ButtercupPunch – “La clique, c’est chic!”

Two weekends ago, I met a friend for late afternoon drinks at a bar across the road.  When I arrived, he’d been soaking up the sun and cider for a couple of hours already, and was sitting with a cheerful group of people I was invited to join.  This included:  Chester from Newcastle; Chester’s Swedish girlfriend, called Em; the bar’s owner, Dave, who is Irish; Dave’s Polish wife; my South African mate, Sean; and their friend, Gary, who is from Edinburgh.  I mention the hodgepodge of nationalities only because this is one of those things I love about London – Sean also lives with a Ghanaian, an Italian, and two Czech lodgers who were all presumably drinking pints in another patch of sun.

As I was a little bit late to the party, the conversation was relaxed and winding.  A popular topic, however, was what substances could be used to spike Gary’s drink without him noticing.  A range of fluids were suggested, with Gary’s enthusiastic participation.  This was mildly amusing, but a bit weird for a bunch of thirty-somethings to be talking about – with two PhDs amongst them, no less.  It was more the stuff of the fifth-grade cafeteria table.  Because four of the group were bartenders, the discussion covered what noxious liquids could be visually disguised in what ranges of seemingly innocuous beverages.  I finally had to pipe up and ask:  What exactly was the deal?

It turned out that one drunken night four months ago, Gary bumped his head getting into a taxi, and suffered a mild brain injury that had left him without a sense of taste or smell.  The loss of smell is called anosmia, but Gary’s principal complaint was that everything tasted of, well, nothing.  Although likely the hundredth time poor Gary was forced to tell the story, we all sat and contemplated this for a while.  (more…)

Very, very thankfully, I have had only two stalkerish episodes in my life, outside of the usual bad-breakup scenarios in which one party has a more difficult time moving on; in that scheme of things, I have been guilty of my own share of unwanted phone calls or emails for the subsequent week after The Bad Talk.  Fortunately, I can take take a hint, and believe that the one or two boyfriends I’ve had who have ended things against my wishes still regard me fondly (I base that on friendly, occasional Facebook hellos that indicate we are in good stead and happy with our mutually infrequent communication).  I wish them well, they wish me well, and there is no drama or involvement.

Yeah, so.  While I have pursued a few guys beyond the point where they displayed disinterest, I can say with honesty that I’ve never harassed anyone or caused them fear (to my knowledge; I am sort of paranoid about that now, but given the “Ice Queen” accusations more commonly thrown my way and my general unwillingness to destroy someone’s car or call their mother to tell them what shits they are, I’m pretty sure I haven’t crossed that obvious, glaring line).  Which is a good thing, as I just spent about four hours of my afternoon reading the entire contents of Psychotic Letters From Men, as fixated on this blog as I was watching the final seasons of The Wire.

I was glued to this site to the point that my live-in Boy Person was annoyed that I would not go out into the rare London sunshine for a walk or a drink, so obsessed was I with reading about Terrible Men and The Women Who Despise Them.  Why is this site so good?  A few reasons. (more…)

I was an avid reader as a child. I read “Death of a President,” a big huge tome about the Kennedy assassination, when I was 12, even though my siblings called me a nerd. My mother caught me reading “The Other Side of Midnight,” a racy Sidney Sheldon novel, at about the same age. It had dirty sex scenes in it and she lost her shit and ripped it from my hands when she discovered I was reading it. I probably just read it because it was there, although I do remember being titillated by the sex.

In any event, no one has been more surprised than me that I have stopped reading books. Once I moved stateside, I got completely immersed in news blogs and websites and that’s all I do all night — just sit on my laptop and read Politico, the New York Times, The Daily Beast, The Atlantic, etc. (more…)

I found this hilariously puzzling list in the copy room on a notepad someone left.  I am now hovering outside the copy room trying to catch the person who claims it.  Analyze!

Rarely do my boyfriend’s passion for online chess and my own interests intersect; generally, the agreement is that I will read feminist news sites and pop culture blogs on my computer, and he will sit in his corner playing chess and reading BBC sports.  Everyone is comfortable with this.  His “corner” is in the bedroom whereas my station is in the living room, so we will even occasionally send emails back and forth of amusing video links, separated as we are by 20 feet and a door.  He is not supposed to talk to me if I am trying to write a blog post, and I am not allowed to distract him if he’s contemplating a move in any of the 20 games he is generally playing at a time.  This is our quiet time.

But naturally, he was compelled to send me a link to the new G-Star Raw adverts, featuring young Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, and I was obliged to be terribly amused.  Magnus is a 19-year-old Norwegian chess prodigy and the third-youngest Grandmaster in history, achieving the ranking at just 13 years of age.  As per Wikipedia: (more…)

note to self: googling 'bad hangover' images is a really stupid idea right now.

The other day my friend LipstickLibrarian asked the question, “Tell me about the worst hangover you ever had.”  Which was fitting as I am discovering that I’m a disgrace to my Irish blood since I can no longer handle my drink.  If you’re facebook friends with me you’ve probably seen my Thursday status updates wherein I moan about what a wretched state I’m in and that an evil, evil bitch named Vodka is to blame. Like this:

Thandie Kadinsky-Papier: well, it’s Thursday so kadinsky must be hung the fuck over and wondering when she became such a sadist.  oh, and my stomach keeps trying to lurch it’s way out of my mouth so there’s that.  June 3 at 12:37pm

Thandie Kadinsky-Papier: is hungover……again……goddammit.  and I will bear this excedrin bottles’ children if it will just fucking work faster.  May 20 at 9:53am

Thandie Kadinsky-Papier:  wtf, vodka?  I was good to you all those years, we was tight, I kept you top shelf and chilled and you kept me magnanimous and slutty.  now all you do is buttfuck me with a hangover, you fuck.  you’re fired.  May 7 at 2:09pm

Pathetic, right?  I know.  But because there is fuck all to do in this town I keep going out on Wednesday nights with my co-workers and trying to strike a balance between buzzed-and-happy and dear-god-just-kill-me-and-be-done-with-it.  I have yet to succeed.  Last week I tried drinking water after every cocktail, a full glass of water even.  I had to pee every 6 minutes and still felt like ass the next day.  This week I figured if I just stuck to beer (which, okay, beer is fine and all but jesus christ the BLOAT come on) I would be fine.  Well, the problem is that it takes a lot of beer to get me to the same happy place.  According to my bar receipt it takes 14 beers.  And according to my desire to just DIE right now, 14 beers is too much.

So, all I can do today is sit here pretending to look busy and try not to let my face slide to the floor.  At lunch today I had to go heave because a motherfucking saltine looked at me wrong.  My co-worker was looking for me earlier to ask me something, when I got back to my desk he asked where I was.  I said I was in the handicapped stall taking a nap with my forehead against the cold hand railing.  He laughed at my joke.  I was not joking.  My hangovers have become a whole other state of being; they have transcended ‘hangover’ status to something more akin to being poisoned.  Clearly this is my body’s way of telling me to give it the hell up already.  Until LL asked the question and I saw some of my friends’ responses, I thought everyone went through the same kind of hangover hell that I did, but apparently not.  These are what mine are like, as told to friends and simply cut/pasted because I am lazy and HUNGOVER.

ohgod, the drinking. I wish all I had to deal with was a headache, my stomach crawls up my throat every time. I dry heaved 3 times while getting ready! there was nothing to throw up! but my stomach does not care, that bitch is merciless. she churns and churns until I puke up bile. so unpleasant. so then I think I’m in the clear and get down some water/alka seltzer and finish getting ready. I get to work, I make some tea, I’m at my desk sipping tea, thinking soothing thoughts and trying to work when who comes back to fuck me up? my goddamn vindictive stomach. I had to stop in the middle of that post up there to go ralph up the liquid I thought I was okay with. WHAT THE FUCK. eyes watering, nose running, makeup getting smeared off, jesus christ.

What about you?  How sick does drinking make you and do you continue to do it?

Also?  Weed has never done me wrong, so score one for cannabis.  And now I go to sleep behind the copier, xoxo.

I am embarrassed to say that I was once a HUGE Mel Gibson fan. I fell quite disturbingly in love with him after Gallipoli and The Year of Living Dangerously. I mean, just look at him from that era:

But if you ever needed proof that you can absolutely not judge a book by its cover, it’s this motherfucker. As if his legendary anti-Semitism wasn’t enough, now it’s emerged that he’s also an unapologetic wife-beater. He not only slugged his the Russian mother of his child twice while she was holding their child, but he told her she deserved it.

I am kind of grossed out that for many years, he was on my list of Celebrity Wanna-bangs. Shudder.

I hope he serves a lot of time in jail.

Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic is reporting on Al Qaeda’s first English-language magazine.  It’s based out of the Arabian Peninsula, called “Inspire,” and is aimed at the millions of Muslims who speak English as a first or second language.  A U.S. official has confirmed that it appears to be authentic.  And we all thought publishing was dead! (more…)