2011 in Review: WordPress Tabulates Our Ass

Wow…  For a (temporarily?  Maybe!) dead blog, we had quite a year.  We received this summary of our annual stats from WordPress, and I have to admit, I delayed clicking it for fear of depression, a strong sense of failure, self-recriminations, etc.

It turns out, we had a big year anyway, especially with fans in India (you guys!!!!) and folks searching for assless chaps (which thanks to our dearly departed BiscuitDoughJones, we know is a misnomer – chaps are, by definition, assless).  She’s not dead, you guys, she just got married and had other things to do.

At any rate, we are considering blogging again.  We’ve been in the trenches, team, and there’s a lot to report.  For those of you who were regular readers back when we were more responsible posters, we can’t thank you enough; blogging for no pay can feel like a seriously thankless exercise, until someone posts a comment.  Many of you have blogs of your own, and feel this pain.  Others of you stopped by just to offer hilarious, thoughtful, and provocative commentary; some of you just had discount Viagra to promote, or needed to let bitches know that they be sluts.

Thanks to all of our regulars:  SarahHeartburn, MishBish, AspiringExpatriate, and Shana are just a few that come to mind (there are others of you – if I ever get my shit together to do a thank you post, I think you know if you’d be on it).  I think I might be ready to start blogging again, and will check in with my compatriots.  It’s a worthy exercise, but so much (SO MUCH) more gratifying and interesting and fun for the absolutely stellar commenters we were so lucky to gain.

So, again:  With so many worthy and funny blogs and Tumblrs (TUMBLER, GOD I JUST CANNOT) out there, we are sincerely grateful for the time you spent visiting our humble commode.  So, thank you again, and if you have a story you think needs to be shared in this space, email us at buttercuppunch at gmail.

 

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 180,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 8 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

 

By the Hair of my Chinny-Chin-Chin

While I was home over Christmas, I had my yearly facial with the awesome esthetician I’ve been seeing since I was 15  (15, and then in the throes of dermatological unpleasantness).  She is the mistress of the art of extraction, and my first visit to her was as much a cultural touchstone of my entry into modern womanhood as my first trip to the gynecologist.  Though no less painful than my first pap, at least the esthetician rubbed my face and shoulders down with essential oils, and I had glowy skin a week later, once the zits she coaxed to the surface and the redness had subsided.  The gyno just poked me with a metal spatula and gave me the pill… which made me break out.  (Sudden stroke of brilliant idiocy – spas that also offer pap smears!  I am trademarking that business idea right now.  Whole Women’s Health & Beauty sees you inside and out!).

Sadly, after treating my skin for almost 15 years and my own mother’s for 30, our esthetician was hanging up her tweezers, imported creams, and bug zapper to retire.  This would be the last proper facial I will have in a while, as I’ve yet to find anyone half as good.

Lying back in the chair, listening to Enya, snuggled in my quilt, wholly safe in the hands of a professional, I was sad, and wanted to mark the occasion somehow.  What about… a lip wax?  I’d been annoyed at the downy hairs on my upper lip for some time.  Terri is the only person I would let wax and pluck my eyebrows, given her skill, and the only person I trusted to tell me if an upper-lip wax would be a terrible mistake, or a bold move forwards.

 

I Ate a Zebra, and I’m Sorry (Yes, Pictures)

My lips, this cricket

This is a post designed exactly so that people can weigh in on the most exotic foodstuff they’ve consumed.  It’s going to fall heavily on the side of carnivores, for which I apologize in advance, but if you have tasted fresh rowan from the Himalayas, by all means, speak up.

I’ve dined twice at this restaurant in London, Archipelago, which specializes in exotic cuisine.  The first time I went, I was too embarrassed to take photographs of our meal, because this is desperately uncool.  The second time I had no such compunction and snapped away, as I was truly regretful I had not documented the first time I ate crickets.

While by no means cheap, it is reasonably priced for the quality and rarity on offer, and a great place to bring out-of-towners looking for a bit of a treat.  My first visit, I had the ostrich starter (ostrich is always amazing – thready and flavorful) and the zebra steak. 

 

Female Ninja Magic: How I Vanquished My Last Enemy

It’s a little move I like to call “The Reverse Douche.”

(Japan brings us Vagina Bubbles from Hell, from Female ninjas:  The Magic Chronicles).

 

My Blackberry Thinks I Have a Hot Sex Life; Amazon.co.uk Begs to Differ

Sometimes individual things add up to form a light-shedding, bigger picture.  Sometimes it is not a pretty one, and sometimes it is deceptively pretty, which is not to say that either may be accurate.  No, wait, come back!  I promise, I am going somewhere with this, Your Honor.

I have a Blackberry, which I regularly use as a mental scribbling pad or an electronic ribbon-around-the-finger to remind me to do stuff.  It is better than a ribbon, because it vibrates and blinks and when I pull it out of its little leather case, it says things to me, like:  (19:00) MILK, or (21:00) Client meeting tmmw – IRON/GO TO BED, or (10:30) SandPOW.  These are all recent reminders that Past Tailfeather sent myself at various points.  The first, clearly, was to remind myself to pick up some milk on the way home from work.  The second was to remind myself not to stay up until midnight drinking wine and watching Community on the internet but to, instead, pluck the least crumpled blouse out of my wardrobe and pass out at 11:00 pm after forgetting to call my mother.  The third, sadly, I have stared at for the last three weeks as a saved reminder in my Outlook calendar and still have no idea to what it pertains.  I have a friend nicknamed Sandy, but what is POW?  I refuse to delete it until I figure it out.  It is like a riddle of my own creation.

This Blackberry is a company-owned one, which is another reason I tend to keep my non-work-related reminders cryptic.  This is why one might enter “RX,” for example, instead of “pick up yeast infect meds.”  Also, it is catchier.  So with both work and personal reminders, I sometimes find myself making lists that grow throughout the day.  A work example would be if I have several clients or contacts to call in Southeast Asia.  As I sort through them the day before, my 9:00 am reminder grows from:  (9:00) Call Client X, to (9:00) Call Client X, Provider Y, Client D, Contact A, Contact C.  And then I know to start calling those people early in the day so I can spend my morning sweet-talking them.  Likewise, a personal errand list might grow from: (18:30) Nails, to (18:30) Nails, shower gel, toothpicks, sea bass, SORT RECYCLING.

Those items on my last example list are not related.  Like, that is at least two stops, if not three, plus home from there, as I do not professionally sort recycling or get my nails done at a place where I can also buy seafood.  And yet if you were a television detective trying to solve my murder by reviewing my planner, you might be confuddled.   “Let’s just go to Soho,” you would say wearily.  “It must be some underground perv thing.  Or drugs.  Shower Gel is a big thing now, right?  Oh, sorry, yeah.  That’s Bath Salts.”

 

Why Giving Advice is Useless

I have a lovely friend whom we will call Marla, for the sake of this discussion.  Marla is just like us.  She is a smart, capable, attractive young woman with loads of potential and that mixture of confidence and nagging self-doubt particular to modern women in their twenties and thirties.  Marla has nice shoes that she keeps under her desk, a subscription to the Financial Times, and commutes daily and smartly to her city job at a respected bank.  With continued focus and effort, Marla is Going Places.  She also has a nice boyfriend she loves, but with whom she is not certain she sees a long-term future.  No matter; Marla is focused on her job and happy with her relaxed relationship.  She is living in the moment, and the moment is good.

And then.  Marla attends an important client event with a number of her colleagues, including several VPs.  The dinner goes very well, the drinks are flowing, the mood is giddy, and somehow, without prior intention, Marla goes back to a hotel with a Senior VP from her company.

“I didn’t mean to sleep with him,” she says.  “Even when we went back to the room, I thought we would have a drink or two and then I would leave.  We talked a little about his wife, as a matter of fact.  I never felt like he was trying to seduce me, or vice versa.  It was late, and I curled up in bed, and then…  Well.”

 

Self-Discovered Crafty Tip Leads to Self-Congratulatory Sharing

I have been using Simple Cleansing Facial Wipes recently, as I scored a fancy new job and am wearing mascara for the first time in my life.  Because that is fancy for me.  For the vast majority of you, mascara is not an extravagant addition to your repertoire, but something you’ve been expertly applying for 20 years, so keep in mind that I am a Domestic Dilettante and a Noob of the Feminine Arts.

Anyway, I finally discovered makeup remover after 15 years of just washing my face with good cleanser and attacking any raccoon-eyes with a Q-tip and moisturizer.  The “problem” I have (I have put “problem” in bunny-ears because, like, people in Haiti have problems – I am struggling with mascara and an ill-judged haircut.  Oh, the humanity!) is that the wipes are way too big, and I hate to waste them.  I use less than half a wipe, and have tried to make it last until the next day, which works reasonably well, but it gets a bit dried out.

Full disclosure:  Despite being an avid consumer of mass-produced shit, I am loathe to waste things.  It is the weird result of growing up in the age of cheap consumerism and environmental awareness, and the essentially foolish tightrope one always walks between the two.  I recycle everything I can and hate to waste food, but purchase ready-meals and coasters picturing Flamenco dancers because they are on sale and cute.  I also use half a tissue, save it, and then finish it off on a second nose-blow.  I thought this was all thrifty and fine until a colleague was in my office and yanked the top tissue out of my Kleenex box, to find it had been half-crumpled and stuffed back in.

HER:  “What is this?  Is this a… half-used tissue?”

ME:  “Eerrrmmm…  There was a…  You know what, give that to me, and I’ll give you a new one.”

See, if I were really all that environmental, surely I would use a handkerchief.  My dad does, which I think is adorable and retro until I start to think about germs, and then I have to bring in my sanitizing hand lotion to gently massage away the icky.

So these makeup wipes.  Only half-useful, and then dried out and not-so-useful on a second go-around.  But you know that they are good for?  Cleaning your bathroom counter!  My super-’70s pad has a stainless steel sink that collects toothpaste like so much bird shit.  I have found that a discarded make-up wipe works a treat for a quick spin over the basin, counter, and mirror to cut through any built-up scum.

Go forth, my bare-eyed and shiny-sinked friends.  Namaste.

 

And Now for Something Completely Creepy

WHERE TO START.  The insistent “breathe!”-cow, the Jamaican (?) rooster, or the key weirdness of the shriveled elf-man and his skinny jeans, displayed to such flexible effect.  Yogie Okey Dokie’s Yogi round-up (sic from video) is the singularly most disturbing thing I’ve received all week, and it is a struggle to pinpoint the most offensive or perplexing thing about it, because there is just so much to work with.  Examples to follow.

• Um, the opening shot of our new friend Yogie Okey Dokie and his hind-quarters-over-head thing.
• The dance at 0:18 (trust, it is downhill from here).
• From 0:31…  I have no words.  NEEMMPPHGGHH… UNGH… yeah, no words.
• 0:42:  RUN, CHILLEN!!!!  RUUUUUUUUUUUUN!
• The “chicken scratching in the dirt” at 1:19.
• What immediately follows (“Nmmmmmemememe.”)
• What happens right after that (hands-down yogi town.)
• “Nice anvil, Christian!” at 1:49.
• Followed by, “Nice tomato!  I’ll save that for my sandwich!”
• Followed by farm animals going, “Mmmmm, hmmm, mmmm.”
• VEGETABLE, vegetable, VEGETABLE! (at 2:06) and the subsequent tongue-thrusting insanity.

So… yeah.  Everything IS terrible.  I don’t think yoga for kids is a bad idea at all, and I don’t think that this guy is a pederast – I think he’s just enthused.  But this is such an undeniable and compelling trainwreck I’m pretty sure it qualifies as high art.

 

Search Me

A couple of months ago, I Googled myself to survey the search results of my LinkedIn profile, as I wanted to check the prominence of my public internet presence.  Formerly, my profile was satisfyingly amongst the top results, and while my private Facebook page would pull up as well, it is locked down and unproblematic.  This is all important, as I am very likely to be Googled by clients due to my business, and networking is crucial my job.

Imagine my consternation when I discovered that a 20-year-old nude model who shares my “Professional Tailfeather” moniker has been exposing herself all over the internets, granting interviews to taste-questionable websites, and generally undermining the professionalism of Professional Tailfeathers everywhere.  Even worse, she is somehow from my hometown, which has led to a number of dodgy Facebook friend requests (DENIED).  I had sort of blocked this out until my alarmed father sent me a link today to this “bouncy co-ed,” which he had innocently stumbled across whilst researching a midwestern distillery that shares our surname.  Apparently, Undermining-Professional Tailfeather has conquered less literal aspects of the internet search, thanks to our uncommon last name.

Oh, Professional Tailfeathers.  Can we not agree to conduct ourselves with some degree of decorum on the world-wide-whatsit?  One of you already claimed the eponymous Twitter account, with giggly tweets about the X-Factor and underage British binge-drinking.  Should we not agree on some ground rules?  As a small consolation prize, Professional-Tailfeather-the-Naked may be gorgeous and practically illegal, but my LinkedIn profile still trumps her latest pizza-themed, soft-core porn shoot in terms of Google results.  So this is my headline:  Soulless corporate shill beats out bare-breasted-and-pepperonied beauty in the internet search sweepstakes!  At least for now…

 

In Which I Defend Myself Against Scurrilous Allegations of Propriety

If there is one thing that every young radical who has the misfortune of reaching their late-twenties and discovering that non-profit work fails to pay the electricity bill will discover, it’s that her cooler friends will accuse her of selling out.  And in all likelihood, the accusation will be just, and the “victim” of said insinuation or outright accusation will find herself with only a shaky stiletto on which to stand.

To many people, it doesn’t matter how much I recycle, that I walk to work, or how much money I donate to Planned Parenthood and the Red Cross.  The fact that I listen to NPR only consolidates my place in the affluent white liberal ranks.  I am a meat-eater who feels guilt because I am too lazy to make it to the organic farmer’s market every weekend.  I have a Banksy coffee-table book.  I am friends with my housekeeper.  I yearn to be a roller derby girl but don’t have time and was rejected by Teach for America.  My best friend bought me a Kindle for Christmas.  I am an embarrassing living embodiment of Stuff White People Like.

And yet, last week, when my best friend from high school jokingly emailed me something about my job as a “corporate shill,” I about spluttered my Merlot all over my Netbook.  I am far from moneyed, after all!  My apartment doesn’t even have a dishwasher (and I will tell you, I never thought I would be practically 30 and living without basic mod-cons like central air).  I do have a classic dryer from the 1970s, and a television that, as best I can tell, was the finest model on offer in 1995.  I have a mouse for a roommate and a potentially murderous mold problem in my bathroom.

If I were a proper corporate shill, I would have a condo and a standing appointment for a weekly bikini wax.  I would fucking know how to ski.  I would not have a deep-discount wine habit and holes in the toes of all my socks.  Just because he’s living in one of the Carolinas and getting his PhD in Hippie Pot-Smoking does not mean that I suddenly know how to iron.