Meg's Internet is still out...but OXYGEN BARS ARE IN!!!1

Oof. Doesn’t it suck to have Christmas right after the semester is over? Ideally I’d have about a week of ‘Quil Time and writing to recharge between the two, but instead I essentially had to finish my schoolwork and immediately start Doing Holidays. I spent the night before I left cleaning my apartment, so that if the plane falls out of the sky and I die, whoever goes through my things won’t judge me too harshly.

I don’t handle flight well. I don’t really believe in the science behind it, and as I’ve gotten older I’ve really grown to fear being a victim in a group tragedy. Can you imagine Meg, my parents, and Giant Camel at a candlelight vigil for me, swaying? I can, and it’s not rosy:

Meg: “Look! Evie’s holding a candle! Eeeeeevie. Sleeeeevie. Eeeeeevers.”

Mom: “Oh, you think it sucks so much being dead? Try staying behind and having to hear about how this tragedy drew the community together.”

Dad: “God, this is an awful crowd. Why is everyone rocking gently? This is profoundly uncomfortable.”

Giant Camel: “Where is the beer guy? Don’t they come around at these?”

So therefore, I like to “Xan out” on airplanes. It’s a matter of delicate timing to take the right amount of Xanax at the right time so that you pass out directly after fastening your seatbelt. I’ve gotten pretty sharp at it over the years, although I’m less precise about taking an amount that will wear off over the course of the flight. I’m the calmest person you’ve ever seen at a baggage claim.

Overall it was a very nice and not terribly bloggable Christmas.

Except for the purse.

My mother’s principal gift to me this year… was a purse. Not a “murse,” not a man-bag, not a billfold. A straight-up woman’s purse in a “Lucy and Ethel” print.

Did you know that shock looks a lot like gratitude? I was staring, open-mouthed, at my Christmas Lucy Purse, and she just burbled away: “Oh, I knew you’d like it. It has Lucy on it.”

So, I have a purse, now. I’ll be carrying it through Kensington later.

Anyway, purse aside, it was a nice reasonable Christmas with few crises. I went to San Francisco for New Year’s, which was nice. I bought a ring with a human tooth set in it which I proceeded to leave in California, but it’s the whizz of a ring. I’m itching to get into a fight and sock someone with it, once it gets mailed to me.

I also tried two hippie-dippy thing I assumed I’d hate: “candlelight yoga,” and an oxygen bar. The yoga was much better than I’d feared – there was a lot of “breathe in the good vibes” and “om”ing, which I refuse to do. I’m about as Buddhist as I am telekinetic, and I think it’s rude and silly to “om” in that context. I don’t expect Buddhists who to preface games of cricket or bouts of emotional repression with the phrase “according to the ancient rites of the Church of England,” and I’m not going to “om” at yoga. Doesn’t that seem almost sarcastic and hipster to do, to essentially throw in part of someone else’s religion as a PS to the exercise I’m doing, frankly, so that if we do book signing I’ll get attention from men instead of pity from women?

Aside from the “om” fiasco, I did like it. It’s exercise that isn’t particularly fast, and I could do it in the semi-darkness, without other people looking at me with that “Oh, You’re New At The Gym” face. You’ve seen it. It’s pity and disgust, but they stretch their lips and claim it’s a smile? It’s the same face you get at the grocery store when you pay in nickels. The instructor knew I was new, so he helped me, which was kind but beyond emasculating. As the class went on, he bought me two foam blocks, a blanket, and a bolster to support and cushion various parts of my body as I went along. I was FAR more heavily padded than the pregnant lady. If the class hadn’t ended when it did, I have no doubt that he would have fed me with an eye-dropper and put me on antibiotics.

Now, this is disgusting, but the yoga helped me “fix” something. I had a painful, swollen lymph node under my arm, and I did not feel like caring about it. I talk about bowel movements because they’re a rich vein of humor – some comics work blue, some work brown – but otherwise I don’t care to talk about health or the body. I think it’s low-class to talk about health, to hurry, or to wear short-sleeved shirts with ties, and I don’t do any of them if I can avoid it. I had essentially decided to go ahead and die of cancer rather than have my doctor gently feel my armpit, make a concerned face, gently feel my armpit, then order some tests. If I wanted a cheerful Irishwoman to prod around in my various creases, I would have arranged my life very, very differently. Nevertheless, some pulling or stretching or “good vibes” thing I did during yoga unblocked that lymph node. It was… decidedly unsettling to feel the… interior drainage, but I did feel better afterwards. Revolted, but better.

The oxygen bar was less of a thrill. I met up with an old friend from high school – we’ll call him “Alberto,” because that’s his name – and we ran across an oxygen bar. I’ve always wanted to try one because I’m convinced they’re bullshit. A healthy person’s blood is generally 99% or so saturated with oxygen from air, so somehow I don’t think sucking gently flavored oxygen out of a tube changes it much.

TC: “Oh, look, an oxygen bar.”

Alberto: “I’m glad you can read. Don’t slow down, they’ll see us.”

TC: “Let’s go in! Don’t you want some oxygen?”

Alberto: “You know what? I do.” Inhales “Oh, gosh-a-mighty, I feel like a million bucks now. Let’s go.”

TC: “I’ll pay for you to go. Come on. It’ll be fun.”

Alberto: “I bet not.”

TC: “Don’t you actors have some ‘method’ that involves doing all the dumb shit you can so you ‘experience life’ and… inhabit the character, or some queer shit like that?”

Alberto: “Yeah, more or less, although that doesn’t explain why you want to do it.”

TC: “Well as a writer I need to gather experiences so that my characters…”

Alberto: “You write a blog about your bowels and your friend’s cat. It doesn’t have any characters except Kevin Yang.”

TC: “HE’S REAL. WE’RE IN LOVE. HE SENT ME FLOWERS.”

So, ultimately, we hooked up to the oxygen machines and spent 25 or so minutes watching the hippie lady who ran it “encourage her child’s free spirit” by letting her make noise until she got tired of making noise, then make a mess. The hippie lady was far more of a trip than the flavored oxygen because she thinks she can fly. She plans to convene 100,000 didgeridoos, and 1000 drums, and 1000 something elses, and fly on the vibrations. She’s making her wings now.

Now… not to be an asshole (“Too late,” I hear you cry), but… surely even hippies aren’t that altruistic?

“Yeah, we’re all going to get together so this one dame can fly.” I don’t want to owe 102,000 people a favor. She sent us – specifically us, presumably not a lot of people leave their addresses – an email about “sending healing vibes to Haiti on the anniversary of the quake.” Which is very nice, but… wouldn’t you rather have the cash? After all, “vibrations” are what caused this whole problem, and California is on a fault line…

Yeah, so anyway, the oxygen didn’t do anything except condense a lot of water in my nose, despite having the “invigorating” flavor of eucalyptus. We were invited to “take the nosepieces home,” which requires a deeper lust for souvenirs than I have.

“And to my cousin’s daughter, I leave this canula, which I used at an oxygen bar in 2011…”

Anyway, I left Cali-for-ni-a for DC, where Meggles and I had an INTENSE writing weekend, which really deserves its own post. Our twitter followers got a taste of it (@2birds1blog @TulaneChris69), but it’ll take a whole post to really elucidate how wonderful, how unearthly, how phenomenal Meg’s Maya Angelou impression really is.

Tulane Chris and the Christmas Spirit

[Before we get to today's Tulane Chris post, I have a few items of housekeeping:

1.) I will pay you 10 whole American dollars if you write a brief, funny and heartfelt maid of honor speech, stuff a sleeping bag into your bra, strap on a wig and deliver it as me tomorrow night at my sister's wedding. Because right now all I've got is an open Word document with the lyrics to "This is How We Do It" in comically large font.

2.) I'm kind of buzzed and it's all because

3.) This is how we do it.

4.) Our big announcement had to be moved to next week. (Hint: It's not not that Tulane Chris is gay.)

5.) Every time I remember that my dress isn't back from the tailor's yet and tomorrow's the wedding, my stomach drops directly into my asshole and a few more years are shaved off my life.

6.) Washing down a painkiller with a glass of champagne before the wedding ceremony is a good idea, or isn't a good idea? Advise.

7.) What if it's half a painkiller?

8.) Happy T.G.I. Hagman!

As of December 17, 2010, Larry Hagman is...alive! And has these words of wisdom for my sister and her fiance:

"A marriage is like a salad: the man has to know how to keep his tomatoes on the top." - JR Ewing ("Dallas" #13.24)

I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I am sure I'd like it read aloud by a loved one at my hypothetical future wedding. OK, I'm going to go google public speaking tips and continue to not eat anything. Have a great weekend and yay Becca and Geoff!!! Take it away, Chris.] 

As you may have imagined, I’m not a big holiday person. If I were in charge of the calendar, we’d only celebrate Repeal Day (the American drinking holiday), St. Patrick’s Day (the Americans-pretending-to-be-Irish drinking holiday), Cinco de Mayo (the Americans-pretending-to-be-Mexicans drinking holiday), and Simchat Torah (the little-celebrated Orthodox Jews drinking holiday.) For some reason, though, this year was an exception. I was really looking forward to going home for Christmas, pouring some mulled wine into Mom, and making Texas-themed nativity scenes out of construction paper to confuse nearby children.

“This is, uh… Leroy, the Christmas Jackalope. He carried Mary’s bags out to the stable. He tried to get ice, but the machine was broken.”

I even bought a poinsettia, which looked very festive for the three days it lived. Today, thought, I made a mistake fatal to my newfound Christmas cheer: I left the house.

Is it Christmas or cold weather that makes street preachers emerge? They were everywhere today, like a swarm of devout locusts. In the ten or so blocks I walked, I saw:

-       A man holding a book in the air and hollering. I assumed it was a Bible and he was hollering about Christianity, but it could as easily have been a Harlequin romance in a Bible cover. I could only make out the words “Jesus Christ”: “Manamah bok-tu wah boh! Jesus Christ! Fo-tah-nah boh Jesus Christ! Rama-lama-ding-dong Jesus Christ!” He was either from outer space, or had received the attentions of a very devout, very distractible speech therapist.

-       A man wearing a hand-lettered sandwich board about how Ireland had declared war on the United Kingdom. I didn’t know if he meant in 1916 and just wanted to be sure we were all up to speed, or if he was part of a new “Al-Jazeera – Streetcorner Madman Edition.” He was handing out pamphlets and I badly wanted one, but… you know. Cooties.

-       Some guy handing out copies of the Watchtower. Now, my understanding of Jehovah’s Witnesses is that they believe that only 144,000 people will go to Heaven. I don’t consider myself a bad person, per se, but I’m reasonably sure I’m not one of the 144,000 best people who ever lived. (Best in bed, sure. Best at Yahtzee, you bet. But overall best, no.) Also, I’m reasonably sure there have been 144,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses by now, so isn’t joining that church kind of like buying a ticket for yesterday’s lottery?

-       The Israelite PDKU (or similar.) Every weekend, four or so black men set up a little stage and loudspeaker somewhere on Market Street and explain how Jews aren’t really Jews, they’re the Jews, Jesus was the Antichrist, and women should stay in the home while the menfolk go out and kill Whitey. I’m more upset by the shouting than the implied race war.

So, I managed to get to Old Navy still a lapsed Anglican. Barely, though – coming to home to a hot meal and a blow job after a hard day killing Whitey does have its appeal. I had a spat with some bitch in the checkout line. Now, on Earth, time proceeds in a linear fashion. Night follows day, spring follows winter, and you wait your turn in line. As I was checking out, the next two women in line behind me interrupted the cashier to try to return things without a receipt. Woman A took no for an answer, but Woman B, a homely little number, would not.

Woman A: “Can I change this size without a receipt?”

Cashier: “I’m sorry, but no.”

Woman A: “Okay.”

Woman B (Homelina von Shrew): “How about for a different color?”

Cashier: “Not without a receipt.”

Homelina von Shrew: “Just a quick exchange?”

Cashier: “We’re not allowed, I’m sorry.”

HvS: “Just… can I just switch these tags here?”

Cashier: “No, I’m sorry, not without a receipt.”

HvS: “I can’t just trade this?”

Tulane Chris: “I’m sorry, I’m trying to check out. She said no.”

HvS: “Well! Merry Christmas to you too!”

She flounced out of the store before I could poke out her eye with the receipt spindle. Now, explain this to me: she interrupts my transaction to harass the cashier, won’t take no for an answer, puts the cashier in an awkward position, and I’m the asshole? Why am I not “in the Christmas spirit” if I don’t think she should get to line-jump and nag? Should I have handed her a cup of hearty Christmas ale and bought her the sweater she wanted? Is that festive? Is that Christmasy enough for you? After that we can go home, light a nice toasty fire with all our receipts, and call 911 to bring us cheeseburgers. They won’t mind! It’s Christmas.

So, increasingly sour, I went to the fancy soap store to buy a gift box for my grandmother’s new pug. Ultimately, I’ve spent more money on his gifts than those for my human family and friends: in addition to the dog bath gift set I bought at the soap store, he’s also getting a pack of rawhide candy canes and a chewable platypus with removable squeaky eggs. (The idea is that the dog learns to claw the eggs out, which gets more disturbing every time I think of it.) The dog gift box features shampoo, “paw balm,” and a dry rub which I was severely cautioned about:

Soap Man: “That dry rub is to be used sparingly.”

Tulane Chris: “Okay.”

Soap Man: “It’s got cornmeal in it.”

Tulane Chris: “Okay.” (Cornmeal? I’m not going to fry the dog…)

Soap Man: “You don’t want to overload its fur with it.”

Tulane Chris: “Okay?”

Soap Man: “Put it in your hand first, then rub it on the dog. Especially on its neck. You don’t want to use a lot. It’s just to get the stink out.”

Maybe I’m just a prude, but when I think about “getting the stink out” of an animal, my first thought is not “better put cornmeal on its neck.” I use an old-fashioned Southern remedy called “brush its teeth and wash its ass.” Also, I bought it and I’ll do what I want with it. If I want to rub it on my own neck, I’ll damn well do it. If I want to whip it up with an egg and spread it on the dog and let it dry into a crust and carefully crack it off and pour wax into it and make a wax model of the pug, I will. Dammit.

Then I went to the liquor store. If anything could revive my holiday cheer… but it was not to be. As I approached, a man going in politely held the door for an older man coming out, then let it slam in my face. You know what’s great about liquor stores? Liquor. You know what a side effect of that is? No children. So why did a woman bring her screaming toddler into the liquor store? “Come, Tansy. Let’s go annoy the drunks. It’s Christmas.” Also, why do people with screaming children approach the problem in one of two completely ineffective ways: by doing nothing, or by yelling at the child? Let’s plot it out:

Child makes noise -> ignore it -> child continues to make noise until distracted by snail.

Child makes noise -> yell at child -> child makes more noise to drown out adult.

It continued. At the pharmacy, the pharmacist hollered a question about my “narcotics” (generic Ritalin) to his co-worker across the room, in front of a line of several people. The “burrito technician” at Qdoba winked at me and said, “See you tomorrow,” which means I can never go there again. He apparently has me confused with someone who does go there every day, which means I look like someone who goes to the burrito store every day, which implies horrible things. Either that, or he’s going to break into my apartment. I’m okay with that as long as he brings a sprig of holly – after all, it’s Christmas.

Thoughts I Couldn't Flesh Out Into Full Entries:

- First and foremost, I didn't forget about last Thursday's cracked out promise to do a "Spit in Porn" entry; it'll go up tomorrow. I need one more day to gather my thoughts on the subject matter. Because I have a lot of them. But like, a lot of them. To the point where the thought of organizing them into a cohesive blog entry is completely overwhelming. Thus, I've decided I shall spend all day today in a dark corner of a quiet coffee shop, pair of bifocals perched slightly below the bridge of my nose, brow furrowed while I flip through old leather-bound books on human sexuality, biology and...spit..., feverishly taking notes and yelling at the waitress for interrupting my train of thought to do something as pedestrian as clear my cup away, a-thank you. Because tomorrow's entry isn't going to be just your run-of-the-mill blog post—it's going to be my opus.


- Only 10% of me is shocked that my opus involves spitting on genitals.


- Based on my interest in "Nip/Tuck" and Louis C.K. stand-up, Netflix has recommended that I watch Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico.

That dog better be in Mexico to get cheap botox or because he deeply resents his children; anything less and Netflix and I are going to need to have words.


- There is no other music in the world that toes the line between "jolly" and "I'm going to kill myself tonight" like Christmas music. While I was waiting for Teresa to come over and drink wine and Christmas-ify my apartment with me last night, I put on my Pandora Christmas music station and started tidying up a bit. At first it was playing swingin' Michael Buble "Holly Jolly Christmas" type stuff, but somewhere along the line it slowly progressed into like, recently orphaned children singing through their tears about Christmas trees and songs comprised of a single, haunting bell echoing through the night that forgot you. I didn't even notice the progression happening; one minute I was making my bed and the next I was curled up in it, hysterically crying and wailing, "I'M SO FUCKING ALONE!" into a pillow.


- That being said, the Christmas spirit has arrived in the old Meg McBlogger residence!




My Christmas tree is kind of anorexic. And fake. And casting spooky shadows on my wall in that picture. And up until a few hours ago was covered in Luna bar wrappers and old US magazines in the crack between my bed and the wall—or my Shame Hole, as I call it. And by Luna Bars, I obviously mean empty ice cream cartons. And it's now standing on an old H&M pashmina covering a Jäger cooler. Basically my Christmas tree is the antithesis of Alex's fancy-pants real person Christmas tree:
Whatevs. Mine's got moxie.


- Speaking of Teresa, I never thought I'd say this to anything but the mirror as I gaze at my Thrillhouse tattoo (which, for the record, I do quite often), but this is probably the sexiest tattoo I've ever seen:
If Maryland pride is gay, then I'm the Old Line State's Bruce Vilanche.


- If all goes well this year with HannuClaus, I will soon be making the switch from a duvet to a comforter. I'm kind of bummed about it though, because truthfully I find duvets more comfortable than comforters. My problem with duvets, however, is that I'm an incredibly active sleeper and as I toss and turn all night, the duvet separates and gets pushed down to the bottom of the cover and I somehow manage to tangle myself in the entire apparatus and all of a sudden I'm having nightmares about being in a straitjacket and feh. I feel like it has to just be easier to get a comforter. I'm tired of not getting enough sleep because the ratio of duvet to cover is off.


Speaking of my odd little bed neurosis, there was a solid month in 2004 when my sister's best friend, Rachel, would sign into AIM for the sole purpose of featuring a new "Embarrassing Meg McBlogger Fact of the Day" on her profile. I completely forgot about this little gem until it was a featured EMMFOD: 

Embarrassing Meg McBlogger Fact of the Day: When Meghan was a little girl, her parents used to have to safety pin her pillow to the center of the bed.

Uh, A.) that's incredibly true and although safety pins aren't in the mix anymore, the odds of me being able to sleep if my pillow is off-center is still slim-to-none; B.) That being said, just the fact that safety pins were even involved in my bed time growing up makes me feel so Aspie's I'm shocked there isn't a social worker reading this over my shoulder as I type.


- You know what I've come to realize? If God forbid I ever run out of things to write about, all I need to do to get more material is simply go down into the metro. I don't even necessarily have to take it anywhere! I just need to physically enter the human cesspool that is the Washington, D.C. metro system and within 30 seconds, I guarantee you I'll have a story about how society is crumbling in upon itself and I want to set 98% of everyone I see on fire. Case and point:


I had the great displeasure of taking the metro to my parent's house during the peak of evening rush hour the other night. I entered the metro from Dupont south and from the top of the descending escalator I could see that the platform was packed everywhere except for the far end. "HUZZAH!" I thought to myself. Still reeling from Ren Fest. Apparently. "That's the side where the train pulls in; the first few cars are normally pretty empty anyway. I'll stand there!"


I slowly worked my way through the crowd and eventually arrived at the opposite end of the platform. As I stood there waiting for the next train, I felt very content with my situation as I had about five feet on either side of me free of Other Person. Which is exactly when an older woman walked over and stood directly in front of me. Let me repeat that: Bitch stood DIRECTLY. IN FRONT. OF. ME. She had more than enough room to stand next to me, but she chose to stand in front of me. And you know what pissed me off most about that situation? It wasn't that she was poaching my prime platform real estate; it wasn't that her person was about three inches away from mine and very clearly invading my privacy bubble; it wasn't that she was going to board the train before me although I got there first—it was that what she did was the equivalent of the people on "The Price is Right" who graduate from Contestant's Row by bidding one-dollar more than the highest bidder. You people are the fucking scum of the earth and if I'm sure of anything in this world, it's that there's a Hell and there's a special place for you in it. In my mind, here's the pecking order of Hell:

1.) Hilter

2.) Pol Pot

3.) An army of child molesters

4.) "The Price is Right" —and one, Bob! bidders

5.) Osama bin Laden

That's right, —and one, Bob! bidders come before Osama bin Laden. You people are collectively worse than the mastermind of 9/11. I am genuinely shocked that murders haven't been committed as a result of someone betting one-dollar more than the highest bidder, winning, and going on to play Plinko. Because Lord knows I'd kill you! I'd kill you, pry that fucking bedroom set from the Ashley group out of your cold, dead hands, and dance on your grave! And you can say, "Oh, that's just the way you play the game. Those people are being smart," but I completely reject that. You know why? Because there's a little thing called dignity in sport. I mean, we'd all win a few more football games if we went around shaking members of the opposing team, but nobody would actually do that because there's no dignity in that win. If you're going to walk into "The Price is Right" studios, come correct—know the prices of shit. Go to Safeway and do some recon; it's not that hard. A bottle of Garlique is $15.99. There. Have some god damn respect for yourself. Don't just wait until the fine Americans who actually did their homework place their bids and then bid one-dollar more. It's disrespectful to me, it's disrespectful to them, it's disrespectful to Bob Barker and his Beauties, and it makes a mockery out of what is undeniably the finest game show of the 20th century.

And that's why I hate the metro.

I dare you not to cry...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Here's my present to you: the most heart-wrenching episode of Family Matters in existence: It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Urkel. Enjoy!

Get a muppet involved and I'm DONE.

THINGS ARE GETTING RULL EMOTIONAL UP IN THIS PIECE...

Results of our Home for the Holidays Competition!

First and foremost, thank you so much to everyone who sent stories in for our little competition! Co-Blogger Chris and I read them and loled our pants off. And once our pants were off, we made love for seven whole hours. That's how much your stories moved us. They made Chris temporarily straight and me temporarily more tolerant of Gingers. Behold your glory. But of course there can only be one winner, so congratulations to...Nate Hinners!

Just kidding, that's not Nate Hinners. That's Nate Dowse, UW-Patville mechanical engineering major and All-City Swim Champ, who's picture comes up when you do a google image search for Nate Hinners. And while I'm sure Nate Dowse is a totally nice guy, one hell of a swimmer and a maven with a wrench, he's not the winner of the Jäger Tap Dispenser—Nate Hinners is. So congratulations Nate! We loved your story and it will run in all of it's awkward glory tomorrow! Enjoy the tap dispenser and take a (few) shot(s) for us.

(And for the record, yes, that really is me on the right. Told you my boobs were big.)

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):

Toria Johnson.
"When I was twenty, I met my first lesbian. Wait, what? I know what you're thinking. Was this girl living under a rock? I'd really love to say yes, because that would make me feel better about myself. Except...I lived in Bellevue. Which is essentially Seattle. And Seattle regularly hosts things like naked bicycle races. It's not exactly hetero-palooza. But whatever you guys, I am an embarrassingly oblivious person. So when I say that Louise was my first-ever lesbian acquaintance, what I really mean is that this is the first person who was explicitly labeled as a lesbian. But I can pretty confidently say I would have clocked her even without the debrief, because she spent 76% of her time hitting on my grandmother..."
Toria, you had me at "lesbian" and "enema."


Emily Clark
"...So to recap: we're at dinner having discussions and reminiscences of early marriage and how all the married folks met each other. The newly engaged couple start telling HILARIOUS (not) stories of how they just moved in together and it's so crazy learning all these things that you didn't know about the other person like zomg did you know Frank uses q-tips to clean his nostrils every morning upon waking??? etc. etc. Everyone chuckles and my mother turns towards me and says "Don't worry honey, you'll learn all about this when you move in with your husb--- I MEAN PARTNER." (caps/italics/bold added by me but seriously that's what it sounded like in my head). This, of course, halts ALL conversation, every head whips in my direction because HOLY SHIT, SHE'S GAY?!?! Whereupon I practically shit myself trying to swallow the food I had in my mouth and say Haha it'll be a husband fyi just in case you are all wondering ha ha ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

fffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

And, uh, there you have it. A long-winded telling of how my mom informed me that I was a lesbian in front of my family and 10 odd neighbor-folk. "
True or false...your mother and my mother go to I Think My Daughter is a Lesbian Anonymous (ITMDLA) meetings together?

Emily Shepard
"...I dated a guy about nine months ago (coincidental number, no this is not a story of how I have a lovechild.) We were not super serious. We were never bf/gf. And it lasted about 6 months total. I broke it off because I thought neither of us cared enough to try any harder at it, and I was done. Have we got an image in our head of how this 'relationship' was? Good..."
You just perfectly described 78% of every relationship I've had in 24 years of life. Tip of the hat to you, Ms. Shepard.

Lilly T.
"First, I have to warn you that this is a story that is disparaging of someone who is dead. So, reading it may secure you a place in hell. I don't know for sure, but I suspect it."
(Honorary win for best introduction ever.)

Holly Phillips
"...The year after, I got gymnastics Barbie for Christmas—a gift I specifically asked for. When I opened it, I was super pumped! I mean, her joints were like all crazy and crap. But my excitement was quickly deflated when my grandpa immediately asked, “Holly, why did you get the black one?” I guess you should know my grandparents are typical southern conservatives—they mean well, but in the end it doesn’t always work out. When I was accepted to Louisiana State University, my grandmother merely said, “Were there a lot of blackies there?” She refers to homosexuals as, “the gays” and thinks I’m a lesbian after I laughed at something Ellen Degeneres said..."

Andrea Koebbe
"...It began one Christmas evening when I was 15. The presents had been unwrapped, the food eaten, and my family and I sat around the room in almost silence whilst the realization that though we only see each other twice a year, Christmas and Easter, we still have nothing to say to each other slowly crept into my mind. Enter my mother. After putting away the leftovers she sat down and said, “I was watching this show the other day and it said it’s the aphrodisiac in turkey that makes everyone so sleepy. That’s why you are all so lethargic and quiet.”'
God, if only. That would justify why I eat so much turkey quite nicely.

"Wannabe McBlogger"
"...Well, either I drank far more than I should have or the weed was a lot better than I thought because the next thing I know, I'm staring at the empty seat at the table and ask...."Where's Bruno Seabass???!!!1" Where's.Bruno.Seabass. The whole table turns and stares at me with the expression just screaming "what in the fuckity fuck fuck?!!?!"

Me: You know, that huge black guy (please note, all 4 people sitting at the table were the whitest whities in Whitieville)

Them: umm...who!?

Me: BRUNO SEABASS!!! YOU KNOW! THE HUGE BLACK GUY?!?!?!?!?!!!! He was sitting right there!!!!

I even created a themesong for him...

Seeeaaaaabass du du dududu

Smoke some grass du du dududu

Kick some ass du du dudududu

...and so on....

Yup. I was hallucinating. In front of my boyfriend's mother. The first time I met her. I think I blacked out after that because I'm not sure how I talked my way out of it. All I know is that 6 years later I was married to that boy. His mother and sister-in-law STILL ask me where Bruno Seabass is. And a little piece of me dies every time they do."
I loved this story. Not to mention the points garnered for the pen name and for citing the classic Nokia game, Snake.

Mike Spurill
"...3) Holiday Party 2005: My good friends Ian and Colin were throwing a Christmas party which I was super excited about. They always had plenty of booze and were good company. The party turned out to be a hodge poge of Marys all shoved into a small two bedroom apartment taking turns lip syncing "Defying Gravity" and talking about who ever wasn't in ear shot. So overall it was a success. I should probably preface this story by saying that I am kind of the drunk mother of the group which usually translates into really aggressive cock blocking. About a half a bottle of vodka into Holiday Party 2005 I became uncomfortably irritated with one of the other gays. It's no secret that gays sometimes have a problem with any word that ends in the letter 's' and that we move our wrist fast enough to keep every light in New York on for a solid hour. This guy didn't talk a whole lot but when he did it was nothing short of un nerving. If Macy Gray had a stroke and then was asked to sing at the Grammys only days later out of sheer pity (and if she was ever asked to sing at the Grammys it would be out of sheer pity anyway) that is what this kid would sound like FUCKING AWFUL. Three quaters a bottle of vodka into Holiday Party 2005 we decided to go to the bar. It was about this time that I noticed Gay Macy Grays stroked out self was pawing at my good friend Ian. I could tell that Ian was getting frustrated and somewhat uncomfortable and I totally understood. Then I noticed that this kid had something in his hair. I am not usually a nice person I am a self described 'hater' but it was the Holidays and I thought I would help the kid out. So I walked over and said " HEY KID! YOU HAVE SOMETHING IN YOUR HAIR COME HERE!" He looked at me perplexed and terrified as I reached for the side of his head. My friend Colin happened to look over and shouted "NO!!!" I reached for the side of his ear and proceeded to pull what looked to be a string. It was then that Gay Gray began to honk....not scream HONK. As it turns out this kid was actually deaf and I had just yanked out some tube and a hearing aid. Everybody looked at me like I was the only Jew in the room. Everybody was shocked and I have to admit that I did feel mildly bad about the whole thing. I felt like I had just sucker punched Helen Keller's great, great, great, great, great nephew or something. A few people helped him get everything situated and everyone began to play it off ....awkward."
In the words of the great Rachel Zoe: I die.

Anna Fulmer

"...Wife: You know who she (me) looks like? Honey back me up, who does she look like?

Boss: I dont know babe, who?

Wife: Trevor, come on, who does she look like

Trevor: I dont know...

Wife: LIKE CONSUELA!! TREVOR, YOUR HELP, THE ONE WHO MADE US THE ENCHILADAS AT YOUR PARENTS HOUSE!!! RIGHT???

Full disclosure, I'm half Spanish, am pretty tan in the summer, and have dark hair and eyes. However, I in no way look like Trevor's 65 year old, grey-haired, squat, Mexican housekeeper."

Christine O'Brien
"...I then proceeded to tell my entire extended family about my friend Landon who had just been released from max security prison (after 4 days due to overcrowding in the regular jail) for serving alcohol to minors. I later told my mother that I had slept with this boy freshman year, in a handicapped bathroom, though I didn't find out about this fact until literally years later, when he tried to reignite the fire. Also, I used to cheat on my high school boyfriend with Landon's roommate, Alex. My mother was, how do I say this...not impressed."
I appreciate that my note on Christine's piece simply says: "Sex in a handicap bathroom. Christine, you are a girl after my own heart."

----------------------------------

Thanks again to everyone who submitted, thank you to jagershop.com for contributing the tap and make sure to check out the blog tomorrow for Nate's full story! <3

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It's hard to believe that the holiday season is already upon us. Hanukkah is already underway, Christmas is next Friday, and Wikipedia tells me Kwanzaa starts next Saturday. Wacky.

I don't know about you all, but 2009 has been a whirlwind of a year for me. It just went by so fast. It seems like just yesterday I was blacking out at Arctic Bar or some other ludicrously overpriced watering hole for New Years' (my goal this year is to remember the ball dropping...I have no memory of this last year). Not long after that, I was listening to Celine Dion's "All By Myself" and crying on Valentine's Day. Then pretty soon came Arbor Day and Flag Day, which were celebrated with copious amounts of trees and flags, respectively. Next, the first 4th of July I haven't spent with Meg in five years (and therefore the most depressing. See Valentine's Day.), followed by Bastille Day, Labor Day, and before you know it, it's Halloween and I still don't have a costume, so I threw one together in 5 minutes that definitely did not involve pants. Three short weeks later, I gave myself a hernia from eating too much turkey, and now, here I am trying to get into the holiday spirit.

In the olden days, it was never hard to get into the Christmas spirit, because as a child, you don't have to concern yourself with gift giving/decorating/sending out cards/etc. All you're concerned about is what the flip is going to be under that Christmas tree/Hanukkah menorah/Kwanzaa fruit when the time comes. And if it's not a pony this year, you're going to throw the most epic tantrum on the planet. This could apply to any year while you are still living at home, with varying levels of tantrum. Once your mom trots out the holiday decorations/traditions, you know it's on. Even after you move away to college, it's still fairly easy to get into the swing of things. A full month off to do nothing but celebrate the holidays? Yes and please.

Once you're out there in the world on your own, and you have to make the holiday happen for yourself is when it gets a little tough. The days between Arbor Day and Bastille Day are no different than the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas when you're doing the same thing for 8 hours a day. "Christmas is here," you say to no one in particular, because all of these spreadsheets are driving you crazy, "I had barely noticed. Powerpoint. Synergy. Conference call. Dilbert. Dunder Mifflin. More office buzzwords." This past weekend, I finished all my shopping, put up/decorated my tree, I even filled out all my Christmas cards, but I'm still finding the holiday spirit lacking. Maybe this is because I have yet to watch It's a Wonderful Life with the fam. (Which, if you think about it, a horrible Christmas movie. A movie about a failed suicide on Christmas Eve? Really, George Bailey? You're going to off yourself on Christmas Eve and ruin the holiday forever for your wife and kids?) All of the traditional methods of getting into the holiday spirit thus far have failed, so to help me help myself get jolly with it, I put together this short list of:

Co-Blogger Chris' Alternative Holiday Spirit Ideas

1. Take a tip from Buddy the Elf. Who better to help you feel the joy of Christmas than Buddy the Elf? (Who also talks to narwhals!) The trick with Buddy is to get rull rull simple-minded. Take a spin in a revolving door! Eat spaghetti with maple syrup! Spook a coworker in the bathroom by joining them in an impromptu duet! Literally any activity will get you in the Christmas spirit with the help of Buddy the Elf, because everyday is like Christmas for him. Sending a package via interoffice mail? Wow! It's like someone in your office is getting an early Christmas present, in manila wrapper paper! Listening to a voicemail at work? Santa sure could use that fancy machine, that would save space over all those pesky letters! See? If you believe it hard enough, even you can make Santa's sleigh fly.

2. Kill Santa. Whoa, morbid, right? But it worked for Tim Allen. One minute he's all "Santa doesn't exist and it's tool time and what have you," and then the next minute he offs the big man, and literally becomes Santa. It's sort of sink or swim in this situation, you are either going to get your jolly, fat ass into the Christmas spirit, or you're going to take a nosedive off some poor schmuck's roof and foist your responsibility on him. It's probably infinitely easier and far less dangerous to your health to go for the first option. Also, as Santa, you can a) eat all the cookies you want without having to worry about gaining weight, because it's sort of expected of you, b) see the world, even if it is at breakneck speed, and c) go home to Mrs. Claus, because have you seen how fine that woman looks in her red velvet negligee? Damn girl, don't hurt 'em.

3. Steal someone else's Christmas. Chris, back the truck up. First, you want me to kill Santa and now you're telling me to steal from other people? What kind of list is this? Well, my friends, the only real way to understand Christmas, is to understand that Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if, Christmas, perhaps means a little bit more? (Don't try telling this to 10-yr-old Chris, because he was dead set on getting a Talkboy.) Think about the Grinch. That ugly, lonely bastard is deadset on destroying Christmas. But all it takes is one verse of "Dahoo-dooray" (or whatever song the Whos sing, this always baffled me) to turn him into the most Christmas-y bitch on the planet. This could work for you, too. Try throwing a trash can through the plate glass window of a Best Buy and making off with a digital camera. Or poaching the Salvation Army's collection jug. Once you're arrested, you'll realize that Christmas was never about getting a new plasma screen TV. The only downside is that your cellmate, Spike, doesn't celebrate the holidays, so your good cheer will most likely go to waste.

4. Defend your house from the Grinch. If only the Whos were as resourceful as Kevin McAllister. Coat the insides of their chimneys with Who-pudding, or break with Who-ornaments and strew them in front of the hearth. You can bet if Kevin McAllister were Cindy Lou Who's big brother, the Grinch would never have stolen Christmas. And the Grinch would also probably have tetanus and a dire need for a doctor once he left Who-ville. I wouldn't say that Kevin McAllister didn't have the holiday spirit in him, but he was kind of a bratty little kid. An ingenious little brat, but a brat nonetheless. If I were in his shoes, I would have nonstop peed my pants in the attic while Marv and Earl ransacked my house. Tying up paint buckets and setting up booby traps? Eh, that's way too much work. I want my mom. But boy does he appreciate his family/Christmas after having defended himself and their home all night long.

5. Switch up your holiday traditions. Just look at Jack Skellington. No one went at Christmas with more fervor than Jack, simply because it was something new and different. If it's Halloween every Christmas, eventually, you're going to wish it was actually Christmas. Sure, maybe he didn't get it 100% right, but you can't blame him for trying. If you're hesitant to wear a Scream mask for the birth of Jesus, maybe decorate an Easter egg or plant a tree or champion civil rights. Holiday spirit doesn't have to come from eggnog and making out under the mistletoe. It can some from Oktoberfest beer and making out over a romantic candelit love-themed dinner. But Halloween at Christmas doesn't seem like a bad idea. Trick or treating for Christmas presents. Haunted Santa's houses (with ghost reindeer and zombie elves!). Halloween caroling? Eh, it's a work in progress.

So there you have it. Some different ways for you to get into the Christmas spirit. Though I suppose they aren't for everyone. I guess you can just drink your eggnog and sing your traditional carols like everyone else. That works too. I guess.

Becca says hoops are HER thing

From both birds to you, happy holidays!

We're going to take a little break to celebrate Chrismukkah, move (Becca to Arlington and Meg to Dupont) and start new jobs (guess who's DC's newest bartender bitchezzz???) but we'll be back Monday morning. In the mean time, as always thank you for reading and have a great holiday!

www.twitter.com/2birds1blog

Happy Drinking Game Friday!

Guys I have been totally Scroogin' it this week and I want to apologize. I've been going down an emotional spiral ever since I found out the following:
1.) Christmas is next week. WTF? When did that happen? I'm always horny for the holidays and I just can't get in the mood this year. Now I find out that I have less than a week to get it up?! I can't handle that kind of pressure and performance anxiety!
2.) Bing Crosby beat the sin out of his wife and was an all-around asshole. Yea, Bing Crosby. As in one of my favorite Christmas crooners of all time. Now every time I hear "White Christmas" the left side of my face hurts and I smell cheap whiskey and broken dreams.
3.) I have $46.98 in my bank account. This means that if I'm getting you a Christmas present this year, there's a 98% chance it will be made out of Popsicle sticks, cotton balls and Elmer's glue.
4.) Despite my best efforts and many interviews, it looks like I will remain unemployed through the holidays and into the New Year. That breaks my little soul into two equal pieces. And then pisses on those pieces. And then puts those piss-soaked pieces into a kiln to bake. And then I shall paint those pieces with tempera paint and give them away as gifts.

Man...the holidays are a really shitty time to feel like a big-fat-failure, what with all of the cheer and family newsletters people feel the need to "share." My mom was reading our neighbor's holiday newsletter to me tonight and I thought I was going to snap like a twig. Now isn't the best time to hear that Kari will be wrapping up her last semester at Law School after her wedding and Guy is using his extra retirement time to distill his own gin. That is unless Guy is giving me some of his distilled gin for free, and then I totally care. True story: upon hearing in a holiday newsletter tonight that some random friend of the family just had a new baby girl , I interrupted my mom with, "I HOPE IT WAS FUCKING BORN PREMATURE AND HAS A TINY HEAD AND A SPEECH IMPEDIMENT!!!" and stormed out. I don't really hope that. I just half-hope that. Because I think lisps are more adorable than kittens.

It's really not pretty though. I've spent the past week pretty much acting like when Ron Burgundy gets fired from the Channel 4 Evening News Team and stumbles around San Diego drinking milk and making fart noises with his mouth. I've increased my sleeping schedule tenfold. It's gone from house-cat to koala bear level. When I am awake, I just lay around my bed downloading apps for my iphone and feeling sorry for myself. It's pretty disguisting. (But my Tap-Tap-Revenge score is through the roof!)

I had a rude awakening today though. No it wasn't the screaming about premature babies and small heads that made me realize I'm acting like a complete asshole; I realized I skipped my blogging duties this week. Twice. I'd love to say I didn't blog last night because I was up late applying to more jobs or re-designing my resume. But that would be a lie. Because the truth of the matter is I was up late last night watching You Tube videos of "Bartending 101" and listening to old Beastie Boys singles in my bed. As rough as life seems, there's no reason for me to act like an anti-social 12-year-old boy from 1998. It's time to quit feeling sorry for myself and get back to my real life. And the first order of business: get in the Christmas spirit.

But how to do it? Making s'mores hasn't done it, watching Home Alone hasn't done it, picking out a Christmas tree hasn't done it...It's time to bring in the big guns. I need something that's going to pull mercilessly on my heart strings and kick me in the sentimental bone hard. I need a frog. And a pig. And a Gonzo. And a Michael Cane. I need The Muppet's Christmas Carol.

I talked a bit last year about how every Christmas Eve my family watches The Muppet's Christmas Carol and I weep like a small child in the arms of whoever will hold me. It's that God-damn frog. I think Kermit the Frog could sing "Dick in a Box" and I would get choked up and nostalgic. Kermit the Frog is essentially a puppet/amphibian version of Tim Gunn in my mind. But if anything is going to melt my black heart and fill me with holiday cheer, it's this movie. And a big 'ole Irish Coffee. Extra Irish.

So if you need a little help getting in the mood this year as well, let The Muppet's Christmas Carol be your Viagra. Take my hand, grab a box of tissues and let's get it on with The Muppet's Christmas Carol Drinking Game!


Rules!
Take a Drink When:
- Gonzo and Rizzo get into an argument
- Someone says "Merry Christmas"
- "Bah, humbug!"
- They break into song
- Someone complains about being hungry and/or cold
- Beaker flips off Scrooge as he and Bunsen are leaving Scrooge's office
- Jacob and Robert Marley (aka the Old Hecklers) laugh at their own jokes
- Michael Cane gets a visit from a ghost (sidenote: could the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come not make me shit my pants out fright every year?)
- THE BELL TOLLS ONE!
- Tiny Tim has a coughing fit
- Michael Cane gets teary-eyed
- Tiny Tim dies, specifically when Kermit says the following: "Life is made up of meetings and partings. That is the way of it. I'm sure that we shall never forget Tiny Tim, or this first parting that there was among us." (Yes I did tear up just typing that...eff you.)

Finish Your Drink When:
- They sing "The Love We Found" during the last scene and you're inevitably crying but trying to play off your tears by pretending to text message someone because grown adults don't cry and emotions are for losers. Damn. That. Frog.


Have a great weekend and look forward to a Becca post bright and early Monday morning! (Want your 2b1b fix over the weekend? Friend us on Twitter! Last weekend Twitter friends got to be the first to hear about Meg's drunken Britney Spears dancing shenanigans...come on, take the 5 seconds to make an account and follow us...www.twitter.com/2birds1blog) It won't suck that badly.