VANCOUVER–

“I’ve already told you: the only way to a woman’s heart is along the path of torment. I know none other as sure.” —Marquis de Sade

Stop shaking your head. Gimme a chance to explain…

Long distance relationships open like pop-up books. Her pop-up book is in Manhattan.

I like stealing stuff—if I like you. I case every woman who catches my eye trying to see what they’re hiding. You can’t give your phone number without giving something of yourself. Every little hair on a woman, even the peach fuzz, is a fuse.

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DAEGU, SOUTH KOREA - 

It’s strange, but as an immature male who is learning another language, I’ve never really thought a lot about swearing in Korean… I know a few words, but not many, and I’m not even sure if the ones I know are real, or if people are just screwing with me and telling me fake words. Mostly, I learn bad words through my friend, Brian, who in turn learns them from the Korean players on his football team. So when I do learn a word, it’s never written down or put entirely in context, and I’m left to wonder whether the pronunciation is lost, like in Chinese Whispers…

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MANCHESTER, ENGLAND -

The streets of London are wild with passion today, but very few are sure why.

Some are protesting Peter Crouch’s recent renewal into the injury-hampered national football team, while others have doctored their work time-sheets to be publicly abrasive towards an automobile dubbed ‘The Beast’.

‘The Beast’ isn’t a practical or charming vehicle.  Amongst other details that the right people aren’t willing to discuss, the Cadillac-grade limousine features armour 8 inches thick, Kevlar-reinforced tyres, tear-gas cannons and a fluorescent halo lighting system in the headliner to ward away national depression.  Two rear seats (reserved especially for the The Beast’s owner) reportedly feature individual recline and folding desks.

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NEW YORK, NY-

When I was a little girl, I liked two things: getting naked and touching my vagina.

Nothing wrong with that. Totally normal. Completely natural. Yet, not so appropriate during dinner parties with my parents’ friends milling about the living room eating Brie cheese on water crackers.

I had a knack for unveiling myself at the strangest times, in the most unlikely of places. There’s a photo of me, age 5, standing on top of my tricycle seat, trying hard to keep my balance, wearing nothing but a red bandana on my head. In another shot, I’m chasing our dog around the backyard wearing my baby doll’s dress, which basically comes up to my neck, and no underwear.

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COLUMBUS, OH-

Shit is gold. That’s the message I saw written in the snow on the State House lawn as I waited for my bus transfer. It was Monday, January 19th, the last day of W’s reign of dumbness and I was feeling jubilant.  The stinging cold did not hinder the usual crowd of stragglers, panhandlers and misfits. Even the Thalidomide Kid was in his usual spot across the street, bobbing to his interior beat next to his coffee can full of change. I was hoping for the bus to hurry and as I waited, I wondered what the anonymous author meant by his cryptic message. (more…)

LOS ANGELES -

Last night on Hollywood Boulevard:

The street was teeming with thugs, clubbers, haggard hookers, way too clean-cut trust-fund punk rockers, homeless people huddled in shadowy doorways, tattooed love gods, gin-soaked goddesses, and wide-eyed tourists with the seeming ability to turn their heads 360 degrees to snap pictures of everyone and everything around them.

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BOULDER, CO-

In the last two weeks, two TNB writers have written about masturbation (thank you Smibst and Marni Grossman).  Why not make it a threesome?  Tis the season, right?

Specifically, I’d like to focus on the vibrator. 

I was 29 when I visited my first actual sex toy shop.  I went with a couple of girlfriends from my kung fu class to look for Valentine’s Day gifts for our men.  Together, we were trouble. 

First, there was V, the dark-haired Filipina-American who had spent 8 years in the army and who could arm-wrestle any man stupid enough to challenge her under the table.  I have broken up fights between her and overzealous guys at dance clubs on more than one occasion.  Second, there was M, the ample-chested knockout who never failed to turn a head with her screaming feminine vibe.  She has also been the cause of a few scuffles at dance clubs – but perhaps for less confrontational reasons.  Third, there was me, their plump friend, Bess.  

So there we were, marching into Ye Old Sex Shoppe on 28^th Street (otherwise known as “Fascinations”), and winking boldly at the pre-adults working the counter as if we had just stopped in to get a bag of chips and a vanilla Frappucino out of the refrigerator case. 

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WILMINGTON, DE-

“The boys and girls are one tonight.

They unbutton blouses.  They unzip flies.

They take off shoes.  They turn off the light.

The glimmering creatures are full of lies.

They are eating each other.  They are overfed.

Tonight, alone, I marry the bed.”

-”The Ballad of a Lonely Masturbator” by Anne Sexton

 
There’s a masturbator in the preschool class my friend Kat teaches.  She fondles herself at nap time and sometimes at the little round table where the class eats graham crackers and sips apple juice.  The child’s two-and-a-half and she’s getting it regular.  She’s taking matters into her own hands and she’s getting the job done.  Satisfaction?  Absolutely.  

I am duly impressed.

Kat has promised to ask the masturbator for some tips.  I wait with bated breath.  

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LAS VEGAS, NV -

I’ve never paid for a hooker.

Never thought of it, really. But I’ve known a few people that have. I even worked with a waitress that once worked at a brothel. I think it was in Sparks.

“Every man should have a hooker at least once,” she told me.

Maybe she was right. Maybe a man should have a hooker at least once. What did I know? I’ve heard stories. Never heard a bad one. All delivered with a smile.

A friend stationed at Camp Pendleton. Got shellacked and skipped over to Mexico for a little nookie. Crazy dude in town from El Paso. Too drunk to make the long haul to the Bunny Ranch but hit a brothel in Pahrump. 

“Got me some strange,” he said.

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AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS –

** Warning: this post is not for anyone under 18, faint of heart, or my mother.**

When you think of Amsterdam, certain things immediately come to mind:

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LAS VEGAS, NV -

Always Mystified

I’ve never counted the times I’ve moved. But it’s been a lot. In my years living in Vegas I think I’ve moved four or five times.

I moved from L.A to Victorville when I was a kid. While in L.A I moved a handful of times. In Victorville I moved a few times. Victorville to Vegas. Vegas to Charlotte. Charlotte back to Vegas.

And now I’ve moved again. Still in Vegas. I just found a new place. Well, technically, I don’t live in Vegas anymore. I live in Henderson (Green Valley area), a city that butts up against Vegas. According to Wikipedia, Jonathan Ogden lives in Henderson. 

Which might be true. I saw him a few months back at a boxing match. (more…)

CARMEL, CA-

When Angela has insomnia everybody suffers.

2am-

Me: Why are you on the floor?

Guy: You told me to get out of bed.

Me: You don’t want to sleep with me anymore because I’m too fat???

Guy: I do want to sleep with you because you’re beautiful, and you screamed if I didn’t get out of bed you would call the police.

Me: I can’t believe the first thing you say to me when I wake up is that I’m fat.

Guy: Can I get back in bed?
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LOS ANGELES-

Again there are hammers and band saws. Hammers and band saws are a staple of Los Angeles living. At least for me they are.

And helicopters too. Helicopters, too, are a staple of Los Angeles living. You can’t escape the helicopters. If you listen closely, you can almost always hear a helicopter thwumping in the skies over Hollywood.

Thwumping.

Hollywood.

Skies.

My neighbors are having an addition built onto their house, and the workmen have been going at it since about eight o’clock this morning.

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LOS ANGELES, CA-

As a child, I remember being bored by most of my playmate options.  I had fun with my brothers, so there wasn’t much need for outside interaction.

That changed when I met Gina.  There was something different about Gina.  I liked her immediately.  She was quiet.  She was timorous.  She didn’t have strong opinions.  Mostly, though, what I liked about her was that she was malleable.  Being friends with Gina was like having a life-sized doll to whom I could shrewdly transfer guilt in sticky situations.  (more…)

HOUSTON, TX -

I have never professed to be the quintessential man’s man. I’m not the type of person that has a garage full of tools or a project car that I work on every other day. I’m not that guy. Still, I’m pretty good with my hands and I’m definitely not afraid to get them dirty. I’ve always thought most men sort of fell in that category.

Cut to 1:00 am outside a bar.

There are four guys standing around each other huddled in a frantic circle. Two of them have on pink shirts, one of them has a popped collar, one has a backwards hat with a chunk of hair sticking out of the front, none of them are gay. A typical pile of frat boy nothingness, standing there… are you ready for this?

…Calling Triple A to come change the tire on their BMW.

Come the fuck on. (more…)

BLACK ROCK CITY, NV-

Your boots are white with dust as fine as talc. Insidious stuff. Your legs, your arms, your face, whatever clothing you have decorated your body with - all are white, silty and dry. Your skin reacts to the alkaline, shrinking, drying, withering, trying to escape it. But there is no escape. The dust is everywhere - in your eyes, your lungs, your ears, in every nook of your body, in every cranny, in every fold of fabric that adorns you, everywhere you look… your world is white. And so you trudge across this white world, this wide expanse of nothingness, bracing yourself against the whirling-dervish winds, staring blindly into the invisibility that surrounds you. You are cocooned in the nothing, strangely safe and yet completely assailable.

You have never felt more alone, more surrounded by love, or more alive. Your vulnerability is your greatest strength.

This post-apocalyptic landscape strengthens your resolve and buffers your sense of self.

You are at The End of the Earth.

Welcome Home.

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SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA-

We all lie to ourselves, I believe. It’s necessary in order to get through these troubled times, with all of its politic and economic what-not. Like, how all of us have to compensate for the fact that we sit around watching reality TV, eating chocolate zucchini bread and salami all day after devouring a full family-sized bottle of Nyquil by ourselves, listening to the entire Clueless soundtrack 14 times the night before, leaving the house mostly just for minimum wage part-time work, fucking sociopathic exes who treat us like shit, and holding on to our one and only lofty goal of going on extreme makeover (mostly for our preemptive vaginoplasties, but also to do something about our kidney infection-induced acne) – you know, the stuff we all go through on a daily basis.

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NEW YORK, NY-

There are facts and there are truths. The fact is, in June of 2001, I accidentally walked in on the venerated former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, Tina Brown, while she was relieving her bowels. The truth is, I felt as if I had committed a kind of spiritual rape. They say rape is about power and I see no more vulnerable and powerless position to assume than the one preferred by your average bowel-mover. But what if you don’t actively seek this power out? Well, we all want power of some kind; that’s another truth. So the question becomes: What to do after the scream and ensuing door-slam?

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PACIFIC GROVE, CA -

A month after he left, I realized I hadn’t gotten my period. I thought that this sucked. Not because of a perhaps potential child (which sucked in its own right in such a way that there was no possibility I’d have been prepared to wrap my head around it at the time), but because of the fact that I’d probably have to call him.

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LAS VEGAS, NV-

The Girls of Bromidrosis

The first night I arrived in Vegas I ate fried-chicken and drank beer. Under normal circumstances this is not a good combination. Hell, it doesn’t even sound good. Fried-chicken and beer. But these weren’t normal circumstances. I had just arrived home after living over three years in the South where nothing - and hardly anyone - made sense to me.

So, I wasn’t looking for harmony. I was looking to gorge myself and get drunk.

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