no one nose

this is what the new nose looks like.

as far as I can tell, it looks e-ZACKLY like the old one.

but really, who's to say? it's a pretty good nose, as far as I can judge. you know, straight. even tone and coloring. small pores. no stray hairs or extra bits of stuff.


it got me thinking about my own. I could probably use an upgrade. I've had this one for, like, forever. and I think it might be on its last legs. better dump it now before it craps out on me at some point when I really need it.

dried up

it really just feels like there's nothing left to say. or rather, that there's nothing left in me worth saying. or maybe I'm just full up on things that aren't sayable?

what is this?



as my mind aimlessly ambles through time and space, I can sometimes feel a few brittle marbles clacking against each other:

are kate perry and zooey deschanel the same person?
does amy winehouse wear that beehive switch even when she's alone?
how can a gang of chumpsters like coldplay keep producing such great music?
is john mccain's cheek looking more swollen than before?
when did eating at the olive garden become the new "I shop at target" for celebrities?

obstacles

in the way of my living my life like a normal person:

* need to get glasses
* need to get prescription to get glasses
* need to see optometrist to get prescription for glasses
* need to reserve car on phillycarshare to get to
* optometrist to get prescription for glasses
* need to pick up phillycarshare membership card
* to reserve car to drive down to optometrist to
* get prescription for glasses
* need to get someone to drive me back from
* optometrist (after they dilate my eyes) with
* prescription for glasses
* need to coordinate schedules with this someone
* who maybe could drive me back from the optometrist
* who I need to see for the followup visit so they will
* release my prescription to me so I can finally get
* glasses and new contacts so I can see

why is everything so difficult? don't even get me started on the rest of my To-Do list:

* Spring Cleaning
* Stop Being Depressed
* Finish Dissertation and Get Out of Grad School
* and Move Somewhere with a Proper Spring
* and Fall and Close to the Ocean and Get a House
* So I Can Stop Living On A College Campus and
* Actually Live a REAL LIFE

that last one, especially. that one's a doozy.

coulda been me

last week, I read about nicholas white, who was trapped in an elevator for 41 hours. FORTY ONE HOURS! and the entire thing was caught on the security camera video, a particularly fine condensed version set to music by the New Yorker:



there are two really salient points in his story for me. the first is that no one even realized he was trapped in the elevators the whole time. not the 8 security guards who ostensibly sat in front of the video monitors watching him pacing around and waving at the security camera mounted in Car 4 for nearly two straight days, not the attendants in the lobby where the elevator never returned, not the servicemen who took care of multiple repairs in the other elevators, not even his colleague, who instead taped a snide note onto his computer screen so everyone could see that he'd left her in the lurch.

the other point is more mundane, and yet closer-hitting. this idea that we live in a world over which our ability to control is just an illusion--one which we must create ourselves to trick ourselves, metaphorically illustrated by the door-close button in the elevator. a button whose main purpose is to "make you think it works", providing an outlet for the primal fear of losing control of one's surroundings once you step into that steel and concrete box dangling over thousands of feet of yawning nothing. most of us, step into one of these every day. putting our lives and fate into a mechanism of which we understand relatively little, if anything. and yet, we do it, cajoling ourselves into believing that we, not the elevator, are the ones in control. how many times have you watched someone, or yourself, step in and automatically reach for the door-close button. and of course, that the doors eventually do close, which only serves as evidence for our need to believe in the purpose and authority of that button. as nick paumgarten writes, "Elevator design is rooted in deception—to disguise not only the bare fact of the box hanging by ropes but also the tethering of tenants to a system over which they have no command." isn't it the same with the world we design around ourselves?

just saying.

all things considered...

..it really oughtn't feel so bad. but it does. and how do I account for that?

it's like a trip I took. it's night and I'm driving on an unfamiliar highway. but there are sodium vapor lights overhead, and I'm making okay time. and then for some reason or reasons--which seem vague and unclear to me now--I decided to take an offramp exit onto a side road. and, without really thinking too carefully about it, I toodled down that road until I realized it wasn't fully paved. I seemed to be alone and there weren't any lights. and the surrounding trees were growing in closer and denser.
the thing is, I'm not one to really turn around and go back. so I keep pushing forward. and soon, I'm inching along, completely surrounded by branches that are scratching at me, in absolute darkness. I don't even know that there's a road beneath me. now, it feels like I can't move forward or back. I can't even get the door open to assess the situation from another perspective. I'm stuck behind the wheel, staring forward at what seems like impenetrable darkness.

does this sound familiar to you? I hope it doesn't, for your sake. but for mine, I hope it does. just so I know that I'll make it out of here okay, in the end.

Girly

I’ve always been proud of being able to man up with the best of the boys. On the playground, I ran with the boys. In the classroom, I chose the toolset over the kitchen kit and took Drafting over Home Ec. I even chose a degree program in which I sit and do math with the boys. But for all that, I am strictly a female female. I like pink and things that sparkle. I like dresses with flounces and shoes with heels and boys that notice both. Like Nancy Kwan sings, I enjoy being a girl.

That is, most of the time.

It’s just that every once in a while, the universe reminds you that you’re not a boy, but in fact a girl. And just a girl. It’s disheartening to have to open your eyes and be forced to recognize the gender-based inequalities that still define much of the world: economic, political, and sexual. Or rather, have to explicitly acknowledge that for all the pandering about in the academic or intellectual sphere, when things are boiled down to the basest of experiential differences, there is a clear and definitive line. A line that separates men and women.

Some not-so-small part of me wants to scream out, “it’s not FAIR!” and kick and scream and hit.

So you, you sitting there with your smug Y chromosome: yes, you are complicit in this. You can walk through the world talking about equality and fairness, and make your assumptions and jokes. And I will smile and laugh, but don’t you ever forget that in the end, it is unfair, and it is unfair in your favor. And you owe me.

I’m a girl, and by me that’s only great! I am proud that my silhouette is curvy
That I walk with a sweet and girlish gait; With my hips kind of swivelly and swervy
When I have a brand new hairdo, With my eyelashes all in curl
I float as the clouds on air do, I enjoy being a girl!

Roonil Wazlib

Ryan and the Deacs used to mock me daily because of my phone, which was a standard motorola clamshell. Nothing fancy--no mp3 playing capability, no cameraphone, not even a color display. But what it did was get the job done. Phone calls? Sent and received. Text messages? See previous answer. And that was it.

Still, I was bullied into upgrading it for the krzr, which besides being the lamest name for a phone, actually is the lamest phone. First of all, the shiny mirror finish constantly collects dust and fingerprints and so to keep it from looking greasy, I am constantly polishing it. Which of course results in a smearjob that looks nothing like the pristine white and silver high gloss it arrived in. But all this is even before I open up the phone to use it.

The menu navigation is so dense and unwieldy, nothing is worth doing. The simplest way to send a text message, for example, I've got to do the following:
12345 1 Select Message
12345 2 Select New Message
12345 3 Select TXT Msg
12345 4 Select Add
12345 5 Select Contacts
12345 6 Click the Contacts I want to send to
12345 7 Select Done
12345 8 Select OK

And that is just to get to the screen so I can begin to type a message.

Most of the options are layered under so many submenus, I don't even bother. Supposedly, it can do all these cute and exciting things. But who cares if you have to spend 3 minutes clicking through menus that don't make sense? No ringtone is worth that. And speaking of ringtones. With music-on-demand capabilities built in to a phone that is advertised as the latest technology in personal music and entertainment, why are all the ringtones callbacks to the mechanical trills of the earliest cell phones? My old brickblock nokia had better integrated sound playback. It also had better games loaded, which is not difficult to do, since the krzr only comes with two "trial versions" that let you play for about 20 seconds before demanding a $9.99 subscription to continue.

And finally. On the website, it actually says that the krzr has a talk time of 225-250 min and 400-435 standby HOURS. I want to point out that I began charging my phone last night at 10pm, and unplugged it this morning at 9. It is now 10:26, I've received 2 text messages and sent 2. I've received one phone call which lasted 1 minute and 14 seconds. My phone is down to 2 bars on its battery. I will guarantee you that by 2p, it will be beeping low battery. And that is if no one tries to get in touch with me.

I'm not so emotionally fragile that this is enough to break me. But yesterday, my new(ish) Dell--my fourth one in 7 years--crashed twice, losing everything I'd been working on for two hours (including my blogpost on Maundy Thursday, which I will have to backpost later), and then told me that there was "No Hard Drive Detected" and advised me to call Dell. As if. For those of you who know what happened to me a couple of months ago when the same thing happened and the Dell person I called walked me through wiping my entire hard drive and THEN asked me if I had backed everything up, you know you can't fool me twice.

But as I sat there, on my bed last night, listening to the alternate beepings of my computer and phone, unable to even call anyone because my battery doesn't last long enough and the AC cord doesn't reach, I took a look around my place: I have a plunger in the lav in case any of the various drains plugs itself up for no reason, as they are wont to do, and fairly often. I don't have a proper bed because it is often used as a couch, and I don't have a proper couch because it is also my bed. My television set is cracked down the middle and has the shakes, and though I don't use it often, I sometimes wish I could see the picture properly. I don't have health insurance, so I ended up getting generic versions of less expensive alternates. Most of my shoes are worn down at the heel, my coats have tears in them, my roots are come in, and I'm feeling like I've taken a veer into Poopsville, Pop. 1.


I feel like Ronald Weasley. Why is everything I own such rubbish?

thirtysomething

“A little too thirtysomething, eh?” he sets out when he realizes the nature of my discomfort. A little, yeah.

We’re driving back from dinner at Alison and Phil’s. Driving back from the suburbs. In a 4-door stationwagon. Chatting about gas prices and chicken recipes.

I swallow back the rising panic and try to ease my stubby fingernails up from digging crescents into my palms. “A little. Yeah.”

I’m hard-pressed to come up with the whys. Sitting here in the sunlight of a Monday morning, there are no dim monsters rising up out of the shadows leaking out from under my bed and closet. At least none that I can see or describe to you. It definitely wasn’t anything in the course of the dinner visit.

In fact, dinner was fantastic. More than fantastic. We talked about that chicken that Alison made for a couple days afterwards, it was so good. Perfectly tender and lemony. And strawberry-filled cupcakes! From scratch! And their place is enviably everything you’d want from a converted theatre--all arched entryways and muted earthtones and dark wood and good music. Everything I’d want and expect from Alison. And of course I just love Alison, and so by association, Phil.

What it was maybe I can’t fully explain in words. Self-asphyxiation of something I can’t even give voice to, just by acknowledging the fear hovering over everything I say and do. I want my life to have meaning and yet run from the possible gravity of the decisions I could be making. And yet, what gravity? What decisions? None and none, by my own definition and disinclination. So why is it that a simple dinner with friends fills me with an overwhelming sense of panic?

It’s just that I’m sitting there, in the car, and the air becomes thinner, everything starts to press in and I slowly begin to melt into the seat. Yes. A little too thirtysomething, indeed.

Alison's strawberry cupcakes, which were delicious:

here on the street where I live

To be fair, Def Leppard had the idea too, "Action, Not words (gimme action, action, action not words)!" But Eliza understood it best, what none of the men had even begun to grasp, and she said it most eloquently to Freddie Eynsford-Hill, as he came after her on the street:


Words, words, words, I'm so sick of words
I get words all day through, first from him, now from you
Is that all you blighters can do?

Don't talk of stars burning above
If you're in love—show me.
Tell me no dreams, filled with desire
If you're on fire—show me.

Here we are together in the middle of the night
Don't talk of Spring, just hold me tight.
Anyone who's ever been in love will tell you that
This isn't any time for a chat!

Haven't your lips longed for my touch?
Don't say how much—show me, show me.
Don't talk of love, lasting through time,
Make me no undying vow—show me now!

Sing me no songs, read me no rhyme,
Don't waste your time—show me.
Don't talk June, don't talk of Fall;
Don't talk at all—show me.

Never do I ever want to hear another word
There isn't one I haven't heard.

To my brother Ralf, on his birthday

Ralf,

I want to take a moment and tell you how inexplicably gratifying it is to see you having not only survived, but really carved a place of your own in this world.

I remember the very first day moms brought you home from the baby store. I was excited because they told me they were bringing home a baby, and both my fish, sunny and goldie had died the week before as a tragic result of their strict training regimen. I assumed (correctly, as it turns out) that a baby would be much more hardy and able to withstand a rigorous training schedule as we mastered a variety of showtricks to unveil before the unsuspecting world.

I’m sorry for all the biting. In those first several months, I was still honing my ability to show you how much I loved you, and the only way I could think of properly expressing it was with a good chomp to the most available expanse of pink. Aren’t you glad, then, that I was able to whet my proficiencies at emotional and psychological torment? All the work that went into creating your very own twilight zone universe of alternate realities—elaborate practical jokes lasting weeks, months, culminating in a collapse of tears and the faked deaths of Ruff, Mr. Teddy Bear, Dorothy, Santa, you?


And now, here you are, all these years later, with nary a physical or psychological scar on you to show for all that love and attention.

Happy Birthday, and stop twitching.

Love,
Me

Insomniac

This morning I had to face the truth and actually accept a label to stick onto myself. I’m an insomniac. Maybe not forever, not always. But now, here, yesterday, today, and probably tomorrow.

Some nights I sleep a couple of hours. Here and there, barely hovering over the sandy grit of wakefulness, touching down every so often to remind myself of how tenuous this sleep is. Other nights, and most of them, it’s an endless stretch of awakeness. Blink upon blink, neverending, until the night outside lightens by the millisecond and I can pretend it’s a new day, a new start.

It’s not the staying awake but the trying to sleep that is so exhausting. I spend my nights willing it to happen, cajoling my mind to shut itself down, negotiating with the universe for that moment when consciousness blinks off. And yet, and yet.

I can handle the fatigue, the exhaustion. It’s the falling apart that drains me of my ability to keep it together. It’s as if I’m floating through zero-gravity, and without this ceaseless effort of concentration, the edges of me begin to blur and slowly drift apart. I’m pulling away from my core. Like a puzzle picture that’s not quite fitted together; the loose edges getting looser.

It’s just empty space but it feels full, and I’m walking around tight with the crowding of empty. Nothing. Void. Today I am a blank.

deus ex machina

it's like I'm the executive director of the hoover dam. it's pretty important, a lot at stake there. and someone points out to me that there's a fairly large crack up in the retaining wall. that it seems to be fine now, but there are faint tremors along the length of the wall, and they could be related. it's not certain, but highly coincidental that they'd be starting up now, if they weren't related.

so, I open up my plan book--after all, as the executive director of the dam, it's not like I haven't dealt with cracks before. and I flip open to Plan A: Ignore. sounds pretty good to me. I mean, I check out the window, and the dam looks pretty good from up here. sure, every once in a while, one of the engineers buzzes up, but they're always freaking out over something. so, Plan A it is.

well, as soon as Plan A goes into action, I get red lights from everywhere. major tremors in Sector C! cracks forming in Sector F! tremors and cracks in Sectors D, H, T and U! and all the while, that crack in the retaining wall is getting deeper and wider. I pull out the plan book, flip past Plan A to Plan B: Cement.

I read through the operation and it sounds both feasible and repairing. we'll be spreading a sealing cement over the entire span of the dam. covering the whole thing. it'll look completely different, but in the end, the foundations are still there, and it will be sealed with this high-gloss cement that will hold everything together. safe. sound.

I get to work. and it was hard work--it's been a while since this executive director's been down in the field, pulling on work gloves and spackling cement. but toodle-a-roo, worth it in the end. I mean, this is the hoover freaking dam.

this should've been the end of the story, right? except, of course not.

this cement that was used should've worked. except, apparently, under certain conditions (too numerous to detail here, but take my word for it), what the cement does is contract tighter and tighter. so what it's doing is actually weakening the foundation structure; I'm watching the dam crumble right there, under my feet. I can feel the tremors, hear the cracks. they're all around me as I sit in my office, desperately searching the plan book for a Plan C that doesn't exist.

I think I may be going down with this one.

heartbreak

my heart broke a little yesterday, as I watched john edwards take the podium and announce in new orleans that he would be suspending his campaign for presidency as of the results of the florida primaries

it was important to me, the thought of having a president who was also a fearless idealist, intellectually and emotionally. that he be a person who was able to stare the worst head on, without blinking or turning away. I’m not talking here about the death of his son, although I do think that, and the obvious love he has for his wife are central to the core of who and what he is, and why is able to believe in something greater than what exists. but what I am talking about is that we have someone who was unafraid to dig into the psyche of what keeps us as Americans apart from each other, and to give voice to it.

after the 2004 elections, I thought the only saving grace from the disaster manned by the democratic party would be the fact that we would be forced to re-examine our political beliefs, to centrifuge them down to the essence of what it meant to be a democrat, and then to reorganize and rebuild. much the way the republicans had done so well over the past decade. become a political party driven by beliefs, widening a constituency based on the introduction of new ideas and deepening it with new life into familiar ones.

since the 1972 elections, we have been so focused on making sure we laid claim to the “liberal” tag—that we lived up to it above all else, that what he haven’t done is lived up to the actual basis and claim of the democratic party. where once being a democrat meant the espousing of a populist ideology, grounded on liberal economic policies and social agendas, the party platform has moved towards centrist economics, leaving in its wake the very working class which once defined it. I like that john edwards was unafraid in pushing that conversation open: poverty and the working class. and the fact that there is a cost to be exacted for the ideals we believe in. through taxes, the renouncing of extravagance, and the physical and emotional exertion needed to realign our goals.

in the end, I guess we proved what we tried to claim was the opposite of our intent—that image is still key. a white man talking about outdated core beliefs of class and equity is not as sexy as a woman or a black man debating any other issue under the spotlight of the public stage.

that’s not to say I won’t be happy, ecstatic, to see hilary clinton or barack obama being sworn in this winter. but their politics are more feathery, effortless. I’m concerned about clinton’s voting record on appeasing the mid-conservative vote, as exemplified by her mercurial stance on the war. I’m concerned with obama’s lack of record in general, his absence from giving voice to an actual platform, an actual statement beyond feel-good generalities. give me something.

déjà vu

it's the overabundance, I think, that always did me in. skies, sunshine, entertainment, warmth, love. endless and overwhelming. I'm basking in it but at the same time choking from the excess.

I remembered this as I sat down looking at the table set with alverta osetra caviar, lobster, and two kinds of foie gras. if food is the way to your heart, I can feel mine being blocked off by impenetrable plaques built up by extravagances.


poops, you should've traded places with me these past few meals. you know I'd be just as happy with a stack of naan and a cadbury milk tray. but for future reference:

valentino: I'm not so in love with italian restaurants, although, there's something to be said about a place that says, "if you don't see your favorite dish, ask for it and we will produce it for you. if you don't have a favorite dish, tell us and we will create one for you." I now have a favorite dish.
urasawa: sushi is as sushi does, unless it's so overwhelming that you can only sit there and tell the waiter, whatever. just bring me whatever.
providence: the 8-course dessert tasting menu was worth everything. how else can you explain being compelled to put something described as just "bacon, peanut butter and banana" in your mouth?

*sigh*

it's been raining and grey this whole time, and as much as I'd like to think it's not, I can't help but feel like it's a sign.

la dolce vita

is there any designer, or man for that matter, who understood so well what it means to be the ultimate feminine as Valentino Garavani? the first time I ever saw a Valentino dress was the spring collection of 1988. he sent down a dress made of chiffon and crepe that was fitted so close to the body that it made the model look as if she had a cloud wrapped tightly around her.


instantly, I wanted to be that--lean and lithe and fierce. a floating mist of wispy chiffon draped around a core of steel. living in a world of acid-washed denim and silver chains, I had a glimpse of what I could make myself out to be: coolly luxuriant, nonchalant, sublimely elegant; a woman.


I'm still aiming for that, even if right now it's mainly a core of flab encased in polyblend wool and microfiber. one dares to dream.


I'm sad to know he's retiring, sadder to imagine the summer shows without his ribbons and twirls, and saddest to think I will never walk by the Valentino window and gasp at the sight of seeing something like this ever again:

Dedication

Well you can stay all night if you want to
You can hang out with all of his friends
You can go and meet his mother and father
Mmmm, you better make sure that's where it ends
'Cos baby, there's one thing that you gotta know:

Let him read your palm and guess your sign
Let him take you home and treat you fine
But baby, don't let him waste your time.
Don't let him waste your time

'Cos the years fly by in an instant
And you wonder what he's waiting for...
...So tell him that it's now or never
And then go go go go go

He can have his space and he can take his time
He can kiss you where the sun don't shine
But baby, don't let him waste your time.

Just don't let him waste your time.

--Jarvis Cocker, Don't let him waste your time

Back to the Future

When I was about 11, I began a series of letters to myself, to be opened in the future. This came about because of a dispute I'd had with my parents during which I challenged their parenting skills, calling into question their ability to successfully raise another human being and underscoring this with the vow that were I ever to find myself in the position of raising an 11 year old human. I would never, ever, ever be like them.

"Ha," they laughed, proving their own ineptitude. "You think that now, but one day you'll wake up and you'll be us." They winked wearily at each other as I stomped off, seething.

But lying there on my bed, I worried. It somehow made sense. The inevitability of becoming what you didn't want to. After all, before they'd grown old and lost their minds, my parents must've been sane, right? I mean, I'd seen pictures of them at my age, and they looked normal, intelligent, lucid. But it was clear they now couldn't even grasp a rational argument if it stood right in front of them, kicking its feet and yelling. So how to stave off the forgetting?

It was then I decided the only way to do this was to write myself reminders. Sent now and to be opened by my future selves, at crucial moments: "When I'm 16", "When I'm 18", "Christmas when I'm 21", and so on. Looking back, it was a brilliant idea, if defeated by the fact that I couldn't conceive of myself possibly living past 27 (an age after which I really could've used some friendly advice, by the by).

At any rate, I just came across one I'd written to myself at 25. A ripe old age, I'd thought back then. There were inquiries about boyfriends, clothes, the length of my hair and whether I had a dog and a garden full of rabbits, just like I'd planned. But the most important issue came at the bottom of the page, underlined in green marker and in all caps:

Do you remember what it's like to be 11 years old? Answer now! I hope you do. If you don't, you are a total barf bag.

Pretty much says it all, doesn't it?

I ♥ California

A Love Letter

This morning, I got up after another fitful night of missing you. Even after all this time, I still reach out for you in my half-sleep, pulling awake with the realization that I’m here and you’re there.

I know I’m the one who walked away, not giving us a fair chance, leaving when the faint promise of something more exciting, more inviting, or just different called. I know that every time I did walk away, it made it that much easier for me to leave the next time. I know you think I turned my back on us and you. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love you or that I don’t cherish every one of the moments we had together.

I loved the quiet moments we shared, hiking through unexpected labyrinth of mountain trail overlooking your backyard on one side and the ocean on the other. I can still feel the way you’d kiss my eyelids, so gently, as I’d while away my Sundays on the stretches of hidden beaches. The burn that would travel down the exposed parts of my body, leaving me smarting for days afterwards. I loved the way you’d undo my hair as we drove down stretches of the PCH with the top rolled down, teasing and tangling it so that by the time we arrived, I looked like I’d already had a good time. I even loved your rare moodiness; the way you’d sometimes turn cool, especially after a stretch of the sunniest times, and I’d be left, unprepared for it every time, trying to wrap myself up in my own arms for warmth.

That I still think about you like this, after all this time apart, doesn’t it say something? I miss you. I’m sick with wanting to be with you. I’ve been in love all this time and didn’t recognize it for what it was. You’ve always been there for me, and I’m asking for you to be there for me one more time. Let me come back home. In return, I will promise you everything you asked of me and I couldn’t before. I’ll do it without any sense of sacrifice. Only love. And the faith that this time, I can uphold my end of the relationship.

I promise not to be emotionally unavailable, picking on your tiniest faults as an entryway to entertaining my own weaknesses. I will not storm off in front of Spaceland, shouting that only “fucking lame-ass hipster wannabes from the fucking OC” would still be hanging out in Silver Lake. I will not throw a temper tantrum, tearing flesh as we sit stalled on the 405 for an hour, trying to edge off onto the Sunset exit. I promise I will stop openly and loudly disparaging the company you sometimes keep—the girls with the disturbingly umber tans and painfully stretched breasts and the slack-jawed boys with the empty eyes and twitching fingers you keep inviting over. I know they’re part of the image you’re forced to portray, your industry; I swear that I will not bait them, openly mock them or discreetly aim the car at them. I also swear that I will not take you for granted, taking more and more without showing any gratitude, expecting our lives to be an unending expanse of blue skies and sunshine. I will tell you every day that I appreciate you. That I love you. And finally, I promise I will not walk away when our relationship gets rocky I will not leave you for days, weeks, months at a time, coming back only to take advantage of the comfort you offer me.

This time, I’ll make it work.

Another year, another date

A retrospective picture essay on the standouts of the 2007 crop:


"Samuel"

Referred by: Suellen

Rationale: "He's pretty tall, how tall are you? He's not seeing anyone!"

Memorable quotes:
"Whoa. You're ahh..ah..you're so...ahhh, I mean...you're..
stunning. I just never expected that you'd look...you'd..ahh...you seemed so..ahh..intelligent..."

"So, do you believe that the Bible is the one and only true word of God, perfect in every way?"

"I'm sorry, I've been talking for 45 minutes straight. It's your turn now. Talk."

Verdict: Suellen is no longer on my contacts list.

"Marc"

Referred by: Tom & Allen

Rationale: Tom: You both have similar senses of humor. I never get either of you.

Allen: I just love the idea of the two of you walking around together. Fuck, hilarious.

Memorable Quotes:

"Yeah, I dripped pus for, like, weeks."

"Am I disgusting you?"

"So, I got these tattoos so, like, I could tell people to fuck off without having to open my mouth"

Verdict: On reserve

"Shane"


Referred by: Jane

Rationale: "I've heard he's cute! And nice! Everyone has a crush on him! He's really cute!"

Memorable Quotes:

"...um..."

" . . . "

"so..."

Verdict: Great in the case I ever go deaf and don't want to miss much.





"Stefan"

Referred by: Jonathan

Rationale: "Everybody loves Stefan. He's too good to be true. Besides, he drives that car you like."

Memorable Quotes:

"I brought these for you because I heard they were your favorite flower."

"I helped my brother finance that theater a couple years ago, so I was able to get box seats for tonight."

"I decided to get rid of the boat. It just doesn't seem conscionable in this day and age."

Verdict: I'm sure he can do better.