Year: 2008 (Page 2 of 2)

I was awake for several seconds before I would succumb to opening my eyes. I hate waking up in the middle of the night. It irritates me in that way that fingers on a blackboard irritate the world. And if the day’s Crystal Light inventory made it through my bladder and chose the middle of the night to come out, I’m even more irritated. Putting a foot on the floor mid-slumber is more painful to me than running 5 miles mid-day.

I braced myself and opened my eyes to confront the clock.

3:37 a.m.

Damn.

3:37 a.m. is a lonely place to be. I never enjoy waking up at hours like these. I always hope the race to fall back asleep is won sooner rather than later.

No such luck. This was not one of those “awake for 3 minutes and right back to sleep” nights. No, this was “the last 4 hours were more like a nap, and so now that you’re rested, let’s talk.”

I don’t want to get up. I want to lay here in the warm bed with the dogs and…wait. Where are the dogs?

It is unseasonably warm outside. Thora, understanding the simple law of “heat rises,” chose her bed on the floor instead of mine. Sammy is where he always is, in his bed guarding a harem of bones he’s collected over the years, bones he moves from room to room with a diligence so impressive you would think he was being paid for it.

When I rolled over and looked at them, Thora stared at me. She whimpered to come up on the bed. I called her up. She turned three circles and lay back down with a sigh, a sigh that said, “I was sleeping and I heard your eyes open so now I’m awake and you don’t have to be alone and if you want to talk, well, go ahead.”

Sweet Thora. She’s so in sync with me. Or I am with her.

{Cue middle of the night, brain vomit…}

Speaking of being in sync, I wonder what he’s doing. I wonder if he’s awake. If he is, I wonder if he’s watching TV. Or reading. Or working. No, he’s probably sleeping. Hey, wait, he didn’t call me back last night. Let me check the phone. Maybe I slept through it. I’ve been known to sleep through things before. I’ve been known to sleep through things recently.

I clicked my light on my cell. 4:19 a.m. How have 40 minutes gone by? No missed calls or unread texts. That’s odd. Usually there’s some sort of goodnight call. Am I losing my touch? Did the time away together cure him of wanting to see me for a while? Have I lost my appeal?

The middle of the night is lonely for sure, but it can also prey on the most vulnerable parts of your self-conscious.

The night, stealing my precious sleep hours, continues. The night will steal an hour from me this weekend in Daylight Savings. I don’t want to lose any more time than I have to.

Buzzzzzzzz.

Out loud I say, “What the fuck!?!” On the phone it says “1 new text.” I rarely get middle of the night texts. I’ve never received a middle of the night text when I was laying awake, willing someone, anyone, to call me so I didn’t have to be alone anymore.

I opened the text. 4:29 a.m.

From him: “The fire alarms just went off. Well that was fun.”

From me: “I’ve been up since 3:30. Can’t sleep. Looks like you are up too.”

If someone is thinking about you at the exact moment you are thinking about them, were you ever really alone?

I sent the kids to the neighbor’s and snuck out of town this weekend. I envisioned snapping hundreds of pictures to provide a photo tour of my weekend, but the camera never came out of my bag. Somehow, I just didn’t feel like sharing…funny, considering my life has always been an open book. Though, someone once said to me with regard to the plethora of men in my life and their respective place on this blog, “If you really loved him, you wouldn’t even want to share the details.”

Truer words were never spoken.

I will say that my one goal for the weekend, besides the obvious, was to lay in a hammock with him and read Hemingway. That goal was achieved two hours before the one picture to mark the weekend was taken.

He took this from the wrap-around balcony of room 305…the room to which every hotel employee we came in contact with said, “OH, 305!! You’re gonna LOVE that room.”

We did.

We suffered a major software crash over here. It might have something to do with me, but I’ll never fess up to that entirely. It resulted in this:

Then this:

While you all waited here:

The prognosis is good. The worst is behind us. Still waiting for the bill.

Well, I’m sort of pissed off at you guys. Yes, all of you.

If you are going to do something, for everyone’s sake, do it right.

Exactly ten years ago, I started waxing what was then, a closely cropped bush. When I learned of a place that actually, gasp, did the elusive Brazilian, I ran off in search of the eternal four weeks of hair free bliss. Back then, there were very few places who did this. Maybe a handful in the country. I was well before the trend on living life pube-free.

The first time I went for a Brazilian, she tried to leave a “Landing Strip.” Oh, hells no Kotobuki, you’re taking all that hair off and you’re taking it off now. She protested, I gave her $20 and she finally saw fit to wax it all. There’s nothing like throwing money at a Vietnamese nail tech to help her change her mind. (Sorry, was that insensitive? Well, suck it! I’m telling a story!) It took several years for this trend to come full swing and it was clearly MY bitching at various salons up and down the eastern seaboard helped push this trend along. You’re welcome.

Now. I’ve noticed something that disturbs me quite a bit. I think that right now it is just a west coast trend. But I’m seeing it everywhere. Avert your eyes if you scare easily.

What is this? A backlash to the Brazilian? Let’s take a closer, grainier look.

All right. I have a few questions. When a guy with a landing strip is eating out a girl with a landing strip, what happens? Are there sparks? Is it like rubbing two sticks together? Will there be a fire? Can I rub my hands in front of it because it’s cold outside!! Wait, I got a little carried away with that last one.

This is the part where I explain why I’m mad at you all. CUBE and I started working on salons country-wide over ten years ago to make sure you all could one day enjoy the Brazilian Bikini Wax. And yes, I mean “you all.” A Brazilian is just as much for the girls as it is for the guys. So our work was done and she went on a trip and I took a tiny break to have a little sex and look for a new job and we left you all to watch the store. And what did you do? Most of you fell asleep and at least two of you were smoking pot in the back alley cause I can still smell it, (!!) and now this landing strip for men is suddenly spreading like the wave from L.A. to the east coast.

Put your foot down people. Make it stop at the Mississippi. Do not allow it to penetrate our turf! (Heh. I said “penetrate.”) By my calculations, I66 is the furthest west, so we need you to saddle up boy. Patsy is on the other side of the Mississippi but Texas and trends don’t go in the same sentence, much less the same state, so while my money would be on her to stop this shit, she won’t have a chance to intercept it. Fight the guy’s landing strip. Fight it.

Thank you. That is all.

*For more examples of “male landing strips,” please watch The Millionaire Matchmaker and check out, oh, any of her clients.

Some simple math to start things off.

1 Lorazepam + 1 Klonopin + 1 joint = I’m so sorry I blacked out at your bachelorette party and I don’t remember a fucking thing. No, I don’t remember that either.

1 set of car keys + 3 Texas sized “medium” beers = We stole some chick’s car for a joyride.

1 returned, joyridden vehicle, reparked across the street + 1 bag of Chex Mix + a Big Gulp + Patsy = Damn fine entertainment.

You will need to recall “order of operations” for this next one.

1 “almost” three year old blog whose writer prefers the rating XXX + (1 friend – any morals whatsoever) + increased searches for said friend both on google and in the Velvet search box = A Brand New Weekly Column from Sixes and Sevens!

Ladies and Gentlemen, children of all ages, you will come cum to love Tuesdays. Sixes and Sevens, formerly known as BIGGER BITCH THAN YOU, is going to begin her column here, called C U Next Tuesday! We’re very excited about this new column here at the Velvet in Dupont Headquarters. (Site of HQ: My bed.) We ran this by our Board of Directors (that’s really just me) and they gave it the okay. Then we finalized the details with our marketing department (also just me) and they felt this was the way to address our nationwide focus group findings: MORE SMUT. Finally, we consulted the Finance Department (also me.) They felt that with the recent dip in the economy they could not budget any additional funds for this endeavor. Then we all laughed hysterically since everyone knows Sixes and Sevens puts her sex life on display for free.

Exxxcellent Smithers.

I always hated having friends over in high school. My parents really commandeered the living areas of our house and didn’t yield to my friends and our headbanger aqua-netted hair. I longed for the day I would have a place of my own.

I went from my parents house to living with a cracked out roommate, to living with a boyfriend until I was 30 to being on my oh my fucking god Jenna Jameson is on Celebrity Apprentice right now looking like a skanky meth addict. Fuck. Hold on.

Okay. I’m back. Anyway, when I was finally living alone, I carefully planned out a design theme, then spent years and thousands debating the purchase and ultimate placement of each piece of furniture. I mixed vintage Heywood Wakefield with modern stuff from Scan and Pier 1 and oh my fucking god Trace Adkins is in danger of being fired off Celebrity Apprentice and I want him to win! Hold on.

Phew. He’s safe.

Shit. Where was I? Right. My prized mid-50’s Heywood Wakefield coffee table and ballerina lamp.

Anyway, the point of this is to tell you that even though I don’t live with another human, the dogs have fucking taken over. I want my place how I want it and I can’t because these little assholes are so demanding. First, it started with just having to keep the couch and chair covered with a sheet because they like to lounge there during the day. Then I had to cover my down comforter with a stupid sheet too. Then I realized that my beautiful bamboo floors were not safe for aging doggies, so I bought two area rugs and covered most of my living room. I had to move all the furniture out of the way and my living room has become a freaking wrestling ring. Sammy’s perennial base of operations has been that orange rug. I don’t get it.

In this corner, weighing in at 44 pounds is Thora the Princess of Dupont. And in this corner, weighing in at 37 pounds is Sammy the Stray Dog of Georgia!!!

One night last week I folded a magazine to something I wanted to read, put it on my bed and I come back to see this:

Mommy! The Radar Magazine Fashion issue is to die for!

And God forbid I try to cook anything or put anything edible on the kitchen counter.

Get it Sammy! Jump on those counters. I’m Sweet Thora, I would never do anything bad.

My beautiful 50’s mod stuff is now awash in dog hair, slobber, paw prints and marrow bone juice. Yeah. Somewhere in the last few months, I just gave up. It used to be important to me to have nice furniture. But I made my list of priorities and the dogs ranked higher. It’s more important to me that they are happy and healthy and comfortable as they age. Besides, it isn’t worth the fight. There’s two of them. There’s only one of me.

And after that award winning blowjob I administered the other night, I’m fucking tired.

An exciting change in the Velvet format, coming next week. Prepare your I.T. departments. I plan this will get me blocked from all your workplaces from one end of the beltway to the other.

Happy Weekend! Velvet outtttt.

Ugh. I have no idea why my brain is suddenly and consistently on childhood-rewind, but anyway.

I keep thinking about this drink my brothers and I used to be obsessed with in the 70’s. It was a milk / Yoo Hoo drink that came in a can. It was in the refrigerater section where you would buy regular milk and cheese. You shook the can and it was this thick like pudding milkshake. I called my brother to ask him if he remembered the name of the drink and all of a sudden, we’re back in the 70’s, watching Charlies Angels and drinking orange juice that came out of the freezer and was, yes, “concentrated” – hence the “not from concentrate” disclaimer on OJ now. I think they can stop with the “not from concentrate.” No one even knows or cares what that means anymore.

In my search for this drink, I stumbled across the following.

Enjoy the biggest timewaster ever.

Click “Tick Tock Toys.” I’m obsessed with the retro food packaging section.

And if anyone remembers that milk drink, can you tell me? I think it starts with an “F.” If I-66 was in his 30’s, my money would be on him. I think Cube and possibly Hammer are going to be my best bets. Help me! It’s driving me crazy!!!

Well well well. I’m so happy to hear some of you actually used my first round of wisdom in your interviews. Well done. But, there’s more.

6) Whose Attitude is Worse? Bitchy Blogger or Soon-To-Be Supervisor?
I’m a cut to the chase kind of girl. Most people are more politically correct than I am. When someone’s snark and ‘tude matches mine, awesome. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s very good for business, and exceptionally good for MY business, but I digress. When someone turns the corner from snarky to downright evil, then spank my ass and call me concerned. Okay, don’t call me concerned, but jesus, cut a girl some love and do the spanking anyway, please?

It doesn’t matter what someone else has in their backyard: It has no effect on my backyard. This is very important for people to realize. Keeping up with the Joneses is a fallacy. This rule applies to many types of situations. If I get wind of a writing contest, I forward it to other bloggers even though I may intend on entering myself. Know why? Because whether they win or not has zero effect on how good of a writer I may or may not be. How many houses one builder is selling has zero impact on how good another builder is at building and selling houses. Everyone has core competencies, and if they are all the same, then what the fuck is the point of a free market economy? We could all just become communists if we wanted to be the same.

The Duck Hunter, who you met in installment one, said he was “relishing the housing downturn because now all the people who wouldn’t talk to him before are now running to him for his commercial real estate business,” I thought, “Bittttter.” Then I thought, “Run!” It doesn’t matter what is going on with other people’s businesses. It doesn’t. Put your head down and do your best. Unless they are unethically stealing your customers or best practices, don’t worry. And even then…jesus. Do something about it instead of crying like a little bitch.

Lesson: If you can smell emotions are running a business, do some running of your own. As in, “Do not pass go, do not collect $200, just run.”

7) Did You Just…Did I Hear My Own…What the Hell Did You Say?
I have a gem. It’s the “thing” I like to say in an interview and it’s pretty clever but really applicable to my experience and industry only. You should have a gem, something to say that’s a thinly veiled disguise for how much of a team player you are or that you will suck anyone’s cock for the right price. Wait, maybe not that last one. So you drop this gem in a first interview and you are met with smiles and clapping hands and, “Amen sister!” (No no, they really said that.) You think, “Great. I done good, ma!”

So then you go to the second interview. They ask the same question, but then before you can relaunch your “gem” answer, they repeat, almost verbatim, except for adding the part in front “Well I personally always believed,” then trot off with your original answer word for word for word. Hello? What? What did you just say? You burgled my idea. And now you are passing it off as your own! And you didn’t give me credit! THIEF! This one was easy. Cheri O’Teri as Judge Judy just said NEXT!

Lesson: If they steal your implants they’ll never give you credit for being the one who came up with the D-chest idea in the first place. Oh come on. Not all the lessons can be so literal.

8) Come Here Often?
You have to listen to people. You really do. There is no amount of research or ass kissing that you can do to learn more than what you will by what people tell you. I had two interviews with the company who burgled my “gem” of an idea above. At the first interview, I liked the people and was gung ho for the second interview. But in the first interview, there was mention of a business plan rewrite based on some outside bullshit. Then at the second interview, there was mention again of the business plan rewrite based on other, different outside bullshit. What? WHAT? Do you bitches have any idea what you are doing? You keep rewriting your business plan every time you get a piece of information that is from some flunky artist-cum-pornstar-cum-researcher who declares May 4th, 2010 the day the real estate market rebounds? I am not opposed to a constant review of the roadmap for your business, shit, I have a roadmap for my own life and I try to operate with that in mind, but I don’t rewrite it every day based on what the UPS lady says or on what my 7th grade best friend posted on her Myspace page.

Do you know people who canvass for opinions? I do. I’m related to one. It is nothing short of infuriating. But working for one is really really bad.

Canvassing for opinions and acting on every single one means the boss will never get anything done. And if the boss never gets anything done, then I’ll never get anything done. And if I never get anything done, and I spend a year working for that boss, not getting anything done, WTF am I going to put after all those empty bullet marks on my resume with their shitty company name as the header? Christ.

Lesson: Companies do not rewrite business plans on a monthly, weekly or God Forbid, daily basis. If they do stupid things like this that violate everything you learned in kindergarden, consult your intuition and get out of there.

9) The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
I got a phone call from a national company with a headquarters out west somewhere. Several painful emails lacked any punctuation. (“hi my name is chris from x company and i wanted to know if you could do a phone interview with me tell me when would be a good time to talk then i’ll refer you to the local human resources contact he will call you to set up the in person interview also what is a good number to reach you on”) We did the phone interview. It went rather well and they scheduled me to go in to the local office to meet the person doing the hiring. Then I get an email that it’s on hold. Whatever. Then I get a phone call from the local office HR dude, who scheduled an in-person interview later that week. Then I got another phone call that it was changed to a phone interview because they wanted me to get through the screening process before I came on site. Sigh. Do you people have any idea what you are doing? As some crazy drunken Irish guy I used to work with would say, “The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. Hey, is this someone’s beer or can I finish it?” Wait, scratch that part about the beer. Just the hands. That’s what I meant.

Lesson: If they are disorganized from the start, they will never be organized. This isn’t a good sign, only because it wasn’t just one blip in the process, it was hurdle after hurdle of stupidity.

10) Bend Over
I don’t get it. I really don’t. I know that interviewing and such has changed quite a bit over the years. I have heard that credit checks and background checks as well as “googling” are more common than ever, used to eliminate people out of the interviewing game. This is why I blog as “Velvet” and not as my real name, Persephone Eleni Athena Eros Pappadopolous.

Recently, I met with a recruiter who seemed wonderful, and very well may be, and has an interesting job on deck which she feels I would be perfectly suited for. (Don’t all recruiters think this? Yeah. Anyway.) So she emails me after the interview and says that I’ll have to fill out all these forms because this “big banker” won’t interview anyone without the paperwork. I look through it and discover they want to run credit and a background check. Now, despite how crazy my life has been, I have never been arrested and have impeccable credit. 811 baby. 811. So I don’t give a shit if people want to search my anal cavity for christsake, I have nothing to hide. But, I don’t like the idea that these people want to run all this info BEFORE they even lay their eyes on me. According to the recruiter, they don’t want to pursue a candidate only to find out that they don’t meet their qualifications. So I reluctantly agree, only because the job market is really unbelievably bad right now, and it’s been two weeks. I emailed the recruiter, and she can’t get in touch with anyone at said company. Uh. Hello? Isn’t that like, your job? So then I say, “This is why I did not feel comfortable giving you my okay to run all these these tests which I feel violate my privacy. There is obviously nothing in my background, so they have run the information for nothing, really.” She responded with something I read as “blah blah blah” and that was that.

Lesson: I don’t know. You guys tell me. My personal jury is still out on this one, I don’t know what to do. If you want a job, you might have to do things in this economy that you wouldn’t normally do in better times. This one is open for debate. I know that I’m pissed off about this, and won’t agree to do it again without an offer of employment or being very far along in the process. What do you all think though?

11) Where’s Waldo?
This is one of my favorites. I showed up for an interview and the person who was interviewing me decided not to come to work that day. And they never bothered to call me to tell me not to come. Then they had the nerve (via phone while laying in bed) to tell the receptionist to interview me and to send samples of my best work. Yeah, right lady. Like I’m going to send you a complicated and probably confidential budget I made and stole from my last job when you can’t even be bothered to get out of bed.

Lesson: Over your career you will amass a small (or large) portfolio of really good work. Don’t give it to people unless you are really far along in the game, like about to get a job offer. I hear this all the time – people have to do these mass presentations at the culmination of their interview process to tell the prospective company how to reorganize their business. Then they don’t hire the candidate, but guess whose ideas they use? It’s gray-area but legal, and very difficult to prove anyway unless you managed to patent some of your processes behind your idea. And I don’t recommend trying to work with the Patent Office on anything. They suck.

I hope that’s all I have. I’ve taken a temporary position that could amount to more, were it not in the ghetto. No, no, really, it is in the ghetto. I have five predecessors from the past two years, and all five of my predecessors were mugged at work. So we’ll see how it works out. I’m doing friends of mine in the industry a favor, and you know that all construction is now in unsavory neighborhoods. They understand that once I feel compromised, I’m quitting and they’ll have to put me somewhere else. It’s actually so bad, my mommy said she would pay me the same amount of money to stay home. It’s not a bad offer, really. Mommy doesn’t run credit checks. At least, not the last time I worked for the Mommy Corporation, which was from my day of birth to 18 years 22 years 24 years 30 years oh, hell. Who am I kidding? I am still an employee of the Mommy Corporation. Aren’t we all?

I went to visit that little troublemaker, Sixes and Sevens, in Pennsyltuckey this weekend. A pre-departure text I sent said, “What should I pack?”

Sixes and Sevens said we would be doing a lot of shopping, and one of the items on her list to buy was a couch.

Buying a couch for Sixes and Sevens is a difficult endeavor. You think you can just show up at the couch store and sit on a few, then make a decision? Hell no. When you buy things, you have to think about how they will be used so that you do the best job in choosing the item. Like, had I known my beautiful $1300 throwback-to-the-50’s couch would become home for all things dog, I never would have spent that much money on it. Anyway, at this point, Gazoo appeared over my head.

“She’s going to nail her men here, Velvet. The couch must be comfortable enough for that but not too comfortable because we don’t want the guy to fall asleep and God Forbid, stay over!”

“Thanks Gazoo. I also think the couch needs to repel fluids.”

“Well that goes without saying you dumb whore.”

God. When did Gazoo turn into such an asshole?

I packed my stuff, Thora and Sammy, Sixes and Seven’s wayward boxes from her old job, and the King of the Dogpark’s dog, Ted, into the car. Kidnapping Ted from his home did not go off without a hitch. This dog would not come willingly, so I had to forcibly remove him from his bed. By the time I got on the road, I was exhausted. “Beer!” I called ahead. “I need beer!”

To get to where Sixes and Sevens lives, you take the GW out to 495 to 270 where you have to try to have sex with your man on the way but he tells you he’s in a meeting jesus fucking christ, then you go to where 270 ends, then you take a bunch of dirt roads, cross into Pennsyltuckey, take some more dirt roads, drive by many “Land For Sale” properties that your now bankrupt ex-company once had under contract, then more dirt roads, then you find her, at the door of some big house, with a glass of wine and her dog Jukebox, waiting for his friends to arrive. I think one of the dogs sung, “Reunited and it feels so goooooood.”

We threw my stuff down and promptly went out.

I’m not sure why all their eyes are glowing as we bolted out the door and went off for a a night of debauchery.

We ate a very forgettable dinner at some place that looked like New Orleans threw up in there, then meandered around looking for an entertaining place to park our asses for the evening.

Sixes and Sevens: There’s this bar but it is in the ghetto, but I’ve wanted to try it.
Velvet: How ghetto?
Sixes and Sevens: Like, under an overpass and next to the train tracks, wrong side of town ghetto. We’ll need to drive there.
Velvet: And you want to go there because, why?
Sixes and Sevens: It looks fun. And I don’t want to go alone.
Velvet: Fiiiiine. (Trying to sound exasperated but really very intrigued.)

When we pulled up to the ghetto bar, the parking lot was PACKED. I thought that was reassuring, as if we were going to be killed, at least there would be a lot of witnesses.

We walked in and the place was mostly empty. I asked Sixes where all the people who drove all the cars outside were. She didn’t know either. As we sat at the bar and each ordered our Yuengling pints, I said, “This is weird. I feel like I’m in the beginning of a Forensic Files, like I can hear it now. ‘Two girls from out of town were last seen at the bar and no one knows why they ended up under the overpass, naked, dead, with big smiles on their faces.'”

I really need to stop watching Court TV. Then I had a few observations.

First, our bartender looked like a rode-hard Brianna Banks. Well, wait. Brianna Banks looks like a rode hard Brianna Banks, so I’m not sure what that means.

Second, everyone in Pennsyltuckey has this hairstyle. Sixes calls it “mom hair.”

Third, this sign. It was indeed, a Friday. And the only thing standing in the way between any old Friday and a disastrous Friday, was that sign. “Oh, Brianna? We’ll have the pitcher of Miller Lite please!” I would like to state for the record, that this would be the moment when everything went wrong.

While Brianna was pouring the pitcher, we asked her where all the people were. She told us they start to come in at 11 and the place gets packed. We were very excited, but it was still sadly just 8:00. We got started so early; we had some time to kill.

There I am, with my down feather and dog hair covered sweatshirt. When they say “dry clean only” on your down coat, they really mean it. I plugged in Sixes as the big winner on Tai-Play on Megatouch. I need a Megatouch for my house. Oh, wait. No I don’t.

Then, we noticed that they were definitely gearing up for a big night.

Around this point we ordered our second pitcher of Miller Lite. Sixes asked “I wonder why we don’t get a colostomy bag for ours like everyone else?” I guess because there was two of us, compared to all the single people who came in alone for their $5 pitchers.

Here come the cowboys. “Sissy! Get in that truck!”

I thought that this next shot would shape up to become my favorite picture of the evening. This was a common occurrence that night – much older ladies, I think they call them “cougars,” talking to men half their age. But I loved both her hair, and the cigarette dangling out of her mouth.

Note, I said, “thought” in the above statement. I thought it would be my favorite picture. Until, that is, this walked in.

Like Heidi Klum on Project Runway, I said, “What izzz dat?” I was unsure of the sex. Because I had seen it walk up to the bar, I was even more perplexed. Wait, here’s the full outfit.

The spandex dress reminds me of something I used to wear in college when I wanted to piss off my Kappa Kappa Slamma sisters. Man would they get mad. In their last Will and Testament, they left me an “appropriate black dress” for sorority functions. Cunts. It was Miami! In the 90’s! I’m from Connecticut! Do you know what people from the Connecticut coast stare at? Long Island! What the hell did you expect from me?

Back to Pennsyltuckey. The feast for our eyes continued.

Somewhere around here comes the third pitcher of Miller Lite.

Then this is where I got sloppy and forgot to knock off the flash. Sixes likes this picture for its yellow 1970’s quality. I like it because these three chicks didn’t catch me even after the flash went off, because you know they could easily beat my ass. Easily.

I know what you’re thinking. “Gee, you make fun of everything, don’t you Velvet?”

Yes. I. Do.

“D.C. 101 can you make it stop?”

“Yes I can! It’s the sound of Velvet’s luck running out!” Just as I mumbled under my breath that a guy across the bar was staring at us, just as Sixes and Sevens took a picture of him with her camera phone, just as she called him Mike Ditka to both me and via text to my “friend,” he got off his bar stool, walked over to us and said, “Okay, what are you girls taking pictures of over here?”

Damn! It was the time I forgot to knock off the flash! Idiotia! Now, you all know my partner in crime, Sixes and Sevens, right? She seems so tough and together, right. Well, she had that look on her face like when Snoop got caught by his wife for trying to eat chicken at the chicken place with David Beckham. Sixes is like, “uhhhh…uhhhh…I have to go to the bathroom!” She left me there with Mike Ditka, and I’m laughing so hard for being caught that there is literally nothing I can form into words. I wasn’t finished laughing by the time Sixes comes back.

Mike Ditka asked what we found so fascinating. I said, “I’ve been trying to figure a few things out all night. First, is that blonde thing a guy or a girl?” He didn’t know either. “Second, why is the bartender such a bluetooth tool? That looks ridiculous and I WILL get a picture of it before I leave.” Mike returned to his seat and I snapped my pic.

Dude. You’re working. You do realize you look like a major idiot right? Hey, there’s Mike Ditka in the back on the left, sitting in front of the self-serve beer case. Several seconds later, Sixes and Sevens appeared behind all that mess and took Mike’s hat, wore it for a bit, and then got his phone number, email, and told him to check this blog when he got home. What. The. Fuck. Is there one man who has crossed your path Sixes, who you have not given out MY information to? Hmm. Velvet in Dupont has become like a meeting place for all Sixes and Seven’s man-boys. Err. Man-toys. I meant to say man-toys.

So, when she said that she found this specimen “really fucking hot…”

…I had absolutely zero qualms about writing her phone number on a napkin, balling it up, and throwing it at his head. Too bad it missed, and her number ended up on the floor of the ghetto bar. Too bad he was dumb as the day is long. That was a painful conversation, however brief it was.

Now, I don’t want to hear any shit about the next part. None at all. We left. We got in Sixes little truck and we attempted to exit the parking lot and drive the 10 blocks or so home. But then we hit black ice and there was some serious fishtailing and then she righted that thing up and we were on our way. Black ice is not your friend after three pitches of ML. Just saying. And I do want to point out that the woman who grew up in Georgia and spent most of her adult years in L.A. can “drive truck” on black ice after three pitchers better than most sober people I know when it’s 80 degrees out and sunny.

Okay, that was only Friday but I’m exhausted.

And because several dozen people have searched for “sixes and sevens” in my search box, and she’s become such a popular little hussy, you can now reach her at her brand spanking new email address:

SixesandSevensATvelvetindupont.com

It’s all about my friends this week.

If you haven’t heard, one of my dearest friends has hung up the blogging hat. If you don’t know FreckledK, then I’ll tell you who she is.

She’s the woman who will walk up to the head to toe tattooed tough girl at a gritty bar and say, “Did you just say something mean about my friend?”

She’s the woman who will fly out to Phoenix Arizona to get you drunk because you drove 2800 miles to escape a relationship that crashed, burned, imploded and then slapped you in the face, with dirt.

She’s the woman who, on hearing your plight, will put her phone down on her desk and enlist all her co-workers in an immediate campaign. She’ll even drive the Save Ferris blimp.

She’s the woman who will point out, despite your best efforts to believe the contrary, that you are, in fact, in love again.

K’s post and farewell stands up for what she feels has become a widely accepted practice in blogging: “Oh, it wasn’t me who wrote those racist, misogynistic, hateful, comments. It was my ‘persona.’ My alter ego. It wasn’t me at all.”

It’s sort of like little boys who break something then turn around and say to mom, “I didn’t do it.”

Right. Little boys.

Women are more insecure beings by nature. Can you blame us? We’ve been thought of as the “lesser sex” for more years than anyone can count. In theory, we’re equal. In practice, we’re not. And we probably never will be.

Every time I take a new job, I know I will be confronted with a whole host of new people, some of whom will air their obvious hate for my gender with very little disguise. Men I have worked with have told me the following:

“If you don’t move out of my way, I’ll rip that dress off you.”

“Why don’t you come over here and sit on my face.”

“A woman should never make that much money.” (The person he said it to came and told me.)

“I know why you have this job. If you think I was born yesterday, you’re wrong.” (In case you didn’t get that one, he implied I was sleeping with the boss. I wasn’t.)

If I believed everything those unsavory characters in the Construction and Land Development world dealt me, I could become a really insecure person. I refuse to define myself by what some others choose to.

I know that many women bloggers have discussed the non-stop slams we take, not only for our gender, but for our age, for being too flabby, for being cougars, for not being Russian, for whatever the fuck it is that we’ve done wrong now. The list consistently grows. Why? Because much like the Real World and all other reality shows – drama sells. The tiff from last season morphs to a slap this season which morphs to rehab next season which morphs to murder the following season. The controversy must always be topped.

The problem with blogs though, is that they are not a TV show. They are the ideas of individuals. In some cases, it is a few misguided individuals, persona or not, who like to yank chains and pick the zit of women’s insecurities. What kind of person shows up at happy hours, witnesses that the average size (and National Average) of women bloggers is a 10, not a 2, and then goes home to pen yet, another yawningly dull “any girl over a size 2 is fat” post? What kind of person shows up at happy hours, assesses that a good majority of women bloggers are around 30 then goes home to pen yet another achingly trite “women over 30 are losers who just want to get married and can’t because they are such colossal losers who could never get a guy like me.”

The kind of person whose blog I would never read. And you shouldn’t either. You can slam them back with insults to defend our gender or you can stop reading and stop commenting. If there is no audience, the show goes dark. How many more hateful posts do you think they’ll churn out if several posts in a row remain with zero comments. Zero zero zero. Give them the number of comments they think our dress size should be. Zero.

And if you don’t want to stop reading for that reason, stop reading for this one: Some people are just too stupid to deserve their First Amendment Rights.

Smoochies, FreckledK. The standard you set for blogging, but more importantly, for friendship is one we should all hope to achieve.

I have to take a break from the  oh so riveting posts about interviewing to bring you a special announcement. I  have chosen this public forum to tell Sixes and Sevens  something she doesn’t know.

Sixes and Sevens officially ruined another hot, perfectly  heterosexual man.

Do you remember Hot Neighbor? The one who  spewed his spunk all over Sixes and Seven’s face?  Well, he  sent me a text on Sunday morning. The volley went something like this. Actually, it went exactly like this:

Hot Neighbor: I had a threesome last night.
Velvet: Oh. My. God. Two girls?
Hot Neighbor: No. Another guy and a girl. Are you going to be home today?
Velvet: Other than a run, I’ll be here. (Not the runs, a run. I have to clarify for I66 because he likes to make fun.)
Hot Neighbor: I’ll come over and tell you about it.

The  events that ensued were a blur of a drunken evening, with a woman at a bar in Adam’s Morgan (a variation: Adam’s Whoregan) and a triple kiss starring Hot Neighbor, this woman with very loose morals (Sixes and Sevens, she trumps even you) and a man who happens to be engaged…to another man.

The unlikely threesome moved off to the woman’s house, where, much like an episode of Bugs Bunny, each chased the other into and out of rooms.

Heh. That’s my favorite episode of Bugs Bunny. The Monster with his sneakers. I have several Monster stuffed animals, and once had a Monster glass but it broke…oh…wait, this post is not about me. Sorry.

Eventually the unlikely  three end up in the same bed where the Gay Man has real, live, heterosexual intercourse with the woman while she blows Hot Neighbor, who admittedly fucked her mouth very hard as he discovered the  ecstasy of a finger in his ass, attached to the arm attached to the body of a gay man.

Wow. Need a cheat sheet? A diagram? Yeah, me too.

Okay, so if you followed that visual, then you are ready for more.  The three finish off, not before the gay man tossed the salad of one Hot Neighbor who then spanked the woman’s ass raw then came all over her. They finally fell asleep. Hot Neighbor  woke up a few hours later and tried to stealthily creep out of her house, until she woke up and asked him  what his name was for his number. He put it in her phone, but he’s since only heard from the gay man.

Great job Sixes and Sevens. Fucking Great. I had a perfectly hot, straight neighbor in this building and he’s now bi.  I blame you, because YOU are the one who threatened to fuck him with a strap-on! Once you opened up that box, Pandora, it was all over.

I’m off to see Sixes and Sevens this weekend in the hinterlands where she will be spanked for her sins. We plan on shopping at Wal-Mart and going to a redneck bar or four. If you end up in a podunk town in Pennsyltuckey and see two black-haired witches in a pickup truck, don’t worry. That’s just us.

Okay okay, some of you asked about the interviewing. It’s no secret I’m in real estate. Sadly, my beloved homebuilding company folded like a house of cards would if someone excavated and built it under Oprah’s ass. It’s okay though, because I got a really nice severance package. Cough. And then some. Cough cough. Anyway, interviewing is a tedious and yet oddly hilarious phenomenon. Allow me to take you on a journey of my brushes with the stupidest of the stupidest in Washington D.C.’s hiring arena. I’ll have to do this in several parts because some of my gems are from the past and we all know how I can tell a long winded story.

1) Time Won’t Give Me Time
If I’m kept waiting for longer than 15 minutes, this is a deal breaker. When I worked at Nine West, I went to interview in that stupid Calvin Klein division. The potential new boss kept me waiting 2 1/2 hours before she would deign to speak to me. Even her assistant was embarrassed. I could hear new boss in her office cooing the entire time, “The heel on this is so fresh…” Yeah, that meeting was groundbreaking. So glad you kept me waiting on a fucking SATURDAY while you solved the world’s problems. I should have RUN. But, I stupidly took the job anyway because I was a 23 year old idiot. I didn’t realize that I learned something important at the interview: These people would never respect my time. And they didn’t.

My new boss would fly in at 1 p.m., park her broomstick in the corner, call her boyfriend and send out Christmas and Valentines Day Cards until 4 p.m. and then expect everyone to stay late with her until 10 at night. The martyr parade was sickening in the morning. “Oh, poor Karla, she was here until after 10!” That, coupled with Calvin Klein’s “everything must be black” rule encouraged me to leave rather quickly. Do you know how infuriating it is to only be allowed to have black file folders and black pens to label them with? I couldn’t see which file I had marked “Burn down 205 W. 39th St.” I lasted just a few months.

More recently, I was kept waiting for an interview while I could hear the guy in his office calling around to remind people about the duck hunting excursion the next day. Oh, where do I start with that one? The fact that you kept me waiting for that shit or that you use guns to kill animals when my own dog has 11 bullets in her leg from someone like you and it’s costing me seven grand? I didn’t have to see his face to know I would not be working for him.

Lesson: They must respect your time from the very first moment.

2) Is This a Lateral Move?
How stupid does a company have to be to look for someone to fill a position with the EXACT skill set they need? Why don’t they consider that if they find that person, and the person takes what is in essence, a lateral move, they won’t be happy for very long, having already burned out elsewhere. They should be looking for the candidate for whom this will be a promotion. Every time I take a job, I do so with the idealistic mentality that I will be there for a long time, so I want it to be a “promotion” and a challenge from the last job I had.

Lesson: The job must have challenge. Don’t take a lateral move or you’ll be bored, and don’t allow the company to coerce you into a lateral move with that “get your foot in the door bullshit.”

Time Out For A Disclaimer: I have taken lateral moves in the past. When I’ve done this, it was always a band-aid to a situation gone awry. Incompetent people, sexual harassment litigation and a boss stealing money and slapping my name all over his papertrail have foiled my plans of longevity and forced me to jump ship, taking anything that came my way. It happened several times in my 20’s when I worked for a record-breaking THREE alcoholic cokeheads in a row. I bookended that run with born again Christians. My luck was Vegas-style back then.

Sub-Lesson: Sometimes life fucks you and you don’t have a choice.

3) Ocean’s Thirteen
I always ask “How many people are you interviewing for this job?” The question kills me. People give the stupidest answers. The duck hunter said, “Well, we’ve interviewed about 8 already and have another 3 to go after you.” Twelve people? You are interviewing 12 fucking people for this job? You couldn’t narrow it down any more than that? I bet even the UPS guy could narrow it down to 3 or 4 by resume alone, and the Head Cheerleader Human Resources dipshit can knock another one off the list by a phone interview. If you are interviewing 12 people and we’re not talking a CEO level, then yes, you are a fucking moron.

I can’t work for morons. I can only work for people who are smarter than I am or who I want to have sex with. Preferably both. Mmm…ex bosses who I want to have sex with…hold on for a second while I plug this in…

Okay. I’m back.

Wait, I’m gone again. Mmmm…..

Okay, back, and sufficiently relaxed.

Lesson: Don’t work for morons. There’s more but clearly I’m post fantasy and orgasm so you’ll have to figure it out on your own. It’s good practice for you though. I mean, come on people. Two and a half years of this blog, the least you can do is help me out a little.

4) Don’t Go Away Mad, Just Go Away
Ask why the person doing the job now is leaving. Ask it, and RESIST the urge to talk. If you stay silent, people like to fill that silence with something they love – the sound of their own voice. Let them. This is where you will learn that 10 people have quit in the last 4 years because they can’t stand playing solitaire for 8 months while periodically hounding someone to answer an inconsequential question (“Red or Pink Gum Balls in the Vending Machine, Sir?”) that somehow hinges any and all productivity for the next two years.

I also like to find out where the people who are leaving are actually going. One guy was opening up a Five Guys Chain. Another went to work for the Red Cross. Okay, so they would rather flip burgers and work with contaminated bodily fluids than work here? Not good.

Lesson: Why do people leave? Where do they go? If these answers don’t pass the sniff test, something stinks.

5) You Know I Never, I Never Seen Ya Look So Good
I went to a well known Developer / Builder for an interview. Typical office structure – offices on the perimeter of the floor and cubicles in the middle. Men in suits and ties filled the offices and perfectly groomed size zero supermodels filled the cubicles. Needle off the record. What??? I had to look twice. My eyes did not deceive me. Could your gender discrimination scream any louder? There is a pervading theme in real estate that women don’t belong in management positions. This is a hard thing to overcome, especially when I’m indoctrinated to working alongside the type of men who asked me if I would sit on their face during a conference call or threatened to rip my dress off in the hallway for not yielding to their path.

I worked for a builder who didn’t care what we wore to work. The CEO said, “We’re the suit and tie guys, we have to suck up to Wall Street. You guys are building houses. Go build. Wear what you want.” That is the right attitude. We were lucky they had the foresight to enact this rule because it was a lot safer for our construction guys to help the firemen when that house got struck by lightening and burned to the ground because they were in rubber soled shoes.

Lesson: Companies that spend too much time dictating what you can and can’t wear to work are too hung up on appearance and are probably hiding other inadequacies in their business. Tread lightly.

Working on the next part. I know you can’t wait.

Tomorrow I have two interviews and my time this evening would have been better invested doing some company research. But, no. Instead I glued myself to Project Runway, not for just the first showing, but the encore too. And then while it was showing the third time, I was on the phone conducting some armchair psychology for the man I’m so positively enamored with for some guy but I had one eye on the tellie anyway.

Anyway, I never do the TV recaps because I usually only watch Forensic Files and I don’t think any of you really care where a body was found and how one piece of lint traced the killer to a New Mexico Adult Education Ceramics teacher. But to me, that stuff is just fascinating. So, some Project Runway thoughts…

I think it is obvious that Rami and Jillian are going to have sex, if they haven’t already. When she had her breakdown at the sewing machine and said she was getting blood on everything (eau people from her finger!) he ran right over and put his arm around her. I would rather Rami put his arm around me, however, for two reasons. First of all, I’m a sure thing. Second, I have the same hair as Jillian but I know what a STYLING PRODUCT is. And I use them. Many of them. So that my hair doesn’t look like that. Come on Jillian. Get some Curls Rock and use it!!

Chris is so underrated as a designer. His prom dress should have won two weeks ago. They didn’t even discuss it, they just dismissed him off the runway as happily mediocre.

One of my dogs keeps farting and I don’t know which one it is but if I figure it out I’m going to throw the little asshole on the balcony. It’s times like this I wish I had a yard and not some common space with eight generations of rats living in it.

Sweet P cries too much and she’s just way too indecisive. She changes her mind every time the wind blows. The tears, jesus woman, get it together. Women shouldn’t cry at work. And if they do, they are viewed as weak and lose major points in both respect and potential for advancement so cut that shit out.

Heidi Klum has some sort of speech impediment and I think she skips over entire syllables when she’s talking. She definitely can’t say her r’s. Next, on Pwoject Wunway!

Nina Garcia. Oy. I feel like she’s a stand-in for Weekend at Bernies. She NEVER MOVES. She sits in that chair with her legs tightly crossed, holds her judging card in front of her face as if someone is going to cheat off of her like my friend Gina Jenovatti did off my SAT’s. Please, if I was going to cheat off someone in that room it wouldn’t be Nina Garcia. I’m not even sure it would be any of those judges. When Nina’s talking, she turns her head side to side, and does a lot of Rachael-Ray-ish hand gesturing, but she never moves in her seat. She’s permanently stuck in the chair. I wonder if she leaves when they wrap filming for the day. She looks like a bobble head with an eating disorder. Something about her screams “bulimic.” Last night she clearly only went to the “makeup” part of “hair and makeup” because no one took a brush to that mop. While I’m bashing her I would also like to point out that her clothing looks like it is 20 years too young for her and it came from Forever 21. And she’s a judge? Yikes.

So, I won’t ruin the rest in case you haven’t seen it, and the end was sort of unremarkable anyway even though I cheered at who got booted. My prediction for the final three is Rami, Jillian and Christian. While I hoped Chris would pull through to the end, he keeps punctuating two good products with one horrid and I don’t know if he’ll make it. Besides, there is obviously some weight discrimination going on. Leave it to Queen Kors, the Bulimic Wonder and Cindy Brady over there to not give him the credit he deserves.

Speaking of binging and purging, several people have told me that my little dog Sammy is looking very plump these days. Sausage, muffin top and liposuction are just some of the terms I’m hearing. I am not doing anything different, but he does have an eating disorder. He likes the binge, but he’s not so good at the purge. A friend just said, “Didn’t you notice he was getting fat?” I said, “No, but I did wake up the other night to the sounds of a really loud old man snore and I wondered who the fuck was in my house until I realized it was Sammy.” So after making Sixes and Sevens presentable for her work gala, that’s my other side project to work on. Get my dog on a diet.

The fun never stops here in Dupont.

I’m so over the whole debates / who will be our next great leader thing. They all suck. It’s no secret I love Giuliani, but oy, that wife. And for any of you who stupidly think Hillary Clinton doesn’t have her OWN personal agenda that she will enact if she wins, might I remind you of the very self-serving, Pardongate? Those two are out for themselves, and only themselves. Don’t forget it. And don’t come crying to me when you vote for her, and she wins (please no, please!) and then she switches our economy to Communism with all the money we make somehow funneling straight to her and her ugly man-suit collection.

Now, let’s do a little voting where you actually CAN make a difference.

I’ve been tasked with the mother of all tasks. Sixes and Sevens has a formal event to attend for work. While we all hope she can clean her act up enough to impress the people at this event, my part is to direct her in finding a dress for her size 6, lacks an ounce of fat, perfectly toned arms, pert little B-cups, perfect little “I never lift a finger to work out but miraculously I can hold a tractor up with one hand because someone used the jack to stir the sweet tea and change the flat with my other hand” frame. She wants black or deep merlot red and formal. Here are the options I’ve sent her so far. Because some of us are label whores, cough, me, cough, I’ll tell you the maker but not the price. I don’t want the money to sway anyone because let’s face it, money should not be the deciding factor when you have to find something tasteful and it’s not our money anyway. This is an important purchase – it is not easy to make Sixes and Sevens look serious and not the type of girl who would ever, oh, let a guy spooch on her face.

Notes are below each dress. Remember – perfect body. There is nothing she can’t wear. Yeah yeah, I hate her too. Now, please vote!

Dress 1; Nicole Miller. As of right now, they do not have Sixes & Seven’s size, but I’m hoping someone will return one perfect, unworn size 6 shortly to Bluefly.

Dress 2; Nicole Miller. They have a size 6.

Dress 3; Tadashi.

Dress 4; Elie Tahari. They also only have a size 8, but a 6 could be returned shortly allowing Sixes to snap it up.

Dress 5; A.B.S. Also available in black. Available in both sizes, both colors.

Dress 6; Tadashi. They don’t have a size 6, but they have a 4 and she might fit into that. Or someone could return a 6. People like me do that at Bluefly all the time.

Dress 7; Vera Wang.

Dress 8; A.B.S.

Dress 9; A.B.S.

Dress 10; JS Boutique. Yeah, I’ve never heard of them either.

Dress 11; Calvin Klein.

Dress 12: Tadashi. It’s brown. Still waiting for her to respond if she’ll accept brown in the lineup, so don’t get too attached to this one.

When I was about 5 or 6, I spent my Saturday mornings in one of two ways. The first Showcase Showdown involved our parents packing my brothers and I into the wood paneled wagon and driving us down to the Bowery in New York City. Same routine every week, wave the bum off at the Gaseteria in the Bronx by the Third Avenue Bridge, double park on Canal, and run wild in the streets while waiting for a parking spot. There was some reason we took our show on the road weekly and bi-weekly in some cases, but that was none of my concern. It was my self-appointed job to collect every business card of every jeweler in that warehouse, then to run around outside in the throngs of people absorbing soot into my lungs. Showcase Showdown number two involved staying home to destroy the house.

Often I would begin those delightful Saturdays at home by sleeping late. Then, when I got my wind (sometime around 10:30 or 11:00, much like today) I would get into a sleeping bag on my stomach and perch at the top of the stairs until one of my brothers pushed me down. This was a very delicate operation and we had to time it right because it would start a thumping on each stair resulting in a subsequent scream from my mother. “YOU’RE WEARING OUT THE CARPET YOU KIDS!!!”

After we met the wrath of Gloom and Doom (that’s Mom and Dad in case you forgot,) we would congregate on the houndstooth couch and watch American Bandstand. At 5, I was 13 years shy of the legal drinking age of 1978 and unable to access Studio 54, much to my dismay. Oh, believe me, I knew what it was and I knew it was going on, just down the street from my house. American Bandstand was my own little Studio 54 in my parent’s living room, just without the coke. Sadly. Also sadly, without the Halston – greatest fashion designer ever.

Well, here I am, 28 years later. Halston is dead. Steve Rubell is dead. Studio 54 is no mas. But, I found a way to reclaim my youth on Saturday nights at 2 a.m. and it doesn’t involve me having to leave my bed!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you…SOUL TRAIN! No, wait, The BEST of SOUL TRAIN airs on this channel, one I would never watch for its proximity to E! and Court TV is just so painfully far. On a good day, it’s still within 30 channels of the low-hovering A&E, where I might flip that low during the commercials of Intervention (a show that makes me cry every time) or Cold Case Files. But, I need a snack and a nap on the way from Court TV down to this channel.

But one night, after I realized I had seen the currently airing reruns of Real Housewives of Orange County and E! News and there were no more Forensic Files / Cold Case / Arrest & Trial / Dominick Dunne / Murder By the Book / The Investigators / The First 48 / Dark Heart Iron Hands to be watched, I flipped dangerously low in the numbers.

Anyway, I’m in love. I tried to find an interview Don Cornelius did with Cheryl Lynn before she lip synched this performance, but they cut out the best part. If you know me, I’ll do it for you in person as you are no doubt aware of my uncanny ability to impersonate virtually anyone within seconds. And if you don’t have the pleasure of knowing me, nor have you heard me repeat this exchange non-stop for the past week, I’ll recant it for you:

Don Cornelius: Look at you. You’re a whole lotta woman.
Cheryl Lynn: I know, that’s my problem.
Don Cornelius: Yerrrrr. Soooooooooooooo. Beauuuuuuuuuutiful.

Me, screaming at the tellie: WHY DON’T YOU JUST RIP HER DRESS OFF AND FUCK HER DON? HUH?

So this is the best addition to my life since, well, Thora and Sammy. No one ask me to leave the house on Saturday night ever again!

Anyway, more Soul Train Clips.

Why?

Because they ROCK!

One last one from the “Rimshots.” (Please, I’ve already done all the iterations in my disgusting little mind, no need to make your jokes.)