dear @2birds1blog, no-post-tuesday hurts just as much as no-post-monday. what's up? will you be there [today]?
Yesterday was actually Tulane Chris' day to post, but he's been going through some stuff so it never happened. I'm tempted to be like, "SO DIRECT ALL OF YOUR HOSTILITY HIS WAY BECAUSE I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT AND HE'S LIKE A DEADBEAT DAD WHO FORGOT TO PICK UP HIS KID ON HIS WEEKEND AND NOW I HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE ANGSTY LITTLE BRAT HE LEFT BEHIND AND WHY DID I EVER LET YOU KNOCK ME UP IN THE BATHROOM OF THAT SIZZLER?!" but, no. He's in a way. He has emotions. And frankly, it's kind of refreshing not to be the only one around here who can't find time in their busy schedule of long, rain-soaked walks, soul searching and listening to The Carpenters' Close to You on repeat to post anything, but still. We love Chris and hope things turn around for him.
And for the latter half of E. Baar's question, yes, a substantial post will be up later today. It involves something heinously embarrassing that happened to me at work the other day. Because—shock!—something embarrassing happened to me at work the other day. It would have been up this morning, but I had some business to take care of. And that business benefits you, so pipe down.
Woooo! So, it's currently 12:40am on Monday morning and I've been helping with merchandising at work since 3:30 this afternoon, which sucks because I have to be back in for my next shift later this morning. (Later this morning actually = noon. "Later in the early-to-mid afternoon" just didn't have the same dramatic effect. ) Needless to say, I'm extremely cracked out at the moment, so I'm going to ask you all to bear down and bear with. Because at the moment I feel like Apu when he worked a 96-hour shift straight and convinced himself that he was some kind of hummingbird:
So. Queer Abby. Weekly advice column. Amy answers your questions for reals. I give you half-baked, cracked-out advice that helps no one. LET'S GET IT ON!
dear queer abby,
well. my roommate and i lived together through most of college and have lived together for two years out of school. we were bffl^maxest in college and for awhile after. however: just after we graduated, she started dating this guy who is an idiot. she acts like an idiot around him bc she doesn't want to emasculate him in any way. she's gradually become Obsessed with talking about life goals and what everyone wants out of life, and figuring out what it means to be a "twenty-something" in this really limited vocabulary that sounds like a middle school assembly presentation on teenage self esteem. she spent the first few months out of college unemployed and then got the job that is perfect for her, which is great(!), but she's still really insecure and constantly talks up her position to the point of lying about her responsibilities and making it sound like she's running the company. recently, a friend was talking about his promotion to a specific position, and my roomie's response wasn't congrats, but rather, me too! (not in a 'just kidding' way), when she definitely was not promoted and her company doesn't even have that position.
so. needless to say at this point, we're not renewing our lease because i basically started freezing her out a few months ago when i just couldn't deal. i tried talking with her about the more superficial problems, but it didn't really fix anything and she was clearly really hurt by it. we used to be such good friends, and i feel bad jumping ship (like many of our other friends have), but i just feel like we're speaking different languages these days. is there anything i can do to salvage this friendship? is this what growing apart is? can i help her somehow? what if i'm the crazy one?
thanks! you and meg (and tulane chris) are the best!
- short a bffl in dc
Dear SBD,
Yea, I think it’s safe to say you two are growing apart. You might totally grow back together eventually, but you can’t make that happen, you have to just let time sort it out. Trying to force things only creates friction. So, at this point, the best thing you can do to salvage the friendship is recognize and accept the limitations of it. You have to let her be who she is and, likewise, you have to do your own thing.
Not living together should help a lot. That’s not to say you’ll all the sudden be besties again, but you’ll resent each other a lot less if you aren’t forced to spend more time with one another than you’d choose to. Obvi, anyone can change, so you don’t have to write her off completely— in fact, you can still be a good influence on her if you remain friends and offer support and positive reinforcement when it’s due. But, for the sake of both of you, only be as close with her as you can without getting too aggregated, and don’t count on her changing in all the ways you’d hope. You may grow back together, or you may continue to drift apart, but if you can be cool and realistic about it in the meantime, there’s a much better chance that, either way, you won’t end up totally hating each other.
Girl: PREACH. I've been there. And it blows. Here's the thing: when you're in college, you're in this protective little bubble of Natty Light and pre-paid meal plans and lounging around watching Buffy with your roommate in your favorite pair of booty shorts and everything is safe and fine and wonderful. But then you graduate and you and your friends are flung in different directions into the Real World and it's sink or swim time. And much like prison or a tour of 'Nam, being thrown into the Real World changes you. Because you kind of have to re-figure out who you are and where you fit in and guess what? Sometimes you fuck it up. And sometimes your friends fuck it up. Or in my case, sometimes you both fuck it up.
Exactly one year and three months after I graduated college, I sat down, did an in-depth audit of the person I'd become, and the final figure I came up with was this: OOOF. I did not like who I was. At all. So much so that I said "nuts to this", scrapped the life I had created for myself in New York, moved back home and completely started over from square one. It sucked and it was hard, but Christ I'm glad I did it. So maybe your friend will wake up one day and realize that she's a hot fucking mess who’s probably a 40 away from catching Hepatitis C in the back of a cab because it temporarily makes her forget how much she hates herself (rhymes with Schmeg and ends with McBlogger…), or maybe she'll continue being a giant douchebag and guess what you gotta do then? Act like a bulimic a the night before prom and purge.
Because sometimes friends change for the worse, dude. It sucks, but it's true. And there's no point in keeping them around if they blow and don't show any signs of changing. I'm not saying like, "Ohhh. I asked my friend to get me a Red Stripe, not a Heineken. PURGE!!!!!1" I'm saying if your friend has become a person that you don't like and is negatively affecting your life, purge her out of your inner circle. Maybe down the line you'll meet up and be friends again because life is wacky like that, but there's no point in keeping a subpar friend around when I'm sure you've got other grade-A ones. It's insulting to them.
Let’s overshare, shall we? When I was going through my "troubles" in New York, most of my friends stood by me through thick and thin. And then there was the one who didn't. Why? Because she had become the kind of person who was so concerned with being well-liked and having her life appear superficially perfect that she didn't want to risk standing up for me and entangling herself in my problems, despite the fact that we were roommates and had been best friend since 4th grade. Sucked. I took her out to lunch one day and explicitly told her that to get through what I was going through, I needed her to be there for me. Which is when she very matter-of-factly informed me that she “knew it made her a bad person, but she just couldn't.” Again, sucked. But that was the end of that and I haven't talked to her since.
If you had told me that that would have happened in May of 2007, I would have never believed you in a million years. But it happened because people change and unfortunately it's not always for the better. You can't control which friends it happens to, but you can control how much you let it affect your life. I could have kept that friend around because we had been friends forever and she was practically my sister, but...why? You wouldn't keep an abusive boyfriend in your life just because you "had you some times" and “feel bad jumping ship,” would you? Friendships are relationships just like romantic relationships are relationships and when one has turned toxic, you gotta put it to bed before Lifetime makes a movie about you starring Tori Spelling with the word “trapped” somewhere in the title.
God. That was really heavy and kind of a downer. I apologize. Hm...TURTLE RAPES SHOE TIME!!!!!!!1
Dear Queer Abby,
I am socially awkward. Painfully so. I get out of breath in social situations, I can't focus on what people are saying, and I even see paying the cashier at Safeway as a major social success. I really, really, truly want to stop caring about what people think. Because, in the end, I could care less. And yes, when I'm with my friends, that's a different story. They know me, and I can make those outrageous jokes, and I can be myself. But when I'm with others, it's like having to be this different person, even though I know we're essentially all the same. For example, the way I'm writing is not how I would speak or interact with you. I'm a fucking mess.
What's more, I'm in a Master's program for teaching secondary ed. I just met my mentor teacher today and she's very bubbly and nice, but she could see through the awkwardness. I could tell that I worried her. I have massive doubts as a to-be English teacher (because don't you need confidence to inspire your students?). Though, I'm extremely creative and my lesson plans really are fun. When I taught early ed, it was great -- I was a good, confident teacher after the first few weeks. But for years I've been all nerves. In high school, I was president of drama club and outgoing and people admired me. After I transitioned, I have no idea what really happened. Now, I'm fumbling everywhere, and I lack massive confidence and self-esteem. I'm sick of obsessing on this topic. What tools can you suggest to be less self-conscious of others? Fake it 'til I make it? Or, should I just be my awkward self and let go? How do you even let go?
-My Lower Back Constantly Hurts Because I'm Stressed
Drinking copious amounts of vodka usually does the trick for me…
But generally, it’s just a practice thing. I know it’s hard to force yourself into doing something you’re not immediately comfortable with, but it’s a self-perpetuating cycle; the more you withdrawal from social situations the worse it will get. So, you just have to keep incrementally pushing your limits and be patient with yourself. For example, have a few good friends that you know really well over to your house a few times à then eventually start inviting them to bring guests and then start organizing small groups to go out else where, etc. You may actually find that having a hand in the planning makes you feel more confident and comfortable... But if you don’t like that role, just join in when your friends organize something that you’re relatively comfortable with and commit to progressively engaging more people each time.
And seriously, there are things that can really help you get past some of those hurdles originally, including but not limited to booze… I‘m typically reluctant to suggest this route outright, but if it’s as bad as you say it is and you have insurance, you might consider seeing a psychiatrist. Anti-anxiety medication like Ativan, Xanax or Klonopin can help reduce the crippling discomfort until you get to a point where social situations feel a little more natural to you. And in the meantime, or if you prefer not taking meds, talk to someone about it. Whether it’s a therapist, good friend or sibling, they can support you in pushing your boundaries, or call you out if your making excuses. Also, try exercise.
Finally, don’t take yourself so seriously. The way you feel is totally natural, but no one expects you to be perfect. Besides, we usually end up remembering the stupid shit we do far longer than anyone else does. In fact, trust me, they’re usually too busy worrying about what other people think of them to pay all that much attention to you anyway. I promise.
xoxoxo,
abby
I used to be debilitatingly awkward, but I'd like to think that I've now reached a certain level of charmingly awkward. Here's what worked for me:
1.) Sweet Lady Prescription Pills. I used to take a pu-pu platter of anti-anxiety meds and anti-depressants, but I've since overcome my anxiety and now am just working on the depression. HEY-O, SMALL VICTORIES! As far as anxiety goes, Klonopin worked for me like magic. Just be careful because it can be habit-forming. And by habit-forming, I mean awesome. Specifically when mixed with a wee bit of alcohol. But don't mix with copious amounts of pot and alcohol or you'll stand up to go to the bathroom one night at the Reef, fall directly back down and blackout in front of God, your country and all of your friends. Then you'll come-to in the back of a cab with your friend Andrew and actually request that he not to let you die that night, before promptly blacking out again. Then I think there's some vomiting thrown in there for good measure and I believe at one point your roommate comes home to find you passed out on the bed while Andrew tries to take your unnecessarily complicated lace-up boots off, which is when he'll shout, "IT'S NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE!" and your roommate will freak out and yell at him to get out and you'll have a good giggle in your half-coherent state and woooo! God I miss college.
2.) Therapy. Because your therapist will have better suggestions that "don't mix Sweet Lady Prescription Pills with pot."
3.) Own it. I could fill an entire blog with stories of my awkwardness. And I do. Everyday. And now people ask me how to not be awkward. THE AWKWARD, BECOMES THE AWKWARDEE…? Nope. Still awkward.
4.) Like Amy said, practice. You know what really helped me become more outgoing? Bartending. I know it was only for the hottest of hot seconds, but having your income rely on being able to successfully shoot the shit with strangers really forces you out of your shell. The same old men would come into the bar everyday around 4 o'clock, grab a stool, order a drink and just stare at me, waiting to be entertained. I had no idea how to handle it at first. I'd be like, "SO. OBAMA. PRESIDENT NOW. BLACK. MAKE COUNTRY. GOOD?" But then the more and more I did it, the more I realized that it's actually not that hard to make conversation with strangers. You know why? Because people like to talk about themselves. A lot. So just ask them questions and let them do all the work. It's so formulaic, it's stupid: Ask question -> Listen to answer -> Ask follow-up question -> Relate their answer to your own life -> Bonding moment, bonding moment, bonding moment -> Wash, rinse, repeat.
Plus, the more you do it, the less scary it is and the more outgoing you'll become. Whether I'm at a party where I don't really know anyone or just talking to customers at work, I follow that same formula. "I see you went on a Capitol tour; did you like it? Where are you visiting from? Oh, that's cool, my roommate in college was from Ohio. How long are you in town for? Are you enjoying yourself? Insert joke about the weather here. OK, well enjoy the rest of your stay!" BOOM. Social success. And we both know how socially retarded I am, so it can't be that hard.
But then again, painfully awkward shit still happens to me all the time, so maybe we’re both just fucked? Welp, glad to help!
Got a question that you'd like Queer Abby to answer? Shoot an email to QueerAbby@2birds1blog.com! RIGHT NOW.
Before we get to what I'm sure is a hilarious Tulane Chris post, I have a few administrative matters to discuss:
1.) I just got back from Andrew of the Great Juno Debate's ironic Apex College Night Birthday Outing (no pun intended) and I learned something very important about myself tonight: I can not dance to house/techno music. But like, at all. It's like I can't mathematically figure out how my body should move to that beat. Every now and then they'd play a hip-hop song at a normal pace and I'd be like, "Ooo. Yep. I can handle this." But then it would start to speed up and be like thump, thump, thumpTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP—ASYMMETRICAL HAIRCUTS! SCREAMING! LASERS! CARTILAGE PIERCINGS! GAHHHHHHH!!!1and I'd lose it. I think I did the robot a few times. Not trying to be funny, mind you, but because it honestly just felt like the right thing to do.
2.) At one point I looked down at the floor, saw something, and thought to myself, "Huh, I guess someone stepped on a french fry." In retrospect, it's highly possible, if not probable, that that was semen.
3.) Thanks to your votes, we won WTOP's Best Local Blog! Hollerrrrr! To show our appreciation, we're doing a giveaway today with our good friends at Jägershop.com! If you'd like to win a brand-new, badass Jäger Tap Machine, just leave a comment in today's post by midnight and I'll think of some highly scientific way to pick a winner and announce it tomorrow morning. Again, the cut-off time is midnight, so kindly do not enter past that time. (Yes Kevin Yang, that means you.) Good luck!
4.) BONUS ROUND! We actually owe you guys another giveaway because we ended up winning Washingtonian magazine's Best Blog in their 2010 Best Of issue as well! We didn't announce it or do a giveaway up until now because they never actually notified us that we won, didn't invite us to their party and spelled my name wrong in the magazine. It was like the "You look like you've lost weight" of wins. That being said, we're obviously still completely honored and to show our gratitude, we're also giving away a 2birds1blog logo tee to another lucky reader from today's comments section. So, again, leave a comment with your name for a chance to win some sweet free shit from Jägershop.com and the all-new 2birds1blog merch store. Thanks guys! We love you.
As of July 23, 2010 at 2:25am, Larry Hagman is...alive! And totally excited to read Chris' post, I'm sure. Enjoy and thank you so much again for all of your love and support.
- Meg
So, I’m sitting here in my underpants, drinking Carlo Rossi chianti out of a chipped mug and watching a made for TV movie starring Tori Spelling. It sounds like the countdown to a bathtub suicide, but for some of us, it spells contentment. Then Meg calls.
“So, no pressure, but we won the WTOP contest. So, no pressure but we’ll get a lot of publicity tomorrow so… I guess what I’m saying is no pressure but could you please try not to… I don’t know how to say this but SUCK? Could you not? Suck? No pressure. I mean I think you’re wonderful but some of the readers are tired of…rambling, obscenity-laced discussions of things some people might technically find incredibly boring.”
“Is it the rambling, the obscenity, or the boring?”
“The boring. Rambling obscenity is your medium. Work with it. Work in it. Be it. Just try not to advocate genocide this time. I’m still getting emails.”
“I… I’ll try.”
So NOT boring and NOT genocide. Tall order, but we grow the most when we’re challenged. So, I scrapped the post I’d been working on about Princess Diana, which was shaping up nicely but was hardly WTOP material, and went back to the one wellspring that has always served me well: my wacky upbringing. (A P.S. to my six faithful readers: Remember the dwarves amok at Long John Silver’s? Mom brought them up on her own accord tonight on the phone, very casually, “Oh do you remember the So-and-Sos?” Who will ever forget?)
All my life, with varying degrees of politeness, people have been telling me I’m weird. The educational system uses codewords like “gifted” and “creative,” but it’s the same thing. To be fair, I was weird. I was a moderately odd child, and it’s only gotten worse. I’m told that as a pre-kindergartener, I used to go tell the principal that aliens came down in little ships and spoke to me. (To be fair, neither my parents nor the principal could prove they didn’t.) In some areas of the country, this would have led to a therapist demanding to be shown, on the doll, where the aliens spoke to me, but in the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and Don’t Make a Fuss Because the Neighbors Will See” Belt, I was thankfully left alone.
I stayed weird through middle school. In sixth grade I spoke in an English accent because I thought it made me seem cool, one of the most monumental errors of judgement ever seen outside a government office. In seventh grade I became, through no direct fault of my own, “the kid whose parents have a cage full of turtles in the front yard,” and my only clear memory of eighth grade is saying, “Oh, don’t kill yourself, you should at least lose your virginity first.” (It won’t get me hired on any hotlines, but it worked.)
High school was a brief golden age for me. By a bizarre fluke, our school was terrible in sports and academics but had a crackerjack theatre department, so the theatre kids got the screwing-around privileges usually reserved for jocks. Weird was cool, oddly enough, but even in this climate I managed to shine. I was neither especially talented nor particularly attractive, so I played the usual third-string dads, teachers, and fatherly teachers, except for two parts: Scrooge; and Renfield, Dracula’s insect-eating mind-slave. Imagine that teenager. “Well, what can Chris do? Be an old man a hundred years ago, or a homicidally insane old man a hundred years ago?” Keywords: Victorian England; cannibalism. I was also apparently the only person who didn’t realize I was gay:
“I’m going to college to explore myself.”
“You’ve spent the last six years exploring yourself. I bet you spend college exploring other dudes.”
Well, yes, but in my defense I also experimented with drugs. As my nom de guerre Tulane Chris indicates, I went to college in New Orleans, as did the weird kid from every other high school in the country. Open-till-dawn bars, voodoo, and the phrase “oh, it’s just an alligator, leave it alone and it’ll leave you alone” don’t inspire a lust for conformity. Add the cachet that comes from “well I don’t know about you but I was an internally displaced person and the UN actually counted me as such in its yearly statistics and you should have seen Mid-City before the hurricane but the Marigny was lucky because…” and you get a square peg indeed. I had one really illuminating conversation about eccentricity in college. A friend said, “It’s always so awkward when you have to out yourself as weird.” This friend would later gain fame as “the girl who, not content with extant plagues, made up diseases and told us she had them,” but she made a good point. Even if you try to conceal it around new people, you’ll slip, and everyone will know. One passing reference to the year when you were twenty and had an irrational fear of nuclear weapons so strong that whenever a plane flew low overhead while you were asleep you hid in the bathroom because you thought the bathroom was relatively protected despite the fact that the Cold War had been over for fifteen years, and suddenly you’re “weird.”
So now, as a so-called adult, I lead a fairly quiet life on more or less my own terms. I may spend days on end eating dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets and obsessively re-reading books about the Mitford sisters, but I have my own apartment and, for the first time in my life, no one comes in to tell me I'm being weird.
Except, of course, when they do. My landlord gave me about 36 hours’ notice that an “appraiser” was coming to look at the apartment. I was especially busy that week and didn’t have time to tidy up, so the appraiser saw my habitat as it generally is:
-Mess, everywhere
-Mardi Gras beads, everywhere
-A “Christmas Angel” doll that a friend sent me because one of her legal aid clients bought it for her because it looks exactly like my friend
-Twenty pictures of pugs cut from calendars arranged in a large grid on the wall
-An orange electric wok in the hallway (because there’s not room in the kitchen)
-A drawing Giant Camel made me of a narwhal leaping over the Eiffel Tower
-A bottle of holy water in the bathroom, because Mom made me take it when I went to college and I’ve had it ever since and WHAT do you do with such a thing and it usually gets packed with my toiletries
-A two-foot-high plush pug I won at Dave and Buster’s
-A garden gnome holding a panda
-A pile of salt I spilled on the carpet that I haven't gotten around to borrowing a vacuum to clean up
-etc.
This sounds like I’m bragging, “oh look how wacky I am,” but keep in mind that I expected no visitors and was actually annoyed by having someone in my house. This is how things are when I’m home alone.
Any doubt I had that I would be known to posterity, if at all, as an eccentric was finally laid to rest in June. I only keep in touch with two friends from high school, and this June one moved onto a goat farm where the farmer anoints the goats before slaughter, because “goats are people too.” The other married an inmate live on the radio.
“What’s he in for?”
“Oh, some gun thing. You don’t really want to know.”
She’s right about me not wanting to know, but aren’t a huge number of crimes technically “some gun thing?”
Anyway, I’ve gotten used to my apparent eccentricity. It may have ruined a few dates, but it’s gotten me second dates when my other charms fell short. It’s never gotten me a job, but it’s kept me a job – no one wants to fire the guy who comes into the break room with circles under his eyes not because (or not ONLY because) he’s hung over, but because his mother called him at midnight to talk about lepers. It’s lost me a few friends, but it’s won me some hilarious enemies. It may not be useful, but it’s mine.
Speaking of lepers, and to work blue for our new readers, here’s my favorite joke:
Hi guys. So a certain blog that's not worth mentioning got caught cheating yesterday in WTOP's best blogger competition, so they had to wipe all the votes and start again fresh today. (And by the way: thanks a lot assholes. Like people don't already think bloggers are giant douchebags. Way to ruin it for the rest of us...) I hate to be That Girl on a day when I make fun of Those Girls, but if you voted yesterday, would you mind following this link and voting for us again? And if you didn't vote yesterday, would you mind following this link, choosing "2birds1blog" from the the box to the right of the article and clicking "vote"? THANKS, NEW BEST FRIEND!
And if not, hello, new enemy.
Lerve, Meggles
(Also, please only vote once to keep things fair and square. Let's not be a Fairfax-style blog, shall we?)
This may come as a surprise but I actually sympathize with The Gay's struggle for equal marriage. Not so much because I want to marry someone of the same gender, but more-so because I too am in a relationship that Johnny Law refuses to recognize. You see I want to marry a television show. And that television show is MTV's "True Life."
If you've never heard of MTV's "True Life", you might as well just kill yourself because your life has been a sick, sick joke up until now. According to imdb.com, "'True Life' follows three unique persons in their everyday situations, and documents the problems and goals they face." According to Meg McBlogger, "'True Life' is an ocular orgasm that is, and continues to be the only reason I wake up in the morning."
I love "True Life" because no matter what topic they're exploring or what year it was filmed in, it's always vaguely 2001-ish, everyone is slightly white trash and from Florida, and there's just so much...denim. And emotions. I mean, that's what I call real reality television right there. You can keep your Speidi's and your perfectly coiffed "City" cast and your what have you's. I'll take brassy highlights, a pack of Newports and an outfit from Fashion Bug any day of the week.
The only other person I've met who truly understands my obsession with "True Life" is Ex Co-Blogger Chris. When we lived together, I'd estimate a good 65% of our Saturday nights started out with turning on a "True Life" marathon as background noise when we got ready, and ended with the two of us grossly overdressed, eating DiGiorno pizzas we got at the gas station across the street and spooning on the futon in our fifth straight hour of "True Life: I Hate My Face". And you know what? Those nights were fun, drunk and inexpensive. You show me a problem with that and I will show you Gideon Yago's home phone number.
I wish I could say that I love every episode of "True Life", but it's just not so. While I love most episodes—TL: I'm a Southern Bell; TL: I I Have Embarrassing Parents (1 and 2); TL: I'm Driving While Black; TL: I'm in a Polyamorous Relationship; TL: I'm an Urban Cheerleader...I mean why even attempt to make a list? That could be a post in and of itself—there remains one episode that I can't fucking stand. One episode that not matter how many times I sit down and force myself to watch it (and Lord knows I have), I can not make it through the entire episode. So, you know what ruffles my feathers? MTV's "True Life: I Work In the Sex Industry".
TL:IWITSI follows three young people: Aaron, a straight guy who happens to be a gay pornstar; Shawntelle, a college student who has a campus radio show about her sex life; and Rebekah, the office manager of a porn production company. I don't know if MTV cast this episode on a Friday before a 3-day weekend, but all of these plot lines seem insultingly half-assed to me. I mean, Aaron's legit, I have no problem with him, but Shawntelle and Rebekah? Really, MTV? You couldn't find anyone willing to talk to you who was slightly more established in the sex industry than those two? I mean, when I think about people who work in the Sex Industry, prostitutes, doms, strippers and fetishists come to mind. Not sophomores at Cal State Long Beach who want more attention. Are you seriously trying to tell me that the same production company who found three people willing to shoot up heroin on camera couldn't find one measly grad student with a whip, a Craigslist account and an open-mind? Shit, you could have called me and I'd have given you Ex Co-Blogger Eddie's number and saved us all some time and stress.
I reiterate that I have no problem with Aaron's plot line (his uncle disowns him—compelling!) but whatever film crew followed Shawntelle around with a camera for a month straight deserves the Congressional Medal of Honor. Because we all went to college with Shawntelle. Maybe it wasn't that Shawntelle, but it was a Shawntelle. I took Gender in Society my sophomore year of college (because AU is the gayest institution of higher learning in America so it was obviously a Gen Ed,) and my Shawntelle was in that class. I forget her name, but she was the campus newspaper's sex columnist and she raised her hand at least 10 times a class to share a story from her vast library of personal sexcapades.
Our professor—who I hated: Briana Weadock—was all about sharing, so class participation was an obnoxious 15% of our final grade. (She obviously loved Shawntelle.) I, on the other hand, ended up getting an A- in the class that should have been an A, but was bumped down because I never shared. My not sharing had nothing to do with my academic competence in that class. I wrote a damn good paper applying the theory of Docile Bodies to Hedwig's on and off-stage body language in Hedwig and the Angry Inch and it was was like a bukkake film of gender studies buzzwords and meticulously spun bullshit. She loved it. But I ended up getting an A- in the class because I didn't want to share. Oh, I'm sorry; it's 8:30 in the morning. Sorry if I don't want to raise my hand and tell you about the time I french kissed my best friend at field hockey camp. Christ.
Rebeckah infuriates me on so many levels that I have to break it down into numerical points to keep my thoughts straight. This is what the True Life: I Work in the Sex Industry synopsis has to say about Rebekah:
Rebekah loves her job for a company that produces amateur-style X-rated videos. Unfortunately, she fears that guys don't think of her as relationship material because of her career. Tired of being alone, Rebekah sets out to find a man who will love her for who she is. She tries Speed Dating, but all the guys there have the typical response of assuming she's only interested in sex and nothing more. Next, Rebekah attends a porn convention for work and hopes she might find a boyfriend in the industry. Unfortunately, the only cute guys are the gay porn stars. She is able to find a cute new girl to star in her company's movies, which leads to getting her own office. But even with all her success, Rebekah wishes she had someone to share her joy with.
1.) You are on office manager. If "working in the sex industry" is wreaking so much havoc on your personal life, maybe you should stop defining your job as "in the sex industry". Perhaps instead tell a gentleman friend that you're an "office assistant" or an "administrator". Because you "are". The "Did you know I work in the Sex Industry??" card might be more of a third date kind of thing.
2.) You don't even technically work in the sex industry! When I worked for Soap Opera Digest and people asked me what I did, I didn't tell them that I was "in soaps" or "in the entertainment industry." Why? Because they would obviously assume that I was an actress and then we'd have to have an uncomfortable conversation about how I wasn't an actress, I was just a low-level layout artist at the nation's foremost soap opera publication. And that's embarrassing. So instead I'd say, "Oh, I'm a graphic designer." "Oh really, where?" "Ack. It's kind of embarrassing, but Soap Opera Digest." "Ha ha, really? That's so kitschy." "I know, right?" "Yes. We should have sex." "Agreed. "
See? See how that went? And when you're taking pick-up advice from Meg McBlogger, you know you're in trouble.
3.) Do you know what reader @cortmccoy tweeted me today? This image:
A lot of IT departments block this blog because of its "Adult Content." If the blog is written by me and about my life, that means that I am the creator and source of the offensive Adult Content in question. I don't work supporting the Adult Content, I am the Adult Content. Thus I conclude that this means I am more qualified to tell people that I work in the sex industry than you are. (And not that I write a blog about fart jokes and emotions.) Just. Say. Office. Administrator.
4.) The speed-dating scene is so infuriating, I want to stab myself in the eye with freshly sharpened pencils every time I try to watch it. This is an actual conversation that transpires between her and one of her dates:
Date: So what do you do?
Rebekah: I work in porn.
Date: Oh! So you're like...a porn star?
Rebekah: No I'm an office assistant. I don't like, fuck on camera for money or anything.
Date: Oh. [And I swear to god he says this] Normally when I meet people for the first time I try to, like, make a good first impression.
Rebekah: Oh.
Sir, I have no desire to live in the greater Los Angeles area, but I will absolutely date you for more than 10 minutes.
5.) When speed-dating fails, Rebekah decides to throw a party in her apartment and asks her friends to bring single guys to set her up with. Unfortunately, her friends (who all look like they've been dipped by the heels into a Hot Topic...) don't know any single guys, so she ends up getting wasted, locking herself in the bathroom with two guys (who judging by their awkward body language are only casual acquaintances,) cries and refers to herself as "totally doable." I mean, this episode would have made way more sense if it was called, True Life: I'm That Girl.
6.) I hate to be cruel, but don't you think part of the reason why guys don't think you're good relationship material isn't because you "work in the sex industry," but because you look like this:
I know I'm single, but it's my understanding that guys don't want to wake up in the morning and roll over to see a candy-coated rave explosion on the pillow next to them. Unless I've been doing it wrong, which is highly possible.
I'm going to tell you a story. When I was in college, I decided that I wanted to have pink streaks in my hair. I went to the salon where my mom goes in Bethesda and asked them to do it, but they judged the shit out of me instead and refused. Dedicated to the cause, I found a sprite gay man in the city who'd do it for me and once a month for the next six months, we'd get high and experiment with my hair color until one day he disappeared and moved to Barcelona. Now, this story not only accounts for why I had pink streaks in my hair for about a month or so in college, it also explains why I look like a raging meth addict in my passport picture with a glassy eyes and cheap platinum blonde hair.
My point is: look at your life. Look at your choices. Ask yourself if any of it sounds slightly out of place.
Now, I'll be filling merchandise orders at 2 o'clock in the morning for my Adult Content-based blog before I go to my minimum wage retail job in the morning, should you need me.
Posts
