JJust Kidding

Pink Cheeks

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:26:45 PDT

I'm sure the Ren Faire is awesome, but as soon as our map app told us that it would take an hour and ten minutes to get there, we were like, "Peace out, renaissance." I like bodices, jousting matches and day drinking as much as the next wench, but an hour drive time with my brood is too rich for my blood.

There used to be a time when we were all over the place -- museums here, botanical gardens there -- but lately we've just been too weary for ambitious outings. Kasper is stormy, Bea is whiney and everyone is just not feeling it. Which is not to say that we're not having fun. We are. Tons! Just not particularly photogenic fun. But they are changing so quickly that I really need some new pics. Since we were already packed for the Ren Faire, we decided to lower our ambitions and go to a park ten minutes from our house that we'd never been to before: Johnny Carson Park, which is sandwiched between NBC's old studios and St. Joe's Hospital.

We are very, very slowly extricating ourselves from Hollywood and moving towards Studio City, Toluca Lake or Burbank, so we've been making an effort to get to know the parks over the hill. Johnny Carson Park boasts a slimy-but-cute creek and a decent playground, but like all things valley, when it's hot it's hot. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but there's an episode of Entourage when Johnny Drama wigs out about crossing over to the Valley because of the heat and when it first aired (way back in our pre-reproductive days) I stood up and shouted at the TV, "Yes! Oh my God, yes!" The Valley is obnoxious with heat. I still begrudge the entire region because of it. I'm slowly getting over it, but I'm not sure sweating my tits off this afternoon at Johnny Carson Park helped the cause.

By the way, I realize I've been an awful blogger, but I have a few different side projects going at the moment that hopefully will result in exciting things that I can announce in the future. Since my last post, here I had an essay up on Huff Po about mommy judgement and the way that it's maybe not quite as bad as people make it out to be. If you like, you can follow me on HuffPo here. For the next several months I might be posting over there about as often as I do here.

Anyway, just look at these kids' pink cheeks. We're not built for Valley heat. Once we move over the hill, we're going to have to carry around personal fans and spray bottles. And sunscreen. Like, so much sunscreen.

It's hard to tell, but he's actually pushing her off the ledge here. She was cool with it.

Protip: Sammi is Short for Samantha Now

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:46:23 PDT

You just know that someday you're gonna be at a barbecue and a person far younger than you is going to introduce him or herself as Yolo, and optimistically you'll be like, "Oh, like Yolo County, California?" And the person will be all, "No, like You Only Live Once." And you will be fucking horrified, but you won't be able to say anything without being rude, so you'll just hide in the bathroom until you can wrangle your second husband out of there. Mark me.

Aaaannnnnddd... as I was typing that I also was Facebook chatting with my cousin (as I am wont to do) who is currently in a library studying for midterms. Here's a truncated and cleaned-up version of our conversation:

Timmy:
cute girl just sat down next to me
LOL WHY WOULD YOU SIT HERE THERE ARE LIKE 40 OTHER CHAIRS

[a few minutes pass]

chick's name is sammi btw
if you were wondering

Me:
gg, but did she name herself after a character on jersey shore? deal breaker.

Timmy:
apparently it's short for samantha

Me:
hey. important question. how do you know that girl is sammi and not sammy?

Timmy:
i asked
her response was cute
i was like 'do you spell that with an i?'
and she said yeah
and then giggled and asked if i spell timmy with an i
she might be dumb

Me:
can i talk about sammi on my blog? i was just about to write about names so it's totally on topic

Timmy:
no

Me:
k

Timmy eventually consented to the above text, but not before haggling me on one pointless line. Good guy, Timmy. True story: he threatened to sic a WoW friend who happens to be a lawyer on me. If you think being brahs with your 19-year-old cousin is all fun and games, then think again.

Anyway, I'm not one to bag on the Apples, Blue Ivys and Pilot Inspektors of the world. I don't get it, but it's not my duty to get what people name their kids. And actually, I'd take a Blanket over yet another Matt/Andrew. They are wonderful names, but they're so ubiquitous that I now just refer to all of Timmy's male friends as "Mandrew."(The girls are all "Emily," except for Sammi, apparently.)

But even Sammi isn't a bad name. It's just that I'm worried that the poor child done named herself after a Jersey Shore star. For all I know her parents have been calling her Sammi since she was wee. Actually, I'm sure Sammi is a lovely girl and if she were all, "And that lady calls herself JJ?! What a hypocritical douche!" I would totally understand.

Being that I live in LA, I know people who know people (but I don't know anyone myself except for one person who I'll get to in a sec). A friend told me a story about a famous writer friend of hers who wrote something mean in a major publication about the name of a child with a famous parents who also happen to be friends of hers. (She knows a lot of famous people.) She told me, "That kid was identified by his first and last name and ridiculed. How is that right?" It's not.

I realized then how mean it is to mock the names parents give their children no matter how seemingly ridiculous or famous the parents But sticking too that realization has been difficult. Someone I know decided on a baby name by flipping through a Pottery Barn kids catalog, which is... whatever... no comment. But turns out that cute waspy name she settled on is slang for a very common drug and it's not easy to give up the jokes that naturally arise from this fact. (New Year's resolution set... again.)

Like I said, I don't know famous people, but there is a child of a famous actress who goes to my gym with his non-famous father all the time. This little dude has a name that has been widely mocked, but 1) I actually think his name is cute and 2) he's an adorable big-eyed toddler about Kasper's age and it icks me out that people would make fun of him in print or otherwise. (Side note: it is friggin' weird to look at a kid and see one of your favorite 90s movies staring back. It's way existential, if you will.)

And not that I'm one to talk about baby names. I recently wrote on xoJane about my family's obsession with My Little Pony. One of the series' villains is Trixie and that fact makes Beatrix "Don't call me Trixie! I'm Bea!" Keith a bit nuts. Oh yeah, and Kasper shares his name with the ghost of a dead child who stars in insanely racist cartoons and I don't know what to say about that except thank Jeebus he's tanner than his sister!

I grew up with the name Jodie Horn so I understand what it is to have a difficult name. Horn. Horny Toad. Jodie Horny. A few years into marriage I took my husband's name for purely aesthetic purposes. And Jodie -- oi! Sorry Jodie Foster, but given that I cringed whenever I was called by the name, it was relatively painless to switch over to JJ. My parents and other family members still call me Jodie and I guess that's their right, but it pains me to even type it. As far as I'm concerned, my birth name was Voldemort.

It's possible that someday my kids will rebel against their names and start going by "Snappy LaRue" or whatever. Actually, just today, I decided that Kasper's vaudeville name is "Ducky Bubbles" so maybe that'll stick. Ultimately, their names are their prerogatives. Surely at some point Kasper is going to realize that "Kassie" (which is what I call him most of the time) is a girl's name and be super-pissed. That's fair, even if I maintain that Broseph can totally pull it off.

Alls I know is that you should avoid Yolo for your child as I believe in a future in which we'll all forget what that means.

AP Message Board Dropout

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:17:26 PST

One of the perils of doing a lot of spinning is getting that Rihanna diamond song stuck in my head: "Shine bright like a di-ye-mand." Gah! What I wouldn't do to erase that from my mind. Well, that and the whole "we are never ever ever ever getting back together" situation. It's not even neccessarily that I dislike these songs (I'm confused by my own feelings), but I'd prefer to think another thought here or there.

By which I mean to say, I'm not anti attachment parenting. Okay, actually, those things have nothing to do with one another. I just wasn't sure how to break into the topic. See, I've felt like a bit of a sucktart since the original version of this essay was first published over a year ago. I wouldn't exactly say that I've dropped out of AP, more that I dropped out of AP message boards. My face was going to fall off my skull if I read one more debate on "kneepads for toddlers: precaution or over-protection" and that shit has nothing to do with AP, just AP message boards.

I don't self-identify as AP, but then again, I don't self-identify as anything. I didn't title the essay when it ran on Salon, though I did choose to keep the title for the Huff Po version because the editor at Salon has superior judgement on such matters. Nevertheless, despite the airy absence of AP message boards in my life, I still haul 30-pound Kasper around in an Ergo from time to time if the situation demands it, and we co-sleep. All of us. Which is not my first choice (or my second or third), but we do it because 1) it's the most efficient way to get our little darlings to STFU and snooze and 2) we live in a 700-square-foot cottage and if all the sleeping is done in one bedroom then there's a bedroom leftover to serve as my office. We are pragmatists above all else.

My original title for that essay was "Crunchy Parenting Dropout," but I think a more apt title would be "AP Message Board Dropout." Though really what was going on behind the story about "Milo Flynne's Mom" was that I was on my way to becoming a mom group dropout. I stayed in a bunch of mom groups long after my beef with "Milo Flynne's Mom," but these days I'm 100% mom group free. Don't get me wrong -- I met many wonderful mothers in those groups, many of whom are still my friends, but these days the kids and I simply meet up with the people we want to meet up with when we want to. I guess I had to go through that mommy/baby group social upheaval, but boy-oh-boy am I happy to officially no longer be a new mom.

The other day I had to go back to Urban Outfitters for a new pair of mom jeans. I didn't mind at all flagging down the 23-year-old with Skrillex hair and horn rimmed glasses to ask, "Do you have these jeans in a bigger size and, like, minus the distressing?" This is my life now and I love it. Onward!

Things I Have Made: Desserts and Humans Edition

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 10:26:18 PST

Bea is four. Four! What the hell is that about? But damn, she's a boss little kid. I know. Every mom thinks that. But fine. Let me be trite! I adore that little beast from the tip of her tiara to the ends of her ragged little toenails. And the way she corrects me? Like a friggin' boss: "Ahem. Actually, mother? My name is 'Bee-tricks,' not 'Beazy.'" And then when I'm like, "Damn kid, way to correct your ol' ma," she says, "Why are you using grown-up words?" and I just stand there like a big, dumb monster.

Is it weird to describe a toddler as baller? Whatever. I don't care. She's baller. I'm totally a fan. Of course it would be weird if I weren't, but that doesn't make my affection any less potent. Little Lady is rockin' my house. Hence my almost pathological need to delight her with splashy deserts, including the 12-layer Jello mold for her preschool, where there are enough allergies to make virtually any other dessert untenable, and the strawberry cake decorated with inexplicably hard to find Sleepy Beauty Squinkies.

Sidebar I:
1. Why do Squinkies exist?
2. Why isn't every variety of Squinkie readily available with Amazon Prime delivery?
3. How do we end Squinkies? Can we, like, start a petition? Here are the reasons:
a) choking hazard
b) stupid

Sidebar II:
1. I didn't make that cake with the roses. I bought it and then jazzed it up later. But I bought it from the West Hollywood Whole Foods on a Saturday afternoon, so I might as well have procured it from the Gods themselves. And I made the poor lady behind the counter do the writing twice because, apparently, I am that woman. I should go back and apologize, but then I'd have to go back to the WeHo Whole Foods, which is -- I assume -- a narrow-aisled tombstone for frugality.

Timmy, my teenaged cousin who I talk to all the time because of my profound psychological need to resolve my adolescence OR SOMETHING, has suggested that I favor Bea, but lemme tell ya: that's not true. Approximately once a day I look at Kasper, cup my hand over my mouth and sigh like a dowager countess, "Who is that magnificent creature?"

No, I hear you: a mom gushing over her kids -- NEXT! But look at this little beefcake:

I think it's worth noting that those shorts were hand-me-downs from a German friend.

Like, seriously. That's the motherfucker keeping me up at night and he's so damn cute that I FORGIVE HIM.

Basically, the gist here is, "hey, isn't it weird to be a parent and like your kids so much?" I realize that's hardly breaking news, but dude, I'm on deadline for a freelance project, so I just had to tell you: I think my kids are cool.

Also, not related, but I bought this jumpsuit a few weeks ago:

I think the same sloppy zeal that leads me to blog about my -- if we're being honest -- mundane affection for my children leads me to buy 70's-era Polynesian jumpsuits even though my life rarely calls for me to wear such apparel. Even the women at the shop discouraged me from buying it, but it's my jumpsuit and I'm sticking to it because... jumpsuit. Anyone have suggestions about where one might wear a ridiculously restrictive jumpsuit?

This Never Happened But That Doesn't Make It Any Less True

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:57:35 PST

"Oh, hey! I didn't expect to see you here. How's it going?"

"Awesome. Glad to hear it."

"Yeah, the kids are in preschool today. Isn't that amazing? I have an entire day to myself. Porn and weed all day long, amirite?"

"Sorry. Just joking. That was weird."

"Yeah, I actually did set out to write something today. I had no idea what, but I hoped it would come to me. And then I heard that this lady who goes to spin classes at my gym got certified to be a spin instructor and was teaching a class this morning. I had to go and show my support, right? And then I remembered that I had nothing set for dinner and I spent the last two hours searching the internet for 'kid-friendly light chicken recipes.'"

"I'm not procrastinating! I’m the lady who Christmas shops in July. If I wanted to write something, I’d write it."

"No, really. And I still might write today. It's just, well, what's the point, you know? Like say you publish an essay and it does really well. You get a bunch of blog hits. Several people weigh in on the degree to which you are or are not an asshole and then what? You just go back to being a mom not a penny richer nor any closer to getting an agent, a book deal, or a teaching post."

"Well, am I obligated to have a good attitude all the time?"

"Okay, listen. Not a lot of people realize this but writing is a pay-to-play proposition for most people. It’s a wealthy dilettante's game and I am not a wealthy dilettante. I only have two skills: writing and not procrastinating."

"It's not bullshit! Google 'writing retreats' or 'writing workshop' and note the prices. You can easily drop $30K a year on being a writer. You pay for workshops and conferences where you meet editors. You pay for retreats with people who know how to get manuscripts to agents. You pay for seminars. You pay for copyediting and consultations. My graduate degree would have cost $60K if I hadn't gotten tuition remission for teaching. You pay for privilege of writing even if you're good. There are a lot of great writers out there who do what they have to do to pay for this shit. But, like, even if you get a book published, you're unlikely to make enough to live on or even make back the cost of childcare. Writing is an excellent career option for people who don't need to make money. There have even been especially rich people who bought their way on to bestseller lists."

"Oh, it's possible. They bought all the copies of their own books. You have to time it right and get them from the right stores or something. Those lists are just algorithms That Cupful of Tea or whatever douche did it with the money that people gave him to build schools in Nepal or wherever. Jon Krakaur said so. And he's not the only one."

"Well, yeah. I’ve paid for stuff. I don’t think it’s wrong to do so. I've paid for workshops, some great ones. I haven't paid for anything in a while, but I've done a lot of copywriting work and I'm still just breaking even. Basically, writing is a very time consuming hobby."

"I'm not just being negative! I've been out of ideas lately and so I've looked into workshops. The ones I liked aren’t going on any more. I can muster, say, $400 for a weekend workshop or something, but it's a big deal. So I Google the teacher to see what they've written and more often than not, it's crap. Like, why would I pay these people to teach me what they know when I already know that what they know is shit? And then there are the retreats and colonies. They look great, but I don’t have $8000. I’m better off hauling myself out to the desert and getting a $49-a-night hotel room. The only problem is how do I find a place with a door wide enough to get a pallet of beer in?"

"Okay, yeah. The problem is feedback. It’s hard to come by. Or rather, good feedback is hard to come by. And then it’s like, well, who am I emulating? Whose career do I want? What’s the best that can happen to me as a writer. I mean, Cheryl Strayed, sure, but that kind of break is extraordinarily rare. She's a great writer, but better writers than her have died penniless. I mean, what's my endgame here?You know why I like copywriting? Because it fucking pays! Making money is incredibly satisfying. Also, helpful. There are so many midi skirts and clogs out there that should be mine."

"No, clogs and midi skirts are ALWAYS in. I’m not tryna get laid over here."

"I don’t expect you to tell me anything. I don’t know. I just worry that this is all for naught. That I’m just another bored housewife with an expensive hobby. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I need to adjust my self-image accordingly."

"Don’t look at me like that. I’m not being self-pitying. Just realistic. But hey, I gotta run. All that housewife porn isn’t going to watch itself."

"Sorry. That was awkward. I really just gotta pop this chicken in a marinade. Catch you later?"

"Right. Bye."

Sex and Candy

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 22:09:25 PST

I have a perverse habit. I like to put music on while playing with the kids. That's not the perverse habit, but I'll get to it. Give me a sec. It's been well documented (by me because, yeah, who else would?) that I have dubious taste in music. And I'm not even linking to all the articles I wrote about questionable bands for PopMatters in the mid naughts because I don't have to and I wrote them under a different name.

When I was in junior high and high school, I loved show tunes. True fact: I once owned nine different cast records of Les Misérables including the original Reykjavík and Israeli casts on cassette tape. Do you know what you had to do to get crazy shit like that in the early 90's? And remember, this was pre-Glee. There was nothing cool about the countless hours I spent locked in my bedroom listening to the original West End recording of "On My Own" while I played along on my clarinet.

Then, when I was in college I got into what I termed *ahem* "cunt punk," and then later on I got into other stuff, both dubious and otherwise, but that's not really point. (Who the fuck cares about my journey through music over the last few decades?) Anyway, what you need to know is that during the late 90's I was listening to Bikini Kill, Sleater Kinney, and Bratmobile on repeat, which, as you can guess, made me suuuuuper popular with my housemates. See, I had this thing where I wouldn't listen to any music primarily created by men... because feminist.

So yes, that was me: I was the feminazi bonerkiller. I am the one who killed all those boners with my feminaziism. If you lost a boner between 1997 and 2001, I probably killed it. Mea culpa.

So the perverse habit: when I'm outside playing with the kids, I use Pandora to sonically transform my yard into a late 90s frat party minus the red cups and the freaking. All the music I dubbed douchy, fratty, tool rock for fledgling patriarchs when I was in college? That's what I like to listen to. It started with Cake (which was always my secret patriarchal indulgence), but now I've moved on to Sublime, Weezer, Semisonic, Presidents of the United States of America, Lit, Everclear, Matchbox 20, Harvey Danger, Marcy Playground, Barenaked Ladies, etc. -- all the music I rebuked while I was still actively killing boners. I mean, before my husband's. Amirite, married ladies?

(Sorry. God, I hate myself for that one.)

It seems I'm nostalgic for an era that I hated. But that era I hated? It was mine. Even though I never listened to any of that music myself, I heard it at parties. I danced to it. I tolerated it when other people played it in their cars. There are memories attached to all that music because that was the radio-prescribed soundtrack of my brief youth, back when the world was full of boners to kill. Those are my golden oldies! Which -- forgive me -- is a jagged little pill to swallow.

(I did listen to Alanis Morrisette because she's a lady and bonus points for being angry.)

The other day I was chatting with my 19-year-old cousin-in-law Timmy, as I am wont to do. I was cooking dinner for my family and bemoaning the fact that I'm a grown-ass adult with two kids who has to Google how to broil chicken breasts. And Timmy, in his finite but measurable wisdom, was like, "Maybe that was covered in one of the grades you skipped. Way to fuck up being a teenager."

Ouch.

So yeah, I graduated from college when I was 20, something Timmy knows very well because I like to point out that he was a senior in high school at the same age I was a senior in college because I'm a huge, unforgivable douchebag who will gloat about anything if given the chance.

A sentence with two becauses? That just happened.

If you had told me when I was 20 that there would be lasting consequences of beginning my adulthood early by choice, I would have laughed in your face and then said something incoherent about the patriarchy. But Timmy was right, albeit brutal (turnabout is fair play). I fucked up being a teenager and now I'm an adult hobbling along with a missing developmental stage. I had a live-in boyfriend when I was 17. I married when I was 23. Oats were sowed, but I'm not sure I let them sit long enough to reap all of them.

What? Did I just drop a crop metaphor? Shit is getting serious. This is basically the Bible now.

My fragile ego wants you to know that I'm not an overgrown child. Actually, I'm pretty good at being an adult despite my juvenile sense of humor and shortcomings in the kitchen. Most days my family's pajamas are washed and back in the drawers by tea time. I arrive places on time. I pack enough snacks. I back up my harddrive. I have a superb credit score. My weed is a legally obtained prescription for anxiety because I'm taking care of my mental health like a fuckin' adult. Not like those cretins in other states who smoke it illegally. Sheesh, guys. Grow the fuck up and follow the law, will ya? Dope is for dopes.

But touches of adolescence seep in around my usual mom/hausfrau-related activities. Now that I'm nearly 33, I'm ready to admit that not all late 90's alt-rock hits were slouchy missives from the patriarchy and it's pretty fun to recall that weird "Sex and Candy" song and the way it was errywhere. But lest I get carried away with romancing my lost adolescence, I have Timmy to remind me of some of the things I was fleeing when I fast-forwarded through my teens -- plans dependent on flakey friends, no cash, crappy booze, filthy co-ed bathrooms, and crippling uncertainty.

Funny the way certainty and uncertainty are equally crippling. Shit goes full circle, yo. And a coupl'a decades later and I still like sex and candy. Though the order may have changed.

Youth is Wasted on the Young and Other Clichés

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 22:07:47 PST

After virtually every thing my cousin Timmy tells me about his life as a college freshman I respond, "Thank jeebus I'm old now." And then a few minutes go by and I pass a mirror and shriek, "What the fuck happend to my face?"

I've reached that point in life when I either have to get a huge tattoo or a bunch of Botox. Like, I look in the mirror and see this massive crevasse between my eyes and I know there's a fix for that, but then I'm like, "Is that you? Are you a Botox kind of lady?" And then maybe I'll think I'll just say to hell with all this beauty stuff and get some bigass tattoos instead (à la Margaret Cho's bit about covering herself with tattoos so people won't see an old woman, they'll see a turtle). But then I think, "Are you sure? That doesn't seem like you either."

I know tattoo ladies and I know Botox ladies. I know ladies who have tattoos and Botox and I know ladies who have neither. All are good options. And obviously, tattoos and Botox aren't some sort of talisman against feeling shitty about aging. They're just little things a lady can do to make herself feel more at home in her body. And fine, those aren't my only options (okay, or even options at all for me because I don't have that kind of petty cash), but what are the others? Getting a subscription to O Magazine? Like, a spa day or something? Conjuring inner grace? See, I just don't know.

After one of the shows of Expressing Motherhood, I was chatting with the other performers and everyone but me agreed: they felt much younger than they actually were. I am the opposite. In my mind I've entered middle age a decade ahead of schedule. Last week I learned about Emojis from a CBS sitcom. A CBS sitcom, people. That's where I'm getting my info on youth trends. Next you know I'll be watching NCIS and barking at my smart phone, bemoaning it's confusing abundance of features and wishing I could get one of those large button phones that just makes the damn calls when it's supposed to.

I have to remind myself all the time that I'm only 32, but then, invariably, my next thought is "Gah! Then this is just the beginning. It's all going to get much worse! I need something to shield me as I go forward, something like Botox... or a huge fuckin' tattoo." Ah, but despite the virtues of each of those remedies, I can't be 19 again and yikes! I don't want to be. That shit was terrible. I think if a genie had appeared to my 19-year-old self and said, "If you wish, we can end all this tortured adolescent nonsense and you'll wake up in 13 years feeling much better about every aspect of your life except you'll have a stupid crevasse on your forehead," I totally would have taken him up on it. It's a good deal.

Jeez, maybe I do just need a spa day or something. What happens on a spa day? Is there nudity? I hate nudity. That's probably out.

So this inner grace thing... is it hard to conjure? Will I have to meditate or find a guru? Gurus are the annoying-est.

Maybe I'll forego the Botox and tattoo and just get a Skrillex haircut like CBS sitcom guest star Miley Cyrus.* That'd youth shit up a bit.

No, I know. I'm shutting up. It's fine. I'm fine. I'm only 32 so I have sometime to work on my utter lack of grace. Let me try: aging is just the body's way of getting wiser.... or something? Helen Mirren. Helen Mirren. Helen Mirren.

Note: I'm not guaranteeing here that I won't show up at some point with a giant jackalope tattooed on my back or with slightly less range of motion in my face. Ruling anything out now would be premature.

* I don't watch Two and a Half Men. Rather the beginning of it records at the end of Big Bang Theory. I'm not sure if that's better or worse, but I felt the need to clarify.

Let's Hear It for Machines

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 09:11:11 PST

Last month I participated in Write Club, going head-to-head with another writer. He had "man" and I had machines. I'm happy to say that I ruled my bout and in doing so, I won a donation to the charity of my choice: Kopernik, an organization dedicated to bringing life-changing technologies to the developing world. Neat, right?

Thanks to the kindness of Beth and MJ Loheed, I was able to get a video of my performance, one that I can now share with you, but heed my warning: NSFW! You really don't want to play this with young, impressionable children in the room unless you want to explain what barebacking is. You may also not want to play it if you're easily offended.

Again, NSFW. Can't emphasize that enough.

Enjoy.