Live Fast, Die Young, and Leave a Moderately Attractive Corpse

So we had an earthquake! A legit-ass, LA gangster-style earthquake! And I was VERY much in the shower shaving my legs when it happened. Because really, knowing me, where else would I be when a 5.8 freak earthquake in DC hits? I actually kind of resent how perfectly wakka, wakka! it all was. The only way it could have been better is if I had been about to make my final move in a Jenga competition or if I was an Ace of Spades away from finishing a really impressive house of cards. But no, I was in the shower shaving my legs. And it was a time.

So I was standing in the shower, congratulating myself on successfully finishing my left leg, when everything started to shake. My first instinct was to turn down the music coming from the mp3 player on top of the John, because obviously that would shed some light onto the situation. I’m pretty sure this felt like a natural thing to do for the same reason why I can’t listen to the radio and parallel park at the same time. (Because I’m a ~GiRL~!) 

Once I had established that it wasn’t The Doobie Brothers causing my entire apartment building to shake (although, to be fair, Bose makes a hell of a speaker and Michael McDonald has got some pipes on him...) my next thought, naturally, was TERRORISM: WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE. It was at this point that I became acutely aware of how extremely naked I was and all I could think was, “Not like this.” I didn’t think about my friends, I didn’t think about my family, I didn’t think about my trademark fiery passion for life—I thought “we’re being bombed, my apartment is going to collapse, and some poor, poor fireman is going to have to fish out my half-shaved naked corpse from under my bathtub and I’m going to end up on the cover of Time like that kid in Vietnam.” As a resident of downtown Washington, DC, I’ve played out what would happen if there's another 9/11-like terrorist attack in my head plenty of times. Typically I grab my Handycam, head to the streets and alternate between delivering cutting-edge guerrilla journalism and nursing the wounded back to health via tiny, gentle sips from a Deer Park sports bottle. Rarely am I in the shower surrounded by my overwhelming nakedness, gauging how far up my leg I can stop shaving before ultimately deciding, “fuck it—I’ll wear pants.” While in completely character, it's just not the way I want to go.

As my bathtub rattled back and forth, all I could think about was this episode of Boy Meets World I saw once where Eric and his roommate move into this shitty apartment and Eric is all, “Dude, this place is going to be a chick magnet!” and his roommate’s like, “Just because we have our own place doesn’t mean girls are going to fall out of the sky!” and at that exact second, the girl from the apartment above theirs crashes through the ceiling and lands on their couch. I was 5,000% positive that my bathtub was going to crash into the apartment below mine, except instead it being like BMW where a hot girl gracefully falls onto Will Friedle’s couch, it would be me covered in generic-brand shaving cream crashing through the ceiling and squashing a gay man or three. I had to get out of the bathroom and find clothes.

I then proceeded to sprint out of the bathroom, through my closet, thereby bypassing literally every piece of clothing I own, and stopped at my bed. When I realized I couldn’t strap a Queen size bed over my genitals, I turned to run back to the closet, tripped over myself, and slammed my left (freshly shaved) shin onto the edge of my coffee table.

CASUALTIES! CASUALTIES 2011!!!1! 

As I crumpled to the floor, curled up in the fetal position, and accepted that the obstacle course that is my apartment (open studio apartment with AN single coffee table) had doomed my fate, it occurred to me that the shaking had stopped. I walked over to the window, pulled up the blinds and looked around. There was a construction crew working on the building next to mine, so I thought maybe they dropped something…heavy? But no, because the office building across the street had been evacuated. It was then that I finally thought, “Did we just have a fucking earthquake?” It was also then that I thought, “Am I standing in my apartment window at the top of the K Street Triangle gawking at people completely nude?” The answer to both of these questions, as it turns out, was yes. We had had an earthquake. And I was hanging out in the window, tits to the wind all, “Y’ALL FEEL THAT?!?!!” I’m going to skip to the end of this story and let you know that it took me a good 45-minutes to properly clothe myself. Getting on Twitter, trying to call people, and continuing to stand naked in my window like the star of the homeliest little whorehouse in Amsterdam all took precedent over walking 15-feet back to the bathroom to throw a robe on. 

The moral of the story is that I’m fine. A few picture frames fell over. The books in my bookcase aren’t perfectly lined up to the edge of the shelf anymore, which while genuinely annoying is nothing compared to my friend Dave’s fallen Snoop Dogg action figure:

While I’m glad that everyone is OK and it obviously could have been much worse and we’re all lucky and blah blah blah, this experience did ignite a fiery rage deep, deep inside of me. While continually updating my Twitter feed and waiting for AT&T’s network to get off the rag, I became obsessed with the smug-ass West Coast dipshits tweeting shit like, “Sorry DC, I’m from Fresno. This is nothing. #JustSaying”. The best one I saw was from this West Coast transplant who said something to the affect of, “Ugh, seriously MD/DC/VA? Stop calling people. I have actual work to do.” Oh, I’M sorry, asshole. I know in a perfect world we’d all be like, “SNOZZBERRIES?! WHO EVER HEARD OF A SNOZZBERRY?” and go back to licking the wallpaper, but in the world I live in where earthquakes are rare and loved ones are awesome, it feels reasonable to want to get on the horn and make sure everyone is OK. I was a microsecond away from retweeting her and adding “get in your fucking cage” before I remembered that we have a book to sell and 10% of $10.95 is $1.09 and half of $1.09 is 54-cents and the average Subway footlong is five-dollars and change, so perhaps I should stay in my own lane.

One of my biggest pet peeves in college was a group of people I liked to call “Weather Snobs”. Weather Snobs were those assholes on your floor who wouldn’t let you appreciate how shitty the weather was because they were from somewhere colder/hotter/rainier/literally anything-ier than everybody, and you complaining about the weather was a farce compared to their K-12 experience. You’d sit in the dining hall and complain about the 20-degree weather and they’d crawl over from three booths down, peeing their pants at the opportunity to be like, “You think this is cold?! I’m from ROCHESTER. In ROCHESTER we wear bikinis and flip-flops and roast pigs and thank the Egyptian sun god Ra for his sweltering rays in 20-degree weather, you fucking retard! You’ve never experienced cold weather until you’ve lived in ROCHESTER. GARBAGE PLATES! HOUSE OF GUITARS!” I didn’t think it was possible to find a more horrid group of people than Weather Snobs, but now I have—Natural Disaster Snobs. I’m not saying that yesterday’s experience could rival Haiti or Japan. I don’t expect the Red Cross to come knocking on my door today and offer to replace that wine glass that fell over or give me a Capris Sun because I look slightly parched. I am saying, however, that when you live in Washington, DC (or New York for that matter) and your building starts to uncontrollably shake for no reason, your first thought typically isn’t “ThiS iS gOiNg To MaKe FoR sOmE gNaRLy WaVeS, dude!”, it’s “Welp, they blew up the World Bank and we’re all going to die.” Sorry there’s nothing irreverent or ironic about that reaction. I'll tell you what: next time there’s a natural disaster and I want to call my loved ones to make sure everyone’s OK, I promise to do so while wearing an ironic moustache, holding a pug, riding a unicycle, standing under a string of pennants, and playing the autoharp. And instead of asking my mom if she’s OK, I’ll ask her, “What’s crackin-a-lackin’?” Can I take up your precious AT&T space that way, you fucking asshole?

…That being said, I did have people over last night for martinis and confetti cake, or Earthcake, as Helena dubbed it.

But, you know…you’re all still fucking assholes.

2 Birds Investigates: Bum Wine!

First things first: T.G.I. Hagman!

As of 4:48am, Larry Hagman is...alive!

Now, I have a question for you: Why? Why is it physically impossible for me and Chris to do an investigation that goes smoothly? Like, from start to finish; everything just goes right. We have a plan, we execute the plan, and then it's over. Period. No shenanigans. No embarrassing physical pain. Just a successful investigation. But no, apparently this isn't an option, as evidenced (yet again) this past weekend when Chris and I investigated "bum wine."

First and foremost, I had no god given idea what bum wine was:

Tulane Chris: "It's malt grape wine that's popular among homeless because it's so potent and cheap."

Meg: "Oh. So like a 40?"

TC: "No, that's a 40."

M: "So like that malt beer that comes in the big cans?"

TC: "No, that's malt beer."

Meg: "Wait...so it's wine?"

TC: "Why don't you on hop the Wikipedia, Princess."

So then I spent an embarrassing amount of time researching bum wine (big ups to bumwine.com!), which reminds me of the time Ex Co-Blogger Chris tried to get me to do poppers and we got into a huge fight because I did a project in 10th grade on Sudden Sniffing Death Syndrome and that's how people die, and he said he was pre-med in college so I should just believe him that poppers are harmless and I was like, "UH, BULLCORN," so we spent 20 minutes fighting over the poppers Wikipedia entry until we realized we were fucking losers and watched Hocus Pocus instead. True story.

Once I actually grasped the concept of bum wine, we set out to find some. This task proved significantly harder than we originally anticipated. Considering I couldn't find a liquor store in my neighborhood that sold Andre last New Year's Eve, I assumed trying to find bum wine around these parts would be fruitless, so we headed east towards someplace slightly more..."spicy"—Columbia Heights.

Ah, that's more like it.

Well, actually, first we went to Target where I impulse bought a floor lamp because it was on sale and I've been living off candlelight and Hat ever since my old one died, oh, almost two years ago. As exciting as this purchase was (and continues to be!), buying it before we found bum wine turned out to be a horrible, horrible decision on my part. Why? Because we had to go to seven liquor stores before we found one that carried bum wine and that lamp was fucking heavy. I can imagine we were quite a sight: two nerdy white kids hoofin' it up and down 14th street, one hauling a giant lamp on her back, panting ever-so-slightly and muttering a unique array of swears under her breath, going into any and every liquor store all, "Y'ALL GOT MAD DOG? YES? NO? NO? CHRIST!"

At one point we just flat-out gave up and decided to buy scratch-offs in hopes that one of us would win the jackpot and doing the investigation would be a non-issue. Gold Fever, baby!

Shockingly, that plan didn't quite pan out, so it was back to bum wine hunting. Thankfully we found a liquor store that carried bum wine shortly thereafter, so we loaded it into my giant lamp bag, flicked a 10 under the partition, put our monocles on and spun our canes all the way back to my neighborhood to trash our livers in the name of a good investigation, which we proudly present to you now.

2 Birds Investigates: Bum Wine

[Chris asked me to insert an animated gif here because he's quote, "trying to get into animated gifs these days." "O...K. Did you have a particular gif in mind?" "Meh. Dancing banana, I guess."

...Christ.]

How to host a bum wine party:

Step 1: Google "how to host a wine party". Apparently the three key things to notice are color, bouquet (what we bums call smell) and taste. You'll have to wait for the next morning to rate the intensity of the hangover.

Step 2: Take out two fresh glasses and a salad plate of nine peanut M&M's to "cleanse the palette" between "wines".

Step 3: Designate a legal heir.

Step 4: Decide the tasting order of your wines. Generally you want to go from light to dark with a rosé in the middle. However, if all of your wines are the same industrial pink, order them so that you'll be a little drunk by the time you get to the ones you really dread.

Step 5: Remember to set out an extra glass to pour the wine you inevitably can't finish into. Chris and I didn't know the technical term for this, so we just lovingly referred to it as "The Bukkaki Cup".

Step 6: Take half a Xanax, go to your safe space, and begin.

WINE 1: Arbor Mist Peach Chardonnay

For the reckless Mormon divorcée in you!

Color: I appreciate that in our notes, my observation was, "It looks like carbonated urnine," whereas Chris' was, "Like the bright clear yellow of a jaundiced man's eyes." You know it's a good writing partnership when one partner's writing fixates on body fluids and the other's sounds like a haiku.

Bouquet: Like if a peach had little Chardonnay barfs down the front of its blouse.

Taste: Image you're a baby bird and mama bird comes to regurgitate breakfast for you, but instead she regurgitates a sorority initiation party and a bag of CVS Peach-Os and then pecks you to death.

WINE 2: Manishevitz Cream White Concord

The Eleventh Plague

Color: It looks like urine. We're not even trying to be funny; it just genuinley looks like human urine. Like you could take it to the doctor, hand it to a nurse and the test would show: You are comprised of 100% Diabetes, but this is definetley urine.

Bouquet: Ooof. Sniffing this got me in a way. It smells exactly like a Bath & Body Works body splash I wore in middle school. It was the crucial third leg of the Meg McBlogger middle school fashion triangle:

Taste: 6,000 years of unbroken tradition, but their wine still tastes like simple syrup and Old Spice.

WINE 3: Mad Dog Banana Red

"Take me down to the Pradise City where the bananas are red and the girls are throwing up into the gutter"

Color:

Red is nature's way of saying, "DANGER!"

Smell: Meg: "This smells like nail polish remover and banana Laffy Taffy."

Chris: "Frankly, that may be what it is."

Taste: My favorite conversation of the evening occrued directly after tasting this:

Chris: "DO YOU KNOW THAT NURSERY RHME, 'QUEEN QUEEN CAROLINE, WASHED HER HAIR IN TURPENTINE?!?!'"

Meg: "No..."

Chris: [100% defeated] "Oh. Well. Nevermind."

This, in my opinion, was the worst out of them all. It just tasted like straight-up chemicals. Like a ration of Soviet People's Holiday Drink that got left behind in a Ukranian missle silo. So much so, we successfully used it clean Thai food drippings off my coffee table and grime off my bathroom sink:

It left a streak-free shine—presumably on our stomachs as well.

WINE 4: Wild Irish Rose Red

Chris told you Ireland was the Third World

Color: It was the closest out of them all to being a real food color. It was less DANGER! and more PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION!

Bouquet: Sweet like a first kiss—assuming your first kiss was with a truck stop hooker low on cash, but high on dreams and Newport Lights.

Taste: At first it just tastes incredibly sweet and you're like, "Well this isn't that bad." And then it tastes exactly like a licking a shag carpet.

WINE 5: Four Loko Watermelon

Banned at the University of Rhode Island!

[Note: Chris and I had no idea what we were getting oursrelves into with this one. We were at our 780th liquor store of the evening and needed one more wine or wine product to round out the tasting. In desperation, we went to the cooler to get a canned beverage and chose Four Loko simply because it was at eye level. The next morning, we got an email from a reader asking us if we'd heard of this new Four Loko craze and since then it seems to have exploded onto the National stage like a pink, caffeinated Christine O'Donnell. We really appreciate being 24 hours ahead of this trend because we were the kids growing up who were 24 months late on things like pogs, Airwalks and Mayim Bialik.

Here's what we were getting into:

]

Color: I was originally offended when Chris said this, but the best way to describe it really is as, "Hello Kitty's pussy."

Bouquet: It smells like if Jolly Ranchers had night sweats.

Taste: Chris and I were like the opening credits to Patty Duke when tasting this one: they walk alike; they talk alike; at times they even recoil alike—what a crazy pair! The taste wasn't that bad, but then all of a sudden there's a sleeper taste; like a fizzy, sour burn in the back of your throat that hit us at exactly the same time. You will never know how beatiful that moment was. It was like:

WINE 6: The Bukkuke Cup

"I'm not drunk! I'll prove it—I'll drink from the Bukkake Cup!"

Color: The Devil is a woman. And she's raggin'.

Bouquet: If you take a deep breath and look in the mirror, you'll see how you're going to die.

Taste: You know what it tasted like? Exactly what it was.

WINE 7: Garnier Full Control Hairspray: All Day Flexible Hold, and a paper bag

7,500 brain damaged teenagers can't be wrong

Color: Misty.

Bouquet: You can really smell the Fruit Micro-Waxes!

Taste: Headache. Dizzy. Really made us wonder how latchkey kids do it.

Thud.

Have a great weekend, guys! Lerve!

This week's most frequently asked questions, answered!

1.) You didn't pick my sex story, which sucks for you because it was really funny. Go fuck yourself, Meg.
Well, that's not really a question, but I'll certainly take it into consideration.

2.) You didn't pick my friend's sex story, which sucks for you because it was really funny. Go fuck yourself, Meg.
Again, not a question, but you're a good friend for taking time out of your day to tell me to go eff myself. You could always send some of that hostility Tulane Chris' way, though. Dicking your friend over was a team effort.

3.) I heard a rumor that Chris was pulling really hard for "Sex Minx" to win. Why'd he like her story so much?
Because of this excerpt, specifically what's in bold:

[Sex Minx is getting hit from behind by her boyfriend in the library. He pulls out because they hear someone coming.]

He stumbles back (clumsy fuck — no pun intended) and the condom had sort of come loose, apparently, so when he blew his load, he sent the condom airborne. A rooster tail of white cum and a white condom. Everyone got really flustered.

4.) That story should have been on the blog yesterday and not Pete's.
Well quit your job, abandon your life in New York, move back into your parent's house, start a blog, work really hard and then you can hold competitions and pick winners.

5.) Fine, maybe I will.
I hope you do.

6.) I'm gonna.
Good.

7.) I'm gonna do it right now.
Good luck to you.

8.) Here I go...
OK.

9.) Do you have any advice on starting a blog?
Sigh...

10.) I can't believe Kevin Yang won third place. That's bullshit. I actually tried.
To clarify, Kevin Yang didn't win third place, "Dan D." did. Kevin Yang didn't win any place. You reading this right now who didn't even submit anything? You placed higher than Kevin Yang did.

8.) Gahh! Your store doesn't ship internationally! Change that!
Let me work on it.

9.) I want 2b1b stickers, but I don't want the DC flag ones. What do I do?
I'll add logo stickers to the store later today. Although I don't understand why you wouldn't want to bring DC pride to wherever you live. A district good enough for Obama, Marion Barry and Kal Penn (and Meg McBlogger...) isn't good enough for you?

10.) I mean, not really.
Well. I respect your honesty. I guess.

10.) I ordered something from your store!
Thanks man!

11.) When will I get it?
In about two weeks.

12.) TWO WEEKS?! Are you fucking kidding me? I want my shit now!
Dude, trust me, I know. I want my tote bag just as badly as you do, but we're still setting up our inventory and figuring everything out, so we need everyone in the first order to be patient with us.

13.) Fuck patience, I want my tote!
I don't physically have a tote bag to give you.

14.) Well, give me something else.
What do you want?

15.) A BJ wouldn't hurt.
Trust me, an invisible tote would probably be more satisfying.

16.) $20 for a canvas tote bag is highway robbery.
So don't buy one.

17.) Yeah. But it's the principle of the matter.
Well, we jacked up the price a bit because all of the proceeds go towards supporting the blog and we didn't think you guys would mind paying a little extra if you knew it was going towards the 2b1b Investigates travel fund, computer stuffs, new projects, etc.

18.) Oh. Well when you put it like that, I'm cool with it.
Awesome—shop2birds1blog.com.

19.) No, I'm still not going to buy one. It just doesn't offend me as much anymore.
Oh. Well, thank god for that.

20.) Did you see that Kevin Yang wrote something on his blog about you guys?
No I didn't and I don't want to know what it says, so don't tell me! Likewise, Kevin Yang emailed me and Chris yesterday and I have zero plans of reading it. Ever. I know the subject is "Hi" and the first line is, "Hey, Thanks again for the post? I don't know what to take away from it, but..." and that's knowing too much already. I refuse to let Kevin Yang become a real person and I refuse to let The Kevin Yang Experience become sullied. Reading an email from him or reading a blog post about his reaction to our obsession would humanize him way too much for my liking. I don't want him to justify anything, or clarify anything, or apologize for anything, or not apologize for anything and I sure as shit don't want his writing to improve or his ego to deflate. I want him to stay exactly the way he was Tuesday night: a racist gay Asian who works as a bakery assistant in Orlando and sent in a recycled blog entry 21 minutes late and not spellchecked. That is who I need Kevin Yang to be. And any contact with him from here on out will only change that and make him significantly less funny to me, which is something I just can't have. I'm sorry. My therapist wants me to become more comfortable with the idea that my needs aren't selfish, so I'm going to take a stand here and now and say that I need the Kevin Yang Experience to remain pure.

21.) A simple "no" would have sufficed.
...

22.) Quick question, what did Andrew of the Great Juno Debate fame say last night at dinner that made you laugh so hard you almost vomited nachos and Bud Light everywhere?
"Kevin Yang and the Orlando Sound Machine."

23.) God, can you imagine what that album cover would look like?
Yes.



24.) What would a Kevin Yang doo-wop group be called?
The Yang-a-Langa Ding-Dongs.



25.) What did Austin text you yesterday that made you cackle-out-loud in line at CVS, thereby making everyone else turn and look at you while you stood there and felt like a complete jackass?
"Yang On a Hot Tin Roof."

26.) ...You went home and photoshopped something for that, didn't you?
No, how much time do you think I have? (............Yes.)



27.) According to Andrew, what would a Kevin Yang Meat Loaf-based band be called and what would their breakout hit be?
Yang Loaf—"I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Go Black)"



28.) Is this what you're doing with your expensive graphic design degree these days?
YEP. And I'm not even mad.

29.) Why does my mouth taste like stale bourbon and Sue Ellen's lipstick?
Because it's T.G.I. Hagman!



As of 5:47am on May 28, 2010, Larry Hagman is...alive! Zomfg. Larry Hagman/Kevin Yang mash-up: Larry Yangman. Wet. Dream. Come. True.

30.) Last question: Does Queer Abby have some doozies for us this week?
Ooof. Does she ever.

My Dear Queer,

Is that offensive? [Not really] Should I have tacked on the Abbey part? [Most Definitely] I mean, I'm mostly just tickled that the words 'dear' and 'queer' rhyme, so that's really what I was going for, but I like to feel like I'm all hip and with it, but I was raised in super conservative religious household and have no idea how to actually balance being hip and with it with not being offensive. And that's not even my real problem. [Phew]

My conundrum is this: I'm engaged, right? And my fiance is the tits. Seriously, he's amazing and I could totally gush and gush for days about how tit-tacular my fiance is (metaphorically speaking, of course. He's probably like a AA cup). And I'm in love with him, which is largely why I agreed to marry him in the first place, because Lord knows it wasn't for his ten year old desktop computer or impeccable taste in Hawaiian shirts. But despite being very much in love with my fiance and totally full-steam ahead with the wedding and marriage and eventual reproduction and all that jazz, I keep having these Nam-like flashbacks to what it was like when I was with my most recent ex.

You see, my ex and I were pretty nuts about each other. By which I mean, we were young and had all sorts of hormones all over each other and thought it was emotion. They were really intense hormones, though. Like, so intense that I really question whether I will ever experience anything remotely as intense with anyone ever again.

I mean, it's not like I want to get back with my ex. I do not. He dropped out of school to work at a drive-through liquor store and has no intention of ever finishing his education. He has no goals and no aspirations and the last thing I want to be saddled with for the rest of my life is a giant fixer-upper project of a man. Also, he listens to Soulja Boy unironically and thinks it's good music, which I'm not sure I can handle. I'm just a little bit worried that I don't feel anything even close to as intense with my fiance, who is so good to and for me and whom I honestly do love and adore. So, Queer Abbey, my question is this: How can I alleviate some of this baggage? I would really like to be able to just move forward into a healthy and happy relationship with my husband-to-be, but I'm not sure how to do that with all these awesome memories of another man.

Love,

Apologist Zoologist

Dear AZ,

Here are a few things out front that I would like you to keep in mind:

1) No one ever feels the same way about two different significant others. They’re different people, who have different things to offer, bring out different things in you and (hopefully) occur in different stages during your life.

2) It’s not abnormal to view former lovers through rose-tinted glasses. Unless the relationship ended over something totally egregious, or the person ended up being crazy, abusive or a lying, cheating shit bag, you’ll probably (eventually) remember the good times over the bad.

3) When you’re around the corner from committing to one person for the rest of your life, it makes total sense that you would wonder/worry about who/what you’ll never have again.

But more generally, AZ, remember this: there are infinite opportunity costs for every decision we make. The trick is to be thoughtful enough in making them that you can see what you’re missing, and still be 100% confident in the reasons you made the choice you did. It sounds to me like you have your reasons, so you just need to concentrate on reveling in what you have, rather than dwelling on what you don’t.

All that said, I do have one caveat. I'm glad you speak very highly of your fiancé, but make sure those feelings are genuine. A lot of times when we feel the need to sell our decisions to others, we are actually just trying to alleviate our own doubt. If you think there’s any chance your fiance looks great on paper and you know he’s the kind of guy you should be with, but deep down you’re not entirely convinced he’s really what you want right now, you need to give that some serious thought before you walk down the isle.

Honestly though, I would be way more worried about that last possibility if you had said, unlike this one, most of your previous relationships were incredibly intense. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like that's the case. So my final piece of advice is this, see if you can isolate what made that previous relationship so intense. Maybe it had nothing to do with your ex, specifically, but some sort of fantasy or sexual rapport your interaction with him lended itself to. If that’s the case, maybe it’s something you can inject into your current relationship.

It's instances like these that I can't help but wonder, What Would Kevin Yang Do (WWKYD)?

1.) Stop writing in full sentences and italicize random words just for fun.

2.) Frost a cupcake.

3.) Get a restraining order against Meg & Tulane Chris from 2birds1blog.

4.) Close your eyes, spin around, stop, point to something and open your eyes. Write down whatever it is that you're pointing to.

5.) Close your eyes, spin around, stop, point to something and open your eyes again. Now write that thing down.

6.) Compare those two things in a nonsensical simile.

7.) Pat yourself on the back for being such a clever writer.

8.) Say something racist.

9.) Put on a Beyoncé mix and dance like Elvis is about to ship out.

So, dear reader, I recommend that you do all of the above and post haste! You're welcome.

Dear Queer Abby,

I've kind of reached the limits of dating in this city. My long-term bf broke up with me last year, and it took a while for me to give enough of a fuck to attempt dating (honestly, the first attempt at dating I've had to make in six years... yikes). And, I'm pretty sure I'm a total fuck up at it. I've hit it off with a few guys, but the pattern seems to be something like this:

1) Dude approaches me at bar/club/brunch/ whatevs
2) Sparkling conversation ensues
3) Dancing/making-out/mutual friends/escalating dares leads to digits exchanged
4) Date #1 and #2 are good (and I feel confident enough to text... and I think this is my downfall. You see, I enjoy sending a good text OR taking the initiative and inviting them to do something)
5) Hopes/daydreams build
6) I lose my edge and get suuuper unsure of myself/start to wonder what I'm doing "wrong" as he seems to be communicating less or making fewer plans (and I probably overcompensate at this point by trying harder)
7) He's just "not into it" or "wants to be friends for fear of someone [me] getting hurt".

For reals, what do I do? I can't help getting excited about it, but then I lose confidence and poof, c'est tout.

Tips?

Thanks, love your work!

Determined to Not Die Alone in my Apartment in DC

I promise you’re not fucked up at it. In fact, I’d say you’re doing about five sevenths of it just fine. Seriously, a little hope can be healthy and the reaching out and taking initiative thing can be perfectly ok as well...within reason. Even a little insecurity is completely natural, especially since you’re still working on getting your sea legs in the dating world. The main problem I see here is the bit about over-compensating. Trust me, if he really lacks interest, you can’t possibly compensate for that with your hyper-interest. And, more importantly, why would you want to? You deserve to be with someone who thinks you’re worth working for and is, at very least, going to meet you half way.

Beyond that, it doesn’t matter how determined you are, there really isn't much you can single-handedly do to change his opinion or the course that the courtship will take (short of completely misrepresenting yourself, which I NEVER advise). These things tend to come down to the most inflexible factors on the planet: namely timing and chemistry. Both of you are either ripe for getting into a relationship, or you’re not; and there are either sparks flying from both directions, or there aren’t. It doesn’t necessarily say anything bad about either of you if those conditions aren’t met; you two just aren’t the right match at the right time (most aren’t!). So, don’t start to second-guess yourself, don’t lose confidence and don’t try to change or deny the situation at hand.

Instead, be patient, temper those hopes and dreams for a bit and keep dating around until some guy comes a long and proves that he’s willing and able to do it right. Remember confidence is attractive. So demonstrate your confidence and sense of self worth by walking away when someone seems disengaged. I promise you’ll look better and feel better for it, and eventually you’ll meet the right person.

Wait...you meet people at brunch? That's 3-parts impressive and 1-part questionable. When I'm at brunch I'm usually hungover, cramming sausage links in my mouth, not wearing makeup and sweating Miller High Life. God bless the man who would want to chat that up. I have no advice for you because if you're meeting people at brunch, you're doing significantly better than I am at dating in DC. But then again, the sausage links and Yang obsession probably aren't really helping anything. Although in the immortal words of Luke Connelly from More to Love, "No regrets..."

Welp, that's going to do it for us here at 2b1b this week. A huge thank you to everyone who bought something from the merch store and/or sent in a sex story this week. We really appreciate all you do to support us. Hope you have a great weekend and we'll see you back here Monday morning! Laterzzz.