Sunday Top 10: We Come Together Cause Opposites Attract

In the grand tradition of outsources past, this week's Sunday Top Ten [which I earnestly believe, each and every week, will in fact appear on Sunday, not Tuesday, as it so often does, like today] is penned by one of my favorite bloggers ever TB [my girlfriend]. Also in aforementioned grand tradition, I've added my own notes here and there, indicated by italics and my initials. Lez go...

Hi. I'm Tara/TB. Marie's swamped with work/stress/TKs and so I'm guest-lesbian-blogging her Sunday Top Ten (on Tuesday; go team).

And can I add that we're totally sickening right now? Like, quarantine us.

Marie: iii. omg i'm so in love with you, part duex, truex, googlgeuex, grammatical nightmare, shock you shock you with my poor conjunctions and fake words.

We need to be (quarantined, shot) cause if you chilled with us, your increased allegiance to vomiting/nausea would make you wanna murder yourself. Or us.

Prologue. Marie and I are different, to put it plainly. She's rather sunshiney/bright and me--moonshiney/dark. [mlb: the fact that she considers me to be "sunshiney" is testament to the depths of her darkness.] Her pop culture references fly past my head, as I'm sure mine past hers, re: Coptic scriptures and weird esoteric lit stuff.

But in the end I've faith in the words regarding our "twin flame," "soul mate" or "other half" in Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium, a text about a drinking party replete with fags, philosophy, Socrates and encomiums to love.

"Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the tally-half of a man, and he is always looking for his other half."

I think I found mine.

Onward!

SUNDAY TOP TEN: Why We Hope the Cliche's Sound: Opposites Attract.

*

10. Gin.

I heart Tanqueray, which is such a shady thing to say, but I do. Marie literally can't tolerate it. I'll be snoring my ass off in her bed after a night of transgressive partying while she, if she were to drink gin, would expel the contents of her gastro-system into the toilet and into dawn.


9. Marie: "I don't think I'm ethnic enough for your drum circle."

[mlb: I'd like to take a moment to name-drop that I am related to Pocahantas. So is Allison Janney. We're both tall. Coincidence?]

I'm nursing a giant, very attractive bruise on my right palm. And by "nursing" I mean constantly massaging it, cause I like feeling the tiny flickerings of pain shoot through my forearm. Totes fun. And injury acquired from banging on a conga all Sunday night. Jackie the Hydejacker and I performed percussive stuff at this new monthly Queer/Trannie Ethnic Drum party in Brooklyn. I was initially under the impression that it was a down-to-earth spiritual, tabla/djembe, chill-in-living room sorta thing, but when I arrived, like--whoa nightclub, ethnic hipsters and miked percussion. I invited Hebraic Marie and her mother Maureen to come watch and apparently Marie thought I was joking. [mlb: I thought there would be like, actual granola involved. But like, Aborigine granola, or something.]

M: "I don't think I'm ethnic enough for your drum circle."
TB: "Dude, whatever. You're with me. Just come."
M: "Should I go tanning first?"
TB: "Huh?"

They come. A blast is had; I get blasted.

Jackie/Mona: "Dude, what's up with this Raga shit? Like 4/4, yo. You're throwing me off!"

Expectedly, Marie and Maureen were the only white people there [mlb: all the other white people were daunted by the prospect of taking a shuttle bus from where the C line stopped running in mid-Brooklyn-ish-somewhere. But Mom and I are super hardcore, and by that I mean we obviously freaked out and got in a cab after about ten unidentifiable stops on the bus.], and nobody seemed to mind. But I'm glad they met Mona, who's hardcore Palestinian. Mid East conflict micro-symbolically reconciled.


8. MySpace and Photography

Marie said the cutest thing the other day while I was checking my profile, leaving a comment for Haviland:

"Tara, why are there no photos on your MySpace?"

[mlb: Not like TGCAW has anything to do with the truth, but I must add that I've asked her this question approx. 10,000 times between February 1st and today, like, more than any other question I've asked Tara, ever. Aside from: "Where's my shirt?"]

Marie always calls it "your MySpace" and omits the term "profile," like Murdoch's virtual death camp is MINE, ALL MINE. But the photo-thing: Marie addressed this already in her OurChart Guestbian column. I'm kinda anti-promotion. What with ad/branding-oversaturation and visual-cue overkill in media, in Me Generation, the world doesn't need another Narcissist [mlb: my desire for Tara's photos is more related to enhancing my own Narcissism than forming hers.] ... is all I'm saying. Though I've no problem with people into taking pics. That's their thing. It's Marie's thing. And that's fine, each to her photogenic own.


7. Processed-Snack Foods

There's a section in Marie's deli next-door for really shitty food that'll kill ya. Debbie Cakes, Drake, Hostess and lesser obscure forms of comestible self-immolation. I don't get it. By "it" I mean fast food, artificial "flavoring," and just bad bad bad "food." Not that I'm vegan/vegetarian, I just feel like maybe it's a good idea to eat healthy (and smoke a pack of Parliaments a day). Typically, I'll eat fish: New Zealand mussels, spicy crunchy tuna tempura, smoked salmon, etc.

Marie: "I don't eat raw fish."
Me: "Insert lesbian joke here."

And yet, Marie'll totally eat the 25 cent cookies in that above-cited deli section. Which drives me insane. But it's okay, cause I love her anyway.

[mlb: In my defense, I don't eat fast food, and the only processed snacks I do eat are cookies. And candy. And peanut butter crackers. And Lean Cuisine microwave meals.]
[mlb: I'm eating those cookies right now, totes coincidence.]


6. Women's Magazines.

Sometimes Marie'll drop seemingly insecure hints that her body's larger than it ought to be. And I know she doesn't honestly believe that, but it manifests sometimes. I, meanwhile, often believe I'm too skinny, and I'm about 3x Marie's tiny frame and three inches shorter. The reality: we're both delusional. Probably--it's like, who knows. But what I do know: our body issues stem from somewhere--many places actually. And it's almost trite to say, but: WOMEN'S MAGAZINES have an unhealthy effect on WOMEN'S MINDS. Yet at least it's true--they don't do shit for our psychological betterment. Vogue, Elle, Jane, Marie Claire, etc., these rags litter Marie's bed, scattered women on covers beaming in airbrushed perfection. Like, fuck them. I toss them off the bed and put Marie there instead.


5. L Word / Kate Moening.

Marie and I are laying around, staring at Janice Erlbaum's Girlbomb, a new paperback we both need to read. She turns to me:

"Tara!"
"Yeah?"
"I've got some good news."
"Okay ..."
"Don't worry--despite rumors to the contrary, Kate Moening's coming back for another season!"
"Who?"
"SHANE!!!"

F. I don't dig the L Word. That is all.


4. Lesbo Music.

[mlb: aka Melissa Ferrick, Indigo Girls, Ani DiFranco, Chris Pureka, Dar Williams, Melissa Etheridge, Jill Sobule, etc.]

Me: "Dude, what's this whiny music we're listening to?"
Marie: "You don't like the Indigo Girls?"

And meanwhile, back @ Marie's shower, she's blasting showtunes. [mlb: Spring Awakening, FYI. Just don't want any of you thinking I'm Pantene-ing myself to the sweet sounds of "The Music of the Night" or "On My Own" or something. TB: Also, I love "Castle on a Cloud"; I hum that sinister melody while sweeping Marie's kitchen.] I'm cringing. Cause music is nearly everything to me. Therefore, Marie and I agree to disagree, re: tastes, and that's cool. Cause now she's nearly everything.


3. Gawker.

Gawker is a Manhattan media news and gossip site. Marie and I actually met via Gawker, they linked to her blog, etc. Marie was initially all: "Did you find me through my L Word blog?"

Me: "Huh? L Word? Who?"

But yeah. I read The Gawker. I mean, for the most part it features a petty mindless parade of socialite twatwaffles and their goings-on: the Tinz, the Toos, the Kucz, the Blasberg, the Allison, the who-cares-about-these-douche-du-jours. Leave no brain cell behind, is what I like to think's my motto and M.O. So I sift through Gawker half-squinting in search of gems/substance (Kreepie Kats, n + 1-bashing, NYC To Dos, etc.), and here/there I'll find talent: The Assimilated Negro, Slut Machine and Marie ... who meanwhile enjoys that Gawker links to her so much she's coined a term for it: "Gawkered!" ... is now a verb. Rock on.

P.S. Marie would like to add that she doesn't enjoy Gawker's questionably unwarranted life-destroying, e.g. Douchebag Hall of Fame, Eric Shaeffer. Totes warranted.

[mlb: ok, except for that guy.]


2. Bisexuality.

For personal reasons--having just been royally screwed over by one, it's natural for me to dislike them as a whole, a group, a stereotype in an orientation-profiling sort of way. Bisexuality rings with associations of wishy-washiness, hedonism, polyamoury, people who can't-sit-still for like two seconds. But ... Marie identifies as bi. And I'm accepting this cause ultimately, it's not what you say about who you do, but who you do.


1. Marie's Fisher Price Play Center, her Mac.

A war between two inanimate objects is pretty douchey in general, but re: the Mac/PC divide, I'm definitely a PC person. When I check my OurChart profile on Marie's Mac (cause that's all I do), it's like manning a cessna after having flown stealth bombers all your life. Device-drop: ASUS, Averatec, NEC pda, Linux, BitTorrent downloads, Zunes, external flash drives on Swiss Army knives, 1TB (terabyte Hitachi hard drives), and so on. As in, dude--Mozilla, hello and how are you? ... like what's Safari?

Yay! I'm on a Safari, look at the monkeys!

I like my women, liquor and computers user-hostile. Macs are for Brooklyn hipsters tweaking Pro Tools for their mawkish trance music. [mlb: and cool people.] PC-ers are Hodgmanites, as in John Hodgman, that dorky four-eyed lit agent/Daily Show-cameo dude who appears opposite the Mac punk (no one can stand) in those Mac ads. And I second-guess myself. Cause in a way, Marie having a Mac is totally cute. Like the cutest thing in the world ... next to her.

*

Epilogue.

Me: "Let's name our first child Product Placement. That, or Nimrod."
Marie: "K."