The houses on either side of me are rentals. Every two years or so they are re-rented to the ubiquitous young family with crying babies and barking dogs. It’s as if one of the requirements to rent these houses is that you be very loud and sometimes get hauled away by the police. No concern for others is a plus.

Every morning when I leave my house to either to go for a walk or get in the car or take out the trash or water the plants or breathe the air the dog barks and the baby cries—like a duet. Sometimes while the dog is barking and the baby is crying I hear a human voice talking on the phone or talking with another live human both of whom never say a word to quiet the dog as if they live on another planet where incessant ugly sounds are pretty and only they matter—oh, wait that’s the planet I live on, too. After what feels like the half-life of polonium someone tends to the crying baby but I have never heard anyone ever tell the dog to be quiet. Ever. He gets quiet when he wants to.

Initially, I said things to the dog like, “It’s ok, you’re ok,” as this is what I say to my dog when he seems scared or upset while barking his head off like a mad ninny. The dog barked right over me till I found myself yelling, “IT’S OK, YOU’RE OK.” Eventually I worked my way up to, “Shut the fuck up!” which worked about as well as, “You’re ok” and “YOU’RE OK”.

Enter: The Note. I’m a writer therefore I write notes. In hindsight should I have gone over a spoken directly to my neighbors? Hell no I mean sure, but I didn’t. Shoo me—hold that thought. So I wrote a note to my neighbor and signed it with my real name and address. In return I got a very rude note from the dick wad husband taped to the man door of my garage. So I took the note and marched over and rang the bell. The husband and I got into for about 30 seconds at which point this man said, “Shoo,” and motioned with his hand for me to get off his rented porch. Shoo? Really?

Long story short I held my ground and when we both calmed down and got to the part about his dog barking non-stop and being a general nuisance he actually said, “What do you want me to do?” to which I replied, “How about tell your dog to be quiet?”

Neither of us said anything further.

Sluts, cougars, Taylor Swifts, lend me your ears! Stop giving it up so easily. Make a man treat you respectfully before you go sleeping with him. Because your mother said so? No, because I said so and I said so because if you, if all of you, required a man to treat you respectfully before giving up the goods then guess what?  Men would treat women respectfully, period. La la! It’s so simple, it’s stupid. Except for one thing. You keep sleeping with that dick head who booty calls you at 2am thereby ruining it for the rest of us.

And now for a little historical background brought to you by the Greeks:

Lysistrata is a Greek comedy written way back when, by you-don’t-care-who. The gist of the play is the men are out fighting the never-ending Peloponnesian war and the Athenian women are sick of it. They want peace. So, led by Lysistrata, they band together and hatch a plan: “we must refrain from the male altogether.” In other words, no sex. To build the tension the temptresses sit around looking all hottie patottie decked out in their “best transparent silks and prettiest gewgaws” (aka bling).

So, the men are all preoccupied with bashing each other’s heads in until they get “the urge” at which point they go home for a brief “respite” only to find their women wearing wet t-shirts saying, “Cross Your Legs for Peace”, “Hell No, We Won’t Blow” and “Go F*ck Yourself (literally)”.

“Before long the device of the bold Lysistrata proves entirely effective. Peace is concluded and the play ends with the hilarious festivities of the Athenian and Spartan plenipotentiaries in celebration of the event.” I believe the “event” would be the end of the war but I’m thinking there’s a double meaning here. Hilarious…

A brief review:

• Men behave poorly.
• Women tire of tolerating poor male behavior.
• Women voice their discontent to poorly-behaving men.
• Men cultivate selective hearing, ie poor behavior continues.
• Women revoke men’s toys.
• Men take notice, “hearing” with other senses.
• Men behave well.
• Women return toys to men.
• See bullet #1

I’m seeing a pattern here and it ain’t London tweed. What if women, the world over, actually stopped tolerating poor male behavior (sound of arctic wind whipping across frozen tundra)? What if the next time a guy didn’t call when he said he would the woman simply said, “No, thank you, goodbye,” to the guy when he finally did call? And this woman told two friends who, when faced with a similar situation, said, “No, thank you, goodbye,” and they told two friends and so on and so on until there was a worldwide web of women saying, “No, thank you, goodbye,” to crappy male behavior. As a result, a worldwide web of initially confused, subsequently pensive and ultimately enlightened men would clue in to the proper treatment women and, by jove, call!

Imagine.

I believe every woman, on some level, wants to be a Lysistrata, ie a strong-willed celebrater of hilarious festivities surrounded by respectful (drooling) men while lounging around in transparent silk. Problem is there aren’t a lot of Greek gods falling out of the sky so when one demi-god, okay semi-god, does flutter to earth, and he’s kind of a lout, we loosen our standards to accommodate him forgetting we deserve better. Don’t tolerate lame, warrior-like behavior. It will only go down hill from there.

So what do you say all you sluts, cougars and Taylor Swifts? Let’s band together, sing a chorus of “No, thank you, goodbye” and be on our way to the next lute and feta party.

I know this is a rather simple break down but let’s outline what, at its most basic level, separates a man from a woman:

• Man=penis
• Woman=breasts, vagina

Notice I didn’t write:

• Man=breasts, penis

Why?

Because a man should not have breasts! Period. If you are a man below the age of sixty-five (and even then) and you find yourself with breast-like protuberances there is something wrong and you, yes, I’m talking to you, should do something about it. Most likely you should lose weight and get back to looking like a man, ie flat-chested, shoulders wider than your hips and nothing hanging over your belt (under your belt? Hang on!). That I have to even say this…Dear Lord.

Society has such ridiculously high standards for women: basically look like Giselle Bundchen…forever. Don’t, whatever you do, age. But for men, my god, if your wallet is fat apparently you can throw away the scale and oh, while you’re at it, you can toss the mirror, too.

If you are a man with man boobs chances are great (99.99%) you have a belly that appears, at minimum, four months pregnant. Ew. What woman wants to climb on top of that? No one, really. Given the choice between mounting Mr. Rich and Fat and Mr. Rich and Fit no woman, of sound mind, would want to scale Mount Fatty. No one.

Which brings me to my next, more global, point: if women banded together, raised their standards (physical and emotional) and refused to put up (or out) for anything less than decency do you know how fast men would get with the program? If men couldn’t get laid unless they behaved and appeared like gentleman the vast majority of men would be gentle (height/weight appropriate) men. The thought just takes your breath away, doesn’t it?

But, there’s a problem Houston. Problem is the majority of women have little to no self-esteem. Through subtle and not-so-subtle cues, society (and parents) teach female children they are nothing without a man. Who wants to be nothing? Put up, shut up and get that man! He’s self-centered, rude and looks like an “after” photo? So what…you need one of those…for life. So deal.

Are there many mitigating circumstances and caveats to what I have outlined here? Of course. And should women be equally accountable and work on not being high-maintenance beeyatches? Absolutely. But, please, one unsolvable issue at a time here. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was the Man Bro.

Lovingly&logically yours,
Laurie

There is sidewalk etiquette. The general idea of right and left lanes of street traffic applies. There are, I have learned, caveats where the above does not hold true:

• When you have young kids
• Are stoned and riding a bike
• Are rude like a woman with kids and riding a bike.

Having young kids, at least in my neighborhood, means you no longer have to concern yourself with anyone or thing except your kids and maybe your husband. If you are leaving a store you don’t need to hold the door open for anyone but yourself or your kids. If your kids are noisy in a movie theater you don’t have to leave. And if you’re rolling a triple stroller down the sidewalk and someone is coming toward you, so what.

Now do I expect a woman to go off-roading with her stroller? Yes, I mean no, of course not, but it sure would be nice if she made a small show of either moving to the side or saying thank you as she knocked me onto the grass. I’m just saying.

By now I suppose you’ve surmised I do not have kids. I made a conscious choice not to have kids. Do I respect the choice of others to have kids? No, I mean yes, of course, I do, sort of because actually I respect the choice to have quiet, well-behaved kids who do not become my problem. People don’t seem to having those kinds of kids these days.

I feel like there is a social hierarchy and married women with kids are on top. Then it’s widowed women with kids followed by married woman with no kids then divorced women with kids. Single women with kids are at the very bottom. Even below never-married women with no kids who are reviled like the BP oil spill so you know they’ve got to be low.

Why is procreation such a big deal? You’ve done something anyone can do. There are reports of even the unconscious having kids (and I’m not talking your garden-variety, thirty-something unconscious. I mean literally as in coma.) Reproduction is basically the aftermath of unprotected sex. Since when does someone congratulate you for that? Or send money? If anything, they leave it on the nightstand or, at The Bunny Ranch, with Madam Suzette.

My point is, do what you’ve got to do, but take responsibility for it. Don’t make it my problem and if it has to become in a small way my problem, own it by acknowledging the issue with uncommonly used phrases such as: “excuse me” (ik-skyooz mee) and “thank you” (thangk-yoo).

You’re welcome Stay tuned for next time when we’ll cover: bike-riding stoners.

Lovingly&logically yours,
Laurie

I have a favorite yoga class. I look forward to it every week. I get on my mat, do my breathing and mind my own god damn business

For those of you who are unfamiliar, at the end of yoga class there is something called savasana or corpse pose. After a strenuous stretch-and-strength-o-rama you basically get to nap. I look very forward to my yoga nap-like-a-corpse time. I’m talking super very forward. And what is the one thing you can count on from a corpse?

Quiet.

Right.

So imagine my surprise, after having propped, covered, aligned and settled into the perfect relaxation pose, when I hear the musical equivalent of angry asthmatic cat aka flute-o-phone.

Yes, flute-o-phone. Regardless of color or creed, a flute-o-phone was standard, third-grade issue. For those of you who didn’t make it to third grade or were Mozart babies who sailed straight from second to fourth grade a flute-o-phone is a plastic tube with five drilled holes, a reed-like opening at one end and an open opening at the other. At best, a flute-o-phone sounds like an analogue recording of wind as interpreted by an eight-year-old. At worst it sounds the same. My fondest flute-o-phone memory was watching Margaret Belair’s roll off her desk and break in two.

YogaFluteBoy (as my friend and I have come to call this stinky hippie dude) has never asked anyone (except the teacher who’s trying to earn as many groovy points as she can and win a trip to Nirvana) if they mind having their quiet time interrupted by analogue wind. I think it’s so effing rude. If the class were called, “Yoga Flow 1-2 with Annoying Sounds at End” I would understand, but it isn’t.

Initially, I put multiple anonymous notes in the suggestion box suggesting YFB take his flute-o-phone and shove it up his third eye and stop inflicting his idea of inner peace on everyone (I don’t go reminding him at the end of every class Jesus is dead and he’s not coming back, do I?) I even emailed the teacher once and suggested that maybe YFB “share his prana” every other…year. I never heard back.

This has been going on for at least a year now and surprisingly, after working through my initial fury each time (I’m a slow learner) I stop hearing that god awful mess in the corner and pass out proving one of life’s great spiritual lessons: learning to block out all that’s wrong and pretend everything is just fine…

Namaste.

Lovingly&logically yours,
Laurie

The Internet is good for two things: buying/selling stuff and interacting with avatars (and, of course, the good old buying/selling while interacting with avatars more commonly known as online porn but that’s another blog for another day).

Most online interacting is done through two-dimensional, highly un-representational profiles of the self, established for the purposes of amassing fake friends by the hundreds, looking up people you used to know and, for good reason which escapes you until you re-meet them, have deep-six’d and finding love.

Amassing Fake Friends: I don’t have much to say about this because duh duh da I am not on Facebook. I hope to never be on Facebook. If I do somehow end up on Facebook I hope someone who cares about me will get me off Facebook.

Reconnecting with People You Don’t Like: Occasionally, I wonder whatever happened to the alcoholic surgeon I dated for four months or the fat lawyer with stinky breath who helped his friend kill a parent or the spineless woman I was friends with for twelve years in Chicago but then I think, ah, who cares.

Finding love: I recently read somewhere that online dating is like trying to taste a food by reading the nutritional label and I agree, it pretty much sucks. I’ve online dated off and on for years and have yet to meet an online date in person who ever came close to resembling their photo or profile. And there is always the anticipated fun of the reveal halfway through drinks or dinner when it’s clear they would like to get together again and they realize while an outright lie was not the way to go in the first place it’s an even worse way to continue. Revealed lies have included: I’m five years older than I said I was; oops, I don’t live here; and, of course the classic, I’m not divorced yet. So why have I persisted? Because where else are you going to meet anybody?

**************************Enter Meetup.com**************************

Meetup.com is the free site where people with shared interests…meet up, get it? This is not code for bow chica bow bow either. Whatever you’re interested in: hiking, pole dancing, book clubbing, knitting, poodle clubbing, tri-atheleting, wine tasting, zumba’ing etc there’s a meetup. You type in your zip and interest et voila!—groups of people meeting up, doing what you’re interested in pop up.

Initially, I was a bit proud. I thought I don’t need no stinkin’ site to be social. I have friends. But I don’t have friends who want to speak French or hike or swim in the ocean but through meetup I do. And while these people may or may not turn into actual have-coffee, talk-on-the-phone, see-a-movie, I-care-about-the-minutia-of-your-boring-life they serve a great, previously unmet need—copacetic warm bodies with which to do fun things (I think this is the opening line of the online porn blog, stay tuned!)

People I’ve met through Meetup are, for the most part, very friendly and within the range of normal. While dating is not the goal of meetup the more people you can meet doing things you enjoy the greater your chances of maybe bumping into the one or two. And having a little fun in between meeting lying, ugly men for drinks never hurt. Of course, there are a few kooks and krazees but hey, that’s my brother I mean life. Emails are masked through the website and it is very safe.

I am constantly amazed how many people still do not know about this site. Which is why I am blogging about it. I have nothing but positive things to say about one of the Internets best kept secrets—pass it on!

Lovingly&logically yours,
Laurie

A few weeks ago my mom had her cataracts removed with great success. I’ve heard that, all of a sudden, the world looks better, brighter like having a dirty window cleaned. And you get the gift of 20/20 because they replace your lens with one that fixes your vision. It’s like having a teeny pair of glasses inside your eye. I can’t wait to develop cataracts and then have them removed.

After the surgery, a hospital administrator called my mom to conduct a customer service survey. Here’s the thing with surgery, typically you are required to be unconscious or close to it when having it. Cutting things out of and inserting things into one’s eye falls under this category. While my mom was not put under she was administered conscious sedation. Conscious sedation (versus unconscious) means you can breathe on your own. Website definition says you are also capable of rational response but last time I checked, asking the nurse if one’s vagina is too big halfway through a colonoscopy ain’t considered that rational*.

After my mom’s fifth, I don’t remember, she asked the surveyer what the point was of querying someone on their barely conscious experience? Touché, the administrator said (or should have) and asked my mom instead about the wait prior to surgery. My mom said she remembered asking if they had forgotten about her at which point the administrator said, Thank, good-bye.

The truth, if you can remember it, will set you free

Lovingly&logically yours,
Laurie

* this person shall remain nameless whereas my twitter account will not: @LoveLogicLaurie. Go!

I saw “The Secret in Their Eyes”, the 2010 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film (El Secreto de Sus Ojos, Argentinian). I was so ready to love this film. Friends I respect loved it. It won the Academy Award (let that be a lesson…) So, let’s just say I had an expectation (expectations are bad. Hope, good. Expectation, bad.)

Well, I loved the opening—lots of spliced scenes, some were fuzzy and romantic. Who doesn’t like fuzzy and romantic? And the leads were interesting to look at. Attractive, yes, but not Hollywood attractive. They had flaws, like the female lead had a mole on the right side of her nose and they did a close-up of it at the beginning (I remember thinking, how foreign!) The guy? He had bad teeth (¡Qué surprise). They also did this interesting thing, interesting from a make-up point of view, of having the current day older leads be the younger leads in the flashback story of twenty-five years ago. Twenty-five years is not something a little Grecian formula takes care of. I think there must be some goop you can put on a face to make the skin old and dry because that was the main difference.

The story is a murder mystery (beautiful girl raped and murdered told in flashback so there are lots of details you need to hold onto and revisit once the whole story unfolds (and unfolds and unfolds. When it was over my stepmother said, “That was long.”)

In no particular order:

There’s a typewriter with the “A” key missing. The male lead writes the word “Temo” (fear) on a notepad. At the end of the movie he stares at the note and adds an “A” (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, GET IT?) so the word becomes the sentence: “Te Amo” (I love you). Dear Members of the Academy…

The murder suspect is found by the use of make-believe I mean ridiculously unbelievable and heavy-handed plotting. For whatever reason they look through old photos of the beautiful girl and see a creepy looking guy in the photo. He’s off to the side and his eyes (sus ojos, GET IT?) are focused on the girl. Apparently, if you are photographed looking at a beautiful woman you are a murder suspect.

Then the male lead and his drunk side kick who is part sleuth, part retard go to the murder suspect’s mother’s house (stay with me) and find letters from the guy. Were they written to the murdered girl? I was never clear.

Retard Sleuth reads the letters to his fellow bar drunk who is a notary (completely irrelevant detail) and also a sports freak and realizes all the names mentioned in the letters are of famous soccer players so naturally they go to the soccer stadium and try to find the guy and they do! Hooray! But he runs! Wah. But they catch him. Hooray!!

Male and female lead (who are packing heat for each other naturally but she is engaged and graduated from Harvard-really-Cornell and he barely finished high school and is from wrong side of tracks, cue Endless Love soundtrack) interrogate the murder suspect who ends up doing show-and-tell with his flaccid long dong (don’t ask) and confesses.

It’s the Peron era and justice does not exist. Long Dong is set free as an operative (and you think this review is long?) Blah-d, blah, blah long dong story short the husband of the murdered woman takes matters into his own hands and for the past twenty-five years (or so) has kept the murderer in his backyard in a cell he got from the Argentinian equivalent of Home Depot.

Oh and the male lead who couldn’t bust a move for twenty-five years? He finally gives the woman the nod and she, naturally and without hesitation, proclaims game on because what’s a little twenty-five year wait for the schlep rock of your dreams?

Al Final!

Lovingly&logically yours,
Laurie

Follow me on twitter @LoveLogicLaurie, I’ll be glad you did.

Oh no, I’m on Twitter (@LoveLogicLaurie). I swore I would never and now look. I feel like I got drunk and allowed mass technologies to have their way with me. But people said if you want to drive traffic you must. I’ve tweeted once and now have a following of: 0.

Why is this a top tweet:

“Buying a piece of art you love is a wise investment in your future happiness.”

Or this:

“There are over 1 thousand articles today on Madonna being a judge on idol. Again, she is NOT going to be a judge on idol.. please pass it on”

Which got me thinking, what makes a good tweet?

• Funny. Funny is always good whether you’re tweeting or giving a speech or online dating or arguing or greeting a neighbor or having your hair done or getting strip searched…

• Timely. A good tweet seems to comment on the important issues of the day like Simon Coward leaving American Idol. And Justin Beiber’s hairdon’t and Lady Gaga’s latest protégé, Grayson Chance (what a voice! what poise! what a Bieber do’!) I saw my pal Karl Rove worked in a diss on Obama and BP spill vs. Bush and Katrina. If you accidentally befriended a retard in high places, would you still support them once you were no longer paid to? If you’re KR you would. Tweet tweet.

• Short: Maybe this should be first since tweeting is all about getting it down in 140. Something super lovely about being ADHD and having new media meet you halfway.

Practice makes perfect so here are some sample funny, timely short tweets:

• Is Madonna going to be a judge on, wait, no. I was told, no, but…is she?

• Dove dark chocolate wrapper: “Love many, trust few and always paddle your own canoe.” (Terri, Coudersport, PA) Coudersport is my next vaca spot.

• “Gno Gnomes”: Tues 5/25/10, 40k Anaheim Angels fans promised free (garden) gnome. Fans rec’d voucher as gnomes held up at customs. Who wanted you anyway? Go gnome!

Ok, I think I’m ready so please follow me on twitter at “LoveLogicLaurie”. Help me become a top tweet. Come to my LLL book signing party. Be an extra in LLL, the movie, in the strip search scene where you tell an amazing ad-libbed joke while bent over an Eames chair. Go on to rock the comedy and porn world simultaneously.

Owe it all to me.

You’re welcome

Lovingly & logically yours,
Laurie

I am not a cat person, but I am acquainted with them. They tell stories. Cat stories: getting them baked on catnip, walking them on a harness. I want to say, “Save it, heard it a thousand times. Didn’t care the first nine hundred and ninety-nine—ha, ha (cough) huh.” Then, inevitably, someone gathers me ‘round the campfire and gets to the interesting stuff. The stuff of life and death. The never-ending, fascinating dilemma of the indoor/outdoor cat.

That story goes something like this: indoor cat innocently sits with tail wrapped in front of favorite window enjoying the afternoon sun, minding his own business. Owner is convinced cat yearns to run among the thistle and down when all cat really wants is more wet food, shorter hours and that heated bed he saw in the pet magazine. Owner continues to overlay human desires on cat. Poor cat.

So there’s Mr. Magoo (friend’s cat), quietly contemplating absolutely nothing when it is decided: Operation Outdoors will now begin (think Logan and Jessica-6 in search of Sanctuary). The sliding glass door opens. A cool breeze blows in. Ew, chiwy, Magoo thinks, but then catches a top note of wood rot and mold spore and before he knows it it’s GAME ON and, unable to stop himself, he leaps up and over the fence, falls onto neighbor MacGregor’s rose bush thinks, what the?! hears himself scream “rahr” as he stops, drops and rolls off the prickers and into the bird bath. This is followed by more “rahr” and then sproing and before he know it he’s ten yards over, still running, wondering all the while, where the $&#!% the carpet is because, normally, he calculates, I can’t take more than three leaps without hitting carpet. This is really weird.

What’s even weirder is for three years this cat had enjoyed a super cush-cush, climate-controlled life with two square meals a day and those yummy fishy-tasting treats in the shape of X’s. He slept in the bed or on top of a towel on the hot dryer. And he had a pretty cool little doody hut. Now he’s cold, lost and hungry wishing for one last good scratch on his cat condo.

Epilogue: Mr. Magoo was found ten days later by a neighbor. He was “skinny as a rail” but otherwise physically healthy. He refers to his experience as an isolated psychotic break and doesn’t like to talk about it. He has never been let out since.

Lovingly & logically yours,
Laurie

Follow me on twitter @LoveLogicLaurie”, you’ll be glad you did…maybe.