It was the D of the V, y'all

My two favorite holidays are Halloween and Thanksgiving. One holiday that requires costumes and candy and one in which you stuff yourself silly with your nearest and dearest.

My two least favorite holidays are New Years and Valentine's Day.

One year, I bought the man I loved the soundtrack from the movie, "The Piano" and he gave me a speech about how much he hated stupid holidays popularized by Hallmark that suggested that you only express your love on one day rather than all year around. Years later after we broke up, he admitted that this was a really stupid and shitty thing to say to your girlfriend.

The best Valentine's Day of my life was spent with BBFK. We were each dating some lame-o who didn't want to do anything for Valentine's Day so we went out together and saw a college production of "The Vagina Monologues." We did invite our sig o's along but they politely declined.

This evening was a super close second. I woke up sicker than sick. I was coughing up things, strange things, unspeakable things. On the plus, my UPS delivery came *yay!*, on the minus, the light bulb in my bedroom blew out, leaving me sitting in the dark *wah!*

And I thought I would not make it to the VD is Nasty festivities. I went as far to tell everyone this. But upon hearing that AN was also sick but planning to power through the party, I decided to do the same.

The staff had informed the lovely hostesses that they did not have Karoake in English and there was an ensuing panic that we would all be inventing words and melodies to accompany the greatest pop hits of China. CK practiced in the ways of the Jedi dispensed with this problem. The force is strong with that one.

The second point of concern was in that fact that getting a private room for Karaoke and food would require a $500 minimum. Being that the food was plentiful and inexpensive as was the booze, we kept ordering dish after dish,wine and more wine, and beers by the six pack. We each left with a booze party favor tucked in our bags, a bottle of Tsingtao or a bottle of wine. But after a ton of food, much booze, and six hours of Karaoke we all felt that we got our money's worth. The staff was certainly ready to send us on our way...

The rooms was gorgeous and mostly soundproof unless you were in the ladies room where one could hear everything except the karaoke backing tracks. And we almost had our chance to corrupt the youth when a little 7 year old boy pressed his face up to the glass door. A opened it and tried to coax him into our scary den of song, "sin" and sea cucumber but the boy hesitated and eventually ran into the sheltering arms of his concerned father.

Thankfully, they did not have the Depeche Mode song "Somebody" in their Karaoke library. So I was spared laughing while peeing and barfing trifecta. MomVee, we did sing "I can't fight this feeling any more" in your honor. And Radiohead's "Creep" was a surprisingly excellent Karaoke tune appealing to both genders.

I sang myself hoarse which brought back memories of a sweet sweet piece of hell from college we commonly referred to as Call Backs.

At the end of the night I even got a flower passed to me third hand from a cab driver who got it from a cab rider who got it during what must have been a not very good Valentine's date. After all, people on good dates don't give their flowers to cab drivers.

I hope this gift comes around to that person in the form of a best or second best Valentine's next year. C'mon Universe, what do you say?

And if even I can't speak for a month or die tomorrow, I wouldn't trade tonight for anything.

It was a good night. Better than a room full of flowers and chocolate covered candy hearts.

VDay alternatives

If I didn't alreayd have plans for the VDay I might check out this madness:

PUNK ROCK PILLOW FIGHT is a Sixteen Person pillow fighting tournament that truly decides who is the MASTER and THE MISTRESS OF THE MATTRESS. There will be an Open Tournament up to sixteen people separated by gender. Men Vs Men, Women Vs Women. The winner from each gender tournament will receive a custom made CHAMPIONCHIP BELT among another prizes!!

In addition to the tournament there will be THE SWINGERS PARTY! A match that pits up to FOUR INTER-GENDER tag teams against each other until ONE PERSON is left standing. The winner will be declared THE 1 SWINGER.

Here are the Rules:
1. One knee down you're still around, Two knees down you're out.
2. Off the mattress. You're out.
3. If a match goes the time limit, the Ref with help of the audience will decide the winner.
4. No offensive shoving. (Offensive shoving looks like a Sumo Wrestler pushing someone off the mattress, while defensive shoving happens naturally as pillows get tangled and must be separated)
5. You can not "load up" your pillow. (no rocks, no spikes, no salt, etc. in your pillow) Regulation pillows will be provided, but you can bring your own.
6. No punching, kicking, headbutting, etc. (this is a PILLOW FIGHT, not a real fight.)

Violations of 4-6 will get you disqualified.

Teeth guards are suggested.
Costumes are MANDATORY. (If you don't bring your own costume, there will be a costume grab bag to choose your outfit)

Between rounds there will be "face melting bands." And this is all happening at someone's house. I am overcome.

Other Synonyms for Happiness

I guess there are those among us who are looking for a synonym for happiness that is not a Hall and Oates song.

According to Wikipedia, synonyms are words that have an identical or similar meaning. If you are looking a synonym, a blog called "Things to Do" is probably not your best bet.

I don't know that many synonyms for Happiness. In the process of listing them I find that I deviate from the word pretty quickly:

Bliss - Contentment - Joy - Delight - Peace - Laughter - Ecstacy - Full (as in full stomach)- Rest - Quiet - Hugs - Warm - Dance - Bounce - Friendship - Gimlet - Ink - Action - Thought - Learning - Cheese - Love - Discovery - Understanding - Puppies - Kitties - Chocolate - Ice Cream - Longing - Desire - Sunshine - Fresh from the Dryer - fruit flavored - Connection

Right. So I went to thesaurus.com and shook out the following:
Felicity - Glee - Satisfaction - Cheer - Enjoyment - Euphoria - Success - Well-being - Prosperity - Ardor - Rapture - Accomplishment - Serenity - Relief - Gratification - Fullfillment - Cheerfulness - Amusement - Jubliation - Exhilaration - Elation - Buoyancy - Gladness - Gaiety - Diversion - Exuberance - Tranquility - Calmness - Mirth - Hilarity - Joviality -Joyousness - Giddiness - Jubilance - Exultation - Relish - Ebullience - Exuberance - Joyfulness - Peacefulness

I don't include the entire daisy chain of words like Happiness here.

There are a few words I came across that are new to me: beatitude, delectation, ataraxia, gladsomeness.

When trying to list synonyms for happiness it's easy to fall into listing what makes me happy rather than words that represent the state of happiness. It's not just me, the question of whether prosperity, success and accomplishment are actual synonyms for happiness is likely to be one worth some discussion. They certainly can contribute but they cannot be said to be the whole of it.

My father believes that good health is a synonym for happiness. And some would argue that security is another.

In looking at different words for happiness there are differences in quality to consider as well, contentment and jubilation are not mutually exclusive but they are also not identical.

One trick to happy might be understanding that happiness is not necessarily one size fits all in path or destination. And it's okay if your happiness is different from someone else's. That's kind of the whole point.

Today, I am finding it through a bar of dark chocolate and a jar of peanut butter. Tomorrow, I hope to find it through steamed vegetables and brown rice. I am not holding my breath on that one.

button up your overcoat

I am not sure which children's book it was but I think it was "Little Women." There is a passage in which the author describes how the winter is bitterly cold and each of the girls holds a hot baked potato in their mittened hands to keep them warm on their way to school. And then have a baked potato for lunch, I guess.

Today is that kind of cold.

more cheese please

This weekend TBW turned 30. In honor of this he invited some of his nearest and dearest out for some dinner and dancing. Dinner was at a Swiss restaurant. The whole place smelled potently of cheese. The place is well known for its fondue.

While I did have chocolate fondue with Toblerone for dessert, which was just lovely, I did not have cheese fondue. No one at my table was really in the mood for it, I guess.

But I did order Raclette as an appetizer. Raclette is a salty swiss cheese. It was served as a big melted mass of cheese dusted with paprika on a warm plate with some potatoes and gerkins pickles. And Friends, let me tell you, it's delicious. All I can think about is melted cheese on a plate now.

Afterwards we went to the Beauty Bar and danced until 4am. Because that was the plan. I slept until 6pm today and woke up sore and hungover with a powerful craving for more Raclette.

Surviving Exposure

C-belle and I went to the erotic love letter writing workshop at Babeland last month. The lesson learned from it was: read more James Joyce, his letters to his wife Nora were perverse, filthy, passionate and loving all at once. The workshop was in some ways like any writing workshop and much of the advice given was good advice for any writer. Except that some people were reading passages with graphic personal sexual content and we were sitting in room surrounded by dildos, vibrators, and whips.

It was the close of a three part tour I took attending three events having to do with sex and words. Interestingly, they were all organized by the same woman, Rachel Kramer Bussel.

All of this went down in January and I have put off writing about it. Because I came to no clear thoughts or conclusions about it. The readings, while all being about sex, were diverse in topic and presentation and treatment, at turns funny, embarrassing, surprising, informative, thought-provoking, boring, trite, disturbing, sexy, unsexy, etc and so on. And my reactions to them were far ranging as well.

Clearly, I did not die of embarrassment. But I am not sure that my comfort level with public discourse on the topic has increased, at least not by much.

At the point in the workshop where we were asked to turn from writing a love letter to writing something erotic, I totally blanked. I just sat there and blinked while everyone around me was furiously writing.

I keep flip flopping back and forth on whether to post my letter. The letter itself is really tame, PG at best. But it's about a real person. And as much as I try to edit it, and change details, and scrub it to protect them that needs protecting, for now I can't bring myself to post it. Even with every single detail changed it feels naked.

Which is the thing about sex reading and writing. The graphic stuff and the funny stuff and the shocking stuff is what you expect and on some level or another it will always deliver.

But it's the intimate and revealing stuff where the writer is vulnerable and naked that feels really dangerous.

The Scale of Passion

I am going to spend Valentine's Day this year with a bunch of single people. In case you were wondering what kind of outing this will be, the invite for this party has the tagline: "VD is nasty." I had suggested a number of anti-romantic activities for it which were vetoed in favor of Karaoke. Which means there is a good chance that by the end of the night we will all be drunk and hollering along to Air Supply, some of us with tears running down our faces.

Now where was I?

Right, so you know how Elizabeth Barrett Browning said "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." Well, Friends, you can now take a step back from having to memorize that poem or enumerate all the things about Pookie that make you tingle and express your passion in a quantitative way.

Let me offer you a crack at the Passionate Love Scale Questionnaire. This is a real questionnaire created by Elaine Hatfield (psychologist) and Susan Sprecher (sociologist) that is still used by professionals today.

Please don't ask me what kind of professionals, the mind reels at the thought. And I will do a follow up to this at some point, I promise. For an added layer of legitimacy (illegitimacy?) I will confess that this questionaire is ganked from a Time magazine article sent to me by CK. I will also confess that typing out these statements, even referring to a blank line, is mortifyingly embarassing, but not quite as nauseating as thinking about the Depeche Mode song, "Somebody." Although, if ANYONE sings that song at Karaoke next week I will probably pee my pants from laughing and then barf on the person next to me.

But I digress.

On to the Scale:


For each of the sentences below insert the name of your beloved in the blank and pick a number from 1 (not at all true) to 9 (definitely true). 5 is moderately true.


1. I would feel deep despair if ____ left me.
2. Sometimes I feel I can't control my thoughts; they are obsessively about ____.
3. I feel happy when I am doing something to make ____ happy.
4. I would rather be with ____ than anyone else.
5. I'd get jealous if I thought ____ were falling in love with someone else.
6. I yearn to know all about ____.
7. I want ____ physically, emotionally, mentally.
8. I have an endless appatite for affection from ____.
9. For me, ____ is the perfect romantic partner.
10. I sense my body responding when ____ touches me.
11. ____ always seems to be on my mind.
12. I want ____ to know me - my thoughts, fears and hopes.
13. I eagerly look for signs indicating ____'s desire for me.
14. I possess a powerful attraction for ____.
15. I get extremely depressed when things don't go right in my relationship with ____.

You then add up your total which will range from 15 to 135.

Elaine Hatfield has a pdf on her site which breaks the scores down into 5 categories. I am going to try to slightly reduce the bias by not including it here.

And don't worry, if your love is constant but not so intense, make that card and compose that poem, bring bottle of booze, a little gift - Pookie will be putty in your hands.

Book love

I was stuffing my face in the lunch room just now and realized that one thing that rocks about books (there are so many) is that there are no ads. You buy it, you own it, you take it home, you read it and no one bugs you to send them more money. No one threatens to cut off your access. No one is shoving ads or surveys at you and there are no annoying flashing animations or noises.

Just you, the pages, and some light.

about the world we live in and life in general

On Monday at the end of a very nice party I was singing along to the song "Somebody" by Depeche Mode with BY and CK.

When I was a sophomore in high school I liked this song a lot. But since then I have developed an active dislike of it. The song makes me want to barf. Just thinking back to the memory of singing that song on Monday makes me cringe.

Oh man, those lyrics.

They rhymed support with support. What about comfort? Report? Retort? Car port?

But reflecting on them leads me to wonder if each member of Depeche Mode found - somebody who will put their arms around him and kiss him tenderly?

I am torn between bitter cynical groans and a sincere hope that they did.

when your relatives are relatively famous

This evening I had the notion to look up a Ring Lardner story called, "I can't Breathe." It's the one Lardner story I have read. The narrator is a character that I am slightly fixated on.

During this search I came across a NYTimes article by his grandson James Lardner in 1985.

"My grandfather has been described as a bitter writer, and I was afraid he might prove too bitter for me. Instead, I discovered that he had changed too, keeping pace with my change. The delusions and posturings of his comic characters brought as much delight as ever but also a sadness I hadn't felt before. My emotions expanded into the vacuum created by an unfeeling narration - just as, I now realize, the author intended."

Which I find to be a very interesting observation about the active and participatory nature of reading.

I had to read this next passage twice before I got it. It was worth the second try.

"Rereading ''You Know Me Al,'' I laughed again at Jack Keefe's performance in verbal battle. ''I got a notion to take a punch at you,'' he announces. ''Oh you have have you?'' says one of his fellow ballplayers. ''Yes I have have I?'' Jack replies triumphantly. I laughed, but the laughter was suffused with the memory of errant comebacks of my own."

Someone made a comment at the event to the question of why RL didn't write a novel that he was not sure of RL's ability to write a good one.

"If he means a novel in which the author or his hero searches for fundamental meaning and asks deep questions en route, I'm also doubtful. The characters my grandfather focused his attention on spent much of their mental energy in the pursuit of money, power, respect and other short-term gains. Self-awareness was not their strong suit. Nor was awareness of other people and their feelings. His protagonists didn't learn much from life, and that was frequently the point of his stories and the source of their humor. His themes may have been more suited to the short story than the novel. So, perhaps, is a good deal of life as most people live it."

I might have to pick up an anthology and spend a little time with this Ring Lardner Fella.

six of one, half dozen of the other

MomVee tagged me for this meme:

1) Link to the person that tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog.
3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people at the end of your post and link to their blogs.
5) Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6) Let the fun begin!



1) I think my clothes fit me better when I am wearing eyeliner.
2) I love educated men with East Coast accents.
3) I cannot walk by a box of free books on the street without stopping to pick through them.
4) When I eat healthy I find myself craving a slice of cheese pizza, a cheeseburger, a basket of zucchini sticks, and a chocolate milkshake.
5) I consider my chin to be disproportionately big. How do I know? My orthodontist told me. So it must be true.
6) A good Vodka Gimlet makes me happy.

The Bloggers I tag are: Kat E (who really has more important things on her mind right now!), Ldbug, and BeckyBumbleFuck.

Worst thing for a hangover

No matter how delicious and tempting they look do not eat Sour Patch Kids while hungover. Wreaks havoc on your digestive system. Waaaaay too sour.

aspirations in the clouds

This morning it snowed big fuzzy fluffy happy flakes.
Although by the time I got to the Island Manhattan, it was more rainy than snowy.

For whatever reason I am recalling a lovely movie called "Waitress." At one point in the movie they play a cover of the Howard Jones song "No One Ever Is to Blame."

The Emile Millar cover in conjunction with this scene in the movie and the story of this waitress is exquisitely heartbreaking from the opening line:

"You can look at the menu but you just can't eat
You can feel the cushions but you can't have a seat."
-Howard Jones

It might be the kind of thing that hits you differently at 37 than at 15.

re-visions of history

At the bookstore yesterday I literally tripped into a book called "A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder - How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place" by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman.

Someone wrote a book in defense of the way I live.


I opened it up and read the following passage:

"Of all the jazz artists and jam-banders who might spring to mind when it comes to improvisation, the superstar musician who may be the greatest improvisationalist of all time is well known to the public for everything except his improvisation. Yet so intense was this performer's dedication to jumping beyond the music as written that otherwise adoring audiences and backup musicians sometimes became annoyed at the length and off-the-wall intricacy of his extemporaneous musical wanderings, and he lost gigs over it. Even when sitting in with other musicians, he couldn't resist changing their compositions on the fly.

The irrepressible improviser was Johann Sebastian Bach."

- Abrahamson and Freedman

I was practically on the floor from pure surprise, laughing my ass off.

They go on to say that while improvisation was important in serious music back in the day, J.S. Bach was "infamous for the extent and boldness of it."

Apparently, Johann was a wild and crazy guy.

It does explain why the cadenzas on some solo violin pieces were written so small. They were suggestions but way back when, soloists were supposed to go off and play the hell out of those measures as they saw fit showing off their mad skills to the nth degree.

I have to say that if my violin teachers had encouraged me play my own cadenzas, I might have practiced more than I did. I would have had a reason besides fear of the wrath of my Mother.

Stick out your chin, and grin and say ... one scoop in a cup please

It was one of those days.
It was raining.

I got up on the wrong side of the futon.
It was a day full of tiny little disappointments.

I tore a hole in my purse. I left the office building for lunch without my wallet and had to go back and get it. I made suggestions that people at work disliked. I missed a deadline that I had set for myself. I did not do any of the things that I was sort of thinking about and kind of looking forward to this evening. The concert I wanted to see was sold out. And so on and so on. Minor minor little things that meant nothing except that one followed another all day today. The only free seat on the train was wet. And then I decided to make a gloomy day a little greyer. I had time to ponder past mistakes and missteps and missed opportunities. The rather large number of entirely futile things that I do on a daily basis. Lost love. The lack of love. The death of love and the novel and the decline of civilization, the inherent horribleness of man and the imperfection of everything in existence and my mortality and the mortality of those that I love and those that I admire. The death of my sad and much neglected office plants. (Be kind to plants, do not give them to me. You are better off liberating them in the forest.)

My interior dialogue as I walked home was something like this:

"I am gloomy."
-"You got no cause to be gloomy."

"I am gloomy."
-"What would make you feel better?"

"Ice cream!"
-"Ice cream? That will make you fat and do all kinds of terrible things to your health. Have you taken a look at your belly lately? How about a nice bowl of beans?"

"Beans?"
-"You'll have beans and then clean the apartment. That'll be good. It will make you feel good about yourself."

"Beans and cleaning. Could my life get any gloomier."
-" ... okay let's get ice cream."

I get a scoop of chocolate ice cream from Baskin Robbins and head home.

-"Feel better?"

"No. I'm still gloomy."
-"Oh for God's sake! I bought you chocolate ice cream. What more could you want?!"

At which point I laughed out loud. After all, I had a point. And I sat down on my floor and had me some ice cream. It was delicious.

A night at the opera

"This is my Jerry Springer moment. / I don't want this moment to die. / So dip me in chocolate and throw me to the lesbians. / I don't want this moment to die. "- Baby Jane

This evening, I finally got to Carnegie Hall for the very first time. VR and I saw "Jerry Springer: The Opera." This is not a family show. But then, again neither is the Springer Show. The first act is Jerry Springer as an opera. The second half gets much more fanciful and tries to reach into the heart of a show like his. In the opera, Jerry Springer himself admits that he does not resolve conflict or solve problems for the people who come on his show. Mostly, he gives them a place in which to expose themselves to each other and the world.

The format is a live reality with no author to give the whole experience context or shape or meaning, no editor to cut meaning into the sequence of images and events. There is no clear unified moral to these stories, although Jerry Springer does close each show with comments.

"... it's been a hell of a day. I've learned that there are no absolutes of good and evil and we all live in a glorious state of flux [...] for better or for worse, history defines us by what we do, and what we choose not to do." - Jerry Springer of the opera

It's a pity that Broadway would not give it a home. They get an "L" for Lame.

Dreamgirl pre-view fixation

A Gentleman asked me at Splash which Dreamgirl I was. I said that I was Jennifer. The reply surprised him, after all, didn't we all want to be Beyonce? He's got a point there, who wouldn't want to be Beyonce? I went with this reply because, Jennifer sings "And I am telling you that I'm not going," the only song I know from the show.

As we bellowed and gestured along to the song, emoting, sweating, huffing, raising our arms and faking our own vocal vamps, he started to laugh and for the rest of the night he would periodically point at me and say, "Girl, you are Jennifer."

The problem with this moment is that I have not seen Dreamgirls so how could I possibly know?


Exhibit A: Jennifer Hudson

Exhibit B: Jennifer Holiday

Exhibit C: Von Smith

This kid is second coming of Sam Harris. I don't know how I feel about the gender pronoun swaps but strange as that is, you cannot deny that he is a Jennifer (an Effie White?)

On further consideration I might not be Jennifer. The part needs a power soprano.

But blessings be to youtube in the privacy of our own homes, with the door firmly closed, we can each have our own Jennifer Karaoke moment.

Feet on the ground

On leaving Splash this evening I hugged CK and started to weave home. CK and WC asked if I was okay to which I replied that I was and promptly tripped on the hem of my floor length skirt and fell.

For whatever reason as I picked myself up and continued on my way, I felt pretty good about it. After any fall you get back up and carry on. Mostly, falling is not so bad as you fear it will be. Mostly, falling is not so bad that you cannot recover.

I find this prospect very cheering.

Discoveries from the second morning after

The question yesterday afternoon was: Yow! Why does my right knee hurt so much?

This morning I realized that the answer to this question was: I tried to demonstrate the dance move known as "The Sprinkler" at CK's birthday party on Saturday and knocked my right knee against one of her dining room chairs.

a late night in good company

Last weekend at the end of a night out, around 3am I had a serious craving for a waffle. I meandered to the diner down the street and around the corner and had a Belgian waffle with strawberries and whipped cream and a tall glass of milk. Sitting there munching away it occurred to me that in that moment, I was enjoying my own company and life was good.

paper gowns and politics

I had this dream last night that I went to the gynecologist's office and my gynecologist was Rudy Guiliani. I am sitting in my paper gown and instead of examining me he is giving his campaign speech about healthcare and the nation and homeland security. I interrupt him from time to time to ask his opinion about the pill vs. the patch vs. the ring. He looks at me, ignores the question and goes back to his speechifying.

1. I have a zit on the top of my index finger. In the 37 years that I have been alive I will confess that I have had zits on parts of my body that are not the face. But the finger? Good Lord! *sigh*

2. My latest train game is more of a constant state of uncertainty I like to call: "Is that awful smell coming from me?" To date I am pleased to report that it's not me. But I am considering carrying a small bottle of perfume along with my travel size deodorant in my voluminous purse of Tardis-like dimensions, just in case. That and a clothespin for my nose in case it's the other guy.

CK recently warned me that smells (bad smells) can jump from one person to another. And now I am in terror of physical contact folks who are that kind of funky.

3. This past weekend I made a pan of cherry fudge brownies. Cherry brownies have been preying on my imagination for weeks now. I had one in the office which was a-mazing - a rich, tart, moist, chewy, chocolatey delight dusted in powdered sugar. I have wanted to try to replicate it on my own because I haven't been able to stop thinking about them.. So I thawed a bag of frozen cherries and folded them into a brownie mix from the box. It was not quite the experience that I had been hoping for. The whole thing was a delicious oozy chocolately cherry mess straight out of the oven, lacking only for a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. After cooling down, it was more a soggy mass of cherry and chocolate. which when heated up in the microwave is again, a delicious oozy chocolately cherry mess begging for a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. And if I manage to remember to get a pint before I eat my way through this pan, a mini state of melty chocolate cherry a la mode bliss will be achieved.

4. Yesterday, while sitting at dinner with WC we discussed Krispy Kreme donuts with the intensity that one might recount falling in love for the first time.

5. You can now buy a solar powered MP3/Video Player. Very exciting. Look out iPod, your days are numbered.

6. Okay folks, how are you planning to stimulate the economy when you get your tax rebate? There should be a website where some very smart microeconomist has a spending guide that lets us know which kinds of expenditures will create the most jobs, educate the most kids, reduce our debt the most, support innovation, help repair and improve our infractructure, retrain the most workers, stimulate the creation of more small businesses, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, our carbon footprints and create world peace and global justice. That's where I want my up to $600 to go. There or into a new guitar and a haircut.

a scientist turned assistant walks into a bar ...

I was walking along on my way home when a man on the street entreated me to come in and see a "free" comedy show. And being in a wandering aimless no plans on a Friday night out-of-towner state of mind I agreed to check it out.

It was one of those two drink minimum shows where they only listed the expensive drinks.

I have always heard that comedy is hard. And I have never doubted that this is true. Mostly because while life puts me in many situations that I find hilarious and I find the antics, theories, and stories of many of my friends to be hilarious, the incidents in which a stranger or a professional comedian make me laugh are rare. Very rare.

There were six comedians and one MC. They got worse and worse as the show progressed and didn't really start out all that funny. There were some laughs, though. I laughed at all the science jokes. Because, if you think about it, science is pretty damn funny.

The first comedian told a story in which a crazy person was shouting at him and another person while brandishing a plastic dinosaur. He said that he and the other person were afraid of the harm that the plastic dinosaur might do them until he realized that it was a brachiosaurus, which is a herbivore - they really had nothing to fear.

The third comedian, a young man from Tennessee, had two science jokes. The first was about how they are now using dogs to detect cancer and this was the clearest of signs of how busy doctors are and how much worse it must be to find out from a dog that you have cancer.

His other joke was about how he didn't believe in evolution because if he did he'd have to believe that our DNA sequence is 98% the same as monkeys. He said the 2% of his DNA that was different was his favorite piece of DNA. (and up until now it had never occurred to him that he had a favorite piece of DNA!) If he ever has to go in for DNA surgery, he would beg the doctor not to touch that 2% of his DNA.

DNA surgery! OMG! DNA Surgery! He was my favorite comedian of the evening. He had the most jokes. They were smart and observant and funny. But he needs to work on his delivery and timing.

Many of the other comedians had the delivery of a person about to say something funny but no jokes. Or, no funny jokes.

The MC came up and gave me a hard time for not buying his DVD after the show. He had a routine about how we were all the lucky sperm that made it and then described the misfortunes of the sperm that did not. And so when he got up in my grill I laughed and said, "I am not sperm! I am the union of an egg and sperm and so are you!!!"

I was just reading about this kind of thinking in the Promiscuity book. Long ago scientists believed that each sperm was a little human being. And that they fused with the egg to get nutrition and protection. But really, the sperm was where the action was, the soul, the mind, the person. Ah, that men could be so self-centered.

If this was true, the next realization was that there were millions of little people who died with every ejaculation which was morally unsettling.

A man could not justify ejaculation without reproduction. How could you justify spanking off, if it meant that each orgasm led to the death of millions? If that was the case a man of good conscience would have to give it up and "other" activities to prevent mass murder. Who could live like that? So in the interest of pursuing higher truth (among other things) further research was done on this question. And eventually the sperm-is-human theory was refuted.

Is it too much for me to ask that a comic on Friday night in the Village be well informed enough to also refute this? Perhaps.

The MC observed at the outset that it's really hard to get up in front of a crowd of people and make strangers laugh.

I imagine that it can be downright terrifying and thrilling at the same time.

I liked the quote of the day yesterday

"Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well."
-Josh Billings

The big shoes or the red noses?

I have never liked clowns. Every clown related gift that I have ever gotten has been put into a box and shoved as far back in the closet as possible.
They creep me out way more than bugs.

So I am relieved to find this yahoo news item about how kids feel about clowns.

It is a comfort to know that I am not alone in this. Even if I am not a kid anymore.

The distraction of the day

I rented the movie "Once" this weekend. It's the story of a broken hearted street musician in Ireland who meets a Czech woman. The two become friends and decide to record a demo together. That is a formula waiting to happen but in this case it's not what you think. It's a story about two people who meet and help each other move forward with their lives.

I was pretty ho-hum about it. It's a quiet, very low key kind of movie. But today I find that the soundtrack stuck to me. If you could plug earphones into my head you would hear the songs blasting super super loud with the cresendos filling my chest, pressing outwards.

It would appear that I was of two minds and the movie kinda got around me.



Yesterday, I went to a new place to get lunch and picked up a granola snack there called Granzoti. And today whilst I am stuffed to the gills from lunch, I can't stop eating it. I have a few bits and put the bag away. I start wanting more. I pull the bag back out and have a few more bits. Rinse lather, repeat. Which is fine except that I am starting to feel very full, uncomfortably so.

Come to think of it, maybe I don't like the soundtrack to "Once" as much as I think I do. Maybe it's compounded by my physical reaction to eating too much Granzoti!

As the band Asia would say: "Only time will tell."

This quote is a gift from Zemblan

"We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow
And make our garden grow"
-Richard Wilbur

This quote is a gift given on a sad occasion. A memorial for tenor Jerry Hadley.

It expresses the wisdom of living.
You can read the words.
You can hear them.
But you don't know it until you live it.

PBS rocks my socks

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former" -Einstein

"Universe is made up mostly of hydrogen and ignorance." -John Dobson

"...John Dobson, once described the Universe as 'mostly hydrogen and ignorance', but he was wrong. In fact it's mostly dark matter and dark energy — and ignorance. " -Fred Watson

a great line from yahoo astrology

"The fantastic and the horrible often look similar until you get close enough to unravel them."

Edit: That Friends, is why we date.

Synonym for happiness

I realized that my life is lacking in a certain bounce of late.
In an effort to remedy this I bought a Hall & Oates Greatest Hits collection.

"I see you, you see me
Watch you blowing the lines
when you're making a scene
Oh girl" - Hall & Oates "Private Eyes"

Paul Young had a single in the 80's called "Every Time You Go Away" which I always assumed was a cover of an old time Motown R&B hit. I knew that Hall & Oates also did a version of the song. I did not know that Darryl Hall had actually written the song! And I am very much impressed to discover this fact.

If only Marvin Gaye had recorded a version of it, it would have been the soundtrack to many many couples falling in love (and many more getting busy).


*edit: for those of you who seek actual synonyms, I did a second post.*

walk this way

I was walking up the stairs out of the metro station behind a guy who had the cutest walk. He was not a hottie. He looked kind of regular. At first I thought he was dancing up the stairs. But he wasn't wearing headphones and he was walking and talking to a friend who was not walking cute. This is the first time I have ever noticed a fella for his walk. The wiggle in his walk made me smile.

movie madness (potential spoilers ahead)

1. VR and I met up and saw "The Orphanage" a scary movie en Español last weekend. 'twas good. I don't know if the next part is a spoiler or not. I'd advise you to stop reading if you haven't seen the thing.

What I liked the most about the movie is there are at least two explanations for what is going on. One in which you "believe." One in which you do not. And they are both scary. For me the explanation in which you don't believe, the one that you reason out in flashback along with the mother is so much more horrifying. As I type this I am getting distressed. I may never walk into a closet again.

2. On New Year's Day CK and I met up with WC and saw "Sweeney Todd." Which was a whole lot of dark and a whole lot of blood. And probably the best movie musical that I have ever seen. And I love musicals. It's not a warm movie. At any given moment I felt a little bit of sympathy for one or another character but for the most part they are so unsavory and corrupted that I was not on anyone's side, except for the boy. WC was disappointed that there was not breakout hit. For my part, the song "Joanna" was stuck in my head and I think in CK's as well. The song chased all the others out of my head. But last night EH pointed out the song "Not While I'm Around." A song which in the context of the story is touching, heartbreaking, frightening, and so unfortunate.

On Breaking the Sock Barrier

Just about everyone says that communication is crucial in a relationship. Heck, it's important in any relating context.

Relating in small groups, in big groups, one on one, professional relations, adversarial relations, cooperative relations, er ... sexual relations.

It seems like a good idea in the bedroom. Although, the most I generally contribute as far as communication is: "Ow, you're on my hair." I am so bashful that I generally don't ask a fella what he likes in bed. The rare times in which I have, generally, the reply is something I find utterly baffling and find that I am unable to do.

Once the response was: "Vegetables. I like vegetables." Somehow, I don't think he meant that he likes to keep a healthy snack on the nightstand. After this revelation I could not bring myself to open his fridge.

Beyond the basics of communicating about the task at hand. *cough* Steamy talk can be a part of the experience as well.

More recently, I was in a situation in which the fella was fairly adept at it on his end. After a very long pause (It was my turn) I said something like, "Oh. Uh ... um ... well I guess I would **** you."

And with that I was done. Yup. That was the best I could come up with. That was as sexy as a dirty gym sock. I was not up to the challenge. (If you're into dirty socks, please, don't share.)

Another time, a different fella said that he likes girls who talk dirty in bed, my reply was, "Oh." And then complete silence.

Now, I am what I am. And what I am is uptight and uncomfortable when it comes to sexy sex talk. Which kind of goes with my suspicion that I am lousy lay.

But when I sit and think about it, I don't know what the big deal is. It's kind of silly really, I mean, I'm a 37 year old woman. There are so many things that I can do, so many things that I have done. What is my block on this in particular?

Perhaps I just don't know how it's done. Perhaps it's just not my thing. Perhaps I don't see the point of talking about the thing you are doing while you do it.

After all, I sit here typing a post. I am not sitting here typing a post about how I am typing a post and how it feels to type and what else I want to be typing about and how I can't wait to type the next thing that I am thinking of typing.

Still, I feel this bears further exploration, some investigation. And so I am considering going with CK to some events in which people talk about sex out loud in public, or read out loud about sex, or try to teach you how to talk or write about sex.

I am convinced that I will die of embarrassment at one of these things. And if I do please don't tell my mother how it happened.

"don't know much about geography"

If one was to give you a blank map with the outline of a continent, would you be able to place the states, cities, or countries correctly therein?

More importantly, if you met a person who could, would you buy him/her drinks? Is knowledge of geography sexy?

Behold, I come bearing geography games (via Daily Candy).

50 States of the USA
Harder version of the same game
US State Capitals


Countries in Africa

Countries in Europe

Countries in the Middle East and South Asia

Educational games are so not fun. But these games in their ability to showcase my ignorance drive me to play again and again in the hopes that with practice and repetition, I will progress up that learning curve.

I sit and mutter to myself about how Ethiopia and Eritrea are in the Northeast while Mali is in the Northwest and how difficult it is to locate Lesotho before placing South Africa.

They don't seem to have a game for South America, Canada, or the rest of Asia. Yet.
But when they do, I will be muttering in front of them as well.

Like Sam Cooke, "I don't claim to be an "A" student" but I'd like to know some basic things about this crazy world.

Brought to you by me and edited by c-belle

One big glass of wine,
Not that much sleep,
One meal before above mentioned glass and New Year's happens in NOVEMBER.

Two hours of singing along to Hall and Oates greatest hits which have the best vocal embellishments of the 80's and I don't know why the new year is running late!!!! (early?!)

Hope yours is right on time to the dot.

Loves and stuff.

Apparently, friends do let friends blog drunk.

Slow, slow, quick, quick

At some point in my life I might want to learn to dance with a man.
I cannot for the life of me figure out how this is done.

It's happened a few times that I can remember. My problem is that my ability to dance with a man seems to entirely depend on the man.

AG is a brilliant dancer who can make anyone look like a total star.
PR makes dance into a fabulous and deranged athletic event.
Dancing with BC was pure chemistry without words.

And there was a swing dance savant I met at a wedding. He was tall and delicious and he made up these fantastic moves on the fly that I had never followed before and have not since. After three songs we stepped breathlessly off the dance floor and parted company because we had each come to this wedding with other people.

In swing dance, I don't know the steps but I can follow a good lead, meaning that he and I are in agreement as to where the beats fall.

In a more "modern" setting it pretty much doesn't seem to work. I know it's just a full contact sport in which you try to fit body parts together and move. Sounds simple, but I can't seem to get the hang of it.

I think, again, it's a disagreement about where the beats fall.

I don't follow properly. I have too many of my own ideas about how the music feels and how we should move in a situation in which the music is really not supposed to matter at all. But if that is true, I wouldn't really call it dancing.

Then again, maybe it's not me. After all I hear that it takes two to tango.

Atmosphere said it better

To get there and back again, I took the mta, the cta, two cabs, three planes, a train, a super shuttle, and a ride from EH, two rides from my parents one in the Corolla and one in the Suzuki Swift.

On the way there I stopped in Chicago and noodled around a bit for the next Mystechs album.

I saw two movies with the folks, "Juno" (previously discussed) and "Atonement." I think the main guy in Atonement is dreamy. To say more would be a spoiler. Let us just say that the movie reminds me of "AI" and I am not sure how I feel about that. It's a gorgeous film and I enjoyed it. But Friends, it ain't no "English Patient."

I got many sweaters, a few books, some yarn and a very big crochet hook.

After a couple of anxious days in which I could not sit still long enough to read anything, I settled in and read "The Golden Compass." It was kind of grim and I quite enjoyed it.

My mother had natto in the house. So I got to try it. It's a sticky thready gooey mass of bean that tastes like a cross between, fermented bean paste, salt, ammonia, other unidentifiable potentially toxic chemicals and beans. There is not enough rice in the world to dilute that out. It's pretty gross.

I attempted to learn the Soulja Boy dance and took a crack at the Napoleon Dynamite dance. (at least an attempt at the arm movements)

And crocheted the better part of a scarf.

My father thinks that I need to learn to read more slowly, the better to read philosophy books. My mother thinks that I need to lose five pounds. Kitty thinks that I need to scratch behind her ears and under her chin more often.

They are probably right.

It was good to be in the Lou. It was good to have a string of days in which the concerns of the office were not my concerns. It was good to sit at the kitchen table with my two favorite people in this world and share food and talk and laughter and cups of tea.

Now, I am back and basking in the afterglow of this. I feel like I have been pieced back together. I wish I could put this feeling in a bottle and carry it with me for times of need.

"If the people laugh and giggle when you tell them where you live say: Shhhhh ....
-Atmosphere

"He is the cheese to my macaroni."

As is our tradition, we went to the movies this evening after stuffing our faces with much food. We saw "Juno" a quirky little comedy about teen pregnancy. Ellen Page does an amazing turn as Juno MacGuff. She is tough and funny and tender. She is a smart ass, a wise child and a lost dumb kid all at once. The soundtrack of the film has songs by Kimya Dawson. And if you know who that is, you pretty much understand the aesthetic of this movie.

The rest of the cast is super too: Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner, That cool chick from the West Wing, the dude from the movie "The Mexican", Michael Cera better known for his turn in the movie "Superbad," here as there he is so very endearing.

The movie somehow is about a teenage girl who becomes pregnant without becoming an afterschool special on teen pregnancy, without becoming a morality play, without flattening anyone into two dimensions and with a kindness towards all involved. It maintains a human scale and has a lot of heart.

I might need to buy this when it comes out on DVD.

on the eve of christmas pt. 3

My parents grew up during the Korean War. This has informed their world view in ways that I cannot entirely understand.

My father essentially believes that if a person is not starving or bleeding, he or she is happy.

Today at breakfast my father in telling me how happy my life is says, "Edith Piaf sings that she has no regrets but C'mon! She's got to have more regrets than you do."

on the eve of christmas pt. 2

My mother in trying to get me out of bed this morning tells me that this year we should perhaps try to celebrate Christmas properly, as the Christians do. We should pray to God to forgive us our sins.

And as I slowly come to a waking state, in between giggles I reply that while I am no religious scholar, she may be confusing the traditions of Christmas with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement which happens in the fall.

on the eve of christmas pt. 1

From the time I started school, my mother has come into my room in the morning to wake me up. I, now, realize that I did not own or use an alarm clock until I moved away to college. And as anyone who has shared a bed, dorm room, hotel room, suite, or apartment with me can attest to, I have never quite gotten the hang of the whole alarm clock thing. But if you were to call me and chat with me for two minutes or more, I would be up for the day.

When I come home to visit the Folks, my mother does as she always has for much of my life. She comes into my room to wake me up.

This morning she says that Christmas is sweeping Turkey and India. In both of these countries they are buying Christmas trees (made in China, of course) and plastic Santa statues that play "Silent Night" at the press of a button (also made in China). The Plastic Santas are a hot item this year, they are flying off the shelves in Turkey.

When asked by reporters why two countries that are not essentially Christian would celebrate this most Christian of holidays, the reply from the locals was along the following lines: while they are not Christian, they love Santa Claus. Which frankly, might be the same sentiment for a lot of people in the US who celebrate christmas as well.

And you cannot deny that "Silent Night" is a pretty rockin' tune.

food for thought with beers

She brought us a third round of beers. And we put down a few bills as tip which she picked up saying, "Thanks." My reply was to automatically, unthinkingly say, "Your welcome." His response was to say, "No. Thank You." With the difference in our replies and the implication behind each, I was humbled.

war is over if you want it

What if I was to tell you that today: Saturday, December 22, 2007 at 06:08:00 UTC time, people around the world will be attempting to achieve synchronized non-procreative orgasms for world peace?

Don't believe me?

Check out the website for the Global O.

That's all I really wanted to say on that subject.

In a season of giving

In conversation with BG the other day he said (and I am paraphrasing here) that the best thing that you can do when someone helps you is change your life for the better. Take the boost that the help gives you and make something of it.

Getting a gift or drinks, cards, hugs, a nice dinner, or effusive thanks is all well and good but next to useless to him. Because that's not why he helped to begin with.

Which pretty much knocked me out.

A Happy Thing

This youtube video made me really happy today.

So happy that the realization that HR saw me watching and bopping to this video in my cube did not freak me out as much as it probably should have.

Big ups to Mike Long.

And for the record I like the Knife version sooooooooooo much better than the acoustic guitar version.

it was a reflex

Since moving to NYC I have on more than one occasion had someone I barely know grab an inappropriate part of me in public. And my reaction has been to act before thinking. In one case, I smacked a guy in the nuts. In another, I slapped a guy's face. This unthinking reaction surprises me. I would have thought of myself as more of a deer in the headlights kind of person.

The thing that always concerned me in the self-defense classes I took was that it seemed like you had to be able to react without thinking and react with utter commitment to hurting that person who means you harm usually with the aim of getting away.

I worry a little. I would like to think of each of these as isolated incidents. But they may not be. Which would suck. It would mean that someday, someone will hit me back. And I will need a different kind of self-defense course to help me get out of that situation.

All that education put to good use

rough approximations of life

Friday
- was the company Christmas party. I woke that morning remembering the numerous beers from the night before and got up late. It was one of those mornings where I woke up repeatedly trying to remember / relive something, convinced that the best way to accomplish this would be through more sleep. It's a tactic related to the mornings when I wake from a really nice dream and I go back to sleep trying to pick up where waking up left me. These are the games my sleepy brain likes to play on me.

On finally dragging my carcass into work the next order of business was lunch. Lunch with MomVee. It felt so grown up. Not in that "Oh my god I'm so old" way that everything else feels grown up in my life. More like a fabulous adult version of those tea parties that little girls on TV and in the movies dream about - only hip and sophisticated, with much better conversation and more stylish outfits. A cross between Holly Golightly and Doris Day with a dash of Dorothy Parker. It felt grown up in the way I used to daydream about being grown up when I was a little girl.

HR suggested that we wear something festive, so I wore a too-tight-for-me sundress in bright red Hawaiian print and a black shawl - as if a shawl over my shoulders could do anything to hide my panty line. I had several Grey goose and tonics and kicked up on the dance floor. Also known as shaking my thang in front of the entire office. Which is not necessarily the kind of thing that mortifies me, but perhaps should. There may have been others present who were mortified on my behalf. What can I say, when the DJ plays Bobby Brown's "My Perogative," one must dance.

From there people went to a bar called Antarctica where there was drinking, drink spilling, and fraternizing with co-workers. I "borrowed" someone's coat to walk KM to her subway stop. Causing much consternation which I tried to mollify with hugs and the liberal application of top shelf vodka. Wisely, I left early in favor of a slice of pizza covered in ziti and ricotta.


Saturday
There was a breakfast of SPAM, eggs, toast, and many glasses of V8. A 3 hour phone conversation with CK and the weekend ritual of the washing of the clothes.

The first outing with Banjo Guy was fun. And in a moment in which I was not using the part of my brain that thinks, I broke all of the meaningful rules about dating that exist. I called him up and invited him to come over and hang out. Which seemed like a good idea until I looked around my house and realized just how disgusting my living conditions are. There are no words for it, Friends. There are no words. *shudder*

I piled everything, and I mean everything into the bedroom, vacuumed, swept, took out two bags of garbage, remembered to scrape the scary unidentifiable things off of the toilet bowl, hid as many incriminating things as I could (I did not quite manage to get all of them.) And then I hit a problem: the place smelled like SPAM. I lit two pumpkin spice scented tea candles in the hopes of masking this. Which didn't work. The place still smells like SPAM.

My mother has often told me that if only I would clean the house, cook, and dress pretty I might find a nice Korean doctor to marry me, start a family with, and take care of me. I am starting to suspect that the contrapositive is also true and I may grow up to be the perennial bachelor girl.

The activity for the evening was to bake cookies, eat lime flavored chips and drink PBR. (I am one hell of a hostess, no?) We baked over 6 dozen cookies. Mostly chocolate chip and a batch that were peanut butter with peanut butter and chocolate chips. I had promised to bring baked goods or a cooked bird to CKn's party and decided that cookies might be easier to transport. Banjo Guy was highly amused by the old fashioned activity for the evening. The beauty of cookie baking is that you just need to follow directions and learn to tell time. After the burning the first batch to go in the oven, things got better.

The last time I suggested to a fella that we bake, I suggested baking a pie and he didn't call me for a month. Pies are apparently very scary. Scarier than cookies?


Banjo Guy reminds me of about ten different people that I have known in my life. I have to tell myself that I do not really know this person and there is much to figure out. It's anything from his posture, to the way he gestures, to the intonation he uses when ranting about something - like how much he hates pigeons or the apple computer company, to how intently he inspected my books.


Sunday
CKn threw a party in honor of buying a new couch. To this party I went bearing cookies. The couch is this comforting sage green retro thing which has me wanting to buy a new couch too. There was food and folks. I had a small world moment in which I walk into the kitchen and run into DF, a college classmate of mine who married a college classmate of CKn's. Which was kinda cool. And I had the great pleasure of seeing many a small child walk around the apartment nibbling on one of my cookies until there was nothing left.

Left the party to meet up with SW for a sing-along Messiah event at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. This is the 20th year they have done it. There was a small orchestra, 4 soloists, a choir sitting out the in audience. And if you wanted to sing along, you could come on down, grab a score and do that. It's been years since I have sung chorally, years since I have tried to sight sing. And I am now convinced that I have actually never heard the Handel's Messiah in its entirety. The experience overall was a little raw and on my part more than a little cringe-worthy. At the same time, it was very engaging. I might need to learn it proper for next year and do it up at Avery Fisher Hall. Hells yeah.

Later that evening, missing the bird I never cooked, I picked one up on the way home and had it all to myself.

What was missing here was knitting and a mosh pit, but Friends, let us not dwell on the glass half empty. Let us rather give thanks for the little things.

Heart like a cactus

1. The next time you are downstairs at the Cake Shop, if the bartender is a very young, very tall, burly gentleman of hispanic or latino origins, ask him to make a shot called the Chiparita (pronounced cheep-arita). It's a concentrated upscale high octane margarita and it will smack you across the room with tenderness.

This I had with the guy who used to be mine when he came into town last night. We sat in the bar and listened to Shipwreck, one of my favorite bands from Urbanana (I seriously love this band and such lovely people.) and I felt almost like I had stepped backwards in time.

It was an echo to another lifetime and the girl I was when I started first started loitering here.

She got drunk when she drank. Cause, there wasn't much else to do. In so many ways, they were not good times and yet I miss them.

It was no more than two years ago and yet it seems a lifetime ago.


2. LW and I were all set to reschedule our date. But made the mistake of revealing too much about ourselves online before our first face to face meeting. On the day of our date we were chatting online and he irritated me to an excessive degree. To the point where I told him that I didn't want to see him. I didn't care how cute or smart or funny he was. (his claims) I didn't care how good a kisser or lover he was. (his claims) And so perhaps due to the limited capacity that one has to communicate over IM, I cancelled my first date with the man of my dreams. But I seriously doubt that. His parting remark to me was "Good luck finding a guy who isn't an asshole."

Right.

Next!?!

3. I have a date tonight with Banjo Guy. Also met online. He doesn't tell me that he is funny. He has actually written and said funny things when we have chatted on the phone or IM. He has not promised me that he is smart, cute, a good kisser or a great lay. (shall I brace myself for the worst?) And he has not insisted that we schedule time to make out during this meet up, nor has he sent me any pictures of him self in his underwear. Of course, he as also mentioned that he has OCD qualities and can rant until the cows come home. We shall see.

4. The Men of New York keep calling me a crazy lady. I have no idea why.

5. I have deleted the Vine's number from my cell phone to stop myself from drunk dialing him. Oh. Maybe that's why.

modern love and book lust

I have transitioned from shopping online for men to trying to meet them. And last night I was chatting with this guy, LW, who was raving about the way you date in NYC: you meet someone, have sex, date them for 2 weeks and then move on. He thinks it is awesome. I said that sounded depressing to me. It sounds kind of soulless and empty. And he suggested that I move to Kansas or Ohio. He pegged me as a Midwesterner in a heartbeat. But wrong part of the heartland, hello!? *prickle*

But his description of things, if true, could explain a lot about the degree to which my love life has been mostly theoretical since I moved here. To the point where I would describe it as a lack-of-love life. I say this in an observational and bloodless way, not to elicit sympathy or words of encouragement. This place is so distracting and tiring that I mostly can't recognize the soul in a person anyway. That would take time and attention and openness. Things no one in this place ever has enough of. My gambits must make no sense to the locals.


I was stood up by LW yesterday. Stood up on the first date, surely a bad sign. Almost as bad as my first internet date which lasted exactly one hour. He turned to me as he finished his beer and said, "I'm done. Are you done?"

So I went by myself to an event that I suggested that he and I attend. It was a thing on bookmaking. The actually making of reading materials. Which many a person has mocked me for. I thought I was going to be a lecture but it was actually a book selling, book signing, book exhibit. And it was really cool. I put on gloves and handled and inspected many hand crafted books. They were soooo cool.

While there, I got a powerful case of book lust for an out of print book called "Colorful Tales" by Paul Cherches from 1983 Purgatory Press. It's a book in which there are one page, short short stories or exerpts except that for each expert parts of the text have been replaced by bars of color. Like a censored letter with black covering sensitive information only in yellow or green. There was something so charming and engaging in the decisions that were made with regard to what was there and what was not. It was curious that a book that was obscuring its story could be so compelling.

We could each fill in the blanks for ourselves. Would we each come up with the same story? How much information do you need to have a narrative? It is true that there are a limited number of stories to tell with endless variation on the details associated? Are the details the most important part or can they be dispensed with entirely?
And so on.

I crave this book from 1983. I have hunger for it that spurred me to buy other books. To try to settle the pang. Brilliant on the part of the organizers.

I walked around and kept trying to remind myself to not forget. To take what was there and what I experienced and carry it with me. But I think this story is all I have managed to take away. Oh, and a couple of books.

it's all smoke and bones

There were chicken bones on the steps in the train station as I walked from one platform to another last night. Remnants of a meal? Voodoo spell? Voodoo curse?

a longing song

I want to fall asleep to the sound of your voice
with the weight and warmth of your arms at my waist
I ask for what you cannot give
and offer what you will not take

feelings. nothing more than,

feelings.

Too often, I lose sight of how fragile people can be. Despite the feeling of being strong and vital, despite the feeling (at times) of being invincible, we are flesh and bone. We are skin and nerves. A certain gentleness, a sensitivity, a kindness in handling each other would be good.

And really, no one needs the level of shit-talk that I am, by nature, prone to handing out.

Well, it could always be worse

I lost a library book that I was reading and recently found it under a pile of dirty laundry. This book and I are "reunited and it feels so good." And we chill on the train.

Today at the West 4th stop, I came across this within its pages:

"His [Bill Eberhard's] argument is eloquently laid out in a book I have heard described by some as the most stimulating they have ever read. However, with a title like Sexual Selection and Animal Genitalia, it isn't the sort of book you would read on the train."
-Tim Birkhead
Promiscuity: An Evolutionary History of Sperm Competition

Had a good loud laugh over that on the platform.

I suppose Birkhead has a point here. Perhaps it should come with an optional plain and anonymous brown paper dust cover.

A bakers dozen on my return

1. If a cute boy recommends that you read a book do you have to actually read the thing before you try to meet up with him again? If I go about this honestly, I may need to take a speed reading class ...


2. I ran across this youtube video of snails racing. How do people come up with these things? The creation of the racetrack must have taken some effort. Although in some scenes it looks less like a race and more like an orgy. How did they get snails to move about on an oval?


3. My congratulations to those of you who wrote a novel in the Month of November. You rock!


4. Next fall I will need to renew my driver's license and decide what state I am voting in. Illinois or New York?

I am so clearly not a New Yorker that it seems deceptive to make the switch. My Midwestern-ness is so firmly ingrained. However after my visit to Seattle I wonder whether this coast is starting to rub off on me. Seattle was lovely. The people were soooo friendly. But so laid back. Way too laid back for me. Working out there was at times frustrating. I did not raise my voice. But I thought about it more than I should have.

5. There is something excessively, disturbingly virtuous about Seattle.

6. I did not see the Space Needle or the Pike St. Market while it was open or the ocean or anything else. I did not go shopping, although everyone recommended shopping as the thing to do in Seattle. I don't think I even had seafood. I did walk around a little part of the downtown area passed some little teriyaki joints. And as chance would have it, I stumbled upon a venue, The Crocodile Cafe. There was a sign on the door that said that they do not tolerate bigotry, sexism, or racism. This sign prompted me to go in even though I didn't know who was playing or what kind of music there would be. Back when I was in a booking collective, we had long discussions about putting up a code of conduct or a similar kind of sign at our shows.

So in I went for to see: PWRFL Power, Facts about Funerals, and The Elephants. I missed The Birthdays.

I did not meet any of the cute boys in the cute bands.

Instead, I met L. She and I chatted, danced to the music, had beers, and exchanged phone numbers at the close of the show. Years and years ago that would have been me and BBFK. We would have been out at a show, dancing to the tunes. Rather, years and years ago that would have been BBFK. She's the one who would talk to strangers.

The lesson learned here is that I am apparently a creature of habit. "Went to the show, did X, went to the show, did Y."

The Crocodile Cafe is the type of venue that I love. It's not The Empty Bottle or The Milestone, still, were I in Seattle long term I would probably while away many an evening there.

7. At one point someone out there told me that I did not seem like a New Yorker to them. I had no accent and for all intensive purposes could be from the Northwest. It was, I think, meant as a compliment. It didn't feel like a compliment but I can only assume that it was meant as one.

I was so happy to come back East and contend with my cranky grumpy irritable New Jersey cab driver. I could have hugged him.

And today, a stranger grabbed me by the arm and saved me from getting hit by a car that was running a red light. Brooklyn saving my life again.


8. I work with French woman who is tireless and whose work is impeccable. Her habits and attention to detail are impressive. She attends to the smallest things imaginable. And while you might think that they do not matter, you would be mistaken in thinking that way. She says that she likes to wear both belt and braces (aka suspenders). I didn't understand this until now. You wear belt and braces to make doubly sure that your pants don't fall down.

At one point I was labeling positioned items to ensure that the banquet staff did not move or clear them and she told me that I was now wearing belt and braces. Which from her I took to be a great compliment.

I laughed and told her that someday, if I was to do this for long enough I might take to wearing a jumpsuit with my belt and braces.


9. With regard to wireless access at airports, SEATAC sucks compared to ORD and STL because at SEATAC AT&T will provide you with wireless if you get a monthly subscription by which they can bleed you continuously whereas Boingo gives you the option of subscription or paying too much for a one day wireless pass at ORD and STL. The committment-phobe in me prefers this one day overpriced option.


10. Recently I met up with a friend from high school who I have not seen for 14 years. And this evening I got to see a friend who I have not seen in about 10 years. Having done this long lost friend thing twice I've got to say, I really like this. RR and KD have each gotten more beautiful and fabulous with the years. And it is such a pleasure to behold.


11. Today, I lost the train game. I fell asleep on the way home and woke up in Coney Island extremely disoriented and had to ride the train back 15 stops.


12. As might be appropriate, I read a few chapters of Joseph Stiglitz's book "Globalization and Its Discontents" on the flight from the Lou to Seattle. And it made me so furious.


13. My Dad told me that there is a Korean belief that a pregnant woman must have any food that she craves. If she does not, the child will be born with one eye smaller than the other. My Mother craved foods that she loved as a small girl in Japan. She craved Natto.

(Brung to you from the ramblingspoon)

Which just looks like the grossest thing ever. My mother couldn't buy Natto at the stores back in the day in Buffalo, NY. So she improvised. She bought soybeans and wrapped them in foil and put them on the radiator under a damp towel for some days. It was close but not quite right. And there were consequences to this.

Y'all may not know this but I have two different prescriptions for my eyes, one of them is lazy and will wander off to look at random things of it's own accord, and one of my eyes is smaller than the other. *insert spooky music*

Kat E, do not deny yourself anything your heart, stomach or palate desires.

worth 354 words

I have noticed lately that there are cameras in the cabs of New York. There seem to be cameras just about everywhere else around me too - my office, the elevator, on the street, in the shops, hotel lobbies, entrances, behind fast food counters, hallways, ATM machines, Walmart and Walmart like places. In some cities they post signs to let you know that there are cameras on the streets around you. In others they don't.

Chicago and London come to mind as two cities that each have a lot of cameras.

I used to be bummed that I take more pictures than are taken of me. But I now realize that in fact there are a whole lot of pictures being taken of me all the time and of you too.

It all seems kind of creepy, really. The State or your boss watching you at all times. Someone official, yet potentially questionable, recording you every move and storing it somewhere. It's not that I have anything to hide. It's just that I like to be the one who examines my life.

But as with all things there is a flipside.

I was in a cab in Seattle with a camera. The cabbie pointed out an particular intersection in the downtown with four cameras. He said that lots of people got speeding tickets mailed to them based on footage from those cameras. He also told me a story of a drunk guy who got in a cab and badly beat up his Sikh driver. The footage from the camera in the cab was used as evidence against the attacker.

And today I was watching this TED talk by Peter Gabriel about his involvement in human rights advocacy and a human right organization he helped found called WITNESS which provides cameras to people to document human rights abuses internationally.

What might in one case seem bad can be used in another to do good. The camera is powerful but it is in itself neutral.

What matters is your motivation and intention in picking it up and how you use the images you capture.

is it too late for that, Solo?

I tell people that I like punk shows and ska shows and the reaction is a smile and the reply, "I used to do that."

The report from the sticks

1.
Thursday as I am peeling potatoes for mashed potatoes, my mother broaches the subject of crazy things that New Yorkers do. She says, "Emo (that's Korean for mother's sister) told me that EH (my cousin) pays other people to do his laundry and she was shocked." I admit that I can't bring myself to pay another person to warsh mah drawrs. To my surprise, my mother sides with EH and suggests that in New York where time is in such short supply, having someone else warsh yer drawrs might not be such a bad thing. I think she's concerned that I am going to work in smelly socks (or drawrs). Which at other times in my life would be a valid concern.

2.
My mother has been obsessively watching this 20 episode Korean love story. Clearly, we are related as this is something I would do. It's pretty delightfully overwrought stuff. There's a piano player, a girl with serious glasses, and a handsome Korean American dude who doesn't speak much Korean. All of his dialogue is in English while everyone else speaks Korean to each other and to him. So his understanding of Korean is apparently perfect. The soundtrack is so painfully sentimental. It's killing me. The best part: I started mocking the goofy hairdo of the leading boy, insisting that he needed a haircut. And my mother defended him saying in all seriousness, "It's his style!" Such a role reversal between us. I love it.

3.
My father has become a huge Jorge Luis Borges fan. HUGE. I can't even explain to you just how huge. He has decided that Borges is a greater writer than Brecht, Kafka, and Joyce. I forgot to ask him whether Borges beats out Thomas Mann, Stendhal, and Flaubert.

4.
There are throngs of disappointed search engine users who wander over here seeking advice on finding things to do - things to do in the Winter Season or crazy things to do in the office after hours, etc. All I will say on the second matter is check to see if there are surveillance cameras or a late night cleaning crew and be sure to clean up after yourself (especially if it's not your office or desk). Right.

5.
It was snowing in Chicago while I was there changing planes. The snowflakes were fluffy, fat and drifty. At first they floated down and then they started to fall faster and faster. And then they vanished. It was so pretty I wanted to call someone. But it was frightful early to call anyone just to say, "Snow! Pretty!"

6.
On my way home from work on Wednesday I walked by a man carrying a guitar on the subway platform. I sat down and he circled back and offered to play me a beautiful song. "No financial obligation." He leaned in and played "Dream a Little Dream of Me," a song that I love. He did a lovely light version on the acoustic 12 string in a lovely light voice and I sang along with a little harmony. After which he offered me a second song. I asked him to play me a song he had written. It was this great slidely, slinky girl-I-gotta-get-with-you tune at which point my train arrived. I found a couple dollars which I put in the sound hole in his guitar as requested and went on my way. As the train doors closed he said that I have a beautiful vibe. To my mind it was his beautiful vibe not mine.

7.
I've been looking for a version of the song, "Dream a Little Dream of Me" to share with you on youtube only to discover the youtube fan montage.

Montage #1

Montage #2

A practice that I find strange and charming and in each of these cases quite impressive. I am surprised to say that I now find the gawky skinny Henry Thomas kind of dreamy.


8.
The other thing that I discovered (a while back) on youtube is that dancing to Thriller with Thriller choreography is something of a wedding reception mini-phenomenon.

The bridal party learns the dance and performs it for the rest of the reception. Search with the terms: thriller wedding.

Who on earth dances to a song the refers to "the thing with the 40 eyes" at their wedding? Who on earth dances like a zombie to such a song at their wedding? Although I'd have to say that the dancing in most of the videos could use more zombie-ness.

Where is the sense of decorum and appropriateness?
Do lyrics count for nothing nowadays?

That being said, I am now daydreaming about getting married in a theme wedding based on the Thriller video as a bloody zombie bride, groaning and limping my way down the aisle to the dead one that I love. My mother would kill me.

I wrote a joke last night

"Did you hear? 9 out of 10 people think that censorship sucks. The other one doesn't want to hear about it."

to the matter of age defiance

This past weekend CK and I were in Bloomingdale's and each tried a dab of pricey eye cream. I was dabbing mine onto the skin under my eye when the woman behind the counter told me that I was not supposed to dab it up so high.

"You don't need to do that, it will creep up there on its own," she said. And I thanked her and walked away.

On further reflection I am not comfortable with things that will creep up my face. I might have to forgo the eye cream thing.

A reminder for all of us looking for love

Have you ever read "The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing"? I love the last story. It's warm and hopeful and funny and sweet. The following passage is one I have often thought about.

I say that we met after college in New York, and that over the years we had a succession of boyfriends but weren't so happy with any of them. We were always asking each other, "Is this all we can expect?"

"Then, I say, "there was our sea-horse period, when we were told that we didn't need mates; we were supposed to make ourselves happy just bobbing around in careers.

"Finally Sophie met Max," I say and turn serious. I look over at him. I think, He has a nice face. And I say this into the microphone. "He gets how funny and generous and wholehearted she is. He understands what a big person she is, and yet he doesn't want to crush her." I get some blank stares here, but Sophie's laughing. I say, "Max is the man Sophie didn't know if she could hope for."

- Melissa Banks

Saw "American Gangster" today with TB. It was really good.

I could not decide who I was rooting for in the movie. I found both main characters compelling. But now that I am home the afterimages in my head are all of the scenes of junkies and the effects of the drug trade on human lives.

It has been too long since I last saw a movie in theaters. I can tell because when it's been too long, all the previews look good.

prelude to holiday cheer

I can't get this song out of my head. I blame CK.

The Job of a Lifetime - Why did I not major in Weed Science?

Weed Ecologist

ANNOUNCEMENT NO:

RA-08-034H
POSITION:

Ecologist
LOCATION:

Urbana, IL

DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES: The position is located in the Invasive Weed Management Unit, Urbana, IL. The incumbent will conduct quantitative risk analysis of the invasive potential of bioenergy feedstock species. Complementary risk modeling approaches will be used, including, but not limited to: empirical estimates of dispersal probability, integrodifference equation models, and population viability analyses. Measurements of demographic rates and of the probability of vegetative and sexual dispersal and establishment of Miscanthus x giganteus will be generated in field and laboratory experiments and used to parameterize risk models.

QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS: Recent Ph.D. in Plant Ecology, Weed Science or a closely related field is required. Experience in mathematical modeling, ecological statistics and field experimentation in plant demography are desirable.

INFORMATION ON SALARY AND APPLICATION PROCEDURES FOR POSTDOCTORAL POSITIONS is available at: http://www.afm.ars.usda.gov/divisions/hrd/hrdhomepage/vacancy/pd962.html


Just think, someday cars will have bumper stickers that say
"This car runs on Weed" or "We don't run out of grass."

investing for the future

This past weekend I was in Texas with the Mystechs. We were in Austin, Denton, and Dallas. While in Texas I made my first investment into the my dream career.

That's right, friends, find me some virgins to hire cause I've taken my first steps towards owning and running my very own:



Unicorn Ranch!

After some deliberation I decided that I would need to raise both good and evil unicorns. How does one distinguish one type from the other before they are old enough to start showing the rainbow or skull pattern on the flank?

The box suggests asking the unicorn following questions:

1. Do you like to prance through meadows?

2. Have you ever spent all day chasing butterflies and rainbows?

3. Is your favorite sound a laughing brook?

4. Do you believe the children are our future?

5. Are fairies your friends?

6. Do you go around impaling Teddy bears and baby seals?

7. Have you ever dreamed of ruling the underworld?

8. Are you still bitter you weren't invited on the ark?

9. Have you ever used you hooves to bludgeon the weak and innocent?

10. Do you occasionally breathe fire?

I leave it to you to figure out what kind of unicorn you are. It's a question each of us has to ask ourselves in a private moment.

Free Rice

I was about to go to bed when I came across an entry on JV's lj in which she said that she had spent part of the day on FreeRice.com And as this is the second time I have heard tell of this site, I wandered over to check it out for myself.

From October 7 to November 13 the site has donated through the help of web advertising: 1,712,371,750 grains of rice.

How many bowls or bags or pounds do you think that is?

And so, Dear Employer,

I am weary today because at a very early part of this morning which was for me, yesterday night, I reached a vocab level of 42 and donated 560 grains of rice. Perhaps I should just send money or bags of rice to the UN World Food Program directly in the future.

Hugs and Rock,

Me

such a late update

So. I did learn the choreography. And I slapped on some zombie makeup and went out to Tompkins Square park and took part in Thrilling the World.

And according the website, at least unofficially, a new world record has been set. 1,722 people in 52 cities on 5 continents danced simultaneously to "Thriller" at the same time.

There is Youtube video but I was in the very far back corner of the formation so there is the occasional glimpses of my hair or my elbow but very little else. Alas.

Having a goofy thing like this to prepare for, focus on, look forward to. Having an excuse to dance around the house. Taking time to actively connect my brain to the coordinated movement of my body. Having "Thriller" be my internal soundtrack for a week. And doing one of the many ridiculous things that appeal to me that I usually find out about after the fact - well I tell ya, it was grand. Really grand.

I think I am starting to get the hang of the zombie makeup. Now I need to work on the bloody gaping wounds. Next time.

Thrill the World

On Sunday I watched the movie "13 going on 30" which I liked very much. But more on that later. Among the many scenes that I love in the movie, I loved the Thriller dance scene at the party. It got me thinking about great dance scenes from movies. But more on that later.

Thriller doesn't happen to be a video that I remember all that well because as a child I did not have cable. In fact, as an adult I don't either.

So I went to YouTube to try to find the video for study because it seems like I cannot actually call myself a child of the 80's if I don't know how to do the most influential dance sequence of my generation.

And there I stumbled across a 40 part instructional series on doing the Thriller dance.

Someone is trying to set a new Guinness World record for most people simultaneously doing the thriller dance at once. The current record is 62 people in Toronto, Canada.

And they are trying to beat that this year. The project is called: Thrill the World. For the 25th anniversary of the release of the album people will convene globally to dance for 5 minutes to the radio version of Thriller - all dancing the same agreed on choreography at times that synch up to 6pm Sat Oct 27, 2007 Toronto time.

Of course I hear about this at the last minute and am trying to figure out if I can locate a Guinness registered location near me and if I can learn that choreography in three days.

If you've heard the details of an event in the NYC let me know.

Shaking it off - the old and new

Strangely I have been in New York long enough that I describe certain modes of being as reminiscent of my "Old New York Life." My old New York life had a lot in common with the way I felt on my first Mystechs tour.

I don't know where it went.

The little things have been all that my life is about. The little things are not my strong suit. At the start it was kind of interesting. A challenge. After about a year it feels like death by a thousand papercuts. The little things have been tripping me up and getting me down.

It was one thing when I felt that I was teeming with money, my every free moment was spent in the pursuit of happiness or at least distraction.

And now I feel broke all the time and I pack a lunch to bring to work. I feel tired all the time and all I want to do is sleep late, sit at home, watch TV, and fall asleep on the couch.

Oddly, while I have been feeling broke I have taken to going to the Farmer's Market on the weekends. It's mind bogglingly expensive. And the bags I walk back with are mindbogglingly heavy. But walking around and touching produce and then buying it is fun. Very different from the grocery store. Although, you know how I love that too.

And I tell myself that I am doing something good. Reducing the miles on my food. Supporting local growers. Getting out into my community. And all that good hippy stuff.

Mindbogglingly expensive produce offers it's own powerful incentives to cook or some other form of food preparation. I bought a loaf of bread for $5 on Saturday - mindboggling.

And I made the most amazing grilled cheese sandwich with that bread. It may very well have been the best grilled cheese sandwich of my life. My soul felt nourished with its consumption. This experience may be irreproduceable. Especially considering that dire and desperate hunger probably played some role in my perception of the deliciousness. But seriously I think this might be my greatest accomplishment since moving to NY.

Inevitably the purchase of produce on Saturday leads to a mad late night effort to cook a little something on Sunday. Tonight it was blackeyed peas with stewed tomaters and brown rice. Also a can of creamed corn + frozen corn.

Later this week hopefully some ratatouille 'cause I bought eggplants and perhaps tilapia tacos 'cause I saw someone make them in TV and they looked gooooood.

Among the issues in my life I have been searching for a dentist. It's a dire need. Not knowing how to go about it, I have been trying to comb through doctoroogle.com in search of a dentist.

I started knitting my second sweater (the first one was a total fiasco and is still unfinished.) only to find after finishing the front part that None of the rest of the yarn I own matches what I have used. So I am now seeking a yarn shop to buy a bunch of skeins of some complementary or close to matching and compatible stuff. Apparently, my second sweater will also be a total fiasco, though I hope to finish it.

Went to the Mustard Plug show on Saturday. I had it in my head to be up front next to the stage. Lots of shoving and bruising and pushing and leaning. Lots of idiots crowd surfing. It was great. Somehow spiritually purifying. Plus, there's no time to think about the little things when you are trying not to get knocked down and trampled. At last - distraction.

another talented bastard

Andrew Mall has a new issue of livingproof. Issue #5: Rapprochement

"These words used to be songs, songs that we screamed along with on the way home from a show, dark highway behind and the future, bright and clear and mysterious, ahead. I knew all the words once, and while that is no longer true, I still instinctively retain the triumphant choruses and the painful confessions, no matter how much time has passed in the interim.

The bands that sang these songs are no more, and in many ways neither are those of us who sang along. We are different people now than we were then, but we also have the luxury of memory and nostalgia to remind us what it once felt like to care so muhc for a single thing that the pain was palpable. This zine is dedicated to the people we used to be, and the bands we used to love." - Andrew Mall

"Sure there are sections that may not appeal to those of you who are unfamiliar with Rainer Maria, but I think most everyone can appreciate the kind of love for a band that results in the type of self-flagellation on display in these pages. So please, do your best to read beyond the words: think about your favorite band, the lessons you learned from them, the ways in which you've built your life around these lessons, the memories they inspired, and how it felt when they broke up." - Andrew Mall


And I am a puddle to the words on his pages and not even halfway through the thing. Talented bastard.

His site is here.

serious questions

If I choose to spend time with the one I love rather than the one that loves me, does that make me a masochist?

The other way to summarize my resume

In conversation with SE, I admit to the fact I am 37 and the job I have now is really the first proper job that I have had. I have only been working in the real world for a bit over a year.

And his reply was that he thought this was something to be proud of having accomplished in my life. A comment which certainly gave me pause.

I can bring home the bacon

As a child I watched the Enjoli perfume ads.

"I can bring home the bacon
Fry it up in a pan
and never let you forget you're a man
'cause I'm a woman, Enjoli."

Somehow despite my best efforts it's one of those things that lodged into my brain as a model for womanhood.

And now I am at the point where one is unlikely to call me a young woman or girl and would likely consider me to be in the category of woman. I find that I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and make an effort to try to make a man feel like a man. The problem is, I haven't figured out how one manages to do all three simultaneously. I can bring home the bacon but that means I don't have time to fry it. And with the addition of interacting with the other gender - well - how does anyone manage to get any damn sleep around here?

There must be a trick to it. SD recently showed me a trick to dealing with those plastic grocery bags for produce. They are so difficult to get open sometimes. "Lick, pinch, and twist." Seriously it's that easy. One might think that this series of verbs would help in other endeavors but I think that varies widely in the population.

So there must be a trick to it. Maybe one of you out there knows it. Maybe it's as simple as three verbs in a row. Maybe it comes in a bottle, like it did in the 70's.

My other model for womanhood was the Charlie ads.
"Kinda young kinda now, Charlie
Kinda free kinda wow, Charlie"

Y'know wearing pants suits and being sassy and flirty.

It was all kind of muddled and confusing yet so heady and glamorous to try to imagine emulating.

What do young girls today see in the media and envision to be their models of womanhood? The Pussycat Dolls? Skimpy outfits, pelvic thrusts, and booty shaking. It's a whole new world. A bit beyond me, really. Let us offically stop calling me girl or young woman, then.