Why?

Earlier this week I had a conversation with one of my single friends. My only single friend, in fact. She said that she has given up trying to find someone. She also said that she no longer cares about global warming because she will not bear any offspring who will have to experience any ill-effects such as the extinction of the polar bears. I am very concerned about the polar bears. I am also not really sure if it's politically correct to not care about global warming.

I got to wondering why this gal doesn't have a special someone. She's one of the most beautiful women I know, brilliant, punctual, fun, holds her liquor, has a great salary and a master's degree, and even knows stuff about sports. I just don't get it. She says she's just unlucky. That gets me angry. Angry like when people say: "Don't worry, if I can find someone, anyone can." I don't really want to find the kind of someone who wants to date the kind of someone who says something like that. Unless it's to kick his teeth in as punishment for being attracted to an asshole.

I guess it all depends on what you think the goal of the game is. Maybe it's like a piniata at a 5-year-old's birthday party and the winner is the fat kid who hip checks all the other kids to scoop up the most pieces and spends the rest of his life feeling satisfied about his remarkable success at candy collecting and assuring all the other kids who aren't as quick that some day they'll smack that piniata too. If that's the case, then my friend is probably the kid that really only wants the twix, and looks around for the twix after the piniata is smashed and can't find it so she decides she better pick up a pixie stick before all the candy is gone, but it's too late because that fat kid is really good at picking up candy. Who am I? I'm the kid that hit the piniata but didn't realize that I had smashed it open and am swinging at the air, blindfolded, while all the other kids are taking the candy and not cluing me in because they'd rather not have the competition. Then I probably trip over the fat kid and lie there bleeding, still blindfolded, while everyone else laughs.

I don't want your stupid candy anyway. And it's really kind of a relief not to have to worry about the polar bears.

The Gossip

Beth Ditto is my new favorite person. If you're out there, let's be friends.

Summer Camp

When I was younger I used to go to this sweet Christian summer camp every year. They had a lake. It was man-made, but I really liked that because it meant you didn't have to be afraid of fish. Or sharks. Or dead bodies. They would have these speakers come and preach to us about Christian stuff every night, but they would confuse you into thinking they were the "entertainment". My favorite was the Christian mime. He was a good mime. Until he started talking about Jesus. I wonder if all the real mimes out there who take their vows of silence seriously are just dying to talk about Jesus. I think if I were a mime and I got the chance to speak for one night only I would tell all the knock-knock jokes I've been saving up since elementary school but haven't told because there's just never a "right" moment. One year there was an abstinence speaker. He gave us all uncut keys and told us not to put any "notches" into them until we got married. And then he told us that "notches" means sex--just in case we didn't get it. And then he told us that he was addicted to porn but Jesus forgave him, and Jesus would forgive us too if we accidentally got a notch. And then he told us never to tell any grown-ups what happened that night because "what happens at Jesus Camp stays at Jesus Camp."

I loved that lake.

My Lesbian Friend

Today I heard from Secret Lesbian, a good friend from college. She called to tell me that she's getting married next summer. To a man. To a handsome man. It is pretty sad when your lesbian friend gets married to a man before you do. Crack Whore and Suicide Girl are married now, and Baldy has a husband and a baby. Fatty just got hitched as well. I'm pretty glad I've upped the quality of my friends since graduation. Those kids were winners.

It's Not That Big a Secret

I think most people will probably find it hard to believe that my virginity is actually a secret. Well, it is. I don't care if you don't believe me. Except that I do. Please believe me. My secret is so well kept because I move a lot. I have lived in three different states in the past two years, in fact. So my childhood friends don't know what I was up to in college, my college friends haven't got a clue who I was doing in grad. school, and my grad. school friends are probably quite certain that I'm screwing someone at the office. I'm pretty sure I've got my roommate convinced that I was in a really bad abusive relationship in the last secret city I lived in. It's fun for me when she complains that her boyfriend only got her half a pound of chocolates for Valentine's Day and I reply, "At least he doesn't beat you." It's a conversation killer. I also really like it when she posts cute little quotes on her myspace page like: "Don't frown, because you never know who might be falling in love with your smile." That's when I post: "Is it the guy with no teeth who follows me home some nights and flashes his genitals? Because I'm pretty sure he loves me whether I smile or not."

My parents are the most in the dark. I came home one Christmas after not having seen them for over a year, and I had gotten really thin. Probably because I had forgotten to eat while I waited outside a classroom for three weeks straight hoping some art student would notice me or something. My mom asked if everything was all right. I told her I was fine. Later on my dad told me that my mom was pretty sure I had gotten an abortion. I giggled on the inside. On the outside, I told my dad that I really didn't want to talk about it. Parents should have something to worry about. But not too much. I think they might worry more about their 26-year-old virgin daughter than they would a raging slut who shaves her head and chases people with umbrellas. At least Britney's parents can sleep soundly at night with the knowledge that their daughter is desirable to men. That's all I want for my parents.

I went to a bachelorette party for a co-worker once. Someone decided it would be "fun" if we all went around and told the story about how we first lost our virginity. I was thinking up a really good one based on a sweet scene from an episode of General Hospital I saw once, but the stripper showed up right before my turn. I folded all of my dollar bills into tiny paper airplanes so I wouldn't have to touch him.

In Love With Secret Homeless Guy

Some women don't like it when they get hit on by construction workers, or baristas, or emo boys. I respect that. You can be choosy. I personally love it when I get a little wink with my latte. It makes me feel special. It makes me feel like clubbing the woman behind me who gets a wink with her hot chocolate. Any woman who drinks hot chocolate at Starbucks does not deserve winks. Today there was a homeless man on my bus. He was burping uncontrollably and smelled like a cross between pee and older pee. He asked me to marry him. Before he passed out, I was considering it. It was actually kind of the highlight of my day. I thought that there must be something special about this man--something that made him able to recognize and appreciate the real me. As I stepped over him when we reached my stop, I had hope that this was not the only man whose path I would cross that had this particular quality. Not the pee smell--the depth. Although I could really learn to overlook the pee smell.

Happy Birthday

Today is my birthday. Happy birthday, Secret Virgin. I am 26 and this is becoming ridiculous. I imagine that people, when they overcome the shock of discovering that there exists in a major metropolitan city a 26-year-old virgin, will immediately try to come up with excuses for the anomaly. It makes people uncomfortable when other people are virgins for no reason. I think most people will probably assume that I am ugly. This will make them feel better because it makes sense. "Ugly people should not ever have sex", you think. "Ugly people having sex is almost worse than my parents having sex--and that makes me want to poke a big stick right in my eye." Brace yourselves. I'm not ugly. I am a fairly attractive woman, in fact. Sure, I could probably stand to lose about 15 pounds, but that's really not it. "Aha!" You are once again placated. "Whenever anyone on the internet says they could 'stand to lose 15 pounds' it really means they are about 100 pounds overweight, and shoving pizza right into their fat face as they type the fat, fat lie with their fat, fat fingers. This explains it. Fat people get to have even less sex than ugly people. At least ugly disappears in the dark." Fat's not it either, folks. I am really not lying. In fact, I used to be a runner. Thin as a rail, yet still a big, fat virgin. Are you unsettled? Has everything you know about the world come crashing down around you? Good. That's how I feel today too. 26. How did that happen?