Because I know we’ll probably never top last year’s suggestive card and because my wishes to you guys remain unchanged, I’ve decided to repost FEMA Fatale’s fabulous design. Look at it as long and as hard as you’d like–it’s sort of like a Rorschach.
Happy New Year!
Another FEMA Fatale original
Today is National High Five Day, which is a real holiday (or at least as much as National Cleavage Day). Since I work from home and largely alone, I don’t have anyone around to trade skin with, so to speak. But after a recent How I Met Your Mother bender (oh Netflix, you make it far too easy to watch show after show), I’m celebrating by watching a compilation of womanizing Barney Stinson’s best high fives.
Hypothetical high five!
The Jews were slaves in Egypt (Photo by Ulleskelf via CC)
For years, I dreaded Passover and especially the Seder. In my traditionally Orthodox family, these affairs went on forever. We read every word of the Haggadah and listened to copious amounts of Midrashic commentary, often from the mouths of children angling for prizes. These affairs went on until the wee hours of the morning with the meal being served at midnight.
This year I went to friends in New Haven (as I have in the past and chronicled at length for Salon) and yet again, we smoke and drank quite a bit before the seder began.
The result? The most sexually innuendo-ish religious ritual I’ve ever attended. (And I’ve been to quite a lot of the Jewish and inappropriate variety.)
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Got a Bayer aspirin caught between my knees
This year for Jewlloween (a costume holiday for Jews which commemorates yet another time an enemy tried to massacre us and failed), my costume was slightly political.
Inspired by Rick Santorum backer, Foster Friess, the lovable old man who told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that he didn’t what the big deal about contraception was since in his day, women just held an aspirin between their knees as a form of birth control.
What a great idea, I thought. Purim is a holiday when one tends to drink to excess which might lead to encounters of a sexual nature with someone dressed up as a character from a comic book. Why not be safe?
Which is how I came to wear my rockabilly dress with an overlarge Bayer aspirin taped to the front. My pickup line that night: Hey boys, don’t worry. I’m on the Pill.
For some reason, they weren’t reassured by this. I guess stuff has changed since Foster Friess’ freewheeling youth.
Where do all the broken hearts go? (Photo by bored-now via CC)
Last week as I was sitting in my “coffice,” new art was being hung on the walls. (This is Brookyn. Coffee shops act as cultural centers, too.) Comic artist and playwright, Nikole Beckwith was hanging small, colorful postcards on the wall from her series, “I hope we can still be friends.” (Check out her hilarious Tumblr here.)
All of the postcards are simply drawn–a sad sack heart, an Eeyore-like pessimist, succinctly stating all that is worrisome and terrible about love. Every once in awhile, however, there is one that is just a little bit sweet and hopeful, which makes those cards all the more romantic.
As for me, I will spend my Valentine’s Day in an airplane en route to Boulder, Colorado. I just discovered that it is quite cheap to fly on V-Day despite its proximity to Presidents’ Day Weekend, which is a nice treat for any single person who won’t be receiving any gifts or flowers today. You can simply send yourself to another place.
And in memory of Whitney Houston, here’s “Where do broken hearts go?” a song quite fitting for this day, at least for some.
It’s February 13th, which is Galentine’s Day according to television’s best feminist, Leslie Knope. The day before my least favorite commercial holiday, is a day for women to give other women gifts, including champagne flutes, sculptures of your spirit animal and help with getting dates (if you’re unfortunate enough to be single come Valentine’s Day).
So go out there today and treat the other women in your life like your sisters, which to some means cutting off her bangs while she sleeps.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, a matchmaker’s guide to turning yourself into a prop for a rich Wall Street man.
In “How to date a Wall Street man,” CNBC guest blogger and professional matchmaker, Samantha Daniels offers her tips for snagging a wealthy hedge fund manager. There are several useful guidelines to keeping the interest of one of the masters of the market. Some of them are just common sense, dating etiquette, such as learning a bit about what he does so you can pretend to be interested (just as I would expect any prospective date to pretend to be fully interested in gymnastics). But most of it falls squarely into the “how to make yourself into his ideal woman without making him work too hard for it” camp of dating drivel.
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Just when you thought the cupcake trend was running out of steam (finally!), a new flavor of cupcake arrives. (Photo from Les Vulves Radicales)
These treats are more amusing and though provoking than any vagina joke made on Whitney and Are You There Chelsea? (Note to female comics–merely saying the word “vagina” is not a punchline. You still need to write a joke around the anatomical term.)
When do you think Magnolia or Crumbs will start carrying these cupcakes?
Photo by bored-now via CC
A few days ago I started receiving Valentine’s Day emails from internet retailers, which is around the time it start raining in New York City. Coincidence? I think not.
It’s no secret that the dateless are not fans of V-Day (except for the excellent chocolates that goes on sale after the day has passed). And in our disapproval we are joined by Asiatic republic of Uzbekistan. You know, that country whose name Herman Cain mocked and mangled.
The Russian news agency RIA-Novosti cited several local media in the Central Asian nation reporting Tuesday that Uzbekistan has canceled concerts and other events for Valentine’s Day. Instead, residents in the capital of Tashkent can enjoy readings of poems by Mughal emperor Babur, who died in the 16th century.
The unofficial ban on romance-related festivities echoes long-standing antagonism in Uzbekistan toward the holiday. Last year, the Turkiston newspaper described Valentine’s Day as the work of “forces with evil goals bent on putting an end to national values.” [CBS News]
I couldn’t have said it better myself as long as the national values we’re talking about is the right to not have others’ romantic bliss painted in red and shoved in my face. That’s a value, right?
A floor routine to take us into the new year, which also happens to be an Olympic year (!). May we all have a fabulous and fierce 2012.
I was quite nervous to start a website with a name like The Anti-Girlfriend. It wasn’t that I was uneasy about relaying the story of how the name came to be–I actually thought that it was quite an amusing yarn–since it had little to do with me. It was mostly about the other person involved, the guy who dubbed me with the moniker.
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When will you find a nice Jewish boy? Your biological clock is ticking. (Photo by Cody Bromley via CC)
Like every other single humanoid, I’ve got an OkCupid online dating profile. And on it I’ve listed my religion as “Judaism.” There’s really no point in trying to hide this fact because it’s as plain as the curls on my head and the nose on my face. (Sarah Silverman once made this joke about Amy Winehouse a few years ago: “Amy Winehouse is Jewish, right? Cause if she’s not someone should tell her face.” The same joke could be made about me.)
Well now OkCupid seems to have taken an interest in my religious affiliation. Starting on the first day of Hanukkah, I’ve received emails with subject line, “8 days of matches.”
This is the text that accompanies the photo of a Semitically eligible bachelor says the following:
In Hebrew, the word “hanukkah” means “dedication.” OkCupid takes this very seriously. We are completely 100% dedicated to sending you lots of emails. Here are your Hanukkah matches!
I’m not going to lie–I’m impressed that someone over at OkCupid knows that the actual meaning of “hanukkah” is “dedication,” and not something to do with candles and light. The miracle of the oil took place after the Maccabees defeated the Assyrian Greeks and tried to re-consecrate the temple, which had been defiled with impure animals.
Now, the same “dedication” the Maccabees had to beating the Greeks so they could corruptly rule over everyone else is being applied to my dating life. The folks at OkCupid are not “dedicated” to suggesting good matches for me; they’re only interested in the religious affiliation of these men, much like my mom. Bless her heart, she suggests a man to me at least once a month based purely off of two traits–his singleness and his Jewishness.
This, it seems, is enough for my mom. And during Hanukkah it seems to be enough for OkCupid, too.
Your resource for Thanksgiving dinner?
Thanksgiving is certainly not a sexy holiday. Stuffing oneself with turkey, yams and pie is hardly an attractive activity, and the post-meal stuffed gut doesn’t go well with skinny jeans. (Or really, any jeans.)
Thankfully, most of us end up at our family’s homes where we are unlikely to meet someone worth trying to impress so I don’t have to bother with deodorant or matching socks tomorrow. My nieces don’t care if I smell funny while I play Barbies with them.
But for those of for whom Thanksgiving is yet another day at the meet (or should I say turkey?) market, here are some more pages out of Ruth G. Satzman’s book, To Cook a Bachelor’s Goose.
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We here at the Anti-Girlfriend are nominally Jewish and have curly hair, which means it’s that time of year — to beat our breast (and not in the fun way) and repent our myriad of sins.
But Rosh Hashanah is not just about solemnity — it’s also about celebrating what’s good and sweet in our lives, as well as our hopes for the coming year (lunar, not solar).
And because we are a highly literal people, we do the following: we dip something sweet (an apple) into something sweeter (honey).
May the coming year be as sweet as a glass of Manischewitz wine with extra sugar!
-The Anti-Girlfriend and FEMA Fatale
It's like a Rorschach -- whatever you see is what it means (Another FEMA Fatale original)
