"Before you can read me you've got to learn how to see me. I said, Free your mind and the rest will follow. Be color blind. Don't be so shallow."*

   En Vogue’s epic R&B tune “Free Your Mind” found its way onto my iPhone the other morning and I was so excited. I hadn’t heard the song in years and it’s always brought back memories of my childhood. I was especially excited to hear the opening lyrics: “Prejudice. Wrote a song about it. Like to hear it? Hear it go.”

   When I was 10, my best friend and next-door neighbor, Rachel, choreographed a dance routine to this song. She taught it to me in her dad Mike's pristine garage (I know it was pristine because I often had to help clean it...and pick up twigs from his lawn and sing lullabies to his rose bushes). Once I had the moves down (which probably took a really long time, because I’m bad with moves), we taught it to our two younger sisters—Ouisa and Emily. I remember it involved a lot of cartwheels and the classic move of running our hands from our ankles to our thighs—like we were putting on invisible thigh-high stockings. (I just tried to spell that “stalkings.” Weird. And surely somehow Freudian?)

   A week of hard-core rehearsals later, I was very excited to perform the dance for our parents. Rachel had the boom box all plugged in to the side of the Kelleys’ house, and we lined up lawn chairs for our parents to sit on while we danced. The littler Kelley kids sat on the grass in front of us, and Hannah Kelley and Penelope were just babies, so most likely parents held them on their laps. To the outside world, it probably looked gloriously middle-class American and family-oriented.

Boom box with 90's style effects.

   And so we danced. And it was spectacular.

   But when I was in my car on the Hollywood Freeway listening to “Free Your Mind” at 9:15 a.m. on Thursday morning, the whole event suddenly took on a different shade. For one thing, the opening lyrics after the intro I wrote above are:

“I wear tight clothing/

High-heeled shoes/

That doesn’t mean that I’m a prostitute.

I like rap music/

Wear hip-hop clothes/

That doesn’t mean that I’m out selling dope.”

   Um…how the hell did our parents sit through this performance without laughing their asses off or dragging us off to our bedrooms?

   I still love the song, and the message is on point: just because I’m a sexy black woman who dates other races and wears scandalous duds, it doesn’t mean I’m a slut or a traitor to black people: “Be colorblind. Don’t be so shallow.”

   HOWEVER: what were a bunch of little, Catholic, white girls doing with this dance routine, which, in the clear light of 20 years of retrospect, seems ever-so-slightly…I don’t know…inappropriate?

   Our parents must have been frozen in shock and maybe mild-to-moderate nausea. I’m sure they wondered if we knew what the terms “prostitute” and “dope” meant, and I’m guessing they figured we did, since besides the repeated cart-wheeling, we kept acting like we were putting on our thigh-highs for a night of street walking. 

Really patient parents at an outdoor concert circa 1992.

   I’d like to think that they were trying really hard not to laugh at us. I’m sure Mike Kelley was probably smirking. Joan Kelley was probably rolling her eyes. But my parents were pretty straightedge at the time, and I’m sure that The Beatles-Beethoven-and Ravi Shankar-loving pair of them were wondering when and how this decidedly urban music had entered their 10-and-7-year-old daughters' worlds. 

   But they were kind and wise enough to applaud the performance and leave it alone. We were never admonished for play-acting at being hookers, and it seems to me that they played it just right in that moment. To draw attention to the lyrics would have only invited weeks or months of uncomfortable questions from us to which they would have to find clever answers (i.e. lies).

   Many years later, when I was in high school, my favorite pair of jeans went missing. They were wide-legged and made of thin denim and they’d split up the outer thighs (through no fault of my own). I’d proceeded to pin them at intervals with safety pins and I thought they were epically bad ass and I wore them everywhere with my black combat boots and long, cheetah-print coat. And one day during my junior year of high school they mysteriously disappeared. Mom never admitted to it, but I’m pretty sure they went into the garage garbage can sometime in the dead of night. Mom couldn’t take any chances that I’d turn into the dope-selling prostitute my childhood hinted at. Though, to reiterate, the song specifically stated, “That DOESN’T mean that I’m a Prostitute.”

*"Free Your Mind" by the incredible (though not very enduring) all-girl 90's group En Vogue. 

"A man can be short, dumpy and getting bald, but if he has fire, women will like him."*

   This post is simple:

   Let's have a celebration of sexy, bald men, shall we?

   I was watching Live Free or Die Hard for the third or fourth time the other night when it struck me for the millionth time that Bruce Willis is a sexy beast. Here’s a man who acknowledged early on that he was balding and just went for it: he shaved that amazing skull and he looks wicked hot. I actually think he gets hotter with time. I think it's because he's been bald so long that we just focus on his amazing body and flawless skin. Just saying.

   On the other hand, you have those dudes that try to pretend they’re not balding by growing a ponytail with what little hair they have left on the back of their craniums. Gross. Or the Hollywood actors who like to believe we don’t know they’re sporting fake hair: David Spade, John Travolta, Nicolas Cage and Jeremy Piven immediately come to mind. Not only are their hair pieces unconvincing, they seem vain and petty for not accepting the inevitable. Dude: you’re bald!

   I don’t fully understand the trauma that a man goes through when his hair starts falling out. Is it anything like when women get PMS or cramps or wrinkles or stretch marks or bloating or cankles or pregnancy? Is it like wearing stockings to work, shaving your legs, armpits, mustache and vagina? Is it similar to having a period or having your boobs start sinking down to your waist? I want to know. Because I feel really bad for dudes. Seriously.

   Anywho, here’s a list of sexy, bald types. Men, pay attention! You don’t have to have hair on your head to be attractive (though a little less hair in the back/butt/ear regions would be nice. Just saying.).

1. Bruce Willis. Duh.++

2. Patrick Stewart (I feel like this man never ages because he’s been bald and beautiful in the public eye for over 30 years).

3. Mr. Clean. (He’s hot. Let’s not pretend otherwise.)

4. Yul Brynner (I kind of feel like Mr. Clean was based on him).

5. Riff Raff/Richard O’Brien

6. Stanley Tucci (who recently married Emily Blunt’s sister, thereby reinforcing my whole point).

7. Danny DeVito

8. Ben Kingsley

9. Sean Connery

10. Lex Luther

11. Mr. Potato Head

12. Rob Corddry

13. Taye Diggs

14. The Commish (okay, fine…Michael Chicklis)

15. Common

16. Mr. Peanut

17. Wallace Shawn (I find him sexy in his own, weird way.)

18. Ed Asner (so, so attractive as Mr. Grant).
19. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (they're all hot, but I'm especially drawn to Raphael).***

Watermelons are beautiful. So are Smiley Faces. And of course the Misters Potato Head and Peanut.**

   I think it would behoove the men of the world to let their hair do what it wants to do. It’s kind of like that same thing of how women want to straighten their hair or bleach it: usually you look best the way you were made. But I suppose it’s a kick to the old ego to have your hair fall out. But I’m guessing it’s not quite as bad as feeling compelled to get perkier boobs or a vaginal rejuvenation.  So, yeah, I still don’t feel sorry for men that are balding. 

*The quote is from Mae West. And I think it's pretty dang true.

**Emily said I should include Humpty-Dumpty in my list, but I said I didn't find him attractive. She said that it was kind of ridiculous that I find Mr. Potato Head attractive but not Humpty-Dumpty. According to her, Mr. Potato head doesn't even necessarily have to have arms or legs unless you want him to, and Humpty-Dumpty does. Fair point, but I'm still not including Humpty. 
***Also suggested by E. 
++Just saw that A Good Day to Die Hard is number one at the box office. Game. Set. Match. Also read this quote from Mr. Willis in the news US Weekly: "You don't get an Oscar for comedy. And you don't get it for shooting people.(On why he hasn't been nominated in his 33-year career)." It's a downright, dirty shame. Comedy and action should be rewarded.

"All of us every single year, we're a different person. I don't think we're the same person all our lives."*

   It’s snowing again today. I think I’ve almost had my fill of the snow. It's very cold and slippery and in this particular case it's covering a layer of ice from a rainstorm two weeks ago. Every time I go outside, I pray that I won't break an ankle. Especially since my favorite boots are essentially made of plastic.

   I was, however, inspired enough to draw this picture for you to enjoy:

This is a sort of Russian Doll snow globe. 

   It’s a nod to the snow and has nothing to do with Christmas, which is LONG OVER. It’s over, Hy-Vee and KGOR and Whole Foods and A.B.’s, and Dundee Presbyterian, so stop with the damn Christmas music! I HATE IT! (Except for “Last Christmas,” which is awesome and I love.)

This is Dundee Presbyterian. Their bell tower plays music all day. I took this picture while walking home from Emily's parents' house. After taking this picture I slipped off the curb in my plastic boots and bit it on a short snowbank.

   Anyway, it’s the New Year (why does that have to be capitalized? Dumb.) and I have a few resolutions that I’d like to pass along to you. This is going to be my best year ever, especially if I can keep my resolutions going at least as far as February.

   Resolutions for 2013

1. Exercise every single day of the entire year. This will ensure that this year will finally be the year when I get in shape for once and for all. Maybe sometime around September or October, once I’ve gotten a decent exercise groove going, I’ll throw in a couple marathons or something. I want one of those 26.2 bumper stickers that everyone else has.

2. Stop sleeping for 12 hours every other night. I used to think that 12 hour sleep-a-thons made up for the nights when I logged about 5-6 hours (work nights, super productive nights, cleaning rampages), but truly I don’t think sleep is cumulative. At least not for me. So I’m going to attempt an average of 8-9 hours every night. Which leads me to…

3. Stop going to bed at 4 in the morning. That creates a ridiculous lack of sleep and the whole next day is essentially wasted because I’m too tired to function. Instead of having one day be super productive and the next day be completely unproductive, I’m going to aim to be sort of average every day of the year (hooray for average!). I feel like that’s how grown-ups do it.

4. Wash off make-up every single night. An easier solution would be to stop wearing make-up, but I look like a 67-year-old woman without make-up…and now that I think about it, it’s possible that my face is old and wrinkly because I don’t wash off my make-up. But I doubt it. I think it has more to do with years of smoking, mild-to-moderate sun exposure; too much smiling and heinous bad luck. But I’m sure the make-up I’m sleeping in isn’t helping, either.

5. Find a hobby. (This is probably self-explanatory.)

6. Make some new friends. (Embarrassing and sad but necessary. And it's always good to meet new people.)

That ought to be enough to keep me busy until February.

I am so glad it’s 2013! Not that 2012 was super bad, but it wasn’t the best and I hate numbers that end in two, so the whole year was somewhat destined to be stressful. 

*Steven Spielberg said this. 

"Poor cat! Poor slob! Poor slob without a name! The way I see it I haven't got the right to give him one. We don't belong to each other. We just took up one day by the river. I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together. I'm not sure where that is but I know what it is like. It's like Tiffany's."*

    I spent the weekend in glorious, lesbian-friendly Minneapolis with my two best friends, Em and Gabe. It was really good and great and wonderful.

    Despite the fact that Gabe warned us repeatedly about the bike rack strapped to the back of her trunk, Emily and I each took a hit. Em took hers on Saturday. I didn’t get mine until I was tucking my suitcase into the trunk for the trip to the airport: always a weird event that puts me in a strange head space (at least, that’s what I’ll be blaming it on). So I smacked the bike rack down on my head, which then smashed my sunglasses onto my nose and cheeks.

    By the time we got to the airport, I had a sizeable, red circle/gash on my nose.  Yikes.

    Once I was in the airport, I’d forgotten all about it and couldn’t figure out why people kept staring at me. I thought maybe I was looking super beautiful. But my clumsiness escalated.

    Have you ever heard of that character, “The Manic Pixie Dream Girl?” It’s a stock character derived from the portrayal of Claire by Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown. Nathan Rabin, a film critic, came up with the term and describes it as this: “That bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” You know, like Kate Hudson in Almost Famous and Zooey Deschanel in almost anything. It’s that girl who’s always spilling stuff and running into men with her clumsy yet pilates-toned butt and encouraging would-be boyfriends to roll down a hill with her and live in the now and smell the roses and never go to the doctor or to the bank or to work.

She's so UNIQUE! (500 Days of Summer (Marc Webb, 2009). Photo.

    I’m so not that girl. But I really don’t think anyone is.

    I smacked into four or five people trying to get my carry-on to my seat and then had to take up two carry-on spots in the overhead bin because I was “doing it wrong” and the flight attendant told me to just stop worrying about it. My poor arms were tired and no one had offered to help me, and I just wanted to sit the fuck down. The flight attendant asked if my bag had been cleared for “carry-on status.” She actually asked if I’d gone shopping in Minneapolis (I hadn’t). I did not hit any handsome men with my hind end, and even if I had, I don’t think they would’ve been so enamored of my expert clumsiness that they would've asked to fall in love with me.

She's wicked QUIRKY! (Almost Famous. Cameron Crowe, 2000). Photo.

    Once I sat down, I immediately fell asleep and ended up with my head on the shoulder of the woman sitting next to me. She was really nice about it. But she didn't ask me out.

    I jerked awake and got a bag of crackers during the food service and tried to bend down to get my book while holding the crackers and spilled half of them on the floor. The really nice flight attendant gave me a cup for the floor crackers. Then I repeatedly bumped my head and elbow into the nice lady next to me while I was picking them up. No dreamy looking men happened upon me during this time, entranced by my inability to connect food from my hand to my mouth. Weird!

She wants a PIGGY BACK RIDE! (Elizabethtown. Cameron Crowe--strike two--2005). Photo.

    After I got off the plane, I got stuck in several doorways with my bag and left a bathroom stall door unlocked enough for it to swing open mid-pee. No men there to be swept off their feet, unfortunately.

    I got caught in the elevator door in my building and then slammed my knee on my apartment door. Then I forgot that I had no towels in my bathroom and had to drip water all over the hallway after my shower.

    I’m not normally so clumsy. But I should’ve known things were going wrong earlier that morning when my shoe strap caught on Gabe’s porch table and yanked the whole table so hard that half of its contents fell on the floor.

    I’m pretty sure that if the Manic Pixie Dream Girl were a real person, she’d just be pissing people off all over the place. If I were on a first date with someone and they spilled coffee all over me, I’d think the date was going sort of poorly.  If someone showed up with a huge bruise over the bridge of her nose, I’d wonder if maybe she were a psychopath or the victim of domestic abuse, not assume that she was delightfully prone to running into doors and bike racks.

The original? Audrey Hepburn has Breakfast at Tiffany's,  (Blake Edwards, 1961). Photo.

    If these women were real, everyone would hate them, despite their "loveable" neuroses. We’d hate them for being late, for not having a real job, for not bothering to wear a bra or do laundry, for smelling bad and for generally being flaky and disrupting everyone else’s lives.

    I definitely got a sense of that when I repeatedly spilled on, knocked into, and upset other folks on the airplane. It’s not appealing, least of all to the person that’s right next to you. And I’m sure it would be slightly better if I looked like Kirsten Dunst or Audrey Hepburn or Kate Winslet. Because I’m sure that being exceedingly beautiful and charming or toothy and booby and having really clever, hippie-dippie things to say makes spilling hot coffee on someone’s crotch ALMOST tolerable. But I gotta tell you, it doesn’t feel plausible. It only makes sense if every word out of your mouth is scripted.

*From Breakfast at Tiffany's (Blake Edwards, 1961). Holly Golightly might be the original Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and I love Audrey Hepburn, but isn't it annoying how quirky and different she thinks she is? She's just an irresponsible bitch like the rest of them. Yeah, your freedom is super adorable and all, but you're really cramping everyone else's style, Holly. Just name the damn cat and shut up about it.

"The next video was sent to us by Geurgud Gardner from Baden Baden. Here they have come across the body of a tramp, which in itself is not so disturbing. Until it is turned over to reveal...ANTS! ANTS! ANTS!"*

    I’ve been doing some super important stuff lately, and plan to do more of it this weekend, so I haven’t had time to form a thought or generate an idea or an interesting story for you. But I didn’t want you to be sad, so I grabbed up a few hundred of the post-it notes I have been sticking on various surfaces of my apartment, and decided to offer you some random (and yet deep) thoughts from the last week or so. I just have a few things I have to get off my chest/kitchen cabinet. None of this stuff has anything to do with anything ever. It's neither here nor there. Nor anywhere. Ever. Seriously.

I keep my great ideas organized.

1.     My apartment is overrun with ants. Or was. I’ve killed them off pretty well. It started last week and, unfortunately, it started while my mom was visiting with her friend Laura and I was trying really hard to impress them with how clean my apartment is. I (incredible sleuth that I am) determined the source of their interest in my kitchen yesterday: a really old jar of honey. I find that kind of ironic, considering the bee infestation of a couple of months ago. Of course, I know bees don’t so much like honey as make honey. I’m not a moron. But it was still kind of funny. As well as disgusting.

2.     While I was cowering in the living room far from the ants on Tuesday I decided to watch Delirious (Tom Mankiewizc—son of Joseph L.—1991). It’s that movie where John Candy (one of my many dead, obese celebrity crushes--along with Chris Farley, Orson Welles, Burl Ives, Charles Laughton and John Belushi) is a writer for a soap opera and then, after a head injury, he finds himself living in the soap opera. What was funny about that (aside from everything) was how his love interest (Mariel Hemingway) is obsessed with ants. Ew. So while I was hiding from the ants over in the living room (living area, actually, since it’s all one room), I had a nice, close-up view of some ants on the TV. Awesome.

3.     I saw Rock of Ages a couple of weeks ago and I really wanted Julianne Hough to suck in it, mostly because she’s pretty and has a great bod and I’m jealous of her success. But she was good. So now I’m a begrudging Julianne Hough fan. But she’s still a complete imbecile in real life.

4.     I was halfway home from work today when I realized I’d left my cell phone there. I live in Los Feliz and work in the Pacific Palisades. That’s about 20 minutes in a real place, but about an hour’s drive in L.A. So I wasted an extra hour of today in my car. It’s days like this when I want to get on the 5 and go north until I’m in Canada and never come back to Los Angeles, California, or The United States EVER AGAIN. Can every road in this country really be under construction?

Boo.

5.  If I had to choose between Jemaine and Bret from Flight of the Conchords, my first inclination would be Bret, because in many ways he’s the more conventionally attractive of the two (and an Oscar winner). But ultimately, I think I’d pick Jemaine. Because of his slight disadvantage in the looks department, he would be more insecure and therefore easier to convince that I am considered a 10 in the US. 

6. I had browned-butter-and-candied-bacon flavored ice cream yesterday at Cool Haus. It was AMAZING. And then I was thirsty for 4 hours.

7.  I love Prince. Prince, Prince, Prince.

8.  I don’t understand why some crimes are called “hate crimes” if they're committed against gays or ethnic minorities. Aren’t all crimes “hate crimes?” If I bash in the head of a white supremacist, isn’t it safe to assume that I hate him, just a little bit? Or at least hate that he’s got the car I want and am therefore stealing? All crimes = hate crimes.

9.  I saw Smokey Robinson at the Hollywood Bowl with my mom and Laura. I have never been attracted to a 71-year-old man before. But I am now. Am I a reverse-cougar?

The guy in white is Smokey. My zoom isn't super awesome. Also, my camera sucks.

10.  I’ve never heard a Justine Bieber song, but I think she’s the most adorable little lesbian I’ve ever seen.

Hot lesbians. (Photo)

I’m off to Minneapolis tomorrow to visit Gabe, and Emily is coming from Chicago to meet us! I’m so excited! But I may be AWOL for a few days, because I could be having so much fun that I don’t have time to write. Try to get along without me. 

It's gonna be huge!**

*The quote is from one of Mike Myers genius "Sprockets" sketches from SNL where he plays Dieter.

**The title of the screenplay Gabe and I wrote in high school.

"There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient."*

    After spending the last month re-watching some of my favorite A&E and BBC movie versions of Jane Austen’s books, I spent some serious time thinking about my life. And all that thinking gave me a headache has convinced me that in 19^th Century England, I would've been super hot.

Greer Garson as Elizabeth Bennett (Robert Z. Leonard, 1940)

    My friend Laura and I like to talk about how we'd be 10's in England, though we're probably only 8's in the U.S. (she's closer to a 9) and maybe only 4's in Los Angeles (she's more like a 6.5...what can I tell you? People are made of plastic here.) But standards in England are notoriously low. I think it has a lot to do with their teeth.

    Okay, so back then you were considered a really hot catch for a wealthy country gentleman with a large fortune if you could do the following:

1. Read and write. (Check)

2. Ride a horse. (I’ve totally done that before. Check.)

3. Play the pianoforte (I can play “Moon River” and both parts of “Heart and Soul” on a real piano, so I’m sure that the pianoforte would’ve been no big deal for me. Another check.)**

4. Walk a 30-minute mile without getting tired, even while wearing binding clothing. (Check and check. While my clothes aren’t usually binding, they’re often short, which presents a whole different set of problems. Also, I’ve worn corsettes in plays and I think we should bring those back. They preclude breathing, but are super slimming.)

5. Play Whist. (I can play Go Fish, War, Bullshit and Spoons, so Whist should be a snap. Check.)

Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice (Simon Langton, 1995).

6. Not have a job. (I’m actually really good at this one. Check.)

7. Be “handsome.” It’s not quite clear what, exactly, makes for a “handsome” woman; but based on the movies I’ve watched, it doesn’t seem to take a lot. You just have to be female, have hair and teeth, and not have a hunchback or a debilitating illness. (Of course, if you’re wealthy, you can totally have a debilitating illness and it’s no big deal. But I’m not wealthy.) And since I have a strait, full set of teeth and can walk upright (when I try) I’m going to give this another Check.

8. Recite poetry or Shakespeare. Now here’s where my theatre degree would finally pay off, if you discount the fact that in that time period actresses were generally considered to be whores. But they’re considered whores in this period, too.  So Check.

Keira Knightley as Elizabeth. I'm sorry, is Elizabeth a model? A major film star? (Joe Wright, 2005).

9. Engage in witty repartee. I do that all the time! I was just engaging in witty repartee a few moments before I began writing this list! Check.

10. Sit around all day with little to nothing to do. Check. (Actually, if napping wasn't permitted, I probably couldn't have pulled this one off.)

This is what I'm talking about: Jane is considered the "pretty one." See, this time period was a whole different ballgame. Not saying she's ugly, it's just....different, you know?

    Here’s what I’d have some trouble with: in order to be considered a “lady” you'd have to be able to do the following:

1. Keep your opinions focused on the weather and everyone’s health. I have a natural inclination towards what the 19th Century folk might call "quite talkative," though I seldom make a strong point about anything. Okay, actually this should probably be up there with the pluses.

2. Needlepoint: yikes. I’ve actually tried this, and it REALLY didn’t pan out as I’d hoped. Also, it sucked and was boring.

3. Dance: oh my god, I’m really, really bad at dancing. Like, I’m scary bad. The gentlemen would run from me at your run-of-the-mill, friendly, neighborhood ball.

4. Be under the age of 25. Sadly, I cannot do that without a time machine.

Emma as Elinor Dashwood. Everything about it was brilliant, despite the fact that Emma was a solid 36 years old playing the 20-year-old Elinor. Eh. She's entitled, since she wrote the screenplay.

5. Sit around all day listening to other people talk about really boring things.

6. Not ask any guys out because they have to ask you first: if that were the case today, I’d have never had a date or a boyfriend in my entire life. (It's probably not ladylike to mention that.)

7. Keep your trap shut when someone is being boring/stupid/rude. That’s hard for me. I really like calling people out on their bullshit. I like it even more than Whist. But if someone calls me on my bullshit, I can't handle it at all. NOT AT ALL.

8. Sit around in times of extreme heat, cold, and boredom with no electricity.

9. Not drink alcohol, except for the occasional sherry during an acute (and most likely life-ending) bout of tuberculosis. Ew.

    On the advice of Emily, I recently started reading Mansfield Park, which is perhaps one of Jane Austen’s most opinionated/judge-y books. It has me convinced, based on the way some of these purported “hot bitches” behave, that I would have probably been considered a bit of a “forward” young lady (old lady? I'm not under 25, after all). But I honestly think that I would’ve had dudes coming out of the woodwork and begging me to marry them and live on their 400 billion acre estates. Seriously, based on the size of my forehead alone, I would be hitched to a thousandaire by the age of 18, tops.

Here's Fanny. From Mansfield Park. Fanny sucks. I could totally get married before her.

    It would be advantageous if I could go back to this time period with information about the future (our present), though. Not to scare anybody, but just so I seemed really smart and informed. I’d say things like, “If Napoleon keeps up with these petty battles, he’s going to end up exiled to an island of some sort.” Or “The days of the French Monarchy seem to be drawing to a swift close.” Or “Why don’t we all start doing something about the drinking water around here? It seems most of us are developing rather unsightly teeth.” Or “Have you guys heard the latest song I’ve written (insert “Moon River” on the pianoforte)?”***

*Lady Catherine de Bourgh explains how she'd be a really great musician if she'd ever learned an instrument. My feelings exactly. From Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

**Just did some research and discovered that “pianoforte” is just the Italian (and, I believe, the original) word for “piano.” So, um, yeah. I could totally play that. A little bit.

**But they won’t know what “Huckleberry friend” refers to, which will make it less impactful.

"How lovely to be a woman and change from boys to men. To go to a fancy night club and stay out after ten. How lovely to be so grown up and free! Life's lovely when you're a woman like me."*

    In precisely one month from today I will be 30 years old. Huzzah! Here’s what I want you to do for me for my birthday: subscribe to my blog. Blog and I just celebrated our 8 month anniversary yesterday, and the best present for both of us is for you to be an official follower so that by this time in a year I can inundate you with ads for erectile dysfunction and diarrhea medication and tampons that are somehow better than whatever tampons came before.**

   Here are other things I want for my birthday, since I know it’s hard to decide what to get someone:

1.     A plane ticket to anywhere. (This only excludes countries that end in –stan. Those countries tend to be iffy and a little bit sandy for my taste. And I think they’re largely war-torn, but US Weekly is my primary news source, so I could be off on that. If there’s a good vacation spot in a country ending in –stan, please let me know.)

Um...actually Tajikistan looks kind of amazing.

And Kazakhstan does, too. I take back my stance on the -stans.

2.     A lifetime supply of tampons. I don’t want to pay money for these anymore. I think this is why women are considered the “weaker” sex: we haven’t figured out a way to get rid of periods and we spend hundreds of dollars every year contending with them. It makes little sense, as we are the sex that tends to care more about our clothing, so why does it happen that we are the ones working full time to keep blood off ourselves? Guys wouldn’t care: they’d act like it was cool that they were bleeding and it didn’t hurt at all.

3.     A camera that can compensate for my intention tremor. I don’t need a $1500 camera, but a $300 camera would be really great. And maybe you could also teach me how to use it.

4.     A Costco membership. (I have a feeling this will help subsidize the cost of those tampons.)

5.     A job writing for a sitcom. Preferably one of those successful sitcoms that will be airing for 8 more years.

6.     Pay for my health insurance or car insurance for a month. I really hate paying for those.

7.     Take the GRE for me. I took it already, but my writing scores were really weak (I know you’re probably shocked because I’m so incredibly talented at writing).

Okay, I thought this list would be much longer. Maybe I’ve become less materialistic because I’ve approached the age of undeniable wisdom and maturity.

*Quote is song lyrics from "How Lovely to Be a Woman" (Music: Charles Strouse; Lyrics: Lee Adams) from the epic musical Bye Bye Birdie (George Sidney, 1963). I think Lee was being ironic.

**I have points to make on the advertisements I talked about. Also, is it just me or did this whole idea of promoting medication on television start happening only in the last 10 years or so?

So:

 1. I don’t understand why they have to promote erectile dysfunction medication so much. If someone has erectile dysfunction, I wouldn’t think it would be one of those “scary medical issues” that someone felt compelled to hide from their doctor. It’s not like hiding your smoking habit or being embarrassed to talk about how rarely you exercise. It’s the kind of problem that sort of fixes itself because what kind of man is going to sit around waiting until his erection comes back? Plus, why do they sell “performance enhancing” pills in gas stations?  Who would end up crediting Chevron for improving the dimensions of his penis? I always think of those old SNL Celebrity Jeopardy sketches with Will Farrell and Darryl Hammond, when Darryl Hammond played Sean Connery. 

"The day is mine!" SNL Celebrity Jeopardy. (Photo)

Sean Connery: “I’ve got to ask you about the penis mightier.”

Alex Trebek: “No, no, no, no. That’s the pen is mightier.”

S.C.: “Gussy it up however you want to Trebek, what matters is does it work? Will it really mighty my penis, man?

A.T.: “It’s not a product, Mr. Connery.”

S.C.: “Because I’ve ordered products like that before. Wasted a pretty penny, I don’t mind telling you. And if the penis mightier really works, I’ll order a dozen.”

2. Diarrhea medication: chances are if you have diarrhea, you’re not sitting at home in front of the TV on a Wednesday afternoon trying to decide what to do about it. You’ve probably already surfed Web M.D. and, if you’re anything like me, you’ve told everyone you know about it and asked for their advice. And if you have the runs, odds are you're not watching TV at all, unless you have one in your bathroom (lucky).

[Which brings me to another issue about advertising: I know they think they’ve got their target demographic nailed down, but they don’t. Just because I’m home in the afternoon doesn’t mean I need to go to DeVry Institute of Technology to get my criminology degree. Nor does it mean I need to be slammed with diaper ads every 5 minutes. I’m neither unemployed nor a stay-at-home mom. I do not need a lawyer because I’m sitting on the couch in the afternoon thinking about who the fuck I can sue so I don’t have to get a real job. I just happen to have the afternoon off, you assholes.

DeVry Campus and entire staff.

3. And tampons: Emily and I had a really good idea about how to revolutionize the tampon industry. I can’t really tell you what the idea is, because too many of my ideas have been stolen because I can’t shut up about my brilliance. What I will say is that it’s criminal what women have ended up having to pay for the privilege of having a period. And when I hit menopause and look back on my life, I’ll be totally fine with the amount of money I spent on toilet paper over the years, but what I spent on my period will be (literally) money down the drain and a true misuse of precious natural resources (paper/cotton/plastic). What a sad, sick waste. (And please don't try to sell me on the moon cup. It may be the best thing out there so far, but it has a long list of problems as well. And this website makes me mad because it looks like these two women are so happy to be together talking about their g.d. periods. Who does that?!? Seriously, are women sanctioning these ad campaigns?)

Look! A woman can run even while using a tampon! What will we women conquer next? (Photo)

UPDATE: As of 11 a.m. this morning, I was granted one of my birthday wishes: my buddy Chad sent me a text offering to let me join his Costco membership. You can give free membership to one person, but that person has to have your address. Since Chad lives in my old apartment, my driver's license has his address. Hooray! See, you just have to ask for stuff and sometimes the universe throws you a fricking bone.