She had a one-night stand with Randall Whatshisname

It's been a while since I've blogged. But I just came across this story about a politician that I found a little... well I'll let you be the judge. Just to give you a little background though: this dude is like 40 or something, ostensibly a religious conservative. He's made some pretty outrageously stupid remarks in the past and during this campaign. But I was reading this tell-all written by a chick who apparently had a... shall we say close encounter with him a couple of years ago.

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_______I barely knew Randall when he turned up at my door at around eight o'clock on the night of Halloween. We'd met for the first and only time three months earlier when my two roommates and I signed the lease on our apartment: Randall's aunt owned the place we were moving into, and he happened to be up from Delaware visiting at the time. But we'd only spent about five minutes together that day and we hadn't spoken much, and I hadn't thought of him since.
_______Yet here he was standing outside my door with a friend. And both of them were pretty tipsy.
_______He asked if he and his friend could come inside our apartment to change into their costumes. He couldn't change at his aunt's place, he said, because she was sleeping and he didn't want to wake her up. Would we mind if he used our bathroom instead?
_______It was a pretty strange request. Sure, weird stuff happens on Halloween, but I barely knew him, and it isn't every day that someone shows up at your front door and asks to change into their astronaut costume. But I told him it was fine and he was welcome to use our place to get ready.
_______It didn't take long before the two guys—who'd clearly been drinking—were sitting on my couch, beers in hand, trying to convince my roommate and me to join them for a night on the town. Randall was in the holiday spirit dressed in his astronaut outfit. His friend, who had a pirate costume on, was much more quiet and reserved. He barely spoke all night.
_______It was a Wednesday evening, and my roommate and I hadn't been planning to go out. We both had to get up pretty early the next morning for work. But Randall was insistent that we join them, and he wasn't taking no for an answer. "Come on, girls! Let's go! Just throw something on!" he said.
_______The costume that I wore for the Halloween a year before—a girl scout’s uniform that belonged to a friend—was still sitting in my closet. So that made it easy. But my roommate had no idea what to put on.
_______Randall immediately came up with an idea. He pointed to a cardboard box in the kitchen—the kind that 12-packs of Coca-Cola come in—and told him to cut a hole in the middle and put it on top of his head. We weren't sure what he was suggesting.
_______"You can go as a cokehead!" he said, bursting into laughter.
_______With our costume situation sorted out, we headed to South Street, where lots of bars are located. Half an hour later, the four of us were seated at a table and knocking back beers.
_______It really didn't take very long for Randall to make his move. He'd grabbed my hand on the way from the apartment to South Street, so I can't say I was totally surprised when he leaned in to kiss me soon after we arrived at the bar.
_______I could tell when we first met that Randall was older than me. I was 25, and although I never asked his age, I'd have guessed he was in his early 30s. It was only recently that I found out his real age and learned he was in his late 30s when we hooked up. There's a 14-year gap between us, but he looks good for his age. I don't think I'd heard the word "manther" yet at that point, but that's probably what I'd call him.
_______Aggressive is another word I'd use to describe him. At the bar, he confessed to me that his aunt really hadn't been sleeping. He hadn't even gone to her apartment to check, he said. He had remembered me from our five-minute meeting the previous summer, and used the story about his aunt as an excuse to knock on my door. He'd set his sights on me from the beginning.
_______Randall was pretty intense, and he was pretty outspoken that night, but we didn't talk politics much. His aunt had told me that Randall ran for Senate a year earlier and had lost, so I knew a bit about his background. But the most political he got that night was when he said he attended lots of events in Washington that attracted congressmen and senators. "It would be nice to have a good-looking young lady to attend those with me," he added.
_______We'd probably knocked back five Heinekens when Randall leaned over and whispered in my ear that he wanted to go back to my place. Before we could go, though, he told me to ask his friend if he'd mind if I drove Randall home later that evening. That was odd. I guess Randall didn't want to come across as a manwhore in his friend's eyes for going home with me, so he wanted me to bring it up with his friend first.
_______I did what I was told and asked his friend if he had any objection to me hanging out with Randall a little longer provided I took him home later on in the evening. He didn't, and a few minutes after that, we were all headed back to my apartment. Randall's friend got in his car and went home. My roommate went to her bedroom and went to sleep. And Randall and I got cozy on the couch and popped open another beer.
_______Things got physical on the couch pretty quickly. It wasn't long before we'd moved from the living room to my bed.
_______I won't get into the nitty gritty details of what happened between the sheets that evening. But I will say that it wasn't half as exciting as I'd been hoping it would be. Randall was a decent kisser, but as soon as soon as his clothes came off and he was naked in my bed, Randall informed me that he was a virgin.
_______"You've got to be kidding," I said. He made it seem like he'd never had sex in his life, which seemed pretty improbable for a man his age. And he made it clear that he was planning on staying a virgin that night. But there were signs that he wasn't very experienced sexually. When his underwear came off, I immediately noticed that the waxing trend had completely passed him by.
_______Obviously, that was a big turnoff, and I quickly lost interest. I said goodnight, rolled over, and went to sleep. It was almost four o'clock in the morning. I had to get up at 6:30 to go to work.
_______Randall wasn't in the best of shape when my alarm clock went off three hours later. I was hung-over and exhausted and we'd both had about the same amount to drink, so I'm guessing he was feeling even worse. I got up and started to get dressed and told Randall he'd need to get up, too. But he clearly didn't want to budge, and even after I'd reminded him a few times, he was still under the covers. Did he think I was going to leave for work and let him sleep in my bed?
_______When he finally did get up and dressed and we got in the car, Randall couldn't remember exactly where his friend lived. We circled around for about 20 minutes before we found it, and I dropped him off in the parking lot next to his car, as he asked me to. We said goodbye and exchanged phone numbers and email addresses. But there wasn't a whole lot of back and forth. I didn't even try to give him a kiss goodbye.
_______I wasn't planning on contacting Randall after our night together. Things hadn't gone so great—especially the part that took place in my bedroom—and I didn't see any reason to try and see him again. But two or three days later, he emailed me to ask me if I wanted to hang out again. I made an excuse. But he didn't take a hint and emailed or called a few more times over the next couple of weeks before I was forced to make it clear to him that I wasn't interested.
_______Things worked out for the best, though. A few weeks later, Randall started dating my roommate. They went out for over a year, and it was a little awkward the first few times Randall came over to visit her at our apartment and we all had to make conversation in the living room. But that passed pretty quickly. And in case you're wondering, he never had sex with her either, as far as I know.
_______When I heard several months ago that Randall had decided to run again, I didn't take it very seriously. And I never expected in a million years that he'd end up winning the primary. But he did, and the morning after the election, I sat in disbelief as I watched the news on TV. For a second, I thought I might be hearing things and I went over to my computer and pulled up CNN.com to check if it was true. It was.
_______God, I hope the same thing doesn't happen next week.

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Okay, so I'm not a huge fan of Randall Whatshisface. He sounds like a douche, but that's not news exactly. However, some things struck me as rather curious. Never mind that a drunk dude she barely knows shows up with a friend at her apartment on a weeknight, to change into his Halloween costume - and she lets them both in, and ends up going out clubbing, even though she has to be up for work the next day at 6.30 am. People do silly things, usually to get drunk, high, or laid. BUT:

- Lady has a girl scout's uniform in her closet? A friend's uniform? That she borrowed and never returned?

- Lady is 25. Dude is in his thirties. Hardly enough of an age gap to get all "ooh you dirty old perv" don't you think? Oh WAIT SHE HAS A GIRL SCOUT'S UNIFORM SITTING AROUND IN HER CLOSET - now it all makes sense.

- And she's all "ooh he's so aggressive" and "ooh he's preying on poor innocent me" (look up 'manther' y'all). Did he stick his hand up her skirt? No. Grab her tits in public? No. HE DIDN'T EVEN WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH HER. Sounds more to me like an overgrown frat boy making drunken bootycall (booty visit?) to that fugly chick that he thinks won't say no. (Sorry if that sounds harsh - but someone has to say it.)

- She's got issues with pubic hair? And she wants us to believe HE'S the virgin? Which brings me to my final point:

- A nearly 40-year-old dude who hit on you and came home with you is suddenly telling you he can't have sex with you because he's (insert guffaw) "planning on staying a virgin"? Please. Maybe it's YOUR pubic hair. Or something else he saw down there that made him change his mind very quickly about getting in your pants.

- Your roommate dated this dude for a year. Did she know you'd almost but not quite hooked up with him that night? Either she knew, and still wanted to date him, i.e. you're not SUCH good friends. Or you never told her, i.e. you're not SUCH good friends. Either way, she's not gonna be sharing details of her sex life with her roommate that her boyfriend kinda jilted a year ago. Maybe she wants to spare your feelings. Maybe she thinks you're incapable of keeping your piehole shut.

So really, what we have here is a salacious OMG like totally tell-all non-story by some ditzy chick who got blown off this one time by a dickhead fourteen years older than her and then found out he was semi-famous. Whatevs.

I just can't believe Gawker would think this newsworthy.

Mybutthurts.com

Research papers + Looming deadlines --> Endless typing + Endless caffeine consumption -[Catalyst: Bad posture]-> Backache + Shoulder pain + Sore butt + Migraine + Insomnia --> Blogging when I should be writing research papers, given looming deadlines.

Okay, I should just sleep.

Tarzan's gay, too.

So KC and I had a shared existential crisis (her phrase, not mine)—and dinner—at a nice little Lebanese café after class today. Winter has set in, along with the end-of-semester gloom: laundry that won’t dry, papers that won’t write themselves, a poorly stocked library that won’t have the decency to stay open beyond five… it’s an endless list.

So we sat there and bitched and whined, and sipped the (free) tap water we were drinking because we were too broke for anything alcoholic. We compared notes on our roommates: whiney self-righteous hippie dude (mine) versus uptight self-righteous conservative Christian chick (hers). We agonized over what we were doing with our lives (Answer: Nothing). We wrestled with that tricky issue of who/what we want to be when we grow up (cool sexy bartender and manga translation typesetter, respectively). And having driven ourselves into a thorough little funk, we went our separate ways.

Before which KC got her roommate a cookie from the corner bakery, and I got my roommate a big bag of nothing.

So I came home and read Jungle King. Jungle King is a short yaoi manga by Sakurai Shushushu set in the ‘jungles of South Africa’ (quoi?), about a rescue worker (hah?) who falls in love with a jungle dude who swings from trees, loves animals, hates humans, and has but a rudimentary grasp of human language (i.e. Japanese). In short, it’s Tarzan of the Apes, except:
1. Tarzan is a Japanese dude,
2. Jane is a Japanese dude, and
3. Instead of apes, there’s ...smex.

SPOILERS AHEAD. Consider yourself warned.

The story starts with Hyper Rescue (I kid you not) team member Akira deciding to venture bravely into the aforementioned jungle to find his beloved senpai, Ryouichi, who had gone missing while on a solo mission. Akira enters jungle, promptly loses his way, gets kidnapped by bad guys who want to have their way with him, and is rescued in the nick of time by Loincloth Jungle Man. Akira can't believe his eyes: It’s Ryouichi senpai!

[Notice strategic smex-a-licious rips in Jungle Man’s loincloth. If you can tear your eyes off that freaky animal head, that is. Oh Jungle Man. Weren’t you supposed to love animals?]

But alas, Ryouichi has lost his memory, and doesn’t remember Akira. So they have sex.

But they’re seen by the captain of the rescue team, who is mad, mad, mad, because his dastardly plans to kill Ryouichi and claim Akira for himself have failed! Turns out he was the one who engineered Ryouichi’s ‘disappearance’—by pushing him off a cliff. So he tries again: he ties up Jungle Man with a rope (and don’t ask pesky questions like “How did he do that, isn't Jungle Man strong enough to fight off a bear with his bare hands?”) and pushes him into the river full of crocodiles who attempt to bite off his head. This has the interesting side-effect of restoring Jungle Man Ryouichi’s memory. He flexes his muscles in superhuman rage, breaks the bonds, leaps out of the water...

...and materializes by Akira’s side, just in time to rescue Akira from the lecherous captain, who was just about to have his way with him. Tears flow. They have sex.

Next chapter: Ryouichi accompanies Akira on his next rescue mission, on a snowcapped mountain. Akira is wearing weather-appropriate layers, but Ryouichi he only need his loincloth because he be Smexy Jungle Man In Touch With Mother Nature. There is an avalanche. Ryouichi and Akira are separated. Akira is rescued by:

Wild Bear Man, who tells him that the avalanche was caused by a Wicked Researcher to capture Ryouichi for his dastardly experiments. Together, they set out to rescue Ryouichi.

Ryouichi, meanwhile, has lost his memory again, thanks to the avalanche. Wicked Researcher decides that they need Akira to continue with the experiments (which involve Ryouichi wrestling with what appears to be a hormonal overgrown polar bear). Just as all the researchers have left to find Akira, Akira appears to rescue Ryouichi. But alas, Ryouichi has forgotten him… again!

Hoping to restore his senpai’s memory, Akira has sex with Ryouichi.

It does not work.

Enter Wicked Researcher with aforementioned polar bear, which attacks Akira and tries to have its way with him. At this sight, Ryouichi is filled with rage, which brings back his memory. The two escape. Akira wakes up in Ryouichi’s arms, in (the conveniently absent) Wild Bear Man’s cottage. They have sex.

Wild Bear Man appears, and the three of them escape to a cave. You knew there was a cave coming, didn’t you? I mean that’s all the story has been lacking so far, a cave. In the cave, Wild Bear Man tells them of his history with Wicked Researcher, who used to be his best friend. Aw. But then Wicked Researcher went over to the dark side… now all that Bear Man wants to do is see him, speak to him, ask him where things went wrong.

So Ryouichi and Akira go out, to look for a river, but the wicked rescue team captain from the previous chapter, the one who had the hots for Akira, shows up and shoots Ryouichi with an arrow with a King Cobra twined around it. (Don’t, just don’t ask.) Hahaha, he says to Akira, now I have ya, my pretty. Here’s the anti-dote in my hands… I’ll give it to you, if you’ll have sex with me. But just as the evil captain’s about to have his way with Akira, Ryouichi’s rage kicks in and cures him of snake poisoning.

At this juncture, Wicked Researcher shows up, and two panels later, so does Wild Bear Man. Accusations fly, tears are shed, and we learn that Wicked Researcher went over to the dark side because he thought Wild Bear Man cared for animals more than he did for Wicked Researcher. Sadness.

Wild Bear Man tells Wicked Researcher that their home is always there for him (Researcher) to return to. He turns and walks away, slowly. “Wait!” says Wicked Researcher, running after Wild Bear Man. Bear Man turns, and they kiss. Aw.

Then, to wrap up the story nicely, Akira and Ryouichi (the original couple, in case you’ve forgotten) do the sex again. And then Ryouichi reaches into the mouth of his loincloth animal head, and pulls out a key. “Here,” he tells Akira, just to be absolutely random about things, “my apartment key. …Let’s live together.”

The End.

I Can't Spell 'Bourgeoisie'

Wouldn't you like to get away?
Kerouac's beckoning with open arms,
And open fields of eucalyptus, westward bound

Wouldn't you like to get away?
Give yourself up to the allure of Catcher in the Rye
The future's swathed in stars and stripes

Now if I could write like that, I would be set for life. But then I would be Scottish and my name would be Stuart and I would have to eat haggis so then again maybe not. Nothing wrong with being Scottish, just that I'm a warm weather and intelligible accent sort of person. (No, don't fling rocks at me, Mimi, I love your accent I really really do.)

Damn it's hard to write with such singalongable awesome music playing and multiple Firefox tabs open with lyrics to each song, even that French one, oh la la. Incidentally, people, who here thinks that Sufjan Stevens might potentially be perhaps maybe possibly gay? He's certainly a dish, isn't he. (Objectively speaking, of course.)

These are the sort of intellectual exercises that keep me from finishing my class assignments. Yeah.

*Runs off to Google 'Devendra Banhart'.*

Procrastination Junction, W. Va.

It's nearly three in the morning, and I haven't slept. I have a presentation this afternoon, and a lecture at 10am, and yet... somehow... I... find it inexplicably more satisfying to be reading comics than writing about the economic dynamics of vulnerability in Somalia. This has less to do with the subject - which I am actually really interested in - and more to do with my sheer laziness and stubborn belief (repeatedly disproved though it is) that sleep is optional for full functionality.

Currently listening to a nice, mellow mix from KC. Any combination that features Justin Timberlake (c'mon, admit it, noone doesn't love JT) AND Cat Power has got to be a winner. Throw in some Belle & Sebastian and some White Stripes and it's practically a shot of methadone.

Does anyone remember that song, The Trapeze Swinger, from that lukewarm movie, you know the one I'm talking about, with Dennis Quaid and Scarlett Johannson and Topher Grace? That song was the best thing about the movie.

Sam Beam = Nick Drake + raspberry marshmallows.

While I still remember, let me vent about Scarlett Johannson for a bit. Everyone and their dentist seemed to be talking about what a terrific actress she is. Around that central idea of her awesome acting skills were all these other fluffy clouds of positive reinforcement: she's professional, she's well-liked, she's healthy/curvy/not-freakishly-skinny, she's Woody Allen's latest protégé, she's wholesome. Dammit, she's so likable it makes Debbie Reynolds look like a Mogambo.

Why, then, do her movies all suck?

I was unfortunate enough to catch the ridiculously titled Love Song For Bobby Long on a long-distance flight a few years ago, but gave her the benefit of doubt: she was young, it was a John Travolta movie, it was a John Travolta movie. But Lost In Translation, for all the hype, was a real letdown. All the pieces were there, and fit in prettily, but it was too smooth, too slick. And our girl was just... there. Which describes the extent of her contribution to the witty silliness of Scoop. I desperately wanted to like her, but apart from "It was marked down" (the fabulous red swimsuit), her lines all fell flat. There were a couple of extremely forgettable movies sandwiching her more high-profile ones (I haven't watched Match Point, by the way). The Prestige was terrific, but I'd attribute that to plot, the disjunctive narrative technique, and the combined awesomeness of Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Hall, Michael Caine, and the surprisingly unforgettable David Bowie. And it's harder to mess up in a supporting role in a horror/mystery movie than in a lead role in a comedy/drama.

So yeah, Scarlett Johannson is a bit... blah.

Now that we've settled that little matter, time to tackle Somalia! Somalia, here I come, as soon as I make myself a cuppa tea.

Things That You Find In Cities, Part II

Cities rule the universe!

Today I wandered into M- Central, and found myself gravitating towards a brightly lit shop with colourful items. Were they beads? Gummy bears? Candy underpants?

Turns out it was tea.

Packets and packets of tea, black tea, green tea, red tea, white tea. Little tea potpourri in saucers on a rotating table. Teapots, teacups, infusers, warmers, everything tea-related that a tea aficionado could long for.

For some reason it reminded me of Alice in Wonderland. Really, though, isn't it sad how anything out of the narrow, monotonous norm can--as it inevitably is, usually by some pretentious prick (we're not talking about me, of course we're not, haha) wearing hemp-framed glasses--somehow be connected to Alice? Holiday parades, Gwen Stefani videos, your roommate's bizarre collection of coffee mugs.

I didn't buy any tea, by the way. I was broke, which is a good state to be in if you have a tendency to attach yourself to random items placed at your eye level, regardless of whether they fit, are necessary, or cost so much that you'll have to subsist on ramen for the next six weeks.

Whatever. Lipton teabags rule the universe. Along with cities. And muffins.

Vanity thy name is Flaming.

So hello there, people. After those half-dozen half-hearted why-the-hell-aren't-ya-blogging-anymore emails, you must've given up on me. I won't hold it against you, really I won't. Well maybe just a little. (I mean, dude, where are the chain-mail petitions?)

If you must know, what got me back to Baguetting was a little gem of a blog called For Inertness. Scroll down to the bottom and, just under the Blogroll header, wedged between 'anveshi' and 'seekingconnections', what do you see? Oui, c'est moi! What an ego-boost.

Inertness. Strange blog-name for someone with more energy than a Duracell bunny. This is a girl who--my earliest memory of her--leaped over the counter and kissed the bartender out of the blue. The kind of girl whose very presence is like a cinnamon bomb and a Stone Temple Pilots song rolled into one. During a particularly severe winter, when we were snowed in, and I was holed up in a freezing attic with a raging fever, she trudged across town to take care of me and make me noodle soup... and yet, she probably doesn't even remember it, because she'd do it for anyone. (If you think you detected a trace of bitterness in that last bit, you're wrong, wrong I tell you! Phrases like 'trace of bitterness' ought to be retired and banned and abolished, among other things. Yeah.)

So just a few days after aforementioned propositioning by mail-room clerk at the Beard, I gave notice and moved to sunnier climes. I'm tempted to say that I would rather flip burgers than set foot in a newspaper office again, but my peculiar weakness is the rapidity with which my most frustrating experiences acquire a rosy tint of nostalgia. Good times.