"Oates seems confident."

I'm assuming you were lazy and ignored my post about Yacht Rock.  Here is the amazing 2nd episode.  But you have to watch the 1st one (see older post), or this won't be as funny.



If you go to yachtrock.com you can watch the other episodes.  The episodes that are posted don't work, so you'll have to download them.  It took a minute or two to download, fyi.

'Mo Better Blues

What, were you expecting a classy title?  So I spent another weekend with MGC (My Gay Couple) down in Fort Lauderdale.  I'm starting to think that they are the men I've been looking for my whole life.  We just have so much fun together!  None of my girlfriends around here like to shop, or wear short shorts and heels, or have photo shoots on pool furniture.  And I would never let a straight guy pour champagne on my chest.  But it's hilarious when a gay guy does it.  And even though it looks slutty and degrading, it's really not, because no one is turned on.   Of course, it's a little tragic when everyone starts canoodling and I begin contemplating banging on random doors looking for The Straight Neighbor.

 Here are some highlights from my two weekends with them...

See, everyone looks amazing in nude pumps. 

MGC and I are sitting at brunch and notice a gorgeous guy go into the breakfast place across the street.  The table of skanks next to us notices, too.  Half of MGC picks up his iPhone and tells me he is calling the restaurant across the street and is having a mimosa sent over to the hot guy from me.  We call and the other half of MGC talks to the hostess and tries to describe him and my only contribution is yelling, "His shoulders are so broad he couldn't fit through the door," multiple times.  Then we're told that they only take cash, and MGC knows this is bullshit and say that they know they take Amex, and then they offer to put their card down since I have neither a real job nor a real credit card.  But, as is always the case with me, the guy is with his girfriend (was hoping it was his sister), and a short while later he emerged with a revolting hybrid of JWoww and Snooki, and the two drove off together in his C-Class, minus me and my mimosa. 

[Actually, I have no idea what kind of Mercedes it was, but I'm sure MGC knew the year and model.  I had a slight faux pas when I was introduced to more gays at a pool party last weekend and said that an X3 was my dream car, and my favorite new gay was all, "Oh honey no, you need to dream bigger than that.  That's just sad."  But really, it's small and would fit all my boards and would still go fast and be safe and get good mileage.   But I decided that some things are better left unsaid.]

MGC is also introducing me to Straight Girl's Guilt.  One of them always makes very astute social commentary that kind of breaks my heart.  You see, they were initially reluctant to wear heels and bikinis to the pool (okay, I couldn't talk them into that - yet), and he said that he had a pair of heels and noted how just something as ridiculous as a shoe makes people incredibly uncomfortable if it's worn by a man.  If I wear menswear, it's cute and fashionable.  No one wants to kill me if I wear a pair of wingtips, either.  But anyway, I don't want to bum you out.  So back to the fun...

As I said, last weekend, one of them took me to a pool party.  I wasn't sure which heels to wear, so Astute Social Commentator (ASC) told me to bring both options.  And then I threw in an extra pair, b/c you never know.  We walked in and immediately spied a giant merkin posing as brown shag carpet.  We couldn't wait to pose on it.  And when my new friends ran out to get more vodka, I used my amazon super strength to threw the ottoman against the wall while ASC set the timer on his camerea.  To make things even more ludicrous, there was a dog (Rico) who had one of those satellite collars.  It was reflective, too.  We giggled that they would probably catch us, and then we got down to business.  Burt's spread in Cosmo was our inspiration, and no straight guy would know this reference. 

We were laughing so hard that we didn't hear them get back.  I made a mad dash for the stairs. 

Okay, I give up because this stupid blog isn't aligning things the way I want and this is taking too long and I have to go to bed.  And I don't want to leave you hanging, so know that ASC had the presence of mind to put the ottoman back and pose casually on the couch while I cowered on the stairs convulsing with laughter.  The gays knew instantly what we were up to, but five minutes later they were trying on heels and posing on the chaise lounges (which should be "longues" but people are so stupid that if you say it the right way people think you're stupid and I am stupid for writing about etymology), so it wasn't too big of a deal. 

And here is the newest ad for D&G's summer campaign.  And yes, I am considering changing the name of this blog to Hagazon.

Beard. Baritone. "Bloodbuzz Ohio."

What else do you need?


The National - "Bloodbuzz Ohio" (official video) from The National on Vimeo.


And keeping with the carried Ohio theme:




Don't mope all weekend!!  I'm off to hang with MGC.

And Just for Fun

You can watch this Zizek clip.  Ladyfingers showed it to me because he loves to insinuate that my liberal viewpoints do a poor job of masking my conservative, provinicial, Midwestern underpinnings.  I am quite sure he spends a large portion of his free time plotting ways to rile me up for his own amusement. 

Of course, I have major issues with Zizek's ecology as ideology argument, but you cannot fault his vigor or fashion sense.   This is from Astra Taylor's documentary "Examined Life."  His closing arugment about love  becomes less poignant once you recall what his wives look like.  But still, this part is worth watching.  The rest of the film is a pedantic parade (Judith Butler is the exception, imho) of namedroppers, and reminded both Ladyfingers and I of grad school brown nosing.  Ladyfingers hates Judith Butler. 

I will take that leftover Valium

I seriously considered saying this out loud last week, upon realizing that the top half of my ass was exposed, I was missing a shoe, and my cute blazer lay in a crumpled mess in the middle of the floor, surrounded by exiting paramedics and overturned tables and chairs. 

But this is not of those stories.  And I make light of things because it helps me to deal with the fact that I did not sign up for this.  And by this, I mean having a student have a seizure in my class.  And not just one seizure, but five of them.  And by five of them I mean the first one lasted for three minutes, and watching a child go through this, knowing that you can't do much to help or stop them, while the child's friends watch until you tell them to get out, is not a fun experience for a control freak who has no experience with this sort of thing.  Especially when the nurse takes her sweet-ass time getting there, and then nonchalantly tells you that you shouldn't hold her hand because any external stimulus could trigger another attack.  Or when the paramedics finally get there, and keep calling her by the wrong name and loudly tell her that they're about to stick her with a needle and that it will hurt a lot, and then they keep repeating this because they can't find a vein, so that when she does come out of one seizure, you can't really blame her for having another, due to all of the "excitement."

So yeah, I kept touching her leg, and trying to talk to her, because I figured that a familiar face would at least be of better than the other stimuli.  And therein lies the problem:  I do not welcome, or accept these maternal feelings that teaching forces out of me.  Give me a dog to rescue, or something else that can wordlessly accept my help, so that I can give myself a pat on the back and go back to my normal life without anyone telling me that my good intentions are only making someone's life worse.  Because this whole thing wasn't about the fact that I didn't even see her fall down because I was printing up the interim report cards that they would immediately throw away.  Or that I ignored the first mumblings of distress because I figured they were just being their usual post-lunch, high fructose corn syrup selves.  Or that when one of the "hero" teachers, who may or may not have been a medic back in 'Nam came in to try to take over, I gave him a savage look that sayingt I remembered him taking bets on which female students would turn out to be strippers, and that his services would not be needed at this point and time. 

This is about the aftermath.  How her mom seemed reluctant to leave work to go meet the paramedics at the hospital.  How the student had been unsuccessfully Baker-acted the day before because she said she wanted to hurt herself.  This is about how all of her friends felt the need to tell me about her eating disorders and drug-use.  And of course, it is about having to take all of this home with me at the end of the day while trying to forget it happened.  And handling her showing up to talk to me during lunch this week, after not seeing her for a week.  Duh, it's not about me.  It's about her.  And I don't want it to be about me, in the sense that I don't want to be involved in a way that will affect her for better or worse.  I just want to teach English and go home.  And if paramedics are involved, and I'm missing clothes, I want it to be an entirely different scenario altogether. 

Here I Go Again

I'm sorry if you don't have a fun gay couple to do stuff with.  For now, you can live vicariously through my hag hijinks.  My FGC took me to see Hall & Oates last week at The Breakers.  It was pretty much a private show and they were playing just for me.  You know I sang the words to every single song.  Except for some weird new stuff because I am not a loser. 

My dates looked amazing, and no one quite knew what to make of our little trio as we sat down for dinner in a room full of captains of industry and other tycoon types.  After dinner, we had to listen to some stuffed shirts talk about how much they love their company, and then THEY came on.  We stayed in our seats for about three minutes.  Luckily we had the foresight to bring in drinks ahead of time (doubles for efficiency), and the three drinks cost a mere $100.  After finishing my drink, I decided I needed to be as close to being onstage as my good sense/outfit allowed.  One of my boyfriends said that John was making eyes at me.  He was.  But it may have been because I was eye-level with him and he was trying to signal security.  (Seriously, why couldn't Daryl let John be higher in this pic??  So messed up!) 

Hall & Oates weren't into playing for a lame crowd of thirty people, so they cut their set short.  According to the setlist that I grabbed, they were going to play "Private Eyes," but didn't feel like it.  One boyfriend fought for one of Daryl's picks for me.  I was kind of disappointed because my Philly friends were definitely expecting me to make out with someone from the band.  (And just so you know, I am not a groupie.  I take my amateur music critic status very seriously, and I would never compromise my judgmental objectivity by making out with the moody guitarists that I love so much.)  My FGC and I walked down The  Breakers' looooong driveway and set out to find fun on a Tuesday night in Palm Beach.

We ran into some older ladies in high-waisted white jeans and lavendar cashmere sweaters who took my gays away to the dancefloor.  Finally, half of MGC noticed that I was sulking because no one was paying attention to me, and he asked if he could fetch any boys for me.  I pointed out a tall guy across the room and he returned with him in tow.  See?  Fun!  Efficient.  I decided it was a good idea to make out with this guy in the parking lot.  On the trunk of his hubcapless Crown Vic.  The fact that I went from eating lobster with airline owners, to making out on a junker in an exclusive enclave of bajillionaires, was very amusing to me.  And maybe I should be looking for more than amusement?  (*Archly raises eyebrow.*  Which I can't do, but you can picture it.) 

What was even more amusing was that my outfit gave him no point of entry.  He wasn't foolish enough to try to pull down the top of my pantsuit, but the belt, hidden snap and zipper were too much for him to negotiate and he finally gave up after I had fulfilled my low-budget Tawny Kitaen fantasy.  Again, amusing. 

Okay, I'm back on the Nyquil so I have to go to bed.   

My Mom's Favorite My Kid's a Genius Story is About John Oates

And a mannequin...

Every June, on the day after school got out, my family would pile into the car for the very long drive to South Jersey from various parts of Ohio.  Nine to eleven hours is a very long time to spend in a car when you are a child.  Especially when you are stuck in the backseat with a sister who always hogged the armrest (fancy!).  When we got to the Ben Franklin Bridge, we would switch out our Pointer Sisters tape for Hall & Oates (b/c they are from Philly).  It was awesome because it meant one, we only had two more hours; and two, their lyrics were in both a mental and vocal range that my dad could somewhat handle.  Next we had to listen to Billy Joel's "Allentown" because of the "spend the weekends on the Jersey Shore" lyric, and Elton John's "Philadelphia Freedom" for obvious reasons.

My sister always preferred Aryans such as John on "CHiPs" and Daryl Hall, while I preferred Ponch and John Oates.  My parents were so concerned about my "exotic" taste in men, that they didn't want to buy the Ponch action figure that I wanted for Christmas when I was four.  They finally relented, but got cheap plastic fake ATVs for them to ride around on.  You know, because it's not like they're motrocycle cops and should have the accessory that makes them different from regular cops.  Maybe instead of buying us a pretend stove, it would have made more sense to spend an extra $4 to get the motorcycles that went along WITH THE MOTORCYCLE COPS.  I could never get that into playing CHiPs because they had to rid around on lame three wheeler bikes that the bad guys always rode.  It just wasn't right.  I should probably go find those pics and put them up so you can understand what I'm whining about.

Okay, but back to John Oates.  As you can see, his music was very important to me from an early age.  So when I was four, my mom and I were walking through Sears and I spotted a mannequin with a curly black wig and, oddly enough, a mustache.  I said, "Mom, that mannequin looks just like John Oates."  My mom was like, "uh huh," because she had no clue what I was talking about.  I guess it dawned on her later, because she started telling her friends all about her genius child's observation and keen pop cultural sensibilities.  Maybe they should have told her that I shouldn't be watching that much MTV, because I could end up a spinster who blogs about mannequins from the '80s.

Hall & Oates Cures Asthma

Well, I mean, this statement hasn't been evaluated by the FDA or anything, but it has worked for me.

I think the next few posts will be about H&O - it's officially H&O week on this blog! 

But first, let me tell you about this important life-saving information.  If you have asthma, you have to become a control freak in order to manage it.  Your airways are already inflamed and irritated and stress or allergens or exercise can make them close up.  A lot of people have a hard time with the humidity in FL, but it has kicked my asthma's ass.  (When I tried to run in Denver I thought I would die, mostly because I am not an Olympian like all of the other people running around in Colorado.  It's true.  That's where they go to train.  And/or die.)  Also, since I don't have any annoying coaches yelling at me to do line drills, I'm able to leave "sprinting" until the end of my run, because if I do it too early, I'm done.

Oh yeah, I'm rambling.  I have too many H&O stories floating around in my head to concentrate on this one.   Focus.  So yeah, in addition to controlling my pace, I also have to keep negative thoughts at bay.  Now, spite is a huge motivator for me.  Huge.  I love doing things out of spite; it's healthy for me.  But if I have any sort of negative thoughts when I'm running, you know, like if some skinny girl in just a sports bra, running with her hair down while talking on a cell phone passes me, I get pissed, and then I can't breathe.  And if I'm on the treadmill and I'm doing intervals and the incline starts to make that death sound it makes when it's going up to a 45-degree angle, or the conveyor belt starts to screech as it speeds up, and you know you have serious torture ahead of you, it doesn't help for a song to come on your ipod that reminds you of an ex that is now dating someone who is short, boring, and able to sit on his lap w/o him bracing for  it.  Because those kinds of thoughts only slow you down. 

But if you put this song on your ipod, and you put it on when you are hitting mile 21 in your marathon, I dare you not to start kicking ass.  Because this song kicks ass on so many levels and it will rub off on your feet!  Try it.  It both calms and revitalizes your spirit.  Or distracts your from hating that bitch who probably just started and only passed you because you have already been running for thirty minutes.