National Equality March.

Last Sunday, Erin, Helen, and I went to the National Equality March in honor of our friends Sue and Amanda who were renewing their vows the same day in Vermont.

Helen dragged me up at the ass-crack of dawn/10:30am. We had been at Grand Central this night before until the lights turned on, and I was having trouble looking at myself in the mirror.

Anyway, I managed to rally, and here are the highlights:

Best Poster: “I want to marry. All I need is a law and a man.”

Overheard Conversation:
“What did you do last night?”
“I went to the strip club.”
“Did you strip?”
“No, I didn’t feel like it.”

Most Ridiculously Dressed: Not the drag queens, not the fairies, not the leather-clad Bears - but Helen in her 4 inch-heeled boots and two giants bags. We did not get far.

Awkward Moment: when Erin asked a blind man to take a picture of us.

Holy-Shit-There-Is-A-God Moment: When a fucking rainbow appeared in the sky over us as we were waiting for the march to begin. It hadn’t rained. I need to go to church.

I Cried When: we walked past a soldier in uniform standing with his partner beside him. I bet if I asked, he could tell me something about having balls.

Runner-Up Posters:
“Jesus hung out with 12 guys and a prostitute. He is more like me than you.”
“I paid cash for your clunker, I refinanced your home, I bailed out your bank. I want equal rights!”
“Needed: Woman to marry gay foreign husband so he can stay.”
“Love is love, stupid!”

WTF Moment: walking past the pro-life people. I wasn’t aware that gay people were having a lot of unwanted pregnancies.

Pirates.

Somali pirates strike again - two skiffs fired on a French navy vessel after apparently mistaking it for a commercial boat.

One skiff fled, and the French ship pursued the second one in an hour-long chase.

Ok fine. So maybe the Somali pirates need some lessons in pirating, or like glasses.

But that's not the story. The story here is the appalling ineptitude of the French military.

Five pirates on a fucking skiff eluded the French navy vessel for an entire hour, while another skiff eluded them entirely.

In case you are wondering if a skiff isn't what you think it is, here is a picture:

(captured pirates on their skiff)

The fucking thing barely looks like it can float, much less elude this:
(La Somme, the French vessell that pursed above skiff for an hour)

Incredible.

Three Month Rule.

My buddy—let’s call him “Smorgasberg”—just got dumped because of his now ex-girlfriend’s Three Month Rule.

Basically, it takes three months of dating to find out if you are compatible/want the same things for the future. And if, after that time you find that you aren’t/don’t, then – break up.

Also called the I’m-Not-Wasting-My-Hotness-While-It-Lasts-On-This-Shit Rule. Not to be confused with No-Sex-For-The-First-Three-Months-Of-Dating-So-I-Know-You-Respect-Me Rule favored by prude women and pre-op transsexuals.

In Smorgasberg’s case, he wanted to go to China and dig in the dirt for bones, she did not. Three months passed—he still wants to go and she still does not.

So she dumped him. On his birthday. That is a woman who knows what she wants.
This is the fourth best reason to break up with someone—after domestic abuse, cheating, and boyfriend not wanting to watch awesome Adam Sandler movies (not in that order).

It is delightfully Machiavellian, and I think chicks everywhere need to adopt this rule. Because time is limited and inertia will gangster you.

You don’t want to be fighting the same fights, tabling the same questions, rationalizing the same dissatisfactions indefinitely. And waiting, hoping for someone to change their mind, change their life, change their personality is just a waste of time.

I plan to follow this rule rigorously, and if me and the dyslexic egomaniac ever make it to three months, I’ll let you know.

Sunday.

Football makes me a bad person. It makes me belligerent, petulant, vindictive, irrational, manic, and uncouth. It makes me drink too much on Sundays, scream obscenities in front of strangers; sometimes it fills my heart with hate, and once it made me cry.

But oh hot damn, I love it so much. Nothing in life—not breakups or makeups, layoffs, first dates, traveling across oceans, or even tequila —can incite in me the searing despair and unbridled euphoria of fourth down conversions, red zone fumbles, booth reviews, overtime coin tosses, unstoppable Peyton Manning drives, acrobatic Polamalu interceptions; the seconds that change everything.

This girl once told me that I was the shallowest person she had ever met, that all I ever did was drink, party, and shop. And then she tried to get my boyfriend to dump me. Still, I don’t remember hating her as much as I hated Phillip Rivers after the Chargers beat the Colts at the playoffs.

I care too much, but before last night, I thought there was a line.

I thought that when my girl Erin’s Redskins—a team she grew up watching with her father, a team that I had arbitrarily decided to hate—lost to the Detroit Lions, I wouldn’t openly taunt her. I thought that because Erin is one of my all time best buds, because she’s helped me through three breakups, makes me dinner a few times a week, lets me pick out the first song on the Jukebox at Stetsons, rationalizes my fuck-ups, and cabbed home with me on Saturday night to make sure I got upstairs without falling—that because of these things, I would muster up the restraint to not gloat gleefully over her team’s humiliation. That I wouldn’t say things like “I’m no expert, but I think the reason the Redskins lost is because they are not good at football.”

Well I thought wrong, and guess what, I’m not even a little sorry. Because the Redskins suck.

Go Lions! 14-2 :)

Two Roads

My best friend from second grade found me on Facebook the other day. “Emily added you as a friend on Facebook.”

Emily and I sat next to each other the first day of Mrs. Hamblin’s class. She told me that she thought I was pretty, and it all happened really fast after that. During recess, we ran together to the swings. She offered to push, and I jumped off at the highest point, landing perfectly - a move that I had practiced all summer. I was showing off for her, and she dutifully squealed with delight at my athleticism. A week later, she asked me to be her best friend, and I accepted.

Emily was Mormon, which meant nothing to me at the time. The fact that she couldn’t smoke, drink alcohol, or have coffee did not matter since I couldn’t do those things either. When you are 7, you don’t find that you have a lot of lifestyle differences with other 7 year olds. Compatibility meant a preference for swings over the seesaw, appreciation for each other’s mother’s cooking, and hating the same kids in our class.

She was six months older than me, which meant that she was responsible for me. She braided my hair, shared her Lunchables with me when my mom packed me tuna, gave me half her Halloween candy haul when I was too sick with chicken pox to go trick or treating, and protected me from cooties.

My life in 1992 revolved around her.

When my parents told me that we were moving to California that summer, we both cried and plotted to run away together. Our plan was foiled by the fact that we were 7, and so, I moved and we promised that we’d be friends forever. We wrote each other faithfully for the rest of that summer - letters of longing and loneliness, always ending with vows of never forgetting each other.

I thought we’d be pen pals forever, but summer ended, third grade began, and I was distracted by learning cursive, Disneyland, new strains of cooties, and I left two of Emily’s letters unanswered. By the third week of school, I had a new best friend, Cindy Lee. (who, by the way, turned out to be a total bitch.)

Anyway, I accepted Emily’s Facebook request, and scrolled through the 87 pictures she had. In them, she is having potlucks with friends, rock climbing with a guy whose frequent appearance suggests that he is the boyfriend, cooking dinner, camping by the ocean, and hanging out with family.

In none of the 87 pictures is she appearing to be drinking or have been drinking any alcohol. She was probably just like she was in second grade – happy and wholesome.

Meanwhile, my alcohol abuse is emblazoned across the 250 pictures I have on Facebook—my friends and I at the club with Cuervo shots in hand, me doing a keg stand in college, me doing a keg stand last week, wine at dinner, mimosas at brunch, Stetsons, Adams Mill, etc. etc. etc. It’s all constant partying, shots flying, cigarettes dangling – servitude to the moment.

When did this happen? How did Emily and I grow up to be such different people? Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I chose the one that took me to the wrong side of the purity scale.

So as an experiment, I’m going to declare October to be Responsible Drinking Month. During this time, I will adhere to the Three Drinks Rule. But since it’s still September, I’ll be doing some shots at Stetsons later, if anyone wants to join.

S.L.O.P.

I have a friend – let’s call him “Ben” – who had a girlfriend that gained 40 pounds in two months.

Now, Ben is a good guy, but he’s not a fucking philanthropist, so he dumped her.

“She was hot. Then she stopped being hot,” he explained, shaking his head over a Guinness.

Before anyone starts to throw around words like “shallow” or “douchebag,” I'd like to lend some perspective about the kind of transformation we are talking about by listing some things that weigh 40 pounds:

· Katy - the world's fattest cat
· 40 pounds of butter
· A 5-year-old child
· Kate Moss
· A pair of blue whale testicles (they average 22 lbs each. I googled.)
· J-Lo’s ass

Ben is the victim here. He met a girl, fell for her, moved in with her, and invested time, energy, and money in their relationship – all at the greater cost of opportunity. He walked her dog in January, bought her presents, watched Matthew McConaughey romantic comedies with her, and possibly told her idiotic nothings like “I missed you today” and “I’m so lucky to have you.”

He did these things, the small gestures and big sacrifices, for the 125 pound Coke bottle she was in February – not the 165 pound walking muffin top she became by April. Not her + a pair of whale testicles.

In two months, she had significantly altered the original product by increasing almost 33% in size, and Ben is completely justified in breaking up with her to find someone more sustainably attractive.

Muffin Top is just one of many women who succumbed to what experts call the Steady Lay Obesity Paradigm – or S.L.O.P.

Often, when women are in committed relationships, they are less attractive than when they were single. Here is what happens:

There are two ways to avoid the cycle:

1. Never care about the way you look—while diminishing your chances of finding a man, you can be assured that any man who loves you loves you for your soul.


2. Don’t let yourself go—don’t let laziness, complacency, your boyfriend’s eating habits, moving to the suburbs, or the hundred other excuses make you stop caring about the way you look.

Here's another picture of a fat cat.

Suiting Up.

Last weekend I hung out with my favorite couple – Sue and Amanda.

When I am with Sue and Amanda—when Amanda brings Sue flowers at happy hour, when they tell a story together, when they kiss when they think no one's looking—I want to be lesbian too. I want to listen to the Indigo Girls with my eyes closed, wear reasonable shoes, and write love letters to Rachel Maddow. Their love makes my soul happy.

They have been together for over five years, and I am sure that in the eyes of each other, their families, their friends, and the kind of God I could believe in – they are married. But not according to the courts in 49 states.

Meanwhile, I – aging party-girl, serial polygamist – am trying to “make it work” with a dyslexic egomaniac who probably spells “marriage” with no “i”. In the six months of our acquaintance, we have broken up, gotten back together, almost gotten back together, discussed getting back together, and vowed never to get back together about eighty times. And yet, we are able to get married, get divorced, get married again, almost get married, discuss getting married without any legal barriers.

Yeah, life is unfair. But there is a standard deviation to injustice that I can rationalize. Beyond that sigma, it becomes unacceptable.

The pendulum swings too slowly, and life is not long enough to wait, so I am suiting up for equal rights, starting with the National Equality March on October 10-11. Let’s all go!

The Fever

Last night, I was at Stetsons with Erin, you know, just drinking orange juice.

In walks these three Asian chicks with three white guys. One girl was quite cute, the second was less cute, and the third was, frankly, rather busted - let’s call them Lucy Liu, Lisa Ling, and Margaret Cho.

You just know that Dude A started dating Lucy, and then Dudes B and C (possibly his roommates) were all like, “Dude, hook uss uuppp!”

So Dude A and Lucy, wanting to spread their new interracial love, introduce Dude B to Lisa, and then Dude C had to settle for Margaret.

“Omigod, check out Asian Fever,” Erin whispers as they are walking by.
I’m thinking, “Jesus, that’s like full-blown Asian Plague.”

Asian Fever, also known less politically correctly as “Yellow Fever,“ occurs when a white male is predominantly or exclusively attracted to Asian females.

The symptoms used to be quite obvious - studied abroad in Asia, love of anime, Samurai swords on the mantel, fluency with pick-up lines in three or more different Asian languages - but it’s all gotten much more ambiguous lately.

The second generation of Asian girls have come to age, and the market has changed. The supply curve has shifted to the right, and the cost of acquiring an Asian girl has gone down. You no longer need to go to Asia, understand the culture, speak the language, or even know how to use chopsticks - just go to Adams Morgan on a Saturday and buy one of the three girls grinding to “Boom Boom Pow” a shot of Cuervo, chilled.

And now that I am recently single, I myself plan to use the Asian Fever phenomenon for my own benefit.

Next time I get lonely, I will go to the nearest Anime Expo dressed as Chung-Lee from Street Fighter. I hear it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

Ninjas and Gangsters

Alright. To the last person on Earth who has not heard my Ninjas v. Gangsters spiel, here it is:

In life there are two dichotomous ways of being effective - Ninja and Gangster.

Ninjas are defined by their covertness, subtlety, precision, and control. Their weapons are disguise, innuendo, and the element of surprise. They are the quiet operators, the ones you don’t see coming.

Gangsters are defined by overtness, bravado, excess, and insistence. Their weapons are unrelenting forcefulness, flash, and attitude. They are the ones who will make you beg, the masters of overkill.

Examples of the Ninja-Gangster Dichotomy:

• Dude buying a chick Cuervo shots, while taking water shots himself. - Ninja
• Dude taking Cuervo body shots off of chick. - Gangster
• Obama’s healthcare strategy. - Ninja
• Drive-by shootings. - Gangster
• Spies. - Ninja
• Carol playing savage Frisbee then scoring the Universe Point - Gangster
• Al Pacino in The Godfather I, II, and III - Ninja
• Al Pacino in Scarface. - Gangster
• Having sex with your girlfriend’s sister behind her back. - Ninja
• Having sex with your girlfriend’s mother from the back. - Gangster
• U.S. Marines head-shotting Somali Pirates from a mile away. - Ninja AND Gangster
• Cyber-stalking someone. - Ninja
• Blogging about cyber-stalking someone. - Gangster

Shameless 2009

I Match.com-stalked somebody yesterday, because I had exhausted all Facebook-stalking possibilities. I had scrolled through the 52 pictures he had, his wall posts for the past 6 months, the groups he belonged to, and checked out his cute female friends - and still I was hungry for more.

These are the things we do, right? When we have a crush that won’t go away, or a love that’s unrequited, or if we have too much time on our hands. I had found a new source to feed my voyeuristic appetite, and I wasn’t above indulging.

In order to search for people, you had to create a screen name. I made mine Stalker2009 - I figured if I was going to act psycho, might as well be honest about it.

I had been on Match.com before, briefly, and depending on who you talked to, successfully. So I knew the ropes - I knew about search parameters, sorting, key words, etc. - except none of it was much help since I practically knew nothing about him.

I knew that a) he was on Match, b) he was 28-30 years old, c) what he did for a living, and d) that he lived in northwest DC. So I inputted the information, and about a million lawyers in their late-twenties showed up. Now if you think that discouraged me, then you don’t know about me, or the nature of obsession, or have never gotten buzzed off of a half-bottle of wine.

I refill my glass of Pinot and proceed to go through all 32 pages of men.

About the fourth page or so, I got distracted when I ran into my ex-boyfriend’s profile. I hadn’t known he was on Match, but it’s not surprising since that’s how we met. His profile was just as I remembered it, except for one new detail - he mentions an active volcano that we had seen together.

Maybe I could have mustered up more indignation, but I had gushed about that very volcano to some dude at Stetsons about a week ago. People have got to do what they got to do to move on, and that volcano was pretty fucking awesome.

Anyhoo, I soldiered on, and after flipping through three more pages of smiling guys, I saw him. I was familiar with his profile picture as it’s one I had admired from his Facebook. I devoured everything on there. I know now that he loves nature, his favorite author is Vonnegut, he has a big dog, he works out 3 times a week, has been to China, is awful at snowboarding but loves it anyway, and that he likes women who are self aware. I hoarded these little tidbits, pried myself away from the computer, and got ready for bed.

Ok, so maybe I went a little overboard, but that’s frankly nothing new for me. And what will you bet, that next time I see him, I’ll talk to him about my big dog.