Filed under: Treats — posted by Breakup Girl @ 11:08 am
I hesitate a bit here, because I do not relish mocking other people’s misfortune. But ultimately, this song is really about finding new appreciation for what’s great about your partner. (RIGHT?) And anyway, it’s almost as catchy as Matisyahu’s “Miracle.” Speaking of which, happy lights-fest, if applicable! Now, where were we…
We enjoyed this ruefully sweet essay by Sofi Papamarko in today’s Salon.com, in which she gets sucked into The Sims as an alternative to her — she felt — stalled single universe, which appeared to be late in delivering her standard coupled-up fantasies:
It is impossible to overstate how astonishingly easily my dream life came to me, how addictively its rewards added up. At the beginning of the game, for instance, I was given a charming little house in a nice neighborhood. Given! It was handed to me! I didn’t have to scrimp or save or deal with real estate agents or even apply for a mortgage! Landing a terrific job was as easy as showing up to the town hall in a pair of tight leather pants. I told my boss a couple of jokes and was instantly rewarded with a promotion and a healthy raise. In real life, my neglected tomatoes wither on the vine, despite my best intentions. In the game, I harvested huge, succulent crops after watering them no more than twice. I became a master angler and a gourmet cook, whipping up red snapper and catfish gumbo as if I were the secret love child of Nigella Lawson and Bobby Flay. Everything was easy.
And then I met Walter.
Ooh! Read the rest to find out how virtual Walter — and Bernie, and Jack — help Sofi discover that her reality is pretty fantastic, after all.
This has gotta be one of the best examples of art imitating life we’ve ever seen: Ships That Pass is, to use the site’s own verbiage, “a collection of fake, imaginary and literary missed connections posted to Craigslist and then re-posted here [at Ships That Pass’ Tumblr page] with real responses.” The brainchild of Brooklyn-based poet Brett Fletcher Lauer (who’s written an awesome guest post about the endeavor here), it’s what an online performance-art installation commissioned by Margaret Mead might look like. Or a post-millennial, dot-com remake of those Griffin & Sabine pop-up-ish epistolary epics of my romantically angst-addled adolescence. (Anybody else remember those?) [YES!!!! Sob! — BG]
Here’s how it works: Myriad poets, writers and artists craft ersatz missed-connection posts, complete with the fictitious posters’ ages and the appropriate tag (m4w, w4m, m4m, w4w). These are uploaded to Craigslist as any real missed-connection missive would be; simultaneously, they appear on Ships That Pass. Should any unsuspecting Craigslist readers reply to the post, those emails are readable on Ships That Pass as follow-ups to the original. On the flip side, should a suspicious Craigslister flag a post for removal — as has happened a handful already — news of that post’s untimely demise is likewise reported. A missed connection that receives no action at all (overwhelmingly the case) is earmarked with a little sad face like the Zoloft mascot, informing Ships That Pass readers of “Another Missed Connection Missed.”
As anyone who’s read missed connections for sport knows, it’s the unknowable of “But did Girl with Nose Ring Wearing Military Jacket ever hear from Guy Reading The Tender Bar on the Uptown 2 Train?” that feeds their addictiveness. That, and the messages’ unbridled sentimentality. Whereas Craigslist’s other alt-personals, Casual Encounters and Misc. Romance, can depress the hell out of anyone hoping for a shred of flirtation, intrigue, chivalry or grammar to hang onto, Missed Connections is a bastion of well-intentioned, intelligently penned, old-fashioned courtship. One’s for nutjobs; the other’s for l’amour fou.
Enjoying the newly-habit-forming element of “Is it live or is it Ships That Pass?” probably won’t bode well for anyone’s to-do list. And then there’s the question of whether Missed Connectioning under false pretenses is ultimately setting up a stranger for disappointment. Judging by the responses so far, though, it seems that what drives people to reply isn’t the expectation that they’ve been identified/fancied/remembered. It’s their complicit understanding that the heart wants what it wants, and their immutable belief in art for art’s sake.
Filed under: blogs,issues,Treats — posted by Breakup Girl @ 10:07 am
In case you didn’t already know this, Scarleteen is the source for real sex education in the real world. It’s deserving of a shout-out of far more than 140 characters; it’s run and supported by people “who want better for young people than what they get in schools, on the street or from initiatives whose aim is to intentionally use fearmongering, bias and misinformation about sexuality to try to scare or intimidate young people into serving their own personal, political or religious agendas.” And right now, there’s a extra push for cash going on to help Scarleteen keep doing the honest, empowering, and irreplaceable work they do. Read recent testimonials such as “How Scarleteen and Sex Ed Saved My Life,” and “Accentuating the (Sex) Positive: Discovering Scarleteen” — and maybe you’ll be inspired to show Scarleteen a little love yourself.
Filed under: Treats — posted by Breakup Girl @ 6:43 am
[Pasted without comment. (I’ll leave that to you.) –BG]
Unique Ways to Ask Someone Out on a Date
Dating Expert Shares Some Fun Ways to Make a Move
Asking someone to go out on a date is easier said than done. When nervous symptoms such as sweaty palms, a knot in the throat, and butterflies in the stomach accompany an awkward “Will you go out with me?†stutter, things can get ugly. While it’s never a comfortable situation, XXXXXX, Director of XXXXXXX, a dating service for busy business professionals has some ideas for fun ways to make taking the first step a little easier.
Puzzle him/her with Your Charm: Want to really make someone swoon? Even if you’re too shy to ask someone out in person, you can still get crafty and turn the question into a game. Write your sweet proposition on paper, and then cut up the sentence into different pieces and place all the letters into an envelope. On the outside of the envelope, tell him or her to “Piece this together for a surprise†and let your crush do the work.
The Modern Message in a Bottle: A phone call may be the easiest way to contact someone for a date, but is certainly not the most creative. Be original when making that initial contact like in the movie Hitch, messenger her a walkie-talkie and have you waiting on the other end. Or if you or a friend is a lawyer, write up a fake subpoena to invite your crush on a date. Name the “case†something like Amber & Chris vs. the Thought of Foregoing a Great Time Together and indicated the day of the date as the court number. Acting as though she must appear on the date or be in contempt of court adds a playful start to the date.
Rush Hour Rendezvous: Driving in traffic can have its frustrations but instead of blowing your horn in road rage, scope out the road as a dating opportunity. If a fellow driver catches your eye and engages in some bumper to bumper flirting, you can casually hand over your business card. This proactive move will show you are interested and you might just get the green light for follow-up.
(I bet Facebook could generate these on these on fly by looking at your relationship status over time, then assembling the properly tagged photos in chronological order. Get on that, Jesse Eisenberg.)
Wow. C-Span hasn’t been this hard to watch/look away from since, well, you know. In case you missed it, via TPM Livewire:
The Daily Caller reports what they call the “wonkiest, nerdiest Internet revenge ever.” Allow us to add “social conservative-iest” to that list of adjectives.
Todd Seavey and Helen Rittelmeyer, contributors to “Proud To Be Right,” a collection of essays written by “voices of the next conservative generation” and edited by Jonah Goldberg, appeared at a panel promoting the book this weekend. They sat next to each other, and Seavey’s critique of Rittelmeyer’s political philosophy turned into Seavey basically calling Rittelmeyer a two-timing cheat.
“It might come as a surprise to some of you that we dated for two years,” Seavey said. “[Not because] we have ideological differences, but because there are probably some people in this room who also dated Helen during those two years, given how tumultuous it got.”
Rittelmeyer tries her best to keep her cool as Seavey just unloads on her. There’s not much else to really say about this, except that once you start watching, you’ll have a hard time looking away.
The New York Times reports today on the ladyfashions that lit up the most recent ComicCon: “Visitors were garbed as their favorite cartoon heroines, an outlandish cast of characters that varied from Wonder Woman to the violet-haired Faye of ‘Cowboy Bebop,’ the Japanese manga and anime series, to pink crinoline-clad Lolitas that were candy-coated variations on the brooding goth originals who strut their style on Tokyo’s streets.” The whole piece is not only great fun, but also a major Halloween costume idea delivery system. The only thing that bummed me out (not the article’s fault): the frequent descriptions of Wonder Woman’s costume as inspiration. The old Wonder Woman. Le sigh.
e-mail to a friend in need
pop-up-ish epistolary epics of my romantically angst-addled adolescence. (Anybody else remember those?) [YES!!!! Sob! — BG]
