When we met Shawn at his car he seemed a normal guy, except for the semi-shiny shirt and 80’s-style boombox. I don’t know what I was expecting. This guy, I thought, this guy, he could be my friend.

Shawn was a stripper we’d hired for a bachelorette party this past Friday. The party, for a friend getting married in September, also included a lot of rum, which was important, it turned out. Now I’ve never seen a real live stripper. In fact, I was so unfamiliar with the concept that I made my fellow party organizer call the guy and set everything up. I took care of food and drinks. She called up a stranger and asked him to come to this party and take his clothes off and rub his genitals, carefully encased in a man-thong, up against our friend while gyrating to dance music, and I made seven-layer dip. Fair.

As Shawn began his act, I began thinking moonshine may have been a more appropriate beverage than the tasty and refreshing mojitos we’d whipped up. Moonshine and some Valium, maybe. He flicked on that boombox and Shawn immediately transformed from my new potential guy-friend to a monster of sexuality. He got this I’m-gonna-dry-hump-you-giddy-ladies look on his face. He mouthed the words of the hit tunes blaring into the once-quiet living room.

We got into it slowly, finally “wooooing” the guy on because he was brave, not to mention an incredibly gifted acrobat. I mean, sure, the neon green and purple banana hammock that Shawn played with from time to time, making moves like he just might take the thing all the way off but never gracing us with that reality, was not sexy in the typically sexy fashion. But he wore it like it was and when we grimaced and giggled and looked away he just pushed us further. Shawn also had a very nice body and I do not know where he learned his skills, but he is a very gifted man. At one point he cleared the floor, did some kind of somersault-into-headstand and ended up with his crotch just inches away from the bachelorette’s face. During another of his grand maneuvers, he placed several cubes of ice on his spectacularly hairless back and moved them back and forth in a dance-like motion.

All I’m saying is that my first stripper experience left me thinking that, honestly, strippers are pretty amazing. When our man was on one of his rounds around the room, giving us all the personal experience, and he was hovering above me grinding his pelvis close to mine, his sweaty body so close and the smell of his cologne overwhelming my senses, I didn’t think, “Oh, this is turning me on,” or “What in the name of fuck do you think you are doing, mister?” I just relaxed into the hysteria and, really, all I could think was, “I know we just met, but I am so proud of you.”

Lately, Cecilia has been sitting by the side window in the living room, cocking her head and crying. Besides the fact that she is going through a rather emotional adolescence for a dog, the reason she does this is that a squirrel has been raiding J’s birdfeeder.

J pads out every morning in his boxers, bleary-eyed, muttering, “I’m tired,” and instead of jumping right in the shower or looking for coffee he heads over to that window, the one where Cecilia likes to sit at rapt attention, and peers out to see what chickadees or cardinals have come by, singing their birdsongs and enjoying the wild bird feed we provide.

If there is a bird, he says, “Look!” And if the squirrel is there, he raps hard against the window and says, “Get out of there, you motherfucker!”

This sets Cecilia off. Sometimes J encourages her. “Look Cecilia! The squirrel. Would you like to eat that squirrel?” She starts pacing and crying wildly, every once in a while stopping by the window, cocking that hard head of hers and opening her mouth ever so slightly in an expression of wonder. Sometimes, if I’m sitting on the couch, she’ll place her 65-pound body in my lap and pant hot breath into my ear and cry and I know she is thinking, “Goddamnit that squirrel is mine.”

This is what goes on. This, and no cable television.

No matter what you do, John Cusack, even if you stray from the ultra-cool movies I hold so dear to my heart, I still love you.

I know that by writing this I will incur the wrath of Chapel Hill natives and Chapel Hill lovers and most of the general public, and probably receive angry comments (reality check - maybe one comment, if I am lucky) regarding the idiocy of the above post title, but if you really think about it, come on guys, Durham is better.

Sometimes when I say I’d like to spend some time in Durham people say things like, “Ha. You’d like to get mugged, you mean,” and other ridiculous statements that make it clear to me that these people think Durham is the most dangerous place ever and have definitely never been to other places, like Jamaica, where, I kid you not, while on spring break, 2000, my friend Slavomir followed some guy into the woods to “check out the availability of a banana boat ride” for all of us and the guy said he would have to take him to see his boss and then, like, I swear, brandished a huge knife. Also, one time a nice man with a tiny hankerchief covering his privates approached me while I was wandering around one the beach, smiled, asked me, “Do you have any Jamaican in you?” and when I said no, replied, “Would you like to?”

None of those things has ever happened to me in Durham. In fact, I’ve had wonderful and interesting experiences there.

Yesterday I met Jen after her work day was over for a drink at the James Joyce Pub. I had been there only a couple times but remembered it as such a cozy, fun little place. So we went and drank Guinness and sweated because it is hot as hell and watched the regulars at the bar as they greeted one another and told stories. I’m telling you, these people were awesome. First of all, most of them, or so it seemed, were actually from Ireland or England or some other country and as we all know, hanging out with a multi-cultural crowd in a bar, or just in life, is what everyone strives for. Diversity. Furthermore, most people were drinking Guiness or something similar to it and not any sissy Chapel Hill drinks.

I know I can’t judge the appeal of an entire place on one little bar, but I’m going to. It pretty much sums it up. I’m not going to start shunning Chapel Hill or anything crazy like that, because the truth is I love living there and I could probably, I mean, when you really get down to it, reverse this argument and say Chapel Hill is the better place. I like to pull for the underdog, however. I could also say that San Francisco, or New York City or D.C., for instance, pummels these little southern towns in the ass, but let’s stick to the subject. I’ll meet you guys in Durham.

One thing I had a fine time doing while at college in Boston - besides taking part in the impressive social scene, besides visiting the graves of some of the most historically important individuals since the dawn of this great country and besides attaining an education at a prestigious university - was eating teriyaki chicken samples at the mall.

Most malls that have a food court have a Japanese place and one poor employee is always sentenced to roaming the area right outside their cash register with chicken samples so that they can lure you into their waiting arms by causing you to crave that kind of chicken. Not one piece, but a whole plate. We used to cruise by this poor sucker a bunch of times in college. Because we were mischievous. We got more than one piece and sometimes didn’t even buy food there.

(I’d like to interject here that by saying “we were mischievous” I by no means meant that this was the most mischievous thing I did in college, or even one of the most mischievous. I was being a little sarcastic and taking advantage of the good old idea that college kids do crazy stuff, you know? Had this been the most mischievous thing I’d done in college, or one of them anyway, I wouldn’t admit it. If I did admit it, I bet you I also would have been pretty damn into Star Trek or Warcraft or some similar hobby that would have kept me in my dorm room and out of harm’s way, except to cheat the poor Japanese employees out of their free chicken, over and over again. The point is, I didn’t feel like a badass when I got the samples, ok? I just wanted them.)

When J and I were at Southpoint mall the other day, I noticed that the number of employees holding up chicken samples and beckoning to potential customers with all their might had grown. There was the standard Japanese teriyaki chicken, the bourbon chicken from a New Orleans-style restaurant (which, funny enough, had a lot of Asian-inspired side dishes, it looked like) and then this new place, Le Bon Bistro, where an especially pumped chicken sample-giver presented me with not one, not two but THREE chicken samples, all different kinds. This was out of control. After the incident, I, of course, had to get my food there. It was beyond my level of cheating to accept so many pieces of food and not patronize the bon bistro.

When we sat down we gazed over at the row of eatery choices, the employees, now having to compete with each other in order to clear their plate of samples, toothpicks. J wondered aloud, “If you were going to open a place in the food court, why would you open another one that serves chicken, almost exactly like all the other places?” I didn’t know, but will remain a willing participant. After all that money-spending that typically occurs during a trip to a shopping mecca, especially one with Nordstrom, it’s nice to get a little something special for free.

When J and I were in the moving process and told people we didn’t have cable at the new place and might not get it, they (the ones searching for some higher good in this world of temptation and material goods, anyway) would smile and make false statements that they actually meant and hoped to be true, like, “That…is….so great. You are going to read so much.”

The only truly admirable bout of literary activity that has taken place in our cable-less house was my obsessive reading of the newest Harry Potter book last weekend, especially Saturday morning when I laid on the couch for about four hours, unshowered, muttering “just one more chapter,” until I finished the book. When the dogs cried to be let out I told them to go to sleep and when I was interrupted because I had to get up to go to the bathroom I got annoyed with the frailty of my body. So really, not admirable at all.

Other than that, the reading’s been normal. What hasn’t been normal, however, since the disappearance of cable television stations from my life, is the amount of time I spend watching the BBC comedy “The Office.”

We only own the first season, although I highly recommend both seasons and “The Office” special. Lately when I’ve been in the mood for something familiar and cable-ish I put in the DVD and watch the episodes for the 100th or so time. I swear. I’ve watched them a lot of times.

And now that my friends have all watched them a lot of times, we like to quote “The Office” on a regular basis. Many of us share a favorite episode in which the office characters undergo training with an outside expert in order to better work together as a team. In our favorite of favorite moments in this episode, main character David Brent is doing a role play with the training expert. Brent is a hotel customer, the other a hotel clerk. The point is that the clerk doesn’t care about the customer’s complaint and that’s bad customer service. But as Brent doesn’t understand the exercise and only wants to win, he spends his time during the role play attempting with all his might to get the “clerk” to listen to his troubles, at the height of the exercise, shouting, “There’s been a rape up there!”

So when we go out to bars, and driving in cars, and walking along streets, we, my friends and I, like to shout in our best English accents, “There’s been a rape up there!” and I’ve just recently realized that maybe that’s not the best idea.

One year ago today I started this blog on J’s advice, who said something like, “You should start a blog. That would be right up your alley.” And so I did.

In that year, I’ve:
-re-learned how to knit
-had my car broken into
-moved
-gotten engaged
-retained a paying job
-suffered one bout of food poisoning
-enjoyed numerous nights out with friends
-turned 27
-and claimed on many occasions that I’d really like to learn how to play my banjo

But I still haven’t learned. Of course if everything worked out the way we planned there would be less funny stories, so here’s to another year.

Things I don’t care for much right now:

* When I am shrugging off some ridiculous wedding expense or idea and I say, “Well, you only get married once,” and inevitably, someone says, “Yeah, hopefully,” and laughs. Shut up, asshole.

* The caterpillars that live in our house.

* The fact that I’m reading Harry Potter at such an alarming rate that I’ll soon be finished and have only normally interesting books to read, and not wonderful books written for children that are so intriguing I forget to do the dishes.

* All the dirty dishes.

Things that are good:

* Mina panting after going on adventures in the backyard.

* Beers, outside.

* Harry Potter.

* Thursdays.

1) The thing about Josh is he isn’t really that “average,” is he? It says right there on the website that Anna calls him handsome. Furthermore, the guy can kiss. I watched those two making out last night and he’s got moves. So I’m rooting for him because I love him but if he walked into a bar I’d think he was cute, not average. I would never just sit there and call people average, by the way, based on their looks because I’m not mean like the networks.

2) Speaking of the networks, I cried last night when the promo for “The Biggest Loser” came on. They’ve played that particular promo, the one where the guy talks about how he used to be a wrestler, not fat, about 536,982 times and finally, it got to me. Are you happy NBC? You made me cry. Reference the above. Networks = mean.