"Your body may be fat...

... but your confidence is thin."

There are no words.

Cleveland's Next Top Model - Episode 2

"My gentleman friend Larry says that I have the ***** of a 12-year-old."

In which I make my internet debut

THIS IS AN INAUSPICIOUS WAY of introducing myself to the internet, but I'm going to jump on the 4 Girls Finger Paint reaction video bandwagon here.

For anyone who hasn't seen the wretched clip of which I speak, let my reaction suffice. Do not, under any circumstances, see this video for yourself. It was vile. But do you see how I suffer for my art?

4 Girls Finger Paint Reaction

I know it when I see it. And now I wish I hadn't.

Welcome to their home.

FOUR FRIENDS STARTED A BLOG recently and it's pretty great. Three of the four contributors live together, which makes for some fun posts about the things you only learn about people when in very close quarters. Given that there are multiple contributors, the blog has a scattershot quality to it, but it's fun because you can get to know each of them.

A few weeks back, one of the guys wrote about a one night stand that turned into a two day affair; it's wonderful, particularly his discussion of the morning after that became the whole next day and night. It has a kind of honesty that gets you, like at the end when he writes:

He gets up and walks across the room and hugs me. This is a not the weak, pacify-your-sadness hug that I've felt before. Nor is it the lame generic sympathy hug. He wraps all of himself around me, and we fold into each other on the modern green angular sofa. This is the hug that seems to say, "I have room for you". It's more connection than intimacy, but feels amazing in a way that I hadn't realized I missed until now.

Check out the post at Fuzzy Mimosa.

And here's the absolutely brilliant Brenda Dickson parody that gave the blog its name. If you haven't seen this, sit down and watch. It's bizarre and perfect.

Brenda Dickson - Welcome to My Home

"As long as I don't bleed or cry I'll do it."

Still thrilled.

I GOT MY SUMMER offer a week and four hours ago and I'm still absurdly happy about it. When I was pounding the pavement looking for an internship, a sense of dread would wash over me a couple times a day. Now, I'll be walking between classes and my mind will switch into recruiting mode, thinking about what I need to do, or who I need to call. And then it will hit me that I don't need to think about that anymore. My heart will swell a little and I'll smile. If it hits me while I'm standing waiting for the subway listening to music, I'll realize that I'm shaking my ass just a little to the beat.

It's weird to be this happy about something that you know is going to be really tough, something that's going to gobble up your personal life and be a source of stress in the future. But for now I'm trying not to think about that, and focusing on feeling like this:

Dooce - Leta Learns to Splash

splashing in the tub from dooce on Vimeo.
Next up, insanely cute puppies.

[Via Dooce]

No country for old men/risen Lords

IT'S GANG INITIATION TIME, so there's been a spike in violence in the hood as the Crips and whatever Dominican gang happens to currently rule my street fight it out for territory and members. A guy from my building was killed last week and there's been a shrine to him outside the stoop ever since. The drug deals are still going down around the clock, though, so no one seems to be deterred. No cause for alarm!

By and large the violence ignores non-gang members, and if it does touch the uninitiated it's mostly muggings. Unfortunately, the muggings often specifically target white people, so I've been taking off my iPod before walking back from the subway station at night. This has severely constrained my happiness, of course, as I no longer get that last spin of whatever shamefully titillating pop song I currently have on repeat.

Just when I think I've had enough and that I really do need to move, along comes a reminder that crime, truly heinous crime, can strike anywhere. Even in the heart of Kent County. Surely it's some perversion of our national character that there hasn't been Runaway Bride-style, 24/7 news coverage of this tragedy.

I'll be starting a Facebook issue group about it, and I hope you'll all support the cause when I shoot off the invites.

Jesus Held Hostage in Kent County

"Clean up all the wiener poopie if you want to see Jesus unharmed."

[via The New Gay]

Remember the power of the American idea

I STILL HAVEN'T DECIDED who I'm supporting in the Democratic primary race, but fuck, man, have you seen this?

Even if Obama can't seize victory from the Clinton machine (a machine I personally believe is built around a capable, impressive, and good-hearted candidate), the message here is exceptionally powerful.

Yes We Can

"There has never been anything false about hope."

Discovering my little corner of the internet

AND NOW IT'S TIME for a little segment I like to call "Who are you and please get out of my house."

Top 6 Favorite Search Phrases That Inexplicably Led People Here

1. people that look like gooses
2. people with height dont look as fat
3. how to get a job at goldman
4. proctologist test
5. that's right jesus is lord
6. brian boitano

Amazing.

I don't need a man, I have a pussy.

THE VIDEO BELOW IS SO GENIUS, I'm jealous I didn't think of it first. Can you imagine Oscar in this delightful ensemble? I can't decide if he would submit to the torture the way he does to letting me stick my fingers between his paws and in his mouth (to prove that daddy is the boss), or if he would meow to the high heavens, crying for mercy, before finding some way to extricate himself from the getup.

I once heard that you can tell how smart an animal is by putting a paper bag over its head and seeing how long it takes for the animal to get it off. By this measure, Oscar is brilliant. Cat is out of the bag before I've even let go. My dog growing up, however, less so. You'd put the bag on his head and he'd just sit there motionless, no doubt thinking that this was some test of endurance and that there was surely a treat on the other side. Please God, let there be a treat.

Regardless, I figured that no blog is complete without the blogger introducing their loved ones. Given that I've yet to find my $200K husband at school, I'll introduce the other Mr. Wade. World (which is to say, one one billionth of it), meet Oscar.














"Now I am vaguely famous."

FourFour - "Merry Christmas from Winston and Rudy"

It's not animal abuse if you do it out of love.

This goose is cooked.

WE'RE SMACK DAB in the middle of finals right now. Two down, three to go. I've been attacking Economics problem sets like a wounded creature in a last ditch effort for survival, but thanks to two friends in the library, I've powered through a lot longer than I thought I would.

The library is a mixed blessing. On one hand, you look around and see other people studying, which motivates you to keep going. On the other, even with headphones on and a nose to your practice exam, you're fair game for any random conversation your study partners desire.

Tonight's topic of choice: Top Hotties, proving that the nation's future business leaders think with their wangs and snizzes as much as they do with their dope Excel models and cheat sheets. Emails have been exchanged, lists made, conferences held.

The problem with making these definitive judgments during exam period is that people tend to develop Library Hot. That guy you wouldn't look twice at during the semester? You're suddenly thinking he might be doable in the dim, florescent lights of the library stairwells. That girl who hasn't changed her sweatpants in five days, and who you suspect may be sleeping in a pile of crumpled Accounting notes? You're suddenly certain she needs to get a life.

Avoiding the trap of Library Hot is the main reason we all need to take a study break every now and then. Step out of the library and onto the street and remember what normal people look like. People who shower. People who manage to pull a brush through their hair. People who don't look like they've been awakened in the night by a rushing mind thinking, "Assets equals liabilities plus owners equity."

Or maybe to see people who have more important things to worry about than whether they get that job at Goldman they don't really want, but God dammit, they've worked for it and they're going to get what they deserve.

Gui Boratto - "Beautiful Life"

It's okay, Nana. We all drop fruit sometimes.

1 perfect thank you note won't get you a job. 100 perfect thank you notes just might.

LIKE A MAJORITY OF FIRST-YEAR business school students, I'm in the middle of the summer internship search. I'm gunning for a job in consulting, and applications are due in a few weeks for the big firms. Like any other Type-A overachiever, I'm doing as much as I can to make sure that when I pull the lever on the big employment slot machine, I pull cherries or sevens and not... uh... you know, something that leaves me without job.

The hardest part about this whole job search thing is the fact that, ultimately, it's out of my hands.

This is hard for me to accept.

I don't do hard drugs. I don't gamble. I don't fall in love easily, as any number of ex-boyfriends can attest. Not because they're stupid things to do (which they are), but because they require you to surrender yourself to something else: a chemical, chance, or someone else's uncertain affection.

My father may be surprised to read about this need for control. I frequently leave on trips without a map, directions, or even a precise destination address. Yet I know that I can always call him and he'll tell me where I've managed to wind up, and how to get where I'm going, thereby providing the illusion of control. (All that said, I pray he's not actually reading this blog, as it occasionally acknowledges the existence of sex and that I have a semi-functional sex drive. Dad, if you're reading this, those things are lies. Also, Hillary made me do it).

I know that I'll eventually need to give up on this need, that being successful eventually becomes less about doing the right thing all the time, and more about leveraging a rare moment of possibility and otherwise rolling with the punches. It's hard to make that shift, though, when doing what I can to determine the outcome of uncertain periods has been relatively successful.

Here's hoping the illusion lasts a little longer.

Ida Maria - "Oh My God"

"You think I'm in control? Oh my God."

Secret lovers, that's what we are

MY FORMER CUBEMATE AND I were obsessed with that T-Mobile MyFives commercial, the one where one guy says to the other guy, "Dude, what's my girlfriend doing in your five?" And then the other guy tries to play if off like it's nothing, but then the girlfriend calls and the ringer is that song "Secret Lovers."

HaHa! Hilarious! Oh man, and then we'd just laugh and laugh...

Alright, so it's not that funny to recount, but when you're at work the bar is lower.

Anyway, M, this is for you.

Tato Salad - "Cell Phone Five"

"The older the prune, the sweeter the poon."

Like uncool girls talking about popular girls

LAST NIGHT, I HAD a long discussion about the difference between Canada and America. Actually, I wasn't involved because, as an American, I know absolutely nothing about Canada, but I had the opportunity to listen while two Canadians discussed the relative merits of their homeland.

I'll spare you, my enormous reading public, the details, and instead let Cute with Chris sum it up for me.

Cute with Chris - "Canada vs. America"

"That's right, Jesus is lord."

The wisdom of children, my ass

THE FIRST SONG I EVER memorized was "You're So Vain" by Carly Simon. I was young, certainly far too young to grasp the song's interpersonal complexities, too young even to memorize the words correctly. By way of illustration, when Carly sang "Some underworld spy, or the wife of a close friend," I would sing "Some underwear spy and the wife of a clothespin." My mother never attempted to correct me. She probably thought it was cute. Like a lisp.

Like a lisp, if it's not corrected quickly, your son winds up a fag, and gets tormented in elementary school because not only is he singing Carly Simon in the playground, he's singing it wrong with a fucking lisp.


REGARDLESS, THIS LYRIC MADE perfect sense to my child brain. While singing, I would picture a clothespin puppet, dressed up in a pretty felt dress, yarn hair pulled back, standing next to a man wearing a cape and a pair of underwear over his eyes to conceal his identity. I may have confused spies with Zorro.

When you're a kid, your ability to discern the reasonable from the absurd is severely limited, as my friend, whose imaginary friend "Broccoli" (a human-sized head of broccoli), can testify. I think that's one of the reasons kids attach to such horrible songs. The neighborhood kids used to spend hours dancing around with Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" on repeat, and our parent's never tried to kill us! Not once!

Even if we put aside children's music (hey, remember Raffi?), there's enough kid-friendly, soul-grating music by otherwise credible musicians to fill thousands of trips to and from Gymboree, the day's playdate, and any number of mind-numbing soccer games. One key entry into this pantheon of shame is surely "You Can Call Me Al" by Paul Simon. Why can I call you Al, Paul? And it's not Betty, okay? I'm having enough trouble with the kids in the playground and I don't need this from you.

The song makes no sense, but an entire generation of kids grew up singing the song from the wayback at the top of their lungs. It turns out it was an international phenomenon, as Jens Lekman explains, before launching into a worthy rendition of the song. Lekman gets at the heart of what makes the song so annoying - the chorus, and Chevy Chase's smile in the original video - and then does us all a favor and gets rid of both. The guitar riff in the hook is pretty amazing, right?

Jens Lekman - "You Can Call Me Al"

You need two mics to rock this hard.

If you have to ask, you probably are

EVERYONE, AND I MEAN EVERYONE, spends most of college making poor choices and being a risk to themselves. Fortunately for those of us who graduated before 2005, most of those poor choices get put in a box and left in the past, to be opened like your middle school time capsule once every five years at reunion.

Unfortunately for later classes, however, that time capsule is called YouTube.

I'm Not the Fraternity Bicycle

What's the fish hook all about? Besides being genius.

Doctor, Lawyer, Accountant, Lover

I STEPPED INTO THE ELEVATOR behind a young woman in her late 20s. I was listening to my iPod, which generally means "Do not talk to me, this is my Britney time," but because she'd held the door for me while I checked my mailbox, I nodded and said, "Thanks."

"You a lawyer? You look like a lawyer," she said, looking at the tie I was wearing.

I laughed. "Nope, sorry. I'm a student."

"Yeah? For what?"

"Business."

"That's nice," she said, approvingly. "You can be my accountant when I'm a millionaire. I'ma make a record. I know you won't cheat me 'cause you from the hood."

I smiled and promised I never would. The doors opened on her floor and she stepped into the hallway.

She turned around. "You got a girlfriend?"

I laughed. "No."

"You need one? It's Chermelli. I'm a model too," she said, running her hand down her hair and bouncing her ass out a bit.

"Nice to meet you," I said, sticking my hand out.

"Nice to meet you too, baby!" she said, taking it.

Chris Recites Britney Spears

I Can Drink Myself Straight

I WAS E-STALKING A GENTLEMAN (who will inevitably read this blog, making the whole endeavor all the more shameful), and one of his photos was of a girl wearing a homemade t-shirt that read "I Can Drink Myself Gay."

Genius.

I would drink myself straight for Carrie Underwood, as long as she sang this song to me whilst cuddling.

Carrie Underwood - Alone

And by straight I mean I'll talk about boys with her.

A little less dirty dancing, a little more emo

IF BRITNEY SPEARS AND Tori Amos had a baby, and that baby turned out to be a queerbait with a flair for the melodramatic and a YouTube account, that queer baby would record a version of "Gimme More" a lot like this one.

As Toby said, be thankful I don't play the piano, otherwise my blog would be full of crap like this.

Nick Connell - "Gimme More"

Me and a gun.

A Very Hairy Jake Gyllenhaal

LAST WEEK, MAHMOUD AMADINEJAD visited Columbia. Amadinejad said that there were no gays in Iran. My response: "Not anymore!"

Coming out of the speech, the big controversy, of course, was whether it was appropriate for Columbia President Lee Bollinger to rip a world leader a ragged new asshole, effectively performing the most spectacular magic trick of all time by making the man almost seem like a sympathetic figure.

The second biggest controversy, however, was the age old question: "Hot or Not?"

I'm going to pull a Hillary Clinton and straddle the fence so as to avoid offending anyone (thereby annoying everyone). Although he's not an unattractive man, I've personally never been into the whole "bad boy (read: crazed despot)" thing. I mean, ride a motorcycle (even better, a Vespa and a helmet), but murdering your own citizens is a bridge too far. That said, Osama should buy stock in Just For Men. Yum!

I will say that, rather than being a total douche whose balls must have fallen out his pants leg on the walk to the podium, Bollinger should have (used a time machine and) played this video from the SNL premier this past weekend.

SNL Digital Short - "IRAN"

Andy, if I go tanning will you love my butter pecan thighs?

Shout Out Louds - "Impossible"

WHEN I WAS A KID, the end of summer was always marked by the Saint Leo's Fair. Kids from all over town would come for one last hurrah before school started. The fact that doom was looming so close was highlighted by the fact that Saint Leo's was, through some cruel twist of fate, located on the same block as an elementary and a high school.

All us kids would go crazy trying to ride all the rides, desperate to hold on to the final days of freedom. The fair would last five days and nights, and we would go as many nights as possible; during the first days at school, we would one-up each other about how much time we'd spent at the fair, or how many times we'd ridden the rides that everyone agreed were the most likely to make you barf and were therefore the best.

Even when we got "too old" to ride the rides, going to Saint Leo's was still an end of summer ritual. It was a chance to see (or in my case, actively avoid) people you hadn't seen all summer, to try to sneak a beer from a priest, and to show off your tan to the pretty girls in your class (or something).

There was something manic about Saint Leo's, but it was tempered by the universal acceptance that summer was over. The video for the Shout Out Louds' latest single, "Impossible," off their album Our Ill Wills, uses the Saint Leo's effect wonderfully. The song is about that last night you spend in a relationship you know is ending, a night with someone you still love but can't be with anymore. You get that same frantic feeling, like you need to make it last, but because you can't, or won't, you don't do anything but lie there and hold them in silence.

Shout Out Louds - "Impossible"

"Let's not fall back to sleep like we used to, do you remember?
I don't want to wake up knowing I don't have a future."

Rilo Kiley - "Silver Lining"

A FEW MONTHS BACK, a guy I was sort of dating said he'd met someone else, that they'd slept together, and that we needed to stop seeing each other. I was taken aback by his confession, not because I thought my shit was too hot to give up, but because he didn't owe me that level of explanation. We weren't in a relationship, we'd just been on a few dates, yet now we were going through a whole breakup rigmarole. He could have just said he wasn't feeling it, that it wasn't there for him, and that would have been that.

Instead, I felt like he'd cheated. It was like paying the taxes on a big lotto win without the getting the payout. If I never liked this guy that much to begin with, why did I feel so shitty?

Jenny Lewis, in the latest single off Rilo Kiley's wonderful new album, Under the Blacklight, sings about cheats, and how the cheated can take back some of their lost dignity by calling things off. The song, "Silver Lining," is about a woman who leaves her lover after he sleeps around town, saying, "I was your silver lining, but now I'm gold."

The video is just okay (not as good as the long form docu-video for "The Moneymaker"), but the way Lewis' vocals float up into falsetto during the chorus and the shimmying electric guitar are glorious.

Rilo Kiley - "Silver Lining"

I didn't like you anyway, I was just looking for fun.