Over on Secret Society of List Addicts, some issues on which I can’t even get started in polite company.

NTKOG Year 2, #17: The kind of moxious seductress who, seizing an opportunity, more or less throws a guy up against a wall and demands what she wants.

I am: good at: long epistolary courtships, slightly saucy wordplay, middle-school confessions and the occasional discretionary skulking.

I am not: good at: talking to humans in bars. I leave that to the experts.

The Scene: The graduate student bar at Justice’s name-brand university in New England College Town, on a weirdly hoppin’ Thursday night. Kiss-Ducker and I are in town, celebrating Justice’s recent engagement. In magnanimous bride-to-be fashion, Justice has transformed into a total yenta, offering herself as wingwoman while Kiss-Ducker breaks a few hearts and I grudgingly agree to make a total ass of myself.

To this end, we whip out a little game we perfected in undergrad: Napkin Lists. The gist? At the beginning of the evening, I pulled out a Sharpie and a bar napkin, and we took turns coming up with challenges to complete before the end of the evening. Yeah, yeah, it’s truth or dare. We’re adults. Get psyched.

It's fair to say that whenever the three of us get together, we make a bit of an impression on the dudes around us. Largely by doing things like asking them to pluck single hairs from their heads, then defeat us in dance-offs.

After a few awkward starts and a heroic effort on Kiss-Ducker’s part, we’d managed to cross off about about a third of the list. With half an hour left before the most convenient shuttle home, though, we had to whip through five more items or admit defeat — a risk I just wasn’t willing to take.

So I brewed a plan to cross off, in one fell swoop, three items: 1) try on a fellow’s hat with his permission; 2) get someone to striptease off one article of clothing; and, if all went according to plan, 3) get someone to tell you what brand of deodorant they wear.

Scoured both levels of the bar to find a man wearing a hat — curses! they’d all disappeared! — then, clock ticking down, watched a guy push toward the bar followed slightly by his friend, a mid-height, sleepy-eyed dude with hurricane hair and, bingo!, a red plaid scarf.

And before I relate the following dialogue, a little context. Men are always asking what women want; what this woman wants? A restaurant recommendation, then for you to leave her alone. Oh, and to never ever ever have to have sex with you. I cemented the impression with baggy khakis, smeared day-old make-up and a slept-in ponytail. Hot stuff.

As red scarf walks by, I hail him, “Hey! Yeah, you! Can you settle a bet?” He sweeps the three of us with his sleepy eyes then smiles. I ask where he’s from; he says Toronto. A Canadian! I rather like Canadians.

TKOG: Okay, so the thing is, this is my friend Kiss-Ducker. She’s from Alabama, and she thinks guys look stupid when they’re taking off their scarves. Can you prove her wrong?
The Canadian:  What do you mean?
TKOG:  Well, I mean, you look like a guy who knows how to take a scarf off sexy. Can you do that for us? Just like really super oh-my-god sexy?

To his credit, he only looks confused for a moment before shimmying out of the scarf and — oh my god, tucking the end of it in my shirt? Ack. Foul. Still, one item down and two to go.

TKOG: See, that’s the thing about guys from Toronto. They know how to take off scarves. This one’s really nice, actually! Kiss-Ducker, it would look super cute on you! Can she try it on?

I toss it to her while he mumbles his consent, and she wraps it briefly around her neck. There are no hats in sight, so this is a fitting substitute — second item crossed off!

At this point, I expect him to run. It’s significantly the weirdest bar interaction I’ve ever had; heck, it’s lasted longer than most of the conversations I have with guys when I’m actually trying. Kiss-Ducker hands back his scarf and I wait for him to shuffle off, but he puts his arm around me. I look to the girls for help, but they’re talking to each other and pointedly ignoring me, those jackals. Still, a challenge is a challenge and I’ve still got one item left.

The Canadian and I chat for a while, and have a surprisingly pleasant conversation. Still, time is ticking away, so finally I lean toward him and exclaim:

TKOG: Dude, you smell fantastic. What brand of deodorant do you wear?
TC: I actually don’t wear deodorant.
TKOG: Wait, so that’s…
TC: Yup. That’s all me.

At which point I do what any normal girl would do (if she were to stop being normal and start acting like me, anyway): lower my face into his armpit and breathe deeply. And son of a gun, he does smell good. And furthermore, all three challenges crossed off. NAPKIN LIST BLITZ: ACHIEVED.

After which, I immediately lost interest. He continued talking and I stared at him in confusion. He wasn’t of anymore use to me! Why wasn’t he leaving? Oh, weird, did he just put his hand on my elbow? I stood in awkward silence until he disengaged; we made eye contact a few more times, but didn’t speak again for the ten minutes before my friends and I left the bar.

And now that I tell the full story, it sounds so obvious, but here’s the thing: it wasn’t until we got back home and my friends started teasing me mercilessly that I realized, holy shit, he might have actually kind of liked me. Justice and Kiss-Ducker patiently explained and rexplained the signs of his interest (arm around me, waiting hopefully for the conversation to continue, ignoring his friend at the bar), and the subtle signs of flirtation that I sent off (like, oh, I don’t know, using the word “sexy” nineteen thousand times before burying my face in his armpit). Because I can read in Russian and do stoichometry, but apparently can’t wrap my head around the fact that an actual Earth human might display boy-girl interest in a friggin’ bar.

The idea of meeting someone had literally never entered my head. Once I realized how thoroughly I’d missed it? Regret. Instant, crippling regret that I hadn’t even tried to extend the conversation or find out more about him. After all, he was darn cute, and he did smell awfully good…

The next night, Kiss-Ducker and Justice joked that I’d lost out on the love of my life, and mostly-teased that we should go out and try to find him again. The day after that, though, we went up to New York and completely forgot about him. After all, there are there are three billion men in the world, and even if he were the one that got away, the odds were less than zero that I’d ever meet him again.

Dead exhausted, we boarded the train home from New York a bit before midnight, in a four-seater on a packed train car where a few last stragglers stood to find seats. One of them was a guy with messy brown hair. “Hey,” whispered Kiss-Ducker, “wouldn’t it be funny if–”

He turned. Red plaid scarf. Locked eyes with us. “Well,” he smiled, “I certainly recognize you guys.”

“Want a seat?” I squeaked, clearing my coat from the one across from me.

“Absolutely.”

Oh snap, y’all, this blog post got SUPER EPIC LONG. To be continued on Friday.

While I was too undisciplined to write last week, posted I think my personal favorite Secret Society of List Addicts list to date: quotes I thought were from the Bible ’til an embarrassing age. Keep in mind, I went to Catholic school.

NTKOG Year 2, #15: The kind of unanchored, pleasure-motivated creature of Id who pays no mind to Should or Ought, but builds her castle on a foundation of Want.

I am: locked in a constant struggle with my discipline, both as a writer and a human being. For the past year or so, I’ve emerged as the victor, thanks to a ceaseless cycle of early mornings, late nights, and forcibly cutting off my internet access after hours.

I am not: convinced it’s been great for my mental health. Let’s put it this way: near the end of the three-month MFA application extravaganza, I had no trouble getting a seat to myself on the bus. ’cause I was twitching and shuddering like an ’89 Honda going a hundred on the freeway.

The Scene: My apartment. My god, my glorious monk’s-cell apartment, night after night, for a week of personally mandated laziness. During the second week of the new year, I made a deal with myself: You don’t have to write. You don’t have to do laundry. You don’t have to socialize with humans. Just do what comes naturally.

It reminds me, actually, of my project during the year after undergraduate: I declared a moratorium on alarm clocks, and spent a year living by my natural clock. I’ve never been happier or more well-rested in my life, going to sleep at 9:30pm and waking up at 5:30.

During this week of laziness, though, I assure you I wasn’t waking up in the wee hours. Oh most verily not.

For the sake of comparison, my general weekday schedule before MFA applications started:

6:30 Wake up
6:45 – 8:15am: Jog or clean; shower; eat
9:00 – 5:00: I don’t even want to talk about it
5:15 – 9:00: Writin’ in the library, with a quick break for dinner
9:30 – 10:30: Goofin’ around for a bit before sleep

Compare that to the mental health extravaganza that was life during MFA applications.

8:27am: Wake up
8:30am: Leave for work
9:15 – 5:00: Ugh
5:30 – 10:00: MFA applications and story editing, living on a diet of cookies and soft pretzels to justify my non-stop cafe tables
10:30 – 1:00am: Back hme, last-minute MFA stuff, research, panic attacks, until the dreamless death of sleep

So. Yeah. I was doing super great for a while. Now that the applications are all in and the weight of the world is off my shoulders, though, I figured one week of utterly debauched laziness would reset my system. And every day, I discovered another thing that I thought I’d forgotten how to love.

Whole novels, swallowed over the course of one decadent evening! Spending hours cooking complicated meals and meditating on the wonders of food! Walking the two and a half miles home from work because, hey, I have nowhere to go and no particular time to get there! My god, some evenings I can spend an hour or more doing nothing but cuddling with my stuffed elephant, vacant of thought, just feeling warm and happy to be alive!

I also, of my own volition, finally washed the dishes that were stacked up from MFA madness. I don’t want to talk about how old some of them were. Like, we’re not talking calendar — we’re talking carbon dating.

The effect of this mindset was best captured last Sunday, when I thought to myself: My god, have I not left the house since Friday night? then remembered with relief, No, it’s okay! I went to the convenience store TWICE today! Oh yeah. The rest of you girls can save the prettiest valentine in the box for Atticus Finch, ’cause apparently I’m in the market for a Boo Radley.

The Verdict: Well, my “week” reprieve started three weeks ago, yet here I am, lolling around in my pajamas, eating chicken curry and contemplating rereading Calvin Trillin’s “An Attempt To Compile a Short History of the Buffalo Chicken Wing”. As great as I feel, I’m afraid we’re going to have to label this one a decided fail.

How is it that just a few days indulgence, following a massive burst of virtuous do-gooding no less!, can push us so far backward in our personal journeys for excellence? I’m filled with discouragement, despair, self-recrimination, etc., etc. Well, I will be. As soon as I finish this chicken curry burrito and lounge around in my pajamas a bit longer. Sigh.

What demons are you facing right now? And if your demons happen to be passing a supermarket, can they pick me up some soy milk?

Y’all, I’m going to need some Vishnu-style seventeen-handed high fives, ’cause I finished all of my grad school apps.

I’m sorry, that was a bit restrained. Let me try again:
I FINISHED ALL SEVENTEEN MO-FRIGGIN’ GRAD SCHOOL APPLICATIONS!!!! I AM A FREE WOMAN!

Goddamn does this feel good.

I haven’t wanted to  talk about it — or to think about it, for that matter — but these past few months have been pretty brutal. In the space between mid-October, I’ve taken off exactly three weekend days: two for Thanksgiving, and one to hack up fistfuls of bloody mucous. A state that felt more or less like a vacation.

I was started to go quite unsubtly insane. All the stress I’d been putting myself under — just forty pages to seal your entire destiny, dude! no big! – made the months feel like one endless day. The facial twitch I thought I lost in high school came back, and, depending on my mood, was dragging my shoulder to the party as well. Food turned to ash in my mouth, yet I was still putting on weight. And as I isolated myself, weekend after weekend, the crushing loneliness of the life that I’ve chosen in Boston finally caught up with me.

Last Saturday, trudging home from another day of library and cafes, I found myself thinking: My life has become an obligation.

And then last night, locked in my office ’til 10:30, I put the last touches on my Iowa application, quadruple-checked and — my god, for the first time in months, I was free. I didn’t expect the lightening of my spirit to be so physical, but I sat there for five minutes with the envelope in my hand, just giggling in sheer delight. I’ve been sitting at my own funeral the past three months, but the second I sealed that envelope, lo!, I was resurrected.

Walking (nay, skipping) home, I was every cliche. Humming along with Bobby Darin, smiling at passers-by. I might have even stopped to kiss a baby. Who can ever really remember these things.

During that walk, I struggled to figure out just exactly why I felt so good, when it hit me: my ego was back. Thank god.

Ego gets a pretty bad rap these days, and I’ll be honest, I don’t understand why. Sure, being rude and self-centered was never in style, and thinking you’re the hands-down best couldn’t be uglier (what up, Kanye) — but thinking you’re wonderful? I don’t know how I’ve ever gotten through a day without it.

The past three months, I’ve been dissecting my writing, my ambitions, my potential — application after application, I’ve been dishing myself up on as pretty a platter as I can manage, then lying quaking for submissions committees to carve into me like a roast beast. But now I’m done! And I can stop wasting time worrying what other people think of me (not something I’ve ever been good at), and get back to the one area where I do excel: having an exceptionally marvelous time being me.

It’s lovely to be alive and powerful and joy-giving and infinite and, well, perfectly splendid in every conceivable way. Does everyone feel this way, at least sometimes? I think everyone ought to. We could have a wonderful time being wonderful forever.

Goddamn. I feel like I just recovered from a terrible flu and my appetite’s finally come back. I want to eat the whole world. And I think I’m going to.

–

While I’ve been woefully neglecting this blog in order to finish apps, a few articles I’ve posted elsewhere. On Life As A Human, my life as a winter-idiot Westerner surviving Massachusetts, and an ode to the gracious hostess.

When I’m in stressful situations, I like to — as I think most people do — distract myself from the catastrophe at hand by worrying about minuscule far-off future quibbles.

Home alone on prom night? Oh gosh, I hope the rhubarb and copper color scheme at my wedding doesn’t clash with my fiance’s mediterranean-blue eyes!

Another night choosing between ramen or laundromat money? Is it flat or sparkling water that’s considered gauche now? My heavens, I do hope I remember before the next time I fly on a private jet!

So it make sense that now, angsting over my third (and final!) portfolio story, trying to assemble forty pages of fiction that will unlock my whole future as a writer, instead of worrying about character development or dialogue — I’ve become obsessed with worrying over the adjectives the New York Times will use in their review of my first book.

Hear me out, y’all.

Everyone knows that when you are christened by the NYT, you’re neatly dispatched with two balanced adjectives. Your novel might be witty and vibrant or masterful and seductive or brooding and masculine — your whole professional achievement, boiled down to two. friggin’. adjectives.

Once I got too old to keep fantasizing about being labeled a “stratospheric young talent,” I realized I had to set my (completely fantasy) sights a little lower. But still, so many adjectives in the world — WHICH WRITER AM I?!

My first thought was the classic:

Then I remembered that the majority of my stories feature graphically sexualized descriptions of bacne. So I aimed my sights a little left of center to:

But most of my stories tend to involve people in dysfunctional relationships sitting around smelling each other and eating moldy food. Not — not exactly high-tech.

So I finally bit the bullet and asked a few literary friends for their input. The result? Not just slightly. Not just overwhelmingly. But DAMN NEAR UNANIMOUSLY:

DARK AND OBSESSIVE. And the worst part is — it’s entirely true. So now, whenever I’m failing at writing, I twirl the phrase around in my mental hall of mirrors.

The latest dark and obsessive foray by TKOG…

Another typical work from the darkly obsessed TKOG…

Don’t miss the latest tale by creepy fetishist TKOG…

Actually, as creepy fetishes go, hydraulic dental chairs are a pretty good one. Sign me up, baby.

TKOG, noted connoisseur of men’s under-arm deodorant…

Standard fare by certified literary looney TKOG, who would perhaps not be so shunned if only she could teach her Roomba how to love…

All I can say is — nice to see my friends know me well. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to spend the rest of the night darkly obsessing over my applications.

What two-word description do you think sums you up best? Slash which description would your jerkwad friends choose? (I, for the record, would call myself a vivacious goofball or maybe oafishly enthusiastic.) Bonus points if you draw it out on a Post-It when you’re supposed to be working.

Over on Secret Society of List Addicts, check out some crazy lies my parents told me that I didn’t find out the truth about until embarrassingly late in life.

NTKOG Year 2, #12: The kind of girl who pits her (non-existent) desire to wake & bake against her law-abiding status and comes up with an, uh, interesting solution.

I am: a total fuddy duddy now. Y’alls, I don’t even jaywalk. And as for any desire to experiment with drugs, well, let’s just say those ended around the time Maroon 5 stopped pumping out number one jams.

I am not: all that psyched with how epically uncool I’ve become.

The Scene: A ritzy headshop (heh, I totally just said ‘head’) on Newbury Street where, after nervously shuffling at the counter for a few minutes, I selected a bag of K2, the legalized pot-alternative that’s been sweeping the nation for the past year or so. The scruffy dude behind the counter rolled his eyes as I asked him half a dozen questions, then asked me, “Dude, have you never smoked pot before?!” Uh, sir, I don’t even take cough syrup. But instead, I just attempted to bat my eyelashes until he agreed to roll me a fake-weed joint.

It’s not that I haven’t smoked pot, for the record. I did it maybe a dozen times in college — mostly courtesy of the culinary genius running the unofficial Stoned on Scones bakery out of the apartment next-door. I just don’t love it: it makes me lazy, anxious, and exquisitely famished. Which is to say, it doesn’t do anything at all. Still, in light of California’s recent failure to decriminalize marijuana use, I thought it would be fun to investigate the last legal recourses of stoners.

Drink deeply of the illicit image, kittens, 'cause in real life you're more likely to see me hold a cockroach than a roach-roach.

Surely any legal substance couldn’t actually get me high, right? RIGHT?! To answer that question, I present you with the musings of Stoned TKOG, who wrote the following completely unedited text after consuming a full joint of K2:

The Choreography of my Evening as a Legal Stoner

During walk from the store, marvel over its delicate sweetness – like a mixture of lemongrass and chamomile tea, you think. Perhaps it shall taste like childhood! It can’t possibly work, you know already, so your sober-as-friggin’-melancholy streak can go on another day.

Walking back from bus, pass convenience store and debate purchasing alleged “munchies” for the purpose of scientific inquiry; consider the contents of your bank account; vigorously veto experiment. Deliberate whether to smoke the fake joint outside, or to smoke it in the warmth and – well, let’s be frank here – nudity of your own apartment. Opt for the latter because you can’t bear the thought of anyone thinking you’re a stoner. It’ll be your little secret.

Back home, use torn cover from Oprah Magazine to wipe the dust bunnies off the plate under your obligatory sad-single-girl bath candle. Get so caught up in architectural marvel of a well-rolled joint (see Exhibit A) that you light it and puff curiously before remembering to open bathroom windows. “Eh,” you reason, “it’s organic. It’ll probably smell like incense. No way you’ll even be able to smell it.”

Yikes! Not a well-rolled joint! The first inch and a half are packed too loose and burn down in three seconds, (“Am I smoking too fast?” you worry, “Should I check into rehab?”) creating a truly prodigious cloud of smoke. After a few puffs, though, it burns slower and you can take satisfying pulls – without the usual lung-searing feeling. Become so fascinated with smoking process that you want to smoke as far into the joint as possible, and try to use small bathroom implements to extend the joint’s length.

Look up and see yourself – dude, seriously, life choices – in the most grim of drug tableaux: naked on the shower rug of your grimy bathroom, holding a fake-weed joint to your lips using a toenail clipper as a roach clip

Flush the roach down the toilet, then throw open the bathroom door to realize two things: 1) you are stoned. as. balls.; 2) judging by the skunky smoke billowing under your door crack, everybody in the building knows it. Judging by the reek of pot pervading the hall, there was enough K2-infused air pumping through my building to contact-high all my neighbors and several rounds of their ancestors. Uh, so much for no one thinking I’m a stoner.

Back into my apartment, and there’s only one urgent task at hand: camouflage the stench of pot wafting from my apartment.

Man, why did I veto the munchies experimentation? Mistakes were made.

Oh, no, right, the smell in the bathroom. Immediately, without thinking, turned the shower on at full blast. …with my head still in it. Drew the curtains and closed the door. Five minutes later realized, oh, I shouldn’t leave a shower unattended! and dashed to the bathroom to turn it off. Felt proud of myself. Got distracted by sad-single-girl bath candle and realized it could cover the smell, so lit it, went to close the door.

“Oh daaaang,” I realized, “my carelessness is increasing with comic exponentiality. I’m totally the after-school special about fake-marijuana use. I’m one scene away from a tragic-but-morally-nourishing grisy ending.” Decided to fend off tragedy by babysitting the candle while it works its de-incriminating smell magic.

Which makes me now a much more nuanced yet still grim drug cliché: naked on the shower rug of my grimy bathroom, hunched over a laptop, hoping the smell of a TJ Maxx hazelnut/toffee candle will overpower the odor of fake-weed billowing from my apartment at 9:21 on a Wednesday night. I – I often wonder what choices have brought me here.

Whoa, my heart’s beating the usual speed, but harder, and every beat’s reverberating like the taut face of a drum.

Screw this. I’m going to order a pizza and read a book about centaurs.

I only have three more distinct memories of the night. First, after an hour of deliberation, finally dragging myself to the pizzeria across the street and realizing, whoa, I feel almost happy.

Next, finding this picture by @cakewrecks, and laughing out loud to myself for a full three minutes…

…before thinking to myself: “How embarrassing to misspell that on your van! That’s weird, though, she usually posts pictures of cakes.”

Finally, just before I passed out, I grabbed my phone and frantically texted myself: “I feel very calm but I don’t feel very useful. Don’t do this again, dude. This isn’t you.”

The Verdict: Okay, Stoned TKOG, you may have almost set your apartment on fire and mistaken a cake for a van, but you managed to pull out a little wisdom at the bottom of the ninth. Cannabis lovers (and cannaibs lovers too, for that matter), I’ve got good news for you: legalized K2 is a fairly legitimate product and, though it isn’t identical to marijuana, it offers a very similar high.

Which means I’ve got bad news for myself: turns out I just don’t like the feeling of being stoned. Guess I’ve got another sixty years of fuddy duddying in my future, huh?

You guys, I was absolutely floored by the sympathetic responses — and the heart-rending stories — you poured out in response to yesterday’s post and over at Life As A Human. You truly are the best.

And speaking of things I love, head over to Secret Society of List Addicts to read my list of Things The Northeast Does Wicked Well. (Other things I love: smooth segues. Cough.)

NTKOG Year 2, #7: The kind of bold, interpersonal opportunist who, where others see a full cafe, just sees the chance to make a new best friend.

I am: deeply into personal space — especially when I’m working. After all, it takes a certain amount of discretionary tablespace to spread out two books, a laptop, an iPhone, and a few beverages, while still leaving enough free space to spazzily computer-dance to Queen’s Greatest Hits.

I am not: one to deny any other cafe-goer that same right. (C’mon, who doesn’t dance while they word process?)

The Scene: The Back Bay Borders down the street from the Boston Public Library. Sneaked into the cafe in late afternoon with big dreams of snagging a coveted wall socket for yet another marathon grad school application session. But apparently half the city had the same idea, ’cause there was only one plug left — right next to a table occupied by a statuesque mid-twenties gentleman, tapping away at his own laptop.

The three chairs splayed around the table rather optimistically oversold the real estate. Clearly the table is intended for one and a half — at best — and any reasonable person would back out of the cafe and seek a battery top-up at the terminally lame but always-empty Finagle A Bagel across the street. But since when have I been in the business of doing what any reasonable person would do?

Picked up a drink and strode over to the table, where I put my bag on one of the accompanying chairs before even catching his eye. “Mind if I join you? I need to charge my laptop,” I explained, already reaching for the charger. He grimaced but gave a defeated shrug and scooted his laptop a few inches closer to his torso.

The table was so small that, with both of our computers set up, we were leaned in nose to nose like the poster for Sixteen Candles. And maybe it was the tight quarters, but over the course of the next half-hour, we quickly formed that casual stranger intimacy. He accidentally nudged my leg under the table with his Whole Foods bag, stuffed with a bouquet of carnations; I offered him a napkin when he sneezed twice in quick succession; after a while, he jumped up to find a book, leaving his computer, laptop and wallet in plain sight without so much as a word of warning.

After he’d jumped up, the breeze from his retreat sent one of his papers fluttering onto the floor. A woman who’d recently sat down at the table next to ours leaned over to pick it up. “Excuse me!” she coughed through my earbud Queen haze. “Excuse me, is this your boyfriend’s?”

“Oh, I don’t know, but — wait, whaaaaaaat?!”

Huh. Nothing says relationship like a Whole Foods bag, I suppose. And his two books of Proust on the table screamed “grad student” almost as much as my dog-eared copy of The Creative Writing MFA Handbook. Even our beat-up Moleskines were perfectly coordinated: my square-ruled notebook, jammed with strangely angular drawings and errant ticket stubs, every inch as eccentric as his unlined drawing notebook with its tight spidery handwriting scrawled perpendicular to itself.

Dude. Dude. Setting aside the fact that we’d never met, we totally could have been dating! Finally he returned, bearing the new David Sedaris book I’ve had on my to-read list for weeks now — the final seal of our imaginary-relationship status.

For the next hour or so, as we worked in parallel, I couldn’t help but sneak peeks at him over the top of my laptop. Was he a margin-scrawler? What kind of paper was he working on so intently? And who kept texting him?!

The last question, at least, resolved itself when a slightly younger guy in a truly devastating blazer wandered up to the table and grinned hello — then gave my imaginary boyfriend a movie-moment kiss hello. Sigh. Brutal break-up, dude.

The Verdict: Never share too-small cafe tables. You’ll only get your heart broken that way.

Plus, seriously, if the table’s small enough that you force the original table-holder to rearrange their belongings, then I can’t help but feel it’s overstepping a huge boundary. That, and once you sit within a two feet of someone, dude, it’s hard not to get involved, apparently. That’s — that’s, uh, normal, right?

Are you a table-sharer? Ever get too involved with the goings-on of other cafe dwellers?

NTKOG Year 2, #1: The kind of hardened pick-up artist who slays men in her wake by mastering the art of The Neg — jabbing the object of your desire with semi-insults until they … magically want to sleep with you?

I am: already kind of working The Neg in daily life. Or at least already the part where you’re not super nice to dudes.

I am not: mega adroit at communicating that I want to smooch a dude even when I totally, totally do. Let alone when trying to appear aloof, craft witty dialogue and remain seventeen moves ahead in the chess match of seduction — all without spilling my drink.

The Scene: First, a quick lesson in The Neg, for those of you who aren’t as obsessed with bro culture as I. (You’re welcome, mom.) The Neg is basically the pivotal tenet of the Mystery Method — right behind stupid hats — and suggests that women, especially beautiful women, have been hit on so many times that they automatically filter out compliments, so in order to woo her, you need to pooh-pooh her. The Neg can range from homicide inducing (“You wouldn’t think a girl with your figure would look so nice in a dress like that.”) to the subtle (“Huh, you’re not a lot of fun, are you?”). And, when properly applied, is supposed to coax any woman into desperately trying to prove just how wrong you are. With sexytimes.

The stuff men come up with, eh? Still, I’ve witnessed The Neg used with mortifying effectiveness on all kinds of smart, cool women, so why not give a few dudes a taste of their own medicine?

Neg the first: Late-twenties guy sitting on the stoop of my local convenience store, comforting a young girl whose giraffe rubber Silly Bandz bracelet has just snapped. He’s attempting to finesse the tiny bracelet into a delicate knot.

Usually I’d pass on hitting on stoop-dwellers — for some reason, almost none of them have read Camus, if you can believe it — but seeing a guy comfort a random child does something for a girl. As he futzed with the bracelet, I hovered and we made friendly eye contact. Everything was so positive. So of course it was time to throw The Neg.

“Hey, if you hold the broken ends to a lighter, you can probably fuse them back together.” He blinked up at me, non-plussed. “Don’t stress. You’re too cute to have to be clever.”

According to the Mystery Method, I should have been friggin’ in there like swimwear. Angsty glances! Flirtatious verbal sparring! Sexytimes? Instead, he rolled his eyes and I awkwardly shuffled away. But when I peeked back at him, he was indeed trying the lighter suggestion. So, uh, victory?

Neg the second: Since my first attempt felt less like flirtation and more like just plain rudeness, let the venerable ol’ Mystery script my first encounter. Stopped in alone to a neighborhood bar after work and grabbed a stool near a dude who was sitting alone, trying to read the head of his Sam Adams like tea leaves.

After I’d established goodwill with a little neutral chatting (weather! Sox!), I dropped the bomb with a neg line stolen directly from a Pick-Up Artist website.

“Dude, you want some gum?” I offered sweetly.
“Uh, no thanks. I’m drinking a beer,” he grunted.
“No, no really. You should probably take some gum.”

I’m sorry, in what parallel universe does this lead to make-outs? Dude turned away from me and suddenly became very invested in the Sox game. Which is probably just as well, since I don’t carry gum anyway.

(Accidental) Neg the third: On the way home, I toyed with the idea of staving off psychological debilitation long enough to try out a few more negs and, in that vein, jaunted to the convenience store to pick up a pack of non-phantom gum. The brah at the front of the line spent ten minutes mulling between Pall Malls and Parliaments, and in that time, I established standard mute-courtesy rapport with the attractive mid-twenties girl behind me.

After I rang up my pack of Orbit, I ripped off the cellophane to take a piece, then, since it was open, held out the pack to her. “Gum?”

She declined, politely, but I held her gaze for a moment too long afterwards and her face clouded with anxiety: “Do I need gum?”

Pause. Pause. I smirked, not unkindly. “Well, a little gum never hurts.”

Gave her the piece, walked out onto the street where — oh, I kid you not, my blessed kittens — two minutes later she shot out after me, physically stopped me, and proceeded to chat with me for nigh ten minutes about the neighborhood, laundry days, and how hard it is to make friends when you’re new in town. After the conversation had reached its natural end, she smiled at me — still chomping the gum — and said she hoped she’d see me around again.

The Verdict:  Holy frig, guys. Holy frig. I may have gotten shot down by two guys, but I PICKED UP A STRAIGHT WOMAN. Rejection be damned! Never before in my life have I felt more like a bro.

That said, maybe I was doing it wrong, or maybe I’m not the type, but I’m going to go ahead and veto The Neg for any future seduction attempts. While it’s devilishly effective on women, I’m not convinced the approach translates well across gender lines. After all, at least according to bar-hopping stereotypes, women are either wooed or ignored, and thus captivated by uncourted rejection; men, on the other hand, get rejected all the dang time, so it’s barely a blip on their radar.

Whether it’s gender differences or just the stupidity of the method, hey, The Neg, this is me rejecting you. (Though hopefully that’ll make you want to hook up with me. Call me?)

Well, last this week, at any rate.

Dudes! Lady-dudes! I have officially received the greatest email of my short life. Check out this custom drawing that the lethally badass Amber of Nostomanic just drew me:

Thanks for noticing, Alec! A lady always likes to hear that her practice has paid off.

Not only does Amber have a firm grasp on Mr. Baldwin’s magnificent chest hair situation, but she writes one of the five best blogs on the whole dang internet and is basically an all-time baller. Awesome!

I also love that I’ve gotten two of the best blog-related emails of my life this week, and they couldn’t be more different. To wit: one naked picture of Alec Baldwin; one letter to my stuffed elephant, written by a fuzzy hippo. Apparently the path to my heart is paved with … abdominal fur? Well. That got weird.

Okay, off to the long weekend. Back on Monday Tuesday with 100% more NTKOG adventures and approximately 83% fewer nude portraits of Alec Baldwin. Have a great weekend, guys!

On Secret Society of List Addicts, jobs I wouldn’t do for any amount of money — even if it would mean being able to pay my rent on time every month.

NTKOG #246: The kind of infinitely obliging nighttime pedestrian who, when strange men aggressively leer, seriously considers their propositions.

I am: a lady-dude and, as such, occasionally subjected to the vile hooting of apparently myopic dudes who spend their evenings leaning against chain-link fences, grunting mating calls.

I am not: ever going to get used to this. I’m the happy product of suburban geek culture, where pointedly asking a lady for brunch recommendations is about as straight-up promiscuous as a dude can get.

The Scene: Dragging my weary, frizzy and infinitely cranky self home after a(nother) twelve-hour day at the office. For the past two weeks, Co-Worker and I have been enjoying a series of work-evening “sleepovers” auditing files, and after a seriously productive evening, I was looking forward to decanting my jellified brain into a gin and ginger, then catching nine hours of the dreamless.

What I was not planning to do was talk to any dudes. Unfortunately, the early-20s punk leaning against a local convenience store wall, chain-smoking Pall Malls hadn’t gotten that memo. “Hey mami,” he grunted, “where you going?”

Forgive me for questioning your approach, Street Dudes, but I’ve got to say, that question has always perplexed me. Because of the vibrant street ensemble in the area where I work, I get it most often while walking back to the office on my lunch break, carrying grocery bags. Where you going, girl? “God, funny you should ask. I’m bringing back hors d’oeuvres for an orgy in my office. Wanna come? (ps: that is sexy wordplay about ejaculation.)” Seriously, guys, what’s your friggin’ strategy?

Anyway, after twelve hours of work stress, I was in no mood to educate a late-night convenience store buzzard on feminism, so I cranked up my music and prepared to ignore him, when he reached out to touch my shoulder and asked again: “Aw, c’mon, where you going?”

And so the unthinkable, the inevitable. I yanked my headphones out and swiveled to face him, my nose mere inches from his straggly mustache. “I’m going home. To bed.”

“Can I come with you?” he asked, before the words had even stopped vibrating through my larynx. Upon closer inspection, he was younger than I thought, his skin pulled with bouncy-ball tautness over newly prominent jaw and cheekbones. He must have been a full half-decade younger than me, a lamb in wolf’s clothing.

“Yeah, sure,” I grinned back, calm and radiant, “let’s have sex. Let’s totally have sex.” To his credit, as soon as I said it, Debauched Babyface immediately dashed his cigarette to the ground in a pretty slick Manly Man Of Action move. “So do you, like, have an apartment or a car or something? Or like, what, a moped? I guess we could try it on a moped. Let’s do this.”

Maybe it all seemed too easy, or maybe the moped accusation affronted his masculinity, but DB took a large step back. “O–okay.” Finally, unfolding before my eyes, the answer to the question: What do cat-callers do when they finally get the girl? Back away nervously, apparently. He patted down his baggy jeans pockets to dig out his softpack of cigarettes.

“Dude, come on, I thought you, like, wanted to hook up.”

“With you?”

Ouch, dude. Ouch. Was I getting rejected by him? Truly, has my life come to this?

“Absolutely,” I smiled, taking a step toward him, half a hip swivel away from AC Slatering him against the wall. “I mean, I was just minding my own business, walking home, and you harassed me. What can I say? You changed my mind.” Silence. Silence. “I assume you want to have sex. Why else would you be bothering me?”

And through his rubber babyface, a lightning-fast ripple of contrition. “It was just a compliment.” And then he hardened again — “crazy bitch” — and spat on the ground at my feet. Yeah, you might be right, kid, but you just reminded this crazy bitch why she’s so very happy to be going home alone.

The Verdict: So, my sister’s roommate has two kittens who spend the vast majority of their days tearing through the house, pouncing after flies. I’ve only ever seen the kittens catch one once and, when they did, they had absolutely no idea what to do with it. They batted it around the bathroom for a while, drooled on it some, then leaned back on their paws and let it fly free.

I always sort of imagined that turning catcallers’ aggression back on them would yield similar results. But dude he didn’t even want to bat me around or slobber a little on me. I’m not sure whether to feel relieved or sort of offended. So instead, I’m choosing to feel profoundly bewildered not only that guys find this behavior appropriate but that they’re apparently engaging in a catcalling as an end unto itself.

Dudes and lady-dudes, someone explain this to me: has catcalling ever actually led to intercourse? Does anyone — catcallers included — enjoy it in any way? And, short of uncomfortably propositioning them like I did, how do you deal with this ridiculous obnoxiousness?

NTKOG #243: The kind of diligent delegator who dispatches dull chores to a full-on life coordinating team so she can get back to her grueling schedule of gin baths and composing sonnets about Hugh Laurie’s calves.

I am: probably the least important person in the world. How many admin-chattel do you know who command full domestic staffs?!

I am not: financially flush enough to pay for convenience, even if my time were worth it. Paying my laundromat twenty bucks to fold my delicates? Um, yeah, if I want to go without lunch for a week.

The Scene: The glory of the mo-friggin’ internet, loves. A few weeks ago, I received an email about a site called TaskRabbit. Basic gist: the service is offered in Boston and San Francisco, and hooks up people who need to get stuff done with Runners who bid to win the assignment.

Kind of like Craigslist, but all of the Runners are background-checked and the tasks tend to run more toward “pick up my dry-cleaning” or “help me pack to move,” rather than “let me clean your apartment while you blow cigarette smoke on my face and denigrate my sexuality.” Which is a slight bummer, only because my apartment’s kind of a mess.

Considering my former-socialist self had a nervous breakdown just getting a $30 pedicure, what could be more anathema to my soul than making dudes fight over how little they’ll let me pay them to perform menial activities for me?

Just the same, I don’t have the kind of scratch to justify asking people to swing by CVS or spring my clothes from the dry-cleaner for real actual money. Instead, I tried to come up with three tasks based on simple criteria: 1) they had to be things I actually need done, but 2) can’t do for myself and 3) might make a good story.

After ten minutes of brain-storming, I had come up with my first two assignments: “Accompany me on my morning jog! Say encouraging things!” and “Role-play an old flame during a completely platonic, non-embarrassing role-played closure talk!”

I assumed I’d get one or two half-hearted answers over the next few days and started to go to bed, when my phone lit up and skittered a few inches across the floor — and then didn’t stop. Turns out half the men in the Greater Boston Area want to pretend to break up with me on the benches in front of the Boston Public Library. (Ouch, Boston, I thought you’d have to at least date me first.)

Not five minutes after posting the two most bizarre requests in the world, my phone was deluged with response after response — dudes willing to cater my heart’s strangest desires for practically no money.

After assigning the first two challenges within minutes, I got a little cocky and assumed I could sneak any tasks past the crack Runner crew. In my hubris, wrote a post requesting someone to give me a lesson in rapping and/or beatboxing. Not quite as successful as the others. I got a few offers, but wasn’t happy with the credentials-to-dollar-per-minute ratio. For $80 an hour, I’m more than happy to keep rhyming “hater” with “AC Slater” when I’m drunk, thanks.

Instead, paid a MFA student $5 to make me a kickass jogging playlist. And scoff all you want at the other two tasks — replacing my daily mix of showtunes and decade-old ganster rap was a straight-up necessity.

The Verdict: When I first told The Ex about this, he pointed out the types of tasks I was assigning were a little “dance, monkey, dance!” and after he said that, I was concerned I’d feel guilty asking people to do menial thing for me. But I was pleasantly surprised to find all of my interactions perfectly guilt-free — primarily because the Runners know exactly what they’re getting into from the gate, and are allowed to set a price on their own time.

The tasks I ended up choosing were, uh, on the silly side, but let me vow right now: next year, when the time comes to pack up my apartment and lug furniture down three flights of stairs, dude, TaskRabbit, I’ll be calling you. Plus, in defense of the tasks I chose, until I have the capital together to open my Friendly Jogging Buddy And Break-Up-A-Torium, there aren’t all that many credible resources for lots of the strange, useful things that we need done on a daily basis.

Okay, okay, so I didn’t exactly need those things, but, look, having your most esoteric whims catered to is the very essence of luxury. And given how cheaply my tasks were done, this might just be the only luxury I can afford. Plus, hands-down the most fun $25 I’ve ever spent. I only regret I couldn’t come up with more brilliant tasks. What bizarre, hilarious but still semi-useful tasks would you assign?

Note: I received a $25 gift certificate from TaskRabbit with the understanding that I’d write about my experiences, which is pretty sweet of them, ’cause I’m pretty sure they assumed I’d use the gift certificate in a normal way instead of paying strangers to break up with me in libraries.