Since someone like me only really has a chance of being indexed through high school accomplishments, I usually come up with nothing. Mostly because my high school was the kind that felt it was acceptable to appropriate the Anheuser-Busch logo and somehow make it about ‘meeting new challenges every day’ instead of…beer. Which, oddly enough, the only challenge my high school faced was teenage alcoholism so I guess in retrospect, they were pulling off one fucking poignant piece of performance art.
Failed public education aside, my query is usually fruitless.But yesterday, when I searched for myself hoping to ensure that I can’t be contacted in any way by family members who should’ve been committed years ago, I found a public profile claiming I live in Nigeria. After confirming that my credit cards hadn’t been used to buy twelve XBox 360s, I noticed a link on the page, relevant of course because it was one of the few that included my name. I cringed when I saw it, but was sadistically delighted to know that it still existed. It was something my boyfriend at the time had written about me – proof that someone, somewhere loved me long enough to manufacture a few thoughts into functioning sentences:
I am with a woman so smart that she makes Annie Dillard seem like a fruit tart, so beautiful she grounds Poe’s Helen into dust, and so wonderful she makes grown men weep in her presence and women take their own lives in a fit of pure jealousy. I’m talking about CHEETOS*, the one who has single handedly has made my life more meaningful than the past 20 years combined. She’s trilingual, has amazing taste in music, and seems to be able to make me laugh no matter what. Even in an emergency room for 9 hours where we had fun playing “I Spy” and laughing at a guy with a c-cup. She’s wonderful and I just want to let you know that.
*name has been changed
A few things come to mind here – most glaring of which is that I can’t believe my pussy has put me in so much peril as to require a nine-hour emergency room visit for a urinary tract infection. Also, yes I’m an asshole for making fun of the guy with moobs. Sorry. I’m (kind of) different now. Oh, and the trilingual thing? My German and French language skills would land me in an assisted living facility for the developmentally disabled because my vocabulary boils down to, ‘Bathroom please and then we’ll see about ham.’ But, if I may brag for a moment, my grasp of English could definitely land me a position cleaning bed pans. While I’m at it, I’ll debunk the music thing too because well, come on.
I can’t vouch for the rest because it was based solely on an opinion that wasn’t mine and has since expired. But, for the sake of the authenticity of the twelve minutes taken to write it, I’ll assume that these feelings weren’t devised under false pretenses. Years ago, I would’ve tried to find a way to salt the earth and bury the page in order to dispel the idea that I am incompetent because I demolished the relationship in which these feelings existed. Because, after all, it is better to be loved without dilution than admit to everyone that you fucked it all up by not realizing that you were even loved in the first place.
Now I celebrate it. Not because the message has changed – the subtext of failure is still very present. But now, the failure is no longer the swelling tide that buries me beneath a carpet of sand and is instead the 7-11 from which I can safely eat my Funyuns while I carefully map out every ripple and finally realize what went wrong. I misdiagnosed the failure. My inability to adequately love this person was merely a symptom of the reality that I knew there was no good reason to, other than the fact that we both escaped from Budweiser High.
I still fail, and have no doubt that I always will. But I am learning how to be better at it – starting with skipping the Funyuns because they’re…just really gross.
I am rarely ever able to take advice. And, despite what you may be thinking, this isn’t a roundabout way for me to say that I listen to Papa Roach and fasten my pants with a belt buckle shaped like a gun. Instead, it’s a way to express that sometimes I am just a different kind of moron.
When I was in middle school, I made myself look like Eddie Munster’s twin, only with more hair product and eyeliner. My dad, as delicately as could be, suggested I go the more natural route. However, that only caused me to increase the amount of hair spray I used, which curiously seemed to have a direct relationship with the number of people who would be willing to see my boobs.
When I was in high school, my parents pleaded with me to take driver’s ed so I could get my license and have a life outside of watching Shipmates and fashioning dildos out of tampons. I refused, mostly because I was too busy taking Latin online. As a result, I got my license at the age of 21.
When I was in college, I was urged to major in anything other than Art History in order to ensure that my degree would mean more than my ability to offer up the history of the paper it was printed on.
But, I own my mistakes. I would even go so far as to say that I cuddle my mistakes at night and seductively whisper in their ear that they’re not mistakes in my eyes and they’ll be all like ‘You’re just saying that’ and I’ll just kind of smile since they have no idea. Because for me, my mistakes comprise a chain of the happiest accidents I could ever hope for. I was hideous for years, which meant that it didn’t matter that I had no life in high school, which then led to me majoring in Art History because really, the only thing more tailored for losers would’ve been ‘Anime’, and here I am – grateful for all of it.
This is why I think Steven Ward should be hung by his scrotum from a meat hook and forced to drink Clamato while watching re-runs of Night Court. If you’re unfamiliar with the name, I don’t blame you. But, Steven Ward is a self-proclaimed matchmaker who asserts that he is, “on a mission to bring love into peoples’ lives one soul at a time.” Since bringing love into peoples’ lives goes hand in hand with having a reality show on VH1, guess how I know about this poor man’s Matt LeBlanc?
They're totally fucking.
He, along with his mother JoAnn, host Tough Love – a show full of so much bullshit, it makes Dick Cheney look like the kind of guy you’d go out drinking with and trust to drive your car back at the end of the night. The premise is simple – assemble a group of women who can’t find men because of commitment issues, career obsession, body image or all of the above. Then, he fixes them by instructing that they all stop being such sluts. With its assumption that women need to take it upon themselves to keep a relationship or risk being thrown away like an old pair of underwear because the elastic has broken, Tough Love is a feminist’s worst nightmare. Luckily, I’m not a feminist. I’m just kind of irked in a way that makes me uncomfortable. The differences may be negligible, I understand, but I don’t want to harp about slut shame or how this show, along with Tucker Max, hurts society.
My issue is that choice is stripped of these women all so they can find a man with just the right amount of tribal tattoos as to be bad ass, but at the same time employable. They are advised on how to conduct themselves in the company of men (usually this means that they don’t say anything at all) and since most of these women are both dependent on alcohol and estranged from their child’s father, it is not pessimistic of me to assume that they will make mistakes along the way. The biggest one most likely being that they signed up to be on a VH1 reality show. But they’re Steve Ward’s mistakes as delivered to him by the umbilical cord he undoubtedly still shares with his mother.
Point is – never take anyone’s advice seriously. Unless of course it’s coming from a 20-something who just ate a sleeve of Oreos in her Snuggie. Only then does it make sense.
A few years ago, I went to Las Vegas with my ex one month after breaking up. Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but it’s not like I would’ve even considered it if we hadn’t still been living together and sharing the same bed. Come on, guys. I’m not an idiot.
Seriously though, we (I) had already paid for the trip before deciding to make the whole loveless no sex thing official and no amount of “I just don’t have feelings for you anymore…now please stop touching me” was going to keep me away from those buffets. There were also plenty of opportunities to get plastered and since I had it on good authority that my life was falling apart, I knew I could capitalize. Sadly, the closest I ever got was half a strawberry daiquiri at this raunchy little acrobatic show where all of the men let their cock and balls hang out while they juggle over-sized root vegetables. This is primarily because Cirque du Soleil grossly overcharges for their drinks and also because I didn’t want to be hungover for the next day because I had plans to go to an exhibit of Picasso’s ceramics at the Bellagio. Yeah.
The only thing that could’ve made my trip a little more Lance Bass would’ve been well…another Cirque du Soleil show, probably. But after two hours of low lighting, creaky floors and unnaturally rendered breasts, I couldn’t convince myself that I was plunging into a stripper’s fjord of glittery flesh instead of quietly assessing the influence of African art on Picasso’s work. Mostly because I wasn’t wearing my boner concealing sweat pants. But also because I was distracted by a nagging sharp pain above my rib cage.
There was no mistaking what this was, even though I had never technically encountered it before. The underwire in the bra that I bought for $11.99 and wore every day for at least one year had escaped from its garish weave of faded maroon lace. At that time, I didn’t wear bras based on how sexy they were (clearly), I wore them so that my nipples wouldn’t get caught in the waistband of my pants. After numerous futile attempts to reunite the wire with the fabric, I decided it was time for a new bra. Luckily, there was a Victoria’s Secret nearby and while the only thing I’d ever bought from them was a pink polka-dot pajama set for my first year of college (you can imagine how popular I was), I was determined to figure out how to house my boobs. I avoided their pushy and intrusive staff at all costs, not wanting to potentially come to terms with the fact that I would be better suited attaching two bowling ball shammies to a seat belt, and headed straight for their line of wireless bras.
Now without what used to be my boyfriend and what used to be my bra, I was left to weigh my options alone. It was a small step, sure, but it ended up being the first one in what eventually blossomed into an appreciation for my body and its potential to be sexy instead of simply utilitarian. It was also what turned me into a loyal Victoria’s Secret customer.
Even though I don’t believe in the first (and only) tenet of Victoria’s Secret that BIGGER BOOBS = BIGGER DOWRY, I can’t argue with their ability to make a bra that combines fit, longevity and boner appeal. Other things I can’t argue with? The fact that they have testicles so large that they make a Level 5 padded bra in 36DD. The only thing more illogical and useless would be a Broadway production of Kindergarten Cop. So of course I bought one.
This is my first padded bra and although it’s not something I plan on wearing everyday, I’m amazed at its comfort level and how dramatic the effect is. The bra claims to add up to two cup sizes, and from my experience, it delivers on that promise. Oh, and if you want to wear this with a freakum dress or something, the straps can be worn as halter or racer-back.
Left: Clown tits in VS Miraculous push-up, Right: Regular tits in VS Angels Ipex demi bra
The VS Miraculous push-up truly surpassed my expectations. I actually had a lot of fun turning my breasts into something comically large enough to appear in Cirque du Soleil, but still realistic enough to suggest that I just got it like that. With any luck, the next time I go to Vegas, I can be the stripper instead of making a halfhearted attempt to pretend that I touched one.
There’s a particular strain of insanity that encourages the kind of decision making that involves breaking up, reconciling, and buying tickets to Madrid all in the same night, but it should come as no surprise that I’m right there in the middle of it.
Moving my life to a coast where the concept of pizza is a sliced tomato on focaccia has made it really easy to start throwing punches while making any sort of life choice impossible to make. It’s like being high while trying to do your taxes, only replace ‘high’ with ‘poor’ and ‘taxes’ with nothing because I’m pretty sure eating graham crackers in my underwear doesn’t bring in any reportable income. This doesn’t mean that there’s a guaranteed happy ending (dirty), it just means that as usual, I don’t know what I’m doing.
So, I’m leaving today with my former ex but now current boyfriend for a two week trip to Europe. If I don’t make it back, you guys can fight it out for my copy of Son in Law.
Earlier this week, I hit the very artery from which copious amounts of bone chilling cautionary tales gush about what happens when you piss in the face of consensual relationships and decide to get a cat. This artery is better known as Cat People, a fairly low budget special on Animal Planet that documents the lives of show cats and their life partners.
I got through only about half of the show on my high horse, pitying these people for turning their cats into giant dildos that they lube up and use for their own personal enjoyment. Then I realized, I have a lot of cat stuff (shirts, figurines, plates–the usual fare for any budding Gary Ridgway) and am probably one Tabby away from perming and bleaching my hair, dressing like Barry Gibb and taking my cat to Sears so I can share a loving embrace in front of a delicately diffused background that just happens to compliment our eyes.
I blame my dad, because years ago, he bought me a t-shirt in NYC that said “Cats Fifth Avenue” with a stylishly dressed cat on the front…shopping. Thinking back, I guess I can’t reallyfault him, because all he was doing was making a hunch that maybe his daughter, who practiced slow dancing to Boyz II Men with her life size Bugs Bunny stuffed animal just in case the opportunity ever arrived, would enjoy a nice cat pun on a t-shirt. Unfortunately, he was right.
The dangerous thing about cat people is that the pictures they keep in their wallet of their cat dressed up like a pumpkin for Halloween are cute until you find out that the wallet was made by collecting materials from its hairballs and you touched it. Then, you see a list about why cats are better than people and only then do you realize that you should’ve never loaned out your favorite cashmere sweater to one of them because it’s probably being used as ceremonial de-flowering sheath this very moment. How do I know that? Probably because some of the items on the list look like this:
You don’t have to worry that your cat will do drugs or join a gang
Your cat usually won’t leave you for another human
Light petting is always enough to satisfy a cat
Cats won’t drink beer and pass out on the bathroom floor
Cats don’t brag about whom they have slept with
Even though I was reading this in my own home, I still wanted to slowly back out of the room. The content is obese with vivid details concerning the reasons why every relationship ever in a cat person’s life dissolves because of drug abuse, infidelity, or most likely…cat obsession.
