Character sketch: Veronica Meyers - Lesbian Gasoline

I want to tell you about Veronica Meyers.

I saw her headbutt another girl at a club once. I don't know what the argument was about, but Veronica laid the other girl out before going back on the dance floor. I asked her about it later and she said, "Bitch was annoying, I got bored."
"So you headbutted her?" I asked. The logic didn't track for me.
"Yeah." She said. She could have been waiting for a drink.
"What if she calls the police?" I asked, just one of the many concerns I had that would prevent me from headbutting someone that annoyed me.
"And says what?"
"Some crazy dike headbutted her."
"Who'd believe that? Girls are all emotional. Probably PMSing"
"Well, there's that," I said. Veronica went back to the dance floor. She liked to dance.

Another time I saw a guy grab her ass on the dance floor. She spun on her heel with an extended knee. The guy was down for the count. I heard he needed surgery later, but that could just be a rumor.

Once I was getting hassled about parking and Veronica convinced the guy she would blow him if he let us park in the lot, which was supposedly full. The guy agreed and scheduled a time for her to meet him after we were done clubbing. She didn't stick to the time and when he approached her all hot and heavy she went down like she was going to blow him and stood up real quick. The top of her head slammed into his chin and he fell back unconscious. I felt bad for the guy, I empathized with him, you know? You think you are getting your lucky break, that some super hot chick was so desperate to park and so fast and loose with her body and inhibitions she would blow you for a parking spot. The guy didn't know the super hot chick was like a lesbian superhero. And I mean nobody knows that at first glance. How could you? Besides only about seven percent of the female population is gay. Veronica looks like a porn princess, her body speaks to heterosexual DNA and says, "You must make babies with that woman." She says its like a curse to be pursued and followed by slimy guys. But I digress, the parking guy was okay and standing up as we drove away.

I invited Veronica to a party once and I told her to stay away from this one girl, Tina, because I had my eye on her and Veronica said that she would, no sweat.

I guess my first mistake was believing her. My second mistake was leaving Tina and Veronica alone for a moment while I took a piss. On my way out I had to help a girl hold her date over the toilet as he vomited up what seemed like a gallon of whiskey. Fucking fraties, you know? They think whiskey doesn't apply to them.

When I got back out to the living room Veronica and Tina were lip locked. Tina's hands were on Veronica's face, while Veronica's were on Tina's ass. I watched them for awhile in seeming lesbian bliss, Veronica pulling her in closer. This was a moment in life where I had a choice to be angry or not. "Fucking Veronica," I said. I smiled and had a good time at my party.

The next morning Veronica walked up to me, bite marks and hickies on the tops of her breasts, probably other places as well.
"Bit yourself shaving again?" I asked. She smiled, maybe embarrassed. I couldn't tell.
"Happens. Look man, she came on to me," she said as though that explained it.
"A likely story," I said only half kidding.
"I told her you had dibs on her," she said. I laughed.
"I bet you tried really hard to hammer that home," I said. Veronica stuck her tongue out, biting the steel stud and smiled.
"Yeah, hammered it real hard. But she wouldn't have it. Now I'm pretty aggressive, but Tina makes me look timid by comparison."
"uh huh."
"And she said she wanted me. I said no."
"Bullshit!" I said and laughed, she smiled.
"And then she kissed me, and I could tell that she really did."
"Uh huh, and when does the rationalization come?"
"Here: because I didn't actively pursue her and did my very best to ignore her, this was not a violation of trust because she came after me," she looked at me and started doing that ubiquitous twisted body-rocking motion made famous by little innocent girls pleading for an ice cream. It's interesting to note that her feminine wiles still work on me even though I know there is zero chance of the two of us getting together.
"You are such a shit," I said. We both laughed.
"Forgiven?"
"Forgiven."
"Hugs?"
"Hugs." I said and hugged her. "Can you try harder to shut them down? I really liked that girl."
"It wouldn't have worked out between you two, I awakened the lesbian flame in her. I doubt she'll ever go for dick again."
"I just have to prevent you from dumping lesbian gasoline on that flame."
"No man, it was already there, like a pilot light. If not me than someone would have turned her burner on."
"Can we move away from fire metaphors now?"
"Yeah I was getting bored and ready to headbutt you anyway," she said and we both laughed. Then we went out to breakfast.

Ah Veronica.

Rick Santorum's google problem

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum seems like an anti-gay religious wacko to me. And in 2003 he likened gay sex to bestiality, pedophilia and other nasty things. This wasn't the first or last time he would say such things. Dan Savage took notice and held a neologism contest to attribute his name to the nastiest sex thing anybody could come up with.

I imagine at the time the anti-gay crowd, in their infinite naïvete to gay sex and gay culture, thought this a meaningless exercise. What's the worst that could happen?

Somehow they forgot that gay men, are in fact, men. And further that men are well versed in being exceptionally gross and disgusting when there is call to do so. It is part of our natural male super powers along with opening stubborn jars, fixing things with our hands, being out of touch with our feminine side, our inability to have opinions on fabric, and other things. In fact it is normal and natural to have competitions revolving around who can gross out the other most. Such contests can go on for months. This is an innate ability for men, as women need training to do this. Such training usually comes from being a coroner, nurse, vet and etc. (however one of womenfolk's innate abilities is to pick up or otherwise clean the nastiest stuff in the world without complaint, like vomit, baby poop and month old rotten food; men require training to do this, such as being a coroner, trash collector or similar. Though men can talk about it later, and often do to gross out other men.)

Where was I? Right, so when Dan Savage proposed this contest to find the grossest sex related thing gay people searched long and hard proposing one thing after another and than voted. After much time a clear winner was determined. That winner was then attributed to Rick Santorum and it is easily known by googleing 'Santorum.' Go ahead, Google it if you are unaware, everyone else: onward!

Santorum than became the subject of a google bomb as people began, purposefully, searching for the phrase. Now 'Santorum,' that poignant frothy mix of feces and anal lube is way more popular than the senator.

You can imagine how difficult it might be to run for president when everything you say is cast in frothy brown font. Thus we have Rick Santorum's Google problem. A problem he wants desperately to be rid of, but one that has been going strong since 2003 and gives no indication of slowing down.

Furthermore Rick Santorum (as far as I can tell) is bat-shit nuts and wants to be president in 2012 (idk why he would bother because we all know the world blows up then) and he has been trying to pass bills that regulate sex and masturbation. Both of those are very dear and near to my heart so I will do my part to fight tooth and nail to make sure Mr. Froth fails at every opportunity.

I predict in the future, long after the memory of the senator, Santorum will live on, strong as ever, as a very accurate description of an appalling, gross, vile, nauseating, detestable, and revolting man.

Take it away Dan:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG62Gh8ffbY

Ah, Miss Yalie

What a pleasure it was to talk to my great friend Yalie all the way in Paris, France. Through the amazing and free technology of Skype. I even saw her smiling face and watched her talk. Until it froze in a zombie like pose at the end. Clearly technology has come a long way with still further to go. :-)

(She said she would check out my blog, so I had better write more and more often.)

It's a beautiful California winter day. Blue sky and sunlight and 55 degrees. My best friend Mike and I are going to go hiking along the Cozy Dell Trail near his house. It's a few miles long and climbs to the top of a mountain that overlooks the valley. I will try to bring back pictures. It rained yesterday so I hope it isn't muddy, but if it is it won't stop us.

After living in the flat lands for the last 11 months these mountains make me especially happy. I was telling my brother Kevin about driving differences here and there. In Michigan, the land of seemingly infinite flat land, driving is straight and direct and takes time to get from place to place solely from the distance separating places. More than that though, you have no feeling for progress as you drive. You could fast forward the drive two hours or rewind it two hours and it would be hard to tell where you were, it looks very similar. In Cali there are mountains, hills, valleys, ocean. As you drive you get closer to the mountains, you feel like you're going somewhere.

I have more to tell you, but I have to go hiking.

So, lets do this again sometime soon. Remind me to tell you about showering at home and driving in LA after 11 months of michigan driving, and the definition of cold.

Terminal Reality

While I sit at the Gerald R Ford international airport terminal a memory comes to mind, sudden, unbidden. I had a strange class called filmic bodies which was a dance class, and a few others. I called it my si-fi theory class, because that's what it was. One of the many books we had to read was 'Terminal Identity' which tried to convey the idea that life is very much like a terminal at an airport, or computer screen with respect to how things around us seem to change, yet stay the same. For example while I sit here lots of people get in and step out of planes, people I will probably never see again, yet this place remains the same unchanged, a terminal for people to pass through. Also like a computer terminal that remains largely the same, yet new people step up and use it. As though what matters is the terminal rather than the faceless person using the terminal. There was a bunch of other stuff it talked about within its 420 pages, which I must admit I didn't read at all. Although I have plans to do so.

The whole point of this was to artificially create a seeming natural start that would lend it self 'organically' to a segue to my present position inside an airport.

But now that I've told you... ah shucks.

So yeah, here I am in the middle of the terminal sitting in the corner, writing, with my iPod in, listening to heavy metal cellos (Apocalyptica), trying to think of something really cool and poignant to say.

I got nothing, however.

I am going home to So Cal for two weeks or so to celebrate my birthday on the 15th. I'll be... 27... Wow. Where did all the time go? Did I mention Alexander the Great conquered the known world by the time he was 25? And that Copernicus... ah you know the story. I'm trying to convey to you the feeling I have in regards to my age and how I haven't done anything earth shaking yet. I feel destined for greatness--also aware of how cheesy and naive that sounds--and I also feel immobilized by fear, perhaps of failure. Imagine I do my best and I think its amazing and others read it and think its a joke, or bad or stupid or [insert pessimistic thought here].

I see now as I write it down it is stupid to think this way, the largest obstacle in my way is me.

"What if they..." Screw them. Write without fear, grab them by the collar and shake them, dare them to read. That is the only way to get the really good stuff, you know like when you dance when you think you are alone, but someone is watching nearby, impressed by your secret skills.

I haven't read anything really good lately. And I haven't written anything really good lately either. It makes me sad and confused, I mean this is what I do, and yet at the same time it isn't. I think in terms of writing. When I tell a story I tell it as though it's been written down already to maximize its gravity or punch or what have you. I think this lack of... certainty? Direction? is the main reason I applied to grad school, I think there I will be pushed, prodded and urged to face this anxiety/directionless and understand where to go/what to do. If not, I will be forced to figure it out. Then I can make lots of money from my best sellers and give all my friends Ferraris and have fun all day. YAY!

New topic: For my birthday Loo took me to my first Burlesque show. It was pretty cool I have to say. The venue was not so good, the sound was atrocious, perhaps because the sound guy was updating his FaceBook status during the show, or because he had seven jack n cokes before the first act. I lost track after nine because I was watching the dancing girls who were cute, limber, talented and topless. They were doing some cirque de solei stuff with yoga like balance and stretching and some impressive hula-hoop stuff. But they used the fat guy too much. I think once it would have been ok, like they whet your whistle with the first act than say, "you ain't seen nothing yet!" and a whole bunch of girls in a ring come out hiding someone in the middle. The music builds up, the spotlight illuminates the center, the girls drop and this 400 pound man in a bikini is there with a blond wig and he imitates the cute girl that he followed on stage. I'd be ok with that because I think its funny, but they used that fat guy a lot, at least six times. Anyway it merits another visit I think when it hits a larger stage with better sound.

Anyway, when I got home from the burlesque show My roommates were throwing a ground hogs day party. I came right as it was dying and I went to bed, and then somehow it got resurrected and the music came back, and the yelling and the girls talking about lesbian experiences to the boys who played the interested anthropologist archetype for their stories, perhaps in hopes that in sharing in the lesbian experience with them they will have bonded in some way and sex is on. Sometimes it works.

Also, there is a big map on the living room wall of the USA and that means that the party people in their various levels of inebriation must approach the map and strike it with their finger and say, "I been there. Where have you been?" Then another finger strike, "I been there," to which the other says, "I haven't been there. I been here," to which the other one repeats the first one a few times before it changes to places they have heard about and would like to go. It is never anything more than a location. Like it would never be, "I want to go to Yellowstone to see the geothermal activity/see the geysers/check out the lava tubes," it is, "I want to go there," followed by a finger striking paper sound.

Where was I? Oh yeah, it was around 4am and I was able to tune them out and I was almost asleep when someone said, "Hey, the plural for octopus, is it 'octopuses' or 'octopi?'"

To my pillow I said, "It's octopuses."

"I think it's Octopuses," someone says. But they didn't sound sure, which leaves room for the loudmouth to declare the answer in such a way that others will believe him.

"No, it's octopi," someone says, "I know for sure." What follows next is surprise at being so smart and knowing lots of interesting stuff.

"you liar," I say to no one in particular. I wanted to get up and tell them that the plural of octopus is octopuses because the plural form follows the Greek suffix, and it wouldn't make sense to add a Latin plural ending to a Greek suffix; in order for that to work the word would have to be Latin in origin, 'octoped' in which case the plural would be 'octopedi,' but instead of getting up I rolled over and tried to bury myself under a pillow.

Sometime later there was a debate, so far as drunk arguing at 5am can get close to a debate as there was some semblance of civil discourse. The topic of discussion was the difference between alliteration and "the other one" (assonance). But they were getting it wrong. The urge to get up, correct them for their erroneous use of literary terms and yell at them to go to bed was getting stronger. I expected their topics to jump around to politics, pop culture, music or sex, but they stayed on literary terms. From Assonance to hyperbole (or hyper-bowl as they said) they failed at every opportunity.

Luckily my computer was nearby and in the dark I felt my headphones and plugged them in and fell asleep to Metallica's Ride the Lightning album.

I awoke to nature's call, stepped over the bodies to pee and walked to the living room to look at what seemed to be the aftermath of the epicenter of a grenade. People were sprawled over the couch, one another, and between the table legs. Many were still wearing their shoes. I went back to bed and woke up again around 11am to the sound of arguing.

Some part of me said, "They had questions about literary terms and the plural of octopus," and in my semiconscious state I marched out there and stood with purpose before them. They were all barely awake and with bleary eyes I said to them, " The plural of octopus is octopuses because it has a Greek suffix, conversely if it was octoped the Latin plural ending would be octoped rather than octopeduses." I had their full attention now. Apparently my subconscious recorded the literary terms they tried to define because after setting them straight in regards to octopuses I defined for them alliteration, assonance, palindrome, hyperbole, irony, sarcasm, sardonic and satire. Then I went back to bed. They were so dumbfounded that they didn't make another sound. Operation render them speechless was a complete success and I reaped the benefits with a much needed slumber.

Wow. Where did that all come from?

Gut Sickness

There is a feeling I get when I feel particularly ashamed of being human. A great example of this is something I glimpsed on the Reuters website.

2nd most popular article: Iran required to give up most of it's enriched uranium
1st most popular article: Donald Trumps's daughter, Ivanka, tweets new pregnancy.

UGH! Doesn't that make you sick? In what crazy world is Ivanka's pregnancy more important than Iran releasing it's enriched uranium? This one. My stomach gets upset and my face contorts to disgust.

After seeing that on the computer screen I had to physically remove myself from the room. I walked to the kitchen to get some water. In the living room some show was on about wedding dresses. Even now my stomach feels queasy. Ugh.

I will have to come back to this.

Back.

The wedding dress show is a reality show about people who buy wedding dresses. Problem customers, easy sales, and lots of money and a warehouse full of super expensive white fabric body coverings. But when I hear them talk up the wedding day as the single most important day of a woman's life (thought: of course they would talk up that day, they sell wedding dresses). Then the women parade around in front of their friends and family and try on various wedding gowns, gasp at the $10,000 price tag (or triple this in some cases) and pay it anyway saying, "Well I only get married once, might as well make it count."

Now before you think to yourself, "well actually lady, you will probably get married twice as the divorce rate is going up," I have to tell you that the divorce rate is going down, and has been going downward since the 60's. The current rate of divorce is about 41%, which I admit is rather high. But it has been decreasing. It's a oft-perpetuated lie that says otherwise. But accurate figures are seen when surveyed by legitimate institutions like the Fertility and Family Statistics branch of the Census Bureau and the Pew research center. Now, back to what I was saying.

These women buying these dresses for the price of a car that they will wear for a day...

I got nothing.

My brain simply does not compute. It does not make sense to me and I can't even wrap my mind around the idea of another person making that kind of decision: "It's the cost of new Honda Civic and I'll wear it once... but it is the most important day of my life, might as well make it count. I'll take it!"

You want to know the best part? Sometimes this expensive dress BANKRUPTS the women. Yeah. I know right? Imagine that post coital honeymoon conversation: "Wow. That was great -- by the way we are now fourteen thousand dollars in debt." BAZINGA!

I think the part that gets me is the frivolous spending of dump-trucks full of money on A dress and A celebration for A day. I see all of this, this industry, this institution and I think to myself... what a messed up place we live in. I understand far more than I am able to express, so I see these people and listen to the things they say and understand what kind of person they are, what they think about, how they think, what it must be like to live with them and so on.

Sometimes all I see when I look at this show is bipedal mammals acquiring white fabric at great cost to themselves and wear it one day in front of other bipedal mammals wearing expensive fabric so everyone can stand around and wear expensive fabric. It not unlike chimpanzees putting a leaf on their head starting a trend that others follow and they start revolving teir lives around acquiring said leaf, or something approximate. The sad thing is that the chimps know it is a game and drop it eventually.

Another day another update

It's been a really long time and a lot has happened.

After I busted my butt to write all those essays, and not to mention working when not applying to all of those grad schools, I just wanted to vegg out and decided to relax for a change.

Oh, it was so nice to not have responsibilities for a change. All I had to do was go to work. That left a lot of other time to do some mindless activities. So for the first time in three months I turned on the XBOX and played Forza Motorsport 3 and raced around in it. I must have done that for hours. While I'm racing in video game land my mind can wander and often does.

I feel like a huge weight just fell off my shoulders and I want to enjoy my carefree moment (however brief, because I know when the schools start responding to my requests I will be going back to school for a couple years and be very busy again, if I get accepted. So this may be the last good goof-off time I have for awhile.)

It was much needed after applying to grad school. I played other games, read some books and I even participated in some heavy-nerd activities!

One of my room mates has a girl friend, just recently she moved in with us (quartering the rent, wahoo!) and asked if I wanted to join them in a vampire/werewolf role playing table top game called the world of darkness. My initial reaction was negative, but deep below the surface of my psyche, my inner nerd stirred. I said maybe and slept on it. The next day a premise was posited to me from nowhere, insisting that because I had no obligations I could join them in the game, and if it wasn't fun it could be just the once. So I joined the game as a cage fighting, dumb tough guy that would, some how, transform into a werewolf at some time. We were playing humans first, and role playing the transformation for dramatic effect. (side note, vampires don't do anything for me; Werewolves on the other hand interest me quite a bit. I like the monster lurking beneath the surface idea, and prefer ferocious beast-type monsters to uppity, aristocratic, humanoids with pointy teeth and pale skin. However Bram Stoker's Dracula is a favorite story of mine, and the only book to scare me)

Anyway the role playing table top game was a lot of fun, but it reminded me of all the years I spent playing Dungeons and Dragons and others with my friends growing up. It made me very nostalgic because it was a favored weekend activity, and on several occasions it prevented my other friends from partaking in illegal activities like drug dealing. Role Playing Games satisfy some deep level of the psyche, something that can override desires to make money illegally, or go to parties or get drunk or a bunch of other things. Anyway, after the world of darkness game I started talking about Rifts, a futuristic role playing games with magic, robots, supernatural and stuff. They seemed interested so on a whim I offered to lead a game of Rifts for all of them to play in. They happily agreed and we played it the other night. It went pretty well, but it was all new to them so I had to lead them by the hand, so to speak and let them get a feel for the game mechanics. So now that that has been done, session # 2 will be a lot better, and after that it will be character driven.

Wow, what a nerdy outburst. I have to watch what my inner nerd says sometimes, he will talk forever, just to talk--which reminds me:

I saw some episodes of a show called Big Bang Theory about a bunch of nerd geniuses and a hot blond girl. I think it makes the obvious mistake with the stereotype about geniuses being unable to function socially, or with basic things like tying shoes and the like. I know plenty of brilliant people, some of them geniuses, and they are not socially awkward, quite the contrary, they are often speaking at huge public forums or writing formal papers. I realize that some people are awkward socially, and when they see girls and stuff, but the writers seem to go out of their way to make simple things complicated simply by inflating the language to chemistry or physics jargon. Sometimes it's cute, and sometimes it's annoying. Mainly because I understand and follow what they are saying in their complicated science talk.

That reminds me, I been watching a lot of the show Bones, and there are times when Bones will say something really complicated and Boothe doesn't understand what she says and says something like, "She, must have known him?" And Bones says, "Yeah, I just said that." I was watching it with some of my roommates friends, and it occurred to me that they are with Boothe and his inability to follow the science talk, and they have to wait for Boothe to 'translate' the science talk so they can understand it. I'm not trying to say I'm smart to brag or something, just observing that the two world perspectives we must have are vastly different.

Rambling now, time to go.

Mozart and Snoop Dogg

I was riding in the car with two other people and listening to Howard Stern on Sirius/XM radio. I have been listening to Howard for seven years now, so I understand whats going on, but others in the car weren't that familiar with him and they suggested listening to music on one of the many music channels.

So we listened to The Pulse, a top 40 pop/rock music station. And they were doing a countdown of, what else, the top forty songs of 2010. We got there at the tenth most popular song. They all sound alike to me so I can't tell you what song it was, but this guy was singing and he had a warbling/underwater sound quality to his voice. I wondered what it was like to be in the room when that decision was made. Did they listen to his rice paper thin voice and think to themselves that something was missing? And then think that making him sound like he was singing underwater was the solution? Maybe that is the reason its number ten? (As a matter of interest song number one sounded like he was singing above water.)

I'm not a fan of pop music. I'm a metal head myself, but I listen to classical and a lot of others. See, the thing with me and music is that if I think it is difficult, technical or skillfully done I tend to like it, and if I feel like it doesn't require much skill, ability or technique than I am disinclined to like it. Rap for example, often times I feel like it doesn't require much skill, or isn't equivalent to say an opera singer or a violinist. The sounds in rap songs are usually computer generated and spaced and timed and layered in such a way that sounds like it was constructed by a person at a computer. In my mind it can not compare to the likes of a Yo Yo Ma playing the cello with his hands, which is what I'd rather watch and listen to.

At a concert all the sound is coming from his cello, if he makes any mistake we will hear it, and when we don't we can appreciate just how sharp his brain is, how much practice he had to reach this level. At a rap concert the computer will not make a mistake leaving my interest to fall on the rapper alone, and I'm usually disappointed in them because they don't sing well, and the rap, or poetry in some cases, isn't so hot either. Maybe I'm totally ignorant of rap and can't appreciate it, but I want you to think of Mozart and ask yourself the question, will anyone know Snoop Dogg 219 years from now?

I think I'll end there because my eyelids are getting heavy.