Drinking Moms Book Club Discusses Books Without Reading Them

 Books, Friends, Humor, Parody, Pop Culture, Tall Tale Tuesdays, Women's Interest  No Responses »
Mar 192013
 

My Book Club Only Reads Wine LabelsThe Drink­ing Moms Book Club in Plano, Texas puts a unique spin on book club discussions.

““We’re all so busy try­ing to man­age homes, fam­i­lies, and careers that we decided although we enjoyed par­tic­i­pat­ing in book club dis­cus­sions, we just didn’t have the time to read,” said Allie Hig­gins, 33, wife, mother, and vir­tual masseuse. “But we really loved one another’s com­pany, so we decided to just quit read­ing the book and still get together.”

Accord­ing to Hig­gins, her book club mem­bers meet at a member’s home and enjoy an hour of gos­sip, appe­tiz­ers, and cock­tails, before sit­ting down to dis­cuss that month’s book club selection.

““The host­ess holds up a book she recently pur­chased, and then we go around the cir­cle and give our indi­vid­ual inter­pre­ta­tions of what the book is about based on the title and book cover. After we’ve gone around the cir­cle, we vote on the best answer and then decide whether or not we liked the book.”

Some of the Drink­ing Moms Book Club’s favorite non-reading selec­tions with its inter­pre­ta­tions are as follows:

The Story of O by Pauline Réage
“We are all inspired by this biog­ra­phy of Oprah Win­frey. Love her!”

Fifty Shades of Gray by E.L. James
“We found this novel about Betsy Ross’ strug­gle with post-natal depres­sion while sewing the first Amer­i­can flag to be very pow­er­ful and moving.”

Out­liers by Mal­colm Glad­well
“Obvi­ously, this is about peo­ple who like to tell false­hoods out­doors. Not really my cup of tea, but we like to not read out­side our usual genres.”

Let’s Pre­tend This Never Hap­pened by Jenny Law­son
“Oh god, who hasn’t woken up after a night of exces­sive drink­ing, naked, in the same bed with your room­mate at a women’s col­lege. Of course, I can laugh about it now, but I haven’t spo­ken to Wendy Rhodes since 1998.”

The Immoratal Life of Hen­ri­etta Lacks by Rebecca Sloot
“I just adore a vam­pire story set in the rural United States. I can just pic­ture the undead Hen­ri­etta lurk­ing around the five and dime, stalk­ing her vic­tims who have come to buy penny candy … Spooky!”

Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern
“The title seems a tad too on the nose. Obvi­ously, it’s a mem­oir writ­ten by the child of a proc­tol­o­gist. Nor­mally, I’d be afraid to pick some­thing like this up, but it was all the rage at the time we decided not to read it.”

Although the Drink­ing Moms Book Club has received crit­i­cism for being so vocal about not read­ing books, Hig­gins defended her mem­bers. “Look, we may not read the book, but at least we buy a copy. We’re not like a lot of those other book club phonies who pre­tend to read the book and then just drink wine and chat about the pros and cons of vagi­nal reju­ve­na­tion or if their hus­bands would be gay for Bradley Cooper. At least we’re using our minds.”

How to Successfully Call Friends and Never Speak with Them

 Communication, Essays, Family, Friends, Humor, Memory Mondays, Technology  3 Responses »
Feb 042013
 

Man Listening to Voicemail MessageIt’s not easy to talk to me, even though my iPhone is with me 24/7. It’s because I split my time between my day job and the book­store. When I’m not either of those places, I’m usu­ally run­ning errands, clean­ing the house, washing/drying clothes, or iron­ing. Some­where in the midst of all that activ­ity, I blog and write three pages per day on a com­ing of age novel that never seems to end. (Set in the ‘80s, the only thing keep­ing this story from being a mini series is Jane Sey­mour in a pair of should pads!)

Often when friends call me, I’m unable to speak with them, so I let them go to voice mail, with the inten­tion of return­ing the call as soon as pos­si­ble. Fre­quently, I’m unable to find the time or for­get until it’s after mid­night and I’m wind­ing down for the night, so I put it off until the next day … and then the next … and they told two friends, and so on, and so on.

Today, while I was iron­ing, the stars aligned and I real­ized I could call all the peo­ple I like and love (some­times they are exclu­sive) and have not spo­ken with in ages. I man­aged to speak with two of them, but left mes­sages for the rest, receiv­ing a text back from one before she went on stage for a mati­nee in Indi­anapo­lis. (You never know where in the world Cherry is! Iron­i­cally, she used to just live one street over from my house.) The rest, I didn’t hear back from, which makes me wonder.

I pic­ture them doing some­thing inter­est­ing, and their phone rings. They take a peek and see my name appear on the dis­play and think, Damn! I’d really love to take this call from Jef, because he’s such a witty and fas­ci­nat­ing fel­low, but it’s prob­a­bly not a good idea to do so while I’m assist­ing in the deliv­ery of a calf or under­cover as a teenage pros­ti­tute to stop the head of an inter­na­tional human traf­fick­ing ring in Walla Walla, Wash­ing­ton. Regret­fully, they let my call roll over into voice­mail and the cycle continues.

Here’s the dis­turb­ing part, though. The longer I go with­out return­ing a phone call to a friend, the more sub­con­scious pres­sure I feel to rem­edy the sit­u­a­tion, even though I might not have time to talk until sev­eral days from that moment. There­fore, I have pur­posely begun call­ing some friends when I know they can­not pos­si­bly take my call, because then I can say I have called and not have to talk to any­one when I don’t have time to talk. But I’ve returned the call and now the ball is in their court, which prob­a­bly explains why they usu­ally call me when it seems they should know I’m not afraid to talk. Will we ever connect?

Do you find it dif­fi­cult to con­nect with friends nowa­days? Do you ever pur­posely call a loved one when she’s not avail­able, just to trans­fer the respon­si­bil­ity of the phone call fall on her instead of you?

What the Heck Were We Fighting About, Anyway?

 80s, Friends, Hi-NRG, Holidays, Humor, Memory Mondays, Music, Pop Music, Relationships, Retro, Synth-Pop  1 Response »
Oct 012012
 

On Sun­day, Octo­ber 7, I’m head­ing to the Hard Rock Cafe in Atlanta to see my favorite musi­cal group, Bana­narama, per­form, as part of Pink­to­ber.  They’re appear­ing in the Vel­vet Room, no less, and have released a new dig­i­tal EP of new mate­r­ial and a cover of Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jag­ger,” enti­tled the Now or Never EP.

The only other time I’ve ever seen Bana­narama was five years ago in Tampa, which is a funny story, but I can’t find the arti­cle I wrote about it.  When I find it, I’ll post it.

Think­ing back to my early days of Bana­narama fan­dom, I did recall a mem­ory about my best friend, Kent.  We were dri­ving to our for­mer teacher and friend’s apart­ment to help her dec­o­rate her Christ­mas, when we got into an argu­ment about whether Bana­narama was bet­ter than Tina Turner.  Although I respect Anna Mae Bullock’s tal­ent, I was smit­ten by Sara Dallin, Sibo­han Fahey, and Keren Wood­ward; Kent had the oppo­site opin­ion.  Kent was quite the Tina Turner man.  For draft­ing class in high school, he once designed a house in the shape of a cap­i­tal “T,” as trib­ute to Tina.

Although we never really fought, this argu­ment resulted in us not speak­ing to each other by the time we arrived at Donna’s apart­ment.  In a nut­shell, Kent and I hated each other; need­less to say, this led to an awk­ward evening for the three of us.

“Donna, would you please tell Kent that he needs to raid his balls (orna­ments) higher?” I asked.

“Donna,” Kent said, “Would you please tell Jef where he can still stick that arti­fi­cial candy cane?”

It went on and on like that for most of the evening.  I wish I could say that the result of our imma­tu­rity was due to our being kids, but I was 19 and Kent was 18.

Finally, Donna couldn’t take it, any­more, and in clas­sic Donna fash­ion, she blew up in such an over-the-top clas­si­cal way that she made a scenery-chewing Meryl Streep sound dead­pan.  When she finally qui­eted down, no one said any­thing, and then Kent and I looked at each other and exploded into gig­gles and teased her the rest of the night.

It’s a reminder that what we often fight about with the peo­ple we care about is usu­ally pretty stupid.

How to Be a Woman's Best Friend

 Friends, Humor, Jobs, Memory Mondays, Porn, Relationships, Self-Help, Sex, Women's Interest, Work  No Responses »
Sep 242012
 

We were at a prayer meet­ing when my friend Trixie asked me, “Tell me what you know about Astroglide.”

After being friends for 24 years, this type of thing doesn’t phase me.  “You mean the per­sonal lubricant?”

“I pre­fer the term love lotion, but, yes.”

“I don’t use Astroglide, myself, so I can’t speak as a fan,” I said.  “But you just apply, put the pieces together, and hold on tight.”

“Well, it works pretty good the first time, but …”  Trixie moved closer and whis­pered, “If you decide to have sec­ond go at it, well, it’s kind of gunky.”

““I’m not famil­iar with that tech­ni­cal term.”

““Sticky would be a good syn­onym, but not sticky in a good way.”

We were plan­ning to meet for cof­fee and dessert the next after­noon, so I sug­gested that we visit one of the adult nov­elty stores and sam­ple their wares.

Undaunted, Trixie and I vis­ited Love Shack with our inno­cent friend Midge (a recov­er­ing Pen­te­costal) in tow.  As we entered the store and i saw rack upon rack of rab­bit fur-lined hand­cuffs, cat-o-nine-tails, naughty nurse out­fits, dil­dos, nudie mag­a­zines sold in a bar­gain three-pack, and porn DVDs, a sense of deja vu came over me.

Over the years,  I have accom­pa­nied many a female friend to adult nov­elty stores to pur­chase some­thing they were too embar­rassed to buy on their own.  One co-worker, Kristie, had begun dat­ing a man after her divorce the year before.   While at the copy machine, she con­fided in me.  “When Steve and I are … you know … um … I can’t seem to … you know …”

““Orgasm?” I asked.

““SHH!” She stole a quick look behind her to ensure we were alone.  “Yes.  I just can’t seem to relax.”

“Is Steve pres­sur­ing you in some way?”  I pic­tured him hunched over Kristie, scream­ing, “SAY MY NAME!  SAY MY NAME!”  I knew I would cer­tainly find that distracting.

““No, the prob­lem is The Com­mit­tee,” Kristie said.

““Who’s The Com­mit­tee?  And why are there other peo­ple around when you’re hav­ing sex?”

““No, The Com­mit­tee is in my head.  It’s the voices of all the peo­ple I’ve known my life who judge me in my mind, like my mom, my child­hood piano teacher, and the Art Direc­tor for the Victoria’s Secret cat­a­log.  They say things like, ‘That’s dirty!’ ‘When you’re bent over like that, you look fat!’ and ‘Those keys aren’t clean!’”

I con­sid­ered how to word my response as I pro­grammed the copier to sta­ple my doc­u­ments, which seemed oddly appro­pri­ate.  “Does The Com­mit­tee dis­tract you when you’re hav­ing qual­ity time with yourself?”

Kristie gave me a blank look.

““You know, like when you’re tak­ing a long, hot bath.”

Kristie blinked at me.

I sighed.  “Can you mas­tur­bate with­out interruption?”

Kristie turned red.  “I don’t know.  I’ve never tried.”

Just then the alarm went off on the copier to clear a paper jam.

““Kristie, it may help if you prac­tice a bit on your own.  Then when you’re with Steve, you will prob­a­bly feel more comfortable.”

““Can you help me?”

““Um, I don’t think I–”

Kristie grabbed me by my shirt and shook me.  “My future chil­dren are depend­ing upon you!”

At lunchtime, Kristie and I drove to Insur­rec­tion, a adult nov­elty shop near our office.  As we mar­veled at all of her options for vibra­tors, I recalled how my fam­ily received a mail order cat­a­log that had var­i­ous house­hold crap you could live with­out but made your life bet­ter, like door­knob cov­ers and such.  It also fea­tured some­thing called a mar­i­tal aid, which showed a woman, eyes closed, with her cheek pressed ador­ingly next to a vibra­tor in a taste­ful earth tone.  (Hey, it was the ‘70s.)

““What’s a mar­i­tal aid?” I asked my mom.

She stopped stir­ring the Ham­burger Helper.   “It helps women relax.”

““Can women only relax in their bras?”

““What are you talk­ing about?”

““Well, this woman pic­tured in the cat­a­log is relax­ing with her mar­i­tal aid in her bra.”

““It means that women should do their relax­ing in the pri­vacy of their bedrooms.”

““Oh.”  I turned the page.  “Do men relax, too?”

““Yes, but they don’t need mar­i­tal aids.”

““Why not?”

““Go tell your father that din­ner is ready.”

Look­ing back at that moment, it was some­what dis­con­cert­ing that the world has basi­cally been a smutty place all along, but I was too obliv­i­ous to know. Why all the secrecy?  Why not just break it down for kids and tell them mommy requires bat­ter­ies and daddy just needs his right hand.

““Which one do you think I should choose?” Kristie asked.

““I would prob­a­bly steer away from any­thing that has a pull-start or the words ‘anal intruder’ on the pack­age,” I said.  “What about this?”  I handed her some­thing that resem­bled a small nuclear mis­sile in bright purple.

““What do I do with it?”

““Turn it on and see how it feels.”

Her eyes grew wide.

““I don’t mean take it for a test ride,” I said.  “Just turn it on and … hold it against your­self some­where above the waist.”

Kristie switched it on and jumped when it buzzed.  Gin­gerly, she put it against the back of her neck.  “Ooh, that does feel nice.”  The vibra­tions from the Gal Pal made her sound like Belinda Carlisle.

““I think we have a win­ner,” I said.

Later, as we drove back to the office, Kristie said, “Thank you for going with me to buy a Gal Pal.  I never would have been able to do it with­out you.”

““Kristie, you didn’t need me to help you buy an over­priced piece of battery-operated plastic.”

““No, but you lis­tened to me and didn’t judge me and you were there for me.  That’s what makes you a good friend  I wish all men knew how to be a good friend to a woman.”

I thought about that as I stood there assist­ing Trixie sam­ple per­sonal lubri­cants.  “This one says it will achieve a sen­sa­tional tex­ture at exactly the 29th stroke,” Trixie said.  “I won­der how they test that …”

I glanced at the tube.  “That’s mas­tur­ba­tion cream–not per­sonal lubricant.”

““Trixie turned the tube over and read the label.  “Huh … I guess that’s why it read ‘Jack off respon­si­bly’ on the back.”

““Check out this lip gloss I found,” Midge chirped.

Trixie and I both turned and read the pack­age and said in uni­son, “It’s not for the lips you’re think­ing of.”

Midge turned red.

Trixie finally decided on a water-based per­sonal lubri­cant after deter­min­ing that the silicone-based lube resulted in gunk­i­ness.  As she paid for her pur­chase, I leaned against the counter and sighed.  I thought, I’m for­ever going to be known as the trusted male friend who helps women buy vibra­tors and love lotion.  Could there be any­thing sadder?

Then an odd man entered the store and approached the counter with a used vibra­tor.  The clerk eyed the Anal Intruder on the counter and bit his lip as he picked it up to exam­ine it.  I smiled.  There were worse things.

My Best Friend and His Satanic Bible

 80s, Essays, Friends, Humor, Kids, Memory Mondays, School  3 Responses »
Jul 092012
 

When I hear about bul­ly­ing in schools these days, I’m always reminded of my best friend Kent and his Satanic Bible.  Kent was not a devil wor­ship­per; he played trom­bone in the march­ing band.  How­ever, when he started high school, he would walk through the halls with his Satanic Bible on top of his alge­bra and phys­i­cal sci­ence book.

One day, I asked him, “Kent, what’s up with The Satanic Bible?”

I asked this because my neigh­bor was our school prin­ci­pal, who also went to my church, and I was begin­ning to receive strange looks from Mr. Ford.  I’m sure he was begin­ning to won­der if I was guilty by asso­ci­a­tion.  Plus, Kent some­times spent the night at my house, and I didn’t want to wake up in the mid­dle of a pen­ta­gram drawn with a Sharpie while Kent, nude and wear­ing a goat’s horns, chanted in Latin.

““You know how the upper class­men some­times give younger class­men a hard time?” he asked.

““Yeah.”

““Well, I was think­ing to myself, ‘Self, what would keep an upper class­man from giv­ing me a hard time?’  And my Self said, ‘Satan,’” Kent said.  “So I asked my mom for ten bucks to buy a copy of To Kill a Mock­ing­bird to read for Eng­lish, and then I went to Walden Books at Hulen Mall and bought The Satanic Bible.”

““So you haven’t signed your name in blood in a black book, then?”

““You know how much I hate to read,” he said.  “I’ve never even opened the book.”

““So no upper class­men have both­ered you since you started high school because you’re car­ry­ing The Satanic Bible?” I said.

““Well, some of the goth girls have been flirt­ing with me, but other than that, no.”

Remembering My Most Un-Cher-like Moment

 80s, Friends, Gay, Humor, Kids, Memory Mondays, Men's Interest  No Responses »
Jun 182012
 

I once read a quote from Cher where she said that her reac­tion to her daugh­ter com­ing out to her as a les­bian was very un-Cher-like. It reminded me of a deci­sion that I had made when I was a young teenager that if any of my friends ever told me they were gay, I would be totally cool and sup­port­ive of them.

After I grad­u­ated from high school, my best friend, Kent, and I bought sea­sons passes to Six Flags Over Texas. We used to drive through the back coun­try roads from Burleson to Arling­ton to deter­mine which seat pro­vided the most excit­ing ride on each of the roller­coast­ers. One night as I pulled into Kent’s dri­ve­way to drop him off, he said he needed to talk to me, so I turned the engine off and gave him my full atten­tion. When Kent told me he was gay, I thought he was jok­ing. I thought all gay men lived in San Fran­cisco and dressed like Fred­die Mer­cury from Queen. Keep in mind that this was 1986, long before Will & Grace, and there weren’t many out celebrities.

Of course, my first reac­tion was denial. “Are you sure?” I asked. “I saw you make out with Jenni Sapp on her bed­room floor.”

““Yeah, I was try­ing to fig­ure it out if I really was gay or not, although Jenni is a great kisser,” he said.

““When did you know?”

““I’ve always known I was dif­fer­ent, but it wasn’t until I found out about gay peo­ple that I knew what I was.”

““Do you know any gay peo­ple?” I asked.

“Remem­ber that guy J.D. I brought to the Rocky Hor­ror Pic­ture Show a few months ago?”

I nod­ded.

““We were dating.”

This threw me for a loop, because I thought Kent and I shared every­thing. “You were dat­ing? And you didn’t tell me?”

““I was still try­ing to fig­ure out if it was a phase.”

““Is it?”

““No, I’m sure I’m gay.”

In a blink of an eye, I then recalled so many clues that should have been obvi­ous to me that Kent was gay, maybe he had even be sub­con­sciously try­ing to get the mes­sage across to me. I remem­bered once when I was over at his house and he said that he hand found a Play­girl in his sister’s bed­room. He tossed it over in my lap, and motioned for me to open it. I thumbed through it and saw what I expected to see: Play­girl was sim­i­lar to Play­boy, except that it had pic­tures of nude men instead of naked women, and no one ever talked about read­ing Play­girl for the arti­cles. When I reached the end of the mag­a­zine, I handed it back to him. I looked at him, expect­ing some expla­na­tion as to why he asked me to peruse Play­girl, but he set it aside and changed the sub­ject. I shrugged it off and fig­ured that I was lucky enough to have a friend who was open-minded enough not to be self-conscious about look­ing through a Play­girl. In hind­sight, I was embar­rassed that I could have been so naive.

Sud­denly, the car seemed very small.  I couldn’t breathe.  My head spun, and then fear flooded me and  I went down that hor­ri­ble, un-Cher-like road and asked THE QUESTION: “You’re not attracted to me, are you?”

Kent closed his eyes and sighed. “No, I’m not attracted to you.”

I relaxed. I rolled down my win­dow.  I inhaled the cool, night air … and then I found myself offended. “Why aren’t you attracted to me?” I asked. “What’s wrong with me?”

Kent let out a long, labored sigh, like an exhausted beach ball throw­ing itself onto a Ginsu knife.  He explained that I was his best friend, there­fore, it would be like incest to think of me in that way.

I mulled this over.  I was both relieved and mor­ti­fied, as I was reminded of how cool I had planned to be in this moment, if it had ever hap­pened.  Some­how, I felt I had dis­ap­pointed both Kent and myself.  Still, con­sid­er­ing my age and lack of train­ing, had I done so bad?  I had been about as pre­pared to have my best friend come out to me as I had been to medi­ate a hostage cri­sis, yet I had done the best I could.  It seemed that I needed to make amends for my rough start, so I relied on the one thing Kent and I had orig­i­nally bonded over–an absurd sense of humor.

““Now that you’re gay, I hope that you’ll still be my friend,” I said.  “But if you don’t feel com­fort­able with that, I’ll understand.”

Kent laughed.  I laughed.  If Cher had been there, I think she would have laughed and maybe sang “Gyp­sies, Tramps and Thieves.”  I had no idea how Kent’s con­fes­sion would change my life.  It was like always expect­ing that I’d travel to Walla Walla, Wash­ing­ton, and then end­ing up in Pismo Beach.  Kent would intro­duce me to many strange and inter­est­ing peo­ple.  He’d teach me to two-step in a gay coun­try & west­ern bar.  Most of all, I learned that no mat­ter how dif­fer­ent other peo­ple may seem to be from me, if you’re will­ing to be patient, you’ll soon see that we’re actu­ally very much the same.

 

 

Why Is Your Blog Called Cult of Jef?

 Blogging, Essays, Friends, Humor, Memory Mondays  8 Responses »
Apr 302012
 

When I was a kid, I never met any­one with my name.  (You might want to check out my post about how my par­ents chose my name, too, just click here.)  There didn’t seem to be many Jeff’s in the news, either.  The only rea­son I knew there were other Jeff’s out there is because of those dis­plays with per­son­al­ized key­chains.  I’d rub the Jeff key­chain between my fin­gers and think, I know you’re out there, Jeff …  I always thought it would be fun to have a friend named Jeff.

By the time I was in mid­dle school, another Jeff appeared in the sixth grade.  We didn’t have much in com­mon, though.  In fact, the only thing I remem­ber about him is that he had a very con­spic­u­ous retainer.

In high school, there were a few other Jeff’s, but they were older.  I occa­sion­ally spoke to Jeff R. in Geom­e­try, but our paths didn’t cross much out­side of class–although our ver­ti­cal angles were always con­gru­ent.  (I actu­ally got to know Jeff a lit­tle bet­ter when we were in a play together dur­ing my fresh­man year of col­lege.  He was a nice guy; I hope he’s doing well.)

In the mid 1990s, my friend Tim told me, “You should meet my friend Jeff in Atlanta.  You two have a lot in com­mon.”  I didn’t really know how to respond to his com­ment.  I mean, it’s one thing to go bowl­ing with a mutual friend; it’s another to try to meet some­one 800 miles away for lunch to deter­mine if you both have a pas­sion for sci­ence fic­tion movies from ‘50s, so I’d just nod at Tim and change the subject.

A year or so later, Tim told me that he was dri­ving to Atlanta to visit his friend Jeff for his birth­day.  He asked if I wanted to tag along.  Nor­mally, I would have declined, but I had recently bemoaned to a co-worker that I never trav­eled and I needed to rem­edy that.  So, Tim and I left Dal­las right after work on Fri­day and drove all-night to Atlanta and I finally met the other Jeff.

Jeff and I had a lot in com­mon:  We were both mid­dle chil­dren, both the only sons, both had been D.J.‘s at our col­lege radio sta­tions, both liked pho­tog­ra­phy, and both had the same name.  It was a pleas­ant sur­prise, because it’s not every­day that you meet some­one sim­patico.  I gave Jeff the nick­name “2 F’s” since I was Jef with “1 F” and we kept in touch.

About a year later, I felt like my pro­fes­sional and per­sonal life had become stag­nant.  Since I had lived in Texas all of my life, I sensed that it was time to move some place with bet­ter job oppor­tu­ni­ties and fresh faces.  I con­sid­ered New York and Los Ange­les, but they both seemed daunt­ing.  I recalled how much I liked Atlanta when I vis­ited the pre­vi­ous sum­mer.  Atlanta seemed sim­i­lar enough to Dal­las to feel com­fort­able, yet dif­fer­ent enough to allow some oppor­tu­nity for per­sonal growth, and since I already knew some­one there, the idea of mov­ing began to seem less scary.  I got excited.

I moved to Atlanta and found a bet­ter job, made more money, and started doing all sorts of new things, like rock climb­ing and join­ing a screen­writ­ing group.  I also had the oppor­tu­nity to get to know Jeff bet­ter, and one day I real­ized that wish I had while stand­ing in front of the per­son­al­ized key­chains had come true–I had  Jeff for a friend!

Okay, this is where it starts to get weird:  A few years after I moved to Geor­gia, I moved in with Jeff when he bought a larger house in the city.  I went from know­ing no other Jeffs, to befriend­ing a Jeff, to liv­ing with a Jeff.  By that time, I’d also met Jeff’s best friend from Canada.  His name?  Jeff!  Over the next few months, we met our neighbors–Jeff and Jeff.  Sud­denly, it seemed like I was sur­rounded by Jeff’s.  But then one neigh­bor Jeff. moved, and I told 2 F’s, “You know, it kind of sad­dens me that we’re one Jeff down on the block.

“Don’t be,” Jeff said.  “I met the new neigh­bors next door.”

“What are their names?” I asked.

“Brit­ney and Jeff,” he said.

“You’re kid­ding …”

If some­one had writ­ten a story with this many Jeff’s, I would have told me that it was too coin­ci­den­tal and unbe­liev­able, yet here I am, smack in the mid­dle of a sea of Jeff’s.  There­fore, when I was brain­storm­ing names for my blog, a friend sug­gested that I should focus on some­thing that is unique about myself, hence, Cult of Jef was born.

What is one unusual aspect of your own life?

The Truth About Black Ken and Me

 Friends, Humor, Memory Mondays, Pop Culture, Relationships, Toys, Women's Interest  1 Response »
Apr 092012
 

I was thirty-three years old when I bought my first Bar­bie doll. My niece had been born a few years ear­lier, and I decided that I wanted to have some toys on hand in case she–or any of my other friends with small children–visited. When I told my friend Trixie that I bought a Bar­bie, she became quite upset.

“Why the @#%* did you buy a Bar­bie?” she said.

To say that Trixie’s reac­tion was unex­pected, is putting it mildly. “Um … because that’s what lit­tle girls play with, isn’t it?”

“Let me tell you a sad story,” Trixie began. “Once there was a lit­tle brunette girl who always received blond dolls for birth­days, Christ­mas, and when her father didn’t show up for his vis­i­ta­tions and tried to buy her love once he sobered up. And do you know what mes­sage that blond doll said to her lit­tle, dark-haired self?”

“Play with me?”

“No!” She jabbed a fin­ger into my chest. “That blond bitch said, ‘You are a sec­ond class female and you always will be!’”

“Really?” I asked. “Bar­bie said that to you?”

“Take her back!”

“What?”

“Take Bar­bie back and get a brunette friend of Bar­bie,” Trixie said.

“But my niece is blond, Trixie,” I said. “If I exchange Bar­bie for a dark-haired doll, am I not send­ing her mes­sage that says, ‘You’re a sec­ond class citizen?’”

Trixie folded her arms across her chest.  “Well, obvi­ously you’re a lost cause,” she huffed and stormed off.

I didn’t think any­thing more of the con­ver­sa­tion until Trixie gave me a pack­age for my birth­day. I tore off the wrap­ping paper to find a black Ken doll start­ing back at me.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Since you refused to return your blond Bar­bie, I decided to give you a dark-haired Ken to bal­ance things out.”

“This isn’t a Ken doll,” I said. “He’s black.”

“Oh, so in addi­tion to being an Aryan-supremacist, now you’re a racist!  Why don’t we just call him Mandingo!”

“I’m not a racist,” I hissed. “I sim­ply stated that this is not a Ken doll.  I also noted that he’s African-American.”

“So he’s a black Ken,” Trixie argued.

“Accord­ing to Mattel’s pack­ag­ing, his name is Steven.  He’s the main squeeze for Barbie’s friend Christy, who is also African-American.”

“Well, if you want to nitpick–”

“Wait a minute! Don’t even go there,” I said.  It was begin­ning to dawn on me that there was some­thing big­ger going on here than the fact Trixie had bought Bar­bie a com­pan­ion other than the one she is typ­i­cally part­nered with.  It was like read­ing about Wilma Flint­stone and Homer Simp­son hav­ing an affair in the National Enquirer.  “You know, I don’t think this is about me; this is about you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talk­ing about.”  Trixie sud­denly became very inter­ested in her fin­ger­nails.  “You said that you wanted Bar­bie to have a companion.”

“No, I said that I wanted Bar­bie to have a Ken.  When peo­ple think of Bar­bie, they think of Bar­bie and Ken–not Bar­bie and Steven,” I said.  “I didn’t even know that Steven existed.”

“If you just take some time to get to know Steven, I’m sure that you’ll grow fond of him,” Trixie said.  “I’m sim­ply try­ing to cul­ti­vate some diver­sity in your niece’s world, but it seems to me that you’re both­ered to have Bar­bie shack­ing up with a black man.  You’re a racist!”

“For the love of God, I’m not racist!  I don’t care if Bar­bie dates a black man or whether she becomes a les­bian.”  I sighed. “Do you know what it seems like to me?   It seems like you bought Steven because you wanted to make me feel like you always felt when you received a blond Bar­bie as a lit­tle girl.”

Trixie grew quiet.  “When I told you what it felt like to always receive a blond Bar­bie as a lit­tle brunette girl, it seemed like you were mak­ing light of my feelings.”

In that moment, my heart went out to Trixie.  Granted, as an adult she had totally dis­re­garded my feel­ings about what I had wanted, but her action was moti­vated by the hurt of lit­tle girl who felt that she wasn’t good enough as is.

“I’m sorry, Trixie, I wasn’t mak­ing fun of you,” I said.  I rubbed my tem­ples.  It seemed that some­thing so sim­ple had become so need­lessly com­pli­cated.  “If you felt brunettes weren’t equally rep­re­sented in y niece’s life, then why didn’t you just buy one of Barbie’s dark-haired friends?”

“Well … I recently real­ized that I’m really attracted to black men,” she said.

A long silence fol­lowed.  We both looked at Steven, then our eyes met.  There was a hun­gry look in Trixie’s eyes and I sud­denly felt very pro­tec­tive of Steven, so I sent Trixie home to take a cold shower.  What really mat­tered is that Trixie and I had both been heard.

In the mean­time, I intro­duced Bar­bie to Ken.  I wasn’t sure how things would work out, at first, because Steven thought that Bar­bie was too aggres­sive at first and Bar­bie felt that Steven was too reserved for her taste.  But I sent them off to one of those places where you have a few glasses of wine and tapas while you fire a ceramic ash tray, and one thing led to another …

For the past nine years, Bar­bie and Steven have been liv­ing together in a suit­case.  Some­times par­ents will get a bewil­dered expres­sion on their face.  “Where’s Ken?” they ask.

“There’s not one,” I reply.

“But Bar­bie is always with Ken,” they say, auto­mat­i­cally, with­out thinking.

“Well, Bar­bie used to think that way, too, but then she met Steven and fell in love with his sense of humor,” I say.  “They’re really happy together.”

They laugh.  Then they notice the dark-haired Kayla.  “So who’s Barbie’s friend?”

“You remem­ber my friend Trixie?  Well, she recently became intrigued by polyamorous love.”

Of course, that’s another story …

 Posted by at 7:00 am

Coming Out About Whitney Houston to Your Friends

 90s, Celebrities, Essays, Friends, Humor, Memory Mondays, Movies, Music, Pop Culture  2 Responses »
Mar 052012
 

I remem­ber Susan and I dri­ving in her Isuzu truck, the blue one that she had scratched the “I” and “U” off of, so it would read “SUZ.”  I wanted to share some­thing with her, but I was scared that she would reject me if I told her the truth.

We were cir­cling the park­ing lot of Irv­ing Mall, search­ing for a park­ing space, so we could do a bit of Christ­mas shop­ping.  The sky, a wet, winter-gray, reflected my mood.

As Susan parked, the radio began to play Whit­ney Hous­ton singing “I Will Always Love You.”  It had just been released, and the movie, The Body­guard, wouldn’t be released until Jan­u­ary.  I shifted on the seat.  Susan cleared her voice.

““I, um, kind of like this song,” she said, then quickly looked out the window.

I closed my eyes and grabbed the dash­board.  As the tight­ness in my chest dis­si­pated, I laughed.  “I do, too,” I said.  “In fact, I bought the whole soundtrack.”

Susan turned to me, relief in her eyes.  “Really?”

““I’m afraid so,” I said, stum­bling over my words to get the truth out.  “I kept telling myself that I was just buy­ing the CD for the Lisa Stans­field song, but–the truth is–I just like ‘I Will Always Love You’.”  Then I spoke, with author­ity, as if I were address­ing an Alco­holics Anony­mous meet­ing.  “I, Jef Blocker, like a Whit­ney Hous­ton song.”

““Me too!” Susan said.  “I’m so relieved to hear you say that.  “I was afraid that you wouldn’t want to be my friend, any­more, if you knew that I liked a Whit­ney Hous­ton song.”

“Me too!” I con­fessed.  “For the life of me, I don’t know why I like it so much.  I mean, it’s not Bana­narama, Depeche Mode, or the Pet Shop Boys, is it?”

““Hell no, it’s Whit­ney Hous­ton,” Susan said.  “But it’s okay, isn’t it?”

““I guess so.”  I was sud­denly unsure again.  “I think we’re fine as long as we don’t buy any of her remixes or anything.”

““Yeah, I would never buy any of her remixes,” Susan said.

We smiled at each other, our friend­ship still intact, in spite of Whit­ney Houston.

““Come on,” I said, “Let’s go inside and buy some Doc Martens!”

How I Lost That Loving Feeling and Got It Back

 70s, Essays, Friends, Holidays, Humor, Kids, Memory Mondays, Men's Interest, Pop Culture, Relationships, Self-Help, Sex, Women's Interest  No Responses »
Feb 132012
 

I don’t con­sider myself much of a roman­tic, but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Valentine’s Day. When I was younger, I enjoyed dec­o­rat­ing a white paper bag with pink and red hearts, cut metic­u­lously from con­struc­tion paper, for the sole pur­pose of receiv­ing valen­tines from my class­mates. Later, I would care­fully peruse the hol­i­day aisle at K-Mart, weigh­ing my options between Peanuts, Looney Toons, and Dis­ney before finally choos­ing a pack­age of valen­tines that expressed the essence of my love for all the kids in my class. I would thought­fully match the valen­tine accord­ing to my rap­port with that stu­dent. There­fore, my best friend, Kelly, received the cov­eted Don­ald Duck in the astro­naut suit, while Sharon and her wrap-around retainer received a valen­tine with a B-List Dis­ney char­ac­ter. Some­times, if I felt so inspired, I might per­son­al­ize the valen­tine with a mes­sage such as, “Stay cool.”

On Feb­ru­ary 14th, I would drop a valen­tine into each classmate’s dec­o­rated bag before gorg­ing myself on cup­cakes, cook­ies, and punch with­out a sec­ond thought for chil­dren starv­ing in third world coun­tries. After­wards, fly­ing high on a killer sugar buzz, we would empty our sacks on our desks and open our valen­tines. It all went so well until the 5th grade, when in the midst of an envelope-ripping frenzy, I real­ized that I had for­got­ten Randy Fer­gu­son. Even though I had worked straight from my home room list, some­how, Randy had been passed over and I lost that lov­ing feel­ing. I still think of Randy from time to time and won­der what he’s doing now. I won­der if he’s hap­pily mar­ried with a fam­ily of his own, or whether, instead, he is sleep­ing on a park bench some­where, sip­ping out of a brown paper bag.  I ques­tion if, per­haps, I could have saved a life if I had only given another ten-year-old boy a piece of card with a por­trait of Goofy ask­ing him to be mine.  Alas, I’ll never know.

His­tor­i­cally, Valentine’s Day is a cel­e­bra­tion of a Catholic mar­tyr who was beaten to death and beheaded because he secretly mar­ried cou­ples dur­ing the reign of Claudius the Cruel. It seems Claudius had can­celled all mar­riages and engage­ments because he believed them to be the rea­son he had trou­ble find­ing sol­diers for his army. No roses, candy, flow­ers, cup­cakes, punch, or paper bags dec­o­rated with hearts were involved. Strangely enough, it’s sort of like cel­e­brat­ing Vegan Day by eat­ing a sir­loin steak or world peace with a box­ing match.

Gen­er­ally, men tend to receive the short end of the stick when it comes to choos­ing the per­fect present to give on Feb­ru­ary 14th. Any­thing a woman says from Jan­u­ary 1st until V-Day is a pos­si­ble clue. Some men learn the hard way that when a woman says she really doesn’t expect any­thing or want him to go to a lot of trou­ble for Valentine’s Day, it’s basi­cally a lie. Of course she wants him to do some­thing to prove that he thinks she is a god­dess on a moun­tain­top burn­ing like a sil­ver flame! The chal­lenge is to decide whether to give lin­gerie, flow­ers, or a dia­mond, but I say you can never go wrong with choco­late. Even if she’s on a diet or a fit­ness fanatic, she’ll love chocolate–and if she’s bulimic, she’ll enjoy it twice as much! For men, on the other hand, there is only one obvi­ous choice: sex. Beer can do in a pinch, but, ladies, wouldn’t you pre­fer to give him some­thing where his atten­tion is on you and not the con­tents of a bot­tle or can?

For some, valen­tine anx­i­ety is not a symp­tom of the lack of the right gift, but rather Mr. or Miss Right. In their minds, to be sin­gle on Feb­ru­ary 14th is akin to walk­ing around with the word LOSER stamped on their fore­heads. They claim to be unhappy because they don’t have any­one in their life. I say to these peo­ple, “Adopt a home­less per­son!” How­ever, they argue that they want some­one spe­cial. “Adopt a mentally-challenged per­son!” I reply, but it seems, instead, that they want some­body to com­plete them. So they imme­di­ately look around for a des­per­ate date for V.D.; any­one with a pulse is eli­gi­ble. The date is typ­i­cally a recipe for dis­as­ter and results in tears and some­one hurl­ing flam­ing shish kebob skew­ers while the other runs for his life–or at least that’s been my experience.

Some­how, it seems that we miss the whole point, no pun intended, of Valentine’s Day. Instead of think­ing of roman­tic love, which gen­er­ally focuses on our own desires and yearn­ings, we should expand our inter­pre­ta­tion to include agape, a self-less and spir­i­tual love that we can share with the whole world. Instead of buy­ing your kids more candy they don’t need, sug­gest they give it to me, or make a dona­tion to an orga­ni­za­tion that works toward elim­i­nat­ing world hunger. If you know a cou­ple with chil­dren that never seem to have time for them­selves, sur­prise them by offer­ing for you and your sig­nif­i­cant other to baby-sit while they go out and trip the lights fan­tas­tic.  Then after the kids go to sleep, mess around in the couple’s bed.  If you find your­self with­out a date, take a home­less per­son to Dave & Busters; you’ll have some­one to play air hockey with. But why stop there? Why not extend Valentine’s Day to 365 days a year by giv­ing your time and energy to one of the many orga­ni­za­tions that need vol­un­teers? Help do main­te­nance at a local church, vol­un­teer to mow an elderly neighbor’s lawn, or ask the four-star chef who lives on the cor­ner if he needs any­one to sam­ple his food to make sure it’s not poi­soned?  One can never be too sure these days …

I always wanted to read to chil­dren, so I vol­un­teered to read to the sec­ond grade class of a local ele­men­tary school. How­ever, it seems that my choice of mate­r­ial was not appro­pri­ate. Since chil­dren were men­tioned in the title, I assumed, nat­u­rally that Jackie Collins’ Hol­ly­wood Kids would be a good choice, but it seems that unhook­ing a bra is not some­thing that is cov­ered in a sec­ond grade boy’s cur­ricu­lum. Sadly, he will have to learn that later in the streets. Next, I thought I would draw atten­tion to per­sonal safety with Car­olyn Har­ris Johnson’s Come With Daddy: Child Murder-Suicide After Fam­ily Break­down, but this choice was nixed for rea­sons never fully explained to me. Finally, I asked the teacher for a rec­om­men­da­tion, and she sug­gested a nature story with ani­mals, one that presents a bold mes­sage which chil­dren can remem­ber for the rest of their lives. I smiled smugly, know­ing just the book for the job. As a result of our con­ver­sa­tion, this week, I will be read­ing from Peter Benchley’s Jaws. Sigh … It feels good to give a gift that will keep on giv­ing. This one’s for you, Randy!

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