I can't figure out how to delete these spaces....

So I will fill them with pictures of my (very real) First Crush.

DATING #2

The streets were full of children that should have been in bed. Korean newspapers, stuck together with globs of 99 cent hair gel, blow past me like tumbleweeds. The 2011 Depression Era of Los Angeles was upon me as I walked through the ironed, unlocked gates of a sleazy apartment building.
Room 101.....no...that's the landlord....but it is definitely written "101" on the soggy napkin I'm holding...so....yeah, I'm going on a date with a landlord I guess.

This sounds like the beginning of a cautionary tale in which a young, upper-middle-class white girl learns a lesson. But let me assure you, I will learn no lesson by the end of this night.
I knock on his door. A dog barks from within. That's a good sign, right? He owns dogs instead of torturing and killing them? See, Mackenzie, you know how to pick them.
"Just one second!"
"Okay."
"No, more like a couple minutes!"
"...okay."

I take the couple of minutes to text two friends the address I'm at. In case I die.

He opens the door, confused, hair wet post-shower.
"You're here?"
" I didn't want to be rude."
...
"Okay, well come in...."
"Okay. No wait. I might come in. And then leave quickly. Okay?"
"Do whatever you need to do."
I enter.
It's a giant one bedroom, really nice place for a bachelor in his early 20s (later found out, not in his early twenties). (but really, how can you tell what age men are these days? They're all just so white).

This place looks okay... nice, high ceilings, quite clean, nice movie collection, several long, rope-like-material chains hanging from the ceiling, wait, what the fuck?
He sees me eyeing them.
"I take headshots. Those are for the headshots. You need headshots?"
No.

Let me back up to how I got in this sitch (as Kim Possible says). And also, why and how YOU should not:

Last night I met Peter at the bar at Improv Olympic. I was already on my second tequilla sunrise and had just taken an improv class, so I was on FIRE. I hadn't eaten very much and I just smoked a VERY EXPENSIVE, celebratory cigarette, so my hands were just as shakey as the one-liners I was spittin' out. This guy, Peter, hits on me. He looks SO familiar, then I realize no, I just know someone else named Peter, and that was what was confusing me.
Giving into my surroundings, feeling "full of it," and hanging out with my best friend Tequila, gave me the courage to be myself with this man. I.E. I was extremly mean to him. Like, told other men I was talking to that they didn't need to learn Peter's name because he doesn't really matter as a human being. And that he was wearing a women's vest. Just your average extremly mean comments.

I was having such a GREAT LAST NIGHT OF IMPROV CLASS EVERRRRRR night, that I didn't realize he started "holding me hand." For like a really long time? Just holding my hand.
(Just to clarify, I wasn't really drunk. Forever more, you will know when I'm drunk, because I'll tell you. And warn you, via the onomonopia *CA CAW CA CAW!*)

Me: "Isn't it funny? This feminine man is still holding me hand? He's such a loser!
40 Year Old I've Been Hitting On for Eight Weeks Who Has A Glass Eye: I know, you should NOT get his number.
Me: "Okay!....Hey, hey stupid. Yeah, you Peter. I've made up my mind. I dont want your number... I want your ADDRESS. And tomorrow night...I'll show up at it.... at an undisclosed time..."
Peter: -okay.
CA CAW CA CAW!
Peter took a bus home.

So I did what I said. Because I'd made an odd, poorly thought-out promise. And if I do one thing, it's never break promises.

I won't go into the details of the not-really-a-date, because they're not that interesting. I did the same thing I always do when on a date I don't really want to go on: (SEE DATING #1) act really cool for no reason and can't stop until it takes over my whole being and I drive my car with the body language of a rapper, because I really am that cool, who the Hell am I doing this for, seriously?

Back at incredibly sketchy East LA apartment:
Peter makes me a mix of juice, which he ONLY buys out of glass bottles. "Do you know.... there's plastic....in the ocean....the size of blablablablablablablabal." Then his dog bit me.

Cut to: Washing my bloody finger. (Aparently, in the blablblablablbal there was a "hey, if you keep poking my dog like that, he's going to bite you.)

Cut to: Me driving us to a comedy club. Like a rapper.

Cut to: Him eating a chicken sandwhich he bought for himself which made my car smell like armpit, and him keep saying "because I bought us dinner...ect". (See above "single sandwhich he bought himself to eat in my car").

Cut to: "People say they don't judge others, but it's like.... just by thinking that...you are judging. Youself. So I always say, hey, I can't help who I judge, but I can at least be conscious of the reasoning behind my blablablablabla."

Cut to: "You have really muscular thighs."

Cut to: So the plastic water bottles... that people are drinking...they have a lot of toxins in them... which, Science is proving that the toxins are highering the levels of testosterone is girls, and lowering them in men, so...I mean, it really explains why there is such an influx in gayness these days. Which I am NOT SAYING I'm against, but, it definitly is something to think about."

Cut to: You look like Elizabeth Shoe.
(I look nothing like Elizabeth Shoe)

Cut to: "Hey, that's my napkin."

Cut to: "I HAVE pajamas at my house. Men's pajamas. Women's pajamas. No, like, not in a weird way. I really respect women. And gay people. And Black people. And women. Its not weird- you can just wear the pajamas I have. There my mom's."

Cut to: "Do you like the mint you're eating?" " Cuz my balls taste like mint."

Note to self: Don't think it's funny to tell someone you meet that night that you WILL show up at their house tomorrow. It will attract the wrong people, and send them an obvious message you will not fulfill. And you'll have no one to blame but yourself. But maybe, just maybe, you'll be educated in the ways of science, and learn plastic water bottles are the culprit behind gayness.

DATING #1

Last weekend, I went on a date with my mother to a Planned Parenthood party. Whenever she gets invited to these types of fundraisers, I jump to include myself. She doesn’t understand why I would want to hangout with sad middle-aged women, converse in name-tag-based chitchat, and eat tiny, triangle sandwiches.

These events are truly the highlight of my life. I just like to watch how the women age. I like to catalog it, and compare from soccer mom to soccer mom. Even dressing up for these nights, something I generally despise, is exciting. I like to look a little out of place, wearing something seemingly average, but then upon a second look, ill fitting and bizarre... such as my Anita dress from my high school production of West Side Story. Stuff I’d wear to a salsa club and never get asked to dance, except by older, Asian men. NOTE TO READERS: Do not salsa dance with older, Asian men. They take it very seriously and you will end up throwing up afterwards while standing in front of a fan- causing it to whip coolly back into your face. “SPIN SPIN ha HA! Spin Girl!”

Enough said: I love fundraisers. (But only Rich ones. Poor-people ones are sad. Aw, theatre company fundraisers… so depressing. Their malnourished, vagrant four year olds running around high on sugar, because they’ve never seen this many donated ‘potluck’ cut n’ bake Pillsbury cookies in their lives. I don’t wish that life for any child…)

So I went in with my mother, received my golden nametag, and entered the mansion party. Boy was I wrong. Old-money Pasadena Democrats know how to get crunk. Wine spills everywhere. There are like, ten different catering companies each with barrels and barrels of booze.
Some spirited, hopeful woman high-up in the Planned Parenthood world cornered me and ranted about how “YOU YOUNG PEOPLE ARE THE FUTURE!! YOU’RE AN ARTIST!!! YOU’RE THE FUTURE OF YOUNG ARTISTS!!” She’s great. She got Chardonnay all over me, but she’s just great.
I think we invented a new chapter of PP for young people together… it had a really catchy name…it was like…Tap on TAP! Or something. Like a monthly tap-dancing show…at a bar….for YOUNG PEOPLE….that fundraised and spread awareness for planned parenthood? Tap for TAP! Something like that. I think I told her I’d get a band together for it. Maybe I said I was in a band? I don’t know, we were trashed.

The point of this, was that I was going to say that I met this guy there my age who I thought was really good looking and really gay. I was hitting on him all night, even though I knew he was gay. Once again, I’m not sure why. I probably thought it was funny. Or I wanted him to give me something? Who knows. Oh yeah! It was then that I learned he’s a painter. (YOU’RE THE FUTURE OF ARTISTS!) I think I wanted to get the gay guy to become attracted to me so he would paint my portrait. Yep. That was it. I vaguely remember that thought process.

Anyway, somehow I got home, after endless Morning-After-Pill jokes. Isn’t that the end of every story? But wait, there’s more. Actually the rest was the point of me writing this, because it’s supposed to be a blog about dating. But the back story involving the criz-AY-Zay liberals residing in the hills of Pasadena paints a nice picture.

So a week later, said Planned Parenthood gay guy, let’s call him Chris, no wait, that’s his name. Let’s call him Peter (pronounced the German way, “Pay-ter”) calls and asks me to get dinner with him. Sure.
He rings my doorbell, opens the car door for me, and fuck. Planned Parenthood must have gotten me trashed. Peter is incredibly straight and not good-looking in the least bit, and we were definitely on a date. How did I confuse the two most important elements!?

Long story short: he has a five-head. That’s all you really need to know. Five-head sense of humor, five-head relationship with his brother, five-head type of painter … a five-head guy. Sigh. Oh well.

At the muy authentico Mexican restaurant, I lead the small talk and acted like I owned the place. I was making really weird comments like, “That sign… that sign’s been there…all my life.” And then I’d breathe out a deep sigh that suggested a point of view I didn’t have.

He didn’t respond. Not like he needed to; all my comments were neither interesting nor impressive… yet I still feel I was the wild card out of the two of us. Geez, this guys’s lucky to be hanging out with super-cool me. My body language suggests I could care less about this blossoming into a nurturing relationship. God, I’m so the ideal woman…

After dinner, I accompanied him to his apartment. It was close. You’re supposed to go to two places on a date, right? One isn’t enough? I don’t know. So I went to his abode, not in hopes of sex, but in hopes that he’d ask to paint my portrait. Yeah, that was still in the cards for me.

I smoked a cigarette on his back porch half-leaning on the wall all B.A. like Ryder Strong in Boy Meets World. I have the same pack of cigarettes that have been in my purse for three months that I whip out for moments like this.

It’s odd, because the less interested I am in a guy I’m on a date with, the more I try to impress him. But I’m not sure whose “sake” I’m doing this for? Certainly not his, because I don’t quite care what this person I’ll hopefully never see again thinks about me. Yet I find myself acting like this more and more the older I get…

Maybe I just really hate dating. My idea of a perfect way to gradually fall in love with someone is for, let’s say, Jeff Goldbloom to ask me if I want a ride to the grocery store. And then maybe, just maybe, he comes in with me because I can’t reach the chickens. And then we bone. Yeaah… Goldbloom. Mmm, I’ll take you with or without that broken leg from the jaws of a raptor.

The moral of the story is, don’t go on dates with guys you meet when you’re drunk at a fundraiser with your mom. It ultimately won’t go how you had foreseen it, and you’ll just end up accidentally being mean by commenting that his art is “awesome.” But somehow, that one single world blew your cover by sounding extremely patronizing and sarcastic, and you end the night, both deciding you’re a giant Bitch.

It has arrived....

When I met Mackenzie Yeager while speaking at San Marino High School, she was just your average, precocious teenager. Just from spotting her out in the audience, I could tell she was extremely smart, especially for a girl in public school.

After my speech which, let's be honest, could have used a little "Mack-ing-up" (I coined that phrase) she pulled me aside, and gave me some interesting campaign strategies. I quickly applied her strategies to my rue for Presidency, and soon, I was hob-knobbing with Leonardo DiCaprio! What a tiger.

A few years later, I ran into the young woman at a hot club in West Hollywood. I LOVE clubbing. Recognizing me, she told me she was sorry I wasn't the President of the United States, and I told her it was okay. There's always time. She then told me after visiting her in high school, that she started an underground book club called ALGORE (A Little Group of Readers Everywhere).
I remember her cooing, "It was a pretty underground, very elite society. The club consisted of me, a couple Asian friends, (who are now working at The Pentagon), the entire A.P. English department, and... The Principal. VERY underground. Our first novel was "The Lovely Bones."

By that point, she had me swooning.
So, as the former almost-camander-in-chief, I demanded Mackenzie Yeager to write a blog. A simple Blog. A REAL Blog.
A blog that will follow her every move, so I can keep myself in check.

If I can't save the planet...at least I can learn to be an IT GIRL.

- Al Gore
Washington D.C, July 2011