Let's get good. And dirty.

WARNING: if you don't find acid-tripping fraternity boys on The Price is Right, porn films that set out not only to break... but to shatter world records, or the question, "Wait, is there a chance I might have given my dog AIDS?" even remotely funny, don't read any further.

If you believe that any of those things can be both hilarious and heart-warming, read on.

I never promised that this blog would be interesting and I never promised that it would be socially appropriate so I make no apologies for what follows.

You know it's going to be an entertaining night when you walk into a theater to hear an author read his work and someone hands you a) an autographed copy of the author's newest book, and b) a string of blue pearlescent ass-beads.

Wait, did I say "ass-beads"? I meant "bookmark."

No, I meant ass-beads.

If you don't know what that means, kindly DO NOT Google it at work. Again, I make no apologies.

The aforementioned item is a promotion for FoxSearchlight's (yes, that Fox, as in Rupert Murdoch: hyper-conservative and... ass-bead enthusiast?) new "dirty-minded love story" Choke, based on Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name. The warning on the "bookmark" reads: "For your book not for your bum. And not for small children." Which is appropriate on so many levels.

We have our books, we have our beads, we take our seats and prepare for what lies ahead. Chuck Palahniuk is giving a reading in the only remaining non-chain movie theater in DC, sponsored by Olsson's books.

If you've ever read any of Chuck's books--you might vaguely anticipate what's coming despite all outward appearances. And when he walks out amidst cheers and hoots, he looks like one of the characters from his books. He's just a guy. In a shirt and pants. Normal height. Normal haircut. He taps the mic, which doesn't work, and some Olsson's employee runs over and turns it on--just like the beginning of 85% of all events where someone has come to speak to a group of people about something normal. It's an awful lot of normal for someone with so much gleeful filth going on upstairs.

Everyone in this giant room knows all the rules of Fight Club. That might not seem that impressive, since most people know at least the first rule of Fight Club. But thanks to Chuck, these people also know what it's like to eat a lobster with it's heart still beating. They know that the best place to meet an easy date is at a sex addiction recovery meeting. They all feel slightly superior and slightly guilty that they know these things.

Except Tim. Who has never read anything by Chuck Palahniuk and is just here to have a good time.

The reading starts like many others; the author tells a little story from his life. It's a heartwarming story that starts with a pact between a couple he knows. They've agreed to put their fat, diabetic, incontinent, 17 year-old cat to sleep as soon as his bag of outlandishly priced cat food runs out. When the punchline comes we all have a a hearty chuckle about the power of love playing out over such an unlikely hero. I won't tell it to you, in case you're lucky enough to hear it in person some day.

Then Chuck tells us we're going to play a game and the blowup dolls come out.

And that's just thing. It's amazing how a situation that just sounds so wrong can really be highbrow and funny and innocent and never remotely uncomfortable. Typically, if you're in a theater with that many people frantically blowing up that many sex dolls you are in the wrong place.

But this was just a little good, clean fun. Floppy pink plastic legs sticking up everywhere in this theater with red velvet seats and cherubs on the ceiling. The sounds of furious huffing and puffing. Chuck Palahniuk, world-famous author, yelling at everyone "You've got to squeeze the little valve thing or you're never going to get anywhere!" To the first fully-inflated male and female doll blowers went a book of short stories. The games are over. It's time for a reading.

Chuck reads an unpublished short story of his called "Loser" because he wants us all to have something fresh. Because we came all this way to see him and it's the least he can do. It's about a fraternity boy during pledge week who drops a "hello kitty" tab of acid and is the next contestant on that game show where the giant, god-like voice asks you to "come on down!!!" It's a hilarious story. It hurts your face to hear it.

It hurts my face now to think about it.

So then some local author comes up and sits with Chuck in their little chairs and they have an interview. And of course the guy's first question is "I know you hate this question but...." (then why are you asking it?) "...how do you feel about the way Fight Club has been received?" And it's wonderful. Chuck gives this wonderful, unintelligible answer that only happens when authors try to speak but they realize that what they're trying to say is so full of nuance and significance that it should be written down, but it's too late! He's already started speaking!

It's something about the Titanic. And culture digesting things. And cud. And it makes almost no sense but you know he's thought about it until his brain bled. And he just wants us to know how it feeeeeeeels, DAMNIT!

And there are more questions from the audience. Those typical audience questions that start with "So, first of all I think you're awesome and now I'm going to tell you about me, because someone handed me a microphone. I'm um, a (insert current level of education/addiction here) and I have a lot of friends/problems/questions/diseases. My entirely unrelated question is (insert some intellectual-sounding gibberish about characters/method/plot/inspiration)." Bless their little hearts.

Two really good things did come out of the Q & A. One guy asked Chuck to tell "the Pug Dog Story", which is a true story someone sent to him in a (long) letter. I won't relay the whole story but I will say that it's not the kind of story one should ever tell in a crowded Barnes & Noble. And don't worry. Nothing at all bad happens to the Pug Dog. Dogs really can't get AIDS--at least, they can't get HIV.

The second good thing is that they revealed that Choke has been made into a movie starring Sam Rockwell. And since we were already in the theater, the dimmed the lights and showed us all the preview, which made everyone a little bit giddy. No one was expecting a multi-media experience.

At this point in the evening, it seemed like things really couldn't possibly get any better, so we played another round of the blow-up doll game and Chuck handed out a few books to people who correctly answered various trivia questions. He also informed us that instead of sending thank you letters in reply to his fanmail, he sends gift packages full of things that make him happy.

That's when I realized, as he stood there telling this amazingly serious story about how all of his characters are essentially lonely people who are searching for ways to be intimate and to be loved without actually having to build honest, intimate relationships, and how he's constantly amazed at the level to which strangers will share their darkest and most traumatic stories with him because he's so clearly someone who has no shred of dignity left.... he's standing there, pouring it out... sincerely sharing his discoveries about the beauty and tragedy of the human condition... and in his arms he's holding about fifteen limp, wadded up, deflated blow-up dolls.

That's when I realized that Chuck Palahniuk is not only someone whose writing I enjoy and admire... Chuck Palahniuk is someone I like. He's someone I'd like to be friends with.

For the first time, I'm looking at an author I might actually like more than I like his books! How can this be? Authors are usually like giant wet blankets woven from unbreakable fibers of pomposity and ennui. Either that or they're just flat out boring--they live in their heads.

But Chuck seems to be, as he stand there in front of us all, primarily interested in making everyone feel good. In making us laugh the way porn makes you laugh. It's so desperate and dirty and terrible but it's also just too ridiculous not to laugh at it. In the end, it's just there because people want to feel needed, important, and loved.

And so the last thing that gets thrown into the audience is fitting. Here, he drags out a giant cardboard box full of Autograph Hounds and says "I spent my winter signing these." Apparently, among the important objects in the new book, Snuff, is an autograph hound. It's just a stuffed dog that you have everyone sign. It's like a memento to prove that people like you.

Chuck and his assistants from the Olsson's throw probably 100 of them into the audience for people to catch. And I think it's his way of saying that he likes us wants to be our friend too.

It's a great two hours. Everyone get up on their feet and applauds. Chuck ducks out the back door. A crowd of people carrying half-inflated blow-up dolls, stuffed dogs, books and ass-beads rumbles towards the metro.

Everyone feels good about all the bad things we've just seen and heard and done together. But the point is that everyone feels good.

Mystic Pizza

Standing in my underwear in my kitchen, eating three day old cold pizza out of the box, a singular thought occurs to me. A year ago today I was in India.

And I live in a time warp.

How can it be that an entire year has passed? And more oddly, how can it be that almost an entire month has passed since Tim and I went to Shreveport for Carly's graduation?

Graduation weekend was one of the best weekends I've had all year. It was so great to be back in Shreveport, in fact, that in the car on the way in from Plano, I cried tears of joy. I'm not kidding. I thought about being in a car, on the way to see my friends, having a whole weekend of Shreveport ahead of me and I started crying because I was so happy.

And the weekend was no let down. It was more than amazing to see everyone. Kacie was in rare form (I think she was the outward expression of the giddiness I felt), everyone was in a supreme mood, the food tasted better, the weather was more tolerable, even the nap I took in the hotel was far superior to any other nap I've taken this year. Just walking into the stupid Target in Shreveport felt like walking into the Louvre or some glorious temple of commerce and capitalism. Let's not even mention the drive-thru daiquiris.

So why didn't I write about it in my blog?

And why haven't I written about Memorial Day Weekend? It's not like there's nothing to report. In fact, Tim and I took a pretty impressive vacation.

We rented a car and drove to Cape Henlopen in Delaware, where we camped for one night and then spent the following day getting patchy and ridiculous sunburns on the beach. (It was too cold to swim--the kind of internal-organ-clenching cold where you'd actually rather haul yourself all the way to the bathhouse to pee than get in the ocean and do it.)

When we were breaking down camp, a tiny spider swung down out of the rain flap almost dropping onto Tim (who was sitting in the tent, with his feet outside on the ground) and I said "Hey silly spider, don't go on Tim" which is when Tim and I both saw the OTHER spider that was ALREADY on Tim and we lost our minds a little bit. She was not only the size of a nickel, she was carrying a couple hundred baby spiders, which exploded EVERYWHERE when poor Tim slapped her off his leg and I dropped the rain flap on his head and we both started screaming.

Ah, the stuff that comedy and nightmares are made of.

After the tragic spider event and the procuring of quality sunburns, we came home for a night and then took our rented car to Gettysburg. I like the idea of Gettysburg. Not that it's the site of the bloodiest battle in the Civil War--that's terrible. But that the entire town and all of the woods surrounding it are inside of a giant national park. Everything is clean and green and pristine and covered with hiking trails and historical markers. My kind of place.

The only really disappointing part was the gift shop with its Battle of Gettysburg mugs and shotglasses and the weird pink baseball hat with hearts all over it. What sort of statement is THAT supposed to make? "I like, totally loooooove the place where almost 50,000 Americans slaughtered each other in three days Ya'll!"

Puzzling to say the least.

And here I am, weeks later and I haven't posted pictures or talked about it at all. At this pace, all my "news" gets stale and all my funny and exciting stories start to sound like that boring 20-minute story your co-worker wants to tell you about this one guy they knew in high school and the time they... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Still, for the past year, it's been driving me nuts how many intentions I have. I intend to finish Trina's baby present (as of one month ago). I intend to paint my toenails (as of three months ago). I intend to send out this stack of greeting cards I bought (as of two months ago). I intend to order groceries (a week), put my laundry away (two weeks), finish reading Dune (a month), upload my photos, call my friend Eben, put away my jewelry, go to the zoo... write on my blog.

None of it happens and I think I've finally figured out why. There are two reasons.

The first is that my "real" life only happens between 5:30 p.m. on Fridays and about 1:00 a.m. on Mondays. Any other time is my non-life when I have work and I have to wear terrible business casual clothes in public and decide what kind of monotonous sandwich/soup/salad I'm going to pay too much for at lunch. So when a month passes for everyone else who, I flatter myself in imagining they're waiting for me to post on my blog, only about a weeks worth of "real" days have passed for me.

In real life, it's not unreasonable to go a week without writing on one's blog. Unless one lives in a time warp.

The second reason--and I've known this since the minute I started dating him--when I'm around Tim I'm just a generally less-productive person. Most of my artistic impulses come from, and have always come from, the fact that I'm an only child and I like to entertain myself productively. Now I have someone to entertain me.

Not to mention that a great deal of art comes from wondering "WHAT DID I DO WRONG?" and "WHY DOESN'T ANYONE LOVE ME?" Which are not things that people in healthy relationships often have time to feel. (NB: I'm not saying that single people necessarily feel that way, I'm just saying that those who do are more likely to write bad poetry and create ugly art in proportion with the amount of free time they have--myself included.)

Once again, I intend to do all sorts of creative and fulfilling projects but I end up just sitting on the couch with Tim, watching Jeopardy! or playing scrabulous on Facebook even though we have a real Scrabble board not five feet away.

On weekends, it's worse, because his time warp and my time warp collide creating a sort of cosmic time-gap where it takes us 24 hours to make one 2-hour trip to the bookstore and a whole load of clean towels can disappear into a black hole where it won't re-emerge for sometimes up to four weeks.

What the solution is to any of this, I don't know. But if you don't believe that it's as dramatic as all that, take note: the only reason I'm writing on my blog now (over a month after my last meaningful post) is because Tim is at a softball game and because I had a major revelation while eating cold, hard pizza in my underpants.

These kinds of things don't happen every day.