Jan/085
Day 10: My Back Up Plan
One of my friends recently got laid off from their job and found themselves with a very large flexible spending account to spend. Rather than buy a lifetime supply of Advil or Q-tips, she decided to buy 33 packs of the morning after pill, also known as Plan B and share the wealth with me and a couple of other sassy broads.
This makes me think of all of those wonderful times that Plan B & I have partied together. There's the first time: in college, having to do that ultimate walk of shame from one end of a freezing cold campus to another in the dreary Oberlin winter to pick up the pills in which I convinced myself that I not only had every STD known to mankind, I would also now have to raise a child, who would now ALSO have every STD ever and we would be exiled to a leper's colony, a colony full of people who did not use condoms each and every single time they had sex. A few weeks later, my uterus revealed she was indeed empty. A couple of months later, it was confirmed I did not have every STD ever. Those were good feelings.
Then there was that time when I was actually on regular birth control but had of course forgotten to take a bunch of them for a couple of days and naturally, that exact same weekend was the weekend my man was in town and the minute he left, I made my friend drive me to the Potrero Hill Walgreen's to take care of things. The little queen pharmacist looked me up and down and after asking me all the regular intake questions (last time I had sex, last time I took my birth control) sucked his teeth in, rolled his eyes and said "Uhhhh..yeah...you should PROBABLY take it". Like you've never had unprotected sex, SIR. Why the dirty looks?
Having unprotected sex is one of the dirty little secrets of adult life. Everyone has done it when they probably shouldn't have and everyone likes to get on their high horse when other people admit to doing so. I mean yes, ideally, we should all be using condoms all the time including for oral sex. Lets be real here - if you truly want to get serious about preventing STDs, you should also be using dental dams, finger cots, and gloves. Oh, and don't kiss anyone either because you may get herpes. Just stare at each other from across the room; abstinence really is the best prevention, you know.
Fuck that. It's called risk assessment. Some times you take a big one and hope for the best. Plan B throws a little more certainty into that "hope" cocktail. Here's to you, Plan B, to always having backup, and to all those babies that never stood a chance. I'm raising my glass to you tonight!
(For more info on Plan B & emergency contraception - visit Not-2-Late.com, run by Princeton University. It is the grand daddy of all morning after pill sites and even teaches you how to use your regular birth control pills as emergency contraception, if you do not have access to Plan B.
To find out where to get tested for HIV, check out the CDC's HIV testing site. For other STDs as well as more info on HIV & emergency contraception, my favorite resource is good old Planned Parenthood. And yes, even men can be seen there! )
Picture courtesy of Some-e-Cards
Jan/084
Day 9: My Negative Coping Mechanisms
This is the point in any experiment in which I start to get bored and start to rationalize why I shouldn't go through with my 30 posts in 30 days. Only 5 people read my blog, I think, and almost all of them know me in real life. I already did the entry about Vegas-Gate. What else is there?
Because the show must go on and because I have to develop some kind of discipline if I am ever going to get anywhere in this life or I will kill myself. Well, I won't kill myself. I'll slowly do it with more alcohol and more vices.
Anyway.As I write this entry, my head is burning with the chemical death of Feria hair dye and my neck is covered in Vaseline (a typical Wednesday afternoon) as every single time I looked at my hair, I could see the faded out red from the last time I did a shitty drug store hair dye job and it was making me angry. Soon my hair, which is already pretty black, will be EXTRA BLACK.
I love doing things that give me an illusion of control like dying my hair. My favorites are:
1)Re-arranging furniture
2)Emptying the dishwasher and doing another load of dishes
3)E-stalking my exes and seeing how busted their new girlfriends look
4)Putting up a Craigslist ad, getting a ton of responses and ignoring all of them
5)Going for a walk with my iPod and imagining fantastic revenge scenarios, music video style
What are the things you do to make yourself feel better that don't actually change anything?
Jan/084
Day 8: My Sex Tips For Virgins
For Guy Virgins: Basic Things No One Told Me About Sex (Dating Groundwork)
Sex Tips for Lady Virgins (Jezebel)
1. Despite what anyone tells you, your virginity is not a sacred gift. It's not something you own and it's not something that makes you a better person. On the flip side, if you want to do it but haven't, it's not a burden or an indication that you are a leper who will never get laid. It just makes you some one who hasn't done it yet. That's all it is. You will do it and realize that sex is many things but never let it define your worth.
2. Your sex is not like anybody else's. It isn't like it is in porn or in movies and it isn't even the way your friends may have described it to you. It's yours. Maybe your first time will hurt, maybe it won't. Maybe you'll bleed, maybe you won't. Maybe what all your friends think is weird is what turns you on during sex and you are feeling like a freak. Don't get caught up in this - it's all up to you and who you're hanging with. The important thing is to have fun.
3. Always pee after you do it. I don't care if it's cold, I don't care if you don't want to put pants on or a robe and you may have to go out into your dorm hallway or walk past his parent's bedroom or walk past his giggling housemates, you will pay very dearly if you don't pee. Why? The proof that God hates women: the UTI, or urinary tract infection. When I volunteered at a women's sexual health clinic, Monday mornings were known for two things: girls wanting the morning after pill (more on this later) and UTI appointments. This typically happens when you have a lot of sex in a short amount of time or really rough sex. Anyway, can be avoided by peeing afterwards. You'll thank me later.
4. Dudes like what you look like naked. There are literally millions of articles written in women's magazines about how to hide your imperfections from men and you may as well burn all of those rags in a big giant trash heap because the truth is that they aren't noticing. And if they are, they likely think whatever body part you despise is adorable and they want to do dirty things to it.
Same goes for underwear. There is a particular type of dude who is really into women's lingerie but really, I have learned buy cute underthings for one person: me. I'm not saying to bust out the hanes her way period underwear when you go on dates, but if you're spending hundreds of dollars on Agent Provocateur in the hopes that your man will notice for longer than one second, I say stop doing that and instead invest your money into regular waxing or a Gillete Mach 3 The results of the latter will be far more appreciated than an 100 dollar thong.
5. TALK to your partner. This one is hard - women in general have a hard time speaking up for what they want and we are totally conditioned to believe that sex is just going to magically be perfect. This is totally not true. Sometimes sex is work. Sometimes you have to be the writer, producer, director AND star of the show, you know what I'm saying? If the dude does not appreciate that you dare question his stunning technique, then I say, it is high time to pull your panties on and get out of there. A guy worth having sex with wants nothing more than to make YOU happy, he should be thanking his lucky stars you are even there.
Jan/087
Day 7: My Internal Conflict
I'm not going to lie: when it was my ex's birthday last year, I listened to The Smiths "Unhappy Birthday" on repeat. Is there a song that captures that sweet essence of hating someone you also still love more? Look at the lyrics: And if you should die/I may feel slightly sad/but I won't cry and then the clincher, that lovely aside at the end: "from the one you left behind".
In my case, it was more: I hope you're happy with that skinny bitch! I bet her ass isn't taking you to Europe and dinner at Absinthe and buying youtickets to a fucking Red Sox game two rows behind home plate, you fucking asshole! By the way, I love you. And I miss you. BABY COME BACK (you can blame it all on me).
Ahem.
Which brings us to this video. I was looking for videos of UnHappy Birthday on YouTube and stumbled upon the following trainwreck of an iMovie montage that one very upset man made for his ex on his birthday and then apparently SENT TO HIM, which to me, is the saddest part of all, how clearly he still cares for him. You don't send links to people you are not still in love with.
Edit: The YouTube embed link was messing up, so we're going to have to do it the hard way and you're going to have to click through! Wishing An UnHappy Birthday to Joey Nelson
There's also a blog, and apparently this dude owes his ex 11,500 dollars, in which case, the above video doesn't seem so psychotic. Naturally, I'm very curious to find out the details. I ran the asshole's name through all the usual social networking sites and came up with nothing. The scorned ex has a personal blog and even a Yelp account, but unlike yours truly, they don't vomit out all of their business on the Internet and there is no dirt to be found. Perhaps the creator of the video, Todd, will find this blog entry and give me the gossip. Send me an e-mail at maria AT onesharpbroad.com, I'll buy you a drink in exchange for details!
Jan/080
Day 6: My Phone-In
I didn't write a blog entry last night because I was doing a little thing that you may call "sleeping". Many thanks to my pals for buying me two Coronas on an empty stomach during the Upright Citizens Brigade/ASSSSSCAT show and then taking the party across the street to fancy pants Frisson, where I consumed two delicious blood orange margaritas and where I was so hungry I actually licked all the salt off of the glass, hungry for any kind of nourishment but deciding against paying 15 dollars for a "snack" at the bar. I enjoy Frisson a lot, even though it's decidedly way more swank than I will ever be, but it's just like Vegas - you're there, so why not pay 12 dollars for a drink?
The last time I was there was early last year on a date, with a sweet but extremely awkward recent Stanford grad. We'd had an extended text message back & forth about our shared addiction to reality shows. He had a habit of coming up to the city once a week and going to fancy restaurants and he abruptly invited me to go to dinner with him via text at about 6:30pm. Even though I always follow The Rules, I know the value of a good meal and I didn't want to spend yet another Friday drunkenly eating Indian food at 3 in the morning with the alcoholic crew I was running with at the time, I accepted, but not before getting drunk at a bar beforehand.
Jan/085
Day 5: My Nice Guy
My life has turned into an endless pursuit of sleep. I guess things were better when I was staying up all night and sleeping until the middle of the afternoon because at least I was getting large hours of it a time, but now my body refuses to sleep past 4-5 hours, on some sort of demented nap schedule. I'm trying to whip it into submission by pushing myself to stay awake all day, but once I hit a brick wall, I am out and oops, there goes my evening. Hello, 2am! I have been wiling away some of these late night hours talking to a dude I met via Craigslist, who at first seemed promising, but then he did something that basically puts you on the "Do Not Make Out" list (kind of like the Do Not Call list). He started complaining about how hard it is to be a "nice guy".
Now, while it may seem that I am yet another one of those bitches with en endless amount of daddy issues who only goes for douchebags, that is actually not the case. My boyfriends, and even the one I thought I would one day marry, were all nice guys. They didn't cringe when I made them go get me Advil for my terrible cramps, they would make me dinner, open doors and always understood that No meant no (except when you know, it doesn't. Ow!) I have done that whole hooked on rejection dance that only bad boys can bring you and in the end, I got love for the nice guy. Being nice is not the issue.
The issue with the "nice guy" and what they are actually complaining about when you listen to their boring rant long enough is that they actually hate women, even more than the guys who are assholes in an overt way. The "nice guy" isn't looking for someone who's his equal or his partner (even though many of them will give lip service to this and may even claim to be "feminists" if they are not too busy blaming feminism for the fact that women won't put up with their shit) or even his hot lay for the night, he is almost always looking for a mom, a sympathetic noise maker and a virgin. They want a woman who will worship them and won't dump them or cheat on them because they are "nice" and who will eat their condescending, paternalistic attitude up with a spoon.
Anyway, you can rest assured that this fellow will not be getting a piece of This.
Jan/081
Day 4: My Year Long Obsession
I'd like to tell you about another cringe inducing story from my past. When I first moved here, I was dating this guy I had met on Nerve named Ash. I was 20 and he was 31. Ash was very different from my previous boyfriends, who consisted of a socially inept dude who refused to ever leave his parent's house, was on so much Paxil he refused to sleep with me and who had been in college for something like 7 years. After that, there was my very sweet, but very, very 420 friendly Canadian boyfriend who broke up with me after I went to visit him because he was having a meaningful phone relationship with a crystal meth addict who he had never met.
So you can imagine what my 20 year old brain, fresh in the Bay Area after years of being cooped up in my parent's house and then the bubble of Oberlin College, felt when I had this tall, dark, handsome, broad shouldered stranger by my side every other weekend (he lived in Sacramento) (what can I say? if you are hot, I will travel.) with not only a real job, a well decorated apartment and the clincher - ACTUAL sexual prowess. He had the skillz to pay the billz. Young enthusiasm can only take you so far, know what I mean?
My very naive, stars in my eyes reaction to what I now realize was an ideal friends with benefits setup is that I fell completely and utterly in love with him and by that I mean, he made me completely insane. If there is such a thing as penis power, he had it over me. He made me so nuts that when I found out he was totally cheating on me - via finding the girls Livejournal bookmarked on his computer and her romantic, saccharine descriptions of their time together, including one entry that made me want to vomit called "The Massage", rather than confront him and dump his ass, I decided to become her friend and rub my relationship with Ash in her face. She lived in New York, so she didn't have the access to him that I did.
Jan/087
Day 3: My Dispatch from Crazy Town
As we all know, I love the Craigslist. You never know what you're going to get when you post on the CL and that to me, is part of the fun. And I can't knock it - I owe my life in San Francisco to Craig. I used to get my coffee from the same place that Craig Newmark does and I loved seeing him in the morning, reading the paper. Thank you Craig for housing, love, bad dates, furniture, and the occasional gems that make me happy Gmail has an archive function. Like, the following, inspired by Jezebel's brilliant Crap Email From A Dude
Now, I had corresponded with this person a handful of times over the course of one evening and he seemed cool, if not a little overly demonstrative. But hey, I am a woman and I love flattery. Bring it on. The following day, I was in my friend's car when I recieved the following dispatch straight from Crazy Town:
Jan/081
Day 1: My Ulterior Motives
I've been keeping my room really clean lately. I mean - really clean for my standards. I've been keeping my clothes off the floor, doing laundry once a week (as opposed to whenever the underwear runs out or I start to notice people not sitting next to me on MUNI) and --gasp-- keeping the bed made. It's almost as if I'm preparing to show my bedroom to someone else, you know, someone who may want to spend a bit of time in my room with me.
Unfortunately, not the case. The well, it is dry. And it's been dry for months. Save for one repeat offender a few months ago and one limited time only special, we are seeing a level of celibacy that I have not seen since I was a gameless scary 19 year old with an Internet boyfriend. Rations are scarce. So since I am keeping my love nest so pretty, am I finally reaching that most desired level of single girl-dom, of doing things, for uh, me?
Well, yes. I like having a clean room. Going to sleep at night in a bed consisting mostly of pillows and not a laptop, my cell phone, socks and a bunch of papers is kind of nice. Not rummaging through a bunch of wadded up American Apparel t-shirts to find a pair of tights before I go to a party and getting so frustrated I start to rack my brain for excuses not to attend is just as pleasant.
But, it'd be cool to have someone to hang out with in here. I put up a profile on Nerve and worked hard on it, but so far, no one has bitten, save for one dude who lives in Lafayette, a place so far in the East Bay I can't even place it my internal BART map. And bitch, please. I can barely go North of Market, you think I'm really going to be taking BART to see you? So, I went back to my tried and true, my one and only, Craigslist and it is the usual gamut of almost entirely form letters. One guy couldn't even be bothered to BCC the 40+ women he had emailed.
Out of the pile of nothing there is one eligible bachelor, but he is staying guilty until proven otherwise. That is, I am not getting too excited about it until he proves to me that he isn't lame. That's the kind of thinking that shows me that I need to be in some kind of therapy and not vomiting out here, but web hosting is cheaper and I like you guys more than some shrink.
My other motive for posting is that I have promised myself that I will be posting every day for 30 days. Aren't you excited? I know I am.
Jan/082
I don't sleep, I dream.
Being awake at 5:35am, despite what you may think, is NOT fun, especially if you aren't engaging in any of the following:
1) Doing it. And even then, at 5:30, you are most likely thinking to yourself: WHEN WILL THIS TORTURE END? I JUST WANT TO GO TO SLEEP BUT I DON'T WANT HIM TO THINK I DON'T WANT TO DO IT EVER SO I WILL JUST PRETEND TO BE AWAKE NOW, SURELY HE WILL BE DONE SOON? WHY DID I WAKE UP?
2) Drinking at some 24 hour establishment. And even then, you are likely thinking: How can I puke without anyone noticing? How can I pretend to drink this shot this weird dude who won't leave just bought me? Maybe If I go to the bathroom and doze off for a few minutes I can continue to party? Did I really just pay 5 dollars for this cup of dirty water?
3) Eating at some 24 hour establishment. Again though.. this is what goes through my mind: why did I order every single type of fried appetizer? How can I have drank this entire pot of coffee and still want to pass out in this booth? Oh no, my friend is telling me some extremely painful memory from their past and I can barely understand them because all I can think of is BED BED BED and not how hurt they were when their 7th grade boyfriend started going out with someone else and never told them and now they have always had trust issues and OMG WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GET HOME SO I CAN SLEEP?
So in conclusion, 5:35am, awake and not asleep: sucks. Off to bed I go with my Ipod and a Law & Order to make me sleep. Please, Bobby Goren: you're my only hope.