It’s Miss Behaving’s birthday and we gals at HMFH wanted to send her a little Happy Birthday love with this week’s mixtape rewind. While she spends most of her day keeping tabs on all of our fabulous affiliates and helping make the webmaster program awesome, we sometimes gets to steal Miss Behaving away for a little porno watchin’ and general pervy writing debauchery. While we don’t get to hear from her too often, we HotMoviesForHer ladies love M.B. and hope she has an amazing birthday!
Before I got to the age in my womanhood where Halloween was about fishnets and slutty nurse costumes, I was really into the holiday. One of my earliest memories is from Halloween. I was Trick-or-Treating in a store-bought Cookie Monster costume and fell pretty hard in front of some creep on stilts. My freshman year of high school, I wore this really serious Linda Blair Exorcist costume complete with dried pea soup on my K-Mart nightgown. My sophomore year I went as a journalist and continued to wear that guise straight through my undergraduate studies.
My favorite Halloween things are as follows: “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” (but only the tricks-or-treats scene), “Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett, Halloween 1 and 2, the Halloween songs I learned in elementary school music class that lyrics from inevitably show up in my friends’ Facebook statuses, Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkins, and this classic SNL skit from 1998:
Happy Halloween everyone! I’ll be on Broad Street celebrating our hometown Phillies World Series win!
Men’s Health magazine has recently published a list of 40 Unwritten Rules For Men. While most of the list consists of rules geared towards the male mind, many cross gender lines while some are just absurd. Feeling inspired, I’ve decided to compile 10 Unwritten Rules For Women*.
If you can’t walk in heels, don’t wear them. You’ll look sexier with a confident walk in flats than you will if you’re prancing around like a giraffe.
It’s okay to be totally boring. Not everyone is cut out for a Sex and the City-esque life. It’s also okay to live vicariously through TV/movie characters, as long as you come back to reality…eventually.
At some point in your life, you should live alone. Even if it’s only for a few weeks, you will learn more about yourself in that span of time than you could’ve ever imagined.
Never deny yourself little pleasures that make you feel good: manicures, massages, frozen yogurt, baseball tickets, whatever. However, find less expensive ways to acquire these pleasures.
Love your body for what it is, not for what you want it to be.
You don’t have to share the exact same interests as your partner, but you should be supportive of their hobbies/interests/dreams. Same goes for your partner.
The ability to write a professionally sounding e-mail will get you far.
Laughing at yourself will get you out of any slump: bad breakup, laid off from your job, accidentally farting in bed, tripping in front of a group of construction workers.
Take control of your orgasms. Take control of a lot of things in the bedroom. Or the kitchen. Or on your desk. Or in the backseat of your car…whenever the mood strikes.
You cannot turn a booty call into a boyfriend. It just doesn’t work that way. If the relationship is based on sex, that’s all there is to it.
*This is just my personal advice, and are not actual rules. I’m just going by things I do that make my life better as a twentysomething woman. Much like every blog post you read from me, take it with a grain of salt.
Whew, I am exhausted. It seems like this week, everyone is either staying home sick or coming out of their closets and it’s hard to keep up. I’m talking about Clay Aiken and Lindsay Lohan, who to be fair, were coming out of closets they’ve shown to the whole world – like we’ve been watching an endless loop of walk-ins on MTV Cribs reruns. Listen, I’m a straight woman in the 21st century. I have many gay friends and I’m not shocked by homosexuality in the slightest. It’s the same as me being straight! It’s just love, which is remarkable and beautiful regardless of who is a part of it! Whatever, society! I think that’s how Clay and Lindsay feel too. That’s why it took them so long to proclaim, “Okay world, I’m gay. And the sky is blue. And an umbrella is helpful in the rain.” We’re a generation of forward thinkers. So to Clay and Lindsay, bravo! I’m sure this changes…nothing. Because it shouldn’t. Now we’ll just wait for pictures of Lindsay and Sam Ronson publicly arguing instead of making out. Yay celebs!
AreYouRomantic.com recently ran a Sports Lovers Poll (which, coincidentally was sponsored by Caesars Pocono Resorts, near where I grew up) that asked how their favorite teams impact their, well, favorites in life. Faithful readers of this blog (HM4Her contributors) know that sports are a huge part of my life. Colossal, even. If you made a pie chart of my interests, sports would be the big slice – right next to knockin’ boots…or cleats, for me.
Unfortunately, my love affair with anything centered around a ball sometimes ruins my chances with those who have balls of their own. Watching the game can sometimes make a man forget about “running game” and when you combine that with a chick who knows what’s happening on the field…well a man could lose his mind. Case in point: in the 2006 Rose Bowl matchup, Texas beat the favored USC. It was the first time my then-boyfriend was spending the night at my place. He was rooting for USC. When the game was over, we didn’t have sex. According to the Sports Lovers Poll, my ex isn’t alone: 17% of respondents think their performance in the sack is directly related to their team’s performance on the field. Ugh.
There were a lot of other surprising answers. For instance, did you know that 1 out of every 4 sports fans would give up sex for at least a month if their favorite team won the Super Bowl? And 11% of respondents would give it up for “however long it takes” to win the Lombardi trophy (that’s the name of the Super Bowl prize)! However long it takes? There are 15 teams who have NEVER won a championship!
Personally, I’m a baseball fan above all so my season is winding down – but I’m not. Although I am guilty of prolonging poking until the game ends, I have never waited an entire season. Or even a month. I have used SportsCenter in the background as a way to “keep me in the game”, but to be honest, it’s just because my partner had no idea what he was doing down there – and I didn’t have the heart to tell him otherwise.
Ladies, this football season, remind the football fan in your life that there’s no reason he or she should wait 17 weeks to score a touchdown of their own. Bring some of your own fantasy football to gameday by wearing next to nothing (or nothing) and surprising your partner for a halftime quickie. Regardless of the score on the field, he or she will feel like a big winner by the start of the 2nd half.
I lost my virginity my freshman year of college to a boy named Josh. A week before the deflowering took place, Josh drank a bit too much and my nurturing instincts kicked in. Sitting outside of my dorm bathroom, I wiped his sweaty head and he looked at me and said, “Thanks Mom” with a laugh. I was horrified. Looking back, I think that was the turning point in our blossoming relationship.
I read an article this week that said that often, we look for partners who resemble our parents. After grossing everyone out in the office with this little tidbit, I thought about my own life. My dad and I aren’t really close and the only time we ever really spent together, I was only six and I remember his pierced ears were the first I had ever seen on a man. If my memory (and golden undertones in my hair) serves me right, I think he had slightly auburn hair color with brown eyes – both qualities I never look for in a man. I can deal with pierced ears, but only if both ears are done. I prefer fatherly qualities to fatherly appearances – you know, someone who is older, wiser, protective and resents his life choices.
Anyway, my mixtape rewind is Chromeo’s “Momma’s Boy.” It makes me dance while I work on my profile at MarriedandLonelyPeople.com.
I have spent the past week glued to the Olympics. Every summer Olympic year, the power of the games takes over me and I am unable to discuss anything else. I even grew up in a town named after one of the greatest Olympic athletes of all time – Jim Thorpe. In 1992, I was obsessed with Kim Zmeskal and thought she could take Shannon Miller out. I tumbled around my parents’ living room on mats made out of sofa cushions waiting for Bela Karolyi to recruit me for Atlanta. I used to participate in academic competitions in junior high, and one time, there was an entire round devoted to Olympic questions and I took the gold. That’s about as close as I’ve come to being an actual Olympian.
In 1996, Celine Dion (don’t lose me here) performed the theme of the Closing Ceremonies in Atlanta, “The Power of the Dream.” I was obsessed with this song straight through Labor Day 1996. I played it everywhere we went in the car, I sang it at the top of my lungs, I made up my own rhythmic gymnastics routines in the street in front of my house to it. Remember when Kerri Strug performed that vault on a broken ankle and the American women took home the gold? Remember when all of the nations recognized by the IOC banded together after the Centennial Park Bombing? Remember when the U.S. Women won the first women’s soccer gold and Brandi Chastain took her shirt off? Remember when reading my blog entries was more about laughing with me and not at me?
AskMen.com and Yahoo! Shine recently compiled The Great Male & Female Survey. Participants were asked a series of questions on dating, sexuality, work, and pop culture (the women were only asked about dating and sexuality). While browsing through the answers the men gave, my eye caught this question:
“Would you date a woman with a lot of male friends?”
I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. Surely this isn’t a real obstacle in the dating world. Well, I couldn’t be more wrong. 42% of men answered, “Yes, but I would have concerns about her relationship with them.” 42% with concerns? That’s an alarmingly high number. 14% of men said “male friends are a recipe for disaster” and 8% flat out said it’s abnormal for a woman to have male friends. A recipe for disaster? Abnormal? Is this the 1800s?
I’m a permanent fixture in an all-male world. Not only is the adult industry male dominated, but I went to school for sports writing – not exactly female-friendly. Growing up, I was an only child who spent summer vacations with my older male cousins and Sunday afternoons watching sports with my grandfather. In high school, I sang in choir and filled out the stat books at our baseball games. My best friends have always been male – which makes all the “well what does he mean when he says this” inquiries so much easier to figure out.
I love my boys. I wouldn’t be who I am without them. However, I left for college with an extensive knowledge of the history of the designated hitter – and my hymen intact. You see, in all my years of solid male friendships, I never once crossed that line. I was always too afraid to ruin something so sacred. I couldn’t imagine losing Thursday nights on my friend Erik’s couch watching softcore porn and laughing just to attempt our own fumbles in the bedroom. Granted, I’ve ruined a few mediocre friendships since then with sex, but never while in a relationship with someone else.
I never knew that my friendships with men could be what was holding me back in the eyes of potential suitors. I also never realize when I’m bypassing the potential for a relationship and running headfirst into the friend zone. My most recent realization of this came during a lunch date with one of my few girlfriends who brought me back down to dating realities.
So maybe I get a lot of attention in the bar or at a party, but it’s not always the attention I want. Maybe it’s more focused on how nice it is for a man to be able to talk to a woman about the game and not have to feel sexual pressure – but why can’t there be both?
Marilyn Monroe once said, “I don’t mind it being a man’s world – as long as I can be a woman in it.” Being a woman, for me, does mean complete freedom – I can wear what I want, say what I want, and befriend whomever I choose. I may experience the occasional bout of loneliness, but if that means giving up my evening chats with my friend in the picture to be in a relationship, I’ll take the pint of ice cream and romantic comedy alone. I feel sorry for any man I encounter who may not be secure enough with themselves to deal with my friends – your loss!
As for the picture above, we actually did end up in my bed that night: I was vomiting and he was laughing.
I’m really old. Correction, I have an old soul. I do crossword puzzles, I listen to baseball games on the radio, and I sing jazz standards in the shower. When I go out, I drink amaretto sours or 7&7s – traditional old man drinks. I’m not old, or even a man.
I think that’s why I really like She & Him. All of their music sounds so nostalgic and they’re so cute. I already liked M. Ward to begin with and Zooey Deschanel is too cute for words. (Hello, have you seen Elf lately?) Also, I love pronouns. This isn’t really my favorite song, but it’s the only one they’ve made a video for. I keep trying to make J.D. listen to them but no one wants to listen to me – just like your crotchety old neighbor.
In honor of my favorite sitcom character of all time, George Costanza, I’ve made a list of ten things I want to accomplish this summer. You see, there was an episode where George got a severance package from his job with the Yankees and proclaimed the next three months to be “The summer of George!” Of course, he fails miserably but I still find it to be inspirational. George wanted to do simple things like take more naps and read a book “from start to finish, in that order” where as my list includes going to Coney Island and finishing a crossword in the Sunday edition of the New York Times. Number nine on my list is “sing karaoke in public.” You see, I used to sing in high school and haven’t since. I sing in my shower, in the car, while I get ready in the morning – but never in public anymore. Well, thanks to the Summer of Miss Behaving, that’s about to change. “Fever” by Peggy Lee is my karaoke “dream song,” if you will. I’ll be sure to keep you posted on my progress.
