So That Was Fantastic

My birthday was fantastic. I have lots of people to thank and a great story to tell about a drag dress, a gay boy on a bicycle and my new Asian heterosexual girlfriend from the karaoke bar. I swear it's coming. And that I will return phone calls (I had to get up at 5am yesterday so I slept a lot when I got home). In the meantime, please meet my new boyfriend:



Now, I'm going to wait until he makes the final 12 before I do this to him, but ladies, his heroes are Jesus and his dad. I'm writing my fan haikus in my head right now.

Birthday entry manana or so (I need photos to make that story work), Jared Cotter lovefest soon.

 

ShimmyShimmyCocoPop

Somebody wanna tell me why nobody told me about this?

 

But in the end, we're all sinners.

This is in the name of my giving you what you wanted, which is less introspection, more funny. It's been quite a while since this happened (so long ago that I referenced it the other day and K-Rock had actually entirely forgotten about it), and originally I shared it almost exclusively via email to only people whom I actually knew, but perhaps it's time for it to be a public romp.

...

So, on Saturday night, K-Rock and I went to Fado. Fifteen minutes after we got in there, I looked around and said, "Wow. Every man in this bar is dressed to look like John Mayer. I'm not sure I can handle that. Maybe we should leave!" But we did not leave. In fact, because of late I have apparently looked very Midwestern coed, the most John Mayer of the John Mayer lookalikes begins hitting on me. He BUYS ME FREAKIN SHOTS LIKE I'M STILL IN COLLEGE, but I like to play, so I stay. My breaking point, though, is when he goes up to the band and asks them if they know any Dave Matthews Band covers. I return to my table quite sure that I should never return to this bar again.

But then this incredibly hot guy, NOT dressed like John Mayer, starts flirting with me and buying me drinks that do not come in shot glasses. He looks like Henry Rawlins before Henry Rawlins went crazy with the weight lifting. And by 2am, I'm like, "Yeah, okay."

So home we go, and during the deed, I'm like, "This is totally weird. This guy is brutally hot, and my age, and it's like he has no idea at all about what he's doing. What the hell?" Afterwards, I gently find a way to mention my observation in a way that was not nearly as straight forward as how I just wrote it, and he says, "I probably should tell you, I've only ever been with one other person, and that was over 10 years ago."

Before I can stop the next stupid thing from coming out of my mouth, out pops, "Are you, you know, really religious?"

That question falls into the category of "questions you shouldn't ask if you don't really want the answer." And I didn't really want the answer, particularly since the answer was, "Actually, I'm an ordained minister. I just in the last week or so realized it wasn't my calling and that I didn't want to put my life on hold any longer for a God who doesn't seem to be all that loving."

All I can think at that moment is "I am GOING TO HELL. Right now, God's cherubs are hand-stamping my passport to hell because I just facilitated one of the flock fleeing. Of all the easy girls that this dude could have met in a bar on a Saturday night, it's me. And now I'm going to be Satan's whore for the rest of my life."

At this point, a wiser person than I am stops talking. I, of course, actually instead say "So, even if you're not a minister anymore, you must still believe in the Bible, right? Isn't this a sin?"

And he says, "Yes, it's a sin. But in the end, we're all sinners."

And you know what I do next? I ask, "So are you going to ask for forgiveness in the morning?"

And he says, "Absolutely."

And ladies, there is nothing less hot than being in bed with somebody and they're telling you that the next day they will be asking God to forgive them for being with you.

 

33 is Coming Like the Grim Reaper Around the Corner

Firstly, I've now officially been chastised for all of the introspection lately. Don't you worry. I'm bringing back the funny tomorrow with an old story about how I once accidentally had sex with a minister. And don't you worry. Even if you've heard that story before, it's still funny the second, third and even fourth time. Some things never get old. But it's birthday week, and birthday week means introspection. Deal.With.It.

So, I'm turning 33 in exactly 7 days.

And here's the reality: I don't have anything to complain about. The things I wanted by 33 I have. I've traveled the world and there's no end to that in sight (because the world is a big place and I've found great traveling companions). I have great friends. I have an amazing career and my own cash dollars. I own nice things. I know who I am and what I want and whom I love and who loves me. I feel that, while I am always learning, I am wise in many ways. I feel like I've grown into me. I've done and accomplished the things that I always said I wanted to by my thirties.

I don't have any actual regrets about not having a family and a home and children at 33. I never expected to be starting that process until now, so the fact that it hasn't happened yet doesn't upset me, or freak me out, or whatever. BUT I do want those things. It is that time for me. I'm ready, more or less. What I know I don't want is to be 41 and want children and not even be in a relationship (true story, we were talking about it today). I don't want it to get that far, and I understand that that means making some changes in my life, or really my expectations, right now.

Right, here's the thing that qualifies as being the worst part of being here, now. Whether I, and every woman in a similar time frame, likes it or not, there's a clock working. And that means that people you date get evaluated differently. No longer is it just: "I'm in love with you, or could be in love with you, and you're an amazing person." Oh no. I mean, that's a prerequisite, but within two dates it will be followed by "the list." You know EXACTLY what I mean. "The List" of things that need to be answered correctly because I'm not wasting my time dating you if there's not a chance that you're going to get me where I want to go. You know "the list." It reads something like this:

1. Do you want children?
2. Are you adult enough to be ready for a real relationship?
3. Have you had enough relationships to answer that question and not use me as a Guinea pig?
4. If we had children, would I be able to be sure you'd want to raise them with the same values and principles that I would?
5. Are you going to be a good financial provider?
6. By good financial provider I mean financial provider in such a way that doesn't require me to drastically alter my lifestyle.
7. Have you already been through both your quarter and midlife crisis?

And it goes on, because the older you get the more things you realize you need, and then the list ends somewhere around...

243. Will you live in a major urban city for the rest of your life, because I will.
244. Three cats, four tats. Take it or leave it.
245. If we have children, can we name them after Peanuts characters?
246. 90210 on dvd. Discuss.

And that's just silly, because it should be as simple as "I'm in love with you, or falling in love with you, and you're an awesome person." But it's not. You wait this long to find the right situation, and you get to points where you're sending emails to boys you really enjoy spending time with saying things like "We're having the talk, and an agenda item will be my dating purpose and how you fit into that."(tm a very smart girl who is going through the same things in life that I am - and THANK GOD because at least one person out there understands me).

And I'm no idiot. I know how this conversation sounds in reverse.

Other Person
Um, yeah. Wasn't it just last summer that you went on a four month party binge that was so out-of-control at the end that even people who like to throw down as much as you do were telling you that you needed to get it under control?

Me
I mean, that was ONE summer.

Other Person
How long has it been since xtine had to actually delete pictures from her camera after a girls' night because if they got out into the world they would be personally and professionally damaging to you?

Me
It's been less than six months.

Other Person
Did you just drop $500 on a ticket to Hawaii for no other reason than you felt like going to Hawaii?

Me
I get that the selfish, instant travel indulgences would have to stop.

Other Person
Did I just open your nightstand drawer and find an eighth?

Me
You sure did, because that's where I keep my stash.

Other Person
Did you drunk text me from Pure seven times at 2:45am on Sunday morning?

Me
I sure did!

And, in fairness, I just used the worst six examples I could think of without pointing out any of the questions that I would have answered in ways that would make me sound put together. But the point is, those are not the answers that you want to hear if you're evaluating whether somebody is ready to go into that next step or not.

And, obviously, I know that I'm ready and that those answers are simply the reflection of not having been in a position to take the next step for lack of a person to take it with. And obviously I know that probably anybody who answered the questions on "the list" with answers other than the answers that I want to hear could just be answering that way because they haven't had the opportunity either. So maybe it is still as simple as "I'm in love with you, or falling in love with you, and you're an awesome person." But it doesn't feel like it is.

You know, for me, in this EXACT MOMENT, it's a non issue because after two torturous weeks of head clearing and sorting it all out, I'm crystal clear on what I want. Except that what I want seems awfully precarious.

In which case, I'm printing out that list, putting on a mini skirt, some boots and a cut off t-shirt and handing it out on the strip until somebody scores high enough.

 

Beethoven, Brahms, Bach and Bob

My mother will read this entry and either a) say "I'm SO GLAD that her therapist is this good" or b) say "I wish my daughter had a more acute sense of keeping private private." Either way, she will cry about 850 times while she reads this. There you go, mom. Make your choice accordingly.

The topic in therapy this weekend was "Do I demand that the men in my life prove that they love me too much and what relation does this have to classical music?"

And the answer was "Maybe a little bit but not as badly as I used to because I'm very aware of it as a habit and consciously try to stop myself as soon as I notice that it's happening" and "It's a direct result of classical music."

By which we, of course, mean that all little girls want their fathers to love them more than anybody else.

It would be simple to say that my father loved classical music more than he loved me, and that would make this a short entry and would have saved me thousands of dollars in therapy because it would have made separating out feelings and reactions much easier. But then, well, it would have been simple and I wouldn't need hours of therapy and meditation and personal writing exercises to work it out to begin with. And probably I'd be a less self-aware person and for sure a less understanding person. And also definitely an angrier person, because if it were just as simple as "My father loved classical music more than he loved me," that would be a reason to be angry. What I found in the end when I deconstructed the whole thing was that I don't really have a reason to be angry, and that was very, very freeing.

Let me first say, so that there is no confusion about how I feel about my father, I have great affection for my father. I do not (sorry, mom) love my father. I'm pretty aware of what love feels like and how to share it, and that's not the case here. I have tried to find it in me to love my father, but when asked "Do you love your father?" I cannot make the words come out or the feelings surface. But I have great affection for him. I think that he is a very, very, very good person who had a very difficult time with basic human emotions and didn't know how to be as good a person in action as he may have been inside. And I think that there were a lot of reasons for that.

I could tell you stories about my father that reveal such a sweet person that you would weep. And I could tell you more stories about him that would leave you saying "What an ass. Jesus." For a lot of people, the sweetness outweighed the selfishness (or confusion, however you want to view it). But those people were not his daughter.

But on to the classical music. My father loved classical music. By "My father loved classical music" I mean "My father LOVED classical music." From the time he heard his very first opera, he was hooked. Sadly, I can't remember the actual story about the first time he heard an opera, and I know that I've been told the story a hundred thousand times. Our home was filled with classical recordings that were played AT FULL VOLUME constantly. Literally (because these were the days of vinyl) there were shelves and shelves and shelves of recordings in several rooms. We went to the symphony or opera at least once a month, often more. Entire summer vacations were planned exclusively around opera festivals and schedules.

Pookie and I were forced to spend an hour a day all summer long for the majority of our teenage years being tutored in classical music and its composers and how to identify them and their themes and signatures by our father. This was a particularly sore point, at least for me. I can't remember how Pookie felt about it, but every single time I was dragged in during the middle of a summer afternoon from the swimming pool or playing basketball with my friends or whatever important social activity I was doing to sit at the dark dining room table while my father made me memorize the core theme elements of Brahms' chamber works, a little black ball of resentment welled up in me. And it wasn't because I was getting dragged inside. It was because the reason we were learning this stuff was because he loved it. And of course when I would point that out (because I was that kind of child), he would say that we were being taught these things because we weren't getting adequate education in public school. And then I would get SO ANGRY because I had begged FOR YEARS to be sent to private school. And among other reasons, I was told that I would not be attending private school because it was an expense we couldn't handle. And then I would become uncontrollably furious because apparently we couldn't afford to send me to private school but we could afford...

To take elaborate summer vacations to operatic destinations, to pay for endless tickets to symphonies and operas and to actually SUBSIDIZE an entire chamber music series at the Oglebay mansion in Wheeling. Oh yes. We were this serious. You do the math about how much something like that would cost. And, no matter what was going on during one of those chamber music weekends, I was expected to be there. It didn't matter if I had to give up sports practice or drama practice or weekend trips with my friends or things that I loved. I would sit patiently and listen to chamber music whether I liked it or not.

I'm simplifying this story somewhat into discreet examples, and it's not really that simple. But the point you need to take away is that my father loved classical music in such a way that he was willing to arrange his life in a pattern around it.

And, in some continued simplification, he did not love me in a way that he was willing to arrange his life in a pattern around me.

In fact, he didn't really like me all that much (and my mother's throat closes up here). It was more than once that I heard the phrase either directly or repeated back to me from another family member that my father "loved me because I was his daughter but didn't really like me as a person." But by the time that phrase started getting pulled out, I was already in my teens and already having reactions to having been a little girl whose father loved something else more than he loved her and probably, to him, I wasn't very likable. And I didn't like him very much either. We went the better part of an entire school year, maybe more, only communicating by leaving notes on the kitchen table for each other or relaying messages through my mother. We really weren't each other's biggest fans. And FOR SURE he did not love me in a way in which he would re-arrange his life around me. In fact, it was 100% the opposite. My life was expected to be crafted in such a way that it revolved around the thing that he loved - and that, of course, was classical music.

Now, my mother, I'm sure, is dying to tell me at this point that I have this all wrong and that she remembers it entirely differently. This is for two reasons. Firstly, my mother was an adult at the time and I was a sixteen-year-old. She probably noticed many ways in which this was not the case. I, however, as a sixteen-year-old only noticed that I and what was important to me were not all that high up on my father's priority list and that I was habitually asked to give things up that conflicted with the real true love, Bach. Also, to be fair, my mother is prone to look at things through a pair of glasses that are ever so slightly rose tinted. So, mom, before you send the long email about how I have this wrong, remember that I don't. You can't get something that you actually experienced wrong. But read on, because I'm about to tell you that I understand that dad really didn't actually love classical music more than he loved me.

My father was not good at experiencing or expressing interpersonal emotions. And yes, I just lifted that entire phrase from my therapist because who else would speak like that? This was probably due to a number of things. We can begin by simply leaving it at that we would be remiss if we didn't acknowledge that my father battled some mental and/or emotional demons most likely of a chemical nature similar to the one I had to deal with. Of course, that was back in the day where we didn't find great natural supplements or know how to control our body chemistry through diet or feel comfortable writing about our therapy breakthoughs on the web, so how those were dealt with was probably less than adequately.

Secondly, my father's family was, as a whole, not good at handling or expressing interpersonal emotions. I think I love my grandmother on my father's side as much, if not more, than most of my other family members. But I never heard her tell me that she loved me. EVER. Or at least that I can recall. And so of course my father would be bad at that. And to make it worse, my father and his family and their lack of expressive emotion was contrasted with my mother's family, who gave me exactly what I craved. My mother's side of the family? They will tell you that they love you when you come out of the bathroom. They will tell you that they love you because there's a pause in the conversation. They will tell you that they love you because you passed the vegetables at dinner. They are ALL ABOUT telling you that they love you, which to my underdeveloped teenage emotional matrix (yeah, I stole that phrase too) made the lack of that coming from my father all the more poignant.

Now, we've established that my father wasn't very good at experiencing or expressing interpersonal emotions, but everybody has love, and everybody wants to experience channeling that love somehow. And so my father found something that he could give his love to and that, at a basic level, elicited emotions in him that made him feel something similar to receiving the emotion back. In the end, it makes sense, because music can make you feel things. So if you're going to have a hard time feeling things for people, at least feel things for an art form, yes? After realizing this, I noticed that this was a totally similar characteristic in a lot of people I know who are overly passionate about, in specific, music. And I don't mean passionate about performing or creating music. I mean about listening to, collecting and adoring music. Anyway, it seems so clear now that that's what he did.

And I think my father would have preferred it if he could have made those emotions and reactions work that same way for me (or my brother, or my mother). But it's harder with people. They talk back, they have expectations, you can't decide what feeling they're going to make you feel before you put them onto the turntable. One thing I've definitely learned is that bad examples about how to share with and love people that get set early stay with people long into their life. I'm thankful every day that I had my mother's family around to make sure that, just like them, I was ALL ABOUT the love. And once I realized that my father really was just trying to compensate for something he didn't know how to do with people by doing it with music instead, I stopped being angry at him a while ago. By which I mean I stopped being angry with him on a daily and intellectual level, because if you get me in the same room with him there is a 99% chance that within 15 minutes I will have either lost my patience with him and snapped or have had to leave the room, but 33 years is a long time to resent somebody without having it surface when you're around them.

So I think that by "I stopped being angry at him" what I mean is "I'm at peace with him being who he is" more than I mean "I look forward to being around him." I think that's something though, yeah?

And so, of course, the resulting question is: "Jocelyn, do you feel like you're always asking the men in your life to prove that they love you more and more and more because you didn't feel like you got enough love from your father as a child?" (And the men in the room who have dated or tried to date me all raise their hands and holler "YES!"). And some of them would be right because that's definitely a habit that I got into. And some of them would be wrong because it's also a habit that I worked very hard to break and honestly what they think is my being demanding is just my refusing to settle for getting less than I give. And a couple of them would even say, "She's done that to me, but then she's caught herself and apologized." And those would be the ones I'm most proud of. Because, people, that took a lot of therapy and a lot of work at recognizing my own emotional patterns.

For a long time in my early twenties, I couldn't listen to classical music without actually getting angry. Literally. I would hear a beautiful piece of music, and it would make me feel anger that I didn't think that I got the love that I should have from my father when I was a child. I mean, I'm sure my mother is composing an email in her head right now about all the ways in which he did show me love. And I'm saying, "Mom, no he didn't. If he had, I would have felt it. I'm sensitive to the emotion. I'm sorry. And I'm not angry about it because I understand it now. But please don't try to convince me that's not how it was." Anyway, last weekend I listened to Chopin all weekend and it was a wonderful experience. Uplifting. Sweet. Blissful.

To me, that's really the sign that I've learned to let go of what I didn't get and focus on what I did. And I feel good about that. And I hope that when my mom closes her laptop after she reads this, that's the part that stays with her. That I grew up to be a really happy girl.

 

Shakespeare for Valentine's Day

Let's just celebrate with Sonnet #LVII

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

 

10 Random Notes to Start the Week With

1. Has there ever in the history of music been a collection of music that's more beautiful than Chopin's "Nocturnes?" Ever? Number 2 was historically my favorite, but I had them on this weekend while I was cooking and later while I was writing and I think I may now believe that number fourteen is my favorite. You know that feeling that you're always trying to get where you feel like particles instead of solid? If you haven't had it in a while, listen to some of Chopin's nocturnes.

2. If you're following this list, this weekend I made excellent headway on my second play through of Zelda, wrote 20 pages on "Dreaming Not Sleeping", mailed K-Yo's late Christmas gift, patterned out my shorts and also made a pot roast with chili and cilantro sauce, stuffed green peppers and peach pie. And yes, that peach pie was because I've been watching so much 90210 and I got inspired.

3. My masterpiece, no joke, is over on HollyWagers right now.

4. I think I have to replace L.A. with San Diego this year or something. I missed all of January's training with that stupid cold. I don't know. I did 16 this Sunday, but to really be okay for L.A. I'd have to be doing full distance next week. And that may be possible. I need to talk to Scott, like, now.

5. So, on Saturday I did this ... thing ... before I went out for the night. I did it because it had been on my mind for a couple of days and I was sure it was the right thing to do. And I felt a lot better after I did it. And then on Sunday I had a card reading done and checked, like, four horoscopes and they ALL were like "WTF? What did you just do?" But yet I feel so much better about myself today about not allowing myself to get undervalued. I'm gonna say that this time the cosmos has it wrong. I'm going to hope that I don't regret that.

6. Here's your Rumi quote for the week:
"Be melting snow
wash yourself of yourself

A white flower grows in the quietness
Let your tongue become that flower"

Go now and meditate on that. It's very freeing when you get lost in those words.

7. This morning, RJ and I had a 20 minute discussion about season one of 90210. This is really starting to take over my life. Maybe in the "not good" way.

8. How can it possibly be March Madness season already?

9. Brett Favre: You missed the memo. When you're old enough to do commercials for heartburn medication, you're TOO OLD TO PLAY IN THE NFL. GIVE IT UP.

10. Jayson: Thanks for dinner. That was very nice of you. You have no idea how much you made my weekend HOT by letting me into the loop that Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds (with Jim Verraros) is coming out!

 

3 Things That Made Me Laugh This Week

There were so many things that made me laugh this week. I'm not sure if it's the stress relief of having the Super Bowl over or the freedom of being able to let go of some things I was holding on to or just that people were funnier than usual this week, but I laughed a lot this week.

And also, just to get it out of the way and save me some emailing, birthday weekend San Francisco flights have been booked:
Arriving Friday, 2/23 into OAK at noon
Leaving Monday, 2/26 at 4:00pm

The First Thing That Made Me Laugh: Ferris' Masterpiece on Wikipedia
For whatever reason, at midnight Ferris was crusing wikipedia, and he found this entry for "Pittsburgh Left." (this is not the funny part)

Unsatisified with that entry and its justification for a basically illegal driving move, Ferris does his own edit, which you can read here. (this is not the funny part).

What is funny is that in the process of creating those entries, Ferris also contributed what may be the most relevent, important wikipedia entry ever. I give you the wikipedia entry for Bitch Move.

The Second Thing That Made Me Laugh: K-Rock Having to Listen to Country Pop in the Office
ToniK is out of the office this week, which makes Bon Bon and I the only full-time people in our specific office, and K-Rock is here half days. Now, somehow, Bon Bon and I think that because of this, we get to control the music now that ToniK is not here. Bon Bon and I both like our country pop, but normally we're not allowed to play it because it makes ToniK's head explode in fire.

So this exchange goes down...

Leanne Rhymes "Nothing About Love Makes Sense" cycles through the play list.

Bon Bon
I LOVE THIS SONG!

Me
I LOVE THIS SONG.

K-Rock
(insert sound of deafening silence)

Me
I'm sorry, K-Rock. I'm extra sorry because Garth Brooks is next on the play list.

K-Rock
(insert some kind of snort or something)

Bon Bon
DON'T HATE! I OWN THE GARTH BROOKS BOX SET. I OWN THE GARTH BROOKS AS CHRIS GAINES CD.

Me
Oh girl. The Chris Gaines cd? That's not okay, even by me.

K-Rock
(insert some kind of snort or something)

The Third Thing That Made Me Laugh This Week: 90210
And not just that episode where Dylan and Brenda fall in love. There's also the next episode where Kellie tearfully tells us all about her rape and then the girls completely cure another girl with an eating disorder by playing truth or dare at a sleepover. I'm not joking.

 

Let's Go on a Trip

Spring hit yesterday. I slept with the windows open and there was sunlight coming in as early as 7am.

And when that happens I immediately want to go to Ixtapa or Hawaii - like in the next 30 days.

Who's coming with?

 

The Best 42 Minutes of TV You'll Ever Watch

You've probably heard me claim something was the best 42 minutes of TV ever before. You'll hear me claim it again. Keep me honest, because I swear with my hand to the Bible that what I am about to tell you about is THE BEST 42 MINUTES OF TV EVER.

It's episode 10 of season one of Beverly Hills 90210. It originally aired on January 3, 1991 when I was a junior in high school. It's called "Isn't It Romantic?", and it's the episode where Dylan McKay and Brenda Walsh fall in love.

Oh, where to start? Let's perhaps start with the ultra-artistry inserted into this episode that I originally missed when watching it as a 16-year-old. The first scene that you watch is Brenda and Brandon standing by his car and Brandon joking with Brenda about how she's going to stay in on a Friday night and watch Dirty Dancing for the 500th time. Brenda laughs it off and says she's fine staying in because she loves that movie and could watch it over and over. And then, suddenly, slightly dirty but still with his perfect eyebrows, Dylan McKay slides out from under Brandon's car and stares intently with desire at Brenda. It all begins.

But here's the artistry! Then, throughout the remainder of the episode, every time Dylan and Brenda embrace in passionate teenage love, in the background are the whispering tunes of an instrumental version of the classic and still wildly popular Patrick Swayze lovers' ballad "She's Like the Wind." My 16-year-old self didn't realize that little piece of artistry inserted into a 90210 episode, but my 32-year-old literature major self did. BRILLIANT. Seriously, "She's Like the Wind", and they weren't joking about it.

There's not much build up in this episode to creating the pattern of Dylan McKay as tortured rebel and Brenda as the stable girl who keeps him together. Instead, it's pretty much handled all in one four minute cut. Brenda and Dylan go to his father's hotel suite where Dylan's father proceeds to yell at Dylan. Dylan, of course, freaks out in his tortured way and, as he and Brenda argue on the street outside, he -- in a fit of rage -- picks up a FLOWER POT off the sidewalk and smashes it to the street. Brenda, terrified by this fit of violence with the FLOWER POT, turns and runs (in a blazer with shoulder pads, mind you, which is difficult to run in), down the street. Dylan, clearly entirely in love with her already, rushes after her and embraces her from behind, apologizing endlessly for his fit of violence with the FLOWER POT. God this episode is brilliant.

But, lest you think that this episode is simply a love story of the growing passion between damaged Dylan and perfect Brenda, rest assured that this episode is also TOPICAL. Remember, 90210 was not to be confused with some lame, one-dimensional Fox teenage soap opera (ahem - The OC - ahem), 90210 was also supposed to educate teenagers on dealing with the new and challenging issues that teens in the 90s faced. It had an educational element. And on this episode the educational element was about safe sex. There's an entire subplot running about sex education at West Beverly High and how the kids all have significant moments when they realize how serious AIDS is. So, at the end of the episode, Brenda and Dylan are taking a love walk somewhere up at lovers' point, and suddenly Brenda turns serious. Facing Dylan, with her practiced look of deep and soulful Brenda, she says "Have you ever practiced unsafe sex?"

Now, it's true. It's Dylan McKay. He's old for his years. He's a rebel. But also remember that in season one of 90210 he is a SOPHOMORE IN HIGH SCHOOL.

And Dylan looks at Brenda with his perfect Luke Perry alabaster skin and his perfect Luke Perry pompadour hair and his perfect Luke Perry dark eyes and his practiced "tragically sincere Dylan McKay look" that will later become a staple of the show long after the story lines or dialogue aren't any good anymore and we're just watching to see what new plastic surgery Tori Spelling had in the offseason, and he says:

"Not recently."

FUCKING BRILLIANT. Just sit with that for a while. It's fucking brilliant.

 

So, upon regaining my life...

Which basically happens every February after the Super Bowl, and having felt like I didn't rage into 2007 the way I had planned, I figured it would be both incredibly lame and simultaneously motivating to post a list of things I need to/want to accomplish this month. Then we can hold me accountable for them at the end of the month. And since I'm turning 33 at the end of the month (I figure if I just say it enough times, eventually it won't sting so much), the amount of embarassment I'm going to feel if I don't get all of this done will be substantial. It's just like the goal board at work! Boring for you to read? Yes. But it's a journal, not a blog. So work with me.

Or if you don't want to read this list, check out today's (or whenever, depending on when you read this) NPR song of the day. It's a Ron Sexsmith song, and I am a fan, and this is a particularly beautiful song.

Jocelyn's List of How to Finish the Last 22 Days of the Month and Feel Like She Kicked Ass (also subtitled "How Not to be a Loser")

1. See those floating things on my sidebar that still aren't done? Taking the 15 minutes to mail K-Yo's late Christmas present and getting some stuff worked out with my obgyn? Actually getting that done!

2. Actually getting around to purchasing AND sending all of my January, February and March birthday presents.

3. Can anybody say first pass at my taxes?

4. Completing my second play through of Twilight Princess so I can really internalize that game. No joke.

5. Reading two books. I'd say three, but there's that whole Zelda thing going on. I didn't complete reading a single book in January. How embarassing is that?

6. 50 pages of personal writing on the Dreaming Not Sleeping project. That's more or less 20 pages a week, which shouldn't be that hard.

7. Getting Pookie to nail down 30th birthday plans so the rest of us can all make plans.

8. Getting my long weekly run up to 17 miles. I lost a lot of running time when I was sick in January. This should be interesting.

9. Finishing the brown cord shorts I started two months ago.

10. Finishing at least 1/3 of the canvass I started two months ago.

And that's plenty, right? I can feel like I'm back in ass-kicking mode if I do all of that, right?

 

Super Bowl Hangover

I have one.

I won almost $200 playing blackjack the night before. Since EVERYBODY was betting the first half under, I rolled half of that into unders on the game. Then I watched the first play of the game get run back for a touchdown. And then I ordered a drink. But I still ended up winning for the weekend overall and Charms94 and I went to Nobu for dinner on that.

Maybe I have a "really, really good weekend hangover." I spent Thursday night sleeping peacefully. On Friday we had dinner at the Burger Bar and then watched Little Miss Sunshine again on dvd. On Saturday, we headed up to Mesquite (It's Mesquite!) for dinner with the Pregame Team, craps and blackjack. And my favorite hotel rooms with the tacky, dirty mirrors on the wall. And ToniK beat Charms94 at Ms. Pac-Man. And I will bring that up at every opportunity.

And Sunday was the Super Bowl. And there was a Pregame event that I had to work at. Normally, at a Pregame event, men buy me shots and we joke about sports. At this event, I explained condoms to octogenarians and at one point hit on a paraplegic. It's Mesquite!

Congratulations, Peyton.

Today, I woke up and NFL season was over. I spent three months getting ready for NFL season and then six months living and breathing that season. I feel a little empty today. Honestly. How weird is that?