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age:

	19

location:

	San Diego

looking for :

	girls who put their feet up on the desk.

more about me:

	I hate the word "yummy." Like, seriously.

6.897

Other Hooksexup Blogs:

Clearing Smoke
10/8/2007 4:44:11 PM

“Oh God. I hope this is cool. Please be cool.”

My friend, provoking me over my pro-In-N-Out bias, is dropping me off in front of Dick’s. CyberVixen is walking to meet me.

“Tell him I say hello.”

As I’m pulling my sleeping bag out of the back of his SUV, he stops me.

“Sal, if anything goes wrong, just call me and I’ll come get you.”

He drives off. I stand in front of The Crypt, a bondage shop, and wait nervously until someone waves at me and smiles. It turns out CyberVixen is not Lenny from Of Mice and Men, as Bruce claimed while pantomiming huge, crushing hands petting my hair. “Pretty Sal. Pretty, pretty Sal.”

A hologram of profile pictures and text on beige and white backgrounds materialized into a person walking towards me down the street. CyberVixen is a friendly, be-scarfed woman with a slight southern accent. She lives in a spacious apartment with Japanese décor (her roommate’s doing) and hard, unforgiving floors.

We went to get groceries. Then we sat in her living room talking about our weird job. I told her about cafeteria girl. She told me about Mr. A.

“Y’know, by all accounts, I should not be here. We should not know each other.”

“I meet people off the internet all the time. I guess this is normal for me.”

The hologram smokes cigarettes in the cold on her balcony at night. This is CyberVixen. I am in her apartment in Seattle, which I tell everyone looks like San Diego, which is a thousand miles away, which is home, which is where my childhood happened, which means my childhood is somewhere else as I am in CyberVixen’s apartment talking at great length about dating because I had a weird idea one time in the middle of the night and I was frustrated and that weird idea came with a monthly check, the potential for strange new adventures. Like staring out at city lights through the trees bordering an unfamiliar apartment, unable to sleep, awed by the power of unlikeliness. This is, apparently, something that can happen.

The next day, CyberVixen is giving me directions to the bagel shop where Destiny is meeting me. A homeless man overhears and offers to show me where it is. He seems lucid. He limps painfully and yells at his dog (does not hit – he advocates verbal reinforcement) whose insistent pulling aggravates the abscess on his thigh he is en route to have removed, after stopping at the veterinarian.

“My name’s Hopper, by the way.”

“My name’s Sal.”

“Really? That’s my real name.” He got the name Hopper from when he jumped, unhesitatingly, off a freight train after a friend who fell and lost his leg under the wheels. He is twenty-seven, has orange hair and a tattoo on his neck of a human skull imposed over crossed railroad ties.

“I’m going to meet my fiancée right now. I was up the hill trying to earn five bucks. She needs medicine…”

“I’ve got three bucks. You can have it if you want.”

“Ah, thanks man. I’m actually bringing her the engagement ring. It’s one of those old poison rings, but I have to get it repaired.”

He reaches into a pocket on his sleeve to show me the ring, but it is not there.

“Oh fuck. Oh fucking Jesus no.”

He holds the same expression of panic for about thirty seconds before continuing on down the street until we hit Broadway.

“Thanks Hopper. Good luck with the leg.”

I sit where I can see the people approaching the door from the sidewalk. After a few minutes, Hopper passes. He doesn’t have the dog. It is not until I am recounting the story to Destiny over muffins and bagels and he passes the window for the third time that I realize he isn’t limping. I run out to the street and watch another hologram dissolve as it saunters easily out of view.

“You seem distressed by this.”

“No. I’m not surprised or disillusioned by being scammed at all.” And I’m not. Not really. Everyone projects.

Destiny exudes sincerity. She talks about Andy Warhol’s soul, the symbolism of pomegranates and the deleterious effect of Californian immigration on Northwest culture. I like her but my gut does not spark.

We go to Value Village, where I find a wooden plaque depicting with neon pastels three Motocross racers suspended above their bikes in midair. The hanging wire is decorated with raffia. It is the greatest thing ever. She agrees. I can be friends with this person.

After wandering through Capitol Hill for a few hours, we part ways. I tell her to call me if she visits Evergreen.

That night, CyberVixen and I watch Hedwig and the Angry Inch and ¾ of Bridget Jones’ Diary (scratchy disk). Hedwig surprises me, as my patience for musicals usually runs dry in under five minutes. Probably something to do about the Origin of Love and synthesis and finding your other.

In the morning, she puts me on a bus back to Olympia. I end up having to board immediately and we exchange quick hugs and thanks, which doesn’t seem enough. My unlikely friend behind the pictures and the text waves as I roll away.

This is my last post.

A lot has happened in the six months I’ve been with Hooksexup. Some has been shared, some not, because we all project. For now, I need to go about Finding My Other in my own way, which is not this way. I’ve offered you bits of my life with as much transparency and emotional honesty as I could manage. Thanks to those of you who offered encouragement in difficult moments. I consider you friends.

I don’t care if it makes you groan, I’m leaving you with a poem.

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take life easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
She bade me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

- W. B. Yeats

This is me taking love easy.

This is me.

- Sal

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Tim and Eric: the Full Interview
9/27/2007 4:06:14 PM

SG: So I read your interview with SuicideGirls and I think the most interesting thing for me that you said was that Awesome Show got you a lot of attention from women, where you couldn’t get as much beforehand. So I’m just curious, how…especially in light of experiencing an entire event in your honor, how do you feel being the recipient of so much adoration?

TIM: It’s ridiculous. And silly. But the people are really nice and we feel kind of silly about it because most of the people in the line or that are here today, we feel like would be friends with them if we just happened to know them or if we were a little bit younger. So it just feels weird to…for anyone to look at us like any some sort of celebrity…

ERIC: I feel like people want to be our friends more than want to bang us. Most people here want a hug or wanna chill out for a little bit. I think we’re a little bit more approachable than the Dane Cooks of the world.

I would agree. But what about those fans that do want to bang you?

TIM: Well, they probably really don’t. I would think that there would have to be something wrong with them.

ERIC: Yeah, just challenged, mentally, some mental issues to want to make love to men who do what we do. Obviously, we’re flattered.

TIM: And just to make love to anybody on the basis of something they’re doing that you can only identify with through the television.

And that was another question of mine. All these people wanting to be your friends, do you feel that your material is an accurate enough representation of yourself to where you feel that would actually be a basis for…

TIM: Well obviously, we’re acting. We’re not really idiots. It only reflects…we’re trying to be funny.

ERIC: It only reflects on our personalities as in that we’re people that are interested in things outside of the mainstream. Besides that, you really can’t tell who you are from…there’s practically no characters on our show that are really Tim and Eric. Some stuff, maybe some of the behind the scenes shit where we were really laughing at each other, that’s us. Like what Tim said, you have to have some major problems if you want to make love to Casey or his brother or just even be around those two men.

TIM: So I guess humor is an attractive quality in men.

In Tom Goes to the Mayor as well as Awesome Show, it seems like all of the relationships that you portray are completely grotesque. It’s hilarious and I understand where the humor comes from, but do you think that reflects at all on actual relationships? Is that a statement at all about the nature of relationships?
Tim: Yeah, Jan and Wayne’s relationship is subtleties of the people who have been married for too long and really hate each other. My grandparents. Anybody sort of..their relationship is awkward and if it’s always in front of the camera it becomes…

ERIC: We’ve also always loved the awkward and the wrongness about it. Everything I’ve thought was funny or cool has been really hard to watch or so hard to watch it’s funny and that’s just…we both had pretty good childhoods and relationships and it’s more of a comment on what we’ve had in our lives.

So do you guys watch a lot of public access TV?

TIM: Yeah, I watch a lot of infomercials. Saturday mornings, I’ll try to watch a half hour of infomercials.

ERIC: When we first moved out here, we taped some cable access ‘cause it was such amazing inspiration for us but then when we started making this show I think we’re making our own cable access world that doesn’t even exist in cable access anymore. We just stopped watching shit in general. You get into a vacuum and I think that’s where some of the magic happens.

I think if you went back and actually watched some public access you would be amazed at the parallels.

TIM: We get all the highlights. We look on the internet and all these people send us…we also have friends who are collectors of that kind of stuff so we’ll get lots of instructional videos and those kinds of videos that you’d find at a dollar store or Salvation Army. They’re really good, too.

Clearly you’ve built a career on being friends and doing what you love and so forth and it has this quality like it feels almost like a hobby. So how have your lives changed as a result of becoming celebrities for that, for doing what you like?

ERIC: A lot of people say that we’re the luckiest motherfuckers around. Which we are.

TIM: But it’s so fickle and I don’t think we take it for granted at all. We know that whatever we’re doing here’s got a lifespan for sure and it’s gonna have to grow or do something else. We certainly haven’t hit the big time, necessarily.

ERIC: And we don’t treat this as a hobby. This shit takes a lot of work. To make something look like cable access takes a lot of work. Writing and preparation and huge crews to do it. We take it very seriously. We’re very lucky that we’re here.

Beyond that, do you have any hard-won bits of dating wisdom for my readership on Hooksexup?

TIM: I say don’t look forever, just…

ERIC: Settle.

TIM: Settle down.

ERIC: I’m saying, more, settle on the first thing.

TIM: You’re not going to find pie in the sky.

ERIC: You’re not going to be happy.

TIM: It’s not going to work out.

ERIC: You have good sex for a couple weeks then you get annoyed or you settle and you’re, like, “OK. I can deal with you for a while.”

TIM: Yeah, “I can handle this.”

ERIC: I guess our advice is to be real. Be real with yourself, don’t fool yourself. Don’t dream. Go out and bang a little bit and maybe you’ll find some love. Doubtful.

TIM: And no AIDS.

ERIC: Keep away from the AIDS, please.

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Belated journalism
9/21/2007 6:47:04 PM

Clark Stares at Lois from Across the Newsroom: Sex at Comic-Con

San Diego is drowning in bodies. Pedicab drivers wear capes and spandex in the heat. At ten o’clock in the morning, for five days straight, the convention center inhales its masses like an Ellis Island for the strange and costumed. Then, at around five, it exhales them back into a sea of densely parked cars and trolleys crammed to suffocation capacity. And it’s worth it. This is Comic-Con.

From humble beginnings in 1970 as the Golden State Comic Book Convention and an attendance of 145 guests, what is now known as Comic-Con International has exploded into a 125,000-strong colossus of pop revelry. In contrast, Burning Man, self-proclaimed city-state for the wacky and misfit, has topped out at 39,100, less than one-third the size. And instead of shimmering in a druggy haze out beyond the sight of the rest of the world, Comic-Con concentrates its supercharged weirdness in the middle of America’s eighth-largest city. Its beacon shines far stronger than that of the Black Rock Desert; its temporary population is drawn from every corner of the country and its sense of identity from a cultural imagination saturated with self-referential mythology and endless franchise, not medicated fever dreams. Many people, when confronted with such a bacchanal of media, see only a vast, insipid underworld of minutiae and fetishism warped by colossal insecurities, driven by sexual frustration. But give this fringe 525,701 square feet of space to play out its “perverse” reality and what unfolds is something too complex for pejoratives.

In the undercurrent of sex at Con, some have learned to swim downstream while others merely tread water.

Sam Doumit is very happy to be here. All of the Suicide Girls are; they lounge behind tables covered in pink and black merchandise, talking listlessly amongst themselves and occasionally selling somebody a photo book with a free deck of playing cards.

“Everybody loves us. We’re getting a ton of attention. I think they come up and they see the booth and they’re, like, ‘Oh! It’s Suicide Girls!’ It’s a nice, big relief in the midst of all this because it’s so different.”

In light of the cartoonish exhibitionism and gross stereotyping that has been institutionalized in the mainstream porn industry, the Suicide Girls are outsiders. But set in the middle of surging crowds of storm troopers and elves, their eccentricity, though endearing, seems just a drop in a tidal wave of the alien.

“If you’re a Suicide Girl, you’re a hot, tattooed chick. But when you’re in blue at a sci-fi, comic convention like this, the boundaries are a little more…so ridiculous that you’re accessible.” So describes an associate of Ms. Monster, a late-night horror movie host dressed in blue body paint and flamingly orange hair. While girls like Sam may only flirt with the truly weird, Ms. Monster embraces it. And she is rewarded. During our ten-minute interview, she received more photo requests than all of the Suicide Girls combined. I ask her if she thinks she is so popular because her costume makes her less threatening.

“Yes, because that’s what they’re used to looking at. Right. Absolutely. Or I’m less threatening and, yeah, more accessible in that way.”

Ms. Monster is pure Comic-Con, adrift in her element, an avatar for every fanboy’s ultimate fantasy and simultaneously authentic, a tall order for anyone who promotes themselves by dressing like a super hero.

Both her beauty and her charisma may play a major role in her popularity, but it is unclear where the attraction to her body ends and attraction to the outfit begins.

“I think with me, yeah, the costume’s tight and, yeah, there’s cleavage but it’s mostly about the blue and the red.”

Ms. Monster is in abundant company – for heightened visibility, many vendors hire attractive women to draw more attention to their booths. Two such hires, Jaclyn and Haley, are dressed as hyper-sexualized characters from Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Like Ms. Monster, they feel their costumes garner them more attention than their physiques.

“We went over there where there’s girls in, like, a black bra and they’re, like, not wearing anything.”

“And they’re reeaally hot. They’re, like, models.”

“We were just checking stuff out so we were just walking by and, like, ten people were stopping us in front of there to take pictures. We were, like, ‘Those are the hot ones!’ But for them they look like normal girls.”

The element of commodification inherent in the costuming provides an easy inroad for those men and women (though mostly men) who would otherwise be daunted by beauty alone. But is this a nerd thing? Is there really a need for sexuality to be ciphered through pop culture in order for it to be manageable or is masquerade just a green light for anyone who would otherwise have no grounds to approach strangers?

Women are not the only ones who show skin. As a rule, female characters are more overtly sexual than their male counterparts. For exhibitionist men, options are limited. Most fit themselves into loincloths, barbarian outfits or, for the more adventurous, bondage gear. I interviewed a bodybuilder dressed like Conan, posing for pictures with a companion barbarienne.

“She probably gets more of the sexual, perverted guys than I do. I haven’t had any problems. I haven’t had any problems with anybody.”

Conan seems reticent; this is his first trade show. He glaciates at the suggestion that his dress is sexual. For some, even a bodybuilder, the current is too strong.

The general consensus is that Comic-Con is a safe, if sometimes nervous, crowd. They are friendly; some even go so far as to call them “protective.” If there really is more sexual angst among comics people, the ways in which they choose to vent it are more often considerate than not.

But sometimes, “considerate” means awkward.

Tiffany Taylor, softcore pornstar and Playboy’s Miss November 1998, is surrounded. Her booth, covered in huge binders of 8 x 12 portraits, is swamped with gawkers.

“There are so many different types of people here in all different fields and usually I think the people who come to comic book shows are the nicest. I’ve done different types of shows, like sports car shows, and they’re definitely better here. Not that those people are creepy or perverts but they just aren’t as nice as comic book fans.”

Sam, the Suicide Girl, had mentioned that some guys need encouragement to overcome their shyness and speak to her. Tiffany’s very presence is an invitation. “Here I am, for you,” her demeanor and merchandise seem to suggest. “Gawk all you want.”

About halfway through our interview, a middle-aged man I had assumed was part of her management detached himself from her back, which he had been massaging since I had first approached. He disappeared into the throng.

“So people don’t treat you in a lecherous way at all?”

“Yeah, everyone is really nice to me…I see a lot of the same faces. I’ve been coming here a couple years. Everybody’s wonderful, I have friends like P___.”

P___, bestower of lingering backrubs, was nowhere to be seen.

Porn stars embody the very essence of sexual accessibility. And that is the cornerstone of success as a sex icon at Comic-Con: accessibility. Where the Suicide Girls sometimes require persuasion to coax people into speaking to them – perhaps due to intimidation in the face of gender politics – Tiffany’s permission has already been granted.

She is somewhat of an outlier – a representative of generic eroticism in the midst of the specific. And the specific gets strange. The water grows murky.

Clubstripes.com sells a comic book in which anthropomorphic animals have sex with each other. Furry hentai. As if enough boundaries were not tested by this premise alone, the content of the comic includes homosexual and transwoman, or, “herm” content, as well as a “fantasy” section whose visions of physical impossibility defy any kind of categorization.

“We’re pretty out there. We don’t feel like we should be but so far we are because people don’t know who we are yet.”

To them, acceptance is as simple as visibility. This is not naïveté; it is truth, if only within the protective walls of the convention center and, to a larger degree, the internet. Their self-described “warming process” will occur and while their reputation may be built on the kitsch amusement of passers-by buying their products as joke gifts, there is no way to tell how much of that amusement is a mask for genuine interest.

In many parts of the world and even of this country, purveying what the people of Clubstripes do would result in vicious ostracism or far, far worse. But here they were, talking to me about half-animal, half-humans having sex with each other with complete self-assurance. This is inspiring on two counts: one, for the obvious bravery involved in representing such a controversial sexual practice on a face-to-face basis and, two, for the fact that there is an atmosphere nurtured at Comic-Con that allows for that representation to transpire with little more at risk than possible disbelief and bemusement.

The atmosphere is an odd one, like the extremes of America’s spectacle culture is amplified until all that can be heard or felt is the electric buzz of the hype machine rattling out new trends for the coming years.

A hype machine sanctified.

In 2003, I saw Angelina Jolie speak to a massive crowd, promoting Tomb Raider 2. She emerged from backstage to thunderous cheering and, as she began to speak, an air of hushed reverence fell over the crowd. It was as if, as a friend put it, the Madonna had materialized behind the podium. One woman began crying shortly after taking the microphone, explaining that Jolie’s role as an AIDS patient in Gia had helped her to cope with her own illness.

Such idolatry lies at the very heart of the Con. Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, creators and stars of Adult Swim’s Tom Goes to the Mayor and Tim and Eric: Awesome Show, Great Job! are awash in it.

They are hosting AwesomeCon, a free Comic-Con splinter event being held in a park down the street from the convention center. Hundreds of fans have showed up, either for the free bologna sandwiches, the chance to compete in a series of picnic-style games for a one-hour Waverunner ride with Tim and Eric or, most likely, simply to be in their presence. I asked them what it was like to be on the receiving end of so much fan adoration.

“It’s ridiculous. And silly. But the people are really nice and we feel kind of silly about it because most of the people in the line or that are here today, we feel like [we] would be friends with them if we just happened to know them or if we were a little bit younger,” Replied Tim from behind a pair of plastic sunglasses and an air of mild exhaustion.

I also asked them, in reference to comments they had made in an interview with the Suicide Girls, whether or not celebrity has been attended by increased attention from women.

“I feel like people want to be our friends more than want to bang us. Most people here want a hug or wanna chill out for a little bit. I think we’re a little bit more approachable than the Dane Cooks of the world.” Eric was wearing identical sunglasses and a white jogger’s headband.

“I would agree. But what about those fans that do want to bang you?”

“Well, they probably really don’t. I would think that there would have to be something wrong with them.”

“Yeah, just challenged, mentally, some mental issues to want to make love to men who do what we do. Obviously, we’re flattered.”

Then, the zeitgeist surfaces. Tim is uneasy in its presence.

“And just to make love to anybody on the basis of something they’re doing that you can only identify with through the television.”

An assistant runs up to our table. The piñata is ready.

Proxy is the watchword of life at Comic-Con. Sex through the proxy of masks and prosthetics, healing through the proxy of actors who pantomime the faces of the grandly living or the nobly dying, ethics through the proxy of Klingon warrior codes or the struggles of prodigal Jedi. But so it is everywhere, with all people. Some heroes may have more familiar faces, may be spoken of in more familiar terms, but they are all surrogates nonetheless.

At the end of the final day, carried by oppressed feet down a sidewalk crowded with merchandise-pregnant bags, beset on both sides by promoters passing out flyers in a last-minute grab for exposure, I was confronted by a woman wearing a cheap-looking Wonder Woman costume.

“Tonight at six, I’ll be there,” she ordered in a tone I’ve only heard from drug dealers and prostitutes on the street, and shoved a card at my chest. I had become so desensitized to canvassing that I ignored her. A few moments later, my friend saw one of her cards on the ground.

“It’s for a strip club.”

The wave of the comfortingly strange breaks against familiar shores.

We all need proxy. Some more than others.

- Sal Gardens

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Touching the trigger
9/15/2007 11:35:36 PM

It's all for fun, an experiment to be continued or not. I stared right into the eyes of one of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen outside of a catalog. And words came out.

"What if those pants were leather, and I was wearing them?"

All for fun.

But let's start from the beginning.

We'd been in Nordstrom's for under three minutes before I decided to break from my friends and talk to a few women standing behind a makeup counter.

"Hey, let me get your opinion on something."

"Huh?"

"Let me get your opinion on something. My shirt. Does it make me look too straight?"

My shirt

"Huh?"

"Yeah, but the rainbow necklace makes up for it."

My necklace

"Man, that's a relief."

Pause.

"Thanks, guys."

I've earned my first ten dollars. I am in competition with a man to whom I shall assign the codename El Conquiztador de Laz Pájaroz Asustadoz. $100 each, ten rewarded for every group of strangers approached. Two of our friends were tagging along just to witness the spectacle.

El Conquiztador needed a new jacket, so we found ourselves in Express. I walked around for a while and then spotted him talking to one of the sales reps. She was advising him about a coat.

"It looks good."

"But it'd look better on me, right?"

She laughs.

"Everything looks better on me."

"Yeah, let me ask you about something, actually: his girlfriend [my girlfriend] wants him to buy a pair of leather pants. What do you think about that?"

"Oh...no. Oh no."

"But it's me! Everything looks good on me!"

"Well, what if they were chaps?" She's into it.

"Totally."

I make jokes about worrying that I look to straight. Again. Conquiztador ambles off and I keep making her laugh. I walk off, come back and stumble into:

"So you know a lot of straight guys, right?"

"Uh...yeah."

"See, I might want to look straight at some point in the future. You could be my straight coach."

"Haha, your straight life coach?"

"Yeah. If you gave me your number I could call you when I'm clothes shopping."

She laughs.

"Like, maybe I want to join the Hell's Angels at some point. I could call you and ask you what patches I should put on my leather jacket. Like, flaming skulls or iron crosses."

"Maybe skulls like this one," walking over to some thirty-dollar shirt and pointing. I'm not getting the number.

"Alright, well, I have to go buy lavish shampoos for myself. I'll see you later."

We walk past Victoria's Secret. I think about what it would be like to go in. I finish thinking about it and keep walking. Then I decide I'm going and declare it to everyone. I shuffle through the doors trying to look as uncomfortable as I can.

"Hey, do you work here?"

"Uh, no."

She's holding a cell phone and shopping bags from another store. I don't mind looking like an idiot.

"Oh man, the bags. I should have known. Hey, actually, maybe you could help me with something."

"Okay."

"I'm buying a bra for my girlfriend and I've never bought a bra before. My question is, how racy can it get before it's too much?"

"Are you looking for, like, lingerie?"

"Well, no. Here's the other thing. My girlfriend is kind of a hippie and usually doesn't wear bras (Where is this coming from? Where did the braless girlfriend come from?) so buying her one to begin with is kind of pushing it."

"Hmm. So she wouldn't want, like, a push-up bra?"

"No."

"I'd go with something padded."

"Could you...could you show me? Oh man, I'm pulling you away from your shopping. I'm sorry."

"Okay...it'd be something like this. I actually don't come in here that much. Do you want me to find you someone who works here?"

I'm out.

"No, that's okay, I can find someone. Thanks for your help."

Eject. Eject Victoria's Secret.

I don't like lying. It's not what I came to do and I'm surprised I lapsed into it so easily. Not worth it. I decide to be sincere.

"Do you watch Oprah?"

"Not really."

"Okay, well, do you have any idea why she's famous?"

"Um, not really."

"Right. No one does. Who is this person and why is she so rich? What did she do to merit her own talkshow? Nobody knows."

Pause.

"Alright, thanks."

At the end of three hours and a dozen or so approaches, I had a twenty dollar lead.

"Okay Sal, you do one more and I'll do three. I have to salvage my pride."

I haul my dead ass up an escalator.

"Do these shorts make me look more or less gay?" Which is stupid I'm too sluggish for it to not sound tactless, not that it could ever be that tactful. I've charted my boundaries.

Then I have to walk all the way back across the mall to find Conquiztador, who has one more to go. We're exhausted. I'm slumped against a trash can when something yellow and flowy flashes in my peripheral vision.

"Those two. Open them." Both blonde, both striding with power.

We start walking. I don't expect him to go through with it. They're the sort of girls who conquer Hollywood.

"Hey, let me get your opinion on something really quick. I was looking at a pair of jeans earlier and they cost $600 dollars. Do you think it's worth it?"

"No way." They're both smiling.

Oh my god. The tall one draws attention like a tractor beam. She is made of puppies and sparkling water and vacations to mother and father's house at Martha's Vineyard.

"So you're telling me you've never spent that much on a piece of clothing?"

"Are you kidding? No." Still smiling.

"What if they were made of leather, and I was wearing them?" Never. In a million years. Would I say that.

"Haha, dude, don't start with that. His girlfriend wants him to buy a pair of leather pants."

They blurred away, laughing.

I don't like routines. I don't like illusion. I like being outgoing and talking to people about interesting things that interest me. I think I'll always be comfortable with that.

Seriously, why is Oprah famous?

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Numbers game
9/12/2007 3:32:43 AM

This afternoon I decided I needed to get out of the house. I took a legal pad and a pen to the Starbucks by my house in the hopes that I'd write something useful. What resulted was a five-page narrative summary of every time I've ever expressed explicit interest in a girl.

Just writing it out, one thing was painfully clear: for most of my life, I didn't.

I made a graph.

The red line represents my advances with my Stranger and Hooksexup personals correspondence included. The blue, without. I'm talking about either asking a girl to go on a date, be my girlfriend or otherwise ending up in some kind of intimacy.

Starting in fifth grade and ending with my departure to college, those points average to 0.875 invitations per year. The math staggers.

But, that slope is so steep you'd need burros to descend it.

Let us consult the Bakula Litmus, which will use convoluted algorithms to translate the above data set into visual representations of my social viability, in the form of TV superhunk Scott Bakula.

Me before

Me after

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