the first paragraph of my auto-biography

i once tried to learn Afrikaans for a boy. a South African friend taught me how to say "you have big muscles in all the right places" in Afrikaans. i tried to forward the message to the boy, but chickened out last minute. instead, i said things like where is the ladies room?, spoon, and cup and saucer. he responded by telling me my accent was terrible. "it sounds like you just said cup and mountain."

heart-break ensued.

gays say the darndest things

brent: can i get a pinot?
waiter: pinot ...noir?
brent: right.
waiter: no problem. [leaves]
brent: what, like i'm going to have pinot grigio with eggplant parm?!? please...

+++

overheard at a cabaret bar: i wish apples had the consistency of strawberries.

from romance to real estate

a really bad idea

my super secret penpal

me: why did i think charles manson was dead?
bryan: because he stopped writing to you?

what about "lady pocket"??

what are white people supposed to say when they sing along to a hip hop song containing the N word?? is this my white guilt talking? are we allowed to freely sing it since we're quoting someone else? or is it still off limits? Tribe Called Quest have a great song called "Sucka N*gga" (see i can't even WRITE the word), and while I love the song, i can never sing along. (i also turn it down when driving through a black neighborhood). my friend robert suggested substituting in the word "nickle"; and robert's half black, so i figure there's a 50% chance that's an acceptable solution.

speaking of [blank]-words, let's talk about the c-word. the only offensive thing about that word to me is that there is no male equivalent. men will never know the true implications of referring to a woman as a "cunt" because we have no retort of equal measure. for me i'm not bothered by it because i can't be - being offended almost gives the term power it has no right to hold. in college i attempted to kick start a movement of women taking the word back like black folks have done with the n-word; but as it turns out, a lot of my female friends were not yet ready to embrace "wuzzup my cunt?" as a greeting.

sadness ensued.

men and marriage - a girl's hypothesis

fun thing i learned this weekend: men in their 30s appear to be just as obsessed about getting married as women. not always, but most of the time. generally for women it's the biological clock: tie one down before the uterus dries up. for men, it appears to be the completion of a big picture they feel they have to have fully-developed by the time they're 40: the career, the house, the wife and the kids. a 38 year old male friend of my sister's is debating proposing to his girlfriend. they have been dating for a year and have broken up 4 times in that year. that means there were four red flags telling you to run, my friend. another is moving in with his girlfriend (NOT fiance) and has been overheard saying "my marriage isn't going to last." is it because we look down on men who aren't / have not been married by the time they are 40? is singledom as much a plague for men as it is for women as they hit that age? so to my mens in their thirties: enjoy your life. by all means, find someone to enjoy it with you, but always remember if you can't enjoy it alone, someone else isn't going to make a damn bit of difference. marriage isn't about finding someone to open a checking account with. it's about finding someone who knows when to shut up and get you and your buddies a beer while you're watching the game.

trust.