Ray of Light wrote:


The obfuscation and glamor I provide as a public service. Evidence, hon, that's my stock in trade.

[ Names have been changed. All conversations live and recollected.]

Pam is a big-titted artist who likes people to think she's dumb, for about five seconds. Home is filled with freakish and compelling art. Good at eye contact. She likes to say I have addictions; I say, "only to being awesome, baby".

Me: what do you think of beef jerky?
Pam: ...
Me: dried strips of beef. See, it looks kind of like kelp. [I offer her some]
Pam: it smells like dog food.
Me: just try a piece. It's like cookies, but made of meat.
Pam: [takes a stamp-sized piece, chews twice, spits it out] how can you eat that shit?


Sam is a chunky brunette with a psych degree that I think she should ask for a refund on. Likes the books from candle stores, with one line of text per page. Hockey hair makes her look like a man, from the right angle.

Me: jer-
Sam: my dad likes that stuff. Get it away.


Kay is a redhead and (I suspect) a kleptomaniac. Unshy. No pets. Car has dents. Owns a lot of hardcover books with mismatched jackets, because you can save a bundle by swapping them in the store.

Kay: Whatchoo eating?
Me: Jerky. It's good but most women don't like it [reverse psychology!]
Kay: gimme some. [we're speaking on the phone, so I can't]
Me: We're speaking on the phone. I can't.
Kay: I think I had it once anyway. It gave me bad breath.


Fay is a motherly mother, in her forties. Will talk dirty to anyone who'll listen. Drives like a cabbie, curses and all.

Fay: Tell me that's not jerky.
Me: I'll tell you it IS!
Fay: [rolls eyes] It's full of nitrates. It will give you [inaudible]
Me: What can I say? I like chewing on beef. This flavor is sweet and hot, my favorite.
Fay: I got some beef you can chew. It's sweet. And hot.
Me: [inaudible]


May is skinny and bookish. Eyelass frames extremely delicate. Low tolerance for mess of any kind. Her bedroom always smells like fruit or vanilla or the seashore. The nonprescription contents of her bathroom would put many pharmacies to shame. Good driver.

Me: [walks through door]
May: [wrinkles nose] Eat that outside.


Bea has two mastiffs. She's in her late thirties and single and not quite fit. She dresses frumpily and smokes a lot.

Me: Would you like some jerky?
Bea: [eyeing other people in the room like maybe I'm playing a prank; seems angry to have been singled out] No thanks.


Flo rarely speaks. Doesn't like T.V. Outwardly, politely agressive toward any act of foolishness, especially when another woman is responsible. Always wears pants. Her dog knows nine different tricks.

Me: [lean bag toward her, raise eyebrows]
Jen: [single shake of head, looks away]


Nat is a super-skinny suicide blonde, about 24. Into skateboarding but doesn't like to drive. Uses weird words like "nappy" and o.b. instead of Tampax. Obsessively flirty. Has postcard-sized portraits of semi-nude men hung in strategic nub-rubbing locations around her apartment. Her cats will shit in, or on, anything you care about.

Me: want some jerked beef?
Nat: [brief laugh, like you'd direct at a retarded person] No.


Jerky is masculine, because these girls say so. Who will refute them? You? YOUR MOTHER? Forget it -- you're bad at being a girl, by your own admission. The idea is laughable. Ha ha ha!

[brutal Vagembowelling on question of frugality=masculine? at the hands of Ray, followed by fat joke]

Or does it mean you should get in the kitchen and feign up some more confusion? "you're not making sense!" mm-good. "what's your point?" *munch*! "your post won't render on my windows XP!" Dee-lish. "You appear to be right, therefore I don't understand!" Feign feign feign feign! This put-on-puzzlement of yours cheapens all discourse.

Nobody's contesting your mastery of yin energy, Ray. It's okay to tell me I'm bad at being a girl because 1. I am and 2. you're a master of yin energy. How is that helping your "jerky, me, my buds, and our mutual jerky purchase are macho" contention? Or are you just going for whatever points you can get now?

You've claimed it's feminine (or "gay"); I contend, and deliver proof to, the opposite. Why do you dodge my loving thrusts of reason?

I mean, it was YOU who called me. You went to the secure website, punched in the Visa, clicked the link in my confirmation e-mail. So I show up at your door, all "ma'am I've got this whirlwind I need you to reap" and you're all "I ordered no whirlwind and that wasn't me and besides no one's home go away".

Nice try, but this is business at the speed of internet and that big tree you're riding out the storm beneath is actually my dick leaves and all and it's growing in moist soil on moral high ground so there's lightning coming right for it and that lightning is a metaphor for my hand, all fixing to grip it and tip it and yell joyfully:

Check! Mate!

Ray!