sleeping is the enemy

so you know those dreams that start in medias res (i spent 2 years in grad school and all i got was this lousy way to say 'into the middle of things')? where all of a sudden you're standing in a wigwam like"whoops, i just accidentally killed this entire native american family and now i'm standing in a wigwam"? The other night I was having dream-sex with a dude from work who shall remain anonymous (mainly because I have neither the desire nor the intention to make this particular dream into a reality) but when i lit my post-coitus cigarette, who should the light from my match illuminate but BLAIR.

i swear to god i once had a dream where i screwed andy rooney from 60 Minutes and this was way worse. oh sure, he promised he wouldn't tell scarlett, but i knew there was no way he'd be able to keep his big mouth shut. and it made me sad, because i knew i'd have to kill him. i chose poison.

scarlett says that if blair ever turns up murdered she'll know i accidentally had sex with him.

i love rocky road

FINALLY a new weird al video. my favorite line is "m.c. escher's my favorite m.c."

"white and nerdy" video

homoeroticism+ fart jokes + kneed groins+ sharks = hilarity!

we went to a matinee screening of Jackass #2 today. i laughed so hard that my hair came out of its ponytail, my eyemakeup was smeared and my shirt became wrinkled. as we were walking out of the theater blair said, "you looked like you just got fucked by that movie."

this is important

you know how sometimes you toss things into the toilet instead of the trashcan (gum, bugs you've squished with toilet paper, etc.)? and you know how sometimes you don't flush the toilet after you do it? am i the only person who, for a brief moment at least, is occasionally filled with terror at the notion that they've just shat out a cockroach?

actual overheard conversation from neighbor's garage

Actual conversation in neighbor’s garage:

The following conversation took place at around 11:30 in the morning between my neighbor, a 30-something cholo with a fat wife who is constantly screaming obscenities and three obnoxious kids who like to throw rocks and physically harm one another, and another 30-something dude who apparently lives in the neighborhood, as well. I wasn’t fortunate enough to hear the beginning of their conversation. This is what I did hear.

Other Dude: So, for 200 bucks they’ll do everything?

Neighbor: Yeah. The prices go up, you know? Like fifty bucks and you can get a handjob, a hundred you get a blowjob…

Other Dude: So, like, you walk in and they’re at the bar or what?

Neighbor: Well the place I go to, the girls are kind of lined up and you choose whichever one you want.

Other Dude: They good looking?

Neighbor: Some of them, I guess.

Other Dude: So, like, if I give them 200 bucks I can do whatever I want?

Neighbor: Yeah.

Other Dude: Can I lick pussy?

Neighbor: You don’t want to lick that pussy, man. You might as well lick that tire.

Other Dude: I know it. But I don’t care. I have needs, you know? Besides, they make the get tested, right? I’m a man, and a man needs a woman, you know what I mean?

Neighbor: Yeah.

Other Dude: And I’m sick of this shit. I mean, a nice dinner out costs, what, 65 bucks? I took a chick out the other night and we were sitting on her couch and I didn’t get blown or nothing..

Neighbor: (laughing) I feel you.

Other Dude: It’s fucking bullshit.

Neighbor: Yup.

Other Dude: So, 200 bucks is a better deal than not knowing if you’re wasting your money or having to worry about HIV or that date rape bullshit.

At this point there’s a moment of silence.

Other Dude: Yeah, I mean I’m gonna rent out that room upstairs. I figure I can get, what, 500 bucks a month for it? Maybe 550?

Neighbor: Don’t see why not.

Other Dude: Shit. For 500 bucks I can get 2 hookers. Do they do that shit, too?

Neighbor: Yeah.

Other Dude: You done that shit?

Neighbor: Not me, but my buddy.

Other Dude: Yeah, for 500 bucks I can get 2 hookers…. or a hooker and a Jet Ski.

i'm sorry, but

Dane Cook just isn't funny. He's more like a motivational speaker or a preacher than a comedian. I've tried to find him funny. He's just really not funny.

the chicken mc nugget abuse case gets weirder

at least you always know what to get her for christmas?

TESTIMONY: Girlfriend: Judge is innocent

She inflicted injuries on herself, she says

By LISA KIM BACH
REVIEW-JOURNAL

She plunged Clark County Family Court Judge Steven Jones into controversy with allegations of domestic violence, and now Amy McNair is trying to take it all back.

"He's an innocent man," said a tearful McNair, the first witness called Wednesday during Jones' hearing in Henderson Municipal Court on a misdemeanor domestic battery charge. "I feel horrible about what I've done."

She said she made the accusations against Jones because she was angry that he was breaking up with her over her drinking.

McNair recanted much of what she had said under oath in July, when she unsuccessfully sought to extend a temporary restraining order.

That order was issued after June 20, when Henderson police responded to a 911 call from the home she shared with Jones. Police arrived at the residence to find Jones alone in the master bedroom and McNair bearing the marks of recent injuries.

At the time, McNair said the injuries happened when Jones chucked her down the hall after she tried to make him open the French doors to the bedroom.

On Wednesday, McNair told the people assembled in Judge Ken Proctor's courtroom that she had inflicted the injuries on herself. She said she had rubbed the right side of her face against the carpet so roughly that she made herself vomit from the pain. She had discolored her right eye by "thumbing" herself repeatedly around the socket.

The self-mutilation supported her story to police, McNair said, and is an outgrowth of the chronic alcoholism that nearly drove her to suicide.

On the day of the incident, McNair said, she consumed wine and three fifths of vodka, a binge that began at Family Court, where she was working as a temporary executive assistant to Judge Nicholas Del Vecchio, and continued while she was driving to various errands and salon appointments.

"I never intended to make it to this trial," said McNair, who said she is now in a rehabilitation program that has helped her stay sober for more than 40 days. "I intended to commit suicide and leave a note saying he didn't do it. I was going to drink myself to death."

McNair's recantation transformed her from the prosecution's battered victim to a hostile witness.

Prosecutor Dave Mincavage of the Henderson City Attorney's office was skeptical of the change in McNair's story, which came on the heels of her reconciliation with Jones.

McNair said that the two aren't married or engaged, but that she is once again Jones' live-in girlfriend in the home she began sharing with him more than five years ago. That means McNair no longer has to rely on a domestic violence shelter for housing.

Mincavage said Wednesday that he did not know whether McNair would be charged with perjury. But his frustration was obvious when he questioned McNair about why she did not approach anyone in his office or police about her new version of events before the hearing began.

"Everything she testified to in the TPO (restraining-order) hearing is different than what she said today, isn't that correct Amy?" Mincavage said.

Jones sat next to his attorney, James Jimmerson, throughout McNair's halting testimony, listening without visible reaction while she talked of substance abuse that required extraordinary measures to conceal.

She revealed that she ate or taped sharp cheddar cheese to her body to mask the smell of vodka. The remark caught Mincavage off guard and prompted him to ask: "Where do you tape the cheese?"

(sidebar: what???? times a million)

McNair said the lies she told police about Jones plunged her even more deeply into substance abuse. She said she began using cocaine she would stash in Jones' house. She said she was high during a police interview after the June 20 incident.

"I was so frickin' nervous," McNair said of talking to a female investigator. "At this point, I was so frickin' high on cocaine I would have told her I killed Jimmy Hoffa if it would have got her out of the house any faster."

Lori Fralick, supervisor of victim services for the Reno Police Department, testified that it's not uncommon for victims of domestic violence to recant their stories. Under questioning by Mincavage, Fralick said victims may not realize that their batterers will be arrested. They may be frightened about the loss of financial support or shelter. They may soften because their batterer shows them a more tender side.

She said that in her experience, it was uncommon for someone to make a false report of abuse.

Jimmerson characterized much of what Fralick said as generalizations and pointed out that she had no specific knowledge of the case involving McNair and Jones. She had not interviewed either of them, Jimmerson said.

Jimmerson also attacked McNair's credibility, saying she made a false report of abuse in Seattle that nearly led to a defamation of character lawsuit in 1996. He submitted the case numbers into evidence and said the only reason the lawsuit wasn't filed was because the statute of limitations had expired.

McNair admitted that the incident had occurred, saying it involved her mother's former boyfriend.

The domestic battery charge that threw Jones into the spotlight has also drawn attention to questionable business associations that tie him to a man with two felony criminal cases pending against him in Clark County District Court and a previous attempt to establish a juvenile rehabilitation program with the assistance of a convicted felon.

Jones also has paid a professional price. He resigned this year as Family Court's presiding judge and was restricted from hearing cases that involve domestic violence.

The hearing on the domestic battery charge is expected to continue today with testimony from the Henderson police officer in charge of the investigation.

Find this article at: http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Sep-14-Thu-2006/news/9646454.html

the cult of remembrance

it doesn't matter who left who, sometimes it just feels like they're punching you in the stupid stomach.

kola boof

[Memoir]

His Prerogative

Posted on Tuesday, August 22, 2006. From Diary of a Lost Girl: The Autobiography of Kola Boof, published last February by Door of Kush Books. Boof has written for the NBC daytime drama Days of Our Lives. In 2003, when she was interviewed on Fox News by Rita Cosby, the network reported that Boof had lived for several months in 1996 on an estate in Morocco with Osama bin Laden. Originally from Harper's Magazine, September 2006.

Sources

People are animals. They fuck, pray, and make bombs. The Dinka women of Sudan say the devil is the most beautiful man you will ever lay your eyes on. I never took these words seriously until I encountered my now infamous ex-lover, Osama bin Laden.

Soon after installing me in his estate in Marrakesh, Osama started to abuse me. His hand would be resting on my hair, his eyes glued to the pages of his Muhammad Qutub books while I read Galway Kinnell. We would be lying there in bed and he'd say, “African women are only good for a man's lower pleasures. What need do you have for a womb?” I would feel insulted—not just to the heart, but to the soul. Then I'd go back to Galway Kinnell's bone-white stanzas—only I wouldn't be able to make out the words for the tears in my eyes.

He would humiliate me by making me dance naked. It was such a strange thing, because for the most part he believed music was evil. If a guest at the estate played music, he would cover his ears until the “poison” was silenced. But other times he would become this devout party boy who wanted to hear Van Halen or some B-52's. To this day I hear the song “Rock Lobster” in my sleep. I would be jerking around like a white girl—“Dance like a Caucasoid girl!” he would say—and his eyes would track me from one side of the terrace to the other. “Your ass is too big, show me the front,” he said. Osama, you understand, did not know the difference between being vicious and being tender.

The first night I met him, at a restaurant, I ran out the door, gripped by terror, and drove home. Relieved that his henchmen hadn't followed me, I ran a bath, lounged in the cold bathwater, then changed into a flowing silk robe. There was a bang on the door, and I could hear shouting: “Hey, black girl!” When I opened the door, there was Osama bin Laden and his seven-man posse. A cold bolt of lightning went through me.

But Osama was trying to be charming, despite the fear in my eyes. “Why did you run? I just think you're lovely and I find you intriguing. I wanted to be your friend.” I can't deny what a good-looking man he was—over six feet with a zesty salmon-orange complexion and very sexy Negro-like facial features, forged by generations of desert sun. I remember thinking he had the most beautiful lips and being overwhelmed by the largeness of his hand when he took mine (to kiss it). Osama's men laughed, and Osama's eyes kept falling on my cleavage. I knew no matter how many Barbara Stanwyck movies I had devoured as a teen, I was powerless, and men can be merciless when women have no power.

“From now on you may see no man but me,” he said. I wanted to throw up.

* * *

He stepped into my room and told his men to wait outside. We were chest to chest, his eyes looking down at me as he closed the door behind him. A hundred ideas went through my head. Maybe I should get on my knees and beg for mercy, but that was too wimpy. At last, I thought my only escape from death was to seduce him. He wanted to fuck me: that was the only good card in the deck. So I stretched up and kissed Osama very softly on the mouth. I undid my robe and let it slip down to the floor.

“Put your clothing back on,” he told me. “I don't want to see this acting. I want to see the real you. Serve me something to eat.”

I made a pot of tea and served him chunky crab salad on pita crackers and thickened tofu with dates in it. His lust was thick. He smoked a little marijuana from a gold hookah, sipping his tea and instructing me that I was always to keep hot tea for his “kif-canbo,” to ease the burn in his chest.

“Why do you wear your hair braided?” he asked.

“Because my braids are beautiful,” I replied.

Osama said only monkeys braid their hair. He told me that the singer Whitney Houston was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen and that she never wore her hair braided. “I want you to fix your hair like hers from now on,” he said. “I can't put my fingers through it when it's braided.”

He asked me to hit the hookah, but I explained to him that I had a weak system and couldn't handle drugs. Luckily, he didn't insist. He talked about America. He laughed and rambled on about his favorite TV shows: The Wonder Years, Miami Vice, and MacGyver. He said the U.S. government was made up of “fanatical crusaders” and that he'd once worked as a mind reader and trained secret agents for the CIA. He even said that he'd had a white, blonde girlfriend back in some state I'd never heard of. He talked about his mother, describing her as something of a feminist. I was bored, but I listened.

Osama kept coming back to Whitney Houston. He asked if I knew her personally when I lived in America. I told him I didn't. He said that he had a paramount desire for Whitney Houston, and although he claimed music was evil, he spoke of someday spending vast amounts of money to go to America and try to arrange a meeting with the superstar. It didn't seem impossible to me. He said he wanted to give Whitney Houston a mansion that he owned in a suburb of Khartoum. He explained to me that to possess Whitney he would be willing to break his color rule and make her one of his wives. I tried to hide my outrage at his racist remarks, but it would come to pass that for the entire time that I would be trapped in his palm, Whitney Houston's was the one name that would be mentioned constantly. How beautiful she is, what a nice smile she has, how truly Islamic she is but is just brainwashed by American culture and her husband—Bobby Brown, whom Osama talked about having killed, as if it were normal to have women's husbands killed. In his briefcase I would come across photographs of the star, as well as copies of Playboy, but nobody in the West believes me when I tell them this. It's like they have this totally bogus image of Osama bin Laden. Anyway, it would soon come to the point where I was sick of hearing Whitney Houston's name.

Later, after he came back from the bathroom, Osama smoked some more marijuana and talked about his children. He said that he'd missed an appointment with his “doctor”—Ayman al-Zawahiri—just to do me.

This is His Prerogative, a reading, originally from September 2006, published Tuesday, August 22, 2006. It is part of Lifestyle, which is part of Readings, which is part of Harpers.org.