Hamburgers: A Gateway Vice

I had fabulous lunch with Z the other day (one of the three excellent friends I got out of the divorce (layoff) with The Company Which Shall Not Be Named). Ok, lunch (the food) was mostly just ok, but the company was fabulous, and the conversation was inappropriate (as usual). After all, this is the man who is consistently considered a "nice guy" and assumed to be innocent as well.

Don't get me wrong, he IS extremely kind: a stellar example of friendship and caring and all that shit. But he's a sneaky fucker who hides a seriously sick sense of humor and dirty mind under a fedora and an "I'm a nice guy" smile. I mean, the man RULES at Cards Against Humanity. He's pretty much just awesome. For example: he recently threw the following into an email to all of us: Once again my penis is more trouble than it's worth. Which is a bummer because in general we get a long pretty well, it's just sometimes I am very disappointed in him. Then again sometimes I do things that assuredly make my penis be disappointed in me. So I guess we are even.


Luckily,  HE remembered what we talked about that day and thus saved this post, because I have the memory of a fucking gnat and needed his help 20 minutes after the conversation to remember.

Anyway, we were discussing 50 Shades (which will not die!) and why it's so horrid. In true random fashion, I received this as an explanation for his openmindedness. No, that's not a single word. Yes, I did just write it that way.

I hated hamburgers until I was 14. I don't know why: I just didn't like them. Then at drama club I had a McDonald's hamburger because I was starving and it was the only thing available, and it was awesome. AWESOME. Why the fuck didn't I like these things??

I learned my lesson: now I'll try anything once, because what the fuck, I love hamburgers!

Of course, this began a whole discussion on what sorts of things have been tried in our sordid pasts. Z's is more sordid than mine, believe me, but those are his stories to tell if he wants to. Let's stick with mine for now:

Weed*: I've been a participant at a Renaissance Festival now for over a decade. I've had plenty of opportunities to smoke pot, but I have to say: WEED + HAY FEVER = BAD BAD BAD HEADACHE. Fail, people. Fail. I can't even be around it. Also, I think pot smells like death (I also think lilies reek of death, so don't take my word for it): like rotting sweet things. Ish.

Alcohol: Yeah. My viking heritage HOSED me on this one, because I really like the taste of a good whiskey or mojito, but my body doesn't process it well. Sigh. Once (again, during Fest, because it's a wonderfully bad fucking influence on me!) I polished off a smaller bottle of Captain Morgan myself. This was not long after Husband and I moved in together (not married yet). I spent that night on the bathroom floor, naked, alternating between sleeping with my cheek on the nice cold tile or hugging the toilet like a goddamn lost love. Husband? He checked on me once or twice...and kindly threw a towel over me in case I got cold. He said later it wasn't worth helping me back into bed because he knew I'd just end up back on the bathroom floor anyway. He was right. But he doesnt' get hangovers at all so he irks me anyway. I still drink, but the Captain isn't welcome anymore and I rarely get more than tipsy. Sigh.

Sex: My ancient past is pretty boring, actually. For as much as I write about stuff other people tell me and even things I've done, I had the totally normal, boring enough high-school-boyfriend experiences and such until much later. And (SURPRISE!) much of my shocking exposure to alternate relationships (open marriages, polyamorous groups, summer flings) came my first few years working at fest, because it's generally a pretty nonjudgmental place. After seeing the successes and failures out there in various formats, I'm a firm believer that the best romantic relationships are those where both partners trust enough to let it all hang out, if you will, and experiment. All the different aspects to that would build a blog all by themselves, so let's just leave this as: the older I get the more open minded I am, which likely is why people tell me all their weird relationship kinks and issues. :)

Ultimately, anything can be a mind-opener. Age, experience, mistakes: learning a lesson that opens you to all new possibilities can't be a bad thing.

Hamburgers and Ren Fest....what's opened YOUR mind to the possibilities in life?

*I'm a bit of a control freak, therefore no other drugs have ever appealed to me. Call me crazy, but I like being in charge of my actions. Hell, I don't even get tipsy outside of my house unless I KNOW certain people are around to watch my back. Paranoid? Sure am!

PS: Fail, spellchecker. I beg to differ: Mojito is indeed a word. And a fucking tasty beverage, too.

UPDATED AGAIN (WTF?): Um, That's MRS. Titts, Actually.

Once again it's nearly time for the MN Renaissance Festival to begin. I've worked at Fest now for twelve years. I've been a t-shirt-and-mug-pusher, a beer wench, a balloon blower, a calligrapher, a gate guard, and even an entire BAND for the bellydancers (that's right, I OWNED running that ipod, bitches).
And still after all that time, I'll be "Mrs. Titts." Because my husband's been at Fest every season for over 20 years, and at least 95% of the regulars don't know his actual name: just his nickname. Of course, those who DO know him outside of that environment often call him Titts anyway, because he doesn't usually answer to his actual name out there. Snort.

A side effect of my introvertedness is that a lot of people often don't remember my name (he does introduce me as ME, people): they just remember I'm Titts's wife. It would grate on my self esteem a little, except that I generally don't want to know all those acquaintances we only see at Fest anyway: I have all the drama and relationship-sustaining duties I can handle. Ha!

However, should I start that sex/relationship/advice blog I keep thinking about, it'll decidedly be "Mrs. Titts" related, because I can't make that shit up. Perhaps "That's MRS. Titts To You."

Ideas? Thoughts?

In other news, Husband (lordy, I should just start calling him Titts here so he has a nickname instead of an office title) is either amused or baffled because I put "hair doodies" as an option on my birthday list. More about birthdays later, I'm sure, but he's been hounding me about the word "doodies" all day. It's probably not even a word... NOPE! According to spellchecker it's not. Fuck you, spellchecker.

UPDATE: To clarify, I'm pretty happy as Mrs. Titts in general. :) The people who make it through the first border of STAY-AWAY-FROM-ME all know my real name, and I'm quite happy they've remembered, but I'm just as happy having an alternate name in a place with so many random people. It's a buffer. I use it as such pretty shamelessly. The week or two before Fest is just a little weird as I work on putting on "Mrs. Titts." It's a like corset...perfect in certain situations, but it's not all I wear. :)

UPDATED AGAIN:
What the hell. Clearly I wrote this post REALLY poorly, judging from the snarky responses I've gotten. This post is about me being a big weenie and hiding behind my husband's amusingly inappropriate nickname at a place where I 1) don't know NEARLY as many people as he does and 2) often get overwhelmed by too many peeps, anxiety kicks in, and I don't always want to be known by every goddamn participant and patron on the grounds.

This post is NOT about whether you know my husband's real name. If you've known him since you were kids, went to school with him, have been to our house, have fucked him, have had drinks with him outside of fest...etc etc etc etc OF COURSE you know his real name. Good for you! The fact remains there is a large Fest population I don't ever see or know outside of that microcosm...and to them I'm perfectly happy to remain Mrs. Titts. In case you missed the point, that's what I was writing about.

Also, it's apparent that not only was this particular topic a fail humor-wise (that's cool, I can't always be funny) it was also a pretty epic fail for my anxiety, since I've been irritated over this all goddamn day and rewrote crap here a zillion times.

FYI: I exaggerate. A lot. Get used to it.

Why Kristen Stewart isn't the devil

I made some fantastically stupid mistakes in my teens and twenties. I managed to stay out of jail and brothels, but I still had plenty of asshole moments. For instance: I skipped 90% of my lecture hall classes for the first two years of college. I tried to have a one night stand with a guy my friend introduced me to (fail, but that's another story). I stayed in a relationship where I was never the girlfriend (always just a friend) and rarely given affection or romance. Stupid. There are a LOT of examples...

And when I was 22, I cheated on my boyfriend with the 41 year old Scottish driver I met on my tour of Ireland. That's right. I was 22, he was 41, it was a fun vacation fling, and it resulted in the end of my relationship when I got home. Because I was stupid.

I'm remarkably lucky: not only because I was able to make mistakes and learn from them, but because I didn't have to deal with international idiots during the fallout.

Over a decade later, I can look back and say "dumbass, why didn't you END a broken relationship before you fucked someone else...for their accent...and why fuck someone for an accent anyway?" (DAMN Scottish accents: that's some powerful stuff!) Because I learned from my mistake, and forgive my younger self for being a stupid asshole. I also don't have a zillion Twitterers attacking every aspect of my life under a microscope. I don't have TMZ following me, slavering for photographic evidence of any misstep I make and broadcasting it to the world.

People, even celebrities, are human. Humans fuck up, regularly. A LOT of those fuck ups are relationship and/or sex driven. Human nature is to focus on the most salacious public falls from grace, but the sick fascination we have for barely-out-of-teen mistakes is really pretty disgusting.

Honestly, I'm not a fan of the Twilight crap (again, another post). I'm also not a huge fan of Kristen Stewart's work, although I DO want to see her Snow White. *shrug* I highly doubt she gives a hoot whether I enjoy her acting or not. I also (GASP) don't give a SHIT who she sleeps with, whether that person is married or not, and whether she breaks up with her boyfriend over it. Why? Because I don't know her, I don't know the circumstances of her life or relationships or anything other than what Huffington Post, US Weekly, TMZ, and Twitter have posted. Shockingly, I don't think any of them are all that accurate...and to be fair, I don't care.

But, the level of horrible things I've seen said about this 22 year old is just...gross. I think public skewering for something so fucking stupid, so trivial in the scheme of everyone else's lives, is 100% asshole behavior. There are six people's lives ACTUALLY involved in this stupidity: everyone else needs to focus on stuff that actually matters in life.

Like how to get Kevin McKidd or Gerard Butler to show up at my door...