Underpants On The Outside

This weekend, Wonder Woman and I went to Crate and Barrel to register for gifts for our wedding. [Editor’s note: it occurs to me that mentioning our wedding registry may seem tacky: a blatant ploy to extort presents. Clearly, that’s not true - if I was trying to get presents I’d point out that my birthday is Saturday. The long gaps between my posts aren’t because I don’t WANT to post; I just never know what to post about. In that way my virtual Underpants mimics my actual underpants - a lot of desire is in there, but it has nowhere to go. I digress, but my point is that sooner or later I just have to write about whatever’s going on with me. And there’s not a lot going on with me, so… registering is what I’m posting about.] I’m going to try and sum up the experience as succinctly as possible:

• Step 1 - Wonder Woman informs me that we need a new [fill in the blank]
• Step 2 - I point out that either:
  • 2a: nothing is wrong with our current [fill in the blank]
  • 2b: I don’t know what a [fill in the blank] is, then I come up with a sexually explicit use for it. For instance, Crate and Barrel offers a terrific line of butt plugs that, in a pinch, can be used to keep your wine from spoiling.
• Step 3 - I suggest that we ask our friends to buy us a Wii.
• Step 4 - I whine that I’m bored.
• Step 5 - Wonder Woman decides which [fill in the blank] we’ll be registering for.
• Step 6 - I inform her that her choice was the wrong one.

Rinse and repeat for several hours until someone needs a snack.

Yeah - we disagreed on a lot of things. And as I have for the past six months, during each disagreement I imagined myself ten years down the road, pointing out to my divorce lawyer that I should have seen this coming the moment she didn’t see how it would be totally awesome if we got the electric mixer in purple. So I can admit that I probably made things into much bigger deals than they needed to be. But I know I’m right about the forks.

I know she’s going to be my wife and I should try and find a nicer way of putting this but I just can’t - Wonder Woman picked the stupidest set of silverware in the joint. (There were actually two stupider sets, but one was gold and the other was black. Of the silver silverware, Wonder Woman’s was the silliest.)

First of all, the pieces are all very long. Like the length of my forearm. Conversely, Wonder Woman and I are both very short. From the look of the spoons, a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios will now require a coxswain behind me yelling “Bite! Bite! Bite!” I’m especially looking forward to the day when I stab myself in the face because I’m not used to long distance feeding. I should practice by eating off of pool cues. [”Why is there a cork on his fork?”…”So he doesn’t hurt himself.” Thank you, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.]

The utensils are also very narrow. The dinner fork looks like a chopstick with a bad case of split ends; any meal involving scooping will be served with a piping hot plate of futility at no extra charge. I’m going to feed Wonder Woman rice and peas until she stabs me in the leg.

Let me stop myself for a moment. It tends to be funnier when I talk about the mishaps, so I want to take a second to acknowledge that planning a wedding is pretty fun, in ways I never would have thought of. Take gift registering: one of the items we registered for is a dish rack. Normally not a big deal, right? But I’d have a hard time describing how excited I am for the new dish rack. I’m actually looking forward to doing dishes.

Or maybe what I’m really looking forward to is starting a family with a wonderful woman (get it? Wonder Woman?) and the dish rack serves as a symbol of that union - something that will belong to both of us equally.* It sure is a lot nicer to think of the dish rack in that way, since the alternative is seeing it as an indication of just how old and lame I am, and that even though I’m only going to be twenty-nine I’ve somehow come to a point in life where I can actually get a semi thinking of a brand new dish rack. Because if that were the case, I’d have to cry. A lot.

So here’s to our dish rack of unity!

*Yeah, right! Last time I checked, I have the penis. That shit is MINE. [Ed note: When I first wrote this, I meant it in the chauvenistic, “I own everything” sort of way; it’s the type of humor that I enjoy so much and makes my mother sad. Then I read it again and realized I’m making a claim on a dish rack. Move over, Archie Bunker. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get quarters so I can do the laundry all night.]

Most people think I’m a big ol’ geek, but I would say I’m much more of a dork.  While geeks and dorks both enjoy games involving dice having more than six sides and exhibit the same sweaty panic when faced with sports equipment and girls, geeks are more knowledgeable than dorks.  Geeks read Wired; dorks just look at the pictures.

My friends - now those guys are some geeks, and I say that with all due respect.  Keeping up with the conversation requires applied knowledge of fluid dynamics, nuclear physics, materials science and/or search algorithms… of which I have none. (In an unfortunate coincidence, all of those were classes I was taking during my “weed helps me think” days.)  But while I may be a dork, I’m a chameleon dork: I can APPEAR like I know what everyone’s talking about as long as I nod at the right times and keep an eye out for an opportunity to make a joke involving either the transitive property or “bubble sort.”* 

Which brings us to the good news of today: I have been published on The Science Creative Quarterly (the article can be found here.)  The SCQ is a terrific site for geeks, and I think many of you Underpants readers will enjoy it - the articles are intelligent and funny when they want to be.  But as far as my own article goes, I can only hope you think it’s funny because it sure isn’t intelligent. You won’t know anything after reading it that you didn’t before; you will just be a minute or two older. So yeah… big thanks to the editorial staff for publishing it.

*I couldn’t tell you what bubble sorting is with a gun to my head.  But it sure sounds funny…

I know what you’re thinking: “z, didn’t you say you were done with dry-humping supermodels?  Didn’t you acknowledge that this bit was old and stale?”  Yes.  Yes, I did.  But if you’ve read this site for a little while, you’ve probably noticed I’m not tremendously reliable.  And for the past two episodes, the switcheroos, fake-outs and shenanigans have gotten out of hand.  It needs to be said.

Take two weeks ago.  The episode focused on Jin and Sun.  If I may digress, they’re the island’s Asian couple, and while I’ll admit I’m prone to cheap humor - often resorting to chauvinism, dick jokes and racial stereotypes - I’m still amazed that with all the broken electronics on the island, no one has turned to them and said, “Are you SURE you can’t fix it?”

Sun and Jin have always been a good couple of characters.  Their past is filled with the intrigue of organized crime, an extramarital affair, potentially illegitimate children and class struggle - it’s like Goodfellas, Unfaithful, and Lady and the Tramp all rolled into one.  The episode two weeks ago revolved around Sun’s pregnancy, because if she stays on the island, she’ll die like every other pregnant woman there.  (The island is seriously against unsafe sex.)  Fortunately for her, we find out that she’s part of the Oceanic Six, as her flash forward shows her back in Korea when she goes into labor.  We also see Jin, desperately trying to pick up a giant stuffed panda and make it to the hospital, but nothing can go right for him - his cab drives off with the panda inside and he drops his phone, where it is crushed by a motorcycle. The tension got pretty thick as scenes of Sun and Jin on the island were interspersed with scenes of Sun in the throes of labor and Jin frantically trying to make it in time.  It really seemed like something terrible was going to somebody.  But Sun had her child, both of them were healthy, and Jin made it to the hospital.  The wrinkle was that Sun was in the future, post-island, while Jin was in his pre-island days, bringing the panda to some ambassador as an errand for his boss.  Jin is dead in the future.  (Admittedly, I should have seen this coming.  Several months ago, Daniel Dae Kim, the actor who plays Jin, was caught driving drunk in Hawaii, where the film the show.  He is now the fourth actor on the show to get a DUI, and it would appear that the producers don’t really appreciate that sort of behavior: of the other three actors, two of them had their characters get shot to death, and the third’s character was beaten to death by the flatulasaurus.  I appreciate that they’re socially conscious, but you’d think ABC would start keeping a couple taxis on retainer.)

In a show where nothing is what it seems, even this was intolerable.  For instance, it was a shock to find out that the Others weren’t some tribe of long-lost, backwoods sociopaths who got their jollies from kidnapping - they’re just scientists who masquerade as backwoods sociopaths to give their kidnapping a little more pizzazz.  That was quite the fast one the writers pulled on us, but what’s important is that it moved the plot forward without negating any of the previous material - after all, the Others were still kidnappers.  If anything, the twist made them even more creepy, like some sort of nefarious drama club.

But the episode with Jin and Sun was nothing more than cheaply manufactured drama.  I had just wasted an hour watching two innocuous events that did nothing for the overall plot.  Sun had a baby.  Jin bought a panda.  I ate a sandwich - big fucking deal.  But because they added some quick cuts and ominous cello music, I spent forty-five minutes being nervous. The episode wasn’t ‘Lost’ so much as it was ‘Lost Time.’ (ZING!)

I’m still a little resentful.  This was supermodel dry-humping at its worst: it was intentional. Some gorgeous creature had taken me home, turned out the lights and worked me into a sexual insanity, but at the last moment the lights came on, revealing my dick tucked into nothing more than a well-lubricated armpit.  And in that moment of horrible realization, she started to laugh, because I had just been dry-humped for sport.  (I might be overthinking this.)  That’s just mean.

Then there was last week’s episode, which actually managed to be entertaining despite the fact that it followed Michael.  I hate Michael.  Once his son was captured by the Others and turned into a semi-omniscient weirdo, his character consisted solely of weeping, pouting and shouting, “They took my boy!” anytime someone pointed out that he was being a prick.  The only positive was the he killed the abhorrent Ana Lucia (sucks for you, Michelle Rodriguez - maybe next time you’ll have a designated driver.)

We thought we were done with Michael - after freeing Kaiser Soze, Michael and his son Walt were given a boat and allowed to leave the island entirely.  But he’s back, working under an assumed identity on the freighter that brought the new arrivals.  Here’s a superfast rundown of why:

Mike tries to kill himself because he’s still a weepy little girl. But he can’t, and he’s told that it’s because the island doesn’t want him to kill himself. In an effort to become mortal, Michael agrees to work for Kaiser Soze and sabotage the boat, to foil the plans of the billionaire looking for the island.

Maybe it’s just me, but if I found out I couldn’t die, there would be a bunch of things on my to-do list that would go above “work for man who kidnapped my son,” and “become mortal.”  Things like, “Become famous stuntman,” and, “bang groupies befitting a famous stuntman.” But what do I know?

I don’t know what the term for personifying a land mass is - is it anthropomorphize? Landopomorphize?  Whatever it is, landopomorphizing the island used to be one of the symptoms of Crazy, Stabby Locke, and I for one never thought it was “real.”  Now that sane people are talking about the island’s desires, it’s one more signal that Lost is letting go of any grip it still had on reality.  The island is just a much larger, leafier version of the Narnia closet.  But the episode was still decently interesting, and rating my interest in terms of supermodels, I would give the episode a solid Gabrielle Reese.

But the biggest dry-hump of all came at the end of the episode when I found out there wouldn’t be any new episodes until late April.  Fuuuuuuuuuuuck that.  Lost takes a ridiculous number of hiatuses.  By now I don’t even know what season we’re in anymore. It’s like when you’re in an off-again, on-again relationship and someone asks you how long you’ve been dating, and you say “six months” at the same time she says “four years,” and you suddenly realize the only way either of you is getting out if this is if one of you moves to Canada. 

It’s especially infuriating because the producers said they wouldn’t be doing this bush-league hiatus stuff.  (Well, okay: I don’t actually know that they said that, but that’s what ex-Roommate Kat said, and she’s always right about that sort of thing - she’s the most anal-retentive person I know. In a good way.)  The show may be on a decline, but I still want to watch it - I enjoy it, and at the very least it provides me with a weekly occasion to hang out with my friends, not to mention a terrific source of conversation.  I need my Lost!  I suck at conversation!

For example, I now need to get a month’s worth of small-talk out of my latest island theory: the island is a fully sentient landmass, but it is only a baby island, which is why no one is aware of its existence.  In fact, the island is the illegitimate child of Australia and Indonesia, and while Indonesia insists that the baby is Australia’s, Australia refuses to pay any support, pointing out Indonesia’s loose morals and recent associations with New Zealand and Fiji.  (And we all know how many kids THOSE two have.)

As the day fast approaches (I have no idea how fast, because I have no idea when it will be) I will endeavor to leave regular updates about the fun/trials and tribulations of planning our wedding. That way, readers can feel like they’re right there with us, which should be particularly helpful for those who I do not like enough to invite. And if any of you think it’s tasteless to name this feature using a quote where Darth Vader predicts the success of the fascist Empire and the Dark Side, well… you probably have a good point.

This weekend, Wonder Woman and I flew to Los Angeles to meet vendors and scout venues. It was a busy Saturday: at nine am we were in Long Beach to meet with a photographer. By noon we were downtown to look at possible venues, crack addicts and prostitutes. By three we were in Playa Vista, by four we were in Culver City, and by five-thirty we were in the Palisades. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Los Angeles geography, let me put it this way: if I could have just added “disarm bomb in Reseda” to the itinerary I would have successfully completed a season of 24. This was especially fun after I woke up Friday morning and the top story on Yahoo’s homepage was “Gas prices in California hit record high.” Bonus.

We did have some luck on our side, as we found our photographer on the first try. Actually, luck had very little to do with it - we found her because Wonder Woman has been tirelessly searching on the internet. I can’t express how much I appreciate her efforts, but I will give it a shot once I get done playing Assassin’s Creed on my Xbox 360.

I just hope she appreciates my own contributions as well. I believe I was particularly helpful during our interview of said photographer. First of all, I doubt Wonder Woman would have noticed that the photographer was pretty hot if I hadn’t pointed it out. I also took the initiative when it came to tactfully asking the photographer the tough questions, such as where her restroom was, and how she dealt with adversity: “What was the worst thing that’s gone wrong at a wedding? Because a lot of things are going to go wrong at ours. Like, A LOT. For instance, what would you do in the event of a grease fire?”

Though I have to admit that by then I was just going through the motions for WW’s sake. I had already decided this woman was the right photographer for us, and no, not because she was cute. It was based on a much more objective standard; one that can be purchased semi-annually from 14-year old girls. That’s right, I’m talking about Thin Mints.

It was the first thing I noticed when we entered her studio: a plate of Samoas, Thin Mints, and one of those other Girl Scout cookies that are bullshit when compared to Thin Mints and Samoas and therefore don’t even deserve names. I felt compelled to mention how impressed I was with her portfolio - shouting, “Sweet! Girl Scout cookies!” as I stuffed two in my mouth just in case they weren’t meant for me - and on the outside chance I wasn’t sold yet, the photographer then said, “Sorry, I didn’t have time to freeze them.” Keep in mind that my love for Wonder Woman was initially based on her refusal to eat in restaurants that serve Pepsi. Suddenly it felt like the photographer and I had grown up together, except I had never actually eaten Thin Mints off a plate before. (My initial reaction: thumbs down. They don’t taste any better, and now you have to wash a plate. Booo.)

Note: some of you may not be impressed that the photographer knew that Thin Mints are meant to be eaten frozen. I, too, once assumed this was common knowledge, but living on the east coast has introduced me to scores of the unwashed masses that eat Thin Mints warm, like peasants and dogs. Believe me, they exist! They also leave their batteries in unrefrigerated drawers, the fools! Nevertheless, we must show pity, no matter how much we are disgusted.

After that the day becomes a bit of a blur, but the bits that I remember only reinforce my already-strong campaign for MVP of this wedding planning process. For instance, I drove us all over the place, and only managed to get us lost in my hometown twice! (National is north of Washington? Since when???)

We’ll be making at least one more trip back there to meet with more vendors, but I don’t want them to read this and think they can plunk down a box of Thin Mints and expect to get our business. No - the bar has been raised, and now my deposit check goes to the first DJ with kosher salami on Ritz crackers. (Turntables optional.)

MVP! MVP!

 Yeah, yeah… I haven’t done this in a while.  Whatever.  Okay, here’s the quickie rundown of the last three episodes.

Three episodes ago: This was an episode all about Kate. For those of you who don’t watch the show, Kate is the hottest non-pregnant woman on the island, and boy does she know it.  She’s got the two best-looking guys on the island wrapped around her finger, and if the island were anything like real life, all the other female castaways would be calling her a slut behind her back and spreading rumors that she has herpes.

Originally she had a shadowy criminal past that she refused to talk about.  It was one of the show’s few mysteries that have actually been explained, possibly because it was so tame: Kate killed her abusive stepfather and was being extradited from Australia when the plane crashed.  That’s it.  One murder, and a ‘nice’ murder at that. As far as I’m concerned, that’s not exactly supermodel dry-humping caliber right there.  At first it seemed like we’d be dry-humping a stripper in a cop outfit, but then it turned out she was just a meter maid with cleavage. 

Kate walks around half the time like she killed a man just to watch him die, and the other half she seems more haunted than your average ‘Nam vet.  She’s so phony - like those kids who think they’re bad-ass because they once shoplifted a Cadbury Cream egg. [Editor’s note: Yes, that was me.  But in my defense, I was fourteen, a straight A student, and I had absolutely no idea what the female body felt like. Kate’s in her late twenties and is smoking hot.]

Anyway, anytime they talk about rescue, Kate gets all freaked out, because se’s afraid that when she gets rescued they’ll send her to prison.  But no one has explained why she considers the island to be a better option.  It’s not like she’s getting the chair. True: on the island she’s got her pick of the men.  On the other hand, the only things on the menu are mangos, boar and fish, there’s no kind of medical care, and it rains hourly, so you KNOW she’s chafing all over the place. She has no idea what’s going on, people are dying left and right, and there also happens to be a giant smoke monster roaming around the jungle. What’s the worst thing she has to fear about prison? Is she really that averse to a little cunnilingus?  As an amateur lesbian myself, let me say that it can be quite enjoyable.

That whole episode was kind of a wash. Kate spent most of the episode pseudo-crying.  They did push the Oceanic Six bit a little: in court, Jack tells a story about how there were eight survivors, but only six make it back alive, so now we’re left wondering not only who the rest of the Oceanic Six are (we know five of them) but now we’re wondering who the two that die are.  Again, it’s not exactly supermodel dry-humping.  I’m curious, but I have no problem waiting a few more weeks.  If anything it’s more like dry humping a mediocre-looking girl because you’ve heard she’s into group sex. 

Two episodes ago:  This was a bit of a twister. Desmond (”if it’s not Scottish, it’s crap”) and Sayeed were airlifted to a freighter a few miles off the island. We saw more freaky time effects associated with the island, in particular, one that caused Desmond’s consciousness to travel back and forth in time.  I thought that was an interesting little twist on time travel.  A little way of saying, “Suck it, Newton.  I’ve got some mass you can conserve RIGHT HERE!”

Eight years in the past, Desmond pays a visit to Pehneh (during an “off” part of their off again, on again relationship) to convince her to give him her phone number so that he can call her eight years later.  He tells her he’ll be calling Dec. 24, 2006, and stresses that she can’t change her number.  Once his consciousness jumps back to the present, he calls her from the ship’s radio room, which he and Sayeed had broken into.  What followed was possibly the most ridiculous scene in Lost history.

• Pehneh takes at least 10 rings to answer the phone. The first mystery is: what kind of phone service does she have that doesn’t go to voicemail after four? The second is, what the hell was she doing for so long? Say Wonder Woman had a falling out, and months later she showed up at my door, looking panicked and desperate, and swearing up and down that she’d be calling me on Christmas of 2016. I’d probably set up a reminder in Outlook. I might even invite friends over on the actual night, open a couple bottles of wine, and let them listen on speakerphone. Whatever I did, you better believe I’d have my phone on me at all times. And it was a cordless phone, so even if she was “dropping a deuce”, that’s no excuse.
• When she does finally pick up, she and Desmond spend the next ten minutes telling each other how much they love each other. Yeah, it’s sweet and all, but I kept imagining myself in Sayeed’s shoes: Here I am on a boat miles off an island of wackiness. The boat’s crew do not appear to be friendly, and we’ve just broken into their radio room to make a call for help. Any minute now someone’s going to find us and give us a thorough beat down, I haven’t gotten laid or used conditioner in months, and if that weren’t enough, the guy calling for help is saying, “you hang up first… no, you…”

Here’s my gut reaction: I’m not too curious about the whole time distortion thing.  It’s not like a tropical polar bear, which is the type of phenomenon one really has to explain. When it comes to space-time, things just… happen.  Even Star Trek just shrugs and says, “I dunno, maybe it was a wormhole or something.”  There’s no way Lost is ever going to satisfactorily explain this time distortion, so I’m not going to get all riled up about it. The only thing this episode made me curious about was how Desmond could drop the ball so badly.  There was no real mystery, and while the episode was exciting, the more I think about it the less appealing it seems.  In other words, it wasn’t dry-humping a supermodel; it was more like real-humping a jar of Miracle Whip.

On that note, on to this week’s episode, with a special new feature!

Readers of this space might be aware that as time has gone on, I’ve become increasingly uneasy presenting Lost recaps in the ol’ “Supermodel Dry-humping” context.  Don’t get me wrong: it’s a great image, and has provided me with some great material over the years.  But for the most part it’s stale as fuck. 

Well, it took me a while, but I’ve finally come up with a new way of doing the recaps.  It’s actually pretty obvious, and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.  Presenting: A Message in a Bottle: What’s New on Lost!  Each week, I’ll write a recap from one of the character’s perspectives, as if they had left a letter in a - oh, you get the idea. (Please note: any similarities between this and “The Superhero Diaries” are completely coincidental, and are not an indication that my imagination and sense of humor are rather limited.)

Observe…

This week’s author: Juliette

Dear Reader,

I can only hope these messages are reaching someone.  I am trapped on an island, and desperate for rescue. Unfortunately, that’s really all the information I have at this time.  We’re somewhere in an ocean, though there are some serious disagreements as to which ocean.  There are palm trees, and once I’m pretty sure I saw a shark.  Does that help?  We’re also the tropical island with a polar bear on it.  There can’t be that many.

If you’ve received any of my past sea-mails (LOL!), I should say mention that I am even more desperate than usual to get off this island.  It seems like every time I think things can’t get worse, they find a way.  At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if I grew a pair of testicles, just so somebody could come along and kick me in them.

I was once a successful fertility doctor.  I also used to smile sometimes; even laugh on occasion.  Then I was brought to this secret island community to try and figure out why pregnant women always die here.  The only thing I’ve figured out is that it’s really depressing when dozens of pregnant women die right in front of your eyes.

I tried to make the best of things - I started seeing this guy, Goodwin.  Of course he was married.  Maybe my therapist was right: maybe I am always sabotaging myself.  I mean, the most meaningful relationship I’ve had in years, and I find it on an island where sex is potentially lethal.  (If my letters ever make me seem moody, it’s because I take a birth control pill eight times a day.)  I’m turning out just like my mother.

Maybe it was wrong of me to date a married man, but my only other option was this guy Ben.  He had the biggest crush on me, but…ick.  The guy is totally creepy.  He’s got these big buggy eyes, clammy hands, and he always smells like some kind of ointment.  But he’s also the leader of our community, because once he locks those buggy eyes on you, it’s like he’s in your head.  It’s freaky.  He’s like Kaiser Soze.  The only time he ever gets flustered is when he’s around me. See, Ben was raised on the island, and has the type of social skills one usually finds with the home-schooled.  I’m pretty sure he’s a virgin. 

At first I thought it was cute the way he’d get all sweaty and stutter every time I was around.  Like this one time, he actually tricked me into a date.  I thought I was coming over for a dinner party, but he hadn’t invited anyone else.  He made me a ham.  Sure it was weird, but I have to admit, I liked the attention.  A girl likes to feel special, you know?  But when Ben found out about Goodwin, he had him killed.  Then the sick bastard showed me the body, and as we’re standing over it, he tells me “you’re mine.”  What a ladies man, right? I mean, just because I eat your ham doesn’t mean we’re going steady.

How do you break up with a guy when you’re not even going out with him?  I stopped inviting him to the book club - take a hint.  But he just finds any excuse to hang around me.  He even got a spinal tumor, and guess who is the only doctor around here.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave it to himself somehow just so that I’d have to touch him.

I actually thought I had come up with a clever way out, but you’ll have to bear with me for a second:

A plane recently crashed on the island.  There were several survivors.  One of them, Jack, is a spinal surgeon.  (And he’s totally hot, too.)  Ben came up with a plan to manipulate Jack into operating on him involving kidnapping, extortion and death threats, which as you’ll remember is also how he asked me to be his girlfriend.  But while Jack was staying with us, I befriended him, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for more.  Mom always wanted me to date a doctor.  I told him to kill Ben, and I even tried to imply that there would be a little “somethin’-somethin’” in it for him afterwards. 

The problem is Jack’s kind of an idiot.  Dreamy, and with the best of intentions, but an idiot none the less.  He screwed up my plan, saved Ben’s life, and even managed to throw me under the bus by letting Ben know I had conspired to kill him.  Way to pick the winners, Juliette! Of course, now that he betrayed me I find him even hotter.  Thank you, deep-seeded father issues…

A couple days later, Ben hit me with some knockout gas and when I woke up, everyone was gone except for Jack and another of the survivors, Kate.  She totally thinks she’s hot, but it’s just because she’s skinny.  I don’t know why Jack can’t see that she’s a total slut.  He’s such an idiot.  She probably has herpes.

Anyway, everyone I knew was gone, so I had to latch on to Jack and Kate and follow them back to their camp.  Plus, it really seemed like Jack and I were hitting it off.  It’s also given me the opportunity to realize that when you’re stuck on an island, you shouldn’t take things like indoor plumbing for granted.  Palm fronds make for poor toilet paper. 

And then things got really weird.  Some scientists just arrived from a freighter.  We thought they were here to rescue us, but that’s definitely not the case.  Rescue workers don’t bring gas masks.  Two of them disappeared into the jungle.  Jack and I set out to find them, and already I had a bad feeling about this.  Jack seems to think he’s some kind of master tracker/woodsman, even though from what I hear he never even got past Cub Scout.  I’m not much better, but I had some outside help: as I was walking through the jungle when my ex-boyfriend’s wife appeared out of nowhere and told me that the scientists were going to one of the power plants on the island in an effort to kill everyone.

I’m not crazy, I swear.  This shit is actually going down.  Seriously, send help.  How many islands can there be, anyway? 

Where was I?  Oh yeah - Jack and I were trying to catch up to the scientists.  But guess who decided to show up all knocked unconscious?  That’s right: Kate.  She’s like, “Ow, those mean old scientists knocked me on my head, I’m helpless, and apparently allergic to sleeves because all I wear are low-cut tank-tops…” The whore.  Oh, surprise surprise, Jack stays back to help her.  Don’t mind Juliet - she’ll go take care of everything.  She always does!  Always trying to fix everything and everyone! 

When I caught up with the scientists at the power plant (nicknamed “The Tempest”, because we’re very mysterious around here) it seemed like they were attempting to release some kind of deadly gas. At one point I might have been curious as to why there was a large store of deadly gas on the island, but after all this time I just take this shit in stride.  Then again, I didn’t even have a lot of time to think about it.  As I was attempting to stop one of them, the other snuck up behind me and hit me.  But I managed to stay conscious, Kate! I’m not gonna take a sucker-punch like some little bitch - I turned around and kicked that motherfucker’s ass!  Hellz yeah!

But here’s the thing:  both of the scientists swore that they weren’t trying to release the gas; they were trying to make it inert.  And for some reason, maybe the fact that I had just taken a blow to the head, I believed them.  Whatever they did, it sure didn’t seem to have any negative effects.  But that’s not important.  Back to Jack.  So I was all pissed off at him for staying with Kate.  I even tried to break it off with him. I told him that Ben would try and kill him if he knew I liked him.  I don’t even know if it’s true, but I didn’t want to sound jealous.  But then he kisses me!  (It was totally hot!)

What should I do? I mean, I think he likes me, but he’s going to have to do something about Kate if we’re going to move this relationship forward. 

Anyway, please send help. 

-Juliette

1 Beach Road

Island City, Island

My second officially published Superhero Diary went up over at Crave Online.  To be clear, I’m getting paid to be a comic book nerd.  AND I occasionally have sex! 

I’m living the dream, one day at a time.

P.S. (Technically this counts as my post of the week, but I will try and get some nonsense about a supermodel up before tonight’s Lost.  No promises though - I have some very time-consuming sandwiches in my near future.)

Getting engaged is awesome. (Even when it doesn’t go according to plan.)  I’m confident that getting married will be awesome.  The stuff in between has an awful strong tendency to suck. 

Let me be clear from the outset: I’m not doing SHIT.  It’s been strongly suggested to me that I should never forget that this wedding is Wonder Woman’s day.  What she says goes, and unless she wants my opinion, I shouldn’t do a thing.  I like not doing a thing, and besides, Wonder Woman plans everything we do anyway.  In our two-man organization, she is officially the Vice President in charge of Social Coordination.  (She also holds the titles of Chief Wardrobe Officer and Executive Gift Chooser.)

Yet even with my minimal involvement, planning this wedding still manages to blow from time to time.  It’s been brought to my attention that I have way too many friends and way too little money, and in one of life’s great injustices I can’t sell my friends.

I don’t even know how many times we’ve gone over the guest list.  When all is said and done, if you’re a friend of mine and you get invited to the wedding, (and I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you… Dad) it’s only because I couldn’t think of a reason why you suck.  That’s right: things have come to the point where I find myself searching for reasons to dislike my friends.  Remember that time we ordered pizza but you were out of cash?  If you never paid me back, you better BELIEVE you’re not invited.  (Though we will gladly accept that $4.50 from 2001 as a wedding present, if you’d like.) 

Okay, for serious: for any of you who don’t make the cut, I want you to know that this isn’t easy for us.  Please believe that you are in our hearts and minds, and understand that this decision isn’t about you.  It just came down to the fact that you, y’know, eat.  And you drink.  And we can’t have that sort of thing going on all willy-nilly.  So if you’re looking for someone to blame, perhaps you should look in a mirror…

BTW, here are a couple tips for anyone else out there tying the knot soon. 

1) When your fiancé gets stressed out about planning this thing, don’t say, “Well, look at it this way: you’re learning some valuable lessons for the next time…”

2) Instead of “fiancé”, do not refer to your bride-to-be as “Ball with Chain Pending.” It’s not as funny as you think it is.

More tips to come as I learn them the hard way…

Some of you - very, very, very few of you - have read my comic book blog “The Superhero Diaries.”  It was a labor of love that required a whole lot of labor and didn’t get me any kind of love, so I kinda let it fall by the wayside.

Until now. 

The fantastic people at Crave Online saw it in their hearts to nurture this poor, dying bit back to life, and I will be publishing Superhero Diaries every two weeks on the site until the joke gets old. Check out my inaugural article here. 

Another publishing credit!  COUNT IT!

 Lost has a habit of setting up dozens of mind-boggling mysteries and solving NONE of them. My friend Jordan, whose use of imagery is nothing short of genius, describes the experience of watching the show as frustrating as “Dry-Humping a Supermodel.”

My dad firmly believes that Lost will only end up breaking my heart.  Deep down, I know that he’s probably right, but it reminds me of a certain Bill Withers classic: “My Brother / if you only knew / you’d wish that you were in my shoes / Oh, you just keep on using me / until you use me up.”

I especially feel this way after last week’s episode.  It was awesome.  In fact it was the epitome of a Lost episode - it raised ten questions, it answered none, and even though I should have been frustrated I wasn’t.  Exhausted?  Yes.  Confused? Even more than I usually am. Wanting more? Desperately.  Sure sounds like a dry-humping to me…

This week’s mystery:  what the fuck is going on?????  I know, I know - it’s the official mystery of the show.  But there’re at least two ways that question can be asked.  The first is when you know exactly what’s going on, but you just want to know the reason why, like when you find your wife having sex with your pool boy.  Last week’s episode was a good example of this, because I could understand how and why strangers had come to the island, I just couldn’t understand why they had chosen that particular group of fuckwits.

The other way to ask “what the fuck is going on?” is when you truly have no understanding of what is happening around you. Like when you find your wife having sex with your parakeet. (So THAT’S why she wanted a macaw so badly!!!) You’ll worry about the reasons behind it later - first you just want to make sure you’re not having some kind of stroke.  That’s what this episode was. 

In the alternate storyline (Lost episodes always have two stories - one on the island, and one in the past or future) we see Sayeed on a golf course.  To remind everyone, Sayeed is a former torturer in the Iraqi army and all-around ladies man.  I also feel the need to point out that in this flashforward Sayeed’s hair looks incredible.  It was the first thing I noticed about him. (I think this has more to do with the fact that mine is rapidly falling out, rather than a general interest in hair care, fashion and dude-humping.)  But seriously: it’s like the man sweats conditioner.  When it comes to heroic hair care, Sayeed is right up there with Lion-o and He-Man.

As I said, Sayeed is on a golf course, preparing to take a swing when a jovial looking man pulls up on a cart.  The guy starts chatting Sayeed up, advising him to use a different club, and generally getting on his nerves, which is not a smart thing to do to a man who never realized pliers had so many non-mutilating uses. When Sayeed mentions that he was part of the “Oceanic six” the man gets extremely nervous, and that’s understandable because a moment later Sayeed shoots him in the chest. What the - ?? Who was that?  Why did Sayeed kill him??? Unfortunately, I can’t ask too many questions, because when a supermodel knows how to handle a gun and a pair of pliers, you dry-hump her and you like it and you don’t say shit.  (On the plus side, Sayeed is doing a good job healing the Jack Bauer-shaped hole in my life…)

Since we’re at our first WTF moment and we’re only minutes in, this looks like it’s going to be more of a marathon dry-hump than a sprint.  I wish I had stretched first - I could pull a hammy. But dry-humping is a lot like being stuck in an elevator; it’s better with friends, and fortunately I was joined by ex-Roommate Mary (ex-Roommate Kat was working on her taxes - boooo!) and fellow Lost devotee Banana Bread, named so because she brought over banana bread.  Do not attempt to understand the workings of my creative process.

The next time we see future-Sayeed, he has stopped filming Herbal Essences commercials long enough to meet an attractive blonde in a German café.  She says that she works for a very important economist who mysteriously contacts her via a phone she keeps on her at all times.  She tells Sayeed this because she is totally down to hump, while Sayeed listens because he is going to kill the economist, and probably her. There’s also a good chance that he’s gonna hump at least one of them before the hour is up, because that’s what happens when your hair has volume, bounce and a healthy sheen.  My bald-ass gets a dry-hump and no apology.  Or, putting it as an economist might, the demand for supermodel-humping is a great deal larger than the supply of willing supermodels. 

But let’s leave Sayeed here in the future. Back in the present, as you’ll recall, the Losties have split into two camps.  First is the Lord of the Flies camp, led by John “I Stab Because I Care” Locke.  It might seem weird that people would follow a man who will throws knives at people just for the fuck of it, but then again, their other option was the camp led by Jack.  Sure, Locke is crazy, but that’s only dangerous on rare occasions.  On the other hand, every time you go somewhere with Jack the best outcome you can hope for is that you’ll only be taken hostage. If I were offered the choice between stupid and crazy, I’d probably take crazy too - crazy tends to make for better stories.

There are four Newbies on the island, and each camp is trying to be the first one to collect the complete set.  Jack’s camp is in the lead, 3-1, with extra points because they have the helicopter.  Sayeed makes a deal with Lawnmower Man: if Sayeed rescues the redhead-newbie from Locke’s Funhouse of Flying Pointy Things, he’s on the first helicopter when it goes back to the boat.  He takes Kate and the asshole-newbie, and suggests Jack stay behind to guard the Lawnmower Man and the Sad Sack.  Jack actually has a good chance at pulling this off, because neither of them wants to go anywhere.

Unfortunately for Sayeed, nothing goes as smoothly as his hair.  He, Kate and the Ghost Whispering Dickhead get trapped by Locke, who curiously places Sayeed in a room where Kevin Spacey’s Cousin is tied up.  Now, normally, when you take a man who knows how to ask a question (while pushing a bamboo spike under your fingernails) and put him in a room with a man who knows all the answers (and is tied up in a chair), what you get is 90% screaming, 10% thorough explanation.  But then this show would have to be called “Found”, and I’d have to rename the column “Humping a Supermodel Whenever I Want.”  And while Sayeed seems to really hate Kevin Spacey, he doesn’t want to question him because he knows Kevin Spacey is a liar. What??? What kind of half-rate interrogator is he??? “Sayeed, how’s the interrogation going?” “Not good boss - he’s lying. I might have to go home early - I all out of ideas…”  I imagine this came up a lot during his performance evaluations.  It’s like a supermodel who can’t walk in heels.

I must admit that when it comes to intrigue, this half of the story is less a supermodel, and more an ugly girl I’m listening to while I wait for her supermodel friend to come back from the future in her time machine.  However, there are a couple interesting developments.  First, remember that Sayeed hates Kevin Spacey - he even says that the day he trusts him is the day he sells his soul to the devil.  This is going to come up again.  Also, while Sayeed is gone, Sad Sack (a physicist) sets up an experiment: he places a beacon on the ground and radios the boat to fire a particular kind of rocket at it. But while the boat’s radar shows that the missile reached the target, the rocket doesn’t actually arrive until several minutes later. When Miles compares a clock from the rocket and a clock from the beacon (which presumably should be running concurrently) the missile’s clock is ahead by several minutes.  That’s WTF #2.  Maybe it’s unwise of me to try and hump a supermodel whose vagina bends space-time, but what can I say?  I’m a man of science.

Speaking of bending space-time…If Sayeed thinks thinks things are bad now, they’re going to get worse in the future.  Like when his pending German girlfriend shoots him because she knows he’s planning to kill her boss. First Sayeed turns down an opportunity for a bloody interrogation and then he lets his guard down; I’m going to have to revoke his “Jack Bauer” status and demote him back down to “Curtis”.  Not that Jack doesn’t have a weakness for awful women (Audrey…) but at least they don’t shoot him.  Jack knows how to lay the pipe. 

Sayeed does manage to rally, though, killing his girlfriend/assailant.  In three-plus seasons, Sayeed is now two for two in the category of “love interests fatally shot in torso.”  That’s the danger of luxuriously long-haired men, ladies.  Maybe you should rethink your stance on balding guys.  That is, unless you like the feel of Kevlar.

Now Sayeed finds himself in the enviable position of being newly single in Europe.  On the downside, he’s been shot.  Worse, if he doesn’t get himself fixed in a hurry, the stress might give him split ends. So he lurches his way to veterinarian, where a mysterious voice asks him about what happened.  When I say mysterious, I mean, mysterious to everyone but me.  BECAUSE IT’S KEVIN SPACEY.  Once again, Kaiser Soze controls everything.  I should have seen it coming.  Sayeed said trusting Ben (the character’s actual name) was like selling his soul to the devil.  Well, Ben = Kevin Spacey.  Kevin Spacey = Kaiser Soze.  Kaiser Soze = The Devil.  Transitive property, bitches.  In fact, I’m renaming Ben/Kevin Spacey’s character to Kaiser Soze. WTF #3.  The trifecta!

And if that weren’t exciting enough, on the island Sayeed traded Kate and the dickhead for the redhead, making out like a bandit.  And at the end of the episode… WE SEE THE HELICOPTER TAKING OFF AS IT HEADS BACK TO THE BOAT.

This was a phenomenal, hall-of-fame episode. For all this time I, and I think a lot of people, assumed that the flash-forwards occurred outside the scope of the show - that the show would end “before” these events happened.  But now it seems like we could be flashingforward to as soon as next season, or maybe the one after that.  Giving credit where credit is due, before we watched last week’s episode, Banana Bread thought this might be the case.  Still… wow.

Analogous Dry-Hump:  It’s as if you were invited to participate in a supermodel foursome… only you had to wear a haz-mat suit. 

Analogous Supermodel (In this case, supermodELS.  Plural.): I’m going to go with Victoria’s Secret models Adriana Lima, Karolina Kurkova, Izabel Goulart, and Selita Ebanks, as they appeared in the February 2008 copy of Esquire. But remember: you’re in a haz-mat suit.

Some final thoughts… In the comments of last week’s post, Robbb put his theory out there: the island is an anomaly that will be protected when the Earth’s magnetic poles switch.  This is actually close to my own theory, which I had developed about a half-hour before this week’s episode.  Lately the show has included more of the paranormal.  For so long, we’ve wondered how this show would fit into the regular world, but I’m starting to expect that rather than fit the island into the plausible, they’ll just introduce the fantastic.  What I mean is, I think the island is an anomaly, but I think it’s a gateway to some kind of alternate dimension.  I’m slightly disappointed, because it’s the easy way out, explaining smoke monsters, teleportation, immortality, ESP, and whatever else tickles their fancy.  I also think certain people, like our newbies, will have an affinity for this new dimension, manifesting in special abilities, like how Dickhead Miles can talk to ghosts.   As for Sayeed and Kaiser Soze, this is what I think happens: during this episode, Sayeed is in Kaiser’s house, looking at his bookshelf, and he pauses when he sees a copy of the Qu’ran, along with other holy texts.  I think companies like Hanso want to research this dimensional rift for their own gain, but I think that other people will view it as something sacred and holy, and they fight to protect it.  I think Kaiser is on this team, and when Sayeed discovers more about the island, he is convinced to join Kaiser on his crusade.

Boom.  Recognize the skills.

[Editor’s note: I’m exhausted. There may be some typos and/or incoherent rambling, but that’s only because I don’t have the time or energy to proofread more than half of this, and I want to get it up. (That’s what SHE said!)]

I tried to come up with some cutesy intro for this, but like most things,the best way to say it is the simplest: if you go to Google and search for “penis wonder woman road head wizard”, the Underpants is the number one site.

I owe a big thanks to my friend Miya for this. I don’t know what sort of genius-juice she was drinking late last week when this occurred to her, but I can’t even remember the last time something this cool happened to me!