If my door gets egged this weekend, something tells me it won't be related to Halloween...

Uhhhhh, guys. Something a little bit horrifying slash mostly hilarious slash no, really it was more horrifying just happened. But before I tell you, let's first get the old T.G.I. Hagman out of the way:

As of 5:01am on October 29, 2010, Larry Hagman is...alive! Sign, sealed, delivered; he's yours.

OK, so it's currently 2:04 in the morning and about a half an hour ago Dan and I scuttled over to Baja Fresh for a midnight taco run (lies. I got a Diet Coke because I'm still full from my lunchtime fish taco/Percocet make out session and Dan got a burrito.) (Don't judge us and our lifestyle.) and on our way back into the apartment, I checked my mail. Mixed in amongst the usual past-due notices and depressing bank statements was this sketchy-ass envelope:

Dan and I got in the elevator with a middle-aged gentleman who lives in my building and I looked at the envelope and said, "Uhh...who do I know at the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at Villanova University?"

"Ooo! Maybe someone's trying to kill you!" Dan said, with genuine interest and excitement.

"Well that is serial killer handwriting if I've ever seen it." Dan snatched the envelope out of my hand and I asked him to open it. Mostly because if there was anthrax it in—roses are red, fire is hot, I'm holding my breathe and you, sir, are not. Dan opened the envelope and took out a folded piece of lined notebook paper.

"Oh Jesus God. Dan, it's a single piece of notebook paper in handwritten pen. Someone is going to kill me. Dan, someone is absolutely going to kill me."

As the elevator stopped on my floor, Dan unfolded the paper, squinted at what it said and read aloud:

"Evie...Yang's...na na na na na na shrimp fried rice?"

[As it turns out, that's just a little racially charged, Evie-based inside joke/caricature from Tulane Chris. I always forget that he goes to Villanova and has a penchant for sending me comical mail every now and then, that skamp.]

Now, what I failed to mention up until now is that the middle-aged gentleman in the elevator with us was an Asian gentleman. Which means that Dan pulled out a sketch of my parent's Tonkinese cat wearing a paddy hat, squinting and saying "dericious!" over a plate of shrimp while he deadpanned, "Evie Yang's na na na na na na shrimp fried rice" about six inches away from an Asian man. The second after "—rice?" flew out of his mouth, he realized what had just happened, made a "guhhhh" noise and sprinted out of the elevator before collapsing in front of my door in a little puddle of embarrassment.

So basically what this means is that I have now officially offended all two Asians in my apartment building. Every last one of them now thinks that I'm racist. Or have extremely racist friends. I hassle them in the lobby for my food and get amateur Klan art in the mail from Arab/Islamic scholars in Pennsylvania. But if you need to borrow a cup of sugar as racially pure as fresh morning snow, Lord knows I'm here for you.

Sigh. Moving on. So Halloween weekend, huh? Right on. As I mentioned yesterday, Tulane Chris will be visiting this weekend. We're going to do a 2b1b investigation, write a post together, drink a lot, emote, go to Target, emote some more. I'm pretty excited. The culmination of this weekend, however, will be waking up at an obscenely early hour on Sunday morning to cheer Becca and Geoff on as they tackle the Marine Corps Marathon, or their "long distance jog" as I like to call it because belittling my sister's running career is a Facebook interest of mine. It comes from a place of pure jealousy, of course. She sets goals for herself and has the discipline to train for months to accomplish a physical feat, whereas I opened up my umbrella the other day a sugar packet fell out. (That's not a joke, by the way. That happened. I assume I threw a sugar packet in my bag when I got coffee and it got wedged in my umbrella somehow, but still. She did the Army 10K last weekend for funsies and it's literally raining Type II Diabetes on me.)

I realize I could just take up running too, but, you know, effort. I'd prefer to put all of that energy into good old fashioned projecting! I want to make a sign to cheer Becca on, but I can't decide which motivational slogan to go with:

- JOG SLIGHTLY FASTER!

- THAT DOESN'T LOOK THAT HARD.

- I DID THE ELLIPTICAL FOR 30 MINUTES THIS MORNING!

- NOBODY WOULD JUDGE YOU IF YOU PEED YOURSELF!

- IF YOUR NIPS AREN'T BLEEDING, YOU'RE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH!

- COLLEGE GIRLS WITH POOR BODY IMAGE DO THIS EVERY DAY!

- REMEMBER WHEN YOU GOT EXPLOSIVE DIARRHEA IN ARIZONA? HA HA, ME TOO.

I guess I could always just make seven signs? Either way, I'm pumped. If you'll be in town for the rallies this weekend, I hope you enjoy yourself! And if not, I hope you have a great Halloween weekend wherever you are! To kick the weekend off right, here's a quick little recap of last week's "Jersey Shore" finale I owe you from when I was out sick. It's late, but meh. Something tells me we'll all live.

"Jersey Shore", Season 2: THE FINALE!

Yes, it's the finale. It's time for our Zelko soaked heros and heroines to return to the tri-state area from whence they came. But not before they go on a wacky road trip to the Everglades to see, quote Pauly D, "crocodiles and alligators, or whatever you call them." You shockingly had it right the first time, sir. Although Snooki refers to them as "crock-o-dillios" which immediately makes me hope I'll be reincarnated into a rapping crocodile so I can dub myself the "Crock-o-Dillio" and release an album called, "What the Crock-o-Dillio??" But, yes. They go to see the gators. None eat them; world weeps. Afterwards they go to a little country cafe where they eat fried frog legs. Ronnie is deeply disturbed, J-WOWW is nauseated. On the car ride home, The Situation gets car sick and pukes frog legs up. Wakka, wakka.

I'm sure you're all wondering what ever will happen to Pauly D and Vinny and their little Miami wifies, right? Well, nothing. They take 'em out to dinner (Vinny's gal is 45 minutes late. Or on Meg time, if you will,) make out with them in the street, tell them to K.I.T. and call it a night. Sorry, both dates were incredibly uneventful. I wish I had more for you. Although I will say that Pauly D's lady has got a pair of hooters on her. So. They'll always have that.

Ronni and Sammi go out for one last Miami dinner and—shock!—they get in a fight. Here:

Good enough.

On their last night out, the gang heads to BED where two girls (both of whom I would describe as "atrocious about the face") are all over Vinny and offer to have a threeway with him. And by "offer to have a threeway with him," I mean scream, "Are we fucking tonight, baby??" and "You're gonna have the threesome of your life!" to him over the thumping Enrique Iglesias music. But alas, he can't stop thinking about Ramona and turns them down. Which is when The Situation swoops in, takes them to the John and makes them forget all about Stepfathers 1-3. Bless his heart.

On their last night in the house, the gang has one last family dinner and then retires to the living room to hand out superlatives. It starts out all innocent and light-hearted like "Most Likely to Get Skin Cancer" hahaha LOLZ all of us! but takes a serious turn when The Situation says Vinny should get "Most Likely to be a Follower." Then guess what happens? Correct: escalate, escalate, escalate → full-blown fight. This was one of the most confusing fight sequences yet, so let me break it down for you:

The Situation rags a little too hard on Vinny for being a "fake" "follower", so J-WOWW puts an end to it by telling The Situation that he's the fake one and storms out of the room → While she's gone, The Situation says she's the fakest one in the house → Abiding by "Girl Code", Snooki tells J-WOWW that The Situation said she was fake and that Pauly D nodded his head in agreement → J-WOWW confronts The Situation and says, "If I'm fake, then Pauly D is fake because he talks shit about you behind your back," → The Situation confronts Pauly D → Pauly D goes into a roid rage and pops a blood vessel or two → He confronts J-WOWW → J-WOWW says she told The Situation that because she heard that he agreed with The Situation that she was fake → He asks her who told her that → Snooki makes an "eep!" noise, implicating herself → Pauly D yells at Snooki for a while → Snooki gets mad at J-WOWW for making her look like an asshole → Snooki cries → Everyone's like J/K!!! We're such a family: we hate each other but we love each other and I'm going to miss you guys so much even though we have a shit ton of promotional stuff coming up and Season 3 around the corner, omg we're such a family.

FIN!

And yes, it was just as anti-climactic for me as it was for you. Welp! Have a great weekend guys and we'll see you next week! Buy-bye.

Dude, you totally got Meghan-ed

OK. So! Since we last spoke, I had a fish taco (two, technically. It was a combo meal and saved me 30-cents. No big deal.) and a Percocet I found at the bottom of a handbag last week and decided to save for a rainy day and SHIT. BE. POURING. Anyway, I feel significantly better now. Slash full because I overate. Which is weird because my washingtonpost.com horoscope for yesterday said I was going to eat my emotions and all I had was a salad for lunch and some meager leftovers for dinner. Maybe my horoscope is on a one day delay? Hold. Let's check today's:

There's quite a sociable day on your agenda, thanks to an affable astrological assembly, unanimously intent on making things as easy on you as possible. If you've missed out on any of the good gossip that's been going around lately (not that you ordinarily indulge in such things, of course), here's your chance to catch up. Do keep in mind, however, there's far more than chatting on the menu: Say, more than just a touch of intense romance, for example?

Oh ho ho shit. Well considering today I'm just sitting in my apartment gorging myself on fish tacos and pain killers because I got an obnoxious email, I'm going to assume that my horoscope is indeed on a one day delay. Which means tomorrow I'm going to get gossiped and romanced. COINCIDENCE THAT TULANE CHRIS COMES TO VISIT TOMORROW?!?! I think not. He's always good for some giggly, girly gossip and hardcore fuckin'. (I'm so sorry.)

Speaking of Tulane Chris, he just gchatted me the following:

Chris: I heard someone got Meghan-ed last night

me: WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!?!?!

And then he signed off! Asshole! Because really, what does getting Meghan-ed mean?? I know there's "Meg time" (30-45 minutes after agreed upon time) and I know "Meg-ing it" is synonymous with not recycling, but getting Meghan-ed? I can only assume it has to do with failure, body fluids or public embarrassment. Perhaps all three? In either case, I feel very badly for whomever got Meghan-ed.

Although speaking of, my last night was fucking rough. As I've discussed before, I have three recurring dreams:

1.) I've moved back to New York and work for Soap Opera Digest again

2.) I'm back in school and I can't remember my schedule, locker combination, am late for a test, et al

3.) I'm back in Rock 'n' Roll Revival and I can't remember the lyrics to my solo and/or don't have a costume

All three are stress and anxiety dreams, obviously, and because right now I'm dealing with the repercussions of having spent the last two years of my life making failed poop jokes and now can't get a job, I have one or all of these dreams every single night. So much so that it's gotten to the point where if I'm having one of them, I figure out that it's a dream pretty quickly and spend the rest of the dream just being incredibly weirded out. For example, I had an NYC dream the other night an this was my inner monologue: (Or inner-inner monologue, technically. SEE? TRIPPY...)

"Huh. Really? I moved back to New York? And I'm working here again? That was a unique decision on my part. Why would I do this? I hated it here. OH. WAIT. This is a dream. [Andrew of the Great Juno Debate walks in, is half pineapple, asks me to develop his film because he works upstairs at XXL magazine and walks out] Yep. That's not right. I'm dreaming. Well good for me for having so many details down! This is vivid. Look, I even thought to update the layout forms to make them more efficient. Well done. I wonder when I'll wake up? [Art Director hands me an assignment] HA HA! I don't actually have to do that. Awesome. I wonder if Andrew wants to get dream lunch with me?"

And then I wake up feeling all confused and anxious. Every time. Every night. Only now it's gotten to the point where not only am I aware that I'm dreaming, I dream that I'm blogging about how I'm aware that I'm dreaming. Basically, I Inception myself on a nightly basis and it's fucked up because not only is it weird, it's just honest-to-god draining. I haven't had a good night's sleep in over a month.

So, it happened again last night and when I finally woke up, I was all cracked out and feeling creepy and incredibly thirsty. That's also par for the course for me, by the way. It doesn't matter how much water I drink during the day, I get so fucking parched at night. (Side note: I woke up incredibly thirsty once when College Roommate Danielle and I were living in the Berks and all we had in our fridge was a bottle of cold duck Andre. I didn't trust DC water at that point in my life, so half asleep, I popped the cork and chugged the ever-loving fuck out of that fine malt champagne. Fifteen minutes later I was like, "Well, great. Now I'm thirsty and drunk and it's 4:30am on a Wednesday, so there's that." But, I digress.)

Quick backstory: Two nights ago I watched the most recent episode of House, which prominently featured Chinese food, specifically Moo Shu Pork. I was like, "Damn. I want that Asian delicacy in my mouth and I want it there now," and immediately placed an order for it and a large iced tea from Peking Garden on Grub Hub. It came 45 minutes later and frankly, I in no way wanted any of it. At that point I had moved on to "Glee" and if I could have ordered fishnets and a sense of high school togetherness from Grub Hub, I probably would have been all over that too. The Internet makes impulse buying far too accessible for people with ADD. Anyway, when my food arrived, I kind of awkwardly ushered it directly into the fridge without opening the bag and went back to "Glee", figuring I'd eat it some other night and all wasn't lost.

FLASH FORWARD TO LAST NIGHT WHEN I WOKE UP ALL CRACKED OUT AND THIRSTY. I was kind of just laying there in bed writhing around, feeling sorry for myself because a certain someone who's name rhymes with Shmalex didn't refill my Brita filter and put it back in the fridge after he was done with it, when a little voice inside of me said, "HEY! You have that giant iced tea you ordered the other night from Peking Garden! Go chug the shit out of that!" "Oh my god," I said back to the voice, "you're right. I will chug the shit out of that delicious, ice-cold, refreshing, iced tea. Thanks voice!" "No, Meg. Thank you."

I got up, stumbled over to the fridge and ripped open the bag. What I saw inside made complete sense for what I ordered: one take-out container; a large plastic container filled with liquid; a few fortune cookies; forks; knives and napkins. Did I think it was odd that my iced tea wasn't in a cup? No, not really. I mean, I ordered a beverage from a take-out Chinese place; I didn't think it would show up in crystal stemware with a straw made out of children's dreams. I figured they didn't have any travel-safe cups and put it in a to-go soup container. Right? Right.

Well, wrong. In my haste to swallow a liquid as soon as humanly possible, I ripped the top of the container off as I took it out of the brown bag and just fuckin' chugged. Which wasn't a good call, as it was not green tea at all—it was wonton soup. You know when you drink something that you expect to be water, and it turns out to be flat Sprite or some shit and you're like, "OH MY GOD GROSS! That was not what I was expecting at all!" Well, picture that, but instead of it being some other kind of delicious, transparent beverage like Sprite, it's greasy, cold, two-day old wonton soup. And the worst part is, because I was half-asleep and kind of discombobulated, I didn't really realize what was going on until like the third chug when a fucking wonton slapped me in the face and I was like, "That's...not...right?" and the full gravity of the situation sunk in and it was horrible. But like, horrible. Like, I simply turned my head to the left and 100% vomited into my kitchen sink, horrible. (Thank Christ for garbage disposals and Soft Scrub...) Then I brushed my teeth for 45 minutes, flung myself onto my bed, buried my head in Towel and just wept ever-so gently until I fell asleep. (I'm not kidding, by the way. I really did cry. And being able to say, "the last time I cried was when I chugged old wonton soup because I was half asleep and thought it was iced tea" doesn't make me feel smart, per se.)

Now, who's to blame for this debacle? Is it me for blindly grabbing liquids out of a Chinese take-out bag and drinking all willy-nilly? NO. NO, IT IS NOT. Because I clearly ordered iced tea, NOT wonton soup:

BOOM! Grub Hub receipt screen shot. Evidence. I realize I could just call and complain, but what asshole calls and is like, "Hi, you gave me a vat of soup instead of iced tea two nights ago and I chugged it last night when I was cracked out from a dream and it tasted like crab feet and I threw up in my sink. Sooooooo...you tryin' to give me some complimentary spring rolls or what?"

Answer: THIS GUY.

And I can only assume that that's what getting Meghan-ed means. You're welcome, Peking Garden. You're welcome.

I need a Xanax.

GETTING AN OBNOXIOUS EMAIL IN THE MIDDLE OF ATTEMPTING TO BLOG AGAIN IS INCREDIBLY COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE.

Getting a fish taco and an iced tea to cool out and trying again.

Worst of Netflix: The Human Centipede: First Sequence

Few countries get as consistently good press as the Netherlands. Smiling blond capitalists, neat as a pin among their dykes and windmills, offering legal drugs and regulated prostitutes. One of the few European countries that fought a war of independence, they won their freedom from the haughty, unpopular Spaniards and spent a long time as a content little republic before becoming a content little kingdom. Their royal family, the House of Orange-Nassau, regularly spits out pleasant little queens with adorable names: Wilhelmina, Juliana, Beatrix. They own a few little Caribbean islands and have an nice, funny-looking language with a lot of “aa,” “oo,” and “ij.” A sane, cozy oasis between sour, bureaucratic Belgium and will-they-do-it-again Germany, it’s the jewel in Europe’s crown.

Or so we all thought before a Dutchman wrote and directed The Human Centipede: First Sequence. As you read the following review, keep in mind that this was, by a comfortable margin, the movie most requested for Worst of Netflix. It was not my idea.

The Human Centipede: First Sequence: After their car breaks down while in Germany, Americans Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams) and Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie) wind up at a remote villa -- and soon find themselves trapped in a nightmare. Dr. Josef Heiter (Dieter Laser) kidnaps them for his demented experiment to create a human "centipede." The plan includes removing their kneecaps so they must walk on all fours, then surgically connecting them to a Japanese man to create a bizarre human chain.

The screenplay is essentially one giant bunt, assuming that people won’t be bored by the low-dialogue script or annoyed by the parts that don’t make sense if they’re too disturbed by the vivisection and coprophagia. It doesn’t lend itself well to summary, but I’ll try:

We open with a long, moody shot – the first of many. This one is of a highway. We paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, at a snail’s pace, to a car, where a man is looking at pictures of dogs lined up, one behind the other. A truck driver pulls over to have a bowel movement in the shrubbery (God, Europeans and their comfort with the human body), and the man in the car gets out and shoots him with a tranquilizer dart, mid-movement. A sane man would wait until his quarry was finished for obvious reasons of cleanliness, but the shooter’s nervous twitches and plug-ugliness have already marked him as A Villainous Madman, so there we are.

We cut to those glorious archetypes who blaze like shooting stars across the firmament of low-grade shock features: two slutty American girls abroad. Remember those old social studies textbooks that listed the major imports and exports of every country? “Niger. Exports: uranium, camels. Imports: UN aid, Marxist revolutionaries, camels.” Do you know why they stopped publishing those? Because it was too embarrassing to read “United States of America. Exports: Oblivious young women who leave cheap eyeshadow streaked across foreign pillowslips, democracy. Imports: tin, low-wage workers.” These particular young women have names, but I missed them, so we’ll call them Curly Hair and Straight Hair. As we meet them, they’re both on the phone: Curly with the hotel concierge, asking for driving directions to a nightclub called “Bunker;” Straight with a friend “back home.” This conversation with Back Home lets her explain that they’re in Germany (Exports: the Holocaust, luxury cars. Imports: Turks) and are going to “party” for a couple of days before moving on to Italy (Exports: Catholicism, news stories about corrupt politicians. Imports: tourists). But they bought her a present in Holland! No, they’re not going to tell her what it is. (Holland. Exports: souvenir clogs. Imports: slabs of unfinished clog-grade wood.)

Curly and Straight are next seen driving in the woods. Why is there a forest between the hotel and a popular nightclub? Were post-war German cities rebuilt that decentralized – “Firebomb this, assholes?” They have a flat tire, if you can believe it. Neither of them knows how to change it, which pissed me off. Everyone should know how to do that, especially A Woman Alone, and even if you technically don’t know how, it’s not too hard to figure out. A car pulls up next to them, and a fat man in a wifebeater sexually harasses them in German. I suppose this is meant to highlight their vulnerability in a foreign land, or something, but it really just confuses the viewer. The man’s first line is “I have a hot video of you sluts together” – it turns out to just be talk, but for a minute the viewer wonders if there’s going to be a Lesbian porn subplot. (If only.)

The harasser drives off, and Curly and Straight have an argument about if they’re going to get out and walk or wait in the car until morning. Ultimately, they decide to walk. Not along the road, through the woods. Darwin works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform… After a lot of whining, they find a house in the woods, kind of. It has a well-manicured lawn and is clearly in some nice little suburb of Rotterdam. It doesn’t look like it’s in the middle of the woods at all, but there we are.

The girls knock, and the door is answered by the dart-shooter from earlier. A lot of empty-calorie “ominous” dialogue follows:

“Do you live here with your wife?”

“No. I don’t like… human beings.” (I know how he feels.)

…….

“Are you girls here alone?”

“Yes, we’re alone.” (Is it too soon for another Charles Darwin joke?)

with the end result that the Mad Scientist roofies the girls (one rohypnol in a shared glass of water disables them both in less than five minutes) and they wake up tied to hospital beds. The crapping truck driver from earlier is in a third bed. The Mad Scientist announces that he is to be killed because he “does not match” – presumably this refers to tissue type, but one hopes he means that his coloring clashes with the rug. A disjointed little clump of scenes follows in which the Mad Scientist kills the truck driver, buries him, and then arrives at the house (his departure isn’t shown) with a captive Japanese man. I’ll apologize here for all the dashes and parentheses. Ideally the writing would be smoother, but it’s that kind of movie. If I told you about it in person, I’d be overusing “apparently,” “it turns out,” and “for some reason.” And, of course, “to my horror.”

The Japanese man turns out to be the star of the show. Since all his lines are in Japanese, (the rest of the movie is in German, English, and terrified grunts) we can’t tell if he’s saying dumb shit like everyone else, so he can just emote with abandon. During this scene, the subtitles report one of his lines as “The Japanese possess incredible strength when backed into a corner!” He repeats this Dragonball Z war cry as the Mad Scientist sets up a light projector, the kind you had in elementary school, and explains how he intends to turn the three of them into a human centipede. This idea occurred to him during his illustrious career separating Siamese twins – if you pay attention, you’ll note that the paintings in his house are of conjoined fetuses. He practiced this centipedification with his three Rottweilers earlier, and is now ready to move on to humans. In short, he plans to cut the tendons in their knees to force them to walk on all fours, and, uh. Uh. May Chaucer forgive me for using English to write this sentence: He intends to sew the anus of the preceding segment to the mouth of the next, joining them by the digestive tract. I admit, I didn’t see that coming. I imagined some kind of chest-to-lower-back graft, but I suppose that isn’t upsetting enough.

Straight Hair manages to escape, setting up the standard girl-runs-from-madman chase plot – except he catches her, and goes ahead with the surgery, creating the human centipede. This is about half an hour into the movie, leaving an hour for an extended reflection on how awful it would be to be a human centipede. I refuse to describe any more. That awful implication that just occurred to you? It happens. Whatever it is, it happens. The only detail I’ll give is that we see the dog-centipede’s grave, marked “Mein Leibe 3-Hund.”

I’ll admit, I watched much of the latter two-thirds of the movie on double speed. I lost nothing: the dialogue was in Japanese or German since the English-speaking characters lost the use of their voices. The lazy, luxurious camerawork drags a fifty-minute movie into an hour and a half. Looooong shot of the centipede undergoing something appalling. Looooong shot of the room. Nonsensical cut to the Mad Scientist, doing something mad. Rinse, repeat.

I watched the bonus features, which was a mistake of nearly the same magnitude as the movie itself.

Casting tapes: The two American girls’ audition. It’s the worst audition I’ve ever seen. “You have a LOVELY… home?”

Deleted scene: As the centipede waits in the background, the Mad Scientist does a prancing little dance around the living room.

Foley session: A shirtless Dutchman shows an unseen narrator the various meats he intends to use for special effects. This includes a cow’s leg and a skinned, jawless sheep’s head, neither of which were in apparent use during the film.

Interview with the director: He’s wearing a silly hat. He got the idea for the movie from “a running joke,” when he would see “a child molester or something on TV” and tell his friends the molester-or-something deserved “to have his mouth sewn to the anus of a fat truck driver.” Not that the truck driver’s wishes are considered, or anything. He must be a blast at parties. “This crab dip is terrible! Whoever made it should be refashioned into a monstrous oddity by a sadistic surgeon playing God.” He thinks a Hollywood remake should star Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez, and Paris Hilton as the centipede (no argument there) and plans a “more disturbing” sequel which will feature a twelve-person ‘pede. He claims that the movie is 100% medically accurate, which it isn’t. Tissue types are very hard to match across race, and if he didn’t tissue-match them and put them on anti-rejection drugs, they’d have a brutal immune response to each other’s bodies.

So. There’s The Human Centipede. I take a little comfort in the fact that the actors did have to spend weeks with their faces in each other’s asses. The writer/director is named Tom Six, and the producer is Ilona Six. Two more “Sixes” are thanked in the closing credits, which opens the alarming possibility that this was a family project. I don’t even really know if I thought the movie was bad. There’s no character development or explanation of anything, but it set out to disturb and it did. Also, and this sounds like a backhanded compliment, the lighting was really good. I’m too wrung out to close this properly – all I can think of is the fact that Queen Anne called her Amsterdam-born brother-in-law “the Dutch Abortion” and how bad I am at the arcade classic “Centipede.” (I get distracted shooting the mushrooms.) Also, I want my mother. This is more a reflex than a considered decision; my mother is the kind of person who’d point out medical inaccuracies during the move, and then want to talk about how it made us feel. I want someone else’s mother, who will just read me Jemima Puddleduck untli I forget all about The Human Centipede.

The Things I Do For You

Oh, dear readers. The things I do for you. I tasted vaginal dye. I watched a Jenny McCarthy vanity project. And, in my most bizarre sacrifice yet, I intentionally went on a terrible internet date last weekend.

A word of explanation is in order. You know how strong emotions like grief and Kentucky Deluxe can cloud your judgment? Here’s how I was thinking:

“Meg goes on dates and writes about them sometimes. But I don’t. I’m letting her down. I’m letting them all down. I have to contribute. I have to go on a bad date. That’ll show… someone… something.”

So I logged on to my old OkCupid account. I had a few messages, but they were all from normal or borderline people, not the kind of moon-unit freak I needed for this project. I sat back to plan my next move, when I got an instant message that proved that the deus in my machina is Loki, god of tricks and mischief:

DarkVenomKitty91: hey wat’s up boi

TulaneChris69: Hey.

TulaneChris69 (to himself): Oh, jackpot.

Over the course of this conversation I learned that DarkVenomKitty91 is a nineteen-year-old art student in Philadelphia. He likes to go to raves (which apparently still happen, how 2002) and experiment with audacious hair and makeup. He finds it offensive that many people assume this his tendency to wear feminine hairstyles, heavy makeup, and women’s clothing leads some people to assume he has some sort of gender issue. He smokes pot and is amazed that I don’t. (It makes me nauseous.) He’s “into Asian culture,” which I read to mean that he likes Pocky and The Grudge. Despite being Pennsylvania born and raised, he refers to Americans as “them” when complaining about Hollywood remakes of Korean movies. He asked if I was “sure” I didn’t smoke pot, and then asked if I wanted to hang out later anyway. For you, dear readers, I accepted.

A word in my own defense: I didn’t embark on this enterprise with the intention of humiliating DarkVenomKitty91. I planned a sort of case study of how awkward internet dating can be, using whatever happened to me as a template. Ideally, I could have written up a formula, something like Greeting; Awkward “So…” Conversation; Silence; Desultory Attempt at Seduction; Departure, peppered with amusing one-liner from my own date. Had it worked well enough, I would have given it to Meg for input and run it as a 2Birds Investigates, but it was not to be. DarkVenomKitty91 had his own ideas.

During the days between our online conversation and out meeting (I refuse to dignify the actual event by calling it a “date”) I got a number of texts. They included:

DarkVenomKitty91: how do u want me to do my makup on saunday

DarkVenomKitty91: i can do liek casual everyday or like full drag queen

DarkVenomKitty91: god my parents driev me crazy

DarkVenomKitty91: can u bring beer when u come

I am 25. I have been abroad. I have a college degree. I am a registered voter. I am not going to be ejected from a freshman art school dormitory for trying to sneak in a six-pack of Keystone Light in my drawers ever again.

Time passed, and eventually it was time to go meet this kid. Before I left, I called Meg to set up an escape call:

Meg: Hey, what’s up?

Me: I may or may not but definitely do need you to call me at four thirty so that if my pseudo-date with a stoned teenage drag queen goes south I can get out of it.

Meg: Okay, cool. I’m at Renfest, so I have to go drink beer out of a big horn, but I’ll call.

So I walked to DarkVenomKitty91’s building and texted him:

Me: Where do I go in?

DarkVenomKitty91: just wait for me in front of the Olive Garden

NO. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. I’m not a person who waits for stoned teenagers in front of the Olive Garden. I can’t be that person or the last quarter-century of reading, writing, and pretending to be able to tell the difference between wines has been for nothing and I might as well redecorate my apartment as a womb and never leave again. So I took the block until he showed up, which turned out to be the right choice since it took him four laps to get down, which would have been a long time in front of the Olive Garden. These things I noticed right away:

1. In some cases, the camera adds ten pounds. In this case, it subtracted seventy.

2. Dreadlocks. They were multicolored and contained much ribbon and lace.

3. Oh, my God, Home Depot pajama pants? What kind of whore do you think I am?

4. Remember the Hellraiser movies with Pinhead? Like that. Piercings a-go-go, with no apparent thought to how they looked, or the eternal dictum “less is more.”

Overall impression: Last piñata on the shelf. Full of sardines and CVS store brand lip liner instead of candy.

So I drew abreast and said “hello,” and he stuck out his paw. Fool that I am, I shook it, only to have him pull his hand away, flap it, and say “No, silly. Your ID. I need it to check you in at the desk.”

So he checked me in at the desk. The look on the security guard’s face was priceless – the poor man was trying to be professional, but had clearly never really gotten used to DarkVenomKitty91. He was nearing retirement age, and I like to think he was working one extra year to give himself and his wife a little comfort in their old age. I want his having to deal with DarkVenomKitty91 to have brought him something positive. I got this blog post; maybe the security guard can take his wife on a cruise.

So, counting meeting me in pajama pants as strike one and pulling his hand away when I shook it as strike two, here’s a strike-by-strike play-by-play:

We got upstairs, and he had a fag hag over. (Strike three, you’re out, the Rangers go to the World Series.) DarkVenomKitty91 and Fag Hag start doing the dishes, having an animated conversation with each other about the dishes and ignoring me. (Strike four.) This goes on for about ten minutes, then linner is served. I had eaten and politely refused, which didn’t stop him from spearing a vegetable on his chopsticks (strike five) and thrusting it into my face (strike six) with a “mischievous” grin on his face, like an eight-year-old has if it tricks a slow kid into eating a bug (strike seven.) I ate it to get it out of my face – never thought I’d say that again, but time is cyclical – and it turned out to be heavily, heavily overcooked asparagus the consistency of old rags. (Strike eight, really, because I love asparagus under normal circumstances and it is incredibly easy to cook.) I’m given a Wendy’s cup full of Diet Coke and Laird’s American vodka (I love this country and it is my home but barring a few local brands we are not a vodka-producing country) and we adjourn into the other room… to watch cartoons. (Strike nine.) There’s nothing inherently wrong with cartoons, but riddle me this: do you want someone’s first impression of you to be “Oh, DarkVenomKitty91. He points out plot holes in SpongeBob Squarepants?” I sat on the bed, and DarkVenomKitty91 braced a pillow against me and leant on it, as though we were at a slumber party in a crowded room and I were a sturdy piece of period furniture. (Oh, strike ten. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a fucking breakfront.)

Things kept on rolling downhill. Excerpts:

Me: I bought these new shoes and I like them a lot.

DarkVenomKitty91: I hate them. I feel like I want to burn them. They’re not fancy. Fag Hag, show him one of my platforms. With the wallpaper on it. (Strikes eleven and twelve, obvi.)

………..

Me: I’ve never had the money to travel as much as I’d like.

DarkVenomKitty91: Oh, I have a lot of money. (Strike thirteen.) I’ve never been out of the country, though. (Strike fourteen. Canada is like RIGHT THERE.)

……….

DarkVenomKitty91: I’m really mad at my brother.

Me: Why?

DarkVenomKitty91: He got a girl pregnant again. I’m going to get back at him though. I’m going to have sex on his bed and come on his pillow and just rub it in. (Strike googol.)

……….

Me: We all got very sick when we returned after the hurricane. There was a lot of mold and such.

DarkVenomKitty91: There was a hurricane?

Me: Yes.

DarkVenomKitty91: When it rained so much a few weeks ago?

Me: No, the real hurricane. K---ina. I haven’t lived in Philadelphia my whole life.

DarkVenomKitty91: That’s right, you are old. Strike googolplex.

………...

DarkVenomKitty91: Do you have any pot with you?

Me: No, I don’t smoke pot.

DarkVenomKitty91: Really? That’s weird. Will you buy us alcohol later?

Me: Sure! If it gets me out of here I’ll buy you C4 and the plans to Fort Knox.

…………

My phone: And as she walked up to the blackboard I can still recall….

Me: Hello?

Meg: Hi. We, uh, have a writing emergency. And I need you to get me the McCleary report in an hour or you’re fired, or something. Whatever. Is it going badly?

Me: Yes, you could say that.

Meg: That sucks. I’m ripped on medieval ale! They let me drink out of the horn!

Me, trying to be convincing: So the meeting is Monday? I guess I’ll have to get to work, then.

Meg, drunk: Meeting? We have a meeting?

Me, still trying to be convincing: Yeah, I know Larry is anxious to see our drafts, so I’ll go get the revisions done tonight.

Meg, still drunk: We have a meeting with Larry? What? Are you writing a post tonight? Say “uh-huh” if you are.

Me: Uh-huh. Well, I better go get these revisions done…

Meg: Can you talk? I’m having SO MUCH FUN at Renfest, although I guess I shouldn’t have gone since we apparently have a meeting Monday? Anyway, I got to drink beer out of a horn!

Me: I need to let you go so I can do these revisions…

Meg: What revisions? Are you mad at me?

……..

So I escaped, which was easier than expected. DarkVenomKitty91 had gotten a text he apparently didn’t like and had started sulking, so I had been talking to Fag Hag about New Zealand and World War One propaganda for about fifteen minutes. I made my excuses and left. Over the next few days, this textversation:

DarkVenomKitty91: so that day was a fail

Me: Well, everyone has a bad day.

DarkVenomKitty91: so wat do u think of me now

Days pass…

DarkVenomKitty91: where u able to get ur work done hun

Days pass…

DarkVenomKitty91: hey r we stil talkin or do u want me 2 delete ur number

DarkVenomKitty91: i take that as a no u coulda at least told mec

To be fair, I could have, except that would have required talking to him. You have one shitty hangout with me, and you think that allows you to call me hun? #overfamiliarityfail.

The moral of the story, such as it is, is that I love my friend Butter Legs:

Butter Legs: So how did your investigative reporting date go?

Me: He wore pajama pants and wanted to meet me in front of Olive Garden.

Butter Legs: Oh, he didn’t even get dressed for bottomless breadsticks? That’s disgusting. I hope you hit him with a hammer a number of times.

And now, lest you doubt my love, dear readers, I have to go watch The Human Centipede. For you, dear readers. For you.