Essa Alroc's Blog, page 28

Friday’s Featured Blogger – H.E. Ellis

Subject: H.E. Ellis of the same name site H.E. Ellis

Location; Rural New Hampshire in wintertime

I peer out the window of the airport and all I can see is white. A cabbie takes my suitcase and comments on what a mild spring day it is. I am unable to respond as we step out the door; my lips have frozen to my teeth.  Four cab rides, a horse drawn carriage, a skidoo and a four mile snow shoe hike later, I collapse in a heap by a mailbox.  After a moment, a woman exits the small farmhouse and walks to the mailbox. She is wearing a tank top and jean shorts.

“Boy, that groundhog was right. Spring came early.” She pulls open the mailbox and rolls her eyes as she goes through a stack of letters. “More fucking hate mail for Jodi Picoult. I am not Jodi Picoult!” She finally notices me shivering in a heap on the ground. “Who are you?”

I come to a halting stand and reach out a trembling hand. “Mrgly flurgron di..” My lips are still frozen to my teeth. I try again. “I’m Essa and you must be H.E. Ellis. I’m here to interview you.” I look around. “Or I’ve died and hell is a frozen, barren wasteland.”

She shrugs. “It’s the only place the cops won’t find me. Let’s head into the house. This weather is terrible.

“Tell me about it. I…”

“I’m sweating my ass off out here.” She leads the way into the house, her flip flops slapping the ground. I follow her in as quickly as my frozen limbs will allow and pull out my tape recorder.

***

Of all places, why rural New Hampshire?

I survived a south Florida driveby. No really.

I spent most of my childhood moving from one shitty south Florida shantytown to the next. By the time I was fifteen I had gotten myself so deep into trouble that my mother sent me to live with my father in sunny, suburban, whitebread Connecticut. Talk about a culture shock. From there I followed a boy to rural New Hampshire and have been blissfully happy with my adopted hometown ever since. Seriously, there is no place on Earth like my little corner of New Hampshire. Well, maybe Nebraska…

How long have you been writing and how did you get started?

Three years ago I won a writing contest by submitting my suicide note. No really.

I am sure at some point on my blog I’ve spoken of how I got into writing by submitting a piece of flash fiction to a local contest that I ended up winning, but I doubt I included the dark place I was in when I wrote it. It is in essence my suicide note, although I didn’t realize it at the time. Enough people have asked me about how I got started writing that I have made a sub-page on my blog under ABOUT ME where I go into detail describing what actually led up to me becoming a writer.

You can find it here:

HOW IT ALL BEGAN http://heellisgoa.com/about/how-it-all-began/

Tell us about your website.

I like to think of my blog as a giant, empty warehouse where all the coolest people gather to throw the most awesome parties. Hardly anyone knows about it, and on it’s own it doesn’t have much to offer, but when uber bloggers drop in it’s instantly transformed into a virtual Studio 57. Truly, it’s my fellow bloggers who make it great.

Tell us about The Gods of Asphalt series.

The GOA series closely, I mean very closely parallels my life. I am surrounded by boys and men constantly, each with vastly differing personalities, and all of them volatile. As the only adult female my job became that of a living translator, attempting and often times failing at getting the males to understand each other. I began to wonder how men would get along without women to soften their world or give them comfort. From there I decided I would write a series about a family of men without wives or grandmothers or girlfriends. Each book would be written from the perspective of a different man struggling to find his place within the family and a need for love in his life.

In your Gods of Asphalt series, and the majority of your books, the characters are written from a male POV. Do you find it difficult to write a POV for a different gender and also, how do you do it?

I wish I could tell you that I have some amazing God-given talent that lets me adopt any manner of literary voice I wish but sadly, I cannot. I find it nearly impossible to write from the POV of a female for reasons I couldn’t begin to fathom. When I first started my blog I actually toyed with the idea of writing it as a man, but chickened out at the last second. Came close to pulling it off, though.

The Reapers with Issues series is a collaboration among you and a few other authors. How do you manage that? Tell us about your partners for this series as well as the inspiration for it.

When my friend S. Quinn Shaw was diagnosed with a terminal illness, my ex-husband Mikhail and I joined her at a Maine beach house owned by our mutual friend, Tom Elias. We spent that long fourth of July weekend lending her support and sharing her pain. Well somewhere between the lobster and beer we came up with a storyline that just cracked us all up. We imagined a typical family business with a patriarch who was soon to retire, a bevy of sons all clamoring for his job, the bastard son who comes out of nowhere, and the outside hires who are the only ones actually doing any work. From there we plugged in characters: God as the dad, the Archangels as his sons, Lucifer as the “black sheep” and Jesus as the bastard/favorite son. The Four Horsemen are the outsiders who try to do the best they can while the family business is in turmoil. The story practically wrote itself.

As far as a collaboration is concerned, we all contributed to the entire storyline, with me agreeing to write the first two novels and Tom Elias writing the remaining two. I guess the biggest secret about REAPERS is that we never set out to write it for real; we were all just amusing ourselves at a very dark time in our lives. But Quinn insisted that there was a story to be told, and so we did. I think she enjoyed having power over the “Reaper” and I know it made her more comfortable to demystify the afterlife. Thus, REAPERS WITH ISSUES, a title she came up with, was born. Quinn liked to joke that my name shares book cover billing with my ex-husband, my current love interest, and my dead best friend. That’s got to be some kind of record.

What song do you have in your music library that you would be ashamed to have anyone see?

Song? As in only one? Let’s see..I have more Rap music than I’d care to admit. Mostly what I have is music from my kids’ generation that I have to listen to in secret so they don’t think I am trying to be “cool.” For example, I know every word of EVERYWHERE I GO by Hollywood Undead and will belt it out every chance I get when I am alone. Google that shit at your own peril.

Favorite illicit substance?

True Absinthe. What can I say? I’m a closet Goth.

If you had to get rid of any state in the US, which one would it be and why?

MASSACHUSETTS. Anyone from New England knows why.

Pick two celebrities to be your parents. Same sex couples are encouraged.

Gordon Ramsay and Tim Gunn. They are the perfect Yin and Yang couple if you ask me. They both work in industries where perfection, sophistication and creativity are mandatory, yet each one brings out the best in their underlings in two completely different ways. I think I could be successful at anything I wanted to do in life with the two of them to guide me- one strong and driven, demanding only the highest of standards, one thoughtful and supportive who would encourage me to be the best I could be. Sigh…if only.

Of all the various positions in the Kama Sutra, which one do you believe is most likely to cause serious permanent injury and why?

I’ll be honest…I had to look up positions of the Kama Sutra and all I’ve got to say is that at 4’11″ the CATAPULT is right out.

Are you absolutely sure you’re not Jodi Picoult?

Hmm…let me think about this for a moment. I am not a New Hampshire woman who brags about what a great writer she is because she has the guts to write stories about a child who has cancer or a woman who has cancer or a woman who becomes a lawyer in order to defend a child who has cancer or a woman who dies of cancer while in childbirth…ad nauseam.

I am simply a writer who has donated all of the proceeds from her novels to a child who actually has cancer. If you’d like to help a brave young girl by contributing to a worthy cause greater than anything Ms. Picoult could ever write about, please visit www.wristsaroundtheworld.com

***

I’m putting away my tape recorder right now to write a somewhat squishy fan letter to H.E. Ellis. It’s not often that I find another ‘chick-with-balls’ writing on the web. By chick with balls, I mean someone who is willing to go no-holds-barred, not afraid to offend, no subject is forbidden…but still knows how to be funny. When it comes to hate mail, I have to say women who write like we do get the most. Why? Because we’re not acting like ‘ladies.’

I’m sure H.E. Ellis would totally agree with me when I say I’d rather be funny than be considered a lady. In fact, if you ask me, being a lady sounds boring as fuck. Rock on H.E. Ellis.

To anyone out there who likes the kind of humor that is displayed at Essa on Everything, I urge you to visit H.E. Ellis’ site. She’s like me, but if I grew up and got way better at grammar. If you want to check her out, head over to her site: H.E. Ellis

Wednesdays Featured Blogger – Athena, The Not-So-Standard Issue Spouse

Subject – Athena of Kaffeeklatsch with Athena and The Not-So-Standard Issue Spouse

 Location – A Military Base Somewhere in Turkey

I’m seated on a bench in a military base in Turkey. The heat is a little overwhelming and steam is covering the windows, but I’ll make do. I am above all things, a professional and I can handle an interview in almost any environment.

I watch the fit young airmen wander by, momentarily distracted by the spectacle Athena and I are making of ourselves. One particularly handsome lad is so distracted by our appearance that he crashes into a locker and his towel falls off.

“I get you wanting to do the interview on the base,” Athena states, “but are you sure that it’s ok to do the interview in the men’s showers?”

I shrug. At this point, they can kick us out, but they can’t take our memories. “According to my interviewing idol, the best way to do an interview is to immerse yourself in the culture.”

“Who’s the idol? Diane Sawyer? Robin Roberts?”

“Triumph, the Insult Dog.”

“I’ll buy it.” Athena snorts a line of fine Colombian coffee, as it has been 12 minutes since her last cup. She twitches a little and rubs her nose. “Let’s get the party started.”

I pull out my tape recorder and smile. God Bless America.

***

Tell us about your page.

Hi Essa!  Thanks so much for taking the time to interview me.  I am excited to divulge my crazy to your readers.

I started putting more effort into cooking when I married my husband and became a stay-at-home parent by necessity(That part’s almost over, I get to work at our next base! Wooo!!).  I had been a single mom prior to that.  When I was at home all the time, I began to go a little insane(er?), so I went through a series of preoccupations to pass the time, and they all failed miserably.  I was a vegan when I got married, then gave into the lure of dairy products, and then it snowballed into rejoining the ranks of avid meateater, although I do try to eat sustainably when I can.  When I was newly married, I had to find ways to feed both my meateater husband, and myself and my vegan kids without making two separate meals.  I consider myself to be proactively lazy, and no matter how much affection I hold for someone, I will not spoil them that much.  I began trying to recreate some of my favorite recipes in vegan form, and for the most part, had a lot of success with it.  Ever since then, my eating habits may have changed, but we are still trying to eat healthy, so I am constantly trying to substitute healthy stuff for bad ingredients that taste good to see if I hit the taste jackpot, so to speak.  I also realized that there was an infinite compendium of recipes out there on the interwebs, but not many people focused on teaching cooks how to be adaptable and roll with it when you shit hits the fan in the kitchen.  You will notice that many times I will note that what I did was not what I intended to do at the outset.  It’s all about pulling it off without a disaster, not so much about the process going smoothly.  Increasingly I realized that I could not find exactly what I wanted, so I thought that I would put it out there myself.   I also have way too much snark to fit into my daily interactions, so I have to let it out, somewhere.  Thus, Kaffeeklatsch with Athena was born.

Could you take Paula Dean in a fight?

I would own that bitch.  The secret is to use your enemy’s strength against them.  Full-body grease-down with butter, beforehand.  I am also marginally trained in MMA(no really!).

Tell us about living in Turkey. Has it been a culture shock?  

Yes, and no.  When I found out we were moving here, I had four months to prepare, so I learned as much Turkish as I could(Rosetta Stone is not worth your money, folks!), and I researched everything I could find about Turkey.  Learning the language and trying to be respectful by speaking Turkish to the locals gets you so much more respect from them.   Nothing can prepare you for finding out that you live in the agricultural armpit of an otherwise beautiful Mediterranean country.  The USAF is top notch at buying crappy real estate. Granted, there are parts of Adana that are great, but not right off base.  The way they do property taxes here, if your building is still under construction, you don’t have to pay on it, so all of the houses in residential areas and small businesses look like unfinished concrete boxes outside, but the insides are pristine.  Turkish people are a crazy mix of supremely lazy and industrious, both in ways that make absolutely no sense to me.  There are a lot of things I miss about America that I never thought would be an issue, as I tend to think more globally than a lot of people I know.  I miss restaurants with infinite choices.  Most restaurants here have roughly the same menu as all others.  Some don’t have a menu, they just ask you, chicken, beef, or lamb?  Overall, I am still glad we came.

You are also a military wife, so you frequently move to new places. What do you like about that and what do you hate?

It’s funny, because I actually moved more often before I married the Air Force than before.  I love moving constantly and seeing new places.  It suits my ADHD perfectly.  I was terrified at first, of the prospect of being in the same house for two whole years.  Our next assignment is at least four years, and while I view it with a little less trepidation, I am still wondering how I am going to pull it off, mentally.  The thing I hate is the military being responsible for planning and executing much of our move.   They are about as good at that as they are at picking out property….

You have a choice between giving up coffee for the rest of your life or losing an arm. What do you choose?

You know, I never really liked my right arm that much.  I have a trick wrist that gets in the way of pushups.  Also, I can type with the same hand I hold my coffee, so I see no real conflict.

Pick the two celebrities that you think would make the ugliest baby together. Same sex couples encouraged.

Hmmm…. I am gonna go with Donald Trump and Bill O’Reilly.  I could just see it telling people to “Shut up!” and “You’re fired”.  Poor kid.  Never had a chance.

Do you have a food that you like to make, but won’t eat?

Oh, yeah! I despise mushrooms with a passion normally only set aside for flying spiders, but I love making Gouda and Couscous Stuffed Portobellos.  They look so fancy, and they smell deceptively delicious.

Weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten.

It’s a toss-up between grilled rattlesnake(Texas), and dog biscuits.  They were peanut butter flavored.  I can’t be held accountable.

Name the one crime you would commit if you knew you’d get away with it.

Public nudity.  DOWN WITH PANTS!

Emeril Lagasse or Gordon Ramsey?

I have to go with Emeril on this one.  1) BAM!  2) I give Gordon props for standing up to asshole restaurant owners and telling them what douchebags they are being, but I dislike how unnecessarily cruel he is to the kitchen staff in Hell’s Kitchen,  3)  You can’t go wrong with a jovial Bostonian and Cajunesque  food.  You just can’t.

***

If you would like to keep up with Athena, you can check out her safe for general audiences blog at Kaffeeklatsch with Athena or the racier more adult version, The Not-So-Standard-Issue Spouse.

Nope…Not a Sport

It’s an argument I hear people having occasionally, usually after a few too many in a sports bar.

Don’t ask me why I was in a sports bar. I have no idea. I was probably lost…or buying weed.

Anyway, it’s an argument I hear a lot. Someone will mention a certain sport, and then someone else will argue that it’s not a sport. Darts, car racing, bowling, they all get pulled up time and time again. Well, based on my extensive sporting experience of falling asleep with Sports Center on once, I’m ready to present a comprehensive list of things that are definitely not sports.

 

Essa’s List of Things That Are Not Sports

Competitive Bearding – This was the thing that set me off. I heard someone refer to competitive bearding as a sport. First off, why was I not informed that the ability to grow hair is a competitive talent? How does that even work? Do a bunch of guys stand on a stage while judges surround them, holding proton microscopes, watching to see who can shove out a new follicle faster? Also, how would I go about entering my vagina in such a race, because I have a serious winner going on down there.

Darts/Pool/Poker/Bowling – While cool, none of these qualifies as a sport. Why? Because morbidly obese people can play too. If a person over 300 pounds can play it without both of their ankles snapping like twigs, then it does not qualify as a sport. In addition, if you can play it shitfaced, and actually play it better, its not a sport. It’s in the official sports rule book. Trust me, I looked it up.

Car Racing – Be it stock cars or those tiny little cars Shriners drive, it is not a sport. This one really gets people’s goats. “But their bodies are under so much pressure while they’re driving. They sweat and it takes a lot of physical exertion.” Fine, then answer me this. Why aren’t astronauts considered athletes? Their bodies are under way more pressure because they’re traveling about 50 times faster than the average NASCAR driver. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. never broke 5000 MPH, right?  I don’t see any competitive shuttle launching leagues, do you?  Non-passively reacting to pressure does not qualify as an athletic activity. If it did, then my vagina would be on a Wheaties box. (Last vagina joke of the night…maybe)

 

My mom is so proud.

Golfing – For the majority of this alleged sport, you’re driving around in a little car. Now what did I say about cars being involved? Also, it’s another one of those games that you can play shitfaced. Out on two grounds. That’s right, not a sport.

 

In general, a sport requires a kicking, throwing or catching of some type of round object. If a horse or a car is doing the work for you, it’s not a sport. If you can be more than 65% body fat and still play, also not a sport. Finally, if you can play it drunk and still do ok, not a sport. My favorite drunk activity of all the non-sports is car racing.

I hope I set out to accomplish my goal tonight. I wanted to give a little clarity. I wanted to help a few people settle some age old arguments. I wanted to make the world a better place.

But mostly, I wanted a reason to put my vagina on a Wheaties box.

 

Some Kinda Boring Updates

Hey everyone, no specific subject today. Just a couple of updates on what is going on.

Thanks to a huge amount of interest in the Featured Blogger spots, I’ve decided to do it 2 times per week. If you have not received your questionnaire yet, do not panic. I am custom writing them for each blogger so no one gets the same set of questions. I’m trying to write these things around a theme so they entertain and give enough details on the blogger’s site to get people interested. I have everyone who responded down and many of the questionnaires have already gone out. If you haven’t received yours yet, it’s coming soon.

From now on, I will be posting Featured Blogger articles on Wednesdays and Fridays. Wednesdays will be for bloggers with a smaller following, because this is the highest internet traffic day for my site. Fridays are also a high traffic day and I will be putting my more established bloggers on these days. Generally, if you have under 500 followers, I will try to post you on a Wednesday. If you have more than 500, Fridays are all you. Again, I said I would try, but I make no guarantee.

If you have not submitted for the feature blogger article, please feel free to contact me via the comments or my contact form. Again, submissions will stay open indefinitely and I am interested in a whole range of subjects. Even G-rated bloggers are welcome. Just because I can’t write G-rated doesn’t mean I discriminate.

Of course, I can only pray that this post doesn’t get Freshly Pressed, otherwise I’ll be writing these things until my fingers bleed. WordPress.com admin, if you’re reading this and think it would be funny to Freshly Press this, I will stab myself in the eye if you do. My suicide will be on your hands.

I would also like to send out a congrats-times-2 to one of my followers, Joe Smith. Congrats #1 for being my first featured blogger and giving a kick ass interview. He knows the reason for Congrats #2. Well done Joe!

I Am Going to Die Alone – The Annual Forage Into Online Dating

Every year, come Spring, all my friends start online dating. They take their prettiest pictures, set up their accounts and hit the internet to find love. They always seem to have better luck than me. I think its because they’re older and they don’t have as many 25 year old idiots sending them messages. Twenty-five year olds seem to think that a message includes a one word text and a picture of them taking a picture of themselves in their bathroom mirrors. So, it’s probably the age range my friends are looking in that makes them so lucky.

That, and they’re also not bitches like me.

Online dating can be kind of difficult for a judgmental bitch like myself because when some idiot sends me a generic spam message, I respond in the following manner

.

When that same spammer gets pissed because I called him on it and starts with the standard “your not that hot/sour grapes bullshit”, I respond like this.

 

So meanwhile, when my friends are saying things like “oh, yeah, I’m going out this weekend with that doctor I met online,” I say, “I’m going to stay home and wish cancer on every guy who even attempts to contact me.”

If you can believe it, the guy that I wrote that email to asked me out less than five minutes later. Guess some dudes like getting slapped around. I said no. I love slapping dudes around, but I prefer it when they can slap back. Otherwise there’s no challenge.

Anyway, I lasted a whopping two weeks this year. I think I’m going to go back to the way I usually handle meeting new people…by handing my business card out in bulk at bars.

Friday’s Featured Blogger – Joe Smith (No, Really)

Subject: Joe Smith of Hey!Joe Online and The World of James Clayton

Location: A Warehouse Somewhere in South Philly

I’m sticking out like a sore thumb and a man with a neck tattoo just tried to sell me meth. I light another cigarette and pull my hood further over my head, hoping to pass as ethnic enough to be ignored in this part of town. It’s working.

The meth is helping.

Finally, a grey sedan pulls up; the headlights have been killed already. A man gets out of the drivers seat wearing a tan overcoat. He’s wearing sunglasses during the night time and the only way I can possibly describe him is ‘nondescript’. He walks around to the back of the car in silence and pops the trunk.

“You must be Joe Smith.”

He refuses to respond, just gestures to the trunk.

I get the message. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer to ride in the passenger seat? It’s much more conductive to an interviewing environment.”

He lets out a frustrated sigh. “Fine, but you have to wear the passenger seat head sack.” He pulls a burlap sack out of the trunk and tosses it at me.

I send a quick text to my mom to call the cops if I don’t call her in an hour. Then, I get into the passenger seat and pull out my tape recorder.

***

How often do you get accused of being a Nigerian scam artist?

Way more often than you would believe! Joe Smith wasn’t exactly a fucking stretch of my mother’s mental ability. In fact, I’ve asked why she would name me so badly. It’s such a boring ass name. She said we were white trash when I was little.( I guess you outgrow it, or something? I’m not sure I agree.)  She said that I was named after Joey Perrini, and Matt Cory played by Ray Liotta and Daniel Dale respectively on the shitty day time soap “Another World”.

Are you a Nigerian scam artist?

I actually am. It helps pay the bills when I’m out of talent for my donkey show.

Being the youngest of six, how frequently did you get your ass kicked?

No where near enough. To quote My Cousin Vinny – ” I’ve gotta be honest, I could use a good ass-kicking.”  I was way younger than my brothers and sisters, so they were pretty much out of the house when I was growing up.

 What’s your most emotionally scarring childhood memory?

This one’s easy. Note the white trash thing above. When my sister was 18 or 19, she’d gotten pregnant by her married boyfriend. Not married to her, but married. Anyway, she had her own apartment, and I went to spend the weekend with her. I was 5 or 6 at the time. We decided to have a movie night, and when we went to rent the videos, I was being a little shit about wanting her to rent a scary movie. To shut me up, we rented “Salem’s Lot” and “Silver Bullet”. Both by Stephen King, both guaranteed to keep a five year old afraid of the fucking dark for the next 5 years.

Essa: Do you think that’s what causes your rage filled killing sprees?

I don’t think it’s what causes them, but Stephen King has a way of making them seem a bit more “normal”. In some cases, even ideal.

Essa: Tell me about your blogs.

I have two. My primary blog is Hey! Joe Online. It’s basically me bitching about things in the world that make me want to go Jack-the-Ripper on some people. I started it as this sane, reasonable Mr. Rogers “you’re okay, I’m okay” kind of thing, but at some point, I was like fuck it. Life’s too short not to be explicit about how you really feel.

The second is the World of James Clayton.  It’s basically a few of the short stories that will be included in my book of short stories that I hope to publish by spring. I’ll be changing the format soon to be a book review blog, but if your readers want to see what I’m writing, it’ll be up for a few more months. I write under the name James Clayton because nobody wants to read a fucking book by Joe Smith. I am Joe Smith, and the idea of reading one of Joe Smith’s books makes my imaginary narcolepsy kick in.

What writing projects are you working on now? What are you hoping to accomplish in 2013?

The book I mentioned above which will be titled “Mother Anna and Other Bedtime Stories”. It’s basically just a book of my short shorts as I call them. Each story is only around 2500 to 3000 words, so they can be read in one sitting. The other book is a novelette called “The Cinder Plant” which is about a haunted waste-water management facility in the town of Cinder, West Virginia. I hope to have both books published to Kindle by the end of the year. The stories are all complete for “Mother Anna”, with the exception of one, and I’m about halfway finished with the novelette.

Fuck, marry or kill…any one of the four Golden Girls. You must use at least three.

This one is easy too! Let’s start with fucking. I always enjoy starting that way. Blanche Devereaux played by Rue McClanahan was always the most attractive to me. She always had a sophistication the others lacked. I always liked her character. She was the one I could always see being into some weird sex shit. I’d hook her up. Marry; another no-brainer for me. Who wouldn’t want to marry Betty White? C’mon! Kill: I’ll give you a two-for-one on this one. I’d murder both of the other two using each others intestines. I hate both of those two. Bea Arthur got on my nerves in every episode. Have you ever seen a more miserable bitch in your life? Also, why was it that every episode that centered on her personal life was some sort of calamity? Fuck her. Then Estelle Getty…don’t even get me started. On second thought, do. She reminds me of what Judge Judy is going to be in thirty years; a hateful bitch that needs to be a victim of random violence.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever put in your anus?

True story. A man’s finger, followed by a woman’s finger, followed by a camera and about thirty feet of airline. Easily the most uncomfortable I’ve been since Carrot Top’s mom was hitting on me. Literally. She was hitting me for taking her chair at a charity event.

Which one of the 50 states would you get rid of and why?

Joe Smith: Alaska. Why? Cause fuck Alaska. What did they ever do to help the US? How many of their boys died in the American revolution? Zero. The civil war? Zero. Desert Storm? Zero. There’s nobody there but Sarah Palin and her family. That whole jagoff family can go with Alaska to the highest bidder.

***

Suddenly, Joe Smith slams on the brakes. We are in the middle of nowhere and he has decided the interview is over.

“Get out.”

I’m not going to argue. I’m just glad to be alive. I take the bag off my head and step out into the darkness. Joe Smith doesn’t look at me as I get out. Instead, he’s focused on the road, cracking his knuckles and muttering about Alaska. He peels off into the night and I watch him disappear.

You can check out Joe Smith at Hey!Joe Online or The World of James Clayton.

Wow, That’s A lot of Penises

Every spring, I have a tradition. I reopen my Plenty of Fish account. I know my own personal spring festival is in full swing as soon as my inbox fills up with penises. It usually takes about 15 minutes.

One thing I love to do on the site is go to the forums and listen to all the dudes bitch about how girls never message them back. They love to talk about how they’re ‘a nice average guy’ but girls won’t talk to them because they all have ridiculous standards.

Eyeroll.

You’re right men. We all have impossible standards of wanting a decent looking guy, who is non-psychotic and has a checking account. What a bunch of snobby bitches we are!

Personally, I’m the kind of person who believes that you should have your shit relatively in order before you invite someone else into your life. Am I saying that you need to be a millionaire with a Mercedes? Nope. But you should have viable employment and not be living in your mom’s basement.

Simply stated, if your life is a train wreck, stop expecting chicks to want to jump on board. If I was on welfare, with six kids, living in subsidized housing, would you be so quick to message me? I didn’t think so.  Stop contacting supermodels when you’re far from one yourself and getting pissed off that no one responds. I said it before and I’ll say it again; you are not going to be successful if you try to hook up with someone much more attractive than you.  Stick to 1 to 2 levels above your own attractiveness.

As for the idiots that complain that they always have to make the first move, how do I put this politely? Welcome to the shit end of the stick. For centuries, women have been taught that approaching a man first is forward. By being the hunter in the relationship, a woman was taught she’d come off as masculine or even worse, easy. For a woman, being easy is just about the worst thing in the world. Easy women are dirty sluts. Easy men are fucking studs. Until I can fuck as many people as I want and be viewed as the pimp that I am, instead of a slut, you’re going to need to get over your fear of saying ‘hi’ first.

Also, as soon as you indicate that you’re afraid of making the first move; my vagina actually seals itself shut. It’s such a fucking pussy thing to be afraid of. You want to be treated like a man, act like one and not a 14 year old boy. I don’t fuck 14 year old boys. I’m a pretty blonde in my 30’s. Statistics indicate that the only way that I would be interested in 14 year old boys is if I was teaching one of their high school classes. So until I’m quoting you Chaucer as I slip my hand in your school uniform pocket, I’m going to need you all to man up.

Am I saying the girls are angels? No, but we do seem to take it a bit more seriously. We pick out good pictures. We think about what we’re writing in our profiles (mine is a two paragraph request to not be serial killed). We don’t put up an anonymous picture-less account, with the user name AssFister69, and one line of text that says ‘I hate filling these things out. If you want to know anything, message me.”

No joke, that profile exists way more than it should.

It’s a matter of statistics. The fact is, men outnumber women when it comes to online dating. They can’t put as little effort forward as they do in real life and get away with it. There is a reason that doesn’t work. Instead of bitching in the forums, most of these guys would be better served working on their profiles or closing their account until they become a person that a woman would want to be with.

Looking for Featured Bloggers

Happy Friday everyone. I came up with an idea for weekly postings that I want to get feedback on. Recently, I collaborated with another site for an award and it was pretty fun. It also allowed us to find new followers who might be interested in our sites because of cross promotion.

Seriously, business school was so worth the $50k. I learned about cross promotion and how to work a beer bong.

Anyway, this is something I’d like to do here. I have a lot of regular commenters and a lot of awesome blogs that I follow. Once a week, I would like to feature one of these bloggers on my site. For each featured blogger, I would do an interview (filled with profanity and many ridiculous, inappropriate questions) and links to the bloggers page.  If you are an author and blogger, I would be willing to add links to your Amazon page or other sites for your books.

What’s in it for me? Nothing more than the enjoyment of asking people I’ve never met in person invasive, personal questions. We had to know that would be a huge draw for me.

If you think you might be interested, feel free to comment below or send me a message by my contact form.

Essa Alroc – Undisputed (and slightly unethical) Winner of the BLAHS

I am just doing a short post today to thank Mark Sackler for awarding me with the BLAHS. I’ve gotten many awards since I started this site in May 2012, but none have been so interesting as taking part in the BLAHS.

Ballot stuffing, political corruption, clandestine meetings between nefarious parties and nail biting competition. That was what the 3rrd annual BLAHS had in store. The competition didn’t prove so much who was more popular. Instead, it proved who had the fastest internet speed.

I would like to thank as couple of people for my win. The first is Mr. Sackler himself, as from my understanding, he spent several hours repeatedly voting for me. As promised, your dog will be returned to you unharmed (minus the ear I had to remove and send to you to prove I was serious).

I would also like to thank one of my oldest friends, Rhea, who reported voting for me a startling 33 times. However, this wasn’t out of loyalty. It was out of an OCD related disorder that requires she do everything 33 times. It takes her forever to leave her house.

To everyone else who voted for me one time, way to phone it in people.

To the two other bloggers in the competition, Clotilda Jamcracker and Dreamshadow59 , it was an honor to compete against two great bloggers whose followers are probably more ethical than mine.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to head over to the gas station wearing the winners scarf and tiara I made for myself.

The Best Parents Are the Ones with Imaginary Children

Apparently, the internet is filled with perfect parents. Why do I say this? Well, every morning, I check the news sites. In my time online, I read a story or two, and then I go to the comments to see what the crazies of the world think.

Any time the story is about a child, some judgmental asshole has to step in and talk about how it’s all the parent’s fault, and how something like this wouldn’t have happened to them. They do it for 2 reasons. Sometimes, they’re judgmental assholes who don’t even have children. Most of the time, they’re doing a little something called ‘whistling in the dark.’

When something bad happens to a kid, it makes everyone feel helpless. Some of these people choose to deny being helpless because ‘it could never happen to them.’ They need someone to blame. They need to know that what happened was preventable. To make this clear, I’m not talking about stories where a crack head burns their house down and kills their kids. I’m not talking about the woman who hid meth in her baby’s diaper.  I’m talking about the momentary flake outs, or the real ‘could have happened to anyone not in the drug mule trade’ moments.

I had one. Let me tell you about it.

When my son was a baby, I forgot him in my car. At the time, I was living in Maine working at a small accounting firm. My son’s daycare was in one part of town, my office was in another. Every morning, I would drop him off, and then drive to work. One morning, I pulled into the parking lot of the office and parked my car. As I was patting myself on the back for making great time on the drive, I looked in the back seat. There was my son’s 9 month old face peeking out at me from his car seat. I’d completely forgotten to drop him off at daycare.

Guess what, I’m still not a terrible parent. I’m not a crack head. I didn’t leave him in the car while I went to a bar. I flaked out and forgot about him. Luckily, I realized it before I went inside. Some parents don’t and the results are tragic…and everyone in the world is ready to light their torches and grab their pitchforks.

The only guarantee about being a parent is the guarantee that you are going to make mistakes. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care how good you’re doing. If you haven’t done it already, eventually you will do something to your kids that will fuck them up for life. They will always have some kind of lifelong issue that they blame you for. They will try to over-compensate for it, and in turn, will fuck up their kids. It’s the circle of life. Deal with it.

So for all of you out there who have ever felt judged by some perfect internet parent with imaginary children, I want to suggest something. The next time some judgmental helicopter parent makes you feel like you’re fucking everything up, I want you to go to your window, or to your den, where your kid has been playing x-box for 12 hours straight. Give them a good once over and after assessing their appearance, ask yourself 2 questions. Is your child 1) dead? Or 2) beating a puppy to death with a hammer? If the answer to both questions is ‘no’, give yourself a pat on the back.

Because in my book, you’re doing just fine.

Welcome to Essa Alroc’s amnesty day. I invite you to tell the story of your biggest parenting fuck-up in the comments below. It doesn’t even have to be about your kids. It can be about something you did to your sister’s kids or the kids you baby-sat as a teenager. The point is to share it, because you’re not alone and no one is expected to be perfect.

Except for internet crazies with imaginary children.