Goofy Cleavage

Personal of the Day: CocoVonLizenhoffer

Sandy — Thu, 21 May 2009 06:02:00 GMT

CocoVonLizenhoffer
Age: 48
Height: 5’ 3''
Occupation: cherry popsicle

Last great book I read
Betty Crocker's Microwave Desserts

My idea of a great date
Eat dinner with chopsticks, watch Police Academy II, rub lotion on my feet, sing Christmas carols and time each other running laps around the coffee table (I'm fast!).

Celebrity I most resemble
Carol Channing

Five items I can’t live without
Remote control, ice cream, tennis shoes, glasses and love

Favorite movie sex scene
Sex Party 4

Why you should get to know me
Honey, I will make your toes tingle and your mind soar. I will read you poetry in the bathtub. I will kiss your fingers while you type. I will drink the wine of your kisses. I will mop your floor with my love. I will bake your bacon and fry your baloney. I will sleep in your bed very quietly.

What I’m looking for
My lover will have dark hair and dark eyes, long legs, wide thighs, a butt bigger than mine (that's not easy!), good feet, smart, strong enough to lift the toaster, a refrigerator full of butter, plenty of aerobics videotapes, scotch tape, a bus pass or a bicycle (we have to be able to get around!), and love. Reggae music.

I was going to write a new blog entry last night

Sandy — Thu, 21 May 2009 01:48:00 GMT

but instead I built this:

Milestone

Sandy — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 06:58:00 GMT

Tonight I did a big thing. It seems like a little thing. Really I just hit "send" on an email. But it's a big thing. For the first time in my life, I have submitted my writing to an agent.

It was my goal this year to finally send this memoir out. For anyone who read this story in a previous draft, you should know it's now a completely different animal. It's been through three complete rewrites and about 150 drafts of each version, and even at the last minute before sending it out tonight there was yet another major change. But I'm happy. It's approximately 2 million times better than the original version, thanks to the feedback I received. And though it may evolve into something totally different down the line, for now, at least, I have hit a milestone.

The story may never be published. Who knows. At this point, that's not what it's about. I really just needed to get over the hump of putting together the query letter and sample chapter and all the bits and pieces necessary to try to convince someone that they might want to take a minute to read my story.

A baby step. But it's something.

Facebook has taught me

Sandy — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 20:31:00 GMT

that I apparently grew up in hicksville. All the cute boys and pretty girls from grade school are showing up on Facebook as fat, ugly rednecks who ride dirt bikes and have monster trucks full of sloppy children. And they're all really insanely Christian. And republican. And illiterate. I'm having to rethink my childhood here.

I lived on the edge of a relatively affluent white neighborhood that became increasingly Asian over time. I certainly didn't think of any town that attracted Asians as being white trash. And I was so far on the edge of that town that I went to school in the neighboring poor Latino district. They most certainly were not white trash, if for no other reason than that they weren't white.

Yet, based on the lifestyle of my former classmates from grammar school, I have to deduce that I narrowly escaped some sort of Bermuda Triangle in which the white kids were miraculously transported to some desert dirt pile and force fed a constant diet of Del Taco, Budweiser, Ronald Reagan and God.

Bullet points, bullet points, get your bullet points here!

Sandy — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 05:30:00 GMT

These are the adventures of Sandy over the last few weeks, and she is incapable at this time of sculpting them into dazzling paragraphs. Instead, she’s speaking in 3rd person, like a status update, and offering you bullet points. Twelve of these can be traded in for a sandwich at Subway.

Sandy:

Spent five days in San Jose visiting dad, his wife, her son and their two cats who got crazy punkrock haircuts with shaved bodies and wild explosions of fur around the neck and legs. (The cats, not her family.)
Went running through the park and played on the swing set.
Did her taxes and is getting money back!
Won an Award of Greatness at work.
Was given a nice Mac laptop.
Attended a lecture on “obsession” at the modern art museum.
Attended a speaking engagement in Hollywood by Craig who founded the famous list. Made friends with a cool girl in line, and at the cocktail reception afterward, cowered by her side as she interrogated him about why he doesn’t try to make more money off the site.
Enjoyed fancy dinner, cocktails and flamenco music with two girlfriends at a quaint restaurant, where conversation was everything Sandy’s missed about having girlfriends. The female drought seems to be over, and Sandy is pleased. Really cool girls are an awesome thing.
Has been crafting a query letter for her manuscript, which will be passed along to a friend’s agent.
Has been studying Facebook for work purposes, and is now the company’s social networking guru, even though she’s still highly confused.
Attended a Q&A with the author of an interesting book about California by a journalist born and raised here. He writes about his Armenian family’s journey to California, the immigrant farm laborer population, and much more. The promise of the West has always fascinated Sandy, who loves the stories of Steinbeck and the idea that her homeland is a place that was and still is filled with the promise of fruitfulness and gold in various forms. She thought about this on her drive up to San Jose, past open fields and rows and rows of planted crops just waiting to bear fruit—from garlic town to wine country—the land that has drawn people here in search of plenty.
Found out that her brother has been invited to audition to be a cast member on a reality TV show about hairstylists.
Is typing this while eating raisins.

I dreamed last night

Sandy — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 23:57:00 GMT

that I was trying to get published by submitting my novel to agents in a ziplock bag filled with frozen blueberries.

Personal of the Day: EnriqueTamale

Sandy — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:45:00 GMT

EnriqueTamale
Age: 36
Height: 5’’
Occupation: Cook at IHOP

Last great book I read
the menu for the food I make its great you know how I like it to

My idea of a great date
I make tacos, dance. the TV is on for looking at Ugly Betty but your not ugly LOL. right?

Celebrity I most resemble
I look like that guy on the show with that teacher with the kids that are bad. You love him!

Five items I can’t live without
HOT SAUCE! LOVE, WATER. my arms. thats two I guess!

Favorite movie sex scene
all of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why you should get to know me
good lover good job, are babys will have good buts LOL if you dont have a big one and make them fat hahahahaaaa. I have all my hair and more to share! I'ma poet!

What I’m looking for
Kissing my hot sauce packet! No, but you should love god to because i do.

Rainbow Duckling

Sandy — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:49:00 GMT

I feel another Personal of the Day coming on, but until then, here’s what’s been going on:

Met up with girlfriends and a whole lot of unknown hipsters at a swanky new Silverlake bar. We sipped free cocktails underneath gorgeous chandeliers and talked of one friend’s newly purchased condo and the other’s sore nipples (damn you PMS!).
Enjoyed wine, potato chips and board games at an intimate party hosted by a lawyer friend who recently spent a month volunteering in Africa. There was some confusion over whether people were going into the bathroom to “take a wee” or “smoke weed.” (Answer: both.)
Reread one of my favorite books from high school: A Separate Peace.
Went to the race track with ST. Chatted with a chunky middle-aged black man who told us his betting strategy. He said he dreams of having enough money to buy his own race horses. He would buy two and name one Hilary and the other Obama. ST said something that disappointed me and I cried into my Bloody Mary.
Attended a 1,000-person food and wine tasting festival and then spent the next two days responding to customer complaints about it, since my company sold half the tickets.
Went running and saw a modelesque blonde woman carrying two tiny puppies--one under each arm, like a couple of packages.
Had beer and hours of great conversation with a close friend, who told me about an attempted threesome adventure gone comically awry.
Gathered with a group of friends to watch our friends’ band play on the Sunset Strip. Dinner and wine with two girlfriends before the show, bemoaning broken hearts and tragic romances. A car ride down Sunset with two beautiful girls, stirring up memories of the drive through Hollywood to the dance clubs 15 years ago with my college roommates, singing along to the radio and bubbling with hope about the boys we would meet.
Read a great book about the brain and how we make decisions.
Watched a fascinating interview with Jeffrey Dahmer.

Nervous breakdown? Or sign that I take oral hygiene seriously?

Sandy — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:20:00 GMT

Today the dental hygienist told me my gums are receding and I started sobbing.

A fancy unisex bathroom makes for odd pick-up lines

Sandy — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:46:00 GMT

Today I received this email from a man I met at that media cocktail party: "It was wonderful bumping into you in the bathroom last week. We'll have to do it again sometime."

It occurred to me on the way home tonight

Sandy — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 06:21:00 GMT

that when you're driving down Santa Monica Boulevard through the rainbow-striped heart of West Hollywood and you notice the cute guy in the car next to you is staring at you, it's hard to be flattered because there's a good chance he's thinking you're a surprisingly realistic drag queen.

Personal of the Day: Sophia68

Sandy — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:12:00 GMT

Sophia68
Age: 68
Height: 5’5’’
Occupation: retired

Last great book I read
my favorite book

My idea of a great date
cooking soup

Celebrity I most resemble
Bette Davis

Five items I can’t live without
You will like me because I sparkle.

Favorite movie sex scene
raisin

Why you should get to know me
Gin, dance, spaghetti, nap, lipstick.

What I’m looking for
young lover

The lives we choose

Sandy — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:19:00 GMT

I keep getting Facebook friend requests from grammar school classmates, people I knew 25 years ago when my hair was naturally the color of sand, my cheeks plump with baby fat, my pale skin untouched by the sun, setting me apart from my brown-skinned classmates like a scoop of vanilla ice cream on an enchilada plate.

I accept the friend requests and then click through to view pictures of my former fellow Girl Scouts, now married with multiple children, living in Rancho Cucamonga or somewhere else with track homes and strip malls. There’s a whole community of them out there in the boonies, people who were the popular kids when we were 10, now parents to their own 10-year-olds.

I browse the pictures of family trips to the desert to ride dirt bikes and children’s birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese’s, and I try to imagine what my life would be like if I had followed their path – if selling Girl Scout cookies together had made me more like them, instead of teaching me that I kind of hated their gossipy, group-minded, often mean ways, which sent me running in the opposite direction, toward the creative, kind outcasts.

I don’t regret my route in life, but I do marvel at how far apart we are now. It was one thing for me to be on the other side of the playground, playing handball with the boys or inventing new recess games with the quirky foreign girl everyone else made fun of. It’s another thing for me to live this life I’m living, which sometimes seems ridiculous, even to me. But then that’s what I love about it.

For example, this week I was at a media cocktail party at a hip bar in a new condo community downtown. As I emerged from a bathroom stall, a man in a suit emerged from the stall across the way, and we stared at each other through the branches of a huge fake blue tree that was the centerpiece of the room.

“I knew I came into the wrong bathroom,” he confessed, blushing.

I washed my hands next to the fake tree. “It was probably me,” I said, admiring the sleek sink and the modern metal fixtures.

He was washing his hands too. “This place is crazy.” Perhaps he was referring to the bathroom stalls, which had glass doors that fogged over to provide privacy when shut and locked.

“I think we just peed in the future,” I said, and we emerged into the throng of journalists with martinis, pretending this was totally normal. For the rest of the night, I started every conversation with, “Have you seen the bathroom?”

A voice spoke to me from behind. “With a dress like that, you must be in PR!” I turned to see a slick-looking man in a stylish suit. I decided to take his words as a compliment, since it turned out he was in PR, and clearly had a high opinion of himself.

“I like your tie,” I said.

He thanked me, handed me a business card, and headed off saying, “I’m going to go find the photographer, since getting my picture taken is the only reason I come to these things.”

Then I met a writer in town from a Vegas newspaper, followed by three marketing gals, one of whom had tiny hands that creeped me out. She told me that she’d heard of my company because she just saw a promotion we were doing on Facebook that day. This let me know that the contest I’d worked hard on was already effective, since it had been live only a matter of hours and had already spread to someone with tiny hands who I met randomly at a party.

Over her shoulder I spotted cute guy I’d met on an online dating site last year. He recognized me, despite my new hair color.

“You have very distinctive features,” he explained, and since that could either be a good thing or a bad thing, I decided to take it as a good thing.

Without having ever met in person, we’d had a lovers’ quarrel by instant messenger, so on this our actual first meeting in person, we were already making up.

“We’re like Harry and Sally,” he explained to a spunky 40-something woman named Jill who’d suddenly set up camp next to me on the couch, whispering in my ear, “He cute, but he’s short.”

Jill ran over to a man holding what looked like a Cosmopolitan and asked him why he was drinking such a girlie drink. He insisted it was bourbon and was not girlie at all, at which point she asked for a sip. He took this as an opportunity to join us on the couch and tell us about his theories on men’s fashion, the role of blonds in movies, and the history of the dandy.

Another trip to the bathroom and I was washing my hands beside a short cocky man I’d met at a previous media party, where we’d quizzed each other on geography by drawing maps on cocktail napkins. “Didn’t we meet before?” I asked him, adding, “I was blonde.”

He studied my “unique features” and said, “Yeah! Are you the one I showed my extra large condom to?” He was referring to an incident at the last party where he’d simply pulled an extra large condom out of his pocket for show-and-tell, right in the middle of drawing me a map of Texas. “It made sense in the conversation at the time,” he insisted.

“No, it didn’t,” I said, leaving him behind and emerging from the bathroom, where I was instantly sucked into a conversation with a woman who does PR for porn productions.

On my way back to my sidekick Jill, I met a comedian to whom I for some reason told my life story. He smiled a lot and I felt like I was being really entertaining. His buddy tried to get in on the conversation, but was attempting to jump ahead to questions I couldn’t possibly answer without first laying the groundwork with some lead-up questions. He could tell I didn’t know how to answer him. He apologized.

“Look, you’ve got to spend a little time getting to know a girl,” I said. “Your friend here seemed to really care about getting to know me. That’s how you should talk to a girl.”

I was kind of appalled by the words as they came out of my mouth, but he seemed to really like my spunk. He smiled, revealing a shiny silver tooth. The photographer appeared and I leaned in, his arm wrapped around me, to pose for a picture.

I returned to the bar to say goodnight to “Harry,” who was talking to a pretty journalist. She left. Then Harry asked Sally on a date.

On my way out, a handsome Asian real estate agent gave me his card and told me about starting his own company. I encouraged him, even though I wasn’t really hearing what he was saying because all I could think about was the food I wanted to pick up on the way home.

At the valet, Jill studied my eyeglasses and said they’re not the right size for my small face.

I went through a drive-thru and came home to happily eat a meal alone, in a quiet apartment with a stack of books by my side and a cozy quilted bed to lie in while I wrote my story.

Dear Abby:

Sandy — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:18:00 GMT

I met a guy at a fancy cocktail party. He’s an artist. He’s young and cute and funny and wears stylish glasses. Today he emailed me to ask me out. But there’s one hitch: when he smiles, featured prominently front-and-center in his mouth is a shiny silver tooth. Should I go out with him?

Something I've learned from reality TV

Sandy — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:09:00 GMT

Crying women have a tendency to pretend they don't want you to notice they're crying as they use their open hand to frantically fan their tear-streamed faces. It's this quasi-ladylike gesture, something you'd imagine a southern belle doing to demonstrate her frailty. Palm open, fingers slightly separated, the hand flapping up and down on a motionless wrist held inches from the face, they call attention to the tears they're supposedly embarrassed to be shedding. "I shouldn't be crying right now," they say, two days after having met The Bachelor. "I just didn't expect to be falling in love with you."

My hatred for this face-fanning is twofold: 1) It makes no sense. Fanning your face with an open hand does not make the tears go away. It just makes women look like they're so stupid they don't know how to soak up a few drops of spilled water. 2) It's a desperate ploy for attention that typically works. Men swoon at the sight of a helpless woman desperately fanning her tears. They swoop her up in their arms and give her all the attention she's begging for. They use their fingers to delicately wipe away the tears the woman simply couldn't dry up with the gentle breeze created by her flapping hand.

Perhaps this is why I'm single.

Yard Sale People

Sandy — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:09:00 GMT

This morning I got up at 6:30 to drive down to Long Beach and help my brother host a yard sale. I am almost never up on a weekend at 6:30am, and I am certainly never out on a lawn talking to strangers at that hour. However, I must admit I found it delightful. Yard Sale People are a freakish breed, and they were drawn to my brother’s glittery wares like…well, like freaks to glitter.

Perhaps I should clarify. In addition to the normal yard sale items – kitchenware, lamps, used books – my brother had garish dresses and high heeled shoes he used on models in photos shoots, extravagant old Halloween costumes, yards and yards of shiny fabric, and outrageous wigs. It was a bit like a drag queen exploded all over the lawn.

He and I took turns modeling some of the outfits on display, and we drew in the following clientele:

A tiny dog wearing mittens.
Two burly middle-aged Latinos with well manicured eyebrows who spent an hour going through the items before buying all the glittery dresses and high heels, as well as a disco lamp.
A large woman with five times the hair that is normally attached to a human head. She drove a sports car and spent a good deal of time chatting with my brother about the soap opera he works on. Then she bought a 2-foot-tall Amy Winehouse wig and drove off wearing it with the top down on her convertible.
A ‘nature’ couple dressed in matching brown safari gear who ignored the items for sale and sat on the lawn admiring an interesting bug.
Helen, a manic English professor with a burgundy crewcut who viewed the DVD pile and immediately asked, "You have anything gay?" She then proceeded to grab random items and, without even looking at what she was holding, demand, "What's this?" She had a series of follow-up questions, including, "What do you use it for?" and “Do you like it?” My brother kept giving her things for $1, but I could tell she wouldn’t be satisfied until she was able to spend all the money in her wallet. Eventually she left with two end tables, 8 DVDs, a dress that doesn’t fit her, two storage containers, a coffee urn, two wine glasses, and a whole lot of other crap that I lost track of. Her parting words to us were a confession that she’s in Debtors Anonymous.
An old white man who drove up in a beat-up VW bus with three teenage Japanese girls in tow. As he picked up dirty yard sale items and showed them to the girls, they giggled and clapped as if he'd presented them with a series of dancing puppies. Then he wobbled back to the rusty bus and the three girls trotted after him, screeching excitedly.
A little girl who my brother mistook for a boy, to whom he gave a set of fake mustaches.

A letter to my date tonight

Sandy — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 05:12:00 GMT

Dear Date,

I'm really enjoying our conversation tonight. I like your stories about being a civil rights lawyer. I don't even mind so much that you keep calling me darlin' and doll. However, I'm sorry to say that your really big house on the beach and the millions of dollars you make on court cases simply can't erase the fact that you're sitting there across from me with your shirt unbuttoned to your navel.

Four real and one fake

Sandy — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 07:30:00 GMT

I’ve been doing some stuff lately. For example, here are five things. Four of them are true. One of them is false. See if you can find the false one!

1. I drove to downtown LA after work and paid $16 for a martini at a fancy hotel bar. It had two olives in it and I drank it very slowly while snacking on mixed nuts. Then I walked through the rain to the central library and wandered through an exhibit of movie posters from the 1930s. After that I went to a talk being given by an author who wrote a book about how people make decisions. He told engrossing tales of studies done on when we use emotional thinking versus rational thinking and which one is more effective in various situations. Although I was fully engaged in his talk, I was also fantasizing about being his wife and how great the pillow talk would be. He was young and handsome and wore a dapper blue sweater with jeans and a stylish pair of sneakers. It was pretty much like Jude Law had donned a pair of glasses and transformed himself into a neuroscientist. It’s enough to make a girl faint with desire. But I didn’t.

2. I went to church for the first time in 10 years. It was a cozy place in the suburbs. They had up banners opposing prop 8, and there were tables set up where people sold eco-friendly products and had sign-up sheets for Habitat for Humanity and other service organizations. During services, a male-female duo played beautiful folk songs that made me think of childhood trips to the mountains and my aunt’s hippie boyfriend. The topics for the day were Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, in honor of their birthdays and contributions to humanity. There wasn’t a bible in sight. We sang hymns. We listened to the minister read a story to a group of children. The story was about a little princess who dreamed of being a knight, and how she overcame gender discrimination and accomplished her dream—and befriended a dragon along the way. We listened to a gay couple tell the congregation how the church had united them in marriage and supported them as a family. Their small son and daughter stood proudly beside them. We drank coffee and mingled outside after church. I will probably go back.

3. I walked two miles to a party where my friend was DJing. Met up with several friends who didn’t recognize me with brown hair. I ate Rice Krispie squares and did six Jello shots. I got in a fight with a short man named Buddy. We danced to 80s music in front of a fireplace that made us sweat. There was a guy in the corner who was the lead singer for some famous band. Someone brought Mojos from Shakeys. I guzzled water from the tap and walked the two miles home, just before it started raining. I listened to the rain as I drifted off to sleep.

4. I met up with a friend at a really terrible Mexican restaurant where I sent back the guacamole because it tasted “artificial and limey.” I recounted my recent failed relationship. He recounted his. I drank a margarita and ate a quesadilla. We walked across the street to the theatre and watched a play about two couples who get themselves into this downward spiral that involves slaughtering a lamb, having an affair, busting frantic retro dance moves, male-on-male rape, strangulation, bludgeoning, attempts to preserve the semen of a corpse, accidental suicide and homemade brownies.

5. This morning my head fell off and I ate it.

Personal of the Day: HotGingerBread

Sandy — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 05:40:00 GMT

HotGingerBread
Age: 28
Height: 4''
Occupation: Entertainer

Last great book I read
Little Women

My idea of a great date
Let's make homemade pizza and drink champagne out of our underwear.

Celebrity I most resemble
Julio Iglesias

Five items I can’t live without
Tic Tacs, pearls, vitamins, velvet, paper

Favorite movie sex scene
Zapped!

Why you should get to know me
I make the best lasagna and can do a jigsaw puzzle with my feet.

What I’m looking for
Chocolate chip cookies and a love.

Phoney Baloney

Sandy — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:23:00 GMT

I was just doing a search for a specific member in our member database and the little info I had to go on resulted in several pages of member accounts, none of which belonged to the right person. We have more than half a million members, so finding a specific person can be challenging, unless you have the email address, which is the one sure-fire identifying characteristic. As I scanned the list of search results, one stood out and begged further investigation: a person by the name of Phoney Baloney.

Interesting, I thought. This person is either really lighthearted and silly or extremely uptight and paranoid about having his real identity revealed. Then I noticed his email address and realized that this random account that came up during a random search of more than half a million members actually belongs to one of my closest friends.

That's right. I know who Mr. Phoney Baloney is. And I'm not telling.