Wooord! The Ghostwriter Drinking Game

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you...

Drinkin' 'n' Watchin' GW*
Drink when/for

• new Gaby's in the episode
• Calvin is in the episode
• Hector makes a grammatical error
• there's sexual tension between Tina & Alex
• exceptionally bad line execution
• some sort of fake product/brand name is shown or mentioned
• anything overly "ethnic" happens
• Lenni displays her "talent"
• Rob displays his "talent"
• Jamal uses science
• Tina videotapes something or mentions being a filmmaker
• holes in the Ghostwriter mythology
• celebrity or pre-celebrity
• ill-fitting clothing
• exceptional stupidity *drink twice if it's not Gaby*
• Tina's wearing her retainer
• "Everything's in Brooklyn!" phenomenon
• cop says, "I don't know how you kids do it"
• Frank, Kathryn, etc use wooden old-timey slang
• deep social issues
• tension because there aren't enough letters for Ghostwriter to send a message
• a code is cracked
• Jamal acts "suave"
• mention of the High School of Science
• Lenni flips out at/is rude to her dad's girlfriend
• Jamal has more immediate familythan his grandma
• bad computer effects
• the handwriting is obviously different
• someone says "rewind"
• someone says "peicing the puzzle"
• someone says "Ghostwriter!" like they forgot about him
• fake music
• bad dancing
• mention of the casebook *drink twice if it's not Gaby's*
• someone wears too much makeup
• there's an unnecessary use of a computer
• someone new sees Ghostwriter
• a team member's in a life-threatening situation *drink twice if it's not Gaby*
• *drink twice if a team member is suspected by anyone*
• mention of Lenni's mom
• team member in a tunnel of some sort
• bad accents
• Tina's family is mentioned or shown
• Rob's carrying a skateboard
• criminals that do completely retarded things
• someone's passing puberty is obvious
• wooden British slang when Jamal's in the UK

(We think this was written 2001-2002.)

Hey, Crabman.

I never think of my thrift karma as being particularly exceptional, but I guess it kind of is. Especially when it comes to hoodies.
I got my basic black hoodie in high school, after school one day. It was way cold when I started walking home, so I decided to take a thrift store (Red White and Blue) detour. I thought it would be nice to find a black hoodie, since I had kind of been wanting one. And I did!*
Last year, Tiff came to visit me and we decided to go thrifting. As we were talking about clothes--and I should explain that I sometimes get these fashion flashes, like I want a denim skirt! or My next pair of shoes should be green.--I decide that I want a boys hoodie. It would be very fitted, and the sleeves would be around elbow length. In my head, it was super-cute. And either navy or red. Then we went to Goodwill and I found a super-cute navy boys hoodie. With red lining in the hood.
So Saturday, me and Tiff are at the Friday's by a large Salvation Army. My slightly quilted black Gap hoodie is starting to get holes, and I was picking at them and complaining.** Then we hit the thrift and there was an almost brand-new quilted Gap hoodie for about $3 and hot pink.
It's the exact same pink as my long skinny scarf, though, so now I need some Lamb's Pride Worsted in black to make a long skinny black scarf to wear with it. Or maybe grey...yeah, grey would be very cute.

*Random Best Thing Ever Found In That Thrift: Keren got a pair of black chucks with the Batman logo all over them. Sweet.
**I love this hoodie. I'm actually wearing it as I type this. It smells a bit smoky, but it's very comfortable. And I have 2 tack pins in the pocket: a pink "a" and a smiley apple.

It's the sweetest taste I've known.

Yeah, yeah--I've had a bad run boy-wise. You get the idea.
Now you get to read the story of my real lost love, Muppie.

One thing you should know about me, if you don't already, is my love of drugstores. Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, etc. You can get almost anything you need there: candy, cheap plastic toys, Dr Pepper lip smacker, Wet'N'Wild black nail polish...anything. My favorite drugstore (maybe of all time) is the Rite Aid on Atwood in Pittsburgh*.
In college, Alison, Meleah, and I would spend hours in there, deciding which bad women's magazines, chips, foundation, and random toys we needed for our dorm rooms. Obviously, this was at its peak the year we all had the suite together. That's when I bought Muppie. He was a cute little orange monkey with generic Nerds in him. We liked him especially because, while all the monkeys had cute faces, somehow his smile was more open than the others. Muppie knew three college girls were taking him home that night,
And somehow, he stuck around. Jim Steiner named him when he misheard me saying "monkey". Brain fried from some exam (let's blame Marcia Landy, shall we?), I built Muppie a desk from Legos. Meleah took the desk apart to make him a stage, complete with Lego guitar.
I don't remember much of Muppie junior year, but I'm pretty sure he tagged along on the infamous Spring Break Road Trip me, Tiff, and Alison took.**
Moving gnomes never took Muppie, but I lost him anyway.
Pitt's graduation is a huge ordeal. Tons and tons of people graduate at once. It lasts for hours. Even when you're the one graduating, you take stuff to do. We talked about water guns or a beach ball. Mostly, though, we just played MASH and cheered "USA! USA!" at vaguely appropriate moments. I also had a roll of electrical tape that I made everyone bracelets from. I also had Muppie taped to my cap.
By the end of the ceremony, we were pretty excited to be all graduated, even if we were also really cold from sitting on the Penguins' ice all morning and into the afternoon. It was a sea of hugs and plans for that night.
Somewhere in all this, Muppie fell off my cap. I never saw him again.
Weirdly enough, though, a couple friends of mine had seen Muppie on the ground. Liz said she thought the monkey looked familiar, but hadn't picked him up.*** Her boyfriend, who had picked my Clash pin up off the ground 2 years earlier when I lost it and then was nice enough to give it back to me, looked sympathetic.
I like to think Muppie stuck around at the Civic Arena. Maybe he made friends with the Penguins mascot, and goes to parties now with the Pirate Parrot. Maybe he hitched a ride with the Ringling Brothers circus and tours the country now as a tiny trapeze plush monkey.
This is kind of what Muppie looked like, but a lot cuter. And orange.


*It was my main drugstore when I lived in Oakland, 3-5 blocks from several jobs, and catty-corner to my usual 61- bus stop when I was in high school, so I was there a LOT. Plus, it was pretty much across the street from the Beehive. Name a big zeitgeist-y mid90s indie movie and I probably watched it while munching on snuck in candy from this store.

**As did Assy the Ass Dog, Brian's Lenore doll, and a bag of Easter-shaped marshmallows I began hurtling out the passenger side window at some point between Chicago and home.

***This is a big difference between Liz and I. had I seen a strange orange monkey plush on the ground, I would have picked it up. Hell, I still would.

‘Cos I’m fading fast and it’s nearly dawn.

If you’ve read Scott Pilgrim, you could call him Joseph, because he looked just like that character. For a time, Melissa and I called him:
Beardy, Beardy McStaresALot, Beardy McScaresALot, Stare-y McScaresALot, Scaredy McStaresALot.
A pattern formed. Girl walks into bar, girl gives a brief and futile glance to see who’s there before figuring that anyone worth their salt will come to her (and anyone looking to avoid her can stay away), girl slowly feels eyes upon her, girl turns and sees boy with beard looking quickly away. Girl gets mightily annoyed.
I knew a girl who turned out to be a terrible matchmaker (more on that in a future post). She let me in on Stare-y’s information—basically what you’d expect from your average hipster homeless beard, but with a kid. And barely old enough to be in the bar.
As I do, I lost patience with his shy staring act and introduced myself. We chatted and he looked nervous. He shaved his beard and looked more nervous. He walked me and a drunk Melissa home one night and then we talked for a good while on my porch, interrupted every so often by me yelling at Melissa to not fall asleep on her back on my couch.
While any sane adult recognizes this as the action of a good friend, I think it only made Beardy more gunshy. But then, I had observed by this point that my definition of “good friend” didn’t exactly match any other That Town natives, save Melissa. On a nightly basis, drunk girls were left to stumble home, drunk boys somehow drove themselves to emergency rooms, and the word “friend” was only spoken between the sexes when a boy wanted to feel less guilty about a dumping.
I suggested we hang out, vague plans were made, I got stood up. If I had been surprised by this, I would also have been surprised that the sky was blue. Also, this meant I could watch Tara WhatsHerFace parade around in Kayne’s gown, as that pageant was on. I sent an email suggesting we not plan to hang out anymore. I wanted to add, Stop staring at me unless you can back it up ya pansy. I restrained myself.
A bit later, I find myself back at that bar with a friend of Melissa’s and some friends of the friend.* I’m sitting there minding my own business, sipping my cheap gin and tonic, waiting until everyone else deems themselves drunk enough to dance. A stranger walks up to me to inform me that, when I walked in the room, his friend (Stare-y, of course) exclaimed, blanched, and perked up, simultaneously. I believe I looked at the friend and wondered aloud why Scaredy couldn’t come tell me any of this myself.

*Incidentally, these are the people who, when M’s friend was in the restroom, decided they were going to leave. After barely speaking to me the whole night, they ask if I can tell M’s friend that they left, where they are going, and that M’s friend is welcome to join them there. Now, maybe I’m a bit too Emily Post at times, but I don’t know—this seems unspeakably rude to me. But then, expecting civility and friendship was probably what kept me mostly alone in a place where friendship meant known-since-jr-high or eh-I-don’t-need-to-call-her-I’ll-see-her-at-the-bar. Damn, I sound bitter. Mostly though, I’m just chomping at the bit to get these two years behind me and feel like pre-that town Jessy again.

I'm a good girl, I am.

From this guy’s blog:

“So, for instance, when I'm spending time with a new person who lacks my zeal for a good martini, has never read Ask The Dust by John Fante, and has never watched Arrested Development or Seinfeld, I'm much more excited than if we had a wealth of already-shared interests. When it's time to go pick out a movie together, I'm reaching for old favorites, not new possibilities, because I can't wait for this New Person to discover this Great Thing. Life has thrown so many Great Things at me already, in my thirty-one years as a lover of New Great Things, and mostly now I just want to re-discover them, via someone else.”

And this, my little loves, is in a nutshell why he dumped me. He could give all the “no chemistry”, “I don’t see serious with you” he wanted in that car on the Saturday night before Valentine’s Day, after we had been together for the several hours he needed to work up the nerve to tell me this. When faced with a boy who gets off on being a teacher, the Cool Girl will always lose to the wide-eyed innocent.
And now I remember all the things I showed him, like how he had never seen The Maltese Falcon before or that my reaction to his discovery of Homicide: Life on the Streets DVDs was, “I used to love that show!” Or that he, like most people, fell in love with Arrested Development through the first season dvds while I, in my hardcore nerdishness, had been watching enthusiastically since the pilot.
And now I remember how excited I was, because we had so many things and interests in common. I felt and still feel like he was the only boy I met in that town who I could have had something serious with. But I was thinking that based on associating with him, not the persona that gets created when you live in a small town for too long and are the only heartbroken boy writer with a good head of hair. He’s a local celebrity, and I’m a girl with less interest in fame, and more in the hair and the fact that we had the same favorite Wilco album (Being There, of course).
And maybe I sound bitter, and like I’m still not over this guy that broke up with me almost a year ago. That’s really not the case. This just isn’t the first time I’ve come face to face with Mr Professor, and I’m so emphatically not a fan.
Just Because I Don’t Like Professor Higgins Types Doesn’t Mean I Can’t Impart Wisdom, Too:

• Always keep some spare emergency contraceptive around.
• If you suspect that a broken condom might have scared a boy off, perhaps you should accept the inevitable and move on.
• Excelling in making out doesn’t necessarily mean a damn thing.

The judges and the saints and the textbook committee decided you should be left out.

Oh Remember when I had that plush whale that I was giving a tour of My Last Town, taking it around and photographing in funny places? One night, Melissa, Humor the Whale, and I were hanging out with a friend. First we all went to her boyfriend’s softball game. I worked on a scarf and drank somebody’s beer. It was too dark for my old cheapo digital camera.
Then we went to a little neighborhood bar with HUGE mugs for some karoke.
We went there pretty directly, but Friend’s Boyfriend’s softball teammates went home to shower and change first. One changed into jeans, a black band-looking tshirt under a blazer, and his glasses.
So yeah, in between drinking giant mugs of beer and taking pictures of a plush whale pretending to sing karoke and drink giant mugs of beer, I noticed Friend’s Boyfriend’s Friend. He looked like one of my types after all.
The next night we were all at a friend’s bachelorette party and Friend mentioned, sort of off-handedly, that “of course [Friend’s Boyfriend’s Friend] thought that I was cute.” And we all know I’ve never been a girl to look a free dinner—unh, I mean a blind date—in the mouth. So I gave my acquiescence.
We decided to go out Thursday night. I was going to be off on Friday and I left work early Thursday, so my paycheck wasn’t ready yet, but I needed it for Fun in Chicago and Dix. My supervisor said she would get it to me when she was done at 8. Remember this.
While I was doing dishes and waiting for Friend’s Boyfriend’s Friend (FBF) to call and solidify plans, Pip called out of nowhere (this was the date I later told him about).
When FBF picked me up, he was wearing a Cosby sweater and made the joke about his Porsche being in the shop, both unironically. And that was the high point. It wasn’t bad; just terribly dull. The kind of boy FBF is really didn’t know what to do with the kind of girl I am.
The funniest part of the whole date was when my supervisor called to offer to do the paycheck handoff in the WalMart parking lot and I said to FBF, “Hey, we have to go to the Walmart parking lot so I can get my paycheck.”
Then I pretended to be tired so he dropped me off, not waiting to see if I got in before driving off. So I called Melissa and we went to the bar. And who should we see there but the next boy on the list? Who I had been crushing on for the better part of a year but had moved 3 states away (4 if you include the 30 minutes in West Virginia)?
Lessons Learned:

• If your employer doesn’t offer direct deposit and you’re leaving early on a 3-day weekend, make sure the people doing payroll know you need your check early.
• Plush whales like beer.
• Beast is still gross even if it’s 50 cents a can.
• Um, why was I at a softball game again?

You’re lucky to be drinking here for free because I’m a sucker for your lucky pretty eyes.

About a month or so after I finally completely lost patience with 20yrold, I decided to swing by the local library and do a little low-level stalking on the clerk I had been crushing on earlier that year. (Yes, I knew which night he worked. Shut up.) We wound up going out for a drink or two, and, since there’s really only one bar everyone goes to, we ran into some other friendly acquaintances and their friends.
One of those friends was an alarmingly intense for 30 guy* who attempted to woo me by, among other things, buying one of my etsy hankies but then never coming up with the money and having to bow out of the arrangement and sending a 3AM myspace message that, amongst other things, assured me that he was not drunk.
Another one of those friends was a 23yrold with a similar look, but a much better sense of humor. Cuter, too, and nicer, in a jackassy sort of way.** As I left for the night, he turned and asked if he could get my number and “call me sometime”. In a move that’s socially retarded even for me, I told him that our mutual friend had my number and he could get it from her.
Except, yeah—she didn’t have my number. I’m a spaz.
Then Melissa and I decided to have another picnic and this boy was the only other person who showed up, making it the awesomest awkward first hanging out ever. Melissa makes a great Victorian era chaperone, you guys. Pip and I would trade strange stories, or the three of us would get hit up for change by some random guy who then hit on me, or there’d be a bit of silence, and there would be Melissa, small-talking it up.
Which is good, because my small talk skills suck. I don’t small talk; I non sequitor. And then I wonder why people think I’m weird.
On our first date, I made him wait in my living room while I changed out of the white t shirt I was wearing, since he showed up in a white t, cuffed jeans, and Docs too. Later that night, we wound up in my room due to the magical mixture of beer and my excellent record collection.
So, for a couple months, this was like the greatest casual relationship ever. I’d go about my week, we’d hang out on like a Wednesday, watch the Simpsons, hook up, and then I’d go about the rest of my week, hanging out with Melissa and being a Dance Machine and such. Then he didn’t call for a couple weeks, I assumed that a break in the calling pattern meant I would never hear from him again (as it frequently has for me), and went out with a boy who will be cataloged at a later date. Except a couple weeks after that he did call again. I saw his band and met some friends, which was confusing because I was obviously brought in for the friends’ approval but then he stopped calling again. Maybe I didn’t pass muster.*** Then Pip randomly showed up at my apartment a month later and we talked for a bit, awkwardly. He remarked on the loudness of my menorah candles but it was really the rattley noise my living room heating vent made that I never wanted to question too deeply.
Except I could never remember his last name beyond it starting with an H and having 3 syllables, so I referred to him as Mr Havisham (see how I did that? How I started calling him Pip here? Remember about the non sequitor?)
A Teaching Moment:

• Forcing a boy you maybe still have a crush on to hang out with you on a Monday night is always a good plan.
• I like picnics.
• Your Iggy Pop live TV Eye album may just get you laid.
• See my footnote re: assholes.
• If a boy hasn’t called in a few weeks and asks what you’ve been up to, tell him you went on a date and watch him try to act like he doesn’t care. It’s funny.

*He had the strange punk intensity of a 23yrold, that would impress a girl a couple years younger than that.
**Pip fits in quite nicely with my theory that sometimes what you need is an asshole. A nice sensitive boy stops calling you, you wonder what you did wrong and why you’ll never ever find anyone and die alone. An asshole stops calling you, you think, yeah, well—he was an asshole. No surprises there.
***I’m kidding, obviously.

7 weeks of staying up all night.

At the garage sale/scene of my maturity with zombie comics, I sold some old Echo and the Bunnyman tapes to a cute, energetic and friendly 20yrold.
I had been hanging around with a group of guys who were in their late 20s, living at home and working the jobs they had started in high school. And they all had the maturity level of it, too. In my head, the logic looked something like this: If a 27yrold acts like a 19yrold, maybe there’s no difference and dating someone 6 years younger won’t be an issue.
It should come as no surprise to pretty much anyone I’ve ever met or who has ever read PoBaL that my head-logic kinda sucks.
20yrold, like most of his fellow townspeople, also assumed that any single childless girl over 20 is looking for a big serious relationship and got scared and kept doing that stupid boy not calling thing. And, finally, I lost the last little bit of patience with that.
We’re still friends, though. A couple months ago, we both got new phones with much easier texting capabilities, and we became texting buddies through that. And for the last couple months in the last town, we lived only 3 blocks apart. We went out for Indian food one night, and as I dropped him off, I could hear his neighbors (a couple of those aforementioned 20somethings who act like 19yrolds) harass him about his “date” and then refer to me as “Myspace Jessy”.
The thing that really got me about 20yrold was that, while he was really the only boy I met in that town who seemed to have true real friendships with girls, the girls he’s friends with seemed kind of…um, toxic.
And I’m not just saying that because I heard high school stories. I rely pretty heavily on my instincts, and I’ve learned at this point to differentiate between “This girl doesn’t seem like someone I can trust completely, who would have my back almost without question” and “Damn those are some ugly shoes.” A lot of these girls, like a lot of girls I met in that town, just aren’t the kind of girl posse I’m looking for. I need to know, for example, that a girl isn’t going to flake out on hanging out with her female friends because a boy suddenly has the night off. I need to know my friends aren’t talking shit behind my back. Aside from Melissa, I really don’t think that kind of girl is in that last town.*
But anyway, early on in the hanging out with 20yrold, we went to his friend’s house to hang out with friend and friend’s girlfriend. I immediately got a weird vibe from friend’s girlfriend. No reason, really; just instinct putting my guard up. She was playing around on a computer, showing us all pictures. Zombie Comics was in a couple of the pictures, and she asked me if I knew him. I played it down and didn’t think anything else of it that night.
But then later it occurred to me that if they were really as good friends as this girl had intimated, she already would have known that I knew him, and how. Whether or not this is a petty, silly thing to do to another girl is kind of a moot point to me.
What bothered me about this encounter, and still kind of gets my goat, is that she did this to 20yrold, supposedly a great friend of hers. It kind of blows my mind that any girl would meet the potential new girl of a shy boy friend and decide to, however subtlely, bring up some other boy who had hooked up with that girl.
So, lessons learned:

• 26/20 is too different.
• Sometimes you need to have a State of the Relationship talk to discuss how all you want is a makeout buddy.
• I really need to buy some Echo cds to replace those tapes.
• I have absolutely no patience for stupid boy not calling.
• As hard as it can be to find a suitable boy, it’s a million times harder to find girl posse members.

*Not, of course, that we don’t talk shit. What I always go back to when I think of friends talking behind each other’s backs was the casual way Tom the xRoommate would describe his friends in unflattering lights, to people who may have only known them through Tom.

Elligible, not too stupid, intelligible, and cute as Cupid.

Melissa and I were discussing yesterday how, now that I’ve moved, I can tell a lot of stories I had avoided due to some vestige of propriety.
Basically, I can now talk shit on a bunch of stupid boys. You know, the ones she refers to as the I’ve Gone Out With Jessy At Least Once Club. Now, I’m not just doing this to be a bitch. Au contraire! I’m doing this to be a funny bitch. And because they’re good stories. And to clear some air, and my head about some things.
But mostly for the mocking. Let’s take a boy a post, shall we? These will be in chronological order from what I thought of as our first date. A lot of these stories overlap. Not because I overlap boys, but because sometimes you meet people at different times, and sometimes, especially in a small, small city, people pop up again. And they’ll all have nicknames. Because I like giving boys nicknames.
***
(A bit of backstory:
When I moved from library school to that last town, I had also just broken up with Andy, who was and still is my longest and really only serious relationship. Then I had a crush I didn’t act on because he was in Louisville and long distance exhausts me; a crush on a brick wall [who is also a dodged bullet]; and I hung out with a few different guys, one or two times each, that I don’t think of as dates because it’s before I realized that there’s no such thing as a platonic male/female friendship in that town,)
***
I met Zombie Comics at a going away party for another boy I had a crush on. As I’m a practical girl, when I’m faced with two cute boys, one who is leaving and one who isn’t going anywhere, I choose to chat up Mr Local.
According to a later entry in this list, however, Zombie Comics was apparently doing me the favor by keeping me company while the boy leaving town “ditched me”.
I call bullshit.
Anyway, Mr Comics was nice; he was funny; he took me to the Mongolian BBQ place. Unlike his fellow townsmen, he was gracious about my awkward, “well, I owe you the next dinner then.”
We had a lot of chemistry, nudge nudge, and a lot of other ham-fisted euphemisms.
He didn’t have a coffee pot. One morning, we went out for breakfast at a greasy spoon that only took cash. We were less than a dollar short. Our waitress chased us out into the parking lot, and I decided that it was a greasy spoon I could live without going into ever again. (Bacon wasn’t that great, anyway.)
We went out 3-4 times. The last time, he seemed distant, claiming he thought he was coming down with something (remember this: it’s a theme throughout this list). Later that week, I checked my myspace and found a message from Zombie Comics saying that “someone special” to him was back in town and, while he wanted to remain friends, we would have to be friends without benefits. Except he used the phrase “naughty bits”.
Unfortunately, the benefits were the part I was interested in.
More unfortunately, Zombie Comics had apparently forgotten or not paid attention the multiple times I mentioned that I only had internet at work.
Needless to say, I was pissed. So pissed, in fact, that I pulled the always mature obvious turn-away when I saw him at a garage sale about a week later. Unfortunately, once I was no longer pissed off and remembered that he was cool, smart, and a lot of other things that were a rarity in that town, Zombie Comics had moved away. With the “someone special”, I believe.

Lessons learned:

• Don't stay over if he doesn't have a coffee pot.
• Don't get too drunk the first time you meet a lot of the townsfolk.
• Don't believe a boy when he says he thinks he's getting sick.
• Don't make out with boys whose creative endeavors revolve around zombies.

Stepping down off my platform shoes.

I figure starting this whole blog-every-day-in-November rigmarole with my big announcement is a good idea.
You know how I'm always talking about moving? Well, I am. Moving, that is.
I've accepted a job elsewhere. At the end of November, me, my boxes of other people's prom glasses, library discards, records, and thrift store mugs, and the jerks, will be getting the hell out of town.
I've taken a job as the teen librarian at a brand new branch in a multi-branch system where there are other teen librarians, in the suburbs up against a large city with other teen librarians.
I've moved a lot. I'm not particularly looking forward to the actual moving part, especially since the last time I moved more than 3 blocks away* with cats, my grandparents took my sister and I to McDonalds to keep us out from under everyone's feet. There was a train to play on at the McDonalds. I had just turned four, and I swear I remember watching my older cousins walk up my new, big-ass hill with Callie and Melina in their arms.
I'm also kind of dreading the apartment hunting, which I think I may be starting this weekend. For all its issues, I really like my current place. When the heat is working, that is. It gets a crazy-ton of light, has hardwood floors, a big balcony, and a gas stove. That only half the burners work on, but still--not electric = I can cook on it.
I don't necessarily need a place the size of this apartment. Granted, my kitchen is kind of huge, but there's no counter space to speak of. And a lot of the size comes from the long-hallway-with-rooms-coming-off layout. And that extra room, while nice for crafty storage type behaviors, is mostly a mess catch-all that I'm really dreading having to organize/trash half of/pack. So if I could find a one bedroom with hardwood floors and/or dark-colored carpeting, decent water pressure, a gas range, and a decent-sized living room, I'll be happy. Extra points for balconies, bathrooms without windows, double sinks and/or dishwashers, and a separate water heater from the rest of the building.
Apartment listings just add to the confusion. When I moved here, I was shown several "one bedrooms" that were actually, to my mind, more like studios. And some of the "one bedrooms" I've found on my current search also list a "den/dining room". Maybe it's because I tend to live in student ghettos/kinda sketchy areas, but where I come from, that's a damn 2 bedroom.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the place I lived in the summer after my sophomore year of college, and how much potential that place had. You know, if it hadn't been smack in the heart of College Student Central and stuffy as hell, with decades-old beige carpeting and a frat sticker (not put there by me or any of my roommates) on the toilet. Oh, or the David Hasselhoff picture opposite the toilet, but that's what I get for living with goofy boys.
The front door opened to a longish hallway, with the afore mentioned bathroom at the end. Two decent-sized bedrooms were off to the left. The right side was one big, long room. There was a fireplace with a weird kind of storage area behind it (the tv was in the fireplace, of course. Did I mention the goofy boys and the fact that I was 19?). At the other end of the big room was a kitchen area with a bar, but it was angled so that there was a distinct living room/kitchen/other roomish area set-up. Oh, and there was this kick-ass 1970s chandelier in that other space, hanging dangerously low given the height of at least one of the boys that lived there.**
Also, there was an excellent cleaning products still life that Conor thrifted at the Red White and Blue before it got a big head and starting overpricing the hell out of everything.
So if I could find a set-up kind of like that, without all the roommates, the grubtastic couch (that we once built a fort out of when we were all bored), the broken air conditioning, or the shitty carpeting, that'd be great.
The goofy boys are welcome to visit, of course.

*Ah, the Tiff/Jessy/Jenny move, literally down the street.
**Jason and I once had the following conversation:
Jason: "You aren't that short. You're not that far from my height."
Me: "um..."

And honesty’s the ship that sank this song.

I still associate fall with new clothes. And not just new clothes, but a new look. At a certain point in high school, school clothes for me became less about whether I would have the "right" things and more about what would be fun to wear.
In the late fall, there would be days I would opt to not take a coat, thinking I would walk fast enough to be warm in the morning and the sun would warm things up enough to walk home comfortably. Or, failing that, the walk up my GIANT hill could end in a nice warm cup of tea. Some of those days, however, it would be too cold for even that, and I would take my lunch money over to the thrift store. That's how I got my first vaguely-adult-sized sweatshirt jacket*--I walked out of my school, thought to myself, I'm going to go find a black zip-up hoodie, walked to the thrift store, and found one.
Right now, I have 3 sweatshirt jackets: the black, sort of quilted (it's subtle, I swear) one I got on clearance at the Gap; the boy's navy hoodie I cut the cuffs out of, making it elbow length, that I have a cameo pig pin on; and a light blue one with hearts on the lining I thrifted last year. That last one fits sort of weird, so it's purely functional.

Most falls, I rethink the way I dress. Sometimes it's when I find myself noticing the same types of clothes over and over again. Sometimes it's a reaction to, or a change from what I had been wearing before. Sometimes it's just if I'm feeling contrary.

This fall? This fall is all about the short skirts. And black tights, but every fall I wear skirts is about the black tights for me.
And heels. You know how everyone thinks short girls should avoid the short skirt/heels combo? I'm bringing it back.
I'm also declaring the following color combinations acceptable, because I like the way they look: black/brown, black/navy, and red/pink.

And, as always, lots of scarves. Look for the return of the Target $1 section child's skeleton hand gloves, working in tandem with these in black. I've been working on a chunky short sleeved sweater in bright blue yarn I bought in New Orleans (this is taking awhile because I'm trying to make something up, not just following a pattern). My next project is Teva Durham's Lace Leaf Pullover, in a dark teal (see Fig. A). And I really want to make MagKnits' Sesame in navy and white, with anchor buttons, but I'm having trouble finding the buttons in the right size. Oh, and the Gap has this chunky fair isle cropped cardigan, but I bet I can make a cuter version (ie not cropped, and maybe elbow length, which I'm loving right now over longsleeve shirts) using Stitch'n'Bitch's Fairly Easy Fair Isle as a starting point.

*There's an adorable picture of 3yrold Jessy walking down a Regent Square street in a sweatshirt jacket and cuffed jeans.

Figure A

His telephone is found.

I get my hair cut about once every 5-6 months. I don't do this on purpose; it just kind of happens that way. I good haircut grows with your hair and keeps looking good, until one day I look in the mirror and hate everything.
It's triangle-y and flyaway and overwhelms my tiny face and makes my glasses look even more nerdishly crooked.*
And that's when I get the majority of it chopped off. This is something I've been doing for about 8 years now, since the first all-chopped-off my junior year of college. Before that, there were years of trimming the nasty ends but keeping length, which started as an attempt to even out the horrible layers.
OK, perhaps we should have some timeline action. Also, keep in mind that I have the worst kind of jewfro: some tight curls, some looser ones, frizzies, etc. etc.

1979: Born. Completely bald until 2.

1983 (about): OK, I have a really vague memory of having cute pigtail braids at a family function. Long ones.

1984: It's all chopped off evenly around my head. In kindergarten, I get mistaken for a boy in the bathroom. Or, some older girl thinks it's funny to call me a boy. Yeah, I was that kid, the one everyone thought it was fun to mess with.
late 80s-mid 90s: The hair gets longer, but the top layers are still short. This haircut is why I hate my childhood pictures, and (if I could get real emo for a second) kinda the main reason behind every "I'm ugly" thought I've ever had.

1994 or so: Start growing the top layers out. Little boxy for a bit, but somehow works well with the stereotypically mid90s weird kid look I begin cultivating, after realizing how hardcore I suck at looking normal.**
This is also when I begin with the black hair dye, and when I realize that changing up the wash/dry/braid/whathaveyou cycle even a little causes my hair to look dramatically different.

1996 (at least, I think so; my mom doesn't remember this at all): Realizing that my hair won't take any fun colors without bleach, I come up with a plan to take the color out of a chunk of my hair, a la Caitlyn from Degrassi(see Fig A). Then, the plan went, I would dye it various colors. I enlisted Kerenq Gilboa and we commandeered some black hair dye (for the rest of my head), some facial bleach (I know!!), and a bathroom in her house. I don't think any pictures survive of this look, but I bet they'd be hilarious.

1998: Before my intro to mass comm recitation, I get all my hair chopped off at a trusted salon. It looks very cute.
This is when I switch over to red dye sometimes.


Fig A:





*'Nother xboy gem:
Jessy--Do you think my glasses are noticibly crooked to everyone, or is it me?
Andy--I love your crooked glasses and how nerdy they make you look.
Points for trying, right?

**Seriously--I'm terrible at looking like everyone else. Even as a Halloween costume. Cara's Certain Filmmaking X makes a better Republican than I do a sorority girl.

power trips down lovers lane

...or a jaunt down memory lane with Melissa.
Remember how damn funny this was?
It says it has no comments, but it lies. Click on "Comment" to read others' hilarity.

I heart kids' book reviews.

It's about the Holocaust + this girl named Anne Marie + she has a friend named Ellen WHICH is a Jew!!

It's Not My Place (In The 9 To 5 World)

Did your high school have Channel 1? My high school had Channel 1.
Rob Thomas worked for Channel 1.*
He wrote a book called Satellite Down about a kid named Patrick Sheridan whose high school has Classroom Direct.
(Other things Rob Thomas has written: a YA novel called Rats Saw God [flashback!], Veronica Mars, Drive Me Crazy**.)
If your school didn't have Channel 1, and right now you're trying to figure out what the hell I'm talking about (more so than usual), here you go. Basically, it's a news show geared towards teenagers, shown in classrooms. It has A LOT of ads. All for stereotypically teenagery things. I remember a lot of pop and gum commercials, myself. And a really annoying one about studying abroad with the B-52s song "Roam" in it. In exchange for a captive audience to advertise to, schools get tvs in every room with a close-circuit-thingy, that they can theoretically use to broadcast stuff on their own.
Mostly what I remember about Channel 1 was everyone ignoring it. Homeroom is fuckin' early, most people are talking, etc. I always wondered what one extra subliminal Pepsi/Coke (see? I don't remember. I'm going to assume Pepsi, based on their irritating mid90s "Coke is for old people" pitch.) or Big Red (I remember this b/c I've always wondered what's so breath-freshening about cinnamon) would really change about everyone's consumption, and how much the ad rate would change if execs knew how little attention was being paid.
You know, when I didn't think the whole thing was the scum of the earth and terrifically offensive. I believe I've mentioned before that I went through my humorless feminist phase around 9th-10th grade?
I have 2 programming memories of Channel 1.

1. Being asked if the band they were talking about was the same one on my shirt the Monday after Kurt Cobain killed himself. (Yes, I wore the shirt then. Shut up.)
   
2. A couple of the Ramones guest-hosted one morning. Boy, if you want crap guest-hosts of a news show, pick some Ramones. Their cue card reading was OBVIOUS and HILARIOUS. And momentarily distracted me from the fact that I was the only one in the building who knew who they were. This is not an exaggeration.

Now that I think about it, maybe the huge advertising rates were justified. I mean, I almost always had my nose in a book/my journal, attempting to let the black coffee work its magic (you're getting a great picture of the kind of teen I was, aren't you?), but I can distinctly remember that damn Big Red commercial. People were, like, kissing. And smelling all cinnamony, I'm assuming. Which is, as I mentioned already, gross. And there was a UFO.

Obligatory "It's a Review! I Swear" Comment: Patrick's kind of a dumbass. And just when you thought he's learned to be less of a dumbass, he's pulls the world's biggest feat of dumbassery. I mean, I get not being able to say to Channel 1 head honcho-guy, No one watches, or, I hate this stupid hat, but the whole--SPOILER! SPOILER!--insinuating he slept with a female friend to her jackass crush to, what? save her from said jackass crush? I don't get it. I did enjoy the trip down Channel 1 Memory Lane, though.

*Not the Matchbox 20 guy.
**Which is actually based on a novel by a guy named Todd Strasser, which I didn't think was as good as the movie, but then, reading didn't involve staring at Adrian Grenier. Who I sometimes confuse with Rory Cochrane. Wait! They were both in The Adventures of Sebastian Cole!? Man, I get so easily distracted by IMDB.

Here's a game.

Or a study in random associations and non sequitors. Even more than one usually finds here, maybe.
I've got 3 songs here with distinct memories/associations. I'm going to tell you what they are and we'll all be entertained.
Then you're going to take these 2 and add one song and give some stories about them on your blog thing. We'll all be entertained some more.
This'll be fun, I swear.

1. Common People--Pulp
   Not technically 80s, and yet still the most popular song at Pittsburgh 80s Night.
   Also the song I tend to speed the most on if it shows up while I'm driving.
   
2. The Greatest Love of All--Whitney Houston
   I wish this song only reminded me of Say Anything, but this is the song we sang at my 6th grade graduation. I was disappointed because the year before, the graduating class sang that New Kids on the Block song with the video of them singing on stools in front of a sky background. What was the name of that? I think it was maybe on the Christmas album.
   When my dad took pictures at my high school graduation, it was on the same roll of film from the 6th grade one.
   
3. Centerfold--J. Geils Band
   Aaaah, Pop-Up Video, who told me about the singer rooming with David Lynch. What an amazing show. And quite a board game as well, especially a drinking game.
   A drinking game I played with, among other people, Cindy, who once thrifted a kids game involving throwing things into a green plastic toilet. She tried to turn that into a drinking game as well. I also remember Cindy finding: the Sweet Valley High game, a Ghostwriter game (not to be confused with the Ghostwriter drinking game Tiff and I made up), and this game of cards, some with boys on them and others with personality issues, and you were supposed to determine which issue you would ignore for which boy. Or something. Except the guys were all ugly, in that particularly 80s "hot" way.
   And then we changed the issue cards to say ridiculous things.
   What I really think about when I hear "Centerfold", though, is the Nothing Painted Blue cover of it, which was on like every mixtape me or Tiff made the summer 2000. Or maybe we just always listened to a very small number of tapes in Midge.
   She had never listened to the 45 that came with Monte Carlo Method and commented on the song one day. I think I said something like, dude, don't you have this too?
   But I don't remember if I was calling people "dude" then or not. Probably pulled out the "go back to Russia" I was digging into the ground then, though.
   And while we've got the Summer 2000 going, I could go into my James-from-Twin Peaks obsession, but I'll spare everyone.
   
   
   

so you say you like my shirt

This might be my new favorite YA book quote:

My heart was doing a happy leap, prancing around in a meadow of flowers, tra la la, without my permission. His dog's name was Rocket. I liked astronomy. It was that thing you do when you first fall in love. Where you think you must be soul mates because you each get hungry at lunch time and both blink when a large object is thrown your way.

It's from Wild Roses by Deb Caletti.

When I first read the book, I meant to mark that quote, but of course I didn't. I always wind up searching through books, desperate to find a quote, a fact, a line. I used to do this all the damn time in school. Writing a paper, there was always The Perfect Line/Point/Fact. I used to call up Meleah, or Tiff at the radio station (I seemed to pull a lot of all-nighters when she was doing her late-night show) with questions like, "What's the name of the Russian guy who made the movie where he showed film of a guy with the exact same expression on his face, but with different things after the cut, like he was reacting to them, in order to talk about the language of editing?"

While I was looking for the above crush-quote, I found this great moment, too. Seasonally, I'm a bit late on this one, but maybe we'll all remember to use it come next December.

...and our old Nativity scene. Mom and I still liked to have fun with it by moving the figures around in what you could politely call "nontraditional positions." Mom's not very religious in any regular way. She called the Nativity "Christmas Town," as in What's happening in Christmas Town today? I'd wake up to find the camel in the manger, say, with Joseph chipping in with parenting duties out front, and then I'd move them around to surprise her the next day with everyone standing in a circle around the donkey. Several years ago, the scene acquired a large plastic dinosaur, and later, a miniature replica of the Statue of Liberty that Mom got when she played a festival in New York. The poor folks of Christmas Town ran from Godzilla one day, and the Statue of Liberty got to be a fourth wise man.

So, yeah, Wild Roses is a good, if wordy for YA, book. So is Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, another of Caletti's novels. Here's what the cover looks like:

Boys, movies, and shopping too/My favorite things/I thought you knew

Tiff and I used to be roommates. When you live with a good friend like that, there's always the danger that your extreme likes or dislikes will cement into these ridiculous statements and/or obsessions. Since we both have this tendency anyway, things were kind of in overdrive for awhile.
We wrote a Ghostwriter drinking game. (Although, technically, we didn't live together yet here. I just spent a hell of a lot of time at her 'n' Cindy's place avoiding Ken the assface boy.)
We paid for big sexy cable.
Big sexy cable included, among other things, M2 and VH1 Classic.
At some point, we decided that it was okay for us to like Thursday:
*they were cute
*the song was catchy and pretty good, for cash-in emo stuff
*most importantly, there was Super 8 in the video
The first time I heard "Sugar I'm Going Down Swinging" or whatever it's called, I was reminded of our Thursday arguements. Because I believe I'd like to recycle them for this song, which I kind of secretly, kind of unabashedly like. Just replace "super 8" with "Simpsons reference" and we're all good.

This post is my list of some kickass stuff that came out this year, in no particular order. (And I don't want to hear any technically2004 bits. Sometimes I'm late, okay?)
And I'll probably forget a ton of stuff.

I've got a convenient list of a ton o' stuff that came out, YA book-wise, open in another window, so let's start with that.

The repetitive part:
How can I convince you guys to read Looking for Alaska if you haven't listened to me yet? Just trust me on this one.
I really did go on and on about Prom, but then the stupid internet ate it.
Here's where I gush about A Room on Lorelei Street and Peeps.
I was dating a 20yrold; I was reading a book by a 20yrold; synergy! Or something.


24 Girls in 7 Days is bookish crack. It's Say Anything in book form, kinda. Without actually being much of anything like Say Anything.
Far From Xanadu by Julie Anne Peters. You can see the trainwreck coming and you want to reach into the book and stop it, but not in a bad way.
I need to stop and say something here about David Levithan. Boy Meets Boy makes me sad. It makes me sad because I hate to think that the only world where a boy can meet a boy and have only the same level of angst as your average boy-girl meet is also one this forcibly whimsical.
I don't need a crossdressing quarterback/homecoming queen for a sweet love story to work.
I know a lot of people have called this magic realism and tried to work that angle, but that just doesn't feel right to me.
As far as poetry goes, I can stand Realm of Possibility.
Are We There Yet, however, is one of my picks for 2005, I think, even though I forget about it sometimes. 2 brothers who never get along, vaguely Oscar-and-Felixish but not simplistically so, are conned into a trip to Italy by their parents. I guess the whole point of stories a lot of the time is to see into someone else's viewpoint, and this book, with its dual narration, does that beautifully.

Enough of this grown-up beautiful crap. Valiant by Holly Black is totally one of 15yroldJessy's new favorite books. The Spiderwick Field Guide thing is pretty amazing, too.

And Alice MacLeod, Realist at Last is my favorite of the Susan Juby Alice books. True awesomeness, and I really need to find a Canadian to tape the tv show for me. (Not to be confused with Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Alice, who I've successfully avoided having to read for yet another year--go me and my immature aversion to books about seemingly boring "normal" teenagers and anything my YA lit professor recommended!)

Lulu Dark is the bestest accidental-detective-'cause-she-got-her-tacky-purse-stoled I'm pretty sure I've ever read about.

Did The Bermudez Triangle come out this year? Man, where did Maureen Johnson come from? And how come the big guys never talk about her? I like all her books, but this one's definitely my favorite.
The jacket tells you it's about what happens when your 2 best friends fall in love, with each other, but that's not it. What it's really about is what happens when one of your best friends fucks the other one over, the choices you have to make, and if you can really forgive a loved one for hurting another loved one really damn bad.
And who hasn't been in that situation? Isn't it called "college"?

Yeah, Twilight's pretty great, but any teenager with artificially black hair will tell you that; you don't need me.
You also don't need me to talk up Teach Me (substituting YA librarian for Blackie McManicPanic there). But I should say that I think this is the only book about an brittle perfectionist girl that hasn't annoyed the hell out of me.

Oh, and on the movie tip? I'd talk up Mysterious Skin and Serenity here, but I still haven't seen either one of them. Any interested-in-viewing parties should get back to me.

Serenity Rose is cute and funny and kind of spooky and the best kind of thoughtful, with very little cliche and no ham-fistedness. And that's really hard, especially in a comic about a witchgirl.

Oh, and Necklace of Kisses, of course.

And a year where Jacky Faber makes an appearance can't be all bad, right?

and I can take it or leave it each time

Because this is the sort of girl I am, I used to blame babyboomer-obsessives--not the actual boomers, mind you—for accelerating nostalgia. We watched them miss things, on screens, in print. In college, in high school, we began missing things too, sometimes things we hadn’t even been alive for.
This fall marks 10 years since my last first day of high school. I like the way that sounds better than, “In May, it’ll be 10 years since my graduation.” It’s been a good near-decade, full of mornings when I don’t walk out of the house silently cursing my mom for wanting me to “have a good day” out loud.
Jesus, this is maudlin. And you’re not even seeing the version the computer ate.
Nostalgia’s a funny thing.
What brought all this on? 2 things: the zine workshop thing I’m planning for Teen Read Week, and a sentence from Rob Thomas’ book, Rats Saw God.
On Novelist (my favorite-est database, after those Library of Congress ones I nerded out over last time), Patrick Jones goes so far as to call this the best YA novel ever. All I know is, if I were a boy and I read this in 1996, when it came out, Rats Saw God would be my Girl.
Here’s the sentence:

I thought about Doug playing in an MTV all-star softball game, rounding third and trying to take out Bo Jackson at home plate.

This line is such a simple, throwaway joke, tossed off for an audience that gets it, most likely ignored by audiences that don’t. It ties the story to a time and place, in a way that even the Cobain mourning scene doesn’t.
Does MTV even do Rock’N’Jock anymore?
***
I want examples of zines at the workshop, and I’m mostly using my old collection. The moving gnomes have taken most of them, hoping (I guess) to turn Southern Fried Darling, Sourpuss, a couple random Cometbuses, and so many others into profit. Here’s what I’ve got left: blue-stocking revolt #1, altocumulus undulates #1, and Swing Set Girl #3, from years later and the other end of Pennsylvania. This is in addition to the black binder with “The Official Bernadette the Squirrel Archives” silver paint markered on the front, which also houses the Waste Another Year Archives and my one-shots.
I threw away my diaries (or journals, or gournals if you’re feeling Paul Ruddish) only a couple years after high school. I’m kind of glad I did. I don’t think I ever need that much of a reminder of how lonely I was, how much I hated everything. People that keep their diaries remember their secrets; because I kept my zines, I feel like I remember everything else, plus almost like a distillation of those secrets.
And they’re a lot funnier. I love that, that we could all be so sad, or so pissed off and/or righteous, and then so silly.
***
And the next time I decide to read a YA novel published in the mid-90s while going through old zines? Kick me in the head, someone, please. Kick me in the head, and then take away my copy of No Alternative.

met him in a bar/said I know who you are

I have a few executive items to clear up.
***
Somehow, my car payment never made it to the bank this month. I had to put a stop payment on a check, which I'm PRAYING is the right one, since there's a bit of confusion in my register. Otherwise, Sprint and the car people are going to be mad at me. I hate it when I'm responsible and things fuck up anyway. I also hate it when the bank charges me $10 for shit that isn't my fault (for once). So, if you are reading this and I owe you a present, it may be a bit late. But you were expecting that, anyway, weren't you?
(That's for Tiff. As far as I know--and believe me, I would know--Lara is not a Perks reader. She's also more demanding about gifts.)
Speaking of presents, I'm going to be attempting to make things this year. If you're the sort of person I give things to, and have something that I might be able to make in mind, let me know and I'll see what I can do.
Some of you it may be too late for, and you'll just have to like what you get, you ungrateful jerks.
***
Tree is too big for international travel, it was decided. Instead, my small plush triceratops (I named him Fisher the other day) is making the journey. I realized what a good thing this was last night, when I decided to read under the covers. What would I have done without Tree's neck-pillowy goodness?
***
There's been talk floating around the internet lately about my craptacular Friday night. (I love how I can take MySpace, a few Philadelphia-directed emails, some New England IMing, and Melissa's blog and turn them into "The Internet".) I had this whole thing set up, we came up with a fitting insult (Log Cabin Republican, if you're interested), but I just can't carry a grudge all like that.
Unless you're this girl Meisha I went to elementary and high school with. I still hate that bitch. And you really, really don't want to know what set it off. I have few enough friends as is.
Suffice to say, should have been hanging out with one boy. Didn't. Met an asshole.

Cara sez: "I hate when guys who are stupider/less attractive think I should still talk to them as if I were some sort of polite human being. If you aren't good to look at OR good to talk to, please stand somewhere far away and don't bother me."

I say, your problem with my intelligence, appearance, or attitude is not my problem.
The thing that really kills me about this guy, so much so that I'm still going on about it almost a week later when I could be composing my literary crush list or thinking about my actual crush or something, is that, before he turned into Asshole (TM), I was making a concerted effort to not be JessyJudgemental (as he was wearing a sweater and shorts and exhibiting a Mustang logo lookin tattoo, this was HARD) and to be JessyCharming ("Look, they have little stars on the corners!").
Just one quote, then I'll go onto the next item: "Why would anyone go to the library on the weekend?" followed by surprise and disbelief at the idea of people who don't have home computers or internet access.
Ass. Hole.
Who then (sorry, I'm on a roll now and there's still about half an hour til the RunescapeRush), at a different bar, after I was all snug in my bed, visions of kids without internet access dancing in my head, proceeds to bitch about me. To Melissa. And ask for my number.
***
Saturday was a good day, despite working, overanalyzing and jumping to (incorrect) boy conclusions, and falling into bed before 11:30. 18 kids at the anime program! And I learned how to knit in the dark.
Well, reasonably well.
Now I can't decide: do I buy more of the blue cotton yarn to finish the scarf I was working on in the dark, which I think I would wear quite a bit, or do I get completely new stuff, to expand my skill set a bit? And start on seasonably to-be-given-away stuff?
***
I've got 3 days off this weekend, and if I'm not done with that purse at the end of it, someone's gonna pay.
***
I've got these anecdotes that I forget who I've told, so I'm just going to put them on the internet and be done with it. For example, expect to see the Story of the Movie I Helped Twin Peaks Adam Make at some point.
But this is a different tale. And a shorter one.
Last year, when I was looking for library jobs, I used to check out the Special Library Assocation's job listings. (In MLS-land, we call any libraries that aren't academic, public, or school "special". They're not retarded; they're just weird.) This includes jobs like Lexmark's corporate librarian or you know how at the end of Weekend Edition they thank the librarians? Stuff like that.
Fox News listed jobs there, too. There was one that was quite tempting.
For a "Fact Writer".
When I read that listing, I got the greatest envisioning, of a bleak, former supply room somewhere, with all these posters of, like Clinton's face with a slash through it or lists of what constituted Facts.
Actually, in my head, Fox News HQ looked a lot like the workplace in Brazil. The movie, not the country.

Keep on dancing to the rock and roll.

Couldn't have said it better myself
And yes, I realize that's the pussy way out. Shut up.
I would like to add something about Adam Groves' drunken attempts to get me to apply for some children's librarian position at the library he works at--or something. The last time I got told about a job, it totally didn't involve hand groping.
***
Also, I should tell everyone to go here.