Too bad so sad for me, I finally had to face the dreaded mammogram. Now, I don’t know what all you have heard about this procedure but ask any female who hasn’t had one yet and I bet the first thing out of her mouth will be ” They have this machine and it like SQUISHES your boobs like really flat and then the Jawas come and haul your sorry old ass away to sell for parts. Or something”.

Well, probably only I would say the Jawas part, but you get the picture. Until you’ve actually had it done, you just really have no idea what you’re getting into. And the truth is…it really wasn’t bad at all. For one thing (the best thing) it doesn’t hurt. It’s weird as hell for sure…the machine basically consists of a column with a shelf on it and a plastic plate suspended above it. The tech, who you have met all of 5 seconds ago, will grab your boob (Insider Tip: Do not say “Well, hell, girl, you could’ve at least bought me a drink first!” You will only get a funny look. NOT a drink.) and arrange it on the shelf, step away to hide behind her radiation proof shield, and press a button that lowers the plate, which results in about 5 seconds of pressure. This happens a total of 4 times and is very similar to the first time you ever let some mouth breathing 10th grader put his hand up your shirt (and here I am referring specifically to you…I personally would NEVER let a boy do that! Gross.)

So I urge you, my fellow females, do not be afraid, Or, well, be afraid but do it anyway. It’s awkward for sure and if you are like me you may have to be reminded to cover up between takes because after my first C-section I completely lost all modesty in any given medical situation. (True story: When I was in the hospital with Em, I got so used to people coming in at all hours of the day and night to check up on me that when housekeeping came in I automatically whipped off my shirt. God bless that woman’s heart…). But I digress…mammograms are important. When I told the tech that I was shocked at how much easier it was than I had heard, she told me about one patient who was wondering when the “hook and needle” part came. This poor woman’s “friends” had told her all kinds of lies and scared the shit out of her. And she showed up anyway. So a) good for you, sister and b) those girls are bitches. Screw them, I’ll be your friend.

Oh, and as promised, here is a picture of boobies:

I have learned the following:

They are not talking about what you think they are talking about. Witness the following conversation I had with the infant clerk at the Shop-n-Bag on Sunday. He was ducked down behind the conveyor belt thingy in what I recognized as “crouching text pose” (ha! you didn’t think I knew that, did you, young people?).

Me: Who ya texting?

IC: Just trying to find out the score of the game.

Me: Oh, it’s a pretty interesting game. We were just listening to it poolside. (read: I may be old, but I have a pool!)

IC: Yea? Was it still zero-zero?

Me: When I left it was.

IC: Who do you like to win?

Me: (momentarily floored…what does that even mean…of course I want the Phillies to win…wait…oh) ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT SOCCER?

IC: Well, yea. What are you talking about?

Me: Baseball!!!!  You know what? You are exactly why this country will be a European Socialist hell within 20 years.

When I got in the car I realized both bra straps were showing and I had spackle in my hair. But I think I made my point.

Dating a girl that actually has interesting things to say is a double edge sword.  On one hand, you don’t need to pretend to be interested while doing things not related to sex – on the other hand, she might say something unexpected you weren’t ready for.  Louisa had a penchant for saying things that would make you want to bust out laughing, cry, or punch a baby in the face.  (no babies were harmed in the writing of this story)

The first time we were laying in her bed discussing sex toys was a perfect storm for a wtf moment.  I was impressed by the general depth of her knowledge and the anecdotal stories behind each purchase she had made.  There was her favorite, the aptly named “Kangaroo” that had melted from being too close to a radiator – she had tried using it a final time before deciding to retire it.  Dedication.  I cheerfully listened as she rustled through her collection, taking out items and telling stories behind their acquisition.  There was this oddly shaped blue device that caught my eye.

I had never seen an item quite like this and it intrigued me, a rubbery web-like apparatus that reminded me of those plastic 6-pack holders famous for choking the shit out of sea creatures.  I pulled it apart and laced it through my fingers like string origami, holding it in front of my face diligently trying to work out how this thing assimilated to her parts.

Louisa: Oh, that belonged to Sebastian (her ex-boyfriend before me)
Me: (color and smile are two things having a race to leave my body) ohhkkk …
Louisa: (nonchalant as could be):

.
..
…
….

“That part was for his balls.”

.
..
…
….

I had it coming.

balls.

…is fucking GROSS. Seriously, what is wrong with everybody that they do this?

I typically listen to music on the train but on occasion I dial the mp3 player down and leave the earbuds in – which allows nearby passengers (read: total strangers) to talk a little more freely amongst themselves.  Sure everyone who rides mass transit can tell you about the super crazy homeless guy or the obnoxiously loud weirdo’s that had an episode on the subway.  But that’s just not what I am talking about.  No Sir.  I’m talking about typically dressed and otherwise reasonable looking people saying embarrassing shit right in front of you because they don’t think you can hear them.  Such was the case one recent afternoon on the ride back from my office in West Philadelphia into Center City on SEPTA’s Market-Frankford line.  Two college girls made the wonderful  mistake of sitting right next to me and my faux earbuds.

Girl 1: its going ok and all, but he’s kinda weird sometimes in bed (makes confused eyebrow face)
Girl 2: (super interested / intent look) is it his penis? (*editors note: this story might suck, prepare to turn music back on)
Girl 1: no that’s fine, its just, he does this thing …
Girl 2: (doesn’t skip a beat nearly cuts her off) anal !? … (*editors note 2:  jackpot)
Girl 1: no, not that, its like…  ok so have you ever seen Clash of the Titans? (*editors note 3:  I’m fully prepared to miss my stop to hear this story develop.  Oh, and WTF)
Girl 2: right um, I know it …
Girl 1: well, when we are fooling around, everything’s ok, its just like, right before we really start, he does this thing and I don’t know how to respond so I just ignore it.
Girl 2: ommmgggg tell me !

Girl 1: (whispering and mouthing the words):

.

…

….

…..

…..

…….

……..

when he puts it in,

he says ‘Release the Kraken’

Score.  You hear stuff on the subway but this was pay dirt.  I wanted to start Eiffel Tower high-fivin people around me.  Needless to say  I erupted in laughter and the subterfuge ran out immediately.  They darted dirty looks my way and I returned the favor with an ear-to-ear smile.  I told the receiver of the Kraken I liked her shoes, popped up and moseyed my way down to another seat.  And yes, I did like her shoes, or rather she had very nice legs in a skirt with dainty sandals on.  Walking away from them I kept thinking to myself… If only she didn’t mind getting wrecked by a mythological creature, you might have a shot with her.

I wonder if there is a support group for women that have slept with this guy, and perhaps other vagina’s that were forced to face the supernatural (read: douche bag boyfriends)

Lets end this post with a picture of Dennis Rodman:

Me: Okay, so here’s the list.

That Man I Married: Okay.

Me: Do you want me to explain it?

TMIM: What? No! It’s a list! On paper! I can read. WTH.

Me: Ok. Thanks hon.

(45 minutes later)

Me: Where are the rolls?

TMIM: Well, we already have rolls. In the freezer. I think.

Me: No. No, we don’t. That’s why they were on the list. Ok, whatever, I’ll get some tomorrow. Why are there two jars of olives? I crossed olives out.

TMIM: Well…I don’t think we have olives.

Me: But we do have olives. I realized that after I wrote the list. That’s why I crossed them out. Did you look at the list?

TMIM: Well, I didn’t think we had them.

Me: But I crossed them out. On the list. That you said you could read. You never listen to me.

TMIM: Well, whatever, it’s just olives…they’ll get eaten.

ME: *runs crying to the bedroom*

TMIM: *drinks a beer*

LATER

TMIM: Honey, I ate all the olives. Can we have sex now?

Me: Only if you promise to go out and buy the rolls tomorrow.

TMIM: Deal.

I always find it weird when people say someone “slapped the taste out of their mouth.” In this particular instance, although a punch and not a slap, I distinctly remember two flavors flooding in, not out: 1) blood and 2) the taste of I’m fucked. It’s related to its better known sensory cousin, the smell of fear, but a little more eminent.

I was strolling down 16th street in my Center City Philadelphia neighborhood this past Sunday night, somewhere just beyond Pine (or was it Spruce? This story involves head trauma) nonchalantly cruising through all the visitors who stream on foot in droves from the free concert at the Art Museum. Once the music stops and fireworks finish, hot and bothered folks young and old march into Center City to walk around and blow off steam. Living here for a decade, one develops a solid inclination for when it’s a bad idea to walk around by yourself, and immediately following the 4th of July free concert is one of them. Of course, the longer you are here the more you are desensitized to the potential of trouble. Like many of the other disconnected narcissistic Center City folks I call my neighbors, I plodded along talking on my iPhone.  I recall telling the person I was chatting with how many large groups of pushy-loud-borderline-angry-for-no-reason teenagers had flooded the streets, and thinking the extreme heat made everyone a bit more antsy than usual.  A little known fact about iPhones and other smart devices is that they actually do not form a protective hyperbaric force field around you while you are talking on them. Pretension and overpriced 3G are totally penetrable by everyday objects, like fists.

When this rather portly fellow came crashing into me tumbling backwards uncontrollably like a retard-powered windmill, I knew I made a mistake thinking I should walk instead of cab to my destination.  We collapse together as my phone goes flying, with my rather skinny ass landing underneath him. I kicked and scrambled from beneath and got to my knees when I noticed two very distinct things that made my brain snap into reality: 1) his eyes were rolling back and he had just suffered some sort of blunt force trauma and 2) he was in a multi-person fist fight being vigorously contested directly in front of me. Had I not been talking on my phone I probably would have seen it starting a few steps back and politely turned the corner. I might have even noticed the guy that knocked him unconscious, who I was about to meet unexpectedly.

It caught me hardest on the side of my neck and a good two fingers of knuckle in the corner of my jaw. Aside from being totally unprepared for its arrival, it was notably the type of punch that makes you want to throw up and shit your pants at the same time. Hard, flush, and in the neck.  I can’t tell you how long I was lost in that moment of stars and space, but my eyes focused just in time to see the next punch getting wound up. It’s actually amazing how fast the brain works in these situations – I ran through a litany of processes, thoughts, negotiations and an eventual decision in the pass of a second.  My brain’s first thought was clean and simple:  Run.  Run fast and hard Steve, run for freedom. Run like this dude wants to punch you in the neck additional times. My legs respond: “we’re shot, try something else.”   He hit me too hard to get the mechanics of “run” back online.  I actually thought of “play dead” before reminding myself he could see me the entire time.  Won’t work Steve.  My mind settled on fight, but there wasn’t much mustard in the jar.  As he leaned forward to hit me again the antics of people fighting around us set him a bit off balance and we sandwiched together.   I hooked my left arm under his and connected my elbow to his face.  The first elbow didn’t seem to bother him much which really perturbed me, mostly because this was more or less all I had to give and he was actually yelling back at me for hitting him.  The second (or third?) seemed to do the trick and we began wobbling to the ground together.  I didn’t even get one full second to feel relief – I could pull my eyes back into focus  just enough to see his friend on the far side of him trying to work his hands over to my throat.

His fingers grasped my shirt and he was slowly lacing his forearm across my neck in the formidable rape-choke fashion, cranking back his other fist to blast me.  I can’t say for sure, but I am pretty confident at this point I closed my eyes and braced for impact.  My favorite part of this story is right here, where a group of guys from across the street intervened.  They gripped up the dude about to straight murk me and pulled him off. I fell to the ground from exhaustion and thought it sounded so great to know I wasn’t going to get hit anymore.  One of my last clear memories was watching most of the guys in the fight scatter and run murmuring about the police coming (don’t worry, they were not).  The first few people that asked me if I was alright gave me some comfort.  The third or fourth that said it with wide eyes made me think I most likely went and got myself a little fucked up.  Fortunately for me, the blood drenched all over my shirt wasn’t mine, and its probably still hanging out on that corner where I left it.

My damage report is modest:  some stitches in my elbow, a purple techno-color bruised neck and a cracked molar. The latter of which gave me the distinction of my first root canal today.

Morales in this Story:

- I’ve lived here 10 years and never been punched in the face on the street for no reason, other than directly after Welcome America’s free concert.

- I believe this means they are attracting a great audience *

- The human traffic out of the Art Museum and into Center City has been well  studied and the appropriate police and emergency staff have been allotted to these areas **

- Welcome America does not produce events, including the big free concert, that make the residents of Center City want to spend 4th of July weekend anywhere but in town. ***

* No, their audience sucks and may punch you in the neck without cause
** I made this up, its more like the old west
*** Yes, they do

A “Welcome America”
- The act of sucker punching a stranger on the streets of Philadelphia, typically in the neck. “Heah, did you see Steve’s face? He went out for a walk on Broad last night and caught a Welcome America.”

I’ll be straight with you - this is a trashy story.

I’ve lived in the Center City district of my fair Philadelphia for the better part of a decade.  In that time, I’ve gotten to see municipal government at work making a variety of decisions that range from “acceptable” (read: more or less pointless but not destructive) to “full blown retard,” as is the case of my topic today.  If you’ve never lived in a major city, you may not understand that trash collection is a bit of a big deal in our quality of life here.  We live for the most part in compartmentalized spaces – lots of apartments, retail, condos and row homes stacked on top of each other.  We also generally have many people visiting or going to work daily, so we produce a tremendous amount of garbage per square inch that needs dealing with.  I was pleased to hear about the Mayor announcing as part of his bid to make Philadelphia “America’s number one green city” the arrival of new solar powered trash compacting cans.  They would replace the trusty old school analog cans (you know, metal baskets) and some serious studies were done to show how much money it would save the city.  Yay.  Say hello to this bad boy:

I like to call this guy Fail Can. Although there is a litany of reasons this would not (read: does not) work in a city setting like my own, somehow the powers that be managed to see past (not know?) all of them.  The idea here is the entry for your trash into the compartment works on a swivel hinged door, sort of like a mail drop – it stands to reason this is an attempt to prevent people from placing oversized items or large trash bags in.  It’s also really great at getting jammed, and making this entire multi-thousand dollar technologically advanced Fail Can totally useless – even if its totally empty – when a 5th grade student pushes a bag in that’s a bit to large.  The top panel of Fail Can is an impressive solar panel, what a cool idea for a trash compactor.  I wonder how well it works with all that graffiti sprayed on it?  My guess is, not well or not at all.  In a final insult of “we run this city but don’t know what the fcuk were doing,” the powers that be decided to replace the old metal cans with a fraction of the new ones – after all, they have a much larger capacity so we should need less cans, right?  Wrong.

So when trash hits the fan, residents generally take matters into their own hands.  Guess how this problem is getting solved by residents?

wait…

wait for it …

boom: with, trash cans: