Bike Porn: Save Us

I would like to join Rebecca in a last ditch effort to pull the blog out of a downward spiral. I present you with this assortment of bike porn, featuring varying degrees of plausibility.

I'm working on an expose that should come out (with my shame) later this week (month). Until I or another writer manages to squeeze one out, we'll be sure to keep our eyes peeled for pleasing media to shamefully steal. (The above images were complied by a frequent poster on the [shudder] craigslist bicycle forum.) If your're interested in more sordid cycle shots check out this mocking this

HEY THERE EVERYBODY

BACK IN THE HIGH LIFE AGAIN

UNSOLICITED ADVICE FROM LAUREN based on her recent dating experiences.

So if you're as blind-dating challenged as I am, and likely to fall all over yourself, or literally trip over your own feet, constantly say all the wrong things or rudely point out some poppy seeds you can see in your significant other's teeth, here are a few tips and tricks of possibly avoiding a catastrophic date and possibly even ensuring a good one!

DO:

-Dress nicely but not too over the top. If you're life me and find yourself incorporating every possible pattern and color into your usual outfits, tone it down a little and try wearing something classic but not boring. If you're the type to stick to blacks or greys, try to spruce it up a little with a little accessorizing. For example, I kept my clothing pretty simple but I wore a pocket watch locket that actually turned into a brief topic of conversation.

-Keep your cool in conversation. While it's always nice to be complimented, don't scare your date away with flattery. Say one or two things to make them smile, but don't bombard them with niceties. For instance, "It's been really great talking to you" is an effective way of saying you're really glad that you're out together and likely want to do it again. Taking too much note of the physical traits of the person you're with: "Wow, you have great eyes, hair, bone structure, etc." could lead your date to believe you're only after one thing. Also, constant flattery is a bona fide way to convince your date that you're unsure about yourself and don't feel worthy to be out with him/her.

-In the same vein, it's always a good idea to keep the momentum of conversation going with relevant yet interesting questions. This is a great way to let your date know that you're interested in who they are and aren't obsessed with yourself. This is also the best way to keep you from talking too much about yourself. On the other hand, too many standard questions might get boring after a while, so make sure you're creative. Questions like, "Where are you from? Where did you go to school? What are your hobbies?" get old fast. Stick to questions that are specific to the person you're with. For example, if your date has an interesting job or project underway, use that as a segue to find out what they're passionate about or motivated by.

-Tell them you had a great time and hope to see them again (if you're being honest!) If you can tell by the end of your date that it's not going to work out, don't promise to call soon. Just say "see you around" and hope your subtlety was a nice enough hint that you're "just not that into her/him". In my opinion, if you're still strangers, a hug is the best way to depart. Don't necessarily go for the kiss right away because it might seem too sudden. Watch body language, if your date can't keep their eyes off you and is constantly drawing attention to his/herself, it might be appropriate. But I find that a hug is a nice way to end things and much more effective than a handshake. If you're head over heels by the end of the evening, wait a few days! Don't call the next night or even the night after that. Give your date the sufficient time to think it over, and if you're positive that they had as great a time as you did, time enough to miss you! If you're one of those people that obsesses over not being the first to call, get over it. Just don't seem too eager when you do decide to call, and same goes if they call you first. If it works out, plan a second date, but don't keep your schedule totally open just because you think they might call you. Besides, having a life is sexy.

DONT'S:

-INTERRUPT! There is nothing that bothers me more on a date (or in life, really) than a person who is constantly interrupting me to relate my story to themselves. If your date is saying something along the lines of "And then when I lost my job I decided to..." and you interrupt them by saying, "Oh yeah that reminds me of this one time when I..." take note of how he/she might politely smile but then take note of the big sigh they're sure to let out while you're going on about yourself. Be patient. You're date wants to know about you too, but being a good listener is just as important as being a good conversationalist.

-TALK ABOUT YOUR EX'S. This is #2 on the list of my pet peeves. You're not on a date with your therapist and it's likely that they don't care about who you dated last. Even if they know your ex, talking about them is not going to get you anywhere. If nothing else, they'll assume you're not over them and take it to heart. Same goes for talking about other people that you're date doesn't know. Saying things like, "Yeah and then when I went hiking with Pete and Lola in California and then Pete got angry and Lola and I went swimming...." yeah, DON'T CARE. Don't constantly be referring to other times, places, people in your life. Especially on the first few dates, conversations should employ the both of you. Let your date know that you're living in the present and not for a time that didn't involve him/her.

-Get drunk. If you're having wine with dinner or even meeting for a few beers, that's fine and might loosen things up. But if you know you're a cheap date, moderate. You don't want you're date to think you're a lush who can't hold your sauce. Also, duh, booze is likely to to unhinge your social anxiety, but it might do it a little too well. You might say or do something that you can't take back later and that's not likely the best way to go about getting a second date.

-Seem desperate. I know it's a cliche, but confidence really is the most attractive thing in a person, for both sexes. Don't self deprecate or appear grateful that your date is out with you. Definitely don't tell them it's been six months since you've last had sex or call your parents while you're out to tell them you found the one. Even if you're a total dating moron, this is common sense. Talk about the things in your life you're proud of, not the things you wish you could change or can't control.

Things not looking too good for Valentine's Day?

There may still be hope
Lauren explores the sordid world of blind-dating.

As anyone new to a small town will understand, getting "out there" to meet people and socialize can always be a difficult task, especially if you're in the middle of a brutal winter with a daily average temperature of about 12 degrees.

Also, as you might remember from my last post, Northampton, MA (the home of Smith College) is widely renowned for its gay/lesbian/trans population; if you don't necessarily fall under one of those categories but find that the majority of your friends do, you may, like me, find yourself in the position of weighing your possibilities and coming to the uncomfortable realization of "naw, this just isn't happening" after dancing to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" at a local bar after having four whiskey sours and your roommate tells you to "just go for it."

Well needless to say it's been a little difficult meeting single people of similar-mindset in my most recent endeavors and I've gotten to the point where a "getting to know you" conversation has become crippling. My idea of flirtation has transformed into going to the public library, spotting someone attractive in the stacks or reading at a table and then staring at them from across the room. If they make eye contact, I leave feeling as though it "went well".

Since moving to the area in September I've gone on a couple dates: The first guy was really nice--we met at a local pub where we were both doing open mic. After exchanging numbers, he would call me about three times a week, but only to invite me to similar events. Not once in the period that we were seeing each other was the date not for the purpose of some open-mic/lecture event. Also, any time we spent alone was ridden with awkward silences and sentences like, "Did you wanna do something else?" or "What would you rather be doing..." and "Did you say something?"

The next guy was one of those persistent flatterers who has to convince you all the time that he's so glad you're going out together and he thinks you're so totally worth his time. Puke.

Aaaaaanyway, I recently took up a part time job working as a grant writer for a local holistic institute. My boss--a well-intentioned mad Russian who loves to plug her colonic (ha) regimen as a way to alienate the possibility of cancer--after having a few conversations has taken a special interest in my personal life. Not long after hiring a second developmenter, she implored me to meet with him and discuss our plans and see if we were "compatible". That should have been my first tip off.

After having a conversation with him through g-chat, I reported back to my boss that he seemed like a nice enough guy. She then hinted at the fact that he lived close to my home and even mentioned to me that he was a "beeeeg sterrongggg maaang" and wasn't I interested in meeting him for coffee at a local cafe? Sure, what the hell? After receiving a call the night before with instructions to wear that blue scarf I wore to the office last Thursday cause it brought out my eyes, my boss wished me good luck. I couldn't believe that I had stooped to the dismal point in my life where my boss was setting me up on dates and telling me what to wear.

Then the moment came to go meet--for all intents and purposes, let's call him Ralphie--the man of my dreams. With an intention to just walk to the cafe, I left my house only five minutes before I was supposed to meet him and had to drive.

I arrived with a minute to spare and even got there before he did! Beforehand we told each other what we'd be be wearing so I knew right away when the curly-haired guy in brown carharts came into the place looking confused and holding his phone. My reaction was to immediately hide behind a big painting and pretend like I didn't see him, so I avoided him at all costs until he came up to me and physically tapped me on the shoulder to make sure I was the one he was looking for. Right... thaaaat's me.

The cafe was so crowded by the time we met up, that after waiting for a while and not getting a table, we decided to try somewhere else. We went to three other places with no luck and then finally settled on sitting at a plastic table with accompanied lawn chairs in the middle of an indoor shopping galleria.

Ralphie went to a really good school in D.C., now attends a local university and is working on his PhD. He's been doing non-profit work for five years now and loves hiking, cliff-diving, traveling to the west coast. Lauren went to a liberal arts college in the middle of no where that no one's ever heard of, is working on creating a successful alter ego, loves David Duchovny, and is interested in putting her cat in different hats and seeing which ones he likes best... mutual interests include bbqing, photography, comic book superheroes, and adventures in the woods. Basically we spoke for about an hour and upon leaving found out that we only lived about three blocks away from each other.

It was around that time that Ralphie offered to walk me home, and for one reason or another, I couldn't bring myself to tell him that I had driven myself to town so I accepted his invitation. That being said, we walked back to my house where he promised to call but preemptively warned me that he's a "standoffish kind of guy" but reassured me that he had a really great time and hoped to see me again. I then hid out on my porch and waited until I could no longer see him and then set out to walk back into town and retrieve my car. I made a point to dodge behind landmarks on my way back, just in case we ran into each other.

All in all, I had a good time with Ralphie. He was a nice guy with a pleasant gap between his front teeth and a good sense of humor. He didn't have any noticeable isms that I could pinpoint nor did he say anything really out of line or tasteless (neither did I, I don't think!!!!). After getting back to my house and telling my roommates how it went and sadly admitting that no, he wasn't a vampire nor was he a viking (is it weird those are the sort of things I look for?) I collapsed onto my papasan chair, promptly ate two garlic dill pickles and watched a marathon of Ramsey's Kitchen Disasters.

It is now Tuesday and I haven't heard from Ralphie. Am I bummed that I didn't meet the man I'm likely to spend the rest of my life with? Nah. Do I have hopes for the future of my ability to date people I don't already know? Yeah, I guess I do. I learned that you can be a crude, shy and somewhat inept girl and still meet people. They may not find you the end all of their romantic problems, but hey, you might get to take an unnecessary walk through the neighborhood and receive a one-armed hug from a perfect stranger who finds your idiosyncratic clumsiness at least somewhat charming.

I hope that this little anecdote has been somewhat helpful in light of Valentine's Day and that you're feeling like you might even expand your horizons and try to get yourself out there. I know it's a pain in the ass to go and "meet people" but if you're lonely, blue, or even bored, nothing spices up a bland day like a chance encounter with a perfect stranger. Even if you don't find the one, you can put your single status to good use and create a marketing strategy that will likely prove successful in the future. Happy hunting and happy Valentine's Day!

Blogging Through the Recession: Tough-Times and making the Money

Sorry to get all bleak on you, but even my local paper --which normally fills its pages with heartwarming tales of grade-schoolers singing songs-- is starting to print terrible stories about factories closing, unemployment, and foreclosures. This article explores how people are coping with Tough-Times.


As the depression sinks in, people across the country are getting a little more desperate. Unemployment is rising, money to fund unemployment benefits is drying up, and even more joblessness is no doubt on the horizon.

As times get tougher, people often look for creative ways to make money amid rampant job-loss and pay-cuts. In times past, I understand that this was done in useful ways. For example, a family would plant a big vegetable garden. One older woman I spoke to recently said that her great great grandmother saved her farm by making and selling whiskey. Brilliant.

Sadly, today people are being far less useful in their creative money making schemes. Lets take a look.

CRAFTING The online market for hand crafted goods has no doubt seen a surge in supply recently. Sites like Etsy specialize in showcasing the goods produced by an army of stay at home mothers and hipsters who just learned to sew. It remains the place to go if you're in search of a "unique" gift, or if you just want to pamper yourself with a $195 pair of custom high-waisted panties.

Etsy didn't return any of my phone calls (not many people do), so I don't know exactly how much of a "surge" in supply they have seen. I assume that they are so busy dealing with said "surge" that they took their phone off the hook. Or they just laid off that department. In either case, they do have a prepared statement about the recession on their website.

"With the global economic crisis putting finances in a squeeze, Etsy is a great way to maximize a budget."

Probably not, but Etsy is clearly an untapped resource for amateur lingerie models.

USING THE INTERNET or worse, BLOGGING Not good with your hands? Mom never had a sewing machine to give you? That's no reason to give up on alternative money making schemes.

I hate to get into this because it hits a little close to home, but seriously. The internet is obviously not a place anyone makes money. Look at the music industry. Even newspapers are going out of business because online ads don't bring in as much revenue as print. Worse yet, there are fewer people advertising because the usual advertisers are hemorrhaging money too.

Still, Craigslist is awash with people seeking talent for their sweet new blog. Take this recent post on the NYC page:

We are a growing web blog in Hollywood and in need of good writers to submit daily posts. If you like to write and want to get your point of view published, this is a perfect outlet. Please send your resume and writing sample of a current event to iwant2write@me.com. There will be further information on the job if your material is selected. Snarky is a plus!

Right, In Touch magazine is struggling to pay their rent, But YOU, a snarky armchair Hollywood gossip monger in Queens, you are going to make the big bucks. You'd probably have better luck selling goji-juice door to door.

Speaking of Goji-juice, there are other sordid internet schemes you could get involved in. Take this guy, Sean Flynn. Self proclaimed Top Internet Marketing Coach. Look at this kid! Love the self portrait. And what a sharp dresser. I bet he makes A/B honor roll almost every time.

Anyway, after no doubt falling victim to the very scheme he is now trying to perpetrate on others, he is claiming to offer a "lucrative recession-proof business that can explode your bank account over night." Despite a complete absence of information on his completely useless and alienating web Site, I gather that he is trying to sell you an "Ebook," full of ultra-secret internet money getting "tips." Meaning, you are going to try and sell the same useless "Ebook" that you just bought, to people even stupider than you. Good Luck!

So against all these odds, what's a body to do? Well, there has been a lot of talk recently about recession proof jobs. Like, be a teacher or a police officer, stuff like that. That's all good and well for some people, but for the power-players among us, I'll tell you.

(1)Make Babies. The most capable among us have turned to farming out their bodies for baby production. This shocking practice encourages "experienced carriers" to pump out little bratts for sale to the rich and childless. Though, as deplorable as the practice may seem, at least these surrogate mothers are producing a (potentially) useful and unique product. Once the kid reaches working age, he's like a little pot of gold.

(2) Make whiskey or grow weed(the new making whiskey). Sell it locally. OR if you don't know many people locally, you could always steal stuff from peoples homes and sell it on Ebay. Police departments are under funded now too, maybe.

What A Mess: Rob Tries Grad-School

EDITORS NOTE: In this adventure, Rob decides on a whim to go to graduate school. A few weeks of poor-itude and homelessness later, and after an awkward "casual" encounter that was never meant to be, he gives up. Here is his story. (If you have any advice for Rob please post it here so everyone can read it.)

Being a liberal arts major has many advantages and many downfalls, perhaps the most pressing of which (given our recess/depression) is the difficulty in finding a suitable job. As I was reading an article about this struggle the other day, I was disappointed that no one had shown it to me last month, that is, before the tale I am about to recount occurred. Because of this very problem, and in hopes of falling upon a Mecca of success and happiness, I hastily enrolled into the Philisophy & Psychoanalysis MA program at the New School For Social Research.

I had applied to this particular school quite haphazardly last October. The school, as it is known to do, "lost" several of my forms and finally accepted me two weeks before classes were to start; in an email-my physical letter arrived last week while I was already on the east coast.

When I arrived in New York and realized that I was poor, jobless and living on my friends' brother's futon, my spirit began to sink. The plan was to take out a student loan and use some of the money for a deposit on an apartment, or, in other words, "making New York work." Quick-fix Buzz and I resolved to find sweet jobs to secure an apartment. I figured that this would enable me to forget the fact that I was about to acrue more debt that I could swallow (as undergrad put me into a tight hole) but I assumed that I would be able to make it up in no time. Probably the biggest ego-boost was getting a call back from New York Actors Rep after I auditioned to be an extra for a Red Lobster commercial. 

I quickly realized after the first week of classes that my my jaunt into the New School had been predicated on my previous love of school, but that I in no way, shape or form ever wanted to obtain a MA in philosophy. It wasn't just that however, being in school was the "easy way" out of my joblessness and working through this economic shitstorm.

The bottom line is that graduate school should never be forced as it is NOT the answer to self-esteem problems. It is something that should be done out of genuine interest or a desire for career advancement, not out of desperation. After realizing that I had done just that and put myself into a situation of helplessness, if nothing else, I got drunk at a friend's one night and answered a casual encounter on craigslist that led me to the apartment of a haggard Brazilian located here:

It was 1:00 am, I was drunk, confused and feeling desparate; but not that desparate. When I saw this person's face through the glass door of the building, I bolted and hid in a dentist's office parking lot around the block for about ten minutes. I don't know what I was expecting but I certainly was not sleeping with what I got. The dude looked like Celia Cruz and Marc Anthony's love child. I didn't know what to do! I was alone in the middle of nowhere, it was late and I actually felt like I had nowhere to go. I slipped into a nearby bar for a whiskey while I thought. Luckily for me, none of these impositions were a problem becaue none of my friends in the New York area were answering their phones. I got into the first cab I saw, and they took me about a mile out of the way to switch taxi drivers before bringing me to Red Hook to shamefully sleep on the futon once again. If I wasn't broke before that night I certainly was now.

I woke up the next morning feeling filthy and guilty, more down on my luck than ever. So Buzz and I arrived at a simple solution; we fled back to Woodstock, for we both knew that another weekend of good times was the cure to our lament. And with that bus ride went my dreams of big-city success, education and dolla' dolla' bills. I'm currently in beautiful Delmar, NY, writing on the very computer that fell six feet to the pavement a few weeks before. I had been scared to turn it on because it's new and I thought I had fucked up royally, but it's working fine. This cheers me up a little, because I literally have no money and I don't want to go home. I guess what's next in the cards for little Robbie has yet to be dealt.