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.

Candy Land? More like BRANDY Land, Amirite?

For my non-American audience (which is most of you), Candy Land is a children's board game that is so basic in concept it's usually one of the first two board games a child is given (the other being Snakes and Ladders, except here it's called Chutes and Ladders because we won't give kids pictures of cartoon snakes for some reason (I suspect this is discrimination against snakes for having two penises because we are puritans. By the way, snakes have two penises and are therefore crazy awesome. See also: sharks)). It's a bit different now from the way it was when I was a little ape, primarily in that the game board has way more shit going on since today's children have the attention span of a gnat, there's a spinner to find out which square you're going to next instead of cards, I assume because parents everywhere got sick of their children losing all the cards and/or drooling on them, and there's no more peanut brittle house because today's children have no idea what the fuck peanut brittle is:

Candy Land the way I remember it with peanut brittle and neapolitan ice cream and candy hearts

Candy Land today. Note the pirate ship. WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH CANDY?

Today I took a short break from dismantling my life for easier shipping and continued my boyfriend's education in American culture by teaching him how to play Candy Land. Except I may have made it into a drinking game and possibly also added stripping to it, a la poker. And StereoNinja may have passed out while we were on Skype because he was drunk by 6 pm and forgot to eat dinner, and I may have been drunk myself before noon. The point is I need to find a place for Candy Land in my luggage because I have completely corrupted a game intended for 3 year olds with booze and nudity. And that some animals have two penises.

Birthday Wrap Up

HOLY CRIZAPPLE YOU GUYS. Thank you SO MUCH for all the amazing birthday wishes here and on Twitter, especially since I barely reminded anyone about it this year! And also greetings to my birthday twins Lola Cherry Cola and Cat Spinster - I hope you both had as wonderful of a day as I did. Because I did. You know why? Because StereoNinja bought me the stupid Fifty Shades party game we're going to be playing at the UK meet ups and you guys, YOU GUYS, it is FUCKING TERRIBLE. I made a video for you of me opening and examining the contents of the box. Let me tell you something, it is a fucking scene inside that box. Unfortunately it won't be ready for a few days because my esteemed video editor is doing actual work that he gets paid for, but that and the spare notes from 11-13 will be up soon.

Other things I got for my birthday:

• Books (good ones, not this "erotic" novel crap)
• Dalek socks (which I hope won't exterminate my toes)
• A giant Reese's peanut butter heart that I plan to crack open and eat the peanut butter out of with a spoon (THERE'S NO WRONG WAY TO EAT A REESE'S DAMN IT)
• A pirate Santa (I'll say that again. Pirate. Santa.)
• Drunk with my coworkers Thursday night, a night that culminated in my patented sleeping on the bathroom floor move, a raging hangover all day Friday, exactly zero desire to drink on my birthday, and no posts over the weekend (sorry). Also there were feathers EVERYWHERE.

Hiatus

Hey you guys! I haven't forgotten I have a blog or anything, I'm just on vacation. StereoNinja and I decided it was cold in Chicago so we have escaped to Miami for a little while. There will be stories about our crazy times with the Word Whore from Air Out My Shorts, a douchebag art dealer, shenanigans at Walgreens, and hotel remodeling (aka fights with security). There will not be any stories about Christmas dildos. We also made you a video of my leftover notes from Chapters 7 and 8 in which I give good but vague advice on how to perform oral sex. Also StereoNinja bought me a camera light for Christmas so now everyone can see what my face looks like, so there's that. Back soon with more reviews my little candy canes!

50 Shades Drunker

Happy December everyone! StereoNinja has painstakingly edited the drunk video I made of my spare notes from Chapters 4-6 of Fifty Shades Freed into something resembling coherency. He had to cut out some excellent points I had about how Ana is not James Bond because while my point was good, my explanation was unintelligible, and also a part with a REALLY inappropriate show and tell. There's also a link to a page from the show How Stuff Works which contains an alarming number of identical phrases to what E. L. James wrote about Versailles, which makes me very suspicious that she just copied and pasted the entire paragraph. I'm going to organize my notes from Chapters 7 and 8 and record that video tonight or tomorrow. Anyway, enjoy, and I apologize in advance for using the word cunt about 47 times.

Meaningless Post To Make My Quota

I made a video today after getting drunk with StereoNinja which may or may not make any sense. I tried watching it, but I was gesturing a lot and it was making me dizzy since I was still drunk. Then I passed out. Then I woke up in the middle of the night from Fringe nightmares (I KNEW IT) and remembered that I didn't get around to posting anything for today. Then I wrote this crappy explanation and (hopefully) went back to sleep. Worst NaBloPoMo post ever. But a video is coming, so there's that.

Things I Learned This Thanksgiving

1. My least favorite knife to cut myself with while cooking is a serrated bread knife.
2. The Jets suck even worse than I thought, and I thought they sucked giant purple donkey balls.
3. Eating 900 pounds of food makes me too tired to get drunk. I'll do it tomorrow.
4. Getting drunk is a weird chore anyway.
5. Jason Bourne is delicious.

Thanksgiving Eve And Responsibilities

Many apologies for the very late (ok, fine, backdated, but only by like half an hour - if I were in California right now this would totally count) and mostly substanceless NaBloPoMo post today. It's the day before Thanksgiving here in America, or as I like to call it "Practice Christmas" (I am the only person who calls it that as well as the only person who thinks it's funny), which meant that after I got home from work I needed to bake a pie, cube some bread, clean the dining room, and take Jason Bourne swimming. I should point out that Jason Bourne is what I named our turkey this year due to his being super fucking awesome but having no idea who he is.

WHAT IS TREADSTONE?!?

 Depending on how much of a cheeseball you are, you may find that name not quite as hilarious as what I named my turkey last year, Tennille. Right before he went in the oven I set the bottle of Captain Morgan I was drinking next to him so I could take a photo of The Captain and Tennille. Tennille Two wouldn't have worked for this turkey though since the only rum I have in the house right now is Sailor Jerry*. ANYWANK - Jason Bourne went swimming for a few hours in a pool of brine I lovingly made him so he can be all nice and juicy when I cook his awesome ass tomorrow, assuming he doesn't somehow reanimate in the middle of the night and kill me with his amazing headless turkey stealth. My point is I had a lot to do, as I will tomorrow, so that post will probably be some rambling bullshit just like this. THE GOOD NEWS IS that I plan to get drunk at dinner and then do some reading after the bartender goes to work, which is likely to lead to a video of the result. If we're very lucky, StereoNinja will be able to garner a few minutes that make sense and where I'm not making out with the camera lens and then you guys will get to see it. He is a genius. Though not a real ninja**.

One other Thanksgiving fact for you guys: The number of times I will have to see Planes Trains and Automobiles to be able to watch it without crying at the end is somewhere between infinity and whatever is bigger than that.

*Also that would be funnier if I spelled it Tennille Too. Shut up, I'm really tired.
**OR IS HE?

I Have The Coolest Readers

Here's how you know you've made it, internet-wise. I was hanging out on Twitter yesterday with a couple of friendly Bizzybiz readers (Hi!) and they told me they invented a drinking game based on my reviews:


@amberance We've turned your reviews into a drinking game. Drink when you laugh. Drink when Ana is a moron. Drink when Christian is a dick...


I mentioned they may be endangering their livers. StereoNinja thinks they should film it. He is also jealous because he is not a drinking game. (He is also not really a ninja*.)Point is, A DRINKING GAME HAS HAPPENED AND YOU GUYS SHOULD TOTALLY PLAY IT.

* OR IS HE?

Silver Medal Try, But No

Despite advice to the contrary from an interested party with ulterior motives, posting a strategically framed photo of myself nude and inviting my readers to play a game I invented called "Tits or Knees" is not something I am actually drunk enough to do. I probably was at the time of suggestion, but then I drank a crap ton of milk and watched old episodes of Doctor Who for three hours until I sobered up enough to realize that that was dumb and to type well enough for spell check to guess what I was actually trying to say. Sorry, pervs.

Besides, it was definitely knees.

Butthoven's Fifth

H-Town suggested to me last week that one thing that could help me in coming up with something to post every single day for a month is if I posted a few links to some of my favorite burlesque performances. And since I got to see one of my favorite burlesque performances in history live and in person last Wednesday at Naked Girls Reading, and also since I am backdating this post because I am a lazy fucking blogger (or possibly because I got drunk during a 6 and a half hour Skype call yesterday (in which I may or may not have also been naked and reading) and subsequently passed out before writing anything), I am going to do exactly that.

A year ago, the queen of Chicago burlesque, Michelle L'Amour, who also happens to be my dance teacher, walked into class and said "You guys, last night I did the most ridiculous thing I think I have ever done on stage. I played Beethoven with my butt." In the year that has passed since then she's been to Spain and France specifically to perform Butthoven's Fifth on television. Last Wednesday was the one year anniversary of that first performance, and to celebrate she performed it in between reading us stories about a guy who accidentally marries a big yellow cat and demonstrating that despite what countless movie adaptations would have you believe, Frankenstein's monster as portrayed in the actual book is exceptionally fucking articulate.

So, here is a video of the original performance of Butthoven's Fifth, which I can tell you from experience does not do justice to seeing it live.

Many thanks to H-Town for once again saving me from myself on this blog.

My Triumphant Return

Hey guys! Allow me to offer my deepest apologies for going A.W.O.L. for two weeks. In this particular instance, AWOL refers to "amberance wasn't online" and the reason for that is not my hotel, nor my beautiful Sulu, nor my paramour seem to realize that wireless connectivity is essential for life. I used what little global roaming data I had trying to find something in Wales that turned out to be right next to where I started, checking on trains, and locating a Chipotle in Camden (which was filled with American students and as far as I could tell not one single English person). Sorry to all the people I wanted to meet who follow me on this blog and on Twitter, I simply had no way to contact any of you while I was over, and I promise to do much better next time (which will be February) because I intend to get myself a UK based phone for use when I am in the UK, because it's a lot (I am looking at three trips next year).

I owe you the last 50 Shades Darker post, which I will work on and get up in the next few days, and of course recaps of my time abroad (the short version: I drank a lot, lost my camera, cried over a scale model of Hogwarts, attended two birthday parties and a wedding, got lost in Wales, found myself in Forbidden Planet, and made excellent use of the four poster bed in my hotel room). And then I suppose it will be time to start in on the third installment of the Nonsense Chronicles. I can't tell you how nice it was to not have to look at those books AT ALL for two entire weeks.

Oh how I have missed you, internets.

50 Sobs Harder

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

H-Town: I read Chapters 3 and 4 last night
and hated myself

me: I kept yelling out loud at it.

H-Town: When I put it down last night I told A-Town "This is one of the stupidest books I have ever read."
She asked me to share some examples of why it sucked
And I held up the entire book

In Chapter 3, Ana goes to work and is shocked, SHOCKED, when her boss asks her to do actual work. She has email conversations with Christian that read like junior high notes passed in class both before and after actually doing it. In the latter series she e-mails from her work account how bored she is and Christian points out that her work email is monitored, though not before sending a bunch of sexual innuendos to that same address. Ana, of course, had NO IDEA that companies monitor corporate email accounts.

H-Town:Chapter 3
the Shit Show continues
I love that when she gets in to work and her boss has work for her to do, she gives him a "horrified expression"
OH MY GOD, WORK!
AT WORK? THIS IS CRAZY

me: HOLY SHIT IS THAT WHAT THEY MEANT BY "WORK HERE"?

H-Town: Life is so hard, Ana.
And yes, you giant fucking idiot, work monitors your email.
and your internet usage
so I'm sure all her visits to IAmVeryDumb.com are noted

me: well at least we know she won't get in trouble for watching porn

H-Town: THERE'S PORN ON THE INTERNET?
says Ana.

me: That too, but I feel like her first question would be "What's porn?"

H-Town: Is it like corn?

me: if it has anything to do with food I'm not interested

After work she is invited out for drinks by Creepy Boss, and is relieved to find out other people are going too. She tells them she'll catch up with them because she needs to make herself pretty for when she meets up with Christian later. Jack asks her what she wants to drink to which she responds "a beer" as if that narrows it down AT ALL. Bartenders must fucking hate this girl. She emails Christian to tell him where they will be, which is a bar across the street called, no lie, Fifty's. I hate everything.

On her way to the bar she is waylaid by a pale and monumentally sad girl who looks a startling amount like Ana. The girl has a bandage on her wrist that everyone in the entire universe except for Ana can tell is from a recent suicide attempt. She knows Ana's name and tells her she "just wanted to look at" her before creepily disappearing into the night. Ana tells exactly no one about it. OK SURE.

H-Town: Post-crapper, we get some random Ghost Woman on the street

me: oh she's going to be a thing, I can FEEL it

H-Town: Look, if something that weird happens to me, everybody in the bar's going to hear about it
"Dude, you guys, some crazy ghost chick cornered me outside just now!"

me: Her stalker is going to have to protect her from her other stalker

H-Town: at some point they're all going to look up and find them all stalking each other at the same time
they'll all be in the bushes outside each other's houses

At the bar, Creepy Boss corners Ana and gets way too close to her while asking her uncomfortably inappropriate questions. She can't handle this or tell him to back the fuck up because all women can't stand up for themselves and need a man to take care of them. Luckily, the far more terrifying Christian has arrived to save the day like he's fucking Mighty Mouse.

me: oh by the way
"he looks edible"
i wrote next to it "He's made out of ice cream!"

H-Town: not that she would eat him
he could be made out of yogurt and she wouldn't eat him
since that's all she eats every five days

me: oh see i think the opposite. if all food was made out of Christian she'd be a giant fat ass
she worships him, it'd be like communion for her

H-Town: wait
Christian
communion

me: DUDE

H-Town: FULL CIRCLE

me: good, can we stop reading now?

H-Town: the line about her boss mentally assessing the fine specimen of a man in front of him
my notes: KILL

me: similarly, all the women are checking him out and she's like "DON'T LOOK AT HIM"
protip:if you want NO ONE to EVER look at your man, try dating a troll!

H-Town: I hope she pees around him to properly mark her territory.

Christian and Ana leave the bar and are picked up by Taylor, who begins driving them to Ana's place. Ana is embarrassed because he can hear them talking, even though the only thing that has been said at this point is "Hi". Meanwhile, Christian is giving her a "scorching, panty-combusting look." Jesus fuck.

me: I got so excited when she wrote "panty combusting" because I couldn't wait to make fun of it with you

H-Town: YES I wrote that down too

me: MY PANTIES EXPLODED
I HAVE SHRAPNEL
DOWN THERE

H-Town: maybe her panties are combusting because something dark is pooling
DOWN THERE

me: right? Does she excrete gasoline?

H-Town: Hi, I'm Ana Steele. When I'm having a particularly hot day, I make sure to wear my Depends flame-retardant underwear - both because I'm around a panty-combusting kind of guy, and because I'm a bit "retardant" myself. HA HA.
goes to hell

Christian has become enraged - again - by the behavior of Creepy Boss. I'm conflicted about it because he's right, but for all the wrong stalky, possessive reasons. He begins repeatedly threatening to have him removed from his position if he so much as looks at her wrong. Ana thinks he can't possibly do that. OH BUT HE CAN, ANA. HE CAN.

H-Town: and then we find out he BOUGHT HER COMPANY

me: OH MY GOD
My note was "FUCK THIS SO HARD"
"oh well, I was wanting to get into publishing anyway" (seriously, this is how he justifies this to her)
"I'm sure Kindle is just a phase"

H-Town: Well, he is into Blackberry

Ana is legit mad that he went out and bought her company, behind her back no less. But only until he smiles at her. Because if he's smiling at her, everything is right in her world so, hey, no harm, no foul, right? RIGHT? I loathe her. They get to her apartment planning to have dinner together but there is no food of any kind in the entire house. Like, at all. For fuck's sake, even I have pasta in the house and I eat candy bars for breakfast.

H-Town: and Ana goes "Am I a grown-up? Sort of?"
No, you are dumb.
You should be a grown-up, but you have the mental capacity of a tape measure.

me: so many things in this scene, I couldn't even get a handle on it
like "OH EM GEE we haven't screwed in almost forever!" (This is Christian. "I haven't fucked you in a while - a long while.")
a week
it has been EXACTLY one week

H-Town: SEX DROUGHT
She was in bodywash withdrawal

me: YOU BETTER GET BANGING BEFORE SOMEBODY DIES

H-Town: And of course she has no food in her apartment
"What's a fr-frij? a Fridge?"

me: I thought that was just for all the alcohol I'm constantly drinking

H-Town: I keep my computer in there.

me: and a vile of my emo, emo tears

H-Town: I also keep my snowqueen's icedragon in the freezer

They go out shopping because they need more wine and, you know, FOOD. Then they try to make dinner, but it's hopeless because they haven't fucked in A WEEK you guys. HOW COULD ANYONE BE THINKING OF FOOD AT A TIME LIKE THIS? Christian gives up and tells her to put the chicken in the fridge, which Ana thinks it the absolute sexiest thing anyone has ever said, so they go to her room for some boring sex that I would have called anti-climatic if EL James had any idea how to build tension in a scene.

H-Town: "Put the chicken in the fridge."
that's so seductive

me: my chicken/fridge note was "OOOOO THE SEXY TALK"

H-Town: PUT THE CHICKEN IN THE FRIDGE
panties explode

me: like the Fourth of July
my only note from the actual sex was "still can't say vagina"

H-Town: INTERCOURSE
aaaand scene

After a mind genital numbingly boring sex scene, they go back to that whole dinner thing they abandoned earlier. They also go back to their argument about him buying the company she works for. He tells her that he will, in fact, buy ANY company she tries to work for, no matter what it is. He calls this "protecting her".  I call it "ultra stalking" though that doesn't seem nearly strong enough.

me: Chapter 4 -Stupidity Strikes Back
immediately, first words of the chapter "As sanity returns..."
NOPE
TRY AGAIN

H-Town: Still dumb!

me: "so if I work somewhere else, you'll just buy that company too."
"TOTES"

H-Town: "Also, I bought the Totes Company."

me: I was thinking work for the government, he can't buy that
but he probably can

H-Town: Maybe he'll play a game where every word she says for the next five minutes, he'll go buy the related company.
I farted! BOOM, just bought Gas-X

me: I'm tired! I just bought Sealy, Tempurpedic AND Sleep number

H-Town: I took a dump! Great, I'll buy whomever published this book!
ICEBURN

me: icedragon burn

She gives up arguing with him because this is not really something she needs to be concerned about at all, and offers him some ice cream for dessert. Ice cream is SO FUCKING SEXY though, they decide to go to her room and fuck it instead of eating it.

H-Town: During the sexy food time I wrote "This is the anti-horny."

me: I liked "Oh it's cold"
IT'S ICE CREAM
I also wrote "STOP WASTING ICE CREAM"

H-Town: So they do it again and she calls herself "the sorcerer's apprentice"
and I want to die. Again.

me: was she trying to entice the Harry Potter market with that shit? If so, I want some quidditch sex, like, RIGHT NOW

H-Town: hahaha
would you like...a BROOM STICK?

me: I'll bludger your quaffle
where's the snitch?
DOWN THERE

H-Town: anyway, after more boring, LITERAL vanilla sex, she finally brings up crazy ghost chick.
HA HA I FORGOT.

me: of course it's Leila.

H-Town: I wonder if she's....got him on his knees...Leila
lamest joke ever

me: because you did it wrong. it should have been
i wonder if she's...(puts on sunglasses)..got him on his knees
YEAAAHHHHHH

It's the same girl that put BritBrit on his iPod. So you can tell just from that she's CLEARLY going to be unstable. Christian knows exactly who it is as soon as she mentions it. Turns out Leila was "the situation" he had to rush home from Georgia about. It seems she saw a photo of Christian and Ana in the paper, LEFT HER HUSBAND over it, came to Christian's home and slit her wrist in front of his housekeeper. By the time he got back to town, she had checked herself out of the hospital and disappeared. She now seems to be stalking Ana. I've got twenty bucks right here that says by the end of this series she will have threatened Ana's life with a knife or a gun.

The next day, after a sex scene James mercifully implies but skips describing, they have a weird conversation about her working out with his trainer (oddly "Claude" the body building, foreign, ex-Olympic contender somehow isn't a threat, but Creepy Boss and Jose that she's never been interested in for one second are his mortal enemies), and she mentions that she needs to deposit the $24,000 check he gave her when Taylor sold her Beetle so she can buy a car. This is when he tells her that Taylor stopped by last night and dropped off her Audi. Ana loses her shit and tries to give him the check back. When he won't take it, she rips it triumphantly into tiny pieces. Once again, she had underestimated how completely fucking insane he is. His next move is to immediately get on the phone to someone at his office and demand that they deposit $24,000 directly into her bank account.

me: ok, so my favorite part is coming up
favorite = largest amount of rage

H-Town: where she tears up $24,000?
or the "I know your account #" (actual quote from Christian when she discovers this fact: "I know everything about you." HE IS TOM CRUISE CRAZY. RUN, ANA, RUN.)


me: ALL of it

H-Town: then RAGE MAKE OUT
I just tore up $24k! LET'S BANG

me: I really, REALLY wanted her to shout at him "I'M NOT YOUR WHORE"
and then he'd be like "OH YEAH?"
and then fuck her while sticking dollar bills in her ass

H-Town: HAHAHAHAHA
and then after all they they just go get a haircut
crazy stalk money thing, rage kiss, haircut time!

me: I laughed out loud that he owns a chain of salons. so hard
It makes NO SENSE
the publishing I can MAYBE see because his company deals in some vague media things, but WHY THE FUCK would he own a salon?
I'll tell you why
Because everywhere he takes Ana, he owns it, no matter what
want a beer? owns the bar
need an oil change? owns the Audi dealership
need a new stove? owns Sears
I wrote in my notes "He owns everything in Seattle. He's like Biff in Back to the Future 2"

H-Town: now there's a reference

me: and then I started yelling to the bartender "I OWN the police!"
because that's the one line I remember from that whole movie
which, he probably does own the police
that's how he finds shit out so easily

H-Town: hahaha

me: she needs to pull a Katie Holmes is what she needs to do
get a prepaid phone, a lawyer in another state, and wait for him to go to Iceland
which he's probably going to buy any minute now
"I've always wanted to get into the volcano market"
"Snow is big right now. Ima buy all of it"

H-Town: "I hear ice is melting. I wanna get the last of it...AND MELT IT ON YOUR HOO-HA."

me: and she'll be surprised that it's cold

H-Town: Ice is cold? WHAT?
panties explode

The salon Christian inexplicably owns is mega high end, natch. Everyone that works there is gorgeous, especially the stunningly beautiful woman who appears to be running the place. Shit's about to get real for Ms. Anastasia Steele, you guys.

me: so the big bombshell. did you see it coming? did she do enough foreshadowing, or did you need some more?

H-Town: remind me

me: there's a woman at the salon
an OLDER woman
and she's beautiful
and Christian OBVIOUSLY KNOWS HER
WHO COULD IT BE?
I have been waiting for this moment.
all my notes said was "OH SHIT Y'ALL"

H-Town: it is ON

me: I WILL CUT A BITCH
shit's about to go DOWN
or not
she'll probably just be polite and then break up with him for no reason and cry for five days while starving herself to death

H-Town: and listening to the iPad

Yep, it's his ex-Domme, the evil child molester, smiling warmly at her like a total bitch. Here James spins the wheel of similes and decides that the realization hits Ana "like a wrecking ball". Fuck me, I wish it had literally been a wrecking ball. I would pay money to see that moron get hit with a wrecking ball.

50 Bags of Douche

I read and review Fifty Shades of Grey so you don't have to.

You know what's good about this book? Nothing. Except that I am three chapters away from finishing it.

Chapter 21 opens with Ana waking up alone in Christian's bed. She goes looking for him and finds him in his study, on the phone, brusquely saying a bunch of businessy sounding words so we will know he is a busy and important man. When he gets off the phone he fucks her on his desk. Wait, scratch that. When he gets off the phone they have a ridiculous conversation that is meant to be coy but isn't, and then he DRAMATICALLY SWEEPS ALL THE PAPERS OFF HIS DESK ONTO THE FLOOR and then fucks her on the desk. HE IS SO DASHING AND IMPULSIVE OH MY GOD. I'm pretty sure this exact scene is in every romance novel written ever, but without the stupefyingly florid language: "Pushing me higher, higher to the castle in the air."/"...as I touch the sun and burn, falling around him, falling down, to a breathless, bright summit on Earth." I don't even kn....WHAT? Everyone is all happy until he asks her if she really needs to go to Georgia, and when she says she does he turns all cold and pissy. IT'S NOT COOL IF YOU VISIT YOUR MOM WITHOUT ME. IT GIVES ME AN ANGRY. I feel like I should put the list of signs a person is being abused up here and cite all the examples of Christian exhibiting those signs, but we'd be here all fucking day, and this is only five pages into the three chapters I plan to cover today.

After she showers, they have breakfast and argue about how she's going to get to Georgia. She says she can buy a plane ticket, on her own, because she's sick of him buying her crap. He says, out loud, "I have a jet." I say, out loud, "I have a migraine." They also argue about her not telling him which publishing houses she's planning on interviewing with that day. I have no idea how this is even a plot point. I get that she wants to achieve something on her own, but he has magical cell phone tracking/future shopping/super stalker powers, it's not like he can't easily find this out and I find it highly unlikely given everything else he's pulled so far that he hasn't done it already. They end the conversation by playing schmoopie and promising to miss each other terribly while she is away. I already know where this is going and so do you. I'm setting the over/under on when he will show up in Georgia at 2.5 days.

Ana has two interviews today: one with a large conglomerate in which she fears she will be just one of many in a sea of editorial assistants, next to which I write "Welcome to real life", the other at a small boutique firm she is much more excited about. She goes into enormous detail about the second interview. She is interviewed by two people: a woman called Elizabeth who has what Ana describes as "pre-Raphaelite hair" as if the audience for this book were the same as the audience for classical paintings (I was just barely able to restrain myself from immediately getting up and shaving my head) and a man called Jack who is way hip, which you can tell because he has a ponytail and earrings and he doesn't even wear a tie! She spends much more time describing Jack than she does Elizabeth and feels unsettled after the interview despite it seeming to have gone well. I have several theories:

• He is going to heart her and be creepy like almost every other man she knows.
• He is going to not be creepy and turn out to be a good boss and mentor, but Christian is going to ruin everything with irrational jealousy.
• Christian has already gotten to him and he feels like he has to hire her OR ELSE.

When she gets home, she confronts Kate about constantly winding Christian up, and Kate again admits to doing this intentionally and insists that creating jealousy is the key to a long and happy commitment, while at the exact same time warning her that Christian might be dangerous and questioning whether she is running to her mother to escape from him. Hey Kate, if you're worried your friend might be in a relationship she feels she needs to escape from maybe INCITING JEALOUSY in this potentially abusive monster is NOT THE BEST OPTION. Moreover, whether Christian does or doesn't have commitment issues is NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS. Ana admits that the only time they seem to get along is when they're screwing, to which Kate replies "If that's going well, then that's half the battle." Now, I'm the last person who is going to argue that satisfying sex isn't vital to a relationship, but this seems to imply that satisfying sex is pretty much how you know you ARE in a good relationship and that...that just isn't true. Kate apparently has yet to experience the glory of hate fucking someone you otherwise can't stand. I'm kind of sad for her.

Ana heads to her room to email Christian and then sits there staring at the screen waiting for him to reply. That's not me being sarcastic, that is actually in the book: "I sit and glare at the screen. Christian's responses are usually instantaneous. I wait...and wait, and finally I hear the welcome ping from my inbox." She sat there and did nothing but stare at her inbox for 14 fucking minutes. I'm not sure what's more idiotic, that, or that fact that usually Christian is doing the exact same thing yet we are expected to believe that he is a very busy and important man. INSTANT. MESSENGER. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

That evening, Kate drops her off at the airport, where she discovers that once again Christian can't help himself from meddling in her affairs and has upgraded her to first class. And I realize that that is a very nice thing to do on the surface, but the way I'm seeing it is that she is constantly telling him that those sorts of behaviors make her uncomfortable, and he is repeatedly ignoring her wishes. Therefore, this isn't a nice thing to do, it's just another way he's attempting to control her entire life and another reason why he doesn't deserve any of the trust she's given him. Also, this is more of the stalking: she never told him what flight she was on. He's got to be either hacking her email or tracking keystrokes, right? Because otherwise he's hacked into the booking systems of every airline that flies out of Seattle and I don't even want to think about that.

In Chapter 22, Ana gets a manicure and a massage in the first class lounge, which makes me wonder why she's at the airport so fucking early, and that is saying something because I am pretty insane about making sure I get to the airport early. She's also drinking a shit ton of champagne again, causing her "to forgive Christian and his intervention" or make excuses for him to justify his behavior, depending on how you look at it. She then gets on her magical FutureBook "hoping to test the theory that it works anywhere on the planet." Holy fuck, Ana, let me help you with that. It DOESN'T work anywhere on the planet. It works anywhere that has WI-FI. Places such as FUCKING AIRPORTS. Even my boss understands this and without going into too much detail, the man is NOT GOOD with computers and the internet (OK, one example: "Do you know how to get a Facebook?"). She emails him about her first class lounge activities and gets an immediate reply. See if you can guess which one of these lines was in his response:

• I'm glad you are enjoying yourself.
• I hope you have a safe flight.
• I bet your nails look as lovely as the rest of your beautiful hands.
• Who was massaging your back?

She replies that a very nice and attractive young man massaged her back and she enjoyed it thoroughly. She leaves out the part where she thinks he's gay (incidentally, she has made this assumption based on the fact that he has a tan - I did not realize this was the universal sign for "queer"). And then she thinks to herself "Oh, he's going to flip out". I would like to take this opportunity to remind you than only a few hours ago she was yelling at Kate for doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING SHE JUST DID, and to point out that this is the kind of behavior you would normally expect to see from a girl in junior high. She then continues being a complete asshole by being on her Blackberry after being told to put it the fuck away. SHE IS IN LOVE, THE RULES DO NOT APPLY TO HER. Her idiotic plan works - he goes into a rage and threatens to lock her in a crate. She is all, oh gee whiz, I'm super sorry that I made you all mad 'n stuff, which she absolutely is not because it was her stated intention to do so, and then he tells her to get the motherfuck off her Blackberry, saving me the trouble of screaming that out loud at no one. HAVE I MENTIONED THAT I HATE THIS FUCKING BOOK?

Arriving in Georgia, she meets her mother at the airport and predictably bursts into tears again. Here the author throws in a paragraph that has nothing to do with anything else about whether Ana should invite Christian to Jose's art show the following week (hint: NO). She has not brought this up again through the rest of the chapter and a half I've finished so far. I want to club a baby seal. Ana and her mother go to the beach, where her mom asks her what's up with this guy who has her so upset. Ana is amazed by this insightful question: "How can she tell?" Who knows, Ana? It could be maternal intuition...or it could be the fact that you are CONSTANTLY FUCKING CRYING OVER HIM. Her mother's advice, which for some reason isn't RUN THE FUCK AWAY, is that men are "simple, literal creatures." E. L. James does not appear to think much more of men as a gender than she does of women. Ana finds this to be sound advice: "She is on her fourth marriage. Maybe she does know something about men after all." I can't figure out a way to spin this observation in any way that would make it seem sensible, even to someone as crushingly illogical as Ana.

Ana gets back to her iMpossible to find an extremely long email from Christian, highlighting the intended dynamics of a D/s relationship, which would make absolute sense if not for the fact that Christian is the one saying it and he is constantly violating every single tenet he mentions. The email makes her realize how much she loves him and misses him. They have been apart for less than 24 hours. She emails him back some fucking nonsense while she gets dressed to have dinner with her parents. It takes him two whole minutes to respond to it, and the conversation devolves into frighteningly juvenile cybersex before her mother calls her because they are leaving for dinner. When she gets back, they continue this idiotic exchange until he sends her a final email for the night: "I am having dinner with an old friend now so I will be driving."

On reading that, Ana immediately FREAKS THE FUCK OUT because the only friend he has that she's aware of is the woman who was his Domme, and not only is Ana rabidly jealous of her for no legitimate reason, she is wholly convinced that she is nothing but a predatory child molester who preyed on his horrific early childhood in order to manipulate him and ruin his entire life. I won't debate the appropriateness of seducing a 15 year old, but I would like to point out that this relationship went on for six years, meaning that for half of it he was a legal and consenting adult, and that when it ended he was the exact same age that Ana is now. In a rage she starts googling him looking for photos of him with this woman, which she doesn't find because there aren't any, because nothing sinister is going on here at all - they are FRIENDS. After paging through eighteen pages of search results (who is the crazy stalker now?) she emails him the extremely loaded question of who was he having dinner with and then goes to sleep in despair.

After spending the next day shopping and whatnot with her mother, they decide to go for cocktails. They are drowning themselves in Cosmopolitans. Christian has uncharacteristically not replied to her email all day. When her mother goes to the bathroom, she checks and finds the email she's been dreading, confirming that he did have dinner with THAT EVIL WOMAN and also pointing out (again) that they are just friends. Ana shits a canary. ALL HER FEARS ARE COMING TRUE. She went away for two days and he immediately "runs off to that evil bitch." She unleashes the crazy in a frantic email: "She's not just an old friend. Has she found another adolescent boy to sink her teeth into? Did you get too old for her? Is that the reason your relationship finished?"(Which, by the way, if that were the reason, I can't figure out what she's afraid of - it's not like he's going to suddenly age backwards and become acceptably barely legal to her again.) Seeing as she's so unbelievably upset, she does the reasonable thing and orders another Cosmo. When she gets his reply I find it half reasonable, half terrifying, and 100% what I predicted earlier. Reasonable: I'm not having this conversation with you in an email. Terrifying: BTW, how many cocktails do you plan to have you fucking lush? Wait, can he see her? Holy shit, y'all, THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE. Predictable: GUESS WHO THE FUCK IS IN GEORGIA AT PRECISELY THE BAR SHE AND HER MOTHER HAVE GONE TO FOR DRINKS?

He walks over to them to start the next chapter, and she temporarily forgets how angry she was five seconds ago. She is now ecstatic because he came to Georgia for her. She introduces him to her mother. Now, I don't have any children, but if I did, and my impossibly naive daughter's boyfriend who makes her cry ALL THE FUCKING TIME decided to STALK HER ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE CONTINENT, at the very least I would be pointedly polishing my gun and staring at him, assuming I didn't just immediately stab him in the throat by way of introduction. Not Ana's mother, though. Carla is at first speechless, due to his being so breathtakingly handsome, and when she recovers from her awe over the existence of such a beautiful creature, she invites him to sit down for a drink, and then later invites him to have dinner with them the following evening. She then excuses herself so they can have some privacy.

Once she's gone, Ana resumes her anger and she and Christian have a heated conversation about this woman. She insists to him that this woman molested him, abused him, and forced him into a BDSM lifestyle he didn't actually want. Because she knows absolutely everything since she was THERE and SHE SAW IT ALL and he just DOESN'T UNDERSTAND how horrible it was for him. Christian has a different opinion: the relationship was entirely consensual from the beginning. She was never abusive to him in any way - in fact, she saved him from the destructive path he was headed down. She has never been anything but good and kind to him and that is why despite having no sexual relationship any longer, they are still close friends and business partners. Ana's not having any of it. And not only is she unable to accept that this woman isn't a depraved sexual predator, but she's worried there might be an even bigger problem: "Did you love her?" Because, she tells us, if he ever loved her at some point in the distant past BEFORE ANA EVER FUCKING MET HIM, then EVERYTHING WILL BE RUINED. HOW DARE HE HAVE HAD A LIFE AND HAVE FELT FEELINGS BEFORE SHE CAME ALONG? THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.

He doesn't get a chance to answer this before her mother comes back. When she does, he heads back to his room. Her mother is completely fucking smitten with him. Mother of the fucking year Carla encourages Ana to go to him - he is obviously in love with her if he flew all the way there for her on his private plane. All will be well. They just need to talk it out. And, you know, if she needs to spend the night with him, it's all cool. But, you know, let's finish our Cosmos first because that will be excellent for your judgement.

WHAT IN THE ZEBRA RAPING FUCK?

Ana goes to Christian's room, where he is stupid enough to be surprised to see her, and is also on the phone saying more buzzwords because he is super important. When he gets off the phone she is all set to have this out with him, but she can't because he is so overwhelmingly sexy she has to bang him right now. Oh by the way, she mentions a few pages earlier that she's started her period. I find it interesting that the same author who absolutely cannot use the word vagina in a sentence is completely comfortable writing two different scenes of period sex. I am also shocked to find out that Ana uses tampons and not pads, since that would involve putting her hands down there which I would have imagined she would find terrifying. (Oh, side note, I was talking to H-Town today and we've decided that every time she uses the phrase "down there" we are going to replace it in our heads with the phrase "special purpose" from The Jerk.) In between the two sex scenes, Ana realizes FINALLY that if the scars on his chest AREN'T chicken pox...it must mean that someone was probably using him as an ashtray at some point. Her immediate reaction is to assume that the person who did this was the woman who was his consensual lover for six years rather than the much more likely candidate of his crack whore birth mother (who by the way, has not been mentioned or wondered about since the GO TO SLEEP part, which is absolutely fucking insane. She did not outline this story before she wrote the book. There's no way. This makes no fucking sense). She is also upset because she thinks if he hadn't met this woman he would totes be "normal" and not a freak: "I just wonder what you would be like if you hadn't met her. If she hadn't introduced you to your...um, lifestyle." Now, I don't have any scientific studies to back this up, but my personal opinion born of my own experience and of other people I know in real life is that he probably wouldn't be any different sexually. He may have come to it later in life, or he may have gotten into a relationship with someone who wasn't compatible in that way and it would have remained just a fantasy forever (many, many people are in exactly this situation), but nevertheless, the interest in bondage and domination was probably always lurking there somewhere. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong and most people get into this lifestyle by first being dragged kicking and screaming by someone else. But somehow I doubt it, and if they could talk, so would all of my Barbie dolls who used to get tied up when I was young. I really can't stress this enough: BDSM sex is something people gravitate toward because they like it, not because someone fucked them up. Anyway, he does his best to disabuse her of the notion that his former lover is the cause of his overall fucked upedness. She was a grounding influence that kept him from becoming a person just like his birth mother and she most certainly did not put out cigarettes on his chest. She is a trusted friend he goes to for advice when he can't talk to anyone else. Ana still can't (and I suspect never will) accept this, and continues referring to her as "Mrs. Pedo" until Christian forces her to drop it. He instead goes for a much lighter subject: all those times when he was still learning the ropes when he paid for sex. She is predictably judgmental about it and idiotically upset that she can't say or do anything that would shock him in a similar way, because the goal of every healthy relationship is to constantly one up each other about things the other person finds appalling. But wait! As it turns out she's wrong! She's done plenty of things that shocked him to the core! Why, she wore his underwear once when hers was in the wash OH EM GEE! And she calls him by his first name like she's some kind of equal! Once she even went to dinner at his parents house without wearing any panties! GOOD LORD THIS WOMAN IS OUT OF FUCKING CONTROL HOW WILL HE EVER KEEP UP? This abomination of a chapter ends with them going to sleep together once again, and despite the fact that basically everything he's said to her the entire night is upsetting and the exact opposite of the traits she appears to be looking for in a mate SHE HAS NEVER BEEN SO FUCKING HAPPY.

Three more chapters, you guys. Just three chapters left for me to get through without committing murder or permanently destroying my vision with some sort of sharp implement. I better get a fucking medal for this.

50 Gasps of Horror

I read and review Fifty Shades of Grey so you don't have to.

Hey you guys, remember that one time when I was all "I'm going to read a horrible book for you so that you won't have to read it yourself"? I will not be doing that again. This book is making me question our collective worth as a species.

Chapter 14 opens with Ana waking up with a start from a wet dream about Christian Grey. She is shocked by this and says: "I didn't know I could dream sex." Holy hell, Ana. Welcome to what EVERYONE ELSE has been doing since puberty. When she imagines whether real life will be like what she dreamed, her inner goddess becomes a cheerleader and starts jumping around with pom poms. I want to say you can't make this stuff up, but obviously you can because E.L. James did.

Today is graduation day for Ana and Kate, or as I like to call it, the day earning a college degree became a fucking joke. I know I haven't mentioned how perfect Kate is in a while (though Ana certainly fucking has) because I'd gotten tired of it, but I feel like I ought to tell you that she's valedictorian because of course she is. Ana's dad arrives and the two of them head for the graduation ceremony. I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but again, so many other things sucked worse that I skipped it: Christian Grey is the commencement speaker at Ana's graduation. This is something I was annoyed to notice in the first chapter, when he says "until we meet again" as Ana's leaving his office and she thinks "When will I ever see him again?" after they JUST DISCUSSED the fact that he was giving the commencement address when she walks. Ana sits in a sea of hundreds of other people who are wearing the exact same outfit as she is, but since this story in no way resembles real life, when Christian walks out onto the stage he notices her immediately. Ana notices that he's wearing a tie. The tie. Another small part of my heart dies. I will be a soulless husk by the time I've finished reading this book.

As the head of the school begins his speech, Christian stops looking at her and she has a full blown panic attack. Why won't he look at her? Has she made him wait too long for an answer? Did he change his mind about her? HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS, SHE'S OBVIOUSLY RUINED EVERYTHING. It can't possibly have anything to do with, oh, I don't know, HE'S ABOUT TO GIVE A COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS. Surely that's an easy thing to do without mentally preparing for it - simple as taking a shit! HE SHOULD BE LOOKING RIGHT AT HER THE ENTIRE TIME SO SHE CAN TELL US HOW UNCOMFORTABLE IT MAKES HER. Jesus Christ, this character could not possibly be any more self-absorbed.

Kate's speech is next and her theme is "What Next After College?" - the most brilliant and original topic ever covered in a valedictory speech. That Kate is AMAZEBALLS, y'all. Whatever will she think of next? Afterwards, the chancellor rises to introduce Christian. Ana thinks: "Holy shit...Christian's going to give a speech." HENCE THE TERM "COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER", ANA. It's what a commencement speaker does: GIVE A SPEECH. Ana also claims that the chancellor talks about Christian's extraordinary accomplishments, and then lists CEO of his own company, self-made man, and exactly nothing else. Wow, I am BLOWN AWAY by that impressively long list of superhero level brilliant accomplishments. You should jump up and yell "HE CAN ALSO FLY A HELICOPTER! AT NIGHT!" Christian begins to speak and every woman in the entire pacific northwest is enraptured (her word, not mine). He thanks the university for the opportunity to address the graduates and gives an awe inspiring speech about their bright future and following their dreams and how the world is their oyster. Just kidding - he gives a speech about how people around the globe are starving and how the university (with funding from his charity) is trying to develop sustainable methods of farming. Which is very nice and all, but a commencement speech is meant to address and inspire the graduates, not trumpet your own charitable endeavors. But of course if he'd done that, we wouldn't have found out this: "I have known what it's like to be profoundly hungry." WHAT THE FUCK YOU GUYS? DID YOU EVEN SEE THAT COMING? THIS IS EXPLOSIVE NEWS. Ana is, as always, thrown for a fucking loop because no matter how many times she foreshadows something by wondering about it, she's always surprised by the glaringly obvious.

After the degrees are conferred, Kate comes to find Ana to tell her that Christian would like to speak to her. Ana heads back stage and as soon as Christian sees her he grabs her by the arm, propels her into an empty locker room, locks the door behind them, and begins to interrogate her about why she hasn't answered any of his multiple texts and e-mails that he's been frantically sending since last night. Nevermind that she's been busy all day, you know, GRADUATING and probably spending time with her family, who I have been made to understand usually come around for things like watching you graduate (I didn't actually bother to go to mine, but I've heard this is how it works), she SHOULD HAVE been checking her e-mail every three minutes in case he sent her something. By the way, he's not locking her in rooms with him and interrogating her on her whereabouts for the last 12 hours because he's an obsessed fucking psycho, he was merely worried about her because she'd driven home in her death trap of a car (the one that got her to his hotel that is only five miles away from her home perfectly fine). She takes exception to this because it's not a death trap: "Jose regularly services it for me." OH SHIT Y'ALL. JOSE FIXES HER CAR. FOR THIS TRANSGRESSION HE MUST DIE. She tells him she needs to get back to her stepdad, who she thinks is helpless and wandering around aimlessly for some reason.

She goes and finds her dad, and the next thing you know, someone has scooped her up off the ground and is twirling her around. It is Ethan, Kate's older brother, who presumably is affectionate with Ana because he thinks of her as a little sister as well, given that the author doesn't take pains to point out any creepy vibe about him like she does with every other man Ana knows. The three of them chat a bit, and the next thing you know, Kate is standing there, and Christian is standing right next to her. Now, throughout the whole book Kate has gone back and forth between not liking or trusting Christian Grey, and inexplicably encouraging Ana to pursue him. I have no idea what game Kate is playing here, but after she greets Ana's dad, she takes it upon herself to introduce him to Christian like this: "Have you met Ana's boyfriend? Christian Grey." I don't know who the fuck would do something like that, especially knowing that Ana hasn't told her family she's seeing anyone at all. It's just a dick move. She also introduces Christian and her brother. Christian stares Ethan right the fuck down because he was touching Ana when he first walked over AND FOR THIS HE MUST ALSO DIE. Ana's father, Ray, is understandably wary of the multi-billionaire media magnate and his inexplicable interest in Ray's naive, clueless, airhead of a daughter. He asks how they met and Christian explains that it was when she interviewed him for the school paper. Ray is skeptical. "Didn't know you worked on the student newspaper, Ana." EXACTLY. RIGHT ON, RAY. Nail this stalker motherfucker to the wall! But no. Christian is too smart for that. He distracts Ray from this abomination of a relationship by changing the subject to fly fishing. Seriously. After that, everything is all good. Christian is a fisherman! Obviously his intentions are pure! He's a fine upstanding young man! This relationship is CLEARLY all on the up and up. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

You guys know who else is a fisherman? My dad. You know who would never in a million years fall for bullshit as transparent as that? MY DAD. Also, probably your dad. Also, probably any dad on the fucking planet that didn't have his head shoved up his own ass.

In the meantime, Kate is explaining to Ana that she did what she just did because she "wanted to help" with Christian's "commitment issues". I'm fucking baffled. WHAT commitment issues? HE IS CONSTANTLY FUCKING STALKING HER. Kate maintains that she's just done Ana a favor. She'd have actually been right about that if Ray had punched him in the face and told him to stay the fuck away from her as he should have. Ana gives up on her and goes back to the table where she'd left Ray and his new BFF Christian. When Ray excuses himself to use the bathroom, Christian takes the opportunity to pounce on her and badger her for an answer about whether she will sign the contract. She finally tells him she wants more than that, a real relationship, he more or less tells her that isn't going to happen...and then immediately after that she agrees to be his sub anyway. To me, this entire conversation reads like this:

"You should do what I want."
"But what about what I want?"
"You? You can go fuck yourself."
"In that case, sure, I'll do whatever you want."

What the Christ.

When Ana gets home later, she finally gets around to looking at all the missed e-mails and text messages from Christian. He offers to talk more about the soft limits in the contract. She responds and tells him she can come over tonight. He instantly writes back to tell her he's coming to her instead. When he shows up at the beginning of the next chapter, he's wearing a leather jacket which makes him appear EVEN HOTTER, and is carrying a bottle of champagne. They immediately get into an argument about whether or not she's going to keep the $14,000 books. She thinks they're too expensive to accept, he thinks she's overthinking it and orders her not to. Think that is.  "How can I not think?" she asks herself and is answered by her subconscious: "You can pretend to be a car, like his other possessions." What. The Fuck. Does that even mean. I don't even...

Christian opens the bottle of champagne thusly: "He picks up the champagne, takes off the the foil top and cage, twists the bottle rather than the cork, and opens it with a small pop and a practiced flourish that doesn't spill a drop." This is how EVERYONE opens a bottle of champagne. Not only has everyone seen this done before, but it does absolutely nothing to advance the plot of this story at all. She could have summed this up with "Christian opens the champagne." There! Done and done. You have got to stop it with this shit, James.

Christian sets about chit chatting about mostly random crap. He is doing this to buy time - he is trying to get her drunk off the champagne before they talk about the soft limits so that she won't give it any real thought when they go through them. He is going to freely admit this to her later on and pretend this is somehow for her own good. It isn't, it's simply more manipulation on his part that shouldn't really be going on in any sort of relationship, but particularly not a D/s one. One of the things they chat about is what she's going to do now that she's graduated. She has interviews with several publishing houses for internships, because that's what she wants to do - "something" in publishing. I write in my notes: "Step 1 - DO NOT PUBLISH THIS BOOK." Once she's downed most of the bottle of champagne on her own, they discuss the soft limits - anal, sex toys, bondage, punishment, safewords, pain. He keeps laughing at her because she's never heard of any of these things. Not only is this a jerkstore thing to do, but (and I really can't say this enough) this whole conversation should be proof to him that she is not in any way able to give consent because she has NO IDEA WHAT SHE IS CONSENTING TO. No dice. What he does do is tell her that he'd be willing to "try" something more. Which probably won't work. But he'll try. Even though it won't work. Like, maybe, say, one night a week. So, once a week he will grudgingly attempt to be her boyfriend. YAAAAYYYY ALL HER DREAMS ARE COMING TRUE! OH BUT WAIT..."I have one condition...You graciously accept my graduation present to you." Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, have you guys guessed what it is yet? I'll give you a hint: it's outside in the driveway. He's bought her...A NEW CAR! (you just read that in a game show announcer voice, right?) It's an Audi. I was so close, you guys. I should have known, he's got about nine other Audis. She says she can't accept it except as a loan, which pisses him off, so he takes her in her room and fucks her. It's awful and doesn't need to be recounted except for this part when she's undressing him: "...sliding my fingers under the waistband, feeling the hair in his oh-so-happy trail." OH NO YOU DIDN'T. OH NO YOU DID NOT.

Chapter 17 is the part where he admits to deliberately getting her drunk before discussing the contract and in the same breath, the very same breath, goes on to lecture HER about the need for complete honesty. He also makes a joke about kidnapping her, causing me to write in letters large enough to fill half a sheet of paper "YOU ALREADY DID KIDNAP HER." How the fuck are grown women swooning over this douche canoe? She rolls her eyes at this joke. Now, earlier she'd rolled her eyes at him about food and he'd threatened her that if she did it again he'd take her over his knee. So he insists she needs to be spanked for this. She's CLEARLY fucking terrified, and points out, rightfully I might add, that she hasn't signed the contract, to which he responds "I told you what I'd do" as if this were how life actually works. Once again, I find myself translating what she's written as an attempt to be romantic with what she's actually saying, which is not:

"I'm going to do something you don't like or want against your will."
"But it's against my will. You just said that."
"Not important. I already said I was going to do it, so that's what's happening."

THIS IS NOT OK, THIS IS SO NOT OK, WHY WHY WHY IS THIS HAPPENING OVER AND OVER AGAIN? WHY ARE SO MANY WOMEN READING THIS BOOK AND NOT NOTICING THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THIS?

Right, so, spanking that she doesn't want, followed by more fucking because in all fairness to the book, that's generally what happens after a spanking, followed by Christian goes home, followed by Ana fucking falls apart, one of the few reactions she's had to anything that made sense. She calls her mom crying, who tells her DTMFA (this is Dan Savage speak for "dump the motherfucker already"), then Kate comes home and finds her crying and tells her DTMFA, then she has another stupid IM e-mail conversation with Christian that ends with her telling him she's upset that he always leaves, and then she starts sobbing uncontrollably. Oh my god, Ana, how many signs do you need? Dump the motherfucker already.

She begins to hear some yelling from outside. Kate is screaming at someone to get the fuck out of their house. Christian comes busting through the door and finds Ana sobbing, followed by Kate still threatening to throw the asshole out of the house. Christian is not a fan of being yelled at. "Christian raises his eyebrows at her, no doubt surprised by her flattering epithet and her feral antagonism." Oh, come ON. Again with the "look at all the big words I found in my thesaurus" bullshit? FLORID DOES NOT EQUAL CLEVER. CUT IT OUT.

Obviously Ana doesn't want him to go, so after more stupid dialogue, he climbs in bed with her to spend the night, since he never ever ever ever ever does anything like that, but this is the third time now, and of course, despite everything that's gone on today - the holding her captive in a locker room, the insanely jealous reactions to every other man she's ever so much as passed on the street, the deliberately impairing her judgement before discussing something important so he will get his way, the buying her a car after she'd specifically asked him not to, the spanking that she had never consented to and didn't want - after all that, he's there, and it's all forgiven, all of it, because he's spending the night sleeping next to her in a bed.

Please, please let me wake up and find out that this was all a terrible nightmare. I can already see the blog post, "You guys would not BELIEVE this insane dream I had last night about this terrible rapey book that half the women in the world thought was so sexy and brilliant. I mean, can you imagine? Man, dreams are so fucked up sometimes. At least there wasn't a clown for once."

A Weekend In Pittsburgh - Day 1

I went to Pittsburgh this past weekend because my phone is an asshole.

For the record, I still hate my iPhone. I even went so far as to name it "Asshole Phone" so every time I connect it with iTunes it asks me if I want to update things on my asshole phone. On this particular day I was hating my phone because it allows me to be recklessly impulsive. Earlier in the day, I had been insisting to StereoNinja that Ben Folds is the greatest lyricist ever because he is. I was thinking about it on the way home and started wondering if he had any shows coming up in Chicago. But wait! I have an iPhone now, I don't have to wonder! A quick search showed me that he did NOT have any Chicago events coming up. What he DID have was a concert in Pittsburgh with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on Memorial Day weekend. I have always wanted to see Ben Folds play with an orchestra. I found myself wondering if there were cheap flights to Pittsburgh that weekend. Asshole phone told me that there was. Before I knew what was happening to me I'd bought tickets to the show and booked a flight. I was still on the fucking train, and I had impulsively planned an entire trip on my way home from work, in a situation where if I didn't have a fucking iPhone I would have had to wait until I got home and probably talked myself out of it. It was only when I did finally get home that it occurred to me I had not bothered to check with TupperDoug to see if he was even going to be in town. Stupid phone. Luckily he was available.

I have been to Pittsburgh many times, but this was my first time actually flying there. It turns out they have a very nice if somewhat confusing airport. Not confusing as in difficult to navigate, confusing as in what the fuck is happening here? On the way to baggage claim, I was greeted by two similarly sized statues appearing to be of equal importance. The one on the right is of George Washington, leader of the revolution and the first President of the United States of America. The statue on the left is of Franco Harris, who was a tailback with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 70's and early 80's. Apparently in Pittsburgh those two occupations are roughly the same.

football players = the founding fathers

I was still struggling to process that when I got to the bottom of the escalator and discovered the skeleton of a T-Rex for apparently no reason at all.

Welcome to Pittsburgh, bitch.

I hadn't seen TupperDoug since Simmy's wedding nearly 7 years ago and I hadn't been to Pittsburgh for several years longer than that. This turned out to be irrelevant: from the moment he picked me up from the airport it was as though we'd just seen each other yesterday, right down to our traditional game of What Do You Want To Do I Don't Know What Do You Want To Do. Before we did anything though, we went home to his new house so we could drop off my stuff and I could finally meet his partner, Ron Jeremy (not the actual Ron Jeremy. What happened was we were talking about how all of this was going to end up on the blog and I mentioned that he'd get to pick his own blog name since we were discussing it before hand and how that was good because then he wouldn't get saddled with something stupid like MrBalls or StereoNinja. He said he'd think about it. Later we were watching a Showtime show called Dave's Old Porn (which we will get back to in a minute) and it was jokingly suggested that his blog name be Ron Jeremy. We laughed about it, but he never did get back to me about what he'd like to be called, so...he's Ron Jeremy. Thankfully, he in no way resembles the actual Ron Jeremy.) and have a drink while we decided what to do. Ron Jeremy was concerned that 11 a.m. might be too early to start drinking, which TupperDoug and I found completely hilarious and so rum was poured. This is also when TupperDoug brought out his photos (the only ones known to exist) from the Legendary Night of Christmas Eve Eve, which are even more ridiculous that I remember (this may be because I don't remember half of them because I was passed out on the bathroom floor with no shirt on).

After playing catch up on what's been going on for the last 7 years (i.e. I am still slutty but now with more public nudity and trapeze classes; TupperDoug has literally become the "damn kids get off my lawn" guy and yells at kids for being on his lawn), we noticed we were hungry so off we went to drink beer in a church.

The Church Brew Works is exactly what you think it is: a building that was once a church but is now a microbrewery. What makes it special is how little they have changed the building. Arches, a narthex, pew seating, the nave, stained glass windows have all been maintained. The brew kettles sit on the completely intact altar, perfect since I more or less worship craft beer (ok, more). I went the Saaz Monster because it said "monster" in the name and was described as hoppy, an IPA, and a taste of the Coconut Stout because coconuts. Also there was food, but my point is, beer in a church.

That evening, TupperDoug and I went to the Ben Folds show as per the pointplaying it with the Western Australia Symphony Orchestra which will give you some idea of how it works even though it sounds nothing at all like the version we heard.

After the show we found ourselves in that weird state people our age tend to get in, where you're too jacked up to go to sleep but far too tired to go out. I used this to my advantage and began phase one of what has been my super secret sinister plan all along - to turn America into Britain. I started with getting them hooked on some of the finer television shows BBC America has to offer, first Top Gear and then a sci fi classic. I e-mailed one of my friends in England: "I am introducing [TupperDoug] and [Ron Jeremy] to Dr. Who. I am on a mission to make everybody English. Send scones." David Tennant and his crazy eyes kept us up past two in the morning, proving once again that Dr. Who has magical powers.

Next up: Pittsburgh Day 2 - The Weirdness Continues

St. Pats And Barry The Leprechaun

I arrived in England on St. Patrick's Day and immediately set about trying to turn my friends into Americans. This was not at all on purpose. Before setting out on my journey, I had solicited from all my friends their requests for things they'd like me to bring over from the colonies. Apart from the hairdresser who had responded "Your country has nothing to offer me, woman", I had gifts for nearly everyone: Doritos for MrBalls (I gave these to him as something of an apology - I'd had a t-shirt I'd ordered shipped to his house which was posted in packaging more translucent than I had anticipated, causing his postman to say "I wanted to hand this to you personally" whilst giving him my new shirt, the words "I am someones fucktoy" clearly visible through the plastic. My bad, dude), Peeps for the Evil Lesbian (she'd asked me to bring her "something fun" and I luckily saw the Peeps on the shelf at CVS before going off in search of "something fun" for her at the adult toy store), and graham crackers for Sulu (which she adorably calls "Graeme's crackers"). Sulu had discovered S'mores last summer when she was in Boston. Neither Peeps nor S'mores are a thing in England, so I set about explaining the origin of Peeps and the fact that while everyone gets them in their Easter basket, almost no one actually eats them. The Evil Lesbian had already eaten half of them before I'd finished my explanation. We managed to wrestle a couple of Peeps away from her long enough for me to introduce the sport of Peep jousting, which everyone was quite taken with, apparently having never put marshmallows in the microwave before. The Peeps fought valiantly, but in the end, their melted carcasses were inhaled by the Evil Lesbian as soon as they'd cooled enough to touch. Sulu and I cut the heads off a few more of them and made everyone what I'm calling Peep Murdering S'mores TM.

Later that evening, we headed down The Vic for some St. Pats debauchery. Having been advised by the mutineer that wearing a "Fuck you, you're Irish" t-shirt may be more trouble than it's worth, I chose a different green t-shirt which read "I'd fuck me" which everyone seemed to agree with, especially Booth who expressed this by tongue raping my nose shortly after our introduction. I unfestively spent the night drinking Strongbow, mostly because I haven't got nearly enough patience to wait for a properly poured Guinness. This would prove to be the drunkest night of my entire trip, a trip I miraculously managed to get through without a single hangover, despite the best efforts of my alleged friends. I remember accidentally inventing a game called Tits or Knees? by zipping my hoodie up with my legs inside because I was cold and then waiting for people to do a double take, a drunk mutineer repeatedly taking his jacket off that everyone might admire his "swans", a photo of the Evil Lesbian and me taken under the sign for the ladies looking skeptical about being labeled as such, and I will never be able to forget the nose rape because, seriously, what the fuck, Booth?

The following evening, Sulu and I got the all clear signal from our darling Steve and drove out to visit him in his pub. Steve's pub is a mostly laid back comfortable joint in Luton filled with an assortment of characters and as such I did not wear vinyl trousers. I managed to draw attention to myself anyway, though, as no matter how hard I try to blend in over there, my accent makes me stand out, particularly in Luton which is not known as an international tourist mecca. Several grumbly men at the bar asked me where I was from and when I told them I was from Chicago and on holiday, I was met with disbelieving stares and incredulous questions: "You're on holiday from Chicago, and you came to Luton?" I didn't of course, I was only there to see Steve, but they didn't seem to think a holiday in Hitchin was a whole lot more sensible either.

Steve had been warned in no uncertain terms that he was NOT to get me drunk because I had unspeakably filthy plans for the next day and absolutely could not be hungover. He decided it was best to get the serious drinking out of the way at the beginning of the evening. "You have to try this, it's awful," he said, pouring me a shot of something I could smell from across the room that tasted for all the world like battery acid that had been fermented and distilled in a bathtub, an accusation he neither confirmed nor denied. Sulu was driving, so he wrapped her shot in a bunch of plastic wrap so she could dissolve her tongue with it later when we'd gone home. I switched to my standard amaretto after I'd regained my ability to speak and breathe.

Apparently, St. Pats weekend wasn't over yet. After Sulu and I tried out our snake handling skills on the snake Steve keeps in the bar these days we were ready to go, but Steve insisted that we had to stay for a while as "something" was going to happen that we wouldn't want to miss. This something was Barry the Leprechaun. Nearest I can tell, Barry the Leprechaun is just a drunk Irishman named Barry who had happened upon some green velvet trousers and a matching jacket in a thrift store which he bought for £10 and decided to pair said outfit with an outrageous wig and head to the pub. Barry had just returned from a rather long stint in Germany, so, already in his cups, he spent the evening talking shit and counting in German or occasionally slipping into a German accent and arguing with Steve over the value of foreign currency. Steve watched in wonder and amusement whilst Sulu and I spent the better part of two hours alternately taking the piss out of him. "I can't even see you tagging each other," he told us. "I don't know how you two know when it's time to switch." When we'd had our fill of that, we finally got up to say our goodbyes. Barry hugged me entirely too long and I eventually had to say "Barry, please sit down before you fall down." I hugged Steve goodbye without breaking his neck (he thinks I hug too hard, I think he should shut up and take it like a man) and demanded that he go to the Double Down Saloon in Vegas and drink the ass juice as if there were some chance of him giving that adventure a miss. He went, of course, and even tried the bacon martini because he does that sort of thing.

StereoNinja Is Not Impressed With My Wine Pairings

Me: I am drinking red wine and wanted to tell you it goes with something else besides cheese. It goes great with Gummy Bears. That is all.

StereoNinja: So what you are telling me is that you took perfectly good wine and turned it into candy wine?

Me: That is not what I'm telling you. I'm telling you I took perfectly gross wine and ate some candy whilst drinking it, which made it less horrible. A little.

StereoNinja: I don't want to talk about the wine anymore. You are a philistine and you will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

An Idea Worthy Of Einstein's Birthday

BrownsFan: And can I just say, marshmallow vodka....?

Me: I know. It's like, if you want your booze to taste like candy, then you probably don't really want booze.

BrownsFan: Says the woman who orders wine based on what tastes the most like candy.

Me: RIGHT. You know why? Because I don't REALLY want wine. Marshmallow vodka, no. Just make yourself some Kool-Aid, pour some vodka in there and be done with it.

BrownsFan: Or, couldn't you just pour the Kool-Aid packet directly into the vodka?

Me: .......I have to go email someone.

Epic Austin Weekend of Boobs and Cake

You may have noticed that I didn't get as out of control wacky over my birthday this year as I normally would and I have a very good reason for that, which is that I decided to make a big deal out of someone else's birthday the following weekend and so I planned an epic trip to Austin instead.

I should back up a bit. I have a friend from college named Ashley, who you may remember from this story involving several failed drunk dialing attempts and my keychain winding up in another person's crotchal area. In fact, prior to Epic Austin Trip, that was the last time I'd seen her. Well, back in October or so, I made some sort of offhand comment about coming to see her for her birthday (which is the week after mine) and that also the cake master (who you may remember from when she tried to invite me to go camping) and H-town (who you may remember from every cool thing I have ever done in my life) should come along too. I made this offhand comment on Ashley's Facebook page, where it was seen by Jil with one L (who you will not remember from previous stories because I hadn't seen her in 15 years) (also she has the same birthday as me) who responded with something to the effect of "Is this for serious?" and promptly booked a flight. Well at that point it was ON LIKE DONKEY KONG, so I then set about systematically eliminating every excuse the cake master and H-town could come up with not to go, coordinated the booking of flights and told Ashley it was done and done. "SWEET HOT BUTTERED TITS!" was her actual verbatim response.

I met up with the cake master at Midway airport Friday morning. The fun began immediately when we noticed a girl in a pink cowboy hat with a veil attached to it that nearly reached the floor and "Bride" written in glitter across the front. We hated her immediately, a hatred I accidentally expressed after we'd boarded the plane. She was one of the last people on and was looking around for a seat when a flight attendant yelled "there's seats back here!" just as she was standing next to the empty seat on my right.

"Not this one," I said.

"Oh my god," said the cake master while laughing hysterically.

"Oh, did I say that really loud?"

"YES."

On landing we were greeted by H-town, who had landed just a few minutes before us, and we all went outside to meet Ashley. On the way to her house we discussed the plans for the weekend: we were going "Texas" and planned to use the phrases "I'll tell you what", "That dog can hunt" and "Bless his/her heart" as often as possible. Also, we were going to replace the phrase "that's what she said" with "sounds like my first time" as pioneered by a friend of my cousin Kelly (my whole family is doing it now, it's brilliant. Try it). We got to her house, dumped all of our stuff, and immediately started going through old photos from college that H-town had the forethought to actually bring with her. After a few rounds of "remember that time when", Ashley hunted down her old photos which were mixed in with photos from high school (Ashley and H-town went to high school together also), some Glamour Shots and a dick picture the rest of us weren't meant to see.

Ashley and H-town both do improv comedy. Every Friday night, the Coldtowne Theater in Austin has a show called Cagematch where two improv groups face off against one another in a battle judged by the audience. Ashley had gotten them a slot, and so for the first time ever on the same stage they did a 20 minute set and TORE THE ROOF OFF THE PLACE, which you can see here. It really wasn't even a contest. Afterwards we went for a drink, did some shopping for snacks and cake supplies and then all went to pick up Jil from the airport, where they have a big picture of Texas on the floor which I alternately pretended to shit on and did cartwheels across. I am 34 years old.

Saturday morning, H-town and I woke up first and elected to go jump on/steamroll Ashley and Jil, after which we all got dressed and went on a mission to find a food truck called Biscuits and Groovy which sells, oddly enough, biscuits. An adorable kid with curly hair and a Texas accent took our order and told us "Y'all can go wait in yer car if ya want and I'll bring it on out to ya when it's ready." We dubbed him Biscuit Boy (bless his heart).

The bulk of Saturday was spent hanging around the house baking a somewhat ridiculous amount of cake. This was for the party we were attending at some friends of Ashley's who were all having a joint birthday party. The theme of the weekend was boobs, because Ashley has huge boobs, I had been tapped to strip at the party, the whole thing had kicked off with "SWEET HOT BUTTERED TITS" and mostly because boobs are awesome. So we made a boobs cake along with a sheet cake on which we ended up drawing Ryan Gosling's abs after watching Crazy Stupid Love while we waited for the cakes to cool. Then Ashley wrote the name of every January birthday person she knew over the top of Ryan's abs and we left for the party.

There was some sort of themed drink thingy going on at the party which we all quickly abandoned in favor of beer. We hung about the party until after the cake cutting, when I disappeared to go get dressed so that I could then turn around and get undressed in front of 60 people. Ashley introduced me for the first time as Poppy Coq "who has come all the way from Chicago to take her clothes off to music." Which I then did for my first solo strip tease performance of my life. Afterwards I was told by both Ashley and H-town they had overheard some girl say "My god, that ass!" while I was performing. When I was back in street clothes, I went and found the others who were now sitting in the front room drinking more beer and watching whatever crap movie was playing on the tv in there. As we didn't really know anyone else at the party, we elected to play a new drinking game we invented for the occasion called "Spot the Hipster", in which you drink every time someone comes in the room wearing black rimmed glasses, a plaid shirt, a decorative scarf, or a beard. We were wasted in 11 seconds. Also, I kept telling everyone who walked in the front door "You missed it. I was naked 10 minutes ago."

Back at Ashley's we were tired, drunk, hungry, and not at all ready to go to bed, so we sent Ashley out to buy us some frozen pizzas while we hung her bras from her ceiling fan and threw an exercise ball at each other up the stairs. Then when Ashley got back we dressed H-town up in heels and made videos of her walking around until we were all slap happy enough to think that me responding to Ashley's question "What time did we put the pizza in?" with "Your mom" was the most hilarious thing we'd ever heard. Which was about the time we realized we should probably go to bed.

Epic Austin weekend was truly Epic, and it is mad ridiculous that it took us 15 years to all get back in the same room at the same time. I can't imagine that it will take us another 15 to do it again. I've already started my campaign for Summer of Chicago 2013. If we get just one more woman to come I can even call it Summer of Chicago Epic Trip: Now With MORE BOOBS!

In conclusion, boobs. And your mom.