Mole Day!

I was waffling about whether to go to my ten-year high school reunion (it’s not till 2013, but it’s never too early to worry,) so I made a pro/con list:

PRO:

-       There will probably be beer

-       I can show up and talk about my “literary career”

-       I can try to have sex with that guy I always said I’d try to have sex with at the reunion

-       Romy and Michele

CON:

-       Several hundred dollars of airfare and car rental just to talk about my “literary career”

-       It’ll be at the high school or the County Expo Center, where they also have cattle shows

-       There’s an annual theater department reunion to which I have never been invited, and those people ostensibly liked me

-       The thought of being 28 and having my mother ask me when I’ll be home and insisting I call her if my ride has even one drink, despite the fact that she doesn’t have a car

-       It would bring back memories of all of high school, including freshman year, which in terms of horror was basically Eighth Grade II: The Awkwarding.

It was about even, and then I remembered Mole Day, so I won’t be going. Ever.

Now… let me paint the picture. Ninth grade chemistry. I really, really enjoyed chemistry on paper. I found in interesting. The class was a nightmare in three acts.

Act I: The teacher. Mrs. Anders was one of those people who’s really aggressively jolly all the time. She was always drinking out of one of those reusable gas-station mugs. Everyone said she was an alcoholic and her mug was filled with 89-octane screwdrivers, and I absolutely refused to believe them. Now that I’m grown, I bet she was tanked every second of the school day. You had to pay for lab supplies you broke – one time a guy dropped a beaker and she yelled “BUMMER!” at the top of her lungs. One – “bummer?” Really? Were you the understudy for the teacher in Encino Man? And two, don’t yell while teenagers are handling acids. Mrs. Anders was the only person I’ve ever met who said “cool beans” and meant it.

Act II: My lab partner. He was the most awkward person I’ve ever met. Meg and I joke about being awkward, but he was the real McCoy. We got in trouble because he lost our magnesium. How do you lose a chunk of metal in the three minutes it takes to set up a high school chemistry experiment? No one knows. This is the same kid who, when we went around to say what we were thankful for near Thanksgiving, said “I’m thankful for my multiple personalities.” I was always sitting next to him when he did something like that. It was assumed we were friends.

Act III: John Berman. In high school and early college, I didn’t really feel like being gay – can you blame me for not wanting to join a group known for public enthusiasm? I was willing to make an EXCEPTION for John Berman. I had a sighing, sweating, I-think-I-can-smell-his-Axe-body-spray, doodling-his-name-in-my-notebook crush on John Berman. I also had a lush, magnificent crop of acne and whiskers I only needed to shave every nine days, so I was resigned to lust from afar – and actually vastly preferred lusting from afar to having John Berman look over at my side of the room when my lab partner said “Mrs. Anders! I think we’re reaching critical mass!”

So, into this mess wades Mole Day. Do you know what a mole is? I do, because it is seared on my memory. If you have twelve of something, you have a dozen; if you have 6.0221415 x 10²³ of something, you have a mole. It’s the number of molecules in a liter of an ideal gas at rest, or something. It’s also the name of a kind of rodent. This whole story rests on that pun.

So, high school chemistry teachers, jealous of Pi Day (March 14 – 3/14 – 3.14, GET IT?!!?!?!?!?!?), established Mole Day on October 23 (October 23 – 10/23 – 6.0221415 x 10²³, GET IT ?!?!!??!?!!?), expanding the already bloated calendar of learning-opportunity quasi-festivals. We all had to do Something Involving Moles for Mole Day. It could be anything tangentially related to moles, of any kind.

Did John Berman simply write “Mole Day” on a white t-shirt in sharpie, looking both cool and hot? Yes.

Did my lab partner roll in with a homemade mole puppet that he made say disturbing things? Yes.

Did I wait until the last minute? Did I write a page-long essay on “Great Moles In History?” WAS I FORCED TO READ IT ALOUD IN FRONT OF JOHN BERMAN AND HIS BODY? Yes, yes, yes.

Now, looking back, that essay was kind of a cool idea. The only ones I can remember are John Moleton, (like John Milton but a mole, GET IT !?!?!??!), who wrote Paradise Lost in very, very small letters, and Wolfgang Amadeus Molezart, who adapted bows so they could be held in the claw. I’ve absolutely written worse things. I did not, however, have to read them aloud in front of the class.

So, naturally, the cool thing to do would have been to just own it. Make my mole puns, loud and proud, sell it to the balcony, and balls the balls off of it. Instead, I opted to speed-mumble my page of rodent-themed history puns. “Mrmrmrmmmrmrmr Oliver Crommole mrmrmrmmrmr Toad Hall mrmrmrmrmrmrmr Pope Moletus VII mrmrmrmmrr.” Did I stare at the page the whole time and pick up speed as I went along? Brother, you know it! It was so powerfully uncomfortable. I could have saved everyone a lot of time by saying, “You know what? I’m really weird, really awkward, and in about five years I’m going to lose an amateur strip contest at college night in a really shitty gay bar in New Orleans. Just thought you should know.” I was so obviously being forced to come out as weird. Most people averted their eyes in sympathy – of course, John Berman gave me a look of perplexed pity. The same look you give a hurt bird. There’s nothing you can reasonably be expected to do to help, but you’re sorry it happened, and you’ll be a little sad the rest of the day without really knowing why.

Later, John Berman had a kid with this girl who stole money out of the cash register at Quizno’s and ran away to Dallas, so we’re kind of even, but I still don’t want to go back up to the high school. If those walls could talk, they’d be saying “The unsinkable Moley Brown? Can you believe this jackass?”

TOWEL UPDATE:

Good news! Dan negotiated the return of Towel from all the way from Dubai!

Apparently his opening line to Alex during negotiations was, "You do not want to go toe-to-toe in an insanity contest with Meg Rowland." I'm not entirely sure how to take that. It reminds me of the time the "right" way to slit your wrists came up at a dinner party and I was like, "Oh, I'm pretty sure you do it vertically." My friend Sarah then said, and I quote, "Yeah, I trust you—YOU SEEM LIKE THE KIND OF GIRL WHO'D KNOW HOW TO KILL HERSELF." I gave her a single raise of the eyebrow and she was immediately like, "Wait...that didn't sound right. I didn't mean it like that!" But again, I don't really know how else I'm supposed to take that. At all. So in summary: my friends think I'm batshit crazy and a Venus Intuition away from suicide, but I'm glad Dan finally managed to talk some sense into Alex. Here's the deal: Friday afternoon, Alex and I will meet at Target in Columbia Heights where I will buy him a new, affordable towel. After that, we will go back to Alex's apartment—or his Fritzl cellar, as I call it—and we'll make the trade.

Nobody specified who gets final say on which towel I have to buy him, so I've decided to give Alex ten options. (Which, frankly, I think is more than generous considering I'm the victim in all of this.) He may chose from the following:

1.) The "Lanai" leopard print towel:

2.) This lovely and festive Hanukkah dishtowel:

3.) The "Peace Out" bath towel:

Of which Target.com customer "azhippiechick" says, "I purchased this for my granddaughter and she says it is far-out and groovy. The envy of all her cool friends." I mean, I'm obviously somewhat hesitant to buy him something that I'll only end up being jealous of, but hey—a deal's a deal.

4.) This moose wastebasket:

Which isn't a towel, but is nonetheless quite handsome.

5.) This Nazi towel I found on the Internet for the completely reasonable price of two-dollars:

6.) This genuinely adorable Buzz Lightyear hoodie towel:

7.) A specially embroidered Baptism towel:

(You may have to wait 2-3 weeks for that one, though...)

8.) This "Witch Parking—All others will be TOAD" towel:

 

I personally would go for this one, but you know me. I'm a sick pup. I've got that dark sense of humor.

9.) This uncomfortable tea towel I just found on etsy:

Because, you know, pussy hair.

10.) Or this Yoda bath towel that's perfect for the dyslexic Star Wars lover in you:

(And I know he's in there!)

So there you go, Alex! Pretty maids all in a row. Ten perfectly good, affordable towels that I'd be more than happy to buy for you. So which one's it gonna be, bud???

The Troubles

I just want to thank everyone for the incredible flood of support I got via blog comments, emails, and tweets after last Friday's post. And by last Friday's post, I'm of course referring to the news of Larry Hagman's cancer diagnosis. How do I feel? It's odd. At first I didn't feel anything. A wave of calm washed over me and it was like I was seeing clearly for the first time in years. There I was: actually staring face to face with my worst nightmare. I took its hand and we danced. It wrapped its massive hands around my waist and I pressed my chest against his and was confused by how I could hate something so much, yet yearn for it to hold me closer. To take me in its arms. To press its cheek against mine. To breathe in my scent and whisper, "It's going to be okay. I won't take him. I can't take him," before kissing me hard and deep.

Plus, I really wanted to tweet my support to Larry Hagman but he's not on Twitter, so that's some shit.

The sad truth of the matter is that I feel completely responsible for Mr. Hagman's diagnosis. I wrote last Friday's post early Thursday afternoon and sent it to my sister to get her feedback, but instead of writing "And this is where T.G.I. Hagman will go"...I actually wrote it. I wrote the T.G.I. Hagman. I filled out the date and said that he was alive. From Becca's feedback:

[...] Also, isn’t bad luck to assume that Larry Hagman is alive on Oct. 14? It’s still the 13th, anything could happen.

My response:

[...] And it was TOTALLY presumptuous of me to assume LH would be alive tomorrow and now I'm going to go vomit. I'm not posting it until tomorrow, so that's not jinxing it, right?!!?

I don’t know man, he is 90 or something old like that …

STOP TALKING THAT WAY ABOUT LARRY HAGMAN!!!!! HE'S 80, NOT 90!!!!

Sorry sorry, 80. He’ll be fine.

BUT HE'S NOT!!! He has cancer of the Hagman and it's all my fault because I wrote the 14th's T.G.I. Hagman on the 13th and said that we was fine!!! I don't know how I can live with myself. At least I have Towel to comfort me. OH, WAIT MINUTE—I DON'T.

If you don't know the back-story of Towel, you can find it here. I'll pause and give you a moment to catch up.

Are we all on the same page? Good. So, yes, Towel. Towel has been living with me for almost exactly one year and it's been magical. And then Saturday happened—this year's Meg's Fall Fun Day. Meg's Fall Fun Day is a yearly autumnal tradition dating back to 2006 where everyone gathers at my apartment, we go get breakfast, and then I drive us all out to the orchard in Woodbine, Maryland where my family went when I was a kid. We pick apples, eat hot dogs and fritters, and buy pumpkins and cider. Then we go back to my apartment, bake a pie, eat delicious foods, drink cider and wine, and watch scary movies. It is, without a doubt, the best day of the year. This year's MFFD, however, was raped. RAPED by my supposed "best friend" Alex, who stole Towel from me. ON MEG'S FALL FUN DAY, of all days. Blasphemy! 

After everyone left on Saturday night, I did a few dishes and then went to the bathroom. As I stood at the sink washing my hands, the towel rack on the back of the door caught my eye in the reflection of the mirror and I suddenly realized what had happened. I ran to my phone and saw that I had a text waiting for me:

What transpired next was the most intense, two-day text message conversation I have ever had with anyone. I present that conversation to you now, unedited and in its fully glory.

Alex: Almost one year later, I declare victory

Meg: I am literally speechless.

Alex: I play a long game

Meg: If you think I won't release your email on the blog and bombard you with reader harassment, you are DEAD wrong.

I expect Towel to be on the back of my bathroom door by 5pm tomorrow, or you've got a WORLD of hurt coming your way.

I dunno, I have a lot of hot yoga to do tomorrow...

If you touch a single hair on Towel's head with even ONE of your balls, I will make you pay.

You have 17 hours. Enjoy them.

We made it home safely.

16.5 hours.

Why don't I keep Towel until next MFFD, then we'll switch?

I don't negotiate with fiber terrorists.

If anyone is the fiber terrorist in this situation, it's you

16.5 and I leak your email.

Bring it on

Those are bold words, sir.

(slash don't actually do that)

—October 16, 2011 7:48 PM—

It's past 5 o'lock and Towel hasn't been returned. Interesting decision on your part.

Oh sorry. I've just been showering all day.

Over, and over again.

alex*******@gmail.com

Please don't. You may admonish me on twitter but I don't want my email out there since it's my full name.

Well, return Towel and that will be a non-issue.

People do crazy things when they lose the one they love. Craaaazy things.

You do understand that you do not own and have no legal right to Towel, right?

There is a power greater than your law—ANGER.

You know what's a really great smell early on a Sunday morning? Fresh laundry

You've made your choice. Time to suffer the consequences.

You had good times with Towel. Time to move on. I'll give him back next MFFD.

Fuck that noise! This isn't the Parent Trap! Towel and I have an emotional connection that you two never had and you don't deserve him!

He's mine!

Not anymore!

Since when? Since you took him unlawfully last year?

You know who you are? You're the biological mother who had him when you were 16 and gave him up because you were addicted to meth and couldn't raise him and I'm the adopted mother who gave him a good home and raised him like he was one of my own and put him through college and walked him down the aisle, and now that you've kicked your habit and found Jesus, you suddenly want a relationship with him. Well fuck that, hillbilly.

You'll still get to see him on holidays.

He doesn't even know who you are anymore! He's scared and alone and I won't let this happen.

Would it make you feel better that all the way home last night I kept looking behind me, half expecting to see you charging down 19th street with a pick axe?

No! That makes me feel like a failure because I didn't notice immediately and don't have a pick axe!

Don't sweat it. I actually did need another towel

OK, what if we do a trade: that pool towel you left here eons ago for Towel towel.

Do you not have any towels of your own?

(Speaking of the pool towel, I didn't even bring up that you have a history of reckless towel abandonment...)

Jesus...

Yeah, but none that I love like Towel! We have a history! We're both F-list internet celebrities! We understand each other!

You're putting up a remarkable fight for something that isn't yours.

Wow, that's what Hitler said to the Jews...

Re: the right to exist.

I'm not going to kill Towel. I'm just going to have him dry me off after showers.

I know Towel. That WILL kill him.

He was doing it long before you knew him.

We don't talk about those days.

Look, you left your gallon of cider here and bag of mini pumpkins. If I don't get him back, I'll drink the entire gallon and do Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred with the pumpkins down my pants.

(Not in that order)

So you're going to steal more from me if you don't get the first thing back you stole from me?

I didn't steal, I fulfilled my destiny.

And yes.

So you'd say you're holding those things hostage?

No. I'm just saying I'm thirsty and like to work out with gourds down my pants. So act fast.

Holding hostages and making demands. Now who's the terrorist?

Semantics.

Don't be dramatic.

Don't make me be dramatic.

I'm not doing anything to you!

I'm eating salty, salty chips and feeling kind of fat...I can't think of a few ways to fix this...

Simmer down

That's suggestive.

I know. Especially when you think about doing it with a bag of pumpkins down your pants and a belly full of free cider.

If you would like to have a rational, adult conversation about whether or not you'll ever see this towel again, you'll remove my pumpkins from your pants and keep the cap on that gallon of cider.

The time for talk is over. It's time for action.

Fuck that feels good...

You can perform the action of taking pumpkins out of your pants and not drinking cider.

And I will. If, and only if, Towel is returned to me.

We'll see

Think fast. You're down a pumpkin.

I'm pretty sure you can get it back if I jump up and down and cough, though...

This is by far the most absurd conversation I've ever had.

Well, you know how to end it
---------------------------------------

And that was our last communiqué. You know the worst part of it all? Hat's batteries are dead. Sigh.

State of the Meg — October, 2011

- Shit went down, I decided to give up on writing, I watched an inspiring video on Facebook, I changed my mind, I'm back. GUNS BLAZING. I was actually supposed to be back Monday with guns blazing, but then I realized it was Columbus Day and no one would be in the office, and Tuesday my Internet was shut off for the majority of the day because I hadn't paid my bill in a month of Sundays. Specifically three months of Sundays, which Comcast has become increasingly less cool about. But! I paid my bill and now I have $9 left in my bank account to get me to next Tuesday. If you'd like to put a tip in the tip jar, that would be awesome. If not, I've got some yogurt in the fridge and a salmon fillet in the freezer leftover from the one time I held book club in 2010, so something tells me I'll be fine.

- AHH, WAIT! BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE HAPPENS AND/OR I FORGET TO TELL YOU FOR THE 6,000TH TIME...our book, The Misanthrope's Guide to Life, is now available for The Kindle. So go download it, or upload it, or interface with it, or however that witchcraft and wizardry works.

- Re: yesterday's post:

IT WAS SO BAD, KYLE. So, so bad. Realistically speaking, I was probably hungover from Friday morning to early Saturday afternoon. I was so hungover I felt homesick. Like, there was that same lump in my throat and waves of sadness kept washing over me and I just wanted a hug from my mom. If I had a gun and a roommate, I would have asked to be taken out back and put out of my misery. On a related note, I'd like to apologize and/or say you're welcome to my Baja Fresh delivery guy, Jose. (I don't know if his name was actually Jose. That's just pure racism right there.) I finally got the energy to go online and order food at about 3:30ish, immediately fell back asleep, and woke up 45-minutes later to angry banging on my door and six missed calls on the phone I had whaled myself on top of. I then proceeded to answer the door in a negligee that in no way housed my breasts, extended a single shaking paw out the door, took my food, mumbled thank you, and shoved pork tacos in my face while watching old episodes of Wings on Netflix. And that's how it was for quite some time. So. Mr. Lethals. Not just a cute name for a drink. More of a lifestyle.

- While I'm issuing apologies, I'd like to apologize again to my Twitter followers for that obnoxious virus I got last week. I normally know better than to click on those virusy links that are like "LOL! I saw a picture of your dick on TMZ last night! Oh my god!!!! Look~!" because I've always got one eye on my dick and one eye on TMZ, but this one was practically tailor made for me:

 

GAHHHH! You got me, you bastards! You got me good. Given how Christ-awful things were going that week, it only made sense that someone was talking shit on some blog somewhere and I completely fell for it. I'm sorry. I lost a crap-ton of followers because of it, if it makes you feel any better. But you know what? That's your loss because you people are missing out on classic Evie/Meg tweets like this little gem:

evie pictures

Yeah, that's me and Evie. BFFs^max. Gettin' ready for bed. Making Blingees. Doin' face masks. I spent the last two weeks house/Evie sitting for my parents while they were in Santa Cruz and Napa (must be nice...) and Evie and I became freakishly close. We were inseparable. And I know you're interpreting me saying we were "inseparable" as like, "Oh, cool, they got a good snuggle session in here and there," but I what I mean is we were inseparable. Like, by the strictest definition of the word. She would not leave my side. I would have to walk her down to the kitchen to eat her meals or else she'd just stay in my bedroom with me all day and not eat. Typically sitting directly on my laptop. Here she is obstructing my view of the classic 1994 film Airheads:

Here is her paw:

Every time I went down into the basement to work out, she'd follow me and jump up on my chest and want to snuggle at inopportune times, like when I was climbing a particularly steep hill on the bike:

(I know I'm not anonymous anymore, but I'm sweating profusely in that picture and the Internet is forever. What do you want?)

So, yeah. No big deal. NBD, if you will. We're just two of the best friends this world has ever seen. Although it did get weird one night when I dreamt that I was back in college and couldn't remember my schedule and was stressing out, so my dream boyfriend and I snuggled on the couch and I was like, "God. This is so nice." Then I woke up and realized I was full-blown spooning Evie. Shit got a little too real, God bless me.

- My dad asked me to do two things while they were away: call Comcast and fix the Internet and set up their wireless printer. Because I already have an established relationship with Comcast (albeit a dysfunctional one), I took care of fixing that problem first. (And because I wanted to watch Airheads.) While I was on the phone with the Comcast tech, I had to go down to the basement, get on my hands and knees, and reach behind the router to unplug it. After unplugging it, I withdrew my hand and realized that I had just inadvertently grabbed a fistful of spiders. Just a whole handful of spiders and spiderwebs. I then managed to do the following without making a single noise or dropping the phone: gag and come dangerously close to vommitting, frantically wipe the contents of my right hand off on a Longaberger basket, jam the receiver between my ear and shoulder, and rip my shirt off with my left hand. I don't know why, but every time I realize there's an insect on me, my natural reaction to rip my shirt off. Even when it's not even on my shirt. This was particularly embarrassing during The Summer of the Cicadas when I was at Best Buy and thought I felt something on my back. "Megan, is there a cicada on my back?" I asked the friend I was with at the time. "Yes Meg, there is," she calmly replied. But then instead of batting the goddamn thing off me, she booked it in the opposite direction, I freaked out, hurled my purse into a rack of candy, and ripped off my shirt in the middle of Best Buy. I swear to God. Then, as I tried to regain composure and get my shirt back on, I heard this little "It's gone!" from halfway across the store in office supplies. Thank you, Megan. Ass.

Anyway, my whole point being, Chris and I worked off and on again for about a year developing a reality show with a few of dat dem der big time Hollywood producers, but they backed out a few months ago. Which is fine because, my God, the weight we'd have to lose. But every now and then a moment like that happens and I'm kind of sad I can't make a gif out of it. So much of my sadness is gif-related. You have no idea.

- I'm speaking at Hood College later this month about blogging ethics and when I told my mom the topic, she laughed-out-loud for a depressingly long amount of time. When I told my sister, she recoiled.

- Fitness First on L and 19th is on my shit list. Hot and heavy. First and foremost: we have to sign out hand towels now and they're limit one per person? Seriously? Where are we—Communist Russia?? Do you want me to till the fields and share my apartment with six of my closest comrades while I'm at it? Second and secondmost: they closed at four on Columbus Day and I walked all the way down there at 4:30 because I didn't know that and was all emotionally ready to work out and was instead faced with the harsh reality of two locked doors. Seriously? Columbus Day?? What is the point of a gym closing on Columbus Day? Do your employees need to go home to be with their families and eat their Columbus Day turkeys and sing Columbus Day carols and open Columbus Day presents around the Columbus Day tree? Shenanigans. Lazy, gym-related, Columbus Day shenanigans. AND that hot guy who's always there when I am didn't ask me out when I told him the score of the Cardinals/Brewers game the other day. I know that's not your fault because I was the one struggling to breathe and wearing six layers of sports bra at the time, but you certainly didn't help.

- While we're on the topic of policy changes, I have a new policy of my own: if you don't lock the door behind you when you go to the bathroom and I walk in on you, I refuse to be embarrassed. It's your fault, not mine. I am so sick of walking in on people in bathroom stalls and fitting rooms and having them treat me like I'm some kind of pervert trying to sneak a peek. I just have to pee, OK? I went to the bathroom, I saw a door ajar, I naturally pushed it open, and lo and behold—there you are with your pants down all, "UM, EXCUSE ME, DO YOU MIND?!" Yes! Yes I do! I don't want to see your junk anymore more than you want to show it to me! And the thing is, this happens to me more than it should. It happened to me twice this past weekend alone. Why aren't you weirdos locking the door behind you? Are you insane?? There's a lock on every public bathroom door in America—use 'em. And let me just address the obvious comment I know I'm going to get: "Oh, Meg, what barn were you raised in? You obviously knock before you go into a bathroom." Fuck that noise! Why should I knock? I'm not coming over to your apartment with a nice bottle of Merlot for an intimate gathering of friends and colleagues—I'm trying to piss at the bar. I can't hear shit over the Wilco that's inevitably being blasted anyway. Just lock the fucking door. And if you don't and I walk in—I will no longer be embarrassed. Effective immediately. EAT IT.

- Alex, Helena and I were supposed to go camping last weekend but it started pouring as we pulled into the campgrounds and we had to throw in the towel. Speaking of towels, I should have known the trip was destined for failure when I realized that I forgot Hat. (Let that speak loudly. Forgetting Hat, forgetting Larry Hagman's birthday...God. Get your shit together, Rowland.) We got drunk on boxed wine in an Olive Garden parking lot instead, so, I mean, the night wasn't an entire loss. More to the point, en route to camping, I made Helena and Alex try my Clear Eyes Cooling Relief drops and they LOVED it. "I know! It's amazing, right? That's why I blogged about it!" Helena was then essentially like, "No offense, but I thought that post was just some bullshit filler and disregarded it. I stand corrected." So, in summary, that post where I recommended you put Clear Eyes Cooling Relief in your eyes and run really fast down a hallway? It wasn't (entirely) bullshit filler. Try it. You won't regret it.

- Speaking of blog posts that didn't get the appreciation I felt they should have, I'm going to re-post the Vance Vance Revolution graphic I made. Not only do I think it's clever, it took an embarrassingly long amount of time to research and create it, and it only got like one comment that was just someone telling me to go fuck myself. So, JIM VANCE: the revolution will be televised.

- I should go fuck myself.

Current State of the Meg: Hanging on by a thread. Slash incredibly aroused by this crisp Fall weather! Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

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.