excitement for Tuesday

Last night I dropped off a giant poster for the window of CB's Gallery. A thing of beauty it is, thanks to illustrator John Leavitt. Incidentally, I saw John perform the other night in a burlesque show as Johnny Panama in an inventive act with a voodoo doll and some pasties, which I daresay may be repeated in Tuesday's show.

I'm turning 27! On Tuesday! I can't wait to see so many of you in one place.

Whatever shall I wear? These Wonder Woman underpants fit great.

The Jenisfamous Spectacular
Tuesday, December 6th 8pm-midnight
CB's Gallery, 313 Bowery between 1st and 2nd Sts.
Free

show me yours and I'll show you mine

My new Wonder Woman underpants arrived in the mail today, and since new things in boxes are exciting, I put them on.

Then, I said, oh, there are other people here, so I put on my bathrobe, but that just made the whole thing look more ridiculous, with the triangle of the "W" logo peeking through, as though any moment I shall pull open my bathrobe to reveal my secret identity.

I don't have a lasso of truth right now, just a cup of tea.

spare the rod, spoil the child

Fifty Cent performed at a $10 million bat mitzvah, and managed to work in the lines "Go shorty, it's your bat miztvah, we gonna party like it's your bat mitzvah."

turn your c*ck into a hammer

This site has "poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines." I rather enjoyed the one for "are you man enough for this."

Oh, and also "I was always embarassed, but not now."

mermaids singing, each to each

I have never in my life spent so much time alone as I have lately. Once when I was five, my Dad was stationed on the Navy base in Italy and my Mom and baby brother went to live with my grandparents until housing opened up on the base and we could go join my Dad, and that was, I think, a very personality-forming time, as I didn't really see any other kids for seven months. Seven months is a long time to live in adult-land when you're five. My uncle was a teenager at the time, and he taught me algebra, but he didn't really teach me to do algebra; he just let me stare at the problems and try out numbers until I got them right, and then everyone would ooh and ah.

My grandmother has an arcade in her basement, with no fewer than three full-size pinball machines.

These days I'm just working, and working, and sometimes walking to the gym and back, and I find myself doing odd, manual-labor type tasks, carting home-improvement objects across Manhattan, disassembling furniture. I'm pretty happy, but happy in that way that you might be happy in the thick of writing your dissertation on some obscure topic, knowing that no one you know wants to talk about Neural Components of Implicit and Explicit Conditioned Place Preference Behavior, but that this is but a season, and good will come of it, and someday you will be a professor in a tweed jacket with patches at the elbows, and your dinner party repartee will be known across three to four states, and you will take up pipe smoking, and enjoy it.

I sometimes look across East Harlem, eastward, where you can see all the way to the bridge and the water, and the shapes are so foreign to anything I grew up with, and I think how?

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

Tuesday, December 6th: I formally request the honour of your presence

Massive thanks to John Leavitt for designing the poster for the vaudeville-style Jenisfamous Spectacular, which non-incidentally will take place on my 27th birthday. This is the biggest event I've ever done.

The lineup includes:
old timey music from Al Duvall, Singing Sadie,
and the Two Man Gentlemen Band
Latin flavor from ...y las flores
burlesque performances from Molly Crabapple and Veronica Varlow
musical comedy from Adira Amram


click to enlarge
Also, there will be a hula hooping contest open to all, and prizes for best-dressed. Our Grand Prize -- one lucky winner will win tickets to "Bingo - The Musical"!

The new "Grammatically Correct Comedy" t-shirts and CDs will be debuted, and original art by Molly Crabapple from the illustrated Portable Comedy Compendium, will be on display in the gallery.

You, dear readers, are so very invited. If I could engrave this blog post for you, I would.

The Jenisfamous Spectacular
Tuesday, December 6th 8pm-midnight
CB's Gallery, 313 Bowery between 1st and 2nd Sts.
Free

comedy topics

After the YWCA benefit comedy show I did recently, another comic commented that it was the first time she'd seen my bit about penciling in my eyebrows, and she liked it because I "don't usually do self-deprecating material." I had to think about that. A lot of my material isn't super-personal -- I like to make fun of advertising (like the "Campaign for Real Beauty" and the "fight HIV your way" ads), I like to talk about words and language, I sometimes talk politics, and I like to make fun of fashion and beauty rituals. I just see too many women comics whose routines center around making fun of their bodies, and I just can't see how that's helpful or even supportive of women in comedy. Also, if I am unhappy with any of my parts, I'm sure as hell not telling people about it.

Anyway, here's a somewhat germane classic, for those of you who haven't heard it (incidentally, I have lots of new jokes, but limited abilities with audio technology, which is why I don't release these every week):


French Women Don't Do Pilates

on adding to my file of literary magazine rejections

I opened my mail and received a rejection letter from Hayden's Ferry Review. I sent them a short story some-odd months ago, and then I received a "you are in the second round of consideration" letter, and then finally a rejection that said "your work made it deep into the decision-making process" and that the editors had given it "several readings."

This is a good sign, of course, for my embryonic little fiction career (I had a story published in the Powhatan Review, did some readings at Cornelia Street Cafe, and then was possessed by the incubus of comedy).

However, a long, drawn-out, we-like-you-but sort of rejection is, in a way, kind of worse than a flat-out rejection. It kind of makes you say, oh, but things could have been so good for us! What are you doing over there, you dark, handsome literary magazine? We made it so far! Why stop now?

Hayden's Ferry, let me just say: you have no idea what you're missing. If you could see me, I'd totally be doing that thing where I playfully slap my own ass as I walk away.

this is certainly the first time I have blogged about the Torah

You go clicking on links in your internet perusal, and somehow you end up reading Orthodoxy Today. This article is mainly arguing that homosexuality is wrong, but the reason the article is otherwise interesting is the chunk of history it offers regarding global sex practices prior to Judaism.

I was well aware (from my liberal arts education and a senior philosophy seminar on Foucault) that, among the ancient Greeks as well as in many cultures today, the idea of homosexuality did not exist or was not at issue; the real concern was (or is) who is active and who is passive. For instance, the ancient Greeks had no problem with sex between men, provided that the older man or higher-status man was the active partner. Many liberal thinkers cite this as proof that same-sex desire is universal and that certain sex practices have not always been stigmatized.

This writer, somewhat novelly, openly agrees that homosexuality has historically been widespread and accepted; the argument is then that "When Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world. The Torah's prohibition of non-marital sex quite simply made the creation of Western civilization possible."

Oh, is that all?

After a lascivious breakdown of all the freak-nasty orgy fun the rest of the world was having, the author continues:

"Among the consequences of the unchanneled sex drive is the sexualization of everything -- including religion. Unless the sex drive is appropriately harnessed (not squelched -- which leads to its own destructive consequences), higher religion could not have developed. Thus, the first thing Judaism did was to de-sexualize God: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" by his will, not through any sexual behavior. This was an utterly radical break with all other religions, and it alone changed human history."

Of course, there's plenty of "men are beasts and women are monogamous" kind of thinking going on here, even with all the discussions of sanctioned prostitution in other religions and perhaps other evidence of Ancient Ladies Gone Wild. But still, it is interesting to hear an Orthodox thinker argue that "the family is not a natural unit" but rather a brilliant invention that needs to be "cultivated." In keeping with the "invention" theme, the idea of improving upon nature, the author concludes:

Asked what is the single greatest revelation I have derived from all my researches, I always respond, "That there had to have been divine revelation to produce the Torah." The Torah was simply too different from the rest of the world, too against man's nature, to have been solely man-made.

I am reminded of reading Locke for the first time and thinking "Obviously. So?" Same with John Stuart Mill. When ideas have become so deeply ingrained in our culture, it is difficult to imagine a time in which they were revolutionary. And that is the impetus for this post.

"homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats"

Some of you may have heard that the government of Kazakhstan has officially condemned Ali G's "Borat" character. Their actual statement -- even hinting at a political conspiracy! -- reads:

"We do not rule out that Mr. Cohen is serving someone's political order designed to present Kazakhstan and its people in a derogatory way. We reserve the right to any legal action to prevent new pranks of the kind. We view Mr. Cohen's behaviour at the MTV Europe Music Awards as utterly unacceptable, being a concoction of bad taste and ill manners which is completely incompatible with ethics and civilized behaviour."-Yerzhan Ashykbayev, Kazakh Foreign Ministry Spokesman

Borat has posted a video response, which says, in part: “I like to state, I have no connection with Mr Cohen and fully support my government’s position to sue this Jew.”

thanks to all seven-hundred and twenty one of you

I finally installed a decent statistics package on this site, and discovered that there are a lot more of you reading this than I thought. I had only been seeing the counter on the front page, whereas it seems that many of you are cleverly coming directly to the blog, perhaps via this new-fangled "bookmark" technology the kids keep telling me about.

I would really like to be a professional blogger and sit here all day and entertain you. It's like comedy, except with occasional cat photos, and also, no one flashes a red light at me after seven minutes. But pro-blogging ain't going to happen with Google ads. I'm fomenting a plan as we speak. Or, as I blog, since we're not actually speaking. Although I wish we were, dear readers. Wait, but then I wouldn't be blogging, which would be a step further from my goal of blogging professionally. Well, maybe you could sit on the couch watching Jeopardy and shouting out the answers before Alex Trebec says them, and I'll sit here, blogging away, occasionally throwing a glance in your direction, and thinking how sweet it is that you think Jane Austin wrote "Moll Flanders."

just to show that all the good domain names AREN'T taken

Leiasmetalbikini.com features photos of slave girls in, well, Leia's metal bikini. Turns out that a metal bikini costs over $300. Bummer, or I'd get one and host the Jenny Vaudeville Show in it.

Um, be sure to help with "Operation Life Size Jabba."

There is a book! A Jenisfamous book. Now.

This is what I've been working on behind your back, my dears. But now it is here, and you can own it.

The Jenisfamous Portable Comedy Compendium (pre-order)

You've heard the jokes. Now they are lovingly illustrated by artist Molly Crabapple, and interspersed with "best of" bits from the blog, odd little footnotes, and even an intermission. This 4 x 4 inch novelty book makes a great gift item, and is available signed.

This product is available for pre-order and will ship following its print run.

$10.00

Would you like it signed?	Autographed CopyNon-Autographed Copy
If so, to whom (first name) ought it be inscribed?

See more merchandise in the store

Announcing the winner of the $50 photo contest!

Mr. J.D. Finch of Brattleboro, VT is the winner of the JenIsFamous $50 Photo Contest! The contest challenged readers to send in the best photo of a person or persons reading Jenisfamous.com. And here is the winning photo:


click for full version
When asked how this photo was accomplished, Mr. Finch replied:

While you may have imagined some technogeek trick to my "Amazing jenisfamous.com Reflecting Glasses", the truth is they were two little pictures stuck on the lenses with Post-it sticky. There is a way you can save an image of your computer screen (alt+save screen), which I did and then pasted it into a photo application and shrunk it down to its tiny "reflection in glasses" size. I darkened the room and turned a bright lamp on my face to add a glow in my glasses to make it look more like a reflection than a pasted-on picture.

Sometimes lo-fi is the right-fi.

in which I come out of the closet as a very girly meathead

I finally realized I had been avoiding the gym because I hate doing cardio. However, I love lifting heavy things repeatedly. When I was in college, I lifted very many heavy things repeatedly. I spent two years busting my lats on the lat pulldown machine until I could finally do one pull-up. Once I could do one, I could do twelve a couple months later. When I did, people would sometimes put down their weights and watch for a minute. College was kind of great that way, even if it often involved hiking through drifts of snow to get to the gym. It's like you needed two lockers to hold the difference between what you were wearing in a New Hampshire snowstorm and what you were going to be wearing in a weight room.

I finally realized that there is no authority figure at the East Harlem Bally's who is going to force me do cardio, which (have I mentioned?) I hate. And also, since I'm not very good at it (I once blogged about the first-ever time I ran an entire mile, which was about a year ago, and it took thirteen minutes or something), it doesn't seem to burn enough calories to be worthwhile anyway; I'd rather just eat less. I mean, you can spend half an hour busting your ass on a treadmill and the little calorie counter says "you burned 110 calories!" Wouldn't it be more efficient to just put down the damn pie? "Not eating pie" is both free and time-saving.

So, up top is a photo of my actual college abs. At left is a photo of my actual college biceps. Well, one of them. I apologize for all the weird-ass cropping. Due to the presence of bad hair and ex-boyfriends, it proved impossible to fit all my formerly muscular bodyparts into a single photo. (I was once a redhead, and I had curled my hair for my college graduation, for which I was, in fact, wearing a sari-type dress).

In the end, after college, I didn't get lazy; I had started a dotcom that ate all my time and resources and I couldn't afford a gym. I was literally in my office eighteen hours a day, in pinstripe. I had little to no idea what I was doing, or I might have realized that staying healthy and having a balanced lifestyle would be conducive to effective entrepreneurship. At the time, I considered staying out of the gym a great sacrifice. I switched from protein shakes to Costco canned vegetable soup, fifty-four cents a can.

I can still out-arm-wrestle most women my size, and a few women bigger than me, and a few men my size (but not many men are my size, and the ones that are are generally a bit sensitive about it, so I wouldn't recommend arm-wrestling girls in public anyway. In private, well, that's another matter).

p.s., No, I am NOT a dominatrix. Please don't email me about it! I can only bench press, like, sixty pounds. I don't want to hit you. I'm a little tiny woman who wants you to open doors for her. Thank you.

stuffed

The inventor of Stove Top Stuffing has died. From the NY Times (quoting the patent application for instant stuffing!):

The secret lay in the crumb size. If the dried bread crumb is too small, adding water to it makes a soggy mass; too large, and the result is gravel. In other words, as the patent explains, "The nature of the cell structure and overall texture of the dried bread crumb employed in this invention is of great importance if a stuffing which will hydrate in a matter of minutes to the proper texture and mouthfeel is to be prepared.

I had some fantastic stuffing this evening at bobbyblue's house, and also explained marshmallows-on-sweet potatoes to an Australian couple, learned about hormones involved in becoming a male-to-female transsexual, observed a demonstration of a new cheerleader dance, listened to a debate about Madonna's new CD, and took a nap with a puppy. I love my family and all, but those things never happen at their house.

I think this makes me hate white people

Forget about famine, global warming, and AIDS -- I just clicked (incredulously) on an I support bloggers' rights button. These all-important rights include "You Have the Right to Blog Anonymously" and "You have the Right to Allow Readers' Comments Without Fear."

What other rights do we have now? The right to enter country clubs without scuffing our alligator pumps?

There's even a guide on How to Blog Safely. Make sure to wear a condom, kids!

apropos

Happy Thanksgiving!

Your pillows are still filthy.

new review on sarcaticsex.com (start your Christmas shopping early!)

There is a new review on The Sarcastic Sex Toy Blog.

I don't recommend visiting from work.

Ladies and gentlemen (and especially gentlemen), I present to you, the whimsically-beheaded Butt Banger.

does your inbox need some love?

I'm working on a new Shout-Out. Sign up now for Machiavellian schemes and dirty pictures.*

Join the jen is famous dot com mailing list for your city! Subscribers get access to secret comedy clips and posts.

Email:

* Of your mom.

imagine if you could still leave the house in what is basically a t-shirt with tighty-whities attached

Here is a photo by Heidi Schmidt from the comedian-heavy birthday party for Carolyn and Nichelle, producers of the Chicks & Giggles comedy show I blogged about Sunday night.

Carolyn is holding a Chicks & Giggles onesie created for her baby Adriana; it says "Chicks & Giggles (or maybe it's just gas)." I'm just standing there. I love how all of the sudden other people are documenting my every social event. I just check the websites and stalk myself.

don't ask about the color of my goddamn parachute

A lot of people's blogs are littered with little buttons that answer pressing questions such as "If you were a character on The O.C., who would you be?" or "If you were a type of cheese, what cheese would you be?" The button will say something like "I'm Havarti! What kind of cheese are you?", thus encouraging more users to take the quiz and graphically inform us of the results.

Today I saw the dumbest fucking web quiz ever: "Which blog component are you?"

I'm not even going to reproduce the button here. It says "If I were a blog component, I would be the MAIN BODY ENTRY."

You can follow that up with What's the Color of Your Blog Personality?

jolly ... green ... jen

I am having Thanksgiving at bobbyblue's house, and I've been put in charge of Green Vegetables. I bought nearly the entire supply of broccoli from my local neighborhood vegetable stand and, in chopping it, created what looked like a broccoli massacre in my kitchen, little bits of florets and stems flying, strewn on the table, rolling across the hardwood floor. You know those itsy-bitsy bulbs that broccoli florets are made up of, and how you get extras when you chop broccoli, but they're so tiny it's hard to even collect them and put them back into the food you're cooking? I have legions of those. Legions. I am making broccoli for seventeen people. I am taking seventeen people's broccoli on the L train.

Recap: November 21st After School Comedy Special

Monday's After-School Comedy Special at Pete's brought out a big damn crowd and was rollickingly funny ... I'm still giggling over Becky Yamamoto's "kitten no belong in bowl!"

In between the comics' acts, we did Mad Libs -- one from Hamlet, one from Eleanor Rigby. Here's how that one turned out, more or less:

Ah, look at all the post-Cambrian Pete's Candy Stores
Ah, look at all the post-Cambrian Pete's Candy Stores

Sarah Yamamoto picks up the teabagging in a Chrysler where a 1967 World's Fair has been ... kicks in a skull.
Pushes at drums, wearing the kitten that she keeps in a plunger by the foam. Who is it for?

All the post-Cambrian Pete's Candy Stores, where do they all come from?
All the post-Cambrian Pete's Candy Stores, where do they all belong?

Billy Wood, Elaine Williams, Nick Cobb,
Emily Epstein and Becky Yamamoto
all smell like daisies

you are sleeping on cooties!

I saw a sign in the window of a dry cleaning shop that said "Would you sleep on sheets that hadn't been washed in six months? What about your pillows?"

That made me think about breathing mites and allergens right out of the poly-fil, just sucking them up in my sleep. The sign was trying to persuade us to dry clean our pillows, but then we'd be breathing dry cleaning chemicals. So I just bought new pillows. Five bucks each in El Barrio -- a perfect example of an affordable luxury!

What's in your pillows? Now I've got you thinking about mites and mildew and the dead skin cells of all your exes.

My pillows are pristine.

I was up last night reading this for hours

"You know, before we come to Japan, they tell us a lot of ultimately useless stuff. What kind of computer to bring, if our DVD's will work, clothing sizes, that kind of nonsense. Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, in the 3-4 months of orientations did anyone ever mention that at some point, a Japanese kid may try to stick their fingers up our butt. That's something I would have liked to know, personally."

- From a culture-shocked schoolteacher in Japan, link via Nerve

this is what I bring to you on tonight's silver platter

Monday, November 21st
The After-School Comedy Special
This week's theme: Crack is not for Children
Pete's Candy Store (L train to Lorimer -- see map)

Featuring Emily Epstein, Becky Yamamoto, Elaine Williams, Nicholas Cobb, and Billy Wood, all of whom smell fantastic.

The After-School Comedy Special (formerly "Comedy Show & Tell") mixes performances by top young comedians with nostalgic diversions including show & tell, free candy, and Mad Libs! Bring an item for show & tell, or just come watch. All free!

seeking a few good men

Heidi Fleiss is opening a brothel for women (as patrons). I kind of like the idea. Molly and I used to say that we were going to live together when we were old and our husbands were dead, and we'd pay young men to come over and cook and clean for us and give us massages. And if we couldn't help harrassing them, well....

macho behavior has a purpose, such defending your village from being sacked by Visigoths

Last night after seeing the late showing of Harry Potter, I found myself on the 6 train sitting near -- not next to, but near -- a drunk old bum* who, in his loud, lengthy ramblings, declared me his girlfriend and called me a variety of female names (Carolyn! Deborah! Heather!) in an attempt to get me to look at him.

At first the ranting was downright jolly, interspersed with a continuous chuckling and an occasional belly-laugh, as though whatever he was talking about was truly the most humorous thing that had happened in weeks. Eventually, however, the ranting became more belligerent, but by that point we were on the express run between 86th St. and 125th St. -- the long stretch right before I get off the train -- and I started eyeing the other passengers, deciding in my head which ones would come to my assistance should the crazy man attack me.

At that point I realized I was glad I lived in Harlem and was sitting in the train car with eight full-grown, mostly middle-aged Hispanic men, most of whom I think would intervene in the case of attack-by-crazy-man. If such a thing happened on the L train, the willowy tattooed boys would just take cameraphone pictures of me getting stabbed, and then maybe one of them would write a poem about seeing a woman die on the L and read it at a Spuyten Duyvil open mic, which would, like, totally get him laid, because he's all sensitive and stuff.

* Asian people are currently underrepresented in the bum population, but maybe this guy should count double.

30-odd comedians and one very well-behaved baby

When did I start blogging party coverage? I am a deeply introverted person. That's why I have a blog ... and am a comedian ... shut up, just shut up. I am a deeply introverted person occasionally flipped inside out for the amusement of others, and then I plug back into the Borg cube mothership and recharge.

Anyway, tonight, after managing to tragically miss Miss Megan (she was in Brooklyn by the time she got my text messages), I went to the birthday party of Chicks and Giggles impresarios Carolyn and Nichelle. Here are some pictures. You people seem to like that sort of thing. If I had a series of DVDs marketed on late-night cable television, I would call it "Comedians Gone Wild!" I'm not sure if you'd be able to jerk off to it.


Jenny Rubin and Katina Corrao


Raquel D'Apice and Nichelle


Carolyn laughing during Adira Amram's set
Adira gave me a copy of her new CD because she is such a freaking sweetheart. And her nipple didn't even pop out of her top like when she did the Jenny Vaudeville Show!

Jessica Cutler was also present and was photographed with a Penthouse Variations, but not by me. I also met comic Sven Wechsler. We were introduced with "your names rhyme!" and used that as an opportunity to stare awkwardly at one another and feel discomfited.

I am sorry that the lights show up all crazy, and that the men in my pictures don't have names. It's very Fight Club.

my Treo captures cleavage for you, my readers

On Friday, just before falling ill, I did a photoshoot with photographer Aeric Meredith Goujon and models Molly Crabapple, Veronica Varlow, Lady J, and hott tattooed-artist-guy Mike, for Evilkid Productions, the company of A.V. Phibes, who ate glass at the last vaudeville show. Did you keep track of all of that? Good. My blog is looking Russian-novelesque again with its cast of characters.

I took some behind-the-scenes Treo photos, which Molly demanded that I post, because even when I have the flu, she is a cruel mistress. When I did not post the photos in a timely fashion, she took to claiming that I sexually harassed her. Which is true. Here:

Molly looking gorgeous


Aeric with camera; Veronica with gun


Molly and Veronica recreating scenes from absurdist theatre
On December 6th, Veronica will be giving me a birthday lapdance.

hey baby, let's "make bread together"

Abstinence-education website getthetruth.net has posted a list of 99 things you can do with your special someone instead of having sex. My comments are in italics:

Here's 99 things to do for/with your special someone:

Make a special tape of love songs.
Make a crazy movie with dancing and singing.

Like the ones you pay $20 to make when you're at third-rate amusement parks? Do you think I could sing "The Rhythm is Gonna Get You" while dancing around like Gloria Estefan? I could? Do you think that the Miami Sound Machine is really a substitute for sex?

Go to the zoo and try to imitate all the animals.

Whoever starts will look like such an asshole as to ensure his or her virginity for a long time thereafter.

Go clam digging.
Have a barbeque on a beach.
Build a dog house or a bird house and paint it together.

You're right! I did this in the Girl Scouts when I was seven, and I didn't have sex with any of my troop-mates! You've got it all figured out!

Rent a bike built for two and ride for the day.

You know, I think a lot of people have sex because they're too lazy to get up and go to the movies, much less "Rent a bike built for two and ride for the day."

Buy a watermelon and have a seed spitting contest.
Take the dog for a walk.

That sounds kind of nice, actually.

Go to the library.

...do a card-catalogue search for "Marquis de Sade," and let the Christianity rush over you!

Share dreams with each other.
Play a game of frisbee.
Go to an art gallery together.
Do homework together.
Trust one another.

...and then have sex? Come on, "trust one another" isn't an activity! You can't put "trust" in your day planner!

Send candy.
Eat by candlelight.
Meet each others family.

Abstinence educators have atrocious grammar.

Send flowers.
Take a drive together.
Do things for the other without being asked.
Give a special gift.
Write "I love you".

...on her tits! In coke!

Go for a long bike ride.
Walk arm in arm in the woods/park.
Watch the sunset.
Throw a party together.
Go to a political rally together.

For what party, dare I ask? Maybe you could picket an abortion clinic! Maybe your fingers could accidentally touch ... on the handle of a bloody-fetus placard! That's romance.

Sing a special song to your loved one.
Sit in the park.
Talk openly about your feelings.

"I feel very close to Jesus." Hott!

Take a bus ride going nowhere in particular.

In most cities in America, this is a rather poor suggestion. I mean, I suppose if you get gang-raped in a bad part of town, you're still a virgin AT HEART.

Go shopping for clothes.

Teenage boys LOVE this one.

Be there when a loved one hurts.
Pick a song as your favorite song as a couple.
Listen to hurts.

What? It really says this.

Hug.

...ABOVE the waist, people! Hugging is ABOVE the waist!

Bake a cake together.
Hold Hands.
Browse in a museum.
Exercise together.
Gaze into each others eyes.

Apparently apostrophes lead to premarital coupling.

Wash a car together.
Go swimming.
Have a picnic.
Compliment each other.

"Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins."

"It always gets me hot when you quote the Song of Solomon."

Go hiking together.
Go to a sports event together.
Write a poem to each other.
Rent a video.
Play music together.
Go dancing.
Give each other pet names.
Talk on the telephone.
Go siteseeing.
Hide a love note.
Make a big cookie.
Go grocery shopping together.
Cook a meal together.
Use eye contact to share a secret.

Because this NEVER leads to sex. Hey, maybe you could use your tongue and the mouth of your beer bottle to "share a secret."

Write each other letters/ e-mail.
Go fishing.
Go for a moonlight walk.
Make sacrifices for each other.
Laugh at something funny.

As opposed to laughing at something that totally sucks?

Call the person just to say "I love you".
Be caring.
Cook their favorite food.
Meet each others friends and really like them.

I order you to like them! I demand it!

Dedicate a song to the other on the radio.
Put a secret message in the local paper for the other.
Go skating.
Have your picture taken together.
Share private jokes.
Share an ice cream cone.
Be faithful.

Pretty easy, since you're not even having sex with each other. But you'd better not take another boy to the zoo to imitate the animals, you whore!

Read a book together and discuss.
Plan a secret surprise road trip for the other person.
Do a work project together.
Listen to joys.
Go horseback riding.
Share one soda with two straws.
Play 'footsie'.

Um...

Plan a surprise date and picnic breakfast.
Send a funny card.
Share lifelong goals.
Go to a place of worship together.
Make each other a gift.
Find out what's special for the other and do it.
Say "I love you" in sign language.

I think I learned how to do that on Sesame Street. Can't you people just fuck already? You're making me sick.

Send a postcard.
Babysit together.

Hrm, this one might actually be effective, provided the baby shrieks and spits up enough to make itself unappealing.

Play a video game together .
Go to a different cultural event/restaurant together.
Spend time just being quiet together.
Learn to say "I love you" in 3 different languages.

Including or not including sign language?

Go sailing together.
Make bread together.
Work on car together.
Pray together.
Let the other person see your diary.

Dear Diary, will Jesus let me get off already? Jesus fucking Christ. I'm sorry, Jesus.

Propose marriage.

And for all the right reasons!

And finally, our wildest suggestion yet:
Drive around...at each intersection/stop sign...flip a coin, turn left if it's heads and right if it's tails. If the coin goes under the seat go straight. Do for one hour and then go buy an ice cream.

Wow, that IS wild! Um, I've done wilder things with your mom. On Christmas. And do you know how lost a couple or horny teenagers could get driving like this for an entire hour? And, since you have no idea where you're going, how do you know you're going to end up near an ice cream parlor? You know what this sounds like to me? A great thing to tell your parents you were doing to cover up the fact that you were actually having sex. Well, mom, first we did the coin-driving thing for exactly sixty minutes, and then we drove around looking for ice cream, and once we had the ice cream, we spent two hours finding our way back, and that's why my hair is so disheveled and I smell like Astroglide. What did I say? Oh, nothing. I meant 'The Astroglide of our Lord.'

conscious

I made it out of my house for the first time since Friday, to the all-night bodega to try to get some Spaghetti-Os. The all-night bodega didn't have any, although they did have a rather large stock of -- oddly -- canned fava beans. Even the applesauce I bought seemed to only come in really dirty jars. I wonder if the store is following some kind of law regarding what percentage of stock has to be not-cigarettes, even if the entire purpose of the store is to sell cigarettes to people after-hours.

dying

I am like a Spalding Grey, disintegrating before your collective eyes.

upright enough to blog

So sick. Last night was one of the worst nights of my life.* Chills, coughing, sinus pressure, head set to explode, dizziness.

Somewhere after the first five hours of sleeping in five- and ten-minute blocks with a space heater pointed right at me, to no avail, I realized I was hungry, and wouldn't be physically able to obtain food. I eventually dragged myself to the freezer for the year-old carton of raspberry sorbet that was there from last time I was sick. I only like sorbet when I'm sick.

But mostly I wanted (and continue to desire) rice pudding. That's at the bottom of a fifth-floor walkup, so I'm eating rye crackers. What do people do when they're sick? Watch television? I could try that. I can sit up now. I'm running out of tissues. My nose hurts. Maybe I have Avian Flu. Maybe I should stop sleeping in a pen of live Thai chickens.

* If you don't count that time I banged yer mom.

I turn 'em, all the time

Lianne Stokes: Hey mom, sometime I like the ladies

p.s. SOMEONE please make me stop blogging so I will write my damn book.

spelling on Good Morning America (again)

The television segment about spelling bees should run THIS Sunday (it was bumped from last Sunday). Good Morning America Weekend Edition is on ABC, 8-9am in Manhattan.

Related posts:

I missed Good Morning America this morning
on Good Morning America this Sunday!

a few thoughts on egg donation after the fact

I read a couple of egg donor blogs today.

Apparently, the UK prohibits egg donors from being paid, and then some infertile couple ends up in the paper just pleading for an egg donor to help them out -- as though other people's eggs are necessary in the way that a donor kidney might be.

Of course, I take a bit of a libertarian view on the matter -- if our bodies are our own, I think we should pretty much be able to sell them (with caveats against exploiting destitute people, and perhaps legally mandated minimums, sort of like a minimum wage for biological components).

But even if your view is more moderate, surely one wouldn't expect (very many) egg donors to endure some-odd ten weeks of drugs, injections, specifically-timed doctor visits, egg retrieval under general anesthesia, and lost income during this period out of sheer altruism. While I could see doing such a thing for, say, one's own sister, I would kind of wonder about the mental health (or potential martyr complex?) of anyone who volunteered to do such a thing for a stranger -- what is it that this person really wants back? I think you might be getting some crazy-lady genes for your baby. How nice!

Interestingly, when I asked the egg agency how the egg donor fee should be reported tax-wise, I was told it was a (tax-free) "pain and suffering" payment, the same as if someone had hit me with their car and I had won a lawsuit against him or her.

I also came across a mention (on a "happily child-free" blog) of egg donors who have no interest in children prior to egg donation, but who develop an interest afterwards, perhaps due to the hormonal shifts inherent in the egg donation process (or just due to spending so much time thinking about babies).

Incidentally, I am back in my agency's egg donor database. They asked me to log in and view my profile -- it's sort of like a dating site for parents and donors! -- and I discovered that someone had listed my IQ at 140 or 150 or something.

I have never had my IQ tested formally, but last time I took an IQ test on my own, I scored freaky-high because I am a standardized test-prep teacher and an IQ test looks disturbingly like an SAT, with the addition of some little patterned boxes you have to rotate (and if I spent some time, I'm sure I could think of a near-foolproof method for boosting students' scores on that as well). I don't think that much of IQ tests. In any case, the egg agency said the value probably got filled in when they were switching to new software.

The writer of this blog was joking about how big your follicles (the pockets in the ovaries that hold each individual egg) get when stimulated -- so big....

...that they beep when I back up?
...that they have their own zip code?

This is humor for a very small audience (with very large ovaries).

Related posts:

No one ever refers to women as "virile"
I'm going to end up in bar fights
the state of things
egg tales
imagine being a nurse in the maternity ward who wasn't told about any of this
cheaper by the dozen
update from solitary hotel room
I'm sure a male comedian who became a sperm donor would not receive cute sperm-related gifts
thanks for all the love

Google will read your mind and send it to your phone

I had no idea this existed -- my Treo has web access, which turns out to be pretty good for reading blogs, but not great for websites with forms (such as search engines). Or that one time I tried, from a street corner, to find the nearest Citibank via the Citibank website. Um, no.

Google, however, has an SMS-based search service -- you can text-message a query to them and they'll send results right back to your phone. I typed "jesus is magic new york" and immediately received movie times, starting with Union Square. Brilliance.

The online demo is fun. ("citibank new york NY" does exactly what I was unable to accomplish via Citibank's site).

comedian pet peeve

I find it annoying when totally normal-looking comics open their sets with "I know what you're thinking -- I look just like the love child of John Belushi and Casey Affleck" (or "Phil Collins and Ewan MacGregor," or whatever).

I'm always thinking, No, I wasn't thinking that at all. I was thinking, when is this guy going to tell some jokes? I mean, if you are a very unusual-looking person, certainly it does make sense to remark upon your physical idiosyncrasies so people will stop staring and move on. Enormous hair, extreme tallness, being a Little Person -- all of these things deserve some mention and can be a fine way to open a set. But I have seen a great many very average-looking white guys describe themselves as a combination of two other average-looking white guys, and it is simply unnecessary.

don't you love being privy to my inner monologue?

If I were an old lady, I'd totally be the kind of old lady who writes a crockpot cookbook called "Crock Yourself Out!"