Dream date:

Finding someone who will play the “pick a stranger in the bar and tell me their life story off the top of your head” game with you: gold.

Finding someone who is good at playing the “pick a stranger in the bar and tell me their life story off the top of your head” game: golder.

Finding someone who does all of this and is also a really good kisser: goldest.

In honor of this recent development, I’m holding a Kissing Contest. Email me the story of the best kiss you’ve ever received, and I’ll post the 5 best stories here. You’ll also win a little prize, complete with a kiss from me. Try and keep your story shortish, and actually email it—no stories in the comment box will be considered. Winners will be announced next Friday, so get them all in by Wednesday night.

Dread:

Right now I’m headed over to my parents’ house, and since they are well-meaning but practical folk, they will be armed with frowns and pads of paper and calculators and all sorts of reasons why moving to New York in a few weeks is a horrible idea, and I will undoubtedly cry, not because I’m a pussy, but because I’m really stereotypically emotionally premenstrual right now, and all I want to do is sit here and eat an entire fucking dinner of chocolate. And also because I’m a pussy.

UPDATE: I spoke too soon. They were armed with pads of paper and calculators and really good ideas and love and support. I feel bad for underestimating just how kickass my parents are.

“Hey, Steely Dan!”, or, When you begin the evening with the comment “You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve been really drunk,” things can only end badly.

Yesterday was Brian’s birthday, so I spent the better part of my afternoon shopping for the perfect birthday present, which meant asking several salesclerks, “No, no: do you have a skull drinking mug that doesn’t say Metallica on the side?”, because I was honored to be invited to his family birthday dinner. After the best meal I’ve had in months, which included lots of garlic and cilantro and bloody steaks and at least four bottles of wine, I felt comfortable enough to pluck a flower from the centerpiece, stick it behind my ear, and tell his parents that “even the food I took just to be polite was fantastic!” Then Brian’s aunt gave me her Chanel lipstick from her purse just because I complimented her on it, and I’m pretty sure I’m now in an arranged marriage with a 50 year old Chinese attorney who lives in Brooklyn, but I think I’m cool with that.

Then we went to the bar, where Erin set the tone by ordering White Russians, and Kelly and Aaron showed up with an Alleged Double Action candle, and things jumped off pretty quickly. The evening ended with some of the braver, drunker souls at the table swallowing something that still had eyeballs, chasing it with hot sauce, and then, in my zest to cure the birthday boy from his hiccups, hitting him soundly in the ear. I knew it was time to call it a night when Jon said, with a look of awe, “Sarah, you’re like, prom drunk!”

I woke up this morning with no idea where my car is, a bruise on my knee, and this scrawled on my palm, in my own handwriting: “If you’re not going to eat that, at least put it in your pants.”—Kelly Foshee.

Happy birthday, Brian. I’m so sorry about the ear thing. However, please remember that the boilermakers were Jon’s idea.

Let me preface this by saying that I am completely uninterested in hearing your opinions on Friendster.com:

Clicking through strangers’ profiles on Friendster late at night makes me wish I had more artsy black-and-white photos of myself, or cute little swoopy bangs, or the steadfast love of a good man.

In other words, mildly depressed.

Actual conversations between my mother and myself, today in the car:

Me (reading comics page): What the hell? Why is Cathy on vacation with Irving?

My mother: They’re back together now. He’s a new man, and she doesn’t quite know what to do with him.

Me: How is he a new man?

My mother: Well, he’s all sensitive like she wanted him to be, and he’s very into being fit, and he worries about his weight now too, so he commiserates with her.

Me: Ohhh… so she’s his hag.

—

Me: That girl didn’t know jackshit about giving directions.

My mother: I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.

Me: Sorry. That girl didn’t know shit about giving directions.

—

My mother (pulling loaded car into parking lot): Let’s ask this parking attendant boy if we can park in this lot.

Panicky, acne-ridden 18 year old boy in safety orange vest (frantically waving arms): You can’t park here!

My mother (rolling down her window): Could you tell us where we can park to unload?

Panicky, acne-ridden 18 year old boy in safety orange vest: Ma’am, you can’t park here!

My mother: Uh, okay.

(Drives ahead to turn around and exit lot)

Panicky, acne-ridden 18 year old boy in safety orange vest (screaming from across parking lot): Ma’am! You cannot park here!

My mother: We should circle around and pull up again like we didn’t understand, just to see what he does.

Me: Only this time, roll down your window, motion him over, and then ask, “Hey, are you a VIRGIN?”

My mother: Well, clearly.

Calling All Amateur Filmmakers:

Tomorrow morning I’m getting up at 5 am to help my parents move my brother into his freshman dorm. Anyone interested in creating an easy, award-winning documentary need only follow us around all day with a videocamera.

The roar of the Sunday crowd:

Last night I went to an honest-to-God rodeo in Ponca City, Oklahoma, with Laura and Oli. Oli is from Germany, so it was his first rodeo, and I’m from Tulsa, so it was my second. I was excited about this for many reasons, the foremost being that I adore Laura and Oli and rarely get to see them, but also because it was an opportunity to wear the cowboy hat I purchased after too many beers at the state fair last fall. Cowboy hat + pigtails + trainers = hot.

The best part of the rodeo was the intermission act, where this gorgeous Indian cowgirl with long black hair rode around the arena on her horse, but not using her hands, because both hands were busy snapping bull whips, and then she and the horse jumped up on top of a huge Dodge Ram trailer and she snapped her bull whips again and suddenly three buffalo came out of the trailer, and she used her bull whips to corral the buffalo up on top of the trailer as well, and then she and the horse JUMPED DOWN OFF THE TRAILER and I’m pretty sure I’m in love with this girl.

Afterwards we went to the rodeo dance at some place called The Rockin’ Horse, the kind of place where you get chiggers on your legs walking to the front door and you’re pretty sure Bud and Sissy are waiting inside, and while I was fully prepared to ride a mechanical bull, I had to settle for dancing to the Georgia Satellites with Laura.

In other news, I spent most of today shopping with my mother, during which I amused myself by saying things to her like, “I’ll probably keep my maiden name, you know, if I ever decide to get married.” Her earnest pleas to change my pretend mind are so touching, but she is also totally unreasonable and refused to buy me a dress with a dragon on it. Maybe I was adopted.

Various reasons I have decided, willy-nilly, to set my cap for boys in the past:

• had big feet
• had Pavement sticker on his car
• really hot way he pronounced “humanists” *
• could whistle the entire whistling part of “Patience”
• was a scientist
• had blue eyebrows
• knew all the words to George Michael’s “Freedom” **
• got suspended for standing up on desk and shouting, “I am the Lizard King! I can do anything! Raise your hand if you understand! How many of you people know you’re really alive?” while a nun tried to pull him to the floor
• drove demolition derby cars
• seemed like a complete and total asshole who didn’t notice me ***
• had British teeth
• smelled like ex-boyfriend

* was married college professor
** was gay
*** was complete and total asshole who never noticed me

Saturday, Saturday:

Alternate title: I have more fun than you do.

Click flask for proof.

Housesitting:

Where have I been? I’ve been making sure my brother’s friends do not burn down my parents’ house, or perhaps bury it in Natty Light cans. This requires CONSTANT VIGILANCE, as my brother’s friends are here ALL THE TIME, and they are ALWAYS READY TO PARTY. I do not sleep. Seriously, I have slept a total of probably 12 hours in the past week. This makes me really cranky and weepy. This afternoon, I was watching Harry Potter on TV, and the part where they all file into the great hall with the floating candlesticks totally made me tear up. Then I shook my head and said Get yourself together, woman! and then I went out into the backyard and moved the sprinklers.

Remember, it would be a sin to envy me!

I suggested to my brother that perhaps one night, he and his friends could go OUT, and drink their Natty Light elsewhere. He insisted that “things are cool,” and “people are just going to be chilling.” I love my brother more than life itself, but I seriously cannot believe I am related to someone who uses “chill” as a verb, and that all this wanton chilling is robbing me of my life.

I can’t wait to go home. However, this is the best birth control ever.

You know who you are:

Dear People Who Have A Menagerie of Miniature Stuffed Animals Arranged So That They Look Out the Back Window of Their Car,

What is that about?

Lylas,
Sarah