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:
Nov/071
Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world.
Excuse the reference to the most cliched song of the past year, but it's the only way I can describe how I feel about a recent happening in my little world, which basically consists of me only going to places in a 5 block radius. One of those places is the grocery store across the street from my house, which despite my promises to make the trek to Trader Joe's because it is the most expensive grocery store in the universe I still go to, sometimes multiple times a day. Across the street will win over saving money any time.
So, the discovery is that a young gentleman who I had once blown off via Myspace was now, horror of horrors, working at this grocery store. He was someone I had communicated with because of a Craigslist personal ad (my chosen Internet poison of choice) way back in January, which was my first real month of living Post BreakUp and where the only man I needed to be interacting with was my computer. In other words, I was a total wreck and in absolutely no shape to be even considering going on a date. While he was very nice over the phone and we totally had stuff in common, I had a boy like freak out and wrote him a rejection email over the dreaded Myspace.
11 months later, fool is bagging groceries at the one place I frequent more than the karaoke bar. Thanks, world. When I stopped in today after an uncontrollable urge to make my own bagels, the store was so empty he ended up checking me out. In the grocery checking sense. In the other sense, he did not make any eye contact with me at all, instead choosing to stare at the empty space directly opposite me. I vow to never prepare my own bagels again. Isn't that what living in a big city is for, anyway?
Jul/073
One Hot Broad
When I was in high school, there was this kid named Gregory who was pretty much your standard Knicks-obsessed, baggy jean wearing (or rather, overall with only one hook on as we did in the late 90s), black male high school student who dropped like the N-word like his life was one long Ku Klux Klan meeting. So, he talked like every other 16 year old black kid in NYC. With one exception. Instead of using the word "bitch" or "ho" like his pals, he constantly referred to women as "broads". For real, like this : "Naw man, that broad be trippin'!" It was the weirdest anachronism. Where did he learn it? Was he secretly listening to Frank Sinatra on his walkman?
In any case, I have been mildly obsessed with the word ever since. It's my favorite way to describe sassy bitches who like to make out. The word "slut" is so ugly and reminds me of girls who travel to Los Angeles and end up up making gonzo porno movies like Cream Pie Cuties 10. Broad is perfect. It makes you feel like you look like the beautiful Ms. Hayworth in the picture above. At least that's how it makes me feel.
So, 4 years ago, when I was 21, I had a mild addiction to posting and responding to personal ads on Craigslist. I had this temp job where I was so much more competent than the person I was subbing for (just by virtue of being able to use a computer and not do my nails at the desk all day) that I was able to get away with doing about 30 minutes of work and then email with hot dudes all day long. Or odd San Fransisco types who ALL work in IT (except, coincidentally, the guy I ended up dating for 3 years). So I set up this fake email account to ward off the crazies, called onehotbroad AT yahoo.com. Ha ha, I am so clever.
I start emailing with this 50 year old ex-punk rocker who tells me he is going to take me on a tour of strip joints and to a bunch of bars in the Tenderloin. Of course, this all sounds AWESOME to me. Man twice my age taking me to the sketchiest places in San Francisco that I met off the Internet? COUNT. ME. IN. We go on the date, stopping at the Gold Club, the Lusty Lady and a bunch of other places that I can't remember because I was completely and utterly wasted. So wasted in fact that somewhere between the tenderloin and north beach, I break my left foot and don't feel a fucking thing.
A few weeks later, I am house bound in my third floor walk up in the Mission, going stir crazy and rocking a gigantic plaster cast and as usual, decide to entertain myself by posting an ad on Craigslist, asking for correspondence. I get a flood of emails, one from my 50 year old friend, who proceeds to write me about the night we had (not knowing it was me he was writing to) in his usual verbose, exaggerated fashion. I mostly skim it until I read one part, in which he claimed that I had "mis-represented" my looks by calling myself a "hot broad" in my email because I was such an obese cow. Because you know, email addresses are things to be taken seriously. I am often surprised that Laura isn't a penguin, but actually a woman. Odd.
I never wrote to him or responded to any of his messages ever again. But I do continue to call myself a hot broad, at least on ebay, where it matters most. For this blog, I am SHARP, because I want to climb the blogosphere ladder based on my ability, not my sluttiness. I hope it can be done.