media update: August

Asterisks denote something I particularly enjoyed or found especially worthy of my time; your mileage may vary.

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FICTION


1. Dare Me by Megan Abbott: Addy is a high school cheerleader who alternates between loving and fearing her bitchy best friend/squad captain Beth. The arrival of a new coach and a suicide make things much worse, and Addy finds herself entangled in a scandal not of her own making. This potboiler with literary pretensions is Bring It On meets Black Swan, and a decent way to spend a lazy summer night.

2. The Ice Cream Girls by Dorothy Koomson: When they were teenagers, Poppy and Serena were accused of killing their teacher. Dubbed the "Ice Cream Girls" because of a photo of them eating ice cream in their bikinis, they became a media sensation. Many years later, Poppy has been released from prison and wants Serena, who was found not guilty, to confess to her part in the crime. Decidedly meh; I probably wouldn't have finished it if I hadn't been hard up for reading material at the time.

3. Kill You Twice* by Chelsea Cain: Portland detective Archie Sheridan has a complicated relationship with the so-called "Beauty Killer", Gretchen Lowell, the psychopath who tortured him almost to death and then inexplicably let him go. Now Gretchen is in a psych ward, her legendary beauty marred by the effects of heavy medication. She claims to know who killed a man who was skinned in a local park, and although Archie knows he shouldn't trust her, he finds himself pulled into her orbit once again.

Cain's last novel, The Night Season, was almost completely devoid of Gretchen, and I think it suffered for it. But no such worries with this; the woman who would scare Hannibal Lecter is back in fine form. If you've never read any of Cain's books before, this is NOT the one to start with; it spoils things from previous books and you really need to know the characters. But if you're familiar with her work, dig in for this gory treat. (And I do mean GORY; I had to stop reading it during my lunch breaks. There was one scene in particular where I actually slammed the cover shut and chanted "Nope, nope, nope, nope" while pushing my PBJ away. Fortunately I was sitting in an empty conference room; people at work already think I'm a weirdo. No need to add fuel to that particular fire.)

4. Motherland by Amy Sohn: This book follows a group of NYC parents as they struggle with everything from anonymous gay hookups to stroller thieves. It was a diverting read, but I wish I'd known that it was a sequel to Prospect Park West before reading it, as I would have liked to read that first.

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NONFICTION


1. I Am Jennie by Jennie Ketcham: The author worked in porn under the name Penny Flame, and when she received an offer to go on the VH1 reality show Sex Rehab, she thought it would be a fun and easy way to make money and increase her brand awareness. But as she went through the mandatory therapy, she was forced to confront the fact that she was seriously fucked up. It's an interesting look at the emotional and physical toll that porn can take on its performers, although (for the most part) she refrains from demonizing the industry for the problems she had long before setting foot on her first set.

2. January First by Michael Schofield: When the author's daughter Janni (short for January) began acting up at a young age, he rationalized it away by saying that she was just bored. But then she began claiming that she had imaginary friends who told her to attack her baby brother and hurt herself. Eventually she was diagnosed with schizophrenia, which is 20 to 30 times more severe in children and notoriously difficult to treat with standard psychiatric drugs. A compelling book, although the author doesn't exactly endear himself to the reader (props for honesty, though) and it isn't particularly well written.

3. How to Be A Woman* by Caitlin Moran: In candid and often uproarious prose, the author talks about many issues important to women---to wax or not to wax, fashion, love, abortion, childbirth---and shares anecdotes from her own life. She also has one of the best definitions of feminism I've ever read (though a bit reductive, since men can be feminists too): "So here is the quick way of working out if you're a feminist. Put your hand in your underpants. A) Do you have a vagina? and B) Do you want to be in charge of it? If you said yes to both, then congratulations! You're a feminist."

4. Tiny Beautiful Things* by Cheryl Strayed: Before her memoir Wild made her famous, Strayed wrote an advice column called "Dear Sugar". This is a collection of some of her most memorable letters and her perfect, beautifully written responses (to a young man whose religious parents are upset about his homosexuality: "We are all entitled to our opinions and religious beliefs, but we are not entitled to make shit up and then use the shit we made up to oppress other people"), and let me tell you: have some goddamn tissues handy, because I swear I was misting up every five pages.

Side note: I was reading this while waiting in an examination room for my doctor, and I got to a chapter where Strayed was talking about her mother's death. Instant waterworks, needless to say. So I got up and started looking for tissues, and my doctor walked in just as I opened a cabinet filled with vials of lidocaine, and I was all "Um...I swear I'm not looking for drugs, I'm looking for Kleenex." So she found me some and then asked what I was reading, and I showed her, and she opened to a random page and read for a couple of seconds and then handed the book back and said, "It is far too early for me to start crying."

5. American Gangbang by Sam Benjamin: The author was bored and living in near poverty when he had a revelation: why not make porn? So he packed up his stuff and moved to Los Angeles, where he dove headfirst into the scummy waters of porn, specializing in interracial gangbangs. Like I Am Jennie, it's an interesting look behind the scenes of the porn world, but it's about as erotic as open heart surgery.

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MANGA/GRAPHIC NOVELS/COMICS


1. The Boys* vol. 11 by Garth Ennis, Russ Braun, John McCrea, and Keith Burns

2. My Cute Crossdresser by Mitohi Matsumoto

3. Highschool of the Dead vol. 7 by Daisuke Sato and Shouji Sato

4. Arisa vol. 8 by Natsumi Ando

5. Kick-Ass 2 by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.: To be honest, I hope this isn't the story they're using for the movie sequel. It wasn't bad, but...well, saying more would be spoilery, so I'll refrain.

6. Darth Vader and Son by Jeffrey Brown

7. Kamisama Kiss vol. 10 by Julietta Suzuki

8. Rin-Ne vol. 9 by Rumiko Takahashi

9. Fables vol. 17 by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, and Shawn McManus

10. Velvet Kiss by Chihiro Harumi

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MOVIES


1. Silent House: Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen) accompanies her father to their secluded lake house, which they're renovating in preparation to sell it. But when an intruder attacks her father and traps Sarah in the house, she has to fight to survive.

This movie was shot to look like it was done in one take (though it was actually edited every 10 minutes or so, according to IMDB, but you'd never know) and is done in real time, which adds to the tension. It's not particulary scary, but it's got a really creepy scene worthy of Silent Hill and it gets pretty damn suspenseful, so it's worth a look if you like thrillers.

2. Superman vs. the Elite: When Superman learns about a group of superheroes that call themselves the Elite, he's happy to have allies in the fight against evil...but then he finds out that they're willing to take things to a level he's not comfortable with. The animation is terrible, but the story is really good, and there are some surprisingly funny lines as well.

3. Ip Man: This biopic is about Ip Man, the Chinese martial artist who trained Bruce Lee, and how he struggled to stay alive during the Japanese occupation. It was pretty interesting, and it had some decent fighting sequences.

4. Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory: The title sounds like a horror movie, and in a way it is. This is the third installment in a documentary series about the West Memphis Three, teenagers in Arkansas who were convicted in 1993 of murdering three young boys. Thanks to new DNA evidence and the support of such Hollywood heavyweights as Johnny Depp and Peter Jackson, they were released in 2011. But there was a catch: they had to make an Alford plea, which meant that they could maintain their innocence but admit that the courts had reasonable cause to convict them in the first place, which also means that they waived their right to sue. An absorbing look at one of the most famous miscarriages of justice in American history.

5. The Raid: Redemption*: A SWAT team goes after one of Jakarta's most notorious drug lords, who's hiding out in a scuzzy apartment building. But in order to reach him, they'll have to fight floor after floor of the bad guy's minions. A brutally violent, incredibly exciting film filled with tons of awesome fight sequences that can only be described as muay thai meets knife fu.

6. Wrath of the Titans: Perseus just wants to be a fisherman, but when his father Zeus (Liam Neeson, slumming it) is captured by Hades (Ralph Fiennes, also slumming it), he reluctantly descends into the depths of hell to save him. Some cool creature designs, but overall it's not a very memorable movie.

7. Weekend*: In this bittersweet British drama, two men have a one night stand that turns into a much more meaningful connection; think Before Sunrise with a gay twist. A beautiful and sad little movie, but I had two minor quibbles with it. First, I had to put the subtitles on, not because I couldn't understand their accents, but because the sound quality wasn't the greatest at times. Second, although I LOVED the song played at the end ("Marz" by John Grant), it didn't really fit the tone. The music itself was perfect, but the lyrics were all about candy and assorted sweets, and although I am staunchly pro-sugar, it just didn't work with the ending. I even looked it up to see if I was missing some deeper meaning in the lyrics, but nope; it's about a candy store John Grant used to visit as a kid, which doesn't exactly scream "heartbreaking gay romance" to me.

8. The Hunger Games*: Look, I'm not going to bother telling you what this movie's about, because you either already know or you're living under a rock and not reading this anyway. (I assume wifi sucks underground.) I'll just say that I didn't have high hopes for it because the trailers weren't particularly good, but I wound up really enjoying it. I thought it was pretty faithful to the book, and I teared up more than once.

9. The Dictator: General Aladeen (Sacha Baron Cohen) is the dictator of the Republic of Wadiya. The UN orders him to come to New York City to answer for his war crimes, but complications ensue and he finds himself working in an organic food market while trying to sort things out. Nowhere near as funny as Borat or Bruno, but it still has some hysterically offensive moments.

10. Chimpanzee: This documentary follows a baby chimpanzee named Oscar, who is adopted by the alpha male of his troop when his mother is killed. The narration is a bit goofy/cheesy at times, but the footage is gorgeous, and it's G-rated, so there are no horrifying "here, let me punch you in the gut and then, when you're doubled over, smack you upside the head because you weren't in enough pain already" scenes like there were in The Last Lions. (Seriously, I think I have PTSD from watching that movie.) Plus, even though I don't generally like chimpanzees, Oscar is about as tooth meltingly cute as they get. Those huge ears, those big brown eyes, HIS LITTLE HANDS OMG OMG.

11. Killer Joe: When I was in a bit of a pet the other night, I decided to go see Celeste and Jesse Forever, starring my girlcrush Rashida Jones. Well, when I got there, they told me that they were having problems with their copy, so showings were cancelled for the rest of the day. Since I was already there and Killer Joe was about to start anyway, I decided to see it, and let's just say it was most definitely not a romcom. It earned its NC-17 and then some.

Killer Joe is a feverish slice of noir about a young man who is in dire financial straits. He conspires with his father, sister Dottie, and stepmother Charla to have his mother killed and split the life insurance. None of them want to do the deed themselves, so they hire moonlighting police detective Joe (Matthew McConaughey). But they can't pay him until the money comes in, so Joe decides to take Dottie as a "retainer".

Now, I love noir and black comedies, but this movie was fucking BRUTAL. In case you haven't heard about the most infamous scene, I won't spoil it, but I was cringing in my seat. I didn't hate this movie, but it's absolutely not for everyone, especially if you plan on eating fried chicken in the near future. Like, in the next ten years.

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ADDED TO MY IPOD


I went on a bit of a 60's girl group kick this month, and then after Mika songs kept showing up in my guilty pleasure Wii dancing games, I got his CD at the library. (Good timing, too; a couple of days later, he came out and then there were about a billion holds on it.) Mika's music is like an IV of sunshine and kittens mainlined right into my happy vein.

1. "Chains" by The Cookies

2. "Tell Him" by The Exciters

3. "Don't Say Nothin' Bad (About My Baby)" by The Cookies

4. "Easier Said Than Done" by The Essex

5. "I Love How You Love Me" by The Paris Sisters

6. "Born to Die" by Lana Del Rey

7. "Video Games" by Lana Del Rey

8. "Radio" by Lana Del Rey

9. "Marz" by John Grant

10. "Trouble in Brazil" by Trouble & Bass: G and I are currently playing Max Payne 3, which has a scene near the beginning where Max is shooting his way through a Brazilian nightclub. Anyway, there are some fucking boss ass beats (side note: did a 41-year-old white woman really just write "boss ass beats"? Yes, yes she did) thumping in the background, and they took me back to those heady nights dancing at West Hollywood clubs like Mickey's and Studio One (my personal favorite), so I was like "Okay, I need these tracks". And it turns out that Rockstar has a free 25-minute downloadable mix on their website, so best believe I jumped on that. I mean, it's not something you'd put on for a relaxing evening at home, but when I'm getting ready for work or cleaning my kitchen, it's just the thing.

11. "Grace Kelly" by Mika

12. "Lollipop" by Mika: A review on Amazon said this song is like Jake Shears fronting the Jackson 5 and that is basically the most perfect description of anything ever.

13. "My Interpretation" by Mika

14. "Love Today" by Mika

15. "Relax (Take It Easy)" by Mika

16. "Ring Ring" by Mika

17. "Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)" by Mika

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PICTURE OF THE MONTH


These pictures of gorilla brothers being reunited after 2 years apart gave me SO MANY FEELS. Background story here.

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VIDEO OF THE MONTH #1


The magic in this video happens around 0:27 if you don't want to watch the whole thing (but why wouldn't you, because OMG baby elephant).

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VIDEO OF THE MONTH #2


This is why the internet was invented. Bonus points: the cat is named Arya!

wax on, wax...still on

Despite the searing heat on Tuesday, I took my customary morning walk. By the time I got back into the building, I was regretting that decision because I was sweating and probably smelled like hot trash despite my deodorant and a liberal spritzing of Dolly Girl.

But then I walked into my cube and a grin spread across my face, because flowers! A big vase of red roses, stargazer lilies, and beautiful white flowers I couldn't identify but which might be snapdragons even though I googled "snapdragons" and the picture was close but not quite.

Yes, my friends, Tuesday was G's and my 8th anniversary.

EIGHTH!

Only my truly old school friends will remember this, but back in 2004, I had a blog on another site and a hacker wiped out thousand of blogs, including mine. The staff managed to restore most of them, but among the dozens of entries I lost was the account of G's and my first and second dates. I'm still fucking pissed about that, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter all that much because I remember it like it was yesterday. We met up at the Cheesecake Factory and the chemistry was like whoa immediately. Those of you who know me in real life know that I'm the textbook definition of an introvert. I suppose we had an advantage because we'd been talking online for about a month at that point, but even so, I felt instantly comfortable around him. I think the only other time that's ever happened was when I met my friend John all the way back in junior high.

Anyway, I'll make a U-turn on Memory Lane here because I want to get back to the story at hand.

So on Tuesday, I left work at 4 and went home, where G joined me once he got off work at 4:30. We exchanged cards and gifts and all sorts of shmooply sweet nothings that are private (nanner nanner boo boo), and then we went to Cheesecake Factory to recreate our first date. We laughed and reminisced and it was awesome. Then, because there weren't any movies out that we really wanted to see, we went back to his place and played Max Payne 3 and that was also awesome.

Yesterday was like following a salted caramel macaron with a tall glass of vomit.

The first thing would take forever to explain and isn't all that interesting anyway, but in a nutshell, I fucked something up and will be spending the next, oh, year kicking myself in the ass for it. So, barring the occasional treat like a cold Coke Zero after my mile long lunchtime walk or catching a whiff of those perfect stargazer lilies, I spent Wednesday in a massive funk.

And after work, since I was already in a shitty mood, I thought "hey, might as well get my hair cut."

A word of clarification here. I hate, hate, HAAAAAAATE getting my hair cut. I would much rather go to the dentist than get my hair cut, and I'm not even joking. Part of it is the futility of the enterprise, because nobody ever knows what to do with my hair and I sure as shit don't know what to do with my hair, so we just sit there like "Okay, so what do we do with this hair". But I hadn't gotten it cut since right before Daddy-O's wedding, so I figured it was time.

So once I got off work, I drove to Supercuts and got my hair cut. It didn't take long since I just wanted a trim and my layers neatened up, and then I thought (ALWAYS DANGEROUS) "hey, might as well ask if they still do eyebrow waxing and then I don't have to take more time out of my busy life to go to the nail salon down the street from work tomorrow night". And lo and behold, they did! So she took me in the back room and had me lean back against one of the shampooing sinks...

...and then, just as she'd put the wax on my left eyebrow, I heard her suck air through her teeth. And then she said "Oops."

Yeah, "oops" is pretty high on the list of things you don't want to hear somebody say after they've put hot wax on your face.

Turns out she'd dripped wax in my hair! And she spent, I am not even exaggerating here, about 15 minutes trying to get it out. She shampooed my hair. She conditioned my hair. She sprayed and rubbed all manner of mists and creams and unguents into my hair. Finally she said, "Okay, I think we're good. Sorry about that."

"No problem," I said, even though it was a problem, and we went up front so I could pay. She asked if I wanted her to blowdry my hair too, and I said I would just do it at home since I live not even a mile away. She said she wouldn't charge me for the waxing, and I thanked her, and then she ran my charge card and I gave her a five and asked for 2 bucks back and SHE LOOKED PISSED.

Okay, I've never had a job where I depended on tips, so if I was in the wrong, please tell me. But $3 was a 20% tip to someone who had just gotten fucking WAX in my hair. Am I wrong to think she was lucky to get a tip at all?

Oh, it gets better, folks! When I got home and started to blowdry my hair, my comb caught in my hair. You guessed it, there was still wax in my hair!

Rage. Hulk rage. Hulk smash everything in apartment and then Hulk drive back to Supercuts and smash all the mirrors! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE.

But at this point, I just wanted to stay home and watch TV and read and be miserable in private and not drive back to the salon where, let's face it, she wouldn't be able to do anything more than she'd already done, so I went online and found out how to get wax out of hair. Several sites recommended olive oil, which---and please try to contain your shock---I happened to have in my pantry, so I hopped in the shower and massaged it into my hair as gently as I would caress a tiny kitten, and I finally managed to get most of it out. Although I have a Cameron Diaz There's Something About Mary jizz cowlick thing going a little bit on the side and I smell like a bread plate at an Italian restaurant, at least I don't have a bald spot.

For now.

dressing up when the world is Levi Strauss

Stolen from [james ensor] with much gratitude as I am bored as fuck right now.

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1.) Your current favorite inspirational quote.

"Courage is just fear that said fuck it." (Hollis Gillespie)

Oh, and the funniest quote I read today is from a Michael Phelps/Aaron Piersol slashfic: "Michael pops a boner and simultaneously makes Donkey Kong jump off a cliff." I fucking DIED. More choice excerpts here.

2.) Your favorite kind of biscuit, cookie or cake.

Biscuit: those cheddar ones at Red Lobster. I haven't eaten at a Red Lobster in probably a decade, but goddamn those biscuits are something else.

Cookie: Le Petit Ecolier. They're shortbread with a thick slab of hazelnut studded chocolate on the top, embossed with the titular schoolboy. They're spendy but oh so worth it.

Cake: Red velvet cake, or if I'm at California Pizza Kitchen, warm butter cake, which is just as awesome as it sounds.

3.) Something fun you're going to do on your next day off.

G, our friend M, and I are going to the fair on Sunday. I really want to get a caricature drawn of the two of us together, because I'm corny as fuck. Oh, and I want to pet a baby goat, ride on the ferris wheel, and eat ALL THE FOODZ. The hip thing at county fairs this year is deep fried cereal, so if I can find that, I'll be a happy girl.

4.) Post a URL of your favorite pic on any site, be it CNN.com or deviantart.com

It's not a picture, but it's a video of a cat escaping a dog in an incredibly clever way so your argument is invalid.

5.) If you could have any pet, what would it be and what would it be called?

A British shorthair cat named Oscar, after Oscar Wilde. Initially I thought about getting two male Brits and naming the other one Bosie, after Oscar Wilde's beloved Lord Alfred Douglas, who was nicknamed Bosie. Then a little googling led to the discovery that Douglas was a raging antisemite and not all that nice to Wilde, so he doesn't deserve to have a gorgeous cat named after him. Should I ever be lucky enough to own cats again, I'll think of something.

Oh, and I also think it would be awesome to have cats named Momo and Appa, after the flying lemur and flying bison in Avatar: The Last Airbender. (The CARTOON, not the back alley abortion of a movie.)

6.) A song that never fails to cheer you up.

"Your Affection" from Persona 4 or "Love Today" by Mika. They make me want to fart rainbows.

7.) What would be your choice of ingredients in the best ice cream sundae ever?

Sea salt caramel gelato topped off with hot caramel sauce and big thick mounds of whipped cream, and then crumbled up pieces of sea salt caramel macarons from that store in Little Tokyo. I'm drooling like Pavlov's dog just typing this.

8.) Describe your perfect hideaway.

See the next question.

9.) If you lived in an enchanted forest, what or who would be there?

Unicorns, sky bisons, flying lemurs, emperor tamarins, New Guinea birds of paradise, a magic portal from which I could conjure anything in the world that I wanted, a riotous flower garden, a gently babbling brook, and a lovely book-stuffed cottage that I would share with G and a slew of cats.

10.) What have you done today to make you feel proud?

Nothing yet. I can't even claim that I got my exercise because I didn't walk on my lunch hour or during my afternoon break. (In my defense, though, it got up to 100 degrees this afternoon, and...um...no.) I'll make up for it tonight with some Wii Fit. Oh, and I don't know if this counts, but I'm going to make a "real" dinner for myself as opposed to frozen or canned crap. I'll be making something I call ghetto risotto. It's FABULOUS. It's one of only three things I can cook, the other two being Bailey's french toast and omelets.

11.) When did you last sing without embarrassment?

I sang along to Mika on the drive to work.

12.) What songs or albums were you really into, then not into for a while, and then recently got into again?

Nothing springs to mind.

13.) Describe your stupidest injury.

When I was in high school, I was trying on a dress at home and wanted to see how it looked in the back. We didn't have a full length mirror, so I went in the bathroom and stood on top of the hamper. Pleased by how I looked, I began striking poses and fell off the hamper and twisted the fuck out of my ankle. To add injury to injury, my crutches weren't adjusted properly so I threw out my back to boot. I looked like Quasimodo.

14.) What's the best title you've come up with for your autobiography?

Angst in My Pants, but I stole it from Sparks.

15.) Describe your coolest or most random celebrity encounter.

I just had two last weekend! Padre was selected by HBO to appear in a documentary series, so he flew out to do an interview with the production company. G and I took him to the studio in Beverly Hills, and afterwards we went to Kate Mantilini's for dinner. We had just sat down and G leaned over and whispered, "Lisa Kudrow is sitting right behind you." I did that oh so subtle "naw, I ain't staring at you, I'm just scratching my chin with my shoulder" move, and sure enough, it was her, sitting with about five other people. It was really hard not to keep turning around and looking at her every few minutes, like "OMG you were Phoebe!", but she was just trying to enjoy dinner with her family/friends and I didn't want to be rude. She has a pretty unmistakable voice, though, so I caught quite a bit of her conversation. Nothing scandalous, though; she kept talking about the SATs. According to IMDB, she has an 18-year-old son, so that's probably why.

And then, as we were waiting for the check, Mel Brooks walked in.

My most random celebrity encounter was running into Phil Margera (the object of many a Jackass prank) at Bristol Farms. I freaked the fuck out over him and he couldn't have been nicer about it.

16.) Name five things you are unironically enthusiastic about.

80's music, old school video games (Donkey Kong, Burger Time, Ms. Pac-Man, etc.), pinball, bowling (though I suck at it), and martial arts movies with awful scripts and piping hot beatdowns.

17.) "Tonight we'll play some music and have fun." That's a lyric from one of my favorite hop-around party songs. If you were going to play some music and have fun, what music would you play and what would you do?

I have a playlist on my iTunes titled "Happy Smile Hello!" that I listen to when I need an energy or mood boost. It contains everything from gloriously cheesy 80's hits to perky Japanese pop idols. I like to play it loud and groove around my apartment.

18.) Has Girls Gone Wild forever ruined the sound of steel drums for you?

No, but it's ruined my faith in the human race.

19.) Who is your favorite least likely savior of the world/universe from TV, film, comic books, or fiction?

Dave Lizewski from Kick-Ass. He's just a nerdy teenager who thinks "Hey, why couldn't I be a superhero?" and goes out and does just that.

(And yes, I know that he's technically not a superhero because he doesn't have any actual powers. Semantics, semantics.)

20.) If you could embed a secret message in a crop circle, what would it be?

"ALIENS TURN BACK NOW, THIS PLACE BLOWS"

coming out of his shell

When I was walking to Barnes & Noble on my lunch break today, I noticed something strange in the parking lot. It was about the size of a football---not a regulation football, but a toy---and it seemed to be moving. Curiosity got the better of me, so I detoured to check it out.

...and lo and behold, it was a turtle, looking mighty confused indeed.

There's a restaurant in that shopping center with an outdoor patio and a small koi pond, and I assumed he'd come from there. Not wanting him to get hit by a car or tortured by one of the roving gangs of teenage boys that frequent the pizza place, I picked him up, held him at arm's length, and made my way to the pond. I passed a permatanned trophy wife along the way who visibly recoiled, acting more like I was holding a grenade or a handful of fresh dog shit than a lost turtle.

When I reached the pond, I crouched down and set him at the water's edge, about two feet away from another turtle sunning itself on a rock. "There you go, buddy," I said, ignoring a restaurant patron smirking at me. "Try not to wander off again."

Once I got to Barnes & Noble, I scrubbed my hands thoroughly in the bathroom and then sat down to page through the latest stories about Robsten OMG how could such a thing happen.

When my cell phone alarm rang, I finished People and headed back to work. Of course, I had to stop by the pond and make sure my friend was settling back in.

...and there he was, either on the receiving or giving end of a proper fucking.

My initial reaction was absolute horror, because (assuming it was really a he) what if he'd popped a rod while I was holding him? I just saw a video of an ejaculating turtle on Tosh.0 last weekend, and let me tell you, a turtle penis is one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen. It would have made H.R. Giger vomit. I'd like to think I would have had the presence of mind to quickly but gently set him down on the ground if that had happened, and not fling him across the parking lot like I was trying to score a tie-breaking touchdown.

But then...then a maniacal grin spread across my face.

Yes, yes! I thought, practically tenting my fingers together with glee. Have many strong sons and daughters and teach them to WORSHIP ME LIKE A FUCKING GOD.

I mean, I'd rather command cats or wolves or something, but you take what life gives you.