Turkey, or How To Convince Everyone You’re A Bad Person By Coercively Trying To Initiate A Threesome Nobody's Into

This week, we are pleased to introduce to you Ariane, our guest blogger. Here she is, pictured with shrimp in a jar:

This year I decided not to go to Los Angeles for Thanksgiving because as of 10 months ago I come from a broken home, so I was in Oakland facing a family-free holiday when my friend invited me to a dinner in San Francisco. 

“The host is supposed to be a good cook,” she said.

“Sold,” I said, and when the day rolled around we cooked up some cranberry sauce and made our way to the Mission. When we walked into the host’s house I introduced myself to everyone and promptly forgot all their names (the next day I would learn a long-haired man was Gordon). At first it’s just my friend and I and five or so men; the host, I realize, is the bearded one, and behind his ample facial hair are two little eyes with the sparkle of entitlement. In a way it makes me happy as a valuable reminder that just because you talk about turkey brines and look like you play banjo in a folk ensemble doesn’t mean you’re a sensitive, lovely guy. For quite some time there is nothing specific he does that makes me dislike him beyond the fact that he’s ignoring my friend just like he’s been ignoring her since their date a month ago. The night goes on. We all get drunker. Some other women show up. We dance. We talk. Midnight comes and goes. He has stopped ignoring my friend and they not-so-subtly excuse themselves to make out somewhere. They come back. The trains have stopped running. I am tired and drunk and I’m waiting for this girl named Jenny to want to go home because she has told us we can sleep on her couch. My friend calls me over and asks if it’s okay if she spends the night at Brine-Beard’s house. “Sure,” I say. I go into the hallway and I’m writing a text message in which I describe Brine-Beard as AWFUL, all caps. I hear him come into the hallway and say, “Oh, there you are.”

“Here I am,” I say. I keep writing.

He comes over and grabs me by the hair and I duck his kiss and maneuver to the other side of the hall.

“No no no no no,” I say.

He says, “I know you love her. I love her, too.  I know you want to be with her — all it’s gonna take is for you to stay here tonight.”

I say, “Well I think you’re a piece of shit, so I’m not gonna do that.”

He says we've had a misunderstanding. He tells me I must have wanted it because it’s pretty late and I’m still at his house. I tell him it's actually because the train stops running at midnight.

“Oh, well I thought you were free to leave at any time.”

“Nope, I have nowhere to go, so I’m gonna go back into your living room, but you can go fuck yourself.”

I go into the living room, I tell my friend this asshole just tried to initiate a threesome and we need to leave, and I sit on the couch to wait for her. He sits next to me and says, “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

“Nope, it’s fucked up to wait until everyone is drunk to try to talk a stranger into having a threesome with you. I think you’re a dick.”

So this Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for feminism because it is slowly eliminating fuckheads like Brine-Beard.

-  Ariane

Flavor of the Biweek V

Time - Blonds : Gazing at the Sky while Lying on your Back

This song, by Brooklyn-based electropop duo Blonds, is fucking resonant. It's dramatic. And who doesn't like a bit of indulgent drama? There's nothing better than music validating and deepening (or creating) your emotional state of being, and "Time" will satisfy your desire to feel like your life has a soundtrack. In "Time," Blonds gives us a sonorous, non-cheesy love song. The sultry, smooth-yet-raspy voice of lead vocalist Cari Rae adds a heavy, desperate feel to the otherwise luscious "Time." Sure, it's a love song, but love isn't happy. Things get desperate, astounding, consuming, surreal, and "Time" captures the other-worldliness of it all. So go lie down on a rooftop, a patch of grass, or elsewhere, pop your earbuds in and gaze into the abyss of sky while you listen to "Time." Your life will be very meaningful for three minutes and twenty seconds. 

-  Beast

Flavor of the Biweek IV

"A Summer Daydream Part I" by The Airplanes: Run Through Town with a Pretty Girl

Here at The Beast and Dragon we have trouble adapting to the changing of the seasons. When it is nice and sunny out, we cannot wait to bring out the coats, and now a song with the word 'summer' in the title is on repeat. So come join us as we try to defeat SAD and listen to this rumbling of optimistic sounds even if you are not obsessing over some stupid chick.

Find the nearest pretty girl, put some lipstick on her face, and drag her toward the horizon line where you can run freely. I did this by myself earlier today because I have kick-ass self-esteem, and it was pure happy ending magic. I got off the bus, earbuds making me deafer a song at a time, and as the intro started to fill me with a  vital need to be complete, one feet in front of the other my step accelerated. "Run," God commanded, but eventually the mud got to me. I definitely scared off some ominous crows, though. Success!

This is the only song I have by this band at the moment so I cannot recommend any more for your cardiovascular activities, but perhaps that is best in order to avoid an exercise-induced asthma attack. No, but seriously, go download the self-titled EP right now and I will too. Go go go, keep running! Just be sure to "avoid the cracks in the sidewalk."

- Dragon

Why You Should Never Again Take a Cinema Studies Class Until You Die and Go to Hell

pretentious: demanding a position of merit, especially when unjustified

Remember that word because it is exactly what you are going to get if you sit through another goddamned cinema studies class. You are twenty years old, you have taken film classes before, and yet it is so uncomfortable to try and get used to it. In high school we were all pretentious because that was the new thing. You heard Mr. Walch mention the name Bergman and you were not even sure which one he was referring to but your ears sprang up erect—as did other areas—because you loved Autumn Sonata. You take your time to think about it all and learn to express yourself through la Nouvelle Vague. In the midst of the anxiety right before college, you lock yourself in your room in a hazy daze to watch action clicks. You even grow your hair in all different shades of shaggy because there simply is no time for grooming when you have to get through all of Nic Cage’s filmography.

And then there is college.

I have seen two movies named The Freshman, and they are both terrifying. One of them was even directed by a third Bergman. But no one cares about Harold Lloyd in your college classes. They seem more interested in flaunting what other black and white films they know of, which is funny because I had no idea school was made so that people would show up to list all the critically acclaimed movies they have seen. I do this for free when I try to hit on intellectuals, so why am I sitting through hours of this nonsense, clenching my jaw as the weed wears off?

Some time ago we concluded our first unit in my History of Motion Pictures class. We said goodbye to Chaplin and Keaton and nodded as the professor introduced us to German Expressionism. Then a classmate raised his hand: “Are we going to watch The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? Because that film…”

…something something about how much he knows about Wiene's distortion galore. Ugh. I stopped listening at some point. I knew this guy before; I used to have lunch with him in tenth grade, but do not remind him because then I would have to say hi to him, and I simply do not have time for that. And though that adds another layer to the story, the pretentiousness of his statement is neither aggravated nor lessened by the fact that I always found him to be annoying.

The professor is pretty cool, so if I can pretend to read people well, I can be certain he is on my side. “If we get around to Nosferatu and Metropolis, sure,” he answered. Of course, he was polite about it, so it did not sound the way it does in my head as I type it. Still, fuck you, anonymous student whose name rhymes with bazookas. Who do you think you are wasting our time just throwing up titles? Are we on a metaphorical journey through Wikipedia or something?

My biggest problem with his statement, like everything he says in the class, is that he is doing it all wrong. This marks the difference between pretentiousness and genuine zeal: pretense is characterized by priding yourself in having fine tastes when there is nothing obscure about these masterpieces that are readily available for the common public to consume. I mean, come on now, who has never heard of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? It is like taking a History of Music class and asking if you are going to listen to The Beatles. Although no, that would be Citizen Kane. I guess an artist such as, oh I don't know, Billie Holiday is more like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari of music. Everyone has heard of Billie Holiday. Maybe you cannot recognize it and when asked if you like it you are all like: “I love him.” But you know that someone who is really into music has listened to Billie Holiday. Thus you do not take a History of Music class and ask if you are going to listen to Billie Holiday. You go listen to that by thee, thyself, and thou.

Some of us are naturally skilled at having opinions about things, especially things we know nothing about. My best conversations are those when I have no idea what is being discussed. But what is being awesome at pretending good for if I am not getting anything in return? Does bazooka think he is earning our respect? Because there are better methods to accomplish that, such as establishing your intelligence when it is needed. Do not be a little bitch about it. Wait for the right time. I found mine when the professor asked who was the 19th century French science fiction author that Méliès loosely adapted for the screen. Uh, are you guys stupid?

That is the right time to come in. And you raise your hand and say in a sensual voice: “Jules Verne.” Then everyone is like whoa. But you cannot raise your hand after watching A Trip to the Moon and ask: “Are you going to tell us that Méliès was inspired by Jules Verne? Because I love Jules Verne.”

Do not get me wrong. There are heavy emotions attached to cinema. Who has not flipped through a book on film and felt full of love because you were tweaked out smoking cigarettes indoors while your eyes twinkled with tears? Goddammit, you love movies! You do! And when you are in class sometimes a clip of that movie you just fucking love starts playing, and you do not care that everyone everywhere has seen Fight Club, it is still as good as it ever was, so you sigh loudly. The girl next to you looks at you and she sort of laughs because she loves Fight Club too. And everyone is quoting in their head. Some even do it out loud, fuck it. We are all going home to listen to Pixies, anyway. I guess you are not a beautiful or unique snowflake after all.

I have another film class with the same professor the following day: Understanding Motion Pictures. There is this other guy there whose name does not rhyme with anything who is always making comments that at first might sound similar to bazookas', but eventually you realize that no-rhyme has strong opinions about things that matter to him, like Facebook, for instance, which he went on a paranoid rant about while I was trying to read some Philip K. Dick during a break. So when no-rhyme gets antsy during a lecture on screenwriting and blurts out something about William Goldman, no-rhyme will say how he feels about William Goldman’s work, not that he adapted Misery. Although maybe no-rhyme does agree that Kathy Bates is totally nuts. I should ask him. I should befriend him.

I guess what I mean to say by all this is that it is okay to like German Expressionism just as long as you do not think knowing what that is makes you the fairest of them all. Be modest. Use every opportunity you can to show off how bitchin' brilliant you are, not how pestering you can get, ya feel me?

Or whatever, bro, these are your decisions to make. Please, I would love to hear shit off an IMDb trivia page. I also hope you love it when I conspicuously roll my eyes at you and then pop a cap in your eye à la Chinatown. Enjoy movies now, kitty cat.

- Dragon

Flavor of the Biweek III

Heartbeat - Kopecky Family Band : Go to the Park

Sometimes, a fun thing to do is be self-indulgently miserable. In autumn, a world in the process of dying makes depression both easy and satisfying. However, there comes a time when that whole "this beautiful grey atmosphere reflects my beautiful grey soul" thing gets fucking annoying, and you need to stop brooding, already. It doesn't make you deep. Enter  the Kopecky Family Band. Hailing from Nashville, Tennessee, the Kopecky Family Band recently released their first full-length album, "Kids Raising Kids," and you should go listen to it, because who doesn't have love for Nashville? I know I do--southern accents get me every time. Not to mention the very reason I clicked on this video in the first place, which is the word "Kopecky." Kopecky! It's fun to say and hear. My inability to resist bobbing my shoulders up and down to the baseline of "Heartbeat" informed me that it is this week's antidote for autumn's inherent seriousness--because when bobbing is involved, things can't be taken too seriously. So go to the park, find some flowers that have made it this far without shriveling up, take off your shoes, feel that grass between your little toes, listen to this happy song and remember that pessimism doesn't equal profoundness.

-   Beast

Flavor of the Biweek II

“Future Starts Slow” by The Kills: Driving Past the Heartbreaker’s House

It was all an accident. Suddenly, while listening to this dark grey vagueness of mature longing that is The Kills’ latest album and driving around an area that I shall not mention should that attract unwanted attention, I realized I felt nostalgic. I like that feeling, though, and sometimes I do creepy things like this on purpose—you know Dragon has a crush on you if it looks like raccoons partied in your underwear drawer.

But I was not wearing my driving gloves the other night since I did not have a mission planned where impeccable scramming skills were necessary. I was simply doing ordinary errands and then there it was in my throat again…that gumball of someone else’s acrid tobacco breath expanding in gratefulness for a much needed heartbreak. Remember how you insisted so much you let yourself be drained of hope? Yet it keeps overflowing because that is what love is all about, man: “You can swing, you can flail, you can blow what's left of my right mind. I don't mind.”

VV and Hotel entrust us with a vigorously vulnerable song that provides a soundtrack to the way your face reacts as you drive past the heartbreaker’s house. Shoot intense glances at your mirrors and take in the partially reflected hot mess that you have become, so detached from the perkiness you always forgot to downplay in this fucking place when you were still invited inside. Sunglasses and cigarettes are essential in this conclusion to your current emotional state: “There's a time for the second best, and there's a time when the feeling's gone. But it's hard to be hard, I guess, when you're shaking like a dog,” and then you remember how insecure that person made you feel and you are kind of glad you are no longer dealing with their indecisiveness because now you can find this sort of comfort to your passions. Is there anything better than feeling sickly poetic?

If you could not find an answer to that question, then let The Kills be part of your sick poetry.

-       “Fried My Little Brains,” for when you have consumed large quantities of hard drugs and you don’t give a fuck about being caught loitering

-       “Love Is a Deserter,” yeah, I’d say

-       “Hook and Line,” since you liked them more than they liked you but you kept pretending like you could somehow change that

And if you are unfortunate enough to be a heartbreaker and cannot seem to find any of this useful to your daily routine, remember the golden rule of heartbreaking: you only learn to do it if it is done to you first. So start digging up those old wounds and fill up the gas tank because we are on an obsessive excursion to all those places where you wish you had not been not good enough.

-       Dragon

Flavor of the Biweek I

(In which we each present our song of the week along with an activity/situation we think goes well with it.)

"Phenomena" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Masturbation

Any song by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs can easily be employed for most sexual activities, but this week it's this song for this activity. This band makes you feel so sexy that you don't even need a partner to enjoy the orgasmic sounds. Does anyone even care to find out what the hell Karen O is singing about? Sex? I don't know. Just keep singing to me, you twisted thing. It's 10 AM while you're getting ready, swingin' your hips in front of the mirror and suddenly out comes the short skirt and, oh, look! Red lipstick. Dayum, let's get this day started. Jerking off in the morning is pretty lame, so just listen to the song throughout the day, leave it on repeat, and wait till you get home late at night, so tense and ready to have yourself a nice music master sesh.

I can't think of what commercial this was in. Okay, I Googled it: Cadillac ATS. That's a pretty sexy car. And that means that if you think you don't know what song this is, you definitely have heard it before. It gives the experience another layer because you two knew each other before -- just not like this. How romantic.

And it's so passionate. A whole four minutes and twelve seconds. Yeah, I like that in a song. Enough time for "something like a phenomena, baby. You're gonna get your body off. Hot time, kid. Hot, time kid. It's cold under the blanket." But don't worry about the meaning because "Phenomena," like any good song, could totally just be about heroin. Need more Yeah Yeah Yeahs private time classics?

- "Date with the Night," one of the finest of this genre that is also popularly listened to for cunnilingual purposes
- "Heads Will Roll," because it's all about the ohs
- "Tick," for when you're angry given the fact that you can't come for some reason, dammit!

Good luck and goodbye for now. Send us your results and we will use the data wisely. Tune in next week for more of whatever it is we do here. Now go enjoy your Thursday night. Because Thursday night is the night to have a party in your pants with your hands.

- Dragon
...for more of my sexy stuff, click there.

She knows she's outrageous, but she's not confused.

I don't think I've ever seen someone with such perfectly representative hair.

Write it down.

Drink to The Walking Dead

Sometimes during a zombie apocalypse, singing nostalgic Irish songs around a fire just doesn't cut it. These are the times you need to break into an abandoned bar and drink until you can't feel anymore. For those of you who feel the weight of the Walking Dead (and for those of you who don't: you can play, too), here's a medicinal regimen for your favorite horrifying addiction:

Drink once if:

-a walker is killed

-walkers are trying to attack people through a barrier (i.e. banging against gates/glass)*

-someone uses the word "walker" or "geek"
-someone cries
-Lori's bra straps are showing
-they talk about ammo/supplies

-someone's jaw clenches

-someone inhales dramatically

-someone makes a mournful comment/speech and no one has a response

-Daryl is surprisingly gentle

-someone points a gun to a head but doesn't shoot**

-leaves are heard rustling, or an equally foreboding sound

-there's a romantic moment amidst the misery
-a character mentions and/or acts morose about his/her chance of dying at any moment
-you remember Merle***
-Daryl is a badass
-there's conflict about whether to act selfishly or in the interest of the group
-a character is torn between his/her pre-apocalyptic, civilized self and his/her post-apocalyptic, animalistic self
-the characters are pillaging

-someone is missing

-that person is found
-they split up
-they shouldn't have split up

Drink twice if:

-a walker that seems dead is actually alive

-there's an ominous shot through a window (as if by an unseen observer)

-they're sitting around a fire
-T-Dog has a viable plot line
-one or more of the characters are huddled over a map

-flies are pictured swarming around dead bodies

-there's a surprise herd of walkers

-someone escapes just in the nick of time (re: zombies)

-streets are conveniently empty of cars

-they talk about who makes the calls
-they find a new place to stay

-a character is bitten and/or dies
-blood splatters onto the camera
-someone gets badly hurt
-the characters seem happy
-someone grapples with suicide

Finish your cup if:
-one or more of the characters gets out of a seemingly impossible zombie situation and we are not shown how they accomplish this

-no one knows where Carl is

*drink twice if they break through the barrier
**drink twice if they do shoot
***drink twice if your curiosity about Merle is killing you

-Beast (and Dragon)

The Homme-liness of Josh Homme: A Serenade

Queens of the Stone Age is perfect music for driving, drugs, and sex. Ideally, we could do all these activities at the same time in a triad of awesomeness, but since it’s hard for us ladies to get road dome while doing lines off the steering wheel (the whole multitasking thing must be a myth), let’s focus on the most important part of the equation: copulation in a song, because if there’s something I’d like getting stuck in my throat, it’s your cock, Josh Homme. I’m sure it tastes so good. Oh, but I knew it would.

I yearn for you to whisper secrets in my ear, slowly dancing cheek to cheek. No fire, no gun, no rope, no stone. But mostly I just want to drink wine and screw. This life is a trip when you're psycho in love. It’s something sweet to throw away, but I want something good to die for 'cause I'm so bored with myself. Any way, any time and any place; I'll just hang around on your street waiting. When you coming home? I can't wait forever. I've always been alone.

Where, oh, where have you been, my love? I'm wondering where the hell you been. Come, let's play along and let each other lose. You're the only thing I've got that I can't seem to get enough. I would beg, I would plead, I would shake for you. I wanna be crushed by your sweet caress. You say your yes button broke to automatic, but whatever we do, I won't tell anyone. You’re so tired. You’re wired, too. You’re a mess, I guess, and you’ve left me crawling, staring straight at the sun. Touch your lips to mine that we may make a kiss that can pierce through death and survive. Break me, lay me to waste, turn me into sweet nothings and kiss me goodbye, cozied up to the toilet, face stuck to the floor. I go lower and lower and lower, lower living easy. Young, dumb drinking semen. Underwater…underwater one day. I’ll show you a hole in me I never even saw.  I wanna lick you too much. I hear you coming, ooh, ah, baby.

Education is so lame when I bitch and I moan. I’m a loose girl, you’re a guy, and daddy got his gun loaded. You want this fat and soft, pink and weak foot and thigh, tongue and cheek? I'm so goddamn slick, baby, it's a sin. I got nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol. And Co-co-co-co-co-cocaine. I string ‘em up, I cut ‘em down. As long as the blue pill opens your eyes, is there a better way?

I just can't recall what started it all, or how to begin in the end. Maybe it was the hair like maple, skin like cream, hands of gold, there's velvet eyes…Yeaaah…oh! Look at you now.

I am no saint and make no claims to being in the right, but I won’t take this broken pussy elsewhere. It's just your love is like a drug. You wanna know why you feel so hollow? Because you are. You're missing out. Get sweet revenge with my blood. You wanna know how I do it? I do it all right. Burn this witch—burn to ash and bone! I don't care if it hurts, just so long as it's real. I’ll pout my bottom lip while you crack the whip. I know what you want. It's candy to come to. I’m the dog at your feet out of sight and out of time. Yours, and if only, if only, if only you could stay forever.

Or, you know, counter proposal: I go home and jerk off to Queens of the Stone Age. 

-          From the clitoris of Dragon, with generous handies by Beast

Medication, No One Knows, I Think I Lost My Headache, Little Sister, I Never Came, Walking on the Sidewalks, You Can’t Quit Me Baby, Go with the Flow, Regular John, Long Slow Goodbye, Into the Hollow, This Lullaby, How to Handle a Rope, Tangled Up in Plaid, In My Head, First It Giveth, You Got a Killer Scene There, Man…, Battery Acid, The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret, Turnin’ on the Screw, The Sky Is Fallin’, The Blood Is Love, 3’s and 7’s, I Was a Teenage Hand Model, Do It Again, The Fun Machine Took a Shit! And Died, Give the Mule What He Wants, Monsters in the Parasol, Skin on Skin, Leg of Lamb, You Would Know, Mosquito Song, Misfit Love, Feel Good Hit of the Summer, Avon, Better Living Through Chemistry, Make It Wit Chu, You’re So Vague, Mexicola, Running Joke, Run, Pig, Run, Broken Box, Like a Drug, Everybody Knows That You’re Insane, River in the Road, Infinity, Burn the Witch, Suture Up Your Future, Sick, Sick, Sick, Born to Hula, If Only, Someone’s in the Wolf, I’m Designer.

Demon Squirrel Fears Nothing

City animals aren't afraid anymore. While I'm sure they were never timid (growing up in the city must produce gritty animals as much as it does gritty people), they're now becoming entirely unshakeable. Aren't small animals supposed to fear big things? It's a great source of an undeserved sense of power. *It was.

Yesterday, a rat ran almost-over my shoe. A few months ago I tried to chase a pigeon away and it straight up ignored me. These animals are sick of living in subway dregs and/or having their various nature-homes constantly inundated with trash. And they're coming for us. Possibly equipped with genetic mutations.

Today as I was sitting in Washington Square Park, I saw a demon squirrel. It was pitch black with beady yellow eyes. I've seen it before, and it scared me the last time, too. I hoped that it would scamper away like a normal squirrel, but of course, it didn't. Because it's not. Instead, brandishing its little squirrel claws at me, it advanced. No, really, like on its hind legs. I was especially fearful of being targeted because I happened to be eating a bagel at the time. Because I didn't want it to sense my fear, I started laughing. But it must have sensed the nervous nature of it because it jumped up next to me on the bench, all the hairs raised on its back like a crazed, tiny monster. It finally left after some aggressive eye contact and went off to terrorize a young couple across the path, who didn't seem to take much notice. 

As I was finishing my morning nosh in peace, I realized that no one seemed to care about the squirrel besides myself. The fearlessness of this rodent was met with no reaction. Such an unusual display of behavior should have at least elicited some disconcerted laughter from someone. Come on, people.

So I think we should form more of a brotherhood. Because you never know what the government could be doing to our squirrels, and when they turn against us, we can only conquer them as a team.

Good thing I had a pocketknife.

-Beast

Nincompoopery

You think you’ve done it all until you have to take a stool test. Actually, I don’t really want to talk about it. And I’m not one to wince. I’ve cleaned other people’s vomit and blood from my bathroom wall. It’s cool. But a stool test is different. Tape a bag to the toilet, get the gloves from a box of hair dye, you go, and then…I don’t really want to talk about it.

I don't know what you expected.

But this isn’t about my stool test. This is about stool.

And I don’t want to hear the guys saying: “I prefer not knowing that girls poop.” Yeah, well, we would love to do the same thing with you, but you don’t give us a chance, do you? Besides, now we’re all imagining guys we like having bowel movements. I bet Chris Hemsworth’s reeks of pink heaths.

And I don’t want to hear the girls saying: “Ew.” Bitch, please. Staying in a restroom stall forever in silence  won’t fool me. You're waiting for me to leave because you’re taking a shit. At school. I can see your shoes. I’ll call you out on it in the hallway.

People need to stop being so high-strung about their dung. Relax. Once I reached that age when I could talk about poop with my friends, I felt a good amount of pounds lighter. Perhaps it was our weed habit that forced us to complain about constipation the morning after pigging out on chips and cigarettes.

*Tip: If suffering from diarrhea, fill yourself up with chips.

**Rumor: My friend once said that if you smoke a lot of cigarettes, your consequent crap smells worse than it should. I think it's the opposite.

Now, there is one thing I cannot tolerate and that is when porn actors say “oh shit.” Sure, it’s an expression, and, let’s be honest, it’s anal more than half the time, but can we please not talk about feces while I’m masturbating? As soon as they start, they don’t stop, forcing me to hit the back button and find another flick to watch that lonely night. Whatever happened to “oh god,” huh? I’d much rather think about eternal punishment for my sins than about what I flush away in the toilet every day. That’s why we flush, because we want to forget.

Another interesting thing about the human body is farting. Yup, farts are funny. How many times have you chuckled when the cute, smart, little leeching girl at the front of the class accidentally let one rip? Or the snart? But if we start combining bodily actions, we’ll never end. Yarp? Crum? Or when anything happens on top of the fact that you’re menstruating. That’s the best/worst. It sucks even the word ‘menstruate’ has ‘men’ in it. Ugh.

But until we change the English language so that my mother can stop saying ‘shit’ when she means ‘sheet’—it’s fine, she once called someone ‘gay’ when trying to say ‘guy’—, let’s hope there’s nothing the matter with my matter. I know it’s just gastritis again, so then perhaps I wish it to be something more serious. I crossed a line in the relationship I had with my excrement. It better be tragic. It’s probably coprographia.

- Dragon

Whatever happens, do the dance.

First of all, I don’t straighten my hair. And I find push-up bras overwhelming. And I don’t believe anyone when they say it will be fine. Life is pain, princess. That was a Princess Bride quote, and if you didn’t get it then you should go watch The Princess Bride now, because it’s a classic.

We do, however, have quite classy tastes, if I do say so meself. I did have tea parties with my grandmother and siblings as a youngster, and we did construct fantasies wherein we were British royalty preparing for a fox hunt. There were cucumber sandwiches, and if you know anything about anything you know that tiny food is pretty sophisticated.

Nah, but we’ve just gone downhill from there. Life is like waking up. And you know how waking up from your awesome dreams and being violently shoved into reality is so confusing and painful? Sunlight burns your eyes in the morning.

But I’m only being laughably dramatic. I like to do that. Romina does that, too. But truth lies in jest. o_o. That’s my favorite emoticon. But actually, it’s this one: o_O.

Unexpected Mud Cake

Today in a coffee shop I saw that pastry display and it made me laugh, and then a young lady passed behind me and though I didn't see her, the sound of her high heels demanded attention. The cadence of her voice told me that she leads an especially luxurious life, thank you very much, and as she exited the café she informed her friend that “Barcelona is one of [her] favorite cities.”

I guess what I’m trying to say is, in the words of LCD Soundsystem: just laugh it off, it’s better than it seems. Oh yeah, and we are pretty cool. Possibly too cool. But you should still totally holler, because maybe you're cool, too. We'll see. And also, the word holler. Holler.

-            Jessica Lange, Beast

A Quick Aside and Two Pictures Beside Each Other: An Introduction

We are classy women with classy tastes, and we use Comic Sans because fuck you. We’re funny, right, Jessica? Yeah, we’re hilarious. Don’t kid yourself, it’s only a defense mechanism. We suffer. We are oh so pained. We write poetry and we show it to each other for much needed validation. There are too many layers to us, and when you meet us, you know we’re just superficial. Like this introduction, but do you really think this is just an introduction? Nothing is just around here. We’re not just friends, me and her or us with anyone. We lament being born and not dying because we need to do stuff in between. Fun stuff. Do we party? What does that even mean? Do we go to clubs in a push-up bra with our hair straightened and get so shitfaced we appear in some douchebag’s apartment the next morning? Maybe Jessica does that, I don’t know. What, you think I know everything about my best friend? On the other hand, I’m open, I’m private, I’m honest. I’ll tell you the harsh truth and you’ll think I’m joking. Jessica’s done that a few times, and I bought it. I wonder if she, too, believes me when I say it’ll be fine. You know what? It won’t be. It’s just gonna be a blog about nothing, an anonymous dream after the previous forgotten one, the one where you were too high to notice you were awake. But don’t worry, we’ll keep going. You’ll see us in L.A. or New York Citay and you’ll holler, but we don’t know you. Do we want to get to know you? Uh…maybe…I don’t know, we’ll see. We might be too cool, because we actually are super cool.

-          Romina D’Alessandro, Dragon