To Serve Men

I like to cook stuff and I like to watch cooking shows. This, inevitably, leads me to want to cook almost everything I see on TV.

I don't, of course. My kitchen has no room. The counter-space in nonexistent. To do any real chopping I use a table thing on wheel my mom bought for me about six months after I move up. It's not perfect (and it now has a box fan on it), but it works.

Still, I can't really do, at least well, the things I see on TV. I don't have a food processor or blender, see the no room thing, since I don't even have cupboard space to store them, nor do I have a standing mixer. Someday, though, I will. I'll have room and some of the simpler gadgets that aren't necessary, but really great to have.

Anyway, yesterday I was watching Rick Bayless's show on PBS. He was making carnitas. First he used pork and then he used duck.

My entire being wanted to rush out to and buy a boston butt, or two, and start roasting. I didn't. I mean, what would I do with that much meat. I couldn't eat it and my fridge/freezer isn't very large.

His food looked so good. I swear I could smell it through the TV.

In the end, as with, it seems, every episode of his show, he had a dinner party to serve what he cooked to his friends and family.

And here's where the "dream" (for lack of a better word) falls apart, for me. I want to cook the large quantities of food. I want to roast the boston butt, cook massive amounts of chicken and rice over an open fire on a giant metal platter, and bury a whole pig in a pit to cook all day. I want to do that and I want other people to eat it and enjoy it. I just don't want to be with people as they eat and talk and whatever.

Yeah, I want to do everything that Mr. Bayless does on his show. Except for that last part. I could do without that.

Here's Something:

Apparently, it's so ingrained in me that I am an asshole, that I'm an asshole even in my dreams.

All this week, I've made people I care about cry, in my dreams. Three different people in three different dreams last night.

And, in my dreams, I revel in my asshole-ish-ness. In my dreams, I enjoy being an asshole to the people I care about.

Of course, it probably doesn't help that I've spent a large portion of the last two weeks obsessing over an e-mail I sent out about 23 months ago. Yeah, now that's healthy.

Dear Friend,

Since I'm going to be __ ______ on ___ _______ and you're going to be having ____ ________ a bit later __ ___ _____, I've been thinking about ____ __ ___ ___.

It's been hard.

So hard, in fact, that went back and skimmed almost everything you've blogged. And you've been blogging for a while.

I need an ____, though.

The problem is that we're adults, you know. Not just adults, but adults who are __________ ______-_____. You can pretty much go out and ___ ____ you ____, you know?

And then there's the fact that you have ____. You put ____ first, which is the way it should be. Still, you fill your ______ ________ with thing that you ____ ___ ____. But what do ___ ____?

I thought I'd get some ideas by reading what you were thinking _____ _____ ___. You were thinking things that I was thinking, which isn't _________ _ ___ ___ ___.

See, the problem is that I ____ __ ___ you _________ ___________. Something _________. My first idea fell though. You ____ ___.

I'm sure I'll figure something out. I usually do.

Your pal,

ticknart

Transparent Eyeball?

Have you ever had a moment of realization where you know, KNOW, something, good or bad or neutral, with complete and utter certainty? How did you feel? Relieved? Good? Bad? Confused?

I had one, a neutral one, about forty or fifty minutes ago while responding to an e-mail from my brother.

I've been awash with a million variation of nearly every emotion since then. It's almost overwhelming. My head feels stuffed with cotton or wool.

It's doubtful that anything good will come and I'm not sure if knowing is good. It's just what it is.

The Return

This morning TMSV went around asking people, "What's the good news?"

All I could think of was, "Jesus is coming back!"

I didn't say anything, though.

Nothing and Death

Time is encroaching on me. Soon my workday will be over and then I will not have time to write this. Not that I have any sort of goal in mind as I start tapping my chubby fingers on the keyboard. Whatever, right?

There was some sad news this morning. Harvey Pekar died. He was the guy who wrote the American Splendor comics. He also co-starred in the movie based on the comics. The best post that I've read about him today is this one here. I haven't read nearly enough of Pekar's stuff to feel like the Ferret, but I've read enough to know that Pekar's writing is something worth aiming at.

The BASTARD's Posting More About Fan Fiction

It's been nearly 11 months since I started on this most recent fan fiction bender. In the past, the benders only lasted three or four months and then I'd move off of it. This time, though, I see no end in sight. Probably because, this time, I'm doing most of my reading in between the pushing of paper at work.

Anyway, there's a site I can get to while here at work. It's full of lots of fan fiction based on Daria, and the guy who writes it is one of the muchly better writers of fan fiction to boot. (My biggest qualm with his stuff is that he has the characters hug and say, "I love you." too easily. It may just be my problem, though.) As I'm working my way through his stuff (copy/paste into Word and read from there) I've started to wonder about fan fiction writers, in general and this one in particular, and their need to take the characters they love and place them in other times, other worlds, and such and, quite often, changing the character in probably unintended ways.

This fan fiction writer has done this sort of thing several times: In one he has the Cuban Missile Crisis lead to war, although he doesn't explore what happens after the first day and it's really about the childhood of a parent. In another, Charles Manson's dream sort of comes true. Siblings and a ghost. A girl out of time, think The Flight of the Navigator. In the mid-40s, two girls bond over rockets, not yet finished. And a Daria who knew of the girl who hated Mondays moves to Lawndale, after attending an "alternative" school, in 2007. All of these are quite good and very interesting. All of them have characters that are similar to their TV show counterparts, but often not the same in important ways.

(I'd like to be clear that I'm not writing about crossover fan fiction. That's a whole other beast.)

There are always "logical" reason for the differences -- age, zombie white people, a death, aliens, war, Brenda Spencer -- but it's still jarring, to me. And the fact that the changes are often jarring leads me to wonder: Why make these stories, which are in so many ways different than the TV show, into fan fiction? Why not make them wholly original stories with original characters?

Okay, so some are challenges: "Take a character and drop him/her into D-Day." or whatever. But to write an 85000 word novel seems overkill to me.

I suppose people could say it's done for the love of writing:

"its fan fiction. It's not going to be published. I did it because I love to write."

Couldn't you still love writing and use original characters for this original plot?

"But I love these characters."

You altered the characters so much that really only their names are the same.

"I had to change the characters some. A war's on. They wouldn't be the same people in 1944."

But why'd you have to kill her sister? Getting rid of that relationship alters a lot about the main character.

"It increased the drama and let her show her emotions more than she did on TV."

Wasn't the fact that she held onto her emotions with an iron grip part of the reason you love the character, though?

"Yeah. So?"

I could be wrong about that whole conversation, but I don't think I am.

After writing this and forcing myself to think about it, I bet the real reason this kind of fan fiction is written is because putting labeling as such ensures it'll be read. It ensures some kind of feedback.

You won't always get that writing for the love of writing and then posting it somewhere or sending it out to an editor or an agent. And there's no way to track how often it may have been read.

I think a hugely important part of fan fiction, for the writers, is knowing that, no matter what's written, it'll be read by people who will, in some way, appreciate it. Even if it's only because the characters share names and appearances with characters who appeared on TV, or in a movie, or in a book, or on stage, or where ever.

There are always "logical" reason for the differences -- age, zombie white people, a death, aliens, war, Brenda Spencer -- but it's still jarring, to me. And the fact that the changes are often jarring leads me to wonder why make this stories, that are in so many ways different than the TV show, into fan fiction? Why not make them wholly original stories with original characters?

Okay, so some are challenges: "Take a character and drop him/her into D-Day." or whatever. But to write an 85000 word novel seems overkill to me.

I suppose people could say it's done for the love of writing:

"It's fan fiction. It's not going to be published. I did it because I love to write."

Couldn't you still love writing and use original characters for this original plot?

"But I love these characters."

You altered the characters so much that really only their names are the same.

"I had to change the characters some. A war's on. They wouldn't be the same people in 1944."

But why'd you have to kill her sister? Getting rid of that relationship alters a lot about the main character.

"It increased the drama and let her show her emotions more than she did on TV."

Wasn't the fact that she held onto her emotions with an iron grip part of the reason you love the character, though?

"Yeah. So?"

I could be wrong about that whole conversation, but I don't think I am.

After writing this and forcing myself to think about it, I bet the real reason this kind of fan fiction is written is because putting labeling as such ensures it'll be read. It ensures some kind of feedback.

You won't always get that writing for the love of writing and then posting it somewhere or sending it out to an editor or an agent. And there's no way to track how often it may have been read.

I think a hugely important part of fan fiction, for the writers, is knowing that, no matter what's written, it'll be read by people who will, in some way, appreciate it. Even if it's only because the characters share names and appearances with characters who appeared on TV, or in a movie, or in a book, or on stage, or where ever.

Eight Sided House

Stumbled on this website today.

It chronicles a family building an octagon house.

There's a floor plan, although they exclude the basement. (I wish they hadn't. Having grown up in CA I've only ever seen on house with a basement, and it was pretty creepy/disgusting. I'd like to see what they did with theirs, though.) There are tons of pictures. The guy did a journal of building it.

The whole thing's just fascinating and turns out quite lovely in the end.

I think I'd like to live in a house like that when I grow up.

In the Time of Minimum Wage

I got my eyes checked yesterday and then ended up spending more than $200 on a pair of prescription sunglasses.

You know what I learned?

I learned that getting polarized lenses costs an extra $85. That's $10 more than my vision plan covers to get new glasses.

Of course, I did get the polarization. The girl helping me didn't even have to go into her spiel about how its better for the eyes and blocks out stuff and such. I knew all that before.

Here's to hoping my prescription doesn't change much in the next five or so years.

From 25 to 0

Today was okay. I wasn't feeling great, but I wasn't feeling bad either. I was just doing the stuff I needed to do and the day was moving along at a reasonable pace.

After lunch, as I set my book down on the desk, I noticed a largish pile of ratings for me to mail out and scan. "Okay," I thought, "but where are the medical reports and requests?" The rater used to, a long time ago, keep the reports and requests and toss them in her To Shred box. Then the PJ decided that individuals should be responsible for their shredding and not the clerks. (Apparently one of us shredded something that wasn't supposed to be shredded even though it had been tossed in the giant box by the shredder that we were supposed to periodically clean out. Of course it was all our fault. We should have known better than to shred the stuff that was in the box full of paper to be shredded.) After he made that decision, the Rater started sending me all the crap that needed to be shredded by including it with actual ratings. So, I saw that there was no crap to be shredded, something's up.

I looked at the top rating. The injured worker lives in Marysville. Marysville is north of Cowcity. Not our venue. I leaf through the pile and notice that none of the ratings are going to our venue. In fact, all of them are going to the same venue. A venue we were doing ratings for last month for overtime. Overtime which has been canceled because the state still has no budget.

Now, lucky me, I get to do the serving and the prepping and the scanning and the completion and the checking to make sure that all the fucking documents went in the right case or any case at all during my normal hours because, as the PJ said, it was put on my desk to do. That's 90 to 150 minutes of work time, depending on how well the systems work.

It's not that its using up my regular work hours, which it is, that bothers me. (And, yeah, I get the irony of me wasting work time writing this.) I can get over that. I know how to adjust my processes to make up for the extra work and get myself caught up by the end of the week. What bothers me is that it's up to 2.5 hours that I could (should!) be getting for overtime. I feel cheated out of that little bit of extra money.

Also, I'm pissed at the PJ being an asshole. Doubt he'd do some other venues work if it showed up on his desk and was obviously not ours. Bet he'd send it back to that venue and tell the PJ there to go fuck him(or her)self.

Yeah, the day's not so okay anymore.

Nashville is 35

Jim Emerson takes a look at the crowds of Nashville.

Nashville's one of those movies that blew me away when I first saw it. I saw it in a film class when I was 18. I immediately rented it and watched it three more times in the two days I had it.

Emerson says:

This is a movie about the crowd, spectatorship -- about watching, and watching the watchers watch what they watch -- and these faces have become familiar acquaintances, like those kids you saw in the hallways at school but never really knew. One of the glories of "Nashville" is that you imagine the movie could have followed any of these folks and added their lives to the tapestry. As a wise man once said, god is in the details.

And he's so damned right.

I wish I owned it so I could look at it again. (...and again and again and again...)

Because I have (soon to be) family to tell me.

So, I see this blog post (Thanks Google Reader Explore!) and have no idea what it's about. I assume it's a protest. WebSense blocked Google from translating the page, so I had no idea what's going.

Then I turn to someone who can tell me what's going on, my brother's fiancée, who's from Beijing. I ask her if it's a protest and what the protest is about. Here's what she sent me:

hahaha! it is not a protest! it is an art thing! for the fun of it. It's dorm in Beihang University. These are all bed sheets~

it says as such: 

Dear security aunt we miss you. (funny casual sarcasm: security women guards are usually mean women that would do such things as snap at young couples if they kiss or hug.... we tend to not like them and call them aunt in a teasing way... Well sometimes there are good motherly ones too, so maybe this one is real that they do miss her.)

also, 

Any girl that would take me home? 

or,

I walk away with hurt eggs (eggs referring to balls). 

or 

Beihang girls only marry Beihang boys!

or 

goodbye Beihang we love you

Some jiberishes too for fun... I don't see any signs of protest..... why do you think this is protest?

Obviously, I'm a reactionary, ethnocentric American who assumes other cultures don't have a sense of humor.

Fun stuff, though, even if I am an idiot.

MINIMUM WAGE! Heyah!

The court has made a decision!

Of course I expect another appeal to come by Tuesday.

It's the uncertainty that's the killer.

My (lack of) Comments

One of the problems with this Websense things is that there are times, although rare, when I can get to a .blogspot.com page. When I can get there I can read everything and comment and all that. When I can't get to the page, I can't comment on other people's blogs.

I can, however, get to mine. Most of the time.

One of the things I can see in my Site Meter info is out clicks. Sometimes, when someone clicks to post a comment that link will become an out click and then I can get to the comments and add my own. Recently, though, they haven't been coming up.

Such is the stupidity of whatever.

My Bad, We're Getting $7.25 and hour

Something from the Sacramento Bee Article:

Roughly 200,000 state workers will receive minimum wage paychecks next month under terms of an order issued Thursday by the Schwarzenegger administration.

According to a letter delivered to Controller John Chiang in late afternoon, July pay for most hourly state employees will be withheld to the minimum allowed by federal law – $7.25 an hour – and then restored once there's a budget.

So, this happened to us a couple of years ago, too. The Governator sent out a letter telling the Controller to pay us minimum wage, which was $6.75 back then. The Controller didn't. The Controller says he won't do it this time, either. However, two years ago the Controller was sued over his decision and lost. That decision was appealed and the appeal was heard about two weeks ago. Who knows when the judge will give his decision on the matter.

People are freaking out. The union I'm in doesn't have a deal and they're telling us, via e-mail,  that it's "fear tactic" and a "bargaining ploy." Well, duh.

I figure I'll wait to freak out after the appeal's finished.

Smiles, everyone.

Some Good and More Bad

Furloughs are officially over.
That's good.

The Governator wants all state employees to start getting paid $6.75 and hour starting today.
That's bad.

Because the Controller defied the minimum wage thing last year, the whole idea's in court and if it's not decided on by the 23rd, or so, we'll get full pay.
That's good.

If we get full pay, odds are furloughs will come back.
That's bad, but better than federal minimum wage.

We, who work for the state, are once again caught in the time of uncertainty.
That's bad.

The budget was due on June 15th so it could be put in place when the new fiscal year started at 12:01 this morning.
That's bad.

Assembly members and Senators went home.
That's bad.

I am a petty, petty guy.

There was a "party" at lunch today. I didn't go.

When I've written about work parties in the past, I wrote that I thought they were stupid and I didn't want to go, but I have always gone. I'd grab a plate of food. I'd sit out of the way. I'd eat, quietly. I'd wish I wasn't there. But I'd go to the stupid party.

Today, I sat at my desk. I didn't get any food and, other than the potato chip I ate about three minutes ago, I didn't eat anything.

This party was to celebrate the worst person here and his thirty-some odd years of employment with the state. Today is is last day, and I refused to go to his party.

Many people in the office can separate the idea of the party from the person it's celebration. I can't.

The guy is so horrible to the people he's supposed to work with that about 10% of those who have dealt with him in the past have refused to go to him again. He has reduced, probably already stressed out people, to tears by refusing to acknowledge their questions. He doesn't listen to anybody. He just assumes he knows what's going to be asked. He tells these long stories that end with a point, but have never been relevant to the actual question or conversation. He's yelled at injured workers in the lobby and refused to take injured workers into a more private setting because it would be invading his space. He sends people away because the woman in the office who speaks Spanish is at lunch or out for the day because he doesn't want to use the over the phone translation service. He's an asshole.

At least he's that way at work. I can't say what he's like outside of the office. He may be the kindest person imaginable. He may sit and listen to the problems of his family and friends completely before offering advice or an opinion. He may respect the privacy of those in his life. He may.

I don't know, though. I only see him being a useless asshole of a human being. Within my first month working here, I knew who the person in this office was that give truth to the lazy, self righteous, arrogant, state employee cliché.

Now, if they'd thrown a "good riddance, make sure to help the door hit him on his ass on his way out" party, I would have gone.

Well, as long as he didn't go.

Gunkanjima

Off the coast of Japan, there's an island with an abandoned and crumbling concrete jungle. And there are lots of amazing pictures at that link.

It's like a bazillion post-apocalyptic science fiction stories brought to  like. It's almost exactly how I imagined Castledown in The Voyages of Jerle Shannara books.

Pictures of Oil on Pensacola Beach

From Tampa Bay's blog.

This is a link to my favorite picture. Its description says, "A trench dug by a group of USF geologists shows a continuous layer of oil approximately six inches beneath the surface of Pensacola Beach..."

A while ago, I posted a picture that showed the oil moving through the Gulf and said I thought it was beautiful. I still think that. I think some of these pictures a beautiful, too.

Even in disaster, even in disgust, even in horror, there's beauty.

I'm not trying to dismiss what's going on out there in the Gulf. If I never saw the images coming out now, I'd have been perfectly fine with that. Since I have, though, I'm not going to deny what I'm seeing on TV and how it takes my breath away not just because I hate it, but because I like what I'm seeing, too.

I'll leave you with this quote from under this pictures:

Footprints are left on Pensacola Beach on June 23. Signs on trash cans at at the beach ask that visitors leave only footprints when they depart. Overnight, tides left the beaches strewn with tar balls, oil mousse, and sludge from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

A Response

Found via galadarling.com. Google reader's explore button is fun! (Also, I didn't see a link to the original letter, so, there you go.)

A Letter To Men by Christina Hendricks

We love your body. If we're in love with you, we love your body. Your potbelly, everything. Even if you're insecure about something, we love your body. You feel like you're not this or that? We love your body. We embrace everything. Because it's you.

I'm going to start off with the "we" thing. You, Ms. (or Mrs. or Miss, or whatever you prefer) Hendricks are not all women. The Lorax may speak for the trees, but that's only because they don't have voices of their own. Women have voices, and typing fingers all of their own.

I understand you're trying to make a point and say that women in general don't think like men think they do. I get it, but really, you're just speaking for you and the subset of all women who think in a similar way to you. I also get that the word "we" makes more of an impact on a readership that the word "I" does. It's harder for people to brush away a group than it is to brush aside an individual. Still, I want you to realize that I know you're really just talking about your preferences.

Also, I'll only be speaking for me, not some mythical "all men," many of which probably disagree with my musical lovin' self in many, many ways.

On to the body thing, it's confusing. Are you allowed to feel insecure about your hips and thighs and lips and breasts even though I say I think you look great, but I'm not allowed feel insecure about my belly or pecs or hairy shoulders or balding head when you tell me you think I look good? As an insecure guy, those moments I choose believe you when you say you like my appearance, I feel really good about myself, but I can't promise that I'll believe you all the time because those insecurities are so deep in my being it's easy to dismiss the things that don't fit my self image. Understand, it's not usually about you when I don't believe your words, it's about selfish old me and my wandering mood; I can go from zero to self loathing just as fast as you can.

Speaking of your body, you don't understand the power of your own smell. Any woman who is currently with a man is with him partly because she loves the way he smells. And if we haven't smelled you for a day or two and then we suddenly are within inches of you, we swoon. We get light-headed. It's intoxicating. It's heady.

I assume, though, that you still want me to keep showering in the morning, right?

I feel the same way about your smell, too. Don't cover it up with heavy perfumes. A little goes a long way and a small touch of the right one can add an accent to your natural smell that makes me melt inside.

Really, for me, I prefer it when you have a nice smelling shampoo and I can smell it and you together at the point where your neck curves into your shoulder. It's a spot I could breathe in for the rest of my life.

We remember forever what you say about the bodies of other women. When you mention in passing that a certain woman is attractive — could be someone in the office, a woman on the street, a celebrity, any woman in the world, really — your comment goes into a steel box and it stays there forever. We will file the comment under "Women He Finds Attractive." It's not about whether or not we approve of the comment. It's about learning what you think is sexy and how we might be able to convey it. It's about keeping our man by knowing what he likes.

It's not just "about keeping our man by knowing what he likes" if this sort of crap gets dragged out during fights.

I look.

I comment.

You store and then you whip it out during a fight like it was an awful thing to do, three weeks ago; that's your choice, but don't tell me that you only file it away only for personal reference. You remember EVERYTHING. At the time, you may not consciously plan to fling it back in my face, in fact, I doubt it's ever planned, but you always seem to pull it out to clobber me with it when we're angry with each other. I'm not asking you to change that about yourself, just be aware, be honest with yourself and with me.

We also remember everything you say about our bodies, be it good or bad. Doesn't matter if it's a compliment. Could be just a comment. Those things you say are stored away in the steel box, and we remember these things verbatim. We remember what you were wearing and the street corner you were standing on when you said it.

Yeah, don't I know it. See that comment about the fight up above. Strange, though, you rarely, if ever, bring up those times I said how wonderful parts of your body are, just the negative things we said.

Never complain about our friends — even if we do. No matter how many times we say a friend of ours is driving us crazy, you are not to pile on. Not because it offends us. But because it adds to the weight that we carry around about her.

If you don't want me to complain about your friend, in front of you, then you have to promise to never ask me my opinion of them. Yeah, usually know better than to just blurt out what I think about them, but there are always those moments where I'm distracted by the TV or even the cereal box and you ask and I tell you the truth.

If you really, really, really do want to know if I like your friends and I say I don't, don't ask me to tell you why, because I will. It's not (often) about hurting your relationships with your friends, but it's about being honest with you in our relationship. I'll put up with your friends that I don't like when I have to, and I'll do my damnedest to keep quiet about it, but when you ask, I'm letting go and you're going to get an earful.

Sorry.

Remember what we like. When I first started dating my husband, I had this weird fascination with the circus and clowns and old carnival things and sideshow freaks and all that. About a month after we started dating, he bought me this amazing black-and-white photo book on the circus in the 1930s, and I started sobbing. Which freaked him out. I thought, Oh, my God, I mentioned this three or four weeks ago and talked about it briefly, but he was really listening to me. And he actually went out and researched and found this thing for me. It was amazing.

I'll try to remember, but make sure that you don't fake that you like it. When I buy you a frog on a bicycle because I remembered when we were walking through a craft fair, or something, and you comment on how cute a frog dressed as a little boy was, but you don't really like frogs, it's cool if you pretend to like it in the moment because I don't want to be hurt as much as you don't want to hurt me, but make sure to tell me before the next gift giving time, otherwise, I'll probably get you another frog. I don't want to turn you into a frog lady if you don't really like frogs, don't let me. Be honest with me.

We want you to order Scotch. It's the most impressive drink order. It's classic. It's sexy. Such a rich color. The glass, the smell. It's not watered down with fruit juice. It's Scotch. And you ordered it.

If you really want me to order it, I will, but do I have to drink it? Oh, and if you really wanted it for yourself, order it for yourself. I think that women who aren't afraid of ordering what they want are sexy.

Stand up, open a door, offer a jacket. We talk about it with our friends after you do it. We say, "Can you believe he stood up when I approached the table?" It makes us feel important. And it makes you important because we talk about it.

I'm glad you told me this, but I make no promises.

If it's cold, I expect you to bring something warm. I'm not giving up my jacket if I'm cold. We can do the whole you-tucked-up-against-my-body-under-my-jacket thing, but I don't like to reward stupidity for looking classy, or whatever.

On the door thing, I'll try. I'm pretty good about holding doors to buildings open for everyone. If I'm the one who's driving, and can unlock your side without having to go to the driver side first, there's a good chance I'll open that door for you, but when we're getting out of the car I'll expect you to know how to pull the door handle thing all on your own. You're a big girl, you know how.

As for the standing thing, that depends on my mood and how long I've known you. If I'm in a bad mood, I won't stand for you. If I've known you for a while and am comfortable with you I'll probably stay sitting because you, hopefully, know me better, too.

No shorts that go below the knee. The ones almost like capri pants, the ones that hover somewhere between the kneecap and the calf? Enough with those shorts. They are the most embarrassing pants in the world. They should never be worn. No woman likes those.

Done. I don't like 'em myself.

Also, no tank tops. In public at least. A tank top is underwear. You're walking around in your underwear. Too much.

Also done. Never liked tank tops.

No man should be on Facebook. It's an invasion of everyone's privacy. I really cannot stand it.

Personally, I don't think anyone should be on Facebook. I don't like it those sorts of sites that seem to be so much about popularity, where you get nasty e-mail, or whatever, because you don't want to be "friends" with someone who was in you third grade class.

Since it exists, though, I don't think it should be limited by sex. Sexism is sexism no matter which sex it's aimed at. If it was aimed at just kids, that's cool, but unlikely since there's no good way to prove your age online, yet.

Also, if you see it as an invasion of privacy I hope you're not on it. Or is it okay for you, but not me?

If this is more about me checking up on your Facebook status, well, that's a different story.

You have to realize, though, if you're on Facebook, it's not private. Strangers, male and female, are constantly looking at it. Is that more comforting to you, knowing that strangers are looking at your pictures and reading your thoughts than knowing that I'm looking and reading? What does that say about us and our ability to trust each other?

You don't know this, but when we come back from a date, we feel awkward about that transition from our cute outfit into sexy lingerie. We don't know how to do this gracefully. It's embarrassing. We have to find a way to slip into another room, put on the outfit as if it all happened very easily, and then come out and it's: Look at me! Look at the sexy thing I've done! For you, it's the blink of an eye. It's all very embarrassing. Just so you know.

You know what I like, I like to participate in the undressing more than I like the sexy lingerie. If you want to play dress-up, okay. If you have to step out of the room to put on the sexy dress-up underwear, fine, go for it, but know that I like fumbling at your tiny buttons while we're close to each other.

Hell, on the nights I'm not getting lucky, I like to watch you pull your shirt over your head, revealing your curves in all their spectacular glory. There's seduction in simplicity.

I like you to feel sexy, so, when you need to, I'll let you do what you need to do.

Panties is a wonderful word. When did you stop saying "panties"? It's sexy. It's girlie. It's naughty. Say it more.

Really? Sexy? It's not silly or childish? Really?

Okay.

About ogling: The men who look, they really look. It doesn't insult us. It doesn't faze us, really. It's just — well, it's a little infantile. Which is ironic, isn't it? The men who constantly stare at our breasts are never the men we're attracted to.

Yes, it's infantile, and I do apologize for doing it.

But, you see, there are these moments where it's like I'm 10 or 11 again and I'm just discovering the wonders of cleavage or that place where thigh meets butt and I stare. It's one of those moments where there's not a thought in my head. I'm just reacting.

There are better words than beautiful. Radiant, for instance. It's an underused word. It's a very special word. "You are radiant." Also, enchanting, smoldering, intoxicating, charming, fetching.

Better than beautiful? Or do you really just want me to vary the words I use?

I don't want to use some of those words to describe a person, but understand how you don't want things to be stuck in a rut. I'll do my best to change it up.

Marriage changes very little. The only things that will get a married man laid that won't get a single man laid are adultery and whores. Intelligence and humor (and your smell) are what get you laid. That's what got you laid when you were single. That's what gets you laid when you're married. Everything still works in marriage: especially intelligence and humor. Because the sexiest thing is to know you.

I disagree, marriage changes a lot.

We may still be who we were, but now we're really in this together. We depend on on another. There' s no more "your stuff" and "my stuff," it's now our stuff.

Before marriage me blowing $500 on a new phone or a new TV or something without consulting you maybe wasn't totally okay with you, but you can easily look past it. Me spending that much on something without talking to you about it after we're married becomes an unavoidable conflict. Same goes for you spending that much money without including me. Because after marriage the future becomes much more real.

The future's a lot more abstract to a single person. It's always tomorrow and tomorrow rarely comes. Until it comes it's only something that vaguely has to be worried about.

When you're married, though, the future's always there. Possible babies, a probable house, life insurance, work, and money, money, money are always there staring you in the face. In a marriage, the future is always now because life's not only about one person anymore.

Marriage may not change the people, but it changes nearly everything else, and that's a lot.