A Love Letter to Assigning Things

Dear assigning things,

Oh, do I love to assign stuff to things! And of course the antipode: things to stuff. It's something I do automatically, usually, and well. It's probably because I have a meager morsel of synesthesia. When I say "meager" I mean it. My synesthesia - chromesthesia - is a dinky shrimp of a concept that sounds a lot cooler than it is, and I don't like to talk about it. For the uninitiated: sometimes I see colors when I hear sounds. Or hear colors. It is not nearly as extreme as you are imagining it right now. A symphony is not rainbow of light.  It's not constant, it only happens during speaking, and again...I don't like to talk about it.

It's a problem because some people sound like they are the most sluggish, defeated fluorescent yellow they could muster, and I automatically hate them.  They could be a perfectly nice person, but I will refuse to give them a chance to prove it.  It's terrible.  If you've been reading this blog for awhile (all four of you lovelies), you would know that I ardently judge people based on the sound of their voice. Sometimes a person has an offensive timbre and they can probably do nothing about it without the help of Henry Higgins, so I graciously forgive them for shrilling like a human theremin, but that doesn't mean I like them.

So I will assign that person to the list in my brain headed "people who sound like drabby yellow grass." Of course, colors ebb and vary depending on the types of vocalization, the modality, etc., but in general, some people have lovely voices that flutter from pale blue to the night sky and others sing in a papal purple and speak in scarlet, but not everyone, just some. There is no mapping logic to it all. But once you've spoken a color to me I will remember it.

And although some people sound like colors, most people don't. Which means I need to find something else to assign to them.

The act of assigning, the deliberate synthesis of one thing and another, whether that thing is a trait or a phrase or a responsibility or a smell...it's different than something as omnipotent as naming. Naming asserts control over a thing. It involves taking into account history and future and the summation of the assigned parts.

When something is named the audience places immediate judgement. Compare Avatar to Ferngully, two terrible movies with the exact same plot.  Regardless of their similarities, the titles insinuate that the focus of each is different: one word is the manifestation of a god on a lesser plane of existence, while the other is a ravine fully of shaded plants.

So naming is power.

But assigning...assigning is mine. It's my personal association. Assigning could be interpreted as a claim to ownership, but to me it's more like a claim to relationship. Yes, this thing, this person, this place, it means something to me and I to it. We are relevant to each other. 

Maybe when I assign things to stuff or stuff to things, it's a plea to my personal vanity. Or is it a way to organize impressions, or memories?  Is it a way imbue immortality? Or is it my own personal confusion of the two concepts?

I've assigned sentences to the stars and certain behaviors to the trees on my street, smiles to people with a tendency to frown, friends to flashbacks and flashbacks to friends, degrees of douchiness to flavors (what is going to be the kale or cauliflower of 2014? I need to make a list), gravity to versions of nostalgia, lovability to myself, unfair judgement to drug addicts, giggles to puppies, personalities to letters, stamps of approval to restaurants that sell cream of chicken and rice soup on days outside of Sunday, activities to days and emotions to weeks.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of things I've assigned to humans with or without their knowledge:

Speaking of animal personalities, I'm a bear. 
Which means, I'm sure, that I would be a cinnamon bear.

• animal personality (but only from this particular quiz, and I don't so much as assign animals as take the quiz for everyone I meet always)
• toys
• Hogwarts Houses (one time I assigned a Hogwarts house to every US President)
• Myers-Briggs personalities
• colors
• actors and actresses
• biography authors
• walk songs
• weather
• nicknames
• type of circus performer

Sure, all of these are the makings for a fine Buzzfeed quiz, but not really.  Because it's not like I assign things to everyone, and I don't assign the same things across the board. I assign colors and feelings and objects to humans. Durrr.

Still there's a problem: this turns humans into characters, and explaining away behavior by saying, "well, she runs from confrontation because she's a cottontail rabbit who speaks in peach." It's always unhealthy to turn a fleshy, living person into a character. That's objectification, not a relationship.

I used to objectify myself completely. I thought, "I want people to think I'm this way" and so I would live up to what I thought other people's expectations would be of the person I wanted to be. Then I placed judgement on myself based on how I assumed other people perceived me and tried to anticipate and thwart those assumptions by berating who I thought they thought I was. Like in the mirror.

Honestly? I still do that. Sometimes. But now I realize what I'm doing, and I'm correcting it. Do not objectify everyone. We are people, and therefore unique and unknowable. Stop sucking.  

But assignments help. They reinforce knowledge...I don't think Emi is a gently carved bolt of affable lightning, I know she is. I know Fraya is a bouncy ball with an orange sunset singing inside, Xtine is a crown of perfectly roasted marshmallow stilettos. These are things I know. I have assigned things to them that will last forever.

So thank you, assigning things, for being a thing I love to do.

Love,
Rassles

...

 So I guess I have a Love Letters series now.  I mean, I do. Click here for the list so far.

in which I take bites of things

Thirty-one, I think, is going to be copacetic.  Even though it might not seem this way from the last post, birthdays are my very very super favorite thing other than costume parties, puppies, and John McClane, but I decided to keep shit low-key and hyphenated this year:  Bingo at the neighborhood church on Friday, live band karaoke on Saturday, Wu-Tang on Sunday. Hot damn I am awesome, even in my wrinkled old age.

Everyone won Bingo except for me, which sounds about right. I am completely addicted.  At LBK I had to call an ambulance after some twenty-one-year-old cretins beat the shit out of a hapless smoker on the sidewalk in front of the bar.  He looked at them sideways, and they threw him into a parked car and stomped all over him, and then all these people on the street started yelling, "Go back to Wrigleyville!" and they ran away, which is relevant for the following thirty-one reasons:

1. fist-fights don't happen there EVER
2. even the bouncer attested to that
3. therefore: Wrigleyville = accurate assumption
4. frat-tastic chads are officially moving in on the bars I frequent
5. I go to certain bars specifically to avoid those guys
6. since hipster fashion is now the preppy norm, there is no way to distinguish elitists from pricks, and previously I engaged both sets differently
7. I'm fairly mediocre-looking, so even when I'm just waiting for a beer and in light conversation, once it becomes evident that I am much more clever than the hipster/chad, it behooves me to determine in advance whether he is going to accuse me of being an uptight bitch (hipsters) or a lesbian (chads), so I can scoff him appropriately.  
8. those are the only "insults" they know
9. (men rarely insult beautiful women to their faces)
10. but this happens to me whenever I say something as simple as "no thanks" or as complex as "no I will not go down on you in the alley behind the dumpster because I am not your roadwhore"
11. when insecure guys come face-to-face with a less-than-beautiful girl who doesn't fawn and giggle over their superior manliness, they get angry because they are obviously doing me a favor by speaking to me in the first place 
12. (50% of guys are very pleasant and not at all douchey)
13. I tend to start a conversation with whoever is next to me as long as they aren't engaged in a conversation themselves just because I like talking to people until they start sucking
14. and it's like, if you all stopped being fucking sexist manbaby-coddlebunnies, maybe you could have a conversation instead of getting angry at me for not buying your bullshit
15. But no, women who don't stroke your ego are controlling bitches.
16. I am sure that ego-stroking has something to do with penises 
17. I will stroke your ego if you deserve it. 
18. (Penis)
19. Mad Libs?
20. So this guy at trivia night (I know, I know, I went to a trivia night last week as well. Who the fuck am I and what have we done with the real Rassles and what's with all the digression [you love it and you find me coy]) who is a friend of a friend was angry that I "took over" trivia night.  
21. His only reasoning for this was the fact that I am awesome at trivia. 
22. Now, if I didn't know the answer to a question, I left it to the table and threw in ideas when no one else knew either. But if I knew the answer then he was all "but HOW do you KNOW that?" even when he didn't know the answer, and I was like, "Why you bitchin, handsome? The Decameron is the Ten Commandments. THAT IS WHAT IT IS. This isn't fucking rocket surgery. No, I don't need to think about it.  I haven't been wrong yet.  No reason to get all testy-twisted.  I accept your answers when you're sure of them. If I was a man, this wouldn't be an issue. We would have fist-bumped, and you probably would have been all, we need to team up all the time bro, no homo."  
23. This is why I don't play trivia with strangers.
24. He proved to be the type of guy that would put his arm around his adorable little blonde girlfriend and say, "Yeah, my brains are rubbing off on her.  She gets cooler every day." I know he's the type because he actually did that.  He actually did that with complete sincerity and without any sense of deprecation or irony, and his girlfriend actually looked proud.   
25. His girlfriend actually answered way more questions than he did, but she did it by consulting him first for his approval. If he didn't like her answer, she wouldn't tell the rest of the team what it was.
26. Then he started ragging on the announcer because he sounded like a 'gay theater guy. it's cool if he's gay, I mean, you know, but do you have to be so obvious?' 
27. DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO OBVIOUSLY STRAIGHT?
28. So then I did that thing where my heart grows a swampland because I don't care how handsome you are anymore.  I don't care that your pouting was kind of adorable.
29. You are now my property, and you will live in the gator-infested swampland of my heart and you will hate it there because you're a pig, and gators eat the fuck out of swine.  I can still feel them inside.  Chomping away.  
30. I need something to fight, I think.
31. whatever, it was my birthday week, I did what I want

So anyway, the LBK band asked that I take a tip jar around the bar for them, and I made Schmee come with me because she's gorgeous and people are always more likely give money to beautiful women (for the record, she is also smart and funny, but Emi is the smart one and I am the funny one and Schmee is the pretty one and that's the way it is, Schmee, so stop complaining). And these guys were mean to Schmee when she was all pretty and approachable-looking, so you know they were assholes.  One of them goes, "I don't have any money, I'm twenty-one.  Plus I give like $90 a month to charity."  And then Schmee said, "so how did you afford that round of shots? Why are you at a bar that charges $5 a beer if you can't cough a dollar up for the band you came to see?"

He could have just said "no" and we would have thanked him and walked away, like we did with the other people in the bar that didn't spend all their time acting like an infected foot.

And then like twenty minutes later they beat the shit out of a guy and I called the cops and an ambulance.  Victim guy was okay.  Oh! and Schmee gave the cops the evidence they needed to catch the gutless bastards that ran away.  Well done, Schmee.

In other news, Wu-Tang is the old-ass Led Zeppelin of hip-hop.  The only one who's got any energy left is Method Man and the rest of them just politely towel each others' foreheads and shout, "Make monay monay, make monay monay monay!" and I'm all, "Dude.  You're like forty" which is what I think about everyone older than I am between the ages of thirty-six and seventy. 

Also, I've started reading US state maps in the bathroom.  I've been collecting them for years (MoLinder and I wallpapered a room once, but they've since been taken down, refolded, and stashed in the bathroom) and since I have no road trips planned, I'm just memorizing them so when I DO go on a road trip I can be all "BOOYAH.  Suck it, GPS."

...

The Thing About Healthy Parrots

On New Year's Eve I got good and drunk.  Gyna was here.  She brought Germans.  There were all of these Germans in my apartment, and we drank White Russians and ate Caesar salad and Emi came over, who is Japanese, and Xtine who is Korean.  But it was very unlike the Cold War, in all honesty, yet I imagined myself a diplomat anyway until I started doing that thing where I get angry for no reason, which passed quickly. 

We went up on the roof and watched the fireworks at midnight.  Drank champagne out of solo cups.  The usual.  I love it up on the roof.  I think that was the turning point for me.  After midnight everything goes downhill, because I never want to leave city rooftops when it's windy at night.  Partly because of the dancing lights and fireworks and partly because it is really hard to put the ladder away.  It makes a huge fucking racket.

Sometimes I think--no, I know--that I am extremely juvenile about things like rooftops and fireworks and champagne.  I wonder if they felt it too, or if it was just me?  I'm sure they felt something, everyone went off into their little corners and made out with each other and I just stood there staring at the skyline, feeling sad and alive.  It was wonderful. 

But then it's over and we're not on the roof anymore, and we're fighting with the ladder and it just kills everything completely and I'm embarrassed that something so pure has to end so ridiculously.  And I'm nervous because I don't know everyone very well, except for Gyna of course and I will miss the hell out of her when she goes back to Munich tomorrow.  Muffy is moving to South America for the summer.  Just because she can.  How does that work?  I feel like I would be much more likely to up and move if it wasn't alone, because I'm not very good at making new friends on my own.  I'm excellent at being introduced to people who have already heard about me, though.  That usually works out well.

But on New Year's I was nervous.  I would just talk and give prolific answers to very simple questions.  And then I ask questions and receive simple answers, so I talk more and get angry at myself for talking too much until I say something offensive, and then I get angry at myself for being offensive and end up yelling at everyone when I'm mad at myself...I don't like it when my friends get down on themselves.  It makes me sad and angry, because they are perfect.  If they are perfect, what am I?  Angry.  This is how it works, I think in circles.

Did your mothers tell you to judge people by their shoes?  Mine did not.   Apparently Gyna and the Germans were told otherwise: you look at peoples' shoes.  This has never occurred to me before, not until I really got to know someone.  You look at their shoes?  Really?  I feel like if I paid attention to everyone's shoes I would get annoyed.

I feel like I would gravitate towards worn-down boots and stained sneakers, frayed laces.  Or shoes that are ridiculous and overly-buckled, like too many elves got excited with their tiny belts, or shoes that aren't shoes and all and are just like leather ace bandages.  I support walking around in slippers all the time.

Anything too tidy would make me nervous.  Or someone who wears Toms, those shoes you send to Africa.  Why don't you just donate money to an African charity?  They need medicine and opportunity and release and they need us to stop dropping our unusable electronics to the African desert, because Africa is not a dump where you can put the stuff you don't want anymore, you fuckhead. You might as well just buy forty dollars worth of flip flops from Walgreens and put them in a box labeled "Africa" with a picture of a baobab tree and hope it gets there.  Put money in the system instead of sending over canvas shoes that fall apart when you wear them every day.

Also, excessively well-groomed shoes confuse me.  Do you avoid puddles just because of your shoes?  That's ridiculous.  Why else would you wear them?  I specifically wear shoes so I can walk through puddles without hesitation. They are feet armor.  Not accessories.  Alas, this is where I differ from the world.  

My mother told me to judge people by their stories.  If my stories were shoes, everyone would think I was rich.

The next morning I was in the process of waking up and I thought I heard one of the Germans say that I came from wealthy parents.  It kind of bugged me, because he does not know my parents.  Then again he could have used a completely different word.  He could have been talking about healthy parrots.  "That's the thing about people with healthy parrots," is what he could have said.

I don't really understand what it means, but I think I heard it. 

I am thirty-one years old right now.  It just happened like three hours ago or something.  I'm playing bingo tomorrow night - tonight - because now I'm an old lady.

...

You Want to Hear About Mexico? Fine.

1. Hit up the ocean. Roguishly warm, swelling waves. Plus it smashed things, which was brilliant, and carried the greatest boat I've ever seen across the horizon, and now I totally have a thing for massive, ugly, complicated ships. I wanted to make out with it.

2. Read trashy books that me and Gyna bought from Osco. I'm talking like space assassin erotica, which was hilarious and awesome, and then a book about a cowboy that was so horrible I plotted to crucify the author in an angry, fiery fashion with swords and stuff.

3. Me and Emi smoked Cuban cigars while we roamed the beach at night, and the lot of us drank a slop of banana daiquiris. An obnoxious amount of banana daiquiris. I don't like bananas anymore. Or rum.

4. Kenny Rogers was there. Perhaps. He climbed into the beachside hot tub all naked and red one night, and Gyna freaked out at his dangly bits while he touched her arm and tried to soliloquize about the stars. I was too drunk to notice, and she hauled her ass out of that tub like they were handing out free Bradley Coopers by the bathroom, and then I totally couldn't find my shorts.

5. Kristy met an adorable man named Steve From Toronto who was a teacher, a volunteer fireman, and he probably invented puppies.

6. There are a fuckload of Canadians in Cancun.

7. We went to a club thing place show whatever that sucked. Luckily, we are good natured and hilarious, and completely above criticizing shitty ass bars with waterbeer and skunk tequila disguised as dance clubs for stupid Americans that apparently enjoy sirens and confetti and guys dressed like The Mask. It was fun and ridiculous and I never, ever, ever want to do it again. I am not cut out for the Cancun bar scene. I have taste buds and self-respect.

8. MoLinder did not go to the bar with us, because she is cultured and smart and went to bars like that when she was eighteen like a fucking normal person.

9. Don't get me wrong. I had an amazing time. It was beautiful and relaxing and drunken, other than that bar.

10. But I feel like I would have had just as good of a time lounging around South Dakota or something.

11. I didn't even make friends. It's no surprise, I spent my first two days there self-conscious and uncomfortable, and the rest of the time being a snob.

12. It's easy to be snobby when there's a herd of spikey-haired, raging douchebags calling everyone "bro" and not laughing at my supercomical jokes. But they thought my D.A.R.E. shirt was like the funniest thing they'd ever seen, as if I created the concept of ironic t-shirts or something. It was all, "No way! That chick is fucking drinking in a D.A.R.E. shirt! THAT IS FUCKING HYSTERICAL! Look at that! Oh my god, bro, you should get a picture with her and her fucking beer and her hot friend! That is so hysterical, bro. Seriously."

I guess it's just different in Chicago, where hipsters roam free. Because here I get responses like, "Is that really a D.A.R.E shirt? Yeah, I used to have one. I wore it for awhile like years ago, you know, before the whole "ironic t-shirt" thing really took off. I totally got rid of it, though, because then everyone else started wearing them too." And then I'm embarrassed and I wanna choke a bitch. Some of us don't give a shit if you like our clothes or not, you roadwhore, and now I never wear that shirt anymore just so I can avoid talking to people like you.

So my snobbery is somewhere between "raging douchebag" and "fucking hipster."

13. Trip = overall success.


Also, I'm going to change my template. I need to design a header image. Because this template sucks, as do all other templates. They never really fit me properly, like button-down shirts and basically every coat I've ever owned.

...

I Am a Sally

Saw Paranormal Activity on Tuesday night. It wasn't very scary. It was all, you know, "OMG that door just moved" and "did you hear that" and "I love you baby" and "get away from me."

I can't imagine why people let me into movie theaters. When the audience is silent and coiled, two hundred and ninety-nine people gasp and hold their breath as shock strokes the backs of their necks, and then out of the hush rumbles one hearty, long chuckle that totally ruins the buzz.

"You a-hole," Emi whispers, and punches me.

"Dude, this movie is hysterical."

(I just asked MoLinder what my laugh sounds like. She said, and I quote, "You sound like this booming, hilarious, drunken German man.")

Emi is jumpy as fuck, and keeps on trying to effing cuddle with me in fear, because when there is no big-armed strongman around, people turn to me for safety. Sometimes even those same big-armed strongmen turn to me for safety.

In college I would get scared phone calls from friends, and I'd have to slug up my baseball bat and head over to houses to investigate creepy closets and creaking doors. I'm not tough. I'm not very intimidating. I'm not very brave. I'm actually very, very gullible, and I tricked myself into thinking that people thought I was brave. Chances are they were humoring me, and man, I ate that shit up. Loved being the protector.

Unfortunately, that fucking movie made all of that false courage fucking worthless, even though I wasn't afraid during the movie. I wasn't afraid driving home, I wasn't afraid walking from my car across a darkened street to my building, I wasn't afraid of the gently groaning front gate, I wasn't afraid of entering a shadowy, cold apartment.

Emi was terrified and slept on our couch.

Then I tried to sleep, and the world summoned all of its subtle, sinister sounds in a eerily passive, static assault on my sanity. Goddamn terrified, is what I was.

What was that? Is that the gate? Who's there? Someone is here. Someone is walking up the stairs, holy fuck, someone is walking up the stairs. Calm down, Ross, people walk up the stairs all the time. You hear this every night. This is an apartment complex. But at two-thirty in the morning on a Tuesday? Paul is a bartender. He lives on the third floor. It must be Paul.

Watch a movie. Sleep with the light on. Wake up for work, hit the bathroom, shivering and avoiding the mirror. I do not want to shower, I want to go outside. Why are you so paranoid, Ross, chill the hell out. Slow down. Nothing is out to get you - what the fuck was that? Go outside. Go outside. It is here. It is here. Holy Fuck. Oh my god, go outside. Faster. Shit. Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit - is that the bus? Oh, thank fucking god.

Get on the bus. There are people there. Calm. Down. Breathe. Stop being such a sally, Sally.

My name is not Sally, but that would be wicked awesome.

...

M.E.

I totally didn't go into work today, because I am sick as fuck, and it's far more important for me to rest up and be healthy for Pub Chugga Chugga Choo Choo on Saturday than it is for me to, like, work and stuff.


So I got lucky with making people write things about me, because I don't have to put any work into blogging. Just cut and paste, beeotch.


Today I'd like to welcome M.E. to the stage, "The Pink Bat." One of my oldest and dearest, humble and modest and completely and totally full of herself. And for some reason, with better game than like, anyone I've ever met. Be careful. This one is long, because M.E. doesn't only love me, but she loves herself.


Happy Birthday!!! Smooches!!!
------------------------------------------

I have known Rassles for almost 10 years now in many different capacities. She is one of my best friends that I met freshman year in college and has always supported me and somehow manages to tell me things about myself before I even have the chance to realize them. Rassles underestimates herself and the inspiration she offers to me and others around us. She has always been the one to document our friends' shenanigans, whether it's with a video camera, pictures, or her blog. That's why I feel so compelled to return the favor by adding to her birthday blog with a recap of memories of '08 with Rassles. I love you, Rassles!

1) We started off 2008 with the infamous Pub Chugga Choo Choo, the most insane day-long commitment to drinking and debauchery. Ross is a genius because she came up with the idea and keeps the tradition going every few months. I swear if she applied the intricate planning and detail that go into this event to her career, she could easily run her own company. And anyone who combines our friends with a train and a pub crawl is brave. It brings all of our friends together--it's the one party where both city and suburban folk come together and can truly have a good time. I'm not sure if it's the ridiculous amounts of alcohol or the novelty of riding the train all day with 30 friends or all of the possibilities that seem to present themselves throughout the day. Whatever it is, the pub chugga chugga choo choo is magical.

2) In my opinion, the most surprising thing Rassles did this year was to get a tattoo, a comic she used to draw as a kid. I just never thought I'd see the day and I expected more build up to it. If I ever pictured her with a tattoo, I would've never picture it to be on her forearm. But that's just how it happened...she showed up at my house one day, rolled up her sleeve and was like, "dude, Debbie gave me a tattoo last night."

3) Rassles was great for putting up with me as I went through a painful breakup this summer. Even though she dealt with my endless agony for a few months straight, she always lent a helpful ear when I needed it. It all came to a climax the night when she blacked out and yelled at me for about an hour about how stupid I was being and how my ex was even stupider. I think she even told me she wanted to slap me.

4) As if I don't hate American Girl dolls enough, I think the most terrifying moment of 2008 for me was seeing Rassles and two of my friends dressed as the American Girl dolls while holding their respective twin dolls. It gave me the heebie jeebies.

5) One of my favorite nights with Rassles this year was when we went to see NKOTB. I offered her my free ticket because I knew she didn't have any money and even more importantly, I knew she wouldn't be afraid to act like a kid with me. We definitely turned into a couple of schoolgirls that night. I witnessed her nearly faint when we saw Donnie sing his solo. Later that night, we met a guy named Kevin at a dive bar and by some stroke of fate, drank a bottle of wine with him until the wee hours of the morning while he told us his life story.

6) I brought her to Ben Folds, another free ticket I thought she could use. The show was a lot tamer than his normal live stuff, and Rassles left really pissed off because all she saw were lame couples making out all night. For a second, I thought she might join the angry hipster fight we saw outside the show. She just wanted to dance the whole night away, but there was no dancing in sight.

7) I'm surprisingly still friends with her even though we had a bit of a falling out this summer. She was supposed to bring our blankets for camping but didn't. All I had to sleep with was a tarp. Ross is very reliable for things like bringing the best bloody mary ingredients in town, but then sometimes forgets essentials like blankets. She ruins my life.

8) Rassles helped me get through some of my most boring days at the office by getting me addicted to Typeracer, an online game where you compete to see who can type a paragraph fastest. I never thought that typing alone could make me sweat. I am secretly competitive, as I'm learning Rassles and most of our friends are too, so this game was perfect.

9) I went through a phase of suggesting off the wall part-time jobs for Rassles because I knew she was looking for some extra cash. I suggested some jobs I was finding on Craigslist for movie reviewers and store promotions and other things but best of all, sent her a link for porn reviewers. After she was seriously considering it and she was telling people she reviewed porn for a living, we found out it was just another stupid moneymaking scam. Lame! I really had envisioned her getting a lot of free porn and all the whores gathering to drink beers on a regular basis to watch the awful titles that she was working on that week.

10) When the whole porn reviewing thing fell through, my next idea was for her to take a stab at being a standup comedian. After sitting through some painful open mic performances, I knew Rassles would have what it takes to be better than any of the acts I had seen. That dream kind of died when I tried to introduce her to open mic standup night. The problem was, the bar ended it the week before without me knowing...I still think standup comedy would be a great fit for Rassles. Her naughty laugh alone would captivate the audience. Or even if she just got up there and read her daily blog out loud, she would definitely steal the spotlight.

...

NKOTB Ain't Nothin' To Fuck With

If I was the type of person who climbed trees (I am), and if I was the type of person to rape myself of any street cred by making reckless, self-implicating remarks about things that I think are cool (Yahweh), then I'm just gonna go out on a limb and fucking say it.

New Kids On The Block was one of the best concerts of my life.

I haven't powered through so many emotions since, you know, the last wedding.

Saturday night. It was like:

Whoa there, okay, look at my knees. Stop bouncing. You look like you gotta piss.

Are they coming out over there? Side entrance? Walking down makeshift stairs? Rising out of the stage? Swooping down on ziplines? Is it gonna be like, pitch black, and then smoke, and then spotlight, and "step by step"- pause. Blackness. Scream. "Oooooh, baby." Screams. A flash black and white photo on a big screen. More screams. Estrogen flying around in swarms of lust. "Gonna get to you ya gir-ir-ir-ir-irl" SCREAM because that would KICK ASS. Thank god I have armrests.

I wish I had beer. Beer would make this way cooler. I cannot believe I am here right now. I can't wait to have ironic conversations about this. Everyone is going to be sooooo jealous, haha. Free ticket to NKOTB? Fuck yeah, bitches. And I never even owned an album. Suckahs.

God, fucking lame. Where the fuck are they? Where's Donnie? Will he be wearing a gratuitous rattail, because that might make me love him...Where are they-oh. Oh. Oh. Oh-oh-oh. Oh my god. Oh my god. Ohmygod. OMIGOD OMIGOD OMIGOD -- "I LOVE YOU DONNIE!" When you wake up in the morning, do you see my face, boy? (Because I would be okay with that.)

I turn to look at Emi "Are you fucking kidding me? I did not realize I was going to be this excited."

"I know, me too! Ahhhhh! JOOORRRDAAAN!"

Pah. A Jordan fan. What does she know.

And then we each grabbed the other's arms, jumped, and screamed. The uncontrollable giggling began, and that begat the uncontrollable laughter, which begat the uncontrollable tears, which begat the sinking embarassment, and I could not stop laughing. And it's all, I LOVE YOU DONNIE, even with your sparkly pants. I thought I was cooler than this, but nope, nope...I'm a hopeless, giggly girl just like all the others.

So there's singing, and lame dancing, and winking, and they're all nearly forty and it's just ridiculous that they're up there singing, "Don't you know you're my kind, you're just what I like. Girl, you're everything, don't you know you're alright" and there's recently divorced Donnie Fucking Wahlberg, former Lt. Lipton, standing there, wearing a fucking bedazzled Wu Tang t-shirt, slinging a guitar across his back after ripping the two short, sweet chords before Cover Girl.

That wasn't even a sentence, but there's no time for harping on shit like that right now.

"Is Donnie seriously wearing a glittery Wu Tang shirt?"

"No. There's no way."

"Seriously."

Emi strains her neck for a closer look. "I think--I think it is. Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Oh my god, he just got so much hotter." My hands form a megaphone. "WU TANG CLAN AIN'T NOTHIN' TO FUCK WITH."

Stupid bitches in front of me are glaring back at me, scoffing, and I'm thinking, "hey, you, get off my cloud, you don't know me and you don't know my style." (In fact I snap back like a rub-ber BAND.)

So yeah. Here's the list on how they're shaping up:

1. Joey McIntyre is definitely crazy. Like, Brook Shields, Barry Gibb crazy.

2. Jon bent himself in half and shook his ass at the camera, because apparently he's shy.

3. Danny looks like Ben Stiller's ugly brother, but he can break dance.

4. Jordan is this annoying hybrid of high-voiced bastard and chiseled-ab Cupid-Man that belongs on the cover of a steamy, spine-creased novel. I mean, if I were to write one, I'd call it, Jordan Knight in Shining Armor, Or Billowy Silk Shirts That Tactically Rip Open With the Slightest Man-Powered Breeze. He sang "Give It To You" and I thought Emi was going to give up dating chicks, jump the balcony and stomp across the heads of the fans on the floor just to fuck him right there on the stage.

5. Donnie Wahlberg is a total douchebag. But a hot one, with a hot brother, and they can come over any time. I think I'll invite them over for Thanksgiving dinner.

Is it odd how I am way more into NKOTB right now than I ever was before? And not just ironically?

Even though I heard, "Chi-CAAAAAAGOOOOOO. Make some NOOO--YOOOOYYZE" over and over again, is it bad that I lamely responded in kind by yelling my fucking head off, because I'm susceptible to peer pressure? I mean, seriously, Donnie? Did you just ask me to wave my hands in the air? And wave 'em like I just don't care? (Cuz Fred and Mowava and the Mousketeers say we're gonna rock right here?)

Are you really that retarded?

(I love you.)

Are they really doing this? Oh my god, they're serious. They are taking this shit seriously.

New Kids on the Block ain't nothin' to fuck with.

But, you know, Donnie? He can put on a show. And not gonna lie, I'm probably going to be watching Band of Brothers sometime soon, since I haven't seen it in seven years, and then I can get my dose of Donnie.

I've never laughed so hard in my life. So thank you, New Kids, for reuniting. Thank you, Emi, for the free ticket. And finally, thank you, God, for keeping Donnie Wahlberg hot.

...