"Now Will Him Over Here With Your Garbage Bag Eyes"

Deven Green is back!

Horrifying Youtube of the Day

Help! I'm trapped in a musical and I can't get out!

Pretzel Pose

I am not a fan of group activities. That's why I don't live in China. Take that, ghost of Mao! I reject you! I totally deleted all your text messages! So I was apprehensive about going to a hot yoga class in Greenlake. I don't like when people yell at me to correct my posture unless they are Wii Fit's computer animated trainers and they balance their critiques with motivational remarks like "Great form!" and "Way to go!" Even when Wii yells at me to "Straighten up!" I barely blush because, after all, I'm standing in front of a television in my basement.

Also, I am against Yoga culture. Namaste my ass. Yoga's whole "calm" aura is really grating. I don't believe people who do Yoga are really as calm as they say they are. I think some of them have issues that are not necessarily resolved by turning their body into a pretzel.

But I couldn't pass up I Love Hot Yoga's 10 session trial (just 30 bucks for a month of unlimited Yoga!). Some things, I figure, you really just have to give a try. As I waited outside the doors of the Yoga studio apprehensively, I scanned the faces of the departed for signs of heat exhaustion or mortification.

The studio was as dark and hot as a mother's womb. The women in the studio were on their backs, breathing heavily and purposefully as if they they were trying to rid themselves of evil spirits.

"Will people please make space in the front of the room?" the yoga instructor asked us in a slight guilting tone, as if we were already members in her moderately dysfunctional family.

I bent down and tried to touch my hands to the floor. It hurt a little bit, and I came back up. I've always treated my body as fearfully as one treats stray dogs or drunk Australians. "Are you sure you can do that?" I'm constantly asking myself.

Still, I did all the bends. I became a pretzel, a cadaver, then an airplane, a boat, a tee pee, a lounge chair, a tree with a penis, and the statue of liberty. My face got sweatier and angrier than a woman giving birth to triplets. On multiple occasions, I thought I was about to die. "This is it," I thought, "and the last thing I'll ever see is that nonsensical Lululemon logo."

By the end, I smelled like a sailor but I felt supernaturally relaxed. So relaxed, in fact, that I sat outside a Starbucks and stared at a cute boy until he stared back. I got his number.

I am now a fan of group activities. Sorry for ever doubting you, Mao. The only way to really burn ass fat, it seems, is with a slightly scary Bikram instructor standing over you and correcting your posture in a room that's 103 degrees.

I'm Graduating Soon

Can you believe it?? CAN YOU?? I CAN'T! I was just talking to my friend Jeremy about this. I was having a very wayward youth moment. Forgive the Daria-esque deadpan. "I've gotta do stuff when I graduate, you know... be things." "You don't have to graduate to be things" "Yes I do Jeremy, that's why I spent so much money on this."

But seriously guys. The following is a tentative list of future accomplishments:

cure youth in asia
save the pigeons
cut twigs on all the trees so they don't bring hurt to people's eyes.
teach old people how to sext
bring back the clog
eliminate all awkward pauses, fill in the dead noise with lady gaga's bad romance
cure death

It's going to be hard. But that's why I'm getting my B.A. in English.

Inside the Head of the Racoon Down the Street

Hi. I am a racoon. I know you are not. I'm just going to sit. So still. Right now. By the door.

Oop. You just moved. I was just moving my head because you moved.

Hi.

Your house is bright. Your garbage: So yummy. Was that organic chocolate? I'm full or I'd eat your leg. Mmmmmmmm.

Leg.

Was that your friend practicing her ridiculous dance by the window? She looks like a hooker.

I'm a conservative racoon.

Are you going to walk towards me or away from me?

Oh well, I'll tell you anyway. Today I was listening to NPR and it made me angry. Someone British was talking and it made me realize how much I hate Americans. Whenever a Brit is talking to an American, it's always just so much clearer who's the moral one! Anyway, they were interviewing this man about this great tragedy in some third world, an American by the way, and he kept on saying how he was so enamored by the way these poor people had held up despite the crisis. They had such nobility, he'd said. As if all poor people have nobility. My head wanted to explode! Hadn't he read all those essays in the back of "Heart of Darkness!" DISUGUSTING! If I could sign language some grotesque emotocon I would!

By the way: I don't respect your life.

I saw you watching that Buddhist film last night. I saw you wanting to laugh. And you call yourself a multiculturalist! Your whole lifestyle is a sham.

I know you mistrust me because of that thing I have going on around my eyes, but really you should mistrust me because I don't respect your life.

Sigh.

I'm done.

But you really are a silly people.

All I do is eat your garbage....

La, la, la.

You're still looking at me.

Do you think you're just staring at two disembodied floating shiny fireflies?

Those are my eyes.

Okay. Well. If you're just going to stand there, I'll continue.

Now I'm no intimidatingly muscley man myself, but I'd say you need to exercise more. I can tell. I see those shoulders. So hunched. I know, I know. You think it's more complicated than that. You think that happiness is some magical combination of funny SNL clips on Hulu and good books and bars with cute boys and the right cologne...but really you just need to work out more.

If you lived in the Himalayas with those Buddhists you watch in movies, you'd feel naturally energetic and happy every day because you'd be picking wheat and tying prayer flags and things like that. But you don't. That's why you're a mess.

(Racoons don't feel guilt. I don't regret just saying that. BTW!)

Also: okay. Now I know I'm going to sound like your mother (if your mother was a hip therapist who understood cultural phenoms like facebook and the debilitating power of the internet) but seriously, no more endlessly thinking about what kind of status update you want to write and then refreshing your Gmail inbox obsessively to see if someone's commented on your facebook status update. Have a little more self-respect. Phew. I really had to say that one.

Why can't you be more like that girl who played the fat girl in Precious? You saw those interviews. She has self-respect.

Basically, I wish you were a black woman.

Are you about to lunge for me? I hope you know I just stepped back so I could spring forward with renewed vigor and appetite for human flesh!

You're getting closer. You know I have friends in the honeybucket next door? I do. Really. You heard that story about how we ganged up on that old lady in Florida and ate her hair? We'll totally eat your hair. No more Mr. Jew Hair!

Oh, you're getting the mail.

Oh, and now you're gone.

So silent now.

So at peace.

Now I feel bad.

I think I need a more creative job where I can vent my frustrations through some kind of art. Not even for the attention. I just don't like being this angry all the time.

I'm going to go make a bath and listen to Feist.

Yes, I'm a hipster racoon. Bitch, don't even start.

Jersey Shore Season Finale Recap

This is what a feminist looks like.

Unless you've been plugging your ears and screaming "lalalalala!" when anyone speaks the words Jersey Shore, you surely must know about that gaggle of Italian Americans who live in a beach house, drink vodka smoothies and punch pedestrians who look at them funny.

You must also know about their star, Snookie - the legal midget with a self-tanner mustache and Amy Winehouse beehive bun who dances by herself on beach boardwalks to attract muscle men she affectionately calls "Juiceheads."

Last night's episode, the season finale, provided much of the expected shaudenfreude. Everyone yelled at each other for an hour because of various things - snookie yelled (and cried) because she ran into an ex while dancing embarrassingly alone on a boardwalk, one man with a metallic rose on his shirt yelled about this dude he punched in the last episode, and Jenni (Jay Woww) yelled because, for some reason, all of the hot muscle men failed to come to the beach boardwalk that day.

One lesson I took from the show was this: if you have muscles on your body, you can pretty much have a relationship with anyone in the world. What a grossly inaccurate impression of life you consistently provide, MTV! For example, Mike "The Situation," who has shoulders longer than a piano (and is what, forty years old?) found a bikini-clad 18-year-old girl on the beach and then proudly announced to all viewers the two of them would be dating for the next four months. See, she has an "eighteen year old ass" and he has a Bally's body, and really isn't that all you need to make a relationship? In the world of MTV, yes.

The show ended on a sweet note. To comfort Snookie about her boy problems, all the boys sat on her butt like it was one huge whoopie cushion. Then Mike, "The Situation," made out with her face in a hot tub. Snookie- the little cherub - sat in the hot tub and laughed. Because she felt self-conscious after all that kissing in front of millions of viewers? Because she saw semen floating in the water? "Don't think", said the editing. "Just stare at her boobs."

And then it was over.

Besides making me feel like I needed a cigarette (preferably one filled with crack), the show didn't have much affect on me. Somewhat surprisingly, I didn't feel violated, nor depressed about the state of humankind. Compared to the Jerry Springer Show, Jersey Shore is Oprah- all it did was make me laugh and feel all warm inside.

Los Angeles

"EWW! EWW EWW EWW!" screamed my roommate Zara from downstairs. Zara was on bathroom duty and today was the day she had chosen to clean the black mold in our bathroom.

I'm not a particularly morbid person but black mold makes me think about my own demise. Maybe it's the name: black mold. Sounds like black plague, black licorice, Black Sabbath. Black mold is the queen sheeba of terrifying things. If all upsetting things you rarely think about were graphed on paper (randomly choking on a strawberry, developing a severe allergic reaction to snickerdoodles just as soon as a plateful ends up on your table) black mold would surely rise to the top of the Y axis, and beyond, because it fucking flies in the air, is invisible, and can make you hyperactive while hurting your brain.

I was contemplating this the day I flew from Los Angeles to Seattle. I was flying Christmas day and the airport was empty except for smatterings of Jews and Asians. We should start a club, really. And then I spotted my fellow Seattleites: a huddled mass of fleece jackets and stiff shoulders gathered to the right of the terminal, in the one area with no sunlight.

I opened an LA Times and picked at my wilting Starbucks panini. I was not in a particularly flirty mood. I was thinking about mold and my own demise. And then I heard this over the P.A.:

"Mistah Blum! I repeat: Mistah Blum! Will Mistah Blum please come to gate 75?"

Read that in the voice of a sarcastic drag queen and you'll understand the thrill of what happened to me. Was this gorgeously flaming homosexual flirting with me?

I'm not a good flirt. At gay bars I look combative. I pick the pettiest corner and wait until I see someone who might have something sardonic to say. After I've extracted enough social commentary to fill a novel, I go about the seduction process.

I'm not sure if I've ever been a good flirt. After coming out, I look back at my childhood and think "who was this boy and did he flirt?" Everyone asks you, after you've come out, if you ever liked a girl, ever, ever? No, I didn't. So who did I flirt with when I was a child? I'm not sure. Dolls? Maybe dolls. That sounds quite sad. I hope I didn't flirt with dolls.

"How are we today, Mistah Blum?"

"I'm good,"

"Would we like an aisle or a window seat today, Mistah Blum?"

"Window please."

"Are we traveling alone, Mistah Blum?"

"Yes we are."

"It will be sad to see you leave, Mistah Blum."

"Stop it! You're embarrassing him!"

"No, this man is a celebrity! He wants the attention!"

"I don't want to leave L.A."

That last line of mine was a risk. I admitted it: I didn't want to leave L.A. I was flirting the only way I know how to flirt: by being painfully honest. In Europe, they loved it. Here, it tends to freak people out. But not this man. "You could stay at my place." he responded. I seriously contemplated the offer, then laughed. He was offering me a way out and I pretended I didn't notice. He knew I didn't want to leave L.A. He knew I couldn't not be honest about that. In fact, he seemed to like it.

Still, I shut it down.

"Thanks, but I have to go back to, err, school."

Lamest response ever. I didn't even sound excited about it. It was like rejecting a free Disneyland trip for a dentist appointment.

The plane was a noticeably more somber affair. I sat next to a woman who's eyes never left her Stephen King novel. She shut the window as if she didn't want to be reminded of the swaying palm trees waving goodbye.

If I could do it all over, I think I would have taken him up on his offer. He told me he lived in West Hollywood. It could have been interesting.

"It's Giving Me This Great, Weird Hope Right Now"

My friend Anna sent me a youtube today. I hope you like.

When Embracing Technology Makes You Look Ridiculous

I love Wii Fit because the shiny graphics distract me from the fact that I'm sweating profusely and panting and it will be hours before I've obliterated hamburger patty meat fat from my veins. HOWEVER, the HOOLA HOOP activity on Wii Fit involves a boogying / humping movement that can only be described as "slomo seizure / sex with a ghost". Which is fine (because who cares? and dead people were hot once) but maybe a little bit confusing for a lawn-raking neighbor. I should have invited him in.

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