I took a programming class in college and have had this inside joke url ever since
I turned 29 on Friday. “Ooooh!” my friend Macon said, “so that means you’re in your Saturn return!”
“That is not a thing,” I replied. “I mean, I am going through all of that for entirely Earth-based reasons. Hey, we planning a trip to Vietnam or what?”
(Larger.)
I got home around midnight, but I stayed up another two hours taking pictures of myself, since I’m apparently (vain) the only model I know how to work with.
Which is something I’d like to change, so if you’re ever in the mood to have some ridiculous costumed photos taken, perhaps out in a blizzard or all up in some birch trees, do send me an email.
Also fun: the Traveling Photobooth shots, pearls are a source of sorrow, and with all these riches, you could prescribe me anything.
1.) Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays. These are the ideal evenings for a first date. Thursdays may also be permitted if we’ve been eyeballing each other longingly for years and are essentially already in love with each other.
Fridays and Saturdays, however, are completely unacceptable choices. No one can live up to that expectation on a first date; why even try? I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be dancing.
And on the seventh day we rest. (I need groceries.)
2.) Sweatshirts. I will wear a sweatshirt on my first date with you. Don’t get me wrong: it’ll be clean, I’ll smell nice, I’ll pair it with some tiny pants and tall boots. It’s not even that I don’t mostly own fancier clothing. I could really bust out the big guns and pair a blouse with some pearl earrings and I could sit across from you at the candlelit dinner table all glowingly and hyperventilate all night!
But let’s be clear on this right away: I hate static, cold, and itchiness. Nice outfits are for job interviews; performances; Friday/Saturday nights. I own and often wear sweatshirts.
3.) Make-up. Man, I used to feel really unattractive without make-up. But now I don’t! Isn’t that great?
4.) Eating. I have never understood why first dates so often involve dinner. For one, it’s expensive, and if we’re dating you’re probably poor too. For another, eating is intimate. And not like . . . fun-intimate. It’s weird-intimate. There are all these squelchy and crunch sounds, and sometimes slurping is required. Slurping, for Christ’s sake! Sometimes said slurping splashes stuff. If there’s bread beforehand it’s all up in your chapstick and the crumbs make little dandruffy piles on your lap. Personally, I have poor motor skills and tend to miss my mouth if I’m not concentrating.
So, I propose we do anything but eat together on our first date.
5.) F-bombs. This is something I can do very little about. I will curse like a motherfucker on our first date, especially if we’re around your friends.
This hot chocolate is fucking delicious! Man I love this fucking weather, it’s abso-fucking ridiculous, let’s build the fuck out of a snowman, what do you say? (Cue: fuck yes!)
When I was little I would sit on the toilet and wonder if ghosts were watching me. Hovering near the mirror, standing in the tub, poking their heads out of the closets — my eyes would scan our black and white tiled bathroom, convinced I was not alone.
This isn’t to say I was terrified in the traditional scary ghosts sense: for some reason I assumed the dead were mostly benevolent, nonthreatening presences (and not scary like, say, witches, which roamed the shadows of my bedroom wall). What I took issue with was their potential invasion of my privacy. I had, after all, just become aware of nakedness and modesty, and it had only recently occurred to me to close the door when I used the bathroom. The thought of that being ignored appalled me. Grandpa could be in here, I thought to myself, and I wouldn’t even know.
