Back At My Home On Whore Island

As I've mentioned before, I live on an island in the Thames on the outskirts of a very posh town I clearly don't belong in. The island is populated mostly by retirees and posh lunatics, or posh retirees who are lunatics. And it's not just an island, it's a community - there are organized functions and progressive dinners and notes slipped through your door inviting you to "supper". I was sure I was going to get thrown out.

Until Sunday, which was the day of the island's official bonfire party. £5 buys you a chance to stand next to a large fire, a sausage roll, and all the mulled wine you can drink. The fire wasn't lit yet when we got there, so we went to get some mulled wine and said hello to our next door neighbor - a 93 year old man who just spent most of the summer driving around France on his own, going from pub to pub, meeting new people and generally being more adventurous than I was at 20. He introduced us to another neighbor, an older lady who he claimed owns 10 Alfa Romeos but she corrected him - she has pared that down to "only" two. We chatted with them for a while until we noticed someone had lit the bonfire, so we walked over to check that out and to laugh at the men in charge of it, who were busily throwing all the things in the piles of wood meant to feed the bonfire through the night into it at once.

In the 15 minutes it took them to use up all the fuel for the fire, it had started to rain pretty hard, and people started wandering back to the garage where the wine and the sausage rolls were being distributed. It was there that I was introduced to the pilot. The pilot is a woman who does not live on the island, but just across the bridge from it so is kind of an honorary islander. As per my naming her the pilot, she flies passenger jets for a living. That's what she does now anyway; she used to be a veterinarian. Which is a hell of a career change, I thought, to which she replied, "Well, once you've wanked off a dog for 30 minutes to find out why none of his mates are being impregnated, you realize it might be time for a new career." I decided to just stand next to her all night. This turned out to be a good decision: I got to watch her give a sex education lecture to a grown man using his sausage roll ("You have a sausage, and I have a...roll.") (also, I got to add, in answer to his query of what the tomato sauce* represented, "Oh, that's just a timing issue.") and hear how much she loves Chicago (she used to fly there when she did transatlantic flights).

And then, somehow, and I swear to Xenu you guys, I was NOT the one who started it, there came a point in the conversation where she told us of her wish to learn to twirl nipple tassels in different directions. Obviously it was my obligation to tell her both that I knew exactly how to do that and that it was actually much easier than getting them to twirl in the same direction. And obviously they wanted to know why and I explained about the burlesque and the student show and that I even knew how to make them myself. The pilot was VERY excited, and before I knew it two things had happened: she'd told virtually everyone on the island that I was an expert at stripping, and she'd gotten half a dozen retired and semi-retired women to agree to a girly night at her house wherein, it seems, I will be teaching them to make and twirl nipple tassels. There was also some talk of me teaching them a general burlesque workshop and/or a basic burlesque class at the fitness center just next to the island.

So..... that happened.

I think I might fit in here better than I thought.

*ketchup.

50 Fucks Thiser

H-Town and amberance read Fifty Shades Darker so you don't have to.

me: ok let's finish this like mortal kombat - by ripping out it's spine and leaving it to die

H-Town: FINISH HIM
you ready?

me: to be done reading this?
i was born ready

Chapter 20 starts with a bizarre mixture of overly effusive surprise that Ana has said she'll marry him with a bone dry, technical description of the exact model of helicopter Christian flies. As per her custom, this conversation as written by E.L. James makes absolutely no sense and is nothing but a poorly designed vehicle to allow her to foreshadow again that the helicopter was sabotaged. EUROCOPTER EC135S ARE PERFECT HELICOPTERS YOU GUYS. THEY NEVER EVER CRASH. EVER. And then to celebrate their engagement, they take a cold shower with all their clothes on.

me: yay we're getting married, let's take a shower in our clothes
take your pants off i want to wash your boner!

H-Town: Ana Steele's Amazing Boner Wash!
Strong Enough for a Man! But Made for a Woman!

me: the one thing i wrote down from this scene was when she said she "detonated" (actually I also wrote down, "How does the sex keep getting worse?" but the specific line there was "I will spend the rest of my life loving this man, and with that awe-inspiring thought, I detonate around him - a healing, cathartic orgasm, crying out his name as tears flow down my cheeks.")

H-Town: I think I missed that because once again, I was skimming the shit outta this section

me: i wish it were true. i wish she had detonated

H-Town: I would watch that fireworks show with glee

me: so then they wake up the next day and now everything between Jose and Christian is fine because of fishing (Christian and Jose have an amiable conversation about their shared love of fishing, which isn't detailed because Ana says "I zone out. This I do not need to know." In my notes I translated this to "All your interests bore me." This marriage is off to a great start.)

H-Town: fishing is the great equalizer
and Christian walks out in just his special hip pants and no shirt
I had hoped he and Jose would then start making out

me: yes
he should fire his tailor, NONE of his pants fit properly

H-Town: and Ana would say something like, "Men can...kiss?"
because she is dumb

me: "but christian, you don't have a tan!"

H-Town: "You don't have an accent!"
HOW CAN YOU BE GAY?

me: oh, there's something in this chapter about how she's jealous when she finds out charlie tango is a woman
all fucking boats, planes, helicopters etc. are women
and that's basically the whole chapter
the next chapter was birthday sex

(Chapter 20 ends with Christian opening his birthday presents from Ana, including a box containing a bunch of things he already owns that she'd just gone around the apartment collecting and put in a box - the key to the playroom, some nipple clamps, a butt plug, the stupid fucking tie, etc. They take all of these things into the playroom to start Chapter 21 and then end up using almost none of them since she has massively overestimated her own capabilities.)

H-Town: and this line "Can one lust after one's husband like this?"
No, Ana, that's not possible
Marriage ends all feelings.

me: I KNOW
I wrote ONE WOULD FUCKING HOPE SO

H-Town:  also best part
OMG IT'S VIBRATING...DOWN THERE!! (It's a little metal bullet vibrator. It's what they fucking do.)

me: oh god

H-Town: and then Christian magically waves his hand/wang and special slow music turns on when they lay down on the bed

me: and she's all where is he going to put that.
HOLY SHIT I DIDN'T KNOW YOU COULD PUT FINGERS IN YOUR BUTT
at some point in all the action i wrote "Can you stab sex? i want to stab it so hard"

H-Town: hahaha
BUTT IS EXIT ONLY

me: she makes like this is the dirtiest sex that has ever happened afterwards

H-Town: Anything besides missionary is friggin porn to her

me: i call that "tuesday"
this line: "And I'm aware we don't know each other well, and we have a mountain of issues to overcome..." DO
NOT
GET
 MARRIED

H-Town: hahaha I know
are we to the part where she reveals she saw his photos?
and he admits he's not good at safe combinations? (While Ana was crawling around the house looking for sex toys she has no fucking idea how to use, she came across a pile of naked photos of Christian's former subs tied up in the playroom. She is as usual spectacularly jealous, but when she finally reveals her discovery to Christian, it turns out it isn't what she thinks. But because it's E.L. James writing, what Ana finds comforting is actually so much worse. The naked photos weren't just lying around, they HAD been locked in a safe, but Christian is an absolute goddamn moron and wrote the combination for the safe down pretty much RIGHT FUCKING NEXT TO IT. Naturally, Leila had gotten into it and put the photos where she knew Ana would find them. Sadly, this isn't the "worse" part.)

H-Town: Captain Computer Security can't handle locking a goddamn safe?

me: yeah, that was the dumbest
i can't remember my safe combination.
i had to write it down
well what's the point of having one then?
why not just leave it wide open?

H-Town: with some lighted arrows pointing at it?

me: isn't he some kind of trazillionaire?
is there some reason he doesn't have a safe with fingerprint access?

H-Town: more likely it'd be one that would require him to stick his wang in for ID
Robot voice: "Please fuck me to open safe."

me: "Insert boner in identification vag" (THIS is the worse part ---->)
his blackmail photos make no sense by the way
he's afraid his subs are going to tell people he likes beatings with his sex
and to stop them from saying that he...takes pictures of exactly that?

H-Town: did not think that one through

me: for an enterprise that revolves completely around trust, this is pretty much the opposite of that
BDSM fail (Again, and I can't stress this enough - blackmailing people in this situation is not only ALL KINDS OF WRONG, but if you have a reputation for that kind of behavior NO ONE WILL PLAY WITH YOU. RESEARCH, JAMES. FUCK.)
oh fuck this line too, when Taylor calls her ma'am again
"It makes me feel old, at least thirty."
EAT A PILE OF 80 YEAR OLD DICKS

H-Town: hahahahahaha
I'm 34 and gay, so that means I must resemble dust and have a great tan

me: i'm going cane shopping after work, I'm so old oh my god
thirty is also exactly 2 years older than her boyfriend is right now

H-Town: you're nowhere near as successful, Amber.
Better kill yourself now.
I mean, if old age doesn't kill you first

me: shit right, no doubt. i could just drop dead any second at my age

Later on, Ana calls her mother to tell her the big news and is super irritated when her mother 1) asks if Ana's getting married at age 21 to a man she's known less than two months because she's pregnant and 2) has the nerve to mention Ana's dead biological father when discussing one of the major events in a person's life that a normal human being would want to have their parents present for.

Me: when she called her mom i wanted to stab everything
she's all pissed that her mom asks if she's pregnant
um, you are 21 and you have known this person for a month and a half. that is an entirely reasonable question

H-Town: no shit
"oh my god, did you die crossing the street? You're so dumb, Ana."
"Mom, I can't get this bottle of OJ to work. It says to shake well before opening, but I shake myself and the bottle doesn't open?" HELP ME

me: and then her mom is crying because she wishes ana's real dad had lived
also perfectly reasonable, my dad did the same thing when i got engaged
and ana's all "oh great now i have to hear all about my mythical father again"
he's not "mythical", he's dead

H-Town: Maybe her dad was a unicorn, Amber
YOU DON'T KNOW.

me: oh my god or zeus. MAYBE HE WAS ZEUS

Heather: Zeus' kid could never be this stupid
also, we all know anyone related to a god in this story has to be Christian.
OBVIOUSLY.

me: oh right, my bad

H-Town: The God of Hip Pants
brother to the God of Body Wash

me: his bio dad probably was Zeus. Zeus liked to fuck around, right?

H-Town: and daughter to the God of Shut the Fuck Up

me: and all this "there will never be anyone else for me"
I wrote down YOU ARE 21 YEARS OLD three separate times
hey you know what they haven't done in a while? had a fight

H-Town: FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!

me: if you insist

After speaking to her mother, Ana decides to go down to the store to get the materials needed to bake Christian a birthday cake. She is wearing a blue sundress - a blue sundress that had been purchased for her by Christian's own personal shopper, which seems like it would imply that it met with his approval, but nothing Ana has ever worn or done or said or eaten or breathed on meets with Christian's approval, ever, therefore, it is once again time to have a fight.

me: "hey i'm going to the store"
"NOT IN THAT WHORE DRESS YOU'RE NOT"
you mean the one you bought her?

H-Town: ONLY FOR INSIDE TIME

me: or the beach
IT'S ALL ABOUT CONTEXT WHETHER YOUR DRESS IS SLUTTY OR NOT (Christian concedes he would not be upset with her going out in public in her prostitute's uniform if only she were standing on a beach and not in line at a grocery store. Come the fuck on James, you're not even PRETENDING to try anymore.) 
i feel bad now. let's bone and make up

H-Town: make me a cake and put it on my peener
I SAID CHOCOLATE CAKE, BITCH
FIGHT
sex

me: I WANT TO EAT IT WITH A BIGGER FORK
FIGHT
sex
YOU SNEEZED WHILE I WAS ON THE PHONE
FIGHT
sex

 H-Town: YOU LOOKED AT THE PHOTOS OF YOU!
FIGHT
sex

me: but enough about ana and christian fighting each other. how about instead they go to his birthday party and get in fights with everyone?

H-Town: oh my god, Jerry Springer
fight
CONTRACT!
fight ELENA MEOW!
fight

Picture, if you will, the most uncomfortable party you have ever been to in your life. Now multiply the discomfort level you felt at that party by the total number of atoms that make up the universe to the power of infinity. I once attended a birthday party where the brother of the girl having a birthday broke up with his wife during the party after an alleged friend announced to everyone, including all parties concerned AND all of their parents, that said wife had been fucking her husband's cousin for a year and half. Incidentally, the cousin was himself engaged to the cheating wife's lifelong best friend, who was supposed to be the matron of honor at their wedding. True story. I would attend that same party every day for the rest of my life if the alternative was having to witness the complete fucking shitshow that went down at Christian's birthday party.

Before they'd even managed to get through the door, they were met by an enraged Kate, waving around the email discussing the contract that had never actually been signed and demanding answers from Ana about how she could allow this to happen and from Christian about why he was such a sick, disgusting, rapey fuck. Not long afterward, Christian announces to all the guests that he and Ana are engaged. Naturally, this causes a very drunk Elena to pull Ana aside (I'm not sure why, since she was shouting for all to hear anyway) and tell her that she could NEVER make Christian happy EVER because she is TOO FUCKING VANILLA. Ana responds with poise and maturity by throwing her cocktail in Elena's face. Christian comes to her aid and himself has a shouting match with Elena that is loud enough to draw his mother into the fray, where she finds out to her complete and utter despair that her best friend used to fuck her son and that it was super filthy. In between all this fighting, we are given a series of scenes including but not limited to: a (gasp!) lesbian couple, the world's most socially inept therapist, and some thinly veiled racism. THE ARISTOCRATS!

me: The whole Kate part I was yelling out loud at the book
THIS IS NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS

H-Town: I hate how EL James tries to insert drama
it only ever lasts for maybe a page or two
COPTER CRASH!
two pages later BFF CONTRACT FIGHT!
one page then everything gets resolved
she tries to work every possible drama-rama into one book, so she just makes them last two pages
and MEEEEEOW, the Elena fight

me: yeah, the elena fight
mother of god
YOU WILL NEVER MAKE HIM HAPPY
i mean, she's sort of right, they are clearly not happy together for longer than five minutes at a stretch

H-Town: Until they have sex, that is
but then yeah, let's fight about mac n cheese and dresses
oh man, before the elena fight, when they're surveying the big party of guests
and Ana points out a black guy
it's almost like a "HEY LOOK Y'ALL, IT'S A BLACK GUY! IN OREGON! WOW!"
sigh
and then HA HA Ros is a lesbian

me: she must have been out of her mind at that party, a black guy AND lesbians?

H-Town: a lesbian that wears heels on a helicopter and then still wears them once it crashes?
Not likely

me: THANK YOU THAT'S WHAT I SAID
*confirmed by actual lesbian*

H-Town: anyway
ELENA SMASH
and then a drink gets thrown
I wish it would've been a fistfight and then the whole party comes in, someone accidentally dumps jello or mud, and then it's a wrestling match
*how this lesbian writes* 
*while not wearing heels*

me: and then they'd be all dirty after so WET TSHIRT CONTEST
this party would have been so much more awesome if we were in charge of it
oh there was also that conversation with Dr. Flynn and his wife

H-Town: his younger wife
oh mah god

me: his wife says "life would be dull and penurious without you"
and then he makes a cricket reference that nobody gets because teehee oh he's so British
i can't relate to you Americans and your fancy baseball sports

H-Town: crikey bowlers sticky wickets chimney sweep carry on carry on car park crisps

me: No one talks like that

H-Town: That's how the English talk, I know.
Come on, Amber, we know everyone in England sounds like Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady" before she gets trained
aaaaeeeeeiiiiooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
then the fight, Christian's mom comes in, and I wish she would've piled-drive someone

me: yeah the mom, wow  

H-Town: so, christian and his mom talk it out and Ana runs away to his room and then the worst ending ever

me: oh that epilogue was atrocious

The book ends with Ana's former boss/attempted rapist hiding in the bushes outside Christian's parents' house. He is upset that his sabotaging of the helicopter failed to kill Christian, which is a totally reasoned and proportionate response to getting fired for your own blatant misconduct. For some reason, James feels the need to point out that he grew up poor in Detroit, as if this somehow explains why a mid level publishing executive at a small unknown company would become a savage murderer over losing his job.

H-Town: OH BOY, I WONDER WHO IT IS SITTING OUTSIDE THE HOUSE PLOTTING?

me: you mean the helicopter WAS sabotaged?
HUGE PLOT TWIST!

H-Town: I hope in the next book there's a baby Grey and it emerges from Ana like an Alien, punches Christian in the dick, and then runs over Jack L Hyde in an Audi, all while carrying a helicopter with Elena and the crazy ex in it.

me: that would be epic

H-Town: Did you see one of your commenters mention an upcoming baby?

me: yes, that apparently digs "the sexing"
WTF

H-Town: w t f
if that's true I don't even...

me: i just can't...
so, what is your final recommendation to people considering reading this book?

H-Town: Are you fucking stupid?
that's my initial reaction
and then a more measured, "Do you want to have a reason to gouge out your eyes and almost give up on fiction forever?"
and then a crazier, "I could just shit in this box right here and it'd be better written and edited than this book."

me: i CAN'T BELIEVE I have to read ANOTHER volume of this fucktarded abortion of a book

H-Town: reminds me of this quote from Tommy Boy:
"If you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time."

me: i miss chris farley
i want him to play christian grey in the movie

H-Town: oh my god YES

me: it would be the greatest movie of all time

I have so many questions about the third book:

• Will Elena team up with Jack Hyde and try to kill everyone?
• Will Leila cut her wrists when she finds out that Christian is going to marry someone?
• Does this baby have the slightest fucking chance of turning out to be a stable, healthy, happy human being?
• Will both of my eyeballs still be intact and attached to my face when I'm done reading?

I've put it off as long as I could. Let's get this thing over with, shall we?

A Weekend With Mrs. Sizemore

A couple of things about Mrs. Sizemore:
1. She is awesome.
2. She is exhausting.

Both of these things tend to come into play when you spend a weekend with her.

A couple of months back, Mrs. Sizemore, who is a massive comic book fan (and I don't mean "for a girl"; I mean she has a giant box bigger than she is in her apartment filled with other boxes that when unfolded will hold several thousand comic books) and who has been reading ENTIRELY TOO MUCH NIGHTWING recently, up and decided that she wanted to learn trapeze. Which, when she said this I was immediately all OH EM GEE ME TOO and so currently we are both taking trapeze lessons at a place called the Aloft Loft where, in addition to teaching budding superheroes and/or strippers how to hang upside down from things, they also put on a regular show called El Circo Cheapo.

El Circo Cheapo is exactly what it sounds like - a show with very cheap tickets (even cheaper if you don't spring for a fancy thing known as a "chair" and agree to sit on the floor) that features various circus/aerial acts hanging from things and generally being way more amazing than I will ever be. So on Saturday night, Mrs. Sizemore and I went to that. It was absolutely incredible, from the double trapeze act staring our teacher Sarah, to the unbelievably graceful and romantic German wheel duet, to the hilarious audience volunteer that some Canadian dude stood on top of while juggling machetes.

The problem with El Circo Cheapo is that it is in a cab dead zone and ends after the Damen bus stops running, so after the show we spent a good deal of time walking up Damen until we found a really ambitious cab driver (when Mrs. Sizemore asked "Can you take us to Irving Park?" he replied "I can take you anywhere in the world!" which I'm pretty sure is not true because, you know, oceans and whatnot). Mrs. Sizemore had it in her head that the perfect wrap up to watching upside down people was eating greasy diner food at nearly 1 in the morning, so we headed to a diner on Irving Park Road that oddly enough is named "The Diner". I should point out here that it being Cinco de Mayo on Saturday, I had used it as an excuse to drink pretty much all day long, which is the only explanation I can offer for sending an email to StereoNinja in the middle of the night which pretty much just read "Chocolate milkshake, bitches!" Meanwhile, Mrs. Sizemore was attracting a great deal of attention to herself by ordering the most excruciatingly specific meal ever ordered at 1 a.m. by someone who was not completely stoned. It was while we were enjoying our food at The Diner that Mrs. Sizemore asked what I was doing the next day.

"Nothing," I replied.

"Good. Do you want to go see Avengers again tomorrow?"

The important thing to realize here is that I hadn't actually seen Avengers yet, given that it had only been released the day before and also I suck at going to the movies. But by this point, Mrs. Sizemore had already seen it twice. I agreed to go, but admitted I was skeptical of whether or not I would like it because I have a huge thing for Edward Norton and Mark Ruffalo is no Edward Norton, but she assured me that while that was true, he totally IS Bruce Banner and I should just go with it.

We met up the next day to head over to the matinee at the Davis Theater which we chose to walk to since it had mostly stopped raining. This gave her plenty of time to explain to me the various versions and back stories of every character, how they were the same or different from the comic book versions and why Thor is amazeballs. "Because he has a hammer?" I guessed.

"He has TWO hammers and they are called his biceps," she answered.

I am not about to ruin The Avengers for you by telling you all about it, but I will tell you that 1. Ok, FINE, Mark Ruffalo is an awesome Bruce Banner and 2. stop reading this right now and go see it, because it is for reals the best superhero movie to date (which of course it was going to be because, hi, Joss Whedon).

The one spoiler I will give you is that near the end of the movie, Tony Stark decides that they should go out for shawarma later even though he doesn't know what it is. Neither did I until I googled it, but that didn't stop Mrs. Sizemore from insisting that we ALSO go eat some of the same after the movie because when she picks a theme for the day, she REALLY picks a theme for the day. For some reason I agreed to this even though I know I like neither kebabs nor falafal which didn't bode well for the shawarma. I also allowed her to talk me into walking there because "It's a couple blocks from the theater".

It isn't.

What IS a couple blocks from the theater is a comic book store, specifically, a comic book store that Mrs. Sizemore had not been to the day before on Free Comic Book Day and that she was hoping would have some of the books she hadn't been able to find the day before (which they did). She used my Avengers euphoria against me to get me inside the store. She then used the hilariously stereotypical comic book store guy to help talk me into trying out this whole "reading comic books" thing, and before I knew it, I had a bag with issues 0 and 1 of Avengers vs. X-Men and had dashed off another incredulous email to StereoNinja: "I'm in a comic book store. Buying comic books. WTF is happening to me?" While I was doing that, Mrs. Sizemore was accidentally seducing comic book guy by knowing absolutely everything about every comic book ever written in history and not shutting up. In the midst of this she also bought several back issues she was missing, Thor's hammer, some little action figures, and a book called Darth Vader and Son that I had been coveting but didn't buy because we'd been there an hour already and I was starving. She also talked comic book guy into giving her a poster right off the wall and started shilling Nightwing to the store's lone other customer ("It's not shilling if it's actually good," she insisted). Throughout this, I kept pointing out to her that the one thing they didn't sell in the comic book store was FOOD and eventually I managed to drag her out of there.

We continued walking to the shawarma place, which was always "a couple blocks away" no matter how many blocks we'd already walked. We walked past a goose that was hanging out in the road by himself as if he were trying to hail a cab. "Look, a goose!" Mrs. Sizemore was excited, apparently because she doesn't know anything about geese.

"Do not go over to the goose," I warned her.

"Why?" she asked, ignoring me and walking toward the goose.

"Geese are mean. I'm serious, cut that out. They attack people."

Evidently she didn't believe me. "Hey goose!" she said walking up to it.

"HSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!"

"Oh my god, it hissed at me!"

"They do that. I told you so. You're lucky it didn't attack you."

Finally, some two miles from where we'd started, we found the shawarma place, where I informed her in no uncertain terms that we were NOT walking all the way back because it was far, and it was dark, and we didn't know the neighborhood, and there was an angry goose running around. We argued about the relative hotness of Thor vs Hawkeye while she simultaneously gloated on Twitter about getting me to buy comic books.

It was after 9 at this point, and I was exhausted. Mrs. Sizemore is evidently NEVER exhausted, because her suggestion was that after we ate, we should get a cab to her house, walk her dog, go buy a bottle of wine, go to her friend's place where she is supposed to be feeding the cat, feed said cat and then sit there and drink the bottle of wine while we watched Captain America. I said that suggestion sounded good, but not quite as good as mine which was that after we ate, I should go the fuck home and go to bed. I am much older than she is, what do you want from me? We decided to compromise and are now set to watch Captain America on Tuesday instead.

Please Make It Stop

Me: I have been transported to 1993 and it was worse than I remembered

H-Town: how did that work?

Me: I have Informer stuck in my head and it is AWFUL

H-Town: oh god
NOOOOO

Me: RIGHT

H-Town: dammit, now it's in my head

Me: i have a sudden urge to go put on a flannel shirt that is four sizes too big. PLEASE SEND HELP

H-Town: Here, this will make everything better. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyx6JDQCslE

Me: THIS IS NOT BETTER
WHY DO YOU HATE ME

H-Town: hahahahahahahaha

iNo.

I finally broke down and got an iPhone yesterday. This is the part where you all gasp incredulously and then yell "YOU ARE ONLY JUST NOW GETTING A SMART PHONE? THE HELL?" I know. I know.

The truth is I didn't really want a smart phone for a number of reasons. For one thing, I am already addicted to my iPad. ADDICTED YOU GUYS. And I have tremendous fear of becoming that person who never ever socializes at all even when out in public because OHMYGODTHEINTERNETSAREEVERYWHERE. Or the person that ruins every fucking bar room debate by immediately looking up the answer and ending the entire conversation. Those guys are assholes and I don't want to be one of those assholes. An even bigger reason is that iPhones tend to get stolen right out of people's hands. It happened to Mrs. Sizemore. A woman here in Chicago was even killed when an iPhone thief pushed her down the stairs at the Belmont Brown line station whilst escaping with someone else's iProperty. I didn't worry about using my phone on the train until today. No one was going to try to steal my flip phone. Now? Now I worry. There is also the much more stupid but nonetheless real reason where I am my father's daughter and oddly resistant to change at times. A phone doesn't need to be filled with apps and do 900 magical things, it needs to make and receive phone calls. That is what "phone" means. I may even have told a number of different people that I would get a smart phone when they pried the perfectly fine regular ass phone out my cold dead hand.

Still, the smart phone thing is long past reaching critical mass and when the bartender got one a couple of months ago I figured it was probably time for me to join the ranks of the Eternally Connected (for reference, two nights ago I patiently explained to him how to attach a photo in an email. For him to have a new thing before I have it is downright ludicrous). I was still reluctant. For help in overcoming this, I turned of course to the great and wise Fish, an early adopter of every technology ever and pretty much the only person whose advice I actually heed (sometimes), and asked him to convince me. "Do you like your iPad? Wish it were more portable? You have the ability to upgrade and you aren't? Why are you fucking this up?" was his typically withering response, so here I am one week later with an iPhone 4s.

I turned it on for the first time and was immediately not a fan. My mild OCD tendencies went into overdrive because the entire first screen was filled with icons. Like 20 icons, which is way too much for me to look at and I was overwhelmed and turned it right back off to catch my breath and regroup. And yes I know I can move and/or group them and have started doing so, but it requires a lot of work to figure out which applications I'm going to use in descending order of frequency and then group them accordingly and when I had a regular phone that only did phone things I didn't have to deal with this. But fine, that problem will be resolved eventually. Then last night while I was laying in bed awake at 3:30 am because my cat is an asshole, it dawned on me that I hadn't checked out Siri yet. (Oh by the way, that commercial with the idiot kid in the shitty band that wants Siri to call him rock god is fucking awful and makes me feel all damn-kids-get-off-my-lawn. Please, please let them stop airing that soon.) I decided to see what she was up to so I asked her "Siri, are you there?" and she replied with, "Wherever you go, that is where I will be." Which is a seriously creepy thing to say and now I am afraid of my iPhone because Siri is FUCKING STALKING ME, YO. I hope this gets better soon before it tarnishes Fish's thus far sterling record of advice giving.

There's Never A Dull Moment At Riot Fest

Riot Fest was this weekend and the bartender and I attended, as we do every year, because apart from getting to see a whole lot of excellent bands at the one music festival that is indoors, it is also some of the best people watching of the year. This is the same festival where I nearly incited an actual riot by wearing a shirt which read "I should be in the kitchen" last year, and the one where we saw a guy come out of the pit with his eye socket crushed the year before that.

This year we showed up for the last four bands at the Congress on Saturday night. Almost immediately we saw an 18 year old kid walking around in a TSOL shirt and the bartender had his first chance to get his damn-kids-get-off-my-lawn on. "Please, that band broke up before that kid was even born," he lamented (sort of, in that no original members were left after 1990). We headed down to our usual spot (down near the front to the far right of the stage, near the beer and away from the pit, with the rest of the old people) just in time for Strike Anywhere.

Just a note for my friends who don't frequent punk rock shows: the pit is a space generally right in front of the stage where people basically slam into one another on purpose, which is allegedly fun. A circle pit is a space either there or just behind there where these same people frantically run around in a circle while slamming into each other on purpose, and bears a strong resemblance to a stampede of jacked up apes. This is also apparently fun. Anyone can go slam/run around in these spaces BUT it is important to be prepared for the fact that as you are slamming into people, other individuals will also be slamming into you, and you'd better damn well be prepared for it. There are no safe zones in the pit. Those are the rules. This is why I found it hilarious when the weirdo guy with the Santa Claus beard who was standing still in the middle of the circle pit waving his arms like he was directing traffic got noticed by one of the stampeders, who promptly ran directly at him at full speed and knocked him flat on his ass. (Side note to the other people in the circle pit: the reason your circle fell apart is because you started it at the beginning of a four minute long song. No one wants to keep running for four whole minutes. You know the songs. Pick a shorter one next time you assclowns.)

As Leftover Crack took the stage, our safe zone away from the pit was invaded by a lone lunatic, who created a one man pit for himself by pacing back and forth like a lion stalking its prey and intermittently hugging random people while screaming into their face. He was hilarious, but his flailing around reminded me that the bartender hasn't fully recovered from his surgery. Even on the sidelines things can happen, so I took the opportunity to position myself on his left side at a slight angle, so I could be his bodyguard against stray dancers. This came in handy when some girl in a big fucking hurry to get down front decided that she didn't have time to politely slide between people like a normal person and instead came running through the crowd throwing elbows like Kevin fucking Garnett. She got me square in the ribs and I was sore most of the next day.

Suicide Machines were on next (Riot Fest has a history of bands reuniting to play it, which is how I got to see Screeching Weasel a couple years ago) and, while they did rock, they didn't leave us feeling any younger. "Yes, I'm talking to you young lady," the singer said to a girl down front. "ARE YOU READY TO POGO?" Most of the crowd responded by screaming and doing just that. I tested out my readiness for pogoing by bouncing on my toes a little bit. Flakes of rust started falling off my knees and I informed the bartender I was too old to pogo. "Me too," he said, without even bothering to check the status of his knees. He knew.

The headliners of the night were the Descendents, who were absolutely fucking phenomenal. Additionally, I finally felt less decrepit when Milo Aukerman decreed that "Thou shalt not commit adulthood". Given that he bears a remarkable resemblence to my dad I decided to take that to heart.

The Descendents alone would have been worth the cost of admission, but the glory of Facebook came through to make this the best Riot Fest ever by informing me of a secret promotion at Taboo Tabou entitling me to 50% off any vibrator in the store with my Riot Fest ticket stub and/or wristband. You better believe I was all over that. I took advantage of the brilliant weather Sunday afternoon and walked down to procure my very first Lelo for the bargain basement price of $80. Worth it? The only reason I'm typing this post is because I'm recharging it already.

Running Update: Week Two

I think the status of my running experiment is best summed up in this conversation with H-Town's brother, runner extraordinaire:

E-Town: how's the running?

Me: I want to stab everything.
btw, I learned this: Do not run on the same day you have burlesque class. FYI

E-Town: haha, ok

Me: my legs are like spaghetti today

E-Town: thin and tasty?

Me: limp and wrapped around a fork


I seriously look like I have just now discovered my knees and I'm still getting used to them. I was confused about why my body was rebelling against this so much - the running part I understand, but I was a dancer for 14 years and I felt like I should be holding up better in the face of pliés and hip circles. Then it dawned on me that the last time I did a plié I was about 17. My body already knew that, and clearly is telling me "No fucking way, lady. You are every day of 33 years old, so stop trying to bend your knees sideways." As with most advice I am given, I've chosen to ignore this, and the 26 seconds of choreography we learned last night has been run in my office today more than once, though I'm not sure if it's because I want to get everything down perfect before the next class or because I like to touch my butt.

You Know You're Old When...

You know you're old when you are reading the paper in the morning and there's a story about this year's crop of college freshmen which points out that they weren't even alive yet when the Challenger exploded.