Facebook Hates Me

But I will not let it break me.

I signed on this morning and immediately, up there in the corner with the event invites and friend suggestions, pops up a box with a picture that gives me butterflies and the direction: "Reconnect with him. Send him a message."

The "him" in this case is a boy I had been kind of fascinated with for a while and with whom I had hooked up this summer, upon which occasion I promptly fell head-over-heels, giddy-teenager-esque in love, as I am wont to do when it comes to beautiful and unusual, heart-meltingly sweet, sexually ambiguous 26-year-olds who also happen to be spectacular kissers. A week later he moved halfway across the country and I haven't seen or heard from him since.

So, masochist that I am, I decide, "Ok, sure, I'll just click on his page and see what he's up to." I am then promptly greeted with a picture of him with a girl. On the beach. And she's cuter than me. And probably younger, too.

God damn it.

It's not like I had expected him to be pining away with love for me or anything. I mean, "we" only lasted about one (glorious) week, and it was ages ago. In fact, I had been pretty succesful these last 6 months, after a brief period of pining and self-pity, and — ok, fine — maybe a few ill-advised drunken texts, at forgetting all about him (which is why I hadn't just deleted him from my friends and avoided this whole thing, as some of you are surely going to point out). But I probably could have gone without being confronted with hard evidence reminding me that I've been erased from memory. Which I would have if the Facebook gods hadn't tricked me into it.

Fucking Facebook.

I bet they even did it on purpose. I bet if I look at the date the picture was posted (which I won't because I am not an Internet stalker, I am not an Internet stalker, I am not an Internet stalker...), it'll be like, yesterday, and the evil overlords over at Facebook HQ probably noticed immediately and were all, "Ok, NOW! It's go time! Let's get her!"

And I can't even vent about it on Facebook, as I usually would, because he might see it and think I'm some kind of obsessive freak (which I am not, I am not, I am not...) and then my friends would try to cheer me up with well-intended sympathy that'll just make me think about it more, and so on and so forth...

DAMN YOU, FACEBOOK! I WILL NOT SUCCUMB TO YOUR TREACHERY!!!

...but I still haven't deleted him.

Lament

Oh, Thora Birch. Such high hopes I had for you. What has happened to your career trajectory?

American Beauty, Ghostworld ... The Pregnancy Pact?

On Lifetime??

Oh, honey. Just...no.

Late-Breaking Lame Claim To Fame: Volume IV

This just happened:

BeccaGo: @negativeneil Am I old enough for it to be creepy if I hit on you?
negativeneil: @BeccaGo yes you are

Boys and girls, that is Adam Lambert's brother personally shooting me down via Twitter.

Thank you, and good night!
[Special thanks to Dalia for coming to my defense during my absence.]

Pulp Friction

Another installment of unintentional filth found while editing mechanical engineering manuals:
[Special thanks to Angela and Mikey for their contributions.]

"Section 4-1: General Erection Requirements"

"B823: Hardness Control"

"A4: Bottom Soils"

"Part 2: Laying"

"8.6: Lubrication Failures"

"B16.25-2007: Buttwelding Ends"

"The ends shall be of sufficicent workmanship to allow for easy assembly with an appropriate mating nut."

"...when the taper encroaches on the crotch radius."

"...minimum elongation of the pull-tube riser..."

"Table HG-715: Size of Bottom Blowoff Piping, Valves, and Cocks"

"Texas Screw Products"

"National Erectors Association"

"Gaylord Industries"

"Federal Screw Works"

"welded joint: a union of two or more members"

"incident: unintentional release of gas"

Lame Claims To Fame: Volume III

My sister works for a theater organization, and as such, she has taken calls from certain recognizable talents. Consummate professional that she is, she then usually excitedly relays the details of the interaction to this pop-culture-obsessed sibling of hers via text message. Some recent celeb connections of which I have been informed include Adam Lambert's mom and one of the beauty queens from The Amazing Race. Somewhat above them in the hierarchy are my two favorite encounters of her career thus far: Wallace Shawn and Ernie Hudson, perhaps better known as Vizzini from The Princess Bride and Winston from Ghostbusters. I was disappointed to learn, however, that she hadn't somehow been able to work "Inconceivable!" or "The black one was the best Ghostbuster!" into her respective conversations with them. But she did manage to mention how awesome The Crow was to Mr. Hudson, so respect must be paid.

On a similar note, I once worked as a receptionist for a cheesy German dance-remix record label/music distribution company whose American headquarters were inexplicably located in West Babylon, ideally situated just down the block from the dump, where I was lucky enough to once answer a phone call from Eric Nies of Real World 1 and MTV's The Grind fame.

Try not to be jealous.

Ice Queen

Ladies and gentlemen, just when you thought the sport of men's figure skating couldn't possibly get any gayer, I present Johnny Weir as Lady GaGa!

Check this hand 'cause I'm marvelous, bitches! ;)

Lame Claims To Fame: Volume II

If you've been reading along at home, you may remember that I've previously alluded to my passing obsession with pro wrestling. And if memory serves, you may also recall that I've occasionally implied that my brother is nuts. These points are both relevant to the following tale.

September, 1999. Monday Night Raw, broadcasting live from Nassau Coliseum. First match of the night. If you look at just the right moment, over the left shoulder of The Big Show, you will see, about five rows up from the floor, a young man of above-average height next to a young woman in a black tank top standing on her chair and holding, above her head, a green cardboard sign with white block letters.

Those letters, merely a blur on-screen, spell out the immortal term:

"GUMBYHUMPER"

...which not only has absolutely nothing to do with the match at hand, or with wrestling at all, for that matter, neither of us — despite its origin in the warped mind of my brother himself — have ever even pretended to understand what it means. But we got ourselves on TV, baby!!!

Raw is War, y'all. ;)