Monday Confession

TV Shows I Can't Stop Masturbating To:

Toolbelt Diva: I can't tell the difference between a sander and a woochipper, but I watch this show religiously. I can usually make it through roughly five minutes before, y'know, angst sets in.

The Sports List with Summer Sanders: It's Summer Sanders. Talking about sports. Dude, you could have Summer Sanders talking about maple trees and tax forms and it would still be stroke-worthy. Especially the stuff about maple trees.

NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: Oh, like you don't.

And in other news: Fuck you, France!

Strung out on Dick, part deux

OK, here's a follow up to Ken's post, with a twist. Say you had a guy who was as dumb as a stump. He had a laugh like a dying cat who just got run over. He had a form of Tourettes that only seemed to surface around your friends and family. He didn't understand the concept of "personal hygiene." But, he was hung like a prized Arabian stallion. Yeah, like 9 inches plus. Would you keep him? And wait, before you decide, he's UNTEACHABLE. That's right, he was dropped on his head as a child or something and therefore has severe learning disability/short term memory loss. There's no hope of Henry Higgins/Pygmalion whatsoever. Would you keep him, or keep the receipt and return? THINK about this, ladies. You know how much of a mental thing it is for us.

Top Ten Reasons Why I Probably Broke Up With You

1. The sex was bad.
2. The sex was bad.
3. The sex was bad.
4. The sex was bad.
5. The sex was bad.
6. The sex was bad.
7. The sex was bad.
8. The sex was bad.
9. The sex was bad.
10. The sex was bad.

Also, the sex was probably pretty bad.

On the other hand, when the sex is remarkably good, I often cling tenaciously to relationships long after the expiration date and everyone in the free world knows this girl is killing me, but goddam it, I just can't let it go. One former Kennette threatened to shiv my mother -- she wasn't joking about shivving my mother, but actually threatening to take a shiv and insert it into my mother -- and I just couldn't let her go because of that awesome "flicker" thing she could do with her tongue whenever she blew me.

Anyway, what got me thinking of all this was a conversation last night with a female friend who said, "Love isn't just sex." Okay, I'll buy that. But it's probably the best part. Sure, finding a soulmate -- someone to bake cookies and laugh at homeless people with -- is a beautiful thing. But if the sex is as muddled as the last season of Twin Peaks, it just ain't goin' anywhere as far as I'm concerned.

Let me put it to you, loyal readers. Let's say you met the person of your dreams -- unspeakably attractive, attentive to your every need, beloved by your parents, secretly desired by all your friends and absolutely devoted to you with every fiber of his or her being. The veritable person you've been waiting your whole life to meet, as the cliche goes. But the sex is impossibly lame, with no hope of ever schooling said paramour into a better lover.

Would you stick around?

Strung out on Dick*

Goddamn if I don't lose a girlfriend to this affliction on a monthly basis. We're hanging out, hitting the dive bars, going shopping, maybe some beach volleyball, and then BAM! She meets a guy, gets laid, and drops off the face of the earth. Calls go directly into voice mail. Plans are cancelled. I start to forget what she looks like. Then, she'll briefly resurface with the case of the "we-wees": "OMG, We have been SOOOO busy! We went to this great sushi place, then We went to bed early because We have to get up early, because We're going to go for a run." (This girl wouldn't run if a pack of rabid dogs were chasing her.)

Usually, these situations have a shelf life of three months. That means that I'll be getting the "I just had a huge fight with" and "He won't call me back" frantic phone calls around Labor Day. But too bad. Maybe by then I'll have my own addiction. You know, of the 8-inch long variety.

*shout out to Jordan for this title!

Thong vs. Teeth

Confession: I'm obsessed with female underwear. Naw, I don't wear it myself -- at least not since the "college days" -- but I absolutely fucking live for that moment when the random female I've somehow conned into coming back to Le Pad de Ken unbuttons her jeans then slowly sheds them, revealing the magical undergarments. There's also a lot to be said for the sight of said underwear balled up on the floor the next morning, or hidden between the sheets. Hell, sometimes I'll even bury my face in the Kennette's underwear drawer like a friggin' six year old bobbing for apples, just for the sheer delight of it.

Simply put, female underwear = awesome.

So last weekend, after the Kennette and I completed a little something I like to call the bedroom floor facedown slalom, I found her thong in the corner of the room. Joking, I picked it up and stuffed it in my mouth, as I've threatened to do on many occasions. Stunned, she turned around quick and blurted, "Hey, those were expensive."

With that, she plucked the tiny millimeter of fabric still outside my mouth and gave the undies a solid yank, retrieving them, along with a bonus prize in the form of my permanent retainer -- a small, inch-long piece of metal which runs along the back of my bottom teeth to prevent nature from undoing years of orthodontics.

Now, the fucking thing's been there since I was 16, so, as you might imagine, it hurt like a world class motherfucker. So I scream. And my mouth starts gushing blood as the metal scraped my cheek and tongue on the way out. So she starts screaming as well. And I'm standing there, watching blood pour from my mouth wondering how something that seemed so cool at the time could have gone so horribly wrong.

A few hours later, calm was restored. My dentist replaced the retainer Monday morning, and I duly promised to never ever again attempt to ingest a Kennette's panties. Unless, of course, she's wearing them.

getdrunknhookup-ism

For those of us who whistle "Strangers In The Night" as we get ready to go out, our lives are quite simple. We enter the bar/nightclub/party/bingo hall, make our selection from the vast array of slouches holding up the wall near the bathrooms, have a shagadelic time, and then never see them again. No mess, no fuss.

But what about the drunk hookups that occur among friends? Co-workers? The business trip, the big weekend at the lake, the reunion, the wedding...These are situations in which you already know the person, and you are surrounded by people who know you both. And you all have to go have breakfast. In other words, things could get pretty messy. But generally everyone has already gotten the handbook, which states: Act Like Nothing Happened. OK. So yesterday, you were laughing and joking like best friends. Today, you both act as if you just discovered the other person has leprosy and sit as far away from them as possible. And that in itself is a dead giveaway. The more stiff and awkward you act, the more it screams, "I just did her doggie-style 3 hours ago!!!"

Sometimes I wonder if the best thing would be to walk into the brunch/board meeting/etc. and announce, "I'd like to you all to know that McCarthy and I had way too many Alabama Slammers last night, and proceeded to fuck each others' brains out for the remainder of the evening. While we would both agree we had a lot of fun, neither of us are remotely interested in pursuing anything further. Thank you for your time."

Kevin Smith: Marketing Genius

Now, see, here's a summer movie poster I can get behind. No pirates. No guys with capes. No meteors hurtling to Earth at breakneck speed. Just Rosario Dawson's ass. And what more do you need? The fact that there might be 90 minutes of dialogue and action built around said ass is only window dressing as far as I'm concerned. Seriously, when I'm selecting a film to see on any given weekend, all that really goes through my mind is, "Exactly how much Rosario Dawson ass will this film contain?" For the most part -- with the exception of The 25th Hour -- I'm disappointed. But here, Kevin Smith is targeting my demographic. And for that, he gets my ten bucks.

It's a Small World After All?

Lately I've been embracing our globalization by dating outside my nationality. No, I don't just mean the O.C.. And what I've found is that while the languages are different, the accents are difficult to understand, the message is essentially the same: "can I touch your boobies?"

It's quite interesting to note that despite the vast cultural differences, the general consensus around the world is that American women are easy. Far be it from me to deny the charge, as I tend to perpetuate the stereotype on an almost daily basis. My only major annoyance is with those who are uncircumcised (just kidding! Helmet or no helmet is great, as long as it still works!) No, really, just those who feel the need to personally blame me for our governments' foreign policy failures. Hey, I was watching Buffy when we invaded Iraq! Blame me for something more concrete, like causing a slight drop in sales in the adult magazine industry by posing for "Girls Gone Wild" instead of Playboy. If you're still really upset, then at least make it constructive by taking it out on me with a good anger fuck. Oooh, global warming....mmmm, pre-emptive strikes....aah yeah, terror suspects tried in a system of military commissions in Guantanamo, using interrogation and possible torture...OH YES!

Things that make Ariel go hmmmm......

1. faux-hawks
2. guys with little dogs
3. single guys with two or more cats
4. at 30, texting is still his main form of communication
5. guys who accept a "modeling" gig offered by some random dude they meet their first week in LA
6. obsessed with body hair removal
7. not obsessed enough with body hair removal
8. guys who prefer fake tits to the real thing
9. being rude to the server/bartender
10. prefer smoking pot/playing video games/suduko/fill-in-the-blank to having sex.

Save a Bull, Ride a Cowboy

So this holiday weekend I went to one of those places that has a mechanical bull. It's a nice change from those horrific Karaoke bars. In fact, I'm surprised no one has combined the two; watching someone try to belt out "I Will Survive" as they are thrown face-first into a nearby wall is my idea of a good time.

So this guy gets on. He waves and tries to hang on to what's left of his manhood as the machine is set to Mach-3 and he's catapulted somewhere north of Pluto in 2.5 seconds. What a record.

Then a girl gets on. She's a tomboy, has a flat chest and is wearing a turtleneck. The machine goes slow, then tires of her lack of jiggle and throws her off towards a nearby alternative bookstore.

Then--and this becomes the main theme of the evening--another girl gets on. She's big on top and is lacking...a bra. In fact, I'm wondering if that's part of the requirement to ride the bull--like there's a trash bin next to the sign-up table filled with Vickie's Secret push-ups. So she's drunk, and waving like it's the 1996 Madison County Beauty Pageant all over again. And the machine starts up, verrrry sloooooowly. It turns in a graceful, gentle 360, making sure that every guy in the place gets an eyeful of those two great bastions of the plastic surgery industry. Then it rocks, back and forth, surprisingly seductive for a matted, nasty throw rug and a cow's head with a bad perm and plastic horns. She giggles and rocks accordingly, her boobs doing their best to keep up. This goes on for a good 20 minutes. And just when I begin to wonder if I've dropped acid and am actually in TJ at the donkey show, they spot another lucky contestant, throw the switch to 11 and she splats ass-first near the men's room.

Did Ariel, snarky commentator, have the cojones to ride the bull? Of course not. She was too busy chatting up the drunk frat boys, who, unlike the bull, would at least buy her a drink first.

Driving School

The blowjob in the car is one of those things that is awesome simply in and of itself. Slightly cooler than the blowjob in the hammock and only less fantastic that the blowjob in the space shuttle, the car smoothie is intensified by the fact that it adds a precise element of danger to the proceedings. As the driver of the car, I know I have to keep my focus on the road. Because, man, there's big-ass trucks and crazy seventeen year old girls trying to simultaneously dial their cell phones and steer a Lincoln Navigator across six lanes of highway out there. But as the recipient of the blowjob, I also know that the lifeblood which is so necessary to keeping my brainwaves nice and snappy is being filtered away to my lower extremities, giving me that slightly dizzy, slightly buzzed, holy-shit-I'm-getting-a-beaner-in-the-car feeling that truly dulls the reaction times. So there's that struggle going on. Also, if it's a particularly long drive, and said blowjob is helpful in keeping me from slipping off into a narcoleptic coma on interstate 95, then I certainly want to prolong the sensation and retain my seed for as long as possible (which for me, ladies, ain't all that long). Further, everytime I pass an SUV or 16 wheeler, I try to speed up, lest fellow drivers alongside me start snapping cell phone pics.

Worst of all, as a guy who just hasn't mastered the art of post-orgasm smalltalk, I find myself in a precarious situation once the BJ has officially ended and I realize I've still got 65 miles to Boston. After the Kennette obliged me last night, I simply noddedm, smiled, said, "Woah." and "Awesome." Then proceeded to mess with the radio buttons for the next twenty minutes.