It's Beverly's Birthday Today

She's four. I asked her what she's gonna do on her big day and she said, "Um... sleep, go potty, sleep, eat, sleep, go potty again, sleep, eat again, sleep."

Visit Beverly at Dogster.

Confession: Sunday Night TV

I tell people I watch 60 Minutes on Sunday nights even though I really watch America's Funniest Home Videos.

Another confession: I laugh my arse off at AFV even though I wanna bitch-slap Tom Bergeron.

And another: I laugh hardest at the videos of people falling down.

Blogger Beta

I'm changing over to Blogger Beta, so things might look different for a few days until I figure out how to get everything back to normal.

Don't Play the Numbers Game

An article about your "number" in the Toronto Sun that mentions 20 Times a Lady:

Don't play The Numbers game
At the end of the day, there is no point grilling lovers about their past lives
By ANN MARIE MCQUEEN, SUN MEDIA

When two young people fall for each other, it's like the elephant in the room: Who, exactly, came before they came together?

It's called The Number. And just like a birth certificate and favourite pair of underwear, every adult has one.

I hadn't thought about The Number for a while. Until last weekend, when I ran into a couple of male friends who happened to be smack-dab in the middle of a conversation about it. Now in their 20s, The Number causes them no end of trouble.

See, women in their 20s, the age of women they naturally go out with, seem to want to know their Number. These guys, who could be called players, but, in my opinion, are only the very nicest kind, told me their Number is, um, quite high. Say, above 50. This, they know, is bound to upset the girls they're dating.

Even if the girl-who-asks can get past their Number, in the natural progression of such a conversation, there is the whole matter of her Number.

The guys, the players-but-nice-players guys, say no matter what that Number might be, if they like the girl, it's too high.

COMPLETELY UNFAIR

Even if her Number is two, and they know it's perfectly normal for her to have had sex before they met, and even if they didn't raise the subject, and even if they've slept with tens of dozens of women themselves, even if they know it's completely unfair and sexist, they will obsess about it. They will hate it.

That's why they would never initiate a conversation about The Number. And they don't think women should, either.

I had to agree with them. Experience has shown me that when it comes to The Number, we should all adhere to the famous Clinton-era American military policy compromise: Don't ask, don't tell. Canadian author and sex expert Josey Vogels, who writes the online column My Messy Bedroom, agrees.

"It is a no-win situation. You don't stand anything to gain by knowing the number of people the person has slept with, unless there's something you need to know about the people they've slept with," says Vogels. "It's nobody's business."

The last time I asked a boyfriend about The Number I was treated to an afternoon of fond sexual reminiscing. It started out with a post-brunch tally and continued with a series of "oh yeahs" throughout the afternoon. By early evening, just when I thought we'd exhausted the subject, he punched the steering wheel and proclaimed: "I just remembered another one!"

By the time he'd passed 60 the next day, I didn't care how many people he'd slept with. Whatever he did before me, sexually speaking, was nothing compared to the big deal he was making out of it now. For once, I was kind of glad I'd asked about The Number, because although I didn't like what I was hearing, it wasn't because it was too high.

TALL TALE

I also realized he was lying. There was no way he'd slept with that many people, or he wouldn't have gone on about it so.

That's another reason The Number is a dumb thing to talk about: Studies show when asked, men and women tend to lie about it. It was all laid out in American Pie 2's Rule of Three, the number by which men tend to multiply, and women divide, their sex partners when telling others about them.

In 2005 polling of a 2,000-strong Knowledge Networks Panel, with an average age in the late 40s, women reported having an average of 8.6 partners, while men reported 31.9. (I'm not able to explain this 0.6 and 0.9 business.) Scientists then set out to find out how many were lying.

Turns out, there were lots: 21% of men and 15% of the women later admitted they'd lied.

Norman R. Brown, a psychologist at the University of Alberta, explains that women tend to rely on enumeration, which leads to underestimation, while men rely on rough approximation, which leads to overestimation.

We are sleeping with each other, after all.

The Number is so compelling, so confounding that author Karyn Bosnak has even written a new novel about it.

In 20 Times A Lady, the heroine wakes up after a night of drunken sex with someone she dislikes. Not only is he a wretch, but she's now reached her self-imposed limit on how many men she can sleep with. As celibacy is not an option, she proceeds to retrace her steps, sexually speaking, hoping to make it work with one of numbers one-through-20.

It's like a do-over, to the max.

DOUBLE STANDARD

If only we could live in a world like the one seen in the charming 1994 film Four Weddings And A Funeral. In it, Andie MacDowell's character matter-of-factly tallied the 33 men she'd slept with, while Hugh Grant sat listening, sweetly managing to be flummoxed and impressed at the same time.

Mostly, we don't. The old double standard, the Madonna-whore complex, the male desire Ludacris so eloquently phrased when he rapped "we want a lady in the street but a freak in the bed," is alive and well.

While it would be nice if women of all ages could tell their men their Number, and not be judged for it, and instead be appreciated for it, celebrated for it even, and vice-versa, that's just not the way life is.

And, as Vogels explains, if women in their 20s insist on asking about The Number, it has to do with more than sex. At that age, most of us still don't quite get the concept of honesty.

"Honesty is like, spill your guts about everything," says Vogels. "That's not the case. Sometimes, discretion is a lot more beneficial."

In the end, I think we learn to stop asking about his Number when we finally make peace with our own.

Because like a lot of things in life, when it comes to The Number, there's really only one person who needs to approve.

Ryan the Fishing Guy

Here's a link to an exciting blog written by a guy named Ryan who likes to fish:

my life and fishing in wny

(I have no idea who Ryan is, nor how I ended up reading his blog.)

UPDATE: Since Manic Mom found it necessary to tell Ryan the fishing guy that I may have a crush on him, I thought I'd explore the very possibility of that, seeing as though I'm in the market for a new Boy Toy. If all goes well, here's what the future could look like:




You might think I'm joking, but he's kinda cute in a dirty-boy sort of way. Look:


Stay tuned.

New Profile Photo For Jill

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Jennifer Aniston on Oprah

A friend just left a taping of Oprah. The guest was Jennifer Aniston. My friend was in a rush to get somewhere so I didn't get all the details. However, she said that Jennifer Aniston...

- is stunningly beautiful.
- denied having breast implants. (Was this a rumor? Shows you how up I am on celeb gossip.)
- confirmed that she and Vince Vaughn are still together.

UPDATE: This post has been linked to from A Socialite's Life, Just Jared, Popsugar, Glitterati, and Staralicious.

A gazillion other blogs/websites have also repeated this apparently titillating info, but they seem to be crediting the info and linking back to Just Jared. (Damn him. Stealing my thunder and hits.)

I have to laugh that I'm a source of celebrity gossip. I called my friend Naomi (who I wrote about in Save Karyn and who was the friend that went to the taping) and was like, "You're being called a celebrity insider." She's now making me call her "Deep Throat." Little does she know that I've been calling her that behind her back for years, but for a completely different reason. (I'm totally kidding; that was for Jamie.)

Oh, and to the people laughing that my friend said JA is beautiful... SHE IS BEAUTIFUL, jealous bitches!

My Niece Nora Knows Sign Language

My sister had this picture of my niece Nora printed out especially for me, and she's accusing me of teaching her sign language.

Honesty

I looovvvvve this.

Confession: Grey's Anatomy

I have a mad, mad crush on O'Malley.

New Dutch Version of Save Karyn

Look how cute the cover is of the new Dutch pocket version of Save Karyn. (Or I should say De De dollarprinses.)

Click here.

I want one! No one tells me about things like this. I have to do Internet searches and find them.

UPDATE: My agent got a box of them from my Dutch publisher the day after I wrote this.

When Parents Abuse Email

My parents are on the verge of getting their e-mail taken away. Yes, like a mother giving her toddler 'til the count of three to cease unacceptable behavior, I'm at two and three-quarters with them. Seriously, if they forward me one more joke, cartoon, chain letter, prayer, or warning about things like mall parking lots, freezing plastic bottles, and bagged lettuce (okay, fine--this one turned out to be true), I'm gonna go all 'war games' on them and send them a nasty virus that'll shut down their whole system. If they used email to actually communicate with me, I wouldn't mind the occasional joke. But they don't use it to communicate. And they don't send me the occasional joke. These emails are coming in on a daily basis.

I know, I know--just don't read the emails, you say. Delete them. Well, I tried that and it only made matters worse. My Dad actually called me on the phone and started reading them to me. Honest to God--this is how it went down:

2 days ago, via phone:

Dad: Hey, did ya get that one joke I sent?
Me (being vague): Uh... no... maybe... I'm not sure...
Dad: It was a thing by Robin Williams. He was wearing an "I Love NY" shirt that was written in Arabic, and-- well, here... let me go get it and read it to you.

After waiting for my dad to boot up the ole Commodore 64 (okay, slight exaggeration, but I do think he still has dial-up) and find the joke, I sat and listened while he read the entire thing to me from beginning to end. When he was finished:

Dad: That Robin Williams sure is funny. I can just hear him saying those things, can't you?
Me: Sure.

Thinking my dad was finished reading to me, I started to talk about something else. However, I felt like what I was saying was going in one of his ears and out the other. He was looking through his in-box again, I could tell. Suddenly, in the middle of me saying something he cut me--

Dad: Here, listen to this. This one's funny.

--off.

Needless to say, my dad read me another joke. And then another one. And then he actually described a cartoon to me in detail.

I assume I'm not the only person this has happened to. Perhaps we can start a chain letter that our parents can send to all their friends (because you know they will) telling them that if they stop forwarding jokes, cartoons, prayers, warnings, and chain letters (with this exception of this one, of course), they will receive...

- FREE MONEY from Bill Gates and Microsoft
- A FREE COOKIE RECIPE from Neiman Marcus, or
- GOOD LUCK from an angel

(\          /)
( \   __   / )
 ( \ (  ) / )
  (  /<>\  )
  ( / \/ \ )
   /      \
  (        )

What do you think?

Another Mindless IM

Mark (12:16:04 PM): hi
Karyn (12:16:19 PM): hi johnson
Mark (12:16:30 PM): i'm not johnson
Karyn (12:16:40 PM): i know
Mark (12:16:56 PM): i watched dr 90210 on the treadmill this morning..
Karyn (12:17:11 PM): oh goodie
Mark (12:37:39 PM): you are pretty
Karyn (12:37:51 PM): i know
Karyn (12:37:55 PM): you are pretty too
Mark (12:39:37 PM): thanks

And That's Why I Hate You, Sheila Mulligan

Normally I'm a pretty happy person who tries to find the good in everyone. However, sometimes I get really angry and just need to let loose. Up to this point in my life, I've hidden my anger for the most part, maybe vented to a few friends about this or that, but I've reached a point where I can't keep it in any longer. Sometimes we all need an, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" moment. This is my moment.

With this, I'd like to introduce something new here at Pretty in the City called...

"And That's Why I Hate You, xxx"

Before I continue, I should say that I hate people who hate. I've always thought that if you don't like someone, you should ignore them, or keep it to yourself. So much energy goes into hating--why not put that energy to something useful? Something productive?

Because sometimes hating feels good, that's why.

A certain amount of satisfaction comes along with telling someone to “f*ck off” or “go to hell”--don't you agree? Sometimes hating and expressing hate spells relief better than the best indigestion tab on the market.

Before I announce the recipient of the first ever "And That's Why I Hate You" award, I want to point out something else: I realize that word "hate" is harsh, but using it is more satisfying than using a word like "dislike." "Hate" is short, to the point, and it leaves no question as to how I really feel about you. If I hate you, I hate you. End of story.

With that, onto my first entry.

So I had a birthday. I turned 29. Again. And I got all sorts of nice birthday wishes on my MySpace page and on this blog. To show my appreciation, I wrote a long post that thanked everybody individually. The thing is, I get a lot of emails and well wishes, and I don't have time to respond to them all. I wanted to show the people who sent me well wishes that I'm thankful for them taking the time out of their busy days to do so.

Just so you know, it took me about three hours to write the post. I'm late handing in two projects that I'm working, too, yet I still took the time to write it. I wrote something short yet heartfelt about each person, and then I wrote this at the end:

Okay, so time to get sappy... Every time I'm sad or get down, I look at my blog or MySpace page, read some comments and realize how lucky I am to have the best blogging FRIENDS ever. I say "friends" because I think the word "fan" is stupid - I love ya'll as much as you hopefully love me, and I'm positive that if we all lived in the same city we'd hang out. Thank you so much for making me feel loved on a daily basis. I cannot thank you enough!

YOU ARE THE STARS IN MY SKY. XX

I meant it. The thing about Blogger and MySpace is that they've allowed me to put faces to the names of the people who read my blogs/books. Savekaryn.com was up before these things existed, so while I got a ton of emails, I never knew who was sending them. Now that I can see who's reading/commenting, I've realized that they are/were people just like me. They're the kinds of people that I'd be friends with. They're not just strangers with an email address anymore. They're people with friends, families, pets--lives.

So anyway, I got some responses to the post, all of them nice, and then I got this:

hey, I love your first book and I can't wait to get the second . . . but isn't it sort of rude what you did to your cat? and disingenuous about how you'd hang out with complete strangers if we all lived in the same city? and isn't this web site sort of like a commercial instead of the Pure and Brilliant Save Karyn? I don't know. I LOVED your book Save Karyn, but I'm a FAN who is concerned about your level of intensity with regard to showcasing your cat. And I believe that "the man [woman] is never is as great as the work" and your first book is definitely brilliant but I hate to be a bitch sort of but God this blog site feels like an opportunity for you to sell. I don't know. I read it anyway because I think you are so funny I can't stand it. I am conflicted. Your Fan, Sheila (yet another Sheila)

Sheila Mulligan, I appreciate the nice things you said about savekaryn.com, but feel that everything else you said is pretty much sh*t. You're conflicted? Well, I'm not.

I hate you, Shelia Mulligan.

First, I'd like to address my cat. He pretty much does this...


...25 hours a day. So me dressing him up and sticking sunglasses and stamps on his head is keeping him young. I rescued him from a bush when he was eight months old, and I've fed him, pet him, and cleaned up his sh*t for the past eleven years. He's got a pretty easy life and I think he can handle wearing sunglasses for five minutes, even if it is for my own amusement. Sure, he'd probably rather continue to do this...


...but too bad. I'm the mommy. I make the rules.

As for my level of intensity with regards to "showcasing" my cat, you should more concerned about my level of intensity with regards to the hate I have for you.

Now on to me being "disingenuous" about saying that I'd hang out with the people who post on this blog. You're either implying that I have a superiority complex and think I'm better than everyone else, or you're implying that the people who post here/read this blog are complete morons. You posted here and admitted to being a reader... are you a moron?

Please don't answer that.

Sheila, I'm no better than anyone else and I've never pretended to be. Most of the people who read this blog have read Save Karyn and identified with it in some way or another, meaning they identified with me, meaning I'd identify with them if we were to meet. When I read their blogs or look at their MySpace pages, I'm able to get a taste of their sense of humor, see their outlook on life, and can honestly say that they are the type of people that I'd be friends with.

Okay, let's move on. As for this website being a commercial, I have links on it to my books, which I will not apologize for. I worked hard on them and I hope people will buy them. It's how I make a living. Some of the posts I've written have to do with the new book, but that's what's going on in my life right now. This is not savekaryn.com. I'm not in debt aymore. This is a random blog about my life.

Now onto... "the man [woman] is never is as great as the work." What kind of backhanded compliment is this? You're basically saying that Save Karyn is/was great, but I'm not. Screw you. I'm human; I have flaws. I do things right; I do things wrong. I say something smart; I say something stupid. Everyone does.

I realize that telling you all this will probably cause me to lose a sale of 20 Times a Lady, but I don't really care. I can live with that. In fact, if you'd like a refund for having purchased Save Karyn, send me your address and I'll send you the $13 back. This should show you how "commercial" this site isn't. I don't use it to gain fans and sell books. I use it to write about stupid, silly, and fun things that I've been up to. It's a smorgasbord of odd diary entries, pictures, and things I do on a weekly basis. If you don't like it, don't read it.

I hate you, Shelia Mulligan, because you bury insults inside compliments, and because you insinuated that a sincere comment I made was bullsh*t. I hate people who look for the ugly in things. I hate people that assume the worst of people. When people questioned the validity of savekaryn.com and whether or not it was fake, and then asked me if I would donate to a cause like mine, I said "absolutely." I said this because I'd rather trust someone and be taken advantage of than not have faith in them from the start. Don't be jaded. Believe, trust, and hope that people's intentions are good.

Okay, so that's it for the first installment of "And That's Why I Hate You, xxx." Tune in tomorrow for...

"And That's Why I Hate You, Cable Repair Man."

Confession: Dog Breath

I secretly like the way my dog's breath smells.