In the Beginning There was a Really Big Belly Under a Christmas Tree

This is the story of my birth as I've always told it and I fully expect that my mom will read this and immediately be scandalized by my bastardization of the details in a story that is rightfully much more hers than mine. As a bonus I'm also going to throw in the story of my brother's birth because it's related and because it might further annoy my mom which will teach her for learning about the internet. (Private to AngryMom in CA: At least your daughter shares her blog with you, most moms aren't that lucky! Let her slide on the embellishments, after all she's been stuck in an entire year of writer's block, she needs this!).

I was born on January 5th 1978 (mark your calendars! shop post Christmas sales for presents!) which was about 2 weeks later than I was supposed to be born thus affording my mom and dad the luxury of taking a hilarious picture of her huge belly under the Christmas tree with a big bow wrapped around it -- to this day I'm sure my mom finds much irony in the thought that I would be a great gift and not just a never ending source of lost sleep and so much eye rolling (like all babies I'd like to thank Mother Nature for those awesome post pregnancy hormones that made me lovable despite not being very lovable -- I'm not sure who I should thank for giving mom the strength not to try literally slapping me out of my funk every day of my life from age 13 through 17).

I actually know very little of what happened between me playing the part of Christmas package and being born. I assume at some point on the 4th or 5th of January there was a rushed ride to the hospital and hours of screaming and you know, blood and doctors and such but mom was never one to regale me with "Do you know how much pain I went through to bring your sorry ass into the world?" I was born in the hospital where my mom worked as an ER nurse (and now works as the Nursing Supervisor) so the birth was well attended and mom claims much of it was broadcast over the nurses' walkie talkie system. This seems insanely cruel -- can you imagine all of your coworkers listening in on you giving birth to your first kid? Strangely mom never mentions killing whoever made this happen (I assume not talking about the murder is all part of the mass cover-up -- good job mom.).

And then, you know -- here I was (the sun came out from behind the clouds, the heavens smiled, the birds sang, national holiday, etc). But the real hilarious bit of this story starts when we get out of the hospital. I'm not sure how long my new family was actually home before my mom had to be returned the the hospital because there was a lot of blood not staying in her body where it belonged, but it wasn't long -- maybe a day or so. So back to the hospital where mom is admitted to the ICU (that's right folks, the hilarious part of the story is when my mom gets put into intensive care! good times!) and so they're wheeling her away and dad's standing there all "Hey, dudes, you forgot the baby! HAHA!" and the dudes (in this case doctors) are all, "No, it's cool the baby is FINE, take her on home!" And then dad is all "But! DUDES! Please god take the baby back! What the hell am I supposed to do with her when I don't have the magic milk producing body parts!?!?" And then I think his head explodes and he gets put in ICU too. No, just kidding, he goes home and calls my aunt all "Doctors are such bitches, please come help me before I kill your niece."

Let me pause here to say that my dad is super amazing and I'd hate for this story to make him sound incompetent but that's kind of what makes it a good story and my dad is hopefully so awesome that he doesn't mind being the butt of this particular joke. But just in case he's a little miffed I offer this proof of his awesomeness as a counterbalance: Because my mom worked nights growing up my dad was Mr. Mom every morning and he kicked major ass at everything from packing lunches to making a full breakfast (seriously people we had eggs and fruit and bacon or banana pancakes or french toast EVERY MORNING, dude was not fucking around). He was slightly less awesome at doing my hair as evidenced by my 3rd grade school picture where I appear to be rocking some sort of half crimped/half bed head combo do but I've mostly stopped blaming him for my "nerd table" lunch status that lasted through to high school (after all it wasn't him who forced me to join the math team, that was ALL ME). And also: I'm fine, he took me home as a newborn without my mom and totally didn't kill me so GOOD JOB DAD.

Now back to the story. Mom gets better, I learn to walk, everyone is happy.

So fast forward a couple of years and mom is rocking the bump again, my only real memory of her being pregnant with my brother is a conversation about baby names that took place in the car in which I refused to even discuss the possibility needing to consider boy names. I also seem to remember having strong feelings about naming my baby sister Michelle. So April 9th rolls around and again with the hospital and the pain and the breathing exercises. Only this time it sucks even more because my baby brother was born breach (As an older sister this was a god send -- oh the years of "born butt first like a real butt head!" jokes! HILARIOUS) and things really did not go well. Basically my mom died. She lost a ton of blood, she flat lined and while the doctors worked on bringing her back to life (note: successfully, thanks dudes!) she went on a little ride through the dark tunnel to meet with none other than Jesus Christ.

Mom and JC are up on a hill you know, chillin' when he brings up the awkward elephant in the room (er... the field...the heaven?). "So, Kay, umm you have a couple of kids back there in the world who kind of need a mom, you can't let Horst raise them alone, he can't handle it." That's right folks -- JESUS didn't believe in my dad's single parenting skills. And my mom is basically all, "no J-dawg, it's groovy, Horst has this shit! I'm gonna just chill here, lay back on a cloud, take some harp lessons, you know, angel stuff." Luckily our lord and savior is having none of it and basically pushes my mom back down the long dark tunnel and into her body. So big thanks to Jesus for giving me my mom back, I totally forgive you for misjudging my dad's parenting skills. And mom? I'm not even angry about you wanting to dessert me for heaven, I'm sure it would have totally beat changing Kurt's diapers and teaching my stubborn ass to tie my shoes.

Random Access Random

I don't really like to get involved with memes for the same reason I don't like to comment back on other blogs to gain internet popularity or publish "what do you think?" posts in an effort to get maximum comments (though, actually I might have one of those brewing.). The problem is that I take myself way to seriously. I have a tendency to fall into that pretentious I am a WRITER trap and we all know that serious writers, the kind that get offered book deal and guest spots on morning TV programs to add some quirky internet presence so that my Grandma and her friends in Wisconsin can shake their heads in a "those crazy kids" sort of way, they do NOT care about comments or subscriber counts and they certainly cannot be expected to respond to gimmicky things like a meme. Of course real writers also have ideas that are publishable not just 15000 Google docs full of unusable notes and a bunch of "I haven't written something worthwhile in MONTHS" guilt. They probably also do not devote entire posts to cooing about how cute their niece is (they also do not have a niece as cute as mine so really this is a moot point). They also probably don't have a friend as nice and devoted and willing to put up with YEARS worth of email describing the minutia of their dating follies using phrases like "doomed for life" and "totally going to die alone" but I do -- and if Mike wants me to mem it up I will. My book deal be damned.

Anyway, the meming goes like this:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

Now on to the random Brianna generator.

1. My youthful vigor and amazingly perky breasts aside there is a proper pants suit wearing 75 year old woman living in my soul (My inner Emily Gilmore). She makes me send out hand written thank you cards (actually that might have been my mom...) and refuses to let me out of the house in brown shoes and black pants and her little alcoholic liver demands to be fed whenever I enter a bar. It is because on her that my drink of choice is a vodka gimlet.
2. I l have next to no ability to appreciate visual art (go ahead, judge me, I put my thoughts on the internets so I pretty much asked for it). When wandering around a museum (because I have guests visiting and they demand culture or because I'm in a foreign country and god knows I will never hear the end of it if I don''t log a visit to whatever famous museum the country lays claim to) I am usually reduced to glancing at the art and quickly averting my eyes to read every paragraph of the author bio. There is one exception to this rule -- I love color block art, esp uniform blocks/pixels of different colors, double especially if they're organized in some sort of gradient progression from one color to another. Basically the color picker feature in Photoshop speaks to me.
3. I think I look awful in purple. Or rather I think I should think I look awful in purple based on one statement made by my mother roughly 15 years ago. ("Brianna, Purple is not your color.")
4. I have small feet and I am inexplicably proud of this as if I had something to do with creating my tiny tootsies and as if having small feet is some sort of valuable trait. Embarrassingly I suspect this is me bowing the the social expectations that women be petite and dainty. For a while the only part of me that I felt fit into this definition was my feet and so to this day when, at the bowling alley picking up my rented shoes my co-bowlers or the shoe rental lady exclaim that I have "such tiny feet!" I glow a little bit inside and then blush a bit on the outside for being so shallow/easily manipulated by the patriarchy.
5. My first "boyfriend" was a boy named Ben who lived next door to me in 2nd grade. We did a lot of playing together and my friend Jolene was "dating" his twin brother. Once he drew me an adorable picture of us holding hands on the beach which I can to this day picture with amazing clarity(me in blond pigtails and a blue bikini, him in red swim trunks, waves in the back ground and a wooden sign that says "beach" least there be any confusion), the picture probably still lives somewhere in my childhood bedroom. Ben and I had a falling out sometime early in 3rd grade and I went on to become queen of the Geeks and he to actual real life popularity leading my high school friends to speculate that if only I hadn't broken up with Ben 6 years ago perhaps I could have been popular too as if boyfriend alone could have made up for my membership in mathletics.
6. I failed my driver's test the first time for driving on the wrong side of the road. In my defense this was right after doing a 3 point turn and seriously, anyone could make that mistake. I went home and CRIED for hours (someone doesn't handle failure well...) and then my dad bought me flowers and gave me the patented Horst Klemm "This will not matter when you grow up and realize how awesome you are" speech (that dad dude was smart). I passed on the second try a couple of weeks later and that same day accidentally drove on the wrong side of the road AGAIN. Luckily I didn't kill anyone or get caught. I have managed to over come my obviously British driving roots and mostly stay on the right side of the road these days.
   

People Whom I Encourage To Be Random

Under Consideration and Montague because they are new blogy friends who you guys should check out
I Don't Think It's Going to Rain because Lisa will write about anything
Kajal's World on a Page because if she posts any more baby stories I'm going to die from the cute
Amy's Magical Place because she needs to write more.
Ultra Fine Flair because Gillian is really good at being random

Technically This Is Not a Tabloid

Mike interviewed me which is almost like real media coverage except that I think he did it just to make me feel better about the Daily News forgetting about me. Mike's a good friend (and a good blogger, you should poke around on his site after you get done learning more about how awesome I am).

If You Don't Know Me by Now

Last week I started rating all of the songs on my iPod. This obsessive behavior was inspired by my friend Joe who has rated all but 150 of his roughly 800,000 iTunes songs. He has also memorized all of his credit card numbers and is, frankly, my hero. Considering my love for organizing things it is surprising that it has taken me 3+ years of iPod ownership to get around to ratings but now that I’m here I cannot express how excited the act of assign stars makes me. Or, more accurately, how happy the idea of having every song successfully categorized and filed away makes me. I can't help but fantasize that this little act combined with the ambitious closet reorganization campaign that I kicked off in October will right all of the wrongs in my life.

It is very difficult for me to give any song a rating of less than 3 out of 5 stars. At the thought of a 2 I end up feeling guilty as if the artist will find out and be irreparably hurt by this affront to their masterpiece and often I just bail out by skipping the song entirely. Conversely, if I love a song it becomes super easy to assign 4 or 5 stars to it and I am pathetically predictable when it comes to certain bands. When I review my top rated tunes it appears that Rhett Miller could record himself farting and burping on a loop for 45 minutes and I’d slap a 4 on it while thinking, “Hmmm maybe this is a 5, I mean that second toot really spoke to me and also someday Rhett might see this list and be so flattered that he’ll have no choice but to sleep with me and probably fall in love and leave his wife which will be a little sad for him but all happy for me.” I am also somewhat concerned by the gender disparity in my elite 4/5 group. Much as I feel a little embarrassed for liking Obama better than Hilary I can’t quite come to terms with consistently loving John Darnielle more than Lucinda Williams. On the plus side, my grandparents can probably put to rest all concerns about my sexuality.

I am tempted to claim that rating all of my music has made me more aware of what I listen to but that would mostly be a lie. I constantly micromanage my shuffle because deep down I am a part of the generation (or likely, generations since I think this applies to everyone who came of age post 1960) that believes that my preference for Rilo Kiley over Wilco is somehow indicative of a greater truth. Despite all my left brained “I heart logic” bravado I am a huge believer in the mix tape school of love. While I get a little geeky jolt upon placing any old stuff into categories and have many times considered projects like alphabetizing my refrigerator contents and color coding my underwear drawer the true, embarrassing, teen angst-y goal of rating all of my music is to put myself into a category and hopefully by doing this somehow communicate who this self is. I am in the "adores tough guys singing about broken love” category, the “finds it endearing when white boys pretend to be all gangsta” category, the “enjoys a good war anthem” category. All of the song categorization is really just preparation for show and tell. I feel a need to quantify which songs I like best so that friends and, most importantly, boys who I have a crush on can take a look at my top rated tunes and make sense of who I am so that, hopefully, I don’t have to explain anything. They can look at my shoe collection too if that’ll help, I find the blue flats with the miss-matched yellow spirals on them to be particularly revealing. It probably seems very twenty first century American of me to hope for my material purchases to add up to who I am (my shrink would have had a field day if I hadn’t dumped her expensive ass when she just didn’t get me and didn’t seem at all interested in forgoing our sessions in favor of a playlist), but in actuality I feel like I have no more accurate place to turn. I like to think I excel at explaining how web applications and cookie dough and reality television should work but I feel almost completely at a loss when it comes to explaining me. There is obviously much irony in the fact that someone with a desire to be known without explanation has devoted years to a writing project all about herself.

Yesterday the same friend who inspired my song categorization and will soon have me doing credit card memory drills in the shower told me that there exists a piece of software which can use the built in web cam on your standard issue Mac Hipster Machine to read the ISBN from your books and categorize them on a virtual shelf. This alone might be reason enough for me to convert to the cult of Apple because I very much want my book collection categorized and searchable. I want to point to one place and say “THIS is what I read and this is what’s important to me so if you care at all about getting in my pants you best BONE UP.” (also please ignore the disproportionate number of Dave Barry books – it was a phase.). Perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of this unconventional approach to communication is that I feel that if only I could get some floppy haired boy to really look at my collection he'd be all but disarmed. It seems obvious that no one could see my “Dad’s Who Really Love Their Daughters” songs or the small menagerie of “Food-centric History" books on my shelf and not fall in love with me.

In my iTunes library there are currently 24 5s out of 142 rated songs out of 2924 files(I have a lot of work ahead of me), for those of you looking to take on the challenge of unraveling this riddle here they are (unsurprisingly, in alphabetical order by artist and then by album).

Everything I Love – Alan Jackson
Someday - Alan Jackson
Evening Gown – Alejandro Escovedo
Rocking the Suburbs – Ben Folds
The Luckiest – Ben Folds
Falling Down Blue - Blue Rodeo
Red Right Ankle – The Decemberists
Chips Ahoy – The Hold Steady
You Can Make Him Like You – The Hold Steady
Texas Trilogy: Bosque County Romance -- Lyle Lovett
Fruits of My Labor – Lucinda Williams
Pink and Blue – The Mountain Goats
Color in Your Cheeks - The Mountain Goats
Have to Explode – The Mountain Goats
Melt Show - The Old 97s
Lonely Holiday – The Old 97s
Salome – The Old 97s
Rollerskate Skinny – The Old 97s
Making Love with You– The Old 97s
Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes – Paul Simon
Under African Skys - Paul Simon
The Deep South – The Promise Ring
If I Could -- Storyhill
The Great Divide - Storyhill

On Being a Girl in the Big Bad World of Software Part 2

To graduate from most California high schools one must accumulate two semesters worth of credits in “Regional Occupational Programs” (ROP). The idea (I think, but this knowledge is entirely based on what I heard in the school hallways at age 16, I tried to do research on the program on the intertubes but my California education didn’t give me the skills to slog through legalize without submitting to sleep.) is that if you take an ROP class every term for all of high school the state will help you find a job after graduation. The reality is that schools require the 2 terms to get the state money associated with the program and McDonalds has a lot of employees with impressive flower arranging skills. The ROP options at my high school were Construction, Auto Mechanics, Floriculture, Secretarial Skills and Computers. I eliminated the first two as too dirty and the next two as pathetically useless and so second semester of my freshman year when my advanced math class conflicted with Drama 2 (the horror) I was left with ROP Computers filling up my 45 minutes post lunch.

I was the only girl enrolled in this class (shocker, I know). In fact I was apparently the only girl to have EVER enrolled in this class. At the time I thought this might have made me a feminist badass but it soon became clear that it only made me an idiot. Surprisingly the class was not made up of all nerds (if only…) but had a heavy representation of senior football players looking to shore up an easy ROP credit before graduation. The teacher was a guy my mom had known during her “I live at the Yosemite rock climbing camp with my hippy boyfriend” days (which took place right before the “I live at a cross country ski lodge with my hippy boyfriend/soon to be husband/father of my children” days) and it turns out he’s a little bit famous. A few years earlier he had suffered a fall while climbing that resulted in him loosing a lot of his hearing – specifically he was unable to hear high frequencies at all. This wasn’t really a problem…until a girl decided to take his class. The first test was an oral exam. This consisted of him asking me a question and me trying to answer it over and over in an increasingly louder (and, ironically, higher pitched…) voice until I started crying. Eventually he gave up and handed me an A-. Luckily the rest of the class was taught by a series of programs that the teacher wrote so that he could spend the class period at his desk reading and pretending that his hearing was so bad that he didn’t even notice that class time was primarily focused on tormenting me.

Everyday I came into the classroom to find my monitor, mouse and keyboard unplugged, this meant I had to crawl under the desk and blindly paw at the back of the machine while simultaneously using my free hand to hold down the back of my skirt so as not to expose my panties to the classroom full of giggling boys. Some jokes are apparently funny over and over again for 4 whole months. This kind of tomfoolery haunted my semester until the boys decided to up their game from mischievous to skeevy. One spring day I came into class and football player #1 says to me, “Hey, Brianna, if we gave you $250 would you take your shirt off? Cause we took a collection.” It is at this moment that I make one of the worst mistakes in my young life – rather than flash some boobage, pocket the cash and donate 25% to NOW (and 75% to the cute skirt fund) I decided to care about “principles” (and not even the right principles! Everyone knows Capitalism>Feminism). So my boobs remained a mystery and my pockets remained empty and the teasing continued through June and women were finally allowed to wear pants and own property and men started birthing babies and getting excited about cute shoes. Please write your thanks you notes on Georgia O’Keefe stationary (and I wouldn’t turn my nose up at pair of sensible shoes).Publish Post

How, after this intro experience to the awesome world of technology, I ended up actually majoring in Computer Science in college I cannot explain but after a few years of hanging out with the boys I’ve mellowed and come to love being the only girl in the room. Sadly no one has ever again offered me money for a boobie show now that I’d be happy to take it (off). Life is unfair.

For reference here’s Part 1.

Dear 1995 Me

Stealing this idea from Peter...

Hi, it's me, you, blogging from 2007. I promise that is a good thing and I am very famous and important. And hot.

Sooooooo.... You need to chill out. No, Seriously. It is not that bad. I don't even need to know what exactly you're freaking out about right now (and really who can keep up?) to be 100% confident that you need to let it go. I'm going to take a minor leap and guess this has to do with your hair. You have curly hair. Why you are just discovering this at 17 I do not know but feel free to blame denial, having a mother with very little concern for appearances and/or the incredibly dry weather in eastern California. Anyway you have two options – straightening or scrunching. Do not expect hair stylists to help you out, they will forever stare at your head in confusion. Straightening is more reliable but scrunching is faster, both are a gamble. I know, we hate uncertainty, consider this just another way that god is fucking with you.

You should probably let go of being embarrassed that you had an unrequited crush on Cameron in 4^th grade because no one else cares. Ditto the fact that you wore hot pink overalls in your 6^th grade school picture.

While we’re on the topic of you relaxing here’s another thing. This is going to be hard to believe but you really need to get laid more. Or some. How about once and we take it from there? I know you think that sex is a big mistake unless you have some guarantee that you will totally be dating this boy long term but it terms out that’s actually not really true at all. The slutty girls? Kind of have a good thing going. I mean you know, love yourself, you’re awesome, you don’t need boys, I KNOW. But sometimes (as in all of the time) you take things too far. While we’re on this topic you should also drink more. Really you’re kind of a prude. (No, you are not pregnant)

Ok, on to the good news. EVERYONE cool in 2007 hated high school (ok, except for your friend Amy but you consider this a flaw on HER part.). June 7 1996 == Freedom. (oh, right about that double equals… you kind of go down this computer science path and it turns out pretty well but I am, perhaps, *slightly* geekier than you had expected. Don’t worry geeky is the new cool. I promise.) Anyway, college is awesome. You will not miss your cat anywhere near as much as you think you will.

About college -- All of the girls in your freshman dorm are lame, I know, I tried to be friends with them, it was a disaster. You need to get out. Find the theater kids early, glom on. (except for that one boy that you meet at the party around Halloween who claims to be Matt Damon’s cousin, do not glom on to him, do make out with him and do not care when he flakes on calling you, not worth it. I just Googled that guy and even though he claims to be a “computer bitch” he has next to zero web presence. He appears to still be using Friendster which I promise you is no longer cool or necessarily even functional. Also he has put on some weight. Also there is no way hooking up with him will lead to some Matt Damon action.). Do not even pretend that maybe you’d like frat parties, you will not. The boy from the sailing team who is in your freshman orientation group is adorable, try to talk him out of falling for the slutty girl in your dorm – use your boobs (this advice applies to pretty much everything. You are neglecting a prime asset in your assault on life).

Life wise things turn out ok, which means you can stop worrying (are you sensing a theme here?) and maybe have a bit more fun. But no too much, I like my paycheck.

Love You You!

Me

'Tis the Season for an Immaculate Conception

Warning: The following post makes reference to a certain biological process that happens to women. If you are a squeamish boy (especially if you are a squeamish boy who works with me) you may want to consider the back button your friend.

I have had roughly 80 pregnancy scares over the course of my 29 years. Most of these occurred before I actually participated in the key activity that causes pregnancy. As a teenager I did not consider this sure fire proof that I was not with child because it seemed likely that God would totally deal out an immaculate conception willy nilly just to ruin my life. I already knew for a fact that the big man hated me because I was already cursed with incredibly weak nails, parents who insisted on talking with me honestly about S-E-X (there is no scarier phrase than “Well, your father and I…”) and an inability to hide my gift for math.

You see health class made me crazy. In addition to the joys of carrying around 10lbs of flour dressed up in a frilly pink dress health class also taught me all of the following:

1. Drugs are bad.
2. Getting pregnant is incredibly easy, it could happen at any moment and it will RUIN EVERYTHING.
3. You should get your magical girl visit once ever 28 days because women are somehow linked to the cycles of the moon, just like werewolves.
4. If you do not get your magical girl visit by day 28.5 you’re probably having bastard triplets.

Here are some things that are actually true

1. A LOT of girls in my high school got pregnant.
2. You have to have sex to get pregnant and the sex usually needs to involve 2 people
3. Some girls (who are obsessed with schedules and things being on time and who also have a primal fear of pregnancy and who also shall remain nameless) actually get their special friend once every 45 or so days (some special friends are not very prompt).
4. 1+2+3 = FREAKING OUT

This is how things usually go down.

Day 26: Begin expecting visitor in case she’s early

Day 28, 12:15am: No visitor. Try not to panic.

Day 29: Remind self 15 times that it takes two to make a baby

Day 32: Admire cute baby outfit in window of store, consider buying it in an attempt to look on the bright side because clearly I am pregnant.

Day 34: Have little chat with God about more appropriate wombs to host the second coming.

Day 37: Wake up hyperventilating. Decide this is probably not good for the baby, try to calm down.

Day 40: Mix some whiskey into my coffee. Take that baby.

Day 43: Begin adopting pregnancy posture (wide stance, leaning back slightly, hand resting on belly)

Day 45: Oh right. Hi, totally not pregnant. Woo.

And then one day I went on the pill. The pill is magic. Suddenly I had special friend visits scheduled down to the hour! It was amazing. (I wish they made a pill that could make people this prompt then I could slip into drinks all over town.) But last month I forgot to refill my prescription and now? Let’s just say I’m lucky to be in a dry spell or I might have already gotten out Missy Flourbag for a little mommy practice.

I'm Not As Big Of a Slacker As You Thought

As I'm sure my loyal readers have noticed I'm following posting every day for a month with the infinitely more enjoyable event: slacking off every day for a week. But it's not as bad as you think! Recently I was asked to join the team over at Burt Reynolds' Mustache as the designated blogger for the 7th of every month. As this is a humor blog there was a certain expectation that I be funny which is more stressful than letting Fox TV film my dating activities. So all week I've been wrapped up in knots thinking "Friday: BE HILARIOUS!" Clearly I had no time to think of crap to post on this blog of no expectations. I think I have an ulcer in my funny bone.

Anyway, my first attempt at professional level humor skewers my family's Christmas traditions. Enjoy.

Things That Will Probably Be on Fox TV Tomorrow

1. 75 Simpsons reruns (that Disco Stu is so dreamy)
   
2. At least one news story about an everyday household item that is going to kill you (probably that grenade you keep in back of the closet)
   
3. 4.5 hours of "court" TV ("she done stole my man and my cubic zirconia anklet!")
   
4. Me making a fool of myself on "The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet" (oh fuck.)
   

You should probably stay home sick.

R*nd*m Acc*ss B*bble (Radio Edit)

People often confuse me with Snoop Dogg. I never quite know which of our many shared traits to blame for these gaffs (I’ve always just assumed it was the way bitches are drawn to both of us like stoner moths to the flame of a sweet doobie) but one cross that we are both forced to bare is the inability of the mass media to handle our art in its most hardcore and raw form. And so, when the Fordham NPR affiliate, WFUV, asked me to record my NYC Supermarket’s blog post for their Cityscape program I knew there was bound to be some censoring to create a more “radio friendly” version of my emotional outpouring. That's just the way those wanksters roll. That sanitized version of the post will air this Saturday at 7:30 am, you can be outraged in real time by listening online here but we all know that you and Snoop will both still be passed out at that hour so why not come to terms with your own limitations and subscribe to the Cityscape podcast?

The episode is now up in the archive -- go listen!

P.S. OH MY GOD Y’ALL I AM TOTALLY FAMOUS.

It is Getting Harder and Harder to Pretend I am Not Grown Up

My 26 year old brother is getting married. This is a kid who less than a year ago gleefully told me about running a motorcycle into a tent housing people whose early bedtime did not live up to his partying standards. This boy used to engage me in “reasons to get married” conversations which resulted in lists like:

1. Well, what if you really needed nice silverware? Like what if you had a job where you had to host lots of dinner parties?
2. Ok, let’s say you’re super religious and very eager to have some sex?
3. Perhaps you have crappy friends who won’t show up to a party without pretense?

Last Thursday when Kurt told me about the engagement I was on my way home from wine club where I had luckily partaken in just enough of the devil’s juice to keep my head from exploding (Rose wine, haven’t you heard? The devil is going subtle these days). In true low key baby brother fashion (tendency to crash motorcycles into tents aside) he just slipped this nugget into our boring conversation about each other’s weekend plans, “So you should look for a plane ticket so you can be home on April 19^th.” Which allowed me to ask “why?” and buy a moment to catch my breath and resist blurting out “OH MY GOD ARE YOU GETTING MARRIED?!?! ARE YOU EVEN OLD ENOUGH? IS THIS LEGAL????”

I’ve managed to chill out over the weekend and I think I might be able to get through to April without having a break down about being old and single. Congratulation Kurt, I know you never read my blog but if you did you would be super happy that I did not use this opportunity to tell embarrassing stories about your childhood. I’m saving those for my drunken toast.

I'm Official

Look what I got: http://www.randomaccessbabble.com/

(thanks Garth)

The Winner Parade: Entry 4

A few months after moving to the bay area when I was a bit lonely living on my own for the first time and spending all of my time either at my job programming graphics for slot machines in an office where no one turned on the lights or visiting the all women hippy dippy gym where I attended water aerobics at least three times a week. One of my few friends in the area was Monica, the evening receptionist at the gym who had occasionally invited me out with a few of her friends. It was on one of these outings (I believe at Halloween when I was dressed as Raggedy Anne and so, obviously looking super hot) that I met The Boy With Awful Taste. He seemed like a nice enough guy, not really my type but fun to hang out with. We hadn’t flirted or even talked much so I was surprised when a few days later Monica asked if I’d consider going out on a date with TBWAT. Having very few friends or plans I figured what the hell and told her to have him call me.

In my memory of the date that followed I do not recall knowing exactly what show I was being taken to see but I admit that this is likely due to some postdate self esteem survival instinct. I certainly knew the show’s venue and date and time and I knew how to use the internet so I must have known that at 22 on my first post-college date I was being taken to Disney on Ice. Now maybe lots of young girls are wooed by the dewy reflection beaming off of Micky’s skates, maybe the magic of fog machines and pirouettes has sparked many a romance but my feelings about ice dancing caricatures of cartoon characters were more gag-y than swoon-y. Selective amnesia aside it is obvious that my gag reflex has been so tamed that when faced with the decision between another Saturday night curled up with the internet and an actual date I was fully convinced that I could keep my lunch down through a 2 hour skating spectacular.

The date started its skydive into a ravine filled with barbed wire when we arrived at the San Jose HP Pavilion and TBWAT had to stop at the ticket booth, not to pick up our tickets to ice skating cartoonary, but to grab his tickets for a future event…. WWF wrestling. He was super excited about seeing some live action man on man sparring and I have to applaud anyone with a strong enough sense of self to resist backpedaling when his date is so clearly unable to hide her general disgust whiling thinking, “Who knew that there was a Disney/WWF combo demographic?”

The show finally began and the hordes of tots that surrounded me were lulled into silence by the jazz hands and figure eights of Woody and Buzz Light Year (note #1 to single guys: if you wanna get laid avoid date venues where the child to adult ratio is greater than 1:2). At intermission TBWAT offered to procure us some Disney themed snakage and beverages (note #2 to single guys: dates, like all things, are always better with booze so do not take your date to a place that refuses to serve cocktails). He returned with all he promised and more… while foraging for sustenance TBWAT had bought me a gift: a pink wand that when shaken lit up and played twinkling sound. Despite my now ample experience with Toy Story (is this a sign?) I cannot identify which character was likely to carry the wand. I also cannot provide a picture because I regifted the thing to an 8 year old neighbor girl within 1 month of receiving it, but for that night I had to put on my best 22 year old princess face and ohh and aww over this very generous gift, thank god for my secret BA in Theatre Arts. And so, wand in hand, I spent act two trying in vein to cast spell after spell, “Bippity! Toy Story On Ice, become a Ryan Adams concert!” “Boppity! Diet Coke become a margarita!”, “Boo! TBWAT, turn into Jack White!”

Post kiddie ice capades TBWAT proposed we grab some real food and, because it is impossible to say no to a guy who bought you a wand, I agreed. On our way to his second venue of choice (a diner with some sort of dimly lit lounge/strip club hiding behind a curtain near the bathrooms) his phone rang and at the end of his 10 minute conversation he invited the caller to join us for diner (note #3 for single guys: do not invite your friends to join you on your date). I was mostly ok with this plan (not that I was asked) since the addition of a third party seemed a sure sign that he was not planning on romancing up the evening. I figured the drive from the ice spectacular to the diner would serve as the necessary transition between “possible couple” and “just friends.” When we arrived at the diner I was doubly glad to be a single woman because our dinner companion was hot! That’s right folks – Winner Parade Four is a twofer!

Hot Friend(HF) and I spent most of dinner inappropriately making eyes at one another and (for my part at least) wondering if there was any way to finagle going home together without making both of us horrible people. Unable to reconcile that or come up with a way to surreptitiously jump his bones in the diner I was forced to get a ride home from TBWAT but not before HF asked for my number. I’ll admit to a small amount of shame at picking up a Guy #2 before my date with Guy #1 was officially over but I mostly figure that this is the kind of disaster #1 should expect when he invites another guy along on his date. I told TBWAT as much a couple of weeks later when he implied that my behavior made me a huge bitch.

HF called me a few days later and, since we worked within a few miles of one another he picked me up from the casino gaming empire for a quick lunch which lead to another date and another until we were sitting on the edge of relationshipdom staring into the abyss. Once I get past date three I’m usually a jumper and HF was no exception, he was cute, lived near by, worked at a tech company and… did I mention cute? Did I mention that I was 22? Unfortunately, HF was stuck on the edge of the cliff paralyzed with fear. He hemmed and hawed and sited being much much too busy for girlfriend but stopped short of actually breaking up with me until one day when he called to tell me that he had signed up to coach volleyball to high school girls. I am a lot of things: witty, cute, gifted with the internet, an expert on trashy tv, a great chef, a decent writer. None of these attributes can compete with 15 year old girls in short shorts jumping up and down and encouraging you to get behind them and show them exactly how to serve ("But I'm not very good and it might take a few tries! I Hope you’re patient!"). Needless to say I was broken up with over the phone just before the second night of practice.

While I’m sure many of my readers are dreaming of the chance to hook up with TBWAT or HF I cannot tell you the whereabouts of either. I honestly cannot remember the name of TBWAT so he is ungoogle-able but I suspect that he has yet to discover the internet anyway (and thus he is seriously missing out on the chance to relive our date but all of you lucky people can do so here – feel the ROMANCE.) . I do remember the name of HF (typical, right?) but unfortunately he shares a name with a famous race car driver so I can't properly stalk him -- it probably doesn’t matter, I don’t think they let pedophiles access the internet.

The One Where I Talk to a Boy and Things Go Down Hill From There

I embrace the “Random” in Random Access Babble so I don’t like when this blog veers too much towards one topic. Lately this threatens to become “that blog where the funny girl mocks all the losers she’s had the bad luck of dating (And oh yeah once she wrote that really long post about United – she seems bitter).” I’m trying very hard not to let this happen, I’m even sitting on Winner Parade 4 in an effort to seem well rounded. I could have sat on this post as well but I’m at a loss for other topics and I have no ability to resist writing about my personal tragedies, especially when, unlike much of this blog, they’re happening in the now. And so… another post about dating. Don’t get too used to it, I’m reading Letter to a Christian Nation so I’m bound to break out the political wailing any day now.

Much to the disappointment of many of my friends (most vocally, Kajal) I very rarely talk to boys in bars/clubs/concert venues/life unless I’m asking them when they plan on hitting their development milestones. I talk a big game pre outing in the huddle but when it comes to hiking, running and most importantly passing I don’t deliver. I have often commented that I have no game and would be very interested in a class offering to teach me exactly how other people pull off things like flirting without melting into a puddle of embarrassment. The fact that I would even think to turn to a class for such things probably says more about the nature of my problems than anything else on this blog. Friday night’s boat trip/Weakerthans concert (which, by the way: awesome idea, why aren’t all concerts on boats?) was shaping up to be more of the same. Gillian, Lisa and I spent a good 15mins surveying the audience members, nitpicking on girl’s outfits (seriously, blue linen overalls with a belt? Who does that?) and admiring the cute indie boys from afar. Gillian quickly started in on the “why aren’t you actually talking to any guys?” game.

G: Look, boy in Fly shirt, totally cute!

B: yeah.

G: Go tell him you like his shirt!

B: not happening.

G: Come ooooooon, he’s cute.

B: That’s awkward. Also: he’s now doing a weird dance so… perhaps not so cute.

Boy in Fly shirt was actually pretty cute so I started in on my way too subtle game of, “look at him occasionally and send psychic messages that he should totally talk to me.” Typically this results in much disappointment due to the pathetically bad mind reading skills of most of the male population (Dudes: work on that). Perhaps for the first time ever, with Fly Boy the plan totally works!

So we chat, it’s good times, mostly… I should have been more concerned when he wasn’t interested in either of my proposed communication topics (“what do you think the Canadian to nonCanadian ratio is here?” “What do you think the mean age in the room is?"). Fly boy is nice enough but comes on way too strong with the “can I have a kiss?” like 10 minutes into meeting me. I’m trying to go with the flow on this one and not be my normal analytical, crazy, life plan oriented self so I focus on getting into the whole kissing random guy in public thing. While this totally makes Lisa and Gillian’s night (they begin photographing the event and texting Kajal to let her know just what she’s missing out on while attending yet another wedding in the south.) it makes my night somewhat uncomfortable. I don’t really love kissing in front of other people. Especially when the kissing is happening with someone who I just met and who, though totally cute, I cannot really imagine myself ever actually dating. So I’m thinking about this (so much for dropping analytical off at the sitter’s for the evening) and kind of deciding that this kissing Fly Boy thing is no longer happening, which I totally stick with except that then he gets all “fine I’ll just kiss your neck/back/arm (cause arm kissing is hot). And he’s super insistent that I go out with him and his friends post concert. I’m a paranoid girl so the thought of going out all alone (G and L were bailing) with some strange dude and his bros was setting off all sorts of “Girl, you are asking to be raped” alarm bells in my head. So jokingly I say…

B: How many friends do you have? Cause I’m a vulnerable sweet young thing and I can just see this going the roofies route.

J: I *WISH* I had some roofies so I could rape you!

Wow. Yeah, that’s just the kind of joke you wanna be making. The conversation was kind of downhill from here, let me give you a few highlights.

B: These are my friends Gillian and List

J: Hi, I’m Jeff

G: Is that with a J or a G? I’m Gillian with a G

J: A J

.

.

(The band plays on, we sail by the statue of liberty, 45 minutes pass)

.

.

J: Hi, I don’t think I met you ladies, I’m Jeff

(General cracking up)

G: Gillian

J: With a G?

(Brianna mouthing to Lisa “-10 points” between additional cracking up)

I’d like to think he was kidding or drunk or had been involved in a tragic accident that resulted in short term memory lost… but unfortunately all of those would be wishful thinking.

And then there was this….

J: Yeah, I was really into Physics, I snuck into Columbia to take some classes but they were all lame, I knew so much more than the professors and I would argue with them and they totally could not defend themselves, it was sad. Anyway, I figured that college was a waste of time, I wasn’t getting any opportunity to contribute to the psychics world so I left.

B: How are you contributing to the physics world as a cabinet maker?

Oh poor misguided boy, do not diss scientists to me.

I bailed on the going out.

The Winner Parade: Entry 3

One of the most important experiences in a young girl’s transition from mopey tortured adolescent to cynical world weary young adult is the international hook up. For my own lesson in boys will be boys the world round I choose a rough around the edges Aussie chap who had impressive biceps, a knickers wetting accent and a girlfriend far away in Michigan. A note on the girlfriend: I suppose it could be claimed that I am a naughty naughty whore for hooking up with a boy who was already spoken for but I generally believe that a) significant others who live over 50 miles away only count if there has been some sort of formal legal commitment; and b) it is not my job to stop some randy young boy from cheating on his girlfriend, especially if he’s hot; also, c) I was 20.

This “physical acquaintance experience” (to call it a relationship would be a huge stretch) was so brief and un-Brianna-like that I was hesitant to include it in the parade. Unlike previous Winner Parade entries International Hook Up (IHU) didn’t do anything horrible like cheat on me or leave the country without tell me so it seems slightly unfair to force him to follow such class acts. But IHU did tow a glorious stupidity float through about 20mins of the parade and I really need blog fodder so here he is, in all his hunky dopey Aussie glory.

International Hook Up is probably the only gentleman in my past that I “dated” with no intention of forming a relationship. Living temporarily in a foreign country is great for flights of whimsy such as this – I would be gone in 5 months and so it seemed perfectly ok, for perhaps the first and last time in my life, to hook up with a boy only because he was cute and (relatively) available. While in Perth I lived in international student housing which made up of 35% Pacific Islanders and Africans studying hard for a better life, 20% Aussies from out in the bush hoping to escape the fate of marrying a sheep and 45% Americans and Europeans looking for the best place to score booze and some Aussie ass. This atmosphere allowed me to shrug off the trappings of serious, conservative sweet young thing and temporarily don the slutty slutty frills of a girl totally willing KISS BOYS SHE HARDLY KNOWS! (when I go slutty I go… only slightly of less conservative than Mother Teresa).

I met International Hook Up on my second or third day in the land down under and thought him cute but honestly his looks were seriously over shadowed by his South African roommate who was a model and, predictably, gay. I didn’t “get to know” (*nudgenudgewinkwink*) IHU until about a month into my stay when we shared a cab home from a night club. We went to his apartment under the guise of watching some high quality late night/early morning Aussie TV (meaning European music videos) but, of course, quickly got to the making out (nothing sets the mood like ABBA). I’ve blocked out much of my embarrassing hook up history so I do not honestly remember how many time I “hung out” with IHU but sometime a week or so before our friendship began I heard rumors of his having spent some quality time prior to my arrival in Perth with a very unappealing girl named Fiona and it could not have been more than 2 or 3 weeks after we hooked up that he met another girl, who had it much worse than I in the falling hard for a silly boy department. IHU was a bit of a slut.

One evening while perched on the edge of his bed trying to hold my legs up just enough so that my thighs looked as thin as possible beneath the hem of my dress (Aside: probably the best thigh exercise in the world, this move requires one to hold her thighs suspended just slightly in midair so that the extra fat hangs down thus creating the illusion of thighs at least 15% smaller than the reality – it’s good for your abs too. Fake it til you make it in action.) I smiled and flipped my hair as International Hook Up showed me picture after picture of girls he’d dated or thought hot, many of these were featured in a swim suit calendar which he removed from the wall. This was, of course, slightly concerning, as I had apparently chosen to hook up with a complete idiot. A tip for my male readers: The personal tour of your gallery of masturbatory fantasies is ill-advised until at least date 5. Even more troubling, all of the girls -- high school girlfriend, Miss Michigan, Bikini clad model #4 -- looked strangely similar (though it goes without saying that Mrs. Bikini probably didn’t need to pull the thigh slimming illusion): cute, short, white, blue eyes, shoulder length curly blonde hair. He went on to explain how much he loved blond curly hair which made me feel weirdly fetishized – this was much less fun than I had hoped, so much for my fulfilling career as a sex symbol. It became even weirder when I got to thinking about how IHU looked – Mr. Blond Curly himself….

Sadly, International Hook Up leaves no internet trail – I have to assume that he remains as computer illiterate as the day I met him, which is sad as the internet offers an easy way to find millions of pictures of bikini-clad girls with blond curly hair – he’s really missing out. I heard a rumor that he had wed Miss Michigan through my Australian Grapevine but as my only gossip source on this vine (Hi Courtney!) has since moved to the UK so I can’t really call the information reliable. Since IHU did nothing to wrong me, and since I had very low expectation for him anyway I wish him all the best. I hope that he is a pearl farmer (he was majoring in aquaculture) somewhere in AU happily not married to some girl he spent at least a year cheating on. I hope he has expanded his girl buffet to include women that do not look vaguely related to him. And of course, as always, I hope that on nights when he switches on the Telly and is greeted by the cast of Scrubs or Judge Judy or some other American accent he thinks fondly of this curly blond haired girl and pines away for hours.

The Winner Parade: Entry 2

Hello and welcome to the much overdue second installment of the Winner Parade series (first entry here)! In this installment fate once again tries to teach our heroine (That’s me!) that the thin line between sexy geek and unstable freak may not actually exist. Perhaps one of these days she’ll get the message (but probably not after many more beatings with the thorny club of reality) and settle for one of the mainstream beer swilling types that occasionally hit on her and she’ll live tolerably ever after. It is probably more likely that she will continue to seek out the socially stable geek which is good news for this blog but remains bad news for her personal goals.

I met He who Flees the Country (HwFtC) (sorry to give away the punch line so early but there is no better way of classifying this boy) via craigslist, back when craigslist housed actual personal ads not just ads for no strings kinky sex (I once read an ad offering to a pay a girl to eat potato chips naked in bed while the guy who wrote the ad watched (and presumably masturbated because, as we all know, potato chips are HOT)). Back before I had this blog my main creative writing outlet was personal ads, and I excelled at this little genre. Sadly, most of the replies were more, “Here’s a picture of my Johnson!” than “I am an awesome, witty, intelligent, Jared Leto look-a-like and I want to make out with you.” But HwFtC was different, he wrote back a silly reply suitable studded with fawning compliments and expressions of general awe over my mere existence.

We quickly progressed from moon-y emails to flirty instant messages to an in person meeting in a coffee shop followed by some face-to-very-close-face make out time on my couch. HwFtC was working on his PHD in population genetics, which appealed to my ironically religious love for science. Before starting down the path to scientist god HwFtC was a “dancer” in the San Francisco Ballet (apparently there is no male equivalent to the word ballerina) which appealed to my shallow love for shapely calves and muscular arms. He also had 2 lesbian moms which I took as a sign that he would not turn into an evil boy because (I assumed) his moms would find out and kick his ass. Because I do not want to edit my stereotypical view of lesbian moms I have chosen to believe that HwFtC never told his moms about how he behaved while dating that adorable geeky blond girl with the hot rack (Me again! And, yes, I assume that if he were to tell his moms about us that he would smartly avoid references to my rack). Or perhaps he did tell them and has since suffered some serious facial contusions and possibly no longer has a penis.

HwFtC and I had been making googly eyes at one another for about a month when the trouble began. This was at a time in my life were I typically went on 3 dates with a boy before he either announced that I’d make an awesome friend (especially if I would also sleep with him) or just stopped calling so I considered 4 weeks of continuous mutual liking a great boon. It was 2004 and, like many programmers in the San Francisco Bay area, I was living off of a combination of occasional contact work, unemployment and my parent’s generosity so my afternoons were often free to lounge around with my favorite soon to be geneticist. One such afternoon I got all dolled up, prepared what I’m sure was a gourmet lunch spread and spent a good 90 minutes staring at the clock before jumping to the conclusion that HwFtC had died in a fiery wreck on the 101. We had yet to reach the relationship stage of meeting each other's friends so I had nowhere obvious to turn to confirm his mortality short of internet searches for deadly car crashes (which, I assure you, I ran at least once ever 5 minutes). In the meantime I had no choice but to leave increasingly more panicked and pathetic messages on his voice mail.

This embarrassing behavior continued for 2 days at which point I received a reply to the following purposefully amusing email sent near the beginning of being stood up (as opposed to the equally hilarious but less dignified emails sent many hours or days later).

So, here's the deal. In a few days if I still haven’t heard from you I’m going to email people in your lab group and ask if you're still alive. So if you are still alive you're going to look like a bit of a jerk with a stalker. To avoid this situation, you should act like an adult and email me and say "nope, not dead, just not talking to you." If you are, however, actually dead you can just do nothing (rest in peace as it were.).

HwFtC was not dead but had instead fled to the woods to get a little one on one time with nature in an effort to clear his head and figure out how he felt about me. Apparently I am *MUCH* more interesting than population genetics (no surprise here) and this had resulted in an overturning of the poor boy's priorities and subsequently resulted in some freaking out. Where a normal boy would think, “Hmmmm study genetics or continue fooling around with Brianna?” and then laugh out loud while making a grab for my ass the kind of boys I typically date go into a free fall that involves a Thoreau-like need to get back to nature and focus on the awesomeness of cells in a Petri dish over cells making up a set of 34Ds (at the time) that the owner is TOTALLY WILLING TO LET YOU TOUCH.

To be fair all was not completely rosy in the land of dreamy gazes -- there was one stressful thing looming in the future, in roughly one month he would be off on an internship in Germany that would require us to be physically apart for 2.5 months. My general feeling on this was “eh, there’s always email” but he was much more concerned (this is understandable considering how awesome I am to hang out with, the entire country of Germany can hardly compete).

Anyway, post Into The Woods there was much apologizing and promising to, in the future, talk to me rather than commune with nature. We made plans to have lunch the next day and I was back on the road to the early relationship honeymoon period. I really should have known better. As should surprise no one, HwFtC didn’t show. Again. There was a repeat performance of the, “where the hell are you?” emails (this time with much more cursing) but I never heard another word from HwFtC. Eventually I made good on my promise and emailed one of his friends. I know this is pathetic, more pathetic than most of you hopefully think that I am capable of but a girl needs closer.

Hi,

I *think* that you sort of know me (though it's possible that i have the wrong Steve), I briefly dated your friend [HwFtC]. anyway, about 3 weeks ago he sort of dropped off the face of the planet and while normally I'd just write him off as a jerk he never seemed like much of a jerk and now I'm a bit worried that something happened to him. I know he was going to Germany soon but I would have expect some sort of note letting me know that he was leaving the country. So, I know this is incredibly weird but I'd really appreciate it if you could let me know if:

1)He's still alive (and not you know, in jail, or abducted by aliens or something)

2)If I can potentially expect to hear from him again (presumably not from the beyond -- though that might also be kind of cool.)

Hopefully with a little more information I can step back on to the good side of the "crazy stalker-chick" line.

His friend at least had the decency to respond (and was even witty! I wonder if he's single...), which is WAY more than I would have done in a similar situation. Of course I try not to befriend people who leave the country without sending at least a memo to everyone that they are currently making out with on a regular basis.

Um yes, crazy-stalker chick, this is kinda weird but I will say that I've heard from him once since he went to Germany and he was alive at that time. I did not hear any of the characteristic beeps and strange languages in the background that one would expect if he had been abducted by aliens (although who's to say that alien languages might not sound German). Nor did he mention needing bail money wired or a sex-starved cell mate named Heinz.

Obviously, that was (finally) the end of things. Even more obviously I should have chucked his ass into the dumpster weeks before – I’d like to assure all readers that my self esteem is infinitely higher today and all boyfriends who attempts to leave the country without telling me will received Lorena Bobbit-like lesbian mom treatment (*snip*).

A year or so later I did see the name of HwFtC appear in the “Who Viewed Me?” section of Friendster (God bless Friendster and it’s attempts to appeal to my humongous ego – myspace, time to cowboy up) so I was able to gather enough information to wonder what the hell I was thinking mooning over such a dork. (For those of you not in the know geeky is one thing, dorky is another thing all together and I think it’s pretty clear how these states of social status should fall in the dating hierarchy.) He’s apparently in a relationship, something I sort of suspect he’s been in since well before I knew him. One has to wonder just who this girl is and how she could possible be better than me – the only conclusion that seems realistic is that she’s imaginary. He includes 3 pictures in his profile, in one he has a handkerchief tied around his head all Little House on the Prarie-ish. 'Nuff said.

Something Here Will Eventually Have to Explode

If you've ever had the pleasure of riding in a car with me as a passenger then you know that I am perhaps the most annoying person on the planet. I spend most trips sling-shotting between forcing all occupants to *enjoy this song right now* and trying not to pee my pants while quickly reviewing all of the life events that I'll be missing out on after I die in the car crash that is about to happen. While traveling in a car (much like while doing anything) I am incapable of shutting off the background noise of my brain and all spare neurons are so devoted to freaking out about their impending death that I cannot help but occasionally (every 40 seconds or so) grip the door handle, sharply inhale and slam my foot down on the floor in mock brake slamming (the fact that I am alive to write this post proves that all of these are effective ways of tricking the Grim Reaper). Because as a New Yorker with no car of my own I very much do not want my friends with wheels (Hi Joe!) to take away my access to Target I try to hide my certainty that the driver is steering the car and its occupants into the afterlife. This is very difficult because no matter what Disney says I'm all but certain that cars want to kill me.

For the record none of this is my fault (turns out this statement is true about all of my flaws). Growing up my mother was an ER nurse with very little fore site when it came to scaring her children for life. She would come home from a hard day of life saving/bring home the bacon and while frying it up in a pan describe holding some poor schmuck's brain in her hands. This displacement of gray matter was almost always the result of the combination of icy roads, stupidity, fast speeds and God's sick sense of humor. Somehow this resulted in a son who purchases cars for the sole purpose of crashing them into things and a daughter (me!) who cannot get into a vehicle without wondering who will show up at her funeral. This means that in addition to worrying about my livelihood I have no choice but to also put in some heavy worrying time trying to avert my brother's certain death (see: here).

This past weekend I was in a car with a number of coworkers (aka people who I would like to convince that I am sane) and had to work extra hard to hide my fear of the driver slamming the vehicle into another car or the guardrail or that Duncan Donuts up ahead (though in this last case my ejection from the vehicle might be cushioned by piles of fluffy french crullers which would be pretty awesome). This was made extra difficult by the fact that the driver was busy DJ-ing and getting us lost. At one point he suggested that someone jump out at the next light and get the directions that he left "somewhere in the trunk." Because everyone else in the car was apparently not concerned about our eminent doom I was left with no choice but to blurt out, "Oh my god I'd prefer that no one DIE on this trip, pull over like a normal person." I may be insane but at least I'm alive.

Thank God I live in New York City where one can limit her car exposure to once a week otherwise even if I somehow managed to avoid death in a fiery wreck the ulcer from worrying about such things would certainly have done me in by now.

The Winner Parade: Entry 1

Tuesday night I was out with some girlfriends (for all you can eat mussels and half price drinks at Essex which I highly recommend) where I was asked to tell a few of the boy disaster stories from my past. My friends might just be easily entertained but through the wall of giggles they all insisted that I should begin capturing some of these stories on my blog. I’m not entirely sure how to react to the knowledge that my love life has been so comically awful as to amuse and delight those around me. I’d like to think that I just spin a good yarn but I can’t deny that most of the boys I’ve loved before do constitute a long glorious winner’s parade. I made up the term “winner parade” and expect to see it added to the Oxford English any day now.

Winner Parade [win-er puh-reyd]
-- noun
a continual passing by of people all of whom show some outward sign of a mental and/or physical inability to behave in the normal socially acceptable fashion expected for their age and/or stature. In most cases the parade members possess a "Monet-like" quality as defined in the movie Clueless, "From far away, it's OK, but up close, it's a big old mess."

Before I begin the process of using my past loves as fodder for this site I just want to reiterate two things:

1. I seriously really liked all of these guys. They were mostly well intentioned sweet boys who could perhaps use a slap with the glove of maturity.
2. Every one of these encounters seemed like a good idea at the time. When it comes to choosing boys to date I probably should no longer be trusted to pick the good ideas from the ticking manure bombs.

Ok, conscious clear! Let's go!

Shortly after graduating from college and moving to San Francisco I met a nice young man on the internet. Ironically I have now used this same tool to locate and spy on him (one stop shopping people.). I have no shame. Let’s call this boy Little Tortured Bunny (LTB). In LTB’s dating profile he claimed a love for Ani Difranco and yet didn’t seem gay so I was immediately sold. We did a decent amount of email fawning over one another before the big meet and greet which for some reason (as usual stupidity seems most likely) we invited multiple friends to tag along on. We went to an Asian restaurant of some sort where you had to sit on the floor. My only other memorable recollection from that evening was that his best friend was only willing to consume white or orange food items (the list of acceptable nourishment was actually restricted by much more than just color palette and essentially boiled down to white carbohydrates, bananas and cheddar cheese). Anyway, LTB seemed charming and effervescent, very in love with life and himself (yeah, I know, red flag) and was cute enough that I couldn’t see any reason not to fantasize about kissing him. And I did and then we did and thus began a couple of months of googly eyes and hand holding.

There were many slightly odd things about LTB but I managed to convince myself that most of these were simply charming quirks. He got so excited about his thoughts that he often interrupted other people. He was choosing to go by his slightly affected (and I suspect made up) middle name for no apparent reason. He had daddy issues that he made sound very grand but refused to actually discuss. He was less than over his ex girlfriend who he apparently had been engaged to – but in one of those pretend sounding “we’re 23 and we don’t need a ring!” affairs that apparently crashed and burned in one fireball of drama involving soap opera like plot devises. One night, only a month into our relationship he choose watching Toy Story over making out with me. The most interesting mystery was his job. It was 2000 and he worked at one of the larger internet companies making bank for all I could tell. I was a programmer at the time and perfectly capable of conversing on geeky subjects like java script, flash and D&D and yet every time I asked him about his job I got an evasive “you know I work for [big web company]” sort of answer. One day I got pushy and insisted on him revealing just what it was he did every day from 11-7:30.

Brianna: I’m interested in knowing more about you. I’m a programmer; I’m going to understand what your job is.

LTB: Ok... You know my friend [Weird but Freakily Smart Guy]?

Brianna: yes, sort of…

LTB: Ok well WFSG wrote this piece of software while we were in college

Brianna: uhhuh

LTB: And one day [big web company] called up WFSG and offered to buy the software and give him and “his people” jobs

Brianna: uh…huh...

LTB: So WFSG told [big web company] that I was one of his people and then they offered to move me to San Francisco and give me an insane amount of stock and a job

Brianna: ok…

LTB: So now I hang out at with WFSG!

Brianna: so you write code?

LTB: oh no… I’m just WFSG’s friend… sometimes I do a little QA…

And people wonder why the bubble burst. I could make fun of the guy but this is pretty much my dream – I wish one of my friends would get rich and invite me on a nice coattail ride. Aside: WFSG went out one day and bought a De Lorean (the car from Back to the Future) and he brought it by so we could see it which was awesome (now I’m trying to figure out why I didn’t throw myself at WFSG…). Anyway, turned out LTB had a lot of disposable income, which was nice.

So we dated, it was fun, whatever. I was going to a family reunion for a long weekend and he was having a friend visit while I was gone. Said friend was a girl who he used to hook up with. (See where this is going?). I am a trusting naïve idiot so I recommended tons of fun things that he could do with her in San Francisco and wished him an awesome weekend of catching up before boarding my flight to family fun time. Strangely they didn't seem to take me up on any of my activity recommendation having apparently made plans of their own. When I got back I only needed one look at him to confirm that he’d slept with this other girl. What an idiot. He did a lot of anguished drama filled apologizing and I rolled my eyes and sighed and thought about how disappointing people can be. So we mostly broke up except we had tickets to Rent and decided to go together as friends (as a trusting naïve idiot I was of course not angry about him cheating on me – let’s hear it for self esteem.). The boy was obviously feeling a bit guilty about being a huge dick so he offered to take me out to dinner at this fancy French place pre-show (obviously I had no objections). We got the 9 course tasting menu with wine pairing. The first 4 courses were amazing (one of which was this fresh pea soup with mint that my mouth still waters over) and if the restaurant had any smarts the last 5 courses were hamburger helper cause after 5 glasses of wine (we got one free starter glass when we arrived) I had no active taste buds left anyway. Half way through dinner this conversation ensued:

Brianna: Do you know where the ladies room is?

LTB: Yeah, down the hall behind you and turn right. But there’s a guy.

Brianna: In the ladies room? Like one of those guys that gives you towels?

LTB: No, behind you.

Brianna: Right now?

LTB: Yeah, he’s going to pull out your chair

Brianna: He’s standing there listening to this conversation right now?

LTB: yeah.

So I stifled my giggles and stood – voila! The chair just eased back without any effort from me. If you’re really lazy, this is the life. This guy stood by the table the entire time I was in the bathroom waiting for my return. How awkward must that have been for LTB? Sitting there, drunk, staring at the chair puller guy… I would have spent the entire time giggling.

I’m a big believer in going dutch but in my role as the wronged woman I made no attempt to reach for the check at the end of this meal – I did, however, take a peek – $400+ (Is this street price for cheating on a girl or was I ripped off?).

LTB all but disappeared from my life shortly thereafter – I’d like to say I threw him out but really he just sulked away and I beat myself up for not being good enough to inspire fidelity. But eventually I moved on…except… I really like spying on people. It’s not related to pining, and it’s not even malicious, I just like knowing what becomes of people who used to be important in my life. So recently I refound LTBs blog (actually blogS). I honestly had no intention of using information to boost my ego but man… he made it awfully easy. Turns out I am really awesome. Not only is the guy apparently in love with some girl who lives like 1000 miles away and who he met on a massively multiplayer game and who has a boyfriend but he doesn’t have the good sense not to whine about it for PAGES on a public blog. Perhaps this is just another post cheating gift to me – maybe in reality he’s happily married to some sexy scientist and working on his fifth novel. Maybe he just made up the blog stuff to make me feel good. Maybe he still feels so guilty that he went out and gained 30lbs just so one day when I stumbled on his flickr page I could think, “I cried for months over HIM? Silly girl.”

"On Losing my Identity" or "Who Moved my Boobs?"

It has been way too long since I’ve written anything about my boobs and I know that I am sorely in danger of losing my readers. For those of you that come here every few days looking for more information on my battle with bras and heartfelt analysis of the breasts of reality TV stars – it’s your lucky day. For those of you who work with me? Hit the Back button.

Once upon a time I was a 34DD, today I am a 32C. When a girl loses weight she tends to lose at least a little in her boobs. Women tend to fear this loss. Girls who have always been a little chubby have a tendency to fall into the trap of thinking that their breasts are their only attractive feature. It’s easy to see why – the world hates big thighs and big bellies and big arms and generally big girls – but the world loves big breasts.

I’m mostly fine with my decrease in cup size. While I used to consider my ample chest a possible strategic asset when it came to attracting boys it never served me very well. It sat out there – young, perky, propped up and on display but this almost never resulted in boys actually talking to me (and when it did, they were, unsurprisingly, never the right boys). I prefer to believe that men are less shallow than society gives them credit for and breasts just don’t mean all that much but it’s entirely possible that I just didn’t know how to work it (still don’t.). Either way no big loss to me, I wasn’t attracting men with my boobs two years ago and I’m still not today, the only difference is that now I can buy bras in styles other than "Extreme Grandma." And seirously, have you seen some of my skinny girl hot parts? My clavicles and hip bones stick out just so and I find them much more amazing than my breasts ever were. Though, it should be noted that these assets aren’t exactly delivering the goods either.

In theory I’m fine no longer being a busty girl -- except when it comes to self identification. It’s hard to change a key word that you’ve been tagging yourself with for 15 years so I find myself making jokes about being busty or bemoaning the pain of button down shirts as if I were still rocking a plus sized rack. Usually mid self disparaging comment I remember that I lost 40lbs and oh look! I can see my toes! Then I realize that no one is getting the joke and probably they are thinking “crazy girl, you have normal sized boobs, stop talking.” At this point I feel a little sad, I had some really great big boob related jokes in reserve that are now just going to waste. I can only hope that someday I’ll get pregnant and get my boobs back. Having to raise a messy little cheerio muncher will be a small price to pay for releasing my jokes from the prison of my average sized chest.

The Alia Interview

This is a meme of sorts, my friend Alia was interviewed on her blog and offered to send 5 interview questions to any volunteers and writers block led my hand to shoot into the e-air. If you’d like your own Brianna interview just say so in the comments.

Update: I've interview Mike and Gillian

What is your favorite unhealthy recipe, and what's the story behind it?

Recipe kind of implies that this is something I cook not just something I love so I’ve chosen baked macaroni and cheese over my mom’s potato leek soup. There’s no real story behind this recipe or my love for it besides it being a high fat comfort food that involves dairy (the best of the four food groups bringing us cheese and ice cream!). Even the lactose intolerant among us must WISH they could dive into a big bowl of mac and cheese and eat their way out, right? I trick out the regular mac and cheese by augmenting the traditional sharp cheddar with a bit of blue cheese for a more grown up flavor. I can’t say that I have an official recipe for this you just boil some noodles and make a traditional cheese sauce with 2/3s cheddar and 1/3 blue cheese then mix the noodles and sauce in a casserole dish and cover with a hearty dose of bread crumbs and a handful of additional cheese then bake until bubbling. If you’re feeling guilty about not eating your veggies (which often causes me much stress) you can throw a bone to nutrition by either mixing some sautéed spinach in with the noodles and cheese or hiding a layers of tomato slices under the bread crumbs (is suggesting healthy additions cheating on this question? I promise there’s still no way the recipe as a whole is anything other than artery clogging…)

Coney Island: Fun or not? Discuss.

Fun! So some people think it’s not fun? But they have a wooden roller coaster! And ice cream! And the beach! And I always see at least 5 crazy people and another 5 people wearing outfits that amuse me!

Do the people who apparently can’t enjoy Coney Island know that you can play all the skeeball you want and then give your tickets to the least annoying child in the room thus making their day and yours by overwhelming them with more tickets then they ever thought existed? Man those people must have sad lives.

Besides the J Crew online sale, where would you recommend a person shop for clothes online? In Manhattan? Astoria? (As in: when I stop fitting into Lane Bryant clothes [crossing fingers], I'm gonna be nekkid. Where do I go?!?)

I say shoot for skinny by June and go naked for at least one month in honor of all of your time in the gym.

Outside of my jCrew addiction I actually don’t do much clothing shopping online, I do have a few cute online boutiques tagged on del.icio.us but I mostly just browse them and never actually send them money. I would recommend subscribing to the bust.com newsletter as they send out occasional shopping tips and notices about craft shows and stuff in the NYC area. For browsing I like popgloss.com.

And then there’s always:

Anthropologie.com: you be enamored by the truly beautiful clothing and then shocked by the high prices but I have never regretted an Anthropologie purchase (of course I make most of them off of the sale rack).

You have a million dollars to donate to one non-profit of your choice. Who would it be and why?

I am embarrassed about how hard it is for me to answer this question. I don’t actually have a lot of go to charities that I totally trust and if I was giving that large of a gift I’d want to be positive that it would go to somewhere really deserving. There’s a great organization out there called Advocates for Youth that works for honest sex education to teens, I’d probably look into giving it to them or into finding an organization that works to ensure that the government does not contradict science in favor of religion or business interests.

What was your first job?

Technically, though not on the books, it was a summer of babysitting at age 14. Every Monday-Friday morning their dad would pick me up at 7:30 and after 10 minutes of listening to Rush Limbaugh I was dropped off and left alone with two boys, ages 6 and 8. I mostly lied around on their couch and lawn chair reading and moping over boys who would never understand me (I suspect that these particular boys would still be incapable of comprehension even 15 years later) but they did amuse me on occasion with nuggets like this:

Sound of bed springs loudly squeaking in a distinctive rhythm in a distant room…

Brianna: Shawn what are you doing?

Shawn (from somewhere down the hall): I’m having sex!!!!

Brianna (trying not to die laughing): Stop jumping on the bed!

Why haven't you posted to Alpha Astoria lately, and when will it be updated?

Have you been outside lately? It’s way too cold for café-ing! People should be glad I leave the house at all! Also: have you met Amy? Getting her to leave the house is hard in JULY.