u s e y o u r h a n d s

I really enjoy this series of Missed Connection ads and stories. For some reason, I’m in a groove today. Look out world! You may get hit with my flying beret.

Enjoy, peeps.

5/19 HIPPIE HOLLOW. You: blue/white Hawaiian shorts skipping rocks in the lake. Me: nude under tree. Couldn’t stop looking at your beautiful body. Let’s have a good time. (Austin Chronicle)

[Editor's Note: Okay, I got into the Missed Connection game because I generally think that MC posters are wistful dreamers looking for love and understanding. I don't do this to make fun. But this cat! Naked hippies with a staring problem probably don't lean toward love.]

Dan had come out to the lake to think through his breakup with Gina. At first, the naked guy staring at him sort of freaked him out, but he tried to be cool and ignore it. He wrote a poem about it when he got home:

You are bare
Under an oak tree
Wearing leaves.

Why do you stare
at me?
Not my type, guy.

You are great
in your
own way, Hippie man.

YEAR OF THE Rabbit show. Hey, what’s going on? Had fun talking to you, but forgot to get your number. D’oh. Talked about Plessy vs. Ferguson. Me: red shirt, had to leave to go say what up to Chris. Drop a line. It’d be cool to hang out. (Chicago Reader)

Ted met Frank at the bar and they talked a little about the show. Frank followed him back to where Christie waited for her beer. Although Ted was no longer interested in Christie in a sexual way, he was a little perturbed by her instant interest in Frank. Ted chimed into their conversation every now and again, but Christie and Frank were talking rapid-fire. He had no idea how they started talking about Jim Crow laws or why Christie looked so turned on.

“DASH” I THINK that’s what you said your name was… Anyway, you approached me at Birds on Franklin a long time ago. You said you had a friend who wanted to meet me. I said that I was on a date, and that was that. Now, I regret it; and now, i have craigslist Missed Connections. So, here it is, the long shot of the hour. (LA Craigslist.com)

Birds sits across the street from the Scientology Celebrity Center, a guarded, castle-looking building that casts a perpetual shadow over Franklin Avenue. The Celebrity Center’s presence threw Lisa off a little bit as she sipped a very strong 7&7 on the patio. This first date was heading straight into the toilet.

DENTIST OFFICE BEAUTY on Merchants Row. You were at the dentist office waiting to get your teeth cleaned on Monday, I walked in to schedule an appointment. I was wearing the designer jeans and silk dress shirt. We made eye contact and said hello before I walked out, I never asked for your name. That was the worst mistake I ever made, please email me. (Boston Globe)

Keith knew he was the total package and could “score any tail” he wanted. He checked his teeth out in the mirror that morning, comparing them to a photo of Donny Osmond he’d torn from a magazine. Keith’s pearlies didn’t quite measure up so he ran – not walked – to Dr. Morrison’s office. That chick had a nice rack for sure, but he should have looked at her face. Even Keith would have noticed the dramatic swelling from her impacted wisdom tooth.

In the past, I’ve written about my decision – no, my capitulation – to take antidepressants. As I get older, I am less able to control the wild tide of my emotions and while I’m sure I could stand a big dose of therapy, a stumbling block prevents me from hopping on the couch. People in their twenties are the group most likely to lack insurance, and that’s the boat I’m in.

I’ve priced my own insurance and it seems to run about $100-150 a month for coverage for catastrophic illness, including neither doctor’s visits nor medication. Sort of like basic auto insurance. Anything more than that is going to run me, a healthy 24-year-old girl, much more. It doesn’t really pay to, well, pay that much. So I’m taking a bye. If I need to go to the doctor, I’ll fork out a hundred bucks or so. The cost of my prescription will come straight out of my pocket.

And so I’ve been pricing drugs online. I’m sort of screwed when it comes to purchasing antidepressants online. If you don’t already have a prescription, a few sites will actually write you a scrip, but only for a limited range of drugs. OnlinePharmacy will prescribe sleeping pills, a few obscure antidepressants, Viagra, and Zyban, a smoking cessation aid. But I was thrilled to discover that Zyban and Wellbutrin are in fact the same fucking drug. They’ll write me a scrip for Zyban no problem, but it will run me $150 a month. I can score it in Canada for half that.

But why should I have to go through all of this just to get a drug I need? Our adversarial insurance system needs to change pronto. Over 40 million other people are in the same pickle as me.

In other Shylo-related news, I’m in the middle of a water bender. I’ve just consumed my 64th ounce of crisp, cold water and it’s only eleven in the morn. I’m planning on chugging down a few more of these today to keep a migraine at bay. It’s either that or a mallet.

This entry seems sort of whiny. To pick it up, I’m going to end on a high note.

Have red onions always been this good? Why have I so foolishly been avoiding them all these years? They are sweet, without the creepy B.O. smell of white onions, and provide a needed cruch to my Subway sammich. They are pure, lovely goodness.

I like making up very short songs containing a very few words. Lately, all of my songs have contained the word “kitty” in addition to a few others, or sometimes solo. Now, this is where today’s entry sort of sucks because I lack the ability or will to post audio of me singing the kitty songs. So, when I post the lyrics, they aren’t going to be as evocative as I’d like them to be.

I also write songs about Phineas. I call him my pigeon.

Kitty Song #1

(Insistent, rapid) Kitty kitty FACE head
Kitty kitty FACE head
(Swing-style, with jazz hands) Kitty face! Kitty face!

Kitty Song #2

Kitties are nice
Kitties are good
Kitties always do what kitties should.

Kitty Song #3

Kitties!
Kitties!
Kitties!
Kitties!
Ki-ttttttieeeessss!

That’s just a small sample, mis compadres. For more, you’re going to have to wait for the complete Kitty Songs album. They are silly, but they are fun. Intense, but easy-going.

Okay, back to that last line. “Intense, but easy-going.” Last night at the gym, I was doing the EFX and treadmill while watching this Dateline special about dating. The show followed four New York singles wookin’ pa nub at speed dating, in bars, on the Internet, and via a matchmaker. The lady who tried out match.com actually had this sentence in her profile. How, pray tell, can one be both intense and easy-going? Can you be tall but short? Ugly but pretty? Not particularly. I bet that when this woman thinks she’s being easy-going, she’s got such single-minded focus as to be scary. That’s how she looked on the show, anyway.

I need to cut my hair. Ideas? It’s pretty long, very thick and just hangs there like a dry brown curtain.