Tattoo.

Once upon a time there was a girl who dreamed of a bad boy with tattoos. Now-a-days, a girl no longer has to dream, as it is a rarity to find a guy who DOESN'T have a tattoo.

I have two.

In fact, I even have a tramp stamp. Don't know what that is? It's a term affectionately nicknamed for the tattoo located on the lower back of a woman (right above her bum). I ran across a gent who actually didn't know what a tramp stamp was, I should have knighted him right then and there because he was obviously pure of heart. Thankfully, my tramp stamp is not disastrous, like for instance my name. I always wondered why people tattooed their names on their bodies, was it because they forget their own names so easily, or was it because they were afraid others would forget it? Then again, I want to meet a guy who has, "Hi my name is Ed" tattooed on his chest,  I think i would actually be turned on by the audacity of that.

Tattoos that DO NOT do it for me. Faded tattoos (for it shows that the person didn't take an initiative in finding a good tattoo artist, or they were wussies when it came down to getting the ink done), Grateful dead bears, Disney characters, in fact any anime characters, tribal tattoos (especially with barbwire), faces (I get that you want to grieve for whomever, but I am a bit of Native American spiritualist,  so I can't even have my picture taken without my soul getting itchy twitchy, so to have someone else's soul immortalized on someone else's skin is so many levels of wrong for me), and last but not least, the icing on the cake: exes names. Yes. Tattooing your exes name on your body is just wrong.

Which leads me to my own Mr. Tattoo. He was (of course) an Artist, quirky, tall, half Asian (ummmMmmmm.) He had these beautiful sleeve tattoos illustrated with images he had drawn (a plus in my book), and originally we hit it off brilliantly, except for one thing: One of his tattoos was of his ex girlfriend's name, and I am not talking her initials coyly placed on his bicep. I am talking first, middle, and last name emblazoned across the whole of his abdomen. So basically every time he took off his shirt, it was right there, standing poorly scribbled against the pale white of his skin. The first time he showed me, I told him to hide it again. Yes, I can be that much of a wench, but at least I am an honest wench. I explained that I wasn't necessarily comfortable staring at another woman's name, maybe if I had known him for years, it wouldn't have been a big thing, but he was basically a blink in my life, and it was an uber disappointment to see another woman's name marring his body.  For it represented that someone else had marked his territory already. I mean, I wanted to be Louis, him my Clark, screw Sacajawea.

He told me that if (and when) we ever fell in love, and I was still bothered by said tattoo, that he would then burn it off with a hot spatula. Oh, yeah, these are the men I date. I asked him why not just get it laser removed like normal people, his response was because he wanted to still remember the pain she had caused. So basically her name was a reminder of the pain she had caused, and burning it off (which would scar him horribly) would continue that horrific reminder, but he would do it for me in a gesture of love. Seriously, Freud could have retired a wealthy man on that one.

In Japan, when I displayed my tattoo (not my butt one, mind you) I was considered such a bad ass, because I was a woman, and it was a rarity for a tattooed woman to exist over there.  Men, on the other hand, have a much harder time showing their tattoos as it is forbidden in many establishments, for only people who were Yakuza wore tattoos. Yakuza, the mafia, the modern samurai, the bad boys of the East. Their tattoos depicted heroic fight scenes of dragons, warriors, and beautifully lined clouds. I often wonder if the Yakuza would tattoo their girlfriend's name across their chests. Nah. I refuse to believe a samurai would be that dumb. Then again, the picture below has them still wearing diapers (ok ok yes they are traditional mawashi loincloths, but they still look like diapers)...

(Picture sourced from a fantastic website on the yakuza and their tattoos http://www.dreadloki.com/pivot/pivot/entry.php?uid=standard-718

and for your reference, no I haven't dated anyone in this photo. Though the one in the middle is kinda a sexy beast.)

A girl can dream...of a house.

Awhile back, I was browsing for a set of chairs, on Craigslist. I ended up coming across these two posts, after much debate, I began to daydream that the chairs on the right (fondly nicknamed cognac chairs) were the ones for me. So I wrote the seller, and we scheduled a time for the next day for me to pick them up.


The next day rolls around, and an hour before me going to pick them up the seller decides to tell me that he has decided to give them to his cousin. Now flakiness runs rampant on sites like Craiglist, but of course I decided to tell the seller that these chairs were the key to me having a house straight out of the pages from Dwell magazine (the magazine that makes most designers depressed because no one can afford to have a home that looks that good).  After said angst email, ensue one of the strangest engagements I have ever encountered online.


First it starts:


Seller: Oh you like cool design?
Me: I am an architect by trade...
Seller: Oh really, I love architecture, my house is actually a famous architectural piece in LA!
Me: do tell...


And before I know it, I am getting images of one of the most beautiful 1960s houses I have ever seen, and to top it off, my architectural coworkers know the house, and to triple top it off, this guy has put a modern flare to it. I am drooling with envy, and obviously hooked. I didn't think I was easy, in fact muscle cars don't even do it for me (well ok, unless its a 1969 gun metal gray mustang or VW fast back, and then you might as well just tell me to not wear panties that day), but beautiful 1950/60 homes will get me every time. Especially when people update the kitchens to either a bulthaup, henry built (or the like). This guy's kitchen had a hidden range that was exposed when the top counter slid to the right. It was a sexy beast of a home.  I was, for the first time, superficially intrigued.


Of course, the logical part of me, screamed bullshit that someone with this kind of an amazing abode would be selling chairs on craigslist. It seemed like absolute malarkey, and it actually seemed like he was trolling for women with the guise of cool chairs.  But after many google stalks, and many many photos of the home later (in its process of being reconstructed), it became apparent that no in fact, this was for real.


I am not going to lie, I caved, and the flirting started. I imagined myself sitting in that amazing house, painting amazing pieces of artwork in its living spaces, sipping expensive wine, and laughing at insanely rich people and their stupid jokes. I was in. Give me the piece of paper and I will sign the dotted line. But before I could go any further, I had to actually meet the guy...oh yeah...the guy...here I am drooling over a home, and I know nothing really of the guy. His stats (or what he told me before we met):
Good looking
Tall
Successful (lawyer turned plastic surgeon)
Educated (ivy league)


...ding ding ding and ding...


He invited me over to his home to cook me dinner (in order to make up for the loss of cognac chairs), but I knew that would not be smart. Not only because I didn't know this guy and I wasn't about to go to his home for the first meet and greet, but because I would probably end up making out with that damn range, and that would just set a bad precedent on the first date. So instead we settled on meeting at a local wine bar.  God, my road to snobbery was well on its way. I spent two hours getting ready (so not me); The curls, the red dress, the eyeliner...the nines were making a play, because god dammit I wanted that house, and i didn't care how superficial I had to be to get it.  Push up bra (that resides in the darkest corner of my drawer) you are coming out tonight! I think Los Angeles cried a little tear of momma joy over these shallow shenanigans. 


Of course, as I rounded the corner of the bar, none of those above mentioned traits met me. No, what met me was a short fat Egyptian man wearing a striped business shirt with a duck on it.


This was the exact moment that I realized two things: Yes, it makes me incredibly superficial to not have been instantaneously attracted to his physique (but I challenge anyone to have rounded that corner and to not have had the same reaction), and two, no matter how amazing a persons house is, no matter what car they drive, no matter how rich they are, if I am not attracted to them, I don't give a shit about the rest of it. Which led me to know for one hundred percent certainty that I will never be a gold digger. So props to me. Of course, with these realizations, dreams of living in that house died.


It goes without saying, I was very civil, we had wine and cheese, talked about art, but it was rather obvious that the baby had been thrown out with the bath water. After a couple of more civil emails back and forth, we slowly pitter-pattered back to our normal routine. Well I should say I pitter-pattered back to my normal routine, he continued to try and get me to come to his home (e.g. wanting to use a piece of my art for a photo shoot, but not allowing me to talk directly to the magazine about my art; telling me he had been robbed twice and that he didn't like to be alone, needing advice on what paint to choose for his walls, inviting me over for dinner with my friends...etc..etc). Regardless, the illusion was up. And eventually the emails stopped. Or so I thought...


Some time later, in a last ditch effort, he sent a farewell image/email to me.

"Hi E,

I thought you'd like to see the attached picture taken of my house and a model during a photo shoot last week. 

Hope you're doing well.

M"

Yes M. I am doing well, and no I am still not interested. No matter how hot the model and that house are.

Oh, was this your package?

A couple of weeks back I ordered some girly dishes (see pic for their beauty). Though, as the weeks passed, I wondered to myself, where art thou dishes? And so of course after going through the process of tracking my package, I discover it had been delivered to me three days ago...that is, delivered to my old residence.  Bollocks.

After knocking my head for my own stupidity, I immediately contact my landlord (who was out of town), and write to the company (who were also closed, thanks to the holiday weekend). And after three days of waiting, wondering, obsessing (because I truly have nothing better to do) over the poor china, I get an email from my landlord who tells me that they have in fact been delivered and the new tenant has them at his house, and gives me his email address to contact him. 

So I do.

This is the response I get, "Curiosity got the best of me and I opened that package and tossed the box.  Not to worry though, the plates were delivered in one piece! " 

Part of me is ecstatic that he has my dishes. The other part of me is slowly stewing with a volcanic rage. 

Not only did this chump open my package, he threw away the box with the absolute intention of keeping my items. I mean, for one, does he just happen to have those exact same plates (because seriously we might be star crossed lovers if that is the case)?

Or is he so poor that these two china plates were going to start his collection of dinnerware, and save him from the paper plate hell he had been living in? 

And did he use them already? Especially since it was a holiday weekend. Did he pile them up with finger food, grubby frat boy finger food, made up of cheetos and salsa? 

I also wonder if it had been something of a more manly interest, like an Xbox, would he have kept it, and lied about receiving the package at all? Then again, he kept my dishes, and for whatever asinine reason admitted to it. 

Have we as a society become so clueless as to the morality of how things work? For one, he just had to contact my landlord for a way to contact me (I have only been out of that apartment for three months), and for two, he just simply had to write, "return to sender, person no longer lives here."  What the blazes have we come to when even dishes are not safe!!! 

Even better, what sort of idiot am I dealing with? For all you idiots out there, who wish to make a crime at stealing other people’s stuff, let me clue you into something:

a. Don’t steal a UPS package that is easily tracked, 

b. Don’t admit you have the package to two separate parties, 

c. Don’t tell the party whose package it belongs to that you opened the package and even imply that you had every intention of keeping the materials, and most importantly

d. Don’t have your full name (with your work address) on the email that you responded with.

So Yes Mr. Ryan ******* I know who you are, and if you don’t return my dishes in a timely manner, you should know that I grew up in the mountains where people still play the banjo and like to own guns, cops are the least of your worries, as us mountainfolk don’t take too kindly to strangers who invade our property. And boy, you sure do have a purdy mouth.

Hasians, mmmmm.

I almost fulfilled my fantasy in dating a hot Asian boy. It's true, if you don't already know this about me, I somewhat have Asian fever. Which was brought on by watching too many anime and samurai movies as a young kid. Some people had romance novels, I had Jet Li. Some people loved King Arthur, I wanted a Ninja. 

Of course, the main problem with having Asian fever, when you are 5'10, is that many of them are about half your size, and if they are not half your size, then they are weirdly proportioned (ever seen Yao Ming, famous Chinese basketball player, sure he is a good player, but he also moves around like a marionette doll, his body clearly uncoordinated). So throughout my grown up life, I secretly held onto my longing desire to date a hot Asian. Or Hasian, as urban dictionary has so fondly nicknamed them.  

My first boyfriend was half Filipino, but unfortunately I don’t really count him as Asian, because as much as he tried to play up that halfy Asian card, he looked Spanish. 

During art school I had a huge crush on a Japanese boy, but again he was half my size, and his girlfriend was half his size. Obviously a sizeist, and out of my league. Years later, when I moved to Japan, I thought surely in a land of a billion hasians I would find one to fall madly in love with (preeminently because the Japanese men, in my mind, are some of the hottest hasians out there, I mean just look at their outfits!!! I heart the 80s!!!). Nope. I did not find a single one. Dated one, briefly, but there were other things at play aside from my height (mostly Japanese mothers). Granted, I did get a lot of Japanese men complimenting my looks, "American woman, big boobs, yeah!" 

So it was rather rare for me to stumble across a Hasian on an online dating site. 

If you have ever used an online dating site, it's not that it is devoid of Asians (in fact I think about 40% of online dating sites are made up of Asians) but it IS devoid of hot Asians. And boy oh boy was this one a gold mine. Hot, and I mean HAWT! With samurai long hair, tall (did I say 6'0 and not awkward), slim hips, raspy Bob Dylan voice, talented (singer, songwriter, incredible guitar player), well read, well spoken, and a smile that cocked to the side just the right way. 

Sweet, beejesus holy mother of all that is good, GOLD MINE!!!  Whatever was I going to do with myself!!! I was ---><--- close to licking my screen. 

At this point, I almost wish I had a fairy godmother, who would come down and say to me, "Jessica, now why would such a hot piece of Asian ass be on a dating site?"

And I would have to respond to her, "well, I am a hot piece of ass, and I am on here..."

And then she would raise one of her sparkly eyebrows, and remind me that I am cursed in the boy department, and point at my blog as proof.  

Of course I would stomp my foot at this admission, and whine about maybe he is a dime a dozen, a diamond in the rough, cursed like me, in which our curses combined would cancel it all out. 

And of course she would laugh at my stupidity. Dammit Fairy godmother, you ruin everything. 

Of course, I don’t have a fairy godmother, and none of that happened. Thus, I emailed the hot Asian.  Bring on that psychosis. 

By email three, the strange tidbits began to surface. Things that made one go: maybe he is not a paradox in the universe. 

For one. He only dated older women. Did I forget to mention he was four years younger than me? Well, I was young to him by his standards, as his normal affairs were at least ten years older than him. And by normal, I mean all of them. 

For two. His parents paid for everything. And I mean everything (I should also point out that he is two years away from being thirty). At the time he was still going to school, so I couldn’t hold that against him, but they also paid for his room and board, his food...etc...etc. Part of me wondered if his dad would be paying for dinner, the movie, the condoms. That conversation did play in my head:

"Wait, do you have a condom?" 

"Oh shit no I don’t, let me call my dad to transfer some money over so I can go pick them up." 

"From Asia? Wouldn't that take at least three days?"

"Hmm...ok, well hold this ~gesture at our naked bodies~ thought...."

Ok maybe that’s a little absurd, but these are things I think about when I am being told that mumsie and dadsie pay for everything. Its not that, that should necessarily be a bad thing, some parents are just more generously endowed with money to splurge on their children, and yes I have been chastised by my friends for thinking this silly, but in the end, what sort of struggle has he had to achieve anything, if everything has been given to him? And, on top of that,  if he liked to date older women, it did make me wonder if it was just in his general nature to be taken care of.  I should also allude to the fact that he was the baby in his family, and the only male. In an Asian culture, pampering doesn’t even come close to these types. Adoring worship would be more of an accurate assessment. 

Three. He viewed me through a series of standardized tests. Am I an INFJ, ENPJ...ABCD, BBDD???!!!!....I already have a problem with standardized testing, but to relate to my personality type through such a thing, well fine, then let me break out my tarot deck and get a reading on you while we are at it. (Oh, and in case you are wondering I am an INFJ, now you know everything about me.) 

Four. He began to tell me how he wanted to hold me, and how he saw a future with me. I don’t know about other ladies, but hearing this from a guy with whom I have had a handful of email interactions with (that mainly involved around reading books), and a Skype conversation (that revolved around him obsessing over his guitar) that admission was CREEPY. I imagined him lathering me up with lotion so he could use my skin as a new case for his guitar. Going too far? Well I don’t like when guys are overtly romantic for no known reason, especially when they have yet to meet me in person. Serial killers are that way; Ted Bundy used this to his advantage. Cute guys who use early declarations of endearment equal one thing to me, false. 

So basically, I realized I had to put down my hot Asian. Mercy kill. I waited a day, because part of my irrational mind was stuck in my imagination and my imagination was stuck on how great he would look on my arm. My very own hot Asian party favor, he would go great at art openings. The rational side of my mind was like...this guy is going to be problem, if this is not resolved quickly. 

So I ended it. With a thank you, it’s been great, but I don’t think there is a match. I mean, after my birthday experience, I learned some great phrases, though instead of sugar coating it with heartfelt lies, I basically told him the truth. You are hot, but too many red flags. Thank you and goodbye. 

Two hours later, I get a 24 minute recorded conversation of how he feels. This is no simple voicemail message, this was a computer recording that he attached to an email (which was also a long missive explaining his emotions). So I basically got a double whammy of explanatory emotional diarrhea. The recording not only had him crying, it had him telling me how he could get any hot girl he wanted, that he was going to be successful, and how dare I, obviously I have issues to not choose him, and that he opened up to me and that had to count for something, and in the end its all about manifestation, and if I manifest that its not going to work, then it is not, but that he is manifesting that it will.

---Oh lord. 

Is it a bad thing to say that I laughed? Ok, part of me felt slightly bad, I did, at the beginning, but when he started talking about how he could get any girl, and yet here he was recording a comeback to my farewell email, all I could think of was, THANK YOU GOD I didn’t sleep with you.

Maybe all in all, my fairy godmother did come to visit me after all. She just hid in the periphery. I owe you one Fairy Godmother. But man, a samurai boyfriend would have been so cool. 

You like my slide???!!!

The new phenomena amongst present day men is not to be the knight in shining armor, but to be the jokester. The josher. The buffoon. The comedian. Thanks to video games, YouTube videos of crotch shots, and comedy based on crassness, men have reverted back to little boys.

My run in with a funny man was completely unexpected. After a slew of psychotic dates, being approached by someone whose sole purpose in life was to make people laugh, was rather refreshing, or should I say endearing. And not only that, he was successful at it. A well-known comedian, one could even Google his name, find his wiki, see him on local comedy channels, become his YouTube fan, etc, etc. He was, in many critics’ eyes, the new Buster Keaton. Slap that pan to your face, bam bam bam. Hahahaha.

Our first dating dances were filled with an innocent banter of wits, flips in the air, and stories of our disastrous prior dates. His involved going out with a girl only to end up sleeping with twenty Asians on the floor of a downtown massage parlor.

At one point, he teasingly jokes, "...well wait until you come over to my room, you can enjoy my slide."

Now, I must admit, my mind lays in the gutter about 80% of the time. I was the girl in high school who asked her friends, "...so if the world blew up and this was the only room left, which guy would you screw?" and related to people as seeing them in "sexual positions" (e.g. gym teacher totally likes doggy, that cook likes it with latex, and my coworker does it with a hole in the sheet.)

So, when this fool mentioned his "slide," my mind obviously was up to no good. Of course, instead of being coy about it, with an "I want to ride your slide, vroom" sort of comeback, I just laugh nervously, because as dirty as my mind can be, I can sometimes be thrown off by other people's vulgarity. Weird, I know. I think it's because I am really a puritan who just happens to own crotchless panties. No, I kid, those things are worse than thongs.

He, of course, notices my conflicted look between: do I say something funny, flirt, or just go ew. I am literally on overload mental freeze.

In turn, he nervously laughs, "That sometimes throws girls off, but it's true you can see it in my videos, it's attached to my bunk bed, at one point I put a rope swing in my room too. I hope you aren't turned off by that, maybe I should have waited to tell you."

Now at this point, my mind has suddenly compounded in on itself, here I am thinking he is talking about the slide in his pants, and no, in fact, he is talking about a physical slide in his room. And, bunk beds...and a rope swing?

He continues, "I mean do you have a slippy slide in your house?" Obviously, he is grasping for straws at this point, or maybe, he is hoping I am his holy grail. If I say yes, I am sure he will marry me on the spot.

Instead, I laugh, out loud, and hard, with booger bubbles almost surfacing, "No I don’t have a slippy slide in my house!"

I try to understand what it would be like to sleep with this person in their playroom. I mean, after sex, would I take the top bunk and he take the bottom? How many bare asses touched that slide? And would we act out Tarzan and Jane on the rope? (Well, that last one has been a fantasy of mine.)

At my laughter, his demeanor shifts. "Well you obviously are just an adult acting older than they are." Uh oh, tantrums are a surfacing. But yes, he is right, while deciding between day-glo hot pink Barbie bed, and grown up metal-framed bed, I went with the grown up choice. What can I say, my big girl pants were on that day.

He continues to pout at me, "I have no stress, no worries, and everyday is a weekend for me, so I must be doing something right." I mean, he is right, if his day is still filled with the sounds of unicorns laughing, god bless him.

Needless to say, the laughter at the slippy slide, and my adult fascist ways, turned him off, and we parted ways. Me, back to my fancy pants grown up casa, and him, back to his slide.

I will admit part of me did want to ride it. The slide, you perv, the slide.

Happy birthday...friend!

My 32nd birthday went as follows:

Amazing party the night before, great gifts, a little too much drinking, boy of my dreams taking me out to a great dinner afterwards, followed by amazing sex, and then more amazing sex the next morning (on the actual birth DAY), followed by walking hand in hand to breakfast, and then getting a "I just want to be friends" speech on the lovely hand in hand walk back to my abode.

Wait.

What?

Am I getting broken up with on my birthday?

Yup.

Yay. Blow out those candles, bitch!

But, before we get ahead of ourselves, he needs to explain himself. I am in his heart he went on to say, he even pinky swears this. A grown ass man, sticking his pinky out to me, because as he puts it, "the Chinese believe that the pinky is a direct conduit to the heart." Thus I am in his heart. Thus I am his perfect women: tall, pretty, funny, exciting, great in bed, artistic, etc etc etc, blah blah blah, he doesn't know why his emotions are all over the place, he is so confused, blah blah blah, but I am just so great....

....I want to break that finger....

Instead I cry. Like a little kid. Well, more like sob, Alice in Wonderland flooding kind of sob (if I were totally being honest.) The one time I need to be tough as nails, a bitch in heels, my hormonal overload goes into effect. Thanks a lot tear ducts, way to wait it out until we are alone to watch Dirty Dancing, as we eat gobs of cookie dough. No one puts baby in the corner, no one. Instead I get to cry in front of pinky swearing jerkface who is telling me, "I heart you."

What can I say, it’s hard to digest that one just got the pink slip on their birthday. Some gift. Next time, I want diamonds.

I usually give advice to men about stop being pussies, suck it up, say how you really feel. In this situation, I think the gods were mocking me. I almost wished this guy were a pussy. Wish he had waited until after my birthday, or maybe before my birthday...or even another holiday, say Valentines Day, because truthfully that day sort of sucks balls anyway.

In hindsight I suppose I should have seen it coming. Though when you have rose-colored glasses on, and are drooling from the mouth over a tasty morsel of scrumptious-ass-tasticness you tend to look past obvious key indicators:

Such as:

1. Birthday gift = a tommy boy birthday card that said "wish you the best on your birthday", a promo CD of his band, and a bottle of water with the Lakers logo on it (because he was a lakers fan and I was a celtics fan). I should preface that my v-day gift to him was a rare record I had hunted down (he did not have it and it took me two weeks to find this), his bday gift to me, was a $1 bottle of water that he got at the pharmacy next to the bar. Kind of genius in the book of asshole moves, I will give him that.

2. After a great valentines dinner, and a two-hour make out session afterwards, he says, "I think you are more into me then I am into you, but I am just confused by my feelings, I just need time." Seriously, I should punch myself in the face with this one, but all I heard, at the time, was, "You are into me, and I want to spend time with you." Side note: I will make a horrible eyewitness when it comes to cute boys.

3. He couldn't friend me on facebook. This seems childish, because after all its only facebook, but his band accepted me, and we were...dating. His reason was because he rarely used facebook. I should have called him on this bullshit, because when you send out a friend request you get to see all the action that person is doing when they keep you in the queue. He befriended three females in the time we were "dating."

4. He showed up late to my bday party, and by late I mean the party was wrapping to a close. When he finally did show up, he barely acknowledged me. My friends put it best, "you were obviously more into him, then he was into you." Man its like they were in bed with us on Valentines Day, spooky.

Needless to say.

Happy Birthday to Me.

And perhaps, it WAS one of the greatest gifts I have ever received, not to be involved in a relationship with someone like that. So yes, thank you dear sir, that was one of the most brilliant, and well played, gifts I have ever received. But, I'll still take diamonds next time.