potential band names, part one:

i keep a collection of these in my head, but have for some reason forgotten all but three. if you can think of any of the many i've left out, please fill me in.

1) underground squirrel circus
2) what eats the rooster
3) critical mass and the monkeys

How to get an erection

For some reason, our OM10 (Oriental Medicine 10--the final theory class ever in our four-year program) thought we needed this diagram in our packet tonight, while we were studying etiology and treatment for the complaint of low libido:



So again: last theory class ever, last night of class of the semester, last year of a four-year healthcare program--and we FINALLY get to learn how male erection works! Because we never understood it before! Finally, we are enabled to have sexual relations, understand where babies come from, benefit corporeally from all the talk about vasodilation we've endured for the past four years! Can you imagine how thrilled all two men in the class were?

D helpfully drew arrows and fireworks all over his erection diagram, I guess to indicate his general excitement about this newfound knowledge (that they hoarded from us till the last day of school--so that we'd stick around, I bet). I forwarded my cell phone image of it to Jam Guy, because I figure anyone dating someone through all the throes of acupuncture school deserves to get the best of the insider information.

Too bad that I don't have any more OM classes. I'd like a diagram of the female erection. No one ever seems to discuss that. What gives?

Some thoughts, after going out clubbing

Gentlemen,

Here is a list of techniques that will not help you to attract women while out dancing:

1. Saying "Are you having a good time? Well, I'm not."

2. When the woman tells you she is in a relationship, picking up her left hand, pointing out that there is no ring on it and thereupon deeming her relationship pointless, and then leaning soddenly on her and telling her that if her boyfriend leaves her, you'll be there if she wants to call you. "I have a boyfriend," should not be interpreted as a challenge. Seriously. Invalidating someone's relationship also makes you remarkably unlikable remarkably quickly.

3. Literally wearing sunglasses at night.

4. If you ask a woman's name, and she tells you, and then she starts to introduce her nearby friends to you, interrupting her with "I didn't ask for your friends' names. I asked for your name." Nope, not cute. (Think about it: maybe she is not single or interested, but the several lovely women dancing with her are, or could be. You just shot yourself down, kid.)

5. Touching her butt, especially with your groin, in lieu of speech-oriented introduction. Even if she is already dancing, this is not a good way to ask her to dance with you. The fact that women do not like this type of greeting does not mean we are sexually repressed; it simply means we are not bonobo chimpanzees.

6. Tugging on her hair to get her attention. That's just weird.

And another thing: has anyone else noticed that for some reason, a nightclub is the only environment in our society where it is acceptable for a man to place his hands on a woman's hips in order to indicate that he needs to pass by her or is passing her? Or her waist? Instead of just saying "excuse me," or tapping her in a non-erogenous zone. In any other locale, the shoulder is where the "excuse me" contact is made. It's like women suddenly don't have shoulders because we've stepped into a club.

There are a lot of nice men out there who are totally respectful and polite--I often say things like "Thank you--I just really want to dance with my friends tonight," and that mostly gets across without any hard feelings in either direction. And I'm totally, and very happily, off the market anyways. I just feel the need to make the points, not so much for me (although if a stranger never pulls my hair in a club again, that will be a-ok) but for, I don't know, gender relations in general.

Three poems

1.

my mother used to spread her hands, just so,

and frown at me. and back then, i didn't know

that love is knit from doubt, but tangible as cloth,

but cloth so thin you could feel a collarbone through it

taking the shape of the girl beneath it

and the girl beneath it taking the texture of love.

but i didn't know

frowned down on under draping doubt

that it was why i wasn't cold.

i know it now that i'm without.

2.

it's only nights like this, i think

when my head pounds and your head stares

back at me from the bathroom sink--

it's not like me to even care.

i threw up all the whiskey sours.

i never liked those girly drinks.

it's not like me to long for our

long long-lost longshot dreams of girls

in butterfly gowns at baby showers--

oh, mama, here we are again.

i still don't know when this part ends.

3.

i saw you smiling at your mirror

months after you'd left for good.

that radiance you'd always had

not lost, not even slightly dimmed.

i saw you turn and see me there;

you were so real i think i shook.

you didn't have to say a word.

you smiled, i gaped. you always were

so much more poised than i could be.

i was a teenaged tangled thing

i dreamed i'd steal your diamond ring

to make you cry.

i only think i might know why.

i faked my way through rooms while you

would light them from the doorway;

i learned by watching you for clues.

i tried to do things your way.

you broke my heart a thousand times.

i bet i broke yours more.

i wrote long, vapid, pithy rhymes

and tacked them to your door.

and--i didn't see you off quite right,

as though these were not wrongs enough.

but as i looked to you that night

you smiled at me with so much love.

you smiled with only joy and love.

My boyfriend.

This Jam Guy. He sends me presents in the mail: home-made cookies, and walnuts he's picked himself. He buys me tickets to fly to his house and then he rubs my feet, serves me elaborate home-cooked meals, feeds me figs and gorgonzola and makes me feel beautiful for three-and-a-half days straight. Then when I get home I call him and cry about how hard my life is, and he still loves me.

Yet another way to get your rice and beans

I made these cupcakes for my CHIM (Chinese Herbs and Internal Medicine) class last Thursday night. (Azuki beans, or chi xiao dou, are used medicinally in Chinese herbal formulas.) The only thing I changed was sprinkling the tops with black sesame seeds (hei zhi ma, also a medicinal herb!) instead of poppy seeds. They were super-easy, and so delicious--got lots of requests for the recipe following our presentation.

I have some damn good friends.

So I decided to play an April Fool's joke on the unsuspecting Jenjen, who has what sounds like a nasty virus. (I tried to play this joke on D first, but I chickened out because I'm usually a really bad liar.) I called her and told her that Jam Guy and I were going to get married this weekend in Vegas, and I would like her to come, but I would understand if she couldn't. (In the background, from Raquel: "Her dad is going to kill her!")

I stopped the joke right before Jenjen actually booked a flight to come to my made-up wedding in Vegas. Point is, she was going to come! Even though I knew she wouldn't necessarily agree with my eloping, even though it would have been less than a week away, even though she heard all this news through the flu, she was ready to come stand up with me. How awesome is that?