date machine : confessions

Sex Machine: There's a Possibility You've Been Infected With HIV

Date Machine: Drunk Emailing with J, or How To Fail at Seduction

Love Machine: Using Your Words, or I Like Pap

amboabe — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:01:00 GMT

I usually begin all of my emails with "heyo." I'm not sure how I got into this habit. That word isn't a part of my spoken vernacular at all, and I can't think of anyone I know who used it with me first. It's entirely opaque. It sounds arcane, like something an uncle would say in some dusty reference to Archie comics. It's breezy and has some suggested energy behind it, like the thoughtless greeting that a friend would give you while preoccupied with the lingering tentacles of some past task. It's also deeply affectionate. With some people I use the word like a casual brushback to show indifference, but with others, it's a little caress, a gentle thumb stroke across the chin.

The trouble is that all these distinctions happen on my side. They have nothing to do with how my words are received by whomever it is I send them out to. I used to have a penchant for saying the word "pap." It's perfectly vulgar, dismissive, and clinical. My friend C has latched onto this word as the singular identifier of a basic revulsion she gets when talking to me some nights. The way I slip it into a conversation about movies or the proper way to batter fried chicken makes her recoil in disgust. "I can feel my vagina crawling up inside my body when you say that," she told me the other night after a thoughtless use of the word.

"Pap" has become shorthand for the nature of our friendship; simultaneously intimate and physically repulsive. She lets me tease her with the word, knowing all of its nauseating associations for her, and it lets us become even closer. It's a concession to the final absence of sex between us. Her revulsion would hurt me if I had any sexual interest in her. I'm sure she would be deeply alarmed by how callous and clinical I can be if we had a physical relationship.

Seeing her disgust at the word, and my relative indifference to it, is a reaffirmation of our friendship. When I use the word with other people it goes unnoticed. It's almost meaningless, falling between the conversational cracks. It's disappointing that no one else seems to get the same meaning from the word that C immediately plucks out.

On some of the dates I've been on lately I've noticed a similar disappointment. I wind up saying the same things over and over again, telling the same stories in the same terms. Going on a string of first dates on exacerbates this. How many times have I told the story of why I moved to San Francisco from LA over the last few weeks? How many inquisitive stares have looked at me while I explain my job. The words bubble out and evaporate immediately. They have no owner.

Being in a relationship is like sharing a secret language. The same words that people use to buy carrots and talk to their relatives are imbued with eros and intimacy. They become fingers that you can touch someone with, tickling them, pinching them, caressing them. With strangers, they're cold, clinical probes, little pebbles you take turns tossing into your date's metaphysical pond hoping one will catch somewhere and skip along the surface leaving a rippling trail in its wake.

I still find myself on dates, after an hour or so, realizing that I'm using someone else's words. I'm still not over the last woman I was seeing. I don't like saying that. I want to be glib and pulled together about it. Moving on. Moving forward, ever upward. Then I reach the point in the night where I realize I'm using her words. I'm sending all those verbal gestures and little touches to someone who isn't there.

Which is usually when I lean in to kiss my date. It's easier to pretend with my eyes closed.

Previous Posts:

Sex Machine: Listening to the Neighbors Have Sex

Date Night: In Which I Try To Believe In Aliens

Date Machine: Rate My Pick-Up Lines Redux

Sex Machine: There's a Possibility You've Been Infected With HIV

Date Machine: Rate My Pick-Up Lines Redux

Date Night: In Which I Try to Believe in Aliens

amboabe — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 06:31:00 GMT

Something I wrote about a date I went on earlier this summer:

I believe in aliens, now. I never really thought about it before, but it all started to make sense to me, sipping my third Manhattan, listening to D explain her experiences with the extraterrestrial. I started the night in better shape than this, tipsy and intellectually pliable, slouching on a thrift store couch underneath a giant painting of a pinball machine that someone thought was a good idea. Like paintings of pinball machines, talking about aliens on a first date is not a good idea.

But so I'm sitting there in Uptown and D is explaining a book she has read which references some weird trick of light in the night sky that she once saw and now is the cornerstone of her unshakable belief in aliens walking here among us. Sometimes talking to someone on a first date can be like shoveling coal in a furnace, you just want to keep the words flying into the fire fast enough so the train doesn't derail itself on some unexpected obstacle. This is what I feel like now. Drunk, staring at D, her red-streaked hair, nubby fingers, and Han Solo boots; all I want to do is keep her talking.

I'm ready to get laid tonight. I've decided. It's been almost two months and, though it’s a Tuesday and I wasn't all that excited about seeing D, it's closing in on midnight and I'm drunk enough to where going home alone is going to feel lonely. So I agree knowingly when she asks me if I believe in aliens. "Sure. The universe is so big, we have no idea what could be out there," I say. "How could there not be other life forms?"

As soon as those words come out of my mouth I realize I'm not going to get laid tonight. It's not that I have a vested interest in aliens one way or another, but I become aware that I'm shoveling shit now. It's not even an interesting enough line to be a turn-on. I'm just trying to keep the conversational flume open enough to vent out all of the astral certainties that D seems to have committed to before I reach the choking point. Before I start coughing up condescending protestations and have to come home and confront my hard-on alone.

Earlier in the evening, in a different bar, some speakeasy downtown that required a clever password for entry ("library"), D was on the offensive. I was tired from work and mildly disappointed by how old she looked under the unfriendly light at our table. I was distant and academic, constantly sliding my glasses back up my nose. She was going out of her way to make herself sound book-smart, using big words in sentences where they didn't naturally belong. Prerogative. Misunderestimated. Onus.

She looks better under the red lights of Uptown. I look worse, I'm sure, with raccoon eyes from too much work in front of a computer. Everything I was earlier is collapsing under an avalanche of nonchalant lies about my ability to care about something that I will never, ever see over the course of my life.

Half an hour later I'm walking D back to her car. We kiss goodnight. I steal one of her expensive Canadian cigarettes for the road and, once she's pulled out into traffic, I start walking the seven blocks back to my place. If aliens ever do come down from the skies to take over the world, tell them I tried to believe on a Tuesday night. It just didn't work out that way.

Previous Posts:

Sex Machine: There's a Possibility You've Been Infected With HIV

Date Machine: Rate My Pick-Up Lines Redux

amboabe — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 06:44:00 GMT

It's scary writing about my personal life. I don't know what it feels like to read these posts, but writing them can be frighteningly uncomfortable. It's one thing to be blunt, or confrontational, but to be totally naked in front of anonymous audience, confessing the most vulnerable details of my life makes me woozy some nights. It would be so easy to mislead. To not have to reconcile with my less appealing qualities and histories. Discrete omissions and a few contorting adjectives could thoroughly reshape any story. I have lots of unattractive qualities, but none make me feel more vulnerable than the way I try and pick up on a woman.

I'm not embarrassed about any general approach or specific habit, but there's a lurking fear that whatever I'm doing is ridiculous on some level. Approaching strangers with nothing more than a hazy attraction necessitates a genial reduction of one's persona to the lowest common denominator. Dating people online exacerbates this because you lose all the physical and aural context, leaving nothing but the docket of come-ons. How do you communicate attraction to a stranger without sounding like an exaggeration of your truer self?

The truth might well be the deeper image of self is fatuous. I might imagine myself a caring and generous person of relative intelligence with a deviant sense of fun, but can it really be true if I present like a nebbish slimeball in a leisure suit in real life?

I'm generally much more comfortable talking to people in real life than I am coming up with quippy emails to women who are only slightly more than silhouettes flickering across a computer screen. Thankfully Nerve saves all the messages I've written. Here are some of the first e-mails I've sent to some women who I've felt some twinge of interest in. Can that really be what I sound like? Is that really me in all those glib words of innuendo and platitudes? Look at all those elliptical dots…

"Don't hold this against me, but I have no idea what a behavior analyst is. Sounds deep…. You have a beautiful smile."

"heyo, is that a socially adept way of starting an email? I wonder… so tell me more about your electronic dictionary, it sounds fantastic."

"You're reading Tolstoy and I just finished reading Dostoevsky. What a coincedence… All of which is a roundabout way of saying, hi. I think I like you (or at least your cleverly crafted profile)."

"What's the nerdiest strategy game you've been playing lately? I think you're much prettier than Shelly Duvall"

"Jungian feminist theory is like a second language to me. Total coincedence! Anyway, I think you're pretty. Just wanted to say hi"

"You have nice taste in goggles. I don't speak Spanish but yo quiero una aventura."

Previous Posts:

Sex Machine: There's a Possibility You've Been Infected With HIV

Date Machine: Don't Make Poopy in the Office

Nerve Confessions: Fat and Skinny, Ugly, Pretty

Love Machine: Loyal as a Dog

amboabe — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 08:40:00 GMT

According to convention, men are dogs and no more loyal than their current options. I don't like this stereotype. It makes me purse my lips and flatten my toes against the insides of my shoes. So there must be some truth to it. I've noticed that I sometimes have a wandering eye when I'm with women. Walking down the sidewalk arm in arm or sharing a table in a coffee shop somewhere, the jingle of the door opening and the stirring of color in my periphery draws my attention away. When that blur in the periphery comes into focus and becomes a woman I can't help but get drawn further into a look, like some dog hearing a distant barking.

According the stand-up comedian, men are always looking to trade up. They are satisfied with their partners so long as they don't have to face the fact that they might have gotten a better deal somewhere else. But what actually constitutes a better deal when it comes to a significant other? What is it that a man is wondering he'll find when his left eye catch on a passing woman?

If men are dogs then they can't be looking to trade up. Dogs are creatures of territory and powerful associations with a pack. I had two dogs growing up and I doubt either of them would have gone AWOL from our family home had they been tempted with a new home in the mountains with an endless supply of fresh bones to gnaw on and open lawn stretching to the horizon. One word from my father, one whistle, one jingle of the leash and they would have come sprinting back home with tongue happily flapping out of their mouths.

While it's impossible to erase the instinctual tether of home from a dog's mind, they are easily distracted. Likewise, I'm a creature wracked by distractions. The number of times I have opened and closed Facebook while writing these modest few paragraphs borders on dysfunctional. The same impulsive urge to toss a glance elsewhere is no less powerful in public. I immediately feel guilty for it. Sometimes I'll force myself to not look, to keep my line of sight trained directly on the woman I'm with, becoming distracted with my own rigidity in the process.

Is it an insult to look at other women, or men, when you're with someone? Is it an insinuation of disloyalty, the psychic tic of a wandering libido?

I can't think of seeing someone in terms of options. I understand the logic behind the idea, but it is totally incongruous with every impulse I've ever had when engaged with a woman. Everyone is surrounded with options, on all sides. Every single person walks out their door in the morning and passes someone else on the street that they could sleep with or date. Having options is hard work. Options can lead to opportunities, but those opportunities require effort, making, articulation of a specific desire, and the execution of a plan of action. Every option is a risk in its own way.

Some women are upset by knowing their men look around. They want to feel like their company is enough to consume their man's attention. His curious energies should all be applied towards her or something safe and innocuous, like the boat in the back yard or college sports.

I don't know why I look at other women. But I always look back again. The glance is never more than a second or two, before disinterest settles in. I look away, sending my eyes out over the vast lawn, pricking my ears up, and then return to the woman across the table. If men are as loyal as their options, what does it feel like to watch a man's gaze return to your face again and again and again?

Previous Posts:

Sex Machine: There's a Possibility You've Been Infected With HIV

Date Machine: Don't Make Poopy in the Office

Nerve Confessions: Fat and Skinny, Ugly, Pretty

Dating the Web: Don't Google Fisting and Why Women Apologize So Much

Date Machine: The Woman in the Coffee Shop and The Woman at the Bus Stop

Love Machine: Your Mom Will Do

Love Machine: Making Love to ESPN

amboabe — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:19:00 GMT

I used to play high school football. I was obsessed with the NFL when I was younger and there were a few years in my life where I thought my destiny lay in professional sports. Sundays were an exhausting waste during football season. I would wake up early and inhale pre-game prognostication, watch random early games with teams I didn't care about, and make mental notes about random position players for use in comparative analysis. Who's the best right guard in the AFC? Does the 46 defense have a place in the league anymore? With the sun going down and eight or ten hours heedlessly tossed away, I would turn the TV off and realize the weekend was suddenly over, I had done nothing, and my favorite team had lost an away game with a fourth quarter defensive lapse. When I was ten I actually cried one Monday Night when the Raiders lost to the Jets in a game that effectively knocked them out of playoff contention.

There are a lot of women online who profess a shared love of sports. They claim to get along better with men than with other women, prefer beer to wine, like watching ESPN and wearing a big foam Number One hand on gameday. You see them every now and then, at sports bars or Super Bowl parties, wearing team jerseys and talking 3rd down percentages with the barrel-gutted dudes waging a group assault on a pitcher of hefewiezen and a trough of fried anything. It's like being in a strip club and watching a woman with self-possessed swagger move up to the stage with a fistful of dollar bills. It's not that it's so strange to imagine a woman being interested in sports, but I don't understand the impulse for a woman to try and identify with the underlying culture of sports, the sloth, the statistical road to nowhere, the pornographic explosion of team logos and colors, the desperate clinging to the loose storyline of the season every Sunday night, trying to postpone the postgame sobriety as long as possible.

I spent a winter in Prague in my early twenties. I rented an attic room in a hostel in the suburbs for $225 a month, and spent most of my mornings and afternoons clattering away on an old typewriter I had packed into my duffel bag. On Sunday nights I would walk downtown and find an internet café to check in with the NFL. There weren't any places to stream games live yet so I would sit and stare at a small pop-up window with a list of statistics and a written description of every play. Kaufman carries for 2 yard gain. 2nd down and 8.

It wasn't quite an addiction, but it was a lonely attempt to connect to a community. The language of sports, the biblical arcana of the NFL rulebook, the secret conclusions carried in random statistics, the crotch shaking energy of cheering in unison with 60,000 other people; it's all a way of gaining an identity without having to risk anything.

Shortly after that winter I stopped caring about professional sports. I lost track of who the new SportsCenter anchors were, I missed out on the Cinderella stories of yesterday's worst teams turning into playoff contenders, I missed all the controversies about inappropriate celebration dances, spats between teammates, superstars unhappy with their coaches, the salary hold-outs, the retirements, the steroid scandals, and the fallout of someone trying to board a plane with some cocaine or marijuana in their carry-on. The story in professional sports is always the same.

Following an NFL season is like reading the same book year after year after year. There are variations, nuances and subtle shifts in meaning float to the surface, but the larger story is identical. Someone always wins, someone always looses. The winners work better together than the losers, they understand their weaknesses better, compensate for them, stick to the game plan, get some lucky breaks, and win. Last year it was New York, this year it's Tennessee, next year it'll be Jacksonville. The names and faces will be different. The jargon will be the same.

Sports is such a permanent ballast for so many relationships. I wish there were statistics for the prevalence of sex on Sunday nights during football season. How many men get plastered watching other men brutalize one another, come home buzzed and filled with the sense memory of cheerleaders and take to their wives or girlfriends with elephantine urgency? How many women have to compete with Sports Center on Sunday nights for attention and a little empathy?

Maybe it's a welcome respite. The subconscious knowledge that you can count on some time every week where you don't have to worry about your partner, where you can part ways for a little while and be your own separate selves; maybe it's a relief. Coming back together after a day alone could refresh the appreciation you each have for one another.

But how appreciative could someone be for a man stumbling home with the rancid breath of hot wings and Miller Lite, in the male equivalent of a muumuu? How many men piston themselves into a lather on top of their women, get up for another beer, and then wind up in their sweaty underwear on the couch hypnotized by the nursery rhyme of the 11PM Sports Center? Who'll make that porno? I would watch it.

Previous Posts:

Sex Machine: There's a Possibility You've Been Infected With HIV

Date Machine: Don't Make Poopy in the Office

Nerve Confessions: Fat and Skinny, Ugly, Pretty

Dating the Web: Don't Google Fisting and Why Women Apologize So Much

Date Machine: The Woman in the Coffee Shop and The Woman at the Bus Stop

Love Machine: Your Mom Will Do

Date Machine: Scary Movies or I Peed My Pants

Date Machine: Rate My Ethics

Love Machine: Let's Just Be Friends

Love Machine: Must Be Willing to Lie About Where We Met

Sex Machine: Why Women Are Great In Bed

Sex Machine: Why Women Suck in Bed

Date Night: All By Myself on a Saturday Night

Sex Machine: Spank My Ass

Nerve Confessions: Sometimes the Truth Hurts

spjv840 — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:22:00 GMT

"As I barrel towards 30, I see so many friends panicking and settling. Fuck that! I would rather die alone than waste two people's lives."

Exactly. Why settle? I don't understand this fear of being alone past a certain age (people eager to procreate not included). Why settle for being in a mediocre relationship that doesn't completely fulfil you, when you could keep on living and have a good time and maybe happen to meet someone who is exactly what you're looking for. Screw settling. Settling is for douchebags or people who can't face being alone.

"I probably fucked up one of the best relationships I have ever been in. Stupid stupid me!"

At least you realized it now and hopefully you won't fuck things up again next time! Easier said than done, I know.

"I might've accidentally given you lip herpes (cold sores)when we made out the other day. And I went down on you for like five minutes--I pray I didn't give you herpes for real from that."

Uhhhh, If you're a man, I hope you're man enough to tell this person that you might have given them herpes. If you're a woman, hopefully you have the balls to fess up. Either way, stupid move.

"im a slut."

Aren't we all? Is that such a bad thing? Unless you're the bad, skanky kind of slut, but if you're the "I'm a woman and I like to fuck" slut, party on. What you should worry about is the improper use of grammar. Just saying.

"I have a hard time interpreting whether your behavior is typical of a guy... or typical of a douchebag."

Try this: Make a list of behavior traits of a guy and one of douchebag behavior traits. Should narrow it down pretty quickly.

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Nerve Confessions: The Karma's A Bitch Edition
Sex Machine: Oral Sex Do's and Don'ts

Nerve Confessions: The Man Edition

spjv840 — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:30:00 GMT

"is the human penis so strange?"

This was clearly submitted by a man. Yes, it is strange. It's the strangest body part ever, with exception of the armpit, which is a topic for a whole different day. The penis is able to cause endless pleasure, as well as pain, emotional trauma (have you ever seen the face of a man who can't get it up?) and not to mention, life changes. Sometimes they are happy and upbeat and sometimes it just wants to be left alone - but it's never really too sure about the last one. The owner of the penis could be tired and passed out, meanwhile the penis is wide awake and ready to party. So yes, it is strange. But we still love it.

"Wearing tighty whities makes you look like you are wearing diapers! It's terrible and I hate seeing it. Start wearing boxers, or get better fitting briefs."

I have a rule. Two rules, actually. No man I date should wear tight whities, or briefs in general. They are unattractive and just gross all around. The most beautiful man in the world (IE: Johnny Depp) could prance around in tighty whities and I would not find it appealing in the least. The second rule is no socks on during sex if the rest of your body is naked. Men should take note. Neither of these two things are sexy. Boxer briefs, on the other hand, are always a surefire way to get into a woman's pants. Especially if you know how to look sexy in them.

"I am so sick of seeing those American Apparel briefs every time I get a guy's pants off."

Ew, yeah. I'd probably walk out of the room if I found out the man was wearing anything American Apparel.

"What's the deal with dry hand jobs? So many women I date do that. A little bit of lubricant would go such a long way, and that just seems basic."

"A hand job delivered with skill requires no lubricant."

I have to agree with the person who said that a handjob done with skill requires no lubricant, although a little lube is always a bit more fun. Honestly, though, I don't think it has anything to do with skill when it comes down to it, but it depends on the penis in question. A dick with foreskin usually enjoys an unlubed handjob while foreskin-less willy's like a little lube action. A little saliva can go a long way, as well - skin or no skin.

"I'm sick of hipsters. You're just as conformist. Just conforming to something else. If you're over 35 and still a hardcore Burner picking up on 20-somethings, without real success in your "art" and no other real job, you need a life. Grow up. Nothing is more pathetic than a holier than thou aging SF hipster."

Yes! Ha ha! Just had to throw that one in there. Couldn't agree more. It's also time to retire the horrid "skinny jeans" trend.

"Is it just me or are crotchless panties just so not sexy"

I don't know why I included this in the Man edition of nerve confessions, but I wanted to reply. Crotchless panties are not sexy. They remind me of something Anna Nicole would wear while eating Cheet-os and drinking a Bud while watching WWF Raw on TNT. Not sexy.

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Nerve Confessions: The Karma's A B*tch Edition

spjv840 — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Some of the confessions lately are seriously angry confessions, full of bile and hurt. I like it!

"You chose her over me. And now that I've heard it's all crashing down, I can't help but smile to myself...Karma's a bitch, ain't it? :-)"

Sure, it's great to be happy when you hear that the person who broke your heart is now on the otherside of the fence, but what does that say about you? That you and I would probably get along GREAT. No, but really. Is revenge karma really that great??? Ok....damnit, yes it is!

"Are you really choosing the girly girl over me? Crash and burn."

Guys always pick the girly girl until they realize how boring and superficial they are - not to mention the mediocre sex. Don't worry, soon he'll realize the mistake he made and try to get you back, but you'll have moved on by then (I hope).

"I only hope that someone manipulates you as much as you did me. You were right, you never were good enough for me."

Being manipulated is cruel. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, not even the guy who manipulated me for months and I wasn't even aware of it. It's better to let it go and let karma to its thing.

"I hope you're miserable when you realize you've traded happiness for convenience."

They usually are.

"I realized who you were when you let me leave, crying hysterically, to walk 20 blocks alone in Harlem at 1 am."

I'm really hoping it was a woman who wrote this on the "new breed of man" that walks the streets at 1am in fear with his dick between his legs.
I had a similar experience a few years ago and couldn't believe how unconsiderate some guys could be. Of course, now we know the hard way, but hopefully you realized enough about him to ditch the idiot. Not worth it.

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Nerve Confessions: Fat and Skinny, Ugly, Pretty

amboabe — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:40:00 GMT

I've dated several women who could reasonably be described as chubby, rubenesque, cherubic, rotund, portly, big-boned. One of my ex-girlfriends even outweighed me by a few pounds. There are lots of polite ways to try and soften the blunt edges, but there's always something discombobulating about seeing someone comparatively slender in the company of a fat person. One of my favorite topics for awkward conversation is to ask someone about the fattest person they've ever slept with.

My first kiss was with a woman who was probably closer to obese than fat. She was tall and must have weighed two hundred pounds. We were at a party and I immediately identified her as the one girl there that I would be least interested in making out with. So two hours later I was, of course, making out with her. It was really nice too. She was a fizzy ball of energy and had an air of perpetual momentum around her, as if she were moments away from levitating. She was a hungry kisser, wet and urgent without becoming completely feral.

The next day I didn't even think about calling her again. I liked her a lot but I couldn't conceive of dating someone so heavy. I don't know where that prejudice came from. I marvel at it. I resent it. Being in Denmark over the summer, I noticed a pattern of seeing big and gawky women lumbering around with considerably more attractive men on their arms. There didn't seem to be the same male-driven stigma about needing to validate some in-born sense of masculinity through a girlfriend's waist size.

I read someone's confession today that admitted an unhinged carnal urge to sleep with someone who was objectively unattractive. "he's smart, interesting, funny and a very nice guy. He's not very attractive but oh man, do i ever want to fuck his brains out. I never thought i'd want someone so badly i don't even find physically attractive."

How is this possible? How could anyone want to have sex with someone they're not attracted to? Clearly there's an element of glibness to the "not very attractive," it's like a hedging of bets against other people's expectations. He doesn't conform to the norms of what other people would probably find attractive, but is that the same as being unattractive? Why even bother couching a description of someone who triggers some inner compulsion for closeness with an acknowledgement of other people's expectations?

I often wonder how much of what I find attractive in a woman is genuine and how much is just a subconscious recognition of how closely her look assimilates with the subtle iconography of movies, magazines, and commercials. A friend of mine used to date a model and loved describing how proud he was walking into a bar or restaurant with her on his arm. How happy he was walking down the sidewalk, watching all the other men ogle the girl that had chosen him. It reminded me of the terse Patrick Bateman line, "I'm just trying to fit in."

I still trade emails with the girl I dated that weighed more than me. She was married not too long ago, to a chubby man. I look at her pictures on Facebook sometimes. They seem absurdly happy together. Of course I am biased, but she still strikes me as stunning and I don't understand what she could possible be doing with the goober grinning on the other side of the frame. Then I remember her describing how happy he makes her in an email a long time ago. A comparatively unattractive fat guy making a woman so happy she would be willing and eager to share the rest of her life with him. I can almost see it through the tinsel haze.

Previous Posts: