nightclubs are depressing.

there was a pregnant bitch at the club saturday night. and i don't mean "barely visible on a sonogram" pregnant, i'm talking "if she bends over in that short skirt you can hear the baby crying" pregnant. THIRD TRIMESTER PREGNANT. at first i thought i was just drunk. and she was wearing skintight black and white horizontal stripes, so i figured the optical illusion was contorting her body into a real live funhouse mirror or some shit. but as i kept staring at her willing my eyes to focus, i realized that what i was seeing was, in fact, a young woman who just so happened to be gestating her human offspring AT A GODDAMNED DISCO. between this and the fact that kids these days refuse to read anything longer than 160 characters, we are all going to be slaves to the chinese in fifty fucking years. i just wanted to snatch the drink out of her hand and ask if she'd yet purchased a crib and a case of enfamil. or if she'd submitted her application to westwood college already.

pregnant ladies always be ruining shit: taking the good parking spots and all of the handicapped seats on the bus, sprinkling macaroni and cheese on their pancakes without anyone in the restaurant turning his nose up, getting paid for six whole fucking weeks to "stay home" and "take care of their newborns." what a sham. and now they're at the club?! what part of the game is THAT?! it's not good enough that everyone gives up his seat or pretends to be interested in your alien baby sonogram, you have to put on a tube dress and leak amniotic fluid all over my feet? selfish assholes. how am i supposed to compete with that? everyone loves babies. especially ones that haven't been born yet! tell me how to get this dude's attention when he's got his ear pressed to her belly, trying to hear a heartbeat over the goddamned DJ. dudes are buying glasses of champagne while she tosses her head back with laughter, regaling them with stories about signing up for WIC and medicaid. and OH SHUT UP ALREADY. i went to headstart, too.

i'm not hating, i actually love pregnant women. backaches and stretch marks and swollen ankles are some shit i can RELATE TO. plus, omgunicornz and i went to lockdown friday night and ate one burger with peanut butter, a carmelized banana, and bacon on top of it, and another with fuji apples and gruyere cheese on it, and goddamn i wish i had a babycake i could blame all that heavy lifting on. seriously, if only there were a fetus in my life that could be the reason i wouldn't turn down a peanut butter and jelly on rye bread. disgusting, right? totally.

anyway, i'm across the room scowling laser eye beams of hate and wondering if mama mia is taking enough folic acid. FML. i was only out in my fancy clothes on a saturday night anyway because blaxperiment 2011 is still in full effect. although why is still a mystery to me, as i am easily discouraged, so i'll be wrapping this shit up any day now. first of all, trying to find places to go is EXHAUSTING. and trying to find places to go where i don't already know (read: haven't already stalked or texted or emailed or banged) someone is FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE. everywhere i go there somebody already goddamned IS, reminding me how i fell asleep in the middle of intercourse or vomited during a blowjob or whatever. isn't chicago bigger than this?! and if it isn't some asshole who's already been disappointed by my lackluster sexual efforts, it's a dick who reads my blog and is all in my space shouting, "bitches gotta eat! tell me some jokes! TELL ME SOME JOKES!"

when is this pseudo fame going to get me laid by someone with a goddamned checking account?! not really, because i'm enjoying this long stretch of celibacy i've had going for the past eighteen months or whatever. and by "enjoying" i mean "my lazy ass doesn't have to maintain my pubic hair." but in theory i would like for someone else to have paid for that banana burger i ate the other night. at big star a couple weeks ago this adorable girl was making eyes with me across the room, and at first i thought, "well this shirt does accentuate my my cellulite," but then i realized that she recognized me from the internet and wasn't going to volunteer to hand wash my delicates or put that shelving unit together i've been staring at for three years, she just wanted to shake my hand. and that's cool, too. (also, i don't even know why i go to ikea without a lesbian, for real. it's like going fishing without a pole. SO DUMB.)

so clubs are weird now, right? or have i just reached the "quiet evenings at home" phase of my life?! goddamn it, everyone is ten years old and drunk as shit and throwing up and dressed strange and dancing in a way that is totally confusing to me, and the way they flirt with each other is disarming to a puritan such as myself. now i've gone home with my fair share of bad decisions, waking up the next day smelling like shame and a bag of white castles, but never was that exit preceded by clothes-fucking some dude on the dancefloor whom i'd just met on my way back from the bathroom. here's the thing: i like loud music, and i like dancing like an asshole in a room full of people, but that's not what's happening in 2011 clubland. here's what's killing my party boner:

1 "models." i like pretty girls, okay? i really do. and i respect the discipline and effort that goes into limiting yourself to a daily diet of broccoli spears and a handful of jelly beans. plus all of that being tan and bleaching your butthole takes a lot of goddamned work. what i don't like is the bored standing around all of you girls are doing, especially if it prevents me from 1 taking a piss or 2 getting another drink. i understand that the best place to do coke is off the toilet seat, sweethearts, but mommy had seven vodka waters and needs to put her ass there. RIGHT NOW. and what is this loitering near the bar? everyone knows that the best way to get a dude to buy you a drink is to hold the only one you're willing to pay for until some nice man who wants to bang you offers to replace it. at least that's what i'm told, because i'm too impatient to stand around waiting for someone to notice i'm thirsty. either way, blocking the one spot on the bar into which i can wedge myself between two reeking axe-holes to get another beer makes me want to cut you with something sharp. "move, bitch, i'm too sober to be in this club!"

2 perpetrating pretty dudes. here's the thing about living in a town with a lot of sports teams: any dude over 6 feet with a smattering of shitty neck tattoos can get a haircut, put on some shit from kenneth cole, and pretend to be a third-string chicago bear wide receiver. we were at the shrine one night when a group of tall dudes basically insinuated their way into the roped-off VIP. i watch sportscenter, you assholes. i elbowed my girl and shouted, "do you recognize any of those gentlemen?" over the DJ. she glanced over and was dismissively like, "i don't watch sports, asshole." undeterred, i walked into the VIP on the heels of another dude who kinda sorta looked famous and sat next to a dude with pinky rings. "what team do you play for?!" i demanded, and as he sheepishly shrugged his shoulders and motioned to security, i backpedaled and told him what a good job he'd done "with all those rebounds and shit." i still hate myself.

3 thugs. i know the whole "t-shirt and gym shoe" rule was supposed to weed out the riff raff, but the species has adapted, and now they just sit around looking like rick ross and shit. and i don't care about dying, especially when i'm going to leave such a hot corpse, but more than a few times i have seen grown men either hit with garbage cans or thrown through a goddamned table, and nothing dries up a party like THAT. no one wants to hook up with the dude with the gaping head wound.

4 $12 drinks. i already know, if i want to drink $2 pbr's i can go to cole's. or any one of the million and one other dive bars in the city. I GET IT. but what if i want to hang with some grownups in clean clothes who don't pay for their beer with laundry quarters?! do i really have to pay more than i would for a decent cheeseburger for a cocktail?! i don't know, maybe drinks have always been this expensive. or when you open a tab, which i no longer do, you're too drunk to care how you got to three hundred dollars so quickly. shit is cray out here in this obamaconomy, and more than once i've found myself hesitating over the change the bartender has handed me, trying to gauge just how much of an asshole i'll appear to be if i only tip on every other drink. (answer: A GIANT SHITTING ASSHOLE.) you have to fucking budget if you're going to holler at a nightclub these days, and while i'm busy soaking dried beans for my dinner because i couldn't resist a $30 cab ride home, i can't help but think, "is this really what it takes to meet new people? that is totally fucking depressing." then i spend the rest of the night farting, which makes me glad that dude with the face tattoo apparently lost my number.

5 the shittiest music you've ever heard. THIS IS WHAT MAKES YOU OLD, complaining about "what the kids are listening to." and fuck it, i guess i'm old, because WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU KIDS LISTENING TO?! is this what my mom used to be so mad about all the time while i was blasting faith no more "the real thing" alone in my bedroom? (editor's note: I STILL DO THAT.) my nephew and i went to get tattooed a couple weeks ago, and he put his ipod on in the car and was like, "do you know who this is? what about him? what about this group?" and i felt so stupid and out of touch. thank god that dude isn't a smug little asshole, reminding me how he's young and cool and in college and listening to bands i won't hear about for another three years. he just sat there and let his silence imply that shit. WHAT A GENTLEMAN.

so i'm still going to see live music and co-host the sex show and drink at the morseland sometimes, but i think the universe is telling me i have to hang up my wristband/handstamp hand and sit in my bed listening to music that was popular in my early twenties until i'm old enough to not feel like a jackass going someplace that refers to itself as a "lounge" full of middle-aged people wearing support hose and church shoes. maybe i should invest in some blouses.

your mom looks hot in spandex.

i am officially obsessed with zumba. OBSESSED, even though i loathe most forms of physical activity. yes, including sex. a few weeks ago i took some files back to the kennel area of the hospital and found all of the techs and assistants gathered open-mouthed around the giant flatscreen computer monitor that hangs in the treatment area. they were watching a youtube video of this upbeat latina standing in the front of a dance studio full of gorgeous thirtysomethings scantily-clad in brightly-colored, clingy dancewear, leading them in choreographed latin-lite dance moves. "what the fuck is this shit?" i asked betty, and she rolled her eyes and was like, "this is ZUMBA, sam," like i was an asshole for not knowing that shit. "i thought zumba was a region in mexico," i shrugged. "wait a minute, are they dancing to PITBULL?! this is my jammm." i pushed betty out of the way, tossed the files on the floor (sorry, animals!), and started to cha-cha and shake my jelly along with the sexy young things in the video. pitbull makes me want to take my PANTS OFF. we did that video three times, and by the end i was sweaty and hoarse from screaming "damelo!" at the top of my lungs for twenty goddamned minutes. and i wanted more. so kate and i decided to take a zumba class the next morning at the YMCA.

working out is a bummer. seriously. walking on a treadmill for forty-five minutes while listening to the same playlist over and over and trying to read the closed captioning of a television show you don't even care about because the gym regulars always get first pick of the channels is a TOTAL FUCKING DRAG. the elliptical machine makes uncoordinated people look stupid. the stair machine reduces mere mortals to tears within four minutes. the stationary bike feels like uncomfortable buttsex. who wants to put the twinkies down and get out of bed for any of that?!

a couple months ago my little vegan russian trainer lesbian moved to hawaii so she could run marathons and mack grass skirt bitches in a temperate climate, i guess. at first i was sad, but then i thought, "now there will be no one to scowl disapprovingly at my stomach roll! hooray!" during our last training session, right after i'd completed seven of the fifty sit-ups she'd asked me to do and declared that i was finished, she said, "you my most disappointing client." and i read that as "this tiny lesbian says it's okay for me to keep eating red meat and cupcakes in bed. excellent." we did some partner stretches (i was even bad at STRETCHING, omg), and after she adjusted my knee for the fourth time she said, "i worry about your lazy ass. we will text when i go." i nodded, but my brain said, "fine, bitch. TEXTS don't have EYES."

a week after she left i got a text from russian lesbian that read: what is for lunch, s?
i replied: lean cuisine!
russian lesbian: and what?
me, hesitantly: water...?
russian lesbian: AND WHAT?
me, breaking into a liar's sweat: um, oxygen?
russian lesbian: WHAT ELSE?! (i could hear her shouting in my brain)
me, still trying to be on some bullshit: granola bar.
russian lesbian: i know you lie.
me: okay okay. a granola bar and an apple.
russian lesbian:
me: and a diet coke.
russian lesbian:
me: oh, and i had half a doughnut this morning.
russian lesbian:

me: okay fine, a WHOLE doughnut.
russian lesbian:
me, sighing: two doughnuts.
russian lesbian:
me: and i might have also had a beer before work.
russian lesbian: i hate you.

i'm not going to lie and say that i started giving a shit, because for real I DON'T. but at some point i was just like, "holy fucking shit, i do not MOVE," and i'm not old enough to get away with that. yet. eventually a bitch has to start thinking about building some goddamned muscle and strengthening her bones or whatever. i'm lazy and research is boring, but i got on the internets anyway to try to find out whatever i could about the torture i was about to subject myself to.

"ditch the workout and join the party!" the official website shouted at my eyeballs. zumba "is the only latin-inspired dance-fitness program that blends red-hot international music and contagious steps to form a "fitness-party" that is downright addictive!" i am suspicious of words like "addictive" and "contagious." and i immediately blanched while clicking through all of the pictures of lean and toned bitches gyrating in crop tops and neon cargo pants, perfect bodies beaded with sweat; toothy, open-mouthed smiles that scream, "I AM HAVING THE TIME OF MY YOUNG AND ATTRACTIVE LIFE." blarf. i am a negative person by nature, and i typically shy away from anything that requires me to be having visble fun. i like to do stuff that i can sit quietly in the back and enjoy, and i have spent my entire adult life perfecting a bored yet slightly amused and entertained facade. and i just don't understand being excited about exercise. it's like doing a cartwheel on your way to have a root canal. my face just doesn't light up at the prospect of ab isolations. also? the pictures. look at that dude with his SHIRT OFF. i'm not trying to embarrass myself tripping over my feet doing salsa steps while some red-hot international instructor rolls his eyes in disgust and bounces quarters off of his ridiculously chiseled abs. i mean, come on.

sunday morning i got up and put socks and my old new balances on with my pajamas. i can't compete with these jerks doing a revolutionary new fitness concept *snicker* while wearing bikini tops and shit, so i decided it was in the best interest of my self-esteem to go to the opposite end of the clothing spectrum and just look like absolute shit during class. because even if i busted my melon open while trying to cumbia to the beat, is that a real thing?, at least my jibs would be appropriately covered. i took three aleve and a celebrex (not kidding) and tried to stretch my achilles so that asshole wouldn't snap in the middle of a jam. i paid the $15 drop-in fee and we went up to the gym, and i hovered with kate and our friend libby near the back of the room, anxious for all of the j. lo lookalikes to start pouring in and making me feel bad about that container of greek yogurt i'd eaten before kate had picked me up.

and then your mom came in wearing booty shorts and the shirt she wears to wash the dishes, flanked on either side by your aunt and your recently-retired fifth grade teacher. her sewing circle showed up next, as did her crochet buddies and all of the ladies from book club with the exception of kathy, whose son had strep so she decided to stay home with him. there's the woman who cuts your mom's hair, and diane who works at chico's in the mall. the school board ladies, the PTA, and the soccer moms came running in, too, clad in unfortunate biker shorts and racerback tanks with their hair pulled up in banana clips and scrunchies. hot zumba aficionados don't go to the evanston ymca, i guess. i don't know what i was so fucking worried about.

"i thought this was for attractive young people?" i wondered aloud.

a lady down the way looked me up and down as she pulled a protein bar from her fanny pack. "yeah," she said, eyeing my flabby triceps, "ME, TOO."

the music started and our teacher, a boisterous woman who was in your mom's brownie troop, started shouting and dancing and pointing out people who sucked as we tried desperately to follow along. i was winded after the first song, and twenty minutes in i told kate to call me a goddamned ambulance. i was sweating in the grossest possible way, sweat dripping from my hair into my eyelashes and shit. your mom is pretty good at zumba, but thank horus that bitch ain't got no rhythm. the only thing that kept me from looking like a complete asshole was my blackness, which kicked in right when i needed it most. i might not have gotten every single step, but at least i wasn't clapping half a second behind the BEAT. and most of the choreography can be faked pretty well if you can count to four and move your hips accordingly.

despite the fact that i really did almost keel over and die, i was fucking hooked. i can't smile while skipping and jumping and fist-pumping or whatever, but i loved that shit. loud-ass music at nine-thirty in a room full of WASPs who are coming down off a chardonnay bender?! MORE, PLEASE. these broads yell and woop and scream for an hour, then each one towels off and hops in her land rover to go get a skinny latte from starbucks. it's magical.

the minute that first class was over i vomited my right lung onto the locker room floor, then we went downstairs and i paid a hundred dollars to join the Y. that shit was fun, my heart rate was almost high enough to make me feel like an actual sentient human being, and ricky martin made a lot of good dance music for your information so bite your tongue, hater. plus, it's obvious that i need other people to hold my ass accountable for my physical fitness. and that's SO LAME, knowing that i need the withering gaze of your hot-flashed perimenopausal mother to get me to samba my way to maybe living past the age of thirty-seven, but admitting defeat is the first step, right? i despise the treadmill, but pretending i can salsa to pitbull for an hour is fucking awesome. plus your mom said she would bake me cookies and give me a hamstring massage next week. and that bitch has a tight ass. i've been noticing.

it's been five weeks. five weeks of doing this shit four or five times a week. five weeks of regular zumba with your mom, zumba toning with your aunt, and your grandma and i are about to start aqua zumba in a couple weeks. we also do kickboxing twice a week, and sometimes pilates if we're feeling ambitious. and i have only been buying lean cuisines and sugar free jello pudding, because i'm lazy and 1 i only like to cook when i might get laid afterward and 2 I HATE CHEWING. i've already lost ten fucking pounds. seriously, dudes, a bitch is wearing JEGGINGS.

i texted russian lesbian a couple weeks ago to rub my newfound dedication to working out (lolz) in her skinny face.
me: i'm doing zumba now. it's super fun.
russian lesbian: what is that? some new thing you eat?
me:
russian lesbian: sounds fattening, whatever it is.
me: i hate you.

stranger danger.

i am the master of the bitchface. if you're going to spend half of your adult life commuting on buses and trains in a city full of assholes, you have to learn to perfect the "no bitch, i do NOT know where you get off to go to water tower" scowl. i wear sunglasses and headphones and glare at anyone who looks like he might even think about asking me what time it is or which connecting train is the one that goes out to o'hare. i know you're thinking, "man, what a jerk." and i am, but it's really a measure of self-protection more than it is unrepentant assholishness. more than once i have kindly removed my earbuds to answer the question of a seemingly innocuous fellow passenger, only to have my ears assaulted by some asshole who wanted to yell at me about jesus or say something lewd about ass-fucking my dead corpse or whatever. not anymore.

last weekend my friend tuesday and i decided to see the new planet of the apes, because i 100% enjoy shitting ten dollars down movie theater toilets. tuesday is my main platonic male jam. anyway, while i am never on time for anything else in my real life, i am totally that crazy person who gets to the movie theater forty-five minutes before the show starts. i like to pee, wash my hands, get a fountain coke (extra ice), and be the first one through the door to make sure i can sit on the end of the top row. i like to get myself situated: movie sweater draped over the arm of the chair in case i get cold, snacks firmly set up in the empty seat next to mine, the whole thing. i like to be prepared. and yes, i am your grandmother. but fridays are a total shitshow at the hospital and i knew i wouldn't be out in time to properly set up camp at the movies, so i dispatched tuesday to the theater in my stead so he could get our act together before i got there.

here's the thing: i don't want to be that asshole standing in the aisles of a packed theater trying to orchestrate the seating arrangement of strangers who are glaring hate beams through the side of my face because i came late and still think i have the right to sit next to the nine goddamned people who came with me. YOU KNOW WHO I'M TALKING ABOUT, the dickballs who stands over you dropping buttered popcorn in your lap while he tries to convince two bitches halfway across the room to move over a seat so that he and his wife can sit next to each other. who wants to be that piece of shit, stepping all over everyone's goddamned toes while inching toward the middle seat and trying not to spill your tray of nachos, king-sized hot dog, tub of buttery popcorn, pretzel bites, giant cherry coke, and sno-caps?! I HATE THAT GUY. and i don't ever want to be him, so i get there with goddamned time to spare.

tuesday is one of these boisterous, friendly people that i typically avoid at all costs. he'll talk to fucking ANYONE, which would be fine if he weren't introducing himself to regular boring people with nothing interesting to say. if i leave that dude alone for even a second he's doing the used car salesman on the nearest unsuspecting stranger, so i was not at all surprised when i found him sitting in the nearly empty movie theater chatting with a relatively good-looking dude a few seats over. "hey sam, this is my new friend, julius!" he said, and i stood there for a minute trying to gauge if julius was a dude he knew in real life and had decided to surprise me with at the last minute or whether he'd just made his acquaintance in the five minutes that had elapsed between texting me "i'm here" and my arrival at our seats. i noted tuesday's new BFF's massive amount of manjewelry and wearing of a baseball cap while indoors, then fixed my eyes on his jorts. come on, son. DO BETTER.

"hey julius, i'm sam," i said politely, and he responded to my breasts, "i'm really bad with names." OH, BLARF. why not just introduce yourself by saying, "you are insignificant to me, please die?" because that is how my brain translates that shit, you asshole. "i hate this dude," i whispered to tuesday as i got my sweater ready. they resumed their in-depth analytical conversation about some shit i don't give a fuck about, and then i decided i wanted popcorn. tuesday is a gentleman, and he offered to go get it. well, i might have said, "why the fuck don't you act like a gentleman and go get me some motherfucking popcorn?!" but that is beside the goddamned point.

i knew from 1 the way dude sized me up when i first got there and 2 the way his multiple silver rings glittered under the movie theater lights that at some point in the evening we were going to be engaged in a who is the more alternative black person? BATTLE ROYALE. i was exhausted at the thought. first of all, i usually slaughter the competition before it even begins. i have all of these death skull tattoos and natural hair, and i own three pantera records. winner and still champion, people. this makes some black dudes crazy, because they want to be the only ones who've ever heard of richard linklater. and second of all, you may as well just ask, "which of us is the bigger oreo?" and that is so GROSS. we need a secret handshake or something, some way to let others of us know that they're not going to be accused of "talking like a white person" or whatever. maybe we could just trade ipods upon meeting? "you have the new grizzly bear record?! OMG I'M ONE OF THOSE BLACK PEOPLE, TOO," and then you don't have to worry about a surprise BET pop quiz later on in your relationship.

so dude turns to me and says, apropos of nothing, "i'm the most eclectic dude in my group of friends." ECLECTIC, for those of you who don't know, is often code for "you're safe with me. i, too, listen to bjork." in other words, your diction is telling me you've got a lot of white friends. what the fuck was i supposed to say to that? so i just cartoon blinked at him and waited for him to say something else. "see, i listen to rock music and wear a lot of jewelry and stuff," he's holding up his arms and shaking his many bracelets while saying this, "i don't have a problem seeing movies by myself and, just so you know, I'M NOT A HOMOSEXUAL, I JUST LIKE BRACELETS." um, WUT.

"i can appreciate a dude who throws a good arm party," i said, because what the fuck is an appropriate response to "i'm not gay, i just like bracelets?" GODDAMN IT, did tuesday go to china to get the goddamned popcorn? WHY HAS HE BEEN GONE FOR SO LONG AND WHY DID HE LEAVE ME HERE WITH THIS WEIRDO NOT-GAY DUDE?! "what does that mean?" he asked, confused. "what does what mean?" i was speaking english and hadn't used any big words. "what is an ARM PARTY?" oh, sigh. even if you'd never heard that phrase before (thank you, manrepeller!), weren't there enough context clues to put one and one together?! jangling bracelets + your arm = arm party. was that so hard?

"do you like movies?" came next, but before i could point out that we were SITTING IN A MOVIE THEATER he decided on his own to give me a brief yet exhaustive history of modern cinema. arm party was talking so fast his tongue was smoking, all while i sat there mentally calculating how much cooler than him i happen to be. he told me about his childhood in texas, the plot of all three bourne identity movies, being recently divorced, and how much he HATES people who talk and text through movies, and just as i was fashioning a noose out of twizzlers, tuesday returned with a bucket of thank god i don't have to talk to this dude anymore. i know you girls are always blathering on and on about how you want a man to TALK to you and COMMUNICATE his FEELINGS and TELL YOU what's ON HIS MIND, and that begs the question: have you ever really talked to a dude? i mean really sat through a discourse of what some dude thinks is interesting and important? because i feel like if you really had, the LAST THING YOU WOULD EVER WANT TO DO is have a neverending conversation with some dude's penis.

this is why i love lesbians. because the minute some hot lady starts droning on about what her horoscope said and how she went over her weight watchers points and how she's really stressed out that her book club pick isn't good enough i can be all, "hey girl, i saved last week's episode of law and order SVU on the tivo. let's get our hargitay on," and she'll zip that noise right on up and go fix me some tv-watching pajama snacks. talkative dudes are so enamored of their own voices that unless you're coming at him with an open butthole, chances are he will NEVER STOP TALKING OF HIS OWN VOLITION. i clutched my dots to my chest, terrified that arm party's big mouth was going to ruin my monkey movie.

i like to sit in the last row mostly because i hate listening to the inane conversations other people tend to have during movies. they're either incorrectly predicting the plot or fighting over who has to drive the babysitter home later, and those things are irritating. i like to sit in dead silence staring at the screen until the movie is over, and while arm party worked the shit out of my last nerve, he'd at least salvaged some of my good cheer toward my fellow man with his disdain for theater talking. and for the first hour of the movie, he deserved it. AND THEN. a woman in the row directly in front of ours decided to sext her boyfriend or whatever.

i saw it, because how could you not see it, and ignored her. but arm party, who had obviously been itching for a reason to let more hot air out of his balloon, decided to comment loudly about her inappropriate moviephone. and then the floodgates crashed open. BECAUSE HE ISN'T GAY he'd left two seats between himself and tuesday, which meant he had to whisper-shout over them every time he wanted to point something out in the movie. WHICH WAS COMICALLY OFTEN, especially for a dude who felt it necessary to yell at some lady who just wanted to glance at her emailz. tuesday spent forty-five fucking minutes leaning over the empty chair next to him, nodding politely while i hissed, "that's what you get for talking to strangers," in his other ear. seriously?! that's some shit i expect to see on seinfeld, the nice gesture of making uncomfortable pleasantries with a dude because he just happened to be sitting alone near you coming back to bite you in your polite ass for the rest of your goddamned night. blarf.

the minute the lights came on i gave tuesday my most stern LET'S GO face, but arm party immediately started comparing this movie to the old ones, and my homeboy totally obliged him and got sucked into yet another endless conversation. is that a white thing, this unfaltering patience? holy damned dirty ape. so we sat there until the credits finished rolling, because tuesday doesn't have the get the fuck out of my face gene. as we left the theater my heart started racing. arm party wasn't going to let us leave without a phone number exchange, and tuesday is too nice to say, "i'm amish, i'm forbidden to use a telephone," which is how sam gets out of this kind of shit and we'd be stuck listening to this dude for THE REST OF OUR LIVES. just as he was about to say "facebook me," or whatever i swooped in and shouted, "i have to take a shit." visibly relieved, tuesday bid adieu to his grossed-out new bro and we ran/walked toward the bathrooms.

i cornered him as soon as arm party disappeared from my sight. "why did that popcorn take so long? were you trying to make some magic happen?" and HE WAS. even though i was tempted to teach tuesday a lesson entitled, "just because we're both black doesn't mean we want to fuck on each other," i thanked him for thinking of my vagina during this peconomic recession and reminded him that i'm not interested in people who have ideas about things and want to voice their opinions all the time. "next time, sit near a dude who grunts. or blinks once for yes and twice for no."

we waited a few minutes for the coast to clear before heading over to the parking garage. tuesday offered to go get his truck so that i could stand on the curb and text amanda (I SHOULD HAVE JUST DONE IT DURING THE MOVIE), and just as i was trying to get my autocorrect to recognize "cuntbag" as a word, i heard screeching tires and a horn blaring within the parking structure. i peeked inside hoping to see someone splattered across the pavement before the ambulances got there and instead saw tuesday running through the lower level away from an old lady car being driven by a not gay dude with sparkly finger accessories. a not gay dude who was leaning out of the window of an oldsmobile shouting, "hey! tuesday! TUESDAY!" while chasing him through a parking garage. trying to lure him into taking a bite outta crime, obviously. *crunch*

dudes make me sick.

i haven't been in the hospital for over a year. which is a major feat considering that at one point in my history i was there so often that nurses knew my name and what i was there for without having to look it up and shit. i'd just walk into the ER with my overnight bag and they'd be all, "let me warm up the CT scanner. gurl, you still prefer vegetable broth? let me get your room ready." i haven't written about the charred wasteland that is my intestines lately, and i'm sure that's keeping most of you up at night with worry. so let's talk some shit.

2011 marks the sixth year of living with this dreaded crohn's disease, and for the first time in a long time i've been feeling pretty good on a pretty regular basis. last summer i was totally stressed the fuck OUT: working all the time, not taking good enough care of myself, keeping people in my life who drove me fucking apeshit, and that stress manifested itself into one big giant knot dead in the center of my stomach, followed by a week spent flat on my back watching "up" and "the time traveler's wife" on constant repeat while getting shot up with dilauded and steroids and insulin. because although a bitch is not diabetic, too much prednisone sent your girl into diabetic shock. HOLY SHIT.

it's nearly impossible to sleep when you're in the goddamned hospital. i go to a really nice one where i get my own room and my own cable television and my very own personal assistant to help change my shitty diapers and flip my pillows over or whatever else i am too lazy, or entangled in tubes, to do for myself. anyway, it's 2am and i'm on so many drugs and have a port in my arm and i had dozed off sitting up like your granny does, and four nurses come crashing into my room and shake me awake because apparently i've stopped breathing and a bunch of alarms are ringing and bitches are shouting, and they're yanking my gowns off, and all i could think was, "how smelly are my underwear?!" while they're shooting shit into my veins and holding the oxygen mask down on my face. i fully expected to go into cardiac arrest, because i don't know if anyone's ever told them, but shaking a bitch awake at 2am in a hospital is some terrifying shit. when all of the drama died down i could care less about my blood sugar or my inflamed intestines, i was just mad that they'd cut off a FIFTY DOLLAR GODDAMNED BRA. blarf. it pisses me off just thinking about it.

one of the problems with not dying in the hospital is that real life still goes on outside those sterilized walls. the cat needed to be fed! my dry cleaning needed to be picked up!! my directv bill needed to be paid!!! i never end up in the hospital right after the ONE TIME i clean my goddamned apartment every year, and after my sister went to my apartment to rescue helen keller and drop her off at the kennel she called my room and was like, "are you okay? i mean, is your life okay?! how could you be living like this?!" listen bitch, had i known i was going to need for anyone other than that cat to see what i do with my empty beer cans i would have maybe taken out the recycling. just step over the piles of laundry and magazines and get the fuck out. i know that's how i'm going to die, surrounded by all of my poor choices and bad habits. but at least if you're dead people feel guilty about talking shit about the porn you don't even bother hiding anymore.

i was there for a week. graduated from ice chips to broth to broth with three peas in it to broth with three peas and one noodle in it to applesauce to please let me the fuck out of here this shit is costing me $10,000 a fucking day. on release day everyone is extra super nice, skipping into my room with the menu that people with broken legs get to choose from and sneaking me extra apple juices. the "intestinal distress" menu looks something like this: a variety of unsalted broths, apple or cranberry juice, jello that i never order, black coffee, and textureless oatmeal soup. "who in the hell gets to order chocolate cake and roast beef while they're in the hospital?!" i asked the PCT who stood awaiting my food order. "really?! FRIED CHICKEN DINNER?! who gets that shit?!" she smiled patiently and said, "what about a hard boiled egg? you can have that. you want a piece of dry white toast with it?" what a tease. no, asshole, i want a double fucking cheeseburger with it, not some goddamned toast. but i just snapped the menu shut and said, "for seventy thousand dollars, i want TWO pieces of dry white toast." all of you people who shit normally don't know just how lucky you have it. next time you feel like complaining about something dumb, i want you to think "OATMEAL SOUP." see how awesome your life is? that there is called perspective.

in october i vomited down the front of my sweater while talking to this woman about prescription dog food, but until then i'd been feeling perfectly fine. well, diarrhea every few days perfectly fine, but fine nonetheless. that warranted a trip to the ER, where i got two bags of fluids, some zofran, and some dilauded. my feel-better cocktail. i was only there for a few hours, which means that either i was doing pretty well or that my insurance was like GET THAT BITCH OUT OF THERE RIGHT GODDAMNED NOW OR WE AINT PAYING SHIT.

there's no known cure for crohn's. i just kept dutifully taking my pills and trying not to drink so much and trying even harder to stay away from fancy french cheese. right now i'm not on steroids or rheumatoid arthritis drips, and i'm no longer on immunosuppressive drugs, either. i haven't had to depend on special undergarments (see what i did there?!) in months. no rubber sheets. no scopes, no xrays, no scans, no colonoscopies, NOTHING. and the only thing that has really changed in the last year, because let's face it, i still get drunk and stress out sometimes, is that i haven't been messing around with any goddamned DUDES. celibacy cured my shit disease. alert the new england journal of medicine.

seriously, man. it can't be a fucking coincidence! we already know that when i raised my fucking standards a while back that all but dried up my romantical prospects. for reals. and i was a little salty about it at the time, but what an amazing trade-off. swapping raggedy knuckle-dragging assholes for a clean bill of health for my own precious asshole?! YES, PLEASE. every time i've saddled myself some lie-faced, under-performing wack piece of shit "boyfriend," i've ended up in the hospital two or three or ten times during the course of said relationship. i need to call my hot butt doctor and tell him why my camera endoscopy had unclear results. because ASSHOLE DUDE obviously doesn't show up on an intestinal rad. this is a revolutionary medical breakthrough i'm making here, people. think of all of the money i could've saved! all of those colonoscopies i could've avoided! the first time i had a barium series i wanted to slice my wrists open on the goddamned table. if the doctor would have said, "listen bitch, you can avoid being subjected to another one of these if you just get rid of that human garbage texting some other broad out in the waiting room," i would have done so in a HEARTBEAT.

who knew that not having to worry about the state of my pubic hair at any given moment would result in no longer shitting myself in public? i'd never talk to another person AGAIN if it meant i could stop spending half my paycheck on maintenance drugs. FOR CEREAL. besides, sex is boring and totally gross. and i'm obviously growing up, despite whatever reflection my ailing credit score might be of my adulthood, because every time i think about banging i just think, "GONORRHEA." and about how i don't have it. and about how other people do. and about how easily i could catch it. especially now that there's a drug-resistant strain of that shit. sex is stressful and ridden with disease and people are soul-sucking opportunists just waiting to rob or betray you, so is it really that surprising that now that i don't have to worry about blemishing my otherwise perfect STD tests that my stomach doesn't hurt all the fucking time?

i'm just saying. constantly worrying about who a dude is calling when he takes his cell phone into my bathroom in the middle of the night = SHITSPLOSIVE RAGING STOMACH PAIN DIARRHEA BUTT DISEASE. see also: when he doesn't call me back, or sees me only once a month, or hits on my friends, or fucks wrong, or basically does any of the million things some asshole could do to make you want to hit him with your car. meanwhile, only having to worry about what time basketball wives is coming on = I HAVEN'T BEEN SICK FOR A GODDAMNED YEAR. i finally have something to say to these assholes who keep asking why i ain't got no mans. "well yes, nosy bitch i went to high school with, i most certainly would like to be married with six and a half children and a golden retriever right now. but, you see, it turns out that i have a physiological reaction to men and their insipid nonsense. relationships give me baby guts. it's downright dreadful."

so that's that. i'm not horrible and intolerant and physically unappealing. men don't hate me and think i'm stupid. I'M ALLERGIC TO ASSHOLE DUDES. man, i'm so relieved. and so is my asshole.