From the mind of the evil twin

How you know you're watching a Dude Movie (TM)

2011-02-22T21:26:00.000-08:00

1) The women do not have relationships with each other - they have relationships with the men, the men have relationships with each other, but the women only interact superficially with each other (if at all)

2) The clear message in Dude Movies is that while it is completely shallow for women to want a conventionally attractive male it is clearly expected and appropriate that every male only wants a hot girl and this desire in a male is not shallow at all. She may or may not have any inner beauty but she absolutely should recognize his and want him for it. To clarify, she should be hot, and her depth of personality and consciousness should manifest itself as interest in a schlubby, socially awkward guy who only wants HER because she is hot. Ideally she has, literally, no other attributes - except she is probably also rich. Sometimes she is tragically poor and he fantasizes about fixing this for her (obvs, she cannot ever change anything in her life for herself).

This, for example, would never happy in a dude movie, because our hero MUST be schlubby, nerdy, or otherwise unattractive, and the pretty girl in the movie must save herself for him:

She may initially reject Schlubby Dude, but if she doesn't eventually give in to his witty attempts to woo her, she's going to end up being the antichrist in the movie.

This, instead, is what happens in Dude Movie:

3) The only smart girl in the movie only becomes romantically appealing if she has some sort of cosmetic makeover.

4) He often does creepy stalker things that would really, really freak you out in real life.

5) Sometimes The Schlubby Dude also has a transformative moment; he gets bitten by a radioactive spider, or he accidentally invents lying, or he blackmails the hot girl into giving him a makeover, or he ends up in jail (even though he's a teenager) and his fairy-jail-father bleaches his hair and teaches him how to fake being a goon, or he somehow runs across some super-weed he has to sell and learns Life Lessons along the way. He probably learns to dance. I think change is good, so this isn't always super offensive, but it is disconcerting if someone changes something fundamental about themself to get people to like them.

6) He lies about something fairly significant - because dishonesty is fun, and full of win! Especially when you are dishonest about yourself! That's an awesome basis for a relationship, amirite?!

No matter what, in Dude Movies, the guy gets the girl. Not because of some consistent, inherent integrity, or because they have significant fundamental things in common or are EQUALLY ATTRACTED TO EACH OTHER, but instead because after being exposed to his bizarre behavior long enough the girl gives in and somehow finds it goofily endearing and magically wants him in her panties? Has this ever worked on anyone in real life ever?

Can you imagine what that relationship will look like in 5-10 years? (Actually, if you can, I'll draw it)

Dude movies are funny but the 'schlub gets hot girl' storyline makes me want to stab myself in the eye.

Missing the point

2010-09-26T19:49:00.000-07:00

I don't pick these apart just to be nasty; I have lots of ways to amuse myself. But online dating can be frustrating and it kind of helps to vent about it on my blog. Also, I harbor a tiny hope that someone might read one of these and maybe get something out of it - a way to respond constructively or, if they recognize similarly oblivious behavior in themself, stop doing it.

So today I logged into OKC for the first time in over a month and I'm trying to get caught up on my messages. Here's one that drives me crazy - I've received a variation of this from many people. My comments are interspersed parenthetically in the pasted quoted text.

"that you have a fantasy about filling out a list of things and magically a prefect match will appear is so true! Thanks for putting it into perspective. (How did I put 'it' into perspective? What?)

I do like what you say about yourself. Good job for that... it isn't easy is it? (I spent 15 minutes writing my profile.)

I know you aren't looking for someone my age, but that doesn't mean we can't talk does it? (Yes, that's what that means, it exactly means that I DO NOT WANT emails from men in their 50s. Oh but, you REALLY want to talk to me? And that should count more than what I want? Fun!.)

I like your mind and I'd like to visit with you from time to time. (Like Santa?) I like making new friends and learning new perspectives. Maybe you'll read my profile and find it interesting enough to send me a note. (No.) That would be nice. (Still no.)

Thanks for coming back and saying what you did. It matters to me. (What? Are you drunk already?)

Best Regards"

But really - I explicitly say in my profile what age range I want, and my first paragraph was about how I fantasize about making a list of what I want and getting exactly that...so this guy reads that, sympathizes with the sentiment, and then says to himself 'I'm exactly the opposite of what she says she wants, and she also says she wants exactly what's on her list, I SHOULD TOTALLY EMAIL HER AND OFFER TO COME VISIT.' What does that even mean? He lives in the same urban area I do.

Also...why is someone emotionally touched by a complete stranger's dating profile? Is this a thing?

The day the geese stood still

2010-09-26T18:28:00.000-07:00

I love running outside - the fresh air, the sky, the scenery, the HEAT - I love it.

Today, however, fall came to Texas.

This meant 2 things.

1: I didn't have to run before 11am/after 7pm to avoid heat stroke
2: I spent 30 minutes deciding if I needed pants, capri running tights, my long sleeve shirt, etc to run in (hey. I get cold.) only to end up wearing my normal running shorts but a short sleeve tee instead of running tank, because dude friend convinced me I'd warm up once I got out there. I did, but I was REALLY miserable the first 15 minutes.

I left the apartment at 11:30, and the sky was all overcast and gloomy and the air had this weird crispness to it. There were tons of people out running and walking in varying states of bundled-upness, proving that I'm not the only Texan whose system goes into shock when the temp gets below 70. I mean everyone was clearly ALSO excited to be outside without keeling over - when it's hot I usually only ever see one or two other joggers out in the daylight.

Anyway, I digress. But no it's kind of related to the story. I usually trot down to the high school track, where there's always other people running, I can set my water bottle on the bleachers, and families frolic in the fields while doves fly overhead and kids pitch into that batting cage thing in the corner.

It's pretty sweet. People corral their kids in that middle section while they jog around. There is usually some dried duck poo in the upper right corner of the track, but I normally amuse myself by playing hopscotch with it. I was expecting more of the same today.

I was wrong.

My track, my fields, they had no people. Empty. Creepy. The grass was a weird color, the sky was getting gloomier and I was all alone. Well, except for that cop car hanging out by that random truck with a horse trailer, which were parked oddly in the school parking lot. I don't know how to draw a cop car so for the sake of the story pretend that a blue car = the police. (This won't matter later.)

Then I noticed something else, off in the distance. The birds! The ones whose poo I'd been hopping over for months - I was finally getting to see them! But my eyesight is a little wacky, so I was like, wtf are they? Ducks or geese? Can I eat one?

Can you tell I dyed my hair red? SO CUTE. My bff and I did it before my birthday. LOVE.

Wow, that's a lot of geese. Definitely geese. Still wondering if they'd taste good. Is it poaching if I take one?How does that work? WHY DO I THINK OF THESE THINGS?

Each lap the geese start getting closer. I stare them down, hoping they know I'll eat them if given half a chance.

But then...maybe that's not a good idea. Is eye contact BAD with geese? Are they like creepy van guys, where you are supposed to make SOFT eye contact and not direct eye contact? Are they thinking about eating me too?

Holy fucking god they're swarming me. See the big leader? See how they are coming from both sides? What the fuck!! Did they eat the other runners?!?!

But then I remember the cop car. He's probably part of some special anti-geese task force, right, here to protect peole from these gangs of maurading fowl.

I really thought that. It took me 7 minutes to figure out that didn't making any freaking sense. Why WAS that cop there? Was he still there? I looked again.

The cop was still there - but he had MOVED. He'd been there 25 minutes and now he was angled straight at me.

The Xs on the track show the location of all the geese. Where were they all coming from?!

They were continuing to swarm the track, creepy cop was inexplicably watching me run...I'd had it.

TOO MUCH WEIRD.

Maybe nothing sinister was going on, but, whatever the hell it was, it was ruining my run. I was obsessing about geese and cops and horse trailers instead of thinking about whatever it is I normally think about, so I fled the scene and decided to finish my run on the trail by the canal.

Three minutes later, the cop drove by me. Then he turned around and drove by again.

Hot guy morphs into sad sack

2010-08-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

I got a message from this guy:

But no, he rapidly turned into this guy:

"Hey, I really enjoyed reading your profile. I work in (city) and I would like to... screw it. No woman worth going after ever responds. Sorry I bothered you. "

I guess he was right, because I never wrote him back.

Stop trippin, cat

2010-08-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

This is every morning. Every morning, my cat and I do the dance of almost death. One day it will not end well.

Step 1: I go into the kitchen for a beverage. Let's pretend it's coffee.

Cat is sleeping in corner, until he senses me in the vicinity of the kitchen. He immediately wants to help.

Step 2: Cat tries to get my 'coffee'

by attempting to extract it through my feet. The good news? He no longer tries to climb up my legs to get whatever is in my hand.

Step 3: I trip (every time. Really. But usually I just wobble and catch myself. Eventually, this shit will get REAL.)

And then what, cat? What will happen when I finally fall for real? WHAT THEN?

That's right. FLAT CAT. Squish. Chew on that, motherf*ckaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

SO creepy!!

2010-08-25T17:57:00.000-07:00

Today I received one of the creepiest message/dating profile combinations in a while. I think this guy goes into my top 5 all time worsts for his special combination of offensive, creepy, and creepier statements. Seriously, he is even better than the guy who asked me if I LIKE horses - you know, in an intimate way (I don't. I don't even mention horses in my profile. So weird.)

I was lying in bed, contemplating a nap, when my phone beeped to tell me that I had an message in OKCupid. I opened up the message and read it and immediately thought, what? What? I got up and went to my laptop so I could get the full impact. Here is his message:

Subject: Hmmmm

Smart, pretty and fit. Plus you like to cook and play video games.

I'm trying to figure out if you intimidate men or are just really picky. Maybe you just haven't bumped into the right one. Dunno.

I think I'd like to be someone who knew you. Maybe even got close to. I bet you're pretty awesome to be around. Drop me a line if you think the same.

Translation:

Alarm bells! What is wrong with you? his message says. Why are you 34 and still single, crazy bish? Now, I get it, once you're in your 30s people do start to wonder where you have gone astray. They sometimes find a way to slip it into a first or second date question. BUT - I have never had one email me yet and say 'so, what's the catch?'. It cracks me up though because when people do eventually ask I'm like, oh ok, are you happily married now? What are you doing on a dating site? Oh, you're single too? SO WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU, AHOLE? TELL ME NAO PLS.

My real answer, of course, is complicated. I didn't have any interest in settling down or getting married up until a few years ago. I did have relationships. Also, I'm kind of an odd duck, and I want an equally odd duck to pal around with. I think this is perfectly ok. Oh, also? Parents died in my late 20s and early 30s (not at the same time, hence the age ambiguity). If you're single and your parents get cancer you tend not to date much, or at least I didn't. None of these are things I want to reveal in my very first interaction with a guy - life stuff like that can usually wait until, like, I decide if I even want to know you. Or, you know, unless you read my blog. Maybe I'm intimidating, maybe I'm picky (which is *nice guy* speak for not interested in 'nice guys like him'), or maybe life just works out differently for everyone.

But that's only one of two problems with his message. He wants to be someone who KNEW me? Past tense? WTF does that even mean? Is he plotting my demise? Is he so self-pitying that he's already decided that if we met, I wouldn't keep him? He's probably right about that second part. I hate self-defeating crap. Seriously. I would totally make this guy cry within an hour and then he'd try to kill me in some completely wussy way.

So, of course, I checked out his profile. Sometimes it's fun to play 'crazy or whiny', you know?

Stats: 44, straight male, white, 5'10, profile pic is a vaguely shadowy head and shoulders shot, professional chef.

Now for the good stuff. I'm just excerpting sentences because he really goes ON.

"I am looking to date someone special. I am a romantic at heart and will always be. I spoil her and love romancing her."

Ok. He wants us to know he's romantic.

"I'm not from Texas and don't intend to spend the rest of my life here. It's nice and all, but I'd pick up and move with you if you wanted to get the hell out of here."

Okaaaay.

"I want you to be the first thing on my mind in the morning and the last thing I think about at night. I have learned that it's not about where you live or how much money you make but it's the "who" you live with and how you spend your time.

I've never been married. Why not? Because the right one hasn't met me yet."

She hasn't met HIM yet? This guy really phrases things oddly. Is he waiting for her to show up at his place with a UHaul so they can move together? I'm starting to suspect that he has met several someones who seemed right for him but who escaped, screaming, from his clutches.

"Love can't be "that" hard. Everybody else seems to be doing it. Why can't I? "

Well, you seem pretty preoccupied talking about how romantic you want to be instead of actually discussing who you are and what qualities you're looking for.

"I am a fantastic masseuse!

Also good at remembering what you tell me. I actually "listen" to what you tell me. Unique, huh? "

Now he just sounds bitter and assy.

"I can cook fancy, but love simple. I love cooking for that special girl and making her favorite dishes. Pair the dinner with a bottle or three of our favorite wines, and the evening is on it's way. If you don't cook, that's fine, I'll take care of it. If you do cook, then I am happy to watch and learn, or cook together.

I even serve breakfast in bed."

Wow, he offers great services. I wonder if anyone survives their stay at Chez Creepy.

He spends a lot of time thinking about:

"...why it takes so long to find a girl who will just let me love and take care of her. Seriously, I am the best boyfriend you can get, ever. Try me. :P"

I WILL BRUSH YOUR HAIR. I WILL DRESS YOU AND FEED YOU AND HOLD YOU AND CALL YOU FRED. ZOMG. LET ME LOVE YOU. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.

On a typical Friday night he is:

"Relaxing or working. Never can tell. Love both. But if I had a special someone, then I would be spending it with her."

Does she have a choice? I was reading this and it just kept getting worse and worse, and all I could think of is this:

Here is the GRAND FINALE to his profile of win:

"The most private thing I’m willing to admit:

I was in your bedroom last night watching you sleep.:)"

Seriously? Who freaking says that? How messed up do you have to be to not know that is a horribly frightening thing to say? Stalker jokes are not funny in online dating. Ever. If your profile looks like this and you make a joke like that, odds are, you're not really joking. You think this behavior is romantic and cute, whereas most women think this behavior, if it happens, is cause for a restraining order.

So I decided to look at the rest of his pictures. His first one was ok, but too shadowy. The second one? I might have nightmares about. I'm all for posting a variety of angles or whatever, dressed up and dressed down, to show what you look like. But if you post 3 pics that you took of yourself please make sure one of them isn't after you've just had food poisoning. I know, it sounds evil, but this is ME. Believe me when I say I'm actually toning down my reaction. Oh, keep in mind, he was attracted to my profile because I'm 'fit', and he said in part of his profile that he wants someone who is height/weight proportional. I get it, I mean, we all like what we like and I want to be attracted to my partner too....

So, all I'm going to say about this is: On a dating site, please don't post a picture that causes the viewer to wonder if it's a pimple or a cold sore. Choose a different picture to post. Unless you always have it, in which case, thank you for the refreshing pictoral honesty.

Updated: I forgot, there was more. Holy crap.

"You should message me if

You are interesting, kind of quirky. If you have a good sense of humor and like to laugh. You like romance. You only want the best boyfriend you've ever had. You are affectionate and even a bit spontaneous. You don't currently have a husband or boyfriend. You are height to weight proportionate. Not a vegan.

You like a guy that actually opens the door for you.I'm not your typical "guy". I don't live for sports.

I love physical contact and plenty of alone time with my girl."

Alone. Just me, my girl, and my handy tarp, duct tape, and knife.

4-way stop me

2010-08-21T09:57:00.000-07:00

Who loves traffic?? Oh right, no one. HATE. IT. I have a commute now and I spend most of my drive hating the other drivers and not understanding why people slow down for no good reason. If I've been playing too many video games I tend to have fantasies about ramming the slow guy in front of me or blowing up the stupid truck blocking my lane (in my head they turn into the little Lego coins from the Lego Wii games).

By the time I make it back to my part of the metroplex I am done, done done. But just because I'm almost home doesn't mean I've avoided all possible asshole scenarios. You know what tends to make other people act like assholes even MORE than normal? Any changes in the traffic infrastructure, like this one.

Right by my apartment is a two-way stop. The main street just vrooms by and doesn't stop, but the side streets do. Here (I'm represented by the crown and it shows where I turn; the X is my destination):

Totally awesome, except they randomly changed it to a 4-way stop. Confusion ensued (I believe this is compounded by the fact that the didn't paint the line where they want you to stop, or a crosswalk, which is traditional). There was a cop there the first week to catch people who blew through it but after that we were on our own to navigate this strange new world. Some people don't adjust all that well.

So, on the day in question, I was driving down the mini hill approaching the 4 way stop behind a super slow guy. I've seen golf carts drive faster. I was breathing deeply and reminding myself not to flip out or aggressively pass him; I was almost home, this wouldn't last forever, etc. Lots of soothing self talk. We got to the new stop sign and stopped, and I was feeling extremely pleased with myself for having so much self control after a long day.

He turned right. It was the most excruiciatingly slow right turn I have every witnessed. I was practically banging my head on my steering wheel, especially since just recently we were all vrooming around this corner when it was pleasantly stop sign-less. Anyway. He turned and vanished, I drove up to the stop sign, did a full stop, and then started to make my own right turn when this happened:

This GIANT DICK races up behind me, doesn't stop, and then drives AROUND me to turn right.

I flipped out. I mean I completely went white hot rageaholic.

I didn't even think about it; I floored it. He was in some cheap little sports car and I was in my SUV. I hit the gas so hard I peeled out AND swerved (there was some standing water, as always, it probably is the only reason I'm not in jail right now). I actually couldn't get traction for a critical 1.5 seconds. I didn't care. I flew around the corner and chased him up the street.

I have no idea what I thought I was going to do; I wasn't thinking at all. I rolled my window down and was fully prepared to (ram him? cut him off? challenge him to a duel?). His itty bitty little sports car definitely had a speed advantage and I had been delayed by the puddle/traction problem. By the time we made it to the end of the side street I calmed down enough to realize that this couldn't possibly end well. He ran the stop sign there, too, probably fearing for his life, assuming he was smart enough to notice that I was full on chasing him down the street.

He got away :(

Dating through your ages

2010-08-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

So, I'm still dating. I'm in my mid-30s and I've never found anyone I felt like I could put up with for long enough to want to marry (at least not anyone I was also willing to also have sex with). As you get older (not old, older, as in older than you used to be which is totally normal and happens to all of us) things change. You don't think the same way about dating unless you are a perpetual child and refuse to evolve/mature/grow the fuck up. If you are, I'm sorry, and please recognize that while growth and change are hard they are super worth it and sometimes come with prizes and/or cake.

Here are some handy illustrations of what dating is like when you are:

(I greyed out the important bits so this is SFW)

Hormones, amirite? I was a bit friskier than the average bear. Haha.

The uncertainty and mutual insecurity is half the fun.

You have very little interest in wasting time, and you realize by now that 99% of guys (if you are a hetero female) are clearly not a good match. You are able to rapidly weed them out and, every time you ignore your own instints, something goes horribly wrong. You realize that it's more important to worry about whether or not you like them than to waste time worrying if they like you. You force yourself to do it even though you don't want to because staying home with your cat, video games, and snack food of choice is so seductively appealing that you realize you are getting into a spiral that will end with you never ever leaving the house. Which, while it is a perfectly valid life choice, doesn't sound like the most fulfilling way to spend the next 40 or so years. I feel like I somehow got off track here at the end? The whole 'I'm going to die a hermit' thing may just be me.

Computer Karma

2010-08-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

I happen to have what I like to call good computer karma. I've always had it. When I was growing up it was rare for people to have computers in their homes or even in their classrooms, but when I had a reason to run into one it always responded well to me. I took a little programming class in Jr High, BASIC or something along those lines, where we learned to make our text flash and all other sorts of extremely useful things (the kind of things that anyone under 40 can do these days). Remember, the internet hadn't been invented yet, Al Gore was still doing other things at the time. Anyway. I made it into high school with the standard computer skills, word processing, little flashy programs, the usual, and didn't think much of it.

Then I went to college. My first year of work study I tried to be all academic and landed a job as a research assistant for this guy who was writing something about immigration patterns in California history. It was so boring. I had to go to the giant library at my university and actually look things up, and photocopy them, and whatnot. I quickly decided it wasn't suited to my personality (no one to torture, after all) so I decided to get a more social job and somehow ended up selling computers on campus. This was much more like it.

Selling computers is, as we all know, the gateway into a life of geekdom. I really didn't expect it. I was a psychology major, after all, learning how to unfuck people's minds. But sometimes life surprises us and I ended up falling in love.

No, really I didn't, what happened was that I went from selling computers to fixing them to suddenly getting hired by a friend of a friend to change out this old antiquated Apple network in the Deans office and set up Exchange and SQL Servers on a Windows domain. This was in, like, 1995 or so. How did this happen? computers loved me. Seriously, I have no better explanation. I didn't know what the hell I was doing but no matter what I did, it worked. They worked. The computers...I would just touch them and POOF! They worked. I would wave my arm and bat my eyelashes and I could write ASP pages or SQL queries or clone desktops or repair any kind of hardware or software issues. It was bizarre. It was like the first time I ever gave a guy a handjob in high school, and all I could think was look what I can make this thing do? So many tricks! So easy! Playing with computers felt almost exactly like that, and computers seemed to respond to me much like the teenage boys of my youth did - which is to say, they did whatever I wanted. Soon I had minions and my own army of servers and desktop computers (this is what they looked like in the 90s, remember?).

Years passed, and I kept doing weirder and weirder things. I left that one job and decided I wanted to focus on databases, because data gets me hot. I love it. I won't bore you with any technical details but a while ago I decided to go into management and I have lots of servers in lots of different hosted locations around the world, and I still get to play with technology but my staff or my vendors do all the hands on work. But still my computer karma works for me. If something naughty happens, anywhere, I'm still the person who figures it out or gets the network engineer to check his stupid load balancer rules or whatever. Anyway. It's a thing and I love it.

But - and this is a big but - there's a price.

Every once in a while all that karma comes full circle and everything stops working. Within a 20 foot radius of me, when the karma goes down, so do most electronic devices. This happens once or twice a year but it is completely shitty when it does. A prime example of this is my work laptop - this is what it did last week:

It turned into a demon and tried to eat me. Actually it got suspiciously slow, and trust me when I say this, I KNOW when there is something wrong with my laptop. It was acting like it was very busy working on something and didn't have time for my silly demands for email or project plans. I tried all the basic crap and then, like a good little management type who isn't supposed to waste time, called in my laptop fixy guy. I handed him my laptop and network password and said 'it's slow, something's wrong', which while it is not the most helpful description was 100% accurate. He took it and started running diagnostics. An hour later he came in and timidly told me it was fine. I wasn't buying it, so I told him to look harder. Guess what? I had a virus - this nasty thing that was going around the office a month ago and which he swore he had removed. But no. The virus was sitting there, randomly eating my cycles and driving me batty. So he went to go remove it and then what happened? Hard drive died. He replaced that and handed it back to me proudly at the end of the day, all fixed and happy. I took it home, blissfully trusting that this was the end of the trouble.

I woke up the next morning and the wireless was jacked. Each and every application which needed a connection to the internet would start disconnecting after 15 minutes. Again, I performed the basics like resetting my cable modem and wireless router, removing and re-adding the profile, etc. No joy. Irritated, I switched to my home laptop and stuck the work laptop under the couch so it could think about what it did wrong. Meanwhile, my staff could tell I was really over this whole thing so they started building me a desktop computer for work to use while we figured everything out.

The next morning I handed my laptop back to the laptop fixy guy and told him not to give it back to me until all was well. He brought it back to me a short while later and said he updated my network card drivers. I nodded dubiously and set it up in the naughty corner, and noticed that I had 137 very important windows updates to run. I grumped at him that he was supposed to do that after the hard drive replacement, he said something panicky and nonsensical and fled my office. Guess what? It started making this weird noise and the fan wouldn't stop fanning. He ran more diags and called Dell and said they needed to replace the system board and heat sink. He then twitched and apologized that he didn't have a new one on hand to give me.

I know, I know, that was a really long and probably boring story and doesn't prove anything about computer karma. BUT WAIT. Here's some additional background: This laptop - yes, you heard me, THIS one - I've had for 9 months. The one before it lasted a year. I went through 2 hard drives on that one, and the system board also started to get wiggy. The one before that also lasted slightly less than a year. Laptop hard drives are crappy and definitely have longevity issues but no one in my company chews through them like I do. I did manage to keep one laptop for a few years once with only 1 drive replacement, but all my other ones have had multiple, horrible issues. And we switch manufacturors every few years as well, so it's not like it's always Dell. And I don't get the low end models either. Usually once one of my laptops starts to futz out - right around the 9 to 11 month mark - the laptop group just gives in and gives me a new one, since the issues don't seem to stop with the drive replacement, but we were just purchased and are renegotiating our vendor discounts and we haven't ordered any new ones lately.

So, that night the Dell guy didn't show (of course) and I left my laptop at work so they could get it in the morning. I came home and my apartment complex gate wouldn't open to my magnetic thingy, my housekeeper had somehow managed to lock me out of the garage, and my iPhone crashed twice.

Sometimes in bad karma weeks street lamps start to blow out and traffic lights stay on red for 37 minutes. It's frustrating.

But you know what? 99% of the time the computers of the world love me and things pretty much go my way, so if the price for that is that every once in a while all the electronics lose their collective shit, I'm ok with it.

PS: I have my laptop back again. I used it a little and it seems OK but it still won't take the VERY IMPORTANT Windows updates so we will see.

Two Narcissists

2010-08-09T09:11:00.000-07:00

Cleverbot likes 42

2010-08-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

Anybody ever played with Cleverbot.com? It's constantly learning so the responses will vary.

I started off by asking Cleverbot "What is 42?" just to get a sense of whether or not we'd be able to get along. Cleverbot responded "The meaning of life", so I continued. Cleverbot has no memory of the conversational thread (Edited: It did not in that conversation, but in subsequent visits it did), which is a mixed blessing of fun. The 42 convo ended rather cutely:

These are not the same words! Part 1

2010-08-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

I'm going to go ahead and assume I'll be doing a few of these and call this Part 1. Almost every single day I see people using words interchangeably, words which do not mean the same thing. Often, such as in this example, they are homophones so at least they sounds the same but sometimes they AREN'T. Either way it makes me cranky. When someone does this I want to shake them and yell 'that isn't the right word! BLARG!' but usually it happens online and frankly, if you publicly comment on someone's tweets, FB status updates, or blogposts about grammar or spelling issues you just look like an asshole. But if you make your own blogpost on the subject you're an artistic GENIUS.

Anyway. Part 1: Peek, Peak, and Pique - with definitions (courtesy of Dictionary.com) and handy illustrations!

Peek: (V) to look or glance quickly or furtively, esp. through a small opening or from a concealed location; peep; peer.

Look, this dude is peeking through your window. What an asshole. But I bet he can use the right word for what he's doing.

Peak: (N) 1. the pointed top of a mountain or ridge.
2. a mountain with a pointed summit.
3. the pointed top of anything.
4. the highest or most important point or level: the peak of her political career.

The definitions continue but really it's more of the same. It's either the top, the pointy bit, or something that is considered both tall and pointy. The verb form refers to getting to the highest pointy bit.

Pique: (V) 1. to affect with sharp irritation and resentment, esp. by some wound to pride: She was greatly piqued when they refused her invitation.
2. to wound (the pride, vanity, etc.).
3. to excite (interest, curiosity, etc.): Her curiosity was piqued by the gossip.
4. to arouse an emotion or provoke to action: to pique someone to answer a challenge.

See, in the picture? I'm bored until he piques my interest by mentioning dragons (I love dragons!). He is not PEAKING my interest, nor is he PEEKING it.

The worst offense with these 3 homophones usually consists of people claiming they have 'peaked' someone's interest or curiosity. An argument could be made that they really mean peak in the verb sense, that they have raised my interest to its highest possible point, but context clues usually reveal that they merely mean they have aroused my curiosity. If they had, in fact, peaked anything of mine the response would be - shall we say - rather noticeable.

That's right, unicorns, rainbows, and aliens will fly out of my ass.

So as much as I want to give people the benefit of the doubt I know that 99% of the time they are simply getting confused, when writing, that these are actually 3 completely different words that happen to sound the same. Guys on dating sites will write something in their profile or in an email referencing their desire to peak or even peek me in some way but all they get is the lonely sound of me never, ever responding.

Don't feed the narcissist

2010-08-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

The narcissist just wants your attention. When you first meet the narcissist they will suck you in with how fascinating they think they are, somehow convincing you that it's true. (It may in fact be true. Later, when you realize what happened, you'll be so pissed that you'll then convince yourself that they were never that awesome to begin with).

If the narcissist is clever, they will also initially show some interest in your life. Don't worry, this soon passes.

Because to the narcissist, you are just a mirror.

The narcissist wants you to show them good things about themself. They will spend increasing amounts of time getting you to talk about them, doing things for them, them them them.

If you give in, the narcissist swells up like a tick, feeding on your compliments and attention. They stop talking about your things at all, or at most listen in bored silence when you need to talk about a you thing. They barely acknowledge when you've done something they've asked you to do.

And you shrivel up inside, until you feel hollow and empty and sad. You have to detach the narcissist before they explode from the life they are sucking out of you, leaving you just an empty shell.

You cannot have a relationship with a narcissist because they will only ever be emotionally involved with themself.

An online dating guide for men

2010-08-01T07:59:00.000-07:00

If you are dating or thinking of dating, especially online, here are some tips that will help you. After all the experiences my girlfriends and I have had I decided that instead of continuing to complain and make fun of the ridiculous and self-defeating behaviors of male online daters it would be more constructive to just tell you how to step your game up. (Note: I will still make fun. With drawings.)

1) You have got to smile in your profile picture. Think about it - when you look at our pictures you usually notice our pretty smiles, right? Guys will message me and compliment my smile and then I go look at their profile and am irritated to find some lame super serious face. Really? You can't figure out that most people are more attractive when they smile, yet you are online dating? What's that, you feel self-conscious when you smile? Get over it. Seriously. You are selling yourself online, 50% of your attractive power lies in your picture. Do not think that your sensitive thinker face or stone-faced 'I'm so hard' pic are appealing. You look like an asshole or a serial killer - and if you've read the Venn Diagram of Dating, you know that at least one of those won't get you to the little red dot of happiness. They won't even get you an email response. If your serious thinker image is important to you use those for supplemental pix but smile in your main one. If you really ARE a serial killer, thank you for being stupid enough to make it completely obvious by wearing an expression that says you want to eat my face with some bbq sauce.

2) If you are married: Please stop dating. Get off the dating sites. No one wins by you being on there. If your wife doesn't want to have sex with you you should probably focus on fixing that. See also: Find the little man in the boat, he is your friend and ally.

3) Do not start immediately telling your female companion that you are meant to be together, perfect for each other, etc - especially if you have not even met yet. This is not how to get a first date. This is a really good way to get blocked and possibly get on a creepy potential stalker watch list. Do not say it on a first date, either. We find this instant desperate attachment just as squicky as most guys do if a girl tries it on them.

4) Do not propose marriage in your first email. This should be obvious but, based on my experiences, apparently needs to be said. Even if you are kidding it will most likely not get you anywhere good. Other jokes that don't go over well in a first email: Offering to let her cook for you. Jokes that make you sound like an asshole aren't that funny.

5) If a girl does not respond to your first message please do not assume that she didn't receive it or needs more encouragement to respond to you. She didn't answer because you look like a serial killer or, possibly, she just wasn't into you. It happens. Don't try to escalate the action by sending more and more personal contact information. It's not like we are sitting there thinking 'oooh, I really like this guy but answering his email is just SO HARD. I'm so hot. I hope he sends me his phone number and address so I can call him and/or just come over for sex.' (Note: Does not apply to Craig's List ads. Things like that actually happen there. This is specific to actual dating sites.)

6) Stop lying about your height. There is no point to this behavior. According to an OKCupid study height is one of the biggest misrepresentations of men online. Most female online daters already knew this. Men, seriously, no one likes details that are fudged. If you are 5'11 you do not need to say you are 6'1 - this is a pointless lie. Here is a small tip: women know how to do math. I promise. If I am 5'3 and wearing 1.5 inch heels - and yes, even girls who say they are bad at math do this little formula instinctively - and you claim to be 5'6, I WILL NOTICE IF I AM TOWERING OVER YOU. If me + shoes = 5'4.5 > your height, you are not 5'6. Also, if I am taller than you and you have smaller hands than I do, you might be a little person. It's ok to be a little person. It is not ok to lie about it. Also not ok? Lying about your weight/body type. Don't say 'average' if you know you are overweight. Someone out there will like you for you. Just be yourself and, even if you feel like you are getting fewer first dates, they will be more productive ones.

7) Plan the first date. This is your JOB. If you cannot be bothered to plan the first date then you are too fucking lazy to be dating. We know it gets tiring. We know that the emails, messages, first phone calls, and constant disappointment are a lot of work - because we are doing it too. Every time we go on a first date there is a lot of outfit planning, makeup, smelling nice, etc that goes into it. Sack up and plan it. Even if it's just coffee/drinks - the recommended quick first date of the online dater - do the work and suggest some locations, dates, and times. If you want to sit back and let the girl plan every other date after that, fine, that's up to you guys if you make it that far. Also if the first date IS just coffee and you've both agreed to have a second date, the second date kind of counts in the you need to plan it category, since it is at that point the first real date. If you and the girl are both looking for a long term relationship and you cannot be bothered to plan 1.5 dates in the beginning it is a giant red flag about your energy level, intellect, excitement about the girl, or actual interest in working on a relationship.

8) Don't yell at her. If your first email exchange shows that she is not the girl for you, a big ole ranty email won't accomplish anything. If you are the type of person who is EVER tempted to go off on women on dating sites then you really, really need to spend some time with yourself and a good therapist. This is not normal. If you want to yell at a girl because she isn't into you, or because girls have so many silly rules, or you think all women are superficial sluts, or because you think they hate your job, you need some help. Any woman who gets these bizarre yelly emails knows exactly what it means about what you would be like in a relationship.

9) Respect her communication boundaries. If your first email to her is an invitation to talk on the phone, and she says she wants to email once or twice first, relax. If you want to meet before she does, have sex before she does, etc, you have got to be able to respect her boundaries. If you can't do that in the beginning it is really clear you won't be doing it later. I'm not saying that it's ok to get sucked into 3 weeks of emails; online dating, like any other initial relationship, should have an escalating pattern of communication and intimacy and should lead fairly quickly to a first meeting so that the two of you can establish if there is any real life chemistry. The point here is that your first 3 messages shouldn't be pressuring her to comunicate outside the intial 'safety' of the dating site. Remember, the woman you are talking to has many many guys emailing her, some of whom are complete assholes and/or serial killers, and she is trying to make sure that you don't fall into those categories. Yes you are excited about her and want to get to know her but be appreciative of that slight difference in context. Also, if you are too lazy to write 1-3 decent emails in an ONLINE DATING SITE you might want to try singles bars.

10) Read. Her. Profile. There is a reason that dating sites have those giant profile sections and are not just lists of pictures for you to choose from, and that reason is that women are actual people with preferences, wants, desires, and thoughts. We are not just faces attached to empty heads and blow up doll bodies. If you want that SHOP ELSEWHERE. Sorry to get so shouty about that but the whole point of having picture + self description is so that you can get an idea of what someone is like and what they are looking for to help figure out if it is a good match. I spent a whole 15 minutes writing my ridiculously clever profile, do not just email me and ask me to describe myself. I already DID. So when 15 guys email me in one week to ask me questions that are answered in my profile I think, hmmm, gosh I want these winners. (No, really, I don't. I ignore). If you don't read her profile she thinks that you are a) functionally illiterate b) just looking for sex c) too lazy to spend 5 mins reading basic information d) too stupid to understand her. You can imagine how attractive that isn't. If you do read her profile please pay attention to what she says she wants and ask yourself, honestly, if you think she won't notice/care that you are 15 years older than she says she wants. If a woman sets an age range most are willing to go 2-3 years outside it but not more than a decade. If she wanted an older dude she would say so, so please, please stop trying.

Venn diagram of dating

2010-07-31T14:21:00.000-07:00

Inevitably on a first date the guy will look at me near the end and say something along the lines of "You're so normal! And cute! Why are you still single?" which just shows how perceptive most men aren't.

I've decided to make this handy Venn diagram of dating to whip out when asked this stupid question. Seriously, I am going to print it out on cards. The tiny red dot in the middle represents the intersection of required attributes. On the cards I will add a caption that says "Are you here? Probably not, if I have to show you the card."

You're welcome.

Clouds of Evil

2010-07-30T22:37:00.000-07:00

So, I'm about as even-tempered as as a grizzly bear. Well, imaginary grizzly bears - I don't spend a lot of time with scary ass wildlife so I may be projecting here, but I imagine grizzly bears are either happy or pissed off, which is pretty much how I roll. My emotions are pretty freaking far from complex. Here's a pie chart!

That's me up there. Usually I'm in the pink, rarely am I blue, but sometimes I am red hot. I know how to deal with all of these states. Every once in a while, so rarely that it doesn't even register on the Mood Pie, something else happens - and it always confuses me. This happened to me last week.

The day started normally enough - with me waking up to my demon cat in my face, standing on my boobs, and yelling at me.

He's really sweet actually, he's just a complete asshole in the morning. So I got up and wandered into the bathtub, totally happy that it was a work from home day. Work from home = bubble bath before the calls and drama start. Work from office = flailing around with makeup, packing food for the day, trying not to step on demon cat with heels, and suck ass commute. I should draw that later, it will be cathartic. Anyway. Bath.

So nice! After a bath I'm usually awake enough to make coffee without burning the house down. Unless, of course, the kitchen has managed to COMPLETELY REARRANGE ITSELF overnight.

The cabinet knobs were totally out of reach. I couldn't find the cinnamon. The coffee had been sucked into an alternate universe and replaced by inexplicable and illegible symbols. And the asshole cat was starting to get on my nerves. I convinced myself the housekeeper was to blame.

Coffee-less and crabby, I started to work. This didn't go well. Everything everyone said was irritating, like nails on a chalkboard or bees in your clothes, all at once. Nothing on the internet was working. BFF was instant messaging me gibberish (she really wasn't. Everyone was innocent. Except the clown babies).

The world was just all wrong. What was happening here? I started getting irritated with everything. All the irritations built up until I was surrounded by a Miasma of Rage.

While demon cat tried to sharpen his claws on my ankle I realized that everything couldn't have started to suck all at once. Something must be going on here, some evil force was at work. I stopped grumpily messaging BFF and tweeting assy nonsense and decided to figure out what was causing my panties to get so twisted. I took a deep breath and looked outside....

And found the problem. Cloudy days do not make me blue, they make me PURPLE. Like stinging insects are invading my skin. I'm not talking about pretty white fluffy clouds in a blue Texas sky, either, or the kind of clouds that bring rain and thunderstorms (mmmm thunderstorms). I'm talking about heavy, oppressive, completely pointless fucking clouds that produce NOTHING but pain and misery. They screw up the air pressure, they refract light, they turn the sky weird colors and make the grass all wrong, they STAB MY EYES and invade my brain with irritation. Their sole purpose is to ruin my day and make everyone tense. Maybe they are tense because I'm grumpy and stressing them out or maybe they are susceptible to the gas of irritation these clouds put out - what the fuck ever. All I know is, on a day like this, do not talk to me. Everything will sound wrong.

I closed my curtains, took some advil, put in a Buffy dvd, and shut out the sky. After that I could function again.

On Friendship

2010-07-25T17:40:00.000-07:00

I have two friends who don't get along anymore. Let's call them Taco and Cake.

I love them. Taco is crunchy, spicy goodness. When I first met her I was drawn by how crazy intense she was. Taco is really smart and loves to party.

Taco introduced me to cake. Cake is lush, and sweet, and quiet. She is chocolatey awesomeness. If you're sick, cake will bring you a treat and rub your back for you. Cake listens to your problems and is always on your side. Cake is always there for you.

One day Taco was having some serious personal issues. Like most of us, she is a normal taco person, trying to find her way in the world. She may have a hard outer shell but she's not impervious. She started talking about some of her difficulties.

Cake jumped in and offered some unsolicited advice.

Taco, like me, is NOT a fan of unsolicited advice. She was also having the kind of trouble where she really needed reassurance that it is OK to be herself. Tacos are awesome. She need a Taco hug and some affirmation...it wasn't a tough love moment.

Taco got pissed off.

She put her shell back on and geared up for war. I watched, horrified, as Cake and Taco battled it out. Things were said, actions were taken. It was awful. Taco entrails and cake crumbs went flying.

Cake and Taco don't talk any more. It's over. I still hang out with Cake, and Taco and I are buds, but they don't get each other at all. Taco can be a little prickly but sometimes that is what you want. Other times your sweet tooth demands chocolate cake. But now, if you put them together, it just ends in a giant stomachache. I don't want them to be cranky that I still see the good in each. I wouldn't be able to choose between them.

Because friendships are complicated. Your friend is never going to be exactly who you think they should be, they won't act all the time like you want them to act, and they aren't always going to be, for you, exactly what you need in a friend. That's why we need multiples of them. I need the one who is always going to tell me the truth, and the one who will give me a hug when I'm blue, and the one who challenges me to make me think or to be a better person or to stop wearing the same fucking nail polish color all the time. I need the friend that makes me know it's ok to be me and the friend that makes me feel safe enough to get crazy when I need that too.

It's not ok for friends to damage each other, but sometimes that happens. We brush up each other in this life and hopefully it enriches us as people, but sometimes it leaves bumps and bruises and chips in our armor. I don't think friends should be cruel to each other. A true friendship is one in which you can be honest and open and know how to say true things when the other person is ready to hear them and in the way they need to hear it. One thing I've learned in my years of friendship is that it's my job to try to BE the best friend I can be and give my friend what she needs - and it's also my job to accept her for who she is, flaws and prickly bits and mushiness and all.

Too High

2010-07-23T18:59:00.000-07:00

The summer between high school and college was one big party. Friends, partying, boyfriend, working, etc. The only problem I had was trying to figure out the logistics of having sex with boyfriend since he lived with his parents and I was living with my best friend's family (long story). One night our friend invited us over to where he was housesitting for the weekend. I told my temporary family some obvious lie about sleeping over at a friend's house and started planning for sessytimes. I pictured a sultry scene with me lounging around and boyfriend getting ready to pounce on me.

But, of course, our friends were not on the same page as far as expecting me and boyfriend to use this opportunity to have crazy monkey sex as soon as we got there. We had to socialize. These were boyfriend's friends, and they all had something in common - something I had never tried before.

Our friend came out with some snacks. Everyone perked up at this.

I looked at the pot brownies and thought to myself - why the hell not. If I'm ever going to try drugs, it might as well be with boyfriend and friends of ours that I can trust. I mean these guys were high all the time, they were way too stoned to ever lace the drugs with anything or try to do anything icky to me. I wasn't a big drinker and I'd never been drunk or even tried cigarettes. So I grabbed a brownie and took a tentative bite.

The next hour was a blur, a hazy montage of deep throating brownies and doublefisting joints. I'd been rolling joints for bf for months so I was a pro at that.

Oh yes - OH HELL YES. I suddenly became ravenously hungry and crazy horny.

I begged boyfriend to get me a burger. I was going to DIE if I didn't get a bacon cheeseburger RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. And then have sex.

So boyfriend saddled up and drove to the nearest Burger King. I went up to the room we were supposed to sleep in and started fantasizing about both my upcoming bacon burger and the crazy wild monkey sex. The excitement kept me going for about three minutes, and then....

I passed out. HARD. So. Hard. Boyfriend appeared with a bag of fast food and a giant erection and found me drooling on the borrowed bed. I woke up long enough to take two bites of burger and then fell back asleep. He went downstairs and continued to get wasted with the guys. I ended up with no burger, and no booty.

The moral of the story:

Fun with roommates!

2010-07-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

My freshman year of college was awesome. AWESOME. You know that saying: "There's a time and a place for everything - and it's called college"? Yeah, that was me. I lived a very very sheltered life up until then, for reasons we won't get into right now, but I moved into this suite with four other girls, a bunch of boys next door, and tons of alcohol and weed and a roommate who used to trip balls regularly and it was nuts. I shared a room with a blond ROTC girl; in the second bedroom we had another blond girl (both blond girls were named Jenny. It was confusing.) and this awesome Samoan girl. In the 3rd bedroom was, again, a blond girl, but she was a super Northern California hippie with parents who worked in state politics. Her family had a big name in local circles, which of course meant they never had any money because they were always campaigning.

So, not blond roomate (Tepa) somehow picked up a boyfriend in another state. One of those states in the middle of the country? I don't know how this happened because chatrooms weren't real yet and online dating hadn't been invented - this was in 1993, kids, the world was a different place. She liked to call him and they would talk for DAYS. We had one phone in our dorm room and no one had cell phones yet. Think I'm exaggerating? Not so much. Check this out.

Tepa got on the phone with her boy. She sat in our living room, talking and glaring at us if we tried to sit out there. This was not a problem at first, most of us were in and out and doing someone.

We all eventually made it to bed and went to sleep...all except Tepa. She stayed up talking to Boy. I have no fucking idea what anyone has to talk about for so long, especially when they could be out drinking or getting a little bit high and experiencing the young virile males growing abundantly in the dorm halls like perky little party favors.

Eventually our hippie roommate wandered out and mentioned vaguely that she needed to use the phone. Her parents had screwed up some money thing but her next quarter's tuition was due, so she needed to call her politically hippie parents and wrangle some school cash.

Tepa was looking a little worn around the edges. She nodded at hippie roommate and gave some indication that she would be off the phone soonish and waved her off.

Hippie went into her room and smoked some substances. A short time later she remembered she needed to use the phone, and started to feel a little panicky.

Tepa flailed an arm at her, apparently to mean 'bitch, please, I will get off the phone soon if you leave me the fuck alone for a minute'. She had been on the phone for 15 hours at that point. I was wandering around with one of the other blond roommates (a Jenny) and thought, uhoh. This can't end well. Vodka?

Around 3PM hippie roommate tried again - for the last time. She had spent the last 2 hours sobering up and working herself into a cute little hippie righteous indignation and she stormed out, hair flying everywhere, and squeaked out a final demand for the phone.

Tepa flipped her shit and started screaming at her that she had to learn how to share the phone, that she would get off the phone when she was ready, and that spoiled hippie roommate would just have to learn to wait and like it. Hippie roommate said "Parents! Tuition! Deadline! Money!" and it degenerated from there. I was taking a 'nap'. I don't remember exactly but my 'naps' were always either alcohol- or boy-related, so there you go. I wasn't fated to 'nap' for long this time. Tepa flew across the coffee table like a deranged person and went after hippie roommate. I suspect that this was due, in part, to mental and emotional exhaustion for being on the phone for so long. Talking on the phone while eating, peeing, drinking, and not sleeping is not fun (I've had to do 3 day conference calls like this in my adult life - trust me - that shit will get to you eventually).

Tepa attacked poor hippie roommate.

I came running out with one of the Jennys and saw Tepa slamming our roommate's head into the coffee table. We were shocked and scared. People came running into our suite and the boys next door pulled Tepa off of her (she was a big big girl). The rest is a blur of ambulances and campus security but I remember that Tepa was still screaming about how 'that bitch needed to learn to wait for the phone'. It was surreal, and totally a Jerry Springer moment, and we were all ZOMG ROOMMATE CRAZEEEEE.

Summer was in the hospital but somehow her tuition issues worked out, Tepa was kicked out of the dorms and hopefully suspended for a quarter, and the story made it around campus.

Epilogue: Tepa called me 6 months later and tried to borrow money to pay an $1800 phone bill. She then called me a year after THAT asking for my credit card number so she could call a psychic to help her find her wallet. I moved into an apartment my senior year with two girls who said, after hearing what dorms I had lived in my freshman year: "OMG, did you know that girl Tepa?" Yes, yes I did. She was batshit crazy.

Please stop

2010-07-20T19:23:00.000-07:00

The joy of dating sites - among other things - is the fact that you can message or wink at someone and if they are interested, they respond, but if they are not interested they can just politely ignore it. Most people understand this and just move on. Occasionally you'll get a real wacko who will berate you for not answering - because tying to force people to like you usually ends well - but 98% of the time it works out decently for everyone. If someone has really put a lot of time/effort into their message and I'm not into it, I might send back something polite but usually I hate to encourage someone if there is no chance. As most women have realized by now, some guys will take literally anything as encouragement.

Like this guy. Every time I've tried online dating I've had someone like this at least once. This guy takes your silence to mean 'please message me more, your attempts to woo me will eventually win me over IF YOU JUST KEEP AT IT.' I have no idea what he would do if I DID respond; possibly hunt me down and saw off my leg so he could hump it at home or, depending on how crazy he is, maybe lose interest entirely (yay)! More often than not, however, communicating just causes the crazy to escalate. As much as I enjoy a good confrontation, feeling as I do that it cleans out the pipes, I tend not to do so with clearly unstable males online who have access to my picture.

Anyway. Message #1 (remember, my OKC profile says You should message me if... "You aren't batshit crazy"). Also, I talk about bacon flavored popcorn, because if you've had it, you would too. This message isn't so bad:

"Bacon Flavored Popcorn!
Jul. 14, 2010 – 2:18pm No friggin' way!

I've heard of chocolate covered bacon but popcorn. Where do you get it? Do you have to meet some guy behind a convenient store? Hook me up!

:D,
(boy name)"

Slightly amusing, but the profile picture is creepy, not cute, and oddly lit. Like maybe his camera filter has been rinsed recently in blood (scary!). His profile is also really weird, and not in a fun way. So I ignore him.

2 days later, message 2:

"Watchadoin?
Jul. 16, 2010 – 10:18pm :)

(boy name)

I'm not Batshit Crazy. I know because I've dated Batshit Crazy and I'm not it. lol."

Thus proving that self-awareness is not a life skill he has managed to pick up along the way. More ignoring.

Yesterday, I updated my You Should Message Me section to add, underneath Not Batshit Crazy, the following: "You are an alpha male" and "You are not easily confused", because I am tired of the emails asking me what batshit crazy is.

Today I received message 3 from this poor misguided dude:

"So far I should still message you.
Jul. 20, 2010 – 7:56pm Batshit crazy. Nope
Alpha male. Check (but not type A)
And what was the last one? Uhh, wait, lemme look it up... Darn.

How 'bout two of three. :shrug:

;)
(boy name) "

AGAIN WITH THE MASSIVE FAILURE. You are batshit crazy if you continue to message a woman who is clearly, unequivocally, and adamantly ignoring the shit out of you. You are obviously confused if you think emailing her again is going to work. It won't.

I do not want to talk to you. I think it is horrible that I might have to respond to you to tell you that I don't want to talk to you. That feels all wrong and squicky and I don't want you to think that leg stealing/humping would be the next logical step in our non-relationship.

Please, just stop. Do not inflict your crazy on me because at some point I will be tempted to respond with MY crazy, which is a thing that you do not want.

Penis spam

2010-07-18T20:43:00.001-07:00

Oh email spammers, why do you want me to take care of my penis? I do not have a penis. If I did, would I need your advice about it? Are they really so hard to take care of?

If I had a pet penis, I would keep it in a velvet box and take it for walks. I would never ever let the cats play with it

and I would keep it clean and train it as to appropriate penis behavior, such as not chasing cars or spitting up in front of company. I don't think I would get it any squishy friends to hang out with, mostly because they kind of freak me out.

Other than that? It would be on its own. Because if the penis needed any more care and feeding then it would be way too fucking high maintenance for me and I just don't deal with anything that needy. Also, penis email spammers, help me understand how people knew how to take care of their penises before email? Was there a secret snail mail mailing list before that? Smoke signals? Or did the penises just suffer in silence from substandard care?

Poor little guys. Sad penis! :(

Magazine scammers will GET YOU

2010-07-18T19:43:00.000-07:00

This is my BFF's favorite story of me and a blackout rage incident - she emailed me some details I'd forgotten, such as actual words I used, etc. Enjoy :)

I lived in the dorms my freshman year of college, but my dorms were special - they had converted an apartment complex into an awesome dorm situation, so we lived in suites. I had 4 roommates in a 3 bedroom 2 bath suite with a living room (no kitchen though). My suitemates were a combination of ultra conservative and fucking crazy, which ended up with . One afternoon I was sitting in our living room watching the X-Files - yes, I'm really that old, shut up - when someone knocked in our door. In a suite with 5 girls, this happened a lot. LOTS of boys dropping by with treats or invitations or random leering. This boy, however, did not want to give us anything - he wanted to sell us some magazines. You know the spiel; reformed kids from bad circumstances given magazine sales jobs to keep them busy and employed. I of course got super excited, because I get super excited about every freaking thing that is new to me, and I ordered a few magazines. Why not! I'm on my own! I have a little money! Magazines!

He took my money and went on his way. A few months later I realized I had no magazines - they never came. I was also broke from that and other random unexpected expenses (lingerie. It's a problem).

That fucker SCAMMED ME. I found out later that this was a thing - they target freshman dorms right after move-in. I actually found that out for sure a few years later in my Persuasion Theories class. Persuasion Theories was awesome, it was under Communication and Psych and you learned about cults, and random hard sell sales techniques, and pyramid schemes AND ABOUT THE FUCKING MAGAZINE SCAMMERS. Ahem.

Fast-forward to December; BFF and I went to a nearby big city mall for some Christmas shopping. Shopping!

We were walking along happily gossiping, talking about how awesome college was and what was probably contributing to the freshman 15 (alcohol, crappy food, and 420 munchies most likely) when we were approached by a guy. Guess what he wanted.

That's right, astute reader. HE WANTED TO SELL US SOME MAGAZINES.

I was enraged. I started seeing clouds of blood. Instead of politely refusing, which is what I normally do when approached by random people selling ridiculous crap, I started foaming at the mouth. My hands turned into tiny fists of fury.

"....Magazines?" I said, in a white-hot fury.

"Uh, yes ma'am, magazines, we have a 3 for 1 deal on..."

"I don't want your magazines. Why would I give you MY MONEY only to never ever get your crappy fucking magazines?!"

He started to look a little freaked out, but the kid had heart. He was adamant that it was legit, I'd get the magazines, etc.

"It's a scam! A SCAM. You will take our money and we will never ever get the magazines and"

(Things get blurry here for a while. More of me ranting about what a scam it is. He gets VERY DEFENSIVE.)

BFF is standing by in shocked silence, clearly wishing she were someplace else but also having my back and wanting to see the fireworks.

I ranted a little about the guy who sold me magazines at the dorm. He decided to attempt logical argument to win me over as to his innocence:

Salesdouche: "Well, most murderers are men, do you think EVERY man is a murderer?"
ME: "I would if he was standing in front of me waving a fucking KNIFE."

The End.

Cop blocked!

2010-07-17T18:58:00.001-07:00

I'm a creature of habit. I like to have a few things every week that happen in almost exactly the same way each time, which then means that everything else can be completely batshit crazy. One of my favorite things is my weekly lunch with Ed - we've worked together so long that we are totes BFF. Also he is ridic hot. Aaaaaand he loves a good bargain.

So a few weeks ago we decide to eat at Peiwei, where you can get a free drink if you call in your order and it's not ready when you get there. He loves this and thinks it is the best thing ever - he won't call them until he's picked me up and we are on our way there so he can get free drinks.

(Wheeee! Soda!!!!)

This drives me freaking crazy, seriously. We are grownups who make decent money, we don't need to scam restaurants out of sodas - which cost, what, $1.50? Plus I end up waiting and we all know how I feel about THAT. (Hint: Not good)

This time we get there and Ed goes through his routine. Oh, the food's not ready? SURE I'll take a free drink! Thanks! And he scampers off to the soda machine, feeling like he just won something.

I sigh dramatically and move over to the waiting area when I'm faced with something that makes me realize that waiting isn't always bad....sometimes there are perks. What do I see standing a few feet away from me but a very tall, very dark, and very handsome cop. Welllll hello there, officer, can I show you my uniform fetish?His hotness has totally flustered me, which is rare. I don't fluster easily.

I'm giving him flirty glances and trying to come up with something to say to him that isn't an obvious sex invitation because, seriously, my brain has checked out, when suddenly Ed comes back and solves the problem for me by COMPLETELY AND RANDOMLY CHATTING UP THE COP.

And not in a 'oh have you met my single friend hottie mchotpants over here' kind of way, either. He is giving off some sort of vibe like HE is a cop groupie or, possibly, that we are a married couple and he is trying to pick up the cop for a 3-way. This is not helped by the fact that Ed is wearing his wedding ring, touching the cop, lots of eye contact, and kind of flirting. Ed is completely straight btw, he is just really, really friendly and enthusiastic and about as clued-in as a 4 week old puppy. He at no point mentions that we are NOT a couple nor does he even realize that I am totally wetting my panties over this cop. At least now I have an excuse to talk to the cop but I cannot seem to avoid ALSO giving the impression that Ed and I are together (remember how we've been friends for so long? We have that kind of chemistry).

Anyway.

No cop for me. We leave Peiwei and I am completely exasperated. I point out to Ed that he totally cop-blocked me and he was like, what? Um, Ed, hot single buff copman...very single female friend.... can you do the arithmetic here? Once he gets it Ed is completely embarassed. Agrees we may need a signal for when we're out together so I can indicate interest. I stare at him, unsure why it is not only hard for him to figure out how to do wingman stuff but also why he keeps forgetting that I might be interested in someone (it's rare, but IT HAPPENS.)

Here is the serious part:

I was teasing Ed about this again a few weeks later, because we give each other shit all the time, when he suddenly gets serious and says 'Well, you wouldn't really want to date a cop anyway."

I wouldn't?

No, he says, they are in danger all the time, etc. I start to think about it and realize that yes, I know it's a dangerous job. I don't know how Dallas stacks up with other cities for cop injury rates but I realize....is it any more dangerous than walking around while female? I mean, given the rate of violence against women, is a police officer in Dallas more statistically likely to be injured in the course of his career than a woman is just for being female? I don't think I'm expressing it well and I'm certainly not trying to sound inflammatory but...yeah. Being a woman is a dangerous business, and we do it all day and all night every day of the year.

What's up = No sex

2010-07-17T10:58:00.001-07:00

I'm going to do a cartoon soon of our favorite types of online daters - you know, the ones we love to hate. In the meantime here is another winning exchange (this guy is 6 years younger than my minimum age range I set, btw)

HIM: your super cute =) we should totally be friends

ME: I AM! Thank you :)

HIM: hahaha whats up =)

I was tempted to ask him 'my super cute what?' after his first email but I didn't think he'd get it. Words cannot express how much I can't stand text messages or emails that say 'what's up?' like that, all on its own. The only time I ever say 'what's up?' is if someone is IMing me and not getting to the point, and it is my cleverly disguised way of saying what the fuck do you want, why are you talking to me. In the past when booty calls would text me 'what's up' I would just get irritated and text it back, which usually ended in a sort of angry satisfaction for me but, in those cases, no sex. Today's dating lesson:

Best email ever

2010-07-14T10:11:00.001-07:00

The OKCupid dating site has a section in your profile that says 'You should message me if...' and you fill in the blank. I wrote 'You should message me if you're not batshit crazy', thinking, if anyone doesn't get that they really should not be contacting me. This is an email I received an hour after setting up my profile. I've copied and pasted it so please don't think I'm exaggerating, it was exactly this:

"hey
Jul. 13, 2010 – 11:30pm Babe what the hell is batshit crazy?? lmao. If you weren't hot I'd think your crazy hehe. jk :-)"

I'm hot AND crazy, and I know the difference between your and you're.

NEXT

The Alien Channel

2010-07-13T18:42:00.000-07:00

I'm fascinated by the show Ancient Aliens on the History Channel. Why does the History channel show so much alien shit? Is it just to torture me? Because I cannot stop watching it. I have things to do but I cannot leave couch (another contributing factor: my alien cat has my legs trapped).

But guess what I just learned! Not only is it possible that aliens tweaked our dna to make us smarter but they may have encoded data in it. Really? This guy actually just said that if we could read the encoded data it would probably tell us that Aliens were here 1000s of years ago.

Headline: Alien graffiti artists visit Earth and tag human DNA with this important message "zomg we wuz here! LULZ!"

How I got banned from gas station

2010-07-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school I had a super awesome VW Rabbit diesel. It's name was The Cloud (clouds aren't blue, but in my defense, I was 16). My HS bestie and I were terrorizing our small town when I realized I was running out of fuel. There were exactly two gas stations in my town which supplied diesel. We pulled in to one of them. The other one was a mile away, which in our tiny town seemed far. I was totally broke but I found $5 in my pocket and, back in the day, that was enough to get me almost half a tank! But I wanted to save $1 so I could get a taco. Still, $4 was a respectable amount of gas, multiple gallons even.
I pulled the nozzle out and flipped up the pump lever. Back then you didn't pay before you pumped, so you had to really watch the pump to make sure you didn't get more gas than you could afford and still be able to get a taco. I love tacos. As I was moving the nozzle towards my gas tank something happened - the pump malfunctioned or something - and diesel starting spraying ALL OVER MY CAR. BFF frantically rolled up the window while I stared in shock at the fuel going all over my car. I didn't know what to do because I wasn't squeezing the handle. Since I hadn't started it I didn't know how to make it stop. None of the other people at the gas station came over to help me as I continued to spray diesel on my car. BFF was screaming at me 'make it stop! make it stop!'
Were we going to catch on FIRE? And EXPLODE? I didn't know.
All I knew was that we were being attacked by an evil gas monster that clearly intended to drown me, The Cloud, and BFF.

Finally I figured out to flip down the lever on the pump and the diesel stopped spraying all over my car. The gas station manager ran out and starting screaming at me, telling me I had to pay for the gas (diesel). I looked over at the pump and realized I had managed to spray $22.74 worth of diesel on the car and the ground. BFF came out of the car, grabbed some paper towels, and started wiping down the car. I was still in shock. Gas station man was still yelling at me. Really, dipshit? I started crying and mumbling that I only meant to get $4 worth of diesel. I knew enough not to mention the taco. This sent gas station man into a hysterical rage. (In hindsight? Clearly he should have used the emergency shutoff switch. I don't know if he was asleep or jacking off in the bathroom but he was a complete asshole). He managed to drag me into the gas station and continued to yell at me.

Finally my evil twin had enough and took over. I don't know what I said, but I know I called him a little fucker and told him he couldn't charge me because his pump malfunctioned all over my car, and that if anything happened to The Cloud as a result of the diesel attack I'd be coming back. He took my $5 (no taco) and I gave him a lingering death glare before scuttling out to my car. (My evil twin side wasn't fully grown yet, and this small battle wore her out). He yelled at me to never ever come back. Somehow when I got in the car I had a few gallons of diesel in the tank (BFF?) and I drove off, smelling like gas, banned from one of the two gas stations in town with diesel, and with a 10 year phobia of pumping my own gas.

UPDATE: I sent this to my high school BFF, who informed me that the gas station was torn down and replaced by a Safeway parking lot. I WIN IN THE END, EVIL GAS STATION MONSTER!!

10 minute tacos!

2010-07-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

These are my famous fish tacos! You can make this in 10 minutes or less, including prep time. They are ridiculously good and very low calorie and healthy.

Ingredients

1) 1 tilapia filet, thawed

2) small handful of grape tomatoes. Seriously, GRAPE tomatoes. These are not cherry tomatoes. They have a very very specific flavor. Get them.

3) PAM 0 calorie cooking spray

4) Seafood seasoning (if you don't have it or don't want to go to the store, use a little season salt. You can use sea salt instead but this stuff adds actual flavor. Cajun spice would work just as well.)

5) 2 small soft corn tortillas

6) Cilantro

7) Red onion

8) Black pepper

9) optional - chopped up jalepeno, Louisiana hot sauce

Supplies

1 small pan

spatula

flat bowl (like a pasta bowl)

small bowl for chopped up goodies

Get to work

1) Heat your small pan on the stove over medium to medium high heat. Do not get too hot. While you wait for it to heat coat lightly with PAM

2) Heat a corn tortilla until slightly crispy at the edges. Flip it. Wait. Put it in bowl. Do the second one. Both sides, edges slightly crispy.

3) While your tortillas are heating, if you don't suck at multitasking, start making your pico de gallo. If you do suck at multitasking do the pico earlier. Get a small cute bowl. Take a handful of grape tomatoes. Slice them lengthwise down the middle and then cut across that to end up with chopped pieces. I use approx 6-9 grape tomatoes.

4) Dice up some red onion. You should end up with less onion than tomato, but enough to see it. I love onion so I use quite a bit.

5) Your tortillas are done. Take the bowl with the tortillas and set it in the microwave or inside the oven. Do not turn either of these devices on.

6) Rinse and pat dry your tilapia. Season one side with the seafood seasoning (see above) and some black pepper. Add a bit more PAM to the pan and then put the tilapia filet in. Season the side facing up with pepper and seasoning. It should look like this

7) Let that side cook/sear for about a minute. While you do, get your cilantro out and start chopping it.

8) Flip your fish, wait another 30-60 seconds. Chop more cilantro. Add cilantro to tomato/onion bowl. (If you are using jalepeno, add it)

9) Use your spatula to chop up the fish into smaller pieces. In thicker sections you may have to press harder to break up the fish, but it has already cooked enough that it should flake fairly easily into what we want:

10) Let the fish pieces cook another 30-60 seconds and then remove from heat. Get your bowl of tortillas out of the microwave and prep the tortillas side by side, kind of propping each other up. Spoon in your fish.
11) (optional) sprinkle some Louisiana hot sauce on the fish right now
12) Scoop out the tomato/onion pico you just made into your tacos. Eat!

13) So fucking good. Resist urge to make more.

Drive thru drama

2010-07-12T23:43:00.000-07:00

Ever have a rage blackout? I do! Not so regularly now as back when I was in college (oh, the stories I hear but don't remember because it really was a blackout from rage, hahahaha) but they do still happen. This one came back to me a few hours later.

So here is how it started. I left work super exhausted because I was still getting over being sick but I had a fuckton of work to do. By the time I left I was already fighting to not tell someone to go eat a dick for asking me a stupid question. Here is a rough sketch of me right then; please note, I am still holding it together but you can see by my slightly squirrelly eyes and wonky hair that all is not well with me. In fact, my evil twin really wanted to be let out to play.

I decided on the way home that what I really needed to get my shit together was some grilled chicken from KFC. MMMMM grilled chicken! I zoomed home, somehow avoiding the craptastic traffic. I pulled into the KFC/Taco Hut parking lot near my apartment, ecstatic to see just a few cars in the drive thru line (I hate waiting. If I see more than 3 cars waiting to get to the talking part, I take off). I pulled into line, noticing that the lady in front of me was not pulling up as close to the person in front of her as is traditional, but she seemed to catch on soon enough that she needed to pull up. We moved along until it was my turn to order. The lady in the white SUV again didn't pull up enough and this time it was preventing me from reaching the talking box. I tapped my horn politely, she scooted up, and I ordered my chicken. As soon as I ordered I felt myself relaxing. Soon I would have two pieces of dark meat grilled chicken! So happy. We pulled up again, so there were now just 2 cars in front of me.

That's when things started to fall apart. I smelled something burning coming from the drive thru window. I didn't see any smoke and there didn't seem to be any screaming or running around, so I thought, alrighty. Chicken soon. Chicken. (That was literally my train of thought. A train full of chicken fantasies.)

Car pulls out and white SUV lady is at the window. We wait.

Seven minutes later, we're still waiting. I start to wonder what the fuck is going on. Then I settle down, thinking, chicken.

A guy sticks his out out the drive thru window and looks down the line of cars. I look behind me, but no, nothing exciting. Then I try to figure out what he was looking at. More nothing.

Five minutes later I start to panic. Are they out of chicken? Am I going to be stuck here forever? I'm wedged between the white SUV in front of me and a GIANT red pickup truck behind me. I feel trapped. I take my shoes off to relieve some tension, and tentatively think, chicken? That didn't work. Three cars (that hadn't ordered yet) pull around and take off.

I want to leave too but I am super stuck. I'm tormented by the thought that if I give up and somehow get out of the line (and don't forget, I'm seriously the second person in line) that as soon as I drive off the lady in front of me will get her food and I will have just barely missed out on my chicken. I start trying to remember if I saw her pay. Are the credit card machines down? After five minutes of this I realize that there is really no way I am going to solve this problem for any of us and for the sake of my own sanity, and for the safety of everyone, I should probably leave. Also I was feeling really lightheaded.

I turned my wheel, inched forward, turned on my little blinker, and tapped my horn. No response. Guy behind me starts yelling, asking wtf is going on. I decided I REALLY need to leave before this turns into some kind of chicken riot or reality TV stunt. I honk more. Still nothing.

So I yell out my window and ask the lady in front of me to move up. I honk again and hold it down, then ask her more firmly to move up and let me out.

She yells at me 'back up!'

I look behind me in case the earth has swallowed up the mass of cars in line behind me, but no. The big red pickup is still 3 inches from my rear bumper, and the person behind him is just as close. I decide this bitch is crazy.

So I start screaming at her (because, obvs, that works with crazy people) "Pull UP, lady, and let me OUT!" She yells back "If I pull up then the people behind you will just pull up too!"

What the fuck does that even mean? Is she afraid of losing her spot at the window?

(Side note: At this KFC, just like the other fast food places around here and I assume in most places, if there is something about your particular order that will take a couple minutes longer than normal they ask you to pull up and they will walk the food to your car, and everyone else can go on there merry way. I had assumed they had a more widespread issue since they hadn't waved her on, but her bizarre response made me wonder. Also, the drive through guy kept sticking his head out the window and looking at the cars.)

She AGAIN tells me to back up. I look at my clock and realize I've been here for 25 minutes with no end in sight and no explanation for what is going on. I really want to go home and play with my Wii.

I tell her to 'move her fucking car and let me the fuck out' and start honking like a madwoman. She's waving her hands around frantically like she doesn't know what to do. The guy behind me is grumpy, and I'm contemplating getting out of my car. I cannot believe she is being so stubborn. I yell up, exasperated 'two feet!'(waving 2 fingers in the air) 'you just have to move two feet to let me the fuck out!'

This is what I looked like at that point:

She must have seen something in her rearview mirror because she finally said 'Fine! Just leave!' and inched forward just enough for me to escape. I guess she felt like I was abandoning her? Too bad for her, guilt trips don't even work on me when I give a shit about the person trying it. I cannot believe that she was arguing with a potentially psychotic stranger about moving forward 12 inches to let me out. And where the fuck was the manager of the KFC for those 25 minutes? Why was he not coming out and letting us know what the hell was going on? They could still be there for all I know.

I came home, made some macaroni & cheese, and totally spaced it until just now. I truly believe that if I in any way thought that it would help me getting my chicken I would have happily removed that woman forcefully from the drive thru line.

Batshit Crazy Boss

2010-07-12T22:39:00.000-07:00

I have a boss who is absolutely nuts. This is how he handles conflict.

Step 1: He realizes his employee has made a mistake and needs some guidance.

Step 2: Boss hates conflict. Has a brainstorm.

Step 3: He approaches other employees in an effort to build consensus.

Step 4: He schedules an 'impromptu' chat.

Step 5: Boss pats self on the back for providing such clear guidance. He then reports back to Joe, Little Mike, and the Mouse that he ripped you a new one. They all believe him, but feel slightly dirty. They each suspect that they really lost the FUBAR account.

Bob's evil twin is plotting revenge.