Pretty, witty...and GAY!

Neighbours :: Seattle, WA  My first experience at a gay bar was in Seattle with my BYU roommates. Why might you ask would a couple BYU gals traipse over to the awesomely entertaining 80's party at Neighbours gay disco in Seattle? Why not! Although, I must admit I kinda felt voyeuristic since it was more an observational experience than a participatory one, being all BYU-ey and such. My favorite was the guy who rode up on his bicycle wearing bunny ears and spandex and some bunched up white socks with big white sneakers. He hopped about that dance floor like no other discoteching rabbit I've ever seen. His high kicks rivaled those of the famed BYU Cougarettes. Very impressive.

Hell's Kitchen :: NYC  Sokphal and I accompanied our close friend Devin, who had just recently come out and was curious as were we, to a hip gay bar in hip NYC. The reward for our curiosity? A Lance Bass sighting. Jealous!?!

Gay Pride Parade & Festival :: DC  At the time I had a really short, pixie-cut hairstyle. I had actually been wondering if maybe my haircut would lead me to receive some pick-up attempts or not by any women. But alas, their gaydar went beyond the haircut and no one hit on me. Ashley = 0 points. As Devin and I were walking away from the festival, we passed a couple girls sitting on a bench. Devin overheard their debate as to whether I was gay or not because of my hair. Point Ashley!

Freddie's :: Crystal City, VA  My boss is a DJ on the side. She invited some of us out to see her DJ at this gay bar which was flamingoed to the hilt and very pink and beachy.  While she spun those sick beats, I mingled with some coworker friends. I noticed the crowd there seemed mostly A. female and/or B. older and/or C. transsexual. I waited in the line for the women's restroom at one point. When a transvestite in a hot little white number came out, I went in to find the toilet seat up. Apparently science has not yet figured out how to detransfer that trait in the transgendering process. Back to mingling, and my bf Brian starts bragging to me how he got hit on by some dude - "Oh heyy honey!" - as he was walking through the crowd.  I asked, "Who was it?" He points to a bald overweight guy in the corner table, to which our coworker responds, "Oh! You mean the BLIND guy!?" Turns out he really was blind and said the same lines to everyone he accidentally ran into on the dancefloor.  Maybe next time Bri:(

Prostitutes know their pasta.

Every Friday at work, we have lunch catered for us. Every Thursday, we get an email from the office manager telling us what we can expect to ingest the following day. 

This past week's menu update read: Friday's lunch menu is lasagna, penne with puttanesca sauce, caesar salad, rolls and cannolis for dessert. Having never heard of it before, I figured that this puttanesca sauce must be something exotic and wonderful. Being the curious cat that I am, I decided to look it up. 

The first response that came up from our friend Wikipedia tells me Spaghetti a la Puttanesca  is also known as Whore's Spaghetti...intriguing. Upon further examination, our other friend Merriam-Webster confirms this pasta's whoredom. 

Etymology: Italian, short for alla puttanesca, literally, in the style of a prostitute: served with or being a pungent tomato sauce typically containing olives, garlic, capers, hot peppers and sometimes anchovies.

I'm now slightly concerned. So many questions! Is "pungent" a good thing? Are whores good cooks? ANCHOVIES!?! 

My coworker and I decided that the Italian Mafia must have actually been in charge of naming pasta dishes. Lasagna actually means drug dealer. And cannolis is just a fancy word for bootleggers. You might think twice now next time you order your Linguini Alfredo, or you could wind up mezza morta.

 

For further reading enjoyment, check out Mobspeak.

Job : Boils :: Ashley : Roommates

Trash night is on Wed. nights at our house. Last week I took the trash out, and brought it back in, as the ritual goes. On Mon. night I see this note to me in the dining room:

Really?! Cause it's much more important that I go outside 2 days before the trash is supposed to go out and physically rotate the cans the optimal 180 degrees instead of my roommate doing it when it's actually her turn to take out the garbage. I probably saved her about 10 seconds of her life. (However, those 10 seconds were completely negated when she took at least that to write me that note.)

This was almost as bad as my previous roommate a couple years ago who said to me, "Ashley, when you take a shower, will you put the toilet seat lid down? I don't like it if I have to use the bathroom after you've showered and there's condensation on the toilet seat, even though I know it's just water."  

So now I'm thinking, I should start leaving notes too! My first one will be:
"Roomie -

Please turn all the soap dispensers in the house so that the spouts form right angles with the faucet handles, ensuring that my hand to dispenser trajectory is most efficient."

Disaster Date

Let me paint a picture for you. A picture of a disastrous date. I had to pinch myself to believe that this really happened, but this story will make me laugh for decades. The other day I bought two tickets to see Devendra Banhart at the 9:30 Club. My date was a guy I've been "seeing" for approx a month now. So we plan this date the day before. We meet up in DC. We grab a couple jumbo slices of pizza before the concert. He seems a little out of it. He mentions how he stayed up til 3 am the night before working on his resume cause he's fed up with his boss. So that morning he was feeling kinda stressed and decided to take an anti-anxiety pill he had gotten from a "friend"..hmmm. I forget the name of the pill. It started with a K. The pill definitely put him in a very mellow mood.

So after the concert we decide we'll watch a movie at his place. (GI Joe...horrible movie that even Channing Tatum can't save). I fall asleep. I wake up at the end of the movie and the TV is blaring. I look over and he is passed out next to me. So I shake him gently. Nothing. I shake him harder. Nothing. His drink is toppled over in his lap (luckily empty). He is officially PASSED OUT hardcore. I start to get a little concerned. What if I have to call the paramedics? And then they ask me what he took, and I have to say "I dunno, something with a K that he doesn't have a prescription for?" I start shaking him fervently. Still breathing. Check. He finally shows signs of life and kinda opens his eyes. He looks up at me and mumbles something about how we should check his pulse. My eyes got big and my own pulse I'm sure was starting to race. I was actually slapping his face a little to get him to wake up more. So once he's relatively awake, I help him stumble to bed as I support him since he can't stand by himself. He decides he needs to go to the bathroom. He goes in. Oh boy. After 3 minutes of no noise, I decide to check on him. I knock. Nothing. I have to go in. I find him sitting on the toilet with his upper body completely rag doll style plopped over and passed out again. I shake him some more. He wakes up and says, "You know what I'm most concerned about? The civilians." I nod and drag him over to his bed. (As an aside he works for the DoD doing Civilian policy so I guess it's not a completely outlandish comment.) He immediately throws himself on the bed face down and assumes a crouching position. As far as I can tell he's completely out. And so am I...

Dating Advice from an Aquabats Fan

Friday I sent an IM (aka a Spark as it's called at work) to a coworker to check on something for me. He responded at one point with a line from an Aquabats song, which I'm pretty much unfamiliar with, but happened to see live once in DC on a date. So I said, I've seen them live! thus spurring a further and quirky conversation with probably the quirkiest character that I work with.

Exhibit A:

Quirky: So yeah
Quirky: WHen did you see the Aquabats?
Me: hmm a few years ago
Ashley Gerber: at Nation. that club they closed in like SE
Ashley Gerber: i think
Quirky: I went to Nation quite a lot
Quirky: And I may have been at that show
Me: oh cool
Me: they put on a pretty entertaining show
Quirky: Got any of their albums?
Me: no. i hadn't listened to them before that concert. someone took me there. on a date haha
Quirky: Was it a first date?
Me: uhh, maybe? maybe like 2nd
Me: i think it was the first one
Me: and the last hahha
Quirky: Yeah, I can see that
Quirky: I love the Aquabats
Quirky: But I would have to have been seeing someone for like 6 months before I took them to one of their shows
Quirky: I would be like "Hey, I'm busy this night, but do you wanna get gelato Friday?"

So there you have it. Dating advice from an Aquabats fan. 

Ashley's Dating Rules

Oh, I've done some dating in my time. Thus and so, I have started a list of some dating mishaps. Not my mishaps; I'm perfect. Their mishaps. Duh.

My bladder should be smaller than yours. If you are a male over the age of 10, I think it's safe to say you shouldn't have to go to the bathroom an exponential number of times in an hour and a half long meal. Especially when I haven't even gone once and had the same amount to drink as you.

You're photosensitive, but you're not a vampire. Do you find yourself having to ask to switch seats because your chair is in direct twilight, yet you are neither an albino nor a vampire? Then please don't call me. (Actually if you are either of the latter, don't call me either...)

YOU have bad circulation?!? What a coincidence! So does my grandma!!! My grandma really does have bad circulation. I too have inherited this disease. I generally have subnormal body temperature and I freeze if it's under like 70 degrees. So if I'm not cold and you are, I question if you really do have a Y chromosome.

Cheap Feels. Grabbing my arm muscles to see how "strong" I am as a way to put your arm around me and/or grabbing my waist/hip/picking me up off the ground around my stomach a la King Kong = awkward. My uncomfortable levels really can go to 11.

This may need to be a running list. But for now, this will have to do.

Oh the irony...

So last week my roommate sent me the link to a mildly amusing website called passiveaggressivenotes.com. People upload pictures of, obviously, passive aggressive notes they either find or people write to them. So ironically enough, this morning I see this post it note on our door, posted by the same roommate. (The Miles Grant thing is a cut out of our friend's friend Miles who ran for a delegate position in our area and we use him as our little area to post notes to each other on our door).
In case it's too blurry, the note reads: "Miles Grant Says: 'I'm glad nothing happened in the house last night since the study window was wide open all night!'" She designated me as the official window closer at night since I am generally the last one to go to bed. And ooops I missed one! So now I must pay, passively of course.