From Reuters:

Britons are among the ugliest people in the world, according to a dating website that says it only allows “beautiful people” to join.Fewer than one in eight British men and just three in 20 women who have applied to BeautifulPeople.com have been accepted, an emailed statement from the website showed.

Existing members of the “elite dating site” rate how attractive potential members are over a 48 hour period, after applicants upload a recent photo and personal profile.

Swedish men have proved the most successful, with 65 percent being accepted, while Norwegian women are considered the most beautiful with 76 percent accepted, the website said.

The way that BeautifulPeople.com accepts new members is simple. A potential member applies with a photo and a brief profile. Over 48 hours, existing members of the opposite sex vote whether or not to admit them, the site said.

Options are: “Yes definitely,” “Hmm yes, O.K,” “Hmm no, not really” and “No definitely not.”

The site was founded in 2002 in Denmark and went live across the globe last month. Since then, the site has rejected nearly 1.8 million people from 190 countries, admitting just 360,000 new members.

“I would say Britain is stumbling because they don’t spend as much time polishing up their appearance and they are letting themselves down on physical fitness,” Beautiful People managing director Greg Hodge said. “Next to Brazilian and Scandinavian beauties, British people just aren’t as toned or glamorous.”

Only the male Russian and Polish applicants fared worse than British men, although Russian women had a 44 percent acceptance rate. Polish women did not appear in the table.

German applicants were slated for offering up unflattering photographs, which may have hindered their acceptance rates at 15 percent for men and 13 percent for women, the lowest rate in their category.

“German men and women aren’t faring well, but they are submitting stern images, they need to soften up,” Hodge said.

 

OMG.  I mean, sure, we all curse online dating for the douches that post 10 yr old pics or head shots only while they claim to be tall/fit/mobile, but damn!  A site that will just straight up reject you like the doorman at The Bank – how brutal(ly efficient).   But they’re not without a little compassion, scrolling to the bottom of the sign in page shows you how you can get past the rope and get a peek – “Too ugly to sign up?  Click here to browse BeautifulPeople as a guest“.  Thaaaaaaaaaaannnnks.

A few weeks ago, I did a post about my Boy Person’s impending move-in date, and how, while I was excited, I was also weighing in my mind the ways in which I view this new definition of commitment as a limitation of opportunity.  How very funny, in retrospect.  This week is my first week as a cohabitant, and the challenges thus far are a little different that the ones I was expecting.

I planned to do my second post on the division of housework and personal time – you know, the standard day-to-day things that keep us all ticking along, and seek input on how you divvy up your own allotments of chores and space as cohabitants.  While space is something the Boy and I are still working on, all of that has come secondary to The Most Important Thing in My Life:  My Job.

As seems to be the nature of my job, things lurch along without much of a problem until, all of a sudden!, we enter a solid week or two of panic mode, wherein I am at the office 11 hours a day, perpetually stressed and wiped out and completely incapable of carrying on functional relationships with the people in my Real-Life, to the point where I am too exhausted and irritable to even make a phone call when I drag my ass home.  I get so physically and emotionally tired that I am a fount of irritability.  I am crabby.  I am short-tempered.  I am brittle.  I am the worst version of myself and I have no time for anyone else.  I never meet friends during the week and I don’t even like to call my mom, because when I get home I just want to inhale the little bubble of solitude I have for three hours until I collapse into bed to have anxiety-dreams and wake up dehydrated and achey at 4:00 am.  It is melodramatic, completely self-centered, and I feel helpless to do anything about it.  

The last burst of work catastrophe happened only two short weeks ago, so I sort of thought I was on solid ground for the next month.  No such luck.  In the space of a week, I have been assigned five new projects, four of which I will project manage with a team in Australia and America, one of which I will support from the UK.  Handling five projects at one time is a struggle in the best of circumstances, but handling five all at the same initial stage of development is a recipe for a nervous breakdown.  Worse, I have been angling for the opportunity to project manage for years – it means more client exposure, bigger bonuses, and a higher-profile.  What I didn’t expect is that, rather than being eased into it with one or two projects at a time, I would be handed four with a five-week deadline, covering West Africa, North Africa, and Russia.  If I had a panic room, I would be locked in it, sobbing and subsisting on Saltines.

Additionally, I won my first client assignment last week.  I am the originator of the business, thanks to good networking and client management, and was really, really proud of myself.  But that project was pushed aside for four days while I dealt with these new, high-pressure assignments and I got my proposal out late.  Now, the client is avoiding me and while I was already concerned I would lose the project, I fucked up monumentally at the very end of the day. 

I wrote a long email setting out objectives to my two teammates in Australia and the States about the West Africa and Russia projects.  It was 6:30, I hadn’t finished the one piece of internal paperwork I really needed to get done today (the bit of paperwork I told my boss would be done yesterday, about which he pulled me into his office this morning and went nuclear on my ass, leading me to cry at work for the first time in a year), and my vision was blurring.  I hit send, noticing in the actual blink of an eye that one of the addresses at the top of the email was not to my colleague, but rather to the client I am courting (my Outlook had helpfully moved the client email to the top of the queue for the initials shared by the client and my colleague).  Too late.  I recalled the message right away, but that doesn’t work anymore, it just sends an email to the recipient notifying them the original email has been recalled and please don’t read it even though it’s sitting in your inbox like a candy-filled pinata (and if you are anything like me, you read that “recalled” email extra carefully to see what the big deal was).

So I have essentially sent this new client details on a project we are working on for another client.  While not strictly confidential, it is a stupid, stupid, unprofessional thing.  I would be hesitant to hire me after that.  Fucking fantastic, and radio silence from the client in question.  With that, I decided I was done for the day, best leave before I accidentally set the office on fire or trip on an extension cord and land on a pair of scissors (although, if I was in the hospital… No, never mind).

The thing with my office is, if you are under intense pressure, you are not allowed to buckle.  I have to sack up, be cheerful, and be Superwoman, or this will be a black mark on my record for the next five years (‘Tailfeather, you know, she can’t handle pressure.  She’s weak and hysterical, god knows we can’t put her in front of a client, she might cry.”).  So I do my best, with varying results, to hold it together at the office and exude a calm, capable demeanor, despite the gaping cracks in my armor.

Our first official week as cohabitants, and the Boy and I have not been playfully squabbling over where to hang his ties, or having intimate dinners, or cuddling up in bed to read.  Sex (HA!) is a distant thought, the last thing I would want to do – don’t you know I am trying to cram in 7.5 hours of uneasy sleep so I can get up and have a terrible day again tomorrow?  In short, if we do get to have a honeymoon period, it ain’t happening until mid-January because the next six weeks are going to be a living nightmare.  

In contrast, the Boy has been something of a saint.  I set out a list of projects for him to do around the house, as he is unemployed and we – yes, we, it’s been discussed – don’t want him to fall into an idle routine.  He’s walked me to work twice this week, and every day he’s taken on an assortment of assignments.  He’s scouring the bathroom (the best it’s looked in years, I’m certain – I am taking photos for the landlord, because it’s hours of elbow-grease to get the grout clean); he set us up with wireless internet; he cleaned the microwave, oven, stove, and is going to revarnish the counters; he vacuumed the floors; he took about 40 of his LPs to the charity shop; he has cooked me dinner every single night, and then taken care of the dishes.  He’s also scouting out locations to buy a cafe, and we’re going to work on his CV this weekend.

I’ve come home every night, tired and bitchy.  He’s made a real effort to give me my space, so while I glare at my laptop and chainsmoke and mutter obscenities to myself, institutionalized-style, he will quietly play online chess in the corner and do his best not to provoke me.  The only time he lost patience with me was last night, when we were eating the red-wine chicken and vegetables he’d made, and I spent half the dinner pounding out an angry email on my Blackberry.  I didn’t even realize what I was doing, to be honest – under normal circumstances, I would never even answer my phone, much less an email, over dinner, but I am consumed by stress.  It was so rude and insensitive, and I know exactly how I would feel were the situation reversed.  It was lousy of me. 

As much as I don’t want to talk about work to him - I just want to come home and try to forget for a while – I give him enough information that he understands the stress I’m under, and why I’m having a very hard time being a civil, fun person.  I feel so guilty, because I didn’t want it to be like this.  Obviously, there will be periods where it will be like this, but god, I wanted a little breathing room for us to adjust to one another.  I have to break the routines I’ve been in for ten years of living alone, and this is just a total shit start.       

He knows this is not me; we’ve dated for long enough, and there’s a reason he fell for me in the first place.  I’m just so angry right now.  If I were an investment banker, or a baby lawyer, high-pressure workloads and extra hours would just be a part of the job, and I’d be paid damn well for the sacrifice.  But I am neither of those things, because I am simply not a person who can work like that and function with any kind of humanity.  One day at a time, I tell myself, while my Blackberry buzzes at me with more bad news and the knot of dread in my stomach twists itself into glorious origami.  I am an in-betweener.  I want to make more money that I could at a straight-forward, relaxed 9-5 job (if those even exist anymore), but I don’t want to be some high-powered executive either.  I just want a nice life and some savings so I can buy a house and send any future children to college.  I want my creature comforts and a good night’s sleep.

I guess, since my last post, my question is less how-can-I-live-with-him than how-can-he-live-with me.  I know things will settle down and we just need to grin and bear it for the next few weeks.  But my stress becomes his stress, and I want to be a better partner than I am right now – I’m just too tired to deal with it, although I have made sure to praise him for his accomplishments around the house and explain that what’s going on with me has nothing to do with him.  How do other people handle their work/life balance?  Because mine is in seriously unstable.

I believe I can officially say that autumn is my least favorite time of year in this part of the world. Yes, I love the brisk temperatures and the glorious colors. But oh my God, The Leaves.

I don’t know why The Leaves are so abundant here. There are trees in Canada, after all. But perhaps given the climate, the trees seem denser, more packed with leaves than any trees I am familiar with. And so when The Leaves come down, it is almost suffocating. I have a 400-year-old sycamore in my backyard. I have a big huge maple in the front. They are MASSIVE. And when they drop their leaves, we are talking what seem like millions and millions of leaves.

The Leaves haunt my dreams. They fall down the chimney. They end up everywhere in the house. If it rains, they form a thick mat several inches thick that is almost impossible to rake. I am constantly sweeping and raking and sweeping and raking. I saw a snake slither out of The Leaves the other day. I have seen dead rodents in them. I dream I am drowning in the The Leaves. I dream they are alive. I am not a nightmare person, but The Leaves freak me the fuck out.

I am also tense about The Leaves and The Trimbles. Fucking Vern Trimble is out in his yard several times a day, raking them. He is an enemy of The Leaves, and I feel his judgment when I am only out, say, several times a week. He plucks stray leaves off his car constantly, and he’s parked under an oak. He is always, always on top of The Leaves. The Leaves are apparently his life for two months every autumn.

But I could no longer keep up with The Leaves, so I phoned a lawn and garden place to come blow them and then dump them on the side of the road, where the county is scheduled to come get them this week. And as I type this, right now, the Trimbles are out there tsking and clucking and whispering to themselves on their front porch as two guys go at my leaves with leaf-blowers. I already saw Vern approach one of the lawn guys, and speak briefly. This happened shortly after Vern brushed about a dozen leaves off his car — leaves that apparently were blown there by the garden guys.

This infuriates me. Fuck off, Trimbles. I have a life, and I prefer not to spend six hours a day raking fucking leaves. Yes, I hired a Hispanic lawn service company to come help me out. I know you don’t like brown people, especially not brown people with loud machines, but I don’t like The Leaves, so piss right off.

Hi all! Sorry I have been out of touch. You’ll all be happy to hear I had my donkey teeth replaced with my permanent veneers and they look divine! I am very happy with them, and have been smiling up a storm.

This is in no small part to the animals in my home. It has been endlessly entertaining watching the dynamics between the new dog and the two cats for the past month or so.

Firstly, the cats have bonded like never before. They’re nowhere near cuddling and cleaning one another, but they are often glued to one another’s sides, gazing on in astonishment when Dolly is in one of her crazy moods and running around the house gleefully while making hound noises. The cats are no longer afraid, but they remain enthralled.

At first, Dolly would growl if the cats got too close while checking her out. She still does sometimes, but the other day I witnessed the boy cat, Patrick, sniffing at her paws as she slept. Dolly opened one eye, saw it was him, shut it and went back to sleep.

Dolly and Charlotte, the girl kitty, also have a weird bond. Charlotte likes to sleep near where Dolly is sleeping, and to be in the same room as her, watching her with fascination. Last week, they both slept on the couch together, with Dolly literally breathing hot breath on Charlotte’s ass. See photo above!

One night recently, I put the cats out just as Dolly and I were going for our nightly pre-bedtime walk. And Dolly wouldn’t walk until she checked out what the cats were doing. It was as though she didn’t want to leave them out on their own, and would not walk until she seemed secure that they were safe and were allowed to be outside exploring.

The sweetest thing I have seen was just today. It was warm here and Dolly was sunbathing on the back porch. When Patrick came walking up the stairs, Dolly’s tail started wagging frantically. She was happy to see him. And he started to do the old “I’m going to rub up against you right now to show you I love you too,” but caught himself just in the nick of time, when he seemingly realized: “Holy shit. It’s the dog.” However, I believe that day of rubbing against each other and openly showing affection is coming. As soon as Charlotte, the heat junkie, realizes how warm Dolly is, I am certain I will see interspecies cuddling.

My dad sent me a link to a Wikipedia listing featured on BoingBoing about cats with fradulent diplomas.  The Wikipedia article compiles a list of cases in which cats have been enrolled in suspected diploma mills, resulting in degreed felines and prosecution of the academic institutes in question.  To wit:

“Colby Nolan is a housecat who was awarded an MBA degree in 2004 by Trinity Southern University, a Dallas, Texas-based diploma mill, sparking a fraud lawsuit by the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office.[1]

Colby Nolan belongs to a deputy attorney general. In looking to expose Trinity Southern University for fraud, some undercover agents had the then six-year-old Colby Nolan obtain a bachelor’s degree in business administration for $299. On the cat’s application, the agents claimed that the cat had previously taken courses at a community college, worked at a fast-food restaurant, babysat, and maintained a newspaper route. Then the school informed Colby that, due to the job experience listed on his application, he was eligible for an executive MBA for $100 more. The agents then sent for Colby’s transcript, which claimed that Nolan had a 3.5 grade point average.

Jerry Pappert, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, filed a lawsuit against Trinity Southern University upon learning that the cat had received the degree.[2] In the lawsuit, Pappert also told the diploma mill, which had used e-mail spam to sell degrees, to provide restitution to anyone who had ordered a degree from them.

The Wikipedia page also presents the cases of Kitty O’Malley (aka Spanky), Oreo Collins, and Tobias F. Schaeffer, among others, all kitties with sham degrees  – Tobias was a Certified Real Estate Appraiser, and displayed his certificate above his litter box.  All this is, naturally, is hilarious and led my dad to muse on what sorts of degrees our own cats would get.  This is kind of a fun exercise because cats are so possessed of singular personalities that it’s easy to attribute qualities to them that one might associate with certain interests. 

So here are our four cats, and the vocations we believe might have been their callings, had their owners been mischeviousness enough (and in possession of a spare few hundred bucks) to encourage them to pursue their dreams:

Davinci:  A burly Abyssinian with a sleek coat and yellow eyes, I see him as a literature major specializing in nature poets (thesis on Walt Witman, of course).  Davinci was discovered in a woodpile in the backyard, a scraggly kitten that my parents joked was half-rat when we took him in, but he grew into an elegant, muscled beast.  With a regal bearing and independent nature, I can see Davinci offering rambling critical theory on solitude and wildness, even as he struggles with his own, compulsive desire to lay purring in front of an indoor fire and have his belly massaged by his slippered humans.   He would spend his whole life reconciling his two selves, and isn’t averse to a bit of the ‘nip.  Fondest memory in his old age:  When the baby squirrel fell out of the tree literally a foot in front of him.  What does it all mean?

Poppy:  My dad nailed Poppy as a political scientist.  A specialist in public policy with a shrewd economic mind, Poppy was the runt of the litter with a clipped tail, rescued from a box on the street in a liberal New England college-town.  Poppy has never suffered fools, and her arrogance would serve her well as an academian.  Though her bristly exterior and sharp claws would never make her popular, she would be grudgingly admired for her take-no-shit attitude and witheringly incisive commentary.  She would have the nasally, headache-inducing voice of Sarah Vowell and the same blend of strangeness and wit.  She would eschew fashion, likely develop her own peculiar style (possibly themed in drab colors accentuated with feathers and wooden owl pins), and live surly, alone, and pleased with herself.

Felix:  Felix is a cuckoo-bird.  Dad sees him as an art history major, but I am inclined to see him in graphic design, which might combine his innermost geekery and artistry to stunning effect.  The strangest cat I have ever met, I can see him as something of a dandy with coffee stains down his shabby-chic front, financially successful due to his genius but perpetually scatterbrained and disorganized.  He’s a little-buddy of a cat, and will follow me around the house talking to me, and actually spoon me at night, watching me with wide blue eyes until he falls into twitchy slumber.  Felix would start his career in programming before progressing to design, a natural escalation of his creativity, which he couldn’t help but share constantly with those around him, chattering incessantly to keep pace with his whirling walnut-brain.  He would evolve into something of a celebrated character and find the whole business socially awkward and perplexing.

YoYo:  YoYo would be an academically-mediocre communications graduate and move on to a low-level marketing position she couldn’t quite get the hang of.  Content with her lot in life and aware of her lacking intellect, her inherent sweetness and generosity would nonetheless see her rewarded.  Also known in our house as “The Love Sponge,” YoYo just wants everybody to be nice to each other and if she can sit in their lap and purr like a motorboat, so much the better.  YoYo was found, flea-ridden and diseased, in a gutter on Halloween and despite her mean start in life, grew into a cuddly, dim lovebug.  YoYo would find happiness when swept of her feet by a mid-level manager at a chemical plant and settle into a comfortable housewife routine.  She would raise good-natured children and volunteer a lot at her church and know she was the luckiest YoYo in the world.

So, those are my cats!  What are yours?  Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs?  Do tell.

Howdy Hookers!

In the interest of fun Friday Sex Talk, I thought we would talk about something a little sensitive, a little personal.  Let’s talk about the smallest penis you have ever seen!

Mine was (unfortunately for me) attached to my boyfriend at age 18.  He was a junior in college, pledged a frat, head of the student regent board, drove a Mustang and worked at the same gym as I did where he strutted his tight glutes and swollen biceps around in his trainer gear.  He really fancied himself a BMOC and I guess he was, but in the year we dated it was impossible for me to respect him as this cool, good looking, got-it-going-on man.  What can I say?  His dick was just too small and it was in stark contrast to the size of his ego.  Not to mention the fact that he was prone to shooting off at the speed of light.  Oh, and he had excessive pre-cum, so much that I had to really, really, really psych myself up to give him head – I was afraid of drowning on dry land, you see.  I also made the fatal mistake of faking an orgasm with him in the beginning (it was rush week!  I was drunk for 4 days!) which only furthered his delusions of being good in bed.

Second runner up would be the guy who was roommates with my friends, T & P.  All I need to say about him is that he will always be remembered as the 2 Pump Chump.

But, neither of these guys were quite as microscopic as this dude.  Have any of you encountered a penis this small?  Were they always Quick Draw McGraw’s?  Discuss.

*UPDATE: I realize the Dailymotion site will force you to create an account to view the video, so if you don’t have one and don’t want to create one, you can sign in with this:  ButtercupPunch / reader

On Tuesday, New York City re-elected Michael Bloomberg for mayor, by a whopping margin of 5 whole points.  Before the election, polls had Bloomberg as far ahead as 18 points over Democrat (and former New York City Comptroller) William Thompson Jr. Can we please, please, please stop taking polls as gospel truth? How many thousands of times do they have to be wrong before we’ll understand? This time they didn’t count on the large turnout of African-American and Hispanic New Yorkers.

By Tuesday evening, we knew. Not only had Bloomberg’s money succeeded in buying himself yet another term, but this Bush-loving, Republican sloth won New Jersey. Awesome. One of the things that bothers me about Bloomberg’s win is the way that upper-class, educated, mostly white liberals justify voting for him. The press didn’t talk about it too much in this election cycle, since Bloomberg has since left the Republican Party (this makes it much easier to justify…you see, he’s an “Independent” now). I despise everything that Michael Bloomberg stands for. Since first becoming mayor in 2001, after Giuliani failed to use the deaths of thousands to keep the Office for himself for another few years, Bloomberg has done the following:

1. Ran as a Republican to surf the Wing Nut wave post 9/11

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2. Offered the city up to Republican ghouls, who wrapped themselves in the flag, using the deaths of 3000 people in order to win an election. While speaking to the Republican masses, Bloomberg did not forget to praise our former GOP-soldier Governor Pataki and oh yeah, reminded us that we should all vote for George Bush.

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3. Banned smoking in restaurants and bars. WTF? Because when you go to a bar, you just want to get your drink on until your liver rots, but ew, smoke!  Thanks, Mayor Mommy.  Don’t forget to lay off that salt, New York!

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4. Left the Republican Party in 2007, after the 2006 Democratic wins in the House and Senate. This time he would try to surf the “Independent” wave.

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5. Successfully overturned term limits. Thanks, Christine Quinn!  You’re a doll.  Except now that he’s mayor for the third time, he’s still a term limits believer. Except for himself.  Got it?

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Bloomberg uses his money and influence in every way possible. Math reading scores are up according to the Regents Board?  Nope. But Bloomie’s close to the people on the Board. Has dinner parties with them and everything. Pretty cool how that works.

Poor Thompson. Abandoned by his party. Now these Democratic dopes wonder “What if?” Disgusting. It’s not gross enough that you backed Bloomberg, the former Bushie cheerleader, but now you have the audacity to ask “Gee, I wonder what!?”

President Obama backed Thompson, though. Oh wait, he just let Thompson use a tiny picture of him with the words “endorsed by President Obama.” Way to go out of your way, Prez. I thought you would appreciate Thompson, if anything, for your shared Star Trek nerdery.

A man spends more than most people make per year in an hour and we reward him. But  Bloomberg’s just like us! He takes the subway! Right after his SUV drops him off out front.

I just have one question: when did Anne Murray start kneading pussies?

Last night, I dreamed about being in the art room in my high school, where I spent hundreds of happy hours with a beloved and encouraging art teacher and a shifting but close group of fellow students over my teenage years.  In the dream, I was alone in the room waiting for someone, assessing the work on the walls and the photographs of students who had graduated before me but were still held in places of honor.

I woke up late and mused on this remnant of dream while in the shower, before fuzzily shifting my thoughts to the workday to come.  Rushing on my way out of the house, I checked the weather and my email (rainy, and nothing but a Facebook message notification).  Swallowing my vitamins, slipping on my coat, and shoving my umbrella in my bag, I paused in my flurry of motion to click on the email message.  It was from my high school best friend Milford, a fellow art student with whom I lived attached at the hip our final year of school.  I could see only a link to a local news article, and a short intro from him: “this makes me sad.”

I couldn’t click on the link directly from my email without signing into Facebook, so I charged out the door, but the possibilities were limited.  Milford and I keep only in sporadic touch, so either one of our old haunts was being torn down or our teacher, Mr. Bleeker, was dead.  I hoped for the former but with the memory of my mundane dream still swirling, I felt a dread foreboding that it was the latter.

Postponing certain knowledge of whatever had made Milford sad, I didn’t sign into Facebook to view the link until mid-morning.  And then it got worse. 

So this is the day:  Our beloved former art teacher has been arrested and charged with both soliciting a minor online and possession of child pornography.  Bile in my throat.  There is no question it is Mr. Bleeker, thanks to the identifier of our school and the accompanying mugshot.  In the picture, he looks scared, hollow and red-eyed.  He looks, suddenly, like a person who could possess child pornography.  It is Mr. Bleeker, but it is not him; I am looking at him through the eyes of a casual newsreader who wants to see a picture of the pedophile, the sicko.  After an instant, I see Mr. Bleeker again, the kind, loving man I used to know who makes the kids under his tutelage feel special, who nurtures their talent and always has time to talk.

I am filled with regret.  I have no reason to believe that I was extra-special to Mr. Bleeker, but he was certainly a special teacher to me, the only teacher I ever visited when I was home from college, but only once.  I have not seen him in years.  And now I am seeing him in the vulnerable, public way of nightmares.  I am seeing a picture taken only hours before, and I realize that as I am looking at it, he is sitting in a county jail cell watching his life collapse.

I become aware that if I saw this picture of some other man I didn’t know, he would be instantly and unquestioningly branded “pedophile” in my mind.  I would also likely assume that he’d twiddled with a kid or two at the school, based on nothing but his reported position as a teacher – and I’m a bleeding-heart liberal.  I’ve studied criminology and media, and however intellectually against a rush-to-judgment I may imagine myself, the reaction to suspicion of pedophilia is instinctive and damning.  That means thousands of people will be looking at this pathetic mugshot and making the same judgment I have so unthinkingly made before.

Though it is in the wee hours on the east coast, Milford’s stomach is turning much as mine, and we exchange emails.  Milford has heard from his brother that Mr. B was arrested at school and frogmarched out in front of the students.  I point out that the news report says otherwise, that he was ambushed at home before school, and while we are relieved that this is the case, it just points to the swirling local rumor-mill that will work itself into a tornado as the week goes on.

Milford and I are aligned in our denial.  Milford especially considered Mr. B a mentor, and we compare notes.  As a gay teacher, Mr. B would have been a prime target for spurious whispers of sexual impropriety, and neither of us ever heard a hint of such talk.  I know many graduates of older vintage, and Milford’s youngest brother attended the same small school recently; we would know.

We dissect what information is available of the allegations.  The “minor” in question was a police officer in the Midwest engaged in a sting, and Mr. B allegedly sent pornographic pictures of himself to the child.  This, I can rationalize: he could easily have been engaged in some roleplaying with someone he thought to be an adult, and I am hopeful evidence will emerge to indicate this is the case.

The allegations of possession of child pornography are more difficult to reconcile.  I write to Milford that the images must be of young-looking adults, or older teenagers.  Unsavory, but we live in a world of a thousand “jailbait” magazines and websites.  I am unable to believe Mr. B would possess images of actual children being abused, molested, or compromised. 

More details emerge.  Mr. Bleeker admits to spending time in adult chatrooms, where roleplaying is common, and to exchanging nude pictures.  While the admission fits in with my initial theory, I do not want to know this.  This is too personal, inappropriate.  I cannot imagine having my own most-private life reported so casually and factually.  I then can only imagine what the high school students, so new to life, are making of this in lurid lunchroom gossip and exaggeration.

And of course, there’s the nagging detail – while roleplaying mixup is a plausible theory, isn’t this what I would say, were I caught in such a situation?  Unless there are records that will indicate this was a regular type of roleplay in the forum, doesn’t it sounds like… an excuse?  How can this be proven to be either an honest mistake or a calculated denial?  Worse, who will forgive an adult man, much less a teacher, for engaging in schoolchild-seduction roleplay in the first place?

There’s no victim here – no one, shamefully, to scrutinize or doubt.  This is both better (better that there is no victim) and worse (a charge of molestation or rape would be horrific, but could be manufactured; easier to doubt than a hard drive).  

Milford and I are grim, silent.  A press release from the school states that they are shocked, and have no reason to believe that any students were “victimized” by Mr. Bleeker.  The word “victimized” brings a fresh wave of nausea – the thought of Mr. B doing anything to harm a student is beyond comprehension – and worse, the carefully-worded statement by the school is designed to thwart liability.  The school, obviously, has no other choice; they cannot offer any visible support to Mr. B, but must suspend him immediately and attend to the business of comforting the parents.  It is a bleak reality that the institutional family to which he’s dedicated the last 20 years of his career will withdraw from him.

Mr. Bleeker’s teaching career is over.  He will be extradited to the Midwest for trial.  Even if fully exonerated, this will never go away.  Even if pled down to probation rather than jail time, he will be a registered sex offender.  With a bitter taste in our mouths, Milford and I and the rest of the students who have adored Mr. B will wait for more information than we really want, ugly information that will either condemn him or only technically acquit him.  I don’t want to read anything more incriminating.  I want to read that this is a terrible mistake, that he will be awarded a new car and a parade for his troubles, and every administrator will decree his innocence by megaphone.  Milford wants to rescue him from jail.  We hope that his friends and family will post bond, and swaddle him on the couch and give him the reassurance we cannot, and staunchly defend him.

I write to the Head of Students for Mr. Bleeker’s address, explaining that Mr. B was a friend and inspiration in high school, and that Milford and I would like to send a  personal message of support.  I also express sympathy to the Head, a sometimes underestimated man, for the nightmare circus he must be wrangling.  He responds almost immediately with Mr. Bleeker’s home address, and I thank him for his help.  I believe the Head may have sent his own message of support to Mr. B, but that he also knows what his role in the school is and that the seriousness of the accusations will require distancing from his colleague of two decades.  I don’t envy him.

So, tomorrow, I will write a letter to Mr. B, and I wonder what exactly to write.  How do you offer your support to someone in this circumstance?  Any declaration less than an unequivocal statement of certitude (“I don’t believe the accusations”) would be a body blow.  I imagine I am Mr. B and I am innocent.  I would wonder:  How could you think that of me?  To not address the allegations is beyond disingenuous, but I see no other way around it. 

So sorry to hear of the child pornography allegations.  I’m sure they’re not true but if they are…  Then what?  I don’t believe you would ever have actually touched a child? 

No.  I can only say how much I appreciated him as a teacher, what profound respect I have for the attention and love he gave me and my friends, and that he has a legacy of students who feel the same way.  The sort of letter, in retrospect, I wish I’d written to him and other important mentors long ago.

Does he even remember me and Milford, from ten years back?  I believe that he would, but we’ve fallen out of touch and it’s undeniable and rational that the teachers loom larger in the minds of the students than vice versa, due to sheer volume and the intrinsic importance attached to those teenage years.  Nonetheless, I hope the letter I will write will mean something to him, if only a sliver of comfort.

This has been so heavy on my mind it’s become physical pain, like a vise squeezing my temples.  Unlike if a friend was arrested for drunk driving, for example, this allegation changes the framework through which you view a person.  A drunk-driving charge could be a mistake; a drug possession charge could mean that they need help.  Neither would necessitate acceptance of a fundamental deficiency, as they can be healed, evidence only of a singular instance of bad judgment.

I’m not willing to condemn Mr. Bleeker yet.  It may be that evidence mounts and I have to accept that a man I respected in my youth is a different man than I believed him to be, and I suppose that acceptance would be part of adulthood.  But I am still going to protect the memories I have of Mr. B because to me, he was always a good man.  

If you’re a fan of This American Life, radio, or personal essays, you’ll want to know about The Moth, a live, non-profit storytelling event held in New York City.  The Moth was founded in 1997 by George Dawes Green, a writer from Georgia who had relocated to New York.  He and a group of friends at home used to gather together on his friend Wanda’s porch to share stories, and he wanted to recreate that close sense of connection in his new life.  So, he invited friends to his New York living room to recreate story hour, and the event gradually grew into larger and larger venues.  Currently, The Moth holds eight ongoing programs and has told over 3,000 stories to over 100,000 people.

Famous participants include Jonathan Ames, Lewis Black, Margaret Cho, Simon Doonan, Candace Bushnell, Spalding Gray, John Cameron Mitchell, Susan Orlean, Dan Savage, Suzanne Vega, and many others.  The Moth Outreach Program “offers storytelling workshops to students and marginalized adults living in New York City,” and works “with high school-age teens from underserved communities and with adults in rehabilitation and training programs, including homeless men and women, recently released prisoners, and people recovering from substance abuse.”  Other events include “StorySLAMS” that take place in Chicago, LA, and Detroit, and offer the public a chance to tell their stories in front of an audience, guided by a host.

You can listen to stories on their website here, which is both a wonderful alternative to watching TV this evening and a pleasurable way to pass the time while cooking or folding laundry.  I’m a big reader of personal essays (like David Rakoff, Sloane Crossley, and Jill Soloway, to name a handful), so this is right up my alley.  It’s also a chance to appreciate a narrative form I enjoy in a different medium, and a reminder of the importance of oral tradition and the community aspects of storytelling.  It exposes unexpected layers to hear the emotional voice of the storyteller and the participatory reaction of the audience members, and how each story is alternatively touching, raw, and usually very funny.

I’ve only just started to explore the stories available on the website myself, but if you have the opportunity to listen to a few and recommend your favorites, I am all ears.