Tag Archives: pop culture

The Ambrosia Project.

7 May
Image

I blame you. Source

*August 13, 2017: (very brief) AUTHOR’S NOTE AT THE END*

Hey.

So, I’m back.

I’m not going to talk about where I’ve been. Mostly because it involves TMI about my uterus and the fact that I write an awful lot of fan fiction.

What I do want to talk about is the fact that last night, the season two finale of “The Mindy Project” aired. It was wonderful. I laughed. Out loud. I also cried. Quite a bit. There was screaming. The good kind. I love the show and wish very much that my life mimicked it somehow.

I mean, I wish that about a lot of media. I’m an intelligent only child; like, 75% of my life has been spent daydreaming and inserting myself into television, film, and book plots. And half the time, I’m not even the star. I’m the wacky, foul-mouthed side-kick with a heart of gold. That’s usually because in these dreams of mine I’m too busy with a successful pop/soul/R&B career to commit to being the star and head writer of a hit sitcom.

It has recently dawned on me that in my elaborate fantasies, I am Justin Timberlake. Well, I have Justin Timberlake’s career. Unlike him, I’ve embraced my curls and I can’t see myself settling for Jessica Biel.

Anyway, with all the daydreaming and fantasizing that I do, you’d think that I’d realize that sitcoms and movies and novels are just that: someone else’s daydreams and fantasies brought to life. In other words, these aren’t stories to measure one’s life against. They aren’t even real.

So why do I feel so horrible to have made it to almost 35 years of age without ever having been told “I love you” in a romantic context?

If all that stuff is fake; if it’s just a bunch of made up stories, it shouldn’t really bother me so much that I haven’t had that particular experience. I mean, I love the “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” franchise. I don’t curl up in my recliner and weep inconsolably after the midnight viewings because a gang of dwarfs still hasn’t shown up unannounced at my door to recruit me to be their robber so they can take back their mountain kingdom from an evil dragon. That’s just as made up as a sitcom about a chubby, almost 35 year-old, dark-skinned, Indian-American OBGYN living and searching for love in NYC.

The answer is obvious; one is based on some version of a totally plausible reality, and the other is the stuff of legend and religious allegory and maybe a metaphor for World War II (I don’t know; I haven’t read the books yet, okay?).

No one is expecting me to go off on an adventure with Gandalf and Thorin Oakenshield (He’s been mentioned twice on a single black woman’s blog. That’s got to be a record or something. And that was probably racist? Eh.). But people do wonder why I don’t date. And by people I mean me. I’m even wondering if I could at this point. It’s been almost fifteen years since I’ve been in what I thought was any sort of committed relationship or had sex. At this point, I’d be less surprised if Bilbo Baggins invited me over for Elevenses than if I was involved in a sexual relationship with a man.

And that’s not normal.

I don’t know what to do to change this. I’m in therapy. I’ve been in and out (but mostly in) therapy for the last fifteen years. I’ve gone on dates with two men, the last time around the summer of 2011? 2012? And they were both terrible. Pretty sure they felt the same way about me, but we all thought “Well, he/she went to college, and is a sentient being, and I don’t know. This is what people do, right?” That’s it.

There’s nothing normal about any of that.

From what I’ve gleaned from my mass consumption of media involving interpersonal relationships, one either dates around unsuccessfully until finding the one that was always there all along or finds the one at just the right moment or some shit; or is tragically knocked up or widowed and walls their heart off to protect against any future heartbreak, but they’ve got the tragic story or the dumb kid, so there’s that. Or there are the lucky ones, who find someone and it works out and they go along on the suggested path of mortgages and wedding registries and baby showers and date nights and blah blah blah.

There are no stories about weird freaks who got maybe a little bit raped in college and then got fat and then woke up and realized they were 34 and infertile and crying hysterically because Mindy Kaling and Chris Messina just have so much chemistry and overhear some girl – hardly even 21, for fuck’s sake – refer to 35 as being “kinda way up there” and said that a different 35 year-old woman needed to “hurry up and get on the boy thing” while you think to yourself “I wouldn’t even know how and every time I’ve tried the guys have literally run away in the other direction” and you wonder what the hell is wrong with you if every form of media featuring people your age shows them either married with kids or in some weird friend-group-living situation or dating all the time and you don’t have anything, nothing and you can’t even have a one-night-stand because you don’t know how and even if you did what about AIDS and sexual assault and your gross body?

But you’ll always have your – hopefully quirky? – knack for stream-of-consciousness run on sentences on your semi-abandoned blog, right?

I don’t even know what the hell I’m trying to say anymore. It’s almost 5:00am. I’m almost 35. There is something terribly, terribly wrong with me. Please don’t tell me that there isn’t. The number one wrong thing is that I am not Mindy Kaling, for starters.

I mean, look, I’m at the point where I’m thisclose to consulting an astrologist? Astrologer? I don’t fucking know. And this sort of wacky, desperate bullshit would make for wonderful prime-time sitcom television, but the depression and self-loathing and blackness and fatness and fact that men find me absolutely disgusting makes it super hard to pitch my “story”.

Shit, I don’t even want to watch it and I’m the showrunner.

*Aug. 13, 2017: For Very Important Reasons, I stopped watching the show, and being a fan of Mindy’s, about two years ago. I was going to take this post down, but re-reading it provides me with a sense of bittersweet nostalgia which almost drowns out the embarrassment.

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NERD RAGE!!!!!!!!

14 Dec

When Gandalf the Grey is giving you MAJOR side-eye, you KNOW you got to be dead wrong. Source

What in the Samwise Gamgee hell?

Did you know that The Hobbit was gonna be a trilogy? Because I did NOT. Thanks for ruining Christmas, Peter Jackson. I swear, if Ian McKellen, Heaven forbid, expires before November 2014. . . I can’t even finish the thought. Damn, damn, DAMN!!! But other than that, the movie was amazeballs and I am totes in LOVE with Thorin Oakenshield.

I mean, just look at him. Source

Man, I need to get laid.

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I (think I might) hate Halloween: sayin’ it without swearin’.

4 Nov

It all started with a little movie called “The Last Airbender”. . . Source

I worry that my point about the ills of blackface  – or any type of -face (But not whiteface. Not that it’s “good”. There’s just no comparison. Don’t worry; better people than I will explain why.) – was lost in the profane shrillness of my last post, so I point any of you who is willing to learn things to an awesome website called Racebending.com. In their own words, Racebending.com is

an international grassroots organization of media consumers who support entertainment equality. We advocate for underrepresented groups in entertainment media. Since our formation in 2009, we have been dedicated to furthering equal opportunities in Hollywood and beyond.

They handle the whole “But it’s just a movie!”/”It’s just a Halloween costume!”/”Oh my god, why are you making it such a big deal?” with grace and helpful charts and graphs, a refreshing alternative to my shrieking and crying and swearing approach.

So go there and then look for Academy Awards 2012 : Putting Blackface in Context or if you’re crazy lazy and/or easily confused, click this. Spend some time over there. It’s fascinating. You’ll see why us my-noor-uh-tees are always getting our panties in a bunch and you’ll stop yourself from saying “What about “White Chicks“?” and then I won’t have to fantasize about slapping you and then go eat my feelings. Again.

Okay, I love you. Go learn something.

A big ole’ THANK YOU to Phenderson Djèlí Clark for introducing me to Racebending.com in his terrific post critiquing the film adaptation of “Cloud Atlas”.

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Whatever it is, I’m against it.

16 Aug

“Nope!” Source

Oh, Dick.

He and I have been having quite the time lately. I sense some unspoken tension between us whenever we’re together, so of course I decided to address it in the most mature and healthy way I could think of: blogging about it. I’ll try not to spend this entire post on whatever problems, real or imagined, I’ve been having with my friend, but he has inadvertently inspired me to write. So that’s good, I guess.

Dick loves to call me a hater, a term which I, well, hate. He thinks that I show disdain for most everything, especially things pop culture related, while I would argue that I’m simply voicing an opinion. He’s even given me my own theme song, a silly tune from the Marx Brother’s 1932 film “Horse Feathers”, which is where I got the title for this post.

I unwittingly gave Dick additional evidence for his ever growing case against me by cheering for Bane, the masked villain from “The Dark Knight Rises”. It was my second time seeing the film, my first with Dick, and I was already a fan of Tom Hardy’s, but his portrayal of Bane was just so deliciously evil, I couldn’t help but enjoy everything about it. *SPOILER ALERT* (Seriously though, you haven’t seen it by now?) I wasn’t actually rooting for Bane’s destruction of Gotham City, but for his cocky attitude, kick-ass accent, and shirtlessness. Yes, I’m kind of hot for Bane, judge all you want. But to Dick, I was cheering for the annihilation of a group of people that had been deemed unworthy by a madman, not for how well Tom Hardy carries an extra eleventybillion pounds.

I’m puzzled as to why someone so relishes the belief that I think absolutely everything sucks. What makes the situation even more puzzling and quite ironic is the fact that Dick is a guy who, just to name a few examples, won’t subscribe to cable because it’s beneath him; has a general response to small talk with friends and acquaintances that can be summed up as “BORED!”; finds cheesecake to be disgusting; has said “I’m not doing that” to a great many suggestions; thinks that pretty much everyone I know is terrible; and hated “The Dark Knight Rises”. In fact, he declared the Batman’s swansong to be “99% bullshit.” I. . . I’m trying to forgive him.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s lots of stuff that grinds my gears. The idea of “gluten intolerance”, for example. Rihanna’s singing voice. Food made to look like other things. The recent disappearance of Britney Spears’ eyebrows. Lip piercings. People that always want to be outside all the time. But I think I balance my hates with lots of passion for a random variety of crap, a desire to be spontaneous, and a willingness to do stuff I probably ordinarily wouldn’t because it makes someone I care about super freakin’ happy. I’m not saying that Dick doesn’t do the same. He does! But seriously, I’m the hater because I’d like to rub Bane’s mask all over my lady parts? Get the funk outta here with that bull hooey! (I’m worried that my mom’s going to stumble across this blog and that was my effort at keeping it PG-13.)

I hold out hope that I will meet my very own misunderstood mercenary-for-hire through a friend, even though ever so conveniently, no one I know knows a single solitary unattached, heterosexual, adult male who isn’t totally gross that doesn’t find me totally gross who would be into taking me to P.F. Chang’s. It pains me to know that one of my best friends sees me as a gnarled hag shaking my yellow-nailed crone’s finger at young people I catch in the midst of enjoying things with a lump of coal where my heart ought to be. Who’d want to introduce some poor soul to that? So I can’t have opinions on stuff without being considered a hater? I can’t question the point of going to see “Katy Perry: Part of Me 3D” if one is over the age of 13/has intact hearing and sight? I’ve got to be against whatever it is you’ve got?

I think Dick’s crowning me the Queen of Hateration bugs me so much from the standpoint of a single girl struggling to understand why she’s so single. The few times I’ve had opportunities to date in recent years, I feel that I’ve tried really hard to see the best in rather icky situations. The last two men I “dated” probably deserved my initial hate, but instead I gave them chances. I didn’t stifle myself, but I did make an effort to keep things pleasant and positive, as well as honest. Being constantly called a hater isn’t just annoying and sooo 2003, it’s kind of hurtful. All this time, I thought I’ve been sharing my uncensored opinion on things in the midst of friendly discourse and it’s been going over about as well as a Lewis Black stand-up routine (I realize he has a following; I’m making a point. Or proving Dick’s. I can’t tell anymore.)

Trying to tell someone who thinks you’re a hater that you think is a hater that you’re not a hater goes over about as well as this sentence does. I suppose I ought to approach all of my interactions with the same kind of pleasantries and positivity I hope I bring to my dating experiences, but does that mean I can’t root for the villain and that I have to find something kind to say about Chris Brown? Where does one draw the line between being nice and being awesome?

I guess I should hope that what’s keeping me single is my mouth. If it’s simply a matter of my being “too opinionated”, i.e., a hatin’-ass hater, then I can work on that fairly easily. I wouldn’t have to go to the gym or give up white rice or straighten my hair. Then again, the right guy may like that I don’t like certain things as much as he does. In fact, our love could be in part based on the fact that we hate the same things!

*SPOILER ALERT* (But seriously? Get thee to a movie theater.) That didn’t work out so well in the end for Bane and Talia, but I think it’s ’cause she had some major daddy issues.

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Jungle Fever(ish).

12 Jul

Interracial dating makes me sad.

Not in the way you’re probably thinking. Other than a reflexive and obligatory eye roll, I couldn’t care less if black men want to date white women. Hell, if you like it, I love it. And I owe my very existence to The Swirl. Until rather recently I was pretty certain that the Honorable Mr. Ambrosia Jones was going to be a delectable piece of white chocolate. Now I’m not so certain that he won’t be imaginary.

Interracial dating makes me sad in the most literal sense: the times that I’ve liked white boys have been some of the most curled-up-in-a-ball-ugly-crying times I’ve experienced. It all started in the 4th grade. Sexy Kid Ambrosia was hidden under a pair of gigantic, red plastic frame, Coke-bottle thick glasses and a wardrobe primarily from Bradlees and Caldor. The social torment that would follow me well into adulthood had  begun. Then Todd waddled into my life. He was a year or so older because he’d stayed back a time or two. He was the only 4th grader who had boobs bigger than mine. The poor thing was also cursed with both a speech impediment and a voice so high-pitched that had I had any grasp of the concept of sexuality, I would have questioned mine for dating a boy with a magnificent pair of knockers and an impeccable falsetto.

Todd was kind to me. He held my hand on the playground and was as enthusiastic about planning our wedding as I was (weddings were regularly held on the kickball field for interested couples and usually officiated by the teachers who most craved our approval or some of the more bossy 4th grade girls). But my dreams of a Michael Jackson-themed reception by the swing set were shattered when he dumped me for London. Always beware of girls named after European cities. I have to give him credit; Todd was pretty direct about it, hysterically explaining to me that London had explained to him that he liked her better than me.

I didn’t learn my lesson and a year later found myself involved in a scandalous polygamous relationship with that bitch London and a piece of Euro-trash named Pierce. He had shoulder length brown curls and wore Ralph Lauren sweaters and trousers. We were the talk of the 5th grade up to and including our very messy and public break-up. It got so ugly that parents were called. Mine were less than amused. I still deny the baseless accusations brought against me. I was railroaded! I was only guilty of being a woman scorned! And maybe calling him the f-word.

Middle and high school were pretty uneventful, mostly because I was crippled by awkwardness until the 10th grade and absolutely determined to “prove” my “blackness”. I dated a biracial boy from Da Hood on and off from 8th grade until the middle of 9th grade and then focused my attentions on boys who had spent time in ESL and came to school smelling like Sazon. I don’t count those experiences as “interracial dating” mostly because a great deal of the time people assumed my exotic boyfriends were my brothers and/or cousins. That sure did wonders for my adolescent self-esteem. No, really! Being mistaken for Brazilian, Dominican, or Puerto Rican is the ULTIMATE compliment to pay to a teenage black girl suffering from an identity crises. It got a little prickly though when onlookers assumed my papi chulos were actually my hermanos, if that meant they were being mistaken for black. Yeah, those were some uncomfortable conversations. . .

My case of Jungle Fever returned freshman year of college. First there was Tommy, the Italian Stallion from Brooklyn. Then came Matt, the Golden Boy with the Southern drawl from Georgia. But it was Andrew who put them all to shame. He was my first real white boyfriend and The Great White Hope. Andrew looked like Jordan Catalano’s buffer, hotter, older brother. He played soccer and worked at The Gap. He was 21 and drove a sports car. I had managed to snag the white boy of white boys and was head over heels.

We dated for a tumultuous 7 months, breaking up no less than three times throughout. Being his girlfriend was like starring in some surreal Afterschool Special on race relations in America. He would say crazy things to me like “I always warned my mother I’d date a black girl someday” and affectionately referred to me as a/his bitch in front of everyone. He dragged me through his hometown introducing me to every member of his immediate and extended family so they could see “the hot black girl” he’d met at college. He was “secretly” half Syrian (it is a long, bizarre story that I simply can’t be bothered to tell) and would develop a very dark tan in the summertime. He thought it was “hilarious” to pick me up unexpectedly from my summer job at the mall wearing a Yankee fitted cap to the side, a wife beater, baggy gray sweat pants sagged to show his boxers, and Timberland boots. “Everybody probably thinks I’m a Puerto Rican!” he’d breathlessly whisper while attempting to pimp walk through the parking lot as I trailed behind him, not sure whether to be totally turned on or totally humiliated.

Our relationship ended for the last time when during an argument about something mundane like my wearing thong underwear (yes, this caused him great distress) or spending too much time with my friends that he found annoying, he declared that he had to start thinking about who he was going to marry as he was “older” and that he simply couldn’t see himself marrying someone like me. His actual words were “There’s a specific type of girl I want to marry and you just ain’t it.” I think he thought it’d be less of a blow if he broke the news to me in my first language: ebonics. Le sigh. He left a bag of his crap in my car or dorm room or something and I made a great show of returning it to him in front of his teammates. I included a print out of the lyrics to Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” amongst his things.  I had her haircut; I loved the song, but never really understood its meaning until Andrew took a dump on my heart, so it seemed like a very fitting way to bid him adieu. I was 18, it was the 90’s, and I was DEEP.

The next year found me without a serious boyfriend and doing a lot of kissing (all Latino boys again!) and then I met He Who Shall Not Be Named. HWSNBN was Puerto Rican, but looked like the love child of Chico DeBarge and R.Kelly and didn’t speak a lick of Spanish, so it was just like dating a horrible guy who hated that people assumed he was black who’s grandparents happened to be from Puerto Rico. As you can guess, it was AWESOME.

My mid-twenties found me pining over an Italian-Irish EMT from Staten Island that I’d known as a teenager who declared his “love” for me out at da club one night while his girlfriend wasn’t looking. Despite his declaration, he picked the girlfriend. I was in graduate school and living alone in a big city then and I’d drive around in my hoopdie crying to love songs on the radio. For some reason, Etta James’ “At Last” seemed to be on the radio station I listened to every morning and Luther Vandross’ “Think About You” was on every night, so I was getting it from both ends and not in the good way.

After graduating from grad school and moving back home, I reconnected with the boyfriend I’d had during senior year of high school. Paulo was a fair-skinned South American who had identified as Latino in high school but decided he was actually white as an adult (again, long and extremely stupid story) and I thought we were in love. I moved to a city without a proper Starbucks and 60% of its population living under the poverty line for him. I befriended his drunken, crazy mother; regularly babysat his poorly behaved niece and nephew FOR FREE, and slow danced with his sister (she was living as a man at the time so put your eyebrows back down) all in an effort to prove my undying love and devotion. His mother would say really terrific things to me in broken English like “I live with the black man when I come to America. He beat me all the time!” and “My son likes beautiful girls with the blonde hair and the good, good body, but I convince him to love you because you are so nice person to me!” Turns out, she was right. About the second part. I don’t know if the black man beat her all the time. I wasn’t there for that.

About three months after we’d reconnected and two months after I moved to the godforsaken place I am about to peace out from in 69 days (the seven weeks thing was a false alarm), Paulo told me that I had misunderstood him; he wasn’t interested in me romantically, mostly because he didn’t find me attractive. He was in Europe at the time, so he delivered this very important piece of information to me over the phone, after I’d signed a year lease on my apartment. Oh, and it was my birthday. Did I not mention that part? I spent a great deal of time after that alternating between hysterical crying and staring at the wall in my mostly unfurnished new home until a no-nonsense friend stormed in, dragged me to my feet, and made me go grocery shopping. Everything worked out in the end; Paulo found a (second) wife with the blonde hair and the good, good body, and I have this blog. Hooray.

So here we are in the present. The person that I used to know is of the Caucasian persuasion, so I was just a-quakin’ in my boots due to my unfortunate history. You may have noticed that I typed ‘was’. Yeah, turns out that home boy I was hoping to climb like a mighty sequoia once I redeemed myself of the epic fail that was our “reunion” after 15 some-odd years ain’t single after all. I became aware of that fact just a few hours ago and haven’t cried yet! But I’m still sad. So this post and my life have come full circle. That’s. . . something.

Don’t worry; I’m not gonna go all Anita from “West Side Story” on you. “Stick to your own kind” is mean and weird and hard to do when you don’t know any straight, chubby, black guys who like Jane Austen, Broadway musicals, and Doritos. But I have to admit that when I feel the JF coming on me now, I reach for the Tylenol and take a nap. That seems to be the safe thing to do. For now.

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This is what happens when I’m supposed to be cleaning things.

6 Jul

So I was going to write this HI-LARIOUS post about being asked to be a bridesmaid five times, a flower girl once, and actually being in three weddings, with the grand finale being the epic retelling of The Worst Wedding in the History of Weddings, but I am thoroughly distressed because I have just learned that I have to move out of the apartment in which I have spent six mostly miserable years in less than seven weeks when I thought I had more like 14 (I DON’T WANT YOUR HELP OR YOUR PITY, SO DON’T YOU DARE OFFER EITHER!!!!!111!!1!1!), and I am surrounded by unwashed clothes, half-empty takeout containers, and the carcasses of my broken dreams, so instead of doing anything productive or sensible like gathering empty boxes and figuring out where that smell is coming from, I decided that I instead would write an incoherent post about things that boggle my mind about dating and friendship because I am a passive-aggressive procrastinator who can’t express herself outside of a semi-anonymous blog that only people she actually knows reads. But dammit, can I construct one hell of a run-on sentence or what?

I was having a terrible day (of mostly my own creation and imagination) and thought how lovely it would be to have a cold drink and a laugh and a hug and go see a movie with someone I like and/or care about. But I didn’t call anyone and tell them these things and invite them to do them with me. Instead, I made vague proclamations on that social networking site about how unhappy I am, and how stressed out I feel, and waited to see if anyone would come to my rescue. That has only worked for me once – thank you, My Knight in Pastel Armor – but I continue to express myself that way rather than in any way that would actually amount to anything that resembles a positive resolution. Why do I do that, you ask? Because I’ve learned that I hate being vulnerable; I despise the thought of others perceiving me as needy; I loathe having to ask people for help or tell them my needs, wants and desires; and I’d rather die alone surrounded by large print copies of Reader’s Digest and expired canned vegetables than face social rejection of any kind. So yeah, entering into any sort of relationship with me is a barrel of laughs and an absolute breeze.

I realize that my aversion to these things, along with a host of my other special qualities, makes dating a near impossibility. I mean, dating is an impossibility for me, hence the title and content of this blog. The last two men that I “successfully” dated – meaning, I managed to go on dates with these guys, nothing more – were men that I had no real interest in. I dated them both because I figured there was little reason for me not to; they had jobs and cars and places to live and seemingly normal brain function. I manufactured romantic feelings for one of them, primarily because we liked some of the same crap and after a makeover, he would have looked a lot like Drake. The potential Drake, after 5 or 6 dates, declared after my gentle prodding, that he just wasn’t interested in me “in that way” and I was devastated, even though he smelled bad and had the sex appeal of a slug, not because I truly liked him, but because he was supposed to like me. He was supposed to be a “sure thing”. Imagine if I ever had luck with a man who maybe didn’t look so good on paper, who was legitimately sexy and attractive (at least to me), who offered a little bit of “danger” and that “Oh my God, I am so going to get arrested or poop my pants” feeling (You know what feeling I mean, stop frontin’.) and it didn’t work out. My heart would liquify and leak out of my ass and that can’t be a good thing.

My general problems with processing normal human emotions also manage to seep into my friendships. I get into one-sided fights and hold secret grudges. I keep an invisible score card in my brain and people are constantly gaining and losing points and have no idea to what standard they’re being graded against. I am either unreachable or frighteningly clingy. There is very little middle ground. It is a wonder to me that I have any friends at all. And believe me, I will always wonder if I am really your friend. Man, this post is taking a dark turn. Let me try to lighten shit up a bit:

When my mind was being boggled about the differences and similarities between dating and friendship, it mostly had to do with what we deem acceptable in each of these relationships. For instance, it’s not uncommon for any platonic friend of mine to respond to my question of “Wanna hang out?” with something along the lines of “Sure! Come on over. But I haven’t showered in six days and the toilet’s broken so you’ll have to pee in a Ziploc bag. Oh, and when you get here, I’ll probably decide to shave my armpits while we watch a marathon of “Basketball Wives: L.A.” Hey, would you mind bringing over a pint of kumquat-flavored dairy-free frozen dessert? I’m on a special diet/preggers and craving/really high. And about an hour after you get here, I’m going to suddenly get super tired and probably fall asleep with my mouth open. Make sure to lock the door on your way out.” I’d be totally okay with this situation, filled with TMI and far too many bodily functions. In fact, I’d be honored. It’d mean that we’re close! Like siblings! It means you like me, you really like me! But if it’s the beginning of a dating relationship and anything like this mess comes out of a dude’s mouth that I was previously hoping to kiss (with tongues!), I will take serious pause. I will demand that The Council of Friends with Dating Experience convene via online messaging and hushed meetings in Starbucks. I will need to know what it means if a guy I like romantically is “too comfortable too soon”. I’m going over the whole thing like a forensic specialist at a crime scene and everyone I know is giving the poor guy major side-eye.

I have other platonic friends that are a bit more refined in the way they choose to socialize. I kid you not, just last week I found myself sitting on a quilt under a willow tree with a BFF as we read out loud to one another. AS WE READ OUT LOUD TO ONE ANOTHER. That’s a scene right out of a Regency England era porno. Can you imagine if I suddenly reported that I went on a date and my date wanted to read out loud to me (preferably all of Peeta’s really romantic parts from The Hunger Games saga or anything Mr. Darcy says in Pride and Prejudice) while we sat on a blanket under a motherf’ing tree?? WHAT?!? But if I’m going to be perfectly honest, if that happened, I’d assume that he was planning to murder me in the night. You see? If a friend I don’t want to hold hands with suggests that we read out loud to each other, I’m screaming out “Catching Fire or Mockingjay?!?” before they’ve completed the sentence. But if someone I want to bump uglies with asks me on a “Reading Rainbow” date, while he picks out the perfect shady spot in the park, I’m dialing 9-1-1 in my purse.

Operator: “Please state the nature of your emergency.”

Me: “I’m on a date and. . . and he wants us to. . . r-read out loud to each other. While sitting on a blanket. In the park!”

Operator: “Ma’am, stay calm. Is he carrying a picnic basket?”

Me: ‘I don’t know, I don’t know! Oh god! He brought Fifty Shades of Gray! Ohmygodohmygodohmygod! What do I do?!?”

Operator: “Ma’am, just take deep breaths and don’t make any sudden movements. Help is on the way. May God have mercy on your soul.”

My favorite dichotomy (Oh, just look it up.) between acceptable friend and date behavior has to be what happens in Da Club. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t been to da club with someone I felt romantical about in years, but I know what I’d put up with in the name of “luv”. There are friends I will not go out with to anything music or dancing related because of their totally inappropriate behavior. They refuse to dance. I mean, they won’t even bop their head to the beat, sing/mouth along to the music. Nothing. I had a friend check her email on her cell phone the entire time we were out at at a club in another state. She just wanted to get out of the house, she said. If you don’t dance, hey, sucks for you, but you’re not ruining my good time anymore. I won’t go out with these people unless I can guarantee at least three other individuals who will dance are in attendance with us. I’ve learned my lesson. Friends have lots of rules for one another regarding acceptable night life behavior. “We came together, we leave together! Use the buddy system when going to the bathroom! Pretend to be my lesbian lover/overbearing male relative if a weirdo tries to hit on me!” However, if I ever get to go on a club date, it’s fine if my date won’t dance. I think it’d be kind of sexy if he sat all night, drink in hand and glowered at me while I attempted to twerk it for him. Dancing with a potential love interest is tricky. If he dances poorly, it’s awful. If he dances too well, you might stop and wonder. There’s so much potential pressure, having a date that refuses to dance would almost be a relief.

I feel like this post is going nowhere and I don’t feel all that bad about it. I warned you it would. I really wanted to use this entry as a way to complain about things I don’t like that happen all too often in friendship, seeing as friendship is the only kind of relationship I’m even sort of good at having. I wanted to mention that some of the stuff that gets passed off as “friendship” would never fly if you wanted me to live with you forever and have your babies. I wanted to write profound and heart-wrenching things about how friendship is the only relationship where unconditional like, love, and acceptance is completely taken for granted; how platonic friends are the only people on Earth expected to be totally okay with being at the bottom of the freaking social totem pole. But, I didn’t. And I won’t.

Next time I’ll be funny and coherent, I promise?

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Cockblocked by God.*

4 Jul

After my grandmother died, my dad went nuts and found religion. That’s probably not how he’d tell the story, but that’s basically my interpretation of it in a nutshell. My dad is far from crazy, but he did pick a religious denomination that is a favorite of crazy people. I blamed my parents for years for all of my various eccentricities (bat shit crazy behavior), neurosis (being looney tunes), and short comings (I suck). It very recently dawned on me that I’ve been raging against the wrong machine. My issue ain’t with ma and pa, it’s with three other equally terrifying people: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

I grew up in the Pentecostal church. I’d specifically name the large and powerful denomination that had a big part in shaping me into the standup individual that I am today, but a). I’m trying to stay as incognegro as possible and b). I’m pretty sure they have enough money to put out a hit on me. Let’s see; what’s the best way to describe growing up Pentecostal to people who had a normal different upbringing? I think listing the various things that were off-limits to Sexy Kid Ambrosia might give you the best glimpse of what I was dealing with:

  • I have never seen an episode of “The Smurfs” as my church called for a national boycott of the program for including “real magic spells” in the show. I just never got around to it as an adult because honestly, the show seems pretty freakin’ lame.
  • I was not allowed to have a unicorn My Little Pony action figure as unicorns are magical creatures and MAGIC IS REAL AND EVIL.
  • I was not allowed to listen to the radio or secular music in general until middle school, with a few notable exceptions.
  • I was groomed to wait until marriage to have sex, probably starting in third grade.
  • I was also groomed to expect the Second Coming of Christ, i.e., the Apocalypse, from about the same time as I was groomed to keep my legs closed. I found the idea of Jesus coming back absolutely terrifying and not comforting as I expect my parents and Sunday School teachers intended. I’d talk about it kind of a lot at school and couldn’t understand how my other friends hadn’t heard about this event that was coming to destroy. . . most of them.
  • I went Trick-or-Treating once at three-years-old (I was an angel, complete with a halo magically suspended above my head. Dad is a very talented guy.) and then again at 13 after begging and crying and explaining to my parents that they were ruining my life. What happened during those other 10 years you ask? Oh, didn’t you know? Halloween is EVIL. It is from THE DEVIL. It is DEVIL WORSHIP (Basically. It’s kind of a long story, actually.) So Halloween was off-limits for families that really loved Jesus. Instead, we dressed up as fruit or Bible characters and had “Harvest” parties in the church gym. I apologize to the few friends I was able to convince to come with me to these parties over the years. I owe you a pillow case filled with candy.
  • I never, ever believed in Santa Claus. EVER. I had to look up how to properly spell homey’s name, that’s how much I have never believed in him. Santa Claus was a pagan “secular” distraction from the True Meaning of Christmas: Jesus dying for our sins. Oh, you thought Christmas was about a sweet baby being born and Mary and angels and sheep and really mean motel owners? No, fool! EVERYTHING is about Jesus dying for our sins and don’t you forget it. Even if you are a little girl who takes things very literally, probably because you are highly intelligent, and the thought of Jesus dying makes you feel terrible and cry. (The Resurrection was of little comfort to me because it meant that yeah, Jesus was alive, but he still cryptically peaced out on everyone who ever loved him and was never seen or heard from again. . . if you’re not a good enough Christian, that is.)
  • This isn’t something that was banned or off-limits, but I feel like I ought to mention that probably ’till the age of 15ish, I was a staunch pro-life Republican. Thank God for giving me a liberal Democrat grandpa who steered me left. Get it? Oh, and my dad is totally a Democrat too, don’t let him fool you. My mom is a lamer; she’s registered as an Independent. Ugh.

So, getting back to my issue with God actively cockblocking me: it’s kind of hard to have a healthy attitude about sex when you’ve been trained to believe that having it before you convince some sucker to marry you makes the Holy Spirit cry-cringe-die a little on the inside. I wanted to be a good Christian, I truly did. Even though Sexy Kid Ambrosia had doubts, even as a sexy little kid. Even though Teenage Ambrosia burst into tears so hysterical that her mom had to pull the car over because she couldn’t understand how or why a loving God would send her BFF to hell for being gay. I tried, dammit. I tithed. I studied the Bible. I went to soul-crushing youth retreats and services. I dragged friends and boyfriends to church at every opportunity. I was very prepared to be a bride who really deserved to wear white. Until I met He Who Shall Not Be Named.

Laying out the gory details of my dealings of HWSNBN is for another post that I may never write as that junk is deeply personal, (Not like this stuff isn’t; it’s just mad different.) but here’s what you need to know: I met him when I was 19. I was going through some thangs. He is probably, in my professional opinion**, a sociopath. He was certainly an alcoholic and just abusive enough to pretty much destroy me, but not abusive enough that anybody thought anything was wrong with me dating him. He was a mastermind of f*ckery! And he convinced me to do it with him. I was 20 when he managed to break down my resolve. He was the first, last, and only man male human being I’ve had sex with. I haven’t been 20 for 12 1/2 years, so yeah.

After the smoke cleared from my “relationship” with HWSNBN, I was too damaged and fat and androgynously dressed for sex to be a factor for a long while. And then, eventually, I became somewhat less damaged (Or maybe just learned to stuff down the damage with delicious cheesecake. Have you tried the mango keylime cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory? You can eat some feelings with that bad boy, I tell ya!) and slightly less fat and let my hair grow back and started caring about looking like a girl. I declared that I was ready to date again and would give the sex thing another go with a man who was kind to me and not mentally disturbed after making him wait for 90 days (I had that idea before you did, Steve Harvey!) and was met with crickets.

I believed that my complete fail at finding anyone to do sex with was really a problem with multiple causes, but the biggest one was that I was actively planning to SIN and God HEARD me planning IN MY BRAIN. I was already pretty convinced that my awesome time with HWSNBN was divine punishment for the sin of teh sex, and here I was, DARING to not only sin AGAIN, but planning out my sin IN ADVANCE! How dare I? I went running back to church with my tail between my legs and made a loud vow of chastity to anyone who’d listen and bought way too many books on the topic of not having sex and waited for God to bless me with a husband.

As you can tell by the title of this blog, God did not magically supernaturally deliver me a husband. I figured it was because I wasn’t a good enough Christian. So I tried harder. I prayed louder and longer. I cried more tears of repentance. I spent more and more time at church. I gave more money. I volunteered more of my time. I studied the Bible like I was gonna be quizzed on that shit. Until one day, during a church membership class, I said “Fuck it.” (Not out loud! I’m not that awful! YEESH!)

I was tired. I had given up. I’d had enough. I gave church and evangelical Christianity a few more tries until I just sort of shrugged my shoulders for the last time ’round early 2011. “So Ambrosia, you mean to tell me that you threw away your faith in an almighty, omnipotent god because you couldn’t find a date/get laid/get married??” Um, sort of? It was more complicated than that, believe me. But if I’m going to be honest, that was a huge piece of why I currently identify as a super doubtful person who had been indoctrinated into a Judeo-Christian worldview from birth/semi-agnostic. I can’t call myself a Christian. That’s a lie, at least at this point in my life. I can’t say I don’t believe in a god. Life is too. . . everything to have been accidental. There had to have been some magic involved. Yeah, I said magic.

I realize how ridiculous it is to shake my fist at a god who might not even be there because I’m bummed that I can’t get a date. But the thing is, I tried so hard to believe, to do what I thought and was taught and told that he wanted me to. I wanted to give my thanks to him with a marriage that would honor him, with children that would learn to love him and hopefully, not fear him the way that I did do. And that prayer, that desire of my heart, went more than unanswered. It went unheard. I felt like God wasn’t even acknowledging that I had asked, that he was throwing other people and situations in my face to mock my plea for love. And because once you’re trained up in the way you should go, it’s hard as hell to depart from it, I still believe that because I am determined to have a loving, intimate relationship with a man who I may not be married to, God hears that shit and is all like “Nuh-uh, bitch! How many times do I have to tell you, you are not getting any booty! Not up in here. NOT UP IN HERE!”

So, now you know. I think I’m being cockblocked by God. The worst part is, I can’t just give in and let him and go join a nunnery. Not because I’m filled with doubt and disbelief, but because I’m not a goddamn Catholic! Just my rotten luck that my dad had to turn on the station that aired Fred Price‘s sermons and not the Pope’s (The Pope has televised sermons, right? If he doesn’t, what is he waiting for?) when he was grief-stricken and couldn’t sleep and searching for An Answer.

Eh. It could have been a lot worse. We could have ended up as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Man, those guys are really messed up.

*According to urbandictionary.com, the proper term for preventing a lady from having sex is called ‘Box Blocking’ or ‘Clam Jamming’, but I didn’t like either of those and the word ‘cock’ is both funny and dirty.

**I am not a medical professional, but I know crazy when I see it. I’ve worked in public libraries.

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Somebody That I Used To Know, the ICSWSS Remix.

30 Jun

Let’s say that there was a person you used to know – shout out to Gotye – and hadn’t seen in, oh, 15 years or so. You always found this person to be very attractive, and very tall, and very dangerous, and very interesting, but nothing exciting ever happened between you and this person for reasons that now seem so stupid, like you already having a boyfriend or being scared because you’d heard lots of sexy and wild things about this person or being very concerned about maintaining your reputation as a ‘good girl’. You certainly had your chance with this person, if your memory serves you correctly. (Sometimes you worry if it does, because things like the thing about to be described happened so long ago and don’t really happen anymore, unless you count marriage proposals from homeless and/or elderly men.) The way you remember things, this person expressed their desire for you from a payphone at the Long John Silver’s across the street from your dorm room after the two of you watched Master P’s “I’m Bout It”. This person offered to let you wear their leather jacket because you were chilly and said that you could hang on to it for as long as you liked. This person was hurt when you kindly (you hope) but firmly turned them down because you were loyal to your boyfriend, a boy who would grow up to be a confidence-shattering, lie-telling asshole that you will end up moving to a terrible place for.

After turning down the person that you used to know, you’d run into him every so often, usually when you were with some new and awful boyfriend. This person would make it clear that he still held a torch for you, but you’d just sigh and shake your head, thinking you’d always be thin and hot and have funky asymmetrical haircuts and wear brown matte lipstick. Then a time would come when you didn’t see this person anywhere. It was like this person had dropped off the face of the Earth. That was probably lucky for you, since in the 15 years after you last saw this very attractive, very tall, very dangerous, very interesting person, you managed to gain lots of weight and become super neurotic and discover lip gloss.

You recently became aware of this person’s existence again through social media, but were too embarrassed and proud to request his friendship. Based on the pictures you could see, this person was still very attractive, very tall, very dangerous, very interesting, and now, very married. You continue on your way, showing the world all the reasons why you’re single, until you discover that this person not only is very good friends with your very good friends, but has recently become single again. So, you take a deep breath and muster up your courage and send this person a friendly message. This person responds and sends you a friend request, while you panic about all the pictures that show that you are no longer the slim and trim girl with a sleek page-boy bob that he used to know. The friendly messages continue until they suddenly don’t, and you shrug and think “That was nice while it lasted.” You know that there’s a slim chance you might run into this person at some point since he’s very good friends with your very good friends, but you figure you’ll have plenty of time (and plenty of warning) to pull yourself together before that happens.

Your very good friends are very excited to learn that you know the person that you used to know. They think that this person is a wonderful person and that it’d be awfully cute if you and this person were reunited and a spark was still there. Even if the spark has been long extinguished, they think it’d be a very good idea for you and this person to become friends. You remind your very good friends that you don’t look anything like the girl who this person used to have a boo thang for and they tell you that same old lie that looks aren’t the only thing that matter and anyway, you’re still beautiful. Your very good friends want you to come to the beach where they have weekly family barbeques because who knows, maybe this person will be there! They want you to come this Friday, in fact. You ask repeatedly if this person is going to be there, and you’re repeatedly told that this person will probably not, as he has a child to care for and has never been to the beach barbecue before. They will warn you, say your very good friends, when this person will be making an appearance so you can buy a new dress and go to the gym that day and do something with your hair.

Friday rolls around and you wash your hair, but spend too much time playing “The Hunger Games Adventures” as it dries and it grows into an untamable ball of frizz. Eh, but this person won’t be there, so what’s it matter? You decide against the very pretty dress and high heels and opt for your own personal oxymoron: the baggy skinny jeans. You go to the beach with frizz-ball hair, pants that fit like and are about as flattering as a soggy diaper, and some random shirt you found on the floor because you don’t know how to be casual and this is your best attempt. But, you have not a care in the world, because this is a beach barbecue! You’re going to drink wine! You’re going to eat too much! You’re going to play with little children! You’re going to run right smack into the person that you used to know because he’s sitting on the deck!

Because spontaneous combustion is not an option, you spin around in an awkward circle and throw yourself down onto the nearest seat, somehow believing that if you can just stay there all night, you won’t have to face the person that you used to know while looking like an insulting parody of the awkward sixth grade version of yourself, only much, much larger. You come to your senses and eventually greet him with The World’s Stiffest Hug and proceed to ignore him for the rest of the night whilst simultaneously drawing attention to yourself with your loud squawking and generally bizarre behavior. Eventually, the person that you used to know leaves, giving you another hug on his way out, during which you’re certain you were able to hit him in the face with your shoulder. You spend the rest of the evening reliving the night’s humiliation, being teased by your very good friends, and receiving dating advice from adorable 18-year-olds who are far more experienced than you are.

You head home, listening to the classical music station because all of the songs with words in them manage to remind you of the person that you used to know and how you’re absolutely covered in lame sauce. You tell yourself you won’t log on to the social media site to see if maybe the person that you used to know finally responded to your last message by declaring that he still thinks you’re beautiful and would still let you wear his leather jacket for as long as you liked and wants to know why you were so shy but admits that he found the bits of your loud conversations that he did hear to be hilarious, but you do, and you have no new messages.

So you throw your poopie diaper jeans on the floor in anger, wishing you had bought them a size smaller, and hoping that you can shrink them in the dryer. You go to bed without doing anything with your frizzy hair and are proud of not crying one single tear about how socially inept you are, until you wake up the next day and relay the pitiful tale to a friend all the while salty discharge leaks from your eyeballs. After the crying subsides, you find the one bright spot in yet another murky tale from your life: you now have something to write about for your blog that has already significantly dropped in popularity since its inception only three days ago, which is sort of a good thing, as it practically guarantees that the person that you used to know will never read this entry.

Until you find out he does.

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Super Smart.

28 Jun

Interested in a synopsis of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina? You are, because it’s going to be a movie and The Intellectual Elite reads books before they become movies and you want to be a part of The Intellectual Elite and eat mesclun and quinoa and drink nasty-ass coconut water and claim you’re really torn about voting for Obama again because Jon Stewart offered some stark criticisms about his administration on that episode of “The Daily Show” you DVR’d because you were out hiking in your new Vibram FiveFingers. You want to read this classic because Oprah told you to YEARS ago and you want to be able to properly snark on Keira Knightley’s horse-toothed and extremely bony performance, but you’re intimidated by the fact that that junk is 742 pages long, including a motherf’ing glossary of Russian words and ain’t nobody got time for that. Fear not, for I can sum up Anna for you in three words (You should probably know that I did not read said book myself, but I did open it, flip through the pages, roll my eyes and loudly suck my teeth at its length, and then read the almost equally long synopsis on Wikipedia. I’m a lot of things and that includes honest.):

Bitches be trippin’.

You’re welcome.

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