General

NPR’s Fresh Air is running a “Best of” interview series. I remember tearing up when I heard the original broadcast. This is must listening. Upon the bird’s death, The New York Times obituary said, “Brainy Bird Dies. Emotive to the end.”

From Fresh Air:

Although his brain was no bigger than a walnut, Alex the African gray parrot could do more than speak and understand — he could also count, identify colors and, according to his owner Irene Pepperberg, develop an emotional relationship. When Alex died in September 2007, his last words to Pepperberg were “You be good. I love you.”

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112405883&ps=cprs

I know I should hate some of the slapstick pranks in this video, but I’m still a boy at heart, unable to help my father up after he slipped on the ice because I was laughing too hard.

What makes this video especially funny is the international victimhood–no matter what the culture, slapstick violence is irresistible.

I’ve muttered “Up Yours!” to computer geeks before but I never thought they’d take me literally…

Video courtesy of kaos.blogspot.

A few weeks ago my boyfriend dumped me. Perhaps boyfriend is not exactly the term to use here, we were actually more like acquaintances with benefits. There is nothing particularly unique  about my story, though I must add here that I am happily married with almost grown children. However, like some women obsessively collect china or Pandora jewelry, I collect men.

Everyone needs a hobby.

So my friend breaking things off with me was no big deal, I’ll just go get a new one. What was unique was the reason that he ended our affair.

He was tired of me using him for sex.

Seriously.

This all occurred on my Monday appointment setting time. At the beginning of the week I line up my appointments; nails, blow outs, personal trainer, chiropractor, fuck buddy. Tuesday and Thursday evenings are reserved for my encounters. My family thinks I am at a Hadassah meeting or the gym, thus cannot be reached via cell phone for a few hours.

However that morning was different. He was nervous when he called me back on his “special” phone line. I keep a Tracfone (also referred to as my “booty call phone”) for my monsieur du jour, so that way there is no chance of them showing up on my regular cell phone bill. He had apparently thought through what he wanted to say ahead of time and the tightness of stress in his voice was evident. [Read more…] about My Acquaintance with Benefits Dumped Me Because He Was Tired of Being Used For Sex.

Wide-On noun. A slang term indicating female sexual arousal and interest.
Ex: “Cam Gigandet is the hot guy in the “Twilight” series. He gives me a wide-on, not that pasty looking Robert Patterson guy.

So why is it that all the hot guys this year seem to able to suck you dry this year? Not to leave out the girls, I hear rumors of some sexy female vamps appearing on television and movie screens soon. Do we just feel so helpless and out of control as the recession deepens, the unemployment numbers increase, and the political schism between the right and left factions becomes increasingly antagonistic toward one another over health care and the other divisive issues that plague our country right now that the idea of a hot, sexy being bending us to their dark will seems eminently more desirable than just sitting sheep like in front of the grim nightly news?

That’s one theory to explain the resurgence of vampire popularity when it emerges every few years.

I just write about hot men, not in-depth social analysis. Notice my website is called Pretty, But Shallow; not Plain, But Deeply Intelligent.

Let’s enjoy a few more pictures together before I have to run. I’m doing the Trophy Wife Triathlon today: hair salon, facial/body work, and hard core Pilates class.

Very yummy. I understand he plays a bad boy in the popular movie series.

God knows I love a bad boy.

Need more Wide-On? See related posts:

Alexander Skarsgaard

Channing Tatum

Ryan Kwanten

Oh my! I opened my email box on POF (Plenty of Fish) and what do you think I saw for the first time ever? A message from Msstraddle asking me, “How are you today” with no question mark.  My rules go for both sexes.  No punctuation, no shot with me.  I am not gender biased when it comes to good grammar and I don’t make exceptions for good looking blond girls either.

“I have been on this site for eight and a half months and thought I had seen everything! When telling a friend, he said “well of course, you are cat-nip for lesbians.” If I did not cherish men like I do, I suppose I might try kissing a girl.  You know the song by Katie Perry?  I kissed a girl and I liked it…  And what if I did like it?  Soft, full, cherry-chap-stick-lips.  Smooth, firm skin.  Good smelling long hair.  Hey, I might just write myself into this idea….

In all seriousness, I am a man-o-holic.  I love men so much that I wish I could marry six of them at once.  That would be the ONLY way I would ever get married again.  The only problem with men is that they tend to be territorial when it comes to their lady and I know that Utah only allows polygamy to happen in reverse.  So single I will stay. [Read more…] about How Did a Man-a-holic End Up as Lesbian Catnip?

I was invited by an HIV support group to moderate the Q&A portion of an AIDS fundraiser this weekend. With 200 people there to see the documentary Sex Positive (about an S&M hustler in the 80’s who practically invented the concept of safe sex), my co-host (drag queen extraordinaire, Bubba D. Liscious) and I took to the microphones.

I started out by asking the panel onstage if there was any room for humor when we talked about HIV and safe sex. My “joke” was actually something a reader to my sex advice column had written to me. He had recently been infected with HIV and was struggling with a way to disclose the information to potential partners without freaking them out.

Here’s the joke:

Half the room exploded with laughter. The other half glared at me. I went on by addressing the panel and saying, “My point, and I do have one, is that laughter is the Vaseline that makes ideas penetrate better, yet I never see the subject ever treated with humor. Again, is there room for the funny bone in the body of work that you do?”

At the after party some people said it was exactly what the room needed after such a heavy documentary. Other people registered their displeasure, telling me that I had insulted innocent victims of the infection who were sitting in the audience.

Who was right? Are there some things that just shouldn’t be joked about?

— Manager, Townhouse Spa, on the popularity of the new sperm facial.

“Spermine, a powerful anti-oxidant originally discovered in, yes, human sperm, is said to diminish wrinkles and smooth the skin. The substance is now being synthesized in laboratories and sold by a Norwegian company called (seriously) Bioforskning. Spermine facials (really) cost $250 at Townhouse Spa, where the substance is penetrated with ultrasound and infrared light (a more basic treatment can be found for $125 at the nearby Graceful Services). Also available at Townhouse for $175: snail-secretion facials.”

“There are two kinds of journalists: those who observe and those who report. Although cowards from New York, Allure and Frisky have gossiped about a $250 Norwegian “Spermine” beauty treatment offered at an upscale NYC spa, I’m the only writer who has the balls (so to speak) to receive a load in the face.”