To All the Girls I've Loved Before

Today I'm taking the first step towards cancelling a subscription to the Onion personals, a.k.a Nerve/Friend-Finder/Cupid-Network. I'm at the tail end of a four-month online dating spree that has been a source of great stress and occasional heartache, though admittedly also a source of great kissing, and I'm trying to muster the backbone to go cold turkey. Since one of my favorite things about it was the writing involved, particularly my bio and all the inhumanly witty, brilliant, hilarious emails I wrote to women, I thought I'd post my bio here for the record. For myself, really, because if my calculations are correct about three people will read this blog before the government dissolves the internet for security reasons. First, this is the picture I used: Okay, picture doesn't seem to be working. But here's what I wrote in response to 'Why You Should Get To Know Me Better': --- I'm not the alpha male. I'm not goal-oriented. I'm not getting a report card when I die. I don't dress like a Gap mannequin, I frequently make bold generalizations and then contradict myself into a big tangled mess, hopefully to the point that you start madly kissing me just to get some peace and quiet. I give good email. I can shake it on the dance floor. I pay for dinner. I'll always make sure you're looking away before glancing at your chest. I like to play with words, like flummoxed, and blimp. And for the people I care about, I do anything. --- That's all quite true. And in response to 'More About What I'm Looking For': --- A smartass who knows that real life is in the imagination and won't give up on an argument until we're making out. Hopefully still won't then. Someone who calls me on my bullshank (take that censors) and thinks that Kate and Petruchio followed by Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon would be the hottest love scene in the history of the earth. Someone who thinks about the history of the earth. Or at least would get turned on if I did, because I do. And noticed that I didn't capitalize Earth but understood that I didn't because it would have been distracting, much like this sentence. I'd say oral hygiene is a non-negotiable requirement, as is a general lack of psychosis. Neurosis is of course mandatory. And, man! If you don't like Woody Allen we are from completely different planets and shouldn't even be attempting to mate. Not that anyone's mating here - I'm not looking for that for quite a long time thank you very much, I just liked the phrase. My kingdom for a paragraph break. Look, If you've even read this far you'll find me good for an email and a beer. I know my bio's from Mars but I don't really have any expectations where people are concerned - all that Kate and Petruchio stuff is great, and I can step up to the plate if it's there, but I realize you're a human being. It's the thought that counts. So come on, let's get off this website so I can buy you a drink and we can swear at each other as god intended. ---- That's all true, but I shouldn't really be looking for anything. Hence cancelling my subscription. All the censor references are angry jabs at the people that review these profiles and blacklist them. For example, mine was blocked for use of the word 'oral', as in 'oral hygiene'. To think that these people are inflecting the evolution of the species. So far though, this bio does the trick; it has lulled many a young woman into thinking I was the ubermensch. Little do they know, I'm just me. So this is my first step in weening myself from the Onion personals. So far so good. Of course, just now while I was copying and pasting the above text, I emailed a young woman who viewed my profile recently. What can I say, I liked the look of her and she doesn't seem like she'd harm me in my sleep. That's what I primarily look for in a woman, to tell the truth; fireworks come second to physical safety in the dating world for me, and there are a lot of people having slow, smoldering, Tacoma-Narrows-Bridge caliber breakdowns out there.

Watching CNN With The Sound Off at a Cafe

Impeaching Bush for wiretapping is like arresting Al Capone for tax evasion (see The Onion's Our Dumb Century). And watching CNN commentators discuss scandals on Capitol Hill is a bit like watching two lawyers try to get each other into bed. They grab onto whatever little detail they can that supports their intention, talking to constitutional scholars - what the hell does a constitutional scholar have to say about whether the president should be impeached? 'We consulted several constitutional scholars over whether President Bush should be impeached, but they were in the bathroom at the time so we don't know yet what to do' - when the truth is half the country wants the president impeached for just about everything he's done since he took office, while the other half wouldn't impeach him if he raped and killed an intern. I'm quite sure that presidents have been illegally tapping phones since the day Alexander Graham Bell talked to Watson through a string and a dixie cup. I'm glad we found something to nail the president with, but why is this one wiretapping suddenly hitting the mainstream media? These guys can consult the Dalai Lama if they want to about the constitution; politics and corporate America will determine the whole thing. The rest is the equivalent of sportcasters at a football game - stuff to fill the air in bars. Another nation-polarizing issue just in time for Christmas dinner. Then two commercials came on, one commercial for an electric jar opener - 'the perfect holiday gift' (did you know you can open any jar by banging the lid a few times with a butter knife? The dents let in just enough air to fill the vacuum. Thanks to my ex-girlfriend Deb for that knowledge) - and the other commerical for an insurance company for old people. This commerical - again, this was with the sound off - was of a series of octogenarian actors frowning at the camera one by one, or turning to the side contemplatively and suddenly wondering if they took their medication, all cut together while the phrase '$250 deductible' washed over the screen. I deduced that these people were pretty unhappy about this deductible. Though they seemed at least a little happy about being paid a lot of money to frown a few times on national television. But then all the old farts started looking up in skeptical but hopeful surprise - suspicious at first, because they clearly weren't born yesterday, but someone offscreen - actually, the camera, me, I guess - is saying something convincing to them, and one by one their bowels start hydrating and they each give us a look as if their lives are finally what they've been working for the last 80 years, and the words 'just $5/month' wash over the screen as each person looks squarely into the camera like a man wearing his Depends. The SkinLab.com website commercial, replete with throbbing website buttons and a view they gave me down the young woman's shirt as she surfed the site lying on her stomach, also sparked many thoughts, none printable here.