Taking a Page from Queserasera.org

Text Messages Saved in My Phone:

* Veronica Mars would be proud of you (and so am I).

* I rust [sic] an all Austrian dance circle to the song "Word Up." This is getting out of hand.

* I just did the robot...shit just got real...

* Remember when we saw that awesome Magic Flute play, and that lady behind us was like "I still have that bag of jelly the psychic told me to carry around?" That was the best part of the play.

* I'm no damn good for you. I'm a lone wolf. And this eagle must fly free.

* When you come down here, we're forming the world's greatest gator wrastlin [sic again] tag team! I pity those gator fools.

* I just wanna be dancin. Dirty, dirty, dirty dancin.

* Your yo-face is soft. I know hard baby. I'm from Short Pump and I'm staying at my mom's house.

* I'm sorry I was snoring all night, but it is actually a sign of affection. Really loud and unattractive affection.

* Put on your dancing shoes. I just boarded the funky train to Pleasuretown.

* Girl, I would take you to a fine restaurant that would treat you like the Nobel laureate that you are. Then I would take you back to your place where you could casually unpack while I strike suggestive poses. Then I would show you a poorly acted film that will make you feel like a real woman. And then when you are feeling that way, I will lay you down by the fire and show you the real power of love.

* I want to stab my balls right now.

* I should have given you my temporary tattoo. It has flowers! (not gay)

* I think I just heard a dude yell "Shitty titties" at a girl. Awesome.

* I just accidentally ate someone's food while sitting at a bar. I thought it was common snacks. I hope your day is as surprising.

* I'm in the front center. Look for the guy that looks like He-man, but sexier.

* I may or may not have just spent the past 15 minutes rage singing in front of my computer to musicals. I thought you would appreciate that.

* Newsflash: Vin Diesel movie marathon Sunday on USA Network.

The Great Mustache Experiment Wrap Up

Sometimes I get all bogged down with work and doing other awesome-type stuff and I forget that I have a web site that does more than just link to other more interesting web sites. Though you wouldn't know it from looking at the past, I don't know, couple of years, it is possible, theoretically, to leave actual content on this site that doesn't pertain to broody relationship lamentations, pictures of robots and/or unicorns and/or robots riding unicorns, or stories about my awkwardness. Theoretically.

After finding this today, I suddenly realized that I never followed up on this idea which is a shame because it has a CLIMACTIC CONCLUSION of an ending.

Last July, I made a worldwide call for anyone willing to grow a burly mustache and then let me interview them about the power of the stache. Surprisingly, I got a good bit of response. As a whole, you people who read the web are pretty pumped about your ability to grow facial hair and you are not afraid to tell strangers from the internet all about it. At the end of the day, I didn't have to choose exactly who would be the best mustache candidate. One quite literally showed up at my door:



This is my friend David. Last summer David visited for a few days and showed up bearing the gift of a fully grown surprise stache which he kept for the entire length of the trip, giving me the chance to test drive the stashe for myself, see how it performed on the open road. And oh how it performed. For the four days Dave and I combed the streets of Chicago, heads were turned, eyebrows were raised, sly glances were exchanged between people on the street. When leaving the Signature Room one night, we actually heard some guy burst into full-on laughter and say to his buddy "Dude! Did you SEE that guy's mustache?!" The reaction was subtle, but significant and I think my roommate summed it up best: "It's like...I don't know...It's like it's alive or something. I just can't. stop. staring." The whole weekend felt like rolling with a D-list celebrity, specifically a D-list celebrity you might feel uncomfortable leaving your children around.

But mustaches on men under 40 are by nature creepy. That reaction is to be expected. What surprised me more than other people's reactions was my own. It's kind of an amazing thing when someone is willing to walk around looking like a sketchwad just because they know it will make you laugh. It's weirdly flattering and every time I looked over at that terrible, terrible tuft of hair, I kept thinking someone made THAT for me. Every time a stranger on the street reveled in the stashe's full comedic glory, I felt this surprising tiny swell of pride. Oh that? That little piece of hilarity was made to make me smile. In a bizarre way, it felt like getting a really personal birthday present.

This summer is 180 degrees different from last. I'm officially settled in a city I'm simply crazy for. My job is going fantastically well, I have a new boyfriend who kicks more ass than a team of highly trained ass-kicking ninjas, and I've got some amazing adventures planned, one of which involves making a pilgrimage to a 160-pound statue of Michael Jackson made entirely from white chocolate...seriously. I am happier than I have ever been and I attribute a big portion of that to the people who loved me enough to sacrifice their time, patience, and facial real estate in the name of making my life a little bit better. As silly as it is to say Dave, that stashe kind of meant the world to me.

Deal Breaker

Someone asked me today if I were an animal and I knew that I would be turned into something edible, would I rather be a McDonald's hamburger or a meat hat? I'm not sure I could be friends with someone who said hamburger.

There Aren't A Lot of Things That Make Me Speechless

This one does.

Tell Me Honestly

Is there anything sadder in this world than a toe ring on a grown-ass woman? Yesterday I saw a toe ring sandwiched between a callous and a rhinestone-studded flip flop, just riding the subway all casual-like. All I could do was look at the tribal symbol-inscribed thing like it was a homicide scene, shake my head silently, and think What the hell happened here?

No Title Necessary

"Couch, sometimes you alone are the target audience."
~My friend Steve

Record Breaker

Internet - let me teeeeeeelllllllll you, this weekend was what my friend James:



would describe as "a star-spangled rocket of awesome." On Friday I had a "fancy date," which was badass because I got to put on a dress a friend once described as "very boob-centric" and head out to a restaurant where waiters in piratey pants continually circle the room offering

SIXTEEN KINDS OF MEAT ALL SERVED ON SWORDS.

There are not enough programming tricks in the world to emphasize how thrilling that is. Several of the aforementioned meats are also wrapped in bacon. I don't have to tell you how excited meat wrapped in other meat served on a weapon makes me. I'm not sure if you have ever had the meat-meat-sword combo plate, but if you haven't it's what I would imagine riding a rainbow feels like...only you can eat this rainbow...and it tastes like bacon making love to a steak.

Saturday there were bliss cakes and dog beaches and laptop orchestras and Ba'hai temples to be seen and afterwards, in the words of Biggie "my whole crew was loungin.*" The weekend was absolutely perfect and while spending the afternoon out in the sunshine, watching my dog awkwardly sniff other dogs and then immediately turn and run away like Oh me? I was over here the whole time totally not sniffing your ass at all, it occurred to me that it had been a while since I did anything head-turningly awkward. At least a week. No! More than a week! Probably about 10 days. Did you see those words? 10 FULL DAYS OF SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR, MAYBE MORE BECAUSE I GOT SO EXCITED AT DAY 8 THAT I KIND OF LOST COUNT.

That is a record. Hell, if I can make it ten full days without turning red in public or palm-sweating through a pair of mittens, I can probably also make it rain chocolate eclairs or stop time with my mind. I was already feeling like this when my nephew:



called with the perfect way to end an already perfect weekend - free tickets to see Vampire Weekend.

If there's one thing Indecent Proposal has taught me, it's that doing it on a big pile of money is probably pretty hot and there's no such thing as free. Ever. My nephew is a ticket broker and in exchange for two free tickets to a sold-out show, I'd have to sell five more. No big deal. That's why God made Craigslist. I listed the tickets, they sold in less than an hour, and Boomtown baby, we were ready to roll. All I had to do was meet some dude 30 minutes before the show, trade the tickets for some dolla-dolla billz, and enjoy an evening of V-neck sweater-filled rock. What I didn't count on was the barrage of questions this guy had. How long had I been a scalper? How much money did I usually make? What kind of office hours do I hold? Could he get REM tickets in May? It was incessant and the more I tried to explain that I really don't scalp tickets for a living, the more questions he asked. When the deal was over, he tied up the transaction by asking "What other shady things do you do? Do you have heroin(e) in your pocket too?" "No," I said, letting out an exasperated sigh. "I keep that stuff hidden...in a balloon...neatly tucked in my asshole."

And just like that the record was broken.










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* although due to our middle class backgrounds, we were not "celebrate every day no more public housin." Sorry Notorious.