Bad Advice

A Couple Two Tree Things

I've been writing like a mad woman over at the Weekly, so you should check in there every now and again. If you want. You can also find me on Facebook or Twitter. I'm also writing a book and doing a bunch of marketing writing. The book is due in a month and it's nowhere near where it should be. The cancer definitely threw me off for about a month, but I really need to power through it now that I've gotten the all-clear. But anyway, here are a few things that might interest you—

• I started taking this crazy boot-camp like class called Beast-a-Netics, twice a week. It's run by Tim Haft, who started Punk Rope. I have never had such an intense exercise experience in my life. I am seriously outgunned by my class (everyone else is super fit), but unlike gym class they're also very nice. I get the feeling that if we ever had to choose teams, someone would make sure I wasn't picked last sheerly out of kindness. 
• I found this photo on some blog and momentarily convinced my boyfriend someone wrote it about him. Not that he ever, uh, touches himself. . . . .
• The owners of the fabulous Zenkichi were kind enough to invite me to a sneak preview of their sake/oyster bar, Akariba. It is insanely cozy, with a real tree growing through it and a transparent roof which is going to be so beautiful when it snows. Like the restaurant, the food and sake are unfuckingbelievable. 
• You have to read my friend Val's Self Magazine story on finding out she's got a "cancer gene." I know it sounds like a bummer, but it's not. She's fucking awesome and the story is beautifully written and, yes, got me all teary-eyed.
• Speaking of cancer, I have always felt that if something shitty happens to you (like cancer), you may as well make some money off it. (I wrote a story for publication about my melanoma). I shared this with my dad today and he said I was cynical! I disagree and feel like it's more like finding the bright side of an otherwise shitty situation. Not to mention, I had an assload of hospital bills to pay and it's not like my family was writing any checks. Harumph. What do you think? I'm curious and I won't be offended.

Cancer: The End

Yesterday I checked into NYU Medical Center and got that cancer cut right out of me. It was a more involved process than I thought it would be, but it's over. Relief doesn't begin to explain how I'm feeling. (That's my hand—it's not that wrinkly, it's just the weird saran-wrap-like tape they use.)

It's little the things that freaked me out the most. For example (sorry squeamish people!) yesterday was the second day of my period. You ladies know that's probably the goriest day. Well, apparently when you have surgery you're not allowed to wear a tampon. They don't want you trailing blood everywhere, so the hospital supplies you with a pair of sterile underpants and a giant, diaper-like pad. While I wasn't expecting even Target-level underroos, the item they supplied was so weird looking, I didn't even understand that it was underwear for a minute—it looked more like spongy mesh hand towel than anything you could possibly wear. Once I figured out it had legholes, I put it on and immediately felt my dignity flush away with my tampon. (I looked around online, but I couldn't find a pair to show you. You really need to see these things to believe them.)

Meet my Cancer!

So it was an exciting week over here at Casa McGuire-Opoulos. First, I got a daily blogging gig at the Seattle Weekly, and then on Wednesday, I was diagnosed with melanoma. (There are three different kinds of skin cancer and melanoma is the worst.)

I had noticed a little mole pop up on my left ankle a couple months ago, after we got back from Puerto Rico. At first I thought it was a shaving cut, but when it didn't go away, I took a closer look and realized it was a mole. A mole that was different colors and had irregular edges. 

Sebastian Horsley, 1962 – 2010

Eccentrics are a dying breed and we just lost another, when Sebastian Horsley OD'ed the other day. While I didn't love his book, the guy was a true and compelling oddball with a killer sense of style. And that, I can appreciate. He was also quite the quote machine. This is a great interview, but if you don't feel like watching the whole thing—which I recommend you do—here are some bits of his wit and wisdom:

"Cohabitation is the tomb of love."

"We never treat anyone so badly as the one we profess to love."

"The difference between sex for money and sex for free, is that sex for money costs a lot less."

"I look at myself in the mirror because, let’s face it, I’m my type."

"Being a dandy is not a vocation, it’s a condition."

"People get so obsessed with happiness—which always eludes them—when there's plenty of other invigorating experiences available—like hatred or jealousy or revenge or misery. The thing is about misery is, once you get used to it it’s just as agreeable as happiness."

"The motivation for every artist is 'look at me, mum.'"

"Art comes from unhappiness, from broken people."

"Good stories happen to those who can tell them."

"I may be vain, but I’m not conceited."

"A misogynist is a man who hates women as much as women hate each other."

"The only damage I’m going to do is to myself."

When asked if he planned on being a dandy forever—

"Dandyism is a religion. It’s a kind of martyrdom of sorts . . . You have to give up love sometimes. You have to give up marriage and babies and security—all the things of course that don’t matter. As I said earlier, it’s not a vocation, it’s a condition."

I’ve got to think about my death, as I say in the book. Suicides are the aristocrats of death. And of course, the dandy probably has to end in ruin. If nothing else, at the end of obituary . . . 'he died destitute in the arms of a prostitute.' Most dandies end in ruin or in mental asylums or suicide. . . ."

Liz Jones is a Sorry Old Twat

I realize that the Daily Fail's Liz Jones is nothing more than their brittle, humorless version of the Weekly World News' bright star, Ed Anger, but even knowing this, I still get riled reading her foul output. Which, I suppose, is why the Mail keeps printing her.

If you're not familiar with her oeuvre (love that word, though I always misspell it), Ms. Jones hates everyone and everything. Her neighbors, "friends," tattoos, fat, (proudly proclaiming herself "anorexic"), and this week she hates the fact that 43-year-old artist/filmmaker Sam Taylor-Wood got knocked up by her 19-year-old boyfriend. (She's also pissed about this hateful old Irish broad who lost her mind over a different teen, but I'm not going to get into that one—read her column if you care.)

Never mind that Taylor-Wood's ex-husband spent most of last summer cavorting with 22-year-old Lilly Allen. What's good for the goose, is apparently not good for the gander. This is because:

. . . to be honest I don’t think the majority of women, once they are past the teenage crush period, even think about sex that much.

Apparently Liz and I don't run in the same circles, because my friends seem rather preoccupied by it. But no, according to Liz and her withered clitoral nub:

They put up with it, with the repetitiveness, the ridiculousness, the inconvenience and the inevitable disappointment, because it gets them to where they want to be: married, with children and someone to help shoulder the bills and dig the garden.

Sure we do, Liz. Or then again, maybe we just like the orgasms, cameraderie and occasional compliment.

Quit hounding me, you shrimpy little jerk!!!!

Every day I skip down to my mailbox, hoping it contains a check, a favorite magazine, maybe a (very) late birthday present, or even the new J. Crew catalog. I'm usually SOL with the checks and prezzies, but one thing I do get—seemingly every other day—is a piece of m-f'ing mail from Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

I have not, nor will I ever, vote for this man. I am a registered Democrat. I am lower-middle class. Bloomberg's policy of rimjobs and reach-arounds to real-estate developers has turned my admittedly ugly, formerly normal(ish) neighborhood into something that alternates between a yuppie playground and burned-out slum from block to block. His only concern seems to be for the super rich, and even if I were one of them, I would be appalled at what this city has become under his watch and that of his creepy predecessor.

Normally I'm happy to just make the best of things and go about my business, but getting a red white and blue, twice-weekly reminder of how far this city has fallen just pisses me off! Think of how much good he could do if he just took the money he's wasting by sending this crap to people like me who will never ever vote for him and instead used it to build affordable housing or even make school lunches a little more delicious and nutritious?

Speaking of schools, how about giving public school teachers a raise? Or upping the starting salaries for cops? And you know, if Bloomberg would just say, "fuck it, I'm going to win anyway, so instead of wasting paper, ink and postage, mailing crap to people who aren't going to vote for me anyway, I'm going to build a shelter for battered women and improve our city's recycling plan," I might just vote for the fucker.

That's not a mid-life crisis—that's a girlfriend.

I want to love it, but more often than not the Times' Modern Love column annoys the crap out of me. Normally this is because it's off-topic (in my mind), covering topics such as a mother's love for her autistic child or lessons learned from a pet's death. Obviously I'm not the boss of the column, but I feel like Modern Love should be about a romantic love between two human beings.

So while this week's column definitely met my criteria that way, it bugged me just the same. 

In it, author Laura Munson talks about the day that her husband of over 20 years came home and announced, "I don't love you—I'm not sure I ever did."

Now if anyone ever wrote a cheater's playbook, this line would make up the entirety of page one. I heard this exact sequence of words from my ex-boyfriend and, much like the author, was too thick or mired in denial to realize it meant he'd started banging some other broad. Since then I've read tons of accounts of infidelity (hey, it's pretty much a job requirement), watched countless friends go through it (on both sides of the equation) and almost all of the cheaters say either those words nearly verbatim or they bust out the other standby, "I love you, but I'm not in love with you."

Here's our tree!

It's shorter than I would've selected, but relationships are about compromise. Ahem. You can't really tell from looking at the photo, but the larger white lights are actually skulls. It's a beautiful tree. I do love me some christmas.

What did Santa bring you?

Me, I got a pretty ring! That's it in the photo. It's white gold with rubies and little diamonds. I was hoping the special photobooth effect would conceal my chubby finger, but nah, it's still obvious. I wish I were one of those women with long, graceful looking digits, but I have to settle for being devastatingly foxy in all other areas instead. It's a curse, I tell you. A curse.

I also got a pretty silver astronaut necklace, a brass Ganesh to replace the super amazing beaded Ganesh curtain that someone insisted we get rid of because he kept getting tangled in it. My family did the right thing and donated to that school in the Ninth Ward, New Orleans, that I told you about. (Not too late to donate! Operators are standing by! Get that last-minute tax write-off!)

For Christmas dinner, I made fondue for my sister Sue, The Big Guy, Heather and her husband, John. It was amazing and if you click that link you can see the recipe I used, only I made it with half Emmenthal and half gruyere instead of all gruyere like they recommend.

Melted cheese is the best food in the world and it is a goddamned shame that it's so high in fat because otherwise I would dip everything I eat into it. Why can't bean sprouts be fatty and cheese be good for you? I've been eating a lot of that low-fat cheese and it's not on the same planet as a hearty, nutty, gruyere. We fired up the pot and dipped asparagus, little red potatoes and garlic-seared steak cubes. Oh, and stale baguette too. The memories alone have me salivating. Baby Cheeses would've definitey approved.

Here's some recent stuff I wrote: To celebrate the holidays at the Seattle Weekly, I dabbled in a little pee play. Over at Time, I talked about whether or not traveling without your beliked was a good idea (answer: sometimes). And at the Frisky, I advised the ladies on New Year's resolutions to avoid.

You have three days to do a REALLY good deed

When I was in New Orleans this past October, the highlight of my trip was a drive through the Ninth Ward. Two friends of a friend, Ana and her schoolteacher husband Dave, drove me around, showing me the devastation. I could not believe how totally fucked up everything still is. Dave teaches high school in the Ninth Ward and told me about how bad the kids have it. Some are finishing up school here without their families and most are still traumatized from living through the storm. Though at least they were lucky enough to live through it.

Most lost friends or neighbors, some lost families. These kids have it unbelievably hard and our government is pretty much hanging them out to dry. Dave's school, G.W. Carver High School is trying to get enough money together to build a new football field and track that everyone in the community can use. So far they've raised around $106,000. They're trying to get the NFL Grassroots program to match their funds, so they need to get as much money as possible by Sunday. So you have three days to donate. Please, do it now.