Valentine: A Retrospective

We all agree: boys have a hard time figuring out what to get their girlfriends for Valentine’s Day. And girlfriends everywhere are baffled by this.

Guys, it’s so easy. If it’s pretty, soft, fragrant, tasty, expensive, sexy or shiny, it’s good. If it’s something you would get your dad, it’s bad.

Girls, it’s so easy. If he deigns to celebrate this stupid, trumped-up holiday at all, he’s great. If not, he’s probably still pretty good.

By the way, girls, if you expect a gift you’d better be prepared to give one. This ain’t Sex and the City.

This year I got Gene a Barbie card and a six dollar book. He bought me a laptop. It’s red. Valentine themed!

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Lust.

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Like a simile

The champagne experiment was a success. Get your inner critic a little drunk and he rolls over like a big dumb dog.

I’ve recently realized that “like a big dumb dog” is my favorite simile. I use it all the time.

When abroad:

“You can tell Californians from other Americans. A Californian is like a big dumb dog: we jump and slobber all over you saying ‘like me! Like me! Like me!'”

In matters of the heart:

“I say I’m over that guy but as soon as he calls I wanna jump back in his lap like a big dumb dog.”

In cuisine:

“When Gene’s out of town I will systematically eat everything in the fridge like a big dumb dog, no matter how old or terrible it is.”

“Big” is a key part of this. Big dogs seem dumber to me. Small dogs seem cunning, like the cats or rats they sometimes resemble. Small dogs might have a plan to come at your ankles from the side. Big dogs don’t need that kind of planning ability because there’s no way you can ward them off even if you see them coming.

If I had more opportunities to describe Michele, I would probably also use the simile “like a smart little cat” a lot.

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This is not my big dumb dog and smart little cat.

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Why not me

You spend seven days working on your paying jobs and when you return to the book your inner critic has used seven days to rejuvenate and is up and running like a Yamaha. How to shut him up? Might a mimosa help? Many great authors were drunks why not me.

Sorry Gene I drank the champagne

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13

It is Friday the 13th. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.

I foresee a lot of last-minute plans having unlucky results.

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Ice Beetles

For unimportant reasons, I spent a little time considering ice beetles today.

Now, on the one hand, nobody cares about ice beetles. On the other hand, I do think that any uninteresting thing sounds much more interesting if you add a climatic phenomenon to it. Consider:

Hurricane lamps

Lava lamps

Snow shoes

Storm drains

Sun dogs (generally they bark at the break of dawn)

(It occurs to me that I only find things like storm drains interesting because, living in California, I do not know what they are.)

Some other ones that should exist:

Sleet TV

Drought baseball

Tsunami meatloaf

Maybe ice beetles are also interesting because they are real, but also made up. Like Tataouine.

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Adam has a conversation with a stranger in Vegas

“Okay, we’ve been watching you, and I had to come over and ask: one guy and seven girls. How are you doing that? I mean, I’m here with my bachelor party. What is this?”

My bachelor party.”

“…” [To his friends] “You guys suck.”

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Vegas

In Vegas, beauty equals currency. Beautiful women jump to the front of the lines. Men buy them drinks. They don’t pay the cover charge.

As an ordinary woman, you start to think in terms of big changes to be made, weight to lose and hair products to buy. You too want to be first in line and not pay the cover charge.

Then you come home and remember you have slightly bigger ambitions and you go back to writing your book and ignoring your hair.

Michele covers the full story of our wonderful, wonderful weekend here, though she failed to cover her ass, as you will see.

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Here Comes Trouble

Adam: So…why aren’t you coming to Vegas, again?

Gene: I think I like to do different things at Vegas than this crew will. Vegas is about vice. It’s about drinking and gambling and tits. It’s about getting into trouble.

Kris: You don’t think that combining drinking, strippers and your girlfriend on the same trip would lead to trouble?

Gene: Wrong kind.

Kris: Ah.

Yes, friends, in just a few short hours I leave for a weekend in Vegas to celebrate the birth of my best Michele. We shall be seven girls and Adam, and together we shall rule the strip with our estrogen power! And Adam!

I do not have an interest in seeing tits in Vegas, it’s true. However, I find I am craving a lavender-lit room, soft music, and a soothing $200 spa massage from a handsome, dark-complected man who is maybe named Raoul.

But probably I will just drink a lot.

Vegas!

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Onion rings

I ventured into darkest Tenderloin yesterday and passed a strip club that offered to host your bachelor party or your divorce celebration. I wonder how many weddings have been called off thanks to one drunken conversation between a groom-to-be and his divorced counterpart on the other side.

The Loin smells like unwashed human, but also like onion rings. I like it when the city gives these unexpected little gifts.

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Reading about bees

In the winter, mice climb into commercial beehives. The hives are warm and in the cold weather the bees are drowsy and not inclined to sting a fuzzy little intruder. The mice build their nests there in the hives and feed on the honeycombs while they raise their babies among the bees. I love to imagine this: a tiny mammal living in the insect world, everything strange and buzzing and bloodless around her. It’s similar to how I feel when I picture Katy working in a corporate office.

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The mouse in the mess.

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