TKOG Who orders a blowjob

NTKOG #118: The kind of giggly sororstitute who sashays into a casual bar on a Monday night and demands orgasms, sex on the beach(es), redheaded sluts and other mega-questionably crafted cocktails.

I am: a pretty serious boozehound. Go ahead. Smell me. Gin and cigars, sir.

I am not: diabetic. Yet. Try to calibrate my boozin’ to keep me thus.

The Scene: Brighton Beer Garden with the lovely brookem, out for some Monday night cocktails. All first-time blogger meets are — it cannot be denied — supremely first-datey. But after a few seconds of “who are you in real life? what do you do?” back-and-forth monologue, we fall into an easy conversation that drips liberally with TMI.

You know the convo. Guys who couldn’t get the condom on, the perils of breaking in virgins, …crampiness. I fill her in on the joys and perils of taking a blowjob class and we sip for a moment in contemplation.

Later, as we finish our third round and begin to move toward the inevitably homeward barstool shift, I turn to her. “So what NTKOG are we doing tonight?” After only a second, she asks, “Well, speaking of blowjobs, are you the kind of girl who would ever — order a blowjob shot?”

My inner classic cocktail snob recoils. Any mission that sparks this much disgust, though — it’s perfect. We wave the bartender over and when she asks what we’re having next I start with bravado: “Can I get a–” then my vocal chords constrict. Goddamnit, TKOG, channel Cancun, sorority socials, reality TV! “Can I get a … blowjob shot?”

The waitress reassures us that 9pm on a Monday is a perfectly fine time to be ordering shots (enabler!) but the bar doesn’t have whipped cream. What’s in a blowjob? she asks a fellow bartender. “Yeah, we don’t have whipped cream,” the woman smiles. “The cream is the best part of a blowjob.” Uh, agreed?

We brainstorm for a few moments about similarly embarrassing cocktail, when the original bartender suggests a slippery nipple. A moue of approval rises from the chorus. After I send the bartender off to slip up some nipples for us, brookem turns to me: “What’s in a slippery nipple, anyway?” No clue, but I have a gut instinct that it’s the same ingredients as a Cocksucking Cowboy.

Two nipples, ripe for the slippin'.

Bailey’s. Butterscotch schnapps. My god, do they sell this in Big Gulp size?! I was, in fact, so enthused by the discovery that I immediately had to share it with someone by finally making good on my threat to send a man a drink. One lone man sat across from us in the sea of couples, so I nodded toward him and asked the bartender to send him one.

Brookem and I were all fluttery feminine optimism for the four point five seconds it took us before she noticed the orphaned beer sitting next to said dude. Oh god, what if I’d sent a drink to a guy with a girlfriend? Was I an attempted homewrecker?! The beer’s owner returned from the restroom and — even worse. The worst, in fact. The guy was super mega cute. I mean, picture Vince Vaughn crossed with Conan O’Brien. Now stop picturing him because he’s MINE ALL MINE.

Bartender ignored my frantic flagging to send the drink to the cuter guy and placed the shot in front of the first guy, nodded over toward me. The guy raised his glass to me; I grimaced. Then he tasted the vaguely alcoholic sugarbomb and it was his turn to grimace. Pale waltzing lord, I managed to send a guy a drink gayer than three dudes hanging out by a wishing well in front of his cute friend. Do I win at dating forever or what? Brookem and I finished up our convo and skrinkered out of there right quick, studiedly avoiding eye contacted with our buttered-up comrade.

The Verdict: So embarrassing drinks, it turns out? Exist for a reason. Cute guys? Um, we already know their purpose. ANY MEETING OF THE TWAIN? No, no, oh my god no.

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TKOG Who needs some advice

Not for me, possums. I’m a few loads of laundry and a rereading of The Great Gatsby away from being pretty okay with things. But my bloggy friend Mel of a little lady’s thug life is at a crossroads with her father and — despite seeming like a dude who would punch you in the dang face if you ever offered her unsolicited advice — really needs some feedback. I know how fraught parental relationships can be, and thought if you had a minute to spare to weigh in on her situation or just offer a little love, it would be a really wonderful thing to do.

Check out her post here.

To give you time to read her post, the shortest NTKOG ever:

NTKOG #115: The kind of Ingalls-lite who bakes crackers. Crackers. Honestly. Isn’t that like the simplest atomic guise of bread? I just assumed they were formed in nature.

The Scene:

The Verdict:

[Edit: for those of you who want to try it, this is Mark Bittman’s recipe for parmesan-cream crackers — which I, naturally, slathered with garlic. Thanks to Leigh at Full Gastronomic Tilt for passing on the recipe a few weeks ago! And apologies that I was too deliriously tired to give credit where credit was due in the first place!]

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TKOG Who Saves The Children

NTKOG #113: The kind of deeply altruistic girl who floods the streets with her tears for orphans, kittens, orphaned kittens, etc., then writes checks to ballast her compassion.

I am: too broke to make more than one or two carefully considered contributions a year.

I am not: virtuous enough to make the sacrifices that would allow me to give more. Regret to inform, I’m more or less pulling a solid B+/A- in “being a basically good human being”.

The Scene: The little town square across the street from my work in the pouring rain last Wednesday. Weather forecasters had called for several inches of snow (never showed up) and we were all grimly excited about the blizzard; no greeting was complete without a “whew, it’s going to be a rough one”.

As I walked past, a Save The Children volunteer beckoned me near. His hair and beard were already plastered down to his face. I started my standard response: “I admire what you’re doing, but I’m just really broke,” and the guy smiled at me like I’d just bought his mom a new car.

“Don’t worry about it!” he grinned. “I don’t need money. Just thirty seconds of your time.” When you look at the words they seem banal, but his face was limpid and radiant — even as water flumed down the side of his nostrils he remained serene as a mountain, transparent and bottomless as a freshwater pool. Even his face moving to form words looked like nothing more than the wind rippling sweet meadow grasses. Real Pocahontas-style voodoo shit, is what I’m saying, and I knew immediately that he was deeply religious but one of those dudes who never brings it up unless you ask and doesn’t think you’re going to hell, not even if you have sex with robots and punch foreign dignitaries.

He gave me a lightning-round history of Save The Children, talked about their low corporate overhead, showed me pictures of some kids in the Congo, then checked his watch. Exactly thirty seconds.

“Dude,” I smiled at him. “I’ll bet people are awful to you sometimes, aren’t they? I always see people shouting, ‘Save the children? I want to eat the children!’ and stuff like that.”

“Oh, I love those people!” he grinned with genuine enthusiasm. “When they tell me they want to eat the children, I ask them to come over and swap recipes with me. When they tell me they hate the children, I say I’ll sell them a black market slave child! You just can’t take yourself too seriously. I love those people.”

I don’t know what happened but somehow, magically, my Visa was in my hands. As the man took my information, he told me about atrocities in the Congo and what the program’s money was doing. And, I dunno, a particle of dust must have wormed its way in or something, ’cause my eyes started to emit a transparent salty liquid.

After he handed me back my form and card, and had thanked me a few times, I took one last look at his drenched skin and clothes. Really sucks having to be out in this weather all day, I told him — and what about when the blizzard hits?

“Oh, we’re not supposed to be out here today. The company is closed. But I woke up excited this morning. I knew I had to come out here no matter how bad the weather was, just in case someone needed to hear what I had to say.”

Oh jesus. My eyes. They’re malfunctioning.

The Verdict: Made a one-time donation and have vowed to myself that if my temp job becomes permanent, I’ll set up a recurring monthly payment. Pretty psyched about the research I’ve done about this particular organization. That said, I take absolutely zero credit for pretending to be a good person on this one. This guy was a thinly disguised angel in Converse, and the next time I see him out there, I’m bringing him a cup of coffee to thank him for helping me keep my faith in people. And to warm him up ’cause, dude, it is cold out there to have a canvassing job.

This post too chipper for you? I know! Vom! Balance it out by checking out Secret Society of List Addicts and reading my list of phrases I would be perfectly okay never hearing again (and will punch you repeatedly if you say to me).

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TKOG Who hates men

NTKOG #112: The kind of angsty, chocolate-smeared loneyheart who spends V-Day with her equally man-hating girlfriends jabbing stickpins into the crotch of dumb-boy voodoo dolls.

I am: single.

I am not: bitter.

The Scene: My glorious cinnamon- and chocolate-scented apartment, V-Day evening. Anglophile came over and we discussed the douchebaggery of men in general (and a few men in particular) before deciding on our plan of attack for the evening. Dude, we decided, let’s list all the reasons we never liked them anyway! Then make voodoo dolls! And burn effigies of the pathetic motherfuckers! Uh, and did I mention chocolate?!

We gathered voodoo supplies and fired up the fondue pot. Cute idea, I thought, but we’re not actually going to do all this stereotypical shit. We’ll probably just end up watching a movie or something…

As for how it turned out. Um, I’m going to let the following pictures tell you a few thousand words. Don’t worry, though. I weeded out all the shriekingly scathing ones.

Turns out it only takes two vindictive girls, three pens, a jumbo pack of Post Its and one hour to completely cover the walls of a small apartment. Also, dude, some of these were so scathing that they burned my skin when I took them off the wall.

After determining Post-Its weren't sufficiently violent, wrote and popped some of the things we hated about dudes.

Voodoo dolls. To stuff them, we wrote down things we used to like about the guys, then shredded 'em. (But before you get all z0mg-dark-energy with me, yes, I believe in karma too much to have actually wished ill on anyone. It was pretty positive energy.)

Putting the "eff you" in effigy. What up.

The Verdict: It’s funny. This is the first Valentine’s Day in five years that I’ve been single. It’s also hands-down the best Valentine’s Day I’ve ever had — maybe one of the best days I’ve had, like, period. I thought all the V-Day man-bashing would feel too forced or stereotypical or just plain ol’ negative, but it was actually a pretty liberating night. One attempts to resist using the phrase “girl power,” but one doesn’t resist too hard.

The emphasis of the evening was less “I hope you get chlamydia of the face and die” and more like “dude, remember the shitty details and don’t let yourself get hung up on something that just really doesn’t matter that much.” Okay, okay, and there may have been a certain amount of emasculating joking. And doodling. And pin-sticking.

Still, this gets an A++ from me. Sometimes bitching about guys isn’t about men being idiots. It’s about remembering that the women you’re doing the bitching with are total badasses.

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TKOG Who tells you to let it out, let it all out

WIN AN iPOD NANO! It’s red! Like a commie!

NTKOG #106: The kind of well-intentioned busybody who can’t see a stranger let out a lovelorn sigh without immediately demanding all the details then attempting to caulk his broken heart.

I am: completely ill at ease when expected to comfort someone face-to-face.

I am not: interested in your woes, Lonelyheart. Get a blog, then we’ll talk.

The Scene: The Trader Joe’s by Sister’s house, Saturday night around 8:30, in a state of serious disarray. I’ve spent the past few hours in a blue mood — that particular “my first high school boyfriend is fucking engaged, and here I am, unemployed and wearing pajamas on a Saturday night” mood, if you happen to know it. Gathered my few purchases in the entirely empty store, then headed to the check-out.

Before I could take my earbuds out, the check-out guy asked how I was — I’m well, thanks. You? — and as I’m taking my headphones out, he says what looks like, “I’m doing well,” but is just one syllable too many. Surely he couldn’t have said — I mean, don’t he know there’s a protocol? — it’s inconceivable that he might have answered–

“I could be better,” he repeated, to my involuntary look of uptight honorary-New-Englander feelings-inspired mortification. “No, I guess I should keep it professional.”

Um, yeah. You should. But instead of smiling weakly and praying for him to speed up the process, I asked him what was wrong.

Trader Joe’s Clerk: No, don’t worry about it, it doesn’t have to be your problem. I should have kept it professional.
TKOG: I mean, life sucks enough without having to lie about who you are forty hours a week.
TJC: I cheated on my girlfriend.

Yikes. The clerk, incidentally, was cute in that over-expressive-faced European way. He looked like the drummer from Green Day with shorter hair. His eyes were red-rimmed. To my horror, they started watering.

He went on to tell me how his girlfriend had gone out of town and his ex had come to visit, asked to stay with him. He’d told her she had to sleep on the couch, but somehow….

“She tricked me! She manipulated me!”

“Yeah, we’re like that sometimes, women.”

After his tale of woe, I asked if he loved the girlfriend (yes) and said that, in my humble opinion, I didn’t see how he could do much better than making sure she could see he loved her and trying to earn her trust back. He thanked me and relinquished the bag of groceries he’d been holding hostage during the few minutes of our chat. Then put on my Garth and headed back out into my home-bound Saturday night, braless, pajama-clad, a guru.

The Verdict: Please don’t talk to me about your emotional woes in real life. I do not like it. I like to read about it, gchat about it, even sometimes talk on the phone about it, but in real life I do not know where to put my eyes when you want me to look into your soul.

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TKOG Who micromanages your mucous

NTKOG #100: The kind of self-appointed assistant deputy to public health who, when you sniffle within earshot, primly flicks you a tissue and lectures you on the dangers of backed-up nasal cavities.

I am: loath to reprimand strangers for sneezing on my neck, let alone snortin’ and snufflin’ in the privacy of their own noses.

I am not: like the total queen of hygiene, anyway. What?! Kleenex are good for a few uses if you’re desperate!

The Scene: The train, smack in the middle of cold season. All week the mellow music on my iPod has been accompanied by a sort of auditory slither — the juicy slurp of fifteen syncopated noses trying desperately to suck snot back out of view.

There’s kind of a little dance that goes along with it too, on the T. The cold-sufferer will stand there, looking pained, ’til a tiny glisten appears under one or both nostrils. First, a long discretionary snort back. A moment later, the snot starts sliming back down and two more hard sniffles in quick succession. Finally, the human mucous factory glances around, reaches up with one hand to pretend to adjust their glasses or scratch their forehead, then quickly rubs their palm across their nose, smearing a snailtrail of snot on their glove. Elegant, right?

More distracted by the sound than anything else, this week I carried a travel pack of Kleenex with me, determined to be a tissue-toting guardian angel for these noses in need. The first guy I approached was a middle-aged business man, wearing a sharp grey suit and slightly snotted leather gloves.

“Hey,” I  turned around and told him, “You want a Kleenex?” Dude looked surprised and a bit mortified, but smiled warmly and thanked me when I handed it to him. I nodded and turned quickly so I’d be out of his splash zone when the snot went flying, but — nothing.

When I turned back to face him, he was gingerly patting the tips of his nostrils with the unsoiled Kleenex. He crumpled it and shoved it in his pocket. Three seconds later: sniff. snort. herk.

DUDE, YOU HAVE A FUCKING KLEENEX! You can blow it now! You can blow it all over town!

Next girl I approached was a chick around my age, who had just discreetly wiped a semi-solid chunk of green snot onto the cover of her US Weekly as she raised it to turn the page.

“Kleenex?” “Thank you so much!” I watched out of the corner of my eye as she crumple the Kleenex, dabbed her nose with exquisite gentleness, then shoved the Kleenex in her purse. By the next stop, her dripping snot had rendered her upper lip as glossy as the picture of Brangelina she was drooling over.

A few similar experiences (“Thanks!” for nothing, apparently), and I was down to the last two Kleenex in my pack, with nary a cleared sinus cavity to my name. This time, there could be no mistakes. A grungy looking college guy, wearing a Thrice beanie and a military surplus blazer, sucked back on his snot like he was pulling off a bong.

“Dude, want a Kleenex?” I asked, smiling encouragingly. Then, so he wouldn’t feel embarrassed or alone in his infliction, I put the last Kleenex to my own nose and blew it thunderously. Dude glanced at me with grim curiosity, before putting his own Kleenex to his nose — and slowly dribbling air AROUND HIS SNOT! Dude friggin’ pretended to use the Kleenex rather than blowing his dang nose in public!

Of the nine Kleenex I gave away — to people who were having serious and visible problems with, oh, I dunno, getting snot all over their faces?! — not a single friggin’ person could get over the bodily-fluid embarrassment and just blow their stupid noses in public! These are, presumably, people who shower in locker rooms, use public restrooms. Hell, they probably even spit on the street. And you’re telling me that nose-blowing is the one do-not-cross line?!

The Verdict: A bally waste of Kleenex, I’ll tell you that much. Next time I’ll be saving them for myself.

I was beyond shocked by these results. In fact, shocked twice-over. First, dude, if a total stranger offers you a Kleenex, clearly this implies that you’re either making a serious sinus-related ruckus or are unsightly to behold. It’s like a stranger offering you gum. It’s practically impolite not to put the offering to use!

Second, and more importantly, dude, blowing your nose is just about the best thing you can do with your clothes on. I friggin’ love blowing my nose — don’t even try to front like you don’t like it too. I mean, I’m not talking about a runny nose or a stuffy nose, but, y’know, the mid-cold feeling of a nose that’s fully packed with boiling-hot mucous, then blowing it so hard that it makes you dumber. Such release!  Such a sense of accomplishment! I can scarcely look at someone suffering from allergies without sighing wistfully! And the idea of having such a juicy nose and a Kleenex in front of you and DENYING THAT OPPORTUNITY?! It’s like masturbating in a brothel.

People on the T, you continue to disappoint me.

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Whoa, it’s my 100th post! And in lieu of doing something badass or celebrating, I chose to … reveal my weird nose-blowing fetish. ’cause apparently I’m that kind of girl. Also the kind of girl who totally TMIs you on this glorious TMI Thursday.

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TKOG Who sculpts an ephemeral masterpiece

NTKOG #99: The kind of creatively turbocharged Rodin-in-training who effortlessly chisels a block of solid ice into a breathtaking masterpiece.

I am: impatient and tend to second-guess myself when it comes to working with any muscles other than my brain.

I am not: artistically inclined.

The Scene: BU Alumni Winterfest (last post from that epic day, I swear!); team ice-sculpting competition, along with Sister and Hot Hands and a few other cool dudes. The theme is the Winter Olympics, and we immediately come up with a theme that will endear us to our crowd of voters: a twin-sculpture scene of the BU Terrier mascot, Rhett, standing victorious on an Olympic pedestal next to a dejected and mangled BC Eagle. Cute and classy, right?

All through the planning stage, I imagine myself with mallet and icepick, fearlessly chipping away every fleck of ice that doesn’t look like a Terrier, to paraphrase the old joke. This chest-bumping hubris lasts up until, um, point three seconds after we lay eyes upon the actual slabs of ice. Good lord, dude — eight cubic feet of ice?! We have to make some sort of visual sense of it? I kept level-headed while the event’s official Chainsaw Dude powertooled around our outline.

I love the flume of ice spitting out the back of the block. VROOOM! POWERTOOLS!

However, the moment we were alone with our soon-to-be creation, I completely lost my confidence. Everyone else in our ragtag team immediately picked up chisels and scrapydoos and the rest of the provided tools and dug in; I limply brandished a mid-size scraper, made a few limp stabs, then hung back and just watched.

The amorphous block of ice already looked like a dog to me, was the problem.

I mean, no, it looked like a dog in the vague way that a cloud or a raised constellation of drywall can look like a dog — it suggested a dog. But even though I could tell the icebeast wasn’t exactly going to start barking or humping anyone in the vicinity, I just couldn’t figure out why it didn’t look like a dog. Had no way of decoding the visual syntax, if that makes any sense.

At first, I asked Sister (who is an ice-sculpting veteran, having done this once before) to explain to me which parts to curve, which bits needed smoothing, where and exactly how to start working on the sculpture. But I was timid and afraid of messing up the sculpture in some way I didn’t understand. It was like a Magic Eye puzzle that everybody else in the group could see. I was bad at it. And after about an hour of getting underfoot and trying my hardest not to accidentally impale myself on the chisel, I gave up and did something I am good at. Got a slice of pizza across the street. (In fact, I stole away another of our team members to come with me, so I actively DETRACTED from our team’s utility. Yes I’m awesome!)

Apparently my absence was the key to our success, though, because when I came back, it was to behold:

It's hard to make out the translucent-on-translucent detailing, but passers-by were impressed by our sculpture's friggin' adorability.

Pretty damn good for a team of amateurs, eh? No thanks to me! I’ll admit, all afternoon, the only thing I contributed to the team was the title for our non-winning sculpture series. Words: apparently the only artsy thing I can do.

The Verdict: You guys! It turns out that doing things I’m bad at … is one of the things I’m bad at. I tend to pride myself on the try-anything-once attitude I’ve acquired over the course of this project, but apparently I have to modify that to try-anything-once-until-it-becomes-evident-you-suck-at-which-point-retreat-behind-your-shield-of-quippy-detachment. THAT SIMPLY WON’T DO! In no small part because there are too many hyphens!

In general, this is a pattern of behavior I recognize in myself: once I realize I’m not doing well at something, I’ll either withdraw entirely, or else do intentionally badly to turn the situation into a big joke and avoid having to confront failure. This is ridiculous. If you can’t fail with grace, then how can you steel yourself up to improve your weaknesses? It’s hard to be earnestly bad at something, I guess.

So, while I’m totally okay with being not the kind of girl who can get her visual fine arts on, I’m resolved to keep THROWING MYSELF AT FAILURE and liking it, goddamnit. Bring on your yoga classes and stand-up comedy open mics and DDR tournaments! If I do any one thing throughout the rest of this project, it’s going to be becoming the kind of girl who can fail with grace!

How about you guys? Spectacularly failed anything lately? Did you handle it with more tact and aplomb than I did? (Probably.)

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TKOG Who crashes the party

GUYS! Today I have a guest post up at sandyb’s blog! Sandy is, like me, a woman on a self-improvement mission: she has a list of goals to accomplish before she turns 30 this August (and she’s a fantastic writer to boot!). She asked me to make my own list and — look, guys, it isn’t pretty — I may or may not have stripped down my defenses and admitted a few goals that I had been afraid even to voice to myself. So. You can read it, but you can’t make fun of me afterwards, okay?

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NTKOG #98: The kind of ethically ambiguous social butterfly who doesn’t let a bouncer, cover charge or guest list get in the way of her attending a private event.

I am: completely happy curled up in bed watching House; if I have to go somewhere, fine, but I’m not going to go out of my way to bust in.

I am not: subtle enough to pull off insinuating myself into upscale private fetes.

The Scene: BU Alumni Winterfest, late afternoon, a wine and chocolate tasting that has been sold out for weeks. WINE, guys. And CHOCOLATE. Finances, ethics and doorcheck mortification be damned. After a long afternoon in the biting Massachusetts weather, I imagined myself creeping in like a saintly orphan from a Victorian children’s novel, begging an elegiac old chocolatier named Jacque to spare me a single truffle, hand-dipped in finest chocolate and dusted with desiccated fairy wings. Later, he would adopt me and, after a few endearing mishaps, I would teach him to once again let love into his heart.

Uh, the point is, I was craving some chocolate. Apparently to the point of delusion.

Sister, Hot Hands and I, along with a few other people, headed down to the event room, the door of which was — curses! — flanked with event organizers toting color-coded guest lists. Our group split into small factions to test the waters, but when a girl asked if there was any chance of coming in or buying a ticket at the door, she was immediately rebuffed.

“These tickets have been sold out all week,” a gentleman who was, honestly, too old to be wearing a lanyard grimaced down at his clipboard. “Try again next year.”

While Sister discussed our options with her group of friends, I boosted her wallet from her purse and stole two dollars. I was halfway to the clipboard crew when Sister grabbed my elbow.

“No! No! Whatever you’re doing, you need to stop it. You’re going to get us kicked out!” she blurted, restraining me with one hand.

“Dude, I’m not trying to bribe my way in. I’m not an idiot. I had a really good plan.” She furrowed her eyebrows in disbelief. “See, if I can’t get in, I thought I could get chocolate out. Hey, clipboard lady, George Washington and his twin here want to know if you can liberate a few truffles. See?! Not embarrassing at all!”

Fortunately for me, Sister was too busy fussing over her ransacked wallet to punch me; unfortunately, she wasn’t so busy that she loosened her deathgrip on my sleeve.

“I guess we could try the back door,” shrugged one of the girls we came downstairs with. “Maybe someone will open it when they leave.” An apathetic grumble went up from the group, ’cause surely an event with such rigorous chocolate policing would think to post a sentry at all exits — surely the door would be locked — surely … shit, we were in. That was easy.

Anti-climactically easy, in fact. Sister refused to enter, citing some sort of alleged principles, but Hot Hands and I barged back in and bee-lined for the chocolate tables. Which were, honestly, disappointing. Not one single sea-salt truffle, hand-dipped by my fantasy Jacque du Chocolat; no edible gold or decorative piping; there wasn’t even that much chocolate. To wit: small vats of irregular chunks of broken Lindt bars in various cacao denominations. Hot Hands and I gamely conducted a blind taste-test to see which of the four percentages of dark chocolate we liked the best (50% dark was the mutual selection), knocked back two Dixie cups of wine (“The bouquet is so — uh — fruity? Look, do you know anything about wine?” “Nope. It just tastes like wine to me.” “Me too!”), and sneaked out as inauspiciously as we had entered.

The Verdict: Huh, turns out that the Little Rascals trick of loitering by the exit is more than just a vaudeville trope. I kind of want to try this in other venues now, like concert halls or — more likely, considering the level of intrigue in my daily life — to sneak into Trader Joe’s after they’ve stopped letting in new customers for the evening. On the whole, though, the event wasn’t worth all the excitement and subterfuge of our entrance; I wouldn’t have been psyched if I’d had to pay the $10 cover charge. So, moral of the story? Next time I’m on the fence about an event with a cover charge, I might try this again, if only because it adds a flavor of adventure to even the most routine proceedings.

Also, must use the George Washington’s twin brother bribery line somewhere, if only to spark a debate over GW’s family tree.

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TKOG Who follows through (and subsequently goes on the worst date in the history of friggin’ ever)

GUYS! Sarah Von from the UNIMPEACHABLY DELIGHTFUL yes and yes was kind enough to run a little interview with me today! Check it out if you’re interested in my inner workings, such as they are. And apologize for length of today’s post but I’m going to go ahead and file it under: worth it.

NTKOG #96: The kind of bold, forward-moving networker who meets you, takes your contact information and actually calls you to meet up afterwards.

I am: terrified of accidentally imposing my company on unwilling interlocutors.

I am not: crazy enough, therefore, to follow through with any of the disposable friends whose numbers and business cards I accumulate by the dozen on the T.

The Scene: Last month, I met a dude on the T and went absolutely nuts for him — fireworks, fantasy montages, the whole deal — and was heartbroken when he canceled our date. A few days ago, after a month of no contact from him, I forcibly ejected every fiber of “he’s just not that into you” from my mind and texted him, proposing drinks on Thursday. To my utter friggin’ elation, he actually agreed, and suggested 8pm at Harvard Square.

Dressed for the evening in a tizzy; finally settled on: pencil skirt, casual V-neck with push-up bra, granny panties (to protect against first-date sexin’), and condoms in my purse (I’m only human). Ladies, you know what I’m talking about. Dude was, as I remembered, a dreamboat, after all.

As I approached him, he waved and I wondered, huh, were his eyes this beady when I first met him? And was his forehead always so protrudey? But my taste in men is quirky anyway. As we walked to the bar, I launched into a funny story about Kiss-Ducker and I getting drunk in a combination Mexican restaurant slash tranny bar in San Jose.

“When we get together, we’re totally crazy,” I smiled.

“Wanna know a fun fact about me?” he asked. I nodded. “I’m totally crazy too.”

Just then, his cell phone went off; he answered immediately. “Hi Mom. I’m okay, how are you? Yeah, I’m just out right now. With some girl.” I threw up my arms in mock-protest. “No, she’s a real girl, Mom. I swear she’s real.” Um, your red flags getting a workout yet?

After he said goodbye, I joked: “Hey, this is great. I thought I would make this date really awkward, but, dude, you took a call from your mom! Totally surged into the lead! Nothing can be awkward now!”

“Oh, the fun fact about me,” he continued. “I’m crazy. Literally. I was hospitalized for a psychiatric breakdown in late November. I got diagnosed with bipolar and I’m on tons of lithium, so I can’t read people’s minds anymore. Okay, the bar’s around the corner.”

…holy shit. Holy shit. We walked into the bar and were told it had a twenty-minute wait. Was that okay with me, he asked? Uh, no. I needed gin and I needed it about five minutes ago.

We headed down the block to a cute underground bar and I flagged the hostess down and begged for a gin and ginger ale, and keep ’em coming. And for the gentleman?

“I’ll have a pina colada.”

…she broke it to him that they don’t make pina coladas at Irish pubs, so he sighed and ordered a pint of beer. When she brought our drinks, she lay a straw next to my glass. Former Dreamboat unwrapped the straw and stuck it in his beer. HE DRANK BEER WITH A STRAW.

In order to fill the fog of awkward, I babbled through my ice-breakers (what’s the most embarrassing song on your iPod? Miley Cyrus. do you have a rich uncle or a creepy uncle? Uncle Moneybags) while generously lubricating my discomfort with the blessed gin. Former Dreamboat, though, was in no hurry. He sipped his beer drop by drop while staring deep in my eyes. And dudes, I am here to say that he had a case of the Crazy Eye so bad that his irises were practically plaid. If you don’t know what I mean by this, you have never been penetrated by the Crazy Eye.

Every time I dropped my hand to the table, he jerked his arm toward me to try to cover my hand with his own. After a few iterations of hand and mouse, I buried my fists deep in my armpits, shivering with feigned cold in the eighty-degree bar.

The conversation moved to meeting people in the T, and I admitted that though I am naturally shy, I meet tons of people during my commute. “It’s hard to meet people on the T, though,” he mused. “If you try to talk to people, they think you’re crazy. My best opener is when I see people playing with their cell phones, I ask if they get reception in the station. You can kind of trick people into talking to you that way.”

I mentioned that I like to flash people live eyes, which sometimes draws them into conversation. He answered: “Oh, I stare at people too. I stare at people in the T all the time. They always look away really fast, though. It’s probably because I’m a guy.” It could be that, dude. It could. Or it could be the fact that you actively try to trick people into talking to you.

For the rest of his slooooow beer (and my two subsequent gin and ginger ales), he discussed the side effects of his lithium, the pall that it casts over his world until it loosens its grip before bedtime. “Did you know that 60% of bipolar patients stop taking their medicine within a year?” he asked me, a glint of hope in his voice. “I miss being manic. I was really great back then. I was a good conversationalist. You would have liked me. I thought I could read minds too, and even though I guess I couldn’t, it was kind of nice, feeling normal like that.”

Finally I paid for our drinks and walked him back to the T station, before catching my bus. There was a moment before we parted ways — that normal awkward first date moment, but captured in a funhouse mirror. He leaned in to kiss me, but I ducked out of it and gave him a hug. We should do this again, he told me. Yeah, I said, maybe. As I walked away, I could hear him taking out his cell phone to call his mother back.

The Verdict: Shit, guys, I thought that was a funny story, but it’s actually kind of sad, isn’t it? I don’t know. Part of me is happy that he apparently had a good time; the other part of me is shrieking I wore a push-up bra for this?! One thing is for certain: I’m not picking up any more guys in public until I somehow install a better pre-screening process for social dysfunction. Also, if a dude ever comes up to me on the T and asks if I get cell reception, I will turn up my music, smile politely, and say nothing.

Now I’m kind of feeling like a jerkface that I didn’t like this guy, but the thing is, you can’t like people just because the world would be a sweeter place if you did. I think all you can do is be nice and try to be an okay person. He ordered a pina colada in an Irish pub. It wasn’t going to work out anyway. It just wasn’t. I don’t know. I’m doing my best.

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TKOG Who is crawling with vermin

NTKOG #92: The kind of animal-loving hippie who is so at one with the local fauna that she lets them writhe all over her body.

I am: grossed out — understandably, I think — by roaches, rats and vermin of any other description. Including squirrels.

I am not: actually that big on animals, period. If it can’t talk or reason, you can keep it.

The Scene: A snowy stroll through the Boston Common, accompanied by Justice and Kiss-Ducker during their post-New Year’s visit. The paths were frothing with snow, so our stroll was on the brisk slash perfunctory side, when Kiss-Ducker stopped and gazed at a tree.

“The squirrels!” she said. “There are so many of them. And they’re so — fat.”

Not one of the actual Common squirrels, but I swear to all that's holy that they were this size. Like a meaner Jabba the Hutt.

Factual, guys. The Common seems to be home to a rare bred of enormo-squirrels. On top of this, their fur was uncommonly glossy and they were docile little bastards. We  puzzled over their enormity for a while (genetics? natural selection?) until Kiss-Ducker knelt down to make smoochy noises and one of the little dudes leaped right into her hands.

Dude. Squirrels. College town. Park right across the street from a 7eleven. Why hadn’t we put it together before? Dudes were feeding the little guys! Obviously we had to get into that action.

Bought some hot roasted almonds and, after skimming a layer off the top, set out to feed the vermin. At first, I was too timid to let one of the knobby-toothed little dudes approach my hands, so I tried to toss them to the squirrels’ gaping mouths. But I missed a few shots and the still-hot glaze managed to seal the nuts onto the squirrels’ pelts. Clearly that was going to get gory after we were gone.

Kiss-Ducker had great luck holding out a nut and letting the squirrel eat from her fingers, so I tried it, and dang if the little guys showed absolutely no fear in the face of being hand-fed by benevolent giants. The only trouble was that they were too into it. Five minutes in, squirrels were scampering over from other trees, staging rear attacks on the three of us, getting tangled up in our boots, all to get their hot nut fix.

After twenty minutes or so, we were about ready to toss the remaining nuts and call it a day, when a college-aged guy walked by. “You feeding the squirrels?” he asked pleasantly. After we copped the truth, he smiled back: “Makin’ ’em do tricks? The really fat ones are the best — they’ll do anything for a nut.”

Dude, squirrels with sufficiently disordered eating to degrade themselves to the point of doing tricks? Friggin’ love it! We begged the guy for a demonstration, so he taunted a squirrel with nuts until it climbed up to his neck, all the while recounting tales of wearing two, three, four squirrels atop his hat only days prior.

I was so terrified of the little beasts that I had to try it. After about fifteen false starts and lots of disinterest from the sated squirrels, I managed to coax one to run up my leg, all the way to the top of my thigh, and submit to ginger petting. I believe he would have made it right the way atop my fedora, but, dude, my hat and I have a good relationship and I just don’t know that it would survive the injustice of squirrel shit.

Photo, courtesy of Kiss-Ducker, of a squirrel about to begin the incredible journey up my leg. Note also the little fiend scampering in to try to steal the nut.

The Verdict: Soooo, I get my communing with nature badge, right? At the time I thought this was an extremely amusing one-time diversion, but when The Ex came to town a week later, I immediately took him to the Boston Common to attempt squirrel feeding. Unfortunately there weren’t any about, or else my fedora would have had to fear for its life. So even though this didn’t budge my profound ambivalence toward animals, I did feel rather chummy toward the little mongrels, so I venture this one a weak thumbs-up.

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