My dog is a homosexicle.

My dog is not very, er… sexually active. For one, he has no balls. For two, he has no balls.

He’s only ever in his life tried to hump three dogs. One is my friend Katie’s mom’s sheepdog… I can’t remember the dog’s name. All I remember is that I went to Katie’s mom’s house for Easter several years ago and this big fluffy white sheepdog was all over my dog like white on rice. Nate just sort of kept looking at me like “Help! This dog is straight up trying to rape me!” He was running around the yard with this sheepdog hot on his trail. “NATE! Take back the night,” I kept screaming. “No means no!” Finally, having become fed up with being the victim, he decided to be the victimizer. He just turned the tables on this dog, quick as you please. He became the humper instead of the humpee. “Who’s the bitch now! Say my name! What’s my name?!” The sheepdog looked, well, sheepish.

Then last year at Coachella (it’s a music festival in Indio, CA for those who don’t know) , my friends Ellen and Terence (together, “the Terellens”) brought their dog Nicky, an adorable bison frise to the house we rented. It was Nate’s fourth or fifth Coachella, but Nicky’s first. (I think.) It was the most anticipated dog meeting of the year. Nate and Nicky. Nicky and Nate. What would happen? Would they like each other? Would Nicky turn up his nose and say ” What eez dis? Who are you? I am French. We French dogs do not consort weeth such curs. You appear to be a spaniel wheech is a British form of dog, and yet your name eez Nate Dogg. Are you from, how do you say, South Central, or are you from England? Eet does not matter. I am French and above it all.”

What would Nate’s response be? “Whassup! Damn, Nicky, you fine! Look at you? All white with that pimp jerri curl ‘n shit. Mind if I straight up hump yo ass? It’s a party up in here! Pass the Alize! Where you from? Oh, word, you’re french? I once smoked some bomb chronic from France! Hol’ up, let me try to hump you again real quick.”

Well they got along famously… it’s the beginning of a doggie love affair. Soon we’ll find them sitting at an Italian Bistro eating the same strand of spaghetti.

Nate has wormed his way into Nicky’s refined French heart.

And then just a few week ago, I took Nate Dogg and Bailey (my former roommate’s dog) to the dog park, and while Bailey was running around doing donuts in the park, Nate had his eye on this tiny white dog. Usually at the dog park, Nate just chills next to me while I sit on the bench. (It’s a leash-free dog park… it’s like doggie heaven. But he doesn’t care. He just wants to sit.) Not this time though. He saw this tiny white dog and was like “Dayum, give me a piece of dat.” And since the dog wouldn’t give him a piece, Nate tried to take a piece, much to my chagrin.

It was after this trip to the dog park that it dawned on me. The three dogs Nate has ever tried to have his way with where white and male.

Come to think of it, the only human Nate has tried to hump is my ex-boyfriend’s best friend, some virtuoso violinist who live in Austria. Also a white male.

Making my dog not only gay, but heavy into the miscegenation scene.

The stupidest thing I’ve ever googled.

“How long do cupcakes stay fresh?”

True story.

I didn’t like the answers that I got, so I ate the 4 day old cupcake anyway.  It was a little stale, but soooooo worth it.

Queer Eye for the Laundry Guy

I have a serious problem when it comes to laundry. I enjoy wearing clean clothes. I like not being dirty. My problem is this: I’ll do load after load of laundry, dump it in a hamper, throw the hamper on the floor, rifle through the hamper for clothes when I need them–dumping most of the laundry on the floor in the process, wait a couple of weeks, declare that all the clothes on the floor are dirty (even if they are probably clean and even if they pass the smell test), and wash all the clothes again. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.

This has always been my problem. Now, I’ll even take the time to fold the laundry (patting myself on the back heartily while doing so), dump it in a hamper, throw the hamper on the floor, rifle through the hamper for clothes when I need them–dumping most of the laundry on the floor and unfolding most of the previously folded clothes in the process, wait a couple of weeks, declare that all the clothes on the floor dirty (unless I can discern some remnants of folds or creases which incontrovertibly tell me that particular article of clothing has not, in fact, been worn), and wash all the clothes again.

Laundry ruins lives.

Until I moved into my new apartment, none of this was that big of a deal because I’d always had a washer and dryer in my house or apartment. The last time I didn’t have my own washer and dryer was my first year in law school and frankly, I was too busy squeezing in a beer or five or a softball game into my already hectic schedule that I didn’t care whether or not my clothes were clean.

Now, unfortunately, I do not have my own washer or dryer. So I’m relegated to using the laundry room in my building (which has exactly one washer and one dryer and is therefore not at all time efficient). When I moved, I swore to myself that I would do laundry every week so I wouldn’t fall behind and have to do make up laundry. I wanted to make sure I got into the best laundry college I could.

My first week in my apartment, I called a laundry service. They came and took three garbage bags full of laundry and returned it to me all nicely folded, and clean, and wrapped in brown paper. You’d be surprised how exciting it is opening up little brown packages, even when you know damn well all of the packages contain the clothes you were too lazy to wash before you moved.

Of course my laundry resolution didn’t last more than a month, and the laundry started to pile up. I’d do a load here and there–just enough to get me through the workweek if I wore a variation of the same outfit everyday. But, by November, the laundry situation had reached a critical point. It was so bad that I had begun sleeping on the couch. THE COUCH. Why? Because the laundry had driven me out of my bedroom. It was everywhere. And it was unstoppable. As my friend Allison dryly noted: “I didn’t realize laundry was so aggressive.”

This laundry is ready to battle.

I decided that I wouldn’t let the laundry win, and I came up with a strategy to take down the laundry once and for all. I would do my more “personal” laundry in the laundry room in my building, and would do my more “I don’t care if anyone steals this shit” laundry at the… wait for it… laundromat. Laundromats are weird places. Are you supposed to sit there and wait for your laundry quietly judging all the other laundromat patrons? Should you bring a book? A computer? Should you sit on the washer and enjoy the ride? These are important questions.

I piled all my sheets and towels into two laundry baskets, stuffed them in my incredibly small car, and drove to the laundromat near my house, smack dab in the heart of Gay USA: West Hollywood.

I walked in to the laundromat, stopping to take a look around and get my bearings. “Ah! Washing machines. I’m pretty sure those are washing machines.” I walked over to a row of washing machines and proceeded to fill four washing machines with laundry. I rummaged around in my wallet for some quarters–I had plenty of quarters. I’d recently used a twenty dollar bill to buy stamps from a stamp machine, and received my change in quarters.

When was the last time you bought a book of stamps with a twenty dollar bill?

I popped the quarters into the washing machines and I was on my way. Feeling quite pleased with myself, I might add. I went to run a couple of errands (I felt weird leaving my laundry there, but I really wasn’t going to sit there and wait for it) and returned to the laundromat a little while later to put all my clothes in the dryer.

Now, this is where it got tricky. I walked over to the row of dryers and attempted to figure out what to do next. The dryers were stacked but the coin slot for both dryers was in one place. You had to push a button to tell it which dryer you wanted to use, the top one or the bottom one. Ok, seemed easy enough.

So I loaded up one of the dryers, popped in the quarters, selected the appropriate dryer and pushed start. No problem. I then loaded up a second dryer and attempted to put the quarters in the coinslot. No dice. It wouldn’t fit. I assumed the dryer was broken. I removed all the laundry and stuck it in another dryer. Again, I attempted to put the quarter in the coinslot. Again, nothing.

These dryers make no fucking sense!

Then I started walking up and down the row of dryers trying to stick quarters in the coin slots. “What the hell!?”, I thought. “Can all of these dryers be broken? ” Finally I went back to my original set of dryers and I just stood there hopelessly confused. I thought to myself, “Can I really be this dumb? Why don’t I understand how to work these dryers? They’re not all broken. Look, that chick just got one to work! I really don’t get it.”

I started to look around for a laundromat customer service representative to help me. There was an old black guy in a security guard uniform. I assumed he was there to make sure no local gay hoodlums darted in to the laundromat and started robbing the change machine. He didn’t look all that helpful. I continued to look around. I didn’t see anyone.

About to throw my wet laundry in my hamper and go home, a friendly (and gay) guy walked up to me. “Honey, you’re putting your coins in the wrong slot. This one is for my dryer.” “Really?” I asked. “It looks like the coinslots are the same for both dryers and I’m supposed to push this button to choose either the top or bottom dryer.” I was confused. “Don’t listen to him!” A second second friendly (and gay) guy rushed to my aid. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

The second guy began to assess my dryer situation. “I don’t get it,” I said to him. He looks at me, looks at the dryer, and then looks at my hand which was clutching the coins. “Um, honey. Are you sure those are quarters.” “What!?”, I exclaimed. I looked down at my hand which was clutching the coins— Saca-fuckin-gawea. The coins I was trying to use were not even quarters—they were new dollar coins. Of course they were. Like the stamp machine that had produced the coins as change for my twenty dollar bill was going to give me all my change in quarters. What an idiot! how did I not notice the difference in volume between fifteen dollars in quarters and fifteen dollars in Sacagawea coins. “Oh crikey. I really gotta quit drinking in the morning.” I looked at the second guy, “Thanks! I thought I was losing my mind…. hey wait a minute. Aren’t you that guy from Queer Eye?” “Uh-huh,” he replied. “Cool! I used to watch that show.”

It was Jai Rodriguez from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy:

So many hot men in WeHo. So many gay men in WeHo.

Don’t famous people have minions who do their laundry for them? Or at least don’t they have a washer and dryer where they live? Well, worked out for me. He was very nice. And very cute. And very friendly. And willing to help this hapless fool who can’t tell her ass from her elbow…. or a dollar coin from a quarter.

Hiatus

I know, I know, y’all (and by y’all, I mean the 4 of you whom I know actually read my blather) have been wondering: WTF? Where’d the blog go? Did she block me? I can’t believe it! What a skag.

No, no. Due to some personal circumstances, I opted to make my blog private. And then I tried to add the 4 of you as authorized readers. And for some reason, the stupid blog goddesses wouldn’t recognize your names, even though I’m pretty sure I spelled them all right. ee el el ee en. Not that hard to figure out. aitch ay en en ay aitch. Ok, that one’s a little bit more difficult only because figuring out how to spell “H” is a lot harder than originally anticipated. I googled it. True story.) Here’s an easy one! es ee ar eye tee ay. Boom. Put that in your proverbial pipe and smoke it.

So, whatevs. I’m making this shit public again… personal circumstances be damned! Plus I miss reading the comments. It’s really narcissism. Read my blog! Tell me how funny I am! And how utterly captivating the mundane details of my life are! Me me me!!  And if I happen to mention you it’s only because I know you’ll be all “OMG!  She totally mentioned my name!  I, like, am totally going to leave a comment.”  And your leaving a comment makes it all about me again.  It’s emotional manipulation, y’all.

So, with more ado than was really necessary, let me say this: I’m back, bitches. And I wish I could say that I’m better than ever, but that would be a lie. I’m the same. Maybe a little worse. You decide.

I just really like this picture. So what?

Corbin Bernsen: A Source of Anxiety

Corbin Bernsen had a very profound effect on me based on two roles. Arnie Becker in L.A. Law, and the dentist in The Dentist.

Some scary stuff, y’all.

Some awesome stuff, y’all.

I’m fairly certain that if you ask lawyers who are about my age (thirty- something) what TV shows inspired them to become a lawyer, many of them would name L.A. Law. If any of them name Ally McBeal, take them out in the backyard and shoot them directly in the face.

L.A. Law is to the color TV-generation of lawyers what Perry Mason is to the black and white TV-generation of lawyers. Or Matlock. If Matlock wasn’t so stupid and not in black and white. Stupid Matlock. Ooh, I’m cantankerous! Ooh, I went to Harvard law and then opened up a criminal defense practice in Atlanta, Georgia where I talk with a southern accent and eat grits! If you can’t tell, I hated Matlock. Who hates Andy Griffith? Who hates Matlock? I do. That’s who. And here’s why, from Wikipedia: “Matlock was known for being very thrifty with his money. His favorite food was hot dogs. His thriftiness, hot dogs, and the demands he placed upon his investigators were often points of comic relief in the series.” Really? Hot dogs and thriftiness are comic relief?

You just take your grey suit and your hot dogs and you go straight to hell.

I’ll tell you what counts for comic relief in a television show. This guy:

the most lovable mentally ret-, er challenged character on television… besides Donna Martin.

After googling “L.A. Law retard” (quite unpolitically correct of me, I know), this guy pops up. You know what else pops up? This most awesomest quote about this guy: “remember the guy who played the tard on LA LAW? i always thought he did a most excellent tard rendition. then he later went on to prove what a real tard he was by starring in dr. giggles.”

But back to the point of this post.

Corbin Bernsen is also, more profoundly, the reason why I hate going to the dentist. Have you seen The Dentist? What about the Dentist 2 (Electric Boogaloo)? People, they are both scary.

Basically, Corbin Bernsen plays a mild-mannered dentist who has an obsession with cleanliness. He then finds his wife having an affair with the pool boy… the filthy dirty pool boy, and loses his mind. His descent into madness starts by poking some poor girl in the gums with that poky thing dentists use to scrape the crap off your teeth. The movie’s pivotal scene is when he straps some chick to his chair, starts blaring opera music, and then begins to pull out the chick’s teeth one by one. I think he even cuts her tongue out. It’s basically my worse nightmare. Watching that movie in 1996, when it came out, is pretty much the reason I hadn’t seen a dentist between 1996 and about 2004. I’m not kidding, folks.

But in 2004, I realized not going to the dentist is stupid. (Not as stupid as Matlock, but close.) So I made my first appointment. And ever since then these people will not leave me alone. They expect me to go every six months. Every six months? For reals? No way. I’ll go once a year, but that’s it!

So I schedule appointments every six months. They call to confirm. And I call to cancel. It’s a little dance we do. But now they’re on to me. They’ve started refusing to cancel my appointments. They are really serious about my teeth, y’all. They charged me 80 bucks once when I canceled the appointment on the day of the appointment. I tried to cancel my appointment today, (because I forgot to call and cancel on Friday, and by the time I remembered it was too late), but they were going to charge me for the cleaning. As between spending 105 dollars to get my teeth cleaned and spending 105 dollars because I’m too much of a wuss to go to the dentist, I chose the former.

Now, my dentist really is quite pleasant.

My dentist is a smily white man, so this could be him. They all look the same.

And I think I’d probably be able to tell if he were planning to cut my tongue out or remove my teeth without my permission. But really, you never know with dentists. They’re the most hated people in the world. More hated than Nazis! More hated than hemorrhoids! If hemorrhoids were people and had souls! That’s got to weigh heavily on a person’s mind. “As between a boil on their ass, and me cleaning their teeth to a sparkly shine, people would rather have an itchy boil on their ass. My life sucks. I’m jumping.”

My dentist has got two hygienists. I’ll call one the devil. And the other one, the angel. I went to the dentist this afternoon and got the angel. She soothes my fears about going to the dentist. And she doesn’t harass me about not having had my wisdom teeth pulled even though I claimed I was going to do it two years ago. During my last dentist trip (which was about one year past when I was supposed to go), I was unlucky enough to see the devil hygienist, and I could tell she had it in for me. “I see you haven’t had your wisdom teeth removed.” “Yeah, funny that. I was planning on getting them taken out in February. But then you know what happened? I got diagnosed with a brain tumor. So, you know. It seemed more important to deal with that first.” Dead silence. I can tell she doesn’t really understand what a brain tumor has to do with wisdom teeth, and to her credit, they are totally not related. But I was going for shock and awe (and empathy.) You can’t get mad at someone for not having their wisdom teeth out once you find out that person has a brain tumor, fer Christ’s sake. That’s just inhuman. So I could tell she knew I was working her and manipulating her, in the way that the movie Pursuit of Happyness worked and manipulated me last night (I knew it was going to be sappy! And I still fucking cried at the end! Damn you, Will Smith and your adorable son! Damn you both to hell!), and she took her anger out on my teeth. She didn’t pull them all out or anything. But she wasn’t exactly being gentle as she wielded the poky thing and stabbed around my gum line.

Today, however, I had the angel. She asked me if anything had changed medically. “Nope. Still feeling brain tumor-y.” She didn’t even say anything about the fact that I still have my wisdom teeth aside from “Man, it’s hard to clean those wisdom teeth since they’re growing every which way but loose.” Ha! Clever. Get it? Loose teeth? Well, she didn’t actually say that. But she could have. And that would have been awesome. But she did give me a CD and headphones to listen to, so that was awesome enough. All the whirring and buzzing and awful drill sounds were masked by the “Sounds Eclectic” CD I was listening to.

Well, thank you Jennie. You’re the best hygienist in the world. And I made an appointment in March which i will keep–because in April, Jennie goes on maternity leave, and you can bet your rotten wisdom teeth, I won’t be going back to the dentist until Jennie goes back to work.

Engrish in America

So I’m walking Nate Dogg today and I come across this sign:

Being a grammar and spelling Nazi (much to the chagrin of the Boyfriend who thinks that the English language should be reformed to make it easier to figure out… I call it dumbing it down for the masses), I of course had to stop and take a picture with the handy ol’ iPhone.

Please help her recuperate priceless pictures from Holloween night, that vacuous and empty holiday.

It puts the lotion in the basket.

My friend Han Nah gave me this delicious hand cream for my birthday this year. It’s L’Occitane “Creme Mains” which is fancy speak for hand cream. It’s amazing. It’s got Shea butter! See, I’m black (gasp!) and therefore I am ashy. The L’Occitane hand cream alleviates the ashiness, without greasy build up, and also is packaged in this chic metallic-y aluminum-y packaging which is captivating and also gets scrunchy right after the first squeeze. Ooh, it’s shiny! I love shiny stuff! And scrunchies!!!

Pretty!

Shiny and Scrunchy!

And yes, I did wear a helmet as a child.

So a couple of months ago, the Boyfriend and I went to New York and Rhode Island. It was the first time I’d traveled in a while. As a non-frequent traveler, I often forget about the asinine rules that the Transportation Security Administration has instituted. No liquids or gels in containers larger than 4 oz! Oh, and you gotta put them in a Ziploc bag! I really detest these “false sense of” security measures.

Bullshit.

At any rate, we left from Burbank to head for New York City. The Boyfriend passes through security with no hassle and runs off to the bathroom: “I’ll meet you by the gate.” I go through security and they stop me: “Ma’am? We need to check your bag.” “Great,” I say to myself.

The security checkpoint person rifles through my bag with fat latex-laden fingers and pulls out my 5.2 oz aluminum tube of hand cream. “You can’t carry this on.” “Not even if I stuff it in the Ziploc bag?” “Not even. It’s over 4 oz.” “Yeah, so are you, but you seem to have gotten through the check point just fine,” I think to myself, snottily. Meanwhile, the tumor in my head is starting to awaken and pulse. I can feel the tears starting to well up. “I just got that goddamn hand cream for my birthday. And it looks expensive! I bet it was expensive. I don’t want to throw it away.” I can feel myself getting increasingly weepy. And then increasingly frustrated, “Am I seriously going to stand here and cry about some goddamn hand lotion?” Apparently so, because a fat tear plops on my cheek. The security checkpoint guy is looking at me with bemused pity. “Oh Christ,” I finally say. “Just throw it away.”

“WAIT. STOP.” The security checkpoint guy turns to me with annoyance. I check my watch. I’ve got more than enough time. “Hold on. Don’t throw it away. I’ll be right back!” I run to the gate and find the Boyfriend. “I’m going back to the car,” I tell him. “I’m getting upset about having to throw away this hand cream and instead of crying about it, I’m just going to take the shuttle back to the car, put it in my glovebox, and come back. Here, watch my bags.” The Boyfriend sort of rolls his eyes at me. He loves to do this. “I know it’s ridiculous, but I’m just going to be pissed off if I throw away a full tube of probably expensive hand cream,” I say. “Ok!” he sighs, with one eye still rolled in the back of his head. I run back to the security checkpoint person, snatch the hand cream from his greasy paws, and head out of the airport.

I go outside, wait 5 minutes for the shuttle, all the while muttering about stupid terrorists, and stupid bombs, and stupid french hand cream, and the stupid TSA and stupid fat latex-laden fingers. I get back to the car, throw my hand cream in the glove box, get on the shuttle, get back to the airport, wait in line, and pass through security… again.

Fat latex-laden fingers.

“Weren’t you just here?” the security checkpoint guy says to me. I just glare at him through red-rimmed eyes wishing I could jam my now car-bound hand cream square up his ass. “Yeah,” I mutter with murder in my eyes.

Cut to three months later. My boyfriend and I are heading to Windsor, Canada, via Detroit Motor City. “Make sure you don’t have anything larger than 4 oz.” the Boyfriend gently reminds me. “Oh don’t you worry! It is under control! I’ve got tiny bottles of shampoo, tiny deodorants, tiny lotions, tiny conditioner. I’ve even got a Tiny Dancer.” I laugh to myself, never one to pass up an unobscure Elton John reference. We get to the front of the security check point line again. I confidently walk through the metal detector and wait for my bag to pass through the X-ray machine.

“Ma’am? We’re going to need to check your bag.” “Um, ok.” I’m thinking “What for? Oh? You know, I think I might have a lighter in there. Whatevs. They can have the lighter.” So into my bag go the fat latex-laden fingers again… and what do those fingers retrieve? The goddamn hand lotion.

“Are you fucking kidding me!?!” I yell in my head. And then I just started to laugh. I glance over to my boyfriend and this time I roll my eyes at myself before he has a chance to roll his eyes at me.

“Just throw it away,” I say. So it puts the lotion in the garbage basket.

Later in Canada, as I emptied my bag in the hotel room, what did I find? A LIGHTER. Next to the empty space where my creme mains used to be.

Soul Food for the Ching Chongs: All My Asian Bitches, Say Ho!!!

There’s jungle fever. And there’s yellow fever. My boyfriend? He’s got jungle fever. Me? I have yellow fever.

No, no, I’m not a lesbian and I don’t want to sleep with any women– Asian, regular, or decaffeinated, but for some reason all of my girlfriends in Los Angeles are Asian.

There’s Suna (Korean).

And Susan and Han Nah (Korean) and (Korean).

But wait, here come the Chinese!

There’s Natasha (Chinese.)

And Ellen (Chinese).

And Allison (half-Hawaiian [UPDATE: I’m informed that Allison is not half-Hawaiian, but rather a grab bag of ethnicities including Hawaiian as well as Chinese, Japanese and Indian Chief.  She’s hot.).

And then I’ve got Kimi. (Vietnamese/Swiss.)

I’ve got Jenn (Half Indonesian, which is more South than East Asian, but it’s all Asian to me).

There was Maria (half Filipina) but she moved North and is no longer in Los Angeles. Besides, are Filipinas considered Asian? Google tells me yes. She’s in.

And then there’s Carrie who’s some insane hot hybrid of Filipina Hawaiian and godknowswhatelse.

Seriously. WTF. Love these ladies. But can a sister get another sister? Or a cracker? Dang.

Sister.

White crackers.

Natasha and Suna. Sesame seed crackers.

So a few weeks ago I decided to have girls’ night. I had a hankerin’ for some southern/negro cuisine. I was passing by some ham hocks in the grocery store and thought to myself, “Damn, I could really go for some black eyed peas.” Then I started thinking, “I just moved into my own place. Better have the gals over for some good eats.”

On the menu? Dirty black eyed peas with ham hocks and bacon. Collard greens with ham hocks and bacon. Corn bread (with ham hocks and bacon. Not really. But we black folk love us some pork.) Bad-ass Suna-made macaroni and cheese. Buttermilk fried chicken.

Ellen, Susan, and Allison.

So the ladies came over and we had ourselves a bona fide soul food eatin’ session. And most of the girls ended up in the hospital for triple bypass surgery that very night.

After dinner we sat around drinking champagne (we were fresh out of the traditional black drinks, Grape Soda and Hawaiian Punch) and started talking about what we had done the weekend before. Natasha was talking about how her fiance had driven her home from the club the previous Friday night. “Nuh uh!”, I say. “I drove you home.” “No you didn’t!” “Yes, I did!” “No, Butters drove me home!”

Hmm. I sat and thought. “Oh right,” I exclaimed. “I drove Susan home that night.”

Who? Me?

“Well, whatever,” I continued, brushing off my previous insistence that I had driven Natasha home. “There was definitely an Asian girl in the car!”

We all laughed at that. Why? Because it’s funny. That’s why.

Laughing and smiling.

Stick a needle in my eye.

So, for anyone who is scared of acupuncture, don’t be. It is exactly awesome. See, this this little tumor of mine (I’m gonna let it shine!) has wreaked havoc on my lady parts. I first realized something was wrong in January 2007 after I hadn’t gotten my period in over a month. So I flipped out, as I’m prone to do, and took about 5 pregnancy tests in a row. A week later,I still wasn’t a bleeder (as the Boyfriend says, “I don’t trust anything that bleeds for a week once a month and doesn’t die.” [I have to shout out to Things My Boyfriend Says]) . But I digress.

After being a non-bleeder for 3 months, it was time for a trip to the doctor’s office. I get a bunch of blood drawn, and peed in a jug, and three days later I get the call. “Your prolactin levels are elevated. It may be caused by a mass in your brain.” “What the hell does that mean?”, I asked as I started to cry. There is definitely something disconcerting about someone telling you you might have a mass in your brain.

Turns out prolactin is a hormone associated with lactation. And lactation is associated with pregnancy. So the reason why I wasn’t bleeding (and actually, not even ovulating) is because my body thinks that I am pregnant. My body wants to lactate. Which is absurd since I’m not pregnant, so certainly not ready for breastfeeding. Yikes. ( Luckily my prolactin levels aren’t high enough that I am actually lactating. That happens to some people. Eesh. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if I like cream with my coffee. Ba dum bum, pssh!! Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Please tip your waitresses.)

Glad I don’t need to use these for storage.

Cut to the summer of 2007. After multiple trips to multiple doctors. (An ob/gyn told me that I should go on birth control pills to balance out my hormones. But no! An endocrinologist told me that taking birth control pills might make my tumor bigger. Sweet. I stopped taking those. After another appointment with the endocrinologist she told me to start a period journal over the summer. For three months I was to write down when, if ever, my period decided to rear its bloody head. If it never came, she would have to put me on some drug that has really nasty side effects. Basically a drug that I don’t want to take for the rest of my life.

Summer comes and goes and I’m still a non-bleeder. And my trip to the endocrinologist and my second MRI are quickly approaching. And I’m getting scared and nervous. Rather than focus solely on Western medicine, instead, I decided to try a more holistic approach: Chinese Medicine.

This image is exactly scary.

I trotted down with the Boyfriend to the Yo San University Clinic to try out their ancient Chinese secrets. Well, Dr. Chen sat me down and had me explain all my symptoms to her. The excruciating headaches, the hot flashes, (we’re talking menopausal grade hot flashes–Sometimes I can’t sleep under covers even if it’s freezing out. There was the tingling in my left hand and numbness in my left foot (I thought I had a thyroid problem for a while), the morning sickness (I am not a puker, people, but I had been lately. Frequently.)

She “checks my pulses” (This is how she says it. It’s really cute.) And then she says “Let me see tongue” and I stick my tongue out.

And she’s all “Hrmmm why is it brown?” “Well, I drank Coke.” “No more Coke or sugar. Fresh juices. Fruit. Vegetables. All different colors. One black, one green, one red, one yellow, one orange.” “I can try,” says I.

And then it’s needle time! (Stop! Needle time!) She sticks the needles in my face, head, and body. She sort of pops them in and they don’t hurt. She pops a couple in my face, a few in the top of my head, some in my feet and legs and a couple in my hand. I immediately feel a rush of energy. “If tingle or itch, it’s good. That mean energy flowing in body. If hurt or sting, hit button and I come adjust them.” She turns on heat lamps, turns off the lights, and then turns on this very ethereal Chinese music. So I’m chilling with the needles in my face. And it’s pretty awesome and relaxing and kind of inspiring and makes you feel euphoric. I lie there for probably 45 minutes. I took the best nap in the history of naps.

I sort of look like a cat caught in headlights.

My whiskas!

Dr. Chen also prescribed me a special formula of herbs which she was kind enough to press into tablet form because the powder tastes like ass. So I’m taking 5 pills 3 times a day. And also two sets of 8 pills 3 times a day: (1) for allergies and sinus problems and (2) for night sweats and hot flashes. That’s a lot of pills, people.

And hot damn, if it doesn’t start to fix me up right! I haven’t been able to breathe this well since the early 2000s. But the better and more important news is after 9 months of not being a bleeder, I became a bleeder after only one treatment and 4 days of taking the herbs. FOUR DAYS. These Chinese people… I tell ya. They are on to something! Besides the potstickers, which are delicious.

So hopingly, I go in for my next MRI and the tumor is gone. (Un-bloody-likely. Bloody. Huzzah!)

WTF: Bill O’Reilly Edition

Ok, folks. There are a lot of good bloggers out there– progressive bloggers who are addressing exactly how jact, fuct, whatever this country is. I’m not turning this into a space to bitch about politics because frankly, other people are a lot better at than me. Try Atrios over at Eschaton, Markos over at Daily Kos, the good people at Crooks and Liars, Media Matters for America, and especially Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com (he’s very insightful and his pieces are well-written, well-researched, and well-thought out.)

But sometimes, I see something that makes me go WTF. To wit,

Another Unbelievable Outrage in San Francisco

Monday, October 15, 2007

By Bill O’Reilly

Another outrage in San Francisco and this one is very hard to believe. As you may know, San Francisco is run by far left secular-progressives who despise the military, traditional values and religion. Not everybody in San Francisco feels that way, but certainly the power structure does. Time and again, we have brought you stories of outrageous behavior on the part of militant people living in that city.

I refuse to post the entirety of this inanity. But take a look at what he has done. He has started from the premise that San Francisco is, “as you may know,” “run by far left secular progressives who despise the military, traditional, values and religion.” Are you serious? Who knows this? Where has it been established? I want to meet this straw man. Mind you, Bill O’Reilly is also the idiot who warned about roving gangs of militant lesbians who were beating up heterosexuals and indoctrinating kids. Seriously? WTF!? Gangs of lesbians? With their flannel and their hairy armpits and their short haircuts and their man-hating ways? Oh the humanity!!! That’s some scary shit, yo. Bitch, please. Does Bill O’ even know any lesbians? I went to a school chock full of lesbians and not once did I get beaten up. Oh, and obviously the lesbian gang story was a crock.

I won’t waste anymore of my precious time or space on this foolishness. The Bill O’s and the Ann Coulters of the world make outrageous statements not because they believe them but because such statements sell books. After all, it was Bill O’Reilly who feigned fury over the War on Christmas and the War on Easter as if “secular progressives” are planning to actually attack these overly commercialized holidays. I mean Easter? What is Easter all about anyway? The resurrection of a chocolate bunny? And Christmas seems to be about buying as much shit as you can at Best Buy. I’m not religious–something is out there… I haven’t quite figured out what yet– but until I do, I’m not afraid of being a sinner and burning in hell (that’s what my Christian friends, jokingly, say is going to happen to me… but I’m half Jewwy… half Catholic and half agnostic, so I don’t really know what the frack is going to happen to me after I finish sinning my way through this life) but I doubt Jesus died for my or your sins so I could get a plasma screen for 50 percent off. I’m just sayin’. (He did, however, die for my sins so Steve Jobs could slash the price of iPhones thereby making them more affordable for me… or for the Boyfriend who is the one that actually bought me the damn thing. Thanks, babe!)

Couldn’t find a picture with a brown hand, so use your imagination.

Note: I am not opposed to religion or the celebration of religious holidays. I am opposed to the transformation of these religious holidays into a capitalist dumping ground for advertisements and clearance sales. Christmas no longer seems to be a holiday about religious solemnity. It has become a season of spend, spend, spend. And that, I am opposed to. I’m also opposed to people like Bill O’ feigning outrage about a purported war on Christmas to promote book sales. The idea that Christians are offended by the phrases “Season’s Greetings” and “Happy Holidays” is, in my humble opinion, horse shit.

Note 2: If you couldn’t detect the sarcasm dripping from the text when I referred to lesbians as hairy armpitted, short haircutted, flannel-wearing man-haters, then I have two words for you. Therapy.