15) Write a title for this post!

Blooooooog Cooooooonteeeeeeest!
Follow these easy 13 14 15 steps to enter!

1) Follow my blog publicly. And passionately. This is important. I have to believe you mean it for your entry to qualify. I mean I am doing this for you, to make you happy. That's gotta mean something, right?

2) Find three complete strangers and get them to follow my blog publicly. The use of force is authorized.

3) Create ten new blogs to follow me publicly. Bonus entry: don't use the word "cat" in any of them.

4) Create a post extolling the virtues of following me citing evidence of miraculous healings, lottery wins, and finding extra prizes in cereal boxes.

5) Follow me on Twitter and laugh at all my jokes.  I will too know whether or not you actually laugh.  Yes I will. Just do it.

6) Make MySpace more popular than Facebook.  Make me the new Tila Tequila.

7) Explain to me how MySpace is supposed to work.  I never did figure that out, and they've probably changed it.

8) A card would be nice.  It doesn't have to be my birthday or any special occasion or anything.  Just something nice in the mail. I'm just saying.

9) Brush my teeth. Make sure you get behind the back ones - that area is too often neglected.

10) Stop using captcha codes. Do that whether or not you want to win anything.  Do that to avoid being yelled at by a lot of people often. I did, and it improved my life immeasurably.

11) Do everything else I do too.  And don't question it first.  That goes against the spirit of blind compliance, and takes the fun right out of it. If you're going to be like that about it don't even bother. Geez.

12) Comment on this entry. I know, you're thinking I shouldn't have to tell people that, but I'm telling you, if I don't say it weeks from now somebody's going to come crying that they didn't win and I'm going to be all "well you didn't enter" and they're going to be all "well I assumed" and I'll be all "well c'mon, what am I supposed to do with that?" but they'll already be pissed and there's just no reasoning with people at that point, is there?

13) Comment on this entry again.  Dammit, I just know somebody's going to screw this up and it's going to come flying back on me even though I've made it perfectly clear. You don't comment, you don't win.  Got it? So do it twice, and that way... oh hell. I don't even know why I bother. I really don't.

Don't delay! Lucky winners will receive

14) Secure a sponsor to provide a prize for the contest.

Someday all my titles will bloom into full essays. About writing essays.

A little bit about me? Okay. Well... I'm single, love animals, love dancing, love going to the library, and my hobbies include painting, playing the mandolin, learning French, and raising mutants.

No, I'm not referring to Cynthia, the living embodiment of O_o:


She qualifies as a mutant, sure, but she was a gimme. She came pre-mutated. It was no reflection on my nurturing.

This is what a reflection on my nurturing looks like:


If it weren't for the little plastic marker I don't think even they'd know they were tulips. Being raised in a thin, diluted trickle of January light in a Northern Canadian basement without water or adequate nutrition has left them a bit confused about just how exactly one goes about being a plant. Do you grow straight up? Sideways? Straight up then sideways? Which end of the bulb do you come out of? Top? Bottom? Both?

Apparently in the absence of a clear direction a variety of survival strategies were employed. Can't knock what works. There's no way the things should even be alive. Surely. It's just not normal. Natural. Right.

They scare me. That degree of persistence is both impressive and alarming. It's also intimidating when there are justifiable grounds for grudge holding.

I didn't mean to treat them badly. I swear! I meant to just leave them to die. I actually thought I'd succeeded in that, too.

When they first came into my life last year they were actual, well adjusted, identifiably tulip-looking tulips which excelled in the art of being tulips. They had been raised with light and water and dirt and all that other fancy stuff over-privileged first world plants take for granted. And then they met me.

Now I'm not a complete monster. I took very good care of them the whole time they were pretty. It wasn't until they stopped being pretty that I abandoned them to the basement to die.

And there they remained for three seasons, waiting for me to get around to throwing them away so that I could recycle the cheap plastic pots they'd come in.

And then the damn things went all Lazarus on me. Now stop just skimming this and really start reading because this is the important part where I redeem myself and look all heroic and stuff:

I paid money to buy dirt. Then I gave that dirt to a bunch of plants. Plants that aren't even pretty.

How's THAT for altruism?

Charity to the homely, baby. I'm all about that. Told you I was a good person.

Oh look. I'm being self referential about my self referential titles. How precocious.

New Slogans for the Soup Industry

Woo hoo! Look at me! I'm food blogging!

SOUP - because if it's not soup, you're chewing too much.

Enjoy your meal with the safest utensil. Enjoy SOUP.

It's what other meals eventually become.
SOUP: the final food form.

Rehydrate with SOUP!

SOUP: it's like a bowl full of mom.

You can't blow bubbles in a hamburger.
SOUP: it's more fun than hamburgers.

The meat's never too dry when the meat's in SOUP.

Enjoyed with head colds and broken jaws.
SOUP - nature's most loyal food.

Monkeys eat with their hands.
SOUP: you can't eat it with your hands.

SOUP: everything all at once, in every mouthful.

I think instead of writing a title I'll just spray paint the word whore across my computer screen.

I am a slut.

You're waiting for the classic blogger humor "No, not that kind of slut!" or other similarly whimsical twist, aren't you? Oh I admit it. I chose my words very carefully and wrote that first paragraph very specifically to get your attention.

But not misleadingly. Sex is awesome. I like to have it. *The more opportunities I have to get it, the better, and the more attractive people I get to have it with the better.

That's enough to qualify me right there. But why just qualify when you can take honors? I also wear whatever the hell I want, and if I think something might increase my chances of getting laid, there's an increased chance I'll wear it.

Sluttity slut slut slut.

But don't you say the word like it's a bad thing. It's not. It's a free, personal choice thing. One of those things that doesn't affect anybody except the person making that choice. That's not a bad thing, that's a none of your goddamn business thing. Unless I make it your business. Which I have. Which only surprises any of you if the first thing you wondered after finding my blog was "what's a blog"?

That's pretty much all you need to know right there, actually. If you ever find yourself wondering "Is this person a slut?", just ask yourself "Does this person have a blog?" If the second answer is "no", then the first answer is "none of your goddamn business". See how easy?

Profile picture courtesy redhotblueblood.blogspot.com

Sluts pay taxes. They raise happy, healthy, well adjusted children. Some of them teach your children. No, not how to be sluts - honey if you need to be taught you're not going to be any good at it anyway (yes, I'm looking at you, burlesque workout class registrants) - to be good people. That's something sluts can do as ably as anybody else, because being a slut does not mean you're a bad person.

It can certainly be argued that sluts actually contribute more to making the world a happier place than most people.

Yes, there are a hundred and one domino arguments that can be raised, just like there are for anything else. There are risks associated with everything, and good and bad consequences to everything. If you make a driving error resulting in an accident while making an unnecessary trip to the store to buy junk food, are you a worse person than if you had been on your way to buy nothing but healthy essentials? Like Doritos scented corn fed poo you are.

So go ahead. Call me a slut. The world is filled with sluts who have my deepest respect, so I'm okay with that.

Call me a Limbaugh, on the other hand, and I will throw up all over your shoes.

*when I'm not in a committed, monogamous relationship, which I happen to be at the moment. That's right - we're good people AND faithful, too. What are sluts coming to these days?

Don't tell me you don't see a dirty word in every single title on this blog.

I'm sure that, like myself, many of you are just now emerging from the influence secure spaces we all withdrew to following the media crises that occurred last night. I hope you were all able to use the time productively, meditating on wholesome thoughts such as blank paper, plain oatmeal, and multiplication tables. Before you fold up the quilts and put the chairs back around the dining room table, however, please take a moment to check on your friends and neighbors. If any of them are still in their spaces, gently remove their fingers from their ears and, shouting so that you can be heard over their tuneless humming, inform them that the crises was averted: Jennifer Lopez's nipple did not in fact appear on the Oscars telecast.

While we are all grateful not to have actually witnessed the horror that lurks on women's breasts, I do still feel the responsible thing to do would be to punish the dress designer severely. It was, after all, the design of the dress that led us all to believe it was possible we might see a nipple. This in turn led many people to believe they had seen a nipple.

The damage done to a mind by thinking it has seen a nipple is clearly going to be comparable to the damage done to a mind by actually seeing a nipple. Obviously, somebody has to be held accountable for that.

Little children everywhere, sleepless and excited, eager as children always are to learn who the motion picture academy was going to honor for costume design, were accosted by the brutal perception that they actually saw a nipple on an adult. They are now, as a result, aware that their own nipples are permanently attached to their bodies. How young is too young to cope with that horrifying realization? Parents across the nation are now finding out. How many of those children will turn to hard drugs to deal with the trauma? It's absolutely and completely impossible to know. And that leaves us with no choice but to presume that all of them will.

True, the damage is already done. Punishing the designer will not save the billions of children already completely destroyed by the probability of Jennifer Lopez's nipple. But that dress designer had a responsibility to protect all of the children in the entire world, and that dress designer failed. If we do not hold this designer responsible for exposing the nation to the probability of Jennifer Lopez's nipple this year, what can the poor innocent children huddled around their televisions, thrilling with the anticipation of learning who will take top honors for cinematography, expect to see walking the red carpet next year? I think we all know the answer to that.

Penises. Penises everywhere. Penises on every man, woman and child, roaming free and driving everybody criminally insane. If we aren't even prepared to punish the possibility of one nipple, how prepared will we be for the actuality of an entire penis infestation?

Those penises are on your front step, people. Are you going to allow a nipple to open the door for them?

Yeah everybody can read it, but you know who I really wrote this title for baby.

If there's one thing I love about my neighborhood, it's the spirit of cooperation among the neighbors. It's been snowing steadily and hard since last night, and everybody's out shoveling walks. The funny thing is, though, that very few people out shoveling are shoveling their own walks. The whole pay it forward thing is on a bit of a loop. You go out to shovel your own walk, discover that it's already been shoveled, and then you shovel the walk next door. It's almost becoming a bit of a competition to see who can be the one to get out first to do their own walk and that of their neighbor!

And you'd think my neighbors would have the advantage there, being old and all. Oh they are pure stealth, the elderly. You think they're just being feeble, going to bed all early and stuff, but that's exactly what they want you to think. "Oh you kids stay up and have a good time, I'm going to get some shut eye" they say, but what they mean is "Wear yourself out there, kiddo - I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning, but you won't see me. You'll be completely unconscious, and I'll be sharp as a tack and ready for action MWAH HAHAHAHAHA!"

And THAT's when they let their guard down. Make a note of that, because they don't let it down often. Remember, they're retired - they have nothing better to do all damn day but figure out ways to get a jump on you. You find a chink in their armor, you penetrate - don't hesitate!

You go and you get up early, grandpa. Sweep that morning skiff of snow right up. And then you just take that lovely little gratified grin of yours off to the senior's center and enjoy your little bridge game, secure in the knowledge that you'll be home again in lots of time to scrape up the snow still falling before everybody gets back from work...

...but oh wait, what's this? Could it be...

...a work at home artist with no social life?

Oooh yeah you got competition now, shovel boy! And oh, look what else you have. A clean sidewalk. A clean sidewalk that YOU didn't shovel.

Now who's the altruistic one? Huh? Huh? Now who's got the warm feeling of neighborly love?

That's right, baby. The game just got taken to the next level.

How early you gonna go to bed now, hard candy man?

The titles, on the other hand, really do just write themselves. Actually I think I may already have used this one.

This is so silly! I can't believe how long it's taking me to update my blog these days! I mean it's not like it's hard to do or anything. Just sit down, start typing, and

Okay well let me start over for a sec. I guess I should include some kind of back story as to what I've been doing instead of blogging. The whole second job thing and everything. Well not a whole back story, just maybe a mention so that the post has some kind of context. Yeah I dunno. I mean if I'm not going to really tell it why even talk about it?

Never mind never mind never mind forget I said that. Besides that's kind of typical to even address how long it's been. Haven't I already done that before?

Actually, this whole public self analysis thing right here, I've kinda done this a few times already I'm sure. Not to mention the whole trying to find a fresh angle to parody the self aware gee it's been awhile since I've blogged post. I mean come on, people either already know it's been awhile since I posted and don't need to be told or they don't know and don't care and either way can this be less inspired?

"Can this be less inspired"? Did I really just plug into that ancient comedy template? Why am I even bothering to write if I'm going to be that unoriginal?

Look, I'm clearly over thinking this. This was supposed to be fun. Easy even. Just write what's on the top of my head and hit publish post. Why am I second guessing everything I write? Do I think it's clever to externalize my inner dialogue like this?

Apparently so.