I collected blonde jokes as a kid for a couple reasons. For one, I was able to remember them with relative ease even though my academic stuff never seemed to stick. And I loved, then as now, to make people laugh. But perhaps why I chose to learn so many blonde jokes back then has to do with the fact that I am blonde. I’m a blonde who loves blonde jokes.

Over the course of my life so far I’ve had many people bend my ear for a joke, only to have it be a blonde joke. “No offense,” they’d tell me afterward, as though I felt as though these punchline simpletons could possibly be a reflection of my character. It’s true that I consider my hair color to be an important part of my identity, but knowing that I’m separated from the aforementioned joke-book morons by oceans of intelligence kept me from ever feeling the twinge of offense.

But lately, over the past few years, something rather unsettling has happened to me. My hair, formerly unmistakably blonde with natural highlights, has darkened. Overwhelmingly, my head is nearly covered by a mass of light brown bed-head curls, with blonde sections interwoven. And even some of the hair on my forearms is joining the party, replacing some of the thin, translucent wisps with bolder, more courageous strands.

And in all honesty, it kind of makes me sad. My blondeness was a part of my physical self that I actually treasured. It was one of those cards I was dealt that I never dreamed of trading in. But as in some games we play, occasionally an opposing player gets to pick from our hand, and I lost my beloved Blonde Card. And it was swapped for a Light Brown Card. It was my Old Maid.

And sometimes I still mourn the loss of my blondeness, but I came to a very important conclusion a while back: I can still be blonde

That’s right. I can still be blonde. Because as stupid and obvious as it sounds, physical traits aren’t who we are. But we think they are sometimes. We get so caught up in how our physical traits make us appear to the outside world that sometimes we forget who we’re trying to impress. People do all sorts of things to make sure they’re perceived the way they see themselves: they put on makeup, they do their hair, they dress to either hide or accentuate, they change the way they relate to people, and sometimes even physically alter their bodies. And it’s very true that many people do these things for themselves in order to feel more comfortable and confident, but I would be remiss if I asserted that all people behave that way.

Of course I’m guilty of many of those things, too. Why wouldn’t I be? I groom and dress in ways to present myself in the way I’d like to be perceived, I alter my mannerisms, vocabulary, even the sound of my voice depending on the situation, and I behave altogether differently when I feel I must.

But my hair… my poor blonde hair.

And it got to the point that I almost dyed it a month ago. For the first time ever, I seriously considered dying my hair. And it was the day before I was going to highlight it with a friend that I decided I couldn’t. I couldn’t dye my hair. Because when I was blonde, I was BLONDE. It was real. It was just how it was. But to deliberately change my hair when it (so sentiently, it seemed) changed from blonde to light brown would go against everything I stood for as far as follicular integrity goes. And I had to simply accept that my hair was no longer the spun-gold playground that it had once been.

And I didn’t dye it. Because as far as I was concerned (with my hair, that is), part of the reason why I loved my hair was because it happened naturally. And now it’s darkening naturally. And I’m gradually becoming OK with that. I can alter other parts of myself to appear the way I want to, but my hair was never something I wanted for other people. I liked it for myself. And just like changing outwardly out of a desire to please oneself of others never changes what’s internal, becoming more brunette to the world doesn’t make me any less of a blonde to myself.

And c’mon, let’s face it. If Michael Jackson could still be classified as “black” in the end, then I don’t see why I can’t identify as being blonde. At least my transition happened by itself.

I broke my wrist a little over a week ago and just had surgery on it the other day, so all typing is one-handed for the time being. It’s not terribly good for the writing process to be restricted to one-handed typing, so I’ll resume posting once I get my splint removed in a couple weeks (and after I get used to being able to use my left wrist again).

So I’ll catch you guys later, and I hope you’ll all stick around though this temporary lull.

That’s what she told me.

We were sitting in lawn chairs, squinting and blinking against the smoke from the fire as we made s’mores, and she told me to write about marshmallows. I cocked my head and furrowed my brows. And then I nodded. I told her I could make that work.

When it comes to cooking marshmallows, I like mine pretty much charred, with a gooey lump of sugary goodness on the inside. I let it catch on fire until it’s nothing but a sticky wad of marshmallow wearing a jacket of ashes. That’s my perfect marshmallow. And considering my ideal marshmallow is what most people so often think of as an accident that happens in pursuit of their own ideal, I’m not difficult to please when it comes to toasting the little buggers. But as much as I love my fireside treats well-done, there are far more people who prefer theirs a different way entirely: golden brown.

Golden brown. It’s the color of everything delicious. Cookies, French fries, biscuits, and marshmallows. If it’s not golden brown, it’s not even worth your time. Golden brown is the standard of heat-related perfection. It takes skill. It takes patience. It takes a lot of mistakes. But if you ever get that golden brown marshmallow, that’s a little piece of heaven on the end of your skewer.

If you’re too timid with your roasting, you wind up undercooking it. It’s still cool in the middle, and the outside is barely flame-kissed. If you’re too bold and always say “Just one more second… One more second and it’ll be perfect,” you typically char the life out of it (and then you give it to me, and I eat it with gusto). Meeting the Golden Brown Standard is something most spend their lives trying to do, but not many actually succeed at.

…And that last sentence was where I stopped talking about marshmallows.

The trials and tribulations that surround roasting the perfect s’mores component go far beyond the campfire. The quest for Golden Brownness is something we work toward in our daily lives, whether we realize it or not.

Some of us are scared to push things too far. When the going gets tough, we get going. We do what’s good enough, and that’s good enough for us. Our marshmallows are always cold and barely cooked at all. But we eat them anyway because we made them.

Then there are others of us who seem to always take it too far. We don’t know when to stop. We get so caught up in “go big or go home” that we miss the chance to rein things in and do something great. We jump the shark. And our marshmallows are charred all to hell. And I eat them because I like ‘em that way, but most people just chuck it into the flames and start fresh.

But then there are those of us who watch, wait, and plan, always aware that there’s a delicate balance between tenacity and timidity. We don’t think ourselves out of great ideas because they require a lot of work, but nor do we go balls to the walls when it comes to taking on a project. We’re adventurous and cautious. We’re leaders who follow. We take initiative and let others storm ahead. We learn from our mistakes, both from undercooking and charring our marshmallows. And when we think we’re onto something, we slow down. We keep an eye on things. Because ain’t no way we’re gonna miss our chance at some Golden Brown perfection.

More often than not, we just barely miss it. The edge caught on fire, perhaps. But it’s ruined as far as we’re concerned. And it’s kind of sad. We can turn it around, inspect it from every angle, and see its only one flaw. Aside from that, it’s a thing to behold, our nearly-perfect marshmallow. But we saw what it could’ve been. It was almost ours. But we missed it. We eat it with a sigh. We say “Wow, that was so close.” And maybe we start to think that it’s not worth the fight. And some of us stop trying.

But those of us that don’t stop never will. Because even though none of us are guaranteed our Golden Brown perfection in our lifetime, we know that if we don’t keep going, it’s guaranteed that we’ll never get it. And that’s not something we can accept. So we stick our faces back in the smoke, carefully turn our skewers, making sure not to get too close to the flames, and give it another shot. And sometimes, if we’re fortunate enough, our hard work is rewarded when we slowly draw our marshmallow from the fire and see that it is a delicious, wonderful, and perfect Golden Brown. We sit looking at it for a moment, in awe that we finally did it, and pop it into our mouth. It tastes like victory.

When it comes to roasting non-metaphorical marshmallows, my ideal is considered to be an error by most people. I love the burnt ones and dislike all things lightly toasted. But once you get me away from the campfire, I’m all about that Golden Brown Standard.

My stomach is full of slightly-burnt marshmallows that were so close. I’ve got a little bit of a tummyache.

But since I love marshmallows, I think I’m going to buy another bag of Jet Puffed, throw another log on the fire, and keep on trying.

Life is filled with things like the puzzling, evanescent onion aroma that perplexes me so. These are things toward which I am very ambivalent. Does this onion smell mean there are tasty sandwiches nearby, or am I standing close to someone whose deodorant isn’t working? It’s anybody’s guess.

But this ambiguity exists in things more serious than lingering remnants of sandwiches and body odor. In the case of one enigma in particular, my dichotomous feelings go much deeper than feeling either hungry or nauseated: I could feel either empowered and proud or just plain disappointed. This particular enigma concerns ladies and booze. And by “ladies and booze” I mean powerful, take-no-shit women and single malt scotch.

Scotch whisky has a considerable presence in movies and television. Tough, hard-edged guys sit hunched over a bar, lamenting the loss of money and/or women as they gruffly order it on the rocks—a double, and tell the bartender to keep it coming. Sharp-dressed lawyers sit in comfortable, yet minimalist chairs as they sip it neat from wide-mouthed glasses. Polished businessmen flirt with the cute cocktail waitress as they order it with soda in an attempt to make the dull chitchat of the company Christmas party more bearable. It’s become quite the cliché at this point. Any time the strong male protagonists decide they need a drink and reach into their desk drawer for the bottle they keep for such occasions, you can almost always count on it being scotch.

Scotch is power, refinement, and luxury. Scotch is warm, amber masculinity. And no strong alpha female should be without a well-aged bottle, just in case.

About a week ago I was watching an episode of Ugly Betty online. Wilhelmina, the co-editor-in-chief, was discussing shrewd financial strategies with a male colleague. After their conversation came to a close, this colleague made an observation about her. He remarked that she seemed like the kind of woman who would have a bottle of single-malt scotch. She pulled out her unopened bottle from the cabinet, along with two glasses, and poured a couple of drinks.

Girl power, right? She can rival men in both business and social matters. She can take that symbol of strength and masculinity and make it her own. She can pry the “BOYS ONLY” sign from the side of the clubhouse, stride in on stilettoed heels, and make herself at home. This can be the sign that women are officially equals in the same profession as their male colleagues. I’ve seen this happen in a handful of other TV shows and movies, which could indicate the un-gendering of scotch’s symbolism. Maybe now scotch is just Power, period.

Hey, wait a second… Do you smell onions?

On the Sandwich Side, strong women sipping fine scotch may indicate the overcoming of gender discrimination in the workplace. Women are forces to be reckoned with. Women can do whatever the men can do, and perhaps even better (especially when it comes to wearing suits, because that can be sexy as hell. But I digress). And by writing our female leads as being refined drinkers of astronomically expensive whisky, the characters (and by extension, women in general) are given more respect and admiration.

But here’s the Body Odor Side: Perhaps the co-opting of a traditionally male pastime is not the beacon of feminist achievement that it first appeared to be. What if it’s more of a commentary on women conforming to predominately male standards pertaining to power and its display? Are women drinking scotch because they discovered what all the fuss was about, or are they drinking it because that is what successful men are shown doing? And if it is the latter reason, does this mean that these women are merely mimicking this behavior so they can fit in with the other guys? If the Body Odor Side is the true side, then women aren’t being portrayed as powerful and independent ass-kickers at all; they’re being made to look like conforming man-wannabes who need to do what the boys do.

When I think I smell onions, I always look for clues. Am I OK with potentially craving a sandwich if what I’m really smelling is someone’s rank bodily aroma? Would I be bothered if I was put off my hunger because I assumed it wasn’t really onions I got a whiff of? I’m always so torn.

And much like when I think I smell onions, I must accept that I might never know the truth. Whether sandwich or body odor, female empowerment or copy-catting the boys, the confusion will not be overcome any time soon.

But I kind of like it that way, to be honest. It keeps me on my toes. It keeps me interested.

And sometimes it makes me hungry.

I saw Twilight: Eclipse. And by and large, I thought it was a pretty decent movie.

But this post isn’t going to be about why I saw this film or what my critiques of it are (although originally, that’s exactly what this was going to be). This post is going to be about a very important choice I made while watching the Twilight movies.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the fandom and its factions, I’ll simply say that for the most part, lovers of the books and movies generally fall into one of two categories: Team Edward or Team Jacob. Edward is the fugly vampire (sorry, Nonroot. It’s the truth!) and Jacob is the super-gorgeous werewolf. And Bella is the little trollop who has her hands in both of the monster cookie-jars. To choose a team is to say “She should be with THAT guy!”

Much to my best friend’s Cullen-lovin’ dismay, she and I are in opposite camps. I find myself squarely situated on Team Jacob. And while watching the movie, I found myself confused as to why one guy seemed better than the other.

After much thought, I decided that it wasn’t that Jacob had something spectacular to offer her (besides his astonishingly chiseled abdominal muscles), but that Edward’s relationship had something really shitty to offer: immortality.

Who the hell would choose immortality? Where’s the excitement in forever? Where’s the romance? The beauty? At least for me, the lack of a reasonable answer to any of these questions is why I think the best chance Bella has at a good life is with the mortal dude. Yeah, he’s a werewolf and that’s kinda strange, but at least he’s got a normal lifespan.

For the purpose of this Tangent, I’m going to focus on the question of beauty and immortality.

I purchased a book recently that contains single words in other languages that are not directly translatable into English. In the section for words pertaining to love and beauty, I came across a word that absolutely nails down my entire beef regarding the lack of beauty in neverending life: Aware (ah-WAH-ray). It’s a Japanese word that, more or less, describes the feelings of love, appreciation, and sadness upon seeing something beautiful that you know won’t last. Anybody who has been given a flower from someone they love knows about aware. Anybody who is fortunate enough to see the leaves change colors in autumn does too. And anybody who has washed their car only to see it covered in bird shit the next day understands it very well. In our mortal lives, aware is something to be found everywhere, because everything that lives must eventually die. And people are no exception.

With every passing moment in our lives, we are closer to dying. And I don’t mean that in a morbid, depressing way. It’s just how it is. We are fragile, vulnerable beings, us living things. But that’s what makes us beautiful. When we are adults we can look back on our childhoods and remember how carefree and full of wonder we were. When we’re middle-aged we can look back on our twenties and remember what it was like to be just starting our independent lives. And when we’re in our old age, we can remember it all and appreciate what we’ve had. That’s aware. It’s recognition of something incredible and wonderful and beautiful. It’s recognition of something that is fleeting and impermanent. It’s recognition that we should treasure life because, above all, it doesn’t last. It’s an aspect of life that we can all share. Immortality would deny us the experience of aware.

Beauty isn’t just pretty pictures and flowers. It’s also about joy and sorrow. About fulfillment and bereavement. It’s about the calm and the chaos. There are many kinds of beauty, but all of them are vital to a complete life. To miss out on even one of its aspects would be tragic.

After reading all that, would you choose immortal life? Do you think you could possibly appreciate every moment you have if you knew you had an infinite amount? Would you want to be unable to truly feel the aware in wilting flowers and aging bodies? I’m almost sorry to say it, but to be on Team Edward is to essentially answer “yes” to all these questions and more. How sad.

So join Team Jacob. Sure, that means we think Bella should ditch the vampire and get with the werewolf, but at least we know what’s beautiful.

It’s more about what goes on before sex. How is it that two individuals wind up in the sack together? What exactly took place to get them there? My education on mating rituals has been twofold: the detached viewing of wild animals searching for a mate courtesy of National Geographic, and the up-close and personal exposure to the randy desperation of pub crawlers lookin’ to get laid. It was through participating in a pub crawl myself that I observed the rituals that comprise an average night’s partner hunt.

For the purpose of this piece, I will give a pseudonym to the friends I accompanied to the various bars on our journey. Cola is a rather quiet guy, and Iron was more extroverted. They had both been out to the same couple of places recently, so they had a pretty good idea of what the hot-spots would be. While Cola didn’t explicitly state his intentions, Iron made it clear he was looking to get some action. They had observed a trend in the patrons of a certain sports bar nearby, which goes a little something like this:

A sports bar seems like the type of place a bunch of men would frequent. These men might sit at the bar, suck down a pitcher or two of cheap domestic macrobrew, and watch whatever games were on TV. Women, who are out looking to hook up with men, are aware that a sports bar would probably have a higher concentration of men and visit in the hopes that the male/female proportion will be in their favor. Therefore, the concentration of women looking specifically for men will be higher in a sports bar, because that’s where women think the men will be.

Based on this hypothesis, it was decided that the drinking and cavorting would be best done at the sports bar that had a dance club upstairs.

So we went.

Once we were in the bar, we made our way to the dance floor to put the guys in closer proximity to potential hookup partners. While making use of the ever-popular dance sensation, the Caucasian Lunge/Retreat (AKA the default “I can’t dance” dance), I watched as my friends positioned themselves behind or next to a woman. Without openly hitting on her, Cola and Iron worked to get the attention of their targets by dancing wildly or accidentally bumping into her.

After about thirty minutes of vigorous “dancing” and watching as my friends tried to work their subtle charm, I decided to be bolder and grab the focus of a guy by slyly placing my hand on his buttocks. My boldness was rewarded with a few minutes of good-humored dancing before he turned back to his own target.

Now this was a crucial realization for me: by not caring if I left the club alone or had to buy my own drinks, I was free to act however I wanted. Because I wasn’t out to impress someone, I could brazenly pinch asses and hump-dance with whoever was interested. So pinch asses and hump-dance I did.

As my friends and I situated ourselves more in the middle of the throbbing mob of people, we found ourselves face-to-face with a guy Cola and I had met as we entered the bar. I’ll call this specimen Dolittle.

Dolittle originally thought Cola and I were together. He developed an irrationally mounting interest in me once I divulged that not only were Cola I not Chitty-Chitty Bang-Banging, but that I had siphoned males from my dating pool entirely. Dolittle’s reaction was typical of men of his caliber, and I politely declined when he offered me his cock if I ever found myself needing it in the future. What a generous, selfless guy.

When retrospectively making judgments on Dolittle’s behavior, I came to the following possible conclusions:

A) He went to the bar without intending to find some adequately-intoxicated female to hook up with.
B) He was interested in hooking up if it happened, but would be just as content to have fun where he was.
C) He figured he could rile me up enough to forget how I’m oriented.

[In reference to C, I commented to Cola that it was common for men to hit on really unavailable women because they think that with enough effort, they can be that guy to straighten her out. I likened this approach to pushing on a door marked "pull." It's an amusing use of bravado, but ultimately a waste of effort.]

Regardless of what his  intentions had been before we serendipitously met, he seemed to quite driven to pursue Option C’s course of action. And in true player fashion, I led the headstrong hetero along like a desperate and dreamy little puppy.

Dolittle, eager to be so close to a woman who seemed to be having fun with him, began to get a little grabby-handed toward the end of the night. And this is where lack of interest was in my favor. I traded a grope for a drink. Gin and tonic. I thought it was pretty fair.

So I drank his drink, said goodnight, declined his multiple offers to go home with him, and disappeared from his life forever. Did I use him? Perhaps. But do I mind? Not one bit. Because it’s use or be used in this club-scene jungle. And it’s play or be played. And with the right attitude, anybody can turn themselves from being prey to being predator.

For me, that attitude just happens to be apathy. Armed with apathy, boldness, charisma, and a d-z’s worth of other helpful character traits, I can be the ultimate hunter.

And so can you.

[This post is dedicated to the memory and tenacity of Iron, without whom this crawl might have never taken place.]

Pride is gay.

Southern Maine Pride took place last week. It culminated Saturday with a parade replete with dykes on bikes, floats sponsored by local gay bars, religious organizations fighting for equality, student groups for gender diversity, and a handful of odds-n-ends guests (a lone man in a black cape, someone riding a tandem bike dressed up like a bumblebee, and a troupe of actors from a local production of “Hair”) The parade started in Monument Square and ended in Deering Oaks Park, where booths, stands and a stage were set up to present, proffer, and perform various ideas, comestibles, and songs (respectively). The group of revelers was at once incredibly diverse and similar, for all in attendance had in common, if nothing else, the spirit of celebration.

The decorations, the floats, the flags, and even the small costumed dogs had this queer glow about them. And the people!—oh baby, the people. Bulldykes, lipstick lesbians, soft butches, androgynes, bisexuals, pansexuals, trannies, grannies, twinks, bears, leather daddies, and topless ladies of both chromosomal origin buzzed around the park like a hive of excitable honeybees. It could’ve been gayer, but only if it was being viewed on TV as shot through a rainbow lens.

It was quite an unusual atmosphere for me to be a part of. And my mild sense of displacement has nothing to do with the people or the goings-on. I’ve got no issue with watching svelte, shirtless men saunter by in a pair of denim daisy dukes. I don’t turn away at the sight of the grandmotherly life-partners sharing a kiss or two next to the lemonade stand. I love every one of the myriad expressions of queerness and hereness.

But the thing that’s always made me a little confused is the name attached to all these festivities: Pride.

When I think of “pride”, I think of something worth being proud of. When I think of something worth being proud of, I usually go next to things that one can achieve or attain, either through individual or collective efforts. Perhaps this achievement required the overcoming of an obstacle of some sort. Pride, to me, is a reward earned from and for ourselves. Pride involves making choices.

A self-made person should have pride in who they’ve become through hard work.

A person who takes confident steps down a winding path of life questions should have pride in their dedication to arriving at some ultimate truth.

A person who is able to break free from a pattern of harmful behavior should feel proud to have overcome themselves.

But should the parade-goers and flag-wavers whose lifestyles don’t fit the heteronormative paradigm feel proud?

One of the largest misconceptions regarding homosexuality is that it’s all about choice. You choose to be gay. You choose to act on it. You choose, choose, choose, choose. But the overwhelming response to questions and accusations of choice is simply “this is just who we are.” So although there is always a choice in whether or not to come out, it would appear as though there is no choice at all when it comes to truly being gay.

Because of my ideas surrounding the topic of pride, I am not proud to be an American. I am not proud to be white, of French-Canadian descent, or female-bodied. I wouldn’t deny that I identify as any or all of those things, but I never chose these aspects of my identity for myself. No choice, no pride.

So to me, being gay is as worth being proud of as having a naturally good complexion, size-7 feet, no family history of heart disease, or a ring finger longer than your index. It’s just part of who and what you are.

However, tremendous pride should be taken in the work of the gay-rights activists who have fought and continue to do so for all of us.

Through great effort and perseverance are events such Pride celebrations able to take place and bring together the local queer community and its allies alike. Wherever the easy choice is made in a difficult situation, amazing things can occur. The magic really happens when so many people from all walks of life choose the same thing for a common cause.

And Pride is magic—and I’m not just saying that because there’s so much goddamn glitter.

So maybe Pride isn’t about being proud of who we are. It’s not about being here and queer and telling the others to deal with it.

Maybe Pride is about being proud of what we’ve done

Maybe we’re just proud of Pride. I think we’ve got plenty of reason to be.

And might I add that there’s a very unique sting that comes from seeing a man’s ass and realizing it probably looks better in those denim daisy dukes than yours would.

I have been reading this blog I found today for about 5 hours now, and something the guy said really hit on the hardest part about writing for me. He said “blogging can really alternate between being a chore and being fun.” It’s not just blogging, which I feel is done primarily for the (desired) enjoyment of other people, but also straight-up personal stuff as well. I wouldn’t consider writing to be a chore unless it’s some lame thing I need to do for class, but it definitely becomes a sort of burden at times. When I am writing, it’s great. When I feel like I’m on a roll, my flow is good, and I can get my ideas out, I’m totally Zen. But when I can’t get down to it, I feel mentally constipated. It’s all building up in there, it’s practically marching to the gate, but it’s stuck. Maybe a little something comes out, like a few adjectives on a scrap of paper, or a fragmented rambling in a Word document, but it’s more frustrating than satisfying.

My left pinky twitches to the shift key as I make it halfway to starting a new sentence. My right ring finger lands on the backspace button to erase some ill-begun thought or sloppily-arranged sentence. My thumbs dance on the space bar in an impatient routine. My brain acts as a child’s hand grabbing at fireflies in the night air, always reaching, but mostly missing the words I want to use completely, or crushing them in the haste of catching them. All this makes me understand why poets and authors are often accused of being broody or morose– it’s because they’re pissed they can’t write. Because when I’d rather scratch at the peeling sunburn on my back than pound away on my keyboard, I’m not a happy camper. Because I know there’s this great well of inspiration in my mind, but every time I lower the bucket to pull some of it up, the rope’s always too short. Writing is only not fun when I can’t seem to do it.

But for all my frustration and impotence, at least I know when to give up. And that “when”, my friends, is right now. I think I’ll go have a beer.

Mine is winding down to Success.

I’m sure it seems arrogant, but I feel like I gotta do something awesome with my life. I know success isn’t something that can really be quantified, and that being successful doesn’t mean being rich and/or famous, but I wouldn’t mind if it did for me. Everywhere are people who fail and succeed, some more spectacularly than others. Our culture is obsessed with the lives of celebrities and criminals, whose comings and goings we know as well as our own. We’re already living their lives along with them through our computer screen, TV, and gossip rag, but there are some people who really idolize and mimic celebrity behavior– for better or worse. These copycats usually wind up self-destructing in a big, face in the gutter, shots of them in lewd situations fluttering in the winds of the Internet, used and abused and burnt out kind of way. But if I were to pilfer from someone’s lifestyle various aspects or achievements, it would be to some creative end.

The choices of who I could imitate are legion, but after careful daydreaming and deliberation, I’ve managed to pick a handful of potential candidates whose lives might be worth snatching up. Or at least Xeroxing.

At first I mused that it might be nice to live the fat life of a musician or actor. But I figured out that I have virtually no tendency toward practicing music of any kind, despite my ability to achieve moderate skill when I do practice regularly, and I just wind up bored, mired in instruments and sheet paper. Being an actor is something I’ve always enjoyed toying with, but aside from being randomly and miraculously discovered while I go about my daily life, I would have no chance of competing with the svelte and coiffed starlet wannabe clones that flock to LA like seagulls to the city dump.

Oh, and have you ever seen “Catch me if you can”? It’s about this kid who was a criminal superhero, basically. Frank Abegnale Jr was a crazy multi-millionare by the time he was 20 or something. Granted, he was an enormous career criminal by the time he was 19 who specialized in bank fraud, but he was a crafty motherfucker. And now he’s got a sweet gig working with law enforcement to catch the crooks that do what he used to. He’s not in a bad place at all.

But I think I’ve narrowed my list down to a single field of specialty: writing. There are so many dynamic and incredible authors whose books I’d like to take a page from. However, I’d found there’s a big difference between me wanting to temporarily live someone’s life and me wishing I could use someone’s life as a template for my own. For example, while I’d love to write an entire novel in a matter of weeks, I don’t have enough Bennies to last a cross-country road trip. And though there is a sort of sinister appeal in going on crazy drug binges and keeping my nose close to the campaign trails, I probably wouldn’t do it in my body since I don’t want to fry my brain and wreck my body before I get to have a mid-life crisis.

So I’ve shortened the list even more. Because the technology for life-borrowing hasn’t yet been invented, my remaining option is to emulate. And even though few people I admire did anything noteworthy before they were 30, I see no reason to procrastinate all over the place and panic when I’m turning 27 that I’m running out of time. But since I know that I probably would just put things off for nearly another decade, I picked someone who would light a fiery blaze of productivity ‘neath my arse. Someone who not only did something before she was 30, but made her big move at the tender age of 23: author Carson McCullers. For her 50 years of life, she was generally melancholy and poetic, with a fondness for the drink, whose moodiness and illness only lent strength to her mind and skill. Although we’re nowhere near a perfect match in a side-by-side comparison, there are definitely similarities that lead me to think “Hey, if she could do it…” with eager, yet complacent hopefulness. Carson wrote her first novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, when she was 23, and damnit if I won’t try to do the same. I oughta get crackin’.

Plus, the harder I work at something I actually want to do, the less I’ll have to work at crap I hate– like a real job. I’ll be a happy camper if I can hold off on getting another job for a handful of years more. With a spectral Quiznos sandwich mechanic playing my Ghost of Corporate Past, I’d be hard-pressed to run my Luck Ship aground that hard again. From foot-long subs piled with more than a pound of meat and slathered in lardsauce, things can only improve. And that’s one hell of a relief.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I must fix myself a drink and get back to brooding hunchedly over my laptop while I feverishly work on my manuscript.

After exploring the trends associated with juvenile queries like “buttsex”, “boobies”, and “orgies” and seeing no obvious trends, my brother and I moved onto more serious terms. Predictably enough, “turkey” showed a spike in  frequency twice a year: Thanksgiving and Christmas. “Eggs” had their 15 minutes around Easter time, “pranks” were in high demand just before and on April first, and great interest in  “shopping” took place during the holiday season.

After getting bored with the easy ones, we put a little brain work into our terms and discovered that “dieting”, “weight loss”, “quit smoking”, and “champagne” all peaked at the end of each year. I put my guess to the test with “thesis”, and sure enough, it spiked around the beginning and end of each semester (perhaps for those grad students who show initial interest in what will be due, and then again near the end to frantically figure out how to accomplish what will be due?). “Wedding” had small spikes in the spring, summer, and fall, but had a huge lull  during the winter months. “Jewelry” and “diamonds” were eagerly sought around Valentine’s Day.

I think we all get the gist of these annual happenings, right? Well how about singular and interesting spikes?

For example, never before had people been so interested in Saddam Hussein until the day he was executed (thanks a heap, YouTube). And spinach was extraordinarily intriguing when the whole E. coli deal went down. I didn’t check, but I’d bet just about anything that pigs are experiencing a lot of popularity at the moment. And then there are people who win stuff on reality TV shows, who get feverishly searched for until the next person wins it by combining the contestant’s name and the show he/she was on (“David Cook, American Idol” or “Bob Crowley, Survivor” will get big hits for a while).

And while “superbowl” itself has its predicted spikes at the beginning of February every year, and “nipple” typically has a steady– albeit slow– stream of Googlings, if you add those two terms and throw in “Janet Jackson”, you’ve just hit on a veritable trifecta. Common Spike Phenomena.

(Note: “Nipple ring” could replace “nipple” and garner similar results)

Even after another hour or so playing around with Google Trends, I was unable to beat that discovery. Oddly sexual queries like “Vaseline, cucumbers” yielded no appreciable signs of CSP, nor did “sex, candy” (Sorry, Marcy Playground!). I decided to stop before I exhausted myself, lucky to have scored just one Google grand slam, but not before haphazardly throwing a few more combinations out there (“bubble gum, rocket launcher”, “shoe bomb, horse shoe”, and “aardvark, watermelon”). Sadly, my pessimism was justified as none of these last-ditch efforts to find a preposterous example of CSP were successful.

But maybe it’s just as well. I’m not exactly sure how I would react if I found overwhelming CSP with “bondage, teapot”.