Gradually Going Suicidal?

I am contemplating a Monroe.

I would like someone else to make this decision for me; I thought this dress was a good idea, but SMF shut it down.

Plus, I am concerned with accidentally sliding into Suicide Girl territory, or looking like one of my students (i.e. freshly released from the joint).

Ask a Wage Slave, Volume 1.

Q: I've wound up at [P.F. Chang's] nearby twice in the past two weeks despite that fact that I don't actually like them. I'm just yet to find any other Chinese place in this neighborhood that doesn't suck. As our fabulously gay waiter so patiently explained the special sauce, I began to wonder what percentage of people use the sauce, and what percentage are like me, the type who nods with a feigned interest while listening to the thorough explanation despite the fact that all I really want is just the regular sauce for my potstickers and a dash of soy on my sesame chicken. Am I an evil person for doing so? If so, how do I restore my karma from the excessive number of times I've done that? -- Kirk

A: You make a good choice in not eating the Chang's special sauce. It's not very clean, really. I won't say it's "guaranteed" to hurt you, but I would prefer to ingest food that wasn't handled by at least three different people in the same day. I'm just finicky like that. Your waiter definitely appreciates you not touching it, because it saves him the time of assembling a new tray every time a new table comes in.

Every time you deliver one, you're supposed to make sure the bottles are full to the brim, and it takes about a minute and a half to wait for the hot mustard to slide down the spout of the pitchers before making contact with the air and singeing your nostril hair. So, half your tables are pissed off by the time you show up to bring them the sauce they might not even use because you necessarily fail to appear before them instantly. If your server could somehow carry the same tray of untouched sauce to every table, he could easily conserve a full hour. When I was at the Chang, servers would leave notes on their "Trios" threatening bodily harm to anyone who thought of stealing one of these unused timesucks for their own tables.

Most people can agree that the Trio is a waste of space in a restaurant that already uses three times the required number of dishes, just because. I have found that only a very particular demographic gets upset about the absence of the sauce. And they are not afraid to make a scene. Let's call them the Henry VIIIs.

H8s are really classy, and require a certain kind of patience; they're used to slathering their foods luxuriously with various condiments (i.e. Cool Ranch Doritos + any sort of dip), and loudly demand to be treated with RESPECT because they are AWESOME.

A nice beach scene airbrushed onto a fingernail, a Nine Inch Nails tattoo, and/or a money clip are all good indicators that you are in the presence of 100% class and, possibly, a H8 table -- in which case, a Trio is a required act of deference. I tried to be understanding of the fact that the H8s had places to be and babysitters to pay, so I would do my best to rush those tables along so they could get home to their Mountain Dew and Philly blunts.

A Celebration of Crazy Mothers.

In celebration of Mother's day, and inspired by yet another accidental viewing of Bravo's The Millionaire Matchmaker, I've composed a Top 10 list of my all-time favorite crazy mothers. Another way of looking at this might be Top 10 Women I Love That Dudes Hate, or Top 10 Women Not to Bring Home to Mom on Mother's Day, or Introduce to Your Sister's Husband.

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1. Tie: Angelina Jolie / Gisele Bundchen. For pilfering the seemingly-unpilferable in the most public ways imaginable. I have to admit -- I respect this, and I plan to do it one day, for the only reason anyone has ever been The Other Woman: just because I can.

"Can I borrow this?"

2. Marie Antoinette. For pre-millenial achievements in self-involvement.

"I have seen all, I have heard all, I have forgotten all."

3. Lizzie Grubman. Because she drunkenly ran her SUV into a crowd of pedestrian untouchables, and just kept driving.

"If I have a good time, it's not a good sign."

4. Lisa Lopes. For actually doing what we were all thinking.

"What now, Andre?"

5. Courtney Love. Still crazy after all these years.

"I used to do drugs, but don't tell anyone or it will ruin my image."

6. Olivia Palermo. For outstanding achievements in cuntyness within the confines of the extremely short first season of The City.

"I may be a young girl, but behind every young girl is a powerful father."

7. Patti Stanger. Blunt honesty and blunt-cut bangs.

"Can I give you a make-over?"

8. Karl Lagerfeld. The bitchiest being without ovaries.

"Yesterday [after the Chanel couture show], I had a problem. I said, 'I'm sorry, you’ve got to tell this woman that she needs to be taken away. Her smell is not possible.'"

9. Taylor Royce. MVP of character development, Vh1's Tough Love.

"OH. EM. GEE."

10. Janice Dickinson. For taking a lighting crew to the DMV, among countless other reasons.

"I want to be the best-looking corpse there is."

They're Playing Our Song.

I can't get through this whole song -- maybe Cam'Ron is mad at me at the end -- but this does sort of remind me of a closeted gay friend I had in high school, who used 'cookies' as a euphemism for the opposite anatomical feature described herein.

Cheers, Mike (you're out now, right?).



I'm afraid I don't possess the capacity for irony required to really pursue this joke, given the new gay association ("'round the corner, fudge is made").

Maybe this could be our song, instead.

Pocky is the new Yorkie.

Social Networking Makes Me Listen to Lesley Gore.

Ever since I changed my relationship status and added my birth year on my Facebook page, I've been seeing nothing but ads for condos, wedding dresses, and in vitro fertilization.

You don't own me, Facebook.

Charm City Actually Occasionally Charming.

Case in point: the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race.

These kids are blissfully unconcerned with being shot, run over by a kinetic sculpture, or catching Toxoplasmosis from this portion of the obstacle course.

All Hipsters go to Heaven.

(Except for this one.)

"Weather, weather, weather."

This guy had the right idea.

Baltimore's Harajuku moment.

A tribute to both Tchaikovsky and inadequate pest control.

That's a pun, you see.

Cool kids wear helmets.

North Carolina probably wants to claim credit for this, too.

Timely.

Grizzly Man in 3 ... 2 ...

The recession has been good for the tulle industry.

But those skirts are made of shopping bags.

Grilling + racing.