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

There are many hilarious people at my office. And, consequently, these people have hilarious stories. This is one. Perhaps, even, the best one.

A chat about B. Spears’ recent nuptials to what Defamer calls “layabout facial hair innovator/underemployed Baryshnikov” Kevin Federline segued into a convo about tattoos. Like when white people get kanji tattoos that mean “bureaucrat” instead of “warrior.”

And then a girl pipes up and says, “My brother has a weird tattoo.”

HERE IT COMES. GET READY. FOR REALS.

“On the top is a dreamcatcher. Then under it is a wolf. Then below that, it says ‘Legend.’”

We laughed for ten minutes. It’s still funny.

Legend!

Apparently, he was into Native American stuff.

Someone asked what the fuck was up with the dreamcatcher. I asked if her brother is Stevie Nicks.

Hello.

Whenever you date/like someone, you take on a bit of their person. Their likes and dislikes. And then when whatever goes awry and you part, part of them sticks to you like psychic dryer sheets.

In my not-so-storied dating history, I have taken away a few things from each dude. Some I kept, some I sold to the lowest bidder:

Josh

We didn’t really date, but I liked him. He kissed me once! Josh was very tall and eventually married an evil midget with excessively curly hair called Daisi. I once saw him eat a whole lemon.

Lemons are good.

Tony

I dated Tony for just a few months before I left for college. He was like five years older than me. He was a really good bridge player. And ever since, I’ve had more than a passing fascination with this card game that generally sticks with middle-aged couples.

Marc

This was a dumb, dumb period in my life. This dude was a pool-playing felon with no discernible career path. But he seemed to like me, so hey! Anyway, pool is a dirty, dirty endeavour as is gambling.

Kennedy

On our first date, he brought me a copy of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. I read it twice.

Jeff

I did not date Jeff. From him, I took the Dave Matthews Band and the knowledge that however someone treats others around them will be how they eventually treat you. I hear he is a now a father.

Ethan

He is very funny, and smokes a lot of pot. I think pot is tacky, but Mr. Show is good. Ethan also makes funny movies at gbehh.com.

Phineas

He is a big fan of both sad, dirgey music and goofy ha-ha music. Phineas likes skulls. I painted the kitchen blue and had to leave it behind. I learned never to make home improvements unless you’re going to stay a while. And that no matter how nice the back porch, you should leave when you know it’s time.

Brian

There have been so many good things. I guess that’s why we’re getting married. But now I have a love of coffee, mowing the lawn, and scrubbing mildew.

I’m sure that I am being selective. I know I am. I’m forgetting the deep psychic wounds when one of these people took money from me. Or when another of them really betrayed my trust. Or when it just didn’t work out, no matter what. But these were lessons learned, likes acquired. This is the litter along my lost love highway.

Every girl has a slumber party story. Many of them are fraught with girl-drama, Dirty Dancing and ill-fated Truth or Dare games.

Here are a couple of my stories.

9th Birthday

I had a very large slumber party. I specifically didn’t invite this one girl, but she showed up anyway. Robin Mochel! And she ruined the party with her hyperactive antics, which included putting shaving cream on my cake. And even at nine, I sort of knew it was a sin to waste good cake.

Someone had given me a Rocker Barbie. She came with a tape of her band Barbie & the Rockers. Of course. They sang songs like “Dressin’ Up!” about how when “[they’re] in glitter, [they] really shine” as well as an eponymous title track.

We blasted this tape.

We also played darts. And I threw a dart into my mother’s leg.

Eighth Grade Shame

Shawna lived down the street from me about a year before. She was funny as hell and really overweight. Shawna was a nice girl who was just too quirky to make it into the inner sanctum of the clique. And really, so was I. But we had money and I gave really good birthday gifts.

Shawna invited a bunch of us to her house for her birthday. And I know many of us didn’t want to go or thought it might be weird. But we all went and it was by far the best slumber party I ever went to. And why? Because Shawna’s mom fed us a steady diet of chicken nuggets and let us watch the V.C. Andrews classic Flowers in the Attic.

When my birthday came around two months later, I didn’t invite her. And I really have no idea why.

Other Party

I had a bunch of people over for some reason and my mom came to tuck us in. She would speed-recite the “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” prayer for each girl, but when she came to my friend Sarinya, a That Buddhist, she asked “Is your god Buddha?” Sarinya nodded. And my mom said, “Well, Buddha will watch you too!”

I think it might have been during this party that we watched a movie called “Hunk” about a nerd who sells his soul to the devil to become a lady-killer. The lead character, now a hunk, actually calls himself Hunk Golden. If you can find this movie, watch it. It is terrible.

The Co-Ed Slumber Party Disaster

Sarinya and her brother Smith had a co-ed party the year we were in the eighth grade. My parents thought this was weird, but let me go anyway. It was basically an excuse for Smith to make out with and feel up his girlfriend Trisha. I think some other people made out, too. But since I had no make out parter, I watched The Seventh Sign. In the morning, their mom made us breakfast. We got one pancake and one sausage link apiece. I went home and had a second breakfast.

It would be neat to have a grown-up slumber party. I think it could be hilarious, a great bonding experience. But are we past sleeping on the floor in sleeping bags? Couldn’t we all tough it out for a night so we could relax, paint each others’ toenails, talk about boys, and eat too much candy?

I vote yes.