom Petty, my Dylan or my DVD about going to Mars for anything at all, though I suppose, with premature nostalgia, we’ll always have the red planet. I just wanted my birthday globe because it was the only tangible artifact that proved he really cared, and hardcore enough to get the nice treasure mappy finish on it.

In my frantic struggle to unprepare myself into a make up free super babe, I forgot his books at my house. I sprayed on too much ‘Eau de Nonchalance by Bambi ‘ and got downright flaky. I’m not eliminating the possibility that I subconsciously left the books at home on purpose as a feeble means of promoting (ahem.forcing) continued contact, but I choose to ignore it, because my day was complete balls and I’m not prepared to lecture my subconscious desires when they have such terrible listening skills. Maybe my subconscious was right to cloud my judgment, you have to MAKE friends, and the best kind are carefully crafted over time and over borrowed junk

Keeping this in mind,. I carefully planted a Kurt Vonngeut novel in the passenger seat of my car, knowing full well that brooders like him go crazy for that shit. Brooders cannot resist the power of satire, its like kicking a hacky sack over to a group of panting hippies and expecting them not to chase their tails and piss all over hand woven rug. Brooders just like having social critique around, they can compare satires when passing other brooders on the sidewalk, and they can eat late breakfast in public alone without a) feeling friendless/loveless/hopeless b) making obligatory closed mouth “Eat Shit” grins to ward off chatty passers by. Most of the time, brooders don’t even read their novels, they just use them to cover their faces when they brood in public. Staring blankly at page 163 of any dystopian paperback will ferment your sorrows beautifully, like malt vinegar. I brooded with Brave New World once, I carried that thing around for months and never read a bloody word... I loved every second of it. I’m unsorry, Aldous Huxley, un bloody sorry, your book is wonderful company, but brooding is about MY shitty outlook on life, not yours. If it makes you feel better, Hux, it was outstanding company in bed too. Of course, when I insisted “You should really borrow this book”, “The Guy Who likes Manatees obliged. I think he was rather excited to just brood the fuck out of p163 in a mom n' pop diner or independently owned coffee shop. I wish I could say I didn’t mean to plant more of my junk at his house, but I did! I so did! I had to do it, it was for the health and well being of the infant friendship…it was an inoculation. That little shot of me may have prevented our buddydom from getting dysentery or measles.

The sole possession I DID return to him was a small bottle of Maple Syrup, GENUINE Canadian Maple Syrup. It felt like such a parting gift, “ Thanks for sleeping with a Canadian! Here’s your patriotic souvenir, please help us reinforce international stereotypes the best you can.” I felt for that Maple Syrup, we were both ridiculous tokens, junk drawer debris, good only for a laugh or five minute distraction. I had a terrible moment of clarity, the massive amount of carefully selected things I had given him were waiting by the door, no longer welcome, and the very few things he gave me, I didn’t want to give back at all, hell, I wanted to give him more of my stuff! It was apparent that he never wanted me to have much of him at all. That moment sucked. It made Premiere Magazine’s Top 100 Most Heartbreaking Scenes in a Real Life Movie.

Dialogue- This is where Bambi, who you met earlier, really shone. First when I walked in, trying to be Parisian and cool, I tried to sit on the arm of the sofa, a simple, easy breezy task, right? NOT SO. My ass missed all but the very edge and I slipped onto the actual couch, almost on top of ”The Guy Who Like Manatees”, but instead landed on a neat stack of his important looking papers, which he may have been using as a protective buffer. Watch out Hall, Oates and world, with moves like that, I must be a real man eater. Then he asks, “How have you been?” but it wasn;’t quite clear whether he meant “How’ve ya been, buddy?! Sure is great to see ya” or “How have you been since I destroyed your life at a family restaurant?” so I just didn’t how to answer. Bambi took the reins (she does like ponies, remember?) and offered a standard issue “ I’m great, everythings great, everyone’s great. Grea,Great Great!”

Our next topic of conversation was his Nintendo Game Cube baseball game … I don’t think anyone has even had a conversation about Game Cube at all since 1999 but we gave it a miserable attempt, which ended in my congratulating him, almost sincerely, for his back to back baseball victories against the computer in a concerted effort close the dialogue. Why is it that two people who love Nintendo and love baseball can’t have a proper conversation about Nintendo baseball?!?!? I guess it was just the occasion. He walked me to my car, gave me a big hug and kiss, hopefully asked himself if he was making the biggest mistake in romance history, and of course, found Mr. Vonnegut sitting shotgun. He also found my WKRP in Cincinnati DVDs and all of the sudden Bambi possessed him as well;) He confessed that he had a crush on Lonnie Anderson because she mildly resembled his grandmother……weird. Apparently, he spent a lot of time with her growing up. Paging Dr. Freud, we’ve got a Code Red!!!! Is it wrong that I’m glad he said something completely asinine? Probably, but I don’t care, at least he had a Kappa Beta Dumbfuck moment too.---Interesting note, I actually do look a considerable amount like Lonnie Anderson, but with less pointy boobs and smaller hair. In fact, I don’t think anybody in their right mind would say I don’t look like Lonnie Anderson circa WKRP Season One. Buuuuut , I guess I look a little bit like “the Guy Who Likes Manatees’” Grandma too……which is peculiar, very peculiar and er gross

Whether I’ll be “The Girl Who Brought Maple Syrup” or “The Girl Who Looks like a cheap Lonnie Anderson Knock Off” to the “Guy Who Likes Manatees”, one thing is clear I’ll never be “The Girl that he’s crazy about” and that quite frankly blows. When I looked at how much work I was putting into our little moment of partnership, then looked at how much he did, and finally, compared our numbers, it’s a good thing I got out of the business when I did, or else I would have been embroiled in a fraud scandal, shipped off to prison like Martha Stewart, and forced to create a cell block knitting circle with the kind of broads that would steal my gruel at dinner. I’m lucky he didn’t ask me to invest more, because it was fair, and we probably never would have been Blue Chip Relationship material. True, I cracked under the pressure of the Relationship Stuff Exchange and reverted to Bambi the breathing mudflap silhouette, but really, at that point, there was nothing left to fight for. We were no longer negotiating the terms and nature of our relationship, it was complete, resolved, done and on the front page of the Business Section, and that’s ok, because following the market wears me the fuck out. As he walked back onto the edge of his lawn, I shouted “I’m still gonna call you if that wouldn’t be you know, weird, or like, awkward and things” and he says something along the lines of “Ya, I mean, if you want to, you don’t have to, Just whatever you want to do is probably best”. I figure two people with the ability to accidently demolish a perfectly good half hour conversation, probably have a fair chance at building a haphazard friendship in due time…even though as I age I’ll continue to look more and more like Lonnie Anderson and that will totally make him want me back. HA!

UPDATE- Bambi was dead found yesterday of a tragic pilates/ toaster/ shower accident…. She always was a multi tasker.

MANUSCRIPTS

2008-04-14T09:12:00.000-07:00

So, it turns out I am more of a female than I imagined. Perhaps it’s the fact that I have had so many girls nights lately that I’m actually starting to forget what men look like, or maybe its because I’ve consumed so much chocolate, red wine, and hard to swallow pills that I have actually physically started to outgrow my old, childish, tomboy self. (note- I have not consumed actual pills, emotional ones. Real pills scare me… it starts with Tylenol and eventually ends with methamphetamines,) Either way, cue the bugles, there has been a marked progression from rejected girl, to rejected woman. Puberty, your work here is done, take your mood swings, your breakouts and your questionable fashion choices, hit the damn road.

If you knew me, which you might, you’d probably say I was rather old for my age, most people do, but be aware, though my level of preparedness is high for life, my field experience, partially due to my own fears of beefing up the ol’ resume, is unimpressive. I think being a grown up lady is one of the most difficult jobs in the flippin’ market place, its more than working 60 hour weeks to try and make partner in some conglomerate, its investing everything you have to build that shit from the ground up. Its tireless, thankless and sometimes lonelier than any of us would care to admit, but if you stick with it, it’ll make you rich. I’ve been earning minimum wage for so long as a professional kid, and until yesterday I was confident I totally could have passed as an extra in a off Broadway production of “Oliver!”(thank god lower class children in the 19th century drank and smoked or I’d have trouble blending in) so I was shocked to hear I’d been promoted to full on adult status. I think my new theoretical ladypants, with their slightly higher waistband and carefully disguised lycra look good on me, they are tailored to my not so traditional and very rumpled lady style. To my friends, I am the one who shows up with dirt under my fingernails, holes in my jeans, and badly applied make up, which they always have to fix. I’m pretty sure that I’ve done such a horrible job plucking, that my eyebrows are two entirely different sizes, its like wearing mismatched socks on your forehead…very unrefined. I do promise you though, something has changed. I will probably still never show up anywhere properly groomed, but the womaness is there and its roaring like a renegade lady panther, you see, I developed a taste for something more obscenely frilly than ballet, mani-pedis, and those big white Cottonelle kittens put together, and its positively terrifying, I mother fucking LOVE “ the Notebook”

Given my family history, this sort of sissiness is mutant, its s a physiological miracle. I should be wrapped in crinoline, spritzed with Chanel NO.5 and sent to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not for others in my tangled family tree to gawk at. The women in my family are gladiators. Growing up, I don’t remember meeting a pickle jar that could match my mother in an arm wrestle, and I never saw her go through that wretched frosted pink lipstick thing that happened to all women in the late eighties. She was the one who built the Ikea “Malm” side tables when my frustrated Dad tossed down his Allen key at my first apartment, and she was the one that stood on the shaky ladder to chop down the pieces of tree that had been slain by the eight month annual freeze that is Canada. Strong and silent like a mystery flatulent in a movie theatre (obviously, she smells considerably more wonderful than that), little Debbie has more balls than a McDonald’s Playland….Oh, I should also note that she is the local hot mum and has the most perfect pair of dimples on her face that have ever existed. Debbie’s dimples make the ones on southern back/northern bum of Michelangelo’s David look completely unchiseled. Sorry, Michelangelo but I had no way of knowing my mom was going to ruin the entire Renaissance for you posthumously. Its a hard knock after life.

During her own adolescence Little Debbie was the only straight child of four….I know, I know, its completely wild and a bit messed up….but also kind of rad. There’s Chris(tine), who today, lives in one of the fanciest houses I have ever seen and is in better shape than Lance Arnstrong. Seriously, I visited her once and she has a Greek personal trainer called Tina who comes over at 5:30 am in the morning and yells like fucking Patton. Chris is also a corporate pitbull, she didn’t climb the corporate ladder, she invented a Rocketeer-esque jet backpack and flew straight past the summit. Diane, the oldest sister, is a little bit more of an advocate of the gayness. She’s a minister for the Metropolitan church, which, if you’re unfamiliar, is so liberal that the Hamburglar could stroll in with his five life partners, roll a joint and nobody in the congregation would bat an eye. I wikipedia’ed her once and it seems she’s living in Romania lobbying for Civil Rights and leading marches against various oppressors. I bet she makes a mean Molotov cocktail…. so punk rock. These are strong women who take no shit from the universe. They don’t watch “the Notebook”, the watched adapted John Grisham novels and foreign documentaries.-----Oh, In know this is about womaness, but in case you were interested, their brother David, who I think I would have entirely adored, passed away many years ago from AIDS. I do know he did gymnastics, played the clarinet, sang, acted, and had pet Iguanas growing up, which sounds to be pleasing combination of stuff.

Anyways, my genetic construction indicates that my body should reject “the Notebook”, Hell, apparently my body should reject men completely if bloodlines have anything to do with it. Alternatively, as we have recently learned, men reject me….awesome. I should get hives or swollen lymph nodes as soon as any film with heavy petting scenes hits the DVD tray (I did get a little red eyed;) The fact that I became a sodding mess on the couch watching those two Notebook kids get fresh with eachother in a row boat is a medical wonder just like having a weird blood type, being Albino, or the ability to shoot skim milk through your nostril at lunchtime. Note – when I become one of those crazy pigeon covered ladies in Central Park which is a relative certainty, and I see kids making out in boats, I will probably throw soda cans at them for reminding me of this unpleasant period of my life. I may even call them foul names in Schizophrenic.

My future roommate/best pal/sister by another mister/ recipient of all the vintage T shirts in my will, Leisa and I had every intention of going to going to a friend’s BBQ the night of “the Notebook” Effect”. We would have drank beer, ate some dang potato salad, and jumped on the trampoline until the point of motion sickness, but it was cold and less than 24 hours ago we had been fumbling our way through “Decades” trying not to get scurvy from anything, or anyone. So, we decided to have a quiet night. Also a factor in the decision- Leisa’s boyfriend, Tommy, was coming home the next day. It is understood that when you are as madly in love as L&T and one of you has been away, you have hours upon hours of earth shattering, “banned within the Vatican City Limits" type sex upon their return….and you video tape it…kidding. Needless to say, it was best for her to rest;) My new semi (perhaps entirely) permanent single status affords me the right to do couple things sans boyfriend, such as sharing popcorn with myself at an afternoon showing of Annie Hall, gazing adoringly at myself when I do something cute like get incurable hiccups, or go out to restaurants that are painted bedroomy colours specifically to make you want to do it after you eat (though you should wait 45 mins to avoid cramping and acid reflux). The good news is because Tommy was away, I actually had me a date. I took my foxy, southern flower of a friend out for a romantic dinner at the tastiest restaurant in the history of time and space. I would eat the bloody napkins and chairs there its so good. It was the perfect night and the conditions for “the Notebook” were favorable.

I’m not sure whether it was the mood lighting, the Petit Syrah, the selection of hard cheeses, or the fact that one of “The Guy Who Likes Manatees” best friends was working there who by the way, is an incredibly sweet, smart as a whip, red wine and rock music loving gem of a woman that Leisa and I intend on luring to our new deck with cigarettes and Amarone in the near future, but after about an hour, I felt a strange, sentimental lump in my throat. It was like a giant dustbuster (which is actually just a full sized vacuum) had sucked all the y chromosomes out of the room. I lost my ability to sarcastically roll my eyes and I may have gone up an entire cup size from the estrogen of the moment. Perhaps there was a change in the barometric pressure, but I’m pretty sure in hindsight, the trigger was the chocolate torte our mother fucking White Knight of a server BOUGHT us. I know, our hero, he bought us chocolate cake, that’s smoothest Lancelot shit ever! -----Guys, bring it in, I got a good one for you, buy your girlfriends surprise dessert when you’re out to dinner. It says, “See? I told you I didn’t think your ass was getting fat”, “I love you” and “I’m so desperate to have sex that I’m drugging you with over the kitchen counter aphrodisiacs” all at the same time! ---- Where was I? Ah ha! I know I wasn’t the only person who felt it because right then, Leisa, with a very distinct “I want to eat my boyfriends face off but he’s not here” look in her eyes says,” I feel like watching ‘the Notebook’”. With bite after carefully sawed off bite of that incredibly seductive cake, which must have been made entirely from the tears and seed of Kevin Costner, my desire to watch the bloody Notebook grew, and then we went home, and watched that fucking Notebook like its never been watched before.

For all you critics, just tell me what was missing from the film, I triple dog dare your jaded asses:

Drama: Obviously, there’s the cross class romance between Noah, the boy from the lumber yard, and Allie, the Charleston raised debutante. Thankfully, that debutante was a raging Southern whore who after an unexpected separation from her sexy piece o’ white trash, ended up engaged to a cotton tycoon (Fruit of the Loom, that could have been you if you’d played your cards right).

Comedy- Allie’s affluent father has the best moustache I’ve ever seen. It looks like there is a fully matured Persian cat sitting on his upper lip the entire time and its glorious. I wish I could chop his ‘stache off, make two huge paintbrushes with it, and write, “ALLIE’S DAD HAS THE BEST FACIAL HAIR EVER!!!” in huge letters across a blank canvas. That moustache did more for me than the entire past, present, and future cast of SNL ever will. Best Historical Moustache in a motion picture.

Romance- I’m not sure if I can even call this category “Romance”, because those sex scenes were 1978 Pornotastic!!!!! I’m not sure how much of the acting was sexy, but I know that none of that sexy was acting. Those two have the raunchiest onscreen chemistry I have ever seen. Ryan Gosling clearly forgot his flesh colored loincloth that day because I know, and I mean it, I KNOW, that Miss Rachel McAdams was being pleasured. It was no accident that these co-stars started dating afterwards.

Artsy Fucked Upness- M.Night Shamalamadingdong, ghost of Stanley Kubrick, take note: The scene years later in the nursing home, where elderly Allie is being shot up with enough sedatives to kill a stallion after dancing with elderly Noah, who she forgets is Noah after her dementia sets in, is the most messed up shit I’ve ever seen. The sweet old woman thinks she’s being assaulted by a stranger when its actually her husband….brilliant. The sight of that old bird being wrestled by a SWAT team of doctors while “All the Old familiar Places” is playing in the background will be one of the many, many, many things I talk about in therapy one day. Nicholas Sparks’ novels might be on sale at Rite Aid mixed in with the Fabio covers, but I promise you, that man probably has the deepest Emo side parted haircut ever. Dead Serious

Makes you Feel Fulledness- The story teaches you that time doesn’t necessarily heal all wounds, sometimes it’s the opposite. Time gives you perspective, but makes you go back and mend the wounds yourself. Real love doesn’t grow weaker with age, our bodies and minds grow weaker first. You could light a roman candle in the pants of a perfect love and it won’t even move but if you light a roman candle in your own pants, you’ll die…..and you’ll be embarrassed.

Makes you feel Emptiedness- If you’re me, you realize you have no real love, you just have a box of Cheezits, a twin bed, and a fern.

The only, and I mean one and only, solitary, singular sensation of an issue I had with this movie was the use of white ducks. There were an obscene amount of white ducks swimming in the creeks, ponds, and available tributaries in the movie and I have never, in my whole 24 years, seen a wild, white duck with an orange duck beak and orange duck feet. Those ducks are like pond unicorns, I’m convinced they don’t actually exist….and it makes me sick because they are outstanding. Were they doctored mallards? Was it the magic of Pixar ? Who knows?! But it was insensitive because now I am conscious of the lack of cosmetically perfect duck in my life. Yep, this girl hasn’t seen any duck in awhile.

I was bred to hate “the Notebook”, hating things like “the Notebook” might be my calling in life”, but I just don’t. When I’m at the doctors office scanning the fanned out magazines in the waiting room, I choose “Time” over “Marie Claire”. Hell, I don’t even wax my poor car, let alone my legs! Leisa and I sat trading sighs on the sofa for more than two hours wishing we were in rowboats getting fresh with people who loved us, but there was no pond, no men, no rowboats, and no white and orange unicorn-ducks to rescue us. “The Notebook” fills up your emotional gas tank and siphons it at the same time, but it is AMAZING and tragic feeling you’re left with. I bet “the Guy who likes Manatees” has never even seen “the Notebook”. I know he’d like it, but probably not admit it to it, and certainly not recommend it to anyone. Still, I do know he’d like it somewhere in that busy head of his. After the film was over, I missed not what we had, because we didn’t have much at all, but what we could have had if we weren’t both so afraid to ask anything more of life. BUT we’ll never know and Nicholas Sparks will never write a book about it with rivers, and boats, and mindblowing sex, and perfect ducks.

No Man's Land

2008-04-13T10:25:00.000-07:00

Saturday April 12th

If getting over someone was like swimming lessons, yesterday I’d have already shaved my entire body, personalized my Speedo, and been driving to the Junior Olympic Trials in my Mom’s Denali listening to “Chariots of Fire”….with my hand out the window……doing that irritating hand surfing on the air thing. Hold your applause swim fans, those are what we call troubled waters. Not Okay. Feeling like a champion is for Tiger Woodses and Michelle Kwanses only…people who actually experience glory rather than losing and getting shat on by the cosmos. Do you remember those kids in grade school who were freakishly good at things ? The ones that would miss the trip to the pumpkin patch in order the play Beethoven for the Prime Minister in a kindergarten sized tuxedo, or the ones that probably still look like they’re 11 from thrice daily gymnastic practices? You just know those poor children ended up right fucked. Today, Bobby Sonata probably has crippling premature arthritis and Sally UnevenBars is secretly addicted to steroids and hair glitter. They grow through life with the sounds of metronomes and whistles pounding on their temples Tell Tale Heart style, and they always wonder what they would have turned out like had they taken the time to go the pumpkin patch, work part time at Dairy Queen, or go to an awesome make out party where over the shirt boob grazing are welcome. Ambition can drive you to accomplish what you want, or drive you straight into the ground. Though “excel” and “accelerate” are first cousins in the McVerb family, they have less in common than most might think

ac·cel·er·ate vti
1. to move increasingly quickly, or cause something to move faster
2. to happen or develop faster, or cause something to happen or develop faster
3. to cause an increase in the velocity of something, or experience an increase in velocity

ex·cel v
1. vti to do very well, or do better than all others or than a given standard
2. vi to be outstanding or have a particular talent in something

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Its too bad some Latin shithead scholar gave these two words the same root …..nice one, Nostradumbass. There has been fucked up linguistic inbreeding of Chair Throwing Jerry Springerish proportions and it has blurred the definitions. Impatient hearts like mine think they can somehow beat the emotional system with enough determination, strength training, and wise words from Coach Brain. Letting yourself grow up or grow past a heartache too quickly will make you miss the lessons that come with each slap on the wrist and it can lead to disaster…just ask Corey Feldman…..or Corey Haim….or even Corey Hart, whose sunglasses worn at night were perhaps the most devastating casualty of them all

Yesterday evening was a bonafide “Girls Night”. When girls are young, they order pepperoni pizzas, watch “Dirty Dancing”, hit eachother repeatedly in the face with pillows and talk about how much they LOVE love, when girls grow up, they order whiskey, dance dirty, get slapped repeatedly with the harsh realities of life, and talk about how much they HATE love. Due to the age restrictions, our evening was the latter. Once you get slapped in the face by reality enough times, your cheeks become numb, you start to forget what life is so forcibly trying to tell you, and if you’re me, you keep dancing like someone suffering from polio (terrible thing to say, kick me in the shin)….you let yourself forget. Though it hurts less, I’m not sure that we’re supposed to forget our pains so quickly, because one day, that cheek will start to sting. This morning, I woke up and my cheek felt like it had been punched by George Foreman and then burned by a George Foreman Grill. I was in the company of AMAZING women last night…seriously, one part Golden Girls, one part Spice Girls, three parts Bangles, and sprinkled with whole lot of Rockettes. These girls will be swinging around stripper poles one minute, and saying something bloody profound the next, so obviously, its easy to check whatever baggage your lugging when you’re with them. Hell, a fucking bellhop practically steals your stuff from you, neatly packs your things in perfectly symmetrical, easy to shut drawers, and puts in one of those nice smelling lavender satchels that leave your jeans smelling like a meadow. I had checked into the Friendship Hotel and though they always welcome problems, nobody likes to go on a working vacation.

SO, I drank….and drank….and drank…..and when it was finally clear that I had consumed more than enough alcohol, I drank some more. We ended up at a bar called “Decades” that smells as though its been around for centuries. It had a smoke machine, multi coloured lights in only the most offensive shades of neon and a host of characters that would raise the steadiest brow, including one man (possibly a woman-- magenta bulbs and dry ice make everyone look like a Charlie’s Angel) who might have been THE Carrot Top. I went to the Emergency Room one time in the middle of the night with indigestion disguised as cardiac arrest, and I expect that the flock of creepy nightcrawlers that sat there waiting to have their livers cleansed and legs set, were “Decades” regulars. It was amongst the Haims, Feldmans, and Mr. or Mrs. Tops dancing and sloppily French kissing around us at this retro bar, that I saw my terrifying future. If I continued to dance and neglected to deal, I could end up sucking on a wine spritzer, a menthol cigarette, and Mr. or Mrs. Carrot Top before I hit 30….and that is a horrifying thought. So, I grabbed my shit from the Friendship Hotel, carried it myself down twelve flights of stairs and cabbed it to the Friendship Valley Rehabilitation Centre, which is the finest facility in Girlfriendtown (Thank Christ Kirsten Dunst had checked out, or else it would have been a paparazzi nightmare). I finally talked about “the Guy who likes Manatees” and though my words were few, the comfort my phenomenal ladies, the Gold Spice Banglettes, (who by the way, tore it up and were the best thing to happen to “Decades” in the several decades since its conception) offered me was enormous…whether they realized it or not. They’re all familiar with the awesomeness that is “the Guy who likes Manatees” they understood why it was a loss, maybe even a romantic stillbirth. That honest understanding and those honest hugs that are a perfect, warm 85 degrees never feel like full body handshakes and are fucking priceless. I would dip those hugs in bronze and hang them on my wall if I could

After it was apparent that “Decades” was aging, we walked down the road, some of us a la Abbey Road, others au Monty Python, all of us looking utterly ridiculous and loving it. I silently thanked God, Allah, Moses, The Loch Ness Monster, David Hasselhoff, and every other moderately or extraordinarily powerful figure that may or may not exist or have ever existed. I have the kind of friends that aren’t embarrassed to dance with the girl wearing the big, cheesy, NorthFace backpack filled with emotional bullcrap in a room filled with sequined party dresses. They even offered to sling it on their shoulders so I wouldn’t end up with an all too revealing hunchback. I was so desperate to ditch the incredibly potent felling of ass I had, that when I tried to sprint towards the nearest rest stop to put my burden down , I nearly tripped over a rock (note- this rock probably would have had a family of snakes living under it….just because that would add insult and sheer terror to injury) It was best that I slowed my anxious self down, put on some boots, sunscreen, and flannel and prepared for a long, hard expedition with the people I love who were cheering for me and ready splash water on my face like they do on ESPN to the faces of proper athletes. If we take the odd break to dance on our voyage, I expect it will do wonders for my glutes and my soul.

PS= I ended up in an even larger, more ostentatious bed than the previous night's sympathy lodgings and it looked like previously belonged to Marie Antoinette. High class... 13 year old despot style. I consumed neither cocoa nor rabbit products. Point to me.

Maneuvers

2008-04-11T16:59:00.000-07:00

Things are looking up today, I didn’t wake up on a couch stinking of Chianti, I woke up in a bed stinking of chocolate rabbit, which I have reverted to as a coping mechanism. Vast improvement. Nine out of ten physicians agree that turning to belated festive chocolately goodness is a classier buttress than booze that stains your teeth. Within the next few weeks I will have to replace chocolate forest creatures with sit ups or lunges as nobody wants their faithful buttress to develop into a huge butt(ress). You also be pleased to know that the bed I slept in did not belong to “the guy who like Manatees”, nor was it the post coital landing place of a complete stranger, it was an empty bed at my friend Ashley’s house and the lumbar support was phenomenal. I know very little about sleep numbers but I expect this mattress was in the top one percentile of its class. After I opened my eyes, things became less fuzzy, and I began to marvel at my ability to keep a 365 day promise for even 24 hours. I realized that I would have to plot and train carefully in order to socially interact properly throughout the romantic tundra I have migrated to. So I decided today, which is to be sopping wet well into the evening, was the perfect day to practice the “Fuck Off and Die”, an ancient form of sexual samurai deflection….for girls!

The “Fuck off and Die” is venom visible to the naked eye. Its more than a look, it’s a stare and it says “Don’t even bloody think about it, Sport”. The “Fuck off Die” is a available in various strengths and colourful designs to suit your pleasure, all of which are extraordinarily potent. If an apothecary could bottle this shit up, Anthrax would be so out of business. This calculated stare has been around since prehistoric times , when cave ladies would furrow their bushy brows, bear their yellow teeth and throw their cave person clubs down in frustration at the lewd cave dudes with their cave hats flipped backwards who spent all their time grunting obscenities about making “Beds Rock” instead of hunting and gathering.
Cave Douchebag:

Since then, it has been evolving, diversifying, and refining itself to become one of world’s best known knowing glances. Today, its manifestations are plentiful and it thoughout history, it has counted such notable women as the Queen of England

Joan of Arc

And Posh Spice as fans

Ice cold, Becky, Ice Cold……

I have never been especially awesome at the “The Fuck Off and Die”, In fact, I’d venture to say that I am absolutely terrible at it. I prefer that nobody I encountered either fucked off, or died, I don’t even want them to get cavities or have embarrassing falls up the stairs in public, but given the fact that both my “potential girlfriend” and my “lets make a drunken mistake” switches will be off for the next year, I’d rather euthanize the testosterone and boredom fueled fantasies of any and all potential suitors. I don’t want to be spotted pooping out of a birthday cake or wielding a cat o’ nine tails in anybody’s daydream, that’s Carmen Elektra’s job. I ffigure complete elimination is the best policy. When I was a kid, we had a big brown and white rabbit incidently called Tramp, who had a huge inoperable tumor. After much deliberation, We euthanized him to spare him any distress, pain and humiliation, you see, he couldn’t even hop properly anymore and he started to develop bladder control issues. It was unfortunate, but absolutely the right thing to do. I’m sorry draw such morbid connections, but when there’s simply no hope, its best to dress those sexy hopes in a nice wool suit, sing a few hymns, and put them to rest. “The Fuck Off and Die” is the only way to put out those fires without actually saying “Fuck off and Die”

I have never been especially awesome at the “The Fuck Off and Die”, In fact, I’d venture to say that I am absolutely terrible at it. I prefer that nobody I encountered either fucked off, or died, I don’t even want them to get cavities or have embarrassing falls up the stairs in public, but given the fact that both my “potential girlfriend” and my “lets make a drunken mistake” switches will be off for the next year, I’d rather euthanize the testosterone and boredom fueled fantasies of any and all potential suitors. I don’t want to be spotted popping out of a birthday cake or wielding a cat o’ nine tails in anybody’s daydream, that’s Carmen Elektra’s job. I figure complete elimination is the best policy. When I was a kid, we had a big brown and white rabbit called Tramp (eerie), who had a huge inoperable tumor. After much deliberation, We euthanized him to spare him the distress and humiliation, he couldn’t even hop properly anymore and he started to develop bladder control issues. It was unfortunate, but absolutely the right thing to do. I’m sorry draw such morbid connections, but when there’s simply no hope, its best to dress those sexy hopes in a nice wool suit, sing a few hymns, and put them to rest. “The Fuck Off and Die” is the only way to put out those fires without actually saying “Fuck off and Die”

A mid day Target outing seemed like the best place to hone my skills, not because it actually is the best place, but because I needed garbage bags and more of the new yellow and red Tic Tacs (FANTASTIC by the way …..if you have stinky breath…not that I do….not that it really matters if I do now). Conditions seemed optimal as I pulled up, there were three Hummers in the parking, from this, I could deduce there were at least three dudes in there, and relatively obnoxious ones. Guys, I know I gave you Excalibur the tip yesterday, but here’s Mount Everest the tip, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, DRIVE A HUMMER. It says “ Hi, I ‘m at the wheel of a vehicle that shares it name with fellatio. My hobbies include double parking, dangerous lane changes, the military, and destroying the environment. I’d love to take you to an Asian fusion restaurant and then a have mediocre meaningless sex after”. ANYWAYS….Once I got inside,I opted for the basket instead of the cumbersome cart, just in case I scrunched my face the wrong way and needed to make a speedy exit. The line between “Come hither” and “Fuck Off and Die” is a fine one. There are three main types of “Fuck of and Die” and it was important for me to become well versed in all of them-

The Eat Shit Grin
Form- The Eat Shit Grin is the exact opposite of a big, jolly, shit eating grin. It’s the nicest way to say, “The hand lotions in aisle three, have yourself a merry little future”. Interestingly, it is similar in appearance to the face one makes at a fancy dinner party when they have eaten something absolutely, world alteringly shitty. Imagine tomatoes dipped in chocolate, or beef liver covered in onions and butterscotch. You simply squint your eyes into the shape of croissants, push your eyebrows down like your trying to rest them on the apples of your cheeks and make a very stiff closed mouth smile. It is crucial that you don’t show your teeth. Exposed teeth are the bare midriffs of facial expressions, it extends an invitation for awkward small talk and nobody named YOU wants that.

Execution- I tried this one out on the guy that worked in the video department with the crazy eye. He was leering at just about everything over the age of 13 so I knew he was pervy enough to deserve it (unless his corrective lenses just made him look pervy…that would be awful). He looked like the kind of weirdo who watched strange, Lord of the Ringsy porn, knew how to build shoe bombs, and enjoyed the taste of tomatoes dipped in chocolate. “Girl, That T-Shirt is HOT!” he grumbles referring to my Boston “Don’t Look Back” tour shirt which as far as shirts go, is pretty cool. With one ugly smushing of the face, albeit with ninja like accuracy, I replied “Thanks for noticing, please stop noticing ” without saying a word and Crazy Eyes diverted his lopsided gaze to some highschoolers in shorts. Success.

Intensity- 5 Paintballs to the chest + 1 Hepatitis B shot + 5min Indian Sunburn.

“The Fuck Off, You’re Already Dead to Me”

Form- While this variation does not involve any facial acrobatics, it requires the concentration of a neurosurgeon or trapeze artist so it is relatively difficult to hold in the pillar candle and cheeto filled cornucopia that is America’s Target. “The Fuck Off, You’re Already Dead to Me” is complete and total evasion, no eye contact, no scowl, no arrogant smile just vacancy. This is the face of the most noted high fashion houses in Europe, so all you have to do is channel a coked out 14 year old who eats nothing but raisins and exlax and you’ll be looking miserably vogue and unavailable in no time.

Execution- I spotted “Ralph Lauren” in the breakfast condiment aisle (home of Jemima and Butterworth) and I knew right away he was just vile enough to be utterly invisible to me. He was berating one of his “bros” on his earpiece phone about his squash game and trying to decide on the perfect flavor of jelly to accompany his probable afternoon tea. He had very shiny hair, like a white human version of Black Beauty, and looked a bit embarrassed to be in Target at all. I suspect he was responsible for at least one of the Hummers littering the lot outside. I made a special trip down the aisle to buy peanut butter that I didn’t even need, just to give “Ralph Lauren” the stink eye. As soon I sucked in my cheekbones Milan style and shoved my little pelvis out, he turned his whole body at me …that confident bastard. The lack of eye contact was easy with this one because he had zero interest in my eyes, he was nowhere near that dignified. Despite the fact that I was so focused on focusing that I grabbed the wrong peanut butter, I didn’t feel too guilty about giving somebody like him the Antarctic cold shoulder and it probably did his obese ego a favour. If he quits driving the overcompensation-mobile, stops dressing like the First Lady, and has a lobotomy, there may be hope for him yet.

Intensity- 12 Jellyfish stings + 1 broken femur + hemorrhoids + Assault with a deadly nine iron

“The Dude, Where's my Balls?”

Form- Have you ever been attacked by a cobra, a crazed mongoose, and heat seeking missile at the same time? Well, it feels almost as shitty as this most destructive “Fuck of and Die” jewe;. In an ancient out-of -print volume of the Kama Sutra ,the closest thing to a courtship tome the world has ever known, this glare is said to have incited floods, plagues, and the arrival of locusts. This is the look you would give to Hitler or the Unabomber if either tried to pick you up in the grocery store. You must scowl with more indignation than you ever thought possible. Thats it. Its just a grand, disgusted scowl. Let those crows’ feet strut if ya got’em! Feel free to paw your foot on the ground and snort like a raging bull!If you can spin your head 360 degrees and projectile vomit, vomit away! You cannot look down on the subject too far because in order to receive a look so insulting he must have done something bloody terrible.

Execution- I did not expect the opportunity to castrate somebody with my eyes anytime this decade, but somehow it happened. I was leaving the store feeling empowered and wanting to star in an uplifting tampon commercial or Lady Speedstick ad and I noticed a old woman about the size of a 3rd grader slowly shuffling across the pedestrian walk. Then a spiky haired degenerate in Acura barreled around the corner and didn't even slow down. He slammed on his brakes, which skidded, perhaps three feet away from her and leaned on his horn having a little automotive tantrum. I could see his lips making cuss shapes but I couldn’t hear any cuss sounds through the gangster rap that was at arena volume. After the possibly blind, obviously deaf granny passed him, I walked right in front of his car, stared straight past the fuzzy dice, into his eighteen year old eyes and he knew that he was a bad person …..and that his immature testicles would never, ever, drop. I looked like Chuckie, or the Bride of Chuckie, or a Great White Shark and I think Notorious C.U.N.T was terrified. That’s the shit that makes young people guilty enough to do charity work.

Intensity- Castration + Medieval Torture Wheel + Ulcer + Cobra + Mongoose +Fire +Brimstone

Learning the “Fuck Off and Die” for girls is like learning all those crazy sailor knots for boy scouts, you never want to use them, and they make you feel like a complete idiot, but they come in handy at some point when you’re least expecting (well, maybe not all those ridiculous nautical tangles, but some of them). Since I’m going on the sexual equivalent of GIliigan and Skipper’s alleged three hour tour, I better make sure I practice all my survival skills. I felt kind of guilty shooting death stares across the big red store, but I was not ill intentioned and I did learn a lot. The “Fuck off and Die” is a craft that can only be perfected with true desire and a lifetime of shitty man experiences so I don’t wish to become a guru. I’d like a yellow belt in “Fuck Off and Die” and nothing more.... repeatedly smashing “Fuck off and Die” cinder blocks with ones’ skull is not for everybody……

xoxoxoxo