My Hagman's Keeper

EFF! Eff for two solid reasons:

1.) Tonight is the release party. Which is a good thing. But still, eff. Here are the answers to some frequently asked release party-related questions!

Q: Where is the party?

A: The Big Hunt. 1345 Connecticut Avenue, NW. It's next to Cafe Citron and...something else that I can't remember. Which is odd, considering how much I'm there. Is it next to something else? I feel like it's next to that random non-profit that's always playing a PSA outside the building and never doesn't scare the shit out of me when I walk by it late at night. Seriously, I don't know who you people are or what you do, but get a Twitter account. It does the exact same thing but doesn't make me think I'm about to get raped.

Q: So I just walk in the bar and you'll be right there?

A: No, I will be in the bathroom snorting a line of Xanax off of Chris's tittays. Slash our party isn't in the main bar area. Go in through the main door, walk past the bar, and take an immediate left. If you hit the kitchen, you've gone too far. If you're upstairs, you've gone too vertical. If you're on the roof deck, you're not listening to me at all, so maybe you deserve to stay up there and think about what you did.

Q: Will you be selling books at the party?

A: No.

Q: Why not?

A: Because we'd have to front the money to buy them from the warehouse and that's not an option right now. I'm currently drinking seltzer for dinner and not because I'm watching my girlish figure, if you know what I mean.

Q: Tell me more about the free shit you've promised.

A: Our publisher, Adams Media, was kind enough to send like, 15ish awesome books to give away to the first 15ish people who show up. I'd give you a concrete number, but the books are on the table across from my bed and I'd have to do a slight crunch to see over my chair and count them.

Q: Meg...I want to be on your side, but it's just genuinely difficult when you say things like that.

A: FINE. Nineteen. Nineteen books for the first nineteen people who show up and are not related to me and/or in my immediate circle of friends. Also, there are four copies of our book in that count, so if you didn't have time to buy a copy, come early and you might get one for ~fReE~! I'll throw in another one from my personal collection to make it five. Alex will be waiting for you when you walk in with a few Trader Joe's bags full of books. First-come, first-serve. 

Q: Can I take one of the bags when you run out of books?

A: No. I use them to do my grocery shopping.

Q: You don't buy groceries.

A: Well, I use them to buy wine and hummus when I'm feeling sassy.

Q: Can I take Alex?

A: As long as I get my bags back...

Q: So the party starts at 7:30?

A: Yes.

Q: When does the reading start?

A: The hilarious Tim Miller is going to "get the party started" (<--- God I hate myself) at 8:15, and then we'll hop on the mic, say thank you, do a quick reading, and then sign books.

Q: What will you be reading?

A: BONUS MATERIAL!!!1! We'll be reading a scenario from the original manuscript that got cut because it was too risqué.

Q: Risqué?

A: Well, less risqué and more flat-out offensive, but risqué sounds sexier.

Q: What's the dress code?

A: Super casual.

Q: What will you be wearing?

A: Fuck if I know.

Q: How's your unibrow zit?

A: HORRIBLE, obviously. And I went to Sephora yesterday to buy like, burn victim grade cover-up and got it one shade too light, which is un-fucking-fathomable.

Q: Is the book available on Kindle yet?

A: No, but it will be.

Q: When?

A: I'm not sure. I keep emailing our editor about it, but he doesn't know either and I get the impression that he's irritated by the entire situation too. So I'm sure me emailing him five times a day to be like "MATT!!! WHEN'S THE KINDLE COMING OUT?! MATT!!! CAN I HAVE MORE MONEY?! MATT!!! WHY WON'T YOU LET ME USE THIS ABORTION JOKE?!" isn't helping. But, you know, that's just my way of saying "I like you".

Q: So who's coming to the party?

A: EVERYONE.

Q: Really?

A: Well, everyone I know.

Q: So I should go?

A: Totally. Take Friday off. Get blackout drunk. Make out with one of my friends. Say hi to me and watch me ramble at you for fifteen minutes because when I get nervous I ramble.

Q: I'm excited!

A: I'm a cunt hair away from a bleeding ulcer, but I'm also excited.

Q: Welp, see you tonight.

A: Yay!

2.) I would like to apologize to everyone for being too far up my own asshole buying cover-up and researching today's weather forecast to realize that yesterday was Larry Hagman's birthday, a.k.a. the holy holiday of HAGMAS. I'm mortified. Just mortified. Thanks to readers Charles and John for reminding me. God. I'm seriously pissed at myself because I could have done a really good birthday post Tuesday night. Instead, I wrote this:

OK, OK, OK, wait a minute...Instagram shares your photos? With random people?? Is the world aware of this?! Because I sure as shit wasn't. Thank God I didn't take a bunch of MySpace photos of myself from extremely flattering angles with my breasts tumbling out of my blouse because Lord knows it was tempting. REAL tempting.

Then fell asleep, woke up at 3:45am having a panic attack, watched season one of Breaking Bad to calm down, subsequently convinced myself I had lung cancer, fell back asleep at 8, woke up at 1 and was late to meet Alex for lunch. So, at least I achieved that. I'm sorry, Larry. I'm sorry I let you down, I'm sorry I let my readers down, I'm sorry I let Patrick Duffy down, but most of all, I'm sorry I let myself down. I hope you had an excellent 80th birthday. (80!!!!!!!!! Please just let me hold you in my arms...)

In conclusion: Merry Hagmas to all, and to all a good night!

Just pull the trigger, Meg.

YEP. The release party for our first book, The Misanthrope's Guide to Life, is officially on the calendar! And it's equal parts terrifying, exciting, stressful, and erotic. Well, mostly terrifying and erotic. I've been BM-ing like a champ, though, so when God closes a door...

To reiterate what our jaunty little flier says, we're having a release party/book signing/book reading/poetry slam/key party/just kidding/but maybe not?/I don't know/the night is young and I can't get HPV/so there's that on Thursday, September 22nd at my beloved Big Hunt in Dupont Circle. The hilarious Tim Miller will emcee and Chris and I will be signing books, shaking hands, kissing babies, and stress vomiting into our purses from 7:30-11:30pm. (The good stuff starts at 8:15, so be on time.) (Please.) The bar will have $3 Bad Ass Amber, Big Ass Wheat, Light Ass, and Hipster Ass (aka PBR). (I 100% stole that PBR joke from Big Hunt general manager Dave Coleman.) (Dave also wrote 60% of the book and designed the cover art.) The first ten people to show up will also get a FREE gift compliments of Adams Media. I mean, what more could you want? To meet my parents? Oh, they'll be there. A copy of the book? Hop on Amazon and buy yours today!

I just really think you should come. I don't know if this helps, but pretty much every single person I know hooked up at our last party. It's an exciting precedent. Well, I didn't hook up. I got dumped, drank too much, and passed out fully clothed next to Co-Blogger Chris and his tighty whitties on a particularly uncomfortable corner of my bed. True fucking story. So I say this year, everyone I know gets laid, I step on a nail, have to get a Tetanus shot, and end my night giving Tulane Chris a fleet enema in the alley behind my apartment. YEAH?!?!11 Yeah. Good. It's a date.

So as I've obnoxiously hinted to on Twitter without offering any clarification whatsoever, Chris and I have been hired to write a third book for Adams Media. Theoretically it's a humor book about the butterfly effect, but mostly we just talk about ghosts and titties. We're hustling to get it done before the September 18th deadline (may God have mercy on our souls), which means that we have less than two weeks to throw a party, promote a book, write a book, stop being so fucking fat, and not mess everything up in the process. While this would be hard enough for two adults, it's especially hard for us because all signs point to the fact that we are somehow 16-years-old.

We wrote the first two books in Chris's apartment in Philadelphia, but we've decided to write this one holed up in my parent's basement in Maryland. As we were listening to the early 00's pop-rock compilation CD "Buzz Cuts" today en route to get ice cream, Red Bull, and candy before our 4:45 curfew, Chris took stock of our situation and we realized that we've essentially regressed back to early high school:

- We spend a good portion of every day listening to the ICP and waiting for our Ritalin to kick in

- My mom gave us her bank card to go to the Giant

- We totally lied to my parent's about where we took their car the other day. (I'd like to say we went out to huff Windex and give each other hand jobs, but we just really wanted soft-serve and were too embarrassed to tell my parents because we just ate lunch.)

- My mom gave us $20 to order a pizza tonight because she and my dad were going out

- We had to haul ass to get the Jeep home by 4:45 today because my parent's needed it and I'm not allowed to drive the Lexus

- We keep sneaking out at night. (To take long walks and clear our minds, but, still.) (And yes, you need to occasionally clear your mind when writing an anthology of ghost/tittie/pube jokes. An art form is an art form is an art form, thank you.)

- We laugh a lot at each other's farts, if I'm going to be perfectly honest.

- We talk about how dreamy Jeremy Piven is. A lot.

So there we are. And here we'll be. In my parent's basement, eating Necco Wafers, listening to ICP and writing a humor book. It's not the worst E! True Hollywood Story every told, but it's pretty damn close. (God bless you, Family Affair: The Anissa Jones Story.)

Can't wait to see you on the 22nd!!!!1!

DCA-JFK-SNN-BOS-DFW-IAD-EVE

Well hello there, strangers! So, I have some good news and I have some bad news. And then I have some more good news! But then I have some more bad news. And then I keep going back and forth between even more good and bad news for a while, but I'm pretty sure I end on good news, so I'm going to chalk this up to a win for both of us.

Good news: I'm back!

Bad news: But I'm not pregnant and I'm still painfully STD-free. LAAAAAAAAME.

Good news: But I did fall in love. Twice.

Bad news: The first time was with a 40-year-old tour boat captain and the other was with a Trinity student who told time by looking at the sun. Seems about right.

Good news: What are you doing this Thursday night? Trying to hang out with me and Tulane Chris? Awesome. Because we're both panelists at ihatemy9to5.com's "Behind the Blog" event at Affinity Lab on U Street, 7 - 9pm. If you're in the area, you should totally swing by and watch us drink ourselves into being socially outgoing enough to participate in a "candid conversation" about what it's like to live your life online. That's right guys. SHIT'S GONNA GET RULL CANDID, RULL FAST. Be there.

Bad news: Chris keeps asking me if we're supposed to have anything prepared for the panel and I keep telling him no, but between you and me—shit if I know. So if for nothing else, you should come watch us hand a microphone back and forth between us as we awkwardly shift our eyes around the room and play a few live rounds of Trapped in a Box for 29 Hours. And then we can all get drunk(er) together. K SEE YOU THEN!

Good news: My parents are staying in Ireland for the rest of the month, so I'll be house/catsitting (or "taking care of my little sister," as they call it) for them, which should provide plenty of Evie-based hinjinx.

Bad news: STAYING HERE ALONE AT NIGHT IS TERRIFYING. Absolutely terrifying. I'm more than aware that this is the house that I grew up in and I slept here every night for roughly 18 years, but it is a ghost of a different color when you're here alone. Because its big and there's windows and mirrors everywhere and I keep expecting to look up and see someone's face and things creak and OH, YOU KNOW, the guest room across from mine contains the ashes of 1 human being, 3 cats and a poodle. Plus I'm going to have to put an entire symphony's worth of sleigh bells on that damn cat because she keeps creeping around the house like a silent little spooker, jumping up on me when I least expect it. Christ.

Example: One of my (many) little quirks is that I can't sleep in a bed that faces a door. Why? Because if I do, I stare at it all night expecting someone to dramatically bust in and kill me at any second. It makes no sense, it's kind of crazy, Go see a therapist, I already am, Well it's clearly not working, blah blah blah, whatever. A few months ago, my parents turned my room into another guest room and guess where they relocated my bed? Directly across from the door. Ah Jeez...I could always sleep next door in Becca's old room but there are two twin beds in there and there's no way in hell I'm closing my eyes only to open them and see a ghost laying in the bed next to mine. I could sleep in my parent's room but not only is their bed located across from the door; it's a glass door at the top of a staircase. And FUCK. THAT. WHITE. NOISE. I would stay up all night, scared to close my eyes because if I opened them I would obviously see someone creeping up the stairs with a knife ready to kill me. (I'm completely aware of how insane and paranoid I sound right now, by the way. Just go with it.) I could sleep in the basement. If I had a death wish. Or there's always the guest room. You know, GHOST OF GRANDPA PAST AND POODLES, guest room. So, clearly, the Ikea-ed shell of my old room is going to have to do.

I legitimately had to psych myself up to go to sleep last night. I kept the hall light on and my door opened a crack because that way if someone were to creep down the hall to kill me, I'd be able to hear them coming more than if the door were shut. (And don't even suggest I close and lock my door. Because if there's someone hiding in my closet, trying to unlock that thing to run out of my room would take precious seconds that I may or may not have.) (Bat shit crazy; I'm aware.)

As I laid on my stomach in bed with my head turned towards the wall, I reassured myself that everything was OK, that I was being ridiculous and I should just go to sleep. Now, what I didn't know at the time was that all .4 micropounds of Yevette McBlogger had just crept in, jumped up on the side of the bed that I wasn't facing and was patiently waiting for me to lift up the blankets so she could climb under and hunker down for the night, as she likes to do in my parents bed. I didn't hear her jump up because my fan was on and I didn't feel her because she weighs as much as a moderately sized ear of corn and thus doesn't even make a dent in the mattress. So imagine my surprise when Evie, tired of waiting for me to notice her, decided to firmly place a paw on the small of my back to get my attention.

...I'm not saying that I wet my childhood bed last night at the age of 25-years-old, but I'm also not not saying that I wet my childhood bed last night at the age of 25-years-old.

Good news: FREE LAUNDRY UP IN THIS PIECE!

Bad news: Now I'm going to make you look at my vacation photos from Ireland.

Worse news: And they're not the good ones I took on my digital camera either; they're the random shitty ones I took with my iphone. YOU'RE WELCOME!

The McBlogger Family Vacation in Ireland: Sheepies, Bunnies, Ebony & Ivory.

I saw this shirt at Urban Outfitters the day before we left, took a picture, texted it to Becca, Alex and Geoff and threatened to wear it everyday in Ireland, only to find that they were oddly supportive. Damn them for calling my bluff.

Alex and I had a later flight to JFK than everyone else, so Geoff sent me a text at 11am bragging about how they were already drinking at the airport with this attached:

So, I reminded him it was 11am, perhaps accused him of having a drinking problem and attached a photo of what I was drinking at the time:

Then when Alex and I got to the airport, we sent this, thinking we'd won the war:

But then our flight to JFK was delayed two hours and Geoff sent this picture of everyone already there, drinking and having a good time:

Damn him. Remember when I wrote that Queer Abby answer about not trying to break up your sibling's relationship...?

During our delay I read in US Weekly that Ian Ziering got remarried. Sucks for Helena.

Then I accidentally took a screenshot of my phone.

That's Jafari, who's pretty much the best flight attendant in the history of flight attendants. When we were stuck on the runway for 900 years, he got on the mic and was like, "WELP, IT'S FIVE O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE!" and threw booze and granola bars at us.

Alex was Ghost Train Excited at being able to drink during take-off.

I realize that this is the most country thing to get excited about, but Becca and Geoff's rental car had like, an obscenely large sunroof. So I took a picture of it. WHATEVER, Alex has his ghost trains and take-off drinks, I have my novelty-sized sunroofs. We get our kicks where we can.

A pub in Kenmare.

Back at our house, view of the water.

Hangin' out on the dock. We saw otters and swans and fish and crabs and NATUUUUURE, Goulet.

Low tide. Which I asked my dad to explain and everyone scoffed all, "OH MEG, she's so simple," but nobody could explain beyond, "it has something to do with the moon." Well, thank you. Thank you for your abstract answer.

An ice cream shop called "Bia Bia." Which was endlessly funny to me and my sister. Why? It has something to do with the moon. And Lil Jon.

CAPTAIN ROSS' SEAFARI!!!!!1 The main attraction was supposed to be the seals but it ended up being Captain Ross.

That's a picture of Captain Ross from 10 years ago when he was on top of his Seafari game. Now he mostly just chain smokes, zones out and sings "On the Good Ship Lollipop." I, obviously, fell in love.

Alex taking a rum-coffee break on the Seafari. Note the courtesy poncho that he grew oddly attached to.

In a pub watching The World Cup. That guy was absurdly attractive.

Motion blur is such a cockblock...

IT GETS DARKER LATER THERE BECAUSE WE'RE SO FAR NORTH! WEIRD! Quote my sister, "9:30 at night and it's broad-ass daylight." That and big 'ole sunroofs. EUROPE SHO IS WACKY!!!!

Earlier that day, I had read Tulane Chris' post about his middle school experience a

nd how he ate a lot of chicken hamburgers, and later when we were out a-pub-crawlin', I became obsessed with eating an old-school chicken hamburger. Like, I wouldn't shut up about it. Then at the last pub of the night, I was like, "OH MY GAWD, I WANT TO MAKE LOVE TO AN OLD-SCHOOL CHICKEN HAMBURGER! LIFE IS UNFAIR!" and Geoff was like, "Well it's on the menu, get it," and I lost my shit. Ordered it. Took a picture. And date raped it. (This is the most asinine story I've ever told. I apologize.)

Becca, Geoff, Alex and I spent a mini-cation in Dublin and that, my friends, is James, our student tour guide at Trinity.

By the end of the tour, we were all swooning over James. Geoff included, frankly. I mean, look at him. How could you not fall in love? What with his little Ray Ban Wayfarers and Harry Potter robe. Plus before the tour started, he sensibly put on a sun screen and when someone asked him how long it would be before the tour started, he looked up in the sky and said, "ummm, about six minutes." Which we all interpreted as him telling shockingly accurate time by the position of the sun until we realized he was looking at a clock on the building behind us. I'd like to think that he still tells time via sun position though. God bless him. God bless his charismatic heart.

View from the Gravity Bar at the Guinness factory.

Nom nom nom.

Alex wants you to mug him.

I caught my sister taking a picture of this sign and was like, "what's up?" "It's just too good," she said, "Balls. Beaver. Nutgrove." Touché, madam.

Proving that I took pictures of things besides dat dem der funny signs.

Facade of the church where Bram Stoker got married.

Victorian wing of former jail, Kilmainham Gaol.

Peeking inside at the mural in Grace Gifford Plunkett's cell.

Front balcony where a lot of public hangings took place. Maybe if I weren't such a morbid fuck I wouldn't stay up at night worried about murderers? Yes? No? Hangings? Yes.

In St. Stephen's Green.

This woman was 50. 50-years-old. And she likes to kick, stretch and wear absurdly short, red mini-skirts around the quaint village of Kenmare.

The boat that took us to Skelling Michael; a remote island an hour off of the coast of Kerry that's covered in puffins and has a monastery at the very top. This boat is my best friend because it didn't make me puke.

It was unseasonably dry, sunny and 65-degrees during our entire vacation. One might say it was the luck of the Irish. (SEE?! SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!?!?!)

Truckin' out to Skelling Michael.

Skelling Michael. Which my debilitating fear of heights cockblocked me from climbing to the top of. I opted to befriend the puffins and a landscaper named Patrick (who I understood 34% of what he was said and didn't smell "awesome") instead.

Yeah. No.

Puffins and other sea birds kickin' it on the ledges. Vomit.

PUFFIN!!!!

PUFFINS!!!!

I cropped myself out, but I took this picture of me holding Evie to email to my parents all, "Home from Dallas, gave Evie a hug for you," and I appreciate how after a week of only occasional visits from the neighbors she's like, "REGULAR HUMAN INTERACTION (even if it is with Meg...) YES AND PLEASE."

I miss traveling, but I'm glad to be back! Hope all is well with you guys!