Love, a masterpiece

People have loved me. Some have loved me no matter what I did to them----to the point of pathetic desperation---and in my younger years, they suffered my cruel and subsequent abuse, neglect, or betrayal of them for being so foolish. Others, (wait is it plural)? okay if I’m honest, only one person, has loved me totally as I was, as I am. That was years ago. Once in all my years. I can hold out hope for it to happen again. Or I can face what is most likely.

Everybody else has loved the idea of me rather than the real version. A few months in, after the first blush of infatuation has faded away to its inevitable pale reality, they start the changing me process. Be more this. Do more that. Will you stop wearing that. Please be less whatever. And I’d try my hardest to conform. I’d mold, bend, twist, contort, whatever it took to be this vision of me they wanted. A version of me that I never truly was and had no intention of ever being for any length of time.

Later on, I’d wonder what I did wrong. The answer? Nothing. It was just that they’d look at me from the very beginning and make their assumptions. They placed all their ideals onto me as if I were a blank canvas of their dreams. No. I was just a girl, with a history, with a rich, intricate, tapestried past. A girl that could not be undone or purified, just a person that had to be accepted, as I was, good or bad. But I rarely was. They’d just be captivated by big blue eyes, a girlish laugh, a certainly studied and a well-crafted wit---as perfected over countless encounters on airplanes, bars from coast to coast, at intimate cocktail parties and on the anonymous commuter rail while reading---- the physicality of long leg bones, broad shoulders, or an enamored preoccupation with whatever animal thing that binds people to each other in the early stages, pheromones, expectations, desires, things we were taught as children, but ultimately the eventual nothingness that seems like everything worthwhile you cannot explain. I’ve done it myself. Felt drawn to a height that seems familiar, to the protective, masculine, earning-potential assigned calculatingly to a pair of hands, an eye color that promised not only strong sexual prowess but unearthly-strong offspring, the please let me touch it shape of a back or thigh, a vulnerable yet steady collarbone, a shoulder width that spoke of wingspan and more protection, a strong neck, full lips, an arched eyebrow, all of it so much like fashion in season, like fleeting beauty that must be possessed if not controlled, owned, and then discarded at will when next season’s alluring new attributes reveal their soon-to-be coveted faces, bodies, voices, movement and thrill. Ever-changing. Ever-adapting.

How long does it take to get to the root? A year? Two? A lifetime? Never?

The older I get, the more I believe we never really know someone. And maybe all those characteristics we toss upon another like a Jackson Pollock painting, created with intention and abandon in one fell swoop, we paint a picture of the love we want. It is all a creation in our mind. That person will always, always, always and forever never be that thing we create so thoroughly with our own imagination. Never in a million years. Perhaps if we accept our imagination in conjunction with who they are we can strike a balance and love that person for life. Reality is too big a burden to bear. And when the construct of fantasy comes crashing down, the burden is worse. No one, in their true iteration, is ever exciting enough, dynamic enough, or beautiful enough, to be that one we love with our whole hearts. We love our own shrouded version of them, the one we’ve created. That’s who we love. That’s who we choose. The rest we ignore. And the blinders stay on as long as we can see through our rose-colored glasses, staring at our own inventions, happily.

Stepping back, if the bubble bursts, if the imagination fails us one day, we see only that real person that flawed human being, in all their rawness, in their ugliness and beauty, in all their insecurities and strengths. So much reality can be a downer. And it’s so much easier to go and replace it like a new car. Get rid of that old thing that is reliable and paid for. Go put yourself in debt with a shiny new thing, all fresh, pure, and dripping with all the paint you blast upon it. Your next masterpiece. Your showstopper. Until the paint dries and time passes. And it needs maintenance. And upkeep. And your time.

I promise to change. For you. But I won’t. It’s an empty promise. One none of us should ever declare. Never promise to change unless you are truly flawed. And in that case, promise yourself. And shut up about it. Don’t change for another person. It will never work. Nor should you ever expect change from anyone either. Love is being able to see the imagination and the reality in one view. And collect that thought in your mind and balance it. The imagination keeps things exciting. The reality keeps a thing real. You can’t have a love that lasts without both.

At least that’s how I see it. My imagination has made many of my relationships last and last and last. For too long, perhaps. You stare at your masterpiece even as it fades, crumbles, and falls apart. Because it is priceless. It is yours.

What a thing to create. What a thing to destroy.

Churchiness. I tried.

Some of you will be shocked by this but I went to church last Sunday. When you live in Florida, it happens. Like if you live in Vegas long enough, you’ll eventually gamble. There are just so many churches here. And so much Bible thumping in these parts. And, inevitably, you meet people, God forbid, who you actually like….who, well….thump. So since I can’t beat ‘em, might as well join ‘em. So I put on a dress, some earrings, and some slightly sassy strappy sandals although I refused to take off my Buddha thumb ring (which I always wear) and joined my friend for this, as it turned out, rather ceremonious event. Followed by too-strong peach bellinis and perfectly made Spanish omelettes at White Wolf Café, a rather laid-back establishment in contrast. That was the best part of the day. But, later on, I wondered, was it the relief from the intensity that made it so lovely? I felt relieved to be...me again. And to discuss it all without fear of godly retribution.

As we arrived at the daunting parking lot in the mid-morning heat, Jessica, my darling, your mind is ever-open, and even as it closes without warning, you will, please promise, my love, pry it back open for further exploration. Indeed, nodding vehemently. Will do. Of course. So when we arrived at our, heavenly father please, truly colossal (holy shit dear Lord) destination, I could scarcely hold back the running commentary in my head. Wow, even during an economy like this one, God sure is a fat king isn’t he? But it’s not really God, it’s his followers. They’re quite pleasantly plump are they not? Certainly the Great Creator must have an equally impressive sea-faring vessel on which to take the masses out (en masse) for proper wining, dining, and sunset cruising? Oh no, not likely. Let’s keep the money inside the building, folks. Where we can see it. Tight. And well lit.

The thing that struck me most, though, was the band. That’s correct: the band. The band.

I grew up attending, rather sporadically, a tiny church in a tiny Colonial building in a tiny town in New Hampshire. It was ripe with old dudes and uptight broads in heavy, draping cloaks and dusty, well-worn robes, rich with a tired old Sunday school cirriculum taught by a slew of volunteer teachers that introduced us to the wrong-doings of King Solomon and made us never forget that unmistakable musty, churchy smell. I hated church in every way. But it was quaint, if nothing else. Something that my parents attempted, if meekly, to impart upon us kids, that they, ultimately, did not believe in and took us as far from as possible. It was, after all, too unbelievable. Even for them, the former hippies who thought maybe there was something greater after all. And so now, here today in the summer of our Lord 2010, in a massive construct of worship, I find myself mildly nauseated and heavily amused, simultaneously. But I adore, all the same, the friend who brought me here.

How odd, I think, to love a friend, yet to snub a religion.

I assess the band. Expertly played no doubt, with all the lyrics to their sad Biblical songs displayed grandly in beautifully legible, computer-generated fonts blasted onto the walls from every angle, a dizzying light show of just-off-Broadway proportions in muted peach, electric blue, sultry green, taunt the devil red.

Overwhelmed by the grandiosity of wealth, generated so effortlessly by fear, I marvel. And despise. (Yes, I judge the fear as much as I understand it). We are born alone. We die alone. The End. The middle parts with all the pain and suffering, oh sure, we can mask it all with an opiate we agree to call God, but, really, people, really, the only thing that gets us though is LOVE and an agreement to be honorable and true to ourselves. And to get the fuck out of bed each and every day even when we feel like dying or disappearing. The God thing is such an opiate for the masses. Oh dear Nietzsche. Oh dear Nietzsche. Are you laughing down on me?

Thing is, after all this grandiosity, and witnessing of average folks with their arms waving high (are they serious? Are they really that convinced?) I like the pastor and his message. It has simplicity and he delivers it with humor and ease. He mentions philosophers, intellectuals, his own experiences. I start to feel scared. I hate this shit. If I wasn’t stronger, I could become one of them. But I won’t. I’m too broad in my scope of thinking to ever narrow it down to this.

I’m still glad I went. Because what this guy says sticks with me for a day or two. I could find that at a lecture or a conversation with a smart, open friend. Just not as often. I can see why people attend church every week. Because most people are vapid and unconcerned. As for myself, all I can focus on this week is football season. Damn the Bengals! Yet there’s so much more to me than that. I just can’t compartmentalize it into some epic, stadium seating building of people with a lightshow, a band, and a good talker. Hell no.

But still. The mind stays open. The heart stays flung aside for all to see. I refuse to close off. Become bitter. Not feel. Not be pure in my actions and broad-thinking in my assessments of what happened. There are so many sides to every story.

You may be surprised I went to church last Sunday. But it’s better than saying no and not knowing. It’s not for me. But it’s interesting as an add-on to everything else. How can I judge something I’ve never experienced? And, after all is said and done, who am I to judge anything for anyone else but myself?

"Stay in the shallow end, sweetie. It's safer."

I saw 'Jaws' when I was way too young. Swimming pool drains still scare me. But I don't think the statement 'stay in the shallow end' applies only to swimming pool safety. I think it applies to keeping it light, not being too 'deep' in the emotional end of the pool either. Smeared mascara from crying is not pretty, dear. And as Annette Bening's character in 'American Beauty' said so well 'You must maintain an image of success at all times.'

And if not success, then certainly an image of perky shallowness.

I'll buy that. To a degree. Needless drama is, well, needless. And sometimes keeping it light is keeping the peace. And isn't peace supposed to be a good thing?

The other night I was out with a friend in Winter Park. Oddly, the street was having electrical outages and so our choices were few and our favorite spot simply had no power at all and was closed for business. So we were indoors with emergency lighting which was, as it turned out, pretty flattering, and limited food options (cheese plate). My friend is statuesque (she's actually a model) with great bone structure and the sort of long, thick enviable blonde hair that looks like it belongs in a shampoo commercial. A group of older men bought us a round of drinks which was actually gracious rather than cheesey and we were appreciative. But then the skanks arrived. In multitudes. And I don't mean South Beach skank which is just gorgeous without modesty. I mean true skank: makeup covering up the bad bone structure, makeup that one day won't be able to obscure the boring inside. Skirts so short you can almost see it. And the point of it all is that hey, you're thinking about it. I don't want to think about your underwear or what's in your underwear. I want to enjoy my cheeseplate and my friend, thank you. Please keep your Sherwood Andersonian grotesqueness to yourself, please. What has happened to our culture? Why has being so vaccuous become so, appallingly, normal? Or has it always been this way?

If I went out dressed like these girls, I'd feel like...like....a drag queen on steroids. I'd feel....absolutely ridiculous. I'd laugh at myself in the mirror for hours. These are Halloween monsters out in the middle of summer. I don't get it. What I do get is that it's somehow become very alright to be this tacky. We've made it alright with our abundance of 'Jersey Shore' and "Bad Girls of Miami' and 'The Real Housewives of Atlanta' or whatever. And it's just freaking terrible. I don't know how this representation of intermingling among the sexes is supposed to further anyone's potential or create anything real.

Oh but wait---my bad---"stay in the shallow end, sweetie. It's safer."  Right. I forgot.

The shocking dumbing down I witness every day on one hand amuses me. On the other, I'm undeniably depressed. Sure, I can numb out with fashion and make a case for 'creative expression' because I do believe fashion is creative. No, it's not solving problems on any grand scale but it's self respect, style dignity, an attempt to project beauty, and that has to be worth something. But this other stuff, this 'I'm for sale' attitude is just, I don't know, gross.

So what do I end up doing at one point in the weekend? You guessed it. I go in the deep end. I ask too many questions. I don't wear a low cut top and keep it light. I wonder about the future, about the fate of society, about BP (will it ever stop?), about this endless crap war we're in (remember? we're in a war!) about how crazy it is that every retail store is on sale all the time because the economy is still terrible (yes, it is!) and how one day both of my cats that I love so much are going to die, and that one day everyone I love is going to die, and that's just super super sucky. Mascara smear-worthy sucky.

I'll try my hardest to stay in this shallow end. But I get curious. About the creepy drain. And about the deeper waters. I like the challenge and the fear. I'd rather face it than putter around with these boring a--clowns. Square peg meets round hole. Again. Maybe it's time to accept that some of us just don't fit in with the rest of them. Maybe it's better to separate from that trashy pack. As lonely, and oh cry me a river, as 'deep' as it ever is.

Even when we're with another, another like ourselves, someone who gets our jokes and gets who we are, and accepts us, we're always alone. The shallow thinkers don't think that way. It must be so much easier to be a Halloween monster out in summer who, even when they finally fix the power and the lights come back on, is even scarier to look at it because they look like a plastic drag queen doll. And it's like a strange alternate universe that I just don't belong in. Yet this shallowness is drowning me. What it lacks in depth it reaches so far and wide.

'Loneliness. It's a place that I know well. It's the distance between us and the space inside ourselves.' ~Annie Lennox

Running for My Life

What if the ocean rises 20 feet

and we never feel winter again

What will we learn when too many of us die

when bank accounts mean nothing

and money falls out of our pockets

like soil crumbling

when Darwin's laws apply to us

when the biggest man takes for himself
when will and power are the real strength

when chest-beating, fierce nostril-flaring

unhinged survival

is king?

What if we lose the lost?

The lost are the only truly found

(I count myself here)

We who can't fathom the so-called

power, the bloated, balding white

men in suits, the graying

bespectacled men hiding

their flaccid cocks,

their once buoyant,

malleable balls.

Buying power like so much cheap white bread,

the cheap kind you can mash in your fingers

that curves magically into one neat ball,

one little beige nugget of no nutrition, no

sustenance, nothing.

Weakness wearing a power suit, unzip it,

unzip it my friend, unzip the limp

beige lump, watch it fall,

unglorious.

I am jealous of my cat's superior knowledge

that survivial has always been his m.o.

batter the mouse, hunt the squirrel, be on guard

and then say fuck it all,

sleep hard,

sleep like death, who cares.

But I care, me of the bigger brain,

the bigger agenda, another epic-billion-dollars

for a war we can't win, a war we will never

win, a war we started not to win

but to prove a point,

a war for a bloated, flaccid-cocked

bunch of fuckheads with oil

clogging their ears.

Oil they should boil in, oil they should drown in

while sitting in their big, fat WalMart buying

sport utility vehicles.

What will we learn.

What will we take away when all's lost and all's taken?

A slug from the wonderful drug,

another double pour next to someone

who drowns out all the noise, who buries their

fears in cigarette smoke and whiskey and drive-thru

Arby's and sad sex.

Another one bites down hard.

What if the breath in is the last, if the couple of wilted

dollars he throws down are good for nothing.

What then.

Can we know, can any of us predict the mayhem,

who of us will be worthy of Darwin's label?

How fit, how strong, how powerful

will any of us be.

Take down the bloated men in their suits,

hiding their soft, pale

bellies full

of expensive, aged beef, and

aged, luscious grapes and swallowed

secrets,

the tongue a gate to darkness,

to fall into, be eaten,

consumed in the awful machine.

I'm lost but not that lost yet.

Don't look for me.

You won't find me in the windpipe, in the esophagus,

in the oddly curved disease

of a body.

I'm not there.

I'm not there.

Running for my life, running for

your life, too, fuck it all, I sleep

like death, hard,

waiting for the slow creep of

ocean, for the melting yawn

of what's next.

Interests. And Dividends? (for Boulette de Viande)

In between the cleavage and the sports is a fairly substantial financial section. I’m not talking about the layout of a newspaper. I’m talking about the layout of a Barnes & Noble bookstore. Sounds about right, I guess. And that was actually just fine with me until I saw the category marker: “Men’s Interests.” 

Men’s Interests.

Yet there I was, scouring Forbes, Inc., Worth (too pricey at $16.95 despite charming art direction inside), Harvard Business Review. Me, in my cute coral wedges, my expertly highlighted blondey-blondishness, perched between Playboy and Esquire but reading the money stuff.  Men’s interests? I like Bradley Cooper, I even tolerate Megan Fox (not a fan of so much unnecessary plastic surgery) but I really like strategy and business. So why were these just “men’s interests”? Why wasn’t there, simply, a “Business & Finance” category marker?

And what were so-called “Women’s Interests” anyway? Just what you’d expect. An entire wall of vacuous magazines inspiring one to look-younger, have-more-orgasms, bigger-bouncier-hair, keep-a-perfect-house, be-a-style-maven, entertain-like-royalty, and enjoy budget-conscious-luxuries, ad nauseum.

Don’t get me wrong. Those are my interests. To a degree. And yes, to be honest, of course I have read Playboy “for the articles” fascinated by the keen airbrushing and wondering if I might exact the same perfection later on with a combination of candlelight, skimpy lingerie and a bit of alcohol.

I have never claimed to be a feminist. But I’m not not one either. And yet, the longer I exist in this culture we’ve constructed, the more confused I am. Marilyn Monroe said it well “I don’t mind living in a man’s world so long as I can be a woman in it.”  Agreed. But what does it mean to be a woman in a world that’s no longer just a man’s world but a world comprised of women competing not only with men but, perhaps even more fiercely, with other women?

I am currently working for myself. Translation: I am a (feast or famine) freelance integrated marketer and writer. A lot of the times a writer. Right now I’m writing what could be a very important article that I’m pretty excited. It might prove to be very lucrative if it falls into the right hands. And I’m writing this article for free. Yes, pro bono. Thing is, I’m not independently wealthy. I’m not living on savings. Hell no. Any semblance of savings I’ve ever had were squandered way back during my fun times layoff in 2008. I’m just a girl getting by and actually having a lot of fun seeing what happens next. It’s not exactly the dream I had in my head ten years ago of being a super-successful independent writer with a baby in tow and a home office full of cool furniture and hardcover books signed by important writers. But it’s pretty close. I do have a home office. It’s just filled with my father’s paintings and my old iMac and it needs a coat of fresh (beautiful, exquisite, inspired by a California vineyard) paint.

The girlie girl in me is about to go get a pedicure. And boy do I look it. I’m wearing a pair of Joe’s Jeans I got at Anthropologie, a LOFT animal-print cardigan, a David Yurman bracelet, a Tag Heuer watch, a little (Preppy as hell) shrimp ring gifted to me by mom. I will most likely enjoy a chilled glass of chardonnay while some sweet Vietnamese women pamper my tootsies. Oh I look the part alright. But I am not the part. I am only the part….in part.

The rest of me is a a sailor-swearing, beer-drinking tomboy in cutoffs and flipflops, hair up, no makeup, writing my weird thoughts down, daydreaming about the screenplay in my head, reading as many books, articles, or Seth Godin’s blogs as I can get my hands on, soaking up, drinking in, inhaling just about everything worthwhile I can learn in one day, intrigued by how things work, how people think, what matters most about an individual and collective sense of accomplishment. And it isn’t money. But, absolutely, without question, money is part of it. Of course it is. 

And I’m very interested in money. In finances. In Amercia’s biggest companies. In the global economy. In investment trends. In corporate culture. In entrepreneurial spirit. In making things happen. And watching all the little gears of the machine move and make progress. That interests me. A lot.

So when I go to Barnes & Noble for a cup of coffee and to buy some magazines to inspire me to write an article (I always do this, other writers are like a starting gun at the beginning of an important race, or an “Adda girl!” or, sometimes, a firm kick in the derriere that I desperately need but can’t deliver to myself (I’m not that flexible). So when I’m there in my little outfit, in my color coordinated, blondified, accessoried persona, sure, I could be the one immersed in InStyle one minute (usually for long, boring plane flights more than anything), but I might also be reading about what Yvon Chouinard thinks about older women, the ones who’ve raised families and managed home budgets and have some life experience who are, in Chouinard’s opinion: “the most underutilized demographic in American culture,” I pause. And I look around. In between the ample, airbrushed and fantastic tits and the sporty athletic balls are women just like me: reading, learning, and deeply fasincated with so-called “Men’s Interests.” 

Wake up Barnes & Noble. I might have to dump you for Borders or, better yet, Amazon.

the art of the mind

What’s in here, stashed away in the cranium housed in this neatly contained bubble of a head flutters a thousand heartbeats. The ones hammering away in my chest cavity are purely survival, fight or flight, and augmented in tempo, poeticized in cadence, and then strummed into miserable cacophony by my reptilian brain. The truest heartbeats, the beautiful, lyrical Yo La Tengo ones, those guys are pounding like drums and sex and birth up in my mind. Sounding out guitar chords, ensuring a different sort of cord is tied to my heart and your heart and somebody else’s heart out there, wherever that is, whoever they are, that somebody somewhere who should be tied to me, who isn’t yet, but will be.

This is the art of the mind, the rhythm of imagination, our collective possibility, entranced, enraptured and captured. Jailed, more accurately. Like the moment of awakening from a welcome intrusion of a deep, vivid, and sensual dream; within that moment the dream unceremoniously dies. But as you felt it slip away into nothingness, you are stuck with the notion that it was there, and how can this so tangibly, wonderfully, transformingly real thing you just experienced in so extraordinary a fashion vanish as quickly as the realization came?

What’s in my mind, in my heartbeating head, flowing forth from my civilized brain together with its primitive responses creates unspeakable beauty. Unspeakable is the operative word. I’m mute in this art. Amid all the sound and energy and aliveness, I am locked up. We are in this cell together, all beats and rhythms and harmonies intermingled with nothing but chatter and traffic and lo and behold, responsibility and taxes and unfairly high cell phone bills and busted washing machines.

But when I consider it as one measurable unit of beauty, after all, isn’t beauty the strange cousin of ugly? The symmetry that aligns the same shared features, reigns in proportion topped off with something, just one small thing, that’s slightly askew. Beauty is always so close to ugly, so strangely, compellingly imperfect amid its copious perfection. The most beautiful things are always just a bit off. It’s that one off tone key that rings true, that lends hope to the hopeless, that binds us, that fuses the cord of hearts, that writes the chords of loss and longing, that propels us together and then impossibly apart into our own inner worlds. More complete than when we first looked, less sure than when we ventured out to test it. All the more curious, if we dare, and, at once, prying at our heads to pull the truths out.

It is all so unspeakable, this language we utter in ordinary life. Our language isn’t for truly communicating, it’s for relaying information, basic, static, this is broken, this needs fixing, this needs calculating, my hair needs cutting, please put the seat down, turn off the lights, pay the dentist, vaccinate the cat information. It’s within the elusive dream, in the prison-like constructs and confines of our minds, that we are the most free. 

Don’t talk. There’s nothing you can say that will be enough. Just feel it here, feel the beating sensation, let it drive you, move you, inspire you. And spend the rest of your life trying, clawing, digging, screaming unheard screams, to share who you are, the you you think you know, the you you’ve made up for everyone to look at and hear, smell, taste, and touch, that earthly you who is now and has always been holed up in the prison of your heartbeating head.

 Just try to let them know. Because they’ll never know. Because not even you know. This is the challenge. This is the sadness. And the everything art.

Commitment: Leave my squirrel alone

I said before that honesty was such an ugly word. Or, wait, Billy Joel did. Whatever, I agreed. Except I don’t. Honesty is necessary. But it’s also hard to take at times.

Still we all pretty much accept and need honesty in our lives. Billy knows it, too: everyone is so untrue. But fine, as ugly as it is, we accept this honesty business.

I found an uglier word, though: commit.

This word sends chills up and down my boyfriend’s spine. Tingling sensations of the that-hurts-please-stop variety. And, invariably, academy-award-winning, cringe-worthy facial contortions result as well.

Commit?

Who me?

Good question.

After all, what does one commit or commit to most often? Here’s a partial list:

Commit a crime (go to jail).

Commit treason (piss off the government, are you serious?)

Commit to the lord (you pedophile you).

Be committed to an asylum (your family wants your money).

Commit suicide (stupid idea, the drama is short-lived and there’s no coming back).

Commit to quit (don’t be a quitter).

Commit MySQL (leave my squirrel alone!)

Commitment to another person means what exactly?

It sounds like a downright criminal act. A surrendering of will. A weakening of spirit. A deadening of soul. A senseless offense against one’s own autonomy.

Freedom is something we fight for, passionately. And freedom, increasingly, is the one thing we have left. So why then, why oh why, would we ever want to let that go?

If you can commit yourself to nothing else, commit yourself to understanding freedom.

Commit. Such an ugly word. So why is it such a beautiful thing?

how she learned to love football: a very short story*

Katie was pretty sure they'd only had sex twice that month. Or was it only once?

She marked the calendar with big black Xs every time they did it. Wait, now that she thought about it: Maybe it was only once that month. It was this strange, oddly predictable pattern where, pretty much, every 11 days he’d give in. And her birth control cost $34 a month so when she knew they were going to do it, she’d say, “Baby, make this one good. It’s worth $11.33.”

They’d known each other, oh three, four years by then. But she had no idea what they were doing together. Because it certainly wasn’t the passion keeping them glued. To this day, however, she has him to thank for getting her into sports, though. Katie became a football fan because of him.

Bill would spend every weekend—Saturday for the college games, Sunday for the pro games—immersed in the TV. It was all about him, his microbrews, his weed, his remote control.

And Katie would try anything she could think of to get his attention. And that meant, just like a terrible joke or cliché or Peg from Married with Children, dressing up in slutty little outfits and pushing her super duper, push-up bra boobs in his face or just standing there, blocking his precious TV, pride gone, bare ass naked and damn near begging:

Come on, Bill, can’t you peel your eyes away even for just a second?
Please?

It’ll take ten minutes. 
Tops.

Nope. Not Bill. 

He’d say, without even a hint of a smile, “Katie, come on, you’re being ridiculous.”

It was like a really disappointing beer commercial featuring Robot Bill the Anti-Sex Stodge sitting there in a haze of wasted potheadedness. Cue computer generated voice: Hot chick in way of game. Move hot chick out of way. Drink beer. Continue viewing game.

Meanwhile, Katie was thinking: how about we get creative like they do in a cheesey sitcom or a bad porno and do stuff while the game is still on? She was willing to compromise. Let him have his football. Let her have some fun. Really. She was willing to make a deal.

Ridiculous? To him, she was.

To her, she was just a girl looking for what a lot of women, so she heard, turned down on a regular basis in the context of marriage. (Katie's note to self: never take this for granted. Idiots!). And what were all these rumors flying around that men were constant sexed-up freaks and women were orgasm fakers?  

There she was begging for it, not understanding why. She knew that was messed up, everyone told her it was, but then she started wondering if maybe she was undesirable. But that was ridiculous and she knew it. All the men she'd ever known couldn't keep their eyes, hands or other parts off her. This Bill was the weird one. Why she hung on, she didn't have a clue. It could've been all that money he had. 


But she knew it was only a matter of time. A ticking clock, time bomb. She wasn't going to stick around for this. Even though he was worth millions. Like tens of them. Jewelry, expensive clothes, vacations made life comfortable and pretty. But Katie wanted to get down. In sexy outfits. Even while he sipped his stupid beer and watched his stupid game. It was any "normal" guy's dream. Wasn't it?

But instead of getting angry, she’d go to the kitchen and pour herself a stiff Jack & Coke, didn’t matter what time it was, and sit on the chair by herself, dangling her hooker shoes off the side, naked, maybe not naked, whatever, didn’t matter, he didn’t notice. And the more she sipped, the less she felt. 

The less she felt, the more she watched.

And so, what else was she gonna do but learn to love football? 

To be continued....

* this is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to characters living or dead is entirely coincidental. 

buzzwords, the buzzkill

I’ve been surrounded by intimidating smarts before. The kind of smarts that make you wonder if you’ll ever amount to a hill of beans in life. But as you get a little older, a lot of those seemingly “intimidating smarts” turned out to just be really good talkers. Good talkers who really know how to effortlessly toss out these little buzzwords and incomprehensible marketingspeak designed to make an intelligent, well-intentioned, hardworking (usually female) newbie feel like not only an outsider but maybe, horrors, a real dummy.

Things often said by coiffed, cologned and cufflink wearing men.

Things like:

“identify best practices”

“the low-hanging fruit”

“push the envelope”

“capture mindshare”

“are we polishing a turd here?”

“perhaps cast a wider net”

“dimensionalize that paradigm”

“tear down some silos”

“the scenery only changes for the lead dog”

Meanwhile, everyone’s nodding.
Taking notes.
Sipping their boardroom table burned coffees.
Saying equally hideous things like:

“I’ll circle back to you on that”

“Are we on the same page?”

“Noodle that”

“Let’s explore core competencies”

“Next steps”

I can’t think of any more at this very moment but "at the end of the day" I’m sure I will. Oh yeah, other stuff like “30,000 foot view” and “where the rubber meets the road” and a real sweetie: “the smell test.” Good times!

As an impressionable young copywriter back in 1999, the big term was (let’s all gag in unison): “We’re all about thinking outside the box here.” Yeah, we get it. Like coloring outside the lines. Big whoop. It makes for a stupid, lazy, dumb-kid-did-it sort of crayon gone mad mess. Later on you learn that no client wants anything that doesn’t come in a neat, tidy container. So stay in your box. You belong there. It’s where the money gets made.

Anyway, now I realize that clarity is best. It’s always been best. Clarity is where communication thrives. Is that clear? If you can still say what you want to say in a clever, interesting way, great. If not, stick to clarity. Otherwise you lose people. And nobody buys anything. And the client moves on to an agency that can deliver smart, CLEAR creative. And you’re out of that nice, cushy, outside-box job. Suddenly making a staggering $275 a week off the good ole Florida government wondering how in hell you’re gonna pay for that Lexus.

I digress. Sorry, did I just get personal?

All I can say is that the box is cozy. Stay in it. Be smart.

In the meantime, get clear. Please.

I read on NPR this week a great reminder about simplicity and impact, the “Six Word Memoir” made truly famous by Ernest Hemingway years ago.

Hemingway’s goes:

“For Sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.”

If the hair isn’t standing up on the back of your neck people, stop reading now. You’re not my friend.

Anyway, the point is: you can say a lot with very little. And you can be very clear, too.

What if, on the other hand Hemingway wrote:

“SIDS. Sad. Shoes Straight to Goodwill.”

Just doesn’t have that one-two-punch does it? (There I go again. I’m telling you, this marketingspeak is a tough habit to break).

So can you please do me a favor, and yourselves an even bigger favor, and let’s all try a little less marketingspeak?
(No matter how smart you think it makes you look). To me, and to a lot of my friends (who shall remain nameless, for now), it actually makes you look like a wannabe jackass who is, yes, very much so…polishing a big, stinky, steaming turd. And no, you can’t make ice cream out of horseshit. (another gem I’d forgotten about).

If you’re not sure if a product is going to work or sell or what, don’t give it a “smell test.” Gross.

In that next meeting, and this is pretty revolutionary stuff, I know….why not astound your peers and say, simply:

“Let’s see if this works!”

Now that’s some intimidating smarts.

Peace out yo. That’s all I gotta say. Carry on friends.

the beast of beauty

Beautiful women go through life as if it were a maze. They get trapped, sort of, but there's always a way out, and no door is ever really closed. It just leads someplace else. The maze is erected by so many, many people who so desperately want to possess beauty that they try and confuse it, tame it and make it stay. But really, beauty and the woman possessing it, just wants to escape to a place where it will be cherished and understood.

But nobody can understand beauty. And even those who claim to cherish it only want to possess it. Still others want to kill it off, cover it up, take it away, make it theirs.




There are women more beautiful than I, of course. But I have been fortunate to live my life with many open doors that I know I've walked through not because of my brains or my wit or connections but because of my face, my legs, my breasts, whatever a someone or someones deemed appealing at that moment. There have also been, at times, perplexing mazes with people waiting just outside them, hoping I've surrendered somehow, that I'd be putty in their clever hands. But I haven't. I've walked through those doors, found the one way out of their bewildering construction. All in all, yes, I've probably had it better than most but I've also been lied to, manipulated, loved for the wrong reasons, put on ridiculous pedestals, told to change, and made to feel less than.

But, most of all, still: I've had it pretty damn good, I'd say. I mean, a big smile or a flirty gesture and a lot's gotten done. Tables have turned in my favor from that crap.

As I've gotten older and deeper into my 30s and longed for the respect that can only come from accomplishment, intelligence and sophistication, I've learned to relinquish my hold on the fail-proof methods that once turned heads in my 20s. But, the funny thing is, now that I'm here, I've noticed that girls in their 20s are inappropriately vying for the same positions at work as I am. Or, well, they want to be right there near me, riding my coattails, sniffing me too closely. And I'm thinking: no way in hell. I've earned this position through my hard work and my talent.












And the worst thing I've noticed? These girls don't give a lick about hard work. Or talent. They're just busy doing the hair flick and giggle. The low top. The short skirt. The tarty 5-inch heels. Yeah, they're employing those methods. As pathetic, kind of trashy and obvious as they are. And you know what? It doesn't matter. It works anyway. Some people (not all, but definitely more than I'd like) are just gone in the face of all that beauty because they just want it around. They want to scoop it out and lick it like a big, pretty ice cream cone. Who cares if Miss Batty Eyelash isn't that talented or even qualified for the job? That ass alone can be enough.

Through this soul-numbing realization, I now know that I am beginning to be lost. Not that my beauty or youth is gone. (Well, I hope not just yet anyway. I'm pretty sure I have a few hair flicks and winks left in me). But my approach to getting what I want has changed. It no longer relies so heavily on my black eyelashes and just-low-enough blouse. Oh no. I've abandoned that. For respect!

Respect goddamnit!

Ha. Yeah right. What the hell was Aretha Franklin yammering on about anyway? Just a little bit? A little bit of respect? Can I get some please?

As I inch (creep?) towards the higher numbers on the slippery slope of the 30s, I'm reminded of a conversation I had just the other day with someone very dear to me. We were talking about fading youth, fading beauty and what it means for a woman of a certain age to still be, of course, attractive, but to no longer embody that alluring Bambi-like vixen who, with a wink or a flick of her thick, shiny hair, could have pretty much any man in the room.

What did all that mean when we were young? And how does it feel to let that go?

What I think is this: there are different kinds of beauty. I told this very thing to a friend years ago when I was living in Los Angeles: there is no one kind of beautiful. There are many. We were at Swingers on Beverly having some of their really great french fries and some chicken noodle soup, likely nursing a heavy-duty black russian, no cream please, hangover, and for some reason we were discussing the wide variety of bodies of strippers. Tall, willowy, small-breasted. Petite and curvy. Voluptuous, large-breasted and child-bearing hips. All of them so different yet all of them so beautiful in their own ways.

As I see it now, as women grow older, particularly beautiful women who've been so accustomed to doors flying open, or mazes erected for their entrapment their entire lives, they realize alarmingly suddenly that those same doors quietly close and nobody longs to trap or confuse them anymore. But, the thing is, they are still beautiful. They are still so, so beautiful.

Perhaps it is an equalizer in a way. It has a sad way of knocking them off their status and into a more "real" place. A place where they have to be, well, just a good person. And for all those unaware goddesses floating around out there with so many doing their bidding, and so much made easy for them, well, they have another thing coming. It's just that it's so hard to think that will ever happen while they are so breathtaking, while the world stops for them, bows to them, and paves the way for them, often a path of fragrant flowers. And outlined by a wall of shoes, diamonds and expensive vacations. But one wretched morning, bleary-eyed and wrinkly, over a cup of average joe, it will come in the form of a rude, blaring, wake-up call that the world ceases to adore them anymore. And then they will begin to wonder, after all, if they were worth anything at all? And if they weren't, if all they were was beauty, well, they had better get around to making something worthy of their lives.

How can that, in the end, be such a bad lesson? I mean, hey, at least they got all those doors opened, and mazes erected that let them know they were wanted and special.

And shit, that wake-up call: it's also just hard to accept that nobody needs them for procreation anymore. Yeah, it's biology in part, too.

As for the weaker sex, sorry guys but it's you (come on, you know it's true, you live 7 years less than we do and you need us around in order to live longer, read the studies), you still like to have those sweet, young (and clueless) things around to remind you that you were once pretty beautiful, too.

Let's face it: it's bullshit that men get "distinguished" while women get haggy. Come ON. All I seem to see are jowly old farts trying to reclaim their youth, too. In SL 500s. In trophy wives. In cigars. Oh, and let's not forget the truckloads of Viagra and Cialis letting them know they can keep up like the stallions they once were.

It's everywhere. This getting old thing. And it is what it is.

It's a mad world.

I'm just glad we have such excellent plastic surgery available to us all.

Because no way in hell would I want to go back to being 23. I was a full-on idiot. Yeah, my hair was thicker and I didn't have to diet. But shit, I was a moron.

Ha!

Signing off....in all non-serious, oh but serious, contemplation as I head to the mall.

The MAWL. Say it just like that: THE MAWL.

I want an iPhone. Stet! (anyone listening? No, I don't want to wait forever for them to pass it off to T-Mobile or Verizon. I want it now).

And some new lingerie. La Perla damnit, not that trashy Victoria's Secret crap. I can't even find my way around in there. And those sales girls: lame! No, thank you, I do NOT need a bra fitting. I think they just want to feel me up. Ick!

At least my Christmas tree is decorated extra pretty this year.
I have my sense of humor and I'm not letting anyone take it from me.
Oh, and let's not forget: I have a pile of cat barf on my new rug waiting for me when I get home.

Life's alright.

Peace!!!!!

Love y'all! (Paula Deen makes the best fudge pie. Yep, fudge PIE).


;)

City of brotherly...liberty bell?

Life, liberty and...you?

What happened to "the pursuit of happiness"? Why is that not a part of all this?

Is this all Philadelphia has to offer? That stupid cracked bell? After all these years?

I am from this old city. I was born in the tiny western town of Chambersburg but my whole family is from this city. Born and raised. It's a good city, oft-underappreciated, with great culture, a laid back, and sometimes edgy, style that's warm and welcoming as well as surprisingly cool and mysterious. I love Philadelphia. Love the place. There is a lot to love about it. You can find anything you need, more than you might expect, and, of course, things you don't ever want to find, either.

Like any great city, it's always about ever-present Descartian dualities, and a dose of Spinozan determinism that makes being there so electrifying. Maybe that's just me and my sophomoric (literally) outlook on things, pontificating here for my own amusement. I thought I might once be a Philosophy major in college because I found myself sitting in class listening to one of many lectures on these great thinkers and meanwhile my mind had escaped the confines of that little, flourescent-lit room to float out of myself in a way I'd never known in my life and to explore nature, the universe and the notion of god. And it is probably there, in that small midwestern town of Lake Forest, Illinois that my taught beliefs and all that newfound exposure to an entirely new realm of possibility led me to question every fucking thing I would ever see, feel or hear ever again.

Everywhere I've lived since that time has been put to this existential test. And I can tell you, my friends, that Philadelphia passes with flying colors. Old places have housed old souls, many of them, and those energies are still there, in all their sickness and health, in all their doing and non-doing. And when you're there, if you listen, if you look, if you touch, you will hear, see, and feel just about everything. Great places possess this. And those dualities of good and bad are held together. And fate is a key player. Like you were just meant to be there for some reason.

Ah, Philadelphia.

Unfortunately, I have been attacked for the unsportsmanlike conduct of voracious Eagles fans (batteries embedded in snowballs and thrown is not something I condone) and my animal lover reputation has been called into question for defending Andy Reid's decision about Michael Vick. Tony Dungy says he's ok. I like Tony Dungy even if he is a god-fearing man. Tony Dungy says he's ok, alright by me.

Remember, before you pass judgement: Second chances are one of the best things about being a human being.

Philadelphia. This is a good place (and even a great place, really) so let's get back to the subject at hand:

It is a place definitely deserving of a better logo. That'd be a nice start anyway.

I was listening to NPR last night and the genuis that is Tom Ford, fashion designer and now film director, was explaining, very eloquently, about how everything in our globalized world has become "branded" to the point of insanity. And the point of non-impact. We're all just a bunch of copycats, following each other's trends and fads around the world.

In this case, however, oh thee rare and unbranded Philadelphia, you are in so much need (you always have been, it seems, stuck between New York and DC) of an identity that does you justice. An identity that tells all your stories in one quick glance. One quick glance that makes people want to pack their bags and book a ticket to meet you.

Now that would be something to see. Hear. Feel.

holiday chubbage

Got on the scale at a neighbor's Christmas party last night. 138.6.

One hundred and thirty-eight point six.

Pounds.

Granted my clothes were on, and shoes, and I'd already eaten something with Velveeta in it. But still. No bueno. :(

Sad face on.

I know there are more important things to worry about in life.

But the holidays. So chubbage-inducing!

Please pass the spinach and artichoke dip.

No, not that one.

The one with the water chestnuts in it.

Oh and some of that, whatever it is, cheese pizza sauce and cracker thingys.

Yeah, those.

Thanks.

Sure, why not, another glass of Montoya red wine something or other.

Sure.

Oh, and some of those mere-nothing, wafer-thin cupcake things.

The ones with the happy little sprinkles, like colorful icicles in white frosting.

A veritable snowstorm of calories in my mouth.

Mmm....mmm....good.

Ah, holidays.

So tasty.

So fun!

So chubbage-inducing!!!

Idiots in the Woods

It's none of my business so why do I care?

Two Sundays ago at our local watering hole---before all this non-stop daily trash-talk--- a friend of ours who isn't one for gossip but was merely relating the incident to us about Tiger Woods' car "crash" told us he heard from a reliable source that Tiger had been "doing the Red Bull rep for years." Yes, doing.

Many people don't know this but Orlando is a small town. Sure, there's sprawl and lots of it but just like New York City, people stick to their neighborhoods. And the same types of people patronize the same places. Over and over again. We are all, most of us for the most part, creatures of habit. Like Sam and Diane and the rest of the crew on Cheers, we like a place where "everybody knows [our] name." It's comfortable. It's easy. And, as it happens, we all kind of know each other. At least within a few degrees of separation. And that's especially so here in Orlando.

So anyway, about Tiger. I didn't really care. I figured it was nobody's business. It sounded to me like his wife was chasing him around and bashing his car with golf clubs. Passion'll do that to you. Not that I'm speaking from experience. OK, fine, maybe I am. If you love someone deeply and totally and they betray you, you might just lose it a bit. Or maybe even a lot. And if the damage is a busted car window, that's not the worst thing in the world. Go Elin. Fight for your man. Let him know that you won't put up with this shit.

Anyway, so when the news very officially broke and this Rachel Uchitel broad was suddenly forced into the spotlight, I studied her, too. Such a classic illustration of too much plastic surgery at too early an age. The telltale "bass lips" channeling Lisa Rinna (yikes, so scary, all puffed up like that) and, of course, the pulled cheeks and eyes. I mean, the girl's only 34. Ease into your age, don't scare it off with scalpels. Because you end up looking like everybody else who's done the same thing. A tribe of the Pulled Tight & Mighty. Not very hot. Her body, however, was smoking hot and, beyond all that plastic surgery, well, I could see what a typical guy would see. And, even more so, I used my active imagination and I imagined Tiger, oh-so-famous and oh-so-rich and maybe a teeny bit lonely and feeling a little randy out there in Vegas and ok, fine, he cheats with this sassy, plastic chick. Who's business is that but his and his family's? It's certainly not mine. And, by the way, at least the Uchitel woman is keeping her mouth shut and denying the whole thing. Who cares how much they're paying her and the reasons. Keep your mouth shut. I respect that.

And so, on the drive to work the following day, the radio chitchats endlessly about Tiger, Elin (who knew her name was pronounced "Eel-in," I always thought it was a stupid spelling of "Ellen"), his broken window, the embarrassment, yadda yadda yadda. And I start to actually feel kind of sorry for the guy. Sorry for him, his wife, their kids and anyone else close to them. And I really start to wish the media would just shut up about it. As one guy so astutely said on 104.1 The Monsters, "he's a great golfer, that's it. Why do people think he's a god or good at everything? He's just a great golfer. Period."

True that. It's just that we're so enamoured with celebrity and wealth in this culture that we expect the rich and the famous to be the ubermensch. We expect them to be better somehow, to be something we strive to be, that we'll perhaps model ourselves after or tell our children to be "more like."

And then the names of more of these women come spewing out like so much smelly garbage. And all seemingly cut from the same mold. Plasticky, cheap and with great bodies. But pretty forgettable overall. Clingy, climbing, slutty, and now throwing their trashy stories out there to get money and hurt people. I'm disgusted. Jamie Grubbs, you're a lil pig. Oink oink. And the Perkins waitress. If there was a "Come on Man" for this Tiger Woods spectacle, it'd be all these woman, and especially that one. The parking lot? And, excuse me while I laugh and throw up in my mouth a little, but she "fell in love with him" and yet he "was selfish and heartless"? How dumb are these women? Smart women learn in high school or college that men, all of them given a chance, will screw you if you let them. It's how things are wired. It's biology, baby. Sex ain't got nothin' to do with love.

So now this whole slutty debacle has become a statement of our age. The times we're living in. Plastic tramps. And the rich and famous. And everybody looking to cash in. It's foul and appalling. I do think Tiger has to get his shit together, if he can at all. But maybe he's destined to be just another rich "whale" with a big sex drive, fucking plastic whores until he dies just like Wilt Chamberlain. I met Wilt Chamberlain once. He was sweaty and old and he hit on me. He died not long after that. But I remember that disdain in his face as much as his desire, that I was just one more. I was just another possible body he could fill, and he was just like an addict seeking a fix.

Tiger = Wilt someday? Yuck. That's just gross.

I hope that Elin packs the kids and goes someplace for a good, long while.

You're right, it's none of my business. None at all. I wish this had never been broadcast to these masses. There are entirely too many people making too much money off this thing. And too many people humiliating themselves (plastic girls, you make us all look bad and stupid. So stupid).

You fuck a guy who's insanely rich, married to a beautiful woman, with two beautiful kids and expect him to what? Love you?

It's so much more than embarrassing.

It's sad.

just some thoughts i'm not keeping to myself

Keep your opinions to yourself. That is, if I don't agree with them.
If I do agree with them, well then, by all means, please share.

This is what Scott told me I do. That my so-called open-mindedness is, actually, its own form of narrow-mindedness. Of course, I don't agree.

I was raised in the cold North by, let's call them "conservatively liberal" people. As I recall in the late 80s as a teenager carving out her own pale, yet distinct, identity, as a family: We weren't big on religion. We were big on Reagan. We weren't big on homosexuality.

Flash forward twenty years and what are we now? As a family: Still not big on religion (keep that to yourself, please). Former Republicans, we're still not into big government (again, religion, please, to yourself) but we are big on rights. We are very big on homosexuality.

Interesting. It's what touches us so personally that ultimately defines us.

So while we had some Wild Wacky Wit and some Savannah Fest Bier at the Moon River Brewery in Savannah, GA this past weekend while watching Gators fans (there is no escape) passionately watching their god in blue and orange, Tim Tebow, who just surpassed Herschel Walker in rushing touchdowns this fall, we talked about these things. I hate Tim Tebow. OK, scratch that. I don't hate the guy. I don't even know him. But I find the fact that he promotes Biblical passages in his eye black just obnoxious as all hell.

Why Jess? How is that any different from you sporting an Obama/Biden sticker on the back of your car during last year's election?

Why am I offended by religion in my face---and evangelical crap on Tebow's face? I don't know, exactly. I just am. I find it as annoying as people who talk about blow jobs like they just had coffee, not respecting their sexuality as private in certain company. I find it as rude as the Prius-driving Northerners who, at times, shove their political beliefs in places they just don't belong. Like the workplace. Come on. Your boss is probably a Republican. All of mine have been. Every single one. From the Clinton era to now. If I agree with you, my job's at stake. If I don't, you wonder about me. Either way, I lose.

Leave well enough alone, I say.

But what of trying to change things? What of making an influence? What about that?

Good question.

How can I have just interacted cordially with people who had no problem---none whatsover---in declaring their blatant racial superiority? How can they assume I feel the same as they do? How can they be so FREE to say those things in front of me? Because I'm a white girl who has clearly had decent opportunities in this life?

Sometimes free speech is a little too free for me. The "self edit" button is missing on some people. Like Tim Tebow's eye black. And the reverse snobbery of the middle class (I'm better than you because I worked harder and came from less). I'm so confused. I just want to be free enough to be left alone. To not have to watch a football game and think about Jerry Falwell.

Sex. Politics. Religion.

Let's talk about something else.

Oh yeah, race. And education being the great equalizer. Sure, if you can get there. But what if you can't? What if you're stuck in the poverty cycle, you don't know anything else, and you don't know how to get out and even if you do get out, nobody wants you to. What then? Do the people with more opportunity get to look down on you?

Let's take a look at the ridiculously talented street performers we watched this past weekend.

There were four of them, three black, one white.

All the black guys clearly had:
Fast twitch muscle fibers.
An innate sense of rhythm.
Ownership of their manliness even though they danced.

The one white guy in the group (we called him "The Spider" because he was just so damn lanky and skinny) and while he had the courage to get out there and even demonstrate some impressive skill, to be sure, he was never going to be one of them.

White men can dance. But not like black men can. And why is it that a black man dancing is sexy and manly and a white one dancing is show-tuney and gay?

Shrugging my shoulders and just thinking my thoughts over here. Just asking. Looking for answers. Just chattering into the internets. The tubes. Asking for your thoughts back. Asking see? Not avoiding your in-our-faceness. Let's chat. Don't dictate. Not to me, please.

It's good to question things, mostly. Isn't it? That's how I see it. Keep asking. Keep observing. Keep questioning. I don't know what else to do. It's not that I'm afraid to stand for something (I know I won't "fall for anything"), it's just that I'm afraid of those who do that. I'm thinking maybe they just haven't thought it through enough.

How can you be so sure? Tim Tebow, are you sure? There's a god? Really? How do you know? Or are you just some guy who's a good athlete? That's a lot of biology right there. Or did God do it? Hmm. Maybe we should consult the breed-happy Duggars.

Are you there God? It's me, Jess.

I still like my Buddha, my gargoyles, my dirt.

But what do I know?

At least I know I don't know.