Loverdose

I am what the Belgians call l'overwhelmed.

(I've always wanted to start a synth-pop group called Loverdose, and call the first album L'Overdose. I think this concept has some legs on it. Which gives me ideas for the album art: see below.)

So I went to that shitty party last night that I warned you about, dear reader, and I listened to assholes talk about "Palestinian liberation" and say things like "dude, I've been to Palestine and I've talked to Palestinians" to lend credence to more or less inscrutable statements about the state of the national will. So that was no fun.

(The party-proper actually was pretty fun, but these guys were terrible, and I'm attempting a quasi-literary disjunctive framing device, so just go with me on this.)

So then I was on my way home, and I ran into my ex-stripper friend (meaning, my friend who used to be a stripper), and she said, significantly, "you're coming with us." So I went with them. "Them" being my ex-stripper friend, whom I will call Shamiqua, and her friend, whom, for reasons the hilariousness of which I cannot properly express, I will call Xena.

Some months ago, I had the strangest date of my life, by a good margin, with Xena. It was 72 hours long, and made us kind of hate each other. But not really, because we totally love each other. And it wasn't really a date. But really it was; but then it stopped being after we watched Rookie of the Year, The Mighty Ducks, D2: The Mighty Ducks, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Superbad, and Wedding Crashers consecutively over a 13 hour span. That'll take the motor out of pretty much any structured social engagement.

But this is just back story. The point is, there's nothing quite like walking despondently home from a Party For the Right to Fight (for the Sovereignty of Palestine, If Deemed Ideologically Tenable and Economically Sustainable) and being rescued by two frantic, insane, bafflingly uninhibited women.

Xena takes this sort of retarded Wordsworthian joy in taking off her pants and running around in the street at night. We're talking flesh to sky, as naked as your mama made you. No mediation. A Catholic Christ-cookie on the tongue conveys immediacy no more immediately than do her naked haunches, tromping through the streets of one of the most dangerous cities in America, at 2:30 in the morning. It's fabulous, too, because there's really no more awkward-looking clothing configuration than a hoodie, with the hood up, and a totally bare ass, especially when the person in question is conveying herself in a way that can best be described as a gambol. If you went to a tailor, a haberdasher, a department store, a boutique, and said "dress me in the outfit that will confuse everyone who sees me as much as possible," they could do worse than to take away your pants and drape a hoodie on you. She got about a block before she said, "I wish I had worn panties today so I could just go the rest of the way like this." But she had no panties. Because, you understand, she was naked from the waist down.

What was even stranger, though -- so much stranger than fiction that it's actually stranger than stranger than fiction, so that even if I say it with my word of honor attached, the only response the reader can possibly plausibly have is to say "that's a lie," only except but it's not a lie, it's the truth -- was when Shamiqua, ex-stripper nipples exposed over the top of her tank, asked bare-bottomed Xena to stand stock still. When inquired why, "why stand still?" the response was, "because I'm going to motor-boat your ass."

And then she did. She got on her knees, took a couple of ducksteps forward, and did just what she said she would do.

And then Xena said, "Nobody's ever motor-boated my ass before! Let me do it to you!"

And then she did.

And then we watched The Never Ending Story. The motherfucking Never Ending Story. And argued about whether its resemblance to The Princess Bride were significant or merely superficial. Xena did interpretive dances with blankets, and hooded herself, as if for a little red riding. When you put it all together, it was way too comfortable to be awkward, but way too uncomfortable to be to not weird me out, and possibly scar me for life. But in a good way. It's a dashing scar. Like a 16th-century Spaniard with a rapier injury, and then he's like, "you should see the other guy." Debería ver el otro? Whatever.

More importantly, though. I have no money. I should have moved. My car is dead. I'm starving. I have to grade and read stuff. I'm watching football and not really enjoying it. And if you know me, then you know, that the fact that I'm watching football and not really enjoying it is scaring the shit out of me.