Worst of Netflix: Dirty Love

[FYI: Meg is horribly sick. You'll get your Jersey Shore recap and Ren Fest recap and Queer Amy and all the other stuff she owes you next week. I talked to her night before last and she sounded like shit and had no time for my jokes about fingerblasting, so I'm going to take that as a sign that she's not faking. But for the record, Larry Hagman is alive.]

It’s interesting how broad the term “movie” really is. Gone with the Wind, The Queen, and Dirty Love are all movies. The first gives us sweeping drama, beautiful sets, and exquisite costuming, all of which work together to evoke a world gone by; the second contains talented actors giving bold, imaginative performances that create memorable characters, and the third was written by Jenny McCarthy.

I am exactly the right age to remember Jenny McCarthy. I was in seventh grade when her “sketch” “comedy” “show” was on the air, and so I still think of her as an MTV actress first and “the autism lady” second. Thank God something distracted her; Western free-market democracy couldn’t have handled another written-by-and-starring-Jenny-McCarthy sledgehammer to the throat. Al-Qaeda briefly used clips from this movie in their training videos, but were forced to stop when the terrorists-to-be just shrugged and said, “Why blow anything up? Their whole civilization should be collapsing in, say, 45 minutes? We can just take the bus over afterwards.” Plotless, classless, and witless, Dirty Love is the most boring time you’ll ever spend being offended.

I’m tempted to just type up my notes and let you draw your own conclusions. Blogging certainly does open new frontiers; I never thought I’d look over my own notes and see the phrases “Is Carmen Electra the tranny or the ‘black girl?’ Brad Pitt’s throbbing cock. She shat on the bed. Why is he lunging like that?” so chalk one up for experience and let’s get started.

If you can believe it, the movie opens with a flashback and a voiceover. Rebecca (Jenny McCarthy) and some generic “hot” guy are at Coney Island or the Jersey shore or something. There’s sand, soft serve ice cream, and a lot of smiling at each other. The voiceover opens with the phrase “Love is so great…” and rattles on in the same vein. There’s a little unintentional humor when she says that falling in love made her feel as if “the butterflies in her belly dusted off their cobwebs and started fluttering again.” Does she know what happens to butterflies that land in spiderwebs?

We cut to Rebecca on a Hollywood street, screaming “Oh my GOD!” seven times and making sobbing noises. She sounds like a wildebeest in rut, but she’s supposed to be merely a weeping woman. She says “funny” thinks to passersby, including transsexual prostitutes, a biker and a bum, whose cigarette she steals. We flash back to earlier that day, when she arrived home from her job as a photographer (it has Plot Significance! REMEMBER THE CAMERAS) to find her boyfriend slamming some random broad. We only see her lower legs, pressed against Generic “Hot” Guy’s chest as he rubs his own nipple, fixes his hair, notices Rebecca, greets her awkwardly, and comes. It’s the most convincing acting in the whole movie.

What do you do when you’re upset and need a friendly ear and a shoulder to cry on? Rebecca goes to her psychic, a cameo by either a pre-D-list Kathy Griffin or an unconvincing Kathy Griffin impersonator. She does a bad impression of her own trademark rapid-fire sarcasm, spouting some “oooh, mystical” horseshit about love and quest and darkest before the dawn, ending with a nail-through-the-forehead-subtle piece of foreshadowing: Rebecca is to look for a WHITE PONY, which she will ride off into the sunset. Chekov said of playwriting that if the author places a gun on stage in the third act, it must go off by the third. McCarthy has chosen a water cannon full of chocolate laxative, rolled front and center with a knowing wink, but it’s the same idea. Sort of.

There’s a kind of muddled scene where she calls a friend and they decide to go shopping, while two other friends go to G”H”G’s house to get Rebecca’s cameras. (I told you they were important.) The friend that goes shopping with her looks like a clearance-aisle sex doll, and she delivers all her lines in a jerky, perplexed baby-doll voice that is presumably supposed to evoke Marilyn Monroe but really just makes us think she doesn’t speak English and has leaned all her lines phonetically, with no idea of their meaning. They have an unsettling conversation about how, after this morning’s events, even BRAD PITT’S THROBBING COCK wouldn’t interest her in sex. Aren’t we beyond Brad Pitt as the default attractive man? He’s married to that lunatic who keeps adopting everything in sight: children, causes, cities, rhesus monkeys… Can’t someone else’s cock throb?

Let’s just say for example. There’s the requisite conversation about “just ‘giving up’ and becoming a Lesbian,” which should be profoundly offensive – homosexuality isn’t some last sexual redoubt before oblivion that we retreat to, bloodied failures at the red-in-tooth-and-claw merry-go-round of heterosexuality – but by now “Lesbianism-as-failure-as-woman” has been so overdone that even Eve Ensler can barely get annoyed by it. Jenny McCarthy picks her teeth and hits on a married man, then everyone slaps each other.

Cut to the friends going to retrieve the cameras. We need to talk about race for a second. Carmen Electra, who I believe is Hispanic, plays a white girl who acts like a stereotypical black girl. It’s incredibly offensive. George Wallace would be offended. Jefferson Davis, in whatever reincarnation he now inhabits, shudders and doesn’t know why whenever anyone watches this movie. She’s so offensive that I feel guilty for realizing what she’s doing. She has a gun, uses terrible grammar, and talks about how Rebecca should get pregnant “so she can get food stamps.” In this scene, she has on a tank top that says “got ho’s?” [sic] Frankly, I feel I should put [sic] after every mention of this character. Anyway, she and some generic small guy named John (I assumed he would be Standard Faggot, but he isn’t) go to pick up Rebecca’s cameras from G”H”G’s house. He pees on the guy’s sofa; she shits on his bed. G”H”G comes home and there’s an awkward confrontation where John kind of… lunges at G”H”G like he has a severe tic, but also wants a kiss.

Rebecca and Sex Doll go to Sex Doll’s audition for a commercial for a Safari Texas-style animal theme park. Some guy in the waiting room picks his nose and eats it. The guy next to him is rubbing his junk through his jeans. The next two men are looking at each other with longing, and the fifth one chats Rebecca up before sniffing her body and going into some kind of sexual frenzy, causing Rebecca to hallucinate that he is G”H”G and throttle him. Meanwhile, Sex Doll is setting them both up on a double date with the men she’s auditioning for, who are Jews.

Hep, hep. Jerusalem is lost. The Jews are about as offensive as the “black” girl, but aren’t played by as talented actors. When Sex Doll, Rebecca, and The Jews get to their date that night, the Jews writhe, mumble inaccurate Yiddish and writhe. If you ever wondered what a collaboration between Woody Allen and Leni Riefenstahl would look like if robbed of all artistic merit, look no further; otherwise, look away. Rebecca is wearing a dress with navel-deep cleavage, patterned in a Golden Girls stripe of aqua, purple, and navy. In a brief scene in the bathroom, there’s another little gem of humor as we learn that McCarthy failed genetics in high school. “These guys are one chromosome away from being Woody Allen!” They’re “one chromosome away” from being women. They’re “one chromosome away” from having Turner’s or Down syndrome. A chromosome… is not what she thinks it is. Ultimately, one of The Jews vomits down Rebecca’s exposed cleavage. Predictably, she reacts by screaming “Oh, my God” several times and tearing frantically at her dress, revealing both breasts. She’s tanned too much and they’re not at their best. Meanwhile, John tangles with a freakishly tall woman who is attracted to him. You know you’re grasping at straws when you think to yourself, “Oh, I hope that’s not Jenna Elfman standing on a cinderblock. I hope she didn’t have to do this.”

John and Rebecca go to a diner, where Rebecca cleans the Jew-vomit off her tits and John practices declaring his love for Rebecca. He starts off:

“Every single day, you teach me to be a better person, but for some reason you will not let someone love you the way you deserve to be loved.”

Twenty minutes ago, this woman was screaming mild blasphemies as she exposed her vomit-covered breasts to a crowd of onlookers. If this teaches him to be a better person, what the hell does he do at night?

Anyway, she misunderstands him, and after eating a sundae like a pig (the melted ice cream pouring down her chin is supposed to look like semen! GET IT? SEMEN!) she goes home with the man sitting on her other side. At his apartment, she goes on a drug trip. Why do shitty movies always include a drug trip, and why are they always so unrealistic? Hadn’t a single person on this crew ever genuinely taken drugs? Anyway, “tripping balls” she goes into the bedroom, and the guy has a frozen fish in his ass. He yells “touch my bass” a few times. Yeah, yeah. Freaks. We get it. Gooble, gobble. One of you. There’s a “coma montage” as she sleeps off the “ecstasy,” we see fish marks on her back indicating that she had wild, piscine sex with Touch My Bass. She announces that Aunt Flow came a little early, and – uh-oh! – there aren’t any tampons in the house!

Well, the minstrel show becomes a menstrual show. The reader who recommended this movie to me (fuck you, Michelle) did warn me that there was a scene where Jenny McCarthy has her period all over a supermarket, but I didn’t believe it until I saw it. It happens. Boy, does it happen. It’s a Vesuvius, a high-pressure blood-blast goregasm all over the Food Lion, a uterine flash flood that leaves Piggly Wiggly afloat in gore, a gynecological Hiroshima that darkens the white stones of Jerusalem and shatters the cedars of Lebanon. She Sloughs to Conquer. On the Last Day, when God’s wrath is given vent, the sun darkens and the seas run dry, there will ride forth four horsemen: War on a red horse, Pestilence on a white horse, Death on a pale hose, and Jenny McCarthy on a super-absorbent store-brand maxi pad.

Meanwhile, Sex Doll auditions for a commercial for herpes cream.

Around this point in the movie, Leni Riefenstahl died, and David Lynch took over. The “black” girl is some kind of beautician, apparently, and she’s waxing the legs of a (male) Hispanic magician who appears to have some low-level autism-spectrum disorder. Because she’s a bitch, she sets him up on a date with Rebecca. They go to a fancy restaurant, where the magician does some magic tricks and says several things that don’t make any sense. Rebecca goes to the ladies’ room, where she comforts a sobbing woman in a red dress. Punch and Judy Wait for Godot. Leaving the restaurant, they scuffle in the car over a magic wand (not the magician’s penis, an actual magic wand), and attract the attention of the police, who search the car and find plastic explosives. Do you think they have to be cavity-searched at the police station? Is the officer performing the search a dyke? If you said “yes,” congratulations. You’re a screenwriter, apparently. Rebecca gets locked up with a prostitute and opens her heart, which can’t but make the hooker uncomfortable. “You think you have problems. Try being a whore! Everyone wants you to have a heart of gold.”

At this point, David Lynch died, and someone’s cousin who did high school theater at a two-A high school in the Oklahoma Panhandle took over. It looks like time for a neat bad-movie all-wrapped-up ending, and it is, but it takes 25 minutes. Things start to “just happen” in the way they do in these movies. The most salient features of this plotless roundup are Jenny McCarthy shaving her pits and a cameo by SUM41. (Remember them? I didn’t.) It turns out, eventually, that the WHITE PONY that was so violently foreshadowed early refers to John’s white Pony brand sneaker. Jenny McCarthy falls down a couple of times and they walk off into the sunset, ready to live happily for the next 28 days until the lunar cycle once more triggers cervical Armageddon.

In the wake of my recent difficulties, I’m trying to look for the positive in this, and I’ve developed an interest in genealogy. McCarthy is a Scottish name, and I’m descended from McGees. I want to find out if our clans were ever at war, and if so, I’m going to raise the Highlands and burn her village to the ground.

Mr. Hagman, are you happy with your bourbon?

Jiminy crickets I'm hungover. It hurts. It burns. I was in desperate need of some advice last night, so I went out to dinner and drinks with one of my favorite, if not more ridiculous people in the world, Lara. Lara is not to be confused with Laura, mind you, who is also one of my favorite people in the world, but that is neither here nor there. I'm sort of oddly dependent on Lara a lot like I am with Helena, except whereas I can't make a life decision without consulting Helena first, I can't make a creative decision without running it up Lara's flagpole first. (Side note: the phrase "running it up Lara's flagpole" sounds like a delightful euphemism for something not entirely Christian and I'm heavily into it. It might even be Dr. Reuben & The Blanket Statements' first breakout hit. Coming to a haunted movie theater near you.)

Lara was a year below me at AU and she moved onto the floor where I lived Sophomore year right after College Roommate Danielle and I moved out and into our apartment. (Did that make sense at all? Re-reading that sentence felt like taking the SATs all over again but I'm too hungover to fix it. Much like the real SATs.) One day early Junior year, I went back to the good old dorms to visit Laura with a U but ended up talking for an hour with this pint-sized, ADD-ridden visual media major who was like, "HI! I'M FROM YORK, PENNSYLVANIA! I LIKE GRAPHIC DESIGN! I'VE SEEN YOU AROUND! I WORK AT HOT TOPIC! PLEASE DON'T JUDGE ME! ARE YOU JUDGING ME? I LIKE YOUR SHOES! I THINK YOU'RE JUDGING ME! I'M GONNA QUIT MY JOB SOON! DO YOU WANNA SEE MY T-SQUARE?!" I was like, holy jackpot. Not only are you my new best friend, you're my new assistant. I design AmLit, AU's literary magazine. Now you do too. No, you don't have an option. Here are your keys. Be in the office tomorrow at 9pm sharp with a bag of chick-fil-a and a semi-positive attitude.

And just like that, Lara became AmLit's new design assistant and one of my biffly-biffly^max, as we spent the next two glorious years holed up together in either the office or the design lab, giving each other design advice, emotional support and a lot of Adderall. All-nighter, after all-nighter, after all-nighter. You don't forget a person after an experience like that. It changes you. Like 'Nam.

Lara and I were quite the team. Although equally awkward and inappropriate, she had mad technical skillz and I could conceptualize like a motherfucker. Together we were unstoppable. It got to the point Senior year where I relied on her advice about pretty much everything. Design related or otherwise. I distinctly remember running over to her apartment at 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning a few days after getting a new tattoo, banging on her door until she answered and being like, "HOLY CHRIST ON A CROSS MY TATTOO IS ODDLY INFLAMED I THINK IT'S CANCER I SHOULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN IT DONE IN MIAMI PEOPLE DO STUPID THINGS ON SPRING BREAK THE GUY DIDN'T SPEAK ENGLISH I'M GOING TO DIE MY MOM WAS RIGHT YOU HAVE TO HELP ME!!!!!1" She picked up my wrist, stared at it briefly through bleary eyes, dropped it and deadpanned:

"Meg. That's a bug bite."

I looked down. "Oh!......Yep. Yep, it sure is.......Well, I guess that explains why it itches, huh?!" Slams door.

So last night when I needed some creative advice, I knew Lara was the right person to go to. However, as with most advice sessions involving me and alcohol, I got drunker than I meant to, became emotional and rambled for slightly too long about how I'll never become successful because I get aspie-anxious talking to people on the phone. This would all be par for the course, except that whereas I drank an entire Liberman mop bucket of Racer 5, Lara had AN beer because she had to go home and pack for her 4am flight to SXSW this morning. Damn her. Damn her for so many reasons.

That being said, I think it's virtually impossible for me to feel like a lushy ho in front of Lara. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. For you see, one time in college I drove Lara and I to Penn Camera on Rockville Pike to get some supplies and things went a little awry. Not being the brightest flash in the camera store (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!) I locked my keys in the car and we had to wait an hour or so until my dad could leave work to bring me the spare. Both being in that early stage of 21 where it's still exhilarating to be able to go into any drinking establishment and legally order whatever you want, we decided to kill time by going to the bar at the Ruby Tuesday's and orderin' us up a couple of Ruby Relaxers. It was about two sips into my Relaxer when I realized that drinking a giant novelty rum drink half an hour before my dad comes to hand deliver me the keys might not be the best idea, so I slid my Relaxer down the sticky bar and told Lara it was all hers.

Now, let me tell you something about a Ruby Tuesday's Ruby Relaxer: potent. Potent, potent, potent. Seriously, after two sips I was like, "Wow, I have to drive. Enough." One whole Ruby Relaxer is a lot of drink. It's served in a giant goblet able to comfortably accommodate a small gerbil doing laps, so after two Ruby Relaxers, Lara was sufficiently tanked. On a Wednesday. At 3pm in the afternoon. Waiting for my dad to come get us. Bless her heart. She was slurring all over the place and her giggling was reverberating off the walls. To make matters worse, there was a group of very large and very scary thugs sitting down the bar from us who had clearly just ducked out of work early to get a drink and work out some personal issues they were having. Unfortunately things were less being worked out and more quickly escalating into a near fist-fight. So just to recap, at this point I'm in a Ruby Tuesday's on Rockville Pike with a shit-faced Lara sloshing around to my left and the entire cast of The Wire about to break out into a less graceful version of Michael Jackson's Beat It video to my right. That's when I saw my dad in the parking lot.

To give you some background, it's a bit of a thing amongst my friends that my dad is a handsome gentleman. I want to say he didn't do some light L.L. Bean modeling, yet why lie? I'm told that Mr. McBlogger is a silver fox, but being his daughter and not from dat dem der mountains, I don't really want to expand on that. (And by the way, I realize I'm opening myself up to a ton of "your dad" jokes on today's comment thread, but I ask you "friends" of mine to behave yourselves and remember that not only is Mrs. McBlogger is a dignified lady, she's also a dedicated 2b1b reader. Thank you. Assholes.)

Up until this point, Lara had only ever seen pictures of my dad and in her very inebriated state, she was incredibly excited to meet him in person.

"Hey my dad's here, let's close out and go," I said.

"Ohhhhhhhhh my gawd. YOUR DAD. I can see him across the parking lot. He's such a silver fox," Laura woozily slurred.

"Yeaaaah, gross......Ok, well, enough of that. Let's go."

I walked Laura out to the parking lot, gave my dad and a hug and thanked him for coming. "AHEM," Laura coughed.

"Oh, sorry! Dad, this is my good friend Lara from school. Lara does design with me and we work on AmLit together."

"Oh, well it's nice to finally meet you Lara! We've heard a lot about you," my dad said as he shook her hand.

To this day, I am haunted by the memory of what happened next. I can still so vividly see Lara's limp little wrist shaking my dad's hand, her glassy eyes fixed on his and her mouth open like she was a bulimic in line at an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet. And then, she said it.

"Missshter McBlogger, are you happy with your wife?"

I swear to everything that is good and holy, that is what Lara said upon meeting my father for the first time. Quote, "are you happy with your wife?" I have no idea what happened next. I think I blacked out because the next thing I remember is my dad giving me the AAA card I left at home and telling me to drive safely. I think I spent the entire drive back to campus shouting "LARA" in various tones and frequencies. To this day I'm not sure if my dad heard it. If he did, I think he took the very McBlogger way out of pretending like it never happened and moving right along. Still, that doesn't mean I didn't hear it. Shudder, shudder.

So that is why I don't feel embarrassed this morning about drinking my weight in beer last night and rambling to a sober Lara about my shortcomings on the phone. Because she tried to stepmom me in a parking lot after one too many Ruby Relaxers. Christ.

BUT! Speaking of drunken friends! It's time to check in with the drunkest of them all. That's right! It's America's favorite fictional holiday—T.G.I. Hagman!

As of March 12, 2010 at 9:50am, Larry Hagman is........alive! And thank Jah.

Welp, I hope you all have a glorious weekend a-boozin' with friends that are near and dear to you. Before you go, would you mind doing me a favor? Would you be a lamb and go here, scroll down to the third category of "People and Places," click "34 more", write in 2birds1blog for Best Local Blog/Blogger and submit it? And if you've already done that: a.) bless your heart and b.) why not vote my broke ass getting fired for Best Local Scandal (a few items down from Best Local Blog/Blogger)? Maybe get a few friends or loved ones to do the same? Perhaps hire a hobo to do so if you have none of the above? Thanks! Polls close Monday, so it's time to hustle. As always, we appreciate all you do to keep us going and totes LYLAS! Have a great weekend and we'll see you back here Monday morning. Buh-bye.

CRACKED OUT LIFE PLANS!

Almost getting fired last week turned my world upside down, but not in the way that you think it would. Instead of being like, "BAHHH, I almost got fired! Jobs are hard to come by! Money buys you pants and sandwiches! I should straighten up and fly right!" I just wish I had actually gotten fired. Because while anxiously waiting for The Talk last week, I really came to peace with the idea of not working here anymore and got excited at the thought of pursuing other life avenues. But as we all now know, that Talk never came and here I am, still stuck in this ghost ridden dump show. Perhaps last week was the wake up call I needed that I've become too complacent in this job and it's time for me to make moves. After all, this was origionally just supposed to be a "for now" job and I've already been here for over a year. Yep. It's time to bust a move.

But here's my question: if I quit my job...where exactly would I get this "money" that everyone speaks so highly of? Jäger isn't exactly cumming in their pants at the thought of sponsoring us, literary agents are like bicycles: I don't have one, and Lord knows you're just as broke as I am, so I'm not looking at you. This means that when push comes to shove, I actually can't make moves. Which is a fact that causes me a significant amount of stress and frustration. And that stress and frustration, coupled with how sick I've been recently, has turned me into one giant cracked out freakshow.

HOWEVER! When god closes one door, he opens a window and I think I've found my window! In my haze of complete cracked out...ness yesterday while talking to Co-Blogger Chris, I got an idea: I'm going to make a graphic novel and make a babillion dollars off of it. BAHAHA! Take that quarter-life crisis!

CRACKED OUT GRAPHIC NOVEL BOOK IDEA:

I call it, The Adventures of Aspie's Clip and Weekend Hair. Aspie's Clip and Weekend Hair are two important characters in my life who you don't know about because up until now I've had a shred of dignity left. But you know what? Fuck it! I've got nothing left, so why not just let it all hang out, right? Let's start with Aspie's Clip. I have a Mac Powerbook that Alex got during his Junior year of college and I bought off him when I moved back from Brooklyn. It's a bit old and rickity, but it gets the job done. One day I was in bed with said laptop when I randomly found a paper clip. I started fiddling with the paper clip, as you do, and I realized that it is magnetically attracted to the latch on the front of my laptop. From then on, I kept the paper clip attached to the front latch so I have something to fiddle with while I'm working. I became oddly dependent on it. It became part of my creative process.

Flash forward to the weekend of Jäger Ball. Saturday morning Chris and I were snuggling in bed together when I pulled out my laptop to check my email. Chris, ever the curious little thing he is, reached over and grabbed the paper clip off my computer. Which is when I freaked the fuck out. I shot up, grabbed the paper clip back and shouted, "DON'T TOUCH THAT!!!!! DON'T TOUCH MY PAPER CLIP!!!!!!1 Now, the reason I did this is because I knew that if Chris got his grubby little talons on it, he'd probably unbend it or pocket it, or drop it or lose it or any number of things that result in me no longer being able to fiddle with it while working. (And I realize if that were to happen, I could easily just get another one, but bringing a paper clip home from work for the soul purpose of sticking it to my computer to fiddle with is a depth of odd that even I'm not willing to explore yet.) So, yes, I freaked out a little bit. "Wow...." he said as he handed the paper clip back to me with wide eyes. "Here's your paper clip back, Aspie." Embarrassed, I tried to explain why I was so attached to the paper clip in the first place, which of course only made the situation worse. From then on out, we began referring to it as my "Aspie's Clip". Throughout the weekend Chris would randomly be like, "WAIT! EVERYONE STOP! STOP EVERYTHING!...Where is Aspie's Clip??" and I'd point to him safely on my computer and be like, "He's right there! No worries!" (Also, I'd be lying if I said at one point during Jäger Ball, I didn't lean over to Chris and whisper, "God, I wish Aspie's Clip were here to see this.") (I'd also be lying if I said Chris didn't respond, "I know. He'd love this.") Aspie's Clip has taken on a life of it's own. In casual gchat conversations with Chris, he'll routinely be like, "Hey, how's Aspie Clip doing?" and I'll give him a full life update. He's a force to be reckon with. He's Aspie's Clip! How could you not love him?

Now, Weekend Hair. Ok. I'm not going to lie to you: I have an affinity for fake hair. I've had painfully fine hair my entire life and have always fantasized about what it would be like to have long, thick, luxurious locks. I've thought about getting extensions more times than you can imagine, but always Jew out in the end when I see the steep price tag. Thus, you can imagine how happy I was when I heard about the Ken Paves/Jessica Simpson line of clip in hair extensions called HairDo. One day in early 2008, I finally went into Ricky's in New York and got myself a 22-inch midnight brown HairDo clip-in hair piece. I was elated. It looked badass. I explained to Co-Blogger Chris (my then roommate) that I would only wear it on weekends because it would be too awkward to show up to work one day with mysteriously long and luxurious hair and my short little chemo hair the next. "It'll be my weekend hair!" I told him. And thus, we started referring to it exclusively as Weekend Hair.

I honestly think Weekend Hair was more popular with my friends than I was. While I'd get ready to go out for the night, Chris would pop his head into my room all, "IS WEEKEND HAIR COMING OUT TONIGHT?!" and if I said yes that meant it would be a good night. (It has been theorized that the Black Eyed Peas' I Gotta Feeling was origionally written about Weekend Hair.) When my friends from home came up to visit they'd all ask if weekend hair would be coming out with us and when I came home to visit them they'd remind me not to forget her. When I arrived at places, it was always, "WEEKEND HAIR'S HERE!.......And...Meg..." I think towards the end I was only invited places because Weekend Hair happened to be attached to my head.

One time I got cocky with it and wore Weekend Hair to work in an up-do. What a heinously embarrassing call that was. The evil whore-bags I worked with would be like, "Your hair looks...different today," and I'd have to be like, "HAHA...yeah. It's just a...it's a Ken Paves...it's...never mind I GOTTA GO I THINK I HEAR MY EMAIL!" Finally towards the end of the day an Editorial Assistant came in to give me something and was like, "What's different with your hair...?" and I completely lost it and yelled at her, "IT'S FAKE HAIR, OK?! YES, I AM WEARING FAKE HAIR. TO WORK. BECAUSE I AM RAGING WHITE TRASH. ARE YOU HAPPY?!" I don't think that really helped my dwindling office popularity...

Anyways, like all good things, Weekend Hair had to come to an end. The average lifespan of a HairDo peice is six months, and man did I stretch that out. One night Weekend Hair and I hooked up with a gentleman on a tarp under a beer pong table and when I woke up the next morning she was covered in Miller Lite knots, body fluids, broken dreams and god knows what else. Thus, I finally decided it might be time to retire her. (Sidenote: Jen Toppe, I know you've been mind-boggled by this before, but let me reiterate that you can hook up while wearing Weekend Hair and he won't know the difference. Because THAT'S how Ken Paves and Jessica Simpson roll. Although I will tell you that one time I was doin' it with a gentleman while wearing Weekend Hair in a low pony tail and in the heat of the moment he pulled on it and it 100% slid out. I was like, "Yyyyyyyeahhhhhh...just ignore that." Honestly, he didn't seem too fazed. Although anyone who's going to pull your hair that hard during sex probably deserves to have it be a clip-on.) (That was the most redneck sentence I've ever written and I'm not sure what to do about it...)

After I gave Weekend Hair her royal burial in a dumpster in Brooklyn (fitting burial or what?) I never bought another one again. It just seemed like it would be cheating or something. My mom did buy me a HairDo ponytail she saw on QVC in October ("Weekend Hair 2.0"), but it's not the same. Sometimes Chris and I have uncomfortably long gchat conversations about how much we miss Weekend Hair and wonder what she's doing right now. If she's staring at the same moon and thinking about us...? Yesterday, in my state of sheer cracked-out...ness, we began musing about who would win in a fight between Aspie's Clip and Weekend Hair. The thought of Aspie's Clip and Weekend Hair with little shivs in their hands, circling each other West Side Story style was almost too comical to imagine. Thus! I want to write a graphic novel about the Adventures of Aspie's Clip and Weekend Hair living together in my apartment and the shenanigans they get up to when I leave for work. I think it could make it big in an Arj and Poopy kind of way. And make a babillion dollars and never have to work again.

My only trepidation is that I can't illustrate. And I don't know how interested people are in the adventures of my paper clip and slutty clip-on hair. And that I'm currently having this conversation with Chris via ghchat:

me: so i have an entire post about aspie's clip and weekend hair written, but i don't know if i'm brave enough to post it.

Sent at 12:08 PM on Thursday

Christopher: this is dicey.

what exactly are you saying?

like just outline it for me

i'm concerned a reader might have you committed.

Sent at 12:10 PM on Thursday

me: my life is in the shitter -> what should i do with myself? -> oh i have a cracked out idea! -> write a graphic novel about the adventures of aspie's clip and weekend hair! -> who are they, you ask? -> this is aspie's clip -> this is weekend hair -> this is a bad idea. lol. FIN.

Christopher: this worries me.

God damnit. Back to the drawing boards...

Where I Will Be This Week

I am so incredibly tense right now. My stomach hurts, I'm anxious, I can't sleep, I can't eat, I can't drink. (Baha! Just kidding on those last two.) I'm a wreck. And there is one concrete cause of all of this anxiety. Sigh...it's hard to say out loud and/or type. Ok. I can do this. Here we go. I, Meghan C. McBlogger........................am going on another business trip this week.

If you haven't read about the first business trip I went on a few months ago, I'm going to need you to go ahead and close and lock your door, draw the shades, light some candles, unzip your pants and read this. And when you're done, you can send your thank you/sympathy e-cards to meg@2birds1blog.com. Thanks.

The level of how anxious I am for this stupid business trip is unparalleled. Unparalleled and embarrassing. Nothing in the entire world makes me feel as Autistic as a work function. I revert back to lame 6th grade Meg, sittin' all alone at the lunch table with nary a friend to her name and a whole lot of Joe Boxer going on. I'm praying to the good Lord above that this trip won't be as completely traumatic as the last one was, and I think it might not be for the following reasons:

1.) It's in Baltimore. Which is just inconveniently far away enough to classify as a "business trip" and not a "jaunty overnight."

2.) I have been promised my own hotel room. Although I'll believe it when I see it because that's what they said last time and I ended up visually scissoring with Boss #1 all night long. I didn't even want to stay in a hotel in the first place. The second I heard we would be in Baltimore, I threw myself onto Boss #2's laptop and was like, "DON'T BOOK ME A ROOM!!!!1 MY BIFFLES^MAX LIVES IN HAMPDEN!!!!11 I'LL STAY WITH HER!!! SHE WEARS PANTS!!!1 AND DOESN'T CARE IF I DON'T WEAR MINE!!!!1 THAT'S THE DICHOTOMY I PREFER!!!!!1111!" Boss #2 said OK and then immediately turned around and booked me a hotel room. Which is annoying because now not only am I at high-risk of having a reunion with Boss #1's C-section scar, I also feel locked into going in general. Every time I start toying with the idea of "getting" swine flu tonight or killing off a family member, I remember they already booked me a hotel room and that would kind of be a dick move on my part. Ugh. Being an amazingly considerate person...it's my cross to bear.

3.) The trip is only for two days; not three. Which is still two days too many, but I'll take what I can get.

4.) I made cocksure I'll be traveling alone. Because there's no way in hell I'm going to be trapped backwards on a train again at 8 o'clock in the morning listening to Russell the Homophobic Co-Worker talk about various spreads and chutneys he boycotts because they "taste like sperm." No. Fucking. Way. I will drive myself, thank you.

5.) It's a convention, not a 500-hour long sales meeting. And conventions are big...people get lost easily. Perhaps they'll get lost for two days at a time, finding their way back only when a free meal is involved...? What I'm trying to say is that I am in no way above hiding in my car either reading a book and/or cat-napping like a homeless person all day. There it is. The truth. I just don't see what's stopping me from being like, "Oh hey, I'm gonna go check out some other booths" and just leaving? Trust me, nobody would miss me. There is absolutely no reason for me to go to this convention besides familiarizing myself with our new product. You know, the new product I already learned about in the aforementioned 500-hour long sales meeting. All just in case the ghosts I babysit on a daily basis get curious and start to ask questions or someone in Dynasty needs their office re-designed. (Season 3: Adam Carrington re-designs recently deceased Cecil Colby's office with toxic paint in an effort to kill Jeff Colby and secure his position as Blake's #2. AND WHAT?!)

The thing is, I really am genuinely interested in interior design and the actual convention itself seems cool enough. Not to mention I'm going to have promotional pens and complimentary mints coming out the ying-yang by the time it's over. That's not what I'm getting bent out of shape about. It's the mingling with my co-workers and the pleasantries and the asking of how the kids are and forcing myself to appear interested in the answer and the being so completely surrounded by Sales People. And that's Sales People with a capital S, capital P. Because yowzahs. That is a tall order. I realize how incredibly curmudgeon-y I'm coming off right now, but as Helena pointed out last night on the phone (and yes, at approximately 11 o'clock last night I was indeed curled up in my bed with the lights off on the phone with Helena whining that my tummy hurt because I'm nervous for my business trip.) (And bless her heart for listening.) there's a difference between Work Socializing and Social Socializing. And Lord knows I can Social Socialize your fucking face off. I can walk into a room of 150 Neo-Nazis with a beer in my head and a song in my heart and leave with each one of those motherfuckers my new and slightly less anti-Semitic best friends. However, I go to one work happy hour and it's like a regional dinner theater production of Rain Man. My undeniable charm and charisma just does not translate in work-related situations. However, if I can inject a bit of Social Socializing into Work Socializing, I might be able to make it out of this business trip alive. Thus, if there are any readers out there who will be attending NeoCon East this week and want someone to walk around and mingle with—I'm your girl.

...Or if there are any readers who want to come and spoon with me in my car and tell ghost stories for 8 hours—I'm also your girl. (Teresa, I'm looking at you.)

Obviously, blogwise, I'll be out of commission tomorrow and Thursday, but Co-Blogger Chris is finally back from Mexico and will have a post for you bright and early tomorrow morning! I'm also trying to "gently" coerse Tulane Chris into writing a post for Thursday. I gave him two subject options: Diarrhea or blouses. Because that's what kind of girl I am and that's what kind of a blog I run.

Also! As with last time, I'll be live-tweeting the entire business trip, so I highly recommend you follow me on Twitter (@2birds1blog). If you don't have a Twitter account, you should obviously get one for the sole purpose of keeping up-to-date with the business trip's inevitable kooky shenanigans. (I figure if I hype this up enough, nothing will happen and it'll be an incredibly boring business trip which means I won't go through the emotional trauma of last time. Unless it backfires and it's just as entertaining as I promised, in which case you win and I lose. Either way, follow me on twitter.)

Baby's First Business Trip

So I went on my first business trip. I don't mean to get all Aspie's on you, but I've been anxious for weeks about this trip. It's no secret that I don't like my co-workers, so going on a three-day romantic getaway to NYC with them sounded pretty god-awful to me. But I went; I didn't fake sick and lie my way out of it. I owned up to the fact that I'm a big girl now so it's time to put on my big girl pants and go on a business trip. So, how was it? Take how bad I thought it was going to be, multiply it by a thousand and then punch yourself in the face because you're still no where close.

Allow me to give you the play-by-play:

Day 1: Monday
I arrived at Union Station at 7 o'clock in the morning to meet my co-workers and catch the train. In order to pack, shower, primp etc. and get there at 7, I had to wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning. That's a big deal for me. If you were to wake me up at 5 o'clock in the morning and say, "Hey Meg, there's a giant pot of gold waiting for you down the street! You just have to physically get up and get it and it's all yours!" I would honestly mull it over for about thirty seconds and go back to bed. But, by the grace of god, I managed to pull myself together and get there on time at 7. We took the 7:30 Acela train to New York, business class. Sexy, right? Boss #1, Boss #2, Russell-The-Homophobic-Co-Worker and I sat down at a 4-seater with a table between us and embarked on our journey. Shenanigans started almost immediately. Boss #1 decided to get a bagel with cream cheese and offered Russell-The-Homophobic-Co-Worker half. He declined saying "it tastes like mumble, mumble." Excuse me? What did you just say? He repeated, "it tastes like ____" And then he said what I thought was sperm. But no, he couldn't have possibly said that. Because Russell is a raging homophob! And he loves Jesus! People who love Jesus don't say sperm! Boss #1 asked, "Did you just say it tastes like sperm?!" "Yea! I don't eat cream cheese, cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, any of that stuff; because it all tastes like sperm!" At this point I thought I was going to vomit, cry and die of laughter simultaneously. Because 1.) you are Russell-The-Homophobic-Co-Worker, not Russell-the-Jizz-Wizzard-Co-worker; how the hell do you know what sperm tastes like?! 2.) What sperm have you been tasting that tastes like cream cheese? 3.) What would move you to tell us this and not just say "No, thank you." Just another chapter in my book, Interesting Decisions and the People Who Make Them.

Once we arrived in New York, we went straight to the conference and had a welcome reception and welcome lunch. This was way too much time spent awkwardly standing around eating finger foods, contemplating whether or not it would be too shameful to hide out in the bathroom until our meeting started.

Then, from 1-5:30, we conferenced. Presentation after presentation after presentation about god knows what. And here's my question: why do all power-point presentations start with a motivational quote slide, which the presenter reads in a meaningful tone and then asks "who said it?" For some reason this really, really gets my goat. For example:

"Winning is not a sometime thing. It's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while. You don't do things right once in a while. You do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing." ANYBODY? ANYBODY? WHO SAID IT? ANYBODY KNOW?......ANYBODY...COME ON GUYS...Anybody? Vince Lombardi. Ok moving on.

What's the point of this? We're not 13-year-old girls with motivational butterfly quote journals. We don't know who said it. Just ask once (if at all) and then move on. We have four and half hours to get through here. Christ.

Four and a half hours later, we made it back to our hotel. We had a half an hour before we had to be at our team dinner and I was looking forward to flopping on my bed and not talking to anyone. Alas, that much needed personal time was not in the cards. Marriott fucked up and I had to share a room with Boss #1. Upon hearing this Boss #1 looked at me and said, "well, hope you're comfortable with me because I sleep bare ass," and then walked away. She sleeps "bare ass." Let me just jump ahead a bit and answer the question I know you're asking—yes, I have seen Boss #1 very, very naked.

After dropping off our luggage in our hotel rooms, we convened outside the hotel and waited for our car to come and take us to dinner. Our car came. But it wasn't a car. It was a prom-style stretch limousine blasting Madonna's Vogue at full volume.

Dreamy star-studded limo ceiling:

Classy fake limo crystal stemware:

My co-workers squealed with delight. I died a little on the inside and prayed to god I wouldn't see anyone I knew. We piled into the limo (prompting a delightful flashback to Senior Prom, tripping balls on pot brownies) and suddenly it was like Girls Gone Wild: 40-Something Divorcée Edition. Everyone was taking shots, flashing their bras and taking pictures. I sat quietly with my hands folded in my lap. Honestly, I am not a prude at all, but I just can't quiet that little voice in my head that says, "THIS IS HORRIBLY INAPPROPRIATE!!!" Finally we got to the restaurant and headed to the bar for pre-dinner happy hour. Where of course the pregnant woman from our NYC division was pouding beers. And no, it was not non-alcoholic beer:


At that moment, I sat myself down and thought, "Meggles, you have two options here: you can go through the next three hours feeling awkward as sin, ruminating to yourself about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, or you can chug this beer and get rull friendly." I chose the latter. So I put in the effort and mingled with my co-workers. I have heard about more children's softball leagues than I ever knew existed. But I was inquisitive and polite, so good for me. Mid dinner I glanced down at my iphone and guess what wireless network popped up? Dr. Dre.

A high-pitched squealing noise flew out of my mouth and the table went silent. I looked up and everyone was staring at me waiting for an explanation. And let me tell you, it's not as easy as you'd think to explain to a table full of strangers that Dr. Dre is your soul mate and you're totally all up in his wifi right now.

As dinner winded down I couldn't wait to go back to the hotel. I was pooped. I wandered over to a (drunk) Boss #1 and told her I was heading back, to which she slurred, "Aw hell, does this mean I have to go too?" "No, no; I have my own room key." "GOOD. Cuz I wasn't done partyin'!" Hahaha awkward polite laughter you're a drunk and you make me uncomfortable gotta go. By the way: you people are all married and 46-years-old. Why are you getting freaky with each other like inner-city children at a school dance? Seriously, I have never seen so much drunken ass-grabbing and shameless sexual innuendo swapping in all of my days. Growing up my dad was always away on business; is this what he was doing that whole time?! Is this normal business trip behavior?? You have children and loving spouses! Stop sitting on each other's laps!

When I got back to the hotel I felt like the biggest loser ever. It was 10:30, I was exhausted, and everyone else was out partying. As I sat on my bed in my Jack Daniel's pajamas (that I was in no way prepared for Boss #1 to see,) I called my mom and had a total flashback to freshman orientation. Freshman orientation was a disaster for me. I hadn't met one person I thought I could be friends with and my over-night roommate answered the door completely topless and made me feel like a loser when I didn't want to go "watch the boys play Frisbee." I called my mom in tears all "I HATE COLLEGE! Everyone is topless and from Long Island and this was a huge mistake and I don't want to be here anymore!!!!!" Bless her heart, she stayed on the phone with me until I fell asleep. This time I called her up tear-free, said "these people are bit-shit crazy" had a good LOL and curled up in bed to watch Dead Like Me on my laptop.

A few hours later Boss #1 poured herself home. She was drunk. She stripped down to her bra and underoos, grabbed a pair of tweezers, perched herself on the sink and with the door open proceeded to drunkenly pick her zits in the mirror while gossiping about our co-workers. The night actually turned out to be kind of fun because we both got into our respective beds and stayed up for hours giggling and talking shit, slumber party style. It turns out she hates Mark The Big-Gay-Co-Worker maybe even more than I do! That was a special moment. A special, naked moment.

Day 2: Tuesday
The next morning I got up and hopped into the shower, ready to face a 9 hour day of meetings. As I stood in the shower, Boss #1 barged in—"MEGHAN! I just got my period! Do you have any tampons?" Now, the shower of course had a shower curtain, but it was semi-transparent...which made things semi-awkward. I said "no" as I awkwardly tried to hide my entire person behind a six-inch square of washcloth. "Aw hell. I'm bleeding out my snatch. Guess I'll just have to shove some toilet paper up there until we can find a CVS." So I stood there. Naked. As inches away from me my boss shoved toilet paper up her "bleeding snatch." Nothing will ever be the same in my world again.

To make matters worse, Boss #1 later walked out of the bathroom and caught me changing my underoos. I grabbed my skirt and covered myself. Boss #1 clearly didn't notice what I was doing and kept talking to me about God knows what. Finally I squeaked out, "Um, would you mind turning around, I'm sort of, um, changing my bottoms." CHANGING MY BOTTOMS? Who the fuck am I??? I might have well said my "fanny" was showing.

A few hours later, we arrived back at the conference and dived into nine straight hours of meetings. I got through these nine hours by playing many a round of "99 bottles of Stephen Hawking on the wall" ("99 bottles of Stephen Hawking on the wall, 99 bottles of Steve, you take one down, pass Steve around, 98 bottles of Stephen Hawking on the wall"—and so on) At one point I looked at a graphic that was on the wall and thought to myself, "Ooo Trade Gothic! I like Trade Gothic!" and decided to see how many songs I could write about my love for Trade Gothic.

To the tune of Baby Got Back:
I like Trade Gothic and I can not lie
You other designers can't deny,
When you open that doc, highlight your type and put in trade goth
It looks CLEAN.

To the Tune of Billy Idol's White Wedding:
Hey little sister, what have you done?
You put it in comic sans cuz you thought that font was fun,
Sure it's kind of fun, but so is smoking crack
You need a new font and I know where it's at
Let's go to Font Town—SHOTGUN!

Yeah, you need a new font that's, not as played
You need the sexy font of, Gothic comma Trade

To the tune of Johnnie Taylor's Disco Lady:
Rag it left, rag it right
Kern it in, make it tight
Trade Gothic Lady!

Lead it up, lead it down
Play with placement, move it around
Trade Gothic Lady!

To the tune of Lady Gaga's LoveGame:
Let's make it sans serif, let's make it thick
Trade Gothic is my favorite typeface, bitch.

Let's make it sans serif, let's make it thick
Trade Gothic is my favorite typeface, bitch.

'Eh. I kind of lost it with the last one. But this and a lot of Twittering is what got me through those long nine hours. At one point I noticed the person leading our discussion clearly had an accident and was missing three fingers on his right hand. You could also tell he was rocking a fresh skin graft too. I was retrospectively nauseated at shaking his head. I was sitting right next to him while he was giving his presentation (his opening motivational slide quote was from the founder of Patagonia, in case you were wondering) and every time he would point or motion with his hand, his freshly skin grafted numbs would fly past my face and I'd spend 15 minutes trying not to vomit. I realize by me saying this I'm probably going to get my hand chopped off on the way home from work today, but I'm just being honest.

Nine (—ty billion) hours later, our meetings were over and I skipped the second team dinner to meet Co-Blogger Chris for dinner, where I'm not saying I acted like a manic psychopath, but I'm not not saying I acted like a manic psychopath. I was just so excited to see someone I could actually be myself around. Being Work Meg (aka Meghan) for such a long amount of time can really take it out of a girl.

I got back to the hotel room at around 11:30, Boss #1 nowhere in sight. Again I cozied up in my Jack Daniel's pajamas and watched TV for a few hours until Boss #1 came home faaarrrr drunker than she had been the night before. She was stumbling, slurring and incoherently mumbling about how "she couldn't walk even though she was flat-footed." Boss #1 stripped down again, got in bed and proceeded to drunk dial her ex-fiancé from 13-years ago, Steve. She told me all about her four prior marriages and the intimate details of Steve her ex-fiancé. Steve and Boss #1 met on a business trip similar to the one we were on, except Steve walked her back to her hotel room, pushed her into her room, threw her up against a wall and fucked her then and there. (True or false: that's the hottest thing I've ever heard?...True.) They drank champagne and ate chocolate all night and "boy was he good at what he did," (I prayed to god she was talking about sales, but she was in fact she talking about sex. "Freaky shit," to be exact.) They tried doing a long-distance relationship, but he would cry when he dropped her off at the airport so she dumped him.

Boss #1 and I stayed up all night talking and I have to say, it was pretty nice. I feel like we really connected. I opened up a wee bit and she told me more (and more and more) about her life. I liked it. I felt like maybe I was wrong about her and she wasn't an over sharing hillbilly. My little heart was warmed. Until she concluded our little heartfelt talk with, and I quote, "Ah man, I gotta go change my tampon, I'm bleeding like a stuffed pig."

Comparatively speaking, Day 3 was pretty tame. We caught a train back to DC, had a post-meeting meeting and parted ways.

Overall, here is what I learned from my first business trip:
1.) I was not made for Corporate America
2.) I might have Asperger's
3.) For having two kids, Boss #1 has a bangin' body
4.) Maybe it wouldn't kill me to open up a little more around my co-workers
5.) Sperm can taste like cream cheese
6.) Should you ever not have a tampon, shoving toilet paper up your snatch is a reasonable alternative
7.) It's not just me; Mark the Big-Gay-Co-Worker is a total asshole
8.) Man I miss New York
9.) People in their 40's like to get their freak on
and 10.) Stuffed pigs apparently bleed like a menstrating snatch

Man it's good to be back.

An Annotated Anthology of Awkward

One of my defining characteristics has always been that I'm "charmingly awkward." Charmingly awkward just means that means I've come to terms with the fact that I'm awkward and frequently find myself in awkward situations, but said awkwardness doesn't interfere with being able to function in society on a daily basis (for the most part). Well, tonight I was feeling a bit nostalgic and decided to read the LiveJournal I kept in college. I thought my emo little Internet journal would be full of rich and compelling entries about growing up, finding myself, discovering what I wanted to do with my life and the like. Instead, my journal is basically an anthology of awkwardness. I feel like at least 70% of my entries end with one of the following: "God I'm so awkward," "God my life is awkward," or "I am so painfully awkward."

Here are some choice excerpts:

• In college writing this morning we had a round table discussion that I was not having. Instead I decided to fantasize about watching Golden Girls and eating a delicious bagel with Helena, Caitlin and Allie after class...because the only reason I go to college writing is to get a bagel on the way back. Anyways, apparently I was thinking about how sweet my bagel would be when people started counting off 1 through 5 as a means of assigning groups for some activity we had to do. So then all of a sudden I'm hearing "1,2,3,4" and then everyone is looking at me and I had to be like "uhhh...how high are we counting here?" and my professor was like ".....5. You are 5." God I'm awkward.

• Yesterday I had a total Tommy Boy moment. I got out of Religion early because we had a test, so I was going to jet over to Hurst to drop a paper off that was due in a half an hour. So I walk up the marble stairs to the old doors and I was tugging on them and it wouldn't open and I was like "SHIT! THEY LOCKED 'EM!" I was pacing back and forth wondering what I was going to do. Finally I just walked away and then these construction workers were like "MISS, YOU JUST HAVE TO PUSH THE DOOR NOT PULL!! IT'S NOT THAT HARD!" I was like "oh...hah...thanks." Awkward.

• I was so tired this morning. When I was getting coffee before class, instead of pouring the cream into my coffee and throwing the empty container in the trashcan, I poured the cream in the trashcan and then dropped the container into my coffee. A janitor laughed at me. God I'm awkward...

• I fell asleep in class today but snapped back awake when my head did that dozing off thing. I went to chug some coffee and didn't realize my mouth was no where near the opening...so I just put the cup up to my mouth and leaned back and poured coffee all over myself. Ugh, awkward.

• Today I was writing my paper and listening to my itunes and I double clicked the song "Bootylicious" and a window popped up that said "WARNING: YOUR COMPUTER IS NOT AUTHORIZED TO PLAY "BOOTYLICIOUS" I died laughing because all I could think of was "Kelly, can you handle this? Michelle, can you handle this? Beyonce, can you handle this? Meg's computer, can you handle this? I DON'T THINK YOU'RE AUTHORIZED TO HANDLE THIS, WOOOOOOOO!" ...Sorry. That was awkward. [note: It's a whole other level of special when you can make it awkward with yourself in your own personal journal.]

• My dorm phone has been broken for a really long time [note: dorm phones?! How archaic!] Some old guy was just banging on my door. I freaked out thinking it's the guy that's going around harassing girls on my floor, but it turns out he's here to fix our phone. Finally! The only problem is that I have Golden Girls on and he keeps stopping to watch it for extended periods of time. He's like openly laughing out loud at it. I really have to take a shower now, but I don't want to prance around in my robe for him.Ugh, I don't want to awkwardly ask him to stop watching Golden Girls and fix my phone and get out of my dorm....This sucks.

• I forgot to bring a jewel case for the CD that my design project is on. So what do I use to protect my CD? A ZIPLOCK BAG WITH LITTLE BITS OF CRUNCHED GOLDFISH CRACKERS AT THE BOTTOM I FOUND IN MY MESSENGER BAG FROM GOD ONLY KNOWS WHEN. Who the fuck does that? And then to compensate, I wrote "sorry about the bag" on it, but I forgot the "y" in the word sorry. So I had to draw a little carrot and a y, making myself look like an even bigger asshole. So now I'm that girl who came into class 20 minutes late the first day, who's computer is never connected to the server and who presented her first project in a ziplock bag with bits of goldfish crackers and "sorr about the bag" scrawled on it. I am so fucking awkward. [note: I damn near had a panic attack remembering this incident. The next time our class met, the professor (whom I had such a huge crush on) held up the bag in front of the entire class and delivered a five-minute lecture on how disrespectful I was and how designers who don't take pride in their deliverable should change their major. I have never felt so stupid in my entire life. I went back to my dorm room and cried my fucking eyes out. Oh my God.]

• This morning I remembered that I was freak dancing with Danielle's Big's boyfriend at formal Saturday night and he randomly asked me what my favorite letter is. Regrettably, I answered with "DUH, it's R" He asked why, to which I responded "because RRRRRrrrraaaaaaarrrrarrrrr" whilst doing a sexual cheetah-clawing motion at him...awkward.

• I seriously am the most awkward person alive. I should not be allowed to interact with people. For one of my rolls of film, I took a picture of these two puppets my dad brought back from Thailand. I had just made a test of the contact sheet with those pictures on it when in swoops the fabulous Iwan [legendary hip photo professor at AU] with his fabulous Gucci shoes and matching belt all- "Darling, let me see that." So I hand him my contact sheet all nervous like. He sees the picture of the Thai dolls and goes: "Ohh! You have Asian parents?? You were adopted, that's FAHHHBULOUS!" My response: "...Yes. Yes I have Asian parents." Iwan: "That is fabulous!" Me: "...Yea, adoptions not bad." WHAT THE HELL?! Who does that?? So he can never meet my parents and/or I'll have to hire Asian actors to be my parents if he ever needs to meet them.

• This morning in Gender in Society, we were discussing "The Glass Escalator" which is when men enter "women's fields" like teaching and get promoted quickly to administrative positions because they are men...patriarchy...matrix of domination...blah blah blah. Anyway, all I could think of was Mr. Feeny from "Boy Meets World" and how he was first their middle school teacher and then followed them to high school and finally was promoted to became a college professor. Mr. Feeny like owned the Glass Escalator. Then I couldn't stop thinking about how hot Eric Mathews was. And how comical Rider Strong's name is, and how odd it is that he's gay. Who knew?! Then I realized why I have an A in the class and a D in participation. So when I was walking to Art of the Renaissance, I was still thinking about my Mr. Feeny-Glass-Escalator-Theory and blatantly tripped and fell flat on my face in the quad, producing a giant cut on my leg, which was bleeding during class. So there I am, bleeding-out in the middle of class trying to take notes and maintain consciousness. Why is my life so awkward?

• [This is a story about doing a design project with a senior designer who I had a crush on when I was a freshman] It was one of those situations where in your head you're thinking, "OMG WHY ARE YOU BEING SO AWKWARD?! THIS IS NOT YOU! SAY SOMETHING BACK TO HIM, HE JUST ASKED FOR YOUR OPINION!!!" and all that comes out is "Uhh, yea. Good stuff." I think I said "good stuff" like 80 times. And of all the lame things to say, why "good stuff"?? We later had to relocate to the design lab in McKinley. Once we got there, he used this random-ass back entrance that I didn't know existed. I didn't want him to think that I was some amateur 19 year-old design girl, so I was like err yea I know where I'm going. So we walk in and I head for the left hall and he heads right. Hot Design Boy: "Oh...you go that way?" Me (trying not to star in amateur hour): "Oh yea...all the time. But let's go your way!" Hot Design Boy: "Oh no, I want to see your way, I didn't even know you could go this way." Me (thinking 'oh shit I have no fucking clue where I’m going, this building is a maze'): "Umm okay...follow me!" So I lead him around the building for like 5 minutes not knowing where the hell I'm going. At every intersection he'd go one way and I'd go another and he'd be like "Oh...you can go that way?" until finally he was like "...you don't know where you're going, do you?" ::Meg hangs head in shame:: "That's correct, sir." So. painfully. awkward.

• I awkwardly outed Andrew to our entire comm class today. We were sitting in class at the conference table and Andrew informed everyone that the British Navy is apparently trying to recruit gay men. So I slapped Andrew on the back and said, "HAHA! Looks like you're going to sea Andrew!" He was not thrilled. But that just gets him back for the time we were having lunch with a bunch of people that I didn't know and he chose to break a lull in conversation with "Hey, did you guys know that Meg invented the blow job and now calls it a "Row Job?"

• This morning when I was walking back to my apartment, Scott Kalman (better known as "Sweater Vest Scott") was approaching. We proceeded to (and in COMPLETE synchronization) do the meeting of eyes and slow head-nod to acknowledge each other. However, we did this social ritual faaarr too early. So after we did the head-nod, we were still walking towards each other for about 10 more seconds. And we were both listening to ipods, so we couldn't really do the "How are you?" courtesy conversation to pass the time, so we both just kind of awkwardly kept nodding our heads. It was intensely awkward. And I couldn't help but laugh. Which added to the awkwardasity of the situation. It reminded me of the time over the summer where I ran into Jeremy and we hugged, but he added the courtesy cheek kiss to the mix. I hadn't taken him for the kind of guy who busts out the courtesy cheek kiss, so I didn't reciprocate, instead I thought about how I really didn't take him for a courtesy cheek kisser and then I was like shit, COURTESY CHEEK KISS BACK ASAP! So, a delayed five seconds after our hug was over I was like.......MWAAAA, and kissed him on the cheek, which at that point just seemed like a random and oddly affectionate thing to do to someone I'm not that great of friends with. Awkward.

There's a fine line between quirky and Asperger's. And apparently in college I was flirting with that line. A lot.