Princess Chunky!!!!

Just look at this adorable fatty-back!
It's Princess Chunky, a runaway, South Jersey, cat who weighs in at only 2lbs less than the fattest ever know cat. 44lbs!!!!
Awwww.
I know, blah, blah, we're fat, our pets are fat, our pets are depressed and taking cat prozac, down fall of decadent western society, blah blah.
But I had a super fat cat growing up and fat cats rule!!! Plus I lived in South Jersey, and so did my cat, and so does this cat.
Anyway, just enjoy the fat cat already.

Reality TV = World Domination

And honestly it can't come soon enough for me.

1. The Emmys will be hosted by the 5 nominees for Best Reality TV Host. For the ill informed thats Tom Bergeron (love him though he's nominated for dancing with the stars instead of the worlds greatest show, America's Funniet Videos. He's a champ.), Heidi Klum (duh everyone can agree that she's amazing), Howie Mandel (gag), Jeff Probst (He's a total prick but Survivor is like the Grandmaster Flash of reality TV so obvs deserves a nod), and Ryan Seacrest (uh, I got nothing).

Horifically neglected is Cat Deely from So You Think You Can Dance. Love you, love your outfits, you're the best.












2. I have a new mental illness to tell you about!!!
It's called the "Truman Show Delusion" from the Jim Carey get's serious vehical, 'The Truman Show". Just like in the movie people suffering from this delusion THINK they are the subject of their own reality show, being taped behind their back.
I can't wait till I get this.
Chickity-check --

The five patients Dr. Gold treated were white men between the ages of 25 and 34, the majority of whom held university degrees. "I realized that I was and am the centre, the focus of attention by millions and millions of people," explained one patient, an army veteran who came from an upper-middle-class upbringing.

"My family and everyone I knew were and are actors in a script, a charade whose entire purpose is to make me the focus of the world's attention."

The patient added that he planned to climb to the top of the Statue of Liberty, and if his true love were waiting for him, the puppeteer strings would be cut. If she failed to show up, he would jump to his death.

Doesn't sound delusional to me.

Mixed messages much???

Well yes it IS an abstinence thong.
If you can't see, it says 'Earn your right to wear white'. And fyi it's not a vagina, it's your 'under-goodie'.

We've come full circle people. In tonight's production of the rapture the 4 horsemen will be played by the Queer Eye gays and they'll be riding Teletubbies. And I will give 1 MILLION (fake) DOLLARS to anyone who can draw me a picture.

Ah! That's more like it! Sweatpants always say, 'Let's just hold on a minute.'











'Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder'
Wait, I'm confused again. Are they saying, if we hadn't had sex we wouldn't have this stinkin' baby?? Or are they telling the baby not to have sex? Or are they just saying, you'll like this baby better if you don't molest it? Sorry I know that's gross but they totally started it!!!

Oakland, the sunny side of the bay

A lot of times people (people who live outside Oakland) think I live in Oakland only because I lack the funds to live elsewhere. That, given the chance, I'd move to SF. They usually try to commiserate with me or tell me about their friend who's subletting a room in some part of the city I would never want to live.
Well, such people need to step. I have many metric tons of Oakland pride and wouldn't move to the city even if I did have gobs of money. Which I obvs don't, but whatever.

I also tend to think my neighborhood is very safe. Of course everyone thinks their neighborhood is safe. My friend who's seen 3 murders on her street, and I mean on her block, including one corpse IN THE STREET, worries about parking on my street over night.

In fact I was giving her and my other friend and the bf a big indignant speech how living below Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd doesn't always indicate shady times no matter what Chris Rock says, when our friend called to say he'd just been punched in the face right on my doorstep!! And for no worse crime than being dressed dorky and having a basket on his bike.
Heh, dork.
Anyway I never got punched, my car's never been broken into and no one's ever said anything worse to me than 'damn you look sexy today' and really, that's kind of nice.

HOWEVER I checked out this interactive map of homicides in Oakland this year, and there have been 3 murders within 3 blocks of my house. Gulp.





And then I read this choice quote from the East Bay Express's crime blotter. Note for non East Bayers: Piedmont is a town that's basically inside Oakland, but became it's own thing when it realized it was full of money and didn't want it's taxes going into Oakland's coffers.

Between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. on July 5, Piedmont police records show reports of a house being egged, a loud leaf-blower, a blocked driveway, two off-leash dogs, a car parked too long, "a suspicious person carrying a plastic bag," a dead rat, and a dead cat. That's it. Within those same hours in Oakland, police records show five shootings, an assault with a deadly weapon, three armed robberies, a strong-arm robbery, an assault with a deadly weapon, and an unexplained death. That's it.

Oh is that all?

TGIF!

The (no longer) pregnant man's baby!!!
Have a super weekend!

Books I cannot WAIT to read!!!!!!!!

It's no secret that in my head I'm a gay, black man. It's a source of constant disappointment to wake up a straight, white, woman every day, but I just listen to a little Mariah Carey, I get centered and it's all okay.
Point?? I ordered Hiding in Hip Hop today from Amazon. Yay!

The only problem is there were totally rumors that he was going to name names and apparently HE DOESN'T.
Gay!
I'll read it and try to figure out who's who - I'm looking at YOU Babyface!

Secondly, OMG, guess who else has a tell all????? One of the last people you ever wanted to see naked, but then ended up watching at least half of the sex tape.
Not Vern Troyer. Yes, Dustin 'Screech' Diamond! Supposedly they were all having sex all the time on SBTB but I have to believe that he knows that only because of accidentally walking in on the other actors, not because he was involved.
Sorry but Zac and Slater are more than hot enough for 3 chicks.

I know this is the 2nd thing I've scammed off Radar in as many posts but damn, they got the goods! I'm actually going to give you all the copy they got from the publisher because I don't want you to unnecessarily stress your clicking fingers. Enjoy!

On the face of it, I am no more qualified to take my own inventory than the chick from Punky Brewster who shows up on Entertainment Tonight or The Insider every five years or so. Ask her how she wound up repeating the same old anecdotes to Billy Bush again, and she may have an answer, but she doesn't really know and probably couldn't bear it if she did.

To be a washed-up actor best known for a show which ended in 1993 is to be something of a cognitive acrobat. You spread versions of yourself around, giving each person the truth he or she needs—you need, actually—to keep yourself in the public eye, no matter how much mockery it entails or how diminishing the returns. Let's stipulate that I do not have a good memory, having recklessly sautéed my brain in fistfuls of craft services M&M's. Beyond impairment, there may be no more unreliable narrator than a washed-up actor. Recovered or not, I am someone who used my mouth to constantly create one more opportunity to get publicity.

Here is what I deserved: a small cameo on NYPD Blue when the Goss was on it, a mid-afternoon radio show in a minor market, and then a total fade-out leading to complete anonymity punctured by soul-crushing loneliness and, at best, a cashier's job at a dry cleaning supplies store.

Here is what I got: A poorly-received sex tape, a slot on Season Six of Celebrity Fit Club, and the deal for this book.

But I suppose you're not interested in my musings on the vagaries of fate. You'd rather just hear about the part where I was up to my nuts in Principal Belding's guts while Kelly Kapowski blew lines off of Mario Lopez's cock. Man, they never let us back into that Bennigan's again. Anyway, here's what happened.

Pandrogeny? That's a new one even for me...

I looked this all up and down the internets but it seems that this is, as of yet, a newly invented what, idea? Identity disorder? Conceptual art piece? I have no idea. It looks as though pandrogeny was invented by one Genesis P-Orridge and his late spiritual wife, other half, what have you, Lady Jaye Bryer.

You see, "The idea behind pandrogeny, as they called it, was for two people to literally become each other—or to come as close as possible. At first, it was a matter of simply dressing alike, going in for the same hairstyle, getting Jaye a set of contact lenses to match Gen's eyes. But that wasn't enough. The Valentine's Day operation gave them matching breast implants, size C. Later, Jaye had her eyes and nose done, and got a chin implant, to resemble Gen. Gen received cheek enhancements and a lip job. At one point, they looked into the idea of smoothing over their belly buttons, like angels."

Like angels!
So obviously you're going to read this article in Radar anyway, but the weirdo surgery part isn't even the half of it!

This dude Genesis is kind of amazing, but have you ever heard of him??? I haven't.
He's epic though, apparently his first band, Throbbing Gristle (awesome name or what?!!?) basically invented industrial music. No, I don't like that shit either and when hear, "Reportedly, some performances featured frequencies so low they induced vomiting" and "If it weren't for Throbbing Gristle, people like Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor would never have existed at all." I don't exactly get all hot and bothered to download that shit off iTunes.

But!!! There's more wacky to this article than you can shake a dildo at. Genesis has sex on stage, eats his own feces, throws it up and then eats the vomit, rides around in a baby carriage thinking up new art movements and, for some reason, crashes at Winona Ryder's parent's house when she was a kid.
I won't even get into how he gets married. Hint, it almost kills him.

Oh, also here's his personal website incase you can never get enough half crazy art-speak.

More reasons to sit quietly in your chair

Have you seen the movie Air Guitar Nation??? It's a documentary about the US's first National Air Guitar Championships and features our first emissary (this guy C.Diddy (ne David Jung)) to the World Championships in Finland.
He looks ridiculous (obvi) but you should really see him shred, it's kind of amazing. The movie has a kind of King of Kong feel, if you've seen it. Note to self: they'd make a great double feature.

Anyway, since the doc came out the US National Air Guitar Championships have become a big deal, or at least well attended and competitive.
This is no cake walk people! Skills are needed, stops must be pulled out, plates must be stepped up too, and everything must be left on the stage.

So TO THE EXTREME this past weekend at the Brooklyn Regionals Bettie B. Goode (ne Taryn Kapronica) rocked out so hard she bent her toe off.
Yes off.
It had to be amputated. She says:
"By the time I hit the ground and looked down, my toe was pretty much gone and just hanging from a thread." Blood dripping across the stage, she continued to play finish her air cover of Scorpion's "Rock You Like a Hurricane," saying "I just kept on air guitaring".

'Rock you like a Hurricane' RULES!!! Good choice Bettie!

This is not Bettie's first Air injury. No, no. Back in June in Philadelphia (yo!) she jumped on the judges table, knocked over their drinks, slipped in the spilled booze, fell off the table and cracked her tailbone. Whoops! It did get her advanced to the next round though. She also handles getting mad groped when she stage dives, which women performers rarely do (you know because of the groping) because she's that devoted to her craft.
Think about reading the whole article from the link, she's pretty hardcore, plus you can learn about air guitars elusive soul, 'airness'.

Now I'm pissed that I missed the SF Championships last month at the Independent, sounds like a real party.
What a fool, sigh.

RIP Estelle Getty

Say it ain't so Sophia!!!

Truly a roll model for all girls who yearn to crack wise.
You will be missed.

More adventures in focus groups

I had an awesome one today!!

First of all it was near my work and only half an hour so I could do it on my lunch break. That's rad because I didn't have to wake up at 6:30a to go before work nor did I have to go after work which can ruin a chance to go out or do laundry.

Second, they paid me in cash which is great because what's better than cash?
Nothing. And I'll tell you, last week Adobe pawned off these $100 American Express gift checks on us, ugh. I mean obvi I took it, duh, but that's the kind of thing that sits in your wallet for 2 years because you never know when slash where to use it. If you're me. Which I am.
Don't worry, I pawned it off on boyfriend since I still owe him some money from unemployed times.
Problem solved. For me anyway. I definitely forecast finding it in his wallet in 2 years.

Thirdly, they told me I gave the best feedback of anyone they had in all their groups. Well first the guy was like, 'What's your level of education?' and immediately I was on guard because not only do I work for a graduate school, everyone in my family is totally over educated and I'm the only one with only a bachelors. And, to top it off its a Bachelor of Fine Arts. So, I'm a little sensitive when people ask about my level of education. But then he was like, we should get more BFAs in here.
You should know that with me, compliments will get you everywhere.

Compliments and cash, two great tastes that taste great together.

Annette Obrestad: my new HERO

Do you know that when Oprah talks about a female hero she calls her a 'she-ro'
Yeah I can't support that. Sorry Oprah.















More on topic have you heard about this awesome bitch??? I read about Annette first in BUST though of course I can't link bc they're the kind of magazine that wants you to BUY the magazine to read the content. Ugh, you can read her profile here though, and really, she's all over the damn place if you read poker sites.

She's 19, she lives in Norway and she's the youngest winner of the World Series of Poker (you get a bracelet) and the only female player to EVER rank #1 in online poker play.

Whatever, I know, you don't care about poker, especially online poker.
Well how about how she won a 180 person online tournament without looking at her cards!!! Well she peeked one time during an all in situation. BUT STILL!!!

She's like a zillionaire now and she's only getting started, keep your eye on her! Or don't worry, I will for you.

Chain of wierdness

See if you can follow. I'm not saying you aren't smart, I'm just saying this shit is kind of weird.

1. Orgasmic Birth
Just what is sounds like! Maybe you should think about getting your rocks off while pushing that watermelon out. There's a new movie out called, yes, 'Orgasmic Birth' which explores how 'Women can experience birth as sensual and pleasurable, and can enter a natural state of ecstasy.'

Warning, as soon as you load the page a video will start of pregnant women groaning in ecstasy, so prob not safe for work. Also if that sort of thing might freak you out then it's not safe for you at all.
Honestly, orgasmic birth sounds a little kooky but then again, like a pretty rad alternative to a shitty predicament. Let's hope it takes off.


2. Dolphin assisted birth
See now we're sliding down the kooky scale a few notches. Okay more than a few.
Did you know that 'Dolphins have an affinity with the baby in the womb and are automatically attracted to pregnant women. They sense when a woman is about to give birth and gather round. They give both the mother and child a sense of protection and safety,' says Charkovsky.

Does that sound right??

That's not all! 'Research sufficient for us and experience since 1976 has shown that dolphins are able to improve or heal a wide variety of conditions including depression, autism, Down's syndrome, cerebral palsy, and microephaly'
Interested??? Take the seminar!! Because, Dolphins are not only masterful midwives, but they are elegant programmers of our cellular blueprint.
But you knew that already.


3. My wife left me when the dolphins at Sea World gave me an erection
I love advice columns, love, love, love. Probably because I'm bossy and also like to tell people how to live their lives. I read a bunch weekly, even the one's I don't like, and one of those is Cary Tennis on Salon. However, this week's really gave me pause.
Who in the world can resist reading about a man who's wife left him for getting an erection at Sea World.
No need to read the advice Cary gives but def read the question as it includes such gems as, 'I admired their soft slippery skin. It was just so exotic; I had never felt that way before. Looking at those soft underbellies and long slender fins was like seeing the face of god.'


4. Man accused of possessing 10s of thousands of images of octopus porn escapes jail sentence.
How the fuck do you have sex with an octopus??? Don't they have, like, beaks?
I don't want it to sound like he singled octopi out, he also had images of people having sex with dogs and ponies (which is kind of like vanilla animal porn) and snakes (again how??) and tigers, which seems a bad idea all around. Some insight in to why he wanted to have sex with octopi: he was self conscious about his teeth.
Thank god my parents forced me to get braces. Cause you know, I didn't really want them.

Regrets? I've had a few...

I'm up at 9:30 on Saturday morning posting to my blog because I almost killed myself Thursday night partying with some lady friends.
Friday work was excruciating and though I should be happy and grateful for my new job which I like so much, instead I was hiding and trying to stay awake, and um, not throw up again.

I realized that I frequently use the excuse of, "When I'm with 'person x' I get too excited, party too hard and endanger my health."
This is the excuse usually goes to my boyfriend since he's the one always dealing with the aftermath.

He called shenanigans on that yesterday morning pointing out that in the past month 'person x' has encompassed no less than 6 different individuals! The thought dawned on me that maybe they don't have an overwhelming party effect on me, it may in fact be me that is the bad influence. (sad trombone music)

I will take this epiphany to heart and try to moderate a little more when I'm partying for the rest of the summer.

To showcase the destruction of Thursday night, here is the text chain between myself, and my two friends Lynsey and Mandy from Friday morning.

Lynsey to me: woke up in my bed naked w/my radio ON Mexican music playing. have to get my atm card from the owl tree this am...god Damn u r fun lol

Me to Lynsey: OMG I'm dying! Jake said I stumbled in reeking of perfume made fun of what he was watching, threw up and then got in bed and started snoring. Bad girlfriend!

Lynsey to me: That is the most amazing story. I smell like perfume too! WTF

Me to Mandy: (she's a little more of a lightweight) Are you okay? Sorry!

Mandy to me: How did I get home? threw up in my bed ;) Called in sick to work. I had fun you girls are wild :)

..................................................................................................................

Update: As of right now, Mandy will no longer go out with Lynsey and me for fear of the aftermath

Take my couture...Please!

Ba-dum-pum.
What do we think about this???
Louis Vuitton's new line of bags emblazoned with Henny Youngman jokes.

I know it's hard to tell from the picture but here's some of the jokes:
Every time I meet a woman who can cook like my Mother....She looks like my Father.
and
My wife went to the beauty shop and got a mud pack. For two days she looked beautiful. Then the mud fell off.

That kind of old, Jewish, dinner theater in the Catskills humor that riffes on the state of marital relations 'that were'. That were right?

I know I should be kind of icked out by bringing that old, gendered sensibility into 2008 unedited (I mean even James Bond is kind of pc now) but my Dad is a HUMONGOUS Henny Youngman fan. He had my sister Rachel and I spouting, 'Take my wife...please' years before we got the joke, which is kind of, um, mean, especially given that my Mother is his wife. Whenever I visit home I can always crack him up by saying, 'I just flew in from California...and boy are my arms tired.'
Good one! That never gets old! Seriously it doesn't for my Dad. It's like how I still think that Budwiser comercial from the late 90's where the guys just say, 'WAZZZZUP' to each other is advertising's gift to humanity.

I'm not an impartial judge is what I'm saying, instead of icking me out its making me want to go find the family picture where we're all wearing those Groucho Marx glasses with the nose and moustache.

On the other hand, the collision of high fashion and anything I associate with my Dad, who unironically wears a calculator watch, is a little bewildering. It also makes me want to swipe that calculator watch, to wear ironically.
Kind of awesome, right?

You're not my best man till I see some sword work

Last night I was at a wedding (yay Mar and Tony!) rather drunkenly trying to explain this article I read on Mental Floss a couple of weeks ago.
It's about the weirdo (and violent and misogynistic and patriarchal and superstitious and frankly, gross) origins of modern wedding traditions.

They're pretty crazy so you have to describe them with authority to make people believe you, which I don't think I was. I got a lot of incredulous looks especially when I talking about throwing the bouquet and the garter belt. But lo and behold!!

It used to be that after the bride and groom said, “I do,” they were to go immediately into a nearby room and “close the deal” and consummate the marriage. Obviously, to really make it official, there would need to be witnesses, which basically led to hordes of wedding guests crowding around the bed, pushing and shoving to get a good view and hopefully to get their hands on a lucky piece of the bride’s dress as it was ripped from her body. Sometimes the greedy guests helped get the process going by grabbing at the bride’s dress as she walked by, hoping for a few threads of good fortune. In time, it seems, people realized that this was all a bit, well… creepy, and it was decided that for modesty’s sake the bride could toss her bouquet as a diversion as she made her getaway and the groom could simply remove an item of the bride’s undergarments and then toss it back outside to the waiting throngs to prove that he was about to, uh, get ‘er done.

So, yeah, believe it people!

Please!!! Be cautious about bringing this new knowledge up at weddings. Do not start this convo with any of the bridal party or close relatives, and no girls that you saw crying while the father of the bride walked her down the isle. That's a buzz kill.
You also have to be careful not to end up sounding like an early 90s women's studies major at a safe sex party dressed as a dental dam. Because while I'm more than aware that walking the bride down the isle is, 'just a tiny, barbaric little hold over from the days when daughters were nothing but dollar signs to daddy dearest.' You're no fun to party with if you say patriarcy too much.
These are lessons I've learned the hard way.

So embarassed

I think I've said before that one of the ways I augment my cash flow is by participating in paid market research groups. It's hit or miss but they typically pay out $100 for an hour or 2 which is obvi great. Unless you make that much hourly from your real job, in which case you should think about buying me some drinks.

Tonight I was in one to test a text messaging game that you could play in real time while you're watching this season's Big Brother. Yes I watch a lot of reality tv, but you should know that among hard core reality tv viewers, Big Brother is king. The fans are completely and totally rabid and I would usually not advertise the fact that I walk among them. So it was a very strange feeling to be in a room filled with 15 of them.

First of all they made everyone wear a name badge which also had the name of their favorite BB winner. As soon as I sat down the guy next to me, looked at me, said, "Lisa?" made a scoffing noise and said, "everyone here is in the Dr. Will camp so you're out numbered."
Hello to you too, sir.

After some bizaro talk about who likes Julie Chen and which former house guests have been in gay porn they showed a sample episode and had us play the text game. I'm embarassed to say I was waaaaaaaay ahead for the whole time, completly enraging the comic book guy looking guy. Fortunately/unfortunately I was beat out in the last 2 questions by this other bitch.

It all ended happily though when they handed me my check. Yay money!!

I think we all blocked it out as a nation the 1st time

I've been totally caught up in the 'holy shit' of the "world's first pregnant man", Thomas Beatie, ever since I saw him on Oprah (yes I'm mentioning Oprah again, I think I may institute a once a post Oprah appearance). In fact I've been stalking the story online like it was the Austrian basement story. Or the one about the girl who sat on her boyfriend's toilet for 2 years. (Make sure you click on the link to learn 'how can skin become fused to a toilet seat').

Wait, what? Let me get back on topic - pregnant men! In my searching and stalking I found an article in the Village Voice from 2000 (8 years ago!!!) about a family consisting of not one FTM transsexual but TWO! TWO!

...we are both transgendered men (female-to-male or FTM), and my boyfriend is the mother of my child.

Hello Dolly! Of course they lived, and live right here in the Bay Area! And as I've always said about living here, no matter what people tell you their deal is, you just need to go ahead and be cool with it. Otherwise you're judgmental. That's why when someone says,

I investigated sex reassignment in my twenties, but was discouraged by the poor quality of genital surgery and terrified of the isolation. I wasn't sure I could separate the effects of misogyny from gender dysphoria. So I tried to be a different kind of woman, a sexually adventurous gender-fucking dyke who enjoyed every possible male prerogative. But it just wasn't enough.

I understand.
Sometimes being a sexually adventurous gender-fucking dyke who enjoys every possible male prerogative is enough. And some times it's not.

Anyway read the article, here's the link again. I mean anything that was going on before George Bush was even President can't be that shocking.
Right? Or am I getting screwy from living here so long?
No I think I'm right.

Adorable!

New in ANTM

Yes, I hate Tyra Banks as much as you do, but come on, how hysterical that she's now immortalized in wax at Madam Tussauds in DC. They got a little confused though and put her in the 'glamor room'. Hopefully they'll clear everything up and have her moved to the 'love to hate' room or the 'I know Oprah Winfrey and you, ma'am are no Oprah Winfrey' room or the 'take a hint from this wax dummy and shut your cake hole' room. Oh, I could go on and on, but I kid, I kid. Without ANTM my life would be dark and blurry because I'd have no idea how to let the light hit my face. So thank Tyra.

I'm also ready to admit that I want to go and have my picture taken with her. Though I can't decide if I want to 'smile with my eyes' or just be fierce. Ideas?

Related, if you can take, it check out the cover story about Ms. Banks in the June 1st NY Times Mag. She has 275 smiles, people, how many do you have???
.......................................................................................................

Okay, too much Tyra! Check out my girl Dani, my favorite ANTM winner from, oh I don't know, cycle 1000 or something. Please it was 3 years ago, who can remember that far back! She's the new face of Tory Burch (!) who I've never heard of, probably because after some web searching it appears that she only dresses old, rich, white ladies, from the East Coast. Though this season she seems to have branched out to old, white, ladies who take a lot of acid.

Anyway! Good for you, Dani! They may have taken the gap in your teeth but they can never take your spirit!
Well it kind of looks like they might have taken a little of it, based on this picture. Don't be afraid to flaunt what's left of that gap, girl, and work those old lady clothes!


I would also like to point anyone who's at all interested to my abso favorite ANTM blogger, Rich, at fourfour.

Awesome! But also corny, and maybe a little gross

This weekend, 4th of July weekend, Philadelphia's most popular Ben Franklin impersonator, Ralph Archbold and (I think) the only Betsy Ross impersonator, Linda Wilde got hitched! For reals!

If you've never been to Philadelphia in the summer; the parks dept hires people to walk around the historic Liberty Bell/Independence Hall area in historic garb. This is unfortunate for said historic people because in 1776 it seems people only wore wool, and like, many pounds of it. Neck to ankle to wrist, plus WIGS!

Archbold is pretty famous as Ben Franklin and does impersonator gigs all over the Delaware Valley. In fact Wilde met him when, for some reason, she hired him to make a toast at her friend's wedding. Sounds like a wild party.

I waited on him a bunch of times when I worked at a breakfast restaurant near Constitution Plaza. He is a very sweaty historical personage. And a bad tipper.

However, they still get my mazel tov because WHAT ARE THE FUCKING CHANCES!!!
Mayor Nutter married them and yes, the guys who play Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were at the reception.
Yes, in costume.

Aggregator? I just met her.

No original thought here, I just wanted to share some fascinating interweb finds from the past 2 weeks. Some of them are kind of long reads (like this post) but there's no fluff. 100% satisfaction, 100% of the time, that's my motto!

First a pretty short one - This article from the NYTimes about the dying, rural, northern, Albanian custom of women who swear a vow of celebacy and become the man of the house is one of the most interesting things I've ever read, ever. Def check out the slide show.

'Back then, it was better to be a man because before a woman and an animal were considered the same thing,' said Ms. Keqi, who has a bellowing baritone voice, sits with her legs open wide like a man and relishes downing shots of raki.

................................................................................................

Actually, likewise this article in the New Yorker about itching. Well it's about itching but mostly about a new way of looking at how our brains percieves visual, tactile, aural...information and turn it in to what we consider our 'perception' of the outside (and inside) world.

The account of perception that’s starting to emerge is what we might call the “brain’s best guess” theory of perception: perception is the brain’s best guess about what is happening in the outside world. The mind integrates scattered, weak, rudimentary signals from a variety of sensory channels, information from past experiences, and hard-wired processes, and produces a sensory experience full of brain-provided color, sound, texture, and meaning. We see a friendly yellow Labrador bounding behind a picket fence not because that is the transmission we receive but because this is the perception our weaver-brain assembles as its best hypothesis of what is out there from the slivers of information we get. Perception is inference.

That may all sound like a lot of blah, blah, blah... but there's also a story of a woman who has a phantom itch soooooo bad that one night while sleeping she scratches right through her damn skull TO HER BRAIN. Then, because they can't find anything physically, medically, wrong with her scalp to explain the itch, she ends up spending 2 years in a locked medical ward sleeping in a foot ball helmet with white mitts taped on to her hands!!!! Now 7(!) years later,

...she has gradually learned to protect herself. She trims her nails short. She finds ways to distract herself. If she must scratch, she tries to rub gently instead. And, if that isn’t enough, she uses a soft toothbrush or a rolled-up terry cloth. "I don’t use anything sharp,” (BUT)...Still, the itching remains a daily torment. "I don’t normally tell people this," she said, "but I have a fantasy of shaving off my eyebrow and taking a metal-wire grill brush and scratching away."

The article is 8 pages long buy how can you not read it?????

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Behold!!! The most thought-provoking article you'll ever read about real dolls. Seriously, ah-mazing. It's from Salon from a couple years ago but I can't imagine much has changed besides some of the technology. I've been talking about this with anyone who will listen all week, and here's a little gem my boyfriend have been acting out ad nauseum all week-

"He asked me if I could make him a silicone dog, because he was a breeder, and he didn't want to hurt his dogs anymore, he said. He talked like right out of the movie 'Deliverance.'" ..."'Aw, I don't want to hurt ma dawgs, I like ma dawgs ... kin you make me one so ah kin still use it fer the sex?' And when I realized that he was legitimate, I was shocked. And I just politely said no, I'm sorry, gotta go, click."

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The Washington Post has a great article about the burgeoning use of ecstasy to help treat post traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is one of the hidden costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the Pentagon acknowledges that at least 50,000 soldiers (4% of those deployed) are affected, and their care, long term, is extremely expensive. PTSD sufferers make up only 8% of veteran's medical claims, but receive 20% of all payouts. Also, their therapeutic use could hasten ecstasy's legal, recreational use. Yay for all of us!

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The pregnant man gave birth!!!!!!!

Any excuse to show Oprah.

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In honor of 4th of July (which is already over, I know) here's a totally rad article from the Atlantic about competitive eating.

“Nostradamus, born in the early sixteenth century, actually mentioned the Grilled Cheese Championship in his poetic yet cryptic quatrains,” George Shea says. “He said, ‘And at one point under the bright sky they shall gather to eat, they shall gather to eat the cheese that has been pouched in bread and grilled!”

Yes it's competitive eating season. This article is also a little old but what the hey, you'll never have to read another article about esophagus stretching again, it's the definitive one!! Please, please, for my sake take a moment to really apreciate the seal of the International Federation of Competitive Eating. I don't know what genius created it but they have officially sold me on the 'sport'.

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One time 2 of my friends and I were doing a township clean up in high school for some extra money but there were so many ticks they let us go home early. Ticks are freaky. We went to a dinner to get grilled cheeses and check ourselves in the bathroom for hidden ticks - I had 9, and my friend Robbie had one on his junk. Lymes disease is no joke people, didn't you watch Real World Seattle??????

So, the secret life of a tick from slate, with this gem about how ticks make bacon -

The male approaches from below, then uses his mouthparts to pluck a packet of sperm called a spermatophore from his genital pore. He delivers the packet into his partner's genital pore with his hypostome, the same barbed hollow needle that he sticks into mammals....After the female drops to the ground, full of blood and sperm, she lays her eggs, and then the fun is definitely over. She begins to atrophy. Her intestines spill out in a yellow blob.

All this talk of genital pores is getting me kind of hot.
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This last one is just disturbing, read at your own risk.