York Swirls

Monday, May 21, 2012

An Essay about Love and Internet Dating



Of all the things I’ve always wanted, the one thing that caused the most distress was Love. Before you barf in your mouth (unless it’s already done), just hear me out. I know you wanted it too. Yeah yeah, don’t pretend you’re too cool to admit you haven’t yearned or pined or agonized or downright paaaained for love. So what if I’m that mid-twenties Midwestern white girl that writes acerbic comments on blog posts about the atrocities committed in the name of the institution of marriage? I’m that type, sue me. No don’t sue me; I’m a lover, not a high-income earner. (Thanks liberal arts college.) Instead, why don’t you go ahead and think to yourself that you know for sure I love all those sappy Meg Ryan rom-coms, fawn over my scrapbook of Leonardo DiCaprio magazine cutouts and bakes catnip cookies for my “babies” when you’re not looking. I know you’re doing it anyway. And you know, you might just be right about that (well, all but the last two), and what I say to you is…
Fine, it is a little embarrassing, ok?! In a time where women can be Anything, I wanted to be in movie love. At the time, it was more like Hollywood movie love that I wanted. That passionate, kissing under the waterfall love that consumes your very being. I wanted to twirl with him in an whirlpool of sugar and dreaming that looks like the innocence of cotton candy from the outside, but is really made of the intoxicating gases of Venus perfectly aligned with his eyes and the light of the moon. (um, rude, can I get you a paper bag or a breath mint or something?)
When I was stricken with the Yearning, I believed it afflicted me deeper than anyone. The first person who I fell in love with was my next door neighbor in 7th grade. He was blonde like me, older than the other guys in our neighborhood group that were all in love with my best friend anyway, and he could stay out late on Wednesday nights when my mom was somewhere til 10pm. We would take walks on Wednesdays after the sun went down through this field behind our townhome complex. It was Matt and I, we’d hold hands, stare up at the real stars and I’d periodically remember to breathe. And when I did breathe, it had to be shallow because my chest was filled to capacity with ecstatic nervousness, which was surprisingly suffocating.
After a few months, one icy night we took a detour to a little courtyard with a bench obscured to potential onlookers by snow-covered pine trees. He sat down, and then asked me to sit down. I hesitated, but by the utter majesty of the universe, I slipped on a patch of ice and tumbled straight into his lap. Of course I was mortified because all my friends called me “cow” back then, so I assumed I’d squished him, but he just looked at me with his icicle-colored eyes and smiled. In an effort to save the moment, I let as many muscles as I could go limp to pretend I was relaxed (which required me to strain my left hamstring for a while to keep myself actually up on the bench) so that I could be held.
 “Would…would you…would you want to go out with me sometime?”
Oh god oh god oh god, what is he asking me?! A jolt of lightning pierced my lungs and the ecstatic nervousness I held there for months paralyzed my body like I had swallowed a grenade full of IcyHot that just burst in my belly. I stared like a laser beam at a sidewalk block, making my intense focus on the cement exactly perpendicular to his gaze, which was at god-why-me? In response I pretended there was no possible way I assumed that he was asking me out. Nothing would have been worse if I responded as though he, Matt, beautiful Matt, asked me out and I was wrong. I stammered, oh how I stammered, “Uh, sure, y’know,  Jessie has some connections at this one club in town, um, she could probably get us in, um, yeah when are you free, I could talk to her and see, y’know, yeah, what do think?” When I finished, it was as if all hope of an “us” escaped out of my mouth and dissipated with my heavy breaths in the vacuous night air. I tensed up again, knowing I used all those “ums” and “y’knows” as a sword and shield against the beast of admitting that Oh God There Is No Way This Is Happening Right Now And I’m Blowing It. He gave me a confused look, then a more certain one when I think he realized what I realized, then rose to get home. There’s no way anyone could expect me to remember what we talked about on the way back, if anything. What I do know is we definitely didn’t hold hands.
Of course, like all good movies where you cry for the main character because “he got away,” the neighbor moves away a couple weeks later thus commencing the decade of No One Will Ever Love Me. So, like a cowardly mutt that barks and chases you until you turn around to pet it and it runs away, I too, barked and chased after that feeling. Throughout my adolescence, I didn’t really date, had a few flings with rules like you see in squinty-eyed Renee Zellweger flicks. But always, in the back of my head and in my journal I wanted love so badly even though I was thoroughly convinced that it was impossible for someone like me.
And so, while I never thought it would happen, I have indeed been through a few beaus since that first pining at prepubescence and after my teen years. In my young adult love travels through college, found that what I wanted as a kid is out there, I just had to adjust my expectations a little: For instance, it just so happens that waterfall part works out ok because he kisses like a drooling Rottweiler. The whirlpool is the toilet flushing after I puked up my Flash Tacos and PBR after a horrific night of consummating my latest four hour relationship. The sugar and dreaming are what I lived on at home or in the dorm watching Lost marathons during my period. Today, the stars are those glow-in-the-dark plastic stick on ones that I stared concertedly at when I finally made it into his bed. The stars are manufactured promises I pretend are communicating hope to me from the ceiling, plaster and paint peeling around the corners, as I keep my face as still as I can so I don’t ask him to be my boyfriend. Venus is still a distant planet and the moon is still a satellite.
After a while, the dating scene in college and my young adulthood after college just weren’t hacking it. I had dabbled in internet dating as a teen, too, flirting in AOL chess chatrooms, initiating with my best friend cyber sex encounters with guys that likely had no idea they were the butt of budding sexuality snickers. Or they did. Looking back, I hope for the former. So when I wanted to get into that scene again, I talked about it with a friend and fellow comrade-in-arms who was on active duty in the field. She says something along the lines of, “I’m actually on The Chicago Reader Matches site. It’s pretty fun and seems to be working.” And by working she meant she met a few guys in person and she wasn’t robbed or maimed. She had fun, even! So I decided, what the hell? Let’s get some.
For the uninitiated, “internet dating” is a term used for people who meet and chat with people on websites that are specifically constructed for the purpose of inching, email by email, toward real-life romantic encounters of your consensual choosing. (Please note, as for these websites, they’re pretty much divided into the camps of let’s-pretend-we’re-mature-here-and-say-we’re-looking-for-a-long-term-relationship (see: eHarmony.com) and find-accessible-loveless-sex-escapades (see: okcupid.com & the Reader Matches). Of course the real-life part is not so binary.) The Reader Matches and Okcupid are personals websites more of the find-accessible-loveless-sex-escapades variety (let’s use the acronym false for the rest of our time together). That’s where I found many profiles that were of interest to me, but Ah, these sites mimic real life insofar as that you cannot just say that you want to false without generally coming across as creepy, if you are male, and slutty, if you are female. As a person concerned with the pursuit of movie love (c’est moi), I chose the false route because it opened up the possibility of connecting with so many more people than I encountered during my daily life.
You create an alias, or username, and that’s what people see as your name on the website. Conventionally, you then create a profile for yourself. That includes a picture or pictures of your choosing and a few sentences about yourself, which is essentially a cover letter that you’re using at an interview with thousands of people who come across your profile and may be interested in copulating with the idea of you that you created for them. These profiles begin with a hook, similar in importance to the first sentence of a novel, and continue with more detailed information. I’ll give you me. Then how about three guys: one who broke my heart, one who broke even, and one whose heart I broke. For brevity’s and dignity’s sake[1], I’ll just show the first bits of these profiles.
My online presence was a little cheesy. While my headspace is full of a hot mess of emotions and insecurities, I could meticulously finesse online another’s perception of how totally playful and carefree I am! LOL! Though as you can see in my personal essay, I can also playfully slip in there that I love over-analysis, which is code for obsessing about every facial muscle spasm. The sweet and sassy part may tip off the reader that I’m moody as hell, the sassy part more vitriolic.
Sources:okcupid.com & chicagoreader.selectalternatives.com/gyrobase/Personals
Screenname: Aliasilicious & Jensese
Personal essay (for both): I’m a sweet and sassy kind of lassie who loves coffee, over-analysis and quite possibly you.

Now what stupid, stupid man wouldn’t want to date that saucy profile?

Now here are those three men whose profiles and impacts stick out in my memory, in order of appearance:
Time: Winter 2008-Summer 2009
Source:chicagoreader.selectalternatives.com/gyrobase/Personals
Screenname: NickBelane
Personal essay: These profiles are bullshit, just message me if you want to have a beer on my roof.

I really wasn’t planning on this one. If you could believe it, I got my heart broken even though I was going in expecting false. I couldn’t believe it either. Thank god for internet dating, otherwise what would I have done afterwards?! We had exchanged messages for a couple of weeks before Christmas 2008. Then we started texting. Which was exciting. We hadn’t heard each others' voices yet, and flirtation was high. When I had to go to my mother’s for Christmas Eve, I stayed up til 3am watching A Christmas Story over and over. When Barack Obama was elected president, the QVC gold coin people made Obama collectors coins BEFORE the inauguration! I couldn’t believe how funny I found this and texted NickBelane about it. At that, he decided I was worth calling the next day. He called to say “Hey, Sara,” and I said “Hey…” and he said, “Merry Christmas and shit” and I said, “Uh, thanks, you too,” and he said, “Ok…bye-bye” and hung up. My stomach exploded a little from the inside, a little like it used to when I was young. My cheeks wouldn’t stop contracting in joy even though it was my job to make Christmas miserable for my family. 
We met for the first time a week later. I took the #72 to his apartment. I dressed up, straight-ironed my hair and donned an art-deco patterned shirt that hid my upper arm fat. When he let me in, he was wearing ripped up jeans, a ripped up t-shirt and desperately needed a haircut, and just sort of opened the door and walked straight back to his grimy kitchen. He poured me a straight, shitty vodka. I was very tense, and he could tell that, which come to find later, he enjoyed very much. We sat on his ripped up couch looking at pictures from a family album he kept under a dingy pink blanket he’d had since he was a boy. From that moment, we became best friends for 6 months. Practically inseparable. Never agreed on anything. He said the difference between us was that if someone dropped an orange in the top of his head, it would come out his mouth an orange. If that same orange were dropped in mine, a little gremlin would catch it, sniff it, conduct non-invasive experiments on it to determine it was, yes!, indeed an orange, then come out my mouth the orange.
He moved in with me because he was broke and unemployed and he would have to move back to Texas if I didn’t let him. I already knew he had another girlfriend, but I drank whiskey and smoked out on the porch pretending it wasn’t true til he finally moved out.   
Time: Winter 2010
Source: Okcupid.com
Screenname: MariusLT
Personal essay: I'm looking for a female/girl/woman/fairy princess/cyborg/other fairy incarnations (got enough sausages around me), someone to shoot the proverbial sh!t with and do the coffee/tea thing...perhaps even sushi, enjoy each other’s company, laugh, get to know each other, scamming the man, and destroying the law, ya know, the usual fun stuff.

MariusLT was a long-winded fella, just like myself. He so readily shared everything that was on his mind and was so willing to explore it, I got lost in his rambling as if I were the kid chosen to explore Charlie’s Chocolate Factory. He was 1 part disturbing, 2 parts sweet and 3 parts not quite right, but I liked it. We first met at my apartment this time. I had a new roommate after NickBelane moved out, and we discovered through conversation that my roommate was started dating a girl that was MariusLT’s best friends in high school…and was already planning to come over to my apartment! It was a little less awkward to meet MariusLT, because not only did we have these mutual friends in common but we apparently graduated in 2008 from the same small liberal arts college.
We went out a few times. He hated his job in finance, and I disliked mine in administration, and so we would bitterly complain whenever we saw each other. We would bitch and moan. There’s really only so much of that two people can do, especially when one was so disillusioned with the imagination of the other based on the otherworldly letters we wrote each other before we became acquainted with each others' realities.
He said he was too tired to drive to the city and back to his home in the suburbs, but I knew we bored each other quite a lot. We still write each other letters and rarely meet for coffee. Our relationship works in the internet ether, but rusts too quickly to function regularly when exposed to reality’s airs.
Time: Summer 2010
Source: Okcupid.com
Screenname: infinitjazzkeys
Personal essay: I'm an adjunct professor of Mathematics at [CONFIDENTIAL]. I also play jazz piano on the side with a few small groups. Don't worry though, I'm not uptight or your typical jazz nerd.

My first impression of infinitjazzkeys was that he was a professor and a jazz pianist, also that he has triple citizenship in the United States, France and England. Impressive stuff. Given my last couple of joyrides, I wasn’t really expecting much from this particular guy other than the soft, self-satisfying glow of having seduced a math professor/jazz pianist/citizen of the world. He wasn’t the type to mess around on the internet so much, but especially since it turned out the two of us lived within blocks of one another in Edgewater. The midpoint between our apartments was Moody’s Pub, a favorite of both of us, so we decided to meet there. It was a weekend day in August 2010, and I arrived at the pub first. It’s a dark wood pub with stained glass, bull skulls and ye olde gardening tools mounted on the walls. Their patio is gray stone spotted with mature hardwood or oak trees lined with white Christmas lights, reminiscent still of the monastery the building used to be. The place makes me feel calm. When we talked, I figured he was too hoity-toity for me being a triple-threat and all. I figured I was beneath him, that he must think I was fat since he was so trim and that he was bored of my sing-songy suburban vocal intonations that come out from suppression when I feel nervous. But little did I know, I seduced him by the end of the night. Not enough for him to invite me over, but enough to invite me over in a few days.    
Infinitjazzkeys’ apartment resembled NickBelane’s in the coating of grime over virtually everything in it, but I am not one to judge, just notice. He actually similarly offered me the shitty vodka. Within two weeks, I had reconnected with my college boyfriend, Jonathan, whom I did not meet online. He and I met in our library, I was the circulation desk assistant and he worked A/V. I caught Infinitjazzkeys on google chat and told him I couldn’t see him anymore, that I was just back together with my ex-boyfriend, and that I was sorry. He accused me of fucking him and leaving. It stung, but isn’t that what we all do til we don’t?


[1] Just kidding, there’s no shame in internet dating despite all the cultural dildo-logue that would suggest otherwise, but really, I can’t remember the rest of their profiles anyway. They’re much too long. I liked writers.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Cyclonic Senioritis

The 4 year itch. That's a thing, right? I mean, you google "4 year itch" and mostly you come across folks interested in pop-psychology who talk about how they're interested in psychology who don't really quote anything but say "studies show" divorces are common around year-4 of marriage. So...no, it's not a thing.


Though I have to say I'm diggin' the 4 year cycles. Highschool was 4 years, undergrad was 4 years. That's really all I could handle of either one, but it definitely felt like just enough time to ripen within each stage. I'm coming up on 4 years at this job of mine tip-typing away at Northwestern and I'm ready for a good old fashioned phase-changer.

I wonder if the 4 year thing has any merit to it. If people have a tendency to want to reinvent themselves or experience a life-changing event every 4 years. It's enough time to get used to something, enough time to really dig in to a field of study, a relationship, a mindset...Presidential terms are set to 4 years. There's some 4-year cycle talk on The Internet regarding the Stock Market (...not that I'd even consider getting into figuring out what that even means).


Though, I would say that as a member of the Greek-thought-evolved modern tribe, this cyclical time stuff can only coexist with the idea of a linear timeline. So as I imagine my life, the cycles are more cyclonic, that of a tornado going round and round but always somewhere!

I'd like to go somewhere.
...
BY DESTROYING EVERYTHING IN MY PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATH.




If you were expecting to read something insightful, and maybe you'd be interested in the writings of Nobel Prize winners on time, I recommend landing here:
www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/articles/cullhed/

Friday, July 22, 2011

Self-awareness is One Liberated Bitch

"you're a frog, shacka lacka, DON'T COME IN!"
 
Lately, I've been mildly obsessed with introspection. Not the middle school kind. You know, when you close your bedroom door, plug in your mock electric candles (because your mom doesn't trust you not to burn the house down at the grown-up age of 10), put Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" on repeat for hours and cast new-age, poorly-interpreted Wiccan curses on the various boys who could never love you... Well, actually now that you mention it, the feeling is actually pretty similar.  

What I'm talking about is really sitting down and getting this life business figured out. Books I'm reading and seminars and workshops I'm enrolled in are all pointing me to this astonishingly omnipresent idea:

 POSSIBILITY


Totally hokey, I get it.
Despite the adages, "You can do anything you set your mind to" and "the sky is the limit," that word POSSIBILITY has been ultimately absent from my life. The whole business of being born, learning some colors and numbers, going to schools where the government ensures we can pass standardized tests that tell us who we have the potential of being, so we can drop out or go to trade-school or college and keep on this predetermined track, laid out for us by society's vision of how each socioeconomic class is supposed contribute to the status quo.

...this is actually quite true.
For example: I am a white woman from middle America. Raised in a suburb of Chicago, I was expected to do well in school, babysit my neighbor's kids because girls are nurturing and responsible, get a job at a pizza place to learn American work ethic, go to liberal arts college...and then what? Now I am working as a University Administrator.

Essentially I am a gussied up version of a secretarial type that has been historically characterized in the U.S. often by the color "white" and most definitely by the gender "female." Just google image search: "administrative assistant" to see for yourself.

Where was my choice? They say the U.S. is "land of the free" and yet, there are well-trodden paths we are all just going to follow. Unless something or someone interrupts, we the zombies plod along the railway laid out for us by our predecessors.

This kitty has no self-esteem. :...(
Though it's not just the predetermined path on which we embark from birth. There's reactionary behaviors I've had my whole life that I didn't even know about. I'll procrastinate all the time because I tell myself I'm lazy. Or I'll procrastinate further on something I've BEEN procrastinating because I don't want to look like a fool or get in trouble for being lazy. See, the "being lazy" part was a fucking self-fulfilling prophesy rather than WHO I AM. What I did was I thought it, then I also made it real. I took the unreality of some dumb stuff I said to myself and made it real.

THAT's some choice, huh?

The thing I'm taking away from all this intellectual exercise on thinking (GAH!) is that thinking simultaneously means everything and does not mean anything at all. To elaborate, if you honor your thoughts, you will be the things you think because you will act on them. If you do not honor your thoughts and choose NOT to be reactionary all the time, then you will have more freedom to be whoever you want. It's hard for me to know, at this point, if that means anyone really CAN be anyone they want. This...this sounds like a B sci-fi psychological thriller just waiting to happen.

The lead character in this drama is Self-awareness. She is an unrelenting, unapologetic, but totally liberated bitch.

...self-awareness? girl, she as crazy as you! And she don't take no trains.
But, the only way to be truly free to choose my life is to figure out all this shit. Otherwise, I'm just going to keep on keepin' on the same tracks, let my inner voice dictate how I act and thus who I am.

Now that I know this, how could I possibly let it happen?

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Writing is mind-body integration (so, naturally, also a penis)

Before posting today, since April, I've redone this damned blog about 4 times. Different colors, pictures, the url has changed. I changed anything I could other than add new writing to it.

Often when I think of writing, I think of the time differential between having thoughts (milliseconds) and the physical act of writing (foreeeeeeveeeeeeeeer). It seems nearly impossible to take the many hours to transpose thought to paper without forgetting what you thought in the first place! What I also forget is yes, thoughts change during the journey of writing. And that's ok, Sara. You're gonna be ok. It's all gonna be ok.

All of the following are important and merge to create the writing process:
1. your ever-churning reckless production of thoughts
2. mindfulness
3. the physicality and pace of your hands.
(4. oh, and editing, but we won't count that... haha...ha...haa....)

Hey, I know. This picture is laaaame. But I can put whatever pictures I want here, it's my damn blog.




It is (2) and (3) I forget always when thinking-thinking-thinking away. I think, holy hot damn, my hands would hurt like I jerked off a good couple thousand horses if I wrote as fast as I am thinking these weird ideas right now. But...only having thoughts are not enough to write. You need it all - that is (ready?...)
the process by which mindfulness harnesses the spontaneity of thoughts through your physical body into the physical realm.

Three cheers to integration!

Speaking of which...
The other reason I don't write is due to this bipolar-ish superiority/inferiority complex type thing. It makes me feel like two completely different assholes that are not writers.

From the facebook photo album: ME!!11!!1 :)
 I'll disparage myself to the core when I think of my (lack of) abilities in relation to a particular art form...until I actually do said art form. As in sit down and create something. Then I'll show it to someone and get good enough feedback. That's when my ego goes, "what's cookin', good lookin'" on repeat for days. That is, until I realize I could never live up to its expectations. Then sadness. And productivity dies. More sadness.

It's like my mind is a penis.

...Just bear with me a second.
It's like my mind is a penis. After I haven't been productive for a while, it's a penis that is very insecure with itself.  When it isn't all pumped full of love blood, it's lonely and sad. It limps and looks down at the ground every where it goes and isn't very obvious to anyone. To the point  where other people totally forget it could ever, EVER, get inflated (with an ego, you see). My mind thinks, "oh, if I don't create anything with this dumb useless tool, no one will know how lifeless I am. Wonk, wonk."

But then, it gets INSPIRED!

Inspiration can be sexual sure, for the sake of jiving with this mind-penis metaphor. It can be inspired by the environment or by biological influences. For example, inspiration can come from:
-other people's writing,
-just some regular influx of serotonin or dopamine or otherwise a generally good mood,
-taking my vitamins in the morning,
-a cup o coffee extra in the afternoon (which is currently the checked box, squeee!),
-some vague mortality reminder.

Those are the big ones. Each of those reasons, that causes me to actually write, turns my ego into a big one. (See what I did there. I meant big one as in huge throbbing penis ... oh god, it's alrEADY HAPPENING.) I'd better stop now before I write up metaphors on how life is a rose and shit and really blow my load.


Oh, shit... I'm fucked.

In any case, I should go home now. I have to go ... do laundry. and make dinner. and go the gym. and and and and never have children.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

It's potty time, dahlings!

Who doesn't just love the bathroom at work?!
Come on girls, let me hear you say, " HEEEAAAVE, hoe!"

You think I'm being facetious, don't you?

You think I'm going to list all the reasons why using public bathrooms are the worst thing since using public bathrooms, I just know it.

But think about it. You get to get away from your office for a few minutes and do whatever you want in there. There's no oppressive stinker of a supervisor present to tighten your sphincter for you. No one will judge you out loud, criticize you. Everyone is always so damn nice and skiddish outside of the stall. And inside of the stall, you have total anonymity. Even if your shoes are recognized, no one will dare call you out. The best thing about it is that no one can tell you how to pee, no one can tell you how to change your tampon or tell you how to poop! ...mostly because there's just one way to do it. But it is oh-so-gratifying to take a good shit. If you don't think so, if you're lying to yourself right now saying that I'm crazy... 

Because give me a break, you know you love it. At the very least, you WOULD love it if you hadn't internalized the "EW GROSS EW" poop mentality. This all applies especially at work! If everything you do all day means virtually nothing, all you do from 9am-5pm is deal with other people's shit, then by-god-wo-man, be proud of the shit you created yourself!

 Receiver of the Party-time Efficiency Seal®
It is like a great accomplishment. "I have exercised regularly and taken in enough fiber, hooray!"

Or it is like a reminder. "Ouch, I should really drink more water and ease off the chorizo burritos." (Like that'll happen.)

Or it is like a good flushing, especially if you're on a diet. "My goodness, it only took 10 minutes (lol) to take 2 inches off my waistline! 

Or it is like an after-party on Monday mid-morning. "Aaahhh, this is the one good thing that comes from having a hangover. Beer shit at 10:15am, ftw!"



So, all of the above there is pretty personal, though I'll TOTALLY bet that there are plenty of other ladies that feel the exact same way about their bathroom habits. Only thing is, the trend among femmes when it comes to potty talk, is about how horribly disgusting the bathroom is and how disgustingly inappropriate EVERYONE ELSE acts in there.

Main topics of lady bathroom disgust:

EWWW the bathroom is so gross omgomg don't touch anything!!! (1.2.3.4.5)
GERMS!!! (1.2.3.4.5)
Pee on the toilet (1.2.3.4.5)
Drip-drying (1.3.4.5)
(Note: this is usually an offense committed by the woman who will not help a sister out with some goddamn toilet paper. See "Just three squares! Or even a ply!!!" by Elaine from Seinfeld for reference. -->)
Hanging out for more than a few minutes afterwards/hogging the counter (1.2.4)
Talking to someone in a stall (1.2.3)
Last person didn't flush (1.2)
(this includes " If you just got back from your trip to a developing country where 
people live on a gallon a day, do not inflict 
your newfound POV on users."
...wow.) 
Gossip (2.3)
Being alone (2.3)
(Note: this is an offense committed by the person who left her alone)
Lack of reporting when a toilet is clogged (3)
Talking on the phone while you're in a stall (3)
Shitting when someone else is present (3)
Spraying heavy floral scented spray over shit-smell (1)
Leaving hair that you've brushed out of your head everywhere (1)
("Wet hair clumps look like dead animals, and there's nothing worse than watching hair and soap battle it out down a drain." (1) ...well I can think of a few things, like poverty and real dead animal battles, yknow, zombie sheep eating and shitting all over each other.) 

So you see, everyone's got an opinion about how to do it. But then again, everyone's got an opinion about how to do virtually anything. Don't get me wrong, all the stuff about cleaning up after yourself is right on. It's just ... well ... all that complaining is so damn prissy! It also reinforces the societal-wide opinion that girls are clean, that our vaginas are dirty and morality-spoiling, that  hygiene is symbolic for moral purity (...but that's another topic for another time.)

Which brings me to a point here about the threat of massive amounts of shit piling up if someone doesn't clean it up. That person should also be YOU if it's your own mess. Accountability. BAM.  There's nothing that has grossed me out more than the scenes in Jose Saramago's Blindness that describe the sheer horror of shit everywhere. 

All of that is shit. I'm not kidding.
"It is not just the state to which the lavatories were soon reduced, fetid caverns such as the gutters in hell full of condemned souls must be, but also the lack of respect shown by some of the inmates or the sudden urgency of others that turned the corridors and other passageways into latrines, at first only occasionally but now as a matter of habit. ... When it became impossible in any sense, to reach the lavatories, the blind internees began using the yard as a place to relieve themselves and clear their bowels. ...in search of a foot or two of clean ground, if there was any amidst that endless carpet of trampled excrement ...and also the slight mounds, now almost flattened, that barely covered the dead..."

 But the thing is, in the ladies bathroom, if there's a sprinkling of urine (which is sterile for the most part) on the toilet, give your nerves a break and just deal.

To read the dude's perspective, here's a link to a most hilarious post by my friend Marius, blogging Cartoon Stink Lines: http://cartoonstinklinespoop.blogspot.com/2011/04/laws-and-customs-of-room-of-rest.html


References for list o' offenses:
        1. The WH Bathroom Ettiquette Guide.
        http://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/bathroom-etiquette
        2. The Ladies Room Monologues (video) and Bathroom Humor for Women. http://www.femalerestrooms.com/
        3. International Center for Bathroom Ettiquette.
        http://www.icbe.org/womens-bathroom-issues/ & http://www.icbe.org/womens-bathroom-issues-ii/
        4. How to Properly Use a Public Women's Restroom.
        http://www.ehow.com/how_2128418_properly-use-public-womens-restroom.html
        5. Women's Ettiquette 101.
        http://hubpages.com/hub/Womens-Restroom-Etiquette

          Photo credits

          http://www.icbe.org/category/toilet-babes/ <--yes, that is a whole blog of hot women on toilets.

          Monday, April 4, 2011

          Jinxes (also, a couple hot bods and jesus)

          Last week, I started this blog thinking, "IMMA FINALLY DO THIS BLOG THING EVERY GOD DAMN DAY." And what happens? Of course my computer gets a virus after the second one. At least I got to say I wrote blogS. Luckily, I.T. was able to fix my Dell friend relatively promptly.

          So, in the spirit of that buncha bullshit, all I can think to write about are jinxes.

          You know you believe in jinxes. This is especially relevant today because the weather calls for scattered thunderstorms. Only if you don't bring your umbrella to lunch, you're going to be *THE ONE* solely responsible for an imminent downpour. You also didn't wear a coat with a hood and are wearing white, you idiot. (I am only berating you because I didn't wear a coat with a hood and am wearing white and it makes me feel better...heh, I digress. o.O)

          You're, uh, welcome?
          Though, as demonstrated to your right, jinxes can be blessings in disguise. Isn't it beautiful? Like if someone else totally hot did this and jinxed the weather. But, see, if we can go for an advanced lesson in jinx instruction for a minute, I have to tell ya, unfortunately that beautiful disaster right there could never happen. Here, you must consider the case of an opposite jinx:
          if you saw this beautiful specimen on the street wearing a white shirt and it looked like it was about to rain, you just can forget it. FANTASY OVER.
          P.S. The universe revolves around you at all times so you'll never get to see that happen -->
          P.P.S. please do yourself a favor and think of David Boreanaz as caught in the rain here, and not sweating so profusely as to saturate his cotton shirt with putrid human saline solution or lubricant. Unless you're into that kind of thing... Hey, no judgment here. Fantasize away.

          In all seriousness, though, those omg-of-COURSE-that-would-happen-to-me moments are made of majik. Wikipedia, everyone's favorite source of ultim8 trooth, tells us that jinxes occur for several reasons. Among them:
          • A type of curse placed on a person that makes them prey to many minor misfortunes and other forms of bad luck;
          • A person afflicted with a similar curse, who, while not directly subject to a series of misfortunes, seems to attract them to anyone in his vicinity.
          • An object/person that brings bad luck.
          • A common slang term used when two people say the same thing at the same time, said as a game among children.
          But to me, the strongest of those is when you "(talk) about a future event with too much confidence." You will also cause a jinx, as with the example of today with the forecast of thunderstorms, if you choose to do something in direct, haughty, conceited and otherwise egotistical opposition to the worst case scenario. Observe.
          Scenario: Gloomy day, forecast of rain.  
          Opposition Action: Consciously not bringing umbrella outside.
          Jinx: FUCKING TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR FOR EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY YOU, JERK.
          The example the Wikipedia article used is the muthafuckin Titanic, which was said to be unsinkable.

          With those breasts, Jack should have used her life vest.
          Yeeeaaahhh, way to go, assholes. Arrogance tempts "the-almighty-whomever-controls-your-circumstances-and-favorite-stuff." So you better not make "it" feel like being mad at your or even give it the opportunity to act mischievously and fuck your shit up. Everyone knows that.

          Come to think about it, that could be why I hate arrogance so much. C'mon, You think you're so much better than everyone else you can just be horrible, completely disregard caution, live your life intrepidly without abandon and not get jinxed?! Ooooh, buddy, (I'm not really boring or anything and) you'll get yours!!!

          Ok, so this is a bit of a non-sequitor, but I wonder if the belief in jinxes is a sort of folk lore left-over from when religiosity and common knowledge were so entangled that no one could tell them apart. Oh, shit, maybe I am religious - indirectly, of course, but still, ack!. I mean, the phrases: "Goddamn!" "Jesus, what the...?" and "Holy Fuck!" pop out of my mouth regularly, after all.

          No, no nooooo, NO NO NYOOO!
          This can not be! I do not like religion and find it's influence grotesquely inversely proportional to it's logic and it makes people act stupidly and irrationally!

          I don't find that ironic at all, no no. But just in case, I should use my trusty jinx remover if you just in fact witnessed me jinxing myself into a spiritual rebirth.

          Atheist 4 life!

          Tuesday, March 29, 2011

          BOOBS

          This is the second post. What else was I supposed to think about when #2 comes up?
          ...
          Um ahem! without further ado, let us BEHOLD:



          Harmless obsession or downright madness? 
          You be the judge.
          On second thought, how about I be the judge! (Pun alert:) Wouldn't it be great if when a guy/gal was staring at your tatas while you're talking, you could just yell: "ORDER IN THE COURT!" and then s/he'd instantly respect you all of a sudden? Pshaw, as IF we had authority of our own breasts, sheesh, like we had control over our bodies or something. I would sentence all culprits to 2 tickets to next year's Lilith Fair. Non-negotiable. (Take me with you?)

          "God damn it, that Sara is getting all feminazi on me again." I can just hear it. But let me tell you something. I don't know what it is, but the power of boobs has me, too. That right, you heard me! Now I can hear you again just about as loud, "Hmm, that Sara just got interesting." How ironic; I get interesting as soon as I'm on your side discussing the magnetism of the bosom. But, hey. As long my eyes are up here while we're talking about them, then that's alright with me.

          ♫ Let's get it on. Aaaaaaaahhh! ♪
          Most of these ladies reading this have probably had experiences diddling the same sex in college, in one way or another. Most of these dudes reading this also probably have as well (uh oh, wait! I mean...well, that could be too, couldn't it?). In any case, it's pretty commonly accepted that the female sexuality is more, AHEM, fluid than dudes' on average. While it is perfectly interesting to investigate why this is, to be honest, I couldn't give a tit less.

          But let's say....let's just say it isn't because men's stimulus bullshit is more visual and thus directly correlated with blah de blah and the women's arousal state is enticed by emotional fuck this stereotypical nonsense, but instead, it is all because we love food.

          What the fuck does food have to do with sex?

          EVERYTHING!

          Which brings me back to boobs.

          From whence came our first nutrients in the cold, cruel world? What provided our first warmth and comfort and FOOD, FOOD, GIVE ME MORE FOOOOOOOOOD. It just so happens that boobs are not only nourishing, but they are also a secondary sexual characteristic that bloom (gag me, word choice) when women can get all pregnant. The procreation and FOOD aspects to these are irrevocably, eternally intertwined and there's nothing that fat doesn't make more delicious. amiright?

          Seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeex.
          You know, it's funny, Codename:Hools and I started a coup against food/sex metaphors a few years ago. We no longer stood for restaurant commercials that featured the sensuous slathering of juicy BBQ sauce over a rack of ribs. (There's definitely some biblical-inspired insult there, but I digress). Also any commericial with honey in it, we cast violently from our sight. It was a small, yet mighty coup, but now I wonder if we were... wrong. Food and sex have been intertwined since the dawn of time. So to speak, of course!. I swear I don't believe that people have existed since the dawn of time really, it's just a figure of speech! Jesus, you guys are gonna think I'm some religious nut now...

          Anywho, I suppose the moral of the story is that boobs are awesome and so is food.

          That doesn't mean my eyes aren't still up here, though, guys.




          *picture sources
          http://www.demotivationalposterz.com/2010/05/boobs-because-you-cant-motorboat.html
          http://www.flickr.com/photos/tofu_mugwump/3740517295/
          http://thedomandjaneshow.itmblog.com/category/jeremys-recipes/jeremys-crocktober/page/4/
          http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=50888