Sunday Top 10: Those of Us Who Think We Know

[P.S. I've started posting again on Auto-Straddle, for those of you with interest in such things.]

Next Monday, June 11th, at 7 P.M., I'll be appearing on a panel at the Museum of Sex for Audacia Ray's new book Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads and Cashing in on Internet Sexploration. That's right: me, on a panel, having sex. Just kidding. That's private, weirdos [sex]. I'll just be talking about my former life, in which I found internet dating to be a very bizarre/enchanting little adventure.

I met lots of cool people, like Justin "Bush is a Friend to Israel" The Banker, who delighted in purchasing cocktails for the eccentric writer/waitress/model personality he projected onto my body. He tilted his tanned head condescendingly, laughed indulgently, like: Look at the cute monkey doing tricks!! She says such strange things!

Or Joey "Not Actually Jewish Even Though He's on JDate," who took me to a baseball field to smoke pot, then to his Mom's Bay Ridge beauty salon, after-hours, to have serious conversations in chairs topped with hair-dryers. He had feelings. I had feelings too, but not for him, which led to a series of psychotic voicemails. "I really opened up to you! I feel USED!" I felt used too, because he said he was 5'10 and he was NOT. Like, 5'8 at the most.

Anyhow, I have a girlfriend now, but for the purposes of this panel, I'll be recalling the great repository of information I've still got in the old noggin.

Internet dating's not the only thing I know a lot about even though the information's no longer relevant to my life. There's a lot of things I could ramble on about based on prior immersion, despite present ignorance. Here's some of them.

[I'm doing this Top Ten in two segments. Because I have this tendency to write ten gazillion words about everything. Who's got time for that? Not me, not you. Why not just do it in segments? Yeah? Good idea, Auto-Win. Thanks. I mean, look how long this intro is! You must be going BLIND from staring at the computer!]

SUNDAY TOP TEN, PART ONE:
KNOWLEDGE TAKING UP A LOT OF SPACE IN MY BRAIN THAT PERHAPS COULD BE USED FOR OTHER THINGS, BUT SINCE IT'S NOT, ANYONE WANT ME TO BE ON THEIR PANEL?

10. Emo Pop-Punk Music.

It's all about driving in his purple KIA ["It's BLUE!" -him] on highways by strip malls, singing along: This world's an ugly place, but you're so beautiful to me. We attend dozens of concerts, he crowd-surfs. He's got bleached tips & pierced tongue, shops at "PacSun." CDs are your basic nightmare: Blink 182, Alkaline Trio, Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, Newfound Glory, Starting Line, Something Corporate, etc. I still think Unwritten Law's okay. I interview Sugarcult and Yellowcard for The Michigan Daily, which makes him feel close to stars: he likes me even more, he finally reads my writing.

It's easy-breezy-sinister-beautiful. The sinister part's a secret though, even from me. The music is so earnest! So fresh! If it was a color, it'd be bright purple that secretly made you stupid just to look at it. [Like my blog! JK!]

We're at an all day outdoor concert in Vegas when several 16-year-old girls flash pierced nipples at once ...

I tell him: "We're too old for this."

He replies: "Are we? Fuck. What do I do now?"

I realize I'm suffocating with him, one day in my bedroom. I flee. I leave him and all his music behind me.

A month or so later, he'll comment: "I notice you never listen to our music anymore."

"Our." It hurts me more than it hurts him, to hear him say it like that.

*
9. College Basketball, circa Fab Five Era.

The Fab Five--the starters for University of Michigan's '92-'93 basketball team--almost won the NCAA championship twice. My interest started fading following Chris Webber's early departure for the NBA, then it declined steadily 'til dropping off completely 'round the time I started going to school there. Okay, I figure if you're still reading this paragraph, you know who I'm talking about, so we can cut down to the marrow, if you will.

Now, they've been stripped of everything due to recently-discovered player-payment scandal. Bullshit: obvs these players were getting competing offers! Michigan's not the only school to offer special treatment to it's college basketballers.

Hello, just rent Blue Chips, starring Shaquille 'Rappin' Genie with an Attitude' O'Neal!

My father and brother and I read the book, saw the documentary, watched every game. My Dad was a mentor for the basketball team, so we got good seats, which we'd be on the edges of, usually. It was a pretty glorious era, in general. So when they took those titles back, they also totes stole my CHILDHOOD! Fo' reals, punks.

Also, when C-Webb called that time out, I cried. Seriously. Tears. Bawling.

*
8. How to Give Blow Jobs

The thing is, I put a lot of time into mastering this skill, and now it's totally useless.

Just kidding. I mourned that loss for about negative ten seconds. Totally hurt my jaw. I was like: Oh well.

Also, I'm never giving a blow job to a dildo [like the lesbos do in porn movies]. Because that'd be retarded.

Hi, Mom!

The thing is, by talking dirty like this, I'm preparing for my panel, obvs! I don't want to get nervous when the other ladies say stuff about sex, because they are like, super-educated Sexuality degree-holders or hot sex-blog ladies, e.g., Alt Porn Star Lux Nightmare, Writer Madeline Glass, and Ellen Fredrichs of teenwire.

I'm just me. I'm gonna be like: What's up, my banner'll make your head explode! Once I went on an internet date with a girl who showed me photos of guy's wieners she had stored on her cell-phone, and I was like, dude, if I wanted to look at that tonight, I wouldn't be on a date with a girl right now, obvs. Bada-bing. Leggo of my eggo, bitches.

*
7. Photography.

Took an NYU summer class and loved the cool, red-and-black-warm darkroom, the recluse from the feverish city heat. My project's titled: "I'm Not Just a Waitress." I photograph my Olive Garden co-workers in uniform, pair photos with captions explaining what they "really" do: actors, singers, dancers, students, fathers, mothers. Ranjit: the food runner with a degree in some complicated science I'd never understand, useless in the U.S.A 'cause his University's in Bangladesh.

Michigan, Advanced Photo: Did an independent project with a new all-girls middle school. Pondered self-esteem, faltering sense of self in pre-adolescents, wrote research paper, took photos, did long interviews with the girls, surveys, read Schoolgirls. We have a gallery show and are told to pick up our projects from the classroom the following week. I go there: mine's gone. Totally 100% disappeared.

Felt symbolic, like: you can't really "capture" anything, even with a camera, which's allegedly their point. You've just got memory, I guess. Which is a very tricky thing.

So yeah, I quit photography. Over it.

*
6. The Brady Bunch

The thing is, TV in and of itself's never been that exciting for me. As a singular entity, it's silly, I'd rather read a book. It functions only in it's unique method of telling a story: in that there's untold backstory and process, and the possibility to watch it with other people. I liked this show 'cause I liked the backstory [via Growing up Brady, the classic literary work by Bary Williams, a.k.a. "Greg," and various Brady trivia books]. I'd read about the eps before watching them: I was interested in context, in how a show comes together as a story, as a marketable good/service in a capitalistic Western society, as a collection of humans with distinct personalities gathering to complete a project as a team, as a particular significance re: history and social import.

This's just to say that I wouldn't watch The L Word or America's Next Top Model in a cave. I like the commentary better than the thing itself, often.

That being said: Why the F did I become obsessed with The Brady Bunch? I'm comforted to know that Haviland Stillwell totally loves The Brady Bunch too and read Growing up Brady. And I want that line to come up when you google her, that'd be awesome.


P.S. If you don't come to my panel, then I will never forgive you. Unless you live far away, or I owe you three or more emails/phone calls, which's like ... everyone.

P.P.S. Okay: if you don't come to my panel, then I might forgive you, unless you live far away. If you live in NYC and don't come, I might forgive you, but the odds are not in your favor, kiddo.

P.P.P.S. Also JK, I'm totes talking about other stuff, not just internet dating.