I Hit It First: A Love Song.

May

2013

Ray J made a sex tape with Kim Kardashian and wrote a song about it, titled “I Hit It First.” I do not think Ray J knows that the word first is not the same as the word before. But, okay Ray J. You hit it first. Yeah. Sure. And Dick Sargent was the first Derrin.

Some lyrics from “I Hit It First”:

I hit it I hit it I hit it I hit it I hit it I hit it first
I hit it I hit it I hit it I hit it I hit it I hit it first

Really. No exaggeration. That is the chorus.

This song made me realize what love is.

Really. No exaggeration. Here’s why.

I would like to get married one day. I would like to marry someone I am in love with and actually really like as a person. And he feels the same way about me. And beyond loving each other, we’re friends. We have something. There’s a “we” and it’s not the eye rolling nauseating “we” that is the basis of so many godawful romantic comedies. It’s the “we” of David Bowie’s “Heroes”, the:

And you, you can be mean.
And I, I’ll drink all the time.
‘Cause we’re lovers. And that is a fact.
Yes we’re lovers. And that is that.

I want to marry someone (again, far into into the future) who actually likes who I am, all the weird bits and pieces that create this stubborn, bizarre, sensitive, silly personality of mine. I want them to be silly sort as well. And I want them to have their own weird bits and pieces. And we look at our pieces and we say, “You know, these don’t have to fit. We don’t have to complete each other. We just have to be with each other. Because if we don’t, our lives will be unhappy. And that is that.”

This person, this wonderful weird handsome man, will love me and understand me. He will want to make me happy. I will also love and understand him and want to make him happy. We’ll have this mutual appreciation between us of the others’ quirks and we’ll want to make each other better by the end of every day, and not worse. He will be the man who finds joy in stupid fun things.

And so when I tearfully accept (I know I’ll cry) his marriage proposal, and we plan our wedding, and I won’t insist on anything but ask if I can choose our wedding song, and he says yes, and I say I choose, “I Hit It First” he will laugh and say yes. He’ll expect me to back down. And I won’t back down because I don’t want him to know I’m mostly kidding. So neither of us backs down and it all culminates in that moment where we’re about to dance our first dance to a song the DJ (or iTunes Robot) has to introduce as, “Uh, a song that came out in…like…2013? About…some guy, who, ah, he…he slept with this…there was this…do you guys remember reality TV? And Kim Kardashian? Kanye West’s ex wife? Yeah, this song is about a guy who banged her. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. And Mrs. ______!” and we’ll dance and we’ll laugh and laugh.

And that’s love.

Photo of Jayne Mansfield by Ralph Crane, 1958.

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Patrick Bateman American Psycho Workout.

Apr

2013

Patrick Bateman of American Psycho is the ultimate workout champion. He prides himself on his physique. I get it, man. I am on a fitness kick and I am determined. The 30 Day Shred, a workout video by Jillian Michaels, is what I’ve been doing. It’s comprised of 3 levels; each level is for 10 days. Within those levels are 3 circuits,(warmup and cool-down not included). These circuits combine strength moves, cardio, and abs. You do 3 of those and then you’re done. The levels get progressively harder, as do the circuits.

I put on yoga pants or sweats, but not my favorite pair of sweats because I’m at a point in my life where I just consider those pants, and I put those on with a sporty crop top spandex thing and my Nufoot shoes (thanks, Nufoot!) and I get to work. Here’s what I’m thinking and feeling, before, after, and during my workout, presented to you in Patrick Bateman/American Psycho GIF form.

The moment I decide I want to work out.

Pumping myself up for the workout.

During the warm-up.

During and finishing circuit 1 and starting circuit 2.

Finishing circuit 2.

Starting circuit 3, realizing that I have this entire stupid workout video memorized and am sick of having to listen to Jillian Michaels say the same thing over and over.

During circuit 3.

The last 30 seconds of the workout.

Cool-down period.

When the workout is finished and I go look at myself in the mirror.

This is my process. This is my life. There is no comfort, there is only fear, and intensity that can only be matched by the darkest parts inside my myself. I am but a body, a concept, a tool, and I do not understand anything beyond simple actions. People do not understand that I don’t do anything for them, I do it for myself, I do it only for myself, other people do not matter, I care about no one, and most of the time, I am moments away from snapping someone’s neck and taking out their eyes with my brand new battery-powered Sharper Image letter opener. Yesterday on The Patty Winter’s Show, a woman ate her own face. I can feel everything inside me and this means that I cannot feeling anything at all, ever, and I have stopped trying. Do you like Lana Del Rey? I thought that her first album, Born To Die, was a visceral experience, her voice tinged with a deep longing and regret for a chance to do it all over again. I highly recommend it. I have to return some videotapes.

If you’d like to read my review of the film American Psycho as Patrick Bateman, click here.

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Missing Holden Caulfield.

Apr

2013

Holden Caulfield, via J.D. Salinger once said,

Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

This has always stuck with me.

You know how certain songs cause you to time travel? You hear a song and your mind takes you back to where you were where you heard it and what you felt and who was there. When I hear “Thirteen” by Big Star I remember this incredible date this sweet guy took me on in New York. I didn’t have a lot of time and I warned him, trying to convince him that we couldn’t go out because even though I wanted to, I knew it wouldn’t work out. I was just too busy. But he was persistent, and not in a creepy way. In a way that was so sincere that I let my smile take up my entire face. I told him I had, “like, two minutes” — and he took it to heart. He hailed a cab and we went to an Italian restaurant…down the street. We went through three courses in about one minute. Literally. He planned this ahead. We took our leftovers over to a movie…on the sidewalk. He set up a TV to play Manos: Hands Of Fate, the best of the worst films ever made. It’s such a bad film that he was able to condense the entire thing into twenty seconds. Then he asked if we had time for coffee. Well, we had about thirty seconds. We went back to the Italian place that suddenly had coffee and desert set up on the table. It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me. And somewhere, “Thirteen” by Big Star was playing. And I will forever tie that song to that incredible memory. It didn’t work out between us. I eventually went back to my ex.

Also, none of this happened to me, this happened on How I Met Your Mother.

Ha ha. Got you.

Sorry. I don’t know why I did that.

I got terribly astray from what I was saying, which was that if you let it, anything can remind you of everything. As humans we try to find connections in our lives, where there are none. For example, you’ll tell your friend over lunch about someone you went to high school with, and hours later, you’ll run into that very person on the street. And you’ll say, “My God, what are the odds?!” But if you really thought about it, you’d realize that the odds weren’t that extreme; maybe you were in an area where your former classmate lived, or you only noticed your classmate walking down the street because you had just mentioned them, or your classmate mentioned on Facebook a place they went to for lunch and that’s why you went there; you simply disassociated your classmate from the entire experience because it’s more meaningful to believe that it all happened by some delightful wink of the universe.

don draper wink

Okay, look, I’ll finally get what I’ve been trying to get to. And that is, it’s nearly impossible to forget anybody or anything you’ve ever done that ever meant something, even if it was only slightly. I’ll see a girl wearing fingerless gloves and I’ll think of 14th street in NYC. I’ll hear a Bob Dylan song and have a sudden and brief fervent passion for a boy I had a crush on in college. I’ll smell a certain shampoo and remember my staying with my ex-boyfriend at his house in Rochester. And I do these things — we all do these things — because we want to. Even though it hurts. Because unless you’re a psychopath, you can’t but feel emotion, even if it’s people you think you don’t give a monkey about. It creeps in, but you don’t notice it. To you, it’s like, “Why the hell am I missing Stephanie from elementary school? I haven’t thought about her in years.” It rains and I think about my apartment in New York City. And I think about what a hassel it was — but a great hassel — to move in. I thought about how it would be a ragtag group of me and my friends dragging a couch up a staircase like in Friends. Asking them, hey, can you move for free? I’ll treat you guys to coffee. And then I’m nostalgic for a moment that never even happened.

And that’s why I understand Holden Caulfield, that beloved outcast, so beloved by our generation it’s become cliche. Because nostalgia will fucking kill you if you let it. It’s like alcohol or drugs. Some people can enjoy nostalgia recreationally. Others let it ruin them. The worst thing is that sometimes you don’t even need to talk to someone from your past. All you have to do is see their photo or time travel via a song or memory and you’re right there and by the time you come back, you’re completely hungover with nostalgia.

God, imagine how i’m going to feel when I’m forty.

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Malibu Wedding.

Mar

2013

Once I accidentally went to a Malibu wedding. Sort of. My friends and I decided to spend a day at the beach. Living in Los Angeles, one gets spoiled and treats the beach as though it was another Starbucks; a sort of, “Oh, yeah, it’s everywhere, it will always be there.” At least my friends and I do, not being surfer types and not having beach houses of our own. So one day we thought, right, this exists, let’s hang out there. We sat on a Harry Potter blanket and discreetly drank wine coolers while we watched a fat man play volleyball with another fat man. They seemed to be having a good time.

After that, we all got stuck on the idea that we simply had to go to Moonshadows. Moonshadows is the restaurant where Mel Gibson famously got arrested and let a beautifully horrendous tirade spew forth. The infamous “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world” and “What are you looking at, Sugar Tits” the greatest hits of Gibson all happened just down the beach from us. We thought perhaps we’d get a drink from their lounge but as the responsible and decent adults that we are, because we are not Mel Gibson, and if you are around Mel Gibson and he is around alcohol, you should just save everybody time and call the police. By the time you hang up the phone he’s going to be cursing Jews and stomping on houseplants like he’s King Kong all the while panting and screaming.

We made it into Moonshadows, feeling very grown-up, which is different from feeling very adult. We didn’t feel, “Ugh I wonder how much valet is going to cost and how much these drinks are going to cost” or anything of that nature. We felt, “Man, we look so cool. Are we allowed to even be in here? This is like being in a Bret Easton Ellis novel.”

And then it really got into Bret Easton Ellis territory. We’re sitting at a small booth and to the left of me is a very cool old woman. Cool in a different cool than we were. She was an established, kooky, “Fuck it, I’m old” cool. I noticed the owl pendant hanging around her neck. I told her much I liked it. She seemed thrilled by this. I really adored her. I thought she looked familiar but maybe I just wished I knew her.

Then it started. That beautiful pop new wave sound, with bittersweet undertones, all in earnest, of “The Promise” by When In Rome. And a bride and groom were dancing. It all happened very suddenly. The song, perhaps a dimming of lights, the swelling of joy — this was their moment, they must have planned it. And they’re dancing in the middle of this lounge, mouthing the words to each other, blissed out of their minds. I stared at them, respectful, slightly confused, but quietly enthusiastic. They saw me and smiled. The groom looked into my eyes, and said, with more joy in one sentence than I’ve heard in hundreds, “I’m marrying my best friend.”

My cynicism halted. I smiled back. I promise you, I promise you I will was all I heard and all I saw. Later my cynism about marriage would return, replaced with a bitterness once I watched helplessly as divorce took another marriage away, all the while with me stubbornly refusing to ever get married, ever.

I do want to get married. I don’t know if I want to marry my best friend. I’m still unsure about that idea. That the person you marry should also be your best friend. But that’s not important right now.

Ever since that night, I’ve fallen in love with that song. I hear it and even though I’ve forgotten what the couple looks like, I see them dancing, laughing, holding onto each other, have an occasional goofy moment, lip-synching, smiling endlessly.

I was so full of joy that I asked the kooky old woman next to me if we could take a photo with her. She seemed shocked and said, “Really?!” I said definitely. “Let’s go outside,” she said. She had a friend with her. “Do you know who that is?” she asked me. I paused. Yes, I knew now. “Phyllis Diller?”

And yes. She was.

“You made her night,” her friend told us. “She made ours,” I said.

We took more photos, got into the car, and drove with the windows down back to where we once belonged. I looked at the ocean and in my head, over and over, If you need a friend don’t look to a stranger. You know in the end. I’ll always be there…I promise you. I promise you I will.

And that’s how I accidentally went to a Malibu wedding. Sort of.

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Minor annoyances: Starbucks edition.

Mar

2013

This is the face I have to put on when I go into Starbucks, otherwise they just FUCK YOU. (Not like that.)

Starbucks is full of minor annoyances that make my life really, really hard. It’s like, I have to return some videotapes and make my reservation at Dorsia and I don’t have time to deal with your fucking bullshit, Starbucks. There’s a Starbucks that knows me, and do you know what that feeling is like? It’s like being in the best relationship ever. There’s trust and understanding. And baristas, if you’re reading this, you’re going to want to throw a fucking hissy fit and talk about how I’m the worst customer ever, but listen up:

1. I am really, really polite. I never yell at anyone. I never lose my temper. I smile and say hi, and if shit goes wrong, I just put on my Michael Caine face. 2. I tip. 3. I worked in retail and wanted to kill everyone who walked into the store, so I get it, I really do.

THAT BEING SAID, FUCK OFF STARBUCKS, HERE’S WHY. (I’m taking the bullet of all of us here, I’m just saying what we all want to say, I’m like a hero right now, shine a pedestal and put me on it.)

It costs money. But, like, a lot. But I keep buying stuff. But l’m still going to complain in my head about it. No but shut up.

There’s no hot people. Again, nothing baristas can do about this one. Do hot people not go to Starbucks? I have never seen a hot person in Starbucks. This one time I was walking up to Starbucks and this chubby woman in stirrup tights in Tory Birch sandals with a Tory Birch handbag practically dove in front of me to get into the door first to get into line first…while I just casually strolled behind her. I’m not sure what her reasoning was there, for her to practically cut in front of me. It saved her maybe 12 seconds. This has nothing to do with the hot people thing by the way. I’m into guys. Guys who are so skinny it looks like maybe they have a drug problem or are severely anemic. And if it’s both? JACKPOT!

They get my name wrong, even when I spell it out for them. I know that my name is weird and different. Usually when I give my name I’m met with a blank stare. So to help everyone out, I just start spelling it (Almie. A-L-M-I-E.). I am very polite and patient throughout all of this because I used to work in retail and I understand how much it sucks to deal with people all day. And then I get a drink that says “Aelmie” “Elmie” “Elmy” “Almy “Almee” “Alli” “Alley” “Amy” “Ami” and even “Abby.” What the HELL? I’M SPELLING IT FOR YOU.

Or they do this, they start to write my name and then suddenly stop. This is a new one.

They get my name wrong, even when it’s spelled correctly on the cup in front of them. Barista at the counter spells the name right on the cup. Barista 2 makes the drink, looks at it, puts it on the bar and announces, “…AMY.” NO. THERE IS AN “L” THERE. Sometimes okay, the handwriting is bad, but dude sometimes the cup clearly says “ALMIE” just say “ALMIE” just because you’ve never heard the name before doesn’t mean it isn’t correct, don’t just stare at the cup like, “What is this sorcery?” JUST SAY ALMIE, because the problem is that there ARE women named Amy and sometimes when you shout Amy when you mean Almie, shit gets confusing for all of us. And then we have to do the polite customer shuffle of, “Oh, I’m sorry, I think this is mine” “Oh I’m sorry” JUST SAY ALMIE, IT ISN’T AMY, IT’S ENTIRELY POSSIBLE THAT THERE ARE WOMEN OUT THERE WHO ARE NAMED SOMETHING THAT LOOKS LIKE AMY BUT ISN’T.

They don’t even try to pronounce my name. That’s just. Ugh. If they shout the order out correctly, then I get that it’s mine, but don’t just stare at the cup, set it down on the counter, and then try to disappear into the cappuccino machine.

Like this.

Children are allowed to go in there. Hey, protip, if your child is ill-behaved, don’t bring them into Starbucks. Starbucks is a place where people 1. Just want to get coffee so they aren’t cranky anymore and can then proceed to get the hell out of there 2. Go on awkward first dates. 3. Have awkward job interviews (which I NEVER understood). 4. Want to work on their laptops and leave each other alone. I could understand if there was a fucking ball pit or something in Starbucks, but there isn’t. Starbucks sells coffee, and coffee is not for children. “Oh but my children don’t have coffee, they drink that Frappuccino thing that has no coffee in it.” Holy fuck, do you have any idea how bad that is, nutritionally? It’s healthier to give them a milkshake from a diner than one of those bullshit things. “What am I supposed to do, leave my kid in the car?” Sure, I don’t give a fuck. Leave your goddamn kid in the car, tie it to a post, put it in a Sergeant Pepper costume and have it beg for change on the sidewalk — those are all better options than bringing it into the store, IF it isn’t well-behaved.

Anyway, an independent coffee shop opened up just near me and their coffee is delicious and their WiFi is fast and free, so I’ll probably just go there most of the time. Except that they don’t have those delicious sandwiches that are 5,000+ calories even though the whole thing could fit into the palms of my small, chubby, elf-like hands.. DAMN YOU STARBUCKS!

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Sex, dating, and marriage survey of 2012. OMG.

Feb

2013

Match.com is one of the many Internet dating sites that I’ve helped friends with; by which I mean, making over their dating profile. Because being single sucks. Or, it does for me. Most of the time. Probably because I need so much attention.

“Constantly talking isn’t necessarily communicating.” — Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Since 2010 Match.com has done studies on singles and married people, asking them about what they want, what they have, and what they need. This year I’m bringing some of those stats to you, via Singles in America.

Anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher lead the study of 5,481 single people, spending 12-14 hours a day analyzing her data. I feel like if you’re single and/or have single friends, we all do that in some way or another. Analyzing our data, and our friends’, and whatever we need to do to feel normal.

So how do we, (and by “we” I mean 20 somethings, but if you’re over 20, I still love and adore you, ASK YOUR DAD, the implication being that I had sex with your father, it’s a bad joke), feel about marriage?

Over 2/3 of men and women in their 20’s want to get married. Can’t help but wonder what if the question instead was, “How many of you want to get divorced in your 20’s?” 82% of women in their 20s wanted to get married. 67% of men do.

Weirdly, or weirdly to me, these numbers drop in the 30’s to 78% of women and 64% of men. I thought it only went up the older you get, especially with women. That’s what the movies and the television shows tell us. Except for Sex and the City. Actually, no, wait, didn’t they all wind up married at the end? Except for Samantha I guess. That Samantha! She is a PISTOL! So why is it that the stats go down? Is it because people get married in their 20’s, get divorced and think, Fuck it, I’m buying a boat? Can anyone explain this from personal experience?

Here’s something that shocked me from this study. Really, really surprised me. Did you know that the first thing both men and women judge when they first meet someone is their teeth? I always assumed my entire dating life that it would be how fat or thin someone is. But apparently it isn’t, at least not in 2012 when this survey was taken. So good news if you’re fat! You’re gonna be fine! What do you see immediately about someone you’re dating when you first meet them? Guess what else is important to people? GRAMMAR! YEEEEEAAHHHHHHH! That’s not a joke actually.

90% of people asked, “Do you believe that you can stay married forever, to the same person?” answered yes. YES! YOU IDIOTS. THE MATH DOESN’T ADD UP. THE NUMBER OF DIVORCES IS TOO DAMN HIGH!

OKAY, LET’S GET TO YOU SLUTTY SINGLE SUPER PEOPLE. 45% of you had a friends-with-benefits relationship that turned into a REAL THING. And Dr. Fisher says, “I’m not surprised. Because any kind of sexual stimulation of the genitals drives up dopamine which can push you over the threshold into falling in love, and with orgasm is a real flood of oxytocin that is linked with feelings of attachment. Casual sex is NOT casual unless you’re so drunk you can’t remember it.”

I hear you there, good doctor. Being really drunk is like time travelling. I think I just accidentally made a Dr. Who joke. And this is where she said something REAL interesting to me: “maybe we’re in a new stage of courtship.” Dude, I said this way back when I started my blog. I said this in my THIRD POST. It’s TRUE, DR. FISHER, IT’S ALL TRUE!

So what do you guys and dolls think about all of this? What are some dating or marriage trends you’ve been seeing? Do they reflect this study or are you reading this and as puzzled as Cogsworth when Lumiere cooks up one of his schemes to get Belle and the Beast together?

I think this study is interesting as hell, and I recommend you watch Dr. Fisher’s talk here. It was a livestreaming video so the quality isn’t the best, but it’s worth watching/listening to, because holy fuck, it really surprised me.

(Oh, and for all you sexters out there, don’t be too hard — omg that’s what she said — on yourselves if you’ve sexted because you are so not even close to being alone. 35% of women say they’ve done but, oh my God, we all know it’s higher. It’s such a thing now that Match made a short vid about it. Check it out below. There’s another stat in there that may or may not embarrass you.)

This post was sponsored by Match.com. As always, all opinions are my own, for better or worse.

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The battle cry of the female blogger.

Feb

2013

This is not directed at any one person. This is something I feel I have to say on behalf of myself and possibly many other female bloggers out there.

It makes my freaking day when people email me or comment or come up to me in public and tell me that they like my blog or my videos or my writing for Hello Giggles. To know that there is someone else out there, across the vast and uncertain hollow space of Internet, to know that someone is reading, someone is taking the time out of their day to process words that I wrote or watch a video I made, means a lot to me.

As women bloggers though, we’re faced with certain issues that men aren’t; of this I’m sure. We’re judged harder on our content. Our photos, even just our profile photos on Facebook, are viewed at in terms of how hot we are, or aren’t. Please understand that I realize that not all men are like this. Not all men see women online as an amusing novelty. But the men who do are some of our biggest obstacles we have to deal with.

Just because we are women with a voice and an internet presence doesn’t mean that we are there for you to objectify, flirt with, or sexually harass. We’re writers. We’re creators. We’re reporters. We’re just trying to say something. We’re not posting something so that you can then comment with a suggestive remark. Our posts on dating, sex, relationhsips, or anything related, are not an invitation for you to hit on us or objectify us.

What is sexual harrassment online? I’m sure the definition is as broad and wide as can be. Perhaps my definition is stricter than most. To me, sexual harrassment is unwarrented comments that hint (or are outright blatant) about my appearance or sex life when they have nothing to do with the subject at hand. If I write, “Please judge this photo of me; tell me what you think of my face and my tits” then it would be silly of me to then turn around and say, “Why the hell did you just make a comment about my tits?” If I’m blogging about dating in LA and you comment, “Perhaps you haven’t found the right guy yet, hint hint winky face” that makes me uncomfortable. (And that was just an example I made up out of thin air.)

I respect my readers, which is why I’m posting this and not talking down to you. I welcome internet friends. I welcome people I can chat with and discuss events with. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have Twitter or Facebook. But I think that because my online presence is somewhat big and because I welcome interaction, this is misconstrued as an open invitation to flirt with me. It isn’t. So please treat me with respect. Don’t be rude. Don’t be condescending. It’s embarrassing for both of us. If you can’t do those things then go ahead and do them off of this blog, off of my Facebook page, and off of my Twitter feed.

Thanks for reading.

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