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Whoever said 'save the dolphins' was either an idiot or in on it.

Jennifer — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 18:07:00 GMT

So it's pretty normal in a seafaring town to talk about, well, seafaring things and one of those things as pretty much everyone know is dolphins. Not that there's an assload of dolphins swimming around Cape Cod in the middle of November, but every store worth it's salt in the bad taste department that's still open at this very *awkward* time of year which is pretty much every place that sells anything with Cape Cod stamped on it sells the good ole cc namesake dolphin cups, tees, ornaments, bath mats and, of course, the ever popular refrigerator magnet. In a moment of sheer genius I bought one of these bad boys for like $3.99 at a local rest area in an effort to prevent too many assholes from crashing my parties. Kind of like a Cape Cod evil eye or something. I figured I could just super glue it to my door or something and anyone strong enough to get past it without throwing up in their mouth had a fairly manly stomach and would probably wait until they got to their own home or at least someplace else to vomit if they drank too much or whatever rather than losing their cookies at my place. Which, btw, is working marvelously, but that's a story for another day.

The real story is the conversation that this magnetic asshat sparked one evening.

'Um, was that a DOLPHIN magnet on your door?'

'Yeah, you're not throwing up in your mouth are you?'

'No. But you do KNOW about dolphins don't you?'

'Sure. They're the things that all my friends from Puerto Rico like to decorate their bathrooms with. And their kitchens, and their bedrooms and...'

'Dolphins are RAPISTS. They have RAPE CAVES that they drag swimmers into, never to be heard from again. Totally had you pegged for someone that was against things like cross species gang rape. Guess I was wrong. I think I might have to go now.'

Now you're probably thinking what I was thinking at that very moment-that the friends, neighbors and occasional random strangers that frequent my home have even less of a grasp on, er, reality than I do. And, in a time before google, we all could sleep very well at night telling ourselves exactly that. Ignorance is bliss times these are not however and about thirty seconds later the cold, hard, wet truth was staring down the barrel of my smart phone at me in the form of text, images, audio, video and even a podcast or two. The plain and simple truth is about 629,000 search results just can't be wrong. Dolphins not only rape, they gang rape, they murder rape and fuck only knows what else. Page one results were quite enough for me to end my research into the dark side of the sea.

Which brings me to the save the dolphins movement. And how it's way more likely than not a cover for something pretty effing sinister if you ask me. Now like I've said time and time again, I'm not an effing scientist . But one HAS TO, HAS TO HAS TO EFFING THINK IF NOT ONLY FOR A MOMENT that something as science-y as a campaign to save sea creatures must have at least one scientist attached to it. Or a para-scientist or a lab assistant or someone who at least paid attention in science class. And these double blind empirical motherfuckers just have to know that this is going on. And either they are turning an effing blind eye or American science has gone more to shit to Star Wars Trilogy epic proportions.

So I wish that I could say that there was a happy ending to this post (no pun intended), but the sad fact of the matter is that our best defense against alien invasion (i.e. the scientific world) is asleep at the wheel and/or a part of a larger conspiracy to cull the human heard by looking the other way as we march like lambs to the slaughter each and every time we take a seaside vacation.

Simple souvenir or warning sign? You decide.

The big fat cross dressing tattooed and pierced bisexual elephant in the room

Jennifer — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 02:18:00 GMT

So I recently ran away from home and moved to a teeny tiny east coastal town that shall remain nameless but y'all probably know my exact coordinates so it doesn't much matter but let's all *pretend* this town is anonymous so I don't get my proverbial ass kicked in a dark alley at three o'clock on a theoretical Monday morning, k?

Well anyway, this *mystery* town is, well, a lot different from just about any other for a variety of reasons which are mostly self-evident, but to get to know the different-est part ya really need to sit down and stay awhile. And this different-y thing can sort-of-kind-of best be described as some kind of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon-ish thing, but only swap yourself with Kevin Bacon and instead of movies it's more about long but more likely than not short or very short term sexual-ish relationship-like situations. Playing house if you will. But most definitely for mostly grown grownups. Throw into the mix that in this Oz-like land of less than 5,000 people there is every combination of gender and preference imaginable and the results make every denizen part of one big and er, very happy family.

I must admit I was a little taken aback in weeks one, two and well into three to discover through whispers, innuendo, confessions and loud admissions that x had 'dated' y who 'dated' z who used to be married to the ex-girlfriend's boyfriend of the chick who had the threesome with the guy I went out with last night. And then after say, the third time this happened in so many days at a probability rate of about 99.99997% or better, that little voice in my head that keeps my company at night and tells funny stories whenever I am stuck in lots and lots of traffic said 'eff it, beat em, join em and do everything in between'.

And that's when I figured out that after not to many turns on the merry-go-round, one could easily become 'related' to every one else who is, has ever been, and ever will be a part of this town. It actually kind of feels like being part of history, and history is a really good thing that we get days off from work, have parades and throw barbecues for and I'm proud to hang my name on it.

So the next time your mail doesn't come on a Monday because the post office is closed in celebration or you have to wait an extra day for a check to clear because the bank is 'on holiday' you can thank people like the people here and me for being part of this very very circular circle of life. And you can't beat us so you might as well get on a plane, train or automobile and come visit. <wink>Just make sure you stay a while </wink>.

So this is pretty much what the welcome wagon looks like in these parts

The thing I most like about being half human

Jennifer — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 22:02:00 GMT

So the other day I was feeling all bitchy and bad for myself because I had to stop what I was doing and eat food about once a day and then turn around and sleep for four or so hours each and every effing night and I was all like 'oh fuck this is SUCH a waste of my time, it really is a mortal pain in the ass to be only half robot' and then all of a sudden I had this warm and squishy feeling on my insides and the dark cloud lifted and I remembered one of the only good things about being a person. And you all, of course, know what that is. Peeing.

Now going pee isn't all that awesome in and of itself, but what makes it so great is that it is an opportunity to look at the amazingly and awesomely cute underwear that I have put on myself, and, if I'm lucky, there is a mirror in or near the bathroom and I can dance around and look at myself for a while before other people, real or imagined, start getting suspicious about exactly what the eff it is that I am DOING in there. And it is the best feeling in the world. It's truly the shit that tosses my salad. Sometimes I even go into the bathroom, pull my pants down and pretend to pee just so I can have a look-see. And no matter how many times in an hour, day or lifetime I pull my pants down and look at my panties, I have to admit each and every time is just as good as the first. Now if only the same could be said about things like weeding your garden, drinking too much wine with dinner, or getting married the world would be a much much much better place.

I actually know two people who don't wear underwear. And upon learning their dirty little secret I was ab-so-effing-lute-ly aghast. Not because I'm a prude or anything but because I can't imagine going through life without the pleasure of wearing those bad boys. Give up something stupid and meaningless like food or sleep for fuck's sake, but silky ribboned and rhinestoned thongs? From my cold dead hands, motherfucker.

So since a picture is worth like a million point two words, as you can see below is me with my underwear, only they're covered up with pants in the photo. You will need to use your imagination and/or xray vision to solve the mystery otherwise you might all go blind and I have no problem being responsible for something admirable, like, say, global warming, but I refuse to take the hit on something as fucked up as full blown world blindness just because y'all couldn't handle the awesomeness of my underpanty thong-y thingies. Anyways, just use the imagination your human mind gave you and think of me and my undies every time you go pee. You just might find that you go more often and you come back with one big ass smile on your face.

The hitchhiker's guide to protecting yourself from poisonous vipers who want to mind fuck you

Jennifer — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:02:00 GMT

So I'm really *awesome* at telling stories but really shitty at lying. Which, like most things about me, makes ab-so-fuck-ing-lutely no sense. Even the smallest stupidest shit that novice liars can pull off like pros eludes my very limited skill set. Like the ubiquitous 'How are you?' and/or 'How's it going?' Every asshole knows there's only one right answer to that bad boy. And it's 'good' (unless you get all hung up on grammar and then you get all erudite and shit and say 'It's going very well, fuck you very much'.

And so yesterday when someone asked me that exact question I was all like 'Fuck yeah, I know the answer to that one' and threw out the obligatory one-worder out. And then 'You're lying' sailed right back at me. And they were sorta kinda right because I sorta kinda wasn't. I had been caught in a moment when the customary happy thoughts like having sex with aliens and/or zombies, growing your own food supply on your back, or buying shit with dogs instead of money were overtaken by irrational fears like would I remember to eat food every day when I live by myself for the first time ever in two weeks and will my Barbie Dolls be sad because they are moving to my basement. And then I did something that I have never, ever, ever-ever done in my life, not even when my favorite cat Georgie got hit by a snowplow and we found him all frozen and shaped like a half moon under the porch the next morning. I looked another person in the eye and cried (and by person I mean an actual member of the home sapiens species who is alive in this time and dimension and was in the room with me having an out loud conversation).

Now I know what you're thinking. And you're totally wrong. I didn't cheat by sticking sandy hands and/or bleach in my eyes first to get all teary and shit. Those bad boys were real and bubbled all the way up from the depths of my newly polished feet. And then I was all like 'Fuck. I got my crying cherry popped by someone calling me an effing liar. I was totally saving that for being attacked by like six ninjas in a dark alleyway, or by being on a cruise ship that gets hijacked by Somali pirates who totally decide that I would make a good sixth wife for their king or something.'

And then the weirdest thing happened. Said person told me that they knew I had a lot going on lately, that they knew me well enough to not put a gun or other weapon-y thing to my head to force me to <gasp> talk about it, but that they were here for me no matter what. And then they gave me a hug. And I didn't do my customary 'let's hug without actually touching each other, or better yet why don't we just smile and wave Queen Elizabeth style' deal. I gave the kind of hug that might have possibly gotten me stoned to death in most if not all middle eastern countries. And then I let myself be hugged AND let myself cry for like 16.4 more seconds (I might allow a little space for crying and hugging in my life but will NEVER EVER EVER stop counting things).

Now the funny part is said person isn't someone that a) I'm particularly close to and/or have been or would consider being married to and b) someone that I don't even really like a whole lot (I've always secretly thought they were kind of an asshole). And it still felt good. And it really did the trick. Like six seconds later the poisonous mind-fucking vipers that bite into your brain and make you have thoughts so shitty you cry in public and rub up on people you kind of sort of know and barely like had moved out of my head and onto slimier pastures. And then it was so simple it I felt like I might need to build a time machine just so I could go back to school and ride the short bus. Free hugs, those asinine things that I had been mocking since the beginning of 2.0 time, were the effing antidote for the poisonous viper mind fuck bite. Go figure. Great, now I can say that not only do I cry and enjoy hugging like I'm some kind of unshaven dirty hippie, I am also, on occasion *wrong* as well. I will probably lose my android half breed creds for this post, but I don't <really> care (I guess). In fact, the whole experience felt so good I would like to do it more often.

So if you pass me on the street, sneak up behind him and hit me ever-so-gently on the back of the head with a hammer until my eyes start to well up. And then wrap your arms around me and give me the biggest, closest hug in the world. And I will like it. I promise.

Honey, this thing is bigger than your penis

Jennifer — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 15:04:46 GMT

So I already told y'all (like a hundred and fifty two times) that I'm running away to the beach, but I never offered up why (other than I am pretty much out of my efing mind, which I would be anyway anywhere, beach or no beach). But, like everything else in this world, there's the back story, the front story and the sideways story. Now I know what you're thinking. I'm taking off to the end of the world to make some awesome paint by numbers oil masterpieces by the sea, start my own cult, or (the most obvious of the three) begin my human to serpent transition like that dude in the movie from the 70's that gave me nightmares that lasted well beyond childhood. Well, you're wrong. Each and every one of you. I'm running away to write the great un-American novel (and by un-American I don't mean flag burning asshole, I mean I'm not trying to dress all goth, cut myself when other people are watching to make them feel sorry for me and live some kind of douchebag cliché).

You see for as long as I can remember there's a whole city, an entire world or universe even, of people places and things being born, stabbing each other, flying spaceships and having happy and un-happy endings all in my head. Sometimes they talk to me and sometimes they are too busy friending and fucking and fighting each other to even notice that I am there. Which really sucks considering that I am, at a very minimum, their landlord if not their lord and creator. Now I know how god (if he exists) must feel all pissed off and shit at everyone for throwing all of these wild parties and not even sending him so much as an evite.

And since this world inside my world is soo effing entertaining and I'm in this hippy dippy eff it free love for anyone who wants it kind of zone lately I figured the time has come to move some of these people out of my head and onto a page. Plus it's getting pretty crowded in there. Now as anyone who has ever tried to write anything that's worth a crap knows, it's not as easy at it sounds. It's kind of like how when you're drunk and you think something would make a really funny tweet, or some random guy would make an excellent naked trampoline thing-y, or that it's a good idea to take your top off in the street sign a release and become the star of the next installation of 'Girls Gone Wild'. The next day you're all like 'not so much' and 'where the fuck is the undo button'.

Now getting this cast of characters from my head to yours *sounds* like it would be fairly easy. But guess what, it's really effing not. I know because I've tried like a million times and quit the past 999,999. I start riding that train and then I get off like a few hundred stops short of the final destination because my desire to write it all down just simply fades away into the darkness of my own head. And then I pick it up a few days, months or years later only to put it down again. You see in order to fuel enough passion to bring these bad boys to life I need a really strong dose of inspiration, a muse if you will. Truth be told, I probably need 67 muses to be able to tell a story all the way to the sort-of end.

And so here I sit, at the end of the world, searching for that combination of people, places and things that will make me feel on fire from the first hair on my head to the end of the nail on my baby toe. I want to be consumed by desire that can never be fulfilled. Because nothing fuels a passionate poison that can only be leeched out by putting pen to paper like the fruit of that forbidden, unrequited desirous tree. The trouble with muses is that they are (for me) humans or humanish things like men or cats or Barbie dolls and they lose their shiny sparkly new car sheen all too quickly. The man muses are the most troublesome. They think (a little) more than cats and Barbie dolls and then they get all full of themselves and suddenly it becomes all about their penis and how awesome it is and how it can make a girl's eyes all *sparkly* and then they feel compelled to be the utlimate buzzkill by taking the stupid thing out and then the rest is history. The next thing you know I get talked into going to the movies or getting married or something and then I become all uninspired and go back to sitting in my house playing tetris and eating cheese to pass the time.

Well world, I am making a public promise right here and right now: NO WAY NO HOW NOT THIS TIME FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS MOTHERFUCKER! I will let no man, cat or Barbie doll hypnotize me with their penis, imaginary or otherwise. I will remember that I am the proverbial man in the desert whose feet are inspired to keep moving only by oasis mirages off in the distance but would surely lay down and die if he happened upon *actual* water. I will remember that in life pretty much all of the fun is in the journey and only jackasses race to the finish line to get to the end first. And I will totally remember that in the rock paper scissors game of life, art beats penis. Each and every time.

If you think the shit I say to other people is a little off you should here what I say to myself

Jennifer — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 16:01:00 GMT

So when I'm not earning money at my real job, eating cheese, getting a little drunk, making up crazy shit, writing crazy shit or practicing square dancing I am doing something else. And that something is making endless 'notes to self'. And by 'notes to self' I mean actual notes on stickies, loose paper, gum wrappers and writing on my or someone else's arm to remind me to do, or not to do something important. Works of art these are not and they are usually pretty graphic and personal and only apply to me and a lot of other people and are really not coherent enough to be blog worthy. Even for here. Last weekend I wrote one of these notes (well actually I wrote sixteen of them but I will only count one since four were in Klingon, two were shopping lists, and nine had to due with the United States Postal Service) and even though it was addressed 'to self' I wanted, for the first time, to share it here.

As you may or may not recall, I extra lost my mind last month (even for me) and rented an apartment on the beach 148 miles from my home. And this place on the beach isn't just any old place. It's Provincetown, Massachusetts which is famous for being the first landing place of the pilgrims and having the highest ratio of freaks to non-freaks pretty much anywhere in the history of the world. I think I will fit in perfectly since I am a Mayflower descendant. I am even bringing my Pilgrim Costume with me. And on the eve of my journey, I thought it was important to write myself a note to remind me what I am supposed to do when I finally arrive at my very magical destination.

And here it is:

20 Promises for Provincetown

1) I will write something that incorporates a new way to use the eff word every single day. That is why I am coming hereand I will not lose sight of that.

2) I will be like Jim Carey in Yes Man and never turn down an offer. Unless it involves someone's grandparents and nudity.

3) I will not judge anyone because I live in the glassiest house around.

4) Just because I have made one friend I will not give myself 'the friendliest girl in town' award. I will put on my big girl panties and make more effing friends.

5) I will not have random sex.

6) I will not have lesbian sex.

7) I will not have group sex.

8) I will leave my house every day and talk to at least one person. And by person I mean someone who is alive in this dimension and that other people, when asked, will acknowledge they can also see said person.

9) I will be honest in my writing. Even if it hurts me or other people. But not if it hurts animals. I will totally lie to protect the feelings of my four, six and hundred legged friends.

10) I will invite my old friends for visits but will not use them as a crutch to prevent me from meeting new people. Unless every new person I meet wants me to get naked with their grandmother. Then it will be okay to use my old friends as a crutch because they only get naked in the shower. And maybe not even then.

11) I will learn the name of at least one new person each week. Reading people's name tags who work in stores and having imaginary conversations with them will not count.

12) I will not experiment with any drug I have never taken before. This includes suspect herbal remedies, too.

13) I will produce the best work of my life in the coming months, both personally and professionally. I will award myself a ribbon like people get in horse shows every time I do something extra good and I will wear my ribbons to show other people that I am producing good work.

14) I will not give any one person any more of me than they have earned. If you want the shirt off of my back you will need to win it off me fair and square in a game of legitimate strip poker where I am not the only drunk person playing.

15) I will communicate with my replicant every day. Just because his mom has run away to join the proverbial circus and that he is now legally considered a grown ass man doesn't mean that he doesn't want his mommy to tuck him in remotely each and every night both now and for the rest of his life.

16) I will not enter into a bad or toxic relationship with a friend or a lover. Unless we have both agreed that we are no longer being green and poisonous chemicals are the very best building blocks for bonding.

17) If a relationship turns bad,toxic, boring or otherwise shitty I will get the fuck out rather than ride out the storm for 8 or 9 years like I usually do. True story.

18) I will listen to one song every day that I have never heard before. Even if it means having to add a Japanese folk station to Pandora One.

19) I will let myself have feelings and remember that I am only HALF robot. The other half is a person and it is ok to be vulnerable or imperfect. But I reserve the right to hide this again in the event the Earth is attacked by Cyborgs.

20) I will appreciate the people places and things around me at all times. If I can’t feel the magic here then magic does not exist and I don’t believe that for a second.

So there it is. Probably the most coherent 'note to self' I've ever written. And here's a note to y'all: if my writing over the coming months leads you to believe I am straying from any or all of these ground rules, feel free to take a train, plane or automobile to land's end and give me one helluva spanking. Just don't take your naked lesbian group sex having grandpa with you if you do. Because that would be cheating.

In the coming months I promise to remember that I am a pilgrim, not a porn star.

Everyone's a poser (not just me)

Jennifer — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 13:54:00 GMT

So for anyone who has been following along this has been kind of sort of like the summer of love for me, only more like the opposite in a lot of ways. But not really totally opposite like the summer of hate or anything, it's more like the summer of un-love, or the winter of my discontent, only it's summer so you can't really say that either. Which is perfectly fine with me, as I am usually out of sync with a lot of things, so not being personified by overquotes and fancy sayings is a-okay in my book. I don't need a pillow sampler made by Quaker women to spell out one of those rare and glorious times in life when you purposely nail all of the doors shut just so you can say you have no choice but to open a window and jump out. We've all been there. I'm quite certain that many others have walked this path before me. Probably.

Just a quick recap for those that HAVEN'T had the time, patience, court order or blood ties that would allow and/or require you to read each and every word of each and every blog post. In the past fifteen days I have:

reinvented the sex tourism industry
identified a whole new way of looking at aging and celebrating birthdays
freaked out about patriotism two weeks too late for the Fourth of July
left my boyfriend of nine years on a whim while sitting in a bar and drinking a margarita
learned that monogamy no longer exists
And, what this post is really about, running away from home and moving to the beach so I can get in touch with my REAL inner crazy and write some shit that may or may not make small town New England folk consider bringing back witch burning as a past time.

And I've talked to a lot of people to help work all this out in my head. Mostly about dwarfs and leprechauns and getting to kill people on your birthday and shit, but also about trivial things like casting aside everything one knows about oneself and becoming a different kind of person from the inside out. But I only talked about that for like one minute and just to one person. Who promptly told me I was a poser.

Me: But why does that make me a poser?

Other Person: Because you can't just be a cheerleader one minute and then decide you're a punk rocker the next. Or that you're suddenly black. Or Spanish. You really need to just pick something. And be it.

Me: Of course I can. I can be anything I want to be. Grover taught me that. Like thrity-seven years ago.

Other person: <sigh>

And it's true. Sesame Street fucked with my head in many, many ways but the biggest was to instill in me that if you can dream it it you can do it, be it . Or buy it (or something like that). And I'm just gonna stand up and call it. You're not a poser if you're doing what's in your heart. If you believe you're a punk rocker, then you're a punk rocker. It really doesn't matter that you were a cheerleader yesterday or even this morning and that tomorrow you're going to be a gangsta and the day after that something you haven't even heard of yet. If the shoe its. Right?

There are plenty of rulebooks out there for what people should do with their words, their hands, their bodies. But no one can tell you what to do with your heart. Or your mind. And like they say, those things want the crap that they want. There have been times in my life when I was definitely posing by pretending to be someone or something I wasn't. Like wearing a dress or necklace I didn't like just because it was a gift. Or by dancing with someone who sucked at dancing because I didn't want to hurt their feelings. Or by marrying someone I didn't love not even for one second just because I thought it was what everyone else wanted me to do. I know what it feels like to be a poser. And honey, this just ain't it.

So what if yesterday I was a girlfriend, a fiancée, a suburbanite douchebag. Today I am a poet, a writer, an artist. A freak desperately looking for a tiny hovel to live in by the sea. I am and always have been...me. And I will not pose for anyone else every again. Evah.

Keep posing in pictures where it belongs.

Leprechauns and monogamy

Jennifer — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:16:00 GMT

So here I sit celebrating my one week anniversary as a free agent in the relationship game of life. Looking back on the last seven days I've done a lot of the things that newly single people do: pour an entire bottle of nail polish on a paper plate and set it on fire, wear a different Halloween costume to bed every night, and look for leprechauns under rainbows. Oh, and figure out what the fuck I'm going to do with the rest of my life.

Which is why after a long hard work week consisting almost entirely of meetings about meetings I decided to get in my car, drive 148 miles, stare at the ocean, write really bad poetry and figure out exactly that.

The way I saw it I had about four options:

Become a celibate nun
Date only within my own socioeconomic strata and very likely end up a Stepford Wife spending the remainder of my days living in a McMansion and throwing up in my mouth a little more each and every day
Invite a whole host of gardeners, landscapers, car washers, dog washers, cat washers, plumbers and electricians over and secretly film my own YouTube reality show 'Who wants to date the homeowner'
Take some kind of 'common sense' approach to navigating this world as a single girl

Now as awesome as at least a couple of those competing theories sound, I decided to take the high road and go with option four. Only thing is I was (as always) a little perplexed at just exactly what constituted 'common sense' so I did what most people would do in a similar situation: look for numerical patterns in my immediate surroundings which I could then decode using the 26 letters of the alphabet and a couple of ancient hieroglyphic symbols to decipher exactly what revelation the universe had delivered unto me.

And besides I really needed a sign to guide me because I haven't rocked the singles scene for almost ten years and I'm sure that a lot has probably changed since everyone's biggest concern was the end of the world as we knew it with the whole y2k thing and everyone was out to get the most free lovin' they could before the big bang deleted all of our bank accounts and sent us into economic and spritual ruin.

And when that didn't work I asked the most knowledgeable single person I sorta kinda knew in the most directly indirect way I could conjure to figure out exactly how the hell to date in the 21st century.

Single Friend: Well what have you been doing so far?

Me: Making a mental list of things I like in a potential mate and things I don't. Oh, and looking for leprechauns.

Single Friend: Leprechauns?

Me: Yeah, the dudes who put gold under the rainbow. It rained a lot this week.

Single Friend: <sigh> I barely know you and yet I am entirely convinced you are not entirely 'all there'.

Me: No, really I'm here. I'll stop looking for leprechauns and focus on the task at hand. I'm ready to learn it from the master.

Then he went on to tell me all kinds of tidbits about relationships, dating and the singles scene. Oh, and threesomes. Which I didn't hear quite right the first time he said it so had to ask for a little clarification.

Me: Tree suns? What the hell do tree suns have to do with dating and relationships? And what the hell is a tree sun anyway? Here you are mocking me about Irish Fairy creatures that are KNOWN ENTITIES when here you are pulling things totally and completely OUT OF YOUR ASS.

Single Friend: Not tree suns. Threesomes. You know when one man gets to be with two women at one time.

Me: And/or one woman gets to be with two men?

Single Friend: Yeah. <big pause> I guess. </big pause>. If you're some kind of kinky freak. Or something.

Me: But what about monogamy? I'm really more of a 'one to a customer' kind of girl.

Single Friend: Monogamy? Now that DEFINITELY doesn't exist. I think you'll have better luck finding your leprechauns.

And there it was. In a span of about six minutes I had learned that there are people in this world that I sort of kind of like and almost know that question the existence of leprechauns, that monogamy no longer exists, and that, since I already know I don't have a remotely lesbian bone in my body I have no other choice than to become a celibate nun or a kinky freak in order to enter the mainstream dating game of 2010. Awesome.

So I think on this one I'm going to do what I usually do, what I've always done on this path of life. I will take the road less traveled. I will keep searching for leprechauns, and fairies and wood nymphs and whatever other mythical shit I know is out there just waiting for me to find it.

And I will also find that misshapen soul that I know is walking around somewhere who will complete my other wrangled half. Someday.

Magically delicious or double trouble? You decide...

You set my soul on fire

Jennifer — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 21:51:00 GMT

And I don't know why
when I look at the way
The back of your back meets the back of your leg
I feel like melting
into the little sheets in the little bed in your little house.
And I feel so big
and brave
Like I could do anything and at the same time
I am frozen
and powerless
to move.
So I do nothing instead.

The perfect symmetry of your perfect face
taunts me
to rub your arm to poke your chest
and screams for me
to scream to you
and yet here I lie in silence
slowly dying and being born at the same time
like a child leaving the light and marching into the darkness.
Like a vampire.

You make me not want to answer the phone.
I could look forever into your chest your arms your back
just counting the number of lines in your years of tattoos.
And I make up imaginary answers
to imaginary questions
while I wait for you to open your eyes and say let's go.
Which one was first
the number fourteen
five phallic shooting stars disappearing into you
and calling to me.
And then the day begins
and the phone rings
and it's over.
And it starts
again.

The price of freedom

Jennifer — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 02:35:00 GMT

So four days ago I became that dude that goes out for a pack of cigs to never return home again or turn up dead on the side of the road or get beamed down like 6 months later after an alien abduction. He just took a walk and *forgot* to come back. It was exactly exactly like that, only swap out the dude for me in my barbie shoes and change up the pack of cigs to a margarita (because cigarettes are worse than smoking someone's ass and I certainly wouldn't go walking around looking for someone's ass to smoke, especially not when I'm feeling all princess-y in my awesome new shoes) and instead of never coming back home it's more along the lines of the other person needs to leave the home that doesn't belong to him before the po-po get invited to the mad hatter's tea party and the barbie margarita girl gets to come back with the dead body she found on the side of the road and her new alien friend and they're all smoking the cigarettes the proverbial dude went out to get a long long time ago. Ya dig?

Good. Well anyhow, as most of my paint yourself into a corner and then create a makeshift sledgehammer out of the heel of your shoe adventures go, it started out innocently enough. With an idea. And not even one of the awesomest ideas I've ever had. This was no Human Dog Baby, no outsourcing of ghettos, not even new games to play at parties with assholes. This idea was so boring and conventional I'm more that a little embarrassed to say it out loud. But I will. Because most people suck at mind reading in general and my nut is a little harder to crack and if you're like, the only person who can read my mind you're probably in Bangladesh and about to light yourself on fire and not allowed to read the internets and even if you were allowed you probably can't find an effing wifi signal in the third world or second world or whatever the eff Bangladesh is considered so it really doesn't matter if you know what I mean because everyone else is probably sort of dying to hear what amazing idea I had that inspired me to be *that dude*.

Love, peace and a little bit of effing happiness. There I said it. I know, I now suck and the six people who were hanging on my every word now never ever want to hear from me again because I have transformed into some kind of Desperate Jersey Shore Housewife instead of the cutting edge idea machine of six short months ago. Quiet desperation will do that to a person. Look at your miserable neighbors, your unhappy friends, random assholes flipping each other off at traffic lights. I was coming dangerously close to emerging from my chrysalis one of them. And at my age, I only have so many chrysali left in me. And I owed it to myself and the world to go out kicking, screaming and executing ninja moves like never before to keep it from happening. It all went down exactly exactly like that only without making any sounds or busting any moves.

Just a phone call and a question.

'When are you coming back?'

'I'm not.'

And that was that. I think I might have twisted up my nose a little like that witch chick from the 60's tv show as I looked around the empty bar and with that that albatross of years of slow death by boredom, bickering and silence was cut from my neck and I walked out into the night. Alone. Far from home. And a little bit closer to my true destination.

So some words of wisdom to anyone reading this, or having it read to them by the nice men in the relaxation hospital. Whatever is making you feel unloved, not peaceful and even remotely unhappy-get the fuck out while you still can. If you can still see, hear, taste, smell, feel or any combination thereof, it's not too late. If your job, your town, your friends or even your spouse is slowly choking you to death like an invisible boa constrictor go out and take a walk. And never, ever come back. You will thank me. Trust me.

Less than twelve hours after this tweet the *shizzit* went down.

Patriotic rant for the Fourth of July

Jennifer — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:55:00 GMT

So the other day I was having a *conversation* with someone who asked me what I was passionate about.

'I don't know' I said. 'Everything. And nothing. I guess.'

Then it got me thinking. About true passion. Not the primal 'let's roll around on the floor and pretend we're animals' kind, but the 'would really and truly not making it up jump in front of a moving bullet to protect it' kind.

'Can I change my answer?'

'Sure.'

'My mother, my son and the President.'

'Barack Obama?'

'Sure, now. And who came before him and whoever comes next. The Institution of the President of the United States.'

'You're kidding.'

'I'm totally not.'

And I wasn't. As basically apolitical as I am (I pretty much believe that all who enter office may not necessarily arrive drooling idiots, but they all certainly leave that way) I can't help but feel fiercely protective of the talking head of my nation. It's like a living, breathing incarnation of the American Flag and all that it stands for.

It all boils down to personal freedom, which is the stuff I eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight snack. When a couple sets of my eleventh great grandparents boarded the Mayflower and set sail for, well, here it was so that they could be left the fuck alone to live their lives as they saw fit. And that their neighbors could do the same. They weren't looking for an orgy of anarchy or anything, they just wanted to carve out their own space and make their own rules to live by. Word.

Fast forward a hundred and fifty five years to my fifth great grandfather who, at the age of forty-seven, took up arms and marched from Marlborough to Cambridge Massachusetts the day the Revolutionary War started. Which is about 35 miles, give or take. Which must have really sucked on a cold and probably wet New England morning. Whatever was going through his mind that day I'll never know. But I'm sure whatever thoughts he had were ones filled with hope, with dreams, with passion. Not just for the pregnant wife and eight children he was marching away from, but for the new world he was marching into. A world he would leave for the generations to come.

And now here I sit in mine. I've never set sail for a new world, founded a nation or fought in a war. But I'm the living legacy of those who did and feel a definite sense of personal responsibility not to piss on the accomplishments of those who came before me. Now don't get me wrong, this nation of freedom lovers has more than a few dark stains on it's personal history. Slavery, oppression of women, denial of civil rights and the current shame of debating whether or not gay people and immigrants deserve the same human rights as, well, all of the other humans are the big ones that come to mind. A few fewer fucktards in office usually rights these wrongs. So come on real Americans, register and actually make it to the polls to vote this and every November for fuck's sake.

So there you have it. I'm a not-so-closeted patriot. And whether you're a half-wit inbred teabagger or a far left leaning lunatic the next time you feel the need to infringe on the personal freedoms of your neighbor next door or on the opposite shore use your own personal freedom to take the next plane, train or automobile across the border . If they'll even have you. Oh, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

America: love it or leave it. Asshole.

Birthday crimes

Jennifer — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 17:00:00 GMT

So my son has a lot of stupid shit on his ipod but he has this one song that really kicks the ass of all the other 150 gig or so combined he has crammed on there. I'm not sure exactly what it's called but the dude keeps singing about 'birthday sex' and then says a lot of really descriptive (yet) stupid shit in between each time he says it. Which really makes me want to grab a pen and jam it so far down my ear canal that I never hear anything that stupid again each and every time shuffle serves that sick puppy up.

But I have to admit, it got me thinking. Not about some jackass sticking things where they have no business going on the anniversary of my birth, but about getting to do things you ACTUALLY fantasize about doing deep down inside the very essence of your being on that very special day. You know, like busting through a 'road closed' blockade while driving a rental car. Or opening the exit door just a little tiny bit before the airplane touches down on the runway just to see what happens. Or lighting just about anything on fire. World, i would like to present birthday crimes (yes, of course I bought the domain).

The concept is pretty straight forward. Every person is awarded a certificate good for the comission of exactly one crime vaild on their birthday only. The type of crime one gets to commit gets better with age. For example, a one year old may have the option of circumventing public nudity laws by roaming diaper free for the day, while a ten year old gets to, say, do the equivalent of smoking a joint (which is only a civil infraction in my beloved 'anything goes' state of Massachusetts). And one's 18th birthday will no longer be just the harbinger of adult things to come, it will also be the time when one can move from the realm of misdemeanors into the big boy world of felonies. 50 can usher in the golden years of being able to commit an annual premeditated act of theft or violence against a fellow man and centenarians win the jackpot of exactly one get out of jail free pass a year for life on murder one. People will probably think twice about parking their aging loved ones in rest homes in order to expedite inheritance proceedings. Great great grandma may just use her ticket to knock YOU off just for thinking about it.

So I'm calling on you, citizens of the world, to unite. Let's stomp out stupid shit like 'birthday sex' and move on to something bigger. And better.

So you totally know what I'll be wishing for this year when I take a breath to blow out the candles.

I keep having inappropriate thoughts about aliens and dwarfs

Jennifer — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:11:00 GMT

So pretty much every other Tuesday when I check out my local news some junior high school teacher is getting busted for dating students, downloading child porn or, the granddaddy of them all, taking a vacation to some exotic land for a little sex tourism R&R with small and unsuspecting children. Which is just stick your finger up the grossest person you can think of’s ass and then cover it with dirty kitty litter box sprinkles then stick it down your throat to make yourself vomit up the horse shit you were just forced to eat at gunpoint disgusting. Now don’t get me wrong, not all men (or even all junior high music teachers) are child raping pervs, but this is just another example of an idea that COULD have been awesome being totally, completely and colossally ruined because someone put men in charge of it. And I’m not talking about pre-teen on adult dating or dirty kiddie pics. I’m talking about sex tourism.

Although I am not the biggest fan of ‘tourist’ attractions, one has to admit that the majority of folks on the planet earth are. Otherwise there wouldn’t be so many assholes standing in line for an hour or more to, say, ride on a 3 minute rollercoaster and stare at the never ending displays of an animated mouse that really is not particularly attractive, has never said anything remotely interesting to my knowledge and has, quite frankly, the most effed up and annoying voice in the world. And a lot of people like, or at least can tolerate, sex. Otherwise there wouldn’t be so many effing assholes just dying to take a ride through the Witch Mountain. So I can totally see ‘sex’ and ‘tourism’ making magic just like ‘chocolate’ and ‘peanut butter’. Just in a totally different incarnation. Let’s face it. We need to nuke the existing industry and start again from scratch.

So I’m gonna hijack the driver’s seat to this bad boy and take sex tourism OUT of the dark side and back into the light. And it will be better than Disney Land. Trust me.

Now take a moment and think of your own sexual fantasies. They (hopefully) don’t involve doing creepy things to toddlers in tiaras, but run more along the lines of a chance encounter with an extraterrestrial, some afternoon delight with a cyborg, or, for the little girl that still lives in all of us, dressing up like Snow White and having seven appropriately endowed dwarfs cavort with you under the covers.

Now I’m no venture capitalist, and certainly no expert on sex or even tourism. But I know a good idea when I see one. So I’m throwing this out there for anyone who wants to catch it. And when you do, do me the teeny tiny solid of comping me into the time travel room. I just know there’s this ancient Egyptian sun god dude waiting over there with my name on it.

I'm fairly certain that my cat would light himself on fire if he could figure out how to use matches

Jennifer — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 12:24:00 GMT

So as winter turns into spring here in freeze-your-ass-off-until-it's-suddenly-a-hundred-degrees-and then-you-die-of-heat-stroke New England things like steam blasting radiators and indoor open fires used for heat not recreational purposes slowly ebb away from daily life only to make an appearance again way too quickly when in the blink of an eye it's winter again and time to start worrying about meeting your end by freezing to death in your sleep. Way too quickly for everyone, that is, except my cat.

You see even though Papi Chulo was born covered in fur, and, despite an overwhelming urge on my part to play cat stylist barber shop, he has never been shaved or otherwise deprived of his perpetual winter coat and yet he suffers from some weird disease that all cats, to some degree, suffer from but for some reason has super-manifested itself in him: he is addicted to heat.

Now this isn't the all natural heat that comes from, say, the sun which humans, for the most part, really dig. In fact, once nature spikes an eighty degree temp, he basically lies on his side, sticks his pink tongue out of his mouth and pants like a dog. He doesn't appear to enjoy the summertime for a lot of reasons and heat blasting from the sun is certainly one of them. Which is perfectly normal if one is always wearing a fur coat. One time I actually did put on a <fake> fur coat in the middle of a heat wave just to see what it would feel like to be a cat. If you are thinking about trying this experiment yourself, you can learn from my mistake and let your neighbors know ahead of time that you are conducting an animal behavioral study so they don't call the authorities while filming a video to put on YouTube of you rolling around in your garden in a full length coat with your eyes bugging out of your head while licking dirt on a hundred degree day. Theoretically.

So back to Papi Chulo and his weird behavior. Now in my house, your behavior needs to be so far off the beaten path of what regular society considers 'normal' for me to call it weird that you must understand how bizarre and, quite frankly, dangerous his addiction has become. It started innocently enough with taking a nap next to the heater. Then he graduated to sleeping on top of the heater. Then he discovered the fireplace. And fire.

Now I'll be the first to admit that fire holds a certain primal fascination for probably all creatures. Truth be told, I've been known to dabble in it a bit myself. But I have an opposable thumb and could, in theory, extinguish said fire (if I wanted to) in the event it got out of control in an emergency or threat of arrest kind of way. Also it's been my experience that fires are fun things to watch, but not to take a nap in. When you are sleeping in your fire you are pretty much giantly crying for help. Which is probably similar to the difference between having a few glasses of wine on a Friday night while making you and everyone else play tambourine karaoke as you get misty eyed over watching the Twitter streams of strangers and, say, being so drunk you intentionally stick your finger down your throat so you can vomit on an 11 year old girl while you are in the middle of being arrested . Shit like that requires an effing intervention.

So like many stories of those whose lives get so whacked out they end up on a reality show, it started out as something kind of funny to watch in a train-wreck-where-none-of-the-passengers-get-injured-so-it's-okay-to laugh sort of way. Papi Chulo kept moving his favorite napping spot closer and closer to the full blown roaring gas lit fireplace. It was all fun and games until one day I found him with his body fully pressed against the antique fireplace safety gate all the while the air having a faint smell of cat fur roasting on an open fire to it. But he didn't seem to notice or care. He was high on his drug of choice and nothing was gonna get him down. I think he hit bottom one day when the fireplace wasn't on but he really needed a fix. I caught him awkwardly fumbling with the gate as he stuck his cat paw in and waved it around in the general direction of the 'on' switch. And then I did what most people do when faced with a loved one clearly driving his car down the road to ruin superhighway. I quickly left the room and tried my best to unsee what I just saw.

But now the weather is warming up and the pipe that springs natural gas eternal to my hundred year old fireplace is turned off for the season via the shut off valve which is located in the basement so I'm pretty sure Papi Chulo is safe from his own personal demons for now. He just doesn't possess the skill set, body parts or partner in crime necessary to get down there to get his 'works'.

Unless, that is, his old buddy Isidro resurfaces from the cat afterlife to assist him with the ancient art of door opening...

It's a good thing Isidro wasn't a firestarter like his homeboy Papi Chulo because that cat had SKILLS. Here is a candid shot of him opening the door to let himself out. We always did butt heads on whether or not he was an indoor cat.

Now how I do I go about telling my elderly neighbor I'm not actually deaf?

Jennifer — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 19:21:00 GMT

Just about every time I leave my house I manage to paint myself into a corner and today was no exception. I didn't even have to go past the border of my white picket fence to do it. But I'm only gonna SHARE the blame on this one. The bi-polar weather of New England needs to man up and shoulder it's part in all of this.

It all started like two days ago when it was 96 degrees. I got all inspired with spring fever, walked to Home Depot and purchased some bulbs to plant outside. So imagine my disappointment when I woke up on this glorious sunny Saturday to a 39 degree morning. Rock.

But the great outdoors and I had plans. Outlook said so and I wasn't going to dismiss that reminder without putting up my dukes and jumping in the ring. So I threw on a sweatshirt and coat and some gloves then some more gloves then another coat and some earmuffs and a hat then finally pulled my hood up and I was good to go. Almost. Now even though I'm a full blown camping addict I.just.cannot.enjoy.nature.without.a.device.in.my.hand.or.at.least.on.my.person. And yes, my eighth of an acre yard totally counts as nature. And since it's a little *awkward* to type and dig at the same time my trusty iPod was the device of choice on this *fabulous* spring morning. I was super careful not to jam the earbuds too far down my ear canals and also to snake the cord of that bad boy down the INSIDE my sweatshirt so I didn't inadvertently kill myself by way of autoerotic asphyxiation in the front yard. That would have been too much for even my family to bear. And they can bear a lot.

When I finally got out the door things were really going my way in spite of the weather. I managed to get both the hedge trimmers AND the chainsaw out of the basement without being stopped by the penis police. Now for those not in the know, the penis police are in charge of making sure that ONLY people in possession of a penis operate any power tools in my house. Which is basically everyone EXCEPT me. Even the cats have penises. I suppose that means Papi Chulo gets dibs on the hedge trimmers before I do just because it has an effing power supply and he has a penis. Go figure.

But not today. The early bird gets the chainsaw <wink wink>. So I was jamming to Tchaikovsky or the Sex Pistols or someone, digging my holes with the assistance of that wonderful multi-purpose machine the chainsaw and having a grand old time when an elderly neighbor walked by. And stopped and moved her mouth while making a waving gesture. Now my earbuds were buried in six layers of head warming gear and I had two pair of gloves too many to even think about going on a hunting expedition for the pause and/or volume button. So I smiled back at her and made a large pointing gesture at my ears while shaking my head 'no' which everyone knows is the universal sign for I can't hear you because I am wearing six coats and I have hidden my ipod so it doesn't kill me in a weird, yet sexually enjoyable way while gardening.

Everyone except my neighbor that is. Apparently she thought it meant we should talk in sign language which apparently she knew. Now I know a few signs myself. In the small town where I grew up there were a couple of kids who couldn't hear so they talked in sign language and I have to say there was more than one party where they were the only ones who would listen to me by the end of the night so along the way I picked some of the dialect. Not enough to be dropped in a sign speaking country mind you, but enough, say, to indicate I have to pee or ask if anyone needs a beer refill. So whatever I said to her with my very gloved hands made her smile and she said a bunch of things with her hands that I couldn't understand so I did what any person does when someone is speaking a language they don't understand I gave the universal sign for 'I don't know what the fuck you are saying'. I smiled and nodded.

So she 'signed off' and went on her way and left me smiling and nodding in my front yard wondering what the eff just happened. And not five minutes later it got warm enough for me to take off my hood and my hat and my gloves and my jacket and my second jacket and my ear muffs. And with my earbuds and Pod clearly visible, not one passerby attempted to engage me in small talk.

Which brings me to my next.big.idea. Although earbuds sure are small and convenient, they can lead to misunderstandings such as the one outlined above. And wearing those GIANT headphones can sure make you look like a giant douchebag. Or a porn star from 1977. Which is why I think Apple needs to stop screwing around with turning the iphone into a piece of furniture à la 'the pad' and instead focus on developing something with more meaning that solves a real problem that actual people have. Along the lines of an 'iHelmet'. Or 'headband'. Or something. I mean, there oughta be some absolute way to tell the difference between someone who can't hear because they can't hear and someone who is hearing, but only hearing their tunes and not in a position to hear an effing word you say so you should probably stop talking to them. And when you don't feel like talking to people or if you want to hear what people say about you when they think you're not listening, you can jut put on your ihelmet and pretend like your jamming away. The 'helmet' has almost as many uses as the chainsaw and it hasn't even been invented yet. It's that good.

I thought about it and I'm just gonna throw this out there and basically give it to Apple. For free. Because it's the right thing to do. You can start setting up your lawn chairs outside the Apple Store anytime. I have a feeling these bad boys are gonna have one long ass line of people waiting to get their gloved hands on one.

So I prayed to God for lesbian feelings and ended up pregnant instead. Something clearly got lost in translation.

Jennifer — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 19:27:57 GMT

I was recently flipping through the channels looking for an awesome show about arsonists or serial killers or something and my remote control battery gave out just as the clicker landed on one of those sappy birth story shows. Which, btw, are like crack for eyes, because you just can't stop watching after seeing only a little. And by the end you're crying with your cat about tiny miracles and crap. And the whole time you can just feel this eye crack eating away at your brain and making you, too, want to have nineteen plus people start life by crawling out of your private parts. I think this extra happens if you've ever grown a person in your body before because then you get all nostalgic about the awesome drugs you got to legally take before during and after the process and then at the end you're given this little replicant that you can put cute doll clothes on who is mandated by law to listen to you for the next eighteen or so years. Motherhood rocks.

So my son walks in the room just as I'm using Papi Chulo's back as my new personal handkerchief.

Son: Um, what are you doing to the cat?

Me: I'm comforting him. He got all emotional watching this stupid birth story show remembering how awesome it was when you were born.

Son: I'm ten years older than the cat.

Me: Confession time. Papi Chulo was actually comforting me. I wish I had eighteen more of you running around. It shouldn't be just people who give birth to whole litters either in one shot or piecemeal, that get to share their stories with the world. I think I'm going to share OUR story with the world. I'm going to write a post about it. Tomorrow.

Son: <sigh>

Now at eighteen he's heard this story like a zillion times, with more deets provided with every passing year. (Nothing too graphic though only because I was full blown anesthetized when he was surgically removed from my abdominal cavity. It's probably better for all of us this isn't going to be THAT kind of a post.) This is more the back story of how, like Mick Jagger said, you can't always get what you want but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.

So anyhow, it all started at the beginning of college. Or the end of high school. It was like 1987 and all of a sudden everyone was gay. Or at least bisexual. Now my whole life up to this point I had been pretty much the odd man out and now, swimming in a sea of weirdos and outcasts, I was still the effing cheese. Even though I had never gotten much farther than second base (with boys only), I was pretty sure I didn't have a bi bone in my body. I actually ended up developing one badass crush by the end of freshman year. On a gay man. Which in my mind was almost being bisexual. For one of us at least.

So I did what any partially Irish, partially catholic girl would do. I prayed. Dear God, it would really rock if you would like make this gay man develop a girl crush or at least let me like girls. Even a little bit. Your truly, Jennifer. And then I waited patiently for my prayer to be answered.

Then one night I was at a club in Providence Rhode Island and I needed some air so I went outside. And then this chick who looked just like Madonna circa 1986 sat down beside me. And when she leaned over and swung her arm around me in a you-are-not-my-girl-friend-you-are-my-GIRLFRIEND kind of way I felt like we were two giant magnets, but both from the same poll. I definitely felt, er, repelled. And then I knew for super sure that I was like super man and that girls were half past kryptonite for me. Epic fail on the gayness factor. I left disappointed but pretty clear in which direction my compass pointed.

So I gave up the dream and then all of a sudden it was spring again and spring is like crack for twenty year old people the way birth story shows are crack for just about anyone with at least one x chromosome who is over the age of twelve. The next thing I knew I had an actual boyfriend who didn't have a boyfriend of his own and was pretty much horrified when I asked him as much. And then it was fall and I developed a cold.that.just.would.not.go.away and so I went to health services where I was given a form with instructions to list any and all medications I was currently taking before they would prescribe any more. I checked the 'none' box which pretty much changed the course of history for at least a few of the people balancing on this blue and green ball. Birth control pills are apparently medication. Who knew? And, btw certain antibiotics render these bad boys pretty much useless (this is NOT urban legend as I have double blind walking talking empirical proof of this. His name is Nigel.)

So then spring came again. And again and again and again to the second power and I had pretty much forgotten and/or repressed all of this ancient history. Until my son started high school. You see, I sent him to catholic school because I didn't want him to get murdered in the hallway (which happens from time to time in the public schools) and I really didn't want to spend more on four years of high school than I did on my first house (which is pretty much what the über elite local private schools would have run me). Plus, being partially catholic and all it mostly made sense. So during one of the nightly 'How was your day?' back and forth rituals about three quarters of the way through the ninth grade it swam to the surface and practically dove out of the water and landed smack dab in the middle of the dinner table:

Me: So how's school going?

Son: It's okay. We have to pray way too much. Like, before each and every class. I run out of things to pray about halfway through third period. My teachers complain because I'm 'too fidgety' during prayer time. Which is like 18% of my day. I don't know how much longer I can take this.

Me: There's so much crap in the world to pray about I'm sure you can think of something and if you can't, just close your eyes and pretend to pray. Or say the alphabet backwards. Besides, you don't have to be a 90 year old religious zealot on death's doorstep to ask god for things. Kids can totally pray. In fact, I used to pray when I was your age.

Son: You? Pray? For what? Never mind, don't tell me. I don't think I want to hear your teenage prayers said in an outloud voice.

And then it all came crashing back to me. Prayers. Gay boy friends. Gay girl friends. Bisexuals. The whole nine yards. What a trip and a half down memory lane. And at the same time I was like Awww...isn't that sweet? My boy can read my mind.

That's what you get when you grow another person inside of your body. Someone who knows you so well they can practically mind meld with you because they pretty much spent the first nine months of their own life poking your uterine wall with their little finger and somehow tapping into your central nervous system and hijacking your brain waves. Now I'm getting all weepy just remembering the awesomeness. It almost makes me want to have eighteen more of those bad boys. Almost.

My grandmother affectionately referred to this era in my life as the time I dressed more than a little like Satan. Perhaps my prayer wasn't lost in translation but rather answered with a 'gotcha' from God.

Hey asshole, this post's for you!

Jennifer — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 12:45:00 GMT

So this should be the story of how I went to a club in New York City to see my cousin the rock star and his awesome friends, who are also rock stars play rock star music. But unfortunately this is about how I was poisoned by an Indian and almost got my boyfriend date raped. If you don't feel like reading all the way to the end I will skip to the moral of the story: if you are playing vacation roulette, don't, I repeat do not go to NYC. Go to Nebraska where shit like this just doesn't happen. Unless you are a cow. In which case I would normally suggest that you go to Bombay where cows are sacred so they pretty much they don't get poisoned or date raped, but this is apparently a breeding ground for purveyors of poison and boyfriend rapers, so I don't know what to tell you. Just pitch a tent in the backyard and stay the eff home I guess.

It all started when I won these awesome Miley Cyrus pants on eBay. I was actually looking for a new video camera to replace the one I accidentally broke last summer on my annual pilgrimage to the Provincetown Massachusetts Fourth of July fisherman/transvestite parade . (The moral of that story is don't drink martinis for breakfast when you have to film important things while wearing a feather boa and running down the street in four inch chunky heels.) eBay just has this awesome, almost magical way of saying 'if you like flip cameras, then you will probably also like these Miley Cyrus branded leopard skin legging pants that can be worn by your daughter. Or even you.' eBay, you had me at Miley. Remarkably, I was the only bidder and scored those bad boys tout de suite.

Now I was pretty much planning on going to the record release party in the Big Apple anyway, but with an outfit cornerstone like that, I was ALL IN BABY. Cinderella had something to wear to the ball. Eff you What Not to Wear. Who died and made you king of the wardrobe world anyhow? You so CAN be like 40 and dress like you're in junior high. The legacy of my French ancestors marrying their cousins for 400 years was not just a severely effed up nose, but also a body that never grows bigger than a size 2. I will continue to eat as much fried cheese as a digestive system can take and get facial surgery so I can pass for a prepubescent boy until the end of my days thank you very much. Keep sending those extra small legging pants my way baby.

So fast forward to the show which was filled with much awesomeness. Seeing something like that almost restores my faith in the youth of today to actually create things that don't suck. Highlights included rocking out to the live version of the song my cousin wrote about his cat, just about anything these guys played (when like everyone in the band is playing a guitar how can you possibly go wrong?) and seeing live and in-person that it really is possible to play a maraca and a keyboard at the same time (now that's a skill you don't see every day; well done Sweden for growing something like Buvette). Good friends, good times. good margaritas. Rock.

Now ideally that's where this story would happily end. But the universe had other plans. Open the worm hole and jump in. Cause that's EXACTLY what I did. After the show ended every.single.person.I.knew.went.outside.to.smoke.a.cigarette. Even the non-smokers. Which, in retrospect, should have been my queue to exit stage left and go with. But no, I had to be the hero and wait inside.

Enter stage right normal looking man and friend who I would later learn hail from Bombay India.

Date Rapist: Hi. Great show wasn't it? What are you drinking?

Me (known as ' TIV' <aka The Intended Vic'> from this point forward): I was drinking a margarita but now I'm just waiting for my friends to stop smoking things outside so I can go back to my hotel. I may look like I can roll with the big boys in these pre-adolescent legging pants, but I think I'm pretty much the only person here old enough to have been fully potty trained in 1986 and it's about half a mile past my bedtime. It's like almost midnight and I SO had my heart set on earning the FourSquare badge for checking in after 3 AM on a school night it looks like I'm just gonna have to snag that bad boy by getting up extra early one day next week instead.

Date Rapist: Will you let me buy you a drink while you wait?

TIV: You're not a serial killer are you?

Date Rapist: <flashes perfect teeth smile>No. </smile> Of course not.

Now this is where I am going to give some very lawyerly advice. Always take your line of questioning to the last stop on the line. What I SHOULD have done was hand him a card with check any and all boxes that apply to you written on it:

Are you a:

___serial killer

___stranger that is going to ask me to carry a gift or package onto an airplane

___pyramid schemer

___roofie holding date rapist

___other (please elaborate)

I work in effng marketing. I should know enough to carry a survey around with me to effing learn about the psycho-graphic of every new visitor to my IRL. But hindsight is for assholes. We all know that.

So, you guessed it, long story even longer. Date rapist and his friend wanted to procure said beverage not at the bar that I was two feet away from, but rather the top secret super crowded bar that was upstairs and eons away from the door and all things known to me. Now I know exactly what you are going to think about what I am going to say next. That either I am an effing idiot or that I had been harboring a secret desire to be gang raped by a team of Indians while under the influence of home grown Rohyponl. Wake up people, that shit only happens in the movies.

Date Rapist number two: Look over there at the dance floor. People are really getting down.

TIV: Where?

Date Rapist number two: Over there <pointing>. Oh look, your drink is ready now.

Now I'm not awesome at reading into people's intentions by looking at visual cues, but something in my lizard brain just started screaming the test of the emergency broadcast system sound only it wasn't a test.

TIV: I think I need to go find my friends now.

Date Rapists: No. Stay here with us. We can dance. And stuff.

TIV: No, I really need to go. Right now.

And so I went. And they followed. There must be a god because as soon as I descended the stairway I saw my Spanish boyfriend frantically scanning the crowd looking for me and my Miley Cyrus pants. He gets nervous because when I am out of his sight for too long I usually come back with a broken camera or nose or something and finding me quickly is his best bet at loss mitigation.

TIV: Boy am I glad to see you. I was just having a drink with blah blah and blah blah blah. They are from Bombay India.

Spanish Boyfriend: Then why are you the only one drinking?

Date Rapist: I would LOVE to buy you a drink, too buddy. Come on upstairs with me. What are you drinking?

Spanish Boyfriend: Um, no I don't think so. We have to go. Now.

So he took the poisoned drink out of my hand, put it down and took me to the corner where we managed to get a taxi to stop and let us in. Pretty much as soon as I got into the cab the lights went out. Eyes rolling back into my head, the whole nine yards. Now this would be explainable if I had, say, twelve margaritas while watching the show. But I had two. Plus a sip or so of a third. Now even though I have the frame of Napoleon's smaller half-sister I'm proud to say I can hold my liquor a little better than that. It takes more than 2.1 drinks to put me under the table.

So pretty much by the time the cab brought us a couple miles down the road I was in a state where my boyfriend basically had to provide a full blown assist to get me out of the car. In the fracas, I left behind my cute little matching purse. The purse that had all of the cash we brought to New York, along with my ID and only bank card I had with me. Oh yeah, and my Blackberry. And camera. Now normally my Spanish boyfriend holds all of these things for me. Because I suck like that. And he knows it and takes care of me. That's the kind of co-dependence that is the very foundation of modern day successful relationships. But on this particular night I just HAD to bring a cute little purse. Because it matched my Miley Cyrus pants. And I wanted to be a big girl and fill my purse with important things. The kind of things that grownups carry with them. Like Blackberries and money and cameras. Fortunately he noticed my purse was missing almost as soon as we hit the sidewalk. Unfortunately the cab had already sped off.

My awesome boyfriend heroically chased the cab for as long as he could, waving his arms like a mad man and shouting expletives in Spanish. Because we were in New York, no one cared or even noticed this erratic-enough-for-police-to-be-called-anywhere-else-in-America behavior. Fortunately, he was smart enough to not let me put his cell phone in my cute purse so he was able to call my MIA device within seconds. Seconds too late that is.

Thieving Cab Driver: Hello

Spanish Boyfriend: Thank god you answered. My girlfriend forgot her purse in your. Can you bring it back to 52 William Street? We'll pay you extra.

Thieving Cab Driver: <with the same voice/accent as the Slurpee guy from the Simpsons> I don't know what you're talking about. I am not a cab driver.

Now as awesome as my boyfriend is, he has this hot Spanish blood that pretty much hit the boiling point at that precise moment in time. I think he was using six or possibly seven (if you count pig latin) languages, to berate the hell out of the asshole who basically put the last straw on the back of this camel of a night. Any shot of negotiating a release of the hostage was pretty much a pipe dream at this point. We called and called and called again. No one ever answered. I spent the next hour cancelling bank cards, sending emails to the guy at work who is in charge of issuing Blackberries, and wondering how we were going to get the Jetta out of a New York City parking garage without the benefit of money or a credit card. (Hat tip to Bank of America for believing in me enough to allow me to withdraw funds from my account with a double pinky swear that I am who I say I am. Your bank does not suck. I don't care what anybody else says about you.)

So the next day when my cousin called to see if I was still in the City and if I wanted to hang out I told him my long, sad story and that no, I was pretty much done with New York for a while and that he did great and would have much success in the future and that I was glad and it was totally worth losing everything in the world that mattered to me to be a part of history like that. He started apologizing pretty profusely and saying he wished he could make it up to me and it was very cute but not very rock star-ish. 'Great', I said to myself 'Now this ordeal is going to turn my cousin from an awesomely cool rock star with a girl in every port into a sensitive asexual music teacher. I need to do something. Quick.'

Me: Dom Don't worry. Really. Just write a song about it.

Dom: A song?

Me: Yeah. Everything happens for a reason, right? I think all of this happened so you can write the world's most awesome song about New York. Like the one Frank Sinatra sang only better.

So there you have it. This bad boy just might have a happy ending. And perhaps the Behind the Music inspiration for the best song written about New York. Ever.

I know world. You're welcome.