Stand and Deliver

I know that today should technically be a Queer Abby post, but I can't physically force myself to write about something that's not about one of my three newest (and some might say most questionable) obsessions:

1.) Hat

2.) Towel

and 3.) Real Housewives of Atlanta NeNe Leake's unconfirmed biological father and confirmed chronic leg pain sufferer, Allen Pope.

My friend Dan is crashing with me for a while and while I think we were both originally looking forward to this little set up, I'm now pretty sure he's going to check into the local Y tomorrow and never come back because all I talk about is the Holy Trinity that is Hat, Towel, and Allen Pope. Although, that being said, Dan did just tell me that he thinks I should, "maximize [my] potential as a blogger and an artist, follow [my] dreams and write about NeNe Leake's father, Allen Pope." So I will! And I'll also write about Hat and Towel, both of whom have filled the anthropomorphic hole in my heart left by Weekend Hair and Aspie's Clip's absence, god rest their souls.

[TIME OUT: OK, so speaking of Weekend Hair, I wrote the majority of this post Monday night until I hit a brick wall from around 3am-5am because I couldn't articulate my emotions re: Allen Pope (there were a lot of them), fell asleep, woke up, brick wall continued, blah blah blah I've worked it out, it's not important. What is important is that apparently Dan couldn't find his dress socks this morning while he was getting ready for work, so he looked in my underwear drawer to see if there was something he could borrow from me. Instead, he ran into the decomposing remains of Weekend Hair 2.0 and ended up wearing one gray ankle sock and one black knit thigh high sock to work under his dress pants. I have thoughts on this:

A.) It takes balls of steel to root around in a single twenty-something lady's underwear drawer without her permission. You, sir, better thank your lucky stars that the people at Tinge were too bitter to send me a free "razor" and I keep my porn some place way more accessible from my bed than in my closet.

B.) You're welcome for how comfortable that knit thigh high was. Next time try it with its brother, booty shorts and a wife beater and tell me you didn't just see god.

and C.) I just appreciate that in my apartment you're more likely to find fake hair and gold lame gloves in my underwear drawer than socks. If I didn't interact with my vagina on a semi-daily basis, I'd think I was a drag queen.

OK, time back in.]

Hat

I first met Hat when I was in K-Mart last weekend to get some last minute camping supplies. I was on the phone with my sister in the hunting aisle trying to convince her that I didn't need to spend $25 on a camping chair when they have a perfectly good compact hunting stool on sale for $8.99, when I noticed a knit camo hat dangling a few rows above. "HA HA. Irony," I thought to myself, in typical obnoxious fashion, as I reached out and grabbed it to try it on. (In retrospect, it probably wasn't a good idea to try on headwear in the hunting aisle of a K-Mart on Georgia Avenue all willy-nilly, but meh. That's why god invented RID and trash bags.) Now as I reached out for that hat, I knew I was going to buy it no matter what because I'm the kind of asshole who values ironic fashion choices over things like oh say, bills, any day of the week, but what I didn't know was that it was what was behind it that would change my life forever. It was Hat—a camo baseball hat with two levels of built-in LED lighting.

We locked eyes across the ethnically crowded aisle and it felt like someone had knocked the wind right out of me. (And I'm not just saying that for comedic effect. I legitimately gasped when I saw it. Which means the idea of a camo baseball cap/flashlight excites me so much that it has the power to disturb my breathing pattern.) My eyes widened, my heart skipped a beat and I almost dropped my phone.

"Oh I'M sorry," I said, blatantly interrupting my sister, "but I just found a camo baseball cap with a built-in LED flashlight in the visor, it's on sale for $7.99 and yes I am going to buy it."

"WHAT?? Jealous..."

I threw Hat in the styrofoam cooler, picked up a Redskins camping chair (if I was going to spend $10 on a ironic clothing, I guess I was obligated to splurge on silly things like "comfort"), paid with two food stamps and a diarrhea joke and was on my way.

Now, I originally thought Hat was just going to give us all an ironic little chuckle around the campfire and that would be that. But as it turned out, Hat was incredibly useful and kind of saved the day? Thank to a series of unfortunate events (including, but not limited to, inadvertently driving through a marsh in the middle of a soon-to-be housing development in Reston in my Chrysler Sebring convertible at 9 o'clock at night because Google Maps is an asshole) by the time we got to our camping site, it was pitch black out. Which was not the most "helpful" environment for setting up a tent and building a fire. We kind of stood there in the dark being like "sh..shiiiit..." until I realized, "OOO! WAIT! I IRONICALLY BOUGHT A HAT WITH WHAT'S APPARENTLY A STRONG FLASHLIGHT BUILT IN AT K-MART TODAY!" I fished Hat out of the trunk, put it on, turned him on and I. said. god. DAMN. That son of a bitch lit up our entire camping area. It was absurd. And really helpful until Helena pointed out that I could simply reposition my car so the headlights were pointed directly at our tent and it would be a non-issue. And...yeah. Good point. But still! Hat continued to be helpful throughout the entire weekend, what with the hands-free ghost story telling and 1 Night in Paris style lighting effect it had on everyone.

Needless to say, Hat and I really bonded camping that weekend and now that we're back in real world, I don't know how I ever lived without him. We're inseparable. I took him home last Sunday night to meet the family. Yeah. It's that serious. Alex tried him on yesterday and took him for a test drive in the bathroom. (That sounded slightly more homoerotic than it was.) (SLASH hats don't have gender and this needs to stop because I'm starting to freak myself out. I just had a giant gchat conversation with my mom about whether or not he'd embarrass my dad in front of his work associates if I brought him to the Navy football game this weekend.) (Although let it be known my mom responded, "Of course not. We're just happy you two found each other. He lights up our life." ENABLER.)

...That being said, here are some pictures of Hat:

I call that, Hat In Profile

That's Hat keeping me company in traffic en route to my parent's house for dinner.

That's Evie laying like a lamb on an oriental rug looking at hat with a dubious look on her face. Typical.

Towel

Ughh...OK, Towel is a bit of a bittersweet story. So I went over to Alex's place the other night and ended up sleeping over because by the time I was ready to go, the metro was closed and, you know, I had spent all of my emergency cab money on a flashlight hat. When it was time to go to sleep, I crawled into bed with Alex, started to spoon him and went into a giant coughing fit. When it had passed, I spooned Alex again and whispered softly into his ear:

M: Alex?

A: Yeah Meg?

M: Can I ask you something?

A: Yeah Meg?

M: ........Have you ever coughed out a fart?

A: Jesus Christ.

And then he separated us with a chastity towel. But honestly? I wasn't even mad. Because that towel was absurdly fluffy and smelled ridiculously good. I slept curled up with my little face burrowed in it all night. It was amazing.

The next morning, I had one of the most painful red wine hangovers to date. Which sucked for me because we had to drive to Pentagon City Mall to get Laura's birthday present in heinous bumper-to-bumper traffic on what had to be the brightest day on god's green earth. As of right before we left, I was in that hangover limbo where I knew if I put an outstretched finger within six inches of my open mouth, I would absolutely vomit everywhere, but I could probably power through it if I really tried, but it was my funeral. I eventually got up to vomit, but Alex looked at me with eyes that said, "I waited until noon to get you up, please don't delay this process further with your red wine vomits." I decided to man up and go, but in order to not throw up in his car, I needed a few things: a bottle of Gatorade, a trash bag and Towel, for emotional support. Towel was probably the only smell circulating around the city that day that didn't make me want to vomit, so I rode the entire way to Pentagon City doing lamaze breathing directly into into him.

When Alex dropped me off at my apartment later that afternoon (when I was feeling significantly better), I took one final deep whiff of Towel and said,

M: God, I love this towel. I couldn't have gotten through today with out him. Would you be mad if I stole him and kept him forever?

A: Yes. Yes, I would. Slash, you know what's funny?

M: What?

A: [with a hesitant look in his eyes] I don't think I've actually washed that towel since using it like three times. At bikram yoga.

M: WAIT...WHAT?

A: Yyyyyeah...that's my hot yoga towel.

It was like I had just realized that my lover was my sibling or something. Like, all of our intimate moments flashed before my eyes and I felt dirty and ashamed and confused by how something so wrong could have felt so right at the time.

M: WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SOMETHING THE FIRST TIME YOU SAW ME RUB IT ALL OVER MY FACE?!?!!?

A: You looked so happy!

M: THEN WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME NOW?! WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE JUST LET ME LIVE A LIE???

A: Because I didn't think you'd give it back!

M: So, wait, did you just say that because you want me to give the towel back?

A: [laughing] No, that really is my yoga towel. But if it makes you feel any better, it's just the towel I drape over my car seat so I don't get the leather all sweaty.

M: THAT MAKES IT WORSE!!! BECAUSE NOW I KNOW I SPECIFICALLY HAVE YOUR ASS AND BALL SWEAT ALL OVER MY FACE!!!

A: It's all the same sweat!

Now, this was obviously unbelievably fucked up on Alex's part, but you know what the most fucked up part was? Just between me and you, I kind of didn't care. Like, 40% of me wanted to toss Towel out the window and bathe in battery acid, but the remaining 60% really didn't give a shit and just wanted another whiff. But then the 40% would be like, "Yes, take another 'whiff', of Alex's ball sweat towel." So I'd raise Towel to throw him in the back seat and the 60% would kick in all, "I mean, we're all just ball sweat when you break us down molecularly and you were primarily just snuggling with the ends and his ass and balls would have technically been in the middle, so..." and it was just a horribly confusing time of my life.

I ultimately got my revenge though. Right before I got out of Alex's car, I secretly shoved Towel in my bag while we made plans for him to come back later so we could go to Laura's party together. When he indeed came back later that night, I told him I was just going to take a quick shower and to hang tight. About 10 minutes later, I leisurely strolled out of the bathroom and into the living room naked, wrapped tightly in (a freshly laundered) Towel. "Don't mind me!" I said, as I stood directly in front of Alex, tucked Towel into various interesting places and proceeded to do a few deep squats and lunges.

The look on his face was pretty much worth everything I had been through that day. But then he retaliated by shoving Jason's front paw down his pants. So I shoved his iPhone down my pants. And then we both got that crazy look in our eye so we called a truce before someone shoved Dan down their pants and he called the cops on us. So, I don't really know who won and who lost in the end. I think the towel really came out on top, however.

Allen Pope

Ooof. Allen Pope. Allen Pope is a lot of things: man; player; Athens, Georgia resident; the reason there wasn't a blog post yesterday; an enigma wrapped in a track suit, topped with a newsboy hat, wrapped in Aleve. I think the reason I'm at such a loss about Allen Pope is because he's an actual living, breathing human being who I could conceivably meet and talk to and it wouldn't be cause for a cutting-edge documentary about people who fall in love with bridges and shit. I'm out of my element.

Dan and I spent the majority of Columbus Day parked on my couch eating Baja Fresh and watching a Real Housewives of Atlanta marathon (as all Federal holidays should be spent, really.) Around the fifth hour of the marathon, we were Cracked Out, with a capital C, capital O. Luckily, that's when Bravo aired Season 2, Episode 12: Baby Momma & Daddy Drama. In this episode, cast member NeNe Leake's goes to Athens, Georgia and meets the man suspected to be her biological father—Allen Pope.

Now, here's what you need to know about the state of affairs I was in while I watched this episode: they were sad. I was in a sad, sad state of affairs. I was tired and hot and cracked out and wearing a wife beater and dangling off my bed and drinking La Playa brand beer and laughing at everything and anything. It was unique. The second I saw Allen Pope on the television screen, I instantly fell in love. But like, deep love. Deeper than anything I felt with Hat and Towel combined. (BOLD WORDS. Bold words, from a bold woman.) I've been trying to articulate what it is about Allen Pope that's turned him the new Kevin Yang in my life all day, and here's what it boils down to: that little old man is fucking adorable. There it is. It's simple. It's jazzy. It's elegant. It's the truth.

BOOM. That's Allen Pope. Just sittin' on a little brick wall in front of his apartment complex, meeting what might be his long-lost daughter. I mean, I don't want to call him a "turtle" because we're starting to dance into some racial territory that I'd rather not, but the feeling I get in my stomach when I look at pictures of turtles (akin to what "normal" people feel when they look at pictures of kittens or babies,) is exactly what I experience every time I look at Allen Pope. He's just so fucking adorable. Like, I just want my physical person to be on his. And that's sexual or non-sexual! I'd take either! I'd take anything. I just want to be in his presence.

And then Allen Pope spoke.

And it was like a deep, smooth, mellifluous, soul-filled back rub for the ears. Just with those three words: how are you? I'm aroused, sir. That is how I am.

And then things took a turn for the LOLZ:

So this is moment is like the zenith of NeNe's trip back to Athens to find her real father, right? Like, she was just having a panic attack 20 seconds ago at the thought of interacting with this man, and the second thing he says to her is, "If I don't stand up [...] if I don't stand, it's because my legs are hurtin'," which is just an incredibly ass-backwards and confusing way of saying, "I can't get up to shake your hand because my legs hurt," and NeNe's like, "Wha—O...K...?" and it's really tense and awkward and oh my fucking god. I was in tears just rolling around on my floor laughing and melting and falling in love and being incredibly jealous of the knee braces he was obviously wearing AND THEN! NeNe tells him that she has a lot of questions she wants to ask him, and he says he'll answer her questions in private when "Bird" isn't around.

I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Because in my mind that was just his adorable Allen Pope way of saying he wants to do it off-camera and he was referring to the camera or boom mic as a "bird". But it turns out that "Bird" is a nickname for NeNe's uncle Mel and he just didn't want to talk about banging his brother's wife in front of him, but still! ADORABLE. So then he kind of blows them off and tells NeNe to call him and says she looks like her mother and it's an emotional moment and all I can say is it was over way too soon.

Right after the scene ended, I picked myself up off the floor, went over to my computer and immediately purchased the episode for $1.99 from iTunes. Much to Dan's dismay, as he was working on some big important thing for work the next day and my downloading a file that large was slowing down the rickitey stolen internet.

Dan: Guhh. Edgar Allen Poe is slowing down the Internet tubes with his broken legs.

M: Uh, well maybe you should learn to respect your elders and get off the Internet so Allen Pope can walk down those tubes freely.

D: Yeah, well if his leg aren't workin', you know that he's not going anywhere, so there's that.

A few minutes later I told Dan that "Edgar Allen Poe is slowing down the Internet tubes with his broken legs" is probably be one of my favorite sentences in the English language, to which he laughed a bit and then said with some melancholy,

D: Yeah. There's an aspect of humor to it and there's also an aspect of "we're going to need to address this when a certain amount of time goes by and I need to do my job." HA HA. Ohhhhh, forced into living with me. BLESS. YOUR. HEART.

But that's not where Dan's troubles for the night ended. No, sir. Because I then spent the next four hours non-stop reciting Allen Pope quotes, specifically If I don't stand, it's because my legs hurt, in a voice I concocted by mixing a bit of Desmond Tutu, Morgan Freeman, stereotypical righteous Baptist preacher, with a dash of Sidney Poitier. And then it got to the point where I'd only talk in the "Allen Pope" voice, which quickly morphed into only responding to Dan's questions with If I don't stand... statements, my favorite being, "If I don't stand, it's because I'm maximizing my potential as a blogger." And then Dan took a shower because it's the only place in my studio where you can be alone and by the time he came back, I had transcribed the entire scene into a Word document and asked him to run lines with me.

And to my surprise, he agreed because he was finally on board with the Allen Pope joke. I think mostly because I didn't really give him an option not to be...? I don't know. I just know one minute there was a kibosh on the Allen Pope voice in the apartment and the next Dan was helping me e-stalk him, cross referencing various White Pages entries on Google street view, emailing me If I don't stand... one-liners from work and proposing we create an Allen Pope Twitter account. Which I was completley on board with, by the way, but can't happen because @AllenPope is taken by CSNwashington.com contributer Allen Popel. Damn him. I suppose we could do @AllenPope_GA or @THEREALallenpope or something but I don't know...it's just not the same. It's not as pure.

So what I'm saying is, Allen Popels: we're both Washingtonians, we're both bloggers, it looks like we have a few friends in common; let's be reasonable. I will give you—nay, trade you, as you say in your industry—@2birds1blog, what's left of Weekend Hair 2.0, Hat, and Towel for ownership of @AllenPope. Except my Twitter account feels like something I should probably hang on to, Hat and I have more camping to do in a few weeks and I'm convinced I can brush WH2.0 out and she'll live to bang another day, but I'll gladly give you Towel? Please ignore his..."colorful" past. You know where to reach me.

XOXO,

Meg & Towel

Rasta Pugs & Peeping Toms

Man, we are crazy overdue for a Dr. Rueben Q&A o' the Day, huh?? Lord knows I haven't felt the ungodly need to grab my genitals in phantom pain in far too long. However, before we get to the good doctor, I need to talk to you about something that has absolutely nothing to do with anything.

Now, if you were to break down the percentage of how I spend an average day, this is what it would look like:

Meg McBlogger's Average Day

- 30%: Sleeping; napping; cat-napping or some combination of all of the above
- 30%: Assing around and general Tom Foolery
- 15%: Blogging
- 7%: Eating
- 5%: Gym
- 3%: Calling my mom and asking her inane questions like, "do you think this yogurt's still good?", "which side of the body is your liver on?" and "where are my keys?"

And the other 10%, you ask? Welp, the remaining 10% of my day is spent googling pugs, pugs in costumes, pugs in clothes and/or general pug accessories. There it is. The truth. Now you know what it is I do all day. Am I proud? No. Could I be doing more productive things with my day? Of course. Am I happy? Ecstatic. Because please look at what I found today:

Hi. That is a rasta track jacket for pugs. I mean...I just...I have no words for how absurdly fucking adorable that is. None. To quote my sister, "If I saw a pug walking down the street in a little rasta track jacket, I think I would have some sort of epileptic seizure it would be so cute." AND HOW!

Also, can we please discuss that upon discovering they're out of the 16" pug appropriate ones, I audibly gasped in disappointment? It's just somewhat startling considering how I don't own a pug, know anybody who does or have any plans to get one in the near future. (Although as MTV can attest, getting one is part of my five year plan...God I hate being me.) I just can't help but to think that if I had the ability to spend 70% of my day strutting around Dupont Circle with a joly little rasta pug, I'd be 99% happier in life. Do I sometimes fantasize about making rasta pug a Twitter account and all of the delightfully inappropriate things it'll say, like "Blazin' with my mom, mon!" or "Crackin' open a Red Stripe and watching de NatGeo"? Yes. Yes, I do. Am I comfortable with that fact? Jesus god, no.

I don't know what's happening to me. I'm out of control. I've already written two verses of a Robert Palmer cover song called Addicted to Pug and I'm weirding myself out harder than I've ever weirded myself out before. Mind you this is coming from the girl who wanted to create a graphic novel about the adventures of her Aspie's Clip and Weekend Hair. Bold statements. Bold statements all around.

Dr. Reuben! Step into the weirdo spotlight and make me seem normal again!

[Oh and FYI, I picked today's chapter in my normal way of flipping to a random page and pointing blindly to a sentence. Today I landed on:

"Mental rape is no fun if the victim is willing."

Slam and dunk.]

Q: What else does he [a Peeping Tom] want to do?
A: [...] Some peepers are more dedicated. Take Arnold, for example. Arnold is a stockbroker. He is in his early forties and was married for a year or so when was twenty-two.

"It just didn't work out—she was too immature."

Arnold describes his favorite technique.

"On the days when the market is closed, I go to the Public Library. I go back in the stacks and pretend I'm looking for a book. I always poke around on my hands and knees. Begin to get the idea?

"I wait until some girl comes along—she has to be a good-looker—and then I swing into action. I kind of work my way over to her, real slow so she doesn't suspect anything. Then I get out my equipment. I have this little magnifying mirror and I hold it by her feet so I can look up her skirt and get a perfect view of the entire situation."

For some reason, peepers love to refer to the object of their peeping in vague, general terms—entire 'situation' is a good example."

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

1.)

You sick son of a bitch...

2.) How old must Arnold's wife have been if even the local library peeper can't handle her immaturity? I mean, what are we talking? 12? 13?

3.) Really Arnold? You won't take a peek unless she's a "good-looker"? You know Arn—may I call you Arn?—Arn, there's an old saying that goes, "beggars can't be choosers." I think when you're the guy who hustles straight from work to the public library and crawls around on all fours like a farm animal to get a five second peek at a pair of Hanes Her Ways, you might officially be classified as a beggar. I know I'm no medical doctor, but let's stop putting on airs here.


Q: What about female exhibitionists?
A: Most of them are professionals. Strippers and topless dancers are good examples. No matter what they say, strippers enjoy their work. They derive sexual satisfaction from displaying their breasts to large groups of men. They don't need much encouragement to display everything else. More than one stripper has obligated an enthusiastic audience by taking it all off, G-string and all, and parading around nude. She gets what she wants and they get what they want. Everybody is happy, no harm is done, except to Public Morals, whatever that means.

Predictably, strippers don't get much other sexual satisfaction. They usually have trouble attaining orgasm and never find much real pleasure in genital sex.

The same holds true for beauty queens. Their activities have more social approval, but the game is the same. They show off their breasts, hips, buttocks, and a discreet outlining of the vulva (through a bathing suit) to admiring men. Miss Artichoke 1966 has a lot in common with Bubbles LaTour and her Magic Balloons.

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

I only included that question and answer because I've decided I'm going to start a band called "Dr. Reuben & The Blanket Statements" and we're going to tour the nation's countryside in our mystery van solving wacky, far-out crimes at haunted mansions and amusement parks.

And that is exactly where rasta pug and I will be if you need us. Good day.

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...